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When Pyrrha came home from work one particularly warm afternoon, she found Nona napping on the threadbare sofa. The sight of the sleeping girl made something soft and unfortunate stir in Pyrrha’s chest, but she tried her best to ignore it as she shook off her garisly yellow work jacket. Yellow was so not her colour.
Drawn by the sound of the front door opening and closing, Camilla came to the main room. Pyrrha knew at once it was Camilla and not Palamedes, he never managed to move so silently. Camilla stayed quiet for the sleeping Nona’s sake, but she raised her eyebrows at Pyrrha in a clear question. It was the same question she had every payday.
Without a word, Pyrrha surrendered her wallet to Camilla’s outstretched hand. Camilla flipped it open, counted the bills, and made a disappointed face at the contents. She extracted the bulk of the cash, leaving Pyrrha only with her “allowance”. While Pyrrha was in charge of earning money, Camilla did most of the shopping and, in general, was in charge of their finances. Nona and Palamedes both had been understandably excused from household tasks, so most of the day-to-day details fell on just Pyrrha and Camilla.
When their bizarre domestic life began, she and Camilla sat down and had an extensive conversation about their respective responsibilities. It had been brutal. There had been spreadsheets.
While Camilla didn’t comment on Pyrrha’s salary of the day, it was clear as a rare smog-free day, that she didn’t think highly of the amount. That was fair, the cheap dipshits in charge of the current projects were even cheaper than Pyrrha had anticipated. At least Camilla’s disappointment seemed to be directed at the money and not at Pyrrha herself for once. She and Palamedes were both very good at being disappointed with her, like a pair of beautiful, nagging wives.
Pyrrha figured that this time Camilla didn’t think she had been daydrinking their budget away, which was a fair suspicion because sometimes she did exactly that. She thought it was understandable, anyone who’d been through half the shit she had would need a drink or ten every now and then. Pyrrha let out an exaggerated sigh as she put her considerably lighter wallet back in her pocket.
“How the mighty have fallen. I would have made such a trophy wife back in the day,” she said in a low voice. “Now I feel like a participation award husband, at best.”
A laugh escaped Camilla before she could stop it, her usually severe face cracked just enough to reveal a flash of white teeth. Pyrrha savoured the small victory, making Camilla laugh was always worth the effort.
Instead of staying to continue what could have been the start of a very stupid conversation, Camilla headed back to the bathroom. She left the door open, so Pyrrha figured she was in the middle of some chores she hadn't been able to finish while Nona was awake. The kid was a sweetheart, but she had yet to master either the fine motor-control skills needed for most housework or understanding of how not to be in the way all the time.
Pyrrha was about to follow her, but then Nona muttered something in her sleep. It sounded like no, no, no. While this was a common occurrence, the unfortunate soft feeling tugged at Pyrrha’s stolen heart again and she approached the sofa with soft steps. Pyrrha ruffled Nona’s hair a bit, unsure what else she could do. Nona shifted slightly in her sleep but didn’t wake up. Whatever had haunted her dreams left her alone now that Pyrrha’s rough, scarred-up hand was there playing in her hair, and Nona stopped mumbling, and her expression softened. Pyrrha stayed by her side for a long moment.
What was she doing playing house like this? She should have bailed on them, there wasn’t anything for her here and the longer she pretended otherwise the worse it was going to end for everyone involved. Everyone she had ever loved had met a shitty but not surprising end, and there was no reason to believe this time would be any different. Pyrrha had many flaws, all of which she was aware of, but she couldn’t count blissful ignorance among them. She was not oblivious to the red flags and warning signs. This stupid daydream would come crashing down on them sooner rather than later.
Despite these thoughts, or perhaps because of them, Pyrrha followed Camilla to the bathroom where she was greeted by the sharp scent of cheap laundry detergent in the humid air. Since they couldn’t afford to use the laundromat this week, let alone buy a washing machine, Camilla had washed their clothes in the bathtub and hung them to dry on the drying rack, which took up most of the floor in the narrow bathroom. Pyrrha leaned to the doorway and watched Camilla. She was folding the dry laundry with sharp, almost violent movements to make room for the wet clothes still dripping in the tub.
“Gently, darling. It’s my shirt, not an enemy combatant,” Pyrrha said.
Camilla did not acknowledge either the pet name or the comment at all. She continued folding up laundry with crisp, precise movements, as though Pyrrha were nothing but a draft of air disturbing the threshold. Pyrrha had always been weak for when women were mean to her, so she greatly enjoyed this silent treatment.
“Do you want to make yourself useful?” Camilla asked after a while.
“Never.”
Camilla tossed a pair of dark jeans at Pyrrha. She had aimed for her face, but Pyrrha caught them easily enough. Weirdly enough, the pants belonged to Palamedes. You’d think that a man without a body wouldn’t need pants, but he had purchased a pair at the flea market anyway one afternoon when they had enough money to be impulse buying anything. The jeans were a little too long for Camilla’s legs, but both of them still wore them sometimes.
Pyrrha folded the pants up and proceeded to help Camilla with the rest of the laundry. In just a few short months the four of them had managed to amass a surprising amount of clothing. Pyrrha hadn’t really owned anything since she had had her own body, so being able to buy her own socks had been a weird luxury. Together they folded the dry laundry and hung up the wet one in no time.
The moment was so painfully domestic that Pyrrha didn’t know what to do with it. The parody of a happy family life was bad for her. It was something she was pretty sure she had always yearned for, but not something that she would’ve been any good at. She only fell for people who were one spark away from self-immolation in the name of whatever they believed in, which was not exactly a stable foundation for a happy family. And to be fair, it wasn't like she herself was any less unhinged.
And yet here she was playing house with Camilla.
Camilla caught her staring, which was not unusual, it was not like there was anything else of interest in here. She however saw something unusual on Pyrrha’s face, though Pyrrha tried her best to keep Gideon’s weatherbeaten face as blank as it would’ve been if he were still the one using it. Camilla tilted her head to the side in question.
“Something on my face?” Camilla asked.
“Not yet,” Pyrrha said with a sleazy wink that was only a bit forced.
The effect was as desired. Camilla huffed, but the corner of her mouth twitched upward. Her clear grey eyes softened despite her attempt to look unimpressed with the lousy flirt. Pyrrha could do better if she had to, she had a whole repertoire of cheesy one-liners, but she apparently didn’t need to. Camilla set the neatly folded stack of laundry on the edge of the sink and got closer to Pyrrha. This was something like one and a half steps since their bathroom was small as fuck.
Camilla put her hands on Pyrrha’s neck and kissed her. She was not short, but still had to sort of stand on her toes to kiss Pyrrha. It was a good kiss, one they had shared many times before and yet Pyrrha had a hard time easing into it, even if it had been her idea.
Afterwards Camilla placed another kiss on Pyrrha’s perpetually dry lips. A softer one this time, her mouth closed and hesitant like a question mark. She could tell that Pyrrha’s mind was not in it and wanted to see if she had changed her mind. The gesture was so considerate that Pyrrha felt a bit ill. She wasn't used to being treated with softness and wasn’t at all sure if she liked it. She was much too old to discover anything new about herself, she was sure of that.
Pyrrha kissed Camilla back, properly this time, and tried to forget for a moment how temporary all of this was.