Fic: An As-Needed Situation
Let me preface this by saying that, honestly, I have no clue what this was supposed to be. That being said, here:
Title: An As-Needed Situation
Author: sunriseinspace
Character(s): Arthur / Eames, Dom Cobb, Ariadne, Yusuf, James and Phillipa, JP and George Knox
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing about Inception or Angels in the Outfield, their characters or plotlines, including any recognizable dialogue.
For the prompt: Arthur is Roger Bowman from Angels in the Outfield, all grown up.
Here’s a reference (left to right: JP, George, Roger (Arthur))
Summary: “Hmm, sometimes,” he starts, “when they’re necessary or when they’re willing to help out, I see angels. I have since I was a kid.”
+
He's in the middle of a job, ducked behind a dumpster with half a clip left in his Glock, when he sees it and he honestly can't help the way his jaw drops.
"Arthur, why is that child flapping his arms in the air?" Eames, the new forger Dom insisted on bringing in, asks curiously, voice raised to be heard over the gunfire. Arthur's head whips around and he immediately zeroes in on the kid standing in the middle of the street.
It's JP, nine years old and earnest in his baseball jersey, arms moving in a familiar signal Arthur's not seen in years - angels are here.
"C'mon, Eames, this way," he shouts, stepping abruptly out of his hiding place and running for JP, following the little boy as he leads them through Mal's maze and toward one of the safe rooms she's started including as a matter of course.
"Keep your head up, Roger!" JP yells, grinning brightly back over his shoulder as he rounds one last corner and disappears. Arthur can't help smiling in return, though the projection is long gone.
"What happened out there?" Mal asks as they barrel into the room, eyes wide and hands loose on her own pistol, ready to lend back-up if necessary.
"Got caught by Carlsen's projections," Arthur answers as he makes his way over to where Dom and Carlsen are hooked up to another PASIV, down a level further to extract the name of the buyer laid out for his company. "They'll be waking soon, we'd better be ready," he comments, snapping another clip into his pistol as he checks the readouts on the machine. He ignores Eames' curious eyes on the back of his head and focuses on being ready when the timer hits zero.
The rest of the job goes off without a hitch.
+
Two months after Dom and Mal wake from what they swear is the last of their dreaming experiments finds Arthur walking down the street, a paper grocery bag tucked under his arm. It's Mal's birthday tonight and the first time in six months he's not been out of the country on a job - he intends to make the most of it by fixing dinner at the Cobb's tonight, their little tradition since college.
It's twilight, six o'clock in the middle of November, but there are still a few kids out, screeching and laughing as they chase iridescent bubbles around their yard. Arthur smiles at them, anticipating when it'll be him and Dom and Mal and Phillipa and James doing the same. He watches as a particularly large bubble floats away unnoticed, drifting out into the street and directly into his path, where it shimmers and hovers in mid-air for a second.
"Remember, we're always watching," he hears distantly, the voice rough and familiar, and a chill runs up his spine.
"Y'know, I could never figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing," he comments lightly, trying to put it from his mind. Too bad he was never very good at forgetting Al.
"We're watching her, waiting. It'll be soon, son, very soon." And Arthur goes cold, foreboding filling his gut as Al's words sink in. Dom and Mal had promised no more experiments, not after James was born, but both of them have always been addicted to adventure and not even Arthur's stories about foster care could dissuade them for long. "Always a mistake," Al sighs and Arthur blinks and sees his face briefly, outlined faintly in the heart of the bubble.
He hefts the bag tighter against his side and quickens his step. Surely there must be something he can do, for Mal at least. For the children's sake, if nothing else. Maybe this time Dom and Mal'd listen to him, you never know.
As JP used to say, "It could happen."
+
It's been five months since Mal's funeral, five months since Dom ran in an act of simultaneous self-preservation and selfishness, five months since Arthur's had a chance to really relax, to let go the mantle of point man and simply be himself. He's exhausted, nearly sick with fatigue and so close to burnt-out he's viscerally afraid of letting Dom talk him into another job any time soon. To that end, he leaves Dom with Monique in Brisbane and spirits himself and their PASIV away to Argentina, holing up in a little flat for a couple weeks of pure R&R.
He spends three days doing nothing more than sleeping, rousing only to eat or relieve himself as necessary. Four days into his self-imposed vacation, he lounges in front of the TV, watching reruns of old baseball games on one of the satellite provider's sports channels. He spends another day indulging in his favorite baseball movies - Field of Dreams and The Rookie and Bull Durham - until the nostalgia and the old draw of the game gets to be too much. When that happens, he makes himself wait another day - to prove something to himself, he supposes, but he's never figured out what that is - before pulling out the PASIV, giving it a good diagnostic check-up, and hooking in, falling back through the memories until he's eleven again.
