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queerbrujas · 3 years

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then it vanished away from my hands (part three)

pairing: nate sewell x eva navarro rating: T word count: 4k (10.1k total so far) warnings: angst (with no happy ending, though there’s a lot of comfort in this chapter). discussions about mortality and loss of agency. murphy trauma and flashbacks.

After discovering the reason why she can't turn, Eva tries (and fails) to come to terms with it.

part one | part two | read on ao3

this fic was originally meant to have three parts, but uh, that didn’t happen. current plan is to have it be four or five, depending on how the writing goes.

—

part three: my sense of self I lost somewhere

Eva’s eyes squeeze shut.

She’s all out of tears.

How long has she been sitting here?

This is—this is not working.

She can't be alone right now.

She can't be here right now, in this place that was once home to her and where there is nothing left that is familiar or comforting. Nothing but void, a shell filled with what’s left of the covered furniture she couldn’t get rid of.

The only thing here is—

is—

fuck.

The only thing here that seems alive and vivid is the image playing behind her eyelids of the apartment flooded with bright red smoke, the sounds of crashing and breaking, of Rebecca telling her to run, of Nate—

And a cold, cold voice that rings in her head, louder than every other sound.

She’s back outside in the rain. It soaks her to the bone, makes her shiver.

You are rather special, after all, Detective Navarro.

Why, why the hell did she think of coming here, of all places?

I do so prefer the quiet ones.

There isn’t enough air, she’s not getting enough air. She tries to gasp for it, to take deep breaths, but it’s not enough. When she opens her eyes the white walls of the apartment are closing in and her vision is blurred, hazy (not smoke, it’s not smoke, it’s not). A trapped scream tries to fight its way up her throat.

She wants to let it out. Scream. Thrash.

Tear her skin apart and climb out of her body.

This is not working.

This is not working—this won’t work.

She’s not going to be able to make it out of here on her own. Not out of the apartment, not off of the goddamn floor.

The sudden moment of clarity, tenuous and brittle as it is, spurs her into action.

Her phone. She pulls her phone out of the pocket of her jacket: her hands are still shaking, and it takes her at least three attempts to get hold of it. Once she has it, it slips between her fingers and clatters to the floor.

She flinches at the noise. She’s going to start sobbing again.

She flexes her fingers. Breathe. Breathe.

Eventually, she manages it.

For just a split second, she considers calling, then decides against it. That won’t do. She doesn’t trust herself to speak without bursting into tears again.

I'm at my old apartment. Can you come over?, she writes, hits send. Then a second text: Please.

The reply comes before she’s had time to lock her phone again: there in 2 seconds.

She loses track of time again after that, closes her eyes and would not be able to say, later, how long she spent like this. What is left of her rational brain tells her not more than a few minutes can have passed before Farah is already there in a whirlwind.

Alarm is evident in the way her eyes shoot wide open as soon as she sees her, in the way she's kneeling down by Eva's side faster than her (human, human) eyes can register.

“Hey, hey.” The words tumble out of her quickly, blurring together. “Eva, what happened?”

Farah has seen her cry before, she’s seen her desperate and distressed and upset, but she’s never seen her like this.

She examines her, the way she’s sitting on the floor with her knees held to her chest, the sorry state of her—clearly looking for signs of physical injury. When she seems satisfied she’s found none, she takes a breath: the alarm fades, but the concern deepens.

“What’s wrong? Did something—” Farah interrupts herself, purses her lips and waits for Eva to answer.

Eva’s throat feels raw; her thoughts scrambled, paper-thin. Connecting them, stringing them into something so complicated as language seems a monumental, almost impossible task. Just the thought of it makes her throat start to close up again.

She shakes her head. “Don't want to talk about it.” Speaking hurts, physically—even more than she thought it would.

Farah nods, as though having been expecting it.

She knows her well, after all.

They all do.

Farah reaches out, slowly, and lets her hand hover just over Eva’s knee. She doesn't touch her, knows better than to touch her, but it's close enough that Eva feels the warmth through her clothes.

“Do you want me to just sit here with you for a while? We don't have to go back home yet.”

