ruffians | FAMILY DINNER

[Nancy pouts visibly, crossing her arms over her chest and doing her best to look incredibly forelorn.] You're the wooooorst.

At least tell me what he's like in bed.

[That's a topic he can talk about at great length, and Arthur's not here to stop him.]

Oh, he's easily the best I've had in a long time, even from the start.

[He pauses to take a sip of his drink, and leans forward on an elbow with the weight of a man about to share something of deep importance.]

Seeing him come totally undone for the first time... It was like being given a gift.

really!

[Nancy leans forward, eyes bright.]

How so? Gods, I don’t even if I can imagine him letting go that much!

Well, exactly. [His lip quirks in a smile.] Most people, you can get a rough idea of how they'd be in bed, but he's something else entirely.

[Eames pauses suddenly, eyebrows pulled together as something occurs to him that he'd never considered before.]

Maybe it's because there's no precision involved-- there's not really a "right" way to fuck, so it's easier to let go a bit.

well I know That.

[Nancy rolls her eyes. That being said, she thinks Eames has a point.] Maybe— probably one of the reasons I seldom got off. Had to make everything perfect and play a role.

I’m glad you don’t have that with him.

There's this spark in him that really lights up when he lets go. [He's on a roll now, it's one of his favourite topics after himself and usually he's just telling Arthur.] He's so much more intuitive than i ever gave him credit for bwfore we started sleeping together. I mean we've been fucking for... Seven years? And he still surprises me with how good he is with his hands or just how hard he can make me come.

[Some quick math on Nancy's part would tell her seven years is much longer than either of them ever implied-- before she and Cooper were together, even.]

Seven years? [She looks at Eames suddenly in a new right.] You’ve been fucking each other for seven years.

[The math isn’t hard at all, not for a girl gifted with numbers.]

Now that’s interesting... didn’t you hate him when we first met?

[Eames laughs softly and nods.] Great sex has a way of bringing people together, I suppose.

[Which is to say they were banging for a while before they were really even friendly with eachother.]

So it does.

Why didn’t you tell me you were with him before!!

Remember every time I told you I was meeting someone and you intertogated me about them as if I was shopping for a new spouse?

[That's why.]

No!

[Nancy actually gasps]

You should have told me!!

[He laughs and shakes his head.]

What I'm saying is I was hardly about to tell you I was sleeping with someone I could barely stand when you treat everyone I speep with like a romantic prospect.

[Plus there's other issues, like--] And by the time we were together and ready to be open about it, you and I were... Estranged, so it's not something I could've easily mentioned.

[She frowns at him.]

But wait- that means you actually value my opinion on your romantic prospects.

Which Arthur is now. Just to be very very clear.

[That's not what that means at all.]

I think he's a little more than a prospect at this point.

[Yes it is. Gosh.]

[Nancy swirls her wine in her glass and leans back.] Y'ever think you'll get married?

Maybe if Arthur decides he needs citizenship.

[Romantic.]

Wow, for a man who one owned lace collars, you're not very romantic.

You have no proof I ever owned a single lace collar.

[So there.]

I have your word, and you can't lie.

[check-mate]

[Whatever. Lace collars are dumb.]

I could spend hours talking about how brilliant he is, how every stupid fight over condiments is worth it to wake up next to him and the way it kills me knowing his life is so, so short.

[Despite the weight of what he's saying, Eames says it conversationally, like discussing the weather or travel plans.]

Marriage is a romanticised contract, it doesn't mean anything.

You fight over condiments?

[She raises an eyebrow, but drinks with a grin.] Is there a way to turn him immortal? [Other than to vamp him, of course. But there had to be some sort of charm that could grant him a long happy life.]

Oh come on! It means everything! It's a symbol to you and everyone that you're in it together, that you have found the one person you'd do anything for. It's beautiful.

Making somebody immortal usually requires taking something from them, something core to who they are. Besides that, mortals aren't wired for it, it's half the reason vampires are such a mess.

[He waves off the comments about symbols. It might be nice, truthfully it has been in the past, but that's a conversation for him to have with Arthur much further down the line.]

[He also thinks Nancy needs to lower her marriage expectations a little, but she's always had an almost childlike heart when it comes to love and romance.]

[Look, marriage is one of the few things she's ever wanted in life. Let the girl have a few dreams that aren't going to get violently decapitated.]

I always said I never wanted to be immortal. [Cooper had wanted to turn her, but had respected her enough to let her have her mortal life. Cesare had offered, as well.]

There's really no way to know how it'll change you. Or to prepare for the way it changes your life.

[It's something he thinks mortals struggle to understand, and how could they? How can you account for how it alters your perspective and changes your priorities.]

[But anyway.]

And Arthur's already a prick, I don't need to deal with what immortality would do to him too.

[She nearly snorts with laughter]

A prick- but you love him.

And his prick.

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