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“Okay, my sweet little doctor Devorak!” You coo, voice saturated with perky excitement and false pleasantries. Clapping your hands together with a pillowy squishing sound, you beam at the tall smiling redhead beside you. “Teach me!”
Julian laughs at you, the hand holding your hip squeezes you slightly as he bends forward to better breathe through his chuckles. Pride blooms across your chest, fingers going to catch and hold him while he recovers from his laughing fit. Your fingers had thick, charcoal leather gloves over them that just didn’t quite fit. They were his that you had snatched from behind his back just for this occasion, just for this joke. His cape swallowing you was just for an added touch.
“You really are something else, my dear.” He finally says when he’s finished, drinking in the sight of the cooking apron you’re using to mimic the dissection gear he wore when he worked with messier cases.
“I’m just trying to be prepared for my first lesson,” You blink owlishly at him. Faux innocence falling from your eyes as you gaze at him in pure wonder, purposely overdoing it to see the blush that follows. The beautiful red of his hair accentuated by the creamy paleness of his skin, how you loved to trace your lips and sing praises to such beauty. If he let you, that is.
“While we agreed to teach each other, I’m not getting you dirty!” He claims with a flourish, subtly slipping his glove off of your smaller hand and pressing a kiss to it. Not one to be outdone, when he looks back up at you, he winks. “A gentleman never soils his partner.”
“I’m your medical apprentice, it’s in the job description!” You say with a grin, tugging him towards you by using the hand holding your’s. You’re eager to get your lesson started with him, wondering all of the help you’ll be able to give and growing restless.
“Okay, let’s start with the basics first.” Julian shakes his head at your enthusiasm, thrilled just as you are. He leads you over towards the couch you two share and sits, guiding you to do the same at a distance. “We’ll make you CPR certified first.”
“I already know how to do that.” You argue softly, clasping your hands together to lay on the cushion. You give it a few good pumps to a steady tune inside your mind before pausing to look back up at your dazzling doctor. His mischievous smile doesn’t exactly make you feel confident.
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, my dear.” And his hands are on your’s, gently prying them apart and coaxing your hands into a new position. “If you do it how you were, you’ll break your thumb. Or, your other fingers will displace your palms and you’ll need to use a lot more strength.”
“Oh,” You mutter softly. But your smile replaces the downcast look immediately, keeping your hands as they are. “Well, I still know what I’m doing! Just needed a few tweaks. Next lesson!”
“Nope, I’m not done yet!” He cuts you off, lacing his right hand through his fingers and setting his hands down across from your’s. “You’re pulling your might from your wrists and arms, that’ll tire you out and make you sore. Let gravity and your body weight aid you.”
“Like this?” Leaning forward, you bash into the poor, unsuspecting couch and let your full weight drop into your palms. It definitely does take some of the strain from your arms, you think you could do this for a long time with the new technique.
“Exactly like that!” Julian pauses only to watch you, making sure everything looks right. Sure this lesson might not be as riveting as you originally thought, but any information is good information. “And you need to go hard.”
“How hard?”
“If you’re not breaking their rib, you’re not going hard enough.” He says simply, settling on his haunches and giving a few experimental compressions into the couch. For a lanky pirate doctor, he does have quite the force behind his movements. You know better then anyone the amount of surprising strength he possesses, it’s a shame no one compliments him on it.
“But isn’t that- you know, the opposite of what we’re trying to do?” You can’t help but ask, concern for this imaginary patient filling you up with worries.
“You’re only doing compressions to save someone’s life,” He adds easily. Raising a sculpted brow at you with a certain posh poise you didn’t think him capable of. “They can handle a bruised or broken rib if it means they live.”
“A fair point.” You nod slowly to yourself, crawling a little closer to him. “But why do we need to use so much force?”
“If you need to do CPR, you’re trying to get their heart to beat.” He explains, taking one of your hands and curling it into a fist. “In order to get it back in rhythm, you have to squeeze it. But what protects the heart?”
“The ribs?” Watching as his skilled hands cradle yours between both of his, he nods. A breathtaking, proud grin blossoming across his features.
“Yes, and that’s all hard bone. But it’s a little malleable, so you beat hard enough to get the ribs to move.” His top hand smacks against your fist, pushing it and shoving it until it lays against the palm of his other. “And once the heart is stuck between the ribcage, it gets squeezed and your blood pumps.”
“I mean, I knew that but not knew knew that.”
“A lot more is involved then you think, huh?” He wiggles his brows before you punch his shoulder. Easily shutting the pickup line he was no doubt about to deliver down. Instead, he changes course. “Now, what’s my lesson?”
“You’ve already been honing your skills.” You praise lightly, finding he’s earned a bit of bragging after so much studying. He put as much effort and energy into his magical practice as he did with his leech experiments. “So it’s whatever you want!”
“How about you teach me how to heal like you do.” He prompts with a dazzle to his eyes, unspoken begging shimmering in their depths as he silently pleads. “Please?”
“Oh, Ilya.” You sigh wistfully, remembering he’d ask the very same thing when you both began using magic. He has been taking it slowly ever since facing The Devil and you have no intention on rushing him. He’s already mastered making his hands warm and dropping them several temperatures.
He treats fevers that way, warms up your tea if you’ve left it long enough, he’s always using his new gift for something good. Something selfless- you truly can’t ask for a better partner.
Climbing into his lap, you press a lingering kiss to his lips, smiling wide as that familiar blush spreads across his cheeks. “I’ll teach you anything you want to know.”