#go easy on me this is my first attempt @ villaneve fan fiction

[dulciscoeur]

the banality of my evil passions enslaved by ancient tenderness

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle Summary: Villanelle washes Eve’s hair. Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Fluff if you squint, Dark!Eve, Soft!Villanelle, Nudity, Aftermath of Violence

Set after 2x07, possible spoilers for 2x08. (AO3 link)

The night she kills Raymond, Eve washes her body like a rape victim would.

With trembling fingers and uncharacteristic franticness, she scrubs away red and guilt stuck along the smooth expanse of skin grown pink - from the roughness of the sponge or the diluted blood, she isn’t sure -  and thinks of his, surely cooled by now, nothing but blueish flesh to be consumed eventually, when sticky maggots, shiny like oyster pearls but not as beautiful, feast on necrotic swell.

She imagines eyes that would resemble overripe plums in a matter of weeks as she closes hers for a moment, times her breathing with the water that laps at the side of her bath, and opens them again. Something unnerving simmering below her breastbone, she looks at the stubborn smudges of dried blood dyeing her cuticles burgundy until her vision slides out of focus, the image before her flowing seamlessly from hands into a lazy waltz of colors merging together with no discernible features.

It’s very possible that she is crying but it could be steamy water beating against her that’s blurring her vision. There’s the suggestion of a laugh bubbling on the tip of her tongue.

—

Villanelle finds her with her forehead resting on drawn up knees, arms tightly wrapped around them.

“Eve,” she says from the doorway, careful not to startle her. “I knocked twice but you did not answer.”

When she looks up at her, both eyebrows raised like she doesn’t understand, the corner lamp and lavender moonlight spilling through the windows hits pale skin, and it’s hard for Villanelle to associate this Eve to the one whose eyes had adopted an animalistic glint not two hours ago. This is more like the tenderly horrified version of Eve, the one that said Hold on, it’s okay, I got you after she had stuck a knife in her in Paris.

“He would’ve killed you,” Eve is saying quietly, like she no idea why she’s saying it at all.

He wouldn’t have, but she understands the importance of lies when the truth is keen on destruction, so she lets her believe that all the same.

“Yes. He would have.”

Fingertips traveling to the sensitive spots on her neck Raymond’s hands had branded, her mind works through the events of the previous hours, the memory of it all preserved in a box inside her head, a treasured jewel.

She recalls the feel of her hyoid bone being forcefully pushed down under the V of his rear naked choke, adrenaline dense as quicksand travelling in twisted forms through her bloodstream to fight back the fading of her vision, the manic laugh that had been simmering inside her chest for too long eventually making it’s way up her throat because she enjoys it more when her victims think they have the upper hand until the very last moment, and then-- just as she was starting to lose her patience, fingers tightly wrapped around the knife at her waist, ready-- the wet gurgling sound of an axe going through flesh like butter.

When his body collapsed and she turned around, being greeted with wild hair and equally wild eyes had just been icing on the cake. Thrill, there was no other word for it, was lurking behind brown orbs. She could read intention in them from every single angle, even through the haze, so perfect a negative of what should’ve been there instead.

Trust Eve to always exceed her expectations.

—

“You’ve been in here for nearly an hour.” She hears Villanelle say. “Are you okay? May I come in?”

She nods to one of her questions. “Yeah.”

She feels only a little foolish for thinking she would walk in and kneel to be at eye-level. Instead, she sees bare feet sliding into the room, hears the swish of silk robe caressing skin to make its way to the floor. Against white tiles, the fabric forms a pool the color of sangria sunsets, of Dom Perignon Oenotheque Rosé, of life spilled onto a rug.

She clears her throat, tries her best not to look up.

Her gaze flies up to Villanelle’s face all the same. There are no traces of blood anymore. Right after it was over, she had averted her eyes from Villanelles as though the exhilaration would rub off on her but she did wipe some of it herself. Her fingertips had danced across her cheeks, something protective in her not bearing the sight of gore splattered out like freckles on her face.

She takes in the honey-colored eyes, the carefully arranged emotions filling up such depths. She lets herself revel in everything she finds staring back. Longing, softness, and the ever-present hunger that surely must be a reflection of her own hidden desires.

It’s the proud gleam she eventually recognizes there that eventually makes her look away.

