rehandle: (pic#12294212)

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-14 12:12 am (UTC)(link)
[ A gust of breath. It's a laugh, warm, throat just too lazy now to catch it with sound. He gives it a second, rifling through a rolodex of possible comebacks - ]

Your teeth are sharp.

[ If we're having a your physical trait has caused me the greater discomfort competition. Though in her defense, unlike his beard her teeth have only menaced a single part of him tonight. His hand, where its fingers had pressed little grooves into the skin of her side, loosens up to trail its fingers lightly up along her back, over her shoulderblade. Though they drag what remains of an old mess upward, nothing new leaks from his palm to coat her skin.

Reminded by his own comment, his tongue sneaks out curiously to prod at his lip, taste the saltmetal and hiss in a breath. This one, too, gusts out in a ghost of a laugh.

He's not in any great rush to ask her to vacate his lap. ]
rehandle: (178)

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-14 12:41 am (UTC)(link)
[ It's a fair comment, and with it bursts the bubble: they've moved on from peace and holding and back into an easier - more difficult - alignment. The next outward breath is a sigh, bidding the last stretched handful of moments a regretful goodbye as Nami prizes herself up to her feet—

And Stephen's brow furrows as he remembers - or at least resumes an awareness of the implications of - why he'd been in the bath in the first place. She's covered. It trails off of her in sheets and streams of stained water, but there's still too much for comfort. ]


You should stay. [ He realises how that sounds after he's said it. Knows instinctively what kind of reaction he's likely to get now she seems to have crossed the threshold of tolerating closeness. ] I can refill the tub. Give you some privacy if you need it.

[ Redundant as that was even before this, and especially now. But the point is he'll get of her hair if it means she can clean off. ]
rehandle: (pic#12484567)

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-14 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
[ Oh. Attention homes in past his concern about his own impact on her to the places where whatever she was becoming might be starting to come apart. The mouth she draws his attention to, the patches where he remembers scales. Her gills. ]

I'm not squeamish.

[ Firm. A broad enough statement that it might speak for more than just the debriding of the monster from her body. ]

But you need to get that stuff off of you. I don't know what it'll do.

[ That stuff. Him. She needs to get him off of her, as soon as possible. ]
rehandle: (101)

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-17 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
[ It's inside of me. Concern hardens in an instant, something in the tension around his eyes, in the way his gaze dips to where else he was just inside her - darts up when she moves to where her fingers trail over her ribs.

Shit. The water. What was he thinking? ]


Weird how?

[ Tension in his voice too. ]
rehandle: (022)

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-18 11:29 am (UTC)(link)
[ He ignores the snip, too focused on important information, attention fierce. His focus slips as she answers his question, going far away as he goes inward, connecting easy dots. Almost to himself even as he addresses it vaguely to her: ]

It's interfering with your nervous response. [ Shit. She makes it sound harmless for now, but where does it stop? It's not him, it's the it he was on his way to becoming. He doesn't trust that to not get worse. ] Where?

[ Somewhere in this his hand's found its way back to her calf under the water, wrapped in a loose hold. Comfort she doesn't need. An anchor he maybe does. ]
rehandle: (pic#13281295)

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-18 11:33 pm (UTC)(link)
As opposed to when? After it gets worse?

[ Everywhere he touched her, also known as most places. God.

But the problem is, he doesn't know what this is. Because he doesn't know what he is, what the creature is when all's said and done, can't anticipate the progress of its infection - if it is an infection. Most importantly, doesn't know the cure.

So instead he sits there, scowling up at her, frustration plain and unfairly targeted— until he pulls his legs abruptly back from between Nami's, clearing her so he can abandon her, standing with sudden determination and stepping out of the bath.

An instant later the water's clearing, the murk of it dissipating until it's clear enough to see the bottom of the small metal tub, warming where it had started to cool. ]


Sit down.
rehandle: (094)

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-20 12:04 am (UTC)(link)
Next time won't be like this.

[ Lesson learned. He's not doing this again. Not knowingly putting her or anybody else at risk, not holding out until the last possible second in hope of reprieve and smearing the consequences of his actions all over her skin, under her skin, inside.

Nami's pulled a tooth clean out of her mouth. Stephen watches on, made uncertain by distance and ignorance, face set with concern.

But this isn't a time to freeze.

