redrighthanded | IC; Duplicity Inbox

[ He meets the same little too serious, always nervous and the overly concerned woman she always is.

Except it seems the times she meets him. ]

... Everyone knows, I am afraid. Someone was very... very unspeakable and saw fit to share your fight and... besides... with everyone on the daily missives.

[ She does not understand the word network. ]

[ He gets the meaning behind her words easily enough. It slips between his ribs like a knife, piercing something he'd been holding on to since he arrived. A sort of hope, perhaps, that he's found a place where he can fit in a little better, a place strange enough to accept him. And now he knows they never will. Not after seeing that creature he'd become.

Not after seeing what he'd done. ]

Oh. [ Leaning forward, he covers his face with his hand, rubbing his eyes. Everything hurts, all the way down to his bones; he's never felt so old. So tired. Hecate, he thinks, must be laughing somewhere.

When he speaks again, it's with a voice edged with disbelief, though he doesn't look up at her, his shoulders bowed. ]

You know what I did to him.

I do.

[ It's very soft. Small, as she often feels made by life, no less for the pain she can see in his face.]

And I am not going anywhere, no matter how you protest my presence. So will others, like they did to me, you are a victim of horrific circumstance, and they know it too.

[ He lifts his head at that, fixes her with golden, inhuman eyes. ]

I could throw you out. [ He pauses, then adds the truth that feels like an insurmountable weight, the fathom-deep pressure inside his head and his heart: ] I could hurt you.

[ She does not flinch, not even to turn her head away, as she looks back into his eyes. ]

You could. You could break my body, I am sure. I do not know violence, and I am only a woman, you would strip me back in a moment. I would be at your mercy.

[ She leans back again, a hand to his shoulder, careful, light. ]

That changes nothing.

[ The soft touch of her hand on his shoulder is almost enough to undo him, then and there. He feels something ache inside his chest that has nothing to do with the outcome of the fight. ]

It does. [ He looks down at his hands in his lap. ] It does for me.

[ After a moment he lets out a breath. Makes an effort. ] Whaddya bring?

It shall never for me. I would rather bleed than know I did not attempt to give another kindness when they needed it most.

[ She keeps the light touches up, as long as he does not push her away, she is there. Touching, caring, lovingly, as much as he lets her. ]

Meals for the week, blankets, oils to help keep the room clean.

[ He doesn't make a move to turn her away, or shrug off the gentle passes of her hands. It's as close as he can come to forgiving himself, allowing it. He sniffs and looks at her. ]

Oils?

[ There is a little nod. ]

Yes, oils. Lavender and rosemary. They keep insects and mice away.

Oh. [ The room could probably use something like that. It's not exactly sanitary. Hellboy feels a mote of shame that she knows they need it.

Carefully, he reaches up to touch her arm, skating back until he can cover her hand on his shoulder. ]

Thank you.

Of course any time you want me to help, I will be here. You shall never deter me.

[ But, there she pauses looking over him in a far more astute fashion. ]

You are first, however. I know little of such things but I do not think having blood drying on your body helps a wound heal well?

Edited 2021-01-04 14:22 (UTC)

[ Hellboy follows her gaze down at himself, the scuffed and stained bandaging that Harley had wrapped around him. ]

I guess not. [ He frowns and starts searching for where the bandages start with his fingertips. ] I should take a shower.

[ She looks at him most seriously and even with everything the city made them into, there is not even a hint of irony when she speaks. ]

Did you want me to join you?

[...

And then a second later, she realises how that sounded, her cheeks going pink. ] ... to help with cleaning the blood, of course.

[ For a moment, Hellboy's surprised out of the morass of his miserable thoughts. He sees the pink flush over her cheeks and a ghost of a smile appears on his mouth. ]

You don't have to do that.

[ There it stays, but like always, she pushes on. ]

No, but if it will help? I do not want water to get into the wound, and I am uniquely gifted to help with that.

[ She has a point. But he doesn't want to push her where she doesn't want to go, especially not now, so soon after -- ]

That's true. [ A flicker of a frown crosses his face as he thinks about it. He touches the bandages around his abdomen with his fingertips. ] Maybe you could -- Harley tied them up at the back, I think.