He feels that same elation as he plays ball with George and JP, running through the dusty sandlot across the street from Maggie's house, screaming and shouting and running with abandon, for no other reason than because it's fun and he wants to. He plays with the kids in his memories for hours, entering and leaving the dream to play as himself-age-eleven and as himself-age-twenty-six, to play catcher and short-stop, batter and out-fielder. JP and George are always there, George always pitching and JP always tagging along in Arthur's wake. It makes him miss them, with an ache almost as strong as his longing to see Mal again, but it's an old desire and something he's used to shunting aside - he won't have them hurt by his involvement in dreamshare.
He wakes and spends the next day catching up on the gossip in his life, trolling blogs and sites looking for hints about jobs, checking his email for any news from his contacts, scrolling through US news sites for any new information about Dom's ability to go back to his kids. There's nothing new in any of the sources, just word that Cobol Engineering is putting out feelers for a team to extract expansion plans from their nearest rival. He debates sending an email to JP, wonders how he and Shawna and their new baby are doing, but manages to refrain. He's too raw, too emotionally vulnerable after his day spent dreaming, and it's too likely he'll promise something he can't deliver. Finally, he decides to send a note to George, let him know he’s doing okay and not to worry; George’ll make sure JP finds out.
He goes to sleep that night with order confirmation on a plane ticket to Australia waiting in his inbox, planning on meeting up with Dom and figuring out their next plan of action face-to-face. Though he doesn’t dream any more, he could swear, just as he slips off to sleep, he hears Al remind him they’re always watching.
+
“That’s your plan, Eames? Take Dubois down two levels and hope that when you simply ask him where the money’s going, he’ll tell you. Without any fuss or fanfare? That’s your plan?!”
“I don’t see how it’ll inconvenience anyone, Arthur,” Eames points out mildly, eyebrows raised as he watches Arthur’s blood pressure ratchet through the roof. “I’ll be the only one torn apart if it jars the dream too much and his projections rebel.”
“In all my years of dreaming, I’ve never seen such a-‘such an astute observation of a potentially difficult decision’,” falls out of his mouth, instead of the vitriol he’d had waiting on his tongue. He blinks, takes in Eames’ blankly surprised expression, and pulls back, scowling. He knows what this is, he doesn’t need the déjà vu or Al’s wink over Eames’ shoulder to remind him of the last time he’d heard those words.
“P-pardon me?” Eames stutters and, suddenly, Al’s manipulation of the situation is worth it, to see Eames completely without words for once.
Arthur bites back a grin and takes a breath, calming down enough to realize Eames’ plan is really the only way to go (and apparently the only way this’ll work, if Al’s to be believed). “Good idea,” he says, sitting back down in his chair and opening his moleskine. “What do you need from me?”
+
“Hey, guys,” he says, as soon as the phone picks up on the other end.
“Uncle Arthur!” James and Phillipa chorus, laughing and giggling as they try to talk over each other to tell him about their week. He smiles as they recount the adventures they’ve had in the back yard, as Phillipa chatters on about riding her bike over to her friend’s house for the afternoon and James describes the picture he drew for his grandmother yesterday.
“Guess what?” he throws out, once there’s a break in the conversation. “George said he’d try to get you both out to see the Angels play, down in Anaheim. Would you like that?” he asks. JP and George have only met the Cobb family once, back before Mal’s death, but there was instant affection all around and after most of a year without their father, Arthur can’t think of anyone better suited to cheering the kids up than the man who’d raised Arthur after his own father had abandoned him.
“Yeah!” James yells in his ear, Phillipa’s quieter agreement sounding in echo to his jubilation. Arthur smiles again and promises to talk to their grandmother about it.
“All right, kiddos. I’ll tell Dad ‘hi’ for you, okay?” There’s silence on the other end but he knows they miss Dom. “Okay,” he sighs, “keep your heads up and your noses clean, right, guys?” he reminds them, his typical sign-off. Something eases in his chest when he hears James’ giggle, Phillipa’s little snort of amusement. “Bye.”
He leans back with a sigh, hand clenched against his knee as he stares at the ceiling. He blinks and lets his eyes focus on the skylight, studying the stars, a habit left over from his childhood.
