(no subject)

[best_thief]

Lila discovered her back was blank when she dragged herself from her training warehouse for food. She wandered in a slight daze, after, wondering what to do with herself. She'd locked herself in to practice using her magic and purposefully ignore the curse across her shoulders, and now that it was gone her mind told her to go back to normal, back to routine. Only there was no routine in Darrow. She hated the mere idea of it. In London it had mostly consisted of thieving and sleeping, and in Red it had been better on the Spire. But here? She still didn't know what to do with herself.

Eventually she goes to Kell's. Just to show off her new skill, she tells herself, which she uses to unlock his door when no one answers. She strolls inside and looks around, and realizes why no one answered when she hears the sound his shower running. She could use a shower. Hygiene is so easy here, so convenient, that a few days without leave her skin feeling noticeably itchy.

Lila toes off her boots and slips into the bathroom. She can't see Kell, just the shape of him behind the steamed glass door. "Mind if I join you?" she asks, already pulling her tank top off.

Comments

[bloodandflowers]

With eyes closed and water in his ears, Kell feels a change in the air before he hears her - not just the displacement of steam but something in addition too, magic that is uniquely Lila's. He rinses the soap from his hair and swipes a hand against the glass, just catching her undressing through the streak left behind.

He's not seen her in a week, but Kell feels bold enough to say, "If you do, you're likely to get dirty before you're clean again."

[best_thief]

There's a burst of laughter, followed by Lila sliding open the glass door, having carelessly discarded her pants. She steps into the shower and backs Kell against the shower wall. She pins him there with both hands on either side of his head, unmindful of the spray of water hitting her back and soaking her hair. "Don't you think I was counting on that?" she says, tipping her face back and closing her eyes to let the water at least wash away the past few days sweat.

"God, that feels good," she sighs, pushing her dripping hair out of her eyes.

[bloodandflowers]

Kell is barely conscious of the wall at his back. His eyes are on Lila, drinking in the sight of her after many days. She looks tired and worn, and Kell is unsurprised to see faint smudges of black on her wrists. But she is standing and whole, naked before him with her eyes closed, and Kell reaches for the shampoo, working it slowly into her hair and scalp.

"Was your practice fruitful?"

[best_thief]

Lila moans appreciatively at Kell's fingers massaging her scalp, slowly lowering her arms instead to his waist and closing her eyes once more simply to enjoy it.

Instead of replying, Lila concentrates hard. It's difficult without looking, but she manages to slide the glass shower door to the left. She opens her eyes. "That's four elements. What's next, bones?"

She laughs, a short, helpless sound. "What am I, Kell?"

[bloodandflowers]

The door moves behind her, and this, too, Kell tracks without surprise. "I think you are like me," he says, closing the door again, easier than thought. His hands continue to work through her hair. "And if you are not, then you are something very close for which we don't yet have a name."

[best_thief]

Lila's hands leave Kell's waist, her arms crossing in front of her. She glares across the short space between them, ignoring how silly she must look with her hair all soaped up. Here she's been, on the verge of some kind of manic hysteria for the past few days, and here Kell is, serenely washing her hair.

"Well aren't you fucking calm. Have you thought so this whole time?"

[bloodandflowers]

"I have wondered," Kell admits. He ignores her angry stance and covers her forehead with his hand, tipping her head back into the water to wash the soap away. "You should not have been able to travel with me between worlds. I thought it was the stone, but Tieren saw something in you, too. And now you have four elements. Only balancers have five apart from Antari, and you are certainly not a priest."

[best_thief]

"I could be a priest," Lila says petulantly, if only because she doesn't like to be told there are things she can't be or things she can't do. That's why she tried magic to begin with, and that's part of why it enrages her so to be kept here. There shouldn't be anywhere Lila can't escape from.

"Did Tieren tell you about my eye?" she asks once she's able to see Kell once more. Though maybe he's figured this out about her, too. "What if it was black like yours, and my parents kept it from me? What if someone sent me to London from Red, or White? Can a child be made to open a door and be shoved through it?"

Her mind is racing with scraps of thoughts she's had, small formations of ideas, theories that she's pushed down and ignored. The spill out of her mouth, now, in a place without answers.

[bloodandflowers]

Kell draws a careful breath, warring with the sudden ugliness welling up inside him. Could it have been done to her? Of course it could have, no matter how powerful she might have been. It had been done to him.

"Do you recognize this?" he asks, turning his elbow out so the small scar there can be seen. "Is it anywhere on your body?"

[best_thief]

Lila looks where Kell points, at a scar that almost looks like a letter of some sort. "I've noticed it on you," she says dismissively, and mostly because Kell doesn't otherwise scar. Aside from that tiny scar and the soul binding marks on his chest his skin is flawless. At least, as far as she's seen. And she's seen a lot of him.

"I have a dozen or more scars, Kell, I've no idea. You've seen me in nothing, have you noticed?" she asks, and can't help a smirk because she doubts that's what he was looking for.

[bloodandflowers]

"I would have noticed," says Kell, answering both their questions. There is a suggestion in her smirk, but Kell can't bring himself to rise to it. "But I suppose babies do not need to be made to forget. Another Antari could have done it. Holland, perhaps."

[best_thief]

"Without saying anything?" Lila says, frowning. Shouldn't there have been some recognition, some snide comment?

