RPF: we are our own devils
we are our own devils eva green/matthew goode (daniel craig), pg13
sometimes they tell you it is best to study first and be a professional later; the problem is no one tells what to do when it is time to be both. 2,346 words.
notes: haha, well. this is for hesperia, for her request. i’m not entirely sure how this whole thing came about, but it did? then again, i am avoid organizing for the move like nobody’s business. my bookshelf is a treacherous place, you know.
-
Marton leaves her first.
There is a taxi waiting for him outside, and a bag at his feet as behind them, the kettle in the kitchen starts to screech.
“The funny thing is,” he starts then. There is a sigh. “The funny thing is,” he says again, “that I’ve been sitting here, for most of the night, awake and trying to bloody figure out how I’m going to tell you. And here you are, of course, looking at me like you already know.”
“I am sorry,” Eva says, and tries to soften as she says it. Her hands are still against her side. She feels too tall and stiff. She watches him but forces a smile. He looks away. She understands then.
He shakes his head. “Please don’t,” he says.
The first problem is that she means it.
There is an audition, after.
They sit her in front of a camera, on stool and with her cigarette. She stays in a pair of worn trousers and a blouse. They call her the starving artist, the misunderstood, and she thinks about an interview, all those years ago, where used to talk about worries, about typecasting and oddities.
“Tell me about your character,” the director says, and the camera snaps into life, as she looks forward and into the lens.
“I want to know what makes her different than you.”
It might be here where she starts to understand. She says nothing at first. She watches as a few hands run back and forth around the camera. There are papers being turned and her throat is starting to dry. From her pocket, she pulls out a lighter. This was an old gift.
“Everyone is different than me,” she says, and tastes the same sort of tone that the director was playing with. She lights her cigarette and then watches the smoke as it rises in front of her. It occurs to her that this is somehow appropriate.
She laughs sharply.
“It is not what makes this character different, oui? It is what makes me a part of this character. You want to know what I can give her, not what she is set to lose if I play her. I am the one that loses something.”
She looks directly into the camera when she pauses. The room starts to still. She is aware of the director murmuring something to an assistant. She thinks tones and change and feels quite off-balance; it might be the week, or the day, or the memories that both might be ready to carry.
She thinks of Marton last. Somehow, there is another name that stands before.
“C’est terrible,” she says. “We are all the same here.”
Eva looks away then. It is the camera the stops first.
In New York she buys another flat.
It is a business investment, she tells her lawyer. She then substitutes flat with apartment as if she had made the decision, all those years ago, to stay in the city after university. It becomes fall though, when she finally settles, and from her window, she watches the people as they scatter onto sidewalks under the changing leaves.
The call goes to Daniel first.
“To a new start,” he says upon arrival. He is here, finishing the run of his play. He is a cop, or something like that. He’s told her before but she cannot begin to remember.
He has a hand wrap around the neck of a bottle of wine. There is a second in a bag, in the kitchen, but she does not tell him this. Instead, she sighs her smile and kisses his cheek in greeting.
“There is nothing here,” she warns, as she lets him in. He shrugs out of his coat and she takes the wine, following him from behind. There are rows of boxes, a few chairs, and a makeshift bed in the bedroom. She hasn’t quite decided what she is going to make of her stay here. Right now, this is less than important.
“There is nothing here,” he agrees.
He is amused. She shrugs and pulls her cigarette case out from her pocket. She stares at it and then puts it back into her case, sliding it back into her jeans. She brings the wine to a box to rest.
“Oui,” she says. “I have not decided what I am going to do with it yet. I like London well-enough, you know.”
“I would’ve brought glasses,” he says.
Her eyes roll but she says nothing. The truth is that there are too many things left unsaid. They are friends but not quite friends, can never be friends, and anything that is remotely close, remains undefined and completely so. She remembers to ask him about the wedding but cannot bring herself to. It has been three or four years of expecting this, and tonight, it remains unchanged.
Instead she leans against the wall. She crosses her arms in front of her chest and watches as he drapes his jacket over a chair. He steps around a few boxes and then stops, only to glance inside of one.
He picks up a picture she cannot see. There is a smile and then it fades.
“What will you do here?” he asks then. He is worried and she swallows, looking away. She remembers years before when this might’ve meant less, or nothing more than a curiosity. There are scars and they both know this.
