Bedside Manner
Who: Finn and Lindsey Where: Finn’s tent When: late morning
Finn had had a great morning in the hand to hand combat ring. He'd bested all his opponents, knocking out more competitors than any other knight and moving his name to the top of the list. There was archery this afternoon, but for now he was back in his tent, having left his equipment with Norman to take care of and was peeling himself out of his tunic, inspecting the cuts and bruises across his skin. There were other scars as well, here and there from similar tournaments and bouts, but nothing too jarring.
Lindsey had enjoyed watching the rest of Finn's matches, distracted from thoughts about Christer's brief visit and gratified that her knight had indeed been the best. She was riding some kind of high though she'd been tasked with bandages and a special, disgusting smelling salve that had her wrinkling her nose as she entered the tent. Something she immediately stopped doing once she saw Finn. "Oh," she said and knew she was probably supposed to avert her eyes modestly but she didn't. "Well done today. I think you earned every one of those!"
Finn turned when she spoke, still holding his shirt, but not making a move to cover himself up. There wasn't much point in that. He was curious what she was doing there at first, and it showed on his face. She wouldn't be the first girl to wander into a knight's tent to help him 'celebrate' his victories, but after a moment he realized what was in her hands and pulled his mind back to her actual tasks as his squire. "I was expecting Norman," he told her with a small smile, as if explaining his curiosity away. "But thank you."
Lindsey's expression turned just as curious as his, wondering why he was looking at her that way. She giggled a little nervously and set the bandages and salve down on the first surface she could find. She understood immediately when he admitted he'd expected Norman and she nodded. "Right, well I shirked my duties enough today. I figured it was my turn to do something but if you want Norman, I can get him," she said and pointed a thumb over her shoulder, glancing toward the entry flap of the tent then back at Finn.
Finn shook his head faster than he probably needed to, blonde hair falling in his eyes. "No, no. I think I'd rather you anyway." He smiled and tossed his shirt away, then went about trying to wash the worst of the mud and blood off of his skin. "Were you watching today then?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder at her.
Lindsey's brows shot up at his response and she both turned slightly pink and giggled again. She turned to look at what she'd brought in and mumbled, "Probably could use bandaids more than those." She grinned when he asked if she'd been watching. "I was. I was the one 'making an unladylike ruckus,'" she said, using a mocking, deep tone on the last words as it had been an admonishment given to her by a disapproving older woman with bulging eyes. "You're amazing to watch."
"Use what?" Finn asked, before wiping off the last of the grime and grabbing a dry towel to clean himself off with. "Well, unladylike or not, I suppose it depends on if it was a good ruckus or a bad one." He liked that blush and knew he was warming up to the girl despite her fire red hair. And the hair wasn't bad, just different than he was used to. "Am I now? That's quite the compliment."
Holy anachronism, Batman. She backpedaled a little and shook her head. "Oh! It's just something our local uh healer came up with. Little bandages for little cuts and scrapes." She shrugged like it was nothing and wondered if she was supposed to be the one washing off the dirt and blood and not making him do it himself. "It was a good one as far as I'm concerned. You are! I couldn't stop watching." She picked up the stinky salve and walked closer. "Do you really want this on you?"
Finn watched her for a moment then nodded. "Logical I suppose." He smiled at her comment, surprised at how easily the smile came. She wasn't the first to say she couldn't stop watching him, but something about the way she said it made it seem more genuine than others. He really didn't have time for women, but he was finding himself enjoying her attention. "It helps with infection. So yes. Shall I sit?" he asked considering he was much taller than her.
"Oh, very," she said and nodded as though logic was important. What might have had him noting genuineness in her was that she wasn't gushing because he was nice to look at, though he really was, but because she really had thoroughly enjoyed what she'd watched. She gave him an amused, scrunched-nose look. "Okay, but it'll drive off your fangirls uh - the ladies who think you're handsome. There were a lot of them. Yes, sit, please." There was a little, hard-bristled brush with the salve but that looked like it might do more damage than help when applying so she decided not to use it. Her fingers would simply have to be sacrificed to the smelliness.
"Were there?" he asked about the women, shaking his head. He sat on the edge of his cot, looking up at her with a smirk. "I'm not entirely concerned with driving them off. I seem to have kept you around despite myself." He wasn't used to flirting, but he'd been flirted at and Lindsey seemed like a safe enough choice to try his hand at if only for the moment.