Eva barely manages to choke back a dry sob at the mention of home, but unexpected relief washes over her all the same. Relief and gratefulness to Farah for putting into words what she certainly wouldn't have been able to think of. Not now.

She gives a quick nod. “Please,” she croaks.

Farah attempts a smile that manages to be warm despite the evident strain in it. She moves then, with a grace that Eva has envied before and which makes something in her chest constrict now, to settle more comfortably on the floor, legs crossed under her, facing Eva.

“Then we’re not going anywhere until you say so,” she says.

Soothing. Calming. Farah always knows how to be comforting.

“Thank you,” Eva sighs. Farah hums her assent.

With her here, real and solid in front of Eva, the red smoke and the crashing sounds and the voices seem to fade little by little into what they are: a distant memory, years old by now. Not real. Not something that can hurt her now.

(Except it lives under her skin, the consequence of it, the result of it, she’ll never be free of it—

Stop.

Stop, stop, stop.

Stop that thought dead in its tracks.)

A while later, Eva’s breathing still hasn’t gone back to normal. It’s still quick and ragged, shallow.

“Hey,” Farah speaks quietly, a low whisper that barely breaks the silence.

She waits for Eva to open her eyes—when had she closed them? How long has it been?—before speaking again.

“Give me your hands?” She says it as one would a question, extending her own, palms facing up.

Eva hesitates for a second—but only for a second.

The hesitation is instinctive, but the action is conscious. She places her hands in Farah’s, and Farah smiles at her.

With the warmth of the touch she’s reminded of the few times she’s done this before, in other circumstances.

Farah taking her hands and teaching her to dance, despite her initial, half-hearted protests.

Farah dragging her to celebrate her birthday because it was on the same day as hers and of course they needed a celebration; no, sneaking away with Nate to the library did not count, what part of it’s our birthday and we should have a party did she not understand?

Farah helping her stand up after a bad injury she’d sustained during a mission, the fear in her eyes eclipsed by the quick resolve to get her away.

She’s reminded of this, of all this. Of Farah’s liveliness and warmth but also of the way she always seems to understand how she feels, long before words are spoken.

Eva doesn’t quite manage to return Farah’s smile, but her lips twitch a little.

“Good,” Farah says. Her thumbs rub circles on the palms of Eva’s hands, and something soft in her eyes seems to make them glow golden, brighter than their usual amber. Something soft and sad and old, because as young as Farah seems, Eva is all too acutely aware (especially now, especially here, with a sting that doesn’t seem to go away) that she is still close to three times her age.

“Breathe with me?” Farah asks, before Eva’s thoughts can spiral too far in that direction.

Eva nods.

Farah breathes. Eva breathes.

It’s a deeper breath than any she’s taken since she got here.

They spend a while like this, until exhaustion finally settles in, weary and bone-deep. Until she’s staying here out of pure stubbornness, and when Farah quietly asks “home?” Eva does nothing but squeeze her hand and nod.

—

She tries then, she tries to adjust to the new information.

To move forward.

It’s what she’s always done. It’s the only thing that can be done.

She lets the rest of Unit Bravo know about the results (thinks for half a second about not saying anything, but she could never hide anything like this from them) and then refuses to discuss them at all.

It is what it is. If there is nothing that can be done to change it—and it has been made very clear to her that there is nothing that can be done, not about this—then there is no point in wasting time and energy thinking about it.

Because if she starts thinking about it, she’s not sure what she will do.

If she starts thinking about it, it’ll be back to the apartment, back to the rain, back to that other warehouse.

And if she starts thinking about it, she’s going to have to think about how all the reasons she had for wanting to turn in the first place are still there. They have not gone anywhere, except that now she has no way to deal with them.

She’s not sure if she feels numb or if she only wishes she did.

She thinks about it, anyway, whenever her gaze falls on the faint, jagged marks on her wrist, paler than the light brown of her skin.

For years she’d almost forget the scar was there, the memories associated with it pushed back to the deep corners of her mind. Now it seems to exert a gravitational pull of its own, drawing her sight to it without her permission.

