as s3 is well on its way i figured i’d update the list once again! fics on the old list will continue to be included! below the cut you will find 80+ villaneve fics, though some are currently in-progress. there are no double listings, and nsfw is not marked, so make sure to check the tags! if i particularly like an author’s work (more than 2 fics), they generally go under the author section to avoid repetition. as always, these are only my recommendations.
80+ ORGANIZED FICS UNDER THE CUT
ONE-SHOTS
standalone fics.
All She Knows by filthy_nebula (1/1)
Marking Time by imunbreakabledude (1/1)
you know that i’ve been waiting for you by badbadnotgood (1/1)
nel cuore hai un buco by lorelaislatte (1/1)
you are anchoring by badbadnotgood (1/1)
Fireplace Nights by imimmortalagain (1/1)
curtain call by ramblingraconteur (1/1)
Dead Wood by vforvillanelle (1/1)
I’m not the man they think I am at home by paddingtonfan69 (1/1)
be honest by ocean_clown (1/1)
A Room in Chisinau by godless_hippie (1/1)
Night Bus by olderthaneve (1/1)
the best of you belongs to me by charizona (1/1)
My Love, My Love, My Love by melvncholymvmi (1/1)
Did We Do It? by Arriva (1/1)
Do Not Go Gentle by olderthaneve (1/1)
a girl like you needs something real by thegatorgood (1/1)
Haven’t I told you so (a million or more times) by pengukat (1/1)
Normal by gutsandglitter (1/1)
miracles are just too damn hard to find by Anonymous (1/1)
I Could Be Better, But by thegingermidget (1/1)
Your Ex-Lover Is Dead by sophiahelix (1/1)
The Pretender by TheEvangelion (1/1)
Eating of the tree, etc. by PoeticallyIrritating (1/1)
I Really Am Your Colour by heyitsathrowaway (1/1)
Obsessions by weakinteraction (1/1)
you have been a hurricane to me by fmradio (1/1)
it’s in the colours by Toucanna (1/1)
Permanency by Panny (1/1)
Look What You Made Me Do by orphan_account (1/1)
Life in Technicolour by Selenay (1/1)
Opera d’arte by thegingermidget (1/1)
You’re The Best Kind Of Bad Something by clarkes_murphy (1/1)
Nacre by willowbilly (1/1)
tempt my trouble by Wemmabby (1/1)
cloudwatching by isawet (1/1)
MULTI-CHAPTER
A Saint’s Just A Sinner by melvncholymvmi (9/20)
Of Love and La Villanelle by melvncholymvmi (42/42)
Imagine Me And You (And Our Parents) by imunbreakabledude (14/24)
graduating from the school of never forgive and never forget by coldmackerel (1/2)
these mortifying ordeals by coldmackerel (8/12)
At The Cliff’s Edge by filthy_nebula (10/?)
don’t call it off, just call the black and white by hannahnyrie (2/2)
veins start to shiver by charizona (15/16)
manie sans délire by behindthec (11/11)
Different For Us by BeginToFray (22/?)
Now I Don’t Feel Those Kinds Of Things by saltandsunscreen (17/22)
Professional Boundaries by yotoob (39/39)
Triangles by yotoob (2/2)
the shepherd’s folly by ifyouresure (3/3)
Virtues Uncounted by Atticus (3/3)
Come to Me at My Worst by anamatics (3/5)
BY AUTHOR
authors with a larger collections of eve polastri/villanelle fics.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 12/?
Fandom: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Escorts, Escort Villanelle, Hot Mess Eve, Fluff, Smut, there is a plot but only if you squint, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Summary:
This is the last time that Eve takes advice from Hugo.
When Eve drunkenly decides to hire an escort to be her date for her ex-husband’s wedding, she is in no way prepared for Villanelle to be who she is.
Being an Earp at Hogwarts is tough. Being the youngest Earp and constantly living in the shadows of two older sisters is nothing short of a nightmare.
Willa, newly appointed Head Girl and Slytherin’s sweetheart. Wynonna, the notorious troublemaker who spends more time in detention than out of it. And then there’s Waverly, whose life crumbles into tiny pieces when she doesn’t get awarded the Prefect badge that she spent her first four years at Hogwarts striving towards.
Enter Nicole Haught – Hufflepuff, Muggleborn, and general bundle of sunshine – whose unexpected but not entirely unwelcome arrival into Waverly’s life puts Waverly on the path to discover who she is in more ways than one.
Read on AO3.
As a Muggleborn, there are several aspects of the magical world that Nicole sometimes finds beyond her comprehension, despite being one of the top students in her year. Divination, for example. The only subject that she received lower than Exceeds Expectations in her O.W.L.S. in June, because it’s painfully unfair that half of her grade for the course should depend on her ability to pretend to see shapes emerge from the mist of a crystal ball and then invent a fictional scenario that is almost certainly not going to happen as a result of said non-existent shapes.
Apparition, too. The very fact that a magical person can just envision any place fathomable and then travel there in the blink of an eye by simply thinking about it in a certain way is utterly mind-blowing. Though Nicole can’t deny that the part of her that used to obsess of sci-fi movies as a kid is thrilled at the prospect of having all of her childhood fantasies about teleportation come true during apparition lessons later this year, it doesn’t stop the mere concept of it from being completely mind-boggling.
But out of everything in the magical world, the thing that baffles Nicole the most is Wynonna Earp.
“Hypothetically, if somebody was to release two dozen pixies into the school, where do you think they should release them to maximise the chaos?”
Specifically, Nicole is perplexed by the red and gold Prefect’s badge that is pinned slightly askew to the front of Wynonna’s school robes.
“Please tell me that you’re not planning to do exactly that,” Nicole pleads with her fellow Prefect as they amble along the corridor outside the Charms classroom, patrolling the school as part of their duties.
“That’s ridiculous,” Wynonna dismisses her with a wave of her hand. “Where am I going to acquire two dozen pixies?”
Nicole has to repress a snort because she doesn’t doubt even for a moment that Wynonna has both the motivation and the means to get hold of enough pixies to wreak havoc on the entire school. If there is anybody capable of such a feat, then it is Wynonna, and Nicole is all too aware that any attempts to dissuade Wynonna from carrying out such a plan when she already has her mind set on it will just have the opposite effect, no doubt encouraging her to take things three steps further by unleashing a couple of nifflers and a medium sized acromantula on the student body too.
“Okay,” Nicole says after a few moments of thought, “but as a Prefect I feel like I should just let you know that I can’t condone that behaviour. Hypothetical, or otherwise.”
Wynonna lets out a huff, absent-mindedly using her wand to levitate a crumpled ball of parchment that lies discarded by the door to a nearby classroom. With a couple of swishes of her wand, the ball swoops around Nicole’s head and then ducks between her legs, before Wynonna vanishes the litter with a final flick of her wand.
“You sound like my sisters,” grumbles Wynonna, her voice laced with distaste.
“I met Waverly the other day,” Nicole says brightly, smiling at the memory of her encounter with the youngest Earp. She’s been replaying that day over and over in her mind since it happened – having wanted to introduce herself to Waverly for a while, she’s now worried that she’s blown her only chance at friendship with the Ravenclaw girl by staring a bit too much in the library and then confessing her love for a sport that it turns out Waverly isn’t just disinterested in, but actively dislikes along with those who play it. “We were both in the library during the Quidditch match.”
Wynonna scowls, no doubt at the memory of losing to Slytherin by just ten points, a result which, from what Nicole has heard from the rest of the school, might have gone the other way if Slytherin hadn’t been awarded penalty after penalty for Wynonna’s bad language and foul play.
“Of course that’s where Waverly was,” Wynonna complains. “Nerd.”
“Hey,” Nicole says, jumping to Waverly’s defence, even when she isn’t around to hear Wynonna insult her. “There’s nothing wrong with actually wanting to complete your homework on time.” Nicole nudges Wynonna’s arm with her elbow and then teases, “You should try it sometime.”
“Boring,” Wynonna shrugs, rolling her eyes. She turns her head to look across at Nicole, eyes alight with mischief and a wicked grin crossing her lips, and then says in a low voice, “There’s also nothing wrong with wanting to release magical creatures into the castle to liven up the school day.”
Nicole thinks that there’s an awful lot wrong with what Wynonna is suggesting but after five years of watching the other girl cause rampant mayhem without a second thought for anybody else in the school, Nicole also knows better than to try to persuade Wynonna otherwise.
“PIXIES? I DON’T EVEN WANT TO KNOW WHERE YOU GOT THOSE FROM!”
As Aunt Gus’s voice echoes throughout the Great Hall, Waverly shrinks down into her seat and tries to pretend that she doesn’t exist. The Howler isn’t even for her – it hovers opposite Waverly in front of Wynonna, who is paying more attention to the plate of waffles that keeps refilling itself in front of her than to the spitting red envelope that scolds her for her latest wrongdoing loud enough for everybody in the Great Hall to be able to hear it.
It’s not unusual. Wynonna probably receives a Howler from Aunt Gus about two to three times each school year, hence why she is more interested in her breakfast than the screaming envelope. The same can’t be said for the rest of the school. Almost every single pair of eyes in the Great Hall are currently focused on where the two Earp girls are sitting, enraptured as they listen to Aunt Gus reprimand Wynonna.
“ARE YOU INCAPABLE OF GOING A SINGLE WEEK WITHOUT GETTING INTO TROUBLE? I’M IN HALF A MIND TO COME STRAIGHT TO THE CASTLE AND TAKE YOU HOME MYSELF TO SAVE US ALL THE SHAME OF WAITING UNTIL THEY EXPEL YOU!”
“They’re not going to expel me,” Wynonna mutters under her breath, helping herself to a third waffle now that her plate is empty of the first two. “I’m an Earp.”
Waverly loves Wynonna, she really does, but she hates this, hates the gung-ho attitude that Wynonna has where she thinks she can get away with anything and everything just because she’s from a well-known family. She hates how Wynonna somehow manages to get away with far too much, and that even when she doesn’t she seems to take each punishment as a violation of her rights and an excuse for her next misdemeanour to break even more school rules.
Waverly hates how the rest of the school indulges what Wynonna does with more attention than it deserves; how each time Wynonna does something that catches everybody’s attention it ends up being all the school can talk about for days; how Wynonna’s escapades somehow makes Waverly more interesting, not because she’s Waverly and people finally want to get to know her, but because she’s Wynonna’s sister and everybody is suddenly interested in talking to her as if hoping that she can give them an inside scoop on Wynonna’s life.
