Work Text:
Gally leans against the brick wall, just outside the entrance to the Haven's humble little medical center, still sulking about the incident and taking the occasional deep breath to calm down.
He holds out his right hand in front of him and carefully flexes it, middle and ring-finger knuckles protesting the movement with a twinge of pain as he extends his fingers fully. It's sore where his fist connected with Caesar's nose bone; he'd heard a crack, and must've broken the ugly thing when he punched it. You're probably taking so long to finish up with him because you're setting it back into place.
A twisted sense of pride keeps his chest puffed out as he waits: not in the fact that he hit someone, but because he only did it once before backing away and letting one of the other builders hold Caesar back from retaliating. Another version of Gally, one from not very long ago, would've been happy to keep swinging. Character development, he supposes.
Upon seeing the blood dripping down from Caesar’s chin when they walked into your office, you'd asked, "What happened?" and when nobody answered, you looked down at Gally's red, sore knuckles, and back up at his guilty-looking face. Deducing what he'd done from the clues in front of you, you'd pointed at the door and sternly told him to, "Wait outside," while you ushered Ceasar into the checkup room.
So now he lingers near the front door like a misbehaving dog, the way you told him to, still simmering a bit as he ruminates on the altercation.
Caesar eventually walks out, a little metal splint holding his nose in place, secured by a long piece of medical tape running from cheek to cheek. He wears a mean scowl, and his eyes narrow further when he, briefly, locks eyes with Gally, who consciously decides not to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
You appear in the doorway to hold the door open with your foot for Gally to come inside, arms crossed and looking almost as angry as Caesar.
Gally walks in, hanging his head a little lower as he passes you, and you guide him into the dingy examination room that you’ve done your best to make look professional with a collection of posters labeling various organs, or warning against the dangers of recreational substances that he's never heard of.
“Sit down,” you command, and he obeys, taking a seat on the edge of the exam table. His long legs reach the floor, though just barely, so he can’t even distract himself from the tension by kicking his legs back and forth like a child while you wash your hands.
“Let me see the damage,” you sigh, gesturing at Gally’s injury, if it can even be called that. He outstretches his hand to you, and you take it gingerly in both of yours. Gally feels the heat rising to his cheeks as you carefully run your thumb across the angry red skin of his knuckles. He hopes that you don’t notice the blush on his face beginning to match his hand, and if you do, that you’ll blame it on the discomfort of the situation. “Does this hurt?” you ask, slightly outstretching his fingers.
He shakes his head.
“Tell me when it does.” You start bending each finger forward and backward to test the flexibility. Your eyes stay locked on his hand, vehemently avoiding his face. Brows slightly furrowed and jaw tensed, your face holds a look that’s fighting to stay neutral, the kind that he’s watched struggle to hold back tears, or swallow the urge to snap at someone. It’s always hard for him to tell which reaction you’re leaning toward until it happens.
Gally stares at an intimidating poster about the negative effects of smoking (smoking what, he had no clue) on the wall to avoid looking you in the eyes. It's not like you to shame him, and you still haven't, though he can feel your disappointment. Gally’s never been one to mind the quiet, but for the next minute or two, the silence is deafeningly loud, ringing in his ears as if the tension were a buzzing fly were trapped in here with the two of you.
He breaks it by asking, “Aren’t you gonna ask me what happened?”
“Do I need to?” you ask bitterly.
“Guess not,” he shrugs, willing to drop it if you are.
You sigh again, deeply. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why’d you hit him, Gal?”
“He couldn’t watch his mouth,” Gally says with a clenched jaw.
“That’s usually the reason with you, isn’t it.” It doesn’t sound like a question.
Ouch.
“Fair enough,” Gally concedes. “I bet he said I started it.”
“You did hit him first,” you remind him.
“And last.” Ceasar had swung back… and missed, twice. “Maybe I wouldn't've bothered if he'd shut up when I told him to.” Even though he feels bad, Gally is willing to debate this with you, if only because he’s seen you forgive him for worse transgressions in the past. To you, it's not so much about who he tried to fight, but the fact that he did it at all, which means there’s some wiggle room for him to justify it.
“Who broke it up?” you ask.
“Newt.” He'd gotten between them before they could make contact a second time, ready to catch the blows if he had to. “He’ll just tell you the same thing I did.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Gally takes on a defensive tone. “What, you don't believe me? That he started it?”
