[ The first time Carla had a drink was when she was thirteen years old. Isaac Crew pushed a beer in her hands and told her to drink. She did so without grimacing, but told him it was swill. So he'd taken her to a party and let her taste a little of everything. She never liked any of it, not the taste, not the effects, and her disdain for drunkards eventually reached a plateau where she simply refused to be one of them. No one ever minded for long. She hadn't needed to be plied with drinks to convince her to take her clothes off, to use her mouth. She was never the one waking up with a headache and guilty conscience.
She hasn't had a drop since then. Has weathered all of the bartenders giving her filthy looks when she asks for water, all the surprised would-be suitors wondering if she's one of those types. And if it had been up to her, she wouldn't have broken that today, but the choices had been drink nothing at all or drink champagne. She supposes she would have survived until midnight, but a little had turned into too much and she's irritated with herself. She's also dizzy and feels unpleasantly graceless as she tries to make her way quietly back in to the warehouse. If she were sober, she'd have the sense to just take off her heels. Instead, she's teetering along and quite possibly lost on the way to her room.]
[The headache and guilty conscience are the attraction of it for some people, the ones who drink to unlock the things that sobriety keeps caged. Others drink to forget the guilty conscience they live with already, and for the deserved distraction of the headache when culpability floods back in the morning.
Tonight, Chase drank because it was there, and because it was fun. Communal social lubrication in a party birthed from circumstance - usually the best kind. He hasn't drunk to excess, just to the point where a headache is edging in at his temples and his skin is still flushed pink though he stepped out of the shower five minutes ago. He's sugar dizzy himself, and the shirt slung over his arm is sticky with it, handprints from some nondescript bar.
He's making his way to his own room when he hears the clatter of heels, too high to be the princess, and lacking Saya's grace. It's too late to use his own barefoot advantage to avoid her altogether, so he waits as if he chose to, leaning against the wall until she appears along the corridor that leads to her room.]
[She has her hand on the wall to keep herself up, looking miserable as her hip knocks against it yet again. It was the sweet taste that had done it. If the liquor pouring out of everything had been vodka or gin she would have turned it away without question, but the champagne had tasted like candy and now she's like this: pressing her back to the wall opposite him and starting to slide down.]
[Well, he could. But this is much too interesting a prospect to be given the silent treatment. He watches as she slides, not feeling the need to catch her, and quite probably not coordinated enough to try.]
Your room's on this side of the wall, the bit with the hole in it. Are you drunk?
[If he weren't, at least a little, it would seem absurd to bother to ask.]
[She sounds legitimately bewildered. What is he even talking about? The bit with the hole in it? She lifts a hand to her forehead pushing her hair out of her face where its long-since escaped the clip that had held it up during dinner.]
I'm... [Really drunk and not particularly pleased about it.] Fine.
[The large, rectanguar kind of hole most people just call doorways. Chase is between her and it, watching her like an entomologist with an undiscovered kind of bug. This is new, and interesting.]
You're drunk.
[It takes one to know, honestly, but the fact that she's coming across as the less pulled together, despite his comparative state of dampness and undress, speaks volumes.
He drops his shirt as he finally goes over to take her by the elbows and stop a slide-back. He's still limping from a sprained ankle earlier in the week, which makes this all the more pertinent:]
[More petulant than anything else, possibly offended by his persistent need to point it out every time she's feeling weak and off-balance. She doesn't need it announced and she doesn't need his help, but trying to sidestep him makes her wobble and... what was that about her shoes... where is your shirt and why are you wet...]
There's nothing wrong with my shoes.
[Emphatically, as if she can just say it with enough conviction and he'll believe her. Because that always works.]
[Just that they need to come off, a point he'd trying to prove by moving her hands to his shoulders for balance and kneeling to help with the job. His wife had rarely come home drunk, but there were those occasional Thursdays with her girlfriends when she'd come home laughing and stumbling and kick her shoes off at the door. Carla and her scowl are the antithesis. Still. He's sure about the shoes.]
[Shifting to one foot is a bad idea, and she hisses a startled breath, scrabbling to keep hold of him. The transition to the other foot is a bit smoother, but she's still hunched over, staring dizzily down the line of his back.]
There's a surprise.
[She probably doesn't mean that, honestly. She doesn't really care what he says about her clothes. It wasn't the insult to her wedding dress that had riled her up enough to punch him.]
