✦ @7hell, as Willow: “ This is dangerous, isn’t it? ”
The lamplight shining above them was a low buzzing halo of sorts, its yellow liquid veiling bruised and torn skin. Willow sat obediently tall in the cushioned reading chair, Akikō at her feet, marveling in secret how even angels can be balmed, pressed, and stitched back together.
She studied the wound carefully as her hands worked, each suture a testament of precision and familiarity, and, not ignorant to the blistered and charred skin encircling her blushing wound, guessed that it had been due to the silver-edged work of a flaming sword. Whether it’d been from a narrowly escaped bounty hunt or some other heavenly creature particularly unkind, Akikō didn’t know. She never did. There was never enough breathing room to voice budding curiosity between them, though Akikō had learned to cradle fragile things before it could be fractured— even if your hands are cold.
“C’mon, birdie,” she started, hopeful that Willlow hadn’t seen the way her hands had faltered. “You’ve got the best doc, part time bounty hunter in town— there’s nothing I can’t handle. Reckon the next time you could be in pieces, and I'd still stitch you back together better than before.” Akikō kept the silky varnish of her voice, but there was a faint furrow to her brows. Next time. It wasn’t lost on the woman that she risked safety each night she took Willow in, a coveted treasure sought out for from all the bounty hunters of the planets. If word got out that Akikō’s been patching up their trillion dollar prize, serving her tea in the intimate corners of her bedroom and turning her fingertips into a comb in the fine, long rain of Willow’s hair, she’d be dead meat. Not to mention the risks Willow faced in keeping so close to a human.
Akikō bit the inside of her lip, worrying it a troublesome kind of pink. The thought distressed her, of course it did, but all good things in life came at a cost, and Akikō didn’t mind this certain kind of remittance. She wondered if Willow felt the same.
Finishing the last suture, Akikō reached for cotton and doused it in antiseptic before dabbing it on the closed wound. She looked up at Willow, at the teacup in her hands, a learned ease lining the rosy curve of her smile. “Besides, where in heaven will you find fresh hojicha tea?”
