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waitingpassively · 1 day ago

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@forest-meadow for u 🫶🏻

wc 2k

Knight!Shinsou x reader vignette

Just tension in this one today

Steam rises from the surface of the water. You dip your fingers in to test the temperature. It’s hot, almost uncomfortably so.

It’s perfect.

Shinsou is laid out on the chaise in your dressing room, eyes closed and face slack. What little of him is actually visible to you is caked with dirt and blood. Exhaustion looks as though it’s steeped straight into his bones.

You kneel beside him and begin pulling on the straps of his armor, loosening the fastens so you can attempt to pull the heavy plate of his cuirass apart.

You nearly jump out of your skin when he opens an eye and asks you a gruff– “What’re you doing?” – as though you didn’t know he was still awake and attentive.

He’s always awake and attentive.

“You’ve had a long day. I drew you a bath. Relax.”

It’s with a bit of effort and a grunt that he manages to sit himself up, effectively dislodging your hands from the leather binds of his armor.

“Did you?” he asks, with as much glib as he could likely muster.

“As if it matters,” you roll your eyes. “I had the bath drawn, and now I’m giving it to you. You’re welcome.”

It’s not like anyone else was going to draw him a bath. Knights didn’t get hot baths with salts and oils after a fight; not a real one, and certainly not a tournament. Being pledged to your side also meant he couldn’t be out drinking and whoring in town like the others–not that you could imagine him participating anyway. He'd won his spoils and was expected to lick his wounds in the broom closet he slept in, alone.

Maybe you felt sorry for him. Maybe it was something else.

“I’m not your responsibility to look over. The opposite is true in fact. I shouldn’t even be here, in your quarters. It’s highly inappropriate–” and he makes a pained attempt at standing on his own.

You pull on his arm to try and settle him again.

“I’ve been safe from harm for the near six moons you’ve been skulking about behind me, sir. I should think I’ll be safe for one more hour. No doubt you’ll be a better guard if you can stand on your own two feet. The salts in the bath will draw out your pain–”

“You–” he interrupts, “are my pain.” and he mutters, “a pain in my ass.”

He doesn’t make eye contact with you, attentively watching the stone wall of your dressing room.

“I could have your tongue for speaking to me that way,” you snip back.

“Then have it.”

You scoff.

“And I’m the pain in the ass?”

He finally glances up at you, his eyes softer than usual, like a reflection of his weakened body. There's no softness in his tone.

“A lady shouldn’t speak so crassly.”

“And who’s going to stop me? You can scarcely stand.”

The two of you state at each other for only a moment, just long enough for you to see the resolve dwindling from his eyes.

You make to grab for the leather ties of his plate once again, and he doesn’t stop you this time as your fingers begin to work apart the knots holding his steel carapace in place.

You untie his single pauldron, sliding it off before you pull on his gauntlets– his fingers flexing as they’re loosed from the confines of the steel– and then you remove his gorget, sliding it up and over his fluffy mop of hair– slightly less fluffed today from his helm and sweat–

His cuirass is next; you loosen each side before hefting the (heavy, holy shit) armor up and over as well. He shifts a bit to help you and his cuirass falls with a hefty thud onto the soft velvet cushion of your resting chair.

Lastly comes his chainmail, and the padded layer underneath that protects him from the weight and chaffe of his own armor. He lifts his arms so you can remove it fully, and you add it to the large pile of his shed layers that’s been built up beside you.

He’s warm, sheathed on the top in only his simple tunic, and you can feel his body relax under your touch as you press your fingers into the tense muscle of his shoulders.

It’s only a second before a hand grabs you by your wrist, halting your movement.

You remove your hand quickly. “Your bath is getting cold, sir.” you murmur, trying to hide your embarrassment. You’re not sure if you’re effective.

This is improper. You’ve never been so close to a man unchaperoned, and certainly no man of honor in his right mind would be in such a situation. Him being in your quarters at all was questionable at minimum… but being in your private room half undressed– well, he could be stripped of his rank, knighthood forfeit at best, even if you were to plead his case.

He knows this as well as you do, and it speaks to the shape he’s in that he would be so passive in such a compromising situation.

“I’m capable of removing the rest,” he says, shifting to stand again. He has an easier time, unencumbered by the excess weight of steel.

He walks with surety toward your private bath, but there are no doors to cover or shield him– these are your private quarters after all. You stay seated on the chaise longue and turn your back to him, busying yourself by buffing the dusty surface of his cuirass until its shine is revealed once more. His fauld and greaves make a light clatter as he gently sheds them beside the bath.

You've managed to polish a decent sized spot in his chest piece, and with the shine restored, his reflection appears.

You bid yourself not to look. It’s invasive

You owe him his privacy. It’s only decent.

But nothing about this night has been decent.

