to become a creature free of conscience ] [ 24.10diastereomerOctober 26 2011, 04:30:42 UTC
[ From where Yusuf is sitting on the couch (perched, more like, because sitting would imply a level of comfort he can't quite bring himself to allow) he can hear the soft scratch-whine-scratch of the corgi puppy most likely destroying the property in question; his persistence to get out of the room he's been shuttered away in is admirable, if not inadvisable. Arthur should really look into getting his nails trimmed. If they're going to try this whole dream-domesticity thing on for size-- the dog, the flat, the rows-- he might as well go the whole nine, right? Though the implication inherent there is, of course, that either would acknowledge that particular line of thought applies to the dog, to the flat, to the rows
( ... )
to become a creature free of conscience ] [ 24.10specificsOctober 26 2011, 04:55:55 UTC
[ Arthur is a late sleeper and often it takes him an hour (if he has the hour) to get clear with consciousness again, the very idea of which is just this side of hilarious considering they're all dreaming. But this is one of those mornings when he's been awake a lot longer than he ought to have - having trouble sleeping lately, finding himself just staring at the ceiling and sometimes shifting on the couch to accommodate Pancake's curled form under his knees or on his chest.
Today he was out and about - the library mostly - and when he comes back it's barely noon, that giving him a broad set of hours before he's to head off to the casino for a late shift. Pressing the door closed absently with his heel, he walks into the living room only to catch the peculiar sight of Yusuf perching of all things. Granted, everyone in this flat has been acting strange except for Arthur himself and the dog. He thinks if he could fan our the weird vibes like cards on a table he'd come up with a bunch of faces he didn't recognize
( ... )
to become a creature free of conscience ] [ 24.10diastereomerOctober 26 2011, 05:30:33 UTC
[ When the door opens, Yusuf all but looks at it like it might save him; as if a little fresh air would blow the stagnant thoughts from his mind like so much dust from a shelf. Why he would think that when these thoughts, this itch, has only manifested in a way that could be described as exponential, if Yusuf desired to plot just how out of control this situation is truly becoming, is beyond him. His attention diverts to his hands before he can take in more than Arthur's usual state of dress
( ... )
to become a creature free of conscience ] [ 24.10specificsOctober 26 2011, 05:48:50 UTC
[ Belonging in a space is not the same as matching it, a crucial truth that Arthur has cleaved to ever since first learning it. He finds it one of the more useful tools of their common trade - so if he wears suits it's not only because he likes them but because a well tailored example of expense suggests a handful of nuanced things about him to employers and team-members alike that he doesn't then have to try for otherwise - a put-togetherness, a reliability, a no-nonsenseness, among other traits. Similarly a suit can lose him easily on Wall Street or in the well groomed blocks of any given metropolis; he becomes not Arthur but simply someone. In this apartment however he is in almost two halves, one part Arthur the other part all the little pieces that go into making him an idea of Arthur, which if he's honest is easier sometimes. It's not something he has to try and understand
( ... )
The dream Arthur has is not a dream but a memory. He knows this almost as soon as he's conscious of his surroundings - the hotel room, the open window, the glass that cracks and splinters under the sole of a shoe that does not belong to him. A familiar totem rests in the hand he feels as his but is also not his, and when he steps toward the window he wants to say stop, to wake himself up, to leave this point in history because part of him still believes that is how a person can live if he really wants to - that he can shut certain doors and not others, that he can shelve memories and cover them with the opaqueness of other priorities. It is not that he ever once thought this could be left behind them, but the opposite, that he knew they would always carry it with them and that they carried it in different ways. Dom never told him in any detail about this night and Arthur never asked him to, only tried to take care of things for him in the aftermath as best as he could. Then there had been the papers Mal had left behind in her madness
( ... )
When Mal jumps it's not that he doesn't expect her to that sends him crashing. It's that he knows she will and Dom, Dom whose eyes Arthur resides behind, doesn't.
