2020-08-14 - Crash and Burn

"Get off the counter! Shoo!" Lilith is fighting with the cat and it makes her leave the steak on a minute too long on the side she's searing. It's a big and nice porterhouse, it needs to be perfect, but it won't be perfect because of this moment. The fluffy beast is NOT allowed on the bar or counters, this is a barter agreement in exchange for free roam and seating on the coffee table, end tables, and piano, they've had conversations about this over and over.

"Miaooooow!" There's complaint back from the cat who has clearly jumped on the counter to get this lady's attention, but seeing as he's being fussed and and air-swatted at with a set of tongs, complete with creepy crabby clicky noise afterwards, he jumps down. Instead, as the woman turns back to the stove to flip the steak, it starts to run circles around and around her ankles and legs, downright head butting her.

"You already ate! I'm trying to eat. Can I eat? Can your 'daddy' eat?" Lilith only really calls Byron the cat's 'daddy' when he's not around to hear it because it's disgustingly cutesy and highly unnecessary, but at the same time, it's weird to talk about someone by first name to a cat. Or to talk to a cat in general, but still... one of those things is weirder than the other. The steak still has two minutes. Byron is in showering and changing, should be coming in at any time, she's already set the table, the salad is out, the wine is poured, if she can just get these steaks right, she can take the potatoes out of the oven and slap it all together, finally.

"MIAOW-OW-OW!" This stankface tomcat makes a terrible wail when he wants something, but seriously he's eaten, this thing will gorge himself til he starts throwing up because he was a stray so long. Lilith imitates it with the whiniest noise SHE can make right back at the cat while trying to navigate toward the oven, stepping over the circling annoyance of fur in the way. While her back is turned, it jumps RIGHT onto the side counter by the stove where her tongs are to knock them on the floor. Then it takes off before she can unleash the wrath.

But that's not what Lilith does, even though she about drops potatoes to turn and look at the clatter, "BYRON! Save your cat!" She has to stop to rinse the tongs off now, the steak is on too long on this side as well. She can't tell until she flips it onto a plate and checks it with a knife. Then she cusses because he likes bloody meat, not medium to medium well. It's a perfectly fine steak, but now it's stupidly cooked. After a sigh, she yells across the penthouse again, "Actually, he ruined your steak, kill the cat!" She's probably not serious.

The cat is on the piano when Lilith turns to look through the open concept toward the hallway that leads to the bedroom. He must be on the phone if he's not answering back. She sets the table and the cat leaps onto the dining table and flicks his tail into a wine glass on accident to leave splattered mess before she can grab him. He almost knocked the whole damn glass of red liquid on the dinner plate to drown the food in booze. Lilith lets cat dangle for agitated inspection, "... why do you hate me?"

She gives up on yelling for Byron, he's on a call, surely, so she takes the cat in arms and listens to it complain while carrying it toward the hall bathroom, "Time out."

She passes the bedroom, it's empty, she drops the cat into its cat bed in the guest/hall bathroom, she passes the closed office door on the way, the open empty guest room, then the empty master bedroom again. She gets all the way to the piano again, almost to the table on a mission to get new wine for the meal. Suddenly, in her tracks, she stops. She looks over her shoulder at the hall. Is he in the other bathroom still?

She's afraid to look, fear replacing agitation. But she does it anyway. After a zombified autopilot of silently looking there, then the apartment over for Byron, she comes back down and sits on the piano bench sideways, afraid to let herself move or feel too much in this moment. The wine glasses on the table shatter anyway and she doesn't even flinch, she has to allow herself some kind of steam vent and it was the last breakable thing she remembers seeing.

Byron is gone.

While Sundays are for rest and relaxation for some, that's not always the case for a man like Byron Thorne. It often meant that he needed to make sure that documents were looked and signed and proposals were ready for presentation for when Monday rears its ugly head. And he had several things on his agenda to propose. He owned a luxury apartment building and co-owned a grand casino and here he was, still playing the part of an entrepreneur, working on the next big thing.

Most of the day was spent in his home office, answering calls, looking over everything from new tenant applications to retail lease applications for the casino. Lilith or the cat would drop by from time to time with snacks and refreshments or in need of pets, so the day wasn't all that dreary, despite being trapped indoors on what looked to be a wonderful Summer day from the view from his window. Then Lilith returned from shopping, tempting him with a porterhouse steak just the way he liked it: Bloody Rare. And a kiss.

That was enough for him to shut his laptop down and get showered and changed for the evening. Undoing his tie, then unbuttoning his dress shirt, now that work was no longer on his mind, he could focus on the important aspects in his life. As he stood beneath the heat of the shower, his palms pressed against the wall while a heavy rain washed over him, head lowered as streams of water dripped through his hair and down his face, he thought about what he would say to Monaghan when the time came. It's difficult to determine what the crime-boss' mood would be, but Thorne was willing to offer a generous amount for Lilith's release.

Toweling himself off, he stares at the muddled reflection cast from the fogged up bathroom mirror, one hand reaching up to feel the bristles of his beard, checking if he needs a trim. It looks like he could go another day without one. What if Monaghan wanted his portion of the casino? First of all, that would be an insane thing to ask for, but Felix was all about the money. Squirting out some expensive moisturizer, he pats it down into his skin, his eyes on his mirror image once the fog starts to dissipate. Once dried, he moves from master bath to walk-in closet, opening up one of the drawers within to grab a plain gray tee, he moves to the next drawer, picking out a well-worn comfortable pair of jeans.

