Closer
Title: Closer
Rating: R
Pairing: A/E
Summary: From inception_kink: Arthur is the only person he can't forge. Eames wonders why that is. And what it might mean.
Also incorporates the following prompts:
"I've had a crush on you since I met you. Couldn't you tell, the way I was ignoring you?"
"There was something compelling about your apathy." Obviously, Arthur is the one ignoring Eames.
During another job, Cobb decides to bring in another forger to help. Eames is fine with this until the man starts to flirt with Arthur. Jealous Eames, please.
Eames wants to know what Arthur does with his free-time and decides to follow him throughout the day. Arthur notices and decides to lead him on a merry chase.
Mega multi-fill with bonus awkward!blowjob. MAKE IT SO. (Oh, and if Manfred sounds familiar...that's because he is!)
"I wish. I wish more than anything. But I can't imagine you with all your complexity, all you perfection, all your imperfection. Look at you. You are just a shade of my real wife. You're the best I can do; but I'm sorry, you are just not good enough"
I. Help Me Become Somebody Else
"Let me ask you something."
Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Do I have a choice?"
"Does it sound like it?" Eames' eyes crinkled at the corners.
Arthur slumped in his chair, resigned.
"Why the braces?"
"Suspenders," Arthur corrected him. "Braces straighten teeth."
"Not where I'm from. Where they invented English. But, you know, whatever. Suspenders."
"By all means call them braces. You know, if it makes you feel better about hailing from the once-great nation that's nothing more than the dried husk America came out of."
"America!" Eames exclaimed, affectionately. "I have to admit when we kicked you Puritans to the curb, we hardly expected you to be so successful. You've got a whole nation full of people from all over the world convinced that seeing three-quarters of an inch of areola on the telly will cause a spontaneous apocalypse."
"A woman's areola," Arthur added. "You can see all the man nipples you want on primetime T.V."
"Yes, well, variety is the spice of life, isn't it? Unless 'variety' includes that program where they eat fermented pig testicles."
"That show's been off the air for about five years."
"Maybe for you. I'm still in therapy."
There was a pause.
"Because I like them," said Arthur.
Eames blinked. "Pig testicles?"
"Suspenders."
"Ah." Eames was nibbling on his fingernails. Arthur watched him out of the corner of his eye; how the forger's perfectly imperfect teeth gnashed at his already-chewed nubbins. This always made Arthur, with his perfectly-manicured hands, cringe in horrified fascination. "They suit you," Eames went on. "I'm not saying they don't. It's just odd. Not the usual choice for the fashion-conscious man."
Arthur shook his head. "Somebody around here is always accusing me of having no imagination. I forget who."
Eames smiled at the floor. "So you express yourself through suspenders?"
"Me and Larry King." Arthur turned to face him. "Seriously, I just don't like belts. They're uncomfortable. Cut you in half."
This was what Eames wanted to hear. Arthur knew this, understood that these odd little questions were all a part of Eames' tradecraft. To inhabit someone else's skin was a tricky business, even in dreams. Sometimes he'd spend hours puzzling over why one of the mark's relatives preferred chocolate ice cream over vanilla, or why they couldn't stand grunge music. Somewhere in that little personality quirk lay something essential about the person. And when he was having a spot of trouble, more often than not he'd turn to his friends.
Arthur didn't mind these little interviews. Eames came to him often - he liked to think it was because he gave good answers, thinking through all the possible angles of the age-old questions like vanilla vs. chocolate. It gave Eames a starting point, something to work from.
"We're not all puritans, you know," Arthur said as an afterthought.
"Oh, I know that." Eames grinned. "Only on the outside."
///
Eames was a gambler, and Manfred was a croupier. Two sides of the same coin. Eames was fair, but tan; Manfred was dark, but pale. Where Eames' face looked to have been carefully sculpted, Manfred's was hewn roughly, all blunt edges and deep shadows. But both men were handsome. There was absolutely no denying that.
When he wasn't shuffling cards, Manfred was a forger. In this - what Cobb insisted was "really, honestly" his last job - he wasn't taking any chances. The mark had a well-trained subconcious that would need a lot of convincing. Why not two forgers instead of one?
Eames didn't react badly to this. He wasn't too proud to comprehend the value of the team protecting their own asses. He and Manfred had worked together before, though Eames had always filled another role, usually extractor. They respected each other, and worked well together. What could possibly go wrong?
///
"What could possibly go wrong?" Ariadne was smirking. Arthur looked up sharply.
"Don't even," he warned.
"What?" Ariadne raised her eyebrows. "I said it ironically. I'm pretty sure it's okay."
///
Manfred's audition was more of a showing-off. He started by shifting in and out of his original creations, which, like Eames', were just slightly "off" and alien-looking. It was impossible to create a projection fully from scratch, and the only way to make sure the forge wasn't a real person from a long-forgotten memory was to add a few unlikely adjustments. Then, as a grand finale, he shifted smoothly in and out of the forms of every single member of the team. Everyone smiled and nodded politely as he slipped in and out of their skins. If Eames' smile was a little forced, no one noticed.
Last, but not least, Manfred became Arthur. Perfectly. Down to - yes, down to the suspenders. Eames felt a hot sickness uncurl in his belly.
The two Arthurs grinned at each other.
"Mr. Manfred," said Arthur. "I am impressed."
Manfred turned on his (Arthur's?) heel, and suddenly became himself again.
"It's as easy as riding a bicycle, mate," he said.
Eames exhaled sharply.
When they awoke, he strode quickly from the room as soon as he was able and stormed back in, late, just as the day's wrap-up meeting was ending.
"You're late." Cobb glanced at his watch. "By about...three hours."
"Hmmph," said Eames, by way of explanation. He avoided Arthur's eyes and took a seat in the far corner of the room, flipping his poker chip from finger to finger. Ariadne, Yusuf, and Cobb all filtered out, giving him odd looks.
Manfred and Arthur were huddled together now, Arthur watching him in rapt attention, and Manfred was sketching something on the butcher paper that covered the table for note-taking and general doodling. Arthur was biting his bottom lip. God damn it.
"...strangers," Manfred was saying, "are the easiest. Ironically enough. Watch your forge for a week, tops, or you'll end up overthinking it. It's a dream after all - you just need the mannerisms, how they speak. You need to be able to imagine yourself as them. Get to know them too well and it gets messy. You'll start to try and be them, and then you'll never be happy with what you create. And if your brain doesn't believe you're doing it right, you won't be able to maintain the forgery. It's not about fooling the mark. It's about fooling yourself. Everybody else will fall in line."
