cont.

[bloodandflowers]

"He shouldn't get away with it," she snarls, but the fire dies and her hands begin to shake. More dizziness, she tries to push it down. It will pass. "He shouldn't--"

But her words die away as the world dims and goes black.

It's what he's dreading, but it's also what Kell expects, and he catches her shoulders when she sways, stoops and swings her into his arms when her knees give way. The short display has attracted quite a following, but Kell ignores them all, striding to the wall to paint a symbol with the still fresh blood eking from one of his wrists.

He presses his palm to the mark and steps forward and through, not into his cramped, secret room near the park, but into the bedroom of his own apartment. Kell lies Lila on the bed and loosens her collar, listening for a moment to her breath and then her heart. It isn't good, but neither is it very bad, yet, and he heaves a sigh.

He fetches a bowl of cold water and a cloth and returns. Kell places the dampened cloth on her brow and sits in the chair next to the bed, watching her as the minutes tick by. The blood, he leaves. Lila's earned that reminder.

*

Slowly, the world comes back into focus. Lila blinks a few times and takes stock of her surroundings. A ceiling, walls, a bed. Kell sitting next to her looking stern. Perhaps even more than usual. It makes her smile despite the pounding of her head and the dryness of her mouth. She licks her lips, tasting blood, and lifts a hand to remove the wet cloth she feels on her forehead.

"Well, at least you haven't tied me up," she tells him, thinking back to when they first met.

If Kell is relieved to see her conscious again, he gives no outward sign, and neither does he let the smile he feels tugging at the edges of his mouth take root. Let her recall their first meeting all she likes - she's nearly killed herself in the meantime, and the reminder is all Kell needs to regain his frown.

"Lie still," he says. "The dizziness will come again."

Comments

[best_thief]

Lila doesn't miss where Kell's hand wanders to, like a tell someone would unknowingly give during a card game. So Alucard hurt Rhy in some way. It shouldn't be surprising that they know each other. Alucard comes from a noble family that probably runs in the same circles as the royal family, but the odds of Lila joining Alucard's ship seem impossible. Or, perhaps, fated. Not that Lila buys into such a thing, even though she felt the same sort of odd luck when the opportunity to become Stasion unfolded. Maybe the same could even be said of her running into Kell in that alley so many months ago.

Whatever it is, whatever happened, Kell is brooding.

"He did try to seduce me for information, once," she says in some attempt to alleviate his mood, like she's on his side about Alucard the cur. "You're a better kisser, for the record."

[bloodandflowers]

Kell has no idea what effect Lila intends to have with the words, but his stomach gives a sickening lurch, and for a moment Kell thinks he might actually be ill. He doesn't contest the account - it is absolutely something the Alucard he's known would do, and Kell gets to his feet.

"You need to eat," he says, looking anywhere but the bed until he manages to get his feet moving towards the door. Kell's not an idiot. He knows his fury is directly entirely at Alucard, but he can't say the same for the sudden ache behind his eyes. "I'll make you something."

[best_thief]

Lila sighs. Well, that hadn't worked. She thought it might take his mind off Rhy and inspire him to kiss her again, but instead he walks away. It's probably better he does, she's foolish to want things like kisses from someone like Kell. He's already too important to her.

She slowly swings her legs around to the edge of the bed, touching her feet to the floor and testing her balance to make sure that if she stands she won't fall over. "Don't worry about it, I have food at my place."

[bloodandflowers]

Kell blinks out of his unseeing stare in the kitchen, turning towards the sound of her voice. "Do you?" he asks without particular judgment this time. Perhaps he doesn't truly know her after only a few days, but Lila doesn't strike him as the type to keep a stocked pantry. She doesn't strike him as the type to stay anywhere long enough to have a pantry at all.

"Let me feed you," he says, returning to the bedroom door. "Then you're free to go anywhere you wish." Kell swallows. "Please, Lila. It's important."

[best_thief]

"They give you money here," Lila points out, looking back at him. "I have a few things."

She can't cook to save her life, so there isn't anything elaborate, but after she found the market she bought enough to live on. It's nice, not having to steal food. Or having to depend on Lenos' cooking.

Lila just looks at him a good long moment. "If you insist," she says, and stays seated for now. Her lower lip is throbbing dully, she pokes at it experimentally and winces. She touches her face for any other wounds. She's probably bruised. She can feel the caked blood below her nose and picks up the wet cloth Kell had brought her, scrubbing away the blood, dirt, and sweat with it.

