Romeo and Juliet
When Villanelle said a party, Eve never expected this.
They’re on the third class level, further below deck than Eve ever would have dared to go on her own, in a smoke filled commoner’s lounge that smells of sweat, whiskey, and mirth. The room is filled to the brim with passengers, all of them lively and rambunctious, and Eve smiles as one hands her a large pint of beer. She sits next to Villanelle, who is currently attempting to arm wrestle a large, burly man with bulging muscles and missing teeth.
They sit at a perfect stalemate, both participants arms’ shaking as Eve watches in fascination. Although she grew up in a poor area, filled with all kinds of people and things, Eve has never seen two strangers so candidly engage in a test of strength. It makes her think of the hundreds of bridge games she had watched Niko play. How she has sat through hours of mindless boredom as the participants sat in perfect relaxation as they flipped their cards. Niko takes pride in it, toutes it as a complex game of skill that she will never understand.
This is different entirely.
This is grit and sweat, something Niko would never do, much less appreciate, while Villanelle seems to bask in it. She is tense, muscles in her shoulders and arms straining against the fitted white fabric of her shirt as she tries to take down a man twice her size. She is everything but relaxed - intense, focused, strong - and Eve is transfixed as she watches the woman’s wrist and forearm flex in exertion. This is power and strength personified, and even a woman like Eve can understand that Villanelle wields hers like an iron fist.
“Je vais te faire des choses horribles,” Villanelle whispers under her breath, pressing her hand harder into the large fingers of her opponent.
“I don’t… speak spanish, blondie,” the brute pants, clearly realizing that he is reaching the end of his rope. He jerks his wrist hard into Villanelle’s, perhaps in an attempt to catch her off guard, but she remains firm. Her arm remains unmoving, quivering only the slightest amount, as she slowly pushes the man’s arm into the wood of the table.
The crowd that had slowly accumulated around them explodes, at least twenty men shouting at the tops of their lungs as betting money is quickly exchanged between hands.
Villanelle leans back in her chair, allowing herself to finally relax as she winks at her awestruck opponent sitting across from her. He rubs his wrist, and gives her a nod of approval as he makes his way to the bar towards the back of the room.
Eve doesn’t know what to do with herself at this point, other than try to tell the raging heat between her thighs that no, she can't take Villanelle Astankova on this table in front of all these people.
“I do not think I hurt him too badly,” Villanelle says after a moment, wiping the thin sheet of sweat off her brow.
“Maybe just his ego,” Eve laughs scooting closer to the other woman, basking in her warmth.
Villanelle gifts her a small smile, questions starting to form in her eyes.
“What is it?” Eve asks her.
Villanelle looks down, suddenly interested in the cuticles of her thumbs. She swallows, and if Eve didn’t know any better, she would say that the Russian looks nervous. It’s a new look for her, one Eve never thought she would see Villanelle wear despite their short time together.
After a brief moment, Villanelle glances up and meets her gaze.
“What will you do when this is all over, Eve?”
Eve’s heart drops into the pit of her stomach.
Because Eve doesn’t know what’s going to happen. She also doesn’t know if when Villanelle says “this,” she means the voyage on the Titanic or whatever is transpiring between them. They’ve touched, flirted, spoken about their pasts - but what does that even entail for them? For Eve, an engaged woman? She had been doing such a good job shoving the future into the back of her head, but once prompted, it all comes rushing to the forefront. Eve doesn’t know how she will cope when this boat arrives in New York, as Niko will undoubtedly be dragging her to the nearest chapel.
No matter what happens, she realizes, she’ll be trapped with him.
As if Villanelle could somehow sense the turbulent emotions swirling in her head, she reaches out and snatches Eve’s hand in hers.
“Look at me,” she demands.
Eve complies, her eyes slowly lifting to meet intense hazel ones. Her heart, once beating with such anxious ferocity, now slows in relaxation as Villanelle holds it in her hands. Villanelle’s gaze is apologetic, the woman probably feeling as though she had prompted Eve too far, too quick.
“We do not need to talk about it, okay?” Villanelle says. “We can drink shit beer and I can teach you how to play poker.”