Jesus Christ --
. . .Arthur has woken up screaming before a few times, a few times which is a few too many in his opinion now, but this time he wakes up choking on a sob and gasping like he's been held underwater for too long. He grips the arm of the couch reflexively, fingers white as his breaths refuse to come fast enough and he's blinking as close to violently as it's possible to do. Dom's grief is a palpable thing dry on his mouth, sharp in his throat, everything raw and it's strange to feel scraped from the inside-out but so heavy at the same time, gravity condensed into the brittleness of his bones. His eyes are open; he knows because he can focus in on the tiny abrasions on the ceiling, his mouth parted though he's drawing breath as much through his nose, clumsy like he's learning how to all over again, and he doesn't realize that he's having such trouble because
( ... )
The nights are long for Dom these days. In this place that shouldn't exist, where he has only spent a mere week. It was wrong, twisted, thrumming in a way that wasn't plesant to a man like him. It did not help that the drugs were not to be found here.
Dom didn't consider himself an addict, but Somnacin was a necessary in his profession. He had pushed past that, though, hadn't he. Using it too much, to stay in a place with Mal. No, not Mal--the Shade. always the Shade, his own weakness, his own guilt. He was better now, healing, just as one rips away the scab and dead skin to reveal the fresh wound, no longer infected.
But it had left him with the byproduct of his usage--the insomina, the lack of dreams in sleep. This week had been well enough, yes. But he knew that slowly things would start to crash around him, and he would need to close himself up and away from his Team, to suffer quietly until the withdrawl had passed.
That, though, bothered him more than anything. This place should be a dream; dreams would not need withdrawl as
( ... )
Though he doesn't remember it now, growing up Arthur never took much with lies but he learned the necessity of them first in the military and later with Mal's sickness and after her death when nearly everything was one, all-encompassing lie, comprised of smaller, brittle ones. Inside of this dream Arthur has run into the Shade more than once but never Mal as he knew her, Mal as he loved - Mal as Dom loved her, Mal as her children loved her. That it was hard to tell the difference between the memory and the temporary reality of Dom's hand at his nape and his voice coaxing him towards something less panicked was not surprising. But it was like hearing him through a filter, and they weren't clear, mixing in instead with Dom's voice in the dream where he had been wretched and inside his head, though Arthur had known how it would play out, for a split second he'd feared something even worse - that Dom would jump too. He'd forgotten for a split second how much of a memory, how much of a dream it was
( ... )
[ dated: 12/6 ]specificsDecember 7 2011, 07:50:19 UTC
[ Arthur has had plenty of time over the years to get used to moving through people, seeing them as means to ends to keep some measure of security for Dom and himself, to stay ahead of the game as much as he could - something that got easier but never became easy. He knows the reputation he has and takes some pride in it because it is an image he has cultivated specifically, not having Dom's natural charismatic in nor Eames' flexible personality (it not often being Eames but an adaptability depending on the people he had to deal with.) Instead Arthur is the reliability on the team - or he's supposed to be at least - and this suits him, Arthur who has always had an appreciation for plans and rules and a certain degree of respect for parameters in general. He's more rigid now, he knows too, but some of that unforgiving quality has kept him alive he's pretty sure and he tries not to be apologetic about it. The connection he kept between Dom and himself was close but not close - not how they were - and built more on their mutual past than
( ... )
It shows in everything she does, from the texture of her clothes (corduroy, wool, cotton, polyester, all at once and all in layers) to the field she's chosen (pens and pencils, gridlined paper, rulers) to her nervous tics (tapping her fingers, and lately, flicking a lighter open and shut, on and off). The fact that the dreamscape had been about the feel rather than just the visual had drawn her in just as much as the impossibility of it all. It is, perhaps, part of the reason she's been so reckless in the City: she isn't used to being alone, isn't used to not touching people even if she's not close to them, and yet she doesn't know her housemates very well at all. Instead, she's thrown herself out there, made friends with people they call projections, made out with one on a desk (and then more, on a couch in the back room of his shop and in her own bed). It's why her totem is about the feel, the tilt of the bishop, instead of a number on a die or the spinning of a top or even a misspelled
( ... )
[ Glancing up, Arthur straightens his shoulders fractionally, resting his hands on his knees as he tilts his head at her, taking in the sloping too-large quality of the sleep shirt with mild amusement (but no surprise), the lighter, and her expression, not really in that order. It seems a little too telling, too transparent that he should stand up suddenly so he stays where he is though one hand drifts to the nearest edge of the box, curling in a way that would be absentminded if it wasn't so consciously motionless. ]
Still awake? [ He supplies, well aware that's likely not what she was aiming for even though 'up late' is just as synonymous. ] Yeah. I run nocturnal. [ His voice is low in the register of someone quiet for the sake of consideration rather than hushing anyone else, but there's something just bordering on tired hedged into it as well, the inflection lazy and a little slower. ] I hope I didn't wake you up.
