Work Text:
Dazzled
It didn’t start right away. It never does.
Nineteen, naïve and in love.
Isis is floating on cloud nine, humming along to the music as she cleans the counter. If she plays it right, she might get off a little earlier, which means she can drop by her apartment to have a quick shower before meeting with Thomas.
“Ew, gross!” Kowalski’s voice sounds from the kitchen. His head pops up next to the threshold. “Someone didn’t throw the food in the bin before putting the plates to wash,” he grimaces in disgust. “Just had a hand full of a gooey, wet cheesecake.”
Isis looks at him and snorts. “Wear gloves next time.”
He sticks his tongue out, disappears into the kitchen before coming back a second later to give her a long, suspicious look. There’s a grin on his lips. “He’s coming back, isn’t he?”
She can’t’ help it, she is beaming. “Already here. I let him sleep it off,” jet-lag is a bitch, they all knew it.
“So caring,” Kowalski coos. He pauses for a while, observing her frantic cleaning and shakes his head. “Leave, I’ll take care of this.”
Isis stops with the cloth halfway in the air. “It’s okay…”
“Leave, I’m telling you,” he makes wide gestures with his hand. “You’re… vibrating all over the place. It’s distracting. Just go. I will deal with it.”
“You sure?” man, he really was the best.
“Yeesss,” he draws the word out, catching her with a grunt when she jumps in his arms.
“Thank you, love you. Love you. Love you,” she says, dropping a kiss on his cheeks at each sentence.
Isis jumps off Kowalski, dashing to the lockers, as she throws her apron away.
“Hey, don’t forget we’re practicing for the chamber thing tomorrow,” he calls when she is already halfway outside. Isis hums and he gives her a look. “Tomorrow morning. You know how she gets. Don’t want to have her up my ass again.”
She grins despite herself. “I thought you liked having things up y—”
“Don’t,” his hand rises up to stop her. “Finish this sentence, or I swear to God you’ll be sleeping in the streets.”
Isis shrugs it off. He stares again and she sighs. “Yes, dad. I will be there.”
“Nine. Sharp.”
Nine on a Sunday, such heresy. “Yeesss. Nine, sharp,” she makes a sign that says scout’s honor, for good measure.
Satisfied, Kowalski nods. “I will get you breakfast.”
She smiles. He knows her all too well; bribe her with freshly baked pains au chocolat and croissants and Isis would follow to the Moon and back.
She leaves, the bell tingling her departure like a warning.
Isis remembered, she really did, asked Thomas to please let her set the alarm at seven thirty (eight at the latest), because she had a rehearsal and it’s very important, but his kisses are distracting, and he keeps grabbing her hand in his. The alarm ends up forgotten.
She wakes up at ten twenty to the smell of pancakes and coffee.
When she barges in for practice, Kowalski’s silence weights on her like a ton of bricks.
The bag of cold croissants sits at her place, idle.
Taking control
Little things. Small things. Not so innocuous things.
He is upset and she doesn’t know why. He is upset and she can’t figure it out. “What’s wrong?”
Thomas is glaring at the TV, scratching his cheek slowly. “Nothing,” he says in a breath.
Something.
Isis isn’t a quitter, he was deflecting, she knows. She would get to the bottom of it. “Something is obviously wrong, you look upset,” she lets it hang for a second. “Is it something I did?”
A deeper sigh, another pregnant pause, full of accusations.
It’s definitely something you did.
He turns his head, looks at her, to the side, and back at her again. Thinking. Then: “You kind of made fun of me earlier. I didn’t like it, is all,” even voice, stating facts.
“Oh.”
Dinner, with Chloé, Kowalski and a few other friends. They were celebrating the end of a particularly long and excruciating music project. Laughs, beers, greasy food and nothing but the burble of the Seine as background noise. Perfect. Or so she thought.
Isis frowns. She did poke fun at him, it’s true. Gently, always gentle. Called him a walking American cliché at some point, but she doesn’t remember when exactly. “Okay,” she smiles, a bit awkward, a bit sheepish. It was her fault. “I’m sorry,” she says, index and middle fingers raised in solemnity. “Won’t happen again, Scout’s honor.”
He smiles. Such a lovely smile. She likes it. She lives for it.
When Chloé starts to look at him funny, she tells her to knock it off.
Nineteen, naïve and in love.
Closing in on her
Twenty, losing her identity.
