Common Misconceptions
Chapter 7
The blonde didn’t want to turn around. She wanted to keep walking until Eve eventually gave up. But she wasn’t giving up. And she was catching up to her. But if it was a race, Villanelle knew she’d beat the brunette easily but she only exercised in clothes designed for exercise. She refused to sweat in her designer clothes. And she was wearing a Saint Laurent satin white blouse with Alexander Wang black jeans. Point being, she was never going to exercise in these clothes. So, she stopped and turned instead of having to speed up.
“Villanelle!” Eve was right behind her, panting. She really needed a gym, but she’d never admit it. When she saw the blonde stop and look at her, she knew she could take a minute. She put her hands on her knees, bending down, filling her lungs with air.
“You alright?” The blonde chuckled, finding the professor’s lack of fitness a little funny. Okay, she found it very funny.
“Yeah just,” She breathed, gesturing to her chest, trying to emphasize she needed time to breathe, “Need a second.”
“Please, take your time.” Villanelle crossed her arms, looking around at the half-empty London streets.
Eve’s breathing steadied and she stood up, finally locking into those hazel eyes.
“Better?” Villanelle’s eyes widened sarcastically, “You know I’d offer you a gym membership but...” She shrugged, smiling like a devil.
She was still a little prick, Eve thought.
“Oh my god,” The professor rolled her eyes, “Can we have an actual conversation for one second? Please I’m so fucking sick of this.” She gestured between them.
Eve was tired of this bullshit. Could this woman just cut the crap so they could talk about… whatever they needed to talk about, wait… what did they need to talk about?
“Sure, Eve. Let’s have a conversation,” She took a step forward and the professor hoped she didn’t visibly flinch at the breach of personal space, “What would you like to talk about?” Her eyes widened mockingly as she looked down into big brown eyes.
“Just…” She may or may not have forgotten what she wanted to say when she realized how close their faces were, “Where have you been?”
“Why do you want to know so badly?” Eve already asked this before but the professor had to know, for some reason. She’d needed to know what the blonde had been doing and why she had to leave. Where she had to go. What she had to do.
“I guess I just want to know where you went off to.” She mumbled, shrugging.
“Paris,” The blonde felt… bad? She assumed that’s what this feeling was. She didn’t know why, but she did feel bad that Eve didn’t know anything about her life for the past 8 years. She could see the brunette had changed quite a bit too, kissing women and all, so why not tell her? No harm done. “I went to Paris.”
“Oh.” Was all Eve said, slightly shocked at a straight-forward answer. Oksana always found loopholes to avoid answering questions she didn’t want to but, eventually, Eve always got it out of her. That was still the same.
“Was that it? You just wanted to know where I went? I thought there would be more.”
“There is!” She said a bit too quickly, “I… I want us to be civil. I don’t want to keep running into each other and us yelling at each other. It’s... exhausting.”
“It’s only happened twice,” The blonde chuckled, her demeanor softening slightly, the professor opened her mouth to protest but Villanelle continued, “What makes you think we will keep running into each other?”
“Well, I mean it’s happened twice already and you’re friends with Elena. Her kind-of-boyfriend also works at your gym so….”
“Elena is dating Hugo?!” Villanelle seemed distressed as this. As you would be.
Eve furrowed her brows, she assumed Elena had told the blonde all about Kenny by now. Then she remembered how Oksana zoned out of conversations she wasn’t interested in. Okay so, that hadn’t changed. Mentally, Eve was noticing all of these things. She wanted to see how much Oksana had changed. How much she’d grown. Sometimes, the professor forgot how influential these 8 years would’ve been, no matter where the blonde was. She had gone through her early twenties. Formative years, years that Eve missed out on seeing.
“No,” The brunette laughed at her confusion, “Kenny.”
“Oh,” She nodded her head, happier with that answer, “Good. I like him more than the other one.” Eve couldn’t help but smile at Villanelle’s objectification of her employees. Another of Oksana’s qualities just… older? More mature?
“So, can we be civil? We don’t have to talk about…” Eve didn’t know how to approach their past so she tried to tiptoe around it, “Anything. But, we can stop yelling whenever we see each other?”
