Not Until We Are Lost

The dream was nothing abnormal. Just one of those sorts that comes along when you've been spending too much time in an office, unable to do the things you really loved to do. He was filing papers. Endless papers. Every time he thought that he was almost done, he'd look at the stack would be almost to the ceiling again. His phone constantly rang, but when he answered, nobody would be there. The office he sat in was abnormally small, the sides of the desk almost touching the walls on both sides, the front of it made it so the door couldn't open all the way. But the faceless people who wandered in from time to time didn't seem to think it was all that strange.

Evan hated it.

He spilled cold, too thick coffee on himself while reaching to get more papers to file. How big was the damned cabinet anyway? How could it fit all of this? He stood too fast, the chair not going back very far because of the wall directly behind it, and he felt the bruises start to raise on the backs of his knees. That was a strange sensation, he'd never had a dream be that real before.

Exiting the office, having to squeeze through the door with a lot of effort, Evan was confronted by a set of stairs. They went down only. There was nowhere else to go, unless he wanted to return to the office, which he did not.

He walked carefully, unsure of what was happening or where he was going. His only thought was that in this dream, down could only mean a more hellish place than the office he'd been sitting in. He was going to end up somewhere where he had to sort number two pencils by the shade of their yellow and how much length there was between the point and the eraser, he was sure of it.

Jack didn't seem to mind their new sleeping situation. Kai had apologized and tried to explain, but Jack had taken it as if it were nothing. Although being in the same bed as the dancer did put a naughty smile on the hunter's lips. It had been all too amusing.

Dancing had made Kai less likely to worry about her body, and Jack had never been one to be overly if at all prudish. Her body was what it was; she was proud of it, all the tattoos, scars, and scratches. They were her, and thankfully Kai didn't seem that squeamish about it either. They had a small routine as far as who used what when, but changing and such in front of the other wasn't a huge concern.

They tended to keep similar hours, and Jack was more than willing to help Kai and her voices when she wasn't trying to plot a way to relieve a certain artifact hunter of a particular artifact. They'd been sharing the king size bed for a few nights; it was the only one left in the Holiday Inn. The sleep had been good enough, and on one or two occasions, Jack had felt Kai snuggled close, or found herself snuggled in. It wasn't platonic, but it wasn't anything "indecent."

The night had been quiet, and they'd laughed at a couple who were louder than necessary. They'd fallen a sleep like normal, but some time in the early morning before the sun rose, Jack awoke to a very unsettled and very unhappy Kai. Something was wrong.

"Kai? Honey?" Jack's voice was soft, but she didn't reach out for the woman, not yet. She'd seen the Hunter fighting, and Jack really didn't want to see who was better.