In the Lion's Teeth: Second Edition

Chapter Sixteen

It starts with the familiar headache crawling up your spine, leeching out into your shoulders and neck, curling around your brain, settling, sharp, behind your eyes. You shut the light off but crack the blinds so there's at least a little light, but nothing changes. For a while, you just lie in a pathetic ball as Dona's gentle fingers run through your hair.

Then, your jaw tightens and your hands start to shake. It creeps up your arms, into your shoulders, all the way down to your feet, and suddenly you can't stop moving, still curled up in a ball but feet kicking and hands clenching and arms and legs shifting back, forth, back, forth, like all the worst physical symptoms of anxiety with the slow head and tongue of the deepest of any depression you've ever experienced.

***

They come from inside the walls. Skittering, hissing, rustling the blinds and the drywall where they crawl underneath. You change position for the first time in hours, jerking into a sit, neck tight, hands out and ready to balance you should you need to dart. Somewhere in the back of your head, somewhere far away, you hear an almost familiar voice saying your name, gently, gently, but you don't turn toward it. You keep your eyes locked on the window, because that's how they always get in.

Even in the dim light of the room, you can see everything, every corner, every shadow, bright, bright, your breathing so so so fast, limbs shaking with withdrawal or adrenaline or fear or you don't know what, you just know you have to be ready when —

Then, it's in your head, sharp, screeching, teeth and claws sunk deep and injecting it straight into your brain and you double over, arms tight around your stomach as you gasp for air and mutter oh god, ohgodohgod, eyes and teeth clenched tight as if that can keep them out, but it won't. It never has.

"Pascal? Pascal, talk to me," something says, and it might be safe but it might be a trick, it might just be the things trying to get you comfortable. You try to answer anyway but all that comes out is a terrified, desperate keen, like a dying animal left alone and calling for its pack. Then, arms around you, thin, warm, and a hand on the back of your head holding you still and even though you don't know this place, you know this smell, and it's safe, and warm, and more like home than anywhere else ever has been. Your hands grip, tightly, onto soft fabric, and when that voice murmurs, "I'll keep you safe, my love," — those two gentle words, my love, my love — even if you don't understand what's happening or why, and even though you know you're stuck, here, in this terrible place, at least you know you're not alone.

***

Maybe you black out. Maybe the noise and the pain are just too much and you only disconnect for a while. But when you come back, you're not in Dona's arms anymore, you're pacing the small room, scratching your arms so hard the skin breaks and even then the itching still doesn't stop. Your mouth moves but you don't know what it's saying, whether it's repeating what's in your head or attempting to refute it, and occasionally you smash your back against the wall, violently, as if you can knock it all out of you if you only hit yourself hard enough.

Dona doesn't intervene, and you don't know whether it's because he's afraid or whether he just knows there's nothing he can do, and you're too afraid to look at his face so you can find out which.

Back and forth, back and forth, from one wall to the other, you pace, because when you pause even for a moment the things crawling in your legs ooze up into your hips, into your stomach, higher, higher —

But then the sharp pain in your bones is too much, you can't anymore, and you collapse against the wall, hard on your shoulder. You try to ease yourself down but everything is shaking so much, and it's only because suddenly Dona has his hand on the back of your neck and his other curled around your shoulders that you don't smash your head through the wall as you slide down to the floor into a puddle of cold chills and nausea and pain. He sits down beside you and you try to crawl into his lap like an oversized dog, trying to leech the warmth from his body into your shivering skin, and his hand on the back of your head is almost too hot, but it would be even worse if he moved it away.