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The bulbs overhead are naked and buzzing and few in between, their orange light seeming stifled by the darkness and illuminating nothing more than a few handspans in either direction. Harley's footsteps are ringing through the empty corridor, as if echoing off the walls.
"Junior?" she calls, her voice sounding hollow in the night. "Are you looking for something?"
A dull rattle is coming from the end of the hallway, as of someone turning a locked doorknob or sawing wood. Harley imagines Leatherface waiting to leap out at her with his chainsaw running, but only because she's seen one too many horror movies. Her puddin' used to love jump scares. Gave Harley a heart attack more than once, the sweet thing.
But no Leatherface and no puddin' await her here.
Her shadow stretches and shrinks as she walks past the glowing balls of light overhead.
The rattle is replaced by laughter, a mad cackle she'd know anywhere. Excitement thrills through her, dampened by confusion. It can't be.
Where the laughter stops, screams pick up.
"Junior?" she calls again, hurrying forward. If anyone so much much as touches a hair on his head...
A labyrinth of rooms waits for her at the other side of the corridor, each one darker than the next. She'd have lost her way if the laughter and the screams weren't guiding her through it. She is driven on by dread, imbued with the knowledge that if she doesn't make it in time, something terrible is going to happen.
The floor beneath her lurches. She tries to steady herself on the cabinets and walls as she pushes forward. Her hands come off dark and wet.
She stumbles through an open door into a long, greenishly lit corridor, where the laughter echoes along the walls, amplified. There's a heavy iron door on the other side. That's where she must go, she's sure of it. Her own breathing is becoming labored, loud enough to drown out the screams that must be originating from behind the door, muffled in a way the ominous laughter is not.
She wants to run toward it, but her legs are heavy and growing heavier the closer she gets. She leans against the wall to steady herself, and it crumples under her touch as if it had been nothing more than burnt paper. The hole eats away at the wall, falling away into nothingness.
Everything is falling away into nothingness.
She needs to reach the iron door before it is too late, before she too falls away into nothingness.
Whatever lies beyond it, no matter how terrifying, is preferable to the void that spreads around her.
The screams are louder here right on the other side.
The door clangs when she throws herself against it. Her hands slip on the handle, unable to open the rusty hinges. Panic seizes her. This close, she can hear the agonized cries stifled by ugly sobs. Her heart goes out to the tormented soul on the other side of the door, and with one final bid of strength, she wrenches it open.
All sounds cease as it crashes against the disintegrating wall and splinters into a myriad of chittering bats.
In the moment she flings herself inside the room, a deafening shot rings out, Robin falls—
—and Harley wakes up with a start.
Harley blinks, wracked with shivers. Her heart is racing, her throat tight, her body clammy and cold.
She pulls whatever covers her tighter around her shoulders, wanting to curl in on herself, but if she lets herself, she might fall back into that endless darkness. The laughter she remembers so clearly tingles up her spine, fanning warmth into her limbs that wars with the chill in her bones.
The shot. Robin—
Harley sits upright with a gasp, pigtails flying as she turns her head to take in her surroundings. Her fingers pat the area around her breastbone, finding it curiously intact. She could have sworn she felt the bullet rip a hole through her chest.
"Everything okay there, boss?" a voice asks. "Sure you don't wanna have a nap somewhere more comfortable?"
Harley's eyelids flutters. Her eyes burn in the fluorescent light, there's a crick in her neck, and a horror lurking in the back of her mind, but none of that is as terrible as the cutting loneliness she feels. She shrugs her discomfort, then she smiles.
The thug – Harley will call him Gary, because he looks like a Gary, although there is nothing much to distinguish him from the rest of her guys – is leaning against the wall next to the high, polished door, a machine gun resting against his leg. He's wearing clown makeup, camo pants and a simple black tank top with three red diamonds stitched onto it, the sign of their loyalty to her. The red bomber jacket that usually adorns his frame to make it look bigger and more fearsome is draped around her shoulders.
"Where is he?" she asks, thin and reedy, not yet recovered from sleep.
Gary chortles in surprise, then nods to one of the monitors lining the walls. From here, she can see every square inch of their operation, can see which goons are training and which are slacking off, huddled around a TV set and cracking open bottles of beer.
