[INCEPTION] FIC: I'm a heathen and evil like you (Cobb/Eames) R, to be safe.
I'm a heathen and evil like you
Cobb/Eames
For the inception_kink prompt: Eames didn’t seem too surprised when Cobb showed up at the casino. Yeah, he might have contacted him off-screen to arrange a meeting, but I’d prefer to think that Cobb drops by so regularly that Eames is completely unphased.
not for fermine, who does not support this pairing. >:O but is long-suffering enough to have betaed this for me. ty, bebs. aaaand for the people on tumblr WHO LIKE THIS PAIRING. COBB/EAMES, WAVE THAT FRICKIN FLAG.
i. london, englandBeer spills all over the floor as the crowd cheers and Eames jumps to his feet.
“The bloody hell was that, then?” He shouts at the makeshift boxing ring nearly two floors down.
His fighter is clearly winning, even with blood splattered all over his face and torso, even though his fingers are splintered and somewhat misaligned. He was winning and that’s what matters. But one blow to the head and he was down.
Fuck. Three thousand quid he put in this match.
The balcony is packed, and the air is hot, but Eames ignores the pack of bodies that press against him. Nobody cares what happens in the crowd here, and no one complains about the heat, or the sweat, or the fact that it’s not at all sanitary to nurse wounds already gritted through with debris and God knows what else.
He doesn’t notice the hand on his shoulder until it presses too tightly.
Eames looks up. He’s surprised by the face that meets him, here of all places. “What are you doing here, then?”
Cobb shrugs and he looks out of place, Eames thinks, in his usual suit and shirt and trousers and brogues, next to the sea of ripped jeans and rugged faces around them. “I was serious about that offer, you know.”
“What offer?” Eames asks, innocently, before stepping away from the balcony railing and weaving through the swell of the crowd.
Cobb follows him.
“What I got was an offer to fuck up someone’s conceived reality and it all sounds too Ray bloody Bradbury for me, mate,” Eames smirks over his shoulder, then takes a swig of (what remains of) his beer. It’s warm down his throat.
“It’s real, Eames,” Cobb presses on, shouting a bit as the crowd cheers again.
Eames grimaces, barely catching a word of what Cobb had just said. (Though sometimes, it helps that he can read lips really well.) He heads outside.
Cobb is relentless, and keeps at his tail even as a hulk of too much muscle and very little courtesy had almost side-stepped him right into a wall.
Outside, London is dark, and the contrasting quiet sucks the air from their ears.
“Well?” Cobb prompts him as soon as Eames has gotten rid of his beer bottle. (By hurling it into a dark alley, no less. Cobb doesn’t hear the ensuing sound of smashed glass.)
“Well what?” Eames replies snidely, fishing a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. It’s a ratty old thing, but it keeps him warm. He taps the pack against his hand, and pulls out a stick by his teeth. He offers the rest to Cobb.
Cobb holds up a hand. “You’re interested, aren’t you? I can tell.” He’s smug.
Eames snorts at the air of confidence about him. Of course he’s fucking interested. Dangle something like that in front of anyone’s face and see if they don’t come begging for more.
But he takes his time, lighting his cigarette and dragging in a long, filling draw of smoke and air, puffing perfect little circles over their heads.
Cobb stares intently at him, expecting only one answer and Eames can’t be arsed to prove the little shit wrong.
Not when he’d stared too long at Cobb’s face and such a telling thing like that and Cobb immediately knows what Eames will say.
But Cobb needs to hear it anyway. What a gentleman.
Eames finally relents. “Have you got a live demonstration for all this, then? Or are you just whisking me off my feet with your purple prose?”
Cobb grins, flashing promise.
Eames narrows his eyes in suspicion, but he can’t help but stare at Cobb for longer than necessary, even as Cobb turns away to flag down a cab that hasn’t arrived yet.
Eames likes a challenge, and after living on the dwindling girth of his inheritance (from his grandfather, he can’t give a shit about his father’s trustfund right just now and his father doesn’t give a shit about him right just back), spending the bulk of it on gambling and cheap liquor, this stranger drops out from nowhere and gives him the world.
He’s no man of superstition but he knows an opportunity when he sees one.
***
Eames gasps awake, the IV line in his wrist. They’re in a hotel room somewhere, and Eames tries to grasp at the floating bits of blurred details of the dream in his head.
Tokyo was vivid, down to the last snowflake that melted on his brow. He’d never been to Tokyo.
“Good, isn’t it?” Cobb grins down at him.
Arrogant prick, Eames wants to say, but he doesn’t. Because Cobb is grinning too widely, and his nerves are too unsteady.
And it’s been so long, God damn it. He doesn’t even recall the last time his mind has been so awake and so open. Not since his brief stint in MI6 did he feel so fucking alive.
“Piss off,” Eames snaps up at him, but there’s no anger in his harsh tone. Just ragged breathing, and adrenaline. And everything that he’s been thirsting for in the several months that he’s spent coasting about the backstreets of London.
He needs this.
Eames’ arm shoots out from his side and Cobb almost steps back in surprise. But Eames’ fingers are there, fisting into Cobb’s shirt, and Cobb is stumbling forward until he lands on Eames, sprawled right on top of him.
Then Eames is suddenly kissing him, all fervor and no finesse, soft lips that wet Cobb’s skin.
It feels good, he thinks, and he almost kisses back. But he doesn’t. Cobb shakes his head and pushes against Eames.
He doesn’t get very far. Young as Eames may seem, his hands are strong, and his arms pulse underneath his shirt at the effort of keeping Cobb just there, flush against him.
“What are you doing?” Cobb pants down at him, reeling breathless not just from shock but a sudden warmth that pools low in his belly.
“You do want me to do this, don’t you?” Eames points out, raising an eyebrow in challenge.
“No, not-" Cobb struggles to push out the words, but Eames’ hips curl and dip and-
--Cobb shudders. He sets his jaw, stubborn against the sensation.
“Of course not this but I want it, it feels good, and why the fuck not, eh?” Eames taunts, leaning in for another kiss.
