Running (Is Something That We've Always Done Well)
Fandom: Inception
Characters: Arthur/Eames, Cobb, Mal
Prompt: It turns out that Eames has a kid from inception_kink. Between the two of them they manage to make it more complicated than that, and Arthur is lost without a map. (In other words, my annoying tendency to take on fluffy/cracky prompts and get far too invested in the whole thing continues.)
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Pity me.
Mal is the one who introduces them to Eames, and it doesn't take long for her to convince Cobb to give him a chance, let him demonstrate what he can do. Cobb sighs and frowns and points out his dubiously legal activities to no avail; they all know he is just as interested as she is in the limits of this new technology, how far they can take it, how far it can take them.
"Besides," she smiles wickedly, hand on Arthur's knee to let him know she doesn't mean it, "it's my turn to bring home a stray."
Arthur's first impression of Eames is that he's loud. His voice, his laugh, his clothes. The man effortlessly fills up space with sound and energy, but he's observant, quick eyes and quick fingers (quick to adapt to the idea of the dream, and it turns out Mal was right about talent). He shakes Cobb's hand like they're old friends, and mistakes Arthur for the coffee boy.
Arthur gets coffee without a word. Half an hour later, Cobb winks and lets him shoot Eames in the face.
****
Somewhere between the seventh time they die back to back (Arthur pulling the trigger on half a tonne of explosives with an apologetic shrug) and the eighth (Eames with the machine gun, buying time as Arthur holds his stomach together with his hands and the dream together with what is left of his consciousness) Eames stops calling him kid, and Arthur stops looking for ways to get Eames deported.
Eames isn't family, not like Cobb, not like Mal, but after a while Arthur doesn't bother calling any other forger.
"Oh, the joy, to hear once again your dulcet tones!" Eames crows over the phone, and Arthur can hear shouting in the background.
"I'm looking for a Mr Eames, I hear he's sometimes sober. You couldn't by any chance put him on?"
"Very funny, darling. And the answer is yes."
"I think you're doing this out of order." Arthur tries to keep the smile out of his voice. Eames chuckles.
"You always have the most interesting jobs. How could I turn you down? Now quickly, give me a place and a time, I have a bar fight to start."
"Mal's office, next tuesday." Arthur says, and hangs up before Eames can ask him what he's wearing.
Eames is always late, always joking, always trying to sit on the edge of Arthur's desk. Arthur practices dreaming trapdoors and icy pools of water perhaps a little more than is necessary. Eames rejects the notion of personal space on principle; Arthur gives practical demonstrations on how to ignore at any distance. Eames pouts for days. Arthur tells Eames exactly what he wants to do to his latest shirt (it involves fire, lots of fire) and Eames responds by describing what he wants to do with Arthur's tie (Cobb chokes on his drink).
Somehow, it works, and it works beautifully.
The first time Cobb successfully takes them all under within a dream, they wake flushed with the wonder and adrenalin of pioneers. The two of them, Mal and Cobb, have each done it before, but now they have proof not only that it works, but that it works en masse. Arthur's eyes sparkle as he looks across at her.
"The time." He whispers. "Exponentially increased, just like you thought..."
"Like we thought." She corrects.
"The space is even less constructed down there." Cobb is giddy, proud. "The potential for transition between the two- "
"We need to celebrate with alcohol." Eames announces firmly.
He's very persuasive, and at bar after bar Mal proceeds to drink them all under the table. Before long Cobb has succumbed, stumbling and blushing furiously to follow her towards the bathroom. Eames is almost choking with laughter, raising his glass at Arthur. He's touching Arthur's leg, just a little, and looks like he thinks he's about win at a game of his own creation.
"To lightweights!"
Arthur shakes a disapproving finger before throwing the shot down, and gesturing for another. Eames' eyes widen as if to say he's accepting the challenge, and they knock their glasses together with a clink.
Five minutes later he's straddling Eames in the back of a dimly lit bar, Eames' lips on his own, on his neck, on his collarbone. Arthur's not sure who won, and doesn't give a damn.
****
Arthur wakes up in room he doesn't recognise, face buried in someone else's pillow, and very quietly and internally panics. The warm weight behind him can only be another person, and the large, heavy arm across his waist means he can at least narrow it down to 'male'. Very slowly, he turns to get a better look, freezing every time his bed-companion stirs.
