Work Text:
He'd finally gotten him into the water, and not only with his feet or hands dipped in, teetering on the edge—no, fully inside the pool, and willingly.
It might've taken a life to make it happen, and one could call Roux cruel all they wanted; he was glad it did.
The blood dried soon after a short-lived brawl where whoever had tried pinning Myrrh to the ground and hurting him was left limp and cold on the palace grounds. A deep gash in the side of their throat.
The torn artery spilled, gushed down over a scarred face, and after the fact Myrrh had simply rubbed it from his eyes as if it were water and flicked his hands to get it off his gloves. He ran a hand over his mouth too, spitting on the grass, to rid of the offender’s blood rather than his own, Roux hoped. But the image pressed into the prince’s mind like a wax seal, was the way the warm red painted over his face matched his eyes.
Fresh blood suited him like garnet jewels or a fine shirt suited Roux. The implications left a warm coil twisting tighter and settling in his stomach. Myrrh, hot off a fight, shiny with sweat, panting, dripping with a bruise blooming under his eye, sent his thoughts whirling into impropriety. Ozha certainly helped in whatever way She could. Roux thanked Her under his breath.
He would be tested further. See, the blood had also gotten into the short army cut that left Myrrh's neck exposed—easy to access—drying there, sticky and mottled in his bangs. An issue arose; he could not appear before polite society covered in another person's remains, and this happened to be something he couldn't clean with his preferred wet rag and clear water. No. He would have to wash it out. He would need to use soap and—if the smell was any indication—he would need to use quite a bit of it.
As a crown prince, before the delivery of an unexpected and frankly baffling engagement notice letter, Roux had been taught to recognize opportunity; be it in trading spices with faraway kingdoms, in aiding his people financially or in organizing events for the artisans profit and in turn the community's appreciation for the crown.
So when Myrrh had tried to excuse himself, tugging on Roux’s sleeve, half-mumbling, tail stiff between his legs and ears lowered—averting his eyes from a handful of Tagetian guards who stared in horrified, disgusted silence—Roux, in a whisper, suggested he use the royal bathing chambers instead. His very own royal bathing chambers, he didn't point out, but after some polite and frustratingly necessary back and forth, Myrrh agreed. The last of his hesitancy faded when Roux explained his people would prefer not to see a mist of blood spreading through the public pools. The prince was right; bathing in a secluded private room was indeed the way to go.
After a short walk to the innermost parts of Al Zhera's palace, the two rounded a corner and a tall double door came into view. Myrrh brushed his bangs out of his face, the leftover blood now very dry and—Roux thought—feeling like it didn't belong on him at all, not any more than dirt and grime did. It was dark now, and came off in a powder when he rubbed at the corners of his eyes. Roux wondered if it would stay vibrant longer in Rosa, where the warmth of Ozha’s might didn’t crackle in the air year round.
He opened the door to a much smaller pool of water than he usually resorted to, with channels at the corners which led outside. They connected to the river water, ensuring a free flow of fresh water that would change itself out with time. It was similar to the private pool he would drag Myrrh to in order to offer a respite from the relentless heat. They'd found out pouring some cold water over his head, or simply placing a damp towel over his ears, made the temperatures far more bearable for someone who was built for ice and not steam.
While that was all well and nice, Roux had to admit to himself that he was disappointed cooling off Myrrh consisted of far more clothing than he would've hoped for. And, well, even that part went his way when medical professionals shared the opinion that the boy from the Deep North would need a couple more crutches to adapt than they had initially thought.
Myrrh was sitting on a bench while a medic stitched shut a smaller cut in his forearm. After she'd finished she took hold of his ear, and he’d been too exhausted with the heat to even flinch in response.
A quick look over and a short stare at Myrrh's uncomprehending face, then she turned to Roux and said, “Most of the body heat is supposed to go out through our ears, see this—” She took a gentle hold of it again. “ —all fluff… smaller too,” she muttered. Roux's eyes narrowed, a little pinch in the corners that Myrrh had caught, and that in turn made him worry too.
