notfaking_it | [Eames]

Entry tags:

eames

[Eames]

With the change of weather, Lily was glad to see her clothes return to normal, her pointe shoes most of all, but she hadn't been expecting anything more than that. It was nice to hear the sound of the surf again, especially at night, it was nice to not have to worry about the cold or dressing herself in some of the more complicated dresses, but that was all she'd been looking for. The gift had come as something of a surprise, despite having heard other people talk about receiving things over the past few days. Somehow, Lily still hadn't been looking for anything to arrive with her name on it, but she'd found a box sitting on her bed after returning home from the studio.

There was an iPod Touch in the box, completely loaded with music that ranged from Tchaikovsky to more contemporary sounds, all of which Lily loved. The best part was the dock, though, which meant she wouldn't have to worry about wearing earbuds while she danced.

She had no idea how long the battery life might last, but the dock had come with a charger, too, so she wasn't particularly worried about that. It was difficult to worry about anything when she had the dock set up on her little front porch, the music just loud enough for her to hear from her position on the beach, a towel spread out on the sand under her. The sun was bright and warm, the music was a nice addition to the morning and although Lily knew her gift would be of more use to her than just this, this was perfect for now.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's a strange thing, one he couldn't even explain if asked, but Eames is at once grateful and disappointed that the island has changed back to normal (or whatever 'normal' is around here, anyway). The change in scenery had been refreshing after so much of the same, but there's only so long a contemporary person should have to live in Victorian times, and that part of it had grown occasionally tiring. He supposes it wouldn't make a difference either way, anyway, when they're here now whether anyone likes it or not, and if there's one thing he's ever been good at, it's working with what's been dealt to him.

If nothing else, it's at least made the beach seem like a novelty again. Wandering along the sand, the sound of someone playing music — something of a rarity around here — is what catches his attention first, sends him walking in its direction. He doesn't expect to see someone familiar when he gets to where he thinks the source of it is, but he smiles at the sight of Lily, not even trying to pretend that he isn't admiring the way she looks. "Enjoying the sun, love?"

"Enjoying the sun, enjoying the music," Lily agrees as she pushes her sunglasses up onto her head to get a better look at Eames. Enjoying the view as well, but she doesn't say that, even if she's sure it's apparent in the way she smiles at him as he approaches. There are some people on the island she's found herself growing fairly fond of, even in unconventional ways, and he's certainly one of them. She knows, if he were to disappear, that she wouldn't be happy about it.

Sitting up, she nods to the place beside her on the towel if he wants to sit down. "I found the box sitting in my hut this morning. It's filled with music already, which is good since I don't exactly have access to my iTunes from here," she explains with a grin. "And I'm probably killing the battery, but I couldn't resist."

"I'm sure there's got to be some way to charge it, isn't there?" Eames asks, though there's no real question in it, gaze turning briefly in the direction that the music is coming from before he looks at Lily again, a much more appealing sight than the stretch of beach leading up to a hut. Though it would be just like this island to give something like this and have there be a catch, he's pretty sure he's seen other people around with them, and it just seems improbable that no one would have a way of recharging their batteries by now. "That's a nice gift, anyway."

"The batteries are rechargeable," she admits, looking back at it for a moment. "I think that might be most useless gift ever if it came with one set of batteries and no way to work it again after they died, but I guess I wouldn't be too surprised if that happened." She wouldn't have been impressed, but she wouldn't have been surprised either.

"So," she says, leaning back on her elbows again. "Just going for a walk? Enjoying the beach and the sun and the distinct lack of snow?" At the time, it had been fun. She'd enjoyed the change, but after a few weeks the dresses has gotten tiring, all the buttons and clasps that had needed doing up and undoing afterward. It's much more preferable to be able to lie on the beach in a pair of shorts and a bathing suit top, she thinks.