"It's kind of my job to stick around so don't count me in there. I might run away if you walked up to me as a stranger smelling like this," she said and giggled. "Don't you like the ladies fawning over you? Or are you just all about the fight?" She dipped her first two fingers into the pot of salve and gingerly spread some of it over a small scratch on one of his shoulders, thinking to start small in case it stung or something.
"I have a feeling if it wasn't something you enjoyed you'd find something else to do with your time," he told her with a small smile. At her question he shrugged the shoulder she wasn't working on, trying to focus on her words and not her fingers. "I don't have time for the ladies of court. Not yet. Though sometimes they catch my attention." He found himself looking at her, studying her features.
Oh he was going to imply she was enjoying herself with the stinkiness? Was he flirting with her? She laughed and shrugged. "Probably not. I'm way out of my element here. I think it's safer to stick close to the big manly knight I work for." She focused on her work, noting that he didn't flinch so it must not sting. She moved on to a larger cut, one she gently applied the salve to before wrapping it with one of the bandages she'd brought. "Yes, the ladies of the court tend to be very eye-catching sometimes. All their pretty faces and even prettier clothes," she said, thinking a bit wistfully of the dress she'd passed up the day before.
Finn chuckled to himself at the comment, shaking his head. "So I'm big and manly now?" he asked. "I suppose I wasn't watching their garments, well minus the one with as many ribbons as a maypole." She hadn't seemed to pick up on the fact that he was talking about her, but he could be more obvious he supposed.
"Compared to me you are!" she laughed. Her mouth stayed quirked up on one side when he teased her about her ribbons. "A maypole, huh? It's just that this livery isn't very girly. I kind of like girly. And colorful." She looked away from his skin to his face. "When did you have time to watch me and my ribbons?" she asked.
"Livery is meant to be intimidating and impressive," he told her, pointing to the lion on her chest. "Though I suppose we could find you a proper dress in the colors." She would still look like his, just be dressed in a way that might be more suiting to her. He smiled slowly, eyes glinting with it. "You were creating a ruckus remember? You're harder to not notice than you think."
Lindsey made a little face. "I don't think I can do either of those things very well. I'm too tiny for intimidating which isn't impressive. On you and Norman it works." She looked upward at her hair then back at him. "Believe me, I know I'm highly noticeable. I've been getting looks like I'm devil's spawn for ages." She laughed lightly. "But you were way too busy being awesome. You're making it up," she protested with a smile as she went back to work spreading the smelly salve on his wounds.
"I'm not sure how much of Norman is intimidating," Finn said with a laugh in his voice. He looked up at her hair and then her face. "That's not the look I'm giving you. Or the one you usually get." Though he had been worried about her being a heathen, now he was thinking she'd been sent to him for a reason. Something to distract himself with. "I'm not making it up. Why would I lie to you?"
Norman was more intimidating than Lindsey but she giggled because it was funny to hear Finn say it. She turned her eyes to his face from her work again to see how he was looking at her. "Okay, sure, you're not looking at me like that but I do usually get that look from others. Except Norman and Christer." Definitely not from Christer. Her mouth formed a little "o" at his question. "Oh, no. I didn't mean you were lying. Just ... teasing me. Because I look like a maypole."
"Who's Christer?" Finn asked, but didn't seem to really care about the answer. "As many ribbons as one, not looking like one," he told her, catching her wrist with his hand and daring her closer. Maybe he could indulge. She wouldn't be the first, but he so very rarely let himself indulge. Thoughhe'd been victorious and she was right here, handsome in her own way and touching him. It seemed like enough reasons to enjoy himself. And her.
"Christer uh works at the stable. He's a good friend." Lindsey smiled thoughtfully, wondering if it would always be that way. Her smile turned more amused. "Is there really a difference?" she asked though she almost cut the last word off as he caught her wrist. "I- I'm sorry. Did that hurt?" she asked, looking at the wound she'd been working on.
Finn was going to answer, but the look on her face kept him from doing that. "No," he told her simply, still smiling. "Enjoyable almost," he added, watching her face for her reaction.
Lindsey fidgeted, shifting on her feet. "You want me to stop though?" she asked in mild confusion. If it felt good to have his wounds tended to, why would he want her to stop doing it?
He watched her, seeing how confused she was which left him frowning. Maybe it wasn't as good of an idea s he'd thought. "No, no you can keep going," he said finally, letting go of her hand and breaking contact with her eyes.
