Inception: I woo'd thee with my sword 2/3
fandom: Inception
title: I woo'd thee with my sword
pairing: arthur/eames
rating: pg13
summary: There's a job in Antarctica, during which Ariadne slowly ropes Arthur into being her point man and Eames and Arthur make a lot of Shakespeare references.
Part One
Arthur watches Ariadne build an interrogation room around them, cement blocks that smell like damp and mold, a table made of thin metal that rattles on uneven legs. The light flickers on the end of a frayed cord and sways back and forth. They’re in his mind, and Ariadne is practicing building carefully enough that his projections won’t notice. Arthur heaves a sigh.
“You’ve seen far too many movies,” he tells her. Ariadne glares at him.
“You haven’t seen enough,” she grumbles. Arthur turns to raise a disbelieving eyebrow at her.
“What is that even for,” he asks, pointing at an oversized bucket in the corner.
“Waterboarding?”
“That’s not really how it works,” Arthur says automatically, and then clears his throat as Ariadne gives him a look. “Anyway. This is going to have be reworked but we can talk about that later.” He surveys the room with an air of distinct disdain. “Can you make this less... Man in the Iron Mask?”
Ariadne builds them a warehouse, but a clean one, with large windows that let in plenty of sun and the strong scent of air freshener. “What’s up?”
“Dom is going to suggest we do the training exercises in your mind,” Arthur says, “tell me why.”
Ariadne slumps behind a desk, leg jumping on the floor. “Because... I’m the newest at dreamshare?”
“Yes,” Arthur says, “but that’s not the answer.” Ariadne bites her lip.
“Right because, Theo would be the newest... because I’m the architect?”
“No,” Arthur says, and leans against the wall. Ariadne gives a little frustrated sigh.
“Ah--because your minds are more suspicious,” Ariadne says, her face lighting up, “your projections find the intrusions faster because you’re professionals.”
“Because we’re militarized,” Arthur corrects.
“Oh,” Ariadne says, frustrated, “should have thought of that first.”
“Dom is going to suggest doing the training exercises in your mind,” Arthur repeats.
“Okay,” Ariadne agrees.
“We’re going to militarize your mind before then,” Arthur says, and then steps aside so his projection in the rafters has a clear shot to Ariadne’s head.
Ariadne is glaring at him when he wakes from the dream, rubbing at the faint phantom pain in her temple. “You’re an asshole.”
“We’re going into your mind,” Arthur says, smiling very slightly. “You go under first, and try to find me. Got it?”
“I am going to shoot you so many times,” Ariadne says, leaning back and closing her eyes. Arthur checks the needle in her arm and adjusts the PASIV.
“I look forward to it,” he says, and watches her fall asleep. He props his feet up and watches the clock for five minutes before putting himself under.
He opens his eyes on a beach, the sun shining down and throwing glare off the sand. Arthur shields his eyes, and looks up and down the coast. The waves are lapping gently, and the water is unbelievably clear. Arthur takes a deep breath of salt-tinged air and tilts his head into the breeze.
There’s a smattering of giggles behind him, and he turns to see Philippa and James playing in the wet sand, James’ hair curling against his neck, Philippa polishing shells with the hem of her dress. Arthur goes very, very still. Sand shifts into his shoe and gets into his sock, gritty against his skin.
“Found you!” Ariadne says, bouncing up. “Jesus, is this where you’ve been the whole time?”
“What are they doing here,” Arthur bites out, still staring. Ariadne turns to see what he’s staring at and startles back.
“Oh I--I didn’t know they were here.”
“When did you even see them,” Arthur says, fighting to keep his voice even.
Ariadne bites her lip, looking nervously at Arthur’s right hand, and he suddenly realizes that he’s pulled his piece, the grip familiar and comfortable in his palm.
“In Dom’s mind,” she says quietly. “I--I wasn’t really thinking when I built this, but I dream about his mind, sometimes. And Mal.You didn’t see it, Arthur, he locked her in this basement and tried to trap her in these, these repeated memories.”
“You shouldn’t let your subconscious build from memory,” Arthur says, eerily calm. Ariadne is looking at him like he’s a ticking time bomb. “It’s not good for the stability of the dream.”
“Okay,” Ariadne says, carefully sliding towards him. “Dom said that too.”
“You found me fast,” Arthur says, and his finger slips into the trigger guard, “it was a good run. But you still got one thing wrong.”
“Arthur?”
“I have seen it,” Arthur says, and presses the gun to the soft underside of his jaw. “I helped him build it.”
He’s out of the room before Ariadne wakes up, and ends up in the kitchenette, splashing water from the tap on his face and nursing the beginnings of a migraine.
“Ah,” Eames says from behind him. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Arthur rips a paper towel from the roll and dries his face and wrists. “Were you really?”
“No,” Eames admits, “I was looking for a ham and swiss. But I do have to talk to you about your monopoly on the PASIV. I need to start working on the forge.”
“That’s fine,” Arthur says, and wipes a hand over his face. “I wanted to ask you about helping me with Ariadne anyway. You can start tomorrow morning and use it until the meeting.”
“Sounds fair.” Eames says with his head in the refrigerator. “Ah ha, here it is.” He emerges triumphant, waving a package wrapped in white butcher’s paper. Arthur continues to frown at the sink basin. “I’ve got some beer in my room if you want a break from college girlspeak and ironic hairbands.”
Arthur’s headache knocks up a notch. “Yes,” he says, and Eames’ eyes go wide.
“Really?”
“Yes,” Arthur says again, impatient. “Let’s go.”
“This is terrible,” Arthur says, slurring very slightly, and drains the last of the beer in a cheap tin can.
“It is British,” Eames says. “Be grateful it’s not curried.” Arthur smiles at the ceiling, feeling warm all over. He’s lying on the bed in Eames’ room, where Eames had lifted the mattresses off the frame and pushed them together against one wall. Eames is sitting up, propped against the wall with his legs stretched out.
“I’m drinking English beer,” he says sadly. “my life.”
“I like you better when you’re drunk,” Eames says thoughtfully. Arthur crushes the beercan between his palms and tosses it in a random direction.
“I like you better when I’m drunk,” Arthur says very seriously, and Eames snorts.
“An old line,” he says, and then “bugger. That was the last of the beer.”
“Mm,” Arthur says, and lets his head loll against mattress.
“Are you falling asleep,” Eames asks, and he sounds amused.
“Stop talking,” Arthur orders, and wiggles back against the duvet. He sighs, and enjoys the sensation of his headache slowly fading.
“I do like you drunk,” Eames murmurs, and very slowly slides his fingers into Arthur’s hair. His nails scratch lightly on Arthur’s scalp, and after a few minutes his hands curl around Arthur’s shoulders and he tries to ease Arthur into his lap.
“No, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says without opening his eyes.
“Can’t blame me for trying,” Eames says.
When Arthur wakes up Eames is still sitting up, chin on his chest as he dozes, and his fingers are knotted in the tangles of Arthur’s hair.
//
“So,” Ariadne says when Arthur tries to slip back in the room for a fresh change of clothes and his toothbrush and instead mostly staggers through the door and knocks over the trashcan. “I’m thinking we should deal with this by never talking about it again.”
“Yes please,” Arthur says a little pathetically. He knew there was a reason he liked Ariadne.
“So,” Ariadne says again, and waggles her eyebrows. “where’d you sleep last night?”
“I take it back,” Arthur says, “I don’t like you at all.”
“You never said you liked me,” Ariadne says, hands on her hips.
“I did so,” Arthur says, rubbing at his eyes. “just now in my head--where the fuck is the coffee.”
“You can have coffee if you tell me where you slept last night.”
“Eames and I discussed shared usage of the PASIV device,” Arthur says with great dignity, and escapes to the bathroom. When he comes back Ariadne has a steaming mug of black-bitter coffee waiting, and he mostly abandons his plans of revenge.
//
There are two ways of militarizing the mind,” Arthur says from where’s he’s lounging on a couch.
“That’s a dorm room couch,” Ariadne says, “I’m not sure you should sitting on that.”
“Imaginary suit,” Arthur says. “I’m sure it can handle imaginary gonorrhea.”
“Right. Two ways of of militarizing?”
“Remember your horror movie tunnels? That’s the easiest way, go into another mind and repeatedly build nightmares until the mind is traumatized enough to develop paranoia, until the mind is actively on guard against any kind of intrusion.”
