Oh Darling, Let's Be Adventurers
Title: Oh Darling, Let's Be Adventurers
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Disclaimer: Until I acquire enough filthy lucre to buy the rights, these characters are not mine.
Summary: Eames leaves him notes, and Arthur follows him around the world.
Author's Note: Inspired by the wonderful posters on the inception_kink free-for-all post (including bombazzinedoll, who motivated me to write this.) They posted the below image, which kick-started everything. This story is unfortunately unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine.
Arthur arrives in the warehouse one day to find something peculiar hanging on the wall above his desk.
It's a whiteboard, the kind you write on with wipe-clean markers, only someone has scrawled on this one with a black permanent marker. The letters are large and written with precise, crisp lines. “Oh Darling,” it says, and Arthur's mind reads it in an English accent. “Let's be adventurers.”
In the bottom right corner is a photograph of a pretty little town, cast in terracotta and Mediterranean dust. He turns it over. In an untidy scrawl, someone has written 'Palermo, a week from now. 1pm at the Teatro Massimo.'
He decides to go. It's not as if he has anything better to do.
SICILY
Arthur has been standing outside the Teatro Massimo for an hour, and he regrets wearing a leather jacket.
It is astonishingly hot, and the air is so dry that he thinks his tongue might have shrivelled in his mouth. And people are staring at him, in his open-throated maroon shirt, as if he might open fire upon the piazza.
It is just like Eames, he thinks, picking the damp fabric from his skin with his thumb and forefinger, to make him stand around in a foreign country dressed like a fucking Mafioso. Grubby children stare at him with the sort of wide-eyed terror reserved for the bogeyman. Mothers hurry them past with violent tugs of their arms. It's the leather jacket, he thinks, and considers shrugging it off, but his shirt is soaked with irregular patches of sweat and somehow, he thinks, the damage is probably already done.
When the forger finally does arrive, two hours late, he is driving a red Fiat Panda that has seen better days, and is grinning from ear to ear. Arthur wants to punch his teeth in, but his arms are stuck to his sides. He can feel the first prickling of sunburn across the bridge of his nose.
“Are you coming?” Eames asks, and leans across to open the passenger door so Arthur can throw his holdall (and, after a thought, his jacket) in the back seat. Eames hands him a map of Sicily and points at a little red dot on the map, somewhere in the centre of the island and apparently, in the outskirts of nowhere. Arthur can't read the name but it looks long, and full of vowels.
“Where on earth are you taking me?” Arthur protests, but the cool breeze pours in through the windows as they drive, and Eames maintains a careful veneer of complete innocence, and he realises he lost the will to argue about it the moment he got on the plane.
*
The town they arrive in seems to have been built with the sole intention of making it as awkward as possible to get around. The streets are at improbably steep angles and are as narrow as Arthur's waist, conforming to no obvious design. This irritates Arthur, who prefers things to be at least a little bit orderly.
The apartment is not much better, and between the cracks in the stone floor and the peeling green paint on the wrought iron banisters, he has a difficult time finding anything that isn't desperately shoddy. Eames waves off his protests. “It's rustic,” he says, which is Eames' code word for 'shitty'.
The last straw comes when Arthur realises there is only one bed. It takes all of Eames' charm and persuasive energy to cajole him into staying, but ONLY, the point man insists, if one of them sleeps on the sofa. Eames laughs at his uptightness, and he flips him a swift middle finger.
*
He makes up for it later on.
“This is why I brought you here,” Eames says, as he digs a spoon into the mountain of ice-cream. There are flavours Arthur hadn't ever imagined; chocolate with chilli sprinkles, lilac-hued prickly pear, even jasmine, which is rich and fragrant and more delicious than he anticipated. The ice-cream parlour is on a hillside, overlooking the countryside, which rolls out like a blue blanket in the dark, studded with tiny yellow lights, shimmering in the residual heat of afternoon.
Eames eats with the messy enthusiasm of a child, and Arthur is perilously close to finding it endearing. Close, but not quite. Eames smirks with barely-concealed satisfaction when Arthur goes back for seconds, and watches him so closely as he eats that Arthur feels self conscious of the way he swallows.
