fic: An Encyclopedia of Man [inception]
Title: An Encyclopedia of Man
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: ~7,000
Summary: Arthur never thought he knew everything, until there was something he didn't know.
Notes: I don't even know. This is the fault of overly enthusiastic British love songs, thumbing through Schott's Original Miscellany, and futureperfect telling me to write something (like, two months ago). Everything is, to the best of my knowledge, true. If I fouled something up, blame Wikipedia (and feel free to correct me for all the world to see). Or me! I accept all scapegoating for this insane piece of cotton candy.
Love it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be
It ends like this: Arthur running, pell mell and accurate in his dodging, through Detroit Metropolitan Airport's International Terminal. The kind of running that comes at the denouement of a Focus Features film, with no dialogue and no ambient noise, just swelling indie music. The kind of running where each footfall is a heartbeat, each pump of fists and strain of lungs and muscles and surge of lactic acid is desperation, beating out the phrase last chance, last chance.
Arthur runs, through the eyebrow-lifting, murmuring, offended crowd that parts reluctantly (but not impossibly) before him, and when he gets to the proper gate, the large red clock proclaims 11:02 in braggart digital, and the door is shut.
Uncharacteristically dramatic, Arthur slams both fists against the gangway door, and the ticket scanners make feminine noises of alarm. Arthur slams his fists again, a noise of pain wrenching out of him, and he only turns on them when they pick up the phones to call security on him. It doesn't matter if he's detained, because he's too late, too foolish.
* * *
It begins like this: Eames says, "Did you know, that it's quite sacrilege to drink espresso from anything but plain white china? No marks on the cups, nothing."
And Arthur, not looking up from his exploded view of Denmark's S-Train, says, "Yes, Eames, I know. Don't be a show off."
Eames, looking into his demitasse cup, shrugs, and sets it back down on its equally minuscule saucer. "Then what shall I be, darling?"
Arthur who, whether he knows it or not, has a thing for the metaphysical, glances up at Eames over the glare of the magnifying light, and lifts his eyebrows. "Did you need something?"
There is a moment where Arthur thinks that Eames is going to say one thing - ("Constantly." "Only you, of course." "Your constant dismissals do nothing to mask your affection for me, Arthur.") - but it passes. Instead, Eames sets aside his chinaware, and wipes his hands on his jeans in a few brusque passes. "Not at all," he says, leaning over the desk. "Show me our entrance points, hey."
* * *
Ariadne brings in three bags of chinese food that she can barely manage, and Arthur entertains a brief moment of fantasy where she disappears in a deluge of fried rice. It's not that he wants his friend to be drowned in greasy starch, it's just one of those things that forces itself up on your mental eye when you haven't slept in three days. You start to get a little...disjointed.
Eames gets up to help her with her burden, and it's as they're peeling away the orange-sauce-infused plastic bags that Arthur's appetite finally gets the best of him. He closes his laptop with a decisive click, and he's not sure who makes more noise when he stands: him, or his certainly fifties era desk chair. It's heavy enough to cause some serious structural damage to a Buick when dropped from the third story of a window. He knows, because they tried yesterday.
Not with this exact chair. Different one. Still.
"Who ordered Almond Chicken?" Ariadne asks, mouth twisting in disapproval. "That's like the Wonder Bread of chinese take out."
The three of them look over at Dom, who is still asleep on top of his desk. It shouldn't be funny, but it is. Arthur snorts low, Eames stifles a laugh into his sleeve, and Ariadne sighs and fastens the catch on the Styrofoam again with a quiet squeak.
"Dinner used to be breakfast," Eames says thoughtfully, propping himself against the edge of the empty desk they're sorting the food out onto, and opens a box of dripping lo mein. "What I mean," he continues through a mouthful of noodles, "is that when you translate it in its root languages, it really does come out to 'first meal'."
"Really?" Ariadne asks. She's wrestling with a mini corn. Arthur hands Eames a napkin without looking at him, apparently just in time, from the soft 'oop!' noise he lets out. "Why did they change it? I mean, the other words had to come in somehow, right?"
"Well, break-fast just seemed more suitable," Eames says with an air of all-knowing, and Arthur snorts.
"Don't listen to him," Arthur says, spooning out a portion of beef and broccoli over his rice. "Dinner became later and later in the day as the upper classes of Europe started rising later in the day. Wealthier classes didn't get out of bed until three or four in the afternoon. Getting up early was for peasants. Lunch only came into play because they needed to feed the harvesters to keep them from passing out." He looks up at Ariadne's baffled expression. Eames' smug one. "Germany," he concludes.
"Indeed," Eames says.
"Okay?" Ariadne says. She pokes at her cardboard carton for a second, and then frowns, looking over her shoulder. "Should we wake him up?"
Eames shrugs, stealing the fourth fortune cookie. "More for us."
Arthur rolls his eyes and goes to wake up Dom.
* * *
Three weeks after the Unfortunate Mausoleum Job, there is poker night at Yusuf's apartment in Chicago. It's a comfortable space, Arthur thinks - the card table fits nicely into the living room, Yusuf's cat has full reign over the Ikea sofa (or at least, the crocheted afghan that covers it like a bad slipcover), and there's enough of a length for Dom to pace a trench into the carpeting while he talks on the phone.
"No," he says, covering his free ear with his palm. "No, James, just because Phillipa told you that graham crackers aren't flammable doesn't mean you should test - "
Arthur looks up from his cards as Yusuf comes back from the kitchen, carrying a stainless steel mixing bowl full of home made popcorn.
"Airpopped," Yusuf says, setting it down with a thunk and collapsing into his chair like a man filled with beer. Which is appropriate, because he is. Filled with beer. Also a man. Also it's entirely possible that Arthur is no longer completely sober, and also that popcorn is delicious.
"This is delicious," Arthur muffles out around the mouthful he doesn't even remember cramming.
"Seaweed and nutritional yeast," Yusuf supplies, cracking the cap off a longneck with the edge of a steak knife.
"How'd you do that," Eames demands, squinting threateningly at Yusuf's fingers.
"I have shown you this many times," Yusuf says in that loud but patient way that isn't patient at all.
"Yeast?" Arthur says, narrowing his eyes at the bowl. "Yeast." Yeast, as Arthur is familiar with it, is two things: stuff that goes in beer, and stuff that goes in bread. Both of which are moist. None of the popcorn based sensations he is currently experiencing involve moistness.
"It's good," Yusuf prompts him. "No?"
"Mm," Arthur says, eyes tracking as Eames heaves himself forward, stretching arms across the table to pick up Dom's discarded hand.
"Heeeere we go," Eames says, looking at them upside down.
"I thought we were not yet done with this round?" Yusuf says, stamping circles of condensation contemplatively over the surface of the table.
"Weeeee're not," Eames says, putting the cards back down just in time for Dom's return circuit around the room.
" - understand that marshmallow doesn't come out of your hair, but maybe a shower is worth a try anyway," Dom is saying.
"This is how you're the best poker cheat in the world?" Arthur stares at the bowl. "Yeast," he says again.
Eames laughs, and picks up his own hand, leaning back. All legs. Like a pile of dirty laundry heaped on one side of the bed.
"There are five thousand, one hundred and eight ways to hold a flush in a five-card deal," Eames announces proudly. "And three thousand, seven hundred and forty-four ways to hold a full house. Guess which I have."
"Neither," Arthur and Yusuf say at the same time.
* * *
They're in dream space. Arthur stalks the length of the feast table, his hands behind his back, staring at the arrangement with a frown. Something's missing, and he can't put his finger on what. Eames, of course, sitting in an ornately carved captain's chair, isn't helping. He's got his feet up on the table, the chair pushed back onto its rear legs, and he's idly rocking back and forth. It's not great for concentration.
"Eames," Arthur says.
"Hmmm?"
Arthur picks up an orange from a vast display of fruit and rubs a thumb over the texture. It's perfect. "Must you?"
"Usually," Eames says cheerfully, thunking down onto all four chair legs. "Something's off, isn't it."
Arthur hums his agreement, and puts the orange back. Ariadne's execution is flawless, but there's still something he can't put his finger on. Something minor. The turkey glistens and steams perfectly, and will for an eternity until the dream is in motion for their client. The mashed potatoes are enough for Eames to - apparently - lose control of his impulses and start eating by the serving-spoon-ful. Great, golden pats of butter, the color of melted sunshine. Pots of clover honey and large pewter tureens of soup and salt and pepper mills.
