2019-08-10 - Soap and Sanctuary

It would have been a long walk along Bayside to get back home, so rather than take that route Byron opts to visit a closer location. By the time he arrives at the pawn shop from Addington Park, it's in the late afternoon to early evening time frame. One look at Byron and anyone can see that at some point during the day, he was dressed up in some sharp weekend suit jacket and tie get up. Rather than the dark business colors that he tends to wear, his jacket USED TO BE a nice tan color while his dress shirt was once white. Now rather than wearing the sickly sticky jacket on his person, he has it draped over and down the back of his right shoulder. Not even his black slacks are stain free. Or his tie. Or anything about him. He seems to be covered in this gross goo and possibly blood due to that tear that can be found through the shirt right at his chest. Clutched within his left hand is a dufflebag, one that he'd pulled out from his car before making the journey here.

He strides past the temp at the counter. Not even saying a word to her nor does he look in her direction. His sights are set on the backroom. He's not exactly sure if Lilith would be found in the office or her loft, but something tells him that she's upstairs, so that's where he's headed. There's a light rap at the door when he gets there, "Lil. Can I use your shower?" It's an odd request.

When Lilith answers the door, the music is on a moderate level of random variety, currently running a nice Postmodern Jukebox cover of the Radiohead song Creep that she used to like so much back in the day. She's wearing a black tank top with a little pair of hot pink lounge shorts complete with bare feet and her hair is kind of lazily twisted back into a heap and secured with a clip to keep it out of her face and food while cooking, no doubt. The kitchen counters have items all cut up and awaiting their own turn at the pan over the fire and she's eating a red popsicle that's staining her mouth and lips when she opens the door.

When the door is open and she sees Byron after a blink with opening at that odd request, the popsicle held in her mouth, her eyes widen with up and down survey roam for a moment before she backs up one step, then another, then another to let him inside. She does that without breaking the study or, you know, being in hugging range, considering, and eventually she pops the popsicle free from her lips to speak, "... the hell, Byron?" She doesn't hang around staring much longer, she goes to close the door behind him and lock up immediately the second she sights maybe-blood somewhere in all that ick and her eyes go from surprised to serious and concerned.

After locking up, she remembers she's cooking and jogs across the house with sudden hop-to so she can turn the flame off before retrieving a laundry basket to bring over for strip down, "Are you okay? Are you hurt?" First things first.

When the door opens, Byron tries to flash Lilith this charming smile, but he's not really feeling it. He looks completely drained, there's this dullness to his eyes as he carries himself further into the shop. His oxfords are kicked off, the socks damp from... whatever has soaked through much of his attire. He's grateful for that laundry basket because in goes the suit jacket, quickly followed by the tie that he begins to undo.

"I am not going anywhere near that carousel at Addington Park... or Disney Land ever again." That's how he starts this. It doesn't explain the state of his clothes or what that gunk is in his hair, but it doesn't need to! He does add in a follow-up, "This entire afternoon gives a whole new meaning to the term earworm. It's a Small World kept playing over and over again." He continues to speak as he peels the dress shirt off of him. Out of all of his articles of clothing, that's the one that's soaked by whatever he's coated in. When the shirt is removed, there are signs of a wound. A small one. Looks like teeth marks right at his chest.

"You could feel it in your head. The song. The earworm squirming." He's still in a bit of a daze when he says this, but his brows lift with some animation. "It was squirming around in our minds. I saw some parts of them sticking out of Clayton's nose. Others had them in their throats. I had to tear mine out of my god damn ear and believe me, it didn't want to leave my head. It's like it sunk its teeth in my... brain."

Lilith starts listening very keenly to Byron with concern, standing there somehow finishing her popsicle while he's completely disgusting. She doesn't seem to be enjoying it, though, she's just kind of eating it down in a bit of a hurry while waiting for him to strip down so she can see the extent of his 'okay'. But then the story turns and the popsicle is completely given up on by the end of what he's trying to explain while still trying to process all of it, himself, no doubt. Her nose screws up just a touch and she shudders visibly when he says he had to downright pull a worm from his ear.

