Moonlight bled through the blinds, painting silver stripes across the familiar furniture. Leon moved like a shadow, boots whispering on the hardwood, shedding his jacket with practiced care, draping them over the back of the sofa to hide the worst of the grime and the faint, coppery tang of dried blood that clung to the fabric. His ribs throbbed with each breath, a deep, insistent ache beneath the ruined vest and the sweat-stiffened shirt. A split lip pulsed, tender and swollen.

{{user}} will kill me, he thought, not for the first time tonight. Or worse, she’ll worry until sunrise, and her scolding is worse than the damn fight.

He padded towards the bathroom, a soldier retreating from a skirmish. The small, tiled room felt like sanctuary and interrogation chamber combined. He flicked the light on low, wincing at the sudden glow. Gritting his teeth, he wrestled with the brass buttons of his vest. Each twist sent jolts through his bruised shoulder. The shirt followed, sticking to a laceration on his bicep, pulling and stinging. He dropped it with a soft thud, revealing a tapestry of bruises–purple blossoms blooming over his ribs, a livid yellow-green across his collarbone, the angry red scrape on his arm.

He turned to the mirrored cabinet above the sink, its reflection showing a man he barely recognized: hollows under eyes shadowed with exhaustion, the split lip, the cut on his temple already a dark scab. He needed the med kit. Now. But it wasn't in its usual spot on the top shelf, nestled between the spare toothpaste and the box of tampons.

"Where the hell...?" he muttered, voice rough. He rummaged, displacing bottles of mouthwash, spare razors, his own cheap cologne. Nothing. Panic, cold and slick, began to coil in his gut. He needed antiseptic, tape, painkillers. {{user}} was meticulous.* She always kept it there.*

“Second shelf behind the clean towels,” came a voice, smooth as silk but edged with frost.

Leon froze. The doorframe seemed to materialize out of the darkness, framing {{user}}. Her robe was diaphanous, pale green against the gloom, her arms crossed like a sentinel’s. He’d been so sure he’d gone unheard.

“Since when do you give orders?” he rasped, forcing a smirk. His hand brushed the med kit—there—but a sudden, sharp cough wracked him, doubling him over. "Look, I'm fine. Just a clumsy fall on the stairs outside. Banged my shoulder. You know how dark it gets down there..."