"Absolutely," Eames confirms with a nod, easy and genuine. Even with the people he's become something like close to, it's rare that he's ever not pretending to some extent, but with Lily, he finds that it happens fairly frequently. He'd be worried about it if he thought he had a reason to, but he doesn't; if anything, he thinks that's got to be the case for a reason. Mouth pulling into a smirk, he adds, "Enjoying the other people enjoying it, too." That's one thing that really has to be said for the island's usual state. He wasn't entirely opposed to all that Victorian business, but there's no reason why anyone should have had to stay all buttoned up behind layers and winter coats.

"I am enjoying the return of the shirtless men," Lily agrees with a laugh. Shirtless men, beautiful women in bathing suits, it's hard not to enjoy all the visual treats the island has to offer sometimes. It's far more difficult to try and ignore it.

"The dresses were driving me crazy by the end," she admits, still grinning. "At first I was amazed by how beautiful they were, but after a few weeks of all those buttons and hooks, I remembered just how beautiful all my dresses at home were, too. And they were easy to get into."

"Easier to get out of, too, I bet," Eames says, as casual as anything like that can be said. Though the clothes themselves held a certain kind of appeal, a sort of stately beauty, these provide a lot more to look at and they're convenient besides. "It was nice for a change, I think, but I'm glad this is what's normal and not that. Too much more of it, and I'm not sure it would have been all that bearable."

It beat last winter, at least, all that snow only making him think of his level in Fischer's dream, leaving him more confused than he already has to be on a regular basis. This much, at least, is more manageable.

"Much easier to get out of," Lily says, another laugh escaping as she looks over at Eames. It's nice, familiar, knowing there's someone on the island like him, someone whose distaste for euphemism seems to be on par with her own. It's fun, sometimes, to beat around the bush, but they've long since acknowledged their mutual attraction.

"The people were strange, too, weren't they?" she asks, thinking back to the almost ghost-like forms that were floating through the city. "Unsettling sometimes."

"Very," Eames adds, expression growing more serious at the thought of it. He's still not sure if it was helpful or not, and with them long gone now, he doubts he'll ever be able to really make that distinction. On one hand, in an atmosphere already dreamlike, having something like projections walking around didn't do him any favors, but on the other, they were decidedly that, more spectral than the people who usually inhabit dreams. Either way, unsettling is still a good word for it. "I don't think anything like that's ever happened here before."

"No?" Lily asked, turning onto her stomach, her chin propped in her hands. "I wasn't here last winter, so this was the first one I've experienced." For the most part, life on the island was easy for Lily. She hadn't experienced the dark side of it, the loss, the things from home, and she was perfectly happy with that.

Those people, though, they had bothered her.

"I'm not easily creeped out, but every so often you'd turn a corner and they'd just be there, existing in this other world," she said, considering. "They weren't part of this one."

"No," Eames says with a slight shake of his head, though it's an agreement. "It's like they were here but they weren't, at the same time." In some cases, it proved amusing — he can say now that he successfully stole one of the crown jewels, all because spectral guards don't really do much good — but the very idea of it is eerie, like they were all living in a ghost town. "Last winter was a lot less drastic a change. Just a lot of snow, really. Nothing like this one was."

"I think I'd prefer for it to just stay warm," Lily said, looking up at the sky for a moment. The sun was warm, the beach was beautiful, she couldn't ask for anything more. "I lived in New York during the winter, but I guess you just can't really expect a girl who's grown up in California to like the snow."

New York had been different, though, too. A far cry from whatever had happened to the island. There was something beautiful about it, about the way the snow looked from the window of her apartment.

"No, I guess you couldn't," Eames says, somewhere between thoughtful and amused. "Honestly, I can't say I blame you. I'm not a huge fan myself, and I did grow up with snow." It's mostly just this past year and some months that have done that, of course, the weather proving to be too reminiscent of the dream he's not entirely sure he's woken up from, but the reasoning isn't the point. He gets it, and he would be more than content for the island to just stay like this all year round, and not just because he prefers the way people dress.

"I'd have moved just about anywhere for a good company," Lily admitted. "But I certainly would have given preference to somewhere warm." That wasn't always possible, though, and that was why she'd moved to New York in the end.

"Did you travel a lot?" she asked. "Before you ended up here?" She'd always wanted to travel, but her career had prevented that in a way. Knowing she would be able to retire young if she wanted had helped, but she'd still never done as much traveling as she wanted.

