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The moon was high. You weren’t really having the greatest sleep, your eyes occasionally opened despite your efforts to keep them shut and just go to sleep.
You sigh, rolling onto your back.
A few others are still awake, but not many.
When you hear footsteps approaching, your eyes left the large pipes folding through the tall ceiling to see the tall silhouette of a familiar figure approaching.
His steps aren’t pepped up and purposeful like usual. He’s slower. Heavier.
You sit up in your thin sleeping bag.
“Gally?” You whisper, watching him near, unable to see his face.
He doesn’t respond at first, crouching down beside you with a grunt and sitting on his knees, facing you, back hunched in exhaustion. You hear him sigh, his hand dropping to the bag bunched around your hips now that you’re sitting upright.
His palm was open, facing up, and you put your hand in his.
You’d learned over the time knowing him as a friend, and then more intimately, that not starting any conversation first got the truth out of him fast, so you waited until he was ready to talk.
“M’ tired.” He grumbles a moment later, and you can hear his slight irritation at the tiredness itself.
You can’t see his face too well in the dark, but the moon provides enough illumination to see those familiar eyebrows furrow down at you like you caused his exhaustion.
You don’t speak for or a moment, just taking in the sight of him all grumpy and tired, holding your hand, in silence.
“Long day?” You finally say, and he grunts in response.
Gally sighs after a second and brings your hand that’s in his to the back of his neck. He uses your hand to rub the strained muscles firmly, his large palm on top of yours, guiding the movements. You see his expression soften, his eyes are closed now, and he bows his head towards you as his tense body softens under your massaging.
“Really long. M’ so tired…” He repeats. And you know now that there’s more to his fatigue than the physical toll that he’d been put through during the day. He does that, when he has a lot on his mind, just repeats himself because he doesn’t have the words for what’s really bothering him.
“Well…it’s time to sleep anyway. The day’s over, yeah?” You encourage, leaning into him, letting your face linger beside his, temples touching, until his head drops to your shoulder. His free hand comes up to your side, rubbing firmly before slipping behind your back. He took a moment to just…feel you, breathe you in—his hand moving in large, achingly tender strokes up and down the entire span of your back.
“I wanna lay down now…” You say softly, your warm breath fanning against the back of his head.
He hums in agreement and moves to loosen his belt, tossing it aside, before grabbing his folded sleeping bag nearby and setting it roughly right beside you.
You lay on your back and watch him with familiar fondness at the way he man handles the bag and pillow, impatiently, and haphazardly scoots them as close to you as possible.
“Water?” You chirp quietly, handing him your water bottle before he gets comfortable.
He grunts and takes it from your hands.
And finishes it in several audible gulps.
“Aw...” You whisper, head falling back against your pillow in disappointment when you realized his dehydrated ass finished your water. He didn’t seem to care in the slightest, because he leaned over, kissed where he thought your cheek would be (but landed somewhere on the bridge of your nose) and flopped down onto his side.
Without any notice, his long, muscular arm wrapped securely around your side and hauled you unceremoniously closer against him. His nose brushed your shoulder, finding comfort in your warmth after such a long day. He held onto you firmly, laying on his side, facing you, while you laid on your back. He sighed heavily, all the tension he’d accumulated that day dissipating in an instant.
Gally wasn’t always much for pretty words and sweet whispers declaring his overflowing love for you. Maybe on special occasions, when the weight of the world wasn’t on his shoulders. But days and nights like this? The usual routine where Gally had to work almost all day, worry about the possibility of losing you or his comrades or himself to violence, or worse, cranks? Gally’s love came rough and direct. He rarely sugar-coated his words, rarely hid the tension he held inside his heart, rarely even spoke to you on some days when exhaustion overtook him inside and out, like today and like now.
But Gally was a man of action. He didn’t always need pretty words or loving gazes to show you he cared. He showed you in the way he’d silently listen to you talk for hours after working all day, in holding you like this, in dryly teasing you, in being honest every second of the day, even if that meant you’d see the most of his glares and scowls.
“Can’t sleep?” He said after a minute, his voice rough and tired, and you felt his lips move against your shoulder. His voice snaps you out of your thoughts, almost making you jump.
“Yeah…I’ve just—“ You stop to think of the actual reason you couldn’t sleep, not some half-assed answer he wouldn’t be satisfied with. Though, you’re sure he wouldn’t be able to tell from how tired he was. But if he made an effort to be honest with you consistently, you wanted to do the same. “Well, I missed you.” You admit in a whisper, turning your head towards him. You could tell his eyes were open, looking at you with that almost guilty look you’d seen many times after he hadn’t talked you all day.
“And…I guess I miss my family.”
You guess? You missed them so much it hurt too much to sleep. A physical weight in your chest that made it hard to breathe, the kind of grief that manifested in your body as a fever some days.
Gally didn’t say anything for a while. He’d heard stories of your family, what they were like, their sense of humor and how you felt towards them. He thought about meeting them too, what they would think of him if he were ever to meet them.
But that was never a guarantee—seeing them. You both knew this. There was even a reasonable chance they weren’t alive anymore.
And Gally didn’t want to tell you a fib just to make you feel better. Something like, “We’ll find them.” Or “I know they’re out there.”
Instead he moved closer, practically laying on top of you as his arm around your waist pulled you closer against him, “You have me.” He said, his voice softer than before. It wasn’t jealousy or offense or an attempt at making your pain go away. It was an offer.
He wanted to be your family too. Be the one you could rely on, you could open up to and feel safe around—the one who could hurt alongside you and share the pain. And yeah, he won’t try to replace them, but he wanted to be a part of them. When you closed your eyes and imagined your family, he wanted you to see him right there too.
And a thought, tucked far away and out of reach from even you, held in the most vulnerable part of him, wanted to make a family of his own. With you.
But that desire wasn’t realistic right now, maybe not even ever, so he kept the thought in his dreams—and very, very far away from you.
You hummed in response to his words, finding solace in his short response. You did have him. You knew he’d be there when no one else was, in all his rough edges and brutal honesty and scary eyebrows. You knew he’d keep you protected in this dark, apocalyptic, fallen world.
That fact made the weight in your heart just a little lighter.
You drift to sleep after a few minutes of focusing on his breathing and his arm around you.
His eyelids begin to fall shut once he’s sure you’re comfortably asleep, but not before making plans to sneak into the Last City sometime tomorrow, and get you a nice little treat. Just because you deserved it.