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Blood is art.
It’s wonderful, really. The intricacies of it. Red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, all adrift in plasma. Pumped around your body to deliver oxygen, nutrients, good acids and glucose. Pumped around your body to remove waste, the carbon dioxide and lactic acid swept away. Pumped around your body to fight infection, to destroy foreign bodies, eliminate the invaders.
It’s wonderful.
It’s art.
When blood leaves your body, still warm, still doing its job, it rushes to help. Forms bunches of platelets, creates a mesh of tissue, a canvas of healing.
Villanelle’s blood is dripping, running down her arm, forming a stream of rich red that’s beginning to soak into the sleeve of her blush pink Valentino blouse, blood creating pretty red blooms in the expensive silk.
They’re art, the blooms.
The cut to her hand isn’t bad. It’s not good, a splash of antiseptic and a kiss better won’t fix it, but it’s not bad.
No injury is bad unless it’s killing her. Everything is manageable until it is not. There’s no reason to think of it in any other way.
So she watches. Watches the streams, the blooms.
It’s starting to rain, and she tucks her arm closer to her body, protecting the blood from being diluted by the steady drops of water. She lifts her hand, creates a shelter with her other, cupping above the injury but not quite touching it.
Villanelle lets herself watch, let’s herself breathe. Lets the thud of her heart calm to something softer.
She doesn’t strain her ears to hear over the alarmed voices, the shouts, the very distant wail of sirens, she doesn’t.
How long has she been standing there? Standing, watching the blooms? She’s not an art lover, not in the traditional sense, but this she’s okay with. Natural art.
The wails are getting louder but she stays rooted to the spot, shoulders against the back wall of some run down London shop, below the half folded awning, not straining her ears for a familiar voice or familiar footsteps.
The injury was stupid. It was a lapse in judgement, a moment of weakness causing a stumble, causing a flung out hand straight onto a broken wine glass on a countertop.
A moment of weakness while her mind wandered elsewhere, away from the hotel room and the dead target and the overpowering aftershave, away to something warmer, more colourful.
Are there footsteps approaching? She wouldn’t know, she’s not listening for them. She doesn’t care, she’s focussed on the blooms on her shirt sleeve, not on familiar hurried footsteps and shallow, panicked breaths.
Her heart traitorously picks up its pace.
Villanelle doesn’t want to see her.
Not now, not like this. Not in a moment of emotional weakness, not when she can’t seem to pull herself away from blooms of blood and thoughts, thoughts of how the only feelings she’s felt in the last however many months have been because of one person, pretty buds of their intelligence and beauty and resilience and intensity all blooming wildly throughout Villanelle’s body.
Eve is intelligence and beauty and resilience and intensity and it’s clouding Villanelle’s blood with buds ready to bloom.
“Villanelle?”
It’s hushed, but the worry is there, the care. Villanelle holds onto it, squeezes it for all it is worth, spending one last moment staring at the blood on her sleeve before angling herself slightly differently against the wall, dropping the arm sheltering the wound to hook loosely into her trouser pocket.
She’s the image of calm, of absolute confidence as Eve rounds the corner, almost walking into her in her haste.
“Villanelle, oh my god, what happened in there?
Eve looks angry. And scared. Is she scared for Villanelle? Or of the consequences of the mess Villanelle left behind?
“You could’ve gotten seriously hurt, you idiot. And you could’ve blown our cover. You didn’t follow the plan at all, what was the point of us going through it so many times? You could’ve gotten really hurt.”
Villanelle watches the anger bloom on Eve’s cheeks, pink like peonies in the dying light outside. Pretty.
She can’t find anything to say, too busy watching Eve, watching her get more agitated, something burning in her eyes Villanelle doesn’t want to name for her own heart’s sake.
Eve seems spurred on by Villanelle’s silence.
“I can’t- I don’t want you hurt again, not after last time. Not- just be more careful, okay? And Jesus Christ, follow the plan if we make one!”
She looks at Villanelle now, her hands slowing from their anxious run through her dark curls, and her eyes flick to Villanelle’s hand.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m not.” It’s the first time Villanelle has spoken. “A scratch.”
Eve takes a step closer, blinking a little as a raindrop hits her eyelashes, reaching out to gently to take Villanelle’s hand. Fingertips soft against Villanelle’s wrist, warm against her cooling skin. Eve’s eyes dart back up to Villanelle’s.
“It’ll need stitches.”
Villanelle hums in agreement, looking away from the concerned lines on Eve’s forehead and down to the way Eve touches her so delicately, in such stark contrast to the way she’d just been speaking to her.
