outfields | open post : picture prompt

"Certainly not," he acquiesces without inflection. Gestures work better on Nonon, keep her from swelling up with pride even louder than usual. Much like Satsuki's careful turns away work better on him than the expanse of bare skin brushing under her hair.

"As you wish, Lady Satsuki." He's already moving to gather her worn clothes and set them aside for washing, to lay his mask and coat out of the way, folder tucked inside the side pocket where its loss would be immediately apparent, when she starts her directions. These are not paths quite as well-traveled as his fingers with a needle, but they're worn enough he spends more time adjusting the water temperature, back of his hand held closely over the slowly rising water level, than he does anything else. It's hot enough he would worry for her skin, if they were anyone else. (But while she may fray at the very edges, Satsuki Kiryuin is a blade forged in ugly truths, and he has always been his first and most trusted mannequin, for the wearing and taming of Life Fibers.)

There's a palpable silence now, punctuated only by the merging sounds of water running both soft and loud. Enclosed, lungs filled with steam, Satsuki enters a state of near-meditation under the water. To keep so tight a tourniquet blocking blood that runs as hot as hers does is nearly stifling. In the privacy of running water, she sighs.

Satsuki covers up as soon as she emerges from the shower, beats of water still clinging to her throat and shoulders, her skin steamed pink. She has nice skin, she's heard from Harime, her smile like razors.

Satsuki's presence hangs an intimidating shadows over Iori's kneeling back when she approaches him. She lays her hand on his back; for a second, she is another person, a shadow of something that died. Does he think he'll see that girl again before her time runs out?

"That's full enough."

The sound of the water filling the tub changes timbre as the water level rises, the only soundtrack to the immense presence that is Satsuki in the shower behind him. It's nearly enough to get lost in, but when the shower turns off, his chin rises, tilts toward his shoulder to spot her over the steam-blurred fog of his glasses.

She would be ominous on her approach, if not for the weight of her hand on his back. The woman - the girl - he remembers from childhood flashes for that single moment, and then his duty here is once more on his shoulders. "Very well," he says, lowering his chin in a neat nod, and leans to turn one knob, then the other. He shifts his weight to stand.

This time, she undresses unflinchingly, the towel unrolling from her body in white wing flaps. She drops the discarded garment over the nearby hanger and, as if she doesn't see Iori at all, walks past him to the side of the bath.

Satsuki steps in one foot after the other. She flinches at the temperature just once, then turns her face and mind to steel. She sits stiffly, back against the sloped bow of the tub's front wall. A moment of silence, two, three, the water parting and folding back over her chest and knees in gentle waves. Then she slides the rest of the way under, submerging her head entirely, disappearing - but not quite.

Her naked confidence - literally, in this case - is so familiar it aches in his bones. He doesn't watch, one hand lifted in case she deigns to need that help, but he expects it to go unused. His eyes lower to watch her sink into the water, face much younger without the obscuring shield of his mask.

There's an inelegant metaphor in watching her finally have a moment of peace, and having it walled off by water. He moves around the tub, behind her - he doesn't doubt she'll know where he's gone, as he pulls the stool his uncle leaves stowed under the bath cart free and sets it down on the tile. He settles on it, pushing up his sleeves, and waits for her to emerge.

Satsuki stays under the water until her lungs burn. She considers staying even longer. How long could she meditate down here? Two minutes? Three? Five? Satsuki holds her hands against her chest, feeling her blood run deep, warmed by the water.

She opens her eyes before she rises again, taking in the ceiling in an attempt to regain her composure. It would be nice to pretend that she's let her mind wander.

Even if she knows where she is when she rises - she does - Satsuki turns her jaw to her shoulder, moving just enough to get him into her line of sight again. It's reflexive. She trusts him enough to know he won't be offended by her checking. He knows she needs to be sure. Iori's right where she'd expect Soroi to be, and Satsuki nods her gratitude at him as she gathers her hair to the side. Satisfied, she rests her hands on either side of her, spine rolling out as she reclines. Maybe there are no safe places in the world, but she can't be harmed here now.

He anticipates the check even before she's split the water, and for his part it's a simple matter to nod back, watching her settle. His fingers curl loosely together, and he rests his knuckles on the rim of the tub, where they'll bump her shoulder if either of them move.

The heat of the water in the tub warms the whole bathroom, leaving steam sticking to his cheeks and fingers. The tub's porcelain is somehow still cool. It anchors him to duty, instead of useless admiration. He swallows, watching her, wondering why he can't do more. "Were you intending to wash your hair this evening?" he asks. Uncle would know this, but he thinks he's lost track.

"Yes. Please." Satsuki knows she has the time now; who can say when there will be time again - not for bathing, but for really feeling that moment of calm? It has to be tonight.

