Chapter Text
Evangeline POV
"We can't keep doing this."
My eyes almost roll to the back of my head. "No shit."
Diana glares at me while clipping a bra on. The dawn streams through barely open curtains, illuminating her marred skin in warm hues. She pulls a shirt over her head and grabs a pair of pants.
"I'm serious." She grunts while wobbling into them. "This is the last time."
I sit naked on the edge of her bed, facing her while she dresses. I'm reluctant to stand up. Because when I put my clothes on, it means I must leave.
Diana knows it too. After the first few weeks, she stopped urging me out of bed during sunrise.
"Get dressed." Not this time.
I stare her down hard. "What's the harm in it?"
We've had this argument for 3 months, and even when she wins, we come drunk and stumbling back to her bed all the same. No, not just hers. Our bed.
Diana snatches a tunic from the floor and throws it at me. I catch it and stare at the graphic, a pleasurable churning resulting from the vibrant pattern. "This is your shirt."
She whips toward me. "No, its..."
Her gaze hones in on the fabric. Then drifts up, over my bare chest, the purple marks on my neck, to finally meet my colorless eyes. I bask in the ocean breeze of her attention. I'd never admit it, what she does to me. Never, except when nude and lonely.
We stay like that for a while. The void and open sea. My endless pitch black, Diana's fervent blue. Both of us sinking in turn, deeper and deeper each night.
She turns away. Hands fumble open a dresser drawer, a gun and folded clothes inside. She moved the weapon there after we almost accidentally shot ourselves while fucking. A clean shirt is thrown my way. Unfortunately, its one of mine.
"Wear that." Her pupils don't find mine again. As if she's trying to imagine I'm not here. My teeth clench, a familiar ache twisting in my gut.
I discard the garment on the floor, standing and walking behind Diana. My breasts press flush against the muscular physique of her back, arms around her curvy waist. I no longer pretend she's softer, or smaller. That she is Elane instead.
"We always come back to this." I say. Its manipulative and its true. We never escape our demons, only hold each other close when they're the most active.
Her rough hands encompass mine. And shove them off. She finally looks to me.
"Don't try that shit, Eve." She takes a step forward and I feel my heart beginning to tremble with a fear slowly rebuilt. "Go home. Find someone else. We're over."
You bastard. You lying bastard.
I back away. "And what will you do? Find another Barrow to fuck around with?"
She shoves me so hard I trip backwards onto the mattress, and she yells, "I'm gonna move on!"
Scoff. "Yeah right. Don't act like you're any better off, we're both not okay."
Her creased brows could set ice on fire. "I'm fine. I have a rebellion to run, and you're just a distraction."
"A distraction?" I stand and stride forward, getting in her stupid beautiful face. "You mumble my name in your sleep." Step. "Everytime I return from a farther patrol, you moan how much you've missed me on our way to this bed." Step. "When we fuck, its the only time your eyes light up the way they used to for her." Step.
Our noses brush. One more step, and I could kiss her. One more step, and we'll fall so far there will be no climbing back up. Are traps meant to be so appealing?
Diana leans in close, eyes shaking. She doesn't talk. I don't want her to. I want this illusion of an argument between lovers to last forever.
It doesn't last. And it doesn't end.
She kisses me. There's no physical desire beneath it, no sexual frustration, no underlying reason for this to be meaningless. I kiss her back, and we plummet.
I drown, she suffocates. We love in pain, taking chunks of each other's hearts. Replacing those stolen pieces with our own. I trade my sorrow for hers when I kiss her neck, caress her waist, and whisper a truth forged in hatred.
"I love you, Diana." She pauses in her languid kisses and curious hands.
I notice the heart freezing terror that stifles my every waking moment in her eyes. It vanishes just as she opens her mouth, and I brace for the rejection.
The effort is wasted.
Because she says, "I love you too, Evangeline."