A/N:
So this hasn't been edited by a beta, but I read over it multiple times and tried to fix mostly everything. This is mainly for humor, and to add another story to the list of Inception fics. Even though I normally add a bit of Ariadne/Arthur in these little one-shots when I write them, I didn't this time. So enjoy! Let me know what you think!
Arthur: "Sarahpumpkin doesn't own Inception", why did you make me read that?
Me: Um…no reason…just, go back to extraction or inception or whatever it is you're doing now…
Arthur: How do you know about that?
Me: umm…Bye! I don't own Inception.
There are quite a few offices out there in the world that do office pranks, and the warehouse full of dreamers was no exception.
The ones that weren't the target would help the one who decided to lead the next one, and there was an unspoken rule that whoever was last played a prank on would play the next prank on the next victim. This had been a minor setback, however, when there was a whole week where Eames and Arthur had a prank battle, until finally they ended up combining forces and pranked Ariadne, which leaves us to now.
Everyone was waiting for her to pick a victim and each desperately hoped it wasn't them. Ariadne could be clever with her pranking.
Funnily enough, she was the one that had started the war between Eames and Arthur. She had commandeered Eames' mirror that he used to practice and had put it in Arthur's desk gift-wrapped with a tag that was typed: "From a secret admirer, so you can see the beauty I see in you." Of course, Arthur thought Eames had done it, and vice-versa, until finally they figured out it was Ariadne.
Ariadne, with the fate of the whole warehouse on her shoulders now, mulled over her options. It would be repetitive to do one on Eames or Arthur. Cobb and Yusuf hadn't been pranked in a while…but what if she didn't just prank one person? What if she tricked ALL of them? She could have Cobb and Arthur try to help her prank Yusuf and Eames, while Yusuf and Eames could help her prank Cobb and Arthur…they'd never expect it…but would it be worth the trouble if they all found out, and once it was done decide to prank her again?
Smirking she knew the answer, after all if they did decide to prank her again afterwards, then she'd have the pranking reigns in her hands again.
So, now she needed to decide what they were going to do to each other…hmmm...perfect. She knew just what she needed to do.
Arthur and Cobb were always the last ones to leave the warehouse, so when Eames and finally Yusuf left she double-checked to make sure they were gone before starting her plan.
"Cobb, Arthur, can I speak to you for a second?" Both men glanced at each other and then nodded. Ariadne smiled.
"Great. As you know I am the prankster this time…and I was wondering if you two would like to help me prank Yusuf…and Eames?" She gave them her best innocent-planning-something-evil look.
"Both of them?" Arthur asked skeptically.
"Well yeah, mainly we've been only pranking one person at a time, but I think it would be interesting to try two people." Ariadne replied.
Arthur looked at Cobb who looked at Arthur, then both turned to her and grinned almost evilly.
"Sounds like fun." Cobb said.
"What do you have planned to do?" Arthur asked her. So she explained a third of her plan to them, and when she was done they looked at her for a minute before laughing.
"I didn't know you liked Harry Potter," Arthur told her and she nodded, "that sounds like a great plan." She smirked.
You don't even know the half of it.
"I'm in. That will be hilarious." Cobb nodded at her. After standing there for a minute grinning evilly at each other, they all left the warehouse.
The next day Ariadne approached Eames and Yusuf and did the same thing, they had agreed immediately.
The third day of her plan had been the hardest thus far. All of the men in the warehouse were trying to glance at her to share a small mischievous glance, but she had to ignore them all and dive into her work.
Finally after much planning, the day (or night rather) came when she had to start her plan. She would start with Arthur and Cobb since they always stayed later and then she would wait for them to leave before calling Yusuf and Eames to come in.
She had gotten Arthur and Cobb to place multiple mirrors on Eames desk and put double-sided tape onto his chair, and had gotten him a Hannah Montana wig, which was placed on his desk with a card that said "You left this at the bar last week". Then to Yusuf she had them help her put labels on top of the labels already on there, with names from several Harry Potter potions, not to mention placing a placard on his desk labeled "Professor Snape".
She had gotten Eames and Yusuf to knot all of Arthur's spare ties together (he had about 10), and place them on a string and tie the string to the ceiling so that it fell just out of Arthur's reach (it had been funny watching Eames try to get him to see how far he could reach, "Arthur you should stretch darling, or you're going to get stuck in that hunched over position."). Then to Cobb she had gotten them to help her duct-tape his white-board pink, and exchanged the black marker with really bright colors, and for an extra measure she put neon yellow duct tape on the eraser (she had decided to do duct-tape instead of paint because you can take off duct-tape easier, and she really didn't feel like taking the paint off).
Surprisingly, everything went smoothly. So once Yusuf and Eames left, she decided to go about doing phase three. She took out the multiple spools of yarn and started working on the warehouse. She had decided to make a maze using the string. Four hours and fifty full balls of yarn, and a camera set up to record their faces later, she was done. It looked incredible and she couldn't wait to see the team's faces when they walked in tomorrow.
Ariadne decided to come in early the next morning so she could start the camera, and then sat at her desk (after navigating the maze she created) and waited.
"What the…" came Arthur's exclamation thirty minutes later. He looked at Ariadne who smiled innocently at him before going back to her work. He just stood there stunned, taking in all of the chaos.
He was still standing there when Cobb came in twenty minutes later.
"Arthur why are you- What in the world?" he looked around at the now colorful warehouse, and pretty much froze next to Arthur.
"Ah darlings have you found your—bloody—what?" came Eames' stunned exclamation fifteen minutes later, mimicking the two men next to him. All the while Ariadne kept working on her model, occasionally looking up at them and stifling her giggles.
"Sorry I'm late I—umm, huh?" Yusuf said moments later.
Now that all four of the victims were here they continued to look at the maze. After a while Cobb bravely tried to navigate it. The others watched as he went around and around, backed up, twisted, turned, and then finally, after several attempts, made it to his desk. The others, as if in a trance followed afterwards, and then finally made it to their desks.
"Why is my board…pink?" asked Cobb.
"Can someone hand me a stick or something?" Arthur asked after having jumped a few times in an attempt to grab his ties.
"Hannah Montana? Really?" exclaimed Eames, who promptly put the wig on, stuck his tongue out at Ariadne, and then took it off.
"Polyjuice potion…Swelling potion…Cure for Boils?" Yusuf muttered.
Ariadne could no longer contain herself, she promptly burst out laughing. All the men turned to look at her with multiple expressions.
After gathering her wits she made her way through the maze with ease, picked up the video camera, and saved the video before turning it off.
Giggling to herself she brought the camera to her workspace, took the tape out, and promptly put it in a place she knew they wouldn't look.
"Darling, I thought you said we were going to prank them." Eames said pointing to Yusuf and himself at "we" and Arthur and Cobb at "them".
"You told us that we were going to prank them." Cobb said mimicking the opposite of what Eames did.
"You did." Ariadne smiled innocently at all four men.
"You little bugger! Well I guess we men will just have to unite against you, then." Eames said looking smug, but also slightly impressed.
"Okay, go ahead and do that." Ariadne smiled challengingly. Eames looked slightly taken aback.
"You knew we might combine forces before you pulled this didn't you?" Arthur asked her before Eames could retort.
"A genius is not limited to just one masterpiece, are they?" Ariadne asked back, cryptically.
The men just stared at her.
Ariadne smirked. Best. Idea. Ever.