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"Bloody hell, darling," Tangerine let out a low whistle. "And I mean that in every sense of the phrase."

The man in the white suit had utterly gone to work on Nadine's arms. It was hard to find a patch of skin below her elbows that wasn't spattered with red or cut with lesions that perforated her forearms. It made the brunette wince, figuring soapy water probably wasn't going to be enough to deal with what was in front of him. It was a miracle the woman leaning against the wall wasn't contorted with pain, her expression looked more like one of exasperation and annoyance, as if this was merely an inconvenience.

"I think the adrenaline must have numbed feeling this," She joked weakly.

"That's not how adrenaline works, trust me." Came the suited man's reply. "Was the first carriage a bar? There seemed to be some sort of alcohol display from what I could see through the door." Nadine frowned.

"This isn't the time for a drink, I could bleed out at any second." She said indignantly.

"I think we've got time before it gets to that point. I'll be back in a moment," His hand curled around the mechanism to open the door. "Stay here and try and clean the cut on your head while I'm gone." Tangerine slid the door open and vanished, leaving Nadine alone.

She sighed, standing up straight and staring into the mirror. A semblance of blood and determination looked back, eyes lidded from a lingering concussion. The noirette gingerly picked up the discarded towel that has been used to clean the back of her neck and dunked it in the filled basin. The dripping wet material was brought up to her temple and she experimented with pressing it against the small wound left by the barrel of the gun. She flinched slightly at the pressure, in a fleeting moment wishing it could be Tangerine doing this with his practiced and delicate movements. Nadine stopped suddenly, breath catching sharply in her throat as she banished such wishes. It seemed a weird dichotomy to have just fought with the man only to then, moments after, be wishing he could be there to clean her wounds.

Yup, definitely still concussed.

She decided for now to focus on teasing the blood tracking down her cheek off her skin. It took something resembling scrubbing to remove the merlot hue entirely, but she certainly felt better once it was gone. The green-eyed woman smoothed her hair down also, trying to regain some degree of pristine presentation so that nothing would look amiss once she had to return back to the main body of the train. Her clothes were another matter entirely. The sleeves of her blazer were practically shredded, torn apart beyond repair. Nadine's face dropped at this realisation, she had really liked the wine-red suit, and now she was going to have to buy another one. Sure, the trousers were fine, if not a little crumpled, but now they had nothing to match with. The area around the cuffs of her shirt were slashed too, but not to such a bad degree. The glaring issue there was the stains of blood they had succumbed to. If she had a way of getting the stains out she could simply push the sleeves up messily and no one would be any the wiser to its fraying manner. At least her tie was untouched.

The bleeding woman quickly addressed the actual contusion on her head, dabbing away any of the excess blood around the actual cut before rinsing the now scarlet tinged towel. Nadine sighed, figuring the best way to deal with the state of her shirt would be to soak it and hope. She drained the basin before refilling it with water as hot as the tap would allow and pumping a sizeable quantity of soap into it. She loosened her tie and slipped it over her head without actually undoing the knot so it would be easier to put on later and began to undo the buttons on her white collared shirt. She winced when slipping it off her shoulders, but managed it before balling it up and dropping it into the basin.

This was a routine she did often after particularly violent jobs and was practised in the art of getting blood out of white clothing. She pushed the fabric of the sleeves all the way under, careful not to wet the rest of the shirt, and counted to sixty before starting to scrub. Folding the stained areas against each other, she raked them forwards and back. The noirette smiled as she noticed the water beginning to pollute with blood, the discolouring on the shirt lessening

"Alright, good news, love, I managed to-" Tangerine froze in the doorway, taking in the scene before him with unblinking eyes. It appeared like he had forgotten to breathe as he watched Nadine hunched over the basin scrubbing incessantly. She was shirtless. The brunette swallowed deeply at the look of attractive concentration on her face, lower lip caught between her teeth in focus. He could have died in that moment and been nonchalant, aware only of the heat and flush rising on his face.

Nadine's eyes snapped to him, wide in shock.

"I was just- There were stains on the sleeves, I..." She stammered, averting the gaze that matched his own.

"Yes, of course, understandable, um," Tangerine internally hit himself for his blushing stutter.

"A little privacy?" She asked, indicating the door he had left wide open. Not trusting himself to speak, the man in the waistcoat stepped into the room wordlessly, locking the door behind him and turning to face the corner of the room. The woman by the basin worked a bit quicker until all of the blood had dispelled itself from the shirt. She pulled it out of the water, wringing out the sopping wet fabric and shoving it hastily under a hand-dryer, letting the warm air remove the lingering water. The noirette quickly pulled it on, avoiding the gashes on her arms, and pushed the sleeves to just above her elbow before buttoning it up with shaky hands. Finally, she slipped her tie back around her neck and tucked the hem of the white material into her trousers.

