Who: Asura + Plotted CR
When: Late January - Early February
Where: Rescue basecamp, Asura's shared home, and likely the steps of Parliament.
What: Wrath, dumb jokes, politics, and a lot of h/c.
Warnings: Strong descriptions of injury, mentions of torture (re: event) and slavery.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
That's because I can't replace things that aren't there. So now that you're awake, we can take other materials from your body, mainly nutrients, and see about encouraging growth.
But I didn't find it. Persie and Eren did. They'd already put parts on the black market.
[Her voice warbles a little. Not in near tears, but in the anger raising and her swallowing it down.
But him sagging her pant leg, had her look at him. And she...rubbed her face with her hand, exhaling slowly.]
And no, I can't. I know you wanna cuddle and I am extremely relieved but...I'm way too high energy to stay still right now.
Also, I can do something productive now. It didn't feel like enough before.
no subject
[ No matter what she does or doesn't do. ]
And that's... what keeps us moving forward, doesn't it? Despite tired bodies and worn hearts. [ In this facet, they are the same. They are fueled by what still needs doing, as opposed to what has been returned and already hard-won. Asura and Sokie, they're never satisfied. Enough is never enough. ] If you're really after something to wear you out, think you helping to wash my hair will do the trick. The only other time it's been this gnarled and caked with dirt was after I wrestled those reediles on the riverbanks.
[ The remnants of his cup of broth? Yeah, he's gonna chug it down like a shot in three, two, one...! There he goes. It's forced, but he soldiers right on through it, slamming his emptied mug down, upon the washroom tile to signify his victory before— he pushes himself up. Standing again. Fighting again. ]
That mud, it stuck with me for days. [ Smiling, he flashes a mouthful of dragon fang. ] Let's hope the stink of that stone pit doesn't do the same, or else we're really never going to cuddle again.
[ W h a t, she'd said 'cuddle first', okay? Not linger in possessive embrace, but cuddle. ] And maybe, while we're at it, you can even tell me what it was like. After the fires, when Paloma and I were gone. I'm not going to have any way of knowing otherwise, and you...
Need to wash yourself clean of it, too.
[ As much as he does. As all of them do. ]
no subject
There's no hand shaking at least, not this time. She's steady, even as she sweeps up the rest of the chair bits.]
It is. But I am going to take care of myself, and I am going to be an adult.
[She eyes him.]
I still think you wrestling with those reedlies was a stupid idea.
[Just a normal stupid, not a How could you sort of stupid. But of course he chugged his broth, and now he's going to keep the cuddling in mind. He's a tactile boy, she knew this from day one.
With a huff, she moved away, into the hall, and brought over another chair, covering it with a towel.]
Also, don't move too quick. You'll just fall again, and then I'll have to kick you in the balls if you fall on me.
[Because, well, of course she has to threaten him casually!]
But fine. I'll tell you once we get your hair washed, and see about actually soaking you in the bath. After you wash you of course.
Maybe...if you're still awake once we get you out, we can talk about what we can do to relax. And...what we can do after the trial.
no subject
Is that a challenge I hear, Sokie Undertown? You know I can't resist a contest, much less one where the prize benefits the both of us. Though...
[ Stopping just sort of the tub, Asura inhales (shaky), exhales (steady), and centers himself so that no, he won't lose his balance while shirking off his own pants. He didn't fall on Sokie, so his balls are safe (for now!), and he hasn't got the slightest intention of dealing with the wet fabric when transitioning from hair-washing to the hot soak of a bath, and so: off the pajama bottoms go, divested from his person and left for the wolves. His own weakened constitution is hindrance enough.
Good thing that he can still carry on, chattering away with no impediment but a rattling, chest-borne wheeze; a distinct shortness of breath: ]
After the trial is hard to pin down. Too many variables, too many moving parts. And so long as there's the potential for justice going unmet, then— [ He, as the hammer of Summer's justice, will have to be prepared to mete it out instead. There is no other path which awaits for him. ] —that's something we shouldn't talk about. Not yet.
