[ commitment is a stolen dali...among other things ] (inception)
→rating: PG/PG-13? ._. god I don't know how to rate things ever ahahaha
→word count: ~3,000 barely
→warnings: I was sleeping when I wrote this... no seriously.
→notes: inspired by this prompt but as is everything I attempt to fill, I think it's a deviation.../_\...ALSO the e-mail addresses are anagrams 8)
→extra: ♩ ♬ ♪
Commitment is a Stolen Dali...Among Other Things
Sunday. October 15, 2010.
Arthur is late.
Now, contrary to popular and healthily circulated belief, Arthur is not always as punctual as the sun, but in keeping with the image it must also be admitted that Arthur usually is. Taking this into account, thoughtful fingers punch in a familiar number only to reach a disconnected line, which given another situation would be fine, but this one puts Eames somewhere difficult. The heist is set to go off in five minutes - splendidly, he would add, flawlessly even, but he can't do that because Arthur is late and Arthur is never - er, almost never - late.
Eames is one minute from calling the whole thing off when Arthur strolls into his spot on their live-action chess board. If it wouldn't blow their cover, Eames would chew him out for pushing it this close but two things stop him.
One: it would blow their cover.
Two: it would blow their cover and then it would be his fault.
No bloody fuck.
Eames stays where he is and they pull off the gig with the kind of ease typically reserved for more luxurious and genuinely easy pastimes - yachting through the Caribbean, tying one's own shoes, and telling left from right being some of these things. Later, Arthur in the passenger seat of a car that belongs neither to him nor Eames, the point gingerly removes his jacket and that's when the forger notes the dark stain arguing its way through the stiffness of Arthur's oxford.
"Arthur, your--"
"Eyes on the road Eames."
"There's nobody else on the street. What happened?"
For a moment Arthur says nothing, simply unbuttons his shirt and produces a fresh roll of bandages from one of his parcels and layers over what is already there - a quick, brute-force fix until they get stationary and preferably somewhere with a sink. Eames gets that. What he doesn't get is what happened to Arthur in the first place though he'll bet good and old money that's what kept him so long earlier on. He's about to inquire again when Arthur says, without looking over:
"If a deer runs into the road, we could die."
Possibly, Arthur is being evasive. Eames returns this behavior with an unnecessary jerk of the wheel that sends Arthur's elbow jamming against the door, eliciting a hiss through his perfect teeth.
"You were saying?"
"I was saying: I hate you."
"As long as we're on the same page, darling."
They stop not at the first motel but the third and when Eames threatens to tie Arthur up if he tries to dress the wound himself when more adept aid is available - Eames himself, that is - Arthur says fuck off before submitting to that rarefied instant wherein he could do with some help and, for reasons unknown, actually accepts it.
Tuesday. January 07, 2011.
He's leaning back in his chair, front two feet off and the tips of the toes of his shoes acting as precarious mediator between himself and an embarrassing backward tumble when the front door to his flat opens. Arthur, unofficial boyscout that he is, draws the Glock and holds it level, ready to peel through the skull of whomever if the situation calls for it, but what first cavorts into view isn't a human head; it's the corner of something awkwardly swathed in sheets. Okay so that's not quite what he expected and it shows with a wash of blinking, punctuated by the arched brow to end all arched brows, and then annotated with a mild recovery as he flicks the safety back on, because the expletives following the mystery item are not mysterious at all.
"You can't even knock?" Arthur sets the gun down and circles his desk only to lean back against it, arms crossed and head tilted at the sheeted item and the man carrying it.
"I thought about it."
"Uh huh."
Setting the thing down against the wall nearest and adjacent to Arthur himself, Eames steps back, and he doesn't look worried so much as - Arthur suspects and then is confused by his own suspecting - anticipatory. His careful construction of neutrality dips for a moment.
"If this is something you just stole I'm going to throw you out - via the balcony."
"You don't have a balcony."
"I have a window."
"Always improvising. Just open it."
