All that pretty ink would likely spoil the taste anyways.
[Hector finally turns his head when Isaac comes to stand beside him, and he does look. He's not doing this for sex, but that doesn't mean he has to pretend to be blind. Isaac's body holds a harsh and savage beauty, and Hector catalogues it in his brain.]
It's no magic cure. But even if it does nothing else but scent the air, it won't hurt anything.
[He spreads an open palm toward the tub, an invitation for Isaac to step into the steaming water.]
[Isaac scoffs, having nothing to say to that. Pretty - he's heard that before. Pretty ink, pretty mouth, pretty hole. Not a word he'd have ever chosen for himself. It's too delicate, too often sharpened with a mocking edge.
He steps over the rim and smoothly dips a foot into the bath, never needing to ease himself in. Near-scalding is a comfortable temperature for him; it's holy water that burns.]
Remind me... [He begins, sliding the rest of himself into this tea-like brew and leaning back with a weary sigh, water lapping his collarbones] ...what is it you enjoy in tending to my whims?
[Lazily slinging an arm over the tub, he slants Hector a look as if this exchange is and has always been their normal.]
I had thought you above acts of servitude when you fled the castle.
[The sight of Isaac draped, loose and lazy, in the tub brings a smile to the corners of his lips. Isaac is so rarely relaxed, and Hector did this.]
In Dracula's castle, servitude was compulsory. This, I choose.
[He dips the cloth into the water and wrings it out. Scrubbing it against the bar of soap, Hector works up a mint-scented lather.]
For you, if I am not misjudging, being a man means taking care of yourself. You pride yourself in your independence. I use a different metric. I've chosen you as an ally, so it is a point of pride that you benefit from my presence.
[Short-lived thought it was, Isaac had been a lover of Hector's, and he wants to attend Isaac's needs. Hector is certain voicing that thought would bring this truce to an end. Alliances and value, perhaps Isaac can understand and accept.
He moves to the end of the tub so he can start washing at Isaac's feet.]
[From the way Hector frames his answer, Isaac finds himself understanding it better than he wants to. A desire to be useful to someone had fed into his fierce loyalty to Dracula; if he couldn't find any love in the world for him, he had told himself, then he'd settle for being needed, grasping desperately for and surviving on pity-scraps of acknowledgement. There's nothing to show for the years wasted on a soulless vampire, years of self-sacrifice and stringing himself along with hopeful delusions, but bitterness, and bruises to his ego that still ache as freshly as they day they were laid.
It's almost too raw still, even now.
He lets Hector's answer sit with him a while, scraping his nails lightly over stone.]
...And this you would do for the Belmont? [He drawls, skeptical, planting a foot up on the rim. Steam rolls off his unflushed skin.]
Ha. [He laughs dryly. Playing along, if barely. Hector's touch is purposeful, sexless, and Isaac, in turn, isn't basking in pleasure like a spoiled prince. He's calm - as calm as can be expected of him - but attentive, heavy-lidded eyes still watching through the steam.]
...you could try, although I don't imagine his woman would suffer your presence for very long.
[He slips his foot back in. Soap foam sizzles, dissolves.]
And what matter of alliance would this be? [He asks, tonelessly, as if he's only making conversation, and nothing said between them is of any real interest.] One of convenience?
[Hector shrugs, and retrieves Isaac's other foot from the tub to give it the same treatment as its twin.]
I suppose you could say that. He and I had similar goals, and we resolved not to hinder one another. That is all.
[He can't imagine having a conversation with the Belmont outside of that context, much less initiating physical contact like this.]
That alliance has concluded, in any case. He's gone back to 'his woman', and so long as Dracula's power stays dormant, I expect we shall never cross paths again.
[Truthfully, Isaac had been asking of them and not of Hector and the Belmont, but he's not uninterested in the glimpse he's offered of the nature of their relationship. It's all business. Which while being more or less what was expected, is also reassuring, more than it should be. After all, this is a Belmont who struck a truce, maybe even formed a camaraderie, with a half-breed, the Dark Lord's son of all things; willing to shake hands - so to speak - where others would've easily lumped him with the other castle-dwelling creatures. Desperation, he thinks, can make for strange alliances and stranger bedfellows.
