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Travis hated having days like this.
It’d been three months.
Three months since they blew Atchison up with a nuke.
Three months since they watched people they knew and people they didn’t get taken over by an infection that piloted their bodies until they eventually fucking exploded, spreading that infection.
Three months since their perception of the world shifted.
He should be over it after three months.
Some days he was. Over it, that was. Some days he was completely and utterly fine. He could go to work on a shift that Naomi didn’t have with him, and spend the entire eight to twelve hour night perfectly fine, reading his book, listening to his tapes. Doing the normal things normal people with normal backstories did.
And then some days, like today, he just… couldn’t do that.
It wasn’t his shift that night. They’d finally gotten mentally recovered enough to be separated for more than a few minutes at a time, and they both needed the extra money. They’d been picking up extra shifts on top of their designated couples shifts (as their manager liked to call them), which almost always meant covering for one single person.
So, Naomi was working that night. He was not. Sarah was sleeping soundly in her room– like the dead because the only thing short of a hurricane that could wake that little monster up was the sunrise– entirely unaware of his situation.
His situation being that he was kinda losing his mind. He was posted up in the living room, because their bedroom was a mess and the pile of clothes by their closet looked too much like a person in the dark. By the time he’d gotten the courage to turn the light on, the circumstances were making his skin crawl and he’d needed to relocate.
He couldn’t tell you if the living room was better or worse. It was a bigger space, but the light had already been on when he got out there, and now the TV was playing through some random show he’d thrown on to fill the silence.
Travis just felt off. Like something was gonna go wrong any second. It had him biting his nails and bouncing his knees, trying to convince himself there wasn’t something hiding around the corner of the hallway. He knew there was nothing going on, he knew everything had passed and he was perfectly fine.
He knew that. If only his brain would get with the damn program.
It’d been five hours. Five hours into Naomi’s only six hour shift. He’d been on edge when she left, and it’d only gotten worse and worse until he’d bitten down most of his nails. It was a nasty habit he’d had since he was a kid, one that had repeatedly gotten worse, then better, then worse again.
Naturally, the stressful situation of a literal zombie almost-apocalypse resulted in it rearing its head again. He’d been biting his nails again ever since, but it’s not gotten too bad. A couple specks of blood here and there, the near constant feeling of too-short nails making his fingers hurt, it was all stuff he’d learned to live with a long time ago.
He eyed the dark hallway like it was a gaping mouth of death. His thumb was flaring with pinpricks of pain, but he was frozen, waiting for something to shape itself from the shadow and run at him. No matter how stupid that sounded.
He couldn’t tell you how long he sat there, staring. All he knew is that he snapped out of it when he felt something wet trailing down his wrist. He’d jerked his nail away from his mouth, finally noticing how strong the taste of iron had gotten.
Blood dripped down the side of his hand, his nail a mess of damaged skin. He made a face, fumbling for a tissue on the coffee table. Fuck, he was a moron. He needed to get a handle on this habit, what kinda guy mutilated his own fingers over a dark hallway?
Travis hissed as the tissue made contact, fully aware of the pain now. He dabbed away the blood and stared at the injury left behind. Shit, that was bad. He totally needed to bandage it, but…
He eyed the hallway.
It was fine. There was nothing there. He took a breath, and stood. There was a baseball bat by the door– a new feature in the apartment, since neither he nor Naomi were handling things very well and having some sort of weapon made them feel better, no matter how ridiculous it was– that he didn’t hesitate to grab.
There was nothing in the hall. He flicked the light on, and slumped with relief despite the throbbing in his hand. The bathroom was much the same story; completely empty of anything threatening to kill him, only slightly less daunting thanks to the nightlight over the sink.
This was a situation where he was relieved their paranoia had resulted in them getting a fully stocked first aid kit, featuring exactly what he needed: gauze and paper tape. He fumbled with the sealed packaging, wincing at the sight of his blood wiping off on the plastic.
Wrapping your fingers was awkward. Actually, wrapping your arms or hands in any way was awkward, since you only had one hand to work with and couldn’t get the fabric tight enough to keep it from sliding off without a bunch of contorting and frustration.
