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Carver finds him late, late into the night.
"What are you doing?"
Isaac doesn't move from his loose-limbed sprawl on the floor. His gaze stays trained on the skylight, but he raises his arm and gestures in a vague wave.
"Baking a pizza."
"Smartass," he hears Carver mutter, and he smiles reflexively, pleased.
Carver walks into the room, probably thinks being closer will make his lecture for Isaac to lay down in his damn bed more effective. If not for how silent it is, Isaac probably wouldn't have heard him. It's strange how quiet he can be for a big guy, but this is a big guy who's been trained, who's learned the hard way that being quiet can mean the difference between life and death.
Isaac's eyes narrow as he frowns. He's really trying not to think about this shit, but he supposes that was pretty dumb. He's always thinking about morbid shit, these days. These years.
Then Carver's there above him, standing by his side. He's got his hands on his hips like a scolding teacher and an impatient glare to match. Isaac only spares him the slightest glance before he gives the skylight his full attention again.
"What the hell, Isaac." It's supposed to be a question, but somehow it's not. Carver's a real definitive guy that way. Isaac used to wonder if he'd ever been unsure about anything a single day of his life, but he knows better now. Carver's just as lost as him, he's just better at hiding it. Isaac doesn't have the energy to try. "You hate beds now or something? Pining for those days cat-napping on necromorph-infested ships?"
A few years ago, saying something like that would have triggered an episode for sure. Now, Isaac just laughs, near-silent, because he's learned to be quiet, too, and can't shake the habit even when he's safe.
"Hell no," he says. Beneath him, the carpet is thin but a hell of an improvement over hard steel or cramped vents, the few times his body was so exhausted it was either shove himself into some corner and maybe get eaten alive, or collapse on the spot and definitely get eaten alive.
All that said, the floor can't beat a real, honest-to-god bed. But even though he's back among the living, in some slightly-shitty apartment, but still-less-shitty-than-his-last-apartment on a different, non-destroyed colony, he realized quickly that it would probably be wasted on him. The nightmares—or rather, memories—had rushed to meet him the moment he'd laid down. He'd given up on sleeping like a normal person and had sought the small space beneath the living room skylight because it was familiar-but-better, close enough to the real thing he hoped to trick his mind into believing he was only getting a little sleep, so he didn't have time for nightmares.
He hasn't gotten to the actual sleeping part, but if this fails, he's considering wedging himself into the linen closet, or the pantry.
Of course, Isaac doesn't say any of this to Carver. He already thinks Isaac's crazy, no need to illustrate exactly how crazy.
Keeps things interesting, he jokes to himself. It's a deflection from the truth, the truth that he's never quite beaten the paranoia since Titan Station, that he was one slip of the tongue away from betraying his freakiness and ending up right back in that straight jacket, losing years to experimentation.
He won't make it through that a second time. He won't.
Carver's still standing there, watching him, waiting. Guess his answer wasn't good enough.
"What are you doing up?" Isaac asks, both because he knows questions that are even slightly invasive chase Carver away, and also because he's genuinely curious.
"I was taking a leak," he answers flatly, in a way Isaac hears as same reason you are, 'cept Carver would never fess up to it. "And then I saw your dumb ass lying on the floor."
"Yeah, well," another lazy wave, "I'm not keeping you."
Carver sighs, slow and tired, through his nose. Which is a little unfair, Isaac really doesn't think he's doing anything bad enough to warrant a disappointed-teacher sigh.
Instead of fucking-off like he'd expected, Carver lowers himself down to sit down next to Isaac. He leans back on his arms, the muscles flexing in a way that's very distracting, and tilts his head like he wants to see what the fuss is all about, up there through the skylight.
That finally pulls Isaac's eyes down, frowning slightly. He knows that he and Carver are cool now—nothing bonded two people better than the constant threat of evisceration—but, still. He really doesn't appear to be doing anything other than just—sitting here with him.
Guilt bubbles to the surface of his thoughts.
