meet me in the blue bed -- p, luca

[Luca]

Unlike Rosemary with her sadism, Luca had received many opportunities over the course of his life to explore his masochism. It had only developed in the first place as a coping mechanism, but now it was so much more than that. He no longer needed it to defend himself from the horrors that were happening to him, to trick him into thinking that he enjoyed the torture. It had become detrimental to his health now, but still it remained. There were times at night that he couldn't think about anything other than the wounds coating his body. He would lie awake for hours, digging his claws into his limbs and glancing with shame out the window to make sure that he wasn't being seen. The darkness would move in on him and call him all sorts of names, although he didn't consider them hallucinations. They were much too real to be figments of his imagination, he had decided, so he broke the rather well-known rule and acknowledged them.

As Rosemary insisted that she didn't mind looking him over, his resistance started to fade. He exhaled, a plume of white smoke drawing itself from his lungs and swirling around them. "Okay," he finally agreed, although his voice was softer than his usual tone. At least it meant that none of his cuts would get infected. As much as he hated wasting the clan's resources, he almost hated getting infections more. They were gross and oozy and made him feel all sick, so he was silently a bit thankful for the medic's insistence. The canine shifted into a more comfortable position, his straight back relaxing slightly and his head falling. If she was going to do a check of all the cuts on his body, he knew that they'd be there for a while.

Her next question was one that he had been dreading. Heat continued to creep up his body, embarrassment becoming evident in the quick reddening of his skin. It was easy to mention his masochism offhandedly in the middle of a conversation, especially if he was saying it as a joke, but it was infinitely more difficult for him in intimate situations like this. He had nothing to hide behind here, when there was just the two of them. There was no way he could pass it off as a joke if she reacted badly. His reputation in the Typhoon was pretty much in shambles already though, so he eventually came to the decision that he had nothing to lose. He watched her paws as she dug around in her satchel, his eyes easily being drawn to the white of the bandages as she pulled them from its depths. "Um," he began, unsure of where exactly to start. He wanted to make it clear that he wasn't being picked on, as people often assumed, or that he was doing this out of some hidden self loathing (although it would be a lie to say that there was no self hate involved).

"Most of them... I did to myself," the hellhound admitted quietly, his eyes darting off to the side as if to check that no one was listening in. "I'm a, uh, bit of a masochist. I like the pain, so sometimes I just can't help it." He trailed off, glancing at the ground. He felt like his face was burning from the confession, and he shifted again in the cool dirt of the jungle. People usually looked down on him for that sort of thing. He had never thought there was anything weird about it until he started trying to integrate himself back into society. People often looked at him funny when he requested certain violent actions, recoiled when he admitted why he started so many fights. He was very obviously expecting the same response from Rosemary.