@makerguideme continued from x.
The fact that she is able to sleep soundly while he suffers through the night is something that hangs heavy on her conscious and wears at her every day. Her nightmares are muted and dull so long as she can reach out and find him beside her, but his are not something her presence can remedy. She had thought, perhaps, that her being there would bring him some amount of solace. If she’s there, at least there’s someone to cling to who wouldn’t judge. If she’s there, at least there’s some semblance of support. But the last time something like THIS had happened and she’d reached out for him, it had only served to make matters worse. So in those quiet moments when he wakes her, hot and damp and terrified and shaking, all that she can do is lay helplessly by his side.
It isn’t the thrashing that wakes her. It isn’t the shaking or the tossing or the turning. It’s the first sob that leaves him that pulls her from the clutches of sleep, but she knows what’s happening almost immediately. She can feel, even with a decent amount of distance between them, that he’s BURNING with fever and the thought frightens her enough to fight off any grogginess that may have usually come with being woken up in the middle of the night. Retired Templars have DIED from the withdrawals - burned through what they were given to stave off the thirst and DIED of the consequences. That CANNOT happen here. She won’t let it.
Even with her mind muddled from sleep and exhaustion and even though it’s difficult to focus on him through the darkness, the words reach her ears and they BREAK HER HEART. She can feel it come hammering to a halt in her chest, her breath catching as though she’s forgotten how to breathe. She has heard him BEG like this once before. On his knees, tears in his eyes, blood on his hands. Memories of that moment bring up other, even more unpleasant memories - ones that cause her to sweat and shake and-
Not now. A quite sort of determination stirs in her chest and forces back the panic and the darkness in a way she never would have been able to if she had been alone. Had it been anyone else, she might’ve been lost to the waves of terror as they came and went and they would both be shaking, sobbing WRECKS. But this isn’t someone else. It’s CULLEN and she needs to be strong for him and knowing as much seems to be enough. She shifts, rolling slowly to face him and breathing out a shaky breath of air.
Some mix of the sight of him and the sound of him begging for the end causes the color to drain from her face, but she needs to be STRONG. “Cullen, look at me.” Her voice is low and quiet and still heavy with sleep and a hand reaches out to tap the bed next to him, not so close that it would most CERTAINLY cause an adverse reaction, but close enough to get his attention. She wants to touch him. She wants to pull him into her arms, to guide his head towards her chest and run her hands through his hair and down his back and conjure ice at her fingertips in an attempt to cool him off, but any one of those things could do more harm than good.
“Cullen, PLEASE.” Her hand is outstretched, there if he wants it but not intrusive, “I know it’s DIFFICULT. Just look at me. I’m right here. I can help. Just-” Not like that. The one thing he’s asked her for and she can’t give it to him. NOT LIKE THAT. Anything else. She would do ANYTHING ELSE. “I’m HERE, love.”