Home is You ('Home Is' Book One - Daryl Dixon)

Chapter 58 - Fortress Around Your Heart (Sting)

NATE

I drifted in and out, like a cloud dancing on the breeze.

Voices, pain then darkness....over and over.

Eventually just one voice. Low and raspy yet also softly gentle. Whispering.

Arms tight around my body, holding me close to their warm broad chest. Cradling me on their lap like a baby.

Fingers stroking across an eyebrow. Touching eyelashes then a cheek, lips....to my jaw and neck then back again. Continually, yet so gently soothing.

It's lovely and I never want it to stop. This is something Mum used to do when I was little and had a bad nightmare or an anxiety attack.

Every so often, I feel a kiss. Soft as a feather. Right near that special spot on my temple. The one that makes me shiver uncontrollably.

Then the stroking starts again. For the first time in such a long while, I feel warm....happy....comforted.

And so very, very safe.

I lay there, hoping some of the cotton wool clogging my head will start to blow away. So I can wake up? Open my eyes and see who's holding me. Talking to me.

"....it was one of my favourite places when I were a kid. Quiet and peaceful. Would just lie there on my back, lookin up through the leaves. Listenin to the river."

"Never told Merle about it. Ain't never told anyone but yer. It was my  place where I could go to. Where no one could hit me....hurt me. Will find it again one day and take yer there with me."

Darkness, I'm floating on a cotton wool cloud in nothing but darkness.

Oh, it's not real after all.  This is only a dream 😞

One of the nicest dreams I've ever had though. And I just want the whispering, the stroking....the tender kisses to go on forever.

But I don't want them to hurt....the person in my dream I mean. I need more than anything to kiss them better too. Because they're also telling me things. Things that have hurt them. Made them sad, angry and so very scared.

Promised me they won't hurt anymore. Will feel happy and safe again, if I'll just....

Only a dream  😢

*

I wake up, eventually.

There's a brass band banging away inside my head. And my mouth is as dry as the bottom of a parrot's cage. But the cotton wool has disappeared....mostly.

Sadly, my dream stranger has also gone with it  😞

Can't remember much of what they said at all. Just the feeling of their awful, gut-wrenching pain? Their voice aching with such agony and shame.

And how being alone by the river always gave them some  peace. No matter how briefly.

I feel my head rising up and down. As the chest it's leaning on breathes in and out rhythmically. Material scratching under my left cheek a little. As I tilt my head up slightly and look into....

....his face.

Please. Oh, please....don't be so cruel.

Don't let this be a dream too? Or even worse, another visit from someone I've loved and lost?

When he snorted lightly in his sleep, grunted then tightened his hold around my body? I realised I'm not dreaming and he's not a ghost.

Breath hitches in my own chest and I give a silent thanks.