Work Text:
Karolina doesn’t think she’s ever seen Shiv cry before. Not properly cry. Tears, sure, tears are an easy tool for Shiv to conjure, for anyone in this business really, to use and put to work to get her way or to mask something but they’ve never been real, never as sincere as they are now, in the dark of Karolina’s living room where there’s no spotlight to perform under and no audience to try and manipulate.
Here, now, she’s really crying. Her shoulders are shaking, her face is buried in her hands, she hiccups and whimpers between breaths, and she’s bent almost half over at the waist as though the tears have limited her capacity to breathe, as if she’s about to be sick, clutching at the clasp of her dress, neckline stuck awkwardly at the back of her neck, unable to fully stand the squeeze of her own lungs against her chest and the weight of the fabric on her back. The sound of it alone is painful, gasping and lonely.
She turns – whirls - as soon as the door clicks shut, eyes red-rimmed and frantic. “Shit, fuck. I’m-“ Shiv tries to regain herself, tries to stop spluttering, but her chest is heaving and her throat is hoarse from crying. She sounds somewhere between a cough and a full-blown sob. “Fuck, I’m sorry…I didn’t…think you’d be home. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Karolina nearly scoffs at the weak excuse – a multi-millionaire with nowhere to go exists, apparently – as she dumps her keys in the bowl, hangs her blazer on the back of the chair. Shiv’s hands fidget together and Karolina sighs, shakes her head. “So you broke into my apartment?”
To her credit, Shiv’s manages a damp smile, a little laugh, manages to look a little more like herself as she creeps into the light of the kitchen. She drags her sleeve across her eyes, winces as the rough fabric scrapes more red into her face. “The doorman let me in.” She replied lamely, relieved for their usual rapport. “Suppose he still recognises me.”
God knows it’s a hard face to forget, Karolina thinks but it’s more probable that Gareth saw Shiv’s tears, put two and two together and let her in, reckoning her to be better off with Karolina than outside with him like a stray, clawing at the door. Could’ve warned me though, fucker.
She looks pretty, prettier than she should given the circumstances and given the time of night but if that wasn’t typical of Shiv. Karolina sighs again, turns to the sink and pours her a water, hands it to her.
“Here.”
When their fingers briefly meet over the glass, she steals another glance at Shiv’s face, studies her under the brighter light. Through the red, her eyes look even more blue, like an oasis in the middle of the desert and they seek Karolina out like one, relieved and unsure. Her lower lip is dry and slightly cracked, the skin across her cheeks and nose rough and crumpled from crying, acid streaks lines into her foundation from her running makeup. And the look on her face; resigned, withdrawn, exhausted. It hangs heavy and droops, making her look older, making her look like Logan. Karolina wonders if it must sear to the bone when she’s upset like this, must burn and hurt deep enough that even she can’t cover it with some band aid or snippy remark. She wonders how long she’s managed to keep it reined in.
They move back into the living room when Karolina’s got herself a glass of wine and when they sit, Karolina leans back and lets down the zip of Shiv’s dress, opens out the body slightly, lets her breathe a little easier. Shiv’s smile is small but grateful.
“Thanks.”
Karolina only nods and cradles her wine glass. The weight of the day hangs out before them like a portrait unfurled, some snapshot of a time they’re both unwilling to look back on with detached reserve, Shiv still trying to shake it off. Karolina feeling sleep trying to drag her under and take her away.
Shiv sniffs and pinches the bridge of her nose, leans forward. “So, uh, my dad…fucking died.”
Karolina looks at her. “Yes, he did.”
“And we buried him.”
“Mhm.”
“And I broke into your apartment. Well, sort of.”
“You did.”
They looked at each other, considered that, momentarily letting the admittance land and reflect across their faces. When neither of them said anything, Shiv sniffed again, closed her eyes and leaned back again. “What did you think of my speech?” She asks tiredly.
Karolina smiles, rolls her eyes, and drinks. “I think I should be more worried about my job than I originally planned.”
“Oh yeah?”
Karolina lowers her tone, softens the joke. “Yeah. I think it was excellent, Shiv.” She says honestly, more honestly than they’re used to. “You laid it all out there.”
