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Dottie was quite peculiar about what she did when she arrived home. First, she walked through the apartment, noting the traps she had set and whether they'd been moved or not. Then, she went to her closet and shed her clothes. Each knife and firearm—if she were carrying—was set down parallel to one another in the drawer below her blouses. Her shoes were put in their proper cubby. She went to the bathroom and showered, scrubbing away the thoughts that followed her out in the world. Finally, after donning a long nightgown and braiding her hair, she settled in bed with the key to her handcuffs in arm's reach, with one arm locked to the headboard.
Her partner, on the other hand, was a tornado of reckless energy. Throwing the door wide with careless abandon, stripping away clothes on the way to the bedroom, coming to bed smelling of sweat and sulfur.
The scent would always wake Dottie, but when Bellatrix would wrap her arms around her and shush her like a child, petting her hair and whispering tales of torture in her ear, Dottie would calm, happily falling asleep in her lover's arms.