𝙿𝙴𝙽𝙰𝙽𝙲𝙴 𝙸𝙽𝙱𝙾𝚇 ;

[dadyl]

𝚃𝙴𝚇𝚃. / 𝚅𝙾𝙸𝙲𝙴. / 𝚅𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙾. / 𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽.

Comments

[minuteofangle]

No?

[ He keeps his voice soft. No edges right now. Not in the aftermath. Prior used to shake and pace after the bad nightmares. Missy got snippy and brutal. Eli and the twins would cry. Gray would reach out to touch people, initiate it, and he never would otherwise. Everyone carries it differently. But there's always an aftermath, isn't there?

There's always something that catches you.

He keeps rubbing Daryl's head. Steady, gentle pressure. He rubs his thumb along the shell of Daryl's ear and then tugs gently on the lobe. There's a pressure point there. He's always had tricks. It helps to have something to do now, in this aftermath. ]

I get them sometimes. The bad ones, I mean. They twist me up.

[dadyl]

[ For the moment, for just right then, everything is exactly how he wants it. Daryl realizes with a sudden warm, dizzying feeling that he's never felt like this before. So cared for, so cradled. So comfortable trusting someone to touch him like this. The way Gabe is caressing his ear makes Daryl sigh against his chest and something shudders in his mind and heart, something that's always craved the attention he's getting now but has never known how to ask for it.

He closes his eyes, rolls his face into the shirt he recognizes as his own to hide the fact that a rogue tear has sprung to life in one eye. ]

Got that to look forward to now, then.

[minuteofangle]

[ It's a quiet moment, this aftermath. It ought to be, Gabe thinks. Something gentle in the wake of whatever caught Daryl while he was dreaming. Something always does, in the end. You don't survive this life without enduring a few horrors - without carrying them like scars. And they both have more than their share of those.

He keeps it up, rubbing Daryl's head and holding him close. Steadying his own breathing. ]

Mhmm. That's the life, huh?

[ He smoothes his free hand down Daryl's back. ]

I got you.