Work Text:
It starts like this:
During a particularly rocky week, Victor takes the car and leaves without her while she's freshening up in the Wilders' bathroom after one of their annual sacrifices. She comes out to find him gone, the others filtering out of the door, saying their goodbyes and chatting quietly—some solemnly—amongst themselves.
The sacrifices take a certain toll on everyone.
Not Victor.
He'd left just to be petty.
She's calling a car when Tina comes up behind her, hair wound up in a tight knot at the back of her head, glossy and dark. It's because she's tired, but Janet's eyes linger on that and the red lipstick, the eyeliner, the long fingers wrapped around the staff that is just now turning to a wand to be tucked away in Tina's purse, a beloved thing.
It's definitely because she's tired, because she thinks – briefly – that it must be nice. To be something precious.
(To be something precious to Tina.)
“I saw him leave,” Tina says casually, like it's okay for her to say that, to just bring up the fact that Janet and Victor are like this, always, back and forth, pushing and pulling.
Nevermind that Janet's always the one being pushed.
In retrospect she isn't surprised that it's Tina who brings it up. Rather than Catherine and Geoffrey who just look the other way, rather than Leslie who just doesn't care, rather than — oh, God forbid, the Yorkeses. In the moment, though, Janet flounders – stammers something about how yes, of course he left, he's late for a very important meeting and –
“Liar,” Tina says.
Janet stares at her, mouth slightly agape. Tina rolls her eyes at her and offers an arm. “Come on.”
“What—“
“Come on. I'll take you home.”
Janet feels like the entire universe has tipped upside down on her suddenly, but she takes Tina's arm and walks, feeling numb. Robert gives her an odd look when she climbs into the backseat of their car, but Tina sighs and tells him to drive home, she'll take Janet home afterwards and come back.
He does just that.
Janet realizes three minutes into the drive that as long as she focuses on staring out of the window and not once look ahead at the Minorus, she can pretend it isn't the most awkward experience of her life.
It starts like this:
Tina doesn't take her home after that. Instead, she takes them to a bar, five stars with 'Lounge' in the name and people lining up along the seats at the counter with pricy cocktails in hand.
“I really should go home,” Janet says as she sits across from Tina in one of the darker corners.
No one recognizes Janet as she passes through, which doesn't surprise her, really, she's the forgettable one of PRIDE, but the fact that Tina seems to go unnoticed too is a little startling. She's so terribly easy to notice.
“You should,” Tina echoes, and orders gimlets for the both of them. “Don't worry. I'll take you after.”
They don't talk, which she isn't sure if she expected or not – they don't have much to talk about, after all, but if she's being brought to a bar for no good reason she expects a little conversation, naturally. Instead they sit mostly in a silence that is surprisingly comfortable for the occasion and watch passing couples.
The drinks keep coming and Janet doesn't have the courage or the desire to say stop, and at least she knows that Victor won't care, won't even notice she's been gone unless she's still gone by the morning and that obviously won't happen.
The mistakes come into play all at once, in particular when she realizes all of the drinks are taking hold and she's had a few too many to be able to excuse herself gently. She tries, anyway, makes her way into the bathroom, is rinsing out her mouth by the time the door opens.
She looks up, half-expecting some young girl stumbling in with smeared makeup and the same urge to empty her stomach that Janet had just gotten over, but it's Tina, staff in hand, and –
Absurdly, Janet thinks – she's going to kill me.
She's going to die in the bathroom of a bar because Tina Minoru decided to take her out and ply her with alcohol and then murder her and –
Tina flicks the staff and it lights up, blinding in a way that makes Janet wince; the walls, the doors all shimmer and blur, a noise made like a lock clicking even though there isn't one.
“Tina, what do you think you're—“
Tina sets the staff against the wall, pushes her back against the chilled porcelain of the sink, and kisses her.
Okay.
Not killing.
Possibly worse than killing.
Janet's hands hover over the woman's shoulders and back, unsure of where to put them, unsure of everything but the fact that this is happening, here, now, in a bathroom. In a bar. And maybe it had all been planned, because Tina seems like the sort who would plan all of this out, but when Janet doesn't lean in and open her mouth wider for her she pulls back for a pause, something hesitant in her eyes.
Janet doesn't like it. Uncertainty on Tina Minoru is wrong, leaves a bad taste in her mouth or maybe that's because she just drank around five gimlets and threw up. Either way, she slowly leans back in and takes Tina by the hips, fingers tugging gently at the fabric of her deep red dress until she's closing the distance again, tasting like all that liquor when she kisses Janet for a second time.
It's deep and it's heavy and Janet doesn't have to kiss Tina for long to know that she's never had anything like this before; never kissed a woman, never thought she'd kiss a woman, never wanted to kiss a woman until tonight. (Maybe, maybe that's a lie.) It's obscenely wet and warm and comfortable even when she begins to ache, something deep inside of her coiling tight and then unfurling whenever Tina finds it in her to make the kiss just a little softer around the edges, like it's affection rather than – than – whatever it is.
Fingers slide too high on Janet's thigh maybe a minute later and she jerks away, panting, face hot. When she looks in the mirror she swears she sees a different person standing next to Tina, someone with flushed cheeks and red lipstick smeared all over her mouth, her chin. She's strangely gratified to see Tina short of breath right beside her.
Tina watches her watch them in the mirror, eyes hooded but wary. Janet is shivering and she isn't quite sure why, but when Tina places a hand on the small of her back, she shudders for an entirely different reason.
