severed crossed fingers (killing eve | carolyn/elena)

[fiachairecht]

severed crossed fingers. killing eve, carolyn/elena. on being chosen. 500w, rated t.

Sapphic Summer, 'broken promises'
ladiesbingo 2019, 'canon themes'

Carolyn's easy to make promises to. Too easy, Elena thinks sometimes, listening to Eve gin-soaked and tripping over her words — the things we can do, the things Carolyn will do to us — and she laughs, quiet, because Eve really doesn't know how obvious she is, even when she promises, four drinks in, that she's done talking about Carolyn's hands.

Eve doesn't know from promises, never has, and Elena's always promised herself she wouldn't get caught up in that. Elena knows what she wants and knows how to get it, and yes — sure, she's touched herself to the thought of Carolyn Martens ordering her around, who hasn't, but she promised herself long ago that she'd not drag it to the office.

Working with her, though, really working for her, on the sort of thing where lives hang in the balance and there's blood on the pavement and even more on their hands, and isn't that fucked? She can feel herself getting drawn further into it every day, knows Eve's never bothered looking for a way out and if she glanced back she knows she'd only see Carolyn.

There's choices now, ones she'd never expected: Eve or Carolyn, her life or her job, all those things that never should have been different. She missed it, the change. Missed it when Carolyn picks Eve and nearly misses it when Carolyn turns to her instead and says, this is about more than Villanelle for you, isn't it; says, that's why I needed the both of you, and being needed by Carolyn Martens, well, isn't that a thing and a half above working for her.

So: Elena layers the secrets on, because Eve has hers and why shouldn't she — why shouldn't she be the one next to Carolyn in the silent bar where the men haven't moved since the Berlin Wall fell and the leather's kept more secrets than even Carolyn's told. Carolyn says thank you but not please, gives Elena a bank card and a headset, says, that'll be enough, then — and it's more than.

Maybe she shouldn't be running a job inside a job inside a job, but there's an elegance to it, like nested functions — recursive, Carolyn the case zero at the heart, and it's satisfying in a way Elena's never known, feels like the only safe way to be seen in a job that's all about hiding otherwise.

The bar becomes theirs. Eve becomes not-theirs. And when Carolyn follows her into the bathroom, locks the door behind them and raises an eyebrow in invitation rather than question, it's easy to forget professional, it's easy to forget that this wasn't supposed to affect work, because Elena's fucked if she knows if she's with the service anymore, but she's with Carolyn, and that's the important part.

Elena doesn't need help getting to the top, and she knows Carolyn knows that, knows Carolyn knows she knows and that's why she does it — why she says yes, why no other promise could ever measure up.