psl: hellscape

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko had her head bent over the sink in the small bathroom she and Kurt had in the odd-shaped attic room they shared, rinsing out dye. He'd explained it to her one time before: he didn't fit in a regular, rectangular room, so why should he force it? When she'd moved in with him she'd simply adopted herself into the space, the result being a mish-mash of his circus style and her more modern, minimalist one.

The result had been homey and comfortable until Belasco. A full year and change (sixteen months, the others had said, but it had felt to Nori like a decade or more) in Limbo had brought about changes to them both. Kurt had more scars, and his body had regressed to the whipcord tautness of his youth: the most notable change of either of them were the horns spiraling down from his forehead and around his elfin ears.

Noriko too had gained a few scars, though not as design-minded as Kurt's: hers were burns up her arms, even higher than before up her biceps to nearly her shoulders, looking like hellfire had engulfed her arms. (It wasn't wrong.) Her gauntlets were heavier now, because her left arm stopped abruptly just above the elbow joint: it was a cybernetic hookup, that forearm and hand, though it looked no different to the other one and functioned no differently either.

It still worked in unison with her right hand to work out the dye, a bright electrified blue from her scalp darkening to navy and midnight at the ends. Her hair she'd shorn off unceremoniously when they got back, unwilling to see it and feel it with the smell of sulfur and Belasco's home, where he'd kept them. It had only just grown out again, the longest tip of hair barely touching her chin. She was re-dyeing it as Kurt tried prying off the gold and silver rings clamped to his horns, dripping chains and jewels into his hair, beginning to curl again.

"Hey. Do you want some help?" she asked.

Comments

[quiteafew]

Want? There are so many possible answers to that.

He wants to get these damned-able decorations off him, melted down and buried somewhere no one will hear their muffled weeping. He wants them entombed right next to the abominations sprouting from his skull, a blasphemous crown grown through pain-filled nights of the demon stroking his face and hair, whispering of how beautiful he would be.

He wants to feel that ancient hand toying with his curls in one breath, and wants to teleport into the nearest wall during the next. He wishes he'd been stronger; traitorously, that Noriko had been less so. They'd have been glorious..

"Do you have a blow-torch," he asks softly, punctuating with the ghost of his old chuckle and trying not to wince at the sound of it. Flickering his gaze to Noriko, the thin smile relaxes minutely, becoming a little more.

[electro_kinetic]

"Not on me. Might be one in the kitchen," she answered just as softly, twining her hair up in a towel and coming to sit by Kurt. She could be patient and quiet now when she never was before: she'd learned after hours upon hours of staying stock-still and silent by Belasco's side, watching the grotesque visions of her family and friends and teammates all dying over and over. She'd accepted everything, every blow or caress or whatever else he'd done to her without protest or complaint. Had she moved, she'd been told, or made any sound Kurt would have taken her place. Noriko couldn't stand that.

Two months in and Belasco had figured out her stillness did not mitigate her rage: that was when the arm had come off, torn away by wickedly sharp and searing-hot claws. But landing the blow to the demon's face had been worth it for his jerking Kurt in for a greedy kiss. He was hers, the sorcerer-demon had had no right to him. The current she'd released had very nearly blinded her, and had seared most of Belasco's face and shoulder. It had healed: her arm had not.

Noriko didn't say much else, only reaching up and skimming her fingers over the cap on the end of one horn, done in delicate gold filigree. "I shouldn't have let him make us trade places. I didn't know he'd do this to you."

[quiteafew]

Kurt shuddered away from the touch, horror blending too well with a spike of desire. Another curse to Belasco's name; Kurt found it maddening trying to separate his own desires from their former Master's.

(She'd been beautiful standing next to Belasco, even more when she'd lashed out against him. The demon's flesh had stunk and his heart had sung.)

"Nein, don't.. don't wish for that. This was--it was already in the stars, that I would be formed like this." Because why wouldn't it have been? Kurt reached to take her hands, squeezing them in his own.

[electro_kinetic]

Noriko dropped her hand and rested it on Kurt's before she simply leaned her head against his. "I like them. I know you don't, but...I never thought you looked like a demon. I don't now," she murmured. "You look nothing like him."

She held fast to that. "I still love you, Kurt." She almost asked if he still loved her, but didn't quite make it to verbalizing. "I want you with me."