After staring a little longer, she looks at her popsicle, then the little mark blooded on his bared chest with a little set of her teeth together on edge. Gradually, her brows knit down like even that small skin marking offends her and if he wasn't stripping down from so much ick, she'd probably be right on him to fix it. Instead, she pulls in a breath, goes to throw her popsicle stick in the trash while grabbing at her phone to turn down music quite low. Then she immediately goes to start the shower to running and warm so it's ready for him, "Okay. Okay. You're okay. Good." She sounds like she's telling herself that as much as him, honestly.

Then she carries on while making that bustle around the loft apartment to get things ready for him, "Here's what comes next." It's not that she's being bossy, she just knows firsthand how disorienting these things can be, unfortunately, and making things linear just seems like the best way to deal with them until it's time to be still and really process and explain, "I'm going to start your clothes in the wash and you're going to shower. Then when you come out, you're going to have a glass of wine and sit in the Hugh Hefner robe. I'm going to look at your chest then. And at some point we'll eat and talk. But right now..."

Lilith pauses and gives Byron a small smile after stepping out of the bathroom, ticking her head that way subtle now that the water is running, hands rubbing just a touch with anxious relief at her hips, "I'll bring the robe in and some towels."

It's as if Byron could still feel it. The worms teeth digging into him, fighting to remain inside of his head. The belt is first loosened before he leans forward to slip one leg out from within his dark slacks followed by the other. "They took our forms once we tore them out of us. They grew and turned into each of us. Like our doppelgangers. They wore the same clothes, hell, the one that was supposed to be me was wearing sunglasses like mine." In fact, those sunglasses can be found with his lighter and cigarette in the various pockets of his suit jacket in the basket. He's more mindful to remove his phone, wallet, and keys before tossing his pants into the join the rest of his clothing. The random items he sets down on a nearby counter. Then he removes his watch, it was a thick gold one today. This is placed beside his phone.

The gross set of clothing may be off of him, but the worm blood and guts still stick to his now bared skin. He's being polite enough to leave his worm guts stained boxers on for now, scooping up the duffel bag handle to carry it with him into the bathroom. "I wasn't about to sit in my car like this just to drive home, so I walked here. It's a good thing that I normally carry extra clothes with me." In the case he planned on going to a gym or out for a jog usually.

Before he disappears into the bathroom he stops to look over his shoulder at Lilith, "Sorry about the mess. This isn't as bad as what we ended up swimming in in the sewer..." Or it didn't smell as bad, but it did have a strong smell. "But you've got the blood and guts of some worm version of me in your house now." He then steps inside, "You're welcome." She can then hear the water turning on once the door closes.

"... for better or worse, babydoll. I can handle your wormy doppleganger guts if means your real guts are still intact." Lilith says to Byron before the door closes with a vague hint of her smile spreading up into something real and fond instead of just a small bit of reassurance and relief. At least he's joking about it. That's good. But the nature of what she's heard of the story thus far kind of leaves her standing there looking at the closed door like 'what the hell' for a good few heartbeats. After wetting her cherry-stained lips, she blinks it off with a few quick bats of lashes, then looks at the laundry basket.

First she goes to get fresh towels out of the dryer, though, to leave in the bathroom once Byron is in the shower, and wouldn't you know, he even has his own toothbrush from the spare pack here from last time things got gross in the sewers and a few overnights, so that's a nice option. She also puts the Hefner robe in there just in case he opts to lounge instead of dressing right away into whatever's in the duffle, because it's maybe a nice option too. Honestly, she might be looking mentally for excuses to go back in there like she's reassuring herself he's there and okay. She resists the irrational urge to flip the toilet seat lid down and sit in there with him while he washes the day off and then some.

