Chapter Text
14 years
“You’ve learnt some new tricks”
She huffs out a laugh in response, “Good to know it’ll take more than a decade to mature you.”
“Yes, well, my joints are feeling very mature right now. Did you have to insist that we fuck in the hall?”
She laughs. Its a different sound to how you remember. Or maybe time has changed the memory. You don’t suppose it matters.
“You didn’t ask me why I’m here”
You didn’t need to. You don’t share that thought.
“No.”
She hums in response and her fingers continue to sift gently through your hair as you lay on her chest. The familiarity hurts as much as any of what came before.
“Are you angry with me?”
Hmm. Quite the question.
“Depends on whether your next move is to head butt me”
Another huffed out laugh.
“I think you’re safe with me.”
“Never.”
It comes out slightly bitter, was that your intention? You aren’t sure. You haven’t been bitter in a long time. Her fingers momentarily pause in your hair before she gently resumes.
You expected her one day, but when it came you were still wrong footed. You thought about different ways it could happen. What you might do or say. Not one involved— this. Well. That’s a bit of a lie. Some did, but not quite this way.
A little warning might have been nice though, at the very least you might have liked the opportunity to take the ring off. You’ve never felt more exposed than when her fingers paused on it as she guided your hand between her legs.
So yes, this was expected but also not.
“You’ve not asked me to leave yet.” It’s posed as a statement but you feel it’s a question. But she’s made you wait long enough, maybe it’s her turn now.
“A beautiful woman arrives at my door step seemingly for the sole purpose of fucking me. When should I have asked you to leave?”
There’s no response again until there is.
“I didn’t plan on that.”
That annoys you, you lift your head from its familiar spot on her chest to capture and hold her gaze.
“Stop it. Don’t do that. I only want you here if you’re ready to stop pretending. If not you can piss off back to your new little family.”
She looks slightly startled but she doesn’t look away as she nods.
Satisfied you lay your head back down and after a nervous beat her fingers resume their gentle glide through your hair.
“I thought it might happen...but I didn’t plan it like it has ...happened. Does that make sense?”
You murmur an acknowledgement.
“Do you think it was a mistake?”
You’re surprised she asks it. The old her wouldn’t have shown a soft underbelly quite so soon.
“Depends on why you think you’re here.”
She huffs out an annoyed breath.
“You’re being annoyingly enigmatic today. If you want me to be honest, you have to do the same.”
Hmmm. You aren’t sure if you’re quite ready for that yet. Instead you ask; “Would you like a tea?”
She makes an impatient sound but agrees nonetheless.
“Sure.”
She seems to find getting redressed a bit awkward. You feel the old familiar amusement. So brazen in the act, so awkward outside it.
“Oksa-“ she doesn’t finish the name and you find that stings a little.
“You, err, my top, it’s torn.”
You grin. That might have been deliberate. Her reaction to that little discovery was as amusing as you had hoped.
“I’ll get you something else.”
Upstairs you look through the options. Your fingers drift over the t-shirt from the first night in France. You have so few things of hers, fleeing from France in the abrupt way you did, but what you do have you couldn’t bear to part with.
The symmetry appeals on the one hand, but maybe too on the nose? You find something else, something without all the weight of time and hope and expectation.
Catching your reflection in the mirror you pause a moment. You wonder what differences she found in your body. Hers was different, softer in places than you remember. It was nice.
What happened downstairs was....intense. It was different to how you remember it. Her kisses felt more urgent, her hands more desperate somehow. Who doesn’t enjoy feeling so wanted but you can’t help but think you preferred her as she was before, sure and comfortable.
But she was never really either of those things. You wonder how much of what you treasured existed only to you.
Your eyes burn. Fuck. Stop it. You blink away anything too revealing and leave carrying the spare top.
She’s sitting on the bottom of the stairs in her bra and takes the top from your hand.
“The house is beautiful Oksana. I knew...I knew you’d built a house but I never saw ... I didn’t know it would be....this”
“You were watching me?” It comes out more quietly than you intended, as if it was so delicate an idea that it might not survive once out of your mouth.
“Old habits.” She gives a rueful smile and you are probably glad for the change in tone.
She follows you through into the kitchen and you open a cupboard to pick out some mugs. You see your usual Snow White mug and choose to reach past it for some plain grey ones.
“I was surprised you picked here to do it though.”
You glance over your shoulder questioningly.
“I imagined France again. Or Europe certainly.”