It doesn't matter that the ice-cream is the best thing he's ever tasted. Eames is still sleeping on the sofa.
ICELAND
Arthur notices the second photograph two months later, stuck to the noticeboard (which now has a permanent home above his desk) with a heart-shaped magnet, which he immediately discards because he knows Ariadne will rib him mercilessly for it if he doesn't.
This time, it's a Polaroid, and Eames hasn't bothered to pretend it's not from him; it's a snap of him standing in the snow. He's wearing a red woollen hat, and his nose is pink from the cold. His gloved hands are formed into a goofy double thumbs-up.
Reykjavik it reads. There are no other instructions.
He puts the photograph in his pocket. Later, he goes shopping for snow boots, because he'll be damned if he's going to freeze for Eames' sake.
*
He isn't sure how they ended up here, but they're trekking through Þingvellir National Park and the snow is up to their shins. Eames insists on going 'just a little bit further', and Arthur is secretly terrified that they'll forget where they left the jeep. Eames' enthusiasm is matched only by the offensive brightness of his orange parka. “If we get lost, they'll see us from the air,” he explains, when Arthur stares dubiously at him, wondering if it's possible to die from second-hand embarrassment.
He is breathless and dishevelled and the cold snaps at his cheeks. Eames treads through the thick snow as if it's the easiest thing in the world for him. Suddenly, Arthur remembers why he hates him.
“I promise you,” he says, as Arthur stops to catch his breath. “This will make the ice-cream seem trivial.”
“I don't know why I agreed to this,” Arthur responds. The cold air is heavy in his lungs and he thinks he would prefer to stand outside the Teatro Massimo in the blazing sun for three hours than struggle through the snow for another five minutes. Their tracks stretch out behind them like big black furrows. There probably isn't another living soul for miles around.
"Because you secretly adore my company," Eames replies with easy confidence. In the intervening months, he has grown a moustache. It sits on his upper lip like a hairy caterpillar. It looks ridiculous. He has probably grown it because he knows Arthur will hate it. Arthur grimaces, and continues to plough through the snow.
His doubts catch in his throat when Eames finally reveals his grand surprise. It is a waterfall, encased in sparkling white ice. It looks as if time has stopped, and the waterfall is in suspended animation, waiting for someone to flip the switch. Ice blooms outwards in feathery, delicate plumes, as if froze mid-spray. It is fluid and elegant and Arthur is astonished, tracing the hard symmetry of it with wide eyes.
"Arthur," Eames says, and there is laughter in his voice, just a little bit. "You really ought to have more faith in me."
He blinks slowly. Eames' nose is the colour of his hat and there is snow in his moustache. He looks quite ridiculous, and yet knocking Arthur's socks off with strange surprises is clearly his forte. He smirks, as if he's proud of it. As if he is pleased that he knows how to ruffle Arthur's carefully preened feathers.
Arthur balls up a wad of snow and hauls it at Eames, whip-quick. It explodes in a shower of white against his stupid orange parka. Eames stares at him for a second. "Oh, you little bugger," he says, and launches his own snowball, narrowly missing Arthur by a fraction of an inch.
They play like children in the snow, laughing and shouting, and there is nobody for miles around to hear them.
SINGAPORE
Apparently Eames is tired of Europe, because he has left Arthur a photograph of a cityscape, all ink-black sky and warm, multicoloured lights leaking into the surrounding waters. "Singapore" he has written - his handwriting seems to change from week to week, but Arthur always recognises it - "No snow, I promise."
Arthur books his own hotel room, because Eames never does. He either has the memory of a goldfish, or is deliberately trying to get under his skin. All things considered, it is probably the latter. Arthur isn't really sure why he is playing along with Eames' silly 'follow-me-around-the-globe' game; he is not particularly spontaneous, and neither is he a masochist.
That said, he's never been to Singapore.
*
"One day, I'm just not going to turn up."
Arthur tells him this as Eames sips from his Singapore Sling. He catches the straw between his teeth and regards Arthur thoughtfully. His throat constricts as he swallows.
"I'll weep and lament," Eames says, with a melodramatic flourish of his hands, and Arthur knows he is teasing. "I'll end up back in Mombasa, playing blackjack with Yusuf. You'll feel guilty, as well you should. It would benefit nobody. Except, perhaps, Yusuf."