Eve listens to her words, how they are optimistic yet laced with the slightest bit of melancholy that Villanelle could not filter out of her diction. She soon realizes it's because it's not just Eve who is overwhelmed by the future, what it means for her heart. Villanelle bears it too, as Eve watches her eyes flick to the couples dancing around the crowded room, filled with that lost look so reminiscent of their first meeting. Eve wants to fix it, make it better, do something to heal the bleeding heart that she is both blessed and damned to see.
“Come on then,” Eve says, her voice firm as she stands.
Villanelle snaps out of whatever daze had taken hold of her, her face contorting into a very confused, albeit cute, face. It shifts when she seems to understand what Eve is suggesting.
“Dancing’s not my thing,” she protests.
“Mine either, but it’s good to try new things,” Eve replies.
If she is condemned to a life with Niko, she will make every moment on this ship count.
She walks to a slightly less populated area, her feet heavy as she watches several pairs of eyes follow her movements. Eve is self-aware enough to know that she looks out of place. The dancers swirl around her to a lively, Irish-sounding tune as bagpipes and drums fill the air and pound in her ears. Villanelle shuffles to her, awkward and stiff looking and she bumps into a few couples quickly making their way around the room.
“Eve,” she whispers quietly.
“What?”
“I have no idea what this dance is.”
The dance in question doesn’t really seem to have any defining characteristics, both partners clasped tightly to one another as they skip, hop (?) around the room to the musical beat. They are happy - carefree - and Eve thinks that maybe that’s the whole damn point.
All that matters is the person they choose to dance with.
“Neither do I, just go with it!” Eve grins, as she clasps Villanelle closer to her chest, slowly beginning to move them backwards in the hurricane of dancers around them. She positions her hand on the back of Villanelle’s shoulder underneath one of her suspenders - perhaps in a subconscious effort to not lose the other woman - and grabs the other to hold in her own.
They move faster, fully joining the others in their lively circle of dance and mirth, turning and spinning until it feels like they aren’t on the ground at all. They’re flying, hurtling towards something that both of them have never known, as Eve feels Villanelle relax completely into her arms.
Villanelle tilts her head back and laughs, full and raucous as they whip ‘round and ‘round, and Eve thinks that she has never heard a more perfect, right, sound in her life. She’s rosy cheeked, her grin wide, and her long blonde hair like a halo around her head as they dance.
Until this moment, Eve had led the two of them. But as they take a turn, feet skipping along to the beat, Villanelle places her hand purposefully on the small of Eve’s back, and pivots them in another spin that has Eve’s vision blurring.
Instead of one partner leading, they lead each other. Their movements unified, together, and solid. Push and pull. Eve grins into Villanelle’s shoulder, her hands gripping onto her partner tightly as she laughs. Something she couldn’t remember doing before this moment, but now the most natural thing to do in the arms of this extraordinary woman.
The song eventually ends, and they collapse into the nearest chairs, panting and giggling.
“I liked that, Eve,” Villanelle tells her, once she catches her breath. Her eyes, once lost, now sparkle with something hopeful, something tangible, and Eve desperately hopes that it really was her who put it there.
The band begins to play another tune.
“Want to go again? I know dancing isn’t your thing,” Eve teases her.
“Dancing is not that hard when you have a good partner, Eve.” Villanelle laughs, getting on her feet to dance with Eve all over again.
And so they do.
~~~
Of course, nothing good ever lasts forever.
The morning after her night on the third class deck, a night spent tucked in Villanelle’s arms feeling the absolute happiest she’d ever been, she sits in one of the Titanic’s many sunrooms drinking tea with Niko.
Villanelle had snuck her up to her rooms, feet deadly silent the entirety of the trip. She had not made her move as Eve had thought at the beginning of the night, deciding only to lean against the frame of her door and press a single, chaste kiss to her bare hand.
The memory is painfully sweet compared to what she is sitting with now.
Niko hadn’t been anywhere to be seen when she had gotten back to her quarters - granted it was at an ungodly hour in the morning - but Eve had hoped that perhaps Niko simply wouldn’t have noticed her absence.
