Chapter Text
"So… can I see it?"
Gabrielle blinked back at Xena in confusion, stopping mid motion with her hand caught in her top. "See what?"
Xena let a smirk slip into shape on her lips.
They'd been changing out of their clothes in silence until now. The last words uttered between them had been preceded by a long silence, and then proceeded by this silence.
Some several minutes ago, Xena had pulled Argo to a stop by the bank of a small lake, surrounded by a tall canopy of cypresses perfectly fit to seclude the shore. After two days in the saddle, Xena was slightly more ready for a bath than her companion. And there was no telling when they'd find a perfect spot for it again. She'd hauled herself out of the saddle to take her turn in the water first, as she often did, and then that long silence had been broken by Gabrielle.
"We don't have to take turns, you know," she'd pointed out loudly, like she'd been working up the courage to speak for some time. "I mean, there's enough lake for both of us. It would save time…"
Xena eyed her curiously, taking in what she could read of her features before glancing away in an effort to hide her own. Yes, she was right. On both counts. But she was well aware that neither of those reasons had been her purpose behind suggesting it.
Xena had seen in her eyes all that she was still too young and naïve to know to hide. The honesty of her heart shone through those little soft green windows so easily.
She wanted to bathe with her.
She had no argument against those two spoken reasons. And to address the unspoken third reason, Xena would be forced to acknowledge her awareness of it to Gabrielle. Something she was determined not to do.
So, she gave Gabrielle the win this time. Said nothing more than, "alright," and let Argo's reins fall from her hand as she walked toward the water.
Then the silence started back over.
Despite being the one to suggest it, Gabrielle made no move at all to undress for some few seconds, until the sound of Xena's bracers hitting the ground jolted her out of her stupor. She fumbled then, nervously reaching for the opening of her top, and then stopping and reaching for her skirt, acting like she'd forgotten how to undress herself. Xena could see all of this merely out of the corner of one eye. And she could see one thing more. In the silence of their mutual but separate disrobing, Xena glimpsed something that informed her of the turning of the tables.
Gabrielle was blushing.
And it was that which had prompted Xena to tease her.
Normally, it was Gabrielle who pretended not to know better when she stood just a bit too close, touched a bit too long, remarked just a bit too often on Xena's complexion, hair, and breasts. And it was Xena whose only defense against the obvious flirtation was to pretend she didn't know it for what it was.
And now, Gabrielle was becoming uneasy from the consequences of her own pushing of those boundaries. With this fumble, Gabrielle was like a prey animal exposing her belly. And being the apex predator she was, Xena recognized this show of weakness, and set upon it eagerly.
And now, she was teasing her.
"See it," Xena repeated, without really clarifying. Her voice went smooth with her sudden childish thrill. She leaned forward on the log she was using as a stool. "You know…" she grinned playfully as she made a little waving gesture with her finger and tilted her head down.
Gabrielle clearly didn't know. She followed Xena's gaze with a furrowed brow, and blushed when she found herself looking down at her own skirt. Her eyes shot back up accusatorily to Xena and her mouth stuttered open in shock while she struggled to speak.
"No," Xena corrected quickly, dismissing Gabrielle's silent assumption with still more amusement. With effort, she straightened her mouth into a serious line. "No, I mean…" She made the same gesture again, this time tilting her head down further.
Gabrielle still just looked confused.
To make herself clearer, Xena kicked off her already unlaced boot, and stretched out her foot, waggling her toes at her.
The perplexed crease on Gabrielle's forehead slowly flattened out as her brow shot up under her bangs. She quickly assumed a stance to hide her right foot behind her left, as though the cover of her boots were not enough. She glared back at Xena with an expression that was almost anger, but was too self-conscious to really qualify.
"No!" She shrilled. "You cannot!"
"Oh, I see. So, I suppose you're just going to bathe with your boots on?"
"Well, I am now!"
"Suit yourself." Xena removed the other boot, and stood up to more easily finish the work of disrobing.
Oh, how good it felt to no longer be on the receiving end of these little breaches in the barrier between them.
Turning the tables on her was fun for a moment, but Xena wasn't prepared to carry it on for much longer, lest she have too much fun with it. Enough teasing past the boundaries, and pretty soon there wouldn’t be any.
Xena had devested herself of her outer armor, letting the metal fall to her feet on the sparse grassy bank. She normally would've set her things aside for Gabrielle to watch for her while she washed up, but leaving them unguarded and out in the open was only slightly more dangerous than leaving them in Gabrielle's care, she thought with a grin.
