( semi-closed )

[heelies]

CHARACTERS: Achilles and pals
DATE: Shorty after arriving in Perdition's Rest
WARNINGS: Homeric levels of violence and gratuitous man muscles
SUMMARY: Miscellaneous adventures in the days following the crew's arrival. Subjects range from shopping for pants to flaunting gently used sexy clothing to slaughtering bandits.


[Assorted closed threads shall follow. PM me if you wish to plot together!]

Comments

[heelies]

[To this he merely nods his assent. Where once conversation might have filled the length of their journey - with Achilles weaving his thoughts into small stories, and Olivia delighting in this as she so often has done - there now stretches silence as heavy as a funeral pall that drapes them both. With his thoughts so wholly occupied by Koltira, he can think of little else to share with her. Yet he knows that to utter his intent to challenge Koltira shall only bring her breast to ache. He is not so blinded by his rage that he sees not how he hurts her, yet he knows not how to soothe the disquieted waters of her heart when all she wishes is for him to lay aside his pride, that to which he clings most fiercely.

All this she shall feel like the haze of smoke that lingers even after the fire has been doused, clogging the air with cinders and making acrid what once was sweet.

Thus they limp along, leaning one against the other. His feet feel heavy upon his weary legs, like fruits that burden the branches of a tree, and as the sun sinks into the desert, burnishing the landscape to a vermilion gleam before fading to dusty purple and then extinguishing itself, Achilles finds that more and more he longs only to lie down. His rage shall have to bide its time, fermenting inside his breast to become all the more bitterly potent, festering like a wound that worsens the longer it goes undressed.

At long last, they enter the corridor of buildings that marks the town's main thoroughfare, and soon they arrive at the inn from which they have carved a temporary home. The saloon hums with spirited conversation and glasses clinking, but this warm glow of merriment reaches not into the grim pall that hangs over Achilles and Olivia. They make their way down the narrow hall to the lone bathroom, where sits a copper tub in the corner.

Against the wall Achilles sets his tarnished shield and with it his blade in its leather scabbard. Then gingerly he sets himself upon a wooden stool that beside the tub waits, and he begins to unbind the sandals from his feet.

All the while, there remains little to be said.]

[winces]

[ perhaps unbeknownst to achilles, the pit stop to the bathroom had been motivated by another, more selfish reason.

while between them the air remains thickened with silence and all the words they cannot but probably should say to each other — inside she is a swirling mess of emotions she cannot even begin to pinpoint and quell. she is mindful enough that walking into the space that they shared, the small sanctuary where their little game of pretend has taken root and shape... she knows seeing that would only make those emotions that much more fragile, that much more brittle.

and so this time spent here is a welcome obstruction. so is wandering about the small room, tending to the tub's taps, running her own hands and arms under the water from the sink to clean what she can off of herself. keeping busy, keeping moving. it is almost mechanical how she falls into it, but before long she has run out of things to do, things to keep her away from the man seated paces away. before long, she can do nothing else but finally turn and face him, her expression somber.

unable to look at his face just yet, her eyes instead fall to the movement of his hands. ]

...Do you need help?

[heelies]

[In truth, he can bathe himself as well as he could on any other day, just with movements more carefully measured. Yet her question he considers all the same as he sets to peeling his bloodied tunic from his body. In the silence that has thickened between them he misses her already, and he craves the gentle touch that has become so familiar to him, that has left its impression upon his heart as the prows of ships mark lines in the sea-sodden sand when they are dragged ashore. He longs to see some sign of the support that she has steadily given him through all trials but for this present matter that between them tangles like threads upon a loom not carefully tended to.

Thus, as he loosens the belt which gathers the torn fabric around his waist, he at last lifts his eyes to her. In his voice glows some faint ember of the warmth that she has known in happier days.]

I shall count myself grateful for your assistance, dear Olivia.

[Stripped now of his soiled clothing, he pushes himself up from the stool upon which he perches. His skin, which glows with the radiance of the sun when clean, is now streaked in the dull orange dust of the desert, and his side is caked in blood. This remains the only evidence for the seam that Koltira had split open with his blade, for thanks to Olivia's healing hands no scar mars the flesh. Yet the shocking color and the sheer amount of skin it stains serve as a grim reminder.]

[winces]

[ and so she moves. almost mechanically, actually, the way her feet suddenly starts up again, as if he had always meant to be in her trajectory but had been hinging on his permission.

—no. his need.

she is at his side before long, reaching for him with steadying and gentle hands. it is a touch that she does not hesitate to keep soft, but with her unable (unwilling?) yet to meet his eyes, to cast that familiar look of concern and love on his face, the touches and gestures themselves may seem almost hollow. as if he were a mere patient to her healing, another body she must tend to and fix.

still, she leads him to that tub without hesitation, and helps ease his body into it even though it remains empty yet. the turning of the tap, then, seems more an afterthought than anything else, and somehow the backwards nature of this process only seems to highlight the backwards nature of their own demeanor.

suddenly they are dancing again, but neither seem sure what steps yet to take, and so their rhythm is off, their harmony compromised. ]

[heelies]

[The miraculously hot water fills the silence with its steady pour into the tub, pooling at Achilles' feet and soothing his weary flesh by degrees as it rises and steams around him. As she minds the taps and monitors the temperature, he at last reaches out to encompass her hand in his. In the press of his palm lies a firm insistence that arises too in the solemn words he speaks.]

I did not thank you for sparing me from death's cold grip, and for restoring me to life. In truth...when murderous Koltira did abandon me to the vile gates of death, there I was ready to accept the fate that I have for so long staved off. I thought that I saw Patroclus, dearest of my companions, welcoming me to the Acheron's far shore - and oh, how I longed to take his hands in mine at last.

[In this reverent pause for what shall some day be, he squeezes her hand, and it is joined by its brother to cradle her hand from below.]

Yet then it was you whom I saw in the darkness beneath my eyelids, dear Olivia, like a beacon that fills my heart with hope even in its weariest hour. It was you whom I saw, and I knew I must live yet.

[All the while his gaze too presses into her, as the hands of a potter press into clay that it may become pliable to his will, and he waits for her eyes to return to him. It is not she for whom his anger crackles, after all: he wishes only that his wife should become once more the warm woman who has lent him support in every crucible they together endure.]

[winces]

[ she tenses when he reaches for her, her entire body anticipating — and perhaps even dreading? — the moment.

but once skin meets, and the warmth of his words transfers through the warmth of his hand, what dread and wariness she might have felt is washed away as easily as the specks of dirt and sand still lingering about his skin as the tub begins to fill.

true that the events of the day have drained her of energy (in some ways quite literally), but more than anything now what tires her the most is this. just this. this distance, this silence. this sudden gaping cavern of wrong that leaves her feeling empty and terrified.

there is so much more to say. so much more she wishes she could say now, as if this would be her only chance to, riding on a wave of grief and disappointment and frustration. but at the same time, she wonders at the use of it. why speak if the words won't be heard? why push if she will only find herself with a greater cavern to have to cross.

and so she sighs, and with that breath leaves the rest of her willingness to fight. she wants only now to crawl back to the safe space they had built for themselves, that warm bubble where nothing at all seemed able to harm them. ]

So continue to live, [ is all she is willing to say now on the matter. she finally meets his eyes, her unspoken please left there where tears have finished spilling for the night.

slowly, she turns her hand in his, gently squeezing back. ]