So people seemed to broadly like the last chapter which is a definite relief, I'm always shy of posting graphic stuff even when it's (mostly?) relevant to the story. And thank you for all your lovely reviews so far, you guys are wonderful! FYI the massage bar is called Tender Is The Night and it's the best thing ever.

Content Warning: more graphic sex. Sorry not sorry. Backstory, off screen character death, fairly graphic injury, drugs references, organised crime.

Something was tickling Marceline's ear, something that was warm and yielding and familiar when she reached up to brush it away. It felt kinda like-

Oh, when she opened her eyes and squinted at it the offending object it actually was Bonnie's face, on the pillow next to her own and currently peering at her curiously. Astonishingly blue eyes blinked sleepily at her.

"Morning, gorgeousness. You always pet everyone you sleep with in the face to wake them up?" Bonnie asked raspily, throat still fuzzy from sleep.

"Yep. Every single time I've ever spent the night getting amazingly freaky with anyone I've always woken them up next morning by tapping them in the face. It's like, my tradition now." Marcy replied with an unstoppable grin.

"Mm, like how the road crew always sleep with the band? I really like that tradition even if you totally made it up. That kinda sass is gonna earn you a thorough kissing though." Bonnie mumbled before she made good on her promise and rolled halfway on top of the other girl. She sleepily pressed their lips together and threaded her hands through Marcy's fine dark hair to draw her closer. A moment later Marceline pulled back with a grimace of pain.

"Shoulder." she gasped, grabbing Bonnie's arm and moving it away from where she'd been leaning most of her weight against the fragile skin under the tattoo.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry! Are you ok?" Bonnie slid off her and back to her own side of the bed, retreating with an absolutely stricken look on her lovely face.

"Hey, it's fine. Just a touch sensitive there, that's all." Marcy soothed, running a hand down the redhead's cheek comfortingly. "You just gotta be careful with the skin on my left side. It's not really… I mean, it doesn't hurt anymore exactly but I'm paranoid about it I guess. Still getting used to being touched there, that's all. Come back and hug me?" she added after a second.

Bonnie snuggled back in carefully, lying as still as possible while the taller girl wrapped her arms around her and wriggled onto one side until she was comfortable.

"You wanna talk about it?" Bonnie asked her quietly. Marcy sighed and rested her face against Bonnie's soft hair. She smelled like coconut and an implacable sweetness. For a moment Marcy just closed her eyes and enjoyed the wonderful new sensation of being skin to skin with another person.

"Not particularly, no. But I know I owe you an explanation and I've had a heap of therapists tell me I should be open and honest about my burn. Not to hide from it or pretend it didn't happen." she replied after a few calming moments.

"Was it something to do with your Dad?" Bonnie asked softly. Her fingertips were slowly tracing along Marceline's throat and she felt the other girl's pulse jump anxiously at the question.

"Yeah, it was." Marcy breathed after a second. "I told you my Dad killed my Mum. He had her killed, actually. He made sure he was way across town with a ton of witnesses when it happened. He killed my Aunt and brother too but I'm pretty sure he didn't mean for them to be involved. It was Mum he wanted to hurt."

"Was Marshall your brother?"

"Yeah. Guess I pretty much gave that one away in the car yesterday." Marcy nodded. "I was having a nightmare about it, about the fire. I do most nights at least a bit. Keep waiting for it to get easier with time but so far it hasn't. If anything it's worse now because I understand what happened and why so much better."

Bonnie held her more tightly, stroking comfortingly across her hip.

"Marshall and Dad were really close, he was older than me and you know how the Old Moscow crowd are about the Son and Heir stuff. Or well maybe you don't. I forget not everyone grew up in a Russian immigrant gangster family. Well Dad had pretensions of being a big name on the East End organised crime scene. Drugs, money laundering, people trafficking, that sorta thing. Mum had been a pretty well-known model before she made the mistake of marrying him and he kept her locked up like she was some kind of house pet. She used to say it was a regular Beauty and the Beast love story. I guess she was right; he was abusive and inhuman and she was naïve and people only valued her for her looks. Dad kept her prisoner so long that she couldn't imagine life without him."

