Don't be like that
Who: Jensen and Laelle
Where: Baths
What: The baths are an awkward place to figure out how to make nice. After their previous, rather unpleasant, encounter, Jensen and Laelle try to be friendly again.
After a long day, one must bathe. The kind of hot water one finds in the baths is perfect for unknotting over-clocked muscles and soothing tense nerves. Especially with drills in the morning, more private training a little later, running around the place, more drills, maybe some food at some point, time with daughter, time with better half, then more running around, there's only one thing Jensen can do. Soldier, cleanse thyself. And so here he is, scrubbing with soapy hands and making the water immediately surrounding him sudsy and nearly opaque. His hair stands straight up, already wet, in a tuft atop his head.
It could be said that, comparatively, a Caucus student has little need to bath at all. How can the day compare? Sitting in class, more sitting bent over homework, braving the bowl and blasts of winter that are almost strong enough to prevent a body from ever sweating again... Perhaps if one spent too long next a roaring fire, he or she might find themselves uncomfortably warm, but a girl from Nerat is hardly about to complain that she's overheating here at High Reaches. Nevertheless, one Nerat girl would say that sleeping is enough to necessitate a bath and that muscles can stiffen from holding a weary head over a book just as readily as the might from a long run - probably moreso. And thus Laelle arrives in the bathing cavern. A quick glance takes in the numbers of bathers in each pool and, without any notable reaction, she moves to an alcove to swap her clothes for a towel.
The number of bathers would be two. Jensen and some other fellow. Some other fellow who, upon spotting Laelle come in, decides his bath is over. For whatever reason he hurries to exit, to dry, then to gather his clothes and stumble over to another alcove to change. He's gone in the next instant, Jen only just turning to see him leave, resulting in a confused furrowing of his eyebrows. /He/ didn't see Laelle arrive, so /he/ thinks he's all alone now. And, after looking first one way, eyebrow lifted, then another, he starts humming to himself. One arm lifts so he can scrub the underside of it, the hollow.
Laelle steps out of the alcove with a towel wrapped around her, held with a hand in the middle of her chest. Her height is a disadvantage and the shortness of the towel keeps her steps short and modest. Her hair is down, the oft-hidden blonde ends handing around her shoulders. The other hand holds a towel also, still folded. She leaves them both at a hook on the wall and moves quickly to sink into the bathing pool. She doesn't look at Jensen, but her initial scan surely caught the now-lone bather when she came in.
While her coming closer might be quiet, bare feet and all, the water moving around when she moves through makes enough noise to alert Jensen to another arrival. And, turning, he spots her. How could he not? She's right there. "Uh." Oh. His initial reaction is, oddly enough, one of slight shyness. Sinking, he stops when the water reaches his elbows. Then, because that was silly, he makes a surly face and mutters, "Nice seein' you here. In the bath." Awkward. His transition from trying to hide in the water to pretending like he was just rinsing off is smooth, but the perceptive person would know it's a cover. When his skin is soap-free the scars show. The one dangerously close to his heart, maybe two inches in length; the one further down on that same side, somewhat above his ribcage and a little longer, a little more jagged; the one on his /other/ shoulder, small; and the one down there above his hip on the right. Self-conscious, he turns halfway from her and busies himself with lathering his hands again.
Laelle doesn't linger above water, she sinks easily to the submerged ledge, letting the bath hide, or at least distort, her shape. Her shoulders are still dry, not freckled as her face is - aside from a few expectable dots, she's just pale, very thin, utterly without muscle. The captain's 'uh' does not surprise her. Without a change in her expression, that mild and perhaps slightly bored look, she slides her gaze across the water to Jensen. The steam is already weakening the kohl shadows around her eyes, giving her eyelids a dark gloss. She watches his urge to hide without register. "Yes," is her flat reply, as if she expects nothing more. She's about to return her glance to the water before her, but subtly she doubletakes. The scars compel her attention. She makes the flick of her eyes over quick to spare the self-conscious man from a longer scrutiny. Then she looks away.