She hates it.
“WHAT WOULD YOUR PARENTS THINK?”
Wynonna lets her fork drop to her plate with a clatter and looks up at Waverly, exasperation in her eyes as she says, “And there is it.” With her hands now free, Wynonna flips off the Howler with both middle fingers just as the envelope bursts into flames and its ashen remains drift down to the table. “Guilt-tripping me with the dead parent card isn’t going to stop me from doing anything.”
With the Howler now gone and the rest of the school back to muttering softly as they continue to point and stare at where the two youngest Earp girls sit, Wynonna returns her undivided attention to her food, not even looking up as somebody new approaches and joins them for breakfast.
“A Howler before Halloween?” says the newbie - one of Wynonna’s band of misfits, seventh year Doc Holliday - as he drops onto the bench next to Waverly. “Is that a new record, Earp?”
“Nah, remember my second year?” Wynonna replies through a mouthful of waffle.
Doc grimaces and then replies drily, “I’d really rather not.”
Wynonna looks up from her breakfast, and then immediately starts choking on the food in her mouth. Her face turns a deep red colour, not too dissimilar from the Howler that was so recently screaming at her in front of an audience of the entire school, and as she coughs and splutters, Wynonna reaches for her goblet of pumpkin juice and takes a long swig to wash the food down.
“Okay,” Wynonna rasps, when she’s finally regained a small amount of her composure, “what the hell is that?”
It takes a few moments for Doc to realise that Wynonna is addressing him and when he does, he responds, “What the hell is what?”
“That!” Wynonna answers, as if it is obvious. Waverly, about as confused as Doc seems to be, looks at her sister expectantly with her own breakfast now forgotten. When Doc continues to stare blankly at her, Wynonna rolls her eyes and gestures to her own upper lip as she says, “On your face! The … you know…”
Waverly switches her attention to Doc and her eyes widen as she notices the patchy teenage fuzz masquerading as a moustache on his upper lip. She manages to refrain from laughing, but she can certainly see why Wynonna, being the person that she is and with the level of tact that she doesn’t have, managed to nearly suffocate on her own breakfast at the sight.
Clearly proud of his own attempts at growing a moustache, Doc scowls at Wynonna as he says, “It’s called facial hair.”
Wynonna has the audacity to actually snort.
“I’m pretty sure that my Great Aunt Cassie has more facial hair than you.”
“Oh,” says Doc, leaning across the table and tilting his head to the side as he quips back, “it runs in the women in your family, does it?” He sits up straight once more, using his fingertips to stroke the fuzz on his top lip, then continues with an air of pride, “This is a sign of my masculinity.”
“Oh please,” Wynonna rolls her eyes as she picks up her fork and aggressively stabs at a chunk of waffle on her plate. “I’ve seen you naked and it’s gonna take a lot more than a pathetic moustache before you’re anything close to mascul-“
“Sorry, what?” Waverly interjects, her eyes wide as she processes Wynonna’s words and the flippancy with which she says them. “You’ve seen Doc naked?”
“Yeah,” Wynonna shrugs as if this is old news. “Problem?”
“You and him?” Waverly asks, eyes flickering between the pair of them and her face slowly screwing up in disgust as her mind floods with images that are enough to put her off the rest of her breakfast. “You’ve … but I thought that you and Dolls were…”
A trace of incredulity crossing her face, Wynonna replies, “Me and Dolls are not…”
“You and Dolls aren’t what?”
As if sensing that he is being talked about, Dolls chooses that exact moment to join the conversation, hovering behind Wynonna’s shoulder as his eyes move between the three of them seated at the table, expectantly waiting for one of them to give him an answer. When none of them do, he lets it drop with a shrug, tapping Wynonna on the shoulder and gesturing with his other hand towards the doors out of the Great Hall.
“Anyway, come on Earp,” he says. “We’ve got Transfiguration in twenty minutes and I’d bet my wand that you haven’t finished the homework yet.”
“We had homework?” moans Wynonna, getting to her feet in a hurry and swinging her schoolbag over her shoulder. “Shit…”
Waverly tuts softly under her breath and watches in amusement as Wynonna grabs another waffle with her hand and starts eating it as she chases Dolls out of the Great Hall.
“Well that’s my cue to leave,” grumbles Doc, his voice noticeably gloomier as her stares after Wynonna and Dolls. While Waverly has absolutely no interest in hearing any of the sordid details about her sister’s personal life, the revelation that she and Doc have had something going on between them, no matter how brief of an affair it might have been, along with the look of resentment that fills Doc’s eyes as he stares after Wynonna means that Waverly can’t help but wonder if there is something more complex going on between Wynonna and her two closest male friends.
Doc leaves with a glum expression on his face, swinging his legs over the bench and getting to his feet before trudging out of the Great Hall with his hands buried deep in the pockets of the grey uniform trousers he wears beneath his school robes.
Watching him leave, Waverly’s eyes fall on a familiar redheaded Hufflepuff approaching where she now sits alone, and the sight is enough to turn the corners of Waverly’s lips up into a smile and push all thought of Wynonna’s hypothetical love triangle out of her mind.
“Where is Wynonna off to in such a hurry?” Nicole says, dropping into Wynonna’s recently vacated seat across the table from Waverly, her eyes still glued to Wynonna’s back as the middle Earp girl almost sends two first years flying in her urgency to leave the Great Hall.
“She forgot to do her Transfiguration homework,” answers Waverly, adding as a mumbled afterthought, “Again.”
“Your sister continues to baffle me,” says Nicole, shaking her head disapprovingly, though the trace of a smile that crosses her lips puts her disapproval in an oh-that’s-so-Wynonna kind of way.
“You mean how after five years she still hasn’t realised that she could avoid detention by actually doing her homework?” Waverly asks. She rolls her eyes, though by this point she has moved way past irritation at her sister’s behaviour, and almost beyond desperation too, into boredom at the repetition of Wynonna’s lack of consideration for school rules. “Or the fact that the public humiliation of getting a Howler from our aunt seems to do nothing to stop her from pulling idiotic stunts like releasing a swarm of pixies into the Great Hall during the evening feast?”
Nicole grimaces as she replies, “I feel at least partially responsible for that one. She told me about her plans and I didn’t try very hard to convince her not to do it.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Waverly reassures Nicole. “I’m not sure you could have said anything to stop her.”
Nicole laughs softly in agreement, a pretty laugh that fills Waverly’s heart with a warmth that she decides that she wants to feel over and over again. As her laughter falls away, Nicole’s gaze flickers up, her brown eyes wide and filled with a doe-like innocence as she looks at Waverly.
“Anyway, enough about Wynonna, how are you?”
Though the question, at least Waverly assumes so from the expression on Nicole’s face, has no deeper intention than genuine interest in Waverly’s life, it still takes her aback. After their first meeting, Waverly had been certain that any future interactions with Nicole wouldn’t stretch further than perhaps a nod of acknowledgement in the other’s direction as they pass in the corridors, particularly considering Waverly’s accidental rudeness with her comments about Quidditch players. It’s enough of a surprise that Nicole has made the choice to come and talk to her at breakfast at all – indeed Waverly presumed that Nicole just wanted the hot gossip about Wynonna’s latest escapades – let alone the fact that she is showing an interest in Waverly.
“I’m … I’m good, thanks,” she replies, her mouth a little dry as she stumbles over even the most basic of answers in her surprise. “And you?”
“Not too bad,” answer Nicole. Reaching a hand up to her own neck, Nicole tilts her head to the side and winces, before she says, “My neck aches a little though … you know, from holding up my giant head.”
Waverly lets out a low groan and covers her eyes with one hand as she shakes her head. Letting her hand fall back down to her side, Waverly says, “I really cannot apologise enough for what I said about Quidditch players.”
“Apology accepted,” says Nicole. A slow grin starts to spread across her face and Waverly lets herself relax, until Nicole’s expression turns serious and she adds, “but on one condition.”
With her heart racing inside her chest, Waverly fights a wave of panic as she asks, “What’s that?”
Nicole leans across the table, and though the pause before she speaks has Waverly almost trembling in anticipation, her voice is full of teasing undertones when she finally speaks.
“You come and watch me play the next time that Hufflepuff have a game.”
Waverly sighs in relief and then nods, “Deal.”
“Waverly,” says Nicole, feigning seriousness and tilting her head to the side slightly as she leans closer. “I’m going to have to ask you to calm it down with the enthusiasm.”
Waverly sighs again exaggeratedly for comedic effect and then fights back a smile as she looks at Nicole and says, “The things I do for friendship.”
The slow grin that spreads across Nicole’s face at the word friendship is so pure that Waverly wants to capture it in her memory forever. It’s almost as if Nicole can’t quite believe that Waverly wants to be friends with her, a thought which stuns Waverly because she can’t quite comprehend why Nicole would choose to join her for breakfast, when she presumably has so many other friends from her own year group that she could sit with instead.
“What’s your first class?” Nicole asks, as Waverly finishes the final mouthful of her breakfast as sets her cutlery down on the plate.
“Defence Against the Dark Arts.”
“Can I walk you to class?” asks Nicole, almost breathlessly.
Waverly freezes up in shock, though not in a bad way. Definitely not in a bad way. She’s struck once again by how innocent Nicole’s request is, and wonders immediately why she’s wasted the last four years at Hogwarts seeking the approval of literally everybody else in the castle when all it takes is one wide-eyed Muggleborn for her to suddenly feel incredibly valued as an individual. Not even Champ, with his slightly ill-placed yet well-meaning affection, has ever filled Waverly with this kind of warmth before.
“I’d like that,” Waverly agrees with a shy smile. “But don’t you have your own class to get to.”
“It’s fine,” Nicole dismisses Waverly with a casual flick of her hand as she gets to her feet once more. “It’s on the way.”
Waverly is pretty certain that Nicole is in the same Transfiguration class that Wynonna and Dolls have first thing this morning, and despite knowing that the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom is two floors higher and in the opposite wing of the castle to Transfiguration – definitely not on the way at all – she agrees regardless.
“Thank you.”
Waverly follows Nicole out of the rapidly emptying Great Hall and the pair fall into stride out in the Entrance Hall as they walk towards the Grand Staircase.
“So.” Nicole starts, “it’s the Hogsmeade trip next weekend. Are you going?”
“Yeah,” answers Waverly. “I think I’m supposed to be going with Champ.”