Instead, she starts the laundry immediately and opens a window to let fresh air in and the remaining malodorous scent in the air out, then goes to light a couple of candles. The apartment is back in order, at least, and whatever she was cooking is resumed so she can dump red wine in with the sausage chunks, tomatoes, garlic, onion and herbs. Then she tosses in the little bits of sweet peppers she had on the cutting board and lids it with the flame low so it can all simmer into sauce. She cleans up at the counter and sink, then pours the rest of the wine that didn't go into saucemaking into two glasses with healthy dosing.

When that's done, she gets a towel wet with a mild cleaner to take over to the door and his shoes to give them a good wipedown while kneeled by the door, waiting for Byron to wash, take his time, and come back out with a bit of a clean reset.

Byron is in no rush to get out of from beneath the hot spray of water that cascades over his body, feeling it dampen his hair, practically burning at his scalp. But it was a satisfying heat, even if he feels some of that worm goo rinsing down his face from within his guts soaked dark locks. He has his eyes closed, chin down. Just letting the first rinse run its course. This does remind him of the aftermath after their adventure into the sewers. Except he was alone.

He hears the door open when Lilith places a clean towel and a toothbrush nearby, his head turning to look her way through steam and water. All in all, he was still trying to recover from the fact that he had a worm crawling inside of his head. It was an utterly maddening sensation. He wanted to tear into his flesh just to get that thing out of there -- the way it squirmed all over, then growing bulbously thicker as he tried to yank it out of him.

He washes his hair. Twice. As well as soaps up his body. Yeah, there's no rush to get out. The heat felt good.

After a very long moment, the sound of the shower finally shuts off and he's drying himself off. He did bring a change of clothes, his running attire, complete with running shoes. But rather than having those stick to his body before it's completely dried, he slips into the robe. It was soft against his skin. Standing in the mirror, he now sees the faint marks that the worm had left. Very faint. He made quick work of that one.

After brushing his teeth and gargling twice, he emerges, his duffel bag still on the bathroom floor for when it's time to actually change. "Thanks for the towel. I was just going to use one of yours hanging up in there." He says with a laugh. He's in a better mood.

Lilith finishes with Byron's shoes about the time he's getting out of the bathroom and pushes up to go to the sink and douse the handtowel with soapy water to soak in. She washes the hell out of her hands, too, before getting out a spoon to stir sauce and re-cap the pan. It smells pretty decent in the loft now between the efforts she's made with window, candles, and inadvertently with food, the offending clothing items clearly running in the closed up utility closet with appliance purring behind. She turns off the Massive Attack song (Paradise Circus) that's playing as ambient noise she kept while waiting, then retrieves the wine glasses to carry to the couch indicatively.

"Wanted to smell me instead of goo, huh. Can't blame you, really. Honestly, a familiar pleasant smell is probably one of the best mental cues you can get if your senses work like mine tend to. Especially after... mm." Lilith seems a bit pleased that Byron's taken the robe option and she drops a knee onto the couch while waiting on him to come sit with her for unwind. "I know you're about to tell me I'm fussing and you're fine, but come post up and let me see your chest. It's... good practice for me and you're... the best person for it. It's easier with you."

After a moment of pause, her brows knit down a touch, "And I know I can't be everywhere with you at all times, but... I don't like you stuck and fighting those kinds of things without me. So I don't like you marked up. Did anyone else get hurt? You mentioned Alexander..."

Byron seems pleased enough, as well, to strut around in this plush bathrobe. While he may play dress up more often than not, he enjoys his own comfort as well. "Anything would be better than what those worms smelled like. Well, anything but sewage." He makes sure to correct himself. He drops down into the space next to Lilith on the couch, then draws open the front flaps of the robe so it gives her a better look of the faint bite marks that were once on the left side of his chest. "It just crazed me. I took it down quickly enough." Rather than sit upright, he lounges heavily back against his seat. "Yeah, Clayton was there. This... goth girl whose image Isabella showed me just last night when I visited her in the hospital. Seems like she," the goth girl, "gets into this a lot. I was told she took down Billy Gohl in this dream or something that Isabella was pulled into the Two If By Sea. Gohl's last stand there against Sheriff Addington of all people. And his posse."