"You won't travel anymore?" The waitress brings Arthur a coffee in a beautiful china cup. She is pretty and long-legged and almost unbearably feminine. He notices Eames subtly appraising her as she turns.
"It's just no fun without you, Arthur," he says bluntly, and turns his attention back to the drink.
Arthur nods, and sips his coffee. He isn't sure what to make of this. Eames is not at all averse to fucking with him, and yet he seems particularly candid tonight - possibly attributable to the fact that he is now on his third Singapore Sling - and Arthur finds it slightly unnerving.
He looks out at the Singapore skyline, at how it mirrors the photograph Eames left him. Flashes of blue and red light burn garishly in the darkness. It is 11pm and he is jetlagged and too warm, and slightly frazzled by all the coffee he's been drinking. Eames is dressed in a lightweight blue shirt, open at the throat, unbothered by the humidity. He drinks in comfortable silence, occasionally moving to swat at a mosquito. It is the most sedate trip they've been on. No treks up a mountainside for ice cream, no sojourns to the icy centre of nowhere. Just Arthur, Eames and a multitude of twinkling, relentless lights like cat's eyes in the dark.
"I don't see why not," Arthur ventures. In the corner of his eye, he sees Eames' eyebrow twitch up just a little. "You're quite an accomplished globetrotter. I'm sure my company isn't a necessity."
"And you're the dullest man I've ever met," Eames replies pointedly. "Therefore, your company is absolutely necessary. It's my duty to make you live a little bit."
Arthur has a scathing reply on the tip of his tongue, but instead, he yawns. He can't help it; he is exhausted. Eames nods, and laughs; it's a high pitched laugh, almost a giggle, and he is definitely coursing towards drunkenness. "Exhibit A," he says, and his face is creased into a smile, his lips broad and stained slightly pink with grenadine. "Arthur, you are a blank canvas, onto which I intend to make my mark."
"I don't think you could sound more sinister if you tried," Arthur says. He is mumbling now, and his eyelids feel like they have been weighted down. He props his heavy head up on his hands. From his left, he hears Eames chuckle.
"Shame, that. I was aiming for 'perverted'."
He smiles, despite himself. And then he dozes, leaving Eames and his Singapore Sling in peace, save for the backdrop of traffic moving slowly through the city, far below.
*
Arthur is dimly aware of someone's arms wrapped around him, and of the strong scent of cherry liqueur burning in the depths of his nose.
He turns his head drowsily, and his cheek meets soft cotton, and behind it, the pleasant warmth of human skin. He feels himself being lowered, the pressure gently being released as the person unhooks their arms from around his back and legs, replaced by a delicious softness. A bed, he thinks. He struggles to open his eyes but they are heavy and gritty, and he makes an indistinct sound at the back of his throat that sounds somewhere between a mewl and a grunt.
A soft voice, from the darkness. "You fell asleep."
Oh god, Arthur thinks, I fell asleep and Eames has carried me. Even in his half-asleep state he feels embarrassment burning in the pit of his stomach. He imagines Eames is smirking drunkenly to himself. The room smells of cologne and cigarettes. It's Eames' room. He is on Eames' bed, in Eames' room. His arms and legs are leaden and unresponsive. He finds himself drifting back into sleep, the bed soft and warm and just so damn comfortable.
He thinks he feels Eames settle onto the bed behind him, the springs compressing beneath his weight, but he isn't sure. He isn't really sure of anything.
*
When Arthur wakes up the next morning, the room is empty.
He supposes he should probably be relieved.
IRELAND
There is no photo this time, but a large, slightly soggy square of cork slotted into the bottom corner of the noticeboard; it is emblazoned with the Guinness logo and still smells faintly of spilt beer.
Arthur turns it over. There is a post-it stuck to the back, and on it, a note.
'Bring a sleeping bag.'
That's it; Arthur scans the post-it for other information but there is nothing. Eames is being deliberately cryptic. He thinks back their conversation in Singapore, to when he told him he would just not turn up one day. It would seem that barely-dry beer mats with vague notes attached are what Eames considers intriguing.
He's somewhat right, though.
