The Cat Bath

Log Info

• Title: The Cat Bath

• Emitter: Andelena

• Characters: Andelena, Dolan

• Place: Andelena and Dolan's apartment

• Summary: Straight off the heels of [events,] Andelena needs a bath, some healing, and some kitty cuddles. Dolan's happy to provide at least two out of three, with Patches picking up the slack--albeit with kitten antics that result in Andelena tracking the wet cat through the apartment. Luckily for all involved, Patches has taken up residence in the dirty laundry rather than the bed.

It'd been a long day, a very long day indeed, for Andelena. She lugged herself home all the way from the TarRaCe bathhouse after a solid hour in the water, and judging by the grim and disgusted look on her face as she lumbered all the way to the door of the apartment that she and Brydion shared, that hour wasn't enough.

Yet she stops, take a breath, and says, "Okay. Look like you didn't get covered in monster shit and everything's fine." Then she unlocks the door and steps inside. "Bry, Patches, I'm home!" she calls out.

From inside, there's a small thump, followed by a much larger thump that can only be Brydion's feet hitting the floor. When she walks inside, Brydion's just standing up from the couch, with Patches at his feet, both of them looking like they just woke up. "Damn. Must have fallen asleep. He rubs at his eyes and approaches more closely.

Patches, meanwhile, scampers towards her and starts sniffing Andelena's shoes. And continues sniffing.

Okay. She had a hard day. But it is impossible to be too upset about it when she sees Bry, and she especially can't be upset about it when she sees Patches. The calico kitten is scooped up and held in her hands, followed by a kiss on the head, which is only a bit bigger than Patches' ears. "Aww, hello, pretty girl," Andelena coos in that voice that she reserves entirely for cute animals and very small children.

Then she closes the distance between herself and Bry. "Hello, handsome man," she greets with a wry grin, knowing that'll earn her a retort as she goes to kiss him.

The kitten gives her hand a brief lick or two with a sandpaper tongue, but is mostly interesting in sniffing the armor, her breath, her face, her nostrils, and just about everything else. The inspection looks like it'll be a while, and is being carried out with excruciating care.

Over that, Brydion's return kiss is thorough, but gentle. "Not till you've had a bath, Andie." That's quite loaded, and means that he knows perfectly well she's hurting. "And some sleep. How bad was it?"

Andelena snickers as Patches administers both the sandpaper tongue and the sniff tests. "She'll be a little Redeemer in no time with that investigative nature," she teases Brydion. "I had a bath already, but yeah, could use another, and I could definitely use some rest after. Fought a couple of aberrations that were responsible for killing citizens, and one of them fucking exploded on me.

She sighs a little, but she can't help but smile as she looks back at her inspect-purr kitten. "I don't know how I keep getting the weird shit, Bry, but it's not like I can put "no weird shit" on my forehead in hopes of it not finding me anymore."

Whatever Andelena was covered with, she clearly smells most interesting, because the sniff test is ongoing, moving on towards the armor. When she gets there, though, her head jerks back and she looks mightily offended. Without warning, she wriggles and claws her way, trying to wrest herself from Andelena's hold. Clearly she doesn't like whatever it was she smelled.

"Next time I'll come with you and ward off the weird shit, okay?" He winces visibly at the description. "Looks like you got knocked around a little, too. Come on, let's get you into the bath." He's already reaching for the dragon pendant around his neck.

Andelena leans down and lets Patches down safely to the floor, despite Patches' best attempt to resemble a wriggling worm moreso than a six-month-old kitten. "I don't blame you, honey, I probably would react the same way," she informs Patches.

She gets back up from the floor with a little groan and follows Brydion, taking a moment to put away Deliverance safely in its usual spot before she goes into the water closet with him, doffing her armor and everything else. The wounds she received look like long lashes, like tendrils knocked and battered against her skin. "Octopus-looking motherfucker was one of the two," she says, gesturing to the ones that haven't been fully healed up.

Patches scampers off to a safe distance and turns around, staring wide-eyed up at Andelena, massive ears wing-like and pinned back. Brydion ignores the cat, instead setting aside everything except bath materials and beginning to assemble a hot bath. He adds a packet of herbs to the bath - he uses these more often than she does, but the pungent scent is immediately recognizable as a blend intended to relieve bruising.

He turns around and looks her naked form up and down, wincing at the bruising and lashes. "Shit." Worse than he'd thought. His hand immediately goes back towards the pendant around his neck, the fact that his right eye is not currently in its socket not seeming to especially bother him. "Hold still." His prayers are briefer, and more to the point, than that of the Sunguards, but no less heartfelt, and no less potent - it is a thing that he does not often do in her presence - usually their positions are reversed.