She thinks about it whenever she remembers—and she remembers it often these days, can’t seem to pull the thought from her mind—that the blood in her veins is not her own. The whole of her body has been made into a foreign object; unrecognizable, enactor of violence upon itself.

The nightmares are worse than they’ve ever been.

—

It takes three days for Nate to bring it up: he’d been waiting for her to do it first.

He does it as gently as ever, as softly as ever. With a kiss to her forehead and hands seeking her skin, brushing down her arms. Perhaps hoping his touch would soothe the sting.

He seems almost apologetic, as though she could break at any moment.

Who’s to say she won’t?

“Joonam,” he whispers. “Will you tell me what’s on your mind?”

(Joonam, he calls her.

He calls her many things in many different languages, but this is the one he always, always comes back to.

Mi vida, she calls him.

Not as often as he does—she was never one for pet names—but often enough.

The thought forms before she can crush it: it seems almost cruel, now, that they’ve dug so deep to call each other my life when he will outlive her by an infinite amount.)

And the look in his eyes makes her want to cry all over again. He’s pleading with her, keeping the emotion from his voice but it’s clear in the way he looks at her.

Fuck, this won’t work.

She can’t keep doing this. She can’t do what she always does, not with this.

Because being with Nate has never been easy.

It has been many things—it has been love and passion and comfort and truth, but it has never been easy or painless. It has never been natural or effortless or uncomplicated.

They don’t fit together like that.

What it has been is a choice, constant and conscious. A choice to go against her instincts—her instincts that tell her to hide, to never stop moving, to raze what’s left and never look back—and open herself up in ways that leave her raw and exposed but so vibrantly, painfully alive.

(A choice that she’d been willing to make for the rest of eternity, even if it never got easier.

A choice that he makes for her, too.)

Poke around in the wound to dig the bullet out.

Her instincts tell her to pull back, and there are words on the tip of her tongue that she swallows down.

Slowly, she takes one of his hands in hers, brings it to her mouth to brush a delicate kiss against his knuckles.

“I will,” she says, eyes closed. If she opens them the words might not come out. “We’ll talk about it, I promise. Just—give me a little time, please. Just a little time.”

Nate breathes out a sigh that sounds like relief drowned in concern.

“Of course,” he says. “Anything you need.”

—

The water in the bathtub has cooled around them; the steam dissipated long ago.

Even in the cooling air, they have not moved in a while: Eva leans back against Nate’s chest with her eyes closed, his arms wrapped loosely around her as he presses sweet, barely-there kisses to the birthmarks on her shoulders. He follows paths he has mapped and memorized countless times before, ones that feel familiar on her skin.

Ones that should be soothing.

As slowly as ever, Nate lets his kisses trail up the side of her neck. They are soft, featherlight; his lips ghost over the multiple marks that have accumulated there before lavishing her with an attention that makes her shiver.

For the longest time, this was something he would not allow himself.

For the longest time, he would shy away from Eva’s neck as though burnt, and the first time he let her see the fear in his eyes as his fingertips traced the line of her throat is a moment that remains imprinted on her mind.

(She took his hand and pressed it more firmly against the side of her neck, against the beating pulse there. Gentle, almost as gentle as he always was with her—and always offering him the choice to draw back. He almost stopped breathing, but his eyes never left hers, and that single instant stretched out into moments, into something she still struggles to name.)

A lifetime seems to have passed since then.

He does not shy away from it now. Not now.

“I wish we could stay like this,” Eva murmurs.

Just this, right here.

A single moment, endless. One where nothing else matters or even exists. One where the thoughts that have been plaguing her have no power or importance.

“We can,” Nate whispers in return. His breath is warm, still close to her skin, and he follows it with another kiss directly over her pulse. “As long as you want to.”

She lets out a sigh. It would be so easy.

God, so easy.

So easy it’s terrifying.

The temptation to never talk about it again hasn’t gone away.

But thoughts become corrosive. They seep into every last piece of her sanity that she’s tried to keep safe. Into every dream and every waking moment until nothing, nothing remains untainted.