When her eyes fall onto her boy, they soften. He is supervising the drill instructions his militiamen are giving her ragtag bunch of followers. It's obvious he thinks they're hopeless, but his men are being paid to train them, so that's what they do. It's been the source of tension between her men and his, the few they've been picking up off the streets in the past two days. They're the lucky ones that managed to escape Batman's rounding up of everyone who was fighting against him on Halloween.
Her guys aren't happy that the newcomers are ranked above them; some of them have even chafed at Junior being in charge.
She can relate. Change is hard, for all of them. But what did they expect? Her puddin' isn't coming back and those carefree days of murder and mayhem are over. No more doing what they want whenever they feel like it. Discipline is the new order of business.
For her part, Harley's just excited to roll out for the first time and see what they can accomplish together. The blueprints spread out on the table in front of her mark their first target.
She's still not happy about his plans – quite the opposite: she's quietly bristling inside – but it's his operation now and anyway, they do need the financial backing. Mercenaries like his militia don't come cheap, and Harley's recently picked up an expensive hobby of her own. She pats the front of her skirts, where she's hidden a securely padded glass vial for quick and easy access. She probably ought to confer its contents to a more durable container, but she's afraid of introducing unknown variables. What if exposing them to air renders them useless? She can't risk finding out.
Her eyes find Junior on the screens again. She needs him. Knowing he's alive soothes her beyond measure, but sometimes, even that is not enough. Some days, she could watch him drive her goons into the ground for hours, other times she needs to be right there with him, to assure herself he is quite real and not an apparition her deranged mind is making up.
She gets antsy when she's not close to him. What if something happens and she doesn't make it in time, like in that strange dream she had? She'd never forgive herself, just like she'll never forgive herself for stopping to look for him after the Asylum incident. They could have been together all this time. She needn't have been this lonely, and she could have watched him grow into the magnificent person he is now.
Harley sighs dreamily and drags herself off her seat. The doors open with a hydraulic hiss as she approaches them.
"I know it's not my place to say this, but I hope you're going to lie down instead of chasing down, you know, the boss guy."
Harley feels a swell of pride to hear her boy referred to ass 'boss guy,' but it's undermined by the well-meant suggestion that rankles her. With the dreams she's having, who'd ever want to lie down, if lying down meant falling asleep, and falling asleep meant having nightmares?
"Damn right it's not your place." She slams Gary's jacket into his chest on her way out.
It's difficult to track down her boy without the watchful gaze of the cameras in the monitor room at her disposal. Perhaps she ought to get a tracker she could activate on her phone or something. He's restless, always making sure to divide his attention up equally between the subjects he's teaching.
Not that all of them are thrilled to be taught.
"Guy's a slave driver," they say, when they think none of his supporters can hear.
"Remind me how he got the top position again."
"By boning the boss lady, how else?"
"Don't be stupid. She wouldn't do that."
"Oh yeah? Then how come he's been here for less than a week and already runs the damn place?"
"To be fair, this place was his before he let us in."
"You know what I mean. We've been with Harley way longer than that, but we leave her alone with the pretty boy for a few hours and suddenly she's handed him the Jokerz? It's just not fair, is all I'm saying."
"I don't know why you're complaining. Look at the sweet toys he's supplying us with. Can't remember Harley or the Joker coughing up the funds to hand us state of the art weaponry."
"You're just gay for him, like Harley."
"I don't think that's how being gay works..."
"If I'm gay for anything it's guns that don't jam."
"I'll drink to that."
She finds him seated across from a workbench where her guys are learning how to bypass security systems. He's still like a statue, elbows resting on his knees, gaze focused on the work in front of him.
She winds her arms around him from behind and he jerks upright. It's so uncharacteristic of him, it startles her, too. Her boy is usually highly alert of his surroundings and should have noticed her approach. Normally, she couldn't sneak up on him if she tried.
Something is wrong, if he's this out of it.
"You need some rest, sweetie," she says, pressing a gentle kiss against the side of his helmet as she sinks into his lap. It's a different one from the dull, pointy-eared helmet he wore as the Arkham Knight – this one's shiny and red, a color she approves of, some shades lighter than her lipstick as it is.
His arm snakes around her waist, possessive but also protective, as if to prevent her from falling off. Happiness pulses through her and she buries her nose against his neck. She could drift off to sleep like this, as Gary wanted, safe in the knowledge that Junior would keep the nightmares at bay.
"There's too much to care of," his modulated voice tells her. "They're not ready yet."
