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krem

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This is what Lito gets for not working out for the last six weeks.

Every muscle in his body is aching, he's sweating more than he thought he ever could, and the breaths he's taking in are wheezing, gasping things, like he's taken up smoking (though he has memories of smoking, but that's Wolfgang's fault and not his own). Perhaps, though, perhaps this is just his new trainer at fault. Hernando had always been somewhat gentler on him, but then, that had been with the knowledge that most of their training sessions ended with a good bit of cardio and that kind of sex isn't happening here.

Panting, he folds his body in half, resting his hands on his knees as he gasps for air. "One minute more," he pleads, a finger in the air. "Just one. I can't breathe, I can't..."

Never, not ever again. If he has to give up some roles just so he can get back to the gym properly, he's going to. Maybe he'll need to use most of his first check to buy a treadmill for the apartment, but so be it. Weights, too, because he has a lot to upkeep and it will pay off in the long run, just like it always does.

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Krem smiled a bit, looking at Lito struggling as he grabbed his water bottle and towel. He slung the towel over his neck and half turned to re-rack their weights.

"Take your time," he said, voice only a little sing-song. It was amusing, really. Like when the Commander let him take it out on the new recruits. "And to think, I went easy on you today."

He smiled, toweling down his hair and face a little after he'd put the weights back.

"You are crueller than many of the villains I fight against in my films," Lito protests, even though his body's troubles are his own fault and are purely because he's waited so long between workouts. And yet, it is much easier to simply blame it on Krem. "If this is easy on me, I think you will kill me next time." He lifts the bottom of his shirt to mop up the sweat cascading down his body, still gasping for air and trying to shove it into his system.

Krem tossed a spare towel at Lito's head, even as he wiped his face with his shirt. The tailor in him winced to see the unnecessary strain on the fabric and the seams, and he had half a mind to warn Lito about that as well. Instead, he admired the small stretch of his stomach that he could see.

"I promise I'll wait until you can at least breathe through the work outs before I go harder with you. I would hate to break you too quickly." He winked, and set a bottle of water down next to Lito.

Lito grabs it from off his head, mopping up the sweat and letting it hang from his shoulders like an elegant scarf soon after. He's worn, really, and gives Krem a desperate look at the idea of doing this again soon. He lunges for the water, nearly, needing the respite. "Am I the worst shaped client you've ever had?" he asks, for sake of his ego.

"Hardly," Krem said with a smile. He had a smattering of others, so far, and two small classes that he had to scale back his teaching on considerably for the skill levels in them.

"Really, you didn't do badly at all," he assured, and clapped Lito on the shoulder gently.

"It's been a while," he freely admits, because he had given up on so much when he had first arrived that he feels a touch ashamed about it, but now he is doing something. "With this, will I be seeing more lean muscle or will I bulk up? And what must I eat?" He is used to restrictive diets, all to get in character, and so it does not seem like too much of a hardship to him, though he will miss eating real food.

"It can go either route, really," he admitted, then shoved Lito gently. "Stretching now. If you've breath enough to ask me questions, you're rested enough to stretch out, or you'll be feeling this a lot more in the morning."

He sat down on the mats to stretch as well. "If you're more concerned with weight loss, lean muscle, toning, then we'll focus on that. If you want to add muscle and bulk, that would be the focus instead."

The question about eating threw him off a little. He had never really paid much attention to what he ate, and he just tried to stick to familiar things here. He hummed a little. "I hadn't really thought of that."

Lito obediently falls into the stretches, his whole body aching, but it's the good sort of ache. His muscles may be screaming, but he knows it's for the best and it will pay off soon enough. "It always depended on what movie I was doing. Some of them wanted a more lean hero, but for some of them, I had to do nothing except eat protein and do weights until I had gained ten more pounds of muscle. I was starving," he recalls. "The day the shoot ended, my good friend cooked me lunch and I think I must have had at least ten elotes in ten minutes."

"Of course," Krem agreed. "The things we do to maintain ourselves depend on what's called upon us. I'll probably trim down a bit, now that I'm not doing what I was back home."

He would miss the wide, bulky muscles of his shoulders that he had gotten from his swords and mauls, and wearing his armor. But without the constant need, it would slim down to more rounded shapes in the coming months, he knew.

"What's an elotes? You must like them a lot, whatever they are."

Lito struggles to think of how best to describe this in English. "It's corn on the cob," he explains, "but you can top it with whatever you want. My friend prepared it for me deep fried with salt and sugar and churro spices," he raves, stomach grumbling just thinking of Hernando's cooking.

"He could do anything with the food you gave him," Lito says knowingly.