"Of course, if it were my family, it'd be needing some giant rows and a good number of exceedingly intoxicated relations," Eames says. "How about yours?"
"My Aunt Jody," Arthur supplies, stepping quietly around to the other side of the table. His shoes are silent, the noise absorbed by a high-pile oriental rug. Undoubtedly knotted by the fingers of tiny slave labor children, in the real world, Arthur thinks humorlessly. Which is close to what they make Ariadne do, if he's honest with himself. Child labor. Tiny fingers for tiny details.
"You're looking morose," Eames cautions him.
"It's not her fault this is off," Arthur says. "She just doesn't have the world knowledge for this historical bullshit. I hate jobs like these."
"You love jobs like these," Eames corrects. "You get to do historical research. I know how you are about historical research. Remember the moulding in the Irish Writer's Centre? I know you do. You loved that moulding, Arthur. It was almost obscene."
"It was important," Arthur says begrudgingly.
Eames grins, licking the polished serving spoon. A dollop of potato ends up back in the bowl, and he dives after it. "I know it was, dearheart." He picks up the bowl and sets it on his stomach, his feet going back up onto the table. "You're upset because you think you've missed something. Not because she has."
"How amazingly astute of you, Mr. Eames." Arthur bends down and peers at the place settings at table level. All of the silverware is appropriate for the time period and social status they need. The candles are the right make and size. The art on the walls is immaculate.
They keep in silence, after that.
Well, relative silence. Eames eats his way through the entire bowl of mashed potatoes.
Arthur starts mentally deconstructing and reconstructing the entire table spread again. Even though he has notes on this back in the real world, he thinks he can solve this here. There's just something small, something he can't quite reach. Like an itch right between his shoulder blades.
Eames lets the serving spoon clatter into the bowl. He stands up, wipes his hands on the pants of his tuxedo, and sighs. "You know," he says, "If this were my family house?" He sounds like he wants to use a word other than house. From what Arthur's found about Eames' mother, he thinks manor would probably be more appropriate. Maybe estate. "We'd have a grand hideous fake pineapple in the middle of the table. "
Arthur turns to stare at him so abruptly that Eames falters. "What did you say?" he snaps. Urgent, but trying for meticulous.
Eames looks odd. Or rather, looks at Arthur in that way, the one that says you don't get out enough, and also, are you going to drink that, there's a good lad, always sharing. "...what, the pineapple? We've got this wretched concrete thing, goes in the middle of the table when no one's eating. Did you know sea captains used to put 'em on stakes outside their houses to signal how far they'd traveled? Sign of - "
"Wealth. Generosity, hospitality, Eames, Eames, I could kiss you." Arthur is striding across the muting carpet, wrapping his hands into Eames' terrible butler-tux lapels.
"Well, don't let me stop you," Eames says, wry, his hands in his pockets.
"Pineapple!" Arthur declares, letting him go immediately. "Ariadne! We need a half dozen pineapple in here!"
"Is the plural of 'pineapple' still singular?" Eames asks, but Arthur is too busy wresting the heavy oak doors open to find their architect to comment.
* * *
It's quarter to four in the morning, and Arthur is awake. This isn't unusual: he's been time zone hopping lately, and there's a job on, so he's been sleeping when it's convenient. Dom is passed out face down on the sofa, so when his phone rings - Dom's phone, not Arthur's - Arthur ducks out of the shared room and onto the balcony before he even checks the caller ID.
Eames' name glows up at him - or, perhaps more accurately, the screen glows up at him and Eames' name is the black spot in the midst of that neon light - and Arthur spares a wistful moment to wonder why Dom's phone hasn't been polluted with a frightening picture of Eames making fish lips, like Arthur's has. So you can see who's calling, Eames had said as he'd programmed the picture in. Arthur tried taking it out once, but Eames put it back the next day, so what was the point in fighting it anymore, really.
"Hello," Arthur says on what he's pretty sure is the last ring.
"You're terribly odd," Eames says. "I just thought you should know."
"This is Arthur," Arthur says, hedging that Eames is probably already aware of this.
"Yes!" He enthuses on the other end of the line. "Did you know that someone changed Dom's ring-back to Hollaback Girl?"
Arthur isn't sure what to say to that for a moment. He looks back through the glass of the balcony door, where Dom twitches in his sleep. "Did you."
"Someone," Eames corrects.
"What do you need, Eames?" Arthur says, trying very hard for stern and ending up somewhere around bemused.
"I just wanted to call and tell you that you were odd. That's all. Nothing more."
Arthur pulls one of the wrought iron chairs closer to the balcony railing and sits. "On Dom's phone." He starts scanning the surrounding rooftops, but there's no way to make out a sniper's point from here. Not without the telltale glint of glass, anyway. "Are you watching me?"
He can hear Eames execute a breathy sigh. "If only. Actually, I thought I would run a theory by you that's been working me over for the past few weeks, hm? If you're game."
"Sure," Arthur says, easing back, fully aware that Eames hasn't answered the question. He puts one hand on his thigh, very carefully, over the small imperfection his die makes in the line of his trousers. "Fire away."
"So," Eames says, clearing his throat, and it sounds like static on the line from this far away, "I have this theory that you actually know everything. You pretend like you're capable so that people will think that you know everything, or at least everything that needs knowing, but I think you've actually, in fact, learnt everything there is to know. Ever. Am I right? You can say."
Arthur can't stop his laughter this time, though it's brief and not unkind. "Eames - " he tries.
"No no," Eames says. "Don't deny it. I've been working on this for quite a while."
"May I propose a counteroffer?" Arthur asks, trying to sound as reasonable as possible.
Eames sounds magnanimous. "You may."
"Could it be possible, instead, that I only know everything that you know?"
There's a moment of silence on the line while this theory is processed. "That would lead to some disturbing questions regarding the edges and seams of reality," Eames decides. "Better my way."
"If you like," Arthur agrees. "Then. Yes. I know everything. There is nothing I don't know. Is this going to be put to the test?" He sort of hopes not. Because he doesn't know everything, is the point, obviously, and he's not sure why Eames wants to knock holes in his facade at four in the morning, when they should both be pretending to sleep on their respective continents.
"Yes," Eames says.
Arthur snorts. "Alright," he says. "Whenever you're ready, professor."
He waits for a moment, and then realizes that there may be no reply forthcoming. Confused, Arthur lifts the phone away from his ear, and sees the timer flashing - that the call has been disconnected. He rolls his eyes, shuts the device, and goes back into the hotel room, trying to ignore the smile on his face.
* * *
They're at the corner Spar for the warehouse in Dublin - Arthur is eyeing the sandwich counter and trying to decide if he could convince the man working it that, no, really, he wants neither butter nor mayonnaise. Eames is wrestling a carrying tray of coffees up to the counter, and says to him: "What's the oldest organized sport in the United States?"
"Horse racing," Arthur says, distracted, and then blinks. He looks over at Eames, who's digging in his pocket for coins. "...seriously?"
Eames pops his eyebrows expectantly, and Arthur shuffles over, picking up a few packs of candy to appease Ariadne - who never asks for them but always berates them when they come back without. "1665, first track built on Long Island," he supplies. "It's still operational, actually. Though, since that was technically before the country was a country, I'm not sure if it counts."
"That is the answer we were looking for," Eames says, in his best - and creepiest - American accented Alex Trebek voice.
Arthur finds the last two Euro they need in his pocket, slides them apologetically to the clerk, and holds the door for Eames as he slides out into the drizzle. "Is this going to be a habit?" he asks.
"You tell me," Eames says lightly, handing over one of the coffees from his tray. "You know everything, after all."
Arthur hits him with the candy-holding hand, and breaks one of Ariadne's Mint Aero bars. It turns out, she doesn't care.
* * *
It happens again in the back of a black cab in London proper. (Bloomsbury, to be specific.) Eames is following a Dim Sum chef to learn his physical tics, and Arthur had been on the way back from researching the specific fibre weave on the pull cords at a local theater. It makes sense to share a cab.
"How do they put the holes in CDs?" Eames wonders aloud, and Arthur's tempted to ask him if he's been inhaling more than the fumes from duck sauce before he cottons on.
"Unicorns," he says flatly.
Eames snorts. "According to Banksy."
Arthur laughs, glad that the reference hasn't gone wasted, and is simultaneously self conscious over resorting to pop culture jokes and curious that Eames isn't phased by it.
