Jobs

This one was inspired by a few reviews and a PM, so I hope its good enough. I would've posted this last night but my internet provider decided to crash on me :( but its up again now!

Enjoy!

Eames had suggested they take a trip to the zoo, it was a Saturday and they'd recently finished a job so he thought he'd treat Ariadne with a day out and another trivial fact.

They had been walking around for about an hour and had entered the 'Arachnid House'. It was dark inside and Ariadne felt like the insects were crawling over her skin. Eames noticed her discomfort but chose not to say anything, he wanted to see if she'd stick it out or not, it was a test of guts.

He guided her over to one of the handlers who had a Tarantula in his hands and was letting members of the public hold it. She looked at Eames with worry and he smiled at her.

"Here's the deal," Eames started. "You hold that big scary Tarantula for at least two minutes, and I'll tell you something about me."

"You know I hate spiders, that's torture." She cringed.

"It's a form of torture for me to give away my secrets, but I do it, just for you."

She looked at the spider and grimaced, did she really want to know what he was going to tell her? She looked back at him and decided, yes, she did want to know. Anything about him was interesting, even more so because no one else had probably heard this information before. She could suck it up and hold a Tarantula for two minutes, how hard could it be?

"You ready? It's your turn." The handler said as he brought the spider towards her.

"Yes, I'm ready." Ariadne took a deep breath and tried not to focus on what was coming towards her now outstretched palms.

The handler placed it gently onto her hands and Ariadne gave out a squeak as its bristly legs started moving around her skin.

"During my spare time I helped out at London Zoo." Eames announced, Ariadne's mouth dropped open and she focused on his eyes while she concentrated on what he was saying, it was distracting her from what was currently crawling over her palms.

"I'd always been fond of animals, and I spent a lot of time hanging around the zoo to look at them. I even went as far as going to the library and reading up about certain animals, and I don't especially like to read. My visits became a regular occurrence and I made friends with one of the handlers in the aquarium. His name was George; I became his sort of apprentice. I think I spent more time working in the aquarium than I did at school. But my real passion lay with the big cats. The lions, the tigers, the panthers, I'd always found those the most fascinating, but I was too young to handle the cats. They told me I couldn't help with them because of health and safety, blah, blah, blah. Although one birthday they allowed me into the enclosure to feed the Siberian Tiger, her name was Leia, beautiful she was and as soppy as ninepence too."

"I'll just take that from you." The handler interrupted as he scooped the Tarantula up with ease from Ariadne's hands; she exhaled loudly and smiled at Eames.

"See, wasn't that bad was it?" Eames smirked.

"I won't be doing it again in a hurry, I assure you."

"Well you've only got two more bits of information left to extract from me, I wonder what else I could make you do."

"Just two more left to share?"

"I promised myself you'd only get five, so I'm sticking to it."

"They better be good then."

"Are you trying to say what I've told you so far isn't good enough for you?"

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Because I could tell you two things that you will find completely and utterly boring, like how I like my eggs and who my celebrity crush is. Do you really want that Ariadne?" Eames teased, although he led her to believe that he was being serious.

"No, no I don't want that!"

"You'd think you'd have learnt by now that this stuff isn't easy for me. Back in London, the smallest piece of information could be used against me, and even now when I'm being looked for across the globe, that information could be used for money."

"I'm sorry. Its just I want to know more about you, I get passionate about things i'm interested in, it's in my nature, I guess. It was the same with Cobb; I needed to know more to understand him. I really do apologise, I know this isn't easy for you, sometimes I forget that. Forgive me?"

Eames scrutinized her carefully, she did look sorry, but he still thought he'd teach her a lesson.

"Well, I like my eggs hardboiled with soldiers and what I would give to spend the evening with Angelina Jolie." Eames smirked as he saw the sincerity drop from her face.

"You're not serious?"

"Oh I am."

"So, no more information?"

"No more, that's your lot."

"Thanks a lot, Eames!"

Ariadne stormed off with a face like thunder. Eames had gone too far this time he realised and it was going to take something very interesting to win her friendship back.

He scoured the zoo for her but came to the conclusion she'd probably gone home instead. He tried calling a few times but it just went to answer phone, she wasn't going to forgive him easily. After what felt like the hundredth time he decided to leave an apology, the answer message bleeped and he started talking,

"Ariadne, I know you don't want to talk me at the moment, but I'm calling to say sorry. My teasing went a little too far today, and those two things are not the important facts I want to tell you, far from it. I realise I am a complete and utter arse but I hope you'll forgive me. I never expected to become friends with you and I'm so glad that we did, if I lose you now I'd go back to my old ways, just globe trotting with no purpose but to turn a pretty penny. I apologise to you from the deepest recesses of my Forger's heart, and the next trivial thing I tell you will be worth talking to me again, I promise. You know you can't resist that. Call me back, please?"

Ariadne returned later that evening from dinner with Arthur, she hadn't seen him for a while and he'd appeared at the zoo by the dolphin pool as she was storming away from Eames. She was happy to see the Point Man; she'd missed him and his adult conversation. He'd taken her to an Italian restaurant where she'd had spaghetti bolognaise and he'd had lasagne. Ariadne had griped about her argument with Eames and Arthur leant a sympathetic ear.

"He drives me crazy sometimes, you know?"

"I definitely know the feeling." Arthur smiled reservedly.

"All he's letting me know is five things about him, and I stupidly let myself become enticed by that. And then we ended up arguing, and he gave me two really stupid facts, and now this whole thing is over, and I'm just...so angry with him."

"Eames is letting you know things about him?" his eyebrows raised in surprise. "Personal stuff? Like where he grew up, if he has parents, that kind of stuff."

"Yeah." Ariadne pushed some unfinished spaghetti round her plate.

"Does he have parents?" he asked coyly.

She looked up at him and smiled, "I promised not to tell anyone."

Arthur knew how to make her feel better.

"But he's misplaced your trust."

"I still promised him, Arthur. Besides, you might use it against him or something."

"You're learning fast." Arthur smiled back, he took her hand and squeezed it, "Look, I'm sure he's sorry, it was probably a heat of the moment thing. He cares about you Ariadne, if he's willing to share his personal life with you, you obviously mean a lot to him. Don't worry about it, he'll apologise soon enough, it's a British thing, they apologise for anything."

"Thanks." Ariadne squeezed his hand back.

After closing the door to her apartment Ariadne put her coat in the closet and put her keys in the dish, she then made her way over to the coffee table and pressed play on the answer machine.

"Ariadne, I know you don't want to talk me at the moment…"

Arthur was right, Eames had called to apologise. She didn't want to call back just yet she decided to let him stew for another 24 hours, after all, he deserved it. But Ariadne knew that she would call him back tomorrow; he'd promised it'd tell her something good so she was holding him to it, he knew she wouldn't resist.

Reviews = love

I hope you liked the little insert of Arthur.

As always, suggestions are welcome :)

P.S. A few people have said about Eames favourite colour, i'm not going to use it in the story, but it is red, because of his favourite football team.