Pacifier

🍒Isabelle🌼

I tried to stand up without Van, but the pain which burnt through me shocked me and the cry I'd have tried to conceal escaped before I could control myself.

"Cmere love let me carry you it was stupid to think you'd be reyt..."

"No!" I snapped, my short temper frayed by the pain I was in and my determination not to let anyone die. "I'm fine," i said a little quieter, letting him snake his arm around my waist to help me step, "let me an fine on my.."

"At least let me do this..." he said rolling his eyes at me, his own impatience fraying in time with mine. So he remained, steadying me, letting me lean against him.

"Where's Johnny gone?" I asked again though I knew I probably shouldnt, knew that if Van was hiding something from me it was because I didn't really want to know.

"Izzy I promise I'll explain everythin,"

"Just not now right?" I asked, voice soft with disappointment as we stopped on the hallway. I turned to the stairs but Van stopped me with his arm around my waist pulling me in closer to him, tighter.

"Wait love," he said, concentrating on the door to the airing cupboard as he opened it and began shoving towels to one side.

I opened my mouth to speak again but something in his concentration and the urgency with which he had spoken to me before had caught my curiosity and had me watching him half in a daze.

The longer we stood still like thst the more apparent it became to me that I shouldn't have been standing at all. Still I wanted to make up for the mess I'd made. Didn't want to be the stupid child anymore.

Wanted to be worth his time and adoration.

So I bit my lip and rested my head against his shoulder, closing my eyes only for a moment, only opening them when I felt him move, lowering his head to duck inside the cupboard and push at the wall.

It was only a shallow cupboard, not a lot of room to move and when he left my side I leant in the frame watching him. He was kicking at the wall, using the side of his foot, concentration stained face as he listened to the sounds.

"Not had use this in awhile," he smirked mumbling to himself as he pushed at a door I'd never taken the time to notice before and lead me through it. 

At the top of a dark stairway he held me close to his side, I could hardly hold my head up but I kept my eyes open, watching him, trying to work out what we were doing. 

Leaving, that much I could gather. But without the family? That I couldn't understand, didn't want to understand. 

Understanding that would mean accepting the terrible feeling I'd awoken with.

The certainty of death. The certainty of something coming to an end.

Van's mood was dark and the Balcony had been too.

All around me I could sense it, the end. Some kind of doomed feeling which hollowed me out like it hollowed the halls of my home and the heart of the man who was holding me now.

Van closed the door behind us and, when he turned to me, through the dark he saw the confusion and the quiet fear in my eyes and he sighed, placed a kiss in my hair and gently took a step with me. 

"Izzy love this is a long walk," he said, "let me carry you," he made another move to pick me up but I shook my head and protested again with just as much spark as the last time. So he didn't notice how I'd deteriorated and we carried on. Down the stairs, one at a time. It felt like hours but I knew it wasn't. When I looked down at our feet, two pairs of scuffed trainers, his black, mine dirt stained pastel shades. When I looked beyond our shoes I felt the hollow of my insides, that nasty shock sort of feeling you get when you miss a step in the night and your feet get lost between your step and the floor. Below us there was only the dark, damp passage, a void lit only as far as the torch on Van's phone would allow me to see. It was quiet but for the echoes of our feet and the whispered words of encouragement from Van who was focussed, in a different zone entirely. Determined but more than that too, his eyes looked ahead, concentrated, like he could envision exactly where we were headed, walk their blind despite the elements, despite any obstacles.