"What?" Eames asks. "You've got to sleep some time, darling. I assume that means you also put the telly on every once in a while. Also, showering."
"Not concurrently," Arthur defends.
"Of course." Eames sounds gracious, but his smile is wide, and catches Arthur off guard, somehow. The flickering on-off-on of the passing streetlamps gives him an excuse to shift his gaze.
"They use a hydraulic press," Arthur answers after a moment. "The hole is 15 millimeters. Do you actually look this stuff up before you ask me, so you know it's right?"
"Yes," Eames says smoothly. "I don't doubt you'd lie your way through it like the tramp you are."
The word 'tramp' hails something in Arthur's brain. "Trail signs," he offers.
Eames jumps immediately on the bait, rummaging in his pocket for his phone. "Sickle."
He watches, amused, as Eames quickly googles the answer. "Potential for work," he replies, after he's sure that Eames has a result on his screen. "Also...a squiggly line thing. You know, teeth. For dangerous dogs."
"Arthur!" Eames laughs, the word ringing out in the cab.
He can't help his grin. "Eames!" he echoes the tone, as if everyone should know these things.
"Whatever shall we do with you," Eames sighs, letting his back hit the curve of the seat again. He taps on his phone until it's gone back to sleep, and cuts a sideways glance at Arthur. Which Arthur does not miss.
"What," he monotones.
"What about shuttles to the moon - " Eames starts, and almost simultaneously, Arthur cries:
"Enough!"
* * *
It goes on like this. For weeks. Eames sending him a text messages (# sqs r their on car rcing flg?) or leaving him voice mails ("Darling, if you can't give me Lauren Bacall's birth name, this is all off, thirty seconds or less, go.") in the middle of the night. Whether it's sense of propriety or competition, Arthur finds himself pushing to actually meet these deadlines. If he can't, Eames accuses him of having looked it up.
Which is why Arthur prefers that they do this in person. Really, he can only accept so much interruption in the scant hours of sleep he allows himself.
He's in the middle of a board meeting for proper representation of a sculpted glass exhibit (and prepared to start scraping his eyeballs out) when an email pushes through on his phone.
comon name 4 mabolo is all it says.
Arthur internally cringes at the misspelling and quickly types back: Velvet Apple. Come on, challenge me.
It's another few minutes - in which Arthur imagines Eames frantically scanning wikipedia - before his phone buzzes against his thigh, illuminating a small patch of trouser where he has the face down.
oficial hair consultent to the '84 olympics?
Arthur is immediately called upon to explain Ira Lujan's glass blowing technique to the board leader, and its value as South West Collectible, and can't respond to Eames as quickly as he'd like. As a result, when he picks his phone up again, he has a series of texts:
cheeter
come on arthur
tik tok tik tok
Arthur blows hard through his nose, suppressing the urge to either a) get up and leave so he can call Eames and ask him to calm the hell down or b) laugh. Instead he replies:
Vidal Sassoon. Tyrant.
This seems to quell the phone for a time. That night, outside his hotel, he loosens his tie and feels the dry air crack his lips. There are teenagers playing hacky sack in the Plaza. He didn't think anyone did that anymore. He watches tourists herd across street corners and carefully maintained patches of green, hemmed in with concrete barriers. The ancient church tolls the hour, and the sun cuts temptingly through the false horizon of the buildings.
He checks his phone. Nothing.
Do you know about Loretto Chapel's miraculous staircase? he asks Eames.
It takes a few minutes for the response to come.
all ears darling.
Arthur thinks maybe he's created a monster. But as he lifts his phone and takes a picture of the bell tower to send in a text, he can't think of any reason why he shouldn't spend a dry night in Santa Fe telling Eames about the local history. If Eames can't be here, after all. It only makes sense.
* * *
Six months later, they're in the Atheneum Suites Hotel in downtown Detroit, and the decor is making Arthur's face hurt. White marble and gilt, echoing footsteps and humidity. Eames is wrestling his shirt open at the collar in a listless fashion, with which Arthur absolutely identifies.
"It's bloody hot," Eames complains, signaling the bartender. She brings them a pitcher and glasses, and Arthur adds two beers to that thoughtful gesture.
"It's humid," Arthur corrects.
"Whatever," Eames whines, rolling up his shirtsleeves in deft movements. Then he presses his bare forearms to the cool marble of the bar and sighs happily. "I can't wait until this job is over."
"Oh, come on," Arthur monotones. "The conference rooms are so charmingly named. Aphrodite. Plato. Olympus."
"Olympus II," Eames adds. "What, did they run out of gods?"
Arthur snorts. "Bitchy."
"Well!" Eames declares, taking his beer from the bartender when she returns. "This is a bit ridiculous, you have to admit."
"This, from the man who's writing Trivial Pursuit: Arthur Edition?"
Eames sighs, and flops back against the bar stool's flimsy support. "I'll tell you one thing, mate. Once we're out of here, that nonsense is done."
Arthur's not sure why his stomach shrinks slightly at that notion, so casually tossed onto the conversational table. Nonsense isn't exactly a word that he'd apply to what they'd been doing. Silly, perhaps. A huge waste of time, definitely. But to hear Eames so dismissively insult something of his own instigation... well, to put it baldly, it kind of hurts Arthur's feelings.
Big bad point man.
"Oh?" he asks, going for mild curiosity. Incredibly mild.
"Mm," Eames says around the mouth of his bottle. The liquid sloshes merrily as he clicks it back down onto the bartop. "Finally figured out what you don't know." The grin cuts his face, and he looks sideways at Arthur.
Arthur blinks. "Pardon?"
"Oh, yes," Eames says, crossing one leg ankle-to-knee. "Took me long enough, but there you have it."
"But - you're not even going to ask me if I know it?" Arthur demands, bewildered.
Eames gives him a long, thoughtful look. "Nope."
Arthur practically gapes.
Eames slides himself off of the barstool, laying out a few bills for the beer. Then he picks it up, and slides away from the bar. "I'm off for a shower. This weather is rot."
"But!" Arthur calls after him.
"Cheers," Eames throws over his shoulder, waving his fingers.
"But you have to ask!" Arthur yells. The people in the lobby look over, his words bouncing around the marble atrium.
"No I don't!" Eames laughs back, and disappears behind the vault of glass and chrome elevator parts.
* * *
Arthur gives it six hours before he cracks. In that time, he manages to go see a hockey game, have dinner in Greektown, and lose sixty dollars playing craps at Circus Circus. Eames' flight is at eleven the next morning, which means he'll be gone a few hours early, to clear international customs. Arthur had planned on staying another week, picking up some work in Windsor for a friend he owes a favor.
He returns to his own, empty room and runs the shower until he feels pruney. He flips through late night television. He raids the mini bar. (It's not like he can't afford it, he reasons.) He reads through all the room literature, wondering if Eames got one of the en-suite jacuzzis. And if he did, why he didn't mention it.
He chews ice.
He makes it until three in the morning, basically, before he picks up his phone and hastily punches in Eames' number. Arthur can tell immediately that he hasn't woken Eames.
There's laughter in the man's voice when he says, "Yes?"
"You have to at least ask," Arthur demands, solid on the point.
"Oh, dear," Eames tsks, sounding quite pitying about the whole affair. "You really are impossible."
"It ruins the game if you don't at least ask!" Arthur says.
"Well that can't be helped, I'm afraid." Eames is shifting around. Arthur can hear it. He tries not to think about the fact that they are, probably, both in bed. Arthur gets up and goes to sit at the courtesy secretarial table that no one in their right mind ever uses for anything at all.
"Is what I don't know, what I don't know?" Arthur demands.
Eames pauses for a moment, as if having to repeat the sentence to himself before he can pick it apart. "I suppose," Eames said. "But no. I mean yes, that too, but that's not what you don't know."
"God damn it, Eames," Arthur says, leaning forward and planting both of his elbows on the table.
Eames laughs again. "Terribly sorry, Arthur."
"We won't have a job for five months. I'm not going to be able to strangle this out of you for months. You're booked solid."
There's a moment of silence before Eames says: "Well, someone's keeping tabs rather closely."
Arthur doesn't even bother to dignify that with a response. "You're not playing fair," he says in the most threatening manner possible. "I will figure this out."
"Of course you will," Eames says placatingly. "Now if you don't mind, I have to be awake shortly for my flight, so if you could please put your rather adorable explosion of ego aside for the moment - "
"I will figure this out," Arthur growls, and he can hear Eames laughing even as he disconnects. Hangs up on Arthur. The cheater.
