Some pillow-talk, and a mushy epilogue.
It's 6 am. Valenka sighs, climbs to her feet bracing on the bed with one hand, sighs again. It's the umpteenth fucking time she has to haul her ass up from the floor in less than 24 hours, and she's beginning to question reality.
In her sleep-dazed confusion, she thought it had been a dream that made her roll out of bed. Now, her eyes adapting to the shadowed room, she sees the real reason: she and Kratt made the mistake of leaving their boss in the middle.
Le Chiffre has been known for accidentally pushing people out of bed in the past, when he wanted to prove a point or not wanted to deal with them or just to be difficult, but Valenka is fairly sure this is not the case. He and Kratt are safely nestled in each other's arms and still sound asleep, at least judging from the faint snore-wheeze Le Chiffre is making. The sound had bothered her in the past, making her jolt awake and make sure he wasn't suffocating, and then having to shove her head into the pillow to go back to sleep. He loathes the idea of making sounds in his sleep, so she knows she wouldn't be hearing it if he were awake.
If he hadn't just knocked her out of bed – evident in how his legs are greedily stretching back, leeching the heat she left between the covers – she'd spend a moment to notice how sweet they look. Who is she kidding, she curses half-heartedly, she spends it anyway.
Le Chiffre, tall and imposing, looks deceptively demure pressed against his silent second in command; the delicate arrow shape of his upper lip has something decadent to it, parted with breath in the greyish morning light, stark red like a fresh cut. Kratt, minutely shorter and stockier, can't let go of the scowl on his face even in his sleep; his brow is furrowed and his jaw set, every bit as handsome and menacing as when he's awake. Maybe he's having dream issues too, Valenka thinks, observing his never-resting hands twitch on the sheet covering Le Chiffre's shoulders.
She finally tears her eyes from the sight, shaking her head a bit. She feels in equal parts smug and blessed with luck. She had to take the risk with them, and force her hand a bit; at moments she feared they wouldn't take off.
She could sense how badly Le Chiffre needed to just let everything go for a moment, still incapable of asking directly; she could sense how much steam Kratt was keeping in, trying to protect them from it. She could sense herself walking a sharp edge too, and still her own surge of violence caught her a bit by surprise. It felt much like trying to defuse a bomb, and getting to set off a controlled explosion instead. There's still to factor in which of his unpredictable moods Le Chiffre will wake up in, but for now she likes to consider the deed a success.
She tiptoes to the window to peer out the lowered shutters and closed curtains. They always have to be careful about that sort of thing, and as a result their rooms are always stuffy in the mornings. Maybe that's why the poor man's wheezing, she thinks, cracking the window open and yawning in the gust of morning petrichor that prickles on her sheet-printed skin.
The events of the previous night, prior to them finally getting at it at 4 am, are a bit of a stunned blur. Yet, the more she stays awake the more everything clarifies in one block of rushed, endless minutes.
She swallows, worrying her lower lip against her incisors. She was angry at him, but still can't recall the events with clarity, doesn't know why she got angry. The confusion in her memory bleeds into the present, blurring her vision until the prickling at the bridge of her nose tells her it's just tears. The hell–?, she thinks, inhaling sharply. She concentrates on the distant clangour of garbage trucks, following golden flecks of dusty sunlight as they dance through the clouds into the room, into Le Chiffre's hair gleaming like a raven's wing.
It suits him, the red of love-bites on his pale, bruised skin. He looks like debauchment, a moonflower closing tired, crumpled petals, even more beautiful and fragrant once thoroughly ruined.
Eye caught by the sudden darkening of the chilly morning, she lays her palm down to look outside, startled. They just turned off the street lamps, she scolds herself, get a grip. Her palm is right where Le Chiffre put his own while she managed to give him a panic attack.
She remembers him telling her something, damp hair and forced smile and wide, pleading eyes. He had seemed affected and in control at the same time, his face still and cold despite the turmoil she could sense. She had feared it was all in her head, and had been a bit of a loss at what to do. If Kratt hadn't been there, paying her steadying hand back a tenfold, she would have walked away.
