RP:Debts and Mysteries
Lita managed a grin as he exited the bar on her heels. She might have been impressed by that last blow but she'd never say it. Not to his face. Hell if she'd've lost, she probably would've done the same thing. She kept quiet as they walked and when they came to the shop, thick black curtains were drawn over the windows and the front door was locked. She fished the key from a chain around her neck and let them inside, only to slide the lock shut once they were in. The room was pitched in darkness. "Look, I know it's not my place to say nothin' but you reek of last year's piss and if you're gonna be in my shop for more than two seconds for a shave, I don't want the place smelling like, well, you." She wasn't meaning to be rude, she just felt that he was a man who needed to hear blatant truth and she wasn't afraid to say it. "There's a tub upstairs." She didn't ask. She rarely did. She reached out and touched his arm lightly, just enough to guide him towards the stairs at the back of the room that led upstairs. There was a bed just big enough for two, a desk under a window upon which sat a pillow and a few dozen books, open and closed, and on the far wall was the tub. Lita crossed the room and opened the window, sent a little moonlight and a cool breeze skipping through the room. She turned on the hot water and rubbed at her hands. Her knuckles were sore. When was the last time she'd been in a fight? It had been a while. "I can leave if you want some privacy." She wasn't such a modest person but she was aware that some people were.
Deaglan didn't answer. It wasn't shame. He simply didn't have a kind relationship with language. Words had always been quick to abandon him. Still, there was something here. He felt calm. At ease. She might have noticed, the way he breathed. The way he moved. His eyes cut the darkness more easily than most suspected. He wasn't all human. Just the better parts, he imagined, though the memories as to why that was the case were not with him at the moment. She helped him along the stairs all the same and he didn't let on that he could manage fine. She smelled soft. Felt soft. A far cry from where they'd been a few moments before. The entire thing was strange, all the same, and easy at the same time. How long since he'd shaved? Since he'd bathed? He began undressing the moment she left him, revealing the brutal toll that'd been exacted on his way to making a bit of money. Violence was one of the few familiar things left for him. His body spotted with works. All individual. All different makers. They told individual tales. Parts of him. His eyes cut across her in the dark. He wasn't much for shame. "Thank you." It almost sounded formal. Almost. But it was warm. He reached for the tub's edge and noticed he'd a tooth lodged in the top of a knuckle. It was a garish reminder of where he'd been. The warmth of the water swallowed him up. This was where he was now. He looked aside towards her as he settled into the water, his masculine frame veiled by the tub's edge from the upper torso down.
Lita figured that him undressing was the answer to her question so she nodded once and moved towards the desk, pulled open a drawer and extracted a little box of first aid supplies. She moved back to the tub as he got in and she perched on the edge of the tub, on his left with her back to him. She took his hand in her lap without asking. She was gentle, careful not to startle him, aware of the person she'd seen in that tavern. Dark and determined and fiercely wild. She took the tooth from his skin as carefully as she could, lifted it to inspect it closer and shook her head at it. There was a little smile at the corner of her lips but she said nothing. She dipped her left hand over the edge of the tub and into the water next to his chest, scooped out a handful of water and let it fall across his fingers. The water soaked the bottom of her dress and trickled down her legs. She didn't seem to notice, much less care. The little box had been set on the floor for later. She rubbed her thumbs gently across his knuckles, wiping away the dry blood and eyeing the worst of those cuts and bruises. "I have stuff that'll heal that up no problem." That wasn't a question, either. "But you should think about not letting people lodge their teeth into your skin." Loose curls shielded most of her vision as she turned her head a little and offered a smile. "Figure I'll have to borrow Cal's razor though, if he won't mind. I don't keep one here."
It'd all started with a wager. Filth. A beard. It'd grown since he'd been taken. And now here, in hot water, with her lissome form perched at his side, something began to wake in him. He'd been a man once. There'd been women. He'd taken baths and shaved and lived and lost and cared. It'd never been quite the way of his brothers - brothers, he'd had three- but it'd not been the worst. It hadn't been hard. There'd been wounds and healing. There'd been a kindness in him. He remembered. She spoke and suddenly he found himself smiling, found himself using his left hand to clean the tangled mess of his beard until the dark hair stretched down his chin in soggy waves. "You might need a saw." He managed. And, aware that he'd made something of a joke, smiled himself. In the dark they were both shadows of themselves. Shapes in the moonlight. His angles were distinct. Masculine. Her own lean, gentle, feminine. Emboldened, he laid his palm against the small of her back. Felt the fabric soak through. Felt lean strength beneath. "Tell me how you moved so fast."
