2020-02-18 - Defense Mechanisms

Once all the candles were extinguished back at the apartment, Byron escorted Lilith to his car and drove her to the hospital. They both looked to be in bad shape, obviously, Lilith more so than Byron. The sleeves of his dress were covered in blood, but the wounds found there were mostly superficial, even if the blood shown tells a different story. Even the leg of his pants is covered in blood and of, course, the medical team insisted that they examine him.

"You're a real bleeder." One of them idly commented, Byron remembers as they cleaned out his wounds and wrapped them with gauze.

This wasn't the first time that the pair of them had shown up to the hospital in a terrible physical state. Their wounds were difficult to explain. The gashes were one thing, but there was also signs of strangulation as well as electrocution. The excuse given, with the help of mind tricks, was that both he and Lilith were attacked by someone wielding a taser. How his limbs were slashed all to bits? Probably in the struggle. That said, he does satisfy their suspicions by telling them that he'll be giving a report to the GHPD shortly.

Something which never happened. Instead, once Lilith, herself, was treated and tended to and lay out to rest for the evening, Byron remained by her side, seated in a pulled up chair. He was vigilant in his attentiveness over her, though much of the evening was spent reliving the horror within the Dream. There were times where he'd drift off, some of the images presented to him by Them filling his mind. Even in his own dreams it was difficult to tell what was real and what was not. This happened twice during the course of the night and by the time that he'd awoken, it was nearing sunrise.

Checking his watch and then reaching for his phone, he looks over his calendar at everything he needs to do today. Foster was found guilty, so the business surrounding the casino was moving ahead full force very shortly. As far as he knows, there was no competition for it, but that didn't mean that there'd be countless meetings and paper signings and picking and choosing which restaurants and which boutiques and the like will be invited to set up shop there.

With that in mind, after giving Lilith one last look and a lone kiss, Byron returns home to shower and get changed and to prepare for the rest of his day.

When he returns, he has a briefcase and his laptop with him. For a time, he expects to do some of his work at the hospital until Lilith woke up. Setting up a space for himself in the darkness, his laptop resting on his lap, he types out a few messages, adds more details to a document that he's been writing and just silently tapping away. Every so often, however, he'll cast his gaze over to Lilith's sleeping features. She looked so gentle. Angelic, even.

It's when he has an idea that one of the nurses will most likely check in and possibly wake Lilith up for medication during her rounds that the laptop is finally set aside and while pulling his chair in closer, he will spend the time brushing a gentle hand through the resting brunette's hair, letting his bandaged hand caress down her cheek. For now, he refuses to take his eyes off of her.

Lilith hasn't said a word since she's been out of the Dream. That status hasn't changed according to the nurses update in passing when Byron returns from his reprieve later that morning. She was, however, focused enough to be communicative with the doctors and nurses to occasionally respond to yes or no questions with meager, halfhearted nods or shakes of her head where needed.

Sometimes, Lilith is quiet, especially when she's thinking or sleepy or content, but even then, she tends to fill spaces other ways to communicate sentiment. In this state of quiet, there's no droning hums of agreeing, no purring 'mmhmms' or any of the short sounds or sighs she makes when she has no real words and just sentiment instead. It's eerie. She's also extremely still, even when awake, limbs and body generally staying in whichever placement she's coaxed to for rest, limp and listless weight. But at least she responds to touches and affection with tiny magnetic draws toward the feel of it, that part is still there, ingrained with reflex even the worst terrorizing can't quite kill.

Lilith is alive, but with her like this, the way her mind feels detached and shut down, it also feels like the part that made her so very Lilith was killed and left behind. It's no doubt a means of processing and coping, something defensive, an amplified version of the way she used to cope alone. It might even be denial, in a sense, or maybe she's just biding her time and still trying to figure out what's real and what isn't. Whatever the case, though, while he was gone, she's been awake for a spell too, there's signs. Her phone has been fetched from her wallet wristlet that was brought for check in admission ID and placed on the bedside swing table near her ice chips. It's lowly playing a song.

Maybe that's what Lilith really feels, leaving no room for her to feel anything else... lost. Because there's also some poetry verses written on a notepad in her familiar slant and loop of feminine handwriting. The penmanship has bobbles of trouble, though, and the spacing is skewed. The words on the paper don't help. Why did she wake up and write this? It's something from the The Hollow Men, but out of context, or maybe because of context, it's a little creepy to find on the table too. Especially with her sleeping so beatifically and gently in doze nearby, delicate features, slight build, and bandaging working as a combo to make her look that much more vulnerable while passed out.

But when Byron comes to touch at her, when she feels the fingertips through her hair and the bandaged hand at her face, her eyes open, hazy with medication residual and laced with drowse. Eventually, with her shadowed eyes fanning a few blinks in slow motion, she focuses in full on Byron and tips her head slightly toward his hand in silence.

