Icarus | Z.M.

60 | Wash

(2/2 of the double update!)

Victoria Tomlinson.

"Just take my hand." he whispered. "It's going to be okay."

My eyes were downcast, at our feet on the bathroom floor. My arms were crossed over my chest and remained like that until he reached forward, pulling both of my hands away from my body so that he could hold me instead. I'd never felt so naked, so exposed before. I stood in front of Zayn in just a pair of his boxers, nothing else.

He had been asking me for days if he could clean me up properly, to clean the wounds down my back in the shower instead of just the same routine of me laying on his bed while he dirtied all of his towels.

We got back from a walk through the woods earlier today, the walk where I spilled my secrets and he listened to me. It was like there was a weight I didn't know existed had been lifted off my shoulders, that was the only good thing that had come out of what had happened. I had nothing to hide from him anymore. I constantly tried to think of ways to stop him from seeing it, whether it was keeping on shirts while we fucked, telling him to leave whenever I stripped down, I always wanted to find subtle ways to hide from him. But now I didn't have to hide from him, not anything.

I could never be more grateful for how he handled it... handled me. I'd never seen someone so patient, so understanding and kind. No matter how many outbursts I had, if I tried to push him away, how many times I broke down, panicked, cried, he was always right there and he stayed right there, reminding me constantly that he wasn't going anywhere.

"Just look at me." his voice stayed quiet, level, everything around us felt so fragile. I was terrified of letting him help me. "I'm right here."

I took a nervous breath. I couldn't find the strength within myself to look at him. I'd always had my shirt off when he cleaned me up, but I had also been laying down. It wasn't like he hadn't seen my naked chest before, but it still felt different, more vulnerable. It was more vulnerable.

"Victoria." he squeezed my hands, saying my voice more firmly, only to try and get my attention. Maybe he thought I was spaced out again, I had been doing a lot of just staring at walls and not thinking, speaking or moving the past few days. There wasn't much to do besides think about everything that had been going on. "I need you to keep talking to me,"

"I'm fine." I told him, my eyes stayed on the floor.

We were standing beside the bathtub, the shower had been running to heat up the water, I could tell it was warm enough now because the mirror had started to fog up a little bit and the room was getting warmer. I knew it was going to be agony, the pressure of the water on my back, everything he was going to have to do to clean me, but I knew I had to keep them clean, the infections I got from those uncleaned blades was worse than anything else.

"Don't let go of my hand."

"Can you put the lights off?" I just about cut him off when I spoke. The mail lights were on, bright lights, the kind that didn't hide a single imperfection. While he had already seen all of my imperfections, I didn't like being aware of him staring at them under such harsh lights.

"Yeah. Yeah I can." his response was calm, understanding. He was dropping my hands to flick the light switch only a moment later. "Anything you need."

We had been standing beside the bath for almost ten minutes while he waited for me to prepare myself mentally to go in. It was just a shower. It didn't have to be that big of a deal.

I was going to be paying his water bill, whether he accepted that or not.

Patient and understanding.