Maybe he'll speak to Joey, beforehand, get his take on what would be the best way to approach Monaghan regarding this. If anyone knew Monaghan best, it would be Joey Kelly after all. Standing before the full length standing mirror, next to the armoire, he seemingly admires his own reflection now that he's fully cleaned and dressed. There's no gel in his hair, leaving it natural as the still damp bangs brush against his forehead. This isn't the Byron that most people often see, outside of his circle of friends, as he tends to be dressed in a suit whenever he's out and about. But this was the casually, going to scarf down some delicious steak and potatoes with the missus look. They'll probably Netflix and Chill afterwards. Maybe.

That steak did smell good and Byron's stomach was beginning to growl. He ought to help Lilith set the table so that she doesn't get distracted from the cooking and overcook his rare steak. Running his fingers through his dark hair, giving himself one last check in the mirror, he starts his way towards the hall.

---

After jumping into that pool, his body both burning and shivering at the same time and wracked with excruciating pain that hits him tenfold now that the fear of Stephen Thorne was starting to become a faint memory, Byron is slumped against a dresser, his once clean clothing was drenched in this dark, sticky substance. It almost looks as if he had pomade in his hair. His mind still wasn't in the here and now and all he could see was the looming darkness as he ran for that one door. His knees were drawn up, nearly pressing against his chest as he slowly rocks back and forth, hands, crossed before him, move along the lengths of his arms to rub against the pain and irritation felt there.

He has no sense of time. How long was it? An hour? Longer? That's how long it felt to him. But in truth, he was gone for around forty-minutes, give or take. There's a sound that can be heard from the bedroom, the dresser being pushed back, its legs scraping against the floor, when Byron lay heavily against it.

Soon Comes the Rise

Lilith tells herself that she is going to wait one hour to panic. The problem is, she isn't sure when she should start that hour or what she's going to do when that hour is up. But she knows what she's not going to allow herself to do. She resolved not to let fear of love's loss taint her love itself, not anymore. It's time to put that into practice. Admittedly, she's already broken wine glasses and made a mess, but considering what she can do, it's best that she let off pressure a little with release like that.

She decides to start her hour from the time she last looked at the clock over the stove while timer cooking. Lilith also looks at the clock now and does some estimating math. She will not panic until... 9:45pm. No, 9:50. No, that's too even to use as a number. Maybe she'll just play it fast and loose with this plan, she's not sure how long she can keep wits and the apartment in one piece the way time is already starting to drag. It's hard not to think the worst and imagine that This is It. This is The Time He Doesn't Come Back.

instead, while wandering occasional patrol, Lilith thinks (with moderate success) about all the things that Byron has been through and came out of fighting and strong in the end. He's smart, he's capable, he'll do what he needs to do and Come Back. The cat is mewling to get out of the bathroom, she obliges only because the noise prevents her from hearing the space properly for Byron's return. She's not sure where he was precisely in the apartment when he disappeared. She was distracted with her back turned, though she knows it'd been long enough for him to get through the clean up and man-care routine and expected him to pop out at any time. Maybe he wandered to the terrace to take a call, maybe he was in the bathroom still, maybe the bedroom, maybe he had to do something in his office before coming out, she doesn't know.

The piano bench gives her the best middle placement and view. Time drags. There's no television on, no music, the apartment is quiet more or less because Lilith has picked up the cat to cuddle and hold against herself while seated. She even takes him wandering around in her patrol pace of anticipation and nerves while looking to see if Byron has Returned. The surly-looking tomcat (who is not the most cuddly with Lilith unless the woman is asleep) is obliging. At some point she puts him down because he's heavier than a stuffed animal.

Dog. Dog is under the bed in the bedroom where it's been hidden and stashed by the cat for a good long while now. Byron got her Dog as a joke, but it turned into a way to still have him with her when she was alone, despite her pissy receiving. She hears Byron's voice, rich with humor and that hint of mystery when it comes to the subject of getting a dog, the right dog.

You already have a dog.

Lilith tries to find Dog since she can't find Byron and can't stand sitting anymore for ungodly slow minutes. She's just sat back down to hear the scraping from the bedroom she was in just moments before (where she did find Dog). She doesn't even care that it could be the cat, she was expecting to see or hear the man himself, not furniture. But she's driven to check on bare swift feet, still holding the stuffed dog as she walks back to the master to find Byron with a sudden reflex exclamatory gasp. The dark substance all over him isn't blood, she can tell that, but it's... disturbing given what she's heard from Alexander about his own injury she took care to recently.

The demeanor and position she finds him in is just as concerning as that dark goo and the fact that something is nagging her senses about him possibly being hurt in a non-life threatening way. She promised him she'd take caution when it came to injuries from these Dark Dreams that seem to be cropping up like wildfire, so similar to her own experience. She still has Dog when she drops into a kneel beside him, pressing the animal outward like a hug she knows better than to try and actually give him right off of the bat like this.

"... you're back, Byron. I'm here. Be still and breathe."

We will keep feeding.
We will taste terror, rage, and despair.
We will keep growing.