"Oh!" Krem smiled widely. "That does sound lovely. There was something like that, in a neighboring country to mine. I had it once, when I was passing through. Covered in cheese and citrus and spices."

There was an affection in Lito's voice that made Krem soften. "You must miss him a lot. And his cooking."

"I miss all my friends," he says honestly, because he feels very alone here. Even at home, no one had known the real him, but recently, so many have learned about him and the truth. "And any of my friends who could cook, that was better. I'm a terrible chef," he confesses. "Too many years living on what I could meant no time to cook. The life of an actor," he jokes.

"Then, when I became successful, I could afford not to cook."

Krem nodded a bit, because he missed his friends as well. He hoped that Lito's friends were, at least, safe wherever they happened to be--though he wouldn't dare say that to him, for fear it might agitate him. Lito seemed a bit too easy to agitate.

He rolled into a different stretch and sighed. "I would offer my services as a cook as well, but I'm afraid they're subpar at best. I eat what I make because I haven't many other options at the moment. Eating out is terribly expensive."

"There is a good deal of good food to find," Lito promises. "Of course, I will need to earn a good deal of money if I'm to pay for myself the way I wish to," he says, and that is the problem with his life here in general. "My house at home was a beautiful thing. I miss it more than the rest."

"Oh, definitely," Krem agreed. "I'm sure there was quite a bit back at home for you, as well. It seems a lot of people are much more at home here than I am: it's a lot different than home, for me. Straighten your back, when you stretch like that. It will do more."

"I did well for myself and the most money I spent on anything was that house," Lito admits, a regretful look on his face to think of all the money he is no longer pouring into it. "I spared no expense, but I had the money," he says, instantly straightening his back when chastised, knowing he must not injure himself or do anything by halves. "What were you at home?"

"It's good to be able to take care of yourself and the people you care about," Krem agreed brightly, nodding a bit. "But it is quite a change, and a lose."

He hummed a little, arching his back to pop back into place. "I was a soldier and mercenary."

He wonders if it's like Wolfgang or Sun, or more like Will, on the side of the law. "I can see how you'd need to be in excellent shape for that," he allows. While Lito is very good with his stamina, he is missing something in his strength. "How do you train for something like that?"

If Lito had asked, Krem would have been honest: it honestly depended on who you asked, which side of the "law" he was own, when he did a job.

He smiled and got to his feet, assisting Lito with a stretch with respectful and professional hands splayed on his back.

"I had daily drills with my military corp, specialization training for weaponry, marching, group coordination. That sort of thing."

"I met people like that on my sets," Lito explains. "It was rare I did a movie that wasn't action, lately, so they would always bring in people who knew how to fire guns and show me how to move and act. It was very important to me to be realistic. The scripts may not have always been perfect, but I worked hard to make them better."

"I doubt you met too many people terribly like me," Krem said, though it was not dismissive. He also didn't offer any particular explanation beside that. "That's good that you had people to show you how to move, though. I've seen stage-men who don't know the first thing about holding their weapons. It takes away from the drama of it."

He stepped away from Lito and smiled softly. "I'm sure I would have liked your movies, if I had been able to see them."

"You would be surprised as to the people I've met," he promises, because up until several months back, he might say the same, but he's met all kinds in his time since. It's enough to make him realize there's more out there than he's ever known. He stretches again, shifting to get the other leg taken care of as they sit and talk. "Maybe I will make a new one, for you to see," he suggests. "Then you can tell me what you think."

Krem smiled cryptically, but nodded along in some vague agreement. He very much doubted it, but it was a possibility, he supposed.

"And then, when you are famous here in Darrow, I will be able to say I had a hand in it," Krem said with a laugh and a smile. "But that assumes you will come back for me to torture again?"

"If it will get me into the shape I need to be for nude scenes, then I will suffer anything," Lito promises. He's had to do may of those over the years and knows that it requires the best shape he can be in, which means doing this as often as he can. "Maybe I will get better at it and be able to breathe?" he jokes.

Nude scenes, Krem thought, looking at Lito out of the corner of his eye and feeling his ears and cheeks go a little bit warm. Lito was certainly very handsome, and Krem oughtn't be thinking of new and potentially continuing clients like that.

"We'll focus on your breathing next time," Krem said with a smile. "I promise."

Lito watches, somewhat pleased to see he still has a reaction when it comes to his body. He hides it behind his hand and turns back to the stretching, working out sore muscles in his arms. "I think it will take some time, but then I will be back to the devoted athlete," he swears, even though he's never been such a thing.

Krem spotted Lito's slightly triumphant little look and narrowed his eyes a little bit, but mostly playfully. He smoothed his shirt a bit, had a bit more water, and then smiled again. "We'll have you in top shape, yet, don't you worry."

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