Work Text:
xxx
I have Hepatitis C.
Joan’s lungs ached as they contracted and expanded. Her nostrils flared as she forced controlled breaths out through them.
Her hand was raw. It chafed against the sturdy paper napkin in her hands. The delicate skin of her palm burned, stung, cried out in protest against the deliberate drag of the blackened material against such treacherously sensitive skin. It was a blessed relief, a salve, for the white hot imprint that Vera’s tiny, insignificant hand had left just moments before.
Joan heard the front door to her flat slam shut. The vibrations of the heavy wood door rattled against her heart, causing tight tremors to drum against her rib cage.
The ache in her lungs intensified. Her mouth opened slightly. Larger, unsteady breaths escaped her parted lips and her jaw tightened with restraint.
She rubbed the napkin against her hand harder. Deeper. Forcing the black material into the deepest lines that run along her palm but it was numb now to the self-inflicted pain that Joan forced on it.
Nothing she could do now would ever outdo the pain that Vera’s retreating footsteps had caused.
She winced as her tortured palm enclosed the chilled bottle of vodka in her freezer. The redness only accentuated by the vast difference in temperature between the frosted bottle and the heat of her skin.
You have never cared about me!
Joan barely noticed the burn of the familiar liquid as it trickled down her throat. Her frustration poured out of her, and ran down her clenched jaw in the form of a single tear.
xxx
Vera’s hands shook as she reached behind her head to forcefully remove the delicate pins holding half of her hair out of her face. A few wild curls were yanked from her scalp as she tossed the pins onto the surface of her bathroom countertop. Her shoes had been angrily kicked off and against the wall of her front foyer moments after stepping into her house. Her keys, purse, cell phone had all been tossed haphazardly onto her dining room table as she marched with purpose to her bathroom.
Vera didn’t bother looking at her reflection in the mirror. She knew what she’d find. Tear-stained, reddened cheeks and glossy, broken eyes. She jerked the handle on her faucet all the way to cold and shoved her trembling hands under the steady stream.
“Fuck,” she hissed. She let out a shaking breath and forced herself to hold her hands under the tortuous temperature until she could no longer feel the tingling from Joan’s touch lingering on her skin.
Her cheeks burned hotter still as her mind wandered back to the events that had transpired not half an hour ago. She bit down on her lower lip until she drew blood.
I do care.
Joan Ferguson didn’t do emotions. She didn’t do empathy. She certainly didn’t do remorse. Vera had been a fool to hope that the older woman might, somewhere beneath the impressive strength of her imperviousness, see Vera as anything more than a pawn on the elaborate chess board of her life.
Her declaration of her Hepatitis C status had been a test, not for Joan, but for herself. She knew deep down that the moment that she revealed herself to be diseased that tightly controlled woman would recoil in horror. What she didn’t know, what she’d fearfully discovered, was that Joan withdrawing her hand had hurt more than the stab of the fated needle to her neck had.
The pounding at the door barely registered - its rhythm so similar to the pounding of Vera’s own blood in her ears that for a few moments, she thought that perhaps the vile infection was attempting to break its way out of her. To pierce her flesh, pour out of her delicate ears and rounded nose, to remind Vera, once again, how tainted she was. How untouchable.
Her numb hands fumbled twice before successfully turning her faucet off. She brought them to rest over her fluttering chest, willing their frigid temperature to translate to her irrational heart.
How wonderful it might be, not to feel anything. A part of her envied Joan.
Her fingertips pressed firmly on her breastbone. Defiantly, her heart pounded back.
xxx
Vera knew before opening her door who was standing on the other side. There was only one possibility. One inevitability.
There was only one person who had ever afixiated Vera so firmly in her orbit.
“I was wondering how long you were going to make me stand out here,” Joan said haughtily as she walked passed Vera with her elegant head held high.
Vera blinked. She followed Joan as the taller woman lead herself into Vera’s home.
Joan’s sense of pride faltered slightly as she entered the modest home. Her skin prickled as she felt herself becoming enveloped by a domain which so clearly belonged to the fierce little mouse of a woman who was just steps behind her. Joan swallowed hard. She was not on equal footing here, not even close.
From her vantage point, she could see the doorframe to Vera’s spare bedroom. The door was closed. Joan suspected that it had remained that way since Vera had delivered the final blow to the abusive waste of human flesh and bones that was her mother. A curious shiver ran through Joan as she recalled the hardened look in her deputy’s eyes the day that she’d returned to work after the deed had been done; it was the same look that Vera was regarding her with now. Perhaps she’d been wrong about her deputy all along; her father always did warn her that the worthiest of opponents would not make themselves visible until the last possible moment. A second shiver assaulted her senses and Joan felt a rising panic grip her heart.