That, takes Arthur by surprise, takes him like strong hands on his shoulders steering him toward the musty gray sheets, which given a good washing would probably be white. This feels suddenly quite similar to a challenge, and when he sighs and rolls his eyes as though he has so many better things to be doing it's not precisely believable, especially not when Arthur begins tugging the covers off, and especially, especially not when he lets them inch down out of his grasp so he can devote all his attention to just staring.
He finds his voice with a speed that makes up for it.
"This isn't--"
"It is."
"You didn't--"
"I did."
"Why?" Dark eyes arrow toward Eames, honing in with the kind of singularity that would make a lesser man squirm but Eames is long beyond that; what he feels is something rather different, pitted and familiar because he's too old not to have experienced this before but it's never quite the same from person to person, which is also something he's old enough to know. He lets Arthur try to figure it out, his not-so-silent cogs of thought turning and when the forger deems it's been long enough, he shrugs.
"I owed you."
If Arthur senses in himself a flash of disappointment, he figures it could as soon be indigestion.
"What for?" he asks, stooping to pick up the sheet and wrinkle his nose at it before striding away to toss it into the washing machine.
"What do you mean what for?" Eames may be being the more honest between the two of them now, that barest edge of vexation coloring his consonants; it shouldn't be so memorable. Shutting the washer door, Arthur walks back into view, both brows lifted only to let them lower again, a short-lived oh the only preamble as he moves his eyes back to the Dali.
"You got me a still life."
"The Still Life."
"Which isn't really a still life."
"It is and it isn't."
Like you, Eames adds dryly even as he keeps it to himself. He thinks this in other ways too but they don't have a place here just yet- only room for Arthur and the painting, for now, and the acute wanderlust in Eames' blood says that's for the better because he's not the type to want to come home to anyone any more than Arthur is. They have their own reasons of course, Arthur's being the sort the man has repressed so spectacularly that Eames finds it a wonder Arthur maintains the sense of self that he does. Eames' reasons are less convoluted; he likes to travel, and when he's working the reality of forgery be it art or bonds or otherwise, it's just smarter not to dig your roots down too deep, because ultimately someone finds them and then someone is everyone and that's exactly what you lose: everyone, everything. Eames is too smart for that and Arthur is too Arthur.
So it's a painting as a thank you, a painting of a paradox, a painting that says sorry about the scar on your right arm and how the blood ruined the dove gray number you fancied.
A hand curled around the back of his own neck, Arthur sighs against his teeth and then moves toward his kitchen.
"Drink?" he asks.
"You'll be keeping it, I gather."
"That, or I can waltz up to the museum and say, look what I found," Arthur is, for all intensive purposes, facetiousness incarnate.
Eames laughs, looks at the painting, tells Arthur whatever you're having, and means it.
Wednesday. February 26, 2011.
from: E
to: A
date: Wed, Feb 26, 2011 at 10:47 PM
subject: ENQUIRY~ its not my birthday u know
from: A
to: E
date: Wed, Feb 26, 2011 at 11:17 PM
subject: re: ENQUIRY~ You take the trouble to e-mail and you can't be bothered to capitalize or
punctuate. Amazing. Have you ever considered changing your address? I thought
this was spam at first. Also? Don't get shot in Russia.
from: E
to: A
date: Wed, Feb 26, 2011 at 11:55 PM
subject: re: ENQUIRY~ doesnt matter does it? u know what im saying. and i LIKE this email, nothing wrong
with it anyhow, will do...well wont, get shot that is!! silly to ask how u knew bout
russia right? right.
ps y havent i seen this on the news?
from: A
to: E
date: Thu, Feb 27, 2011 at 12:06 AM
subject: re: ENQUIRY~ Whatever. You're not the only one to go to for a good forgery. The new curator's
a moron. Nick sends his regards.
from: E
to: A
date: Thu, Feb 27, 2011 at 12:29 AM
subject: re: ENQUIRY~
roman isnt it? miserable piece of work. anyway g2g but thx again 4 the gift . ..
