Ok, next chapter! Most of you will have read this one before, I think - I just took it down and reposted it because it was originally supposed to go in here anyway.

This one's dedicated to Lamanth, because I managed to scare her. (and myself ...)

Thank you to TakaYoshida, Lamanth, Ray-Tiger-Cat and shadowphoenix101 for reviewing!

Cue angst!

Pain

She couldn't sit still, couldn't stand still; pacing through the house, picking things up and tossing them carelessly away again, her stomach cramping and churning, tears tight in her throat and hot in her screwed-up eyes.

Kai's headaches had been getting steadily worse, and right now he was lying in their bed in total blackness, in too much pain to let her anywhere near. She had stood in the doorway for as long as she could take it, watching him shiver with the pain, breaths coming shallowly, but had turned away eventually and fled to the kitchen so that her sobs wouldn't disturb him.

Go to the doctor! she demanded of him time and time again, only to be rebuffed by a curt reply in the negative and a confident assertion that he was fine, that she worried too much. Well, she did, she knew she did, but oh, she was so scared! It was twice, three times a week now, and he was looking thinner and paler with every day that passed. All she wanted to know was what was wrong, was that really so neurotic?

--

Cocooned in darkness and trying to fight past hallucinations of being crushed slowly by endless black tentacles, Kai scrabbled for the box of pills that he hid under his pillow and fumbled one to his mouth with clumsy, numb hands. He tried to swallow it but failed, his tongue dry and painful. Giving up with a fatalism that would have shocked everyone who said that they knew him, he let it fall, to stick to the pillow and his cheek.

Let Salima continue to worry that his newly slurred voice was because he was overdosing on painkillers. He would tell her the truth eventually.

He would.

He sank back into his dark world where no-one could hear him scream.

Like? Loathe? Personally, I like it.

Review?

x Ilb x