Jensen does /not/ like his scars. This comes through clear as day in the effort he makes to hide them. Without looking like he's trying to, of course. That silence between them stretches on for a few minutes, the two of them having made that first step into what could possibly be pleasant social interaction. Then, with his eyes on the ceiling and his torso covered again in soap, he speaks up again. "Last time we spoke I was a little out o'line. And for that 'm sorry."
She looked and, for the moment, is satisfied. His scars, indeed all of him, are unobserved for that silent stretch. It's not until he speaks that Laelle's gaze is drawn back and then only to his ceiling-ward face. "I'm sorry that you think me so distastefully pretentious," she replies, her voice even, not yet warmed or softened by forgiveness. "Sir." She tacks it on, lest she make the same mistake twice and not give him the respect he demanded during their last encounter. She looks away from him, down at the way the water misshapes the long lines of her legs.
"I don't-" But Jen stops himself, closes his eyes, looks over at her. "I don't need that. Just... Damn but you can be infuriatin'." This whole getting back on the right foot thing is working out /really/ well. "You're not. /That/. But you look at me with those dead eyes and I can't help feelin' like nothin'. Less'n nothin'. And I don't like feelin' like nothin'. Only thing should feel like nothin' is nothin'." Stopping himself again, and for good reason, he stares hard at the water, having looked down there halfway in the middle of his babbling. He passes a soapy hand through his hair.
Perhaps it's his struggle, that initial pause, that turns Laelle's flat expression back to him. But as he continues there's a change, finally. If her eyes were dead then his ineloquent speech must breath life back into them. There is less distance there. They spark and warm and grow amused just as her lips begin to curl into a small but wry smile. She lets him finish, lets a beat of his frustrated silence pass. "Are you done?" she asks, liberal with the teasing in her voice.
Jensen makes another face, this one somewhat disgruntled. He's no stranger to making a fool of himself when he's nervous. It's a tell. But still, to do so in front of her irks him something fierce. Pressing his mouth into a thin line and reaching a hand up diagonally to scratch his shoulder, he nods.
Laelle's smile is persistent, soft, but persistent. "Don't be like that," she tells him, a tinge of remorse that he finds himself even more uncomfortable. She moves a hand beneath the water, stretching it out in front of her to make a leisurely swirl of current, an idle, relaxed movement. "I'm trying to be friends." Her tone is light, but not ingenuine.
Tall, muscled, /scarred/ Captain, who's seen a lot of things in his day, is apparently being made twitchy by a Caucus student. Her being female too only makes matters worse since they're all to be both respected and feared appropriately and everyone knows that. "Well. Fine. Good. Let's be friends." The smile he gives her is a practice one. "Best of."
That smile, so very rehearsed, issues a breath of laugh from the apparently powerful little Caucus girl. "You are the man I met by the lake, that night, right? You lent me your jacket?" Her brows lift, arcing expectantly for his answer.
"S'pose so," Jensen replies quietly, his attention focused on, well, not her while he scrubs at himself some more. Cleanliness has probably already been achieved, any further motions likely carried out as a way to distract himself. Again. From the mess this meeting almost became. "Just remember that now?" At one point he sinks himself again to rinse, this time without bothering to angle himself away from her.
Despite his angle, Laelle sees nothing of him. Her glance has dropped again as she brings her wet hands out of the water to run her fingers between two knuckles on the opposite hand, like scratching an itch but more contemplative. "It would be easier if you'd behave like him," she tells him, another small smile ruining whatever look of thoughtfulness may have fallen on her face. "I didn't realize that the five minutes of witty banter you promised was going to find such a marked end."
Jensen's mouth opens, some complaint or comment ready to drop out if only he'd /say/ it. But no, it closes again and he looks down, away. The smirk curving his mouth up at one corner is a good sign though; he scratches his jawline, a brief interval between that and him looking at her again. "I have /moods/," he tells her. This is a thing a friend should know. "But if it's banter you want..." Trailing off, but not yet finished, he looks her over very quickly and mutters, "Reckon I could scrape somethin' together for you," before dunking his head to clear his hair. He comes back up sopping and pouring water.
