Chapter Text
Making sure the restrooms are empty is as essential as it gets. One would think that this is common sense—to check absolutely everywhere before a job—yet many people in her line of work wouldn’t consider it as such.
It’s stupid. Ridiculous. Laughable. Going to the bathroom is a basic human need. And when many people come together, like in malls, hospitals, huge companies, someone will always be using the toilet. Even when you’ve made sure the building has been evacuated, even when you’ve killed everyone in the department.
Of course, Villanelle knows differently. She knows better. She has been taught a lot better than all the others out there. She is better than everyone else. All those amateurs. And as a consequence, she knows exactly that she needs to enter the second room on the right across the hallway from the reception desk on the seventh floor.
One stall is out of order. She gets into the second one, climbs on top of the toilet, looks down into it—just in case—but there isn’t anybody. And there is nobody by the sinks, either. Perfect.
Except—the second she has made her way back down onto the tiled floor, she hears the creak of the door to the main area of the bathroom open again. Villanelle rolls her eyes. She leans against the wall for a moment, intent on making it seem like she’s actually doing what is supposed to be done in here, and so as not to raise any suspicions—not that people ever overthink in here, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry; she has learnt that the hard way—before flushing the toilet and unlocking her stall. She steps out, looking to the floor, and heads straight ahead, towards where she knows the sinks are.
The second she stops, she looks up.
Her eyes meet the mirror first.
And then, she involuntarily lets her gaze wander to her right.
That’s when, she thinks, her world stops spinning.
Now, Villanelle does not long for women.
She feels lust—sure. With so many pretty women around everywhere she goes, it is entirely inevitable that, every now and again, one of them will catch her eye. She’ll see her while walking down the street. Or she’ll find herself sitting next to her at a bar. Or she’ll be stuck in an elevator with her. And then, that’s it—it always goes the same way. It’s boring, really. She’ll look at her for a little too long. Will flatter her that way, because nobody else has looked at her like that in months. Once she has laid out the bait, she’ll send her a wink. That one is mostly for good measure, because at that stage, she’s really already bagged her prey.
At the end of the day, she barely has to flirt at all.
Maybe it’s her appearance. Maybe it’s the accent she has put on at the time, maybe it’s her charms. Whatever it is, it works ten times out of ten.
But she doesn’t long for them. Because it’s boring. They’re boring. They don’t pose a challenge. The women she takes home? They’re props. Tools. Means to an end. She invites them in, keeps them in her apartment, for one task, and one task only—to get her off. That’s all. If they’re particularly well-behaved, she may return the favor. But nothing else will come of it. The women she takes home? They’re disposable. They spend the night, she’ll enjoy what they do to her body—potentially enjoy doing something to them—and by the following morning, they’ll be gone. If they’re not gone by the time she wakes up, she kicks them out.
Because they’re boring. Much like the color beige: terribly bland, awfully uninteresting. So incredibly boring.
She doesn’t think about them after they’ve walked out.
Because she doesn’t desire women. They’re objects. Just like men are. Slightly more useful, maybe. But objects nonetheless.
Until now, at least.
This woman, however—
Villanelle can’t stop looking—can’t stop staring. She cannot, absolutely cannot, bring herself to tear her gaze away from her. Because she thinks that, if she does, she may die. She swallows.
The woman—she has the most amazing hair Villanelle has ever seen. She dare not even compare it to any other woman she’s ever laid eyes on’s hair, because this woman—she does not deserve that. She does not deserve to be put in the same category as everyone else. She’s unique, she’s perfect.
The shiny black locks look incredibly soft. And they shine, shine so very brightly, even in this most terrible lighting; they may be dark, yes, but they’re like the sun, drawing Villanelle towards it, closer and closer and closer until she burns to death. Villanelle can barely stop herself from reaching out to her, her hair, from letting her fingers glide through every single individual strand, from tucking a particularly stray lock behind her ear; can barely contain her absolute joy of—
Finally, Villanelle gathers enough strength to let her eyes wander the tiniest bit down the other woman’s body. She may have the best hair in the world, but she is also, somehow, simultaneously wearing the worst goddamn outfit known to man. The most boring outfit she’s ever seen. Her coat is beige. Beige. Of all colors out there, why would anyone choose that?
If there is one thing Villanelle cannot stand, it is boring. Yet—
The worst thing by far?
