January 11, 2011

It was freezing outside, and snow threatened in the clouds. That didn't really matter though, in the living room of John's rented home. Inside was warm and smelled of buttery popcorn while a swingy little jangle of music came from the stereo and the room flickered with the black and white light from the television. Morana was sitting with one leg draped over John's lap on the sofa, the large bowl of popcorn balanced between them. "I've never watched a silent movie before. I like Arsenic and Old Lace - is this anything like that?"

"Mm...no, not really." John tilted his head back and funneled a handful of popcorn into his mouth. Since he was wearing a long sleeved shirt--the brown corduroy one--she was able to keep her leg in place without being driven off after a few seconds by the burn. "The plot's simpler, the acting's bigger. This is set during the American Civil War. You could totally do your hair like that." He gestured at the screen, stretched out a long arm for the beer. On the table beside it lay the pile of reports he'd spent the day sorting through.

"Mmm. With the dress, too? And the really dark eye makeup?" She laughed a little and stole a few kernels of popcorn from the bowl. The hair, the dress, the makeup were so absurdly overdone. "Why is he more valuable as an engineer? I thought that during that war soldiers were dropping like flies...." Her sense of Earth history was vague at best. "And -" she shut up and tried to figure out the sense of the movie. Then she laughed. "Oh, he's a liar!"

"No airplanes. No highway system. Rail was the cheapest and fastest way to travel long distances, and men--it was always men back then--who could run the trains were better than your regular cannon fodder." He gave her calf a squeeze at the 'liar' comment. The casual gesture added a peculiar little twist in her chest to the acid wash of contact, so she ignored them both in favor of trying to understand something less critical.

"So it was a skilled occupation. Why is she so upset that he didn't enlist? If they wouldn't take him?" Sometimes people did baffle her, they really did. Another laugh escaped at the sight of the man riding away on the wheel-spar of the train, though. The actor?s reactions -- lack of reactions -- were so ridiculous.

"Because he was in love and wanted to marry the girl, and both the girl and her father saw him as a coward for supposedly refusing to fight for his country." He grinned at her profile, though she only barely caught the expression out of the corner of her eye.

She was laughing again as Johnnie Grey went from railcar accident to bicycle cart without so much of a flicker of change to his expression. Morana had to have a sense of humor to be what she was, sharp and biting though her humor might be, but it was the deadpan face that made the movie in her opinion. She grabbed some more popcorn and glanced at John. "You know this entire movie doesn't make any sense so far, don't you?" She was grinning while she asked it, though, warmly amused while contact with the Hound burned her.

"Absurdism is something he was really good at, yeah. One completely ridiculous thing after another happening to him. Before he got into movies he did vaudeville." A questioning glance slid across to her wondered whether she'd ever heard the term before.

She gave him blank face and a shake of her head as an answer. There'd been no call to know the term or the genre before, so she wasn't familiar with it. Really, her knowledge was so much focused on what she?d been created for. After a moment she looked at the screen again and tried to figure out what was going on. "Is that a mortar? It's massive."

"Pre-film stage shows. They'd have comedy acts, theater, acrobats, animal shows, all kinds of crazy s**t. He was on stage basically from babyhood. The face came out of that."

"He's very good at it, even though the rest of the acting is so exaggerated." She chortled at the contrast between patiently waiting Johnnie and the men scrambling for weapons, laughed even harder as Johnnie was scooped up by the cow-catcher of his train. Vague surprise filled her when she realized she wasn?t faking the laughter.

"Yeah. Did all his own stunts." His head sank back into the cushions as he watched the screen. He'd begun absently massaging her leg, working his way down to her ankle.

"I wonder how often he was hurt at it." Reaching up, she offered a piece of popcorn to his mouth while the massage burned against her skin and relaxed the muscle all at once. "Weren't there coal trains, by then?" It was a moment of minor puzzlement, not important, asked to stir John into further conversation. She found out so much about him when he was unguarded.

"Probably. More opportunities for humor with the wood-fired train, I guess." He slurped the popcorn up out of her hand and munched at it. "I read somewhere that he'd had headaches all his life. At one point later on they x-rayed him and found out that he'd had a cervical fracture." The army went marching past, with Johnnie all unknowing.

