Cleaning the Beast

[Existentially Odd]

Continued from \'Clothing the Beast\'

After enduring some very affronting looks from the assistant at the help desk, Kerr was in rather a bad mood again.  He didn\'t understand why certain expressions of condescension had to be thrown his way, simply because he requested a room for a couple of hours.  And happened to have another person with him.  He\'d elaborated when he realised what the man\'s smug grin was insinuating, explaining that he merely wanted to share a meal and clean his friend up before he was presented to his employers - it was the best he could do, under increasingly strained circumstances but, in hindsight, he should probably have said nothing else.  The smirk only grew a tinge of superiority that niggled insanely at him.  He resisted the urge to scream that there was nothing untoward about his presence in this place - when he was handed his key and credit card back - but swiped them out of the smarmy mortal\'s hand, settling for a very punishing look instead.  He\'d realised there was no point arguing against ignorant assumptions.

He paced to the room he\'d been given like he was stomping on hateful insects he intended to squash, slamming the key into the door and turning it furiously before throwing the hapless bit of wood open - partly because he was angry and partly because he didn\'t have a fantastic grip on the food and toiletries bags he had hold of.  The solid thwack of it landing against soft plaster satisfied him immensely.  He turned on lights as he went in, placing his burdens down on the bed before turning to Tag.  "Do you want to eat or get clean first?" he asked crankily.

[Trillian]

When Kerr demonstrated unhappiness at the clerk (for a reason Tag didn\'t understand, the subtle nuances of expression were lost on the wild youth who\'d had very little interaction and therefore smugness and superiority was something that had to be a physical thing before he knew them for what they were), Tag showed that he was with Kerr by defending the vampire with his own discontent.  He snarled at the clerk when Kerr snatched away his things and stalked off.  Tag also made sure to half-lunge forward while snapping his teeth.  The surprised recoiling of the clerk was enough to sate him, so he huffed through his nose and lifted a shoulder against the man who was now considered \'dismissed\'.
 
He was sniffing the air as he went, sounding like a child\'s soft version of a \'choo choo\' locomotive.  There were different smells of people here, embedded in the walls.  New smells over old - it fascinated him.  He kept close to Kerr however, knowing that Kerr liked it when he stayed close and he wanted to please him.
 
Upon crossing the doorway into the room that had been so violently entered by Kerr, he shrank at being snapped at and could only offer a shrug as his decision.  Eyes lowered as the tone Kerr used made him think he\'d done something wrong again, and he frowned with deep concentration as he tried to remember what it could\'ve been to make Kerr upset with him again.

[Existentially Odd]

Rubbing a weary hand over his face, Kerr willed himself to be calmer.  It didn\'t matter what \'people\' thought; he had no right to take the effects of their petty beliefs out on his hapless companion.  Smoothing his hair a few times, he removed his coat and hooked it over a chair at the counter/table attached to the wall.  Turning, he decided to make the decision for Tag (based on the premise that eating meat would only make him dirtier and that the little bar fridge in the room was not equipped to hold the larger trays of meat) and started extracting food, placing everything along the bench so that the youth could peruse all his choices.  "Eat?" he prompted with a more natural smile, nodding at the things he was setting out.

[Trillian]

Tag began to shake his head no, but seeing the display in front of him, he knew he could eat even without his hunger.  Approaching the meat trays he picked them up one at a time and smelled the meat through the plastic, deciding on the lean mince as his first choice and going to the effort of peeling away the plastic cover himself, grunting exitedly at Kerr and showing him that he\'d done so before scouring the contents within, pushing mince into his mouth at a rapid rate and barely swallowing before dirty fingers covered in mince were in his mouth again, until he was sucking every last shred.
 
He grunted and threw down the plastic tray and wrapping onto the carpet before searching for some water to drink, taking himself into the bathroom without realising what was in store for him there - smelling water but confused when he couldn\'t find it.

[Existentially Odd]

Mistakenly interpreting the move as an instigation of the bathing process, Kerr hastened after Tag, carrying the shampoo, soaps and deodorants they\'d bought.  To distract himself from observing the meat shovelling spectacle that was the wild boy eating

Thank Christ he ran away the first time, I really would have been ill.  Oh God... he\'s not even chewing.  Does raw meat not have some sort of ill effect on mortal stomachs?  Or does his species have anti... somethings... to combat it?  Let\'s hope so.  If he starts vomiting before I get him through the Oligarchy\'s doors... fuck, would he lick it up?

and stop his own thoughts, he\'d removed his tie and unbuttoned his cuffs.  Deciding that that probably wouldn\'t be good enough to keep him dry, he\'d then taken the shirt off completely and prepared the bathing items.  He hadn\'t even had time to get new clothes out and remove labels before Tag was gone.

