[Fic] a song with no shame (Inception) (R) (Eames/Arthur)
Title: a song with no shame (for lack of imagination)Author: mizzy2kRating: RWord Count: 6000Warnings: Minor character death
Fandom: InceptionGenre: Romance, hurt/comfort.Summary: (Eames/Arthur) Arthur and Eames are a song, and Arthur hates music.
a song with no shame (for lack of imagination)
Neither here nor there:
Arthur and Eames are a song.
It's not an instant earworm of a song. It's too discordant for background music, although it's been around so long that anyone they work with barely hears it. It's as obnoxious as muzak, though too interesting to grace a mall or an elevator.
If Arthur and Eames knew their lives were a song, Eames would call it experimental-a chorus of passion, a verse of parochial chord progressions. Arthur would plump for Wagner or Mozart, but only with open disdain. Eames-if this hypothetical occasion ever arose-would be openly scornful and quietly warmed; he doesn't know how little classical music means to Arthur any more.
Even Edith Piaf is too classical for Arthur's taste.
Arthur's iPod is much like Arthur's personal life-something kept in shadows and with reserve. Something not meant for casual conversation. Something not meant for conversation at all. He goes running every day, like clockwork, reliable except for the changing time and route, and like every runner he runs with his iPod on and earbuds in.
There's just nothing on his playlist, is all.
Eames and Arthur have a rhythm of give and take, although sometimes their insults are give and give and give. Their crescendos are panic and fear; their diminuendos are in the way they scatter after a job, no proper goodbyes allowed, the music fades away leaving an echo, a note of we were here, weren't we?
Arthur's a conductor trying to keep everything tight, and Eames is a syncopated beat.
Eames is a chorus of Arthur has no imagination and Arthur is a verse of denial.
Arthur and Eames are a song, and Arthur is deaf to all music that isn't a slowed down dirge of a French woman lying about her lack of regret.
Arthur and Eames are a song, and Arthur fucking hates music.
Then:
Arthur had always known he was adopted.
He was dark haired while his sisters were both blonde.
His dad didn't connect with him-just patted him on the shoulder awkwardly when he didn't make the football team (Arthur was too slight and had tried out just to make his dad proud. The disappointment they both felt was the most emotion they'd ever managed together.)
His Mom could do Math and Science and everything routine and precise like they were as easy as breathing.
His whole family was creative. Arthur wanted to be creative too. His Art teacher said his drawings were immature. His Drama teacher said he was too disconnected from himself. His English teacher told him he was too much of a perfectionist, which was ironic to Arthur; organisation came hard to him. He knew he should be organised. He just wasn't.
Organisation was a far-off ideal, something grownups did. Arthur had time to learn it.
Arthur knew he was adopted right until the moment he turned ten, and his Mom grew too invested in what the neighbors thought, and asked if he wanted to learn an instrument.
He wanted to be a grownup. He wanted to be organised. A practical voice inside him said that a violin or a flute would be practical. For some reason Arthur couldn't remember at the time, he chose the 'cello.
It was the last time in Arthur's life that he was ever unpredictable.
And dragging the sable bow across the strings was his first taste of pure creation, and Arthur was in love.
Now:
Arthur has a thing about people wandering willy-nilly into their workspace.
They're vulnerable when they sleep. The PASIV is a piece of equipment that is ridiculously expensive and more sensitive than Eames when he's in one of his moods. One knock and Arthur then has to spend the entire week recalibrating the damn thing.
Engineering, which he has his degree and his post-graduate certification in, just makes him cranky.
Cobb just lets people wander in whenever they like. He seems to think he can tell who will or won't show up. Most of the time he's right.
Arthur snarks at him for the times he is and the times he isn't.
Just because Professor Miles thinks Cobb and he owe him something for teaching them how to dreamshare, he thinks it's okay for him to wander in while they're asleep. Yusuf, damn him and his stupid potions, lets him.
It's not okay. It really isn't.
Arthur wakes up from their meeting to see Miles sitting in a lawn chair opposite him. Eames makes a jibe about old fools in a young man's game. Cobb mutters something about a parents' evening. Miles just stares. There's no judgement in his eyes, but that also means there's no tell: Arthur doesn't know what Miles is going to do, only what he could do, and that's a horror Arthur's not awake enough for.
Arthur stares back, rubbing the injection spot and feeling heat curl into his gut. Miles wouldn't do this. Not after all this time. Not when dreaming with Cobb is all he has left.
"To what do we owe this pleasure?" Cobb asks, straightening and getting to his feet. Miles still looks at Arthur. Arthur colors despite the well-trained voice in his head telling him to breathe and stay calm.
"Not everything in my life revolves around you, Dom," Miles says, not looking away from Arthur.
"Piss off." For a moment, Arthur's startled by himself. He's reliable and dependable and he doesn't say these things. Not words that would normally comes from Eames' mouth. He gets to his feet and turns his back. Cobb and Eames stare, their eyes on his neck like a laser burn. Dreamsharing has helped Arthur accumulate a lot of knowledge about the way different things can hurt you.
How different things can kill you.
"I would, my dear boy. But there's a reason Marie and I divorced in the first place, and it's not her charming silence." Miles gets to his feet. "I'm staying with her for the next week. Marie would like your company. If I don't see you, I'll be back."
The threat of the truth hangs in the balance, and Arthur just turns and nods at him, his face carefully blank.
That's what he does, after all.
"I'll see you after the parents' evening," Miles says, nodding at Cobb. He whistles to himself as he leaves the warehouse and Arthur watches and hates him, because it's Songs My Mother Taught Me and that's as low a blow as it could ever be.
Arthur stares at the door even after Miles has already passed through it, his jaw working silently.
He wants to destroy something unique. Something which the world only has one of. Something that the world might mourn if it was taken away.
Eames moves into his eye line, and Arthur swallows down the impulse, because he's reliable.
So he tips over a table instead.
Then:
When Mom finally told him on his twelfth birthday that he was adopted, Arthur couldn't work up enough emotion to be bothered either way; his family loved him, and he had his 'cello. What more could he want? It didn't make sense to worry about a mother who hadn't wanted him, when he had one that did.
He practiced his 'cello with a strict regimented timetable, thirty minutes a day. It was the first thing he had ever been organised about. He had a chart to tick the days off, and a chart to tick off the scales he learned. He was methodical and routine.
Arthur passed his 'cello exams with distinctions and honors, but always with phrases like technically proficient and precise fingering scrawled on the test manuscripts, phrases that made the corners of his 'cello teacher's mouth turn down. She was disappointed in him, and Arthur didn't know what he could do to be better.
Perhaps he wasn't organised enough. Arthur had visions of being able to play his 'cello for a living.
In ninth grade, Arthur snapped-asked his teacher what was wrong.
It turned out to be his organising that was at fault. Arthur wasn't feeling the music. He was just playing it by rote. His despair made his teacher pat him on the shoulder awkwardly, and admit Arthur's obvious concern over the matter was a sign.
A sign that Arthur could be a professional musician, and not just plugged into the back of an orchestra where many passionless 'cellists wound up, always on the back desk, tucked away like an embarrassment.
When he got home, Arthur threw away his rehearsal charts and played for four hours, until his fingers bled. He hardly felt it. The music was all he needed.
Mom came to look for him, and found him clutching the neck of his cello, his knees pressed awkwardly into the depressions, crying his eyes out.
Arthur could hardly explain it, because he had never felt happiness before quite like it. When he finally choked out what his teacher said, Mom helped him burn his charts and his diary, and promised she would take him to his exams and rehearsals.
He could just play.
She would be his organisation chart.
Arthur could see his life in that moment, his mother's hands awkwardly around his neck, his bow grazing the back of her head. He would never have to organise a thing again. Life suddenly had music everywhere, and Arthur could hear it all.