You roll your eyes. “I’m not stupid. I know you don’t start hitting people for no reason. But I know how you stir the pot, and I wish you wouldn’t escalate things.”
"He'll live. A broken nose never killed me."
“That's not the point,” getting more irritated by his attitude, but you still make an effort to be careful with him as you lay his arm down on his thigh. You move toward a cabinet, open it, and start moving around jars full of homemade remedies with far more variety than the medjacks ever had in the Glade.
Feeling braver in his shit-talking without you facing him directly, he sarcastically asks, “Did you kiss him better?”
You still manage to shoot a quick glare in his direction. “No. And not for his lack of asking,” you say, growing more frustrated with the task before you. “Fuck,” you mutter, looking up at the unreachable top shelf and apparently finding what you were looking for.
Gally stands up, asking, “Which one is it?”
“That one,” you tell him, pointing up at a jar holding some kind of cream with a slight green tint. Homemade, no doubt, and probably with plants sourced from your herb garden.
Even he has to get on his tip-toes to reach it; there’s no wonder you keep a step-stool in a closet down the hall. He grabs the jar, then confidently throws it upwards for a split-second to watch your eyes widen at the threat of it breaking. “You're welcome,” he says while handing it over.
You glare again, just about snatching it out of his hand and pointing at the exam table, silently demanding that he sit again.
He does so wordlessly, and you quickly wash your hands again. When you return to him with the jar in-hand, you say, “Stop messing with it.”
Gally looks down and realizes he’s been absentmindedly rubbing his injured knuckles with his other hand. He stops immediately, but huffs in protest nonetheless while you unscrew the jar and dip two fingers in.
"Why do you go out with that guy, anyway?" he asks as you pick up his hand again.
"I don't," you say, smearing the substance across his rough skin.
Gally tilts his head in confusion.
"Not anymore," you continue. “We, uh… broke up,” you tell him quietly, avoiding eye contact because your eyes start pooling with tears as you say it. None spill, but the look on your face, still trying to keep it together in front of Gally of all people, is enough to shut him up.
Ceasar had looked a little extra pissy as he passed Gally in the hallway; you must've dumped him while tending to his nose only a few minutes ago. The one that Gally broke.
"Was that.…” he starts. “Y'know… my fault?”
“Only a little,” you mumble with a shrug.
“Shit. I'm sorry I messed that up for you," he says guiltily.
“Don't be, Gal. It's on him.”
"Still. I shouldn't've let him get to me,” he insists, finally deciding that he’s not too stubborn to confess his complacency in the fight. “You seemed to like him."
“Seriously, it's fine,” you say, sounding annoyed, but not with Gally. “If anything, you did me a favor. I'm not going to date guys that pick fights with you."
“Aren't you pissed at me?”
“Of course I am. Doesn’t mean that the guy I’m seeing—I mean, was seeing—can do whatever he wants. I'm glad he didn't get away with being an asshole, and I only know he was acting like a jerk because he wouldn’t tell me what he said to get you to swing at him. Wish I could've heard about it under different circumstances, though. You're better than this.”
Gally doesn't have an answer to that, because he doesn't agree; if he's better than this, then why is he sitting here watching you start to sniffle due to his poor impulse control?
So he sits in the silence while you massage the remedy into the back of his hand until it’s nearly gone. It smells pleasant and earthy, and he looks back at the jar and notices the labeling: Aloevera mix.
He watches his skin absorb it slowly, and tries to fully feel his shame without pushing it away. You've told him before that you think he's too bottled up, even in the privacy of his own brain, and he's trying to knock the habit.
It’s hard to fully regret his behavior when that guy was definitely getting what was coming to him. The only thing Gally truly has to feel bad for is how he neglected to think about how his actions could affect you. And now you're newly single—as if it wasn't enough for you to be upset over one thing at a time without Gally's temper making everything worse.
He is usually better than this.
Still, it's a relief that you won't be seeing much of Ceasar anymore, 'cause the guy definitely didn't deserve you, but who does? Anyone who thinks they might be good enough for you is either stupid or delusional, and because Gally is neither of those things, he resigns himself to being your friend. But he is secretly pleased that he won't have to act like you're someone else's anymore….
Gally tries to stomp out that line of thought: the potential that you could ever be his is one of the only impulses he's going to keep bottled and locked away for as long as possible.
