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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"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.

"He wasn't a blood mage. Father used to beat him bloody."

Krem took the rag away and lifted his arms and Cole blinked at him, but left them there, folding them over his head to rest them.

Then he was being scrubbed. He didn't remember bathing being this aggressive when when anyone else did it. "You're a lot rougher than everyone else seems to be."

"Or you're just tender," Krem argued, though he did ease up some to keep from accidentally bruising Cole. He didn't want to think about the person Cole used to be being abused by his family. He'd seen too much of it before he'd left home.

Circling back around to scrub between Cole's shoulderblades, Krem frowned deeply. Nobody ever deserved that kind of treatment. It made him miss home, miss his family, especially his father. Father was kind, only ever put hands on him when he'd seriously done wrong, which was rare. Krem's hands slowed, falling away as he sank deeper into his own head, lulled somewhat by the steam and heat of this place.

"Sorry," he muttered, rinsing the rag out in the water, then drifting back some to start on his own bathing, leaving Cole to his own devices for the moment.

Cole hummed. Maybe he was tender. He wasn't used to being this sort of flushed warm and touched so much, with confidence and deliberate intent.

Having his back cleaned was nicer. He relaxed with a deep, throaty hum, curling forward and rocking with Krem's scrubbing of his back.

Krem stopped and it took Cole a moment to realise, because he was quiet and relaxed and finally starting to enjoy what was going on. "Why are you sorry?" He turned to look back over his shoulder briefly and then moved to find the soap again.

"It's just...weird. Knowing you're carrying around someone else's abuse." He didn't know how else to put it, the feeling was so complicated in his head. He wasn't good at words like Solas or Dorian or The Iron Bull.

"Besides," he rallied, his voice a little stronger as he focused on something else, "I'm not scrubbing your bits. That one's your responsibility."

"I have the memories, but it wasn't me. We both remembered it. I am Cole. But I'm not." It was complicated to explain, but felt simple to Cole.

Cole smiled at Krem's way of putting it. "It's all right. I know how to clean that."

"You're the Cole that exists now, but not the one that existed back then." That, at least, wasn't overly complicated. Krem took a moment to rub the soap into the washcloth again and handed it over again, then started to lather the soap again to be able to wash his hair, scrubbing at it in the same manner he'd attacked Cole's. He turned his back to let Cole scrub everywhere else that he hadn't already gotten, though part of him kind of wanted to go back to washing the other's back. He'd never expected to get those kinds of sounds out of Cole, and he wanted to try again.

Cole stood up from the water, back to Krem, to clean off his legs more thoroughly, foot on the edge of the pool as he cleaned between his toes and up his calves. Those areas tended to get visibly dirty, so they got washed better.

Then he sank back into the water, rinsing off again. "I liked when you cleaned my back. That was nice."

Well, at least Cole knew how to take care of the lower half of his body. That was a relief.

When Cole spoke up again, Krem turned around, sinking back down from where he'd been taking the time to scrub the mild body odor from himself and rinsing off. When that was done, he took the rag back, as soon as he was sure Cole was done with it.

"That generally is most peoples' favorite part of having someone else do this with them," he commented, gesturing for Cole to turn around before running the rag up between his shoulderblades again. This time it was less insistent scrubbing and more an actual massage.

It was mostly the out of sight parts that suffered. He didn't see it, he assumed it was fine.

Cole sat himself down again, elbows on his knees under the water and head bowed down to give Krem a long, smooth line of pale skin to work at. He hadn't been out in the field and was uninjured for once.

"It's nice. I like this bit."

He'd never really been one to describe things with words like 'sensual' or 'graceful', but as he looked over and touched Cole's bared, smooth back, fingers dragging lightly along the nodules of his spine, Krem couldn't help admiring the idea of Cole's aesthetic, and wanting to touch and trace over the sharp lines and slightly uneven physique, the strong legs and emaciated frame that gave off the illusion of a scarecrow if Cole stood still. He behaved himself though, running the soapy cloth over whatever spot Cole seemed to want by how he shifted.

Cole couldn't pick up any hurt from Krem, so he reached further, trying to understand the peaceful quiet behind him and the soft way he was being touched.

The want wasn't an ache, it didn't hurt, but it was something and he didn't quite understand what it was. "I didn't realise that this could be nice like this. When The Iron Bull offered to scrub Dorian's back, I thought it was just innuendo."

"Might have been at the start, but it's a simple sort of pleasure that doesn't need sex involved. Bull understands things like that. But you never know, it might have led back around to that later."

Krem's want to touch wasn't quite at that level though, and he imagined that Cole knew that, if he was actually picking anything up in detail at all. He ran the ran in his hand over Cole's shoulder and down his arm, ranged back up the back of his neck, back down again in a mirrored path along the other arm, before he soaked the rag and brought it up to squeeze the hot wader over Cole's shoulders and back, rinsing away the soap film.

Cole wasn't intimidated by sex, but he was fairly indifferent to it. Other people seemed to enjoy it, which was fine, but he didn't have any interest.

This, though? This was nice. He liked this. He became aware of soft, happy sounds, like the low hums that the nugs gave when they were content and another moment led him to realise he was making those noises without meaning to.

He didn't want anything more. But he did want this to happen again.

Krem shoved down hard on the lingering desire to touch and just gave Cole's shoulder a squeeze. He would retreat before his wants got too loud. They were both clean by now, and they both had the day to themselves to do with what they pleased. So Krem wanted to be able to relax, take advantage of the peace of this quiet space, the white noise of the waterfall outside of the undercroft providing quiet background susurrus.

Tossing the washcloth back to the edge of the pool, Krem went to find that natural little bench again and settle onto it, sinking down into the water up to his neck and leaning his head back against the stones.

"Thank you for showing me this. It'll be good to come down here for the quiet."

Cole gave a soft sound of disappointment when it ended, but he came and sat next to Krem on the bench, shuffling up close, thigh to thigh and resting his head on Krem's shoulder.

"I like the heat when you're in the water. It's not as nice just being here when you're not in a pool."

Krem picked up his head when Cole settled beside him, smiling faintly at the other's head there on his shoulder. He picked up a hand and before he could hesitate, he laid his hand on Cole's shoulder, leaning over to kiss his cheek.

"Any time you want to come down here while I'm here, you know where to find me. I'd join you in a heartbeat."

PSL: For kremdelacreme

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