It's an Expression
Wow. This is the first longer piece I've written in quite a while. Thank you, Gibbs, for inspiration. ♥
Title: It's an Expression
Fandom: Original
Rating: G (OMG I HAVE WRITTEN GEN)
Summary: "Do you watch NCIS?" "Yes." "You don't find the similarities kind of funny?" "What are you talking about?" "... Nevermind."
Author's Notes: I had so much fun with this fic. The style is so me and still not me. Enjoy!
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She has a hundred different expressions, but only one face. They all know her face - oh, they know it so well. Her face has a special, unique quality that can’t be duplicated, not even on pictures of her, because in photographs she becomes all expression and no face. Yes, she has a hundred expressions and it would take a lifetime for anyone to become familiar with all of them, so no one does, even though she mothers her pack (or rather, her pride, because she is a lioness to the core) and keeps them close. She treats them like VIPs. Harm will never cross the path of anyone she considers hers. Never. They can rest assured. She would kill and die before they were hurt.
A hundred expressions. They each have one which is dedicated to them; they could stick a note to it reading “property of” and sign it in flourished letters, it would not be any more theirs.
Jennielyn - a raised eyebrow for questioning, a shadow of a smile lingering at the corner of her carefully painted lips (lipstick at all times, never gloss), punctuated with a small dimple that doesn’t fit her in any way or form, but is still very much there. With Jennielyn, she is always slightly amused, even when irritated. Perhaps mostly when irritated. A secret, since the subtleties of that particular expression stay between Jennielyn and her, leaving the rest of her pride to stand at the sideline to watch and wonder.
Lexie - chin pushed out, framed in by furrowed brows, speaking in clearer terms than the words that follow. Every time. Like a clockwork. “What are you doing to that espresso, Dwyer?” To think it’s really a question would be missing the point. It’s never a question. Lexie sighs and shrugs and pours thick, warm coffee into the sink in a way that leaves no doubt about her place as the youngest in the group. That is the only reason she tolerates her. If anyone else had been so repeatedly obstinate and careless - and they’ve seen it happen, too - they would get mauled. With minimal changes of survival.
Naomi - her head cocked, long hair falling over one shoulder (unless she wears it up, something she saves for special occasions and sex), arms crossed over her chest. A listening position. Naomi is the only one of them she never interrupts. None of them have heard her cut in when Naomi is talking in that slow, purring voice of hers. Once Lexie had the guts to ask her why, adding a moody: “Don’t you think it’s a bit unfair?” She’d looked at her. Just looked. All eyes, all face, no expression. Or perhaps just too mysterious to decipher. She’d said: “I like listening to her. Contrary to others I might think of.” Marking it as an untouchable subject.
Ian (whose real name is actually Isabella, but when people call her that, she beats them up and few are stupid enough to make the same mistake twice) - warm fondness glinting in her eyes, underlined by the way she runs her hand through her army cut, ruffling hair that isn’t there, though the gesture is hard to misinterpret. Her lieutenant. Sister of the queen and the bearer of the only spare key to the castle. Ian is special to her. They know each other from before. What they share can’t be called secrets; instead it’s more like no man’s land where only nomads and people who do not swear to any flag wander. Ian and she are the explorers of that land. Their own land.
Once a guest was unfortunate enough to utter the sentence - probably meant as a greeting, but she doesn’t have the patience for formalities: “I know you! You used to be in that duo down at Anti. Rosalie, right?”
Rosalie had turned to her. Her lashes cast long shadows down her cheeks. There was something ominously looming about her; a feline crouching down as it observes its prey. Her pride consisted of four pairs of eyes fixed on her. Three of them had nothing but vague ideas about her past as an actress. All but Ian (and maybe Jennielyn, in her own contemplative manner) had trouble imagining her play any part except her own. Sure, she wore a hundred different expressions, but they weren’t masks. Rosalie masked nothing. Only everything she really was.
“If you can’t give me more than my name, you don’t know me.” Dismissal. Definitive.
The guest had accepted her cup of jasmine tea from an unusually demure Lexie and made her escape to a table in the farthest corner. Everything had been silent. The blankness had stayed glued to Rosalie’s face. Seconds ticked by and Lexie seemed to find a small flicker of her cocky courage. She’d opened her mouth.
“Don’t even think about asking.”
And Rosalie had been gone, snatching her coat on her way out, leaving Ian in command.
She has a hundred expressions, but only one face and every single expression holds a bond to something or someone. Her anger. Her laughter. Her satisfaction. Her determination. She gives it to them. Not as a gift, because she certainly expects to receive in equal measures, but she still gives. Hands it to them. Trusts them to have the strength to bear it. However, her one face can be wiped blank and then she is transformed into a cobweb of fragile features with too much history and perhaps this expressionless expression is her number 101; the one she has shown once, losing everything over and has never shared with anyone since.
They don’t ask (although they want to) and she doesn’t tell.