He could have pretended, for a briefly breathing moment, that domesticity was an acceptable reality in his life and that studying the sidelong curl of her body on a soft mattress was a costless indulgence. He could have. If he didn't have blood on his hands. Quite literally. Because it would have been easier to be the man who came home a tip-toe late from the bar than the man who entered her space bringing leftover mayhem on his fingers. Easier, sure, and it wouldn't shine her eyes quite so glassy dark as she watched him cut straight for her attached bathroom.

"You're late."

"Aye." He shunted the bathroom door open with his boot, waiting until he'd blocked his shoulders toward her before skimming his gloves from his hands. "I know."

"Points deducted for not doing that in the kitchen, Telford." Her voice carried cutting from the bedroom and his winced his eyes shut as his hands burned under scalding water, fingers stretching out in blotched redness.

"Suddenly y'want me to hide what I am? Sweet Christ, woman. Sort it out." he felt his words go sharp as he angled his jaw down tightly, "I'd get just as much hell for doin' it in the kitchen. Don't start in it, darlin'."

His hips jolted into the way she'd managed to silently step into the back of him, the hush of bare feet quieted by the jangling of his nerves and the rush of hot water. Chibs lifted his head sharply, catching the way she was intently studying him from behind as her hands braced flat to the back of his cut. He watched her searching a moment before letting his glance drop, scrubbing the soap into his hands as he avoided the fact that concern was the color in her eyes.

"The level of sexy Scottish bastard rises in proportion to the output of violence." Her words trailed against his shoulders as she leaned into his back, palms still flat flush to his shoulders. "There's something wrong with me, Scotty. I have serious issues."

He didn't know whether to laugh into the tired truth to her tone or feel ashamed by its implication. Either way, she was still laying long into his back as he rinsed his hands and shut the water off, damp palms curling the sink as he let his weight forward on bent shoulders. She shifted with him, and he closed his eyes into the way she wrapped against him so sweetly that just closing his eyes momentarily obliterated the hours before.

Momentarily, at least.

"Filip." Her hand sloped forward of his chest slowly on a tentative tone that drew his eyes open, thin wrist palely bared and fingers wiping together with the grease of blood before them.

He closed his palm over hers tightly on a brackish swallow, feeling his body take a farther sway forward before he roughed a turn into her, the other hand keeping her stayed back a step from his frame as he backed her across the bathroom.

"Is it yours?" Her voice went a little caustic and echoed toward manically blank as she looked over their linked hands.

Chibs jerked his head tightly. "No."

"Filip?"

"No." he repeated roughly and shunted her back toward the shower, her fingers still wrapped into his palm as he leaned past her to slap the water on, keeping her otherwise separate from him. "In."

Her eyes were widely scattered as he finally caught sight of them. "It's fine. Just - "

"Althea? Please?" The twisted pleading he laid over her was a softer whisper than she'd expected and she let him step her back into the shower, regardless of the fact she was still wearing a t-shirt.

The dragging darkness that was shadowing below his eyes had managed to obliterate any good humor he'd teased into her earlier in the day. Which she plainly accepted, quietly wiping the length of wet hair back off his face as she looked over him in an agreement of silence, her body tipped sidelong against the outstretch of his. There was a twined length of discordant frustration down the line of his spine, head turned away from her even as his arm was curled up under the way she was leaned into the side of his chest. He had two fingers twisted into the ends of her hair, letting his wrist lag loose by the knotted hold of its darkness. His other hand was riding against his temple, fingers rubbing hard into skin as she looked over him.

"Just sleep, Telford." Ally dropped her jaw into his shoulder, shying her palm down the side of his damp head before letting her fingers splay flat onto his chest. "You're exhausted."

"It's Marks." He finally turned the words over her, eyes thinly weary as he twined wet hair around his fingers. "Fronted the pay off."

Ally lifted her jaw knowingly into the admittance, her eyes sheening toward a sort of prized appreciation for the information. "Good."

"Good?" he snorted off in derision. "Proud of y'self, huh lass?"

"My father used to tell me that if angry men are shooting at you, you must be doing something right." She whispered her lips along bare and water cooled skin.

"I'm terrified to know what else your father may've taught you, Lieutenant." He finally let a smile ride his lips as he banked his head back on the pillow, hand catching along the back of her head to pull her tighter down onto his shoulder.

She drew her leg up against him, letting his hand crown against the back of her head, "I can safe crack."

"Bullshit." He breathed out into half laughter.

"Is it?" Her smile was pressing heat into his chest, "Combination gate, lever, wheel, drive."

"Jesus." He was turning and treading laughter into her hair

"Lock bolt, lock screw, relocker." Ally lifted a smile at him and winked, smirking wider into the way he traded out a full laugh and let his head back onto the pillow.

The slowly angled way he turned his head toward her studying glance was both lightly troubling to her, and softly sweet. He was looking over her face with a sudden new sort of searching, face lax as he studied her as an almost stranger. Multiple emotions flickered over his eyes and twitched his jaw, his forehead. His other hand swept quickly up and over his chest so that he could cage up against her jaw, palm lifting it up while the other hand backed her skull and kept her head pried up still in his hands.

