Villanelle laughs and twirls like a child, like she cannot see the heavy fog over Eve's entire being. Asking inane questions as they move through the seemingly abandoned villa, like what do you want for dinner and have you ever seen pictures? and it's almost too much.
Almost. It's enough to keep Eve tethered to reality, even if it's by a thin silver string. She moves as if a puppet, guided by Villanelle. There's still blood drying underneath her nails, and it feels weird. It's like going through the motions, but the motions are "killing a man" and "running away", which aren't day-to-day things one does.
Her touch helps, only a little - warm in a sea of cold, but then the red of her clothes makes Eve panic. Villanelle stays close by, even if a few steps ahead, and it is enough.
They go back to the streets of Rome, far away from the hotel where Eve - an axe, really, she'll tell herself later -, and Villanelle is so charming, buying new clothes and smiling at vendors, the flawless Italian flowing from her lips as she goes around the shop. Eve follows, quiet, because what else can she do?
"Here, use this." Villanelle says, giving her a too-fancy red blouse and too-high collar pants and too-much-everything shoes. Something passes through her face, and Villanelle catches it immediately. She holds Eve's face on her hands, warm, warm, warm. "Are you alright?"
The accent is calming. Eve leans into the touch without realizing.
"No red." She rasps, and Villanelle nods, taking the clothes from her, snapping at the vendor, who scurried away.
"No red it is." Villanelle replied, staring at her own red jumpsuit for a moment, before it slips away from them.
When they arrive in Alaska, they already had a car waiting. Eve shot Villanelle a quick look, and Villanelle shrugged, as they entered it, driving to what seemed like the middle of nowhere, two or three hours away, with a brief stop at a supermarket.
They arrived at a pretty little stone cottage, surrounded by forest, and if Eve squinted, she'd see snow-capped mountains.
"What do you think?" Villanelle asks, getting out of the car and going for the trunk, grabbing their meager shopping.
"It's beautiful." It's Eve's reply, because it really is. The sun shines against the windows and the windowsills have plants spilling out, white fence bordering the entire veranda.
Villanelle smiles and kisses Eve's cheek, sauntering inside.
Eve sits at the table, looking around, and wonders how Villanelle got a fully decorated house with everything running in the span of hours. Money, she figures, but is still an unknown.
Villanelle, on the fully stocked and shiny kitchen, hums around the song the old dingy radio plays as she cooks. The smell makes Eve rise, her body begging for food for the first time in - a day and a half? Two? Eve doesn't know. She also doesn't want to. To think about the events before is too much to bear, so Eve avoids thinking.
"What are you cooking?" She asks, approaching the stove where a pot boils, and Villanelle mix something into another. It smells like garlic.
"You asked for spaghetti."
The sauce looks white and cheesy. It smells great, rosemary and thyme and garlic.
"No red, as you asked."
That takes an unwittingly smile out of Eve. Villanelle beams, like the easily pleased child she is, and kisses her cheek again.
"I didn't know you knew how to cook."
"A job or two on a kitchen lets you learn a few tricks." Villanelle replies, twisting her fork to gather pasta around. That was as far as her table manners went: she otherwise wolfed down the food, and there was a prominent spot of white on her face.
Eve hadn't pinned her down as a messy eater.
"Poisoning isn't the most dignified way to go, but it works." Eve paused eating, and Villanelle looked at her, puppy-like and slightly panicked. "I didn't poison this. I wouldn't."
"Okay. You have a spot on your face." She motioned to the place where Villanelle had all but poured the sauce in, and Villanelle used the back of her hand to clean it, which just made more of a mess. Eve sighed, rising and picking the linen handkerchief Villanelle had set on the table, cleaning her. "There."
Villanelle was - was blushing. That was weird.
Then she recomposed herself as Eve sat down again, smiling.
"Thank you."
"It's nothing."
Days passed slowly. Eve wandered through the house, learning which rooms were where, and listened to Villanelle hum along music. Sometimes she sat down at the library - tall ceiling with window panes peppered in, luminosity shining bright on tall bookshelves - and read the books she didn't have time to before. Villanelle joined her, and read, splayed around chairs, squinting against the letters and mouthing off the words.
It was routine until it wasn't, and Villanelle disappeared for three days straight, no word and no calls and absolute radio silence, sending Eve into a small, dizzying panic.
When Villanelle returns, she smells of copper and there's red underneath her nails. She stares and stares until Villanelle cocks her head, puzzled, and disappears long enough to make it disappear. When she comes back, she sits by Eve's side, and Eve puts her hand on tops of Villanelle's. It's warm. It's enough.
"Where were you?"
"A job. It was sprung on me."
Nothing was free. Villanelle still had her jobs, and Eve - what did Eve have? An empty house and some free trauma to boot?
"Just don't leave me alone."
Villanelle stares, stares, and it's like something clicks in her head.
"Okay."
When Eve wakes up the following morning, there's a whole litter of puppies - fluffy and caramel, big brown eyes - in their shared bed.
("Easier to manage." Villanelle had said. "And you can stab me, if you want."
"That was one time."
"Yes, and it was very exciting."
"Oh my God.")
She looked at the dogs - two, to be exact, with little yellow ribbons on their matching collars - and then to Villanelle, a big puppy herself, bouncing up and down excitedly.
"What is this?" She waves at the dogs, and one takes the opportunity to nest itself against Eve, giving her a big, slobbering lick, before deciding to run off through the open door.
"You said you didn't want to be alone." Villanelle sat on the bed, and cautiously petted the dog closest to her. "I'll have to leave for my job for a few days. Unless you want to come with me…?"