The Sunguard sighs in relief as the power of Dolan's prayers washes over her, reducing her wounds until they are the merest of bruises at the worst parts and right as rain at the lightest parts. "At least that'll be easier to wake up to tomorrow," she says before she dips into the bath.

She looks even happier to sink into the hot waters in the comfort of her own home, closing her eyes as she settles in. "Fuck me, that feels way better," she says. "They gave me a voucher for a bath at the TarRaCe and I almost said, 'Too bad it's not a voucher to go fuck myself.' I was that upset. Just gotta remind myself it's for the greater good."

"Can't have you fucking yourself," Dolan counters with a cheeky grin. "That's my job." The pendant drops from his hand once the healing completes, and he murmurs a prayer of thanks, then turns to soap a washcloth. This he begins to apply gently to her neck and shoulders first in the way that he does, working carefully and getting places she might not get herself.

Andelena groans a little in that happy sort of satisfaction that one can only get from when someone else does the job of reaching neglected places--especially the neck and shoulders, where she carries a lot of tension. "I know, that is your job, and you do it wellllllll--"

This carried out word is accented with a little groan-hiss as he gets a particular sore spot. It's not a bad noise--it's one associated with relief that's seldom had (and usually seldom needed). "Damn, I needed that," she says, very content.

Dolan continues his work, working down through neck and shoulders, through the body and down through the legs, until she is both clean and relaxed. As is his way when she is hurt, though, he keeps it clean and avoids all provocative gestures, contenting himself with cleanliness and hot, herb-infused water. He works mostly in silence, but does add, "Glad you found those creatures. There's some nasty shit in this city."

"Me too," Andelena responds, now just leaned back fully into the water and closing her eyes to relax. "Those poor fuckin' people, though. Far as we could tell, they probably came in through the sewers. Probably should head down there at some point and figure out what the fuck's down there, even if it means more long baths. If the weird and ugly's coming out of the sewers to kill people, then that means it's time for us to go in and kill weird and ugly."

Then her eyes open, and she sits up a little in the bath. "It's too quiet. Where is Patches?"

Dolan had already rinsed the washcloth and draped it over the edge of the tub, and had ben about to drape his arm over the edge, sitting down next to it, when she speaks, and then asks her question. "You need me to go kill weird and ugly, say the word, baby."

It's the question about Patches, though, that makes him sit up. "Stay put." He rolls to his feet and turns around to pad out of the room, turning his head this way and that to search out the kitten.

It doesn't take him too long to come back with the adorable menace in his arms, purring. "She was checking out your gear."

"Would be nice for both of us to be handling weird and ugly, at least," Andelena says with a chuckle. She watches him walk out of the room and look for Patches, and she sighs audibly in relief when he returns with one purring calico. "There she is! I was worried for a minute she was about to knock a jar of oats off the counter again."

She lifts a hand out of the bath. "Ahh, she probably won't like me trying to pet her with damp hands. Oh well. Hi cutie. Look at her, Bry, she totally loves you with her purr going like that."

"She had her head in your boot." Bry simply snorts. "Weird cat. If I didn't know better I'd think she was trying to suffocate herself." A flash in his eyes and a cheeky grin are paired.

It's at that moment, though, that Patches wriggles free of his hold and jumps to the floor. A quick shake, and she bounds towards the tub, sinking little claws into its wooden side and trying to climb it.

"Aww, Fuzzybutt used to do that, too," Andelena says, grinning back at Brydion. "I think cats just really like the smell of feet or something. They're all weird little fucks, but you gotta love 'em for it."

Then Patches goes scaling the tub, and Andelena just about loses it laughing. "Oh no, Patches! I don't think you're going to like the water!" She carefully shifts around in the tub, trying not to splash the little kitten who has decided that scaling Mount Tub is her new favorite pastime.

"Is that why she bites my toes under the blanket." The question is dry, and Brydion is trying to very hard not to smile.

Meanwhile, Patches scrambles up the side of the wooden tub with the help of her claws. Once perched on the edge, she suddenly stops and peeeeers over the edge, all four feet on the edge of the tub and all four sets of claws sunk into the wood. She looks pleadingly up at Andelena.

"Yes, that's why. Your toes are apparently the tastiest of them all, Bry. You should be honored." Andelena tries to deliver it with a straight face, too, but isn't quite succeeding.

