A Little Less Conversation
Title: A Little Less Conversation
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur
Disclaimer: Everyone here belongs to Christopher Nolan and not to me. His toys are fun to play with!
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. For the inception_kink meme prompt in round 14: Ariadne and Arthur keep coming across Eames' projections of the pair having sex. Soon, it's all they can think about.Also incorporates the round 15 prompt: A bad reaction to a compound somehow results in Eames being able to see the future. Also incorporates "telepathic trauma" from my hc_bingo card.
Summary: By accident, Eames can see the future, though it's limited in scope. So how does he use his newfound gift? Getting the architect and point man together, of course.
Eames felt horrid. He had somehow let his guard down the night before, and some woman he'd never met before had spiked his drink, and it was only his ridiculous tolerance for most illicit and licit substances that had allowed him to remain upright. He had managed to corner the woman in the alley outside of the bar, and she still wasn't familiar. Splitting her lips across his knuckles didn't make her more familiar and she wouldn't say who had hired her to drug him. Instead, she shot him with a syringe of something else that nearly knocked him for a loop. He had shoved her hard into the brick wall, knocking the breath out of her, and then a wicked right hook snapped her head back into the wall. She crumpled to the floor unconscious, but her pockets didn't reveal anything about her identity. They did contain two more syringes and a cell phone with its memory wiped; she likely memorized whatever number she had to dial to reach her contact.
He didn't sleep that night, paranoid that someone else was after him. Without some clue about the woman's identity, he couldn't be sure if it was due to dream share or his other activities in the underground. Coffee, cigarettes and caffeine pills worked in short bursts, but he was bleary eyed and a hair's breadth away from sleep as he stumbled into the empty warehouse that the team was using to work on the current job. They were in Mombasa, as Yusuf was refusing to leave the city to reenter the field. His expertise was needed to tailor the compounds, so the preparation was being done in Kenya as much as possible until they had to fly to Capetown where their subject actually was. Yusuf gave Eames a look that clearly said he had no intention of dosing the forger with anything today.
"You look like shit," Arthur told him bluntly. "You shouldn't party that hard when we're working."
The disapproval was clear in Arthur's tone, and made Eames set his jaw. He nearly said something biting and harsh, but Ariadne opened the door to the small warehouse and the color drained from her face as she saw Eames. "Oh my God, Eames! What happened?" she cried out in concern.
"Thank you, Ariadne, for not thinking the worst of me," he drawled, retrieving the syringes he had taken from the woman. "As it happens, some woman I've never seen before tried to roll me last night, and she injected me with something." Yusuf looked contrite at least, and reached for the syringes Eames held out to him. Arthur looked partly skeptical and partly concerned. "And no, no one followed me here. I've been up all night making sure of that."
Arthur definitely did look relieved, and busied himself with the paperwork he was sorting through. Yusuf promised to try to determine what the formula was that he had been injected with. "Just to be safe, we should let it run its course," Yusuf told Eames. "You don't know what the reaction would be with somnacin..."
Eames snorted inelegantly, which actually made Ariadne smile in relief. "I'm fine. Whatever that shite was, it must be out of my system by now. I absolutely want to work today and try to get the level memorized." He stared down Yusuf and refused to let Arthur argue him out of it. Ariadne gave him a dubious look, but he knew it was out of concern for him, not doubt that he could do it. He persuaded her to take him down into the level under PASIV so he could learn the maze. Arthur was going to hold down the level once they were actually in Capetown, but Eames still needed to know where to go inside of the maze.
He felt sick once he woke, though he had a good handle on the layout now. He'd seen the mockups and the sketches, but he always liked to see the actual design under the PASIV as well. He could imagine things in three dimensions, but he was no architect. The details in her sketches didn't mean much to him in some respects, but seeing the final product always helped.
"I suppose I'm a bit knackered," Eames said, feeling his stomach roil. He gave them all a smile, though it was mostly for Ariadne's benefit.
"Take a nap in the back," Arthur said. His voice was even and toneless, but there was concern in his eyes. Well, wasn't that a pleasant change?
Eames still felt groggy and out of sorts when he woke, and it was to the sound of voices. Arthur and Ariadne, caught in their endless dance of flirtation that they didn't even realize was flirtation. Part of that, Eames was certain, was Arthur's own rigid work ethic and Ariadne's straightforward demeanor. She was the kind to mention if she was interested and assumed that others were the same way. She thought Arthur was handsome, but she wasn't necessarily easily swayed by a pretty face. If so, the innuendo he had shot in her direction during the Fischer job would have had some kind of effect. Ariadne wasn't the type to push her affections on someone else. Curiosity yes, affection no.
It was endearingly silly, rather like watching one of those films where the friends stumble into each other one day and realize that yes, there was an attraction there all along and they should do something about it. Eames didn't think they would appreciate him munching on popcorn every time they were in the same room together, however.
"...dinner?" Arthur was saying. "It's getting late. If Eames is still asleep, he probably needs it. I wouldn't want to wake him at this point if he had that rough a night."
"So you are concerned," Ariadne teased. Eames stumbled toward the door of the room he had been sleeping in but neither heard him. She pulled out a pen and one of her notebooks, a habit he had teased was due to Arthur's bad influence. "I'll leave him a note in case he wakes up after we've left. This is probably safer for him than anywhere he was staying before, especially if some random person tried to attack him."
"It's not necessarily this job, you know," Arthur reminded her as she scribbled the note. "No one in Capetown is aware that we're gearing up to do this except our employers. Meanwhile, he's had a base here for several years. For all we know it's from one of his gambling debts."
Ariadne smiled indulgently and found some scotch tape to stick the note to the door of the room he was in. It was odd that she didn't simply hand him the note, given that he was looking right at her. "Oh, I think he's much better at that than he lets on." She secured the tape and Eames reached out for the note in irritation.
His hand passed right through the note.
She turned, and Eames saw Arthur's eyes snap up from her cute little derriere to her face. She didn't even notice it, and still had her notebook in hand. "I think he got a good idea about the maze today, though. So he wasn't as bad off as Yusuf was afraid of. It was probably just crashing down from being awake for two days straight."
Arthur shook his head, a soft quirk at the corner of his lips that Ariadne didn't notice. He held out her coat for her, and they continued talking as they left the warehouse space, Arthur acting every inch the old world gallant.
Eames looked at the note again. He couldn't pull it off the door. In fact, now his hand was going through the door. What the hell?
He jerked awake suddenly, still lying on the oddly comfortable couch, one of its lumps a perfect pillow for his head. He heard the same murmurs as he had earlier, and crept toward the door with more finesse than he had earlier. Or was it all a dream?
If it was a dream, it was a strangely prescient one. Everything unfolded the way it had in his dream, including the way Arthur looked at Ariadne when she wasn't looking. He had never really noticed it before. Since when did he notice what Arthur noticed, after all? Arthur missed the appreciative glances that Ariadne sent his way, or how she touched his arm as she put on her coat. It was definitely one of those endearingly adorable situations, one that might one day reach its inevitable conclusion. Of course, with Arthur as his stick in the mud self, they might never get there.
Pondering that one, Eames used the restroom and went back to sleep. He would puzzle out his dream later.
***
If it had been just the one dream, Eames would have chalked it up to not being fully awake the first time and simply experiencing everything through a haze of exhaustion. He zoned out while going through files on their subject at least four times when fully awake, and each time he saw his coworkers in some kind of situation as clear as day. Yusuf wasn't able to fully identify the material within the syringes, but he knew what it was made up of with some careful testing. He had contacts in organic chemistry labs nearby and was able to use the nuclear magnetic resonance machine, and put together likely structures for the compounds within the syringes. All he could tell was that they were extremely psychoactive, which then made him deliver a stern lecture to Eames about the horrible potential effects about mixing unknown compounds with unknown quantities of other psychoactive compounds.
It wasn't as if Eames intended to be drugged and attacked, though in the midst of Yusuf's controlled rant he got a flash of the woman he had struck the night before. She was reporting in to one of Yusuf's competitors, and she had been intending to use Eames' body to drive Yusuf out of business.
