It had been over a week since Rep had tried to find out who H really was, since he’d stood there in the splintered wreckage of a powerful man’s office and realised the gravity of what he’d done. As a direct result it had also been over a week since he’d had a full night’s sleep. Whenever he tried to rest the strange gnawing pain twisted around his bones like the whip around his weapon dredged him back to the surface over and over. It was like diving with floats attached to your body, the satisfaction of full immersion fleeting and brief, becoming only briefer as energy and hope of touching the bottom waned. The search for a sleeping position which did not ache was a wholly fruitless one, the injury - and therefore the associated pain - was not truly physical and there was no real way to soothe it, even painkillers only managed to dull the physical twinges, leaving the mental ones intact to torment him. There had also been nightmares to contend with, scattered throughout the fractured and fragmented snippets of sleep he did manage to grab. He always woke not remembering the true details remembering only that many were laced with an insidious and toxic fear that something awful was on the horizon and that both Harrison and him were in serious danger.

That night had been the same as the others preceding it. He was in bed, because in order to even have a chance at getting any sleep at all that was the place he needed to stay, even when most of the time it was futile. As he’d expected, he hadn’t managed to nod off at all and instead had found himself laying in the dark suspended in that maddening purgatory between sleep and waking, the writhing and fevered domain of the chronic insomniac. There was always a slow build of anxiety when he couldn’t sleep, a knot of hopeless anguish and stress that grew with every passing hour that sleep refused to come to him, growing and growing in magnitude until he wanted to scream and howl, until he found himself counting the passing seconds as if regimenting them would somehow hold them to account for the suffering he presently endured.

Nothing worked and it was getting critical.

During the day he’d started seeing s**t out of the corner of his eye, flinching at coats hung on the back of the door or turning to quickly look at fluttering or scurrying bugs which had never existed. It was different from the old shadows that had beset him before the island, of those many had indeed been real, he was sure, the present hallucinatory flickers were indeed just hallucinations. It was enough to make him want to go drink, to swig whisky until there came a point where he passed out on his own, but he knew down that road old habits lay and it would only be a matter of time before it became his only way out of his hole and dependency would once again land him in trouble.

On top of everything else he was exhausted, not just from the insomnia but instead a sort of bone-deep tiredness that was a result of too many spars in too short a period. He’d stood in the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror, examining the angry looking purple and yellow bruises all across his body, replaced too quickly for Tracey to repair with any enduring effect.

It was pitch dark in the room he was sure, but to him it didn’t matter, able to see - with daytime clarity - the ceiling above him. The window was dark, a gathering storm of blackness beyond the bounds of his night vision

The only anchor of happiness and solace in the room was by his side, chest slowly rising and falling in sleep. Even restless and sleepless he remained tangled up in the other man, always deep down afraid that someday he might open his eyes and he’d be gone. He stirred only a fraction as Rep moved a little closer and - burying his face against him - closed his eyes.

It took a long time, but after what felt like hours, he reached that fuzzy point between sleep and waking where he lost track of where his extremities ended and Harrison and the bed began.

But he did not drift off, at least not properly.

However, rather than the usual nightmares he found himself subject to what had to be sleep paralysis, opening his eyes moments ( or was it hours?) later, unable to move. There was a figure in his room with him, not tall, but fractured and broken. It was not human, that much was apparent, all wings and strange rotating halos wreathed in flame. The darkness gathered tightly around the bound central figure, statue-like and twisted up in coils of gold, spilling from the cracks and hovering in the air about him, a fractured canvas with the truth shining through. He could not look directly at it, there was something about the centre of that blackness that gave him vertigo, made him want to move lest he end up sucked into some great and terrible abyss.

“Tracey?” he said because the small figure was familiar, and beside him in the bed the sleeping figure did not stir, he was not really speaking aloud.

“I am here.” And it was not a single voice but several, ranging from a gravelly snarl to the more familiar soprano, interwoven with one another like a choir. "This is what I am."

“Am I asleep?” he asked, and he could not help the fear that tinged his voice.

“Mostly.” replied the voices in a breathy exhalation. “Mostly asleep. It is all you can hope for of late William. It is just you and I here.”

His body felt like it was made of lead and he knew he couldn’t move if he wanted to, he'd experienced sleep paralysis several times in his life, the exception here appeared to be merely that he was lucid.