Kneeling, he reaches down into the water, submerges his hand. A quick trip of fingers and what's left of any more stubborn residue starts to slip from her skin, swallowed up into the glass-clear of the bathwater as though it were never there. And still Stephen's frown persists. It's too late for this, he knows it is, but he has to start somewhere. ]
rehandle: (pic#12484742)

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-20 10:23 pm (UTC)(link)
[ A brief display of additional tension - his fingers frozen under the water, a tightening around the jaw— then his hand goes limp, breath pushes out in a huff through his nose, and he doesn't quite meet her eye. ]

I don't know. [ Words he really hates to say when he's operating in his own wheelhouse. And they aren't reassuring either, so he wrangles himself enough to meet her eye. ] I'll figure something out.

[ For her sake or his? ]
rehandle: (094)

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-20 10:37 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He's frowning, small but certain. But she's right. He doesn't know what's next, and there's nothing more the water can do for her that not staying submerged to slowly prune won't. So he finally settles back, arm limp where it hangs over the side of the tub, a ceding gesture. Body no longer an active barrier.

She wins. She's free to get out. ]
rehandle: (pic#16175958)

yowls

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-20 11:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ For a moment he doesn't understand that anything's happening. Then her sentence hasn't carried on for a beat too long and he turns to look, catches her on the edge of humour, and he thinks it's a joke. A trick, a nudge in the ribs for being precious about a little numbness, a little heightened sensitivity.

Then it's been too many moments and the expression on her face isn't giving way to the laughter it implied and he moves almost before he can think, snatches her up under the knees and around the shoulders, pulls her to him for as long as it takes to turn on his heel and move the two steps back to the bath, lower her back in just carefully enough to not have technically dropped her. Half crunched over the edge of the tub himself, arms still around her, making sure she's submerged.

The water. The gills. That's all he can think of, all he can hope. If it isn't them, if it's him, if he's impeded the neural relay to the respiratory system— ]
rehandle: (170)

(cw: magically approximated medical ventilation, blood)

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-21 12:47 am (UTC)(link)
No. —No.

[ Ventilate, he needs to ventilate, but how is he supposed to ventilate her in this fucking place? There's no time for the clinic, for help, he has to fix this. Now.

Thoughts turn to magic, grasp for it, search for the simplest solution. He has his lungs, but all they have to offer is the stuff she doesn't need.

So change that. Change it.

He pulls his arms out from underneath her, behind her, frees them up so one can grip her firmly by the jaw, thumb holding open her gaping mouth. The other he holds out of the way, ready to move fingers through the theft of carbon right out of their breath as he passes it back and forth between them. He worries at his already tattered lip to target his focus as he recalls the right pattern of spellwork, anxious to be specific, no margin left for error.

Blood's already beading as he leans down, presses his mouth over hers, and empties his lungs. ]
rehandle: (frathouse25)

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-21 05:38 pm (UTC)(link)
[ For a few frantic seconds he doesn't know if it's going to work. Spends more effort keeping his breath a steady, easy inhale-exhale than he does manipulating the chemistry of the air passing between them, barely avoiding killing her with his panic alone.

Then her hand's a fist in his hair, and breath that isn't his staggers into her lungs, and as she breaks them apart just to press them back together he gulps out an small sob of relief, spell hand lowering to clasp her by the back of the neck, hold her there and let his breath turn to panting as she regains her own.

It doesn't last. She pulls apart from him almost violently, leaves him staring at her as she chokes on the ability to breath. He wills himself not to coddle when she's just claimed space, works on bringing his own lungs back under control - but doesn't stop watching her like a hawk, attention fierce and frightened. Ready at a moment's notice for the cure not to hold. ]
rehandle: (267)

[personal profile] rehandle 2023-12-21 06:41 pm (UTC)(link)
[ She shifts, and when her hand finds his chest he expects her to shove. She doesn't. Rope. ]

Yeah.

[ Not a promise, just acknowledgement. Hurt, near-death. What he's done and his intention not to do it again. To take precautions of one nature or another. To take care.

He deserves worse than this from her. But for as long as she's not fleeing from him, he's going to take comfort in the closeness, in the fact of her survival. Careful not to push his luck too far, he moves only to lift a hand to where hers braces against him, swipe cautiously along her thumb with his own. ]


I'm sorry.

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