She doesn't like his helmet much. It conceals his handsome features and keeps her from running her fingers through his hair. She enjoys it when he shivers and relaxes into the touch, however reluctantly, like a shy animal that's not used to human contact. Or the wrong kind.
"It's gonna be okay, Junior. Trust them. They can handle it. That's what you trained them for."
He shakes his head, fingers tightening around her knee. She twitches and suppresses a squeak. She's super sensitive but Junior doesn't need her bursting into laughter now.
"If we want to do this tonight, you're gonna need some shuteye. You're no use to anyone if you fall asleep on the spot."
"Not here," he warns her, looking around to see if any of her men had heard her mothering him.
Harley giggles. "Afraid they're going to think less of you because you're human? Sorry to burst your bubble, sweetie, but some were there at Arkham. They've seen you bleed."
She senses something dangerous roll off him and suddenly realizes she may have said too much. No jokes about the past, got it.
"Okay, okay. Sorree. But tell me again why we need Cobblepot. Couldn't we just, I don't know, rob banks or something? It's what puddin' and I have always done. It's fun."
"I'm not here to have fun, Harley. I'm here to teach Gotham a lesson."
"Sure, but you could teach Gotham a lesson and have fun at the same time. Just sayin'." Now that Harley's getting into her groove, she's starting to gesticulate wildly, to emphasize her point. "I mean, I know robbin' banks is like asking to get caught, but you're smart. I'm sure you'd figure out a way around it. Instead of teaching my guys how to break into the GCPD, you could've taught them how to break into bank vaults. I'm pretty sure that would've been less of a hassle in the long run than having to deal with Pengy."
Harley could have sworn Junior is laughing behind his expressionless helmet. "You're not as dumb as you look."
"That's not a compliment, silly," she says mock-affronted and cuffs his shoulder.
She's still miffed they're doing this. Penguin ought to rot in jail for what he did to Bud and Lou. She told Junior as much, but he was unsympathetic. Perhaps he'd have cared more if Cobblepot had stuffed him too, Harley thinks petulantly but rescinds the thought right away. Penguin did hurt him too, back at Arkham, so her boy has as little business working with him as she has.
Yet if Harley had managed once before to lay aside their differences to combine their forces, she surely could do it again without murdering Penguin in his sleep. Except, last time around she'd entered into their partnership wholly ignorant of the atrocities he'd committed. The moment she found out that he'd had her babies mounted in his museum it was over between them. She didn't even care about her slice of the Gotham cake anymore.
It's different with Junior at the helm, true, but in all honesty, she doesn't want him to compromise either. He deserves nothing less than all of Gotham. Penguin can go choke on a salmon.
"C'mon," Harley says and slides off her boy's powerful thighs.
"Come on what?"
"C'mon, you'll see." She grabs his hand and pulls him off his chair. There are wolf whistles behind them as she drags him out the door.
He yanks his hand back. "I can walk on my own."
Stalking past her, he moves into the direction of the training room. Harley sighs at how stubborn he is and hurries after him.
The air inside the room is permeated with sweat, the floor littered with pitifully groaning men who complain of no longer being able to stand. Harley can almost feel the sneer in Junior's posture.
He breaks up the two thugs who are fighting on the mat to correct their technique. Meanwhile, Harley props her elbow against one of the onlookers and steadies her head against her fist. She stifles a yawn. As much fun as it is to watch her boy show off his skills, she'd much rather he'd give himself a break. And her, too. She'd never think to ask him to go easy on her, but she's been pushing herself these past few days just as he's been pushing himself, not wanting to miss more than a second in his company.
Sleep has been eluding her for the longest time – first, because the gloom has weighed too heavy on her heart to let her rest; then, because Junior's sudden reemergence and subsequent injury had her running herself ragged trying to save him. She'd only allowed herself to sleep by his side when there was nothing else to do but wait for his condition to improve.
He was the only thing that managed to make her find some rest. She hoped the same was true for him.
Since coming out the other side, he's done nothing but run this operation around the clock. He's provided them with this new and improved hideout, recruited his militia back into his service to take some of the training off his hands, and planned their first baptism by fire. All with Harley's help, of course, however reluctant it sometimes had been.
Because of her earlier team-up with the Penguin, it had fallen to her to let his lawyer know what they're planning, so the insufferable woman could inform Penguin ahead of time without the GCPD being any wiser. Not Harley's favorite task, but one she'd gone through nonetheless because she wants Junior to succeed.