For a long moment, Laelle has only a smile for him, but it curves widely and lifts her freckled cheeks. As he sinks down, so does she, letting her chin and then lips slip beneath the water so that she is just a pair of dark-edges eyes that laugh above the water's surface. She lifts her chin to show him the wet curl of her grin again. "I'd appreciate it," she says, playfully lofty. "Unless, of course, you aren't fond of witty banter. Banter goes both ways, I'd like to point out, so that you don't think I'm asking you to perform for my amusement." Her words harken back to their less pleasant meeting, but she's teasing still.
"Oh, now, there ya go bringin' that up again." How could he forget what he said to her? Aside from his uncanny ability to remember /everything/, some of the things that left his mouth were a little biting. Passing a hand over his face clears it of the water streaming down and thus allows him to open his eyes, which he does, grinning at her. "Far as banter's concerned, all in all, think witty might be my favorite. It's got a snappiness to it."
"Well, can we really -heal- if we don't make our peace with all the troubles that have befallen our relationship?" Laelle says, a brow arcing up. She holds that expression as she slips further into the water, letting it slowly engulf her speckled cheeks, closing eyes, the top of her head. She's submerged just long enough to wet herself, then she's up again, blinking water from her lashes and wiping, rather quickly, at the kohl that has already started to pool beneath her eyes. It streaks a little to the sides in dramatic, if slightly running, cat-like lines. "I hope I can keep up," she says, flattery offered with regard to the speed of their wit.
If there's one skewed philosophy Jensen is all onboard with, it's the 'just cover over something that should be a serious issue by completely avoiding talking about it', which goes along with 'always make a joke to duck out of a meaningful conversation'. "Oh, I have little doubt in your ability t'do that, darlin'." Keep up, that is. Feared and respected. "How's classes?"
"Lovely," Laelle answers, running her thin fingers through now dark and dripping hair, making it a little less plastered to her head. "I've finally made progress with an assignment that was giving me trouble. How's..." She looks at him, "Guarding?" She takes the cop out without shame, amused by it. Her glance, though, seeks those scars again, whether she can see them or not. It ebbs some of the smile from her eyes.
Jensen doesn't let his guard down often or easily, now is no exception. However, he's certainly less awkward, less uncomfortable with the situation he's found himself in. It shows, too. Those markings are very much there for the viewing. "Lovely," he drawls, quirking his mouth at her. Guarding is lovely. "What was the assignment?" Having had enough soap and soaking for the time, he pulls himself up, perches on the edge of the pool and arranges his towel around his waist so he can tuck a corner in. Covered, he clasps his hands in his lap and watches her.
A guard who doesn't let his guard down? Hardly unexpected. As for Laelle, her smile never fades, even her eyes make their second sweep of Jensen's scarred body. The glance doesn't press past bathing cavern etiquette. "Ethics," she answers, reaching a long, slender arm for the soap. "I wouldn't want to bore you with it, though. I'm afraid I'm not so witty in its discussion." But she grins still, wry, not passing the topic off entirely should he persist in his questions. She stands as she lathers her hands, turning away from the man and his watching, giving him a view of her back and the rivulets of her hair.
Now that would be something for the cache of witty banter. Alas, it went unsaid on both parts. When she turns her back on him Jensen averts his eyes, not dropping them like he might want but simply fixing them on something /else/. Like his knee, exposed by his towel's hiked-upness. "Surprisin' though it may be, darlin', I don't find that kinda thing boring. Unnecessary, in the long run, despite the Headmaster's best efforts t'convince me otherwise, but not boring."
Laelle is not at all deterred to hear her education is thought unnecessary. As she starts soaping herself, shoulders and arms first, she muses, "You exercise your body, do you not? So that when the time comes to use it, it is ready?" Her hands continue out of his sight. "Perhaps you even practice at things you may not use, just in case the need arises." She stops then to look over her shoulder at him. "Is the mind so different?"