The way she flinches when she sees the scar, when she barely paid attention to it before. The way she looks at herself in the mirror and finds flaws she hadn’t noticed, the way she sometimes wants nothing more than to open her skin and drain out the blood to get it all out. Maybe that would help.

No, it would not be that easy.

“Not that long,” she forces herself to say. The words are always stuck in her throat, and they will not come out on their own. “Not forever.”

Nate’s kisses stop, and the briefest moment of tension tightens his embrace—something Eva might not have noticed if she didn’t know him like she does. But he speaks into the crook of her neck, tenderness the only thing in the softness of his voice. “Do you want to talk about it now?”

It has only been a few days since he’d mentioned it.

“I don’t think I’ll ever want to talk about it,” Eva admits. “But I have to stop acting like it’s something we don’t have to talk about.”

She sighs again, sinking further against him. Her own hands come to rest on his arms, wrapping them more tightly around her. “I just don’t know what to do. Where do we go from here?”

Nate hums, a soft sound she’s come to recognize as a contradictory mix of subtle exasperation and patience, tempered by love and concern. She’s been on the receiving end of it more than a few times. “We’ll get to that part. Let’s take it one thing at a time.”

Unspoken: For now, just tell me how you feel.

Also unspoken (because it has been spoken too many times): You don’t have to solve everything by yourself. You don’t have to solve everything right away.

He knows her too well.

It makes her want to cry, that he knows her this well.

“I just never thought about this.” Didn’t think it wouldn’t work. “I didn’t even consider it.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. Small. So fucking defeated.

Because if she can’t do anything—

“None of us did,” Nate says, and that cuts deep, too.

He does not have defeat in his voice like she does, but the barely concealed pain is enough to make her eyes sting.

The fact that he’s trying to conceal it at all.

For her sake.

Dammit, Nate.

Because if she can’t do anything, then what’s left?

(“Nate, I don't get to have a normal life.” She’d been trying not to raise her voice, to rein in the tremor in her words. Trying, and failing. “Not with this blood, not with these scars. Not with everything that's happened to me already. Do you think anyone can be normal after that?”

One of the many times they’d argued about this. He had tried, wanted to show her value in humanity that she could never see.

He’d turn back, he’d choose to be human, to be mortal, if only he could.

“Even if I could have that,” she’d added, more quietly. “I don’t want it. If this all went away, what do you think would be left of me?”)

She shifts in his arms, turns around until she can face him.

“I wanted this, Nate.” She lifts a hand to close her fingers around the pendant that hangs from her neck, the one she never takes off, the one he gave her. She closes them so tightly her nails dig into her palm. “I wanted us, like this, forever. I wanted it so much I don’t know how to be anything else anymore. Nothing else makes sense even if I try.”

Nate covers her hand with his own, both closed around the pendant. He hesitates before speaking, examining her with eyes that betray the depth of feeling in them, but eventually, he does. “I know nothing can dull the pain of having the choice taken from you,” he says, careful, too careful. He’s been through this. “I know that. I would give everything I have to spare you that hurt.”

“But I’m—” A soft breath escapes his lips, something that is not intentional, something that is far less controlled. “I’m not going anywhere. I will make that promise a thousand times over. It will still be… it can still be forever, for you. You still have us. You still have me.”

“And you’ll just watch? You’ll watch me get older, weaker, god knows what else? You’ll be okay with that? With watching me die?”

The questions leave her mouth like bullets, one after the other.

Harsh. Too raw. The things neither of them wants to hear.

She’s the one panicking, now.

She’s said this before.

And Nate flinches, flinches at the bluntness of it—she wants to take it back at that, even when she knows it has to be said—but it does not make his voice waver when he speaks. “I love you,” he says, as though that answers all her questions. “Nothing can change that. Every second you’ve chosen to give me has been something precious, something I have treasured, and it will continue to be, no matter what.”

One of his hands moves to tangle in the wet locks of her hair. To hold her in place, staring into the depth of his brown eyes, eyes that reflect back the same hurt she feels even if he will not say it.