[ She's observant, not always about people and their body language -- not the way Eames is, not yet, though maybe with practice -- and she watches Arthur with tired eyes. Tired. They're all tired, aren't they?
Ariadne realizes, with a start that has her fumbling with the lighter instead of closing it again, that she hasn't been sleeping well since Eames disappeared (save for an afternoon stolen on a redhead's chest, but she isn't thinking about that). There's no snoring in the next room over, and she looks at the lighter for a moment before shutting it firmly this time, curling her hand around it. ] You didn't. I've just been restless. [ "Restless", she says, and then she folds her legs under herself and takes a seat. ]
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Today he was out and about - the library mostly - and when he comes back it's barely noon, that giving him a broad set of hours before he's to head off to the casino for a late shift. Pressing the door closed absently with his heel, he walks into the living room only to catch the peculiar sight of Yusuf perching of all things. Granted, everyone in this flat has been acting strange except for Arthur himself and the dog. He thinks if he could fan our the weird vibes like cards on a table he'd come up with a bunch of faces he didn't recognize ( ... )
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Jesus Christ --
. . .Arthur has woken up screaming before a few times, a few times which is a few too many in his opinion now, but this time he wakes up choking on a sob and gasping like he's been held underwater for too long. He grips the arm of the couch reflexively, fingers white as his breaths refuse to come fast enough and he's blinking as close to violently as it's possible to do. Dom's grief is a palpable thing dry on his mouth, sharp in his throat, everything raw and it's strange to feel scraped from the inside-out but so heavy at the same time, gravity condensed into the brittleness of his bones. His eyes are open; he knows because he can focus in on the tiny abrasions on the ceiling, his mouth parted though he's drawing breath as much through his nose, clumsy like he's learning how to all over again, and he doesn't realize that he's having such trouble because ( ... )
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Dom didn't consider himself an addict, but Somnacin was a necessary in his profession. He had pushed past that, though, hadn't he. Using it too much, to stay in a place with Mal. No, not Mal--the Shade. always the Shade, his own weakness, his own guilt. He was better now, healing, just as one rips away the scab and dead skin to reveal the fresh wound, no longer infected.
But it had left him with the byproduct of his usage--the insomina, the lack of dreams in sleep. This week had been well enough, yes. But he knew that slowly things would start to crash around him, and he would need to close himself up and away from his Team, to suffer quietly until the withdrawl had passed.
That, though, bothered him more than anything. This place should be a dream; dreams would not need withdrawl as ( ... )
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It shows in everything she does, from the texture of her clothes (corduroy, wool, cotton, polyester, all at once and all in layers) to the field she's chosen (pens and pencils, gridlined paper, rulers) to her nervous tics (tapping her fingers, and lately, flicking a lighter open and shut, on and off). The fact that the dreamscape had been about the feel rather than just the visual had drawn her in just as much as the impossibility of it all. It is, perhaps, part of the reason she's been so reckless in the City: she isn't used to being alone, isn't used to not touching people even if she's not close to them, and yet she doesn't know her housemates very well at all. Instead, she's thrown herself out there, made friends with people they call projections, made out with one on a desk (and then more, on a couch in the back room of his shop and in her own bed). It's why her totem is about the feel, the tilt of the bishop, instead of a number on a die or the spinning of a top or even a misspelled ( ... )
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Still awake? [ He supplies, well aware that's likely not what she was aiming for even though 'up late' is just as synonymous. ] Yeah. I run nocturnal. [ His voice is low in the register of someone quiet for the sake of consideration rather than hushing anyone else, but there's something just bordering on tired hedged into it as well, the inflection lazy and a little slower. ] I hope I didn't wake you up.
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Ariadne realizes, with a start that has her fumbling with the lighter instead of closing it again, that she hasn't been sleeping well since Eames disappeared (save for an afternoon stolen on a redhead's chest, but she isn't thinking about that). There's no snoring in the next room over, and she looks at the lighter for a moment before shutting it firmly this time, curling her hand around it. ] You didn't. I've just been restless. [ "Restless", she says, and then she folds her legs under herself and takes a seat. ]
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