"Hmm. Suffering for his art. Oh - there they go on the bridge with his lady-love." Another laugh slipped free that probably made little sense in the context of the movie. Artists. They were so intensely committed. Then it started raining in the film and she bent her head against John?s shoulder for a moment, shoulders shaking with her laughter. "Of course. Oh, of course." Just when things couldn?t get worse, they did.

One of the flashcards appeared on the screen. "I like the alliteration. Hopelessly lost? horribly hungry." It appealed to the journalist in her makeup.

"You can't help but feel sorry for the poor bastard."

Well - that was one way to look at it. She was delighted by the character?s misfortune. His situation was so very dire. Saying that would probably disturb John to hear, however. "Hmm. Oh, look at her putting on a brave front. Is she going to wait helplessly to be rescued?" She asked, and then licked butter and salt from her fingers while she watched Johnnie hiding under the table. "Oh -- never mind, she's crying."

"You'd think the rain wouldn't stop her from hopping out a window. Maybe it's the dress."

"It's a magical dress that prevents her from opening her own windows. Because she was able to go out the window as soon as he opened it for her, you notice." Morana was a fan of the peanut gallery form of movie-watching. John snickered and traded out bites of popcorn for sips of beer.

"Oh, she's clever. Flashing cleavage and then tucking up against him like that." She arched an eyebrow, looked down at her shirt and unbuttoned a couple of buttons before she curled up and leaned on his shoulder. "Woman's eternal wiles. Does that really work so well?" Call it a test of theory.

He was too busy looking down her shirt to answer immediately. When he did, it was with an absent "hmm?"

Her laugh did sinful things to all that exposed cleavage and the hint of the red lace-edged satin of her bra - and the chuckle just kept on going as Johnnie shoved Little Miss Helpless into a potato sack. "Wait, I'm lost - why was he doing that?"

"Sneaking her onto the train so he can take her with him when he hijacks it. I think. Little distracted there." He traced a finger along the heart-shaped edge of the display, and then draped his arm across her shoulders, tucking her in underneath it. He was wrapping her up in fire and affection (which hurt just as much). There went the last of his beer, just before the struggle to get the girl out of the boxcar made him laugh aloud.

She shivered in response to the touch of his finger and reached for another handful of popcorn. "Oh, excuses, excuses. You're supposed to be narrating for me." Wait, when had that been part of the deal? She laughed as Johnnie tried to steal wood from a fence and utterly, utterly failed.

"Sneaky girl." He chuckled. "Check it."

On screen, soldiers wrestled pines onto the train. "We need a Christmas tree! Quick, bring two - no, three." She laughed again and then shut up to eat more of the popcorn while the soldiers moved from hauling trees to hauling water.

"Water for the steam engine," he explained, and added, "You know, you're awfully damned chipper today." Another laugh as they were soaked. "Is it the joy of my company or did you get to torture someone new?"

"Both. Neither. Is she really trying to sweep the floor of the train?" Sweeping. Not on Morana's list of go-to talents. "I made some rather significant progress with one of my enterprises today, and hired a very good contractor for another." That was all the detail about either matter that John needed to know. She had a feeling he wouldn?t approve of either of the enterprises in question if he knew more.

"S**t," John informed her as the train caught up to Johnnie and his hapless lady-love, "is about to get real."

She snickered as the engine made off without Johnnie. "The dress saps all her strength, too. I want one of those dresses - it could be useful."

"No kidding. Then I might actually be able to take you." The arm around her tightened. She wasn?t sure if that was meant to be affectionate or cautionary.

"Mmm. I just rethought my request." She glanced up at him with a curve of full lips and laughter creasing the corners of her eyes. Behind the amusement she was calculating risks again. John was so, so dangerous to her. "Darling, I don't ever want you able to take me - I'm afraid you would." It was an absolutely true and serious statement, so immediately after she redirected his attention back to the screen. So many people thought that deception just meant untruth. "Wait, what's that he's messing around with?"

"That was the lamp. I think they're going to try to burn down the bridge? Can't remember. It's been a long time since I've seen this."