Oh, Trevor, Trevor, Trevor.
Isaac can admit to liking him a little, in his own way. The man had put up a decent fight, at least, when he was paying attention. And lord knows he'd have fucked the Belmont if time had permitted; the desire had been there, peaking, while he choked on air and blood-spattered half-threats, writhing on his knife. It'd have been like breaking a wild colt, Isaac thinks. Needing a little time, a firm, steady hand, persistence. But it'd have been inevitable. The human spirit is only so strong.
Dracula's spirit, on the other hand -- ]
It won't. [He sits himself straighter, muscles rippling up through his arms and in his back as he sits himself up straighter, water churning around him.] Not forever. Should he but stir, however, I would think you and I among the first to know it.
[It seems unlikely that a vengeful spirit reaching for potential vessels could go unfelt.]
[Hector isn't sure Isaac is ready to hear Hector's thoughts on their alliance. It's likely to spook him, and spoil the relative ease of this moment.
He releases Isaac's foot when he starts to shift, and dips the cloth back into the water to rinse and re-lather while he waits for Isaac to either settle or bristle against his help and demand to finish the job himself.]
Yes, we shouldn't be caught unawares...but I think we have time. Immortals have nothing if not time, and after his last attempt failed, he won't act in haste.
[He does go still, his brow knitting while he strums his roughened knuckles with his fingertips, a cold, distant look settling into his eyes.]
His magic courses through our veins yet; I have found myself wondering if we too shall be longer-lived than most. [Wryly:] ...Assuming we aren't put out of our misery first, one way or another.
[A forgemaster outlasting the violence in Wallachia to die when he is old and grey and limp-dicked strikes him as about as likely to happen as the Belmont turning whip and will against God. A sword through the heart could also be considered death by natural causes, he thinks. Not only more realistic, but a preferable exit.
He glances at Hector after a while, motioning him over with a lazy curl of his fingers. Might as well put him to work.]
Edited (oh my GOD brain, quit it with the typos and shit) 2019-10-13 21:10 (UTC)
[Hector scoots closer to the tub and begins to wash Isaac's calf. Maybe it's not what Isaac meant with his crooked finger, but Hector is moving at his own speed for now. He digs his fingertips into the muscles, willing the stiffness to ease.]
There's no way to know for now. But we've seemed to age normally thus far.
[Hector has no desire to live past a single mortal lifespan. He never sought vampirism to that point.]
Death will find us in its own time. There's no need for us to do anything to seek it out.
['That remains for every man to decide,' he nearly says. But tonight, it's easier to say nothing at all. His bad days are never too far away, and when they're there and lying heavy on top of him, smothering him, there's reason enough to save what little hope he has left for death. But for now, since turning his efforts back to forging, he still surges with motivation, just enough to thrash and keep his head above the water. His hands would've turned against himself long ago, he thinks, if they had no power to create.
It's a fairly smooth part of his leg that Hector has gotten to scrubbing now. Isaac lets him, wordlessly. It's neither keenly pleasurable or unpleasant, though the motions he's making are calming in their sureness, their steadiness. But at the press of fingers into skin he slides free of that grip, easy, sinking back into the bath.]
No. [He says, coolly.
Massage is beyond what he's agreed to. At least, for now.]
[Hector sighs, but he rinses, lathers up the cloth, and begins a gentle scrub of the other calf, not pushing for more.]
My father sought eternal life, you know. I can think of no greater form of torture, but he honestly thought he wanted it.
[That and gold, the oldest and most cliche desires of an alchemist. How someone with so little creativity thought he would be the one to crack the code, Hector will never understand.]
Do you think our craft will die out with us? I have fathered no children; my bloodline ends with me.
no real kids for them is probably for the best, lol
[Every man desperate enough for something rarely thinks of its cost. But he doubts he'd have turned back if he knew from the start what it meant to be a devil forgemaster. He was still a boy when he had decided the end goal would justify all the suffering and frustration and sleepless nights reading by candlelight.