Villanelle still considers is the most beautiful, the most precious thing she’s ever seen. The woman is undoubtedly wearing the worst thing created, yet it is the best outfit Villanelle has ever seen anyone wear.
She cannot justify why.
It’s (partly) beige! It’s not figure-hugging, either, by any means. Nor is it pretty. Nor is it practical in any way, shape or form. It’s just… awful. So bland. So boring.
She hates it. Still—the facts remain: it accentuates the woman’s face, highlights her—well, her everything, really. Lets her hair gleam even more brightly. Accentuates her perfect face—her her brows, her eyes, her cheeks, her mouth, her jaw—
Villanelle has never truly understood when, in books—or articles—people were described as ‘mesmerized.’ Especially not by other people. Because nobody is that good-looking. Nobody shines so brightly. Nobody has all the attention on them.
But Villanelle is quite sure that that’s precisely what she is at the moment. Mesmerized. She’s in a trance. Feels like she has been hypnotized by an invisible force. An invisible, magical being, calling out inaudible spells to bind her to this woman. All Villanelle can see, all that she can smell, all that she can focus on is her. All that she can feel is her. Her presence.
She can’t wink. Or even smile at her! Nor can she indicate in any other way that she’s interested. She’s not sure she can even move. She just keeps staring blankly ahead, taking in all that is her.
Has it been seconds? It may have been seconds. Has it been minutes, perhaps? It may have been minutes. It may have been hours or days or years—Villanelle has lost all sense of time. She isn’t thinking. Can’t. Everything that enters her brain simply briefly flickers by. She cannot grasp onto any particular thought. Everything is taken over by one thing, one thing only. It is all her. Nothing specific. Just the concept of her. Her, her, her. Not what she wants to do to her. Or what she may need her for. Just—her. Villanelle can’t explain it. Doesn’t understand it. She cannot put her finger on it: why, how her mind is entirely empty, but filled with her.
It’s not right. This isn’t her. Something inside her is screaming, telling her to withdraw her gaze, to look at something else, to leave the room, but—she can’t. She is overpowering.
Villanelle thinks this is what her victims may feel like before, while she strikes. What their minds are like when she attacks them. This is what they must be going through as she first lays her hands on them—right? They’re in shock, they can’t move. They can’t escape, can’t get away from her. That must be it—that’s what it is like for her at this very moment in time. She’s in shock. She must be. Her system must be trying to fight an oncoming attack, or maybe it is trying to shut down as to not to feel it. Fight or flight. Fight of flight. She’s fighting. But it doesn’t feel like it. She can’t even fight herself, her own brain, can’t drag herself out of this state, can’t crawl away from it. Her.
And that’s when she says, asks, “Are you alright?”
Well—no, Villanelle doesn’t think that she is. In fact, she’s sure that she isn’t. This isn’t a normal reaction to another human being simply standing next to you, existing in the same room, sharing the same air. It isn’t.
But, God, she is Villanelle, she is an international assassin, she has killed more people than others get to meet in their life, and she isn’t normal in any sense of the word. So why is this different? She needs to get herself straightened out, desperately, before she moves on to what she’s come here for to begin with—her kill. Everything depends on her.
It helps. Killing helps her focus. Intently thinking about killing, too.
She tears her gaze away from the woman. It’s like ripping a band-aid off way too slowly; horribly, terribly messy, and entirely too painful. Her eyes are seeking to settle on anything but her form—she finds a comfortable enough spot on the wall where a piece of the tiling has come off—and then she quickly makes her way to the door.
Before she leaves, she risks one last glance. Sees the woman about to tie her hair up. Into what is likely going to be a most awful bun. She bites out, in a perfect British accent—how she’s able to muster that up, she’s not sure—“Wear it down.”
And with that, she’s truly gone. Once out of the woman’s reach—emotionally, physically—she leans against the door, and draws in the oxygen of ten breaths all at once, to make up for what was lost in the past minutes.
She’s so absolutely out of it. She has forgotten almost everything about the assignment. Killing is involved, yes, but in her confusion, her utter confusion, her perplexed state, her wondering what exactly has suddenly gotten into her, she has got no clue what to do anymore.
She ends up killing everyone on sight. She needs an outlet for her feelings, and this is the only way she knows how to deal with them. So maybe she doesn’t quite make it look like suicide—that’s what they tell her it was supposed to be afterwards—but she does feel a bit better after sticking her knife into three people’s throats, and two people’s abdomens.