“Is... that what we’re going to do,” Ariadne asks, hesitant. The other students in the lounge, her projections, have turned to stare at Arthur, their expressions growing hostile.
“No. It can lead to unstable building, trouble distinguishing dreams from reality, fugue states and bouts of amnesia. “
“It doesn’t work?”
“No,” Arthur says, “it does. But the other way is better--takes longer, but it’s more flexible.” He smiles at her. “Your mind is too creative to lock down like a prison.”
“Is that how you militarized your mind? The trauma way?”
“Yeah,” Arthur says, “but that’s before we knew about the possible side effects. And my mind is just fine.”
“Yeah,” Ariadne says, “there is nothing about you that is hypervigilant, paranoid or delusional.”
Arthur frowns at her. “I’m not delusional.”
“Yeah, and all you and Eames did was discuss PASIV sharing.” The students have gone back to studying thick textbooks, and Arthur stands.
“Do you want to do this or not.”
Ariadne raises her hands appeasingly. “Yeah, fine, tell me the second way.”
“You have to train your mind to recognize intrusions, and then train your projections to respond efficiently and effectively.”
“Are you going to hide again?”
“No,” Arthur says, and leans against the wall. “look at your projections.”
Ariadne twists in her chair to look at the next table over, a group of young students bent over thick tomes of chemistry. “They’re studying?”
“Your subconscious will always tell you more than you think,” Arthur tells her. “you’ll always know, on some level, if there’s someone else in your mind. It’s just a matter of honing that knowledge into action.”
“They’re nervous,” Ariadne realizes aloud. The students are tapping their pencils, rapidfire against the tabletops, and darting their eyes from side to side.
“And?”
“And they weren’t doing that when we came in,” Ariadne says, “so... they can’t be reacting to you, because you came in with me.”
“One of these things is not like the others,” Arthur says blandly, and Ariadne whirls to examine the room. She picks out a dark haired boy slouched into an overstuffed chair, playing with the television remote and watching a rerun of an eighties sitcom.
“Him,” she says, “he’s not acting nervous, or twitchy.”
Eames sheds the forgery like a snake sloughing its skin, stepping out of it and cracking his neck. “Well done you.”
“Now make your projections kill him,” Arthur says.
Eames straightens in indignation. “Hey!”
“And me,” Arthur amends.
Ariadne closes her eyes, her fists clenching by her sides in concentration. A minute passes, and then another. Eames waves a pack of cards in the air.
“Fancy a game?” Arthur waits another minute, watching Ariadne carefully. When nothing happens he turns back to Eames.
“Yeah, okay.”
Ten minutes later and Arthur has strong-armed Eames into a game of Egyptian War, mostly because it’s a game random enough that even though he’s sure Eames is cheating his ass off, it still won’t end.
“Should we help her?” Eames asks, frowning as he plays out a king. “How many cards is this?”
“Three,” Arthur says, and smiles as he wins all eight cards. “And no, the point is for her to do it herself.”
“She’s taking forever,” Eames grumbles, and loses another three cards plus an ace to Arthur.
“You’re just mad you haven’t figured out how to cheat effectively at this game.” Arthur says smugly, and slaps the pile two seconds ahead of Eames, packing the entire pile into his deck.
“Doesn’t make sense,” Eames grumbles. “Where did you learn this, is this an American college thing.”
“I didn’t go to college,” Arthur says. Eames straightens.
“Really?” he asks, and looks crestfallen.
Arthur looks up from the card pile. “Disappointing?”
Eames plays out another card, not even looking. “Extremely. I was imagining young Arthur, unsure, in only two piece suits, virginal--”
“Viriginal?”
“Discovering your sexuality with the older, more experienced fraternity members...” Eames trails off.
Arthur snorts. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“You really didn’t go to college?”
Arthur takes advantage of Eames’ blatant disregard for the game to collect the discard pile again, even though he hasn’t played a winning card in almost three turns. “No, I didn’t go to college. I went to army. You?”
“Same,” Eames says, and tugs his shirt down so Arthur can see one of the swirling designs that wrap around his pectoral muscles. “I used to have an army tattoo here.” He taps a solid black line of ink.
Arthur follows Eames’ finger with his eyes. “You covered it up.”
“Wouldn’t do for someone to be able to trace me back that far,” Eames says.
“I didn’t know you were in the army,” Arthur offers. “Not for certain, anyway.”
Eames’ eyes crinkle around the edges. “Then I was very successful indeed.” To Arthur’s right, one of Ariadne’s projections makes a vaguely threatening gesture with a mechanical pencil. “Are you sure we can’t hurry this along?”
“Yeah,” Arthur says with a sigh, “okay.” He turns to Ariadne, who’s still got her eyes clenched shut, brow furrowed. “You got any ideas?”
Eames clears his throat. “Ariadne--your work generally reminds me of the Millenium Building in London.”
Arthur wakes up still laughing, Eames glaring at him. Ariadne sits up a few seconds later. “Did it work?”
“I’m not sure,” Arthur says, still grinning. “Last thing I remember is Eames being beaten by scientific calculators.”
Eames rubs at his head. “You were laughing so hard you didn’t see two of them come up behind you and drop the television on your head.”
“Shh,” Arthur says, “I’m committing your death to memory.”
“Think of me often, do you?”
“Yes,” Arthur says blandly, “when I get upset I think of all the times I’ve killed you or seen you die and it calms me.”
“Hi,” Ariadne’s interrupts, “remember me, the point of this entire exercise?”
“It was a good first effort,” Arthur tells her, leaning back again. His lips twitch again, and he fights back a smile. “Let’s try it again.”
//
“Arthur and Eames will do a fake abduction,” Dom says, back in the conference room. “posing as Russian agents. Perform a constructed interrogation scene, rough Curtland up a little, and knock him out. Then we put him under, and go into the scenario Ariadne has put together.”
Ariadne clears her throat. “He’ll wake up in a replica of the room he was questioned in, so he’ll think he’s waking up from being kicked around by the Russians. At this point Eames will come in as Lily Dunne, and play the damsel in distress. Arthur keeps up his part as the villain, and when he comes in he’ll let Curtland get the drop on him.”
Dom flips through the outline of the scenario. “After their escape you’re dropping them into a maze.”
“Right,” Ariadne says.
“We’ll have to run through it a few times beforehand. Are you sure it’s long enough that Eames will have time to get the information out of Curtland?”
“It’s infinitely long,” Ariadne says, “there’s only one way through and there’s no way he’ll be able to find it without knowing the trick. Once he spills Eames can lead him safely through and be ‘rescued’ by Dom.”
“Whatever he doesn’t want to tell his girlfriend he’ll spill to his rescuer,” Eames says.
“We’re going to want to test out the maze most of all,” Arthur says crisply. “If Eames can’t find his way through the whole scenario falls apart.”
“Thank you, Arthur,” Eames says, “your confidence in me is inspiring as ever.”
“Just telling it like it is, Mr. Eames.”
“We have three opportunities to get information,” Dom says. “First during the interrogation, then to Eames and finally to me.”
Ariadne raises her hand. “What if he lies to everyone?”
“Let’s add a fourth,” Arthur says, “a catch all. The whole dream, people will be asking him about elephants. He’ll be thinking about elephants. At the very end, Dom tells him he has to write a statement--his subconscious will automatically fill the file with the truth.”
“Why can’t we just do that first?” Theo asks.
“Because we need all that build up to ensure what goes into that file is the truth,” Dom says. “Continuous questioning will make his mind fixate on what he actually knows.”
“Let’s break for dinner,” Miles says, “we’re making excellent progress.”
“Hooray,” Eames says drily, “flash frozen macaroni and tomato paste.”
Ariadne leans close to him as they file out, “Eames--I have Cup of Noodles. Come to our room after.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” he whispers back. “I’ll be there.” He winks at Arthur, and Arthur stares impassively back.
“You can have Oriental flavor,” he says. “Ariadne likes Beef and Chicken is for me.”
“Oriental’s my favourite,” Eames says seriously, and is rewarded for his utter blatant lie by the faintest twitch at the corners of Arthur’s mouth.
//
The first thing Eames does upon arrival in their room is swing himself up onto Arthur’s bed without using the little rickety ladder. “I wish I had a coin,” he says, “so I could bounce it off this mattress and let its spring speak for how anal you are about making the bed.”
