Fic: In Our House Made of Paper, Your Words All Over Me
Title: In Our House Made of Paper, Your Words All Over Me
Author: louie x
Rating: R
Series: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Word Count: 3198
Disclaimer: Not mine, not in anyway mine. Were it so, I would be as awesome as Christopher Nolan.
Summary: Inspiration goes to this amazing video Under the Sheets which moved me the very first time I watched it.
A/N: Really do check out the video, it's just gorgeous~ Title from the song used in the vid by Ellie Goulding
The first time they met, Eames dismissed Arthur as a stupid kid.
They were in a West London pub and Eames was running an easy con on a handful of drunks. It was boring, but it put money in his pockets. Then in comes this denim-clad kid with a strut in his step that screamed 'American'.
Eames' current partner, a fun guy named Adric, shoots him a look and nods toward the new guy in the bar. Adric was probably hoping he'd be a new mark, but Eames knew better. That restlessness -the way the kid rocked about on his stool and fiddled with his beer- it was trained. Hell, even the hair roared freshly grown out military cut.
Though what an obvious plant was doing in his preferred pub bothered Eames more than the way the kid kept on looking at him. 'Military. Huh.' Eames wondered as he lined up his next shot. With a quick draw back of his arm, the eight ball dropped into the corner pocket and there is a chorus of disappointed groans from the losers.
Eames puts on his best sheepish expression while money is angrily slapped onto the green felt.
He and Adric head out not twenty minutes later but shit, the kid follows them. There's the shine of a gun sticking out of his belt and his posture says there's a knife at the small of his back, just in case. So the kid's got a few tricks up his sleeve.
"Hey E," Adric hisses, nodding behind them without slowing their pace or making a too obvious gesture. "We babysittin' now or what?" The taller man grins, all straight and too white teeth that makes him good with the ladies. Eames is feeling cocky, the weight of the rolled up notes in his pocket only adding to his bravado. He tells Adric to go on ahead, he'll meet him at the usual place later.
The kid pauses when he sees the two of them separate. Eames turns on his heel and faces his would-be tail with a raised brow. "You missed out on getting in on the game tonight, boy," he says, trying to keep the con intact. "We'll be back tomorrow if you want in."
Turns out the kid doesn't want to play a game of pool or snooker or anything like that. He's got an easy smile, the kind that goes along with his piss-poor shaving job. "You always play toward the left side of the table? If those guys weren't so drunk, they'd probably figure that out and block your shots to the right." Eames laughs softly and gives a shrug of his shoulders, feigning innocence.
He offers the kid a ride in exchange for his name.
Arthur sounds too clean, too neat and upper class for the guy sitting in the car next to him. "You're too armed to be a rentboy, Arthur," Eames comments at a red signal. The kid chuckles and again, there is that crooked smile that seems a lie writ into his skin. Deciding to cut to the chase, Eames taps his fingers lightly on the steering wheel as he continues, "So what branch are you from?"
"All of them."
He drops Arthur off at a bed and breakfast looking place run by some little old woman. She fawns over Arthur as if he were her own, clucking at the gun in plain view and chides him for carelessness. The door slams and Arthur disappears behind a red wooden door and what could only be a grandmother's experienced fussing.
Eames drives two blocks north and pulls his car over into a narrow alley. With a torch held in his mouth, he examines every bit of the car that Arthur came into contact with. Finally, he finds it just under the door handle: a small tracer bug.
He whistles and calls until the first stray shows up. Eames is fine giving up his belt as a makeshift collar for the unlucky pooch and puts the little bug on that. Taking the dog for a brief walk to the nearest Tesco, Eames only leaves the dog alone long enough to get a tin of cheap food for the mutt.
Happily fed, the dog runs off into the night and will hopefully lead Arthur on a merry chase.
It's barely ten minutes later when Eames gets a call from his handler. Two years underground and somehow no matter where he moves or how many times he changes his name, M always gets in touch with him. Oh yes, the man only went by a single letter moniker which only recently stopped giving Eames the giggles over someone being too obvious of a James Bond fan.
"That American agent, I do hope you'll keep an eye on him," M's smooth, somehow always disapproving voice says. Even tinny over the cheap throwaway phone, M manages to maintain his disdain at having to talk to Eames at all. "Is that all I'm gonna get?" Eames asks, lighting up a cigarette as he pauses. "Some military bloke shows up and you tell me to keep my eyes open?"
