it's funny how a theme recalls a favorite dream

[fixedroll.livejournal.com]

Who: Arthur and Eames
What: serious business, not-so-serious business, general shenanigans
Where: dream bros HQ (an apartment in Flyside)
When: now! right now!!!
Notes: brrrmmmmmm
Warnings: none at this time

So the living room is, as usual, kind of a mess, in the way any workplace inevitably becomes a mess when its occupants are forced to deal with a lack of proper storage and more or less fundamentally incompatible working techniques. Either Arthur or Eames is a fan of making piles, and it's not Arthur. Just saying. All this will finally come to an end, he hopes, once this shelf is in place. This shelf, which he is currently assembling. This tall-ass, heavy shelf, which he should probably not be putting together alone, but he's the only one here right now and by god it must be done.

Sleeves rolled up, on his knees in a pair of jeans, bare-footed and looking very serious, our friend pauses with the screwdriver in his hand and leans across his project in a vaguely uncomfortable, twisting way, to double-check the instructions. It's not quite IKEA-easy, this thing, but Arthur is by no means helpless when faced with the usage of tools, so he's managing. It would help if they'd numbered the pieces, though. At all.

The gramophone-looking vinyl player, which Arthur bought because it was both cheap and amazing, is playing classic wartime big band at a reasonable volume (currently this). There's a half-empty cup of coffee on one of the end tables, now cold. Arthur chews on the lining of his cheek and reads. And reads. And reaches awkwardly to turn the page.

Comments

[dailymask.livejournal.com]

Eames follows his good buddy's movements with his eyes and a raised eyebrow. He is shocked (shocked, sir) that Arthur would abandon anything partially finished. (Well, no, but he does notice, that among other things, shall we say.) After a beat, he shrugs and gets up to follow along after, depositing the appropriate bag on the counter.

"Or caught," he agrees. It is frustrating, and save the occasional underpaid and unimaginative job from the Broad Arrow, he hasn't found much of a solution himself. His response is just the natural progression of that thought, but he pauses after it, one hip braced on the counter, and– well, he hadn't been thinking of bringing up anything in particular, but since the opportunity exists...

He starts unloading the fruit from the bag – the real food being, of course, at the very bottom – and asks, casual as anything, "Had you considered when you might tell me how you actually ended up on the Militia's favourite persons list, by the way?"

He's just curious.

[fixedroll.livejournal.com]

"I had," he says, and though it may seem at first that he's not going to elaborate, once he's tossed that small towel over the edge of the sink, he too leans on the edge of a counter, arms folded across his chest, in the traditional About To Discuss A Thing In The Kitchen pose. We've all seen it many times before, surely.

"It was a miscalculation." Obviously, but Arthur doesn't seem able to let this one go. "You know how it usually works in the dream, how it sort of...shows you what you need to do. Sometimes it's more subtle, but if you know what you're looking for, it's hard to miss." He shifts his weight, gazing at no point in particular along the floor. "Well, I took the wrong cue."

He so loves being a fuck-up.

[dailymask.livejournal.com]

While Arthur settles himself, Eames is happy enough to keep unloading this here bag, pausing with a package of pitas in hand when the actual explanation begins. He understands his friend's thinking, certainly, but.

"That's an awfully big miscalculation." Someday Eames will learn not to casually rub these things in Arthur's face, but today is not that day. "I assume it was something they didn't appreciate?"

[fixedroll.livejournal.com]

Actually, they loved it. That's why they threw me in a hole. For gratitude. PS, you're a shithead.

He doesn't say this, of course, but the glance that comes next may communicate something along these lines.

"Not much, no. I'd advise against making any attempt to form any sort of mutually beneficial relationship with the Militia. It seems they don't take kindly to it." To say the least. "And they're not the reach-around type, either." Well gosh, Arthur.