She's tense the moment a shadow creeps at edge of her newfound sanctuary, aching limbs settling into a fighting stance - Arceus, she'd only asked for a single fucking minute, was that too much? - while fingertips dance over the spherical shape of a pokeball.

It's not until the beloved shape of her husband is fully visible under the filtered light that Skyler allows herself a full sigh of relief, deflating back against the rock wall.

"Angel," the nickname rolls from her tongue in a hushed whisper, comforting in its familiarity. Exhaustion pulls at the edge of a lopsided smile. Uniquely his. "Hey."

The motion to intertwine her fingers in his, to fold her body to fit by his side, is as natural as breathing. Her cheek rests atop the curve of his shoulder, breath creeping up the slope of his neck. 

The world quiets, then disappears outside the bubble of their reunion. Skyler breathes deeply, allowing herself to finally rest.

She has to make a conscious effort to keep her eyes open, but it's an uphill battle isn't quite sure she wants to win anymore.

"Glad you decided to make it out in one piece. I was expecting at least one stab wound. You seem to collect them." Then, as if remembering the conflict that still raged outside, she abruptly pulls back to give Angelo a cursory look. Up and down. Again.

Aqua Rings flicker into existence, only to flicker out the next moment. 

The captain grits her teeth. Tries again.

angelo vestri

☉

His comment surprises a rough bark of laughter from tired lungs, its warmth proudly rising in defiance of all the violence and ruin from the past however many hours. Like the conflict outside can simply be batted aside, and with it all the exhaustion that threatens to drag her down.

When Skyler buries her face in the crook of Angelo's neck, she thinks it might as well have been.

And when she pulls back in concern, she's met with the soft pad of his fingers on either of her face. Centering her. Pulling her back from whatever memory had taken her. An anchor to her storm.

A shaky breath stutters out of her, and with it the furious stubborness that would've pitted her against angelo vestri's own. She hardly had the strength for it.

"I know." Words struggle to form past the knot in her throat, then tumble gracelessly out. "I know. I just wanted to make sure." That you're here with me, uninjured. Well.

Alive. 

Anything else would've been unacceptable. 

"I'll do it any way you like as long as you can convince me, Angel. Even if it's old-fashioned." His spark is infectious, and as his thumb rests over her cheek she can't help but lean against the warmth of it. Happy to be tangled up in angelo vestri within this cocoon they'd carved for themselves. 

Skyler peeks over his shoulder, searching for the first aid stuff he'd mentioned. "Lemme do you first."

Before she started snoring or, Arceus-forbid, drooling on him.

angelo vestri

☉

Angelo would find himself standing on gentle shores with an ocean lapping at his feet. He doesn't wade in far enough to find the pitiless riptides that would drag him under, down into depths of an all-consuming feral devotion. 

One day, maybe. He is an expert navigator, and no treacherous tides would make him lose direction. Least of all hers.

All of this goes right over Skyler's head, of course. Her concerns are of a more practical manner, like the rumbling of her belly when Angelo produces a granola bar from somewhere within his person. 

One would think he'd offered her the coffers of El Dorado with the way her face lights up with ravenous longing. The words are barely out of his mouth before Skyler snatches the offered granola bar from his hand and rips the plastic open.

It's immediately shoved (nearly in its entirety) into her mouth. 

"Hmm... S'good." The tasteless arrangement of cereal feels like a heavenly feast, and Skyler moans accordingly. In her mind, she makes a note to properly thank Angelo later - preferably when they aren't stuck in the Ultra Sea. 

The laser-like focus of her attention shifts to his wound at the hiss. Chewing still, they sit on the ground and she cradles his injured arm between her hands gently. Materials are put aside, and she begins the painstakingly slow process of cleaning and tending to his wound. The old-fashioned way.

Strange, the wave of nostalgia that envelops her then.

"Arceus' tits, Angel, who did you piss off?" She bites down on a piece of gauze and it splits apart. With practised movements, she starts wrapping it around the burn.

angelo vestri

☉

For a moment it seems as if Skyler would fight him on it, fingers tightening claw-like around the roll of gauze. A silver gaze snags on the cuts and bruises over his skin, but she knows that these are surface-level scrapes, inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

She pinches the edge of his shirt between her fingers and pulls it up, taking her sweet time to admire peer up the length of his torso and concluding that, yes, she is a very lucky woman indeed.

No life-threatening wounds there either.

Ultimately, she concedes the first aid materials to Angelo with a too-smug little smile that hints at a different kind of appetite.

"I managed to heal most of mine, except- hold on." Faint bruises dot the athletic landscape of her arms and legs, but little else beyond that. She breathes in through her nose once, twice. Mentally standing her ground.

Fingers curl around her shirt, and an intricate web of expletives explodes from her mouth when she pulls it up. It snags around her head, and Skyler snarls and yanks it off, exposing the bleeding gash across her ribs.

The one she'd been trying to heal before.

Mottled purple expands outwardly from its bleeding edges, hinting at a violent crash. Skyler peers down, pain and exhaustion coloring her voice. "'Least the bones aren't broken anymore."

Unlike her husband, no story is forthcoming. She keeps the casual brutality of the encounter to herself: the shriek of an Origin Pulse that had sent the ceiling crashing in on her, the certainty that this time she wouldn't live to tell the tale, the painstaking process of clawing her way back to life.

"Be gentle, yeah?" There's a joke somewhere in there, but it's lost in the lines of her exhaustion. 

angelo vestri

☉

"Mmm..." Her nerves should've been frazzled from the agony that pulses in her side, but even that doesn't take away from the sensation of fingers squeezing into her thigh. A shiver echoes up the curve of her spine, and it's all Skyler can do not to lean into it.

"Ow- fuck!"

There's a sharp intake of breath between gritted teeth, but Angelo delivers on his promise and his touch is a gentle one against her abused flesh. It still stings, and Skyler still curses him out every time he touches a particularly painful spot. 

But she doesn't squirm or move way. This is a ritual they've enacted countless times, patching each other up, taking care of each other.

She dutifully raises her arms when he orders her to, although the words 'say please' tether dangerously on the tip of her tongue. Defiance is a knee-jerk reaction, but one that is more suited to the place between soft bedsheets than a battlefield.

That is, until Angelo's breath fans over the skin of her collarbone as he works and suddenly the frantic staccato of her heartbeat thunders to the surface.

Unbidden, the edge of her blunt nails whispers over the back of his neck and upwards into his scalp. Holding tight.

By the time he sits up Skyler's eyes are liquid silver, peeking from under heavy lids. The hand still woven into his hair nudges him forward, uncaring for the twitch of pain from her side as she brings him down to the hunger of her kiss. 

(It isn't long before she's caging him between the warmth of her thighs.)

angelo vestri

☉