He sighs through his nose, lolling his head back.
No child left alive in that place remained a child for very long, though, he muses.]
Perhaps there will be others clever enough to master this art in time, even if it takes centuries for them to emerge. Curiosity and a hunger for power is without limit among men, and the dark lord will be wanting of new flesh to groom to his purposes.
[He pauses, thinking.]
...I am rather amazed you never had a part in siring a cambion or two, not even in your sleep. [Said to the ceiling with a touch of grim amusement.] More than a few succubi spoke highly of your vigor. [A beat.] Which was rather suspect, as you had struck me at the time as being a man with all the passion of a plank of wood.
I came to the castle as a child, and I knew of their dangers well before I attracted any attention from them. In that interim between when they took notice and when I could repel them, I was careful not to let them collect my seed. That meant satisfying them in other ways.
[Hector has...if not fond, then certainly intense...memories of rutting between thighs or breasts, and so much time kneeling with his head buried between a writhing succubus’s legs.
He thinks it was a mixture of fearing retaliation from Dracula if they truly impaired his favored young student and the pure novelty of his solution that has led the demons to humor him and not force-feed from him.
Hector’s rather amused to hear that they’d spoken so highly of him, even if Isaac does offer that fact in mockery. He snorts, and follows the line of Isaac’s leg so he can scrub above his knees.]
Did you solicit that particular piece of gossip, or did they offer it freely?
[It comes as something of a surprise that Hector hadn't wandered in blind like he had. Isaac gives him a look of mock-astonishment, eyebrows going up.]
Clever boy. [He purrs, mimicking their lilting tones with a twitch of amusement on his lips.] ...I had no need to press them, for they were quite fond of wagging their tongues when they weren't putting them to good use.
[Always keen on getting a rise out of him, in all senses. He idly plucks a chamomile bud from his chest, rolling it between the pads of his fingers.]
All their tales of you and your ten inch horse-cock could only ever lead to disappointment.
[Carelessly flicking the bud back into the water:]
There was more to my interest than what lay between your legs.
[He leaves it at that, closing his eyes a moment and fighting the pull of a dark curiosity that dares him to ask what Hector may have heard about him from others' lips. Not all rumours that swirled around the castle and came back to him fell into the realm of amusing nonsense, and in a black fury, his hands had found their way around the throats of a few of those giggling succubi, their laughter ringing in his ears long after he had squeezed and bruised his fingers into their skin, silencing them.]
Oh, an army of little hellions, surely. [Wearing red jasper, he learned, eventually, kept them from draining his strength, which allowed him to fuck with abandon. And he did, for years, seeking them at times as often as they sought him, shoving them down and pumping into them with all his savage frustration.] Although it hardly matters, now least of all.
[He notices Hector's hesitation before long and cants his head at him, unamused.]
No, you were more interested in my power, weren't you?
[Goaded on, he pushes forward with a soft snort, plunging his arms further into the fragrant waters to trace Isaac's thighs with the cleaning cloth. He slides along the outside of one leg, then shifts to the softer inner thigh.]
Does it bother you, that there could be living beings still with your blood in their veins?
[Hector wonders if he could kill a demon, if it were possible it was his offspring. The demon's origin shouldn't matter, but Hectors thinks it would, for him. It is a weakness, but one that keeps him human in spite of his dark powers.]
[The first question is left hanging, although his silence is telling. Yes - of course Hector's raw talent had captured his attention like it had the dark lord's, though not in a way entirely the same. Power aside, the sheer novelty of seeing another human in the castle, someone who had looked to be close to his age, had made his pulse quicken with an anxious excitement and a yearning he hadn't felt in a long time.]
They would mean to nothing to me, begotten by a demon-whore.
[The cloth passes along his inner leg and he stirs, fingers tightening around the tub's rim.]
[Maybe it is that easy for Isaac. Hector has no attachment to the family that spawned him, but he isn't sure the apathy would go the same way.
He moves to the other leg, up and down the thigh, slow and gentle. Hector's not trying to seduce. This, the closeness and conversation, coexisting in the same space, is the goal.]
