[ prp ] bruises (taymerica)

[Rejam]

lizbot

He rose, then, tucking the pin back into his pocket and gently attempting to take the towel away from her, her rough hands alarming him almost as much as all the injuries newly exposed to him, his fingertips gingerly tracing the edge of a bruise.

"You don't have to apologize for how you are," he said, quiet and frustrated. "I never want you to apologize for feeling this need to--to fix people, or whatever it ******** is. I just wish you'd weigh my ********' experience in it some. I'm scared of him," he said bluntly, "and it's not a question of whether you can fend for yourself but whether you'll need to and whether I'm sitting here worrying about it."  

[lizbot]

The towel was given up easily and she bowed her head, looking at her empty hands as if wondering what possible use she could have for them now. After a moment she retraced the path his fingers had taken. "I took risks I shouldn't have today," she repeated. "It worked out, it worked and we saved another hunter but it doesn't feel like it. It feels like I ******** up in ways that don't have hardly anything to do with Rep."  

[Rejam]

lizbot

He was much gentler with her than she was with herself, and the act of having someone to take care of smoothed the edges of his anger. He paused to gingerly detangle a lock of her hair with his shaking fingers, working a knot loose before one of them could have the opportunity to snag a brush on it.

"Did those work out too?" he asked, and there was fear in his voice.  

[lizbot]

"Nobody's dead from them," she replied grimly. "I'm trying Taym and hoping that's good enough, cause that's how I've always tried to live. I'm gonna learn from it if I can, cause what else is there?"  

[Rejam]

lizbot

He smoothed the towel gingerly over the bruises painting her ribs, brow furrowing as he considered the question. It didn't need an answer, of course, and so he didn't try to give her one.

"I thought I wanted," he said finally, "to have a big ******** door-slamming yelling-until-it-pisses-the-neighbors-off fight with you over this. Maybe I did. Maybe I still do, because I'm sure as hell still pissed. I don't know. But I get kind of tired of fighting sometimes." Distractedly, unthinkingly, in the way he'd sometimes had since Thanksgiving--unaware, probably, that he did at all--he touched his fingertips to her belly, flat and unyielding. "Anyway it'd be hypocritical of me if I didn't say that trying and hoping you learn from it was enough." A pause. "It worked out," he repeated tiredly, an act of submission tied up in three words.  

[lizbot]

It was quiet for awhile, she was pliant and half lost in thought and when she did break the silence, it awkward, almost jarring. "I didn't.." America began, pausing at the volume of her own voice. She began again, softer, "I didn't message you like that to give you sass or distract you with...with chipper bullshit. You seemed mad about that along with the rest, but I only ever say it 'cause I mean it."

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[Rejam]

lizbot

"I don't know why," he said slowly, "I found it so easy to read it in that tone of voice, because I know, I know, you've never said it like that to me. Sometimes I still worry you don't take me seriously, I guess, but I'm sorry for it." He bundled her into the towel, settling it meaninglessly around her shoulders. "It's not that I don't believe you, because I do." Another pause. "It's hard to remember sometimes that I do believe it, maybe--feels unreal, some days. But I know it's real and if I'm sorry for anything I said it's for accusing you of weaponizing it. I don't wanna ever give you less reason to say it and god knows I feel like I do already."  

[lizbot]

Leaning into him, America rested her head on one bony shoulder. "You got some ******** up little filters in you, Obadiah Thompson," and she sighed at this but the tone still managed to be fond rather than simply tired. "I love you and that isn't any sort of mistake or ******** up on my part, whether things work out or not."

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[Rejam]

lizbot

"I want them to work out, though. I love you," he said. "I just wish I was better at putting everything into words. Not just the pisses-me-off things," he clarified quietly, winding his arms around her, "although that'd sure as hell help. All of it. I wish I had words like you do. Maybe it's all those ******** up filters. I don't think you even know what a ********' filter is."  

[lizbot]

"I'd say I fell in love with you words first, but I didn't. Could have though, easy as anything." And now there was a thoughtful sort of smile in her voice. "Love your ******** words, and I've never been a words sorta girl, you know? You nearly always take the long way to saying what you mean to but you get there eventually and..."