Cobb turns his head, just so that Eames’ lips touch his cheek instead. “I have a girlfri-"
Eames laughs against his skin. “Do I look like I need a boyfriend?” Cobb thinks no, absolutely not, no. “It’s just sex and this is your fault anyway.”
Cobb acquiesces, yes it is. Yes it really, fucking, is, and he almost regrets it all, really, but Eames is kissing him again, even though Cobb’s lips are pliant and unresponsive. Eames is kissing him like he doesn’t need Cobb to move at all. He’s fine just how it is and he sounds so good, and he feels so good that Cobb can’t really find a good enough reason to pull away completely.
Not when Eames is unbuckling his belt, his fingers clumsy with tightly-strung energy.
This is how it feels, that first time under. The exhilarating sensation of creation and destruction, and the god-like power that grants the mind to do the impossible.
Cobb knows that feeling well enough, how it stretched his chest until his heart is rotund with too much desire for it, all at once. Now. Right. Now.
***
This is how Cobb knows that Eames is the perfect choice.
Not because Eames’ hand is tucked underneath his waistband. Or because his lips are just there, at the juncture of his neck, tonguing at his collar bone.
He knows Eames is perfect because Eames knows how it feels and he’s not embarrassed to admit it.
That is the first step to power, the confidence and the arrogance of raw power, and that is what creation is all about after all.
ii. monaco, monaco “King of hearts,” Eames chants under his breath. “Bloody king of hearts, come on.”
The dealer reveals the turn: Queen of spades.
“Bloody hell,” Eames cries out, throwing his now useless hand at the table. All the players look at him with knowing smiles.
Eames ignores them, sipping on his White Russian with too much enthusiasm.
“Bad hand?” Someone pipes up behind him.
Obviously no, I just won the fucking block-Eames wanted to say-but it all stumbles back into his throat when he sees Cobb standing where he shouldn’t.
Right in the middle of a casino in Monaco.
Last he checked, Monaco is very very far away from America.
“Either someone’s dead or you have a hundred thousand dollars on your person right now and Christmas just came early for me,” Eames says by way of greeting. He smirks around his glass as he takes another gulp of his drink.
“No,” Cobb smirks softly at Eames. “I just missed you. I went all the way here, straight from my honeymoon, just to see you again.”
Eames raises both eyebrows in a pointed look that is neither humored nor particularly indulgent.
“Job.”
“I know,” Eames smirks right back. He puts down his now empty glass and gathers his very small stack of chips before rising to his feet.
Cobb takes a chip for himself, flipping it in the air.
Eames frowns. “That’s a thousand.”
“Yep.” Cobb flips it again.
“Here,” Eames hands him a five-hundred dollar chip, then takes his thousand and quickly puts it in his pocket.
“Short on cash, Mr Eames?” Cobb teases.
Eames rolls his eyes. “What’s the job, then?”
Cobb doesn’t tell him yet. They go upstairs, to Eames’ room, a two-bedroom suite even if Eames had only the one suitcase and no companion.
Cobb doesn’t tell him even after Eames had deposited his chips on the bureau by the door. (He’ll cash it in later.)
Or after Eames had toed off his shoes and took off his shirt.
Or after, well God forbid during, Eames rocks his hips against Cobb, hands on either side of his head, sweat on both their skins and making it a slick and messy and rough affair, the headboard rough against the wall, the sheets tight around both their fists.
***
Cobb tells him over room service, when they’d both showered, dressed down to pants they’d just picked up off the floor.
The waistband is tight around Eames’ waist and cloth caves around Cobb’s legs.
They don’t notice these things.
Several folders are already strewn about the coffee table, in between plates of half-eaten food, and wet rings from bottles of ice cold beer. (Cobb’s; Eames prefers his beer warm.)
“So you’re saying you want me to be someone else, is that it?”
“In the dream,” Cobb adds, around a mouthful of chicken.
Eames frowns at this, thinking it through. “That should be possible, I suppose. If you can build continents in a dream, then I wouldn’t be surprised if you can create people as well.”
Cobb shakes his head, quickly swallowing down his food. “You don’t create them. Just the illusion of them.”
Eames’ head quickly wraps itself around this. “I wear their faces. Convince the mark’s mind that they’re seeing the person that we want them to see, is that it?”
Cobb smiles, nodding. “Exactly.”
Eames snorts in good humor, sinking further in the couch. “What do you call this, then?”
“Forgery.”
“Forgery,” Eames echoes, rolling it around in his tongue. Tasting it, amidst the fine wine, and Cobb’s skin. “You’re making a habit of this, aren’t you?”
“Habit of what?” Cobb asks, picking through the rest of the chicken on his plate.
“Stringing me along like I’m some,” he tries to look for the right word for it. “Trout.”
Cobb sputters, trying very hard not to spit out his food. “You don’t even need bait. You just lay there and put the hook in your own mouth.”
Eames twists his lips. His eyes pierce Cobb’s, and neither looks away.
They’re quiet for a moment, regarding each other over paperwork and dinner and the fresh steam of the shower radiating from their half-dressed bodies.
Then they smile, both thinking of something less innocent than trout or bait or the job.
They both know that Eames is in it because he wants to be, that Cobb is there to provide it for him.
What it actually is, they don’t really care to find out either.
iii. las vegas, nevadaHe’s losing again.
At Blackjack.
Because he doesn’t give a shit about numbers and apparently the way to beat this system is to be good at something that Eames doesn’t give a shit about.
He sighs as the dealer scoops in the rest of his chips. Fifteen thousand dollars, down the drain.
He waves over a waiter for a refill of his whiskey just as-
--his phone vibrates in his pocket.
He sighs. Goldman’s been calling him nonstop since that botched up Cobol job last month. Eames didn’t screw up but everything else did and just as everything goes with Cobol, everyone on the team takes the blame.
“Yeah,” he irritably answers his phone, without checking the ID.
There’s a pause on the other end, before: “Wow, you sound really pissed off.”
Cobb. Eames’ eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and he turns around in the swivel chair to see if Cobb’s anywhere near him. Like he almost usually is when he drops by.
He’s not.