Those words echo within Byron's mind as he tries to piece together what just happened and where he was now. The last he recalled, he leapt into a mysterious pool of light after... who was that? What was her name? It's difficult for him to remember right now. Still disoriented by the change of scenery, feeling that last thread of dread reminding him of how much he still feared his father, the drenched businessman stares unblinkingly out at the brightly lit room. Recognition is coming back to him. He knows where he is, but does he trust the familiarity of this place to be truth?

He could breathe again. Finally. Byron was finally separating himself from the frightened child whose life he was forced to relive.

He was trapped somewhere with a Pusher and a Healer, just like the others. Wild eyes stare out at Lilith, hearing her voice, when he slowly turns his head towards her.

Hungry... hungry... hunnnngry. Babe?

Was this actually Lilith? There's no immediate reaction from Byron. No freak out. No trying to scramble back and away from her despite his back being pressed against the dresser as it is. No, instead he just stares at her, openly watching her with a frightened, yet scrutinizing gaze. Then? His panick-filled mind tries to read her. Is he really home? In his scrutiny, he notices Dog. But wouldn't They know about the stuffed husky as well? Yet, somehow, just the sight of the plush brought some comfort.

Byron is usually the solid and stable one in the face of a LOT of hardships, he's got some sheer iron will to power through and do it with upright posture and a set jaw. His bearing and composure and reactions to bad things aren't this, not normally. It reminds Lilith of how she must have looked to him, wild eyed and wary, crawling down the hall when he came to get her after 'killing' her.

She's not sure what happened to Byron in this dream, she sees the results, though, both physical and emotional, the dark splotches and soakings of sludgey liquid and the way he's having trouble getting reality fully back. She knows what that's like, she's dangerous, sometimes, like that because she can lash out in a moment of confusion and defense, still believing she's subject to tricks and traps.

Lilith doesn't notice Byron exerting to try and get a solid read on her, but with him desperate and panicked and relatively unpredictable, it's possible that her own body and mind has its own defenses up more than usual. There's some possible skimming that might give him some sense of ease, like Dog, but as the woman continues to watch him watch her, then look at Dog, then back to her, she wets her lips and stays still. She thinks about exerting, herself, to see how he's hurting physically, but if he sees her glimmering and doesn't know what she's about to do while his mind is paranoid like this... no.

She's wearing a lazy slip sundress that's pink with spaghetti straps and white embroidery on the hemline and part of the bust and neckline for decorative flair, a simple cotton thing. It's matching how she was in the kitchen, barefoot in her pretty little summer dress. Lilith has admittedly taken her hair down, though, to rake and tug through it while stressed, so that's a little different than his last image-view of her before everything changed for him. Instead of insisting with Dog, she quietly and slowly just puts it in against one of his legs to take or not take, or just look at, maybe.

Lilith looks at her hand then as they both go to rest atop her kneeling thighs. The engagement ring sparkles, Byron wanted something solid on her, she could take it off and put it in his hand, but taking it off to show doesn't seem right. She could put her hand over in his and let him feel it, but he's still unpredictable and dirty with an unknown substance at the moment. After a graze of her bottom teeth at her lip, she makes the decision to wait and give him time with relative silence beyond small reassurance once more.

"It's okay. Close your eyes again and do a hard reset. Breathe. Then open your eyes and look at my hand."

While Byron may seemingly be level-headed under stress, or is one who is able to bounce back quickly enough, he does have some triggers that throws all of his well-practiced composure out the window. Then there's the fact that he has shady ties and has lived that life before. This hit on Monaghan is the sort of thing that's always made him paranoid, knowing that he'd need to watch his back at any given moment; it didn't matter whether he was some street thug or that he's now rolling in cash. Though some of that stemmed early on, when Byron was a child. He was a Survivor. And he'll do anything to protect himself.

Breathe. She tells him.

She can see the frantic shifting of his eyes as they take in her vision from head to toe, looking at what she's wearing, her posture, her expression. Of course, he's frustrated when his mind is so cluttered with concerned thoughts, telling him to be careful. Things are not always what they seem. There's definitely distrust in his gaze. But his body felt like it was on fire.

Close your eyes again and do a hard reset.

Closing his eyes should be the last thing that Byron wanted to do, in the case that he is in the presence of the enemy. Or a trickster. But he felt tired, weary. Utterly and terribly exhausted. He's on edge and yet, the idea of closing his eyes seemed comforting and calming. It takes a while for him to follow through with this, afraid that once his eyes are closed, the true reality of his situation will present itself to him once they re-open.

Darkness Inside of his chest, his heart was pounding relentlessly. There was almost a fear of opening his eyes up again, but he does.

While he was in momentary darkness, he'd lowered his chin, perhaps being unconsciously persuaded to do so by her words. When his eyes do open, he sees the beautiful, glimmering stone on her finger. The one which he'd chosen for her. He blinks a few times, drawing in deep breaths through his nostrils as his jaw remains clenched tight. It was Lilith. Beyond the ring, he notices Dog resting against his boot and this is when he finally sets himself free, feeling every muscle in his body loosening so that one of his legs extends forward, his body weighing more heavily back against the dresser.

