Work Text:
Audrey wasn’t sure what her doctor was holding as she returned to her side, and in all honesty she wasn’t sure she wanted to. The mixture was vaguely pink and very sweet smelling, and it clung unpleasantly to the stir stick when Paracelsus raised it.
“What is that? Looks like something you’d squeeze out of a worm.” She only just kept herself from recoiling as the goop was applied liberally to the burn. It felt no better than it looked. The few tins of burn salve they had bought were nothing like this. A little old smelling, perhaps, a few to the point that Paracelsus had cast them aside with a frustrated muttering, but all were perfectly reasonable, mild smelling, green to yellow creams.
“What calendula I could scrounge up, a few other herbal substitutions. Of course there's hardly an opportunity to find any beeswax that's usable, so that would account for the consistency, if that's what you were inquiring about. I have wondered, though, if any of those beasts might have something worthwhile to them. Venoms and toxins, after all, provide us with their opposite if treated correctly.” Her application was methodical and precise, not a bit applied beyond the edges of her wound. Audrey gritted her teeth against the discomfort.
“I'm not sure if worm ooze would smell better or worse than this,” she said, tucking her nose against her collar as a veritable cloud of the sickly sweet scent washed over her.
Paracelsus paused, looking up at her. “I added a few things to counteract the bitter smell; you had complained about it last time.”
“You passed ‘counteracting bitter’ and moved directly on to ‘deathbed flowers’.”
The doctor hummed. “Bitter is preferable, then?”
“To this? Immensely.”
The bandages were set with a deft hand, and Paracelsus sat back with a nod. “I will keep that in mind.”
Silence fell between them, straddling the line of tense and companionable. The smell of the ooze, at least, was lessened considerably, contained as it was beneath the bandages, and if Audrey tilted her head just so, she couldn’t smell it at all. The discomfort of the concoction settling into her skin, however, really couldn’t be helped with anything aside from a liberal drink from her flask. Audrey was not about to hold herself back from that.
Paracelsus watched her, eyes shining in the firelight. It was unsettling, in a way, to be caught under her gaze, like a creature pinned for examination.
Audrey cleared her throat. “How long do I have to leave it on?”
The doctor flushed slightly, looking away, back to her work. “An hour,” she answered. “To make sure it’s clean.”
Audrey sighed, taking another drink. The ooze beneath the bandage stung and itched at the wound. “Why does yours take so much longer than any we buy?”
“Those aren’t as good.” There was a distinct sting of defensiveness to her voice. “It’s all made of different ingredients. Mine has a better result, anyway. Less dry, better infection prevention. And if I had a lab or hospital to work with, I could make something as quick as them. Give me your hands.” Paracelsus was rummaging through her bag, a furrow to her brow.
“Excuse me?” Audrey arched an eyebrow, though Paracelsus seemed disinclined to look fully at her, now.
“You haven’t been keeping up your routine,” she said instead, setting a familiar collection of tiny tins and bottles on the table. Audrey offered her hand with only a little reluctance. “Your scars will stiffen.”
“I ran out,” she said, shrugging.
These oils and creams had a far more pleasant smell, easily filling the air with pine and mint, fresh and clean scents that eased the tension. Paracelsus worked them into Audrey's hands, massaging them into the nicks and scars with the force of one too accustomed to working with the dead. It bled the exhaustion from her bones, though, pulling it out to wash over her in a wave.
She kept at it far longer than necessary, finishing one pass and then starting another before even opening the second little pot of oils. Audrey held back any protest she might have had, sinking back into her chair and sipping from her flask. She let her doctor work, uninterrupted, all to the point that when she finished and raised Audrey’s hand to her lips to press a kiss to her fingertips, she was so relaxed that she was utterly unable to do anything about it.
She ought to have; it wasn’t like they really had anything to them now, not after the last fight. But it was sweet, and she was so comfortable. And it didn’t even look like Paracelsus had thought a single thing when she’d done it; it was no calculated manouver, no cunning manipulation. Just her usual habits of forgetting the details of anything not attached directly to her work.
If she wasn’t so relaxed she wouldn’t have enjoyed it, and then she could have mustered up the annoyance she ought to have felt.
Instead, she sighed - in exasperation, not contentment - and let her fingers catch the messy ends of Paracelsus’ hair instead of pulling her hand back. Her doctor smiled, pressing one kiss to her palm, then another, one to either end of the curving scar reaching from her palm to her wrist.
It was so easy to want her, like this. To want to take her back to her room, to hold her close as they washed the sweat and grime from their limbs, to kiss her into her bed. Warm and relaxed, with Paracelsus pressing her soft cheek against her palm, she could barely conjur up a reason not to keep her close. And why would she want to?
No, she would allow herself this, tonight.