killedwithlove | PSL: For kremdelacreme

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PSL: For kremdelacreme

Following this.

Cole had things to do during the night. There were nightmares to be soothed and dark spots to be softly lit. He banked the fires that needed tending and borrowed a cloak from Blackwall to tuck in a cold halla in his stall.

He went back to Krem's room for a little while, watching him sleep before slipping off to beg some food from the kitchens. The bread was softest and warmest from the ovens and he managed to convince the cook to give him a couple of fresh rolls with some butter and fruit preserve with the freshly arrived milk.

A brief detour to Cullen's room to make sure there was poppy juice and fresh, cool water when he came to and he headed off again.

He brought it all back to Krem's room and sat down on the chest in there to wait for Krem to wake up. He wasn't in a rush, Krem was peaceful asleep, it was nice to enjoy some quiet and the soft sounds of the castle waking.

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"You sat there all night, back can't feel good after that," Krem replied with a shrug, then a yawn, rolling himself up and out of bed. He could use that hot spring right about now. "Stretch a bit and the blood should flow a little easier."

With his back turned to Cole, Krem took a moment to change out of yesterday's clothes, which desperately needed a wash, without removing his vest or smallclothes just yet. A pair of thick, comfortable pants and short-sleeved tunic later, and Krem was looking a good deal more relaxed than usual, even if he was still favoring his side, which was an ugly blue, green and grey mass of bruising still.

Cole stood and cracked some more, stretching himself out while Krem changed. He didn't watch, he didn't pay any attention, just enjoying the way his body felt with long stretches.

He was tired. It did happen, on occasion. He didn't sleep when it happened, but he did possibly need a couple of hours of not helping to recharge. "Are we going to the hot springs?"

"You're the one that knows how to get to them," Krem pointed out, then shooed Cole along with a drowsy little smile.

"After we get there, you're not going to just wander off on me, are you?"

"No. I'm worn, pulled thin." He could stay nearby while Krem soaked. "Unless you want me to go and find you food."

He started leading the way, heading first for the undercroft.

"You don't have to do anything else for me. Just...stay, alright?"

When the two of them passed through the undrecroft, they attracted a curious look from the little dwarven arcanist, but the old blacksmith didn't pay them any mind. It was easy enough to find the way down to the springs once you knew what to look for, and even as stiff and sore as he was, following Cole down wasn't much of a challenge.

When they emerged into the large, slightly foggy chamber and its deep, clear pools, Krem stopped to kneel at the edge and dip his hand in. Hot, but not too hot to stand, and clear all the way to the bottom, where it was dully lit through the layers of semi-opaque crystalline rock by the magma flowing under the mountain. It was also flowing, the ripples barely visible, Perfect.

"I think now would be a good time for us both to scrub," he said with a look back at Cole, in case he didn't like that idea.

Cole led the way, quiet and focusing on moving properly and not wanting to crash out. He slipped down to the stairs leading to the pool, circling around one of them and nodding. This one. This one had good feelings and memories.

Scrub. In together. "Do you want me to go to a different pool and not look?"

"If you don't make a big stink out of sharing one, I'll try not to either," Krem argued, though in his mind he wasn't sure Cole understood what that meant. He left Cole to do as he wished though, and circled the area to find a place behind which he could duck in order to take his day clothes back off. There was a niche in one of the walls, presumably used for storage once, and before he could hesitate about it he peeked out, then ran to the edge of the large pool, still wearing his smallclothes as he dipped his feet in, then lowered the rest of his body into the water.

Immediately the heat started to leech the remaining aches away, and Krem groaned long and deep, settling onto what felt like a smoothly carved stone bench coming out from the wall a couple of feet down. He turned and laid his crossed arms on the stone floor of the cavernous room, looking back at Cole.

Cole wandered around a little and then finally started to strip. He was shameless about it, simply taking everything off where he was. He was still undressing when he heard Krem get into the water with a sigh and a soft thrum of aching pain unknotting in his bruises.

When he finished undressing, Cole padded over, crouching down and stick his hand in the water first. It was very warm. But nicer than the Wastelands. So he slid into the water, vanishing under entirely before surfacing with a small gasp.

Krem nearly rolled his eyes at Cole's unabashed nudity, but he had to remind himself that Cole inhabited his body in the same way that most people wore their clothes. He pulled a leg up onto the seat in front of him, reclining there sideways.

When Cole surfaced with his hair plastered to his face the heat of the water seemed to have brought up a more lively sort of flush in his skin. His hair was still plastered down over his forehead and neck, and Krem had to wonder if it had always grown that way, or was just shoved down by the hat so often it had just given up.

"Glad this is down here," he murmured, laying his chin on his arms and closing his eyes, just soaking in the heat.

Cole's body was a thing he lived in and sometimes remembered to sort of take care of, but usually when reminded by someone else.

He was surprisingly broad shouldered, though his chest was all ribs and his hipbones jutted too much despite the muscle of his legs. A lot of walking.

He wrinkled his nose and rubbed his hands over his face, scrubbing the water off it. "It's hot. All hot, all over."