Besides, this was a necessary step. How much longer would Gabrielle travel with her before she got bored of it all? Another month? Two months?
It was getting to be too much work to find the time to wash separately. Xena would have gladly maintained this boundary if it were more feasible. But there were some intimacies that would have to be allowed for the sake of the journey. And the sooner Xena normalized it, the better. However many times in the future they had left to bathe together, perhaps from this experience they all might be rendered less uncomfortable. Less intimate.
Xena also hoped, privately, that letting Gabrielle see her unclothed would do something about that silly crush of hers.
Gabrielle was all optimism. All her hero worship and high expectations stemmed from imagining what she didn't know. Xena was neither willing nor capable of physically showing Gabrielle all the faults of her soul. But there were imperfections she could show her. Nothing to stamp out that optimistic youthful crush quite like the harsh realism of an older, battle-scarred body.
Xena was well aware that her body was attractive to men and women of her own age and disposition. Xena herself knew all too well the allure of a good scar. But to such an innocent unblemished youth as Gabrielle, Xena suspected the effect would be different, if Gabrielle's history of baby-faced suitors were any indication of her preferences.
She hoped it would work, anyway. She was running out of ways to discourage her from this crush of hers.
At the moment, Gabrielle was still blushing angrily, and averting her gaze. Still miffed about the toe thing, Xena surmised. Her gentle teasing had been meant to ease some of the tension. But truth be told, she was a little genuinely curious to see what she assumed would be some physical mark of the surgery.
No sense pushing further on the matter, however.
Xena undressed wordlessly from there, leaving her empty leathers to lay in the grass, and stepped into the shallows of the water unceremoniously.
She moved without the careful saunter of a seducer, as she was accustomed to doing with an audience present. Instead, she moved with the easy natural gait of anyone stepping into a pool for the ten thousandth time in their life. As if this moment were no different. Just another bath.
That was what it was, after all.
She would demonstrate to her young protégé all the absence of flirtation and youthful beauty this intimacy would contain. She would know she had succeeded if she never again saw that eager, hopeful glimmer of infatuation in her eyes.
Eyes. She felt them on her.
Xena craned her neck to face her from across the length of water and shore. But when she looked, Gabrielle had turned her face away in embarrassment. Embarrassment of having been caught staring? Or embarrassment of having seen her naked body at all? It was impossible to tell.
Xena moved into the deeper waters until her breasts were submerged. Then, she dunked her head to wash out the dirt from her hair. She did this repeatedly over the course of a few minutes. She pulled her fingers through her wet locks, pulling away what grime and loose strands she could.
Xena did not carry a supply of oils or soaps for washing. That sort of luxury did not suit this new life of hers. She had to rub deeply into her skin, and claw with her nails to clean off the dirt. Xena was accustomed to this extra effort, but would've preferred a hot preprepared bath with soaps, rags, oils, and brushes if that sort of decadence were a bit more affordable on a salary of practically nothing.
Somewhere between her moments underwater and her moments combing her fingers through her tresses, she heard the sound of a body quietly stepping into the lake. She smiled to herself, thinking with amusement of how long it had taken her to finally join her.
She went back to washing, rubbing her fingers into the back of her neck and sighing with the effort of cleaning herself.
"CanIdothat?" Gabrielle asked, the words coming out fast and too close together.
Xena was startled by how close she sounded, and spun around to find Gabrielle a mere arm's length from her. When did she get so close? And more importantly…
"Why?" she asked, almost laughing at the strange and unexpected request.
"Well… it would be easier with help."
Would it? Xena didn't know. No one had ever offered before.
As if sensing her hesitancy, Gabrielle smiled lightly and waded closer. Her own nervousness undone by a desire to reassure the warrior. "My sister and I used to bathe together. Trust me, it's easier to wash with help," she went on, nodding to herself like she was trying to convince herself, too. Without waiting for an answer, she stepped up toward Xena and put a hand on her bare shoulder, coaxing her to turn her back.
She did.
"…Especially hair as long as yours…" Gabrielle continued, sliding her little fingers between her locks of black hair. With one hand she separated the strands and cleaned between them, with the other she gently massaged the roots of each hair as she tugged, keeping her pulling from ever being painful.
Xena felt like she'd been defeated.