Oh, shit. She thinks of all the times she stormed off after a fight, to give him space, give herself space, just get the hell away from him and his control and his mind games for a moment. How many times had he sunk to the floor, white as a sheet and cold all over, shaking so hard she had 112 dialled and ready while they attempted to bring him back? Was there Kratt with him, taking it all on himself, the both of them not saying a word? What the actualhell?
Valenka trains her gaze to the building across the street, up to the very top, to the nice vines and railings she barely noticed when he asked her to look. There it is, the house, the home.
It hits her. She was angry because he kept secrets from her, because he tried again to tie them, cheapen their bonds with material goods, and her feral brain couldn't spare an ounce of comprehension for that. She was angry because she gave in to her inner child sinking dirty claws into her possessions; because even though they fought to claim him back, he pulled away from them.
Valenka can barely see through the tears that refuse to either fall or dry up, but she spots the vines' vases, their little wooden grids running up the walls. He got her plants. It's a mistake, she just knows it. She'll never manage to care for them properly, their schedule is too hectic, it's been too long since she tried.
Maybe they require very little care, maybe someone will water them when they're not there. Maybe they just thrive in late summer storms and fights to the death, just like them. Who the fuck cares, she will have dirt under her nails again, have things sprout roots and grow, spill off the balcony, down the side of the house. Of their home. She rubs a hand over her eyes and squints, makes out bright dark leaves and pale yellow blooms. He got her honeysuckles.
Something she had hidden and almost forgot about, a box full of childhood treasures buried under unsteady foundations, tentatively cracks open. She doesn't fight the first tear that spills down her face, nor the ones that follow. She feels like she'll choke from all the rust chipping away from her heart.
Valenka tips her head until the cold window presses into her fringe, braces on the windowpane, and weeps. She allows the events of the previous day to come back at her cast in sharp, lightning-bright shadows, and wash away from her like the blood of maimed enemies under pouring rain.
She stands until she's cold, cleansed and naked and lost, across the street from the home she hasn't looked for in years. She peels away from the window, dries her face and tiptoes back to bed, sinking into the bliss of her lovers' body heat. They all have a long, difficult talk ahead of them.
Nestling again into Le Chiffre's broad back, she notices that Kratt is blinking, slowly coming awake.
"Up already?" he croaks, closing his eyes as she runs her fingers on the hair-stubble on his head in greeting.
"I had a brisk start," she whispers back, half-smiling. Kratt tilts his head at her, frowning at her reddened eyes. She waves a hand dismissively.
Kratt wakes their boss with a hand ruffling through his hair and a tender kiss on the temple. He stirs awake with a sharp inhale, humming a questioning sound.
"Good morning, sir," Kratt says, keeping his voice as low as humanly possible. Valenka is a bit in love with the way his harsh r's roll back into his throat when he's just woken up. "You pushed Val off the bed."
"I did?" Le Chiffre groans, turning right without opening his eyes. He's not much of a sight to behold when barely awake, his hair rumpled and his left eye crusted shut with blood and gunk. She doesn't care.
She just humours him when he paws blindly at her, lying down within arm's reach and leaning in to kiss his forehead, just above his scar. His arm falls around her waist and he pulls her in close.
"I'm very sorry," he says into her hair, kissing it soundlessly. "How's your head?"
She lifts her right arm and lets it fall around him as well. "All good," she reassures. She has a bump, but nothing to worry about. Her fingertips ghost up his bruised ribs, very carefully. "How's your chest?"
"Oh, peachy." She pinches his side because it's too early for sarcasm. He gives a clipped yelp, and clears his throat. "Kratt, how's your everything?"
Kratt doesn't exactly make a sound, but he freezes for a moment, always a bit surprised to be addressed directly. Valenka stretches her arm to poke at him and he answers the unspoken call beautifully as always, lining his chest up to Le Chiffre's back and throwing his left arm over the both of them. Valenka feels Le Chiffre's pleased rumbling reverberate into her, and smirks down into his collarbone. She never met a man who enjoyed being in the middle as much as he does.
"I'm starting to feel it, actually," Kratt says when he finds his voice.
