He knows he looks a mess, in the moment. His hair is in disarray, streaks of blood stark against the silver-white. Part of him wants to pull away at the touch. Not because it's her, no, of course not. It just doesn't feel right for her to have to touch him like this.
A ridiculous thought, frankly. They've seen -- and touched -- each other plenty over the last few weeks. She's seen all the ugliness he has to hide. And yet, she wants him close, even so.
He lets out a breath before sinking back as bidden, his gaze elsewhere and nowhere. "Apologies," he murmurs, the water comfortably lapping up against them both, the warmth of her frame sinking into him as surely as the water.
All the physical mess, that's fixable. The innkeeper included soap for then as well as oils, and there's going to be time for grooming themselves back to normality. The emotional mess, that will take time.
She finds herself patient and full of it now. There's still tadpoles in her head, there's a cult trying to end the world and turn it into an illithid colony, there's an unspoken agreement from the world at large that they're meant to save it - Hermione and her group of traumatised assholes - and yet it feels like the biggest threat is taken care of.
She can be patient, just as she's been with Astarion for some time.
Although that doesn't stop her from tsking her tongue when he apologises. "You've nothing to apologise for, my darling," she says calmly.
She dips her hand in the water, and brings it up to his forehead, then runs it back over his hair. It's by far the slowest method of washing his hair, but she isn't quite ready to let him go.
"You're allowed to feel things," she adds, "and it's nobody's business or say about what those things should be. You take your time now. Let me take care of you."
His eyes slide shut as the water drips down, trickling past his eyes and down his cheeks, but his tongue still feels leaden. What is there to say? The weight of the past night still reverberates through him, seeking an outlet and he isn't sure how or what to provide it.
But there is this, at least Her presence is a comfort he can allow himself, and to surrender himself to her mercies is no hard ask.
He does reach up to take hold of one of her hands, silently pulling it forward and kissing the back of her knuckles, almost reverently.
It squeezes around her heart strings, pulls mercilessly at them. Her heartbeat feels thunderous in her chest.
She leaves a kiss on his shoulder, her lips touching skin being the only sound in the room for a while. It really does feel like a bubble now - a bubble of silence, or a bubble like what Silence produces.
She's going to stubbornly forget all about this fight. About the Silences cast, contrasting with the screams of Astarion's pain. She's going to forget Cazador, because it's what he deserves: nothing. Nothing at all.
"Here, let's take care of this," she says, cutting the silence short, and reaches for a little bowl set near the tub. "Keep your head tipped back for me, love."
When did she become so used to giving him petnames? The dam keeping her affections in check has burst, and it feels so...so natural to call him that. All those things.
She shakes away the last dregs of embarrassment about petnames, and scoops water into the bowl, pouring it over his hair. A baptism, of sort. At the very least, she will make sure there is no more dried blood in those white locks.
He'd started the whole petnames thing, of course, but that had been a matter of keeping distance. 'Darling', 'dear', 'sweetheart', 'love', things he'd called his marks, ways of trying to ignore who they were as people and substituting only a grim string of circumstantial similarities.
All fools doomed because they stopped, they listened, they let him draw them in.
Something he'll never have to do again, never.
When Hermione says those things, it's the exact opposite. It's her way of sinking past the superficial, and the meaning shifts. The words have weight, now, layered over him as he tips his head back to allow her to do as she pleases. Slowly, the blood drains away, the metallic tang swallowed by the scent of the soaps and oils nearby.
"...I want you to appreciate that I'm entirely capable of doing this myself, you know."
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no subject
A ridiculous thought, frankly. They've seen -- and touched -- each other plenty over the last few weeks. She's seen all the ugliness he has to hide. And yet, she wants him close, even so.
He lets out a breath before sinking back as bidden, his gaze elsewhere and nowhere. "Apologies," he murmurs, the water comfortably lapping up against them both, the warmth of her frame sinking into him as surely as the water.
no subject
She finds herself patient and full of it now. There's still tadpoles in her head, there's a cult trying to end the world and turn it into an illithid colony, there's an unspoken agreement from the world at large that they're meant to save it - Hermione and her group of traumatised assholes - and yet it feels like the biggest threat is taken care of.
She can be patient, just as she's been with Astarion for some time.
Although that doesn't stop her from tsking her tongue when he apologises. "You've nothing to apologise for, my darling," she says calmly.
She dips her hand in the water, and brings it up to his forehead, then runs it back over his hair. It's by far the slowest method of washing his hair, but she isn't quite ready to let him go.
"You're allowed to feel things," she adds, "and it's nobody's business or say about what those things should be. You take your time now. Let me take care of you."
no subject
But there is this, at least Her presence is a comfort he can allow himself, and to surrender himself to her mercies is no hard ask.
He does reach up to take hold of one of her hands, silently pulling it forward and kissing the back of her knuckles, almost reverently.
no subject
She leaves a kiss on his shoulder, her lips touching skin being the only sound in the room for a while. It really does feel like a bubble now - a bubble of silence, or a bubble like what Silence produces.
She's going to stubbornly forget all about this fight. About the Silences cast, contrasting with the screams of Astarion's pain. She's going to forget Cazador, because it's what he deserves: nothing. Nothing at all.
"Here, let's take care of this," she says, cutting the silence short, and reaches for a little bowl set near the tub. "Keep your head tipped back for me, love."
When did she become so used to giving him petnames? The dam keeping her affections in check has burst, and it feels so...so natural to call him that. All those things.
She shakes away the last dregs of embarrassment about petnames, and scoops water into the bowl, pouring it over his hair. A baptism, of sort. At the very least, she will make sure there is no more dried blood in those white locks.
no subject
All fools doomed because they stopped, they listened, they let him draw them in.
Something he'll never have to do again, never.
When Hermione says those things, it's the exact opposite. It's her way of sinking past the superficial, and the meaning shifts. The words have weight, now, layered over him as he tips his head back to allow her to do as she pleases. Slowly, the blood drains away, the metallic tang swallowed by the scent of the soaps and oils nearby.
"...I want you to appreciate that I'm entirely capable of doing this myself, you know."
no subject
She sets the bowl down on the stool, and leans in against him to whisper: "It's called pampering. I'm spoiling you."