The hot water ripples. She lifts up her hand, staring at red nails, dewed from the bath. Sensations are different, still different. Flicking the water away, she sets her palm on the porcelain brim. It'd been months. She breathes in, feels her heart beat, then exhales. "This is your fault." Her voice carries against tiles, low and...tired. She sounds tired.
Lauren adjusts behind her, breathing out a sigh. It's an old argument between them. Still, she feels nails slide over her shoulders, pink lips pressing down onto her shoulder. "Will you relax?"
"I am." It's biting back at her, she knows. Shutting her eyes, she feels the fingers drop away from skin, then return to fiddling with her hair. It started off as Lauren coming her hair up between fingertips. Blunt nails scraping over her scalp. For a moment, Evony's worries had slipped away, eyes shutting as she allowed herself to be lulled.
Then her thoughts had twisted their way into fear: her personality was shaped by experience, life and other dull things. But the core of herself was partially chemical. As a human, her chemical balance was different. She won't admit it out loud, but she's afraid.
Lauren braids her hair as she slips down in the bath, until the water pools over her breasts, lapping at her collarbones. The doctor's fingers were a warm welcome after the day she had. They twist and wind segments of her hair and she can feel herself almost becoming content.
It wouldn't do.
"You're not relaxing."
"I'm not fae either."
Lauren sighs, dropping her hair. It tangles around her, slowly slipping into the water, knotting beneath its surface. "I can leave," Lauren warns her.
Boredly, she suggests, "don't." Not a command, not fearfully, just a vague word, said as it is.
Evony smirks, quietly telling herself she doesn't care either way. She just enjoys running her hands over Lauren's legs when she's bored. It's interesting to see the water ripple when her nail are just soft enough to send the flesh constricting.
Lauren's back would arch just before she'd snap her hands away.
But the doctor's legs are still now. Her own nails are tapping against porcelain, dry – or at least partially. Slowly she moves, sitting up until she could lean her head against Lauren's shoulder. Lauren exhales, giving into drag fingers through the wet tendrils of her hair, over her scalp as she tucks thick strands behind her ears.
She leaned her head back, opening her eyes, to see Lauren's face bowed over her own, thoughtful.
Lifting up a red nail, she touches Lauren's chin, curling her finger under it until the head obediently leans forward and she can kiss her, lips softly closing over her bottom lip.
Lauren's hair, only half wet, slips over her shoulder. She feels the ends, wet, on her skin, sliding down before up as Lauren leans back again. Then her mouth is gone and Evony licks at her own to taste something almost sweet.
Everything about being human is intensified. Light is both brighter and dark before her eyes can adjust, and sensations are felt a thousand times more powerfully. Taste, however, has become complicated, difficult to identify.
But where sex is more enjoyable, there are particular pains that have become intolerable. Her heart aches as Lauren smiles. "I could hate you," she tells her. Lauren chuckles.
"Oh, I know." Still watching her, she can see her doctor's eyes shut, elbows settling over the bath's brim.
"It's your fault."
Lauren hums at her. It's not difficult to get under her skin. It's just...harder.
Sitting up, water rushes over Evony's body as she turns around in the bath. It splashes down to her waist, then her hips as she slides first one, then both legs over Lauren's, sitting down in her lap. Lauren lifts her head up for that, looking at her rather confused. Good.
Pressing forward, she pushes the length of her body up against Lauren, arms stretched over her shoulders, breast-to-breast. Then she doesn't kiss her. She waits. Doesn't breathe. And listens.
She can feel Lauren's heart beat beside her own. Lauren's is rapid, her's is slow. She wonders if her doctor's afraid. Why…
But pupils dilate and Evony feels it slow beneath her. Lauren's hands drop from the rim to sit on her hips. Her tips curl and Evony almost shivers. Almost, but doesn't.
The sensation she draws, twisting, isn't fair and her hips roll once, back arching to press tighter against Lauren. Her lover shudders, eyes shutting. She can see her brows pinching. It's almost adorable, the strain Lauren has in an attempt to stop giving in.
"Evony," the name, curls over her lips. She was a breath away, but her mouth isn't moving forward.
"Why haven't I killed you?"
Lauren's nose brushes against hers, her lips are almost there. She can feel them part before her, feel her breathe over her. She'd spent weeks trying to hate Lauren. But still, the doctor stitched and dressed every wound. She'd been careful. Sympathetic and not.
"You tried," Lauren answers.
"No I didn't."
She remembered how the knife wouldn't steady in her hand. But stubbornly, she'd pinned the doctor to drywall and demanded to be turned back, its blade against a perfectly untouched throat. It was days after she'd been de-faed; days of emotions unfamiliar to her, unable to be pushed away or controlled in this new body, took over her until she couldn't breathe.
Lauren had held her, had told it was okay, and no matter how hard she'd tried to hold onto the rage inside of her, the knife had clattered to the kitchen floor, and for the first time, she'd collapsed under the weight of her self.
It wasn't something she'd soon forget, nor was it something she wanted to remember. Still, as much as she would like to believe death was in her ability, it wasn't. Not with Lauren.
The admittance of that, in fewer words, held a silence between them. She felt Lauren's breath shudder against her own, eyes staring up at hers.
"Change me back." It's not a plead. Not any more.
"No." She understands now.