“I’m so ******** tired Trace, I just want to sleep. Proper ******** sleep, not this ******** sham, not the constant ******** pain. I want you to be back to normal before the zombies or whatever the ******** is coming gets here. But I ******** can’t.” he closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.” he said, and it was earnest. “I’m sorry, it’s my ******** fault we ended up like this, its my fault you have to deal with Marie in the first place.”

There was silence for a time and he could feel the fallen angel’s many eyes on him. “I chose you for a reason William.”

He laughed grimly. “Just why, ******** why would anyone ******** choose me?”

The swirling halos ceased and then spun the other way. “Because there is a resentment in you for the world, for injustice, for those who say that you should serve, that you should not question things they claim to be facts. There is a fight in you, a fight without a cause. I too resonate with those feelings, I feel drawn to them. Punishments of course follow such an individual.” There was a sound almost like a laugh. “But that does not mean that I regret my choice. You and I are made of stern stuff William. Survival is written into your bones and it is innate to my kind.”

The figure moved, strange fractured movements, a game with low FPS, pixellated and on the verge of crashing. One hand reached out, ten fingers on one hand, Tracey had such an excess of everything, wings, digits, size, power. And he respected him. The touch was dreamlike and distant, imagined yet he felt it.

“I’m just sorry you hurt.” he said.

“I did not know I could hurt any longer. It feels like living again, or I should think it does. I cannot remember what it was like to be truly alive, the human life from the kingdom is the only life I possess. This suffering is a gift William and we suffer together.”

The motion ceased once more and Rep felt himself regarded carefully.

“I am a proud creature William. I do not apologise readily to mortals, to humans. But I apologise to you now for the times that I have pressed you too far and too harshly and for the times that I have not stepped in to stop you when I should have.” He sighed. “We are a team. I am still, even after all this time not used to working in tandem with someone else. Even Ferros, I feel was more a possession at times than a true equal. A tool. You are not a tool.”

Rep wanted to nod, but could not. “And nor are you man. I don’t hold this weakness against you, it’s both of us, we are being kept apart man. It’s ********’ Marie. One day she’ll be gone and we’ll be back to normal. I’m just scared. I don’t..” he trailed off. “I don’t want us to be weak if the s**t hits the fan, if we end up up to our ******** necks in zombies. He’ll protect us Trace, but we won’t be able to protect him.”

The figure looked in the direction of Harrison, something in the fierce glow of the wild red eye - the only intact eye visible - seeming to soften. “We will do what we can with what we have William. There is no point in wishing, there is no point in anguish. We will put one foot in front of the other as long as we still have feet and we will fight until the bitter end for what is unmistakably ours.”

Rep spoke again weakly. “Aye. It’s aw we kin dae. Aw we kin dae is whit we kin. I’ll keep going out to the training fields, I’ll fight any c**t, any ******** c**t that comes oor way, and I’ll do it for him. I know it’s hard on you too, I know like, even now you are ******** trying to knit me back thegither after the last fight. I know and its important, it matters. I don’t tell you that.” He felt the emotion welling up but kept it in check. “And its ******** stupid that I don’t tell you it. I’m even ******** afraid to think s**t that I feel is unmanly, even when I know nae c**t will hear. I just.. Tracey. Traciel. I just.”

There was a smile that was simultaneously all teeth and the bright eagerness of a child. “I know William. I know. If there is one thing that you never were, it is subtle. You hate entirely and you love entirely. I do not hold the same concept of love and value. I am not human, but one facet of me was. That version of me loved you, I can say. This version may not have the capacity. But we are bound, we are bound in a way that is familiar to me and yet different. Bound yet free. I am not your slave.”

“Partners.” Rep said with a laugh. “The word is ******** partners Trace.”

“Partners then William. Bound and yet willing, freely obedient.”

The figure slowly started to fade away, Rep’s relaxing finally enough to push him off into that utterly dark place where sleep and true dreams lay. “I’ll make it right.” he said, able to feel the tears in the real world beyond them. “I’ll make it right to you, I’ll make it right to him.”

“Just rest.” The voices said, and a strong palm pressed to his chest, all claws and fingers. “Rest so that you can. I will protect you, he will protect you. It is shelter, it is not an imposition.”

Even with his night vision the world darkened, the shadows spilling from the tiny figure seeming to swell and grow, to fill his world. “And it is working. Your efforts are working William.”

“We are mending.”

There was a sensation like feathers, like many, many beating wings. And there was nothing but darkness and warmth, cloaked in dreams and Harrison.