Eames snorted, quietly.
"Of course," Manfred went on, giving Eames a look, "when you've been in the trade a long time, you'll learn how to forge people you know well. You'll learn how to block out everything that doesn't matter. But for now, when you're just starting out, it's best to use someone you can keep at a distance."
Arthur nodded vigorously. "Okay, okay."
"I've got to be going, I'm afraid - if you have a chance to practice a bit tonight, by all means do. We'll talk again tomorrow, yeah?" Manfred got to his feet, standing too close to Arthur's chair, and it might've passed for a close-talker but Eames knew better. When Manfred invaded your personal bubble, it meant something.
As he passed by Eames on his way out, Manfred clapped him on the shoulder and murmured: "cheers, mate."
Eames gritted his teeth.
"Teaching you how to forge, eh?" he said, standing up and advancing on Arthur.
Arthur shrugged. "It's the only thing I've never learned. Thought I might as well. He offered."
"I would've."
"Didn't want to bother you."
Eames shrugged uncomfortably. "You're never a bother, Arthur."
"Well, do you have anything to add?" Arthur snapped his briefcase shut. "Is it true, what he says about forging people you know?"
"It's hard, yeah." Eames chewed on the inside of his mouth. "But practice makes perfect."
"I'm going to do a practice run tonight. Want to plug in? Give some feedback?"
Eames considered this. "Yeah, all right."
///
Eames wolf-whistled when he saw his "lovely lady" swaying towards him at the hotel bar. Arthur had done a credible job of recreating the striking, unearthly blonde. Better than Eames would have imagined for a first-timer.
"This is nice," Arthur purred. "I kind of want to spend some time alone with myself."
"Tempting, isn't it? Just remember this is only you imagining what it's like to be a woman. You might be completely wrong."
"Oh, I don't know. I actually have a very good imagination. I just prefer not to express it through paisley."
The back of the bar was all mirrors, and when Not-Arthur looked into them, he saw his normal self looking back. "Will my reflections always look like me?"
"Eventually you'll learn to control it better. It's like Manfred said. It's about fooling yourself."
"You control your reflections, don't you?"
As if on cue, Eames swiftly became Manfred, his reflection changing to match. Then the mirror showed Eames. Then Manfred again. Eames shifted back into himself.
"Yes," he said, simply.
Arthur was sipping a Cosmo. "How long have you known Manfred?"
"Ten years. Give or take. We worked on a botched inception job. We all did our best, but we just weren't deep enough."
The lovely lady looked thoughtful, an expression that rarely crossed her face when it's Eames inside. "We did something remarkable, didn't we, Eames?"
"Yes we did, my dear." Eames raised his glass. "We did indeed."
II. You Let Me Complicate You
Less knowledge. Not more. Less.
Eames kept telling himself this. The more he knew about Arthur, the more impossible it would get to ever make a convincing forgery. From day one, the little point man had confounded him - there was simply no way to paint Arthur in broad strokes. Eames knew too much, from his odd personality quirks to all the lines and shadows of his face.
Less knowledge meant better forgeries. Less. He kept telling himself as he loitered in his car outside of Arthur's flat one fine Saturday morning. He kept telling himself this as Arthur came down the steps, two at a time, in jeans and a tee-shirt, a getup Eames hadn't seen in a long time, and began sauntering down the sidewalk. Eames waited just the right amount of time and started his car, following him until he saw Arthur's car parked half a block down. He quickly pulled over and hunched down in his seat. Arthur glanced around him once, but thankfully didn't appear to notice anything amiss.
And so Eames tailed Arthur around town, always staying at least four cars behind, losing him occasionally, but always finding him again. He began to wonder if Arthur was just driving for the sake of driving, having a bit of fun, unwinding. Either that or he was running the world's most convoluted errands.
Finally Arthur broke free of the city limits and turned onto a suburban road. This was more dangerous; Eames had to lurk further behind, for fear of being seen. A herd of cows eyed him disapprovingly as he passed. A horse twitched his tail as if to say, you fucking creeper. Eames rounded a corner and realized suddenly that he'd lost him.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Fuck me.
Eames pressed down on the accelerator. Arthur could have turned down any one of these side roads, he'd never know which. And did he really want to? Why the fuck was he so obsessed?
It was a rhetorical question of course. Because you can't forge him.
Because Manfred can.
Fucking Manfred with his fucking smug face. Standing too close to Arthur. Flattering him. Making eye contact, just a fraction of a second more than was strictly necessary. These were the sorts of things Eames was allowed to do. But not Manfred.
Suddenly he was not alone on the road anymore. A car came squealing out from behind him, veered up and around, and slammed on its brakes just a few feet in front of him. Cursing, he jammed down on the pedal just in time.
It was Arthur's car.
Naturally.
Arthur jumped out and trotted up to his window. Eames slouched low in his seat, wishing for spontaneous combustion.
"I can see you, Mr. Eames," Arthur yelled through the glass.
With a groan, Eames grabbed the hand crank and rolled his window down. Arthur leaned over, sticking his head partway in. The proximity was uncomfortable, considering the circumstances.
"I'm almost afraid to ask," he said.
"Just curious." Eames swallowed, hard.
"About me? Surely, I'm an open book." Arthur smirked.
"Arthur, please." Eames' eyes were pleading.
"What, I'm supposed to just let you drive away? No such luck, Eames. For Christ's sake. Three hours you were outside my apartment this morning. You thought I wouldn't recognize your sad little egg-beater car? I wasn't even planning on going out today, I just wanted to see how far you'd take it." He sighed. "How much?"
Eames swallowed hard. "...how much?"
"How much are they paying you?"
Of course. Of course Arthur would think he was doing it for a job. Some rival business on the side. He chalked up his own inability to come up with this excuse to lack of sleep.
"It's not about how much they'll pay me," he said, affecting a downtrodden look. "It's about how much they're willing to forgive."
"Oh, Jesus. Eames. With the gambling again?"
"I'm sorry, Arthur."
"Forget it. Look, if you need a loan -"
Eames figured he was already headed for the seventh circle of hell, so he'd better not push it. "No, no, no. Please. I'll handle this myself. They're not dangerous."
Arthur's face knitted in concern. "All right," he said. "If you're sure. Who was it, anyway? What did they want to know?"