"Hey," he starts, voice soft, a little uncertain. "You don't have to—"
"I know," Carver says, and his head drops down, those dark eyes pinning Isaac to the floor like needles through a mounted butterfly.
That look makes his heart stutter. He can't take it for more than a fraction of a second before he goes back to the skylight, subtly trying to steady his breathing. Carver—he's so intense. Even the little things he does, they're too much for Isaac.
He can feel Carver's eyes on him still and Isaac curses himself for speaking up at all.
"Why are you up, Isaac?" Carver asks, because as much as Isaac's learned about him, Carver's learned him right back, knows that he can't deflect for shit and if he asks a direct question, Isaac will cave, every time.
"...Couldn't sleep," he murmurs, nearly a whisper so that maybe Carver won't hear him and maybe won't judge him. "The usual."
Carver just makes an understanding noise, voice pitched low, but it makes Isaac's chest squeeze anyways.
Weak. Weak. Weak. He knows it, but it's easier to be weak when he's alone. With a witness, it's unbearable.
"Pretty shit view, if you ask me," Carver says. He glances back up at the skylight, where the black of night glitters with sharp points of light and a whole galaxy stretches out, waiting for them to jump headfirst back into it. "Aren't you sick of stars by now? I know I am."
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I should be."
But Isaac keeps staring at the stars and Carver keeps staring at him. The worst part is that Carver's got a poker face that would make a statue crumble and it's sort of driving him up the wall to not know what he's thinking, watching Isaac the way he is.
And when it reaches the point of being agonizing, Isaac finally looks at him, rolls his eyes good-naturedly with a smile.
"Go to bed, man, I know you want to. I'm fine, really."
A small frown tugs at Carver's lips and Isaac rolls his eyes again.
"I'm fine. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?" he teases. "If I really am crazy, I'll probably just wander off and end up blowing my brains out."
He thought Carver liked morbid shit too, but his face hardens at Isaac's words.
"That's not funny," he says coldly. His arms flex like he's checking the urge to deck Isaac in the face.
...Well, shit. The fact that Carver actually seems to care is kind of fucking with him. He knew, he guesses, that it was kind of a shitty joke, but he didn't think Carver would be bothered by it.
It's a little funny, he wants to say, wants to tell Carver that with each passing day he understands more and more why so many people he witnessed offing themselves around the Ishimura had done it laughing. But he doesn't look like he's in the mood.
"Yeah," Isaac says, closing his eyes. "I guess not."
The silence that descends is tense and awkward as Isaac pointedly avoids Carver's eyes and Carver keeps frowning at him.
"Would you do it?" Carver asks, something hard in his voice.
Deep breath. "Do what?"
"Off yourself. Just like that. After everything."
Isaac blinks his eyes open, doesn't dare meet Carver's eyes. He glares at the skylight. He fucking hates direct questions.
"I mean...no?"
"Yeah, that was real convincing," Carver says, tone dripping with sharp censure and disapproval.
Isaac huffs, frustrated and tired.
"Look, I don't know, all right? I think about it. A lot." He brings his hands over his stomach, knots his fingers together hard enough his bones hurt from it, but he needs it right now. "I'm just—there's so much shit crammed in my head. And every time I think, 'okay, that's it, there's no way it'll get worse', it does. And after everything, I should be dead, right? It's just like, checks and balances and shit, you know? And I—I'm really fucking tired and. And I can't sleep." Isaac closes his eyes, already knows he's said too much. He's gonna wake up tomorrow strapped to a gurney. He raises a hand that's absolutely not trembling and covers his eyes, thumb and middle finger digging into his temples. He can't tell if it's the lying on the floor or this stupid conversation that gave him this headache. "I know I shouldn't," he mutters, half-petulant, half-pleading."Isn't that enough?"
Another silence stretches. Then, "That's really fucked up, Isaac."
A breathless chuckle startles out of him and Isaac lets his arm flop back to the ground. Carver's got this pathetic excuse of a smile on his face, barely more than a twitch of his lips, but there's a bit of honest mirth in his gaze amidst the blatant concern.
