I thought he'd have heard the lift ding its polite little chime when I arrived on the floor, but he must have been so consumed with hitting the punching bag, because when I took a step into the room and breathed his name, he jumped.
"Hey," I said gently, approaching slowly, my heart squeezed tight.
I almost asked him if he was okay, but a quick instinct told me that wouldn't help. So instead I asked, "Can you teach me? How to punch, I mean. I've never trained with a bag, only with other people."
"It's pretty much the same," Mav replied in a thick, gravelly voice that sounded more like Void's than his own. "But I can show you."
I approached him carefully until he held out a tentacle, and I then hurried across the gym's polished wood floor to curl my fingers around it, giving a comforting squeeze.
In reply, Mav brought the back of my hand to his mouth and brushed a long kiss there. "Sang sent you, didn't he?"
"No."
Mav watched me closely, a strange lack of humour in his bright blue eyes. "Void?"
I swallowed. "No one sent me."
He exhaled a sound that might have been a laugh, folding his tentacles around me. I hugged him fiercely, holding so tight that it probably hurt him, but he didn't complain.
He pulled away too quickly for my liking, but I didn't let my worry show. "So if you know how to throw a punch, show me your form. Hit this bag."
I took a long breath, trying to bury my concern and focus on a clean punch. The movement came far too easily, my knuckles slamming into the smooth vinyl of the bag.
"I'm not sure you need any teaching at all," Mav remarked, stroking my jaw with a tentacle. "That was better than any punches I just threw."
"Yeah, but that's because you were…" I trailed off, biting my lip. I'd leapt too quickly to his defence, and now the awkward end of my sentence hung between us.
"Because…" he prompted, watching me with a frozen sort of calm. Not because of me I knew, even if my irrational fear warned he was going to push me away and never look at me again, never touch me, kiss me, fuck me.
"Because you're hurt," I finished gently. "And I know how that feels."
Mav blew out a rough breath, his handsome face a more sallow shade of blue, and I couldn't fully tell, but I thought there might be shadows around his eyes.
"How much sleep did you get last night?" I asked, brushing his jaw with my fingers.
He shrugged. "Does it matter?"
"To me," I insisted. "I don't like the thought of you going sleepless because I had nightmares. I—I want to look after you, like you look after me, not make your life harder."
"Hala," he murmured, pushing my fists down and pulling me into his body, wrapping all four tentacles around me. "I'm never gonna sleep easy when my girl's having a rough night. That's not on you, that's just how it's gonna be."
He kissed the bridge of my nose when I began to argue, and the soft touch made my heart squeeze with sudden pain, a strange, intense longing to stay like this forever.
"Don't be worrying about me, anyway. I'm not the one who had nightmares all night. You can't feel as fresh as a daisy either."
I laughed, ducking my head when a huge smile spread across my face. It hurt, but it reminded me of Vann saying that exact same phrase. I missed him more than anything, but it hurt a little less to know there was someone else who missed him as much as I did.
"Vann always said that," I breathed, darting a hesitant glance up at Mav's face.
He groaned, but not in pain—in frustration. "'Up and at 'em, fresh as a daisy,'" he quoted, and I choked on a laugh.
"Ugh, and whenever I didn't get out of bed instantly, he'd always say 'the early bird catches the worm.'"
"And the late bird catches leaves," Mav finished, a smile on his face as he met my gaze.
"It doesn't even make sense," I huffed, shaking my head but unable to stop smiling.
"I told him it should have been dirt instead of leaves for years," Mav told me, rolling his eyes. "Stubborn bastard wouldn't listen."