"What if it wasn't me that was the ultimate target?" Eames asked before he could stop his mouth from moving. Yusuf stopped, mid-syllable, staring open mouthed at Eames. "No, I'm serious, Yusuf. I'm not just pulling your leg. I've been thinking. We both know I'm fairly visible in Mombasa, but that also means that it's not as likely that someone is going to do things so underhanded as attack me in an alley. If someone has an argument with me, they start their whisper campaign or they do it where others in the business can see. It happened six years ago, remember?" Yusuf nodded unhappily. He had lost a considerable amount of business at that time, since Eames was one of his best customers. "Well, then, what if I was just a convenient target to get to compared to everyone else?"
Yusuf sighed and shook his head. "I wouldn't think that it would be so brutal..."
"What are you on about?"
"There was a competitor off and on over the past year. The den has been doing quite well recently." Eames nodded, knowing full well that the influx of cash had led to the additional purchase of supplies to support the den and had allowed him to expand the number of dreamers he could comfortably support in the dream. He had been much happier not knowing the full extent of the den prior to the Fischer job preparation, but then again, he was a man fond of knowing what was reality and what wasn't.
Yusuf sighed. "Apparently, some dreamers left Tomas' den."
Eames paused, not looking outwardly distressed. "Shall we spread a few words about this Tomas, then?"
"Needs must. I won't have my friends and associates harmed because of business that they don't know much about."
"Much obliged. I'll call a few people I know."
"I'll do the same. I'm very sorry, Eames. I never stopped to think that it might have been one of us. Well, I doubt Ariadne's caught up in anything quite so underhanded. You should warn Arthur as well, just in case this wasn't Tomas' people."
"And I'm certainly going to be watching my back in case it was because of my own contacts. But best to be safe."
"Precisely," Yusuf agreed. He slipped his glasses on and looked very much like a chemistry professor. "Don't think I haven't forgotten about our original conversation. But safety takes priority for the moment. You're at least looking in good health, so hopefully its half life isn't anywhere near as long as I think it might be."
Oh, Eames was fairly certain that it was every bit as long as Yusuf feared it was. Not to mention the mix of alcohol, caffeine, nicotine and whatever else that the woman had given him and the chemicals in the cigarettes... Oh, he was probably very lucky not to be dead of some kind of overdose. Prophetic dreams seemed to be a very minor inconvenience when put into that kind of perspective.
Arthur took the warning as well as Eames thought he might. Only the slightest tightening of his hand around his pen gave away any trepidation he might have. "Thank you for the warning," Arthur told him graciously. "There are possibilities, though I wouldn't think that they know of our association." Eames saw his eyes flick to Ariadne for a fraction of a second, and the muscles around his mouth tightened even further. "I have to do a little work on this."
"I'd protect her, too," Eames told Arthur mildly. "She's dear to us all."
Arthur's eyes flew up to his, though his expression remained impassive. There was the sudden press of knowledge that his warning had only strengthened Arthur's resolve not to do or say anything to let Ariadne know what his feelings were. His feelings were decidedly not platonic, but now he feared for her safety.
Dammit. That hadn't been Eames' intention at all. Cockblocking for shits and giggles was one thing, but not when he absolutely hadn't meant it that way.
"I know a bloke," Eames continued, as if this was his plan all along, "that owns a range. We could teach her to defend herself. I know she did admirably well with subconscious security, but she also expected to be able to. Reality is a different thing."
"I can do that," Arthur said with a slight nod. That niggling knowledge that Eames had in the back of his head was starting to shift as Arthur decided how he would approach Ariadne with this idea. "If we create a shooting range under PASIV, that might also speed up the learning time."
"Excellent. Then we'll get her up to snuff so we can at least feel better about her walking around Old Town," Eames said with a nod. "I hadn't heard whispers out about her yet, but there's no need to wait until then. Would you take firearms or hand to hand duty?"
It was a perfectly innocent question, but suddenly the shift in Arthur's thoughts were terribly transparent. Well, they were transparent to Eames, who could read intentions in muscle twitches and shifting glances. The dilation of Arthur's pupils as he looked at Ariadne was particularly telling, especially since Ariadne was bending over to pick up a fallen glue stick at that exact moment. Eames managed to hide his smirk at Arthur's dirty thought patterns. Really, good for him. Eames had started to worry after the poor man's mental stability. It was one thing to be a stick in the mud when Cobb was going off the rails, but when he was free to do as he pleased, being so straight laced could wreck a man's mind. At least, that was Eames' opinion on the matter, and as far as he was concerned that was the only opinion that mattered.
Yusuf also approved of the range idea, and agreed to keep an eye on the three of them as they went down into somnacin induced sleep. He also gave Eames a glare of warning, intending for him to back out of the dream if he started feeling any ill effects. They had known each other off and on for about eight years, and were something just shy of friends. Comrades, Eames would call it. Rather like a fellow in the same military unit. You didn't always like the others in your unit, but you trusted them with your life and knew that you could rely on them in the same way.
Eames might have given him a snarky salute, but Yusuf took it as the acknowledgement that it was. Feeling safe, he went under with Arthur and Ariadne that evening.
It took a lot for Eames to feel embarrassed these days, but sometimes his own subconscious liked to do just that.
Arthur and Ariadne were standing near him, and they were actually outside a reconstruction of the range his acquaintance owned. Of course, there was another Arthur and Ariadne near them. Those were clearly Eames' projections, as that Arthur had Ariadne pressed up against the wall, his pants around his ankles and her legs wrapped around his waist. Their mouths were locked on each others' as if that was the only thing that would save them from drowning.
Ariadne was scarlet and averted her eyes from that coupling pair, only to gasp. Eames swung around to see what was going on, and he could see a different Arthur going down on an Ariadne lying across a cafe tabletop. Not very far away was another copy of Ariadne returning the favor with a different Arthur.
"Well, then," Eames began in a strangled tone of voice. "This is... Not what I had in mind, I assure you."
Arthur glared at Eames and moved to Ariadne's side. "We can always do this some other time when his mind's out of the gutter..." She turned and looked at him, her lips parted. Eames could tell instantly that her gasp and flush wasn't entirely due to embarrassment; this was also exactly the content of her own nighttime fantasies.
"Better start while we can, right?" she said, forcing a smile to her lips. She grasped his hand tightly, her thumb running across the inside of his wrist in an unconscious gesture that he responded fairly well to.
Ah, the endless amusement of two awkward coworkers in longing and lust. Eames would have found it more amusing if Arthur didn't glare at him every so often when they encountered more and more of Eames' projections of the two having sex. Eames had a good imagination and was fairly experienced, so there were a good many stares from Ariadne as she tried to puzzle out what the projection of herself was doing to Arthur or vice versa. He nobly repressed the urge to explain the niceties of kinky sex; if Arthur was interested in any of those positions or toys, surely he could research them for himself.
Once inside the range itself, there were no more projections milling about making eyes at each other. Arthur started with the instructions on weapon safety, trigger discipline and correct stance to deal with recoil from the weapon as it fired. Ariadne leaned into him when he stood behind her, and then after a moment she turned her head toward him with startled eyes and a quirk of her lips. Arthur cleared his throat and suggested she try a Beretta, since she had fired those fairly well in dreams. His own preferred Glock was common enough in the real world but the magazine stock was sometimes awkward to grasp and the trigger pull was a double one. He had large enough hands to deal with that well, but hers were smaller and a bit more delicate in construction. She would have to work on her hand strength if she wanted to deal with his weapon regularly.
Eames managed not to snigger at Arthur's word choice in that explanation, but only just.
Watching them was entertaining, and Ariadne did pick up on the actual lesson fairly well. She would have to practice in a real range and they would likely have to get her a gun of her own. There was the Beretta, which Eames approved of. It was easy enough to find, the cartridges it shot were common and it packed enough stopping power to get her to safety. She was a bit leery of him taking on the hand to hand combat, but as far as he was concerned, he would have a better approach than Arthur did. Arthur was lethal, but a lot of his abilities were based on his height, leverage and muscular strength. Lacking all three, Ariadne was going to have to fight dirty. She grasped that concept quickly enough once Eames explained it, and that also served to cool some of Arthur's rising hackles.
Interesting. Eames had hoped that his raucous imagination wouldn't turn them off of each other. If anything, it seemed to have Arthur a bit more possessive and protective of the tiny architect. And she certainly wasn't terribly opposed to what she had seen, either.
Whatever glimmers of extrasensory knowledge that Eames had somehow developed recently did not extend to the dreaming state. He didn't know what Ariadne was about to do or how he would go about teaching her what to do. He muddled through somehow, and she seemed gratified to know that their practice should extend to real world knowledge since he had taken care to imbue his dream with real world physics.
Once awake and back in the real world, Eames had to hide his headache. He was aware of the stares of Arthur and Ariadne, aware of the questions in their head. If anything, that was likely the cause of the headache. It was almost like having snippets of their thoughts in his head, adding to the swirling chaotic mess that was already there. He wasn't sure if it was current trains of thought or future conversations, but he knew that Arthur was thinking about everything he had seen in Eames' head. Ariadne hadn't seemed terribly opposed at all, which gave him a measure of hope that perhaps his feelings weren't all one sided. Ariadne kept looking at Arthur out of the corner of her eye, picturing him naked and in bed with her, wondering what he would taste like on her tongue.
Eames was tempted to just lock them in a room together and tell them to have at it. The nature of his visions shifted if he did that, however. Instead, they would feel awkward and shy, and nothing would happen for months, if not at least a year. Oh, sodding hell. Why did Arthur have to make everything so complicated?
He declared himself knackered and ready to go home for the day. He could always watch their awkward dance in dreams in the comfort of his own home. And apparently, too much interference from him was counterproductive anyway.
***
Arthur was writing in one of his notebooks as Ariadne reconstructed part of a model that hadn't dried properly. He was trying to narrow down a list of places to take Ariadne on a first date, and Eames was certain that he was definitely overthinking the entire situation. There were a lot of restaurants he was considering, and Eames wanted to sigh. As Arthur contemplated the pros and cons of each one, he could see how it all played out. Honestly, it was dinner. Arthur wasn't thinking about taking her back to his hotel room to shag her silly right away, which was a damn shame. She was certainly thinking of that, though she wasn't entirely sure that Arthur would appreciate her being forward. Eames was tempted to take her aside and tell her just how much Arthur would like that, but it would make her blush fiercely. Upon seeing that, Arthur would either assume that Eames had romantic interest in her that she was reciprocating and back off, or become horridly jealous and make him even more irritable toward Eames.
Honestly, the entire situation sucked. So much for having fun with telepathy and psychic phenomena. It was draining and boring.
Eames looked over Arthur's shoulder unceremoniously, ignoring the point man's thunderous look. He tapped one name on the list, the one that led to Arthur and Ariadne at least kissing and groping each other by the end of the night. "That is a very romantic place to go to," he commented. The future didn't seem to shift, which Eames was thankful for. "Why don't you take Ariadne there?"
"Why are you helping me?" Arthur asked him, a little suspicious.
"She's a friend and she's interested but isn't sure if you are." Well, now, for someone supposedly aware of a lot of details, that statement surprised Arthur. It definitely cemented the future with the two of them kissing at the end of dinner. "Why wouldn't I want to see her happy?"
Some of the suspicion died in Arthur's expression. "You wouldn't be fucking with me just because you can, are you?"
"I'm shocked you believe me capable of such a thing," Eames declared, standing up. "I can get my jollies in other ways, thank you very much."
Arthur snorted, just as Eames thought he would. The future didn't shift, and Ariadne was looking over at them. Her gaze softened when it landed on Arthur, and he caught it. Taking advantage of the moment, he got up and walked over to her. Eames turned away and smiled. Of course Ariadne would accept the dinner invitation. They would have a romantic dinner in a romantic restaurant, have wine and snog each other as if they needed the other to breathe. Maybe then they could get their hormones under better control and he could stop thinking of the two of them shagging every which way.
He made his way over to Yusuf, who was still frowning over the formula that strange woman had injected him with. "Any luck?"
Yusuf shook his head. "I can't figure out what the point of this was. It looks like it might be a paralytic, but it certainly wouldn't be a good one."
"Perhaps their chemist isn't as good as you are."
He took the praise but clearly wasn't happy with not being able to decipher the compound's purpose. "At least you don't appear to suffer any ill effects from it." Yusuf eyed him a little more warily than usual. "Though you are often distracted. Don't think I don't notice you taking all of those over the counter headache medicines."
Eames sighed as his eyes fell on Arthur and Ariadne almost unconsciously. "I've had a lot more headaches since then." Mostly because he kept seeing different ways for Arthur and Ariadne's relationship to play out, and they would be miserable if they weren't together. He would never admit it, but he had something of a romantic streak. Setting them up was entertaining, and he did like seeing Ariadne's delighted smiles at Arthur. He was much more relaxed after she accepted the dinner invitation, too.
Yusuf clapped Eames on the shoulder. "You possibly need a break. Let them worry about each other for a change. You rest up, and we'll figure out if there are any lasting effects from this compound that we need to be concerned with."
Psychic phenomena was certainly a lasting effect so far. Eames was just exhausted by it, almost as if it was burning him up from the inside out.
Now, that was a disturbing thought. Perhaps a good lie down would clear his head after all.
***
Yusuf was alone in the warehouse when Ariadne and Arthur arrived the next day. Arthur brought her back home from their dinner date, and Ariadne had invited him into her hotel room. They had kissed and fallen onto the bed, but it hadn't gone farther than kisses and touches. Ariadne had gotten a promise for another date that evening, which he had immediately given. She was grinning and practically glowing as she entered the warehouse, and Arthur had a self assured air about himself. Yusuf smirked to himself and managed to refrain from asking about their personal life. He updated them on his progress regarding the paralytic and his concern for Eames' well being.
Eames could see all of this as he brushed his teeth that morning, and part of him was touched by Yusuf's concern. Another part of him was irritated, because he certainly didn't want to be coddled. Too much concern about him could get the others to kick him off the team, and he hated being stuck at home doing nothing more than anything else.
He was going to have to admit what was happening, he supposed, though it was more fun to try to cement Arthur and Ariadne's relationship first. It was too adorable to watch them dance around each other, though the various ways to get them tumbling into bed were much more fun to watch unfold than cockblocking the point man would be.
On a more serious front, Tomas was growing increasingly angry with Yusuf. He had just lost two more dreamers in his den, and the only ones left returning to him were little more than zombies. Burnt out shells of people weren't good for business; there was no word of mouth to spread the news about his skills or his den, and income was dwindling. He would have to close up shop soon if this continued. Yusuf centered heavily in Tomas' angry thoughts, and it was enough to overcome Eames' natural inclination to leave others to their own devices. This was growing into a personal vendetta, and Eames wasn't about to let that go unchallenged.
As soon as he came into the warehouse, he made a beeline for Yusuf's designated office space. "There've been developments," he said without preamble.
Yusuf frowned at him, his earlier good mood instantly falling away to take in Eames' serious look. "Have there been side effects from those drugs? I thought it would be out of your system by now," he protested.
"I see things before they happen," Eames told him bluntly. "Sounds perfectly barmy, I realize that. No particular rhyme or reason, though I've been mostly seeing things about our resident lovebirds," he said, his voice low enough so that Arthur and Ariadne wouldn't hear. "I don't know how to force things in a particular direction, though I've been getting flashes about Tomas, too. He lost two more dreamers this morning."
"You could have heard that anywhere..."
"It just happened, Yusuf. This morning. All he's got left are the dreaming shells. I can describe them all if you like, have someone go in to confirm it, but that would take more time and effort than it's worth to convince you."
"You're serious," Yusuf said in disbelief, leaning back to look at him. "You actually believe what you're saying."
Eames tried to focus on something in the warehouse that would happen soon, but the most that he could see was Ariadne reaching for her glue gun and accidentally burning her thumb. It was a fairly innocuous but common enough occurrence that it wouldn't really impress Yusuf. "Watch out for the glue," he called out anyway, not even looking behind him.
Yusuf immediately looked toward Ariadne's work station, where she had been reaching for the glue gun. He could see that she was distracted because of the way she was looking through her model at Arthur at his computer, and her hand would have overshot the gun. The heated tip would likely graze her hand. She blinked and flushed when she realized what she was doing and called out her thanks, then refocused on her model. "How did you do that?" he asked Eames wonderingly.
"Whatever that bint shot me up with plus everything else..." Eames ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "I told you. I see things before they happen. I just know all sorts of random shite, and its not exactly something I can control."
"If what you say about Tomas is real," Yusuf began slowly, "then we should probably start figuring out how you can. If you can control these visions you have, then perhaps we can stay ahead of him and stay alive. He won't be particular about harming just myself, you know."
"It's why I'm telling you this," Eames responded. "You need to keep your dreamers safe, too."