"Lilith..." He says after a sigh, his head practically presses back on the hard wooden drawers of the bulky furniture, eyes staring up at the ceiling. He takes in another breath. Without the need to look, his hand clasps over ring hand, giving it a desperate squeeze.

He remembers August and Kip. The dark rain. Being alone. Then... being lured by the temptation that Lilith was there. Stephen Thorne's voice and the cruel words which followed. The pain of having the light within him, the thing that made him special, being yanked from him, pulling him along with it.

He was back. He survived to fight another day.

"What... What time is it?"

Lilith is overwhelmed with relief she wasn't allowing herself to feel yet in favor of concern for Byron's present state on his return. It's just not generally how he drops out of these things, and that in and of itself is gut-wrenching, to know how bad it must have been for him. She doesn't ask questions about 'it' yet though, with every bone in her body, she's staying still and quiet with ease she's trying to project, even as he's orienting. It's very tempting to grab him once his hand clasps over hers, but again, once he realizes what he looks like, he may not want that, and depending on what's on him, she may not either.

It's also hard to blink back the threatening mist of tears, but she plays that off as glossy-eyed affection. Not that it's hard. It's genuine. Anyway, he's looking at the ceiling now.

Staying in that kneel, Lilith leaves her hand in clasp under his so he can feel the cool stone pressing up into his skin from upon her finger with that tight squeezing. Then slowly, she turns it at the wrist to lace fingers with him as a holding anchor in lieu of launching into hug. Careful, careful, yet efficient and full of sentiment all the same. Her head turns to look across the bedroom, at the bedside clock, "9:42pm." Just shy of when she was going to allow herself to start panic. Maybe. It was kind of a shit plan, now that she thinks about it. But it kept her stubbornly whole instead of in pieces, admittedly.

The brunette looks back at Byron and wets her lips before speaking in quiet lull, "When you're ready, we'll get you cleaned up. You're in pain. I can't tell where without looking. I'm just going to look, okay?" Glimmer warning. That and assurance she's not slipping her powers and light into his body yet, in case of something unexpected that will stick to her too, she's wary after seeing Alexander's arm and hearing how it broke down from the inside with shadows or some dark poison or... something. He probably is too, but as she says, she just wants to look and she's making it clear in case her exertion sets his senses back on edge.

Slowly his thumb rubs over Lilith's hand, taking comfort in this connection rather than trying to reassure her of anything. Byron wasn't okay, even if he'll more than likely try to play it off as if he were.

Breathe

He draws in a silent breath. "9:42.." What time was it when he left? Nearly nine if he recalls. "Hmm." The sound is thoughtful and gruff. There's very little movement on his part now. It hurt when he moved. It hurt when he didn't move. "It was as if... that inner light inside of me was being torn out. I can feel it in my veins, on my skin." He doesn't understand /what/ it was that he went through, never really thinking that someone could just suck out your light-- well, or that this is how it would feel. He'd always imagined that you'd feel some sort of cold emptiness, perhaps, if your light were ever snuffed out, but never imagined it would be this painful.

Byron would sit here for the whole night, enjoying the cooling air of the AC on his skin. Not moving an inch. Then, his chin lowers and while Lilith may try to hide the fact, he can see the wet glistening with her eyes and his immediate reaction is to reach out to her brush a hand against her cheek. But once his hand comes into view, he sees that he's still covered in the dark rain, so he stops. "I'm ready now, but I'll be a good patient and wait until you give me my prognosis." At least his humor is back. Searching for her gaze, needing to make eye contact with her, he tells her, "It's okay Lil. I'm okay. I think I'm okay."

Lilith listens to Byron try to make sense of what hurt him so, her head tilting a bit with rake of her free hand through hair to briefly grip. Then she lets go of the strands to card fingers down and through, blowing out a small puff of self-steadying air. She seems to need it after hearing that just as she's preparing to take a look at the damage, she has a feeling it's going to throw her, somehow, especially since this is Byron she'll be seeing it in.

As his hand raises and stops while he signifies readiness and tries to soothe her, she gives him a rueful little smile to the man, meeting his eyes, "You can touch me all you want after we wash you, mm?" Then she lapses into focus and it takes a lot of effort for her not to hiss like a snake and recoil at what she sees. No, it's not life threatening, but... it's strange, so strange and it's... she pauses to check the molecular substance of the goop on him and sees it's just filth of some kind, more or less, nothing infective or moving, not poison. It's a little comfort, at least, that keeps her from reeling.

"Byron. I have to heal you. This isn't natural damage, it almost looks like radiation damage. Internal burning. I don't know how it will mend on its own. But it'll be safe." She leaves out the part where she can see all his pain receptors flaring like fireworks in various places within where he's been.... seared. She's confused about how the flesh has no trauma, but then she thinks on his explanation again, "I can touch you too. This isn't poison, it's just stable matter and filth." Her hand comes out singularly to touch only at the side of his face, despite saying that. She knows pressured touch on some of his body will burn like the sun, motion is bad enough.

"Hold your breath. It will hurt at first."

He smiles when told that he can touch her all that he wanted once he was showered and clean again. "If I knew that this was coming up, I would've held off on showering earlier." Byron says lightly, brows lifted in mock exasperation, before following it all up with pained laughter. "You're only taking a look inside of me, okay?" He wants to make sure she knows this, despite the agony that he feels.

