Re: Sam/Eames: art class
No, darling. Eames wasn't old. Older, as the delightful sketches, paintings, call them what you would, reminded him. He looked like he had lived in his skin long enough to wear off the shine if the stippled color of scars in interesting places hadn't given that away already. He didn't witter on about his glory-days or bother the studious. But this, darling, this wasn't a thrill. Not the nakedness, anyway. He had played long enough with the will-they-won't-they art of numbers. A university, even an art class within a university, wasn't a place for retribution. It was too bloody, too messy. Eames' thrill came from determining where it was on the razor blade he stood.
But that wasn't in the little blonde's eyes. Eames didn't guess what was there, he looked. Like recognized like, darling, and similar did similar. Eames' history wasn't rent in sidewalks and big bad men but he looked and he saw. The response was not verbal, nor was it the kind of movement that would have flashed on a predator's receptiveness for the sharp little darts of prey, darling, even had he known that was she. It was a folding in sort of movement, as he moved to the side: rolling shoulders that sunk a little, eased a neck that carried less tension, the hands in the pockets despite the ruination of the seams. All smaller, darling. He nudged more space in between them rather than less as he looked at the eyeball - his eyeball.
He smiled. Nothing demure about this one, not even feigned. "Algernon," Eames said lazily, to see what she would do.