2019-08-10 - Decontamination
Itzhak helps August scrub the worm guts off himself.
IC Date: 2019-08-10
OOC Date: 2019-06-04
Location: Bayside/Mallard House
Related Scenes: 2019-08-10 - Frustrated Incorporated 2019-08-10 - The Worms Crawl In
Plot: None
Scene Number: 1160
Itzhak wrestles August into the bathroom. "God damn," he wheezes. "We smell like low tide crapped in a dumpster. Can you stand for a second so's we can get ya clothes off? Hold the sink or something?"
"I wish--that's all--it had been." August has been telling himself his nose doesn't work so he can avoid thinking about the smell, but that's getting harder and harder the longer he's not on death's door. "Yeah," he says, moves to the vanity and leans on it. For all that Mallard House is in sore need of repairs, some of its fixtures are solid rock, and this bathroom's porceline sink is one of those things. He sags against it, revels in being able to breathe without pain. (But not too deep. God, that smell.) He starts a somewhat ineffectual attempt at working the remains of his shirt off. Once upon a time a dark blue Henley; now, stained with blood and gore and...something else that doesn't bear thinking about, it's more like the framework of a shirt with a front of ribbons.
"Hold still." Itzhak pulls out his pocketknife, opening it with a swift flick of his wrist. Rip, rip, riiiiiip; he's cutting August's shirt off him, like a paramedic would, but a lot slower since he doesn't have those fancy blunt-nosed scissors. "Don't make this weird, Roen." He's joking. This is already weird. But maybe it'll make August smile.
Paramedics cutting things off is something he actually doesn't remember, thankfully, since it means he's not forcibly reminded of Bosnia just now. (After they got him free from the concrete he doesn't remember much of anything, something for which he is eternally grateful.) August laughs, tired and helpless. "We are so far past weird," he says, looking down at the shape his clothes are in. He remembers seeing the doppleworm in his clothing, shudders. Yeah. Yeah--he's burning these.
While Itzhak works on the shirt, August works on the now-unnecessary bandages, which are soaked with blood; he tosses them into the trashcan, grateful it has a liner. The skin under them, previously destroyed, is now reddish pink, the color of a newly healed injury. The tracks of the furrows are still visible for the moment, though they'll fade in a day or so.
Most of the weight Itzhak was carrying upstairs is, it would seem, muscle. His belly's a touch soft with age, but otherwise he looks like a guy who's not stopped moving in a few decades. This also reveals the first scar to Itzhak: a midline incision surgical scar running about four inches on either side of August's navel. Time has reduced it to a bold white line that chest and belly hair mostly obscures, but not entirely. There are several others, too, smaller like puncture or bullet wounds--one at his left shoulder, another down at his right side.
As the shirt comes apart, the next larger scar is revealed, a long one running from the base of the neck to the edge of the same shoulder with the puncture wound, his left. Similar in age to the others, though a little more knotted. It didn't heal quite as well.
Itzhak's hazel eyes, striated like agate, flick up over August's shoulder, studying him in the mirror. August's right. They are so far beyond weird. So why not look?
...A reason comes to him not to look, almost immediately. The reason is August is stupidly, ridiculously sexy, and maybe even more so for the scars and the bloody bandages. So Itzhak drops his gaze again.
"You got no right lookin' that good, you know that?" He eases the ravaged cloth off August. "Ellie's a lucky girl."
"Flatterers, both of you," August says, wincing as he leans this way and that to get out of the shirt. He might not be injured, but he's still sore. His body remembers what just happened, in its way. Yet Finch is good at what she does, so he doubts he's still wounded. Phantom pain, maybe.
For all that the front of him is a mess, his back's clean. The long spinal scar stretches from the base of his neck clear to his lower back. It's not easy to pick out, though, because it's been incorporated into an enormous tattoo of an elk skull. The line which would mark the skull's halves is the surgical scar, edged in black to make it stand out without covering it. The skull's details are stark and well maintained; it's definitely a good decade or more old. Flower and vines of various types are wound in the antlers, and thready, brown and green roots dangle down from them.
"Anyways, not like any guy or girl of yours isn't going to be perfectly fortunate." He resists the urge to scratch at the scar. Barely. He distracts himself with getting his boots off.
