DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but my own name.
SPOILERS: Spoilers for Season One, then we go off script and into a possible future. Love, angst, introspection, and spy stuff.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
FEEDBACK: To spheeris1[at]yahoo.com
The Two of Us In the Unknown
By spheeris1
You've seen the results. More times than you can count. You've seen the aftermath – here's where the storm hit, broke the walls, caused death, red stains on the floor – you've seen what she can do.
And it used to scare you. Maybe it still does. In a way.
And it used to disgust you. Maybe it still can. Sometimes.
But you've never seen the attack, the moment where safe goes to terrifying; you've never been in the eye of her rampage, of the sheer glee she bathes in when she kills. You've kept your distance – for your own sake, sure, and for the job itself, for the soft and subtle lines that neither of you are ready to cross.
You've kept your distance. Because you must. Because what if you can't stand her then, stripped of the fine fashion and the blunt quips, smile coated in blood instead of the wetness between your thighs? What if you can't hold her close, knowing beyond a shadow of a slim doubt, what she can – and loves – to do?
Or, more disturbingly, what if you see it all and want more?
You are paid to keep her in check. Paid to keep her in line. It can be tedious. It can be exhausting. But then you have this other life – just like always, just like fucking always – and she's in your bed, taking up all the space, and she is kissing you, lips a delicious battering ram against your cheek, and she's your work and she's your pleasure and fuck fuck fuck...
One morning, she's chattering on about something and you simply walk away. Walk away while you still can. Walk away while you are still yourself and not just a moon in orbit of her existence. Walk away because so much of you wants to dissolve into her, wants to know her to the point of being in her goddamn bones.
She comes after you, indignant and petulant, and you fight in your backyard about nothing, about everything.
"Don't be so boring, Eve."
And, really, she couldn't have insulted you more if she had tried.
"What do you need?"
"I need you to... to..."
"Hmm? Yes? I'm waiting, tell me."
"Just fucking--"
"Fucking, yes, this is what I am doing."
"Asshole...", and she digs her nails into your thigh, you wince and burn and hate and adore, and she nips at you, teeth for teasing, "...if you don't make me come right now..."
"What? You'll pitch another fit?"
You close your legs around her head, squeezing as hard as you can, and you can hear her muffled laughter and the sound ripples through your body and you get what you want anyway.
Hours later, as she dresses slowly, she glances at you over her shoulder. You don't look at her but you feel it all the same. You feel her everywhere. As you have since almost the beginning – her face, her cleverness, her psychotic moves, her everything – you feel her from your head to your toes.
"Come with me."
"I can't, other jobs to take and new killers to keep an eye on."
She grins at you and you want to smile at her so badly that it hurts. Your mouth twitches anyway.
"Forget them. I'm still your favorite."
She's right, of course, the bastard. You stretch instead of answering and she falters like always, torn between her own sense of smugness and the lines of your body. And she lays her hand on your hip, tender when she is anything but that.
"Come with me. See what I do and maybe you'll... relax."
You admire her so much for being careful with her words that you nearly agree right there, fuck the job and the responsibilities, you'll pack a bag and watch her work – from start to finish this time – and you'll take the chance, you'll soak it in and see if what niggles at you is the fear of losing her or the fear of one day becoming her.
She nearly has you. All of you. So completely, so thoroughly. It's so close that you can taste it. And so can she.
"Maybe next time."
You rise up to kiss her lips and she sighs, resigned, onto your tongue.
You are not a killer.
You have rage in you and you have fascination, you can wound with your words and your callous actions. You got close to the edge – just once, just with her – and the satisfaction, the sensation of revenge and justice and besting the very best...
...it was thrilling.
It was thrilling and you felt exalted, as if all the shifting and turning of your world had led to this very moment. It was heat and it was power. It was heady, better than any drink or any sex you had ever had.
And then it was chaos. Utter and total chaos. And shaking. And horror. And rich, red blood – on her, on you, on the bedspread, on the wooden slats, under your nails, buried in your clothes.
The high went away then, replaced with regret and terror and confusion. And you've spent an inordinate amount of time tucking all of it away, storing it somewhere deep and dark.
I am not a killer, you say to yourself. Every day, you say it.
Are you sure, you whisper back.
You don't call her often, but when you do, she always answers. Like clockwork – nine in the morning, midnight, somewhere around four a.m. – she always answers your calls.
Until she doesn't. And you don't know who was watching her this time, but you've already decided they are all incompetent compared to you. Everyone knows that she is yours – yours to control, yours to chastise, yours to praise, yours to chase – but still, no one has heard from her since two weeks ago.
You call. She doesn't answer.
You trace and track. There are eyes and ears everywhere and yet they only come back with hints, with rumors, a flash here and there.
You call. She doesn't answer.
"If you are fucking with me, I swear to god... I'll kill you myself."