"He's a bit more dangerous than we would like to go about unattended. Just be your usually paranoid self and remain aware."
Eames sees Arthur later that night back at his flat. It's a cute little house that looks like it ought to hold an old woman and her fifty cats. He'd been on edge and uncomfortable trying to sleep, so he was chain-smoking outside a petrol station up the road. With his hood up, he looks like an idling, bored attendant on a slow night for business.
He watches Arthur break into his house. Or rather, he watches Arthur get frustrated trying to pick the locks and instead just elbow his way through the glass by the handle. Eames has to laugh a bit, so careless when everything else spoke to careful finesse. As Arthur searches around inside, forgoing a torch, Eames stubs out the last fag from his pack and heads back toward his flat.
He pulls a gun from the back of his jeans and walks in through the still ajar door. "Really now," he starts, gun raised and pointed evenly at Arthur, "I would have thought that pup would have distracted you for just a bit longer." Arthur's own gun is out and held with a hand that Eames notes was once steady but isn't now. This kid is messed up on something, Eames notes, and offers a smile. "Arthur, wasn't it?" Eames steps in closer, shutting the broken door behind him.
"So tell me, Arthur, just what were you expecting to find here?"
Eames manages to talk their guns down, for thumbs to slide the safety on once more, and for the tension in the air to relax slightly. Arthur's breathing is a bit shaky and he's losing that crisp, neat aura of rigorous training. "You know a woman named Felix?" Arthur asks him.
Its code; a distress call. One that Eames half-remembers from some sort of international conference, for when opposing operatives had to resort to asking for help. Over glasses of scotch and a fresh pack of cigarettes, Arthur spills the details. He'd been set up by his former partner, left to take the fall and been dosed with some bad drugs to top it off.
Withdrawal explained his mood and trembling hands. However, he can't shake that perfect first impression back at the pub. That person who got Eames' attention in the first place. "What you want with me then?" he asks. Arthur looks up, exhaling smoke through his nose and running a hand through the long locks at the back of his neck. The kid says, "Rumor has it you're good at forging papers and I don't have a lot of reason to trust anybody back home."
Eames offers him the couch to sleep on.
Surprisingly enough, he's still there in the morning. Hell, the kid even cleaned himself and the flat up. Eames thinks he could come to like this kind of arrangement but then reminds himself that Arthur sought him out to escape, not for a new buddy.
There's cardboard over the broken windowpane on the door and the glass has been swept up. Arthur's even gone and tided himself up, using Eames' own toiletries to do so. He looks better with shorter hair and a clean-shaven face, especially if he goes around with nothing but those low slung jeans on too.
A few calls and a week's time gets Arthur all the documents he needs. Eames knows a few people who owe him a few favors and has hustled enough cash to settle for the costs. With a new passport and license with a new false name, Eames figures Arthur will be nothing but a shadow on the doorstep as soon as the goods exchanged hands.
Arthur surprises him. With newly steadied hands, he gets to painting and drawing. Eames watches from the bedroom doorway, remembering the half-drunk conversations about how he always meant to spruce the place up but never had the chance to do so. In a single solid afternoon, Eames' bedroom goes from bland and plain to sporting a beautiful skyline mixing Central London, New York, Paris, and if he's not mistaken, a bit of St. Petersburg as well.
He grabs Arthur round the waist, making him drop his brush and paints, and tosses him into the bed. At first Arthur curls defensively, protecting himself on instinct. Eames soothes him, shushes him like a spooked animal, and Arthur exhales this beautiful sound of released tension. Cleaned up and even-gazed, Arthur watches Eames as the man shifts further up on the bed beside him. Maybe he was expecting this, or maybe he wanted it too; Eames couldn't quite tell. Once Arthur got totally rid of the drugs in his system, his face got harder to read.
West Point, Eames decides. Arthur must be the pride of West Point.
Eames waits Arthur out, forcing Arthur to make the first move. Kissing him, grabbing for him, Arthur is beautiful when he lets go and lets Eames touch every bit of him that he wants. The sex is impressive, neither being unaware of how to touch another man's body, but Eames takes the initiative to make sure Arthur never forgets him.
As expected, Arthur was gone by morning. The paint on the wall wasn't even dry yet.
---
In New York, Eames is nearly beaten to death. Truly, not his finest hour but hey, he survives and that's important enough for him.