As they step onto the first moving staircase, Nicole turns to look at Waverly, her eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Champ … Champ Hardy? You two are still…?”
Waverly nods, and then says, “Uh huh. Six and a half months.”
Nicole’s eyes widen and she stares out into the distance for a few seconds as the staircase comes to a shuddering halt beneath them. She waits until they have started walking again, taking a door that leads out of the central staircase and into the part of the castle where the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom is, before speaking again.
“Things are pretty serious then?”
Waverly shrugs, leading the way along a narrow corridor and then up a twisting spiral staircase before answering, “I … I guess so.”
“No need to sound so enthusiastic, Waves,” Nicole says, any sign of whatever it was that crossed her face when she learned about Waverly and Champ gone as she shoots Waverly a teasing smile and nudges her elbow against Waverly’s arm. Waverly’s eyes widen at the unexpected pet name, which Nicole seems to immediately take as a bad thing, rushing into a hasty apology. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to … can I call you that?”
The rush of affection that Waverly feels for Nicole upon hearing the nickname intensified by the fact that it just slipped out by accident, is unlike anything that Waverly has felt in a very long time, and she nods shyly.
“I like it.”
Nicole relaxes visibly, letting out a long sigh of relief just as they reach the door to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, where Waverly can already see some of her classmates beginning to settle into their seats beyond the classroom door.
“Well, here we are,” Waverly says brightly, not exactly sure what the etiquette is for thanking a budding new friend for accompanying her to class. For going completely out of her own way to walk Waverly to class, despite having her own lesson in a different part of the castle to get to, and particularly after Waverly did the exact opposite of giving Nicole a reason to want to be such a good friend during their first meeting. “Thank you so much. You really didn’t have to do this.”
“I know I didn’t,” agrees Nicole. “But I wanted to.”
They hover awkwardly at the door to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, neither one quite sure how to part ways. Waverly has never had the pleasure of being walked to class before and she isn’t really sure how to say goodbye – does she walk into class and then Nicole leaves, or should she wait for Nicole to leave before she enters the classroom?
Nicole is the one who finally puts an end to it.
“Well, I should go,” she says, and Waverly thinks that the reluctance that she hears edging its way into Nicole’s tone could be more than just wishful thinking on her part. “I have to get to Transfiguration.”
“Okay,” nods Waverly, taking a slow step backwards towards the classroom door as she lifts a hand to wave goodbye. “Bye, Nicole.”
“Goodbye, Waverly.”
Hogsmeade never fails to leave Nicole in a stunned state of awe. Every trip feels like the first one and the excitement of walking down the path from the castle in the midst of a swarm of students and seeing the picturesque little village with its crooked buildings and winding streets come into view has Nicole’s heart doing little flips in her chest as she imagines what the day has in store.
Hogsmeade has an old-fashioned kind of charm to it. The buildings are small and quaint; wooden signs swing in the breeze above the entrances to shops, smoke drifts up from crooked chimney pipes atop tiled roofs, and the window of Honeydukes displays shelf upon shelf of glass jars filled with coloured sweets like an old Victorian shop. Yet there’s something so incredibly special about the magic that brings Hogsmeade to life and sets it apart from the small Muggle villages dotted across the British countryside.
Nicole, along with what feels like every other Hogwarts student visiting the village, spends the first hour of her trip in Honeydukes. It takes that long to make it around the entire shop, what with how many teenagers are crammed into such a tiny space, but even when Nicole finally makes her way out of the busy shop and back onto the cobbled streets, her hands and pockets overflowing with paper bags full of a colourful assortment of all kinds of treats, Nicole is still certain that there must be at least one kind of wizarding confectionary that she’s been meaning to try but has missed out on due to the sheer number of students crowding the shelves in Honeydukes.
Bidding farewell to two of her closest friends in Hufflepuff, who have both arranged to meet their boyfriends in the disgustingly frilly teashop down one of the side streets off Hogsmeade’s main road, Nicole ambles down the street alone, basking in the crisp autumn breeze that hits her face and the aura of magic that fills the air.
“Nicole!”
A voice shouting her name catches Nicole’s attention and she spends a few seconds looking around for its owner, finally catching sight of Waverly Earp standing outside one of the shops. Waverly is bundled up in a thick cloak, her blue and bronze Ravenclaw scarf, and a pair of fluffy earmuffs, and she bounces up and down on her toes as she waves eagerly to get Nicole’s attention.
“Waverly, hi!” Nicole tries not to seem too eager as she bounds over to Waverly. Glancing around, Nicole frowns at the fact that Waverly is by herself and asks, “No Champ?”
Waverly gestures over her shoulder with her thumb and Nicole’s insides sink with the weight of a heavy anchor as she peers through the glass shopfront behind Waverly, where she can see Champ Hardy amongst a group fo boys laughing at something on one of the shelves inside.
“Apparently Champ’s idea of a perfect date is dragging me along while he mucks about with his friends and pays more attention to silly joke shop toys than her does to me,” Waverly says, her tone bitter as she turns to look at Champ through the window, who seems oblivious to the fact that his girlfriend is waiting for him outside the shop.
“Would you rather he took you to Madam Puddifoot’s?” asks Nicole, thinking of her two best friends and the presumably nausea-inducing dates they are on with their own boyfriends.
“Merlin, no!” Waverly answers with a grimace. “Have you seen the inside of that place? It looks like a lace factory exploded.”
Tilting her head to the side, Nicole teases, “Is that not what girls like?”
“You’re a girl,” Waverly quips back, “You tell me.”
It catches Nicole off-guard. Sometimes she forgets that the rest of the world around her is so painfully heterosexual and she tries not to let the surprise show on her face – the very last thing she wants to do is scare Waverly off.
Instead, Nicole takes a deep breath to calm herself down and replies, “I’m not like most girls.”
She’s trying to be cool and mysterious, despite the hammering of her heart, and she thinks that it works because Waverly takes a few seconds to consider Nicole’s words. But then a sly smile crosses Waverly’s lips and she agrees, “No, I guess not,” which flusters Nicole and leaves her feeling the exact opposite of cool and mysterious.
Twitchy and transparent.
Which isn’t exactly the vibe she’s aiming to give off at all.
Nicole takes a couple of deep breaths to calm herself down, an impressive feat considering the question that’s on the tip of her tongue, and then speaks once more.
“I know you’re on a date,” Nicole uses air quotes as she says the word date, causing Waverly to laugh softly and roll her eyes, “but I was on my way to the bookshop if you fancy coming with me?”
“Seriously?” asks Waverly, her head jerking up and her eyes wide in surprise as they search Nicole’s face for any sign that her invitation might not be genuine. When Nicole nods, teeth digging into her lower lips slightly as she awaits a response, Waverly sighs in relief and answers, “Oh thank you, I’d love to. I don’t think I can put up with Champ’s idiotic friends for much longer.”
Nicole can’t stop the grin that spreads across her face as Waverly bounces over to her. Nicole loops her arm through Waverly’s under the pretence of huddling together to ward off the chilly October breeze and Waverly leans into her side as they stroll down the cobbled road towards Tomes and Scrolls, Hogsmeade’s only bookshop.
“So how has your week been?” Nicole asks conversationally.
“Oh, you know,” Waverly answers vaguely, her voice bright. She glances up at Nicole with a knowing expression on her face, before adding, “It’s fifth year.”
Frowning, Nicole asks, “But I can’t imagine that you’re finding the workload too much?”
Waverly hesitates before answering, then confesses with a little tremor in her voice, “I … I kind of love it.”
She lowers her gaze in shame, as if somehow believing that Nicole is going to find her weird and abandon her with Champ and his friends for the rest of the day for enjoying her academic studies, as if they aren’t currently on their way to a bookshop, of all places. Nicole doesn’t consider herself a violent person, in fact she much prefers to work things out with words than with brute force, but she can’t help but find herself filling with a quiet rage along with the urge to hurt whoever has made Waverly feel like it’s not okay for her to enjoy learning.
It’s maybe not intentional, but Nicole clings to Waverly just a little bit tighter with the arm currently linked through Waverly’s, silently communicating her reassurances that it’s okay for Waverly to be completely herself around Nicole.
“What’s your favourite subject?” asks Nicole, encouraging Waverly to speak more about the things that she loves.
Waverly glances up at Nicole briefly, a soft kind of wonder in her eyes as if she can’t quite believe that Nicole is actually interested in getting to know her, then she smiles as she answers happily, “Definitely Ancient Runes. It’s so fascinating, so complex but so rewarding, you know?”
“I … I actually don’t,” admits Nicole. “I didn’t take Runes. I regret it though, choosing Divination was a terrible decision.”
“You took Divination?” Waverly asks, her eyebrows shooting up with such speed that Nicole is surprised they don’t keep going and disappear into her hairline. “That surprises me.”
“Really?” Nicole shrugs, then explains, “I’m Muggleborn so the whole idea of predicting the future is like a childhood fantasy come true. Of course I took Divination.”
“And how did the class compare to the childhood fantasies?”
Laughing and shaking her head at the memories of the complete joke that was three years of Divination classes, Nicole answers truthfully, “It was a complete waste of time, to be honest!”
Upon reaching the bookshop, Nicole reluctantly lets her arm slip free from Waverly’s and pushes open the door, standing aside as she holds it open to let Waverly enter first, who beams at Nicole and mutters a soft thanks in return.
When she follows Waverly inside, Nicole stops and takes a few moments to appreciate her new surroundings. Each towering bookshelf holds hundreds of leather bound books, each book contains thousands upon thousands of words. From spellbooks to advanced potion making, herbology to ancient magical lore, colourfully illustrated children’s books on magical creatures to dusty tomes written in almost forgotten languages, there must be a book on every conceivable subject somewhere in this shop. Nicole could spend a lifetime in here and still barely scratch the surface of the knowledge that is waiting to be uncovered.
But being here with Waverly brings a different kind of excitement. It’s not a date, Nicole has to remind herself every few seconds, because Waverly is just a friend, but Nicole would be lying if she said that she hadn’t meticulously planned out every detail of what a first date with Waverly would entail. And this would be it; a couple of hours in a bookshop where they explore the shelves that are filled with stimuli for an endless number of conversations, how they could get to know each other so well just by walking around this shop and discovering where the other’s interests lie.
Not to mention the fact that Nicole is a hopeless romantic at heart and the throwback to where they first met, surrounded by the high bookshelves of the Hogwarts library, seems to signify something really special to Nicole.
But this is not a date.
Absolutely not.
