"Can you feel this?" Villanelle asks, poking him in the arm with her toothbrush.
"Stop it." He flicks her hand away and takes her by the shoulders to face the small, gilt edged mirror perched above the bathroom sink. It had misted over with the steam rising up from the hot water running out of the tap. "You have a new job."
She spins on the spot and her lips pout around the toothbrush between her teeth and the foam bubbles over the soft pink. She matches the decor, the pink sink and the pink tiles and the pink tub fitted along the wall. Her eyes are wide with excitement and glint golden like the taps. Her eyes drag over his blue woollen coat, wondering which of his pockets contain her new postcard.
"Quickly. You'll have far to travel to complete this assignment. Further than last time anyway." Konstantin chides her again and turns away.
He pauses at the door to watch her spit delicately and then take the bottle of mouthwash and gargle obnoxiously in his direction from the other side of the mirror. She rinses and spits again in the sink, shutting the bottle closed with a click.
"What?" Her eyes are wide, as though he's the one with the problem. "Oral hygiene is important... I read that in a magazine."
Konstantin snorts as loudly as he can in the hallway and the noise echoes in the emptiness. Villanelle is not one to accumulate furniture, only clothes and shoes and little bottles of perfume. The woollen dress she is wearing looks thick and warm, needed in the cooling autumn days that were tinged with lingering morning mists. It reaches up over her neck but comes just past her elbows, contrasting her pale forearms with the black, expensive-looking fabric. Her feet shift and the floorboards creak, his eyes catch the movement and when he looks down he sees she's standing barefoot.
Getting back to his delivery, he reaches into his inside coat pocket to pull out a new postcard. The same as always, it showed a landscape of some sort. The colours were bright and vivid, with a sky blue sea and a deep and vivid backdrop to the whitest, fluffiest clouds. Dotted around a small but full harbour were boats tied to their moorings, arrested in their gentle bobbing. An idyllic little country seaside harbour with soft pastel coloured houses dotted across the surrounding golden tinged hills.
"Cute." She quips, plucking the card out of his hand and studying the perfectly composed picture.
She leans up against the other side of the hallway and tips her head back, lifting the small card to the light. Then she brings it close to her face, as though she could enter it nose-first. "When?"
"Tomorrow." Konstantin informs her sternly, and she reaches out her hand to poke him in the chest but he grabs it. "No. No playing, Villanelle. You have a job to do."
Her eyes widen comically and she looks younger than her years and her experience. Then the whining seeps into her voice, "But I get bored, job, Paris, job, Paris, job, Paris. I would like a break."
"A break?"
"Holiday."
"Job first. Then we'll see."
Her eyes narrow and he considers the options on the table again. If she is happier, she performs better. She is prideful in her work, although like with anything if one does not want to do a good job, it will not happen. It is not as if she is merely a killing machine, no matter how thick and fast she is called up by those higher powers holding the puppet strings across continents and crimes and giant piles of money and bloodless, lifeless bodies.
"Tell me, where do you want to go?" He crosses his arms and she leans up against them with her own, a mirror to a man much larger than her.
Her nose almost reaches his chin, but brushes against the thick fabric of his coat and he sees the white flash of her teeth. "Somewhere with snow."
"Ah," he tuts, brushing her off. "But you were already in Switzerland last month."
"But not to ski!"
Like a child, there is petulance in her voice, but the way she tails him into the kitchen is like a child brimming with excitement. He is unsure he wants to pit his authority against her persistence. Villanelle works methodically, if he did not pick his faux battles with her, she would wear out her own reserves of patience; something he had worked hard to build to the meagre amounts she currently possessed. It would be easier to let her win a non-existent quarrel. Besides, a short weekend in the Austrian mountains would also mean she could perfect her Austrian German. It was lacking something at the moment.
"Okay. We'll see." He repeats, turning to face her with a passive look on his face. "But first, you have a job."
He points to the card held loosely between her fingers and she throws her hands in the air. "Okay. Job, Paris, holiday." She sucks a deep breath in, "Can you feel this? It is a holiday mood."
He suppresses the urge to redirect her attention to the job at hand and instead nods genially. "You leave in thirty minutes. Get ready."
Villanelle snaps to attention, hand flying to her forehead like a razor before flicking away to her side lazily, "Alright, old man."
He stands there with his hands in his coat pocket, just about to shake his head yet again when she side-eyes him while walking back into the bathroom with the postcard folded and pressed into her dress pocket. "Maybe it is you who needs a holiday."