There have been some succubae sniffing around the castle. I assume you're aware.
[Hector could put up wards, but this is Isaac's abode, and must be consulted.]
[Isaac snorts softly, a mirthless sound, supposing this is Hector's oh-so-aloof manner of pointing out that he's noticed the company Isaac has kept in the last few months.]
You assume correctly.
[With a cocked brow, he presses Hector on, half-expecting all the while for his touch to lose focus, daring to wander where it hasn't the right to be. But it doesn't - and for the moment, their truce holds.]
[Hector lets out a breath, but doesn't press the issue. If Isaac wanted them gone from his keep, they would be gone. He'll ward his own room and leave Isaac to his 'demon-whores'.
He reaches as far up Isaac's legs as he can go without groping more tender areas. He draws the cloth out of the water and reaches for Isaac's left hand.]
[His jaw stiffens, weeks of hard-won progress on the verge of coming undone in an instant.]
Then leave.
[The cloth sweeps over the beginnings of a crisscrossing of scars that extend to his inner elbow, the tendons in his arm flexing and unflexing and his hand one word away from snapping out to grab a fistful of Hector's tunic.]
You would do well to remember that my business is my own, as is this castle in which you sleep. [Crisply.] My purpose here is not to make life more comfortable and convenient for you.
[Hector asks quietly, not yet withdrawing from the side of the tub. He washes up the forearm, over scars and inked designs. If Isaac sends him away, he'll have to see to the rest of the scrubbing himself.]
This hasn't been so bad, has it? [A real conversation after months of isolation, warmth and sweet scents, and the temporary suspension of the rivalry between them. Hector doesn't wish to lose that.]
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[Hector finally turns his head when Isaac comes to stand beside him, and he does look. He's not doing this for sex, but that doesn't mean he has to pretend to be blind. Isaac's body holds a harsh and savage beauty, and Hector catalogues it in his brain.]
It's no magic cure. But even if it does nothing else but scent the air, it won't hurt anything.
[He spreads an open palm toward the tub, an invitation for Isaac to step into the steaming water.]
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He steps over the rim and smoothly dips a foot into the bath, never needing to ease himself in. Near-scalding is a comfortable temperature for him; it's holy water that burns.]
Remind me... [He begins, sliding the rest of himself into this tea-like brew and leaning back with a weary sigh, water lapping his collarbones] ...what is it you enjoy in tending to my whims?
[Lazily slinging an arm over the tub, he slants Hector a look as if this exchange is and has always been their normal.]
I had thought you above acts of servitude when you fled the castle.
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[The sight of Isaac draped, loose and lazy, in the tub brings a smile to the corners of his lips. Isaac is so rarely relaxed, and Hector did this.]
In Dracula's castle, servitude was compulsory. This, I choose.
[He dips the cloth into the water and wrings it out. Scrubbing it against the bar of soap, Hector works up a mint-scented lather.]
For you, if I am not misjudging, being a man means taking care of yourself. You pride yourself in your independence. I use a different metric. I've chosen you as an ally, so it is a point of pride that you benefit from my presence.
[Short-lived thought it was, Isaac had been a lover of Hector's, and he wants to attend Isaac's needs. Hector is certain voicing that thought would bring this truce to an end. Alliances and value, perhaps Isaac can understand and accept.
He moves to the end of the tub so he can start washing at Isaac's feet.]
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It's almost too raw still, even now.
He lets Hector's answer sit with him a while, scraping his nails lightly over stone.]
...And this you would do for the Belmont? [He drawls, skeptical, planting a foot up on the rim. Steam rolls off his unflushed skin.]
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Do you think I should find him and offer?
[He lathers the foot and releases it so Isaac can dip it back into the water to rinse.]
But no, I wouldn't. That isn't the type of alliance we had.
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...you could try, although I don't imagine his woman would suffer your presence for very long.
[He slips his foot back in. Soap foam sizzles, dissolves.]
And what matter of alliance would this be? [He asks, tonelessly, as if he's only making conversation, and nothing said between them is of any real interest.] One of convenience?