"Johnnie's really a bit of an idiot, isn't he?" She shook her head in mock-despair over the character?s stupidity. "Of course, the girl is useless, so I suppose they're suited for each other."

"They're perfect for each other. He's a hero for trying to save his country and his girl. He can't help it that the universe is conspiring against him." John sounded aggrieved.

"But he could be smarter about it, darling. And besides, a country is such an... abstract thing to try to save. At least it makes sense that he tries to save the girl. Oh, that's a lovely cloud of smoke." She started to lick the butter and salt from her fingertips again.

John?s aggrieved expression didn't last long. He cracked up as the aforementioned hero realized he was wearing the wrong dress for the ball and just managed to avoid getting shot at.

"And besides, it doesn't look like he's going to get the girl in any case." She laughed when Johnnie fell flat on his face. "Oh, but he's a klutz, isn't he?"

"Swords can be tough to handle," he muttered.

"Is that the voice of experience, darling?" Humor rode her voice, at both the action on the screen and the tone of John?s voice when he muttered that comment.

"Did you hear about the woman who was run through last year at that big masquerade ball?" He slanted an oblique glance at her.

She chuckled as the men on horses and on foot tried to ford the river while being shot at. "Now that has to be one of the silliest ways to fight a battle that I've ever seen." And then she pursed her lips while she searched her memory. "Mmm. I believe so, yes. It was a bit of interest to the usual society gossip."

"Yeah." He funneled in another handful of popcorn. Munch, munch.

"That was you?" She looked up with surprise, distracted from the movie for a moment. "Now that's impressive, darling, out in such a crowd. Consider me officially impressed." It earned him another button of the shirt undone. No, let's be honest, she was planning on that anyway.

His gaze dropped to the red lace on display, lifted to her face again while he chewed. Swallowed. Said, "You're cruel. You didn't get enough of me whimpering last night? And yeah, trying to get the hell out of Dodge with an epee in hand sucked. Cheap sword," he added a moment later.

"You didn't drop the weapon?" Her eyebrows lifted with the surprise that he?d taken such a risk. She added with a laugh in her voice, "And John, of course I didn't. If it hurts too much to touch you, at least I can make sure you're in at least as much pain."

"Hell, no, I didn't drop the weapon. One, my dad gave it to me. And B, it had my fingerprints and skin cells all over the grip."

She laughed as Johnnie and his girl were thwarted in their kiss, and again for the indignant protest. "I had no idea your father knew how to use an epee. It never came up in conversation." With Eva, that was.

His attention flicked over to her, and something flickered in his warm brown eyes. "It won't," he said. Blunt. Curt.

Easy humor faded into something more thoughtful as she studied him while the television showed the The End screen. "I didn't think Eva knew. Is she well, and Antonia?" That was an oblique way of letting him know she hadn't been in contact with the older woman. That she had kept her word, despite what it cost her.

"They're fine. Harry's back, and they're about to try whatever case he was working on. Antonia's still having some problems from being in kindergarten early." He was still watching her. His gaze was unsettling.

"I was afraid of that. She's very quick, but -" She broke off, frowned, and reached for the bowl of popcorn. Being reminded of Eva and Antonia hurt. Being reminded of the cost of promises hurt. When the bowl turned up empty, one more little irritation added to the unsettlement and aggravation that had set in so quickly. "Harry won't be away so often anymore."

He made a vague noise while he straightened up and reached for the chair, to pull it closer and set the brake. Out of the blue he asked, "Can you have kids?"

That question yanked her right out of aggravation into confusion, and a fresh surge of irritation followed hot on its heels. "I don?t know. It's never come up." She swung her leg from his lap, stood and gathered the empty popcorn bowl. "Most constructs aren't built well enough for that, if they even were to last so long." Why did he have to remind her of what she was? Oh, not Druj? -- she was Lies, that didn?t bother her -- but construct, built and bound and forced into this strange existence.

With her leg off his lap he slid into the chair, settled his sock feet one at a time on the footplates. "Not something you'd go to a doctor to have a good frank conversation about, I guess." He scooped up the empty bottles, looked up at her. "Are you hungry?"

