“Wait,” I said breathlessly, forcing myself to pull away. “Not like this. You’re lying on the couch unable to move, and I have your blood on my hands.”
“Seems to be a common theme with us,” he replied, laughing. “One of these days I’ll kiss you and neither of us will end up bleeding.”
One of these days.
His words had a sobering effect, and I tried to mask the uncertainty I felt.
'One of these days' implied a future.
'One of these days' implied there was something real happening between us.
'One of these days' reminded me that he said he loved me. Even if he knew I couldn’t understand it at the time.
I picked at the blood drying on my fingers and couldn’t help but feel like it was a sign.
I cleared my throat. “So, um, what happens now?” When he gave me a wicked grin, I clarified, “With your back, I mean. Can I help somehow?”
Sin twisted his body a few times. “I think I’m mostly healed. I would appreciate it if you could go find Corym so he can clean me up. I don’t want to drip all over his antique Parellan rug. This thing was crafted before Rivella was sealed off from the rest of Vitaea, so I can’t exactly buy him a new one.”
I cast him a withering glare. “If that’s all you need, then I think I can handle washing your back, Sin.”
He propped himself up on his elbows and matched my scowl with his own. “Go get Corym, Rain. I don’t want you to see how bad it looks under all that blood.”
“How bad it looks?” I folded my arms and let out a mirthless laugh. “So what, I show you my back, but I can’t see yours? I doubt it’s that much worse.”
“Gods dammit, Rain,” he growled. “This is not a competition to see which one of us is more fucked up.”
“Good, cause I’d win,” I snarked bitterly.
A strangled sound escaped Sin, and he collapsed face first onto the sofa. “Shen’Valla take me now,” he muttered. “Are you always this difficult?”
“Are you?” I shot back. When he didn’t respond I started searching the room. It didn’t take long to find the small bucket of water and stack of hand towels Corym had tucked behind the sofa. I knelt by Sin’s back and said, “You can grumble all you want, Sin, but you told me my scars didn’t make me disgusting. Well guess what? Neither do yours.”
He mumbled something under his breath that sounded vaguely like consent, so I dipped a towel in the water and started to mop up the pool of blood.
My hands trembled slightly as I made the first pass over his back. There was so much blood that it saturated the towel, and Ihad to wring it out in the bucket, turning the water from crystal clear to a sickening shade of pink that only got darker as I continued.
Sin shifted on the sofa, twisting his head to look back at me. “I don’t suppose you’ll talk to me now? It would help keep my mind off what you’re doing back there.”
“Maybe,” I said, cautiously. “What did you want to talk about? Personally, I want to discuss why you quote my favorite movie all the time or, better yet, let’s discuss how you knew about my anxiety medication. Either of those sound good?”
I returned my attention to the task at hand, finally clearing enough blood away to see what was underneath. The ropey muscle was no longer visible, and the last edges of the deep cuts were slowly knitting back together before my eyes. I ran my fingers lightly over his back and down the mess of peaks and valleys. His skin was a topographical map of suffering. I would never say a word about my back again. At least I could forget about my scars most of the time. But Sin? He had to reopen his every month. They would never fade, the edges would never soften. It would always be a fresh new hell from which he couldn't escape.
I looked down and saw him watching me closely. Wiping away any trace of pity, I gave him a weak smile. “So? What did you decide for the topic of conversation?”
“You,” he whispered. “You said no one translated Fea Remia for you. Care to elaborate?”
I had really hoped he would forget about that. Me and my damn mouth.
“Sin, I don’t think this is the best conversation to have when I’m wiping blood off your back.” Or ever, if I could possibly avoid it.
He craned his neck to look further over his shoulder. “Looks like you’re about done to me. Seems like a great time.”
I narrowed my eyes at him as I wiped the last of the blood from his back and tossed the towel back in the water tub. “How come you get to keep so many secrets, but I can’t have just one?”
“Because I want to know everything about you,” he said, shifting onto his side and tucking his arm under his cheek. If I thought passionate and intense Sin was hot, then casual, relaxed Sin was a whole other form of torture. It was so rare to see him as anything other than angry or distant, but now, with him stretched out, lounging on the sofa… I could almost picture us as a real couple, back in my apartment in Jersey about to watch a movie on a Friday night.
The thought tugged at my heart and I had to look away from him. He didn’t belong in my world any more than I belonged in this realm of magic and fantastical creatures. If for even a second I started imagining him in my real life then…
