#sharkbomb

He doesn't enjoy taking unnecessary risks. Mishaps may abound in battle—as to their nature—but risks, Silco prefers to calculate. He calculated this risk. Trying to do business with little more than common street criminals who found themselves some halfway decent clothes. It exhausts his patience, but when they have a resource he needs, he'll try to negotiate before taking the strong arm approach. He wasn't wrong about the risk level, but it spiraled out of his control, regardless. An arduous, but amicable, conversation devolved into a lowly gang brawl in a warehouse by the shipyard. Ridiculous.

He keeps himself armed at all times, but in truth, he hasn't needed fighting skills in years. It shows to him, if no one else. A few of his crew got their asses handed to them, but Sevika wiped the floor with most of their opponents. He held his own for a while, armed with a knife he uses to target arteries and organs.

He doesn't remember how it happened. His last memory shows him pulling his knife out of some whelp's kidney, then his hands out in front of him, catching himself from smacking his face against the cement floor. White hot flashes strobed in both eyes, and the sounds of the brawl faded to muffled humming. He struggled to right himself. A few drops of blood between his braced hands formed a stream flowing from his head, but he didn't feel much. A dull, buzzing pain around the top of his head, spinning the room around him.

When he tried feeling the damage, it all came back tenfold. Shouts, punches, kicks, metal clanging, chains rattling; the madness around him assaulted his eardrums. Flashes behind his eyes disoriented him, keeping him from standing, and the pain. Someone—had to be someone; he didn't do it to himself, he doesn't think—split his skull open.

Sevika helped him up, which he accepted, because he would. She improvised a bandage, which he accepted, because he would, and held it in place while she tied it. Every step home banged a drum in his head, one for each foot, which he no longer felt. He couldn't feel most of his body on the way home, except his head. Some words rattled around his brain, danced on his tongue. Words he said out loud. Or he didn't.

Sevika took him home without stopping at the office first. Which he accepted. He would let her do that. Nothing unusual for them, him letting her take him home… he doesn't think… He could think better if the pulse in his brain stopped hammering itself against his skull.

To his surprise, Jinx made it home first. A new project has kept her confined to her workshop at all hours for the past week. The wave of relief at seeing her home brings him back into his body, somewhat.

Long limbs and longer braids sprawl across the sofa in all directions. Jinx sits upright in preparation to ask about the stupid boring meeting, but the question dies in her throat at the sight of him. Swaying, face scrunched with pain, the hand held up to his head doing nothing to stop the cascade of blood pouring from his hairline. Launching herself off the couch, she catches him when his knees give to keep him upright.

"What happened?! What did they do???" she snaps at Sevika, "what did you do?!"

He stumbles out of Sevika's reach and holds on to Jinx to regain balance, smearing his blood on her arms. Remembering how to shape words takes him a moment. "Picked a pointless fight. We have the docks."

Jinx glares at Sevika. "Did you let them hit him with a boat?! Why didn't you do something!"

"Beat the shit out of most of them and killed the rest," Sevika growls. "It's a bad hit but he'll live. If you had been there he'd be full of bullet holes."

"Out! Get out!" Jinx yells. The way Silco flinches makes her regret shouting.

Sevika puts a leg forward, opening her mouth to argue. Jinx shifts Silco to her right side so she can unholster her gun and point it at Sevika's forehead. With Silco's head resting against hers, she keeps her threat at a tolerable volume.

"Get out before I fill you with bullet holes."

Sevika's face twists with exasperation. Without another word, she holds up her hands and shows herself out. The door slams behind her with more force than necessary.

Jinx holsters her gun. Useless ogre. She takes Silco by his face to inspect the damage, and, feeling the tremors in his legs, tell him, "hold on to me."

She presses the tourniquet to keep it on his forehead while slipping it off the back of his head. A few more ribbons of blood leak out, and the saturation on the fabric alone tells her how much he's already lost.

He winces from pressure near the wound, clenching his fingers tighter around her arms. "I'm alright, Jinx. Head wounds bleed profusely, no matter how minor they are."

She drags him by his sleeves towards his bathroom. "This isn't minor."

Plopping him down on the toilet, she rips his coat off, turns the tap on hot, and fishes the medical kit out from under the sink. The first hand towel she sees gets run under the warm water to clean away fresh and caked blood from his hairline. The product in his hair helps her shape it out of the way of the laceration.

Whatever hit him took a chunk of his forehead and scalp with it. Dead center of his forehead, on an angle up into his hair, about three inches long. Fresh blood flows slow and even, most getting absorbed by his hair while the rest cascades in all directions. She dabs the top of the wound with as little pressure as she can, and he does an impressive job not flinching. Delicate handling didn't make the bleeding worse. If he can stay still, she can close it.

"This needs stitches," she says. She holds herself strong, but the crack in her voice betrays her anxiety.

One shake of his head flips the room upside down. He takes a moment to recover. "It's fine. Head injuries always look worse than they are."

"I split my face open all the time when I was little. I know the difference. This needs stitches."