"I've never been to a doctor -- well, not in that way, in any case. I doubt most of them would be equipped to deal with me, and none of those would I trust, no more than you'd see one at the full moon." Her lips quirked slightly as she shrugged off the whole turn of conversation in favor of the question about food. "Actually, yes. Did you have something in mind?"

He matched her shrug with a one-shouldered hitch. "I'm lazy. Pizza? They'll deliver out here." He was still thinking. She could see it in his eyes. He might stop when he was dead, but no guarantees on that. That active mind of his was an attraction and a threat all in one.

"Mmm - did you ever go shopping?" She turned and padded toward the kitchen in her bare feet, carrying the bowl with her. "If not, pizza will do well enough."

"No. I should have gone earlier today, but I was busy." A beat. "Recovering." Another beat. "Would you want to have children? Furthering the dynasty of the House of Deceit, all that?"

The bowl clunked into the sink and she absently turned on the hot water to rinse it out, letting her fingers dangle in the stream to test the temperature while she thought that over. It was hard to separate the weird twists and tugs of emotion from an answer that made sense. "I haven't considered it before. It could be useful, especially if the father brought an alliance or something else valuable...." Still mulling the prospect over, her lips touched up a little, soft at the edges. Eventually she shook her head. "No. There's too much vulnerability, too much risk. And I've no dynasty, no 'House' as you put it. When I die, there's nothing of me that continues. The constructed body just dissipates."

"And you don't know how long you've got." The words were quiet behind her, lacking the strength of the accent he so often used to put others at ease.

"No, I don't." She answered matter-of-factly while she splashed a bit of dish soap into the bowl and killed the water from the faucet. "Neither do you -- but." But he had a family, a dynasty, and the sure and certain knowledge that his soul would continue in the hands of the Christian God. "You mentioned something about pizza, darling?"

"Yeah." Bottles clicked and clinked as he dropped them into the bin. "Pepperoni?"

"And mushrooms." She glanced over at him and one eyebrow lifted, a smile caught the corner of her mouth. It was easier to test a little thing, instead of dealing with the large. "Black olives."

"I'll eat anything but anchovies." He thought for a moment, added, "And garlic. I had a bad experience with garlic on a pizza once."

"Really? What happened?" She leaned against the counter, looked at him curiously with her arms folded just there, beneath the last unbuttoned button. "I didn't think an Italian man was capable of having a bad experience with garlic."

He pointed a gun-hand at her. "Look." Then he did, and lost track of what he was about to say.

That was amusing, and she let it show in the humor that creased at her eyes and caught her mouth. "Darling, you know I'll give you all the hell I want to. And I think that sounds like an amusing story. You were going to order?"

The other side of reality was a very large apartment that probably occupied an entire floor of a very large building, overlooking the river. The floor was cream plush carpet where it wasn't large honey-colored tile, open and very spacious. The demon lived in a house of light. She Stepped onto the tile with a crackling split of the air and drew John with her from the Void. Given his reaction the first time, she was looking to see if he was breathing.

He was still breathing, amazingly. The hand not in hers was wrapped around his waist, and the way he was hunched over it was a wonder he hadn't face-planted, but he was still breathing. And shivering convulsively, teeth clenched to stop their chattering, his lips moving without sound.

"Oh, good. You're alive." It almost sounded careless, but she brushed her other hand across the back of his neck, ticked up a smile at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were opaque, the Void reluctant to release its grip. "Let me know when you're coherent again and I'll get you a drink." The back of his neck was clammy with sweat or melted frost. He made some randomly incoherent noise and returned to his prayer.

While he prayed she freed her hand from his and crossed the tile of the dining area to the small bar set against the wall. She poured two glasses of whiskey--Benriach 16--and emptied one of them to brace herself. She refilled it before she returned with both glasses to where John sat hunched over and praying. "Does that help? The prayer?"

He pushed himself up, nudged the glasses up to rub at his bloodshot eyes, reached for the glass. "I need a bath." But apparently this glassful of whatever would work for the moment. "Thanks." He took a sip.

"You should see my shower, darling." Her voice was rich with amusement, and then she gave him an arched eyebrow. "In point of fact, you could see my shower, or the bath, and use either if you really wanted to. Though I've no clothes here that would fit you at all." She took a slower sip from her glass, tasting it this time. "You asked, John. What do you think?"

