vanillajello | Room 324, Sunday Evening

He did albeit slowly but he was doing everything slowly right now. Bod reached a hand out to support himself against the side of the shower and bowed his head, trying to will the tension away.

It didn't work.

And she wanted nothing more than to just lean against him and embrace him and do what she could to make the tension go away, even if she had a fair amount of her own too. But her legs were tired and his feet were battered and he had an unraveling bandage on his leg.

Maybe the tension should wait.

She had to blink rapidly a moment to keep the tears at bay, then composed herself, glad he couldn't see her. Then she continued with what she was doing, starting with the back of his neck, cleaning the ash off his back first, then off his arms.

"That feels nice," he said because it did. It was nice to feel something soft and being used to help him, not hurt him. "I hope I don't ruin your shower. I'll apologize to Bobby if I do."

"Come on, this is Fandom," she said softly, sliding the sponge along his arm. "I'm sure the showers can take all sorts of things. We had blue dye in here once and everything."

She knelt down now, to work even more carefully on cleaning his legs. Hardly even thought doing that was anything special.

"I hope so," he said, tensing again as she got closer to spots that really hurt. He bit his lip and breathed deliberately slow when the sponge got near his knee and closer to his feet.

"We've made the water quite the color," he said, trying to keep up the conversation even if he wanted to curl up and cry. Still.

Plenty of time for all that curling up and crying stuff later. How else were they supposed to spend their time if they happened to both be too freaked out to sleep before passing out from exhaustion?

"Mm, grey and red," she said dryly, if quietly. More focused on being quick and careful with his feet. "Delightful."

"C-careful," he stammered, unable to keep it to himself. He knew she was doing careful, he could feel the care she was taking but having time to suddenly recover had made it clear how much damage he'd done to his feet.

"I'm being as careful as I can," she said gently, stopping and peering up. "Think it would be too much to do anything to the soles? I mean, I got some antiseptic stuff and bandages if you'd rather just use those."

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to -- " He stopped and shook his head. "I haven't looked at the bottoms of either foot yet. I don't know how bad they look. It just hurts."

"I know, Bod, I know." She'd had soap in tiny scrapes, and that had stung. She could guess how bad this must be. "So do you wanna look?"

"I suppose," he said, moving to sit on the edge of the tub so he could carefully lift one foot up. The good news was that the water had pretty much washed away the blood.

Still, the bottoms of his feet were pretty much covered in cuts (some that still looked like they had ash or small rocks embedded), bruises and cracked skin.

"Oh." That was the only reaction he had to that sight.

And since he'd pretty much stolen her intial reaction, she just stared for a moment before saying anything.

"... Yeeeah, we're so not putting soapy water on that."

Bod pushed some wet hair out of his eyes and winced. "There were no floors there, where I was. It was dirt, ground or charred out buildings. And after awhile, I didn't feel anything anymore. I think my feet were numb."

"Yeah I bet," Kate replied, raising her eyebrows and still staring a bit, resisting the urge to poke at his feet. She suspected there would be a time to do that later.

She looked at him again. "I'm so forbidding you from going to classes tomorrow."

"I won't argue with you," he said. Considering he tended to argue with her about small things (as she did him), he figured that was a testament to how he really felt.

"Good," she said, pushing herself up to standing carefully, because slipping and falling was not something that needed to happen to her right now. "So I won't have to take any desperate measures to keep you from being dumb."

She said it kind of fondly, but she was tired, and probably would have balled up all her stress into an angry attack of bitchiness, had he decided to argue with her.

And having that sort of aggression thrown at him probably would have spurred his own anger. He didn't use it often but it was there. Instead, he smiled a little at her and decided to stay seated.

"I don't want to see anyone but you for awhile," he said, bowing his head again and centering himself. His thoughts were ragged, his head hurt and he couldn't really do with more people right now.

Kate sighed. "I'm gonna be here." Well, except if she decided to go to her own class, and possibly to make excuses to his teachers. And buy some food. But for the most part. "Not like I want to let you out of my sight too soon."

She washed the sponge under the shower and applied some more soap so she could scrub herself clean, too.

"I won't go anywhere," he told her, trying to sound believable even if he'd broken one of his promises and left last Thursday. It hadn't been his fault but, technically, he'd broken it.

"I hope you don't get tired of me," he added, half joking and half serious. He had no idea what his moods would be like.

It wasn't a promise she'd ever put too much weight on, anyway. Too cynical. Not that that had protected her from anything this weekend.

"Likewise," Kate said as she rinsed her skin. She remembered how she'd been after the last time she'd been helpless and waiting because of Fandom's little life threatening quirks. It hadn't been easy.

"I won't," he said, just watching her now, waiting patiently since he'd pretty much exhausted his pain tolerance in standing up for any lengthy amount of time.

"Tomorrow, if I can, I'd like to go back to my cabin," he told her. "I have to get your picture."

"You're not walking to the cabins," she replied, gentle but determined. "All my shit's still back there too. I can go get it. Are we done here?"

She might have asked that only to have some sane reason to stand in the shower for just a little bit longer, even though her legs were pretty much screaming at her for having run around the island like that when she was clearly not a runner.

"If you're done, we're done," he replied, nodding. "Don't cut your shower short because of me, though. I'm fine where I am."

He wasn't standing so he was doing all right for the moment. He didn't argue about the cabins either. Walking was not fun to think about right now.

"My legs hurt," she replied, turning the shower off, as much as it pained her to do it. She reached for the towels, handed one of them to him.

"Mostly 'cause I already went to the cabins once today."

Bod took the towel and ran it over his hair and shoulders while he moved to slowly pull himself off the edge of the tub. It hurt, of course, but he was starting to get used to that.

"If your legs hurt, we probably shouldn't waste time in getting you off them," he said, still trying to sound authoritative.

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