(no subject)
Stone Cold Sober
Eame's character study. Written for this perfect prompt--Female!Eames, Paloma Faith's "Stone Cold Sober"
http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/9327.html?thread=17316975#t17316975
***
Eames learnt young that a painted face and weak, pretty smile could hide the worst sins. People never see the gun coming until it’s pressed against their temple.
Her daddy always said she'd be a killer.
...
She's at a party killing time. Waiting for Arthur to slip back into the room with a drink in hand and the joints rolled and stuffed into her purse. Her back’s pressed against the wall and the ceiling drips, drips, drips against the tulle of her dress. She splays her fingers against the cool stone and shivers. Telegraphs caught and sweet and innocent and corruptible as well as she can. It's all practice. Eames can't remember the last thing she had a shred of innocence to lose--the last time she had something to learn. She's been burning, burning, burning from the start. Someday she'll catch the whole world afire.
Right now she's starting with the tall, clean-cut blond making his way over. Lips to die for and a sweater that tells her just how trapped he is; his life tying him down like the threads encase his tan flesh. He's standing in front of her now, slow smile on offer, his shoulders throwing shadows across her face as he towers over her. She slants her eyes down, flicks them up to him and back to the floor. Waits for him to coax her out of this new shell.
She can feel this girl's life drape around her. She finds her memories of summers on the beach and her grandmother’s slow hands kneading Sunday morning bread. Recalls the funeral when her casket sunk into the ground and this girl bit her lips to hold back tears. The long silence at home still chills her and she’ll never forget the empty Sunday table. Eames knows her lisp, the family she's so afraid of disappointing, the school she's considering but so unsure about, all her little insecurities and her tiny lit hope that this boy will wake into her life and open her up. Like a jewelry box. Like a treasure.
Eames has never been precious in her life. She's a rare thing granted--priceless in some circles. But she's never been handled like a gem. Hands gently caressing her curves, words aimed to sooth--so carefully about harming, about chipping, about doing anything but holding lightly. She's never been fragile. She thinks it's a life she'd like to try.
...
He's sucking her nipple, tongue flicking around the pink nub as she hides her face in the shadows of the stairwell. The slants of light hit her like a benediction--in pieces and always showing the worst. Wisps of hair shade her eyes and curl around her parted lips. The faint dim of the party hums above them and the wind howls through the cellar. His hands curl around her waist, pressing the stiff, thick fabric of his jackets closer against her shoulders. He'd draped it around her earlier when they began this 'walk.'
He bites lightly now, eyes flicking up to her--still seeking permission. She can't control the gasp, doesn't want to. The shuddering pant as his nails scrape along her thigh. His hand slips higher and she melts--ashamed, relieved, broken. If she were a different kind of girl, those feelings would last, would be real. But for now, they're her own. She feels them in that distant way that she feels all her Others. Owns them only as far as any feeling, manner, memory of her infinite incarnations is hers. She's caught between her racing mind and the girl slowly falling in love with this blond boy, falling apart at his command.
...
His name is Dom. He wants to see her again.
Wants to see her everyday if he could. Certainly every weekend that he's home.
Oxford he tells her.
Studying architecture, studying dreams.
Building the world of the future, building a place for her, for everyone
This girl--Eames hasn't yet decided on her name, maybe Eleanor, maybe Ellen--this girl is hesitant. His world seems a bit far-fetched and she wants something more grounded, longs for security, feels deceived. Eames, sliding beneath the current of these new longings, wants to pick apart his world. Run her finger tips along the seams and take it to pieces.
Eames has never been a particularly good girl. And Eleanor would never want to be anything but. They're going to have such a time--Ellie and her.
He bundles her into a cab. Shakes her hand. Pressing the fingers to his lips as his eyes twinkle. "I want to see you again," he says slowly this time, blue eyes sincere and promising worlds. She’d been hoping for repressed, one-dimensional; a tin box waiting to be blown open. Instead she finds worlds of enthusiasm and smooth charm packaged before her. That earnest, earnest heart promising love.
She hates to think that Eleanor’s not that type of girl. And Eames, and eames and "Eames!"-
Arthur’s calling her name as she runs to catch up. Brown hair trailing behind her, wrapping around her shoulders as she squeezes past Dom into the car. “Bye now!” Arthur calls as the door swings shut and her low laugh and bright eyes swing onto Eames. Her fingers already winding through Eames, calling her back. Eleanor catches one last glance of the boy with the blue eyes, worried squint and little frown as the cab speeds away and Eames lets go.
…
Eames is the same girl on three lines of coke as she is stone cold sober. She’s always had this tragic madness--this wildness coursing through her. Mad as a hatter Eames. Wildcat Eames. Troublemaker. Madman. Sociopath. She’s heard it all before. Addict is one of the kinder words they whisper. It cloaks all kind of wishes. Her bad habits bury beneath the mantle of coke-head, her secrets still as body-bags.
People are more indulgent when she’s high and stumbling across the dance hall to press her now powdery hands against their lapels, ease her lips against their throats and rest her head against their shoulders.
She reaches for their hands, winding her body against theirs, grasping hands until the whole crowd moves and jerks across the dance floor. Loses them in the beat, the pulsing rhythm, the wild thrum. Let’s their urge to move catch up with her own frenzy. For one moment-one beat, they’re in the same place she is, on her plane. This place where everyone is possible and identity…Identity’s only a thin boundary thrust between existences. Simply a fascinating, impermanent demarcation-waiting to be breached.
“There’s the dealer,” her friends sneer. Laughs rising like confetti in the wind. She doesn’t have to turn to know who they mean.
Arthur, Arthur, Arthur coming to get her.
She pushes past the arms holding her and hips swaying. Arthur always pulls her back to her self, to that resolute center she can’t puzzle out. Really, who needs a core when they can have the every spinning worlds, who would every want to be one person when they could be them all. She’s been Eames for too long, and she wants another night off. Another day away from that puzzle.
Arthur will fade into the crowd or slip out of the building. Her deals are done for the night and they both know Eames is big enough to find her way home.
Still, she can’t get past that itch.
To pick them all apart.
To figure out their secrets.
It’s easier to create new skins to wear than sink into the ones around her. When she’s high she allows herself these lies. When she’s clean she can’t resist the impulse to burrow into every mind around her, to figure out every tick, every want, to work every hurt. Now though, she’s only racing past herself. Cycling through her favorite girls and decide what face tonight will bring.
She puts on her best smile, runs her hand along Eva’s red dress, purse Eva’s full lips and thinks about Eva’s last good time.
Eva just wants to have a good time. To smile and laugh and run her hands along the guitar player’s bruised hands. Eva just wants to dance until her feet are sore and everyone’s too far gone to remember their problems. Eames needs Eva tonight. So Eames can resist the urge to sink her hands into the nearest body, settle into their museum of thoughts and wants and needs.
And rip them apart.
Eva never wants to destroy. And god help her, for all the faces Eames puts on, she never wants to create.
Her daddy said she’d be a real killer, a danger, wilder than the wind and running circles around them all. Just like her mother. Just like Mal.