Kya

When you place a hand gently on her thigh, she leans in and rests her head against you. The radio having long since been silenced, the only sounds to be heard are the engine revvs and her soft, strained breathing as each bump in the pavement pricks pain at her weary body.

In a stroke of luck, you’d forgotten to open the curtains in your rush out the door so the whole apartment is bathed in darkness. After leaning gingerly on your shoulder for the duration of the shuddery, too-bright elevator ride to your floor, Devin must feel steady enough to separate from you and traipses the few steps from the entryway to the sofa to ease herself face-down into the worn cushions with a quiet groan.

Tugging a throw blanket from off the arm of the sofa, you tuck it loosely around her prone form and lean down to kiss the top of her head lightly. A little gash just below her hairline is covered with two steri-strips, and your thumb idles by the bruised skin before you draw away. 

The bath fills quickly, steam rising from the surface of the water and clouding the small bathroom. A fistful of epsom salts breaks the stillness and perfumes it with lavender, pleasantly replacing the scent of gun oil and rubber lingering in your head after the day. Dragging a hand through the water, you find it hopefully hot enough to ease Devin’s discomfort even a little bit and rise from your crouch next to the tub to go get her.

She’s not asleep, you’re surprised to learn, and her tired face splits in something close to a smile as she sees you coming. In the bathroom, she lets you ease her onto the closed lid of the toilet and stays pliant under your hands as you help her out of her clothes and ease her into the tub. The cool, unaffected woman who’d barely let you put a plaster on her or join the team for drinks eight months ago is nowhere to be seen now in your lover, and for that you’re silently grateful. Kneeling beside the bathtub, you rub a hand carefully up and down Devin’s back as her hand closes around your arm and she rests her forehead against your bicep with a spent exhale.

Little by little the heat seems to ease the stiffness settled into her muscles, and she lies back against the warmed enamel of the tub. Her eyes follow you as you potter around, laying a change of clothes for her on the cabinet and making noise out in the kitchen, with the door left open so you’re always within her sight. Her mind still can’t help wandering to work, to the prick of a gun-runner sitting in lockup with the matching broken eyesocket to your bruised knuckles. For a guy sitting on such serious stock, she would’ve imagined he’d be more familiar with which doors in his hideout lead to staircases instead of corridors before brawling with someone right through it. 

Across the room is the vanity and sink, typically cluttered with all the three dozen things you’re adamant are too necessary to be left anywhere else. As her eyes slide across the detritus, they stop on new additions to the chaos - clear plastic cases of bright facepaints, slim bottles of scarlet-red fake blood, sets of vampire teeth that glint under the dim light. A quiet notion of guilt sours in her chest. 

You pad quietly back inside, one palm cupped around a dose of painkillers and the other holding a glass of water. With only a hint of an amused smile on her face, she allows you to put the pills on her tongue and hold the glass as she drinks to wash them down. Laying her head back against the tub as you settle onto the rounded lip of it, Devin studies your face through lidded eyes for a beat before nodding to the remnants of your plans for the night.

“All y’hard work for nothing, hm?” She says flatly, feeling bad now for how hard she’d made it for you to convince her to come with you to your mate’s costume party. She’d always got a kick out of making you work for stupid things like that, watching you get impassioned in trying to win her over and the happiness once you’d got her - but had she known how this one would turn out, she would’ve left you off this time.

“Think you took that tumble on purpose.” You fire back, without missing a beat. Bruised hands laid over your crooked thigh, the corner of your mouth tilts in time with your brow as you tease. “The first flight would’ve gotten you off, y’know. I’m not so mean.”

“Go big or go home, right?” You grin down at her, putting a hand on her knee where she bends it up through the water. Across the room, the crinkly plastic bags holding your last-minute costumes sit on the counter, left there since you darted out late in the evening to get them once she’d given in, and she feels bad all over again. “I’m sorry, baby. I know how excited you were for tonight.”

“Typical of you, really. Wanna get out of a party, fall down three flights of stairs.” There’s not so much as a hint of malice to your words despite their prodding nature as you gently coax a hand over and back her bruised leg. “Don’t know how I put up with it.”

She starts to laugh, but stops once pain blossoms across her ribs. At your chiding she brushes you off, but through her splutters meets your eyes earnestly. “I’m gonna make it up t’you.”