[He's not unsettled by her teetering above him, or the scratches her nails put in his shoulders trying to get her balance. If she stumbles, he decides, he can catch her over one shoulder or the other and maybe nether of them will hit the ground. Meanwhile he takes some care over the slide of her shoe. There really are no complaints about the heels. In normal circumstances he's asked women to keep them on.]
[Which should suitably explain the rest of this outfit, the light amount of makeup, red fullness of her mouth. Maybe even why she thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad to just let the waiter pour out some of the champagne, since it was all he had to offer.
Bare feet on the floor, her hand ends up threaded into his hair as she shifts to one side, looking down. She's trying to wrap her sloppy mind around how to get hold of her shoes without letting go of her helpful support structure here.]
[A promise which, since a procession of breakfast diners and burger bars don't seem to count, he has yet to keep. But he'll solve one problem at least, handing up the shoes. Trying to stand is, as yet, not on the cards - at least not until she's balancing for herself.]
[Carla takes her heels, frowning down at him silently before collecting her hands back to herself. She doesn't see why he would bring that up right now and would vastly have preferred if he hadn't.]
A whole room full of them. Would have been nicer if he'd paid.
[Chase presses his hands flat against the floor to get himself up on two feet. It's not his usual ease, but he'd rolled that ankle hard and was already using it for too much weigh bearing.]
[It's not the whole truth, but she doesn't see any reason to delve any further into why she might have been talking to Mr. Eames more than she previously found to be acceptable. Her eyes catch on the doorway, besides, and maybe it finally occurs to her that she had made it all the way back to her room after all. She is still far from coordinated, but she thinks she can make it to the other side of this hallway and at least catch the latch. She only trips inside a little bit, but she's not going anywhere else.]
[He lifts his head a little at the answer (which could mean anything, of course, and in Carla's case could mean something terrible, except that Eames doesn't seem to brook much nonsense). Useful. It sounds like something Saya would say.]
[She doesn't answer immediately, lost somewhere in the dark room because she didn't bother to hit the light. The clattering sound is when she drops the shoes, there's some rustling and some cursing, the thump is her hip cracking against the wall again, but she does reappear in the doorway, clinging onto the jamb. She looks confused and a bit irritated.]
...can you unclasp this dress...
[She turns slightly to show the line of tiny hooks up the back. The only one that's undone is the very lowest at the small of her back. She had not intended to get this wasted when she put this dress on, clearly.]
[That not immediately is enough time for him to be taking his leave, or at least making several low swipes to get his shirt from the floor before doing so. The interlude is already being written off as brief, curious, and perhaps a reason to be irritatingly noisy in the morning.
So he just blinks at the question.]
Yes?
[Oh. Will he. Well, disregarding the fact that picking up a t-shirt from a hall carpet has just proved too complicated, he thinks he can man up to the challenge.]
[She doesn't make it all the way to turned around because she is currently resting her forehead against the painted wall with her eyes closed. It's the least vertiginous she's felt for hours. But... there's enough room for him to see, right? It's fine. She gropes back blindly to take the clip out of her hair, tossing the plastic thing somewhere into the dark before drawing the rest of her to one side, out of the way of the top hooks. It covers about half of the line work tattooed there, still red around the edges, raised to the touch. It was only put down yesterday, which was really where she had taken off to, not camping.
This isn't the sort of dress you're meant to go home alone in.
[Yes, he's too busy focusing on the hooks to notice anything else, although a natural aptitude toward delicacy of touch mean that the hooks dislodge from their respective eyes in a neat procession, black fabric tugging apart to reveal more of the tattooed tracework beneath. Then it's impossible to overlook, although it's initially confusing. This wasn't here before? He rests his fingertips against the red, heated skin, then draws over the top of the linework.]
[Her answer is flat, asking his help wasn't a ploy to get his attention, or to get him to stay, she doesn't think that way. She's told him much more bluntly and directly in the past what she wants, and she doesn't really like playing the coquette, not with people who truly interest her. She didn't care for that particular brand of insincerity. This wasn't to show him the marks down her spine either, although she's not protesting, she'd have wanted him to see it eventually.
She turns her head, eyes still closed, temple resting against the cool surface. Her back flexes under his touch anyway, it's pleasant whether he stays or goes and there's a reason she chose this space to mark: it's not just the back of her neck that she finds particularly sensitive, it's all the way down her spine. The needles puncturing over and over again had been interesting and enjoyable, all the hands that will do exactly what he's doing will be too.]
