In Union
Log Info
- Title: In Union
- Emitter: Andelena
- Place: Temple of Daeus
- Summary: Andelena's alone with Dolan in the healing room, and the two talk about Dolan's progress and their own matrimonial plans. Things go awry when Dolan asks for Andelena to trace the scars on his back from Kol, but Andelena turns it around as she comes to an important realization about Dolan's recovery--and her own, in a way--from what happened. Despite everything, they have endured... and will endure.
Andelena returned to the Temple of Daeus to the familiar recovery room, still bearing that kitten-scratch on her cheek, but smiling a little more for the break and the conversation. Relieving Zeke for a break, she finds herself staring at the wedding rites again from the text, hiding the page and softly reciting lines from memory before checking to see if she got them right.
"We are joined in matrimony and..." Andelena rubs her cheeks, growling lightly as she flips the page back over. "Fuck me sideways in the ass, I keep forgetting this part. How the hell am I supposed to get married if I flub the most important part?"
She groans softly. "One of twenty, that is."
Dolan is sitting up in the bed, his back against the stone wall, head tipped back against the cool of it, right hand reaching to rub at his left shoulder and neck. In the privacy of the room, with just Andelena present, he has not bothered to put the eye in, and hisses as he digs fingers into the muscle. "You don't want me to really fuck you in the ass, baby," he quips with a cheeky grin that is just a little ragged around the edges, made more so by the telltale twitch in his jaw.
"I was thinking to see if I could learn it faster by dreamwalking with the text, although we've got plenty of time. If I read it for too long, I start getting confused. Maybe put it down for a bit?"
"Not right now, I don't," Andelena replies with a small grin of her own. "Knowing my luck, Zeke will walk in afterwards, take a whiff, and just stare at me until I want to jump out of my own skin and walk through Vardama's Hall." She puts the book away and walks over to Dolan, getting up to the edge of the bed.
She takes a look at him. "You're in pain, baby. You want me to rub your shoulder for you?"
Dolan leans his head back against the wall and swallows hard, clearly fighting something. He lets his hand drop. "Yeah. It's pretty stiff," is all he says. Not one trace of humor remains, nothing of the light quip. "I -" He clamps his lips shut, and starts to extend his left arm to stretch the shoulder, carefully. "Yeah. Do it."
"Okay baby. Take deep breaths for me. And remember, it's me," Andelena says as she rubs her hands together to prepare for the shoulder-rub. Once she's ready, she puts her hands to the shoulder, going gently at the muscle as she begins to massage it. "I love you, babe," she says warmly, in that unmistakable compassionate-Andie-tone of hers. "Deep breaths."
It's locked up good, and it will take some work to work the tension out of it, but Dolan breathes deeply as she begins to work. Yeah, it hurts, and there are a few gasps and several hisses, but she's able to work out the knot and the lock-up with reasonable alacrity. By the time she is done, he's relaxed some, and tilted his head back against the wall. He finally looks up at her, some of the cheeky grin returning. "Thank you, baby. Might need a cup of tea. That hurt like shit."
"Baby?" he asks suddenly.
The work is hard on the hands, and due to the fact it's mostly loose muscle and tendon there, it'd be difficult for some--but Andelena manages well, because rarely, if ever, does she back down from a challenge that involves her man's well-being. She sighs softly when it's done, and offers Dolan a small smile. "I'll get you a cup of tea," she says. "The good shit."
She leans in and kisses him on the cheek before she walks back to the small teapot, and is about to pour it when he asks the one-worded question. "What's up, babe?" she asks, looking back at him.
Dolan looks over at the door, then back at Andie, with that aw shucks look that he gets when he's not sure whether he should say or do something. "You think Sunguard Zeke'll be gone for a few minutes?" He sits up a little straighter, away from the stone, and moves and flexes the shoulder, carefully but this time with less pain. "I - there's something I wanted to ask, but I don't want to ask him."
Andelena finishes pouring the teacup for Dolan, and she walks back over with it in her hands. She holds it out to him for him to take when he's ready. "I think he'll be gone for a while," she says. "You can ask me anything, baby. You know that."