Now Lindsey was even more confused but maybe it was just one of those things where his medieval manners and her modern ones didn't quite match up. She blinked and nodded. "Okay," she said quietly. She moved onto the cot behind him, looking for more wounds and seeing a spot the size of an orange that was beginning to purple over his left kidney. She winced and gingerly touched the edge of it with her fingertips. "That's going to hurt when you try to sleep tonight. You should sleep on your right side."
It was sad that she looked confused, but he let it go as she got back to work, trying not to think too much of where he might have gone wrong. He winced when she touched the bruise, looking over his shoulder at her. "You could join me, make sure I sleep properly," he said with one last shot at flirting with her.
It hadn't even occurred to Lindsey what was really happening because it had only seemed like playful banter. That he, a handsome knight, might be attracted to her, the redhaired ruckus maker in his employ, seemed as far from possible as it had when Christer had said something about being asked to the banquet by a lord or knight. Though in retrospect she should have picked up the clues which were pretty obvious once he asked her to sleep with him. She turned red slowly as it sank in. "I um don't think that's in my job description," she said a bit nervously.
There was something refreshing about a lady that blushed naturally like that. So many seemed to force it, but she didn't. "I don't think of it as part of your duties."
Lindsey's face was growing hot and had he simply turned and kissed her without asking, the way Ivanya had, she might have simply lost herself. But because he was being a gentleman, mostly, about it she shook her head. "Not that I'm not really flattered and maybe a little tempted, but I have a virtue and reputation to protect." She hoped she wouldn't find out now that he had a horrible temper.
"Only a little tempted?" Finn asked, knowing that she probably did have virtue and a reputation to worry about but he wouldn't spread information about the liaison around. "Because I'm more than a little tempted."
Lindsey tried to tell herself that he said that to all the girls and not to fall for it but it made her stomach do a little flutter. Which immediately reminded her of yesterday with Christer. "I um think I've bandaged all of your wounds, sir," she said, trying not to look at him as she stood up and began to clean up what she'd brought because she felt confused now but in a different way than she had earlier.
Finn watched her as she got up, but the formal way she addressed him had him getting up and moving in front of her to still her hands with his. "I've upset you." Which he felt bad about. He hadn't expect to upset her.
Lindsey shook her head. "No, you didn't," she said honestly. "I just kind of don't know what to say and I'm kind of confused." And young and naive and feeling it oh so hard right then. She had the desire to run out of the tent.
Finn kept his hold on her hands, smiling softer. "What has you confused?" He asked.
Oh he was simply going to cute her into it a corner. She took one look at his smile and blurted out the first thing that came to her head while looking down at his hands. "I only just met you like a day ago and so if I were to agree to that it would only be a physical thing and I really don't want my first time to be that so um, thank you but no thank you?" And I like someone else which is the real reason.
He nodded slowly understanding that. "Maybe I'll get to know you better then," he said running his thumbs over her wrists before pulling away and going to find a new shirt. He wasn't upset about it really, it was shame, but it wasn't the end of the world. There were others. "Thank you, for helping. Will you be at the archery competition?"
Lindsey felt her cheeks turn pink again at both his words and the way his thumbs brushing her wrists made her feel even though she didn't really want to. Not for Finn at least. Briefly she wondered if she was missing an opportunity here because she was hung up on Christer but realized after she entertained the thought for a moment longer that even if Christer wasn't in the picture, the fact that Finn seemed like he could take it or leave it was not at all the way she wanted the guy she had her first time with to feel about it or her. "You're welcome," she said quietly and finished cleaning up, holding everything to her chest almost unconsciously like a shield. "Of course. I have to be there to root for the winning knight."
Finn smiled and nodded. "I would hope so. And I'll work on a dress. Something more fitting," he said. It was something at least, for his advances that weren't well received. There were others that would push past her saying no, but Finn wasn't one of them. The lady had her right to say no.
Lindsey appreciated that he seemed to take her rejection well. He was definitely handsome, especially when he smiled. Which she was glad he was doing instead of getting angry with her. She smiled back at him and dipped her chin. "Thank you. I'd like that. No more maypole." She looked at her ribbons, deciding to remove them as soon as she was finished here. She knew well enough to wait to be dismissed.
"Well, maybe not as many ribbons," Finn said with a smile, keeping the ribbons in mind for her dress. "Thank you, again. I'll see you on the fields." He didn't need her to linger, not when he had to get ready again.
Lindsey laughed softly and nodded again. "I will attempt to wear it at least impressively," she said. "Good luck, Finn. See you on the fields." With that Lindsey slid outside to let him finish getting ready. She wished she had a girlfriend to talk to about what had just happened. But she didn't so it was off to the fields instead.