"Oh, all the time," Eames answers with a nod, the barest hint of something like genuine fondness in his voice. If there's one thing he misses in this place, possibly even more than his profession itself, it's the amount of traveling he got to do for it. Living on the island is the longest he's lived in one place for about as far back as he can remember, at least since he was old enough to go off on his own, and to say that it makes him restless would be putting it mildly. That was, at least, one good thing about the change from the winter. The change of scenery was much appreciated. "I've never been very good at staying in one place for long."

"The only thing I ever stayed for was a good dance company," she admitted, smiling over at Eames in understanding. As much as she loved living in California, Lily was sure she would have left long before if she hadn't been able to dance with such an amazing company for so long.

"Where have you been?" she asked. "What was your favourite place?" It was a more personal question than she usually asked him, but not quite too personal, she thought.

"Oh, I've been all over," Eames answers with an easy shrug, more casual than a statement like that probably calls for. "I was living in Kenya for a while not long before I showed up here, and brief stints in Paris and Sydney after that. Most big cities, I've at least visited." Those are the only places he'd have really needed to, the ones where work required it. Still, that said, he grows a little more thoughtful a moment later. "I'm not sure I'd have a favorite, though. I'd have to think on it a while."

"Well, you think on that, then, and we'll find something else to do in the meantime," Lily said, giving him a grin over the side of her shoulder. The music still floated down from her hut toward them, the sound both familiar and completely out of place at the same time and she glanced up toward it.

"Do you dance?" she asked. There was something about a man who would dance that Lily found she liked more than most things. Even if he wasn't necessarily good at it, someone who was willing to try was especially appealing.

Eames raises an eyebrow, surprised by the question, though he probably shouldn't be. Between the music playing now and knowing that she dances, it seems in retrospect like it was really just a matter of time before the subject came up. That doesn't make him any less amused by it now. "I suppose that depends on what kind you mean," he answers, not quite a laugh. "I'd look terrible in a pair of tights, but I can manage some other things."

"Well, there go all my devious plans to get you into my Swan Lake costume," she teased, then sat up on her towel. The costume that really wasn't much of a costume anymore. She'd borrowed pieces from it here and there, mostly to use at the strip club the one night she'd been on stage. All it did now was hang in her hut, the feathers looking distinctly limp.

"Help a girl up," she said, holding her hand out to Eames, grinning. "And let's see if we can't find you a pair of tights that work."

"Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you," Eames teases, reaching down to take her hand and help pull her to her feet. Somehow, he doubts that there will be any actual tights involved, but that won't keep him from playing along now. If nothing else, though he isn't in the habit of being too presumptuous, he has a feeling they wouldn't even get as far as putting them on in light of clothes coming off. "What's the plan, then?"

"I hadn't gotten as far as that," Lily admits, smiling as she gets to her feet and then leads the way up toward her hut. The music is louder here, a song she's never heard before, but there are a few of those on the iPod. Music, she thinks, that was released after she came here.

"Though I do think you'd look fetching in the feathered head piece," she adds, gesturing through the door to where it hangs on her wall.

"Oh, I'm sure I would," Eames says, biting back a wider smile as he follows her up to the hut. In the right form, he could have looked decent in any of it, he knows, but that isn't a subject worth entertaining now, the explanation too serious for the task at hand. "So good that you probably wouldn't want to put me in it without an audience present."

That gets a laugh from Lily as she turns back to face Eames, her shoulders lifting in a shrug. "You're probably right," she allows, hooking her hair behind her ears. "So I guess we'll just have to leave playing dress up for another time."

For now, she still wants to see if he can dance, and she holds her hand out toward him. "Come on, impress me," she says.

"Oh, impress you, eh?" Eames asks with a broad smirk, taking her outstretched hand and stepping in close, the other at her waist. "Can ballerinas do ballroom as well?" Inherently, he's never been the most grateful, but it's a skill that's come in useful on occasion, and he hopes it does so now, too. He wouldn't want to disappoint, at any rate.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject