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Dana leaned herself on the white porcelain of the tub as she fiddled with the water spout. While trying to make the bath run warm, she didn't want to accidentally burn the man either. So she kept messing about with the valves.
As the tub kept slowly filling with hopefully perfectly warm water, the woman grabbed the bottle of bubble bath solution on the small wooden cabinet next to the tub, measuring about 2 caps of the liquid and pouring it into the warm water, swishing and mixing it with her hand. Yep, feels pretty much perfect. Pulling her hand from the water and drying it off on the hem of her skirt, she set down the bottle back onto the cabinet and turned her attention to the bathroom door.
'Darling, you can come in now'
It took a few moments, but then the white wooden door slowly creaked open, and a black, thick, swept mop of hair peaked into the brightly lit tiled room. Already wrapped in a soft, brightly colored towel, Bob Taylor tentatively stepped into the bright bathroom light, his bare feet sounding against the cool, smooth tiles. He looked a little out of place. He always slightly did, his hunched posture, sad and anxiously flitting eyes managing to make him look like a deer in the headlights.
The waddling feet and black, almost feathery hair gave the grown man something of an intimidated young penguin. Dana picked up on his slight discomfort almost immediately. She got up from her spot on the tub, making her way over to the slightly hunched man in his towel.
Running a reassuring hand through his raven black hair, shining slightly from what she could feel was grease, she gave him a warm smile.
Bob leaned into the touch slightly, hesitant but wanting. His lids softly fell closed. Dana just watched him. The way his lashes fluttered, the way the bright, almost sterile light of the overhead ceiling lamp highlighted his high cheekbones and the bridge of his nose.
He was beautiful.
Bob's eyes slowly fluttered open again and almost immediately, his cheeks were hit with the red flush of embarrassment. Instead of prodding further, Dana just gave him a slight push with her hand on his lower back towards the tub. She quickly turned around, giving him his privacy as she heard the soft towel fall to the ground and the dull splash of feet entering a tub full of soapy bathwater. After it seemed like Bob had settled, she slowly turned back around to face him. He still looked a little out of place, but the warmth of the water seemed to slowly seep into his likely tense muscles, his legs slowly extending from his almost fetal position in the corner of the tub.
From his collarbone downward, his form was hidden by a big, glittering cloud of soapy bubbles. This seemed to put Bob at ease, who now fully extended his legs and let himself sink further into the warm water. Another smile warmed Dana's face at the sight. Then her face fell again. While Bob was getting visibly more comfortable, she made her way over to the table beside the white porcelain sink and quickly flicked on a small light switch, the table lamp immediately casting a warm sheen into the room. She then turned off the overhead light. Now, instead of the almost sterile shine from above, her, Bob and the whole bathroom were lit in a soft, warm yellow glow. Her attention turned back to the man in her bathtub.
'Better?'
'M-hm'
Bob nodded slightly, his dark eyes briefly meeting Dana's before quickly flitting back to stare at the mass of bubbles in front of him.
He was not a person of many words, and, as shy as he seemed now, it was an improvement from how he'd been when she had first taken the man under her wing. The entire situation had been absurd, and had she not been there herself, and would have been looking at said man, sitting in her bathtub, she would not have believed it. So many things surrounding the person that was Bob Taylor seemed unlikely, strange and frightening.
Yet there he was, sat snugly in the warm water, hands slowly reaching to touch the shining mountain of soap bubbles in front of him.
'Bob, sweetheart?'
Whatever Bob had been thinking that moment, his eyes shot to meet Dana's for a split second.
'Huh?'
'Oh, sorry if I spooked you'
It would probably take a lot more time (and trust-building) until his skittishness and jumpy nature would fully settle. But Dana was here for it.
'Would it … is it okay if I touch your hair?' She asked softly, slowly making her way over to the tub, naked feet pattering on the white tiled floor.
While Bob seemed hesitant at first, his dark eyes widening slightly as his shoulders seemed to tense, he sank back into the water before giving a shy nod.
Dana could feel herself swoon slightly.
Leaning forward, she let one of her hands run through the man's hair. Her slender fingers carded through thick strands of inky, oily black. She continued lightly stroking his hair until another thought wormed its way into her mind, looking at the state of it. This felt a bit like a trust fall. Bob had already jumped over his shadow by allowing this entire bath situation and while well-intentioned, she did not want to overstep his boundaries.
'Bobby?'
It was a nickname that had just ,,, appeared. The first time it left her lips was accidental. Bob had dropped or bumped into something and had been visibly on edge, hunched and wide-eyed. She had tried to call out to him multiple times, but he'd only retreated further into his corner. Until …
"Bobby, sweetheart, I'm not mad at you"
At that, his gaze had shifted back to Dana, his eyes softly gleaming. While his expression wasn’t quite placeable, he’d slowly let her approach him and wrap her arms around his shoulders.
Dana sat back on the edge of the tub.
‘Can I wash your hair?’
Bob seemed taken aback by the question. His dark eyes searched Dana's blue ones, face partly obscured in the indirect, warm light. His pupils, inky black in the dim glow, flitted nervously. “Okay” Landed the fall. Slowly, Dana scooted on the smooth marble of the tub until sliding off and coming to a crouch at the head-end of the bathtub. With a patience as if handling an easily startled animal, her hands slowly reached out to tentatively rest, one after another, on Bob's mop of hair. There she waited. Bob, again visibly tensing, slowly let his shoulders fall as his head began to loll back into her touch. Dana took this as her go-ahead. With an empty cup she'd otherwise stored spare toothbrush and -paste in, she slowly scooped a bit of the warm water up and let it trickle down on Bob's head.
