faderift | open | with the sound of my heart

"Please do," she says, and by the time he's done so she has gotten to her feet and rushes to him (as readily as she's able, aching all over from being stretched).

She collides with him without any force behind it other than gravity, not even enough to stagger him when she gets her good arm around his middle and rests her head against his chest.

His breath escapes him as he turns to find his arms very suddenly full of Athessa -- not knocked out of him by force, only relief. His arms fold tightly around her, his head falls to bury his face in her hair.

Quietly, barely a murmur, he asks his stupid but obligatory question, "How are you feeling?"

Her initial answer is a soft whimper, which might have started out as a word but devolves as soon as it's uttered into the fabric of his shirt.

"I keep jumping at shadows," she says softly. Her fingers curl against his back, but it does nothing to stop them from trembling. "And I can't— I can't stop seeing their faces."

Glassy eyes and leathery skin, faded tattoos, crude stitches holding them together.

Shadows have got him on the run tonight to be sure. He lets out a slow breath and finds that his legs are folding, lowering them both down into a slump against the door. Not very dignified to sit in a heap on the floor, but, here he is. His hands knot into the fabric of her shirt.

"Mine would have looked quite a lot like that, if I'd woken up alone. Maybe all of ours would have."

"No," she says, but it's not disagreement. It's not unlike the litany of no, no, no, no, no that she couldn't keep herself from uttering when she and Barrow had found the bodies. Fresh tears prick at her eyes and she doesn't dare squeeze them shut, knowing too well what she'll see when she does.

"I can't— I don't want to think about that, I—" To see Vanadi among the faces of strangers and dead family that weren't really there, to lose him...

If it weren't for the sling her right arm is in, she'd wrap both arms around him and hold him as tight as she possibly can, but failing that she curls tighter against him, listening to his heartbeat as proof that they've survived.

He can hear those tears in her voice, and winces. What a stupid thing to say. He's full of those tonight, isn't he?

"Sorry," he murmurs, and his arms tighten. He's sought some kind of comfort like this for so long, and now that he's allowed it, all he can manage to say is unhelpful bullshit to make everything worse. He closes his eyes, and can't stop a shiver running through his lean frame.

"I'm -- I don't know ... " What is he trying to say? He takes a breath, holds it, and tries again. "The last time I woke up to something like that, it took a demon to save my life. I'm ... I'm relieved and thankful."

It doesn't feel like it at the moment, but he thinks that might actually be true.

When was the last time that Athessa woke up to something like they just experienced? Being at the mercy of a maleficar's every whim comes close on the nightmare scale, but perhaps closer still was waking up to the bitter taste of wine and whatever else Devigny's footman had used to sedate her. The cold dark of the wine cellar, the fear of being hunted through dark hallways.

But the thought of Devigny is something she can handle. It fills her with a righteous anger that gives her clarity, where thinking of Medrod and his vile contraptions elicit only fear and doubt. If a man, not a mage or a monster, just a man can do such awful things after smiling at them and treating them as pleasantly as he had...who can they ever truly trust?

"I'll kill anyone who tries to do that to you again," she finds herself saying. Thinking of the bruises from the chains that had bound him.

Vanadi can safely say he's never heard words like that aimed at him before. They touch him in a way Athessa frequently does, but -- more. They're heavier. The truth of them doesn't matter, the truth that his luck can't possibly hold out, and if there is an again it will probably be it for him, or the reality this is as strange and violent a world as the one he's left, and Athessa can't possibly always be near him.

But regardless, they mean more than he can figure out how to put into words. He tangles a hand into the hair at the back of her head, buries his face, and finds that he's laughing. It's quiet and subdued, but unmistakably laughter. If he weren't laughing, he thinks it's possible he might cry instead, and that would just be ridiculous. The laughter can stay.

The laughter takes her aback, but she doesn't pull away. She can't, not now. She needs his arms to hold her together, to feel the warmth of his breath in her hair, that heart beating I live, I live, I live.

"Why are you laughing?" She asks, an uncertain little twist to her mouth. He wouldn't be making fun of her, surely. A soft scoff, then: "What'd I say?"