He limps his way to a clinic in Greenwich Village and bleeds on the cheap padded chair in the waiting room. Eames has no idea how long it takes for the nurse to finally come for him, helping him limp his way into an even smaller room.
"The doctor will see you in a few minutes. Is there anyone we can call for you?" her voice is low with hints of an island accent. Eames smiles at her, pleased that at the very least he survived the beating with all of his teeth still in place. "No love," he tells her, "I'm just visiting here from out of town."
Both her and the doctor push for him to call the police. He calls a different number instead. M had insisted on tracking the rogue agent that sought out his own loose-thread of an employee. The number sat in Eames' phone for more than four months and in no way whatsoever did Eames even think that anyone would really pick up.
"Hello?" a tired voice answers.
"Arthur," Eames breathes out, smiling in spite of his split lip. "How's that lady-friend of yours, what was her name, Felix?"
The younger man shows up a half-hour later by cab. Eames is waiting outside and accepts the opened passenger door as enough of an invite to climb inside. He doesn't listen for the address when Arthur says it to the driver; nor does he mind the almost painful silence directed toward him. The meds the clinic doctor gave him makes the world numb and swirl pleasantly. He tips his head over onto Arthur's shoulder and closes his eyes.
Arthur lets him sleep.
They try the normal life for a while. It's weird, sure, but at the same time, waking up and putting on a tie was a lot easier than conning and dodging bullets. Arthur keeps busy behind a desk doing nonsense computer work far below his skills, but Eames thinks he understands.
It's much easier to hide in plain sight than creeping around in what little shadow is available. Besides, Eames makes a wonderful bundle of money in the PR department of an anonymous glass tower in midtown Manhattan while Arthur crunches numbers.
Four months living together and Eames gets used to the warm weight of Arthur in the bed next to him. Accustomed to Arthur complaining about his fogging up the mirror in the bathroom while he's trying to shave as Eames takes a hot morning shower. Little domestic things that make Eames' stomach warm pleasantly if he thinks about it for too long.
Eames learns that Arthur likes Karaoke and sings when drunk enough.
Arthur learns that Eames cries during sad films or TV shows.
Eames adores that Arthur smiles in his sleep.
Arthur loves Eames' tattoos and how they mark the impulsive side of his unique life.
That is, until Arthur's service to his country is reactivated. Men in black suits show up at the door and speak in terse, hushed tones. Eames is in the kitchen, washing dishes, and still has suds on his hands as he steps into main room of the small apartment.
Arthur looks over his shoulder and meets Eames' gaze. Hesitating only that brief moment before grabbing his coat and walking out. The door clicks quietly behind him and Eames hears the 'goodbye' in the silence.
Its two weeks later that he gets a letter with Arthur's copy of the key to his apartment taped to a handwritten note. Eames sits down on the couch, feet on the coffee table now that Arthur wasn't there to tell him off for doing so. The note bears no attempts to excuse himself, which Eames appreciates. They're in the same sort of business, and they understand that they're just tools in the never-ending business of war.
Eames leaves the apartment before nightfall. The only thing of Arthur's that he takes with him is a small notebook filled with Arthur's impossible chicken-scratch handwriting and sketches. The city, the people within it, all carefully studied and recorded with each pen stroke. Toward the back of the book were two pages glued together at their outside edges. Had someone not been careful, not been examining closely, they would have assumed it to be one singular page.
With the help of a borrowed paper clip from the lovely flight attendant, Eames peels the pages carefully apart. Hidden away is a sketch of himself, tie loosened and newspaper spread over his legs while he drinks his evening drink in an attempt to relax after a long, annoying day of office work. The lines of the pen even manage to get in the tired ruffle of his hair and the folds of his shirt while Eames had been comfortably slouching.
Eames thinks he hates Arthur just a little bit for never showing him this. For never voicing the affection and flattery that the drawing so obviously displays.
He almost throws it out in seven different countries but, somehow, the book always ends up in the bottom of his carry-on bag. For the next two years Eames doesn't see Arthur. Wars in the Middle East rise and fall, crest and surge, and somewhere in the field Arthur's skilled hands are in the trenches. Doing God-knows what like the good tool of his country that he is.
Glancing over the drawings, Eames wonders if the skilled hands that put pen to paper with such ease are just as graceful with a gun.
----
They meet the Cobbs separately but it's Mal that reintroduces them. Insistently, even.
Again and again, she found reasons to put them into the same room or the same dream. Eames isn't surprised that Arthur, hardened only further by his service, would have been a guinea pig for the PASIV device programs.
