#and also partly depends on what time asra breaks down ziah's door looking for his missing housemate

[katharaya]

touch on a scar + reiah 😌

cw: this is a bath scene, and therefore involves naked people, but is otherwise SFW 😌

—

Ziah has just finished washing Rei’s hair for her, pinning it up to keep it out of the sudsy water, when Rei turns a little between her legs and asks, “Can I wash your back for you?”

Ziah’s face is unreadable for a long moment, long enough to make Rei wonder if it was a mistake to even ask, but Ziah’s eyes flick up from pondering the soapy water to meet her eyes as she says, “Very well.”

Ziah rises, stepping around Rei to sit in front of her, the thin rivulets streaming down her skin glimmering in the candlelight. The water sloshes over the lip of the tub as she moves, but soon enough it settles, and Rei settles on the task at hand. She takes a small towel, lathering it with some mildly floral-scented soap, and slowly, gently, begins to scrub down Ziah’s back.

Ziah remains stiff at first, the slope of her shoulders tense for several long moments, but gradually she begins to relax, leaning forward to rest her chin on her knees, seeming to almost arch into the sensation as Rei drags the towel in measured swipes down the length of her back. Rei works the lather into a soft white foam, making iridescent bubbles catch and shimmer in the scars spiderwebbing across Ziah’s skin.

She has never been allowed to look this closely. She has hardly ever been allowed to touch, and even that had been a recent development. It’s mesmerizing, almost—the way lines of scar tissue crisscross over Ziah’s back, laid out like a story she doesn’t know in a language she doesn’t understand. In the geometric shapes formed between healed-over scars there are still spatters of freckles and moles dotting the unblemished skin, like little glimpses of Ziah’s past before she’d been permanently marked by whatever injustice forced her to bear these old wounds.

There’s a slightly larger mole just beneath her shoulder blade shaped almost like a heart, and Rei, entranced, unthinkingly traces the tip of her pinky over the dark brown beauty mark. Ziah flinches, shoulders tensing beneath her hands, and Rei immediately pulls her hands away.

“Sorry,” she says. “Too much?”

Ziah is still for space of two breaths, then three, before she lets out a long, low sigh, and says, “No. No, I am simply … unused to the feeling.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I am alright.” A pause, and then, “You may continue, if you wish.”

Rei places her free hand on Ziah’s shoulder, staying far enough away from where her scars begin. Her thumb traces soothing circles into the smooth skin there, leaving little soap bubbles in its wake. “You’re sure?”

Ziah’s hand comes up out of the water to rest atop hers, and squeezes. “Yes. I am sure.”

Rei presses a kiss to wispy strands of hair at the top of Ziah’s nape, and returns to lightly scrubbing her back, slower and gentler than before. They lapse into a comfortable silence, broken only by the soft sloshing of the water, until Ziah says, “Does it not bother you?”

Rei looks up from her work to find Ziah staring straight ahead, not even the slightest tip of her head in Rei’s direction.

Rei hums, pondering the question, then slowly, deliberately, rests her fingertips on Ziah’s skin. She eases Ziah into the feeling of being touched, with fingertips then finger pads then fingers then palm, until her whole hand is flat on Ziah’s back, just below her shoulder blade. Her thumb swipes over that heart-shaped mole again, twice, thrice. Ziah startles at the first pass, causing little ripples in the water, then relaxes again.

“Mostly, I just wish …” Rei says, carefully choosing each word, “that you didn’t have to bear them. I wish you were never hurt like this.” She traces a finger along one of the longer lash marks, cutting from right scapula to left hip. Ziah shivers, but neither objects nor moves away. “No one deserves this, I think,” Rei continues, leaning forward. “Especially not you.”

Her mouth presses onto the topmost knob of Ziah’s spine, her hands slipping below the water to rest on Ziah’s waist. Ziah inhales once, soft but sharp, before she leans forward, an invitation. Rei kisses her again, lower, and again lower still, just at the spot where smooth skin dips into the edge of the first scar.

“You said you weren’t used to this,” Rei murmurs against her, breath skimming down her damp back, raising goose pimples along her spine. “Do you want to get used to it?”

A moment, and then another, wrapped in silence and flickering candlelight, and Ziah sighs, turning her head slightly at last, just enough for Rei to catch the upward quirk of the corner of her mouth.

“Yes,” Ziah says quietly, “I think I would like that.”

Rei catches Ziah’s eye over her shoulder and grins, pressing another kiss to Ziah’s scarred, freckled, beautiful skin with a lovingly exaggerated mwah.

#the arcana #the arcana fic #katharayawrites #rei #ziah #other people's ocs #this is their second bath of the day and it's not even noon 😏 #whether they'll be needing a third one remains to be seen #and also partly depends on what time asra breaks down ziah's door looking for his missing housemate