→ and it's harder than you think telling dreams from one another,

[plagiary]

Who: Mr. Eames & River Tam, soon to be best of friends.
What: She's caught his interest, it's only proper that he hunts her down and picks her brain, right? AKA Eames is on a quest to be River's flamboyant and amazing uncle figure - watch out.
When: Day 95.
Warnings: I predict only good things for the pair of them.

He doesn't exactly know where to start. It's not as if he can look her up on Kore's very own yellow pages. But the more he leaves it the more he can't stop thinking about what occurred. His simple question had brought about a lynch mob - he'd half been expecting pitchforks and slogans painted haphazardly over boards. Whoever the brusque bloke was that came to her rescue - well Eames doesn't exactly want to run into him judging by the look on his face - but he's glad somebody did. Although he gets the impression that River, though young and fragile looking, is more than capable of looking after herself. That doesn't mean she has to.

So he walks, and he keeps walking, and he thinks if he were a girl with a particular way of behaving where would he be?

Comments

[enchangement]

Eames' interest doesn't get to River directly, exactly - more the impression of a curiosity about herself. How do you behave today? A good question, really, on a day when lack hits her like a punch to the gut. Most of that lack is Ned's, if she is to be honest, but when there is lack it is often easier and more comfortable to let the lines between self and others, dear hearts (Ned, Erik, Charles and further extensions to Laura, her friend Julian, Daneel, out out out like threads of gossamer frozen into glass) until the girl known as River Tam feels a bit more solid and less like a chamber of echoes.

Charles' first-thing-in-the-morning hugs helps. Ritual and pattern that applies to River Tam. I think therefore I am curious about what girls like me do is and is not more or less what River is thinking when it occurs to her that someone is walking, she recognizes this someone, this someone recognizes her, and now, suddenly, fine. River is waving and smiling at Eames.

"Good morning, Nemo the Second!"

[plagiary]

"It's actually Freddie, darling."

At least he remembers that, recalls the name he gave her on the first day they met. He also now knows about the privacy of the network, how he'd used Richard first - an old acquaintance of Eames' that often found himself in places he didn't remember. Of course, that had been due to alcohol and not kidnapping so. But he smiles as he steps closer to her, his eyes dancing with interest.

He can't not be curious. It's a natural state.

"Just because my parents couldn't decide on names doesn't mean you can fix me with the fictional fish."

Deliberately obtuse it is then.

[enchangement]

River tilts her head slightly before breaking into an even wider smile. "Do people believe it, the fool's mask? It's a good mask." Just in case he thinks it's supposed to be a slight of some sort. "Buuuuuut." A shrug. "A mask is a mask and the true light cracks through no matter how stubborn, sometimes in the very absence of it's remark. People must believe it, or you'd have found a new mask by now.

But whose fish?" Frowning in confusion. It takes a moment to get what in the world he's even on about before River goes "Ooooh," with an air of someone who has just had a pop-culture joke explained to them. "That's not what it means." Shaking her head. "There's one who jokes, tricks and riddles and blatant falsehoods. He won't give a name of meaning either."

[plagiary]

"Some people deal in masks, sweetheart." His tone remains light, frivolous, his expression easy. But there's a specific kind of look in his eyes, a sharp focus that means he's very much paying attention. "Life is very much a theater and we're all playing a part and all wearing masks whether we like it or not."

He's not saying yes or no anyway. Whatever name is written on his birth certificate is no longer in use. Hasn't been for decades. Even Eames is a falsehood and he knows that.

So he faux pouts and looks at her, "You don't have a high opinion of me, do you? I'm wounded."

[enchangement]

"Hard to keep the lies straight when the truth screams and hides in the same breath." She puffs out her cheeks in minor irritation. "Would be different, back home. An agreed upon truth, necessary lies." Not that his lies are unnecessary, exactly, but there are moment when River rather misses the way that Mal tended to make everything so real, so firmly centered in reality just by being there.

Which makes her think of his Mal, naturally. "I don't have a low opinion either. Perhaps, I should take offense; I remind you of a ghost."

A slight shrug and she loops her arm through one of Eames. "A very pretty one, though."

[plagiary]

He stiffens very slightly but his hand covers her arm - an old fashioned mannerly gesture that he picked up sometime reinventing himself.

"You never about your woods, do you?"

Because for all he knows she's plucking secrets from his head, that he's asleep somewhere and maybe the whole damn thing - Inception, Cobb, Saito - maybe that was all made up to pull him from the inside out.

[enchangement]

River pats his hand. "Why should anyone in the unnecessary company? Besides, you do it enough for any all and sundry."

She tilts her head back, squinting into the sunlight. "Doubtful we are dreaming and if we are, it is collective and compounded. Seems more likely an experiment with time, space, and the nature of the unnatural."

[plagiary]

There's a gun concealed underneath his jacket but he doesn't really feel the need to go for it. The situation itself is a threat but not River.

"Sometimes lying is necessary. Even in an experiment, if that's what this is."

Limbo is still an option, but he has no way of telling.

[enchangement]

"And sometimes it's easier than breathing but sometimes it isn't, and sometimes being is exhausting enough, for me."

Limbo is still an option, but she doesn't understand enough of limbo to know how to possibly apply it to everyone here, even people like Daneel or Charles who should be able to break themselves of such things by virtue of what they are.

"What will you do, if we are dreaming? If we are not?"

[plagiary]

"I don't know."

It's hard enough to admit that. Limbo is like a fairytale in his circles. He thinks of Mal and of Cobb and Arthur and Yusuf, of Ariadne, of Saito. Why is he the one here? Did he die within the dream?

"If it is, then someone is getting punched in the face. If it isn't then I suppose I'll have to get absolutely shitfaced drunk and decide what to do."

wow that was some html fail up there on my part

[enchangement]

"You find someone to punch, there might be a line." Just putting that out there, Eames.

At the comment about getting drunk River makes a face. "Still don't see the appeal."

it happens to all of us

[plagiary]

"Well, love, you're probably a little too young."

She's not, but this is another mask. He's like somebody's slightly weird uncle.

[enchangement]

"Am I now." Yeah, she's not entirely buying that.

[plagiary]

"Leave alcohol to the adults."

He could do with a stiff drink.

[enchangement]

"How does one define adult, then?"

She could do with watching him have a stiff drink, and stealing a gulp off the top to see if his taste is as horrible as Charles'.

[plagiary]

He flashes her a little grin, part wicked, part exhausted.

"When I figure that out, you'll be the first to know."

[enchangement]

"Pfft. Should have known you'd be no help at all." Shaking her head but now? She's assuming they're heading towards the bar.

[plagiary]

"River love, if you think I could be helpful you're not really that psychic."

He doesn't even know where the bar is yet.

[enchangement]

"A place and season for all things; even your helpfulness." Sticking her tongue out.

Well, he's about to discover it isn't he? Because that's where River is steering them.

[plagiary]

He snorts at that, lets her lead him where she wants.

"Well, what season are we in now?"

[enchangement]

"The season of drinking. The season of spring. The season of change." She shrugs, just a little.

[plagiary]

"Well, as long as alcohol is involved."

And lo! The bar looms out of existence when they turn a corner and he grins a little. "I think we're going to be good friends, you and I."