"Makin' deals with the Reaper?" He whispered in a sadly hushed tone. "It only ever circles back to the same place. You - "

"I know what I'm doing." She repeated succinctly, intentionally drowning his concern with a surplus of force even as his fingers tightened on her. "Don't question me."

"What are you doing?" the lay of his accent went a little low as he intentionally dragged the question between them, ignoring her assertion. "You're hangin' everything you've got on a pin, Cu Sith. What if it doesn't hold?"

"You'll catch it." She forced him to shift his hand by driving her jaw down, rubbing her lips into the center of his palm.

Chibs winced into the surety of her response. "Y'don't know that."

"But I do." She argued softly, kissing into the way he turned his fingers over her lips, the other hand fisting into her hair as he rolled her flush, intentionally drawing over the slimmer stretch of her as he pushed her head back into the pillow.

She purposefully arched into the full press of him as he laid down against her, his elbows carrying weight into the mattress as he finally untangled from her hair and sloped a palm down to lift her leg against his hip. The run of his fingers on the back of her thigh was so carefully tentative that she stilled up beneath him, watching the intent and purposefully slow run of his movements. He'd traded into an unhurried and methodical caution that teased her nerves and made her twitchy with attention. It was far forward of heart-weakly intimate. And terrifyingly personal in comparison to the way he generally moved against her. He was always and ever capable of gentleness, even while being doubly capable of the violent opposite. And he'd used that softness often enough with her.

But the obvious affectionate acceptance in his eyes was a sudden and rattling newcomer that tingled on their skin-to-skin.

And the fact that he shyly ducked his mouth between her breasts as his shoulders lowered told her that he knew she'd seen it come between them. His hips rode hard into hers in a persistent urging that told her that he wasn't going to listen to her softened offerings of an easy sleep. Which was fine with her - because the tentative tenderness he was giving her was flushing her warm.

"Are we even yet, Filip?" she asked as her palm sloped flat to the center of his shoulder blades, letting her breathing sigh off as she watched his mouth cradle down the line of her sternum.

"No." he brushed the words up her collarbone on a tone that seemed biting as he lifted his head over hers. "Never really plan to be. I like y'where you are. No need to aim lower."

"Stop it." Her palms caught tightly against cheeks, drawing his mouth to hers for a slow kiss that she felt more than heard him groan into, the touch of it along her tongue.

She smiled into his lips as he growled the kiss deeper, angling his head to skiff his tongue on her teeth as his body rose up over hers, the tautened muscles of one arm at her side while his other palm rode her thigh higher on his hip, letting her match the other so that she could close against him.

"Marks kills his own, darlin'." He raked the words down her throat before nipping his teeth on soft skin, fingers leaving her leg to slide tightly between them. "He has no remorse. No limit."

"Not acceptable pillow talk, Scotty." she groaned her head back as his fingers drove hard between her legs, thumb rounding her clit while he watched her lashes land along her cheeks.

"Listen." He whispered against her jaw as he slid a finger into her and the slip of wetness, eyes dipped closed as she reflexively tightened down against his palm, "I have your attention, love?"

Her hissed and annoyed assent brought a smile on him as he kissed against her cheek.

"He and Pope took Tig's daughter away right in front of him." He wiped the words along her cheek, drawing his finger slowly from dampness before driving it hard back into her, listening to the softened sound she made on his ear as he tapped his thumb against her clit. Her breathing caught up into his neck as she dug her nails biting into his arm.

"He can't have you." He laid it low along the crest of her ear and it brought a moan off her lungs that sharply preceded her arms dragging his shoulders for leverage to lift into his hand for more. Her frame shivering into the way he slid another finger into her silent pleading.

"Christ, you're a charming son of a bitch." Ally dug tighter on his shoulders, flicking her glance to his as he chuckled his head back over hers, still damp hair tipping forward to trace along his scars.

"Admit it." His lips whispered on hers. "Broke you a little."

One hand lifted from his shoulder to catch his head still. "You mean it?"

Chibs gave her a sidelong glance, jaw tipping into her hand as he kept his eyes to hers and kissed against the ridge of her thumb. "I tend t'mean the things I say when I've got my fingers this far up a - "

"Telford." She sharpened a smirk at him.

"I mean it." He kissed her palm with the same slow softness she'd used in the earlier reverse.

"Then, yeah." She smiled as her finger traced the length of one scar, her legs tightening on him as she bore down on his fingers. "Sorta."

He wiped against her clit with his thumb, smiling a kiss onto her, "I could tell."

Ally let her head drop back on a frustrated noise, eyes driven closed while she let her tongue rake her lips, "There's something seriously wrong with me."

"No." He teased as he dragged his mouth down her throat, fingers sliding from inside her so that both palms braced the bed at her sides as he jacked his hips into hers, forcing her knees to ride higher. "I don't see anything wrong with what I'm lookin' at. A wanting woman is a glorious thing."

"Fuck you, Telford."

"Manners, Althea." He grinned his mouth down onto hers again, speaking into kissing. "Or y'won't."

She just smiled into the way he pressed back down onto her, "Liar."