Rushing into the bathroom, he didn\'t pay a lot of attention to the youth looking lost in the middle of the tiled room - he went straight to the shower.  He took the time to balance soap and shampoos on the rim at the top, before turning the water on (deodorants tucked in the hand that wasn\'t feeling the temperature of the water).  Offering a reassuring smile over his naked shoulder, he said slowly, "Alright.  Get your clothes... off."

[Trillian]

Thankfully for Kerr, he\'d done this before. Tag had been peeled out of his clothes and shoved into a shower stall quite a few times by the vampire that was already growing hazy in his mind. He wanted to forget the other, for Kerr was much nicer than Rancid and he would prefer to stay with him.
 
At the command, he undressed, dropping the discarded clothes onto the bathroom floor. Moving to the shower once he was naked, he stepped directly into the water\'s flow, not bothering to test its temperature. Once the spray washed over him, he yelped in surprise but didn\'t jump out of the water\'s path. Instead he looked at Kerr with wide eyes.
 
"Warm?" he questioned. He\'d only ever received cold showers in Rancid\'s care, and had not been introduced to the pleasure of warmth that showers could give.  While waiting for an answer, he tilted his head back and held his mouth open for water to pool inside, drinking the shower water for there was nothing else available.

[Existentially Odd]

Depositing the deodorants hastily on the little space around the sink, Kerr hastened back to the shower to meet Tag\'s request.

"If you want it warmer, you turn this tap," he instructed slowly, turning the hot tap the tiniest amount so that the water\'s temperature increased.  "Better?" he enquired, hand hovering over the tacky plastic handles in case he\'d injected too much heat - or not enough.

He thought he could see more of the youth\'s face already, now that the water had washed the least attached gunk off.  It reassured him that at least there were going to be visible results after this process.  His other hand blindly reached up for the shampoo bottle, preparing to flip the top open and pour a generous amount into Tag\'s hair, as soon as he had the okay on the water temperature.

[Trillian]

"Hnnnn," Tag murmured a sound of obvious enjoyment, grinning at Kerr after drinking from the shower spray - now too warm to taste nice but he didn\'t mind the sacrifice as his skin broke out in gooseflesh as he warmed up.  He did a little dance inspired by the shivers travelling up his spine and rubbed at his face with his hands in the gesture he\'d been shown.
 
He ducked his head as Kerr deposited strange stuff on top of it, the shampoo a very odd sensation.  He giggled after a moment and reached his hands up to touch whatever it was that had been poured into the thick matting of his tresses.  Those tangles would not be washed or brushed out. They would have to be cut out.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr was highly disappointed to dig his fingers into Tag\'s hair and discover the true nature of the knots.  Although he\'d bought a brush and a comb tonight - as well as a nail brush he suddenly became aware that he\'d forgotten to bring in - he realised now that they would cause more trouble than they were worth.  Neither would Tag be very pleased if he cut all the hair off - or, more appropriately, shaved it off.  He wasn\'t quite sure how to deal with this situation, in truth, but it was probably going to the first problem of many. The vampire persevered with two washes of shampoo - insisting even when there was resistance - and one of conditioner regardless, figuring that he would finger comb through everything that he could and if it stayed tangled, well... at least they\'d be clean tangles he was bequeathing to the Oligarchy.

After the shampooing was done, he took the cake of soap - lavender, like he preferred - out of it\'s paper casing and made scrubbing motions over his torso.  "You... clean your body," he instructed, offering it to Tag and indicating everything from the boy\'s head to his toes.  He was fully prepared to do it for him - or employ the liquid soap and scrubbing puff if they proved easier.  Kerr was also aware that he was getting quite wet reaching into the shower stall to wash his charge, so once Tag took the soap, he planned on kicking his shoes and socks off and removing his suit pants as well.  Hopefully this wouldn\'t intimidate the wolf boy too much but... the water and the expensive wool blend pants he was wearing were not making good friends.

[Trillian]

Tag wasn\'t bothered by nudity, as he\'d spent most of his life in his wolf form and didn\'t tend to get clothes even when he transformed in the middle of the woods.  His human form was more interesting to him now, especially in this place it seemed more suitable to use his hands and voice rather than running around on all fours.
 
With the soap in his hand he sniffed at it for a long time, deciding he rather liked the smell and didn\'t mind putting it all over his body as Kerr was demonstrating.  While the other undressed, Tag glanced at him now and then - comparing himself to his Alpha male, and with Kerr being taller and more muscled Tag was more comfortable in his place.
 
