Work Text:
"We have a problem."
Ophelia crumpled to her living room floor, half in a daze. Beside her, Bobby moaned softly into the carpet. The adrenaline rush from the attack had dissipated after hanging up with Adam, leaving behind weak limbs and trembling hands. She hadn't even realized she'd dialed his number until his voice was in her ear, assuring her he'd be right there, and she wondered why he'd been her first thought instead of...
She grit her teeth and shoved her hands into her hair, pushing back dark brown strands mussed from the brief altercation. She winced at the sharp tug of her fingers hitting a tangle, but at least the pain served to draw her more firmly into herself.
With a sigh, she let her hands fall into her lap. Dammit. She hadn't told Adam to bring a vehicle. Not that he'd given her a chance to speak before hanging up. Maybe he would bring one anyway.
"Detective?"
Adam's voice – God, he was fast – rang out from the hallway. He appeared a moment later, dashing through the open door before pausing to examine the darkened room.
"Ophelia?"
"Shush, du Mortain," she hissed, brushing aside the strange tingle in her chest at the way his lips formed around her name. "You'll wake the neighbors."
Adam zeroed in on her. A split second later, he was kneeling in front of her, hands gripping her shoulders and eyes scanning over her body.
"What happened? Are you alright?"
She frowned at the surge of heat suffusing her body at his inspection and nodded, as much to clear her foggy thoughts as to appease Adam's apparent... concern? She waved a hand toward Bobby, who chose that moment to groan in pain.
"I'm fine, but he's not. We need to get him to the Facility. I assume from the speed of your arrival you didn't bring a vehicle?"
Adam's gaze flicked to hers for a moment before he glanced at Bobby's prone form, his jaw tensing. "No. I was... I did not."
"Well, maybe you could just take him? Or... we might be able to get him into my back seat..."
She trailed off as she studied Bobby's lanky form. Adam shook his head... and then seemed to realize his fingers were still curled around her shoulders. He snatched his hands away, curling them into fists at his side, and leaned back to survey her relatively intact apartment before focusing on Bobby once again.
"What happened to him?"
"The supernatural from the carnival and some of his lackeys came to chat. Warned us to stay out of their business. He was collateral damage."
"So, we have proof they are the ones causing the disease."
"Definitely," Ophelia said, her hand rubbing over her arm at the memory of blisters and blue swirls infecting her skin.
"And... they were inside your apartment?"
She thought he might be able to crack concrete with the tension in his jaw alone. "Yes."
Bobby moaned again. Adam sprang from his crouch and pulled out his phone.
"I will call Agent Maven."
Ophelia zoned out as Adam talked with Rebecca. His voice soothed the raw edges left by the break-in, and she found herself slumping forward as exhaustion set in. She buried her face in her hands, her hair falling around her in a protective curtain, and closed her eyes.
A moment later, she jerked upright at the brush of fingers over her forearm. Adam knelt in front of her again, his hand hovering in the air before falling to his side. She blinked at him. He was objectively handsome in any light, but the moonlight slanting through the window lent his pale skin and icy eyes an aspect of the ethereal. As she gazed at him, his features softened. The sharpness of his jaw melted into a whisper of a smile.
"Agent Maven is bringing medics and meeting us at the warehouse. I will retrieve an Agency vehicle and return shortly."
"If you get him down to my car, I could drive."
He quirked his brow. She pressed her lips into a thin line before letting out a tense breath. She didn't have the energy for an argument, anyway. Scooting back to lean against the wall, she closed her eyes and waved him off.
"Fine. Go."
"You'll... be alright."
It wasn't spoken as a question, but she heard an unusual note of hesitation in his voice. She cracked an eye open to glare at him before closing it again.
"Of course."
And with the click of the door, she was alone. She tried to calm her mind in hopes of catching a nap, but unlike those brief moments with Adam's voice in the background, she couldn't relax. After less than a minute, her eyes snapped open again.
Bobby moaned, louder this time. Ophelia grimaced. She was terrible at comforting others. Add to that her general dislike of the man sprawled on her floor, and she had no desire to do anything but get him to the Facility for treatment. She ghosted a hand over the skin now clear of any sign of the disease and swallowed hard. Bobby was a creep, but even he didn't deserve to be in that kind of pain.
She pressed her head back against the wall and kept her eyes glued to the living room windows for the twenty or so minutes it took Adam to return with the Agency vehicle. As he reentered the apartment, she sighed and started to push herself from the floor. A hand in front of her face made her pause. She looked at it for a moment before flicking her gaze up to meet his.
"I'm fine," she said.
"You're tired," he responded in a strange tone she couldn't place.
For the second time that night, she gave in rather than fight him. Warmth infused her as his fingers curled around her hand and pulled. Normally, she had better reflexes, but weeks of poor sleep and the lateness of the hour made her clumsy. She stumbled forward. A thick arm curled around her waist to steady her, and she managed to catch herself with a palm against his chest.
"Oh," she breathed.
His muscles flexed under her fingers. Warmth filled her chest and flooded her cheeks. The heat intensified when she registered the pressure of his arm against her back and his hand still wrapped around hers. She flicked her gaze up to find him watching her with an intensity her mind didn't want to parse but her body understood all too well.
Beside them, Bobby whimpered. Ophelia jerked out of Adam's grasp just as he took a wide step back. They stared at one another, Adam's tense face reflecting her own trepidation, before he reached down to scoop Bobby off the floor.
