Inception - I'm the Same Boy I Used to Be (Eames/Arthur, PG)

[hackthis]

Inception
Eames/Arthur
PG

I'm the Same Boy I Used to Be



"Is it any good?" Eames says.

He drops down next to his latest target: dark messy hair, navy blue jumper, striped socks and scuff marks on his trainers.

The boy doesn't look up. "It's a book."

Ah, an American.

Eames has only had one of those so far.

In the last four hours of delays for his family's flight to Hong Kong he's struck up conversations with three Bangladeshis, one Frenchman, two Germans, a Russian, a family of Kenyans and someone from a place called Wichita, Kansas.

His mum says he just has a gift that way. "Yes, I can see that," he says

The boy deigns to glance up briefly from -- The Westing Game. "It's a book," he repeats. As though that explains everything.

As though Eames is slow.

"So that would be a 'no'?" Eames prods, slumping down a bit in his seat. He's been trying to get comfortable for hours, moving from seat to seat, and he continues to fail, not unlike Goldilocks. The chairs at Heathrow aren't as bad as the ones at Abingdon, but they're not exactly the family sofa either.

Charlie says he can't sit still because he has no breeding. Their mum doesn't tend to find that amusing. Personally, Eames found it pretty funny when he punched his brother in the ear.

Then again, this is the third time his family's flight out of Heathrow has been delayed; his mum isn't finding much amusing now. Which is why Eames is wandering around the terminal and trying to keep himself occupied. But one can only practice lifting wallets so much with all the security about.

"That would be 'it's a book'," the boy replies dryly.

Eames looks at the shock of dark fringe and the mouth pulled into a thin line. "You look nine but you sound twenty-five," he says.

The boy turns a page. "Is that your idea of a compliment?"

"You can't be older than ten; I'll get arrested."

"I'm old enough."

"You mean you're eleven."

"Twelve."

"I'm fourteen."

The boy snorts derisively. "My apologies."

"I'll be fifteen next month."

"You already have my apologies."

Eames gives his new seatmate a sly look and pushes his hair behind his right ear. "You say the nicest things."

"My parents told me never to speak to strangers."

"I'm Eames," he says by way of introduction.

Silence.

"And you are?"

More silence.

"And your parents are?"

The boy turns another page in his book, sharply. Ah.

Eames purses his lips. The boy has three moles on his left cheek. His posture is impeccable.

"Arthur, your flight is boarding."

Eames looks up into the luminous brown eyes of a Virgin Atlantic air stewardess. Her sharp red uniform only serves to set off the coffee color of her skin. She's Asian. Gorgeous. Eames has recently developed a thing for older women.

Girls his age are pedestrian.

This flight attendant has to be at least twenty-two.

His attention snaps back to Arthur, who is now collecting his bags to leave.

"I'm ready," Arthur says. He's taller than Eames originally thought, but thinner. Not weak, just scrawny looking.

The flight attendant has a name tag that says Yasminda. "Don't you want to say good-bye to your mate?" she asks.

Arthur barely glances over at Eames. "No."

The New York subway is like a sauna in the summer. It's disgusting. Hot and muggy and redolent of urine and sweat and worse. Much worse.

Eames can only assume it's the waiting room for Hell. It would explain the construction.

It would explain the wait.

The only thing worse than being stuck in the subway is being stuck on the platform waiting for the subway.

And to think, Charlie's directions seemed so simple at the time.

Take the A from JFK to Jay Street/Borough Hall. Swap to the F line. Get off at Broadway-Lafayette. Take Houston East.
Ring from the pay phone when you pass the third sushi place on the right.

How fucking hard could that be?

Eames is going to choke Charlie with his bare hands. His bare, grimy, sweaty hands.

He shifts his rucksack from one shoulder to the other and then thinks better of it and sets it down between his legs. His t-shirt is sticking to his lower back and he's starting to sober up from six hours of free alcohol courtesy of Richard Branson.

Sobriety is a terrible thing.

"Is it always like this?" he asks the person next to him.

This earns him a noncommittal grunt.

Eames turns his head, and takes in the black Chuck Taylors, the perfectly creased trousers, the messenger bag and the striped shirt with rolled-up sleeves. The watch is old, one of those black, plastic calculator ones with too many buttons.

Huh.

Interesting contradiction in terms.

Eames glances at the book the man is holding and grins to himself. One of those then. "Do you read a lot of Haley?" he asks.

This earns him a quick glance, followed up by a second, longer one. Gotcha.

"You're not the only person who's ever read The Autobiography of Malcolm X," Eames points out.

"You've read it?"

Eames loves the bit where people underestimate him. He especially likes the part where he makes them feel like imbeciles. "Once or twice, yes."