She looks at Patches and laughs even harder. "Oh gods. Patches, see? Water. Just water everywhere. I told you that you didn't want the water. Unless... you're a weird water-loving kitten." Andelena tentatively holds her hand out to give the little kitten a scritch before she tries to unhook the kitten from the tub and return her to safer ground. This is a dangerous maneuver to attempt with damp hands, however.

"Nobody gets to eat my toes," Brydion counters firmly, but his eyes are on the balancing kitten.

Patches, meanwhile, attempts to wriggle free of damp hands, ears pinned back. Wriggle wriggle. Fight. Put me down! If she can, she leaps towards Andelena, seemingly bent on landing on her bosom with an eye towards snuggles, but -

She's going to miss. By a lot. FLAIL. Claws, teeth, fur, hurtle towards the water!

HELP!

"Nonononononono--" Andelena intones as her eyes go wide, her hands immediately going to catch approximately six pounds of fur, kitten hubris, aquatic fear, and needleclaws. She manages to intercept the kitten right as her legs graze the surface of the bath water, and she lunges over the side of the bath to safely deposit the kitten onto a moderately drier surface--although it's not as dry with the sploshing that has resulted from Andelena having to run kitten interference.

Andelena exhales heavily. "Dear gods, I think that gave me more of a cardiac workout than dealing with weird and creepy did," she says.

Brydion's eyes go wide as the kitten hurtles towards the water, but Andelena is quicker, and he instead turns to shakes his head at the mess that has ben created. "Now look what you did, Patches," he chuckles, although he is also wearing his fair share of water. The kitten, meanwhile, takes off scrambling out of the room, leaving a damp trail of paws behind her. Doubtless she has grooming to do! Because she meant to do that.

Brydion shakes his head at the mess on the floor, and grabs damp rags to soak up the worst of the water. These get wrung out in the tub, and hung over the edge to dry.

"She'll learn something from it, I hope. Like bath is where wet is." Still chuckling, he then turns towards brushing his own wet clothing off. "You about ready?"

Andelena leans back in the tub a little, sighing. She can't exactly help Bry dry up parts of the room that have been drenched in cat-astrophe, when she herself is waterlogged. "Little shit," she says in that rough-but-affectionate manner of hers... much like the sandpaper tongue of a cat. "She might learn, or she might not. I dunno how long it takes for cats to... learn shit."

She rises from the bathtub and nods. "Yeah, about ready," she says. "Once I'm dried off, I'll go and chase her with a towel and make sure she's not like, making a damp spot on our bed." It's probably too late, but a girl can dream.

Getting the room dry takes some doing, but the shop below them will doubtless appreciate prompt attention to the problem. Brydion has gone through most of the rags by the time he is done, but leaves Andelena's towel for her, and indeed hands it to her while he finishes up. The room's going to take a bit to dry anyway. "Thought you liked making wet spots on the bed," he answers archly.

That gets a loud laugh out of Andelena as she takes the towel from him, drying her upper body down with it before she steps out of the bath and moves down to her legs. "Yeah, when we're the people responsible," she says. "Not so much because a little cat decided to go barreling into the bath because she wanted dangerous snuggles."

She offers Brydion a kiss on the cheek and the lips before she flashes him a grin. "Okay, wish me luck on the kitten-wrangling," she says, and she unfurls the towel out in front of her as she goes in search of drenched felines.

A chuckle escapes Brydion. Oh, he's watching her all right as she steps out of the bath, and only partly to make sure she is indeed restored to full health. The rest of him watching her retreating rear with considerable interest, even as he opens the stopper at the bottom to allow the contents to drain out to the edge of the tall building, where it will run down the side of the house and into the sewers governed by the Tornmawr.

While it is draining, he follows, to see where in fact the little monster ended up.

Thankfully, there's a little trail of wet steps that makes tracking Patches the easiest thing that Andelena and Dolan have had to track down in quite some time.

It appears, however, that Patches has decided that the basket where the two Daeusites throw their dirty clothes is an excellent place to recover from her harrowing ordeal. Andelena can't help but snort as she walks in, pointing to a wayward sock that's draped over the small cat's form. "Least it's not your skivvies," she says. "Should I let her be?"

Dolan chuckles, low in his throat, in Andelena's ear. He comes up beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist and dropping a kiss on her shoulder. "Yeah. Let her be. She'll dry soon enough. As for you..."

Andelena gets a familiar look in her eye with that shoulder-kiss, followed by a chuckle. "Let me guess," she says. "Something about wet cat."

She turns around and gives him a wicked grin. "You did say not til I had a bath. So, let's go, handsome."

The Sunguard may have gone through strange and hard ordeals, but that's not an excuse in her book to refrain from extracurricular activities.