Some emotion she didn’t care to name stirring in his chest, she watches her nakedness like you watch a chemical reaction. Cautious, wary. Fascinated. She commits to memory the contradiction that is Villanelle— the softness of the rosy nipples and supple breasts, of the full hips and thighs; and then the tightness of lean muscles underneath creamy skin, the strength of long fingers clenching at her sides, waiting, letting herself be seen.

She reminds herself to breathe as her eyes fall and linger on the scar of her creation, a thing she made. It’s smaller, now, but still, it protrudes proudly pink on ivory canvas. A flashback threatens to destroy her composure, her breathing shaking like the delicate stutter of wounded butterfly wings. She’s been here before. Under different circumstances, yes, but still. There’s something to be said about finding oneself in the same situation twice, but she blinks that thought away when Villanelle moves to sit behind her.  

“The water is cold,” she remarks like a child would, water splashing out onto the floor as it welcomes the new weight.

Eve only notices it then, the temperature contrasting against Villanelle’s naked body, solid around hers.

She smiles a weak smile out of reflex. “Uh, yeah. Sorry.”

“Let me, Eve,” Villanelle offers evenly.

It pricks at her, the way Villanelle, who is not in the least afraid of anything, uses that careful tone of voice with her, the one whispered to alert your friend about a bear in the clear. She thinks of role reversals but doesn’t dwell on this because that would make her the threat, and because Villanelle is moving to twist the drain stopper open and turn the spray on once again. She finds herself relaxing under the new soothing warmth, lets her body melt deeper into her.

When Villanelle tentatively says, “You didn’t wash your hair yet,” she guesses the intention behind her words, precariously hidden behind strong phonemes of someone who speaks a foreign language.

This time, she thinks of belonging and vulnerability and bruised hearts, and the guilt seared inside her turns into the good kind of pull, something like longing sitting in her stomach like lead. If this is what they are now, so be it.

Relief deeper than consolation curling the muscles around her mouth into a genuine smile, she says,

“Would you do it for me?”

—

Time seems to be slowed tonight, liquescent. Boundless fascination igniting unfamiliar fluttering in her breast, pulsing through the weak confines of her system, Villanelle feels most alive in the small moments Eve offers herself to her.

Pouring a dollop of expensive shampoo into her palm, she conceals the metallic smell of blood and fear with floral notes and musky herbs purchased in Tuscany, working the cream from her scalp to the ends, her intention to soften Eve’s thoughts, her heart squeezing when she feels more than hears Eve exhaling a noise of pleasure.

She imagines half-lidded eyes and slightly parted lips as she traces the thick mass of hair cascading through her fingers. Almost dizzy, she runs her hands over impossibly onyx like it’s a sacred thing, enraptured by the ghastly shimmer that every droplet reflects, bright white and indigo hues where light falls.

Amorphous like the water flowing between them, her curls are lost because of the weight, but they are soft all the same on fingers weaving through strands, slippery silks tickling nerve endings, hair runny like good ink. Villanelle drinks in its heaviness-- buoyant, generous, luscious. Obscene.She feels the tingling previously narrowed down to pinpricks at her fingertips expand, propelling to meet the newfound buzzing rising in her lower belly right at the middle of her chest, where sinews taut like violin strings seem to snap, spreading stark explosions of amber everywhere.

Before she has the chance to voice her admiration,

“I have killed someone.” Eve breathes it out like a revelation, a little hysterical.

Villanelle inhales sharply, hands frozen in place. She waits.

“Don’t stop now, Oksana,” Eve admonishes softly, and encourages her to resume her movements by nuzzling against her palms the way cats do.

—

Outside the windows, the buzz and hiss of streetlamps remind Eve of her own inconsistency reverberating inside her core, flaring, barely kept at bay. Inside, Villanelle unhooks the shower head to rinse her clean. With practiced skill, fingers surprisingly delicate for someone as strong as her, she gathers her hair and lets it fall, once, twice, a delicious number of times.

Her knuckles graze the base of her neck in whirls and lines and streaks, a brush connecting twinkling dots scattered in the sky to form constellations. Cygnus, Ophiuchus, Orion cross her mind.

Always in synchrony with each other, they both sigh.

If she were anyone else, or if Villanelle were, she would’ve been more wary. Because she is not, and Villanelle isn’t, so she closes her eyes and lowers her guard and herself into sultry warmth.

