Re: Mean-Eyed Cat: Cat/Em
[Glass set back down on the bar, Em raised her eyebrows.] Just be me? If you hadn't noticed, most of me got kicked to the curb a while ago. [...] And I don't mean by Eddie. [She still looked at Cat, but she went distant for a moment, memory slithering its way back in, the sharp scent of salt and sea and unwashed bodies, damp wool and weeks-long sickness in her nose. It jolted her a little, and she blinked a few times. Those memories of before hadn't made themselves known for a very long time. Her voice was softer than it was:] And it's not like I can go back to who I was before. [The thought almost made her laugh, but no sound accompanied her quiet exhale as she shook her head. The thought of returning to that Emily (not Graves, but something else - something more puritanical) was ridiculous. That Emily was centuries-dead, and not the answer to this new problem.
She sighed and laid her arms on the bartop, curving over to rest her forehead on them (careful always of her hand). The bar smelled like spilled alcohol and bleach, and she wrinkled her nose against her arm.] You say it like it's easy. [Her first few shots were starting to make themselves known, and it at least blunted some of the swirling emotion, paradoxically making her think clearer, just for the moment.] We both know it's not. [And after a moment, tipping her head so it was her chin on her arms, looking up at Cat through a thick fan of dark eyelashes,] I like the you that you are now. Until you change, and then I'll probably like that you, too. [Her expression shifted into something that was obviously self-suspicious - thinking again about those words.] I think that's the alcohol starting to talk...