“I wish Ariadne was in the bathroom,” Arthur replies, “so I could eat ramen noodles in front of you and then kick you out--oh, wait.”
Eames reaches into a pocket and retrieves a handkerchief, which he waves obnoxiously down into Arthur’s face. “Take mercy on us, love.”
Arthur bats at him good-naturedly from his seat on Ariadne’s bed. “That’s not even white.” He kicks off his shoes. “Ariadne will be back soon, and she won’t let anyone else touch her instant noodles.”
Eames drops the handkerchief on Arthur’s face. “Come up here, it’s weird talking to you on different levels.”
Arthur steps up on Ariadne’s mattress, arms wrapped around the metal bar framing the top bunk. “I often feel we’re talking on different levels, Mr. Eames.”
“Ha bloody ha,” Eames says, and grabs Arthur by the waistcoat, trying to haul him over the frame onto the bed. Arthur struggles a little, for fun rather than in seriousness, and lets Eames drag him until he’s lying next to him on the skinny mattress. He’s touching Eames all the way down his side, their ankle bones knocking against each other painfully.
“Your handkerchief,” Arthur says, and tries to hand over the little square of cloth. Eames takes it from him and then hands it right back.
“No, that’s yours,” he says, and when Arthur takes it back there’s a battered cigarette tucked into one of the folds.
“Doesn’t do me any good without a way to light it,” Arthur says, spinning it between two fingers. Eames frowns.
“What do you mean, you have--” Eames fumbles in his trouser pocket, and comes out with the little green lighter. He turns to face Arthur on the bed, and their faces are very close together. Arthur starts to wiggle backwards, but the look on Eames’ face stops him. He looks at Arthur with something close to wonder.
“Mr. Eames?”
“I didn’t even feel you slip that in my pocket,” he says.
Arthur slips the cigarette into Eames’s mouth, his fingers brushing against dry lips. Eames lights it without looking away from Arthur, and exhales the first drag without filtering it through his lungs first, inhaling the smoke and blowing it right back out, where it slides in the gap between Arthur’s lips, his mouth slightly slack. Arthur lets it roll around his tongue and blows it back out in little puffs. Eames leans into him.
“Not very many people can pick my pocket,” he says very softly.
“Is that so,” Arthur murmurs, and his hand falls onto Eames’ chest, pressed above where Eames had told him his first tattoo had been inked into his skin.
“Hey guys,” Ariadne says, her hair damp from her shower, and Arthur throws himself backwards so violently he tips right over the railing and bruises his ribs on the edge of a chair on his way down.
//
When Arthur enters the conference room with the PASIV the next morning Eames jumps up and pulls out his chair for him. Arthur stops short, stares at him, and then pointedly turns to where Theo is sitting.
“Move,” he says flatly, and Theo scrambles out of the chair so fast he nearly faceplants onto the table. Arthur takes his seat calmly, and slides the briefcase across the table to Dom.
“There you are, then,” he hears Eames say brightly, “don’t worry about him.”
“Thank you Mr. Eames,” Theo says faintly.
Arthur ignores Dom’s raised eyebrow and Ariadne’s pointed smirk in favour of finding a vein and arranging the cannula. “Ariadne is going to show us the room and the maze for today.” Through his peripheral vision he can see Theo leaning across the table, adjusting the drip.
Arthur blinks, and opens his eyes to find himself in an exact replica of one of the bare supply rooms he and Ariadne had picked out earlier, plain concrete blocks and harsh lighting, a single chair the only furnishing.
“Good,” Dom says. “lead the way.” Ariadne takes them through the doorway into a hallway, and halfway down the corridor stops to gesture at a square panel in the wall.
“Laundry chute,” she says gleefully, hauling it open and throwing herself inside. Her whoop echoes back to them as she slides down to the level below.
“You sure you should be seeing this much?” Eames asks Dom. “No offense, mate. You can understand my concerns.”
Arthur bites back an automatic defense of Cobb. He presses his hand to the wall instead and thinks of the last time he saw Mal, really saw her. They’d built a skyscraper, all steel and chrome and long sheets of glass, and Mal used that little bit of impossible she had always done so well to make the stars burn supernova bright around them, the black of the night sky wrapped around them like velvet and Mal glowing white-golden under a full moon.
“It’s under control,” Dom says. “but there’s no need for extra people to see the maze--just means high chances of our own subconsciousness leaking through. I’ll go outside and check on the rendezvous point where I’m going to appear as the rescuer, practice driving the route a few times.”
“I’m supposed to be chasing you through the maze,” Arthur reminds Eames, and he nods, affecting the visage of Lily Dunne in a pantsuit and disappearing down the laundry chute.
“I really haven’t seen her,” Dom says, and Arthur remembers all the other times Dom told him it was fine, that he could handle it.
“I believe you,” Arthur says, and it’s not until he’s sliding down the laundry chute himself that he realizes he meant it.
//
The maze is dark, dirty grey ice and cold rock carved into thin scrabbly tunnels that are too short to stand up properly in. Eames, as the only one to have never seen them before, takes the lead, and wanders around for a good hour before admitting Curtland would be lost for exactly as long as they want him to be. It takes another half hour for him to admit defeat.
“Alright,” he says, “I give up. What’s the trick?” Ariadne beams, completely chuffed, and waits until the next fork, three separate entrances to other tunnels branching out.
“Look,” she says, and pulls Eames over to crouch down by the right side of the rightmost tunnel. “see, there?”
Eames squints at the rock, where a faint white-bluish glow can be seen where the curve of the tunnel meets the ground. “The moss? But I was checking that. All the tunnels have got different kinds and you’re not following the same colour.”
Ariadne shakes her head impatiently. “It’s a pattern, blue green yellow orange. No matter which you start with, if you stick with the pattern it will steer you through to the end.”
“Inspired,” Eames compliments, “breadcrumbs.”
“String,” Ariadne corrects, and Arthur grins from where he’s looking at the moss in the middle tunnel.
“Very metaphorical of you,” Eames says.
“On many levels,” Arthur says. “now repeat the pattern.”
“Blue green yellow orange,” Eames says without hesitation. “I’m not altogether inexperienced at this, you know. Some of us went to college.” Arthur manages to make his snort incredibly disbelieving. “And by some of us I mean Ariadne.”
“You didn’t go to college?” Ariadne asks Arthur.
“No,” Eames says mournfully and then suddenly brightens, Lily Dunne sliding off him in little ripples.
“Oh shit,” Arthur says preemptively.
“You didn’t experiment,” Eames says rapturously, “oh Arthur, tell me you’re a virgin.” Then, in remarkably good foresight, Eames takes off down the right hand tunnel.
“Excuse me,” Arthur says to Ariadne, and picks the left tunnel, sprinting hard and pulling up a mental blueprint of the maze.
He finds the split-second look of surprise on Eames’ face as he rounds a corner and is greeted with the sight of Arthur launching himself into a full body tackle one of the most satisfying moments of his professional career.
“You would have the whole thing bloody memorized,” Eames grunts, and Arthur positions himself so they come down with his elbow in Eames’ gut. “Ah,” Eames gasps, wheezing for breath, “it was only--a joke--” He twists, grabbing at Arthur’s tie to pull him off, and Arthur presses his knee just below the buckle of Eames’ belt. Eames goes completely motionless.
“What’s that, Mr. Eames?”
“I was just commenting on your obvious wealth of sexual experience,” Eames says without missing a beat, and then winces as Arthur shifts his weight. “Be gentle with me, darling.”
“Do you really think,” Arthur drawls, and presses his knee down, just the slightest bit of pressure until Eames’ breath catches and his hips twitch. “that you should be calling me darling right now?”
Eames drops his hands to Arthur’s waist, dipping low and his thumbs digging into the points of Arthur’s hipbones. “In all honesty, I think now is the absolute perfect time to be calling you darling.”
Arthur’s tie has come loose, and the end dangles in Eames face as Arthur all but straddles him, one leg pressed against the cold floor and the other hitched up, his knee still flush with Eames’ crotch. Eames bites at the tie, makes imprints from his teeth in the pattern and tugs at it until the fabric pills.
“That is Christian Dior,” Arthur says.
“My apologies,” Eames says, leaning back, and Arthur looks at the damp grooves in his tie. Eames reaches up with one hand and makes a fist around the tie, sliding down to the end before letting go and starting again at the top, sliding down and letting go, over and over.
