Dragon Falls

Chapter Two- Part One

It took about a half-hour to reach the hotel, and Kia's arms felt like they were burning from the strain long before they arrived. He could even feel the sweat pooling along his spine from the effort, despite the chilly rain still coming down around them. So Kia was especially thankful for the chance to put the man down into a lobby chair while he took the time to check them in.

It took another ten minutes to do so, since he'd had to rouse the desk clerk, and ended up getting the third degree from him because of it. Kia became very glad that most of the blood that covered the man's body was concealed by the blanket he had wrapped him in, or he might have had a way harder time explaining it. As it was, the rough neighborhood they were in, and the few beers that had spilled on him during his gig, allowed him to satisfy the clerk's suspicions with nothing more than a muttered story about drunkenness and a minor brawl. "Me 'n me buddy...jus' need ta sleep 'i off." He slurred convincingly, and the clerk handed him the key, shooing him out the door in irritation. He didn't want anything more to do with the two drunken louts on his doorstep. So Kia swiftly obliged.

Still, due to all the delays, by the time Kia got them into the room and had settled the man on top of the bed, it was only about an hour until dawn. Kia was exhausted. So when the man started to rouse, he cursed slightly under his breath before doing his best to reassure him.

He didn't want the man to freak out after suddenly finding himself in a weird place. After all, the last thing Kia needed was for him to panic and shift into his dragon form in that tiny ass room. So even though the man was still mostly out of it, he spoke softly and calmly as he walked around the room, explaining what he was doing even though he had no idea whether the man even understood English. He just hoped that the sound of a soothing voice might help keep him calm, even if nothing else did.

He dropped his over-stuffed knapsack in the corner near the heater, carefully leaning his guitar case against the wall next to it, before cranking the heater up to max in an attempt to cut the chill in the air. Afterwards he peeled off his soaked duster jacket and hung it across the single wooden chair in the room, pushing it near the heater as well, and hoped that the heat might be able to dry it by check-out time. He also took that moment to double-lock the hotel room door. In a cheap ass hotel like that one, he wasn't overly worried about a cleaning lady bursting in at an odd moment, but drunks and thieves were all too common.

The heater was emitting a loud, broken whine as he dug into his knapsack for his first aid kit, leading him to worry that it might break down overnight. There was nothing he could do if it did, however, since it was unlikely that the hotel would actually fix it, so he forced himself to shrug it off as he went to grab some threadbare washcloths and a glass of warm water from the bathroom. As he headed towards the bedside table with his gathered supplies, he realized that they were still better off even if the heater did break. They would still be in out of the wind and rain, and they even had extra blankets to bundle up under to share body heat.

Situating all of the gathered supplies on that well-worn bedside table, he bent to the task of patching the guy up to the best of his meager abilities. "First things first, though, I've got to get you cleaned up so I can get a better look at those injuries...so I hope you're not shy!" Kia joked gently, mostly to himself since the man wasn't fully awake yet.

He worked at cleaning the blood off the man's face first, finding only fading bruises underneath. The light in the hotel room was much brighter than the streetlight had been, so he got his first real, close-up look at the man's face. It was utterly stunning. He suddenly found the man gorgeous, and it unnerved him, making him hesitate to pull back the blanket and finish. His unexpected reaction to the man's appearance concerned him, but he couldn't quite pinpoint why, and it left him frustrated as he struggled against his unease. He did his best to shake it off and decided to just hurry thru it, quickly pulling the blanket aside and latching onto the distractions provided by each new discovery about his patient. Still, every twitch and flex of the man's muscles, and every single moan, caused Kia's leather pants to cling ever more tightly and painfully to his groin. 'How the hell can pain-filled moans sound so much like sexual ones!? God! This is so wrong! That sound should not turn me on!!' Kia chastised himself, feeling guilty for his bodies reaction, but seemingly unable to stop it.