Waking to the dull flashing lights and darkness, you search out the bottle, hands and fingers trembling as they bunch along the crumpled sheets until they meet cool plastic and you swat at it listlessly, dragging it back to your curled form. You hug it to your chest, the cold slap of water and medicine chills along your tips and palms as you will your parched throat to open enough to breathe.

There's a heaviness upon your chest, a heat along your back and a tepid breeze forcing loose strands of your hair to tickle at your neck, but right now, you don't want to think about that. You just want to get the screams from your nightmares from your head. You want to shrug away the blunt force that taunts your muscles and limbs, ghosts from the past unrelenting in their replay.

You fidget, trying desperately to yank up the spout and knuckle your upper lip in the process. Not minding it, you try again, managing to lift the thing and you gulp.

And gulp.

Not thinking, you run on need. Right now, you need to shut out all of those memories; the sounds, the smells, the tastes and the pain. They're too much. You can't handle it right now.

You gulp down another mouthful before palming the top down. Lips trembling, you press them into a tight line.

How many times do you need to see all these things? Isn't living through it all enough.

You KNOW.

YOU ALREADY FUCKING KNOW!

You are well aware of your mistakes, your misgivings, your personal faults... Everything.

Nasally breaths are coming quicker, so you hold your breath, hoping, waiting for the drugs to kick in and your brain to just shut up.

The warmth along your back shifts and your are fully encompassed in it, eyes screwed shut you will the tears to stay away.

"Hey." Husky and deep, a voice calls for your attention, but you can't. You can't open your eyes or your pride will be nothing but a farce. Instead, you inhale but it's more of a sniffle.

You've woken him up. He hasn't been sleeping much at all and you just broke him from precious REM for this silly, pointless scene.

Always such a pain.

A whine dies in your neck as you re-try to regulate your breathing and the arm slung around you pulls you tighter into the skin-silk heat of muscles and soap-tamed musk.

"Thanks for waking me up." You flinch at that sleep-gritty tone as once again he speaks. "I was remembering some pretty shitty things... Thank you."

"Hmm..." It's squeaky, but it's all you can manage to let him know you heard him.

Ever since you got over the initial nausea from lunch and he forced you into a tub so you could relax, he made you promise to talk to him. To open for him. He practically begged you to respond to him when he speaks. You know you owe him at least that much.

"You are precious to me, little lamb. You are my responsibility, my charge... Mine until you choose your own purpose, your own way." You let his words echo trying not to shiver as you recall the feel of his hands expertly massaging your roots, lathering up your hair and scrubbing at your back; helping you regain your sanity through hot water and cleansing bubbles. You try not to to reminisce inappropriately at the memory of the water as it splashed outside of the tub when he entered it behind you to have a better reach.

You focus on his words and the way he's speaking right now, how hurt he seems.

"I was in the field outside my childhood home, so scared that she would come back. It was the first time I ever saw the clouds darken that much and lightning spark through them as if they were glass, shattering in the sky." He muses thickly against your nape. "That sight reminded me of when she would break her empty wine bottles and yell her loudest."

The images play through your mind like a movie amid a foggy backdrop. Ringing of your own distasteful recollections nothing but a dull buzz as you think about that poor, scared little boy caught between natural storm and unnatural hateful demonstrations from the one he should have been able to trust the most.

"Was your brother... there for that?" Knowing his brother is a sore spot, you kind of hope he was there for him, but at the same time, you don't. Because would that mean the memory is that much more painful for him? You don't want that. If only you could go back in time. If only you knew the poor sweet boy... You wish you could have done something to take him from that deep hurt.

"Yeah. But in the dream, he just stood there. He didn't say anything, didn't look at me. He just stood there, watching as the dark clouds rolled and ravaged themselves, cracking and crackling, not caring if I stayed or ran back home." He sighs and that morphs into a yawn. "It's frustrating, I kept wanting to reach for him in the dream. But every time I did, he was out of my grasp before I could even process the feel of his clothes in my grip..."

"You... Are you sure you want to kill him?" The question is slow to come out, but as you relax further into his hold, you let it escape. "Could it be that maybe you just want to know why he did it?"

There's a rumbling so deep in his chest that you can feel it in vibrate your shoulder blades.

"He has to die. He does, and V... They both have to, they are all that is left of my filthy childhood and I will do everything in my power to see it done with my own two hands." In his statement, there is a warning for you not to delve further, not to question any more, but in your state, you ignore it. You ignore it, because you don't know when to quit. You don't know anything.

"But why? It's terrible and unforgivable what you've gone through. No child should have to witness or feel the types of horror you did... But why do you have to kill. You are so good... So pure... Why would you have to stain your gentle hands with blood." You have to pause every few words to keep from stumbling and stuttering through, but you have to let him know what you think, thanks to the liquid induced bravery and lack of inhibitions racing through your bloodstream.

"I'm not nice." He snorts and huffs, his tone biting but you laugh a little in spite of it.

"You are."

"They'll die, and it'll be because of me."

"Why don't you at least get their sides of the story?" Vaguely, you know you are treading on thin ice, breaking into interrogation zone, but you are enjoying the fact that he is answering you.

"Why would I listen to the tales of liars and frauds? They hurt me, walked away from me at my lowest and dare to live happily, forgetting that I exist! How else am I supposed to show them I'm alive when all they've done is shut away everything I was, leaving me to fend against death itself. They left me to die, little one. You know how that feels, don't you?" His hold is jittering against your skin and you take a moment to hand him the bottle and rub circles against the knuckles of the arm trapped around your torso with your thumb.

"It's because you are alive that you should do it. It's because you are better that you shouldn't have to stoop." Since when have you been so dashingly philosophical, hmm? But... It fits him, so you let your stance stay, lingering in the dark room as the water bottle swishes behind you and pops as the top is pushed back down.

"I... I can't." He headbutts you in the back of the head but it's light and his voice seems so... fragile. "It's my purpose to destroy them both... It's what I've been training myself for since even before the day I was... saved..."

"... Okay." You sigh again, settling deeper into his hold and the blanket cocoon that has formed around you both. "I'm here to help you any way I can, but I just want you to know that you can always change your mind. You are so much more than a tool to murder, y'know..."

He's already fallen asleep again, you're pretty sure. He's made no sounds or movements since last he spoke and you aren't even aware of whether or not he heard what you said. But that's okay, you'll give him your support whenever he needs and re-speak those words as often as you can.

The tugs at your own consciousness are pretty strong and soon you are drifting in tender heat, rhythmic breath and white noise guiding you through the darkness and into comforting empty fog, like a lullaby.