It's Eames, face down and snoring softly. Eames. Oh sweet jesus.
Arthur's compiling a wordy apology in his head, his drowsy mind unwilling to co-operate, memory offering nothing, when Eames opens one eye and groans, looking straight at him. Then smiles.
"Morning, gorgeous." Eames says sleepily, and promptly buries his head in the pillow again, pulling Arthur closer and nuzzling his neck.
Oh.
And that's how silently sneaking out becomes making coffee for two (Eames isn't a morning person, and walks into the door twice) and a comprehensive denial that anything ever occurred becomes exchanging messy blowjobs in the shower, washing each other's hair after, lazy and clumsy and delighted.
It takes a little while to sort out which clothes belong to whom, and Arthur reluctantly borrows the least offensive shirt he can find. They're both late, but from what he can remember of the night before, he suspects Mal and Cobb won't do much better. Still, they never did record and report the latest breakthrough. Eames looks disappointed but agrees they should go in.
Eames has an odd smile on his face as they leave, and Arthur shoots him a half-hearted glare.
"If you comment on the shirt I will stab you with something. You couldn't have waited until I'd undone the buttons, could you?"
Eames shakes his head, still smiling, those ridiculous lips in a soft, lopsided curve. Arthur wants to taste them again, right there in the hall. "Never knew you had a bit of a curl, love."
Arthur self-consciously runs his hand through his hair. It's pointing in every direction, curling a little at the end in a frustrating mess. "Oh, shit..."
Eames drags him in to a chemist on the way in, and spends the next two blocks trying to hold Arthur still and put gel in his hair - passers by stare at the strange half-walk, half-wrestle of the two young men tumbling down the street, and Arthur doesn't care. He never does find out where Mal and Cobb ended up, but they arrive even later than him and Eames, and far too hung over to notice anyone's hair.
"Darling," Eames says when they break for lunch, taking Arthur to the side and putting on his most deliberately offhand expression "I never was one for all that workplace relations rubbish, but you probably have policy books in gilded frames on a wall somewhere, so I'm just going to check." He pauses, and takes a breath. Arthur realises with shock that Eames is actually nervous. "I'd rather like to do that again sometime. And was wondering if you felt the same way."
"Very much." Arthur says. Eames lights up, and steals his pen before going back to work.
That night they try again, and this time Arthur remembers every moment, every touch on his skin, feeling strength in that body pinned underneath him and all that he could so easily do but doesn't, letting Arthur lick and tease with frustrated moans. He remembers the way Eames asked permission with his eyes, a little hesitant without the buffer of alcohol, and the way they filled with laughter when Arthur announced, perfectly calm, "if you don't fuck me right now, I'll chain you to the balcony and set you on fire."
****
When the job is done Eames leaves the country, having put off an engagement in Montreal for too long. Eight days later there's a knock on his door and Eames tumbles through, all bouncing energy and sloppy kisses and "I bought you a present, look!". That's the beginning of the end, really. He tumbles right into Arthur's life; tumbles into his bed, into his apartment, right through his carefully constructed routines, into his work and his friendships and into his head.
And if Eames leaves for months at a time, giving a days warning if Arthur's lucky, leaving a note on the table if he's not, then he tells himself that's just part of the deal. Arthur knew what Eames was - who Eames was, and the jobs he did that required urgent travel, often to countries with complex extradition laws - right from the beginning. Besides, his own life is far from stable, and teeters on the edge of legality (officially, Miles and Cobb are no longer part of the military's research and development of PASIV technology. Then again, officially, the PASIV device doesn't exist.)
There are moments, though, when he knows that Eames isn't all there. He thinks it might be those moments that keep him from telling Cobb and Mal (or anyone, because pathetically, they are everyone, everyone who matters). It's not intentional, it's just that Eames never mentions it, so Arthur doesn't, and before he knows it they're each other's accidental secret.
But none of that matters when Eames is there, making him laugh, messing up his apartment with a prodigous disregard for cupboards and shelves, Eames concocting yet another meal with ingredients god never intended to come into contact with each other. Eames carrying him to bed when he stays up all night yet again, correcting pages of technical analysis for Cobb.
