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[divisi]

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[divisi]

He's glad to see her smile, regardless of why it's there. He squeezes her arm slightly.

"Hi. Yes, I am fine. What do you need?"

Because she must need something. Food, water, painkillers, something. He will get it.

[likeiron]

"Water. I feel like I've been eating sand." She said once her brain started to catch up, body shifting to instinctively rise and finding that doing so was actually absurdly difficult. "Ugh." Not being able to move was going to drive her crazy, she could already tell.

[divisi]

Jeritza experimentally presses a button on the bed that he had been examining while she was asleep for lack of anything better to do. It begins to lift the bed into a sitting position. Nice. Turns out he's not as hopeless with technology as he thought. Slowly the bed rises her to sitting, and then he leaves the room and asks a nurse for a cup of water.

Returning to her bedside, he asks:

"Can you hold it?"

[likeiron]

Will wonders never cease. Nina raised her brows up, impressed by the movement, and adjusted as best she could on the bed. Her arm in a sling and her acid burned hand wrapped fairly tight, even her overconfident ass had to admit the truth.

"I... don't think so." She offered, aware enough to blush. This was going to be fucking embarrassing, having him baby her.

[divisi]

Some small part of him feels proud that he impressed her, even with something so small. How silly and strange.

He steps a little closer and leans toward her, holding the cup to her lips. He watches the water level carefully as he tips the cup, as the last thing he wants to do is dump it on her. He allows her to take a few small sips. Staring at her lips reminds him of their kiss, and absently he wonders if that might ever happen again.

[likeiron]

Shockingly, only a small dribble of water managed to escape her lips, the rest she tried to eagerly swallow back. When he pulled the glass back, she looked up at him, smiled again.

"See something you like?" She laughed. "My face get fucked up too?"

[divisi]

Seeing her swallow so greedily, he tips the cup further forward to allow more liquid, before pulling it back.

"Ah..." He blinks. "No, your face is... Good," he says awkwardly.

... What?

[likeiron]

"Ha!" She snorted out a laugh, one that lasted a touch longer than it needed to. Blame it on the drugs making her loopy. "Good. Glad he steered clear of the moneymaker."

If she didn't joke about it she would absolutely cry and she had done far too much of that already.

[divisi]

He raises a brow, puzzled.

"You make money with your face?"

How does that work...?

[likeiron]

All the torture was so worth it for this.

"It's-" she laughed. "It's a joke. I was suggesting my face is what people would pay for if I was a whore."

[divisi]

He looks genuinely a bit shocked, which is odd to see on his usually dull features.

"A whore? You are not a whore..."

Yeah, that's the joke, Jeritza...

[likeiron]

She's going to pull something laughing this hard.

"Yeah, big guy. That's why it's funny." She snorted. "Gods. You're adorable."

[divisi]

He still looks confused, but she's obviously pleased, so it's fine by him. Her calling him adorable and "big guy" makes his stomach feel strange. His heart beats a little faster the way it did when they kissed.

"Good that you enjoy it," he says, almost smiling but not quite. He puts the water to her mouth again.

[likeiron]

Nina let the laugh peter off into a chuckle, then a breathy sigh, lips parting to take another hearty drink of that water.

Her bandaged hand shifted to rest over his as the glass was moved back once more. "Are you upset with me?"

[divisi]

"Hm? No... Why do you ask?"

He isn't sure if she means about the joke or in general, but either way the answer is the same.

[likeiron]

Maybe it was a stupid thing to ask, but Jeritza was so fucking hard to read most of the time.

"I don't know. You were so upset when you found me, I was just wondering if I went too far."

[divisi]

Jeritza is hard to read, incredibly so.

"He went too far. You allowed it... But I cannot control what you do... I have tried. You are too stubborn. I just don't want this to happen again..."

As horrible as it sounds, he would prefer a stranger getting hurt to Nina, not that that made it right...

What a mess. He has no idea how to get out of it.

[likeiron]

"You know it has to." She said with a frown. "It'll satiate him for a while. We just have to hope that he doesn't break my fucking arm every time."

[divisi]

His stomach sinks again.

"I would rather he killed a stranger than did this to you..."

It's the truth, might as well say it. He's grown numb to the bodies of strangers. Seeing Nina hurt makes him feel hurt. And scared.

[likeiron]

"Don't say that." Her voice wasn't as hard as she would have liked, her insistence mitigated by the drugs and, if she was honest, genuine fear that he might somehow let that happen instead. "People will start looking for you if strangers end up dead. You could be seen - they'll come back and tell everyone who killed them. It's not worth it."

[divisi]

"Come back?"

"I would rather take the punishment of being caught than have you tortured indefinitely..."

Talk about not worth it. Jeritza has always been waiting for punishment. It wouldn't be a tragedy.

[likeiron]

"Death isn't permanent." She said. "But if you get caught this would have been pointless. And I wouldn't be able to see you again."

[divisi]

Death isn't permanent? Hm... So execution would not be the punishment. But his victims could come back, and if they remembered him, could easily sully his reputation. He hasn't seen jails in this city, but crime is obviously frowned upon in every district but wrath, and murder is even frowned upon within wrath by the common people who aren't part of the combatants or that blood-drinking clan. He knows people can be banned from establishments. And, there is the issue of powerful people coming to get revenge, and bringing powerful friends... Death isn't permanent, but injury clearly lasts.

He sighs, rubs his forehead. What a mess...

"He was angry with you. He does not like to be bested, and he is prideful... You made him feel threatened. The severity of this torture was fuelled by rage and vengeance. Perhaps if you work out a way to get along with him, you could agree on some less extreme forms of pain... Or negotiate some way for him to satiate himself more constructively..."

He thinks for another moment.

"I can also talk to him... And there is a man I met, who offered to help me... A counsellor."

[likeiron]

"Yeah, I figured that's why he carved his fucking initial into my body." She said, a hint of bitterness managing to make it through the haze. "Considered when it happened just carving over it, but I feel like he'd just... pick a new spot." The thought sparked her own fury, and she hated being marked like that. It felt almost like when she was back in the pits. The torment she suffered, the scars she was still bearing that she could never be rid of. Reminders. Her body had reminders of fucking everything she had ever done and everyone that had ever hurt her.

"But that's why I offered sex initially. Maybe once he's done being pissy about me winning that fight I can suggest it - but my stipulation that you get me first still stands." A beat. "If you want it."

She quirked a brow. "A counsellor?"

[divisi]

The mention of the branding makes him feel sick. He sits in the chair again, hunching a little and slowly wrapping his arms around himself. This is all so much. Guilt, and fear, and these strange feelings about Nina and her well-being that churn in his gut.

He nods to her mention of sex, since he does want that in theory, but it's hard to think about right now. His head is starting to turn to static again.

"Yes... A kind man who was stabbed by him... But met me and wanted to help for some reason..."

Maybe he couldn't trust that man. It makes no sense that he'd want to help, so maybe there's an ulterior motive.