[Moving free of Leander's grip needs no strength at all, and once released he takes his hand back into his lap and leaves it there, both palm up, fingers and arms loose. (Minimal discomfort; he knows from experience.) He follows Isaac with a slow turn of his head to witness, dimly, the furtive entrance and exchange.
Alexandrie steps out of her clothes and comes to him just the way she is, and surreality finally closes over the crown of his head. Sensation of floating. The writhing of his subconscious prying and squeezing itself into waking time: a smooth-skinned celestial vision juxtaposed to suffering and gore.
He's still sitting upright, still hasn't fallen over—Isaac asked him about the door, there's work yet to do and he must be present for it—but again the sag of his posture says his body's considering it. Glassy eyes and silence. This time, he doesn't smile back. But he is pliable; he will do whatever is asked of him.
(And, captivated though he is, he will keep turning his head to make sure Isaac is still there.)]
[ He nods. Peculiar how a sight can render pornographic not for the layers one sheds, but retains. But then her necklace is gone, the stockings,
The knives.
Those wouldn’t surprise if he’d ever stopped to think of it, but behind her back Leander will spy his skin crinkle the same. Isaac turns, sets to the brief business of adding water to basin, shrugging Ilias’ robes again. His own shirt follows. Boots. Trousers. It isn’t the first time he’s been naked beside a lady of breeding — or had his cock out before Leander. Both moments more pleasant than this.
[ Despite Leander’s persistent consciousness, Alexandrie judges it easier to cut the shirt from him than get it off any other way. It’s not as if it’s salvageable. Nimble hands and sharp shears make quick work of parting it, her fingers peeling it from him with slow care afterward, stopping to wet the cloth if it sticks.
(Whole over the cuts. Whatever opened the wounds for use, it didn’t go through the cloth. The spell itself, then?)
Her lips thin, clinical. There are... it’s a lot. Brutal looking and clean, bisecting his chest. Myriad and exacting on his upper arms, too orderly to be anything but chosen and placed. More haphazard on the forearms—wait. A slight frown. Those she’s seen. Or at least, she’s seen them closed and healed and old, light lines storytellers of a life near violence as he paints.
(Scars... made new wounds to cast from? One cut to make many quickly to cast something larger? That would, perhaps, fit the story she’s been fed. Other stories wear it equally well.)
Alexandrie sucks in a sharp breath when she checks his back and finds the deepest of them, still bleeding. Says something unladylike on the exhale and moves quickly to thread the needle, maneuver onto the bed behind him. Pauses briefly, then sets to making smaller holes in his flesh to close the large. She is more careful than she is quick; it will take some time. ]
[As the fabric leaves his chest, he drops his chin to look at the line carved down his breastbone. Lifts a hand to it, though this simple act of flexion squeezes at the lacerations lining his arm. His fingers hover close, poised as though to delicately pull back the front of a garment that isn't there—as though he's thought to open the seam of his own flesh and is puzzling at how, precisely, to go about it.
The worst of his wounds, made by a single vigorous application of a short knife, punches through the meat of his trapezius muscle, right alongside the spine, and the way the skin pulls taut with his bent neck will make Alexandrie's mending difficult to begin. So, too, will the quick and heaving breaths that suddenly arise: first snuffled through blood-crusted nostrils, then in an openly panting struggle for self-control. The occasional reedy hint of his voice. Face creased as if he's only now decided to acknowledge the condition of suffering.
Finally agreeing to lift his head and hold it there for her guiding hands seems to calm him; the first push of the needle is a welcome point of focus, like a star, small and bright.]
I can hold, [he rasps, in case it's still in doubt.] Keep going.
[Staring forward, breathing through relaxed jaw, more slowly with each stitch. Eventually, calm. (He does not look at Isaac.)]
[ She assumed he could. Hold, that is, even without the benefit of the whiskey she’d filched along with the tools.
Leander might want it, though. Alexandrie might, to splash the wound she’s begun to put small stitches into, more even since he’d lifted his head. She’d not brought it over with her. An oversight, perhaps, but it was an unwieldy size and weight along with the rest. Remedied easily enough; she looks up from her work to seek Isaac’s gaze and then makes a gesture towards the bag on the floor. ]
The bottle in there, if you please.