"I bet you do," Le Chiffre quips enigmatically, rolling on his back to put his arms around their shoulders in such an hysterically classical post-coital pose that Valenka can't resist the irony of demurely leaning her head on his chest. Kratt tilts his head at them, and she wants so laugh out loud. Being so close, she feels Le Chiffre inhale and hesitate before speaking. "Did I thank you two for saving my ass last night? My memory's a little... hazy."
"Not in words," Valenka teases. She feels compelled to lighten the mood, smooth out the uncomfortable edges of his admission; as he never allow himself the slightest shortcoming in matters of clarity of mind, she knows it took him all of his courage to admit that to them. The implications of what she said dawn on her a second late, but Le Chiffre is distracted with Kratt's lowered eyes and anguished face.
"It was the least I could do, help Val out after my inadequacy put you in danger." Kratt breathes in shakily, imperceptibly leaning away from them. "Again."
Valenka leaps to the rescue, propping herself up on her elbow and slapping her right hand on Le Chiffre's forehead before he says anything hurtful.
"Wait, are you actually thanking people? Are you ill?"
He makes a noise of offence. "I am actually capable of feeling gratitude, you know." He pauses. "Occasionally."
"And how is it? Discovering gratitude?" she snarks, making an arc shape with her hands. He actually stops and thinks about it, his gaze growing pensive. Valenka feels his fingers tap in succession against her shoulder; they're never still when he's thinking.
"Peculiar, unexpected, quite mortifying." Valenka feels the smile freeze on her face. She wasn't sure he was serious, but now he's doing that thing where he detachedly attempts to inventory what he's feeling. "As I'm placed in your debt, yet I have no immediate or granted way of repaying neither of you, the position I'm in is unpleasantly vulnerable. I'm subject to the fleeting emotions of not one, but two people: I cannot imagine anything more disadvantageous."
They just stare at him, speechless. Valenka dares a glance at Kratt, sees him still as stone listening to all the reasons their love and fealty causes him nothing but unpleasantness. And panic attacks. She sighs quietly.
"There's a logical fallacy, though," he drones on, index finger raised and following nothing but his line of thought. Valenka supposes they deserve it, they did ask after all. She really should stop calling things. "And it lies in the perception of guilt."
"Okay, are you switching back to human-mode now, or do I have to reboot you?" she finally asks. Le Chiffre blinks, turning to face her like he just realised she's there.
"In this situation, I mean." He glances at Kratt and turns back to her, and she sees him struggling to put his thoughts in words. As much as they try to get him, he often has to. "When Kratt, here, pulled me back to my feet in Montenegro, he did it by taking all on himself. He said he's supposed to watch my back, and therefore it was all his fault."
Valenka props her cheek higher, interested. She never got around to ask what happened that time, while she was hiding in the other bathroom and dry heaving into the toilet after almost losing an arm. Her memory of the whole thing is a bit of a blur, but she vaguely remembers coming back to find them kneeling on the floor, some mutual apologies, and the three of them pulling themselves together somehow. She remembers Kratt not moving away from her side – and Le Chiffre's – for a single moment after that.
Based on recent events, she can now more or less imagine what happened. But she wants the juicy details, so she prompts, "He did?"
"Yes, it was extremely effective," Le Chiffre says, managing to sound genuinely impressed. Valenka glances at Kratt, who's staring intently at this man talking about him without looking at him, conscious that he's there but ignoring him for the time being, to avoid direct confrontation. "Bypassing the fact that I chose to go up alone, he convinced me that I wasn't at fault, and enabled me to focus again. It rewired my mind around the loop-problem that since I almost got us both killed, we were doomed to fail."
"That's pretty syllogistic, we only faced minor dismemberment," she can't help but joke, buried fear grazing icy fingers on her. No, it's just Kratt, touching her arm gently, comfortingly. Her saved arm. "Also we did fail, in the end."
Le Chiffre rolls his open eye in the most accurate likeness of adolescent annoyance she's ever seen on a grown man's face. "Thanks for the reminder, I hadn't noticed. Anyway, I'm not buying it again. This time I don't have to play high stakes against a Brit spy on steroids five minutes after getting strangled."
"I don't think he was on steroids, honey."
"The guy survived the digitalis, and a car crash, and... you didn't see what I did to his balls, Val, no man could face that." He and Kratt cringe in perfect sync. "He was so on steroids."