"The botanist who owns that plant place was taken out real early. There were a few others there who I barely recognized." And then he finally says, something that he could've opened up with. "Carver was there. I helped take down /his/ doppelganger." The aroma of the cooked food catches his attention, though in truth, as hungry as he may be after exerting so much energy and having had only a cup of coffee since morning, just the fact that his head was filled with a long WORM thing was making him lose his appetite.

Lilith drinks from her wine glass and puts the other in Byron's hand once he's down and lounging while talking. She keeps at knee-planted turn on the middle cushion while watching him and listening, then after she's given him a moment to be settled as her eyes fix on the flesh marring, the woman puts the wine glass on the coffeetable with lean, "Is that what that was all about? I heard about something, texted Alexander yesterday and he briefly explained it was... a thing and who was in the hospital because of it. A 'posse' explains why people were talking about guns in Two By Sea too, I guess."

While settling into proper sit with angled turn on a hip toward Byron's open robe and chest, there's a vague lift of her brows when he concludes with the piece about Carver being present, then she blinks a couple of times before focusing with a fingertip running around the outside perimeter of the small teeth latch marks. Dryly, she wonders with a tinge of amusement, "Was it mildly satisfying?"

After her question, with lashes lowered to look at her fingers, her head tilts minutely, as if she's seeing Byron's bared chest and the marks a bit differently or deeper, perhaps. Then after drawing in a slow breath with deep hold, she exhales gradually with relaxing and twitches up the barest of smiles for some reason. Her fingertip tracing the marred place is replaced with gentle flat and stroking graze of her palm and fingers in full like she's caressing the tiny leftover of a lot of terrible away, leaving smooth skin in wake given how minor it was.

Byron accepts the offered wine glass and downs half of it in his first 'sip'. Alexander being mentioned again in a far different scenario than what he'd already brought up, has his gaze settling in on Lilith for a quiet moment. "Is Clayton your go-to person for everything you hear on the news now?" He asks. There's an oddness to his tone, but it's once the question is asked that he actually looks away from her returning to nurse at the rest of his wine for now.

Then as they discuss, his shoulders lift into a shrug, "Not as satisfying as I'd hope. Or I would've made quick work of that one." Instead of the one in his own image. That one didn't stand a chance. "It was certainly as bothersome as the real deal. That much I'll say. But in the end, even that doppelganger was destroyed." All that he does now is watch Lilith work her magic. In his mind, there was barely anything to be seen there. And his bared flesh isn't perfect. There's many an old scar that he still carries with him. Some from his childhood and youth while others... whatever business he had in L.A. brought upon a few of them.

His gaze looks from her fingers to his chest and back and forth every so often. "It's okay. I.. I don't think it would've become infected." He plays it off as something that hadn't crossed his mind, when it actually did at one point. "But thanks."

"Not really, but I figured he'd know since one of the names mentioned at the bar was the police captain. Seemed like something he might be all over if the police captain is getting carted to hospital. It's just who I thought to ask while walking home." Lilith tells Byron with a little shrug of her shoulders at the Alexander bit, still pretty focused on his chest for a moment and her hand resting right below where the broken skin was prior. After a moment, she bats her lashes and slips her hand to readjust his robe for him with tiny pat after his thanks, "... no. It would have been fine. But I wanted that too. I didn't get to mend what I did to you, before."

The woman lifts her eyes to smile some at Byron, then draws in a breath anew before she leans to pick up her set aside wine glass to cozy in with, vaguely slanted with lean toward his side while he lounges. She's not leaning on him quite, but she's definitely right in his personal bubble, "Anyway. What were you doing when all this broke out? And is August being taken care of? He's nice. He sent me fancy rice in the hospital." She pauses, "He... doesn't like hospitals." She knits her brows, suddenly, remembering that tidbit with memory of conversation and part of her understands exactly why considering certain unspoken likenesses that have nothing to do with them as people.