His joke made her smile broaden a little. "Maybe." she mused. That hand against her back made her more aware of herself, of him and this place. She'd been a woman once. She'd cared once. Been selective. She still was but it was worse now because there was a constant want, a constant need in her that she could not satisfy. Not for a lack of trying. Before the job, before the lies, before she'd lost herself in so many other versions of the truth. Before she'd become those lies to appease the job. Now she was pieces. Fragmented. A little dress. A pretty smile. The faint scent of jasmine and a love for the ocean. These things were hers to own. Her hands moved to the edge of the tub and her fingers curled around the porcelain, more to keep them still than for a need of balance. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had someone here. Other than the Cap'n. She wriggled her toes in a little puddle of moonlight before she turned her head again, not quite to look at him but rather to gauge his reaction as she spoke a single word in answer to his question, "Vampire." Her voice was suddenly soft on the word, not as if it were a secret but that something might break were she to say it to loudly, as if that truth might vanish if she acknowledged it for too long a time. "Tell me why you're so resilient."
Deaglan said, "Not finished." He said. And it was true, in a way. There'd come the inevitable when the debt killed him. He'd known it when the promise had been made. Memories poured their way across the surface of his mind as he dragged a hand through the water, watching ripples pass along his fingers, before they lifted once more to the sleek stretch of her spine through the damp fabric. Words came in the form of a question, curiosity, sharpened as he looked up through the dark curls that partially veiled her face and into her eyes. He did not care to confess he did not have confidence he could manage shaving himself. "Can you hack this mess off my face?"
Lita wanted to ask what it was he was trying to finish. But she was distracted by his question. She blinked at him for a long moment. "You'd trust a complete stranger to take a blade to your throat?" She'd give him credit for that one. He was either really cocky or had balls. Either way, Lita was tempted to look. Tempted. But she lofted a brow and turned away again. "Sure." She pushed herself off the tub and headed for the door, leaving little wet footprints as she went, water still trickling down her legs from the back of her dress where his hand had been. Jerk. Downstairs, through the shop again and out the back door to the tunnels below. A quick conversation, a lied explanation, a sweet smile. She could play that game. Cal knew better than to believe whatever she said but he didn't question her motives and she blew him a kiss as she headed back upstairs. Lock the back door, back up the steps and she paused outside the doorway where Deaglan wouldn't be able to see her. She shouldn't make this choice. She should walk away. But that hunger in her gut, in the pit of her stomach, wouldn't let her. So she steeled her nerves and kept walking. She was carrying another little box, much more fancy than the one she'd had before. Someone took care of this box. As she lifted her gaze to find his eyes she offered a little smile at having found what she wanted.
Deaglan had watched her go. The slice of her legs as they cut through the near darkness and the pad of her feet on the floor. Distracting. It'd been too long. Already, just a few seconds, and his fingers craved the coolness of her under them again. He felt trouble and through himself headlong into it. Unable, and unwilling, to turn aside. It wasn't that the inclination didn't exist. It did. He could half-see himself rising from the water and making an escape. There were aspects of a home, of walls and windows, that still felt foreign and strange. Instead, he buried his face in the water and ensured he was clean. His fingers ran over his face and he realized he didn't know what he looked like anymore. Startling, but not the worst he'd endured, so he let it by and watched her return. She smiled at him and he wanted. Suddenly. Fiercely. It coiled in him with primal strength and he considered, briefly, letting it loose. Instead, he sat up fully against the back of the tub's basin. His eyes cut over her. All of her. The appraisal distinctly masculine and entirely unveiled.