“Please, God, watch over ‘em,” he murmurs. “Amen.”
He’s hauled himself off the couch and over to his bedroom when he stops, a hand on the doorframe, and frowns.
“A-woman, too,” he adds, just to be sure.
+
“What did you want to be when you grew up?” Ariadne asks, temple resting against her hand as she leans on the table. There’s a small collection of glasses and bottles on the table between them, though only a portion of them belong to her - the rest belong to either Arthur, Eames, or Yusuf. There’re enough there Arthur’s having a hard time remembering which glass or bottle belong to which person. “Me, I wanted to be Power Ranger,” she admits and they both grin.
“Isn’t that a little before your time?” he quips, causing her to lean over and sock him one in the shoulder.
“Oh, bite me,” she laughs. “Admit it, though, I’d’ve made a pretty badass Power Ranger.” And he nods; from what he’d seen through the job, she probably would’ve.
“What color?” he asks, tipping his head back to drain the beer bottle in his hand.
“Purple, and Tommy would’ve taken one look at me and dropped Kimberly like so much baggage,” she says solemnly and they both manage to keep straight faces long enough to lock eyes before bursting into laughter.
“Oh, what’d I miss?” Eames asks eagerly as he arrives back at the table with Yusuf, their hands full with the next round. He slides into the booth and drops a casually possessive arm over Arthur’s shoulder as he nudges another beer across the table.
“Arthur and I’re talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up,” Ariadne tells him.
“James Bond,” Yusuf says promptly, taking a sip of his brilliantly green drink. He grins at them, elbows resting on the table and curls in disarray. “Sean Connery, to be exact.”
“I wanted to be a tree frog,” Eames puts in, low against Arthur’s ear to be heard over Yusuf and Ariadne’s sudden loud and fervent discussion (read: argument) over which Bond was best.
Arthur turns and studies the look on Eames’ face, reading the sincerity and fond amusement in his gray eyes. He smiles at Eames, wide enough to show a dimple in one cheek. “Colorful and poisonous,” he muses, eyes hooded. He tips his head in acknowledgement. “I think you actually managed it.”
Eames laughs, long and deep and full, body curling around Arthur’s as he rests his forehead on Arthur’s shoulder. “Oh, darling,” he sighs happily, pressing a fond kiss against Arthur’s temple, and Arthur abruptly feels his cheeks flame. “And what did you want to be when you grew up, hmm, Arthur?” he murmurs, warm and close, nuzzling just behind Arthur’s ear.
“Ah,” Arthur gasps, high-pitched and strained, “I w-wanted to play baseball.” It’s raw and honest, something he’d never told anyone before, not even JP. “For the California Angels,” he adds and refuses to admit a whimper escapes his throat when Eames pulls back to look at him.
“Y’know,” Eames says, considering, “I think I can see that.”
Arthur doesn’t know what to say to that, so he’s grateful when Ariadne abruptly shouts, “The hell Roger Moore was the sexiest Bond, have you seen the abs on Daniel Craig?!” and breaks the mood.
+
He takes a break in their warehouse one day, three weeks into what’s turning out to be an interminably long job, playing sandlot-ball with JP and the kids. They’re two innings in, two kids on bases and JP’s batting, elbows up around his ears the way he always did, when another kid wanders over to watch the game with speculative eyes.
“Hey, kid, c’mon and join us,” Arthur’s projection of George calls, waving a welcoming hand and all of the other kids turn to watch. Arthur (aged eleven in this dream - it’s been a tough job and he needs all the help this break can give him) narrows his eyes, studying the newcomer.
He doesn’t look out of place at all, same huge t-shirt hanging from his shoulders and oversized ballcap squashing his bangs against his forehead as the rest of the kids playing, but there’s something different about him. Arthur takes a step away from homeplate, gloved hand loose at his side, to get a closer look. The boy’s as young as the rest of the crowd, about ten or so if Arthur had to guess, hair a light, almost dusty blond where it shows under his hat, eyes a murky color somewhere between green and blue. Blinking, Arthur decides he can safely say he’s never seen. And then the kid opens his mouth.
“Sure,” he says, grinning brightly, his voice clear and high. But it’s his accent - slightly mumbly but still clearly British - that gives him away.
“Goddammit, Eames,” Arthur shouts, running at the new blond kid - and it definitely is him, Arthur realizes, he’s forging himself as a kid. Behind Arthur, bats and balls and gloves clatter and thud to the ground as the rest of the projections clue into his upset. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees George take a step toward where Eames is standing and, shit, Arthur needs to get them out of here before his militarization kicks in fully - Arthur’d really like not to see the kids he grew up with and around turn into a bloodthirsty mob.