* * *
Arthur doesn't sleep.
It's not that it's unusual. He doesn't miss it. Except that it makes the night drag. In this case, that's exactly what he wants: as many hours as stretched as possible, for him to pick apart the Gideon knot that Eames has left in his care.
He doesn't figure it out.
Not that night, and not the next morning, either. Not by the time Eames is probably checking out of the hotel - not while Arthur is eating or taking yet another shower. Not while he sips the terrible room-brewed coffee and stares out over the wasteland of Detroit. Not while he calls his man in Windsor and agrees to take the job.
Arthur doesn't know.
It's not the end of the world, he tries to reason to himself. There are plenty of things that can't be quantified. And this was always a joke. That's the part that he has to accept: this was always a joke, remember? It was Eames who came to him with the theory. It doesn't matter that it's been carrying on for the better part of a year.
Arthur never thought he knew everything, until there was something he didn't know.
He tries the trick of putting it out of his mind, so that the answer can sneak up on him, but it's all he can think of. It follows him around throughout his morning. It tracks him down while he rents a luxury car from a local facilitator to drive across the border. It pesters him while he puts his international documents in order.
And then, as he's pulling out of the circle drive in front of the hotel and onto Monroe, Arthur says: "Oh."
He idles at the stop light, waiting for the ability to change directions, cursing the French construction of Detroit's interlocking series of one-way streets, and tries to figure out how quickly he can make it to Metro Airport.
Oh. It's so simple. It's so Eames.
Who is still a fucking cheater for not asking. The one thing that Arthur doesn't know. Oh.
* * *
Which is how it ends: with the running, the offended travelers, the alarmed gate agents, the locked breezeway mocking him with its secure keypad that he knows he could break if he was alone.
With Arthur slamming his fists against the gate door, yelling, "Ask me, you fuck! Ask me!" as the security team tries to pull him away from the gate. He's fumbling away from them, dragging his phone out of his pocket, punching in Eames' number. It rings once, and then goes directly to message. He's already got the thing turned off, because he's on a plane, and this is not a conversation Arthur will have over the phone, it's not.
The guards are still eyeing him, muttering into their walkie talkies about things are in hand and won't be necessary as he glares at them, the tight-mouthed, down-turned, don't-fuck-with-me glare that he saves for dreamspace and fighting with meter maids.
He knows. Rent-a-cops are not going to stand in his way.
"We're going to have to ask you to return to your own terminal, sir - " one of them says, holding his newly acquired boarding pass. If he'd had time, he would have been able to create one of his own. In a time of desperation, Arthur has instead purchased a ticket for - he looks at it as they hand it back to him - Belgium.
He calculates the hours it will take to transfer flights from Belgium to Edinburgh, and where Eames will be by the time he gets there. He's a step behind, now. Tapping the small red and white envelope against his hand, Arthur spirals out plans in his head, ways to cut off hours, international train schematics, and Eames' final destination, which is only a guess.
There are five months separating them and their next scheduled meeting. Arthur doesn't plan to wait that long.
Squaring his shoulders, he turns his back on the last of the security guards, hefts his carry-on (the only baggage he had in the first place), and heads toward his gate.
He makes it about two steps before he sees Eames sitting in the waiting area, legs sprawled out in front of him and crossed at the ankle, hands in his pockets.
"Well," Eames says. "That was dramatic."
Arthur stares at him.
"What?" Eames asks, all innocence and virginity and exploding fucking bluebirds of gormlessness.
"You saw that," Arthur says.
"Rather," Eames says, eyebrows lifting as if to accent exactly how impressive Arthur's display was.
"And you didn't say anything."
Eames tilts his head from side to side a few times, a metronome of consideration. "Well, you just seemed to have everything so well in hand, you know..."
"You're a shit," Arthur says, pointing an accusatory finger at him.
Eames is standing up, laughing, has absolutely none of his luggage on him, and Arthur's not quite sure that that's supposed to signify. "Well, you do know everyth - "
"Shut up," Arthur clips, closing the space between them.
It's fairly satisfying, the grunt of surprise that comes out of Eames when Arthur punches him in the face. Not in the mouth, or the eye - he's pretty careful about that - and the flurry of alarm that goes up around him from passengers and gate attendants and the security guards alike are just background noise. He is so getting pulled out of this place in handcuffs. He knows it. He knows it just like he knows a hummingbird's heart rate, the ancient currency of the Mayans, and the most efficient recipe for pasta puttanesca. He knows it like a solid weight in his guts, and accepts it as a consequence of what has to happen here.
"Ow!" Eames says fairly cheerfuly, cupping his face.
"Don't you ever fuck with me again," Arthur warns him, and drags him in by the arm to kiss him. Hard. Like hell he doesn't know.
"Ow," Eames muffles against his mouth. "Darling, really."
"I know," Arthur says, as hands close around his arms, and a fairly burly guard presses cold metal against his wrists. "Just so we're clear, Eames."
"Well," Eames says again, grinning. "I did say you'd figure it out, darling." Eames touches his own mouth, which is, Arthur realizes abruptly, a distinctly evolving shade of absolutely unfair.
"You are such an ass!" Arthur calls over his shoulder as the guards wrestle him away.
"We'll discuss this over bail repayment!" Eames calls back, looking far more delighted than Arthur can ever remember.
So that's new.
* * *
"Tell me again about the part where they gave you a full body cavity search," Eames says, his head in Arthur's lap. They're off the coast of Santorini, and it might be humid, but it's nothing like Michigan.
"I can't," Arthur says with a straight face. "It's private. I had some real boding time in there, with Roscoe."
"His name wasn't - " Eames starts, laughing.
"It was," Arthur says. "I swear. I think he had it tattooed on his fingers, so, you know, if you want to see if he left an impression inside my rectum, it's possible that - "
"Stop!" Eames demands, turning his face into Arthur's stomach. "Stop, you horrible, filthy - "
"Every word of it true," Arthur declares sadly. "I will never be the same. Do you know where we can find some nuclear accessories? Detroit doesn't need to exist anymore, right?"
"I love it when you talk business," Eames sighs, stealing Arthur's scotch.
"Mm," Arthur allows, a small smile creeping onto his mouth. "Don't you have a job, by the way?"
Eames makes some shifty noise and glances out toward the water. "Such flexible things, jobs... Wouldn't you rather rent a sailboat?"
"Than...not do your job for you?" Arthur laughs.
"Precisely," Eames says, handing him back his glass. He sits up with a grunt, hands freed up to sling one arm around Arthur, and Eames hauls him close and presses a rough mouth against his hair.
"Less with the treating me like a seven year old," Arthur says venomlessly. "If you please."
"I don't care in the slightest," Eames declares, and props his feet up on the railing in front of them. "I'm sure you were an atrocious seven year old."
"That's a rather large word for you, Mr. Eames."
Eames smacks him, and leans close enough that their arms are touching.
They sit. They drink. Time passes, and the sun sets. It's well past the dinner hour when Eames hrmpf-s, rouses, and stands. He presses his hands to the small of his back, looking for everything delicious, with his six-day scruff and his acceptably horrifying clothing for this particular region, and looks down at Arthur.
"Shall we?" he asks, nodding toward their rented room.
Arthur sighs. "You're insatiable."
"Tell me something I don't know."
"Oh," Arthur says. "That was very clever. I see what you did there, Eames." He chucks a grape at Eames, who evades it easily.
"I'm amazing, aren't I," Eames agrees, lunging forward to wrap hands around Arthur's ribcage and haul.
Halfway upward, Arthur says in his deadliest voice: "Put me down, Eames."
Eames stops. Sets him on his feet. Looks at him expectantly.
"Thirty seconds," he says, thumbing over his shoulder. "Before I change my mind and go back to Windsor."
Eames squints at him, as if trying to decide his threat level, and then whoops and books it over the back of the patio furniture, the sound of crashing and muffled cursing inside the dark room indicative of, if nothing else, a small level of success.
Dignified and of his own power, Arthur follows him inside.
Santorini was formed from a volcanic episode. Arthur knows this. He also knows that, while it is surrounded by water, Santorini has no rivers, and water is quite scarce. He knows that it is beautiful - with its unique fusion of architecture and color - and that it relies on a thriving wine industry and highly unusual produce production (due to unusual mineral deposits in the soil) to carve its place into the world's market.
He knows these things. Arthur knows everything.