One of her hands rummages around the box of bandages while the other presses the cloth into the wound. No sutures, only some butterfly clasps too short for a gash this wide. She takes one of his hands to replace hers on the towel. "Hold that."

She runs to her room, finds her sewing kit, and makes to run back, but the sound of flowing water from her bathroom catches up to her. She started running a bath earlier when she got bored with waiting for him to get home. Groaning, she sprints to turn off the faucet and rushes back to Silco.

He slumped a bit, but stills holds the cloth to his head. She chooses the sturdiest thread she has and pinches it through a curved needle. Not medical grade; he'll have to keep an eye on it, but better than nothing. Alcohol sloshes in its bottle as she tips it to soak some gauze, fills the cap, and sets it aside to prep him for it.

Exhaling, she moves the towel out of her way, his hand keeping hold as it flops into his lap. She starts with washing lukewarm water over the wound to get a better look. His fingers clench and relax. The bleeding slowed, at least. Her nails and pads of her fingers brush his hair away from the wound.

She picks up the cap. "This is gonna suck," she warns. Her hand stays steady as she pours a clean line of alcohol across the lesion.

That wakes him up. He snaps upright, tilting his head back and choking on a howl of pain from the burn. His fists clench and twist around the bloody towel.

"Sorry," she winces.

"It's okay," he grunts, "that should suffice."

"Nope." She blocks him from standing. "Sit. Stay. If I don't close this you'll leak your brains everywhere."

To her relief, he sits back again. She fetches the lighter in his coat pocket to sterilize the needle. The flames licking the metal sterile knits his brow, and his right eye widens by a hair. Imperceptible to anyone else, but to her, it screams apprehension. She manhandles his head into a better position and gets to work.

"So what's the other guy look like?" she asks as she pushes the needle through torn flesh for the first suture.

He snickers instead of reacting to the pain. "Dead."

"Good."

She continues working in silence, taking as much care as she can while trying to finish quickly. Sometimes he flinches or sucks air through his teeth, making her pause until he forces himself to relax again.

As she reaches the middle, the position she has to stand in blocks the light, and the wound gets lost in his dark hair. Lips pursing, she puts his knees together so she can straddle his legs to work from the front. This position gives her more light than she had while standing. She hums in approval and keeps working.

He blinks through processing Jinx positioning herself atop him. The scent of leather from her chest inches away from his face mixes with the blood in his nose and alcohol in the air. Pain registers somewhere north… his head. Pinpricks that overstay their welcome, moving through flesh and pulling it taut. Stitches. Yes, stitches. Jinx sewing his head back together after the fight at the docks.

Her halter top with its X across her chest and clouds of blue smoke consume his field of view. In his dazed state, he wants to touch her. He wants to hold her steady so she can focus on whatever she's doing up there—stitches, right, that hurts—without straining. He wants to, but has enough sense left in him not to touch her. Why touching her would be insensible, he can't remember, but he doesn't touch her in case it would.

"I remember the first time I had to stitch you up," he says instead. The words taste dry, but the memory clears some of the mental fog. A grunt slips through on the next pass of the needle. "You got yourself with one of the jaws you give your bombs. I was worried about tetanus and potential loss of that finger. You were worried about not being able to tinker for a few weeks."

"And I was a worse patient than you," she says. "And I took that cast thing off so I could keep making bombs."

"I know."

"Yeah, right." She chews on her tongue through the last few loops of the needle. "If you knew you would've said something."

"You needed to learn how to calculate risks for yourself."

"Uh, huh. Did you calculate this?" She tugs on the end of the thread for emphasis.

He flinches. "Yes, that's why I brought a knife and Sevika."

She ties off the final suture twice before snipping the thread. "Yeah, well, next time I'm going with you. Sevika's only useful within reach and she's a crap shot."

She inspects her sewing job. Not her best, but not her worst, and functional. It closed up well, all things considered. She covers it with gauze and tape from the medical kit.

"Pretty sure you're supposed to not get it wet," she says as she dismounts his lap. "If you're worried about appearances you should be able to hide the cut under your hair. But I think it looks good."

He hums, stretching as he stands. "I won't get it wet, but I do need a shower, and I'll likely go straight to bed from there. You can leave all that, I'll clean it up."

She fidgets. "Right. Right." Packing up her sewing kit, she doesn't meet his eyes to say, "goodnight, then."

"Goodnight. And thank you, Jinx."

She looks back to smile at him, then shuts the door behind herself.

Don't lose it don't lose it don't lose it don't lose it don't lose it don't lose it—

Her bedroom door closes with her slumped against it. She didn't walk here. Or, if she did, she can't remember. Back against the door, she slides down it, bending at the knees and wrapping her arms around her legs to release all the panic and sobbing she had to choke down that whole time.

What if they had killed him. What if he never came home. How could Sevika let someone just hurt him like that? How could he let someone just hurt him like that?

She throws the sewing kit across the room. Its contents scatter and she doesn't care. She doesn't care if she ever sees any of it ever again. What if she never saw him again. What the fuck use is that brick shithouse of a woman if she can't keep Silco—Silco, her boss, the whole reason any of them are here in the first place—safe.

