( there's a kneejerk pause where she stops like she's been caught when he speaks, but--that's not what this is, she asked him to wait. for a whole host of reasons, but mostly because punching some guy until he wiped the smug grin off of his face didn't actually make her feel any better.
surprise surprise.
she catches the clothing hovering in front of her and wonders idly when the smell of them intertwined like this started soothing her frayed nerves, but it's not a question that she has an answer for, so instead she hugs them to her chest and heads to the open door. not before her mouth curves into a half-smile, one corner tugged up as she tosses a look at him over her shoulder. )
( he'd mostly expected her to make her way to the bathroom, shut the door, and julian would--just wait out here until she was done. maybe fuck off to somewhere else eventually, it's a little creepy to wait for someone to get out of the shower. but she stops before she gets to the bathroom, looks over at him. he stops midstep, tilts his head towards her and.
raises a brow. )
Is that an invitation?
( just checking. she gets snappy when people do shit she doesn't like, he's not following unless she tells him he wants her. )
( direct, to the point. she doesn't wait to check if he's following her or not, setting the clothes down next to the sink in the bathroom and tugging off her shirt. the dark drops across the front aren't great, but it's hardly the first time she's gotten blood out of her clothes.
her pants follow quickly after, left in a small heap in the corner, and she reaches out to switch the shower on before she turns to look back at julian, stood in her underwear without a mark on her to show what might have happened earlier. )
( he doesn't--stare. julian tries very hard to not look like he's staring, and looks at a wall instead while laura strips down. looks her over once she's done to make sure there's no marks left, nothing he needs to be concerned about, before julian's picking up the pile she'd left on the floor and--taking it over to the sink. turns the faucet on without touching it and checks the water with his forearm to make sure it's cold before putting the clothes in the sink bowl. it's cold water for blood stains, right? sounds right. )
Figured you wouldn't go out of your way to beat someone up for anything less.
( she lets him fuss with the clothes, watching with a quiet kind of interest. she could do it herself but she lets him instead, and that has to be some kind of progress too, right?
once the water is running laura steps in though, coming up to his side and turning his head back to look at her with a hand on julian's jaw. )
Should've given it to him worse. I would have backed you up.
( but his attention's being diverted by the hand she presses against his face, and julian's--tipping his head in towards her, body still turned towards the sink. )
( which is admittedly a pretty glossy retelling of the story considering she'd wiped a man's blood off of her knuckles just a moment earlier, but it's not that far off the truth. laura could have done a lot of damage. she didn't. a better person might not have gotten into the fight at all, but...baby steps.
laura doesn't really want to think about billy butcher any more though, and she definitely doesn't want to grapple with the finer morality points of kicking his ass. she does want to keep julian's eyes on her, for a few reasons but none of them more than the fact that it's easier to let those kinds of questions go when he's looking at her, these days. )
You can stay out here if you want, but the invitation was for the shower.
( something a little like a smile crosses her face and she steps back, shedding the last of her clothes to get into the shower. laura doesn't check to see if he's following, but then she never really does. )
( that's progress. laura's been--antsy, ready to go, ready to fight anything that so much as twitched wrong in her direction since she showed up here. he's not worth it, when everything had been worth it before is fucking amazing. julian likes it. likes progress.
likes it even more when she tells him to get in the fucking shower along with her, shit. not really where he'd anticipated this going, but he's quick to get with the program, tosses his shirt off over his head into the dirty clothes hamper, and starts pulling off his pants and boxers along with them. the bandages on his hands slide loose with a thought, dropped into the bathroom trash as julian moves to climb into the shower after her.
winces a little, when the bare skin of his hand rests against the wall to balance himself. it's still--well. not a new sensation, but an odd sensation when all he'd had there before were the odd phantom pains and itches. he's adjusting alright. )
( it's not new that julian has his hands back, but it still surprises laura a little at times to see them all the same. she looks at him leaning against the wall, at the palm pressed flat and wrist bracing him, and she doesn't reach out to touch but she thinks about it.
never mind that she dragged him in here so that she could touch him, but there's a difference between the grab of a fistful of hair and the tender way she sometimes wants to hold his hand. she's--not especially used to either, but one certainly doesn't come as naturally. )
Are you used to it yet?
( having hands, using them again. she tilts her head curiously as she passes over the shampoo bottle. she's seen the way he reacts sometimes, to different sensations, but they haven't really...talked about it. shockingly. )
It's like getting on a bicycle, right? Just shit I already knew how to do and need to figure out again.
