InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Grrr. Argh."

ariadne (labyrinthine) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2010-09-15 19:04:00

Entry tags:

!closed, *log, ariadne

Who: Ariadne and genderswapped!Eames
What: It's too easy to be nosy when you're sharing an apartment with two other people.
When: After Sirius' "welcome back genitals" party
Where: Dream Team's apartment
Rating: PG-13 at least

Ariadne had started keeping extremely erratic hours. As a student she was usually up all night and downing coffee all day to get through her classes, with the occasional crash and twelve hours' worth of sleep. But the introduction of somnacin to her system had thrown her completely off and made it much harder for her to sleep like she used to. She didn't mention it to Arthur and Eames - surely they knew all about it and would talk her through it, but she was in some ways heartily sick of explanations.

So she chalked it up to her job, where she'd signed up for any shift at all, and spent a lot of time just sitting around. She was reading a lot. She wasn't drawing very much, which she used to do constantly. That meant the sketchbook that had fallen under the couch definitely wasn't hers, and she didn't think it was Arthur's, so that left one option.

It became even more obvious when she opened the sketchbook and started looking at the drawings inside. Apparently Eames' talent at forging wasn't limited to projections; there were some fair copies of Da Vinci cartoons and adaptations of Dali in pencil, the Escher drawing with all the staircases and a few tiny figures with distinctive details added - a dark suit, broader shoulders, a bushy beard. She quickly became lost to the world as she leafed slowly through the pages.

(Post a new comment)

dream_bigger
2010-09-16 08:03 am UTC (link)

Eames let himself in and headed straight for the kitchen. Coffee and cigarettes were all well and good when it came to sorting out hangovers, but he really needed to get some water into his system. He turned the cold tap on and let the water run for a moment before he reached into a cupboard for a pint glass. He filled it and drank the water, careful not to gulp it down, and then filled it once more. This time, he took a few small mouthfuls and then took his glass with him into the living room so that he could sprawl on the couch with his feet up.

He nodded at Ariadne as he walked in, but didn't notice when she didn't reply. Instead, he dropped down onto the couch beside her and kicked off his heels. "Have I missed any scandal?"

No reaction.

"Ariadne?"

No reaction.

He leant over to see what she was looking at, then grinned. Tapping his fingers on a double-page sketch of the Library, he waited for her to look round at him.

"Where did you find that? I thought I'd lost it."

(Reply to this) (Thread)

labyrinthine
2010-09-16 04:13 pm UTC (link)

Ariadne twitched, startled as much by Eames's still-unfamiliar female face as by his sudden appearance."When did you get back?" she asked, shifting to look at him. The sketchbook almost slid out of her lap and she made a grab for it.

"It was under the couch," she answered. Flipping to another page, she continued, "Did you do these from memory? You're really good." It would probably just inflate his already overblown ego, but there was no point in pretending he was worse than he actually was.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

dream_bigger
2010-09-17 06:50 pm UTC (link)

"Just now," he replied, and wiggled his toes before tucking his legs up and under him as he turned to face her. "It was a good party. You'll have to meet Sirius, he's a lovely chap. Arthur needs to meet him, too."

He smiled at the praise and took another glance at the pages. Vitruvian Man gazed up at the ceiling, while clocks melted all over elephants that walked on stilts and ballet dancers practiced at a barre that had them standing perpendicular to a fairly shoddy version of Escher's Waterfall. "Thank you. And I did, yes. I needed to do something while I was avoiding everything and everyone, and I couldn't exactly pop into the library for a source book, more's the shame."

He took a drink of his water and let his head fall back against the couch. "When we get back, I'm taking you to Figueres. You'll love the Dalí Theatre and Museum," he said, "even if you're some sort of soulless heathen who doesn't believe Dalí is a genius."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

labyrinthine
2010-09-18 01:07 am UTC (link)

"Why does Arthur need to meet him?" she asked, watching Eames. It just wasn't fair that he looked so hot as a woman. Some guys had all the luck, she guessed.

Ariadne continued to flip pages, pausing when she came to a study of Mal that was done by filling in the negative space. It was good. And a little spooky. So she turned the page and smiled at a study of herself, hair suggested rather than detailed with a blurry collection of wild lines. It did look like that, didn't it. "Hey, they turned out pretty well regardless. And it kept you out of trouble. At least, major trouble. Right?" He still had all his limbs, after all.

"When we get back?" Ariadne glanced at him with a curious expression. "You'd want to?" Sometimes she still couldn't believe that she'd fallen in with this group and that they still thought she was worth keeping around.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

dream_bigger
2010-09-18 01:57 am UTC (link)

"Because Arthur needs to get out more, meet more people that aren't involved with working in some way. Sirius has a motorbike and he eats toast off the ceiling which is disgusting, so don't you ever do that," he explained, "and clearly he would be good for Arthur. Loosen him up a little, rumple his shirts and all that."

He smiled and nodded in response to her question about him keeping out of trouble. Given that most people involved in what had happened seemed to be voting for "Acknowledge what happened (or not) and then move on very quickly indeed" as a coping mechanism, Eames felt there was no choice but to join in. He was a con-man and a forger, after all, able to make people believe what he wanted them to. So if the trouble was all in his head, nobody need be any the wiser.

"Of course I'd want to. Why on earth wouldn't I? We could make a proper long weekend of it. Figueres and Barcelona, so you could see Gaudi's work as well. Have you seen the Casa Milà before? Other than in pictures, I mean. And Sagrada Família, naturally."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

labyrinthine
2010-09-18 03:00 am UTC (link)

"I promise I will never eat ceiling toast," she said solemnly. Not that it had ever occurred to her before, but still. "And you're probably right. Though I doubt we'll get him to go anywhere while he's all girl-shaped." It hadn't escaped her notice that the forger was far more excited about his change in body than the point man. The thought of rumpling Arthur's shirts was an attractive one, though.

Ariadne wasn't happy about the collective denial, but she had tried and failed to change their minds. And she couldn't very well incept them, could she? Not that that was a good idea in the first place. The look she gave him was somewhat skeptical. Major trouble. Right.

"I went to Barcelona once. The benefits of studying in France, I guess." Ariadne grinned, fingers itching for a pencil and paper. "I love the design for the interior that he did out of string, have you seen that? It's awesome." And dizzying. Maybe she could do something like that for a dreamworld.

(Reply to this) (Parent)