Yusuf sucked in a breath at the reminder. "Well, then. Time to put the protections in place."
Eames half turned and looked at Arthur and Ariadne, who were finishing up their preparations. She was planning to put a few more adjustments on the level before they all went under again to test it out. Arthur was finalizing a plan, and everything likely would be done within a week or two. Then the three of them would be in Capetown and Yusuf would be alone in Mombasa to deal with a jealous and crazed competitor.
"Absolutely. Best to keep us all safe."
***
Yusuf called in markers he had with various men who had needed help kicking their addictions to sedatives or somnacin. He assured Arthur that they were not dangerous to the team, and made sure Ariadne's curiosity wouldn't send her into their orbit. He was protective of her in his own way, and he could tell that Arthur approved of that once he caught wind of a few names. He was very quietly impressed with the people that Yusuf knew, though Yusuf kept his thoughts to himself. Just because he didn't like going out into the field didn't mean he was isolated. It meant he was smart enough to keep his head down and off the radar so he wasn't killed.
Eames started the whispering campaign as Yusuf met with men who officially did not exist any longer. These men had an alphabet soup of credentials in their collective past, but they now worked for favors or fees. They felt a measure of gratitude for Yusuf, who never spoke of their business to anyone else and didn't call in favors for silly reasons. Protecting him and his other dreamers was a worthy way to call in their assistance, and they were more than happy to help.
Having his flickers of the future, Eames knew who to go to first. He thought about the various stories to tell people; it was giving him a rip roaring headache but he didn't dare to take anything for it. He needed his wits about him for this. One wrong word and it could bring the entire plan crashing down around them. One wrong person and Tomas might find him or Yusuf. God forbid Tomas actually find Arthur or Ariadne. Well, Eames was sure that Arthur could handle himself. He was mostly worried for Ariadne. She was putting in range time via dreams, but he didn't feel comfortable with the idea. He still thought of her as the innocent student that Cobb had seduced away from the real world. He supposed he wasn't helping, as he had liked working with her, but that didn't mean he wanted her exposed to some of the seedier sides of dream share.
Eames had last talked with a woman known for her volatile temper and quicker knifework. Even without the questionable psychic gift, he had seen the wheels turning in her head. Judith's mind had cracked long ago, and the whispers about Tomas becoming more aggressive and violent toward dream share denizens was enough to get her even more agitated. She didn't directly owe any allegiance to the dream dens, but she did receive steady bodyguard work because of dream share. Her livelihood was in danger if Tomas exposed them, and she clearly was willing to take matters into her own hands. He had to tread carefully, however. She was unstable enough to want to take him out as well, and Eames was rather fond of his insides remaining inside his body.
His head hurt. It was hard to juggle the different things he should or shouldn't be saying, and he had to catch his breath several times to sort it all out.
No one ever seemed to mention how much psychic phenomena could suck.
Eames ducked into a cafe to order a coffee. He felt almost like he was losing control. Maybe he saw so much about Yusuf, Arthur and Ariadne since he had been in close proximity to them. Now that he was trying to use this ability, it felt almost like he was a defenseless idiot. Being out and about before he had any grasp on his abilities was such a stupid idea. He didn't even know if he was telepathic or precognitive, though he would have bet more on precognitive if he actually thought about it. He wasn't inundated with the press of thoughts all around him, exactly. It was more like the infinite realm of possibilities with every decision. He was watching the future unfold and shift with every moment, every minor decision that he made or someone else made touching off a branching tree of potential futures. Some of them collapsed in on themselves; did it really matter if he put two or three sugars in his coffee today? Others potentially had disastrous consequences.
He needed a moment to try to figure out how to block it out. It was rather like trying to figure out how to put together a forge, he decided. It was moving around inside his head in layers, building up a shell from the inside out and then reinforcing it from the outside in. Explaining the technique sounded as though he was high on something, but it was the closest he could come to the mental process of it all.
Putting the beginnings of those mental layers in place helped tune out some of the more insignificant potential futures. He could ignore the restless press of people moving behind him, the ones that didn't matter in his whisper campaign against Tomas.
It was hard to say what tipped him off, exactly. He wasn't paying attention to the white noise in the back of his head that was all the myriad futures that could play out once he finished his coffee. It was almost as if there was a single shining thread of future in front of him, blotting out the other potential futures.
Tomas was stalking into the cafe, people falling over themselves to get out of his way. He was covered in cuts and splashes of blood; apparently Judith didn't believe in waiting and didn't exercise any kind of caution. He picked up a chair left behind by a panicking patron and tried to bring it down over Eames' head. Even as Eames fell over his stool to get out of the way, he hoped that Judith was all right. She was a handy person to wind up and point in the direction of people that were too dangerous to be left alive, and Tomas was quickly reaching the top of Eames' list in that regard.
"You did this, didn't you? It wasn't Yusuf at all. You're the one ruining me!" Tomas shouted.
The cafe staff were leaving the scene, ushering out helpless patrons that Tomas was ignoring. Eames was almost hopeful that one of them called authorities. He would have a lot of questions to answer, but that was better than the alternative.
Eames caught the chair before Tomas could try to bring it down on his head again, ripping it from his hands. He could swing it toward Tomas, breaking it on his head. He could throw it and run, but Tomas would only reach for the gun beneath his waistband and shoot at Eames' retreating back. He could jab Tomas in the gut, winding him and causing more blood loss. He could use the chair to knock his feet out from under him, exposing the gun to everyone's view and giving him an excuse to grab it.
He went with the last option. Tomas fell to the floor, suit jacket falling over to expose the shoulder rig he was wearing. Another patron holding a chair shouted for Eames to take note of it, and Eames saw fit to take it out of the holster and point it at Tomas. "I suggest you don't move," Eames told him. "I don't know what you're on about, but it would be best for both of us to stay right where we are."
Tomas weighed his options, and Eames stepped neatly out of the way when Tomas tried to kick him to the floor. The well meaning patron brought the chair down over Tomas' head, then once more just to be certain the man was out cold. He looked up at Eames with a frightened expression when he saw the blood. "I think that was there before," Eames told him helpfully.
"What the fuck kind of drugs was he taking?" the man replied shakily, putting the chair aside.
"Whatever it was, I don't want any," Eames said, earning him a sputtering laugh from his would-be savior. Neither moved from their positions until the police arrived.
***
Arthur picked up Eames from the police station. Yusuf was in the den with his dreamers, tailoring cocktails and making sure they were comfortable. Ariadne was sightseeing in Old Town, and Arthur hadn't wanted to interrupt that for her. "You're absolutely gone on her," Eames told Arthur with a cocky smile.
"Maybe," Arthur hedged, driving him back to their workspace. "How much of that is your imagination, though? Every time we go under to test those levels, your projections..."
Eames laughed and closed his eyes, trying his best to tune out the myriad potential futures that were pushing their way into his consciousness. "You're welcome, Arthur."
The point man sputtered and then fell silent, fuming a little. He didn't want to admit it had gotten his own imagination going, and that Ariadne had tentatively alluded to some of the antics of Eames' projections. It was all they could think about, which was a bit frustrating since Arthur wanted to take it slow.
"You could have been killed today." Arthur's voice was quiet.
"But I wasn't." He didn't mention the visions. His head hurt too much for that.
"Can you still work this job?" he asked in concern.
"Yeah. Just give me a while to rest up." Not to mention figure out if his forging technique would actually work to keep the distraction of his psychic ability at bay. Otherwise, he would be pretty damn useless for the job, or on any other for that matter. This entire situation was one trauma after another.
"We can probably postpone it if we need to."
Eames cracked open one eye to look at Arthur. He was staring straight ahead as he drove, but Eames could tell that the point man was concerned. "Nah. I'll be right as rain in no time, you'll see." It wasn't quite enough to alleviate Arthur's concern, but it would have to do.
He was determined to make it work, especially since Yusuf and the rest of his dreamers were now safe. He could figure out the details for everything else as he went along. It was how he had lived his entire life so far, and it had worked out pretty well. Still, it was nice to know that Arthur cared after a fashion. It helped to know that there were some people he could rely on through all of this.
Once back at the workspace, Eames took a quick nap to wait for Ariadne's return. He couldn't help a few comments in Arthur's direction, just to try to make his stoic facade crack. It didn't work, but that wouldn't stop him from trying.
The more things changed, the more some things remained the same.