“Before we talked about this, before you decided to turn, I—I knew I might not have you forever. I didn’t dare to hope I would, didn’t dare to think of it. But loving you is worth any pain that might come from it.”

Her throat constricts, and the emotion in Nate’s voice dulls the edge she’d imparted to her words. Of course Nate would say this. Of course he would think this, would feel this.

He would break himself to keep her.

He would break himself for her, without even a hint of hesitation.

(I won’t do that to you. She’d said that.)

She looks away, blinking to get rid of the tears that prickle at her eyes. She fixes her stare on the edge of the bathtub: gleaming, burnished copper misted over with condensation.

Instead of following that line of thought—she doesn’t trust herself to—she grasps at something else. Something that stabs with equal force at her chest.

It sounds like someone else speaking when she says, “I don’t want to be less than you.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the way he frowns.

“Being human doesn't make you less, Eva.” Nate is resolute, his voice firm even in its warmth, echoes of a recurring argument neither of them had ever won.

“But it does,” she counters, voice cracking and desperate, turning her face back to meet his eyes. “Don’t you see it? It does, and it will always feel that way. I already have to try so hard just to keep up. What happens when I can’t anymore? What happens when my body gives up, when I'm too slow, too weak to go on missions?”

Why won’t he see it?

She has tried. Tried to make up for her lack of abilities, for her humanity. She has tried to attenuate it, to make sure it does not become a burden.

She has learned combat from Morgan and Adam, spent hours upon hours in the training room with them until she can barely stand, until Adam smiles at her after a well-placed hit, until Morgan throws a towel for her to catch and there’s nothing but pride in the look she gives her.

She has studied the supernatural world in every way she can; submerged herself in it, let it coat every cell of her body and every neuron in her brain.

It is what she breathes.

And she’s been forced out of it.

“That still wouldn’t make you less, nothing could.” The affection, the love in his voice burns. “There is so much more to you than what you can do.”

She shakes her head.

“I swore I wouldn’t be a burden to this team. And you know how I am, Nate, I couldn’t bear—I don’t want to get left behind. And I will. You’ll keep on being who you are and I… won’t.”

The tears aren’t pricking at her eyes anymore. They are falling.

The words aren’t stuck in her throat anymore.

“Everything I told you I didn’t want, all of it, that’s going to happen and there’s nothing I can do about it. And I have this thing inside me that’s making it all happen and my body isn’t mine anymore. I don’t get a say in any of it.”

She leans forward to rest her head on his shoulder, seeking the comfort of his touch even when it won’t, it can’t be enough. Not for this.

She is instantly enveloped in his arms, drawing her closer against him.

“I’m sorry, mi vida,” she whispers against his skin. “I just don’t know what to do.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he answers, quiet, almost too quiet, into her hair.

And there is a thought.

Because if there is nothing she can do—

But this is one she refuses to even entertain. To acknowledge.

I won’t do that to you.

She’d said that.

#the wayhaven chronicles #nate sewell #oc: eva #qbwrites #qbwritestwc

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queerbrujas · 3 years

Note

Eva,

- the note starts, as always, with her name. And then, in Natalie's looping, comfortable hand:

Prāṇa-priye.

Darling.

It is such a thing, to refer to you this way- and yet, I have learned so many things and lived so many lives and still do not have the words to express the whole of how I feel for you.

Eva.

I haven't known myself, before you.

The letter lies on her desk, in an envelope filled with dried tulip petals.

thank you, lovely person, for this wonderful letter—i’ve been wanting to write more eva/nat, so have a little response, and probably the sweetest thing i’ve ever written.

how little I loved (before I loved you)

pairing: nat sewell x eva navarro word count: 0.7k rating: G

read on ao3

—

Eva would be lying if she said she hadn’t been expecting something—if her time with Nat has proven anything, it’s that her girlfriend will not miss a single opportunity to be a hopeless romantic, to show her love and devotion in ways that are guaranteed to take Eva’s breath away.

But expected or not—you don’t just get used to Nat Sewell. She always catches you off guard.

Oh, Nat.