That said, he lets his outstretched arm drop to rest by his side as he shuts his eyes once more. He still hears Lilith's voice telling him that she was hungry, but he knows that that's not Lilith. Did the others make it out? They must have. That girl, Kip, she jumped through the same hole as he did. One that he'd assumed August did as well, unless he was caught up in the....murder tree. God damnit, that was an August set room. He wasn't going to worry about it now.

Eyes quickly opening when Lilith tells him that she needs to heal him. "That's exactly why I don't want you to heal me. We don't know anything about these Veil injuries. What that would mean for you down the line, Lilith." She /did/ help heal Alexander and the man's wound looked worse than Byron. She can tell that he's not happy about this news and she's not wrong about the amount of pain that prickles and burns within him. "Let's just... let's get me cleaned up and then we'll consider it." The pain was pretty intense that it made it harder to breathe. Not because of any pressure in his chest, but because he felt the need to gasp or wince every so often due to his body feeling on fire.

"It's not that the damage feels foreign, it's... okay. Okay." Lilith has to physically swallow the urge to keep pleading her case, he can see the thick way she does it when she pauses, knows the effort it's taking, but her over-eagerness to fix him is clear. She knows exactly how much pain he's in now and how widespread the internal burning and searing is. But she doesn't want to argue with Byron right now, first and foremost, she'll just have to hope that he gets more miserable than stubbornly protective. After a breath, she tucks it away and focuses on what he wants and needs for the moment.

"Come here, lean up..." The woman starts to reach with plucking fingertips for the hem of his gross t-shirt to start easing it off and over his head, instructions to go with it, "Lift your arms very slow and don't bend your limbs or body more than necessary. Let's make you smell pretty again. You'll be glad to know you still look amazing somehow, even while abused and filthy..."

Lilith is trying very hard and being very good about all of this, despite the bobbles of moments and hints to Byron she's struggling some to keep herself that way. What she wants or needs isn't on her mind so much right now (except that healing thing) and that helps some. Her teeth flash with brisk little smile despite herself, "Pretend I'm mistress again. We'll stand and I'll strip you down. And then we'll get you in some cool water, do you want a shower or bath?"

Perhaps Byron doesn't understand and he really is being stubborn about keeping her from doing anything which may draw attention to herself and her powers. He knows that he's in pain, something which he tries to hide, even if cracks ins his armor show with every false move or sudden flare up of burn. He really has been sitting here for too long and he's reminded of this when she helps him to undress.

Speaking of flare ups, it HURT to draw himself into an upright, non-leaning position. The movement was painful and she can see him wincing, teeth clenched as he quietly seethes. He'll do as she says though. No telling her that he can do it himself, because with how heavy his limbs feel now, he has doubts that he can. What he does think is that he just needed rest. "Is this better or worse than our fight in the sewer?" He'll bring that incident up here in the privacy of their own home.

Lifting his arms wasn't any easier. His every move is done tentatively , the pain clearly written on his face, the way his brow creases. "Good to know. I work hard to maintain this body." And that skin. And that hair. All of which is coated in... did she call it filth? Either way, he was now relieved of his filthy shirt.

Bearing this much pain, which felt like nerve damage all over his skin but cranked up to twenty, he wonders if he'll even get to sleep tonight. He could feel the agitation when just leaning against the dresser. There was pain everywhere. Everywhere that the light from the cube touched as it tried to grab his own light from within. He'll try to stand on his own, struggling to do so, but will accept Lilith's assistance which she's bound to give. Mistress Lilith... If only he were whole of body to appreciate some of that right now.

"Whichever will hurt less." He jokes when given the choice of bathing, allowing his frame to stretch out, but regretting it after doing so. "Fuck..." He hisses below his breath. "Is this the same or different than what happened to Alexander?"

"Scarier, less gross." Lilith decides for Byron after flicking the shirt into the hallway instead of toward a laundry bin once it's off and over his head. That's definitely for the burn pile she's secretly planning for all of these clothes while he's out of it and distracted or asleep... assuming he can even do that. She knows what's going on inside his body in that way of hers, color coded explosions and jarring kinetic damage patterns.

Despite herself, the brunette woman gives Byron another slip of smile (she really is grateful, despite his pain, pain means you're alive still), then goes for the button and zipper fly of his jeans, dropping all the way into squat and bend to slowly draw them down with his undergarments too. Lilith even hangs out down there to carefully guide his feet out of the ankle hems, then removes the clothing as an obstacle to pitch with the shirt, commenting quietly, "For a mistress, I am certainly doing a lot of bitchwork servitude."

It's far from complaint. So far from complaint, she can't even deadpan it, her big blue eyes turn up onto his dark ones to hold for a moment before she's rising to guide him slow toward the bathroom, body serving as a steadying post for balance while he makes slow and pained shuffle at her urging. Once in, she heads for the tub to turn on cool water with some wrist testing, but she doesn't stopper the drain yet. Eventually, she answers his question, kind of.

"I'll have to think about how to explain the answer to that. I'm doing that. But, let's get you in seated and rinsed. It can all run down the drain before we get you soaped and soaked cool." She has a cup under the sink somewhere she uses to dump water over her own head in the bath from the running faucet, instead of rinsing it with used soapy water, but she wants to settle the man first, "Do you think you were in the same kind of Dream as Alexander? Is that why you ask?" Their injuries don't look the same, so there must be something that has Byron making that correlation from his perspective, other than being internally strange.