“Yes, we can stop yelling at each other.” Villanelle nodded and gestured to her throat, “I can’t lose my voice. It’s one of my best features.” Eve rolled her eyes. She still had her confidence.
The blonde felt friends would be too much and enemies too extreme. She had neither ‘friends’ nor ‘enemies’. She could try being civil. Eve wasn’t wrong when she said the yelling was exhausting and she did have a point about Elena. While the blonde didn’t think she had ‘friends’, she did enjoy spending time with Eve’s assistant, so she assumed that’s what people thought friends were. And since Elena was Eve’s friend, Villanelle knew she’d probably see the brunette again, whether she wanted to or not.
So, civil was easiest for both of them.
“Ok, good.” The professor also nodded, realizing neither of them had stepped away from each other. This was awkward, right?
“Umm,” Villanelle furrowed her brow, Eve looking at the lines her eyebrows made and smiled, she remembered those so vividly. Whenever Oksana would be studying or concentrating on anything, she’d frown and those lines would appear the same way, “I guess since we are civil, I should let you back to the gym?” This sounded like more of a question than a statement and the professor could tell she didn’t really know what to do. A rare occurrence with Oksana and Eve assumed an even rarer occurrence with Villanelle.
“You don’t have to, I just tried one class because Elena asked me to. I don’t really need a membership or anything.”
Villanelle barked out a laugh, tilting her head back. It was the same laugh, Eve noted that down too.
“You were basically on your knees after joggingfor one block. It might’ve been less than a block. Honestly, I think I’d be doing you a favor.” Eve was slightly hurt, this was now the second person discussing her lack of stamina. She was a professor, not a marathon runner.
“Ok, no need to be mean.” Eve held her hand up, trying to stand up for herself but she didn’t have much of an argument since the blonde was kind of right.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Villanelle wiped a tear from her eye, okay it wasn’t that funny, “We are doing a free two-week trial, so you’re welcome to try that. Your girlfriend actually just signed up for it this afternoon.” The blonde glanced up back at the bar, Eve’s face dropping in realization.
Villanelle had to say something about it. She wasn’t going to “let it slide.” Not her style. Never was, never would be.
“Oh my god, Dina.” She turned to see no one outside the bar. Shit.
When she turned back, the blonde was walking down the street, away from her.
She didn’t follow her this time.
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Eve walkedback to the bar, finding Elena and Dina still inside. The bar was less crowded, everyone starting to finally make their way home. But, Dina was still here. She was wiping down the bar whilst talking to Elena. The professor tentatively stepped toward Elena, sitting down next to her. At this point, Dina walked away and started pouring a drink for one of the only other customers at the other end of the bar.
“Shit.” Eve muttered.
“So, Dina, huh?” Her assistant wiggled her eyebrows.
“I- It was just,” The brunette sighed, she felt very guilty. She didn’t think she used Dina at the time, she just had an impulse to kiss her, but looking back… the professor realized she may have kissed her to avoid confronting Villanelle or to incite a reaction from her.
In a way, she kind of did both. But, using Dina for any reason was wrong especially since Eve liked her… as a friend or more, she didn’t know. “I don’t know what it was.”
“Hmmm, obviously. She was just telling me about how you ran after a certain blonde…”
“Fuck! Is she mad? I just didn’t- I don’t know what I was thinking.” She set her head on the table, groaning.
“I don’t think she’s mad, but,” Her assistant leaned forward, “I think she’s jealous, to be honest. Maybe a little angry though, since you ran off without an explana-”
“I need to apologize.” Eve sat up, interrupting.
“Well, yeah, but I think we also need to talk about you and Villanelle. If it was important enough to run away from that...” Elena gestured to Dina who was talking to another patron and pointing to some of the bottles behind her.
Dina was pretty and very fit. Eve was confused about why she needed a gym membership because she already had the body of a goddess but, to be fair, so did Villanelle, and she owned a gym. I guess it was all about maintenance? Eve didn’t really understand the appeal of constant exercise but she could easily see its effect. Point is, maybe Eve was attracted to Dina, maybe she was attracted to Villanelle. Maybe she was attracted to both.