Arthur replaces the beer mat on the notice board and tells himself this will be the last time.
*
It is raining.
'Raining', actually, is something of an understatement. It is gushing from the sky as if a water main up there has burst. There is so much of it that the ground has turned to mush underfoot, and it is impossible to see more than a few meters away; everything is obscured by a grey wall of water. Arthur's hair is plastered to his face and his leather jacket is woefully inadequate against the deluge.
Eames, on the other hand, seems to actually be enjoying it. They are wandering aimlessly across a field, and the light is failing fast, but Eames is running through the rain like it's the most exciting thing in the world. He is English, Arthur thinks sourly, hefting his sodden holdall over his shoulder. This sort of weather must be his summertime.
"Ah!" he exclaims, squinting into the near distance; as far as Arthur can see there is nothing there except even more rain, and sodden grass waiting to be churned up by their feet (and why, Arthur laments, did he have to wear Gucci loafers?) And suddenly it appears, like a great white ghost looming in the semi-darkness.
"It's a caravan," Arthur says blankly.
"Very good," Eames responds. "Have a gold star."
"It's a fucking caravan," Arthur says again, and as this sinks in he realises he is actually furious. He is furious with Eames for ever thinking this might be a good idea. Moreover, he is furious at himself, because he is a fucking idiot, and should have known better.
"This is ridiculous," he says to nobody in particular, and Eames is looking at him as if he's gone insane, regarding him with curious eyes. He turns an aimless 360, the thick mud grasping greedily at his feet. He feels stupid, and cold, and he wants to go home. Arthur winds his arms around himself and glares at Eames with what he hopes will look like stern indignation.
Eames bursts out laughing. The sound hits Arthur in the gut like a punch. It is the last straw. He turns his back on Eames and starts making his way back across the field. It doesn't really matter that he doesn't know the way. He walks in quick little steps. Mud sprays up from beneath his feet, speckling his trousers.
Eames doesn't protest. Arthur is pondering the strangeness of this when he feels someone tug gently on his sleeve. "Arthur," Eames says, and Arthur turns, because it would be rude not to, and because he needs to yell at him or his head might actually explode.
Eames is grinning. The urge to punch him increases tenfold. Arthur swallows it down.
"It's not funny, Eames," Arthur says.
"On the contrary," Eames replies. "It's bloody hilarious. Look at yourself, Arthur."
Arthur does. From toe to knee, he is coated in black mud. His clothes cling to his lean frame, and he knows his hair is a horrendous mess. Somehow, Eames has managed to retain at least a modicum of respectability and looks more 'drenched gentleman' than 'drowned rat'. He is close enough that Arthur can see the droplets of rain suspended in his eyelashes. He has shaved the moustache off. It's an improvement.
"Why do you do this to me?" he asks, painfully aware of how whiny he sounds.
Eames smiles. Water courses down the slope of his nose and pools in the furrow above his lips. "I told you before," he says, and his voice is so low in his throat that Arthur can barely hear it above the hiss of the rain. "It's no fun without you."
He grasps Arthur's jacket gently, pulling him slowly towards him, and angles his face so his lips graze his own. It is a split second of contact but it sends a shiver through Arthur which starts at his lips and ends somewhere past his knees, a pleasant spark. His chest is tight with anger and helpless confusion and now this, this slightest of touches which has left him stunned, mouth slightly agape, staring bemusedly at Eames. 'What do you want from me?' he thinks. He doesn't know he has said it out loud until Eames places both hands on the sides of his face and pulls him forward.
The ensuing crush of lips is unsubtle and unromantic but it works for Arthur. He parts Eames' lips with his tongue. Eames offers no resistance. The rain runs down their faces in rivulets and Arthur is vaguely aware that they are living out the ultimate romance novel cliché. It doesn't matter. What does matter is the warmth of Eames' mouth, and the soft contours of his tongue. His hands slip beneath Eames' jacket and press against the small of his back, bringing him closer.
He breaks away. His teeth are imprinted on Eames' lower lip like a tattoo.
“One day,” he says, a little breathlessly, “I'm just not going to turn up.”
Eames shoots him a wry little smile.