Now:
"Feel better?"
Of course Eames is the first to speak as he moves over to stand near him, casting his eye over the debris. Their song-unbeknownst to Arthur-is mostly made up of Eames' voice and Arthur's just-as-meaningful pauses. Eames does talk a lot, something Arthur will admit; although Arthur tags on that much of it is rubbish, he delivers it without heat, as it's not the best insult in his arsenal.
"Oddly, yes, I do feel better." Arthur doesn't know it's true until it's out of his mouth. He looks down at the spilled items and contemplates not picking them up. It's a good feeling.
"I suppose this means you're going to be a stubborn arse and not tell us why Grandpa Cobb came in to play?" Eames hovers, close but not touching, like he's ready to catch Arthur if he falls. Arthur's horrified, but doesn't move away; he's in denial about his impending mental breakdown, but he's still practical and that's enough of an anchor to cling to.
"Miles was Mal's father," Arthur says, like he's distracted. Like it doesn't mean much.
Eames' eyes narrow like Arthur's given too much away, but he doesn't say what Arthur thinks he will, because Arthur's built up Eames in as head as more of an asshole than he actually is. He's aware. It's a distancing tool. If Arthur allows the fact that Eames-sarcasm aside-is basically the closest thing to a friend he has after Cobb, it'll interfere too much with his careful lies to himself.
"Speaking of..." Eames looks away from Arthur, over to where Cobb is silently discussing something with Yusuf. "I thought Cobb had banished his lovely wife for good."
Arthur thinks back to the meeting and tries his best not to be sick.
Then:
"This job isn't a difficult one," Cobb says, "it's more therapy than anything else."
"Therapy," Arthur says. "We're super qualified for that."
"Did you fall out of the womb with that patronising mouth, or did you just pick it up from somewhere?" Eames asks, pausing from his pacing down the non-existent sidewalk. They do their board meetings in a dream. It's... quicker, after all, even if Cobb uses the extra dreamtime as an excuse to be ridiculously verbose.
"It's learned," Arthur adds, and because he's feeling mean because of the job adds, "for your benefit, of course."
"All that trouble, just for me?" Eames moves over towards Arthur with an odd look. Arthur resists the sudden urge he has to run and hide, or dream up a freight train to smash into Eames-but now he knows why those trains keep appearing in their dreamscape, Arthur's too distracted to fend off Eames as he grabs hold of Arthur by the forearms. "Love, I didn't know you cared."
Eames is pretending to swoon, and Arthur-for once-is not distracted by it. Instead, he swallows a mouthful of imaginary vomit that tastes too much like the real thing, and tries to tear his eyes away.
Because standing in the distance is Mal. Her mouth is pressed in a line, and she's not moving. She's just staring, and staring, and staring.
Eames turns too, distracted from his joke. His mouth slackens. "Bloody hell."
Cobb frowns at them. "I've told you before about goofing off in a meeting," he says, "what-"
That's as far as Cobb gets. His face goes blank when he sees Mal.
Mal continues to stare, and stare.
Like Arthur finds Miles doing when they wake up.
Now:
Arthur does pick up the table, while Cobb pretends that nothing is wrong (it's his forte after all.) Eames bends down to help him pick the spilled items.
Arthur wants to tell him to piss off, but Arthur doesn't trust his emotions. He doesn't trust himself. And if Mal's appearing in the dreamscape...
"You can't control everything, you know," Eames tells him, pushing the last pile of papers into Arthur's hands.
It's too much what Arthur needs to hear for him to like it. Kindness of any kind is always too much to bear.
"I can control enough," Arthur says, and it's Mal staring, or Miles turning up being an asshole, or Eames being as kind as he admittedly always is when no one's watching, that makes him say too much next. "If I don't-"
Eames' face turns serious. "If you don't what?"
"Nothing," Arthur says, furious with himself.
Then:
Professor Miles recruited Arthur from his drawing class, much like he had recruited Cobb twelve years earlier.
Where he saw creation in Cobb, he claimed to see organisation in Arthur's work, methodical detail and immaculate research.
Arthur had taken it as proof that his charade was working. Proof that he was becoming this new person who didn't care.
Proof that maybe, just maybe his Mom was right and he was special after all, special enough to make what happened... less terrible.
If he was special, what happened to her wasn't meaningless.
It turned out Professor Miles recruited Arthur as an excuse. Something Arthur should have remembered, because once upon a time he was sat on a sidewalk, blood on his hands, and Professor Miles had put his hand on Arthur's shoulder like he was nothing but a kind stranger.
Arthur thinks sometimes that his vehement and regimented dreamsharing career on the wrong side of the law is entirely a rebellion to what Miles taught him, when really, it's a whole different brand of guilt and regret.
Now:
"Absolutely not." Arthur slams his folder down on the table, and stares Cobb right in the eye. "When has taking a tourist into the dreamspace ever worked well for us?"
"Well-" Cobb starts awkwardly. There's a pucker on his forehead that Arthur knows is tiredness. He knows it, and he's too chicken shit to say anything, because Arthur's reliable like that.
Cobb's running himself ragged still trying to do extraction work, and teaching rich men to militarize their subconscious (which is always a shit idea, because more than not they end up having to break into the same minds later in the year), and looking after James and Philippa single-handedly. It turned out Miles and Marie were divorced for a reason; because, as Cobb spilled over some rare post-work beers, Marie's a control freak that-in Cobb's word-could give Arthur a run for his own money.
Arthur swallowed control freak like it didn't sting a little.
"What's the harm?"
As usual, Eames thinks Arthur needs crap thrown at him from every direction; that conflict from Cobb isn't already too much.
Eames is all smiles, like this is a fucking family picnic. His unprofessionalism is going to kill Arthur someday, and he's starting to think maybe, maybe, it'll be someday soon, because there's been too many jobs with Eames on board as it is, and Arthur isn't that lucky.
"The harm?" Arthur snaps it out before he realises he shouldn't even acknowledge Eames as part of the decision. He's tired too, though; physically weary, bone weary, brain weary. "Creative people are... unpredictable."
"They're entirely predictable," Eames says, leaning idly against the table, shuffling some of Arthur's neatly laid out plans around. Arthur bristles, and hates himself for caring. Being organised is such an effort and they'll never, never know. "Or not. That's the point. Creative people's brains aren't ordered and you can't predict what this particular one is going to be like. That's why we're meeting this person first. Trying out one dream level before we go any deeper. So we can... predict their likely behaviour."
It's all too reasonable for Arthur's head. He rubs at his own forehead, unsurprised to find a pucker that matches Cobb's.
"Thank you, Mr. Eames, for putting my point across succinctly," Cobb says, like victory is assured.
Arthur swallows down a hiss of frustration, but Eames appears to hear it anyway.
"Tell me," Eames says, too astutely, "is it every creative person you hate, or is it just jealousy?"
"Hate," Arthur says, "is a very strong word."
It's a true word. Arthur hates them all. He hates how stupid they are. How selfish they are.
He hates how he used to be one.
"Dislike," Eames adjusts. "Because you can't, I presume."
"And you have so much imagination," Arthur snaps, wearily.
"You don't have to do this job," Cobb says, awkwardly looking between them like he's suddenly referring an impromptu ping-pong match that possibly may suddenly start including firearms. "Arthur. You don't have to blindly follow every job I do." He looks even more awkward then. "Not that I don't appreciate it, you're the best in the business, and I sleep better knowing you've got my back, and I feel safe working with you. It's just... Even when I break you're working. You could sit this one out. Have a vacation."
"I'll do this one and consider a break," Arthur says, even though both he and Cobb know that's unlikely. Even when Arthur used to go to the States in between jobs with Cobb, it was always for work, or to research.