But all that running around, it's taking a toll on her.
She's back in the labyrinthine maze of rooms that separate her from saving Junior.
She ignores the hospital-gowned corpses hanging from the ceiling that impede her path in one room, the slabs with slaughtered human remains on them in another, the bathtubs overflowing with blood in the next. All she has eyes for are the arrows that ooze a black substance or glow in strange neon colors, pointing her in the direction of the next door to use. Sometimes there are two in front of her, but only one leads onward. The other opens to an endless abyss, or a wall of flames, or a mirror that shows her the distorted image of the person she's become, pale-faced and crazy-eyed, with a twisted grin on her bloody lips.
There is no going back; the moment she steps over the threshold, the door behind her falls shut and vanishes, as if it had never existed in the first place. Despite this clearly outlined one-way path, she's becoming disoriented: the wild cackle seems sometimes nearer, sometimes farther away, although she thought she'd be moving closer to it.
She gasps, swaying where she stands. The goon she's leaning against – Larry, Harley decides – is shaking her awake and asks if she's all right.
Harley is not all right. She slaps his hand away, ready for a fight where there is none. She's trembling now and it upsets her balance. He catches her with an arm across her chest, unaware of how she flinches, before she can faceplant in front of him.
"Careful now," he says and steadies her.
"Thanks, Larry. You're a good guy." She rests her head against him, shivering and clinging to his arm as if it's the only thing keeping her from sinking halfway to dreamland again.
"Actually, my name is—"
Harley shushes him with her fingers to his lips. She doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't want to hear anything.
Except maybe Junior's voice.
"I knew you were talking about yourself when you told me to get some rest earlier," he says, marching up to them in great strides.
"'m fine," Harley says, yawning so widely her jaw cracks.
"Yeah, I'm not buying it. Off you go. Can't have you sabotaging tonight's plans because you're falling asleep on the job. Your words, not mine."
"Paraphrased, maybe." Harley crosses her arms and turns up her nose, but it lacks her usual snootiness.
"I'm not arguing," Junior says, and suddenly Harley feels her world tilt as she's being lifted and thrown over his shoulder. The indignity forces a yelp from her, but she can't deny how much she fucking loves being manhandled.
She'd enjoyed her puddin' smacking her around a bit, but he'd never managed to physically overpower her – unless she'd worn herself out beating up one of the Bats and then escaping before they could catch her.
But Junior? He carries her like she weighs nothing more than a sack of cloth and throws her onto the mattress in her sleeping chamber like that's where she belongs.
Harley's breath hitches as she bounces off the mattress, and it hitches some more when Junior crawls on top of her like a predator on the prowl.
If he wants her to go to sleep, he's going about it all wrong. This just gets her going more than anything.
Her breath stops hitching the moment his gloved fingers snake around her neck and squeeze. Her legs mirror the motion around his hips.
Okay, maybe he plans on choking her out and leaving her unconcious. Call it getting rest, why not?
This intimate gesture, however, accomplishes the one thing it's probably meant to accomplish: it focuses all her frayed attention on him.
It reminds her how much she hates his armor and his helmet because it puts so much padding between them. She wants to feel his warm skin beneath her fingertips, his warm hand around her throat, anything, as long as it tells her he's still alive and right here with her.
"I thought I'd told you to come to me when you're dealing with your nightmares again," he tells her, helmet unreadable. His fingers relax when he notices she's listening now.
Harley shakes her head. "Didn't," she croaks.
"It was implied." He sits back and takes off his helmet. Finally.
"Not like you come running when your own are too much," Harley huffs and pushes herself up onto her forearms. Yet she can't keep the stern tone in her voice now that Junior's face is bare in front of her. Seeing his expression unfiltered like this is intimate beyond measure, even if he's hiding his feelings from her by keeping his face impassive.
She reaches up to stroke the branded J on his cheek. He's so brave, her Junior, after all he's been through.
"I don't have time for indulgences like that," he says. He flinches away from her touch at first, but then guides her hand back to his cheek, resting his atop hers.
"It's not an indulgence if it's a necessity."
"I can handle it."
"Saying that I can't? You don't have to be here right now."
"The operation tonight is too important." Junior nips the inside of her palm, then presses a kiss to it.
Harley melts over his insistence coupled with his gentleness. He makes her so weak.
"Okay," she acquiesces, softening, and scoots up into his lap, winding one arm around his shoulder and his hair around her fingers.