Marceline paused for breath, caught up in memories. He mother had been a complicated woman but she genuinely had loved her father, at least at the beginning of their relationship. Until he started expressing his love more with his fists than his words. But with Bonnie's arms wrapped warmly around her it was almost bearable to talk about her mother, almost cathartic in a way. Marcy took a deep breath and continued.

"My Mum was one of the first mixed-race models to really start making a name for herself, with a little help from her shady connections. We never did know who her mother was. Apparently Granddaddy just turned up with a baby one day and told his wife she was theirs now. Russian immigrant wives don't argue with their gangster husbands if they know what's good for them so my grandmother just adopted her. Once I was old enough to go to school and stuff Mum started going out again, started reconnecting with her old friends and hanging out on the party scene again. Dad hated that. Simon told me later that Dad thought she was having an affair and that the jealousy drove him mad. So one day he arranged for me and Marshall to spend the night at Simon's place then paid some of his grunts to superglue the locks closed on the doors and windows at home and start a fire."

"But you got burned." Bonnie whispered in shock.

"Yeah, Simon was delayed and he was late to collect us. By the time he got there the whole building was pretty well blazing already. He smashed the back door open and rescued me; I was the only one he could reach. My back and shoulder got badly burned when I was trying to pull the lounge window open and the curtain rail fell on top of me. I told Simon that Mum and Marshall were upstairs and he said Betty was getting them. Aunt Betty was his wife, she was really awesome. But when we got outside they weren't there. Then the roof collapsed and I guess all three of them were killed, unless they were already dead. I spent a lot of years trying to work out if they could have already been unconscious from breathing the smoke and stuff. I hope so, don't like to think they felt the burning like me and Simon did. The skin on his hands didn't heal as well as mine. He was holding a blanket around me to keep me from getting more burned and he took most of the damage there. He sacrificed his own hands to keep me safe. Simon's burns were worse than mine, deeper, they damaged the ligaments in his hands. After the fire he couldn't use them as well as before because the skin got too tight and they didn't move as easily. He could still cook and stuff but he couldn't dig on archaeological sites and he couldn't play music very well. So I learned piano and guitar and stuff instead so I could play for him and I went with him on digs all over the world and I was his hands. I think he was just as scared of being alone as I was, we were all each other had left."

"Did your Dad go to prison for the fire?"

Bonnie's eyes were wide with shock and so filled with disturbed horror that it was hard for Marceline to meet her gaze evenly.

"No, they never had enough evidence. Whoever he sent to start the fire was probably back in whatever backwater he'd flown them in from by the next morning so there was no way they'd be able to name him. He went to jail because when the fire fighters and police were looking for the cause of the fire they found hundreds of thousands of pounds of cocaine in a burned out cupboard in the kitchen. I never knew if Uncle Simon set that up or if the moron forgot to move his drugs before he ordered the hit. He's been in jail ever since for drugs charges and stuff but they could never pin the fire on him, there wasn't enough evidence." Marcy finished with a sigh. "Wish they could. It wouldn't really change anything but it'd be some closure, y'know?"

"So your Uncle Simon could have set him up? Was he in the gang too?"

"Sort of, he was kinda born into it. Have you heard of the East End Petrikovs?"

Bonnie shook her head.