But, to his everlasting delight: there is so much more he doesn't.
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: ~7,000
Summary: Arthur never thought he knew everything, until there was something he didn't know.
Notes: I don't even know. This is the fault of overly enthusiastic British love songs, thumbing through Schott's Original Miscellany, and futureperfect telling me to write something (like, two months ago). Everything is, to the best of my knowledge, true. If I fouled something up, blame Wikipedia (and feel free to correct me for all the world to see). Or me! I accept all scapegoating for this insane piece of cotton candy.
Love it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be
It ends like this: Arthur running, pell mell and accurate in his dodging, through Detroit Metropolitan Airport's International Terminal. The kind of running that comes at the denouement of a Focus Features film, with no dialogue and no ambient noise, just swelling indie music. The kind of running where each footfall is a heartbeat, each pump of fists and strain of lungs and muscles and surge of lactic acid is desperation, beating out the phrase last chance, last chance.
Arthur runs, through the eyebrow-lifting, murmuring, offended crowd that parts reluctantly (but not impossibly) before him, and when he gets to the proper gate, the large red clock proclaims 11:02 in braggart digital, and the door is shut.
Uncharacteristically dramatic, Arthur slams both fists against the gangway door, and the ticket scanners make feminine noises of alarm. Arthur slams his fists again, a noise of pain wrenching out of him, and he only turns on them when they pick up the phones to call security on him. It doesn't matter if he's detained, because he's too late, too foolish.
* * *
It begins like this: Eames says, "Did you know, that it's quite sacrilege to drink espresso from anything but plain white china? No marks on the cups, nothing."
And Arthur, not looking up from his exploded view of Denmark's S-Train, says, "Yes, Eames, I know. Don't be a show off."
Eames, looking into his demitasse cup, shrugs, and sets it back down on its equally minuscule saucer. "Then what shall I be, darling?"
Arthur who, whether he knows it or not, has a thing for the metaphysical, glances up at Eames over the glare of the magnifying light, and lifts his eyebrows. "Did you need something?"
There is a moment where Arthur thinks that Eames is going to say one thing - ("Constantly." "Only you, of course." "Your constant dismissals do nothing to mask your affection for me, Arthur.") - but it passes. Instead, Eames sets aside his chinaware, and wipes his hands on his jeans in a few brusque passes. "Not at all," he says, leaning over the desk. "Show me our entrance points, hey."
* * *
Ariadne brings in three bags of chinese food that she can barely manage, and Arthur entertains a brief moment of fantasy where she disappears in a deluge of fried rice. It's not that he wants his friend to be drowned in greasy starch, it's just one of those things that forces itself up on your mental eye when you haven't slept in three days. You start to get a little...disjointed.
Eames gets up to help her with her burden, and it's as they're peeling away the orange-sauce-infused plastic bags that Arthur's appetite finally gets the best of him. He closes his laptop with a decisive click, and he's not sure who makes more noise when he stands: him, or his certainly fifties era desk chair. It's heavy enough to cause some serious structural damage to a Buick when dropped from the third story of a window. He knows, because they tried yesterday.
Not with this exact chair. Different one. Still.
"Who ordered Almond Chicken?" Ariadne asks, mouth twisting in disapproval. "That's like the Wonder Bread of chinese take out."
The three of them look over at Dom, who is still asleep on top of his desk. It shouldn't be funny, but it is. Arthur snorts low, Eames stifles a laugh into his sleeve, and Ariadne sighs and fastens the catch on the Styrofoam again with a quiet squeak.
"Dinner used to be breakfast," Eames says thoughtfully, propping himself against the edge of the empty desk they're sorting the food out onto, and opens a box of dripping lo mein. "What I mean," he continues through a mouthful of noodles, "is that when you translate it in its root languages, it really does come out to 'first meal'."
"Really?" Ariadne asks. She's wrestling with a mini corn. Arthur hands Eames a napkin without looking at him, apparently just in time, from the soft 'oop!' noise he lets out. "Why did they change it? I mean, the other words had to come in somehow, right?"
"Well, break-fast just seemed more suitable," Eames says with an air of all-knowing, and Arthur snorts.
"Don't listen to him," Arthur says, spooning out a portion of beef and broccoli over his rice. "Dinner became later and later in the day as the upper classes of Europe started rising later in the day. Wealthier classes didn't get out of bed until three or four in the afternoon. Getting up early was for peasants. Lunch only came into play because they needed to feed the harvesters to keep them from passing out." He looks up at Ariadne's baffled expression. Eames' smug one. "Germany," he concludes.
"Indeed," Eames says.
"Okay?" Ariadne says. She pokes at her cardboard carton for a second, and then frowns, looking over her shoulder. "Should we wake him up?"
Eames shrugs, stealing the fourth fortune cookie. "More for us."
Arthur rolls his eyes and goes to wake up Dom.
* * *
Three weeks after the Unfortunate Mausoleum Job, there is poker night at Yusuf's apartment in Chicago. It's a comfortable space, Arthur thinks - the card table fits nicely into the living room, Yusuf's cat has full reign over the Ikea sofa (or at least, the crocheted afghan that covers it like a bad slipcover), and there's enough of a length for Dom to pace a trench into the carpeting while he talks on the phone.
"No," he says, covering his free ear with his palm. "No, James, just because Phillipa told you that graham crackers aren't flammable doesn't mean you should test - "
Arthur looks up from his cards as Yusuf comes back from the kitchen, carrying a stainless steel mixing bowl full of home made popcorn.
"Airpopped," Yusuf says, setting it down with a thunk and collapsing into his chair like a man filled with beer. Which is appropriate, because he is. Filled with beer. Also a man. Also it's entirely possible that Arthur is no longer completely sober, and also that popcorn is delicious.
"This is delicious," Arthur muffles out around the mouthful he doesn't even remember cramming.
"Seaweed and nutritional yeast," Yusuf supplies, cracking the cap off a longneck with the edge of a steak knife.
"How'd you do that," Eames demands, squinting threateningly at Yusuf's fingers.
"I have shown you this many times," Yusuf says in that loud but patient way that isn't patient at all.
"Yeast?" Arthur says, narrowing his eyes at the bowl. "Yeast." Yeast, as Arthur is familiar with it, is two things: stuff that goes in beer, and stuff that goes in bread. Both of which are moist. None of the popcorn based sensations he is currently experiencing involve moistness.
"It's good," Yusuf prompts him. "No?"
"Mm," Arthur says, eyes tracking as Eames heaves himself forward, stretching arms across the table to pick up Dom's discarded hand.
"Heeeere we go," Eames says, looking at them upside down.
"I thought we were not yet done with this round?" Yusuf says, stamping circles of condensation contemplatively over the surface of the table.
"Weeeee're not," Eames says, putting the cards back down just in time for Dom's return circuit around the room.
" - understand that marshmallow doesn't come out of your hair, but maybe a shower is worth a try anyway," Dom is saying.
"This is how you're the best poker cheat in the world?" Arthur stares at the bowl. "Yeast," he says again.
Eames laughs, and picks up his own hand, leaning back. All legs. Like a pile of dirty laundry heaped on one side of the bed.
"There are five thousand, one hundred and eight ways to hold a flush in a five-card deal," Eames announces proudly. "And three thousand, seven hundred and forty-four ways to hold a full house. Guess which I have."
"Neither," Arthur and Yusuf say at the same time.
* * *
They're in dream space. Arthur stalks the length of the feast table, his hands behind his back, staring at the arrangement with a frown. Something's missing, and he can't put his finger on what. Eames, of course, sitting in an ornately carved captain's chair, isn't helping. He's got his feet up on the table, the chair pushed back onto its rear legs, and he's idly rocking back and forth. It's not great for concentration.
"Eames," Arthur says.
"Hmmm?"
Arthur picks up an orange from a vast display of fruit and rubs a thumb over the texture. It's perfect. "Must you?"
"Usually," Eames says cheerfully, thunking down onto all four chair legs. "Something's off, isn't it."
Arthur hums his agreement, and puts the orange back. Ariadne's execution is flawless, but there's still something he can't put his finger on. Something minor. The turkey glistens and steams perfectly, and will for an eternity until the dream is in motion for their client. The mashed potatoes are enough for Eames to - apparently - lose control of his impulses and start eating by the serving-spoon-ful. Great, golden pats of butter, the color of melted sunshine. Pots of clover honey and large pewter tureens of soup and salt and pepper mills.
