There's a joke there but Jim doesn't take the bait. He's still processing the relief that courses through him with Felix promising he'll stay. Jim's so tired. The headache he'd had before is pounding now after his crying fit leaving him spent and exhausted on the couch, not even sitting upright properly anymore.

He just wants to sleep. To wake up and have all of this be a bad dream. Everything from the last several months balled up and tossed aside. To open his eyes and have Felix dead to the world underneath him, breathing deep and snoring slightly with an arm wrapped round Jim's waist to hold him while he lays half on the conjurer.

To kiss the other awake and see nothing but mischief and love in those dark eyes. To be healed for the pleasure Jim takes from the act and not because he's injured. To writhe and move with Felix when their breathing turns harsh and to sigh in relaxation after when they share a bath.

That ideal seems so far off and so surreal now. Jim stares down at his hands. The one freshly cleaned and healed in contrast to the other--filthy, bloody. Dust and blood under his fingernails trapping the dead Tarsus soil to his body. The reality is his dirty hand. The reality is Felix leaning over him choking the life out of him. Is that twisted ruin of stone and the undead that Felix created. Is the empty seat next to him at the bar on Halloween, before he was trapped in the Nightmare.

Can they go back to how they were before?

Felix shaken and unsure of himself, Jim broken and exhausted. Do they still fit together like they used to? The captain's shaky gaze lifts from his hands and watches Felix on the floor, tending to his knees.

"We...w-we're gonna be okay, right?"