Ariadne (redscarves) wrote in makebelievelog, @ 2012-04-02 00:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | ariadne, arthur, eames |
Who: Ariadne, snake!Eames, Arthur
What: Ariadne discovers snake!Eames, takes him to visit Arthur
When: Sunday, April 1, 2012 - morning (backdated)
Where: Ariadne & Eames' rooms, then Arthur's rooms
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 / Language on Eames' (thought) part
Status: Closed / Complete
Right. She had been a cat (with a cat pattern on her, no less - someone pulling the strings had a sense of irony), Daniel and her younger self had been puppies. Now, Eames was - what was Eames? There was no doubt that he was something, though, considering the fuss Jack was making. As Ariadne dashed into the living room due to the noise of Jack’s barking, she readily spotted a snake that the dog had cornered.
She grabbed the dog by his collar and tugged him away. The pup was (of course) less than thrilled to be locked away in Eames’ bedroom, but that was where he would stay for the time being. After that was done, she went to see if Eames was alright.
“Eames? Uh -” She stared at the snake, wondering what breed it was. He seemed okay... No signs of Jack having bitten him or caused permanent damage. “Eames, are you okay?”
Except how was he supposed to answer? Nod his head? After a moment she paused and ripped a page out of a nearby sketchpad and wrote “Yes” and “No” on opposite sides of the page. She sat it down in front of him so he could slither or point his head toward one of the two or something.
Jack was loud and Eames was hearing him with his entire body. He had barely been able to string his thoughts together enough to work out what to do. The biro on the floor beside him had been grabbed in his mouth and it was more through sheer luck than any real skill or strength that he'd been able to start a voice post. He was amazed that he could still remember his morse code, something he'd known since he was younger than Daniel, when Jack's barks felt like his entire body was vibrating with it, but he managed enough to send a quick message.
And then, Ariadne was there, dragging Jack away and it was so quiet! His tongue flickered out, tasting the air and oh, weird, tasting Ariadne's scent. Weird. Her voice echoed through his head as he shifted, his coils sliding over themselves as he moved closer to her, and then he saw the page she had put in front of him. Yes and No. Clever. Next thing they needed was a Ouija board so that he could spell out words.
Was he okay? Yes. He slithered forwards and let his head rest on top of the "yes" on the page, his tongue flicking out yet again. Then he lifted his head up so that he was sort of on the same eye-level as she was and nodded his head slowly. Yes, he was Eames, and Yes, he was alright.
Right. Eames was a snake. A pretty colored snake, but a snake none-the-less. Interesting. She shifted from her crouching position to sitting down cross-legged, staring at her slithery friend for a moment before teasing, rather lightly, “I’m not getting you any mice. I draw the line there.”
The castle had done far worse before and in a day, Eames would be normal. “Well, little me isn’t going to be thrilled, but this probably won’t be so bad. I rather enjoyed catnaps and I think the kids enjoyed being puppies. I wonder if Arthur or Dom are - anything non-human today.”
He hissed softly when she mentioned her being a cat; Ariadne might have enjoyed it, but Eames had not. Still, little Juno had shown up soon enough with antihistamines and the whole thing had only lasted a day. Eames was in the process of letting his head drop back down to the floor when Ariadne said about Arthur and Cobb, and he looked back up at her fairly sharpish. He wanted Arthur there. Even if the other man laughed at him, he didn't care. He just wanted Arthur to be there.
Moving closer again, he slowly and deliberately moved his head closer to Ariadne's hands, and then he nudged at them where they lay in her lap.
Ariadne may have been amused, but rambling on when all Eames could do was hiss back and indicate yes or no at that moment was rather futile. Still, she got a rather obvious signal when Eames nudged at her hands. She turned both of her palms over and held her hands out.
“Want to go check on Arthur, take a ‘walk’ around the castle?” She smiled a bit. “Or just wanting a higher vantage point? Uh - my right for Arthur, my left for a walk... just hiss if you’re wanting a higher vantage point?”