[ She is always better with something to do, that at least was true from here to home. Sitting down beside him, she begins to untie the knots of the bandages.

That for someone who does not violence so well, she does not seem phases by the blood and mess. Though there is a sympathetic hiss on her lips as she reveals the wound. ]

My heart, what a state you are in.

[ It's not exactly the sort of situation Hellboy likes to be in, but he grits his teeth and lets it happen, knowing she probably has a point about taking care of things. The wounds uncovered as the bandages come off aren't deep, more like shallow gashes the width of Anduin's sword, one low on his side and other in a direct line higher on his back where the point of the blade punched out of him.

He looks down at her as she tugs them off, trying not to appear too sheepish. ]

I've had worse.

[ She makes a weak little laugh. Trying not to make him feel worse than he already was. ]

I am afraid that gives me no comfort. But it is no matter I will take it as a sign of your return to good health soon.

[ But as it comes undone and she finally has him free, she bundles up the bloody bandages. ]

Sure hope so. [ Hellboy looks down at himself, not liking the sight of the blood dried in various shades of red and black against his deep crimson skin, or the sword wound itself a bright slash across his abdomen. His shorts aren't a pretty sight either. Next to Gilia's elegance, he feels like some wild animal, stained and bruised up.

With a grimace, he hauls himself to his feet. ]

Jeez. I'm gonna go wash up. [ He'll let her decide if she really does want to follow or not. ]

[ In any other circumstances - they both no doubt know, it would be out of the question. She is hardly a woman to go throwing herself about into another's arms when the city did not make it so. Far, far too shy for that.

But his wound throws the rest out. He needs tending, care, properly done. Her modesty could and would be damned for the need to look after another.

Though he does have a few minutes to undressed, get the water running, where she goes about the first task that needs to be done in her mind for when he gets out of that shower. Clean sheets. First, the windows opened, to air it all out. The bed is stripped, the old sheets off to the side to be scrubbed, and the new ones laid out. Though she does it with the efficiency of someone very used to it, and it does not take her long at all. She can finish putting the new ones on when they were both out.

That ten or so minutes late, she slips in, gently closing the door behind her. Carefully, she undoes the buttons on her fine clothes and sets them aside. All a very ridiculous ensemble, she is a woman that dresses immaculately to expectation, that as she begins to undo her dress, she has the same fastidious nature with. Standing there in his bathroom in nothing but her matching lingerie, stockings and heels like it was her own chambers, and all of this was fairly normal, folding the dress up and setting it aside.

Clearing her throat, to attempt like this somehow was business as usual for them both. She cannot imagine the amount of pain he is in, and he does not need her squirming in embarrassment over things that were as unimportant. ]

I hope you are being careful with it?

[ It feels a little embarrassing to leave her behind in that pit of a room, even if she has promised, more than once, how much she wants to be there and be helpful to him. He's too used to being independent, too used to taking the minimum amount of care of himself because he can't formulate a reason to do otherwise. Growing up on a military base, he'd never been taught the niceties of things, only enough to pass the occasional inspection which never really became formal, and now he feels the loss of that sort of teaching, how it widens the gap between who and what he is and everyone else.

His thoughts stay in this dark pattern as he makes his way down to the shared bathrooms, finding the shower thankfully deserted. It'll be good, at least, to feel clean, and he dials the temperature of the water up as high as it can get -- which isn't all that high at all -- as he tosses his shorts aside and reaches up to tug his hair out of the knot at the back of his skull.

Ducking his head to get under the spray, he doesn't do much besides stand there, left hand planted on the cool tiles of the wall, feeling the sting and ache of water running into the wounds on his back and belly. He doesn't look up when Gilia enters, hearing the faint sound of her undressing and wanting to give her a little privacy, but glances up when she asks him that question. ]

Uh. I guess. [ He looks down at himself, the water sheeting off his dark red skin. ] It'll heal, it doesn't need to be fussed around.

Why is it, that I feel you may just be telling me that to make me not worry?

