so this was supposed to be posted on the 12th of this month to celebrate Diana's b-day, but I got hit with double shifts and evening shifts and my time for writing went down the drain with them
so here ya go!
oOo
A spasm in Diana's lower abdomen awoke her from a dreamless sleep. She could literally feel her uterus shredding to bits and expelling itself from her body. It was both disgusting and fascinating. And painful. But that last one was less noticeable at the moment since it felt like she'd woken up from a car wreck where her head had hit every surface imaginable before she blacked out.
She groaned in pain, her eyes shutting and hands massaging her temples. Her uterus chose to complain with emphasis and had her curling in on herself on her sofa.
Wait, sofa? She'd received a room with a cot to sleep in, not a sofa.
The sudden realization that something wasn't right pushed the pain away as she became dreadfully aware of an unknown body at her back, clinging to her. Her heart raced, adrenaline sharpening her senses, panic rushing through her mind, as she wondered how she hadn't noticed the arm snaked around her middle before.
She forced herself to calm down; maybe she'd found her way to one of her siblings' room in her drunken stupidity. She was still too startled and hungover to have sharp recollections of the night before.
It couldn't be Alice, for the obvious reason that she'd never cuddle with her, but the breathing also didn't sound like Felix's. Her head pounded along with every heartbeat; it felt like she had a second heart up in her skull, hammering away, pushing behind her eyes, deafening her ears.
Diana was lying very still, trying to stifle her quick shallow breathing, trying to think of what to do, and desperately trying to remember what had happened last night.
The person stirred behind her, their entire body stretching, their arm tightening around her. They were waking up, fuck! Only when their body went slack, their sighed yawn fanning on her shoulder, did she recognize it as a male voice.
Diana saw red. She was about to turn around and bury her elbow in whatever body part was closest and scream in accusation, when he whispered, "Shit."
Daryl.
A vague memory of him opening her door with a knife in hand while she screamed came to her. Except, apparently, it hadn't been her door.
She shut her eyes and relished in the relief flooding through her. It was short-lived, however, soon overwhelmed by embarrassment. She didn't have enough time to think about much of anything, though.
The sudden loss of warmth on her back and stomach came as an unpleasant surprise; now that she knew it had been a friend and not any random person cuddled up to her, she hadn't half minded it. She would even have been fine with falling back to sleep like that, if only to not to have to deal with the aches she'd woken up to.
Diana felt a blanket being draped over her, too scratchy to be comfortable. Daryl pulled it up to her shoulders, then brushed her hair away from her face, his fingers getting caught in some strands. She was glad she was facing away from him, her expression would've given her away.
She mourned the loss of his presence and fine-tuned her ears to his movements about the room. His steps were light, as was to be expected of him, and his breathing was too silent for her to hear. He was almost the perfect predator himself, if not for the scraping sound of his clothes as he walked. He then stopped, dropped something heavy at the end of the sofa, sighed, and then more clothing sounds, but this time as he stood in place.
Some silent seconds after, the door handle turned and faint light flooded the room, only to disappear with another click as the door closed.
Diana looked over her shoulder, way too quickly, causing her second heart to jolt lightning behind her eyes. She lied on her back and pressed the balls of her hands to her shut eyes, hissing in pain.
How much had she had to drink? The more she tried to think, the more it hurt. She only remembered feelings, but her actual memories were locked behind smoked glass, extremely vague and faded as the night went on.
The last thing she remembered clearly was Alice putting her to sleep. In her cot. How she'd ended up in Daryl's room, sharing his sofa was a complete damn mystery to her.
From what she recalled before, she guessed she had come to him. The why and how still eluded her.
She sighed deeply and dragged her hands down her face once the headache subsided the tiniest bit. She could feel the oil buildup on her skin, she grimaced and used the collar of her shirt to rub it off.
The shirt didn't feel like hers, and it smelled different. Her own odor was mostly neutral to her nose, so it wasn't hard to distinguish that this shirt wasn't hers, simply by the fact that it smelled like something. Like Daryl, she realized, but, you know, a version of him that showered regularly. She pulled the blanket up to her nose and took a sniff. It smelled musty. So it hadn't been because of them sharing a be- sofa…
Her hands flew to her shoulders; bare. Sleeves; gone. The shirt; Daryl's.
It triggered some sort of weird third person view flashbacks. Her throwing up, Daryl helping her take her shirt off, then pulling the one she had on over her head.
…
!
!
Diana sat up like a coiled spring set free, her head weighing more than she expected, feeling like her brain had set off explosives inside her skull with the sudden movement. She cursed out loud and shut her eyes and powered through, her foggy memories much too shocking for her to give a fuck about the pain.