Itzhak assists, ripping more seams as required, until he can toss the shirt--now a pile of bloody, stinking rags--to the floor. When he looks back up, his eyes go wide.
"Holy shit," he breathes, and he can't help it: he touches the ink, fingertips trailing down along the skull's nose, along the scar. "You been holdin' out on me all this time, never showing me this. It's fuckin' stunning."
He doesn't even sass August back, he's so absorbed in the details of the tattoo.
August stills at the touch, too tired to actually be startled. Or maybe he suspected; it's hard to say, really. His emotions are in a weird place, with the whole 'gutted by a doppleworm of myself' thing. (And this fucking song which will not stop careening around inside his head. He's going to have to sleep with some earbuds in, Christ.)
"Only certain people get to see that one," he says, dredging up a shred of levity. "Took months to get it done. I worked double shifts for half a year to save up enough to get started, then another year to pay for all of it." He sighs, remembering that; hard, exhausting work between a local fruit market and one of the larger garden stores. "Worth every penny."
He's content to lean against the vanity while Itzhak looks at it. "I was going to do all of them. I mean, all the scars, from Sarajevo. But after the first two I stopped feeling like I needed to do the others."
"Yeah. I'd say so. This is...hell, I don't got the words." Itzhak pulls his hand away before he can start making excuses as to why he needs to feel up August's back further. The guy just escaped a lethal situation, and they agreed they're not going to get like this with each other. "Tattoos are great for that, aren't they? The pain, it's clean. Nothing nasty attached to it. Something you picked, for your own reasons. Nobody's doing it to you."
He makes himself turn away, grab the rim of the tub and reach to twist the faucet on. "You're gonna need to soak, and probably you could use it. You're movin' like you're forty years old." Back to teasing. That's something they can do.
Crouching, he rummages under the sink, comes up with rose-scented bath oil. "Aw yeah, just what we need."
"Yeah," August says, tone absent. "Clean. I like that, that's a good way to put it." He starts working on his pants, which for all that they're destroyed at least are intact. Good thing because cutting through denim is a real pain in the ass. As he yanks them off, he says, "First time I saw one I liked, I asked the guy about it, and turns out he'd also gotten it because he had a scar. So we chatted a while over beers, and he said his therapist had suggested it. As a way to...own it, basically. Make the scar his, instead of just a reminder of bad shit that'd happened to him."
Even before the boxers come off, the lower raven on his left leg is visible, a faintly colored hellebore clutched in its claws. The larger scar on that leg is part of the raven's wing, and the smaller one--another of those puncture wounds--is part of the hellebore's central structure.
He pauses, eyes the rose oil. "Feel like I need to scrub with that awful shit they give you before surgery." He'd even consider using it right now. How much skin can he afford to scrub off? Half of it?
"Yeah well, Abuelita don't got any, so you gotta make do." Itzhak rummages around some more, finds nothing of interest. "You can use that stuff, it's almost as good," he straightens up and nods to the Dial hand soap sitting on the sink.
He eyes the ravens as they become visible, and a lot else becomes visible. The ravens are a great reason not to look at anything else. "Heard tattooing over scar tissue hurts like hell, it don't always turn out great neither. Those look amazing. You got a great artist. 'Kay, be right back."
Out he goes, while the water runs. When he comes back he's got several washcloths and a few towels too for good measure.
With a decisive nod, August confirms, "Oh it hurt like a motherfucker." He wrangles out of his boxers--they're probably fine but they're getting burned too--then his socks. "Absolutely worth it, though." He pours in a bit of the rose oil bubble bath, takes the Dial soap and climbs in. He's a bit tall for the tub, so he can't stretch out; his knees almost poke up out of the suds. It's a huge, clawfoot, soaking tub, though, so it makes up in depth what it lacks in length.
He sighs, forgets about the soap, leans back. "Fuck. What a day." He wipes at his face. When Itzhak returns he says, "Thanks," meaning not just the washcloths but the everything. He's a bit too exhausted to properly articulate it, though. Around him the water is already getting a bit gross, he eyes it. "Probably have to change this water a couple times."