"Of course, if it were my family, it'd be needing some giant rows and a good number of exceedingly intoxicated relations," Eames says. "How about yours?"
"My Aunt Jody," Arthur supplies, stepping quietly around to the other side of the table. His shoes are silent, the noise absorbed by a high-pile oriental rug. Undoubtedly knotted by the fingers of tiny slave labor children, in the real world, Arthur thinks humorlessly. Which is close to what they make Ariadne do, if he's honest with himself. Child labor. Tiny fingers for tiny details.
"You're looking morose," Eames cautions him.
"It's not her fault this is off," Arthur says. "She just doesn't have the world knowledge for this historical bullshit. I hate jobs like these."
"You love jobs like these," Eames corrects. "You get to do historical research. I know how you are about historical research. Remember the moulding in the Irish Writer's Centre? I know you do. You loved that moulding, Arthur. It was almost obscene."
"It was important," Arthur says begrudgingly.
Eames grins, licking the polished serving spoon. A dollop of potato ends up back in the bowl, and he dives after it. "I know it was, dearheart." He picks up the bowl and sets it on his stomach, his feet going back up onto the table. "You're upset because you think you've missed something. Not because she has."
"How amazingly astute of you, Mr. Eames." Arthur bends down and peers at the place settings at table level. All of the silverware is appropriate for the time period and social status they need. The candles are the right make and size. The art on the walls is immaculate.
They keep in silence, after that.
Well, relative silence. Eames eats his way through the entire bowl of mashed potatoes.
Arthur starts mentally deconstructing and reconstructing the entire table spread again. Even though he has notes on this back in the real world, he thinks he can solve this here. There's just something small, something he can't quite reach. Like an itch right between his shoulder blades.
Eames lets the serving spoon clatter into the bowl. He stands up, wipes his hands on the pants of his tuxedo, and sighs. "You know," he says, "If this were my family house?" He sounds like he wants to use a word other than house. From what Arthur's found about Eames' mother, he thinks manor would probably be more appropriate. Maybe estate. "We'd have a grand hideous fake pineapple in the middle of the table. "
Arthur turns to stare at him so abruptly that Eames falters. "What did you say?" he snaps. Urgent, but trying for meticulous.
Eames looks odd. Or rather, looks at Arthur in that way, the one that says you don't get out enough, and also, are you going to drink that, there's a good lad, always sharing. "...what, the pineapple? We've got this wretched concrete thing, goes in the middle of the table when no one's eating. Did you know sea captains used to put 'em on stakes outside their houses to signal how far they'd traveled? Sign of - "
"Wealth. Generosity, hospitality, Eames, Eames, I could kiss you." Arthur is striding across the muting carpet, wrapping his hands into Eames' terrible butler-tux lapels.
"Well, don't let me stop you," Eames says, wry, his hands in his pockets.
"Pineapple!" Arthur declares, letting him go immediately. "Ariadne! We need a half dozen pineapple in here!"
"Is the plural of 'pineapple' still singular?" Eames asks, but Arthur is too busy wresting the heavy oak doors open to find their architect to comment.
* * *
It's quarter to four in the morning, and Arthur is awake. This isn't unusual: he's been time zone hopping lately, and there's a job on, so he's been sleeping when it's convenient. Dom is passed out face down on the sofa, so when his phone rings - Dom's phone, not Arthur's - Arthur ducks out of the shared room and onto the balcony before he even checks the caller ID.
Eames' name glows up at him - or, perhaps more accurately, the screen glows up at him and Eames' name is the black spot in the midst of that neon light - and Arthur spares a wistful moment to wonder why Dom's phone hasn't been polluted with a frightening picture of Eames making fish lips, like Arthur's has. So you can see who's calling, Eames had said as he'd programmed the picture in. Arthur tried taking it out once, but Eames put it back the next day, so what was the point in fighting it anymore, really.
"Hello," Arthur says on what he's pretty sure is the last ring.
"You're terribly odd," Eames says. "I just thought you should know."
"This is Arthur," Arthur says, hedging that Eames is probably already aware of this.
"Yes!" He enthuses on the other end of the line. "Did you know that someone changed Dom's ring-back to Hollaback Girl?"
Arthur isn't sure what to say to that for a moment. He looks back through the glass of the balcony door, where Dom twitches in his sleep. "Did you."
"Someone," Eames corrects.
"What do you need, Eames?" Arthur says, trying very hard for stern and ending up somewhere around bemused.
"I just wanted to call and tell you that you were odd. That's all. Nothing more."
Arthur pulls one of the wrought iron chairs closer to the balcony railing and sits. "On Dom's phone." He starts scanning the surrounding rooftops, but there's no way to make out a sniper's point from here. Not without the telltale glint of glass, anyway. "Are you watching me?"
He can hear Eames execute a breathy sigh. "If only. Actually, I thought I would run a theory by you that's been working me over for the past few weeks, hm? If you're game."
"Sure," Arthur says, easing back, fully aware that Eames hasn't answered the question. He puts one hand on his thigh, very carefully, over the small imperfection his die makes in the line of his trousers. "Fire away."
"So," Eames says, clearing his throat, and it sounds like static on the line from this far away, "I have this theory that you actually know everything. You pretend like you're capable so that people will think that you know everything, or at least everything that needs knowing, but I think you've actually, in fact, learnt everything there is to know. Ever. Am I right? You can say."
Arthur can't stop his laughter this time, though it's brief and not unkind. "Eames - " he tries.
"No no," Eames says. "Don't deny it. I've been working on this for quite a while."
"May I propose a counteroffer?" Arthur asks, trying to sound as reasonable as possible.
Eames sounds magnanimous. "You may."
"Could it be possible, instead, that I only know everything that you know?"
There's a moment of silence on the line while this theory is processed. "That would lead to some disturbing questions regarding the edges and seams of reality," Eames decides. "Better my way."
"If you like," Arthur agrees. "Then. Yes. I know everything. There is nothing I don't know. Is this going to be put to the test?" He sort of hopes not. Because he doesn't know everything, is the point, obviously, and he's not sure why Eames wants to knock holes in his facade at four in the morning, when they should both be pretending to sleep on their respective continents.
"Yes," Eames says.
Arthur snorts. "Alright," he says. "Whenever you're ready, professor."
He waits for a moment, and then realizes that there may be no reply forthcoming. Confused, Arthur lifts the phone away from his ear, and sees the timer flashing - that the call has been disconnected. He rolls his eyes, shuts the device, and goes back into the hotel room, trying to ignore the smile on his face.
* * *
They're at the corner Spar for the warehouse in Dublin - Arthur is eyeing the sandwich counter and trying to decide if he could convince the man working it that, no, really, he wants neither butter nor mayonnaise. Eames is wrestling a carrying tray of coffees up to the counter, and says to him: "What's the oldest organized sport in the United States?"
"Horse racing," Arthur says, distracted, and then blinks. He looks over at Eames, who's digging in his pocket for coins. "...seriously?"
Eames pops his eyebrows expectantly, and Arthur shuffles over, picking up a few packs of candy to appease Ariadne - who never asks for them but always berates them when they come back without. "1665, first track built on Long Island," he supplies. "It's still operational, actually. Though, since that was technically before the country was a country, I'm not sure if it counts."
"That is the answer we were looking for," Eames says, in his best - and creepiest - American accented Alex Trebek voice.
Arthur finds the last two Euro they need in his pocket, slides them apologetically to the clerk, and holds the door for Eames as he slides out into the drizzle. "Is this going to be a habit?" he asks.
"You tell me," Eames says lightly, handing over one of the coffees from his tray. "You know everything, after all."
Arthur hits him with the candy-holding hand, and breaks one of Ariadne's Mint Aero bars. It turns out, she doesn't care.
* * *
It happens again in the back of a black cab in London proper. (Bloomsbury, to be specific.) Eames is following a Dim Sum chef to learn his physical tics, and Arthur had been on the way back from researching the specific fibre weave on the pull cords at a local theater. It makes sense to share a cab.
"How do they put the holes in CDs?" Eames wonders aloud, and Arthur's tempted to ask him if he's been inhaling more than the fumes from duck sauce before he cottons on.
"Unicorns," he says flatly.
Eames snorts. "According to Banksy."
Arthur laughs, glad that the reference hasn't gone wasted, and is simultaneously self conscious over resorting to pop culture jokes and curious that Eames isn't phased by it.
"What?" Eames asks. "You've got to sleep some time, darling. I assume that means you also put the telly on every once in a while. Also, showering."
