The Stains Beneath Our Skin [mxm] ✔

21.2 | Hot Water

Casper whacked the shower up just high enough that it stung his skin, a pleasant burning that scoured away the marks of the day. His ribs and his gut had been padding out the first couple of weeks he'd been here, but gauntness haunted the spaces again as if he was nothing but skin pulled across ragged taxidermy.

Maybe Cain looked a little thinner as well as Casper helped him into the shower. Hollows where he'd been all smooth edges. The thick coating of gore stopped where his shirt came together just below the dip between his collarbones, but rust still stained his skin down to his stomach. As soon as the gushing water touched it, the blood spilled down his front in trails of crimson that eased to sweet, blushing pink.

There was a seat at the edge of the shower. Cain had shrugged when Casper had asked why, but he'd sat on the stone shelf enough times. The jets were level with his shoulders, and it got so many of aches and pains out just letting them roll across his muscles and fill them with dozy heat. Casper dumped Cain there now, and he slumped the same way he had on the toilet. A little more sober than earlier, then, because at least now he could sit upright.

Cain pointed at the dizzying array of shower products stacked neatly on the broad shelves, an imperious motion ruined by the way his whole body swayed and a slur mulled his voice to a stop-start drawl. "The yell—yellow one first."

A grin twitched at Casper's lips as he reached up, fingers plucking at the wide showerhead to pull it a little more toward Cain. The water gushed over him, filling his nose and seeping between his teeth. His boxers were sodden already, clinging to his skin and gathering runnels of water and cloth in weird places, but hey, at least he wasn't totally naked in the shower with this nutjob.

Ever the gentleman, Cain didn't spare the slightest glance for however Casper's ass looked in this wet mess underwear. Dazzled, he smiled up at the failing scowl Casper shot over his shoulder like it were the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"The yellow one, Cas."

"Fuck off, I'm not doing your whole hair care routine."

"Well, why else am I in the shower? It has to be the yellow one first, else it dries too flat."

Well, there was Casper's answer on why dickhead had such perfect hair. Casper turned to him, the water thundering across his shoulders, and with a slow, lingering finger, he traced a line over his lips and his chin, his throat, and down to his bellybutton. Cain's eyes followed it with a struggling alacrity.

"You've got a little blood everywhere, dickhead. I'm washing it off."

Cain's eyes widened, although he wavered in and out of the expression a little as his fingers wove their way up to his chin. They came away bloody as the gore regained its lustre in the steam that filled the air.

"Oh." Cain dragged his hand over his mouth and throat as if just a brush of his hand would ever wipe that mess away, and then leant out far enough that Casper had to hold his shoulders steady while he stuck his hand under the shower stream. "I—I just, ah—I just cut myself—"

Why couldn't Casper help grinning at that? "Shaving, yeah. For such a good liar, you're an awful liar, you know that? Come on, which one's Blood Begone, or whatever the fuck you got for it?"

Cain jabbed his finger again. "The purple one."

Like Casper had actually been expecting him to have some specific gore-cleansing shower gel. Fucking hell. Some fuck off abominable warmth curled up in his chest as he reached for a bottle— "Not that one. Purple, Cassie, not lilac—" then for a different one, and this stupid grin wouldn't smear off his face. Maybe it was just the heat. Just that ridiculous dopey smile brightening up Cain's face.