Valenka feels herself doing the 'if you say so' face for a moment, then thinks about it. "Wait, that actually explains a lot."
"Told you. As I was saying," he glares sternly at her, she smirks and holds back from interrupting. "There's no need for Kratt to take my faults now. I can see how I put you both in harm's way." He cups Kratt's face in his left hand and pulls him back down. He whispers, "Again."
They kiss, and Le Chiffre murmurs a feather-soft 'dankeschön' on the corner of Kratt's mouth. If someone asked Valenka how she'd describe the light in Kratt's eyes when he pulls back, she'd throw her hands and say 'the motherfucking sun!'
"Admit it, you just like sending Kratt on protective streaks," she says, making them smile with their foreheads touching like high-school sweethearts. "He'll go grey from all the stress, you know."
"Maybe I am already," Kratt says, waiting the beat with utter seriousness and a peculiar glint in his eyes. It takes them a whole of three seconds to get the joke, then they all drop their heads and crack up, chuckling into the pillows.
"I do, by the way," Le Chiffre says in a slightly winded voice, reaching up and taking the first salbutamol puff of the day. "It's very satisfactory."
"What, go grey?"
He regards her with the face normally reserved for indecisive players slowing down the whole game. She deems herself satisfied.
"Enjoy Kratt's protective streaks." A note of mischief graces his dry tone. "And their aftermaths."
"Really good, huh?" Valenka says, proud. And relieved.
"Oh, I'm wrecked." He stretches languorously, smirking. "He was brutal, I still feel him there. I thought I'd break."
She smirks back, then notices the colour draining from Kratt's face.
"I– what?" he asks, swallowing almost audibly. His hands lift away from them again, as if he could cause them harm with his simple touch. The idea alone is enough to drive him into panic. That can be useful, but for now Valenka just groans and swats at Le Chiffre.
"That's because you riled him up. And don't try to act like you didn't love it, or so help me."
He rolls his good eye and turns left to face Kratt.
"I wasn't," he says a bit gruffly, manhandling Kratt's arms back around him.
Kratt gives in, still anguished. Valenka adores the way Kratt embraces him: the hand in his hair, grazing through short cherrywood locks, carding lovingly where rough fingers scratched and tore out; the arm around his waist, both tense and careful, a tender guard of bone and sinew shielding vulnerable organs, frail bruised ribs.
The way his hands hesitate on him still, as if he were touching the most delicate, precious thing in the world – a thing he's not sure could ever be his to touch.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs, mournful, "I thought... I just wanted it to be soothing."
She understand what he means. She can see it pouring out his every gesture, the sweet, heart-melting lovemaking he means. That's why he's the absolute best aftercare giver she's ever met.
The idea alone should be soothing, but she knows it's backwards with them: it would take trust and compromises and certainly not pent up adrenaline from kidnapping and fighting. It will take time.
"You soothe this one only with an iron fist, honey," she leans forward to kiss his scarred cheek. Le Chiffre makes a dry sound of resigned approval under her. "You did good."
She hopes her approval is enough to placate him, because if he's waiting for Le Chiffre's he's down to wait a long time. It always took her ages to have him admit he actually enjoyed something. She likes to think she got her fine tuning from how impossible it was to tell when he was pushing himself too far from when he could really take her handling, in the past. They both still have their shortcomings, but learned a lot from each other.
"You did perfect," Le Chiffre quips, surprising all three of them, especially himself. He clears his throat, and doesn't backpedal. Valenka is downright impressed. "I meant that as a compliment. You should be proud. I'm with Val, you know."
Kratt's cheeks go redder than an ugly Christmas sweater, and he drops his gaze bashfully. Valenka wants to wreck him. It takes her a moment to realise Le Chiffre is talking to her.
"Really, Val, you should step up your game here. I wonder if you can do better," he's saying with a sly smirk. "I have yet to see your worst, I think."
She gives him the look she usually reserves for men catcalling at her on the street.
"I see what you're doing here, trying to rile us up and getting us to compete," she warns, letting a bit of steel graze her voice. He looks far too pleased for someone whose plans are being thwarted once more. "And my advice is: don't test me."
