fic: the fabulist
I don’t know, y’all.
I promise I’m usually a disgustingly cheerful person around the holidays and I’m working on this thing that’s actually really absurd and domestic (though It might be awhile before you see it because it’s becoming a monster) but I woke up today feeling like shit and I’ve spent the past few hours lolling around in bed reading depressing novels about war and thwarted love (that are beautifully written, by the way, which is why John Banville’s The Untouchable is one of my go-to sick-in-bed-feeling-sorry-for-myself books, check it out sometime) and I deliriously smashed the handle off my favorite coffee jug (I call it my coffee jug because the basis of its appeal is that it is ENORMOUS and therefore perfectly suited for mainlining caffeine in the morning) and I’m completely off my head on cold meds right now and this is apparently what I write in that state.
It wasn’t really beta-read in full (though I actually texted absurd, misspelled bits of it to your__design to which she said many wise and helpful things) so I’m going to blame the mistakes on my drug regimen and leave it at that. if there’s anything that makes me look totally illiterate, please let me know and I’ll go back and fix it when I can see straight.
Title: The Fabulist
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~3000
Summary: Sometimes Eames tells himself lies like he’s setting himself a dare, like how he tells himself he’s in love with Arthur, how he’s desperate to have Arthur love him back. That’s a good one.
Notes: Title from “The Fabulist” by Nathan Johnson and the Cinematic Underground, cut text from “The Engine Driver” by The Decemberists, both of which kind of inspired this story. It’s kind of a five things story, and by ‘kind of’ I mean that’s exactly what it is, except for that it’s four things instead of five because I got sleepy. Four times Eames lied to Arthur and one time he didn’t. Thanks to your__design for being the best sounding board ever and letting me groggily talk to her on the phone for an hour even though most of the conversation was me whining about how much I miss my cat when I’m sick and singing Josie and the Pussycats songs. I don’t think a shout-out in the notes can really adequately convey my gratitude and shame but it’s a start.
‘Compulsive liar’ is probably not the right term, but it’s the one that Eames hears most often. It’s not that Eames has to lie, it’s just that he doesn’t feel he has to tell the truth, not like other people do. (The word ‘sociopathic’ has also been thrown around, but it’s not quite that either.) The truth is more flexible than most people think. It’s like forging, Eames thinks: sometimes you just have to bend reality a bit to make it become what you want. It comes easily to him. He doesn’t tell lies, he just tells statements that are waiting to become true.
He doesn’t often lie to himself, but sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes Eames tells himself lies like he’s setting himself a dare, like how he tells himself he’s in love with Arthur, how he’s desperate to have Arthur love him back. That’s a good one.
*
Maybe it starts because he’s horny. It’s how most stories start, if you examine them closely enough: once upon a time, someone wanted to get his dick wet. It’s not a fairy tale romance, certainly, but it’s not a real romance anyway. So.
“I can’t believe you didn’t pack anything useful,” Arthur says, tossing his way through Eames’s belongings looking for fabrics that aren’t linen. “You knew this was a possibility.”
‘This’ is the two of them on the run in Montana after a spectacularly botched job. It’s the dead of winter and they’re in the middle of nowhere with a dead car battery. Arthur, of course, packed like a damn boy scout; he’s got a thermal sleeping bag and an absurd amount of sweaters. Eames has a feeling Arthur won’t be sharing the sweaters, though. They’re probably worth more than what they paid to rent this piece of shit car and Arthur would rather watch Eames freeze to death slowly than let him stretch them out of shape. Eames gets a sudden, charming image of Arthur’s skinny wrists swimming in one of Eames’s baggy knit sweaters.
“You’re the one who packs for possibilities,” Eames says. “Frankly, darling, you’re lucky I packed anything at all.”
Eames knows how to pack for possibilities but he also knows how to lower expectations.
“You’re going to be lucky if you don’t die,” Arthur says, glaring at Eames over his shoulder, still buried to his elbows in Eames’s duffel bag.
“You’re really going to let me freeze?” Eames says. “Really, Arthur?”
“Yes,” Arthur says, but he’s not. Eames has had Arthur figured out for years. He dislikes Eames, but he doesn’t hate him. What he does hate is a blemish on his perfect success rate, and having to explain Eames’s frozen corpse to the rest of the team would not do his resume any favors, though Eames thinks it would certainly add some color.
This is how Eames finds himself wedged into the sleeping bag with Arthur, the two of the huddled together in the backseat, Arthur pressed close. Eames lets the silence grow as the temperature in the car drops. The snow has covered the windshield, only a dim suggestion of the lights from the freeway to turn the interior of the car into a nearly grayscale darkness. Eames can see Arthur’s silhouette clearly, the tense line of his shoulder and the annoyed clench of his jaw, the way he grinds his teeth when he’s had more than enough of someone else’s stupidity.