Villanelle’s heart thuds harder, pumps the blood and buds faster.
She glances back up as Eve does, and they find each other over Villanelle’s bleeding hand clasped softy in Eve’s own. Villanelle lifts her other hand to touch the back of Eve’s, a whisper of a touch, but enough to bring Eve’s gaze back down.
Eve says it to their hands, when she speaks.
“I don’t want you hurt.” Eve says, just above a murmur. “Please, don’t- don’t get hurt again.”
Villanelle wants to promise her that it won’t happen again, she’ll never get caught out again, she’ll stay whole, for Eve.
She can’t lie to Eve.
“I’m sorry,” Villanelle says quietly, “I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m sorry.”
Eve is staring at her now, brown eyes full of a wary sort of gratefulness at Villanelle’s apology. The hand around her injured one squeezes gently, sweetly, and Villanelle isn’t sure if Eve realises she’s done it.
“Do you have a tissue?”
Eve seems confused by the question, before noting the blood still slowly blooming on Villanelle’s sleeve. She drops her hands and roots around in her bag before pulling out a pack, tugging on the tissues inside until she has a wad of them to press against Villanelle’s sliced thumb.
A strong gust of wind brings a mist of rain at the pair, still standing below half folded awning above the shop, and Eve steps closer to Villanelle. She can feel the warmth of the shorter woman through her coat, and wonders how it is that Eve is always so warm.
But she’s closer, and dabbing gently at the cut and the blood that has slowed to a barely-there pace, blood blooming on the tissues, and Villanelle can only keep up this aloof and mysterious persona for so long when she’s this close, before the cracks start to show and those feelings come out, the ones for Eve, the ones because of Eve.
The fingertips dancing across her hand and wrist do nothing to keep the persona in place.
“Eve.”
It’s quiet, but Eve looks up from her work, eyes imploring but nervous, like she’s both afraid and excited for what will come out of Villanelle’s mouth next. She licks her lips as she stares up at the taller woman and nods her head once, slightly.
And Villanelle doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know why she said Eve’s name at all. She knows what wants to come out, but she shouldn’t, she can’t, but Eve is staring at her with those eyes, and maybe she could say it after all, maybe Eve would be okay, would like a little openness from her, would like-
Villanelle is nothing if not a risk taker.
“Can I kiss you, Eve?”
The air is cold when Eve lets go of her hands, the bloodied tissue dropping to the puddled floor between them, blood spreading from blooms to smears as the tissue soaks up the rainwater.
She misses the warmth as Eve takes a step back, looking down.
The cracks are in bloom, spreading wide, refusing to close.
She’s nothing if not a risk taker.
“Why are you acting shocked?” Villanelle’s voice is calm while her hands betray her and shake, her injured skin starting to scream at her as she flexes her fingers. “I thought you- don’t act like you didn’t see this coming.”
“I… I can’t-”
Villanelle’s low chuckle cuts Eve off, sends her another small step backwards into the rain.
“Why? Because of your husband? Because of your job?” Her voice is getting louder now, the calm tones peeling back to reveal a weakness Villanelle can no longer control. “Or because you think I’m a psychopath with no emotion or empathy, who could kill you as soon as look at you? Because we both know that’s bullshit at this point, Eve.”
The sound of her name seems to snap Eve out of her shocked stumbling, her gaze sharpening as it locks onto Villanelle’s.
“I don’t need to give you a reason to not want to kiss you, Villanelle.” She half shouts, voice fighting its way through the increasing rainfall. “Not everyone falls to their knees for you! You’re not God’s gift, you’re not special. I don’t think you’re special.”
Villanelle’s training is there, trying to claw its way back into the control seat of her mind, to operate her hands to stay still and her heart to slow down and her eyes to stop watering, but it’s failing. Her blood is pumping too fast, strong currents carrying buds that block her trained instincts, leaving her painfully human, leaving the cracks wide open.
“Then what are you doing here Eve?” Villanelle yells, voice catching on the name. “What are you doing here? Go! Stop worrying about my wounds, stop calling to make sure I’m okay, stop asking to meet me to go over work!”
Embarrassment blooms on Eve’s cheeks now, darker than the anger before which still clouds her eyes as Villanelle takes a firm step forward towards her, joining her in the downfall, immediately soaked through.
“Go, and stop caring about me, Eve!” Villanelle continues, “You can deny it all you want, but I know that’s what it is. I can see it. You care.”
Villanelle grabs for Eve’s hand again but it’s tugged away from her in a harsh pull. Villanelle laughs bitterly towards the rain clouds.