Underwater, she listens carefully to the sound of blood thrumming in her ears and the vicious beat of her living heart. Darkness. For a while, that’s all there is. Then, the same deep quiet that soothes helps filter out with deafening clarity Villanelle’s Why did you do that, Eve? inside her mind, an echo from some other time when she thought she would become a corpse in her kitchen. Only this time, the crime scene hadn’t been her kitchen and the corpse hadn’t been hers.

She breaks the surface gasping for air just as the sob trapped inside her throat makes its way out.

—

She turns Eve around easily, drawing her closer and burying her head in her chest. She traces endless circles on her back, tenderly where skin was rubbed raw, trying to offer Eve any measure of comfort. She imagines what she must be feeling right now and waits, unsure of what to make of Eve’s reactions.

Villanelle is still so stunned by her very existence, by the very presence of this woman in her life. Eve, who had left everything she knew in the past to follow her into an uncertain future. Eve, who is a force of nature, untamed and undeterred. Eve, whose hot breath tickles where she tries to muffle her sobs.

To a certain extent, she had experienced enjoyment in the situation, not sure she’s ever felt so flattered. The realization of what Eve has done for her had blossomed inside her chest like flowers turning its heads to the sun. She’s used to taking lives, but she’s not used to people taking them in order to save hers. It had been a gift, and that is much more familiar.

She knows a thing or two about returning favors, and maybe because she doesn’t care about faceless men and consequences and guilt this is not a selfless act, but deep down, she knows she does what she does out of love for her, and that she means every promise she makes.

And so she grabs her hand, if only so that an axe wasn’t the last thing she’s held, and says in hushed words, a quiet breath in the space between them,

“No one has to know it was you who did it.”

—

Eve tenses. She thinks, Would you? For me? and Shut up, shut up, shut up in the same millisecond.

She can see that going one of two ways: Villanelle takes the fall for her, if it comes to that, because one more victim wouldn’t make a difference to anyone. Except her. She’s free. Probably. She’s free, without Villanelle. Her breath hitches. Or, Villanelle doesn’t:  She takes responsibility for what she’s done and accepts her fate, whatever that might be. Her breath hitches.

An unreasonable line of thought sprouts in her mind. If we go down, we down together. She almost lets out a laugh, loud and importunate, at the absurdity of that part of her that longs for the idealized end. Almost.

She will make sure it doesn’t go any of those ways at all. She has no intention of negotiating. You are not doing that, Villanelle.

She must have said that last part out loud, because Villanelle lifts her chin to meet her eyes.

“I don’t care about adding one more name to my list,” she says, matter-of-factly. Then she makes a face, adds: “I’m only worried about people thinking I’m sloppy.”

It wasn’t meant to be a joke. Her eyebrows are raised, forehead slightly scrunched up, eyes open and honest. It’s that innate innocence of hers that makes her let out the laugh she was holding— something dry, like it was forced out her lungs. She fights the impulse to press her lips to hers, to kiss her just for the sake of making her stop talking for the rest of the night.

If she is honest, the only reason she doesn’t is because if they ever kiss, she doesn’t want it to be like this. If she is completely honest, she prefers not being on the brink of a nervous breakdown when they do.

Firmly, because she is so tired: “You are not doing that.”

As consolation, the back of her fingers brushes against her high cheeks with the same tenderness they had caressed her that night in her kitchen, a barely-there touch.

Time stifled into stillness, they make this moment theirs. In the confines of these seconds, they breathe in and out steadily, the crucible of their intimacy finding a rhythm when their hearts beat the same quiet symphony.

Villanelle is looking at her the way she has looked at her from the first moment they met. The way no one else has— Her, in her line of vision, and then everything else.

Eve thinks that if this were happening in an alternate universe, she would be whispering three words at her like a confession.

Best not to think of what could have been, she blinks then to escape the intensity of Villanelles eyes, probably close to guessing her thoughts.

“Let’s get out of here,” she says, slightly breathless, not sure she means the tub or something else.

Villanelle decides for her. Standing up, she gently extends a hand.

She holds it, filled with a calm contentment so otherworldly that she feels both light-headed and heavy at the same time, as if she were so relaxed her seemingly weightless body could float and drift away towards night sky if it weren’t for the honey thick feel of drowsiness running through her veins and Villanelle’s hand sliding against hers, twining their fingers together, anchoring her.