Isis had practically moved in at this point. It’s closer to her work, he says. There’s plenty of space, he says. She’s ecstatic. She still sees Chloé and Kowalski at the conservatory (when Thomas is not monopolizing her attention) or at work. It’s not the same, she knows, and they know. Kowalski gets this look sometimes, like he wants to say something, but he keeps his mouth shut and sighs instead, with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Chloé is less accommodating. They argue (they never did), she hints at things and Isis doesn’t like how she makes it sound.
Like she’s giving up a part of herself. All of it, Chloé says, in her eyes there’s a mix of frustration and worry (“How can you be so blind?”)
Isis is okay. (“What the hell is your problem, Chlo?”)
She’s not a puppet.
Not a puppet.
Not his puppet.
…
The months blur together.
He frowns and her heart is racing again. Isis does a mental check-list of everything, out of habit, just in case. Nothing is out of place, she didn’t forget anything. Everything is fine. Then, why is he frowning at her?
Thomas approaches her. He relishes in her doubts. Control. His fingers running through her hair slowly. “You should put it up, it would look nicer. Or just straighten it from time to time,” he’s smiling.
Just a suggestion. An option.
Later, when she does it, his eyes twinkle and he smiles again. He is lovely like that. When he takes her to bed that night, he tells her how beautiful he thinks she looks. He takes locks of hair in his fist, twirls them around with his fingers, looks at her like she is the most beautiful canvas in the world.
After that, there are… other things. Clothes, shoes, makeup. Exactly the way he wants, exactly as he asks. Never imposing anything, always suggesting. And that smile, that smile!
Isis forgets herself for that smile, because that’s how she loves. It’s full on, or nothing at all, there’s no in-between.
“We made it!” she barges in his—their place one day. “We’re going on tour!” she almost shouts, all crazy energy and vibrating with joy. His glare is fleeting, but it’s there. Isis hunches over herself and apologizes with a sheepish smile.
He grins, opening his arms wide for her to jump into them. And she does exactly that.
…
Obeying him because that’s what she was good at. Like a good puppet.
“Did you pick up the scores for Friday’s rehearsal?”
It was Monday. They still had time.
Of course, she didn’t. They both knew it. “I’ll go tomorrow.”
A sigh, a look. A teacher scolding a difficult pupil. “You always put things back to the following day.”
No, she wanted to say. No, she wanted to scream. Didn’t he see everything she had done already? Didn’t he notice? The hair, the clothes and the makeup? Wasn’t it good enough?
Wasn’t she good enough?
…
The first time his eyes stray to Manon, she doesn’t notice. Doesn’t think much of it the second time. The third, she wants to call him out, but he looks back and his eyes say don’t you dare.
Isis keeps her mouth shut. Like a puppet.
Crumbling
Isis is going crazy. She’s up, she’s down, she’s sideways with stress eating at her brain. The new conductor of Paris’s Philarmonie just fired half of his orchestra. No question asked, pack your bags and get out. Rumor has it he was out for blood.
Rumor has it he might consider handpicking a few of them. Isis wants to believe it, but she doesn’t let hope cloud her judgement. She knew they had struck big with the tour months ago, knew he had noticed them. This could be the chance of a lifetime.
“You’re distracted,” Isis flinches. His voice is grating (it never was before).
It’s like he is trying to drill her down when he stares at her like that.
“Something on your mind?” Thomas prompts.
What are you hiding is what she hears. There’s a lump in her throat, and it crawls down all the way to her stomach, it knots, and knots until she feels like she can’t breathe.
I need to breathe.
But he’s chocking her with his words, with his eyes looking at her like that, he’s smoldering her with his presence. And. She. Can. Not. Breathe.
Her hand is flat on his chest, pushing him away a little. She wants to take it back but he grabs it, keeps it in trapped under his own. Keeps (forces) her with him. Isis can’t fight, she doesn’t have it in her anymore.
She spills the beans. The conductor, the orchestra, the maybes. Everything.
Thomas frowns, then smiles. Big. Bigger than she's ever seen. It’s beautiful.
(It’s terrifying).
“That’s wonderful,” he says.
His arms slither around her frame, she searches and searches but there is no comfort in his hug. It’s a cage. A cage she doesn’t have the strength to escape anymore, so she lets it happen, smiles when he pulls back to kiss her. His lips taste bitter on hers, like ash.
He doesn’t smoke.
…
Thomas visits her at work one day, puffing his chest, proud and parading like a peacock. She feels the dread, feels the lump growing and knotting and hurting. Her hands start shaking, she knows, he doesn’t have to say it. She knows.
