#one location arguments where the girlies are not doing anything other than arguing is hard i have learned

[jeniffercheck]

i am begging for a oneshot (or more) that touches on the shivlina silly mirror thing 👁️👁️ give me all the whump pls!!

thank u sm for the prompt! i had a leftover argument set during kill list that was very fun to play around with, i've placed it in the Sepsis universe, but parts 1 and 2 are not required readings. follows all canon up to 4x05, including tomshiv being on-again/off-again. silly mirror (and more) included<3

read here or on ao3

words: 3.4k

“What were you and Tom talking about last night?”

Shiv’s hovering over her suitcase in her slate and granite pseudo-cabin, Karolina sitting on the couch in the corner of the room. It’s late now, the Norwegian forest outside slowly dimming as the night draws near. They’re flying back to the States in the morning, and they’ll accept the deal from Matsson and get rid of the cruise lines and the fascists and Shiv is going to be the fucking American CEO and they can finally just put Dad to rest and all this other bullshit with him. It’s simple.

At least, it should be. Because what fucking business does Karolina have hanging around Tom all weekend anyway?

“Me and Tom?” Karolina asks. She doesn’t look up from the laptop in front of her, her furious typing barely faltering as she speaks.

“At the party,” Shiv says. “You were standing next to each other for an awfully long time.”

The typing finally slows, and Shiv looks at her, unreadable per usual.

“Oh,” Karolina says. “Nothing much. Just, making fun of Swedish dance music. And—I mean then, Tom tried to lecture me on why Swedish House Mafia is actually one of the greater electronic music artists of this generation, which, sure I guess, but I don’t think he even understood which generation he was talking about—”

“Karolina, this is serious.”

“I’m being serious, Shiv,” Karolina says, eyes focused back on the laptop. “I don’t ever want to hear about Swedish House Mafia again.”

The typing picks up and Shiv turns back to her suitcase, rearranging the contents for the fifth time. It shouldn’t make her so upset, but it does. Much like a crossed line or a broken boundary, it’s out of her control. Her pull on Tom is getting looser every day, she can feel as much, and her pull with her bothers is getting looser every day, and Matsson sends fucking blood bricks to his ex-girlfriend, so really, her entire livelihood is hanging in the balance by a group of men all held together with a bunch of loose threads and screws, and she’s fucking asking Karolina the simplest question in the world, and the only answer she can give Shiv is Swedish House Mafia.

Shiv turns around.

“So, if I called Tom right now and asked him what you talked about last night, he’d just say Swedish dance music?”

Karolina looks at her then, calculating eyes not leaving Shiv as she closes her laptop. She’s weighing the pros and cons, thinking through the risks and consequences of telling Shiv the truth, and Shiv’s had it. If she has to force Karolina’s hand, then so be it.

“Forget it,” Shiv says. “I’m calling.”

“Shiv—” Karolina says, standing up. “Hold on.”

“Remember something else?” She waits for Karolina to speak, feigning patience they both know she doesn’t have, and it doesn’t take Karolina long to speak up.

“We got into an argument,” Karolina admits.

“About?”

Karolina crosses her arms and looks away.

“You,” she mumbles.

Perfect. That’s perfect.

“Anything specific, or just which pair of pants you think my ass looks better in?” Shiv asks, feeling satisfied as Karolina rolls her eyes. Shiv’s getting that answer.

“He asked why we’ve been spending so much time together,” Karolina says, which expeditiously turns Shiv’s minor jealousy into major fury, because this was not on her agenda for the trip.

“And what the fuck did you tell him?”

“Nothing,” Karolina says. “I—I just—”

“You just what?”

“I just—fuck—I threatened him,” Karolina says. “Okay? I threatened him.”

“Oh, you threatened him,” Shiv says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. “Would you like to share what you threatened him with, Karolina?”

“No,” Karolina says. “I don’t.”

Karolina has her world-renowned poker face on, and Shiv can only imagine what it is that Karolina used against him. She probably has a war supply of paper trails against every person in the company, let alone Tom. And it’s not that Shiv wants to protect him, but Karolina’s a different force when it comes to Shiv, and she isn’t sure that Tom would ever stand a fighting chance against Karolina.

“You know, I don’t need you fighting battles for me,” Shiv says. “I’m perfectly capable of fighting them on my own.”

“Yeah, that’s why he’s still your husband and not your ex-husband,” Karolina says.

So, Karolina’s mad. Fine. Shiv can be mad too.

“I’ll divorce him when I want to divorce him,” Shiv says.

“Because that’s what you said the last time, right?”