Shiv studies her, tilts a glass, and lets the smile sit again for a moment. When it fades, Karolina leans forward and opens a drawer beneath the coffee table, pulls out a box of tissues and hands them to Shiv. Shiv dismisses them with a flicker of her fingers and Karolina rolls her eyes again.
“It doesn’t mean you don’t look like shit, you know. Your face is a mess.”
“Fuck off.”
“It’s my apartment.” She tore out a tissue, turned and held Shiv’s face between her thumb and forefinger. “Here.”
Shiv nudged back slightly, eyeing the tissue in Karolina’s hand as it dabbed her cheek as though it were laced with chloroform. “Are you my nurse now?”
“Why, you want to do it yourself?”
Shiv stuck her tongue in her cheek. “No.”
“Right, hold still then.”
Shiv did as she was told as Karolina’s free hand cupped her chin and her eyes scanned Shiv’s cheek, looking for smudge marks made by her mascara. Her touch was gentle and the pads of her fingers swept away the tears in the corner of Shiv’s eyes and she rubbed Logan off of her face. When their gazes briefly met, they smiled again.
“So much for mascara, right?” Shiv joked.
Karolina hummed. “You didn’t think to wear waterproof?”
“Mm,” She shrugged. “I thought the whole, smudged mussed-up face might let the press see I do have emotions.”
“Wow, really? How you have fallen. I don’t remember you caring much about what the press thinks.”
“Grief changes people.”
“Grief sympathises people. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes, I’ve known you too long.” Karolina commented, wiping at Shiv’s cheek and Shiv grinned again.
“Foiled again. You’ve always been good at that.”
“I try.”
“Can you imagine Roman’s face if he’d worn all this?”
Karolina’s smile faltered briefly at the thought of Roman sat here between her hands, his face ashen and smoke-streaked with foundation and mascara, eyes defeated and trembling, shoulders shuddering beneath the terrific weight. So like Shiv’s but so much more unguarded, so much more frightened, a dog kicked one too many times. She sighed, scrunched up the tissue and stood.
Shiv watched her go. “What, too far?”
“No, I’m just tired. It’s been a long day.”
Shiv stood too, followed Karolina towards the hallway. “Would you have looked after Roman like this?” She asked quietly. “If he’d shown up here instead of me?”
Karolina scoffed and shook her head as she walked. “No. And you know that.”
“It doesn’t hurt to ask.”
Karolina stops, flits her gaze over her shoulder. “It does a bit, actually. He’s not you.”
Shiv, at first, doesn’t say anything and Karolina feels the weight of her gaze burning into her back, guilt soaking her clothes like blood seeping from a wound. Then she steps around her, looks into her eyes. Karolina ponders if its possible to twist a knife any deeper.
She doesn’t ask why Shiv’s here, why she’s not with Tom or out in some bar getting as wasted as possible. She doesn’t ask why Shiv chooses to spend a bit of grief here in her apartment even though they’ve been within ten feet of each other all day, even though her siblings are grieving in the same waves today too.
She doesn’t meet her gaze when she knows Shiv blames her, somewhat, somewhere deep, for Logan’s death. She knows when Shiv looks at her now, looks at her like she has been for the last month, that it’s not Karolina she sees. That Karolina is gone, sequestered away in some tainted part of her heart, fabricated and twisted into something unrecognisable, broken and ugly. Right next to Logan, probably, dead and cold.
She forgives her, of course, remembers Shiv’s sobs down the phone on the plane, her frightened pleading whimper that had wrenched guilt into her heart that she thought she’d stowed away long ago. Not her fault and not her responsibility and not even her Shiv, but still; something somewhere from that day was owed. A little part of Logan held in Karolina’s heart and in her memory, away from Shiv’s, and nestled in a place that can’t be shared. His last moments belonged to her and not Shiv and that, neither of them would be able to get away from.
“Do you want to stay?”
Karolina lingered at her bedroom door, waited for an answer. Shiv’s hand found hers through the darkness, the rest of her following, inevitability caving in on itself like the bringing of a tide, unable to stop herself from being swept away and drifting out to sea, unable to let go. And, as Shiv’s hands found more and more of Karolina in the passing hours and her mouth traced every part of her from her head to her feet, tears pricked in Karolina’s eyes as she realised Shiv would never let go, and she didn’t think she would either.
Still, she held onto the Shiv she had for now, clinging to her like the mast of a sinking ship, waiting to drown.