Chapter Text
Team Lannister was winning.
Edith frowned at the mason jars stuffed with quarters, a few dimes, and several crumpled one-dollar bills. It made no sense that the ones marked “partners” and “siblings” in her own tidy handwriting should be half as full as the third jar, and yet-
That stupid sign. Had the glitter glue, rhinestones, and faux-medieval lettering really been necessary?
“Face it, Ede,” Tonya had said, slapping it firmly on the smooth plastic counter, “they look like twins and keep making goo-goo eyes across the table. Everyone’s thinking it; I’m just saying it.”
And so, in spite of her insistence that Hot Goths One and Two were definitely not incestuous siblings, the galling Lannister jar had steadily filled up. Its contributors were always so smug about it, too- shooting her significant looks every time they shoved in another bill. As if they were already divvying up the loot in their minds. Assholes.
She resolutely dropped two quarters from her last shift in the “partners” jar, straightened her apron, and turned back to the counter.
“I can help whoever’s ready,” she said, pitching her voice to carry across the café’s usual bustle.
Speak of the devil. A tall woman in a long black dress squeezed the pause switch on her earbuds and stepped forward.
“Medium earl gray, please,” she said, with a polite smile that didn’t reach her gray-green eyes. “No need to leave room for anything.”
Edith selected a cup, scribbled the order on it, and paused with her Sharpie hovering above the white paper surface. “Lucille, right?”
The woman’s eyebrows rose. “You remembered.”
“You come in every Wednesday.” Edith scrawled the name, capped her marker, and slid the cup down the prep counter. “It’d be hard to forget. Not exactly a common name anymore, either.”
“Usually I get ‘Lucy,’ if they even try.” She sounded faintly amused, under a heavy layer of sardonic.
Edith made a mental note to talk to Ed about that. He worked the midday shift on alternate Wednesdays, and had the listening comprehension of a distracted chihuahua. All high, Victorian collars and stark angles (from the pointed lace at her cuffs to the dramatic lines of her cheekbones)… it was impossible to imagine Hot Goth One as a Lucy.
Lucille, she repeated in her mind as if to fix it permanently. Even if the employee nickname was far more apt.
“You’d know all about uncommon names, though, wouldn’t you?”
She looked up sharply from the register, glasses slipping down her nose a bit. “Hm?”
“Edith.” Lucille nodded towards her hand -lettered nametag. The black plumes on her small, slate-gray hat bobbed with the motion. “Not really the thing for Millennials, was it?”
“Uh, I- I guess not,” Edith stammered. It was the longest conversation she could recall anyone having with either of the Hot Goths, and somehow that person was her. The urge to look around for hidden cameras was overwhelming.
“So, old-fashioned parents, then?”
Edith shook her head, feeling a strand of hair creep loose from her precarious topknot. “Classic literature. They named me for Edith Wharton.”
“The Age of Innocence, right? Never could get into it, I’m afraid.” Lucille seemed to be scribbling something on a napkin, just behind the tip jar and thus out of sight. “Is there a last name to go with that?”
“Ah-”
The bells taped to the door-frame chose that moment to jingle, heralding the arrival of an extremely harried-looking businessman. Edith sent up a silent prayer of thanks to whatever gods watched over baristas.
“Listen,” she began, fixing on her best regretful expression, “I’m really sorry, but-”
Lucille slid a five-dollar bill across the counter, zipped her wallet, and slid it back into some hidden pocket at the side of her swagged velvet skirt. “Say no more. $3.25, right? Keep the change. I’ll leave you to your lattes.” After slipping the folded napkin and another dollar into the glass jar marked “TIPS”, she strode off towards the pickup counter.
Edith took a deep breath in and out, silently counting backwards from five. She punched the appropriate buttons on the register, counted out change from the five, and dropped it into the tip jar. She smiled and made small talk about nothing at all while keying in the businessman’s cappuccino. Finally, when no further tasks presented themselves as distractions, she fished out the scrap of paper.
The folds fell open to reveal, in handwriting so neat it almost seemed like a script font:
Your secret is out, Miss Wharton.
------------------
Someone, Edith thought, really ought to make a PSA on the dangers of distracted baristas. Operating an espresso machine lost in thought might be less lethal than texting and driving, but that didn’t magically heal steam burns.
Watching cloudy ointment ooze from its shiny white packet and onto a reddened patch of skin, she turned the neatly written words over in her mind. For about the thousandth time. She couldn’t know. Could she? How?
Band-Aid on. First aid kit closed. Wrapper crumpled and tossed into the waiting trash can along with the ointment packet. Pull the grimy chain dangling from the ceiling and the single lightbulb went out. Motions so simple, her mind could roam as it pleased and not miss much.
