Just a little warning before you start, this chp is a little longer than usual, but has less editing. So srry in advance for any mistakes and if it's a little rougher on the reading.
3rd Person POV
Daryl jolted awake as a sharp pain exploded in his arm. His mind immediately racing to the assumption that something bit him and his hand flew towards the source, intending to rip it away but he stopped the moment he got hold of it.
Even in the pitch black darkness Daryl knew exactly who's wrist he grabbed. His mind struggled to catch up as he blinked, trying to see through the dark but he only got the basic outline of the woman next to him before a sound made him freeze.
It was soft and barely noticeable — he wouldn't have if it wasn't so quiet, but it sounded like a whimper.
He didn't need to listen much more carefully to hear the rapid uneven breaths beside him.
He flinched as stinging shot up his arm when her nails dug farther into his bicep. Daryl growled under his breath, pulling on her wrist to try and pry her off of him.
It wasn't easy to get her hand off, she had a death grip to end all grips on him but as soon as he hand snapped off she mumbled something that sounded eerily like "Don't let go"
He grabbed her shoulders and tried shaking her, his voice rough with sleep as he muttered, "Eve, Eve. Wake up"
He's seen her have nightmares before. Heard her scream herself awake
Without warning, Eve shot up gasping like she was being waterboarded.
Her eyes flew all over the room before they fixed on Daryl and he actually jolted, reflexively grabbing her knee when her leg almost came flying at him.
"It's me" Daryl growled but it had the opposite of the desired effect.
Eve started hyperventilating and instead of grabbing Daryl's arm, she twisted hers out — alarmingly easy — and grabbed at her chest.
Daryl's jaw sprung into pain as he clenched his teeth and all but scrambled for the lighter he knows is around here somewhere, but his frantic search stopped as soon as she stopped trying to pull her arm away.
Eve struggled to force air into her lungs and barely recognized the warm thing that she dug her nails into was flesh as her eyes shot around in the darkness.
Sweat clung all over her skin, making the dark room feel cold as a high mountain cave, yet she felt like her skeleton was boiling her from the inside.
Neither of the two noticed the confused shuffling on the other side of Eve until a sudden bright blue-ish light flicked on and a worried, confused, slightly panicking little voice spoke, "Wh— what's going?"
Carl aimed the small flashlight at the two others who were awake and
But their voices fell on deaf ears. Eve didn't register anything except the last 3 seconds of the nightmare that sent her into a panic attack the moment her eyes had snapped open and the rush of flashes that are trying to strangle her with her own throat.
"Breathe, Eve" Daryl gave up on trying to control what's happening and just grit his teeth, grasping Eve's arm back, firmly but not enough to hurt her like she is him.
The haze of sleep completely cleared from Carl's mind as he watched — confused and terrified of what's happening. His hands shaky and sweating clung to the flashlight, trying not to aim it at their faces and instead let it shine closer to their stomachs.
Daryl didn't do nothin' except move his head in front of her, "Ey ey. Look at me. You gotta breathe, Eve."
It was hard to stop her eyes from flying but Eve mustered what little willpower was still under her control and managed to force her eyes to Daryl's.
"That's righ'." Daryl made sure to keep solid eye contact with her, moving his head back into her line of sight when she moved.
"What color are my eyes?" He has no idea what possessed him to say it, but the only thing he can think to do is try to distract 'er.
It seemed to work as her eyebrow furrowed for half a second and her focus seemed to lock down for a moment.
He took advantage of the temporary confusion that appears to have had the pleasant side effect of causing a blip in the panic and said it again, "Breathe."
Daryl brought Eve's hand closer to his chest even though she's still got his forearm in her claws.
Eve struggled to do as told and Daryl could see the open pain on her face as her hand travelled from her chest to her ribs. She almost sounds like she's sniffling but it's drier, and there's no moisture in her eyes.
Carl cautiously scooted closer and Daryl warned, "Don't touch 'er."
"Is she ok?" Carl asked in a small voice, squeezing his hands so tight he can't feel his fingers. He has no idea what's happening — why she's like this. It's not like they were attacked, and she was fine earlier.
Unbeknownst to him, he isn't alone. Daryl is just as confused as to what brought this on all of a sudden. It could'a been a nightmare, it could'a been a memory, could'a been that stupid thing on the ground earlier; though he has no idea why that triggered her in the first place — Hell he's not even sure she knows what triggered this. Definitely not right this second.
Eve finally managed to get a deep breath, no matter how shaky, and a few tries later, another one.
"Grab a water bottle." Daryl instructed Carl in hush, only taking his eyes off Eve for half a second to glance at the kid.
Carl nodded and dropped the flashlight next to them as he crawled at a speed only a kid can manage without making much noise, and only just noticed that Carol's awake and sitting up too, as he crawled towards her.
She grabbed a bottle and handed it to Carl without hesitation, and the two crawled back towards Eve & Daryl.
Eve kept her eyes on Daryl's, fixated on the dark greyish blue they are in the harsh but small light reflecting off her gut right now. She followed his lead, breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth; matching her pace to his as best she could.
She tried to dislodge her talons in Daryl's arm but it only worked a little bit, so instead she focused on the warmth of Daryl's thigh against her own and just tried to concentrate on calming down.
God this sucks. These are the worst ones. The ones where she wakes up already launching full throttle into an attack. At least when she's awake she has some semblance of control when they come on. She starts coping much sooner.