You'd have no one left.

Scratches like toothpicks scribble on the emulsion of her mind. Silco's face, eyes crossed out, leaking vibrant red ooze. She looks at her trembling hands, red with his blood drying on her skin. The blood on her arms from when he had to lean on her comes into focus. Holding onto her because he could barely stand on his own, because someone got close enough to strike a killing blow.

Not that you deserved anyone

after what you did.

She swats Mylo's opinion away from her ear. Tears stream down her face, and her chest shakes with hiccups snapping her diaphragm. He could have died. He could have died. She wants to scream. She has to scream. So she screams: between her legs, down at the floor, over and over until it drowns out the noise in her mind. Her arms cover her head while nails dig and hair rips from her scalp as she tries to hold on.

Breathe.

She sniffles. Silco's voice, reminding her to breathe during her first meltdown with him. Still, after years' worth of nightmares, every time. When she loses time and wakes up to a mess she made, that she can't remember, that he always makes go away. And still when she cries just like this, when her emotions slip on black ice, he reminds her to breathe. Keep her head above water. So she breathes.

Rushing, sprinkling water dances on the edge of her hearing. He delayed starting his shower. Inspecting the damage, maybe.

"He's gonna kill himself trying to stay standing," she grumbles. "He won't think to sit down."

She kicks the sewing kit debris away to stretch out her legs on the floor. Her boots follow, launched off of her feet from two well-timed flicks of her ankles. She lays her legs flat on the ground for a few seconds before she has to draw them up again to hide her face. Fresh tears sting along her waterlines, falling in tandem with the dripping coming from her bathroom. Breathe. Keep your head above water.

Oh.

Idea.

"Goodnight. And thank you, Jinx."

She looks back to smile at him, then shuts the door behind herself.

Silco leans against the counter, waits a few seconds until her boots walk away, then lets out all the pain he had to hold back so she could work. And to not scare her. Fuck, his head hurts. Shock helped with the pain from the needle in the moment, he imagines, but now the area throbs under the sutures. He growls into the sink to vent the pain.

When he looks up again, his misshapen pupil pulses in the mirror. Far more photosensitive than its healthy twin, and the light in here burns. While he struggles to orient himself, he removes the tape and gauze to look at the wound for the first time.

And laughs.

Jinx—his wonderful, beautiful, artful daughter—sewed him up with her mending kit, stitched his grievous head injury back together with baby blue thread. He debates whether to hide it or display it with pride. Look how resourceful my daughter is. No hesitation. Far better than everyone else he pays to stay sharp and hold their stomachs.

He trusts Sevika's judgment on it not posing a threat. He'll consult the doctor if needed, but no sense wasting energy worrying about something non-fatal. For now, he replaces the bandage and turns on the shower.

The house connected to The Last Drop, which he and Jinx inherited when Silco killed Vander, has two bathrooms: one with a shower and tub, and one with a standing shower. The idea of having a bathroom all to herself provided some semblance of positivity following the accident, so he let her choose which she'd take as hers, knowing she would choose the one with the tub. He had no complaints with dodging the need to step over the edge of a bath every night.

Dried blood adheres part of his shirt collar to his skin as he undresses, revealing other scrapes and bruises he never felt. He leaves his clothes in an uncharacteristic pile on the floor and steps under the spray, holding his head away at the last second.

The heat feels good. He can't remember the temperature outside tonight, but the heat seems to defrost his tired muscles. Staying tensed for that long has consequences at his age. He lets his body rest against the wall while the heat and steam seep their way down to his bones.

Old. Getting old. Older than he ever thought he'd get.

The heat feels good. Really good. The burden in his skull lets up, making him lighter than air. He could fall asleep in here. He shouldn't, but he could. He definitely could.

He turns the temperature higher and inches under the spray a little more, keeping his head back. Could fall asleep in here. Won't. But could. Lighter than air. Like the steam wafting up and away. So much steam, far more than usual, yet he feels a sudden chill. He nudges the temperature a bit higher.

Thunder cracks all around him. The lights turn out, and when they come back on, he's on the floor. Pain radiates from his shins, knees, and elbows. The pressure in his skull returns and threatens to burst through his eyes, blurring his vision against the white-hot light. He can't hear the rushing water over the ringing in his ears.

The environment shifts; he can't say how. Something soft on his lap. An obstruction interrupts the light trying to blind him. Gunpowder and paint tickle his nose, a familiar scent.

"Jinx?" He says.

His head hurts. It hurts so much, and it makes his voice feeble. He doesn't want her to see him like this. He can't have her see him like this, naked and delirious and weak.

She hooks his arm around her neck to help him stand, wrapping a towel around his waist for his sake. He weighs more than her, but not much.

Concern makes her tone steely as she pulls him to his feet. "Someone popped your face like a zit and you lost a lot of blood. You shouldn't stand up for this."

"I'm not a zit."

