[Eames]

[notfaking_it]

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.

Comments

[notfaking_it]

"A lot of the time, it does," Lily agrees, slipping easily into the dance with him, rising up onto her toes to make it more familiar. She's used to dancing like this in heels, but she'd been barefoot on the beach and she isn't going to bother to find shoes just to dance in.

"They could be fun, though," she admits. "If you knew how to avoid the sponsors."

[dreambigger]

"Which I'm guessing you did," Eames says, only half a question, head tipping to the side. Whether or not this will actually prove impressive, he doesn't know, but it does say a good deal that he can keep up, he thinks. "Tell me, is there a trick to it?"

He would probably have known as well, if he had to, but that's not something to be shared. All of this is in fun, and he sees no reason not to continue that.

[notfaking_it]

"Keep your eyes peeled for the stuffiest looking people in the place," she says, laughing. It's nice to dance, even just in the front room of her hut, the movements familiar enough to please her. "No, that wasn't always true. Some of them were genuinely great people, easy to get along with, funny and they really did love the ballet. But there's always an exception or two to any rule."

[dreambigger]

"Of course," Eames laughs, not sure which part of what she's said it's more in response to. It sounds like the corporate world he's dealt with, though, and that's not a surprise. There are always exceptions — hell, Fischer himself was one, in some ways, and Saito proved to be, too — but some types of people just have the reputations they do for a reason. "Well, at least it wasn't all of them. That would probably have been awful."

[notfaking_it]

"Unbearable," Lily agrees. "But I guess it would have been worth it in the end. It means we all get to keep dancing." And that's what most of the dancers love more than anything. Having to dress up and play the part once in awhile is a small sacrifice to make in order to keep doing the thing they love most in the world.

"And there was always a lot of free food and champagne," she adds, laughing. "So it wasn't all bad."

[dreambigger]

"Nothing with free food and champagne ever could be," Eames replies with a laugh of his own, mouth pulled into a smirk. Granted, it's not too difficult to make any food or champagne come free, but it's better when one doesn't have to work for it at all. "And everything's got its price, I suppose. People have gone to greater lengths to keep doing something they love."

[notfaking_it]

"True enough," she agrees, taking her hand off his arm for a moment to push her hair off her forehead, then sliding it back into place on his shoulder. "I wasn't a starving artist at least, worrying about how I was going to pay my rent or where my next meal would come from."

She's seen people who live like that, especially in New York. "I was too used to eating regularly to do something like that," she says with a laugh.

[dreambigger]

"Well, it's a good thing you didn't have to see what that was like, then," Eames laughs, head tipping back for a moment. "I don't think I would have been much good at it either." There are a lot of things he is good at, and he got by on little in the days after he first went out on his own, but the nice thing about being a thief is that when you need something, you take it. After that, of course, it was never a concern at all.

[notfaking_it]

"I like my food and drinks and relatively well furnished apartment too much for that," Lily tells him, grinning. Though that's different now. She's made the best of living in a hut, furnished it as well as she can and at least the food here is amazing. "But I think I still would have danced, even if I hadn't been making much money."

The truth is, she doesn't know how to do anything else.

[dreambigger]

"Of course," Eames says with a nod, like that's just perfectly logical. "When you find something you love, you do it whatever the cost." He understands the appeal of money, of course, is quite fond of it himself. Greed is a different story. He's used it in other people to his own advantage, but there's a different sort of drive in it for him, part of what makes it so difficult to be here, a world away from the life he chose for himself. He can stay sharp here, study other people the way he'd have done back home, but it isn't the same.

[notfaking_it]

"So what is it that you love to do?" Lily asks, her lips lifting briefly into a smile. He avoids telling her much of anything, which she doesn't mind, really. There are people who simply like keeping things to themselves and she's never pressed him, but she's curious about this much. About the thing he'd love to do if he had the chance.

It's a question she asks of most people eventually, though not everyone has an answer for her.

[dreambigger]

There are any number of answers Eames could come up with for that. He generally has a good few prepared for any given situation, and having lived under one cover story for a year and a half now, they're practically instinct. Something about the question, though, and the way she looks at him and how close she is, make him not want to bother with that. "Study people," he says, slow, thoughtful, "and explore their minds."

[notfaking_it]

"Like a therapist?" she teases, although she doesn't think that's what he means at all. If that was the answer, then Lily thinks that's what he would have said. And it's an interesting answer, too, deeper than simply talking to someone until they spill their guts. "How do you study people and explore their minds?" she asks.

