Thanks for all of the reviews you guys have sent me! What started out as a story I was writing for my sister has become a very well loved story! You guys rock! I used to be terrible about updating, but now I feel terrible if I don't!
I'll start this chapter now. I warn you, I have no idea what is going to happen! This is all coming from the wild ramblings of my overtaxed brain!
Dedication goes to Luthienuviel for all of the help I got! I have actually rewritten one of my characters because of her advice!
Ties
Chapter Seven
-Wherein extended metaphors are overused for the sake of an author's sense of humor-
When Yusuf was located and safely stashed in the car, the tensions of the warring baseball clans were lessened. Arthur forgot his vow to eject Ariadne from the moving vehicle for long enough to explain that a wrench had been thrown in their flawless machine of a plan. He explained that his sister had shown up and Ariadne tuned Arthur out after that—she started to visualize what it would be like if Arthur had described Rachel as a "pain in the butt" to Yusuf. She decided that she liked this mental picture and it could possibly cancel out the fact that he was a Yankees fan.
Fortunately, Yusuf asked enough questions to keep the two of them busy all the way back to the James household, where Rachel's car was already pulled up in the gravel driveway. The subject of baseball wasn't brought up again, but for the first time, Ariadne noticed a large chain-link structure in the field to the right of the massive house. If the baseballs inside of it were any indication, it was a batting cage, and Ariadne wondered how in the world she had managed to miss such an important part of Arthur's life. She resolved in her mind to be more observant.
Yusuf was quickly welcomed into the house with only a single eyebrow raise from Rachel. She gave her brother a long look, then flitted toward the kitchen from which was exuding a smell of baked chicken. Ariadne hoped that the chicken was for lunch, since most of her Wheaties had ended up in Arthur's hair.
Eames would not show her the suit he had purchased on his outing with Rachel.
"Now, now, darling," He chided, tapping her on the nose a few times with his pointer finger. "I haven't seen your dress, so you can't see my tux."
Ariadne rolled her eyes. "You have a tux. I don't have a wedding dress. There's a reason you haven't seen my dress yet."
Eames gave her a very pointed look, and Ariadne's eyes widened to the size of car hubcaps. "Wait, you aren't telling me that I have to buy a wedding dress, are you?"
"Well, Rachel was wondering what style of tux would match your dress. I told her you haven't bought it yet. I got a curious look." He folded the bagged tux over his forearm and sighed. "If we're going to pull of this engaged thing, you're going to have to start looking excited about wedding stuff. You could at least look at decorations."
Ariadne hoped that Eames was feeling the hot bullets of the eye guns she had aimed at him.
"The only problem, honey," Ariadne snipped, "is that I'm not actually excited about this fake wedding deal."
Eames held up the covered suit and gagged. "And you think I am? I hope you aren't under the impression that I like wearing ties." He put a hand up to his neck and mock-choked. "I'm not like our stoic companion Arthur who enjoys strangling himself every day with different colored strips of cloth. I'm pretty sure the reason Arthur doesn't talk to anyone is because he doesn't get enough air to his brain."
There was a moment of silence, before the oddity of the situation hit her. She was standing in Arthur's house, in Arthur's room (Yankee poster… gross,) discussing with Eames, her fake fiancé, whether or not Arthur was suffering from asphyxiation on a day to day basis, and if this had any adverse effect on his mental capacities or not. And all of this because she was supposed to buy a wedding dress to cover up her cover—marrying a British man she had known for six months because she took trips into peoples' dreams to steal information.
Without warning, she burst out into laughter.
But it wasn't uncalled for, such laughter.
Two years ago, college had been her life. Two years ago, she had a boyfriend and a life in Paris. Two years ago she didn't know about living in dreaming. Two years ago she didn't know about Penrose stairs and infinity in mirrors. Two years ago, she wouldn't have pictured her life like this. Two years ago, she wouldn't have traded her warm Paris apartment for anything, much less a future like this.
But now, she would have given up her Paris apartment for any part of it.
Minus the marrying Eames part.
Because when he walked out of the room, mystery-tux tossed casually over his shoulder, he had the gall to remind her that she needed to start looking at table centerpieces.
It was down to business with Yusuf there. With all the figures in place, the table was set and the main dish was ready to be served. The only problem was Rachel, who, if this metaphor is to be continued, played the part of the very nasty oven that burned all of their well laid plans into crisps. So it was back to the drawing board for the crew. The four, Ariadne, Eames, Arthur, and Yusuf, took up residence in Arthur's bedroom after introductions had been made, under the ruse of "searching for something for Yusuf." The family did not dare enter into Arthur's room in its current, wind torn state, so they bid the four farewell and let them clod up the stairs without a second word.