After drinking from her glass once she's posed questions, she reaches her free hand to automatically adjust some of Byron's wet hair.

"From her file," Which Byron illegally took a look at, "Isabella was in really bad shape when they brought her in. Multiple gunshot wounds. But she's being well taken care of. When I visited her, she was awake and was seemingly fine." That, to him, only hints of a 'magic'. It's difficult to know what to call it. Powers? Abilities? Magic sounds about right. He then says something that's been on his mind since that night, "She let me see what had happened that night from her point of view." It's like how Alexander had shown him the image of the burning mortuary (his first taste of it) and then how he cast that same sort of illusion into Lilith's mind in a far lesser extent. It seems to trouble him. This feeling of letting someone into your mind. But that's what people like him tend to do.

And yet, he only sent a simple image to Lilith, that of Dog. Not an entire scenario from memory.

"It was chaos." He ends in that.

She can feel the steadiness of his heartbeat when she's tending to him, something which would have quickened in pace at his telling of having his mind opened to Isabella's illusion. "I was visiting a few shop owners in downtown. And despite it being the weekend, I tend to work weekends. I got a cup of coffee, took a stroll through Addington Park. That's when the song from that carousel was like some lure that drew us all to it. I haven't ridden than thing since..."Sometime in high school probably. "Since before I left here."

Though when she brings up August giving her fancy rice, he asks, "... just a bag of rice? Not a rice plant?" He's only met the guy once before today and has no real opinion of the man.

"Anyway, I don't know happened to the guy." He's not afraid to admit. Strangers are usually none of his concern at the end of all of this. "He was down for a while. Carver might've been tending to him." There's this lift to his shoulder. "After that, I don't know where he was taken. All I did know was I wasn't taking him there."

"Oh. No, it was cooked with saffron and other things. I sent him some of the saffron crocus imports that Grant sent to the room while offloading. I figured he was in a better position to appreciate them. So basically, I ended up eating what I was sent, which... mmhm. Something like poetic revenge in that somewhere, literally eating what he sent to be fawned over." Lilith explains to Byron more clearly with a little set of her mouth after she nods at the status report once other things are imparted as answer. Her brows stay a little knit down as things sink in, though and start to come together in story form with the way things have been told at various times in piecemeal prior to couchtime.

She can tell Byron is getting a little worked up for one reason or another, on some subtle level given proximity and general old familiarities and senses. And who can blame him, honestly, "Mm! Speaking of rice, we are -not- having linguini with what's on the stove. We're having rice now. It'll be just as good." The less wormy the food, the better, no doubt. And she just accidentally brought up Grant, which is the last thing he wants to hear about. After eyeing the man a moment, Lilith leans in to start smothering his cheek with a few playful kisses, "Keep talking. Get it all out, helps you put the weird somewhere, thinking through as you talk."

Then after the chaste and doting kisses to try and bolster him back to baseline with affectionate attention, she rises with her wine glass to go stir and start rice real quick like while listening, eventually returning when the cooker is set to timer and the flame is turned off.

"I don't know." Byron starts, still lounging around in that bathrobe. "If that had happened to me and some girl I gave flowers to told me that she had them cooked and eaten them. I would've just told her 'You're welcome'." He has no reaction to her bringing Grant up. Nothing outward anyway. There's no seething, no narrowing of his eyes. Instead, he continues to relax and enjoy the rest of his wine. And in truth, if he wasn't getting into his own car after the worm incident, he wasn't letting injured folk covered in work goo get into his car. So either way, he feels justified for his selfishness. Though it's a very different approach from the Byron of old. The Byron who kissed up to almost everyone because he felt he needed to. He was always there to help. The new Byron picks and chooses who and when he does so.

