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Santos is nodding off on the couch when Garcia emerges from the shower. She's softer in sleep, the faint light from the TV flickering over her peaceful face, her parted lips. Garcia pauses at the doorway to watch her with a fondness she's still getting accustomed to.
She stirs as Garcia settles down onto the stretch of couch beside her. "Hi," she mumbles.
"Hi," Garcia softly returns, wincing a little. Her body doesn't carry the stress of a long shift like it used to, especially one like today's, where an emergency CABG had held her in the OR three hours overtime. She sinks slowly into the couch, feels the slow decompression of her lumbar vertebrae, the deflation of her lungs.
"Tired?"
Garcia's eyes slide shut as she hums in assent. "Might need a rain check on that movie."
Santos's laugh comes in a quiet huff of breath. "Yeah, I figured." A pause, an inhale. Then: "Where does it hurt?"
"Hm?"
"You're making that face— you know the one. Are you sore anywhere?"
Garcia cracks one eye open. Santos's face is closer than she'd expected, green eyes very intent on her own, as if she might read Garcia like a book if she tried hard enough. "I'm fine," Garcia lies, because she'd rather die than catalogue for Santos the aches and pains plaguing her at this moment: tight upper traps, tight calves, aching feet. "Just tired."
"You're full of shit," Santos returns, squinty-eyed.
There was a time that she would've been afraid of speaking to Garcia like this, with anything less than total deference. Garcia doesn't know if she misses it. She closes her eyes again, another I'm fine on the tip of her tongue, only to be cut off by a yelp as her legs are pulled unceremoniously into Santos's lap.
"Puta madre— Trinity," she hisses, even as her cheeks flush.
Santos grins, victorious flash of teeth. "Your calves sure feel pretty tight."
Garcia glowers, but Santos's thumbs are stroking idle circles into the sides of her knees, and it's difficult to retain any fighting spirit in these circumstances. "Maybe a little," she admits.
Santos is getting that serious look on her face now, the one Garcia usually only sees in the trauma bay. "I've been told I'm a pretty good masseuse," she murmurs. She carefully bends Garcia's knee before digging the heel of her palm into the bare skin of her right calf, dragging down in one smooth, uninterrupted motion from the gastrocnemius muscle down to the plantaris tendon.
Garcia fights to bite back an unflattering noise. "And who exactly told you that?"
Santos's mouth tugs into an immediate frown. "Hey, don't be like that," she whinges, though her hands continue their steady ministrations. "You know what I meant."
"Yeah," Garcia replies, more breath than voice. "I know."
In a rare display of self-control, Santos flashes her a crooked smile instead of saying anything snarky. For a few minutes, it's quiet; Santos switches from long strokes over the entire muscle to targeted kneading of both the medial and lateral head, slow grind of her thumbs into aching flesh. By the time she's finished with both legs, Garcia's slumped sideways against the couch's backrest, struggling to keep her eyes open.
She feels rather than sees Santos's fingertip skim the top of her left foot, the metatarsal bones. "Sorry," Santos says as Garcia's eyes open to find hers. She looks a little guilty. "I was just— I forgot."
Garcia follows her gaze down to the silvery scar left by her first day mishap. "What, the little souvenir you gave me?"
"I didn't realize you could still see it," Santos sheepishly says.
Garcia shrugs. "Makes me think of you."
She means for it to be lighthearted, but it comes out a touch too soft, too honest. She averts her eyes, hears the hitch of Santos's breath. Santos's hand trails down her calf, slender fingers raveling around her ankle, lifting her foot. Then, the ghost of a breath over that thin line of scar tissue.
"'M sorry," Santos mumbles, and presses her lips to the scar, then to the inside of Garcia's ankle. Her eyes, when they meet Garcia's, are so green and so very earnest. "Forgive me?"
Garcia huffs a laugh, feeling short of breath. "I thought I already did."
Santos leans her cheek against the top of Garcia's foot. "Say it again."
Garcia looks at her, her pinched brow, the pink notch of her mouth, and feels fondness crash into her chest like an 18-wheeler. "Okay, yes, I forgive you. Now let go of my foot."
Santos drops one last kiss over the scar before obeying. "What, you didn't like—"
She's interrupted by Garcia dragging her into a proper kiss, a hand tangling in her hair. Garcia swallows the noise of surprise Santos makes, tastes the shape of her smile.
"So you did like that," Santos quips after they break apart.
She's a little insufferable. Garcia presses another kiss to her mouth, chaste. She can do things like that now, can kiss Santos as many times as she wants without it being a prelude to other things, can fall asleep with her and know they'll both still be there in the morning. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure," Santos drawls, though her eyes are soft. "Wanna go to bed?"
The thought is appealing, but Garcia is reluctant to remove her legs from the warmth of Santos's lap. Even now, her fingertips are still absentmindedly tracing shapes into Garcia's thigh, an anchoring touch. "Not yet," Garcia finally says. "Let's stay here a little longer."
The TV is still on, low drone of white noise in the background. Santos's hands don't stop moving over Garcia's skin, but she never lifts them away, either, and Garcia allows herself to relax. Maybe it can be this easy.