She's not sure if she should be asking him to talk about it yet, but he has questions and they're probably related, so she asks hers too. She does so softly, though, as if giving him space to back away from the subject, most of the focus on his pending body care. How long she can go pretending like seeing him in pain is FINE though, who knows.

Byron might be able to joke despite the pain that he's in, though she can see the way he trembles when he stands. Maybe it's due to the pain. Or he's still shaken by some of the trauma. It's probably a mixture of both right now and even as Lilith continues to undress him, he'll sometimes zone out to stare off into the distance at nothing in particular. "Scarier? Because it felt like something was ripping the light right out of me? Is that what you see?" Not that he has any idea how that would look like in a scan.

On a normal day, if he's having his pants tugged down by Lilith, there would be at least a little lewd exchange and sometimes some action to go with that exchange. Right now, it's hard to keep his mind focused on that or anything.

He's easily led towards the but, watching as it fills. He can still hear Them in his mind. An unpleasant thought, really.

Into the tub he then goes. He could only hope that by getting rid of the muck, that it would wash the pain away too. When she asks about whether this was the same kind of Dream that Alexander was in, his response is a slow two nods. Two others were there. He keeps remembering this, before the plight of August and Kip are far from him mind, his thoughts on other things... like those voices. The Dark Men, or Shadows, he's not quite sure. Lilith's. His father's.

"It's a similar Dream to what you were a part of. What Alexander was a part of. It was me, August and a Russian girl, who we learned was like Rosencratnz.." Itzhak, August had said. "Three of us, all with different primary Talents."

While going to fetch the cup from under the sink, Byron is talking and while leaned over, Lilith has to close her eyes for a moment to regain her compose and do her own hard reset. That was a torture dream, it made her a monster, she was bathing in death and blood and... the dark and the words when she...

Soft breath puffs the woman's lips on straightening and returning to the tub, kneeling with lean alongside to fill the cup with water for first rinsing spill. One hand reaches to tip indicatively at Byron's bearded chin, so he tilts his head back, as she's starting from the top to let it all run down and drain away until water runs clear around him again. Again and again, she has a slow rhythm at the running faucet to fill and bring water to cascade over the man's hot skin, his injuries obscured from the physical eyes. The water is cool, not jarringly cold, but it has contrast with the heat on his skin too, until he adjusts.

She's tempted to heal him, to just push his pain a little, to blame the muck for his pain and say he's better when it's washed away.

"... three of us with... yes. Mine too." Lilith goes quiet to focus on working her fingers through strands of the man's hair while dousing it with more water, warning him as she spills some of it over his face to rub rinse his beard too. Then while filling the cup, she looks at the spiraling gray water going down the drain near his feet where the rinse is washing away. "You know how Draino works in pipes, right? It clings and eats the inside surfaces away to clear the muck. If you have fragile pipes, it can decay and eat into the metal itself and corrode it. That's why it's better to snake a drain."

Byron knows enough about apartment maintenance for tenants and work tasks himself to get this comparison as she's prompted by drain quite visibly. She carries on, trying to make it sound like she sees it, because it's hard, "Alexander had something sticky and poison that pumped through his veins and corroded them. Somehow, it was contained to his arm and must have been flushed away somehow, at some point. But corrosion damage was left behind through all the pathways that give blood to his muscles and skin, the bruising was from that, even without blunt trauma."

She wets her lips and looks at the drain again. Lilith really is putting thought into this as she says it, as if she's ruminating on the differences to stow away and mull over, "You didn't get pumped with Draino. Nothing clung and corroded you, it's as if your blood got too hot too fast and left marks. Imagine running boiling water down plastic pipes. You're seared raw in places on the inside where that bloodflow was at the time."

Explains why it hurt and continues to hurt as it does, at least. When the water is running clear, she stoppers the allegory-inspiring drain to let cool water rise for submerging. Then she soaps her hands with shampoo for Byron's hair, gentle with massaging wash, "... did it trap you?"

What did They do to you?

Lilith doesn't ask that.

As Byron sits there in the tub, feeling the rush of water surrounding him before swirling down into the drain, his thoughts go back to the Dream. They tried to use Lilith to lure him into that room; first, with the welcoming sounds of returning home and then her screams of fear. It wasn't only that. THEY KIDNAPPED LILITH FIRST. She'd gone through what he did, but different. Perhaps, far more different an experience than his. He's not even sure what August or Kip faced, having lost track of them so early. He remembers finding her after that Dream; she was covered in blood, her eyes full of trauma. Here is where Byron's features harden and though it hurts, his hands clench into an angry fist, the muscle in his arm contracted and stiff.

That quickly fades when she returns to his side, lifting his chin obediently when he feels her hand placed there. His eyes shut, his body relaxing as the clean water washes over him, through his hair, across his face, down the length of his torso. It was an odd sensation. The pain he was feeling was under his skin, but still he appreciated the sensation and being relieved of that filth coating him.

He keeps his eyes closed when she tries to explain, feeling rush after rush of water cascading over him. "They were trying to steal my light. Tear it out of me. To drag me into.."

"... did it trap you?"