It’s so hard to keep telling herself that when Waverly grabs Nicole’s hand with her own mitten-covered one and drags her to the back of the bookshop.
They’re in the Runes section of the bookshop and Nicole barely has any idea what Waverly is saying (something along the lines of a collection of books that she’s been saving up her galleons for) but it doesn’t really matter. Waverly could be talking about a subject that Nicole knows more about than anybody else in the world and the words would still mean nothing because Nicole is far too enraptured by the way that Waverly gesticulates with her arms, far too mesmerised by the passion and the enthusiasm with which Waverly talks, to take notice of the words themselves.
Waverly is beautiful. Of course, Nicole already knew that from a purely objective point of view, but Waverly’s intelligence stretches far beyond any kind of physical beauty. Nicole could be presented with an actual Veela, and she would still think that Waverly, with her quiet charm and otherworldly intellect, is the most beautiful girl on the planet.
Waverly Earp – who even just a couple of weeks ago was nothing more than a stranger, a quiet Ravenclaw in the year below Nicole who always keeps herself to herself, known for being the youngest daughter from a family of famous dark wizard hunters – sharing her passions with Nicole with expressive authenticity, is now just Waverly.
And yet she is so much more than that too.
“Are you okay?”
Waverly’s question brings Nicole out of her own thoughts and she feels a little bit delirious as she answers, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Way more than okay.
It is thirst finally getting the better of them that forces them to leave the bookshop. Though Nicole could quite easily spend the rest of the day in the bookshop with Waverly, listening to the other girl talk about subjects that she’s interested in and moving from one conversation to another with an effortless kind of ease that is just so completely unlike anything that Nicole could find in any of her other friendships, they have to leave eventually, wrapping themselves up in their cloaks and scarves once more before leaving the shop and crossing the street to the Three Broomsticks.
“Thank you for this,” Waverly says, as the pair sit down at a table near the fireplace in the cosy pub, each holding a frothy tankard of butterbeer.
“For what?” Nicole asks, confused as to what she has done to warrant a thank you.
“For saving me from having to spend the day with Champ and his friends,” explains Waverly. She takes a sip of her butterbeer and then, with her teeth anxiously nibbling at her lower lips, continues, “Is it bad that I’m almost glad that he’s with his friends today because it means I don’t have to deal with him one on one?”
Nicole’s eyebrows shoot upwards and she replies, “He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he supposed to be the one person that you want to spend all your time with?”
Waverly’s face falls and she shrugs, before answering, “I guess so. But with Champ it’s just … sometimes I feel like I’m just a piece of arm candy, like he doesn’t actually care about me beyond having somebody to make out with occasionally.” Waverly hesitates, then adds, “And that he can say he’s bagged himself an Earp.”
Nicole reaches across the table and rests her hand over Waverly’s, unable to believe how anybody is capable of making Waverly feel so underappreciated and still be able to sleep at night.
“Waverly,” Nicole says, looking into the other girl’s eyes and speaking with complete honesty. “You’re so much more than some guy’s trophy. Anybody would be lucky to call you their girlfriend. And if Champ Hardy can’t see that, then he doesn’t deserve you.”
Waverly glances down, embarrassed, and makes a noncommittal grunt, so Nicole continues.
“I can’t tell you how to live your life, or who should and shouldn’t have an important place in it,” she tells Waverly, “but if you ever want to complain about boys, or plot how to crush the heteronormative patriarchy, I’m your girl.”
Waverly looks up, a soft smile on her face, and she just opens her mouth to say something in response when the pub door crashes open, letting in a chilly gust of wind as four boys jostle their way inside, led by a familiar figure. Upon seeing her boyfriend, who she abandoned earlier in the day in favour of spending time with Nicole, Waverly sits up straighter and anything she might have been about to say to Nicole goes forgotten.
“Champ!”
The boy looks around, searching for the voice that said his name, and when his eyes fall on Waverly and he gapes at her with a dumbfounded expression on his face, Nicole suspects that he might not even have noticed his girlfriend’s absence today at all.
“Oh,” he says. “Waverly. You’re here.”
“Yes,” Waverly answers, her tone brusque, “I am.”
“Who is your friend?” Champ asks, nodding his head in Nicole’s direction.
“This is Nicole,” says Waverly. “We went to look at books together while you were in the joke shop.”
Champ spends a few seconds looking at Nicole, his eyes slightly narrowed as he appraises her briefly, before he relaxes and turns to Waverly with a smile on his face. A stupid, stupid smile that Nicole wants to wipe off with a flick of her wand.
“That’s so cool that you’ve got a friend to do girly stuff with instead of me,” he tells Waverly.
Like Nicole says, she really wants to inflict some physical pain on Champ and her brain is already forming a list of the spells that she could use and ranking them based on a combination of how much embarrassment they would cause Champ and how much pleasure they would give her to use.
But instead of taking out her wand and hexing Champ into the next century, Nicole forces herself to stay calm and asks, “Girly stuff? You mean like reading?”
Waverly’s soft snort from beside her is more than worth any backlash she might face from Champ for that comment. But instead of retaliating with anger, Champ seems to miss the sarcasm in Nicole’s voice entirely, instead taking her by surprise by actually agreeing with her.
“Yeah,” he nods, without a trace of irony in his voice. “Just like that.”
Champ walks closer to their table, closing the gap between himself and Waverly so that he can lean down and press a kiss to her lips, though Waverly turns her head slightly at the last minute so that his mouth lands on her cheek instead. Unperturbed, or perhaps he just didn’t notice Waverly’s lack of enthusiasm for his affection, he straightens up and gets ready to walk over to where his friends stand at the bar waiting to order their drinks.
“See you later, babe,” he says, before he departs.
“I didn’t know that boys couldn’t read,” says Nicole drily, the moment that Champ is out of earshot, “but that explains so much.”
Waverly’s laugh in response, as sweet and smooth as the butterbeer that they drink and such a contrast to the frosty reception she gave to Champ, is possibly the only thing that matters in Nicole’s world.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 10/?
Fandom: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Escorts, Escort Villanelle, Hot Mess Eve, Fluff, Smut, there is a plot but only if you squint, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Summary:
This is the last time that Eve takes advice from Hugo.
When Eve drunkenly decides to hire an escort to be her date for her ex-husband’s wedding, she is in no way prepared for Villanelle to be who she is.
Being an Earp at Hogwarts is tough. Being the youngest Earp and constantly living in the shadows of two older sisters is nothing short of a nightmare.
Willa, newly appointed Head Girl and Slytherin’s sweetheart. Wynonna, the notorious troublemaker who spends more time in detention than out of it. And then there’s Waverly, whose life crumbles into tiny pieces when she doesn’t get awarded the Prefect badge that she spent her first four years at Hogwarts striving towards.
Enter Nicole Haught – Hufflepuff, Muggleborn, and general bundle of sunshine – whose unexpected but not entirely unwelcome arrival into Waverly’s life puts Waverly on the path to discover who she is in more ways than one.
Read on AO3.
Nicole fits into Waverly’s life like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle, but unlike that missing puzzle piece, Waverly didn’t realise that the picture was incomplete until she met Nicole.
Waverly’s social circle has always been enough. Whatever problems there might be elsewhere in her life (being overshadowed by two older sisters, the lack of a Prefect badge on her school robes, an underappreciative boyfriend), her social life has never felt inadequate.
She has her friends in Ravenclaw; Chrissy, Steph, Jeremy, and a few others. Then there’s Wynonna who, despite her total disregard for the rules and her penchant for causing absolute chaos whenever the opportunity arises, is an important part of Waverly’s social life. Along with Doc and Dolls, Waverly often enjoys her sister’s company at meal times – as crass as the conversation topics might be, Waverly gets on well with Wynonna most of the time and has no qualms about hanging out with her sister.
Nicole, however, is a refreshing injection of something new into the otherwise familiar routine of Waverly’s life. She fits in like she’s always supposed to have been there – a new study buddy for those long evenings spent huddled over a pile of books in the library, somebody who occasionally walks Waverly to and from her classes without being asked to, a person to huddle up next to on a bench in one of the courtyards during break, a buffer at mealtimes against the weirdness that is the Wynonna-Dolls-Doc love triangle that none of them seem willing to actually acknowledge. Because Nicole already knows Wynonna and Dolls through their Prefect duties, she fits into that part of Waverly’s life with immense ease, offering up an effortless banter with Wynonna and the boys whilst maintaining the same kind of why the hell do I hang out with these idiots vibe that Waverly feels so strongly in herself too.
The only problem with Nicole’s smooth transition into Waverly’s life is that it makes Champ almost redundant. Which, the more that Waverly thinks about it, doesn’t seem like so much of a problem at all.
Where Champ is weird and dismissive, Nicole is kind and attentive; where Champ seems uninterested in Waverly beyond her looks, Nicole pays attention to every little thing that Waverly says as though her words are giving Nicole life; where Champ will happily blow Waverly off in favour of hanging out with his friends without even a glimmer of remorse, Nicole goes out of her way to ensure that Waverly feels appreciated in everything that she does.
It’s not a fair comparison, in fact it’s not really a comparison at all, when one brings Waverly infinitely more happiness than the other, but it’s one that Waverly’s brain can’t help but make. When she’s with Nicole, Waverly feels guilty about the fact that she should want to be spending this much time with Champ instead, but when she’s with Champ, she can’t stop the way that her brain is counting down the minutes until she can make her excuses and find Nicole instead.
The only thing that she would miss out on by cutting Champ out of her life and replacing him with Nicole would be the making out. And yet, as Waverly shudders at the memory of Champ’s slobbery tongue moving in predictably invasive circles in her mouth, she realises that maybe she wouldn’t be missing out on much at all.
Waverly feels bad for even considering the possibility of ending her relationship with Champ. As irritated as she sometimes gets with his behaviour, he’s never done anything to hurt her. He calls Waverly beautiful when he’s supposed to, he listens to Waverly complain about her sisters, he holds her hand in the hallways and kisses her and pays attention to her when the rest of the school would happily disregard her existence entirely.
All things that used to be enough but now don’t seem like that at all.
And with the imprint that Nicole is making on Waverly’s life increasing with each day, Waverly doesn’t know for how much longer she’s going to be able to put up with Champ before she snaps.
Willa is the one who screws everything up.
