bones that shake
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.

(after)

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.

He comes home some time after 4 am, tracking blood into the threshold and smelling of lighter-fluid on his clothing. His joints creak and his back aches as he climbs the Oakwood staircase and treks down the long hallway to the wing that holds the master bedroom. He's a little too tired and sore to be subtle or considerate so he shoulders the double doors open with a loud grunt (he forgets how his arms smart) and immediately, there are hands on his face, on his body, checking for more injuries.

"There's a huge stain on the carpet in the parlor. I'll help you clean it out tomorrow." he says, grinning at his wife despite the cut on his lip.

Mirajane's assessment of his injuries stop and a manic sort of laughter breaks away from her lips. "I never liked that rug anyway." Then she takes his hand and leads him into the bathroom.

He's stripped to his underwear and seated on the lid of the toilet as he recounts the mission gone wrong because he might be a killer but he can't stand the feel of antiseptic seeping into his wounds. He also doesn't miss the tears that are caught in her lashes, or how her lips are set in a line. So he talks. Its easy to babble when things are bad. He describes bombs going off here and there, Freed taking a hit to the head that makes Evergreen worry still, tricky traps that takes muscle and lazers to resolve. He tells his wife of the hired muscle he'd come across tonight (the same ones he'd killed). Vicious creatures, especially the lady with the sai. The one who put the slash on his ribs and the stab wound just inches from his heart. He jokes about her shitty aim. Anyone could have finished off someone as injured as he had been.

With that tasteless jest, he feels her composure shatter as palpable and loud as glass breaking. This is when her hands begin to tremble and he can hear her breath come like a broken thing. The fingers that hold the needle and thread going in and out of his shoulder painfully is now incapable of action.

He feels the first tear fall on his lap. He's hurting all over but he aches to comfort so his uninjured arm goes around her waist to draw her close. He buries his face in the softness of her chest and God, she smells like what coming home feels like. "I'm fine, okay?"

She kisses him instead of replying. His cheeks are smushed between her palms as she presses an open mouth desperately to his. When her heart calms and the blood in her head quiets, she turns away from him to dispose of gauze and needle. "Come to bed, dummy, before I worry anymore."

The relief that swarms him is great and he finds himself taking her proffered arm and pulling her to his good side. "Any chance the injured will get some sweet ass tonight or what?"

"You are oddly sexy covered in bandage and smelling of blood and antiseptic but no. We cant have you bleeding on the expensive sheets Lucy gave us." she presses a quick kiss to the bandaged wound as her arm goes around his waist and she starts leading him to bed. "Sleep, my dragon. You have a full day of getting chewed out by your wife tomorrow."


note: I have decided to make this a multichapter compilation of my Mr and Mrs Smith AU! I loved that movie and I loved conceptualizing a Miraxus version of it so here I am. The chapters will not be in progressive order, they will more or less be oneshots from the same universe posted at my leisure.

Each chapter will be labelled with before and after. If I feel like it, there will even be some during chapters. If you've watched Mr and Mrs Smith, you know that John and Jane eventually find out that the other is an assassin working for competitive agency. Before will refer to the events before they find out. During and after will be easy enough to figure out.