His mouth is hot against hers, his tongue even hotter, and Harley feels herself wanting to roll back down before she even got started taking off his chest plates. She moves down to his belt, which proves to be much easier, and once he's tossed his gloves to the side, his warm hands join her. They brush her inner thighs as he's unbuckling his holsters, and Harley's hips twitch. She has to stop herself from grinding herself against him; she'll have plenty of time for that later, but if she gives into it now, when his armor and her clothes are still in the way, it's only gonna slow things down in the end.
He strips every piece of armor methodically and although he throws it aside like a disposable item, it lands in a shape approximating his own. He's not even looking its way.
Harley slides off of him to let him discard his shin guards and everything, tugging off her own boots in about two seconds flat, facilitated by the fact that she never does up the laces. Then she takes off her choker and her armguards.
She's about to pull down the zipper of her dress, when she feels Junior's mouth on her neck. It's hot and wet and his teeth are doing things to her she can't possible put a name to.
She doesn't have to.
The moment his arms wind around her waist and pull her back towards him, the time for words is over. She couldn't even tell him what she wanted anymore, except that all she wants is him, closer, in whatever way possible.
His broad chest is warm against her back and his hands even warmer on her breasts when she guides them there. He kneads them so nicely and Harley nearly knocks her head back against his as she cries out.
He just laughs, dirty and deep, and Harley shivers. A shiver that turns into a full-blown shudder when his mouth moves over her shoulder and down her spine. His teeth catch the zipper of her dress and pull. Cool air caresses her bare skin as her dress parts and slides off her shoulders.
But not for long.
Almost as soon as he's reached the lower end of her zipper, he retraces his path and drapes himself over her again, cocooning her in his warmth. He feels so nice. She feels so safe with him, even as he bites the side of her neck and rolls her leggings down her hips.
She can feel his erection press against her ass even through the fabric of his uniform, but he takes her mind off of that for a second when his fingers steal into her underwear.
Liquid moans slip from Harley's throat as he strokes her nice and steady, getting her so wet for him she can hardly bear it. Her hips stutter, barely under her control anymore, but she twitches them back against his as best she can, rubbing herself against his hard length.
"Want it," she manages, so desperate to feel him inside of her.
"What do you want?" he asks, teeth grazing the the shell of her ear.
"You," she pants. "Inside me."
As if to answer her plea, he crooks his fingers into her. "Like this?"
She shakes her head, lips pulled tight in frustration. "Want you to fuh–to fuck me."
"I'm fucking you quite nicely like this," he says, dragging his fingers in and out of her. It's maddening.
"Jason, please," she whines, clawing at the sheets beneath them. "I want your cock inside me."
"Then why didn't you say so before?"
If she'd had any presence of mind or sense of balance, she might have kicked him for this. But right this moment, all she can do is whine some more when he slides his fingers out of her and licks them clean.
He's not quick enough about it to her liking, but her breath goes shallow with anticipation when she hears him pull down his zipper and free himself.
He startles a loud cry out of Harley the moment he plunges into her without warning. A warm hand clamps over her mouth and pulls her back against his chest.
"Sh-sh-sh-sh," he breathes into her ear, "we don't want to alert the whole neighborhood to what we're doing. You know how jealous your men are. They'd tear me to pieces and then finish what I started here. Do you want that?"
He punctuates his question with a jab into her and Harley's eyes nearly roll into the back of her head. He feels amazing inside her, thick and hot and stretching her so good, and the least she'd want him to do is stop.
She's vaguely aware of shaking her head as he's rocking into her.
"Thought not," he chuckles and worries the skin beneath her earlobe with his teeth.
She'd cry out again if if weren't for his hand over her nose and mouth. She realizes then that she can't breathe, and becomes increasingly aware of the strain in her lungs. Yet she doesn't want to say anything, afraid he'd stop if she did. He needs this as much as she does and she can't deny him just because of her body's stupid need for oxygen.
He rolls her nipple between his fingers, bites down on her shoulder, and fucks into her harder. She can't help the load groan that is muffled in the palm of his hand. Her puddin' used to make love to her like this, without regard for her well-being, and to have Junior follow into his footsteps like this, even during a private act where only she would know the difference, fills her with so much heart-rending joy that she quivers with it.
Or maybe it's the lack of air. She can't be sure. Spots are beginning to tango across her vision.