The End
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Ariadne/Arthur
Disclaimer: Everyone here belongs to Christopher Nolan and not to me. His toys are fun to play with!
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. For the inception_kink meme prompt in round 14: Ariadne and Arthur keep coming across Eames' projections of the pair having sex. Soon, it's all they can think about.Also incorporates the round 15 prompt: A bad reaction to a compound somehow results in Eames being able to see the future. Also incorporates "telepathic trauma" from my hc_bingo card.
Summary: By accident, Eames can see the future, though it's limited in scope. So how does he use his newfound gift? Getting the architect and point man together, of course.
Eames felt horrid. He had somehow let his guard down the night before, and some woman he'd never met before had spiked his drink, and it was only his ridiculous tolerance for most illicit and licit substances that had allowed him to remain upright. He had managed to corner the woman in the alley outside of the bar, and she still wasn't familiar. Splitting her lips across his knuckles didn't make her more familiar and she wouldn't say who had hired her to drug him. Instead, she shot him with a syringe of something else that nearly knocked him for a loop. He had shoved her hard into the brick wall, knocking the breath out of her, and then a wicked right hook snapped her head back into the wall. She crumpled to the floor unconscious, but her pockets didn't reveal anything about her identity. They did contain two more syringes and a cell phone with its memory wiped; she likely memorized whatever number she had to dial to reach her contact.
He didn't sleep that night, paranoid that someone else was after him. Without some clue about the woman's identity, he couldn't be sure if it was due to dream share or his other activities in the underground. Coffee, cigarettes and caffeine pills worked in short bursts, but he was bleary eyed and a hair's breadth away from sleep as he stumbled into the empty warehouse that the team was using to work on the current job. They were in Mombasa, as Yusuf was refusing to leave the city to reenter the field. His expertise was needed to tailor the compounds, so the preparation was being done in Kenya as much as possible until they had to fly to Capetown where their subject actually was. Yusuf gave Eames a look that clearly said he had no intention of dosing the forger with anything today.
"You look like shit," Arthur told him bluntly. "You shouldn't party that hard when we're working."
The disapproval was clear in Arthur's tone, and made Eames set his jaw. He nearly said something biting and harsh, but Ariadne opened the door to the small warehouse and the color drained from her face as she saw Eames. "Oh my God, Eames! What happened?" she cried out in concern.
"Thank you, Ariadne, for not thinking the worst of me," he drawled, retrieving the syringes he had taken from the woman. "As it happens, some woman I've never seen before tried to roll me last night, and she injected me with something." Yusuf looked contrite at least, and reached for the syringes Eames held out to him. Arthur looked partly skeptical and partly concerned. "And no, no one followed me here. I've been up all night making sure of that."
Arthur definitely did look relieved, and busied himself with the paperwork he was sorting through. Yusuf promised to try to determine what the formula was that he had been injected with. "Just to be safe, we should let it run its course," Yusuf told Eames. "You don't know what the reaction would be with somnacin..."
Eames snorted inelegantly, which actually made Ariadne smile in relief. "I'm fine. Whatever that shite was, it must be out of my system by now. I absolutely want to work today and try to get the level memorized." He stared down Yusuf and refused to let Arthur argue him out of it. Ariadne gave him a dubious look, but he knew it was out of concern for him, not doubt that he could do it. He persuaded her to take him down into the level under PASIV so he could learn the maze. Arthur was going to hold down the level once they were actually in Capetown, but Eames still needed to know where to go inside of the maze.
He felt sick once he woke, though he had a good handle on the layout now. He'd seen the mockups and the sketches, but he always liked to see the actual design under the PASIV as well. He could imagine things in three dimensions, but he was no architect. The details in her sketches didn't mean much to him in some respects, but seeing the final product always helped.
"I suppose I'm a bit knackered," Eames said, feeling his stomach roil. He gave them all a smile, though it was mostly for Ariadne's benefit.
"Take a nap in the back," Arthur said. His voice was even and toneless, but there was concern in his eyes. Well, wasn't that a pleasant change?
Eames still felt groggy and out of sorts when he woke, and it was to the sound of voices. Arthur and Ariadne, caught in their endless dance of flirtation that they didn't even realize was flirtation. Part of that, Eames was certain, was Arthur's own rigid work ethic and Ariadne's straightforward demeanor. She was the kind to mention if she was interested and assumed that others were the same way. She thought Arthur was handsome, but she wasn't necessarily easily swayed by a pretty face. If so, the innuendo he had shot in her direction during the Fischer job would have had some kind of effect. Ariadne wasn't the type to push her affections on someone else. Curiosity yes, affection no.
It was endearingly silly, rather like watching one of those films where the friends stumble into each other one day and realize that yes, there was an attraction there all along and they should do something about it. Eames didn't think they would appreciate him munching on popcorn every time they were in the same room together, however.
"...dinner?" Arthur was saying. "It's getting late. If Eames is still asleep, he probably needs it. I wouldn't want to wake him at this point if he had that rough a night."
"So you are concerned," Ariadne teased. Eames stumbled toward the door of the room he had been sleeping in but neither heard him. She pulled out a pen and one of her notebooks, a habit he had teased was due to Arthur's bad influence. "I'll leave him a note in case he wakes up after we've left. This is probably safer for him than anywhere he was staying before, especially if some random person tried to attack him."
"It's not necessarily this job, you know," Arthur reminded her as she scribbled the note. "No one in Capetown is aware that we're gearing up to do this except our employers. Meanwhile, he's had a base here for several years. For all we know it's from one of his gambling debts."
Ariadne smiled indulgently and found some scotch tape to stick the note to the door of the room he was in. It was odd that she didn't simply hand him the note, given that he was looking right at her. "Oh, I think he's much better at that than he lets on." She secured the tape and Eames reached out for the note in irritation.
His hand passed right through the note.
She turned, and Eames saw Arthur's eyes snap up from her cute little derriere to her face. She didn't even notice it, and still had her notebook in hand. "I think he got a good idea about the maze today, though. So he wasn't as bad off as Yusuf was afraid of. It was probably just crashing down from being awake for two days straight."
Arthur shook his head, a soft quirk at the corner of his lips that Ariadne didn't notice. He held out her coat for her, and they continued talking as they left the warehouse space, Arthur acting every inch the old world gallant.
Eames looked at the note again. He couldn't pull it off the door. In fact, now his hand was going through the door. What the hell?
He jerked awake suddenly, still lying on the oddly comfortable couch, one of its lumps a perfect pillow for his head. He heard the same murmurs as he had earlier, and crept toward the door with more finesse than he had earlier. Or was it all a dream?
If it was a dream, it was a strangely prescient one. Everything unfolded the way it had in his dream, including the way Arthur looked at Ariadne when she wasn't looking. He had never really noticed it before. Since when did he notice what Arthur noticed, after all? Arthur missed the appreciative glances that Ariadne sent his way, or how she touched his arm as she put on her coat. It was definitely one of those endearingly adorable situations, one that might one day reach its inevitable conclusion. Of course, with Arthur as his stick in the mud self, they might never get there.
Pondering that one, Eames used the restroom and went back to sleep. He would puzzle out his dream later.
***
If it had been just the one dream, Eames would have chalked it up to not being fully awake the first time and simply experiencing everything through a haze of exhaustion. He zoned out while going through files on their subject at least four times when fully awake, and each time he saw his coworkers in some kind of situation as clear as day. Yusuf wasn't able to fully identify the material within the syringes, but he knew what it was made up of with some careful testing. He had contacts in organic chemistry labs nearby and was able to use the nuclear magnetic resonance machine, and put together likely structures for the compounds within the syringes. All he could tell was that they were extremely psychoactive, which then made him deliver a stern lecture to Eames about the horrible potential effects about mixing unknown compounds with unknown quantities of other psychoactive compounds.
It wasn't as if Eames intended to be drugged and attacked, though in the midst of Yusuf's controlled rant he got a flash of the woman he had struck the night before. She was reporting in to one of Yusuf's competitors, and she had been intending to use Eames' body to drive Yusuf out of business.
