Chapter Text
Villanelle has enough self-awareness to admit that every now and then, once in a blue moon really, she fucks up.
Getting caught after seven months on the run is one of those occasions.
As far as interrogation rooms go, this one isn't bad. Villanelle likes the fake plant next to the door. They (who arrested her again?) chose a peace lily. Its artificial green leaves droop even though it's a not a real plant. Did the manufacturers add that in for authenticity? Is that crucial to consider when you're looking for the perfect fake plant to spice up your interrogation room? Is the market competitive for fake interrogation room plants? All valid questions that Villanelle is fully intent on contemplating.
Then the door opens, blocking the peace lily from view and jerking Villanelle back into the beige walls of the interrogation room. She groans at the figure standing before her. "Can't you people take the hint? Leave me alone."
Carolyn Martens looks down at her she's a very annoying housefly. "Did you know they stopped serving those little cracker packets on British Airways?" she says.
Villanelle frowns.
"Yeah. Nobody likes them."
Carolyn nonchalantly opens the manila folder tucked under her arm. "They discontinued them a couple months ago. It came as quite an unfortunate surprise, alongside having to leave London at four in the morning for the Czech Republic." Carolyn sighs and flips a page. "I suppose I'll have to seek another airline."
Villanelle idly wonders if the contents of the manila folder are empty, and Carolyn's simply using it to psych her out. "Look," she says, "if this is your way of getting me to crack, it's not going to work."
Carolyn doesn't look up from the folder. "Yes, this isn't your first time at the rodeo, is it?" Villanelle stifles a laugh. She's not wrong. "Where exactly have you been these days?"
"Prague," Villanelle says. There's no reason not to tell her. It wasn't like Villanelle was keeping any secrets in Prague.
"Ah. Prague is lovely in the spring. Shame you won't get to see it." Carolyn's phone buzzes. She pulls it out from her suit jacket. "Good. Right on schedule. If you'll excuse me."
She shuts the folder and pockets the phone. Villanelle rattles the handcuffs pinning her arms behind the chair. "Are these really necessary?"
"She wanted them."
"She?"
Carolyn doesn't answer. She breezes out of the interrogation room just as easily as she breezed in. Villanelle rolls her eyes. Who is she trying to impress?
Who was she referring to?
Villanelle returns her gaze to the peace lily, but it no longer holds her attention. Her talent for withstanding long hours of solitary confinement has vanished, and each second passes in agonizingly slow motion. Who is it? Who is she?
She knows.
Even before the door handle turns, deep down, she knows it's her.
Eve.
When Eve, the real Eve, not the Eve in Villanelle's revenge fantasies, enters the interrogation room, the world disappears.
After all this time, they meet again. She looks good. Very nice, very not dead. Villanelle doesn't love the ponytail she always seems to come back to, nor the scowl on her face, but the black button up and the charcoal pants are a serviceable combo. The colors of mourning.
Villanelle is in a red suit. The same color as last time.
"Eve." Villanelle smiles that smile that she's seen in a million rom-coms when the heroine thinks she's lost him, and he shows up at the airport (or the bus stop or the school dance or the wedding). "Eve, I thought you were dead." Shiny, perfect tears pool in her eyes. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you."
Eve stares hard at her.
"Bullshit."
Villanelle drops the waterworks and bursts out laughing. Eve doesn't share her amusement. "Wow! How have you been?" Villanelle asks like they're two friends who just haven't seen each other awhile.
Eve doesn't answer. "No small talk?" Villanelle says. "Fine. How did you sleep? After you hacked Raymond into pieces?"
Eve pales. So Raymond gets a reaction out of her. Even from beyond the grave, he is still popping up into Villanelle's life. What a dick. She hopes his ugly children die young; the last thing the world needs is more Raymonds.
"I didn't sleep," Eve says.
Villanelle leans forward as much as the handcuffs allow her. "After my first, I slept like a baby."
"Of course you did."
Eve makes no attempt to hide the contempt in her voice. As if Eve can take the moral high ground. Villanelle sits back in the chair. "If this is their way of getting me to cooperate, it's not going to work. I'm over you."
Eve doesn't react. God, if the only thing that gets her to react is fucking Raymond, maybe Villanelle should have aimed for her head.
Eve pulls out the other chair. "This wasn't my idea," she says. When she sits, finally eye-to-eye with her, Villanelle ignores the shiver that passes through her body.
