"You smell like a sewer that's been having a mid-life crisis, kitten," Cean said, leaning against the doorframe of the small, steam-filled bathroom.
He was idly tossing a bar of expensive, lemon-scented soap into the air and catching it with one hand. In the other, he held his battered notebook.
He'd already written: *'The cat is filthy. Water is hot. Don't forget to scrub behind the ears.'*
Velen stood by the edge of the rusted iron tub, clutching a ragged towel to his chest as if it were a shield. His electric-gold eyes were darting between the steam, the water, and the man blocking his only exit.
"I can wash myself," Velen snapped, his intuition firing off warning flares. *He's cornered me in a small room. There's steam to obscure the vision. He's going to drown me and preserve the meat in brine. It's a classic 'Eater' tactic.*
"With those hands?" Cean chuckled, nodding toward Velen's trembling, scarred fingers. "You'd probably slip, crack your skull on the porcelain, and then I'd have a corpse in my tub. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get blood out of grout? It's a nightmare. I'm far too lazy for that kind of deep cleaning."
Cean stepped forward. The bathroom was tiny, and his presence seemed to swallow the remaining air. He reached out, his pale hand ghosting over Velen's shoulder.
Velen flinched, his skin crawling. "Your hands... they're like ice."
"Perceptive kitten," Cean murmured, his voice dropping into that smooth, gentlemanly register that made Velen's stomach flip. "It's a side effect of my... charm. Or maybe I'm just dead inside. I forget which. Anyway, turn around. I'm not going to bite. Yet."
The water was hot, hotter than anything Velen had felt in the ruins.
As he sat in the tub, the steam curling around his damp hair, he felt vulnerable in a way that had nothing to do with weapons.
Cean knelt behind the tub. He'd rolled up his white sleeves, revealing slender, strong forearms. He dunked a cloth into the water and began to scrub Velen's back with a methodical, surprisingly gentle rhythm.
"You have a lot of scars, Velen," Cean said, his voice unusually quiet. He traced a jagged line near Velen's shoulder blade. "This one... floral spore?"
Velen stiffened. "A Grudge. In the Rodriguez tunnels."
"Mmm. Nasty. They like to linger," Cean muttered. He went back to scrubbing, his touch firm but careful. "You're so tense. If you get any stiffer, you'll turn into a statue, and I'll have to use you as a coat rack in the hallway."
"Why are you doing this?" Velen whispered, his head hanging low. "You talk like a monster, but you... you're being..."
"Gentlemanly?" Cean finished, a smirk audible in his voice. "It's a tactic, darling. If I'm nice to the livestock, the meat stays tender. Stress causes cortisol buildup. Makes the steak chewy. I prefer my 'food reserves' relaxed and well-marbled."
Velen's intuition did a backflip. *He's tenderizing me. This isn't kindness; it's culinary preparation.* "I'm not... I'm not going to be your dinner."
"We'll see," Cean hummed, moving the cloth to Velen's neck. "You know, if you were a bit older and less covered in grime, I might have found a better use for you than stew. You have a very... expressive back."
Cean's cold fingers brushed against the nape of Velen's neck. The contrast was electric—the scalding water below, the icy touch above. Velen let out a jagged, involuntary shiver.
"Oh? Is the kitten sensitive?" Cean leaned in, his breath warm against Velen's ear, mocking the cold of his skin. "Or are you just realizing that I'm the most dangerous thing you've ever let touch you?"
Velen turned his head, his nose almost brushing Cean's. Their eyes locked. Gold meeting brandy.
In that moment, Velen's intuition didn't scream 'Eater.' It screamed something much more confusing. *He's lonely. He's empty. He's looking for something he can't remember.*
"You're full of holes," Velen blurted out.
Cean froze. The playful smirk vanished, replaced by a blank, chilling mask. He pulled his hand back, the cloth dripping onto the floor. "Holes?"
"In your head," Velen said, his naive intuition jumping to a clumsy conclusion. "You act like a King, but you're just a ghost in a nice shirt. You don't even know who I am, do you? You just like that I'm here so you don't have to talk to the toaster."
The silence in the bathroom was deafening. Cean stared at Velen, his gaze unreadable. For a second flash of darkness flickered in his eyes.
Then, he laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound.
"Sharp kitten. Too sharp for your own good," Cean said, standing up and wiping his hands on a towel. "You're right. The toaster is a terrible conversationalist. It's very biased against sourdough."
He turned to leave, but stopped at the door. "Dry off. I've laid out some of my old clothes. They'll be too big for you, but at least you won't look like a refugee. And Velen?"
"What?"
"Don't try to psychoanalyze me again. It's bad for the digestion."
Ten minutes later, Velen emerged from the bathroom, swallowed by one of Cean's oversized black sweaters and a pair of drawstring trousers. He looked small, pale, and remarkably soft.
Cean was sitting at the kitchen table, frantically writing in his notebook. He didn't look up as Velen entered.
"Sit," Cean commanded, pointing to the chair opposite him.
Velen sat. He watched Cean's hand fly across the paper. *He's writing a manifesto. Or a recipe for kitten-tail soup.*
Cean finally closed the book with a heavy *thwack*. He looked at Velen, his eyes drifting over the oversized sweater. A ghost of a smile returned to his lips—the playful, dirty-talking Fox was back.
"Well, look at you," Cean drawled, leaning his chin on his hand. "You look like a very disgruntled marshmallow. It's a vast improvement."
Velen scowled, pulling the sleeves over his hands. "You're a weird man, Cean."
"And you're a very loud 'food reserve,'" Cean countered. "Now, help me with these peaches. Miller brought them by while you were soaking. If we don't eat them now, I'll probably forget we have them and they'll turn into a biological hazard by Tuesday."
As they sat in the quiet kitchen, eating syrupy peaches straight from the tin, Velen's intuition settled into a dull hum. *He's not going to eat me today,* Velen decided. *He's too busy trying to remember what day it is.*
But as Cean watched Velen eat, his hand went to his pocket, touching the silver handgun.
*'The cat knows about the holes,'* he had just written. *'Keep him close. He might be the only thing that fits in them.'*