“You have God-awful timing,” Eames remarks snidely, just as the waiter arrives with his refill. He gulps down most of it in record time, knowing that the call would end with him up and leaving the casino even quicker than the liquor could fog up his sense of better judgment.
“Let me guess, you were just about to win something big.”
“Lose something big,” Eames corrects him, in between mouthfuls of whiskey. He suddenly feels rejuvenated. He blames it on the ill-advised manner of alcohol consumption. “Just did, actually. I prefer that my descent to despair goes uninterrupted.”
Cobb snorts. Eames hears traffic over the rush of air into the earpiece, as well as the familiar sound of slot machines and loud, obnoxious drunkards.
“You’re here, aren’t you.” Eames doesn’t even need to ask anymore.
“Yeah, well, I’m here to celebrate.”
Eames frowns at this. “Divorce?”
“No, no,” Cobb rushes to cut that thought short. “It’s a girl.”
What’s a-Right. Of course. Eames smiles. “Well let’s celebrate properly, shall we?”
“I’m at the Hard Rock.”
“How very predictable of you.”
“Yeah, well,” Eames hears his smile over the crackle of the line.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
***
He gets there in six.
***
It doesn’t take a second between opening the door and closing it behind him when Eames finds himself pushed, then pulled, then engulfed in Cobb’s arms, met by Cobb’s lips.
He kisses back, because it feels so damn good.
When they pull apart for air, they’re both hard through their pants. Eames gasps in a breath, they’re both grinning at each other much too widely, their cheeks flush with arousal.
“That is a good and proper greeting, Cobb,” Eames lauds, teasingly.
“I’m happy, okay? Give me a break here.”
“I know you are,” Eames smiles, kissing him again to prove that yes, he knows. And yes, he’s happy for Cobb too. Very happy. He doesn’t care much for children himself but he knows what it means to a man to be a father. His own comes to mind and some bad blood remains there but he knows for a fact that his father was in love with the idea of fatherhood. Too in love with it, in fact. Eames can appreciate that separately from all the other shit.
“I don’t have a job for you,” Cobb admits, but he doesn’t look remorseful.
Eames doesn’t mind that. There’s nothing to be sorry about, anyway. Fuck pretense. “You’re just here for me, clearly,” he replies with a snort.
“And the strippers.”
Eames agrees. “And the strippers.”
Cobb pulls him to the bed. A very large bed, draped in white linen and a meticulous innocence about the white, eight-hundred thread count that Eames knows it’s going to be fucked up soon-
-Cobb starts undoing his pants-
-Very soon.
“Hold on a moment,” Eames starts, thoughtfully, turning Cobb around to unbuckle his belt for him. “Should we still be doing this?”
Cobb’s eyes flicker up, suddenly guarded.
Eames shrugs. “You’re a dad now, aren't you? Isn’t that a bit strange?”
“Why is it strange?”
Eames doesn’t remember why. The feeling just came up and even though Eames doesn’t care much for feelings either, not when things are good and things are good as they are without feelings complicating them and Eames appreciates things like that. Simple. Unattached. “Ethics and all that crap, really.”
“You care about ethics?” Cobb doubts it.
Eames doubts it too, but some things just need to be said. “Not most of the time, but I’m not a complete hedonist either.”
“Neither am I.”
“Are you an infidel?”
Cobb thinks about it. “I’m having sex with you behind my wife’s back.”
“Do you love me?”
Cobb doesn’t even bat an eyelid. “I care for you as a person.”
Eames laughs. “That’s a no.”
Cobb looks sheepish, then hurries to assuage him. “I don’t mean-“
“Cobb, honestly,” Eames gives a long-suffering sigh as he pulls Cobb’s belt from the loops. “My heart is not broken. It does not need to be fixed, yeah?”
Cobb shrugs, still looking more cautious than Eames thinks he should. He’s Cobb, for fuck’s sake. They’ve been through hell (well, the mind’s version of hell) together. They even got shot together and it feels real enough in dreams that Eames considers it as some sign of brotherhood. However feeble.
“Well,” Eames shrugs, stepping back and holding up his hands in mock surrender. “I’ll just be off for another round of poker, then.”
“You’re bad at poker.”
“I have a good poker face,” Eames cares to point out.
“But you’re also good in bed,” Cobb reminds him.
Eames doesn’t need reminding, but he does acquiesce. “That is true.”
“You see my logic here, right?”
Eames smirks, already unbuttoning his shirt and toeing off his shoes. “I don’t need to be told twice.”
iv. seoul, south koreaWhen Eames hears about Mal’s death, he’s somewhere in South Korea. In the belly of the underground gambling system. He’s watching a cockfight, of all things, and for the first time in years, he’s actually got a winning streak to be proud over.
He hears about it through Arthur, whom he’s only ever met a few times before. (And none of those times were particularly pretty, but Eames takes things in stride and Arthur does not. It festers after several days until Eames finds the thrill of taunting Arthur a little too much to be entertained by anymore.)
He doesn’t expect Cobb to be waiting for him at his hotel room.
“What are you doing here?” is Eames’ way of greeting him. He’s both surprised and not. Surprised, because the man just lost his wife, for God’s sake. Not, because Cobb tends to find him wherever Eames is, even though Cobb doesn’t have his number and Eames doesn’t have Cobb’s.
(They call each other when they need to, only if they need to, and they tend to change their numbers afterwards. Caution and all that.)
He blames Arthur.
Cobb shakes his head, his face in his hands. He’s sitting on the couch, still wearing his suit jacket. He looks tired, dark shadows underneath his eyes. Hair a mess.
When Eames nears him, sitting down on the coffee table until they’re close enough that their knees touch, Cobb smells of the airport. And sweat. And the smog from the streets.
“Cobb.”
“I have a job,” Cobb finally says, threading his fingers through his hair as he pulls up, his back creaking, and sinking into the couch. Heavily.
Eames frowns. “That surprises me.”
Cobb’s eyes flash dangerously. “Why?”
Eames takes this in stride too. “Because Mal just died,” and he says it like it is. Because that’s what he does.
