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David is screaming again.
It echoes through the abandoned factory, bouncing off the walls and shattering on the old equipment, made all the worse for it.
When no other sound joins the cacophony, Paul pries one eye open. Marko is squinting back at him, the risen sun weighing equally as heavily on him.
“Fine,” Paul grunts after a moment of wordless communication. Marko isn’t wrong; he did this last time, and Dwayne the time before that, and half-turned Star isn’t an option, so it probably actually is up to Paul.
It’s far less of a chore than he pretends.
The scream cuts off just as suddenly as it had started. A choked sound, and then a whimper, rise at the edge of Paul’s enhanced hearing. A jolt of adrenaline courses through Paul, giving him the strength to crawl out of bed. Christ; can’t David have his meltdowns during the night, for once?
The closer he gets to David’s preferred perch, the louder the whimpers get. It spurs Paul on, almost like the tender caress of the moon would. It’ll be a minute at most before the screaming starts again. And it’s not that Paul minds screaming per se. There is something beautiful about a throat tearing itself raw before he tears it out in turn; something intoxicating about a scream that tapers off into moans.
David’s sounds are neither.
“Hey,” Paul says as he steps into David’s space, swallowing just as uselessly. David must have slept in the rafters, but he’s a crumpled heap on the floor now, curled into himself. Just looking at him is enough to make Paul ache in turn. David is so large in undeath, all-encompassing and commanding and present. Now, he is small, looking like the boy he was when he’d been turned.
Pauls’ heart, still as it is, clenches.
“Hey,” Paul says again as he squats down next to David, carefully touching his arm. David jerks back, whimpering again. A moment later, his face twists, and Paul has a single beat to think Shit before David’s mouth opens and a high-pitched shriek emerges. The sound is pain and fear distilled into waves, hard enough that it seemingly sends David skittering backwards, and –
Okay. If David wants to play it like this…
Paul strips off his pretty leather jacket – no use risking it should David’s fangs or claws show up – and then bodily throws himself onto their leader, fitting himself to David’s front. David is trembling underneath him, shaking steel that refuses to bend to Paul for long seconds. But Paul is a drummer. Paul was a drummer before David turned him, and David is strong, but he’s also shorter than Paul, and a lot of his muscles are for show where Paul’s serve a purpose.
Even trapped in a nightmare, David is no match for Paul when he puts his mind to it.
David chokes on his scream and grows impossibly more tense before going slack all at once. If anything, this is worse. David isn’t supposed to go slack. He’s supposed to be all coiled strength and elegant threat.
Paul swallows again, still uselessly, and then rearranges David to his liking: head tucked into Paul’s neck so his nose brushes against Paul’s throat, chest to chest, with Paul’s arms wrapped as tightly around David as possible.
“I got you.” Paul squeezes David, because usually, this will make the whimpers lessen. They don’t need to breathe, but David still does like this, shaky and uneven. Like he’s being hunted. Like he’s being hurt.
Paul rests his head against the top of David’s and just holds on.
They don’t know what reduces their leader to this. David doesn’t talk about it. He never talks during it; no pleas or whispers, not even when he burrows into any of them.
And, maybe mercifully for all of them, he never seems to remember the lengths they all go to during his episodes the next time he wakes.
In the meantime, Paul holds on.