"Twice?" the man -- boy -- this seems to be a dicey area -- is all disbelief.

"Actually, I've read it five times. More than The Prince but less than The Art of War. Everyone should read The Art of War at least three times."

"If you're trying to impress me, it's not working."

Eames grins beatifically. "I wasn't trying to impress you; I was making a point. If I were trying to pick up a university boy such as yourself I would've mentioned Proust and Balzac. Your lot always like French literature. You must adore Sartre. You look the sort."

If it weren't forty degrees Celsius under the city, Eames would think his new companion was flushing out of embarrassment and not the appalling heat. "There's nothing wrong with French Literature."

No, not a boy. Definitely a man. A bit bitchy, but definitely a man.

"Je n'ai jamais dit que la littérature Française manquait quoi que ce soit," Eames says.

"Vous parlez français?" The man is clearly startled.

"On ne devrait pas insulter ce qu'on ne sait pas parler."

The man opens his mouth and then closes it abruptly.

"Don't worry, this sort of thing happens all the time," Eames says. "Presumably it's the tattoos that give people pause," he says waving vaguely at his exposed forearms.

"I hadn't noticed."

"Then I must be doing something wrong -- maybe you could tell me what that is?"

"You must think you're very clever."

"Not at all; if you think you're being clever, then you're failing miserably."

This earns Eames a quirk of the mouth. Progress.

People shift around them on the platform. The man moves closer to Eames. His hair is brushed back from his forehead. The style is attempting something severe, but it keeps escaping in tantalizing curls and wisps. Eames bets it looks glorious first thing in the morning. All mussed and flattened from sleep.

His new companion looks like the sort to drool in his sleep too.

Charming.

"So, do you go to university around here?"

"Yes."

"You can tell me which one," Eames says. "I assure you I have no plans to stalk you. My visa has a strict no-stalking clause."

The man's lips twitch and something happens near the corner of his mouth. "Is that-- is that a smile?" Eames says, mock incredulous. "And here I was thinking New Yorkers didn't engage in such behavior."

"NYU," he says. "I go to NYU."

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Eames says.

This produces a raised eyebrow.

Eames grins. So does his companion. Who has dimples.

It's probably all the combined body heat that puts Eames in danger of swooning.

"Eames," he says, extending his hand. "My name's Eames."

The man frowns. "No, it's not."

"I'm pretty sure that's what my mum calls me."

The man opens his mouth, but his words are drowned out by screeching of overworked breaks on old train tracks and the impatient thrum of people contained too long underground.

Seconds later there's a massive blast of hot air from the tunnel and a train comes rushing in.

Eames shoulders his pack. "Shall we?" he says, as everyone is smushed together.

"This actually isn't my train," the man says moving away.

Eames is caught up in the press for the train as his new companion steers clear.

"You at least have to tell me your name," Eames yells back through the crowd. "You know what Malcolm said, 'If you want something, you had better make some noise.'"

"Arthur," the man calls as the doors close between them. "My name's Arthur."

Arthur.

Eames met an Arthur once.

Eames is twenty-two now, that would make Arthur about nineteen.

"I would say your reputation precedes you, but I didn't know you existed until three hours ago," Eames confesses as he helps Dom and Mallorie Cobb evade several members of the Ruiz cartel in Juarez, Mexico.

"If you have a reputation you are doing it wrong," Mallorie -- Mal -- insists as she dumps several items into a PASIV case and snaps the lid shut.

Her haphazard nature makes Eames wince a bit. A certain reverence for the PASIV will always be ingrained in his blood -- fucking SAS.

"So then how did you know about me?" Eames says, keeping an eye on the windows on the south side of the hacienda where the Cobbs have been staying.

There were children playing in the street until a few moments ago.

Children are more reliable as an impending doom warning than a psychic with a one-hundred percent success rate.

"Your reputation precedes you," Cobb says, feeding more papers into the rubbish-bin fire he has going on the other side of the room.

"I would feel insulted, but that would require me to care," Eames says. "I'm doing this because Ramón insists that one of you is his cousin three times removed -- and I owe him a favor. I have to say: I don't see the resemblance, though."

"That's Arthur," Mal says. "He's Ramón's cousin. Or his friend. Or maybe a government contact. We didn't ask."

Eames raises an eyebrow. "And Arthur would be your invisible friend? Is he the one responsible for disturbing my siesta today? Because he and I may need to have a chat."

Off in the distance something explodes, spewing dirt and debris into the atmosphere. The windows rattle. Eames can see fire and smoke clouding the skyline.

Mal and Cobb both freeze. "That's Arthur," Cobb says.