Jensen, feeling the weight of her gaze and moving his own to meet it, replies with, "Never said /learnin'/ was unnecessary. Or teachin'. But ethics just don't seem like a subject you can teach someone. Aside from the usual parents pass down t'their little ones." His hands splay against the edge of the bath and he lifts himself an inch or so from it, pumps his arms once, sets himself back down. "Little different, in some respects, those two things."
"I don't know that there's anything to teach," Laelle admits, turning forward again and resuming her washing. "It's a discussion. Everyone can learn something different, think something they haven't thought before." The quick work she makes of soaping up is done and she reaches for the hair soap, her long body craning carefully to keep his view discrete. "New ideas can be exciting, as the new often is."
That surprises him somewhat. Jen's eyebrows lift and for just a moment he's watching her again only to catch himself and look away quickly. "Discussion," he blurts, furrowing his brow at the water. "I remember bein' present for one o'those types. Sefton's idea, not mine." No, he would never put himself in a classroom willingly, nor would he also suggest he /talk/ at the students. "The new often is," he mutters next in a thoughtful tone.
"Not a fan of discussion? Just witty banter?" Laelle teases, flicking another glance at him as she pulls her hair back and gathers it with sudsy hands. It slowly becomes a dark jumble of brown and gold and soap on top of her head. "What was that?" she asks. His mutter must have been too quiet for her to make out.
"Mm? Uh. New. New is exciting." Jensen takes a breath, a sharp, quick one through his nose, and rakes a hand through his own hair, which has already begun to dry, a haystack in tousled directions. "Discussion," he starts, circling back around to what she said first, "can be trouble. Sometimes. On occasion. You'n me, nothin' serious might be the best route."
Laelle turns back as she lowers into the water, hands still in her hair with the lift of her arm allowing the bare profile glimpse of her body before she's under the surface again. Then just arms and shoulder, neck and suds-piled head. "I wouldn't think that a captain of the guard would be so fearful of confrontation," she observes, a twist on her lips again, though her smiles have become more subdued now that their 'friendship' has been established again. "You and me. Nothing serious." If he insists.
Jensen puts on an indignant expression, just for her. "Ain't confrontation I'm worried about. You wanna talk, we'll talk. Just... I'd rather avoid it, is all." His shoulders hunching some, he sulks very subtly. "'Sides, normally it's the more physical kind o'/confrontation/ I get myself involved in." And he bears the marks to prove it.
Laelle's lips drop, their usual downturn curve accentuated. Her hands follow, falling beneath the water and leaving swirls of soap on top. "What's wrong?" she asks.
It won't be the last time Jensen is surprised by her, it isn't the first either. His eyebrows lift again when he looks over at her to stare in a semi-ignorant way. Huh? "Wrong? You talkin' right at this moment or...?" With a warm smile on, he adds, "Nothin'. Nothin' is wrong." Right now. "Just sayin'."
Laelle just nods, her expression fixed in that faintest of frowns, possibly concern. The movement release a few strands of her jumbled hair like snakes sliding down the back of her neck to let their ends rinse themselves in the water. She pays this no mind; her eyes remain on him.
Jensen quirks his mouth to the side, all traces of humor vanishing. Uncomfortable after so long of being stared at, he looks away from her and sways his feet through the water. His throat makes a rough, gravelly sound when he clears it. "Reckon I'd better go. Got drills in the mornin'." Yet he doesn't move.
"Perhaps you'd feel better with clothes on," Laelle suggests, a quirk in her voice if not on her lips. She takes her eyes from him only to close them and disappear fully beneath the water in a haze of soap. She's below for a moment, fingers combing soapy snarls from her hair, then she's back. Again, her fingers wipe at the smudges of kohl. It's effect is fainter now, barely a wash of darkness around her eyes. Perhaps the lack of that dark shadow is what takes the edge from her gaze, leaves her looking tired or maybe it's Jensen's awkward attempt at a retreat.