There's some relief to know that he wasn't going to be served stringy pasta, but those worms... they were hardly stringy things. They were thick, pulsating, squirming masses of grotesqueness. The mention of pasta does make him reflect back on that though and all he can think about is how it felt to have that thing inside of him and the horror he felt when trying to yank it out.

There's a smile that he shares with her when leans in close to plaster his bristled cheek with kisses. "I can't wait. I might say that a man can live only on coffee. But even I know that's a lie." She wants him to talk and it's an awkward thing, even though the Byron she used to know was quite a talker. He made friends with everyone. "I didn't get a chance to bring it up, but the other night something weird happened. I was struck by this intense fear all the while hearing voices in my head, like someone talking to another about this thing they were planning to do. The speaker said that he was 'willing to take the risk', ending with 'the house is a rental, anyway'. It took me a while to try to figure out what I just experienced. Even began looking through news articles about any incidents surrounding any rental houses in recent days."

"Hmm. You know. That almost sounds something like what I sometimes do in my sleep, just... your abilities are different, so maybe you're accidentally listening to people or catching old echoes while..." Lilith shrugs a little at the flower bit while settling because it's not like she's going to tell Grant anything anyway, it can be a secret revenge just fine. But as she settles back in and brings a new bottle of wine over to top him off before topping herself off and putting it on the coffeetable, she stops talking and says a little slowly, "But you were awake, weren't you? And you wouldn't be nagged by it if it were something that just happens sometimes."

Lilith kind of backpedals right in the middle of trying to figure out how Byron's odd occurrence might have come about, because honestly, it's just what she does, she tries to figure out the 'how' and 'why' of everything a bit inadvertently. But the slow down logical supposition while she watches his face draws her into thoughtful, vaguely bothered silence. She shifts some in seated position to fold a leg under herself and finally does lean in against Byron's side with cozy up while visibly thinking for a good few heartbeats.

Then she tips her head and face up to suppose, "Good place to start. Maybe nothing has happened... yet. But something about that..." She pauses, "I wonder what kind of risk is negated and handwaved by something serving as rental property... I suppose it could be a vacant rental property. Might not hurt to look at houses that are currently for rent either, and who might be the rental owner or agent. See if any names or locations jar you as... I don't know. Strange or tied to other strange."

"That hasn't happened to me in years." Byron states flatly, "Accidentally reading people or things." Then again, he's often careful about touching certain items in the case that he accidentally gets a read on them. Thus the careful handling of the item which Lilith had given him just for the purpose of it being read. By now, he's grown used to her cord, no longer having this hesitation to even pick the thing up.

"I was awake. I was standing in the living with a glass of scotch in hand. The feeling was overwhelming and I was taken by surprise enough that I dropped the glass, having it shatter on the floor." He straightens in his seat, a hand rubbing at the side of his face before he focusing on one eye, his lids closed. "Isabella thought that it may be similar to the voice she'd heard on the night of her mother's murder. Right before she received the phone call that her mother was killed." He pauses, "Hers was even less informative. A woman, probably talking to someone, exclaiming '...on the same night!'" He pauses, "That's a difficult thing to figure out what it's referring to. But after she heard that voice, she received the phone call."

Just as Lilith leans against him, there's a bit of weight being partially placed on her. "I don't know what any of this means. If anything at all, but mine. I felt genuine fear. And that's what bothers me."

"Mm. That's... concerning, yes. It's one thing to hear something, it's another to feel horrible foreboding or fear. Do you know any one that lives in a rental house? Where is your mother living, in one of the apartments now?" Lilith wonders that of Byron with a bothered expression, though she kind of knows his mother isn't exactly a huge source of concern to go causing such rattle and she doesn't say it and kind of answers her own question with logical assumption. It's probably just spurred by... well, the mention of the same thing happening right before Isabella's mother. And she just lost her own father. And Erin... really, parents are kind of dropping like flies, aren't they?