The rush of feelings made her chest clench and her breathing became shallow due to it. She didn't know what had overcome her last night. She remembered feeling stupid and childish when her shirt got stuck on her head, too damn drunk and useless to complete the simple task of dressing herself.
Then Daryl's warm hands had touched her on the sides and the childish thoughts all scattered from her head. As muddled as her mind had been, her body had reacted according to its delay. Her spine had become rigid, goosebumps had formed on her skin, her damn nipples had gotten hard and sensitive. And then the anticipation of pleasure set in.
Diana was a virgin to another person's touch, but that didn't mean she didn't know her own. Her body plus the alcohol in her system had taken his fingers skimming along her skin as the beginning of a ritual. A ritual she hadn't partaken in for weeks on end, all because she'd been sharing sleeping compartments with her siblings.
But she had recognized the touch as not her own, which had heightened her longing even more. She had wanted him to touch her. And she had wanted to touch him.
She didn't remember anything in detail, she had the alcohol to thank for that, but the churning she was feeling in her lower belly caused her to press her legs together and fall back onto the sofa with a muffled groan.
She waited for the sudden flash of pain in her head to pass and stared at the dark ceiling. Her hands lied restless on top of her burning belly and her feet tapped rhythmically on the armrest of the sofa. Diana bit her lip, her mind going places it shouldn't be going. She tugged on the shirt to catch its scent again. It helped her remember the sensations that accompanied it, her hand began to travel down her navel under the blanket but stopped hesitantly where it touched her fervent skin.
Was she fucking stupid? Was she still drunk, maybe? Had she seriously been considering doing that knowing full well that Daryl could be returning at any moment? And also knowing that she was full swing into shark week?
Her heart was pounding in her chest and throbbing between her legs.
Diana huffed out in frustration and covered her flushed face with both hands, trying to make herself snap out of it. All it did was help her envision him on top of her, hands caressing up her legs, fingers hooking on the hem of her leggings, kisses on the insides of her thighs.
NO!
No?
No!
Daryl was her friend, a platonic friend. A friend she'd had sex dreams about more than once, with absolutely no way of releasing the fire in her belly, and was now having waking fantasies about…
She was awful. She was defiling their friendship with her weird hormonal yearning. She was fine with her head deep under the most famous river in Egypt. She knew she had no time for crushes nor relationships that went beyond what she had now.
She had her kids to care for, had a world full of walkers out to get them. Romance or anything of the sort was the last thing she needed right now. It would only complicate her otherwise already complicated life.
And God knows Daryl would never think of her in that sense. And if there had been any chance he would, it had evaporated last night. He had probably been very creeped out by her unknowingly showing up at his door, making a fool of herself - as she could imagine -, and then vomiting on him!
What a fucking disgrace. That sobering realization took all the beauty away from her fantasies.
She had most likely seemed pathetic to him, and sad. It stung to think of him pitying her while helping her change out of her soiled clothes, probably disgusted by her.
Tears of self-pity threatened to swell in her eyes, but Diana beat them down. She seriously had no perspective! With everything that had happened in the last couple of days and she was feeling down because of this?
Fuck no!
She would stick her middle finger up and rise above it! Fuck if that's what he thought. If that helped her ground her feet on that bittersweet friendship, then she would use it. All the more reason to leave things as they were. (Not that she would ever have the courage to do anything about it otherwise, cowardly binch that she was.)
Her thoughts were interrupted by the person himself.
Daryl opened the door just a crack, enough for light to hit her right in the face, blinding her and making her head throb.
Diana hissed and turned away, covering her face, both because of the light and out of sudden abashment.
The door clicked close and she heard Daryl state, "You awake." The next time he spoke, his raspy voice was nearer, "First time hungover?"
Diana peeked at him in the darkness and made out his form as he bent down by the side table. He turned on the lamp and was bathed in golden light. She took a couple of breaths to calm herself and uncovered her face with a precarious nod.
"I'm thirsty and everything hurts," she confessed, choosing the light path before she rained her thousands of questions down on him.
He chuckled once and looked down on her in amusement. "Thought so. Sit up, I got you something." He raised the plate in his hand to her attention.
She wiggled upwards on the sofa until her head hit the armrest, and then Daryl placed the plate down on the table to help her sit up and adjust the pillow at her back. Diana kept her eyes downward and away from him. His biceps and chest so close to her face and the scent of fresh, pheromone-filled sweat in her nose made her clench her hands on her lap.