Dolan takes the teacup, first in only his right, and then in both hands, wrapping his hands around it at first. He sips at it, wrinkles his nose at the earthy flavor, but it's not too hot to slam it, so that's exactly what he does, draining the cup like he'd chug a beer. He shakes himself, not unlike a wet dog, and hands the cup back with a grin. "Gods above and below, that is nasty. I can't wait to have a beer."
The statement acknowledges that that will be a while, somewhere in its tone, and the grin fades. "I - so, um." What's he hesitating about? "Can you trace the scars on my back? Describe them to me?" he asks, in a rush. "I can't see them, but I can damn well feel them, and - I just want to know what it looks like. It's okay. I'll - I'll be okay."
"Our first beer together once you're out of here is gonna taste sweeter than anything," Andelena says, grinning back at Dolan as she takes the teacup back. She walks it back over to the teacup and sets it aside.
But the hesitation is what gets her attention again--and the request is what really cinches it in place. Andelena looks... hesitant, in a manner that is hardly befitting of her. But she quickly nods. "You deserve to know," she says. "If you turn around a little for me, I can hop in bed with you and do just that."
"Yeah. Just keep talking, okay? Don't worry about hurting me. It doesn't really hurt, usually." Dolan turns away from the stone wall, to face the head of the bed. He grabs the holy symbol that he'd taken to keeping in the bed, and holds it in his hand, leaning forward just a little to let her see. "I - I just need to see what he did. That's all."
Andelena walks over to the bed, sitting down in it behind Dolan. Again, she rubs her hands together for a moment to get them nice and warm. "I'm going to start up top with one line, okay?" she says, putting her index finger at the top of one of the lines. Gently, yet firmly enough for him to register that these are warm fingers, that these are fingers that belong to his woman and not to a monster, she begins to trace downward. "There's more lines. I'm starting with just one of them. The further down we go, though, it might get a little painful--there's not a lot of flesh in some parts still."
She goes downward. Not too fast, but also not too slow--she doesn't know exactly what it's like to be under the lash of the whip, but she imagines that to go quickly is to mimic the lash, but to drag a finger across a line is to evoke the sadistic, slow torture that the monster who made them might enjoy. "It looks like a... a cracked window," she explains. "A stained glass window, like the kind in temples. But... damaged."
GAME: Dolan rolls will: (1)+10: 11 (EPIC FAIL)
At first, it isn't too bad. Dolan breathes deeply, listening intently as she describes, and making noises of confirmation. Before long, though, he stops responding, and the muscles of his back tense up. Warm fingers become a tongue, lapping along freshly made lash scars. Tingling and numbness become hot fire across back and shoulders, and the quietude of the recovery room is lost in an entirely different sort of stone and quiet.
it is hard to see what is going on inside his mind, but his breathing quickens, and it becomes very clear after a moment that her touch hurts. More than it ever should. In fact, every touch elicits a gasp, or a cry, or a scream.
And when it becomes apparent to Andelena that this is going too far--when her fingers on his flesh make him cry out like they're claws ripping into his flesh--she takes her hands away. For a split second, she looks at her hands like they do have claws, and that she's a monster or a fool, but the practical side of her brain takes over. The healer has to try.
"Brydion," she says. "It's okay. You're in the Temple of Daeus. I'm here. It's me, your fiancee, Andelena. It's Andie. You're in the healing room."
GAME: Dolan rolls will: (13)+10: 23
It takes a minute for his breathing to slow. It's the name that starts him first. The name, the words, they cut through the fire, even as it starts to fade away. "Damn it," he swears, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. "I'm sorry, baby." Both fists hold balls of bedclothes, and one holds the holy symbol as well. "I'll have to find another way. It's too close. Just hold me?" His head droops with disappointment and frustration.
All he has to do is ask. Andelena's warmth returns to him, but in the form of her arms wrapping around him gently, her closeness as she brings herself to him. "Neither of us could know it'd be too much, babe," she says gently. "It's okay. Nothing to be sorry for. I love you, so much. So damn much."