"Must be strange, to someone not used to it," Krem mused, then pushed himself off from the edge and approached tentatively. He trusted that Cole wouldn't stare at the water trying to get a look at him, so it wasn't as hard for him to do as it might have been with the majority of Skyhold's population. He gestured for Cole to turn around, intending to look at the space behind his ears that he sincerely doubted the boy ever remembered to wash.

Cole had no interest in trying to look at Krem's body. His interest was in Krem's injuries and he knew how those were.

Shrugging a little, Cole turned around. It was possible he had never properly washed his hair, and while he did clean off any dirt, mud or blood that he saw, he simply didn't notice that much.

He could probably do with a good scrub all over.

"What?"

"Grimy," Krem replied, wrinkling his nose some. He glanced around, then went back to the edge of the pool and hauled himself back out to start searching in his clothes until he came up with a little bundle that had a solid little brick of soap in it with worn corners, smelling faintly of rosewater. There was also a little folded rag in the bundle, now crumpled in his fist. He came back with it and sank into the water again, more easily this time now that his body had acclimated to the heat.

Lathering the soap between his hands, Krem returned and without hesitation started to scrub at the top of Cole's head, a look of concentration on his face. This wasn't the first time he'd had to do this for someone, and there were flashes in his mind of his and one of the others holding down Rocky and scrubbing the layer of dirt and blackpowder off of him. It had been a mess and he'd walked away from it with a black eye, but it had been worth it to be able to walk through a cave filled with spiders without them noticing the stink of the powder. Didn't stop them getting attacked, but at least it wasn't because of their sapper.

Cole turned to watch Krem get out, curious about what he was doing and then sank under the water again, holding his breath while he just let the water carry his weight.

He surfaced when Krem got back in. He was going to ask something, but then he was assaulted with sudsy hands and rosewater smell and his hair was being pulled and massaged.

He made an undignified squawking sound. "What you doing?!"

"Making sure you don't smell like wet nug," Krem replied then caught his tongue between his teeth, scratching his blunt nails through Cole's hair to work the soap through it to the ends. He was being about as gentle about it as was to be expected of a mercenary with muscles like rock, but he was at least trying not to hurt Cole in the process.

When Cole's hair had been suitably harassed, Krem backed up to allow him to sink back into the water and rinse out the lather. He had the soap and washcloth back in hand, and was already rubbing the former into the latter.

Cole relented, submitting to the inevitability of having his hair washed. He grumbled softly under his breath, because Krem was rough, but he supposed that was what made the dirt come out.

When Krem backed off, Cole turned and looked at him expectantly. "I smell like soap and rose."

"The smell will fade after an hour or so. Rinse it out and then hold still so I can get your ears"

Krem was pretty decent at giving orders, a product of having been working with the Iron Bull as long as he had been. He waited for Cole to comply, but he figured he might have to do it himself, if Cole was really as bad at his own personal hygiene as he seemed.

Cole took a deep breath and ducked under the water, hands coming up to rub and wash away the suds, letting the water tug and pull at the loose strands.

He surfaced and while his hair was water dark, it was clear that it was cleaner. Paler than ever.

"Why are ears so important to be clean? They hear fine."

The fact that Cole's hair legitimately looked cleaner after that simple scrubbing was actually a little bit worrying. This was good though, progress.

The suds were drifting away and being filtered out of the water by the natural flow of it, and now their immediate vicinity smelled of rosewater on top of the already slightly ozone and mineral scent of the air. The rag that Krem folding over in one hand was dragged behind Cole's ear as soon as he was holding still again.

"If you'd ever run your fingers behind your ears and seen the grease and dandruff that gets stuck behind there, you'd know why ears need to be clean."

Cole didn't sweat, or have those other irritating problems, but he did get dirty. He whined at the hand on his ear, tugging and pulling and cleaning and trying to wriggle away, but in a completely human way.

"You're acting like Mam."

That caused a little bit of a pang deep in Krem's psyche, but he ignored it for the most part, using his superior strength to keep Cole from wriggling away at least until his ears had been scrubbed. He let him go and crossed his arms with pursed lips and arched brow, just daring Cole to huff at him some more.

"And you're acting like a child," he pointed out, honestly amused by the image of the sodden boy in front of him.

Cole slid away, sinking mostly under water so just his eyes were peering out at Krem from above the waterline.

He had to surface again to speak. "The last time someone dunked me in a bath and scrubbed me, I was a child."

"You'd better not be telling me that that was the last time you even had a proper bath," Krem snorted, rubbing the soap into the rag again then holding it out. "I'll give you the choice now, either you do it, or I will."

"No. Cole got very good at cleaning blood off of him." He took the rag and started rubbing it over his arms. He did clean, but it was like someone who had only watched others bathe, copying what he had seen.

Krem watched him going through the motions, letting him do it on his own for the moment, while internally shuddering. Damned blood mages...

"You know what, here," he finally sighed, taking the rag back, then taking hold of Cole's wrists and gently lifting his arms up over his head, before starting to actually scrub down their lengths and over Cole's ribs and chest, muttering about nobody having taught him these things yet.

PSL: For kremdelacreme

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