serpent ♔ juliet

"I had to carry you to bed last night, you were exhausted."

In the haze of memory loss that only occurred with sleeplessness, Betty couldn't even recall when exactly she'd fallen asleep on the couch the night before. It was no secret between them that she hadn't been sleeping well for the last week, nightmares of the Black Hood's torment resurfacing in her subconscious against her will. Against his advice and better judgment, however, Betty had taken to trying to solve the problem herself in all manner of unhealthy coping mechanisms that generally amounted to her trying to keep herself awake for as long as humanly possible until her body gave out. Forced her to sleep and even then for short periods before waking in a cold sweat from another nightmare.

Her caffeine consumption had alarmingly doubled, if not tripled. It coincided with a lack of appetite that was in a constant state of glowering and taking to venting his foul mood out on his fellow Serpents as he was left helpless in trying to protect her from demons residing within. It wasn't as simple as being able to throw a punch or threaten someone with the full force of violence from the Serpent collective, this wasn't a battle he could fight for her."I know…" Betty sighed, leaning against the kitchen counter of his trailer as she pulled the long sleeves of one of his over-sized shirts over her hands into balled-up fists.

There was guilt residing in her gut, twisting together with the ever-present knot of nerves from always feeling on edge. It didn't seem to matter in her dreams that she knew this was all over, that the Black Hood had been eliminated from their lives and shot dead before her very eyes. After weeks and weeks of torturing her, there was always some part of him still residing in the back of her mind, and it was the similarity he'd drawn between them that had planted that seed in the first place."I'm sorry." She found her resolve as she lifted wide eyes to meet him. "I promise tonight I won't pass out before the end of the movie." Her lips twisted upwards, an attempt at a joke despite his apparent disapproval and lack of sense of humor. It was far from fun, and the fact that she was trying to make light of such a severe situation was likely to tip the scale and push him to a wave of anger she frankly didn't have the strength to fight right now.