He looked up and around himself, past the foggy glasses (at least they hadn't broken this time) and out at the honey and cream and carpet and pretty and said, "It looks like a lie." He used his free hand to turn himself in a slow circle, taking it all in.

"Then it must be appropriate, don't you think?" She had a taste for monochromatic. Cream and honey and bronze filled the room in varying shades of warmth, here and there punctuated with a splash of turquoise in a painting, a hit of red in the vase of poppies on one side table. The kitchen ran into the dining area that flowed almost seamlessly to the living space. There was one wall that blocked off a substantial portion of the area, a wall with two doors -- one of which led, presumably, to her bedroom. The carpet, while soft, wasn't nearly as richly plush as the stuff in her office.

"It's nice," he decided, and focused on her again. "You haven't spent a lot of time here lately, though." Thank God for low pile. It was John. Of course he headed for those two doors after he'd emptied his glass. "Where does the blood go?"

"No, I haven't. I rather miss it, from time to time." The door on the left was a guest bathroom, with the kind of sterility that practically screamed it was rarely used. The other door was in fact to her bedroom, and off the bedroom were the master bath and a very, very large walk-in closet, ruthlessly organized. The bedroom continued in warmer tones of the same colors as the rest of the apartment, and a rich amber comforter hid crisp white sheets on that ridiculously large bed. "Darling, I don't deal with blood here."

"You don't have to stay with me every night," he said, and backed away from the closet after staring into it for a few seconds. Wow, he mouthed at her, and closed the door.

"I haven't stayed with you every night. Just most of them." She pointed that out while her eyes lit mirth at his stunned reaction and he continued investigating. Oh. And there was the bathroom. She hadn't been joking about the shower, or the bathtub - because Morana did indulge herself there. The shower was large enough to hold three people easily, fitted with multiple showerheads and an overhead rainfall plate, with a sitting bench on two sides. The bathtub was definitely a multiple-person variety, jetted and set up for lounging. Unfortunately, there were no grab bars in the shower. The tub actually did have something like - it was a help while getting in and out over the deep rim.

"I like it here. Although I feel like, if I make a mess, you're totally gonna rub my nose in it," he told her, and crooked a finger at her. "C'mere. When am I moving in?"

She laughed as she crossed over and dropped without invitation into his lap. "Darling, if you make a mess, I'll just make you clean it up. Possibly while you?re wearing a little French maid outfit." One arm snaked around the back of his neck and the touch of his skin through the cotton still burned. "And I really rather like the place you have now. It has a secret door. Of course... then there's the bathroom here. And my closet." She tipped her head against his shoulder, tapped one finger against her lips while she appeared to consider the matter. It was a play for the earlier, easier humor.

"Your closet, it scares me. The woman who owns it should be goose-stepping around in b***h boots and randomly yelling Sieg Heil." Rather than tug her in closer, he pushed her out to the very edge of his knees. There went her cuddly spot on his shoulder. He was studying her stomach.

Damn. Farewell, cuddly spot, you were comfortable and intensely painful all at once. "I have b***h boots, goose-stepping is actually terribly awkward and uncomfortable, and I'm not quite sure why I would be randomly yelling anything at all." Her lips were hitting that amusement curve again. "If my closet scares you, John, remind me never to show you my files." Thousands upon thousands upon tens of thousands of files all cross-referenced and organized so that any could be found within minutes.

"I'm a delicate little snowflake," he told her, and bracing himself, bent to give her and her impressively designed navel one hell of a raspberry.

She laughed -- and then laughed again, startled and surprised and very, very confused. "What -- John!" She snaked her fingers through his hair, tried to tug his head up and away from her stomach. She?d never -- what -- the laugh was helplessly amused. What on earth? She couldn't do a whole lot of squirming to get away without falling off his knees, however.

He chortled into her and allowed himself to be pulled up. One hand on the arm of his wheelchair, the other wound around her waist to haul her back in. And he said, smiling into her firefly eyes, "You need me."

Oh, damn the man when he spoke truth at her and it caught and twisted and pulled right there. There, where there shouldn't have been anything at all. Her breath caught on the end of the laugh and she answered him simply, "Yes." Void surged and fought and lost to clean icy twists of pain before that stole away to the seeming she wore. The answer was simple because it burned her throat and froze her vocal cords to give.