He grins, eyes crinkling at the corners and all. His bruises and closed eye and crooked teeth disappear from her perceptions, washed away by all the stupid glory of his cheeks pulling up in unabashed, glowing joy. She feels her face heat up, her head spin. She remembers she's actually in love with this idiot. Yes, the same idiot that got her honeysuckles, for hell's sake.
She lured and tortured people and poisoned a man for him. She put her first priority aside for him. She quit smoking. She laid off the action, withered away in pretty dresses and restless lonely nights. She waited for him. In return, he taught her that a name and a story don't make a human being. That a stubborn man always crawls back up from the pit, no matter how weak or guilty or how many times he falls back into it. That the home you stopped looking for can be right across the street.
"That's why I keep you around, you're so smart," Le Chiffre says, his voice curling around the edges with affection and without the slightest hint of sarcasm. Even as some memorable chess matches from ages ago are washing back at her, she remembers clearly that he never said that in words before. She stares.
"I thought it was for my boyish hips," she blurts out in panic. She doesn't even know if she was aiming for humour anymore. She tries to fight the instinct to flee the bed for several moments before giving in and rolling out in undignified hurry.
As she stumbles to her feet, Le Chiffre says, "Well, I actually never noticed but really, wow, they're smaller than mine!" and Kratt follows suit, "I-I like them a lot, personally."
She shakes her head, resisting the urge to slap a palm on her face. Or theirs. "Guys, neither of you ever get an actual girlfriend. Please."
When only silence answers her, she somehow finds the guts to turn back. Sitting up shoulder to shoulder, they're staring up at her with identical raised brows.
"Uhm, I thought you were our actual girlfriend?" Le Chiffre says. When she can only stare in return, he crosses his arms on his bruised chest. There, he went and done it, made it all official by buying a house with some pretty climbers and saying a casual sentence. Fucker. "Really, I thought we had something special here."
Kratt shakes his head and, very gently, pulls her back on the bed by her waist, right in the middle.
Le Chiffre regards her in mock-sternness, "I feel so used right now."
She can't hold it in anymore. She hides her face between them and laughs until she can't laugh anymore, laughs until she's crying again.
They hold on to her, ships lost at sea, steadying each other all the same, on dark angry waves as on flat oily sunsets too beautiful to bear alone.
She's both lifeline and castaway, hungry ivy roots and ancient strong wall.
She's home.
Rather than a 'home' in the actual sense, the House Across the Street, as they are definitely calling it because how could they not, becomes their impromptu getaway hiding-spot.
When they can get life to leave them alone for more than 24 hours in a row, and manage to spend some quality time there, Valenka – when she isn't pushed out of it of course – is often the first to wake and the last to leave the bed.
The conflicting desires of remaining bundled up and showering are bound to battle in her soul: the one they have is pretty much the bed of her dreams, soft and gorgeous and wide enough to accommodate three people and their varied sleeping habits. Sadly enough, though, there's still no way to shower while lying in it. She will have to come to term with this one day but, most of the time, she pretends to be still asleep until she feels her two bedfellows shuffle around.
They usually start talking right away, tackling the day with their voices all gruff and raspy from sleep: it's her favourite. She likes to snap her eyes open as if they'd woken her, and have them jolt and apologise, half-jokingly. They all know she would never be bothered to punish them so early in the morning.
They will all take a moment away from their morning to crawl to the centre and rub life back into their sleepy systems – because, contrary to popular belief and Leo's teasing whispers, they don't always sleep in a puppypile in the middle.
She at least likes to tell herself that, to avoid the reality that there are probably no other men in the world more prone to post-coital clinginess than them, and she managed to land them both. And that falling asleep between them gives her some sort of womb-like sense of safety that she hadn't felt in ages. And they smell so nice after she's done with them. But yes, there are times when they are content with kneading sore backs and shoulders and kissing aching heads and fall asleep to the reassuring graze of fingertips. Or ice-cold feet, it depends.
In the mornings, Kratt meekly asks to have his teeshirts back, which she and Le Chiffre are both guilty of stealing on account of their comfiness. And because the first few times, Kratt had been the only one remembering to bring some casual clothing with him, and the habit stuck. Her favourite is his worn-soft Iron Maiden one, for an embarrassing variety of reasons.