"Not concurrently," Arthur defends.
"Of course." Eames sounds gracious, but his smile is wide, and catches Arthur off guard, somehow. The flickering on-off-on of the passing streetlamps gives him an excuse to shift his gaze.
"They use a hydraulic press," Arthur answers after a moment. "The hole is 15 millimeters. Do you actually look this stuff up before you ask me, so you know it's right?"
"Yes," Eames says smoothly. "I don't doubt you'd lie your way through it like the tramp you are."
The word 'tramp' hails something in Arthur's brain. "Trail signs," he offers.
Eames jumps immediately on the bait, rummaging in his pocket for his phone. "Sickle."
He watches, amused, as Eames quickly googles the answer. "Potential for work," he replies, after he's sure that Eames has a result on his screen. "Also...a squiggly line thing. You know, teeth. For dangerous dogs."
"Arthur!" Eames laughs, the word ringing out in the cab.
He can't help his grin. "Eames!" he echoes the tone, as if everyone should know these things.
"Whatever shall we do with you," Eames sighs, letting his back hit the curve of the seat again. He taps on his phone until it's gone back to sleep, and cuts a sideways glance at Arthur. Which Arthur does not miss.
"What," he monotones.
"What about shuttles to the moon - " Eames starts, and almost simultaneously, Arthur cries:
"Enough!"
* * *
It goes on like this. For weeks. Eames sending him a text messages (# sqs r their on car rcing flg?) or leaving him voice mails ("Darling, if you can't give me Lauren Bacall's birth name, this is all off, thirty seconds or less, go.") in the middle of the night. Whether it's sense of propriety or competition, Arthur finds himself pushing to actually meet these deadlines. If he can't, Eames accuses him of having looked it up.
Which is why Arthur prefers that they do this in person. Really, he can only accept so much interruption in the scant hours of sleep he allows himself.
He's in the middle of a board meeting for proper representation of a sculpted glass exhibit (and prepared to start scraping his eyeballs out) when an email pushes through on his phone.
comon name 4 mabolo is all it says.
Arthur internally cringes at the misspelling and quickly types back: Velvet Apple. Come on, challenge me.
It's another few minutes - in which Arthur imagines Eames frantically scanning wikipedia - before his phone buzzes against his thigh, illuminating a small patch of trouser where he has the face down.
oficial hair consultent to the '84 olympics?
Arthur is immediately called upon to explain Ira Lujan's glass blowing technique to the board leader, and its value as South West Collectible, and can't respond to Eames as quickly as he'd like. As a result, when he picks his phone up again, he has a series of texts:
cheeter
come on arthur
tik tok tik tok
Arthur blows hard through his nose, suppressing the urge to either a) get up and leave so he can call Eames and ask him to calm the hell down or b) laugh. Instead he replies:
Vidal Sassoon. Tyrant.
This seems to quell the phone for a time. That night, outside his hotel, he loosens his tie and feels the dry air crack his lips. There are teenagers playing hacky sack in the Plaza. He didn't think anyone did that anymore. He watches tourists herd across street corners and carefully maintained patches of green, hemmed in with concrete barriers. The ancient church tolls the hour, and the sun cuts temptingly through the false horizon of the buildings.
He checks his phone. Nothing.
Do you know about Loretto Chapel's miraculous staircase? he asks Eames.
It takes a few minutes for the response to come.
all ears darling.
Arthur thinks maybe he's created a monster. But as he lifts his phone and takes a picture of the bell tower to send in a text, he can't think of any reason why he shouldn't spend a dry night in Santa Fe telling Eames about the local history. If Eames can't be here, after all. It only makes sense.
* * *
Six months later, they're in the Atheneum Suites Hotel in downtown Detroit, and the decor is making Arthur's face hurt. White marble and gilt, echoing footsteps and humidity. Eames is wrestling his shirt open at the collar in a listless fashion, with which Arthur absolutely identifies.
"It's bloody hot," Eames complains, signaling the bartender. She brings them a pitcher and glasses, and Arthur adds two beers to that thoughtful gesture.
"It's humid," Arthur corrects.
"Whatever," Eames whines, rolling up his shirtsleeves in deft movements. Then he presses his bare forearms to the cool marble of the bar and sighs happily. "I can't wait until this job is over."
"Oh, come on," Arthur monotones. "The conference rooms are so charmingly named. Aphrodite. Plato. Olympus."
"Olympus II," Eames adds. "What, did they run out of gods?"
Arthur snorts. "Bitchy."
"Well!" Eames declares, taking his beer from the bartender when she returns. "This is a bit ridiculous, you have to admit."
"This, from the man who's writing Trivial Pursuit: Arthur Edition?"
Eames sighs, and flops back against the bar stool's flimsy support. "I'll tell you one thing, mate. Once we're out of here, that nonsense is done."
Arthur's not sure why his stomach shrinks slightly at that notion, so casually tossed onto the conversational table. Nonsense isn't exactly a word that he'd apply to what they'd been doing. Silly, perhaps. A huge waste of time, definitely. But to hear Eames so dismissively insult something of his own instigation... well, to put it baldly, it kind of hurts Arthur's feelings.
Big bad point man.
"Oh?" he asks, going for mild curiosity. Incredibly mild.
"Mm," Eames says around the mouth of his bottle. The liquid sloshes merrily as he clicks it back down onto the bartop. "Finally figured out what you don't know." The grin cuts his face, and he looks sideways at Arthur.
Arthur blinks. "Pardon?"
"Oh, yes," Eames says, crossing one leg ankle-to-knee. "Took me long enough, but there you have it."
"But - you're not even going to ask me if I know it?" Arthur demands, bewildered.
Eames gives him a long, thoughtful look. "Nope."
Arthur practically gapes.
Eames slides himself off of the barstool, laying out a few bills for the beer. Then he picks it up, and slides away from the bar. "I'm off for a shower. This weather is rot."
"But!" Arthur calls after him.
"Cheers," Eames throws over his shoulder, waving his fingers.
"But you have to ask!" Arthur yells. The people in the lobby look over, his words bouncing around the marble atrium.
"No I don't!" Eames laughs back, and disappears behind the vault of glass and chrome elevator parts.
* * *
Arthur gives it six hours before he cracks. In that time, he manages to go see a hockey game, have dinner in Greektown, and lose sixty dollars playing craps at Circus Circus. Eames' flight is at eleven the next morning, which means he'll be gone a few hours early, to clear international customs. Arthur had planned on staying another week, picking up some work in Windsor for a friend he owes a favor.
He returns to his own, empty room and runs the shower until he feels pruney. He flips through late night television. He raids the mini bar. (It's not like he can't afford it, he reasons.) He reads through all the room literature, wondering if Eames got one of the en-suite jacuzzis. And if he did, why he didn't mention it.
He chews ice.
He makes it until three in the morning, basically, before he picks up his phone and hastily punches in Eames' number. Arthur can tell immediately that he hasn't woken Eames.
There's laughter in the man's voice when he says, "Yes?"
"You have to at least ask," Arthur demands, solid on the point.
"Oh, dear," Eames tsks, sounding quite pitying about the whole affair. "You really are impossible."
"It ruins the game if you don't at least ask!" Arthur says.
"Well that can't be helped, I'm afraid." Eames is shifting around. Arthur can hear it. He tries not to think about the fact that they are, probably, both in bed. Arthur gets up and goes to sit at the courtesy secretarial table that no one in their right mind ever uses for anything at all.
"Is what I don't know, what I don't know?" Arthur demands.
Eames pauses for a moment, as if having to repeat the sentence to himself before he can pick it apart. "I suppose," Eames said. "But no. I mean yes, that too, but that's not what you don't know."
"God damn it, Eames," Arthur says, leaning forward and planting both of his elbows on the table.
Eames laughs again. "Terribly sorry, Arthur."
"We won't have a job for five months. I'm not going to be able to strangle this out of you for months. You're booked solid."
There's a moment of silence before Eames says: "Well, someone's keeping tabs rather closely."
Arthur doesn't even bother to dignify that with a response. "You're not playing fair," he says in the most threatening manner possible. "I will figure this out."
"Of course you will," Eames says placatingly. "Now if you don't mind, I have to be awake shortly for my flight, so if you could please put your rather adorable explosion of ego aside for the moment - "
"I will figure this out," Arthur growls, and he can hear Eames laughing even as he disconnects. Hangs up on Arthur. The cheater.