"You need me," he repeated, and curled himself around her as best he could given the limitations of his body, "to be the one to do the things that nobody's ever done for you before. Like that."

"I ?" She broke off, started over, and gave him another truth, another lie. "You frighten me, John." Yet still she was curling up around him as much as he was curling around her. "Because you do the things that nobody has ever done before." It was cutting her with little invisible knives.

"Well, you already know you scare the hell out of me, so we're even. Now, this is how you do a raspberry, zerbert, brrap, whatever. Babies love that s**t. Give me your hand..."

She gave her hand for the distraction of it, eyebrows curving up in question. "You know so much about babies?" He'd Antonia for a niece, of course, but it piqued her curiosity about what other experience he might have had. And it was a good way to change the topic, all things considered.

"I've got a nephew and two nieces. And a ton of cousins. Italians. Catholic, remember?" Turning his head, he cradled her hand in his and set his mouth against her palm. He flicked his tongue against her lifeline; it shivered and burned down her spine. Then he sealed his lips against it and blew. As mouth-farts went it wasn't all that impressive; as soft as her hand was, it wasn't as soft as the skin on her belly. He cut his eyes sharply back at her, waggled his brows like he thought he was Groucho Marx.

Something had flared in her that was neither Void nor twisting pain, just a flick of lust and greed at the little lick that traced acid and ice into her palm. Then he sealed his mouth and blew the rude sound, and she laughed - a rich, deep laugh that kept going at the eyebrow-waggle. It was an honest laugh, and so that hurt too. "And so you blew raspberries into all their bellies. Antonia loves you -- I imagine the rest do too. The other niece, the nephew... Hilary and Simon's children?" She knew. How not with all the time she'd spent with Eva? But she wanted him to tell her.

"Adriana is seven, and Andrew is nine, and I swear this wasn't all part of some plot on my siblings' part to trot out a bunch of names beginning with A. It just happened." He pressed her hand against his cheek just as he had in the mudroom over Christmas, tipping his face into it and smiling at her. "They're crazy, crazy smart kids, just like Antonia is. Hilary and Simon are both dark, so they're both black hair, brown eyes. Cute." He paused, looked at her. "What if there wasn't any risk? Would you want to try?"

The smile she'd been wearing while he talked about his niece and nephew slid away. She pulled free her hand from his cheek, flexed it against the burn and then curled her fingers into a fist. "It's a moot point, isn't it, darling? You're talking about an if that can't happen. And even if it did - I am what I am, and constructs can't create. I can't create." She pulled away, slid from his lap. Void was flaring up again, pushing to the surface.

"He made you with a navel and no ovaries." That wasn't a statement, wasn't a question, was somewhere in between. "I'm sorry." He rubbed his hand over his mouth, shook his head. "If he ever shows up again, when you get done killing him, can I kill on him a little bit too?"

"If he ever shows up again, and if I'm able to kill him, darling, there won't be enough left for you to take a turn." Coldly vicious, that. There was a large pair of ifs riding in the statement, though. She turned, stalked out of the bedroom into the living room -- and past that to the minibar and the scotch there for another glass.

By the time he wheeled up onto the tile of the dining area after her, she'd refilled her glass and taken a hefty drink from it. Her shoulders rolled back, and she tilted her head back, rolled it side to side in a stretch -- and then turned around with a smile pulling up her mouth, warm. Druj? was lies. Morana wore that aspect of herself like a shield. "Did you want another drink, John? Or something else? I've some real food in the kitchen; tzatziki and pita, spanakopita, some cold biryani -- even baklava."

"Just you." He said that a lot.

"What else do you want of me?" The words leached out full of the bitterness she was feeling until she quenched it with another sip of scotch. She closed her eyes, hid the scream of blue and grasping reach of Void. And eyes still closed, breathed out bitterness and pain both to carve them both up with honesty again. "I've given you so much, already."

