Title: Scarf Ace
Pairing: Ariadne/Eames
Word Count: 2132
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Ariadne and Eames go to the same laundromat. One day she gets home and finds one of her scarves is missing, but there's a man's shirt in its place. On a whim she decides to wear it out the next time she goes to the laundromat... only to run into a man wearing her scarf.

A/N: SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND.

It wasn't like Ariadne to get so upset about a scarf; really, it wasn't. It's just that she'd had a terrible week—despite working day and night, she wasn't able to finish her model on time and lost twenty points on it, her mother at home had called to tell her that her beloved hamster Jukie had passed away in her absence, and she'd embarrassed the crap out of herself spilling coffee all over her front yesterday. In public. The scarf, one her brother had given her for Christmas, had ended up with an impressive stain. Normally she went to the laundromat on Fridays, but this tragedy necessitated an earlier visit. Only, once she'd gotten back to her tiny flat with her basket of freshly-laundered clothing, the scarf wasn't there.

Ariadne sat on the edge of her tiny cot of a bed and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. She'd already cried earlier, then felt bad about crying over nothing, which had made her cry some more. Tea had helped. Now she just felt tired, and she reached out for the laundry basket to start folding her things. It was just a scarf, she thought as the basket emptied and the pile of folded clothes on her bed grew. Just a stupid—wait.

At the bottom of the basket was something unexpected, a rumpled plaid shirt she hadn't seen before. She poked curiously at the article. It didn't look like anything she owned, and when she lifted it up and un-crumpled it, she decided it definitely wasn't hers. For one thing, it was kind of hideous. For another, it was a men's size large.

"Odd," she said to no one, turning it over and fingering the worn flannel. The tag was threadbare and half ripped off, nothing left but the size and the faded letters 'EAM' in permanent marker. Whose ever it was, it looked pretty comfortable. She shrugged out of her jacket and vest until she was down to her t-shirt, then unbuttoned the rogue plaid thing and slipped into it. It was big on her, but it didn't look half bad over the plain gray of her tee. The colors were still kind of revolting, but in an endearing way that complemented her bohemian image. "Not bad," she murmured, giving a quick spin. It was no replacement for her beloved scarf, but at least today hadn't been a total loss.

She'd nearly forgotten about the scarf incident by the time the next Wednesday rolled around, but because of it her laundry schedule had been thrown completely out of whack. She cursed the pedestrian traffic as she weaved her way the short distance from her flat to the laverie automatique, trying valiantly not to knock people over with the large basket of laundry balanced on her hip. Argh. She was so flustered by the time she'd entered the building that she nearly didn't notice the guy on his way out with his own basket of clean laundry. When she did, though, her eyes immediately settled on the floral print scarf tied around his neck.

"Hey, that's my—" she said at the same time he blurted a bewildered, "Why are you wearing my—"

Wait, back up. What?

The man, eyes unreadable behind his highly reflective aviators, jerked his head toward the row of chairs along the wall. Ariadne followed, wondering what the heck was going on until she looked down at herself, saw the oversized flannel she'd put on without a thought this morning and realized the man was wearing a similar one today. Huh.

"Well, this is awkward," said the man, sprawling down in the closest chair and tossing his basket down in front of him. Ariadne plunked down in the next seat, beginning to mentally categorize the things she knew about this guy. One, they'd apparently traded laundry by mistake last week. Two, the soft consonants and lazy drawl gave the stranger's accent away as English, maybe a bit posh. Three—and possibly most importantly—he was the finest piece of ass she'd ever laid eyes on. His jeans hugged his muscular thighs like a second skin, and the rolled-up sleeves of his current flannel monstrosity revealed strong arms etched with thick dark lines of ink. The sunglasses gave him a sort of 'asshole' vibe, but then he pulled them off to look at her with sparkling gray-green eyes crinkled at the corners in amusement. And that mouth. Oh god, that mouth.

"Yeah," she said uncertainly. "Awkward."

"Eames," the man grinned at her, full lips stretching over slightly crooked teeth. He held out one massive oh god he could cover my fist with his hand, which she shook with a gulp.

"Ariadne."

Eames' eyebrows raised in surprise, though he quickly smoothed it out. "Ariadne. An unusual name, though quite lovely."

Ariadne tried not to shift in her chair at the way the deep smoky rumble of his voice went straight to her crotch, goddammit. "Yeah, well, my parents loved mythology, and their sense of humor's pretty odd."

"Can't be as odd as my parents'. Knowing my first name is a punishable offense, far as I'm concerned." Ariadne found herself laughing a bit, even though it was terribly rude, but Eames just looked pleased. "It really is that horrible," he said, and then, "Coffee?" The tacked-on question was so out of the blue that Ariadne nearly missed it.

"S-sorry, but you said... coffee?" she stammered, feeling like an idiot. Eames was just a hot guy. Just a gorgeous, smoking, ass-blastingly hot guy, and she'd dealt with those before. What the hell was wrong with her?

Eames, for his part, just continued to look amused, his smile widening to show his teeth again. "Coffee, café, whatever you call it. Or tea. Possibly juice. I'm not picky."

"O-okay," she said uncertainly. Eames was up in an instant, holding his hand out to her and pulling her to her feet. She followed him out the door (still holding his sexy, sexy hand) and it wasn't until they were halfway to the café on the corner that she realized that goddammit, the laundry basket in her other hand was still full of dirty laundry. Part of her felt like turning Eames around and explaining the situation, demanding her scarf back and running back to the laundromat, but on the other hand, Eames' ass.