Where: Baths
What: The baths are an awkward place to figure out how to make nice. After their previous, rather unpleasant, encounter, Jensen and Laelle try to be friendly again.
After a long day, one must bathe. The kind of hot water one finds in the baths is perfect for unknotting over-clocked muscles and soothing tense nerves. Especially with drills in the morning, more private training a little later, running around the place, more drills, maybe some food at some point, time with daughter, time with better half, then more running around, there's only one thing Jensen can do. Soldier, cleanse thyself. And so here he is, scrubbing with soapy hands and making the water immediately surrounding him sudsy and nearly opaque. His hair stands straight up, already wet, in a tuft atop his head.
It could be said that, comparatively, a Caucus student has little need to bath at all. How can the day compare? Sitting in class, more sitting bent over homework, braving the bowl and blasts of winter that are almost strong enough to prevent a body from ever sweating again... Perhaps if one spent too long next a roaring fire, he or she might find themselves uncomfortably warm, but a girl from Nerat is hardly about to complain that she's overheating here at High Reaches. Nevertheless, one Nerat girl would say that sleeping is enough to necessitate a bath and that muscles can stiffen from holding a weary head over a book just as readily as the might from a long run - probably moreso. And thus Laelle arrives in the bathing cavern. A quick glance takes in the numbers of bathers in each pool and, without any notable reaction, she moves to an alcove to swap her clothes for a towel.
The number of bathers would be two. Jensen and some other fellow. Some other fellow who, upon spotting Laelle come in, decides his bath is over. For whatever reason he hurries to exit, to dry, then to gather his clothes and stumble over to another alcove to change. He's gone in the next instant, Jen only just turning to see him leave, resulting in a confused furrowing of his eyebrows. /He/ didn't see Laelle arrive, so /he/ thinks he's all alone now. And, after looking first one way, eyebrow lifted, then another, he starts humming to himself. One arm lifts so he can scrub the underside of it, the hollow.
Laelle steps out of the alcove with a towel wrapped around her, held with a hand in the middle of her chest. Her height is a disadvantage and the shortness of the towel keeps her steps short and modest. Her hair is down, the oft-hidden blonde ends handing around her shoulders. The other hand holds a towel also, still folded. She leaves them both at a hook on the wall and moves quickly to sink into the bathing pool. She doesn't look at Jensen, but her initial scan surely caught the now-lone bather when she came in.
While her coming closer might be quiet, bare feet and all, the water moving around when she moves through makes enough noise to alert Jensen to another arrival. And, turning, he spots her. How could he not? She's right there. "Uh." Oh. His initial reaction is, oddly enough, one of slight shyness. Sinking, he stops when the water reaches his elbows. Then, because that was silly, he makes a surly face and mutters, "Nice seein' you here. In the bath." Awkward. His transition from trying to hide in the water to pretending like he was just rinsing off is smooth, but the perceptive person would know it's a cover. When his skin is soap-free the scars show. The one dangerously close to his heart, maybe two inches in length; the one further down on that same side, somewhat above his ribcage and a little longer, a little more jagged; the one on his /other/ shoulder, small; and the one down there above his hip on the right. Self-conscious, he turns halfway from her and busies himself with lathering his hands again.
Laelle doesn't linger above water, she sinks easily to the submerged ledge, letting the bath hide, or at least distort, her shape. Her shoulders are still dry, not freckled as her face is - aside from a few expectable dots, she's just pale, very thin, utterly without muscle. The captain's 'uh' does not surprise her. Without a change in her expression, that mild and perhaps slightly bored look, she slides her gaze across the water to Jensen. The steam is already weakening the kohl shadows around her eyes, giving her eyelids a dark gloss. She watches his urge to hide without register. "Yes," is her flat reply, as if she expects nothing more. She's about to return her glance to the water before her, but subtly she doubletakes. The scars compel her attention. She makes the flick of her eyes over quick to spare the self-conscious man from a longer scrutiny. Then she looks away.