Unfortunately.
(She hadn’t even told Alan. Nobody, ever. Nor written it down. Certainly said nothing on the barren Facebook page where ex-classmates wished her graduation photo a happy birthday every October. And she was so careful, always. Someone would have to watch her constantly, from every angle, to know. Unless Lucille could be with her each day, every second, she couldn’t-)
The door swung open, letting the color, light, and noise of the face flood her senses.
Lucille was there.
Across the usual ordered chaos, looking entirely out of place between a young man with a posh Scandinavian stroller and a gaggle of neon-haired teens. Same black dress out of an old-timey painting. Same tiny, round sunglasses. Staring at Edith intently, with her…brother? Boyfriend? Whichever, at her side.
Their eyes met- or so Edith thought, staring down that blank, tinted glass circles. She turned slightly to whisper something in his ear. Edith abruptly found another set of eyes, these unguarded but no more sympathetic, fixed on her with the same wilting intensity. Lucille’s thumb idly stroked the back of his hand on the table, and for a brief, mad moment, Edith was struck by how very attractive they both were. The contrast of ivory skin and chestnut hair, chiseled features, those eyes even if only two of the four were visible…
“Team Lannister.”
A rather undignified yelp burst out of her. Much she’d prefer the more mature, dignified “shout,” the sound she just made could be called nothing of the sort. And it was lucky she hadn’t been holding steamed milk this time- not just for her own sake, but for the body she dimly noticed standing far too close behind her.
Over her shoulder, Tonya smirked. “You see it now, huh? Way too close; way too similar-looking. Who acts like that with a normal sibling?”
“They’re not that similar,” Edith replied when she at last found her voice again. “His eyes are blue and hers are green. And she has straighter hair.”
“God.” Ice cracked and shifted as Tonya stirred her drink absently with a much-chewed green straw. “You really are a bisexual disaster, aren’t you?”
“Hey!”
“Takes one to know one, and I know that look way too well. But then, I’m not the one lusting over incest twins, so…” she trailed off, eyeing Edith dubiously.
Who, for her part, snatched up a nearby spray bottle and spritzed an emphatic burst of blue cleaner onto the counter. She yanked a dingy rag from her apron pocket and applied it to the cleaning fluid with frankly unnecessary vigor. “Being observant is not lust.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” With that parting shot, Tonya wandered towards the harried-looking jogger at the remote pickup window. Her mind, it seemed, was made up.
Meaning the entire shop’s would be in two hours. Perfect.
Fighting back a groan Edith forced herself to smile and turned to the man who’d just approached the counter. “Hi,” she chirped, almost too brightly. “How can I…help…um.”
Her voice died in her throat. Hot Goth Two stood before her, looking slightly sheepish.
(“My girlfriend and I love your vibe,” some incongruously meme-ridden corner of her mind snickered. Well, a proposition would put that absurd Lannister theory to rest, wouldn’t it? Incestuous siblings wouldn’t be so careless as to attempt bringing an outsider into their forbidden love.)
“Hello” he said with half a smile. “Since you and Lucille have become acquainted, I thought I’d best introduce myself.”
He dressed like Lucille, even, she noticed. An old-fashioned suit, dark, with some sort of elaborate waistcoat. Silk, she thought- maybe called brocade? That woven-in pattern that caught light along its threads. Wracking her brain for one name among hundreds, she ventured, “Theo?”
“Thomas,” he corrected, chuckling. “Thomas Sharpe. Though with as many people as you meet in a day, I’m still impressed.”
It did ring a vague bell, now she thought harder. His usual order was something tea-based. Maybe some sort of pastry, too. A scone? But that precise accent, ripped right from Downton Abbey- he’d doubtless be scandalized by what passed for scones here.
“Though you might know me better as Green-Tea-Milk-Vanilla-Scone.”
Huh. So their contract bakery out in the suburbs met with British approval after all.
“Nice to meet you.” Since no line seemed to be forming behind him, for once in hours, she added, “Edith Cushing. Though I suppose you already knew that.”
“The Edith part.” His eyes sparkled as if pondering a secret, and she had a sudden fancy that he’d probably received some of those scones with a wink and a deep discount. Some softness in his face- beautiful, she thought, more than handsome -made her want to trust him implicitly. “Cushing is new. Like the actor?”
“No relation, unfortunately. The usual?” Once again her hands moved of their own accord, grabbing a cup and uncapping a marker to write his name.
Thomas shook his head. “Not today, thank you. I’ve just come to deliver a message.”