If anything, Byron only brought Lilith to the hospital to ensure that she was taken care of physically. He wanted to know if the taser, though the actual jolt itself was far more lethal than any taser had a right to be, had done any damage, perhaps to her brain. If all that's required is bedrest, then he will simply take her home.

On his return, he's taken on more of a business casual look with a sports jacket instead of a suit jacket. The top button of his buttoned down is left undone and he's lacking a tie. The heavy winter coat is set aside, draped over the back of his chair. He even got in some time for a little trim. The time spent alone refreshing and getting dressed, was also time spent in deep contemplation. The melody that suddenly plays isn't a song he's familiar with, his tastes focused mostly on the main stream and more often than not, songs of his youth. But he patiently listens to it all the same, not having anything else to do, catching bits and pieces of the lyrics. It wasn't a bad song.

Then there is the poem. Byron never had an interest in poetry and it almost sounded biblical in his mind. Yet, there was some familiarity about it. Perhaps, it was just something written by Them, for all he knew. These creatures like to toss out random poems, a phrase in a book, biblical quotes and even the hum of show tunes, which all seemed quite odd. It made him wonder if they ever write their own stuff. Maybe this poem that Lilith was written, maybe it was something that They'd come up with. Or whatever twisted darkness that seems to be in her mind.

In fact, since the mind is this expertise, Byron will do another scan of her to gauge her emotions and see whether he can dig deeper. Like always with Thorne, it's more intrusive than an actual connection. He always keeps his mind blocked off. He does this all while smiling gently down at her. He's good that way, feigning comfort and reassurance, while he works on this invasion to find what's inside of her head.

"Glad to see that you're awake. Did you eat?" He's not sure what he expects when he asks this question. She's been disturbingly mute since the Dream. The gentle stroke of his finger never ceases even if he braces himself, as he tends to do, just for this attempted read on her.

Lilith shakes her head just a touch at the question from Byron, features falling with drop of lashes for a moment to look down instead of at his dark eyes on her. After wetting her lips, she lifts her eyes to look at him again with his smile of reassurance gentle on his mouth, the touch of finger at her cheek in constant motion she keeps her head tilted toward. Then her eyes take a cut over toward the ice chips in a cup nearby, off the cuff indicative it's all she probably wants for the moment. Considering the bruising peeking out from the burn bandaging at her throat, it's probably not that surprising.

Inside, Lilith, though, there's this strange detachment and ambient hum of distraction that keeps her from thinking or feeing much at all, save for slips and slivers in flare ups. It feels as if she has everything she hasn't dealt with compressing her like a ten ton brick of mental immobilization, feelings and memories she can't break down to process connected to all manner of emotions. There's some signature of denial there too, but one of those flare ups of emotions happens strongly after he asks the question about food.

Oddly, it's hurt that comes through, despite the caretaking nature of the question. But connected to that hurt is flash imagery of the table in his penthouse set with their Valentine's Dinner that never was, a matter of seconds before they were snared into the Dream. Before everything felt broken, it felt perfect. Pain in her throat physically is laced through as a reminder when she swallows and turns her eyes to look at the cup instead of him.

Lilith doesn't outwardly show anything that Byron senses flare up inside her though, after the question. She just looks at the cup a little longer, then gets distracted by the bandaging on his hand. Slowly, she brings her hand up to curl fingers gently at his wrist to draw it back for contemplative look in silence, eyes fixed on the bandaging despite the fact she's probably seeing everything beneath in that way she attunes herself to see.

His smile grows when Lilith's eyes meet with his and then Byron is throwing a glance towards the cup of ice and after a few more moments of offering up supportive caresses, his hand finally withdraws. Turning in his seat, he leans over to make a grab for the cup, before plucking out one of the ice slivers and holding it up before her. Before she can really do anything, if she wanted to, he pops the ice shard into his mouth. This is then followed by an amused enough smile. Once playtime is over, he takes up another ice chip between his fingers, looking ready to feed it to her before handing her the cup in general.

Once he's resettled back in, however, he continues with the gentle strokes, his gaze looking on her with concerned fondness.

There's usually some tell-tale sign when Byron is a reading a person. He'll often go into a light trance the more he explores a person's mind and emotion. This happens more often when reading objects, however. Something about the way traumatic or powerful emotions attach to objects when what he's doing while reading a person is gaining their baseline emotion at that moment. Though he has picked up visual thoughts to go with that emotion in the past.

What he finds are, possibly, normal for someone suffering from a traumatic experience. The way that she had shut down, the protective nature of one's mind. He's no psychiatrist or therapist, but he's delved into many different minds in the past to be able to pick out some troubling signs. He can understand the pain which she feels. What they were put through last night pushed the both of them to their limits in more ways than one. Now, not being a therapist, he is curious as what he, as a Reader, could do to shake her from this trauma and have her open up once more. Several ideas come to mind, but most of those have to do with forcing a calming emotion onto her, something which she'd enjoyed in the past when troubled by crippling anxiety and worry.