Vera’s nostrils filled with the familiar scent of Joan’s clean, yet surprisingly, delicately, sweet fragrance. Vera often wondered if she perfumed herself with her beloved apple and lemon-scented disinfectant. The thought caused her to clench her jaw and relocate her anger towards the towering woman who was now standing rather awkwardly in her kitchen.
Joan placed her purse on the kitchen countertop and she tugged firmly at the soft blouse which hung from her impressive frame. The sheer sleeves revealed more skin to Vera’s forsakenly curious eyes than she had ever seen before. Joan’s hair framed her face, softening it in a way that was most unnerving to Vera in this moment. The silver-flecked strands highlighted her deep brown eyes and Vera found herself biting her swollen lip in self-inflicted punishment again.
“What do you want Joan?” Vera asked irritably. She was impressed by the harshness in her own tone; at least Joan’s mentorship had been good for something, she mused.
Vera watched intently as Joan opened her mouth then shut it promptly. Those piercing eyes which always seemed to undress Vera down to her very core when they looked her up and down were strangely darting around her kitchen, searching for...something...courage perhaps? The thought alone sounded ridiculous to Vera.
“I don’t like the way things ended this evening,” Joan said finally. She watched, intently, as Vera went in for the kill.
“I don’t really care if you liked it or not. You’re not in a position to complain about how things ended,” Vera said, venom dripping from her words.
Joan’s eyes widened. Her jaw tightened and Vera could see her lips thinning.
“What do you want ?” Vera repeated.
Oh how Joan had been wrong about this delicate flower of a woman. She couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride as Vera sharpened her thorns.
“Well?” Vera prompted.
Joan’s hands fidgeted as they had at dinner. Her nostrils flared. Her eyes roamed Vera’s kitchen again before settling on Vera’s feet.
“Articulating these sorts of things…it’s never been a strength of mine,” Joan said in a low voice. Vera noted a not so subtle amount of shame in the taller woman’s voice.
“I-I regret that you were harmed in the riot. I regret that my attempts to protect you from further harm resulted in..in…” Joan stumbled and looked up hastily to meet Vera’s eyes at last.
Vera let out a shuddering breath. “Regret?” she repeated in disbelief.
Joan nodded her head. “Vera,’ she paused, savouring the taste of her deputy’s name on her tongue, “you know that it was never my intention for the prisoners to harm you. You know that we cannot negotiate with them,” her usual confidence returned as she referred to familiar protocol, “to do so would be detrimental to me. To you. To how we are perceived by them.”
Vera considered her next words carefully before speaking. “I thought that I was going to die,” she eventually said quietly. “When you watched me on the CCTV, did you see my fear?” She took a bold step towards her governor. Another. Then another until she was close enough to touch the taller woman. “Is that why you let them have me? You saw it, didn’t you? You saw my weakness and were ashamed of it,” she stated.
“No,” Joan said firmly. “I-I saw it in myself; my own fear. And I knew, I knew in that moment that I couldn’t allow them to see it too,” she said quietly.
Vera stood a mere foot from her. Joan could see the dim light of the kitchen dance across Vera’s pronounced collarbone and disappear into the deep v-neck of her wrap-around shirt. Hesitantly, Joan reached her hand out to tug awkwardly at Vera’s wrist. She was desperate to make right what she had so obviously, so thoroughly, so disastrously ruined tonight . Her heart stopped when she felt the tension in Vera’s body at her touch.
“Please?” Joan whispered. It unnerved her how desperate she was for this woman’s touch. How had this pathetic, apologetic, emotional woman reduced her to quietly begging for the simplest brush of skin on skin? How many years had she gone without knowing this touch? How many more years would she have sustained herself without it had she not so foolishly reached out to touch this woman this evening?
“Aren’t you afraid?” Vera asked. “I’m diseased.”
Joan visibly winced at Vera’s words and dropped her hand away.
Vera let out a low chuckle. It was ugly and twisted in its darkness. “Thought so,” she said quietly.
