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You struggle to put a specific name on your current relationship with Zoya. Describing Zoya herself is, perhaps, even more complicated.
You’ve known the Legion’s leader for less than two weeks, your attitude towards the woman in question drastically changing from one day to another. From your presumed enemy, the face of Syndican violence, she became a reluctant ally. From an ally, she somehow managed to become a confidant, the person whose bed has been keeping you warm for the last couple nights. Yet even in the time spent together, no matter how you try, you cannot find it in yourself to fit her inside a box, to come up with a fixed term that would classify the kind of person she appears to be.
What you can put together is that she is definitely not an evil one, not like has been drilled into your head by the numerous files and warnings you’ve received from your superiors. Dangerous, yes, if the somewhat fresh memory of your car getting effortlessly totaled is anything to go by. But not entirely unreasonable in her actions and belief system.
You don’t even know what it is exactly that urges you to tell Zoya about your personal concerns or about how irritating you find the way the FAC pushes you around. Maybe it’s her casual understanding of your frustration, the fact she’s one of the few that have shown they think of you as an equal ally rather than a pawn to take advantage of and throw aside. You tell her of your troubles, doubts, of the dilemma of which side to take. You tell her, and she offers respite in the form of warm hands and lips on your skin, leaving your mind devoid of worries for those few hours you spend getting lost in each other.
Sometimes, when she touches you, you wonder if you’ve been so close to another person before. It doesn’t feel too alien, not quite, yet you’re not precisely sure if it's the call of some distant memory buried down deep in your consciousness or Zoya’s natural effect.
The base is quiet this late into the evening. You feel the soft brush of silver hair against your neck, the smoke from the cigarette Zoya has lit illuminated by the faint yellow glow of street lamps coming through the room’s windows. The woman's naked, tattooed shoulders bear crescent shaped marks that you recognize as being left behind by your nails some while ago. You almost feel guilty about leaving such obvious evidence of your encounters on the gang leader, then you glance down at your own half naked body. You’re worse off than her, you think, with the red and purple love bites trailing down your torso.
Oblivious to your internal complaint, Zoya nudges your arm, passing the lit cigarette to you wordlessly. There’s a plum colored lipstick stain where her lips have touched that you find yourself staring at for a moment too long before bringing it up to your own lips and inhaling.
Staying with the Legion has made you develop some vices, you can shamefully admit. Away from the MBCC and your adjutant’s prying eyes, you almost feel like a rebellious teenager that has managed to sneak out for the first time. The sting of smoke in your lungs has taken some getting used to, with Zoya taking great amusement in your failed attempts, yet you eventually learned to derive some strange sense of comfort from it.
The Legion's commander watches as you exhale, chuckling quietly at how effortlessly it seems to come to you by now. “Not coughing your lungs out anymore?”
You offer her an unamused glance back, the reaction only making her smile widen. “I adapt quickly.”
In response to your mock discontent with her teasing, Zoya pulls you a bit more snugly against her side, guiding your head to rest on her shoulder as you smoke. Up close, you can smell the mixture of cologne, sweat, and smoke on her skin. It’s not nearly as unpleasant as it should be. The scent lingering near her is a blend of spice and warmth, deep and musky, something that pulls you in and engulfs you in the gang leader’s essence.
For a long while, neither of you speak, the cigarette passed between your fingers from time to time. Quiet exhales function as the only sound breaking through the room’s silence. There isn’t anything particularly striking about the lodging itself, although you’ve admittedly never asked yourself the question of how gang leaders lived before. The place is scarcely furnished, with close to no personal belongings, and, honestly, somewhat rundown. Zoya doesn’t spend a lot of time here, she said. She claimed there was no use getting attached to one place. The Legion makes the entire Syndicate their home. You suppose that in that sense she meant to apply it to herself as well, yet the look on her face did not convince you back then.
Zoya is the one to finally break the silence, her gaze focused on some distant point in the ceiling that you really notice nothing note-worthy about. “What would your superiors say if they knew you were messing around with me, little Chief?”
From the tone of her voice, you can’t pinpoint whether it’s a genuine concern or a challenge. Knowing the person you’re speaking to (as much as you’ve learned about her by now, at least), it’s the latter. “I’m a grown woman. They have no say in who I mess with.”
Zoya smiles, seemingly satisfied, or perhaps only amused with your answer. “True enough. You do have a rebellious streak.”
Despite the occasional mockery thrown your way, you can only appreciate the lighthearted atmosphere the Legion leader's company provides. You’ve never considered yourself a romantic soul (or maybe you did once, you wouldn’t remember either way), yet the quiet conversations unveiling in semi-darkness feel somewhat pleasant in their intimacy, like a secret shared just between the two of you. Who knew you’d be so fond of pillow talk with the woman who threatened to break your arm off a few days earlier.