“We shouldn't have done that,” Janet whispers. The walls continue shining, that barrier, and she's sure she could scream without anyone else outside hearing it but she isn't willing to test that theory, isn't sure if she could even if she tried.
“We shouldn't have done that,” Tina says, turns Janet in towards her to wipe a thumb along all those lipstick marks.
It stains, because of course it does. Janet stares at their reflections again. No matter how much Tina tries, they both look like they just did exactly what they just got done doing – making out with eachother against a bathroom sink like a couple of teenagers.
Something hitches in her chest and leaves as a jolt of sharp, surprised laughter, ringing out in the silence so loudly that she claps a hand over her mouth because she forgets no one else can hear them and they can hear no one else.
“See,” Tina says, “don't you feel better now?”
“Yes,” she doesn't mean to say, but she says it anyway, blurts it out like some nervous, filthy confession. Tina's smile widens a little. “But this can't happen again.”
“Obviously,” Tina says, then takes her staff and drops the barriers that are all around them and tucks it away back into her purse and leaves. Janet follows with legs that feel like a newborn deer's.
She should know even then that it will happen again, and again, and again.
Tina keeps her promise from earlier, at least, and drives her home.
It's the first time in a very long time that she forgets to check on Victor in the lab before going to bed.
(Maybe the way it starts is when she texts Tina: fingers clasped tight around her phone, as far away from the lab as possible, as far away from Victor as possible. Maybe the way it starts is when Tina texts are you okay and she texts back yes and then no and then can I meet you for more drinks, soon, tonight and Tina says yes, of course and Janet is so relieved that she gasps there, in the yard, eyes squeezed shut and shoulders drooping with the weight of it all.)
“You know it's wrong,” Tina says, leaning up over her in a large, comfortable bed in a large, comfortable hotel, “what he does to you. What he'll keep doing to you.”
Janet falters as she so often does – there's a familiar stinging behind her eyes and something about Tina's words strike her right where she hates it the most, some deep place inside of her that she's always wanted desperately to lock away.
But Tina is good at that, hitting where it hurts, aiming precisely in the right way so that all of Janet's meager defenses crumble. Janet used to think it was cruel and now she knows the truth, now she knows that Tina is sincere in her intentions, if not a little misguided and sharp.
It still feels cruel, though. Still feels like she doesn't deserve it. Still feels like, here, in this quiet-dark-secret-sacred space, it should be purely theirs and theirs alone. No mentions of Victor, no mentions of Robert.
(There's never any mentions of Robert. Janet's tried – tried to build herself a weapon of her own against Tina, so that she would be able to open similar wounds, so that she wasn't the only one aching and thinking that maybe someone other than herself was right, but then Tina had kissed her with so much teeth that it had felt desperate and said, don't do that. So Janet stops, because if there's anything she knows how to do it's behave, and she's never wanted to behave for anyone like she wants to behave for Tina.)
Janet shivers under the soft touch of a thumb, watches it trace gentle circles into a round bruise on her hip. It's just barely there in the dim lamplight, so much so that she can pretend – if she wants to – that it's invisible, that she's untouched and pale and perfect, but Tina is touching it, touching her, so of course she can't pretend that.
It had been more of an accident this time, a slight and dismissive shove to her shoulders in the lab that sent her stumbling into a table's edge a little harder than it would have turned out if she'd been prepared for it, but Victor hadn't even looked over his shoulder at her when she hissed with pain, and that almost hurt worse than anything else.
“Don't,” Tina murmurs, here and now, shoulders sinking with the rest of her when she tips forward above Janet to kiss her.
“Don't what?” It emerges as a distracted mumble, lost in the softness of Tina's mouth, melting down against the similar softness of the bed beneath them.
She's rarely had such sweetness, and she's definitely never had it from a woman before; it feels like something rare and unique, something she can keep gentle and fluttering tucked away in her palms. Tina's given her this and it's incomparable, and she keeps that in mind whenever she's just a little irritated with the woman.
“Don't say—it was an accident, it was my fault, he didn't mean to this time. That's a cliché, Janet, and you shouldn't reduce yourself to clichés. You deserve better, and Victor deserves nothing.”
Janet swallows back the protest because she knows from past experiences that Tina would give her that long, disbelieving look that always made her want to crawl into the floor and disappear forever.
“You don't have to say that,” she says instead, turning onto her back so that she can stare up at the swooping ceiling.
“Someone has to,” Tina says, and Janet can see her expression from the peripherals of her vision, and she can't tell what it means exactly. It isn't unusual. Tina is sometimes an open book, sometimes isn't, and it's always her choice. An enviable quality.
Janet feels her jaw tense, feels the start of what promises to be a very bad migraine by the end of the hour if they keep this up. “I don't stick my nose into your family business, Tina, so don't stick yours into mine. All right?”
Fingers drift like feathers along her throat, her ribs, down her hip and thigh, probing at that same bruise enough that it aches and she flinches and Tina presses her mouth, apologetic, against the skin of her jaw, her collarbone, her shoulder.
Janet thinks she would let her poke at the bruise all day if this was what she got for it afterwards.
“You're worth plenty on your own,” Tina says lowly.
"Am I?" Janet asks.
"Yes," Tina says. "Let me prove it to you."
Tina leans over her to the purse set on the nightstand, pulls out a gun, and places it in her hand.
Janet feels like laughing, or maybe crying.
She does neither.
She curls her fingers around the cool, comforting metal and kisses Tina instead.