Relief is a suitable word, if we mean to speak about what should have given way beneath the witch's fingertips as they slid over muscles, skin, and injuries. Where I had expected instant relief rested a buzzing, an itching, beneath the skin that could only be her magic against the internal bleeding or whatever repair it had deemed necessary in order to return me to prior heath. Healing was never easy, understandably so, but this? The best chance of explaining the sensation was somewhere in a b-rated horror movie where they used a dummy to show the change from human to werewolf. Every bone would visibly snap, audibly crack, and move out of its place to make way for a new form. Was that was healing someone was like in reality? If I had breath to spare and the calamity of mind to spare words, I might have asked if this was a routine procedure and if she had used anesthesia before. I might have asked if I needed a check up in four to six weeks like every post-op patient and an appointment. The breath? It wasn't there. It was lodged somewhere in my chest, buzzing and itching to be released. There was no relief, though. Not where it should have been.

I was beginning to get married to the idea that these wounds and injuries were going to be carry-on items for quite the while. I had managed to be mangled in similar fashions before, ending up with a variety of patterns of scar tissue winding their ways around my limbs and meeting in relatively artistic manners all over. If professional healthcare had ever been an option when I was younger, maybe I wouldn't have such an intricate artshow marring my skin, but I had to hand it to Elenore and the rest of my sisters who had tried to put me back together. Before we all had enough need to keep our ghosts in separate closets, the injuries were mild. Scraped knees, insect stings. As the necessity for space grew like Spanish moss, the injuries I managed were far from mild. I guess it says something about my tolerance for pain or my adherence to a strictly sadist diet, I don't know. Either way, I'd been fed a diet of pain and miserable, infantile healing procedures since. There had been good intentions behind their forms of medicinal care, I'm sure, and I wouldn't have let anyone else touch me. My mother hardly noticed the walking disasters that her genetic replications tended to be; she could not have been bothered to try and fix any of us. Maternal care came from one of my eldest sisters before she passed the trait to Elenore, who became my warden and the assistant to Serena when she'd adopted the job.

And now, in their absence
... Next time, I'm picking a fucking hospital. I found nothing in the recess of my mind to distract me from how little I was enjoying this healing nonsense. There was no such thing as a comfort zone, even if I had been at this pain threshold before, no green grass field where ponies go dance and someone is playing a magical violin and it's all flowers and butterflies and... Her lips had surprised me as much as the fact I had ended up thinking about ponies, flowers, and butterflies in order to lose my focus had. Now there, that's an idea. Her fingers remained professional, aiding the salve that coated them in directing blood flow to it's proper location. Her lips spoke a hundred different words, and not a single one was professional. I didn't frequent the land of outward affection often, generally preferring subtler versions before I ever indulged in any of the number of things I had already contemplated. Initially I found myself tensing in response as if this was morally wrong or something; it was very blatantly hard to feel completely remote from another individual once you've attempted to take another's life together. It was also a very blatant memory- the way the dress she had worn the night before said all but professional, as well. She had all but purred against me in the restaurant, and again in the back of the taxi, regardless of what she thought I had taken away from the interaction. Her eyes had met mine more than once, and each time? They were darker than ...

Was I really trying to justify letting a witch do as she pleased with my body while putting me through an extraneous amount of pain?

If I had the ability to be flustered, I think that would have been the moment. Honestly, though, I had had incredibly PG-...NC-...rated, whatever. The thought had crossed my mind and seered itself onto the back of my eyelids. I had been convinced that she nearly slithered instead of walking, the way her body moved more like water than limbs. The taste of blush wine on her sweet lips as she'd extracated herself from the taxi had put a stupid, latent and almost smug grin on my face. Maybe that's why Frank had waited until I'd been asleep, hoping the idiotic expression and rare effervescence might disappear. Moronic moments aside, I sighed to expel the last of the breath I had been holding to allow her a notification that she had my attention.

I had begun to forget about the pain as the line between pleasure and discomfort was often so close that it was permeable. In a fashion that might be fairly reminiscent of one of the several felines I often found myself around, I stretched languidly to catalog just how uncomfortable I might feel and was pleasantly surprised when the agony was no longer present. Yeah, it hurt but obviously no where near what it had, and I was far more curious in just what she thought she was doing. When she heard my sigh, I had felt her relax some as if the expelling of air was something to build confidence on. It wasn't necessarily aggressive, but at least something besides tantalizing, gossamer kisses. I refrained from touching her, allowing her the space to do as she pleased (okay, it really was a good distraction...) until I felt her repetition and what the fuck. Really? I only exhaled hotly, stiffening slightly but I didn't pull far from her, only enough to let her know I wasn't particularly amused with the hickey idea.

"While I am sure you're proud of yourself right now, I am entirely lax of an explanation and I don't own a single shirt that would cover that high up."

I spoke slowly, my accent as strong as it had been when I had wandered into her shop in extreme discomfort that morning. Only now? It was a little less raw and a little more characteristic of the drawl and smoke-drawn voice that sounded familiar. I hadn't moved enough that she would stop, chastising her only with an unamused quip before running my tongue over my teeth once, debating about acting on the desire for a cigarette when I looked up at her with bright, blazing blue eyes.

"There have to be thousands of better places for hickeys," I said, my lips finding themselves twisting into a good natured but very, very amused smirk. " I'll give you a hint: none of them would be visible outside of the dress you wore last night." I said it before, I love a good game. I lowered my gaze very, very deliberately to her lips and back to her eyes before running a hand through my hair, finding words caught on my lips with her fucking fingers and that fucking- When her fingers found the mess that was going to be my hip, I tensed all over again in the hopes that she might rethink her decision to provide aide there. I had broken that hip, dislocated it, been cut, crushed the bone there... You name it. My first instinct was to wiggle right onto the bench and away from how bad the salve would feel if it met the open wound that pulling out a dermal inserted stud had induced the night before. I had tried to stitch it myself, but my limp must have notified her that not all of my injuries were PG-13. The agitation ebbed away as quickly as it had surfaced when I reminded myself that my hip problems weren't actually her fault, and she was only trying to be useful in a ... very unconventional way.

I slipped back into my original position on her work bench, leaning more on the opposite arm than the hip she was working on to keep space available for her. The same smile pulled itself back onto my lips but laced with a far more dangerous kind of mischief than before. She wanted to know what needed her hands the most? Ha â€" well... She did say strip, right? It was easy to maneuver to run my fingers down her arm slowly enough that she would have cause to worry about where I might just direct her, while finally moving her fingers so they pointed towards the wall and bench, her palm pressed against the dislocated hip.


"See if you can't fix that. If you can't, well" I said wryly, still hesitating to touch her. "I have complete and utter confidence that you will find a way to repay me for a second failed potion."

Your move, mouse. Game on?