"No," a smile breaks up her sardonicism, "just stupid." She leads him out of his bathroom, down the hall, through her bedroom, into her bathroom.

He last saw this room when they first moved in. Years of two girls and two boys sharing one bathroom rendered it chaotic and filthy, bordering on unhygenic. She dressed it with her signature colors and graffiti, giving the impression of clutter and excess, but her collection of soaps and cosmetics remains simple. The cocktail of fragrances in the room—fruits and florals and something earthy coming from the candles—would overwhelm him had she not cracked the window.

When he proves he can stand on his own, she ducks out of his arm and turns her back. "Get in the tub."

He glances at the bath. Set into the wall, with tiled alcoves at each end, once used to store old laundry wash pails, and a lip on the long edge wide enough to use as a shelf. Steam rises from fizzy, multicolored water that smells luxurious, if a little strong. He looks at the water, then at her, and says, "no."

Which she expected. "Get in the tub yourself or get dumped in it by me."

Hrm.

Had they any sense of propriety, this would scandalize them. From the square set of her shoulders and feet, she has no intention of either of them leaving this room until he washes up. Making sure he doesn't injure himself more; practicality on her end, he tells himself. Nothing more.

The idea of undressing and laying naked in a bathtub in front of his daughter should bother him. He waits for the discomfort, for some boundary to present itself and push back against such an odd command. The thrumming in his skull offers no reason not to comply.

Her fingers drum with anxious energy on her crossed arms, imposing her will on him to get in the damn bath. For practical reasons. As amusing as it was to wait until he fell to bring him in here, she doesn't actually want him to hurt himself any more tonight. She can do this and keep it sensible, nothing weird. Getting to check "see him naked" off her bucket list doesn't have to get weird.

Groaning in resignation, he unwraps the towel from around his waist, sets it down in the alcove at the foot of the bath, and climbs in. Blue and pink swirl and slosh around him as he does his best to get comfortable. Fizzing under his knees almost startles him, and he stares dumbfounded as a mass floats to the surface to continue bubbling and crackling.

"What is that," he deadpans.

She turns around, and her eyes light up. "It's a bath bomb." When his eye narrows, she sits on the lip of the tub, leaning back on one arm. "Like a bubble bath, but nicer and more fun. I make them for days when just getting clean isn't enough."

Fresh blood trickles from under the bandage. She pulls it away to inspect any fall damage. The stitches held, they don't look in need of a redo. Extra blood pressure from the fall could have squeezed some out from underneath.

"I think they knocked your brains loose a little," she says as she wipes some of the droplets off his forehead with the gauze. She'll give it a fresh bandage when he gets out. For now, she tapes it back in place a little tighter.

He offers a small smile. "I'm okay, Jinx."

"I know you're okay," she dramatizes the vowels to a point of disgust, "but you're not gonna take care of your noggin, so I have to."

He chuckles. "I'm recalling having to remove some staples from the back of your leg last week because you saw it fit to close the cut with a staple gun."

She dips her hand in the water to flick droplets at his neck and hair. "That's not the same as your brain dome."

Her hand entering the water with him trips some wire in his brain that makes his face burn and his heart rate increase. The wound throbs with the new exertion, and he exhales with a slight growl to try calming it.

"Head hurt?" She asks.

He hums with an imperceptible nod.

"Lay back and stretch your legs out as much as you can."

With it evident she won't let him leave, he does as she says. The cold, hard porcelain edge of the tub does nothing for his head, and he has to reposition his neck a few times to get it right. But the water feels nice. The heat already relieved some of the sorest spots from when he fell. Swirls of purple follow his movements as the colors mix around him. He doesn't know enough about botanicals to name the scents, but the aromas bubbling up from the water help him relax into his fate.

Another dip in the water catches his attention. Jinx, kneeling next to the tub, soaks part of a washcloth to get the last of the blood off his face and neck. When he lifts his head to look at her, she slips a rolled towel under it to cushion his skull against the harsh ceramic.

He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. What to say to this? His daughter prepared him a bath, with soaps she makes by herself, for herself, and now helps clean him. She doesn't need to take such care with the rest of him, but her hand stays as gentle as when she dressed the wound. Her eyes stay locked on her target, not meeting his, but his soul lays bare for her, anyway. Every slow, deliberate dab or swipe of that cloth flays him open a little more.

Blood on her arms jolts him out of a daze. He lifts his hand out of the water to point a finger. "You've got—"

She follows his motion and cleans herself with one careless wipe. "It's yours, not mine." She takes advantage of his raised hand to take his arm and inspect the elbow he fell on. It'll bruise, but no open skin. Satisfied, she lets it drop back under the water.

Her fingers handling him with such a delicate touch make him dizzy. Dizzy and airy and light, with every pulse point fluttering under his skin. The warm water cradles him, enveloping him in her scents. His daughter. Caring for him. His head hurts without hurting. Background noise compared to the tranquility of her attention. He could fall asleep like this. He shouldn't… well, why shouldn't he? She gave him a pillow.

"Feeling a little better?" She asks.