Eva can’t help (doesn’t want to) the smile that tugs at her lips as soon as she opens the envelope, which had been sitting on top of the files she’d set aside to be dealt with today (and how had Nat gotten it to the station, so early in the morning, when no other trace of her presence was to be found? Even she couldn’t be that subtle). Can’t help the way her heart seems to skip not one but several beats, the way her teeth dig into her bottom lip and heat pools on her cheeks.

And as Tina would say (has said, teasingly, when Nat comes to pick her up at the station), Eva doesn’t blush, not ever… but when it comes to someone like Nat, the exception is more than justified.

Sweet, beautiful, impossible, unfair Nat—it’s a little ridiculous and a lot over the top, if she’s being honest: dried tulip petals, custom-made stationery (because of course Nat Sewell has custom-made stationery, as she has custom-made everything). Nat’s beautiful, even handwriting, in that ever-so-slightly shimmering ink that Eva knows comes from a specific bottle that sits on the desk in the corner of her room.

(And Eva finds a slight thrill—something warm, gentle; something subtle and comfortable that hadn’t been there when they first started dating—in knowing the exact origins of the paper and the ink, in realizing she knows which pen Nat had used to write the words she now reads.)

Eva doesn’t read romance novels—hardly ever reads novels at all, much prefers the more prosaic and grounded realm of non-fiction—but she figures this kind of thing is exactly what she would find in one. She would never have thought a person like this could be real.

And yet there is nothing, nothing more real than Nat, as she is constantly reminded whenever she stands face to face with the woman. Everything seems to fade into the background and blur when confronted with the vibrancy, the intensity of Nat’s mere existence.

She reads the letter again, and her breath catches, her smile widens.

(She’s glad Tina can’t see her right now.)

It is such a thing, to refer to you this way.

Eva finds the mirror of the feeling in herself—Nat is only Nat to her except when she is mi vida, when she is mi amor and mi todo and when Eva herself is meri jaan and priye and a thousand other words in other languages that Eva only knows now because of her.

Words that mean more than language—words that mean more than what they are. Words that had never been used for anyone else, by either of them.

Words that mean know me, that mean this is who I am underneath everything else, this is the part of me that is still—will always be—too raw to show anyone but you.

Oh, Nat.

Nat, Nat, Nat.

Eva sets the letter down on her desk, but she can’t bring herself to look away from it yet. Follows the lines of Nat’s handwriting with the tip of her fingers, the paper soft and velvety to the touch.

I haven’t known myself, before you.

Eva’s smile turns soft—less giddy but just as fond, just as warm.

She had never been with anyone long enough to celebrate Valentine’s Day, before Nat. She’d never had anyone write her letters, or look at her the way Nat does—with that intense focus that makes her feel like her skin is on fire, that feels just as physical as the caress of her hands, the brush of her lips.

Never had anyone who made her feel so completely off-balance and be happy about it.

#the wayhaven chronicles #nat sewell #qbwrites #qbwritestwc #love letters #oc: eva

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queerbrujas · 3 years

Note

11 from the kiss meme for Nat! :)

Look at me filling prompts two months late :) I went a little bit off-prompt with this one but it still kind of counts!

the closest to heaven (that i’ll ever be)

pairing: nat sewell x eva navarro wordcount: 1.8k rating: G

read on ao3

Morning kisses that are exchanged before either person opens their eyes, kissing blindly until their lips meet in a blissful encounter.

—

Nat Sewell doesn’t need any more sleep than other vampires.

She could easily sleep as little as Ava or Felix do, barely more than Mason: a few hours every few days, and it would be enough rest for her body. No, there is no practical reason for her to sleep more than the others in Unit Bravo—but she does anyway, out of habit and enjoyment, like the human food she eats or the whiskey she sometimes drinks. The music she listens to.

It’s a ritual. A reminder. Something pleasant and, for the most part, uncomplicated.

(Ava doesn't understand why she does it without need, but Ava, dear friend that she is, feels that way about many things.)

Sleep is, as most things about immortality, different; she would still call it different, even after three hundred years and only vaguely remembering what it is different from.

