Work Text:
“I had…the worst dream last night.”
Herbert stirred slightly, out of the reluctant fugue state he'd fallen into - not quite sleep, not quite waking. Dan's fingers were rubbing the back of his neck; a soft stroke or two, petting him gently in the dark. The room was blue-black in the hue only the dead of night conjured, the tangle of their legs trapping Herbert fully where he was.
“It's why I can't sleep,” Dan said, and, when Herbert sighed - indicating that he was awake - Dan added faintly, “I'm sorry.”
"What was your dream, Dan?" It was more out of a desire to diagnose and move on than actual curiosity, of course. Herbert didn't put much stock in dreams, waking or otherwise. Ambition and respite when "required" [even his body could only run on reagent and adrenaline for so long, apparently] sufficed, as far as he was concerned.
But Dan had always been a dreamer. Herbert had known that since day one. It was, quite frankly, half of what had made him such an easy target.
Obviously, however, they were well past that now.
“I...dreamt...” Dan's voice grew hollow and hoarse, thick in his throat around the bobbing of his Adam's apple. A gulp, Herbert noted. This was gravely affecting him after all. "That you...cut me open." Herbert stilled at that - more than he had prior, feeling Dan's fingers stutter against the nape of his neck, shaking slightly.
“You cut me open," Dan repeated, “laid me out. Opened up my chest and nothing was in there. Inside of it...just...emptiness.” Herbert flinched as something warm and wet hit the top of his head. Dan’s voice went more ragged, somehow. “I didn't have a heart .”
“That's ridiculous , Dan.” Herbert sat up sharply, staring down at his partner in the dark, still slightly wound up in his grasp; limb and leg alike, looking into the despair that had drawn Dan's face up into a twist of regret. "For one, medically it wouldn't make sense. Even the reanimated dead require at least most of their vital organs. And secondly, I wouldn't cut you open unnecessarily–”
“Herbert,” Dan croaked faintly, hands lifting to catch him by both arms, “that's not the point.” Exasperated, Herbert squinted down at Dan - wanting to reach for his glasses, but somehow unable to pull away from the soft, but firm grip the other man had on him. Perhaps it was more the insinuated desperation in the darkness than Dan’s actual hands on his arms. Herbert couldn’t rightfully say, and that somehow irked him more.
“Then what is the point, Dan? Why talk about it? If you can’t sleep, we should get back to work, and–”
“ You need sleep,” Dan insisted. His big hands tightened, gently, around Herbert’s forearms. His thumbs swept tender arcs across Herbert’s arms, the rustle of cloth between them the only sound for a second or two. “That’s why we’re here.”
“We’re here because you insisted I lie down and rest,” Herbert pointed out ruefully. “And yet here you are, talking.” If he wasn’t mistaken, the taller man had the kicked-dog look he was known for back on his face. Inhaling, Herbert let his shoulders drop.
And perhaps just a little of his guard.
Dan had seemed distracted lately. His features pinched, his gaze thousands of yards away when he thought Herbert wasn’t looking. But Herbert, as hyper-focused as he could be on his work, didn’t fail to notice Dan’s recent restlessness. He’d found him asleep at the table more than once this past month, not unlike back in college, and he’d heard Dan cry out in his sleep - perhaps that had been the dream Dan spoke of.
Whatever was going on, Herbert supposed they couldn’t move forward until it was addressed.
Finally wresting his arms free, Herbert lifted his brows, looking down at the smudgy, blurry visage of Dan below him in the cobalt room. Outside the window, wind rolled past, rattling the branches of the old oak tree. Rain had come and gone, and in its wake, the world shivered under a feverish sheen of dew. With a skim of his fingers across Dan’s bare chest, Herbert lay his hand over the other man’s heart, and found him as clammy as the rest of the world.
“Dan,” Herbert said, then, a little more quietly, “Danny. Look at me.” Wild brown eyes, threatening to spill over, searched and found his in the dark. “You’re alright,” Herbert informed him, and, almost immediately, felt the frantic hammering of the other man’s heart slow. “I’ve got you.” His thumb curved across Dan’s chest, a mirror to the way Dan’s own hands had moved mere moments prior.
“I’ve got you.”
After a beat, one of Dan’s hands lifted to cover Herbert’s own - his warm, coarse skin a comfort. More than Herbert cared to admit, but seeing as he admitted very little [and often only when it was arguably far too late].
“Do you want…” Herbert racked his brain for a suitable way to console Dan otherwise. “A glass of water?” Dan snorted, and Herbert felt heat crawl up either side of his face. “It’s a simple question, Daniel.”
“I know,” Dan said weakly - but at least now, from what Herbert could discern, he was smiling. “I know, it’s just - it’s…nice.” His voice softened still further; frayed. “You’re being nice to me, Herbert.”
“Of course I’m nice to you,” the smaller man groused, but his touch stayed tender, tracing circles on Dan’s skin. “I’m always nice to you.” He’d put a blanket over Dan when he’d found him at the table, after all. He’d fixed him soup and a sandwich a few weeks prior when Dan had caught cold. He’d noticed right away, too, though Dan - as he so often did - attempted to hide what was going on and power through.
“I know,” Dan said faintly, fingers squeezing Herbert’s own. “You just don’t usually say it, so–”
“I don’t have to,” Herbert shrugged. “If you pay attention.” It was Dan’s turn to sigh, a prolonged one, so deep and weary Herbert half-wondered if the other man hadn’t simply passed out. After another moment, however, Dan spoke again - this time his smallest yet; his fraillest.
“But you know I care for you, right?” Dan stared at Herbert, pleadingly. His pulse had sped up again, chest rising in a little heave. “You know?”
“...I know,” said Herbert. They'd never talked about it. Not openly. “Go to sleep, Dan. I'll look after you.”
It was how he said it back.
Slowly, they sank back down into the sheets together, Herbert curling up reluctantly in the crook of Dan’s arm. He should’ve gotten up to get back to the lab downstairs, but Dan needed this, apparently. They were both more or less wide awake now, and in fact–
“Can you talk to me?” Dan asked, “just till I’m out. Then you can do whatever you want.” Herbert peered up at him sidelong, puzzled, then put his head closer to Dan’s side. The other man’s heart continued to race, and Herbert, raising a hand, set it back against that pulse, fingers splaying as if trying to staunch a wound he couldn’t see.
Words hardly seemed a suitable tourniquet. But for lack of any other option, Herbert simply said, “what about, Dan?”
“Anything,” the man replied, one arm encircling Herbert softly. “Just wanna hear your voice.” Herbert mulled it over, and, still confused, but seeing a solution at last, shrugged and said -
“Alright. Let’s begin with your subconscious misconception of relative emotion.” Dan snorted wetly, and Herbert realized he’d begun to cry again. “No one would accuse you of being ‘heartless’, Danny,” the scientist continued, pretending he didn’t notice - as he so often did, when it came to things he couldn’t quite figure out, “but the empathy center is actually located in a person’s anterior insular cortex…”
Herbert wasn’t sure for how long he droned on, because eventually, he, too, nodded off - nestled against Dan, lulled; in part, by the sound of his heartbeat safely tucked beneath his fingers.
And they say I have no bedside manner, Herbert remembered thinking - before he drifted off with Dan, dreaming only of the work to be done, and the man at his side.
Always, always, always at his side.
And that, to Herbert, was life’s most achievable dream.