Itzhak opens the door and reels back a step, grimacing. "Jesus. I forgot how bad it smelled." He sets the towels on the toilet. Stripping off his own shirt, he reveals that August's not the only one with previously unseen tattoos: there's a sort of floral circle, rather sizeable, on his left breast over his heart. It's made of long, swooping calligraphic strokes, black with subtle shading to make it pop.
When August thanks him, he glances over, eyebrows soulful, and quirks half a smile. "Hey. What are ambiguously-homo friends for." He flings his shirt atop August's discard pile. "Change it then, don't worry about it."
August grunts, decides to soak a little more off himself before swapping the water. "I guess we can open the window. If the wind picks up, should help." And if not, well, fresh air won't hurt.
He coughs a laugh; a real one, not the panic-laden sound he was making earlier. "Ambiguous?" he says on a grin, laughs some more. He watches the ruined shirt land in the burn pile, looks at Itzhak. "Really, though. Thanks. I know I should have let Alexander take me to the hospital but I couldn't..." He stops, sighs. "I couldn't stand the thought of being in there, half out of my mind, with doctors I don't know."
He takes in a breath, lets it ouit. Tilts his head at the revalation of another tattoo. "Calligraphy?" he says, lifting his chin towards it. "What's it say?"
Itzhak grins in a flash, brilliant, as August laughs. "That's what I like to see." He slides open the high, narrow window (it's something of an effort, that window hasn't been opened in almost as long as the Lincoln hasn't been started), comes away with a wrist covered in dust and cobwebs. He doesn't complain, just rinses off in the sink. Then, what the hell, gets his entire torso wet, he needs to scrub down too.
Glancing over, he says, "Huh?" and looks down at his chest. "Yeah." Unconsciously, he rubs the tattoo. "It says 'Unbreakable'. In Hebrew." Since they're sharing stories of how they got these things, he adds, quieter, "I got it when I got out of prison."
August nods, makes a low sound of understanding. Speaking of needing to reclaim. "It looks good," he says, studies it a little more. He raises an eyebrow. "Thought about adding more? Could do, concentric circles, maybe. If you think of other words or phrases that go with it." He pulls a washcloth off the pile, starts working the soap into it. Removal of the first layer commencing. His arms are almost as bad as his torso, so he starts there, scrubbing at his fingernails until they're spotless (don't think about what was under them, just don't) and working up from his wrists to his shoulders. "Been thinking lately, about another one for my left shoulder. A moth. Or vine of some kind...maybe a bougainvillea." He's thoughtful as he says this, head tilted. "I guess I could do both, even."
"Moth on a bougainvillea? That'd look baller." Itzhak isn't quite old enough to stop saying things like 'baller'. He undoes his jeans, shuffles them and his boxer brief around his thighs so they don't get too wet while he's washing. Soaping up a washcloth, he goes to work, scrubbing and grimacing. "Gonna add olives to my sleeve. For her. Her name's Zayith. It means olive in Hebrew."
Her. That unicorn again. In a way, that unicorn always. Itzhak opened up in more ways than one when he came back from the Veil.
August huhs, brow furrowing. "She had a Hebrew name." Something about that seems curious to him. He turns it over in his mind. "It makes me wonder--if our world doesn't shape theirs, in some way. We have unicorns, you met a unicorn over there. Her name is a word in one of our languages. Did unicorns come from there, or did we put them there? Did we get that word from there, or did it become used there because we used it?" More scrubbing, then, "Or maybe it's even both, in some weird way."
He peers at Itzhak's current sleeve while he washes, as if imagining the olives among the current design. "Thinking, a twig and some leaves too? Or just the fruits?"
"Right? It's weird, right? Are there Jews over there, or did we just dream her name somehow?" Itzhak has no modesty at all, just letting everything hang out.
There's something odd about his chest, which is made clear when he takes the perfectly-matching-toned concealment tape off. He has nipple piercings, bars with balls on the ends.
"Branches, leaves, fruit...do olives have flowers? They must, right? I have no idea what that looks like, but flowers too. Just like the pomegranates, at least if it ain't too busy." Itzhak goes on, rambling. "I left space for more of the Seven Species, so there's room, but yannow, have to see how it'll look."
Either August is really good at stealth glancing, or he's not looking. It could be either, given the givens. If he's not looking, it's not obvious; his eyes don't stay locked firmly above Itzhak's waist at all times. They wander as he thinks and talks.