Jensen does /not/ like his scars. This comes through clear as day in the effort he makes to hide them. Without looking like he's trying to, of course. That silence between them stretches on for a few minutes, the two of them having made that first step into what could possibly be pleasant social interaction. Then, with his eyes on the ceiling and his torso covered again in soap, he speaks up again. "Last time we spoke I was a little out o'line. And for that 'm sorry."
She looked and, for the moment, is satisfied. His scars, indeed all of him, are unobserved for that silent stretch. It's not until he speaks that Laelle's gaze is drawn back and then only to his ceiling-ward face. "I'm sorry that you think me so distastefully pretentious," she replies, her voice even, not yet warmed or softened by forgiveness. "Sir." She tacks it on, lest she make the same mistake twice and not give him the respect he demanded during their last encounter. She looks away from him, down at the way the water misshapes the long lines of her legs.
"I don't-" But Jen stops himself, closes his eyes, looks over at her. "I don't need that. Just... Damn but you can be infuriatin'." This whole getting back on the right foot thing is working out /really/ well. "You're not. /That/. But you look at me with those dead eyes and I can't help feelin' like nothin'. Less'n nothin'. And I don't like feelin' like nothin'. Only thing should feel like nothin' is nothin'." Stopping himself again, and for good reason, he stares hard at the water, having looked down there halfway in the middle of his babbling. He passes a soapy hand through his hair.
Perhaps it's his struggle, that initial pause, that turns Laelle's flat expression back to him. But as he continues there's a change, finally. If her eyes were dead then his ineloquent speech must breath life back into them. There is less distance there. They spark and warm and grow amused just as her lips begin to curl into a small but wry smile. She lets him finish, lets a beat of his frustrated silence pass. "Are you done?" she asks, liberal with the teasing in her voice.
Jensen makes another face, this one somewhat disgruntled. He's no stranger to making a fool of himself when he's nervous. It's a tell. But still, to do so in front of her irks him something fierce. Pressing his mouth into a thin line and reaching a hand up diagonally to scratch his shoulder, he nods.
Laelle's smile is persistent, soft, but persistent. "Don't be like that," she tells him, a tinge of remorse that he finds himself even more uncomfortable. She moves a hand beneath the water, stretching it out in front of her to make a leisurely swirl of current, an idle, relaxed movement. "I'm trying to be friends." Her tone is light, but not ingenuine.
Tall, muscled, /scarred/ Captain, who's seen a lot of things in his day, is apparently being made twitchy by a Caucus student. Her being female too only makes matters worse since they're all to be both respected and feared appropriately and everyone knows that. "Well. Fine. Good. Let's be friends." The smile he gives her is a practice one. "Best of."
That smile, so very rehearsed, issues a breath of laugh from the apparently powerful little Caucus girl. "You are the man I met by the lake, that night, right? You lent me your jacket?" Her brows lift, arcing expectantly for his answer.
"S'pose so," Jensen replies quietly, his attention focused on, well, not her while he scrubs at himself some more. Cleanliness has probably already been achieved, any further motions likely carried out as a way to distract himself. Again. From the mess this meeting almost became. "Just remember that now?" At one point he sinks himself again to rinse, this time without bothering to angle himself away from her.
Despite his angle, Laelle sees nothing of him. Her glance has dropped again as she brings her wet hands out of the water to run her fingers between two knuckles on the opposite hand, like scratching an itch but more contemplative. "It would be easier if you'd behave like him," she tells him, another small smile ruining whatever look of thoughtfulness may have fallen on her face. "I didn't realize that the five minutes of witty banter you promised was going to find such a marked end."
Jensen's mouth opens, some complaint or comment ready to drop out if only he'd /say/ it. But no, it closes again and he looks down, away. The smirk curving his mouth up at one corner is a good sign though; he scratches his jawline, a brief interval between that and him looking at her again. "I have /moods/," he tells her. This is a thing a friend should know. "But if it's banter you want..." Trailing off, but not yet finished, he looks her over very quickly and mutters, "Reckon I could scrape somethin' together for you," before dunking his head to clear his hair. He comes back up sopping and pouring water.