Lilith's hand automatically goes to rub at Byron's robed leg right at and above the knee with her free hand when she feels his slight push of likewise leaning counterweight, especially while he's talking about being afraid. The other nurses her wine glass for a sip, then another before she shakes her head a little bit, "It's so vague. Could be someone wanting to set a fire, or hide something bad, or... I mean, anything, really, without context. Ugh. This place." The woman sighs out a breath that breaks her calm, finally, with subtle huffed agitation for their general lot in life with where they live, especially with this on top of what Byron just experienced just hours ago.

Abruptly afterwards, though, she tips her face up to press another more pronounced pressure of kiss against one side of his bristled face before murmuring, "... you don't have to talk anymore. I know the point where walls start hitting. You ready to eat something? Timer's about to go off. Counter or coffeetable?"

At first, he shakes his head, though Byron probably knows people who live in rental houses. Not everyone can own their own place. But then Lilith brings up his mother and there's this momentary pause. He's perfectly still, there's not even a twitch of expression on his features. He relays, "She's living in an apartment in my building." Building A. There's just this touch of tension in his voice. His phone was with the rest of his belongings and probably should be wiped down of worm goo later. They were on his person when he was attacked. This also means he can't message his mother to inquire on how things are. He hadn't spoken to her in a while or had he paid her a visit. Far too much was going on his life, sparing her these heart-to-heart moments with her son.

"I wish I knew. And I wish it were easier to figure out. Just by touching something." Byron's at a loss of what to do to even look into things. "Especially if I'm not sure if it's something that just happened that night, something that happened in the past or something that will happen. If it's the latter... If it affects anything important to me, it's going to suck knowing that I had the chance to stop it. But we don't know what it's all about."

Then there is that last kiss and the words that follow is something that sets his mind to ease. It's difficult for Byron not to dwell on things. With his landing in his lap, it was a puzzle to solve. Just like the ring was. And the bones. Maybe the worms too.... but not everything is connected. For now, he'll try not to think on it, his cheek nuzzling playfully against that kiss. He even starts to rise after finishing off the rest of his wine. "I'll help you set the counter up. Then I'll get changed." The robe was comfortably, but he's perfectly dry now. "Then we'll sit down to eat. I am famished."

Lilith nods some and slants lips with smile against the playful nuzzling of Byron's cheek in return gesture. The woman then eases out of her pressured and lingering talk-through kiss into his skin and bristles that shifts some focus to let him think about eating and mentally breathing for a while. She rises with him, going for her phone on the way with wine glass in hand, and she hums while turning the music back on low. She leaves the no-conversation tact on and lets the man do something normal and comfortable with her. And she kind of eyes him while he helps her set up the counter before going to change. Because the song...

Nothing's gonna hurt you, baby. As long as you're with me, you'll be just fine.

Nothing's gonna hurt you, baby. Nothing's gonna take you from my side.

Lilith and Byron may confuse, stalk, obsess, guilt, hate/adore, and infuriate each other from time to time. But here's the thing-- right now, the woman is feeling an irrational, small amount of guilt about not being there to protect the man even though he's perfectly fine and it was out of her hands. Not to mention he can probably defend himself, but what's the point of having such immense powers if she can't protect what's precious? Lilith has a keen need to defend Byron when he's put up against the terrible, and she wants to fill the gaps to make him whole again when these things happen without her. He took care of her so long.

The woman also knows that no matter how ridiculous these matters come across when given words, they're all potentially deadly and there might be one day when neither of them pulls through in the end.

So, when the man goes to the bathroom to change into actual clothes after they've set the counter, she could get her phone and check on Carver, but she hasn't heard from him since the beach. And she could check on August, but she's not ready to play insisting house call if he's avoiding the hospital. Because Byron's right here and he's all of her attention right now. Instead, she hums along, dishes food onto the waiting plates and settles down with a bunch of car printouts to show to him while eating because she wants his opinion on the very needed new car. And because... it's perfectly normal conversation. Like she said. She knows when the walls start to hit. She's not about to make him bounce around between them trying to make sense of anything. Not right now.