She was attracted, at one point, to Oksana, she could admit that much. But, Villanelle was different. Yet the same. The professor had no idea how similar or how different the two were. And Dina was…. Well, Eve didn’t know. And that mystery intrigued her but she could still never get Villanelle or Oksana out of her head. That’s why she wanted to make the blonde jealous, that’s why she ran after her. That’s why she didn’t want to hate her anymore. She didn’t want to hate her for leaving or for all the hurt she caused. Eve still cared for her no matter how much she had hurt her. And the thought of that… terrified her.
“Later.” The professor stood, walking behind her assistant toward the other side of the bar.
“Hey, can we talk?” She asked, the other woman finally looking up from cleaning a glass.
“About?” She looked down, continuing to wipe a glass but a little more furiously.
“I just wanted to apologize. I don’t know why I kissed you and then went after…” Why was it so hard to just say her name?
“That apology did not make me feel better, Eve.” She softened, smiling at the other woman as she set the cleaned glass down. She couldn’t blame the professor for how she felt about the blonde and she knew any relationship between them would be unconventional. She didn’t mind being unconventional, but she didn’t know how Eve felt.
“I’m sorry I really just didn’t know how to… I just thought that maybe-” The professor started rambling, unaware that Dina was smiling at her.
“Eve,” Dina set her hand on top of the brunette’s, “It is okay. I get it.”
“Get… what?” Eve asked hesitantly, she was confused.
“You like Villanelle,” She said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, “After you went after her, Elena mentioned you two had some weird history. So, I get it. It’s obviously been some time since you’ve seen her and if you like her, you like her. I won’t stand in the way of that.”
Eve was grateful that Dina wasn’t mad. However, this whole analysis of her and the blonde’s relationship wasn’t helpful. She was working at MI6, but Eve didn’t want to be profiled. She did not like Villanelle like that. But yes, she was right in that they had a ‘weird history’. She wasn’t going to point out how Dina was wrong in pretty much everything else she said.
“Thank you for understanding,” Eve tried to smile, “Friends?” Friends would be easiest, for now. Until Eve sorted out all her feelings.
“Of course, silly!” She slapped her hands on the bar top, “I’m gonna have to show you around MI6 at one point!”
“Oh my god, don’t tease me like that.”
“Always will.” Dina winked and turned to refill for a customer.
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Eve’s weekend passed in a blur. She mostly spent it grading exams, slightly hungover. Her students were doing fine though, if you were wondering. She liked testing them as often as she could, just to keep their minds active. However, when she gave them an exam, she sometimes forgot that she’d be the one marking them. Exams gave good information on what the students were struggling with and what they needed to work on but it was still very time-consuming.
When she begrudgingly arrived at her class on Monday morning, she was greeted with Elena and a young man who she assumed to be Kenny.
“Eve, good morning!” She was sitting on the professor’s chair, Kenny sitting across from her, “I got you coffee.” She gestured to the four coffee cups in the middle of the desk, on top of her papers. This was a weird morning. Why were there four? Did Elena get her a second one? That would be nice, she needed it.
“Morning, thanks.” She awkwardly stood in front of her assistant, since she was in her chair, but Elena picked up on this. She stood up, moving to the seat beside Kenny.
“This is Kenny, we were at breakfast and I thought he should see where the magic happens.”
“Hi, Eve. I’ve heard quite a bit about you.” He chuckled awkwardly.
Right before the professor was going to comment on that, she heard a voice bellow from the other end of the hall.
“Can you hear my echo, echo, echo?” Villanelle yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth, from the last row of the lecture hall.
Had she been here this whole time? Eve must’ve been so tired she missed her when she walked in, she was too focused on Elena’s boyfriend(?). The professor froze, looking up from her coffee and at the blonde who was walking down the stairs toward her.
“Villanelle went to…uhm breakfast too.” Elena mumbled, awkward. Luckily, they only had a few minutes before class started.
“So professor,” She sauntered down the stairs, looking around the lecture hall, slightly nostalgic, “What is it you’re teaching nowadays?” Eve thought she’d find a hint of animosity in the question but, surprisingly, she didn’t. The blonde actually seemed curious.