"Look," Carver rubs the back of his head with a sigh. "It's not like I don't know what you mean, yeah?" Isaac nods when Carver glances at him. Isaac remembers with perfect clarity the haunted, bleak hopelessness in his dark eyes, the anger that stole over it all when he realized he'd been cheated his assured death when they killed a moon.
"I get it," Carver continues, and the earnestness in his gaze keeps Isaac's eyes on him. "But it was a lot of work keeping your ass alive on Tau Volantis, and I hate wasting my time. So next time you think about offing yourself, remember that, all right?"
Isaac's mouth opens, closes. A breathless, incredulous laugh wheezes out of him against his will. It's probably not the most gentle way to comfort someone, but anything more serious and Isaac thinks he might really lose it. Isaac's so, so very grateful for Carver, grateful he's got someone in his corner who just gets it and doesn't treat him with kid gloves. Why he's stuck around is anyone's guess, but Isaac can't imagine where he'd be right now without him. Maybe he really would have offed himself.
"I'll remember," Isaac promises.
"You fuckin' better," Carver grunts, scratching his arm as he looks away. He's transparently uncomfortable, maybe even shy, and Isaac's smile widens just a little.
Carver's brown eyes find him once more, expression considering as he glances over Isaac's body like he's checking for injuries.
"Think you'll turn in now?"
Isaac sighs. "Yeah, guess I better try."
"Cool." And that's all the warning Isaac has before Carver moves into a crouch and scoops him right up.
"WHA—" Isaac flails for a second, more disoriented than that time he had to navigate zero-g with only one working boot jet. "What the hell—?!"
Carver chuckles, a deep rumble through his chest that Isaac feels more than hears and fuck, his face is definitely red.
Isaac isn't a tiny dude. He's not a musclehead or anything, but—for fuck's sake, he's a grown-ass man!
"What, are you showing off or something?" Isaac asks, face hot. He gingerly settles into the hold, the solid strength of Carver's arms at his back and behind his knees, the absolute brick wall of his chest pressed to Isaac's side. "You should put me down before you break something."
"Please," Carver scoffs, like the very idea is laughable. "You're not even in your RIG, Isaac; I think I can handle it."
And Carver does handle it, marches Isaac past his own bedroom and into his, right down the hall.
"This isn't my room."
"Yeah, you definitely need to sleep," Carver says and if Isaac wasn't sure he'd drop him on his ass, he'd punch that stupid smirk right off his face.
"I'm not delirious, asshole, what the fuck are you doing?"
Carver keeps walking, goes straight to his modest, spartan double bed and drops Isaac like a sack of potatoes.
"You're bunking with me," he hears Carver say over his startled yelp. He manages to get his elbows underneath him, enough to lever himself up so he can glare at him properly.
"Why?"
"You slept like a log on Tau Volantis," Carver points out, and he's right. They'd taken shifts, no more than ten, fifteen minutes the few times they could snatch them, but yeah, he had. Not a single nightmare. "Maybe you just need someone to watch your back."
"Yeah, but—" It's—unbelievable that Carver would be willing to sacrifice his privacy just to help Isaac like this. Not that he's a total dick, but, well, personal space, right? Carver's kind of infamous for liking it. Besides, they aren't even on Tau Volantis anymore. "We're not—"
"It's happening, Isaac, get over it."
Isaac sputters as Carver walks to the opposite side of the bed, tugs off his shirt—
Oh my god.
—and slides under the single sheet that covers it. He crosses his arms behind his head—and Jesus, is he flexing? He has to be flexing, Jesus Christ—and closes his eyes, seemingly without a care in the world.
Isaac gapes at him. "I—you—" He looks between Carver and the open door, torn. "This is—stupid. I'm not a kid!"
"Mm-hm," Carver says, tone dripping with condescension. One of his eyes cracks open. "Sure are throwing a fit like one."
"I'm not—" Isaac pauses, sighs, looks to the doorway again. He should leave, right?
But what if Carver's right? What if he can actually get some real sleep here?
God, he wants to sleep.
When he glances back at Carver, he's looking at Isaac, all the levity gone from his features.