"I was left alone in a room. The girl was swallowed up into a puddle first. Followed by Roen. I couldn't help either of them." When he recalls the events from memory, his voice is quiet, almost emotionless, "I was all alone, trying to find my way out when I came across a door and..." He stops himself, jaw clenching. "They tried to lure me in..." he swallows, "By making it sound like you were on the other side. Like, that was the way to go to return back home. I didn't fall for their trick, so they tried to pull me in, drawing out the light from my body to drag me to the cube. They failed."

The water in the tub rises deeper and deeper as Lilith washes her fingers through Byron's hair with sudsing of shampoo, then more rinsing of cup. She's afraid to drag the texture of a rag or sponge over his skin, in truth, and again, it's tempting to just wash his pain away in more ways than one. Especially when Byron explains where he ended up, alone without the others, subject to lures and... oh, the Dark. He was alone in the DARK and that wasn't just any dark, that was...

She refuses to think about it, because if she remembers too vividly, she'll want to rage knowing he's known that same Darkness now, on principle. Alone in it! Lilith isn't sure if that would be worse than whatever trap it wanted him to walk into. Both were probably awful. Maybe one was deadly, the way he's explaining the way he felt his light targeted. She can at least assure one thing, and she does so with a forward lean to carefully kiss the man's wet forehead before setting her hands to constantly soap and resoap as she slicks over his skin gently with friction of skin to skin wash.

"They failed." Lilith is satisfied by the way Byron says this, at least to some degree, because pride in him is creeping behind all her nagging concern and anxiety she's tucked mostly away, "But you are not missing any of your light, so far as I can tell." She's quiet for a spell after that, focus on his body and the cleansing, soapy caresses. But eventually, softly, she asks, "... if you were alone, what did you have to do to get out?"

It was dark, so dark, consuming dark, imagining him alone with it pressing close... she wants to crawl in the tub with him, dress and all and lay against his body and chest.

She knows she can't, though, not while he's hurt. With sober, pensive quiet, Lilith listens and rinses soap away in rivulets with more spills of flowing water.

This scene mirrors the time when it was Byron who had to bathe Lilith and wash away the blood that covered her from head to toe. She was taking care of him now, the way he'd done back then. Normally, a massage to the scalp would be a wonderful experience, but even with how careful Lilith is when lathering up his hair, he felt that hot, searing pain, be it her gentle touch, the shampoo or even just the water pouring over him. It's not excruciating-- the actual pain beneath his skin can be, but the bathing isn't making it any more unbearable.

Now he's trying to envision the dark room in which he was in. He could see the cubic spaces, or the outlines of them from afar. "There were four doors, the one nearest me was lit up. That's the one that tried to drag me in and I could feel my essence being torn out of me." He'd mentioned that part already, but he continues. Byron knows full well what came next, as he was struggling to crawl away from one door, another beckoned for him. But in the most menacing of ways. He recalls how he reacted at that point. It scared him even now, but he was also ashamed by it. The same way he was afraid of what his friends would think, as a child, if they knew how much of a coward and a crybaby he was. So he hid all of that trauma behind a gregarious persona. Industrious. Friendly. Helpful. Brave.

How brave was he then? In that Nightmare?

"I'd sensed the electrical currents around me earlier and decided to try and short them out in the hopes of..." When he started, he spoke with that same emotionless, stony-tone, but at the pause, he just has to shake his head, "I don't know what I was hoping for. But it worked. Two of the doors opened and luckily, neither were the ones surrounded by this choking Darkness. There was something terrible that way, I could feel it." And hear it in the tone of Stephen Thorne's voice. "In one of the open doors, I saw the girl, Kip, jumping into a pool of light, so I followed her. She'd found the exit. One of them."

Byron is making this account with a stoic face and controlled evenness to his tone and Lilith has to fight the urge to crawl into the tub and take his pain. Or at least, what she can take. She can tell there's things he doesn't quite want to say or think about-- Byron has limits about how much personal feeling he'll let out into the air. Sometimes Lilith does this with things, she thinks if she gives certain things air, it gives them more power, she gets it. And everything is quite fresh, she knows how time and space and trauma works together to make re-orienting to what's real an entire process of its own.

Sometimes they're left with too much overlap that takes time. And he's in so much pain even though he's not moving, it's like little lightning bugs dancing in Lilith's peripheral. The woman doesn't ask any more questions, she leaves him space to sit in quiet. He'll be comfortable saying more or he won't. Details might matter for the bigger picture, yes. Byron's health and well-being is top notch priority, though. Eventually, Lilith is finished washing the man and leans forward against the edge of the tub with her forearms in rested drape, chin atop them as she takes to watching him while he soaks.

"You hurt. You're not even moving and you hurt. If you won't let me heal you, how will you hold me? How will you sleep?"

Lilith tries to give Byron pleading eyes to help her logic along, but it doesn't work. She's too worried and desperate at the moment to pull calm adoration and earnest off in those expressive blues, she has no wiles to employ. Byron can see the other things instead, how miserable she is seeing him this way, which is the exact opposite of what she wants him to see. But these are fair and pointed reasons for him to let her give him some relief with her abilities. Her voice drops to a whisper, and it's not accusing at all, it's just fact.

"You would take my hurt. You wouldn't watch me in this pain. Let me hold you and purge the remaining Dark."

