undergrounds | waves that swallow quick and deep

Fuck it. Fuck it. Things were going from bad to worse, and Evie had no one to turn to. Jacob wasn't somewhere she could easily get a hold of him, and she didn't really want him to gloat about what she'd always considered his greatest fault: the fact that she'd acted hastily. Usually, Evie looked at every single angle before making a move. But with Millicent, she'd been rash, and gone in with guns blazing.

Or, well, stakes flying, as it were.

She didn't strike the killing blow. That was all on Alex. But she'd helped take out a guard, given Alex valuable information and items that she couldn't have successfully completed her mission without. She was an accomplice.

That wasn't what upset her, though. She'd killed thousands of people, some worse than Millicent, others far better. She'd make the same decision, if it came down to it, because it had been the right thing to do. But now, they were sitting here with Raymond Harris.

The fear in the city, that was her fault. She was seeing the city she loved and cared for for over a hundred years tear itself apart with fangs and claws. The people she swore to protect were afraid of "gang violence". And she had no one to talk to about it.

No one, save Natasha.

Which was why, with a bottle of fine whisky in hand, she knocked on Natasha's door one evening, hoping the other woman was in. "It's Evie, may I come in?" Vampires didn't need invitations from other vampires. But it was polite. And Evie was nothing if not polite.

It's Evie's luck that Natasha's in. Luck, and timing—this time of year she can't leave early. Not without taking special care. And while she hates to admit it, she tends not to wake up until sundown, or close to it. She's awake when Evie arrives, but she hasn't been for long. She answers the door without makeup, still in a camisole and shorts, looking a little fresh from bed.

Her eyes go from Evie's face to the bottle and then back again before she steps aside, making room for the other woman to come it.

"Make yourself at home," she says. "I wasn't expecting company though. Everything okay?"

"I've woken you." Natasha, she notes, is stunning without makeup. "I can come back another time. I wouldn't want to bother you." She probably wants to wake up not drink whisky.

"I was hoping we could talk." But she needed to know she could trust her, first. Standing in the entrance hall, she gave a small smile. "But if can wait." She'd draft an email to Jacob, perhaps, all the same. Leave out certain details, and not press send. Probably delete the whole damn thing, truthfully.

"Or I could make you coffee." She liked coffee when she first woke up, which, truthfully, was in the morning. With her daylight ring, it was easier to keep a human schedule. Though she did sleep in a bit later and stay up far later than your average human.

A modified schedule, then.

"I was awake. Not for long, but..." Natasha tips her head slightly, pointing with her chin for the other woman to take the invitation. "It's fine."

She smiles then, reassuringly. It's clear that the other woman has a lot on her mind, and Natasha can't say what. In their line of work, it's rare to see someone get visibly flustered about something, and while Evie isn't doing so bad, she's still clearly uncomfortable.

"Coffee sounds good. I'll take my whiskey in it. You can have it straight. How's that sound?"

"I can do that." She makes her way into the kitchen. She'd been there before and knew the way.

She actually starts to work on coffee for Natasha- it gives her something to do and makes her feel better about interrupting the other girl's (relative) morning. Evie sets the whisky down on the counter.

Once the coffee is brewed she pours Natasha a big mug, and adds a healthy heaping of whisky before doing the same for herself. Then, she sits at the table. "Natasha?" she asks, looking at her dead in the eyes. "I need to know if I can trust you."

For a moment, Natasha watches Evie work, a little bemused by the visit but willing to accept it. Then she moves to the sofa and makes herself comfortable while Evie works.

Coffee is about the only thing Evie will find in Natasha's kitchen, but there is that. The apartment itself is spartan—furnished enough not to seem completely strange, but it doesn't look lived in in the way in the way most places would after a few months of occupancy. There are no pictures, no keepsakes, no trinkets. Nothing to personalize it. But oh, there is coffee.

She takes the cup when Evie offers it to her, nodding to the other side of the couch in an invitation to join her.

The question takes by surprise, though.

"That's up to you, isn't it? I can't really tell you to trust me. I can keep a secret, though, if that helps."

When she's stressed out, cleaning or other menial tasks always help clear her head or give her something else to focus on. Maybe she should feel bad about taking control of the kitchen. But she didn't. Not when she needed that little task.

She sits across from Natasha when bidden. she needs to look at the other woman when they speak. Look at her in the eyes and decide if she's lying.

but she's a spy. an uncapitalized assassin. what they do is keep secrets. She trusted her enough to extend an invitation to their brotherhood. What's another secret?

She doesn't need to threaten Natasha about what happens if she tells. They both know the price that comes with spilling secrets that aren't yours to spill. Natasha has seen what Evie can do.

"I was there the night Millicent was killed."

Natasha's surprise isn't manufactured. Alex never mentioned having an accomplice, especially not one on the inside. When the girl showed up on Natasha's hands, her impression was that she hadn't had anywhere else to turn. But working with two vampires—that was unexpected.

If Evie was telling the truth. The other option was that she knew about Natasha's involvement, which couldn't be counted out

Giving a little cough as though clearing her throat, Natasha takes a deep drink of her coffee despite how hot it is and pours a little more alcohol into it. In a carefully neutral voice, she says, "I can see why you wouldn't want that getting out."

In Alex's defense, she'd made the right decision. Who would expect a vampire to work with a werewolf? They hadn't traded names, nothing. Alex hadn't even gotten a good look at Evie's face, her hood had once again provided her that liberty.

"Precisely." She's taking another drink of whisky.