However, Isabella, too, shut down when she was kidnapped and abused by Peregrine. Unlike, Lilith, though, Izzy shut down completely and remained in a catatonic state until they were able to reach her mentally. Lilith was awake and alert, she just felt so subdued mentally and for a time, she's refusing or is unable to talk. Out of everyone, Lilith is one of those who he would want to keep out of darkness that is his mind at all costs. She already witnessed what he is willing to do when things don't go his way. The 'monster' that he is. Connecting minds with anyone always held a risk that they'd poke and explore and learn far more about you than you were ever willing to reveal.

And also, the man who he is within his mind, is not the Byron that she knows.

There's a flicker within his eyes as he studies her face, but then he feels her fingers curl around her wrist, most of the bandaging there is carefully hidden beneath the sleeve of his jacket and also his buttoened down. There was no need for her to see what she'd done to him and very gently, at first, he starts to pull back. "I'm fine, Lilith. I know that you didn't want to hurt him." He adds emphasis now as he leans forward in his seat, twisting his wrist to take up her hand in his instead if she lets him, "I hurt you too. But it's over now. We're out of there."

Usually, the play steal of an offered ice chip might get Byron bit when he delivers the actual ice to her mouth, playful retaliation. But that's not what happens, there's not even a smile out of Lilith, she just watches him with vaguely observant eyes in silence, taking her turn in docile fashion afterwards. With the ice cup nestled between her legs atop the blanket, she uses one hand to eat another piece, attention easily drawn away from his wrist and bandaging instead of lingering with fixation or guilt. But her lashes drop again as she rolls the piece of ice in her mouth to slow melt in the middle of all that stillness and silence she is right now in the aftermath of the Dream.

It's disturbing. She should be talking, spilling with apologies and understandings and venting, lying and saying she's fine for his sake, or... hell, raging even, full tantrum would be preferable to this, no doubt. It'd be so much more Lilith.

At least she's reactive and listening, though, eyes more observant than vacant. In fact, to some degree, she seems to be taking in everything and trying to figure out how to react or feel about it. Her hand is easily turned into Byron's hold while she's looking downward, and her visual attention swaps to fixate on their hands together while listening to him speak. Initially, there's no reaction out of her when he says it, but her fingers slip with small tickling movement of caress in brief against his skin. Then she nods a couple of tiny times in acknowledgement, nothing else forthcoming.

There's rarely a moment where Byron takes his eyes off of Lilith and if he does, it's only fleeting. Softly caressing her hand held within his, he keeps asking questions to distract her from this mental probing initially; his eyes look down at her hand at first, then lifts to meet with her gaze when he asks, "What's wrong Lilith? You're never this quiet." In fact, he's very much used to the chatterbox Lilith, no matter the situation. At the latter statement, his lips quirk up into an incredibly subtle smile, though those eyes on her continue to assess the woman's mental and emotional state.

It takes a while for him to initiate the courtesy knock, never feeling comfortable doing this at all, because it often shows the person who he truly is within his own head. Even though it's he, who is doing the 'visiting', his own barricades automatically go up, because these connections are never a one way street. You are showing the person a part of who you truly are. The gentle knock is given to not frighten her even more. Lilith is already in such a shell-shocked state, there was no need to force his entrance roughly to get pass her own mental guard. Most people have a means of protecting their thoughts to some degree. They seem to shut down if they sense even an inkling of someone trying to barge their way in, blocking off all mental contact whether the 'victim' realizes this or not.

So there is the knock, a gentle sensation, but one that tends to alert the person that someone wishes to make contact. As Byron rarely uses this technique, Lilith is probably not completely used to it, even if she had others enter her mind at several points as it is-- August and Ruiz, come to mind. Unfortunately for Byron, his own mind feels threatening and is a heavy presence pacing around like a wolf in a cage, waiting to be let in Three Little Pigs style. Unlike some others which she may have felt, Byron's mind is not entirely gentle. Well, it's not as forceful as Ruiz, but it also doesn't give you a sense of ease. He is trying to pull back, handling her mind with kid gloves, though who he is inside is not the chameleon that he is on the outside.

Finding an opening, or being let in, either way, he makes his entrance. The first thing he does is move beyond the simple base emotions and dig in deeper behind all those closed doors. He doesn't plan to linger for very long, but he's always had an interest in what Lilith's mind felt like, after being connected to the likes of Isabella, whose main section of her mind was like some antechamber with sections of it barred off to the public. Same as his,but different.

Sensing her fear of him, Byron needs to determine whether she's afraid of his intrusion right now or if this fear is tied to the fact that he'd killed her once already. He knows that he should say something to help put her at ease, but he waits to see whether she'd noticed his presence or not. It's a difficult presence to miss, to be honest, due to uneasy paranoia and anger that creates the person who Byron Thorne is. So as the 'Beast' roams, he waits and listens in the case his being there causes panic. If it does, then he'll try to remedy the situation as best he can.