Arthur watches his tie disappear and reappear in Eames’ fist. “I guess I can forgive it,” he breathes, biting his bottom lip just to see Eames stare at his mouth. “Just this once.”
Eames tugs very gently at his tie, and Arthur slowly lets himself be pulled down. “That’s very magnanimous of you, darling,” he says, and they’re so close now that if Arthur licked his lips his tongue would drag across Eames’ mouth.
“It is,” Arthur allows, and then they wake up.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Eames says to Theo as they stretch and sit up, “but I have this almost overwhelming urge to punch you right in your face.”
//
Eames is standing in front of a wall covered in mirrors, each panel at a slightly different angle. He’s wearing Lily Dunne, but the set of her shoulders looks ill-fitted, and she’s frowning.
“Your forge isn’t ready,” Arthur says, and Eames turns to face him, still frowning with Lily Dunne’s mouth.
“It’ll be ready,” he says in Lily’s voice, stiffly.
Arthur surveys him critically. “Are you certain?” Eames shakes himself, regaining his own face, and glares openly.
“I am very good at my job,” he snaps. “your usual brand of condescending commentary isn’t necessary.”
Arthur blinks. “I know you’re good at your job.”
Eames, who’s in the process of drawing himself up, scowling, stops short. “You do?”
“Yes,” Arthur says briskly, “obviously. I wouldn’t work with you otherwise.”
Eames visibly recovers. “Well yes, obviously.”
“I can pull footage off security cameras, airport surveillance and CCTV archives,” Arthur says, “have it cut together for you.”
Eames blinks at him. “I--that would be nice.”
“I’ll have it for you by tomorrow,” Arthur says.
“The forge will be perfect by the end of the day,” Eames promises. Arthur nods briskly.
“Good. I want to practice the interrogation scene.”
“We can wing it, can’t we?”
“I dislike winging it,” Arthur says, and Eames grins.
“You? Really?”
“Let me hear your Russian,” Arthur says, ignoring him. “I want to match our dialects.”
“You’re overthinking this entire thing, darling,” Eames says.
Arthur glares. “Don’t call me darling.”
“I’m hoping it will trigger a physical and emotional response,” Eames says, “get you on top of me again.”
“I’m not Pavlov’s dog,” Arthur says, offended.
“You can’t blame me for trying,” Eames says in Russian.
“Passable enough,” Arthur responds in kind. “You can do English with a Russian accent?”
“Yes,” Eames says, affecting the accent, “what’re we going to do to rough him up?” He drops the paneled wall of mirrors and erects a sloppy copy of Ariadne’s interrogation room.
“Nothing too extreme,” Arthur murmurs, thinking. “no lasting physical damage.”
“Scare, not injure,” Eames says.
“Yes,” Arthur says. “what should I wear,” he wonders aloud. No designer brands, he thinks. Better to do a regular suit that doesn’t fit him quite right, button down shirt with sweat marks and a stained tie. Less put together point man, more government issue thug.
“We’ll do the complete rundown Monday,” he says, satisfied.
“Ssh,” Eames says, “I’m dressing you with my eyes.” Arthur sighs heavily, and tugs his pistol from its holster.
“I’ll leave you to it, Mr. Eames.”
“Wait,” Eames says, “I’m about done. I’ll pick it up again when you’ve got that footage for me.”
Arthur shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
Eames steps up close to Arthur and wraps his fingers around Arthur’s wrist, tugging the barrel of the gun until it rests below his breastbone. “Want to kick me out?”
“Why Mr. Eames,” Arthur says, “that’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
//
“Arthur!” Miles says, and Arthur sighs. He hasn’t once managed to brush his teeth without being interrupted. He wonders if Ariadne would mind if he started brushing his teeth in the room and only venturing out when he needed to spit.
“Yes,” he says politely.
“We need to test the compound,” Miles says, “Theo has done some amazing things--we’ve managed to reduce the number of projections that appear in the dreams.”
Arthur suddenly becomes much more interested in the conversation. He can think of about a million jobs that would have gone easier had they not been racing against being overwhelmed by hordes of projections. “Even militarized minds?”
“Theoretically,” Miles says, which is one of Arthur’s least favourite words.
“Yes,” he says with a sigh, “fine, I’ll test it out for you.”
“Brilliant,” Miles says cheerfully, “you’ll play the mark and Mr. Eames has agreed to come in and be the part of the extractor.
“Fantastic,” Arthur says sourly.
Arthur dreams himself a shoestore. Handstitched, expensive leather shoes, all in the same simple design. He walks up and down the aisles, looking at the pairs of shoes lined up on the shelves, all identical. It smells very heavily of leather, and Arthur takes a breath so deep his ribcage creaks.
“Hey,” Ariadne says from behind him. “I went to get more coffee and Theo asked me to come down and find you. What’s going on?”
Arthur reaches out and touches the stitching on one pair of shoes, dragging his nails over the thread and across smooth unblemished leather. “Testing a new compound,” he says. He supposes it’s working, because there aren’t any other customers--or employees. He and Ariadne walk down the aisle and stop. At the end of the next aisle Eames is leaning towards one of the shelves, sniffing deeply. He looks up at them and grins.
“My, it’s just like a party down here,” he says, and Ariadne grabs Arthur hard by the arm and drags him aside.
“What is he doing here,” she shrieks in a whisper. Arthur stares at her.
“We--”
“Are you crazy,” Ariadne hisses over him, “that’s not a rhetorical crazy by the way, are you actually insane? You have a shade of Eames running around your subconscious?”
“What?” Arthur yelps.
“Do you want to end up like Dom,” Ariadne says, “are you waiting for a train, Arthur!?”
Arthur grits his teeth. “Eames,” he says “is also testing the new compound.” Ariadne takes a step back.
“Oh,” she says. “My bad.”
“Hullo,” Eames says cheerfully.
“I’m going to go kill myself now,” Arthur says, glaring at the world in general.
“I’ll join you,” Eames says, and does.
Arthur wakes up to Eames’ snickers and Ariadne’s apologetic looks. “It worked,” he reported, “no projections sighted, but no one was building anything.”
“Again,” Miles says, and Arthur falls asleep.
Arthur is lying on his back in a meadow. “No,” he says, “I refuse.” A daffodil brushes against his cheek.
“I’ll keep the nature away,” Eame says, and offers him a hand. Arthur lets Eames pull him to his feet.
“I know you of old, Benedick,” Arthur says, and Eames laughs, tugging him along.
“Dreaming does make you literary,” he says. “do you have a special fondness for the Bard?”
“Moreso than Dostrovsky,” Arthur says darkly. Arthur has killed several people with axes, and you don’t see him crying in Siberian prisons about it. “Aren’t you supposed to be building?”
“I am,” Eames says, and points up. Arthur looks up. The stars are moving, spinning in spirals and weaving in intricate patterns. Eames sits in the grass. “Smoke?”
Arthur watches the constellation Orion form and fade again, the bull Taurus run across the sky, chasing Cassiopeia’s chair. “Yes,” he says, and sits next to Eames. Eames lights his own cigarette with a flick of his thumb, but when Arthur reaches for the lighter he pulls back.
“Indulge me, won’t you?” he says, and Arthur rolls the cigarette around in his mouth.
“I suppose,” Arthur agrees, because the grass is dewy enough to make his skin feel cool through the fabric of his suit, and the starlight is casting dappled shadows across the meandering rows of wildflowers. Eames leans so the glowing tip of his cigarette touches the end of Arthur’s, and inhales so the flare lights Arthur’s cigarette. Arthur blows his first lungful of smoke into Eames face, and Eames pulls away, grinning.
“You are delightfully contrary,” he says, lying back in the grass. Arthur settles down next to him and takes another drag. It’s quiet enough he can hear the soft hissing flare of the paper as it burns, and the ash blows off in the breeze, dancing like snowflakes.
“You deserve this state,” Arthur says, stretching against the ground, “nor would I love at a lower rate.”
Eames laughs lowly, a rumbling chuckle that makes something uncurl in Arthur’s chest. “Are you trying to romance me with a poem about giving up virginity?”
“It’s now or never,” Arthur says, closing his eyes. The stars shine through his eyelids, whirling pinpricks of light.
And then three commandos in full camouflage burst into the clearing and snap their necks.
“Good enough,” Miles says.
“Had we but world enough, and time,” Eames says, and Arthur smiles all the way back to his room.
