under your skin
Jun. 22nd, 2025 09:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidewaysTitle: Under Your Skin
AO3: Link
Rating: PG
Series: A House of Many Doors (Char Dvetistek/Kinetopede Captain)
Wordcount: 1,100
Summary: Char doesn't worry. Except when she does, a little.
Tags: Mild Spoilers for Canon, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied Sexual Content, Body Horror
Remarks: I've been playing HoMD again and delighted to find that since my last delving the creator launched a HUGE patch that has cleared up many bugs, including Char's romance! Hilariously, it so far seems to be about what I'd already headcanoned. Nobody here has an emotional IQ worth squat. Honestly, most of this fic was just an excuse for me to muse on how Ira lost her hand.
◘◘◘
“Don't think I haven't figured it out,” Char says, finger wagging. “You're hooked on somethin’, same as me.”
Ira's brows bend in a frown, but there's no heat in the eye following the motion of Char's finger like a metronome. Sometimes it seems like anger is about the only thing the captain won't invite into her quarters; Char's seen her stare down ghoulgoyles howling insults off the bow of their ship with fatherly indulgence. Unflappable, some might say. Unhinged is another opinion.
A gent with perspective, Char's decided. The kind of worldly experience that teaches someone not to make a mountain out of a backstabbing. Just the sort of company Char best likes to keep, especially when most other sorts have a way of blowing up in her face like an unwashed beaker on its eighth re-use.
There's sweat plastering Ira's hair down over her forehead, and more of it drying sticky on Char's back. The bed’s uncomfortably warm after all the friction they've worked up between its sheets, the fug and heat of the City of Keys pressing in through every crack in the building. Having this much space and a soft mattress at their disposal is too good a deal to give up just for the sake of a bit of damp, though, so Char wriggles around, kicks the sheets away for a breather. Tomorrow it'll be right back to narrow bunks and whatever miracles Otto can make out of the rations; tonight she means to enjoy the ability to roll about and stretch. No telling just why Ira insists on paying rent for a pricey City flat when she spends most of her time running as far from it as she can, but Char appreciates hypocrisy that comes with lumbar support.
“I've never been very fond of godsmoke,” Ira says, thoughtfully. “Mortality feels too acute a state afterwards. Nailbeds and hair follicles pushing time out of my body like candle clocks dwindling.”
“The comedown's a bitch,” Char agrees. Poets. Never an answer without a bit of wank in it. Dreadful how endearing it is, really. “Who said anything about smoke, though? Plenty of things to put an itch in you, muck, and you've got an itch.”
Ira tips her head sideways on the pillow to look at Char, blinks lazily. “What draws forth this diagnosis?”
Ira's first surgeon had been a licensed doctor, at least at some point. Just like Koti's girl might be by now, if she ever made it all the way through the Association’s exams. No way for Char to know. Koti stopped letting Char see her nieces after the first time one of the Ten-a-Penny Man's thugs came politely knocking, looking for their chemist, and stopped returning her letters after the third.
That's the thing about itches. The most obvious sign you’ve got one is how much you’ll bleed out to scratch it. Reputation. Relationships. Dreams and years of your life.
Char shrugs. “What tells me the face in the mirror doesn't belong to some other brilliant alchemist? Some things you just get an eye for, mucker.” Probably that's insensitive phrasing. “No offense.”
“I see,” Ira says, sounding wholly unoffended. “Then to what would you call me addicted?”
“Haven't figured it out as far as that,” Char admits. Her hand finds the circular line of the scar on Ira’s chest; she drums her fingers against it, a shallow echo of the heartbeat missing from underneath, and tries not to be envious of how tidy the stitching must've been to seal it up so neat. “Lopping off body bits, maybe.”
Ira frowns again, but she's smiling too, gentle and bemused. Her one eye is creased; the other one's just about healed over enough for the ragged edges of the scar to fade back into the copper skin, and that's handiwork Char can claim, at least. Her right arm lies lazily across her stomach, stump bared.