Mal is the one who takes Eames aside, one-on-one, and he impresses her with his forgery. It's not just about paperwork anymore. Not poker chips or phony passports, which he is very, very good at; this is crafting a reality so detailed that it must fool the scrutiny of an unconscious mind. Such a challenge -a fun one, at that- had never been laid before Eames' feet. He prides himself on her smiles and takes great joy in impressing her quiet, clever husband.
Eames breaks the ice first.
In the Cobb home, the Mister and Missus were tending to their small children and Arthur stood in the kitchen. A domestic beer dangles loosely from the fingers of one hand, half-gone with a chill still clinging to the glass. His eyes are on a picture window, somewhere in the distance a skyline lurks, and Eames wonders if Arthur is tracing the lines of it even from that far away. Eames slides his hand over Arthur's back, clasping his opposite hip and leans in to inhale the scent of expensive French aftershave.
"I have dozens of unsent postcards," Arthur says, eyes shut and head tipped in a surprisingly affectionate gesture. He touches his cheek against Eames' hair and shifts his hand -skin cold from the bottle- to rest on Eames' own. "Either couldn't send them or didn't think you'd want to read them."
They shift simultaneously. Arthur putting his back to the counter and Eames stepping forward, placing his arms on either side of the man's slender torso. He thinks of the messy kid that tracked him down in London. The one that checked him out before asking for help and that was only after breaking into his house to do so.
Its only Arthur's quick thinking that saves the bottle from just crashing onto the floor. The slide of the glass on the stone countertop is a periphery sound paid no mind while Eames kisses him. Again those cold hands touch him, sliding over Eames' chest then up to clasp his collar to keep him close.
Phillipa interrupts them. Her little hand tugging on Eames' trouser leg to get his attention. She doesn't seem fazed at catching them necking, making out without thinking of where they were or who was around, and smiles up at them. Eames takes a step back, freeing Arthur from the cage of his arms, and lifts the girl up off her feet.
Her laughter is soft and pleasant to their ears.
Her smile's contagious, just like her mother's.
Dom walks in, looking for his girl, and grins when he sees Eames tickling her into hysterics. It will be one of the last times Eames and Arthur will see Dom honestly smile but neither know that yet.
Author: louie x
Rating: R
Series: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Word Count: 3198
Disclaimer: Not mine, not in anyway mine. Were it so, I would be as awesome as Christopher Nolan.
Summary: Inspiration goes to this amazing video Under the Sheets which moved me the very first time I watched it.
A/N: Really do check out the video, it's just gorgeous~ Title from the song used in the vid by Ellie Goulding
The first time they met, Eames dismissed Arthur as a stupid kid.
They were in a West London pub and Eames was running an easy con on a handful of drunks. It was boring, but it put money in his pockets. Then in comes this denim-clad kid with a strut in his step that screamed 'American'.
Eames' current partner, a fun guy named Adric, shoots him a look and nods toward the new guy in the bar. Adric was probably hoping he'd be a new mark, but Eames knew better. That restlessness -the way the kid rocked about on his stool and fiddled with his beer- it was trained. Hell, even the hair roared freshly grown out military cut.
Though what an obvious plant was doing in his preferred pub bothered Eames more than the way the kid kept on looking at him. 'Military. Huh.' Eames wondered as he lined up his next shot. With a quick draw back of his arm, the eight ball dropped into the corner pocket and there is a chorus of disappointed groans from the losers.
Eames puts on his best sheepish expression while money is angrily slapped onto the green felt.
He and Adric head out not twenty minutes later but shit, the kid follows them. There's the shine of a gun sticking out of his belt and his posture says there's a knife at the small of his back, just in case. So the kid's got a few tricks up his sleeve.
"Hey E," Adric hisses, nodding behind them without slowing their pace or making a too obvious gesture. "We babysittin' now or what?" The taller man grins, all straight and too white teeth that makes him good with the ladies. Eames is feeling cocky, the weight of the rolled up notes in his pocket only adding to his bravado. He tells Adric to go on ahead, he'll meet him at the usual place later.
The kid pauses when he sees the two of them separate. Eames turns on his heel and faces his would-be tail with a raised brow. "You missed out on getting in on the game tonight, boy," he says, trying to keep the con intact. "We'll be back tomorrow if you want in."