“I’m still cold,” Eames whines.
“I’m not even a little sorry for you,” Arthur says, but he shivers a little in a restrained, Arthurian way.
“We should get naked,” Eames says.
“Fuck off,” Arthur says.
“It’ll help,” Eames says, “that’s a scientific fact. The moisture doesn’t evaporate.”
“I know that,” Arthur says, “but I also know you have a fucking boner right now and this is starting to sound like an incredibly low-budget porno.”
“That’s science too,” Eames says. “Warm body, dangerous situation, near-death, etcetera. It all makes psychological sense.”
“Don’t blame science for your dick, Eames,” Arthur says.
“Come on,” Eames says. “It would probably be a great way to get warm. I’ve definitely got condoms and all that in my bag.”
Arthur snorts. “You would remember to pack sex supplies but not a fucking sweater.” Then there’s a long pause and Eames realizes what he’s said and holds his breath, hoping Arthur doesn’t put it together, but he’s Arthur and of course he does. “I checked all through your bag,” he says, “and I would have remembered condoms.”
“They’re in the side pocket?” Eames suggests.
“You have another bag in the trunk, don’t you,” Arthur says.
“Full of jumpers and condoms,” Eames concedes.
“You’re disgusting,” Arthur says, kicks Eames out of the sleeping bag and then out of the car, not letting him back in until he’s put on every single bit of clothing from the bag he’d stashed in the trunk. Then he makes Eames sit in the front and doesn’t speak to him all night long, the two of them awake and silent except for their chattering teeth. In the morning, the temperature rises enough that Eames can walk a few miles back to the last town they passed. He comes back with a tow truck and the two of them act like nothing ever happened, except that Arthur clearly dislikes Eames even more and Eames decides to love Arthur more than ever.
*
Maybe it starts because Eames loves a tragedy. He always has. Eames likes things raw and open and wild, and a tragedy, a real tragedy, is always like that.
This is why, when Arthur asks Eames about the pick-pocketing (he calls it “kleptomania” though), Eames says, “Well, I had to growing up. It’s just habit now, I suppose.”
“Had to?” Arthur says, eyebrows raised.
“It’s not something I’m proud of,” Eames says. “My family was well off growing up,” he begins, because the best lies, as the saying goes, are founded on a grain of truth, “but they disowned me when I was young. I was living on my own by the time I was fourteen.”
“What did they disown you for?” Arthur asks. The expression on his face is unreadable, but the look in his eyes interested, thoughtful.
Eames shrugs. He’s got dozens of answers ready, but people are rarely forthcoming about family tragedy. “They had their reasons.”
“So, what, you were homeless?” Arthur says.
“Squatting, mostly. It wasn’t that bad, except in the winter. You know how I hate to be cold,” he adds, constructing a perfectly faltering grin. “I didn’t have much by the way of marketable skills and no one would hire a grubby looking bastard like me. I didn’t have much of a choice, if I wanted to keep myself fed.”
Whenever Eames constructs a backstory for a job, he says it over and over, out loud, just like this, until he even believes it himself. Once you convince yourself, you can convince anyone else. As he tells Arthur his Dickensian sob story, he feels himself starting to believe it, starting to tie the pieces of who he is now to how living on the streets could have made him that way. He believes he steals because he’s afraid he’ll have to go back, he believes he forges beautiful, wealthy women because he wants their shiny, pampered lives, their security. He believes he got into his line of work because lifting wallets out of pockets and purses was a gateway, that he met his first clients in holding cells and backroom high-stakes poker games.
“The thing is, Eames,” Arthur says when Eames has stopped, “I’ve done background checks on everyone I work with, and I know you visited your parents six months ago,” and Eames realizes the only person he managed to convince was himself.
“Just trying to keep you on your toes,” Eames says, grinning winningly.
“Sometimes you just can’t stop yourself from talking total bullshit, can you?” Arthur says, rolling his eyes. He’s right. Sometimes Eames just can’t stop himself. Mostly though, he doesn’t try.
*
Maybe it starts because Eames wants to win. He’s a gambler by trade but not by nature. Eames always wins, no matter what the odds are, because he doesn’t give a shit about odds. Eames, like any successful gambler, makes his own luck; Eames cheats.
