warnings: post-movie (slightly AU?). slash leanings. OC: Tak Shibuya (not a Mary-Sue). language: pg (for one use of damn).
pairing: undertones of Arthur/Eames.
timeline: several months post-movie; the middle of Tak's second week of training, the day after Sunshine.
disclaimer: Chris Nolan owns Inception and its characters.
notes: 1) am i the only one who starts to read the first line in the tune of 12 Days of Christmas? no? totally unintentional, i assure you. and i apologize profusely to those of you who now have the song stuck in your heads. 2) CIGARETTES ARE DELIGHTFUL. but so are cancer-free lungs and being able to run a mile without coughing up a lung. i miss my old brand of cigs, but e-cigs are really much better for me (and cheaper, overall). 3) the Kahala! oh, man. that place is amazing. resorts are really pricey, but if you absolutely need a de-stressing vacation, they're worth it. 4) as always, the stuff about Cat, Hepburn, and Miss Golightly are all references to Breakfast at Tiffany's. 5) "peaky" is British for "mildly ill." 6) "tetchy" is British for "touchy" or "snappish." it exists in American English, too, but i don't think i've ever heard it from an American who wasn't also a fan of British authors. 7) "get back at him for the M60" is a reference to Frazzled. 8) i held off as long as i could on making a crack about the squinting. i couldn't stop myself anymore. it's...it's just too fun.
Spilling Secrets
On the second day of synergistic architecture, Tak and Ariadne show up together, chatting like old friends.
Arthur has a feeling Tak appeared at Ariadne's hotel and went to breakfast with her.
He's let himself get distracted from his usual routine (he spent the morning making phone calls, touching base with old associates, consulting, offering timelines and estimates to prospective clients), so he's a bit snappish.
"Can we get back to level design, please?" he says sharply.
Ariadne eyes him. "Jeez, Arthur, did you skip your morning coffee?"
Tak wags a finger at the corner. "No, he's had two cups." She sniffs. "Ah, there's the problem. Arthur, please calm down and go smoke a cigarette."
"Arthur doesn't smoke," says Ariadne, blinking. "Arthur, you smoke?"
"He's a one-a-day man," Tak asserts.
Annoyed, Arthur grabs the pack from his jacket and stalks out onto the balcony.
Indoors, he can hear the girls talking again. Wonderful little phrases like mobius-layout and inverted-cone and fractal skyline drift out through the glass door.
Rodeo Drive is gorgeous in late spring. Green trees, blue sky, warm sun. The traffic is quiet compared to much of the nearby area. In the right wind, there's salt on the air.
He really does love the L'Ermitage Beverly Hills; only the Kahala in Honolulu is more relaxing, and he doesn't often have an excuse to go to Hawai'i.
When Arthur has calmed down, he goes back inside and finds the girls sketching back-to-back on the floor beside the coffee table.
"What are you doing?" comes spilling out of his mouth before he realizes he's speaking.
"Shoosh!" Ariadne says.
"Three…two…one!" Tak counts down, and they turn and put their sketch pads together.
"Awesome!" laughs Ariadne.
Arthur frowns at being ignored. "What is?"
Ariadne waves him over.
They've drawn a pair of semicircular mazes that fit together perfectly.
Arthur can't decide whether he's impressed or murderously irritated. Sometime between all their getting-to-know-each-other yammering yesterday and this very moment, Tak and Ariadne completely nailed the underlying concepts of synergistic architecture. He has no doubt they'll be able to put it into practice.
"When do you think the cat will wander in?" Tak asks, turning the page and starting to scribble out a skyline.
Some reflex makes Arthur's hand twitch for his phone, but he ignores it. Instead, he picks up the hotel phone and orders breakfast. Belgian waffles, fruit, a spinach-and-egg-white omelet, a jug of orange juice.
"Ooh, Arthur's eating breakfast," says Ariadne. "The world must be coming to an end."
Tak waves her finger in the air authoritatively. "Arthur eats breakfast. He's just the sort of man who normally eats cold leftovers for breakfast."
"Ew, no way."
"Yes way. The omelet's probably his, but I will bet you—"
"No, I'm not dumb enough to bet against you, Tak."
"The waffles are for the cat," Tak declares, oozing smugness.
Arthur says nothing. She doesn't need to be encouraged, he feels; and when he lies, she just grins that obnoxious little knowing grin.
Ariadne blinks. "I don't get it," she says flatly.
"Oh, Ari, you've really never seen Breakfast at Tiffany's?" Tak asks with a pout.
"Really. Not a Hepburn fan."
"Sacrilege!" gasps Tak, making Ariadne giggle.
The door opens.
"What is?" Eames asks.
"My God, Eames is up before ten!" cries Ariadne. "First Arthur eating breakfast, now Eames up before ten—Tak, what do you think the third sign of the Apocalypse will be?"
"I'd have to call my uncle and ask when he's got it scheduled," Tak quips. "The sacrilege, dear Cat, is that Ari is not a Hepburn fan."
"Say it isn't so!" Eames mourns as he heads for the coffee maker. "Good morning, darling. You're looking a bit peaky today."