“Why is that supposed to be related to anything?”
“Because she was your wife.” Two blows in one go. Eames hates to do these things but there are things. There are things.
“I still need to work.”
“You should be hiding,” Eames shakes his head.
“I am hiding,” Cobb’s voice starts to rise, “Why the hell do you think I’m here in the first place?”
It takes a lot for Eames to snap and for the people he doesn’t mind wasting time on, his patience can run for miles.
Cobb looks at Eames, before realizing that he’s probably gone too far. He draws in a breath, steadying himself. He doesn’t apologize, because dealing with Eames means not dealing with needing to make sure that he’s not getting hurt by anything.
“What’s the job, then?”
“I need to extract from a business mogul.”
Eames nods. “Whom?”
“Man from,” Cobb gestures, shaking his head as if dislodging all the other things that he doesn’t need to think about to get to what he does. “From-Saito. Saito is the mark.”
“Just a regular extraction, then?”
Cobb nods. “Shell of it, yeah.”
“Then you don’t need a forger,” Eames tells Cobb for him.
Cobb knows this and Eames knows that Cobb knows but Eames likes to think that Cobb makes mistakes sometimes too and that Cobb does these things not because of sentimental reasons because they never have use for sentiments anyway.
Eames looks away, eyes sweeping the one-bedroom suite. “Where’s Arthur?”
“Japan.”
Eames turns back to him. “Really. You left him there?” Eames finds it hard that Arthur had allowed such a thing. Usually, he’s right by Cobb’s side. It annoyed Eames to a point but he understands loyalty. He’s no fan of it but he understands it and appreciates a man’s man, and Arthur is Cobb’s.
Cobb shakes his head. “We’re meeting there.”
“Does he know you’re here?” Eames expects yes, Arthur does, because Arthur never lets anything past him.
Cobb shakes his head again, after a moment’s pause.
Eames sighs. “I don’t know why you’re here, Cobb. You certainly don’t need me on this job and you and I both know it.”
Then Cobb looks at him, with eyes that speak more than is allowed for the both of the them. Eames feels that this is crossing some line that had been there since this all started almost fifteen years ago, back in London, when Mal was still Cobb’s girlfriend, and there was no family, and no obligation, and nothing else but the thrill of unexplored terrain to fuel their want for everything. All at the same time.
They were young back then.
Now-
--Now there’s much more at stake and Eames is a smart man, he knows these things despite not having the need to say them out loud.
Eames takes that plea for what it is, in the way that he approaches any kind of business.
Up front, face first. To hell with the consequences.
***
They don’t bother with the bed. They stay in the sitting area, with Cobb splayed over the couch and Eames towering over him. They pound against each other with a rawness that startles even Eames.
Hands claw at his back and Cobb, Cobb is screwing his eyes shut, and doesn’t bother to be silent.
Eames gives him what he needs because it feels good first. Because he likes Cobb second.
Because Cobb isn’t leaving here when Eames knows that anything can happen between now and the moment Cobb steps out of the door and damn it all, he doesn’t need guilt in his line of business.
***
To hell with the consequences.
But always, always leave room for a quick exit.
***
“Did you kill her, then?” Eames says after Cobb tells him the whole story. They’re both pulling up their pants, zipping up their flies. Eames’ shoe is lodged underneath the couch and Cobb’s suit jacket is wrinkled, a heap on the floor.
He’s met with silence.
Eames looks up, knowing full well what’ll meet him when he does.
For all the foresight, however, the punch to his face is still painful as fuck.
He reels back, clutching his cheek in his hand.
Cobb pants, his fist still wound tight. “Fuck you.”
Eames shakes his head at Cobb, smiling sadly. “I’m doing you a favor.”
Cobb leaves soon after that, and Eames doesn’t see him again for several months.
v. mombasa, kenyaEames is a hundred chips down, in between jobs, and several months away from his last actual paycheck, when Cobb finds him again.
There’s Saito, and Fischer’s face on an A4-size paper, and the sensation of routine falling back into place like something straight out of muscle memory.
He remembers doing this, a very long time ago, cupping Cobb’s head in his palm, the swell of his groin, the hard lines of his chest.
They both finish with a sigh that’s almost nostalgic.
Eames finds it incredibly funny.
“I thought that fist to my face was some kind of theatrical farewell,” he brings up, as he pours them both two thumbs of the only bourbon he keeps in a glass tumbler. It’s hot in his apartment and both his and Cobb’s bare chests glisten with sweat.
“Apparently I’m a dense guy,” Cobb replies with a smirk, taking the glass from Eames and grimaces as the hot torrent of unsaturated liquor blots out the taste of everything else on his tongue.
Eames looks at him in amusement, preferring to take his own drink in tiny sips.
“What do you say to this Fischer job? Are you in?”
“I already said yes, didn’t I? Looked at the dossier and everything,” Eames allows with a vague gesture with his glass.
Cobb nods, hand on his hip, his own glass hovering just before his lips. He looks thoughtful, almost nonchalant. But Eames has studied so many people over the years that Cobb is anything but.
“Yes, I’ll take the damn job,” Eames sighs indulgently. It feels right, this. Just like old times. “Waving bait in front of me again, as is your wont.”
Cobb laughs, and Eames smiles at the sound. He doesn’t miss it, because they don’t meet often enough for Eames to be acquainted with it too intimately.
But it does look good on Cobb, laughing does, especially when months ago, in South Korea, Cobb kissed Eames goodbye with a fist that bruised his face for weeks afterwards.
Eames shakes his head, smiling silently to himself. He gulps down the rest of his drink, and so does Cobb. They dress up, and don’t touch again.
Arthur will be there, and so will Saito, and it’s going to be a job that will mean everything to Cobb.
Eames doesn’t know family, but he’s known urgency closely enough that the stakes are too high this time. He gambles away his wealth, he risks his own life for something he doesn’t need, but wants so badly. Cobb, however, needs this, and Eames knows need too despite it being as foreign a concept as family, and obligation, and things that anchor to him to places he feels no emotional attachment to.
So he does his job, and does it well, and when Cobb disappears in Los Angeles and doesn’t call for a long time afterwards, Eames respects that too.