Words pile up on the tip of her tongue and press themselves against his hand and maybe that's what shoves it away from her mouth.
She gasps, falling forward onto all fours and sucking air into her lungs as though there might be none left for her if she ain't quick enough about it.
"Yes, hah, oh God, Jason, you feel so good, please keep going, please don't stop." It's like a dam has broken and all the words Harley has been keeping to herself come rushing out.
"Keep going, you say?" Junior asks and there's a quirk to his voice that spells danger.
Before Harley has time to process this, she's shoved face first into the pillow in front of her. A weight on the back of her head keeps her from turning it either left or right.
Again, she can't breathe like this, but it feels like a concern for another time because with her bent over like this, Junior's cock reaches so deep inside and it feels amazing. With every thrust into her, he sends another spark of pleasure rushing through her skin. She can feel it tingle in her fingertips, the top of her head, the balls of her feet.
He only amplifies the sensation when he touches her clit and Harley can't stop writhing when he does. Her hips jerk and her chest burns and her head swims. She has no control over her body anymore. She's torn between two similar yet different sensations, and doesn't know which one to give in to.
She's about to fall unconscious when he flips her onto her back and throws her legs over his arms. Sweet, sweet air rushes back into her lungs with a high-pitched gasp, but the moment it does, she tenses all over again. Her back arches into the bed, then off it as she comes, and throughout her shudders, Junior continues pushing into her, dragging out the sensation.
Finally, he pushes down her shoulders and steals her breath again by kissing her deeply. Harley's fingers dig into the back of his sweat-soaked shirt, his sides, his hips, restless and in need of skin to touch. She comes with small, hitched breaths that Jason swallows.
In the end, her fingers settle on his face and neck, keeping him close so he would under no circumstances stop kissing her.
Her body keeps twitching as he touches her, as his hands run over her dress and down her sides, as he grips her hips and angles them just right for him to sink into. She lets herself be molded to his needs, slowly relaxing into the warm glow that spreads over her and welcoming his thrusts with a pliable body.
She tangles her fingers into his hair and breathes his name across his lips, and his hips stutter, slamming into her hard a few more times while he spills himself into her.
It draws a satisfied moan from her mouth into his, and her lets her caress every inch of his twitching body she can easily get her hands on. They raise goosebumps as they go.
He rolls off of her just before she was going to say something. Her hips were beginning to smart, with her doubled up like this, knees trapped in her leggings and pushed against her chest. She lets her legs drop to the bed with a groan.
Her leggings are sweat-damp and disgusting, and she'll have to wrestle them off sooner or later, but for now, she wants to ignore it for a while longer.
They lie next to each other for a few heartbeats before he gathers her into his arms. His fingers massage her hips. She could fall asleep like this and not worry about nightmares.
She's about to drift off when he murmurs, "Think you can catch some Zs for me now?"
"Only if you stay," she says and burrows herself deeper into his embrace. She'd love to stay like this forever, no matter their sticky skin and clothing or the plans to be set in motion.
"I need a wash."
She shakes her head because she knows what he's doing and clings to one of his arms, as if that were enough to keep him from disappearing on her.
"You're using that as an excuse to leave and won't come back after."
He exhales through his nose. An approximation of a sigh if she's ever heard one. "So join me if you don't trust that I'll return."
"I'm not moving," she says, resolute as a stone. But not quite as heavy.
"The showers are just around the corner." He zips himself up and gets off the bed.
She whines, knowing she'll join him. Of course she will. Physical exertion may be good, his company even better, but what helps avoid the nightmares best is not sleeping at all.
"I'd prefer a bath," she says as she pulls up her panties and thrusts her legs at Junior for him to tug off her leggings completely.
"How about a singing tiger while you're at it?" he asks and tosses her into a corner with her other clothes.
"If he comes with maids who keep pouring scented water into the bath, sure."
"I'm sure those can be arranged," he says and scoops her off the bed at her unspoken insistence.
With a contented smile, she winds her arms and legs around him and clings to him like a capuchin monkey. Strong hands stroke over her back to find the right placement.
It feels good to finally let herself drift, save in the knowledge that nothing can harm her as long as Junior's there. Like this, she can try to sleep later. For him, she'll try. Not sleeping is not an option today. The future of their operation rests on their success tonight.
They both need their heads clear. She can't risk losing him again because she wasn't alert enough to stop it from happening. What's a few harmless nightmares compared to that?