Lita was used to attention. She could stop and quiet a room. She was used to stares and whistles and lewd comments. But rarely did a look hold the power to stop her in her tracks. Which was what his eyes did. For a moment. A second. A faltered step before she'd remind herself to focus. She turned her eyes to the box in her hand. "You're lucky I still remember how to do this." Her voice sounded small in her ears and she hoped it didn't betray her nervousness. She'd never ignored that instinct before, she'd never told that want in her gut no and it was not happy about it. But she didn't think it a good idea to be distracted while holding a blade to someone's throat. She looked at him sitting up and then at the tub. Tempted. And realized that this would be easier if he were sitting in a chair. But she didn't have a chair here. Damn the runner. A desk and no chair? Or had that been moved when they'd put the tub in? Couldn't remember. No matter. She perched on the edge of the tub again, twisted a little onto her left hip so that she could face him better. The box opened in her hands and there was the razor, a vial of oil and a jar of cream and a brush. Lita smiled suddenly at the fact that Cal wore a perpetual five o' clock shadow. She tucked her hair behind her ears and glanced at him. "Looks a little better clean. But I think it's time to let it go." Her look was solemn and a smile curled at the corners of her mouth. She reached out and turned his chin towards her, opened the vial and smoothed the oil across his chin and cheeks and throat. It was smooth against her fingers where the hair of his beard was scraggly and coarse but his skin was soft. Next came the brush and lather. She set the box on the floor then and took out the blade, ran her thumb along its edge. Someone definitely cared for it. She moved behind him and crouched to one knee but she didn't like that angle. She couldn't see past all that blasted fur on his face. She made a face over his shoulder, trying to think, lips pursed slightly. She stood then with a little sigh and moved back around to stand next to him. Without hesitation she lifted herself over the edge of the tub and straddled him, her knees on either sides of his hips. The water was warm. "Don't move." she said in a whisper as her left hand touched his cheek to turn his head and her right lifted that blade to his skin. In her mind, she remembered a boy. A boy who was not yet a man who had asked of her this same task. So many years ago. Too many years ago. She smiled as she raked that blade against his skin now, remembering the boy so as not to think too much about the man. Couldn't be distracted. It seemed to take forever. Too long. The muscles in her back tensed as she worked to keep her shoulders relaxed. But it wasn't everyday someone deliberately asked you to put a blade to their throat! When it was finished, she leaned back a little to inspect the work, for a moment forgetting that she was in a tub and straddling him. "Tell me how it feels."
Deaglan heard a question. It hung in the air over the sounds of sloshing water. The sounds from the docks seemed to fade as the room came wholly to the forefront of his attentions. Gone, for now, were the memories that'd begun to trickle their way across the surface of his consciousness. Gone, for now, was the realizations and worries. Instead, as his hands stretched beneath the waters and found silken skin slick from it, he embraced the sudden and irreparably potent reality of the instant. The backs of her thighs were lean, coltish, and strong. His hands travelled across them, caressing, exploratory without apology or question. His heart raced. Furious. Aware. A power and ferocious charge crackled its way through the air in some bold, inescapable declaration. He wanted. Powerful. Intensely. She'd feel it against her beneath the warm waters, in the strength in his hands. She'd asked him a question. She'd told him not to move. One hand abandoned its perch to draw upwards, over the small of her back, along her spine, until it found the dark curls that lay between her shoulders. And, lest she stopped him, he pulled her down until they were a tangle of breath and lips. The last memory he had was not a conscious one. He remembered to kiss...
How was it that she'd twice took the strength from him? How was it she'd succeeded where so many others had, until this instant, failed? He saw the shadow of her darkness cross those gorgeous features. Saw the glint fashioned in her eyes. He wondered, if only briefly, if she'd any real idea what she'd found in him. If it mattered. He imagined her vanishing into the ether like a dream you fought to hold on to. This girl. This beauty. This wolf in belle's clothing who'd something within her all her own and dangerous and wonderful. Lita was not a woman you trifled with. He understood, now more than ever, that the real danger lay right here. Against her. Where a man's heart and thoughts could get the better of his sense while she was busy stealing it away. Never enough. “You are not mine. Yet, you are.” There was something precious here. An instant. A possible memory. “Let’s go onto the roof.” The ripple of his abdomen, his eyes finding her own as he reached to find the roof, and then he was hauling himself onto the roof without her.