Despite their childish appearances, Arthur has no problem materializing a Glock and kicking them out of the dream with a shot each to the head.
“You were a terrifying child,” Eames comments as soon as they’re awake, nonchalantly pulling the needle from his wrist, not looking at Arthur.
“You had no right,” Arthur starts, but Eames cuts him off.
“Maybe I just wanted to see what you dream about,” he says, eyes harder than Arthur’s ever seen them. “Maybe I wanted to learn a little more about you, something not muddled by alcohol or harried by a crowd of ravening projections. Christ, Arthur, you make it hard to know you sometimes,” he huffs, pulling to his feet and crossing the room in a handful of long strides.
Arthur watches him go silently, eyes wide and brow furrowed. He twists at his cufflink for a second, then stands to follow, leaning hesitantly around a makeshift wall to see where Eames has thrown himself down at a desk.
“You could just ask,” he offers, feeling strangely hesitant, feeling like that little kid he’d been back in Los Angeles. There’s an odd feeling in his chest, reminding him of the last time his dad had visited him at Maggie’s house - a sort of fatalistic hope, he supposes.
Eames looks up and studies him with dark eyes, jaw set in an unreadable expression. “The child at bat,” he says finally, “I saw him during the Carlsen job.” Arthur nods, agreeing despite the lack of a question in the statement. They stare at each other for a beat before Arthur realizes Eames is still giving him an out by simply waiting to see where Arthur takes the reference.
“JP was my foster brother. We grew up together,” Arthur concedes. “We were at the same short-term foster home before being adopted by the same man - George Knox, the adult pitching in the dream - when I was eleven.”
“What was your name?” Eames asks, eyes bright and curious now, obviously delighted by Arthur finally trusting him.
Arthur tilts his head, taking in Eames’ expression. For all that the man makes a living out of fooling people into believing him regardless of circumstances, in this moment, Eames’ face is open and guileless and Arthur can’t see any of the tells that would prove he’s being conned. His brow furrows as he realizes he wants to tell Eames about his life, wants to open up to someone other than Dom, who’s gone back to his family and effectively abandoned Arthur. It’s strange, this feeling, and, again, something he could swear he hasn’t felt since he was still a child and subject to the whims of the court system.
Arthur closes his eyes for a second, takes a deep breath, and remembers George. Remembers all the ways he fumbled through raising him and JP. Remembers the day George told them he was adopting them. Remembers the day his dad released him to the court system. Remembers being wedged between JP and George in the front of Maggie’s car, and George saying,“You can't go through life thinking everyone you meet will one day let you down.” He smiles slightly and makes a mental note to call them soon - he misses the quiet confidence George always had in him and JP’s enthusiastic willingness to believe, no matter what.
“Roger,” he says, opening his eyes and grinning at Eames. “Roger Bowman.”
+
Later - a week, a day, a couple hours, it doesn’t matter to Arthur, just that it is late - they’re curled up in bed, Eames’ arms tight around Arthur’s body. Eames sighs into Arthur’s hair, stirring the curls and raising gooseflesh on Arthur’s arms.
“Tell me a secret,” he whispers and Arthur smiles, tracing an absent finger over one of Eames’ tattoos.
“’Bout what?”
“Anything,” Eames murmurs, sounding more asleep than awake.
Arthur thinks for a moment, watching the way Eames’ eyelids slowly open and close heavily. His mouth twitches toward another smile, but he’s tired, too. He sighs, settling more comfortably into the crush of Eames’ arms, content with the weight of them wrapped around him.
“Hmm, sometimes,” he starts, smoothing soothing patterns over Eames’ back, nudging him closer to sleep, “when they’re necessary or when they’re willing to help out, I see angels. I have since I was a kid.” His eyelids have fallen shut without his noticing, but he manages to keep his hand moving over Eames’ back. “Al says they expect great things from me, but I’m not sure I could’ve done any of this without them.” He shifts a little more, turning his face into Eames’ neck to breathe in the smell of him, warm and musky and addictive.
He’s almost asleep, can feel himself teetering on the edge, and he’s fairly sure Eames is gone already, but he forces out the last of his thought on the tail-end of a yawn. “Couldn’t have done this without you, either,” he sighs, admitting it to himself for the first time, though few things have ever been truer in his life.