"I don't know, honestly. They were just curious if you had a girl," said Eames, thinking fast. "Just for your file, I think. Intimidation. I knew they weren't going to hurt her, if she existed, or else I never would've..." he trailed off, the weight of his own lie pressing on his chest. For someone who lied his way blithely through 90% of his conversations, it was an odd feeling.
"Eames, you should know me by now. There's never a girl."
For the first time, Eames reflected on this. He was right. There was never a girl. Not for Arthur.
///
A practice run in dreamspace, with Ariadne playing the role of the mark, went exceptionally well. So well, in fact, that they still had two and a half minutes left on the clock - half an hour to them - and nothing to do with it. Arthur started showing off his new forgeries to Manfred, who was suitably impressed, and Eames, infuriated, slipped away.
In the impeccable bathroom (of course it was impeccable, this was Arthur's dream) he stood in front of the sink and willed himself to change.
For moment - just a split second - there was a maddening flicker of almost there but then it was gone and he was staring at the palest imitation of Arthur he could imagine. It was just, so wrong. All wrong. His nose was a centimeter off. The hollow of his cheeks was too deep. He was a little too tall. Now, now a little too short. And the hair. It wasn't black. It wasn't brown. It was...it was...the color of the chest of drawers that his grandmother kept in her attic, when a beam of light from the dusty window hit it just right on a Saturday afternoon. But the memory was too faint, all grainy and unsure when he tried to grasp it. It wasn't right. It just wasn't. It could never be right.
Somewhere, in the distance, non, je ne regrette rien....
"Oh, hello stranger."
Eames looked up to see Arthur leaning, amused, against the wall. He was too paralyzed to do breathe, to think, even to slip out of his horribly awkward forgery.
"No," he blurted out, standing up, backing away. "I'm not...it's not what it looks like."
Arthur shook his head, amused. "Looks pretty good to me. And hey, I should know."
"No!" Eames shouted, and Arthur looked exactly like a man would look if a poorly-made mirror image of himself were yelling at him for no apparent reason. "You can't see this!"
Arthur looked genuinely concerned now. "What the fuck's wrong with you?"
Eames could feel himself slipping, slipping, like falling asleep. The sedative was wearing off. "IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!"
///
They avoided each other for another full week before Cobb said something.
"Arthur," he said at the end of the day. "A word."
Eames ducked out of the room quickly. They'd made an elaborate dance out of this; not making eye contact, not talking, one leaving the room through a different door moments before the other walked in.
"We can't work like this," said Cobb.
"I know," said Arthur.
"Can you fix it?"
"Of course I can fix it." Arthur was peeved, unthinkingly clenching his die.
Cobb's fingertips were pressed together. "Can I ask you what happened?"
"You can." Arthur tossed his die in the air. "But there's nothing to tell."
Cobb's eyes narrowed.
///
"Holy shit," said Cobb, clenching his glass.
"I know. Right?" Arthur downed the rest of his scotch and soda and gestured for another. "I don't even..."
"And the thing about the gambling debt..."
"Total lie. His communications haven't indicated anything like that. He was just...straight-up...stalking me."
Cobb flicked a toothpick onto the sticky floor. "Forging is...it's not easy. In some ways they have the toughest job. Slipping in and out of different disguises all the time can fuck with your head."
"I don't mind him going crazy. Honestly, I don't. But why do I have to be the focus of his psychosis?"
"I don't think he's crazy." Cobb stared into his glass. "At least, not how you mean."
"Then what's wrong with him?"
"I have an idea." Cobb fixed him with sharp eyes. "But I don't think you're going to like it."
III. Fuck You Like an Animal
"I tried to help," Cobb muttered to Yusuf in the corner of the warehouse. "But I think I just made it worse."
Arthur seemed to have spontaneously developed a sixth sense, some enhanced form of hearing or smell or ESP that notified him whenever Eames was within fifty feet. As soon as it was triggered, he'd snap to attention like a meerkat and scamper off, not to appear again until Eames had made himself scarce.
Eames, meanwhile, was sullen and twitchy and refused to talk to anyone. Cobb was finding it harder and harder to hide his exasperation, with such a crucial job coming up in less than a week, and two central members of his team acting like scorned lovers towards each other.
"You said you'd fix this," he hissed at Arthur once.
"Yeah, well, that was before I fully understood the situation." Arthur was eyeing him coldly.
Cobb rolled his eyes.
"Arthur told me about what happened," he said to Eames later. Eames looked up at him with deep, haunted eyes.
"It's nothing," he said, quickly. "I'm fine. I was just having a...bad day."
"A bad day?" Cobb sat down next to him, gentling his tone, because the hysterical edge in Eames' voice was threatening to become something more. "Why's that?"
"Always," he said. "From the very beginning. I couldn't forge him. Something about him. The detail. The...the face. His face. His eyes. I don't know. It's always wrong. I keep trying and it keeps coming out wrong, and I know I should just stop trying but I can't understand it. I don't understand why I can't just..."
"...simplify him?" Cobb looked into the distance, through the tiny window, out onto the city, the sky. "It's hard, isn't it? To capture him in all his complexity? All his...perfections?"
"And imperfections," said Eames. "He's just...a bad copy...like when a Xerox machine runs out of ink..."
Cobb inhaled sharply, grasping his totem in his hand. "Yes. I know."
Eames looked at him curiously, but the dark moment had passed, and now Cobb was standing, smiling at him.
"Eames," he said, gently. "You have to tell him."
Eames frowned. "Tell him...what?"
Cobb's eyes widened. "Really? You don't...really?"
Eames slammed his palms down on the table. "No," he snapped. "I don't. I don't know what you're driving at with your fucking mysterious analogies and riddles. Tell me what to do. I need to get over this."
"Fine," said Cobb. "Fine. You need to go talk to him. The two of you dancing around each other like this is hurting the team. Go fix it."
"No," said Eames. "Can't."
"Suit yourself." Cobb turned and began to walk away. "But if you change your mind, he's down at the Dark Horse with Manfred."
"Whoa," said Ariadne, coming into the room a moment later. "What the hell did you do to Eames? He practically knocked me over in the hallway. I could see the smoke coming out of his ears."
Cobb shrugged. "Little white lie. Never hurt anybody."
"They might not, but Eames looks like he will." Ariadne's eyes narrowed. "What'd you do?"
///
"Where. Is. He.."
Arthur looked up, his eyes slightly bleary with drink. "Hello to you, too."
