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“Hey”, a voice says, making you jump out of your fucking skin.
The surprise makes you almost punch him until you heard his boots scrap against the ground and his eyes came to focus.
“Is just me”, he says, showing you his hands.
You let go a breath before your body shakes of cold, anger, fear…you don’t know anymore. You only know that your body falls into the ground against the wall.
After cursing at him for scaring you, he watched you for a few seconds.
“I heard you, are you okay?”, he asks, crouching close to you, enough to give you a sense of privacy in case you get violent with him again.
“I’m fine, you just fuck-”
“I heard you crying”, he interrupts you.
“I’m fine”, you repeat, even if your voice and face betray you completely.
“Stop lyin’, ya are horrible at it”, his stupid accent makes him sound much more annoyed than he was, and you probably would have told him something rude if he hadn’t taken your face in his calloused hands.
You froze looking at his eyes. They were brown like usual, but this time they had something…something you never saw before in them.
You blink several times.
It wasn’t rare for him to touch you, if anything you were sure that that was his love language, besides talking way too much when he was excited annoyed, or angry about something.
In the beginning, it made you uncomfortable, ‘cause you weren’t a fan of touching, but when you realized that Gaz didn’t have bad intentions, you decided to let him be.
There was no harm in it, as long as you made him know the limits.
His touches then became something usual and…sometimes you thought that necessary. He was the hug that received you whenever you had separated missions, he was the fingers that relaxed your shoulders, he was the casual hand on your thigh when you sat down side to side in pubs.
It was normal for him to touch you and for someone who didn’t like to be touched, his touches were comfortable.
So why are you so surprised at him holding your face?
He surprises you further when he proceeds to use his thumbs to dry your tears.
He is warm and for a second or two you feel a sudden urge to cry, but for different reasons.
“Those people are way gone and there is no way in hell they can hurt ya”.
He knew your demons, because somehow you two always ended up talking about sad things, but contrary to you, he kept his sad things in or laughed about them.
Not like you that kept them inside and feared them as if they were actually real.
“You are safe”.
You don’t say anything. For a second or two, you aren’t capable of it.
You just stay there, watching him watching you.
But then it happens.
Is quick, barely there. You blink and he is back in his place. The only thing that betrays it is the warm feeling in your head that expands to your core and makes your heart ache but in a jolly good ol’ way.
He smiles at you, and you can’t hold it anymore. You lean ahead and he catches you in some type of hug after he leaves another kiss in the crown of your head.
“You are safe”.
He whispers and you know you are.
In the morning, while everyone is busy listening to the briefing, you feel his arm brush against you and when you look at him, he is wearing a smirk, and you will want to believe you aren’t smirking back at him.