Bastien (pasttheveil) wrote in commandhq, @ 2018-03-10 16:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | jp allen, julian cain, p: mena, p: mj |
Who: Julian Cain & JP Allen
What: Florence Nightingale to the rescue!
When: Ten minutes after this
Where: Julian’s room
Rating: Low
JP hadn’t really been expecting Julian to take him up on his offer of food, ice and arnica cream but then again the guy was friendly enough and was one of the few people here that JP had actually felt that he’d bonded with. Noah counted, of course he did, but it was… it was different. Noah was Noah, his best friend since he was like, five, and honestly? Things felt different between them. It was probably just because they weren’t spending much time together, that Noah was an employee of the system that had JP under indentured servitude… And, after all, time changed everything. He just needed to be patient, he knew that, but it didn’t make it any easier on him.
Pushing his fingers through his hair, he knocked briefly on Julian’s door before letting himself in. He’d swung by the shoppette and then the cafeteria, grabbing the essentials and then heading straight over to Julian’s room.
“Bon soir,” he said with a grin, shrugging out of his hoodie. It might have been chilly outside, but the dorm rooms were warm and toasty, much to the frustration of those that ran hot. JP, however, loved the fact that they were warm. He hated having to wear additional layers of clothing because he felt suffocated.
Perching on the edge of the bed, he passed a styrofoam container over to Julian. “First,” he began, “we eat. Then I’ll dish out the other stuff I got you.”
He tilted his head, “Whereabouts are your bruises? And what the hell even happened that meant the hologym got the jump on you?”
Julian really did feel like he’d been put through the wringer when the hologym had slammed his golem into the wall. He’d never had much cause for them to be destroyed before so wasn’t aware of just how much that shit hurt or how big of a mark would be left behind when it happened.
He had a varied and colourful collection of bruises across his side, along his back and up along his right shoulder for this particular oversight. Somehow he’d managed to get undressed then dressed again in a pair of low riding jeans and dark t-shirt, but even that had been all kinds of painful. This meant he was decent by the time JP let himself in.
“Holographic construct,” he explained as he took a hold of the styrofoam container. “Came right out of nowhere, slammed my golem into the wall and completely destroyed it.”
JP hissed in a breath and toed off his boots, crossing his legs as he shifted back on the bed and opened his own container. If there was a surefire way of getting to JP’s heart, it was through his stomach. Or by giving him books. He was relatively easy to please.
“That sucks,” he muttered, tucking into his burger and with the other hand reaching into the bag and pulling out a six pack of beer. “Don’t say I never give you anything,” he added, swallowing his mouthful and licking sauce off the corner of his mouth. “I’m impressed you decided to go into the hologym of your own accord. I hate going in that place.”
“Like I said, Florence Nightingale,” Julian replied with a grin that bared those sharper than normal canines. “And I figured hologym was as good a place as any for me to let loose and see what my golems can do. Turns out they’re not quite as indestructible as I’d hoped.”
He shrugged then winced a moment later as that hurt, apparently.
Mm, fuck.
JP saw the wince and grimaced in sympathy. He did another check of the bag and he’d definitely grabbed painkillers along with the arnica cream. He finished his burger in silence - one didn’t ruin the sanctity of food with conversation - and put both of their styrofoam containers in the trash.
“Well, I guess you learned a valuable lesson today at least?” He said, picking up the pre-food conversation and pushing the sleeves of his shirt up past his elbows. “Don’t let your shit get smashed?”
He’d noticed even in the brief time that he was there that Julian’s movements were awkward and stilted. He pressed his lips together and rummaged around for the cream, passing an opened beer to the other agent and then letting the tube hang between two fingers.
“You gonna be able to do this yourself?”
That was a very good question, one Julian didn’t have the answer for right at this moment. “Only one way to find out,” he remarked as he took the beer with a grateful smile and after one steady pull he soon put it to one side and turned his attention to getting out of his t-shirt.
It was slow, laboured, and definitely not as smooth as it normally was but the further up his t-shirt slid the more the mottled colour of bruises became apparent. If bruises could look angry and pissed off then these most definitely did and they took away from the natural olive complexion of Julian’s skin and also did a number on the tattoos which littered his skin.
He was still for a moment as he just closed his eyes and breathed through the pain before Julian cleared his throat, dark gaze resting on JP and then on the tube of cream.
“Here goes nothing,” he muttered as he collected it up.
JP’s eyes definitely didn’t linger on the way Julian’s skin and hips moved as he pulled off his shirt, or roam over the exposed, and tattooed expanse, or the flat plane of Julian’s stomach.
Clearing his throat as the tube was taken from him, JP rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the floor.
“Looks painful.”
Julian gave a small snort as he reached up to tie his dreads back which in itself was painful enough but he coached himself through that by just breathing. “Mm, that’s an understatement,” he murmured, voice thick and deeper than it had been before but pain had a funny way of doing that.
He twisted the cap, squeezed some cream out and then began to apply it and he was doing well up until the point he needed to twist to get to the bruises that were a lot further back.
“Merde,” he hissed a moment later.