(The heartlight incident Char knows all about, and she was there for the optivore hawk, but Ira's never told her about the hand direct. Char heard the short version off Otto, who had it from Peter, who got it out of a swabbie swearing he was only napping with his ear conveniently pressed against the door of the captain's cabin. A story like any other to come crawling out of the east since the ‘02 Reclamation: occult weaponry bursting over the battlefield where seven Cities wrestled for bloody supremacy against the Principate, the twisted arts of the enemy at play - or the tragedy of friendly fire. Who could say? Not like it made any difference to the soldiers below who found their own bodies writhing into sudden, hostile sentience. A tongue rolling back down a throat to choke its man; a ribcage crunching shut around the heart it held like a bear trap; a hand swinging the gun in its grasp towards a soldier's screaming comrades-
Not asking about it, Char figures, is almost as good as not listening to the gossip in the first place. She's always been good at that: finding the next best thing after you've already trashed the top few options.)
“That would be such an easy addiction to please,” Ira says, as solemn as a professor in a debate, if only her mouth wasn't quirked up in that soft smile. “I'd end at elbows and knees in every direction.”
“Prob'ly be missing a lot more of your face too.” Impulsively, Char leans to pinch at Ira's face and wiggles her thumb between her own fingers in the child's game as she draws it away again - got your nose! - then rolls onto her back, laughing.
It's not as if it's any of Char's business, at the end of the day. Nothing wrong with hypocrisy, but Char’s wouldn’t come with any pillows. Whatever’s eating at Ira, she only seems to bleed herself to feed it, so she’s still doing the better of the two of them. Soldier’s discipline, or something. Enough to keep them both on track.
It’s got to be. Not like Char’s going to be the one pulling anyone back from the edge.
“Wait. No. I’ve got it.” Char raises her finger again, a silhouette in the perpetual crimson-tinged light of the City hazing through the curtains, and grins determinedly into the half-dark. “It’s the trout, ain’t it? Got no other reason to spend so much time a place as soggy as Gandola.”
Ira laughs, sleepy and soft. Her leg tangles with Char’s, toes running down the inside of her calf in slow strokes, and it’s whole warm flesh against Char’s own, for now.
AO3: Link
Rating: PG
Series: A House of Many Doors (Char Dvetistek/Kinetopede Captain)
Wordcount: 1,100
Summary: Char doesn't worry. Except when she does, a little.
Tags: Mild Spoilers for Canon, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied Sexual Content, Body Horror
Remarks: I've been playing HoMD again and delighted to find that since my last delving the creator launched a HUGE patch that has cleared up many bugs, including Char's romance! Hilariously, it so far seems to be about what I'd already headcanoned. Nobody here has an emotional IQ worth squat. Honestly, most of this fic was just an excuse for me to muse on how Ira lost her hand.
◘◘◘
“Don't think I haven't figured it out,” Char says, finger wagging. “You're hooked on somethin’, same as me.”
Ira's brows bend in a frown, but there's no heat in the eye following the motion of Char's finger like a metronome. Sometimes it seems like anger is about the only thing the captain won't invite into her quarters; Char's seen her stare down ghoulgoyles howling insults off the bow of their ship with fatherly indulgence. Unflappable, some might say. Unhinged is another opinion.
A gent with perspective, Char's decided. The kind of worldly experience that teaches someone not to make a mountain out of a backstabbing. Just the sort of company Char best likes to keep, especially when most other sorts have a way of blowing up in her face like an unwashed beaker on its eighth re-use.
There's sweat plastering Ira's hair down over her forehead, and more of it drying sticky on Char's back. The bed’s uncomfortably warm after all the friction they've worked up between its sheets, the fug and heat of the City of Keys pressing in through every crack in the building. Having this much space and a soft mattress at their disposal is too good a deal to give up just for the sake of a bit of damp, though, so Char wriggles around, kicks the sheets away for a breather. Tomorrow it'll be right back to narrow bunks and whatever miracles Otto can make out of the rations; tonight she means to enjoy the ability to roll about and stretch. No telling just why Ira insists on paying rent for a pricey City flat when she spends most of her time running as far from it as she can, but Char appreciates hypocrisy that comes with lumbar support.