( the moving his hands isn't the hard part. it's getting used to the sensation, the feeling of them, the expectation of flesh where he used to depend on metal. not touching shit that'd burn him, or reaching for things that only metal could withstand.
he's getting the hang of it. julian even uses his thumb to pop open the shampoo bottle, puts some on his palms and spreads it between two hands before he's reaching to thread his fingers through laura's hair. all they have is his shampoo, but he'd noticed before she's been using it anyway. )
( tipping her head back slightly into julian's touch is easy, and for most people that wouldn't be some kind of revelation, but for laura it still is. maybe she shouldn't still be so surprised that she can be with him like this without her hackles raising, but it's a work in progress. she's a work in progress, and a lot of that is rebuilding progress that laura had already thought were set in place.
if there's anything this city has taught her, it's that laura isn't actually as well-developed as she believed herself to be. )
It's got to feel weird, right?
( she knows a little of what it's like by way of regrowing limbs, but aside from being a very gross experience all round, that's also very fast. there's very little time for laura to experience any kind of sensitivity, it's all over too quickly but it's--enough, that she can make some guesses.
but he's managing to scrub his fingers through her hair just fine, and it's actually all very pleasant. relaxing, enough that she closes her eyes, leans back until her back hits his chest. he's good to her. she doesn't tell him enough. )
( he's sure he'd like the feel of her hair between his fingers if his hands were less sensitive. more adjusted to sensation, but julian isn't complaining because he does like it. he likes how laura feels when she relaxes against him, how she lets him touch him. how much trust she's putting into him. )
It does feel weird.
( even if julian tried to explain it, he's sure that laura would already know. she's been hurt, cut into, tortured, and who the fuck knows what so many times he's betting she knows what it feels like, to have sensation where previously there had been none. but he wants to fill the time, keep laura pressed close, so julian keeps threading fingers through laura's hair, thinks through words before voicing them. )
It feels like thousands of pinpricks of sensation everywhere my skin touches something. Not painful, not unpleasant just new. I remember before when I did have hands, how easy it'd been to just grab onto shit. I used to bite the skin around my nails like crazy until it was all fucked up. But now it's. . being able to move them and do shit with them still feels like it's something precious.
( it's not really that much of a revelation. laura has spent months around julian with metal for hands, she hasn't seen flesh and bone at the ends of his wrists since they were both kids. she can't really tell if he's done or not but it doesn't matter that much anyway, she reaches up to take one of his hands all the same.
just to hold it between both of hers, mostly, but also to dig her thumb a little into the centre of his palm. gently, but the pressure is still definitely there. it's just a little new still, and that's something worth exploring, maybe. laura's never been the kind of person that concerns herself much with gestures like holding hands, but some part of her wants to see if their fingers fit together like this all the same. )
Did you want to do this, already? Or was it just because of...camp.
Mostly because of camp. I'd gotten used to not having hands, readjusting to using them's been a little difficult.
( mostly the sensation, that keeps throwing him off. it feels weird, how laura's finger presses into his palm and he feels it. he's used to nothing. used to figuring out how to move his prosthetics and adjusting to working around their limitations, rather than this fleshy nonsense. )
But there's a lot of shit I can do with them that I couldn't without, too. ( like move his hand over, slide a warm palm against laura's cheek to tip her head up towards him. lean in a little closer, but doesn't quite bridge the distance between them. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
surprise surprise.
she catches the clothing hovering in front of her and wonders idly when the smell of them intertwined like this started soothing her frayed nerves, but it's not a question that she has an answer for, so instead she hugs them to her chest and heads to the open door. not before her mouth curves into a half-smile, one corner tugged up as she tosses a look at him over her shoulder. )
Are you coming?
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raises a brow. )
Is that an invitation?
( just checking. she gets snappy when people do shit she doesn't like, he's not following unless she tells him he wants her. )
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( direct, to the point. she doesn't wait to check if he's following her or not, setting the clothes down next to the sink in the bathroom and tugging off her shirt. the dark drops across the front aren't great, but it's hardly the first time she's gotten blood out of her clothes.
her pants follow quickly after, left in a small heap in the corner, and she reaches out to switch the shower on before she turns to look back at julian, stood in her underwear without a mark on her to show what might have happened earlier. )
He was an asshole.
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Figured you wouldn't go out of your way to beat someone up for anything less.
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( she lets him fuss with the clothes, watching with a quiet kind of interest. she could do it herself but she lets him instead, and that has to be some kind of progress too, right?
once the water is running laura steps in though, coming up to his side and turning his head back to look at her with a hand on julian's jaw. )
Hey.