Lilith knows she should say something, do something, but she feels so stuck as to what to do or think or feel on all the functioning levels, her subconscious a much heavier weight that makes it hard to know what to do. Byron asks a question that can't be answered with a nod or shake of her head, she hates it hanging there not knowing how to even make the right words to form any honest response, so she stares at him for a lost moment when her eyes lift from their hands. Then she finally does something, and even though it's not words, it's something, anything, everything maybe. Maybe this is what makes it okay, maybe there's magic that will shake everything loose that's stuck and drowning her, maybe it's all she needs to feel.

The woman moves. There's no more limp and listless and docile stillness, she shifts, leans up, leans forward with her arms lifting too, trying to latch herself with body turning to Byron there bedside in an embrace. She wants to trigger his arms too, feel his pulse against her own because she's alive, isn't she? This isn't a lie, she's not really dead, right? She tries to feel what's real and solid and remaining, not broken. It's the only way she knows how to start.

But while she's doing that, she also senses his power and abilities in a way she can't ignore, and maybe it's a good thing he knocked afterall. She tenses and misunderstands it initially as an attack, waits for the jolt, waits to die again after being fooled by a nightmare, he feels her blip with alarm and resignation that's direly painful. But it's only a moment. The knocking re-aligns her mind, and though Byron's mental presence isn't gentle and pleasant, it's familiar too with the context clue of feeling him exert, and she finally puts together that it's him, it's just him. And oddly, she's not all that surprised or thrown by the heaviness that comes with 'him' even when her subconscious starts to dread with reflex what he might do to her while she's vulnerable in unwitting flash.

See, Lilith is pretty give and take with Byron, she makes allowances knowing how life was hard for them as kids, knowing the fundamental building blocks formed over time were fucked up by their life's situation early on in different ways. It's why she bided time and didn't press about the Thorne House and kidnapping when he omitted it, why she didn't press when she finally let him know that she knew all along. She's not a mentalist, but given the other extents to which they DO know each other, part of her expects that glimpse feeling of weight and tumult and darkness because she has it too. Sometimes she feels it in both of them during sex, especially after an adrenaline fueled or dangerous encounter, and instead of correcting it, she tends to embrace it, lets it feed intensity, draws it out more even, for the very sake of release in whatever way they can manage it.

Her grip tightens. And Byron delves when she makes him a notch to pass through. He doesn't want to do this, but he gets to feel Lilith behind the trauma for the first time, that core being and signature of driving life. It's an intimacy while their natural intimacy is currently crippled, maybe a comfort in all this terrible, even if it's for utility purposes.

Lilith's mind isn't quite chaos, but close. It's an organized sense of that, it's ready for the constantly juggling of different things to feel in dominance. And it's not because of the trauma, he's behind all that. Like anyone else, she's made places and means to compartmentalize and cope in a very Lilith way, gears and cogs she can push or shut down. It's like looking at machinery she's cobbled together herself to keep powered and operating through, a series of mechanisms to pull switches on as needed.

But her actual mental signature is largely influenced by the fuel that goes into this mental factory, so to speak. All of her emotions swirl to make a vibrancy that's so extremely powered, it's no wonder she's usually such a strong read and presence in life. She feels like glowing coal that burns and simmers, she feels like gasoline ready to spark, she feels like nuclear energy ready to be harnessed or unleashed, accounting for her passions or furies. There's darkness, there's light, they fight and exist in duality too, like Lilith is constantly battling herself to keep one from overwhelming the other. It's life, life, life, the good and bad, warmth glowing and dancing with edged shadows. It's all hidden behind the reality confusing weight of trauma.

She's set up means to prevent this overwhelm, it's probably why she's so good at coping with screwy things most other times as a whole, why she can be a fearless force of nature and power through. But... this trauma sticks to her like a plague. It's sticky, it got in her gears, it screwed with her perception and made the machines in her pretty little mind of fire and edges dormant.

And while he's parsing all that, the sticky stain inside pulses and wants to consume, to tilt her into a place where she can't find a way out into the light. It's strange, she wants him, wants to touch him, she's not physically afraid of him, but she's afraid of all the things that got left behind and stuck to confuse her, and therefore him by extension. It's not a reality she wants to confront, this fear of him. It poisons her with echoes of his voice and image from the Dream, and she's looking away so hard, so stubbornly, both of those powerful, conflicting emotions have her at standstill.

Lilith has things she doesn't want to feel as real, but she can't help but feel them anyway. It's a Catch-22 problem loop that no doubt is accounting for how she's acting on the outside. She's influenced by that dark stain too, which makes it worse. Is this what they meant when they told Byron that he gave her to them? That they were able to leave a mark on her via his actions that might tip her toward her own constructed dark feelings and thoughts to detriment over time? Is that how they get in people and change them, make them part of the Dark?