She was beginning to realize she was wrong.
Niko is a coil of pent up aggression across the table, his hands white-knuckling his newspaper so hard that it crinkles. He hasn’t said a word to her all morning, his silence deafening, and Eve suspects that he knows something. She stirs her tea, determined to keep her face impassive as Niko slowly lowers his newspaper.
“I hoped that you would come to me last night,” he mutters, eyes dark and brooding, and Eve’s stomach lurches at the very thought of giving herself to such a man as he.
“I was tired,” she replies, voice steady despite the adrenaline rushing into her veins.
“I’m sure your excursions below deck were no doubt exhausting.”
The truth is out.
Eve swallows.
“You sent that horrendous valet, Frank, after me didn’t you?” Eve questions.
Niko narrows his eyes, his jaw clenching beneath the stubble of his face.
“You will not behave like that again, Rose.”
“I am not one of your workers in your mills that you can order around,” Eve spits, and as soon as the words leave her mouth, she knows she has resigned herself to a bitter fate at Niko’s hands.
“I-I’m your fiancée,” she continues, trying to appeal to the - well - softer side of Niko’s personality, as ridiculous as it sounds.
Niko’s face goes blank.
“My fiancée…” he says softly, rubbing the bristles of his moustache. Eve half-wonders if her declaration actually worked.
“My fiancée?!”
Perhaps not.
He stands abruptly, smashing his teacup to the ground as it shatters into a million pieces. The table goes next, Niko’s hand grabbing it’s side and flinging it to the other side of the room in a crash that Eve just knows everyone below deck will hear. She is terrified, unable to even speak as he sets her in his sights.
He rushes her, crowding her space as he places his hands on the armrests of her chair. Eve can smell brandy on his breath, but the sheer hate that wafts off of him is somehow far worse. It is rancid in the way it seeps into her skin, but there is nothing she can even do that will ensure a safe way out.
She’s paralyzed with fear, her heart pounding inside her chest, and eyes wide in terror. Niko has not hesitated to get physical before, and she doubts he will restrain himself now in the light of her transgression.
He snatches her jaw into his meaty paw of a hand, and Eve can’t help but whimper in pain as he squeezes bruises into it.
“My wife in practice if not yet by law, and you will honor me!” he demands violently.
“I will not be made a fool of by my own wife, much less that filthy disgrace of a woman you are so enamored with. I swear, if you continue this charade, much worse will come to you, and her.”
He releases her jaw roughly.
“Are we clear?”
Eve can only nod.
“Good,” he whispers, placing a painfully soft kiss on her cheek. It’s a mockery of tenderness and it makes Eve burn, not out of love or passion, but out of pure, unadulterated shame. “Excuse me.”
He leaves, and Elena rushes to replace him by her side.
“Miss? Miss, are you alright?” she asks urgently, hands already reaching to pick up the shattered pieces of glass surrounding them.
Eve vaguely registers her own voice saying,
“Yes, we just had an accident-”
“Miss, please-”
“It was just an accident-”
“Miss.”
Eve feels Elena’s hands tightly grip her own, steadying her as she tries to rise from her seat to help the maid clean the shambles around them.
“You don’t have to lie to me, Miss,” Elena tells her. “I’ve worked in this family for too long to not know what kind of man Mr. Polastri is.”
“I can’t leave, Elena. He’ll kill her if I do,” Eve shakily breathes. “He has the means to, I know it.”
“Who is ‘her,’ Miss?”
Eve pauses before responding.
She will protect Villanelle.
“No one.”
Even if it breaks her heart in the process.
~~~
Villanelle is glowing.
And it’s been pissing Konstantin off, which is an added bonus.
“Villanelle,” he drawls. “Would you please just tell me what has gotten you in such a good mood? It’s interrupting my pancakes.” he gestures to the mass of flour and butter in front of him.
Villanelle had been humming an Irish tune the majority of their morning together.
“Why should I tell you?” she asks happily, taking a large bite out of one of Konstantin’s biscuits.
“Because it is annoying, and I would rather not have to strangle you in your sleep, yes?”