[ If not all of the liquor in the bottle makes it over, well, that’s to be expected. ]
Later. Later that night, alone in an unstained room, he'll open another. Read a letter. Days after, still drunk and sore for the space beside him, he'll pour it into the fire.
A better man — rather: a more present one — might have offered the bottle sooner. But now he stalls, recalled abruptly from his work (every whine broken from Leander's chest punctuates the swipe of cloth against board). It takes a moment to process, to hand it over and brace Leander's head.
It isn't Leander he looks to now for a decision; it isn't Leander's decision whether to drink. Not if it might disrupt her task. Rip free that careful thread. ]
[A pitifully human reflex, to take the closeness of any body, the touch of any hand as an anchor of comfort, and even conscious awareness of it has the same effect, drawing focus away from the importance of all Leander's severed, blazing nerves. He'd have rejected the bottle for this same reason. (He'd have died without their bodies, their hands.) Nevertheless, his thoughts crawl along their limbs, into branches, into necessary plans.
What's left to preserve? The line drawn down his breastbone, nearly identical to Ilias's own scar—the sight of it new again, running fresh, is what crumpled him so suddenly—and the contents of his own journal, reverently curated. The Speaker's modest collection of personal effects, ultimately meaningless, should be sent back to the Maker along with the rest of him. The phylacteries: important, so important, more symbolic than a marriage vow. To think the one he made himself can never be revived—
Interrupting himself, strained, desperate,]
How many more?
[The people Ilias knew. Sidony, his discarded apprentice; whatever unease may have grown between them no longer matters. Kostos won't want the attention, but it isn't up to him. Casimir... wherever he is... Isaac. Whose hand cradles the back of his skull.]
[ Calm and absent, the sound of a woman who takes it as a foregone conclusion that she will be finishing her work to her own satisfaction. It’s a bit late for the sluice of liquor to burn over the parted flesh, but she relieves Isaac of the bottle to pause and do it anyway, pat it dry with a folded square of bandage, and then two stitches later release Leander from the heavy thread that joins them with the shears. ]
There.
[ A quick glance reveals that to be what most needed the extra aid in sealing. His chest might want for one or two. Alexandrie reaches for the same folded square, comes around to scrutinize the bisecting wound. ]
Are you in a hurry to bleed upon another room?
[ But she makes the concession of folding a pad of cloth to place over the line of stitches— although she then looks at its placement with thinned lips. There’s no truly elegant way to bind it, although across his chest and back... that requires the chest wound done first. A morbid logician’s puzzle. She pulls thread. ]
Two more.
[ And reaches to brace a delicate hand on his chest. ]
[Making a fist is one of the very first things a human learns to do with their body; hands are formed for it, brains wired to clench on reflex. When Leander snatches at Alexandrie's hand—unthinking, a primitive urge—it's only the weakness forced upon him by this whole affair that keeps his grip from squeezing a bruise. Weakness, too, is partly to blame: as his mind slips loose with exhaustion, so does the personable young man he tries to be, so artfully curated, lose shape.
The splash of alcohol, he took that well. The last tying-off of his neck, borne without complaint. But not this.]
Don't— [His voice cracks at sudden volume, retreats to a hiss after the stab of fractured ribs.] Don't touch it, it's not yours.
[The fierce honesty of the moment is short-lived. Focus drains. Indicating no one,]
It belongs to him.
[After a stretch of visible struggle, his brow grows suddenly smooth and his eyelids relax to half-mast; they remain just so, open and unseeing, as the rest of him sags. (At last, his fingers may be pried apart.)]
Leander fades. Isaac's grip in his hair relaxes from the moment it might have asked action. ]
Are you alright?
[ — Is a vestigial question. Of course she is; of course this isn’t. They can afford a breath, should she choose it, and it’s funny, isn’t it? The manner in which one might choose: Transfigure the pause into vulnerability or control.