"They were an important gangster family a couple of decades ago. My Granddaddy moved to London when he was young and set it all up. The call themselves the family but really they're a group of extended families who all work together. My godfather Bolshakov is part of the family too but he went to jail when Dad did. His son is my ex-boyfriend. I mean we only went out a couple of times when he needed a date for various family functions and stuff but if he's like the only person I came close to dating so I kinda count him; besides we did kiss a couple of times. Nice guy, very handsome but as thick as a brick. Simon's a Petrikov too and my Mum was; they both grew up surrounded by the family. But Simon wanted nothing to do with the business or the family. He was an academic and my Granddaddy let him follow that career path if that's what made him happy because he was the Son and Heir. That didn't mean he didn't know where to get his hands on a few hundred thousand pounds of coke in a hurry though because there were always people ready to cut each other's throats to get a better position in the business. I wouldn't have put it past Simon to have arranged the coke to be planted just so he could get back at Dad. Also wouldn't put it past my idiot father to forget to move his drugs before ordering a hit though, it could go either way."

Marcy snorted with old humour but Bonnie just stared at her, appalled.

"I've had years to see the funny side in all this, babe." Marceline reminded her gently. "I was only seven when it all happened. I changed my name legally when I was sixteen so I'm a Petrikov too, now. Well a Petrikova actually, the female form of the surname. I didn't want to be associated with that bastard anymore. Simon's more of a father to me than he ever was, he even put up with my awkward teenage phase. Man, I wish I could apologise to him for all the crap I put him through. When I was about fourteen he met this woman through work and I guess I was scared he was going to abandon me and I'd be alone again. He stopped seeing her because I had a massive tantrum about it. I'm pretty sure I jeopardized his only real adult relationship since he lost Betty. He never complained, not once. Said that if she couldn't accept that parenting me was always going to be his top priority then he didn't want to know her. Simon was there for me for every surgery, therapy session, every gig and parent-teacher conference. Even when I started missing school and stealing stuff when I was a bit older he'd just come bail me out of the police station and tell me he loved me no matter what. He was the best parent I could have ever asked for. Certainly better than my birth father. Dad thought he was making a name for himself by marrying into the Petrikovs but really he just made enemies, I don't regret that I don't know him now. I never even went to see him. I haven't had any contact with him since he came to see me in hospital the day after the fire."

"I suppose I understand that." Bonnie replied quietly. "I still feel awful for you, though. You're braver than anyone I've ever met. I'm so sorry for making you relive it all. I wish I could do something for you, make you feel better somehow."

Marcy shrugged again and grinned wolfishly.

"I can think of one thing you can do to make me feel better."

"Anything." Bonnie replied innocently, completely missing the predatory gleam in the other girl's eyes.

"Well my Dad, as well as being stupid and a murderous scum bag, is also wildly homophobic. I mean, like, really violently, probably has unresolved queer feelings kinda homophobic. I know for a fact he used to go out and beat up gay guys for fun and profit. Back when he was active most LGBT folk were still pretty wary of getting involved with the police and he just loves making queers squeal for him. Like I said, obvious unresolved gay feelings are obvious. But he's locked up and rotting in prison right now and I'm lying naked with you in a big bed that I'm paying for with his money and last night I kissed a girl and I really liked it. And I suppose it might make me feel better if we could do something that would make my Dad have an actual seizure with bigoted horror if he could see it."

Halfway through her little speech Bonnie had caught her meaning and she was blushing in a most delicious way.

"I, um, you want to..? Right now?"

"No time like the present. And we've only got a limited amount of time here and this bed is glorious." Marcy replied impishly. She leaned in and gently kissed along Bonnie's throat and jaw, delighting in the way the redhead shivered in her arms.

"Mmm, you know somehow I doubt I'll mind making you feel better like that." Bonnie murmured in reply as she tilted her head to allow better access for eager lips.

Distantly, as slim talented fingers slid across her hypersensitive skin, Marceline wondered why this sort of heat and touch didn't bother her the way most other kinds did. She was warm, much warmer than she could usually stand, but it was wonderful instead of triggering. She didn't pull away when Bonnie carefully stroked the lines of her tattoo; the wolf she'd designed in Marshall's honour and her mother's favourite roses. Instead she shivered a little and pressed closer into the touch. Closer into that electric pleasure that was so nearly but not quite painful as she moaned her lover's name quietly and arched her back against the warm hands skimming gently against her.