Turns out the kid doesn't want to play a game of pool or snooker or anything like that. He's got an easy smile, the kind that goes along with his piss-poor shaving job. "You always play toward the left side of the table? If those guys weren't so drunk, they'd probably figure that out and block your shots to the right." Eames laughs softly and gives a shrug of his shoulders, feigning innocence.
He offers the kid a ride in exchange for his name.
Arthur sounds too clean, too neat and upper class for the guy sitting in the car next to him. "You're too armed to be a rentboy, Arthur," Eames comments at a red signal. The kid chuckles and again, there is that crooked smile that seems a lie writ into his skin. Deciding to cut to the chase, Eames taps his fingers lightly on the steering wheel as he continues, "So what branch are you from?"
"All of them."
He drops Arthur off at a bed and breakfast looking place run by some little old woman. She fawns over Arthur as if he were her own, clucking at the gun in plain view and chides him for carelessness. The door slams and Arthur disappears behind a red wooden door and what could only be a grandmother's experienced fussing.
Eames drives two blocks north and pulls his car over into a narrow alley. With a torch held in his mouth, he examines every bit of the car that Arthur came into contact with. Finally, he finds it just under the door handle: a small tracer bug.
He whistles and calls until the first stray shows up. Eames is fine giving up his belt as a makeshift collar for the unlucky pooch and puts the little bug on that. Taking the dog for a brief walk to the nearest Tesco, Eames only leaves the dog alone long enough to get a tin of cheap food for the mutt.
Happily fed, the dog runs off into the night and will hopefully lead Arthur on a merry chase.
It's barely ten minutes later when Eames gets a call from his handler. Two years underground and somehow no matter where he moves or how many times he changes his name, M always gets in touch with him. Oh yes, the man only went by a single letter moniker which only recently stopped giving Eames the giggles over someone being too obvious of a James Bond fan.
"That American agent, I do hope you'll keep an eye on him," M's smooth, somehow always disapproving voice says. Even tinny over the cheap throwaway phone, M manages to maintain his disdain at having to talk to Eames at all. "Is that all I'm gonna get?" Eames asks, lighting up a cigarette as he pauses. "Some military bloke shows up and you tell me to keep my eyes open?"
"He's a bit more dangerous than we would like to go about unattended. Just be your usually paranoid self and remain aware."
Eames sees Arthur later that night back at his flat. It's a cute little house that looks like it ought to hold an old woman and her fifty cats. He'd been on edge and uncomfortable trying to sleep, so he was chain-smoking outside a petrol station up the road. With his hood up, he looks like an idling, bored attendant on a slow night for business.
He watches Arthur break into his house. Or rather, he watches Arthur get frustrated trying to pick the locks and instead just elbow his way through the glass by the handle. Eames has to laugh a bit, so careless when everything else spoke to careful finesse. As Arthur searches around inside, forgoing a torch, Eames stubs out the last fag from his pack and heads back toward his flat.
He pulls a gun from the back of his jeans and walks in through the still ajar door. "Really now," he starts, gun raised and pointed evenly at Arthur, "I would have thought that pup would have distracted you for just a bit longer." Arthur's own gun is out and held with a hand that Eames notes was once steady but isn't now. This kid is messed up on something, Eames notes, and offers a smile. "Arthur, wasn't it?" Eames steps in closer, shutting the broken door behind him.
"So tell me, Arthur, just what were you expecting to find here?"
Eames manages to talk their guns down, for thumbs to slide the safety on once more, and for the tension in the air to relax slightly. Arthur's breathing is a bit shaky and he's losing that crisp, neat aura of rigorous training. "You know a woman named Felix?" Arthur asks him.
Its code; a distress call. One that Eames half-remembers from some sort of international conference, for when opposing operatives had to resort to asking for help. Over glasses of scotch and a fresh pack of cigarettes, Arthur spills the details. He'd been set up by his former partner, left to take the fall and been dosed with some bad drugs to top it off.
Withdrawal explained his mood and trembling hands. However, he can't shake that perfect first impression back at the pub. That person who got Eames' attention in the first place. "What you want with me then?" he asks. Arthur looks up, exhaling smoke through his nose and running a hand through the long locks at the back of his neck. The kid says, "Rumor has it you're good at forging papers and I don't have a lot of reason to trust anybody back home."
Eames offers him the couch to sleep on.
Surprisingly enough, he's still there in the morning. Hell, the kid even cleaned himself and the flat up. Eames thinks he could come to like this kind of arrangement but then reminds himself that Arthur sought him out to escape, not for a new buddy.