Morality, like the truth, is malleable. Eames has a knack for rationalizing himself into good moral standing, which is why he has no problem breaking into Arthur’s flat. It’s only fair, he reasons, now that he knows about Arthur’s thorough background checks; this is just how someone like Eames does a background check of his own.
He finds out that Arthur likes French cinema and Russian novels, plenty of things that don’t surprise Eames at all. But he also finds out that Arthur has the entire series of Muppet movies, reads comic books, listens to Echo and the Bunnymen, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and the Beta Band, has the Ramones and the Rezillos on vinyl.
The next time they work together, Eames is reading the last volume of Naoki Urasawa’s Astro Boy rewrite.
“What is that?” Arthur says instead of ‘hello.’
“Book,” Eames says in a distracted way, not looking away from the page he isn’t really reading.
“I didn’t know you were into that kind of thing,” Arthur says.
“I would have thought you’d be unsurprised I like books with lots of pictures,” Eames says, grinning up at Arthur finally. “It seems like the sort of thing you’d say.”
“You like it, then?” Arthur says, still looking distinctly suspicious.
“I like it better than Monster,” Eames says. Monster was the one he saw in Arthur’s apartment, which is why he read it. He honestly does prefer PLUTO.
“You’ve read Monster?” Arthur has stopped disguising his surprise, eyes widening as he stares at Eames.
Eames shrugs. “Sure,” he says. “I thought some of it was a little tasteless, but not bad.”
“Tasteless,” Arthur repeats, like he’s not sure what the word means.
“Personal opinion,” Eames says. “By the way,” he adds, “this business associate of mine-“ by which he means his own excellent forging skills “-got his hands on a couple extra tickets to the Sonic Youth show next weekend. I know it’s probably not your kind of thing-”
“Oh,” Arthur says suddenly and then laughs. “You’ve been snooping, Eames. What did you do, break into my apartment?”
“What?” Eames says innocently. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re really funny and creepy, Eames, congratulations,” Arthur says, already moving away. “Can we get to work now?”
So maybe it’s not that Eames likes to win, not just that. Maybe it’s also that Eames likes something he has to work at, something he has to plan in advance. Maybe it’s also because Eames likes a challenge and Arthur is nothing if not a challenge.
*
Maybe it starts because Eames is curious about Arthur, about the way Arthur sees him. Arthur isn’t the first person Eames has failed to charm, but it’s the first time Eames was surprised by the failure. The reason lying is so easy for Eames is that he realized a long time ago that people want to believe lies, if they’re good lies. People want to believe extremes; he thinks it might be why some people are so religious, why some people believe in UFOs and Atlantis. People hunger for the fantastic and the absurd and Eames provides it.
Arthur isn’t like most people. Arthur, Eames has come to realize, isn’t like anyone else but Arthur. He’s fiercely practical and cautious of extremes, and more than anyone Eames has ever met - more than Eames himself, even - Arthur is acutely aware of what people see when they look at him. Maybe Eames fakes his own death to see how Arthur would take it.
To be clear: Eames didn’t carefully stage his own death just to find out if it would upset Arthur. Things went bad with a painting he was forging in Moscow and he had to be scarce for a bit. Eames had to fake his death anyway, for professional reasons. The only place personal reasons factored in was when he decided not to tell Arthur about it.
Eames invents a new identity for himself and catches a flight to Brazil. He enjoys himself. He also calls Yusuf a lot.
“I don’t know what you expected,” Yusuf says. “It’s Arthur, he’s not going to skulk around in widow’s weeds and sob all day.”
“But he does seem unhappy, right?” Eames asks.
“I guess,” Yusuf says. “I don’t know, Arthur and I don’t talk about our feelings.”
“What do you talk about?” Eames asks, curious.
“Football,” Yusuf says. “He’s a Chelsea fan.”
“Well, that’s unappealing,” Eames says. “Maybe he just has terrible taste.”
“I think he just knows that you’re a terrible person,” Yusuf says.
Ariadne is much more helpful. “He got a little sniffly at the funeral,” she says. “I felt awful about it,” she adds significantly, like she wants Eames to be ashamed of himself. He isn’t though, not really, especially not when he calls Yusuf for confirmation and Yusuf says, “For God’s sake, Eames, it was allergies! The only person who cried was Cobb and I’m pretty sure it was because he’s got issues, none of which involve him being secretly in love with you.”
When Eames comes back to life, he expects something more dramatic. He doesn’t think Arthur will run at him and hug him, like a soldier come back from war, but he does expect some gaping and maybe even a good, hard punch full of repressed desire and hidden pain. All that happens is Eames shows up one morning, sitting at Arthur’s desk, says “Hello, darling,” and Arthur rolls his eyes and says, “Typical.”
