* FAMILY FIRST !

PAGE UPDATED: please click the source link to find 222 gifs of Ellen Barkin in the show Animal Kingdom.

birth year: 1954 triggers: alcohol, medical treatment, smoking

The kiss to his forehead lands without warning. Andrew goes still beneath it, every muscle tightening for the briefest moment before he forces himself to relax. His eyes never leave her face. They search it instead, trying to read past the concern into whatever else might be hiding there. Smurf never asked a question she didn't already have an answer to.

His hand remains pressed lightly against the bandage at his side. "Knife," he says simply. "Caught me here." He taps the dressing once with two fingers before letting his hand fall away. "Didn't go in very far." His gaze flicks toward the neatly folded sweatshirt on the chair beside him, checking that it hasn't shifted, then back to her. "They're keeping me until the doctor signs off."

Silence settles between them. His head tilts just enough to study her expression.

"Who told you I was here?"

janine glances at the bandage again and then back to his eyes. she touches his shoulder with a firm , reassuring grip. ❝ alright , how long have you been waiting ? i'll sit with you. ❞ she gathers her purse into her arms and perches on the edge of the chair beside the bed.

Animal Kingdom

The emergency department is all fluorescent lights and antiseptic smells, neither of which do much to settle the restless tension sitting beneath Andrew's skin. A nurse had finally brought him through from the waiting room nearly twenty minutes ago, cleaned the knife wound enough to stop the bleeding, and left him sitting alone behind a drawn privacy curtain with fresh gauze taped firmly over his side. His sweatshirt lies folded with deliberate precision across the plastic chair beside the stretcher, every wrinkle smoothed out before he'd been able to stop himself. Even now, his hands are clean—scrubbed until there isn't a trace of dried blood left beneath his fingernails.

Rather than lying back on the stretcher, Andrew sits rigidly on its edge, his spine perfectly straight despite the pain that radiates through his ribs. One hand rests lightly over the bandage at his side while the other pulls his phone from his pocket. The screen lights up across his face. One message sent nearly forty minutes ago. No reply. His thumb hovers over the conversation for a moment before locking the phone again with a quiet click. He slips it back into his pocket without sending another. If they were going to answer, they would. Asking twice wouldn't change that.

the nurse finally motions for janine to follow her back into the winding hallways of the hospital. the matriarch falls into step behind the woman , removing her sunglasses and pushing them into her bag. janine's surveying the surroundings as she's led through a pair of double doors into a larger room divided up with curtains. the nurse pulls one back and motions inside.