Since Nicole has been a part of her life, Waverly is no longer surprised when she leaves a lesson to occasionally find somebody waiting for her outside the classroom. What does surprise her on this particular Thursday afternoon as she leaves the Charms classroom after an especially exciting lesson, is that the person waiting outside for her isn’t wearing the usual yellow and black Hufflepuff colours, but instead the green and silver of Slytherin.
“Waverly, hi!”
Willa – Head Girl, Seeker for the Slytherin Quidditch team, and one of the most popular girls in the school – does an extraordinary job of pretending that she is the only Earp at Hogwarts. Indeed, Waverly is much easier for her to ignore than Wynonna, but while the younger two Earps share some of the same friends and can often be seen in each other’s company, Willa avoids them both unless absolutely necessary. The result is that Waverly only really interacts with Willa during school holidays.
Which is why it’s so startling that Willa has gone completely out of her way to accost Waverly on this random Thursday afternoon.
“Willa?” Waverly asks confusedly.
Willa’s fingers clasp around Waverly’s wrist, roughly dragging her away from the rest of her classmates and down the hallway, pulling her into a secluded alcove beside a towering statue of a warlock. Waverly has only a few seconds to wonder what is so urgent and secretive to justify the fact that Willa has all but kidnapped her as she left the Charms classroom, before Willa gets straight to her point with no preamble.
“I want to talk about that friend of yours.”
As confused as before, if not more so, Waverly desperately racks her brain for an idea of who Willa might be talking about, then asks, “Which friend?”
“The Hufflepuff girl,” Willa elaborates. “Haught.”
“Nicole?” Waverly’s eyes widen and she gets momentarily distracted by thoughts of how much nicer it would have been to leave her final lesson of the day to find Nicole waiting outside of the classroom instead of Willa. “What about her?”
“People are talking about her,” answers Willa, lowering her voice as if afraid that somebody is going to eavesdrop on their conversation. “There are rumours.”
Waverly’s expression twists into a frown. Gossip has a habit of spreading around Hogwarts faster than one could send an owl from one side of the castle to the other but Waverly hasn’t been privy to any rumours regarding Nicole. If it was something big, she definitely would have heard about it by now, which leads her to believe that whatever rumours Willa is talking about are strictly between her own group of Slytherin’s most elite.
“What kind of rumours?” Waverly dares to ask.
As far as she is concerned, there isn’t anything that could cast a shadow over Nicole’s character – Willa could tell her that Nicole is secretly a wanted criminal who has stolen thousands of galleons from inside the deepest vaults in Gringotts and Waverly would still turn up to her regular Thursday evening studying session in the library with Nicole later tonight. But with the way that Willa looks at her, as if she’s about to tell Waverly something that will change her entire opinion about Nicole, Waverly is almost scared to hear the truth.
“Rumours that she’s…” Willa trails off and cranes her neck slightly, glancing both ways down the corridor from their secluded alcove as if to check that nobody else is around, before she continues, “… that she’s a gay.”
Waverly stills as uncertainty sends an uncomfortable shiver down her spine that feels a little bit like somebody has poured a trickle of icy cold water down the back of her shirt. She’s heard nothing of these rumours before, nor has there been any indication, either from Nicole or from anybody else, that these rumours have any foundation. Waverly has opened up to Nicole a lot in the few weeks that they’ve been friends – she’s told Nicole things about her family, about her own fears and aspirations, that she hasn’t shared with anybody else before – and she’d like to think that if Nicole is gay, that she would feel like she could share that part of her life with Waverly without feeling ashamed of herself.
But the way that Willa currently looks at Waverly, the way that she says the word “gay” as if it leaves a nasty taste in her mouth, doesn’t sit right with Waverly, whether the rumour is true or not.
“And so what if she is?” asks Waverly, folding her arms across her chest defensively as she tries not to let herself feel hurt by the fact that Nicole might be hiding something like this from her.
“People will start to think that you’re one too,” answers Willa, her eyes filling with a look of pure disgust as if she can’t think of anything worse than her sister coming out as gay.
“And?” Waverly repeats, defiantly standing up to Willa despite the pounding of her heart in her chest.
“Waverly, I’m the Head Girl,” Willa says, teeth clenched and her voice barely more than a growl. “I leave Hogwarts in just a few months and I’m applying for really competitive positions within the Ministry of Magic. I can’t afford any blemishes on my record. Being related to Wynonna is bad enough without people thinking that my other little sister is a lesbian. It’s bad for my image.”
“Bad for your image?” scoffs Waverly, raising her voice slightly in disbelief at the complete rubbish that is leaving her sister’s mouth. “Willa, you never even acknowledge me when we’re at Hogwarts. Half the school probably hasn’t even realised that we’re related!”
“Of course they have,” hisses Willa. “We’re Earps.”
And there it is again. Their surname hanging over Waverly’s head like a dark grey cloud, just waiting to send a crackle of lightning down to wreak havoc on her life.
“I’m with Champ,” says Waverly stiffly, adjusting the way that her school bag sits on her shoulder and stepping out of the alcove. “Nicole is just a friend.”
“And you’d do well to stick with Champ and leave Haught behind you.”
Waverly doesn’t turn up to the library that evening to study with Nicole. She makes a list of excuses in her head – that she’s too tired to study, that she’s almost completely caught up with her homework anyway, that she’s been neglecting Champ recently and that he deserves some more of her time – anything but the fact that she might just not be ready to face Nicole after the conversation with Willa earlier today.
The guilt that Waverly feels for avoiding Nicole overwhelms her, but so does the messy tangle of thoughts that won’t stop whirring around inside her head. The truth is that she just doesn’t really want to see Nicole right now.
Though, if Willa is correct, it does hurt a little bit to think that Nicole might have been keeping her sexuality from Waverly, that’s not what stops her from standing Nicole up. What gets to her is the snide comment that Willa made afterwards. People will start to think that you’re one too.
She wants people to know her as Waverly – clever, kind, and ambitious Waverly – not as Willa Earp’s lesbian little sister. She doesn’t want to be the subject of other people’s conversations just because there are rumours about her, least of all rumours that aren’t true. The knowledge that there are people who are talking about Nicole like that, and that people could start talking about her in that way too, especially after looking past all of her incredible accomplishments during the four and a bit years she’s been at Hogwarts, leaves Waverly feeling a little bit queasy.
Waverly adds her unsettled stomach and the fact that she feels as though she might hurl up her dinner at any moment to the mental list of reasons why she’s decided not to join Nicole in the library tonight.
Instead, Waverly spends the evening with Champ, the pair of them sitting on the floor in the darkness of an empty classroom on the second floor of the castle. Champ’s arm drapes around her shoulder and the fingers of his other hand sit intertwined with Waverly’s on their laps, while they just talk and steal the occasional kiss. Champ tells her dumb stories about him and his friends and then listens as Waverly recounts her own day, minus her surprise encounter with Willa.
As time spent with Champ goes, it’s actually not that bad, and Waverly is reminded of the reasons why she’s dating him in the first place, the reasons why it would be unwise to end their relationship. He’s charming when he wants to be, he’s certainly not bad to look at, his kissing technique has improved by strides since they first started going out, and he’s not always a complete idiot one hundred percent of the time.
But it’s not quite an evening spent poring over thick spellbooks with Nicole.
It’s also not an evening that is going to start any unsolicited rumours about Waverly’s own sexuality, Waverly is quick to remind herself almost as soon as her mind wanders and starts to mourn the loss of her typical Thursday night.
Waverly and Champ leave their hiding place fifteen minutes before curfew, sneaking a couple more kisses in the seclusion of the moonlit classroom, before they step out into the corridor and slowly amble along it with their laced fingers swinging between them as they walk.
So caught up in the deep abyss of her own mind, Waverly doesn’t notice the figure walking ahead of them until it’s too late and Champ has already pointed her out.
“Isn’t that your friend?” he asks, gesturing down the hallway, and Waverly glances up, jolted out of her own daydreams by the sight of Nicole’s red hair pushed back into its familiar braid. Before Waverly has the chance to say anything, Champ is cupping his free hand around his mouth to amplify his voice as he shouts out, “Hey! Haught!”
As Nicole stops walking and turns around on the spot, Waverly’s body is overrun with chills. And not the nervous excitement, butterflies-in-stomach, good kind of chills, but the uncomfortable I’ve-just-had-a-bucket-of-icy-water-dumped-on-my-head kind of chills.
It’s suddenly as though all of the mental progress that she’s made with Champ tonight has disintegrated. His hand, fingers intertwined with Waverly’s, suddenly feels clammy in her own, and just the sight of Nicole has Waverly feeling guilty for choosing to give the time that she should have spent with Nicole to Champ. She knows immediately that it was a mistake, but as soon as that thought crosses her mind, she is reminded of what Willa said.
People will start to think that you’re one too.
“Waverly,” says Nicole, breaking the silence as soon as Waverly and Champ are close enough to hold a normal conversation. “I was kind of hoping to see you in the library tonight.”
“Oh crap, is it Thursday?” Waverly feigns confusion, though she can tell from the look of disappointment that crosses Nicole’s face that she isn’t buying it for even a second. Attempting to justify her choices, she continues, “I … I didn’t really have any work to do tonight. I’m all caught up on homework.”
Champ, as oblivious to what Waverly is feeling as ever, interjects with a smarmy grin, “And she wanted to spend time with me, right babe?”
Waverly responds with a noncommittal murmur which Champ seems to interpret as an agreement, if the way that his hand tightens in hers is anything to go by. He shifts their positions, stepping behind Waverly and wrapping both arms around her middle as he rests his chin on her shoulder, and though Waverly knows he’s just trying to be affectionate, just being Champ, she can’t help but feel like the affection is a little too territorial for Waverly to feel entirely comfortable in his arms.
She feels trapped, both physically and emotionally.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” says Nicole, as she turns around and starts to walk away in the direction of the Hufflepuff common room.
The hurt is evident in Nicole’s voice and it stings in Waverly’s heart like she’s been stabbed with a vicious knife. She wants to apologise for bailing on their weekly study session, but her throat clams up the moment she even considers doing saying something. With Champ behind her, his arms wrapped possessively around her, the friendship with Nicole that has been blossoming so beautifully in the last few weeks seems almost like a distant memory.
Champ’s arms around her waist feel foreign, and as she watches Nicole retreat down the corridor, Waverly can’t help but feel like it’s more than just her friend walking away from her, that something else is leaving her too.