He visits Eames sometimes, flying to Sydney or to Barcelona, and they stay up all night exploring the streets and searching for restuarants still open. Eames teaches him to count cards, and to dance the tango. Arthur teaches Eames to shoot outside the dream, and how to play "twinkle twinkle, little star" on the piano.
He thinks it can't possibly last.
Unfortunately, he's always right.
He's in Paris again when things fall apart, consulting with Miles on the minutae of in-dream physics and delivering cards from his grandchildren and letter from Cobb. Arthur pleads jet lag and leaves early. Eames is waiting in the carpark, leather jacket on and leaning against a car like some caricature of teenage rebellion straight out of a John Hughes film.
"Come to lure me away to the wrong side of the tracks?" Arthur inquires with a raised eyebrow, "You're a little old for those jeans, surely." Eames smacks him on the back of the head, and looks annoyingly pleased with himself when Arthur's hands immediately fly to fix his hair.
They end up in a hotel (Arthur's choice, and it has a lovely view. A lovely, totally wasted view) Eames thrusting into Arthur slowly, teasingly, and there's something lazy and opulent about the late afternoon light. Arthur says as much, and Eames tries to talk him into fucking against the window. He settles for making Arthur wear his jacket instead, enthralled by the way the sleeves hang, too long, too big.
"I'm not going outside in this, you know. I have my pride."
"I'm not letting you go outside in that." Eames pokes him in the arm. "Can't have anyone else wanting to tear off your clothes, and you look edible. Wait here, I'll get booze."
"Eames, no- " but he's already out the door, and Arthur settles back on the bed. He'll call Miles later to cancel dinner.
The phone in his pocket rings with preternatural timing, and Arthur fishes it out and answers it before it hits him - this isn't his jacket, this isn't his phone.
"Eames?" It's a womans voice, the tone dripping with familiarity and impatience. Arthur's mind goes blank.
"He isn't here, ma'am."
Silence. And then, "Who is this? Hello?"
"Mr Eames isn't available at the moment. I'm sorry."
"Oh. You're one of his... colleagues?" There's scorn there. Bitterness.
"Yes, ma'am. Can I take a message for you?"
The woman sighs. "Tell him Alice called, get him to ring back. Jesus. He's probably not even in the country, is he? Just get him to call me back and come home sooner rather than later." She's British, he notes. Not as soft on the vowels as Eames, but similar.
She hangs up, and he sits motionless (stillness and emptiness, body and mind, nothing but his heartbeat) until Eames comes back, swinging through the door with a bottle in each hand and a broad grin. Arthur holds out the phone and keeps his gaze on the wall.
"Alice called for you."
Eames doesn't drop the bottles, but it's a near thing. He looks like he's been punched in the face, and takes the phone gingerly. "Arthur." He says, desperate. "It's not what you think."
"You don't know what I think." Arthur says quietly, and Eames deflates. He takes off the jacket and places it carefully on the bed. Eames looks like he wants to say something, but nothing comes out, and Arthur thinks both too much and too little of himself to wait around. He kisses Eames' cheek on the way out, brief and cold.
The dinner with Miles goes without a hitch. He's not going to let himself be distracted. He gets a text, around dessert. have to go to london. pleas call. want to talk.
He doesn't call.
What he does do is stare at his wall for two days, and then look for fights in alleys for four. He feels he's getting the hang of it (there's something comforting about bruises that don't disappear) when Cobb calls, mumbling something about needing someone to take the kids for a while, that Mal needs a break, that he needs time to talk to her. His voice is all wrong.
Arthur's out the door before he's got his shoes on properly, and on a flight forty five minutes later.
****
Phillipa sits on his lap during Mal's funeral. She's holding her dad's hand, and Arthur can feel Cobb leaning against him ever so slightly, James held tight. She reaches down for his hand, too, and curls tiny fingers around his thumb. He's never felt so helpless.
There are a lot of faces he recognises, and a lot more he doesn't. Miles is shell-shocked, seems barely aware of the world around him. It's strange to see him vulnerable. On the back of his neck he can feel Eames' eyes. Eames had walked in at the last moment, for once dressed for the occasion, eyes downcast and sitting at the back, like he's not sure he should be there. Which is ridiculous. He was Mal's friend first.
"Take the kids for a walk." Cobb says desperately, after the ceremony. "Peters wants to talk to me."