No, she doesn't think about that. It's just different.

Dreams, for one, are more vivid—but so are nightmares—and the rest it gives is enhanced.

The moment of waking is different, too.

She likes to savor it, those first few instants after sleep, when her senses are still coated in a veil of dreams and only just beginning to reacquaint themselves with the world around her. Still coming out of a pleasant haze until they settle into complete awareness.

So she keeps her eyes closed, letting each of her senses wake in its own time, feeling and slowly widening her perception of her surroundings until she is fully awake.

Especially now, with those senses all drawn to focus on one person only, she would allow that moment to last for as long as possible.

Eva shifted during the night. It’s something she does regularly, Nat has realized by now—but no matter how much she does, she never moves away from her. Never stops touching her. Their legs are tangled together, with Nat laying on her side; her hand lays flat on Eva’s stomach and she can feel the softness and warmth of her skin under her palm, every point of contact between them something precious.

The pleasant heat that radiates off of her body is first on Nat’s mind, as it warms the space around them and lands on her skin, even more welcome than the morning sunlight.

Nat’s chin rests on Eva's shoulder, and the next thing she can feel is her hair, loose and spread over the pillow, strands of it brushing against Nat’s cheek and filling the air with that mix of scents that has become so familiar and known and cherished.

There are the very, very last remnants of the perfume Eva wore last night (faint amber and sandalwood are all that is left, but they are enough to bring the hints of mandarin and jasmine to Nat's memory), the shampoo she uses (a new one, nettle and lemon verbena) — and underneath it all Eva's own scent, something fresh and clean and something else still, something nameless, powerful and intoxicating that makes Nat almost dizzy.

She moves closer almost instinctively, smiling against Eva’s shoulder when the rhythm of her heartbeat starts to pick up. She knows, by now, the exact pattern and acceleration, the change in pace that tells her when she is waking. It starts only a few moments before her breathing becomes shallower.

Nat’s fingers trace shapes on Eva’s skin as she lets her focus settle on the soft sounds, on the shift of the air around them.

It's so easy. It's been so easy, with her.

So easy to speak of herself, to give herself so fully and so irrevocably. To grow used to waking with her like this. It has all fallen into place so quickly Nat could almost, almost be wary of it, and yet all she can feel is the way it warms even the oldest corners of her heart and fills her with a kind of happiness she can't remember feeling in as long as she's been alive.

Eva makes a noise then, a barely audible hum, and Nat’s thoughts are drawn back to her as her heart skips a beat of its own. It makes her smile—as much as she enjoys sensing the reactions she can cause in Eva, the inverse thrills her just the same.

She keeps her eyes closed still, enveloped by the hold Eva has over her senses, wanting to cling to it just a little longer, that sleepy daze that precedes the stark clarity of day.

Eva shifts, turns and burrows her face against Nat’s neck, making more soft, sleepy sounds. Another hum, and Nat feels the vibration against her skin. She wraps an arm around Eva and pulls her closer, their bodies flush against each other, and Eva lets out a contented sigh.

“Nat…” Eva's voice is muffled and sleep-heavy and yet it makes Nat’s heart give a leap. Nat answers with a soft hum of her own.

Eva doesn’t speak again, instead shifting for a kiss to Nat’s shoulder; the touch on her skin feels vaguely electric, lightly charged. Another kiss, more humming, and Nat smiles even wider, happiness settling in her chest.

Nat shifts as well, tempted by the kisses, by the softness of Eva’s lips, featherlight touches brushing against her skin. Eyes still closed, the fluttering sensation almost overtakes her, as Eva presses them without rhyme or reason over her shoulders, her collarbone, her neck, her jaw.

Nat lets out a soft laugh when Eva nuzzles against her neck again and whispers “you’re warm”, her voice clinging to sleep as much as Nat herself is. Her senses are almost fully awake now, though, starting to become aware of the smaller things like the slight changes in the air and the sounds of the forest outside, someone’s footsteps off in the distance. But it all fades into the background, white noise, because she can tell Eva is more alert now, too—heart rate and breathing are almost back to normal—and that’s the only thing she can focus on.