Eames was fuming. He had no time for Arthur's snark. "Fucking Manfred. Where is he."
"Manfred? How the fuck should I know? Jesus Christ." Arthur blinked at him. "You really need to get some mental help."
"Dom said..." Eames exhaled slowly. "Dom said you were here together."
"Dom said?" Arthur rested his head in his hands. "Oh, for..."
"What? What? He was lying? Why?"
"You either need to drink more, or less." said Arthur, gesturing to the bartender. "I'm going with 'more' for now."
"I don't understand why he'd tell me..."
"Because he thinks you're in love with me," Arthur snapped.
Eames sat heavily on the barstool. "Oh," he said.
Arthur waited a moment. "Any...thoughts on that?"
Eames shook his head slowly, eyes on the bar.
"Does that mean 'no, I don't have any thoughts on that' or 'no, I don't...'"
"Please," said Eames. "Do shut up."
The two men drank in silence for a while.
"Do you think I'm in love with you?" Eames said, finally.
"You sure have a funny way of showing it."
"Do I?"
"The thought hadn't occured to me before. Not until Cobb put the idea in my head. But now that I think about it, I suppose it wouldn't be the strangest thing that's ever happened to me."
Eames rubbed a hand across his forehead. "Any...thoughts on that?"
Arthur shrugged. "Nothing terribly coherent, I'm afraid." He sipped his drink, then went on, very matter-of-factly: "I've had a crush on you since I met you. Couldn't you tell, the way I was ignoring you?"
Eames looked calm except for the way his fingers suddenly clenched around his glass. "There was something compelling about your apathy."
"When you paid attention to me at all I just assumed you were teasing me. It wasn't until after you stalked me all day and I looked at your phone records -"
"You looked at my phone records?" Eames met his eyes, finally.
Arthur shrugged. "You stalk me, I invade your privacy. Anyway, I figured out that your story was total bullshit and maybe you just followed me to follow me."
"I can't forge you." Eames heard the words slip out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about them.
"Yes, you can. I saw you." Arthur's mouth was a straight line.
"But it's not right. It's not..." Eames bit his tongue to stop himself from talking but it didn't work. "...you."
"Of course it's not me," said Arthur, patiently. "But most people wouldn't notice."
"I do," said Eames.
"Cobb has a theory. He said everybody we meet, almost everybody, is just a shade. We don't see the whole person. We just see an idea of them and our brain fills in the rest. So a forger's job is easy because the forge was never a real person, not really, not in a way that makes any difference to you. So the mark's fooled because you successfully fooled yourself. Because you became another person, but you never really stopped being you."
He took another sip.
"When you get to know somebody - to love somebody - it's different. Suddenly they're too complicated. Manfred can be me because to him, I'm just a self-righteous prick in a three-piece suit."
Eames swallowed hard.
"And to you?" Arthur went on, his voice starting to slur. He was leaning heavily on the bar. "What am I to you, Mr. Eames?"
///
Complicated.
Infuriating.
Intoxicating.
Intelligent.
Stunning.
Brilliant.
Sexy.
Dense.
Clever.
Conceited.
Compassionate.
Fearless.
Fearful.
Feared.
Witty.
Everything.
The words stuttered through Arthur's brain as he fought back against Eames' tongue, a clash of teeth, mingling saliva. Eames had a bigger vocabulary than he might have guessed. And those words tumbling off those lips, those lips that make everything a little bit more obscene, had undone him completely. Which was why Eames was currently groping him in his kitchen.
His pants were around his ankles on the floor before he even thought to say "Eames, wait -"
Eames looked up. He was crouched down, hands on the backs of Arthur's knees. "Yes, darling?"
The shudder went all the way through him, from his scalp to his toes. Eames felt it and smiled. Arthur gripped the edge of the counter.
"Nothing," he said.
He was desperately hard and if Eames wanted to suck him off with those lips then what the hell was he going to say? No? It's just that it was happening so fast, and his head was spinning, and he was drunk.
"It's okay," he said, because Eames was still hesitating, his eyes big and black and his lips parted for every harsh breath. "I'll still respect you in the morning."
"I know," Eames breathed. Then he wet his lips and went to work.
Arthur couldn't stop the low, growling pants from escaping the back of his throat. The warmth of the scotch and the warmth of Eames' mouth had set fire to his nerves and he was aching, tingling, mumbling nonsense about how it was so fucking good and Eames was so fucking beautiful. And Eames, he just chuckled around a mouthful of Arthur and the tremors, oh, oh, oh sweet Jesus God oh my God oh yes...baby...yes...
They tumbled to the floor, Eames laughing and laughing, and Arthur returned the favor, clumsily, eagerly, all teeth and drool. It was awful - he was almost sure - but by Eames' reaction he never would have guessed. He wound his fingers through Arthur's hair and thrust upwards, helplessly, and when he came with a strangled cry he thrust too deep and Arthur gagged, pulled away, spit up in his mouth a little.
He pulled himself up to the sink with some effort and spent a few moments retching. Eames was still lying on the floor, laughing and laughing. He got to his feet after he realized Arthur hadn't moved in a full minute.
"Arthur? Love?" he said tentatively, refastening his pants.
Arthur's shoulders were shaking.
"Arthur, come on. It happens to everybody now and then. And anyway I'm pretty sure it's a compliment...isn't it?"
Arthur laughed, and looked over at him. "Okay," he said. "All right. Thank you. I feel a little bit less like I want to disappear into the floor."
"It's nothing. My first blowjob I almost bit the bloke's dick clean off."
"It's..." Arthur looked back at the sink. "...it's not my first."
Without a word, Eames wrapped his arms around Arthur from behind and just held on, not too tightly, but just enough. Arthur relaxed into the embrace.
"Tired?" Eames' mouth was so close to his ear he felt the words rather than heard them.
"Yeah," he said, exhaustion suddenly crashing over him.
"Bed," said Eames, firmly. "Tomorrow, we'll..."
Tomorrow, they would. Tomorrow they would talk. They would blow off their obligations to the outside world and they would talk, and fuck, and cook for each other, and maybe, if they wanted to, they could decide if Cobb was right. But maybe not. Tonight, they would just sleep. And if Eames could dream anymore, his dreams would be sunlit and warm, on a beach maybe, the feel of Arthur's steady breaths representing the tide as it came and went, came and went, came and went.
Spot the 30 Rock reference and win a million dollars my undying affection!