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I suppose you could say that. He and I had similar goals, and we resolved not to hinder one another. That is all.
[He can't imagine having a conversation with the Belmont outside of that context, much less initiating physical contact like this.]
That alliance has concluded, in any case. He's gone back to 'his woman', and so long as Dracula's power stays dormant, I expect we shall never cross paths again.
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Oh, Trevor, Trevor, Trevor.
Isaac can admit to liking him a little, in his own way. The man had put up a decent fight, at least, when he was paying attention. And lord knows he'd have fucked the Belmont if time had permitted; the desire had been there, peaking, while he choked on air and blood-spattered half-threats, writhing on his knife. It'd have been like breaking a wild colt, Isaac thinks. Needing a little time, a firm, steady hand, persistence. But it'd have been inevitable. The human spirit is only so strong.
Dracula's spirit, on the other hand -- ]
It won't. [He sits himself straighter, muscles rippling up through his arms and in his back as he sits himself up straighter, water churning around him.] Not forever. Should he but stir, however, I would think you and I among the first to know it.
[It seems unlikely that a vengeful spirit reaching for potential vessels could go unfelt.]
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He releases Isaac's foot when he starts to shift, and dips the cloth back into the water to rinse and re-lather while he waits for Isaac to either settle or bristle against his help and demand to finish the job himself.]
Yes, we shouldn't be caught unawares...but I think we have time. Immortals have nothing if not time, and after his last attempt failed, he won't act in haste.
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His magic courses through our veins yet; I have found myself wondering if we too shall be longer-lived than most. [Wryly:] ...Assuming we aren't put out of our misery first, one way or another.
[A forgemaster outlasting the violence in Wallachia to die when he is old and grey and limp-dicked strikes him as about as likely to happen as the Belmont turning whip and will against God. A sword through the heart could also be considered death by natural causes, he thinks. Not only more realistic, but a preferable exit.
He glances at Hector after a while, motioning him over with a lazy curl of his fingers. Might as well put him to work.]
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There's no way to know for now. But we've seemed to age normally thus far.
[Hector has no desire to live past a single mortal lifespan. He never sought vampirism to that point.]
Death will find us in its own time. There's no need for us to do anything to seek it out.
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It's a fairly smooth part of his leg that Hector has gotten to scrubbing now. Isaac lets him, wordlessly. It's neither keenly pleasurable or unpleasant, though the motions he's making are calming in their sureness, their steadiness. But at the press of fingers into skin he slides free of that grip, easy, sinking back into the bath.]
No. [He says, coolly.
Massage is beyond what he's agreed to. At least, for now.]
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My father sought eternal life, you know. I can think of no greater form of torture, but he honestly thought he wanted it.
[That and gold, the oldest and most cliche desires of an alchemist. How someone with so little creativity thought he would be the one to crack the code, Hector will never understand.]
Do you think our craft will die out with us? I have fathered no children; my bloodline ends with me.
no real kids for them is probably for the best, lol
He sighs through his nose, lolling his head back.
No child left alive in that place remained a child for very long, though, he muses.]
Perhaps there will be others clever enough to master this art in time, even if it takes centuries for them to emerge. Curiosity and a hunger for power is without limit among men, and the dark lord will be wanting of new flesh to groom to his purposes.
[He pauses, thinking.]
...I am rather amazed you never had a part in siring a cambion or two, not even in your sleep. [Said to the ceiling with a touch of grim amusement.] More than a few succubi spoke highly of your vigor. [A beat.] Which was rather suspect, as you had struck me at the time as being a man with all the passion of a plank of wood.
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[Hector has...if not fond, then certainly intense...memories of rutting between thighs or breasts, and so much time kneeling with his head buried between a writhing succubus’s legs.
He thinks it was a mixture of fearing retaliation from Dracula if they truly impaired his favored young student and the pure novelty of his solution that has led the demons to humor him and not force-feed from him.
Hector’s rather amused to hear that they’d spoken so highly of him, even if Isaac does offer that fact in mockery. He snorts, and follows the line of Isaac’s leg so he can scrub above his knees.]