"Maybe you can go see Marie," Eames mutters, just loud enough for them all to hear. Cobb looks embarrassed at that, like maybe he knows, and Arthur feels sick again. Secrets do that to him. Twist him up and around and backwards. Cobb couldn't know, because Cobb wouldn't be able to look at him the same, he would always be an obstacle and a burden.
He'd be needed instead of wanted, and wasn't that always the rub?
Then:
He sits numbly on the sidewalk.
His 'cello is in the car, but what's the point?
Mom's in the car too, after all.
He trusted her to be organised, and she wasn't organised enough.
There's a man standing behind him with his hand on Arthur's shoulder. He looks kind. Arthur can't care less either way.
Now:
Mal's staring again, and Cobb's losing the little control he already has.
Arthur can see it now, where he was in denial before, or maybe it's this job, making him stop and see the faults, or maybe he's woken up. He's always thought if he could be organised, if he could be more organised than his Mom was, well, then, everything could be fixed and everything would go smoothly and no one would ever have to die.
But Mal is still staring, and Cobb is losing it.
"I thought you got rid of her for good," Ariadne's yelling, and Cobb is shaking his head and it's all white noise. There's silence from Eames so their song isn't even registering, just nothing but white noise in Arthur's head as Mal stares.
Her expression is so intense.
"She's not from my mind," Cobb says, "she can't be. My Mal speaks. She stabs people, sure, but never... this."
"So it's someone else," Eames says, and Arthur flinches because he can't help it, because Eames' voice always holds words that affect him. "So we just need to figure out who it is bringing her in before we risk bringing the tourist in-"
Eames is so unflinchingly practical, things that Arthur should be saying, and Arthur can't take it, because Mal is still staring.
"There's no need," Arthur says, flatly into the pause, and he pulls out his Glock and shoots himself in the head.
He imagines before he wakes up that he sees Mal disappear into a cloud of static, but it's just retina afterburn.
Then:
Arthur's dad was never effusive. And now he's even less so. Arthur daydreams for the first time about his real mother showing up to take him away, and he's physically sick.
Arthur's dad blames the 'cello, and thus blames Arthur. The so-labelled random accident wouldn't have included them if Arthur didn't, if he hadn't-
Arthur knows enough about human psychology at this point to know it's just transference, but after a while it's easier for himself to train his hatred on the music.
He vows to himself he will never be disorganised, he will never make mistakes, his Mom wasn't organised enough, he should never have trusted her, if she had been on time they never would have-
Arthur will prove he has what his Mom doesn't.
So in the end, it's music and his Mom that he's angry with. His Mom's already gone, but she's just as hard to carve out of his life as music is, because music is everywhere, and so is she.
Now:
Eames is the one to connect Arthur's dependability with Miles' command-he's the only one. He comes alone to Marie's house, down the road from the house Mal and Dom used to share. Dom sold it soon after his return to the States, but was grateful and aware of Marie's help and bought a house in the other direction, one with less memories of Mal. Less chance of luring Dom away from his real life and into his dreams.
He finds Marie first. She answers the doorbell. Eames has already clocked Arthur inside, dressed in sweatpants, a t-shirt and hunched in a blanket, so when Marie tries to lie he just cocks his best, Oh, sweetheart, lying to a professional? Really? expression at her, and she lets him in.
Arthur stays mute for a while. Eames tries the platitudes first, "We were worried," and the meaningless reassurances, "It's not as if we all haven't projected someone embarrassing," and the softly honest, "You're allowed to grieve her too, pet." When he says ,"You can talk to me," Arthur looks at him, long and disdainful, and says, "I don't want to talk."
Later:
There's a hesitation in the way Eames kisses Arthur, holding him slightly at bay with his arms, but Arthur presses forward, ruts shamelessly against him, and advances on his prey. Arthur stakes his claim with a nip of teeth at Eames' jawline, and pulls a fistful of Eames' hair, swallowing a kiss and surging into him. Eames' surrenders, because he has no choice. Arthur gives no quarter in war, and Eames is a territory he wishes to hold early in the battle.
He's done with lying and denial and he's ready to take.
Then:
"I'm not creative enough to be an architect. There are whole subjects of matter I avoid like toxicity. I can't forge, I can't create. I'm just dependable."
"Dependability is a necessary skill for Point Men," Professor Miles tells Arthur from behind his desk.
Arthur scoffs. "You're hiding something from me."
"I assure you, I'm not," Professor Miles says, but his eyes slide to the right and Arthur pushes forwards before Miles can even look ashamed, scooping up the object of Miles' glance.
It's a photograph of Miles and his wife, and between them is a girl Arthur's snatched odd glimpses of, when Dominick has left their PASIV training sessions, mumbling about a date or a picnic or a walk in the park. Mallorie Thomas, Professor Miles' daughter, twelve years older than Dom, sixteen years older than Arthur, and just as enchanting as any of the girls their age.
There is something about her eyes and the way she is smiling that is familiar, and the way her hair falls across her forehead, but Arthur can't put his finger on it.
He thinks he comes close when he lifts his head and Professor Miles looks at him almost fondly, but the thought is gone before Arthur can put it into words.
Now:
There's bruises in the shape of a star on the side of Arthur's face, and he colors looking at his reflection. Behind him, Eames is still in bed, sleeping lightly; Arthur's quiet and slid out of bed without disturbing him. They're professionals at sneaking around after all.
Which is how Eames catches him, when Arthur's gaze is distracted focussing on the bruises, wondering if it's visible how demanding he was. Eames wraps his arms around Arthur, pushing his strong chest against the slight curve of Arthur's back, and he is shameless with Arthur's personal space.
"I thought you might run," Eames says, into Arthur's shoulder. His stubble grazes the skin there, and Arthur feels a little dizzy. He leans back into the embrace.
"I'm always running," Arthur says, without really knowing what he means. "But I'm ready to do this job now. Cobb was right. A small break-"
Eames laughs. "I've been called worse." He presses a kiss into Arthur's cheek. Arthur lets himself drift into it for a moment, but when he opens his eyes, his reflection looks familiar. The way his hair falls on his forehead.
"You've gone cold," Eames says, low and concerned, smoothing one hand over Arthur's forehead, pushing the treacherous hair out of place.
"I'm better now," Arthur repeats, and turns in Eames' arms, pressing an open-eyed kiss against Eames' mouth.
It's nice. It's better than nice. Arthur even lets himself think for a moment that this could be it for him, Eames by his side, taking the world by storm and burning it in their wake. But when Eames starts to hum as he retrieves his clothes, the future shuts down, and Arthur flees the instant he can.
Then:
"Does Cobb know?"
Mal's as elegant as a statue. Her profile could be cut from glass, but it's polished glass. It's glass showered with love and affection.
She shakes her head, impossibly small. "No."
Arthur swallows the lump down and nods, the opposite of her movement. He needs to be distinct from her, 100% different, or this charade will never play well. "I agree. I'm here on my own merits. I see no reason for that to change."
"Of course." Mal looks up at the sky. It's blistering blue, free of clouds, and in another life-
But there is no reality but this one, where Arthur's adopted Mom-his real Mom, he thinks, and repeats, like a totem in itself-died under a similar sky.
"They tell me you play the 'cello," Mal starts, uncomfortable, like English is a new skill and not something she has always had at her disposal, even if her mother's accent is hers to keep.
"Played," Arthur says, and his voice is hard and his face is hard, even though he wants to be kind to her.
Mal's his biological mother and she gave him life and he owes her that much.
That much, and maybe nothing else.
Now:
Eames is a professional and Arthur is a professional.
Eames radiates a little guilt. He thinks he took advantage of Arthur in a weakened emotional state, or something like that; he's a British knight beneath the posturing and pretence of not caring. He doesn't know that Arthur took advantage of him. Eames' skin holds the secret to oblivion, and Arthur was weak to give into it.