Part Three
title: I woo'd thee with my sword
pairing: arthur/eames
rating: pg13
summary: There's a job in Antarctica, during which Ariadne slowly ropes Arthur into being her point man and Eames and Arthur make a lot of Shakespeare references.
Part One
Arthur watches Ariadne build an interrogation room around them, cement blocks that smell like damp and mold, a table made of thin metal that rattles on uneven legs. The light flickers on the end of a frayed cord and sways back and forth. They’re in his mind, and Ariadne is practicing building carefully enough that his projections won’t notice. Arthur heaves a sigh.
“You’ve seen far too many movies,” he tells her. Ariadne glares at him.
“You haven’t seen enough,” she grumbles. Arthur turns to raise a disbelieving eyebrow at her.
“What is that even for,” he asks, pointing at an oversized bucket in the corner.
“Waterboarding?”
“That’s not really how it works,” Arthur says automatically, and then clears his throat as Ariadne gives him a look. “Anyway. This is going to have be reworked but we can talk about that later.” He surveys the room with an air of distinct disdain. “Can you make this less... Man in the Iron Mask?”
Ariadne builds them a warehouse, but a clean one, with large windows that let in plenty of sun and the strong scent of air freshener. “What’s up?”
“Dom is going to suggest we do the training exercises in your mind,” Arthur says, “tell me why.”
Ariadne slumps behind a desk, leg jumping on the floor. “Because... I’m the newest at dreamshare?”
“Yes,” Arthur says, “but that’s not the answer.” Ariadne bites her lip.
“Right because, Theo would be the newest... because I’m the architect?”
“No,” Arthur says, and leans against the wall. Ariadne gives a little frustrated sigh.
“Ah--because your minds are more suspicious,” Ariadne says, her face lighting up, “your projections find the intrusions faster because you’re professionals.”
“Because we’re militarized,” Arthur corrects.
“Oh,” Ariadne says, frustrated, “should have thought of that first.”
“Dom is going to suggest doing the training exercises in your mind,” Arthur repeats.
“Okay,” Ariadne agrees.
“We’re going to militarize your mind before then,” Arthur says, and then steps aside so his projection in the rafters has a clear shot to Ariadne’s head.
Ariadne is glaring at him when he wakes from the dream, rubbing at the faint phantom pain in her temple. “You’re an asshole.”
“We’re going into your mind,” Arthur says, smiling very slightly. “You go under first, and try to find me. Got it?”
“I am going to shoot you so many times,” Ariadne says, leaning back and closing her eyes. Arthur checks the needle in her arm and adjusts the PASIV.
“I look forward to it,” he says, and watches her fall asleep. He props his feet up and watches the clock for five minutes before putting himself under.
He opens his eyes on a beach, the sun shining down and throwing glare off the sand. Arthur shields his eyes, and looks up and down the coast. The waves are lapping gently, and the water is unbelievably clear. Arthur takes a deep breath of salt-tinged air and tilts his head into the breeze.
There’s a smattering of giggles behind him, and he turns to see Philippa and James playing in the wet sand, James’ hair curling against his neck, Philippa polishing shells with the hem of her dress. Arthur goes very, very still. Sand shifts into his shoe and gets into his sock, gritty against his skin.
“Found you!” Ariadne says, bouncing up. “Jesus, is this where you’ve been the whole time?”
“What are they doing here,” Arthur bites out, still staring. Ariadne turns to see what he’s staring at and startles back.
“Oh I--I didn’t know they were here.”
“When did you even see them,” Arthur says, fighting to keep his voice even.
Ariadne bites her lip, looking nervously at Arthur’s right hand, and he suddenly realizes that he’s pulled his piece, the grip familiar and comfortable in his palm.
“In Dom’s mind,” she says quietly. “I--I wasn’t really thinking when I built this, but I dream about his mind, sometimes. And Mal.You didn’t see it, Arthur, he locked her in this basement and tried to trap her in these, these repeated memories.”
“You shouldn’t let your subconscious build from memory,” Arthur says, eerily calm. Ariadne is looking at him like he’s a ticking time bomb. “It’s not good for the stability of the dream.”
“Okay,” Ariadne says, carefully sliding towards him. “Dom said that too.”
“You found me fast,” Arthur says, and his finger slips into the trigger guard, “it was a good run. But you still got one thing wrong.”
“Arthur?”
“I have seen it,” Arthur says, and presses the gun to the soft underside of his jaw. “I helped him build it.”
He’s out of the room before Ariadne wakes up, and ends up in the kitchenette, splashing water from the tap on his face and nursing the beginnings of a migraine.
“Ah,” Eames says from behind him. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Arthur rips a paper towel from the roll and dries his face and wrists. “Were you really?”
“No,” Eames admits, “I was looking for a ham and swiss. But I do have to talk to you about your monopoly on the PASIV. I need to start working on the forge.”
“That’s fine,” Arthur says, and wipes a hand over his face. “I wanted to ask you about helping me with Ariadne anyway. You can start tomorrow morning and use it until the meeting.”
“Sounds fair.” Eames says with his head in the refrigerator. “Ah ha, here it is.” He emerges triumphant, waving a package wrapped in white butcher’s paper. Arthur continues to frown at the sink basin. “I’ve got some beer in my room if you want a break from college girlspeak and ironic hairbands.”
Arthur’s headache knocks up a notch. “Yes,” he says, and Eames’ eyes go wide.
“Really?”
“Yes,” Arthur says again, impatient. “Let’s go.”
“This is terrible,” Arthur says, slurring very slightly, and drains the last of the beer in a cheap tin can.
“It is British,” Eames says. “Be grateful it’s not curried.” Arthur smiles at the ceiling, feeling warm all over. He’s lying on the bed in Eames’ room, where Eames had lifted the mattresses off the frame and pushed them together against one wall. Eames is sitting up, propped against the wall with his legs stretched out.
“I’m drinking English beer,” he says sadly. “my life.”
“I like you better when you’re drunk,” Eames says thoughtfully. Arthur crushes the beercan between his palms and tosses it in a random direction.
“I like you better when I’m drunk,” Arthur says very seriously, and Eames snorts.
“An old line,” he says, and then “bugger. That was the last of the beer.”
“Mm,” Arthur says, and lets his head loll against mattress.
“Are you falling asleep,” Eames asks, and he sounds amused.
“Stop talking,” Arthur orders, and wiggles back against the duvet. He sighs, and enjoys the sensation of his headache slowly fading.
“I do like you drunk,” Eames murmurs, and very slowly slides his fingers into Arthur’s hair. His nails scratch lightly on Arthur’s scalp, and after a few minutes his hands curl around Arthur’s shoulders and he tries to ease Arthur into his lap.
“No, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says without opening his eyes.
“Can’t blame me for trying,” Eames says.
When Arthur wakes up Eames is still sitting up, chin on his chest as he dozes, and his fingers are knotted in the tangles of Arthur’s hair.
//
“So,” Ariadne says when Arthur tries to slip back in the room for a fresh change of clothes and his toothbrush and instead mostly staggers through the door and knocks over the trashcan. “I’m thinking we should deal with this by never talking about it again.”
“Yes please,” Arthur says a little pathetically. He knew there was a reason he liked Ariadne.
“So,” Ariadne says again, and waggles her eyebrows. “where’d you sleep last night?”
“I take it back,” Arthur says, “I don’t like you at all.”
“You never said you liked me,” Ariadne says, hands on her hips.
“I did so,” Arthur says, rubbing at his eyes. “just now in my head--where the fuck is the coffee.”
“You can have coffee if you tell me where you slept last night.”
“Eames and I discussed shared usage of the PASIV device,” Arthur says with great dignity, and escapes to the bathroom. When he comes back Ariadne has a steaming mug of black-bitter coffee waiting, and he mostly abandons his plans of revenge.
//
There are two ways of militarizing the mind,” Arthur says from where’s he’s lounging on a couch.
“That’s a dorm room couch,” Ariadne says, “I’m not sure you should sitting on that.”
“Imaginary suit,” Arthur says. “I’m sure it can handle imaginary gonorrhea.”
“Right. Two ways of of militarizing?”
“Remember your horror movie tunnels? That’s the easiest way, go into another mind and repeatedly build nightmares until the mind is traumatized enough to develop paranoia, until the mind is actively on guard against any kind of intrusion.”