"Afraid to give your old man a go now that you're a big man? Weak. You're weak, son."

Byron was full of anger. Not towards his father, but anger towards himself. Stephen Thorne was DEAD, but why was Byron still afraid of him? Seeing his father's Charger parked outside of their family home also brought out the need for Flight rather than Fight. What did he have to do to get over this trauma... aside from facing the thing that he feared most?

Try as he might to come off as if he were perfectly fine, Bryon lapses every so often, so lost in his negative thoughts and memory that he misses some of what Lilith might have to say. Though right now, she seems to have fallen silent to, he'll notice, when crawls his way out of his head space to see those brilliant blue eyes o him. How long has she been watching him? That's when he realizes that the bath was over.

What she says is not a lie. He does freakin' hurt. Byron hurt all over, like electricity coursing through his body and this was not something he was able to control. Just the look in those eyes, he could see how worried she was. No, more than just worried. She was right about that too. At this moment, he did want to take her hurt away. Though it was a hard decision for him. If he agreed to this, he was opening Lilith up to Them. This would draw Their attention. And he knows that They would want her more.

Following some recent medical testing that he'd done in light of seeing Lilith's own scans, he asks, "What do you think the hospital will see if I went in there right now? I almost feel as if I were electrocuted, with the convulsions. Just the searing pain." This was more of a curious, yet rhetorical question and something to downplay the entire situation.

There, she can see it in his expression, that slightly vexed look like he's thinking, but he doesn't like this position that he's being put into. That intensity in his dark eyes, the set of his jaw. Even the way he exhales heavily through his nostrils. "Lilith..."

She does't receive an immediate response and his answer does not come easy for him, but soon his gaze lowers, followed by yet another sigh. "Okay. Because I don't know how I'm gonna spend the night without you. The last thing I need is to sleep sitting upright when I would rather have you in my arms." Only after those words are spoken, his chin still lowered, does he lift his gaze to look on Lilith again.

Lilith knows she's playing at something Byron can't deny if the tables were turned. And now that he's clean and has to start moving again, he knows it's going to be far more painful than sitting still, and sleep...? No holding each other after an experience like that? The woman admittedly still wasn't sure he'd relent, even in the face of all that. She almost expected him to say something along the lines of Lilith being worth the pain if it keeps her safe, but fuck that. She's glad he didn't, then she would have to wait until he eventually dozed out from sheer stress and fatigue and adrenaline come down. Then they'd possibly get in an argument about her being a sneaky glimmer-user against his will when he woke up. She'd use his own line against him too if he tried to pull that much stubborn hero on her, fair is fair!

Then she remembers he's given his permission. Begrudging, but permissive. Therefore, she does it her favorite way, because HE CAME BACK and because SHE CAN.

Lilith kisses the pain out of Byron, or at least the horrible and constant stinging severity of it. His body still has to do some of the work and it won't be comfortable, entirely for a while yet, but it's functional and feels more akin to a standard sunburn that's unseen. She keeps their lips meshed and breathes and brushes as much as she slow kisses, eyes closed to sense his body out with that buzz of pleasure-contact as a starting point and anchor for focus. Lilith fuels herself with her love and obsession and flares that light inside because Byron's worth any pain the world wants to give her in trade.

Ever thine, ever mine, ever ours.

... never Yours.

Mine.

Slowly drawing back after a shaky exhale of relieved breath when she feels his body respond, accelerate, and adjust, Lilith puts her hands out to help him stand, eyes intense on him despite what she says.

"... I'll use a lighter when I burn your clothes this time. It'll even out."

This little shit was just going to go outside and angry pyro his clothes anyway, wasn't she? Maybe it does even out.

Sure, Byron's a little annoyed by all of this, but in the end, he really did have little choice. Has he suffered through greater though? He spent a good portion of a month freezing from hypothermia which a heater and warm clothes did little to soothe. Back then, it was almost tempting to drink that soup, but he's glad that he refrained after learning what it was made of. Still, he couldn't be too upset with Lilith. She was healing /him/. And if she should be healing anyone, it should be Byron.

So while he may have given off this less than pleased look, his features soften. Just in time too, to meet her lips with his own, his still damp arms reaching out gingerly to hold her. It hurt to pull her into his embrace, but with each passing second things started to feel better. Rather than the constant pain of feeling his body practically burning from the inside, the intensity lessens to something more akin to the discomfort of nerve damage. Yes, it was still a burning sensation all over his body, but to a lesser extent. It was far more annoying than it was excruciating.

Needing to catch his breath after that passionate kiss, he retains this closeness to Lilith, his eyes not only admire her features at this distance, but he just can't stop looking at her. He knew that she would do anything for him, even at the risk of her own life. Slowly rising from the depths of the tub, beads of water spilling down his naked form, with her aid, he swings a leg over the tub's rim, pausing to blink when she tells him of her plans to burn his clothes. "What if I told you that was my favorite shirt?" He asks, teasingly. It was a plain gray shirt... and well-worn comfortable jeans. Those jeans may have been his favorite, but he puts up no protest. Instead, he leans in to get one last kiss from her before he dries off and changes into something loose and comfortable.

Reaching for a towel, he's reminded of something now, "I'm starving. Let's eat." If he only knew what happened to dinner...