She would ask Soroi to leave, to bring her more tea. But Iori - she'll let him stay. Whether it marks a difference in their expected duties or something else, maybe that's a mystery. Maybe it's buried in the past in their old friendship. Satsuki keeps her love too deep, but perhaps he can understand it. It feels so much like gratitude. Satsuki leans slightly to one side, letting her damp skin brush against her fingertips. Of course he knows that she's aware of what she's doing, so Satsuki doesn't try to hide it, but she also pretends to fix her attention on her own legs, drawn up close to her body. They can work in unison.

"Very well," he says, soft, and leans sideways to pluck up the bottle he needs.

Popping open the bottle and filling his palm with shampoo is nothing, and then he reaches out to slip his fingers under the column of her hair. He works slow from the bottom up, like he would with his own. It's as repetitive work as hand-sewing a teddy bear back together, but less calming. A lot less calming, with her skin spread out in front of him, but he's here to help her, and puts down distraction. His hands remain steady, and he shifts until he can bump his knee against the tub's wall.

Satsuki is a statue, her stillness initially to facilitate his work. Then she stayed still for the hell of it, almost as if she were sleeping, her eyes closed, thinking he could slit her throat if he wanted to be her enemy.

"Your hands..." she begins, and startles herself with the softness of her voice, so she swallows and tries to recoup some all-knowing strength in it. The water splashes to fill the silence preceding her next sentence as Satsuki stretches her legs out in front of her. "The work they do. All those repetitive movements. Don't you think they'll one day cause some damage?"

He likely knows better than she does the risks, the chronic conditions, the decay. But his hands are doing different work now, the motions different even if the meaning has stayed mostly the same.

He works with eyes half-lidded, avoiding her ends even though her hair adheres as firmly as the rest of her to that unshakable, indivisible solidity - Satsuki Kiryuin doesn't get split ends - and pauses at the question, surprise tipping his chin up. He's always known that she cares far more than she ever shows, but her questions about his work are about the work, not the worker. He appreciates the respect for his own personal estimation of his capabilities.

"I'm sure it will," he says, with remarkable aplomb. "But I take precautions to minimize the long-term damage. It's no more dangerous than any other repetitive motion." He doesn't add that the rest of his working conditions are much more dangerous than any risk of RSI, not to mention, of course, the looming threat of carpal tunnel being the least of his worries.

"I knew you'd say that." It would be placating from any other person, but from Satsuki Kiryuuin's mouth, it seems believable. There's no question that she might not have thought this all through in advance.

Their lives are a series of repetitive motions. By the time students are done with their curriculum, they're all the same. They've crammed them into molds. Patterned them.

"I know you look after yourself," she says. "But times like these demand a limit to our self-interest." He would sacrifice himself for this cause (for, she thinks, what she asked of him), at the cost of more than a few muscles. It won't be long. Instead of giving voice to the inevitable end they both know is coming, she lets it hang unspoken in the air. Soon the risk will be over, and hopefully only one of them will have to pay the ultimate price. "One day you will sew something other than uniforms."

The breath he huffs through his nose isn't a laugh. Of course she knew he'd say that. That's the person he's grown to become, at her side. Why would he ever say anything else? There's no purpose to pretending to be anyone else, not when they've been dirty-faced children holding flowers in the garden where Nonon had asked them both (but especially Satsuki) to marry her, not when he remembers the girl who built an empire at thirteen.

"And one day you will wear something other than uniforms," he answers, with a stubborn optimism, because his measure of success - of a world adequately saved - has different requirements than hers. "I can't dress the future Prime Minister with damaged nerves, Lady Satsuki. Rest assured." His hands are Satsuki's hands, and Satsuki's hands are Nonon's to hold, but his to treasure.

Edited 2016-03-12 05:38 (UTC)

"Now, now. That's your dream for me." When she kills Ragyo, she'll wipe the stain from their family name, but some of the things she'll do to get there would stain a politician for life. "After conquering every high school in the nation, holding one office would be too easy."

Maybe she'd indulged it too much as a child, when there had still been time to play. Too many games of house in which she, playing the matriarch, came home from the "office," pretending she'd been busy. But she'll be gentle with his misguided dream. Satsuki won't be the one to crush it in her fist.

"I look forward to seeing your new designs." She wants to keep his dreams of that world afloat. "So I'm glad you'll take care of yourself."

"They do say there is no population harder to control than teenagers," Shiro agrees, tone somewhere between light and perfectly serious.

He knows he's being humored as he finally reaches her scalp, running his fingers under the roots of her hair in firm circles. He's not insulted by it, merely a little touched. The kind-hearted girl he met in her mother's rose garden is still alive.

"I only wish you would allow others to take some care of you, Lady Satsuki," he says, a butler's instincts telling him to take the chance to scold when it arrives. "There are limits to how far even you should push yourself alone."

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