"Yeah, they're small flowers." August holds his thumg and index finger together to illustrate, and he means really small. "Grouped up in bunches, white or yellow. Should go really well with the pomegranate for color."
His eyes linger on the nipple piercings. "Why do you cover them? Do they get irritated?" Tattooed and scarred though he may be, August knows nothing of body piercings.
"Yeah," Itzhak says absently, "plus they show right through a shirt. Gotta save that for the right audience, yannow what I mean."
He can be so weird like that. Embarrassed and complaining when the others tease him, but bold as brass about a lot of things most people find embarrassing. Awkward about getting into a relationship, forward about no-strings hookups.
Cupping water in his hands, he rinses off, splashing everywhere. It's like a dog is getting washed in here. "Anyway, I got a place in mind, I'll let you know how it goes. You text Ellie yet?"
"Eh, fair point," August says, of the 'audience' part. Though that's less so for tattooes these days, it wasn't always the case. Certainly the elk skull went on first because he knew it wouldn't be readily visible on the regular.
He starts the tub draining, watches the incredibly gross sudsy water drain away. For a second he debates replying to that question with, 'About what'. He can't manages to say it, though. "No, not yet. I shouldn't text her about this--just, go talk to her. What could I even text? 'Hey I was almost killed over There by a worm that looked like me but it's fine, how was your day'?" He runs a hand through his hair. That's going to be a hell of a conversation. At least they're not having it in the ICU, though.
He sets the tub to refilling. First layer of nasty shit off and he's finally feeling a little less like he'll keel over any second. "It's gonna scare the shit out of her," he says, voice low. He shakes his head. "Not sure I'm any good for her, if this is the kind of thing that's going to happen to me."
Itzhak frowns over at August. "I dunno, maybe like, 'there was a fight but I'm okay'? She mighta heard about it already, isn't she like Alexander, tracks this stuff? Someone mighta come into the shop and yakked about it."
That it's going to scare the shit out of her, he shrugs about. "Yeah, I mean, I'd be scared too. I was scared when I saw your car and Alexander was driving. Then he got out all fuckin' bloody and I just about had a heart attack. You two are on top of the list of people I don't want to find with punctures in their transverse colons."
He shoots August a preview of the look he'll later give Ignacio when Iggy starts talking about how he's useless without powers. "Really? Is that where we're going with this?"
August glances up from staring at the tub wall to Itzhak, makes a face, shifts his gaze out across the room. Reluctantly, he admits, "Yeah. That'd work. I'll do that soon as I'm done with this." Things August is bad at: how to send a text message about a situation which almost but not quite ended in tragedy.
He frowns at Itzhak about being scared, but it only lasts a second. His expression eases into something more fond. "Thanks," he murmurs. It helps him weather the subsequent Look. "She's--" He stops, ducks his head. "She's been through a lot, with this," he says, finally. "I don't know how good it's going to be for her, being with someone who's," he gestures with the washcloth, splashing the slowly-refilling water, "diving into it headfirst."
He leans his head back to stare at the ceiling. "I'm not going to not do it. I already know that. But she's been hurt, by what she's been through. I don't know that I should be the person bringing that back to her over and over again."
Itzhak grunts into a towel, drying off. He sniffs the towel experimentally. "I can't even tell if that worked or not," he mutters. "Good thing I don't got a date tonight. This is beyond the flippin' pale."
He tosses the towel aside, pulls up his pants, zips and buttons. The view is safe again. Sitting on the closed toilet lid, he rests an elbow on his knee and lofts his eyebrows at August in a bemused and annoyed fashion. Then, as he thinks about it, his expression changes. "Well, is she the kind of girl who isn't gonna break up with you if she's had enough?"
Water refilled, August tosses the previous washcloth aside for a new one. He rubs soap into it, gets to work on his chest and neck.
"I guess I don't know yet." He frowns, remembering their conversation from the Festival (yesterday, yet it feels like forever). "It sounds like her exes were more likely to bail on her first." He sounds pretty unimpressed with that.
Stopping to rinse himself with splashed water, he says, "I think I get your broader point, though." He cuts a look at Itzhak. "Unless she seems like the kind to not know when to get out, let her make that call?"