If she wasn't handcuffed to this chair, she could reach out and touch her.
Pick up where they left off.
"Carolyn thinks I can get you talking," Eve states.
God, now Carolyn. After everything Villanelle did for Eve and she chose her? "Seriously? You're back to being Carolyn's little dog?" Villanelle spits. "How long are you going to sit, stay, and bark your pathetic mouth whenever she tells you to?"
Eve looks offended. "She's making me-" Then she looks frantically at the peace lily. In a more even tone, she repeats, "This wasn't my idea."
Eve keeps her head to the table. Villanelle can't believe her. Coming back from the fucking dead and not even having the decency to let her know? Villanelle sent her a post card. And traveling all the way to the Czech Republic at someone else's behest? Only then to sit across from her and not even have the guts to look her in the eye? What kind of sociopath do you have to be to do such a thing?
"Well, Carolyn's an idiot. You broke my heart."
Eve's head shoots up.
"You shot me."
"And?" Villanelle tilts her head. Is this really the best Eve has to offer? "We're even now."
"Even?"
Now there's a reaction. "Even Steven," Villanelle says with a smug grin.
Eve looks like she's going to snap her neck. "Is that what this was about? Getting even?"
"Isn't it?"
"I thought I was going to die."
"But you didn't," Villanelle says like Eve got a paper cut. "And it was your fault for being so stubborn in Rome."
Clearly that was the wrong thing to say.
"What did you expect?" Eve says with an air of bitterness. "That I would run off to Alaska with you? That we'd spend our days chopping firewood and cuddling by the fireplace?"
"I mean... yeah." And Villanelle knows Eve threw that out as a fantastical delusion, but in Rome, Villanelle really thought that could be them. They could watch movies and sleep in a big bed and get rid of bodies. Why does Eve make it sound so ridiculous?
Eve huffs out a laugh. She sits back and grips her midsection. Right where the bullet landed. "I should have stabbed you in the heart," she mutters.
That comment stings. "Don't say that."
"It's true."
"You don't mean it."
"I do."
"No, you don't-"
"Why do you assume you know everything about me?" Eve snaps. "I didn't want to kill for you."
Now it is Villanelle's turn to tear her delusion down. "You didn't want to kill?" Villanelle says with a laugh. "Don't forget, Eve, I was there. I saw the way you wanted him dead-"
Eve slams her hand down on the table. "You have no idea what I wanted!"
"You have no idea what I wanted!"
Villanelle's voice cracks, and she hates it. The unplanned show of emotion. But it affects Eve. She stares wide-eyed at Villanelle, too stunned to say anything. She stands, and Villanelle expects her to leave. But she doesn't. Instead, she lets down her hair. She slowly, purposefully strides around the table to where she is right in front of Villanelle.
Then Eve does something unexpected.
She slides onto Villanelle's lap. "Is this what you wanted?" she says in a low voice.
Villanelle has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from reacting. Is this what Villanelle wanted? The warmth of Eve's thighs pressed against her? Her palms resting against her chest? Did she want this? No. Eve rejected her. Eve played with her heart and then she crushed it. Eve is a monster, a coward, a pitiful, worthless-
"Answer me."
"Yes," Villanelle whispers.
Crap.
Something shifts in Eve. A decision is made. "What about this?" Eve runs her hands down Villanelle's chest, brushing over her breasts so quickly it's cruel.
Villanelle stammers, "Eve, what- what are you doing-"
Eve yanks her by her ponytail, ejecting a whine out of Villanelle. "Don't. Talk."
Villanelle strains against the cuffs, hoping in vain for some slack, but they hold. If this chair wasn't bolted down, Villanelle could hurt Eve. She would hurt her so much. But she's stuck, and Eve smells like the perfume she got her, and Villanelle wonders if that's a deliberate choice, but she's also too distracted by the feeling of Eve's body against hers to think too hard about it.
Eve's free hand closes around the back of her neck. "Do you have any idea how long I've spent trying to get you out of me?" she says.
All Villanelle can focus on are how close Eve's lips are to hers.
"You shot me and you left me," she hisses.
Kiss me.
Her nails dig into Villanelle's neck. "I wish I could make you feel the hurt I felt in Rome. I wish I could watch you bleed out. Most of all..." For the briefest moment, Villanelle sees a glimmer of the Eve she knew before Rome.
