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Given that he hadn't stood once Lust entered? Bad. But he wasn't going to give any indication of that if he could help it.

Amit skittered to stand by Scar's side when Lust entered their Space. She didn't belong here.

But she also knew she'd be in her ball for a week of she laid a claw on Lust.

"It isn't. And do not come near me, I haven't bathed in three days." Another consequence of Dream Fun.

"I've smelled you with a better nose when you've been unwashed longer, it doesn't matter."

She moved to crouch beside him, noting how he moved. Or more accurately how he didn't.

"Let me help you."

...She had a point.

"I can get up on my own," he muttered as he proceeded to demonstrate... poorly. Scar boasted an exceptionally high tolerance for pain, but it didn't do him much good when he was so damn stiff to begin with. Standing up took a moment, and he had to actively fight to stave off any outward sign that he was hurting.

Which just meant that he scowled harder, really. His body was a mess from being here so long, and that was obvious.

"Scar...."

Lust sighed. She could tell that he was in a great deal of pain. She knew how bodies moved when they were in pain. And he looked angrier than normal.

"Stop this. There's no sense in protesting you're fine when I know perfectly well that you aren't. I can see from here that your back is out of alignment. That isn't going to just fix itself."

Scar leaned back against a wall, teeth gritting.

"No, but it isn't going to be magically corrected, either. It has only been a day."

He didn't know why he was being so stubborn about this. Amit not so subtly tried to maneuver herself between the two of them.

"Not magically, but medically. I am well educated in anatomy and medicine." It had been necessary, considering her work in biological alchemy.

She tried to ignore Amit, and Amoz gave another low growl in the Zangoose's direction.

"I can fix this, if you'd let me."

"Then tell me what to do," he finally conceded, eyes squeezed shut as if admitting he needed her help made it somehow worse.

"Amit, stop," he said definitively. Irritated as the Zangoose was about being hushed, she did settle.

Thank god! Lust placed a hand on his shoulder, gently.

"Just kneel down and try and relax. This won't be pleasant, but you'll feel better when it's done."

And she knew that he could handle the discomfort and pain of being put back to rights.

Remaining silent, Scar did as she said, kneeling down on the grubby blanket he called a bed.

It could be that bad.

Once he was kneeling, Lust cracked her knuckles and got to work. She felt along his spine first, frowning. After some clinical exploration, she pressed one hand flat over his shoulder blade and pulled his shoulder back swiftly while pressing forward with her palm.

The loud crunching sound that followed told her she'd been successful.

Scar wasn't ready for... whatever just happened with his back. He flinched, grunting loudly, and turned around to give Lust a what the hell was that? expression. Something between an angry bear and a kicked puppy.

"I told you this wasn't going to be pleasant. This isn't a pleasure rub, I'm putting your spine back to normal. Face forward and relax."

She repeated the same process on his other side, pulling another unpleasant bone sound from him as everything shifted under her hand.

God he was well muscled.

He reacted far less the second time, facing forward as she had said. Something felt better he... supposed. It was difficult to tell, now.

And even if it didn't help, he could pretend that it did.

Lust continued to work Scar over, pulling and pressing and twisting him until everything had popped and ground its way back to where it ought to be. She finally stepped back and smoothed her knee length skirt down.

"There. You should be able to stand up much easier now. You should lie flat for a while, you'll be sore but it will ease."

And now that it was done, she needed to address his living situation. This couldn't go on.

Scar tested it out, rolling his shoulders and lightly arching his back before lying flat. He brushed his bangs back, eyes tightly shut.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"You're welcome."

Lust crouched down by Scar's makeshift 'bed' and pursed her lips together tightly. It hurt her in ways she couldn't quite understand, to see him like this. Animals lived better.

"Scar...we need to talk."

Scar's lips tightened, and his eyes clinched a hair tighter. This could be about any number of things, really.

"What?" It wasn't an irritated word. He just didn't know what she wanted to address.

"You can't keep living like this."

She gestured her hand at the alley.

"There's no point to it. You don't have to. Your Pokemon don't have to. There's a whole world around you that has welcomed you with open arms, and you're sleeping on an old blanket in an alleyway."

Her voice was soft, but emphatic. Living like this couldn't be helping his state of mind any. She'd brought this up before, but now, seeing him like this...

Scar took a deep breath, opening his eyes to stare up at the sky rather than at her.

"I have tried other ways. Keeping it up is..." He trailed off. Difficult. Impossible. He hadn't actually had a home in eleven years. Making the adjustment now...

"I am fine." But of course she had to bring up his Pokémon. There was a flash of guilt, at that.

"I don't think you are. You may believe you are and feel as though you are, but I don't think you are."

Crouching was uncomfortable, so Lust finally eased herself to sit by his head. She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them, choosing her words very carefully.

"I know change is difficult. But it gets easier. You should be sleeping in a bed, with a roof over your head and walls to keep out the weather and strange creatures. I think you'd all be much happier."

Scar rolled to face away from her so she couldn't see the flash of pain on his face. She really was driving home the point of his Pokémon as well, wasn't she? He reached for Amit, who immediately curled up under his arm with a self satisfied grin in Lust's direction. Yes, the attention was hers.

"No one is going to simply hand me a place to live, Lust."

"You wouldn't accept that, would you?"

She'd gladly rent him an apartment or a hotel room, if he'd take it. It was a better use of her money than most of what she spent it on.

What was that Zangoose's problem?

"If I am doing this, I am doing it myself." He refused to live off anyone. Especially her.

He would have to find a way to make money, though. Another thing he hadn't properly done in so long. He didn't have any useful skills, but money was strangely easy to make, here. He could find something.

"That's what I assumed. " She tilted her head with something of a fond smile.

"I'm not going to give you some ridiculous ultimatum or think any differently if you continue on as you have." Cautiously, but less so than in the past, Lust reached out to run her fingers lightly over Scar's hair. After the other night, it was foolish to keep her hands twisted tightly in her lap.

"But I think you'd feel better in the grand scheme, if you gave it a chance."

Scar stared at the tiny cracks in the concrete, still turned away from her. His eyes lowered, when he felt her touch his hair. Anyone else, and he would have at least jumped.

This was something difficult to admit, and he spoke softly.

"I should," he conceded, "if this is... if we're... going to do this."

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a_sin_for_him - 2015-05-08 16:07 (UTC) - Expand

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envy_the_sinners - 2015-05-08 19:14 (UTC) - Expand