When those same nimble fingers slipped below the sheets to caress the places where Bonnie had kissed her the night before she swore and bucked. She hadn't expected the sudden touch to be so intensely overwhelming. The redhead sucked in a breath and did it again, this time more slowly, teasingly.

"Do you wanna try something new?" Bonnie murmured breathily in her ear. Marcy didn't need more than a second to decide that yes, she really did. She nodded and the other girl smiled. "Tell me to stop if I hurt you or if it's too much for you." she mumbled, and Marcy nodded again.

The pressure that had been moving deliciously against her slid up and down a little, searchingly. Then with a gentle push the tip of one slender finger moved against the slight slick resistance of her body and upwards, inwards, deep to the first knuckle, making her gasp at the unfamiliar sensation. It almost hurt for a moment and she tensed at the feel of it. But the pressure receded slightly after another second and she felt her body relax into the new sensation. The discomfort slowly changed to a softly aching fullness. Bonnie's thumb was rubbing slow circles against her, following the same patterns the redhead's scandalous tongue had danced across her skin the night before. She felt her eyes roll back into her head, overwhelmed.

"M-more. Please." Marcy begged as she bucked against the touch. She was barely able to get the words out around the gasps and moans that slipped helplessly past her parted lips. Bonnie just shook her head gently and smiled.

"Too much at once will hurt, especially if this is new for you. But I can do something else that you might like, if you want?" she replied, eyes almost glowing with delight when Marcy nodded eagerly.

Marceline almost fainted dead away when she felt the touch still gently filling her begin to curl around softly like Bonnie was beckoning her forwards, stroking and massaging slowly. Marceline swore again and squeezed her eyes shut to concentrate on the new sensations that washed through her in intense relentless waves.

Through the haze of pleasure Marcy registered that Bonnie had taken hold of her hand and was moving it down between them too. A thrill of amazed shock ran through her when she realised what the other girl was asking for. She carefully began trying to match her movements to mirror what the other girl's devastatingly talented hand was doing; fingers finding places that were already slick and warm for her.

Lips met lips and the sensation was overwhelming. It was all up against her and filling her with that indescribable feeling that pulsed with every curve of the finger and lazy circle traced over and over against her skin. She lost track of time completely as the sensations grew. Heavy breathing and gasps filled the air along with mumbled curses. Bonnie's movements were gradually quickening; increasing the pressure until it was almost unbearable, almost euphoric. Before she could even draw breath as a warning it built to a crescendo and Marcy cried out harshly. She bucked and shuddered against the other girl and clasped her own fingers much more roughly than she'd intended to, making the redhead moan and shiver right along with her. It was like a wave of energy surging all across her; a pleasure too intense for her to process that blotted out all thought beneath its devastating weight.

It seemed to take an age before she was back in control of her own body and before the crashing waves of sensation receded enough for her to be able to think at all. When Marceline regained her senses Bonnie was whimpering with desire and grinding gently against her hand. She wrapped one arm around the other girl's shoulder and rolled them over so she was on top; intending to try out every single new thing she'd just learned. She flushed with delighted satisfaction when she realised how ready the other girl already was for her.

...

"This is so weird." Marcy said quietly without opening her eyes.

"Weird in a bad way?" Bonnie asked worriedly.

"No, just... weird. I'm not used to someone else doing it to me. I usually have to just figure out an angle that works on my own. But it feels so nice, don't you dare even think about stopping."

Bonnie didn't reply. She just kept on gently massaging the fragile skin of Marceline's tattoo with the wonderfully scented massage bar she'd been given. It was a creamy solid that looked like a bar of soap but melted in the heat of her hands and coated them in a vanilla and jasmine scented body butter that was apparently wonderfully good for scars.

"This smells too nice to be from a doctor." Bonnie said after a moment. "Where'd you get it? Some exclusive hippie boutique in Covent Garden?"