Eames didn’t know how much he was counting on something until nothing happens. When Arthur walks away from him, already focused on something else, Eames feels this strange-sudden rush of heat and force, like he suddenly wants to laugh or shout until he can’t breathe. Eames feels this strange physical filling-up, something he can’t fake. Eames feels a disappointment so heavy it must be real and Arthur, apparently, doesn’t care if he lives or dies.
What is this, Eames thinks, what’s happening. He thinks these things, but he knows the answers, can’t pretend he doesn’t anymore. When he can’t will it to stop being true, when he can’t do anything else, he wonders, when did this happen?
*
It could have started anywhere, Eames doesn’t care where, not really. The point is that it started and he doesn’t know how to stop it anymore. He’s forgotten which of the lies he’s told Arthur were true, which ones were exaggerations, which ones where complete fabrications. It’s all so sloppy, not his best work, and possibly not even work at all, not anymore. Did Eames really lie himself into actual, real love with Arthur? Was it ever a lie? Eames can’t remember not feeling like this in front of Arthur. He can’t remember the last time he saw Arthur and didn’t feel a frantic pressure, a stubbornly unstoppable straining somewhere inside him, like the way everything in him jumps but doesn’t move, the way his whole system lurches and trips when he sees Arthur by accident, hunched under an umbrella in the Paris rain, looking pinched and tired and annoyed. He hasn’t seen Arthur in months, not since the last time Arthur found him out, and he still feels this total, impossible shock, like just the sight of Arthur is some minor miracle.
This, Eames thinks. This little thrill is dopamine. That little shake is adrenaline. None of this is really about Arthur. None of this is really real. It’s all chemical. But even Eames’s lies have limits and there are some stories even he can’t rewrite. He and Arthur are going to be one of those stories, he thinks.
Eames actually considers slipping away before Arthur sees him, which is entirely unlike him; Eames loves a scene. It’s already too late. Arthur is already crossing the street, holding his umbrella slightly in front of him to shield the wind. Eames stays put, angles his own umbrella to keep it from blowing inside out.
“Eames?” Arthur says, stepping up onto the curb beside him. “You’re supposed to be in Tel Aviv.”
Eames has stopped wondering if Arthur’s unfaltering knowledge of Eames’s whereabouts means anything; he knows it doesn’t. Arthur just makes it his business to know the facts. Maybe that’s why it had to be him. Maybe it had to be Arthur because Arthur is the only one who won’t let Eames fake it, won’t let Eames get away with anything. Eames always has to be real around Arthur because Arthur won’t accept anything less.
“Job finished early so I thought I’d take a vacation,” Eames says. “Warbick’s really coming along, as an extractor.”
“Well, he was always a shit point man,” Arthur says, sniffing like nothing Warbick does will ever redeem him from that first impression and Eames feels it again, that frantic swell. Eames feels it rush to his head, make him dizzy with the impact of it. He feels drunk, he feels ridiculous, it can’t get worse.
“You know I love you, don’t you?” he says. “I’m in love with you, I’m like this because I’m absolutely in love with you.”
Arthur just stares at him. Eames understands the confusion. Even Eames can’t believe he’s standing here, saying these crazy things (these crazily true things), and he prides himself on being able to believe anything.
“Eames,” Arthur says. “Seriously, this is more than enough. It’s not funny anymore.”
“It’s not supposed to be funny,” Eames says, stupidly. “Was it funny for you?”
“You get enough attention as it is,” Arthur says, “I’m not feeding your weird appetite for fake drama. I’m not going to feel sorry for you.”
The thing is, Eames doesn’t even feel sorry for himself anymore. He knows this is his fault, that there’s no one else to blame for the fact that Arthur doesn’t know him at all, will never trust him for an instant. Ridiculously, Eames thinks, oh god, I’m the boy who cried ‘I’m in love with you, Arthur.’
“I’ll call you if I hear about a job,” Arthur says. “Enjoy Paris.” He glances back at Eames once, as he starts to walk away. “And get laid,” he calls, “you look like you could use it.”
Eames wants to yell after him, to think of the perfect way to make him understand, to make him believe. He can’t think of anything. For the first time in a long time, Eames can’t think of a single damn thing to say. He stands on the curb for a long time and he realizes what a perfect, cliché performance it is: the broken-hearted man in the Paris rain, watching his love walk away. Perfectly cinematic, he thinks, and it pleases him, just a little bit, to play the part.
And he keeps standing like a tragic hero, like Bogart at the end of Casablanca, telling himself he’s pleased, until the rain seeps into his shoes and he goes back to his hotel.
