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It’s red like cherry wine, the blood on Marcoh’s split knuckles. He’s not—he’s not crying, not exactly, but his shoulders are twitching anyhow where he’s curled into Olivia’s lap, knees on the cold hard ground. He has washed his hands after—of course he has, Olivia’d like to say, but the truth of the matter is that with the sort of things they are fighting and running away from it can be hard to get to clean water often enough; which is only worse for him, of course, who’s most apt at fighting with his bare fists—but they’re still bloody. His knuckles keep bleeding, diluted.
It’s things like that Olivia is considering while she cards her hands through his hair—it is strangely soft for a man like him, for a place like this, and that thought nearly succeeds in making her smile—while they take this little break.
Well deserved, she’d stay. Still, it’s hard to feel entirely safe anywhere here.
Easier together with him, she thinks. It was him who found her this wheelchair, in the first place, after all. Him, who takes her into the city at her urging—at her desire to be useful, yes, but also at her more selfish desire to look for her sister—despite the fact she’s… slowing him down. A liability, probably. Him, who’s never once made her feel as such.
“It’s okay,” she says, rubbing fingertips into his scalp, and she finds she isn’t lying. His hands claw into her skirt. “Marcoh, it’s okay. Can you look at me?”
He doesn’t. This is okay, too. She can’t help but feel bad for him: it seems killing—even when in self-defense, even when what he killed was barely human—doesn’t come easy to him. Does it come easy to anyone? Does it come easy to her? She can’t help wondering, either, if he’s killed before. What else those hands of his have struck.
Olivia takes his hand. Marcoh doesn’t flinch, but she thinks it’s a close thing.
“I’ll whip something up to avoid infection when we get back to the train,” she murmurs. “For now…”
He does look at her when she lifts his hand to her face. It’s strange to see him from above like this: she can see the little whorls of his hair at the top of his head. Smiles at him, despite everything, and she’s not quite sure if it helps, but what else is there to do?
Cherry red. Marcoh’s blood is cherry red.
The noise that startles out of him when she presses her lips to his knuckles is wounded, almost, like he got stabbed. She supposes, faintly, dryly amused, that he’d probably make no noise at all if she indeed were to stab him. Marcoh’s blood is red like cherry wine, but it just tastes like iron when she laps at his knuckles, his skin rough against her tongue.
“Saliva is a natural disinfectant,” she explains, dropping their hands. Marcoh just stares.