With these, it's like she wakes up already halfway through at the worst part and it can take anywhere from half an hour to 4 full ones to calm down.
It has been getting easier since Daryl started helping her though. Since she's been getting outside help and doesn't have to do pull her own wherewithal about her before she can actually get to the coping part.
Carol held Carl's shoulders tight, gently rubbing his up and down his arm. She's even more confused than he is but Daryl seems to know what he's doing, he looks like he knows what's going on. But that makes her wonder, has he done this before?
Her worried eyes watched Eve, and watched Daryl manage to trade his now bleeding arm for his other hand, that Eve almost reflexively took with both of hers, squeezing until her knuckles turned white. Like if she let go he'd fall into lava; while Daryl put his hand on the backside of her shoulder and muttered something that sounded like "Yer ok. Ain't nothin' wrong."
Carol's eyebrows rose just a little. Surprised that the man normally hesitant all around when it comes to physical-contact, didn't hesitate at all to touch Eve.
She knew the two are close, but apparently they're closer than she thought.
Eve's breathing finally came back to the fringes of normal and she let her head hang a little, closing her eyes to block out everything that isn't filling and expelling her lungs, and the warm reassuring pressures on both her leg, hands, and shoulder.
Daryl glanced at the other two, noticing Carol for the first time and her grip on Carl. 'Good' he can't handle the kid and Eve at the same time. Hershal or someone else might be able to, but he can't. He ain't good at consoling. Only reason he knows how to do this much is cause he watched Hershal do it with her the first time he witnessed it and the old timer taught him, just in case; which has come in handy more times than he'd like.
His eyes caught on Carol's hand on the kid's arm and like 'monkey see monkey do' his own hand on Eve's back copied the motion, only his took on a more… circular path, in a much smaller area; not totally comfortable with the 'comforting' motion until a few seconds later when it seemed to be helping.
Eve's breaths came more like successive but controlled sighs and Carl finally swallowed and shakily asked, "Is she gonna be ok?"
"Course she is, sweetie." Carol hugged him closer to her side, rubbing his arm.
"She's gon' be just fine. Ain't that right, Sunshine?" Daryl scooted to accommodate Eve as she shuffled closer, so their shoulders aren't even a foot apart. She licked her dry lips as she swallowed, nodding and carefully let go of Daryl's hand with her right one, to give Carl a shaky thumbs up.
'Thank god it wasn't a 'no touchy' one.' Eve bit her lips already sorry for scaring Carl. If she'd had an attack that made her run, it could have woken up the entire group and would've scared the Hell out of the kid.
Now that she thinks about it though, she's surprised no one else woke up.
A creak came from the other side of the room and 3 sets of startled eyes flew to the stairs but relaxed as T-Dog stopped in his tracks, staring back at them.
Eve stopped herself from flinching when she'd heard the creak, and took a peek out of the corner of her eye but as soon as she saw it was just T-Dog, she went back to calming her rapid heartbeat.
"What's goin' on 'ere?" he made his way over, confused as all Hell. He's seen a lot of strange of scenes involving Eve in the past, but this is the first he's seriously questioned in awhile.
Carl and Carol both looked at Daryl (hey that rhymed), unable to answer if they wanted to.
"Nothin'. We're good. Right?" Daryl looked at Eve and she blew one more breath between her lips before lifting her head and looked in T's direction, and nodded.
T looked between them for a few seconds, lingering on Daryl & Eve's hands but nodded. Deciding not to push it, which Eve was grateful for.
She knows she's gonna have to explain this later. She's gonna have to explain to Carl.
He's a bright kid but she doesn't know how well he'll understand this. As far as she knows, he has no experience with someone… damaged.
That being said, he handled this rather well to be honest.
She finally loosened her grip on Daryl's hands, enough to recognize she's actually shaking and looked at Carl.
Eve's heart cracked a little. God she feels for this boy. He's been through so much so young. He's probably scared to death something gonna happen, every day. And she just added to his pile of things to worry about.
Eve sighed, giving the best little soft smile she can manage and opened her arm out to him.
Carl launched out of Carol's arms and straight into Eve's side like his life depended on it and almost immediately started crying into her shoulder.
Eve held in a hiss as his skinny little arms wrapped around her torso and balled his fists into the back of her shirt.
Eve moved her leg out of the way and positioned it on the other side of the kid so he was as close as a person can get to her, and wrapped her arm around him, gently stroking his hair the way she's seen Lori do when he's upset.
Her torso aches but she can deal because he's crying his eyes out, muffled only by how deep he's buried himself in her chest/shoulder.
Surprisingly, it's helping her more than him.
Daryl turned himself around so he sat shoulder to shoulder with Eve, letting go of her hand, but for some reason something at the back of his mind told him he shouldn't let her go yet.
He hesitated, unsure if he actually should but Eve unconsciously shifted closer the mili-second he got more a few centimeters from her and his arm took on a mind of its own, piloted by that little voice that told him to set it around her shoulders.
Eve flinched a little and he almost went to pull his arm away but she leaned into it just as quickly.
He was right. She still needs that little bit of reassurance that he's nearby. The if something goes wrong — even though she knows full well that nothing will — he's right here to cover her.
Eve almost scoffed, rolling her eyes at herself.
'All this cause of a stupid little metal bottle-opener on the asphalt.'
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