Her cheeks suddenly burned hot, the rage which she’d been keeping so bottled up in her spilled forth and she felt her lower lip tremble with the effort to stay still. “You know, I came to your house tonight thinking that maybe everyone had been wrong. Maybe Mr. Channing was exaggerating and maybe...maybe you did care about me,” her voice faltered. “But you didn’t even deny it.” Vera hastily wiped her eyes which were stinging with unshed tears. “Worse still, you rejected me. You couldn’t get your hand off of me fast enough.” A half-sob, half-laugh escaped her open mouth. “You know the messed up thing? That hurt me more that the needle. It hurt more than discovering my Hepatitis C.”
Joan took a tentative step forward. “Vera, I-”
“I think it would be best if you left now. Please,” Vera said. Her shoulders slumped defeatedly and when she looked up at Joan, the older woman noted that her deputy looked so broken, so lost, that it physically hurt her.
“I didn’t mean to reject you. I have...difficulty with disease. I don’t react well to uncleanliness. It’s...disorderliness makes me uncomfortable. Not that I am insinuating that you are unclean. I-I…,” Joan cursed herself at her own inarticulation.
Vera moved quickly. So quickly that Joan barely had time to stifle the groan that escaped her lips as Vera reached for Joan’s hands and brought them to her throat.
Joan had thought that the touch of Vera’s hand beneath hers was painful. Searing. Tortorous. It was nothing, nothing compared to the delicate softness of her deputy’s lithe neck beneath her tingling palms.
“This is where they stabbed me. This is where the infection entered my body.” One of Vera’s hands moved Joan’s larger hand across the prominent vein in her neck. “This is where it lies, being pumped through my body. This is where it will be for the rest of my life.” She pressed Joan’s hand down on her pulse.
Joan’s hands tightened. If she squeezed hard enough, she could remove the life from this frustratingly seductive body. She could remove the only obstacle in her path to complete control, the last pillar in the way of the total absence of emotion in Joan’s life. Oh how easy it would be to squeeze the delicious life out of this raging temptress. How...satisfying.
Vera’s eyes fluttered. Her soft pink tongue darted out to wet her full lower lip so that it glistened invitingly. Her hands dropped to her sides.
Joan’s fingers itched. Vera’s pulse, the shallowness of her breathing, the rising heat from her skin and the soft glow of perspiration starting to adorn her chest...it was so tempting .
Agonizingly, deliberately, regretfully, Joan’s hands loosened their grip. One dropped down to rest on her deputy’s shoulder, the other reached up to cup her angelic face. Her thumb, the one which had moments ago been pressed up against the very life coursing through Vera’s veins, traced her deputy’s parted lips in wonder. What a curious little creature she was, and what a danger to herself; for all her practiced self-control, Joan couldn’t stop what occurred next.
Vera’s hands twitched at her side. She was unsure how they managed to find their place on Joan’s generous hips. She was definitely unaware of how they’d managed the courage to gently slip under Joan’s flowy blouse to caress surprisingly soft skin.
Joan’s breathing became laboured. She wondered if Vera knew that her hands were resting on a part of her body that no one had ever dared touch. A part of her that she had never dared allow anyone to touch. She wondered if Vera knew just how much power she had over her governor in this moment.
Vera let out a soft mewl of pleasure as her thumbs slid just below the waistband of Joan’s trousers. This woman , this horrible, manipulative, gorgeous, conniving, maddening woman.
Joan dipped her head to gently nudge her lips against Vera’s; relief washed over her when her deputy did not recoil at the touch.
They fit together with notable awkwardness. They were studies in complete physical opposition. Joan’s imposing height and stature made Vera look like a doll of a woman in comparison. Whereas Vera’s defined and muscular, sinewy frame accentuated the softness of Joan’s hips and stomach, the rounded fullness of her thighs. Even now, as Joan’s full upper lip gently stroked Vera’s, it only served to highlight the fullness of the younger woman’s lower lip, where Joan herself was lacking in pliable, delicious flesh.
Vera leaned forward on the tips of her toes to meet Joan’s fumbling attempt with a tentative brush of her own lips. The soft moan that it drove from the governor encouraged Vera to draw back and regard the older woman through half-hooded eyes. Vera could count on one hand the number of kisses that she’d shared in her lifetime, and she knew, within seconds of feeling Joan’s flesh against her own that this would be her most memorable.
Joan’s eyes were fully open, darting from Vera’s lips to her cheeks to her eyes, back to her lips again. It was obvious that the older woman was attempting to commit everything in front of her to that impressive memory of hers; it was unsettling how much Vera enjoyed being the subject of Joan’s intense study.