She leans in and kisses him in his hair as she sometimes does, back in the comfort of their bed, when she holds him at night. "Not a single thing has changed about the way I feel about you," she says. "Nothing. You're still the man I love more than anything."
This time, Dolan simply leans back into her, his head on her shoulder, letting her hold him close as the last of the fire fades away, leaving only tingling and numbness behind, and her warmth against him banishes much of that as well. The tension in his shoulders has, of course, returned full force. "I love you too, baby. Damn, I've put you through a lot," he murmurs, releasing the bedclothes and simply remaining there, content to let her hold him as long as she was willing to. "I just hope I can make it all worth it."
"You've been through a lot, Bry," Andelena says, snuggling in a little more--closing what little of a gap there is now, save for the tunic that she wears. "I've been here as much as I could because I didn't want you to feel for a second that I'd give up on you. That I'd abandon you or make you feel left alone. Because, Bry--you're a good person. An amazing man. You loved me for me when it felt like nobody else would, when I was a teenager dealing with what felt like was the whole world either against me or laughing at me--and you never, ever stopped loving me, not even when you left."
She pushes another kiss into his hair, followed by another, her steel-grey eyes closing in the calm. "And as much as I wanted to when I didn't know what happened, when I wanted to hate you, I never really could. You were all I could think about. And... when I found out what happened, my heart broke to think of you all alone, recovering from that by yourself. I never wanted you to go through that again. Not by yourself."
Andelena lets out a small sigh as she opens her eyes. "And you know, people are supposed to mean it when they swear to be by each other's side no matter what happens to the other one. Not everybody does. I know we haven't said our vows to each other yet in the eyes of the Knight, Bry, but I will mean every single word of them. Because you're the only thing that shines brighter than the sun for me, Brydion--the strongest person I know."
She waits a moment before she says, "Stronger than even myself."
Dolan makes no move now to pull away from those arms, although the words hit in a way he hadn't expected. "I - I never wanted you to have to deal with any of this," he murmurs, shuddering. "What we did in Myrddion - it was child's play and I damned well knew it, the minute I saw that thing. You sure you're okay with staring the dark in the face? Because that's what it's gonna be, baby. I can't not see it. I can't not stare at it head-on. No lies. Is that what you want for the rest of your life? You ready to stare evil in the face and fight?" His head leans a little to the side, until it rests against hers.
"I'm ready," she says, without hesitation and entirely with conviction. "Not only am I a Sunguard--I'm your Sunguard. Your partner. Your lover. I swore to fight evil with you, and as I said, I'm not backing down from that. That's what I want to do: stare demons and monsters in the face and cut them down, with you."
Andelena kisses him again in his hair. "You, me, and the Knight. Remember?" she says softly. "Those words mean the exact same thing that they did before this, babe."
For a minute, Dolan is quiet, just letting the closeness be, while he thinks those words over. His breathing does not change, although he still trembles a little in her arms.
She's never backed down yet, the inner inquisitor whispers. You're not going to be able to fight alone anymore. You'll be lucky if you fight at all, and that's not going to happen without her. Zeke is right. You can't protect her anymore.
Outwardly, he simply stares pensively at the bedclothes with his lone eye. Finally, he answers. "If you want to fight with the Knight and a cracked farmboy, baby, then okay. Don't know when the gods'll see fit to let me be strong enough to fight again, but it'll damned well happen." Another pause. "I asked the totem last night what they want me to do with that call to arms vision, how I can help. The answer was just get yourself strong enough to fight. Nothing else. I think the rest has got to be yours, baby. Yours and Telamon's and Dirk's and Verna's. I can't help you right now. You have got to go get the rest of the totems out of that camp, and find out what's in the Vast. You okay with that? With not knowing when I'll be back on my feet? I'll fight with you when that happens."
He pauses a moment. "I just don't know when that's gonna be."
The trembling is met with the slightest of squeezes, Andie's arms tightening for just a moment in that affectionate way. "It has to be done," she says. "So I'm okay with it. You're the one who's been strong and leading the charge on so many fronts. That's... why I've come to realize you are stronger than me. It's not just about picking up a blade and going to town on the enemy. It's about the ability to withstand. To outlast. To lead. To charge. To know. And it's my turn this time. You need to recover."