[bloodandflowers]

Kell nods and returns to the kitchen, gathering the supplies for a simple sandwich of meat and cheese for her. He'd prefer to toast the bread, but with her split lip it will be difficult enough to eat already, so he leaves the bread soft. He pours her a glass of milk as well, ignoring his own bottle of spirits at the top of the fridge. Later, he suspects he will drink of it deeply.

Kell brings the sandwich and milk to his bed where Lila sits, glad to see her a little less bloody after the cloth. "I didn't see all your fights," he says. "If anything is broken, I can heal it if you wish."

[best_thief]

There's an unsettling moment where Lila's dragged back to her childhood. Of being five and ill in bed, her mother bringing her food on a tray, just like this. It's only a moment, and it passes, but it leaves her feeling hollow out afterward.

Her mouth quirks at Kell's comment, brought forcefully, gratefully back to the present. "Nothing broken, I don't think. Just banged up." She tongues at her lower lip, tasting a hint of blood. "I wouldn't mind if you could fix this cut, though," she says, eyebrows drawn in question.

[bloodandflowers]

Kell looks down at her mouth and forcefully does not think of Alucard anywhere near it, focusing instead on the ragged cut that must have been made by her own teeth. "You know how I must do it," he answers, lifting his eyes back to hers.

He thinks of the club, of her sharp teeth on his own lips and wonders if she'd actually been after a taste of his blood. He'd have given it to her. "Is that alright?"

[best_thief]

"I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't okay with it," Lila says, dryly.

And then, in a belated moment of selflessness, she adds, "Unless you don't want to cut yourself. I've had worse injuries, I'll live." She brings the glass of milk up to her mouth and ignores the pang of pain to prove her point, and to shut herself up.

[bloodandflowers]

"I don't mind," says Kell softly, rolling up his sleeve where his most recent cut is still fresh. He drags his thumb against it, reaching with his other hand to take the glass from her. Kell sets it on the table and cups her cheek, holding Lila's face steady so he can press his bloodied thumb to her lip.

"As Hasari," he murmurs, watching the sweep of his thumb against her bottom lip.

[best_thief]

Lila regrets it when he takes the glass from her. And then the next moment even more, when he cups her cheek like she's delicate. His thumb, wet with his own blood, is too gentle on her lip, and she can't stop staring at his eyes. One the color of the ocean, the other the color of the night sky.

The worst part is the waiting, and the way she can feel his magic tingling under her skin. When he moves his thumb away, she instinctively swipes her tongue along her lower lip, tasting copper. It isn't sore. Even her jaw, where she'd taken a punch, has stopped throbbing.

She doesn't say thank you, even as she's thinking it. Instead, she catches his hand, which he hasn't moved very far, hasn't cleaned off yet. She holds onto his palm and brings his thumb to her mouth, licking the bloodied pad of his finger, and presses a kiss to it.

[bloodandflowers]

His blood paints her lip red, and the moment he's finished her pink tongue darts forward, licking the color away. Kell feels a rush of something like disappointment, drawing his hand back, but then she catches it, laving the last of the blood from his thumb.

Kell's breath catches, his heart thundering for this simple touch despite himself. "Anywhere else?" he asks in a roughened voice.

[best_thief]

Lila lightly bites down on his thumb, and lets go of his hand with a sly smile. The sound of his voice in that moment makes her shift where she's seated.

"Nothing's broken, but I think I have a cracked rib," she lies. She hurts, but she doesn't hurt. Yet the thought of having Kell's hands on her is too desirous not to take advantage of. She carefully takes off her jacket, wincing from how sore she is. She peels her shirt up to just under her breasts, and lays back against the pillows, looking at Kell expectantly.

[bloodandflowers]

The small bite only makes Kell's heart race faster, but he helps her to remove her jacket, knowing very well how stiff damaged ribs can make a person. He hates to think of Lila in that sort of pain, but he can't stop watching her, his eyes falling keenly on each new inch of skin as she reveals it. Lila pauses the slow ascent of her shirt, and Kell looks at her expectant face and takes a deep breath, worrying at the cut on his arm to reopen it. He wets his palm red and places it featherlight against the livid, uneven mottling on her ribs.

"As Hasari," he says again, trembling with the effort of holding himself so near but no closer to Lila, spread out and half disrobed on his own bed.

[best_thief]

Kell's hand is strangely cool, but his magic isn't. She can feel it working, warm and tingling under her skin, just as it had been with her lip. But now it travels up her chest, causing a noticeable reaction. At least, part of her hopes he notices.