He wants to again, but today, Arthur is organised in a fashion that doesn't need an accurate number of Eames' inhales and exhales against his fingertips.
Cobb accepts Arthur's odd temporary departure with irritating grace, because nothing's as bad as surprise freight trains in a militarized subconscious, and nothing's as bad as a deranged ex-wife with a gun and a knife and a penchant for killing anyone close to Cobb.
Then:
Mal is a professional and Arthur is a professional.
They fight as if they are not related. They trust as if they are co-workers. They forget the truth and deny the elephant in the corner of the room. Once the mask slips, and Mal switches the Dvorak piece she prefers to Edith Piaf, because Arthur's face was strained, and Arthur could only think that was what he was going to play the day of the accident. Mal is lovely, and Arthur lets himself love her, secretly, secretly, then she dies too, and Arthur thinks oh, that's just what mothers do.
Before:
"I don't want to talk."
Eames looks nonplussed, and Arthur, he's already lost- music, Mom, Mal, everything-so how can he lose himself more, so even though he's stood, dressed as someone else, shoeless and sockless in his biological grandmother's hall, he throws away the last thing he has, his dependability, and throws himself at Eames.
It's a literal throw. Eames stumbles back, and his hands find Arthur's waist, tangle in with the elastic as Arthur kisses him. Eames doesn't respond at first. One of his hands comes loose from Arthur's casual pants, his fingers pressing into Arthur's face, stilling at the sensation of tears which Arthur shakes away, furiously.
Eames looks down at him with questions, and Arthur yanks him down again and kisses him until the question fades and is replaced by a hunger that Arthur can respond to, because things like lust are uncomplicated.
"Have you got someplace we can go?" Arthur's aware how out of it his voice is, low and scraping against a rocky floor. Eames shakes his head, purely shock because Arthur is organised and Arthur is dependable and Eames has a room at the Sainte Claire. Eames might be playing the gentleman card, and that's not what Arthur needs right now, so he plays dirty. He grips Eames by the hips and leans in, hot and dirty to murmur, "I need you" into Eames' ear like it's a spell.
Eames, like Arthur's always suspected would be the case, can't resist him saying that.
Now:
They're one level under with the tourist and there is music everywhere.
Arthur keeps it under control for precisely two minutes, then does what his body is apparently going to try and do every time it thinks it's broken-he tugs frantically at Eames until Eames turns to him with his face as a question.
"This is really not the time or the place," Cobb starts, awkwardly, but Arthur doesn't care-he needs the sensation to wash the music away.
"No," Arthur murmurs when Eames pulls away a little, his eyes trained on Arthur like he's worth something, and oh, Eames has always been such an idiot. "I need- I can't- Why's there no guns," he spits out, helplessly, and the tourist is a bloody pacifist on top of all the music, fuck his life.
"The music." Eames is perceptive, is always perceptive. "Come here."
Arthur stares, shakes his head, a movement he got from Mal; barely a movement at all.
"Trust me." Eames doesn't look away and Arthur nods, and Eames brushes Arthur's mouth with his and snaps his neck.
Before:
"I-" Eames says, halfway through. "I always thought it might be like this."
Arthur undulates, calculating, sweating above him, teeth gritted from the effort. "Like what?" He bends over, the angle awkward, and steals a kiss from Eames that's mostly just a moment of triumph, a this is mine gesture, however fleeting.
He thinks of the words Eames might use, and each one is a turn-off. Amazing, well, that's too obvious. Hot, they couldn't be anything else, all that anger and loathing has always been practice for the final event. Love, because Eames has always been stupid, and how can one word mean anything as much as the space between their bodies crumbling into dust, as much as their orbits aligning, even if it is just this once. And how could it be once, when everything is gone in Arthur, not their song or his grief, his head is Eames and Eames and Eames and it's better than oblivion because his mind and his ass are equally full, and in this moment, Arthur's not Arthur, he's ArthurandEames, and there's nothing else to think, nothing else to feel.
"Like-" Eames tries again, flinging his arm over his eyes, and then peeking up through, staring up at Arthur with wide eyes like there's nothing but Arthur in his mind either. There is no word that can be better than now this feels, with Eames at his mercy, with Eames taking all of him like this.
"Like fighting," Eames says triumphantly, and Arthur comes all over him.
(Aside)
(And why would it feel like anything else. Even fighting him had always made him feel alive alongside annoyed and irked and too hot for his own skin, how was Arthur to know it was because he needed Eames' skin to slide along his, he needed Eames' mouth to become something else? It's not as if life comes with an instruction manual, although if it did, his control instructions might just say Eames and Eames and Eames from now on.)
Now:
Arthur goes to his mother's grave, and lets Eames follow him. It's as much of a declaration as he's able to give, but Eames seems to understand-he tips Arthur's head back and kisses him on the mouth like he's saying hello before looking at the gravestone.
Mallorie Cobb.
"My adopted Mom died driving me to a 'cello lesson," Arthur says, because he owes Eames for the neck breaking, and possibly for his whole life, but that's not something he's ready to touch with a bargepole. (That's for later, in darkness, with Eames' body wrapped around his and his knees pressing into the mattress, and Eames' mouth is mapping each bump of his spine.) "Ever since then-"
"Music's been like poison." Eames sits down cross-legged directly opposite Mal's grave, and looks up at Arthur. Arthur sits down next to him, arranged and formal, his back stiff and his knees at equal angles. He looks ahead at Mal's grave with his mouth pressed in a line and his eyes unblinking. "And all this time, you've been following Cobb and not telling him the truth."
"That Mal's my mother." The corner of Arthur's mouth twitches. Eames is still, expressionless, but Arthur figured he'd given enough away for Eames to see, but only Eames, even before he realised he was doing it. "No. How could I? He'd drag me along because I'm something that's left of her. He'd keep me safe, because I'm something's that left of her."
"So you dragged yourself along."
"I'm something that's left of her," Arthur says, wryly. "I'll take this heist off as a break."
"I might join you," Eames says. Arthur looks at him, tilting his head to one side. Eames looks straight ahead, but he's smiling a little. "There are plenty of good thieves," he adds, like he's quoting.
Arthur frowns. "How-"
"I'm aware of the references you give," Eames says, and looks at him before Arthur thinks to look away. "I like you anyway," he offers, casually, like that's something people say.
Perhaps it is.
Maybe one day Arthur will say it.
(When he does:)
(Eames looks at him the same way as when Arthur said Mal's my mother, like it's no surprise.)
Neither here nor there:
Arthur and Eames are a song.
It's not an instant earworm of a song. It's too discordant for background music, although it's been around so long that anyone they work with barely hears it. It's as obnoxious as muzak, though too interesting to grace a mall or an elevator.
Eames and Arthur have a rhythm of give and take, although sometimes their insults are give and give and give. Their crescendos are panic and fear; their diminuendos are in the way they lie together after a job, no proper goodbyes needed, the music fades away leaving an echo, a note of were we ever anything apart, anything separate?
Arthur's a conductor trying to keep everything tight, and Eames follows.
Eames is a chorus of Arthur has no imagination and Arthur agrees, because Eames has replaced the imagination he's lost.
Arthur is deaf to all music that isn't a slowed down dirge of a French woman lying about her lack of regret. He has regrets (should I have told Cobb, should I have loved Mal more, should I, is this?, what if?) but Eames isn't one of them.
Arthur is also not deaf to their song anymore, because Arthur and Eames are a song with no melody, but poignant lyrics. Arthur can bear that song, and sometimes he taps out its rhythm along Eames' ribs with the tip of one finger, and sometimes he lets the song swallow him whole.