Rating: R
Pairing: A/E
Summary: From inception_kink: Arthur is the only person he can't forge. Eames wonders why that is. And what it might mean.
Also incorporates the following prompts:
"I've had a crush on you since I met you. Couldn't you tell, the way I was ignoring you?"
"There was something compelling about your apathy." Obviously, Arthur is the one ignoring Eames.
During another job, Cobb decides to bring in another forger to help. Eames is fine with this until the man starts to flirt with Arthur. Jealous Eames, please.
Eames wants to know what Arthur does with his free-time and decides to follow him throughout the day. Arthur notices and decides to lead him on a merry chase.
Mega multi-fill with bonus awkward!blowjob. MAKE IT SO. (Oh, and if Manfred sounds familiar...that's because he is!)
"I wish. I wish more than anything. But I can't imagine you with all your complexity, all you perfection, all your imperfection. Look at you. You are just a shade of my real wife. You're the best I can do; but I'm sorry, you are just not good enough"
I. Help Me Become Somebody Else
"Let me ask you something."
Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Do I have a choice?"
"Does it sound like it?" Eames' eyes crinkled at the corners.
Arthur slumped in his chair, resigned.
"Why the braces?"
"Suspenders," Arthur corrected him. "Braces straighten teeth."
"Not where I'm from. Where they invented English. But, you know, whatever. Suspenders."
"By all means call them braces. You know, if it makes you feel better about hailing from the once-great nation that's nothing more than the dried husk America came out of."
"America!" Eames exclaimed, affectionately. "I have to admit when we kicked you Puritans to the curb, we hardly expected you to be so successful. You've got a whole nation full of people from all over the world convinced that seeing three-quarters of an inch of areola on the telly will cause a spontaneous apocalypse."
"A woman's areola," Arthur added. "You can see all the man nipples you want on primetime T.V."
"Yes, well, variety is the spice of life, isn't it? Unless 'variety' includes that program where they eat fermented pig testicles."
"That show's been off the air for about five years."
"Maybe for you. I'm still in therapy."
There was a pause.
"Because I like them," said Arthur.
Eames blinked. "Pig testicles?"
"Suspenders."
"Ah." Eames was nibbling on his fingernails. Arthur watched him out of the corner of his eye; how the forger's perfectly imperfect teeth gnashed at his already-chewed nubbins. This always made Arthur, with his perfectly-manicured hands, cringe in horrified fascination. "They suit you," Eames went on. "I'm not saying they don't. It's just odd. Not the usual choice for the fashion-conscious man."
Arthur shook his head. "Somebody around here is always accusing me of having no imagination. I forget who."
Eames smiled at the floor. "So you express yourself through suspenders?"
"Me and Larry King." Arthur turned to face him. "Seriously, I just don't like belts. They're uncomfortable. Cut you in half."
This was what Eames wanted to hear. Arthur knew this, understood that these odd little questions were all a part of Eames' tradecraft. To inhabit someone else's skin was a tricky business, even in dreams. Sometimes he'd spend hours puzzling over why one of the mark's relatives preferred chocolate ice cream over vanilla, or why they couldn't stand grunge music. Somewhere in that little personality quirk lay something essential about the person. And when he was having a spot of trouble, more often than not he'd turn to his friends.
Arthur didn't mind these little interviews. Eames came to him often - he liked to think it was because he gave good answers, thinking through all the possible angles of the age-old questions like vanilla vs. chocolate. It gave Eames a starting point, something to work from.
"We're not all puritans, you know," Arthur said as an afterthought.
"Oh, I know that." Eames grinned. "Only on the outside."
///
Eames was a gambler, and Manfred was a croupier. Two sides of the same coin. Eames was fair, but tan; Manfred was dark, but pale. Where Eames' face looked to have been carefully sculpted, Manfred's was hewn roughly, all blunt edges and deep shadows. But both men were handsome. There was absolutely no denying that.
When he wasn't shuffling cards, Manfred was a forger. In this - what Cobb insisted was "really, honestly" his last job - he wasn't taking any chances. The mark had a well-trained subconcious that would need a lot of convincing. Why not two forgers instead of one?
Eames didn't react badly to this. He wasn't too proud to comprehend the value of the team protecting their own asses. He and Manfred had worked together before, though Eames had always filled another role, usually extractor. They respected each other, and worked well together. What could possibly go wrong?
///
"What could possibly go wrong?" Ariadne was smirking. Arthur looked up sharply.
"Don't even," he warned.
"What?" Ariadne raised her eyebrows. "I said it ironically. I'm pretty sure it's okay."
///
Manfred's audition was more of a showing-off. He started by shifting in and out of his original creations, which, like Eames', were just slightly "off" and alien-looking. It was impossible to create a projection fully from scratch, and the only way to make sure the forge wasn't a real person from a long-forgotten memory was to add a few unlikely adjustments. Then, as a grand finale, he shifted smoothly in and out of the forms of every single member of the team. Everyone smiled and nodded politely as he slipped in and out of their skins. If Eames' smile was a little forced, no one noticed.
Last, but not least, Manfred became Arthur. Perfectly. Down to - yes, down to the suspenders. Eames felt a hot sickness uncurl in his belly.
The two Arthurs grinned at each other.
"Mr. Manfred," said Arthur. "I am impressed."
Manfred turned on his (Arthur's?) heel, and suddenly became himself again.
"It's as easy as riding a bicycle, mate," he said.
Eames exhaled sharply.
When they awoke, he strode quickly from the room as soon as he was able and stormed back in, late, just as the day's wrap-up meeting was ending.
"You're late." Cobb glanced at his watch. "By about...three hours."
"Hmmph," said Eames, by way of explanation. He avoided Arthur's eyes and took a seat in the far corner of the room, flipping his poker chip from finger to finger. Ariadne, Yusuf, and Cobb all filtered out, giving him odd looks.
Manfred and Arthur were huddled together now, Arthur watching him in rapt attention, and Manfred was sketching something on the butcher paper that covered the table for note-taking and general doodling. Arthur was biting his bottom lip. God damn it.
"...strangers," Manfred was saying, "are the easiest. Ironically enough. Watch your forge for a week, tops, or you'll end up overthinking it. It's a dream after all - you just need the mannerisms, how they speak. You need to be able to imagine yourself as them. Get to know them too well and it gets messy. You'll start to try and be them, and then you'll never be happy with what you create. And if your brain doesn't believe you're doing it right, you won't be able to maintain the forgery. It's not about fooling the mark. It's about fooling yourself. Everybody else will fall in line."