Since they weren't actually lying about finding something for Yusuf—he needed a USB cord—they all took up spots around the room and searched for it, albeit not very carefully. Ariadne took to the bookshelf again, fingering the drastically depleted collection of music Arthur had kept, then let her eyes wander as Arthur began calling out for plans.
She spotted Arthur's yearbooks, and was suddenly very glad that she was a short person. Any tall person would have overlooked them. People had a nasty tendency not to look down when they were looking for something.
"So we all know it's a problem that my sister is here, but it shouldn't be detrimental to our plans." Arthur was saying as Ariadne flipped to the index to look for Arthur.
"Yes, we hope that his oversight won't be as detrimental to our plans as your overlooking the militarization of the Fischer job…" Eames drawled from his position on the lower bunk of Arthur's bed. He was obviously hoping that there was a USB cord in Arthur's pillow, because this was the only place his eyes were exploring, if they were even open at all.
Arthur's eyes made a sharp cut to where Eames was laying on the bed and let out a string of words that sounded more like a growl. "I was distracted."
"Hrmph," Eames's voice was muffled by the thick down of the pillow. "Well, I hope that that distraction is gone this time. I'm not in the mood for an extended Limbo stay."
Arthur didn't feel the need to say anything to Eames's completely called for statement, but Yusuf did seem to feel the need to say something.
"We won't be needing to use heavy anesthesia for this procedure. At least I don't think we will need to…" He let his words drop off, and looked to Arthur for confirmation.
Arthur shook his head and then crinkled his eyebrows. "Wait. Why are all of these questions being directed at me? Isn't Eames the one in charge of this whole operation? Wasn't he the one to get us all this job?"
And from here, three sets of eyes swung to Eames. The man didn't even bother to lift his head off of the pillow. Raising an arm, he flopped his wrist toward Arthur.
"Arthur's the one who always makes sure a stick is planted firmly in the mud. Any creative urge of mine will be squashed, so I hereby bequeath any power I still held and give it to the man who would steal it from me anyway."
His announcement complete, he let his arm fall back to the bed and went on looking like a very dead log.
Arthur shrugged, but did not look surprised about the power transfer. He even gave an eye-roll and began talking in a very judgelike manner. So judgelike, in fact, that Ariadne almost forgot that he and Mr. James were not related.
"Well, now that that business is taken care of, I am willing to take any suggestions." He stated.
"Oh, an absolute monarch offers the voice of a council?" Eames teased from the bed. Wishing Arthur well on the next five minutes of arguing, Ariadne tuned the two of them out and flipped to page ninty-five and found herself looking at an eleventh grade, very young looking Arthur. He was wearing the school uniform and Ariadne was shocked to see that he was not wearing a tie, unlike the male next to him.
Arthur not wearing a tie? That was mind boggling. She let that sink in for a moment, perhaps the length of two of Arthur and Eames' snappy comebacks that she could vaguely hear in the peripheral of her hearing. Then she returned to studying the picture of baby Arthur.
His hair was not slicked back. She considered the fact that, yes, Arthur had probably not always looked like a point/mafia man. But with hair that looked like he had styled it to look like he had just rolled out of bed. Hair that was all pointing forward. Ariadne had to take a few steps back. The hair, paired with the lack of a tie and the presence of a full smile (the half smile he gave her made her melt. The full smile and dimples that was displayed on the paper before her sent her completely off the deep end,) led her to double check the name on the side of the page. Was this eleventh grade boy really the same Arthur that she knew now?
The name revealed that it was indeed.
Ariadne had a new goal.
Make Arthur smile the full smile. She wanted to see his dimples.
Ariadne tuned back in just in time. It seemed that the two men had finished their verbal sparring with a draw and judging from the wide grin on Yusuf's face, Ariadne had missed an epic gladiator fight of words. She pictured the dimples on Arthur's face and decided that it had been worth it to miss the war of words.
"So, as I was saying before," Arthur huffed, "do any of you guys have any ideas of how we're going to go about doing our plan without arousing my sister's suspicion?"
Ariadne held up a hand, throwing herself back a few years to the grade school age when she raised her hand to ask a question.
"Yes, Ariadne?' Arthur pointed at her, and Ariadne felt slightly ridiculous for raising her hand.
"I know your sister knows about us being dream… investigators." Ariadne began. "But I don't get how this is a deterrent from continuing with our plan that we had before."
The room around her nodded, seeing her logic. Just because Rachel knew about the job they were there to do, didn't mean that they needed to switch up their plans.
But Arthur shook his head. "Rachel has her suspicions, as she should. She's a smart girl. But because she's so smart, she's not going to go around accusing us unless she has proof. Bad things happened—just know that she's not going to go around accusing us.
"But she'll be on a sharp look out for proof. She's more detail oriented than I am—It's my only goal in life to beat her at finding things in ISpy books—so we need to be really careful. And this gives a problem of even connecting him to the machine…."
