The Fateful Heart 2

Evaline tried not to overthink it. Honestly, if this was a river, she wouldn't even give it a second thought.

But the candles and scents of this room suddenly made her version of normality twist into question marks. The implication, too, heavily weighed upon her. James, her husband. In a romantic bath.

Any thought further than those words made her want to curl up into a small ball and roll away.

"I'm okay with that," she said, her voice cool and steady to not give away the anxiety. "But are you?"

James, at that moment, decided not to overthink it, and just commit to an answer.

He nodded.

"It's fine," he said, briefly meeting her eyes and then looking down at his shoes. "Let's get in, then. So we don't waste more time."

He took the initiative and started untying his boots.

It was the most logical, rational plan. They had gone a week without food, and maybe Liana was right that they smelled bad. And after the sandstorm, Evaline was finding sand stick on places of her skin that she didn't think she'd find. Under her fingernails, behind her ear, and definitely under her clothes.

She followed his lead again, untying her own boots and turning away from him.

"Right," she said. "It's just a bath."

She grimaced at her own words again. She wasn't sure if she was convincing James or herself, and it even needed clarifying.

James turned away from Evaline as he decided to be quick about it. Pulling off his socks, peeling off his shirt, getting rid of his belt. He hesitated on the pants for a moment before just shaking his head quickly (like a cat) and stripping down to his boxers and the bandages. It was the bandages that would take the longest, and he didn't trust them to dry very quickly if he went in with them wet - and he knew they'd get soaked through anyway - so he started unwrapping, and unwrapping, and unwrapping. Biting down every type of discomfort and not glancing at Eve once.

When he was finally done, he gave himself a very quick once over to make sure he was as decent as he could be and he hurried over to the bath and plopped in, leaving only his head and shoulders above the murky mineral-filled water.

Evaline kept her head low to respect James's privacy, but she could sense him moving very quickly. She had just finished slowly undoing the braids when she could see James then rush over to the water and splash in. She looked over at the back of his head and slow blinked, finding it strange that he had finished so fast. One glance back at the bench he was at, and she could see that there were scraps of bandages all over, like he had thrown it around haphazardly and ripped through them in a hurry.

Meanwhile, she had been undressing at a snails pace, but the only two things she had to unpeel from now were her pants and shirt. Maybe he finished so fast because he was embarrassed? Or wanted to give her more privacy? She didn't know.

Evaline stood up and quietly slipped out of her remainder clothes to only be standing with her bra and underwear. It had always been a life-long struggle of hers to be at a healthy weight, so one look down at herself, and suddenly a random bout of insecurity washed upon her. She was so visibly underweight right now. It was obvious to her that she had lost a decent amount of muscle mass since being in Nye, and especially this last week.

She pushed those thoughts aside, walking over the the tub on the other side and quickly getting in, submerging herself for a second so she could let the hot water wash away the anxiety (it didn't seem to work though), and then peeping up so that only everything above her collar bone was visible. She let her wet hair sloppily cling to her body.

The steam lazily hung around them, and Evaline could feel the heat travel from her body up to her head.

She gazed ahead of her but not at James, and now, she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. Splash around? Wash immediately? Did James want to talk? Or did he prefer to sit in a steamy silence?

She wasn't sure which option was more uncomfortable, but she opted for the silence.

It was embarassing just how much James’s heart was racing.

The heat pierced through his skin at first, violent and alarming. Many of his more shallow wounds had now long-since closed over, but they were still sensitive to the invasive heat, and the water all around him. It wasn’t just a matter of being comfortable with the entirety of the situation. His body was still hurting, and the sudden and quick sensory shock was making his mind scream.

The deep cut from their recent altercation with thieves hurt the most.

It was a mixed bag of sensation. The more deep breaths he took, the more he started to calm down. The less his body felt like it was being flooded with stimuli, and the more the heat started to become like a soothing blanket than a curse. But it took a few minutes.

Frankly, he hadn’t been paying much attention to the silence that passed, and he for sure hadn’t looked at Evaline when she hopped in.

Finally, there was a significant shift. He could liken it to the freezing cold river he’d been pushed into weeks ago, but the reverse. The heat brought almost a numbing to the pain, and instead of achiness and tension, his muscles started to relax.

James couldn’t help but sigh in relief as he drifted to the edge of the tub and leaned his head back, closing his eyes.

It was nice to be in a body of water. Weightless, comparably. Just for a moment.

It was almost too hot.

The heat from the water had seeped into her skin and crawled its way up to Evaline's head, and she was beginning to feel lightheaded. She wanted to stand up a little straighter and maybe sit on the edge instead, but she stubbornly stayed where she was, pulling her legs close to her body as she sunk a little deeper.

She and James have been so still these last few minutes. If she wasn't able to feel the water soaking into her skin, she'd have thought she was coming down with a fever.

