the understood boundaries of self (1/2)
the understood boundaries of self
by strzyga
He feels ridiculous.
The linoleum is hard beneath his knees, and he's not wearing any of the gear, not yet, but he is terribly uncomfortable. He shifts his weight, staring sullenly at the floor, and tightens his fists where they rest on his thighs.
"Eames," Arthur says, sharply.
He breathes out roughly through his nose and settles back on his heels, biting the inside of his cheek.
Arthur, sprawled loosely at the table, reaches down almost idly and runs a hand through Eames' hair, level with his knee. The touch, careless and proprietary, makes Eames shiver. The unexpected caress travels to the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in the fine hairs, and a thumb presses very lightly into the hollow behind his ear, resting deliberately against the pressure point. Eames breathes and does not move.
"Much better," says Arthur, and there might actually be a smile in his voice.
This is really not what Eames had expected, when Cobb had called them up with a new job. This certainly was not how he'd hoped to get into Arthur's pants, but he is man enough to admit he'll take what he can get. He's wanted Arthur for what feels like an eternity, now.
"Richard Sinclair," Cobb had said, and tossed a manila folder onto the table.
Eames quirked an eyebrow, sprawling indolently in his chair. On the other side of the table Arthur leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "That name sounds familiar," he said.
There was an odd smile on Cobb's face. "I'm not surprised," he said. "He runs in the same circles you do."
Arthur straightened at that, a peculiar look in his eyes. "Does he, now." His voice held no inflection, utterly bland.
"Would anyone like to share with the rest of the class?" Eames interrupted, attention well and truly caught.
Cobb shook his head, still smiling faintly. "Oh, it's nothing important," he said, and his tone was almost breezy. Eames raised an eyebrow, but Cobb continued before he could say anything. "Sinclair's been suspected of stealing some very delicate company secrets," he said, and shoved his hands in his pockets, the picture of nonchalance. His eyes were still fixed on Arthur. "We've been hired to find them, if he has."
Eames found himself watching Arthur, without really knowing why. Arthur had not moved, but something about him had changed.
"What's the plan?" Arthur asked.
Smiling faintly, Cobb cocked his head. "It's apparently well known, underground, that Sinclair's interested in some more... unusual pursuits, shall we say?"
The stillness around Arthur was charged, electric. "Spit it out, Cobb," he said.
Clearly Cobb was enjoying this too much. He was all but grinning when he said, "Sinclair visits a respected BDSM club in Portugal every two weeks."
Eames stared. "I'm sorry," he said. "Could you repeat that?"
Arthur gave him a slant-eyed look, but otherwise ignored him. "So we bring him to a club," he said. "Then what?"
"I'll leave that part in your experienced hands," Cobb said, grinning wickedly. "I figured Eames could go in as your sub, to be safe."
Eames almost swallowed his tongue. "You're barking," he blurted. "Pull the other one, why am I the sub?"
For a long moment both Arthur and Cobb stared blankly at him. Then Arthur stood up, brushing imaginary wrinkles from his waistcoat, and walked slowly around the table. There was nothing unusual about this, not really, but something about the roll of his hips, the line of his shoulders, made the hair stand up on the back of Eames' neck. He sat up warily.
Somewhere in the distance, Cobb said, "Arthur," like a warning.
They ignored him. Arthur didn't stop until he was standing directly between Eames' spread thighs. "Stand up," he said.
This close, the smell of Arthur's cologne was thick in Eames' nostrils, something dark and a little spicy. He was surprised to find himself breathing heavily. He asked, "What?" and his voice was hoarse.
Arthur's eyes were smoldering at this distance, dark, glittering. "Stand up," he repeated.
Eames did, and had to remind himself that he was actually taller than Arthur, even if only by a centimeter or so. It didn't really feel like it, at the moment.
"Good boy," said Arthur, and there was a strange half-smile on his face. He reached up a hand, curling it around the back of Eames' neck. Eames shivered, but Arthur only stroked his fingers lightly over his skin. Then the smile disappeared, and Arthur dug his thumb into the pressure point behind the hook of his jaw, and Eames dropped with a cry, eyes wide.
Expression entirely closed off, Arthur crowded him backwards, bending him back over his heels so that his head rested against the seat of his chair. He loomed over him, until all Eames could see was Arthur, long, sharp lines and the deceptively fragile dip of his collarbones, his thighs pressed close and burning against Eames' sides. His breath was rocketing in his lungs.