She started opening up to you, too, ever so slightly, or perhaps that’s your hopeful (and naive, you can almost hear Zoya’s voice in your head) way of seeing it. Zoya talks about Syndicate’s former glory and its fall, vividly painting the present-time image of the cold and hostile streets lined with crime and people struggling to survive another day. Her voice is bitter when she does. During one of those conversations, somewhat naively, you asked her whether that meant she hated the district. Zoya didn’t answer.
You find yourself wondering if she’s lonely, when she falls asleep deep into the night and her grip on your waist tightens, holding you to herself much more protectively than one would an insignificant one night stand. You imagine the suggestion of vulnerability would insult her, though, and settle for appreciating the warmth of another person’s body silently.
For now, when awake, Zoya offers you mostly those non-committal jabs that sound half-honest, half-teasing. Like now, when you feel her body weight lean on you, her lips dangerously close to your ear in the way where you could almost feel the smile in her voice even without looking at her.
“Have I told you you’re a nice bed warmer yet? I could almost get used to it,” Zoya murmurs, a grin on her face, and although it reasonably should, this time the comment doesn’t sound as mocking as her usual quips.
You lean back against her shoulder, Zoya’s muscles barely tensing under your weight. “Any more compliments and I’ll think you have a real crush on me,” you respond wryly, attempting to hide your own amusement. Somehow, the Legion’s leader is good at making you smile against your own will. A talent she takes pride in, apparently.
She laughs, a surprisingly soft sound, clearly taking no offense in your comeback. “I’m just saying it as it is. You’re warm and soft, at least for a Chief.” The way she emphasises that last word is clearly meant to get a rise out of you, yet you reject the bait, at least this time.
“Thanks, high praise coming from you.” You stub out the cigarette you’ve been holding, letting its burnt remains fall to the ashtray. “Definitely madly in love with me if that flattery is anything to go by.”
There must be something interesting in your passing words, because Zoya falls silent, her expression unreadable for the most part. “Me, fall for you,” she huffs, an amused glint in her eyes as if she's considering a particularly humorous scenario. But after that momentary pause, she turns to you, and the trace of genuine softness in her voice throws you off. “Yeah, I guess I could.”
The faint smile Zoya offers you doesn’t quite reach her eyes — there is something bitter about it, a “but” that is waiting to be said yet doesn't come after all. Perhaps she is under the impression that she doesn’t need to tell you anything more, that you’re smart enough to figure out the rest on your own.
Before you can even think to properly respond, the Legion’s leader shakes her head in amusement as if the words held no more significance than her other careless comments. She has done it a lot during the nights you’ve spent together — say something that catches you completely off-guard, then change the subject effortlessly. “Not on the basis of you being a warm body to hold, obviously.”
Your own resolve doesn’t allow you to brush off the subject with an ease equal to that of Zoya’s, though. “On the basis of what, then? Am I that charming?” you offer dryly, unamused at whatever the game being played at your expense is.
“Charmingly stupid, yes.” Zoya smirks. “Like a puppy. In the way that you’re curious about everything, and test things with your teeth... Ah, sorry, shackles.”
The jab to your dignity stings ever so slightly. You ignore it to the best of your ability.
“I meant that question, Zoya. You could fall for me? The Chief of MBCC?” You pose the inquiry as neutrally as you can, ignoring the turmoil of emotion her seemingly absent-minded remarks always stir in you. That emotional tension has been accompanying you two for some time, and perhaps it would be more comfortable for it to remain unaddressed — but addressed it gets, not for the first time, and likely not the last.
It’s just that the answers given rarely matter, as Zoya’s response quickly assures you.
“Even if I would, what would it mean? You don’t get attached to people like me, Chief.”
You hate her self-assuredness in these moments.
People like her, she says, like she’s putting you on some unreachable pedestal, like there’s a gap between you two that cannot be breached even with all the soft whispers and caresses and body warmth you offer each other. Like this is all a performance bound to end without as much as a curtain call the moment you step back into your office’s threshold, like the sole idea of this being anything more is too far-fetched to ever be spoken of out loud.
What you know of Zoya is that she already has her path set out in front of her eyes. The most you could do is stubbornly insist on walking the route with her, but you will never be able to keep her from following it, the woman who shines brighter than the sun, scorching everything in her path, burning herself down to the very essence.
Yes, the sun. Maybe that is what Zoya has reminded you of all this time, with her pure power and unfaltering will. It’s an oddly fitting comparison for all the wrong reasons. She shines so bright it almost hurts, the fire of passion and fury you once saw in her eyes never dimming, always focused on something ahead.
The sun, as you know it, will never be close enough to touch. Yet you’re stubborn, always have been, too stubborn not to try, too stubborn to care if you get burned.