She turned to watch him cross the room to the window, trying to memorize the cut of his form as the moonlight sliced sharp angles and shapes across his skin. She bit at her lower lip as she watched and finally figured she should follow. If she left a strange person on her roof for too long, he was liable to jump. And she wasn't cleaning up that mess. So she went to the window, toes of one foot on the ledge as she pushed herself up and reached for the roof. It wasn't hard. She didn't look strong but that had been one of the perks about becoming a vampire, wasn't it? Her toes found the slope of the roof and she glanced around as she stood. She'd never been up here before. She turned with her toes still lingering over the edge of the roof, looking past the rows of houses and shops to the docks not far away and the ocean beyond that. This close to the sea there was a perpetual breeze and it splashed dark curls across her features as she took in the view. It was freezing! What the heck had he been thinking!? Even after the change she'd never gotten used to the cold. Gooseflesh rose across her arms but she refused to give him the satisfaction of going in first.
Watching her, still, as her fair frame stood amidst the moonlight and put all the beauty he saw to a damned and pitiful shame. Where the hell did she come from? The hell was going on? He knew darkness and the devil. They, in comparison, were too familiar. The former hardly spoke now. The respite was strange. Uneven. The bite of the air a healthy hint of what lay beyond it all, and before, as though the past had reached up and shed some of its awfulness. He saw their faces this time and there wasn’t pain with it. Discomfort. Not pain. “You’re cold.” He said. Still smiling. And then, he stretched a hand out, offering the worn fingers and strength there to her. The words came after a moment, his eyes lifting, searching for her own. “Don’t like the air?”
He was staring. She could feel his eyes on her, the way she always could. People always stared. But there were few in this world who could see through her. And his eyes were piercing. She turned her head a little over her shoulder, just enough that he might see the profile of her face sillhouetted against that curtain of moonlight. But it wasn't 'til he reached out his hand that she'd turn to face him again. Without a word she reached out and took his hand, closing the distance between them with easy steps. She'd nudge her knee between his and if he'd oblige she'd settle between his legs, nestling against his chest. He was warm, a reprieve from that wind and cold. She tilted her head back against his chest, let the sound of his heartbeat flood through her. Breathed him in. Her hands lifted to settle on his thighs, her touch light, not hesitant but still curious, exploring, trying to memorize the feel of him beneath her fingertips. That smile still lingered on her lips. "I like it." She said after that long moment of quiet. Though she didn't specify whether she meant him or the roof or the air he'd asked about in the first place. "It's freeing." There was no hesitation in those words, even though her voice was still soft.
She found him and his arms swept around her, tightened, pulled her into him until the slight weight of her was his to bear. There were words. Kind ones. He caught hints of surprise in the way she measured her time with him and couldn't decipher all of what it entailed. Didn't care to. The cold truth was that this was the most alive he'd felt in a long time. It was the closest thing to happy he had known since before the Darkness. Madness. But instead of taking her, claiming her lips or cheek with his, he brushed a hand through the dark tresses that fell across his shoulders and her own. He found her back and the lean line of her shoulder blades, sculpted, somehow holding a strength underneath them that he didn't entirely understand. Vampire, she'd said. Like the Captain. Vampire. It was a word they spoke as though he should have been enlightened by it, understood, aware somehow of all that it entailed. It meant nothing to him in reality. It explained nothing of how both had been able to make a better showing than the strongest men he'd known. "I spent fifteen lifetimes chained to a wall in a small cavern dug into cold, wet, muddy dirt." He said. It was as though he was talking about the weather. The dark brogue of his voice never wavered or faltered. "Feels good." He found himself thinking of her skin beneath his fingers even as he meant the air, the night, the scent of salt heavy and the voices of sailors slaving at the docks or pushing drunkenly up and down the streets below serving as some surreal backdrop to the bend she'd given his path. "You're a mystery." He said at length. Their eyes meeting. His own a pale, glacial grey. "I like mysteries."
"I'm sorry." she said as she brushed her lips against his with the ghost of a kiss. "That you like things which have no answers."