"Fucking hell," Blade huffed, breathless and exasperated as he rolled onto his back. Through slitted eyelids, he weakly stared at the popcorn ceiling, noting how it looked freshly painted—likely to hide water damage or black mold creeping through the drywall. Dusty cobwebs fluttered in the sputtering air conditioner's breeze and the cheap sheets scratched against the scars on his bare back.

The two of you were holed up in a shoddy motel after a mission. The only place to rest for miles. One night, he figured. He could tolerate the questionable carpet stains and faint mildew scent for a few hours. But he hadn't expected the sudden onslaught of mara in the dead of night.

Mara was a side-effect of Blade's immortality, a condition that slowly drove the afflicted insane. Sometimes it presented itself as flashes of painful, traumatic memories in his mind. Other times, it was an incessant urge to hurt—to tear something apart and leave behind a trail of death.

Tonight, the mara came in the form of pain and nightmares—searing, agonizing pain that crept up his sternum and clawed through his chest. He hissed, arms curling around himself, squeezing his eyes shut to try and sleep. Every time he tried, horrific images and sounds flooded his mind, jolting him awake, forcing him to sit through the pain again. A torturous cycle. And the discomfort of this trashy motel room definitely wasn't helping.

His arms shook slightly as he pushed himself to get to his feet. He needed you. Something about you had a way of quelling the mara. Your touch, your mere presence was always enough to quiet the screeching in his ears and soothe the agony that racked him whenever his mara flared up. Perhaps that was why he always insisted on going on missions with you.

Screw that, who was he kidding? He also did it because his heart was hopelessly drawn to you. Not that he'd ever admit it.

He shakily stepped out to your room on the other end of the hall, trying to hide how he trembled from the pain as he leaned against the doorframe and knocked.