END
Cobb/Eames
For the inception_kink prompt: Eames didn’t seem too surprised when Cobb showed up at the casino. Yeah, he might have contacted him off-screen to arrange a meeting, but I’d prefer to think that Cobb drops by so regularly that Eames is completely unphased.
not for fermine, who does not support this pairing. >:O but is long-suffering enough to have betaed this for me. ty, bebs. aaaand for the people on tumblr WHO LIKE THIS PAIRING. COBB/EAMES, WAVE THAT FRICKIN FLAG.
i. london, englandBeer spills all over the floor as the crowd cheers and Eames jumps to his feet.
“The bloody hell was that, then?” He shouts at the makeshift boxing ring nearly two floors down.
His fighter is clearly winning, even with blood splattered all over his face and torso, even though his fingers are splintered and somewhat misaligned. He was winning and that’s what matters. But one blow to the head and he was down.
Fuck. Three thousand quid he put in this match.
The balcony is packed, and the air is hot, but Eames ignores the pack of bodies that press against him. Nobody cares what happens in the crowd here, and no one complains about the heat, or the sweat, or the fact that it’s not at all sanitary to nurse wounds already gritted through with debris and God knows what else.
He doesn’t notice the hand on his shoulder until it presses too tightly.
Eames looks up. He’s surprised by the face that meets him, here of all places. “What are you doing here, then?”
Cobb shrugs and he looks out of place, Eames thinks, in his usual suit and shirt and trousers and brogues, next to the sea of ripped jeans and rugged faces around them. “I was serious about that offer, you know.”
“What offer?” Eames asks, innocently, before stepping away from the balcony railing and weaving through the swell of the crowd.
Cobb follows him.
“What I got was an offer to fuck up someone’s conceived reality and it all sounds too Ray bloody Bradbury for me, mate,” Eames smirks over his shoulder, then takes a swig of (what remains of) his beer. It’s warm down his throat.
“It’s real, Eames,” Cobb presses on, shouting a bit as the crowd cheers again.
Eames grimaces, barely catching a word of what Cobb had just said. (Though sometimes, it helps that he can read lips really well.) He heads outside.
Cobb is relentless, and keeps at his tail even as a hulk of too much muscle and very little courtesy had almost side-stepped him right into a wall.
Outside, London is dark, and the contrasting quiet sucks the air from their ears.
“Well?” Cobb prompts him as soon as Eames has gotten rid of his beer bottle. (By hurling it into a dark alley, no less. Cobb doesn’t hear the ensuing sound of smashed glass.)
“Well what?” Eames replies snidely, fishing a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket. It’s a ratty old thing, but it keeps him warm. He taps the pack against his hand, and pulls out a stick by his teeth. He offers the rest to Cobb.
Cobb holds up a hand. “You’re interested, aren’t you? I can tell.” He’s smug.
Eames snorts at the air of confidence about him. Of course he’s fucking interested. Dangle something like that in front of anyone’s face and see if they don’t come begging for more.
But he takes his time, lighting his cigarette and dragging in a long, filling draw of smoke and air, puffing perfect little circles over their heads.
Cobb stares intently at him, expecting only one answer and Eames can’t be arsed to prove the little shit wrong.
Not when he’d stared too long at Cobb’s face and such a telling thing like that and Cobb immediately knows what Eames will say.
But Cobb needs to hear it anyway. What a gentleman.
Eames finally relents. “Have you got a live demonstration for all this, then? Or are you just whisking me off my feet with your purple prose?”
Cobb grins, flashing promise.
Eames narrows his eyes in suspicion, but he can’t help but stare at Cobb for longer than necessary, even as Cobb turns away to flag down a cab that hasn’t arrived yet.
Eames likes a challenge, and after living on the dwindling girth of his inheritance (from his grandfather, he can’t give a shit about his father’s trustfund right just now and his father doesn’t give a shit about him right just back), spending the bulk of it on gambling and cheap liquor, this stranger drops out from nowhere and gives him the world.
He’s no man of superstition but he knows an opportunity when he sees one.
***
Eames gasps awake, the IV line in his wrist. They’re in a hotel room somewhere, and Eames tries to grasp at the floating bits of blurred details of the dream in his head.
Tokyo was vivid, down to the last snowflake that melted on his brow. He’d never been to Tokyo.
“Good, isn’t it?” Cobb grins down at him.
Arrogant prick, Eames wants to say, but he doesn’t. Because Cobb is grinning too widely, and his nerves are too unsteady.
And it’s been so long, God damn it. He doesn’t even recall the last time his mind has been so awake and so open. Not since his brief stint in MI6 did he feel so fucking alive.
“Piss off,” Eames snaps up at him, but there’s no anger in his harsh tone. Just ragged breathing, and adrenaline. And everything that he’s been thirsting for in the several months that he’s spent coasting about the backstreets of London.
He needs this.
Eames’ arm shoots out from his side and Cobb almost steps back in surprise. But Eames’ fingers are there, fisting into Cobb’s shirt, and Cobb is stumbling forward until he lands on Eames, sprawled right on top of him.
Then Eames is suddenly kissing him, all fervor and no finesse, soft lips that wet Cobb’s skin.
It feels good, he thinks, and he almost kisses back. But he doesn’t. Cobb shakes his head and pushes against Eames.
He doesn’t get very far. Young as Eames may seem, his hands are strong, and his arms pulse underneath his shirt at the effort of keeping Cobb just there, flush against him.
“What are you doing?” Cobb pants down at him, reeling breathless not just from shock but a sudden warmth that pools low in his belly.
“You do want me to do this, don’t you?” Eames points out, raising an eyebrow in challenge.
“No, not-" Cobb struggles to push out the words, but Eames’ hips curl and dip and-
--Cobb shudders. He sets his jaw, stubborn against the sensation.
“Of course not this but I want it, it feels good, and why the fuck not, eh?” Eames taunts, leaning in for another kiss.