Lifting her head to try and catch that gaze that so often slipped away from her, America finished, "There's something gained when you take the scenic route, isn't there?" Leaning in she kissed his chin, and in a far different tone, "Still the worst ******** prevaricator."

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[Rejam]

lizbot

"Don't be ridiculous," he said, and he let her glance catch up against his, but only for a half an instant. "We both know you fell in love with me a**-first."  

[lizbot]

With a laugh, and now there was nothing unhappy or subdued in the sound, she gave it a fond slap and let go, shoving the towel into his chest. She picked up the sweater and slipped it on, not bothering to hide the way she lifted the collar and inhaled the scent of it.

After a moment, America reached for his hand. "You want me to tell you 'bout it?"

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[Rejam]

lizbot

Most of Taym's ******** up filters were old insecurities too deeply-ingrained to be rooted out, and whenever she did that--visibly sought out the smell of him, buried her nose in his jacket or his sheets--it wasn't just some empty pleasant gesture but an act of acceptance that moved against years of realization that people recoiled from him, that he disgusted them, that he'd forgotten even the basics of what it meant to take care of himself. And now, as always, it nearly buckled him with relief and a desperate greed.

And he wasn't sure what she meant, whether she was offering to expound on the imagined charms of his non-existent backside or if she was offering to lay bare her feelings or if she was offering to relate the events of the day and piss him off all over again although he knew that, helpless, he'd choke it back this time. He didn't especially care. He took her hand, and he carefully put the anger away for another time, one where she hadn't shaken him without even trying to, and he squeezed in close enough to her that the few steps back out to the bed would be slow and troublesome.

"Tell me everything you want to," he said. "Unless it's about my butt."  

[lizbot]

It hurt to be held so close, her bruises still raw and fresh, even if they'd be halfway to gone the next day. She held him all the closer for it. Walking was a slow process and so she began to outlines the process of falling in love with one Obadiah Thompson.

"Started with pies, cause of ******** course it does," she drawled with a smile. "You'd said something to get me a bit riled, can't even remember what, but you smiled and you tried to hide it away like some little boy in church." Kissing the corner of his mouth, the girl continued, "Started being more than just that guy on Twitter."

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[Rejam]

He was feeling indulgent more than shy, but--like a boy in a church--he hid his grins as he let her go on, and if he occasionally interrupted it was temporarily and silently, too greedy for repeated confirmation of the fact that he didn't just imagine her there with him to get too distracted.

He let her run on past small uncomfortable things and barns in the rain and marmalade belly-rubs bestowed so obediently (cat whisperer), but he saw fit to stop her before she could get much further, because once there was a mislabeled happy birthday cake there was too much else that was too hard to hear and possibly harder than anything he wanted to make her say.

It had been slow going made slower by his frequent stalling, but they were in a position now that distracting her would be a natural extension of their lazy travel, and not least because she wasn't wearing anything but a sweater. Instead when he reached up for her it was only to touch her shoulder, the collar she'd smelled, damp from her hair, and then to stretch back and reach for the journal he'd left on the bed.

He didn't segue, or make some flippant self-deprecating comment about the story of her gradual infatuation, or even acknowledge that he was interrupting her at all. Instead he was the brand of ear-burning quiet he was when he was flustered and it was partly the things she'd been saying and partly the way he'd looked when he'd given her the ring on his birthday. He just changed the subject, abrupt, and maybe he was hoping that it wouldn't be too obvious that his timing was carefully aimed to avoid having to hear her say anything about the Sahara, and the kind of strained and urgent closeness that came of looming mortality, of mixing (as he had never forgotten) pleasure and tragedy.

Disentangling himself enough to lean up on an elbow, he started leafing through the pages. Beauty to Taym was often inextricably linked to utility, and he was using it, filling it up, tearing out pages when he needed to, the finest compliment he could pay to what had been, after all, a very good gift. "I made you something," he said, as he began gently coaxing a few pages loose from the binding. "Or tried to."

lizbot

being rewarded for his a*****e behavior how dare you u_u