"I've had enough murder in my life." Is Eve's dry reply, and Villanelle nodded, disappointment showing itself briefly in her face, and then dropping away. Before it could change again, Eve spoke up. "This is enough. You, spaghetti, and some dogs."
Villanelle smiled, kissing Eve's cheek, too close to her lips, for a brief moment before letting go.
The dogs are easy to train, and they follow Eve like a shadow. They like Villanelle, too, which is oddly confusing to Eve.
At least they get her in the habit of leaving the house, long treks on the sprawling fields around the house on the days Villanelle is gone filling in her mind. One couldn't think if all they did was step step step step and make sure the dogs didn't stray too far, running wildly and barking, excited to be alive. It made Eve smile, and sometimes it was enough to forget what had happened.
Sometimes she went on these hours-long walks with Villanelle, silence filling the space between them as they went through the snowy plains. Eve enjoys watching Villanelle moving, cat-like and gracious.
"Don't you ever get bored of this?" Asks Villanelle, who has the attention span of a child. She's fidgeting like a toddler who got into the cookie pot.
"Watch this." Eve replies, stopping, and offers a low hissing noise to the dogs, which are nowhere to be seen.
Silence fills the world once more, and then the dogs come running towards her, fur filled with branches and snow. They look like a mess, like they always do when Eve pulls off this little trick, but it makes her smile - which makes Villanelle smile as Eve kneels down, the dogs sitting patiently to let her take off the branches off them.
Villanelle sits down on the cold ground and helps. By the end, they have a small pile of sticks, and Eve choses one particularly long one between it, rising, dusting her winter jacket. Villanelle watched, and so did the dogs, a gleam in their eyes.
"Catch." She tells, throwing the stick as far as it goes. The two dogs jump into place and run, and Eve uses her sweet time to pick out another branch.
When they return with it - one victoriously carrying it, another dejected-looking, tail down -, Eve pats their heads and throws the recently picked stick. They go after it again, and Villanelle rises, still watching Eve, who grabbed the last of the sticks and walked again.
"Does one of them ever win?"
"Is there such a thing as winning?"
"Fair enough." She punctuates the phrase with a kiss, holding her hand. Eve can almost pretend they're a couple.
Almost.
It's late one night when Eve feels hears sounds downstairs, and pads softly down the hallway, dogs following sleepily behind her as soon as they sensed her moving. She's not afraid - no one else knows of this house except for Villanelle and Eve herself. No one can come and try to hurt her.
Besides, even if Villanelle isn't home, the dogs are.
She arrives in the kitchen to a sea of red, Villanelle clutching her stomach, white too thin shirt dyed red, sitting against the door, teeth gritted in pain.
The dogs whine when Eve freezes up, heads butting her legs to keep her moving. The red makes her cold.
"Villanelle?" She asks, and Villanelle looks up, smiling too softly.
"Hey there. Can you get me the alcohol and the sewing kit underneath the sink?" Eve nodded, but didn't move until the dogs butted her again, which set her moving. She felt like a robot, grabbing the things Villanelle asked for and handing them, keeping herself away from the red. "Guess you could say it went wrong."
"Did it?"
"Not really. Didn't expect the kid with the knife, but that got solved pretty fast." She shrugged and winced, pulling out her shirt. She looked at Eve, eyes big, loopy. "You can go if you want to."
"What if you need help?" Eve shot back, and Villanelle once more shrugged, grabbing the bottle, opening it with her teeth before looking back at Eve.
"Be my guest."
The stitches looked almost professionally made. Almost; there was a crook to it that only someone does it on themselves would have.
"You should've gone to a medic." Eve told her, helping Villanelle up, one arm on her waist and one of Villanelle's arm on Eve's shoulders. The dogs were one by Villanelle's side, helping her stay up, and the other trailed behind, butting Villanelle every so often to keep her moving.
"I don't have one of these anymore." Villanelle grimaced as they went upstairs, but bore it as gracefully as she could.
"Well, then I'm stepping in. No more murder for you until that's healed." Villanelle mistepped, and Eve adjusted her better against her body. "And that's final."
"Not even a little murder? Just a small knife to the neck?" Villanelle whined, and they finally reached the top of the stairs. "It's not even a murder. It's an accident."
Eve scrunched her nose up at that.
"I'm pretty sure a knife to the neck counts as murder."
"Not where I'm from."
Eve helped Villanelle to the bed, putting up a blanket on top of her, the dogs bunching themselves up by Villanelle's feet. They liked her, which was oddly relieving. She couldn't explain that.
"Alright, now stay quiet. I'll get you some pain medicine and some soup." Eve kissed Villanelle's forehead before leaving, which just made the other woman grin like mad.
Maybe she was.
Eve bowed out of bed a few hours later, giving space for Villanelle to heal, and regretted it in the first two hours: even though the dogs were with her, it wasn't the same.
Villanelle had received her with open arms, fully awake and bright, and kissed Eve when she thought she was asleep. Eve didn't challenge that thought, and just snuggled further into Villanelle.
The following morning, Eve brought breakfast to the bed and ate it with Villanelle, giving some of it to the dogs, who waited patiently for each and every falling crumb. Villanelle ate with her hands, face a mess of jam and bread.
"You got a spot." Eve said, and Villanelle nodded, cleaning with the back of her hand. It did absolutely nothing, so Eve handed her the crumpled linens. "Here."
"Thank you." Villanelle made a mess on the linens and grinned. Eve kissed her, and Villanelle grinned more, forgetting her sandwich to kiss back. She only set back when she yelped in pain, putting a hand to her wound, and Eve blinked slowly at her. "Geez, guess I have a reason to heal faster."
"You can't control the speed which you heal."
"Oh, just watch me."
Eve would.