* * *
Arthur doesn't sleep.
It's not that it's unusual. He doesn't miss it. Except that it makes the night drag. In this case, that's exactly what he wants: as many hours as stretched as possible, for him to pick apart the Gideon knot that Eames has left in his care.
He doesn't figure it out.
Not that night, and not the next morning, either. Not by the time Eames is probably checking out of the hotel - not while Arthur is eating or taking yet another shower. Not while he sips the terrible room-brewed coffee and stares out over the wasteland of Detroit. Not while he calls his man in Windsor and agrees to take the job.
Arthur doesn't know.
It's not the end of the world, he tries to reason to himself. There are plenty of things that can't be quantified. And this was always a joke. That's the part that he has to accept: this was always a joke, remember? It was Eames who came to him with the theory. It doesn't matter that it's been carrying on for the better part of a year.
Arthur never thought he knew everything, until there was something he didn't know.
He tries the trick of putting it out of his mind, so that the answer can sneak up on him, but it's all he can think of. It follows him around throughout his morning. It tracks him down while he rents a luxury car from a local facilitator to drive across the border. It pesters him while he puts his international documents in order.
And then, as he's pulling out of the circle drive in front of the hotel and onto Monroe, Arthur says: "Oh."
He idles at the stop light, waiting for the ability to change directions, cursing the French construction of Detroit's interlocking series of one-way streets, and tries to figure out how quickly he can make it to Metro Airport.
Oh. It's so simple. It's so Eames.
Who is still a fucking cheater for not asking. The one thing that Arthur doesn't know. Oh.
* * *
Which is how it ends: with the running, the offended travelers, the alarmed gate agents, the locked breezeway mocking him with its secure keypad that he knows he could break if he was alone.
With Arthur slamming his fists against the gate door, yelling, "Ask me, you fuck! Ask me!" as the security team tries to pull him away from the gate. He's fumbling away from them, dragging his phone out of his pocket, punching in Eames' number. It rings once, and then goes directly to message. He's already got the thing turned off, because he's on a plane, and this is not a conversation Arthur will have over the phone, it's not.
The guards are still eyeing him, muttering into their walkie talkies about things are in hand and won't be necessary as he glares at them, the tight-mouthed, down-turned, don't-fuck-with-me glare that he saves for dreamspace and fighting with meter maids.
He knows. Rent-a-cops are not going to stand in his way.
"We're going to have to ask you to return to your own terminal, sir - " one of them says, holding his newly acquired boarding pass. If he'd had time, he would have been able to create one of his own. In a time of desperation, Arthur has instead purchased a ticket for - he looks at it as they hand it back to him - Belgium.
He calculates the hours it will take to transfer flights from Belgium to Edinburgh, and where Eames will be by the time he gets there. He's a step behind, now. Tapping the small red and white envelope against his hand, Arthur spirals out plans in his head, ways to cut off hours, international train schematics, and Eames' final destination, which is only a guess.
There are five months separating them and their next scheduled meeting. Arthur doesn't plan to wait that long.
Squaring his shoulders, he turns his back on the last of the security guards, hefts his carry-on (the only baggage he had in the first place), and heads toward his gate.
He makes it about two steps before he sees Eames sitting in the waiting area, legs sprawled out in front of him and crossed at the ankle, hands in his pockets.
"Well," Eames says. "That was dramatic."
Arthur stares at him.
"What?" Eames asks, all innocence and virginity and exploding fucking bluebirds of gormlessness.
"You saw that," Arthur says.
"Rather," Eames says, eyebrows lifting as if to accent exactly how impressive Arthur's display was.
"And you didn't say anything."
Eames tilts his head from side to side a few times, a metronome of consideration. "Well, you just seemed to have everything so well in hand, you know..."
"You're a shit," Arthur says, pointing an accusatory finger at him.
Eames is standing up, laughing, has absolutely none of his luggage on him, and Arthur's not quite sure that that's supposed to signify. "Well, you do know everyth - "
"Shut up," Arthur clips, closing the space between them.
It's fairly satisfying, the grunt of surprise that comes out of Eames when Arthur punches him in the face. Not in the mouth, or the eye - he's pretty careful about that - and the flurry of alarm that goes up around him from passengers and gate attendants and the security guards alike are just background noise. He is so getting pulled out of this place in handcuffs. He knows it. He knows it just like he knows a hummingbird's heart rate, the ancient currency of the Mayans, and the most efficient recipe for pasta puttanesca. He knows it like a solid weight in his guts, and accepts it as a consequence of what has to happen here.
"Ow!" Eames says fairly cheerfuly, cupping his face.
"Don't you ever fuck with me again," Arthur warns him, and drags him in by the arm to kiss him. Hard. Like hell he doesn't know.
"Ow," Eames muffles against his mouth. "Darling, really."
"I know," Arthur says, as hands close around his arms, and a fairly burly guard presses cold metal against his wrists. "Just so we're clear, Eames."
"Well," Eames says again, grinning. "I did say you'd figure it out, darling." Eames touches his own mouth, which is, Arthur realizes abruptly, a distinctly evolving shade of absolutely unfair.
"You are such an ass!" Arthur calls over his shoulder as the guards wrestle him away.
"We'll discuss this over bail repayment!" Eames calls back, looking far more delighted than Arthur can ever remember.
So that's new.
* * *
"Tell me again about the part where they gave you a full body cavity search," Eames says, his head in Arthur's lap. They're off the coast of Santorini, and it might be humid, but it's nothing like Michigan.
"I can't," Arthur says with a straight face. "It's private. I had some real boding time in there, with Roscoe."
"His name wasn't - " Eames starts, laughing.
"It was," Arthur says. "I swear. I think he had it tattooed on his fingers, so, you know, if you want to see if he left an impression inside my rectum, it's possible that - "
"Stop!" Eames demands, turning his face into Arthur's stomach. "Stop, you horrible, filthy - "
"Every word of it true," Arthur declares sadly. "I will never be the same. Do you know where we can find some nuclear accessories? Detroit doesn't need to exist anymore, right?"
"I love it when you talk business," Eames sighs, stealing Arthur's scotch.
"Mm," Arthur allows, a small smile creeping onto his mouth. "Don't you have a job, by the way?"
Eames makes some shifty noise and glances out toward the water. "Such flexible things, jobs... Wouldn't you rather rent a sailboat?"
"Than...not do your job for you?" Arthur laughs.
"Precisely," Eames says, handing him back his glass. He sits up with a grunt, hands freed up to sling one arm around Arthur, and Eames hauls him close and presses a rough mouth against his hair.
"Less with the treating me like a seven year old," Arthur says venomlessly. "If you please."
"I don't care in the slightest," Eames declares, and props his feet up on the railing in front of them. "I'm sure you were an atrocious seven year old."
"That's a rather large word for you, Mr. Eames."
Eames smacks him, and leans close enough that their arms are touching.
They sit. They drink. Time passes, and the sun sets. It's well past the dinner hour when Eames hrmpf-s, rouses, and stands. He presses his hands to the small of his back, looking for everything delicious, with his six-day scruff and his acceptably horrifying clothing for this particular region, and looks down at Arthur.
"Shall we?" he asks, nodding toward their rented room.
Arthur sighs. "You're insatiable."
"Tell me something I don't know."
"Oh," Arthur says. "That was very clever. I see what you did there, Eames." He chucks a grape at Eames, who evades it easily.
"I'm amazing, aren't I," Eames agrees, lunging forward to wrap hands around Arthur's ribcage and haul.
Halfway upward, Arthur says in his deadliest voice: "Put me down, Eames."
Eames stops. Sets him on his feet. Looks at him expectantly.
"Thirty seconds," he says, thumbing over his shoulder. "Before I change my mind and go back to Windsor."
Eames squints at him, as if trying to decide his threat level, and then whoops and books it over the back of the patio furniture, the sound of crashing and muffled cursing inside the dark room indicative of, if nothing else, a small level of success.
Dignified and of his own power, Arthur follows him inside.
Santorini was formed from a volcanic episode. Arthur knows this. He also knows that, while it is surrounded by water, Santorini has no rivers, and water is quite scarce. He knows that it is beautiful - with its unique fusion of architecture and color - and that it relies on a thriving wine industry and highly unusual produce production (due to unusual mineral deposits in the soil) to carve its place into the world's market.
He knows these things. Arthur knows everything.
But, to his everlasting delight: there is so much more he doesn't.