He falls asleep to Eames’ smile pressed against his neck, Eames’ arms warm and comforting around him.
Title: An As-Needed Situation
Author: sunriseinspace
Character(s): Arthur / Eames, Dom Cobb, Ariadne, Yusuf, James and Phillipa, JP and George Knox
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing about Inception or Angels in the Outfield, their characters or plotlines, including any recognizable dialogue.
For the prompt: Arthur is Roger Bowman from Angels in the Outfield, all grown up.
Here’s a reference (left to right: JP, George, Roger (Arthur))
Summary: “Hmm, sometimes,” he starts, “when they’re necessary or when they’re willing to help out, I see angels. I have since I was a kid.”
+
He's in the middle of a job, ducked behind a dumpster with half a clip left in his Glock, when he sees it and he honestly can't help the way his jaw drops.
"Arthur, why is that child flapping his arms in the air?" Eames, the new forger Dom insisted on bringing in, asks curiously, voice raised to be heard over the gunfire. Arthur's head whips around and he immediately zeroes in on the kid standing in the middle of the street.
It's JP, nine years old and earnest in his baseball jersey, arms moving in a familiar signal Arthur's not seen in years - angels are here.
"C'mon, Eames, this way," he shouts, stepping abruptly out of his hiding place and running for JP, following the little boy as he leads them through Mal's maze and toward one of the safe rooms she's started including as a matter of course.
"Keep your head up, Roger!" JP yells, grinning brightly back over his shoulder as he rounds one last corner and disappears. Arthur can't help smiling in return, though the projection is long gone.
"What happened out there?" Mal asks as they barrel into the room, eyes wide and hands loose on her own pistol, ready to lend back-up if necessary.
"Got caught by Carlsen's projections," Arthur answers as he makes his way over to where Dom and Carlsen are hooked up to another PASIV, down a level further to extract the name of the buyer laid out for his company. "They'll be waking soon, we'd better be ready," he comments, snapping another clip into his pistol as he checks the readouts on the machine. He ignores Eames' curious eyes on the back of his head and focuses on being ready when the timer hits zero.
The rest of the job goes off without a hitch.
+
Two months after Dom and Mal wake from what they swear is the last of their dreaming experiments finds Arthur walking down the street, a paper grocery bag tucked under his arm. It's Mal's birthday tonight and the first time in six months he's not been out of the country on a job - he intends to make the most of it by fixing dinner at the Cobb's tonight, their little tradition since college.
It's twilight, six o'clock in the middle of November, but there are still a few kids out, screeching and laughing as they chase iridescent bubbles around their yard. Arthur smiles at them, anticipating when it'll be him and Dom and Mal and Phillipa and James doing the same. He watches as a particularly large bubble floats away unnoticed, drifting out into the street and directly into his path, where it shimmers and hovers in mid-air for a second.
"Remember, we're always watching," he hears distantly, the voice rough and familiar, and a chill runs up his spine.
"Y'know, I could never figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing," he comments lightly, trying to put it from his mind. Too bad he was never very good at forgetting Al.
"We're watching her, waiting. It'll be soon, son, very soon." And Arthur goes cold, foreboding filling his gut as Al's words sink in. Dom and Mal had promised no more experiments, not after James was born, but both of them have always been addicted to adventure and not even Arthur's stories about foster care could dissuade them for long. "Always a mistake," Al sighs and Arthur blinks and sees his face briefly, outlined faintly in the heart of the bubble.
He hefts the bag tighter against his side and quickens his step. Surely there must be something he can do, for Mal at least. For the children's sake, if nothing else. Maybe this time Dom and Mal'd listen to him, you never know.
As JP used to say, "It could happen."
+
It's been five months since Mal's funeral, five months since Dom ran in an act of simultaneous self-preservation and selfishness, five months since Arthur's had a chance to really relax, to let go the mantle of point man and simply be himself. He's exhausted, nearly sick with fatigue and so close to burnt-out he's viscerally afraid of letting Dom talk him into another job any time soon. To that end, he leaves Dom with Monique in Brisbane and spirits himself and their PASIV away to Argentina, holing up in a little flat for a couple weeks of pure R&R.
He spends three days doing nothing more than sleeping, rousing only to eat or relieve himself as necessary. Four days into his self-imposed vacation, he lounges in front of the TV, watching reruns of old baseball games on one of the satellite provider's sports channels. He spends another day indulging in his favorite baseball movies - Field of Dreams and The Rookie and Bull Durham - until the nostalgia and the old draw of the game gets to be too much. When that happens, he makes himself wait another day - to prove something to himself, he supposes, but he's never figured out what that is - before pulling out the PASIV, giving it a good diagnostic check-up, and hooking in, falling back through the memories until he's eleven again.