TL;DR:
Arthur and Eames are a song, and Arthur fucking hates music, but Arthur loves Eames.
Fandom: InceptionGenre: Romance, hurt/comfort.Summary: (Eames/Arthur) Arthur and Eames are a song, and Arthur hates music.
a song with no shame (for lack of imagination)
Neither here nor there:
Arthur and Eames are a song.
It's not an instant earworm of a song. It's too discordant for background music, although it's been around so long that anyone they work with barely hears it. It's as obnoxious as muzak, though too interesting to grace a mall or an elevator.
If Arthur and Eames knew their lives were a song, Eames would call it experimental-a chorus of passion, a verse of parochial chord progressions. Arthur would plump for Wagner or Mozart, but only with open disdain. Eames-if this hypothetical occasion ever arose-would be openly scornful and quietly warmed; he doesn't know how little classical music means to Arthur any more.
Even Edith Piaf is too classical for Arthur's taste.
Arthur's iPod is much like Arthur's personal life-something kept in shadows and with reserve. Something not meant for casual conversation. Something not meant for conversation at all. He goes running every day, like clockwork, reliable except for the changing time and route, and like every runner he runs with his iPod on and earbuds in.
There's just nothing on his playlist, is all.
Eames and Arthur have a rhythm of give and take, although sometimes their insults are give and give and give. Their crescendos are panic and fear; their diminuendos are in the way they scatter after a job, no proper goodbyes allowed, the music fades away leaving an echo, a note of we were here, weren't we?
Arthur's a conductor trying to keep everything tight, and Eames is a syncopated beat.
Eames is a chorus of Arthur has no imagination and Arthur is a verse of denial.
Arthur and Eames are a song, and Arthur is deaf to all music that isn't a slowed down dirge of a French woman lying about her lack of regret.
Arthur and Eames are a song, and Arthur fucking hates music.
Then:
Arthur had always known he was adopted.
He was dark haired while his sisters were both blonde.
His dad didn't connect with him-just patted him on the shoulder awkwardly when he didn't make the football team (Arthur was too slight and had tried out just to make his dad proud. The disappointment they both felt was the most emotion they'd ever managed together.)
His Mom could do Math and Science and everything routine and precise like they were as easy as breathing.
His whole family was creative. Arthur wanted to be creative too. His Art teacher said his drawings were immature. His Drama teacher said he was too disconnected from himself. His English teacher told him he was too much of a perfectionist, which was ironic to Arthur; organisation came hard to him. He knew he should be organised. He just wasn't.
Organisation was a far-off ideal, something grownups did. Arthur had time to learn it.
Arthur knew he was adopted right until the moment he turned ten, and his Mom grew too invested in what the neighbors thought, and asked if he wanted to learn an instrument.
He wanted to be a grownup. He wanted to be organised. A practical voice inside him said that a violin or a flute would be practical. For some reason Arthur couldn't remember at the time, he chose the 'cello.
It was the last time in Arthur's life that he was ever unpredictable.
And dragging the sable bow across the strings was his first taste of pure creation, and Arthur was in love.
Now:
Arthur has a thing about people wandering willy-nilly into their workspace.
They're vulnerable when they sleep. The PASIV is a piece of equipment that is ridiculously expensive and more sensitive than Eames when he's in one of his moods. One knock and Arthur then has to spend the entire week recalibrating the damn thing.
Engineering, which he has his degree and his post-graduate certification in, just makes him cranky.
Cobb just lets people wander in whenever they like. He seems to think he can tell who will or won't show up. Most of the time he's right.
Arthur snarks at him for the times he is and the times he isn't.
Just because Professor Miles thinks Cobb and he owe him something for teaching them how to dreamshare, he thinks it's okay for him to wander in while they're asleep. Yusuf, damn him and his stupid potions, lets him.
It's not okay. It really isn't.
Arthur wakes up from their meeting to see Miles sitting in a lawn chair opposite him. Eames makes a jibe about old fools in a young man's game. Cobb mutters something about a parents' evening. Miles just stares. There's no judgement in his eyes, but that also means there's no tell: Arthur doesn't know what Miles is going to do, only what he could do, and that's a horror Arthur's not awake enough for.
Arthur stares back, rubbing the injection spot and feeling heat curl into his gut. Miles wouldn't do this. Not after all this time. Not when dreaming with Cobb is all he has left.
"To what do we owe this pleasure?" Cobb asks, straightening and getting to his feet. Miles still looks at Arthur. Arthur colors despite the well-trained voice in his head telling him to breathe and stay calm.
"Not everything in my life revolves around you, Dom," Miles says, not looking away from Arthur.
"Piss off." For a moment, Arthur's startled by himself. He's reliable and dependable and he doesn't say these things. Not words that would normally comes from Eames' mouth. He gets to his feet and turns his back. Cobb and Eames stare, their eyes on his neck like a laser burn. Dreamsharing has helped Arthur accumulate a lot of knowledge about the way different things can hurt you.
How different things can kill you.
"I would, my dear boy. But there's a reason Marie and I divorced in the first place, and it's not her charming silence." Miles gets to his feet. "I'm staying with her for the next week. Marie would like your company. If I don't see you, I'll be back."
The threat of the truth hangs in the balance, and Arthur just turns and nods at him, his face carefully blank.
That's what he does, after all.
"I'll see you after the parents' evening," Miles says, nodding at Cobb. He whistles to himself as he leaves the warehouse and Arthur watches and hates him, because it's Songs My Mother Taught Me and that's as low a blow as it could ever be.
Arthur stares at the door even after Miles has already passed through it, his jaw working silently.
He wants to destroy something unique. Something which the world only has one of. Something that the world might mourn if it was taken away.
Eames moves into his eye line, and Arthur swallows down the impulse, because he's reliable.
So he tips over a table instead.
Then:
When Mom finally told him on his twelfth birthday that he was adopted, Arthur couldn't work up enough emotion to be bothered either way; his family loved him, and he had his 'cello. What more could he want? It didn't make sense to worry about a mother who hadn't wanted him, when he had one that did.
He practiced his 'cello with a strict regimented timetable, thirty minutes a day. It was the first thing he had ever been organised about. He had a chart to tick the days off, and a chart to tick off the scales he learned. He was methodical and routine.
Arthur passed his 'cello exams with distinctions and honors, but always with phrases like technically proficient and precise fingering scrawled on the test manuscripts, phrases that made the corners of his 'cello teacher's mouth turn down. She was disappointed in him, and Arthur didn't know what he could do to be better.
Perhaps he wasn't organised enough. Arthur had visions of being able to play his 'cello for a living.
In ninth grade, Arthur snapped-asked his teacher what was wrong.
It turned out to be his organising that was at fault. Arthur wasn't feeling the music. He was just playing it by rote. His despair made his teacher pat him on the shoulder awkwardly, and admit Arthur's obvious concern over the matter was a sign.
A sign that Arthur could be a professional musician, and not just plugged into the back of an orchestra where many passionless 'cellists wound up, always on the back desk, tucked away like an embarrassment.
When he got home, Arthur threw away his rehearsal charts and played for four hours, until his fingers bled. He hardly felt it. The music was all he needed.
Mom came to look for him, and found him clutching the neck of his cello, his knees pressed awkwardly into the depressions, crying his eyes out.
Arthur could hardly explain it, because he had never felt happiness before quite like it. When he finally choked out what his teacher said, Mom helped him burn his charts and his diary, and promised she would take him to his exams and rehearsals.
He could just play.
She would be his organisation chart.
Arthur could see his life in that moment, his mother's hands awkwardly around his neck, his bow grazing the back of her head. He would never have to organise a thing again. Life suddenly had music everywhere, and Arthur could hear it all.
Now:
"Feel better?"
