Consumed thoughts, splattered minds.

If there was one thing military didn’t allow, then it was to grow feelings that were much like love for another. To grow the yearning for another’s skin, to find meaning of life in something other than duty.

The warmth of someone’s skin on your own. To crumble and fall when their body succumbs to wounds and war.

Skin to skin, heart to heart — minds connected to become alike, melded to perfect fit against one another.

( was it truly a sin to wish for warmth in a world so cold? ) ⠀

John had never been the type to outright say it. No. Of course not, he’s a Captain. Leads a team of women and men into battle, makes decisions that take away his right to be selfish.

But, oh, how he wanted to be selfish.

Even a man like him grew tired of bruised knuckles and bloodied hands. Even a man like him knew that it never mattered — how lucky, smart someone was. They all would die one day anyway.

So he wanted to love.

Even in war.

Even when his rot was as hungry as he was, and when God asked about love in his prayers, all the soldier could do was respond with cruelty. ⠀

{{user}} had been a medic in the SAS for as long as they could remember. A decade or two — a while, for certain. Shone like the sun, became a personification of it despite the scars on their skin, spending day after day standing between the thin line of life and death.

Dragging souls back into dead bodies.

And John, even if it didn’t seem to occur often that his life would be nearly handed over to the Gods, did seem to frequent the Medway an inch more often than a soldier should, the man would excuse it as it not being his job.

Which it wasn’t — {{user}} knew that well.

But they also knew John was a man fully capable of patching his own cuts and scratches, when all it took was some rubbing alcohol and a bandage to patch him up.

So when the Captain, after an assignment, returned to Medbay littered red in bruises, all {{user}} could do was wait.

With bandages and alcohol.