“Criminology.” She replied, briefly. It was too early to indulge in a conversation, especially one with Villanelle. However, Eve found herself more open to the idea that the woman she was looking at was an older and more mature version of Oksana.
“Oooo,” Villanelle’s eyes widened, finally making eye contact with the professor, “Criminology.” The other woman repeated.
She was different today, Eve thought. More unadulterated but more genuine. The blonde had barely said anything so it was weird how the professor could sense this but, to be fair, she’d always understood the younger woman. It was why they’d gotten along so well when they first met.
Elena and Kenny were looking at each other, ready to sprint out of the room. Unfortunately, Eve’s assistant needed to stay.
“I’m gonna head out,” Kenny stood up, “You coming, V?”
“Actually, Eve,” The professor still liked how her name rolled out of her mouth with that accent, “I was wondering if I could stay. Watch.”
Eve and Elena were both confused. Elena understood after a second, Eve didn’t.
“Watch?”
“Your lecture. Can I watch?” She asked again, now in front of the professor’s desk.
“Oh,” Eve didn’t usually do this and she was shocked that the blonde asked. Why did she want to stay? What would she gain from sitting in on her lecture? It’d probably bore her to death, right? Still, Eve was curious. She had to see what the blonde wanted, so she indulged. Also, students were starting to come in and she needed to say something quickly. “Yeah, I guess. You can sit next to Elena.” She gestured to the few seats in the front.
Villanelle nodded, smiling slightly, and went over to sit down. Elena hugged Kenny goodbye and the young man left. The class was due to start, the lecture hall was starting to fill with her students and Eve was nervous. She was never nervous about her lectures. She knew what she was doing and what she was talking about, it was one of the areas in her life that she was very confident in.
Ironically enough, a lot of that confidence had come from Oksana when she was studying to be a professor. But, right now, Eve wasn’t confident. She was standing at her desk, looking over her notes that she’d memorized, trying to sip her coffee but her hand was shaking. She could feel Villanelle’s eyes on her from the front row.
“‘Morning class,” She tried to feign calmness so she put on her glasses as she stepped to the front of her desk. She leaned against it, her hands on the wooden desk, and looked up at the back of the room, “Today we’re learning about psychopathy and its common misconceptions.” She made the mistake of looking down toward Villanelle and Eve saw she went completely stiff.
Then, the professor remembered. Shit.
It was a few weeks after they kissed. They were both attempting to pretend it never happened. Well, Eve was. Oksana wasn’t going to mention it, knowing Eve wouldn’t want to talk about it, but she definitely wasn’t going to forget it. It did hurt that the brunette wanted to pretend it didn’t happen since it had meant so much to the blonde, but she cared a lot about the other woman. So, Oksana would do whatever Eve wanted.
The blonde was studying… something at a local café. She could barely focus. Eve was sitting in front of her, also studying. She had her glasses on as she was writing something down and Oksana was staring, she couldn’t help it. She really liked Eve, she liked spending time with her, she liked talking to her. She liked all of it. She especially liked her when she was wearing her glasses. They were sexy, okay?
“What are you reading?” The blonde asked, head resting on her chin.
“Psychopathy.” Eve flipped the page, pushing up her glasses and not looking up at the younger woman.
“You know my father used to call me a psychopath.” This was true but she really just wanted to get the other woman’s attention. And she did.
“What?” She pulled her glasses off her face and looked up at the blonde, in confusion.
Oksana didn’t think this one through. She didn’t like talking about her childhood. She had before, briefly, to Eve. The other woman had been very supportive, so she knew that Eve would be there for her if she did ever speak about her past again. It was another thing she liked about the brunette. Her undying support.
“As a kid, he would say I was different and that I didn’t feel things like the other kids,” She shrugged, trying to play it off nonchalantly, “He’d say ‘ooh Oksana you are not a normal child, you are a psychopath.’”
“Oksana… I…”
“It’s okay, I’m over it.” Now she wanted to get back to whatever she’d been studying before. She looked down, trying to read the pages but she knew Eve’s eyes were still on her.