Of course Eames is the first to speak as he moves over to stand near him, casting his eye over the debris. Their song-unbeknownst to Arthur-is mostly made up of Eames' voice and Arthur's just-as-meaningful pauses. Eames does talk a lot, something Arthur will admit; although Arthur tags on that much of it is rubbish, he delivers it without heat, as it's not the best insult in his arsenal.
"Oddly, yes, I do feel better." Arthur doesn't know it's true until it's out of his mouth. He looks down at the spilled items and contemplates not picking them up. It's a good feeling.
"I suppose this means you're going to be a stubborn arse and not tell us why Grandpa Cobb came in to play?" Eames hovers, close but not touching, like he's ready to catch Arthur if he falls. Arthur's horrified, but doesn't move away; he's in denial about his impending mental breakdown, but he's still practical and that's enough of an anchor to cling to.
"Miles was Mal's father," Arthur says, like he's distracted. Like it doesn't mean much.
Eames' eyes narrow like Arthur's given too much away, but he doesn't say what Arthur thinks he will, because Arthur's built up Eames in as head as more of an asshole than he actually is. He's aware. It's a distancing tool. If Arthur allows the fact that Eames-sarcasm aside-is basically the closest thing to a friend he has after Cobb, it'll interfere too much with his careful lies to himself.
"Speaking of..." Eames looks away from Arthur, over to where Cobb is silently discussing something with Yusuf. "I thought Cobb had banished his lovely wife for good."
Arthur thinks back to the meeting and tries his best not to be sick.
Then:
"This job isn't a difficult one," Cobb says, "it's more therapy than anything else."
"Therapy," Arthur says. "We're super qualified for that."
"Did you fall out of the womb with that patronising mouth, or did you just pick it up from somewhere?" Eames asks, pausing from his pacing down the non-existent sidewalk. They do their board meetings in a dream. It's... quicker, after all, even if Cobb uses the extra dreamtime as an excuse to be ridiculously verbose.
"It's learned," Arthur adds, and because he's feeling mean because of the job adds, "for your benefit, of course."
"All that trouble, just for me?" Eames moves over towards Arthur with an odd look. Arthur resists the sudden urge he has to run and hide, or dream up a freight train to smash into Eames-but now he knows why those trains keep appearing in their dreamscape, Arthur's too distracted to fend off Eames as he grabs hold of Arthur by the forearms. "Love, I didn't know you cared."
Eames is pretending to swoon, and Arthur-for once-is not distracted by it. Instead, he swallows a mouthful of imaginary vomit that tastes too much like the real thing, and tries to tear his eyes away.
Because standing in the distance is Mal. Her mouth is pressed in a line, and she's not moving. She's just staring, and staring, and staring.
Eames turns too, distracted from his joke. His mouth slackens. "Bloody hell."
Cobb frowns at them. "I've told you before about goofing off in a meeting," he says, "what-"
That's as far as Cobb gets. His face goes blank when he sees Mal.
Mal continues to stare, and stare.
Like Arthur finds Miles doing when they wake up.
Now:
Arthur does pick up the table, while Cobb pretends that nothing is wrong (it's his forte after all.) Eames bends down to help him pick the spilled items.
Arthur wants to tell him to piss off, but Arthur doesn't trust his emotions. He doesn't trust himself. And if Mal's appearing in the dreamscape...
"You can't control everything, you know," Eames tells him, pushing the last pile of papers into Arthur's hands.
It's too much what Arthur needs to hear for him to like it. Kindness of any kind is always too much to bear.
"I can control enough," Arthur says, and it's Mal staring, or Miles turning up being an asshole, or Eames being as kind as he admittedly always is when no one's watching, that makes him say too much next. "If I don't-"
Eames' face turns serious. "If you don't what?"
"Nothing," Arthur says, furious with himself.
Then:
Professor Miles recruited Arthur from his drawing class, much like he had recruited Cobb twelve years earlier.
Where he saw creation in Cobb, he claimed to see organisation in Arthur's work, methodical detail and immaculate research.
Arthur had taken it as proof that his charade was working. Proof that he was becoming this new person who didn't care.
Proof that maybe, just maybe his Mom was right and he was special after all, special enough to make what happened... less terrible.
If he was special, what happened to her wasn't meaningless.
It turned out Professor Miles recruited Arthur as an excuse. Something Arthur should have remembered, because once upon a time he was sat on a sidewalk, blood on his hands, and Professor Miles had put his hand on Arthur's shoulder like he was nothing but a kind stranger.
Arthur thinks sometimes that his vehement and regimented dreamsharing career on the wrong side of the law is entirely a rebellion to what Miles taught him, when really, it's a whole different brand of guilt and regret.
Now:
"Absolutely not." Arthur slams his folder down on the table, and stares Cobb right in the eye. "When has taking a tourist into the dreamspace ever worked well for us?"
"Well-" Cobb starts awkwardly. There's a pucker on his forehead that Arthur knows is tiredness. He knows it, and he's too chicken shit to say anything, because Arthur's reliable like that.
Cobb's running himself ragged still trying to do extraction work, and teaching rich men to militarize their subconscious (which is always a shit idea, because more than not they end up having to break into the same minds later in the year), and looking after James and Philippa single-handedly. It turned out Miles and Marie were divorced for a reason; because, as Cobb spilled over some rare post-work beers, Marie's a control freak that-in Cobb's word-could give Arthur a run for his own money.
Arthur swallowed control freak like it didn't sting a little.
"What's the harm?"
As usual, Eames thinks Arthur needs crap thrown at him from every direction; that conflict from Cobb isn't already too much.
Eames is all smiles, like this is a fucking family picnic. His unprofessionalism is going to kill Arthur someday, and he's starting to think maybe, maybe, it'll be someday soon, because there's been too many jobs with Eames on board as it is, and Arthur isn't that lucky.
"The harm?" Arthur snaps it out before he realises he shouldn't even acknowledge Eames as part of the decision. He's tired too, though; physically weary, bone weary, brain weary. "Creative people are... unpredictable."
"They're entirely predictable," Eames says, leaning idly against the table, shuffling some of Arthur's neatly laid out plans around. Arthur bristles, and hates himself for caring. Being organised is such an effort and they'll never, never know. "Or not. That's the point. Creative people's brains aren't ordered and you can't predict what this particular one is going to be like. That's why we're meeting this person first. Trying out one dream level before we go any deeper. So we can... predict their likely behaviour."
It's all too reasonable for Arthur's head. He rubs at his own forehead, unsurprised to find a pucker that matches Cobb's.
"Thank you, Mr. Eames, for putting my point across succinctly," Cobb says, like victory is assured.
Arthur swallows down a hiss of frustration, but Eames appears to hear it anyway.
"Tell me," Eames says, too astutely, "is it every creative person you hate, or is it just jealousy?"
"Hate," Arthur says, "is a very strong word."
It's a true word. Arthur hates them all. He hates how stupid they are. How selfish they are.
He hates how he used to be one.
"Dislike," Eames adjusts. "Because you can't, I presume."
"And you have so much imagination," Arthur snaps, wearily.
"You don't have to do this job," Cobb says, awkwardly looking between them like he's suddenly referring an impromptu ping-pong match that possibly may suddenly start including firearms. "Arthur. You don't have to blindly follow every job I do." He looks even more awkward then. "Not that I don't appreciate it, you're the best in the business, and I sleep better knowing you've got my back, and I feel safe working with you. It's just... Even when I break you're working. You could sit this one out. Have a vacation."
"I'll do this one and consider a break," Arthur says, even though both he and Cobb know that's unlikely. Even when Arthur used to go to the States in between jobs with Cobb, it was always for work, or to research.