"You can trust me, Isaac."
"I-I know." Isaac's shoulders sag. "I know. It just—I feel like a dick, barging into your room like this..."
Carver's eyebrow raises. "I literally carried you in here."
Isaac scowls. "You know what I mean."
"You're overthinking it," Carver says with a roll of his eyes. "Just lay down."
Isaac spares the doorway one last look, but he follows orders, tempted by both the possibility of real rest and Carver's voice, calm and confident and so sure Isaac can feel something tight and strained loosen in his chest.
Gingerly, as if something might just crash through the door after all, Isaac lies back. When his head hits the thin pillow and his body sinks into the mattress, he breathes out, low and slow.
And it's good, at first. Quiet and peaceful, just the sound of their breathing, and it's almost like before, but better because there's no nercomorphs screaming in the distance or machinery breaking down to crash against the metal floor or howling, piercingly cold wind battering his body.
But then the silence starts to seep in, starts to make the air heavy and charged, and just like that the very act of laying still like this makes anxiety surge, makes his heart pick up a painful staccato and his fingers clench into the sheets, because he knows, he knows, it only takes a moment, just a single second for the peace to shatter, for the quiet to die amidst agonized screams and garbled, inhuman wails, for that first streak of blood to arc over the walls, for the Marker to demand Convergence, for Them to claim his mind once more, Lead us, Isaac—
"Jesus," Carver says beside him, and it snaps Isaac out of it, enough to blink in the darkness, to realize he's stiff as a board on the bed, body shaking from the sheer tension he's clenched his muscles with, and that he's seconds away from a full-blown panic attack.
Only the streetlights cutting through the blinds illuminates the room, enough to see how Carver's pushed himself up on one arm as he takes in the spectacle Isaac's making in his bed. His face is in shadow, but Isaac can just make out his dark eyes, watching him with stark worry.
"You...weren't kidding," Carver murmurs, sounding—uncertain? Sad? Pitying?
Isaac goes to rubs his face; ends up leaving his hands there, sick of this bullshit, sick of himself.
"...Yeah. Yeah," he finally grunts out. "I wasn't. But it was a nice try, I guess." Isaac heaves a deep, exhausted sigh, then finally uncovers his face. He sits up. "I'm gonna—yeah."
"Isaac, wait—" Carver starts, sounding unhappy, but when he reaches out, Isaac's already moving, pushing himself out of the bed, so he misses Isaac's arm, catches his palm instead.
It's such a simple touch, but it makes Isaac freeze completely and his breath stalls in his chest.
Carver stills too, or at least doesn't speak, probably feeling as surprised and awkward as Isaac does to find themselves in this position—holding hands. And Isaac even has the fleeting thought, let go, crack a joke, LEAVE, but for the life of him, he can't. Carver's hand is big and rough with calluses, and so, so warm, solid and firm and alive in a way he can't move past, a way he hasn't felt in—god knew how long. Touch was pain, touch was a prelude to blood and screams and a knife in the back—but this isn't any of that. He doesn't know what to do with it.
A hundred escape plans spring into his mind, things to say, places he can go, things he can do, so that the moment Carver drops his hand, he can move them both past this as soon as possible, make Carver forget this ever happened.
All those plans are dust in the wind when Carver tightens his grip, takes Isaac's hand more firmly as if he'd had time to think about it and decided, yes, this is what I wanted to do. He holds Isaacs hand and tugs, just a little, and says, "Isaac," but his voice is like he hasn't ever heard before, quiet and almost gentle and—and—
It's fucking Isaac up, that's for sure.
He doesn't look at Carver, can't. He furiously tells himself to yank his hand back, but he's frozen and can't do that either. Stupid, fucked up brain, never does what he tells it, never listens.
Carver tugs on his hand again, insistent. "Isaac, come on."
And he doesn't really understand what Carver wants, except maybe that he's really dead-set on Isaac getting some sleep, so he only resists for a second before he follows the urging, head down, and allows Carver to get him back on the bed.
"Lay down."
"But—"
Carver squeezes his hand, warm and reassuring; Isaac lays down.