"Needle marks," Yusuf gasped, and Arthur nodded.
"She'll see them as soon as he wakes up. Part of the deal was that my father didn't find out about what we were doing. The US government isn't supposed to be tied up in illegal activities, after all."
The group sat around in a considering silence.
"So what you're saying is that we need to find a way to stick him with needles without Rachel noticing?" Ariadne asked, placing the goldmine yearbook back on the bookshelf. She would explore its three siblings at a time when she could take her camera phone to them (No, she wasn't a stalker. She just needed a picture ID for Arthur.)
"Yes, that's what I'm saying." There was a look of hopelessness in Arthur's eyes. Ariadne redoubled her scariness image of Rachel when she realized that Arthur could really see no way around his sister's hawk like eyes.
Ariadne was actually surprised at him.
"Easy." She said, curling her legs up to sit on them. "Have him get his flu shot."
The group seemed to blink back at her in sync. "What?" Arthur asked from his spot on his computer chair.
"Just have him get a flu shot. Then we can use the same hole that they used for his flu shot. Rachel will just think that it's the puncture wound from the shot."
"Ariadne," Arthur said with his eyes full of worship. "I honestly don't think I could love you any more that I do right now."
As she lay in her/Arthur's bunk bed that night, Ariadne considered the last few days with an overwhelming sense of ease. She had been well fed, she had bonded with Eames and she had proved that her brain did actually function on an above average level. She had learned that Arthur had dimples and that he did have one fault: he supported the Yankees.
But the fact that he had dimples almost masked the Yankee stench that she sometime smelled while he was around.
"Your family isn't what I expected," Ariadne said out of the blue, hoping that the man below her was still awake.
There was a rustle of bed clothing below before Arthur answered. "Oh, and how is that?"
"I dunno. If anyone was allowed to have a tragic past, it would be you. But then I come to your house and all of my dark, morbid pasts that I've dreamt up for you have turned out to be completely wrong. I mean, you have high school yearbooks and you used to have girl friends. Your mother is completely normal and your dad is in government. There were no tragic pasts. There were no twelve siblings that you had to provide for all by yourself. You aren't even a member of the mafia. You drink out of the milk carton!"
Arthur seemed to find something about her heartfelt confession slightly funny, because below her, he chuckled.
"People are like movie trailers. Some of them tell you the entire plot of the movie. But others give you enough information that you are surprised when the movies turn out to be the exact opposite of what you would think." Came Arthur's sage wisdom after he was finished laughing.
There was a pause and then Ariadne voiced the only thought that was on her mind after he had finished his extended metaphor.
"Wait, you go to the movies?" Was all she had to say.
A bark of surprised laughter was his response. "That's hardly what I wanted you to get out of that. Of course I go to the movies."
Ariadne let that soak in for a while, and then decided that, yes, she did in fact like this Arthur who listened to Vanilla Ice, played baseball and went to movies. There was so much she didn't know about him, and she decided that now was the time to find out all of his secrets. There was a companionable silence filling the room that poked her and prided her into asking him questions. Maybe it was because it was dark that she suddenly felt brave enough to ask him the questions that she had pondered on for a long time after she had met him: he wouldn't see her blush when she asked.
"How did you meet Cobb?" Ariadne asked, starting with a simple question. The two were close enough friends that she figured this would be one of the few un-weighty questions she could ask him.
It turned out to be the exact opposite.
There was a long silence from below, and suddenly the amiable air was sucked from the room like Mr. James had taken to the room with his Shop-vacuum.
"Rachel introduced me to him."
Does that count as a cliffy? I HOPE IT DOES!
So… I realized a long time ago that the James family would find it weird that Ariadne calls Eames by his last name. I also realized in this chapter than I never gave Arthur a last name, so Ariadne finding Arthur in the Index of his yearbook would be impossible. I've made up Arthur's back story, but I don't want to make up last names. Somehow I find this practice a little bit too much. Same goes for the first name for Eames. I already am having a hard time with making up Arthur's family. I don't like playing with Cannon this much, but, hey, I have to for this story. I'm just trying to be as true to Cannon as I can and if I don't need to make up first and last names, I won't. Does this seem totally at odds with my entire story being a background story? Si…..
And can I say that my new hero is Jack Wilshere! He's one year older than me and he is in a professional football/soccer league? He joined Arsenal when he was NINE. NINE! Granted, they didn't have him running around on the field, but they definitely kept him on their radar. I both hate him and love him at the same time. CAN I MARRY HIM?
Thank you to: Mickerayla, Mai x Mai, FREAKTONIGHT, AdriDee, LoquaciousLilLovely, Emzilla101, gpeach6, Comfortably Plump, Legal-Assassin-006, Luthienuviel, and NolitaChica211 for reviewing! I love all of these people and their lovely mood boosters I get every time I open my email! You all rock!