I promise I’m usually a disgustingly cheerful person around the holidays and I’m working on this thing that’s actually really absurd and domestic (though It might be awhile before you see it because it’s becoming a monster) but I woke up today feeling like shit and I’ve spent the past few hours lolling around in bed reading depressing novels about war and thwarted love (that are beautifully written, by the way, which is why John Banville’s The Untouchable is one of my go-to sick-in-bed-feeling-sorry-for-myself books, check it out sometime) and I deliriously smashed the handle off my favorite coffee jug (I call it my coffee jug because the basis of its appeal is that it is ENORMOUS and therefore perfectly suited for mainlining caffeine in the morning) and I’m completely off my head on cold meds right now and this is apparently what I write in that state.
It wasn’t really beta-read in full (though I actually texted absurd, misspelled bits of it to your__design to which she said many wise and helpful things) so I’m going to blame the mistakes on my drug regimen and leave it at that. if there’s anything that makes me look totally illiterate, please let me know and I’ll go back and fix it when I can see straight.
Title: The Fabulist
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~3000
Summary: Sometimes Eames tells himself lies like he’s setting himself a dare, like how he tells himself he’s in love with Arthur, how he’s desperate to have Arthur love him back. That’s a good one.
Notes: Title from “The Fabulist” by Nathan Johnson and the Cinematic Underground, cut text from “The Engine Driver” by The Decemberists, both of which kind of inspired this story. It’s kind of a five things story, and by ‘kind of’ I mean that’s exactly what it is, except for that it’s four things instead of five because I got sleepy. Four times Eames lied to Arthur and one time he didn’t. Thanks to your__design for being the best sounding board ever and letting me groggily talk to her on the phone for an hour even though most of the conversation was me whining about how much I miss my cat when I’m sick and singing Josie and the Pussycats songs. I don’t think a shout-out in the notes can really adequately convey my gratitude and shame but it’s a start.
‘Compulsive liar’ is probably not the right term, but it’s the one that Eames hears most often. It’s not that Eames has to lie, it’s just that he doesn’t feel he has to tell the truth, not like other people do. (The word ‘sociopathic’ has also been thrown around, but it’s not quite that either.) The truth is more flexible than most people think. It’s like forging, Eames thinks: sometimes you just have to bend reality a bit to make it become what you want. It comes easily to him. He doesn’t tell lies, he just tells statements that are waiting to become true.
He doesn’t often lie to himself, but sometimes it’s fun. Sometimes Eames tells himself lies like he’s setting himself a dare, like how he tells himself he’s in love with Arthur, how he’s desperate to have Arthur love him back. That’s a good one.
*
Maybe it starts because he’s horny. It’s how most stories start, if you examine them closely enough: once upon a time, someone wanted to get his dick wet. It’s not a fairy tale romance, certainly, but it’s not a real romance anyway. So.
“I can’t believe you didn’t pack anything useful,” Arthur says, tossing his way through Eames’s belongings looking for fabrics that aren’t linen. “You knew this was a possibility.”
‘This’ is the two of them on the run in Montana after a spectacularly botched job. It’s the dead of winter and they’re in the middle of nowhere with a dead car battery. Arthur, of course, packed like a damn boy scout; he’s got a thermal sleeping bag and an absurd amount of sweaters. Eames has a feeling Arthur won’t be sharing the sweaters, though. They’re probably worth more than what they paid to rent this piece of shit car and Arthur would rather watch Eames freeze to death slowly than let him stretch them out of shape. Eames gets a sudden, charming image of Arthur’s skinny wrists swimming in one of Eames’s baggy knit sweaters.
“You’re the one who packs for possibilities,” Eames says. “Frankly, darling, you’re lucky I packed anything at all.”
Eames knows how to pack for possibilities but he also knows how to lower expectations.
“You’re going to be lucky if you don’t die,” Arthur says, glaring at Eames over his shoulder, still buried to his elbows in Eames’s duffel bag.
“You’re really going to let me freeze?” Eames says. “Really, Arthur?”
“Yes,” Arthur says, but he’s not. Eames has had Arthur figured out for years. He dislikes Eames, but he doesn’t hate him. What he does hate is a blemish on his perfect success rate, and having to explain Eames’s frozen corpse to the rest of the team would not do his resume any favors, though Eames thinks it would certainly add some color.
This is how Eames finds himself wedged into the sleeping bag with Arthur, the two of the huddled together in the backseat, Arthur pressed close. Eames lets the silence grow as the temperature in the car drops. The snow has covered the windshield, only a dim suggestion of the lights from the freeway to turn the interior of the car into a nearly grayscale darkness. Eames can see Arthur’s silhouette clearly, the tense line of his shoulder and the annoyed clench of his jaw, the way he grinds his teeth when he’s had more than enough of someone else’s stupidity.