Did you solicit that particular piece of gossip, or did they offer it freely?
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Clever boy. [He purrs, mimicking their lilting tones with a twitch of amusement on his lips.] ...I had no need to press them, for they were quite fond of wagging their tongues when they weren't putting them to good use.
[Always keen on getting a rise out of him, in all senses. He idly plucks a chamomile bud from his chest, rolling it between the pads of his fingers.]
All their tales of you and your ten inch horse-cock could only ever lead to disappointment.
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Is that why you were so interested in me back then? I am sorry to disappoint.
[He shakes his head, amusement outweighing the embarrassment of this conversation.]
Do you think you left little half-demon Laforezes behind in the castle?
[He pauses with his arms wrist-deep in the water, hesitating to brush his cloth up Isaac's thigh without some indication of Isaac's permission.]
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There was more to my interest than what lay between your legs.
[He leaves it at that, closing his eyes a moment and fighting the pull of a dark curiosity that dares him to ask what Hector may have heard about him from others' lips. Not all rumours that swirled around the castle and came back to him fell into the realm of amusing nonsense, and in a black fury, his hands had found their way around the throats of a few of those giggling succubi, their laughter ringing in his ears long after he had squeezed and bruised his fingers into their skin, silencing them.]
Oh, an army of little hellions, surely. [Wearing red jasper, he learned, eventually, kept them from draining his strength, which allowed him to fuck with abandon. And he did, for years, seeking them at times as often as they sought him, shoving them down and pumping into them with all his savage frustration.] Although it hardly matters, now least of all.
[He notices Hector's hesitation before long and cants his head at him, unamused.]
...Have you come only to stare?
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[Goaded on, he pushes forward with a soft snort, plunging his arms further into the fragrant waters to trace Isaac's thighs with the cleaning cloth. He slides along the outside of one leg, then shifts to the softer inner thigh.]
Does it bother you, that there could be living beings still with your blood in their veins?
[Hector wonders if he could kill a demon, if it were possible it was his offspring. The demon's origin shouldn't matter, but Hectors thinks it would, for him. It is a weakness, but one that keeps him human in spite of his dark powers.]
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They would mean to nothing to me, begotten by a demon-whore.
[The cloth passes along his inner leg and he stirs, fingers tightening around the tub's rim.]
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[Maybe it is that easy for Isaac. Hector has no attachment to the family that spawned him, but he isn't sure the apathy would go the same way.
He moves to the other leg, up and down the thigh, slow and gentle. Hector's not trying to seduce. This, the closeness and conversation, coexisting in the same space, is the goal.]
There have been some succubae sniffing around the castle. I assume you're aware.
[Hector could put up wards, but this is Isaac's abode, and must be consulted.]
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You assume correctly.
[With a cocked brow, he presses Hector on, half-expecting all the while for his touch to lose focus, daring to wander where it hasn't the right to be. But it doesn't - and for the moment, their truce holds.]
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He reaches as far up Isaac's legs as he can go without groping more tender areas. He draws the cloth out of the water and reaches for Isaac's left hand.]
I don't want to see your cambions firsthand.
[Try to have a little restraint, Isaac.]
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Then leave.
[The cloth sweeps over the beginnings of a crisscrossing of scars that extend to his inner elbow, the tendons in his arm flexing and unflexing and his hand one word away from snapping out to grab a fistful of Hector's tunic.]
You would do well to remember that my business is my own, as is this castle in which you sleep. [Crisply.] My purpose here is not to make life more comfortable and convenient for you.
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[Hector asks quietly, not yet withdrawing from the side of the tub. He washes up the forearm, over scars and inked designs. If Isaac sends him away, he'll have to see to the rest of the scrubbing himself.]
This hasn't been so bad, has it? [A real conversation after months of isolation, warmth and sweet scents, and the temporary suspension of the rivalry between them. Hector doesn't wish to lose that.]
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HOW DARE HECTOR HAVE NEEDS OF HIS OWN
HE’S NOT SAYING IT SHOULD totally absolutely BE HIM
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hope this timeskippery is okay -- let me know if you wanted anything changed
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