You watch as he shucks his tunic, and you barely withhold a gasp at the large, ugly bruise that’s begun to form across his back and shoulders– the deep purple and red stain doing nothing to diminish your awe at the broad cut of his shoulders, the taper of his waist, and the soft porcelain of his skin in contrast. Embarrassment stains your features as blood rushes to your face and–

You look away as he removes the last of his coverings, but you cannot close your ears to the soft groan that escapes his lips as he submerges himself in the warm water.

When you hear the sigh of relief he lets out, you feel it too, the way the water coaxes the muscles to relax and the spirit to unwind.

“I told you so,” you say despite yourself. Your voice doesn't sound as hoarse as you feared.

“I thought you told me to relax,” he murmurs, and you turn your head to venture a true look at him.

His eyes are closed and his head is tilted back, resting on the ledge of the bath. With his arms and shoulders rested over the side of the basin, he is certainly the picture of relaxation.

The water has begun to rinse away the brine of dirt and blood that had caked his features, he must have immersed his face in the water when he slid in. A few errant drops slide down his cheek, his jaw. You have a sudden urge to chase them with your tongue, but fortunately your feet don’t move. Your mouth is dry.

“If I were seen watching you like that, they would gouge out my eyes.” He says, snapping you out of your reverie.

“I– I haven’t seen a man without armor or robes before,” you confess, “I imagined they’d look tougher, but you’re as much flesh and skin as I am.”

He sinks deeper into the bath.

“Well I do believe I’m ‘hardly a man’, if my memory serves correctly.”

“I knew you were listening, you bastard,” and your face burns in shame for what feels like the 100th time this evening.

“Horribly unladylike speech,” he chastises, but there’s a hit of mirth in his voice.

You turn back around with the illusion of offering him his privacy, but mostly to hide your embarrassment. Why had you stayed in the dressing room? You could have left to your bedroom when he’d first sat up from the chaise– your only barrier was a heavy curtain, but you would be one more heavy curtain away from whatever this was.

Now it feels awkward, as though getting up to leave would draw more attention to your shame. You feel glued to your seat, shuffling around his armor in front of you.

Each of his movements causes water to slosh and splash and keeps you fine tuned to him, unable to muster more than a scattered thought. Other than the sounds of the bath, the two of you exist in silence as he scrubs the filth and soreness from his skin.

You couldn’t say how much time passes like that, but when the silence is broken, it’s Shinsou once more who breaks it.

“I hate to ask, but is there a drying cloth?”

You jump up at the sound of his voice–

“Oh! Yes, they’re– they’re on the far side of the room, usually a handmaiden would grab them–”

“I can get one myself, if I can trust you to keep your eyes on your side of the room this time.”

His voice has a returned strength to it, and it makes you glad enough to ignore his teasing.

“I’ll step into the other room, and uh, I had an extra tunic pulled for you as well.”

He doesn’t ask when or how you’d managed that, and he doesn’t get the chance as you scurry from the dressing room and fling yourself through the curtain to your bed chamber, shuffling the fabric shut behind you.

What is wrong with you? You’ve never let a man get to you this way before.

And you’re the child of a duke– men tried.

You’ve never let a man be so close to you before either, you remind yourself for the second time this evening– unchaperoned. Under normal circumstances, Shinsou was your chaperone in most things, but he was never supposed to enter your private rooms without cause.

If anyone knew you’d let him use your private bath, that you’d stayed with him while he did so, it could ruin you. It could ruin your father– his only child’s purity called into question. It was a huge risk, and an unnecessary one.

But you couldn’t stop yourself.

Watching him be battered in the melee that way– well. How many men had he killed on that false battleground, and yet you only had a mind for him. You desperately wanted him taken care of. Comfortable. Safe.

A soft knock on the wood frame of the entryway interrupts your thoughts.

You shuffle open the curtain slightly to see him– clean, still slightly damp, standing in front of you in his fresh tunic and arms full with the rest of his steel wear.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but his eyes look a bit brighter. Maybe the bath had helped the way you thought it would, maybe it was worth it–

“Thank you,” he says, and for once there’s no sort of tone to his words. Your heart seizes, but he continues:

“I hate to ask this of you, but could you check that the hall is empty before I exit your private rooms… ah, unburdened of my armor?”

For the first time since you’ve known him, there’s a hint of nervousness in his face.

You step through the curtain fully, into his space. It feels like one more transgression for the evening. He’s close. He smells like the oils of your bath.

Is it wrong if you preferred the smell of sweat and blood and dirt and battle on his skin?

“You’ve done nothing improper,” you tell him.

You wish he had.

His eyes have retaken that sharpness you’re so familiar with, as though he were re-donning an armor you couldn’t see.

“Your father is right. You are naive.”

#i really hope the knight shinsou brain worm stays with me #shinsou x reader #passivewrites #txt

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