This was exactly the sort of thing she shouldn't be allowing. Gabrielle's suggestion hadn't prepared Xena for how implicitly romantic it felt to be touched like this.
Then again, that didn't mean it felt that way to her. Gabrielle said she did this with her sister. And it certainly seemed like something normal enough for two friends to do. For the first time, Xena could not confidently interpret this action from Gabrielle. Perhaps, if Xena was sensing some deeper meaning from the act, that may well have just been her own unfamiliarity with the gesture. If Xena had ever had a sister, it might not feel so strange to her now.
It felt uncomfortably romantic. And yet, this was not the way any previous lovers had ever touched her. It shouldn't've been romantic at all.
The last time anyone had touched her hair like this, Xena had been a very young child. She recalled from her complicated past the memory of her mother, pouring cold water over her head from a bucket and rubbing her down with a rough sponge from her scalp to her toes. She'd never before thought of exactly how it felt to have her mother wash her hair for her. But she remembered it now. How different, how similar it was to this.
Comparing the two did not elucidate these confusing emotions.
Gabrielle removed her hands finally, and rinsed them off in the lake water. "All done" she said, sounding proud of herself.
"Thanks…" Xena ran her own hand experimentally over her hair. It felt smooth, but it was hard to tell how clean it was while it was still wet. She turned and faced her companion.
She looked blankly at Gabrielle, unsure what to say. Growing more unsure as she found herself eye to eye with her nude body for the first time. The upper half, anyway. Since Gabrielle was shorter, the water level covered more of her body. But just the sight of her bare shoulders, and knowing all that must lay beneath made her tense just ever so slightly. She hadn’t expected it to affect her. She wished it hadn't.
The water at her collar bone rippled gently enough that with some focus, Xena could, if she were so inclined, glimpse into the dark water and see the tops of her…
Her own thoughts interrupted themselves, and it helpfully occurred to Xena that turnabout was in order.
"Here, your turn," Xena said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Gabrielle seemed suddenly timid, but nodded in compliance and turned. Xena watched her shoulders curl tightly inward out of nervousness. Instead of moving her hands up to her hair, Xena lifted her dripping hands to hold her tense shoulders. Gabrielle shuddered at the contact. "Lean back, it's gotta get wet."
Biting down on her tongue, Gabrielle was clearly keeping herself from responding in some specific way. Then wordlessly she relaxed into her hold, and allowed Xena to dip her head into the water, leaving her face warm and dry. When she rose back to stand up straight, she seemed sincerely more at ease.
"Too bad we don't have any oil, huh?" Gabrielle smiled conversationally, turning her head just enough to look back at her without pulling the damp hair out of her reach.
"Hmm." A hum of agreement was all she could manage, forced by her own musings into deep contemplation. As uncomfortable as she had been with having her hair washed, she was even more unfamiliar with this act. To be doing the washing.
Xena worked her fingers into the tiny subtle knots of her hair. She pretended that she might feel this way if Gabrielle was her sister.
Xena adopted a similar method as Gabrielle had, holding her head in one hand as she washed to keep from pulling too hard at her hair. Trying to sooth the roots with gentle presses of her hand, for fear of hurting her. It took a lot of focus to be as gentle as she felt the gesture called for. But so much focus unnerved her. She resorted to distracting herself by speaking.
"Is this the whole reason you offered to wash my hair?" Xena asked. "So that I'd be obliged to do the same for you?"
"Well…maybe."
A warm breeze of emotion blew through her, and she smiled at the back of Gabrielle's head.
She gently yanked Gabrielle's head back down into the water, further back than before, getting her whole face wet in the process.
"Hey!" Gabrielle cried when her head came back up, but her voice wasn't pained or angry.
"Just washing it out…"
"Hmmph," Gabrielle spat out a tablespoon of water. "Maybe I'll find someone else to help me next time," she teased. "Someone gentler."
"I'm sure Argo would love to help you," Xena smiled, removing her hands from Gabrielle's hair and neck. She remained standing just as close.
The moment Xena's hands left her, Gabrielle turned back around to face her. "Get hygiene help from a horse? I don't think so." She had a playful smile on her lips. "Nah, come to think of it, I'd rather make you do all my bidding, Xena."
What had begun as an awkward step into a new and uncomfortably intimate ritual felt suddenly normal now.