“Is... that what we’re going to do,” Ariadne asks, hesitant. The other students in the lounge, her projections, have turned to stare at Arthur, their expressions growing hostile.
“No. It can lead to unstable building, trouble distinguishing dreams from reality, fugue states and bouts of amnesia. “
“It doesn’t work?”
“No,” Arthur says, “it does. But the other way is better--takes longer, but it’s more flexible.” He smiles at her. “Your mind is too creative to lock down like a prison.”
“Is that how you militarized your mind? The trauma way?”
“Yeah,” Arthur says, “but that’s before we knew about the possible side effects. And my mind is just fine.”
“Yeah,” Ariadne says, “there is nothing about you that is hypervigilant, paranoid or delusional.”
Arthur frowns at her. “I’m not delusional.”
“Yeah, and all you and Eames did was discuss PASIV sharing.” The students have gone back to studying thick textbooks, and Arthur stands.
“Do you want to do this or not.”
Ariadne raises her hands appeasingly. “Yeah, fine, tell me the second way.”
“You have to train your mind to recognize intrusions, and then train your projections to respond efficiently and effectively.”
“Are you going to hide again?”
“No,” Arthur says, and leans against the wall. “look at your projections.”
Ariadne twists in her chair to look at the next table over, a group of young students bent over thick tomes of chemistry. “They’re studying?”
“Your subconscious will always tell you more than you think,” Arthur tells her. “you’ll always know, on some level, if there’s someone else in your mind. It’s just a matter of honing that knowledge into action.”
“They’re nervous,” Ariadne realizes aloud. The students are tapping their pencils, rapidfire against the tabletops, and darting their eyes from side to side.
“And?”
“And they weren’t doing that when we came in,” Ariadne says, “so... they can’t be reacting to you, because you came in with me.”
“One of these things is not like the others,” Arthur says blandly, and Ariadne whirls to examine the room. She picks out a dark haired boy slouched into an overstuffed chair, playing with the television remote and watching a rerun of an eighties sitcom.
“Him,” she says, “he’s not acting nervous, or twitchy.”
Eames sheds the forgery like a snake sloughing its skin, stepping out of it and cracking his neck. “Well done you.”
“Now make your projections kill him,” Arthur says.
Eames straightens in indignation. “Hey!”
“And me,” Arthur amends.
Ariadne closes her eyes, her fists clenching by her sides in concentration. A minute passes, and then another. Eames waves a pack of cards in the air.
“Fancy a game?” Arthur waits another minute, watching Ariadne carefully. When nothing happens he turns back to Eames.
“Yeah, okay.”
Ten minutes later and Arthur has strong-armed Eames into a game of Egyptian War, mostly because it’s a game random enough that even though he’s sure Eames is cheating his ass off, it still won’t end.
“Should we help her?” Eames asks, frowning as he plays out a king. “How many cards is this?”
“Three,” Arthur says, and smiles as he wins all eight cards. “And no, the point is for her to do it herself.”
“She’s taking forever,” Eames grumbles, and loses another three cards plus an ace to Arthur.
“You’re just mad you haven’t figured out how to cheat effectively at this game.” Arthur says smugly, and slaps the pile two seconds ahead of Eames, packing the entire pile into his deck.
“Doesn’t make sense,” Eames grumbles. “Where did you learn this, is this an American college thing.”
“I didn’t go to college,” Arthur says. Eames straightens.
“Really?” he asks, and looks crestfallen.
Arthur looks up from the card pile. “Disappointing?”
Eames plays out another card, not even looking. “Extremely. I was imagining young Arthur, unsure, in only two piece suits, virginal--”
“Viriginal?”
“Discovering your sexuality with the older, more experienced fraternity members...” Eames trails off.
Arthur snorts. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“You really didn’t go to college?”
Arthur takes advantage of Eames’ blatant disregard for the game to collect the discard pile again, even though he hasn’t played a winning card in almost three turns. “No, I didn’t go to college. I went to army. You?”
“Same,” Eames says, and tugs his shirt down so Arthur can see one of the swirling designs that wrap around his pectoral muscles. “I used to have an army tattoo here.” He taps a solid black line of ink.
Arthur follows Eames’ finger with his eyes. “You covered it up.”
“Wouldn’t do for someone to be able to trace me back that far,” Eames says.
“I didn’t know you were in the army,” Arthur offers. “Not for certain, anyway.”
Eames’ eyes crinkle around the edges. “Then I was very successful indeed.” To Arthur’s right, one of Ariadne’s projections makes a vaguely threatening gesture with a mechanical pencil. “Are you sure we can’t hurry this along?”
“Yeah,” Arthur says with a sigh, “okay.” He turns to Ariadne, who’s still got her eyes clenched shut, brow furrowed. “You got any ideas?”
Eames clears his throat. “Ariadne--your work generally reminds me of the Millenium Building in London.”
Arthur wakes up still laughing, Eames glaring at him. Ariadne sits up a few seconds later. “Did it work?”
“I’m not sure,” Arthur says, still grinning. “Last thing I remember is Eames being beaten by scientific calculators.”
Eames rubs at his head. “You were laughing so hard you didn’t see two of them come up behind you and drop the television on your head.”
“Shh,” Arthur says, “I’m committing your death to memory.”
“Think of me often, do you?”
“Yes,” Arthur says blandly, “when I get upset I think of all the times I’ve killed you or seen you die and it calms me.”
“Hi,” Ariadne’s interrupts, “remember me, the point of this entire exercise?”
“It was a good first effort,” Arthur tells her, leaning back again. His lips twitch again, and he fights back a smile. “Let’s try it again.”
//
“Arthur and Eames will do a fake abduction,” Dom says, back in the conference room. “posing as Russian agents. Perform a constructed interrogation scene, rough Curtland up a little, and knock him out. Then we put him under, and go into the scenario Ariadne has put together.”
Ariadne clears her throat. “He’ll wake up in a replica of the room he was questioned in, so he’ll think he’s waking up from being kicked around by the Russians. At this point Eames will come in as Lily Dunne, and play the damsel in distress. Arthur keeps up his part as the villain, and when he comes in he’ll let Curtland get the drop on him.”
Dom flips through the outline of the scenario. “After their escape you’re dropping them into a maze.”
“Right,” Ariadne says.
“We’ll have to run through it a few times beforehand. Are you sure it’s long enough that Eames will have time to get the information out of Curtland?”
“It’s infinitely long,” Ariadne says, “there’s only one way through and there’s no way he’ll be able to find it without knowing the trick. Once he spills Eames can lead him safely through and be ‘rescued’ by Dom.”
“Whatever he doesn’t want to tell his girlfriend he’ll spill to his rescuer,” Eames says.
“We’re going to want to test out the maze most of all,” Arthur says crisply. “If Eames can’t find his way through the whole scenario falls apart.”
“Thank you, Arthur,” Eames says, “your confidence in me is inspiring as ever.”
“Just telling it like it is, Mr. Eames.”
“We have three opportunities to get information,” Dom says. “First during the interrogation, then to Eames and finally to me.”
Ariadne raises her hand. “What if he lies to everyone?”
“Let’s add a fourth,” Arthur says, “a catch all. The whole dream, people will be asking him about elephants. He’ll be thinking about elephants. At the very end, Dom tells him he has to write a statement--his subconscious will automatically fill the file with the truth.”
“Why can’t we just do that first?” Theo asks.
“Because we need all that build up to ensure what goes into that file is the truth,” Dom says. “Continuous questioning will make his mind fixate on what he actually knows.”
“Let’s break for dinner,” Miles says, “we’re making excellent progress.”
“Hooray,” Eames says drily, “flash frozen macaroni and tomato paste.”
Ariadne leans close to him as they file out, “Eames--I have Cup of Noodles. Come to our room after.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” he whispers back. “I’ll be there.” He winks at Arthur, and Arthur stares impassively back.
“You can have Oriental flavor,” he says. “Ariadne likes Beef and Chicken is for me.”
“Oriental’s my favourite,” Eames says seriously, and is rewarded for his utter blatant lie by the faintest twitch at the corners of Arthur’s mouth.
//
The first thing Eames does upon arrival in their room is swing himself up onto Arthur’s bed without using the little rickety ladder. “I wish I had a coin,” he says, “so I could bounce it off this mattress and let its spring speak for how anal you are about making the bed.”
