Title: Virtues and Vices
Author: St. Stephen's
Rating: Um…???
Disclaimer: If I owned them, my world would be a better place. They could live in my closet with Draco Malfoy and Elladan the Errand Elf.
Series: Copycat Series (4)
AN: OK, this takes place AFTER Day of Wrath, Be Thou My Vision, and Be Thou My might. Standalone that started as an exercise to help me get into my OC's heads better. I may do one for the Twins too. Posted as an apology for the lateness of Ch. 3 of Day of Wrath. Title shamelessly ripped from Aristotle. Anyway, on we go.

Virtues and Vices

Elise is a smoker. She loves the long, sweet inhale, the heavy smoke clawing its way into her lungs. She smokes cowboy-killers without remorse, feeling the smoke burn its way back up. She exhales through her nose, always has, always will, because it's habit by now. Josh did it that way and now she does too. Her big brother bought her first pack of Marlboro Reds, two days after he found her sucking down their mother's Virginia Slims behind the shed.

"If you're gonna smoke, baby girl," he'd whispered, shoving a pack and a book of matches into her hand outside the convenience store, "then smoke like a man." She didn't remind him that she wasn't a man, and at 14, she couldn't really be called a woman either. She just lit up, and inhaled deeply and blew the smoke in his face, her eyes defiant and without a single cough. Josh had just laughed.

Now she finds herself flicking the lighter, unable to keep a flame long enough to light the cigarette dangling from her lips. Her thumb keeps slipping from the button, probably because her hands won't stop shaking. Miguel's dead, but she knows that Lauren will probably just find another dealer, and the sweat is dripping down her back beneath her dad's pea coat and even her brother's tactical gloves can't give her enough grip to work the lighter. Her head drops back against the cool leather of Cam's seats and something glowing waves in front of her nose. Cam's own gloved hand is extended, holding the lighter from the dashboard, the other on the steering wheel. She takes it and presses the end of her smoke against the red-hot coils of metal in the little cylinder. It's only after she replaces it and takes three long pulls, the silence during her exhale oppressive, that she mutters,

"Thanks."

Cameron is a drinker. He remembers sneaking his first whiskey from his mother's liquor cabinet and huddling with his best friend Charlie in the woods, their body heat and the alcohol keeping them warm in the heavy March wind. It had been St. Patrick's Day and they thought they should celebrate in style. A smuggled, half-finished bottle of Jack Daniels and Charlie were all he needed for a good time when he was 16.

Charlie had walked in on him, another drunken night, four years later. He'd been knocking back Jose Cuervo all night, and was slowly inching Mark's shirt over his head, huddled together on his dorm room floor. The slow burn of tequila flooding his veins was feeding the whispers of desire that were constant around Mark, but Cameron doesn't remember much of that night, at least not until Mark's lips were closed around him and he'd heard the door open. Then he mostly remembers chasing Charlie down the hall, Charlie screaming obscenities at him and him pleading for his best friend to come back.

The slide or burn of beer or whiskey down his throat can always calm the shaking in his legs. Even after a bad job, where the blood splattered and they begged for mercy that would never be forthcoming, a quick sip from his flask, or a stop by Pop's, coupled with a whispered prayer are all that's needed to restore him to his jovial self. Elise needs at least three smokes before she can smile again, and she takes them the same way Cam takes shots. Quick and hard, and keep them coming.

Elise loves tattoos. Not only the graceful swoops and colors of the art, the brisk, yet friendly manner of her artists, but the walls of the parlor, covered in art. The plastic flip displays, full of yet more, wandering back and forth, eyes flicking from stars, to the butterfly, to the skull, the fluer-de-lis. She spends nearly an hour, every single time, looking over every design. And after she's chosen one, then comes her favorite part. The sear of the ink flooding the holes left by the vibrating needle, the scrape of the paper towel wiping her blood from her skin, the soreness the next day, the long week or two of excruciating self-control. Don't pick, don't scratch, keep it moisturized, don't look, don't let it blur, take care of it, because it's part of her skin now.

Marie took Elise to get her first tattoo, just before she left home. She'd ended up getting two on the same trip, simply because she couldn't decide between the two designs. Her sister had warned her that it was going to hurt, and she probably wouldn't want to second one when she was done with the first. Marie was right. It did hurt. But the burning dig of the needle against her skin grounded Elise, the pounding of her blood, the sear when Tony began to fill in the fleur-de-lis on her forearm; they all made her feel like she was there. It centered her in own head, her own body. This hurts. It is mine, this skin, this body, it hurts and it's mine. She got the Louisiana flag too.

This hurts. It is mine, this skin, this body, it hurts and it's mine. The same thought flutters through the visions of bloodied noses and blackened eyes from last night as Brian carefully switches to the gold ink to fill in the outline of a key on the inside of her wrist. They hadn't killed him this time, Sarah hadn't wanted them to. "Just scare him off," she'd said. Honestly, she thought that it would have been easier if they had. If they had just put a bullet through his brain, she could forget the soaring adrenaline and the life in Cam's eyes. When her fist had come down, hard, on the stalker's jaw, she'd jumped with the pain in her knuckles. It had been different from the sustained burn of a needle against her skin, a sudden pounding, but it had been the same. This is me. I'm doing this. I'm beating a man unconscious. But now, here, with Brian's red head leaning over her left arm and her right hand in both of Cam's warm ones, she could almost feel the adrenaline, the fear, the anger flooding out with the thin sheen of blood. It was so fine, so thin, it looked like she'd sweat blood. Like Christ, she though dazedly, in the garden.

Cameron is honest. That story about George Washington and the cherry tree? Yeah, that's Cam. Whenever he tries to lie, his hands go sweaty; he stutters and can't remember the story he was going to stick too. Elise is the coolest liar you've ever seen. She never slips up, never has trouble keeping track of non-existent details, and never ever gets caught. Cam envies her.

Cameron can't lie to save his life, which is why Elise always answers Abby's questions about where they've been and where the bandages come from.

But he revels in the violence that they wreak. Every pull of the trigger, every recoil, every gang banger and drug dealer that drops in a pool of his own blood is a prayer, sweet incense to the God he has learned to love. Honest, but wrathful. She's different. Her eyes go blank and empty and she whispers a prayer for justice. He envies her that too.

Liar. Untruths slip from her tongue without a thought.

Honest. Even hard truths come easy.

Smoker. Cam smokes. Not like Elise does. Not like the nicotine crawling into her brain is a life preserver.

Drinker. Elise drinks. But not like Cam does. Not like the poison sliding through his blood is the water of life.

Envious. He watches her rattle off a lie, inhale, or pull the trigger with that cold, impersonal face and he wishes. She watches him gulp and sigh, sees the exhilaration in his eyes as the blood paints the wall, and she wishes.

Wrathful. He wants justice for the men they kill as much as she does. It's just that he thinks maybe he can get a little torment in before he sends them to eternity.

Copycats. Cam rarely even thinks of the Saints anymore. But Elise stares at the blank spot on her wall and wonders. Does the fact that they aren't the first diminish their work? Cam knows that it doesn't matter.

Elise thinks she has more vices than Cameron. Cameron thinks Elise has more virtues too.