amara, listen

Amara Hollande, 30 Chicago, USA | London, UK Informant & Courtesean demon blood SPN & BBC Sherlock Tracking amarahollande

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Drabbles: Drinking

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So let’s find a bar so dark we forget who we are, where all the scars from the nevers and maybes die.

So let’s find a bar so dark we forget who we are, where all the scars from the nevers and maybes die.

Drabbles: Drinking

The incomprehensible din of the bar washes over Amara and she is suddenly swallowed into its atmosphere. The low light. The noise. The glassy thud of tumblers onto solid oak. The scent of alcohol and smoky struck matches. The satisfying noise of darts finding their home in a bullseye. It's almost funny that such a hole in the wall place could be named as her favourite haunt.. The chaos of it all matches the frequencies that dance between her ears, and as she slides down into a chair and the barman twists off a bit of burnt orange into a drambuie and scotch, everything begins to balance. The Wolfe and Crossing and its old barstools, and peanut shelled floors sometimes felt more like home than her own house.

Her week had been a tornado of work: cleaning up other people's messes, sleeplessness as a by-product of eating ephedrine like candy (and not much else), endless trips through the underground, and more plane-flights than she cared for. She sipped at first, then tossed down the drink, enjoying how the fire of it ran down her throat and warmed her core. It was less personal than a hug, but far more satisfying. Leaning back, she let herself enjoy the eye of the storm, she felt calm here surrounded by interactions that did not involve her. Where she was no one. Calmer still, as she was passed another cocktail.

Amara rarely drinks to the point of intoxication. She is well-practised at holding her own in most circumstances and prefers the slow and lingering effects of a few strong drinks to obliteration. Those days and nights and ran their course long ago, plus, too much alcohol puts her straight to sleep and God knows how that turns out...

She likes a discerning scotch and she likes drinking it alone. Tonight is no exception. The bartender knows this well enough and silently, diligently pours out drinks when she motions for him and then leaves her to her own demons. Like a well-trained guard dog, he gives the men who approach her the most subtle of warning looks and they skulk back to their respective seats. She notices this, but barely, and slips him a weary and appreciating smile for his good work. He turns away to hide the red in his cheeks.

Sometimes the alcohol goes to her heart rather than her head and everything in her floods to the surface, but tonight she just feels blissfully numb. Blank. Amara speaks to no one. Tips well. Leaves before last call.

[amarahollande]

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I live someplace else now. I don’t know where that is.

Home

There are certain places where your soul just gets drawn into. It becomes a helpless thing, pulled along by its whims to a place that houses a feeling so necessary that you can’t avoid it. That’s what home is. 

That place is long gone. Home was family, it meant laughter and consistency and something to come back to. It meant the sound of a shower running in the morning, and the familiar cadence of feet on the stairs. It was the smell of hairspray, and a burnt frying pan in the kitchen sink. A ring of coffee on the counter, a favourite shirt gone missing and turning up in someone else’s laundry. It was conversations that stretched into the night. Bad cable tv shows watched out of nostalgia. Secrets. Arguments. Leftovers in the fridge. Hair ties under the sofa.

The very sense of home snapped out of existence the first time Amara’s feet stepped over her threshold into a dark house. The flip of a light switch revealed a room exactly how it was left and now, as if all the life had flown out of it, that once-home is just a place that houses things.

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Drabble: Sex

To her, this was just another faceless client. He was your average rich white male. Successful. Secure. Powerful. He had a small dick and a beer gut and he was passing out from the light but effective sedative she had dusted into his scotch. She had been somewhat worried about that last part-- he had spent an annoying amount of time boasting about being a connoisseur  of fine whiskey and any real expert would be able to notice that something was off with the 35 year old Speyside. 

He went on about its distinct peaty notes, its grassienss, and other generic talk that she supposed was to impress her and she followed along as he groped her breasts and slowly but surely nodded off. 

As soon as he was gently snoring she rifled through the desk drawer that was just next to his couch. The ostentatious cherry wood opened easily and she found the Pentagram files he had shuffled away when she stepped through the door.

Men liked to think that she was safe. If not stupid and pliable, than certainly not a threat. Certainly not somebody with motivations outside of wanton sex and easy cash. Just a great pair of legs and the best ass in the business.