The familiar feelings made her realize how obliviously blind she'd been concerning her attraction towards him since it first began. She had always ignored the clichéd flutter of her heart and the shortness of breath, just because she didn't think Daryl to be her type.
Her head-ass crush on John Boyega made her think that if she were to feel attracted to a guy in the near future, it would be someone that resembled him. Or maybe someone like Guillermo, who was, admittedly, very, very hot. Which, in hindsight, was really shallow of her.
And Daryl was… the total opposite of them.
To be honest, she never thought she'd ever feel attracted to a white guy to this extent. Almost all the ones she knew hadn't really left the best impression on her until now, if not looks, then disappointing personality.
Daryl snapped her out of her derailed thoughts. Thoughts that should be lowest on her list of priorities at the moment. She should gain some perspective, really. He sat opposite her, beside her knees, and offered her the plate. There was a glass of water balancing on it, a pill, a fork, and something that resembled scrambled eggs.
Diana's stomach revolted at the sight of it and her face creased with nausea. She took the water and the pill, which she assumed was for her headache, and handed the plate back, sticking her tongue out with a disgusted sound. "I'm not eating that right now."
"Ya should, eggs are the best hangover cure."
"Yeah, and how much of that are actual real life eggs?" Diana retorted and swallowed the pill. She drained the water in two seconds and sighed in relief afterward. Talking made her tongue feel even more like a ball of cotton.
Daryl fell silent, face set in stone but eyes that betrayed it.
She swirled the remaining drops in the glass and upended it, waiting for them to fall into her outstretched tongue. Then, unsatisfied with the dryness that remained in her mouth, she held the glass out to Daryl and blinked sheepishly at him. "More?"
"Eat the eggs," he commanded with a nod towards the food.
Diana shrugged loosely. "Can't eat something that dry without water to wash it down."
Daryl regarded her for a few seconds, then sighed and took the glass from her with a shake of the head. He shoved the plate towards her once more and stood up, the sofa creaking with the sudden loss of weight. "Ya better have started before I come back."
She resisted the urge to throw an 'or what?' at his back as he closed the door behind him. They were used to playful banter between them, but it would sound way more provocative than that.
His absence brought a certain clarity to her mind. She picked at the clumps with the fork absentmindedly, shoved them in her mouth and swallowed them without breathing. The aftertaste wasn't that bad, but her stomach was still sensitive and the smell was pungent enough to threaten to spill her stomach contents once more.
Diana's mind went to more sensible topics; her brother and sister, were they up already? Had they slept well? How were they doing? She felt so guilty to have been there thinking only with her uterus while they were suffering on their own. It was selfish of her.
When Daryl returned, the plate lied empty on the ground, and Diana had her legs curled towards her chest, the prickly blanket around her like a mantle, swallowing her entire body. Her head felt a little better, but she still drained the water as soon as he handed it to her.
He sat at her feet with a nod of satisfaction towards the plate, then accepted the empty glass back. He put it on the ground at his feet.
"Did you see my kids?" was the first thing she asked, now soberer than ever.
Daryl nodded and leaned back on the sofa, his hands resting on his thighs. "Yeah, they eatin' breakfast."
Diana looked down, inspecting an uneven seam on the corner of the blanket, and nodded. "Good. Eating is good." It sounded like absolute drivel, but Daryl still nodded in agreement, as if it was the most sensible thing she'd said since waking up. Which was probably not a lie.
She remained silent for some time, trying to string together what she remembered and what she wanted to ask of Daryl. He seemed to notice her anticipation and lent her time.
The first and most obvious question that came to mind was, "What… what happened last night?" she voiced it quietly, almost fearful of the answer.
Daryl's eyes jumped on her face, examining her hesitant expression, then he swallowed thickly and said, "You showed up here hammered, tryna pry open the door, thinkin' this was your room,"
"I remember that part," Diana commented, cracking her knuckles under the blanket.
"I let you in. Ya almost fell on your face, then laughed like it was the funniest shit ever. Started speakin' in foreign languages at some point, 'cause I ain't understand nothing you said." The amused curl of his lips fell and his hands flexed on his legs. "Then you… ya cried. About..."
"Mom and dad," she supplemented logically, her eyes downcast. She tightened the blanket around her, hugging her legs closer to her chest. "I'm sorry for the downer. We should've been celebrating our safety… I'm- I'm sorry I ruined that for you."
Daryl's hand found her covered forearm and he squeezed for her attention. "Don't. Ya didn't ruin anythin'." Diana's sheepish gaze found his confident one, and his hand retracted. "Ya got the right to mourn. Never feel bad about that."
