doncaster city lights II | YUNGBLUD

fifty-four

It was quite late when Julia arrived back at Dom's apartment, and Julia prayed Dom wouldn't wake up by her opening the door and cleaning up in the bathroom. But of course he did.

She had high hopes when she was already in the bathroom for ten minutes and there was still no movement, but there eventually was knocking on the door.

"Sweetheart?"

Julia froze and stared at herself in the mirror, the cold, wet towel in her hand she had pressed against her face.

"Jules is everything okay?"

He sounded tired, which meant he had been asleep at some point. She wondered whether she woke him up when she came inside, or when she was in the bathroom.

"Yeah," she mumbled. "I'm fine."

"You've been in there for a while," Dom pointed out, causing her to press her lips together again.

"I'm- I'm just getting my makeup off."

"That doesn't take so long, right?" Dom asked her, and she was just silent for a few seconds, which Dom filled with "did you even have makeup on?"

"I'm coming in a few minutes, yeah?" Julia told him, hoping he would be fine with that. Against her expectations, she heard him say "okay" before he walked back to the bedroom.

Julia sighed once he was gone and sat down on the edge of the bath. She could in no way get rid of the bruises on her face. It was even hard to touch her face, as everything hurt, and she could only use one hand for it. The other hurt too much she could barely move her fingers.

After a moment of trying to move some muscles in her face that only made the bruises bleed more, Julia stood up again and walked over to the mirror to confront herself another time.

She flinched when she pressed the cold towel on her eye and held it in place, not really knowing what the purpose was. It just felt good.

Just as she took it off to check the amount of blood, the bathroom door opened, causing her to jump and drop the towel.

"Fuck," she mumbled as she turned her body all the way to the other side of the bathroom so she was facing the door. Julia bent down to pick up the towel from the floor, but never turned around.

"I wanted to check on you," Dom's soft voice broke the silence in the bathoom.

"I'm good, Dom," Julia told him seriously, gripping the towel tightly in both of her hands.

"You're not. Something's off."

The way Dom's voice came closer betrayed he was trying to see her face, which made Julia turn the other way to still have her back faced towards him.

"Can you go to sleep, please?" she tried, but it was the last thing she said before Dom turned her around and looked straight at her face, lit up by the white bathroom light so that every single bruise was visible.

His mouth fell open and his eyes widen as she saw how his eyes scanned over her face, down to her bare arms that apparently also had bruises. She hadn't even noticed them.

"Yeah, they don't hurt," Julia lied to him, which he obviously didn't buy.

"What the fuck happened?" he asked her, his voice quiet, as he was speaking in disbelief.

Julia shrugged, looking down at the floor. Dom immediately placed his thumb underneath her head to make her look up at him again, and so that he could see her face.

"Come sit down."

He pushed her lightly to make her sit down on the bath edge again, like she had done before. He kept her in place as he took the towel from her and made it wet again before he started going over her face with it, very gently.