“And he's only got one, poor thing,” she said. “Underfed and overheating, no wonder he's miserable.”
With that, she'd picked up her medicine case and gone off to the others.
“What did she say?” Myrrh asked Roux then.
The prince offered a half-pitiful look down at Myrrh and said, “I fear you might have to switch to a sleeveless tunic.”
For a long moment Myrrh only stared back at him. He squinted. “You're doing an awful job of pretending you're sad about that.”
“So I am,” said Roux, offering Myrrh his hand and helping to pull him to his feet.
But at no point would he get into the water fully, not even to clean himself, which might've been what had struck Roux the most dumb. Especially considering the fact Myrrh didn't smell of anything in particular, granted he was clean of blood or metal weapons tucked away on his person.
So there they were then, in the smaller bathing chamber Roux specifically used for cleanliness. Myrrh looked around the room with the same sort of bright-eyed caution that never seemed to leave him, no matter how late into the night or how early in the day it was, while Roux opened a small drawer off to the side and began rummaging through various soaps and salts and oils.
After a while of picking through labeled or tagged bottles and vials, he asked: “What scents do you like?”
“Salmon.”
“Mm…” Roux bowed his head, hand going limp. “Allow me to rephrase: What scents do you like to have on yourself?”
At that, Myrrh shrugged. “So long as it isn't too strong or foul, I don't much care,” He gave the pool a brief look-over, before taking a step away from it. “I can’t say more than that,” he added, “Saints know I would've died ages ago if my paychecks went to perfumes.”
Roux hummed—choosing to ignore the fact his shield was treating one of the royal bathtubs like a vat of acid—and turned back to the drawer, now searching with more intent. His eyes landed on a small dimmed vial with an insignia engraved into the cork. A protocol gift from an Irisian minister that visited once.
He turned to Myrrh. “How about lavender?”
Myrrh prowled closer and to his relief, that meant further still from the water. Curious, he tilted his head, trying to read the foreign sigil, and Roux offered up the vial for him to smell.
Myrrh recoiled.
“You want me to smell like someone's grandmother?” he asked, with so much indignation one would think Roux had just slapped him across the face.
The prince couldn't help but smile, Myrrh's fur always bristled when he got upset.
“No, I suppose not,” he said, “But anything is better than blood, no?”
The fur on Myrrh's ears settled, and he rubbed near his eyes. “Are there no other options?”
Roux already had another bottle in his hand. “This is the one I use,” he offered, hopefully, well aware of the odds Myrrh would shoot him down again. It had been a strange realization: that the stoic, tight-laced Rosatian had gotten comfortable enough around him to be openly picky. Somehow this hadn’t irked Roux one bit.
So far.
Myrrh leaned forward to smell it. If Roux looked closely, he could almost see the gears turning in his head. Myrrh frowned.
“Vanilla is horribly expensive…” he began, “In food alone. To use it as a fragrance is…” Frivolous? Excessive? Pretentious?
Wealthy.
“A ‘no’ would be sufficient, dear,” Roux sighed, already moving to try a third bottle.
“No—” Myrrh stopped him. His voice bent as it bounced against the tiled walls, that was another part of the pools he disliked. Potential threats were harder to detect. “It’s only, I did not think you someone to… afford such luxuries.” His expression pulled into a wince as he heard what he’d just said. “I would sooner expect it from your fiancée,” he hoped he’d clarified.
Roux considered it, he recalled Darling’s perfume had stronger notes of vanilla in it than his own did. Though she did seem to prefer sweeter, stronger scents, as opposed to Roux’s lighter citrus and sandalwood ones. Ozha’s hands, but he missed her. Correspondence was an awfully slow method of conversing, it lacked the punch of immediate face to face conversation, the way her wit stuck sharp and her jokes landed easy. And her laugh, he decided. Her letters lacked her laugh.