“I’m tired, Eve. I’m tired of this bullshit. You chase and you chase and you chase, and each time you have me, captured and safe and waiting quietly, you drop me like I’ve bitten you and kick me aside, only to start the chase back up again.”
Eve is shaking her head. Are those tears on her cheeks, or raindrops? But she’s shaking her head and wrapping her hands tight around the strap of her bag, knuckles going white in the dim light.
Villanelle feels the fight leave in a sudden whoosh of air, slipping out of her like blood from a wound as she stares at Eve’s knuckles. A grip so tight, from anger or fear or whatever other messy emotion Eve is experiencing, and Villanelle can’t fight anymore. Doesn’t see the point if every time, again and again, she gets dropped like she’s bitten Eve, and kicked aside.
Everything is manageable until it is not.
“Just go, Eve.” Villanelle says, voice almost lost in the rain. “That’s what you want. Just go. But please stop chasing me, I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to play anymore. This game is- it hurts, and I don’t like feeling hurt. It is new. You are the only one who has ever made me feel it like this and I- I don’t want to play anymore.”
Eve twists the strap in her hands, wet hair hanging in limp curls in front of her face. Villanelle feels her blood slow, the buds shrinking, closing in on themselves, smaller, smaller.
Eve had gifted her feelings, introduced new colours into her life she never thought she’d see, never even thought possible. Some bright, some beautiful, some viciously ugly, but new nonetheless. She thought she’d seen them all with Anna, but no. Eve’s colours were new, and they bloomed within Villanelle.
But she can forget. She can tuck them away in her mind and leave them there to fade to greys and beiges. She can get back to her life and leave Eve and this city and this job arrangement behind, and she can go back to seeing things in black and white, not a new colour to be seen. She’ll go back to bloody blooms on a target’s white shirt, and to blushing blooms on the cheeks of people she’ll bring home. And she’ll forget.
She’s starting to already, as Eve walks away from her, feet splashing through dirty puddles. The feelings and colours and buds leak out of the open cracks, slipping sadly to the floor after Eve, trying to follow her, streams of lost potential for a more colourful life for Villanelle.
Eve walks away without a word and Villanelle feels her chest empty, and it hurts but it’s okay, she’ll forget, and it hurts but it’ll be okay, hurt can’t go on forever, it can’t last forever, can it last forever? It can’t, it won’t, she’ll be okay, it hurts but-
The rain has washed most of the blood from her arm and hand, revealing the thin cut running from the knuckle of her thumb downwards. Villanelle turns away from the fading footsteps and inspects it, thinking of the first aid kit in her hotel room and the stitches she’ll need to give herself, and then what?
Her mind focuses, immediately pooling all resources into planning her next move, where she should go, where she’ll stay, who she’ll tell, what she’ll do, how she’ll stop her chest from hurting, hurting-
There’s a tug on her elbow and the hurt blooming in her chest clouds her reflexes, she’s not quick enough to kick out or swing her fist and so she’s pulled around, rain flying from the soaked ends of her hair as she braces herself.
Eve pushes the wet heir from Villanelle’s cheeks, and then there’s warmth.
Warmth on Villanelle’s lips as they’re touched by Eve’s.
They’re both still. It’s just a press of lips, a gentle tilt to Eve’s head, a soft pressure that could barely be considered real, given the lightness of it, but a press of lips all the same.
Eve pulls back a millimetre, a fraction, the tiniest space to allow her to take a breath before whispering into Villanelle’s lips.
“I care.”
And then her lips are pressing against Villanelle’s again, firmer this time, with intention this time, and the warmth spreads like gushing blood through Villanelle, colouring every inch of her in bright, bold warmth, igniting her and lifting her and blooming, blooming in her chest so there’s no room for that hurt, there’s no room for anything but the bloom of warmth and colour and Eve, Eve.
The angle changes. It changes again. Eve’s hand is still pressed against the side of Villanelle’s face, holding sopping hair away so that her intention sees no obstacle, so Villanelle helps too, brings her own uninjured hand up to slide into the soaked dark curls at the back of Eve’s head, holding her there, keeping her there, not letting go.
There’s a wet thunk as Eve drops her bag, and then a hand finds Villanelle’s waist through her drenched jacket, and they close the gap between them and they sway.
They sway in the rain, so slowly no one passing would be able to tell, so gently it could be the wind moving them, like flowers in a field, reaching out to the sun and feeling the warmth, feeling the rich colour of their own petals as they bloom.
And they bloom.