[dreambigger]

"By going into their dreams," Eames answers, looking at her carefully as he speaks. It's always difficult to gauge what people's responses to this will be — hell, Emma pulled him into an empty bedroom when he heard, something he still doesn't understand but certainly wouldn't complain about — but he gets the sense she'll take it well. Around here, he's sure it's not the strangest thing, anyway. "Usually to get information."

[notfaking_it]

"Huh," Lily says softly at first, meeting his gaze, trying to establish whether or not he's lying to her. There's no reason for him to lie, though, and she doesn't see any dishonesty in his expression. She's established by now how different all their worlds are and, slowly, she smiles, thinking about what that means. If she's going to believe it -- which she does -- then she wants to know more.

"Going into their dreams," she repeats. "How did you do that?"

[dreambigger]

"A machine called a PASIV," Eames answers, his tone light, if still careful. "You hook people up to it, use it to enter their dreams. My job — my specialty, if you will — was called a forger. Often, I would take on the appearance of other people while in a dream, to win someone over or get information from them. It's why it was so important to study them. Part of it, anyway."

[notfaking_it]

"How would you hook them up to it?" she asks, fascinated by this. It's on the same level as Faye, the things she's been able to do in another time and place. If such technology exists in Lily's world, she's never heard of it and likely never would have without coming here. "Do they have to be willing participants?"

But if they were, there was no reason for him to have to get information. There's more to it than that, she thinks, and she's willing to listen to all that Eames will tell her about it.

[dreambigger]

"Oh no," Eames says, smile turning a little conspiratorial. "Usually you find a way to slip them a sedative, then hook them up to something like an IV — that's the machine. Everyone going under connects to it. I have one with me, in fact, though I haven't been able to get it to work here, I don't know why." Sometimes he suspects that might be because he's dreaming now, but even that wouldn't necessarily explain it. They go deeper in dreams all the time. This is something else entirely.

[notfaking_it]

"And the purpose is just to get information?" Lily asks, finding herself more and more interested in this. She's a little surprised to hear it doesn't work on the island, as it sounds more like a machine than magic. Faye's ship still works and she's aware of other technologies that are still functional.

"Or is it more than that?" she asks.

[dreambigger]

"Well, the whole concept of sharing dreams was originally developed by the military," Eames explains, pleased by her apparent interest. He wasn't kidding when he said it was what he loved; talking about it now is the closest he comes to getting to do any of it. "So they could practice, you know, killing each other without ever getting hurt. But it was adopted... primarily as a form of corporate espionage, I'd say, which is what I did. We called it extraction. The last job I did, though, was the opposite, trying to plant an idea. Inception."

[notfaking_it]

"Corporate espionage," Lily repeats with a grin and it's only now that she's realized she isn't quite dancing anymore. Her hand is still on his shoulder, her chin tilted up to meet his gaze, but she's only just barely moving now, more interested in what Eames is saying.

"So you were trying to plant an idea in someone's head to... make them do something that would benefit you?" she asks. "Or a client or whoever."

[dreambigger]

"A client," Eames says, nodding, "but yes. It was the son of a competitor of his in business whose father had just died. We were to give him the idea to break up his father's empire." Put like that, it seems a little sleazy, though no more so than any of their other jobs. Things had changed considerably, though, once they'd been inside Fischer's head. In the end, he thinks it was good for the kid, too. It's the best sort of ending — where everyone wins, even the one who's been fucked over.

[notfaking_it]

Lily isn't against manipulating a situation when it's necessary and sometimes it's definitely necessary. If there's a market for it, she knows someone is going to do it and she finds it fascinating more than anything that Eames has been able to do things like that. Enter a person's dreams and change the way they did something.

"Wow," she says finally, shaking her head in amazement. "What was it like?"

[dreambigger]

"In this case? Complicated," Eames says with a huff of a laugh, which is an understatement. It was more complicated than he's even quite sure how to explain to someone who wasn't there, especially considering that mess with Cobb and the projection of his dead wife, but there are still a few details he can touch on, encouraged by her interest. "It's a much more difficult job to give someone an idea in the first place, because it has to seem self-generated. This... It was like everything that could go wrong did. It was still incredible."

[notfaking_it]

She laughs softly, not because she has any real idea what it might have been like, but she understands in a way. Sometimes everything can go wrong and the experience itself can still be amazing. But to be in someone's mind, in their dreams... that's more than Lily's able to really imagine. "If you ever find a way to make it work here, you know you'll have to take me, right?" she asks, poking Eames gently in the chest.

She doesn't know if that's even possible, if it's something a person needs to train for, but she has to ask anyway.