Kiss me.
"I wish I'd done this sooner."
Villanelle briefly thinks maybe there is a god, because Eve grabs the lapels of her suit jacket and kisses her.
It's a visceral, forceful kiss. Villanelle feels like her head is being held underwater, only she wouldn't mind if Eve held her head underwater- what is she thinking, she hates Eve. She hates Eve, and she doesn't want Eve kissing her, but if she's going to kiss her, Villanelle's going to kiss her back and do a better job of it too.
The kiss descends into kisses, neither one of them willing to admit defeat. Eve is vicious. But so is Villanelle. Villanelle feels Eve bite down on her lip, followed by the coppery taste of blood, and she bites back. Two can play at that.
But Eve has an advantage. Her hands are free, and they claw at Villanelle's skin, down her neck, on her collarbone, around her waist, like Eve truly believes she can rip her apart. At the very least, she's going to leave Villanelle with a multitude of bruises. Villanelle shudders as Eve kisses her way down to Villanelle's neck, and she can feel herself getting wet.
She hates feeling this.
She hates Eve for making her feel this.
But dear god, please don't let her stop.
"Is this how you pictured it?" Eve murmurs between kisses.
"Not-" Villanelle has to catch her breath "-not the handcuffs-" she squeals as Eve bites her neck.
Eve's hands go back to her breasts, finally giving them the attention they deserve. Villanelle's nipples harden beneath her gauzy silk blouse. Eve pulls back the blouse and kisses one of them. God, Villanelle's really wet now. It would be a crime for Eve to stop.
Villanelle is really starting to consider the god thing, because Eve unzips her trousers and slips her hand down. Villanelle's back arches when Eve's fingers touch her clit. She could kiss her right now, but they're already kissing. Her thumb goes in circles, starting fast and getting even faster, eliciting moans out of Villanelle. Villanelle briefly forgets she's supposed to hate her. "Eve, you're really good at this-"
"Shut up."
Villanelle's body doesn't give her much of a choice. Especially not when Eve thrusts her fingers into Villanelle, and she just about screams.
"Eve," Villanelle says breathily, wanting her to slow down, to let Villanelle savor it, but Eve is the one in charge. Eve thrusts again and again, each one faster, each one bringing Villanelle closer to coming. "Eve, wait!" It's too fast for Villanelle's liking because that means it will be over sooner, and Villanelle doesn't want it to be over. "Eve-"
The orgasm hits her like a bullet in in the back.
Villanelle lets out a long, staggered moan. She's never been particularly vocal with her orgasms, but Eve just... wow. Villanelle feels like she's floating. Eve was right.
Now they are even.
Then Villanelle returns back to the real world, back to Eve. They make eye contact. For a moment, they just take each other in, take in what they just did. Eve's eyes are so beautiful, so dark. Her face has that serene, distant look she had right before burying the axe into Raymond's shoulder. Villanelle opens her mouth to speak-
Eve scrambles out of her lap like Villanelle is contaminated.
"Eve," Villanelle says, confused. Why is she being rude?
Why is she looking at her like they did something wrong?
"That," Eve says, "is all you will ever get from me."
She coldly turns for the door. She doesn't see Villanelle's face fall. Only when the door clangs shut does Villanelle realize, with absolute dread, that she is not over Eve.
Not by a long shot.
The moment she's out of that room, Eve crumples to the floor. Her body shakes and she starts to hyperventilate as the shock at what she just did sets in. She squeezes her eyes shut and puts her head between her knees, hoping it'll take her anywhere but here, anytime before seeing Villanelle again. Holy shit, she just saw Villanelle. She didn't just see her, she... what the hell did she just do? Eve hears heels clacking down the hallway.
"Well, I think that certainly rattled her."
"Why?" Eve looks up at Carolyn, her voice raw as an open wound. "Why did you make me do that?"
Carolyn glances pointedly to the door and back to Eve. "I didn't make you do that."
Eve feels a firm hand on her arm -the same hand that escorted her here- and it pulls her up off the ground. The guard leads her down the hallway, presumably to a car then back to the hotel they're keeping her in. She fights the urge to look back in the vain hope of seeing Villanelle one last time.
Only when she's in the back of the car does Eve realize she hasn't forgiven Villanelle. But she's not over her.
Not by a long shot.