“I've never been very fond of godsmoke,” Ira says, thoughtfully. “Mortality feels too acute a state afterwards. Nailbeds and hair follicles pushing time out of my body like candle clocks dwindling.”
“The comedown's a bitch,” Char agrees. Poets. Never an answer without a bit of wank in it. Dreadful how endearing it is, really. “Who said anything about smoke, though? Plenty of things to put an itch in you, muck, and you've got an itch.”
Ira tips her head sideways on the pillow to look at Char, blinks lazily. “What draws forth this diagnosis?”
Ira's first surgeon had been a licensed doctor, at least at some point. Just like Koti's girl might be by now, if she ever made it all the way through the Association’s exams. No way for Char to know. Koti stopped letting Char see her nieces after the first time one of the Ten-a-Penny Man's thugs came politely knocking, looking for their chemist, and stopped returning her letters after the third.
That's the thing about itches. The most obvious sign you’ve got one is how much you’ll bleed out to scratch it. Reputation. Relationships. Dreams and years of your life.
Char shrugs. “What tells me the face in the mirror doesn't belong to some other brilliant alchemist? Some things you just get an eye for, mucker.” Probably that's insensitive phrasing. “No offense.”
“I see,” Ira says, sounding wholly unoffended. “Then to what would you call me addicted?”
“Haven't figured it out as far as that,” Char admits. Her hand finds the circular line of the scar on Ira’s chest; she drums her fingers against it, a shallow echo of the heartbeat missing from underneath, and tries not to be envious of how tidy the stitching must've been to seal it up so neat. “Lopping off body bits, maybe.”
Ira frowns again, but she's smiling too, gentle and bemused. Her one eye is creased; the other one's just about healed over enough for the ragged edges of the scar to fade back into the copper skin, and that's handiwork Char can claim, at least. Her right arm lies lazily across her stomach, stump bared.
(The heartlight incident Char knows all about, and she was there for the optivore hawk, but Ira's never told her about the hand direct. Char heard the short version off Otto, who had it from Peter, who got it out of a swabbie swearing he was only napping with his ear conveniently pressed against the door of the captain's cabin. A story like any other to come crawling out of the east since the ‘02 Reclamation: occult weaponry bursting over the battlefield where seven Cities wrestled for bloody supremacy against the Principate, the twisted arts of the enemy at play - or the tragedy of friendly fire. Who could say? Not like it made any difference to the soldiers below who found their own bodies writhing into sudden, hostile sentience. A tongue rolling back down a throat to choke its man; a ribcage crunching shut around the heart it held like a bear trap; a hand swinging the gun in its grasp towards a soldier's screaming comrades-
Not asking about it, Char figures, is almost as good as not listening to the gossip in the first place. She's always been good at that: finding the next best thing after you've already trashed the top few options.)
“That would be such an easy addiction to please,” Ira says, as solemn as a professor in a debate, if only her mouth wasn't quirked up in that soft smile. “I'd end at elbows and knees in every direction.”
“Prob'ly be missing a lot more of your face too.” Impulsively, Char leans to pinch at Ira's face and wiggles her thumb between her own fingers in the child's game as she draws it away again - got your nose! - then rolls onto her back, laughing.
It's not as if it's any of Char's business, at the end of the day. Nothing wrong with hypocrisy, but Char’s wouldn’t come with any pillows. Whatever’s eating at Ira, she only seems to bleed herself to feed it, so she’s still doing the better of the two of them. Soldier’s discipline, or something. Enough to keep them both on track.
It’s got to be. Not like Char’s going to be the one pulling anyone back from the edge.
“Wait. No. I’ve got it.” Char raises her finger again, a silhouette in the perpetual crimson-tinged light of the City hazing through the curtains, and grins determinedly into the half-dark. “It’s the trout, ain’t it? Got no other reason to spend so much time a place as soggy as Gandola.”
Ira laughs, sleepy and soft. Her leg tangles with Char’s, toes running down the inside of her calf in slow strokes, and it’s whole warm flesh against Char’s own, for now.