With the difficulty of keeping himself both in the here and now as well as where his mind drifts off to during a reading, or for this purpose, interacting with her mind, Byron is drawn into a near trance. He's poking around and exploring everything that she allows him to explore, so when he feels her arms suddenly move around him in the physical realm, it distracts him enough that his presence weakens in the caverns of his mind, flickering as he returns the embrace and focuses his attention to her by staring down into her face with such doting eyes. The hold around her body tightens.

And he's back, making sure to drift back and forth in the case that she does something that needs his attention or asks for something out of the blue. <I hope that you don't mind that I'm here.> He finally says mentally, reaching out to her. There's something biting about his tone, sounding very much like a defensive, wary man rather than the charisma that he throws around normally. <I want to help you, Lily. And I didn't know any other way.> In his mind, he could try and get her to talk and open up by soothing her in anyway that he knew how, and even after this, he probably would still follow those thoughts. However, this connection is allowing him to gain some much needed insight into what might be wrong, so even as he speaks via his mind, she can sense his eyes scanning though this dark factory of hers, taking sudden note of the grime coating her gears.

He's unsure on whether she would be able to communicate with him this way, for he never knew her to be a Reader like himself, so he had doubts. But with all the various people juggling multiple skill sets, one can never know. <If you can answer me, I'd appreciate it. Even if you just respond to me by talking normally.> He then makes sure to add <You don't have to if you don't feel like it, of course. Don't feel pressured by my presence here.>

He would try to soothe her mind now, but the sticky substance draws his attention. At first, he's not sure on whether that's just a part of Lilith's mind, so he'll reach out to touch it mentally, tap into it as a test to see how it reacts.

It's hers. It's Lilith's stain, where all her worries and insecurities and hurts and fears are pushed down to occasionally taint her reactions, thoughts, or feelings. But with Byron so intimately connected to her mind, knowing what happened to her, to both of them, how it happened, what might be influencing her coping mechanisms and twisting her realities still...

He feels their touch on it like an accelerant. They took what was already inside her and spread it, grew it, gave it power. She's normally catching the leaks, but she can't right now because there's nowhere to put the overflow. Instead it moves around instead of being contained, slow spreading into sweet pockets where she keeps the good things to draw on as comforts and supports. It eats the gears of her logic, strips them down, keeps them from churning rational thought. It expanded too quickly while she was vulnerable, and when she died, it's what she fell into.

It's incredibly clever, as far as mind poison goes, because it's not a foreign entity that can be forced out or attacked and removed. It's her own darkness, twisted to start breaking down the warm and light parts. And when they're dead, it promises voids and shadows in return. No wonder she's being so stubborn and locking herself down. Once she starts to really work through some of these tainted things that happened, it will spread if there's not something countering to help contain and diminish it back to manageable levels.

Fucking dicks. They made her infect herself, more or less, using the Dream to attack and feed with pinpoint accuracy on everything she holds dear. Both Byron and Lilith were attacked with the immediate game board, then the pieces were reset for the long game of suffering until it's time to break. But what to do about that? They can operate like normal, try to put this behind them and move on quickly, but he's seen now that's not how it will play out, that it will be a battle to contain the festering once she's acknowledging all the dark thoughts, confusions, and fears. What can he give her now that she will let in, believe, and trust? How can he counter the dark spread and motivate her to start fighting it?

He feels what was once rock solid security that came from him, something formed over so many years and solidified by their recent closeness and shared trials. It's cracked and unsteady, something sacred to her is damaged. How do you repair that?

Lilith doesn't know it, really, she can't tell what her mind looks like to Byron, what it feels like, it's not what she's thinking of anyway. She hears his mental voice as a prompt and it frustrates her because she wants to answer, but she's at a loss. Her arms tighten in the squeeze and abruptly she buries her face in his shoulder while clinging and trying to force herself to say something, anything at all. She gets two rawly whispered things out, her sore throat and the lost, frustrated tone certainly painting that voice with painful vestiges despite how quiet the words come.

"... I don't know what to say." She pauses, "Show me something real."

When Byron senses that this sticky black stuff isn't an outside contaminate from the Veil, he'll continue poking and prodding mentally at it where it's oozing down the side of one of those slowly grinding gears. He's checking for a reaction of sorts, whether it will recoil from him or continue to slowly grow until it pollutes her mind completely.

During the course of his observations, he'll return to the physical world in mind as well, ensuring that Lilith was well tended to even if his consciousness had ventured elsewhere for a time. He can sense how much of a hindrance this slime is, understanding that this was Lilith's own darkness. For Byron, there was no holding his internal darkness back. His mind is completely filled with shadow, the darkness that hides the person that he is and to conceal every dark thought he's ever had, every bad memory and every terrible thing that he'd done in his life. Whatever this was, was different from his own. It was something that she was trying to hold back, but he's not even sure where it started from.