There was no trace of any of her earlier nervousness. The weakness Xena had found in her earlier shyness was gone, and now, once again, Xena was the one uncomfortable with how intimate things had suddenly become.
Xena flung an arm over Gabrielle's shoulder and shoved her down, submerging her and turning her over under the water. She smirked when she heard a muffled outcry, and watched clouds of air bubbles pop at the surface of the lake. Although panicked, Gabrielle was quickly attempting to right herself.
Her kicking feet nearly met Xena's face, but she was prepared for it. She caught one of her flailing feet in her hand, holding it still while the rest of Gabrielle's body fought to resurface.
"Hey!" Gabrielle sputtered, struggling somewhat, but managing to keep her head above the water while one of her feet was disabled. The dunking didn't seem to have really phased her as much as the sudden exposure of so much of her skin, bent as she was at such an odd angle in order to stay afloat.
But Xena wasn't concerned with Gabrielle's breasts or thighs, splashing about wetly in the lake. All she cared about right now was this foot.
"Let's see here…" she smiled mischievously. Then she frowned.
It was the wrong foot.
With some contorting, Gabrielle managed to kick Xena in the face with her other foot, squarely on the hinge of her jaw. Xena released her, but then Gabrielle had to contort herself again after turning over and flailing in the water some more. She made a mad dash for the shore, running along the bottom of the lake and squealing like a child.
Xena rubbed her hand over the pain sprouting from her cheek, marveling at Gabrielle's strength. With a bit of training, that kick could be quite deadly. Then she dove after Gabrielle. She knew she could swim faster than Gabrielle could tread water.
Gabrielle looked over her shoulder as she approached the beach, and saw Xena hot on her heels. She shrieked, not in a fearful way, but in a distinctly playful way. She began splashing even more as she ran. The water receded more and more until it was barely above her ankles, she was nearly there…
Then she was tackled to the ground and fell, rolling into the shallow water of the shore, with the weight of a warrior atop her.
"Gottcha," Xena purred triumphantly.
With amazing speed, Gabrielle crossed her arms over her breasts, as though suddenly overcome with a sense of modesty. Gabrielle's open mouth quivered nervously while her gaze wildly flickered up and down from the pair of bright icy eyes to the pair of… well…
Xena shifted her weight down Gabrielle's body, moving in search of her legs. She held one knee in her palm and trailed her hand down the shin, carefully following its length toward the water, where her foot was submerged. She was working quickly, focused only on her goal. She was nearly there. She felt the bump of an ankle, and then…
"Xena, stop!" Gabrielle shouted suddenly. "I mean it!"
Xena froze.
She realized as she blinked lamely back at Gabrielle that she had gotten a bit carried away. She realized also that she was completely naked, and so was the woman beneath her. They were naked, and they were too close… and…
This was… not right.
She looked at Gabrielle's face, really looked into her eyes. Those windows which were never really capable of hiding anything from her. She was unable to interpret the emotion she saw there as anything but fear.
Xena quickly flinched away, rising up on her knees and looking anywhere but below her.
"I… didn't mean… I'm sorry." Xena tried to stand up, already preparing how she'd have to leave Gabrielle tonight. Wondering if she'd ever be able to look at her again.
But then Gabrielle grabbed her hand, keeping her in place. Gabrielle's one remaining arm was not enough to hide her breasts, but Xena did not deserve to look, so she didn't. "Wait," Gabrielle said, her voice still tense with fear, but soft. Xena froze weakly in her hand. "Not like that. I'm not scared of you. I just…"
They stared back at each other wordlessly for too long.
"Why don't you want me to see?" Xena asked her suddenly.
This time Gabrielle looked away. "It's… weird."
"Weird?"
"My foot. It's weird" she said, much more quietly.
"Gabrielle…" Xena almost wanted to laugh, but found the sentiment just a bit too gloomy to mock her for. "I'm sure it isn't."
Gabrielle released her arm, and sat up to tuck her knees into herself, covering her body as much as she could despite her nudity. Her feet were still barely submerged under the clear water. Distorted just enough to not be seen. She was blushing and grimacing and avoiding looking anywhere at Xena.
Are scars so disgusting to her?
Xena heard a gentle splash as Gabrielle's right foot raised itself out of the water. She looked down instinctively, then promptly looked back up at Gabrielle's face for some sign of permission.
Her mouth was tense, and her eyes were watching Xena carefully. She was waiting for her judgement.
