My body braces before I can stop it. His hand tightens once at my waist. Not enough to hurt.
Just enough to steady me.
The washcloth goes gentle there. Gentler than anywhere else.
My stomach twists.
I hate this.
Not because it feels bad. Because it doesn’t.
Because no one has ever touched me like this with nowhere to get to after. No impatience under it. No cruelty waiting beneath it. No hand smoothing me down just to take something once I’m still.
Just him.
Just water.
Just this awful, quiet tenderness I don’t know what to do with.
He drags the cloth down my forearm, lifts my wrist, and washes carefully around the bandage Vaska put there.
I stare at his hand.
At the way his fingers look against my skin.
At the fact that he could break me in half if he wanted to and instead he’s washing blood I can’t even see anymore out of the lines of my knuckles.
The room goes blurry for half a second.
I blink hard.
No.
I am not crying over a washcloth.
That would be pathetic even for me.
The cloth moves to the other arm.
His chin brushes my temple once when he leans in and my whole body goes tight.
From the shock of him being this close and not making it ugly.
The water shifts around us when he reaches lower, washing down my shin, my calf, the top of my foot. His hand stays firm at my middle, keeping me anchored between his legs like if he’s touching me everywhere else, he still needs one place that says I’m here.
Wanted.
Kept.
The thought makes heat crawl up my throat that has nothing to do with the bath.
I don’t understand this version of him.
The man who carved his name into my skin. The man who tied me to a radiator. The man who looked at me like he might kill me.
And this.
The same man holding me in water that smells like my body wash, wiping soap across my skin like he has all the time in the world to do it slowly.
