(3121 words)
[hurt/comfort]
—
Villanelle didn't think she'd be here again.
Clutching at a part of her body, blood seeping through her fingers, except this time, she's crying.
Villanelle hates crying. She doesn't know why she's crying. It's certainly not from pain; she'd taken Eve's stab with alcohol and a good amount of screaming. But no unnecessary tears.
Thinking about Eve sends another wave of tears as she ducks into an alleyway, using her other hand to furiously wipe the water out of her face. It's to no avail as the water is quickly replaced.
Eve, Eve, Eve. The last time she'd been like this—bleeding and broken—it was after Eve had plunged a knife into her stomach. She could barely get to a hospital without bleeding out. But then, Villanelle had been high on the feeling of Eve showing her how much she cared.
But that was a long time ago it seems, and now, Eve has a fresh scar from Villanelle's bullet, and the blonde has been wracked with unexpected guilt. Guilt when Konstantin told her Eve had survived. Guilt that she didn't finish the job.
Villanelle hasn't taken her hand off of her arm since it'd been injured by that Romanian minister. Looking back in hindsight, she counts the mistakes that had happened that night.
One: Blood left at the crime scene.
Two: The man had screamed before she had shut him up.
And obviously three: Getting wounded.
This isn't her. Villanelle hasn't been injured on a job in what seems like forever, save getting stabbed by Eve in Paris. The walls she's put up as an elite assassin are breaking down. She's changing.
If Villanelle is gone, who is left? Oksana?
She wants to scream. So she does.
"Fuck!"
Her head slams back into the stone wall, most likely causing a bruise. She can't do anything but slide down the wall until she's collapsed on the floor.
If I stay here and bleed out, will anyone care?
Would Eve?
It would be a slow death, she muses to herself. Villanelle has never been one to go slowly or calmly.
If she were to die, it certainly wouldn't be from a stab wound in the arm and her own pathetic squishy feelings. No, she's better than that. Definitely more dramatic than that.
So she gets up. And she begins walking.
—
A minister found with his head fried calls Eve to Romania. As soon as she sees the photographs of the body, she knows it's Villanelle. The kill is bursting with her technique.
There was a sighting of a hairdresser that hadn't been assigned—Eve had seen this many times with Villanelle. The blonde would claim a new identity to slip close enough to her target to kill them. Classic Villanelle.
And of course, the kill itself. Not shot, not strangled, not stabbed; the man was killed with a hood dryer heating his brains until he died. Flamboyant kills, often setting up the scene of the crime like a child in show and tell—also classic Villanelle.
And Eve loves it.
Villanelle is here. Eve can feel her in the tension in the air, every step she takes, even in the sun shining in the sky.
Now, walking down a street littered with shops and an ocasional pub, Eve wouldn't be surprised if she turns around and Villanelle is standing right there, walking behind her.