He hums in assent, no longer concerned about appearing weak. No concerns whatsoever, in fact. He may ask to borrow her bathtub in the future. Which he may have said out loud. His mouth seems uncooperative, though. Well, if she offers him one of these soap bombs again, he might accept.

Buckles unhook and belts slip free somewhere outside the water. Jinx's pistol flopping on the bathroom floor. The environment shifts again, the room getting brighter beyond the eyelid he doesn't recall closing.

Soft hands move his head to rest it between the legs entering the water on either side of him. Seated behind him on the alcove, she adjusts herself to center his head, with enough room for it to tilt back. One of her braids hangs over the edge of the bath, the other falling in the water. An "X" of bandages covers the area on her leg he pulled staples from last week. Her toenails match her fingernails.

"Your toenails match your fingernails."

She giggles. "Yes, they do. I could do yours if you want."

He lifts one of his feet enough for his toes to surface. "I don't think they're my colors."

A small dish-looking thing scoops up some water by his shoulder, accompanied by more giggles. "I was thinking red and gold."

He likes that he can make her laugh. He wants to make her laugh more so he can keep hearing it. The smallest sounds from her make his heart ache, proof of happiness in a world determined to see them both miserable. He accepts misery for himself. He wants her life to stay as colorful and happy as her drawings, for those little laughs to sound from her every day.

Tilting his head back, Jinx uses one hand to shield his wound while the other pours water over his head. She refills the dish to continue wetting his hair.

The image of himself stroking and kissing her leg both sobers and disorients him. "Jinx," he slurs.

"Your hair's caked in blood and muck and whatever else was in that warehouse," she says. "You couldn't wash your hair without getting soap in your head-hole. I can at least see what I'm doing."

He wasn't protesting. The wheels powering his cognition melted off their axles. Her fingers in his hair loosening the mats of blood and gunk send tingles shooting down every nerve. She combs from the root up and out, her nails scraping his scalp when needed. Lips parting, his eyes roll back in his head, and his entire body loses the tension holding him upright.

She smirks, using her legs to keep him positioned how she needs. The bandage needs replacing, but for now it serves well as an indicator of whether she gets it wet. She plays with his hair perhaps longer than necessary, making certain it loosened enough not to pull when she washes it. The little unconscious shivers when her nails graze his skin ignight her imagination.

The pop and clack of a bottle cap precedes cold goo and warm hands on his head. She massages his head with slow, firm motions of her fingers and palms. His head tips back into her lap, slumping against the legs that still support him.

"Your hair's almost as thick as mine is," she says. The way he styles and shaves it makes it look thin and flat, but getting her hands in it reveals thick, full-bodied tresses. If he let it grow, he could have braids as thick as hers. She uses her nails to make sure the lather digs down to his scalp.

He moans. When she does it again, his arms brace both sides of the tub.

She has to take one hand out of his hair to stop herself from laughing. Not laughing at him, at his expense; at the surprise and delight of this new information. All the years of him doting on her hair, and she never thought of doing it back. Oh, this opens so many doors.

All pretense of helping him after his injury drops. She rakes the soap down to the baby hairs at his neck, scrubbing in small circles to make her way back up. Her fingers dig into the longest parts at different layers, curling and running the strands over them to penetrate down to the root. Her eyes still flick to the bandage when she gets near the top of his head, but the way he relaxes and pushes against her suggests he wouldn't mind a little stinging.

When she notices his eye closed, she peeks around his right side for a look at his face. Where she expected an expression to tease him about later, she finds tranquility. All the lines relaxed, all tension let go. The efforts of his rigorous grooming habits shine through like she's never seen. He looks like a different person. He looks so young. Or maybe he looks his age—she's never actually asked. Her heart hurts.

She saves a clump of suds from running into his exposed eye, pulling them back into the fray. Her fingers run around the sides of his head, over the curve of his ears, back up to the hairline to scrub what she can without touching the wound. The fist that clenched around her heart at the sight of his peaceful face lets go.

Nails along the crown of his head get the most dramatic moans, though from anyone else would still sound subdued. The back of his neck between his ears makes a delicious sort of rumbling, like a purring lion. The rest can get her little sighs, parted lips, his eyes rolling back—revealed by the eye he can't close—and him tipping his head back more in a way that bares his throat, where she can see his pulse pounding heavy and slow.

The noises coming from his throat make her regret the bath bomb. Her arousal at the activity surprised her as much as his reaction. She can't see if her fingers massaging his scalp make him hard. It sounds like she's getting him hard. The temptation to flip him around and ride his face makes her dig her nails in to resist, and the resulting sound from him doesn't help. Well, if he gets hard enough, it might poke out from under the water. She presses a fraction harder with her nails to comb all the strands free, break up the nettle of soap and jumbled layers of dark hair.

Picking up the dish again, she takes some water from the bath, tilts his head, and begins rinsing the shampoo from his hair. When her free hand doesn't need to shield his wound or his left eye, she pets his head with gentle motions.