But the real question that nags at her is: why?

Why hide her away? To protect her from being killed? To keep her from being used, the way the Danes had used Holland, the way the King and Queen use Kell?

This far from home she'll probably never know. Instead of inciting anger she just feels deflated. She reaches up, pushing Kell's wet, floppy hair from his forehead.

"Let's get out of the shower."

[bloodandflowers]

Kell nods and reaches to shut off the water. After, he doesn't move away. He should feel relief, perhaps, that there might be someone out there in the world like him after all - not only equal in power, but in the mystery of their birth, the misery of their upbringing. All Kell can feel is sorrow that Lila should have to share in it.

He reaches up, touching her damp cheek with his fingertips. "I looked for you."

[best_thief]

Lila lets him, even as she feels heat rise to where he's touching. Her gaze catches, snags on his, trapped, and she wonders briefly what it would be to see him with two working eyes, if it would make it worse to look upon him because there would be so much more at once.

"What for?" she asks, even as she knows she doesn't want an answer. "I didn't leave the warehouse much. Didn't need anyone seeing what was written on me."

[bloodandflowers]

"Not even me?" Kell asks, sounding more curious than anything, devoid of judgment as his thumb strokes along her cheekbone. He holds her gaze. Kell won't press her for answers, but he will search for them in her expression.

[best_thief]

"You already saw it," Lila snaps, feeling raw all over again. This isn't why she came here. This isn't what she wanted. "Every time I looked at you I knew you knew. I didn't need you thinking about it."

She pushes Kell's hand away from her face and slides the glass door open with hardly a thought, climbing out of the tub and grabbing a towel to dry off with.

"I don't want to talk about it."

[bloodandflowers]

Kell remains in the shower for a moment. She's taken his towel, leaving him with only his arms to wrap around himself. He follows at a more sedate pace.

"I don't pity you," he says, walking dripping to his chest of drawers where he fishes out a shirt. "You grew up with nothing but ugly choices - I grew up with no choices at all. Who could say what is worse?" Kell pulls the shirt down over his chest. "I won't try to. You are always so angry at me for the things you think I might say."

[best_thief]

Lila doesn't know what to say. She can think of a dozen hurtful things, the same of which she would have used on Barron. But she doesn't want to. The thought of him still hurts, which is only a reminder of the way it always ends up with her. She carries trouble around three paces behind like a storm cloud.

She scrubs her hair with the towel to get most of the water out, and realizes the only clothes she has with her are filthy.

Lila the room to take one of Kell's button up shirts from the closet. She pulls it on and doesn't bother to button it yet. Turning around, fingers curling over the long sleeves, she finally says, "What do you expect of me, Kell? I'm not some lady of the court. I'm not polite company."

[bloodandflowers]

Kell pulls the loose undergarments favored here over his thighs and shakes his head. "I don't expect you to be," he says.

He looks at her wet from his shower, his clothes on her shoulders. She was gone for a week this time, not months, but his heart had ached the same for it. Sometimes, Kell has no idea what it is she wants from him.

He sighs. "Brandy?"

[best_thief]

Lila wonders what Kell does expect of her, but she doesn't ask. She doesn't like to think of any expectations others may have of her because she can't help but think she'll only fail to meet them.

"Sure," Lila says, combing her fingers through her damp, messy hair to get it a little under control. "Can you lend me a pair of those shorts?"

Lila pulls the undergarment on when Kell hands it to her, and then wanders into the living room and flops down against the pillows on the couch. "What have you been up to? Gotten into any trouble I've sadly missed?"

[bloodandflowers]

Kell shakes his head. "I'm afraid I'm as boring as you've always suspected," he says, fetching the brandy to pour them both glasses deeper than any truly happy man would pour.

He sits on the chair and thinks of Sirius, so much in pain and trying to hide it, and decides it is not a tale with which to regale her. "I was almost a victim of a singing sport here they call karaoke. Perhaps that will amuse you."

[best_thief]

"Oh, Kell, you aren't boring, you just don't choose to do fun things." Lila takes the glass and tips it briefly toward Kell in cheers, watching him sit across from her alone in a chair. "Look, you won't even sit by me. You're adverse to enjoyment," she teases.

"I know what that is, the karaoke," she adds, wondering if Kell had gone in to the same place she had. On a different night, the same one? "It's awful. People who can't sing shouldn't be allowed a microphone."

[bloodandflowers]

"I have learned that is the point," says Kell with a faint smile. "To make a spectacle of oneself. The more outrageous, the more one is lauded." He sits back in his chair. "This city is ridiculous."

He sips at his brandy. "What fun things might I choose, then?"

[best_thief]

"I wouldn't mind seeing you make a spectacle of yourself," Lila says, smiling around the rim of her glass and trying to imagine it. With just a few sips the Brandy's already warmed her, already affecting her after days of not eating and sleeping well. It's a pleasant feeling.

"Things that would have involved you not putting on that shirt, for one thing," she says, taking another drink. "When I steal a motorcycle I'll show you another."

[bloodandflowers]

"Kings, what does that mean?" asks Kell with a deeper sip, but there's no hiding his smile. "You have already made a spectacle of me," he notes. "In the park, in that club. Both of them," he amends, remembering the first. "I used to be quite proper."