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Those dark, twisted thoughts get pushed to the side. For now.
He needs me.
I go to him. Without giving thought if he’ll reject me or snap at me, or if my presence is even wanted at all.
As he stands in front of the tub and twists on the hot water, I come up from behind and touch him. A gentle, soft hand to his nape, the touch simple and small, but after being apart for so long it sets off a nourishing sense of relief inside me.
Just to feel him again. It doesn’t matter that he’s different…
He tenses at my touch. Otherwise, he gives no discernible reaction. It’s as though he’s trained himself to resist me, like he’s already decided he won’t respond to me at all.
Rather than feeling hurt, I feel desperate.
If he’d only let me in… he’d see nothing’s changed. Except my love.
I love him more.
“Please,” I murmur, blinking against more tears. I grab the washcloth from his grasp. “Let me.”
Salvatore says nothing. He stands still, his battered body stiff and tense. For several seconds the only sound that fills the room is the trickling water from the faucet into the tub. My hands come up to his face. The rough hair from his unkempt beard scratches my palms, his skin warm under my touch.
Finally, he lets himself look at me. My heart aches meeting his eyes.
Dead, haunted eyes that no longer hold the intensity they once did—still a mélange of blue and green, yet riddled with a savage storminess. Another signifier of the harsh reality of the brutality he’s faced.
But recognition lives in them. As he peers at me and I clutch his face, I can see it buried deep in the blue-green depths.
The Salvatore from before. The Salvatore he still is. Even if he’s broken and pained right now.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, stroking my thumb along the hollow of his cheek. I’m not sure what I’m apologizing for except reality itself. Our dark circumstance and everything we’ve faced. “Let me do this.”
Salvatore gives a stiff nod.
He sits on the ledge of the tub, and I set to work cleaning him up. With the damp washcloth, I clean his wounds. My hands shake as I do, though it’s not from nerves. More like immense relief he’s right here and I’m caring for him.
His torn up back isn’t the only damage that’s been done. Wringing out the washcloth of blood and water, I tend to other parts of his body. His torso’s a roadmap of pain. I let the washcloth travel the healing stab wounds in his shoulder and bicep and the severe bruising along his ribs (he winces, telling me they’re fractured).
His lower half is no better. It’s decorated with more of the same.
I kneel before him and do my best to relieve his pain any way I can. We’re silent as I do, though his eyes are trained on me. Occasionally, I glance up at him. I’ve stopped blinking back the tears, letting them fall instead.
There’s nothing to hide. Not his battle wounds and not the tears they bring me witnessing the aftermath.
Every one of his scars is mine. Every bruise, gash, and lash mark. They might as well be marring my flesh and not his.
I’ll make them suffer for this. He has to know I will.
But it’s his left hand that might be in the worst condition—Stitches did what he could with it, bandaging it up, but one look, even as someone with no medical training, I can tell it’ll take a very long time to heal. If it ever heals fully at all.
It’s broken and lifeless, like the bones inside have been extracted. He lets it rest limply in his lap, not once trying to move or use it. He’s accepted the morbid fate of it—his hand, one of his favorite instruments as a fighter, might never be the same.
That doesn’t mean it can’t feel.Hecan’t feel.
I set down the bloodied washcloth and run my hands through the running faucet of the tub. Then, with slow movements under his unblinking study, I strip off my top. I slide down my yoga pants until I’m almost as naked as he is, with only my panties remaining.
Back on my knees before him, I look up at him, and take his limp hand. I’m in control of it as I bring it to cup my breast. His palm fills up with the bare mound of flesh and brushes my nipple. Even though I’m leading where this goes, his touch still makes me moan. The sound’s a light, strangled one I can’t help releasing.
“Feel me, Jon,” I say, pressing kisses into his chest. On the few parts of his unscarred skin but also the many marked up parts too. My hand over his hand, I squeeze my breast, feeling its soft weight. “It doesn’t matter… you can still feel… every part of me.”