“It was never gonna work out, anyway,” you start. “He just….” You pause to chew on your lip, trying to gather your thoughts. “I don't know. He makes me feel like… like I can't stretch. Like I'm in a bed too small, and my feet are hanging off.” You end that statement with a knowing smirk.
Gally chuckles; he'd know all about that. He'd never actually fit on a mattress completely before getting to the Haven, the only current downside being that the current one in his bedroom is far too wide. It leaves too much space to feel how empty the other half is.
You continue. “I don’t know. I guess I want something that feels easy. Someone that gets me without needing to hear everything out loud.”
Like just now, Gally thinks. About the bed thing?
He looks back up at your face to read your expression, searching for a hidden intention behind your eyes, something to justify his speculation that you might want him to be that easy someone. He doesn’t find any, because you sigh and turn away to rummage in another cabinet before he can get a good look at your face.
With your back turned to him, he says, as softly as his usually-blunt voice can manage. “You deserve that.”
You turn to look at him over your shoulder with a frown, and your pause to look him in the eyes makes him worry that his words didn’t come across the way he wanted them to. But you say, “Thank you,” so quietly that it seems like you mouthed it.
Gally nods once, and you watch him for another moment before continuing to dig around in medical supplies.
Now that you're occupied, he looks down at his hand, the skin looking softer and less irritated since you applied the balm to it. He gently stretches his fingers once more with slight discomfort, and winces when he tries to make a tight fist.
“I told you not to mess with it,” you say sternly, having forgiven him, but still irritated by the whole predicament he put you in today.
“Sorry,” he says honestly, but less guiltily than it sounded earlier.
You're holding what appears to be some sort of wrist brace, and you take his hand to start slipping it onto his forearm. Part of him wonders if it's wholly necessary for you to do it yourself, when it's only a few velcro straps he'll need to take on and off by himself later anyway, but hey, you're the medical professional.
“Do I really need that?” he asks skeptically.
“Yes. I don't trust you to take good care of your wrist without it on. And no heavy lifting for a few days.”
His eyes narrow. “How many?”
“Let's go with three,” you say, laying down the final velcro strap. “Or until it feels completely healed.”
“Seriously? Everyone's gonna think I don't know how to throw a punch.”
“Well, you should've thought about that before punching someone.”
“Fine.” He's in no position to argue with you further; it's time to pick his battles before he really starts to piss you off.
When you're done adjusting his brace, Gally inspects his recovering hand again. The skin is still dry, tan, and slightly sunburnt, but feels much softer than it did fifteen minutes ago. He compares it to his other hand, redder and dryer.
“What is this stuff, anyway?” he finally thinks to ask.
“Just some lotion I made,” you say with a shrug. “The ingredients make it soothing on irritated skin.”
“Hm.” He stares at his hands a little more.
“Did you… want some for your other hand?”
“If you got some to spare, yeah.” Without another word, you go to the jar, unscrewing the top and dipping two fingers in. You take his good hand, holding it in one of yours and rubbing in lotion with the other.
Your hands cradle his lovingly, and they feel so soft, probably from using your own lotion. The two of you fit together nicely, at least from his perspective, and it would be so easy to curl his fingers around yours and squeeze. Before he knows it, you're done, and you've set his hand down on his lap. “Alright, you're good to go.”
“Gotcha,” he says, standing up.
After screwing the lid onto the jar, you hold it out to him. “Take this and use it when your skin gets dry.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, already opening his palm to accept it.
You nod. “Come back to me for more when it's all gone. You're in the sun way too much to not use lotion.”
“Thanks,” he says quietly, staring at the jar he's now holding, not quite ready to leave. “And, uh. I'm sorry again.”
You nod and smile sheepishly, lightly punching his shoulder. “It's okay Gal. See you at dinner tonight?”
“Yeah. See you later.”
Gally finally leaves the exam room, walks down the hall, and goes out the front door. He finds the wall he leaned on before you let him inside, and presses his back to it again, the cool bricks in the shade in contrast to the hot sun he's spent most of the day in. His eyes close and his head rolls against the wall with a quiet thump, partially because he's dreads returning to his work site just to get hazed for needing an arm brace after throwing one punch, and partially because he knows he needs to figure out what the fuck he's going to do about you.