To Comfort You
Fandom: Eve
Rating: K+
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Pairing: Implied Eve/Will
Word count: 1050
Summary: [Based on a Tumblr prompt] Will has a nightmare and Eve, despite her lack of knowledge and confusion at humans, does her best to comfort him. Implied Eve/Will ONESHOT.
AN: Wow. A lot of my Eve fics are about sleeping and cuddling. Oh, well. If people get bored of them, give me a virtual whack on the back of the head and I'll try to write something different.
I was spurred by my over-tiredness to write this oneshot. Basically, when I get really overtired I have really weird, creepy nightmares so I decided to re-watch the latest Eve episode at six in the morning and be over-analytical about everything. Headcannons galore! :D
DISCLAIMER. I do not own Eve. I wish I did.
Prompt: Imagine Person A holding and comforting Person B who just suffered from a terrible nightmare.
Nightmares were not uncommon things among humans. Everybody knew that.
Will dragged a hand across his eyes, scrubbing the moisture away. He'd been dreaming about his mother again, the same as he had been since he was younger. Every time it caught him off guard, and every time it left him a sobbing wreck when he woke up. Nick had given up coming to see what was wrong after a while. The answer had always been the same. He hadn't had the dream for a while, though. Will briefly wondered, amidst his sniffling, what had sparked it off again after so long. Maybe talking to Eve about it the day of the football match had subconsciously brought it up again?
He stopped sniffling suddenly at the squeak of someone treading across the rickety landing outside his room. There was the soft sound of his bedroom door creaking as it swung open, followed by the soft padding of footsteps across the floorboards, coming closer, before the mattress dipped next to him as someone else's weight was added. He shifted onto his side, expecting to see his dad, there to ask what was wrong after all, but instead he was met with baby blue eyes surrounded by a curtain of blonde hair.
"Eve?" He squinted at her in the dark of the room. "What are you doing in my room?"
"You were crying," she replied. "I heard you. Humans cry when something is wrong." Concern was scattered across her face. "What is wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Voice check indicates that this statement isn't true."
He dragged a hand across his eyes again, trying to hide the evidence. "Just a nightmare. Don't worry about it."
"Humans often have nightmares," Eve stated matter-of-factly.
"Yeah. Exactly. Nothing to worry about."
"But you're sad."
"I'm not sad."
"You were crying."
"Well, I'm not now." The words came out sharper than he intended them to. He settled on his back with a sigh, arms folded, staring up at the ceiling at the fluorescent stars he had stuck there when he was seven. Eve was quiet for a moment.
"You're still upset," she said suddenly.
"I'm not upset."
She mimicked his position, unconvinced by his words. "When human children have nightmares, parents stay with them until they are asleep again."
He turned his head to look at her. "Is this you trying to call me a child?"
"I do not understand why this form of comfort stops when the child gets to a certain age. It isn't like nightmares ever stop. Even adults need comfort too."
"People my age are supposed to deal with it by themselves."
"That hardly seems fair."
"Life isn't fair sometimes."
"I'm starting to learn that this is so." Her eyes strayed back to the ceiling. "I do not understand it, but I am starting to learn it."
Will gave a quiet snort. "Welcome to human life."
"Did your father ever comfort you after nightmares?"
"Well, when I was really little, yeah, of course he did."
"What are your nightmares about?"
"It's different for everyone. Mine are about lots of things. Sometimes they're about films I shouldn't have seen, or things I hear about, or people I see."
"Your mom?" She asked with knowing eyes.
"I...Yeah." Try as he might, he couldn't quite keep the sadness out of his voice or quite swallow against the sudden lump in his throat at the thought of his nightmare. He thought Eve might pick up on it, say something about it, but she didn't. Instead, she stretched out her arms and wrapped them around him - not exactly what he was expecting, to say the least.
"Uh...what are you doing?"
"Comforting you," she replied simply, resting her head on his shoulder. "To stop you crying again." She thought for a moment. "I could sing lullabies if you would like -"
"No, no, no lullabies," Will cut her off quickly.
"But my research indicated that parents sing to children in order to keep the bad dreams away."
"I don't need lullabies." He fought off a yawn. All this early-morning talking was taking its toll on him. Eve must have noticed, because she didn't protest, and the two of them descended into companionable silence.
Before Will knew it, he was awoken again by the sound of his alarm clock chirping on the table next to him. He reached over to turn it off, only to find that he couldn't roll over properly. Once he had silenced the noise, he glanced over to his side. Eve was still next to him on top of the blankets, head against his shoulder, arms linked tightly around him; at some point during the night, one of his arms had curled around her and he'd shifted onto his side again, facing her, face burrowed against the crown of her head, almost like a koala family who cling together for safety - the same way Eve and Will clung to each other, be that for security, for friendship, for comfort or for something else.
He nudged her shoulder. "Eve?"
Her eyes snapped open. "Yes?"
"Were you awake all this time?"
"Of course. You know I do not sleep. I was merely on power save." She sat up, a sudden smile on her face. "You're not upset anymore. Did my comforting work?"
He grinned back at her. "Yeah. It did, actually. Thank you." His face became serious. "You'd better go downstairs before my dad finds you in here." Will certainly didn't want to face that awkward conversation. Eve may have a robot girl, but she was still essentially a girl who was essentially sitting in his bed after being there most of the night - with him. He was pretty sure that his father wouldn't see the funny side in it all, despite the innocent context of the situation.
Eve looked confused at his words. "Why is that?"
Oh, boy. "I'll explain later." He strained to hear if Nick had risen for the day, but he couldn't hear anything, to his relief. "Let me have a shower first." Satisfied with this, Eve nodded, and silently slipped out of the room. When he was sure she was out of earshot, he let out a heavy sigh and gripped his head in his hands.
This was the worst crush ever.
Sorry for the lame-ish ending. But, poor Will. He's got it bad. I came to the conclusion, during my early morning analysis, that he's got a pretty big crush on her, and also that Nick suspects it too, suspects it with certainty - When Eve is upset and Will tries to reassure her, Nick kind of looks away at the floor, which makes me think that he's certainly picked up on his son's crushing vibe towards Eve, hence the reason why he suddenly calmed down about Will taking Eve to the party in the first place. Anyway, that was my interpretation at six in the morning. I hope you all enjoyed this.