“One day,” he says, “I won't even have to ask. You'll just be there. And it will be wonderful.”
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Disclaimer: Until I acquire enough filthy lucre to buy the rights, these characters are not mine.
Summary: Eames leaves him notes, and Arthur follows him around the world.
Author's Note: Inspired by the wonderful posters on the inception_kink free-for-all post (including bombazzinedoll, who motivated me to write this.) They posted the below image, which kick-started everything. This story is unfortunately unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine.
Arthur arrives in the warehouse one day to find something peculiar hanging on the wall above his desk.
It's a whiteboard, the kind you write on with wipe-clean markers, only someone has scrawled on this one with a black permanent marker. The letters are large and written with precise, crisp lines. “Oh Darling,” it says, and Arthur's mind reads it in an English accent. “Let's be adventurers.”
In the bottom right corner is a photograph of a pretty little town, cast in terracotta and Mediterranean dust. He turns it over. In an untidy scrawl, someone has written 'Palermo, a week from now. 1pm at the Teatro Massimo.'
He decides to go. It's not as if he has anything better to do.
SICILY
Arthur has been standing outside the Teatro Massimo for an hour, and he regrets wearing a leather jacket.
It is astonishingly hot, and the air is so dry that he thinks his tongue might have shrivelled in his mouth. And people are staring at him, in his open-throated maroon shirt, as if he might open fire upon the piazza.
It is just like Eames, he thinks, picking the damp fabric from his skin with his thumb and forefinger, to make him stand around in a foreign country dressed like a fucking Mafioso. Grubby children stare at him with the sort of wide-eyed terror reserved for the bogeyman. Mothers hurry them past with violent tugs of their arms. It's the leather jacket, he thinks, and considers shrugging it off, but his shirt is soaked with irregular patches of sweat and somehow, he thinks, the damage is probably already done.
When the forger finally does arrive, two hours late, he is driving a red Fiat Panda that has seen better days, and is grinning from ear to ear. Arthur wants to punch his teeth in, but his arms are stuck to his sides. He can feel the first prickling of sunburn across the bridge of his nose.
“Are you coming?” Eames asks, and leans across to open the passenger door so Arthur can throw his holdall (and, after a thought, his jacket) in the back seat. Eames hands him a map of Sicily and points at a little red dot on the map, somewhere in the centre of the island and apparently, in the outskirts of nowhere. Arthur can't read the name but it looks long, and full of vowels.
“Where on earth are you taking me?” Arthur protests, but the cool breeze pours in through the windows as they drive, and Eames maintains a careful veneer of complete innocence, and he realises he lost the will to argue about it the moment he got on the plane.
*
The town they arrive in seems to have been built with the sole intention of making it as awkward as possible to get around. The streets are at improbably steep angles and are as narrow as Arthur's waist, conforming to no obvious design. This irritates Arthur, who prefers things to be at least a little bit orderly.
The apartment is not much better, and between the cracks in the stone floor and the peeling green paint on the wrought iron banisters, he has a difficult time finding anything that isn't desperately shoddy. Eames waves off his protests. “It's rustic,” he says, which is Eames' code word for 'shitty'.
The last straw comes when Arthur realises there is only one bed. It takes all of Eames' charm and persuasive energy to cajole him into staying, but ONLY, the point man insists, if one of them sleeps on the sofa. Eames laughs at his uptightness, and he flips him a swift middle finger.
*
He makes up for it later on.
“This is why I brought you here,” Eames says, as he digs a spoon into the mountain of ice-cream. There are flavours Arthur hadn't ever imagined; chocolate with chilli sprinkles, lilac-hued prickly pear, even jasmine, which is rich and fragrant and more delicious than he anticipated. The ice-cream parlour is on a hillside, overlooking the countryside, which rolls out like a blue blanket in the dark, studded with tiny yellow lights, shimmering in the residual heat of afternoon.
Eames eats with the messy enthusiasm of a child, and Arthur is perilously close to finding it endearing. Close, but not quite. Eames smirks with barely-concealed satisfaction when Arthur goes back for seconds, and watches him so closely as he eats that Arthur feels self conscious of the way he swallows.
It doesn't matter that the ice-cream is the best thing he's ever tasted. Eames is still sleeping on the sofa.
