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If she'd known then what she knows now, Karrin would've made a few changes. She'd have invested in Tiger Balm, for one thing. She pushes up off the bed and stretches, wincing at the pull of muscles in her back and through her shoulders. There's an ache and a clicking sound coming from one of her joints, but it's nothing new. Standing nude in the room, she looks over at the bed and Marcone stretched out, stealing the covers, and probably not as asleep as he looks. One day she’ll figure out his arcane system of duvet distribution that always seems to leave his feet freezing, all the covers on his side of the bed, and his ass bare for all the world to see.
Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.
She huffs, smothering a half-formed laugh at a joke bad enough to be one of Dresden’s. At first, she’d ruthlessly smothered any thought that had to do with him and it still hurts now, months later, but she doesn’t need to excise or exorcise her memories of his idiot face or his terrible humour. For good or ill, the people she works with would never turn to her, covered in fish-monster slime and blithely comment, "C'mon Murph, don't you know the old proverb? Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to appreciate a pun and you can watch him flounder for life."
Despite not wanting to examine her current expression too closely, she catches sight of herself in his (in their?) strategically placed security mirror. She can see the fine lines starting to form around her eyes and she’s surprised to note they’re laugh lines. Her smile is lopsided, but honest as she runs a hand over her shorn hair. When she was on the force, she’d been strongly encouraged to keep her hair longer to soften her image. It was a compromise and one that she endured along with strawberry-scented shampoo and conditioner. Now, when she spars and her skin heats up, she can’t smell sweet soaps on her skin any more. Her body is short, hard, and scarred. She loves it. She's proud of her physicality. She likes needing tailored shirts because a woman's blouse doesn't fit her shoulders or suit her curves.
When she’d first met Gard and saw the way she moved in a fight, Karrin was sure she was going to run out of batteries for her rabbit. There is, perhaps, something a little stereotypical about a butch, bi cop that has a hard-on for men who can hold their own in a fight, but when she considers the rest of the supernatural hot mess they’re currently in, Karrin can’t really say that it’s just a cliche. It’s also practical to want a partner that can use a silver-coated balisong.
Marcone's breath is slow and regular as he rolls onto his back and the sheets slip further off his body. She knows full well that he’s only pretending to sleep. The man is a shit and a tease.
Her laugh breaks the stillness. She’s never had a pretty bell-like giggle, but has had to make do with a short, sharp whoop. There once was a time when she didn’t laugh aloud - not because she didn’t find things funny, but because she’d preferred being thought of as dour rather than harsh. In this room, with its thick curtains and bulletproof glass, Karrin doesn’t hide the staccato bark of her laugh. She’s aggressive and knows that Marcone thrives and craves the challenge.
As sprawls on the bed, she can see the neat little bruise on his inner thigh where she held him down and bit him. The contrast of the mark against his skin makes her flush with pride and pleasure. There’s no doubt that they’re both remembering the way he leaned back against the headboard and let her run her hands up and over his thighs, the pressure of her thumbs sliding against the crease of his hips, holding him still.
They’re good together, for a given value of ‘good’. Or, perhaps she should say that they suit each other.
In some ways, it’s the easiest arrangement she’s fallen into. No awkward fumbling over preferences and limits. No missteps. Instead, over rapidly cooling Thai after yet another disastrous magical incursion, they had a clear, business-like discussion that lead to an agreement. It was not written out, nor signed and witnessed, but there was a reassuring sense of order and normalcy to it. Their city - their beautiful, imperfect city - may be falling to pieces, but they’ve got it together. She recalls how once, after a particularly vigorous round of sex, Marcone admitted that whenever he was forced to endure yet another interminable contract negotiation with his associates, he could only dream of slipping in a pegging and/or anal sex clause on the second to last page. Maybe this is where her laugh lines are coming from?
It will not end poorly. She knows that he will die in this war and so will she. In an odd way, she realizes that it is for this reason that she can trust him with a portion of her heart. They will not have a break-up and agree to be friends, nor will she need to find a way to divide their acquaintances into ‘His’ and ‘Hers’.
Last Sunday, she woke up and just knew that everything was going to go awry that day. The milk was off, her neighbour's new beagle wouldn't stop howling, and all she wanted to do was stay under the covers of her own bed and never get out again. The black mood had been threatening to stay until a traitorous thought crept into her mind and whispered that sparring and training keeps her alive and that being alive was worth it. It was good to be alive not just to provide support for other people, but to live for herself and to have what she wanted out of life.
You know what? Even knowing what she knows now? She'd do it all over again.