“And what might that be?” she asked. Once again, her unconscious mind came to the rescue and closed the marker before it could dry out. She cradled the empty cup absently, eyes fixed on his face.
Which creased into an even broader smile. This one didn’t quite seem to reach his eyes. “She said you talk like an old novel. She was right. Has anyone every told you how intriguing that is?”
Charming. Flattering. Too flattering. Mixed with the almost tragic good looks, it painted a very suspicious picture. She slowly rolled the cup from hand to hand, not looking away, refusing to give him an inch.
“Thank you,” she replied crisply. “What’s the message?”
No proof. She was so careful around the cameras. Brazen it out, that was the ticket.
Thomas- laughed again. It wasn’t a particularly amused sound. His gaze slid away from hers to fix on the newly-scrubbed counter.
“Right to the point. I have to admire that.” He cleared his throat quietly.
“Lucille says- I told her you wouldn’t understand, but she says she knows all about your little Aqua Tofana. She wants to talk. In private, of course.”
Ridges of waxy paper cut into her palm as the cup crumpled. The quiet hum of conversation and light jazz faded beneath the pounding that rose in her ears. Thomas dared a glace back up at her, but she barely noticed.
Aqua Tofana. Oh, she understood, alright. For once, being a massive nerd who read 17th-century trial records paid off. So much care, so certain that no-one had noticed…and now.
Now. She was lost
The A/C, always turned to blasting, now felt truly arctic. Somehow draining, too- a winter wind stripping every bit of warmth from her blood.
It had to end, whatever this game was. As soon as possible.
“The back,” she heard herself say, a thousand miles away. “Five minutes. And tell your girlfriend-” it slipped out before she could think, but he didn’t react. "-that I don’t take kindly to blackmail. Plenty of drain cleaner back there, and no camera.”
A bluff. A mistake. Empty bravado, and surely someone as penetrating as Lucille would notice.
Maybe.
------------------
“And there are no security cameras back here?”
“No. Never have been.”
“That seems…ill-considered.”
Edith shoved an ancient box of latex gloves in front of the door, straightened, and brushed dust off her jeans. “It is,” she said briskly. “But Timothy needs his privacy to do cocaine- that is, paperwork.”
Lucille’s eyebrows rose. “Shouldn’t that get Timothy sacked, not indulged to the point of idiocy?”
“District manager,” Edith replied. “The store managers like the freedom. And in our case, we’re better for it. If Tonya wanted the extra responsibility, she could be running the whole region inside six months. Luckily for us, she prefers the extra gardening time.”
“And so, no cameras.”
“Not a one.” Some part of Edith’s mind turned the phrase over and over. The kind of archaic language that would get her an eye-roll from Hacky Sack Dan, and half her other coworkers. The sort she’d ordinarily temper before it escaped her lips; make it more modern, make it stand out less. Standing out was not for the likes of Edith Cushing. But the Sharpes- no, no, Thomas Sharpe and Lucille of the unknown surname; why had she thought that? -brought it out in her. She wasn’t sure she minded.
As Lucille looked about with mild interest. Edith seemed to see the room afresh through her eyes. Metal shelves sagged alarmingly under boxes of gloves and wooden stirrers, sugar packets and bio-plastic cup lids. The flotsam of years filled every corner, from folding chairs to- for some reason lost to time – a municipal fire hydrant. The requisite layer of indeterminate grime coated the walls, obscuring their original color. The floor was even worse. She wasn’t certain just what made it so sticky underfoot, and she didn’t particularly want to know.
Hardly the appropriate setting for this conversation. Shouldn’t they have been in the torchlit hall of some crumbling castle? Or at least a police interrogation room?
She’d long expected to end up in the latter, after all
“It wasn’t supposed to get this far,” she burst out, after a long moment of silence. "I'm not like Giulia Tofana, at all. I didn't plan anything."
Lucille tilted her head to one side, just a little bit. “Care to elaborate?”
“I-” Edith blew out a heavy breath. She slid down onto the nearest unmarked brown box, almost as if her knees had given way. “You have to understand, the first time, it was justified. I mean, really justified. The man was a monster.”
“Was he? Was he, truly?”
“Yes!” Her head snapped up, eyes blazing. “If you could have seen- his girlfriend flinched when he raised his hand to stretch! And he laughed at her!”
“Some might say,” Lucille replied evenly, “that you could have gotten her help. There are hotlines, you know. Shelters. People who dedicate their lives to being an ear on the other end of a desperate phone call. You might have gone home feeling warm and accomplished inside just by writing down a string of numbers.”
She wasn’t meeting Edith’s gaze. She also wasn’t blinking. What looked like the world’s oldest grease stain on a concrete wall had suddenly fascinated her, to all appearances.