Despite the discomfort that had befallen this game so suddenly, Xena knew she couldn't turn back now.
She lowered her gaze again, taking care not to dwell on the alluring way Gabrielle's arms sparsely covered her breasts, or how her thighs pressed tightly together. She let her hand gently cradle her heel as she investigated the one and only part of Gabrielle's naked body she was allowed to.
Nothing about Gabrielle's right foot really looked at all strange upon first glance. But upon closer inspection, Xena could see how the smallest toe seemed a bit too close to the rest. Like it had had another neighbor crowding it for space at one point. And beside it, along the outside edge of the foot, there was a tiny, faint scar where the bones of a sixth toe had been removed.
Xena frowned. "A healer didn't make this cut."
Gabrielle blinked back at her. "What?"
"This mark was left by someone inexperienced."
For any practiced healer, removing such a small digit might have been challenging, but the end result surely would have left a scar much less permanent than this. This cut was clumsy. Set at a slightly uneven angle. And it was difficult to tell, but it seemed much too long. Scars like these on very young children could often be rendered invisible by adulthood, after all of the growing set in. Even as faint as it was, this scar was too visible. Of course, Xena only noticed it because she was looking for it, and it was inches from her face. All in all, the end result of this clumsy operation had produced a very normal looking foot, but that wasn't what concerned her.
Gabrielle squirmed just a bit, her voice had gone quiet while her toes curled nervously. "Yeah, I know that… why is that the thing you say?"
"Did your mother do this?"
"Yeah, I told you, she and I are the only ones that know. She didn't need to get a healer, it's not like it was life threatening. She took it off only a bit after I was born, before anyone could see."
Xena looked back down at the foot in her hand with a new, grim understanding. She tried to imagine Solan. Tried to imagine finding a sixth toe on him, and taking it upon herself to cosmetically correct the imperfection before he was even old enough to hold up his own head.
She cringed.
Even with her medical prowess, which surely dwarfed that of a farmer's wife in Poteidaia, she couldn't imagine herself doing something as risky and unnecessary as that. She hoped at least that Gabrielle's mother had found some way to dull her baby's pain before making the incision.
In her silent contemplation, Xena stroked the thumb of her free hand over the scar without thinking. Xena did it subconsciously, to comfort herself in the midst of these troubling thoughts. It must have made Gabrielle uncomfortable, because she started babbling.
"S-she says she noticed after she was cleaning me up. She wrapped me up, so no one else really ever saw my feet. She did check in with the healer, you know, for other normal stuff. I was healthy. Besides, do you have any idea how expensive surgery is? I can't imagine it would have made sense to pay so much to get someone to cut off something the size of a chickpea. Getting rams neutered is less expensive. And less embarrassing. And it's not like anything would be different right now if someone else-"
"'Embarrassing'?"
Was that why her mother did the surgery herself? Because she was too embarrassed to let anyone else see?
"Huh?"
"…Nevermind." Xena let her thumb caress over the scar one last time before releasing Gabrielle's foot. She had been crouched over a nude Gabrielle for long enough. She stood up and went to retrieve her clothes.
Gabrielle pulled her foot back to safety quickly, and brushed her own fingers delicately over the same spot Xena had as she watched her dress. After Xena's breasts and unmentionables were covered again, she followed her lead. Though her clothes had far fewer steps to put on, it took her just as long. When she was dressed again, she sat on the grass, watching Xena wring the water from her hair.
"Well?" Gabrielle asked.
"Well, what?" Xena said, without looking her way.
"I showed you mine. Are you going to tell me all about your scars now?" There it was again; that eager, hopeful glimmer of infatuation. Even worse, Xena found herself happy to hear it in her voice. She was very glad to hear the playful side of her infinitely more than the frightened and uncomfortable side, to be sure. But it was also becoming increasingly undeniable how much that glimmer was growing on her.
She smiled. "Well, you must've gotten a pretty good view of most of them from down there" she teased, delighting in the blush she saw creep over Gabrielle's features once more. "Which one would you like to hear about?"
"The… uh… the one on your…" She made a little motion over her navel.
"Ah, that one. Jealous lover. The full story's a bit too raunchy for you, I'm afraid."
"Hey, I can handle it!"
"Hmmm. If you say so." Argo, who had been grazing a little ways away by the roadside, trotted over to her mistress at the sound of her whistle. "Let's get packed up, and maybe I'll tell it to you on the road."