“I don’t know.”
“Really?” He frowns, and then shakes his head. “You moved here on a whim? I understand that it’s been a bit of a year for you, but you -”
“Stop,” she cuts him off.
The air becomes tight. It is too sudden, and almost clumsy as she looks back at him. She attempts to swallow again but pushes herself away from the wall. She reaches for the wine bottle.
She answers him then too. “Theatre,” she murmurs. “I have been wanting to get back into it, I suppose. This is not my first time in New York either, so stop looking at me like that.”
There is a knife that rests by a few of the boxes. She bends and picks it up, sliding the blade into the cork. The bottle squeaks when she frees it.
“Sorry,” he says. They still share habits.
Later, she meets Matthew at the after party for Daniel’s play.
They have met before, in passing. Neither of them counts this as they separate and stand together in a corner of the bar.
“I’ve seen you naked, you know,” he leers, and steals her champagne glass from her fingers. His hand is heavy and warm.
She is caught off-guard. She nearly blushes too, and turns away to compose herself. Across the room, couples have started to dance. She recognizes a few names but not the faces. She is never too close to Hollywood.
“And I have seen your Woody Allen film,” she says finally. Her voice is softer and hitches after film. She nearly drops into French, as if she was on the defense, but meets his gaze anyway.
He roars with laughter. She decides somehow she likes him then.
“Everybody’s a critic,” he says.
It is months before she brings him to the apartment.
There is another party, and then another one; these are all his ideas, small intimate gathering with people who smile with their teeth and ask questions like “what was it like, being a Bond girl?” as if she were miles away from their intellectual camaraderie.
But she goes because she finds it all amusing, and he finds that amusing, so it something to share. They are two different people and it becomes a strange way of acknowledging their separate sense of loneliness. This is New York, after all.
Tonight when they leave, they leave together.
She is wearing red as they stumble outside. Her jacket is in his arms as her heels scatter across the sidewalk. One of them signals for a cab and they wait laughing as he recounts something someone has said.
“There is always someone else,” she quotes suddenly, and then frowns, leaning into his arm as he finally tucks them into a cab. “For you,” she adds. “For me, for every bloody person in the business. It’s rather incestuous if you think hard about it.”
“Clearly you have.”
The cab smells like cigarettes. In the front, the driver asks for address. Matthew relays as if he’s been there before.
“I want to go back to London,” she says wistfully. He says nothing. This is a slip and she tastes her extra glass of champagne. They will never talk about London, or his daughter, or the things that they should really be talking about. They seem to understand that they are defining each other as useful.
The slip is forgotten though. In a few weeks’ time, she has Paris and a series of fashion shows. There will be here family and some sort of escape. She keeps this quiet too and starts to hum along with the radio.
“There is someone else,” he says then.
His mouth presses against her throat. Her eyes open. She stares at the glass in front of her, between the driver and the back. There is a sticker in the corner that says how am i driving? and a name that is scratched out.
“For you, of course,” she murmurs.
He ignores her. This is lie, of course. His mouth opens slowly over her skin. His teeth bite and she inhales sharply, turning her hand to rest over her arm. She thinks he might kiss her and turns her head to meet his gaze. She feels herself wanting to look at him.
But when he turns, he pulls back slightly. He sways first and she shifts forward, resting her forehead against his. There is chuckle, and it could be either of them. In the front, the driver starts to sing.
“There is someone else,” he starts again, “because there has to be. It is one of the greatest fucking injustices in the world. Actors marry actors. Actors fall in love with actors. Directors fall into groups of who is the biggest sick fuck around. We are all animals. And in the end, in never stops me from thinking that there is always someone else.”
He is not telling her that he can be someone else, or that he wants her to be someone else. There is another acknowledgement that passes; she could close her eyes and imagine another woman, dark hair and dark eyes. He has nearly pointed her out to Eva many times. This is because he knows Daniel.
She lets her hand curl in his shirt. “I am commiserating,” she tells him.
He kisses her first.
Much later, they share the bed.
The room is dark. There is a large window to the side, and the city lights sneak through the glass to watch them. She straddles his hips, wearing his open shirt. He has a fist in her hair, kissing her before stealing her cigarette away.
“I have a daughter,” he says.
There is always another party but this one she does not go to.