She touches his knuckles, a feather-light brush of her fingers. "Are Antari the only mages who can heal?"

[bloodandflowers]

Kell shakes his head, his eyes drawn without his conscious wish towards the hardness he can see pebbling under Lila's shirt. It is likely the magic, but a small, loud - if buried - part of him would like to think it's from his touch.

"I know of no one who can heal as efficiently as I can, but there are magicians who can balance the five elements. They are healers and teachers - nearly always priests."

Her fingers are on his hand. Kell leaves it where it is, brushing his thumb against her skin.

[best_thief]

Kell's thumb raises goosebumps along Lila's skin, makes the tiny hairs along her arms stand on end. She forgets to breathe. He speaks and she barely registers the words, letting the sound of his voice melt over her. What is it about him that does this to her?

"Like Tieren," she says, and it comes out like a whisper. "He knew about you in the Essen Tasch." Her lips, previously parted, poised and wanting his, quirk into a smile. "He knew about me, too. He had the look of a long-suffering parent."

[bloodandflowers]

Kell smiles, and though it can't compare to the longing he feels each time he thinks of Rhy, he can't help but ache for his old teacher. Apart from his brother, Tieren seemed to be the only person left in Red London who saw him as a person and not a thing.

"I'm glad he is well," Kell replies, reacting to the breathless quality of her voice with a full body shiver. "There have been few comforts since you left, but he remained my friend."

[best_thief]

"And what's gone on since I left?" Lila asks, the ghost of a smile on her face. "Because I can't imagine I was one of those comforts."

If Lila had to describe herself, it would be the opposite of comfort.

She lightly strokes her fingers past Kell's knuckles, up his arm, along his wrist. Tickling, teasing touches meant to distract. She knows his attention is on her bare stomach, her hand, her breasts, even, and knowing this she reaches deftly into his jacket pocket with her other hand. She plucks out a coin with her first two fingers.

She holds it up for him to see she's done it, her face lit up in delight. Not a comfort.

"You see?"

[bloodandflowers]

Her slim fingers drift over him, and Kell's eyelids lower, his mind racing as he considers what she must have touched while she was gone. Swords hilts, the masts of a ship - Emery. He blinks in surprise when she holds something suddenly between them.

It's his own coin, the strange one with the bear that no one uses in the city. He's fascinated with it, but he makes no move to take it back. "I - " he starts, but he remembers all too well how she'd thrown his explanation about being a trinket in his face. The palace is a prison now, but at least it had a warm bed.

"You were," he replies. "My memories of you were a comfort. Particularly those of your more objectionable behavior." Kell looks pointedly at the coin.

[best_thief]

"You lie," Lila accuses, staring in disbelief. It disappears a moment later into a wry smile. "Or perhaps you just enjoy lecturing, and I give you the perfect excuses for it."

She sets his coin on the bedside table, having had no intentions of keeping it. It isn't from here, she knows all of Darrow's currency and none of it is adorned with a bear.

[bloodandflowers]

Kell frowns faintly. "I don't enjoy lecturing." It's not his fault that everyone he knows insists on being as nonsensical as possible.

He gathers his arms back to himself, folding them in his lap with his hands tucked into the edges of his sleeves. "I liked the thought that you were out there, free to sail where you pleased." The thought might not have been half as comforting had he known it was with Alucard Emery. "I've come to understand why you wanted that life for yourself."

[best_thief]

Lila misses Kell's touch as soon as he withdraws his hand. She looks down at her stomach, smooth and unblemished now save for the smear of blood. She doesn't wipe it off, but merely tugs her shirt back down.

She shifts onto her side, watching him. He looks so sad that she nearly reaches out to him, but to what end? Lila's never been good at comforting or consoling. "You wanted to leave?" she asks. "Why?"

[bloodandflowers]

"I could never," Kell is quick to say. He knows what his presence means for Arnes, even if its citizens no longer hold any love for him. "But it is not as it was before the Black Night. Apart from Rhy, the royal family no longer trusts me. The king appointed two of his own guards to watch me, everywhere I go."

Kell draws a stilted breath. "I could not breathe. Life shut inside a palace is not a life at all."

[best_thief]

"But you saved them," Lila protests, incensed. She sits up abruptly with only a small wince from the bruises she still carries from the day's fights. Her eyes narrow, thinking of all he went through for Rhy, for his kingdom, for his whole damn world.

"They should be stumbling over themselves with gratitude. What is their justification? Do they even have any?" she snaps.