“Pfft. You English, so arrogant, this is Europe.”
“I’m not English.”
“Do I need to bring up that terrible brown muck you spread on your toast?”
She grins.
“I like water and I hate sand.”, you explain, “That limited my options.. Plus it speaks to my penchant for melancholy.”
She looks crestfallen again, and you choose to rescue her.
“That or I like how dramatic everything is. Sharp edges and all.”
“Well. It’s lovely.”
You hand her the cup and lean against the island in the centre of the room facing her.
She looks at you before turning away slightly.
“Christ why was this less difficult when we were naked? Surely it should be the other way round.”
You shrug, “Physical stuff, sex, violence, whatever, that was never our problem. But we were never very good at this.” You gesture between the two of you.
“I wasn’t very good at this.” She corrects, you appreciate the gesture.
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
She looks sad and you don’t know how you feel about that. You choose to rescue her again.
“You should have waited a week or so. The leaves turn and when they fall the crunch is just like the pine needles in France.”
She smiles at the memory.
“But less prickly.” She says.
You tilt your head in acknowledgement.
“You don’t seem that surprised to see me.”
You pause a moment before answering, allowing yourself a moment to decide how honest to be.
“I’m not.”
Another huffed out laugh. “God you’re an arrogant asshole”
You smile.
“I am. But not with this.”
She gives you an incredulous look.
“It’s been 12 years, you honestly thought we’d be sitting like this again?”
“I’m not saying that I had total faith the whole time. I had a few wobbles. But the last year or so? Sure.”
“Wobbles? Yeah, thanks for all the fingers by the way.”
“You hurt my feelings. I’ve had more extreme reactions to less.”
She’s serious again when she looks at you.
“I know.”
“Are you going to apologise?”
She takes a breath. You’d sort of meant it as some gentle flirting, a hark back to words spoken so long ago. Maybe you shouldn’t have started this, her version of flirting was always much more brutal than yours.
“I will if you want me to.”
You must pull a face because she quickly keeps going.
“I just meant that if you want apologies I’ve got them.”
Do you want them? Maybe.
But also, this is nice.
Her, here, in your kitchen, in the house you built for her.
It’s strange now to see it through someone else's eyes, through her eyes in particular. All the thought and time spent on this, and now here she is; leaning against the kitchen counter with the rounded edges you chose because she used to complain that the sharp angular countertop in France cut into her skin uncomfortably when you bent her over it.
This house which is so drenched in her that it almost allows you to pretend that nothing changed.
So yes, quiet chit chat here is nice. Listening to her apologise for what she thinks she did wrong could ruin it.
“Another time maybe.”
You’ve surprised her.
How satisfying.
“So, you have a family?” You ask
She looks a bit uncomfortable. There’s part of you that is again pleased.
“Umm. Sort of. We aren’t together anymore but we have a son. She has a son. But I’m...you know. So we’re still doing that bit together.”
You nod. There’s more silence. Maybe she’s right and you should go back to the naked cuddling. The lines are far more clear, or maybe they are more blurred. Either way, it is easier than this.
“But you knew I did, were you watching too?”
“Not deliberately. I saw you once. A few years ago. It was nice.”
“Where?”
“Oh, an airport somewhere.” You wave your hand dismissively.
“You didn’t....?”
“What? Come and say hi?”
“Well yeah?”
“Would you have wanted me to?”
That gives her pause. “Yes.”
You raise your eyebrows at that.
“It wasn’t the right time.” You tell her.
“Why?”
“You...you had to want to come to me.”
She doesn’t respond and the silence annoys you.
She takes a breath.
“I can’t think of a time when I haven’t wanted that.”
You shrug. “You never did though.”
You’re getting angry. This isn’t how you wanted this to go. All of the plans for what you would do when this happened relied on not losing control. You thought the anger had gone. Maybe you’d just pushed it further beneath your skin.
You wave a hand dismissively attempting to change the conversation.
“It doesn’t matter, you’re here now.”
She nods, probably grateful to be spared the sharpness of your tongue.
“So....do you....is there....someone” she huffs out a frustrated sigh.
“Do I live here with anyone?” You ask in amusement.
“Yeah.”
You snort. “My poor girlfriend didn’t matter so much when your tongue was inside me earlier though, right?”
She flushes. Ok, so maybe that was a bit of a shitty thing to say. Maybe you are more angry than you realised.
“Relax. Irina comes to stay a few times a year, otherwise it’s just me.”