“That means shit, right?” JP asked, shifting up the bed a bit and taking the tube of cream from Julian’s hand and trying very hard to just not let his eyes wander all over the guy’s chest and shoulders. He did allow himself to look at the tattoo that was marking Julian’s collarbone, but it was only for a moment. He thought he was failing at not checking the guy out but could he be blamed, really?
He waved his hand, “C’mon, shift over, I’ll get the ones on your back.” He swallowed, definitely not having a slightly dry mouth.
“Oui,” Julian replied as he pushed a breath out as JP took the cream off him. Thankfully for JP the normally astute Julian Cain was so distracted by the pain that he was failing to notice all the wandering looks.
It took him a moment but eventually he turned so JP had the full expanse of his back, bruises included.
“Definitely a lesson learned for next time.”
JP let out a low whistle and when he tried to speak, his voice caught a little. He cleared his throat and rubbed his hands together, trying to warm them up because ever since his powers had manifested, his body had been a little on the chillier side. He constantly had cold hands and feet which was why he appreciated the warmth of the dorm building.
“So… I’m guessing that the nature of the destruction of your golem was replicated on you? Because otherwise you look like the Hulk did a Loki on you.”
He put some of the cream on his fingertips and, starting at Julian’s lower back, carefully and methodically started applying the arnica, making sure to rub it in thoroughly.
Julian pressed his tongue to the bottom of his front teeth as JP began working the arnica cream in and he just focused on breathing, the metal of his tongue piercing catching against the sharp tip of his canine.
“Yeah, looks like,” he hummed as he turned his head to regard JP. “Never knew that could happen ‘cause never really had reason for them to be destroyed except by my own will.”
Better he learned it now than later.
“Better you learned it now,” JP muttered, the palm of his hand carefully moving up Julian’s back, cool against the injury-hot skin. “Rather than out on the field.”
“Definitely could have been a whole lot worse,” Julian agreed with a nod of his head as he caught his lower lip and held onto it as the cream was worked into skin that honestly felt like it had been lit on fire. “Out in the field I stand a better chance of getting killed than in the hologym.”
He did his best to stay still under JP’s ministrations and had an odd thought that this was not the way he imagined that somebody would be touching him again after five very long years in jail.
JP watched Julian’s back and bit the inside of his lower lip. Honestly, if he’d given it any thought, he wouldn’t have considered that this would be the first time he had his hands on someone since, well, ever.
“That’s still fucked up,” he muttered, applying more cream to Julian’s upper back and working it in. “I mean that they send us out into the field to do shit for them. Like a private security force.”
He cleared his throat again and wet his lower lip. “You went out last time, right?”
“Mmhm,” Julian hummed with a nod of his head. “Bank robbers who just so happened to be supers. We went in, stopped what was happening and then came back here. Really fucking weird to be wearing a FBI outfit I’ll tell you that.”
He exhaled a breath as JP’s attention turned to his upper back.
“Really don’t think the dreads sold it.”
JP chuckled and pushed some of said tied-back dreadlocks out of his way as his fingers moved across Julian’s shoulder blade and up the edge of his neck where the bruises were starting to appear.
“Gotta be honest,” he muttered, “I’m having trouble seeing you as an FBI agent.”
The arnica cream looked to be rubbed in and JP sat back, rubbing his hands together until the residual cream was soaked into his own skin. It wasn’t like numbing gel, and he’d already eaten so it was enough of a start that he could just wait until he got back to his own room to wash his hands.
“There you go,” he said, moving out of the way so Julian could turn over again. “Pretty sure that’s all rubbed in.”
He wet his lower lip and cleared his throat again, looking down at his hands, cracking his knuckles.
“Should help break the bruises down, at least.”
“You and me both,” Julian shared with a chuckle as he turned back around and he reached out to retrieve his previously abandoned t-shirt. “And thanks for this, I’ll pay you back when and if you ever need it.”
He collected his beer and took a sip before he shifted slowly until he was in a good position to pull his t-shirt back on.
“The sooner these bruises shift the better.”
JP lifted a shoulder and rubbed the back of his neck, tucking one leg underneath himself as he sat halfway down the bed and looked away from Julian so that if he was going to put his shirt back on he could do so without someone staring at him. With the extensive bruising it looked like it was going to be a laborious task.
“Should only take a couple of days,” he said, “but I’d keep your showers cool.”
Laborious was definitely one way of describing the momentous task it was to pull his t-shirt on but eventually it was on and Julian let out a pained breath as he leaned back against the nearby wall.
“I hate cool showers unless of course it’s in the middle of a hot New Orleans evening,” Julian said with a smirk as he looked over at JP. “But you’re probably right, not exactly a sucker for pain if it can be avoided.”
JP tilted his head and smirked at Julian, retrieving his own beer and tipping his head back as he took a long pull from the bottle. Wetting his lower lip he said, “Dunno, kinda figured you were a ‘under the right circumstances’ sorta guy.”
“Well…” Julian began before his lips pulled into a knowing smile because it had been known to happen and it was definitely a whole lot more fun than anything that had happened in the hologym.
He sipped at his beer and turned his head to look at JP.
“Time and a place, JP.”
JP snorted and ducked his head to hide the slight flush of colour that rushed over his face, taking another drink and then rolling the bottle between his hands.
“Time and a place,” he repeated with a chuckle, looking at Julian with a small smile, “you can say that again.”