Eames looks back at him incredulously. Who the fuck are these people?

Eames owes Ramón about half a million pesos in gambling debts -- Ramón must really like his cousin to wipe that slate clean.

Eames' thoughts of one less person with a favor to call in are derailed by something exploding on the next block over.

A blue flatbed truck comes careening down the street; Eames automatically knocks out the windowpane and begins firing.

"No!" Mal shouts, grabbing his arm and nearly getting her and Cobb shot in the process. "That's Arthur!"

"Unless you want me to kill you by mistake, don't ever do that again!" Eames orders sharply.

"I -- that's Arthur," she repeats, eyes huge.

Cobb looks murderous, clearly ready to defend his wife.

Eames is not interested.

"Fucking civilians," he mutters under his breath, nearly taking off someone's head when the front door of the hacienda ricochets opens and a man bursts in.

Eames lowers the muzzle of his shotgun and sighs.

"Arthur I presume?" he says with a tilt of his head.

Dark eyes meet his, and yes, Eames would know that quirk of the lips, that shock of coffee-colored hair anywhere. "Eames? You're Ramón's best freelancer?" Arthur says.

"He's your cousin?" Eames retorts.

Whatever Ramón and Arthur are, Eames highly doubts it's genetically related.

"You two know each other?" Cobb asks in disbelief.

Eames just raises an eyebrow. "Arthur and I go way back."

"He tried to pick me up on the subway once."

"You were nineteen."

"Twenty."

"And now I'm twenty-eight, which makes you --"

"Old enough."

"That's the same thing you said at Heathrow."

"You remembered," Arthur says, his voice full of something that might be fondness, right before he raises a handgun and fires it twice to the left of Eames' head.

Eames inhales once to make an assessment that everything is still attached, and then he looks over his shoulder at the man lying in the street holding a -- is that an M-16?

Does the United States government just give these things away at the grocery store?

"We can discuss this later," Eames announces to the room at large. "Right now I think we should go."

The snowmobile dies two miles from the cabin. At least Eames' watch has GPS.

That does nothing about the fact that the snow is three feet deep.

Or about the fact that it starts snowing again three-quarters of a mile from the cabin

Eames knows this because he can see the smoke in the distance. He can see the lights bright and shining and calling to him. Giving him a giant V-sign from the universe.

Well, fuck you, too.

Eames is never going to forgive Arthur for this.

They perform inception one time and Arthur suddenly thinks he can just summon Eames anywhere on the planet at a whim. Which is true, but still. Plus, the entire country of Canada is colluding against Eames -- well, maybe not the entire country, just the entire Yukon.

Why the fuck is he even in the Yukon?

Oh, because Arthur asked. "I have a job in Whitehorse," he said. "For a friend."

Eames should've known better. Arthur only has four friends -- including himself, there's Yusuf, Cobb and Ariadne.

And Eames isn't even sure he should include himself in that lineup.

He doesn't quite know what he and Arthur are.

At thirty-three -- soon to be thirty-four -- he should probably have a better idea of their relationship. After all, it's been nineteen years since the first time they met.

In the end, Eames doesn't even knock on the door as much as he sort of collapses against it -- only to have it disappear so he can face plant on pinewood floors. There are green fluffy socks in his peripheral vision.

He could be wrong about the color; he's got a few scarves wrapped around his face to prevent his nose from falling off.

Eames attempts to roll over but his rucksack is in the way. Mostly he sort of spins onto his side. He's wearing three pairs of gloves; it takes him a moment to create a space to speak and see through.

"I hate you," he says, staring at the knees of Arthur's dark jeans.

Arthur crouches down; he's wearing a black jumper with red stripes. The yellow t-shirt underneath doesn't match in the slightest. It's lovely. His mouth twitches. "Happy Birthday," he says.

Eames closes his eyes. Of course. "Worst birthday ever," he announces. "I think my bits have permanently retreated."

"Do you want me to check for you?"

Eames cracks open one eye. "Ha bloody ha."

"Yusuf is that you?" Arthur mocks. "You looked much better before."

Eames blows a raspberry at Arthur. He hasn't resorted to this sort of behavior since he and Charlie were still in short trousers.

After a moment, Arthur drops to his knees and Eames can feel sure hands helping to extract him from twenty-nine layers of flannel and jersey and cotton and fur and god knows what else.

And then Eames gets stuck.

"I'm stuck," he announces, trying to extricate himself from blue wool.

"I can see that," Arthur says. "Let me do it."

"I let you do it already," Eames says, batting out blindly, "And now I'm going to die by Alpaca wool."

The jumper is not giving up without a fight.