“Konstantin’s daughter?”
“Yeah, he died. So...”
Her hand has suddenly reached across the counter and is gently gripping yours.
“I’m sorry.”
You pull your hand away, the gentle pressure is too much. It’s love you realise, she still loves you. It’s something you’ve gone back and forth on over the years. All those promises were much easier to put faith in when they were repeatedly whispered against your skin. After years of nothing, some days they seemed more genuine than others.
You really need to switch to a less painful gear.
“Why did you decide to come?”
She pulls her hand back.
“Because I wanted to.”
You wave a hand in the air dismissively.
“You said you always wanted to, why did you decide to come now?”
She exhales and takes a second to think about her answer.
“I didn’t want to wait any longer.”
“And you were so sure that I would just be sitting around waiting for you.”
It comes out cold but the anger feels like it’s burning through your skin. This isn’t how you wanted it to go. But anger is easier to cope with than love. So here you are, prodding away at her in the old way.
“No! Fuck, I never wanted you to just be waiting, I wanted you to live a life, I wanted you to be happy even if I couldn’t be there with you.”
“I have a life. Why are you here?”
She seems to deflate a little at that.
“I thought...I hoped that I could explain or apologise or something and there might be....a future.”
There are a lot of potential responses to that. Ranging from slipping a knife into her chest right through to collapsing at her feet and begging her to stay. But hasn’t that always been the story? And didn’t you both always end up choosing the wrong extreme?
You don’t say anything. She takes a deep breath. You brace yourself.
“I was wrong about what happened. I was scared and I should have just talked to you. But I was arrogant and treated you like a child who wouldn’t be able to help me.”
You knew all this. You didn’t know she did. Perhaps she didn’t back then.
“So I’m sorry. For all of it.”
You nod once. You aren’t sure if you feel better. You probably don’t.
“Have you been ok?” She asks hesitantly.
Another question with a lot of answers.
You shrug slowly.
“Not at first. Not for a long time. I travelled a lot. But the last year or so I’ve just been here. This is what I wanted before, not to be bored but to be still.”
She nods.
“I came to New York.” She says suddenly.
You don’t say anything.
“Yeah, I got your note. So I came and found you and you seemed....ok, sort of. You had a girlfriend, she seemed nice and you seemed to have let her in or something and I didn’t want to ruin that for you. But I did come to find you. This isn’t just an out of the blue trip for me. It’s not years of nothing and then this.”
“Oh....well you should have said ‘hi’.”
She huffs out a laugh. It feels like air being let back into the room.
“Yeah, well there’s a lot of things I could have done differently.”
You shrug again, “It doesn’t ma-“
“God will you stop saying that, it does matter. I’m really sorry. Really.”
You don’t really know how to respond. She’s sorry. Ok fine. Does that mean everything is alright now? Are you supposed to just accept that and start clearing out wardrobe space?
“Do you want to see the house?”
She spends a moment looking at you before nodding. She trails along behind you.
You show her the art on the walls, paintings that tease of your shared history, London, Paris and Rome, you show her the furniture, you show her the rooms and the views.
You don’t point out the french timber which creaks under your feet, the chairs sourced from an antiques market held monthly in a village near the french Atlantic coast, or the excessive number of windows designed in the hope that allowing enough natural light would negate the need for reading glasses.
You don’t point out any of it.
You wonder if she notices. Her hand slipped into yours at some point so maybe she does and you want more than anything to go back to how everything felt before.
You stop at the top of the stairs, your bedroom looms and with it your attempt to recreate something she took, skylights with trees and early autumn skies which if you squint are close enough to what exists now only in memory.
You feel sick, it's too revealing suddenly, the floors, the art, the windows, all of it meant for her but also not. Your throat starts to close up. You need her to leave. This is a mistake. It’s the same mistake you always make, and finally after all these years you know better.
Instead you ask, “Would you like to stay for dinner?”
---//---//---
It took you a while to find a rhythm when you first started living together, you weren’t particularly surprised by that, before the bridge you’d only been alone in a room with her on a handful of occasions. But if it took you months to learn how to exist in the same space, years haven’t been enough to wipe it completely and you find yourself moving around her in the kitchen in the same way you might have done before.
You look up from the stove top where you are carefully stirring the risotto to catch her watching you, wine glass in one hand as she fiddles with her hair with the other.
“You’re still good at this, I always loved watching you cook.”