Eames snorted, quietly.
"Of course," Manfred went on, giving Eames a look, "when you've been in the trade a long time, you'll learn how to forge people you know well. You'll learn how to block out everything that doesn't matter. But for now, when you're just starting out, it's best to use someone you can keep at a distance."
Arthur nodded vigorously. "Okay, okay."
"I've got to be going, I'm afraid - if you have a chance to practice a bit tonight, by all means do. We'll talk again tomorrow, yeah?" Manfred got to his feet, standing too close to Arthur's chair, and it might've passed for a close-talker but Eames knew better. When Manfred invaded your personal bubble, it meant something.
As he passed by Eames on his way out, Manfred clapped him on the shoulder and murmured: "cheers, mate."
Eames gritted his teeth.
"Teaching you how to forge, eh?" he said, standing up and advancing on Arthur.
Arthur shrugged. "It's the only thing I've never learned. Thought I might as well. He offered."
"I would've."
"Didn't want to bother you."
Eames shrugged uncomfortably. "You're never a bother, Arthur."
"Well, do you have anything to add?" Arthur snapped his briefcase shut. "Is it true, what he says about forging people you know?"
"It's hard, yeah." Eames chewed on the inside of his mouth. "But practice makes perfect."
"I'm going to do a practice run tonight. Want to plug in? Give some feedback?"
Eames considered this. "Yeah, all right."
///
Eames wolf-whistled when he saw his "lovely lady" swaying towards him at the hotel bar. Arthur had done a credible job of recreating the striking, unearthly blonde. Better than Eames would have imagined for a first-timer.
"This is nice," Arthur purred. "I kind of want to spend some time alone with myself."
"Tempting, isn't it? Just remember this is only you imagining what it's like to be a woman. You might be completely wrong."
"Oh, I don't know. I actually have a very good imagination. I just prefer not to express it through paisley."
The back of the bar was all mirrors, and when Not-Arthur looked into them, he saw his normal self looking back. "Will my reflections always look like me?"
"Eventually you'll learn to control it better. It's like Manfred said. It's about fooling yourself."
"You control your reflections, don't you?"
As if on cue, Eames swiftly became Manfred, his reflection changing to match. Then the mirror showed Eames. Then Manfred again. Eames shifted back into himself.
"Yes," he said, simply.
Arthur was sipping a Cosmo. "How long have you known Manfred?"
"Ten years. Give or take. We worked on a botched inception job. We all did our best, but we just weren't deep enough."
The lovely lady looked thoughtful, an expression that rarely crossed her face when it's Eames inside. "We did something remarkable, didn't we, Eames?"
"Yes we did, my dear." Eames raised his glass. "We did indeed."
II. You Let Me Complicate You
Less knowledge. Not more. Less.
Eames kept telling himself this. The more he knew about Arthur, the more impossible it would get to ever make a convincing forgery. From day one, the little point man had confounded him - there was simply no way to paint Arthur in broad strokes. Eames knew too much, from his odd personality quirks to all the lines and shadows of his face.
Less knowledge meant better forgeries. Less. He kept telling himself as he loitered in his car outside of Arthur's flat one fine Saturday morning. He kept telling himself this as Arthur came down the steps, two at a time, in jeans and a tee-shirt, a getup Eames hadn't seen in a long time, and began sauntering down the sidewalk. Eames waited just the right amount of time and started his car, following him until he saw Arthur's car parked half a block down. He quickly pulled over and hunched down in his seat. Arthur glanced around him once, but thankfully didn't appear to notice anything amiss.
And so Eames tailed Arthur around town, always staying at least four cars behind, losing him occasionally, but always finding him again. He began to wonder if Arthur was just driving for the sake of driving, having a bit of fun, unwinding. Either that or he was running the world's most convoluted errands.
Finally Arthur broke free of the city limits and turned onto a suburban road. This was more dangerous; Eames had to lurk further behind, for fear of being seen. A herd of cows eyed him disapprovingly as he passed. A horse twitched his tail as if to say, you fucking creeper. Eames rounded a corner and realized suddenly that he'd lost him.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Fuck me.
Eames pressed down on the accelerator. Arthur could have turned down any one of these side roads, he'd never know which. And did he really want to? Why the fuck was he so obsessed?
It was a rhetorical question of course. Because you can't forge him.
Because Manfred can.
Fucking Manfred with his fucking smug face. Standing too close to Arthur. Flattering him. Making eye contact, just a fraction of a second more than was strictly necessary. These were the sorts of things Eames was allowed to do. But not Manfred.
Suddenly he was not alone on the road anymore. A car came squealing out from behind him, veered up and around, and slammed on its brakes just a few feet in front of him. Cursing, he jammed down on the pedal just in time.
It was Arthur's car.
Naturally.
Arthur jumped out and trotted up to his window. Eames slouched low in his seat, wishing for spontaneous combustion.
"I can see you, Mr. Eames," Arthur yelled through the glass.
With a groan, Eames grabbed the hand crank and rolled his window down. Arthur leaned over, sticking his head partway in. The proximity was uncomfortable, considering the circumstances.
"I'm almost afraid to ask," he said.
"Just curious." Eames swallowed, hard.
"About me? Surely, I'm an open book." Arthur smirked.
"Arthur, please." Eames' eyes were pleading.
"What, I'm supposed to just let you drive away? No such luck, Eames. For Christ's sake. Three hours you were outside my apartment this morning. You thought I wouldn't recognize your sad little egg-beater car? I wasn't even planning on going out today, I just wanted to see how far you'd take it." He sighed. "How much?"
Eames swallowed hard. "...how much?"
"How much are they paying you?"
Of course. Of course Arthur would think he was doing it for a job. Some rival business on the side. He chalked up his own inability to come up with this excuse to lack of sleep.
"It's not about how much they'll pay me," he said, affecting a downtrodden look. "It's about how much they're willing to forgive."
"Oh, Jesus. Eames. With the gambling again?"
"I'm sorry, Arthur."
"Forget it. Look, if you need a loan -"
Eames figured he was already headed for the seventh circle of hell, so he'd better not push it. "No, no, no. Please. I'll handle this myself. They're not dangerous."
Arthur's face knitted in concern. "All right," he said. "If you're sure. Who was it, anyway? What did they want to know?"
