Unconventional Medicine - Sierra Aguirre-Stoker, Shane Barrett

“I hate cows.” Sierra looks down at her hands with a grimace.
“That’s what the gloves were for,” Shay says, holding them up. 
“It was a two month old calf!” Sierra says. “She was cute!” She sighs. “Until she dragged me ten feet through the pasture and tore my hands up.”
“You really don’t know when to let go.” Shay puts a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, let’s go back to the house and get those cleaned up and treated.”
“It’s not that bad. There’s not even blood,” Sierra objects. 
“You were complaining it hurt two minutes ago.”
“Well it’s going to hurt even more if you use that antiseptic from Abuela’s medicine cabinet on them.” She shrugs. “I’ll just wash them well and it’ll heal.”
“Trust me, you don’t want to mess around with these things. If they heal wrong it’ll curl your fingers right in on themselves.” Shay shakes his head. “Happened to guys on the docks sometimes. They’d hold onto a line too long or let a crate come down on the tackle too fast and the rope would cut through even a glove. Messed a couple guys up for life.”
“Okay, okay. Thanks for the scare tactics,” Sierra mutters, grimacing. “Can I at least take a shower first?” She gestures vaguely to the mud and other grime she doesn’t want to think about on her clothes.
“Probably a good idea. Gonna be hard to do with your hands wrapped,” Shay says. “Just try not to get that mess in the cuts.” 
“Ugh. Yeah.” Sierra frowns. This is going to be harder than she thought. She has no idea how Wren does anything. That woman is in a cast, brace, or has multiple bandages at pretty much any given time. 
Maybe fae have some sort of special injury management skill set, because Tio’s partner Robin is usually in the same situation. 
Whatever it is, Sierra certainly doesn’t have it. It’s hard enough getting the buttons on her shirt (that’s going straight into the trash, the elbows and back of the shoulders are shredded and besides, she’s pretty sure the dirt is ground in and would never come out) undone, let alone the thought of handling soap and trying to work her hands through her hair to get out the dirt and straw and debris that got tangled up in it.
This is just not happening.
She knocks on the door, knowing Shay is waiting outside for her to be done and ready for her hands to be cleaned and bandaged.
He opens the door and frowns, probably at the mud still streaked on her face and caked in her braid.
“I could use a little help,” She mutters.
Between asking for help stinging her pride and Abuela’s homemade soap stinging her hands, she’ll take the former. 
“You sure?” Shay asks, head tilted like a confused puppy.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t.” She raises an eyebrow. “Do you really think I’d be asking you to open the door when I’m standing here in my underwear if I didn’t think this was the best option?”
“Point taken.” He steps in and closes the door behind them, then turns on the water. “Is it the hair you need help with?” he asks, shrugging out of his own t-shirt and folding it up on the top of the laundry hamper.
“Mostly.” She shrugs. “If you can get some of the soap lathered on a washcloth I can do my face without too much trouble, but whatever Abuela puts in that stuff burns any cuts.” 
“Okay. That I can do.” He grabs a washcloth from the teetering stack on the small wall shelf, and the bar of soap hanging in a little string bag. Sierra steps into the shower, tilts her head back, and lets the water run down her face, until she feels the cloth touch her fingertips as Shay hands over the soapy material. Holding the washcloth with her fingers pressed together so it doesn’t touch her palms is awkward, but she can at least manage to scrub the dirt off her face and neck more or less effectively. She’ll worry about her arms when they worry about her hands. 
“Okay. Now the hair.”
She turns around so the water is hitting the back of her head, and feels Shay work the elastic out of the end of her braid and then start combing his fingers through the braid to loosen it. His hand hits a knotty spot, and she takes half a step back at the tug, shoulders bumping into his chest. His skin is cool, and she can’t quite help the little shudder at the odd sensation. It’s easy to forget vampires have no body heat of their own, until touching them reminds you of that fact.
“You okay?” He asks. 
She nods and blinks a few times, opening her eyes and hoping she did a good enough job rinsing the soap off her face. If she can see, she’ll have better balance. “Yeah. Just a snarl.”
She hears a brush clatter off the edge of the sink, and then feels it moving through her hair. He’s gentler than she is, and another shiver runs down her back, but this time at the sensation of a hand other than her own on her scalp. She can’t help it. Ever since she was a kid, every time her mom combed her wet hair, she’d have a weird little shudder in response. 
“Sorry my hands are cold,” Shay apologizes, clearly misinterpreting the source of the shiver. “I can hold them under the water for a bit if that helps.”
“No, we’re good.” Sierra says. She closes her eyes again as she hears the cap of the shampoo bottle click, and leans her head back so as much of the lather as possible avoids her face. Shay rubs the soap in deep, then runs fingers through her hair as he rinses it out again.
“You do anything else to it?”
“We share a shower in the apartment. Have you ever seen anything in it other than the bar soap and generic shampoo?”
“Just figured I’d ask.” He squeezes gently down the length of her hair and puts a hand on her shoulder to turn her around. “Okay, let’s do your arms.”
She grimaces. She wasn’t kidding about how much that soap stings.
Shay lathers another handful of soap from the string bag and rubs it along her forearms, cleaning away what’s left of the dirt and manure stains. When he turns her hands over, and the warm water hits the raw spots, Sierra hisses and jerks back slightly on instinct.
“Sorry.” 
“I’ll manage. Just give me a second to adjust to it.”
“I could lick it, that might help.”
“You know how weird it sounds when you say that, right?” Sierra asks.
“That’s why I do it.” He shrugs.
“You know, it’s kind of weird that ‘kiss it better’ is actually a real thing if it’s a vampire kissing you.”
“It won’t make it better, the saliva doesn’t heal you faster. It just numbs you.”
“You’ve been hanging around Pete too long if you’re that hung up on the details,” Sierra chuckles. “Ah what the hell, why not.” 
It feels really, really weird for the approximately ten seconds before the numbing agent kicks in. But it does make the ensuing cleaning, disinfecting, and then drying and bandaging of her palms a whole lot more bearable.
She’s shivering a little when he’s done, between the wet hair hanging down her back and her now soggy and clammy underwear. Shay wraps a towel around her shoulders and another around her hair, rubbing gently but briskly and very clearly trying to avoid touching her as much as possible. She appreciates it, but he’s got to be even more chilled than she is. His body just doesn’t show it the way a living one does. 
When he moves around to dry the front of her hair, she lets go of the towel she’s been clutching around her shoulders with her fingertips and wraps her arms around him instead. 
He is cold, and the weird lifelessness of his skin makes her shiver all over again, but she leans into him anyway.
“Okay, good enough. Now, both of us need to go get some dry clothes on.” She looks up at him. “And I’m pretty sure Abeula will make us her hot chocolate even if it is seventy degrees in the shade today. She just might never let us live it down.”
Shay smiles, water still dripping off the ends of his short faux-hawk and landing on her face. “That sounds like a good plan to me.”