He tips his head back further, craning his neck to an uncomfortable degree to try finding her eyes. His world turned to static and warmth, floating on shoals of foreign serenity as hands other than his own touch him without threat or malice. Comfort he never knew, even in boyhood. Body sluggish, muscle and bone replaced with hot molasses, he leans back in an effort to rejoin reality, caring little if it ends up drowning him.

That infernal bandage obstructs most of his view, but he sees a halo of blue hair and soft blue eyes smiling down at him. His heart hurts.

"Jinx," he breathes. The molasses glazed over his vision, too.

"Not fallin' asleep on me, are you, old man?" she teases. Her hands stroke down the sides of his neck to his shoulders as she bends over to help him meet her eyes.

"I… might… I… don't know…"

She snorts. "Sheesh, they really scrambled your egg, didn't they?" Straightening her back, she finishes rinsing the last of the shampoo from his hair, pinching the moisture out with as much delicacy as she can. "Remind me to hit you in the head really hard the next time I want something."

"Okay."

Laughter shakes her torso as she pours conditioner on his head and works it in.

Regret tugs at his heart when he has to put his neck forward again, but the position took its toll, and some of the headache returned.

Once all his luscious locks gleam with a coat of conditioner, she moves her hands to massage his neck, working out the fresh knots from straining it so.

"I think this was my toning conditioner," she realizes aloud, "you might be blue for a little while." Her fingers curl and flatten in his hair, petting lines and circles into his scalp.

"'S fine."

Moving the bottle aside, she cards her fingers through his hair some more, alternating between using the pads and her nails to shake any stray mats loose. She could sit up here and play with his hair all night, both for his hair and for what it does to him.

Malleable in a way she's never seen. He hasn't fought her on anything since she told him to stay put for her to patch him up. He pushed a little when told to get in the bath, but one threat to get him to comply to something never happens. Pliant and suggestible, content to let her do anything as long as it feels this good. An opportunity this good may never present itself again.

When his eyes start to roll, she opens her legs more in preparation to balance herself. Tilting his head back again, she leans forward to kiss him from upside down, cradling his neck to relieve some of the strain.

He may have died in that warehouse.

Soft lips pressing against his make the world go white. His jaw slacks in shock, and when she reseals the kiss, he meets her halfway. Trying to lean in to kiss her for real or just get closer won't work with his spine oriented like this, rendering the rest of his body useless. She controls how much he can move; how much he can kiss her back. The hands supporting his neck still pet him to reduce the ache. He raises an arm out of the gelatinous mess of his body to cup one side of her face.

A curious tongue licks at his lips, and he welcomes it in. The angle makes deepening the kiss a challenge, but she always enjoys those, and he lets her do as she pleases with him. Massages her tongue with his while one of her hands leaves his neck to cover the one cradling her face. He leaves the door open for some boundary to establish itself, smack him in the face and tell him he shouldn't do this, he shouldn't want this. Her hand over his invites him to stay and enjoy this, instead. He drinks down her blissful little whines.

If he didn't die in the warehouse, this will finish him off. Kissing Jinx.

Parting has them both panting for air. He opens his right eye to see both her pupils blown wide, with a rose-red blush coloring her beautiful pale face. Anxious, but happy. So happy.

He swallows. "They may have hit me harder than I thought."

She kisses him again from behind a smile. "Mmm, lucky me. You'd never have let me do that without a concussion."

"Did you want to do that before I had a concussion?"

Purring against his cheek, she glides her hands down his neck, over his shoulders, to caress as far down his chest as she can reach, her hands dipping below the water. She kisses his forehead. "Maybe."

He hums in his throat. Perplexing girl. Forever a mystery, and not one in need of solving. Instead, he moves one of his hands over hers where it rests on his abdomen, and lets himself relax into her touch.

She asks, "how long do you usually let it sit for?"

"Hm?"

"Your conditioner."

"You're supposed to let it sit?"

He doesn't care if she laughs at his expense when she hugs him with all of her limbs. Her legs cross over his waist, her arms constrict around his shoulders, and she presses her cheek against his to squeeze him as hard as she can to hold on through her laughter. Enveloped by her body, her scent, her soaps, her laughter, it all leaves him at a loss. He hugs her back as best he can with her limiting his range of motion, because he should do that in this situation.

"Hm, water's getting cold," she says with disapproval.

She unwinds herself from around him to stand and start the tap again, presenting Silco with an unhindered view of her naked form. Hills and valleys of flawless pale skin and flowing clouds of crystalline blue along her right side, plump breasts that bounce as she steps over the tub, and a groomed thatch of blue pubic hair. One braid makes it out of the tub, the other trails behind her in the water.

His entire body burns hot. The pulse pounding anew in his skull threatens to make him pass out again as the cogs in his brain try but fail to turn. "You're not wearing anything."

She smiles as she turns the knob to the hottest setting. "I had a feeling you hadn't noticed. You were too okay about it."

"When did you…"

She turns to him, her smile showing off the gap between her teeth. One hand swishes in the water to spread the fresh heat to the rest of the bath. "Before I climbed up behind you, silly."