That got her moving. She grabbed the bag and coat she'd dropped when Bobby tried to force his way into her apartment and then locked the door behind them while Adam carried Bobby downstairs to put him in the back of the massive Agency SUV.
She pulled herself into the passenger seat with a huff, and they started back to the warehouse. Adam focused all his attention on driving, of course, while Ophelia sank into the silence with a grateful sigh, happy to ignore the strange moment that had passed between them. Adam's overbearing attitude often irritated her, but with nothing but Bobby's wheezing between them, she could acknowledge she felt a strange comfort in his quiet presence. It eased her anxieties and made her feel...
Safe.
A tiny gasp escaped her lips as the word popped into her head. She felt his gaze slide over her, but she turned her head to face the passenger window and leaned back into the plush bucket seat. Outside, the street lights blurred into periodic flashes of black and white details while the town of Wayhaven remained nothing more than vague outlines against a backdrop of stars.
As a police officer and now a detective, Ophelia had gone through weeks of training centered around the concept of safety, even though a typical crime spree in Wayhaven consisted of high schoolers toilet papering their teacher's houses at the end of the school year. For years, she'd taken safety – hers and the town's – for granted.
Now, she knew how fragile that safety could be. She didn't fear supernaturals as a rule, but Murphy had shown her how weak she was in comparison. She'd been powerless to stop him as he'd turned her into a beacon for the supernatural and put the town in more danger than ever.
She clenched her teeth and shoved back against the intrusive thoughts as usual, but exhaustion had torn down her careful walls. A shudder escaped the iron grip she usually held on her emotions. Phantom pain shot up her arms and burned under her skin.
She hated that the asshole still affected her, that even now he could make her feel out of control and useless, that his voice still echoed in her nightmares –
A stripe of heat pressed against her arm where it rested on the center console, a slide of muscled forearm against her bare skin. She kept her face to the darkness, but her heart thudded in her chest at the sustained contact. She knew Adam could hear it, which only made it worse. As they approached the warehouse, his arm remained pressed to hers, though she knew he preferred to drive with both hands on the wheel.
To her utter horror, a burning sensation started up behind her eyes. She blinked furiously.
Somewhere along the way, Adam had become her anchor in an unfamiliar world, a life raft in a sea of unknowns. Even now, his presence brought her a sense of peace amid the churning depths of guilt and worry. And he managed it in a way that Morgan, Farah, and even Nate never had.
The realization turned her sideways. She swallowed hard. But she didn't move her arm.
Adam put down his window as they arrived and slid his card over the gate lock. It rolled open to allow the vehicle through. Still, his arm remained anchored to hers. She took several deep breaths to regain her composure, steeling herself against further emotional outbursts. Only when Adam pulled into the garage and put the car into park did he finally speak.
"Are you ready?"
Inhaling deeply, she turned to face him. Their eyes met, and words escaped her at the sympathy swimming in soft green. Bobby groaned.
"We should get him inside," she whispered.
Adam nodded, his body rigid with tension. His gaze turned down to where their arms rested side-by-side, and her heart gave another painful thump as the tension expanded to swirl around them in a now-familiar dance.
Turning away from him felt like wading through mud, but she forced herself to open the door, to let her arm slide away. Cold air against her heated skin provoked a sense of loss instead of relief.
Adam retrieved Bobby from the back seat while Ophelia used her card to open the door into the foyer. She led them through the warehouse, opening and closing doors for Adam as they went. Although the sense of comfort remained, that tension, that prickling awareness of his movements, filled the gap between them, growing thicker with each step.
When she reached the living room door, she paused. The weight of things unsaid pressed on her lungs. She sucked in a few short breaths, and her hand gripped the doorknob like a vise.
"Ophelia?"
The warmth with which he spoke her name, so different from his usual clipped tone and formal address, washed over her and poured into empty spaces she hadn't known existed. Her chest tightened further, making it difficult to breathe, and a sudden glut of unspoken words filled a different set of spaces – ones she recognized but had long ago deemed unnecessary, like locked rooms in a too-big house. In this case, though, the words pounded on the doors, demanding to be let out. She rolled her shoulders back before half turning to look at him.
"I wanted to say thank you. For... for coming to help me. You could have called the Facility and left it to them but–" She bit at her lower lip, sorting through the flurry of words for the right ones. "Even if you only came because it's your job, I... I appreciate it."
Silence hung between them. Ophelia suddenly felt wrung out, emptied of words while the tension ratcheted higher. Adam's eyes bored into hers, but finally... finally, he nodded.
She let out a whisper of a breath, nodded in return, and faced forward to turn the knob. As the door cracked open, though, Adam's voice, low and soft and still so warm, caressed her ear.
"I will always come when you call."
Her chest constricted. The door swung open to reveal the other members of Unit Bravo waiting for them. Worried brown eyes met hers from across the room, and a sudden rush of guilt had her looking away as Adam, spine rigid and face made of stone, passed by her on his way to deposit Bobby on the couch.
Her feet felt rooted to the spot, but she forced herself to close the door, to turn around, to lift her chin and pull her shoulders back, to shove all the complicated, messy, unwanted emotions deep down where they couldn't touch her. She had a job to do. She couldn't afford unnecessary distractions.
It was time to work.