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He doesn’t know why you insist on doing this. Your hands, still warm from the shower you’d shared, smooth along his rippled, scarred skin. You treat this act as if it were holy, one kept special and secret, reserved only for him. Like you revere him as a god… as the god he was meant to be.
But godhood was torn from his grasp, leaving him mangled and deformed. He is but a fraction of the man he once was in nearly every sense.
Uroboros had saved his life. It regrew his limbs and sealed his wounds, but it cared not for preserving his image. For a time, he wondered if that’s why you’d taken up this routine. Perhaps you’d been so revolted by his marred body that you, full of pity, thought you could fix it. It seemed a lifetime ago that he’d lashed out over the thought, but it was only a mere two weeks prior that you’d held his cheeks and reassured him of his beauty.
“You’re like sunshine to me.” You’d said. “I love you."
It had initially been antibiotic creams you rubbed into his skin, each inch of flesh receiving the same reverent, slow circular motions of your fingertips. After your fretting about infection ceased, you moved on to scar gel– applied diligently from head to toe after every instance in which you’d help him bathe.
He’s resentful that he needs such assistance, even now. It was unbecoming of the man he was. Of the man he should’ve been– that he should be… You always say it’s for the preservation of the compound’s hot water that you join him, but he knows it’s because the weakened muscles of his legs threaten to give out at any moment unless you’re present to provide support. You're simply sparing his pride.
Back from the dead for three weeks and he could hardly stand on his own. Confined to a chair just like him, forced to practice that which should come as naturally as breathing.
You’ve got him sat atop the lid of the toilet, standing between his spread legs with his face in your hands. Your thumbs rub so very sweetly at each ripple, left hand dancing up to work that sticky gel into a section of his scalp that had been singed away in the fires of the Earth. Your touch is like heaven…
Wesker keeps his eyes shut, telling himself over and over that it’s because he hates the way you look at him while you do this that he does so, not because of the raw tenderness in your gaze. And yet, he cannot help but lean into it when your fingers thread through the surviving thatches of his hair. The backs of your knuckles meet his temple and he’s unsure of which touch soothes him more.
“Hm, hehe…”
For a moment he thinks you’re laughing at him, but then he remembers…
“It’s happening again!” You chirp. Your wide smile and sparkling eyes greet him. The overhead light above casts a halo around you, painting you as the angel that you are.
He regards you with a disinterested huff, tearing his eyes away from you to look anywhere else– the wall, the shower curtain, the floor. As if the predicament as a whole wasn’t already humiliating enough, there had been a recent… development.
You should’ve warned him that the damn thing was creeping out of his chest. Since stepping away from death’s door, Uroboros had gone dormant within a small amber-like formation embedded in his sternum. Initially it had seemed to be a permanent tumor-like mass left behind, but time had proven it to be where the ‘critter,’ as you’d dubbed it, hides away until called upon. Except he can’t. Efforts to summon even one of the tentacles that had so easily encased him were futile and always resulted in the nearest object being thrown across the room in a helpless fury. Until five days prior, that is.
You giggle as the black mass coils and snakes up your arm, slithering across your back and pulling your bare bodies almost flush to one another. You embrace Wesker with your free arm, nuzzling into the crook of his neck while the tentacle appendage settles and simply presses you closer.
“If you wanted a hug, you just had to ask,” you coo softly, lips grazing another rough patch of flesh.
Damned thing.
This happened twice before. Once, having curled around your body, pulling you snug to his side while the both of you slept and leaving you confused and fretful about if you hurt him when you finally woke. The second was much like now, only it had coiled around your waist while you held him under the stream of the shower. It took you by surprise, but you never reacted with disgust. Quite the opposite, really.
“I didn’t.” Wesker mumbles, but he wraps his arms around you nonetheless. It feels so very good to hold you…
“Liar,” You accuse happily, pulling back just enough to brush your nose against his. You look into his eyes as if they weren’t undergoing strange changes with their uneven pupils and fractured blues tainted by hues of scarlet. “C’mon, we talked about this. Subconscious desires, remember?”
Of course he remembers; he’s the one who came to the conclusion. Unconscious even, if the actions during his sleep were anything to go by. He regards you with a curt hm, which you promptly interrupt with a peck to his lips.
“Just get my clothes already.” He tries to muster the energy to deliver it as a command, but he falls short with a sluggish suggestion instead.
“I would," you tease, "but you have to let go first.”
Easier said than done… after all, he has to want to.