"Miles can... let me come with you."
"Won't help if you assault a policeman, Arthur." Cobb gives a weak smile. "Heartwarming as it would be, in Detective Peters' case. Please. I want them to be with someone they know. I don't want them to be scared."
But I'm scared, Arthur carefully doesn't say. I'm scared for you.
"Ok."
He doesn't force a smile, because this is Phillipa and James, and besides, kids can always tell. But he doesn't have to feign warmth when he looks at them, because Phillipa is trying to straighten James' collar and they are so small and so solemn. He explains that daddy has to go talk to some people - no, of course he'll be home for dinner, sweetheart, he's cooking, remember - and suggests they take a walk in the park on the way home. James considers the proposal, and then asks if there will be icecream. Arthur assures him that there will.
Eames is still there, looking at him. Arthur makes a quick decision, and leads the kids over.
"We're going to the park."
"Are you, sweetheart?" Eames smiles at Phillipa with heartbreaking gentleness.
"You should come," says Arthur quietly, and Eames looks startled. It's hardly fair play, with Phillipa and James chiming in hopefully, asking if they can ride on his shoulders. Arthur shushes them gently, giving Eames space to refuse.
"Of course I'm coming. Who knows what could happen without me, eh?"
"Don't be silly," Phillipa scolds. "Uncle Arthur never gets lost. Not even in mazes."
They take the long path, looping around the lake. Arthur has always assumed Eames would be able to talk to children, though where that assumption comes from (like minds, a little voice in the back of his head teases fondly) he has no idea. It's right, though. Eames seems able to flit easily between commenting on the funny shape of the duck's head to telling Phillipa that yes, he misses their mother very much, and did I ever tell you the story of how we met? (it's the most exciting of the four Arthur has heard from him, and might even have some roots in truth). He only defers to Arthur once, when James asks when she's coming back, and Arthur hopes Cobb will forgive him for not lying. James is very quiet for a while. "Do you want her to?"
"Very much." Arthur says, and buys him mint chocolate chip on a waffle cone. Phillipa opts for strawberry.
When they get back to the carpark Miles is waiting to drive the kids home. He tells Arthur that Cobb will call and doesn't meet his eyes, bundling Phillipa and James into the car. Arthur waits until they're fully out of sight before hitting the gate, hard, and shouting FUCK at the empty air. Eames clears his throat.
"You're good with them."
"Surprising as I'm sure it is," Arthur says, without bite. Eames shrugs, and shuffles his feet.
"Do you need..." Eames cuts off with a small noise of annoyance. "Do you need a lift?"
Arthur smiles, reckless and bitter, and grips Eames' arm too tight. "I need you to get me very, very drunk." Eames looks at him like he's about to say that's a bad idea, you don't mean that, and Arthur pushes a silencing finger against Eames' lips. "I need to not be alone. If you want. Simple. No explaining." When he sees Eames' fingers twitch towards his pocket, as soon as he sees him unconsciously trace the outline of his totem through the fabric, Arthur knows he's not going to be alone. Not tonight, not the next night.
He's not exactly surprised when the knocks on his door of the evening continue throughout the shaky weeks when Cobb flees and Arthur follows, but he's grateful. Arthur and Cobb spend their days fighting, comforting, redefining, rebuilding. They reinvent themselves; mind thieves, extractors.
Eames still leaves. It's the only thing about him that's predictable. He flies to London (flies to her, but Arthur won't think about it that way), never more than two months between trips. But he comes back, every now and again, and Arthur thinks maybe that's all he can expect.
****
Three months later they're in Venice, and Eames gets shot in the chest. Arthur doesn't remember a lot about those few minutes, not how he got across the room to where Eames had fallen, not how the hired thugs end up with holes in their foreheads (although Cobb takes his gun off him with shaky hands, and looks at him with pity and concern and a tiny bit of fear) but he remembers how shallow Eames' breathing sounded, and how mercilessly hard his totem dug into his fingers as he rolled the die again and again with his free hand, the other pressed down to staunch the bleeding. Eames' blood. All over his hand.
He thinks he might have dreamed this before.
Cobb and Sarah, their current architect, check Eames into the hospital as his sister and brother-in-law, and spin the police a story about a mugging gone horrifically wrong. The doctors reassure them that Eames will recover, and estimate he'll come out of his induced coma within ten days without lasting damage. Arthur can see the guilt in Cobb's eyes as he relays the information, and tells him firmly it is not his fault.