For a long moment, Laelle has only a smile for him, but it curves widely and lifts her freckled cheeks. As he sinks down, so does she, letting her chin and then lips slip beneath the water so that she is just a pair of dark-edges eyes that laugh above the water's surface. She lifts her chin to show him the wet curl of her grin again. "I'd appreciate it," she says, playfully lofty. "Unless, of course, you aren't fond of witty banter. Banter goes both ways, I'd like to point out, so that you don't think I'm asking you to perform for my amusement." Her words harken back to their less pleasant meeting, but she's teasing still.
"Oh, now, there ya go bringin' that up again." How could he forget what he said to her? Aside from his uncanny ability to remember /everything/, some of the things that left his mouth were a little biting. Passing a hand over his face clears it of the water streaming down and thus allows him to open his eyes, which he does, grinning at her. "Far as banter's concerned, all in all, think witty might be my favorite. It's got a snappiness to it."
"Well, can we really -heal- if we don't make our peace with all the troubles that have befallen our relationship?" Laelle says, a brow arcing up. She holds that expression as she slips further into the water, letting it slowly engulf her speckled cheeks, closing eyes, the top of her head. She's submerged just long enough to wet herself, then she's up again, blinking water from her lashes and wiping, rather quickly, at the kohl that has already started to pool beneath her eyes. It streaks a little to the sides in dramatic, if slightly running, cat-like lines. "I hope I can keep up," she says, flattery offered with regard to the speed of their wit.
If there's one skewed philosophy Jensen is all onboard with, it's the 'just cover over something that should be a serious issue by completely avoiding talking about it', which goes along with 'always make a joke to duck out of a meaningful conversation'. "Oh, I have little doubt in your ability t'do that, darlin'." Keep up, that is. Feared and respected. "How's classes?"
"Lovely," Laelle answers, running her thin fingers through now dark and dripping hair, making it a little less plastered to her head. "I've finally made progress with an assignment that was giving me trouble. How's..." She looks at him, "Guarding?" She takes the cop out without shame, amused by it. Her glance, though, seeks those scars again, whether she can see them or not. It ebbs some of the smile from her eyes.
Jensen doesn't let his guard down often or easily, now is no exception. However, he's certainly less awkward, less uncomfortable with the situation he's found himself in. It shows, too. Those markings are very much there for the viewing. "Lovely," he drawls, quirking his mouth at her. Guarding is lovely. "What was the assignment?" Having had enough soap and soaking for the time, he pulls himself up, perches on the edge of the pool and arranges his towel around his waist so he can tuck a corner in. Covered, he clasps his hands in his lap and watches her.
A guard who doesn't let his guard down? Hardly unexpected. As for Laelle, her smile never fades, even her eyes make their second sweep of Jensen's scarred body. The glance doesn't press past bathing cavern etiquette. "Ethics," she answers, reaching a long, slender arm for the soap. "I wouldn't want to bore you with it, though. I'm afraid I'm not so witty in its discussion." But she grins still, wry, not passing the topic off entirely should he persist in his questions. She stands as she lathers her hands, turning away from the man and his watching, giving him a view of her back and the rivulets of her hair.
Now that would be something for the cache of witty banter. Alas, it went unsaid on both parts. When she turns her back on him Jensen averts his eyes, not dropping them like he might want but simply fixing them on something /else/. Like his knee, exposed by his towel's hiked-upness. "Surprisin' though it may be, darlin', I don't find that kinda thing boring. Unnecessary, in the long run, despite the Headmaster's best efforts t'convince me otherwise, but not boring."
Laelle is not at all deterred to hear her education is thought unnecessary. As she starts soaping herself, shoulders and arms first, she muses, "You exercise your body, do you not? So that when the time comes to use it, it is ready?" Her hands continue out of his sight. "Perhaps you even practice at things you may not use, just in case the need arises." She stops then to look over her shoulder at him. "Is the mind so different?"
