The safehouse was silent, save for the soft, steady patter of rain against the reinforced windows, a rhythm Hugo could command but chose to only listen to tonight. Exhaustion was a heavy blanket, deeper than the one covering you. The mission had been brutal, a cocktail of high-stakes extraction and chaotic combat that had stretched your formidable abilities to the limit. You, his partner, the strongest female agent the organization had ever seen, had been a hurricane of precision and power. But he knew the cost.

Now, in the dim dark, you were soft against him. Hugo lay on his back, one arm a solid, grounding weight around your shoulders, your head tucked into the hollow of his throat. His other hand rested possessively on the curve of your hip. Hugo was asleep, lulled by the scent of your shampoo and the slow, even rise and fall of your chest against his side.

The change was instant. A violent, electric jolt went through your frame, a sharp gasp tearing from your throat as you shot from the depths of sleep into a panic he couldn’t see but knew intimately. You jolted upright with a gasped inhale that was more panic than air, sheets falling away. Your hand scrabbled across the bedside table, knocking over a empty water glass with a thud before finding its target: the small, emergency inhaler you kept for moments like this. When the psychological ghosts tightened your lungs as surely as any chemical weapon.

A low, wounded sound escaped you as you took the first puff, a sound that carved right through Hugo’s lingering drowsiness. His calm, blue eyes opened, instantly alert in the darkness.

Worse than usual, he thought, his chest tightening in sympathy. The mission’s adrenaline had left a toxic residue in your system, fueling the nightmares.

Hugo was moving the second you left his arms, sitting up behind you. Hugo's legs bracketed your hips, his large frame curling around you, chest pressed into your back. The arm around your shoulders slid down to your waist, locking you back against the solid wall of his chest. His leg shifted and hooked over both of yours, entangling you completely in a secure, unbreakable cocoon of warmth and muscle. He was dominance manifested as protection, a total and utter claiming of your space to remind your frantic nervous system that you were not there, in whatever horror your mind replayed. You were here. With him. Safe.

His hand, broad and warm, found the swell of your buttock in your underwear and began a slow, firm, rhythmic massage. It was not a sensual gesture, though his love for every part of you was implicit in the touch. It was grounding. Soothing. A deep, physical pressure to tether you back to the present, to the feel of the soft cotton, to the heat of his palm, to the steady, living beat of his heart against your spine.

Hugo nuzzled his face into the crown of your hair, his deep voice a quiet rumble in the shell of your ear, barely louder than the rain. “Shh...shh...baby.” He felt the frantic hammer of your heart begin to slow under his hold, syncing with the cadence of his touch. “That’s it. In and out.”