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[buildingreality]

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[buildingreality]

[delude]

[ some men hunt in their spare time, eames lifts things, thieves them right from under their owner's noses with a crooked smile and a less than charming pet name. it isn't a terribly difficult thing, stealing some of ariadne's possessions, but it's addictive in a playground bully sort of way. he's a professional, used to taking from those who hold in abundance and delivering to those who pay him — handsomely in most cases, because eames' technique is flawless (save for his spelling errors, but he isn't forging, now is he?) and it's nearly impossible to trace the theft back to him or his employer.

this time, however, it's sport and nothing else.

earlier in the week, he pocketed one of her pens while she was retrieving her order at a cafe counter. it's one of those special ones, the expensive type that architects tend to favor and when he looks at it later, he thinks it's the start to a nice collection. he isn't hoarding, though, make no mistake. ariadne's clever and while eames has taken from her in entirely too public places, it's a delicate game. her scarf is the fifth item on a small list of trinkets and novelties (a pocket-sized notebook being among one of his more ballsy ventures in the game).

still, he isn't surprised to find the note near the coffee maker in the warehouse, penned in her neat but small handwriting. not surprised, no, but certainly pleased. that he plucks it from where it's tacked on the wall, uses it as a coaster, and then leaves it for her to find later on her desk, coffee rings and all, is more than just a testament of his amusement.

why, it's almost a challenge. ]

[buildingreality]

[she noticed it somewhere around the third item that went missing right from under her nose. It was inexplicable, and by no means a simple matter of her misplacing the object in question. The pen was her favourite, almost always tucked in her back pocket or else behind her ear; into a bun, in the rare case that she was so focused that her hair needed to be drawn back out of her face. (it was a bit of a talent, being able to twist one's hair up, and pin it back with nothing but a stick, and it's one that she perfected back in grade school)

[The notebook was what tipped her off, though. There was no way she'd let that one go, especially not when the loss - the theft, she thinks of it, though in a strange, oddly affectionate way (as if she's enjoying it as much as he is) - happened right there, where few others could have accessed it.

[She knows better: she knows that Arthur would likely leave it be, perhaps preferring the surprise of whatever she has planned to finding out in advance; Yusuf might leaf through it briefly, but ultimately let it alone; Cobb would steer clear entirely, too lost in his own head. In the end, it's only Eames she can imagine doing it, and that's when she starts paying more attention to what he takes and when. He's very good at it, she'll admit that much; it's not hard to see why he does this sort of thing for a living, when his sticky fingers (for lack of a better, more elegant term; it really needs one, though) have a certain je ne sais quoi.

[To be quite frank, Ariadne admires the boldness of the gestures. Especially when it comes to finding that note, coffee-stained in indelicate rings and almost abused. It definitely reads as a challenge, as a refusal to give it up, and she's never backed down from a challenge yet; she isn't sure just yet how she'll get back at him, but she knows it'll come to her in due time, just as Cobb's maze came to her when push came to shove.

[It's another day or so before she dares put into action the plan that came to her, of all places, in the shower. It's the birthplace of all good ideas, and though most are forgotten by the time pen hits paper, this one stuck. She manages to find herself casually near his things, looking little more than curious. However, when next he looks, his things will be less one paisley pocketsquare.

[After all, one thief begets another, and she's hardly above petty theft.]