It’s fair. Shiv came crawling back, divorce papers dangling like a bird in her teeth and Karolina believed her. Wanted her. Shiv believed it too, she did, and then Tom took it back. He gave her another chance, and she’d made a commitment, right?

“I didn’t say anything,” Shiv says. “I said we were separating, that’s not a fucking divorce.”

“Seriously?” Karolina says. “That’s how we’re doing this? Fucking semantics?”

“If you have a problem with my relationship with Tom, then fucking say it to me,” Shiv says. “I don’t need you running around and screwing shit up.”

“I’m screwing shit up?” Karolina asks. “He’s fucking you, Shiv. He’s fucking you right to the finish line, like he always has been, but I’m the one who’s screwing shit up.”

“Yeah, Karolina,” Shiv says, crossing her arms. “You are.”

Karolina laughs hollowly and she picks up her laptop as if she’s ready to make her exit.

“Sorry for trying to defend you, Shiv,” she says, walking away from the couch. “I won’t fucking do it again.”

“It’s not your place,” Shiv says, and Karolina freezes, expression now angered.

“Please, Shiv, explain to me what my place is.”

Shiv feeds into the anger as well, and somewhere in the back of her mind she begs herself to stop, to just let it go and sleep it off and remember that Karolina cares about her, that Karolina wants what’s best for her, that finally having someone irrevocably in her corner doesn’t mean that she has to immediately try and push them out, but Shiv’s never been adept at accepting care. Not without mutually assured destruction.

“To just shut the fuck up and let me handle my shit, Karolina,” Shiv says.

“One foot out Tom’s door and one foot in mine,” Karolina says. “You’re really handling it, huh?”

“This is ridiculous,” Shiv mutters. “Don’t you—fucking have a job to be begging for right now?”

“If it’s working under you?” Karolina asks, stepping forward. “Fuck no.”

Shiv feels the words like the wind biting at her ankles; the tantalizing chill still finding its way to sink into her skin despite it being something she’d come dressed prepared for. The silence is thick, Karolina’s heavy breath waiting for Shiv to bite back.

“Did you forget my dad just died, or are you still getting off on all the crisis management?”

“That’s not funny, Shiv.”

“No?” Shiv asks. “So, just to be clear—you did, or you didn’t start writing the press release on his death before they’d even gotten the defibrillators out? I mean, fuck—you’ve probably had it written for months, haven’t you? What, since the stroke? Just biding your time until you could swoop in and play PR doctor?”

“What the hell is your problem?” Karolina asks, her hands now gripping the laptop tightly. “I’m sorry your father owned a Fortune 500, Shiv. I’ll make sure to let him know we need time to stabilize the stock market first the next fucking time he—”

Karolina cuts herself off and Shiv swoops forward with a taunting gaze.

“What, croaks?” Shiv asks. “You’d love to do it all again, huh? You fucking love it. Exploiting death, it’s what you’re good at, right?”

“Fuck you,” Karolina says, her eyes filling with tears. Shiv can’t stop it when the sudden display of emotion sets her off.

“Jesus, tears?” she scoffs. “We should get a mirror in here for how fucking stupid you look.”

She doesn’t realize what she’s said until after it’s come out, the words leaving a horrible after-taste in her mouth. Karolina scoffs so quietly Shiv is almost certain she’d made it up, not hearing much between the pounding of her heart filling her ears.

“What?” Karolina asks, her small voice laced with disappointment and disbelief, and if Shiv thought the hole in her heart couldn’t get any bigger, well, she was wrong.

Shiv opens her mouth to speak, but there’s nothing for her to say.

Karolina takes a tentative step forward, arms still crossed and eyes still wet, and she speaks, clearly shaken.

“I’m sorry that I interfered with Tom, and I’m sorry that I’m in a position where I have to treat your father’s death like it’s just business, truly, Siobhan, I am, but—” Karolina pauses, her words hanging, and Shiv’s almost grateful when she doesn’t complete the thought. She heads for the door, opening it slightly before stopping briefly, “I’m going to go look stupid in my own fucking room.”

—

Shiv sits long past the sun-setting and the last-night festivities going quiet and the other cabin’s lights going off one by one, replaying the argument in her head. She pokes and prods at it, wondering at which point it went sour, whether it had been the whole time. Karolina started it. She brought up the divorce and she baited Shiv. It was her.

Yet somehow, Shiv still feels like she’s done something irreparable.

When she can’t take it anymore, she braves the woods with just her phone flashlight and the skin of her teeth, and she goes to Karolina’s room. If Shiv were counting, she’d note that it only took Karolina twenty seconds to open the door, and she’s definitely been way less mad at Shiv and taken way longer.

“Hey,” Shiv says.