“You don’t get to decide who I get attached to,” you finally counter her words, feeling the bitter taste of irritation stew in you. Perhaps it’s a selfish emotion. Perhaps the only thing Zoya is trying to do is keep your feelings from getting hurt before you’re faced with a true reality check outside these walls. You understand that. Logically, you really do. Yet in these past weeks ever since you’ve woken up, you’ve really had enough of others making decisions for you, of choosing what is better and what you should do.
Zoya sighs, grimacing as if she has bitten into something sour. “No, I don’t. But I can at least advise you and hope you have enough brains in that head of yours to listen."
Fuck your advice, you think, but keep yourself from saying out loud.
The irritation doesn’t come from the fact that you’re in love with Zoya. Not… yet, at least, you think. You’re drawn to her magnetically, there is something between you two that has little to do with casualty, and perhaps you could end up falling for her. Maybe even sooner than expected. But the question of could or couldn't itself — it's definitely not one she should answer for you, out of all people. Aren’t you the only one who can name the feelings she evokes in you, not herself? This gang leader painfully true to herself, the one that strikes you with a mixture of awe and fear. Maybe, just maybe, that is what falling for Zoya is supposed to feel like.
“You’re important to me,” the words escape your lips before you can think of a better, more thoughtful response. Instead, it comes out as an insistence, a plea and a confession all at once.
The moment you put the shackles on her, she became your Sinner. You cannot hold back the stubborn feeling that makes you want to stay close and protect her, however ridiculous it seems when you fully look at Zoya, someone who clearly doesn’t need you or anyone else with an extreme case of a savior complex, for that matter.
There is no surprise on Zoya’s face, no. It reminds you more of the fond resignation of a person that cannot imagine things ending well. “I know.” She sighs, her rough hand, free of the deadly metal claws you’ve seen her use in combat, coming up to stroke your cheek with sickening softness. “You are that kind of fool.”
You feel the need to argue that you’re no fool, that if anything, Zoya is the foolish one for her one-track mind approach to any possible positive attention. But before you can fully open your mouth to voice the thought, she beats you to it.
“Chief, can I kiss you?” she asks, catching you off guard with the request's utter simplicity. The look in her eyes may be more honest than all the words she has spoken so far. Even though Zoya has kissed you tens of times by now, never asking such sentimental questions, clearly she means something by it now.
And although you meant to argue, you think that with this look, you would let her do anything to you.
You just nod.
When she kisses you, you can still taste the cigarette on her. The way she presses her lips against yours is surprisingly soft, softer than the previous kisses you’ve shared in the dark corridors of the Legion’s base; it’s more of a gentle request than a firm demand, the shape and warmth of her lips searing themselves into yours like a brand, like she wants to leave her mark on you after all — one much deeper than the bites and scratches on your skin, one that leaves you yearning for her even once she walks away.
You wish you could know what she means to tell you through it fully, learn what it is that's truly on her mind while she holds onto you so tightly and kisses you so tenderly. The only thing you know is that your shackles burn warm, for a moment, and yet it doesn’t make you want to defend yourself, only bare more of your very soul to her touch.
When Zoya pulls back, she doesn’t say anything. She holds your face in her hands for a moment, her eyes focused, as if searching for something, or perhaps committing each of your features to her memory.
She never tells you what she’s truly thinking, after all.
When the dawn breaks and you awake, the newly found familiar weight on the other side of the bed is already gone, taking the warmth along with it. Instead, on the ashtray, only a stranger’s lipstick stained cigarette butts remain, devoid of any flame previously lit.
It’s a cold morning, and you shiver as you slip out from under the covers and feel the air hit your bare skin. The wooden floor creaks softly under your feet with each step. Only one new addition to the room catches your attention — there’s a yellowed piece of paper on the bedside table, a message in bold handwriting in the middle.
“I’m going on ahead. See you at Keylan Square. — Zoya”, is all the note on the counter says, its content laughably simple and straight to the point. It’s much expected from its author. Your uniform, thrown off carelessly the previous evening, is folded into a somewhat neat cube on the chair.
Of course Zoya wouldn’t stay. You had known better than to foolishly hope for any other outcome.
The room feels even emptier in the daylight. At night, there’s at least something intimate in its bareness, but now, as you stand in the middle of it alone, you can only sigh at the lack of interior design, the lack of anything that would tell you something about Zoya that she herself refuses to.
Yet your own living space back at the MBCC isn’t better than hers, an insistent thought reminds you. Perhaps you’re a hypocrite in that regard, as well as many. You pick up your clothes. The cool gray of your coat stares back at you. As you throw it over your shoulders, you slip Zoya’s note into its pocket almost absent-mindly.
No matter what you’re thinking, there is nothing more you can do than go to see the negotiation through, the one the Legion’s commander only accepted because of you. You must go and see her, if only to meet her eyes again, to estimate both the weight of the words she said and the thoughts she refused to voice.
You cannot allow her to keep looking away.