"You done?" The man in the corner coughed.

"All good." She replied. He turned around, cheeks tinged pink. "You were saying?"

"I managed to find something suitable to sterilise the cuts," He explained, flashing a bottle of Russian vodka in her direction. This explained his interest in the bar. "Also, I ran into some fuckin' lady with a trolley, and luckily she had some plasters, so we can cover that mess on your head. They weren't cheap, so I'm expecting you pay me back once this fiasco is done."

"If we're not dead, that is." Nadine pointed out with an amused smile. "Alright, let's get this over with." She displayed her left arm out to him. Tangerine grabbed a wad of toilet roll and folded it, unscrewing the cap of the vodka with his teeth and soaking the paper with it.

"Here we go!" He muttered sardonically as the alcohol made contact with the abrasions.

"OH FUCK ME!" Nadine flinched backwards, reeling at the scream of pain erupting from her arms. "Stings like all things unholy!" She exclaimed. The woman with emerald irises expected some sort of sarcastic, snappy remark from the man before her but he didn't say anything, only pausing and furrowing his brow.

When the paper pressed against her forearm again, Tangerine's other hand also came up, nestling itself on Nadine's cheek, fingers clutching at the back of her head, woven with hair. She went very still, eyes flicking to his face. The brunette didn't let himself make eye contact, knowing he wouldn't be able to justify his actions. As she cringed in pain again from the alcohol, he carefully brushed his thumb across the skin of her cheek, in an attempt to quell her discomfort. The green-eyed woman was out of actions and witty remarks, transfixed by the sensation of his skin touching hers, even as briefly and carefully such as this was. Her thoughts seemed to both race and stagnate, the rise and fall of her chest increasing at a steady pace.

Tangerine barely breathed at all, something close to nervous about what was transpiring, even if it was by his initiation. There was a moment where he even feared Nadine's prior vigour would return and he'd find himself flipped once again and pinned to the ground. The assassin knew he pushed too far, but it was all he could do to satiate the hunger in his chest that seemed only satisfied when the noirette was thoroughly worked up. Maybe it was to do with her being in that state or simply the fact that he caused it, but a kick like some sort of addictive drug coursed through him when it happened.

Nadine hadn't noticed he was done sterilising her first arm until he paused, indicating for her other. She was utterly lost in some far off sensation of guilty comfort. She hated how much relief and distraction his hand clasping her cheek brought and the way his spindly fingers curled in her hair to readjust his grip set her nerves on end. Something about proximity and contact to such a man as Tangerine, infuriating as he was, gave her great satisfaction. It was almost like the quelling of a rageful fire seeing him settled so close in silence. The only movement was the alcohol soaked toilet paper dancing up and down her arm, the brush of his thumb and the flicking of eyes that she had never picked up on being as blue as they were.

And then very suddenly, as if shocked, he drew his hand away from her cheek. Nadine was horrified to realise she missed the feeling, ached for it even. The very thought of such longings threatened her with nausea from allowing such a shallow and trivial notion to break the mental block of distance she aimed to put between herself and her newfound associates. She observed as Tangerine reached over for a cheap looking box, tearing the top of the cardboard and pulling out something from inside. This turned out to be the box of plasters he had mentioned, and in one motion, he removed the beige fabric from its plastic seal. The noirette tilted her head to the left wordlessly, giving him access to the abrasion left by the gun.

It took a lot of self control for Nadine to not shift position at all as his fingers rested on her forehead, placing the band aid over the contusion. Tangerine stood back, admiring his work with an easy grin. He too, though would die before admitting it, greatly enjoyed being close, as it were, to the noirette. Something about her was utterly intoxicating, whether it be her inflexible desire to refuse to let him have any sort of power over her or just simple mannerisms that pertained regardless of his involvement. The feeling was inhibiting him somewhat, and he would need to be careful to act on it in a way that would not deter any original motives he had for being on the train. He very much intended to act on it, and explore just how euphoric he could get from trading quips and comments with double meanings.

"All done." He flashed a sarcastic glance at her.

"My hero." Nadine said through a thin-lipped smile. She paused, nose scrunching. "Tangerine?" She called quietly as he was half-turned. "Thank you."

"Yeah, no problem, darling," The brunette attempted to brush it off as best he could, resolutely ignoring the ingot of warmth carving into his chest. "We should get going, Lemon will be worried. The longer we spend in here, the more likely it is people will begin to think we're doing something untoward." He added onto the end, trying to act normal so as not to alert the green-eyed woman to his newly acquired and hated like for their interactions.

"I shudder at the thought."

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