If her mind was semi-dormant the way Isabella's was, though protected from the Dragon, he may have poked around at some of those locked doors. That's how you manipulate people. Find their weaknesses and secrets and use them against the person. This is the reason why he doesn't allow anyone into /his/ mind. But here, he's being polite. She's aware of his presence, so he's very careful in what he does.

It's hearing her voice in the hospital that makes the link they have fade briefly, so that he can focus on what she's actually saying.

Show me something real

There are so many things that he could show her right now. He knows what's real. They lived it together. His own mind drifting off, conjuring up memories from the past, he curates what he can remember so vividly

Initially, when Byron prods the sticky darkness of tainted emotion ready in wait to sweep through things like a plague or slow spreading infection, it does recoil, like his presence is some kind of repellant. But then it melts in different directions, instead, branching off in two directions instead of the one. When that happens, immediately, he feels Lilith start to worry, like he's a trigger right now too with her uncertain what's real-- she feels the pang and echo of his words in the Dream, why did he ever choose her, she feels smaller, she feels shame and self-loathing that he's having to even deal with her like this, so lost in pieces with him trying to figure out how she's supposed to fit back together right.

But he's being careful too, and when the memory images start to flood her mind with vividness, she's only briefly caught offguard by the sheer vividness of them in her own mind, spun from his own perception. In theory, he could show her a lot and make her think it's real, and her paranoia tells her that with flash, another stab from the subconscious that's spurred by unwitting fear. Then she notices small things that worm in. The tiny things, the details that she has in her own memories to match, the way things run the same, but at the same time in parallel from his side of the looking glass. Gradually, she's distracted, he can feel the fascination, the captivation of seeing what she remembers with new colors to compliment her own images of those times.

Something inside her shifts. The weight doesn't come off, she doesn't flare to life and natural animation again on an inner or outer level. But suddenly he's aware she's intensely curious about them being connected like this where she was pretty passive about it prior, it's affected her to see things in such ways. Lilith can't help but wonder how things work when piqued right, it's always been like that, sometimes to annoying levels. It's a good sign, and so is the warmth that melts away the chill of any dark worry spreading from that inner darkness. It stops leaking and spreading and lies dormant again, waiting for the security blanket of memories to slip and fade.

Lilith also seems more oriented, despite the way she's still holding close and fast to Byron through all that with her face at press against his shoulder. After she's hit with the wash of poignant memories, there's a gradual change to the way she holds onto him-- her tension eases out, she slides one arm lower on his back while her other arm comes to loop his neck and shoulders, more natural positioning for a hug instead of a fast and tight cling of helpless silence. Then she turns her face to exhale a very long, shaky breath into the side of his neck, lips at accidental brushing while she murmurs another few whispery words, "... am I worth all this pain? Do you regret choosing me?"

Obviously, once Byron notices that his poking may be making things worse but splitting up the poisonous goo, he withdraws from doing anymore possible damage. The sudden burden of worrisome emotions coming from Lilith was the deciding factor when he decided to pull back.

<It's alright. It's just me.> He offers up in reassurance, knowing just how confusing it must be for her to have him inside of her mind in this way. Though she'd let others in before, so this isn't completely new for her.

All of this, this connection, was difficult for Byron as well. It felt uncomfortable for him. Like there was a need to hurry back home and retract into his own mind to make sure that he turned the stove off. Or in this case, to make sure that all of his dark thoughts and secrets were securely locked behind his mental security system. He was filled with that much paranoia and it didn't help that that paranoia came through in his mental presence, something that would feel dark and almost threatening to most minds. It's not very different from the man she had seen in their Dream.

He had to be here though. He needed to check. And it's a good thing that Byron did, because once he senses the poison grow cold and stop its spread, it brings him some semblance of relief. Even with her in his arms, he continues to monitor the interior of her mind. Now, he'll just have to figure out how to get rid of all of that poison once and for all.

Feeling her change of her embrace, his own arms tighten around her. If it were up to him, he would've cut their mental connection off immediately after what he'd accomplished today. But he keeps it open for the time being, sensing the curiosity that lights up within her own head space. "I should be asking you that question, Lilith." He knows that he killed her, even if it's difficult for him to come out and say. "But no. I don't regret a damn thing." Scooping her closer within his arms, one of his hands pets at her hair before running fingers through them in comforting strokes. She can feel his chin pressed gently into her crown, just as he murmurs, "I hope... I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me."

Lilith is admittedly not comforted by the presence of Byron in her mind, not in the way she might have expected it to work, the mere idea of them meshed isn't the same kind of intimacy she imagined. She knows it's not like his hug. She feels the dark wariness of it, maybe even all the closed doors another mentalist could have access to, complete with harsh locks to bust through. But he's too familiar for it to be completely foreign, it's not setting her off more than she's already set off, and her paranoias that came from the similarities between this and the man who killed her were fanned away when he was able to show her such poignant memories with the emotions intact. It still feels like Byron, he hates having his mind open to someone for things like this, she's picked up on that much in the past, so it must be a big deal that he's even doing it.