Your brows crease, it's not how you remember it but decide instead to choose the safer path with a nonchalant shrug and a murmured acknowledgment, before a teasing explanation; “Yes, well, I killed a chef once.”
She snorts into her glass and it makes you smile, all of it so much better than reminding her that she barely noticed things like this about you before. But forever choosing the facts which best suit her narrative is a thing she does. If you knew that about her then, you certainly didn’t care. With her gaze settled heavy on your skin once again, you probably don’t care all that much now.
“I'm not sure that's how it works.” She says it with an air of indulgence that makes you smile again before turning back to continue stirring the rice.
“Do you think—” She breaks off, and you look up to meet her gaze, “if I hadn’t— would we still be standing here like this— if things had been— if I had been— different, would it still be us standing here, you cooking and me—”
“Drinking?”
“Watching.” She corrects with playful emphasis. “I hate that we could have had this for all these years—”
Your throat feels tight again and you turn back to the stove top. What exactly is “this”? This is not the hard won feeling of contentment you only really knew for a handful of months beneath a canopy of pine needles before everything went to shit.
This is the way you felt in the months at the end when you never really knew when it was coming but were still utterly sure that she would destroy you all the same. How is it that you can feel all that and she is right next to you feeling something so completely different?
“You said—” your voice is strangled and you hate your weakness more than you think you ever hated her, “You said you wanted a future, what does that mean?”
You hear her set the wine glass on the counter moments before the pressure of her body against your back, her arms looping loosely around your waist and lips at the nape of your neck.
“I—” She pauses and you don’t breathe, “I want you.” It’s whispered into your skin and the utter relief that she didn’t say something different takes you by surprise. That's what you wanted after all, right? For her to love you again? For it all to be real again?
Her hands pull at your clothes and you know you could stop this. You try to picture a world where you gently take her hands in yours and force a real conversation. But it's so far from the reality of who you are that even your imagination can't adequately create it.
Instead you just about remember to switch off the gas before turning in her arms and leaning down to meet her in a kiss.
-----------//////----------------
“You know I hate risotto”
It's a statement spoken into the sweat damp skin of your tits as you both lay in your bed as the evening sun pokes through the trees, steaming down from the sky lights above you.
“Yes.”
She tilts her head up to look at you. “You are angry with me.”
“I don’t want to be.”
She lays back on your chest and you trace patterns across the skin on her back.
“I was never as good to you as I wanted to be.”
You murmur a sound in acknowledgment. “That’s what Konstantin said to me too.”
She moves her head to balance her chin on you and she looks at you with real sadness.
“I wanted— I hoped after everything, that I could be something good for you.”
You reach out and stroke her cheek gently, “You were sometimes—“
Her eyes go glassy and she rolls to lay on her back, her shoulder resting tight against yours. You recognise it for what it is, all those years apart and now she can’t bear the distance, but you still feel so oddly detached. Again you wonder what the problem is, this is what you wanted for years after all.
“I want to try again. I’ll do whatever you want, I just— I want—. I won’t fuck it up again. I promise.”
She doesn’t look at you as she says it, keeps her eyes fixed on the trees and the light above her and you are grateful again. In the absence of the right words you reach down and link your fingers through hers and squeeze.
When you look over at her again the light catches the shine of her hair in the way you always liked and maybe it could go back and everything would feel the way it did before.
“You look beautiful in this light, you always did.”
“That's not an answer.”
“Was there a question?”
She turns and props her head in her hand.
“Of course it's a question; what do you want?”
You want what you’ve always wanted, you want to go back to the way she made you feel when she would whisper her promises and you could believe her.
“I want—” the words tangle, how are you supposed to explain this, the words too likely to prompt defensiveness and you don’t know how badly you would react to that now. So you switch back to default, greedy hands and soft whispers; “I want what you want.”
She stills at the words but whatever flashes across her face is gone as you begin to kiss your way back down her body and you try to bury it all in what you know best. This easy familiar dance. Hands here, mouth there. Something that was always so absorbing that you know you won’t be able to feel the doubts, the indecision, the sadness that you can’t seem to shift despite all that she says she is offering.
It's fine. It's good . Her sighs, her moans, her ever less gentle hands in your hair are enough to quiet your mind. The problem comes when it shifts, when she wants to give. When you have to feel her making love to you as you stare up at the ceiling, at the view where you so desperately tried to recreate something that suddenly feels so much further away than it ever did without her here.
You come and your eyes are wet, she touches your face with clear concern and you pull her close so you don’t have to see it. She grips you back just as tightly and you take a moment to let your heart slow back down, and try to get yourself back under some sort of control.