“Hey,” Karolina repeats, with no hint of her current mental state.

They stare silently for a second until Shiv hears a bristling in trees, and she remembers she’s outside in the wilderness.

“Uh, you wanna let me in before Norwegian Jason fucking hops out of the bushes?”

Karolina rolls her eyes but opens the door wider, allowing Shiv entry. Shiv immediately shivers, in disbelief at how cold it is in her suite.

“You know we’re not in charge of expensing utilities, right?” Shiv says. “You can turn the heat up without getting fired.”

���You mean I won’t have to beg for my job?” Karolina asks.

Shiv fucked up. She knows she did. She can see it in the tensing of Karolina’s shoulders, hear it in the curtness of her words. It’s not unfamiliar territory though, and that’s the only thing keeping her going. She’s done this before. She can grovel.

“You’re not going to lose your job, Karolina.”

“Good, good,” Karolina says. “Did Matsson tell you he has a death he needs you to exploit? I’ve been told I’m good at that.”

Shiv looks down in embarrassment.

“That was…” she trails off, biting her tongue. What else can she say? It always comes to this. Things are good until they’re not. Shiv is happy until she’s not. She treats people right until she doesn’t.

“Low, Shiv,” Karolina says. “Even for you.”

“Yeah,” Shiv says. “Digging into old wounds—whatever. Not cool, I know.”

The silence around them is suffocating. Shiv wishes there were some sort of card she could present, some pharmacy junk-drawer filler that says, “Sorry for being a cunt. Will do it again!” and maybe another one that says, “My dad just died and all I got you was this card!” and then she wouldn’t have to explain it, she’d just be able to give Karolina something concrete, something that explains she doesn’t know how to be a person right now and please don’t hold that against her.

But Karolina gives her the chance to try.

“Can you—can you just tell me what happened?” Karolina asks.

“What happened is my dad just died and Matsson is fucking insane, and you, you just—” Shiv has to turn away. She doesn’t want to rile herself up again, doesn’t want to resort to lashing out.

“What, Shiv?” Karolina asks. “I dislike how Tom treats you? I want you to be happy?”

“You’re meddling, Karolina,” Shiv says, turning back around.

“Shiv, you included me,” Karolina says. “You approached me, and you said you were getting a divorce and you told me it could all work out. I’m sorry if I crossed a line, but some of those lines belong to me now.”

“Tom is not—”

“Including Tom,” she says. “The second you invited me back into your life, that included Tom.”

Shiv can’t argue with that. She made Karolina a liability, she told Karolina that Tom wouldn’t be around for much longer, and she told Karolina that she wanted her.

“Okay,” Shiv says. “It’s just—this deal and the fucking funeral, it’s—it’s a lot, Karolina, alright? And a fucking, property war over me is not helping. It’s not.”

Karolina’s facade cracks just a little, her eyes softening and frown deepening.

‘You’re right, Shiv, I’m sorry,” she says. “But Tom’s just—he’s a fucking asshole, and I can’t just stand there and watch him gloat while the rest of our jobs are on the chopping block, I can’t.”

“You’re not going to be on the kill list,” Shiv says. She made sure of that.

“You don’t know that, Shiv—”

“I said, you’re not going to be on the fucking list,” Shiv repeats, voice hoarse yet strong all the same.

Karolina freezes at the interruption. She huffs, something like a challenge in her eyes and Shiv narrows hers in response.

“You’re not on the list,” Shiv repeats again, softer. “So, whatever superiority Tom thinks he has over you right now, he doesn’t. Including me.”

Karolina stares at Shiv, a host of emotions swimming in her eyes, but the one that sticks is a quiet despondence that makes Shiv regret ever having scolded Karolina at all.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Karolina says, turning away.

She sits down on the bed, avoiding Shiv’s gaze, the tell-tale sign of her tears returning when she brings a taught sleeve to the corner of her eye. A pang of guilt rolls through Shiv’s gut at the words she said earlier. It’s a disgusting little feat, learning how to weaponize the very things that were once used against you. Matsson had said it himself not even twenty-four hours earlier.

Like your dad.

Shiv sits down next to Karolina, not waiting for an invitation, and she mulls in the silence, unsure of what she could say to fix this. If what she could say would even be enough. That she doesn’t want everything she touches to be shrouded in venomous generational warfare. That this isn’t fun for her.

Shiv stares out the window ahead of them, barely able to make out the trees in the darkness. If Shiv Roy falls in a forest, does she make a sound? Or does she let herself go quietly, without a fight? It’s been so long since her voice actually mattered, she’s forgotten that it still affects people. People she cares about.

“If I apologize, will it even mean anything?” she asks.