"You have." He was quiet, and hadn't gotten too close to her. Didn't crowd, gave her space, and she was glad for it. At least the physical burn was further away. "I'm sorry. I'm--" He unknotted his hands from the chair. "--I'm completely insane about you. I've never felt about anybody in my life the way I feel about you. I know who you are, and I know what you are, and I love you. And it's like..." He struggled for words. "...it's like being in love with a hurricane. Or Mount Everest or something, you know? You asked me once whether I thought I was going to save you or redeem you. How do you redeem a hurricane?"

She flinched, recoiled at those little, deadly, painful words. He flung them at her so carelessly and kept talking while they shredded her, and when the glass in her hand fractured and sliced and she bled, it was still less painful than his voice. Her other arm was wrapped around her ribcage again, digging and bruising and holding her into one piece. "You wait for it to die." Her voice was tight through the constriction of her throat. Her eyes were still shut; she couldn't look at him, couldn't see, couldn't feel the honesty of him - until that was all she could do, with open eyes and stepping backward.

He flinched himself, at that. And stared at her, and said, "No." He turned and wheeled to the bathroom first, for a couple of towels.

When he rolled back out, towels in his lap, she wasn't convulsing as she had the first time he?d said ?I love you?. But she was shaking, a fine faint tremor that came of not convulsing. Maybe she was getting used to those little words, as used to them as he was to travelling through Void. Her expression was held into a fixed mask while she pulled shards of glass from her palm with trembling fingers and dropped them into a pile on the minibar counter.

"Christ," he muttered. But John was good in a crisis, and so he offered her the towel, spread out in his fingers as if it contained the Host within. Asked, "Does it hurt you to hear that?"

She flicked her eyes up from her hand to his face, and let him see the agony, a mute shriek of it in shredded blue and scarlet before she looked down at his offering hand and took the towel. Once the last of the glass tinkled into the little bloody pile, she wrapped the cloth around her bleeding palm, managed to find the tattered remnants of her voice. "You tore me to shreds, Benandanti." She'd said that to him once before, in just those words. She had meant it very nearly literally.

The bar was made for taller people than Cruelty in a Wheelchair. It took him a little work to scoop up all the glass into the other towel, but he managed, and then went over to bend double and pick up the pieces on the carpet. He picked up a blister from his skin coming into contact with her blood on the shards and didn?t seem to notice it. "I'm sorry," he said again when he pushed himself straight. "I won't say it again."

She dug her fingers into the ruin of her hand, through the towel, and when she looked at him she knew he was lying by the strength of the Void that filled her. "Liar." It was faintly amused, even through the ruins of her rich voice. And she gave him a truth, and a lie, with a twist of her mouth. "I don't want you to stop."

"Okay," he said, and breathed for a second, and said, "because I get really talkative during sex, you get me? So be careful what you wish for. Maybe semaphore or something. I'll upgrade to Morse code when I'm really feeling it." He and the towel full of glass headed off to the kitchen area.

"I always am careful what I wish for, darling. And I usually get it. Do tell me when you've figured out how to manage to get past the burning so we can indulge in the sex, hmm?" Brave front while her knees were still weak; she looked back down at the towel turning crimson, flexed her fingers one at a time and carefully while he wheeled off to the kitchen.

"I was going to try drugs next. I can't--" there was a pause, "--I can't keep it up for more than a couple of seconds around you. You gonna let me take a look at that hand, or not?"

"Yes, I am." At least she seemed to have full response in her fingers. She eased away the towel, studied the slices while red welled up and collected. Her blood would burn and blister him while he bandaged her. Well, perhaps that was fitting. One foot caught the leg of a chair, hooked it away from the table, and she eased to sitting, carefully. Only once she was sitting did she look up, and ask with a faint quirk of a smile, "Which drugs?"

"Figured I'd start with the ketamine. I could take Viagra or something like, but I'm not that much of a masochist no matter what you think, missy." He scowled at her hand. "Jesus, I'm bad for your health." Shaking his head, he folded the towel back over her palm and applied pressure.

"I wondered what that was for. And darling, I've never acquired more scars in a shorter space of time than since I've known you - but then, you did bite off the head of an assassin trying to kill me. I think it balances out, as you favor things being even." The tightness around her eyes pulled up when he applied firmer pressure than she had been, and she pulled in a quick breath.