--------------//////------------------
It's dark when you wake and you catch her padding out of the bathroom back toward the bed. She looks sheepish at having to face you after the intensity of the moments before you both fell asleep.
“Hungry?” You ask.
She grins. “Anything but risotto”
----------------///////////----------------
You switch on the patio heater and sit next to her on the love seat on the veranda.
She’s sat in a shirt of yours, baggy on her shoulders, with her feet tucked up under her as she digs into the ice cream with aplomb. There was a time when you didn’t think you were able to feel as much about anything as you feel with her. A part of you misses the simplicity of who you were before her.
“I haven’t eaten ice cream in the middle of the night since my twenties.” She says it with real joy.
“Irena— she doesn’t sleep well. So we do this— sometimes.”
Her mouth quirks in a half smile.
“I didn’t know you were close before.”
“We weren’t, we aren’t”
Her brow creases in confusion and you feel the need to clarify, “Ok, we are, but not— its not friendly. Its like we both find each other annoying, but sometimes we do that together.”
She nods, and you feel a wave of apprehension when her eyes settle on you with determined focus that you know means she wants something.
You gesture with your spoon and she passes the tub toward you.
“This house—”, she starts and stops, the determination now over ridden with hesitancy, “It's so full of— us. Everything I touch feels like it's full of my memories but I've never been here before. The pictures, furniture, your— your bedroom, everything. Oksana, you still wear the ring. Be honest with me— did I— did I ruin your life?”
You snort in wry amusement, “I mean it wasn’t that great to start with.”
“Be serious— please?”
You twist to sit straight in the seat, it's a play for time as much as anything and if she realises she doesn’t say anything. It takes an uncomfortable amount of effort not to try and hide your hand with the ring so blatantly giving you away. Why didn’t you take it off earlier?
“I—” You pause and your chest feels tight, you remember how she dodged the question when you asked it so long ago. “I didn’t want to not have you in my life anymore. You didn’t want me, so I have this house and my memories and I’m doing ok.”
“It was never that, I did want you—”
“Not enough. It's fine, it's done. Pass me the ice cream?”
She does and you feel the weight of her gaze as you scrape the carton for the last spoonful.
“You’re right, it wasn’t enough, but that was because of me, not you. I should have— and I can now. I want to make it up to you, I love you and I always have and I won’t fuck it up again. I won’t hurt you again.”
She means it, it's obvious in everything that has happened since she arrived, and you don’t have anything approaching an answer for her.
Instead you nod to buy time.
“Come on, it’s late, let's go back to bed.” You stand and offer her your hand, she takes it and follows.
--------------------/-------------------------
Back in your room the bed is a mess, duvet on the floor, pillows chucked out the way, you catch her eye and she grins. When you raise an eyebrow in invitation she laughs, “However old you think you are, I will always be older and i'm telling you, I am not having sex again tonight.”
“Technically it's now the morning so—” She chucks a pillow at you and you laugh as you go about putting the bed back together. You slip off the robe you’re wearing and climb into bed in a vest and underwear.
Once it's done she hovers awkwardly, her hand fidgeting with the hem of the shirt she’s wearing. You roll your eyes fondly, “On or off, I’ll let you sleep, I promise.”
She shakes her head at her own awkwardness and slips off the shirt before climbing in next to you. There's only a beat or two before you rearrange yourselves in the way that you would have done in the time before. Her body pressed in close behind you, an arm across your waist and your fingers intertwined. She sighs out a breath and you can feel her slowly relax against you and you can almost pretend it's the same.
She seems— happy. Or at least she has when everything’s been teasing and light. Seeing her like that feels good despite the unease that continues to curdle in your stomach and maybe that alone is worth it. Maybe you can live with the ever present threat of her suddenly deciding that it's too much for her again. It was always true that you would do anything for her, and if it's this she wants then so be it. You’ve lived through worse. You survived her whims before, you can do it again. And maybe it won’t be like it was, maybe you’ll forget how changeable her certainty can be, maybe this time it will stick.
“Eve?”
She presses a kiss to your shoulder. “Mmm, we're still not having sex.”
You smile but don’t otherwise respond to her teasing.
“If you— if you want to try again— then— I want whatever you want. However long it lasts, I'll always want you.”
Her arms tighten around you but she stays silent. When nothing more is forthcoming, you snuggle back into her embrace and sleep.