“I’m still cold,” Eames whines.
“I’m not even a little sorry for you,” Arthur says, but he shivers a little in a restrained, Arthurian way.
“We should get naked,” Eames says.
“Fuck off,” Arthur says.
“It’ll help,” Eames says, “that’s a scientific fact. The moisture doesn’t evaporate.”
“I know that,” Arthur says, “but I also know you have a fucking boner right now and this is starting to sound like an incredibly low-budget porno.”
“That’s science too,” Eames says. “Warm body, dangerous situation, near-death, etcetera. It all makes psychological sense.”
“Don’t blame science for your dick, Eames,” Arthur says.
“Come on,” Eames says. “It would probably be a great way to get warm. I’ve definitely got condoms and all that in my bag.”
Arthur snorts. “You would remember to pack sex supplies but not a fucking sweater.” Then there’s a long pause and Eames realizes what he’s said and holds his breath, hoping Arthur doesn’t put it together, but he’s Arthur and of course he does. “I checked all through your bag,” he says, “and I would have remembered condoms.”
“They’re in the side pocket?” Eames suggests.
“You have another bag in the trunk, don’t you,” Arthur says.
“Full of jumpers and condoms,” Eames concedes.
“You’re disgusting,” Arthur says, kicks Eames out of the sleeping bag and then out of the car, not letting him back in until he’s put on every single bit of clothing from the bag he’d stashed in the trunk. Then he makes Eames sit in the front and doesn’t speak to him all night long, the two of them awake and silent except for their chattering teeth. In the morning, the temperature rises enough that Eames can walk a few miles back to the last town they passed. He comes back with a tow truck and the two of them act like nothing ever happened, except that Arthur clearly dislikes Eames even more and Eames decides to love Arthur more than ever.
*
Maybe it starts because Eames loves a tragedy. He always has. Eames likes things raw and open and wild, and a tragedy, a real tragedy, is always like that.
This is why, when Arthur asks Eames about the pick-pocketing (he calls it “kleptomania” though), Eames says, “Well, I had to growing up. It’s just habit now, I suppose.”
“Had to?” Arthur says, eyebrows raised.
“It’s not something I’m proud of,” Eames says. “My family was well off growing up,” he begins, because the best lies, as the saying goes, are founded on a grain of truth, “but they disowned me when I was young. I was living on my own by the time I was fourteen.”
“What did they disown you for?” Arthur asks. The expression on his face is unreadable, but the look in his eyes interested, thoughtful.
Eames shrugs. He’s got dozens of answers ready, but people are rarely forthcoming about family tragedy. “They had their reasons.”
“So, what, you were homeless?” Arthur says.
“Squatting, mostly. It wasn’t that bad, except in the winter. You know how I hate to be cold,” he adds, constructing a perfectly faltering grin. “I didn’t have much by the way of marketable skills and no one would hire a grubby looking bastard like me. I didn’t have much of a choice, if I wanted to keep myself fed.”
Whenever Eames constructs a backstory for a job, he says it over and over, out loud, just like this, until he even believes it himself. Once you convince yourself, you can convince anyone else. As he tells Arthur his Dickensian sob story, he feels himself starting to believe it, starting to tie the pieces of who he is now to how living on the streets could have made him that way. He believes he steals because he’s afraid he’ll have to go back, he believes he forges beautiful, wealthy women because he wants their shiny, pampered lives, their security. He believes he got into his line of work because lifting wallets out of pockets and purses was a gateway, that he met his first clients in holding cells and backroom high-stakes poker games.
“The thing is, Eames,” Arthur says when Eames has stopped, “I’ve done background checks on everyone I work with, and I know you visited your parents six months ago,” and Eames realizes the only person he managed to convince was himself.
“Just trying to keep you on your toes,” Eames says, grinning winningly.
“Sometimes you just can’t stop yourself from talking total bullshit, can you?” Arthur says, rolling his eyes. He’s right. Sometimes Eames just can’t stop himself. Mostly though, he doesn’t try.
*
Maybe it starts because Eames wants to win. He’s a gambler by trade but not by nature. Eames always wins, no matter what the odds are, because he doesn’t give a shit about odds. Eames, like any successful gambler, makes his own luck; Eames cheats.
Morality, like the truth, is malleable. Eames has a knack for rationalizing himself into good moral standing, which is why he has no problem breaking into Arthur’s flat. It’s only fair, he reasons, now that he knows about Arthur’s thorough background checks; this is just how someone like Eames does a background check of his own.