When Carver lays down beside him, he can't help but try, one last time, "It's not gonna work."
"It will," Carver says, tone brooking no argument. And then his other arm, thick and broad, is reaching across, hooks around Isaac's waist and pulls him close like he's a spare pillow he's adjusting.
Isaac colors, sputters, "Wha—?!"
"Here," and the hand holding Isaac's snakes up, shifts so that his palm is pressing flat to Carver's chest, right over his heart. "Focus on this."
"Oh my god," Isaac mutters, too embarrassed to live. Carver—he's cut, like cut-cut. Never, in a million years, did Isaac think he'd ever hold the proof of that. "That—that's so cheesy."
He can hear Carver's smirk. "Yeah," he agrees. "It's gonna be even more embarrassing for you when it works, too."
"Oh, fuck off," Isaac says, but he's smiling and already, the vice of nervous tension that had gripped him is getting easier to breathe through. He presses his palm against Carver's heartbeat just a touch firmer, letting the steady thump seep into his skin, and he's so, so grateful that Carver doesn't point it out that it chokes him up a little.
God. How pathetic can you get?
Carver chuckles, a deep rumble of sound that slides over Isaac's shoulders and down his spine, so rich and warm he wants to fall into it, and he lets his eyes shut because Carver can't even see him in the dark, pressed this close, so he can get away with enjoying it.
"Sleep, Isaac."
A flash of nerves hits him at the command. It's easier said than done.
"I-I'll try..." he says uncertainly, and Carver doesn't say anything, only holds him closer for a brief instant, a reassuring squeeze that should be making his fight-or-flight instincts flare up, but doesn't. It's like the pressure is squeezing the anxiety right out of him.
A few times, memory sparks, makes him want to rip himself away and find some dark corner to press himself into where he could at least watch the shadows from a more defensible position. But each time he so much as twitches away, he meets the barrier of Carver's body, his arm around his waist, his chest and legs at Isaac's front, and it gives him pause, long enough to register the warmth of his palm, the hypnotizing, reassuringly calm heartbeat pulsing skin-to-skin, telling him that everything's okay, everything's fine, because if Carver wasn't worried, what reason did he have to be?
Before he realizes it, his eyes slip shut more often, stay shut longer, and though his own heart jerks a few times, suddenly convinced an attack is coming, all he has to do is press his palm to Carver's chest, console himself, no, it's fine, Carver's here, Carver will watch out for me, and that's the last thought in his head when he finally, finally, drops into an exhausted sleep.
The next morning
The reassuring warmth of a body pressed close; the bone-deep lethargy of a long, desperately needed crash, finally indulged; his mind, quiet for the first time in years.
These sensations greet Isaac long before any real conscious thoughts, just feelings, just instincts, telling him that he's safe, and warm, and maybe even okay.
...What the fuck?
These good, calm feelings—they're so foreign Isaac pushes past the lazy urge to slip back into slumber and he blinks, breathes in sharply through his nose and gets an arm under him, pushes up so he can get the jarring switch from dream to nightmare over with.
What greets Isaac's bleary eyes isn't his own bed, nor the blood-smeared hallways of his dreams. Instead, what greets him is—Carver.
Carver, looking far too handsome and far too under-dressed, mouth-watering muscles on unashamed display where one arm is tucked behind his head. His other hand holds a tablet of some sort, but it looks like he'd just been going over the news, not pouring over some new mission debrief. His face is close—close enough to make out the amusement plain in his dark eyes, the slight pull of his scar as he smirks.
"Sleep well?" he asks with smug irony.
Memories of last night swamp Isaac immediately, mercilessly. His hand is still on Carver's chest.
A slow, great blush slowly crawls across his face, only grows hotter when Carver sees it and his smirk turns downright wolfish—a devastating look on him when he's half fucking naked.
"...Son of a bitch," Isaac breathes, mortified because he slept like a fucking baby.
Smug satisfaction radiates off of Carver, enough that Isaac thinks if it could be harnessed, Carver could power a moon all on his own.
"Told you."