But Arthur wins, as he always does. And when Eames is finally free, he blinks around him at what could only be termed a luxury cabin. There's a stone fireplace with a roaring fire, a drinks cart, sofas and electricity, a plasma telly and heaving bookshelves. There are stairs to a second floor, which presumably houses someplace to sleep.

Thankfully, there's no deer head on the wall.

Eames does have his limits.

He gets to his feet; the shoes can come off when he can feel his toes again. He looks down at where Arthur is sprawled on the floor.

"Why are you smiling?" he asks suspiciously. "You don't smile, and certainly not at me. The last time you smiled at me the fucking federales nearly scalped me."

"Revenge upon your people from their ancestors."

"I'm not the one who came to the New World and gave everyone syphilis -- that was your ancestors."

"I stand corrected -- your ancestors just stole the rest of the world from its natural inhabitants."

"Finders keepers."

"Yes, we learned that somewhere."

Eames suppresses an overwhelming need to stick out his tongue. Only Arthur does this to him.

"Did I say Happy Birthday yet?" Arthur asks.

"Are you attempting to deflect from the conversation at hand?"

Arthur points to a small fairy cake on the coffee table. It's got a candle on it. "Possibly."

It takes Eames two tries to think of what to say.

"My birthday's not for another," Eames glances at his watch, "ten hours."

"Do you want me to take it back? I brought it all the way up here from Los Angeles."

Eames blinks. "You brought it from L.A. For me?"

Arthur nods. He looks horribly endearing.

Eames is in a cabin in Canada. With Arthur. Having been summoned from La Paz and flying for thirty-three hours. He had to stop in Caracas, Toronto and Vancouver just to get here. And that didn't include the fucking snowmobile.

A forger and a point man meet up in a Canadian shack -- he's waiting for the punchline.

"We could've celebrated in Bolivia," Eames says, picking up the fairy cake and poking at the blue icing. "Blue's my favorite color."

"I know," Arthur says.

Eames licks a bit of the icing off his finger. "This was a lot of effort."

"You keep disappearing on me; I had to make this a bit more difficult."

"I don't disappear on you," Eames protests. "You're the one who disappears on me. At Heathrow you got on a plane; in Brooklyn, you took another train --"

"In Juarez you left just as soon as we hit the American border," Arthur carries on. "In Brisbane, you left a Post-it; in Lisbon I got a postcard. In Los Angeles one minute you were at the baggage carousel; the next you'd vanished."

"So, we're both to blame," Eames says taking a bite out of the fairy cake. It's chocolate. "I love chocolate," he says happily.

Arthur smiles again.

That's twice.

"You're making me nervous with the smiling," Eames says.

"You could've waited until I lit the candle."

Eames licks away the buttercream at the corner of his mouth.

His toes are warm now.

He sets the cake back on the table, kicks off -- okay, removes with great effort -- his snow boots, and then sits down on the sofa, folds his hands together and gives Arthur his most angelic look. "I'm waiting," he says, nodding toward the cake.

Arthur rolls his eyes, but he produces a lighter from somewhere and lights the candle. And then he comes over and sits down next to Eames and they contemplate the candle burning on the table before them.

It's a nice table. Pinewood with a glass top. The only other thing on the table is a battered copy of The Westing Game with a shiny, orange bow on it. The cover is being held together with sellotape.

"Is the book for me?" Eames says.

"Yeah."

Eames ponders this.

"Are you going to blow out the candle before the cabin burns down?" Arthur asks.

"I'm making a wish, don't rush me."

Arthur pokes him in the shoulder with his finger. "Rush rush rush," he chants. Eames laughs. And then he leans across the table and blows out the candle.

When he's done, he picks up the cake, splits it in half and offers the other piece to Arthur.

Arthur pops his piece into his mouth and gets icing on his lip.

Eames chews his slowly, thoughtfully. "You, uh --" he points at Arthur's mouth when he's done.

Arthur forehead furrows, and Eames just swipes it off with his thumb.

"Ah, thanks,"

"Don't mention it."

Eames sits back on the sofa and puts his feet up. After a moment, Arthur does likewise. He's warm next to Eames, solid, comfortable.

Their arms and thighs fit together. There's no space between them.

"So, what did you wish for?" Arthur asks.

Eames shrugs. "If I tell you it won't happen."

Besides, as it turns out, it already has happened.

-end-

The Westing Game is for pyrimidine and jibrailis. Fabulous book, definitely recommended.

Title from Steve Winwood's 'Valerie' cause I'm a product of the 80s and 90s.

Betas by maurheti and lazlet. French by acroamatica. Special love to maurheti cause I don't know anybody else who'd fight with me for thirty minutes about one bloody sentence. ONE.