[He's never been in doubt as to what she wants, although the reasons for it aren't always as clear. He used to think it would be a way to make him as disposable as the rest, an intimate act of distancing herself from any other connection between them. If they'd met later than they did, he might have shared the same aim. Now he suspects it's less simple - although, it's sex, there's always a degree of simplicity involved in the desire.
He bows his head, mussed, damp blonde against her shoulder as the last few hooks come free.]
[She holds still when she feels the fabric finally release all the way, waiting. The top had been tight enough and her bust small enough that there isn't a bra strap in the back to divide the mark down her spine.]
[His considered assessment. It's not for him to like it or dislike it - it's not offputting - although his personal preference would be a smaller statement. There's not much, though, that Carla seems to say quietly. He wraps his arms round her waist where he stands, curled in against her back. It's not leaving, but moving also feels like an effort when this is comfortable for now.]
[(Barbet always did tell her that she wasn't any good at subtlety.)
It's not really in her nature to ever truly be content, but Chase isn't leaving and she can feel him against her back through the gape in her dress. That's not nothing, and she lets herself settle there for the time being--(Listening to his breathing close to her ear, noticing the pulse in his chest.) Her head lolls to the side, shoulders and neck relaxed in a way that probably isn't normal when he's around to agitate her.
She's comfortable and willing to be still, up to a point. Barbet trained patience in to her, never liked how abrupt and pushy she could be, tried to make her appreciate their physicality, when they had it, as part of his art. She never could. Even when he'd sketch her, she'd just want him to stop, to let her touch him, to put his hands on her.
Carla's lifts up to the doctor's cheek when she turns her head. She won't be surprised at all if he balks from her kiss, it wouldn't be the first time and she'd hardly imagine it to be the last. He lives to be frustrating, she's certain of it.]
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She hasn't had a drop since then. Has weathered all of the bartenders giving her filthy looks when she asks for water, all the surprised would-be suitors wondering if she's one of those types. And if it had been up to her, she wouldn't have broken that today, but the choices had been drink nothing at all or drink champagne. She supposes she would have survived until midnight, but a little had turned into too much and she's irritated with herself. She's also dizzy and feels unpleasantly graceless as she tries to make her way quietly back in to the warehouse. If she were sober, she'd have the sense to just take off her heels. Instead, she's teetering along and quite possibly lost on the way to her room.]
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Tonight, Chase drank because it was there, and because it was fun. Communal social lubrication in a party birthed from circumstance - usually the best kind. He hasn't drunk to excess, just to the point where a headache is edging in at his temples and his skin is still flushed pink though he stepped out of the shower five minutes ago. He's sugar dizzy himself, and the shirt slung over his arm is sticky with it, handprints from some nondescript bar.
He's making his way to his own room when he hears the clatter of heels, too high to be the princess, and lacking Saya's grace. It's too late to use his own barefoot advantage to avoid her altogether, so he waits as if he chose to, leaning against the wall until she appears along the corridor that leads to her room.]
What time do you call this?
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Could you just... not talk...
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Your room's on this side of the wall, the bit with the hole in it. Are you drunk?
[If he weren't, at least a little, it would seem absurd to bother to ask.]
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[She sounds legitimately bewildered. What is he even talking about? The bit with the hole in it? She lifts a hand to her forehead pushing her hair out of her face where its long-since escaped the clip that had held it up during dinner.]
I'm... [Really drunk and not particularly pleased about it.] Fine.
[She struggles back up to her feet... sort of.]
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You're drunk.
[It takes one to know, honestly, but the fact that she's coming across as the less pulled together, despite his comparative state of dampness and undress, speaks volumes.
He drops his shirt as he finally goes over to take her by the elbows and stop a slide-back. He's still limping from a sprained ankle earlier in the week, which makes this all the more pertinent:]
And you should step out of your shoes.
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[More petulant than anything else, possibly offended by his persistent need to point it out every time she's feeling weak and off-balance. She doesn't need it announced and she doesn't need his help, but trying to sidestep him makes her wobble and... what was that about her shoes... where is your shirt and why are you wet...]
There's nothing wrong with my shoes.
[Emphatically, as if she can just say it with enough conviction and he'll believe her. Because that always works.]
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[Just that they need to come off, a point he'd trying to prove by moving her hands to his shoulders for balance and kneeling to help with the job. His wife had rarely come home drunk, but there were those occasional Thursdays with her girlfriends when she'd come home laughing and stumbling and kick her shoes off at the door. Carla and her scowl are the antithesis. Still. He's sure about the shoes.]
