notfaking_it | [Eames]

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eames

[Eames]

With the change of weather, Lily was glad to see her clothes return to normal, her pointe shoes most of all, but she hadn't been expecting anything more than that. It was nice to hear the sound of the surf again, especially at night, it was nice to not have to worry about the cold or dressing herself in some of the more complicated dresses, but that was all she'd been looking for. The gift had come as something of a surprise, despite having heard other people talk about receiving things over the past few days. Somehow, Lily still hadn't been looking for anything to arrive with her name on it, but she'd found a box sitting on her bed after returning home from the studio.

There was an iPod Touch in the box, completely loaded with music that ranged from Tchaikovsky to more contemporary sounds, all of which Lily loved. The best part was the dock, though, which meant she wouldn't have to worry about wearing earbuds while she danced.

She had no idea how long the battery life might last, but the dock had come with a charger, too, so she wasn't particularly worried about that. It was difficult to worry about anything when she had the dock set up on her little front porch, the music just loud enough for her to hear from her position on the beach, a towel spread out on the sand under her. The sun was bright and warm, the music was a nice addition to the morning and although Lily knew her gift would be of more use to her than just this, this was perfect for now.

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"No?" Lily asked, turning onto her stomach, her chin propped in her hands. "I wasn't here last winter, so this was the first one I've experienced." For the most part, life on the island was easy for Lily. She hadn't experienced the dark side of it, the loss, the things from home, and she was perfectly happy with that.

Those people, though, they had bothered her.

"I'm not easily creeped out, but every so often you'd turn a corner and they'd just be there, existing in this other world," she said, considering. "They weren't part of this one."

"No," Eames says with a slight shake of his head, though it's an agreement. "It's like they were here but they weren't, at the same time." In some cases, it proved amusing — he can say now that he successfully stole one of the crown jewels, all because spectral guards don't really do much good — but the very idea of it is eerie, like they were all living in a ghost town. "Last winter was a lot less drastic a change. Just a lot of snow, really. Nothing like this one was."

"I think I'd prefer for it to just stay warm," Lily said, looking up at the sky for a moment. The sun was warm, the beach was beautiful, she couldn't ask for anything more. "I lived in New York during the winter, but I guess you just can't really expect a girl who's grown up in California to like the snow."

New York had been different, though, too. A far cry from whatever had happened to the island. There was something beautiful about it, about the way the snow looked from the window of her apartment.

"No, I guess you couldn't," Eames says, somewhere between thoughtful and amused. "Honestly, I can't say I blame you. I'm not a huge fan myself, and I did grow up with snow." It's mostly just this past year and some months that have done that, of course, the weather proving to be too reminiscent of the dream he's not entirely sure he's woken up from, but the reasoning isn't the point. He gets it, and he would be more than content for the island to just stay like this all year round, and not just because he prefers the way people dress.

"I'd have moved just about anywhere for a good company," Lily admitted. "But I certainly would have given preference to somewhere warm." That wasn't always possible, though, and that was why she'd moved to New York in the end.

"Did you travel a lot?" she asked. "Before you ended up here?" She'd always wanted to travel, but her career had prevented that in a way. Knowing she would be able to retire young if she wanted had helped, but she'd still never done as much traveling as she wanted.

"Oh, all the time," Eames answers with a nod, the barest hint of something like genuine fondness in his voice. If there's one thing he misses in this place, possibly even more than his profession itself, it's the amount of traveling he got to do for it. Living on the island is the longest he's lived in one place for about as far back as he can remember, at least since he was old enough to go off on his own, and to say that it makes him restless would be putting it mildly. That was, at least, one good thing about the change from the winter. The change of scenery was much appreciated. "I've never been very good at staying in one place for long."

"The only thing I ever stayed for was a good dance company," she admitted, smiling over at Eames in understanding. As much as she loved living in California, Lily was sure she would have left long before if she hadn't been able to dance with such an amazing company for so long.

"Where have you been?" she asked. "What was your favourite place?" It was a more personal question than she usually asked him, but not quite too personal, she thought.

"Oh, I've been all over," Eames answers with an easy shrug, more casual than a statement like that probably calls for. "I was living in Kenya for a while not long before I showed up here, and brief stints in Paris and Sydney after that. Most big cities, I've at least visited." Those are the only places he'd have really needed to, the ones where work required it. Still, that said, he grows a little more thoughtful a moment later. "I'm not sure I'd have a favorite, though. I'd have to think on it a while."

"Well, you think on that, then, and we'll find something else to do in the meantime," Lily said, giving him a grin over the side of her shoulder. The music still floated down from her hut toward them, the sound both familiar and completely out of place at the same time and she glanced up toward it.

"Do you dance?" she asked. There was something about a man who would dance that Lily found she liked more than most things. Even if he wasn't necessarily good at it, someone who was willing to try was especially appealing.

Eames raises an eyebrow, surprised by the question, though he probably shouldn't be. Between the music playing now and knowing that she dances, it seems in retrospect like it was really just a matter of time before the subject came up. That doesn't make him any less amused by it now. "I suppose that depends on what kind you mean," he answers, not quite a laugh. "I'd look terrible in a pair of tights, but I can manage some other things."