“I wish Ariadne was in the bathroom,” Arthur replies, “so I could eat ramen noodles in front of you and then kick you out--oh, wait.”
Eames reaches into a pocket and retrieves a handkerchief, which he waves obnoxiously down into Arthur’s face. “Take mercy on us, love.”
Arthur bats at him good-naturedly from his seat on Ariadne’s bed. “That’s not even white.” He kicks off his shoes. “Ariadne will be back soon, and she won’t let anyone else touch her instant noodles.”
Eames drops the handkerchief on Arthur’s face. “Come up here, it’s weird talking to you on different levels.”
Arthur steps up on Ariadne’s mattress, arms wrapped around the metal bar framing the top bunk. “I often feel we’re talking on different levels, Mr. Eames.”
“Ha bloody ha,” Eames says, and grabs Arthur by the waistcoat, trying to haul him over the frame onto the bed. Arthur struggles a little, for fun rather than in seriousness, and lets Eames drag him until he’s lying next to him on the skinny mattress. He’s touching Eames all the way down his side, their ankle bones knocking against each other painfully.
“Your handkerchief,” Arthur says, and tries to hand over the little square of cloth. Eames takes it from him and then hands it right back.
“No, that’s yours,” he says, and when Arthur takes it back there’s a battered cigarette tucked into one of the folds.
“Doesn’t do me any good without a way to light it,” Arthur says, spinning it between two fingers. Eames frowns.
“What do you mean, you have--” Eames fumbles in his trouser pocket, and comes out with the little green lighter. He turns to face Arthur on the bed, and their faces are very close together. Arthur starts to wiggle backwards, but the look on Eames’ face stops him. He looks at Arthur with something close to wonder.
“Mr. Eames?”
“I didn’t even feel you slip that in my pocket,” he says.
Arthur slips the cigarette into Eames’s mouth, his fingers brushing against dry lips. Eames lights it without looking away from Arthur, and exhales the first drag without filtering it through his lungs first, inhaling the smoke and blowing it right back out, where it slides in the gap between Arthur’s lips, his mouth slightly slack. Arthur lets it roll around his tongue and blows it back out in little puffs. Eames leans into him.
“Not very many people can pick my pocket,” he says very softly.
“Is that so,” Arthur murmurs, and his hand falls onto Eames’ chest, pressed above where Eames had told him his first tattoo had been inked into his skin.
“Hey guys,” Ariadne says, her hair damp from her shower, and Arthur throws himself backwards so violently he tips right over the railing and bruises his ribs on the edge of a chair on his way down.
//
When Arthur enters the conference room with the PASIV the next morning Eames jumps up and pulls out his chair for him. Arthur stops short, stares at him, and then pointedly turns to where Theo is sitting.
“Move,” he says flatly, and Theo scrambles out of the chair so fast he nearly faceplants onto the table. Arthur takes his seat calmly, and slides the briefcase across the table to Dom.
“There you are, then,” he hears Eames say brightly, “don’t worry about him.”
“Thank you Mr. Eames,” Theo says faintly.
Arthur ignores Dom’s raised eyebrow and Ariadne’s pointed smirk in favour of finding a vein and arranging the cannula. “Ariadne is going to show us the room and the maze for today.” Through his peripheral vision he can see Theo leaning across the table, adjusting the drip.
Arthur blinks, and opens his eyes to find himself in an exact replica of one of the bare supply rooms he and Ariadne had picked out earlier, plain concrete blocks and harsh lighting, a single chair the only furnishing.
“Good,” Dom says. “lead the way.” Ariadne takes them through the doorway into a hallway, and halfway down the corridor stops to gesture at a square panel in the wall.
“Laundry chute,” she says gleefully, hauling it open and throwing herself inside. Her whoop echoes back to them as she slides down to the level below.
“You sure you should be seeing this much?” Eames asks Dom. “No offense, mate. You can understand my concerns.”
Arthur bites back an automatic defense of Cobb. He presses his hand to the wall instead and thinks of the last time he saw Mal, really saw her. They’d built a skyscraper, all steel and chrome and long sheets of glass, and Mal used that little bit of impossible she had always done so well to make the stars burn supernova bright around them, the black of the night sky wrapped around them like velvet and Mal glowing white-golden under a full moon.
“It’s under control,” Dom says. “but there’s no need for extra people to see the maze--just means high chances of our own subconsciousness leaking through. I’ll go outside and check on the rendezvous point where I’m going to appear as the rescuer, practice driving the route a few times.”
“I’m supposed to be chasing you through the maze,” Arthur reminds Eames, and he nods, affecting the visage of Lily Dunne in a pantsuit and disappearing down the laundry chute.
“I really haven’t seen her,” Dom says, and Arthur remembers all the other times Dom told him it was fine, that he could handle it.
“I believe you,” Arthur says, and it’s not until he’s sliding down the laundry chute himself that he realizes he meant it.
//
The maze is dark, dirty grey ice and cold rock carved into thin scrabbly tunnels that are too short to stand up properly in. Eames, as the only one to have never seen them before, takes the lead, and wanders around for a good hour before admitting Curtland would be lost for exactly as long as they want him to be. It takes another half hour for him to admit defeat.
“Alright,” he says, “I give up. What’s the trick?” Ariadne beams, completely chuffed, and waits until the next fork, three separate entrances to other tunnels branching out.
“Look,” she says, and pulls Eames over to crouch down by the right side of the rightmost tunnel. “see, there?”
Eames squints at the rock, where a faint white-bluish glow can be seen where the curve of the tunnel meets the ground. “The moss? But I was checking that. All the tunnels have got different kinds and you’re not following the same colour.”
Ariadne shakes her head impatiently. “It’s a pattern, blue green yellow orange. No matter which you start with, if you stick with the pattern it will steer you through to the end.”
“Inspired,” Eames compliments, “breadcrumbs.”
“String,” Ariadne corrects, and Arthur grins from where he’s looking at the moss in the middle tunnel.
“Very metaphorical of you,” Eames says.
“On many levels,” Arthur says. “now repeat the pattern.”
“Blue green yellow orange,” Eames says without hesitation. “I’m not altogether inexperienced at this, you know. Some of us went to college.” Arthur manages to make his snort incredibly disbelieving. “And by some of us I mean Ariadne.”
“You didn’t go to college?” Ariadne asks Arthur.
“No,” Eames says mournfully and then suddenly brightens, Lily Dunne sliding off him in little ripples.
“Oh shit,” Arthur says preemptively.
“You didn’t experiment,” Eames says rapturously, “oh Arthur, tell me you’re a virgin.” Then, in remarkably good foresight, Eames takes off down the right hand tunnel.
“Excuse me,” Arthur says to Ariadne, and picks the left tunnel, sprinting hard and pulling up a mental blueprint of the maze.
He finds the split-second look of surprise on Eames’ face as he rounds a corner and is greeted with the sight of Arthur launching himself into a full body tackle one of the most satisfying moments of his professional career.
“You would have the whole thing bloody memorized,” Eames grunts, and Arthur positions himself so they come down with his elbow in Eames’ gut. “Ah,” Eames gasps, wheezing for breath, “it was only--a joke--” He twists, grabbing at Arthur’s tie to pull him off, and Arthur presses his knee just below the buckle of Eames’ belt. Eames goes completely motionless.
“What’s that, Mr. Eames?”
“I was just commenting on your obvious wealth of sexual experience,” Eames says without missing a beat, and then winces as Arthur shifts his weight. “Be gentle with me, darling.”
“Do you really think,” Arthur drawls, and presses his knee down, just the slightest bit of pressure until Eames’ breath catches and his hips twitch. “that you should be calling me darling right now?”
Eames drops his hands to Arthur’s waist, dipping low and his thumbs digging into the points of Arthur’s hipbones. “In all honesty, I think now is the absolute perfect time to be calling you darling.”
Arthur’s tie has come loose, and the end dangles in Eames face as Arthur all but straddles him, one leg pressed against the cold floor and the other hitched up, his knee still flush with Eames’ crotch. Eames bites at the tie, makes imprints from his teeth in the pattern and tugs at it until the fabric pills.
“That is Christian Dior,” Arthur says.
“My apologies,” Eames says, leaning back, and Arthur looks at the damp grooves in his tie. Eames reaches up with one hand and makes a fist around the tie, sliding down to the end before letting go and starting again at the top, sliding down and letting go, over and over.
