Picks up after 2x03.
Author's note: I've found Killing Eve to be both easier and more difficult to come up with fanfiction for, because the canon storyline is so rich with development of the characters individually but also of their relationship in a way that truly does feel authentic. That said, I plan to incorporate what I foresee might be plausible in terms of plotlines for the remainder of season 2 and beyond, as well as some of what we might not necessarily get to see (but hopefully will). Then again, this show exceeds all expectations. It truly is the greatest thing I've ever watched, and I'm very grateful to have the confidence to believe that what the creative minds come up with will be far better than what I've written here!
"Vill, you almost ready?"
Eve's call up the stairs was met only by more of the same '80s dance anthems that had been blaring for the last hour.
"Come on," she muttered to herself, the only one who listened to her anyway. And turned from the foot of the stairs to go back to the kitchen table to keep working while Villanelle took her sweet time.
Just then as the chorus was about to pick up, there she was. Eve heard her belting the Cyndi Lauper tune before she saw her.
"We have no past, we won't reach back! Keep with me forward! All throughhh the night!"
It caused Eve to turn. And when she saw her. My god, the brightness. It struck her every time. And it made her lighter, too.
She couldn't help but laugh. Pissed as she was, because she'd been waiting on Villanelle for over an hour to go on their hike, the sight of the blonde with those shining eyes and that sordid past smiling singing along to a corny love song reminded her that she'd wait 60 minutes 6000 times and not think twice of it.
Villanelle stomped down and reaching the bottom step, reached her hand out to Eve and over the music shouted, "Dance with me!" Laughing.
Eve fell into her arms with the beat.
Taking in Villanelle's completely camouflage yet chic attire and black stocking hat, Eve smirked, "You know we're just going for a walk in the woods, right?"
Villanelle rolled her eyes.
And then the words came back. With their arms enveloping one another, Eve sang to her girl: "Oh the sleep in your eyes is enough, Let me be there let me stay there awhile."
Just then Villanelle nosed Eve's own nose upward, to bring their eyes in line.
Eve still couldn't put a label on the color of Villanelle's eyes, but she was falling into them. Villanelle leaned down, and Eve could feel their lips meeting before they even made contact. It still felt like she was dreaming, every time.
Eve woke up in a sweat.
The sun shone through their bedroom windows. Shit, she had wanted to get into the office early this morning. But that clearly wasn't happening.
Her hairline was wet, and the thoughts swirling around directly below it still penetrated her mind, even though it really had just been a dream.
Konstantin was right in at least one regard. Villanelle had burrowed her way in. The last thing Eve wanted was to admit it, but she couldn't deny the fact that being close to Villanelle was all that she wanted. To the point where it no longer felt like an option but simply the only way. As if it was no longer oxygen that kept Eve alive but instead the seeking, the yearning to see her.
The skin under her t-shirt was damp too, and Niko wasn't in bed. He must've gone to work. It was unlike him to leave without waking her to give her a kiss goodbye. But there was a lot that had been unlike him lately. There was a lot that been unlike Eve though too, she supposed. Since her.
Eve pushed her damp curls back, and it reminded her of a memory with Villanelle. Everything did.
Specifically though, it reminded her of the first time they came face to face. In the hospital bathroom.
"Wear it down."
So Eve did.
She took the ponytail holder out of her hair that she'd put in last night before bed.
Sliding the ponytail holder over her wrist and her hand down her stomach and then lower, as much as she'd tried to deny it, the wetness she found there didn't surprise her. And she knew it drove her toward Villanelle as much as anything did.
She let her own heat pool there as she began to imagine a scenario where Villanelle didn't have to leave that hospital bathroom. One in which Villanelle instead really was a nurse who had a break to kill instead of a witness to a previous assassination to kill. And where Eve didn't have anything to investigate other than the body of the younger woman who'd unexpectedly taken her breath away as they stood behind the sinks.
Real-life Eve felt the tension building, toes curling, knees bending. She couldn't help it. It was as if Villanelle was right there, kissing on her neck in that bathroom stall. She didn't know when she'd given in despite herself, but now Eve was pushing deeper with each beat, as the image of Villanelle became more vivid in her mind. She imagined Villanelle huskily uttering her name, begging her, "Eve, c'mon baby. Please, Eve. Please. Come for me."
And then she did. She came.
Fortunately, she still had shorts on, so she wouldn't have to explain to Niko why she'd decided to wash the bed sheets, even though that had been his responsibility for the duration of their marriage that felt longer and longer every day.
Floating into the bathroom, Eve opened the medicine cabinet to get her toothbrush and paste. Closing the cabinet door, in the mirror Eve caught sight of the cut in her lip that Villanelle had caused the night before.
Well, it wasn't all Villanelle's fault.
Eve didn't need to put the lipstick on. The label as a clue was enough of an exchange. It could have stayed professional. Eve could have taken it as a token that
But she didn't. Because it was more than that. That lipstick from Villanelle made Eve feel... sexy. Wanted. Wanted by someone who made her heart beat a thousand times a minute.
So she walked right into it. The cut.
With Villanelle it never was just as simple as a tube of lipstick. There was always something beneath the surface that Eve somehow knew would be there but never knew when or where or how it would surface.
And she had never felt so completely taken by someone's brilliance. Intelligence. Mind. But Villanelle. She was the challenge Eve had always wanted without believing such a force even existed in human form.
And that cut. It made her feel, not just desired, but claimed.
Like she belonged to someone.
Eve had never felt like she belonged to anyone before in her life.
Niko was the only person she had really let in, but with him it was nothing more and nothing less than a solid partnership. They simply worked together. They shared moments and smiles and laughs and responsibilities and picked up the slack for each other until they didn't. And tried to help each other until they didn't so much anymore. But that ability to maintain their own respective identities and lives and that lit bit of separation they'd had as human beings, that's probably why it'd been so stable.
They never claimed each other. Sure, in the physical sense they'd sunk their teeth into each other a few times. But never figuratively.
No one had penetrated Eve the way Villanelle did. No one uncovered her wounds, ripped off the bandages, and so admiringly exposed Eve's broken parts, making her do the same, in the way Villanelle had.
Standing in the bathroom of the home she shared with her husband, gazing in the mirror at the cut in her lip, Eve knew this. Still, she wasn't ready for it to be true.
So, she got in the shower. She let the water run over her and imagined that it could rinse away the desire she felt in every single one of her cells. Convinced herself that the water could clean her, and she could scrub her way back into the person she was before she met Villanelle.
So, she stepped out of the shower. And put on the same clothes and the same makeup or lack thereof that she always had. This was safe. This was who Eve was. Should be.