"I should have known not to deal with people like that." Cobb looks exhausted. Arthur knows Sarah is going to tell him she's leaving as soon as they leave the hospital. He suspects Cobb knows it too.
"Dom, he's been on the wrong side of the law longer than any of us. He knew what he was doing. And he's going to be ok."
"If..." Cobb trails off, looking at the floor.
"If not, I can find who to contact." Arthur says, fighting the lump in his throat. It's worth it for the grateful look Cobb gives him, the momentary lifting of weight from his shoulders.
Arthur is, if nothing else, good at his job.
The background check turns up one of the most entertaining and eccentric results he's ever seen, and for a moment he has to put the papers down and remind himself how to breathe, because it's all so Eames that it hurts. There are passports under four names, real estate in eight countries, bank accounts in fourteen, restraining orders in two and tax returns filed in none. Digging deeper he finds the name of his schools and the address of his family home. Eames' mother is alive, and he notes down the contact details carefully.
He knows he should stop there. He doesn't.
The fact that he knows her name makes it embarassingly easy. Banks, always so helpful - follow the money, indeed. Eames' flights to London are regular, evenly spaced, although he never stays more than a week. More surprising are the payments. Once a fortnight modest sums are transferred from one of his various account to a single beneficiary - the last date, though, hasn't been met, and neither will the next one, not with Eames still recovering. It's neat and disconcertingly mundane; it's not Eames, but Arthur shakes off those thoughts because with a little work he has not only a full name but an address.
Cobb has taken to sleeping long into the morning when they aren't on a job, and Arthur leaves a note saying he's got business to attend to in Paris, along with a reminder to get some milk. It's just a matter of three extra hours and he's sitting outside a cafe, staring across the street at the front door of a house he has no right to be anywhere near.
He'd like to think he goes because of some misguided, wholly objective notion that she should know where Eames is being treated. Except that's bullshit, and he knows it.
Around midday, she opens the front door. She's tall and slender, curls of dark hair fighting for freedom against a green scarf. She is elegant, and slightly dismissive, with the look of someone who has firm opinions about the way the world should be, and a distinct lack of faith that reality will ever be up to standard. He's not sure what he expected, but it's a comfort, somehow, that she is entirely unlike any of the women Eames has ever forged.
Arthur's backstory is elegantly falsified, the papers marking him as a legal representative of the hospital still slightly warm from Cobb's printer. The specifics of Eames' injury are vague, but he's a good enough (a truly talented) liar to come up with his own story when he's well enough to come back here (when, not if, Arthur won't allow himself to think 'if'.) Just before he gets up, though, a squinting, overweight man appears behind her.
The large man is talking loudly, but the woman - Alice - overrides him with an agitated gesture, attempting to push the door closed. Arthur's eyes narrow as she grabs her wrist to stop her leaving. He can't hear what their saying, but it doesn't take an expert lip-reader to work out that the word rent comes up more than once. A landlord, then, he decides. The house is large, two storeys, unremarkable but pleasant. If she's short of money, it isn't a continual problem, not if her clothes are anything to go by. Of course, he knows that anyway.
But it's none of this that causes his carefully constructed introduction to slip from his mind and into oblivion. No, what freezes him to his chair, unexpected and unplanned for, is the child.
A small boy, not much older than Phillipa, hanging off his mother's leg. He's in oversized jeans and bright, baggy t-shirt, blonde hair flopping over his face. He seems supremely bored by the argument, eyeing the man as if he were mentally comparing him to various insects in search of the right match. Finally the door closes and his mother turns to him, shaking her head, and makes him put on the backpack she's holding. It has a robot on it.
Oh.
She's trying to put some sort of jacket on him, kneeling on the footpath and hiding a sigh as he loudly protests that "no, Decepticons don't wear jumpers, muummm!" before surrendering with a pout.
They cross the road and Arthur has to force himself to look down, take a casual sip of his coffee. The boy runs straight past him to the cafe window and peers into the reflective surface, pulling a blue baseball cap from the backpack. He puts it on and tilts his head; unsatisfied, he pulls it to the side and then tries putting it on backwards, rolling his eyes and laughing as his mother takes his hand and pulls him inside, towards the counter.