ICELAND
Arthur notices the second photograph two months later, stuck to the noticeboard (which now has a permanent home above his desk) with a heart-shaped magnet, which he immediately discards because he knows Ariadne will rib him mercilessly for it if he doesn't.
This time, it's a Polaroid, and Eames hasn't bothered to pretend it's not from him; it's a snap of him standing in the snow. He's wearing a red woollen hat, and his nose is pink from the cold. His gloved hands are formed into a goofy double thumbs-up.
Reykjavik it reads. There are no other instructions.
He puts the photograph in his pocket. Later, he goes shopping for snow boots, because he'll be damned if he's going to freeze for Eames' sake.
*
He isn't sure how they ended up here, but they're trekking through Þingvellir National Park and the snow is up to their shins. Eames insists on going 'just a little bit further', and Arthur is secretly terrified that they'll forget where they left the jeep. Eames' enthusiasm is matched only by the offensive brightness of his orange parka. “If we get lost, they'll see us from the air,” he explains, when Arthur stares dubiously at him, wondering if it's possible to die from second-hand embarrassment.
He is breathless and dishevelled and the cold snaps at his cheeks. Eames treads through the thick snow as if it's the easiest thing in the world for him. Suddenly, Arthur remembers why he hates him.
“I promise you,” he says, as Arthur stops to catch his breath. “This will make the ice-cream seem trivial.”
“I don't know why I agreed to this,” Arthur responds. The cold air is heavy in his lungs and he thinks he would prefer to stand outside the Teatro Massimo in the blazing sun for three hours than struggle through the snow for another five minutes. Their tracks stretch out behind them like big black furrows. There probably isn't another living soul for miles around.
"Because you secretly adore my company," Eames replies with easy confidence. In the intervening months, he has grown a moustache. It sits on his upper lip like a hairy caterpillar. It looks ridiculous. He has probably grown it because he knows Arthur will hate it. Arthur grimaces, and continues to plough through the snow.
His doubts catch in his throat when Eames finally reveals his grand surprise. It is a waterfall, encased in sparkling white ice. It looks as if time has stopped, and the waterfall is in suspended animation, waiting for someone to flip the switch. Ice blooms outwards in feathery, delicate plumes, as if froze mid-spray. It is fluid and elegant and Arthur is astonished, tracing the hard symmetry of it with wide eyes.
"Arthur," Eames says, and there is laughter in his voice, just a little bit. "You really ought to have more faith in me."
He blinks slowly. Eames' nose is the colour of his hat and there is snow in his moustache. He looks quite ridiculous, and yet knocking Arthur's socks off with strange surprises is clearly his forte. He smirks, as if he's proud of it. As if he is pleased that he knows how to ruffle Arthur's carefully preened feathers.
Arthur balls up a wad of snow and hauls it at Eames, whip-quick. It explodes in a shower of white against his stupid orange parka. Eames stares at him for a second. "Oh, you little bugger," he says, and launches his own snowball, narrowly missing Arthur by a fraction of an inch.
They play like children in the snow, laughing and shouting, and there is nobody for miles around to hear them.
SINGAPORE
Apparently Eames is tired of Europe, because he has left Arthur a photograph of a cityscape, all ink-black sky and warm, multicoloured lights leaking into the surrounding waters. "Singapore" he has written - his handwriting seems to change from week to week, but Arthur always recognises it - "No snow, I promise."
Arthur books his own hotel room, because Eames never does. He either has the memory of a goldfish, or is deliberately trying to get under his skin. All things considered, it is probably the latter. Arthur isn't really sure why he is playing along with Eames' silly 'follow-me-around-the-globe' game; he is not particularly spontaneous, and neither is he a masochist.
That said, he's never been to Singapore.
*
"One day, I'm just not going to turn up."
Arthur tells him this as Eames sips from his Singapore Sling. He catches the straw between his teeth and regards Arthur thoughtfully. His throat constricts as he swallows.
"I'll weep and lament," Eames says, with a melodramatic flourish of his hands, and Arthur knows he is teasing. "I'll end up back in Mombasa, playing blackjack with Yusuf. You'll feel guilty, as well you should. It would benefit nobody. Except, perhaps, Yusuf."