It's the last message you leave before you board a flight for the last location she was supposed to be at. And you dream of her, of mirrors and oceans, of your mother's voice, of ice and of someone tugging you, tugging you endlessly to some distant shore –
is it you... you or me... do you still feel the knife in your stomach... in my hand... are you lost... or am I?
- and you jerk awake, hot cloth held to your face from a tired looking flight attendant, and Kangerlussuaq looms below.
You've kept your distance. You've stayed away from what makes her vital, what makes her live and breathe. You've kept a space for you to still retreat to, in times of need.
You are not a killer. I am not a killer.
You've kept you distance. For your sake. For yourself and yourself alone. You've held back from knowing the final piece, from sinking so far into it that you know you'd never come back out.
You are not a killer. I am not a killer.
You've stayed away, even as she's asked and even as she has taunted. You've kept the fire near you but never let it touch you. Not again. Not again, that's what you've been doing.
I am not a killer. I am not a killer.
You don't long for blood. You don't want to watch the light go out of a stranger's gaze. You don't want to hear their last gasp for air. It's not fun. It's not a game, no matter what she says.
I am not a killer. I am not her.
You've kept these lines in place. You've kept them there for a reason. She wants you to lose yourself in her. And a part of you wants the very same. God, do you want it... But every time, you walk away – physically, mentally, whatever way you have to – and you keep your distance.
And yet.
And yet you are wild.
And yet you are curious.
And yet. And yet. And yet...
You've kept your distance and she's let you do so for as long as she can. You can't really blame her for getting impatient. After all, you know her as well as she knows herself.
You are not a killer. But time is running out and she is hanging over your shoulders, smelling of copper and of joy, and there's one man left and he has seen your face – your face, the face no one is supposed to see – and she's taunting you and she's challenging you and it was all a set-up, all a way for her to get you here, to get what she wants, and you hate her.
You hate her more than you've ever hated anyone.
And the knife is in your hand. And her body is pressed to your back.
His eyes are crazed, fearful. There are other people, other dead people, in this room and her other arm is keeping him against the wall and she is smiling – you can feel it, just like you can feel everything always, always feeling so so much – and she licks your ear.
"Now you'll know. Now you'll know and we can be done with this."
She thinks she is helping you, which is hilarious and bizarrely sweet and a million shades of wrong. And done with what, you wonder – with death? With these dark fascinations? Or with this thing between them? This love and this loathing?
Or will they just be done, a task handled and a job finished?
You hear sirens. You hear his teeth grinding. You hear her breathing. You hear your own heart – fitful, excited, broken – and he pushes back and her fingers clutch at his throat and he shouts out something in a language you can barely speak and you don't feel rage and you don't feel strange wonder and her other hand wraps around your hand, your hand with a knife in it.
"Now, Eve, now. Otherwise, we are caught and there's no more of anything."
You think of Bill. You think of Bill and how he said yes to everything. You don't think this is what he meant, though. You don't think this is what Bill meant at all. But then the man knocks your both back and she slips off of you and it is just your hand and just your knife and you kill him.
You kill him and you watch as you drive it past the shirt and into the body, splitting skin and you see his face contort and crumple and you feel... you feel... and she slides up to you, takes the knife away, and you watch as she moves, as her arm goes up and then out, swift and sure slice underneath his chin, and she holds herself there – like a painter with the last stroke to the canvas, breath held and eyes wide open, completing a masterpiece.
And you feel... you feel... you feel everything, always feeling everything, all the time...
And you hate yourself. Maybe more than ever.
But not nearly as much as you should.
And she looks at you like you are magnificent, like you hold the world in your hands, like she's in awe of you. And she's so beautiful and so terrible and you hate her. Maybe more than ever.
...but no, not nearly as much as you probably should.
You walk away. For a while. Because you don't know who you are anymore. Because the lines are gone now. Because you don't have anywhere to hide and what you've found out about yourself is too complicated, too dark, too messed up to figure out.
You walk away to where she can't find you. And you hurt her. Again. It's the last thing you want to do and it's the only thing you can do. You don't know if she'll be waiting when you return. You don't know if anything will ever be the same again.
You walk away because you can. Because you must. Because you love her and because you can't stand her, can't stand yourself. You walk away because you are a killer and maybe you are okay with it. You walk away because you aren't okay with it, because you are not okay with any of this.
You walk away because so much of you wants to stay.
"What did it feel like?"
"What did what feel like?"
"When I... stabbed you..."
"It hurt. A lot."
You sigh in frustration. You're not sure what answer you want to hear, but it's not this one. She brushes your hair back from your sweaty face.
"What did it feel like for you?"
And you swallow hard. And she watches you closely. And you're not sure what answer you have to give, but you can't say it. Whatever it is. So you kiss her instead and she lets you.
She lets you ignore all this and you are so stupidly grateful. Because what did you feel? Well...
...you felt everything.