Mostly, though, she's justifying, because that pedestal is cracked and damaged, yes. But he's still on it, for now, and people can't help what's made marks on them. They've had some major dysfunctions and it's bad enough she's being difficult right now, he's coping too, who knows what it made him feel and what remains of it. That part actually kind of scares her once her mind starts to move a little and actually think of these things. With them still connected, he can feel the psychic echo of her stomach twisting dread when she has a helpless vision of his face filled with rage and vengeance as one of the last things she sees.

It was her fault he killed her and she doesn't even know why. But she still feels residually at fault in a way she can't explain. It seems he really made her feel like she had it coming in a way that hasn't faded or logically processed for her yet, so it's sticking as just that... her fault. If there's blame to assign that he feels inside her, that's where it goes, and it's not a nice feeling. Maybe she's killed him in her dreams a thousand times, but it was never really him until... it was her time to pay. It's unhealthy, the darkness in her shifts and stills again like a triumphant, subtle taunt.

"... you were so mad at me. I felt you relish it when I died. I know it was Them driving you. But..."

But. But. But. Something isn't settling right with that fear of him inside her and maybe that's where it comes from. The part that doesn't blame him, but...

She shuts down again and refuses to go on. Might explain why she voiced her question prior, though, thinking he secretly resents her, because yes, the Dream twisted his words, perhaps, but she FELT the rage and punishment and resentment come from him. It's hard to process. He can feel her clicking gears, trying to force a reset to put her mind elsewhere, anywhere, nowhere at all, remembering he's there, trying to hide the fact that she's wounded and confused as to why she can't yet justify it away like she does. They were being screwed with, horribly, it's not his fault, but she still feels punished, the way his mind feels probably isn't helping her explain it away.

"I don't blame you. There's nothing to forgive."

Lilith's face is turned back to muffle into Byron's shoulder when she says it, and she's quiet again, once more at a loss.

Byron has a mind to fill Lilith was soothing, happy emotions. But he knows that none of it would be real and that it not only wouldn't be fair to Lilith, but it's not what she would've wanted. So he refrains from doing so and simply cradles her in his arms, the pair of them standing beside her hospital bed. That gut twisting sense of guilt that he gets from her, while he may not completely understand the whole reason behind it, he can only assume that it has to do with him. More than likely, guilty that whatever happened in their shared Dream, he felt that he needed to put her down.

The shiver and shift of darkness is indeed like a taunt to him and within her mind, she may be able to feel the narrowed eyes of the creature within the darkness glaring at the bits of mental miasma as is spreads out briefly over the interior of Lilith's mind. The urge to induce this sense of joy and elation returns once more. He could do. And now he feels like he should do it.

Then she brings something up that he'd never really touched upon since the Dream and it's at that time that she will feel the connection die away completely. The anger he felt towards her is something that he'd been unable to forget. Probably because it was real anger, despite the dark forces that spurred him on.

"They twist our perception of everything. Drove us to fight one another. Made you afraid of me." Byron is quick to remind, remembering how she'd slipped away even before he was shown any of those false treacheries. "They just kept filling my head with rage inducing thoughts. Every word exchanged between the both of us just kept amplifying my anger." That much was true. "There was just something truly twisted about it all, but I'm not going to let them win, Lilith." He also doesn't want to bring up the fact that he believes that she is broken at the moment, nor will he mention the spread of darkness that he'd witnessed. Instead, he continues to speak quietly, burying his face into her hair once more, "Once you feel that you're ready to come home, we'll have that Valentine's dinner. They can't take that away from us. If we let them, They win."

They win.

Lilith doesn't like that. Something sparks in her, but Byron has withdrawn his mind by then, easing the wariness that started to creep up when his own mind's demeanor started to change for a reason she can't see. He feels her body stiffen, though, with the very idea of it after she's finished listening to him in silence. The idea of the Valentine's dinner doesn't fill her with hope or good, warm ideas that it will make everything better, if anything, she's paranoid they'll be interrupted in another horrible way while they're vulnerable inside. But she doesn't disagree, instead she gradually draws back to really look up at Byron instead of muffling and hiding her face in his nooks and clothing.

Her brows are knit and she studies his face like she's trying to either memorize it or remember it the way it's supposed to be while her mental imagery of him can't help but be influenced and all twisted up with residual unease. He was her sanctuary, it was so simple and effortless, now it's... she can't do this. It leads bad places so she refuses. She draws in an audible breath of air through her nose and swallows thickly, looking aside with a few fast blinks to bat back tears, instead of looking at him.

They win.