Cobb turns his head, just so that Eames’ lips touch his cheek instead. “I have a girlfri-"
Eames laughs against his skin. “Do I look like I need a boyfriend?” Cobb thinks no, absolutely not, no. “It’s just sex and this is your fault anyway.”
Cobb acquiesces, yes it is. Yes it really, fucking, is, and he almost regrets it all, really, but Eames is kissing him again, even though Cobb’s lips are pliant and unresponsive. Eames is kissing him like he doesn’t need Cobb to move at all. He’s fine just how it is and he sounds so good, and he feels so good that Cobb can’t really find a good enough reason to pull away completely.
Not when Eames is unbuckling his belt, his fingers clumsy with tightly-strung energy.
This is how it feels, that first time under. The exhilarating sensation of creation and destruction, and the god-like power that grants the mind to do the impossible.
Cobb knows that feeling well enough, how it stretched his chest until his heart is rotund with too much desire for it, all at once. Now. Right. Now.
***
This is how Cobb knows that Eames is the perfect choice.
Not because Eames’ hand is tucked underneath his waistband. Or because his lips are just there, at the juncture of his neck, tonguing at his collar bone.
He knows Eames is perfect because Eames knows how it feels and he’s not embarrassed to admit it.
That is the first step to power, the confidence and the arrogance of raw power, and that is what creation is all about after all.
ii. monaco, monaco “King of hearts,” Eames chants under his breath. “Bloody king of hearts, come on.”
The dealer reveals the turn: Queen of spades.
“Bloody hell,” Eames cries out, throwing his now useless hand at the table. All the players look at him with knowing smiles.
Eames ignores them, sipping on his White Russian with too much enthusiasm.
“Bad hand?” Someone pipes up behind him.
Obviously no, I just won the fucking block-Eames wanted to say-but it all stumbles back into his throat when he sees Cobb standing where he shouldn’t.
Right in the middle of a casino in Monaco.
Last he checked, Monaco is very very far away from America.
“Either someone’s dead or you have a hundred thousand dollars on your person right now and Christmas just came early for me,” Eames says by way of greeting. He smirks around his glass as he takes another gulp of his drink.
“No,” Cobb smirks softly at Eames. “I just missed you. I went all the way here, straight from my honeymoon, just to see you again.”
Eames raises both eyebrows in a pointed look that is neither humored nor particularly indulgent.
“Job.”
“I know,” Eames smirks right back. He puts down his now empty glass and gathers his very small stack of chips before rising to his feet.
Cobb takes a chip for himself, flipping it in the air.
Eames frowns. “That’s a thousand.”
“Yep.” Cobb flips it again.
“Here,” Eames hands him a five-hundred dollar chip, then takes his thousand and quickly puts it in his pocket.
“Short on cash, Mr Eames?” Cobb teases.
Eames rolls his eyes. “What’s the job, then?”
Cobb doesn’t tell him yet. They go upstairs, to Eames’ room, a two-bedroom suite even if Eames had only the one suitcase and no companion.
Cobb doesn’t tell him even after Eames had deposited his chips on the bureau by the door. (He’ll cash it in later.)
Or after Eames had toed off his shoes and took off his shirt.
Or after, well God forbid during, Eames rocks his hips against Cobb, hands on either side of his head, sweat on both their skins and making it a slick and messy and rough affair, the headboard rough against the wall, the sheets tight around both their fists.
***
Cobb tells him over room service, when they’d both showered, dressed down to pants they’d just picked up off the floor.
The waistband is tight around Eames’ waist and cloth caves around Cobb’s legs.
They don’t notice these things.
Several folders are already strewn about the coffee table, in between plates of half-eaten food, and wet rings from bottles of ice cold beer. (Cobb’s; Eames prefers his beer warm.)
“So you’re saying you want me to be someone else, is that it?”
“In the dream,” Cobb adds, around a mouthful of chicken.
Eames frowns at this, thinking it through. “That should be possible, I suppose. If you can build continents in a dream, then I wouldn’t be surprised if you can create people as well.”
Cobb shakes his head, quickly swallowing down his food. “You don’t create them. Just the illusion of them.”
Eames’ head quickly wraps itself around this. “I wear their faces. Convince the mark’s mind that they’re seeing the person that we want them to see, is that it?”
Cobb smiles, nodding. “Exactly.”
Eames snorts in good humor, sinking further in the couch. “What do you call this, then?”
“Forgery.”
“Forgery,” Eames echoes, rolling it around in his tongue. Tasting it, amidst the fine wine, and Cobb’s skin. “You’re making a habit of this, aren’t you?”
“Habit of what?” Cobb asks, picking through the rest of the chicken on his plate.
“Stringing me along like I’m some,” he tries to look for the right word for it. “Trout.”
Cobb sputters, trying very hard not to spit out his food. “You don’t even need bait. You just lay there and put the hook in your own mouth.”
Eames twists his lips. His eyes pierce Cobb’s, and neither looks away.
They’re quiet for a moment, regarding each other over paperwork and dinner and the fresh steam of the shower radiating from their half-dressed bodies.
Then they smile, both thinking of something less innocent than trout or bait or the job.
They both know that Eames is in it because he wants to be, that Cobb is there to provide it for him.
What it actually is, they don’t really care to find out either.
iii. las vegas, nevadaHe’s losing again.
At Blackjack.
Because he doesn’t give a shit about numbers and apparently the way to beat this system is to be good at something that Eames doesn’t give a shit about.
He sighs as the dealer scoops in the rest of his chips. Fifteen thousand dollars, down the drain.
He waves over a waiter for a refill of his whiskey just as-
--his phone vibrates in his pocket.
He sighs. Goldman’s been calling him nonstop since that botched up Cobol job last month. Eames didn’t screw up but everything else did and just as everything goes with Cobol, everyone on the team takes the blame.
“Yeah,” he irritably answers his phone, without checking the ID.
There’s a pause on the other end, before: “Wow, you sound really pissed off.”
Cobb. Eames’ eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and he turns around in the swivel chair to see if Cobb’s anywhere near him. Like he almost usually is when he drops by.
He’s not.