"Maybe you can go see Marie," Eames mutters, just loud enough for them all to hear. Cobb looks embarrassed at that, like maybe he knows, and Arthur feels sick again. Secrets do that to him. Twist him up and around and backwards. Cobb couldn't know, because Cobb wouldn't be able to look at him the same, he would always be an obstacle and a burden.
He'd be needed instead of wanted, and wasn't that always the rub?
Then:
He sits numbly on the sidewalk.
His 'cello is in the car, but what's the point?
Mom's in the car too, after all.
He trusted her to be organised, and she wasn't organised enough.
There's a man standing behind him with his hand on Arthur's shoulder. He looks kind. Arthur can't care less either way.
Now:
Mal's staring again, and Cobb's losing the little control he already has.
Arthur can see it now, where he was in denial before, or maybe it's this job, making him stop and see the faults, or maybe he's woken up. He's always thought if he could be organised, if he could be more organised than his Mom was, well, then, everything could be fixed and everything would go smoothly and no one would ever have to die.
But Mal is still staring, and Cobb is losing it.
"I thought you got rid of her for good," Ariadne's yelling, and Cobb is shaking his head and it's all white noise. There's silence from Eames so their song isn't even registering, just nothing but white noise in Arthur's head as Mal stares.
Her expression is so intense.
"She's not from my mind," Cobb says, "she can't be. My Mal speaks. She stabs people, sure, but never... this."
"So it's someone else," Eames says, and Arthur flinches because he can't help it, because Eames' voice always holds words that affect him. "So we just need to figure out who it is bringing her in before we risk bringing the tourist in-"
Eames is so unflinchingly practical, things that Arthur should be saying, and Arthur can't take it, because Mal is still staring.
"There's no need," Arthur says, flatly into the pause, and he pulls out his Glock and shoots himself in the head.
He imagines before he wakes up that he sees Mal disappear into a cloud of static, but it's just retina afterburn.
Then:
Arthur's dad was never effusive. And now he's even less so. Arthur daydreams for the first time about his real mother showing up to take him away, and he's physically sick.
Arthur's dad blames the 'cello, and thus blames Arthur. The so-labelled random accident wouldn't have included them if Arthur didn't, if he hadn't-
Arthur knows enough about human psychology at this point to know it's just transference, but after a while it's easier for himself to train his hatred on the music.
He vows to himself he will never be disorganised, he will never make mistakes, his Mom wasn't organised enough, he should never have trusted her, if she had been on time they never would have-
Arthur will prove he has what his Mom doesn't.
So in the end, it's music and his Mom that he's angry with. His Mom's already gone, but she's just as hard to carve out of his life as music is, because music is everywhere, and so is she.
Now:
Eames is the one to connect Arthur's dependability with Miles' command-he's the only one. He comes alone to Marie's house, down the road from the house Mal and Dom used to share. Dom sold it soon after his return to the States, but was grateful and aware of Marie's help and bought a house in the other direction, one with less memories of Mal. Less chance of luring Dom away from his real life and into his dreams.
He finds Marie first. She answers the doorbell. Eames has already clocked Arthur inside, dressed in sweatpants, a t-shirt and hunched in a blanket, so when Marie tries to lie he just cocks his best, Oh, sweetheart, lying to a professional? Really? expression at her, and she lets him in.
Arthur stays mute for a while. Eames tries the platitudes first, "We were worried," and the meaningless reassurances, "It's not as if we all haven't projected someone embarrassing," and the softly honest, "You're allowed to grieve her too, pet." When he says ,"You can talk to me," Arthur looks at him, long and disdainful, and says, "I don't want to talk."
Later:
There's a hesitation in the way Eames kisses Arthur, holding him slightly at bay with his arms, but Arthur presses forward, ruts shamelessly against him, and advances on his prey. Arthur stakes his claim with a nip of teeth at Eames' jawline, and pulls a fistful of Eames' hair, swallowing a kiss and surging into him. Eames' surrenders, because he has no choice. Arthur gives no quarter in war, and Eames is a territory he wishes to hold early in the battle.
He's done with lying and denial and he's ready to take.
Then:
"I'm not creative enough to be an architect. There are whole subjects of matter I avoid like toxicity. I can't forge, I can't create. I'm just dependable."
"Dependability is a necessary skill for Point Men," Professor Miles tells Arthur from behind his desk.
Arthur scoffs. "You're hiding something from me."
"I assure you, I'm not," Professor Miles says, but his eyes slide to the right and Arthur pushes forwards before Miles can even look ashamed, scooping up the object of Miles' glance.
It's a photograph of Miles and his wife, and between them is a girl Arthur's snatched odd glimpses of, when Dominick has left their PASIV training sessions, mumbling about a date or a picnic or a walk in the park. Mallorie Thomas, Professor Miles' daughter, twelve years older than Dom, sixteen years older than Arthur, and just as enchanting as any of the girls their age.
There is something about her eyes and the way she is smiling that is familiar, and the way her hair falls across her forehead, but Arthur can't put his finger on it.
He thinks he comes close when he lifts his head and Professor Miles looks at him almost fondly, but the thought is gone before Arthur can put it into words.
Now:
There's bruises in the shape of a star on the side of Arthur's face, and he colors looking at his reflection. Behind him, Eames is still in bed, sleeping lightly; Arthur's quiet and slid out of bed without disturbing him. They're professionals at sneaking around after all.
Which is how Eames catches him, when Arthur's gaze is distracted focussing on the bruises, wondering if it's visible how demanding he was. Eames wraps his arms around Arthur, pushing his strong chest against the slight curve of Arthur's back, and he is shameless with Arthur's personal space.
"I thought you might run," Eames says, into Arthur's shoulder. His stubble grazes the skin there, and Arthur feels a little dizzy. He leans back into the embrace.
"I'm always running," Arthur says, without really knowing what he means. "But I'm ready to do this job now. Cobb was right. A small break-"
Eames laughs. "I've been called worse." He presses a kiss into Arthur's cheek. Arthur lets himself drift into it for a moment, but when he opens his eyes, his reflection looks familiar. The way his hair falls on his forehead.
"You've gone cold," Eames says, low and concerned, smoothing one hand over Arthur's forehead, pushing the treacherous hair out of place.
"I'm better now," Arthur repeats, and turns in Eames' arms, pressing an open-eyed kiss against Eames' mouth.
It's nice. It's better than nice. Arthur even lets himself think for a moment that this could be it for him, Eames by his side, taking the world by storm and burning it in their wake. But when Eames starts to hum as he retrieves his clothes, the future shuts down, and Arthur flees the instant he can.
Then:
"Does Cobb know?"
Mal's as elegant as a statue. Her profile could be cut from glass, but it's polished glass. It's glass showered with love and affection.
She shakes her head, impossibly small. "No."
Arthur swallows the lump down and nods, the opposite of her movement. He needs to be distinct from her, 100% different, or this charade will never play well. "I agree. I'm here on my own merits. I see no reason for that to change."
"Of course." Mal looks up at the sky. It's blistering blue, free of clouds, and in another life-
But there is no reality but this one, where Arthur's adopted Mom-his real Mom, he thinks, and repeats, like a totem in itself-died under a similar sky.
"They tell me you play the 'cello," Mal starts, uncomfortable, like English is a new skill and not something she has always had at her disposal, even if her mother's accent is hers to keep.
"Played," Arthur says, and his voice is hard and his face is hard, even though he wants to be kind to her.
Mal's his biological mother and she gave him life and he owes her that much.
That much, and maybe nothing else.
Now:
Eames is a professional and Arthur is a professional.
Eames radiates a little guilt. He thinks he took advantage of Arthur in a weakened emotional state, or something like that; he's a British knight beneath the posturing and pretence of not caring. He doesn't know that Arthur took advantage of him. Eames' skin holds the secret to oblivion, and Arthur was weak to give into it.