"I don't know," he confesses around sharp, exhaled almost-mirth. Both arms shift, withdrawing from around her to place hands to either side of her face and tilt it gently upwards. It's important to him to see her eyes just now, for whatever reason. His smile has gone soft, brows pinched together almost sadly.

"Perhaps it's -- I've known you so briefly, really. What, a handful of months? And already, gods, but I think I would do anything for you."

It's sappy, it's ridiculous, he would scoff at it as an overly sentimental and needy line -- but it's true.

Oh, but she knows that feeling well. She felt it whenever she looked at Deimos, feels it still when she looks at Loxley, at Derrica. Each has cemented in her the fear instilled first by Ciara, but to hear someone else say those words to her, to have Vanadi say what she has been wanting for so long, she can't find any words for what she's feeling.

He'll see her eyes, rich reddish-brown, fill to the brim with tears. He'll see her eyelashes flutter, sending those tears flowing down her cheeks, hear the shudder in the breath she takes before she kisses him.

The fresh tears startle him -- or is it just more tears for the situation in general? Perfectly understandable, he's not cried in years but feels close to it himself. Either way, he's happy to take that kiss. More than happy. His hands cradle her face carefully, one thumb stroking a cheek, and when he draws away the stroking thumb turns to brushing tears off of either cheek.

"Here," he murmurs, arms sinking around her, "Let's get you off of the floor."

The floor can't be great on a body that's entertained any amount of rack. He scoops her up carefully, gathering her easily enough into his arms and rising to his feet. The bed, probably -- or the cushions before the fireplace?

If Vanadi had seen the way she nearly made herself sick sobbing, gasping for breath and muffling her wails with shaking hands in the apothecary when Colin healed her shoulder and she tried to tell him what had happened, he'd know — the tears aren't for the situation.

But he's welcome to think they are.

"Wait," she says, words finally cooperating enough for something more than vowels. (A breath before a kiss might sound like "oh," but that doesn't make it a word.) "I— Will you help me with the bath? I want to wash that place off."

"Yes -- yes, of course." A bath is a good idea -- he should have thought to offer it himself. He sets her carefully on the edge of her bed, about where he'd found her, and sets to work.

It doesn't take him long, bucket-bearing trips up several flights of stairs and all. He doesn't begrudge the work, and it's a way to distract his mind for a good half hour or so. He settles into a numb sort of repetition with it, tiring out body to match mind.

It's when he's just finishing heating the last of the buckets that he finally mutters, "You know what else a load of money was good for..."

Never having to fill the bath yourself. Ah, memories.

Any other time she'd do it herself, she'd insist on it, or at least insist on helping. But he was right about the ache of a body that's been on a rack, and those thirty-odd minutes of him putting in the legwork gives her time to agonize over what he said.

Drawn out of that thought process by his commentary, she gives a weary smile and pads across the stone floor to where Vanadi is.

"Thank you," she murmurs, leaving off her feelings of guilt at him making such an effort in favor of touching his arm and kissing him sweetly. Brief, but heartfelt. (That's scary, isn't it?)

Stepping away, she ducks her head to slip the sling off, draping it over the privacy screen.

It is a sweet kiss, and in an instant makes all the effort worth it. He smiles after her as she steps away, giving his arm a brief, unconscious rub where she'd touched it.

"The assistance doesn't stop there, if you'll have it." He drifts after her, circling around to her front. The shirt, he thinks, would be difficult with one arm unable to do much. He lifts both hands as if to get started with the buttons of it, but casts a seeking glance up at her first for permission.

"I'm...not going to be up to anything fun," she warns, tentative. Another day, she could manage vivacity, she could play seductress, bat her lashes at him as she luxuriates in the bathwater. Right now, it feels lucky to be standing at all.

Particularly after what he said, the look on his face when he said it, the brush of his thumbs on her cheeks and how gentle he's been since their first dalliance, she doesn't expect that he's only here for sex, but she can't let herself read into anything. She doesn't want to disappoint him, but her heart is already in tatters.

"But I'd like for you to stay, if you...want to."

