AN: Some Isabel love. :)
Hush, child
The darkness will rise from the deep
And carry you down into sleep
Child, the darkness will rise from the deep
And carry you down into sleep
~ Mordred's Lullaby, Heather Dale
His better half
"Sleep, my darling." Her lips press against his wet forehead, willing the creases away. He clings to her, gaunt face buried in the softness of her breasts, frantic hands wringing the gauze fabric of her gown. She rocks him like a child, omitting the lullaby that would be so incongruous in this setting.
The nausea from alcohol on an empty stomach hits him and he turns too late to vomit on the floor, streaking her leg instead. She ignores the mess, repositioning him and wiping his mouth with a clean corner of her sleeve.
He's crying again, near-choking explosions in a mouth tightly sealed, his last vestige of control in a life gone so completely awry. Shame and despair, rage and apathy wash over him in waves hot and cold.
He's hiding again. He doesn't want to see anyone, can't bear to be seen.
One hand runs down his back, its gentle pressure an essay to quell the great heaving of his chest. "Sleep," she breathes into his hair, a gentle current to carry him down.
He can't sleep. When he sleeps the nightmares come – running running down a street, chased, hunted. When he sleeps he wakes up to the reality that he isn't here anymore. He fights exhaustion, saturates his mind with pills and liquor to forget. Sweet oblivion that allows him brief respite.
She undresses him and he tries to fight but gravity always wins in the end. He lays passively while she changes him like an infant, cleans his face with a wet cloth and tucks him into a quilt his great grandmother had made a million years ago.
He's warm and groggy now, his angry soul at a makeshift peace. And his mind, a blur of intoxicated chagrin, yields to a restless coma.