"What if it wasn't me that was the ultimate target?" Eames asked before he could stop his mouth from moving. Yusuf stopped, mid-syllable, staring open mouthed at Eames. "No, I'm serious, Yusuf. I'm not just pulling your leg. I've been thinking. We both know I'm fairly visible in Mombasa, but that also means that it's not as likely that someone is going to do things so underhanded as attack me in an alley. If someone has an argument with me, they start their whisper campaign or they do it where others in the business can see. It happened six years ago, remember?" Yusuf nodded unhappily. He had lost a considerable amount of business at that time, since Eames was one of his best customers. "Well, then, what if I was just a convenient target to get to compared to everyone else?"
Yusuf sighed and shook his head. "I wouldn't think that it would be so brutal..."
"What are you on about?"
"There was a competitor off and on over the past year. The den has been doing quite well recently." Eames nodded, knowing full well that the influx of cash had led to the additional purchase of supplies to support the den and had allowed him to expand the number of dreamers he could comfortably support in the dream. He had been much happier not knowing the full extent of the den prior to the Fischer job preparation, but then again, he was a man fond of knowing what was reality and what wasn't.
Yusuf sighed. "Apparently, some dreamers left Tomas' den."
Eames paused, not looking outwardly distressed. "Shall we spread a few words about this Tomas, then?"
"Needs must. I won't have my friends and associates harmed because of business that they don't know much about."
"Much obliged. I'll call a few people I know."
"I'll do the same. I'm very sorry, Eames. I never stopped to think that it might have been one of us. Well, I doubt Ariadne's caught up in anything quite so underhanded. You should warn Arthur as well, just in case this wasn't Tomas' people."
"And I'm certainly going to be watching my back in case it was because of my own contacts. But best to be safe."
"Precisely," Yusuf agreed. He slipped his glasses on and looked very much like a chemistry professor. "Don't think I haven't forgotten about our original conversation. But safety takes priority for the moment. You're at least looking in good health, so hopefully its half life isn't anywhere near as long as I think it might be."
Oh, Eames was fairly certain that it was every bit as long as Yusuf feared it was. Not to mention the mix of alcohol, caffeine, nicotine and whatever else that the woman had given him and the chemicals in the cigarettes... Oh, he was probably very lucky not to be dead of some kind of overdose. Prophetic dreams seemed to be a very minor inconvenience when put into that kind of perspective.
Arthur took the warning as well as Eames thought he might. Only the slightest tightening of his hand around his pen gave away any trepidation he might have. "Thank you for the warning," Arthur told him graciously. "There are possibilities, though I wouldn't think that they know of our association." Eames saw his eyes flick to Ariadne for a fraction of a second, and the muscles around his mouth tightened even further. "I have to do a little work on this."
"I'd protect her, too," Eames told Arthur mildly. "She's dear to us all."
Arthur's eyes flew up to his, though his expression remained impassive. There was the sudden press of knowledge that his warning had only strengthened Arthur's resolve not to do or say anything to let Ariadne know what his feelings were. His feelings were decidedly not platonic, but now he feared for her safety.
Dammit. That hadn't been Eames' intention at all. Cockblocking for shits and giggles was one thing, but not when he absolutely hadn't meant it that way.
"I know a bloke," Eames continued, as if this was his plan all along, "that owns a range. We could teach her to defend herself. I know she did admirably well with subconscious security, but she also expected to be able to. Reality is a different thing."
"I can do that," Arthur said with a slight nod. That niggling knowledge that Eames had in the back of his head was starting to shift as Arthur decided how he would approach Ariadne with this idea. "If we create a shooting range under PASIV, that might also speed up the learning time."
"Excellent. Then we'll get her up to snuff so we can at least feel better about her walking around Old Town," Eames said with a nod. "I hadn't heard whispers out about her yet, but there's no need to wait until then. Would you take firearms or hand to hand duty?"
It was a perfectly innocent question, but suddenly the shift in Arthur's thoughts were terribly transparent. Well, they were transparent to Eames, who could read intentions in muscle twitches and shifting glances. The dilation of Arthur's pupils as he looked at Ariadne was particularly telling, especially since Ariadne was bending over to pick up a fallen glue stick at that exact moment. Eames managed to hide his smirk at Arthur's dirty thought patterns. Really, good for him. Eames had started to worry after the poor man's mental stability. It was one thing to be a stick in the mud when Cobb was going off the rails, but when he was free to do as he pleased, being so straight laced could wreck a man's mind. At least, that was Eames' opinion on the matter, and as far as he was concerned that was the only opinion that mattered.
Yusuf also approved of the range idea, and agreed to keep an eye on the three of them as they went down into somnacin induced sleep. He also gave Eames a glare of warning, intending for him to back out of the dream if he started feeling any ill effects. They had known each other off and on for about eight years, and were something just shy of friends. Comrades, Eames would call it. Rather like a fellow in the same military unit. You didn't always like the others in your unit, but you trusted them with your life and knew that you could rely on them in the same way.
Eames might have given him a snarky salute, but Yusuf took it as the acknowledgement that it was. Feeling safe, he went under with Arthur and Ariadne that evening.
It took a lot for Eames to feel embarrassed these days, but sometimes his own subconscious liked to do just that.
Arthur and Ariadne were standing near him, and they were actually outside a reconstruction of the range his acquaintance owned. Of course, there was another Arthur and Ariadne near them. Those were clearly Eames' projections, as that Arthur had Ariadne pressed up against the wall, his pants around his ankles and her legs wrapped around his waist. Their mouths were locked on each others' as if that was the only thing that would save them from drowning.
Ariadne was scarlet and averted her eyes from that coupling pair, only to gasp. Eames swung around to see what was going on, and he could see a different Arthur going down on an Ariadne lying across a cafe tabletop. Not very far away was another copy of Ariadne returning the favor with a different Arthur.
"Well, then," Eames began in a strangled tone of voice. "This is... Not what I had in mind, I assure you."
Arthur glared at Eames and moved to Ariadne's side. "We can always do this some other time when his mind's out of the gutter..." She turned and looked at him, her lips parted. Eames could tell instantly that her gasp and flush wasn't entirely due to embarrassment; this was also exactly the content of her own nighttime fantasies.
"Better start while we can, right?" she said, forcing a smile to her lips. She grasped his hand tightly, her thumb running across the inside of his wrist in an unconscious gesture that he responded fairly well to.
Ah, the endless amusement of two awkward coworkers in longing and lust. Eames would have found it more amusing if Arthur didn't glare at him every so often when they encountered more and more of Eames' projections of the two having sex. Eames had a good imagination and was fairly experienced, so there were a good many stares from Ariadne as she tried to puzzle out what the projection of herself was doing to Arthur or vice versa. He nobly repressed the urge to explain the niceties of kinky sex; if Arthur was interested in any of those positions or toys, surely he could research them for himself.
Once inside the range itself, there were no more projections milling about making eyes at each other. Arthur started with the instructions on weapon safety, trigger discipline and correct stance to deal with recoil from the weapon as it fired. Ariadne leaned into him when he stood behind her, and then after a moment she turned her head toward him with startled eyes and a quirk of her lips. Arthur cleared his throat and suggested she try a Beretta, since she had fired those fairly well in dreams. His own preferred Glock was common enough in the real world but the magazine stock was sometimes awkward to grasp and the trigger pull was a double one. He had large enough hands to deal with that well, but hers were smaller and a bit more delicate in construction. She would have to work on her hand strength if she wanted to deal with his weapon regularly.
Eames managed not to snigger at Arthur's word choice in that explanation, but only just.
Watching them was entertaining, and Ariadne did pick up on the actual lesson fairly well. She would have to practice in a real range and they would likely have to get her a gun of her own. There was the Beretta, which Eames approved of. It was easy enough to find, the cartridges it shot were common and it packed enough stopping power to get her to safety. She was a bit leery of him taking on the hand to hand combat, but as far as he was concerned, he would have a better approach than Arthur did. Arthur was lethal, but a lot of his abilities were based on his height, leverage and muscular strength. Lacking all three, Ariadne was going to have to fight dirty. She grasped that concept quickly enough once Eames explained it, and that also served to cool some of Arthur's rising hackles.
Interesting. Eames had hoped that his raucous imagination wouldn't turn them off of each other. If anything, it seemed to have Arthur a bit more possessive and protective of the tiny architect. And she certainly wasn't terribly opposed to what she had seen, either.
Whatever glimmers of extrasensory knowledge that Eames had somehow developed recently did not extend to the dreaming state. He didn't know what Ariadne was about to do or how he would go about teaching her what to do. He muddled through somehow, and she seemed gratified to know that their practice should extend to real world knowledge since he had taken care to imbue his dream with real world physics.