“You know,” Eve wanted to change the subject because the blonde was visibly uncomfortable, but she didn’t want to leave it completely, knowing that Oksana rarely opened up, “There are so many misconceptions about psychopaths. Everyone thinks they’re these cold-blooded murderers but really they’re able to live a pretty normal life. And early childhood problems almost never directly indicate psychopathy. Most children grow out of what seems to be a disruptive disorder.” The blonde looked up at her while she talked and smiled. She knew the brunette was saying all this to make her feel better and it was working.
“How do you know if you are a psychopath?”
“There are tests,” Eve explained, “There are also risk factors in childhood that can indicate a possibility of adult psychopathy. Bed-wetting, fire-starting, cruelty to animals. Things like that.”
The blonde was silent and looked down, fidgeting with her thumb ring.
“Oksana,” The brunette could sense her stillness, “Did you do any of those things?”
She didn’t respond. She’d never been able to admit anything like this before. But when Eve put her hand on top of hers, she knew she’d be safe, no matter what she said.
“I set a fire once, at my middle school. No one was hurt. And,” She hesitated, “I was not… very nice to my pet rabbit.”
“You know there’s nothing wrong with you, right?” Eve said after a moment, finally meeting with hazel eyes, “You are perfect, just the way you are.”
Oksana’s heart must've jumped right out of her chest. No one made her feel so normal.
What happened to them?
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“So, those are some common misconceptions when it comes to psychopaths and psychopathy,” Eve was finishing up her lecture, growing more comfortable as she talked, “It’s essential to remember that psychopaths are people too. We may not think so, immediately jumping to the idea that they’re scary murderers, but they can be people just like us. We need to treat them as such to learn more about them and their diagnosis.” She had avoided eye contact with Villanelle for most of the lecture, unable to look at her since she remembered the last time she’d talked about the misconceptions of psychopathy.
“Right,” The brunette looked at the clock on the side of the wall, “Time’s up. Please read the next chapter in your textbook and discussion is tomorrow with Elena down the hall. Thanks.” Students started packing up and exiting the hall.
When most of the students had left, Elena and Villanelle walked up to the professor who was back to her original position, leaning on the front of her desk.
“I’ll see you Wednesday, Eve?” Elena looked up from her phone.
“Yep, thanks. Let me know how the discussion goes.”
“Will do!” Her assistant chimed as she strolled out of the hall, texting on her phone.
Then, it was just Villanelle and Eve standing in front of each other in an empty lecture hall.
“So,” The professor started, “Did you… enjoy it?” She’d never heard of anyone ‘enjoying’ a lecture but she didn’t really know what else to say.
“It was interesting. Informative.” Villanelle nodded as she spoke, looking at something behind the professor. The brunette could sense the lecture was probably hard to listen to. A bad coincidence.
“I know that it might’ve been,” Eve gestured around with her hands, “Difficult to hear.”
“Why?” Villanelle furrowed her brow, now fixed on Eve’s eyes. She was still wearing her glasses. They were the same ones, she recognized. And Villanelle still loved them.
“It’s just that… it’s just that you said once that,” She was getting lost in hazel eyes, “That your dad called you a…”
“My father called me a psychopath, yes.” It was an important distinction to Villanelle: father, dad. Very different.
“I’m sorry I…” She didn’t know why she even mentioned it. She was the one that said they didn’t need to talk about their past.
“Eve,” She put her hand on the professor’s shoulder, reassuring her, but the brunette felt the heat through her sweater, “You are a very good professor. I can see why so many students take your class. You do not have to apologize for what you teach.” She took her hand back down, not knowing why she put it on her shoulder to begin with.
“Thanks.” Eve mumbled, unsure of what to say. Villanelle hadn’t been this nice since… ever? What had changed?
Was it the other night?
“No problem, Eve. I’ll see you soon? Maybe at the gym?” The blonde started toward the exit, looking back at the professor.
“Okay, yeah.” Was all Eve could get out when she saw Villanelle smile at her as she walked out.
She'd missed that smile. A lot.