Waverly still isn’t feeling herself the following morning, and she spends breakfast sitting in complete silence, contemplating all of the events of the last twenty four hours while she nibbles half-heartedly on a slice of buttered toast. There’s a conversation going on around her – Wynonna doing her usual morning routine of winding up Doc and Dolls – but Waverly doesn’t feel like joining in. And with her mind cycling through thoughts of Willa and Nicole and Champ faster than she knows how to comprehend it, she isn’t really capable of joining in even if she wants to.
It takes a few minutes, but once she’s finally got bored of the boys, Wynonna seems to notice that Waverly is gloomier than usual.
“What’s crawled up your butt?”
Waverly doesn’t feel like sharing the full truth with Wynonna – as much as she knows that she can always trust Wynonna to have her back, she doesn’t need the pressure of worrying what another person might be thinking about her.
Shrugging noncommittally, Waverly answers vaguely, “Just something that Willa said to me yesterday.”
Wynonna wrinkles up her nose and says, “And I was hoping that you’d finally broken up with that pathetic sack of shit you call a boyfriend.”
Wynonna has always been rather vocal with her opinions about Waverly and Champ’s lack of compatibility, but right now, when Waverly’s own mind is filled with seeds of doubt anyway, it’s not exactly what she wants to hear this morning.
“Wynonna…”
“You can do better,” insists Wynonna, reaching across the table to rest her hand over Waverly’s. “Way better.”
Waverly glances down at the half-eaten piece of toast on her plate, having lost her appetite completely, and admits sadly, “Nobody else is going to date an Earp.”
“Not true,” says Wynonna. She nudges Doc with her elbow to get his attention, and then says, “You’re into Earps, aren’t you, Holliday?”
“Gross,” Waverly screws up her face. She likes Doc, likes the role her has in their group and the way that he can lift up Wynonna’s mood when she’s having a bad day, but Waverly would never see him as anything other than a good friend. “Doc’s not my type.”
“Oh, baby girl,” Wynonna laughs. “I wasn’t offering him to you.” Wynonna lifts her fork to her mouth and manages to fit half a sausage in her mouth in one go, before she adds, her words muffled by the food, “And just for the record, don’t listen to a word that Willa says.”
“She just…” Waverly sighs, and then says, “Apparently there are people who might be saying things about me. She told me to be careful about how others might perceive me.”
“You’d be better off taking advice from a steaming pile of dragon shit than from our sister,” Wynonna tells her, as eloquent as ever, gesturing emphatically with her fork.
It’s meant as a reassurance, and though the words fall slightly short of that, knowing that Wynonna has got her back might just be enough to help Waverly through another day of fighting against her own mind.
Waverly still feels like crap the next morning too.
It’s Saturday, but not only that, it’s the day of the Quidditch match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Waverly stays in bed, the curtains drawn around her four-poster and all four of her blankets pulled tightly over her shoulders as she nestles in their cocooning warmth. She can hear her fellow fifth-year Ravenclaw girls getting ready for the match, excitedly chatting about their predictions for the match and how hot one the Ravenclaw Seeker is as they wrap up in cloaks and their blue and bronze scarves.
When she hears them leave for breakfast, the dormitory door clattering shut behind them, Waverly rolls over in her bed and lets out a long sigh. She feels terrible about not going to the Quidditch match but the very last thing she wants to spend her day surrounded by crowds of her fellow students when Willa’s words, still raw in her mind, have her constantly worrying that any little action could have everybody spreading lies about her.
Nicole’s face swims to the front of Waverly’s mind and a fresh wave of guilt washes over her. She knows that Nicole is expecting her to be at the game today – she made that promise when they first started spending time with each other and Nicole has dropped a couple of hints in the last few weeks that she’d like to see Waverly there. Nicole even suggested that this particular match between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, the only game in the Hogwarts Quidditch calendar in which neither of her sisters will be in the air, should be the one that Waverly chooses to come to.
But she just can’t bring herself to go.
It’s not just the crowds. By not going to the match at all, Waverly doesn’t have to choose a side. She feels as though she would be letting Nicole down by turning up dressed in blue, but openly supporting Hufflepuff against her own house would just be adding fuel to Willa’s fire.
She doesn’t want to let Nicole down, but Willa is her sister, and no matter how hard she tries not to, she can’t help but want Willa’s approval too, even if the oldest Earp is far from worthy of it.
Waverly spends the whole day in bed feeling sorry for herself, only dragging herself out in time for dinner, where she sits with Chrissy and Steph after mumbling something about cramps to excuse herself for not being at the Quidditch match.
She spares a glance for Nicole, who sits with her Hufflepuff teammates, cheeks flushed and damp hair hanging down her back as they celebrate their victory. Knowing that Nicole won doesn’t appease Waverly’s guilt.
If anything, it makes it worse.
About thirty minutes before the evening curfew, Waverly finally decides that she’s had enough. She throws on an oversized sweater and leaves Ravenclaw tower alone, taking the long route down to the ground floor of the castle and past the school kitchens until she finds herself standing outside the Hufflepuff common room.
Not knowing the password to get in, Waverly has to wait for five minutes for somebody to arrive – a fourth year boy with his arms laden with drinks and treats, presumably for a party that’s taking place to celebrate Hufflepuff’s victory in the Quidditch match.
“Hi,” Waverly says to him as he passes. “Could you see if Nicole Haught is in there? I need to speak to her.”
He nods and disappears inside the common room.
It’s another couple of minutes, ones that feel like they drag on for hours, before Nicole emerges from the Hufflepuff common room. Her cheeks are pink, she holds a bottle of butterbeer in one hand, but the smile drops off her face when she sees Waverly nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other outside the Hufflepuff common room.
“Hey,” says Waverly. Gesturing with a tilt of her head to the drink in Nicole’s hand and the Hufflepuff scarf draped around her neck, she adds, “Congratulations.”
“Hi,” Nicole frowns in confusion. “What are you doing here? Not that I’m not glad to see you, but I wasn’t expecting this.”
Taking a deep breath before she speaks, Waverly says, “I want to apologise. I made you a promise and today I broke that promise.”
Nicole’s expression remains confused for a few seconds, before it hits and she nods understandingly as she says, “You weren’t at the Quidditch match.”
“Nicole, I’m so…
“No,” Nicole interrupts her, taking a step forward and reaching out with the hand not curled around the bottle to touch Waverly reassuringly on her slumped shoulder. “You don’t need to apologise to me. I’m not stupid – I know there’s something going on in that head of yours. You haven’t seemed yourself the last couple of days and I understand completely that watching a Quidditch match is the last thing you’d want to do if there’s something troubling you, whether it’s a Champ thing or and Earp thing…”
Overcome by Nicole’s blind compassion, Waverly feels guiltier than ever before for almost pushing her friend away. Knowing that Nicole deserves a full explanation for her unusual behaviour, Waverly interjects, “It’s actually a you thing.”
Nicole’s jaw drops open and her eyebrows furrow together once more, before she asks, “A me thing?”
Waverly hesitates before she elaborates. She doesn’t want to seem accusatory or upset with Nicole because that’s the very last thing that she’s feeling right now, but Nicole has clearly noticed that Waverly has been off with her and she deserves to know why.
“Willa accosted me the other day,” says Waverly, pushing past the nerves that cause her heart to flutter and her fingers to fidget with the sleeves of her baggy sweater that hang down over her hands. “She said that there’s rumours going around the school about you.” Waverly glances down at the floor, then back up at Nicole, nibbling her lower lip anxiously before she continues, “Rumours that you’re … gay.”
Nicole’s answer is short and reveals nothing but her own surprise.
“Oh.”
Eager to make things right with Nicole, Waverly presses on, “I don’t care about that. I don’t need to know whether that’s true or not, but…”
“I am,” Nicole interrupts her. “Gay, I mean.”
Waverly nods, swallowing as she processes this new piece of information, before she replies gratefully, “I appreciate you sharing that with me.” She continues, “But that’s not why I’ve been distant. Sure, it was a bit of a shock when Willa first told me, but you’re my friend and that’s not going to change because of this. But Willa told me that the more time I spend with you, the more people are starting to spread those rumours about me too.”
Hurt flashes across Nicole’s eyes and Waverly wishes that she knew how to make it go away, wishes that she knew a spell that could make all of this trouble disappear and return their friendship to how it was just a few short days ago.
But there isn’t a spell that can do that, so Waverly has to attempt to do the same with her words.
“I’m having a lot of thoughts about where I stand with Champ right now,” confesses Waverly. “A lot of doubt about whether I can see a future with him and I’m just not equipped to handle people spreading rumours about me on top of that.”
It’s barely even a glimpse into the world of confusion that Waverly feels like she wading through right now, but it’s all that she can find the words to explain right now. And thankfully, from the way that Nicole is nodding and sending her reassuring smiles, it’s just about enough.
“I understand that,” she tells Waverly, nodding in understanding. “It must be very overwhelming.”
“You’re my friend, Nicole,” says Waverly, a lump forming in her throat that make it difficult to speak without choking, “and I’ve been pushing you away for reasons that you don’t deserve.”
Without any hesitation, Nicole steps forward to close the gap between them and wraps her arms around Waverly. Waverly relaxes into the embrace and lets her head fall to Nicole’s shoulder, burying her face into the soft wool of the scarf draped around Nicole’s neck and screwing her eyes shut to stop that tears that threaten to cascade down her cheeks.
“Waves,” Nicole says softly, running a soothing hand through the hair on the back of Waverly’s head, “I understand that you might not always want to talk to me about what’s going on in your head, but don’t ever feel like you can’t talk to me.”
“What did I do to deserve a friend like you?” Waverly mumbles into Nicole’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for pushing you away.”
“You have nothing to apologise for,” Nicole assures her. As she releases Waverly from her hug and takes a step back so that she can look Waverly in the eye, she continues, “You’re with Champ. I know that this is easy for me to say, but if people can’t respect that then they aren’t worth your time.” A mischievous smile lights up Nicole’s face as she adds, “Plus, I’ve been spending too much time with Wynonna lately and she may have taught me a couple of banned hexes and I’d be happy to break a few school rules by using them on anybody who causes you some trouble.”
“You wouldn’t,” Waverly says, smiling softly for what is probably the first time in days. Waverly takes a step back, lifting her arm up to check the time on the dainty silver watch around her wrist. “Oh rats! Speaking of school rules, I was supposed to be back in Ravenclaw Tower five minutes ago.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s Wynonna’s turn to patrol that part of the castle tonight,” Nicole informs her. “If I know her at all, she’ll be making out with somebody in a broom closet instead of doing her duties.”