He moved over to give Kerr space in the shower, thinking that he wanted to share.  Huddling against a corner he played with the soap until it lathered in his hands and then rubbed himself all over.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr began to argue, but halted after an initial spurt of denial.  He supposed it wouldn\'t hurt to be in the shower with Tag; it would probably prove most effective, in the end.  He removed his underwear as well, then went back out to the main room to get the other cake of soap, another towel and the nail brush, before climbing into the stall.  There wasn\'t much room in there for the two of them, which caused Kerr to frown, but he pressed his back to the cold wall to ensure that the boy was beneath the warm spray at all times.

He concentrated on using his bar of soap to clean the filthy back - glancing shyly over the buttocks presented to him, while hoping the boy would clean between the cheeks umprompted at some other point - and then crouched down to do the rear half of the hairy legs below.  The vampire was somewhat surprised that the hair was quite regular, in terms of thickness and texture, but supposed that there was meant to be a quite distinct difference between wolf and human forms.  It made him wish to see how Tag changed, and what he looked like as a true beast, but he doubted he\'d get the opportunity to.  Unfortunately.

The vampire soon straightened and exchanged soap for liquid soap and scrubbing puff, finding the heels he\'d been attempting to clean almost insanely coated in muck and... sap or something.  Who knew what the boy ran through?  Before returning to his task, he decided it would be polite to enquire after his charge\'s wellbeing.  "Okay, Tag?" he asked, peering over a shoulder to see what progress had been made on the front.

[Trillian]

As Tag turned around, Kerr was presented with a well lathered coating of soap bubbles over the wolf-boy\'s genitalia, for he\'d found that his pubic hair had bubbled up quite nicely and so he\'d paid more attention to it than anywhere else, trying to get up as much as a lather as possible because it had amused him so greatly.
 
His chest looked well-soaped, but some parts had obviously been missed.  Tag had not taken great care to ensure every piece of flesh was covered.  He\'d managed to whiten the bottom half of his face somehow, looking as though he\'d grown himself a soapy white beard - more playtime? you betcha - and was now grinning at Kerr, pleased with himself.
 
"Keee, ha!" he announced nonsensically.

[Existentially Odd]

Although he knew he ought to scold Tag for the wasting of cleaning time (all the sooner to deliver him to the Oligarchy), he couldn\'t help but laugh at the silly suds beard and loin cloth.  The noise of his chuckle echoed off the tile walls slightly as he shook his head resignedly, squirting some liquid soap onto the little ball he held and then flipping it quickly forward onto still-dirty skin.

"Well, at least you\'re mostly coming clean," he considered, scrubbing at Tag\'s chest.  "But you missed some here... and here... and... "  He fell quiet as he concentrated on cleaning, not wanting to hurt Tag but definitely wishing to dislodge everything that was determined to stay.

[Trillian]

At least it was only a single day and night\'s worth of dirt (save for his hair, that even Rancid hadn\'t bothered with), for the other vampire had cleaned Tag as well - though with a great deal less care and a lot more scrubbing with a brush meant for the showers themselves, not the creatures in them.
 
Tag soon cleaned up rather nicely, and he made a few soft sounds as he was moved this way and that so Kerr could reach places such as his underarms and the back of his neck.  At one stage, Tag began to copy Kerr, washing him instead of himself, soaping Kerr\'s chest with innocent playfulness and a sound like \'hee\' here and there, not quite a giggle but no less a sound of amusement.
 
Soon enough the youth not only looked better but smelled better, only the damp natural dreadlocked appearance of his hair was left, but that was clean as well, for he\'d scratched at it with soapy hands, adding that to the mixture as well before rinsing himself off.
 
He stepped out of the shower and knew enough to look for and grab a nearby towel, using that to soak up water from his body, doing so with the care of one who\'d been instructed in this task before.

[Existentially Odd]

Kerr followed Tag out of the shower after he\'d pedantically soaped himself and thoroughly washed as well (it felt odd to get half clean and not finish the job), pleased to find his charge drying off appropriately.  In fact, by the time Kerr started, he was dry, so the vampire pointed out the deodorants (one roll on and two spray) that he\'d bought after hastily wrapping the towel around his slim waist.

"After you finish showering, always use these," he instructed, going a little overboard and applying the roll on deodorant, handing it over and then spraying an aerosol deodorant beneath his underarms and over his chest as well.  He figured that Tag couldn\'t possibly learn to smell too good.  "Pick whichever you like," he added, indicating the two sprays - both reputed to attract women like bees to a flower, if their advertising was to be believed.  He finished drying and getting dressed while the boy made his choice of scent, preparing to help him choose a nice outfit from his three bags of options on the bed in the other room next.