“Good morning, jaan,” Nat says, that feeling of happiness bubbling within her and spilling into her voice, tentatively moving until she can press her lips to Eva’s temple, fingers playing with the strands of her hair.

“Morning,” comes the mumbled answer. She’s stubbornly clinging to it more than necessary, Nat knows; she’s almost fully awake by this point.

Nat opens her eyes then, and even after all this time, the sheer strength of her reaction to Eva still takes her by surprise. The lines of her face, beauty marks dotted on her skin. The way long lashes frame light brown eyes that are only just opening.

And her eyes are a wonder all on their own. Usually constantly moving, evaluating, with thoughts swirling behind them at a speed it takes a moment to keep up with, or with a hard focus on finding the best outcome for a mission.

And yet the way she looks at her now is enough to make Nat’s heart almost stop.

Eva, her Eva who almost never stays still, who is so at ease with the breakneck speed this modern world has taken, and yet—and yet she chooses, has chosen to slow down for her without even the slightest hesitation and seems as thrilled by it as Nat herself is.

Nat can see the whirlwind behind her eyes stilling every time they lock eyes, as it does now, a gentle focus that reflects every depth and every feeling Nat has inside herself. Eva smiles, beautiful, blissful, full of softness and feeling she has admitted time and again to being unused to and Nat’s breath catches at it, her own heart racing even faster—she feels nothing short of honored that she would be the one to inspire that so freely in her.

She waits a second for the catch in her breathing to subside, a smile spreading on her lips.

“Have I told you that you are the most beautiful sight to wake up to?” she says, raising her hand to brush her fingers against Eva’s cheek. She doesn’t try to keep the emotion from her voice.

Eva’s eyes sparkle at the comment and she laughs, but the slightest hint of heat radiates from her cheeks all the same, something she doesn’t hide or shy away from; Nat loves her for it, loves the eager honesty in her smile and how she revels in the shivers Nat causes in her. Her sleepy smile grows wider and more alert and she leans forward again, kisses Nat's cheek and the touch of her lips is so soft, so gentle Nat’s eyes almost close again at it.

“Then maybe I should stay here every night,” Eva says, with a smile in her voice, too. “And, for the record,” she adds after another kiss, “yes, you have.”

“You will hear no argument from me,” Nat answers with a light chuckle. “I'd have you with me always.”

They have been spending almost every night together, at the Warehouse or in Eva's apartment, and the nights they don’t are longer and emptier than Nat could ever have imagined they would be.

I'd have you stay forever. She almost says it—and it is so unlike her to keep these thoughts unvoiced, but this one, this one she would hold on to for just a little longer.

Eva draws back, only a little, and her light brown eyes meet Nat’s again. She is silent for a moment before speaking again. “You know I have nowhere else I’d rather be.”

It’s almost a whisper and, despite the smile that still sits on her lips, more serious than she probably intended it to sound.

There are depths to those words, Nat knows. There is an unspoken conversation and an idea and a thought that hangs between them still—but there is also the undiluted truth of it, truth that is both freeing and overwhelming, exhilarating and comforting.

Nat lets herself be taken by the feeling of it until the force that pulls her to Eva is so strong she has to do something about it, and without words (because there are no words that would be enough, in any language she knows) she does the only thing she can. She leans in to kiss her again and Eva melts into it eagerly, grasping at her and pulling her closer, the sweet softness of her mouth the only thing Nat cares to know.

They part with a breath and a smile and Eva keeps her eyes closed for a few seconds, lashes brushing against her cheeks. Nat wants to count them. She has never seen anything or anyone so beautiful.

After a moment, Eva lets out a sigh, shutting her eyes more tightly with a frown.

“There’s a meeting,” she says, making Nat blink in confusion for a second. She can hear, can feel the regret in her voice, sounding much more awake now than a few minutes ago. “We should—what time is it?”

Nat laughs.

“Yes, I believe we should start getting ready for the day.”

#the wayhaven chronicles #nat sewell #qbwrites #oc: eva #qbwritestwc

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