"You won't travel anymore?" The waitress brings Arthur a coffee in a beautiful china cup. She is pretty and long-legged and almost unbearably feminine. He notices Eames subtly appraising her as she turns.
"It's just no fun without you, Arthur," he says bluntly, and turns his attention back to the drink.
Arthur nods, and sips his coffee. He isn't sure what to make of this. Eames is not at all averse to fucking with him, and yet he seems particularly candid tonight - possibly attributable to the fact that he is now on his third Singapore Sling - and Arthur finds it slightly unnerving.
He looks out at the Singapore skyline, at how it mirrors the photograph Eames left him. Flashes of blue and red light burn garishly in the darkness. It is 11pm and he is jetlagged and too warm, and slightly frazzled by all the coffee he's been drinking. Eames is dressed in a lightweight blue shirt, open at the throat, unbothered by the humidity. He drinks in comfortable silence, occasionally moving to swat at a mosquito. It is the most sedate trip they've been on. No treks up a mountainside for ice cream, no sojourns to the icy centre of nowhere. Just Arthur, Eames and a multitude of twinkling, relentless lights like cat's eyes in the dark.
"I don't see why not," Arthur ventures. In the corner of his eye, he sees Eames' eyebrow twitch up just a little. "You're quite an accomplished globetrotter. I'm sure my company isn't a necessity."
"And you're the dullest man I've ever met," Eames replies pointedly. "Therefore, your company is absolutely necessary. It's my duty to make you live a little bit."
Arthur has a scathing reply on the tip of his tongue, but instead, he yawns. He can't help it; he is exhausted. Eames nods, and laughs; it's a high pitched laugh, almost a giggle, and he is definitely coursing towards drunkenness. "Exhibit A," he says, and his face is creased into a smile, his lips broad and stained slightly pink with grenadine. "Arthur, you are a blank canvas, onto which I intend to make my mark."
"I don't think you could sound more sinister if you tried," Arthur says. He is mumbling now, and his eyelids feel like they have been weighted down. He props his heavy head up on his hands. From his left, he hears Eames chuckle.
"Shame, that. I was aiming for 'perverted'."
He smiles, despite himself. And then he dozes, leaving Eames and his Singapore Sling in peace, save for the backdrop of traffic moving slowly through the city, far below.
*
Arthur is dimly aware of someone's arms wrapped around him, and of the strong scent of cherry liqueur burning in the depths of his nose.
He turns his head drowsily, and his cheek meets soft cotton, and behind it, the pleasant warmth of human skin. He feels himself being lowered, the pressure gently being released as the person unhooks their arms from around his back and legs, replaced by a delicious softness. A bed, he thinks. He struggles to open his eyes but they are heavy and gritty, and he makes an indistinct sound at the back of his throat that sounds somewhere between a mewl and a grunt.
A soft voice, from the darkness. "You fell asleep."
Oh god, Arthur thinks, I fell asleep and Eames has carried me. Even in his half-asleep state he feels embarrassment burning in the pit of his stomach. He imagines Eames is smirking drunkenly to himself. The room smells of cologne and cigarettes. It's Eames' room. He is on Eames' bed, in Eames' room. His arms and legs are leaden and unresponsive. He finds himself drifting back into sleep, the bed soft and warm and just so damn comfortable.
He thinks he feels Eames settle onto the bed behind him, the springs compressing beneath his weight, but he isn't sure. He isn't really sure of anything.
*
When Arthur wakes up the next morning, the room is empty.
He supposes he should probably be relieved.
IRELAND
There is no photo this time, but a large, slightly soggy square of cork slotted into the bottom corner of the noticeboard; it is emblazoned with the Guinness logo and still smells faintly of spilt beer.
Arthur turns it over. There is a post-it stuck to the back, and on it, a note.
'Bring a sleeping bag.'
That's it; Arthur scans the post-it for other information but there is nothing. Eames is being deliberately cryptic. He thinks back their conversation in Singapore, to when he told him he would just not turn up one day. It would seem that barely-dry beer mats with vague notes attached are what Eames considers intriguing.
He's somewhat right, though.