She's still pretty numb, as a tactic. But there's another spark as she starts to bubble up with emotion and tries to understand what she feels for a few passing heartbeats. And even though she doesn't want to face it, and largely doesn't, she's able to do something else. She makes a decision and when her voice comes this time, it's not a whisper, it's quiet and solid, if still strained and raw from her abused throat being in the state it's in, arms starting to drop from him with a soft, bothered and rasp-tinged sigh while he breathes in her hair. It gives her goosebumps, his breath tickling there, she has to stop and decipher if it's the good kind or the bad kind, which is a reaction that desperately depresses her once she realizes it.

"... I'm ready. I hate this place. I'll get dressed."

Obviously, Valentine's Dinner wouldn't be the same. And rather than have her dress back up in the outfit he'd attacked her in, Byron brought a few sets of fresh clothes for her. He'd chosen a sweater and a blouse to go with a couple of pairs of skirts for her to choose from., having chosen articles of clothing comfortable enough to not aggravate her wounds and still stylish. He wanted her to feel good in what she changed into. These he sets out for her in a duffel bag.

Even as he packs up his things, gathering up his laptop and slipping on his heavy coat, his mind is thinking ahead already on how to fix Lilith. Watching as she changed, waiting to offer a hand if necessary, while the doctor had voiced their desire for her to remain there for a few more days, from what Byron could tell from her charts, what she needed was rest, if anything. He could help change her bandages and apply any ointment if need be. She would feel much more comfortable back at home, in either her own bed or his. He made sure to contact her employees, since the store was still up and running. Something which he made sure of. Then there was Smog. They'd pick the cat up before returning back to the Apartments. He had this all planned out in his mind.

But how was he going to repair the damage done to her. She was still traumatized and so filled with guilt. And he wasn't a 'One step at a time' sort of man. He needed to plan several steps. For now, he'll make sure that she was well-rested and comfortable. He'll put on her favorite programs on Netflix, listen to her favorite songs.

Once she's ready, he assists in slipping a warm coat over her. Since she's being discharged, a wheelchair is brought up for transport. Hanging the duffel bag from off the chair's handle, he leans in to plant another kiss at the top of her head when she's settled in. "I got a bottle of water for you to tide you over for the trip." He could hear the dryness within her throat. Yes, he has the evening planned as of this moment and as he pushes her along in the wheelchair, it's his turn to be the one who keeps talking, if only in the hopes of distraction and the lifting of her spirits.

Lilith may not looks like she cares all that much what Byron has brought for her to change into while rummaging through the duffle and stripping down to put on proper clothing for discharge. But she is glad that isn't the dress she was brought in wearing, or any of that lingerie that was so pretty and delicate and white, now stained with blood seeped splotches. The view when she goes to the mirror to arrange her hair and wash her face once dressed is bad enough, and she realizes that having the marks on her throat limits her considerably from trying to pretend things are normal. There's bruising that's clearly from a hand, aside from the burn sear, and she knows what people might think given the placement and the close attachment between her and Byron.

There will be no powering through and pretending everything is fine with work as a distraction, no outings or even wandering in the apartment building itself more than necessary between the parking garage, elevator, and door. Lilith isn't sure what she feels, in full, so much as she feels pieces of things before deciding they're too much. But she knows she has to protect Byron and his image, they're lucky no good samaritan and meddling nurse placed an anonymous tip to the cops before he could solidify and convince with alternate explanation, especially given his defensive arm wounds. When he drapes the coat over her, she tries to huddle in the collar to make her bandaging placement less conspicuous.

And when he gets her home, she's quiet, so quiet. But it's not the mute silence she started with, at least, she will ask for things, offer to get him things in turn while she's lying around and he's working. But mostly, she still doesn't seem to have anything to say, or doesn't know how to say any of it. She rests and recovers and stares at the television screen, though it's unclear how much of it is actually being watched. Even the damn cat seems to feel her being off kilter and sits on the table to stare at her a while with his angry brows, like he's trying to figure out what's different or generally just annoy her into feeding him while she's doing nothing. All that extra creepin' on her might even get him shooed by Byron at doting hover... or extra snacks to make him buzz off and stop stare bothering her with judgement thunderbrows.

But when she takes her medicine and it knocks her out, the cat seems to feel sorry for her too and the fitful, twitchy way she moves between spells of listless dead weight while he watches from a new perch. He jumps up and over to cuddle against her side after batting Dog out of his way. It's just a stuffed dog, but honestly, it seems to annoy him that she likes it so much and it ends up in weird places sometimes where he knocked or carried it. It's not like the cat actually likes her enough to be jealous. Yet there he is, waiting for her eyes to close so she's not conscious enough to catch him being sweet with her.

At least Byron gets rare, precious picture fodder of her with the cat and both of them asleep together as proof to show later. But she'll still say the thing is only there because it wants to suck her soul while she's vulnerable. It's nice to hear her say that, though, during downtime with a Lilith that still feels a little dead. The dry scoff at the picture and commentary means she's still there. Somewhere. Maybe she just needs time.