[ The smile is gentle on her lips as she steps out of her shoes, dropping down to bare flat feet as the stockings follow after. Her many careful pieces that are all laid out neatly and carefully. Her arm crossing over her chest in the barest habit of modesty of a noblewoman. But there was a difference, after all. The place where there was always shared comfort in being naked with each other were bathhouses. It feels almost... familiar to stripping down, humming to herself to let him know where she was as she moved.

When she's finally, at long last, undressed, she comes closer. Gently pulling the shower curtain aside, keeping her eyes lowered so she doesn't peek so vulgar at him. Slow little steps to not slip and keep her manners minded.

No matter how painfully handsome he is. ]

Because I must assure you, I shall do that regardless of how you seek to distract me.

[ Slowly, she came to stand at his back, and then with slow hands, she reached up to his back and closed her eyes. The water in showers was quite remarkable to do with sheer engineering, she supposed, it was very good for people who were not blessed as she was. It would certainly do, if you never knew any better.

But forgive her the pride, but she could do better than any such basic construction, even than what could be found in the Up. Her palms set on his shoulders and breathed in deeply. A faint ripple, almost like power, almost like a careful inevitability of the tide going out and the water began to divert. The falling water that changes its patter, where she coaxes it into a better pressure she prefers for this kind of work. The steam rising thick in the air with the hot water, that in turn she channels, pushes to keep the room warm and filled in that gentle haze, as one by one, in the communal shower, the water turns on all the other tap so she can have enough for what she needs. Manipulating it without thought, only a tilt of a head, as around them, she ribbons the water, to caress him far better.

Then exhales, forming a ball of water in her palms from the falling stream, directs to knead at his skin, his sore muscles, that the water she weaves like a ribbon around his body matches. Massaging them, using the heat to loosen them up. In that way, it is practised, and she has done it often. A learned skill to help ease the heavy days of fishing from family members when her goals in life had been far simpler. Working in patterns, over and over to try and take the ache and the seized feeling from his limbs.

That most especially, strange as it seemed, no water ever touches the wound except where it runs a rivulet around it, to clean any blood away, but never to sting the wound itself. ]

Guess it's pointless to keep telling you.

[ He says the words to the wall in front of him, pitching his voice just under the noise of the shower, wondering at the way the prospect of someone worrying about him makes him feel relieved instead of annoyed. It's something he hasn't had a lot of, at least not when he needed it, but maybe he's realising how much of that was because he ended up pulling away before he could recognise it.

It's with a small amount of shame that he lets her come into the stall with him, twitching his tail back to accommodate her, all too aware of how much space he takes up. But she doesn't seem to care, and he can't stop himself tracing, over his shoulder, the first beads of water that find her skin and run down over her full breasts, the dark whorls of her nipples, things he vaguely remembers, in a dreamlike way, from their first encounter.

When she touches him he lets out a breath and turns his gaze away, ducking his head under the pulse of the water and the gentle pressure of her touch. At first he doesn't notice what she's doing, then the thunder of the shower seems to change, shifting around him, becoming a firmer and softer, pulling away in ribbons around his legs and up over his abdomen. It feels strange, but good, pleasurable, the heat and pressure winding over stiffened muscles.

He reaches up to put his right hand against the wall to support himself as he relaxes, bit by bit, under her touch, head bowed and his tail, unbidden, swaying out to slide around her ankle as she works. ]

Feels good. [ He sighs the words, not sure if she'll be able to hear him. ]

[ She smiles quietly to herself, as she feels long before he says anything, how the tension goes out of him.

But with his words, she leans forward, pressing up on her toes to lay the kiss gently on his shoulder as careful as a drain drop. ] I am glad. I feared I may have lost my touch, I have not done this since I came here...

[ She keeps up her circles, over and over, every ache she can find, anything that makes him sigh in relief, she works the water at his muscles. Warm and encompassing, a passed down tradition.

It just didn't happen to be her wedding night. But at least knowing she was helping someone so dear to her? It was just as good.

Because if the touch of his tail meant anything, it was to not stop, letting him be as comfortable as possible. ]

Turn? I must get all of you.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject