[ she glances at him over her shoulder, a skittish thing that doesn't want to admit to interest. then she rubs at her upper arms, putting some warmth back into them. it's unnecessary, really. he'd warmed the bathwater when he'd cleaned it. a useful trick.
she could make conversation. the curiosity is there—about his magic and how he'd come by it, for instance. but she doesn't want to make this any more personal than it already is. the risk feels unwarranted. so she just sits, trying to discern whose room he had found himself in and why by scrutinizing the various trappings of personal effects that she can see from the tub. ]
[ The room could be anyone's: all he'd been looking for was seclusion, finding the tub a bonus he couldn't pass up. Now the floor's covered in ooze and dark water, and if he wasn't planning to before he's most certainly going to have to see to that now before he leaves.
But first things first - another towel. He finds one hanging from a wardrobe hook, holds it hanging tactfully in front of him to spare them both his nudity as he crosses back to her, hands it over. ]
[ she reaches one hand across her middle to rub at her ribs. the gills are gone. some of the scales flake away under her fingers. her teeth are looser at the front when her tongue presses against them. ]
I think my body's going back to normal. [ instead of tonguing her loose teeth, she feels for the hollow where she'd already pulled one. a new tooth has halfway emerged already. ] No more sawtooth.
[ except for the one that is permanently tattooed on her shoulder, that is. ]
[ she glances at him long enough to affirm that, then takes a deep breath and ducks her chin. it hides her relief, but only barely, only because he's standing and she's not.
she reaches up with her hand, rubs at her neck, taking a deep breath (this feels like a luxury, now) and soldiering past the awkwardness. ] I've got teeth to pull. Like at least ten more. So.
And I can't leave until I've cleaned every speck of slime from this room. It's probably leaking through the floorboards as we speak.
[ A wry twist to his expression here, easing through the discomfort of emergency into whatever space it is they're going to have to inhabit now. They still share a room. They're going to have to get used to one another in new (old) context.
For now though, Stephen ruins the very brief and poorly constructed illusion of normalcy with a quick shift of his hand and the apparition of a loose pair of linen pants onto his lower half. ]
I can drop back to the room if you want. I'll be here a while.
(cw: erectile dysfunction jokes, but also still further teeth gore...)
But if your dick can't get hard next time because you keep thinking about what the inside of my gums look like when they're bleeding, don't say I didn't warn you.
[ that's as far as she'll go with being precious about it. the mystique is gone. and honestly, it's fine. the greater discomfort is how married it all feels. the practicality of it all. like inspecting each other's moles.
but she goes about her business, removing the loose monster-teeth with only mild grimacing and a predictable amount of blood that makes her nauseous more from the taste and the bits she can't help but swallow than any squeamishness. ]
I've pulled the eyeball out of a giant cyclops octopoid after impaling it with a streetlamp. I think I can survive your empty tooth holes.
[ He's seen and done worse, and can still get it up! But he gives her the illusion of privacy as he turns to get on with his own business, waves of his hand peeling tacky black smears from off floors and furniture.
The bath overflow he deals with the traditional way, conjures a heap of rags from about the boarding house and dumps them on the ground to soak up whatever's still soakable as he listens to the squelch, drip and pop of teeth being steadily evicted from Nami's mouth. ]
[ when the task is done, she splashes water into her mouth to rinse away some of the blood. her own teeth are growing in more steadily, and with the others gone, it's undeniable that the ache in her head and discomfort in her jaw is the speed with which they're pushing in.
still. she reaches down and plucks one of the shark-like teeth from the bottom of the tub, holds it up to the light. it doesn't look like her tooth. then again, no tooth held out of your mouth really looks like your own. she turns it, though, considering its strange shape, the unfamiliarity.
her tongue works at the half-emerged human teeth pushing back to fill the empty spots. ]
What do you do with lost teeth? [ she looks over at him. her teeth have grown in enough already that her speech lacks the strangeness of a lisp past empty gums. ]
Put them under your pillow. [ Without missing a beat, spoken with total and complete sincerity. Then a pause, doubling back, like another thought's just caught him. A small dip between the brows, a frown. ] Though the tooth fairy might not visit here.
[ He glances at the tooth in her hand from where he's busily shoving the bundle of rags around underfoot beside the tub, reaches out a hand for it. Asking to see. ]
[ He accepts the tooth, holding it up between two fingers against dim light. There's a question that's been growing, kept quiet for how fraught the last half hour's been, how tenuous their peace is now. But the tooth amplifies it. Burrows it into his thoughts like - well, like something stuck between his teeth.