When the temperature meets her approval, she turns the faucet off and climbs in with him. Legs outstretched, she turns her hips to slip herself into his side, her head resting on his shoulder.

His arm lifts on instinct to accommodate her while his heart jumps into his throat, the shock giving him vertigo. She snuggles up to him like they do this every day, like the easiest, simplest choice in the world with no life-altering revelations or consequences. The sigh she breathes—dulcet and content, like a kitten after cream—could unravel him.

"They really totaled you," she says, ribbing with a hint of sympathy. His heart hammering against her makes her smug, but she keeps it to herself. "Should I put you out of your misery?"

Soft skin against his. So soft, despite Zaun's harsh environment, warm with her amity and the unmistakable lust he saw in her eyes as she laid across him. He says, "you've done me enough favors tonight."

"Whose favors?" She looks up at him with devilish amusement, pressing their chests together so he can feel her breasts on him. "You owe me your life, now. But if you're lookin' to repay a favor…"

Fluid like a dancer, she pushes upright and throws one leg over his hip, caging him between her knees and resting against his abdomen. Water splashes over the lip of the tub and neither of them care. Her hands slide up his chest before draping her arms over his shoulders.

She rolls her hips against his groin, a predatory smirk curving her lips. "Mm… I had wondered if you'd lost too much blood for that."

The blood redirecting south takes his inhibitions with it. Ringing in his ears that once amplified a growing migraine fades to insignificance, and the blurred vision in his left eye sharpens to take her in.

Pale skin glistening in the warm light, blushed pink from the heat of the bath. Her petite, supple breasts bounce with her efforts to rouse him, threatening to make several messes with the waves she makes. Her teeth worried her lower lip swollen, and she bites it still as she searches his face for the response she wants.

Starting on her thighs, his hands stroke up her legs, over her hips, to hold her by the curve of her waist. His fingers come close to touching around her slender frame—the rock solid muscle of her core reminds him he holds nothing fragile. Not only could she kill him for touching her in a way she doesn't want, he'd let her.

She giggles; the ebullient, squeaky little laugh she retained from childhood, which resurfaces at her happiest and most mischievous.

He cups her face with one hand to guide her to his lips. When she lets him in, he takes control of the kiss, gliding his tongue past her lips and tightening his hold on her body. He drinks down every delicious little sound as he sucks on her tongue, massages it with his, invades her mouth until the thighs straddling him begin to quiver. He pulls away with her bottom lip trapped in his teeth. A tease; no blood, not tonight.

He takes immense satisfaction in the look on her face when they part, her breath coming in short, shallow pants. Her cheek burns under his hand, her blue eyes consumed with black from her pupils dilating. A war plays out behind them as she struggles with what to do next, how to do this in real life.

He turns her to rest against him back to front, opening his legs so she sits on the base of the tub. He caresses up and down her sides, her stomach, her hips, stopping to hold her in a loose embrace with his lips in her hair.

"Not a good idea for me right now," he says by her ear, gravelly and sensual. One hand moves to encircle her waist while the other seeks the tuft of hair below. "But I can return the favor another way."

Her legs part with a gasp when his fingers slip between them, the middle digit gliding over her slit while the others pet her folds. The tip of his middle finger teases her entrance before running upward to circle her clit. He kisses her cheek, then her temple, as she braces the tub. Her free hand grips the arm holding her firm against him. Deft hands alternate between running over and between her folds and playing with her clit. When the first moan escapes her restraint, he rewards her with a kiss to her hair.

He focuses his efforts on her clit to turn the tide. "I'm curious," he starts, sultry yet nonchalant, "how long have you wanted this?"

A wanton moan releases a full-body shudder. "W-while," she says.

He hums, resting his cheek against hers so she can feel its timber. "I regret I never picked up on it. Was this your plan for the evening?" A fingertip teases her entrance again, his thumb taking over circling her clit.

"No," she whines, gripping him tighter.

"Oh, so you were taking advantage of my compromised state, then?" He snickers in approval. Lips to her ear, he colors a whisper with salacious grit, sliding the first finger inside."Naughty girl."

She cries out, somewhere between a sob and a moan, followed by a sound so desperate his head spins from the violent rush of blood to his cock. Twinges of pain in his chest remind him how much blood he lost recently and he could not give less of a shit right now. His daughter needs him this much and he never knew.

He chuckles deep in his throat. Her muscles contract to welcome him deeper into her tight, wet heat. She takes him down to the third knuckle with ease, so he adds a second finger after a few languid strokes in and out. A generous pool of slick keeps his motions smooth as he curls and extends his fingers to find her sweet spots.

He asks with a kiss to her neck, "Have you ever imagined this?"

"Nnngghh."

He can hear her biting her lip. "Don't be shy," he goads, "I need to know if this feels good."

"Y-yes," she gasps, "yes, Silco…"

An impressive spasm slides them both down into the water by a few inches. Planting his feet against the opposite end of the tub, his arm around her middle constricts, holding her tighter and trying to control her jerking hips. Water sloshes around them, the pink and blue now mixed into purple. He regrets he can't see his hand working her through the color and foam.