Watching as the kid charms a free chocolate bar from the girl at the cash register (of course, Arthur thinks, I've seen that before) Arthur studies his face, then has to look away. Assumptions, assumptions, but Eames' genetic blessings are written all over the full lips and lively two-tone eyes, green and brown and sparkling. There's a skip in his walk, a little restless half-step that speaks of an eagerness to get there, wherever there may be, whether or not he even knows. His mother is patient, smiling indulgently.
He's a beautiful child.
She's beautiful, too.
Arthur finishes his coffee, and leaves before they do, throwing the papers in the nearest bin.
Before he leaves the country, Arthur briefly visits the landlord, and explains carefully and with great detail why apologising to his ground floor guests is a very good idea. Then he goes to the bank, and opens his european account for the first time in a while, transferring the correct amount for the missed payments into Alice's savings. He also writes a cheque for the landlord. Kicking in the upstairs door had been efficient; leaving it like that would be impolite.
Eames wakes up more than a day later than expected, which is typical, and Arthur pretends he hasn't been sitting in the ward all night with limited success. Cobb doesn't even bother, rubbing his unshaven jaw, explaining what had happened and apologising until Eames is begging him to shut up. Eames' voice is hoarse. Arthur gets him a glass of water.
"Darling," Eames whispers, squinting at the IV tubes as if they are a particularly offensive piece of modern art, "if I didn't know better I'd think you missed me."
"Too busy being scared shitless to think about that." Arthur says, and honesty tastes strange. Thankfully, Eames is too sleepy or too drugged to call him out on it. "No more playing with bullets for you."
"I can't make any promises," Eames waves a hand airily, "but I'll keep that in mind."
They spend the next two days talking about nothing, smuggling in "half-bloody-decent" food and sabotaging Eames' attempts to bully his way to an early discharge. Cobb is restless, already searching for the next distraction. Arthur visits on the last day of what Eames dramatically terms his 'imprisonment'.
"If you need to talk to Cobb our number is in your phone. You should rest," he says, and he knows he sounds distant. "You should go home for a while, take a break."
He pretends not to see the flicker of confusion and guilt. It's easier.
****
Arthur finds ways to get around needing a forger, because he's a coward. It's so much less painful than facing the fact that Eames doesn't just have a woman waiting for him, Eames has a family, and the idea that they can dance their pointless fucking dance around each other forever because they have nothing much to lose, that's a lie. He has to let Eames go.
Then salvation arrives in a helicopter and they're suddenly talking about inception like it's not the holy grail, like it's possible.
Cobb is, in some ways, so very predictable. But it is the only name worth considering, for something like this. "Eames? No, he's in Mombasa." Arthur says without thinking, and remembers a smile fading ("Come visit. It's been too long." "I can't. Dom has a job, he needs me.") That was less than a month ago; he'd still be there. "That's Cobolt's backyard."
"It's a necessary risk." Cobb is cold, hard, and Arthur can't blame him. This is his last chance.
But it's a dangerous chance. Arthur finds himself not thinking of Phillipa and James but of another child, in a blue cap, and risks. "There are plenty of good thieves."
"We don't just need a thief. We need a forger."
And they get one, because Eames never could resist a challenge, and Cobb doesn't remember how to take no for an answer. From the moment he saunters in, all cockiness and terrible shirts and "darling, call me mister again and I won't be held responsible for what my hands get up to", Arthur is playing the game again, relishing the twist and parry of scornful words and mocking observations. It's a race to undercut ego and their audience is extraneous; their pretence of being unsurprised and unimpressed is only ever for each other.
He couldn't stop if he wanted to.
(Then it becomes more than a job, as he always knew it would, and Saito is bleeding and Eames is looking at him with sedative filling his bloodstream and concern in his eyes, a cautious warning on his lips. "They'll come for you."
"And I will lead them on a merry chase," Arthur replies, risking the gentlest of fond smiles. "Go to sleep, Mr Eames.")
****
The moment they wake up in that plane, the moment Arthur looks around and sees the victory and wonder on everyone's faces - the moment he sees Cobb blink and his heart restarts because he couldn't lose him again, not like that - all his carefully built walls collapse at once.