It still isn't the time. He offers the tooth back. ]
It's a shame. These would probably fetch a good exchange rate.
All yours. [ she holds up her hands to refuse it. ] Keep it as a souvenir. Or toss it. Whatever.
[ she rises from the basin of the tub, tinted just barely pink by her own blood. she reaches out to take the towel from him, then. wraps it around herself before she steps out, leaving wet footprints on the wood floors. ]
[ Oh. The tooth goes dropped his palm, fingers wrapping it inside as he relinquishes the towel to her, watches as she drips water all over the just-wiped floor.
The huff is indulgent in spite of himself. As she walks, he kicks the rag bundle over her wet footsteps, letting it seep them up behind her.
(With her out of the water again, he follows her movements as subtly as he can. No risks this time. Not expecting any further disaster, but not about to be caught unprepared for one either.) ]
[ she wrinkles her nose at him in a way that feels familiar. cleaning up after her feels paternalistic in a way that can't help but be reminiscent of their marriage. the marriage they'd never had.
all the same, she steps onto the rags. a little arch of her eyebrows that makes the gesture a spiteful concession rather than cooperation. ]
[ Breezy nod to her concession, smirk poorly disguised. Still, with her no longer spreading wet over the floors, he does her the service of skirting around the room plucking up her discarded clothing items, returning as human clothes horse with them draped over his arm for the taking when she's ready. ]
[ she takes the clothes from him with her own thinly veiled smirk. it's easier to mock than it would be to offer even snide gratitude for his genuine gesture. ]
[ A flicker of nothing-to-something and he's standing there in what appears to be a toweled bathrobe, tapping plush slippered feet against wood floors. ]
With that attitude? Not for you.
[ Not for him either, but the illusion holds up well enough. ]
[ she towels herself off, however, and starts putting her clothes back on. the process shakes loose some more of those shining fish-like scales, which earns a little bit of a wince of discomfort along the way. ]
[ He lets the little spell drop away as easily as he'd pulled it together, instead crouching to where a little smattering of scales have landed against the wood. Now may still not be the right time, but he can only keep curiosity at bay for so long. ]
The sawtooth. [ A glance back up at her, a couple of scales glimmering between his fingers. The dip of his gaze toward where he knows the tattoo rests betrays him a little, though he pulls it back quickly enough. ] You already had a connection with it?
[ the good humor drains out of her. nami gives him a cold look of impatience — the kind that blames him for ruining the ease that they'd settled into. she finishes pulling on her shirt, obscuring the tattoo. ]
No.
[ there's no way for it to be a convincing lie. the point of the word isn't to be believable, but in its audacity to shut down any hope of pursuing that line of conversation. at least for this moment. ]
[ Wrong time, loud and clear. He drops it immediately with nothing more than a tight pinch at the corner of his mouth, dissatisfaction both with a path closed off and with his own ruining of their hard won ease.
The scales go dropped along with the point, hand raised in peace gesture. ]
[ she nods, and that's that. she slips out of the door, rumpling her hair with one hand once she's on the other side of it. a long, i'm in trouble sigh.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
she could make conversation. the curiosity is there—about his magic and how he'd come by it, for instance. but she doesn't want to make this any more personal than it already is. the risk feels unwarranted. so she just sits, trying to discern whose room he had found himself in and why by scrutinizing the various trappings of personal effects that she can see from the tub. ]
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But first things first - another towel. He finds one hanging from a wardrobe hook, holds it hanging tactfully in front of him to spare them both his nudity as he crosses back to her, hands it over. ]
How do you feel?
(cw: more teeth gore)
[ she reaches one hand across her middle to rub at her ribs. the gills are gone. some of the scales flake away under her fingers. her teeth are looser at the front when her tongue presses against them. ]
I think my body's going back to normal. [ instead of tonguing her loose teeth, she feels for the hollow where she'd already pulled one. a new tooth has halfway emerged already. ] No more sawtooth.
[ except for the one that is permanently tattooed on her shoulder, that is. ]
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[ Good. That's good. He spends a moment watching her, tracking from her face down to the water and back again. But she is okay. For now. Breathing.
A lift of one hand finally, waggling clean fingers. ] No more ooze. So, thanks.
no subject
[ she glances at him long enough to affirm that, then takes a deep breath and ducks her chin. it hides her relief, but only barely, only because he's standing and she's not.
she reaches up with her hand, rubs at her neck, taking a deep breath (this feels like a luxury, now) and soldiering past the awkwardness. ] I've got teeth to pull. Like at least ten more. So.
no subject
[ A wry twist to his expression here, easing through the discomfort of emergency into whatever space it is they're going to have to inhabit now. They still share a room. They're going to have to get used to one another in new (old) context.