"So," Eames started once they'd found themselves a table and taken their seats, their laundry stowed under the chairs. "You look good in plaid."

Ariadne felt the tips of her ears getting hot, so she carefully pretended to peruse the drink menu—as if she didn't come here at least once a week. She could see him watching her out of her peripheral vision, though, so finally she offered, "And floral print works surprisingly well on you." As if he even needed the compliment. People were probably telling him he was hot all the time, that his arms were wank material, that he had a porn star mouth, that—Jesus fucking Christ he'd found a toothpick somewhere and now he was flipping it over and over in that very mouth.

"I've always been somewhat of a fashionisto, as you can tell by the plaid, I'm sure. But you know what they say. If you're comfortable enough in your sexuality—" a thrill ran down her spine, "you can get away with wearing anything." The toothpick stayed balanced on his lip the whole time he spoke, and she couldn't even pretend she wasn't watching him now, and worst of all, he knew it, and... and he was playing footsie with her under the table. She thought about pinching her inner arm a bit, just to make sure she wasn't dreaming, but no, that definitely felt like his Converse nudging hers and stroking up her ankle. She felt like she needed to say something, and she could physically sense all kinds of trainwrecks on the tip of her tongue like, "Are you real?" or "This is Candid Camera, right?" or "Can we skip to the part where I sit on your face?" but she was saved when the waiter came around.

"Bonjour," Eames greeted him, and proceeded to order an Orangina in perfect, unaccented French. Ariadne pretended not to be thrown by it, and only stumbled a little bit through her own order of café-au-lait. Eames was well enough behaved while they waited for their drinks, and it wasn't until he got his Orangina and started wrapping his lips obscenely around the bottle that she felt like she had to say something again.

"So why are you in France?"

"Ah," Eames said, setting down his Orangina, and since he'd also abandoned the toothpick, Ariadne found she could actually concentrate on what he was saying. "That's easy. It's the art."

"You-you're an artist?" Ariadne squeaked.

Eames smiled at her, not unkindly. "A painter, though I do a bit of sculpting on the side."

Oh god. Ariadne could feel herself getting weak in the knees. While she was sitting down. "That's amazing." Her voice came out high and breathless, and so she took a deep gulp of her hot hot hot hot ow coffee to distract herself. Damn her unavoidable artist-kink. Twice.

"What about you?" Eames asked after she'd recovered, like he was actually interested.

"I'm studying architecture. Urban, mostly, but I'm partial to Frank Lloyd Wright's houses, too."

"Who isn't?" Eames' eyes sparkled in excitement, and just like that it hit her—she and Eames had something in common. Oh, thank god, she thought but didn't say, though apparently he could read it in her expression well enough. "What, you thought I was a hooligan?"

"Come on, you're British," Ariadne laughed. "It's impossible for you guys not to come off as cultured."

"Even in plaid?"

"Even in plaid."

Ariadne smiled at him over the rim of her cooling coffee, and he smiled back. This was—knock on wood, holy crap—this was going well. Nothing in Ariadne's life ever turned out well. She'd always thought she'd been cursed with rotten luck. But just maybe this Eames was the start of something new. She didn't dare to hope, though. Not until the end of their companionable conversation, when the sun had sunk low enough to light up Eames' gray-green eyes beneath his lashes.

"So," he said, and it was clear that this was the break he intended to leave her at. Ariadne tried her best not to be too disappointed. Eames was, of course, a gentleman, and he helped her out of her seat, then threw down money for both their bills. "Your scarf." He unwound the piece of fabric from around his neck and handed it back to her.

"Thanks," she said absently as she tied it around her own neck. "And here's your shirt." She shrugged out of it and immediately missed its warmth. Instead she breathed in deep, and thought she could detect a faint hint of Eames from her scarf; sweat, fabric softener, something sweet and a little woodsy. ...Maybe she'd wait a bit before she washed it again.

"It was nice meeting you, Ariadne." She heroically did not vibrate at the way his deep, smoky rumble curled around the syllables of her name. "I'm glad we had this little mix-up, but maybe next time we can swap something other than clothes."

Saliva? Other bodily fluids? her brain helpfully supplied.

"Phone numbers?" Eames finished, and Ariadne wasn't totally crushed, because Jesus fucking Christ, Eames was pulling out his iPhone. This was really happening. "Maybe you could come over and sit for a painting sometime." Shit, this was real.

Ariadne hastily fumbled for the iPhone in her back pocket. "You have Bump?"

"I do," Eames grinned, and with a simple fistbump, all their contact info was exchanged. And that was that. Ariadne tried to work her mouth to say "Thanks" or "Goodbye" or "It was nice meeting you too", but in the end all that happened was Eames sent her a wink and a little wave, and then turned to leave, basket of laundry over his shoulder.

Ariadne was proud that she only watched his ass for two blocks before she'd collected herself enough to pick up her own laundry basket—though she did keep a peripheral eye on him. Once he'd disappeared around the distant corner, Ariadne let herself slump against the table. "Ho-lee shit," she whispered under her breath, then a grin split her face, unbidden. She walked the whole way home in a kind of stupor, mentally replaying the whole thing in her head and eventually deciding that it could have gone a lot worse. She wasn't a total idiot. (Of course, she would change her mind about this once she'd closed the door to her apartment and realized she'd forgotten to do her laundry yet again, but who cared? Sometimes it was worth it.)