“It always means something,” Karolina says. “Every time.”

Every time should feel like a dig, but it doesn’t. It’s comforting in some fucked up way, that admits the struggle and the chaos and cruelty, Karolina hears her. That she listens, and fights for Shiv’s honor even when Shiv doesn’t want her to. That she cares, too.

“Everything is so fucked right now,” Shiv says. “I can’t be the person you need me to be.”

Karolina’s eyes turn sad suddenly.

“I don’t need you to be anything,” Karolina says. “I’m not trying to hold you to some impossible standard, Shiv, I—I just want you to be honest with me every once in a while.”

“Honesty,” Shiv laughs, though it quickly settles, and she can’t stop her eyes from pooling with tears and her throat from constricting tightly. Karolina squeezes Shiv’s hand, always her lifeline when nobody else seems to be there. Shiv looks away, voice taught. “I can’t lose Tom right now. Not both of them.”

Karolina sighs, the sound smooth yet resolved. It hurts, thinking Shiv’s caused endless disappointment inside this woman, but she reminds herself that there has to be something good between them, for disappointment to exist at all.

“Okay,” Karolina says.

“If this changes things—”

“Shiv,” Karolina interrupts. “It’s not me or him, okay? You’re not going to chase me off that easily.”

“What if me and Tom—you know, what if we never end?”

“I don’t know,” Karolina says. “But for right now, I know that I still want you, that hasn’t changed.”

Shiv nods, running out of worries to throw out in the air. It’s fucking pathetic, but everything is pathetic right now. She’s almost content to wallow, just this once, until Karolina steers the conversation in a direction Shiv was hoping they could just both forget about, a skeleton of a conversation she hoped they’d shove under the bed and never speak about again.

“Shiv—what you said—about getting a mirror—”

It was a nasty thing to say at all, but especially to Karolina. Karolina, who trusts Shiv. Who’s shown Shiv vulnerability, and who’s trusted Shiv with that vulnerability. She’s disgusted with herself for having abused that privilege.

“It was cruel and fucked up,” Shiv says. “You’re allowed to cry, of course you are.”

“I know I’m allowed to cry, Shiv,” Karolina says. “Do you know that you’re allowed to cry?”

Shiv’s tears pool at the question, and even still, she can feel herself holding back. It’s a reaction she can’t control, holding it all back. Some days it’s like the only emotion she has is the absence of it; like the only thing she can do is swallow herself whole, scale down her tears and turn them into something more useful like anger or spite. She learned early on that if they see her cry, they’ll know. They’ll know just how fucking stupid she is.

She clears her throat, and Karolina shifts closer to her, wrapping an arm around Shiv’s waist.

“When we were younger, and we were upset, Dad—he would take us in front of this mirror and he would make us look at ourselves as we cried,” Shiv says. “He, uh, called it the Silly Mirror.”

Karolina says nothing, but Shiv doesn’t know what she would expect her to say, anyway. The context only adds an extra heaviness to the statement, and it’s a hard pill to swallow that she’d said it at all. It’s one thing to use her dad’s words against herself, her brothers even, but to use them against Karolina? It’s a vitriol Shiv had hoped wasn’t in her. Karolina called her rotten once, and Shiv considers that it could still be true. She’s lived in this body for too long now, of course, it would’ve spoiled somewhere along the way. It’s possible she’d been rotten from conception, that she spent too long in her mom’s belly and ruined her chances before she even knew what self-sabotage was. The evidence is there; the last born before Caroline ran. It was Shiv. Rotten Shiv.

Two built a company. Three a crowd.

“Shiv—” Karolina starts, but Shiv doesn’t want to hear it. Not yet.

“I thought it was my mom,” Shiv continues. “The mirror—I thought it was her. And when Dad died—I mean, when Ken told me, I thought it was her, too. I knew it wasn’t, but I just—I hoped it was, you know?”

Karolina nods, her hand now rubbing sympathetically across Shiv’s back.

“He has to be what I remember, because if I’m wrong about him, then who else am I wrong about?”

If she cries for a monster, is she a monster too?

“You’re not him,” Karolina says. “A result, maybe, or—or a product, but you’re not him.”

A product sounds much too clinical a word for what’s supposed to be daughter, but it’s a nice thought, that it’s nurture over nature and she’s not inherently evil for acting the only way she knows how.

“I don’t deserve you,” Shiv says.

Karolina just sighs and rests her head on Shiv’s shoulders, and it feels something like a truce. Shiv wraps her own arm around Karolina’s waist, and knows this connection is something she often takes for granted. Karolina links their free hands together in response.

“I wish you could see that you do.”