He snapped out of his thoughts when he noticed Myrrh standing idly, observing him. Brick red blood stuck around his eyes still, and the few streaks left by the droplets painted down to his jaw wouldn’t budge if he rubbed at them with a dry hand. Briefly, Roux prayed the other wouldn’t point out that, had he gone and cleaned himself, he would have surely been done by now.
Instead, Myrrh asked: “Has she sent anything new?”
Roux blinked, remembering himself. “I’m sure she has, it just hasn’t gotten here yet.” He then made quick work of picking out whatever else he decided he needed from the cabinet, other things he himself used, and went to set them down by the edge of the pool, where a shelf sank into the floor to keep the items from washing away on the off chance the water level rose. He’d sat down, dipping his hand in. “I did get some new mail from the castle though. Figment wrote me.”
Myrrh rolled his eyes, tail lashing. “You can spare me the details.”
“And you can free yourself of your clothes now, possibly,” Roux said. Myrrh froze, and looked at him as though he’d forgotten why they were there in the first place. “I can’t imagine you want to get your uniform wet.” He pointed at it with his other hand. Myrrh looked down at himself.
Roux couldn’t quite tell how much blood had gotten on it either, and he wondered if it could have been made in red for that purpose. Darling was always strategic about small details such as… Those.
Something in Roux’s chest squeezed at the thought.
“I suppose not,” Myrrh conceded, and made to unbutton his overcoat. As he did so, Roux made himself comfortable, one knee pulled up to his chest by the edge as the water sloshed against it. Almost as though in silent invitation. He’d gladly climb in himself if he weren’t set on getting Myrrh clean first. For now the fresh smell of the river would suffice to calm his nerves. Someone had tried to kill him just that morning, afterall, if it weren’t for Myrrh he would not be there to appreciate the cool water brushing against his fingers.
He looked over to his shield only to see him half way down the buttons, which struck him as unusual. Myrrh could undress much faster than that, but the movements of his hands grew slower before coming to a halt. He stared at Roux, or, more specifically, his clothes. Both had frowned then, confused.
“Are you…” Myrrh’s eyes darted to the door, closed and locked behind him. “Not going to?”
Then Roux smiled, his shield’s predicament becoming clear to him. He rested his head against his knee. “My clothes are clean, Myrrh,” he said.
Myrrh blinked once, then twice.
“Right,” he muttered, undoing the rest and slipping his overcoat from his shoulders, abandoning it on the ground. Then his hands found the collar of his chemise shirt, light linen that served to keep his uniform from coming into contact with his skin and vice versa.
After the first two, three buttons came undone, the light fabric peeling away to reveal collarbones and soft pale flesh, raked through with scar tissue, he became all the more aware of Roux’s eyes on him. He could never tell with how saint-weeping hot it was in the palace, but it certainly felt as though the room grew warmer around him.
Myrrh’s face heated. “This feels unfair,” he breathed.
“I’m not the one who has his face caked in blood,” Roux pointed out, words half muffled from where his palm surely concealed a grin. His tail moved in a lazy sway behind him, long and twisting. If he had made any effort at trying to conceal he was enjoying himself, he failed spectacularly.
“Thanks to me,” Myrrh grumbled into his chest, now with his hands at his navel. Bruises crept up right below it, he knew, bruises fresher than he’d ever admit. Some spotted his torso as well, peppered over his pecs and abs, and he’d made sure Roux had a clear view of the damage as less and less of the fabric obscured him.
Roux’s hand left his mouth, and he said, earnestly, “You can always say no.” His smile persisted.
By then, the shirt was undone, and Myrrh had already shrugged his arms out of the sleeves, dropping it off where he’d left his overcoat. He joined Roux by the edge of the pool, sat beside him and reached over to quite literally attempt to wipe the grin off his face. Roux snickered under the pale hand set to silence him.
That was never going to happen.