There's cardboard over the broken windowpane on the door and the glass has been swept up. Arthur's even gone and tided himself up, using Eames' own toiletries to do so. He looks better with shorter hair and a clean-shaven face, especially if he goes around with nothing but those low slung jeans on too.
A few calls and a week's time gets Arthur all the documents he needs. Eames knows a few people who owe him a few favors and has hustled enough cash to settle for the costs. With a new passport and license with a new false name, Eames figures Arthur will be nothing but a shadow on the doorstep as soon as the goods exchanged hands.
Arthur surprises him. With newly steadied hands, he gets to painting and drawing. Eames watches from the bedroom doorway, remembering the half-drunk conversations about how he always meant to spruce the place up but never had the chance to do so. In a single solid afternoon, Eames' bedroom goes from bland and plain to sporting a beautiful skyline mixing Central London, New York, Paris, and if he's not mistaken, a bit of St. Petersburg as well.
He grabs Arthur round the waist, making him drop his brush and paints, and tosses him into the bed. At first Arthur curls defensively, protecting himself on instinct. Eames soothes him, shushes him like a spooked animal, and Arthur exhales this beautiful sound of released tension. Cleaned up and even-gazed, Arthur watches Eames as the man shifts further up on the bed beside him. Maybe he was expecting this, or maybe he wanted it too; Eames couldn't quite tell. Once Arthur got totally rid of the drugs in his system, his face got harder to read.
West Point, Eames decides. Arthur must be the pride of West Point.
Eames waits Arthur out, forcing Arthur to make the first move. Kissing him, grabbing for him, Arthur is beautiful when he lets go and lets Eames touch every bit of him that he wants. The sex is impressive, neither being unaware of how to touch another man's body, but Eames takes the initiative to make sure Arthur never forgets him.
As expected, Arthur was gone by morning. The paint on the wall wasn't even dry yet.
---
In New York, Eames is nearly beaten to death. Truly, not his finest hour but hey, he survives and that's important enough for him.
He limps his way to a clinic in Greenwich Village and bleeds on the cheap padded chair in the waiting room. Eames has no idea how long it takes for the nurse to finally come for him, helping him limp his way into an even smaller room.
"The doctor will see you in a few minutes. Is there anyone we can call for you?" her voice is low with hints of an island accent. Eames smiles at her, pleased that at the very least he survived the beating with all of his teeth still in place. "No love," he tells her, "I'm just visiting here from out of town."
Both her and the doctor push for him to call the police. He calls a different number instead. M had insisted on tracking the rogue agent that sought out his own loose-thread of an employee. The number sat in Eames' phone for more than four months and in no way whatsoever did Eames even think that anyone would really pick up.
"Hello?" a tired voice answers.
"Arthur," Eames breathes out, smiling in spite of his split lip. "How's that lady-friend of yours, what was her name, Felix?"
The younger man shows up a half-hour later by cab. Eames is waiting outside and accepts the opened passenger door as enough of an invite to climb inside. He doesn't listen for the address when Arthur says it to the driver; nor does he mind the almost painful silence directed toward him. The meds the clinic doctor gave him makes the world numb and swirl pleasantly. He tips his head over onto Arthur's shoulder and closes his eyes.
Arthur lets him sleep.
They try the normal life for a while. It's weird, sure, but at the same time, waking up and putting on a tie was a lot easier than conning and dodging bullets. Arthur keeps busy behind a desk doing nonsense computer work far below his skills, but Eames thinks he understands.
It's much easier to hide in plain sight than creeping around in what little shadow is available. Besides, Eames makes a wonderful bundle of money in the PR department of an anonymous glass tower in midtown Manhattan while Arthur crunches numbers.
Four months living together and Eames gets used to the warm weight of Arthur in the bed next to him. Accustomed to Arthur complaining about his fogging up the mirror in the bathroom while he's trying to shave as Eames takes a hot morning shower. Little domestic things that make Eames' stomach warm pleasantly if he thinks about it for too long.
Eames learns that Arthur likes Karaoke and sings when drunk enough.
Arthur learns that Eames cries during sad films or TV shows.
Eames adores that Arthur smiles in his sleep.
Arthur loves Eames' tattoos and how they mark the impulsive side of his unique life.
