[ Once he's given in, she gentles both in demeanor and action, taking care not to hurt him more than necessary as she gets his arm free and she's leaning right up against the bowed head to ease it off his back, plastered to his skin where sweat has soaked through the mesh panels of the armor and it clings to lined leather. Then down the arm at his side, leaving it hanging off his wrist for when he inevitably peels his hand away from the wound and she uses the proximity to unbuckle the light armor beneath.
Really, she should have known so much sooner, but the denial had weighed so heavily on her she hadn't dared hope. Her nose is nearly in his hair this close and he smells like Jack, even down to the way he's moved in action and out, in the consideration he's paid her. What else could have prompted a man threatened with bodily torture to build someone a shelter in an alien jungle? She feels a fool for blinding herself to the truth all these months, and the most sincere trace he'll pick up in her expression is the sorrow in her eyes and the terse dimple of one cheek with how tight she presses her lips together as she frees him from his body armor, splitting the halves apart.
It's the faintest touch of fingertips to gloved hand that indicates he can move the press of his palm away, making quick work of shedding his jacket and working the armor off of him to move back out of his space to collect bandage scissors. Do away with that shirt— though it doesn't stop her attention from falling on one bared arm, fingertips trailing carefully down the length of some gash or another, and it seals the deal. She knows her own handiwork when she sees it, and she's only going to reveal more as she sets about cutting the sleeve open on his injured side, flat, cold metal traveling over the shape of his bicep and up over his shoulder, to the neck so it can split open nicely. Then another down the back of his arm and down his side, pulling the back out and off his good arm before carefully peeling it away from around a half-congealed wound, not missing that wince. ]
Have I ever made you suffer needlessly?
[ Yeah, there's no getting around it now. He couldn't convince her he's anyone else if the fate of the world depended on it. She won't budge; too many pieces of him have filtered through her hands, pulling him back together time and again and remembering every perfect suture mark, every carefully tended scar that was barely there. Her knuckles go white where she's fisted the blooded black fabric of his shirt up, tension easing from her in the littlest of ways. ]
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Really, she should have known so much sooner, but the denial had weighed so heavily on her she hadn't dared hope. Her nose is nearly in his hair this close and he smells like Jack, even down to the way he's moved in action and out, in the consideration he's paid her. What else could have prompted a man threatened with bodily torture to build someone a shelter in an alien jungle? She feels a fool for blinding herself to the truth all these months, and the most sincere trace he'll pick up in her expression is the sorrow in her eyes and the terse dimple of one cheek with how tight she presses her lips together as she frees him from his body armor, splitting the halves apart.
It's the faintest touch of fingertips to gloved hand that indicates he can move the press of his palm away, making quick work of shedding his jacket and working the armor off of him to move back out of his space to collect bandage scissors. Do away with that shirt— though it doesn't stop her attention from falling on one bared arm, fingertips trailing carefully down the length of some gash or another, and it seals the deal. She knows her own handiwork when she sees it, and she's only going to reveal more as she sets about cutting the sleeve open on his injured side, flat, cold metal traveling over the shape of his bicep and up over his shoulder, to the neck so it can split open nicely. Then another down the back of his arm and down his side, pulling the back out and off his good arm before carefully peeling it away from around a half-congealed wound, not missing that wince. ]
Have I ever made you suffer needlessly?
[ Yeah, there's no getting around it now. He couldn't convince her he's anyone else if the fate of the world depended on it. She won't budge; too many pieces of him have filtered through her hands, pulling him back together time and again and remembering every perfect suture mark, every carefully tended scar that was barely there. Her knuckles go white where she's fisted the blooded black fabric of his shirt up, tension easing from her in the littlest of ways. ]