Her back arches into the next push of his fingers. "Silco," she keens.

He kisses her hair. "Tell me what you need."

"More." Her feet slip on the ceramic as she tries to push back against him. "Please, more."

The melody from her mouth as he adds a third finger has him kissing from her neck down her shoulder to expel his own energy. The thready pulse in his temple threatens him with a migraine or unconsciousness and he swats it away. Nothing for himself, not tonight. Passing out on her or getting nauseated or exertion re-opening the wound will do neither of them any good. If she wants him again after this, he can wait. Delayed gratification has its own appeal.

The arm around her waist uncurls to stroke down her stomach. He uses the pads of his fingers to circle her clit while his other hand massages her insides. When he hits that sweet spot, he curls his fingers on each stroke and presses harder on her clit.

Without him holding her down, the movement of her hips trying to match his hands sends water spilling over the edge of the tub in rhythmic splashes. He rests the side of his face against hers so she can feel him close. Kissing her temple, then her cheek, then her neck, to feel and taste the symphony of her pleasure as it crescendos. He traps her ankles with his to stop her legs scrambling for purchase on the porcelain, and squeezes with his arms to pull her back in.

"Hold on to me," he says, working her clit faster.

"Fuck." She flings one arm over her head, holding him by the back of his neck, while the other clings to the arm rubbing circles into her clit.

"Language."

"Aaoh fuck off."

He kisses her neck again to stop from laughing, the imprint of his smile soon devolving into sucking a bruise into her skin. His fingers fuck into her faster, uses more pressure on her clit, sucks and licks at her flesh until she comes undone in his hands.

With tears stinging her eyes, she cries out as her release washes over her. The walls constricted around his fingers convulse with her orgasm. He stills his fingers inside her but continues rubbing her clit until she slumps against him, spent. Her chest and stomach rise and fall in deep, slow breaths while she recovers.

Her grip tightens on his forearm and the back of his neck. None of this went how she intended. She doesn't know what she wanted to happen, led along by pure impulse, but she told herself not to get weird about it and then kissed him. And he should have pushed her away and come up with a million reasons why this can never happen, but he kissed her back. That threw what little sense she owns out the window.

He kisses her hair and keeps his embrace loose so she can breathe. Beautiful. So beautiful. His precious daughter. And if she wants this from him, he'll never have to share her with anyone else. She'll never have reason to leave him.

Nuzzling into her neck and pulling her closer sends shivers across her skin. "You did so well," he mumbles, his hands smoothing languid strokes up and down her sides. "Perfect."

She hums, arching her back and stretching so both arms hook around his nape. More than a few clever quips come to mind, but she enjoys basking in the glow of praise instead. His hands move to her stomach, gliding up, and she shifts so they'll cover her breasts. Tender fingers cup her in each hand, massaging while his thumbs play with her nipples.

"Ohhhkay," she breathes, pushing herself up to turn around. She pets his hair, the conditioner long forgotten. "This needs rinsing or I'm gonna jump you."

He hums in consideration, making her laugh that squeaky little laugh that tugs at his heart strings.

"Do not tempt me," she giggles, grabbing her dish again, "you wouldn't survive it right now." Her knees frame his hips, and her mouth purses in disapproval. "You're too tall, scooch down."

He obeys, lowering himself in the water. "As far as ways to go," he muses, taking her by the hips until they align, "vast improvement over getting clubbed by some nobody in a warehouse who got a lucky shot."

He runs his hands up the curve of her ass, to the small of her back, up to her shoulder blades to hug her closer, kissing her throat when he can reach. This stopped being about cleaning him up when she first sat in his lap, and now he finds it rather inconvenient.

Sitting in his lap leaves her too short to see what she's doing. Sliding along the length of his half-hard cock, she fluffs the top of his head with her fingers before scooping water into the dish. "Mm, remind me to send him a thank you card if Sevika didn't kill him."

With his face pinched between her fingers, she tips his head back to pour the first rinse over his hair. She lets go to protect the wound and his left eye, switching between shielding and smoothing his hair to feel how much more to rinse. When the last of the conditioner washes away, she combs her fingers through his hair to admire the silken texture.

"You're not allowed to let someone else kill you," she says. Airy and affectionate, but stern. Sober. She can't meet his eyes. "If you do I'm making the doctor revive you and killing you again myself."

She wraps herself in his arms to turn around, resting between his legs, against his chest, back to front again. He leans into her.

"'Someone else,' implying you're allowed?" he says, a hint of amusement creeping in.

"Yes."

Words unspoken scratch on the air between them. Words she can't give life to without invoking her namesake. A promise she can't make without setting herself up to break it.

Because I never will.

He kisses the bruise he made on her neck and tightens his embrace. "Deal."

She exhales all the serious muck out of her mind to enjoy their ridiculous position. She runs a hand across the surface of the water to stir it, paying attention to the colors for the first time.

"Oh."

"Mm?"

"I think I used one of the glitter bombs."