He finds out that Arthur likes French cinema and Russian novels, plenty of things that don’t surprise Eames at all. But he also finds out that Arthur has the entire series of Muppet movies, reads comic books, listens to Echo and the Bunnymen, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and the Beta Band, has the Ramones and the Rezillos on vinyl.
The next time they work together, Eames is reading the last volume of Naoki Urasawa’s Astro Boy rewrite.
“What is that?” Arthur says instead of ‘hello.’
“Book,” Eames says in a distracted way, not looking away from the page he isn’t really reading.
“I didn’t know you were into that kind of thing,” Arthur says.
“I would have thought you’d be unsurprised I like books with lots of pictures,” Eames says, grinning up at Arthur finally. “It seems like the sort of thing you’d say.”
“You like it, then?” Arthur says, still looking distinctly suspicious.
“I like it better than Monster,” Eames says. Monster was the one he saw in Arthur’s apartment, which is why he read it. He honestly does prefer PLUTO.
“You’ve read Monster?” Arthur has stopped disguising his surprise, eyes widening as he stares at Eames.
Eames shrugs. “Sure,” he says. “I thought some of it was a little tasteless, but not bad.”
“Tasteless,” Arthur repeats, like he’s not sure what the word means.
“Personal opinion,” Eames says. “By the way,” he adds, “this business associate of mine-“ by which he means his own excellent forging skills “-got his hands on a couple extra tickets to the Sonic Youth show next weekend. I know it’s probably not your kind of thing-”
“Oh,” Arthur says suddenly and then laughs. “You’ve been snooping, Eames. What did you do, break into my apartment?”
“What?” Eames says innocently. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re really funny and creepy, Eames, congratulations,” Arthur says, already moving away. “Can we get to work now?”
So maybe it’s not that Eames likes to win, not just that. Maybe it’s also that Eames likes something he has to work at, something he has to plan in advance. Maybe it’s also because Eames likes a challenge and Arthur is nothing if not a challenge.
*
Maybe it starts because Eames is curious about Arthur, about the way Arthur sees him. Arthur isn’t the first person Eames has failed to charm, but it’s the first time Eames was surprised by the failure. The reason lying is so easy for Eames is that he realized a long time ago that people want to believe lies, if they’re good lies. People want to believe extremes; he thinks it might be why some people are so religious, why some people believe in UFOs and Atlantis. People hunger for the fantastic and the absurd and Eames provides it.
Arthur isn’t like most people. Arthur, Eames has come to realize, isn’t like anyone else but Arthur. He’s fiercely practical and cautious of extremes, and more than anyone Eames has ever met - more than Eames himself, even - Arthur is acutely aware of what people see when they look at him. Maybe Eames fakes his own death to see how Arthur would take it.
To be clear: Eames didn’t carefully stage his own death just to find out if it would upset Arthur. Things went bad with a painting he was forging in Moscow and he had to be scarce for a bit. Eames had to fake his death anyway, for professional reasons. The only place personal reasons factored in was when he decided not to tell Arthur about it.
Eames invents a new identity for himself and catches a flight to Brazil. He enjoys himself. He also calls Yusuf a lot.
“I don’t know what you expected,” Yusuf says. “It’s Arthur, he’s not going to skulk around in widow’s weeds and sob all day.”
“But he does seem unhappy, right?” Eames asks.
“I guess,” Yusuf says. “I don’t know, Arthur and I don’t talk about our feelings.”
“What do you talk about?” Eames asks, curious.
“Football,” Yusuf says. “He’s a Chelsea fan.”
“Well, that’s unappealing,” Eames says. “Maybe he just has terrible taste.”
“I think he just knows that you’re a terrible person,” Yusuf says.
Ariadne is much more helpful. “He got a little sniffly at the funeral,” she says. “I felt awful about it,” she adds significantly, like she wants Eames to be ashamed of himself. He isn’t though, not really, especially not when he calls Yusuf for confirmation and Yusuf says, “For God’s sake, Eames, it was allergies! The only person who cried was Cobb and I’m pretty sure it was because he’s got issues, none of which involve him being secretly in love with you.”
When Eames comes back to life, he expects something more dramatic. He doesn’t think Arthur will run at him and hug him, like a soldier come back from war, but he does expect some gaping and maybe even a good, hard punch full of repressed desire and hidden pain. All that happens is Eames shows up one morning, sitting at Arthur’s desk, says “Hello, darling,” and Arthur rolls his eyes and says, “Typical.”