"My entire life, Natasha, I've been quite careful to always look at things from every angle. My brother couldn't be bothered to plan. He always acted rashly. I hated it- he nearly destroyed the entire English bank, and I had to clean up his messes. It was, and still remains, the subject of many, many fights between the two of us." This isn't about Jacob, however, but it's paramount Natasha understand where she's coming from.

"But you're saying this time, Millicent was bad enough that you didn't think of every angle—you didn't expect the fallout." Natasha would be lying if she said she hadn't foreseen this. Maybe not Raymond Harris specifically, but the power vacuum. But she hadn't done more to stop it, had she?

"Well, that explains how she did it," Natasha says then with a sigh. "I would have taken her more seriously if I knew she had someone on the inside."

"Precisely." She takes a long drink of her whisky. "I didn't go in that night planning on being an accomplice to any murder. I would have rather done it myself, made it far cleaner. Mind you, I didn't go there expecting to murder anyone, either. But I saw an opportunity and I took it."

And she was regretting it every night.

Wait.

"She spoke with you?"

"I ran into Alex before it happened. She'd been sniffing around, got my attention. I tried to talk her out of it." Natasha doesn't mind sharing this much. She's already admitted it to Cooper, making her less than his favorite person at the moment. "I told her something like this would happen—not this specifically, but something. The nest wasn't going to take a werewolf killing their highest ranks without some kind of backlash."

She takes another drink of her coffee. She's not judging. In a way, she blames herself too. If she'd taken Alex more seriously, she might have stopped this all before it happened.

"Honestly, I though she'd get herself killed."

"I did, too. And she would have." She takes another sip, savoring the pause. "If I hadn't been there."

They'd had no way of knowing that this would happen. None at all. But here they were, and here Evie was.

"I need to fix this, Natasha. Somehow, there has to be some sort of way." Back in the old days, they'd start at the bottom, assassinating those with titles who shared the same beliefs and instilling someone they could trust there. Nowadays, it was much harder to get away with murder. Not to mention, all those involved were vampires. That tended to make things more difficult, even for her.

"I won't be able to live with this, in a manner of speaking."

Natasha sets her mug down and pulls her feet up onto the couch, leaning closer to Evie. Her expression settles into something serious, curious, her gaze fixed on Evie's face. "Are you asking for a friendly ear? Because I can do that."

On the other hand, if she was asking for more than that, Natasha wasn't sure she could give it. Her own position here is too precarious.

The situation is already turning over in her head, spinning it around, checking all of the angles. It's not for the first time. She's been considering it for some time.

She's already gotten involved enough.

"Yes." She says it without hesitation. She knew, more or less, where Natasha was at. She wanted to get out of this business, and Evie was not going to drag her back in, not when her past was so fraught with difficulties.

"I know better than to ask for more."

For moment more, Natasha returns a level look, then she lets out a sigh. "I can do that. I can't blame you for it. Millicent was going to bring the nest to the same place eventually. This way, it just happens faster."

"And I wouldn't blame you even if you did blame me for it." She sighs heavily.

"There are so many people dead, Natasha. Which is what I was trying to avoid."

Natasha's chin comes up, her brows furrowing in an expression that might be sympathy. "You didn't know this would happen."

"But I should have. I should have waited, let her get killed." She pours herself a bit more to drink.

"I know I shouldn't beat myself up about this. Logically, I know that."

"Would you feel better about that?" Natasha asks honestly. It's hard to say. Even a moral vampire might not have a problem letting a werewolf be put down, especially for a greater good. And even a capital A Assassin had to be pragmatic sometimes. Alex was no innocent.

Natasha saw a little of herself in the girl, though. A little of her from fifty years before.

Evie has to consider this carefully.

"I would have done it myself, eventually, if things had continued down this path with her- I was always taught that the lives of the people are far more important than the life of just one person." Second life, whatever.

"There's no way of knowing, truly."

"But you'd have had a replacement lined up first, right?" Natasha says. She knows how this works. She's done this before. Removing one dangerous leader didn't do any good if the new one was just as counter to your purposes as the one you disposed of.

"Exactly." It's the way it should have been done, and the way it's been done thousands of times in the past. Both of them had done it before, she knew that for a fact. "And more than that, we'd want replacements down the line." Just in case the other side decided to do the exact same thing.

Though, ideally, they wouldn't even realize what was happening until it was too late.

She pours them each a bit more whiskey, and she's fairly certain Natasha's coffee is more booze at this point- idly, she recognizes how cute her friend looks in pajamas, still looking a little sleepy.

This is a rare way to see Natasha. Not by design, exactly. She's not bothered by Evie's presence here. It's just that when she faces the world, it tends to be in a sort of armor, her appearance and her mean carefully cultivated for desired effect. Evie's caught her in a less professional moment, though; curled up with a coffee mug, still in the clothes she wore to bed, she still projects a self-contained air, but the professionalism is replaced by pensiveness.

Whether or not that's less imposing depends on you point of view.

"That would be ideal. Being able to support a movement or even a faction is safer than a leader." Leaders being demonstrably easy to dispose of when it becomes necessary. "Do you have anyone in mind?"

To Evie, it's hardly imposing. To her, it's a show of trust. Here is Natasha in a moment of vulnerability, caught unawares. And she'd let her in and was talking with her. She really was a different person then the woman she'd read about.

"And without the support, you can't do anything, anyway." Which was part of their problem- half of the members of the Nest adored Raymond and his edicts.

"The only suitable candidate I can think of right now is, well, Jean-Claude."

late July, for Natasha

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