He wants to again, but today, Arthur is organised in a fashion that doesn't need an accurate number of Eames' inhales and exhales against his fingertips.
Cobb accepts Arthur's odd temporary departure with irritating grace, because nothing's as bad as surprise freight trains in a militarized subconscious, and nothing's as bad as a deranged ex-wife with a gun and a knife and a penchant for killing anyone close to Cobb.
Then:
Mal is a professional and Arthur is a professional.
They fight as if they are not related. They trust as if they are co-workers. They forget the truth and deny the elephant in the corner of the room. Once the mask slips, and Mal switches the Dvorak piece she prefers to Edith Piaf, because Arthur's face was strained, and Arthur could only think that was what he was going to play the day of the accident. Mal is lovely, and Arthur lets himself love her, secretly, secretly, then she dies too, and Arthur thinks oh, that's just what mothers do.
Before:
"I don't want to talk."
Eames looks nonplussed, and Arthur, he's already lost- music, Mom, Mal, everything-so how can he lose himself more, so even though he's stood, dressed as someone else, shoeless and sockless in his biological grandmother's hall, he throws away the last thing he has, his dependability, and throws himself at Eames.
It's a literal throw. Eames stumbles back, and his hands find Arthur's waist, tangle in with the elastic as Arthur kisses him. Eames doesn't respond at first. One of his hands comes loose from Arthur's casual pants, his fingers pressing into Arthur's face, stilling at the sensation of tears which Arthur shakes away, furiously.
Eames looks down at him with questions, and Arthur yanks him down again and kisses him until the question fades and is replaced by a hunger that Arthur can respond to, because things like lust are uncomplicated.
"Have you got someplace we can go?" Arthur's aware how out of it his voice is, low and scraping against a rocky floor. Eames shakes his head, purely shock because Arthur is organised and Arthur is dependable and Eames has a room at the Sainte Claire. Eames might be playing the gentleman card, and that's not what Arthur needs right now, so he plays dirty. He grips Eames by the hips and leans in, hot and dirty to murmur, "I need you" into Eames' ear like it's a spell.
Eames, like Arthur's always suspected would be the case, can't resist him saying that.
Now:
They're one level under with the tourist and there is music everywhere.
Arthur keeps it under control for precisely two minutes, then does what his body is apparently going to try and do every time it thinks it's broken-he tugs frantically at Eames until Eames turns to him with his face as a question.
"This is really not the time or the place," Cobb starts, awkwardly, but Arthur doesn't care-he needs the sensation to wash the music away.
"No," Arthur murmurs when Eames pulls away a little, his eyes trained on Arthur like he's worth something, and oh, Eames has always been such an idiot. "I need- I can't- Why's there no guns," he spits out, helplessly, and the tourist is a bloody pacifist on top of all the music, fuck his life.
"The music." Eames is perceptive, is always perceptive. "Come here."
Arthur stares, shakes his head, a movement he got from Mal; barely a movement at all.
"Trust me." Eames doesn't look away and Arthur nods, and Eames brushes Arthur's mouth with his and snaps his neck.
Before:
"I-" Eames says, halfway through. "I always thought it might be like this."
Arthur undulates, calculating, sweating above him, teeth gritted from the effort. "Like what?" He bends over, the angle awkward, and steals a kiss from Eames that's mostly just a moment of triumph, a this is mine gesture, however fleeting.
He thinks of the words Eames might use, and each one is a turn-off. Amazing, well, that's too obvious. Hot, they couldn't be anything else, all that anger and loathing has always been practice for the final event. Love, because Eames has always been stupid, and how can one word mean anything as much as the space between their bodies crumbling into dust, as much as their orbits aligning, even if it is just this once. And how could it be once, when everything is gone in Arthur, not their song or his grief, his head is Eames and Eames and Eames and it's better than oblivion because his mind and his ass are equally full, and in this moment, Arthur's not Arthur, he's ArthurandEames, and there's nothing else to think, nothing else to feel.
"Like-" Eames tries again, flinging his arm over his eyes, and then peeking up through, staring up at Arthur with wide eyes like there's nothing but Arthur in his mind either. There is no word that can be better than now this feels, with Eames at his mercy, with Eames taking all of him like this.
"Like fighting," Eames says triumphantly, and Arthur comes all over him.
(Aside)
(And why would it feel like anything else. Even fighting him had always made him feel alive alongside annoyed and irked and too hot for his own skin, how was Arthur to know it was because he needed Eames' skin to slide along his, he needed Eames' mouth to become something else? It's not as if life comes with an instruction manual, although if it did, his control instructions might just say Eames and Eames and Eames from now on.)
Now:
Arthur goes to his mother's grave, and lets Eames follow him. It's as much of a declaration as he's able to give, but Eames seems to understand-he tips Arthur's head back and kisses him on the mouth like he's saying hello before looking at the gravestone.
Mallorie Cobb.
"My adopted Mom died driving me to a 'cello lesson," Arthur says, because he owes Eames for the neck breaking, and possibly for his whole life, but that's not something he's ready to touch with a bargepole. (That's for later, in darkness, with Eames' body wrapped around his and his knees pressing into the mattress, and Eames' mouth is mapping each bump of his spine.) "Ever since then-"
"Music's been like poison." Eames sits down cross-legged directly opposite Mal's grave, and looks up at Arthur. Arthur sits down next to him, arranged and formal, his back stiff and his knees at equal angles. He looks ahead at Mal's grave with his mouth pressed in a line and his eyes unblinking. "And all this time, you've been following Cobb and not telling him the truth."
"That Mal's my mother." The corner of Arthur's mouth twitches. Eames is still, expressionless, but Arthur figured he'd given enough away for Eames to see, but only Eames, even before he realised he was doing it. "No. How could I? He'd drag me along because I'm something that's left of her. He'd keep me safe, because I'm something's that left of her."
"So you dragged yourself along."
"I'm something that's left of her," Arthur says, wryly. "I'll take this heist off as a break."
"I might join you," Eames says. Arthur looks at him, tilting his head to one side. Eames looks straight ahead, but he's smiling a little. "There are plenty of good thieves," he adds, like he's quoting.
Arthur frowns. "How-"
"I'm aware of the references you give," Eames says, and looks at him before Arthur thinks to look away. "I like you anyway," he offers, casually, like that's something people say.
Perhaps it is.
Maybe one day Arthur will say it.
(When he does:)
(Eames looks at him the same way as when Arthur said Mal's my mother, like it's no surprise.)
Neither here nor there:
Arthur and Eames are a song.
It's not an instant earworm of a song. It's too discordant for background music, although it's been around so long that anyone they work with barely hears it. It's as obnoxious as muzak, though too interesting to grace a mall or an elevator.
Eames and Arthur have a rhythm of give and take, although sometimes their insults are give and give and give. Their crescendos are panic and fear; their diminuendos are in the way they lie together after a job, no proper goodbyes needed, the music fades away leaving an echo, a note of were we ever anything apart, anything separate?
Arthur's a conductor trying to keep everything tight, and Eames follows.
Eames is a chorus of Arthur has no imagination and Arthur agrees, because Eames has replaced the imagination he's lost.
Arthur is deaf to all music that isn't a slowed down dirge of a French woman lying about her lack of regret. He has regrets (should I have told Cobb, should I have loved Mal more, should I, is this?, what if?) but Eames isn't one of them.
Arthur is also not deaf to their song anymore, because Arthur and Eames are a song with no melody, but poignant lyrics. Arthur can bear that song, and sometimes he taps out its rhythm along Eames' ribs with the tip of one finger, and sometimes he lets the song swallow him whole.
TL;DR:
Arthur and Eames are a song, and Arthur fucking hates music, but Arthur loves Eames.