A medical emergency

[fadingworld]

A deep navy cloak hides his features and the more ornate tunic the courtesan usually wears to greet his clients. Mal hunches his shoulders and slides through the crowds hoping to avoid notice. He keeps his head down until he reaches the home of the doctor and wraps smartly on the door. "Open up," he calls in a voice that expects to be listened to.

How much time did he have? He could not have a client bleeding out. Not this one. Not one who had come to him for help, to be treated privately.

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[mandragoraspiritus]

Regis draws himself up to sit, knees pulled up and his arms wrapped comfortably around them, leaning forward to give Mal the space to scrub away.

[fadingworld]

Mal trails his fingers down Regis back first, naming off parts of the spine before he turns to the task at hand. He has made an art form of it over the years, soothing and relaxing and thorough.


"I am glad you do not scent your baths, I do not believe it would mix well with the smell of herbs.

[mandragoraspiritus]

"You may find that particular smell missing soon." And indeed, scrubbed away by the soap and rinsed away by the water the scent of herbs is fading and that peculiar scent of wet earth and something like metal growing stronger as it is no longer being masked by the herbs.

"The herbs are useful to hide my own scent. If I didn't I dare say that dogs would be howling at me in the streets."

[fadingworld]

"I do not mind this smell either," Mal murmurs, "It is part of you after all. Though the herbs are very pleasant."

He shifts his attention to Regis' sides and chest. 2

[mandragoraspiritus]

The offer had been to have his back scrubbed, but he won't complain about some extra attention. As Mal's scrubbing goes more to his front, Regis leans back against the rim of the tub again, his head coming to rest on Mal's shoulder.

[fadingworld]

Mal turns his head to kiss Regi's forehead. There is nothing sexual about this at the moment. He's simply getting to know Regis' body.

His voice rises into an old ballad, singing it for simple pleasure for them both.

[mandragoraspiritus]

Regis sighs in contentment. This is indulgence, pure and simple. He doesn't interrupt Mal while he sings, that would have been a shame. No, he waits until after the ballad is done.

"Careful, or you will send me back to sleep."

[fadingworld]

There is contentment on Mal’s face too as he passes the cloth and soap over. He laughs, “I do think if you want to sleep, it is safer out of the water.” He sits back on his heels, “The look of contentment on your face suits you.”

[mandragoraspiritus]

"Wouldn't it suit anyone?" He asks, at ease. "Though I will confess that true contentment is a feeling I have lacked for a long time."

He smiles where he rests, reaching up to lay a wet hand to Mal's cheek. "I shall savor it as it is given to me."

[fadingworld]

Mal leans into the touch and shuts his eyes for a moment, savouring the affection. “As will I,” Mal says softly. “I should leave you to finish off your bath.” He smiles, “Or I can stay and talk if you prefer.”

[mandragoraspiritus]

"Give me a while longer," the vampire requests, in a mind to enjoy himself and the bath thoroughly. And enjoy it he does, until he really shouldn't waste more of the morning. By the time he goes out to see his patients, dirty and cooling bathwater has been switched for clean and hot, now with Mal submerged in it.

Regis has a decently uneventful morning, with no more than the usual level of ignorance of city people of the lower societal classes that he usually deals with. All in all it's a normal morning and he's back at noon to get into his role as a tutor to his apprentice.

[fadingworld]

Mal relaxes in the bath and gives himself a good clean finishing off with a lavender oil on his skin. The oils, he does enjoy when he’s the time. That will never change.

While Regis works, he studies the theory in the study. Keen to learn, he doesn’t slack off just because he is left on his own.

He looks up eagerly when Regis’ joins him again. “Where the patients alright this morning, or did you have one of your complainers?”

[mandragoraspiritus]

"No complainers," Regis says as he comes in. As he is predicting a quiet afternoon at home without any need to venture back outside he sets his satchel aside and sheds his gambeson, making himself comfortable in simply trousers and tunic. "The most notheworthy one today is the old man who continuously refuses to believe that regular baths or even a quick scrubbing can be beneficial, but rather firmly believes it to be outright detrimental to one's health."

Ever since Mal officially moved in there has been an additional comfortable chair in the study. Regis now pulls it up and sits down, leaning back. "How goes yoru studies?"

[fadingworld]

Mal grins, “I coulld dump clean water over him the next time he leaves,” he teases. He pushes his notebook over with his new sketches and notes on anatomy. “I have been consolidating until the last hour. Then I moved onto the internal organs to get ahead for this afternoon.”