Her employers kept repeating the same lame joke, that she put the ass in assassin. Har har har. As if she hadn't heard that a hundred times. 

Quick snap of the documents with her iPhone and she was done. She considered pulling the Afghan blanket up over whatshisname's slumbering body which had tucked up infantile and then decided against it. He was lucky he'd just wake up with a bad headache and an empty sense of shame. 

She snagged the bottle of Scotch on the way out.

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Head Cannon: Duality

At work, Amara is tough and sleek out of necessity. Her clients see her as capable, competent, and sexy enough to get the job done... And she always does. She's known for her precision and focus and ability to make relationships and gather information with her particular brand of masculine charm.

But, if she had the time to make friends, if she felt safe enough to make friends, they'd also know the Amara who takes the stairs to her her up-scale yet bare-boned flat slowly because she's so worn down. The Amara who takes baths until the water gets cold and then re-pours them. The Amara who has crumbs in her sheets because the comfort of having tea and toast in bed with a book is worth the mess. 

Her sister knew all about the threadbare stuffed cat that stays hidden under her pillow- she's had it since she was 7. She knew that Amara often felt guilty about the books she kept on the bottom-most part of the book shelf and sometimes rotated them up so they'd all get equal attention. She knew that when Amara was a child she would have intense conflicts about her fear of insects and her need to save them...and that this never went away, rather just got better hidden.

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Drabble: Back Story

April 8th, 1983 was dreary and cold, with water falling like slurry over grey Chicago windows. The sun was weak on the horizon, and a new baby was crying. Rachel Amara Hollande was born in the back of a taxi on the way to a hospital that her mother could never afford to give birth in. The taxi dropped mother and new baby off at the emergency room, and watched them go through the fogged up glass doors and then carefully drove out of the parking lot, thinking that the night had been far more than he had bargained for. Amara's mother was thinking the same thing...

Amara's sister Samantha was old enough to remember her mother, dark skinned and stoic, holding the newborn close to her breast and whispering that although her often explosive husband insisted on calling her Rachel, that she would always be her mama's Amara, and that Amara meant forever.

Samantha also remembers the house fire that violently erupted one Autumn night when Amara was 6 months old. She remembers the flames that roared across the ceiling and licked at her arms and face while her mother was screaming and screaming. She remembers her mother's face and the way their eyes locked. She remembers the funeral and the closed casket, and holding her little sister in her arms because her father refused to so much as look at the baby.

Amara remembers nothing of that. Her childhood took place in cheap motels that they were quickly tossed out of when money dried up, and then stinking couches of 'friends' who were never very friendly, and then sometimes long nights in a fast food restaurant where they would spend the night ruminating uncomfortably over a medium fries. There was school sometimes, where she would squint at the blackboard and scrap with kids at recess. Most of the time though, she would stay home with her sister. Sam needed her. Poorly treated burns had turned into thick, shiny scar tissue that roped its way up her arms and chest, crawled up her neck and ruined parts of her face leaving her eyes mostly blinded and clouded over. 

Sam couldn't make friends, not like that, and so Amara would pretend that her sister didn't look like a monster to the rest of the world and play as her best friend while Samantha played mother. In this way, they took care of each other when their father was too drunk to strike them, or when he disappeared for days. 

And then one day, just like that, he disappeared and never came home. Amara was 12, Samantha almost 17, and now it really was just the two of them. Two girls who had already grown up far too quickly were forcefully shoved into adulthood. They learned the art of squatting in abandoned buildings and half-way houses, of living in shelters and on park benches. Sam would sometime pan handle, but it was Amara who learned to cut purses, reach effortlessly into pockets for wallets, to spirit away groceries and toiletries and clothes. When she was 13, Amara learned that some boys might give her money to do more than kiss. When she was 15 she learned that men would do the same.

A year later, she was sleeping with a man in an up scale hotel room. It was the nicest joint she'd ever worked in, and she'd always remember it: The Meridian Crossroads. The john had a British accent, and wasn't particularly nice afterwards when he smirked at her and wagged a hundred-dollar bill just outside of her reach.

"I could give you this," he said, "but why don't I try to help you out instead? I can make you a deal..."