Her voice melts entirely into an affectionate and warm murmur as she says, "The quicker you heal so you can fight again, the quicker you can go home, too. And I've missed having you in bed, Bry. I've..." She pauses. "I've missed just holding you like this. Just being close to you. Zeke was so worried that touching you would set you back, but--clearly you needed this as much as I did. I'm gonna keep holding you and loving you as much as you need, babe, when I'm here."
"This doesn't bug me, baby." Dolan turns his head towards Andie's face, with that cheeky grin. "It helps. Cause it's not - it's not what he did." A shudder ripples through him. "He was - almost gentle. Sometimes. Don't be gentle." The words come out in a rush. "Just holding me is fine." He wiggles a little, clearly trying to free his arms. "Be fucking rude, okay, baby? That's how I know it's you."
He half-smiles, and snorts a laugh, the mobile half of his face twitching up. "Looks like I don't have much choice, on letting you handle it. I'll read anything you want. I'll try whatever you want in the Dream. Juts make sure you come back, yeah?"
"Be fucking rude? Okay, babe, easy to do for me. You'll get rude," Andie says with a grin, releasing him a little from her arms so that he can move. "I mean, you're the only one I can say 'fuck me sideways' in front of and actually mean it."
She shifts a little so that she faces him more fully, still grinning brightly. "Of course I'll come back," she says. "Why in the fuck would I die when I've got a fine-as-hell man waiting on me to come back and marry him?" And with that notion, she leans in and kisses him on the lips--for the first time since Bry had arrived in this room.
Once he's got his arms outside of hers, his hands resting on hers, Dolan does seem more comfortable, craning his neck to return that kiss -
She can feel his neck and shoulder muscles lock up against her, tense and seize, can almost watch them twitch. He winces, lips spreading in a grimace against hers, but he doesn't let go, returning the kiss quite forcefully. He seems quite ready to do more than kiss, as well, and will not be the first to pull away, painful or not.
The kiss is welcome for them both, Andie's eyes fluttering shut for a second, but she feels that grimace on his mouth and the muscles locking up, and her eyes open. She pulls herself just an inch away from his lips, long enough to say, "Babe, hold on--let me care for your shoulder. Zeke's gonna have kittens if he walks in and I'm shoving my tongue down your throat while you're in pain."
Disappointment wars with very clearly evident pain, but pain wins out, and Dolan lets her go, tilting his neck the other way to try to stretch it out. "Don't you worry, baby, you'll get your chance." There's a promise in those words, and he turns around so that she can do what she has to. "Think it wants to make sure you know what you're getting. Zeke says the damn thing'll never be right, and he's probably right. I might be picking His sword back up for a while once I get out of here. Ow!" He's keeping himself talking.
Andie's back at it at the loose muscle and tendons in that shoulder that have locked up, massaging them so that she unlocks them and gets them moving again. "I can just kiss you from the front," she says, keeping him distracted--and keeping herself distracted from the pain that comes with the massage, a necessary pain in order for her man to be freed from pain. "I love, love holding you from behind, but looks like kissing you like that's probably not on the cards. Good thing the gods gave me legs to walk around and hold you and kiss you from the front."
Once she's done, she smirks a little. "Least Deliverance won't be lonely anymore," Andelena says. "Don't worry, baby. You still got a greatsword between those legs." That gets a devilish grin going on her face.
The process is definitely unpleasant, but he endures it, biting his lip, and when she is done, he lets out a sigh of relief that turns into a wicked snicker at her comment. "Just means I get to look at the beautiful lady I'm kissing. And if she wants the greatsword - guess we can do that, once we're home. Still too damn tired too much." He leaves the left arm hanging limp for the moment, but uses the right to loop his holy symbol around his neck, then stands carefully, and takes a step towards her. "Thank you, baby. You, me, and the Knight," he murmurs. "Though the Knight might want to look the other way for a minute," he adds, leaning up to kiss her on the lips again.
She's probably going to have to put him to bed, though, because there's a twitch in his jaw that says he's more tired and hurting more than he's letting on.