Vera leaned forward and darted her tongue out to gently caress the older woman’s upper lip. That damned upper lip which devastated her whenever it formed into a thin line of disappointment. That delicious, soft, morsel of flesh which Vera felt overwhelmingly compelled to capture between her own lips and hold onto until she physically could not any longer. She tasted Joan’s flesh under her unsure tongue and had to hold back the moan which threatened to burst forth, embarrassingly loud, from her. She felt Joan’s sharp intake of breath at the touch and she felt a surge of confidence pulsate through her. Vera pushed her petite frame provocatively against the Amazonian figure before her.
Christ, Vera thought. She felt a distinct heat settle low in her belly; it threatened to spill into a raging fire. This felt so much...so much more than the few fumbling attempts at kissing she’d previously experienced.
Joan panted as Vera’s hands reluctantly left their place against her bare flesh which was so carefully hidden from the world to cup her face. The hand at Vera’s shoulder faltered and wrapped around Vera’s back. She found herself awkwardly crushing her chest against this dainty siren as, for the first time in her adult life, she allowed someone else to take complete control over her body.
Vera kissed her with a slow carefulness and attentiveness that made Joan’s body react in embarrassingly lascivious ways. Her jaw became slack with pleasure as Vera began to suck on her upper lip; her soft thumbs traced delicate patterns against Joan’s jaw.
“Vera, I-I…” Joan’s words caught in her throat.
I do care.
I care about you.
I love you.
I want to make you mine.
I want you to make me yours.
I want you to love me too.
The hand that cupped Vera’s face lowered to rest across Vera’s rapidly beating heart. She could feel the racing pulse beneath her fingers. What she would give to own this delicate, resilient organ.
Her petite temptress suddenly pulled back, face flushed and mouth agape.
Hot embarrassment settled deep in Vera’s chest and she felt her heart race.
“I-I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I did that,” she stuttered. “That was inappropriate of me, you-you’re my boss. We work together. Y-you...” Her anger from earlier returned, this time, it’s target was herself.
Foolish. She was so foolish to give in to hope once again. She was nothing to Joan. Nothing but a pawn. Hot tears filled her eyes once more at the realization that Joan was likely playing with her for sport; every delicious, beautiful touch they’d just shared would surely be used against her, it would only be a matter of when. Shame struck her square in her chest and she thought that she might suddenly drown in it.
Joan’s hand fell away from Vera’s chest. She stepped back and Vera felt herself shiver from the absence.
“I see,” Joan said briskly. Gone was the gently moaning, endearingly fumbling woman and in her place was Governor Ferguson at her most icy, her most dangerously indifferent.
She plucked her purse from Vera’s countertop and indelicately wiped her lips on the back of her hand, effectively removing any trace of Vera from her body.
“Ms. Bennett,” she said curtly before pushing past Vera and seeing herself out.
xxx
Vera watched anxiously as Joan exited her car. The warmth breeze that tickled the exposed skin of her face and hands did nothing to melt the icy grip currently holding her heart captive.
Joan Ferguson didn’t do emotions, Vera reminded herself. Joan Ferguson was a master manipulator and Vera was just her puppet. She pushed down the painfully recent memory of just how full the governor’s currently thinning upper lip could be when caressed just…
Vera let out a shaky breath. She’d nearly let this woman destroy her last night. Break her down to her very core and expose her to the world. She’d rather face another ten riots and another twenty disease-ridden needles than allow herself to be manipulated by this woman again.
Not a single hair was out of place, not a single offending piece of lint littered Joan’s immaculate uniform. She radiated both confidence and danger as she approached Vera.
Vera’s attempts to speak to her governor were embarrassing at best. She could feel Joan’s disgust as she fumbled for the right words.
“Um, last night is it…,” Vera started hesitantly.
“Is it what, Vera?” Joan snapped.
Vera mustered her courage. “Is it going to affect my career?”
Vera studied the face of the woman before her. The same lips that she had, just hours ago, blissfully explored twitched with obvious tension. She could also swear that she saw a distinct tightening of the older woman’s jaw accompany a flash of regret in her cool brown eyes.
“Last night never happened. After you,” Joan replied cooly.
Joan regarded her deputy as she made her way into the prison. A nagging feeling of deep regret tugged at the darkest recesses of her mind.
She recalled the feeling of that exquisite neck beneath her strong hands last night. She recalled how hot and sticky Vera’s skin at been under her fingers - her pulse had thumped so beautifully beneath them. How simple, how easy it would have been to just…
Joan clenched her jaw determinedly. Her deputy would pay dearly, deliciously for her betrayal.
Joan would annihilate her.