[ Because that argument can sit and brew upon the horizon. Asura, he doesn't have the energy for it, and Sokie, she doesn't deserve to have it foisted upon her now. Not when they've yet to recover, embrace one another, and acknowledge in full what had happened to them both.
Taking his seat upon the chair (were it anyone else aiding him, it'd be a humiliation, accepting this level of help; this amount of care), he reaches forward to start the water, setting the temperature to scalding (and somehow yet, he still shivers). ]
Right now I just want to feel without falling. [ —he confesses as the water rains down, and blood (his own) colors the runoff, rinsing free of his hair. The water is blistering, and it isn't enough (and it won't ever be, not to replace the heat missing from his chest; the parts of him which had been cut out), but Asura knows what will be, intoning the answer to his salvation with the soft-spoken reverence of a prayer: ] Your hands, your voice, and the water. Need that. Need you.
[ And she is benevolent enough to grace him with close proximity, the water overhead cut off and pulsed on again in the rhythmic lull of repetition as she washes his hair, rinses, and begins the process anew until—
(All he can feel is Sokie, Sokie, Sokie, her hands which told the story of her emotions guiding him through the shower and ensuing bath, but not without a shove (her) and a blind grope (him) or two.)
—he is clean, dressed in fresh sleeping clothes, and settled atop their bed rather than his own. And maybe, he's pathetically close to passing the hell out right there, atop the sheets which are full of Sokie's scent, but he hasn't given in. Sleep hasn't claimed him just yet. He's still going to win...! ]
no subject
And then he took a step, and he ruined it, even if by sheer force of will he kept upright.]
You're right. This isn't for now. Not for us. Not for you. You need to focus on yourself, not anything else.
[Just on staying upright is a win. If they get into the injustice and all of it well- Asura will have to eat more wrath, and that's not a good way to fall asleep. He might get a stomach ache.
So she focuses on him, on washing out all the dirt, the blood, the memories of the time in the stone, and what should have never happened again, even as the water is hot enough to scald.
She knows what she could give him, if she thought that he had enough energy for it. Later, she promises. No kisses, because she knows what she'll do if they do. Her hands are everywhere, calm, sweet, firm, through in cleaning him-
And they managed to get him out, clean, wearing clean clothes, though she does need to change the sheets.
Still...she gently pokes him on the nose, trying to push him against the pillows.]
Sleep Asura. Sleep. It'll help us both.
[No spells here. She hasn't used a single one which is telling of how much she's poured of herself into him.]
no subject
His arms encircle her middle when she leans in close to nudge him down, against the pillows, his hands clasping together at the small of her back to ensure that, when he falls down against the mattress in full, she'll follow suit. And with a creak of bedsprings, they flop! across the bed-linens, and though Asura is left a bit breathless for the move, he is no worse for it. Yes, fatigue weighs heavy on his brow, and his green eyes are set to half-mast with the encroachment of sleep well and truly upon him, but his body (what hadn't been taken from him) remains sturdy, and is anchor enough to see Sokie's restlessness docked in the safe-harbor of Asura's arms for the remainder of the day. Focus on yourself, she'd said before she'd helped him to wash clean of the abasement of being butchered and chained, but... there's just no damn way that he can.
Not when she hadn't answered his question ("tell me what it was like?"), not when she'd spent herself on his well-being for the past three days and nights. Laying side by side, Asura's hands still threaded together where they rest at Sokie's back, the King... smiles, and it's goofy looking. Dumb as hell. The expression made every bit as bleary as Asura's vision by the siren-song of sleep, but it's genuine and it's present, not only because he'd succeeded in dragging Sokie to bed with him, but— ]
It'll help you, too, if you sleep with me. [ —look at them, they both can be adults and mind themselves.
