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By the time he gets home, the bleeding above John's eyes has mostly stopped, thanks to Nikita's handiwork. He doesn't think Karen will be too concerned, she's long since gotten used to the things they put themselves through, the strange lives they lead, and he's walking, he's barely bleeding at all, and he knows he doesn't have a concussion.

He also hasn't been shot, so he'll call tonight a win, relatively speaking.

Still, he thinks he ought to prepare Karen for when he arrives, just in case, so he sends her a text when he's nearly home.

a little battered, but I'm fine. home soon.

By the time he reaches the apartment, he barely even has a headache, which is also due to Nikita's help. He thinks Karen will be grateful for that. He certainly is. While they don't share all their secrets with anyone in Darrow, they've collected a small group of people they can trust with some things and that makes a big difference.

"Hi," he calls when he unlocks the front door. Bear comes to greet him and John rubs the dog's ears before he moves deeper into the apartment. "Karen?"

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"Oh, that sounds especially lucky," Karen says, at least attempting to feign seriousness, as if she doesn't know this story, as if she isn't one of its central figures. It's difficult to succeed in, though, when she can't even bother trying to hide the way she watches John undress, her smile turning a little sly as more skin gets exposed.

Recounting her own arrival seems like it would be too dark, though, and fairly irrelevant, all things considered. She was here before John was; it's the very reason she was the one who found him at all.

"About as lucky as finding a stranger with a gunshot wound and hypothermia, thinking you probably shouldn't trust him, and taking a chance on doing it anyway. Even lying to some doctors and buying him a balloon in the hospital gift shop to really sell it."

"Oh, I don't know if that sounds lucky," John says with a rumbling laugh as he undoes his belt and then unbuttons his trousers, then returns to the bed to properly stretch out over Karen, still in his briefs. He kisses her, deep and sweet, then pulls back to smile. "That sounds like a risk."

But he is so glad she took that risk on him. Everything in him would have said he hadn't deserved it, sometimes he still doesn't believe he does, that she's too good for him, too smart and deserving of a life better than the one he can give her.

But he wants to try.

Karen pretends to consider that for a moment, though she doubts it's very convincing when she leans so readily into the kiss, her hands coming to rest on John's hips as he settles over her, a little breathless when she responds. "A bit of a risk," she allows, the satisfaction in her expression at odds with the words themselves. It's true, but that feels like so long ago now. She took a serious chance on a stranger, but she couldn't just let someone die on the beach.

Didn't want yet another person's blood on her hands, but that's a thought she quickly dismisses, easy when she has such a wonderfully present distraction.

"But a calculated one." She tips her head up to kiss him again then, smiling into it.

When the kiss breaks, John presses his mouth to the underside of Karen's jaw, using his teeth gently on the sensitive skin there. Then he kisses his way down her throat, pausing to give as much attention as he wants to various places, stopping at the top of her collarbone, then again under the curve of her breast. He cups her in his hand, drags his teeth over her nipple, then pulls it into his mouth until it's a stiff peak.

At the same time, his other hand drags down the length of her body, skimming over the front of her underwear, his palm pressed between her thighs.

"You're so beautiful," he murmurs against her skin. "So incredibly beautiful."

A soft moan in her throat, Karen arches up just slightly against his touch, not in a rush but seeking out more all the same. It's not something she could ever get tired of — his hands on her, his mouth, the way he calls her beautiful like he means it. Hearing that, it's hard to continue joking in any real capacity. All things considered, she really can't bring herself to mind. As with everything she was saying in the first place, it's worth it.

"You've got a hell of a mouth," she says, wry and warm, "you know that?"