Once awake and back in the real world, Eames had to hide his headache. He was aware of the stares of Arthur and Ariadne, aware of the questions in their head. If anything, that was likely the cause of the headache. It was almost like having snippets of their thoughts in his head, adding to the swirling chaotic mess that was already there. He wasn't sure if it was current trains of thought or future conversations, but he knew that Arthur was thinking about everything he had seen in Eames' head. Ariadne hadn't seemed terribly opposed at all, which gave him a measure of hope that perhaps his feelings weren't all one sided. Ariadne kept looking at Arthur out of the corner of her eye, picturing him naked and in bed with her, wondering what he would taste like on her tongue.
Eames was tempted to just lock them in a room together and tell them to have at it. The nature of his visions shifted if he did that, however. Instead, they would feel awkward and shy, and nothing would happen for months, if not at least a year. Oh, sodding hell. Why did Arthur have to make everything so complicated?
He declared himself knackered and ready to go home for the day. He could always watch their awkward dance in dreams in the comfort of his own home. And apparently, too much interference from him was counterproductive anyway.
***
Arthur was writing in one of his notebooks as Ariadne reconstructed part of a model that hadn't dried properly. He was trying to narrow down a list of places to take Ariadne on a first date, and Eames was certain that he was definitely overthinking the entire situation. There were a lot of restaurants he was considering, and Eames wanted to sigh. As Arthur contemplated the pros and cons of each one, he could see how it all played out. Honestly, it was dinner. Arthur wasn't thinking about taking her back to his hotel room to shag her silly right away, which was a damn shame. She was certainly thinking of that, though she wasn't entirely sure that Arthur would appreciate her being forward. Eames was tempted to take her aside and tell her just how much Arthur would like that, but it would make her blush fiercely. Upon seeing that, Arthur would either assume that Eames had romantic interest in her that she was reciprocating and back off, or become horridly jealous and make him even more irritable toward Eames.
Honestly, the entire situation sucked. So much for having fun with telepathy and psychic phenomena. It was draining and boring.
Eames looked over Arthur's shoulder unceremoniously, ignoring the point man's thunderous look. He tapped one name on the list, the one that led to Arthur and Ariadne at least kissing and groping each other by the end of the night. "That is a very romantic place to go to," he commented. The future didn't seem to shift, which Eames was thankful for. "Why don't you take Ariadne there?"
"Why are you helping me?" Arthur asked him, a little suspicious.
"She's a friend and she's interested but isn't sure if you are." Well, now, for someone supposedly aware of a lot of details, that statement surprised Arthur. It definitely cemented the future with the two of them kissing at the end of dinner. "Why wouldn't I want to see her happy?"
Some of the suspicion died in Arthur's expression. "You wouldn't be fucking with me just because you can, are you?"
"I'm shocked you believe me capable of such a thing," Eames declared, standing up. "I can get my jollies in other ways, thank you very much."
Arthur snorted, just as Eames thought he would. The future didn't shift, and Ariadne was looking over at them. Her gaze softened when it landed on Arthur, and he caught it. Taking advantage of the moment, he got up and walked over to her. Eames turned away and smiled. Of course Ariadne would accept the dinner invitation. They would have a romantic dinner in a romantic restaurant, have wine and snog each other as if they needed the other to breathe. Maybe then they could get their hormones under better control and he could stop thinking of the two of them shagging every which way.
He made his way over to Yusuf, who was still frowning over the formula that strange woman had injected him with. "Any luck?"
Yusuf shook his head. "I can't figure out what the point of this was. It looks like it might be a paralytic, but it certainly wouldn't be a good one."
"Perhaps their chemist isn't as good as you are."
He took the praise but clearly wasn't happy with not being able to decipher the compound's purpose. "At least you don't appear to suffer any ill effects from it." Yusuf eyed him a little more warily than usual. "Though you are often distracted. Don't think I don't notice you taking all of those over the counter headache medicines."
Eames sighed as his eyes fell on Arthur and Ariadne almost unconsciously. "I've had a lot more headaches since then." Mostly because he kept seeing different ways for Arthur and Ariadne's relationship to play out, and they would be miserable if they weren't together. He would never admit it, but he had something of a romantic streak. Setting them up was entertaining, and he did like seeing Ariadne's delighted smiles at Arthur. He was much more relaxed after she accepted the dinner invitation, too.
Yusuf clapped Eames on the shoulder. "You possibly need a break. Let them worry about each other for a change. You rest up, and we'll figure out if there are any lasting effects from this compound that we need to be concerned with."
Psychic phenomena was certainly a lasting effect so far. Eames was just exhausted by it, almost as if it was burning him up from the inside out.
Now, that was a disturbing thought. Perhaps a good lie down would clear his head after all.
***
Yusuf was alone in the warehouse when Ariadne and Arthur arrived the next day. Arthur brought her back home from their dinner date, and Ariadne had invited him into her hotel room. They had kissed and fallen onto the bed, but it hadn't gone farther than kisses and touches. Ariadne had gotten a promise for another date that evening, which he had immediately given. She was grinning and practically glowing as she entered the warehouse, and Arthur had a self assured air about himself. Yusuf smirked to himself and managed to refrain from asking about their personal life. He updated them on his progress regarding the paralytic and his concern for Eames' well being.
Eames could see all of this as he brushed his teeth that morning, and part of him was touched by Yusuf's concern. Another part of him was irritated, because he certainly didn't want to be coddled. Too much concern about him could get the others to kick him off the team, and he hated being stuck at home doing nothing more than anything else.
He was going to have to admit what was happening, he supposed, though it was more fun to try to cement Arthur and Ariadne's relationship first. It was too adorable to watch them dance around each other, though the various ways to get them tumbling into bed were much more fun to watch unfold than cockblocking the point man would be.
On a more serious front, Tomas was growing increasingly angry with Yusuf. He had just lost two more dreamers in his den, and the only ones left returning to him were little more than zombies. Burnt out shells of people weren't good for business; there was no word of mouth to spread the news about his skills or his den, and income was dwindling. He would have to close up shop soon if this continued. Yusuf centered heavily in Tomas' angry thoughts, and it was enough to overcome Eames' natural inclination to leave others to their own devices. This was growing into a personal vendetta, and Eames wasn't about to let that go unchallenged.
As soon as he came into the warehouse, he made a beeline for Yusuf's designated office space. "There've been developments," he said without preamble.
Yusuf frowned at him, his earlier good mood instantly falling away to take in Eames' serious look. "Have there been side effects from those drugs? I thought it would be out of your system by now," he protested.
"I see things before they happen," Eames told him bluntly. "Sounds perfectly barmy, I realize that. No particular rhyme or reason, though I've been mostly seeing things about our resident lovebirds," he said, his voice low enough so that Arthur and Ariadne wouldn't hear. "I don't know how to force things in a particular direction, though I've been getting flashes about Tomas, too. He lost two more dreamers this morning."
"You could have heard that anywhere..."
"It just happened, Yusuf. This morning. All he's got left are the dreaming shells. I can describe them all if you like, have someone go in to confirm it, but that would take more time and effort than it's worth to convince you."
"You're serious," Yusuf said in disbelief, leaning back to look at him. "You actually believe what you're saying."
Eames tried to focus on something in the warehouse that would happen soon, but the most that he could see was Ariadne reaching for her glue gun and accidentally burning her thumb. It was a fairly innocuous but common enough occurrence that it wouldn't really impress Yusuf. "Watch out for the glue," he called out anyway, not even looking behind him.
Yusuf immediately looked toward Ariadne's work station, where she had been reaching for the glue gun. He could see that she was distracted because of the way she was looking through her model at Arthur at his computer, and her hand would have overshot the gun. The heated tip would likely graze her hand. She blinked and flushed when she realized what she was doing and called out her thanks, then refocused on her model. "How did you do that?" he asked Eames wonderingly.
"Whatever that bint shot me up with plus everything else..." Eames ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "I told you. I see things before they happen. I just know all sorts of random shite, and its not exactly something I can control."
"If what you say about Tomas is real," Yusuf began slowly, "then we should probably start figuring out how you can. If you can control these visions you have, then perhaps we can stay ahead of him and stay alive. He won't be particular about harming just myself, you know."
"It's why I'm telling you this," Eames responded. "You need to keep your dreamers safe, too."