Itzhak clicks his tongue and fingerguns at August, like, you got it, champ. "She can probably figure it out, right? She knows all this shit happens. She's not--" ohhh he almost said 'not like Izzy' and isn't that an uncomfortable thought he needs to skim right past. He shifts his weight, tries to pick his point back up. "She's got fight in her, that's what I mean. Anyway, why would she dump you, you're the catch of the year around this town."
August narrows his eyes when Itzhak plainly doesn't say someone's name. It's a look of 'I saw that' coupled with one of 'as your friend I'm not going to ask about it'. He gets back to rinsing. The water isn't nearly as gross this time, so he dunks his head, scrubs at his hair. Ugh, get it all out.
"Yeah--she trains at the Kelly's gym, apparently. Kickboxing and stuff like that." Martial arts: the absolute furthest from anything August knows. "After an experience she decided to get prepared. Makes sense, I guess."
He rinses his scrubs at his face with the washcloth. Humanity somewhat achieved, he leans back in the tub, mouth flattening. "I think you've confused me with someone else," he says, and arches an eyebrow at him.
Itzhak slews his gaze away. It's probably painfully obvious whose name he didn't say.
Then, "Kickboxing?" he echoes, surprised, and a second later, pleased. "Great. Good for her. ...Confused you with someone else? Who?" he says, blankly. He's so oblivious sometimes.
August now blatantly does something he hasn't this entire time: he gives Itzhak a once over. And then tilts his head, expression one of the fakest possible innocence, shakes his head. "I wonder, who that could be," he says.
Itzhak's eyebrows sloooowly elevate up his forehead as August looks him over as one does a sexy man. A flush creeps up his neck at the same pace. He turns his head away, sharpish, folding his arms. "Uhhhhh....Christ, Roen, don't give me that look. I got all I can handle with you there and Alexander in the other room." He snorts and rolls his eyes, now understanding August meant him. "Please."
August looks like he definitely doesn't want to stop with the look, but he does in fact leave off, gets back to rinsing himself. He laughs about himself naked in a tub in one room and Alexander naked and showering in another. "Yeah it's a field day in here right now. Hope Finch can't do the," he rubs his fingers together, meaning psychometry, "thing or she'll get an eyeful."
He flicks a glance at Itzhak as he does a final round of cleaning off. "Please, huh? Don't sell yourself short. Sure, you're not perfect, but who is. You've been through shit," a shrug of his right shoulder, the good one, "so's most of this town on account of this thing we have. And yet," he puts his arm on the edge of the tub and half-turns, but doesn't look at Itzhak directly, just in his periphary, "here you are. Trying your damnedest and looking good doing it." He raises both his hands in a 'what do you expect me to think' gesture, lets them fall and splash into the tub. "And, you're younger. So I'm pretty sure that makes you the catch."
Itzhak scoffs wordlessly in Yiddish. Guilt and fear burns in his belly, but it's easy to cover for it with mock-disgust.
If you knew. If any of you knew.
"Sure, Gray Frikkin' Harbor's most eligible bachelor, right here. You done yet? They're gonna think we're making out in here." Sass comes naturally, covers up more than Itzhak's guilt. It's also good for the tension between him and August, sexual and otherwise. Clears the air.
<FS3> August rolls Mental: Success (7 7 5 4 4 4 2 1)
For just a second, August's expression shifts, and there's a flicker of a suggestion that he felt that. Not the specifics, but certainly the intent. And his response is the briefest hint of, It wouldn't matter.
Then he snorts, rolls his eyes. "You wish," he says, just like he did a week or so ago in a text. He sets the tub to drain, preps to rinse off with the drencher. "Unless you want a show," he waves his hand at the door, "show yourself out."
Itzhak catches that. The kything between the two men offers them a bond that seems to linger. He ignores it, because he knows it's not true.
It would matter.
Catching and ignoring happens in a microsecond. Itzhak's already standing up. "Get you ya clothes." Before he opens the door, he looks over at August. "Glad you're okay. Don't get chomped in half again for a while, huh?"
Then out he's sauntering. If he's hoping Alexander is around to see him with his shirt off (and nipple piercings showing), he manages to keep it to himself.
Tags: august itzhak social