Marcy laughed lightly and Bonnie didn't even try to fight the swell of affectionate warm that ran through her at the sound. She didn't think she'd ever get sick of hearing that silvery laugh.

"It's from Lush! You don't recognise it? Cause I know for absolute certain I smelled one of their products on your hair and if you like organic fair trade hair stuff you really must see my bathroom. I take hair care very seriously. Sometimes I quite like giving myself elaborate braids. Takes me hours." Marceline added proudly.

"I can't decide if that's vain or just a bit dorky." Bonnie teased gently.

Marcy just shrugged.

"We can't all have glorious natural copper hair that looks amazing all the time like you do. I had to get creative to make mine look good."

They'd compromised, because no matter how Bonnie had pleaded Marceline absolutely refused to go to the spa and have anyone who wasn't her girlfriend or the same trusted dermatologist she'd seen since she was burned touch her skin. Bonnie hadn't needed much more invitation than that; she wasn't going to pass up a perfect opportunity to look closer at the beautiful tattoo. It was designed so intricately that every line and shade of it followed the twisting scar pattern and blended it to complete invisibility behind the artwork. Bonnie didn't even want to think about how much a tattoo that grand must have cost or how painful having it inked onto damaged skin must have been.

There was a knock on the door and she stood to answer it reluctantly.

"Room service!" a cheerful voice called from the corridor. It was the same tall man who'd checked them in the day before. He smiled widely as his eyes took in the obvious disarray of Bonnie's hair and the fact she was dressed in a robe from the bathroom in the middle of the afternoon. Luckily he said nothing about it; just handed over the tray of food they'd ordered and tipped her a wink.

"I think the porter knows we've been fucking in here." Bonnie murmured as she placed the tray on the end of the bed and shrugged out of the robe then slid under the sheets next to Marceline.

"And? It's an executive suite. I don't even want to think about how many couples have been fucking in here. Besides since you deflowered me and we're now essentially married in the eyes of our Lord why hide our union?" Marceline added, clasping her hands together piously. Bonnie stared at her.

"Wait, what?" Bonnie stuttered, looking genuinely horrified. Marceline burst out laughing, unable to stay serious for a moment more.

"I'm messing with you! Oh man, you should have seen your face!" she gasped around her laughter.

"So you're not deeply religious?"

"Nope, I'm a strict atheist." Marcy replied, still grinning. "I'm also starving over here, please pass me the rice noodles like a good little wifey."

Bonnie stuck her tongue out but did as she was asked.

They finished their food in comfortable silence and snuggled back under the sheets together afterwards.

"Is it bad that we're literally spending the whole day in bed? You don't wanna go out and explore the city or something?" Bonnie asked after a few quiet minutes of snuggling and increasingly heated stroking.

"Nah, I've been most places before. I know Newcastle pretty well and it's a fun city but not worth missing being naked with you for." Marcy replied with a smile. They were laying face to face, close enough that she could count the golden freckles on the redhead's cheeks if she wanted to. "But they have got a pretty cool science museum. I promise next time we're up here I'll take you to see it."

"Really? Awesome." Bonnie said with her eyes suddenly lighting up. "They have a pretty famous genetic research institute at the university, too. I'm thinking of applying to do my PhD there after I graduate in the summer but I don't like the idea of being so far away from home."

"Don't move north, I'll miss you too much." Marcy said with a sad frown.

"You could come with me."

"Can't leave Simon behind." she replied softly.

"I don't want to come up north anyway. I'd much rather stay in London, with you." Bonnie said, sliding closer and gently kissing the other girl. Marceline shivered a little and pulled her closer still, pressing them together and burying her face in Bonnie's shoulder.

"Just don't leave me behind when you're a world famous geneticist and curing cancer and cloning sheep all over the place." she murmured against Bonnie's soft skin. "I don't deal well with abandonment either."

Maybe they should have made it out of bed but exploring the city didn't seem anywhere near as attractive as exploring each other.