That is, until Arthur's service to his country is reactivated. Men in black suits show up at the door and speak in terse, hushed tones. Eames is in the kitchen, washing dishes, and still has suds on his hands as he steps into main room of the small apartment.
Arthur looks over his shoulder and meets Eames' gaze. Hesitating only that brief moment before grabbing his coat and walking out. The door clicks quietly behind him and Eames hears the 'goodbye' in the silence.
Its two weeks later that he gets a letter with Arthur's copy of the key to his apartment taped to a handwritten note. Eames sits down on the couch, feet on the coffee table now that Arthur wasn't there to tell him off for doing so. The note bears no attempts to excuse himself, which Eames appreciates. They're in the same sort of business, and they understand that they're just tools in the never-ending business of war.
Eames leaves the apartment before nightfall. The only thing of Arthur's that he takes with him is a small notebook filled with Arthur's impossible chicken-scratch handwriting and sketches. The city, the people within it, all carefully studied and recorded with each pen stroke. Toward the back of the book were two pages glued together at their outside edges. Had someone not been careful, not been examining closely, they would have assumed it to be one singular page.
With the help of a borrowed paper clip from the lovely flight attendant, Eames peels the pages carefully apart. Hidden away is a sketch of himself, tie loosened and newspaper spread over his legs while he drinks his evening drink in an attempt to relax after a long, annoying day of office work. The lines of the pen even manage to get in the tired ruffle of his hair and the folds of his shirt while Eames had been comfortably slouching.
Eames thinks he hates Arthur just a little bit for never showing him this. For never voicing the affection and flattery that the drawing so obviously displays.
He almost throws it out in seven different countries but, somehow, the book always ends up in the bottom of his carry-on bag. For the next two years Eames doesn't see Arthur. Wars in the Middle East rise and fall, crest and surge, and somewhere in the field Arthur's skilled hands are in the trenches. Doing God-knows what like the good tool of his country that he is.
Glancing over the drawings, Eames wonders if the skilled hands that put pen to paper with such ease are just as graceful with a gun.
----
They meet the Cobbs separately but it's Mal that reintroduces them. Insistently, even.
Again and again, she found reasons to put them into the same room or the same dream. Eames isn't surprised that Arthur, hardened only further by his service, would have been a guinea pig for the PASIV device programs.
Mal is the one who takes Eames aside, one-on-one, and he impresses her with his forgery. It's not just about paperwork anymore. Not poker chips or phony passports, which he is very, very good at; this is crafting a reality so detailed that it must fool the scrutiny of an unconscious mind. Such a challenge -a fun one, at that- had never been laid before Eames' feet. He prides himself on her smiles and takes great joy in impressing her quiet, clever husband.
Eames breaks the ice first.
In the Cobb home, the Mister and Missus were tending to their small children and Arthur stood in the kitchen. A domestic beer dangles loosely from the fingers of one hand, half-gone with a chill still clinging to the glass. His eyes are on a picture window, somewhere in the distance a skyline lurks, and Eames wonders if Arthur is tracing the lines of it even from that far away. Eames slides his hand over Arthur's back, clasping his opposite hip and leans in to inhale the scent of expensive French aftershave.
"I have dozens of unsent postcards," Arthur says, eyes shut and head tipped in a surprisingly affectionate gesture. He touches his cheek against Eames' hair and shifts his hand -skin cold from the bottle- to rest on Eames' own. "Either couldn't send them or didn't think you'd want to read them."
They shift simultaneously. Arthur putting his back to the counter and Eames stepping forward, placing his arms on either side of the man's slender torso. He thinks of the messy kid that tracked him down in London. The one that checked him out before asking for help and that was only after breaking into his house to do so.
Its only Arthur's quick thinking that saves the bottle from just crashing onto the floor. The slide of the glass on the stone countertop is a periphery sound paid no mind while Eames kisses him. Again those cold hands touch him, sliding over Eames' chest then up to clasp his collar to keep him close.
Phillipa interrupts them. Her little hand tugging on Eames' trouser leg to get his attention. She doesn't seem fazed at catching them necking, making out without thinking of where they were or who was around, and smiles up at them. Eames takes a step back, freeing Arthur from the cage of his arms, and lifts the girl up off her feet.
Her laughter is soft and pleasant to their ears.
Her smile's contagious, just like her mother's.
Dom walks in, looking for his girl, and grins when he sees Eames tickling her into hysterics. It will be one of the last times Eames and Arthur will see Dom honestly smile but neither know that yet.