He feels that same elation as he plays ball with George and JP, running through the dusty sandlot across the street from Maggie's house, screaming and shouting and running with abandon, for no other reason than because it's fun and he wants to. He plays with the kids in his memories for hours, entering and leaving the dream to play as himself-age-eleven and as himself-age-twenty-six, to play catcher and short-stop, batter and out-fielder. JP and George are always there, George always pitching and JP always tagging along in Arthur's wake. It makes him miss them, with an ache almost as strong as his longing to see Mal again, but it's an old desire and something he's used to shunting aside - he won't have them hurt by his involvement in dreamshare.
He wakes and spends the next day catching up on the gossip in his life, trolling blogs and sites looking for hints about jobs, checking his email for any news from his contacts, scrolling through US news sites for any new information about Dom's ability to go back to his kids. There's nothing new in any of the sources, just word that Cobol Engineering is putting out feelers for a team to extract expansion plans from their nearest rival. He debates sending an email to JP, wonders how he and Shawna and their new baby are doing, but manages to refrain. He's too raw, too emotionally vulnerable after his day spent dreaming, and it's too likely he'll promise something he can't deliver. Finally, he decides to send a note to George, let him know he’s doing okay and not to worry; George’ll make sure JP finds out.
He goes to sleep that night with order confirmation on a plane ticket to Australia waiting in his inbox, planning on meeting up with Dom and figuring out their next plan of action face-to-face. Though he doesn’t dream any more, he could swear, just as he slips off to sleep, he hears Al remind him they’re always watching.
+
“That’s your plan, Eames? Take Dubois down two levels and hope that when you simply ask him where the money’s going, he’ll tell you. Without any fuss or fanfare? That’s your plan?!”
“I don’t see how it’ll inconvenience anyone, Arthur,” Eames points out mildly, eyebrows raised as he watches Arthur’s blood pressure ratchet through the roof. “I’ll be the only one torn apart if it jars the dream too much and his projections rebel.”
“In all my years of dreaming, I’ve never seen such a-‘such an astute observation of a potentially difficult decision’,” falls out of his mouth, instead of the vitriol he’d had waiting on his tongue. He blinks, takes in Eames’ blankly surprised expression, and pulls back, scowling. He knows what this is, he doesn’t need the déjà vu or Al’s wink over Eames’ shoulder to remind him of the last time he’d heard those words.
“P-pardon me?” Eames stutters and, suddenly, Al’s manipulation of the situation is worth it, to see Eames completely without words for once.
Arthur bites back a grin and takes a breath, calming down enough to realize Eames’ plan is really the only way to go (and apparently the only way this’ll work, if Al’s to be believed). “Good idea,” he says, sitting back down in his chair and opening his moleskine. “What do you need from me?”
+
“Hey, guys,” he says, as soon as the phone picks up on the other end.
“Uncle Arthur!” James and Phillipa chorus, laughing and giggling as they try to talk over each other to tell him about their week. He smiles as they recount the adventures they’ve had in the back yard, as Phillipa chatters on about riding her bike over to her friend’s house for the afternoon and James describes the picture he drew for his grandmother yesterday.
“Guess what?” he throws out, once there’s a break in the conversation. “George said he’d try to get you both out to see the Angels play, down in Anaheim. Would you like that?” he asks. JP and George have only met the Cobb family once, back before Mal’s death, but there was instant affection all around and after most of a year without their father, Arthur can’t think of anyone better suited to cheering the kids up than the man who’d raised Arthur after his own father had abandoned him.
“Yeah!” James yells in his ear, Phillipa’s quieter agreement sounding in echo to his jubilation. Arthur smiles again and promises to talk to their grandmother about it.
“All right, kiddos. I’ll tell Dad ‘hi’ for you, okay?” There’s silence on the other end but he knows they miss Dom. “Okay,” he sighs, “keep your heads up and your noses clean, right, guys?” he reminds them, his typical sign-off. Something eases in his chest when he hears James’ giggle, Phillipa’s little snort of amusement. “Bye.”
He leans back with a sigh, hand clenched against his knee as he stares at the ceiling. He blinks and lets his eyes focus on the skylight, studying the stars, a habit left over from his childhood.
“Please, God, watch over ‘em,” he murmurs. “Amen.”