[mandragoraspiritus]

Regis looks over the sketches and notes, giving an approving nod. Mal has a neat hand and an eye for making detailed and correct drawings. If he wishes to take this further and become something more than a barber-surgeon like his master, perhaps do research of his own, that talent would serve him well.

While looking over the papers, Regis breathes in the clean, pleasant scent of lavender. Its far from the heady and spicy perfume he'd smelled on Mal the first time they met. This suits the man much better.

"Well thenn, since you have already gotten started I suggest we continue. We can make time for repetitions later in the evening. Now then..." He rises from his chair, settling into levture mode. This, Mal will find, has not changed despite the changes in their relationship. "We will of course begin with the heart..."

[fadingworld]

Matters of the heart is my speciality,” Mal quips. He grins and makes himself comfortable in his chair to listen and take notes. His preferred position is with his legs curled up under him and does make him seem younger than he is.

[mandragoraspiritus]

That is their afternoon, with Regis going about the lecture and talking in length about the wondrous organ that is the heart and the circulatory system. There will come a time when a more hands on approach with be needed to teach Mal all he needs to know. From dissections of small animals like rats, all the way to some day attending or even performing an autopsy on an actual human cadaver. But that is far from now and Regis sees no point in worrying the man about it today.

There are a few pauses in the lecture, for such things as tea but also to treat a young man with an injured foot that came limping to Regis' door. But eventually the day is starting to come to an end, the sun just barely still up over the roofs of the buildings around them.

Regis stretches, rolling his shoulders. "So, then... Revision of the bones in the upper body?"

[fadingworld]

Mal has been utterly focused, listening and noting, occasionally begging laughingly for a pause in the lecture to make more detailed notes. He finally sets the notes to one sides and goes to collect the stool from the side of the room.

“Will you go through them on me again first?” He asks making for the stool and unbuttoning his shirt.

[mandragoraspiritus]

They have done this before, even after that time when Regis first traced out the bones in Mal's arm and hand while he was still sick, using that to lull him to sleep. It does seem to be a good way to help Mal memorize the names. Still, that had all been before the revelation of mutual feelings of attraction and fondness, and the change in their relationship. It doesn't at all make Regis hesitant of doing this, even if he wonders while he watches Mal remove his shirt, if this might go the way of the bandaging exercise.

There is certainly an appreciative gleam in his black eyes as he steps in behind Mal, fingers coming to rest lightly on his neck. "From the top, the atlas vertebra..." He begins, slowly walking his fingers down Mal's spine, counting out each and every vertebrae.

[fadingworld]

Mal hasn't forgotten how he engineered the bandaging lesson to draw Regis' feelings out. Will Regis do the same? Or will he be hesitant after Mal shied away when they tried to get more intimate.


A tingle runs through him as Regis touches him, shivering at the light touch on his neck. He listens but there are odd times he leans a little into the touch.

[mandragoraspiritus]

"The thoracic vertebrae, one, two three..." Regis' fingers keep on walking down and he feels the little shiver that runs through Mal. He wonders how far Mal will be alright with. Will he be able to trace this out right down to Mal's tail bone?

Well, to go slow, then, and give Mal time to protest or permit. "Continuing to the lumbar vertebrae. One, two..."

[fadingworld]

Mal’s back stiffens as Regis works lower. He tilts his head so he can peer over his shoulder and see the person standing behind him. It’s alright he reminds himself, and it is. The moment passes and Mal’s muscles relax and he settles again trusting the vampire.

Lower and lower. Mal’s breath catches but no noise of protest comes. This is just bones and work, Regis hasn’t made it anything different.

[mandragoraspiritus]

Regis' fingers pause over the last of the lumbars. For the next two he would have to slip down past the waistline of Mal's trousers.

"There are two left," he says. With how he stands bent over somewhat he's close enough that his breath ghosts over Mal's skin. "Shall I continue? Or do you know them regardless?"

[fadingworld]

Mal’s lips part, his heart rate increasing. He is not immune to Regis closeness. “It would be detrimental to my training if you stopped,” he murmurs. He will not shy away from this. “Continue please.”

[mandragoraspiritus]

If the increase in heart rate is due to nervousness or budding arousal Regis can't quite say at the moment. Perhaps it's both. But he does as Mal wishes, slipping his fingers in past the waistline.

"The sacrum," he murmurs, continuing to slide his fingers lower still, dipping slightly into the cleft of Mal's buttocks until he reaches the last bone. "Finally, the coccyx, or as it is commonly known; the tailbone."