“You have God-awful timing,” Eames remarks snidely, just as the waiter arrives with his refill. He gulps down most of it in record time, knowing that the call would end with him up and leaving the casino even quicker than the liquor could fog up his sense of better judgment.
“Let me guess, you were just about to win something big.”
“Lose something big,” Eames corrects him, in between mouthfuls of whiskey. He suddenly feels rejuvenated. He blames it on the ill-advised manner of alcohol consumption. “Just did, actually. I prefer that my descent to despair goes uninterrupted.”
Cobb snorts. Eames hears traffic over the rush of air into the earpiece, as well as the familiar sound of slot machines and loud, obnoxious drunkards.
“You’re here, aren’t you.” Eames doesn’t even need to ask anymore.
“Yeah, well, I’m here to celebrate.”
Eames frowns at this. “Divorce?”
“No, no,” Cobb rushes to cut that thought short. “It’s a girl.”
What’s a-Right. Of course. Eames smiles. “Well let’s celebrate properly, shall we?”
“I’m at the Hard Rock.”
“How very predictable of you.”
“Yeah, well,” Eames hears his smile over the crackle of the line.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
***
He gets there in six.
***
It doesn’t take a second between opening the door and closing it behind him when Eames finds himself pushed, then pulled, then engulfed in Cobb’s arms, met by Cobb’s lips.
He kisses back, because it feels so damn good.
When they pull apart for air, they’re both hard through their pants. Eames gasps in a breath, they’re both grinning at each other much too widely, their cheeks flush with arousal.
“That is a good and proper greeting, Cobb,” Eames lauds, teasingly.
“I’m happy, okay? Give me a break here.”
“I know you are,” Eames smiles, kissing him again to prove that yes, he knows. And yes, he’s happy for Cobb too. Very happy. He doesn’t care much for children himself but he knows what it means to a man to be a father. His own comes to mind and some bad blood remains there but he knows for a fact that his father was in love with the idea of fatherhood. Too in love with it, in fact. Eames can appreciate that separately from all the other shit.
“I don’t have a job for you,” Cobb admits, but he doesn’t look remorseful.
Eames doesn’t mind that. There’s nothing to be sorry about, anyway. Fuck pretense. “You’re just here for me, clearly,” he replies with a snort.
“And the strippers.”
Eames agrees. “And the strippers.”
Cobb pulls him to the bed. A very large bed, draped in white linen and a meticulous innocence about the white, eight-hundred thread count that Eames knows it’s going to be fucked up soon-
-Cobb starts undoing his pants-
-Very soon.
“Hold on a moment,” Eames starts, thoughtfully, turning Cobb around to unbuckle his belt for him. “Should we still be doing this?”
Cobb’s eyes flicker up, suddenly guarded.
Eames shrugs. “You’re a dad now, aren't you? Isn’t that a bit strange?”
“Why is it strange?”
Eames doesn’t remember why. The feeling just came up and even though Eames doesn’t care much for feelings either, not when things are good and things are good as they are without feelings complicating them and Eames appreciates things like that. Simple. Unattached. “Ethics and all that crap, really.”
“You care about ethics?” Cobb doubts it.
Eames doubts it too, but some things just need to be said. “Not most of the time, but I’m not a complete hedonist either.”
“Neither am I.”
“Are you an infidel?”
Cobb thinks about it. “I’m having sex with you behind my wife’s back.”
“Do you love me?”
Cobb doesn’t even bat an eyelid. “I care for you as a person.”
Eames laughs. “That’s a no.”
Cobb looks sheepish, then hurries to assuage him. “I don’t mean-“
“Cobb, honestly,” Eames gives a long-suffering sigh as he pulls Cobb’s belt from the loops. “My heart is not broken. It does not need to be fixed, yeah?”
Cobb shrugs, still looking more cautious than Eames thinks he should. He’s Cobb, for fuck’s sake. They’ve been through hell (well, the mind’s version of hell) together. They even got shot together and it feels real enough in dreams that Eames considers it as some sign of brotherhood. However feeble.
“Well,” Eames shrugs, stepping back and holding up his hands in mock surrender. “I’ll just be off for another round of poker, then.”
“You’re bad at poker.”
“I have a good poker face,” Eames cares to point out.
“But you’re also good in bed,” Cobb reminds him.
Eames doesn’t need reminding, but he does acquiesce. “That is true.”
“You see my logic here, right?”
Eames smirks, already unbuttoning his shirt and toeing off his shoes. “I don’t need to be told twice.”
iv. seoul, south koreaWhen Eames hears about Mal’s death, he’s somewhere in South Korea. In the belly of the underground gambling system. He’s watching a cockfight, of all things, and for the first time in years, he’s actually got a winning streak to be proud over.
He hears about it through Arthur, whom he’s only ever met a few times before. (And none of those times were particularly pretty, but Eames takes things in stride and Arthur does not. It festers after several days until Eames finds the thrill of taunting Arthur a little too much to be entertained by anymore.)
He doesn’t expect Cobb to be waiting for him at his hotel room.
“What are you doing here?” is Eames’ way of greeting him. He’s both surprised and not. Surprised, because the man just lost his wife, for God’s sake. Not, because Cobb tends to find him wherever Eames is, even though Cobb doesn’t have his number and Eames doesn’t have Cobb’s.
(They call each other when they need to, only if they need to, and they tend to change their numbers afterwards. Caution and all that.)
He blames Arthur.
Cobb shakes his head, his face in his hands. He’s sitting on the couch, still wearing his suit jacket. He looks tired, dark shadows underneath his eyes. Hair a mess.
When Eames nears him, sitting down on the coffee table until they’re close enough that their knees touch, Cobb smells of the airport. And sweat. And the smog from the streets.
“Cobb.”
“I have a job,” Cobb finally says, threading his fingers through his hair as he pulls up, his back creaking, and sinking into the couch. Heavily.
Eames frowns. “That surprises me.”
Cobb’s eyes flash dangerously. “Why?”
Eames takes this in stride too. “Because Mal just died,” and he says it like it is. Because that’s what he does.
“Why is that supposed to be related to anything?”