He’s hauled himself off the couch and over to his bedroom when he stops, a hand on the doorframe, and frowns.
“A-woman, too,” he adds, just to be sure.
+
“What did you want to be when you grew up?” Ariadne asks, temple resting against her hand as she leans on the table. There’s a small collection of glasses and bottles on the table between them, though only a portion of them belong to her - the rest belong to either Arthur, Eames, or Yusuf. There’re enough there Arthur’s having a hard time remembering which glass or bottle belong to which person. “Me, I wanted to be Power Ranger,” she admits and they both grin.
“Isn’t that a little before your time?” he quips, causing her to lean over and sock him one in the shoulder.
“Oh, bite me,” she laughs. “Admit it, though, I’d’ve made a pretty badass Power Ranger.” And he nods; from what he’d seen through the job, she probably would’ve.
“What color?” he asks, tipping his head back to drain the beer bottle in his hand.
“Purple, and Tommy would’ve taken one look at me and dropped Kimberly like so much baggage,” she says solemnly and they both manage to keep straight faces long enough to lock eyes before bursting into laughter.
“Oh, what’d I miss?” Eames asks eagerly as he arrives back at the table with Yusuf, their hands full with the next round. He slides into the booth and drops a casually possessive arm over Arthur’s shoulder as he nudges another beer across the table.
“Arthur and I’re talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up,” Ariadne tells him.
“James Bond,” Yusuf says promptly, taking a sip of his brilliantly green drink. He grins at them, elbows resting on the table and curls in disarray. “Sean Connery, to be exact.”
“I wanted to be a tree frog,” Eames puts in, low against Arthur’s ear to be heard over Yusuf and Ariadne’s sudden loud and fervent discussion (read: argument) over which Bond was best.
Arthur turns and studies the look on Eames’ face, reading the sincerity and fond amusement in his gray eyes. He smiles at Eames, wide enough to show a dimple in one cheek. “Colorful and poisonous,” he muses, eyes hooded. He tips his head in acknowledgement. “I think you actually managed it.”
Eames laughs, long and deep and full, body curling around Arthur’s as he rests his forehead on Arthur’s shoulder. “Oh, darling,” he sighs happily, pressing a fond kiss against Arthur’s temple, and Arthur abruptly feels his cheeks flame. “And what did you want to be when you grew up, hmm, Arthur?” he murmurs, warm and close, nuzzling just behind Arthur’s ear.
“Ah,” Arthur gasps, high-pitched and strained, “I w-wanted to play baseball.” It’s raw and honest, something he’d never told anyone before, not even JP. “For the California Angels,” he adds and refuses to admit a whimper escapes his throat when Eames pulls back to look at him.
“Y’know,” Eames says, considering, “I think I can see that.”
Arthur doesn’t know what to say to that, so he’s grateful when Ariadne abruptly shouts, “The hell Roger Moore was the sexiest Bond, have you seen the abs on Daniel Craig?!” and breaks the mood.
+
He takes a break in their warehouse one day, three weeks into what’s turning out to be an interminably long job, playing sandlot-ball with JP and the kids. They’re two innings in, two kids on bases and JP’s batting, elbows up around his ears the way he always did, when another kid wanders over to watch the game with speculative eyes.
“Hey, kid, c’mon and join us,” Arthur’s projection of George calls, waving a welcoming hand and all of the other kids turn to watch. Arthur (aged eleven in this dream - it’s been a tough job and he needs all the help this break can give him) narrows his eyes, studying the newcomer.
He doesn’t look out of place at all, same huge t-shirt hanging from his shoulders and oversized ballcap squashing his bangs against his forehead as the rest of the kids playing, but there’s something different about him. Arthur takes a step away from homeplate, gloved hand loose at his side, to get a closer look. The boy’s as young as the rest of the crowd, about ten or so if Arthur had to guess, hair a light, almost dusty blond where it shows under his hat, eyes a murky color somewhere between green and blue. Blinking, Arthur decides he can safely say he’s never seen. And then the kid opens his mouth.
“Sure,” he says, grinning brightly, his voice clear and high. But it’s his accent - slightly mumbly but still clearly British - that gives him away.
“Goddammit, Eames,” Arthur shouts, running at the new blond kid - and it definitely is him, Arthur realizes, he’s forging himself as a kid. Behind Arthur, bats and balls and gloves clatter and thud to the ground as the rest of the projections clue into his upset. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees George take a step toward where Eames is standing and, shit, Arthur needs to get them out of here before his militarization kicks in fully - Arthur’d really like not to see the kids he grew up with and around turn into a bloodthirsty mob.