The process occasionally leads to the peculiar sight of Le Chiffre clutching the hem of a Diary of Dreams tee and daring Kratt to 'make him', which is sure to make things interesting. Unless they're late. She generally manages to kiss them mute, at least for a second, before tossing both stolen shirts at the resigned owner and heading for the shower.
She goes first, because she's the quickest and they all know it. Their boss takes so long they sometimes feel compelled to check on him, so it would be pure madness to let him go first: Valenka prefers most of her things chilled – drinks, meals, weather, pools – but not her bathing water. Also, the obscene amount of time Le Chiffre spends in the bathroom gives Kratt time to get started on breakfast – he took to the kitchen like a kid in a candy store – and Valenka time to dry her hair, do her make-up and water her plants.
She has an arrangement with the old woman downstairs, to have someone water them when they're away; which is most of the time. Valenka was a bit wary at first, but by now she's sure the old woman has all her sons and nephews in their world, though not on sides hostile to them. They should be safe; Le Chiffre really has a good eye for locations.
The honeysuckles are already branching out on the railings: they're the invasive kind that blooms pale yellow in the fall, and strangles other plants. On the cusp of disbelievingly flattered and mildly offended, Valenka took revenge by sowing chamomile, cornflowers and, in a shaded corner, black barlows. If Le Chiffre caught on, he's not giving her the satisfaction.
The old woman taught her how to prune the honeysuckles, so that they don't smother each other growing on the same grid. When she pats Valenka's dirty hand with her own dirty hand, and tells her she really has a gift for gardening, Valenka's eyes betray her and prickle at the corners.
He got her a grandma, the goddamn idiot. When Valenka dies and gets to see her actual grandmother, she'll tell her she praised the wrong miracle-worker all along.
In the mornings, she always has the time to scrub the dirt off her nails in the kitchen sink and pick out outfits for the day. Occasionally, Kratt has her run to the store down the street for missing ingredients. Right then, walking briskly to warm up for their morning spar, she catches up on her emails, or marvels at the sun bathing the buildings in molten gold. She looks forward to the colder months.
If Le Chiffre isn't done prepping up when she comes back, she or Kratt go make sure he hasn't drowned or something, and usually drag him to the breakfast table sulking and still rubbing aftershave on his face.
Fortunately for them all, Kratt doesn't mind showering after meals, nor the inevitable cold water left.
They exercise at making their life sound normal, without forgetting old habits. If their kind of normal could ever pass as normal, she has no idea.
They eat breakfast checking news on phones and Kratt's laptop, because being home doesn't mean they can allow themselves to leave the world behind, and be surprised once they peek their heads out of the metaphorical front door. They always need to be prepared. They make plans, discuss routes to take, badmouth their old and new contacts. In a way, they never stop working.
Le Chiffre checks the stock market and rewrites security codes for his accounts, stealing fruit slices from Valenka's bowl. She updates their meeting lists for the day, and lets him have them if he looks worried at the numbers on his screen. Kratt just hides his smirk into his coffee, and gets up to slice up some more. He has a peculiar way of cutting apples, in latitudinal round slices that reveal five-pointed stars of seed pockets in the middle. It makes her think of Christmas decorations.
When they're home, they walk in bliss. All the same, they wouldn't let themselves be tricked into rosy dreams of eternity. At least, she attempted not to: those are dangerous thoughts to grow, more dangerous than guns and poisons and famished strays.
She knows their situational agreeableness has barely any spontaneity in it: it's part hard work, part co-dependence, part fierce territorial instinct. It's them clutching at control in the chaos that surrounds them, everywhere they go. Yet, those dangerous thoughts still grow, take root in her as in her companions, roots hungry for home and safety and wholeness. Hungry for things people in their world should never hunger for. Valenka guesses she never learns: without anyone to hold her back, she was always one to walk headfirst into danger.
Almost all her plants are perennials. She has no intentions of mourning any stump in winter. Her honeysuckles will cling on, braving all the storms she'll call.
She'll do the same, and so will her lovers. They carved themselves a niche of perfection, and they'll fight tooth and nail to keep it. As it is, or even better.
As long as they're alive, they're open to possibility.
They are home.