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( but his attention's being diverted by the hand she presses against his face, and julian's--tipping his head in towards her, body still turned towards the sink. )
Hey.
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( which is admittedly a pretty glossy retelling of the story considering she'd wiped a man's blood off of her knuckles just a moment earlier, but it's not that far off the truth. laura could have done a lot of damage. she didn't. a better person might not have gotten into the fight at all, but...baby steps.
laura doesn't really want to think about billy butcher any more though, and she definitely doesn't want to grapple with the finer morality points of kicking his ass. she does want to keep julian's eyes on her, for a few reasons but none of them more than the fact that it's easier to let those kinds of questions go when he's looking at her, these days. )
You can stay out here if you want, but the invitation was for the shower.
( something a little like a smile crosses her face and she steps back, shedding the last of her clothes to get into the shower. laura doesn't check to see if he's following, but then she never really does. )
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likes it even more when she tells him to get in the fucking shower along with her, shit. not really where he'd anticipated this going, but he's quick to get with the program, tosses his shirt off over his head into the dirty clothes hamper, and starts pulling off his pants and boxers along with them. the bandages on his hands slide loose with a thought, dropped into the bathroom trash as julian moves to climb into the shower after her.
winces a little, when the bare skin of his hand rests against the wall to balance himself. it's still--well. not a new sensation, but an odd sensation when all he'd had there before were the odd phantom pains and itches. he's adjusting alright. )
Hand me the shampoo? I'll get your hair.
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never mind that she dragged him in here so that she could touch him, but there's a difference between the grab of a fistful of hair and the tender way she sometimes wants to hold his hand. she's--not especially used to either, but one certainly doesn't come as naturally. )
Are you used to it yet?
( having hands, using them again. she tilts her head curiously as she passes over the shampoo bottle. she's seen the way he reacts sometimes, to different sensations, but they haven't really...talked about it. shockingly. )
no subject
( the moving his hands isn't the hard part. it's getting used to the sensation, the feeling of them, the expectation of flesh where he used to depend on metal. not touching shit that'd burn him, or reaching for things that only metal could withstand.
he's getting the hang of it. julian even uses his thumb to pop open the shampoo bottle, puts some on his palms and spreads it between two hands before he's reaching to thread his fingers through laura's hair. all they have is his shampoo, but he'd noticed before she's been using it anyway. )
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if there's anything this city has taught her, it's that laura isn't actually as well-developed as she believed herself to be. )
It's got to feel weird, right?
( she knows a little of what it's like by way of regrowing limbs, but aside from being a very gross experience all round, that's also very fast. there's very little time for laura to experience any kind of sensitivity, it's all over too quickly but it's--enough, that she can make some guesses.
but he's managing to scrub his fingers through her hair just fine, and it's actually all very pleasant. relaxing, enough that she closes her eyes, leans back until her back hits his chest. he's good to her. she doesn't tell him enough. )
This is nice.
no subject
It does feel weird.
( even if julian tried to explain it, he's sure that laura would already know. she's been hurt, cut into, tortured, and who the fuck knows what so many times he's betting she knows what it feels like, to have sensation where previously there had been none. but he wants to fill the time, keep laura pressed close, so julian keeps threading fingers through laura's hair, thinks through words before voicing them. )
It feels like thousands of pinpricks of sensation everywhere my skin touches something. Not painful, not unpleasant just new. I remember before when I did have hands, how easy it'd been to just grab onto shit. I used to bite the skin around my nails like crazy until it was all fucked up. But now it's. . being able to move them and do shit with them still feels like it's something precious.
no subject
( it's not really that much of a revelation. laura has spent months around julian with metal for hands, she hasn't seen flesh and bone at the ends of his wrists since they were both kids. she can't really tell if he's done or not but it doesn't matter that much anyway, she reaches up to take one of his hands all the same.
just to hold it between both of hers, mostly, but also to dig her thumb a little into the centre of his palm. gently, but the pressure is still definitely there. it's just a little new still, and that's something worth exploring, maybe. laura's never been the kind of person that concerns herself much with gestures like holding hands, but some part of her wants to see if their fingers fit together like this all the same. )
Did you want to do this, already? Or was it just because of...camp.
no subject
( mostly the sensation, that keeps throwing him off. it feels weird, how laura's finger presses into his palm and he feels it. he's used to nothing. used to figuring out how to move his prosthetics and adjusting to working around their limitations, rather than this fleshy nonsense. )
But there's a lot of shit I can do with them that I couldn't without, too. ( like move his hand over, slide a warm palm against laura's cheek to tip her head up towards him. lean in a little closer, but doesn't quite bridge the distance between them. )