Yusuf sucked in a breath at the reminder. "Well, then. Time to put the protections in place."
Eames half turned and looked at Arthur and Ariadne, who were finishing up their preparations. She was planning to put a few more adjustments on the level before they all went under again to test it out. Arthur was finalizing a plan, and everything likely would be done within a week or two. Then the three of them would be in Capetown and Yusuf would be alone in Mombasa to deal with a jealous and crazed competitor.
"Absolutely. Best to keep us all safe."
***
Yusuf called in markers he had with various men who had needed help kicking their addictions to sedatives or somnacin. He assured Arthur that they were not dangerous to the team, and made sure Ariadne's curiosity wouldn't send her into their orbit. He was protective of her in his own way, and he could tell that Arthur approved of that once he caught wind of a few names. He was very quietly impressed with the people that Yusuf knew, though Yusuf kept his thoughts to himself. Just because he didn't like going out into the field didn't mean he was isolated. It meant he was smart enough to keep his head down and off the radar so he wasn't killed.
Eames started the whispering campaign as Yusuf met with men who officially did not exist any longer. These men had an alphabet soup of credentials in their collective past, but they now worked for favors or fees. They felt a measure of gratitude for Yusuf, who never spoke of their business to anyone else and didn't call in favors for silly reasons. Protecting him and his other dreamers was a worthy way to call in their assistance, and they were more than happy to help.
Having his flickers of the future, Eames knew who to go to first. He thought about the various stories to tell people; it was giving him a rip roaring headache but he didn't dare to take anything for it. He needed his wits about him for this. One wrong word and it could bring the entire plan crashing down around them. One wrong person and Tomas might find him or Yusuf. God forbid Tomas actually find Arthur or Ariadne. Well, Eames was sure that Arthur could handle himself. He was mostly worried for Ariadne. She was putting in range time via dreams, but he didn't feel comfortable with the idea. He still thought of her as the innocent student that Cobb had seduced away from the real world. He supposed he wasn't helping, as he had liked working with her, but that didn't mean he wanted her exposed to some of the seedier sides of dream share.
Eames had last talked with a woman known for her volatile temper and quicker knifework. Even without the questionable psychic gift, he had seen the wheels turning in her head. Judith's mind had cracked long ago, and the whispers about Tomas becoming more aggressive and violent toward dream share denizens was enough to get her even more agitated. She didn't directly owe any allegiance to the dream dens, but she did receive steady bodyguard work because of dream share. Her livelihood was in danger if Tomas exposed them, and she clearly was willing to take matters into her own hands. He had to tread carefully, however. She was unstable enough to want to take him out as well, and Eames was rather fond of his insides remaining inside his body.
His head hurt. It was hard to juggle the different things he should or shouldn't be saying, and he had to catch his breath several times to sort it all out.
No one ever seemed to mention how much psychic phenomena could suck.
Eames ducked into a cafe to order a coffee. He felt almost like he was losing control. Maybe he saw so much about Yusuf, Arthur and Ariadne since he had been in close proximity to them. Now that he was trying to use this ability, it felt almost like he was a defenseless idiot. Being out and about before he had any grasp on his abilities was such a stupid idea. He didn't even know if he was telepathic or precognitive, though he would have bet more on precognitive if he actually thought about it. He wasn't inundated with the press of thoughts all around him, exactly. It was more like the infinite realm of possibilities with every decision. He was watching the future unfold and shift with every moment, every minor decision that he made or someone else made touching off a branching tree of potential futures. Some of them collapsed in on themselves; did it really matter if he put two or three sugars in his coffee today? Others potentially had disastrous consequences.
He needed a moment to try to figure out how to block it out. It was rather like trying to figure out how to put together a forge, he decided. It was moving around inside his head in layers, building up a shell from the inside out and then reinforcing it from the outside in. Explaining the technique sounded as though he was high on something, but it was the closest he could come to the mental process of it all.
Putting the beginnings of those mental layers in place helped tune out some of the more insignificant potential futures. He could ignore the restless press of people moving behind him, the ones that didn't matter in his whisper campaign against Tomas.
It was hard to say what tipped him off, exactly. He wasn't paying attention to the white noise in the back of his head that was all the myriad futures that could play out once he finished his coffee. It was almost as if there was a single shining thread of future in front of him, blotting out the other potential futures.
Tomas was stalking into the cafe, people falling over themselves to get out of his way. He was covered in cuts and splashes of blood; apparently Judith didn't believe in waiting and didn't exercise any kind of caution. He picked up a chair left behind by a panicking patron and tried to bring it down over Eames' head. Even as Eames fell over his stool to get out of the way, he hoped that Judith was all right. She was a handy person to wind up and point in the direction of people that were too dangerous to be left alive, and Tomas was quickly reaching the top of Eames' list in that regard.
"You did this, didn't you? It wasn't Yusuf at all. You're the one ruining me!" Tomas shouted.
The cafe staff were leaving the scene, ushering out helpless patrons that Tomas was ignoring. Eames was almost hopeful that one of them called authorities. He would have a lot of questions to answer, but that was better than the alternative.
Eames caught the chair before Tomas could try to bring it down on his head again, ripping it from his hands. He could swing it toward Tomas, breaking it on his head. He could throw it and run, but Tomas would only reach for the gun beneath his waistband and shoot at Eames' retreating back. He could jab Tomas in the gut, winding him and causing more blood loss. He could use the chair to knock his feet out from under him, exposing the gun to everyone's view and giving him an excuse to grab it.
He went with the last option. Tomas fell to the floor, suit jacket falling over to expose the shoulder rig he was wearing. Another patron holding a chair shouted for Eames to take note of it, and Eames saw fit to take it out of the holster and point it at Tomas. "I suggest you don't move," Eames told him. "I don't know what you're on about, but it would be best for both of us to stay right where we are."
Tomas weighed his options, and Eames stepped neatly out of the way when Tomas tried to kick him to the floor. The well meaning patron brought the chair down over Tomas' head, then once more just to be certain the man was out cold. He looked up at Eames with a frightened expression when he saw the blood. "I think that was there before," Eames told him helpfully.
"What the fuck kind of drugs was he taking?" the man replied shakily, putting the chair aside.
"Whatever it was, I don't want any," Eames said, earning him a sputtering laugh from his would-be savior. Neither moved from their positions until the police arrived.
***
Arthur picked up Eames from the police station. Yusuf was in the den with his dreamers, tailoring cocktails and making sure they were comfortable. Ariadne was sightseeing in Old Town, and Arthur hadn't wanted to interrupt that for her. "You're absolutely gone on her," Eames told Arthur with a cocky smile.
"Maybe," Arthur hedged, driving him back to their workspace. "How much of that is your imagination, though? Every time we go under to test those levels, your projections..."
Eames laughed and closed his eyes, trying his best to tune out the myriad potential futures that were pushing their way into his consciousness. "You're welcome, Arthur."
The point man sputtered and then fell silent, fuming a little. He didn't want to admit it had gotten his own imagination going, and that Ariadne had tentatively alluded to some of the antics of Eames' projections. It was all they could think about, which was a bit frustrating since Arthur wanted to take it slow.
"You could have been killed today." Arthur's voice was quiet.
"But I wasn't." He didn't mention the visions. His head hurt too much for that.
"Can you still work this job?" he asked in concern.
"Yeah. Just give me a while to rest up." Not to mention figure out if his forging technique would actually work to keep the distraction of his psychic ability at bay. Otherwise, he would be pretty damn useless for the job, or on any other for that matter. This entire situation was one trauma after another.
"We can probably postpone it if we need to."
Eames cracked open one eye to look at Arthur. He was staring straight ahead as he drove, but Eames could tell that the point man was concerned. "Nah. I'll be right as rain in no time, you'll see." It wasn't quite enough to alleviate Arthur's concern, but it would have to do.
He was determined to make it work, especially since Yusuf and the rest of his dreamers were now safe. He could figure out the details for everything else as he went along. It was how he had lived his entire life so far, and it had worked out pretty well. Still, it was nice to know that Arthur cared after a fashion. It helped to know that there were some people he could rely on through all of this.
Once back at the workspace, Eames took a quick nap to wait for Ariadne's return. He couldn't help a few comments in Arthur's direction, just to try to make his stoic facade crack. It didn't work, but that wouldn't stop him from trying.
The more things changed, the more some things remained the same.
The End