“The conductor wants us to audition,” and he looks so happy. “That’s great, right?” his hand comes to caress her cheek, travels, his fingers curl around her neck and stay there for a bit. “We’ll be together, can you imagine? Us in the same orchestra?”
Isis can, and she doesn’t want to. It’s her thing. It’s always been hers. It’s hers. Hers. If he gets in, it won’t become theirs, but his. His. Like her.
She barely has the strength to nod, her voice is meek when she says, “Great.”
Kowalski is watching the whole scene. Thomas is scrutinizing her face like a hawk. “You don’t seem happy?”
Why can’t you be happy for us?
Isis blinks, she is at a loss. “I—I am. I j—just—just… I’m…” the stuttering is all over the place because she can’t breathe. Thomas takes up all the air in the room.
“She’s tired, dude,” Kowalski’s low baritone wraps around her like a safety net. He comes next to her, all grins and shiny chocolate eyes. “We all are, look at us,” his hand is pointing at the rest of the staff. They are more sluggish than usual. “Let her be, you guys will celebrate tonight.”
It’s her out. Isis takes it. Kowalski’s grabs her hand under the counter, she doesn’t let go. Thomas looks at them, back and forth, back and forth. His hand is still on her neck and he is still smiling.
“I’m sorry, you’re busy,” he lets go, leans in to kiss her cheek again.
(it burns).
“I’ll see you tonight,” she says, barely a whisper.
When he finally leaves and Kowalski looks at her, she blinks. Her eyes are shining but the tears don’t fall.
“You don’t have to stay with him,” is all he says.
(His eyes speak volumes. A thousand words).
“I know.”
She knows. She just can’t.
…
When it happens, it’s not really a surprise. Isis is hunched on the cold toilet seat, frowning at that little white rod like it was going to change its mind if she glared at it long enough. Her eyes blur and Chloé is pacing like a tigress trapped in a cage.
“Isis,” she growls, then blinks. Softer: “You can’t stay in there forever.”
There’s only silence on the other side. Isis blinks and blinks because she can’t bring herself to cry. It’s too much.
It’s not that she never thought about it. She did; but not like that, not right now.
Not with him, her mind supplies. She tunes it out.
Not with him.
Not with him.
The thought buzzes around in her head when she finally opens the door. Chloé is there, her face creased with worry. She takes Isis in a hug, wraps around her like a blanket and lets her shake. She doesn’t say anything, they already spoke. Isis knows. Isis knows.
(She’s not sobbing.)
It’s a virus, replicating within herself, feeding off her cells.
…
It takes her three weeks to tell the news to Thomas. She tries to convince herself that it’s not out of fear, she just wanted to make sure. Use other sticks, other brands, blood tests and what not. They all come back positive, the nurse announcing her pregnancy with a finality akin to a death sentence.
(It’s not the same, she knows it’s not. It just feels that way.)
Isis doesn’t want to keep it. Kowalski doesn’t say a word and just nods, Chloé keeps her arm wrapped around her shoulders. Their support is a given.
She won’t keep it.
(He will want to keep it.)
(Trap her.)
(Deeper.)
Isis doesn’t make a sound when she comes in the apartment that night. She is exhausted, bloodshot eyes and sticky cheeks. Silent tears to give her the courage to face him.
Chloé is waiting at the(ir) apartment. She wanted to come, but Isis didn’t let her. She had to do this alone. It was between them.
She breathes, her hunched body expending, growing taller as she inhales.
There’s a grunt. Faint. Female.
She frowns, takes a step forward and blinks when it comes back.
A bit louder. Muffled.
Her heart is beating, beating, beating.
Beat. Moan. Beat. Grunt. Beat. Thud.
It’s not what she thinks.
(It’s exactly what she thinks.)
Leave. Now is your out. Leave. LEAVE.
Isis doesn’t turn back.
…
Her mother’s eyes are still bleary with sleep. Worried. Isis hasn’t said a word. It’s been hours and she hasn’t said a word. She’s staring a hole in her mug of disgustingly lukewarm chocolate.
Beat. Moan. Beat. Grunt. Beat. Thud.
It’s all she hears, like a broken record.
Beat. Moan. Beat. Grunt. Beat. Thud.
Her brain is always on, and so she surprises herself trying to turn this into a song. A sick melody of quivers.
Heartbreak in D minor.