She ignores calls from Daniel, does not expect any from Matthew, and rings her sister, in the end.
“I do not like it here,” she says. This is the second and third time she really thinks of returning to London, and maybe even Paris. She swallows back a glass of wine. Her mouth is sticky and somehow, she thinks of Matthew. “The flat is a practical investment, on the business end, but I just -”
“We have had this conversation too many times, little sister,” Joy tells her. Her voice is neither welcome nor warm. The little sister is merely there as a strange reminder; they are twins but Eva is the later one, and this is used often as an explanation for a number of their decisions, shared and not.
“I am not telling you what to do.”
“C’est bon.” She pauses, and then adds. “I was not asking.”
This is when lying is easiest.
She takes Matthew to the next party.
This is New York, he had said to her once, and they are actors. Some things remain expected, if anything but. Of course, there is speculation and magazines even. She never pays any attention but understands. This has always been about keeping up their appearances.
“We’ll pick up wine,” he says, and slides a cigarette into his mouth. “I saw a place near your place. I suppose I’ll run in and out. We’ll leave the fare running or something crass like that.”
She laughs. “All right,” she relents.
They are quiet and Matthew looks to the party. His gaze disappears inside. She thinks something like Americans and remembers that she still hasn’t quite find the willpower to return back into her own schedule.
But there is Daniel and suddenly, she is closer to Matthew’s side. Her hand is automatic as she clasps his arm and he falls behind her lead, handing her his cigarette. When she brings it to her mouth, Matthew greets him.
“Craig,” he says, and it’s all rather sort of odd. She remembers that they know each other, how or why has never really occurred to her. She never asks but she watches something is passed between them.
Her voice breaks in, following. “Boys,” she says. Somehow, she stands on equal par. She does not understand but her voice is coy. “Behave,” she adds.
Daniel looks to her, and then Matthew. Matthew’s hand is on her hip. He is smiling with his teeth at the both of them. From inside, the music to the party is starting to get louder. None of them put forward an excuse to return to the party either.
“I’ll join you,” Daniel says then. He licks his lips, as if his voice were too heavy. It feels like it has been too long but she watches as he takes the cigarette from her fingers.
They are not there yet.
sometimes they tell you it is best to study first and be a professional later; the problem is no one tells what to do when it is time to be both. 2,346 words.
notes: haha, well. this is for hesperia, for her request. i’m not entirely sure how this whole thing came about, but it did? then again, i am avoid organizing for the move like nobody’s business. my bookshelf is a treacherous place, you know.
-
Marton leaves her first.
There is a taxi waiting for him outside, and a bag at his feet as behind them, the kettle in the kitchen starts to screech.
“The funny thing is,” he starts then. There is a sigh. “The funny thing is,” he says again, “that I’ve been sitting here, for most of the night, awake and trying to bloody figure out how I’m going to tell you. And here you are, of course, looking at me like you already know.”
“I am sorry,” Eva says, and tries to soften as she says it. Her hands are still against her side. She feels too tall and stiff. She watches him but forces a smile. He looks away. She understands then.
He shakes his head. “Please don’t,” he says.
The first problem is that she means it.
There is an audition, after.
They sit her in front of a camera, on stool and with her cigarette. She stays in a pair of worn trousers and a blouse. They call her the starving artist, the misunderstood, and she thinks about an interview, all those years ago, where used to talk about worries, about typecasting and oddities.
“Tell me about your character,” the director says, and the camera snaps into life, as she looks forward and into the lens.
“I want to know what makes her different than you.”
It might be here where she starts to understand. She says nothing at first. She watches as a few hands run back and forth around the camera. There are papers being turned and her throat is starting to dry. From her pocket, she pulls out a lighter. This was an old gift.
“Everyone is different than me,” she says, and tastes the same sort of tone that the director was playing with. She lights her cigarette and then watches the smoke as it rises in front of her. It occurs to her that this is somehow appropriate.
She laughs sharply.
“It is not what makes this character different, oui? It is what makes me a part of this character. You want to know what I can give her, not what she is set to lose if I play her. I am the one that loses something.”
She looks directly into the camera when she pauses. The room starts to still. She is aware of the director murmuring something to an assistant. She thinks tones and change and feels quite off-balance; it might be the week, or the day, or the memories that both might be ready to carry.