As Asura can use the word 'sleep' without any wayward connotations.]Do you know, Sokie...? [ Know what? Well, there's a brief pause, if only because a yawn interrupts Asura's sleep-muzzled drawl. ] Your hands express what you don't. When you're tense, they find your face, and when you're afraid, they shake. And when... you're patient and you're tender, helping me to be new again, they're like nothing else in the whole damn universe.
[ Lips? Pressed to the temple of Sokie's forehead in a kiss, lingering and sweet, which they'd been denied in the washroom. ]
But they need rest, no different than you. So... [ Asura, he's almost irritated with how thick his voice sounds. How exhausted he'd become after being awake for no longer than a handful of hours (if that at all). ] ...don't you leave me, Sokie Undertown.
[ He needs her, just like he'd said. And he wonders if she might need him, too. ]
no subject
She's captured, and his hands are still as large, still as capable of holding her to him, even if it feels more like a child holding a teddy bear then Asura holding his lover. She made a noise of protest-she still had things to do, ways to calm down as she tried not to tell him what it was like- since he would likely smell the lie, no matter who smooth the delivery.
And he looks so pleased with himself, with his goofy half asleep smile.]
You dork.
[Not like he could do anything remotely sensuous right then. And he had to point out what a tell her hands were too...which of course she disliked, and of course he would notice. Even when it tried to appease her with a kiss.]
...You know I can't leave you. But you know...
[She pulled him, gently, so he could rest against her chest, boney as it would be compared to Persephone's bounty.]
They shake when I'm angry too.
[A kiss will come at another time. When it is less likely that he'd clip his teeth against her chin, when they can kiss and know they're safe. They're home.]
no subject
Maybe Sokie doesn't know it, how resilient he is. And perhaps that's why, for all that she's embraced him (cared for him, given her magic to him), she has put distance (vulnerable, she'd called him, dismissing his words) between them too. Were he not so drained (from a simple shower and bath, from cleaning away grime, blood, and dirt), his temper might have flared at the realization, but as it is, he only seeks out more of her. To be closer still. It is after he threads one of his legs between his own that he finally seems satisfied with the proximity they share, steadied by the intimacy of being so intertwined with another.
("You know I can't leave you.") ]
...wouldn't call it just shaking. [ —he huffs, eyes falling closed despite himself. And yet, he still stubbornly speaks, clinging to consciousness: ] More like the anger turns your hands to weapons. The shaking is your restraint.
[ He'd tasted as much, when he'd devoured her wrath; noticed it, in the moments before she'd asked him to deplete her of the volatile emotion. ]
And you... you're my gravity. [ Hmm? Gravity? Does Asura really know what he's saying? Turns out that he does: ] Felt the pull of your magic, when I was asleep all those days. Helped me to wake up. To know what was real, and what wasn't.
no subject
You know, Everett would argue I have no restraint.
[And yet...she did restrain herself when she needed to. The Foggy City and how she made sure she was on the rescue team, not the assault team, were signs of it. Things that Asura obviously knew. Sokie was used to compromise and not getting everything she wanted.
Though...Gravity? The pull of her magic....she hadn't realized he could feel it, passed out as he was. And now she was stuck, and she'd have to shove him away if she really needed to pee. Well...guess she would have to stretch herself to read some magic documents while he napped.
Gently, she brushed his hair away from his face, so he wouldn't accidentally inhale it.]
I'd argue I was an anchor. But it doesn't really matter. Rest now. You can check in with the others when you wake up.
[What others? Oh, just a few dragons, one of them possibly being licky dragon.]
no subject
—let's go, in the present, folding to the surety of Sokie's embrace even as it dawns upon him that this is what being vulnerable truly is: the ability to entrust yourself completely to another person, without hesitation or fear. But for Asura, there is no time to dwell upon this thought, a deep, dreamless sleep claiming him before long, though...
As it turns out, he does have some clue how to do it. Being vulnerable, being weak, he can be both when he's with her, and maybe that's what she'd been trying to tell him all along. It's just too bad he isn't awake to call her out on it. ]