Despite their childish appearances, Arthur has no problem materializing a Glock and kicking them out of the dream with a shot each to the head.
“You were a terrifying child,” Eames comments as soon as they’re awake, nonchalantly pulling the needle from his wrist, not looking at Arthur.
“You had no right,” Arthur starts, but Eames cuts him off.
“Maybe I just wanted to see what you dream about,” he says, eyes harder than Arthur’s ever seen them. “Maybe I wanted to learn a little more about you, something not muddled by alcohol or harried by a crowd of ravening projections. Christ, Arthur, you make it hard to know you sometimes,” he huffs, pulling to his feet and crossing the room in a handful of long strides.
Arthur watches him go silently, eyes wide and brow furrowed. He twists at his cufflink for a second, then stands to follow, leaning hesitantly around a makeshift wall to see where Eames has thrown himself down at a desk.
“You could just ask,” he offers, feeling strangely hesitant, feeling like that little kid he’d been back in Los Angeles. There’s an odd feeling in his chest, reminding him of the last time his dad had visited him at Maggie’s house - a sort of fatalistic hope, he supposes.
Eames looks up and studies him with dark eyes, jaw set in an unreadable expression. “The child at bat,” he says finally, “I saw him during the Carlsen job.” Arthur nods, agreeing despite the lack of a question in the statement. They stare at each other for a beat before Arthur realizes Eames is still giving him an out by simply waiting to see where Arthur takes the reference.
“JP was my foster brother. We grew up together,” Arthur concedes. “We were at the same short-term foster home before being adopted by the same man - George Knox, the adult pitching in the dream - when I was eleven.”
“What was your name?” Eames asks, eyes bright and curious now, obviously delighted by Arthur finally trusting him.
Arthur tilts his head, taking in Eames’ expression. For all that the man makes a living out of fooling people into believing him regardless of circumstances, in this moment, Eames’ face is open and guileless and Arthur can’t see any of the tells that would prove he’s being conned. His brow furrows as he realizes he wants to tell Eames about his life, wants to open up to someone other than Dom, who’s gone back to his family and effectively abandoned Arthur. It’s strange, this feeling, and, again, something he could swear he hasn’t felt since he was still a child and subject to the whims of the court system.
Arthur closes his eyes for a second, takes a deep breath, and remembers George. Remembers all the ways he fumbled through raising him and JP. Remembers the day George told them he was adopting them. Remembers the day his dad released him to the court system. Remembers being wedged between JP and George in the front of Maggie’s car, and George saying,“You can't go through life thinking everyone you meet will one day let you down.” He smiles slightly and makes a mental note to call them soon - he misses the quiet confidence George always had in him and JP’s enthusiastic willingness to believe, no matter what.
“Roger,” he says, opening his eyes and grinning at Eames. “Roger Bowman.”
+
Later - a week, a day, a couple hours, it doesn’t matter to Arthur, just that it is late - they’re curled up in bed, Eames’ arms tight around Arthur’s body. Eames sighs into Arthur’s hair, stirring the curls and raising gooseflesh on Arthur’s arms.
“Tell me a secret,” he whispers and Arthur smiles, tracing an absent finger over one of Eames’ tattoos.
“’Bout what?”
“Anything,” Eames murmurs, sounding more asleep than awake.
Arthur thinks for a moment, watching the way Eames’ eyelids slowly open and close heavily. His mouth twitches toward another smile, but he’s tired, too. He sighs, settling more comfortably into the crush of Eames’ arms, content with the weight of them wrapped around him.
“Hmm, sometimes,” he starts, smoothing soothing patterns over Eames’ back, nudging him closer to sleep, “when they’re necessary or when they’re willing to help out, I see angels. I have since I was a kid.” His eyelids have fallen shut without his noticing, but he manages to keep his hand moving over Eames’ back. “Al says they expect great things from me, but I’m not sure I could’ve done any of this without them.” He shifts a little more, turning his face into Eames’ neck to breathe in the smell of him, warm and musky and addictive.
He’s almost asleep, can feel himself teetering on the edge, and he’s fairly sure Eames is gone already, but he forces out the last of his thought on the tail-end of a yawn. “Couldn’t have done this without you, either,” he sighs, admitting it to himself for the first time, though few things have ever been truer in his life.
He falls asleep to Eames’ smile pressed against his neck, Eames’ arms warm and comforting around him.