Snippet #2238397

Kaleb felt the slightly chilly hand enter his grasp. They shook slowly, Valentine barely holding onto his hand. "There. Not so hard? Right? Friend? Now let's get you inside so I can get you a band-aid and some warm food." Just as Kaleb was about to turn around and finish opening his door, Valentine seemed to be perturbed by something. Kaleb tilted his head. What's wrong? he wondered. "How did you know I had blood on my hands? I didn't say anything about it..."

Kaleb's heart almost stopped. He'd slipped up. He'd noticed a small leaking thermal energy source that smelled like blood, so he'd only assumed. He knew. He must know. He was going to ask him. Here it was. Kaleb almost braced himself, as if he were anticipating a slap.

"Um, never mind. You're being so kind to me and all i can come up with is more questions.... I'm being rude."

It was like a massive weight had rushed off of Kaleb's shoulder's. Valentine had brushed off Kaleb's blunder and was forgetting about it. Hopefully his reactions didn't show too much on his face. Kaleb smiled, brushing off the awkwardness, and looked him directly in the face. He could tell that Valentine still had something left to say.

He bit his lip, looking a bit apologetic. "Thank you... For being so nice." He said the words softly, and stepped slightly closer. "I'm just not used to it is all."

"Well," Kaleb said, "My... nose... is very strong. There's nothing quite like the irony scent of blood. So... I just figured you must have scraped them when I bumped into you earlier. " Kaleb fumbled. "I'm sorry the world hasn't recognized that you're such a sweet boy. It doesn't matter, you're my friend now, aren't you? You treat your friends well, or at least, I do. Now come along inside, I'll get you a bandage. Would you like some ice?"

With that, Kaleb opened the door. The lights were off, so Kaleb flipped them on. The place still smelled lightly like the incense he'd left on that morning, luckily the smoke had dispersed and all that was left was the soft smell or smoke and the understated, undefinable sweet smell that came from good incense. Since he'd remembered to close the window the house was cozily warm, and a warm welcome from the outside's cold.

"Here we are." Kaleb said. "The Reinhardt house. You can hang your closet up in the coat.... your coat in the closet, silly me." Kaleb fumbled then corrected himself, putting particular emphasis on his corrections. He chuckled for a moment at his own blunder. He then walked to the closet and hung up his coat, cane, the empty sheathe, and threw his gloves into a hamper to be washed later. He left his hat on to conceal his horns.

Kaleb then walked to the cupboard on top of his refrigerator and pulled out a white gauze pad, some tape, and a pair of scissors. He then opened up his freezer and retrieved a pair of ice cubes, closing it when he was finished. Once he noticed Valentine put away his coat, he gestured over to the couch.

"Please sit." he said. He then walked over to Valentine and handed him the ice. When Valentine took the ice from his hands, he snipped the gauze pad cleanly into two equal pieces and set them down with the scissors and the tape on his plain, glass, coffee table. "For the pain. Once they feel better I'll bandage you up and we can start cooking. As long as I've got the ingredients for it I can cook anything you like! You can help me too, it'll be lots of fun. What do you say? Sound good?"

(@Ashes, I've made some relatively minor assumptions here about Val. They were all prompted with a question, but I still don't like the way it feels. If you're grumpy about it, I can change them.)