For now though, Stephen ruins the very brief and poorly constructed illusion of normalcy with a quick shift of his hand and the apparition of a loose pair of linen pants onto his lower half. ]
I can drop back to the room if you want. I'll be here a while.
(cw: erectile dysfunction jokes, but also still further teeth gore...)
[ she shrugs. ]
But if your dick can't get hard next time because you keep thinking about what the inside of my gums look like when they're bleeding, don't say I didn't warn you.
[ that's as far as she'll go with being precious about it. the mystique is gone. and honestly, it's fine. the greater discomfort is how married it all feels. the practicality of it all. like inspecting each other's moles.
but she goes about her business, removing the loose monster-teeth with only mild grimacing and a predictable amount of blood that makes her nauseous more from the taste and the bits she can't help but swallow than any squeamishness. ]
(cw: references to eye gore... and teeth gore...)
[ He's seen and done worse, and can still get it up! But he gives her the illusion of privacy as he turns to get on with his own business, waves of his hand peeling tacky black smears from off floors and furniture.
The bath overflow he deals with the traditional way, conjures a heap of rags from about the boarding house and dumps them on the ground to soak up whatever's still soakable as he listens to the squelch, drip and pop of teeth being steadily evicted from Nami's mouth. ]
no subject
still. she reaches down and plucks one of the shark-like teeth from the bottom of the tub, holds it up to the light. it doesn't look like her tooth. then again, no tooth held out of your mouth really looks like your own. she turns it, though, considering its strange shape, the unfamiliarity.
her tongue works at the half-emerged human teeth pushing back to fill the empty spots. ]
What do you do with lost teeth? [ she looks over at him. her teeth have grown in enough already that her speech lacks the strangeness of a lisp past empty gums. ]
no subject
[ He glances at the tooth in her hand from where he's busily shoving the bundle of rags around underfoot beside the tub, reaches out a hand for it. Asking to see. ]
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[ she hands the tooth up to him, an offering for inspection. it's sharp at a point and serrated around the edges like the teeth of a saw. ]
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[ He accepts the tooth, holding it up between two fingers against dim light. There's a question that's been growing, kept quiet for how fraught the last half hour's been, how tenuous their peace is now. But the tooth amplifies it. Burrows it into his thoughts like - well, like something stuck between his teeth.
It still isn't the time. He offers the tooth back. ]
It's a shame. These would probably fetch a good exchange rate.
no subject
[ she rises from the basin of the tub, tinted just barely pink by her own blood. she reaches out to take the towel from him, then. wraps it around herself before she steps out, leaving wet footprints on the wood floors. ]
no subject
The huff is indulgent in spite of himself. As she walks, he kicks the rag bundle over her wet footsteps, letting it seep them up behind her.
(With her out of the water again, he follows her movements as subtly as he can. No risks this time. Not expecting any further disaster, but not about to be caught unprepared for one either.) ]
no subject
all the same, she steps onto the rags. a little arch of her eyebrows that makes the gesture a spiteful concession rather than cooperation. ]
no subject
[ Breezy nod to her concession, smirk poorly disguised. Still, with her no longer spreading wet over the floors, he does her the service of skirting around the room plucking up her discarded clothing items, returning as human clothes horse with them draped over his arm for the taking when she's ready. ]
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[ she takes the clothes from him with her own thinly veiled smirk. it's easier to mock than it would be to offer even snide gratitude for his genuine gesture. ]
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With that attitude? Not for you.
[ Not for him either, but the illusion holds up well enough. ]
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[ she towels herself off, however, and starts putting her clothes back on. the process shakes loose some more of those shining fish-like scales, which earns a little bit of a wince of discomfort along the way. ]
no subject
The sawtooth. [ A glance back up at her, a couple of scales glimmering between his fingers. The dip of his gaze toward where he knows the tattoo rests betrays him a little, though he pulls it back quickly enough. ] You already had a connection with it?
no subject
No.
[ there's no way for it to be a convincing lie. the point of the word isn't to be believable, but in its audacity to shut down any hope of pursuing that line of conversation. at least for this moment. ]
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The scales go dropped along with the point, hand raised in peace gesture. ]
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[ she's ready to Leave Now ]
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Yeah, I've got it. Go ahead.
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[ she nods, and that's that. she slips out of the door, rumpling her hair with one hand once she's on the other side of it. a long, i'm in trouble sigh.
she heads to terry's. ]