That's why when - leaving the airport separately because old habits die hard and safety comes first - he feels arms wrap around him from behind, all he does is lean back into Eames' grip.
"A kick in zero gravity." Eames says incredulously, giving Arthur a little shake. "I don't think I even want to know how you did it. I don't think I'd believe you if you did."
"Chewing gum and hard work, Mr Eames. I hear you were playing Bond in the snow."
"MI6 don't know what they're missing." Eames chuckles, then spins Arthur around and kisses him. "Come back with me. To the hotel."
"No." Arthur says, and kisses Eames back.
"I thought I'd lose you. I thought I had lost you." Eames says, hand on his neck, "for pity's sake, come with me."
"No." Arthur says again, then takes his hand, and does.
They keep hold of each other the whole taxi ride, like an anchor, like a totem. Arthur reflects on how much of them, what they are, can be found in pieces of memories in hotels. But he follows Eames wordlessly, up the stairs and down rows of identical doors.
He'd follow anywhere.
Arthur's hands are already undoing the top buttons of his shirt as he walks through the door, looking for the bed, a table, turning to let Eames indicate what it is he wants. But he doesn't, he justs stands there, regarding Arthur with a strange, pensive expression. His shirt should be on the floor by now, and Arthur knows something is wrong when Eames sits him on the bed, reaching down to cradle his cheek. "I've been so unfair to you, love."
"Don't." Arthur's voice is angry, fragile. "Shut up."
"No." Eames is shaking his head, pulling away. "You're going to listen to me this time. Let me try and play nice for once, darling. I'm no good at this, and you don't make it easy." He reaches to his pocket and pulls out something, a small rectangle of white in his hand and thrusts it forward.
Even without the blue cap, Arthur knows the boy in the photograph.
"My son." Eames says.
"How old is he?" Arthur says, because it seems right, and he hopes Eames can tell that he's happy for him, because despite it all he is.
"Eight."
"He looks like you." Arthur holds out the photograph, offering it back. Eames takes it and puts it down on the bed, his fingers brushing the edge. Arthur straightens his collar. "I won't take up any more of your time."
"Idiot," Eames growls, and grabs Arthur by the shoulders. "I never expected this. One night and then... I was in denial for so long. His mother, ha, fucking hates me, but she lets me see him. Taking him out on weekends, can you see me doing that? I don't know how the hell to be a parent, I don't know what I'm doing. I tried to have you both and I fucked it up. But I'm selfish, darling, and I still want you both."
Arthur is silent. Oh. Eames bites his lip, frowning nervously.
"Don't go, Arthur."
Slowly, Arthur nods. There's a long silence, like the world letting out a slow breath.
"Why didn't you say?"
"Stupidity." Eames looks away. "Wanted you."
"What?"
"You do things perfectly. You like having perfect things around." Eames is staring at his feet, and can't see the look on Arthur's face. It's probably a good thing, because Arthur suspects he just heard Eames implying that he wasn't good enough for Arthur and 'stupidity' is right - that is the single most absurd thing he has ever heard in his life. Eames is brilliant; more, Eames is a brilliant forger, and this blindness is all the harder to understand because reading people is what he does.
"I wasn't sure there was any room in your life for me, let alone with... with baggage." He seems to realise what he's said, because he grimaces and backtracks. "No, shut up, I didn't mean- you know what I mean. I love him. He's my son. But I didn't want you to see what a mess I am."
"Eames," Arthur interrupts, and leans forward. "My partner is Dominic Cobb. That man needs his own personal luggage compartment. Baggage... baggage is having your skin cut off in strips by the memory of a dead woman." He touches the photo reverantly. "This is not baggage. He is not baggage, any more than Phillipa and James are. What did you think I would do?"
Eames' eyes have gone very wide. He looks like he's about to cry. It's terrifying, and Arthur says the first thing that comes into his head. "Please tell me he, at least, has a first name."
Eames lunges from his chair, and for a moment Arthur entertains the thought that he's going to run right out of the room, or punch him in the face, both being in his opinion perfectly acceptable under the circumstances. Instead, he wraps Arthur in a crushing bear hug, burying his face in Arthur's shoulder, and Arthur hugs back hard. "Sam." Eames says, stubble brushing against Arthur's ear. "His name is Samuel. And I know he'd love to meet you, if... that is, if you-"
"Yes," Arthur says in a rush, twisting his fingers in Eames' hair, "yes, yes. You idiot."