Jensen, feeling the weight of her gaze and moving his own to meet it, replies with, "Never said /learnin'/ was unnecessary. Or teachin'. But ethics just don't seem like a subject you can teach someone. Aside from the usual parents pass down t'their little ones." His hands splay against the edge of the bath and he lifts himself an inch or so from it, pumps his arms once, sets himself back down. "Little different, in some respects, those two things."
"I don't know that there's anything to teach," Laelle admits, turning forward again and resuming her washing. "It's a discussion. Everyone can learn something different, think something they haven't thought before." The quick work she makes of soaping up is done and she reaches for the hair soap, her long body craning carefully to keep his view discrete. "New ideas can be exciting, as the new often is."
That surprises him somewhat. Jen's eyebrows lift and for just a moment he's watching her again only to catch himself and look away quickly. "Discussion," he blurts, furrowing his brow at the water. "I remember bein' present for one o'those types. Sefton's idea, not mine." No, he would never put himself in a classroom willingly, nor would he also suggest he /talk/ at the students. "The new often is," he mutters next in a thoughtful tone.
"Not a fan of discussion? Just witty banter?" Laelle teases, flicking another glance at him as she pulls her hair back and gathers it with sudsy hands. It slowly becomes a dark jumble of brown and gold and soap on top of her head. "What was that?" she asks. His mutter must have been too quiet for her to make out.
"Mm? Uh. New. New is exciting." Jensen takes a breath, a sharp, quick one through his nose, and rakes a hand through his own hair, which has already begun to dry, a haystack in tousled directions. "Discussion," he starts, circling back around to what she said first, "can be trouble. Sometimes. On occasion. You'n me, nothin' serious might be the best route."
Laelle turns back as she lowers into the water, hands still in her hair with the lift of her arm allowing the bare profile glimpse of her body before she's under the surface again. Then just arms and shoulder, neck and suds-piled head. "I wouldn't think that a captain of the guard would be so fearful of confrontation," she observes, a twist on her lips again, though her smiles have become more subdued now that their 'friendship' has been established again. "You and me. Nothing serious." If he insists.
Jensen puts on an indignant expression, just for her. "Ain't confrontation I'm worried about. You wanna talk, we'll talk. Just... I'd rather avoid it, is all." His shoulders hunching some, he sulks very subtly. "'Sides, normally it's the more physical kind o'/confrontation/ I get myself involved in." And he bears the marks to prove it.
Laelle's lips drop, their usual downturn curve accentuated. Her hands follow, falling beneath the water and leaving swirls of soap on top. "What's wrong?" she asks.
It won't be the last time Jensen is surprised by her, it isn't the first either. His eyebrows lift again when he looks over at her to stare in a semi-ignorant way. Huh? "Wrong? You talkin' right at this moment or...?" With a warm smile on, he adds, "Nothin'. Nothin' is wrong." Right now. "Just sayin'."
Laelle just nods, her expression fixed in that faintest of frowns, possibly concern. The movement release a few strands of her jumbled hair like snakes sliding down the back of her neck to let their ends rinse themselves in the water. She pays this no mind; her eyes remain on him.
Jensen quirks his mouth to the side, all traces of humor vanishing. Uncomfortable after so long of being stared at, he looks away from her and sways his feet through the water. His throat makes a rough, gravelly sound when he clears it. "Reckon I'd better go. Got drills in the mornin'." Yet he doesn't move.
"Perhaps you'd feel better with clothes on," Laelle suggests, a quirk in her voice if not on her lips. She takes her eyes from him only to close them and disappear fully beneath the water in a haze of soap. She's below for a moment, fingers combing soapy snarls from her hair, then she's back. Again, her fingers wipe at the smudges of kohl. It's effect is fainter now, barely a wash of darkness around her eyes. Perhaps the lack of that dark shadow is what takes the edge from her gaze, leaves her looking tired or maybe it's Jensen's awkward attempt at a retreat.