Villanelle groans dramatically. Fine. If Konstantin is so curious, perhaps she can let a few things slip.
“Sweet Aphrodite has overcome me with longing for a girl, Konstantin.”
He barks out a laugh, his hand clutching at his chest due to its harshness.
“A girl? You have met a girl who makes you like this?” he asks incredulously. “Was the sex that good?”
Villanelle wishes that she could have sex with Eve. But she is a nice person, very good with consent, and she isn’t sure if Eve would want to, considering she is still very much engaged to a stupid man.
“Shut up, I have not even kissed her yet.” she mutters pettily, her mood suddenly soiled. “We are going steady.”
“I did not think you had the ability to go steady, Villanelle,” Konstantin replies, his face morphing into something more serious. “Do you have… feelings for this girl?”
Villanelle swallows. She did not think she would let this thing slip. But it is very new, and Villanelle needs someone to affirm that the feeling blossoming in her chest truly is what she believes it to be.
“I think so. It feels good to be around her, and she makes my heart feel like it is being strangled.”
Konstantin raises a questioning eyebrow.
“In a good way!” Villanelle adds quickly.
Konstantin’s eyes narrow, and Villanelle can already tell she is going to be on the receiving end of a lecture. This is not going to be an affirmation in the slightest.
“But?” he questions.
“But what?”
“There is always a but.”
“No there isn’t.”
“With you there is, now talk.” He finishes sternly.
Villanelle sighs. If Konstantin was gay, he would understand better.
“She is in first-class,” she says, as if it weren’t a complete upheaval of societal norms to seduce a woman in a higher economic standing than herself. Konstantin groans, his head lolling back to rest on his chair.
“And she might be engaged.” she whispers under her breath, taking a long sip from her coffee cup.
“She’s engaged?”
“A tiny bit.”
“A tiny bit?”
“Yes!” she shouts, her voice uncomfortably loud for the tiny living quarters.
“Villanelle, we have been over this before-”
“Do not lecture me, Konstantin.” Villanelle growls. “I am not a child that you can order around anymore.”
It’s times like these that she really hates him. Hates that her mistakes have led her to value his opinion of her choices. Hates that despite all the shit he has had her do, that she still cares for him.
It is annoying, and it hurts.
“Remember Anna?” he questions. “She was married too, yes?”
God, she hates him.
Anna was her teacher, and yes, she was married. Anna made Villanelle feel special. These are things she knows. Affection was a feeling she had not been used to and Anna exploited it, using her for pleasure in exchange for basic comfort. Respect. Companionship. Villanelle thought that it was something more, something she’d read about in books, but it was nothing more than a toxic obsession.
“Eve isn’t Anna-”
“She took what she wanted, and you couldn’t handle it,” he continues, unrelenting. “You threaten to kill her husband, and look where it gets you. On the run, without a home, a mess.”
He leans closer.
“I get you out of a bad situation just for you to go and get yourself into another one.”
Villanelle bites the inside of her cheek.
Things are different now.
Yes, Eve is engaged to a man, a rich man, and that is a problem that Villanelle can’t fix. But she makes Villanelle feel alive, human, and that is worth something too. There is no exploitation, just understanding - comfort. The blossoming feeling that refuses to stop growing in her chest just might be love, that scary, scary word, and Villanelle knows that before this ship docks, she needs to tell Eve just as much.
But, if Eve wants to be with the Mustache, she won’t force Eve to stay.
Even if it breaks her heart in the process.
~~~
The next time she sees Eve, she thinks that it might be the last.
Eve is walking out of Sunday mass when Villanelle snatches her arm and pulls her into the empty, spacious gymnasium the Titanic offers. She has to see Eve, ask her if she feels the same, incredible way Villanelle does, otherwise it might kill her.
Eve looks like a startled deer, chest heaving and eyes flicking between her and the closed door.
“Villanelle, you can’t be here, Niko is-”
“Eve, please - wait, what happened to your jaw?”
It’s subtle, but there. Darkish purple that Eve had tried to conceal with a dubious amount of face powder, but still blooming underneath. Villanelle cups Eve’s cheek in her hand, looks closer, and sees the tell-tale signs of fingerprints that scatter across the other woman’s face.