"The thing is, I've been crying on everybody's shoulder," Diana spat out in self-hate, triggered by his words, "Mom and dad were worth every tear, but I wanna be stronger than that. I need to be stronger than that."
"Ain't nothing sayin' you can't cry and still be strong. One don't mean the absence of the other," Daryl said in earnest. His hand rested on the sofa cushion between them as if reaching out to her but not wanting to touch her.
He was right, of course. After all, hadn't she been the one to say that she wanted to maintain her soft core? That that was the essence of her humanity? There was no contradiction between the two concepts. But she still foolishly feared others would see weakness in her sorrow.
She nodded, knowing she would have to work on that. She freed her hand from under the cover and glided her it under Daryl's, hooking their fingers together. He squeezed almost automatically and she smiled faintly at his stoic profile.
"What happened after?" she asked, resuming her former line of interrogation.
Daryl inhaled deeply as if resurfacing from deep thoughts and glanced at her. "Ya threw up on yourself and had to change." His hand slid away from her and he cleared his throat, adjusting himself on the sofa.
Diana thought it better not to comment that she also remembered that part. Some things were better unsaid. Instead, she asked, "That's why the shirt?"
"That's why the shirt," he repeated. Silence fell after that.
Fearing to fall into previous inappropriate lines of thought, Diana cleared her throat. "I think I- I better go make an appearance. You know, so the kids know I'm back to the world of the conscious and sober. If they care, ha. Did they ask about me? No, of course they didn't, how would they know you knew how I was?" She was nervous rambling. "I mean, then they would have to have like a suspicion, and I'm sure I didn't do anything to make people suspicious that you would know how I spent the night, you know?" And there was no stopping her. "I mean, after all, I guess I was pretty drunk, but I don't think I give people the impression that I'd sleep with- with anyone that crosses my path when I'm drunk, right? Although, you never know, 'cause I've never been drunk before, so it could go any which way, really. What I mean is-"
"I'mma stop you right there," Daryl interrupted her, thankfully, and grabbed her by a flailing forearm. The blanket had fallen forgotten at her sides in her ranting, her arms had joined her waterfall of words by gesturing around wildly and vaguely.
"Oh thank God," Diana whispered and deflated with a sigh.
"Get dressed, your shirt's clean and dry. Ya can come out when you're ready." Daryl stood and made towards the door, then stopped. "Ya know the way to the cafeteria still?" he teased.
"Ha ha," Diana mocked and shooed him away with a flick of her hand.
oOo
Deciding that she wanted to join the others whilst looking like a regular human being, Diana went to her room first, which, when sober, was much easier to find. She dressed in clean clothes, remarking that she'd have to do their laundry at the next opportunity, then headed to the ladies' bathroom, finding it miraculously empty.
She combed her incredibly tangled curls, looking like a lion by the end of it, then oiled and primped her mane to smooth curls before tying them in a tight ponytail. She didn't have as much care with her hair as she ought to, but the apocalypse had brought that on.
The rest of her morning routine was completed with only a slight headache throughout it. She cursed alcoholic beverages to high heaven and deep hell, then did the same with her TOM.
Out of some looting instinct, she shoved every abandoned tampon and hygiene article she found in the locker room into her nécessaire. Which then reminded her that she had been wanting to ask Dr. Jenner for stuff to replenish her med-kit.
She had to constantly remind herself that they would be staying and she could relax, but the survivor that had been born in her told her not to unpack yet. For whatever damn reason.
She entered the cafeteria feeling fresher, but brimming with paranoia.
Almost everyone was there, including Alice and Felix. She looked like she'd barely slept a wink, and Felix's eyes were somewhat swollen. The mask they'd had on last evening was slipping. Diana wished she knew how to take away their pain, however impossible the task was.
Diana wanted them to be happy again, but that would take time, and forcing it onto them would be condescending. They weren't children anymore, in every sense of the word, and they would resent her if she ignored their grief.
She would give them the time they needed to work out their feelings. But she would always stay near. She feared their response to the loss. Spoken words were nice and good, but they'd been right in the middle of shock when they'd made their promises. Who knew what could happen in the aftermath?
It was a little bit hypocritical of her; she expected them to rely on her but would not do the same, she didn't want to press happiness onto them but thought otherwise for herself.
She pushed that aside, for now, deciding to take one day at a time as to not overwhelm herself. She was only human, after all.