“You never needed to think of her again.”
Edith shook her head slowly. “I couldn’t do that, though. Because…how did I know someone else would actually help her? I can’t control other people’s actions. Only my own.”
Finally, a blink. Just one. “How very self-actualized. Isn’t that what they call it?”
“I don’t know,” Edith said. “I just know that there was a can of some cleaning powder in the bathroom, and he wasn’t paying close attention, and then it was like watching someone else slip into the back and shake some into her hand.” Her voice grew distant. “God, I was so scared, afterwards. Because they’d trace it, right? Surely someone would notice that he got sick right after coming here. I kept waiting for the police to burst in, or a SWAT team like in movies. Morgan almost sent me home; I spilled at least five drinks.”
“But nobody came.”
“But nobody came,” Edith echoed. Her brow furrowed as she regarded the shadowy figure staunchly refusing to lean against the wall.
“So you turned poisoner.”
“It's not like that. Laxatives are hardly poison,” she muttered. One hand raked through her hair, shoving back the blonde waves only to have them spill forward again. “Some assholes probably just had a really terrible weekend. Hopefully the people who had to put up with them for longer than fifteen minutes got a bit of a respite, at least.”
A little hum met this statement. It could have meant anything or nothing. Lucille straightened the lace cuff of one sleeve, and brushed invisible dust off her skirt.
“Are you familiar with dysentery?” she said at last.
Edith blinked, several times more than her companion had in the last hour. “Um. Like from ‘Oregon Trail?’”
“I suppose a lot of people got it on the Oregon Trail, yes.” A faint, joyless smile tilted the corners of Lucille’s lips. “Diarrhea can prove fatal. It causes rapid and severe dehydration. If not properly treated, it can lead to serious illness and even death.”
Edith’s foot slipped off her knee and hit the dingy floor with a bang. “I haven’t killed anyone; I definitely never gave them enough-”
“The Dancing Cup is weighing its customers now? Checking their age? Other medications they may be taking; controlled substances they might use?” Lucille chuckled dryly. “Unless you’re heaven’s gift to pharmacopeia, you can’t judge appropriate dosages from a five-second glance at someone. You might have given them twice the amount needed for the desired effect.”
Silence makes quiet sounds deafening. The buzz of the ancient lightbulb, bare in its socket above, became an ocean’s roar in the seconds that followed. And Edith’s breath became a speeding car’s engine.
“Do you think I could have…?” The question, so soft as to be nearly inaudible, trailed off at the end. Edith’s hair hung like a curtain around her face, and this time she made no move to push it back.
Lucille shrugged. “Probably not. If their symptoms lasted too long, they’d likely have gone to the hospital. IV fluids and the like- they’d be fine.”
“Oh. Good.” Edith began to look up, just a little, just the tiniest lifting of her head.
“But what I want to know is…” A few rustling steps, and her vision was full of black silk, just as that crisp, low voice filled her ears.
“Would you do it again? Are you going to stop?”
For another moment, muffled conversation from the café drowned out the quiet. And then-
“I- I don’t know.”
And now she could feel Lucille’s eyes boring into the top of her head. A second later, a cool, pale hand brushed her hair aside and tilted her chin up in one swift motion. She found herself staring right into those unreadable green eyes.
“You’re very beautiful,” Lucille said softly. “Pretty poisoner.”
Bending down, she kissed her.
In the next few hours, Edith would wonder if she had imagined it. The press of lips to hers was as hot as those fingers were chill, urgent and insistent. For a moment only, before Lucille stood composed and expressionless above her once again.
“The indomitable Tonya will think we’re doing something untoward,” she said crisply, glancing towards the door. “And I think there’s nothing more that need be said.”
Stunned, almost shell-shocked, Edith led her back out to the dim corridor behind the back wall, and around to the main counter. She heard herself rattle off some empty explanation about a book club, and a scheduling question. Lucille played along without so much as a blink.
(When did she blink? Edith had only noticed twice since she and Thomas had walked in. She had to be blinking, right? Everyone blinked. Unless she was secretly some human-lizard hybrid.)
Her mind raced as Lucille laid a friendly hand on her arm, thanked her for settling their imaginary dispute, and headed for the swinging half-door at the end of the counter. The fog that seemed to have descended between her and the world muffled the actual words, and she seemed able to do nothing but stand and stare as that carefully-gathered ebony velvet skirt retreated in the opposite direction.
She almost didn’t notice- would wish she hadn’t noticed, later -when Lucille paused by the three jars, read the labels, and smiled just a little.
And, glancing back to meet Edith's gaze for a moment, dropped a quarter into “Team Lannister.”