He blinks, looking faintly surprised, but then huffs a breath that's part laugh.

"That's good," he says, "Because I'm not here for anything fun. I think I would have to creep away very disappointingly if you expected it."

That might not be true, but he's glad not to have to test it. He sets to work undressing her, his touch gentle and slow without being suggestive of anything more. He adds, with his eyes on the work and a faint hint of pleased color to his pale cheeks, "And I would love to stay. Thank you."

Athessa lets out a breath of relief she wasn't aware she was holding, but it takes only the imminent sense of expectation with it, not the other, more distant one. It's enough for her to focus on the present moment, though, and she does what she can to assist in Vanadi's gentle undressing. At a certain point she resigns herself simply to slipping her fingers into his hair in passing when he bends, touching the soft skin of his wrist or collarbone when convenient. They're not touches charged with sexual energy, but with a tactile need for contact, to ground herself or for balance.

Her limbs are colored with bruises at the joints, at her wrists and ankles in particular where the rope dug in, but there are faint dapples on her hips and elbows as well. The main event is her right shoulder, a stormy mottling of dark purples and reds, yellows and blues. To Athessa's eyes they're just varying shades of blue and brown and gray, and what she's able to see when she looks down at herself is only a fraction of the coloration on her back.

Vanadi takes careful stock of each bruise, brushing fingers feather-light over each one as it's counted. It slows the process not at all, merely incidental on-the-way brushes as his hands follow their paths. He isn't sure what it is they inspire in him. Anger, but is it still anger if it has nowhere to go? If the man responsible for it died screaming already? Whatever it is roiling in him, Vanadi soothes it with a refocus on Athessa, present and warm under his hands, and all he could ask for.

Eventually he's got each article of clothing neatly draped over the privacy screen, and he holds out both of his hands for Athessa's. She looks about ready to collapse, and if that is the case, he'd like to aim it at the bathtub.

She accepts his help getting into the tub and sinks down until the water is at chin level. The heat soothes some of the pains, but it's hardly an instantaneous thing. It takes time.

Time best spent in caring company. Athessa looks up at him and manages a smile.

"Are you gonna join me?"

She's caught him beginning to sink to a crouch beside the tub, and her invitation garners a blink — then a smile.

"Always, if you'll have me."

First, though, the bathwater. It's had a bit of time to cool while he filled it. He's absolutely not doing anything more with buckets, so he finishes his crouch and reaches a hand to the water, stirring it with a few fingers. It's a simple spell to heat the water, but slow-going. Still, the results will become slowly apparent, and he's satisfied.

He steps back to begin undressing, which goes significantly more quickly than it had for Athessa. His collection to show for the harrowing events of the night is primarily from the chains. They've left their mark in strangely-shaped bruises about his neck, ribs, arms, and legs, all looking perfectly ghastly on pale skin, and of course the stitched and wrapped dagger-hole of his forearm. He has the idea one shouldn't bathe with new stitches and wraps, but there are no doctors in the room to tell him no.

"We'll have to redress that after," Athessa says, nodding to his arm. She rests her chin on the edge of the tub and watches him undress, taking stock of his bruises much like he did hers, only from a slight remove.

"I'll keep it out of the water," he says, not terribly concerned about any of it. With his own clothing similarly hung neatly, he steps himself carefully into the unoccupied corner of the tub. His settle is slow as he eases into it, and he keeps his legs folded for the sake of space (and the bandaged arm rested along the rim), but eventually he leans into it with a relieved sigh.

Honestly, it's easy to forget how good a simple warm bath is.

It's universally accepted that the time during which the bathwater is hottest is for soaking, and washing up happens only towards the end of the bath once fingers get pruny and the temperature is low enough to no longer be soothing.

So it's expected, naturally, when Athessa shifts in the water, turning and stretching out her legs and laying against Vanadi's chest. It's a position that would be quite sexy, under other circumstances. One of her legs draped between his, her stomach and breasts pressed against his side and her face tucked in the crook of his neck. They've spent their fair share of time in this arrangement in her bed, but somehow with less exhaustion, less free-floating fear left over from a bygone threat.

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squints at words i use too often