The pain from wiping each nail down with an alcohol wipe wasn’t anything he was unfamiliar with. He’d cleaned and patched wounds so many times in his life, or had them patched for him when he was too young to fully understand how to do it himself yet.
He wrapped his thumb three times, just in case, and slapped a piece of tape at the seam, along the top, and near the bottom to keep it from slipping off. Then he eyed the remaining injuries, most of the blood was from his cuticles, and really didn’t need wrapping. That’d just be overkill, right?
He let them be, wiping off the blood he got on and in the first aid kit with toilet paper and tucking it back into its spot. Naomi would be home in– he glanced at his watch– at most half an hour, and she didn’t need to know anything about this.
He dropped himself into the kitchen, and got to work making her something simple to eat. Maybe he’d eat, too. He’d been hungry for the better part of the last few hours, but couldn’t be bothered to waste food making himself something. If he was already in the kitchen making her food, though, was it really wasting?
By the time keys jingled on the other side of the door he’d made her a simple ham and cheese sandwich, and was eating his own while sitting on the counter, watching the door, “Welcome home!” he chirped, though it was around a mouthful of sandwich and really sounded more like weh’come ho’!
“Hey, Travis,” she greeted, more than used to him talking with his mouth full. She never really minded– she was dating Mike, who apparently did the same thing– though he did it because he was an asshole and Travis did it because he always forgot and let his mouth get ahead of him– not to mention she had a six year old. She was well used to it. He watched her eye all the lights he’d turned on, “Rough night?”
He hummed noncommittally, “Made you a sandwich. Ham and cheese, didn’t know if you’d be long so I thought I’d make somethin’ cold, y’know? Oh, and speakin’ of, we’re totally out of lettuce. Can we afford to get more? I think we only got it last time ‘cause it was on sale, but it makes these taste way better, let’s be honest.”
She got that fond smile she always got these days when he started rambling, joining him in the kitchen, “We’ll put it on the list and see come Friday. Is Sarah up yet?”
He shook his head, “Not yet.”
She grabbed her sandwich and hopped up on the counter beside him, taking a big bite out of it. He shuffled toward her, pressing their shoulders together.
“How was work?”
The big heaving sigh she let out was really all the answer he needed, but she told him anyway. About how annoying Erik was– the guy that unfortunately got paired with Tiffany, who seriously needed to be fired with how often she called out of shifts and made him or Naomi cover.
Travis had never personally had any problems with Erik, he was a pretty average dude who liked to try talking sports and zoned out when Travis started to talk a little too much. Except Naomi would come home from shifts with him frustrated, and would complain loudly about how much of a misogynistic asshole he was– So, Travis didn’t like him, either.
She talked until both their phones chimed at 6:45am to wake up Sarah for classes. It wasn’t until they’d helped the girl through her morning routine and dropped her off at Elementary School that Naomi finally commented on his thinly wrapped fingers.
“What happened?” she’d said, simple and to the point, holding up their entwined hands for emphasis. He made a face, “Cut yourself making breakfast?”
“No, no,” he waved her off, even though that probably would’ve been a damn good excuse he should’ve gone with, “Bit at my nails too much, y’know how it is. Didn’t realize, no biggie.”
She frowned, “You sure you’re okay? Is being separated too much?”
And, really, what did she expect him to say? Yeah, actually, I know we really only met just a few months ago, but every time you leave the house for longer than an hour I freak out! Please stay home and rely on our meagre shared shifts for income. Yeah, right. He was fine. He was handling it, and it’d get easier. So, he shrugged, “It’s fine, just had a weird dream, made my brain all–” he gestured loosely, “I dunno. It’s fine, don’t worry about me.”
He knew she wasn’t really letting it go, but she did let the conversation drop. Changed the topic to safer, unimportant matters while the two of them readied for bed. When they crawled in under the covers the same way they had for the last five weeks, she wrapped her hand around his bandaged fingers and pressed her forehead against his in silent support.