It wasn't necessarily the awkward tension that she wanted to dissipate, but rather an excuse to move around a little and distract her.

She sat up a little straighter along the edge and slid her hair along one shoulder so that she could cool down, just a tiny bit. She eyed the edge of the tub and thought about blowing out all the candles so it wouldn't be as hot, but considering there were no windows in this hut, she decided that darkness was the last thing they both needed right now.

Various hygienic items lined the edge next to James. Soaps, bars, salts, oils, moisturizers, and more. She wanted so bad to scrub in silence so that she wouldn't just be sitting there, but it was too close to James for comfort to grab.

"Can you... pass the soap?" she asked flatly.

James opened his eyes, and he glanced over at Evaline. He couldn’t see anything below her collar, which was a relief at the moment.

“Oh - sure,” he said, turning to look at the soaps.

“There’s a few different kinds, here,” he said. “Do you care which one?”

"No," she said a little too quickly. "Any is fine."

James nodded, and he briefly lifted up a bar of soap to his nose. Basil. She would like that, right?

He stretched out his arm to hand it over to her, keeping his arm partially submerged at the elbow.

He didn’t want to see the scar dancing up his forearm, even if it was the one Nathan healed.

It was fine. She wasn't hiding anything. It wasn't like she was uncomfortable under her own skin. Everyone has a body. There really was nothing to be ashamed of.

Evaline allowed herself to relax, and then she sat up straighter to reach over and grab the soap. She could have sunk back, but instead she stayed sitting where she was, letting the water depth naturally come up to her chest.

"Thanks," she said quietly, then turned her body so she didn't have to face James while she started to lather the soap and wash her hair.

She was used to only hearing him bathe while she cleaned herself. It was so weird to see him out of the corner of her eye.

James nodded and turned his attention back to the soaps, finding himself drawn to a minty one of familiarity. He followed Evaline’s lead and lathered up some of the soap in his hair, but it took a lot less time with how short it was in comparison to hers.

Soapy suds started gathering on the surface of the water, and James paused to gather a handful into his palm.

He paused, set the bar of soap to the side, and then gathered as much of the bubbles as he could. He lifted it up to his chin and put it on his beard, and dabbed a dollop on his nose.

Things were tense. He was tired. His brain was aleady exhausted from all of the overthinking and anxiety.

He added two last dollops to his eyebrows and then looked at Evaline. He made one last final decision to not think about the flickering candles, and how the dim light made Evaline’s pale, delicate features stand out amongst her dark hair that clung to her shoulder in streams.

“Do you think this is a good look on me?” he asked, stroking his soap beard.

Evaline was busy combing through her hair with the sudsy water, splashing into the water every once in a while to wash away the grime, oils, and sand from the week. Her hair was getting longer now, and although she didn't mind the braids, she wondered if it was still too much of a hassle. Maybe she should cut her hair. Would James think that was a good idea?

The soap smelled familiar. Basil. Similar to the soap she bought, but less zesty from the lack of lemon. Just basil. Did James choose this on purpose?

Her thoughts were interrupted when James spoke up, and she looked up at him and saw soap suds all over his face and beard. He was stroking his fake soap beard, trying to look sophisticated.

She stared at him for a second, wondering if this was real, because it was just so ridiculous.

The goofy image pierced through the anxiety, and she tried to suppress a silly laugh as it hitched in her throat, but it ended up coming up anyways, warm and full.

"You are ridiculous," she said with a smile, lingering her gaze on him for a little longer before returning to washing her hair.

James couldn’t help it. He grinned. Yes, he was being ridiculous, but hearing Evaline laugh made him chuckle as well, and it was like it added fuel to a fire. The brief bout of laughter pierced through the tension and James wanted more.

And he couldn’t deny that hearing Evaline laugh made him happy. It felt like it had been so long.

With a determination to make her laugh more, he decided to step up the ridiculousness, even if it felt silly.

He took the soap and lathered it on his arm to work up more suds, and then grabbed the suds, added it to the sides of his head, and ran his fingers through his hair so it stuck up straight.

“What about this?” he asked. He angled his shoulders and looked at her from the side, posing, even though it felt painfully cheesy.

He held out both hands to frame and gesture to his face.

“Opinions?”

With a lingering smile, Evaline kept combing through her hair and dunking it in the water to wash away the grime. She was about to completely submerge to get rid of all the suds, but then James spoke up again, and she just knew he was going to do something silly again.

She looked over and saw him striking a goofy pose with his hair standing straight up, gelled by soap. She couldn't help it. It was such a sight.

Another laugh escaped her lips, but she didn't suppress it this time. She half-rolled her eyes, and with the soapy hair over her shoulder, she set her elbow on the edge of the tub to prop her head against her hand. She grinned while looking over at him, perhaps staring a little longer than what was comfortable.

"Careful, now," she said with a silly smile. "You're talking to the artist who drew your wanted posters. This image might be plastered all over towns."