❛ i could have been easier on you. ❜ admittance turned over, softly spun by the same bedside manner she'd developed since her FAREWELL TO ARMS. she shrugs gently and twists around in the exam room, prepping her station for sutures. concern knits her brows, a thousand questions hiding, but nothing said. what bar? how far his mouth ran before the fist hit? how many punches he got in?
lyrical sc//@frthestars ( bradley )
gloria's cool date idea: a fucking nap and you pretend like she didn't drool on you a little bit cause she's comfortable with you.
his voice scrapes at something in her chest — a familiar ache she pretends she doesn't recognize. ❛ mad? ❜ she repeats, a dry laugh hitching in her throat, it's more breath than sound.
she turns finally, slowly, deliberately. her eyes roam, as though searching for hidden pains. the split lip, the bruises blooming under his jaw, the stubborn tilt of his mouth that makes her want to shake him and kiss him in the same goddamn breath. ❛ i'm not mad but fuck — bradley... ❜ voice low and splintered at the edges.
she steps more into his space. clinical precision fades in the gentle brush of knuckles to the side of his face that made it out unscathed. ❛ you can't make me keep watching you destroy yourself. ❜
Bradley would like to be kind to himself and say this is a novel situation, blood dripping after a drink in some dusty bar. It doesn't matter how justified, the sting after, the come down, still fucking sucks.
"It's okay," he shrugs, wincing, breath whistling past swollen lips. "Not my finest hour." Still, Bradley would do this again. He knows he would.
"You mad," he dares to ask, hating that Gloria's still got her back turned. Her voice says enough, but it's her eyes that Bradley wants to see.
SC// @muutos ( price )
she came here because she knew he wouldn't flinch. john never tried to fix her. he saw her as she saw him, what war carved out of a person and didn’t look away. he knew the terrain because he’d seen the worst of her and never asked her to apologize for it. that had always been the unspoken deal between them: mutual recognition without pity. she could breathe in front of him, even when it hurt.
especially when it hurt.
gloria could feel the pulse in her jaw, the clench of muscle that hadn’t quite relaxed in days. maybe weeks but she wasn’t sure anymore. everything felt…off. like her skin didn’t quite fit right, like her body was still bracing for impact even when the threat was gone. attempting to be something normal, to press healing into the edges of so much death she couldn't scrub off her hands. that’s what no one ever told you about coming home — you never really came back. not whole at least. like being dropped into a quieter war where no one was wearing a uniform and everything demanded something she didn't know how to give anymore.
she glanced at him then, really looked, and something caught in her throat. her hand curls around the whisky glass, all of her frame leaning towards him. it was more than memory, more than want, so much deeper than anything she could translate into any language. nights in the field where she'd crawled beside him and shared a drink in the darkness because sleep meant silence and silence was where the screams lived. nights where she'd pressed her forehead to his shoulder and let herself believe, just for an hour, that she was still human.
but she also came here because he needed her, too, and it would be a fine frozen day in hell before she ever said no to him. ❛ i had my shifts covered for the next week and a half. ❜ and there it is, a mere glimpse of a devotion that doesn't know how to let go. ❛ you have me on this, john.❜ then comes the reach of a hand, gentle and sure of itself as it slips into his. ❛ but if you brood about how bad you feel bringing me back into it, i might take it back. ❜
ADRIA ARJONA as Bix Caleen ANDOR | S02E03 “Harvest”
❛ there ain’t language for the things i’ve seen. ❜
[ needy ] sender pulls receiver into their lap, desperate and breathless, kissing them like it’s not enough // @pittmade
she'd uttered his name, light brushing over his form in feathery strokes. her limbs followed, wrapped in 8a8179HIS SCENT, his shirt, any part of him she could press to her skin. all-encompassing as the arm that reaches out to ensnare the willing. gloria lands in his lap with a soft exhale, the worry of her brow and part of her lips silenced by the heat of his embrace. her palms found his shoulders, pressing gently on the knots of tension he carried like every burden of duty without complaint. his mouth on hers is not careful. it’s not patient. it’s frantic. a hunger she is fluent in. one with no earthly comparison or poetic scripture because it was only meant to exist between them. the prettiest stranger she'd thought of in passing over years of carnage and heartache made her own. all the suffering and war beneath her palm, and he was life breathed anew.
her hands are buried in his hair, dragging him closer like she can crawl inside him if she clings hard enough. always close, closer still and begging for more because it's still never enough. gloria can feel the bloom of sweet bruises beneath the imprint of his fingertips. handfuls and mania, trying to decipher where to touch and craving all at once. she understands the same instinct that hums almost violently beneath her flesh. her ribcage, cracked open to a heart and soul that finds purpose with the one who makes it all whole.
there is nothing subtle in how they dance. all fire, all intensity carried through the working of lips and tongue— AND TEETH. a dizziness that crowds every thought, she has no use for anything outside of him. every molecule, every drop of blood in her veins, screamed — ❛ jack. ❜ caught between a shattered breath and the frenzied serpentine roll of her hips. forehead pressed to his, her lips catching his in short bursts of unyielding devotion. entwined soul reaching out by the way she searches his gaze for any turmoil she was prepared to chase from his psyche. ❛ give it all to me, i'm here. let me take it. ❜
she finds silence after a non-committal hum. unreactive and broken into far worse over far less because at least he wasn't swinging fists over care. antiseptic soaking into broken flesh, the scent of it filled the air; sharp, clean, trying too hard to cover the deeper wounds underneath. like it always did. ❛ in the job description to make at least a bit of fuss. ❜ gloria doesn't offer a forced line of reassurance to coddle irritation or pride; she grasps the local syringe instead and warns. ❛ you'll feel a pinch and some burning. ❜
no softness, no special kindness. just the flat, practiced efficiency of someone who had seen too many men tear themselves apart trying to prove they didn’t feel anything. no time was wasted, of course. needle unlodged from muscle and bone, discarded with a twitch of her jaw. ❛ depends on a few things because if you caught someone's tooth, you'll need more than just a couple stitches. ❜ pattern of movement like the most practiced dance, no hesitation, no inadequacies. she'd learned the moment she exchanged one war zone for another; overseas or cityscape, there was no room for mistakes or squandered seconds.
❛ nothing bubbled up, so you're in the clear. still need stitches. ❜ she paused. standing to snap off an old pair of gloves for anew. ❛ assuming you want dissolving stitches, save you another trip and time wasted. ❜
he held no ill-will against her personally, it was the vulnerability of being exposed that made his jaw clench & his skin crawl. even with a quiet voice, he felt a tingle in his spine. a reminder that he couldn’t do this on his own. sighing through his nose, calloway raised his hand & grimaced at the movement, but it was more at the sight of the angry skin that was flushed with shades of pink & red.
his eyebrows twisted as he pinched his lips into a thin line. “ it ain’t that bad. no reason to make a damn fuss, y’know. ”
it had been his fault. calloway conveniently left that piece of information out when he came to get things checked over. but why would he admit that he lost control over his temper? the station knew he had a short fuse & it often got shorter when he was put in a room with people who pushed his buttons. if anyone was to blame, it was the suspect who went too far, but as captain jones reminded him, calloway should have been in more control. it was the same old song & dance only this time, he not only injured a suspect, he also injured himself.
“ this isn’t gonna take long, is it? ” he asked as his jaw tightened as the lights overhead buzzed in his ears making him shift in his seat.
FUCK IT. dialogue starter call but it's just rosa diaz and captain holt quotes.