He sets down Leander’s head, fishes for his pocket again (the lyrium). A bit of work with stopper and teeth, a grimace for the taste. Leander won’t be up for the door. May as well give up on that, ease the rest of this.
The palm that smoothes his eyes shut carries true sleep. ]
Her hand stays—it echoes in her. This is what he has left.
She has none of her own, not like that. The last marks Loki had left on her have faded, her skin left traitorously fine save for the thin white slice of a scar on her thigh from Ghislain. The pink dashes across her palm, perhaps, from when she’d nervelessly clutched a handful of roses hard enough to make stems flush with skin, the thorns hide in her flesh.
Maybe she shouldn’t have let Thor heal them, the small bit he could. Should have grabbed his wrist and hissed.
Alexandrie sets down the thread. Flexes her hand. Takes the breath. ]
Are any of us?
[ She takes up the bandages without waiting, takes the time to wind and tuck them nicely.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Alexandrie steps out of her clothes and comes to him just the way she is, and surreality finally closes over the crown of his head. Sensation of floating. The writhing of his subconscious prying and squeezing itself into waking time: a smooth-skinned celestial vision juxtaposed to suffering and gore.
He's still sitting upright, still hasn't fallen over—Isaac asked him about the door, there's work yet to do and he must be present for it—but again the sag of his posture says his body's considering it. Glassy eyes and silence. This time, he doesn't smile back. But he is pliable; he will do whatever is asked of him.
(And, captivated though he is, he will keep turning his head to make sure Isaac is still there.)]
no subject
The knives.
Those wouldn’t surprise if he’d ever stopped to think of it, but behind her back Leander will spy his skin crinkle the same. Isaac turns, sets to the brief business of adding water to basin, shrugging Ilias’ robes again. His own shirt follows. Boots. Trousers. It isn’t the first time he’s been naked beside a lady of breeding — or had his cock out before Leander. Both moments more pleasant than this.
(They've moved well into the realm of the lurid,)
He scrubs. ]
no subject
(Whole over the cuts. Whatever opened the wounds for use, it didn’t go through the cloth. The spell itself, then?)
Her lips thin, clinical. There are... it’s a lot. Brutal looking and clean, bisecting his chest. Myriad and exacting on his upper arms, too orderly to be anything but chosen and placed. More haphazard on the forearms—wait. A slight frown. Those she’s seen. Or at least, she’s seen them closed and healed and old, light lines storytellers of a life near violence as he paints.
(Scars... made new wounds to cast from? One cut to make many quickly to cast something larger? That would, perhaps, fit the story she’s been fed. Other stories wear it equally well.)
Alexandrie sucks in a sharp breath when she checks his back and finds the deepest of them, still bleeding. Says something unladylike on the exhale and moves quickly to thread the needle, maneuver onto the bed behind him. Pauses briefly, then sets to making smaller holes in his flesh to close the large. She is more careful than she is quick; it will take some time. ]
no subject
The worst of his wounds, made by a single vigorous application of a short knife, punches through the meat of his trapezius muscle, right alongside the spine, and the way the skin pulls taut with his bent neck will make Alexandrie's mending difficult to begin. So, too, will the quick and heaving breaths that suddenly arise: first snuffled through blood-crusted nostrils, then in an openly panting struggle for self-control. The occasional reedy hint of his voice. Face creased as if he's only now decided to acknowledge the condition of suffering.
Finally agreeing to lift his head and hold it there for her guiding hands seems to calm him; the first push of the needle is a welcome point of focus, like a star, small and bright.]
I can hold, [he rasps, in case it's still in doubt.] Keep going.
[Staring forward, breathing through relaxed jaw, more slowly with each stitch. Eventually, calm. (He does not look at Isaac.)]
no subject
Leander might want it, though. Alexandrie might, to splash the wound she’s begun to put small stitches into, more even since he’d lifted his head. She’d not brought it over with her. An oversight, perhaps, but it was an unwieldy size and weight along with the rest. Remedied easily enough; she looks up from her work to seek Isaac’s gaze and then makes a gesture towards the bag on the floor. ]
The bottle in there, if you please.