Waverly screws up her face at the thought of Wynonna getting handsy with Doc Holliday in a secluded corner of the school after hours, though a small part of her hopes that what Nicole is saying is true if it’ll mean Waverly avoids getting into trouble for wandering around the castle at such a late hour.
“See you around, Waverly,” says Nicole, as Waverly departs with a tiny wave. “I’ll see you soon. I’m always going to still be here, no matter how long it takes you to figure out what’s going on in your head.
Waverly doesn’t know what she did to deserve a friend like Nicole.
Summary: When Clarke learns that her father’s trading ship has been attacked by pirates, she sets out on a daring rescue mission. The only problems – Jake could be being held prisoner anywhere in the Caribbean and Clarke has never sailed a ship before. To help save her father’s life, Clarke attempts to enlist the help of the notorious Captain Lexa Woods, a fearsome pirate who is just as broody and mysterious as she is unwilling to offer her assistance.
Read on AO3.
The walk back to Polis is a silent one. Lexa leads the way and she can hears Clarke’s footsteps just behind her as they navigate a path through crowded streets and winding alleys back to the docks.
The sight that greets them as they round the final corner onto the boardwalk that lines the beach is one of Lexa’s favourites. Even in a town as pitiful as Tortuga, the harbour at night is beautiful – shadowy masts towering into the air from the tens of empty ships afloat close to the docks, the lanterns on the deck of each one casting the entire area in a dim orange glow. With most of the crews out within the town itself, the decks are empty but for one or two men left on duty, and the stillness of not just one ship that is usually bustling with life, but an entire harbour full of them, is a wondrous sight that never fails to amaze Lexa.
However, the view doesn’t quite do enough to brighten Lexa’s mood. The refusals to help Lexa in her quest to finally put an end to all of Nia’s trouble, even from her own sister, gnaw uneasily at her insides.
The relationship between Lexa and Anya has always been a tricky one. On one hand they’ve always been close - growing up as the only two orphan kids on a ship of otherwise fully grown pirates gives you a special bond that never really leaves you, even into adulthood when you both captain your own ships. But Lexa would be lying if she said that it didn’t bring its share of struggles with it too; an age old grudge, selfish deceit, and a fiercely competitive edge (mostly on Anya’s part) that can be detrimental to them working together in the most crucial of times.
One might have thought that growing up together on the same ship, they would know each other better than anybody, but Anya still remains a complete enigma to Lexa. Her actions are unpredictable, the things she says are often brash and unexpected, and most irritatingly of all, the opposite cannot be said - she can read Lexa in an instant.
The implications that Anya was making about Clarke, however, send a shiver of discomfort down Lexa’s spine. She doesn’t understand how Anya’s words can be so far from the truth, yet still resonate with Lexa as clearly as they would if they were true. And if Lexa is completely honest, though she hasn’t even thought about looking in Clarke in that way until now, she’s just starting to realise that maybe she has been doing so all along.
She can’t even begin to understand how uncomfortable the comments may have made Clarke.
“I’m sorry,” Lexa voices her thoughts aloud, as she stands aside to let Clarke walk up the gangplank that leads back onto the Polis first, before following her onto the ship.
“There’s no need to apologise,” Clarke assures her. “We can come up with a new plan, a better plan.”
“I meant about Anya,” Lexa is quick to correct Clarke, all thought of their failed task in Tortuga having been pushed completely out of her mind. “The things she was saying. I’m sorry. Anya can be…”
Lexa pauses for thought, trying to come up with a word to describe her oldest friend in a way that does justification for how much Anya cares about her despite the relentless teasing.
“Blunt?” Clarke guesses, filling in the gap herself.
Laughing softly under her breath, Lexa nods in agreement.
“That’s the polite way of saying it.”
Lexa leads the way into her cabin, hurriedly tidying a few things away until the small circular table is empty but for three thick candles and two bottles of the finest rum in Lexa’s collection, dusty from disuse. Without the need for formalities, she removes her heavy coat, tossing it haphazardly over the furs covering her bed, before gesturing to one of the two chairs at the table for Clarke to sit in while taking her own seat in the other one.
“We’re drinking from the bottle?” Clarke asks sceptically, as Lexa uncorks one of the two bottles and draws it across the table towards herself, leaving the other in the middle of the table for Clarke to do the same with.
“Welcome to Tortuga,” Lexa replies, smiling across at Clarke as she holds her bottle aloft over the table. Clarke reaches for the other one, quickly removing the stopper, before raising the bottle in the air and tapping it against Lexa’s with a soft clink.
Silence falls over the cabin as they each take a swig from their respective bottles. Lexa watches in mild amusement as Clarke’s face morphs into a wince at the taste of the bitter liquid within.
“Not a rum drinker?”
“Not without having had a great deal more ale first,” Clarke answers, before quickly forcing herself to take another drink of the rum, grimacing again as she places the bottle back down on the table and swallows. “So, what’s the plan now?”
It’s Lexa’s turn to recoil. It’s late, she doesn’t have to worry about what’s going on above deck while the ship is docked, and she’s got a bottle of fine rum in front of her that’s practically begging to be drunk. The very last thing she wants to discuss is work, particularly after the night that they’ve had.
“Can we talk about something else?” she asks, sending Clarke a pleading look.
Clarke speaks almost instantly, barely taking any time to think before she says, “Tell me about Costia.”
Lexa almost chokes when she hears the words. She doesn’t know what she was expecting Clarke’s idea of a casual conversation topic to be, but it certainly wasn’t anything even remotely close to Lexa’s brutally murdered ex-lover.
Seeing the wide-eyed expression of surprise on Lexa’s face, Clarke jumps in quickly to add, “Only if you want to, of course. I’m just intrigued about what kind of person she was.”
“She was…”
Lexa starts her sentence, then promptly trails off. It’s harder than she thought it would be to find the words to describe Costia, not just because she was a one-of-a-kind girl for whom there aren’t the words to do her justice, but also because it’s been three long years since she was alive and memories fade fast in that time. After three years, Costia’s face is becoming a distant blur, her voice no longer serves as Lexa’s conscience, her laughter doesn’t ring in Lexa’s mind when she dreams of happy memories from years past at night in the lonely confines of her captain’s cabin. Costia becomes more of a ghost with each day that passes, until soon everything about her will have disappeared like a wisp of smoke into the air.
Pushing past the lump that tries to form in her throat, Lexa shrugs one of her shoulders and then concludes, “She was special.”
“I’m sure she was,” Clarke hums in agreement, a curious frown on her face as she looks at Lexa with an expression that suggests she’s expecting Lexa to say more on the subject.
“I was never supposed to fall in love with her,” Lexa continues, smiling happily as she begins to recall the happiest moments of her life. The memories are like the old rum bottles that they drink from, hidden by a covering of dust from their disuse but now that she brings them to the front of her mind, the dust unsettles and they become a little clearer. “I was never supposed to fall in love with anybody but especially not her. We met almost by accident. I had a huge row with Anya – this was before I became captain of the Polis and I’d just told her I wanted to leave her crew to get my own ship – and I stormed out of the inn where Costia worked in a temper.” Lexa laughs quietly under her breath at the memory of their first meeting. “I left my hat in there in my hurry to leave and she chased after me to return it.”
“It sounds like you made quite the first impression,” Clarke muses softly, her blue eyes twinkling in amusement.
“That I did,” Lexa agrees. “After she returned my hat, she told me off for throwing a chair at Anya and then offered to listen to me rant.”
“Do you make a habit of that?” Clarke asks, leaning forward in her seat with an air of mischief etched up on her face.
“Of what?”
“Of throwing items of furniture at people when they annoy you?”
Lexa laughs aloud, then takes another swig from her bottle before she answers, “Well, it’s either that or I hold a knife to their throat.”
Clarke’s loud peal of laughter fills the room and Lexa can’t help but chuckle along. She doesn’t remember the last time she had this much fun – in fact, she can’t remember the last time she had any fun at all. If only she had known that all it would take would be a couple of bottles of fine rum shared with an almost complete stranger, she would have perhaps done this much sooner.
She has a feeling, however, that it has less to do with the situation and more to do with Clarke.
“You make a lot of good first impressions,” Clarke tells her jovially. Sitting back in her chair and taking a quick drink, Clarke looks at Lexa expectantly, awaiting the next part of the story. “So, what next? You two just fell in love like that?”
“Pretty much,” nods Lexa. “We stayed up talking until sunrise and I think I knew right then that my heart would belong to her. I complained about Anya and she told me about her three brothers and her job and her big dreams of leaving that town to explore the world, and then before we even knew it, she helped me to acquire my own ship and I asked her to join my crew. It was … she was perfect.”
“What was she like?” Clarke asks, seeming genuinely interested in hearing the answer. It’s rather refreshing actually, to finally meet somebody who seems interested in what she has to say, instead of only caring about who she is and what her next actions will be.
“She was everything that I’m not,” Lexa shrugs simply, “and everything that I needed. She was kind, and patient, and made me feel like I actually mattered for the first time in my life. She made me a better person. And she was so, so beautiful. I don’t know what I did to deserve to call her mine.”
Lexa almost jumps out of her chair when Clarke’s hand reaches across the table to cover her own. The feeling of warm fingers gently squeezing her own is far from unwelcome, but when it has been years since Lexa has opened herself up to accepting any kind of physical touch, let alone affection, it’s startling at first to receive even the most basic contact from another person.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Clarke tells her, earnest blue eyes looking at Lexa with complete sincerity across the table.
“Ever since she’s been gone,” Lexa continues, her voice gentler and even more nostalgic than before, “I’ve always been worried about reverting back to my old self, about becoming the selfish person who threw chairs at Anya and stormed off when I didn’t get my way. Sometimes I am that person and I hate myself for it.”
Lexa reaches out for her rum, wrapping her fingers around the neck of the bottle and bringing it to her lips to take a drink. She drinks long and slow, savouring the taste, before finally placing the bottle back on the table with a thunk. All the while, Clarke watches her with curiosity etched on her face.
“Costia wouldn’t have wanted me to kill Nia,“ Lexa tells her, thinking back to the Costia that she knew and smiling softly as she imagines the way that Costia would scold her for wanting to kill her enemies when she could spend that time bringing about more peace in the Caribbean. Back when Costia was still alive, Lexa hated being reprimanded by Costia and would do anything to avoid conflict but now, when Costia has been nothing more than a memory for three years. Lexa would give up her ship for the chance to see Costia with her hands on her hips, the little crease between her eyebrows, and the tone of voice that seemed to be reserved specifically for disagreeing with Lexa. "That’s the only reason I didn’t do it. The selfish part of me from before Costia wanted to exact my revenge and cause Nia as much pain as she caused me, but there was always Costia’s voice in my head telling me to be the better person.”
