Sinking Under
By Kay
Disclaimer: Don't own EW even after all these years. Sigh.
Author's Notes: Gen, David-centered drabble with really no point. Mmmm. Water. I like water.
Much love to the readers. You guys own my soul. (hugs)
David's sleep is a patchwork quilt of nightmares, passing by silently behind his eyelids as they flutter in sleep.
He doesn't dream about the battlefield. There are no terrors worse than what he's already seen, nothing more horrifying that actually tasting the crisp air awash with blood and half-mad, wild cries. He's carried enough bodies cold to the touch, sunk his sword into pale bellies until the black spills out through their fingers and over their rotting teeth, for his mind to find further ways to twist it against him. There are no corpses or traces of guilt when he rests-- they wait to prey on him after waking.
No, David dreams of the expanse of the ocean. Nothing but blue and white for as long as his eyes can see, struggling above the waters. Beneath him is a bleak darkness that hovers just beyond his toes, endless and full of the unknown, so that everywhere he treads is a threat. Salt tastes like nothing, but it stings the tender corner of his mouth when he sputters.
In these dreams, David waits to drown. The thickness of the water swirling around his ankles drags him down, swallows him whole, until his lungs burn and closing his eyes changes nothing at all. He doesn't wake up until the bubbles escape and the entire world ocean rushes into his lungs.
End