Eames had his head resting in Ariadne's right hand before she'd even finished saying Arthur's name. Nuzzling up against her thumb, he let his eyes drift shut as he tasted the air once more. He could taste the tea and coffee over by the kettle, and the soap Ariadne used. Through his skin, he could hear Jack scraping at the door and barking every so often, and Daniel moving about in his room. He could do that all with his eyes open as well, obviously, but it was almost overwhelming with no vision.
He bounced his head into Ariadne's hand a couple of times after that and then looked up at her. He really wanted to see Arthur. Naturally, his phone thingy chose that moment in time to vibrate against his side, to let him know that he still had unread messages, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.
Ariadne couldn’t help but let out a little laugh as the phone vibrated and Eames’ snakey-self reacted accordingly with surprise. “Here, do you want me to pull up your messages? I can respond to anything in the network.”
“We can go see Arthur, too, or I can go check and bring him back here. Probably shouldn’t leave you here, even if Jack is away. If Daniel or little me lets him out or if little me sees you - well, she would be a little freaked out without having everything explained.”
He nodded up at her when she offered to reply to his messages, since he couldn’t really do anything, and then glanced at both bedroom doors. Daniel would probably be fascinated and want to poke at him, but he didn’t fancy scaring Ari. A freaking-out child and a barking dog would be very noisy indeed and even the thought of it made him cringe. His head dropped back down to rest on her lap and he moved the rest of his stupidly-long body in as close as he could get to Ariadne, stopping just short of slithering onto her lap.
“Oh, Arthur asked if it’s you. I’ll tell him we’re coming for a visit, if you’d like?” She waited for Eames’ snake indication if he’d like that or not before glancing at Eames’ phone, then paused and glanced around for her own phone. It was on a nearby table, so she was able to grab it with a little stretching. She had to bite on the inside of her lip for a moment at what she was typing to Arthur to avoid laughing. It sounded utterly ludicrous.
“Arthur knows we’re coming, then. Need anything, or want to go straight there?” She tucked her phone into her pocket with a far too relaxed smile. Eames wasn’t allergic to himself and he wasn’t a giant hairy spider or anything equally horrifying. He was just a snake. “I wonder what sort of a snake you are.”
Eames had no idea. Everything was in black and white so he couldn’t see his own colouring. There were no reflective surfaces in the liv- wait! The telly was off so it would be reflective! Lifting his head up again, he set off, moving underneath the furniture and then rearing up high enough that he could see himself in the TV screen. He still couldn’t make out colours, but the shape of his head was familiar enough. He lived in Africa where snakes were more than common, after all. He opened his mouth and hissed at the reflection, and then dropped back down to the ground in shock. The inside of his mouth was black. He had fangs, he therefore had venom sacs, and he knew that if he bit anyone, they’d be dead inside twenty minutes. He was a bloody Black Mamba. Fuck.
He stayed where he was for a little while, tasting the air as he processed things, and then decided that yes, he should get out of the rooms. He didn’t want to do anything to the children or to Jack, and he’d been scarily close to snapping and biting the pup earlier. Best if he was out of the way completely. He made his way over to the front door and waited.
It was a bit like taking the dog out for a walk, only there was no whimpering or dancing before heading out in anticipation. Still, Ariadne slipped some shoes on and walked over next to him. “Hate to state the obvious, Eames, but if you’re slithering along - you may well get stepped on, and I don’t mean on accident. Some of the staff may not take too kindly to you, at least, and the stairs might be a bit hard to slither up.”
“Is it okay if I carry you to Arthur’s room?” She paused and glanced around before smirking a little. “Or I can go get a basket out of my room if you want to ride.”
Eames looked up to where Ariadne's hand was stretched out towards him, so he stretched up and climbed up her arm. Once enough of him was up around Ariadne's shoulders, he then carefully curled his tail around her waist and tried not to do anything too uncomfortable to his friend. He flickered his tongue out a few times when he was settled, and then let his head rest on her shoulder.
This was quite comfortable, actually. And really. There was no fucking way he was being carried in a basket.
Ariadne was rather sure there were a few odd jokes one could’ve made with this, but she didn’t want to think about it. Even if snakes didn’t bother her, the fact one was wrapped around her was a bit odd. Still, she wasn’t worried since it was Eames. She just wanted to get to Arthur’s and have Eames settle in as he wanted. With Eames settled in, she left to make the journey up a floor.