Arthur grunts.
Room service arrives ten minutes later.
"He ordered waffles for you," Tak tattles while the bellhop wheels in the trolley.
Arthur can't help the severely displeased frown on his face as he tips the young man (who looks terrified) and closes the door behind him.
"Were you going to pretend you'd just ordered too much food?" Eames asks shrewdly.
Damn forgers.
Arthur snatches up his omelet and sits back down at his laptop. "Eat your breakfast, Mr. Eames," he growls.
"Tetchy," Eames says with entirely too much cheer.
"Now that Cat's arrived, I have an announcement," Tak says in a loud, clear voice. "Ariadne once attempted to learn Spanish to woo a boy."
"Wh—how did you—" Ariadne stammers while Eames laughs.
Arthur ignores the pleased thud of his heart at the sound.
"I never said anything about that, I never told anyone," Ariadne goes on, and she sounds truly distressed (Eames stops laughing).
Tak hums happily. "Your pronunciation is mediocre, your sentence structure suggests you learned from a book rather than a person, and you, dear Ari, are the kind of girl who learns things to impress boys."
There's a quiet moment (aside from the clink of a dish being uncovered and Eames' corresponding noises of appreciation).
"You," Ariadne says, sounding strangled. "You got that from just that one sentence yesterday?"
"She got Yusuf's from five bars of humming," Arthur says to reassure poor, panicky Ariadne. "She finds secrets, it's what she does. You're lucky she's only told us one of yours."
Eames chuckles with his mouth full. Arthur resists the urge to turn and see his grin. "And how many of your secrets has she told now, Arthur?"
"Three," he mutters. "And one just between us."
"I'm sure I only remember one," Eames says.
"If you weren't here or didn't realize she was telling one of my secrets, then I'm not going to enumerate them," Arthur tells him. One just because. One to get back at him for the M60 (he's fairly sure). One to amuse Ariadne.
"Enum—?" Eames half-echoes (Arthur is sure he plays dumb on purpose).
"Enumerate," Arthur repeats, thinking longingly of the pack of cigarettes tucked back into place inside his jacket.
"What was Eames' secret?" Ariadne asks hotly, angrily, vengefully.
Arthur turns, bewildered.
Her pale cheeks are splotched with pink, her dark eyes flashing. Too upset for such a little thing as learning Spanish for a boy.
But that's not right, is it? Arthur himself has been mortally ashamed of some of the things he's done to impress. He once got disgustingly falling-down drunk trying to prove he could 'keep up with the guys' (he was eighteen, stupid, so stupid), and ended up puking on a very pretty girl.
Tak's face has frozen. Arthur thinks she might be thinking. She tosses her head. "I don't repeat," she says. "Have Arthur tell you, if he's mean enough."
Ah, but she told two. He still doesn't know what to do with the second secret, but he certainly won't tell it. It's stupid to give something away without knowing what it's worth.
Ariadne looks at Arthur.
Arthur tries very hard not to look at Eames, who is chewing slowly. He shrugs. "He gambles because he likes to lose. Not much of a secret. Everyone knows gamblers play to lose."
It's not what she actually said (You like to gamble specifically because you're bad at it unless you cheat.). It's not (he's fairly sure) what the actual secret is.
Ariadne won't know the difference; Tak and Eames will.
"No way," Ariadne says. "That's it?" But when she looks at Tak, Tak just raises her eyebrows innocently.
Tak takes Ariadne's hands (they both have smudges of graphite all over their fingers from sketching) and grins at her. "There's an elegance to the way we word things, Ariadne. I could have told your secret in a very different way, and you would have felt much more foolish. Remember that when I tell you another secret later, after we leave. And remember that I collect other people's secrets."
The grin and the sweet, best-friends way she holds Ariadne's hands adds a misleading softness to the sinister words.
Tak rises somewhat in Arthur's esteem, but mostly because of the sheer danger associated with someone who, as she says, collects other people's secrets. She is, really is, Saito's niece. She acts like his daughter, or possibly his evil gender-swapped clone.
After a moment Tak tilts her head. "Secrets are…like a kind of currency for me. So you shouldn't ask me someone else's secrets. Especially Mr. Eames' secrets—they're hard to get at, so they're very valuable. If you ask me for a secret, expect to pay for it, all right?"
Ariadne does her best impression of Dom's Squint of Intimidation (not to be confused with several other flavors of Dom Squint). "Well, let me know when I've worked my way up to an Eames secret," she says.
Arthur turns back to his laptop. "Good luck," he snorts. "That sounds like something that involves jewelry and about a year's worth of expensive dinners."
Tak appears at his elbow (literally, she's crouched there with her eyes at desktop-height) with a knowing smirk. "Why, Arthur, are you calculating the price of an Eames secret for yourself? Because I'd offer you a discount, provided there was appropriate collateral."
He lowers his right eyebrow a bit. What she would consider 'appropriate collateral' seems like a somewhat frightening subject that doesn't bear extensive contemplation. "Miss Tak, that sounds positively scandalous," he says.
"The offer's always open," she says in a singsong tone, and slinks away.
Strange girl.
.End.