Where Every Scroll is a New Adventure
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. ❜