She thinks of Marton last. Somehow, there is another name that stands before.
“C’est terrible,” she says. “We are all the same here.”
Eva looks away then. It is the camera the stops first.
In New York she buys another flat.
It is a business investment, she tells her lawyer. She then substitutes flat with apartment as if she had made the decision, all those years ago, to stay in the city after university. It becomes fall though, when she finally settles, and from her window, she watches the people as they scatter onto sidewalks under the changing leaves.
The call goes to Daniel first.
“To a new start,” he says upon arrival. He is here, finishing the run of his play. He is a cop, or something like that. He’s told her before but she cannot begin to remember.
He has a hand wrap around the neck of a bottle of wine. There is a second in a bag, in the kitchen, but she does not tell him this. Instead, she sighs her smile and kisses his cheek in greeting.
“There is nothing here,” she warns, as she lets him in. He shrugs out of his coat and she takes the wine, following him from behind. There are rows of boxes, a few chairs, and a makeshift bed in the bedroom. She hasn’t quite decided what she is going to make of her stay here. Right now, this is less than important.
“There is nothing here,” he agrees.
He is amused. She shrugs and pulls her cigarette case out from her pocket. She stares at it and then puts it back into her case, sliding it back into her jeans. She brings the wine to a box to rest.
“Oui,” she says. “I have not decided what I am going to do with it yet. I like London well-enough, you know.”
“I would’ve brought glasses,” he says.
Her eyes roll but she says nothing. The truth is that there are too many things left unsaid. They are friends but not quite friends, can never be friends, and anything that is remotely close, remains undefined and completely so. She remembers to ask him about the wedding but cannot bring herself to. It has been three or four years of expecting this, and tonight, it remains unchanged.
Instead she leans against the wall. She crosses her arms in front of her chest and watches as he drapes his jacket over a chair. He steps around a few boxes and then stops, only to glance inside of one.
He picks up a picture she cannot see. There is a smile and then it fades.
“What will you do here?” he asks then. He is worried and she swallows, looking away. She remembers years before when this might’ve meant less, or nothing more than a curiosity. There are scars and they both know this.
“I don’t know.”
“Really?” He frowns, and then shakes his head. “You moved here on a whim? I understand that it’s been a bit of a year for you, but you -”
“Stop,” she cuts him off.
The air becomes tight. It is too sudden, and almost clumsy as she looks back at him. She attempts to swallow again but pushes herself away from the wall. She reaches for the wine bottle.
She answers him then too. “Theatre,” she murmurs. “I have been wanting to get back into it, I suppose. This is not my first time in New York either, so stop looking at me like that.”
There is a knife that rests by a few of the boxes. She bends and picks it up, sliding the blade into the cork. The bottle squeaks when she frees it.
“Sorry,” he says. They still share habits.
Later, she meets Matthew at the after party for Daniel’s play.
They have met before, in passing. Neither of them counts this as they separate and stand together in a corner of the bar.
“I’ve seen you naked, you know,” he leers, and steals her champagne glass from her fingers. His hand is heavy and warm.
She is caught off-guard. She nearly blushes too, and turns away to compose herself. Across the room, couples have started to dance. She recognizes a few names but not the faces. She is never too close to Hollywood.
“And I have seen your Woody Allen film,” she says finally. Her voice is softer and hitches after film. She nearly drops into French, as if she was on the defense, but meets his gaze anyway.
He roars with laughter. She decides somehow she likes him then.
“Everybody’s a critic,” he says.
It is months before she brings him to the apartment.
There is another party, and then another one; these are all his ideas, small intimate gathering with people who smile with their teeth and ask questions like “what was it like, being a Bond girl?” as if she were miles away from their intellectual camaraderie.
But she goes because she finds it all amusing, and he finds that amusing, so it something to share. They are two different people and it becomes a strange way of acknowledging their separate sense of loneliness. This is New York, after all.
Tonight when they leave, they leave together.
She is wearing red as they stumble outside. Her jacket is in his arms as her heels scatter across the sidewalk. One of them signals for a cab and they wait laughing as he recounts something someone has said.
“There is always someone else,” she quotes suddenly, and then frowns, leaning into his arm as he finally tucks them into a cab. “For you,” she adds. “For me, for every bloody person in the business. It’s rather incestuous if you think hard about it.”