His voluminous black hair was slowly flattened by the warm stream cascading down his nape and shoulders. Satisfied with his reaction, Dana poured a few more cups onto his head before letting her hands roam. Her fingers soon found purchase on his scalp, her digits parting and combing through the shiny black strands as she massaged the timid man's head gently and slowly. Had he been somewhat relaxed before, this seemed to give him that last little push. His head now gently but fully rolled back, resting on the white sleek rim of the bathtub, his long lashes fluttering closed over those entrancing dark eyes. The dim glow sculpted the man's side profile and his almost elegantly sloped nose beautifully. Bob sank further into the tub as Dana's fingers worked her almost motherly magic on his scalp. He seemed unusually content under the warm lights and the glitter of the soapy mountains of the bubble bath. Dana swore she could even see the corner of his thin pink lips curl into a hesitant smile. She took this opportunity to take a closer look at the man.
Above his lips and running along his jaw was a ghost of a beard. His cheekbones were high, but with his puppy dog eyes and shoddily-cut hair, his whole face had something boyish. Innocent. The way his prominent brows lifted when his eyes went wide and big. That spark of light on those dark irises, crowned by a set of dreamy lashes. While this was obviously not the first time she’d seen him or, hell, even taken a closer look, she’d never seen him so at peace. It transformed his features from that fawn-like grimace of discomfort into something. As if, even for just a moment, the mask was lifted. His spirit and that boyish smile unshackled. His eyes allowed to crinkle at the corners, his teeth to peek out from underneath his thin lips while she looked on, almost stared at him, she felt that now familiar warmth slowly gathering in her chest. It drew from her arms, her legs, and congregated right there in her ribcage, as if a furnace had been lit in that space behind her lungs.
Love. This strong, maternal feeling.
For this fully grown man that had one day appeared on her doorstep.
He’d worn the same sand-colored cord jacket the day he had been apprehended in. His dark hair was unkempt and knotted, single strands tangling and beginning to clump together from lack of care, and his sculpted nose was stained in dried, crusty blood, the brown-red flakes an eyesore against his fair skin. Overall, he looked beaten, used and abused. And his eyes, those big, sad brown eyes, were bloodshot from crying.
Though Dana had not even been directly involved in the investigation of the missing girls, hell, she’d been odd-jobbing as a cleaner at the police station entirely out of coincidence that week, Bob and her had formed a strange little sort of bond. She had first walked by the interrogation on her way to the janitors’ closet looking for something she couldn’t recall when they had locked eyes through the window opposite the one-way mirror on the sickly yellow-beige walls of the interrogation room. He’d caught her eyes with such sadness and desperation, strands of sweaty black hair clinging to his forehead as his flushed cheeks ran wet with his tears. He looked pathetic. Broken. Small as he was roughly grabbed by his heaving shoulders by the detective and shaken.
‘I don’t know anything I don’t … ‘ Bob shrieked between sobs. His cuffed hands shot up to cup his face as best he could. His jacket began staining dark from his tears. Dana watched as the detective finally let go of the miserable little bundle of human crying before him and slammed the door on his way out. She felt helpless. After exchanging one last pleading glance with Bob, she lowered her head and continued on her way.
A soft sigh pulled her back into the present moment. Back into her dimly lit bathroom with the whimpering and crying man from her memory now safe and warm underneath her hands, submerged in the comforting water. Dana felt that familiar wet prickle in her eye. She slowly knelt further down to rest her lips against Bob’s wet hair in a feather-light kiss. ‘I’m here for you’ She wanted to signal. ‘You’re safe. I care. You matter’ Her arms slowly fell below his neck, wrapping around his shoulders as she further burrowed her face into the sweet man’s hair.
To her surprise, Bob lifted a hand out of the water with a soft splash. The mound of sparkling soap bubbles obscuring his body rippled lightly. His palm, slowly and tentatively, made its way towards Dana. A blink away from her arm, he halted, then confidently placed his hand over Dana’s, resting on his collarbone. Now the waterworks were fully open. Dana felt herself sobbing openly, ugly. Her arms tightened her grip on Bob, needing to find stability. The man’s hair was now a hiding place for the streams of tears that now ran, just ran. Even though it had been at least a week of her housing Bob, small gestures of trust like this broke through her resolve of emotional resilience, of knowing what to do, of everything always having been alright.
Bob’s own hand slowly moved along her shaking arms. His movements were small, unsure. He was comforting her back. Awkward as his attempt may have appeared, they were earnest. He was doing things the best way he knew. The warm, roughened skin of his palm left trails of goosebumps in their wake.
They sat like that for a while, wrapped around one another. Neither spoke a word. Not a peep. This was something they had both needed.
Slowly steadying herself again, Dana dried her eyes and cheeks with the hem of her long black skirt, the wet stains nearly invisible in the dim, warm light.
‘Bobby’ She choked up, a smile slowly creeping its way onto her flushed face.
‘I love you, sweetheart’
Bob cocked his head up to meet her eyes. A few drops of water ran and trickled their way over his cheekbones and down his chin. Then he gave a smile. A toothy, warm, almost innocent smile.
‘Now, how about we get you dried up, hm? We’re having spaghetti for dinner’
‘Yay!’
Bob continued to beam as Dana wrapped him back into his fluffy bathrobe, giving his hair a quick dry with a towel, and he excitedly waddled to the kitchen, his bare feet pitter-pattering on the floor.