Arthur replaces the beer mat on the notice board and tells himself this will be the last time.
*
It is raining.
'Raining', actually, is something of an understatement. It is gushing from the sky as if a water main up there has burst. There is so much of it that the ground has turned to mush underfoot, and it is impossible to see more than a few meters away; everything is obscured by a grey wall of water. Arthur's hair is plastered to his face and his leather jacket is woefully inadequate against the deluge.
Eames, on the other hand, seems to actually be enjoying it. They are wandering aimlessly across a field, and the light is failing fast, but Eames is running through the rain like it's the most exciting thing in the world. He is English, Arthur thinks sourly, hefting his sodden holdall over his shoulder. This sort of weather must be his summertime.
"Ah!" he exclaims, squinting into the near distance; as far as Arthur can see there is nothing there except even more rain, and sodden grass waiting to be churned up by their feet (and why, Arthur laments, did he have to wear Gucci loafers?) And suddenly it appears, like a great white ghost looming in the semi-darkness.
"It's a caravan," Arthur says blankly.
"Very good," Eames responds. "Have a gold star."
"It's a fucking caravan," Arthur says again, and as this sinks in he realises he is actually furious. He is furious with Eames for ever thinking this might be a good idea. Moreover, he is furious at himself, because he is a fucking idiot, and should have known better.
"This is ridiculous," he says to nobody in particular, and Eames is looking at him as if he's gone insane, regarding him with curious eyes. He turns an aimless 360, the thick mud grasping greedily at his feet. He feels stupid, and cold, and he wants to go home. Arthur winds his arms around himself and glares at Eames with what he hopes will look like stern indignation.
Eames bursts out laughing. The sound hits Arthur in the gut like a punch. It is the last straw. He turns his back on Eames and starts making his way back across the field. It doesn't really matter that he doesn't know the way. He walks in quick little steps. Mud sprays up from beneath his feet, speckling his trousers.
Eames doesn't protest. Arthur is pondering the strangeness of this when he feels someone tug gently on his sleeve. "Arthur," Eames says, and Arthur turns, because it would be rude not to, and because he needs to yell at him or his head might actually explode.
Eames is grinning. The urge to punch him increases tenfold. Arthur swallows it down.
"It's not funny, Eames," Arthur says.
"On the contrary," Eames replies. "It's bloody hilarious. Look at yourself, Arthur."
Arthur does. From toe to knee, he is coated in black mud. His clothes cling to his lean frame, and he knows his hair is a horrendous mess. Somehow, Eames has managed to retain at least a modicum of respectability and looks more 'drenched gentleman' than 'drowned rat'. He is close enough that Arthur can see the droplets of rain suspended in his eyelashes. He has shaved the moustache off. It's an improvement.
"Why do you do this to me?" he asks, painfully aware of how whiny he sounds.
Eames smiles. Water courses down the slope of his nose and pools in the furrow above his lips. "I told you before," he says, and his voice is so low in his throat that Arthur can barely hear it above the hiss of the rain. "It's no fun without you."
He grasps Arthur's jacket gently, pulling him slowly towards him, and angles his face so his lips graze his own. It is a split second of contact but it sends a shiver through Arthur which starts at his lips and ends somewhere past his knees, a pleasant spark. His chest is tight with anger and helpless confusion and now this, this slightest of touches which has left him stunned, mouth slightly agape, staring bemusedly at Eames. 'What do you want from me?' he thinks. He doesn't know he has said it out loud until Eames places both hands on the sides of his face and pulls him forward.
The ensuing crush of lips is unsubtle and unromantic but it works for Arthur. He parts Eames' lips with his tongue. Eames offers no resistance. The rain runs down their faces in rivulets and Arthur is vaguely aware that they are living out the ultimate romance novel cliché. It doesn't matter. What does matter is the warmth of Eames' mouth, and the soft contours of his tongue. His hands slip beneath Eames' jacket and press against the small of his back, bringing him closer.
He breaks away. His teeth are imprinted on Eames' lower lip like a tattoo.
“One day,” he says, a little breathlessly, “I'm just not going to turn up.”
Eames shoots him a wry little smile.
“One day,” he says, “I won't even have to ask. You'll just be there. And it will be wonderful.”