[backdated: a few hours after his last post] [rl] [Regulus + Rachel]

[treatinferiors]

[He's on a bed. He thinks it might be a bed. For a moment, a very long one, it felt like rocks sticking into his back. Sunlight might be getting in through the window. Might be something worse. So he keeps his eyes shut firmly. His hands are clenched in fists. Little half moons of nails digging into his palms. He breathes in and out, but it's so much more difficult going out than coming in.

But there are worse things. He's seeing most of them, his eyes shut tight. He doesn't want to know what he'll see when he opens them. Just in case there's no difference at all.]

Mother, mother, I'm sorry.

[That's what he says most often and most clearly.]

Comments

[broadwaybound]

[With the lone exception of dinner and a brief, Rachel does her best not to stray too far or too long from his side. She's been worried for long enough, and the thought of him trying to leave on his own, or waking up with no idea why he's in a pink and yellow girl's room, let alone in a girl's bed is terrifying to her.

So she stays by his bedside.

She hopes... whatever is going on in his head are just nightmares, and when she sees him clenching his fists she briefly considers prying his fingers free, finally settling just to hold his hand in the hopes that some amount of human comfort might come through and register.

The cold compress she keeps running over his forehead probably isn't doing much of anything, but... it's better than sitting there and panicking mindlessly, and she needs something to do to make her feel like she isn't completely useless.

He keeps muttering to himself, unclear, sometimes, and more than clearly other times, making her stop and stare, grateful that he's still talking and breathing and managing somehow, and terrified that he might not wake, or, once he does, that he might not want to see her in the first place.

But there isn't much else to do here but wait, hoping that he might wake up before she either spends all night up, curls up in her bed beside him-- though that might really terrify him-- or pulls up a sleeping bag and some blankets on the floor beside the bed. Either way-- for now, she's stuck doing little other than worry with the sole exception of her occasionally trying to get him to wake up with her voice.]

... Regulus? If-- Regulus, if you can hear me... could you please... try wake up? [But even trying to talk to him feels silly and fruitless, and she sighs softly, squeezing his hand a little more tightly.]

sorry for the delay ;;

[treatinferiors]

[Sometimes he hears voices. And by sometimes, he means constantly. Some of them ring hollow or false. Most of them pinpoint accurate. Sometimes they are very familiar. Sometimes they're completely foreign. Sometimes it's only one voice at a time. Sometimes it's a chorus. There's one that's asking him to wake up, but he pushes it away, just in case waking makes all the voices inescapably loud.

He's so thirsty it hurts. But that's pain in the gut, which is so much different than pain in the head. He keeps muttering, sometimes shouting. Sometimes the words make sense. Sometimes they don't. It's hard to tell which are worse.]

Seems I'm just as guilty as you are! D:

[broadwaybound]

[She hates hearing him in pain, and not knowing how to help him is even more excruciating. She stays by his side, stroking his forehead and biting her lip as she keeps hold of his hand, her thumb running over the back of it, slow and gentle.] Regulus-- please? I've been so worried. Just-- anything.

[Most of the time he seems completely incoherent, but on rare occasion, words come through that she can make out. Most of them she doesn't really know that she wants to know, after all, but then occasionally something clear and even helpful will slip through. In this case, it's water, and she instantly reaches to her bedside table to bring a glass to his lips, turning his head onto the side as she attempts to pour, getting her sheets wet in the process.]