Clarke’s fingers resting over Lexa’s give the gentlest of squeezes, before Clarke says, "I’m sorry if me asking for your help is asking for you to become that person that you left behind.”
“Don’t apologise,” Lexa tells her. “If I had gone after Nia and tried to kill her three years ago, I would have been doing it for the revenge, for purely selfish reasons, and that’s what Costia wouldn’t have wanted me to do. But now, we’re doing it to save more lives in the future, to stop more people from meeting the same fate as Costia. She would have liked that. She would have liked you.”
"I’m honoured,” Clarke says earnestly. “She sounds like an incredible woman and I wish I could have met her.”
It’s strange how one’s perception of another person can change so drastically in such a short space of time. It feels like Lexa has known Clarke for years, not just a couple of short weeks, and she can hardly believe that only a few days ago, Clarke was somebody that Lexa found irritatingly obnoxious. The Clarke that Lexa sits with now could not be more of a contradiction to her initial judgement of the girl from Nassau. Those qualities - Clarke’s stubbornness, her perseverance - are still there but now they are qualities that Lexa admires and envies, and Lexa sees them layered between other traits - compassion, loyalty, and strength even in the face of truly dire adversity.
In a way, Clarke is just like Costia. The two are vastly different in terms of personality, like the difference between land and the sea, but the presence of both brings out the best in Lexa and makes her want to always strive to be a better version of herself.
Lexa never thought she would ever find herself wanting to open up to another person again after Costia’s tragedy and the agonising heartbreak that followed, yet here she is, spilling stories from her past to an almost stranger.
The last time she did that…
Thousands of memories flash through the front of Lexa’s mind in a single instant, but there is one that stands out more than the others, the one from the night that she and Costia met.
“I want to show you something,” Lexa says abruptly, getting to her feet and gesturing for Clarke to do the same.
She makes sure that her hat and coat are piled neatly at the foot of her bed, then unbuckles the belt carrying the scabbards for her dual swords with fumbling fingers, laying them carefully on top of her fur bedcovers too.
It’s a big gesture. Lexa wears her swords strapped to her side from the moment she wakes until she lays her head to rest at the end of the day. When she wears her hat, coat, and swords, she is Captain Woods, respected commander of the sea, but for this, for what she is about to share with Clarke, she wants to bare herself as just Lexa, a humble pirate with an appreciation for the beauty in the vast world.
“Come with me,” Lexa says to Clarke. When Clarke gets to her feet, the bottle still clutched in her hand, Lexa adds, “Leave the rum. We don’t need it.”
Lexa leads the way out of the cabin and onto Polis’ deck. It was already late when they arrived into Tortuga and their quest to find comrades for an assault against Nia took them well into the early hours of the morning. Though the sky is still dark, the firsts glimmers of morning light are just starting to seep into the inky blue sky on the horizon, and Lexa knows that they doesn’t have long until the break of morning comes in its entirety.
“Have you ever climbed the rigging of a ship before?” Lexa asks Clarke.
Clarke’s head tilts back as she glances up at the mast that towers above them, seeming impossibly high from where they stand at its base on the deck. She looks at Lexa with anxiety on her face as she shakes her head.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Lexa assures her. “You can take it as slowly as you want. Your arms might start to hurt after a while but you can stop and loop them through the rigging to take a rest. The hardest part is ignoring the wind and the swaying of the ship as you get higher but that won’t be as bad while we’re docked as it would be out to sea.” When Clarke still doesn’t look entirely convinced, Lexa adds, “The view when we reach the top will be worth it, I promise.”
They start their ascent, Clarke first and Lexa right behind her, calling up encouragements and reassurances every time Clarke looks a little shaky. Lexa has been climbing ships for well over a decade and could probably reach the top of Polis in just a couple of minutes, even blindfolded, so this is a comparatively slow climb, but once Clarke picks up the technique and settles into a rhythm they start making faster progress and the crow’s nest above them becomes gradually bigger with each rung of the rigging.
When they finally reach the top, Lexa instructs Clarke to stay where she is while she climbs around Clarke and hauls herself effortlessly over the barred railing that encircles the crow’s nest. She reaches both hands down and helps Clarke to do the same, finally relaxing when they are both safely inside.
“Wow,” Clarke exhales, gaping around in awe.
The view is indeed breathtaking. Behind them, the town is still full of life, hundreds of oil lamps flickering and bathing everything in an orange glow. Ahead of them, the sea stretches out for miles, beyond the cliffs and beaches of the cove that secludes Tortuga from the rest of the Caribbean, all the way to the horizon, where the yellow of the sky hails the imminent arrival of the rising sun.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” says Lexa, sighing happily. She remembers showing Costia the same view for the first time and receiving the same stunned silence in response.
They sit down, legs hanging through the bars of the crow’s nest, and watch as the sky gradually gets lighter on the horizon.
With memories of Costia fresher in her mind than they have been for a long time, there’s still one thing that Lexa feels as though she has to settle with Clarke.
“Listen,“ she starts, getting Clarke’s attention as blue eyes wide with curiosity turn to look at her, "what Anya was saying earlier about there always being a girl involved…”
“Lexa, I don’t care,” says Clarke, resting her hand on Lexa’s leg.
“No, please,“ Lexa insists, ignoring the way that her heart pounds in her chest at the feeling of Clarke’s warm palm, even through the material of Lexa’s dark britches. "I just want you to know that it’s not true. Costia was the only one.”
“I thought nothing of it,” Clarke shrugs. “It doesn’t bother me whether you have a preference for men or women or both or neither. And I couldn’t care less whether there’s been one woman or a hundred. It doesn’t matter to me.” Clarke pauses, then squeezes her fingers against Lexa’s thigh before she continues, “And … and what Anya was suggesting, you know? Between you and me? To be quite honest, I’m flattered more than anything else that she saw me as somebody worthy enough to receive that kind of attention from somebody like you.”
“Somebody like me?” Lexa queries, her words almost getting stuck in her throat.
“You know…” Clarke answers vaguely, then glances away, her cheeks pinkening slightly. "You’re so brave, and strong, and yet so compassionate and…” Clarke takes a deep breath and continues, “and you lost somebody so special to you yet you kept going, you kept fighting for the rights of so many other people who don’t deserve to call you their Commander. I admire that a lot.” Clarke frowns, a hint of sadness in her eyes as she stares out at the yellows and oranges of the sky ahead, and then finishes, "I don’t think I know how to continue without him.”
Lexa covers Clarke’s hand on her leg with her own, leaning into Clarke’s side slightly as she reassures her, “You lost your father earlier this week. I’ve had three years to grieve for Costia.”
“But still…”
“But nothing. You are the brave one. You’ve faced one obstacle after the other on this journey and you haven’t let it stop you from doing what you believe is right.”
Clarke glances up, the little smile that tugs at the corners of her mouth almost enough to mask the sadness in her eyes, as she teases Lexa, "Most of those obstacles were you.”
“Sorry,“ Lexa mumbles, though she does smile softly in amusement. Clarke’s comment does lead to wonder if her answer back in Nassau would be different, if she had the hindsight to know how things would turn out. But this journey that they have been on, right the way from their first meeting when Lexa threatened Clarke with a blade to her throat to where they are now, sitting at the top of Polis’ tallest mast and sharing stories as if they have been friends for years, despite the tragedy of Clarke losing her father along the way, has been one of Lexa’s greatest adventures. And if it continues as she intends it to, with her plunging the blade of her sword through Nia’s heart, it will go on to be her greatest triumph as a captain.
And all because of Clarke Griffin, an unknown island girl who has unwittingly changed Lexa’s view on the world forever.
(However long that forever might last, though Lexa tries not to think of what might happen if a confrontation with Nia does not go her way.)
“I know this isn’t really my place to say because I didn’t know your father,” Lexa says, lacing her fingers through Clarke’s and giving them a gentle squeeze, “but I think he’d be very proud of you right now. You really are an incredible woman, Clarke Griffin.”
Clarke glances away, a pretty blush decorating her cheeks as Lexa continues to flatter her.
“Ever since I first met you I’ve been intrigued by you,” confesses Lexa. “Frustrated as hell, but intrigued. There’s just something about you that catches my attention. And then what you said the other day, it changed me. Because of you I’m trying to do something that I should have done three years ago. You’re a true inspiration, Clarke.”
On the horizon, the sun chooses that exact moment to appear over the sea. The sky lights up in a dazzling explosion of yellow, almost blinding in its sudden intensity. From the central point, where white hot orb of the sun slowly creeps up in the sky, the rays are visible shooting outwards in every direction, a beacon of light signalling the arrival of a new day in Tortuga.
Beside her, Clarke raises a hand to shield her eyes and lets out a breathy, “Wow.”
Lexa must have watched the sunrise hundreds, if not thousands, of times, but it is a sight she will never grow tired of. When she was younger, watching the sun slowly emerge of the horizon from the deck of Gustus’ ship was a reminder of the huge world out there waiting to be explored, a symbol of hope for an abandoned orphan kid trying to find her way. In the early years of her captaincy, with Costia by her side, the sunrise was a symbol of their love, a reminder of the night they met and a promise of an endless number of new days together. Since Costia’s death, Lexa has climbed to the highest point of Polis at the end of some of her darkest nights and the explosion of colour on the horizon has allowed to reminisce the happy times in her past, as well as reminding herself of why she must be the Commander and starting the new day with a fresh mind.
Today, watching the sunrise with Clarke is a symbol of new beginnings, of this terrifying yet incredible adventure they are about to go on where Lexa will either avenge Costia or join her. It’s an overwhelming prospect, Lexa’s most daring mission yet, but with Clarke by her side feeding her courage she hasn’t known since Costia, Lexa is full of hope that together they can pull it off.
“That’s a beautiful sight to fall in love to,“ Clarke muses softly from beside Lexa.
"What?”
Lexa’s eyes widen and her head jerks to look at Clarke. Surely she can’t be suggesting that…
“You and Costia,” Clarke explains, and Lexa’s heart drops in her chest a little bit, before Clarke repeats, “It’s a beautiful sight to fall in love to.”
Lexa can’t tear her eyes away from Clarke as she replies, “Yes, it is.”