"I don't know, honestly. They were just curious if you had a girl," said Eames, thinking fast. "Just for your file, I think. Intimidation. I knew they weren't going to hurt her, if she existed, or else I never would've..." he trailed off, the weight of his own lie pressing on his chest. For someone who lied his way blithely through 90% of his conversations, it was an odd feeling.
"Eames, you should know me by now. There's never a girl."
For the first time, Eames reflected on this. He was right. There was never a girl. Not for Arthur.
///
A practice run in dreamspace, with Ariadne playing the role of the mark, went exceptionally well. So well, in fact, that they still had two and a half minutes left on the clock - half an hour to them - and nothing to do with it. Arthur started showing off his new forgeries to Manfred, who was suitably impressed, and Eames, infuriated, slipped away.
In the impeccable bathroom (of course it was impeccable, this was Arthur's dream) he stood in front of the sink and willed himself to change.
For moment - just a split second - there was a maddening flicker of almost there but then it was gone and he was staring at the palest imitation of Arthur he could imagine. It was just, so wrong. All wrong. His nose was a centimeter off. The hollow of his cheeks was too deep. He was a little too tall. Now, now a little too short. And the hair. It wasn't black. It wasn't brown. It was...it was...the color of the chest of drawers that his grandmother kept in her attic, when a beam of light from the dusty window hit it just right on a Saturday afternoon. But the memory was too faint, all grainy and unsure when he tried to grasp it. It wasn't right. It just wasn't. It could never be right.
Somewhere, in the distance, non, je ne regrette rien....
"Oh, hello stranger."
Eames looked up to see Arthur leaning, amused, against the wall. He was too paralyzed to do breathe, to think, even to slip out of his horribly awkward forgery.
"No," he blurted out, standing up, backing away. "I'm not...it's not what it looks like."
Arthur shook his head, amused. "Looks pretty good to me. And hey, I should know."
"No!" Eames shouted, and Arthur looked exactly like a man would look if a poorly-made mirror image of himself were yelling at him for no apparent reason. "You can't see this!"
Arthur looked genuinely concerned now. "What the fuck's wrong with you?"
Eames could feel himself slipping, slipping, like falling asleep. The sedative was wearing off. "IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!"
///
They avoided each other for another full week before Cobb said something.
"Arthur," he said at the end of the day. "A word."
Eames ducked out of the room quickly. They'd made an elaborate dance out of this; not making eye contact, not talking, one leaving the room through a different door moments before the other walked in.
"We can't work like this," said Cobb.
"I know," said Arthur.
"Can you fix it?"
"Of course I can fix it." Arthur was peeved, unthinkingly clenching his die.
Cobb's fingertips were pressed together. "Can I ask you what happened?"
"You can." Arthur tossed his die in the air. "But there's nothing to tell."
Cobb's eyes narrowed.
///
"Holy shit," said Cobb, clenching his glass.
"I know. Right?" Arthur downed the rest of his scotch and soda and gestured for another. "I don't even..."
"And the thing about the gambling debt..."
"Total lie. His communications haven't indicated anything like that. He was just...straight-up...stalking me."
Cobb flicked a toothpick onto the sticky floor. "Forging is...it's not easy. In some ways they have the toughest job. Slipping in and out of different disguises all the time can fuck with your head."
"I don't mind him going crazy. Honestly, I don't. But why do I have to be the focus of his psychosis?"
"I don't think he's crazy." Cobb stared into his glass. "At least, not how you mean."
"Then what's wrong with him?"
"I have an idea." Cobb fixed him with sharp eyes. "But I don't think you're going to like it."
III. Fuck You Like an Animal
"I tried to help," Cobb muttered to Yusuf in the corner of the warehouse. "But I think I just made it worse."
Arthur seemed to have spontaneously developed a sixth sense, some enhanced form of hearing or smell or ESP that notified him whenever Eames was within fifty feet. As soon as it was triggered, he'd snap to attention like a meerkat and scamper off, not to appear again until Eames had made himself scarce.
Eames, meanwhile, was sullen and twitchy and refused to talk to anyone. Cobb was finding it harder and harder to hide his exasperation, with such a crucial job coming up in less than a week, and two central members of his team acting like scorned lovers towards each other.
"You said you'd fix this," he hissed at Arthur once.
"Yeah, well, that was before I fully understood the situation." Arthur was eyeing him coldly.
Cobb rolled his eyes.
"Arthur told me about what happened," he said to Eames later. Eames looked up at him with deep, haunted eyes.
"It's nothing," he said, quickly. "I'm fine. I was just having a...bad day."
"A bad day?" Cobb sat down next to him, gentling his tone, because the hysterical edge in Eames' voice was threatening to become something more. "Why's that?"
"Always," he said. "From the very beginning. I couldn't forge him. Something about him. The detail. The...the face. His face. His eyes. I don't know. It's always wrong. I keep trying and it keeps coming out wrong, and I know I should just stop trying but I can't understand it. I don't understand why I can't just..."
"...simplify him?" Cobb looked into the distance, through the tiny window, out onto the city, the sky. "It's hard, isn't it? To capture him in all his complexity? All his...perfections?"
"And imperfections," said Eames. "He's just...a bad copy...like when a Xerox machine runs out of ink..."
Cobb inhaled sharply, grasping his totem in his hand. "Yes. I know."
Eames looked at him curiously, but the dark moment had passed, and now Cobb was standing, smiling at him.
"Eames," he said, gently. "You have to tell him."
Eames frowned. "Tell him...what?"
Cobb's eyes widened. "Really? You don't...really?"
Eames slammed his palms down on the table. "No," he snapped. "I don't. I don't know what you're driving at with your fucking mysterious analogies and riddles. Tell me what to do. I need to get over this."
"Fine," said Cobb. "Fine. You need to go talk to him. The two of you dancing around each other like this is hurting the team. Go fix it."
"No," said Eames. "Can't."
"Suit yourself." Cobb turned and began to walk away. "But if you change your mind, he's down at the Dark Horse with Manfred."
"Whoa," said Ariadne, coming into the room a moment later. "What the hell did you do to Eames? He practically knocked me over in the hallway. I could see the smoke coming out of his ears."
Cobb shrugged. "Little white lie. Never hurt anybody."
"They might not, but Eames looks like he will." Ariadne's eyes narrowed. "What'd you do?"
///
"Where. Is. He.."
Arthur looked up, his eyes slightly bleary with drink. "Hello to you, too."