wonder how long itll take them 2 catch on ...tell Nick cheers
from: A
to: E
date: Thu, Feb 27, 2011 at 12:36 AM
subject: re: ENQUIRY~ If I find out you sold the piece, I'll shoot you myself.
from: E
to: A
date: Thu, Feb 27, 2011 at 12:39 AM
subject: re: ENQUIRY~
remnd me to hlp you w/ ur people sklls, darling
ps dont get shanked in Spain - nvr talk 2 u again
from: A
to: E
date: Thu, Feb 27, 2011 at 12:42 AM
subject: re: ENQUIRY~ I'll keep that in mind.
Saturday. November 19, 2011.
Between the two of them they could start a museum, or at the very least they could do a fine impression of one inside the walls of any given mansion expansive enough to have wings. That being the truth, it's not at all the practical thing to do, so what happens is that Eames keeps the things Arthur steals for him wherever he receives them, and the reverse is also true. Dali gets joined by Bacon on any given Saturday and Eames' curious collection of high-grade operative tools - the likes of which he hasn't seen since his MI6 days - finds an addendum on every other. That of course is only Paris.
Mombasa is getting crowded too, though mostly with far less useful things: antiquated bonds neither has any intention of redeeming, an impressive array of Song dynasty pottery Arthur is 110% sure he saw in the Met the last time he was there, and a state-of-the-art telescope that a lab in Russia will assume was stolen by the French or the Americans. And okay that one is useful, give or take some artistic license of the definition.
"Those are galaxies forming on the edge there, you know," Eames taps him on the shoulder one night, Arthur's eye too busy pressed to the view. Flippant, he raises a hand and waves it once, vague and dismissive, not especially keen on waxing poetry or philosophy. This isn't to say Arthur fails to appreciate poetry or philosophy, but sometimes Arthur just wants things to be quiet - outside of his head, and inside. Still, he becomes decidedly less dismissive when a warm mouth canvases its way across his palm and the reflexive straightening of his fingers, a tension that arrows down the curve of his back and cinches in a response at the pit of his stomach.
It's sheer stubbornness, that age-old dislike for folding when he still feels he has a card worth playing, that keeps him staring through to the stars instead of bringing his gaze closer to home, as he says, "Guess it's not a big difference from here." And he didn't intend for it to mean as much as what all that might - what it must, by now - but he doesn't believe in take-backs either, so he lets it rest.
There's a pause, then a pull none too light on his wrist, Eames dragging him earthward; and Arthur, Arthur lets him.
Thursday. April 05, 2012.
Eames having always been borderline superhuman with his acts of thievery and Arthur having done his damnedest to overthrow him, it's only natural that they decide to pool their efforts at one point or another. Sitting with a box of take-out on one knee and his cell phone on the other, Arthur flips through the programs, the mile-a-minute trademark of a committed channel-surfer evident in the twitch of his index when Eames says, "Wait."
Silence pervaded only by the on-screen dialogue, Arthur sends him a questioning look only to get a this, it's this look in reply.
Arthur stuffs his mouth full of Pad Thai and chews a little furiously over the television's volume:
You wanna rob a casino?
This is ridiculous, he thinks.
But not nearly as ridiculous as co-habitation with Eames, some traitor shoulder angel-devil hybrid points out to him and Arthur wonders what the increments of All Rationale Lost might be for a man spending a few too many spare moments arguing with himself. Ridiculous all the same, he decides, appallingly close to cross about it. What he ought to say is do it yourself because the thing on television is a movie and their lives, fast-paced and dangerous enough as they are, aren't that.
What Arthur ends up saying is, "Which one?"
In between.
The Lotus Job gets sidelined by a hit taken out on Eames for something else entirely, and for a while he disappears.
Monday. October 11, 2012.
Arthur finds Eames chopping wood outside a small log cabin in the middle of nowhere. His misgivings about the domicile must be transparent because the first thing Eames does is laugh at him and Arthur flips him a punctuating finger in return.
"Lovely of you to drop in."
