Security Blanket

Security Blanket

This doesn't even almost do it justice, but this post by @skylarsblue and this piece by @minilev made me feel some type of way so I tried to spin up the scene in my head real fast.

900 words. Emotional hurt/comfort. Description of night terrors and panic attacks and thoughts of self-harm.

He wakes up in the kitchen this time.  Standing barefoot in the middle of the floor, soaked to the bone with sweat, chest heaving like he just outran the devil. 

His brain knows where he is but his body doesn’t and the dark room is spinning around him and he staggers to the sink like he’s drunk and about to throw up, and he might throw up, but he’s stone cold sober. 

He slumps against the edge of the countertop and waits for it to pass.  For it all to pass.  For his skin to stop crawling, the stinging in his eyes to go away.  For the echo of her screeching to fade back into memory. 

He listens intently to the silence of the house as the ringing in his ears diminishes.  If he was screaming, he’ll hear Vincent scrabbling up the stairs to make sure he hasn’t found a knife or something.  Something his subconscious knows how to use.  Minutes pass, or maybe seconds.  Vincent doesn’t appear. 

The tension won’t leave his body for hours, but he wishes it would.  He can’t unclench his jaw and his shoulders are hunched like he’s waiting for a blow.  The veins in his arms are bulging beneath the skin, knuckles white. 

His wrists fucking itch. 

When at last his mind clears enough to let him peel his fingers off the edge of the sink, lets him dig his nails into his skin instead, he turns to face the house.  He tries inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth even though that has never worked.  He tries reciting things he’s sure of in his head, but every time he gets to his name he hears it in her voice.  He starts to spiral. 

It’s a funny thing, to know your fear is unfounded and be trapped in the throes of it anyway.  He can’t catch his breath.  He’s lightheaded.  He feels watched.  One time he swears he saw her, standing just around the corner, peering at him with beady eyes like pinpricks in the darkness.  The memory triggers a visceral reaction and he doubles over like he’s been kicked; he can’t do that again, he can’t, it'll end him; he is sinking to the floor and burying his face in his arms. 

His wrists fucking itch. 

He’s panting, mind racing, muscles howling.  He’s scratching and he can’t stop.  If he looks up, she’ll be there, he knows it, he can sense it.  He can feel her staring at him.  He’s three years old, he’s five years old, he’s twelve, he’s seventeen, and he’s scared, and she’s so angry.  She’s everywhere, fucking everywhere, can’t stay dead, can’t stay away, and there’s just one thing she hates more than she hates him and he remembers and it takes everything he has to lick his dry lips and muster up a quavering whistle.  It barely carries in the choke of the darkness.

Moments later the sound of a thump on the stairs and nails skittering on wood pulls a strangled sob from the constriction of his throat.  There’s a cheerful jingle jingle and then the snuff of a damp nose on his forearm, and then a very warm, very wet tongue is lapping at the marks in his skin. 

His mother loathed dogs.  As a kid, a puppy was all he wanted.  As an adult, he couldn’t make sense of why you’d want another mouth to feed.  An endless supply of messes to clean up.  But he never could say no to Lester. 

And now on the floor in the dark, he grabs that mongrel like she’s the last living thing on earth besides him and pulls her to his chest, and she lets him because she’s a good dog.  She laps awkwardly at his face before she settles and sighs and he almost starts crying.  She allows him to squeeze her for many long minutes, her baleful eyes sweeping over the benign expanse of the kitchen, keeping watch for ghosts while he struggles to catch his breath. 

They sit on the floor for the better part of an hour. 

He lets go of her slowly when the paralysis starts to fade, and she stands up and shakes herself before turning back and nudging his hand so he knows she hasn’t left him.  It takes him a long time to stand up, and she watches him closely.  When he finally shuffles out of the kitchen, she is on his heels, waiting for her moment. 

The stairs are insurmountable.  He collapses on the couch.  The poor, mutilated thing barely has any stuffing left and he sinks into the familiar hole worn into the cushions, exhausted body and soul.  He lifts his hand to pat his lap and she’s already up, already stepping gingerly across his legs, shooting him apologetic glances as she turns around twice out of obligation and then sprawls across his middle. 

He exhales with finality.  His muscles are twitching with exertion.  The weight of her on his ribs grounds him in his body in this time, this place.  He is not three, or five, or twelve, or seventeen.  His mother is dead.  He has a dog. 

She’s warm under his hand, her fur coarse and dusty.  She stinks like roadkill and the reek of her breath clings to his hands and arms.  She huffs and lays her head on her paws and he gives her silky ear a flop.  His breathing is level.  He unclenches his jaw. 

“Good girl,” he mumbles as his eyes slip closed.  He doesn’t think he’ll be able to fall back asleep, but he does, quickly, and his dreams are painless. 

The dog sleeps too.