Diana walked toward the table, saying a quiet 'good morning' that was heard by all. Dale commented on her sobriety with an amused smile while T-Dog laughed at how hungover she looked. Diana took it all graciously with open arms, then chuckled at the dismayed groan coming from Glenn, whose hangover seemed to be ten times worse than hers.
Daryl gestured to him with his glass of orange juice – OJ, really? That was cute… - then looked at Diana pointedly. "He can't handle his liquor as gracefully as you, Ms. Daniels," he joked, which caused another bout of laughter from T-Dog and another groan from Glenn, followed by muffled mumbling.
Diana rubbed her hungover friend's back with a coo and leaned next to his ear to plant a loud kiss on its shell. She snickered with Schadenfreude when he whined and moved away, burying his head deeper in his arms.
Then she moved next in line to Alice, who was sat on the bench next to him, munching on some grain cookies, and Felix next to her, who was eating a mix of fried bacon and canned peach halves.
She squeezed herself into the space between both of them, both protesting her bothersome presence familiarly. She kissed Alice on the cheek, hugging her to herself, and the girl almost erupted in the likes of a volcano, yelling out in disgust and wiping her cheek and scooching away. Once all the insults that she didn't mean stopped and she returned moodily to her food, announcing that Diana had just ruined her day, Diana did the same thing to Felix.
He was much more mellow about it, even welcomed it. He leaned his head down so his sister could kiss his sparsely stubbled cheek and even put an arm around her when she came in for a hug. He had his days of assholery in which he could barely tolerate his sisters' presence much less put up with Diana's constant need for affection. But he was also needy, she could tell.
Diana set her elbows on the table and propped her chin on her hands with an easy smile. She wasn't alone and she wasn't useless, even if that was what her mind tried to feed her sometimes.
Lori, who sat facing her, gave her a tentative smile before cutting off a bit of her bacon and eating it. Diana couldn't read the meaning behind it, but it didn't sit right with her. Had she bore witness to her traipsing about the night before? Did she know she hadn't slept in her own room?
There was no way she knew, she tried to reason with herself. To calm down, she looked at Carl, eating his 'scrambled eggs', and leaned forward. "Did you get to go to the rec room, yesterday?" she asked excitedly, hoping to rouse a good mood and make the boy smile.
It was an easy conquest, and his baby blue eyes shone as he nodded excitedly. "Yep, there were a lot of board games, and me and Sophia played Monopoly until, like, ten."
"Wow," Diana said, feigning impressiveness, but not wanting to sound patronizing, "Did you finish the game?"
"Has anyone ever finished a game of Monopoly?" the boy countered.
Diana pointed a finger at him with a nod. "Touché, my friend."
Carl laughed that childlike laugh that warms your heart and returned to his food while Lori ran her hand over his head affectionately. The mother smiled fondly at her son and then Diana.
The subject had Dale telling a tale of how that game had been his wife Irma's favorite, and that she'd told him she had decided she wanted to marry him after they'd stayed up an entire night playing and managed to call it off with their relationship intact.
The laughter at the table made Glenn groan and drop his head on his arms once more, which caused them to laugh even harder at his sake.
By then, Alice had stood up to go to the bathroom, so Diana turned to her friend, her hand splayed between his shoulder blades, and leaned in close until her chin was resting on his shoulder. "That hangover still kicking?"
He started nodding, but stopped with a hiss of pain and spoke instead, his voice muffled, "Yeah. Thought yours would too."
Diana kissed his shoulder. "Yeah, well, looks like Daryl's right, I can handle my drink better than you," she teased. She leaned back and put her fingernails to the nape of his head, raking up and down the back of his neck, hoping it would help distract from the pain.
Glenn flinched away with a shudder and sat upright. "That tickles," he complained, his bleary eyes having a hard time focusing on her.
"That's the point."
At hearing the word 'tickles', Felix turned away from the conversation he'd been holding with a newly returned Alice in Swiss German, so no one would understand, and stretched his bare arm towards Diana, which caused Alice to protest the unfairness.
Before the verbal altercation and the pushing and shoving between the two could escalate, Diana stood from her seat and dropped a kiss on the top of Glenn's head while cradling it from above and caressing his cheeks with her thumbs. Then she sat again between her siblings to concede to their requests.
After breakfast, everyone helped clean up, and then each retreated to do whatever they wanted.
On her way out of the cafeteria, Diana heard Shane complain to Rick about Jenner not joining them that morning, and that he needed to answer their questions because otherwise, it was pointless for them to be there.
Diana left with a scowl at his words. Well, pointless or not, they were safe, Alice and Felix were safe, and that's what mattered to her right now. She also wanted answers, but they could wait, they had time.
oh boi
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