“Clearly you have.”
The cab smells like cigarettes. In the front, the driver asks for address. Matthew relays as if he’s been there before.
“I want to go back to London,” she says wistfully. He says nothing. This is a slip and she tastes her extra glass of champagne. They will never talk about London, or his daughter, or the things that they should really be talking about. They seem to understand that they are defining each other as useful.
The slip is forgotten though. In a few weeks’ time, she has Paris and a series of fashion shows. There will be here family and some sort of escape. She keeps this quiet too and starts to hum along with the radio.
“There is someone else,” he says then.
His mouth presses against her throat. Her eyes open. She stares at the glass in front of her, between the driver and the back. There is a sticker in the corner that says how am i driving? and a name that is scratched out.
“For you, of course,” she murmurs.
He ignores her. This is lie, of course. His mouth opens slowly over her skin. His teeth bite and she inhales sharply, turning her hand to rest over her arm. She thinks he might kiss her and turns her head to meet his gaze. She feels herself wanting to look at him.
But when he turns, he pulls back slightly. He sways first and she shifts forward, resting her forehead against his. There is chuckle, and it could be either of them. In the front, the driver starts to sing.
“There is someone else,” he starts again, “because there has to be. It is one of the greatest fucking injustices in the world. Actors marry actors. Actors fall in love with actors. Directors fall into groups of who is the biggest sick fuck around. We are all animals. And in the end, in never stops me from thinking that there is always someone else.”
He is not telling her that he can be someone else, or that he wants her to be someone else. There is another acknowledgement that passes; she could close her eyes and imagine another woman, dark hair and dark eyes. He has nearly pointed her out to Eva many times. This is because he knows Daniel.
She lets her hand curl in his shirt. “I am commiserating,” she tells him.
He kisses her first.
Much later, they share the bed.
The room is dark. There is a large window to the side, and the city lights sneak through the glass to watch them. She straddles his hips, wearing his open shirt. He has a fist in her hair, kissing her before stealing her cigarette away.
“I have a daughter,” he says.
There is always another party but this one she does not go to.
She ignores calls from Daniel, does not expect any from Matthew, and rings her sister, in the end.
“I do not like it here,” she says. This is the second and third time she really thinks of returning to London, and maybe even Paris. She swallows back a glass of wine. Her mouth is sticky and somehow, she thinks of Matthew. “The flat is a practical investment, on the business end, but I just -”
“We have had this conversation too many times, little sister,” Joy tells her. Her voice is neither welcome nor warm. The little sister is merely there as a strange reminder; they are twins but Eva is the later one, and this is used often as an explanation for a number of their decisions, shared and not.
“I am not telling you what to do.”
“C’est bon.” She pauses, and then adds. “I was not asking.”
This is when lying is easiest.
She takes Matthew to the next party.
This is New York, he had said to her once, and they are actors. Some things remain expected, if anything but. Of course, there is speculation and magazines even. She never pays any attention but understands. This has always been about keeping up their appearances.
“We’ll pick up wine,” he says, and slides a cigarette into his mouth. “I saw a place near your place. I suppose I’ll run in and out. We’ll leave the fare running or something crass like that.”
She laughs. “All right,” she relents.
They are quiet and Matthew looks to the party. His gaze disappears inside. She thinks something like Americans and remembers that she still hasn’t quite find the willpower to return back into her own schedule.
But there is Daniel and suddenly, she is closer to Matthew’s side. Her hand is automatic as she clasps his arm and he falls behind her lead, handing her his cigarette. When she brings it to her mouth, Matthew greets him.
“Craig,” he says, and it’s all rather sort of odd. She remembers that they know each other, how or why has never really occurred to her. She never asks but she watches something is passed between them.
Her voice breaks in, following. “Boys,” she says. Somehow, she stands on equal par. She does not understand but her voice is coy. “Behave,” she adds.
Daniel looks to her, and then Matthew. Matthew’s hand is on her hip. He is smiling with his teeth at the both of them. From inside, the music to the party is starting to get louder. None of them put forward an excuse to return to the party either.
“I’ll join you,” Daniel says then. He licks his lips, as if his voice were too heavy. It feels like it has been too long but she watches as he takes the cigarette from her fingers.
They are not there yet.