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There's a surprise.
[She probably doesn't mean that, honestly. She doesn't really care what he says about her clothes. It wasn't the insult to her wedding dress that had riled her up enough to punch him.]
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Little dressy for a camping trip...
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[Which should suitably explain the rest of this outfit, the light amount of makeup, red fullness of her mouth. Maybe even why she thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad to just let the waiter pour out some of the champagne, since it was all he had to offer.
Bare feet on the floor, her hand ends up threaded into his hair as she shifts to one side, looking down. She's trying to wrap her sloppy mind around how to get hold of her shoes without letting go of her helpful support structure here.]
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[A promise which, since a procession of breakfast diners and burger bars don't seem to count, he has yet to keep. But he'll solve one problem at least, handing up the shoes. Trying to stand is, as yet, not on the cards - at least not until she's balancing for herself.]
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A whole room full of them. Would have been nicer if he'd paid.
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What did he do to earn that?
[There's some genuine curiosity to asking.]
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[It's not the whole truth, but she doesn't see any reason to delve any further into why she might have been talking to Mr. Eames more than she previously found to be acceptable. Her eyes catch on the doorway, besides, and maybe it finally occurs to her that she had made it all the way back to her room after all. She is still far from coordinated, but she thinks she can make it to the other side of this hallway and at least catch the latch. She only trips inside a little bit, but she's not going anywhere else.]
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Yell if you need somebody to hold your hair.
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...can you unclasp this dress...
[She turns slightly to show the line of tiny hooks up the back. The only one that's undone is the very lowest at the small of her back. She had not intended to get this wasted when she put this dress on, clearly.]
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So he just blinks at the question.]
Yes?
[Oh. Will he. Well, disregarding the fact that picking up a t-shirt from a hall carpet has just proved too complicated, he thinks he can man up to the challenge.]
Turn around.
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(No, she doesn't say 'thank you.')]
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[Yes, he's too busy focusing on the hooks to notice anything else, although a natural aptitude toward delicacy of touch mean that the hooks dislodge from their respective eyes in a neat procession, black fabric tugging apart to reveal more of the tattooed tracework beneath. Then it's impossible to overlook, although it's initially confusing. This wasn't here before? He rests his fingertips against the red, heated skin, then draws over the top of the linework.]
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[Her answer is flat, asking his help wasn't a ploy to get his attention, or to get him to stay, she doesn't think that way. She's told him much more bluntly and directly in the past what she wants, and she doesn't really like playing the coquette, not with people who truly interest her. She didn't care for that particular brand of insincerity. This wasn't to show him the marks down her spine either, although she's not protesting, she'd have wanted him to see it eventually.
She turns her head, eyes still closed, temple resting against the cool surface. Her back flexes under his touch anyway, it's pleasant whether he stays or goes and there's a reason she chose this space to mark: it's not just the back of her neck that she finds particularly sensitive, it's all the way down her spine. The needles puncturing over and over again had been interesting and enjoyable, all the hands that will do exactly what he's doing will be too.]
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He bows his head, mussed, damp blonde against her shoulder as the last few hooks come free.]
When did you get this done?
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[She holds still when she feels the fabric finally release all the way, waiting. The top had been tight enough and her bust small enough that there isn't a bra strap in the back to divide the mark down her spine.]
Eames gave me the place.
[Useful.]
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[His considered assessment. It's not for him to like it or dislike it - it's not offputting - although his personal preference would be a smaller statement. There's not much, though, that Carla seems to say quietly. He wraps his arms round her waist where he stands, curled in against her back. It's not leaving, but moving also feels like an effort when this is comfortable for now.]
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It's not really in her nature to ever truly be content, but Chase isn't leaving and she can feel him against her back through the gape in her dress. That's not nothing, and she lets herself settle there for the time being--(Listening to his breathing close to her ear, noticing the pulse in his chest.) Her head lolls to the side, shoulders and neck relaxed in a way that probably isn't normal when he's around to agitate her.
She's comfortable and willing to be still, up to a point. Barbet trained patience in to her, never liked how abrupt and pushy she could be, tried to make her appreciate their physicality, when they had it, as part of his art. She never could. Even when he'd sketch her, she'd just want him to stop, to let her touch him, to put his hands on her.
Carla's lifts up to the doctor's cheek when she turns her head. She won't be surprised at all if he balks from her kiss, it wouldn't be the first time and she'd hardly imagine it to be the last. He lives to be frustrating, she's certain of it.]
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