Villanelle could kill him.
“He did this to you, didn’t he?” she whispers, her heart clenching painfully as she traces her fingers along bruised, injured skin. Eve’s eyes flutter shut, leaning into the soft contact.
“Niko, h-he found out about last night, below deck.” Eve whispers.
Eve was hurt because she was with Villanelle. She feels a mixture of anger and guilt, rage and quiet responsibility. She knew about Niko, what kind of man he is, and she should have been more careful, and put Eve first.
“How? He could not have come down and seen, I would have seen that ridiculous mustache a mile away,” she jokes, her heart softening as a smile passes over Eve’s face.
“He sent his valet down to spy on me, I think,” Eve replies. “He must’ve told Niko I was there.”
She pauses, takes a breath.
“Villanelle, I can’t do… whatever this is with you anymore,” Eve whispers, face contorted, pained, her voice so soft that Villanelle can barely make out the words.
Villanelle feels her heart start to crack.
“I’m marrying Niko,” Eve continues on, voice starting to border on panicked rather than confident. “I’ll be fine-”
“Do you love him?”
Eve blinks in disbelief.
“What?”
“I asked if you love him,” Villanelle mutters quietly.
“I don’t see how that’s-”
“I love you, Eve.”
Everything stops.
“You what?” Eve whispers.
Villanelle takes a breath. She has to tell Eve how she feels. It’s the most she’s ever felt in her life and Eve needs to know.
“I love you. I do. Even if you marry your mustache,” she says quietly. “I feel things when I’m with you, Eve. Things I do not usually feel. It is scary, but it is good too, I think.”
She steps closer, both hands moving up to tenderly cup Eve’s face.
“I know I do not have much. I know that there is not a lot I can offer you. But I promise you, Eve, I can take care of us. I would never hurt you.”
Eve looks into her very soul, eyes slowly filling with tears.
“Help me make it stop…” Eve pleads.
Eve is torn between her and obligation, on the verge of losing everything. Villanelle knows that between her, and the comfortable life Niko offers, she can never win - no matter how much Villanelle loves her.
Villanelle has not felt much of that in her short life. Not from her mother, from Anna, not even Konstantin. But she has seen it, sketched it in the pages of her folder: mothers cleaning their childrens’ faces, fathers with their little girls perched high on their shoulders, lovers sharing a soft kiss on a bridge. In the process, it taught her what love looks like, even if she could not feel it. And thus Villanelle knows that when you love someone, you will do what is best for them, even if that means letting them go.
So she lets Eve go.
“Turn around.” Villanelle tells her, as she pivots towards the opposite door. Her throat is starting to close up, and there are hot tears burning behind her eyes, but she doesn’t relent.
“What are you-”
“Turn around and face the other way,” she says shakily. This is the right thing to do. She’s doing this for Eve, because Eve asked her to make it all stop. If she can’t stop Niko, she can at least make it easier for her.
She hears Eve turn, her curly hair brushing the nape of Villanelle’s neck. She leans her head backwards and closes her eyes, resting against the top of Eve’s head. Breathing her in, one last time.
Villanelle wonders if Eve will miss her when she’s gone, if she’ll think about the way they’d danced, and the way they’d laughed. She knows she will, that Eve Park will occupy every inch of her thoughts till the day she dies. She’ll think of how beautiful she was at the top of that staircase, of how she looked at Villanelle like she was worth something.
It’s bittersweet, now. Bittersweet that despite everything, in this life they are impossible. It makes her think of that Shakespearian play, Romeo and Juliet, two star-crossed lovers who were unable to be together.
Eve is her Juliet, but she won’t let their story end in tragedy.
“Now what?” Eve asks.
Villanelle grits her teeth, steadies her voice, and lets a single tear travel down her face.
For Eve, she thinks.
“Now we walk... and we never look back.”
Eve tenses behind her. It makes Villanelle’s chest clench.
“But I-”
“Don’t turn. Just walk.”
Walking away from Eve hurts more than anything.
But she does it for her anyway.