Eames didn’t know how much he was counting on something until nothing happens. When Arthur walks away from him, already focused on something else, Eames feels this strange-sudden rush of heat and force, like he suddenly wants to laugh or shout until he can’t breathe. Eames feels this strange physical filling-up, something he can’t fake. Eames feels a disappointment so heavy it must be real and Arthur, apparently, doesn’t care if he lives or dies.
What is this, Eames thinks, what’s happening. He thinks these things, but he knows the answers, can’t pretend he doesn’t anymore. When he can’t will it to stop being true, when he can’t do anything else, he wonders, when did this happen?
*
It could have started anywhere, Eames doesn’t care where, not really. The point is that it started and he doesn’t know how to stop it anymore. He’s forgotten which of the lies he’s told Arthur were true, which ones were exaggerations, which ones where complete fabrications. It’s all so sloppy, not his best work, and possibly not even work at all, not anymore. Did Eames really lie himself into actual, real love with Arthur? Was it ever a lie? Eames can’t remember not feeling like this in front of Arthur. He can’t remember the last time he saw Arthur and didn’t feel a frantic pressure, a stubbornly unstoppable straining somewhere inside him, like the way everything in him jumps but doesn’t move, the way his whole system lurches and trips when he sees Arthur by accident, hunched under an umbrella in the Paris rain, looking pinched and tired and annoyed. He hasn’t seen Arthur in months, not since the last time Arthur found him out, and he still feels this total, impossible shock, like just the sight of Arthur is some minor miracle.
This, Eames thinks. This little thrill is dopamine. That little shake is adrenaline. None of this is really about Arthur. None of this is really real. It’s all chemical. But even Eames’s lies have limits and there are some stories even he can’t rewrite. He and Arthur are going to be one of those stories, he thinks.
Eames actually considers slipping away before Arthur sees him, which is entirely unlike him; Eames loves a scene. It’s already too late. Arthur is already crossing the street, holding his umbrella slightly in front of him to shield the wind. Eames stays put, angles his own umbrella to keep it from blowing inside out.
“Eames?” Arthur says, stepping up onto the curb beside him. “You’re supposed to be in Tel Aviv.”
Eames has stopped wondering if Arthur’s unfaltering knowledge of Eames’s whereabouts means anything; he knows it doesn’t. Arthur just makes it his business to know the facts. Maybe that’s why it had to be him. Maybe it had to be Arthur because Arthur is the only one who won’t let Eames fake it, won’t let Eames get away with anything. Eames always has to be real around Arthur because Arthur won’t accept anything less.
“Job finished early so I thought I’d take a vacation,” Eames says. “Warbick’s really coming along, as an extractor.”
“Well, he was always a shit point man,” Arthur says, sniffing like nothing Warbick does will ever redeem him from that first impression and Eames feels it again, that frantic swell. Eames feels it rush to his head, make him dizzy with the impact of it. He feels drunk, he feels ridiculous, it can’t get worse.
“You know I love you, don’t you?” he says. “I’m in love with you, I’m like this because I’m absolutely in love with you.”
Arthur just stares at him. Eames understands the confusion. Even Eames can’t believe he’s standing here, saying these crazy things (these crazily true things), and he prides himself on being able to believe anything.
“Eames,” Arthur says. “Seriously, this is more than enough. It’s not funny anymore.”
“It’s not supposed to be funny,” Eames says, stupidly. “Was it funny for you?”
“You get enough attention as it is,” Arthur says, “I’m not feeding your weird appetite for fake drama. I’m not going to feel sorry for you.”
The thing is, Eames doesn’t even feel sorry for himself anymore. He knows this is his fault, that there’s no one else to blame for the fact that Arthur doesn’t know him at all, will never trust him for an instant. Ridiculously, Eames thinks, oh god, I’m the boy who cried ‘I’m in love with you, Arthur.’
“I’ll call you if I hear about a job,” Arthur says. “Enjoy Paris.” He glances back at Eames once, as he starts to walk away. “And get laid,” he calls, “you look like you could use it.”
Eames wants to yell after him, to think of the perfect way to make him understand, to make him believe. He can’t think of anything. For the first time in a long time, Eames can’t think of a single damn thing to say. He stands on the curb for a long time and he realizes what a perfect, cliché performance it is: the broken-hearted man in the Paris rain, watching his love walk away. Perfectly cinematic, he thinks, and it pleases him, just a little bit, to play the part.
And he keeps standing like a tragic hero, like Bogart at the end of Casablanca, telling himself he’s pleased, until the rain seeps into his shoes and he goes back to his hotel.