"Tell me you didn't build that."
"I didn't build it."
"Don't just say it, if it's not true," Arthur flings an offended, suspicious glance. Eames could not be any less affected if he tried.
"Honest to your bespoke God, Arthur, I did not build this hovel," he raises his left hand over his heart, a perfection of mock-solemnity if ever there was one and Arthur thinks it might not be terrible manners after all to shove Eames into the convenient pond several yards away. October is already chilly by now, and it would make him feel better about the embarrassing amount of time he spent figuring out where Eames was at all. Because the thing is, Arthur knows Eames can take care of himself, just as he believes - sometimes within a hair but believes nonetheless - Eames presumes to be true of him as well. That's what makes this work, he insists - though never aloud, whatever this is: grandiose acts of theft and one-upping each other until the next thing they know they're stealing castles and palatial gardens and historical landmarks, because there's nothing else they haven't tried.
That bare, queer panic off like a shot in his gut? It has no place here, he thinks, because that would be how to ruin it all.
Around them there's the smell of the mountainous thickets of trees and their lower-to-the-ground brethren, and smoke from the wood-stove fire burning dutifully in the cabin which is not at all a hovel, and something else Arthur can't quite place.
"Fresh air, Arthur," Eames supplies, as if he can read his mind, and fells the axe to another heavy knot of wood like he's been doing this all his life. He finishes the respectable pile at one edge of the shed before looking his way again and asking, "What are you doing here, hm?"
Arthur shrugs. "Figured I'd make sure you weren't dead."
Eames seems torn between amused and simply looking right through him, and Arthur's stillness may be nearly as damning as fidgeting. When the forger turned woodcutter fiddles with something in his pocket, it takes Arthur a moment to recognize it for what it is.
He feels, maybe, a little less foolish after all.
Friday. December 31, 2012.
Arthur takes a bullet; it misses his heart but that doesn't mean as much to him at that exact moment as it will later. He has peace of mind or lack of sanity enough to think: well that's one way to bring in the new year.
Sunday. January 2, 2013.
Eames guns down the assailant.
He also robs a palace, but Arthur doesn't find that out for a month.
Eight months, a few more hit men, and a long convalescence later...
It's 7:15 in the A.M. and the sun teases low enough in the sky that it cants in clean beams against the reacquired Bacons and Dalis and so on and so forth, rebounding on the glass of a hallway mirror as it pools at the hollow of Arthur's throat. There's a book flat open across his stomach, his head tilted back and his mouth parted just enough to indicate he is actually asleep. In his defense, he had a late night and some things are easier to steal than others.
Down the length of their most uninterrupted wall, there resides an aquarium that bends at the corner to follow the design of the flat. The walls themselves are whitened beechwood, laid out in strong vertical panels that open the space up even in the dark, and Arthur's latest lift rests at the threshold of one out of the two balcony views - the better for access to the starline. Arthur didn't put a ribbon on it, but he doesn't need to. The old one was stolen and presumably sold elsewhere, over a year ago (back to the Russians perhaps) - when the forger was flying low under the radar, and all of the flats his pursuers could find were efficiently stripped of their valuables, everything else left to the dust.
When Eames returns a few hours later he kisses Arthur awake, digs his weight down against him, cuts his mouth and teeth across his clavicle, roughs fingertips up his spine, all with something like inevitability backing his claim. Something like a stolen oil painting for a white scar that brackets outward on Arthur's shoulder. Something like first edition prints of Wordsworth for knowing when to get gone instead of getting dead. And Arthur arches toward him, push-pulls until it's nothing but the slick staccato of their voices and their skin and having without needing to ever say so. It isn't that Arthur couldn't say as much now either, and Eames has always been fluent with his words. No, it's not about that. This, this is about twisting around each other, making friction burn instead of making it easy, and in that slow collision, finding a collective caliber between them, their own coordinates a few hands' breadths off of the map entirely, a circle looped with invisible ink and a scrawl of words, just three words: you are here.
And here is enough.