Everything sort of blends together then, in a cascade of apologies and meanigful silences and faux-indignation, and they spend the rest of the night making up for lost time. "It's been a while," Eames says hopefully, shamelessly, "but on the upside, that means I've been watching a lot of porn. I have plans for you." Arthur thinks that's an excellent idea. Then, for a while, he can't think anything much at all.
Eames makes him book two airline tickets before he'll come to bed, though.
Epilogue
"What are you doing?"
Arthur re-adjusts his suit and shoots Eames a warning look. "Ringing the doorbell. Is that not acceptable practice in England?"
"Bugger that," Eames says with a grin, and grabs him by the elbow, dragging him around to the side of the house. "Sammy! Hey, Sammy!" The fence is almost too tall to jump over, and Arthur watches Eames vault over it with fond exasperation. Gates exist for a reason.
"Dad?" A small figure appears in the midst of the ramshackle garden, and launches itself at Eames like a miniature blonde heat-seaking missile. "DAD!"
Closing the gate behind him, Arthur hangs back, watching Eames swing his son up in the air to a series of deafening delighted squeals, dropping him back down to play wrestle and then promptly falling over his own feet, going backwards with Sam sitting victoriously on his chest. From on top of his human cushion Sam is looking straight at Arthur, and points, tugging at his father's collar.
"Sam, this is Arthur." Eames says, out of breath and oh-so hopeful. Arthur, meeting Sam's eyes, quietly says hello.
"This is Arthur?" Sam asks, clambering to his feet. "This is the real Arthur?" Eames goes bright red and immediately begins looking anywhere but at Arthur, who raises an eyebrow.
Sam looks him up and down like he's an exotic animal. "I didn't think you were real," he says conversationally, "you know, lots of dad's best stories aren't real." Behind him, Eames picks up a stick and mimes being stabbed in the heart.
"So cruel!" he moans. Sam looks almost as unimpressed as Arthur.
"Excuse me, who is this?" The firmly polite questions cuts through the games, and when Arthur turns Alice is standing at the back door. "Eames?"
Eames gets to his feet, and Arthur can hear wariness under the light tone he adopts. "A friend of mine. I'm showing him around, m'dear. Thought Sammy might like to play tour guide with us for the day."
"Arthur," says Arthur, and holds out his hand. Alice shakes it, and there's a momentary spark of recognition in her eyes.
"Lovely to meet a colleague of Eames'," she says, with a slight emphasis on 'colleague', but there's no challenge in it, just the satisfaction of a neat label, and smugness.
"Ma'am," Arthur replies. She smiles briefly, with too much teeth.
"Eames, could I have word before you leave?" She says briskly, and smiles at Sam. "Sweetheart, keep Mr... Mr Arthur amused for a moment, won't you?"
Eames gives him an apologetic look before following her inside. Then something tugs at his pant leg, and Arthur looks down to see Sam squinting up at him.
"You don't dress like a real person," Sam announces, and Arthur smiles.
"Don't say that in front of your dad, he'll be insufferable."
"He's already instufferable," Sam says conspiratorially, and then bites his lip. "Can you take me to get pizza?"
"Maybe. I'll ask your parents."
Sam nods. "And can you show me how to explode a helicopter?"
Arthur considers for a moment. "Maybe. Again, though, I'll have to ask your parents."
Sam looks enormously pleased, and when Eames emerges a few minutes later with a tiny backpack dangling from one had, Sam is hanging off Arthur's wrist talking a hundred miles a minute about his third-best-friend's birthday party and why it wasn't his fault about the (very, very small) fire, but maybe partly his fault that they used the garden hose inside and by the way do you know kung fu?
"Pizza." Arthur informs Eames, and smacks him lightly on the back of the head to get rid of the ridiculously soppy expression he's wearing, smiling ear to ear and looking at them with adoring eyes. It doesn't work. "No olives!" Sam shouts, and turns to Arthur. "I'll show you the way," he says generously, "since you don't live around here."
As Sam leads him down the street, Eames captures Arthur's other, free hand in his own. Arthur can feel his die in his pocket, but doesn't dare pull away from either hand, large or tiny, to check it.
It can wait.