"Well, there go all my devious plans to get you into my Swan Lake costume," she teased, then sat up on her towel. The costume that really wasn't much of a costume anymore. She'd borrowed pieces from it here and there, mostly to use at the strip club the one night she'd been on stage. All it did now was hang in her hut, the feathers looking distinctly limp.

"Help a girl up," she said, holding her hand out to Eames, grinning. "And let's see if we can't find you a pair of tights that work."

"Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you," Eames teases, reaching down to take her hand and help pull her to her feet. Somehow, he doubts that there will be any actual tights involved, but that won't keep him from playing along now. If nothing else, though he isn't in the habit of being too presumptuous, he has a feeling they wouldn't even get as far as putting them on in light of clothes coming off. "What's the plan, then?"

"I hadn't gotten as far as that," Lily admits, smiling as she gets to her feet and then leads the way up toward her hut. The music is louder here, a song she's never heard before, but there are a few of those on the iPod. Music, she thinks, that was released after she came here.

"Though I do think you'd look fetching in the feathered head piece," she adds, gesturing through the door to where it hangs on her wall.

"Oh, I'm sure I would," Eames says, biting back a wider smile as he follows her up to the hut. In the right form, he could have looked decent in any of it, he knows, but that isn't a subject worth entertaining now, the explanation too serious for the task at hand. "So good that you probably wouldn't want to put me in it without an audience present."

That gets a laugh from Lily as she turns back to face Eames, her shoulders lifting in a shrug. "You're probably right," she allows, hooking her hair behind her ears. "So I guess we'll just have to leave playing dress up for another time."

For now, she still wants to see if he can dance, and she holds her hand out toward him. "Come on, impress me," she says.

"Oh, impress you, eh?" Eames asks with a broad smirk, taking her outstretched hand and stepping in close, the other at her waist. "Can ballerinas do ballroom as well?" Inherently, he's never been the most grateful, but it's a skill that's come in useful on occasion, and he hopes it does so now, too. He wouldn't want to disappoint, at any rate.

"Most of us. You'd be surprised how often we have to attend functions," she says, putting special emphasis on the word and giving him a grin. In her time dancing professionally, she'd been to more than a few, smiling, laughing, dancing, all to make sure their sponsors give them just enough money to get through the season only to have to do it all over again the next year.

"It helps the company get more money if we can be charming," she tells him, stepping closer and resting her hand on his shoulder.

"Well, I wouldn't think you'd have any trouble with that," Eames says, barely managing to hold back a laugh at her description of such events. Put like that, it really isn't surprising. All money has to come from somewhere, and it seems as if it's something that ballroom dancing doesn't exist without. Never letting his gaze leave her or the smile slip from his face, he begins to move, careful. "It's what everything comes down to, though, isn't it?"

"A lot of the time, it does," Lily agrees, slipping easily into the dance with him, rising up onto her toes to make it more familiar. She's used to dancing like this in heels, but she'd been barefoot on the beach and she isn't going to bother to find shoes just to dance in.

"They could be fun, though," she admits. "If you knew how to avoid the sponsors."

"Which I'm guessing you did," Eames says, only half a question, head tipping to the side. Whether or not this will actually prove impressive, he doesn't know, but it does say a good deal that he can keep up, he thinks. "Tell me, is there a trick to it?"

He would probably have known as well, if he had to, but that's not something to be shared. All of this is in fun, and he sees no reason not to continue that.

"Keep your eyes peeled for the stuffiest looking people in the place," she says, laughing. It's nice to dance, even just in the front room of her hut, the movements familiar enough to please her. "No, that wasn't always true. Some of them were genuinely great people, easy to get along with, funny and they really did love the ballet. But there's always an exception or two to any rule."

"Of course," Eames laughs, not sure which part of what she's said it's more in response to. It sounds like the corporate world he's dealt with, though, and that's not a surprise. There are always exceptions — hell, Fischer himself was one, in some ways, and Saito proved to be, too — but some types of people just have the reputations they do for a reason. "Well, at least it wasn't all of them. That would probably have been awful."

"Unbearable," Lily agrees. "But I guess it would have been worth it in the end. It means we all get to keep dancing." And that's what most of the dancers love more than anything. Having to dress up and play the part once in awhile is a small sacrifice to make in order to keep doing the thing they love most in the world.

"And there was always a lot of free food and champagne," she adds, laughing. "So it wasn't all bad."

"Nothing with free food and champagne ever could be," Eames replies with a laugh of his own, mouth pulled into a smirk. Granted, it's not too difficult to make any food or champagne come free, but it's better when one doesn't have to work for it at all. "And everything's got its price, I suppose. People have gone to greater lengths to keep doing something they love."

"True enough," she agrees, taking her hand off his arm for a moment to push her hair off her forehead, then sliding it back into place on his shoulder. "I wasn't a starving artist at least, worrying about how I was going to pay my rent or where my next meal would come from."

She's seen people who live like that, especially in New York. "I was too used to eating regularly to do something like that," she says with a laugh.

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