One of the cleaning staff gave them an extremely odd (and slightly scared) look, but about halfway up the stairs she could hear a loud noise coming from the hallway they had left behind. “I don’t want to know -” Neither of the sprogs would’ve woken up and gotten into the hallway that fast, so she was just going to avoid thinking about what it had been.
Once they got up a floor, she knocked on Arthur’s door and waited patiently.
Arthur was pacing a bit when Ariadne arrived, so he was there to answer the door in just a few steps. His eyes widened as he saw the snake curled around her body, looking anything but harmless. He stepped back, gesturing for her to come in.
“How are you both doing--under the circumstances?”
Ariadne smiled a little at the eye widening, really still not unsettled by snake Eames. She would've been admittedly a good deal more hesitant to do any such thing with a snake without a handler or experienced snake owner about if it weren't for the fact the snake had Eames' mind. Since it was Eames, it was funny to her. After all, the castle had done far worse and (in her opinion) regular Cobb in a bad mood was a scarier prospect to think on than snake Eames in a good mood.
"He seems fine, outside of not being able to talk." She crouched down a little after entering Arthur's room, letting Eames depart from his makeshift scarf position onto Arthur's floor. "And of all the things the castle has done before - I'm really quite fine with this one, since it's temporary. I'm glad to see you're still human."
Eames noticed the eye-widening and dropped his head from where he’d been looking all round him. Slipping down off of Ariadne’s shoulders, he considered slithering over to curl up under a couch, but settled for curling up by Ariadne’s feet. He kept flickering his tongue out, tasting the air, tasting the scent that was Arthur. Before he even knew what he was doing, he was moving slowly across the floor to sit closer to the other man, but he kept pausing to watch Arthur’s reaction.
Arthur, studious Mister Pointman that he was, had recognized that Eames resembled something highly venomous, so he wasn’t making any sudden moves, in case instinct took over. He didn’t want to take the chance that those fangs were fully functional. But he also wasn’t shying away from the snake’s advances. “If ever there was a time I wished I could speak Parseltongue,” he quipped, glancing down at slitherin’ Eames, “This would be it.”
“I wrote ‘yes’ and ‘no’ on two sides of a paper and he was answering things that way. He also nods his head, or has. I’m not sure how easy shaking it for ‘no’ would be for him, but there’s a way to communicate for the basics. Spelling words out may take a bit of time, but I suppose something like that could be set up for communicating if really desired.” Ariadne pointed out, shrugging.
Eames glanced back at Ariadne and nodded when she said he could. He did it slowly, and he only did it once, but he still nodded. Then he tried shaking his head and was pleased to discover that he could do that as well. After that, he continued on his way to curl up close to Arthur. Lifting his head up, he gently nudged at Arthur’s hand, tongue darting out to get a really good taste of his scent, before moving in under Arthur’s couch and curling up in the shadows.
“I noticed he was trying a bit of Morse code, earlier,” he said, nodding his head. “It’s a little tedious, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”
He watched as Eames demonstrated his ability to undulate, the corners of his mouth turning upward a little. So he liked snakes. There was nothing wrong with that, was there? It meant he was one up on Indiana Jones. He opened his hand a little, letting Eames get a good lick before he disappeared. “I’ll get him some water, later. And I’ve got some steak left over, so we’ll see what he’s in the mood for. Just try not to worry too much.”
"Oh, of all the things that have made me worry here - this isn't one of them, and you're not a person I would worry about handling this." Ariadne admitted with a shrug and a smile, glancing toward where Eames went to settle in and hide.
"I'd be more worried about either of the kids with him around. Explaining it to little me - and Jack didn't take well to him, obviously. Um - I'll leave him with you today then. Have fun with your new pet snake." Teasing, joking? Perhaps mildly inappropriate, but she wasn’t worried about how Arthur or Eames would take it. “This is one of the times a house would be convenient for somewhere away from the kids or the pet. Ah, well.”
“Yeah, that’s fine,” he said. Maybe they should think about a place outside the castle, at some point, since they seemed to be pretty well established as some kind of a cohesive unit. “Good luck with the kids, eh?”
Ariadne nodded and smiled, “Thanks.” And then headed out.