Eames was fuming. He had no time for Arthur's snark. "Fucking Manfred. Where is he."
"Manfred? How the fuck should I know? Jesus Christ." Arthur blinked at him. "You really need to get some mental help."
"Dom said..." Eames exhaled slowly. "Dom said you were here together."
"Dom said?" Arthur rested his head in his hands. "Oh, for..."
"What? What? He was lying? Why?"
"You either need to drink more, or less." said Arthur, gesturing to the bartender. "I'm going with 'more' for now."
"I don't understand why he'd tell me..."
"Because he thinks you're in love with me," Arthur snapped.
Eames sat heavily on the barstool. "Oh," he said.
Arthur waited a moment. "Any...thoughts on that?"
Eames shook his head slowly, eyes on the bar.
"Does that mean 'no, I don't have any thoughts on that' or 'no, I don't...'"
"Please," said Eames. "Do shut up."
The two men drank in silence for a while.
"Do you think I'm in love with you?" Eames said, finally.
"You sure have a funny way of showing it."
"Do I?"
"The thought hadn't occured to me before. Not until Cobb put the idea in my head. But now that I think about it, I suppose it wouldn't be the strangest thing that's ever happened to me."
Eames rubbed a hand across his forehead. "Any...thoughts on that?"
Arthur shrugged. "Nothing terribly coherent, I'm afraid." He sipped his drink, then went on, very matter-of-factly: "I've had a crush on you since I met you. Couldn't you tell, the way I was ignoring you?"
Eames looked calm except for the way his fingers suddenly clenched around his glass. "There was something compelling about your apathy."
"When you paid attention to me at all I just assumed you were teasing me. It wasn't until after you stalked me all day and I looked at your phone records -"
"You looked at my phone records?" Eames met his eyes, finally.
Arthur shrugged. "You stalk me, I invade your privacy. Anyway, I figured out that your story was total bullshit and maybe you just followed me to follow me."
"I can't forge you." Eames heard the words slip out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about them.
"Yes, you can. I saw you." Arthur's mouth was a straight line.
"But it's not right. It's not..." Eames bit his tongue to stop himself from talking but it didn't work. "...you."
"Of course it's not me," said Arthur, patiently. "But most people wouldn't notice."
"I do," said Eames.
"Cobb has a theory. He said everybody we meet, almost everybody, is just a shade. We don't see the whole person. We just see an idea of them and our brain fills in the rest. So a forger's job is easy because the forge was never a real person, not really, not in a way that makes any difference to you. So the mark's fooled because you successfully fooled yourself. Because you became another person, but you never really stopped being you."
He took another sip.
"When you get to know somebody - to love somebody - it's different. Suddenly they're too complicated. Manfred can be me because to him, I'm just a self-righteous prick in a three-piece suit."
Eames swallowed hard.
"And to you?" Arthur went on, his voice starting to slur. He was leaning heavily on the bar. "What am I to you, Mr. Eames?"
///
Complicated.
Infuriating.
Intoxicating.
Intelligent.
Stunning.
Brilliant.
Sexy.
Dense.
Clever.
Conceited.
Compassionate.
Fearless.
Fearful.
Feared.
Witty.
Everything.
The words stuttered through Arthur's brain as he fought back against Eames' tongue, a clash of teeth, mingling saliva. Eames had a bigger vocabulary than he might have guessed. And those words tumbling off those lips, those lips that make everything a little bit more obscene, had undone him completely. Which was why Eames was currently groping him in his kitchen.
His pants were around his ankles on the floor before he even thought to say "Eames, wait -"
Eames looked up. He was crouched down, hands on the backs of Arthur's knees. "Yes, darling?"
The shudder went all the way through him, from his scalp to his toes. Eames felt it and smiled. Arthur gripped the edge of the counter.
"Nothing," he said.
He was desperately hard and if Eames wanted to suck him off with those lips then what the hell was he going to say? No? It's just that it was happening so fast, and his head was spinning, and he was drunk.
"It's okay," he said, because Eames was still hesitating, his eyes big and black and his lips parted for every harsh breath. "I'll still respect you in the morning."
"I know," Eames breathed. Then he wet his lips and went to work.
Arthur couldn't stop the low, growling pants from escaping the back of his throat. The warmth of the scotch and the warmth of Eames' mouth had set fire to his nerves and he was aching, tingling, mumbling nonsense about how it was so fucking good and Eames was so fucking beautiful. And Eames, he just chuckled around a mouthful of Arthur and the tremors, oh, oh, oh sweet Jesus God oh my God oh yes...baby...yes...
They tumbled to the floor, Eames laughing and laughing, and Arthur returned the favor, clumsily, eagerly, all teeth and drool. It was awful - he was almost sure - but by Eames' reaction he never would have guessed. He wound his fingers through Arthur's hair and thrust upwards, helplessly, and when he came with a strangled cry he thrust too deep and Arthur gagged, pulled away, spit up in his mouth a little.
He pulled himself up to the sink with some effort and spent a few moments retching. Eames was still lying on the floor, laughing and laughing. He got to his feet after he realized Arthur hadn't moved in a full minute.
"Arthur? Love?" he said tentatively, refastening his pants.
Arthur's shoulders were shaking.
"Arthur, come on. It happens to everybody now and then. And anyway I'm pretty sure it's a compliment...isn't it?"
Arthur laughed, and looked over at him. "Okay," he said. "All right. Thank you. I feel a little bit less like I want to disappear into the floor."
"It's nothing. My first blowjob I almost bit the bloke's dick clean off."
"It's..." Arthur looked back at the sink. "...it's not my first."
Without a word, Eames wrapped his arms around Arthur from behind and just held on, not too tightly, but just enough. Arthur relaxed into the embrace.
"Tired?" Eames' mouth was so close to his ear he felt the words rather than heard them.
"Yeah," he said, exhaustion suddenly crashing over him.
"Bed," said Eames, firmly. "Tomorrow, we'll..."
Tomorrow, they would. Tomorrow they would talk. They would blow off their obligations to the outside world and they would talk, and fuck, and cook for each other, and maybe, if they wanted to, they could decide if Cobb was right. But maybe not. Tonight, they would just sleep. And if Eames could dream anymore, his dreams would be sunlit and warm, on a beach maybe, the feel of Arthur's steady breaths representing the tide as it came and went, came and went, came and went.
Spot the 30 Rock reference and win a million dollars my undying affection!