it was you in the dark

[couldnotpersuade]

my first drabble of fic-or-treat, for the prompt stephcass and seperation, for luckyzukky, you can also view it on superlove

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Sometimes, in her exile, Steph dreams. It's not quite an exile and it's not quite dreaming. But she lies wide awake on her bed in the burning heat, hears cicadas sing the day away, and imagines they know she isn't dead. She'll eat her lunch and daydream that Cass called her last night, that they argued, but that she was coming home.

Cass follows her through each day, silently watching the vaccinations, telling Steph when a kid looks more uncomfortable than usual, when she needs to stop talking and wait for a patient to be ready in their own time. Steph wonders if she would be ready herself, if she went back. If Cass would be waiting for her to be alive, or if Steph would be chased by ghosts until she dies again.

In her dreams, while she watches the mosquito net flutter in a barely-there breeze, she imagines she's back in Gotham. Cass sits next too her on the edge of the bridge, thigh-to-thigh, takes her hand and presses, knuckle-to-knuckle. She never says anything, watches Steph as their breaths match and their hearts keep beating. In this dream Cass rests her free hand on Steph's thigh, leans in.