“Because she was your wife.” Two blows in one go. Eames hates to do these things but there are things. There are things.
“I still need to work.”
“You should be hiding,” Eames shakes his head.
“I am hiding,” Cobb’s voice starts to rise, “Why the hell do you think I’m here in the first place?”
It takes a lot for Eames to snap and for the people he doesn’t mind wasting time on, his patience can run for miles.
Cobb looks at Eames, before realizing that he’s probably gone too far. He draws in a breath, steadying himself. He doesn’t apologize, because dealing with Eames means not dealing with needing to make sure that he’s not getting hurt by anything.
“What’s the job, then?”
“I need to extract from a business mogul.”
Eames nods. “Whom?”
“Man from,” Cobb gestures, shaking his head as if dislodging all the other things that he doesn’t need to think about to get to what he does. “From-Saito. Saito is the mark.”
“Just a regular extraction, then?”
Cobb nods. “Shell of it, yeah.”
“Then you don’t need a forger,” Eames tells Cobb for him.
Cobb knows this and Eames knows that Cobb knows but Eames likes to think that Cobb makes mistakes sometimes too and that Cobb does these things not because of sentimental reasons because they never have use for sentiments anyway.
Eames looks away, eyes sweeping the one-bedroom suite. “Where’s Arthur?”
“Japan.”
Eames turns back to him. “Really. You left him there?” Eames finds it hard that Arthur had allowed such a thing. Usually, he’s right by Cobb’s side. It annoyed Eames to a point but he understands loyalty. He’s no fan of it but he understands it and appreciates a man’s man, and Arthur is Cobb’s.
Cobb shakes his head. “We’re meeting there.”
“Does he know you’re here?” Eames expects yes, Arthur does, because Arthur never lets anything past him.
Cobb shakes his head again, after a moment’s pause.
Eames sighs. “I don’t know why you’re here, Cobb. You certainly don’t need me on this job and you and I both know it.”
Then Cobb looks at him, with eyes that speak more than is allowed for the both of the them. Eames feels that this is crossing some line that had been there since this all started almost fifteen years ago, back in London, when Mal was still Cobb’s girlfriend, and there was no family, and no obligation, and nothing else but the thrill of unexplored terrain to fuel their want for everything. All at the same time.
They were young back then.
Now-
--Now there’s much more at stake and Eames is a smart man, he knows these things despite not having the need to say them out loud.
Eames takes that plea for what it is, in the way that he approaches any kind of business.
Up front, face first. To hell with the consequences.
***
They don’t bother with the bed. They stay in the sitting area, with Cobb splayed over the couch and Eames towering over him. They pound against each other with a rawness that startles even Eames.
Hands claw at his back and Cobb, Cobb is screwing his eyes shut, and doesn’t bother to be silent.
Eames gives him what he needs because it feels good first. Because he likes Cobb second.
Because Cobb isn’t leaving here when Eames knows that anything can happen between now and the moment Cobb steps out of the door and damn it all, he doesn’t need guilt in his line of business.
***
To hell with the consequences.
But always, always leave room for a quick exit.
***
“Did you kill her, then?” Eames says after Cobb tells him the whole story. They’re both pulling up their pants, zipping up their flies. Eames’ shoe is lodged underneath the couch and Cobb’s suit jacket is wrinkled, a heap on the floor.
He’s met with silence.
Eames looks up, knowing full well what’ll meet him when he does.
For all the foresight, however, the punch to his face is still painful as fuck.
He reels back, clutching his cheek in his hand.
Cobb pants, his fist still wound tight. “Fuck you.”
Eames shakes his head at Cobb, smiling sadly. “I’m doing you a favor.”
Cobb leaves soon after that, and Eames doesn’t see him again for several months.
v. mombasa, kenyaEames is a hundred chips down, in between jobs, and several months away from his last actual paycheck, when Cobb finds him again.
There’s Saito, and Fischer’s face on an A4-size paper, and the sensation of routine falling back into place like something straight out of muscle memory.
He remembers doing this, a very long time ago, cupping Cobb’s head in his palm, the swell of his groin, the hard lines of his chest.
They both finish with a sigh that’s almost nostalgic.
Eames finds it incredibly funny.
“I thought that fist to my face was some kind of theatrical farewell,” he brings up, as he pours them both two thumbs of the only bourbon he keeps in a glass tumbler. It’s hot in his apartment and both his and Cobb’s bare chests glisten with sweat.
“Apparently I’m a dense guy,” Cobb replies with a smirk, taking the glass from Eames and grimaces as the hot torrent of unsaturated liquor blots out the taste of everything else on his tongue.
Eames looks at him in amusement, preferring to take his own drink in tiny sips.
“What do you say to this Fischer job? Are you in?”
“I already said yes, didn’t I? Looked at the dossier and everything,” Eames allows with a vague gesture with his glass.
Cobb nods, hand on his hip, his own glass hovering just before his lips. He looks thoughtful, almost nonchalant. But Eames has studied so many people over the years that Cobb is anything but.
“Yes, I’ll take the damn job,” Eames sighs indulgently. It feels right, this. Just like old times. “Waving bait in front of me again, as is your wont.”
Cobb laughs, and Eames smiles at the sound. He doesn’t miss it, because they don’t meet often enough for Eames to be acquainted with it too intimately.
But it does look good on Cobb, laughing does, especially when months ago, in South Korea, Cobb kissed Eames goodbye with a fist that bruised his face for weeks afterwards.
Eames shakes his head, smiling silently to himself. He gulps down the rest of his drink, and so does Cobb. They dress up, and don’t touch again.
Arthur will be there, and so will Saito, and it’s going to be a job that will mean everything to Cobb.
Eames doesn’t know family, but he’s known urgency closely enough that the stakes are too high this time. He gambles away his wealth, he risks his own life for something he doesn’t need, but wants so badly. Cobb, however, needs this, and Eames knows need too despite it being as foreign a concept as family, and obligation, and things that anchor to him to places he feels no emotional attachment to.
So he does his job, and does it well, and when Cobb disappears in Los Angeles and doesn’t call for a long time afterwards, Eames respects that too.
END