"I'm a big believer in fairness. Morana..." He looked up at her, her hand clasped in both of his. "...you've never been in this situation before." It was mostly a statement, with a tiny slide of question mixed in, stirred into his warm brown eyes.

A quick shake of her head answered. No matter what aspect of the situation he was referring to - "No."

"I'm not in the habit of cohabiting with demons." Time to peel back the towel and check her cuts. "So you have no frame of reference and I have all the wrong ones. I just--I want you to know that I'm trying. And I'm not trying to hurt you."

The blood had slowed to a sluggish ooze, coagulating just a little faster than a human's would. She concentrated on that while he tore at her again without even knowing it; the little tremor through her hand could have been because of the press and tug while he inspected the slices. "Imagine what you could do if you tried."

His single laugh was a harsh bark of sound, mirthless, unhappy. "First aid kit? I don't think you need stitches for this, just a bandage," he decided after that inspection.

"There's a small one in the kitchen, under the sink." Nothing nearly as large as his monster kit, but it had gauze and pads and surgical tape, at least. She studied him after that lone harsh laugh.

He looked tired. It had been a rollercoaster of a night. "So," he said, as he wheeled over to the sink, "does this mean I can show up in your bedroom when I miss you and need to say hello? Or are you still gonna vaporize me for it?"

"You've my explicit permission, but don't be surprised if I'm not there." Not all the nights she'd been away from John's place had been spent in her apartment. "We're in the Lagos Building in New Haven; this is the sixth floor." Beat. "Are you staying tonight?"

"Do you want me to?" He repositioned himself next to her chair and got busy taping her up.

"I don't have any really hideous pajama pants around for you." She watched his hands on hers, the calluses and strength moving carefully, almost delicately, with a doctor's neat precision at the tape and gauze. When he was done she curled her fingers around his and tested the scorch of his skin. "But I may have a pair of basketball shorts that would fit."

"Did you eat him for breakfast, lunch, or dinner?" He turned her hand up, inspected it and kissed a knuckle with the same gentleness.

"I save basketball players for dessert." Her mouth curved up at one side, slow. "I prefer doctors first thing in the morning." There went the other half of her smile, slow and lazy, as she stood and padded off toward the bedroom, peeling off her unbuttoned shirt as she went. It was another deliberate torment, another deliberate distraction from all the pain.

He followed suit, heading right through the bedroom and into the bath to wash her blood from his hands. "I just want you to know, it's really f**king cruel of you to smile at me like that," he said over the running water. He rolled back out of the bathroom a couple of minutes later, having also casually availed himself of her toothbrush.

"I know, darling. That's why I do it." Her voice came from the center of that intimidating closet. She dropped the yoga pants, slithered out of her underwear and into the cream silk mid-thigh sleep shirt that served her as nightwear in nearly one motion. Then she reached over onto one of the shelves, pulled down a plain white men's t-shirt and a pair of dark blue basketball shorts that if anything, would probably be a little large on John. Padding into the bedroom, she tossed those onto his lap and went to take her own turn in the bathroom.

Stripping off his clothes and changing into the shorts, he worked his way into the bed and was surrounded by a cloud of lavender scent. Lavender was joined shortly after by lilacs, mint, and a faint hint of spicy-musk and copper when she returned from the bathroom and slid in beside him. When her bare leg slid against his exposed calf, she shut her eyes against the burn and wondered if this would be the time that she woke up with blisters to match the ones on his hands.

He shivered when she slid into place, and then rolled over and wrapped himself around her. Petting the silk trapped between his hand and her hip, he asked, "Am I going to work tomorrow?"

"We're re-opening Gira. And the forensics teams have their full reports done. Do you want to go to work tomorrow?" The silk was a better insulator than the cotton had been, and the wild veering ride of earlier was taking its toll. Her body was relaxing even under the soothing, scorching touch of his hand, and her voice getting thick with sleep.

"Yeah," he decided, and shut his own eyes. "I'll be mobile tomorrow. We're still waiting on the chemists, so I'll read the reports and see if I can't come up with more ideas.? He burrowed into her, touched his lips against the nape of her neck, and was out.

"Mmm." There she went right after.

((As always, with many thanks to the player behind Benandanti!))