Arthur watches his tie disappear and reappear in Eames’ fist. “I guess I can forgive it,” he breathes, biting his bottom lip just to see Eames stare at his mouth. “Just this once.”
Eames tugs very gently at his tie, and Arthur slowly lets himself be pulled down. “That’s very magnanimous of you, darling,” he says, and they’re so close now that if Arthur licked his lips his tongue would drag across Eames’ mouth.
“It is,” Arthur allows, and then they wake up.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Eames says to Theo as they stretch and sit up, “but I have this almost overwhelming urge to punch you right in your face.”
//
Eames is standing in front of a wall covered in mirrors, each panel at a slightly different angle. He’s wearing Lily Dunne, but the set of her shoulders looks ill-fitted, and she’s frowning.
“Your forge isn’t ready,” Arthur says, and Eames turns to face him, still frowning with Lily Dunne’s mouth.
“It’ll be ready,” he says in Lily’s voice, stiffly.
Arthur surveys him critically. “Are you certain?” Eames shakes himself, regaining his own face, and glares openly.
“I am very good at my job,” he snaps. “your usual brand of condescending commentary isn’t necessary.”
Arthur blinks. “I know you’re good at your job.”
Eames, who’s in the process of drawing himself up, scowling, stops short. “You do?”
“Yes,” Arthur says briskly, “obviously. I wouldn’t work with you otherwise.”
Eames visibly recovers. “Well yes, obviously.”
“I can pull footage off security cameras, airport surveillance and CCTV archives,” Arthur says, “have it cut together for you.”
Eames blinks at him. “I--that would be nice.”
“I’ll have it for you by tomorrow,” Arthur says.
“The forge will be perfect by the end of the day,” Eames promises. Arthur nods briskly.
“Good. I want to practice the interrogation scene.”
“We can wing it, can’t we?”
“I dislike winging it,” Arthur says, and Eames grins.
“You? Really?”
“Let me hear your Russian,” Arthur says, ignoring him. “I want to match our dialects.”
“You’re overthinking this entire thing, darling,” Eames says.
Arthur glares. “Don’t call me darling.”
“I’m hoping it will trigger a physical and emotional response,” Eames says, “get you on top of me again.”
“I’m not Pavlov’s dog,” Arthur says, offended.
“You can’t blame me for trying,” Eames says in Russian.
“Passable enough,” Arthur responds in kind. “You can do English with a Russian accent?”
“Yes,” Eames says, affecting the accent, “what’re we going to do to rough him up?” He drops the paneled wall of mirrors and erects a sloppy copy of Ariadne’s interrogation room.
“Nothing too extreme,” Arthur murmurs, thinking. “no lasting physical damage.”
“Scare, not injure,” Eames says.
“Yes,” Arthur says. “what should I wear,” he wonders aloud. No designer brands, he thinks. Better to do a regular suit that doesn’t fit him quite right, button down shirt with sweat marks and a stained tie. Less put together point man, more government issue thug.
“We’ll do the complete rundown Monday,” he says, satisfied.
“Ssh,” Eames says, “I’m dressing you with my eyes.” Arthur sighs heavily, and tugs his pistol from its holster.
“I’ll leave you to it, Mr. Eames.”
“Wait,” Eames says, “I’m about done. I’ll pick it up again when you’ve got that footage for me.”
Arthur shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
Eames steps up close to Arthur and wraps his fingers around Arthur’s wrist, tugging the barrel of the gun until it rests below his breastbone. “Want to kick me out?”
“Why Mr. Eames,” Arthur says, “that’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
//
“Arthur!” Miles says, and Arthur sighs. He hasn’t once managed to brush his teeth without being interrupted. He wonders if Ariadne would mind if he started brushing his teeth in the room and only venturing out when he needed to spit.
“Yes,” he says politely.
“We need to test the compound,” Miles says, “Theo has done some amazing things--we’ve managed to reduce the number of projections that appear in the dreams.”
Arthur suddenly becomes much more interested in the conversation. He can think of about a million jobs that would have gone easier had they not been racing against being overwhelmed by hordes of projections. “Even militarized minds?”
“Theoretically,” Miles says, which is one of Arthur’s least favourite words.
“Yes,” he says with a sigh, “fine, I’ll test it out for you.”
“Brilliant,” Miles says cheerfully, “you’ll play the mark and Mr. Eames has agreed to come in and be the part of the extractor.
“Fantastic,” Arthur says sourly.
Arthur dreams himself a shoestore. Handstitched, expensive leather shoes, all in the same simple design. He walks up and down the aisles, looking at the pairs of shoes lined up on the shelves, all identical. It smells very heavily of leather, and Arthur takes a breath so deep his ribcage creaks.
“Hey,” Ariadne says from behind him. “I went to get more coffee and Theo asked me to come down and find you. What’s going on?”
Arthur reaches out and touches the stitching on one pair of shoes, dragging his nails over the thread and across smooth unblemished leather. “Testing a new compound,” he says. He supposes it’s working, because there aren’t any other customers--or employees. He and Ariadne walk down the aisle and stop. At the end of the next aisle Eames is leaning towards one of the shelves, sniffing deeply. He looks up at them and grins.
“My, it’s just like a party down here,” he says, and Ariadne grabs Arthur hard by the arm and drags him aside.
“What is he doing here,” she shrieks in a whisper. Arthur stares at her.
“We--”
“Are you crazy,” Ariadne hisses over him, “that’s not a rhetorical crazy by the way, are you actually insane? You have a shade of Eames running around your subconscious?”
“What?” Arthur yelps.
“Do you want to end up like Dom,” Ariadne says, “are you waiting for a train, Arthur!?”
Arthur grits his teeth. “Eames,” he says “is also testing the new compound.” Ariadne takes a step back.
“Oh,” she says. “My bad.”
“Hullo,” Eames says cheerfully.
“I’m going to go kill myself now,” Arthur says, glaring at the world in general.
“I’ll join you,” Eames says, and does.
Arthur wakes up to Eames’ snickers and Ariadne’s apologetic looks. “It worked,” he reported, “no projections sighted, but no one was building anything.”
“Again,” Miles says, and Arthur falls asleep.
Arthur is lying on his back in a meadow. “No,” he says, “I refuse.” A daffodil brushes against his cheek.
“I’ll keep the nature away,” Eame says, and offers him a hand. Arthur lets Eames pull him to his feet.
“I know you of old, Benedick,” Arthur says, and Eames laughs, tugging him along.
“Dreaming does make you literary,” he says. “do you have a special fondness for the Bard?”
“Moreso than Dostrovsky,” Arthur says darkly. Arthur has killed several people with axes, and you don’t see him crying in Siberian prisons about it. “Aren’t you supposed to be building?”
“I am,” Eames says, and points up. Arthur looks up. The stars are moving, spinning in spirals and weaving in intricate patterns. Eames sits in the grass. “Smoke?”
Arthur watches the constellation Orion form and fade again, the bull Taurus run across the sky, chasing Cassiopeia’s chair. “Yes,” he says, and sits next to Eames. Eames lights his own cigarette with a flick of his thumb, but when Arthur reaches for the lighter he pulls back.
“Indulge me, won’t you?” he says, and Arthur rolls the cigarette around in his mouth.
“I suppose,” Arthur agrees, because the grass is dewy enough to make his skin feel cool through the fabric of his suit, and the starlight is casting dappled shadows across the meandering rows of wildflowers. Eames leans so the glowing tip of his cigarette touches the end of Arthur’s, and inhales so the flare lights Arthur’s cigarette. Arthur blows his first lungful of smoke into Eames face, and Eames pulls away, grinning.
“You are delightfully contrary,” he says, lying back in the grass. Arthur settles down next to him and takes another drag. It’s quiet enough he can hear the soft hissing flare of the paper as it burns, and the ash blows off in the breeze, dancing like snowflakes.
“You deserve this state,” Arthur says, stretching against the ground, “nor would I love at a lower rate.”
Eames laughs lowly, a rumbling chuckle that makes something uncurl in Arthur’s chest. “Are you trying to romance me with a poem about giving up virginity?”
“It’s now or never,” Arthur says, closing his eyes. The stars shine through his eyelids, whirling pinpricks of light.
And then three commandos in full camouflage burst into the clearing and snap their necks.
“Good enough,” Miles says.
“Had we but world enough, and time,” Eames says, and Arthur smiles all the way back to his room.
Part Three