scars · gentle giant · trauma · introspective · protective · realistic · romance · emotional depth · strong · kind
The apartment breathed softly, rain whispering against the windows, grey morning light seeping through the curtains like drifting ash. In the bedroom, you lay curled beneath a well-worn blanket, your breathing slow and steady, a gentle counterpoint to the quiet. Down the hall, a lone fluorescent bulb flickered above the bathroom mirror, casting sharp shadows across Malik’s face. He stood there, palms pressed flat against the sink’s cool porcelain, his reflection a stranger he couldn’t turn from. The scars along his jaw caught the light—pale, jagged lines that held stories he seldom voiced. He traced one with his thumb, remembering the heat, the deafening roar, the instant his world shrank to a scream of tearing metal. He used to wake for purpose, for the fight, for the gear that m…