Who: Nell and Kale What: Their first night back to the apartment, neither can sleep. Where: Apt. 971 When: Monday night Rating: TBD Status: incomplete
Never, since the days when she slept in an shapeless two-piece jump suit with a number on the back, on a cot with a scratchy wool blanket, did Nell feel so strongly that the walls around her were not only watching her, but that they were closing in.
During the first three weeks of her incarceration, her forced detoxing slowly wrung the horrible chemicals from her body, wracking it in constant torture. Bouts of restless sleep for eighteen, twenty hours on end would be followed by hellish fever and 7.2 quake shivers, violently expelling anything and everything that went into her body, in any way it could.
And the nightmares...
Those days were long behind her: her body was healthy, save for a few knocks and hiccups--her mind and soul were working on their way to full recovery as well. Until 2011, when her world was turned upside down--for the good! And then, Thursday afternoon: like a phantom from her past, someone with full and complete knowledge of just how detrimental the act would be on her and Kale, violated their sanctum and taunted them in the worst way possible.
After days in the Den at Joe King's house, Nell had been looking forward to sleeping in her own bed--but the apartment had been penetrated by an uncertainty, a fear that hadn't been there before... and she simply could not sleep through it.
In the middle of the night, dappled in the blue and gray streaks of a lightless apartment, Nell found herself standing at Kale's bedroom door. The heat was turned up, but she still lightly quivered in the thrown together PJ's she had worn to bed, and she gnawed on the flesh of her bottom lip, with her arms crossed protectively around her middle.
The tattoos that decorated her shoulders, chest, and arms cast funny shadows in the dual tone night, as she listened to the sound of what she hoped was wakefulness. Sleeping in the same room with him for so many years, Nell knew when Kale was out, or simply trying to get to that point of sleep... but at the moment, she didn't care to wait too long.
She slipped onto the bed beside him without a word, instantly comforted by the familiar warmth found under the covers.