[ If not all of the liquor in the bottle makes it over, well, that’s to be expected. ]
no subject
Later. Later that night, alone in an unstained room, he'll open another. Read a letter. Days after, still drunk and sore for the space beside him, he'll pour it into the fire.
A better man — rather: a more present one — might have offered the bottle sooner. But now he stalls, recalled abruptly from his work (every whine broken from Leander's chest punctuates the swipe of cloth against board). It takes a moment to process, to hand it over and brace Leander's head.
It isn't Leander he looks to now for a decision; it isn't Leander's decision whether to drink. Not if it might disrupt her task. Rip free that careful thread. ]
no subject
What's left to preserve? The line drawn down his breastbone, nearly identical to Ilias's own scar—the sight of it new again, running fresh, is what crumpled him so suddenly—and the contents of his own journal, reverently curated. The Speaker's modest collection of personal effects, ultimately meaningless, should be sent back to the Maker along with the rest of him. The phylacteries: important, so important, more symbolic than a marriage vow. To think the one he made himself can never be revived—
Interrupting himself, strained, desperate,]
How many more?
[The people Ilias knew. Sidony, his discarded apprentice; whatever unease may have grown between them no longer matters. Kostos won't want the attention, but it isn't up to him. Casimir... wherever he is...
Isaac. Whose hand cradles the back of his skull.]
Bandage me up, we'll do the rest later—
no subject
[ Calm and absent, the sound of a woman who takes it as a foregone conclusion that she will be finishing her work to her own satisfaction. It’s a bit late for the sluice of liquor to burn over the parted flesh, but she relieves Isaac of the bottle to pause and do it anyway, pat it dry with a folded square of bandage, and then two stitches later release Leander from the heavy thread that joins them with the shears. ]
There.
[ A quick glance reveals that to be what most needed the extra aid in sealing. His chest might want for one or two. Alexandrie reaches for the same folded square, comes around to scrutinize the bisecting wound. ]
Are you in a hurry to bleed upon another room?
[ But she makes the concession of folding a pad of cloth to place over the line of stitches— although she then looks at its placement with thinned lips. There’s no truly elegant way to bind it, although across his chest and back... that requires the chest wound done first. A morbid logician’s puzzle. She pulls thread. ]
Two more.
[ And reaches to brace a delicate hand on his chest. ]
no subject
The splash of alcohol, he took that well. The last tying-off of his neck, borne without complaint. But not this.]
Don't— [His voice cracks at sudden volume, retreats to a hiss after the stab of fractured ribs.] Don't touch it, it's not yours.
[The fierce honesty of the moment is short-lived. Focus drains. Indicating no one,]
It belongs to him.
[After a stretch of visible struggle, his brow grows suddenly smooth and his eyelids relax to half-mast; they remain just so, open and unseeing, as the rest of him sags. (At last, his fingers may be pried apart.)]
no subject
Leander fades. Isaac's grip in his hair relaxes from the moment it might have asked action. ]
Are you alright?
[ — Is a vestigial question. Of course she is; of course this isn’t. They can afford a breath, should she choose it, and it’s funny, isn’t it? The manner in which one might choose: Transfigure the pause into vulnerability or control.
He sets down Leander’s head, fishes for his pocket again (the lyrium). A bit of work with stopper and teeth, a grimace for the taste. Leander won’t be up for the door. May as well give up on that, ease the rest of this.
The palm that smoothes his eyes shut carries true sleep. ]
no subject
It belongs to him.
Her hand stays—it echoes in her. This is what he has left.
She has none of her own, not like that. The last marks Loki had left on her have faded, her skin left traitorously fine save for the thin white slice of a scar on her thigh from Ghislain. The pink dashes across her palm, perhaps, from when she’d nervelessly clutched a handful of roses hard enough to make stems flush with skin, the thorns hide in her flesh.
Maybe she shouldn’t have let Thor heal them, the small bit he could. Should have grabbed his wrist and hissed.
Alexandrie sets down the thread. Flexes her hand. Takes the breath. ]
Are any of us?
[ She takes up the bandages without waiting, takes the time to wind and tuck them nicely.
It hardly needs answering. ]
He will be heavy.