"Arthur," Cobb snapped.
It seemed for a moment that Arthur would ignore him again, but something almost vulnerable skittered across his face, and then Arthur backed off, the muscles tight in his jaw. "That's why," he said, and then he disappeared into the depths of the warehouse, the line of his back stiff.
Eames remained where he'd fallen, chest heaving, and stared after him. His face was burning. He said, "Bloody hell."
They met up again, later that afternoon. Arthur was notably more silent than usual, and Cobb kept glancing almost anxiously between the two of them.
"Okay," said Eames. His voice was still hoarse. "I'm in."
Arthur glanced briefly at him, expression unreadable. He seemed to relax a little, though, into the back of his chair.
Cobb let out a breath and nodded. "Good," he said. "Arthur, I don't really feel comfortable pulling Ariadne in, for this."
Eames snorted. That girl wasn't nearly as innocent as she seemed, but Cobb was a father, now, through and through. Arthur exchanged a wry look with him; apparently he agreed.
Ignoring them, Cobb said, "You have more experience with this kind of place than I do. Could you do the architecture?"
"Sure," Arthur said, easily. He opened his mouth, paused, and glanced sidelong at Eames. Finally, he said, "We're going to need some practice."
This is how Eames ends up kneeling beneath a heavy oaken table, Arthur's thighs splayed wide to accommodate his broad shoulders. Don't move, Arthur had said.
He does his best.
Cobb decided not to enter the dream with them, for which Eames is eternally grateful. This is so far outside of his comfort zone that he finds himself entirely uncertain of what he should do, how he should act. Do what I tell you, and only that, Arthur had said. Eames is used to being the one in charge, used to being the dominant partner in his trysts. He's never really preferred women or men, and has certainly played around with the darker aspects of sex. He remembers, quite fondly, the saucy little minx he'd met in Morocco, whose taste for scarves and spanking had gone well beyond the accepted norms.
But this is wholly new, and he finds himself unaccountably nervous. He's never been anxious before, not about sex. Sex is something he is very familiar with.
"I can hear you thinking, down there," Arthur says. His hand hasn't moved, thumb still resting lightly against the curve of his jaw. His other fingers stroke idly over Eames' scalp. "Relax."
"Easy for you to say," he mutters.
Arthur smacks him lightly across the head, and he yelps. "Did I tell you you could speak?" His voice is dangerous.
Eames bites his lip and says nothing, shakes his head minutely, and after a space of tense silence Arthur makes a low noise, pleased, and resumes stroking his scalp.
For now, at least, Arthur has done very little. The room is cavernous, smoky lighting and dark corners, but there is no music playing, no chains or otherwise questionable apparatus on the walls. Eames isn't sure what he was expecting, but this definitely is not it.
"Ask me questions," Arthur says.
He blinks, licks his lips. Stops for a moment and thinks about it. "This is-- not what I was expecting," he says, finally.
Arthur laughs lightly. "That's partially because I hate a lot of what you'll typically find in a fetish club," he admits. Eames can feel him shrug, and he chances a glance upwards. "Eyes on the floor," Arthur chides. He's not even looking. Eames looks down guiltily. "I hate the music," Arthur continues. "It always gives me a headache. Personally I find the chains and the pedestals and the suspension gear tacky."
Eames finds himself laughing. Arthur doesn't respond except to stroke briefly the shell of his ear with his thumb, so Eames asks, "Why do you do it, then?"
"Why do I-- Hm." For a long moment Arthur is silent, thinking. "I like to make people feel," he says, finally, "take them apart and put them back together, make them fly. I like to strip people down to nothing but skin and nerves, let them lose themselves without having to worry about finding their way back."
He realizes, quite suddenly, that he is holding his breath. Eames lets it out in a rush. His throat is dry, and he is staring helplessly at Arthur's face, wide-eyed. When Arthur glances down at him, his eyes are hooded. Eames feels like a moth, captured by the heat of the flame.
"Eyes on the floor, Eames," Arthur says. There is no censure in his voice, though, only exasperation. Eames is surprised to find himself flushing a little, and he fixes his eyes carefully on his hands, curled into fists in his pants, the way they crease the fabric.
"You said there was more," he says, quietly. He chews, nervously, at his lip.
Arthur hrms, and the hand on the back of his neck moves to curve along his cheek. "I did," he agrees. He says nothing, instead traces the angles of Eames' skull through his skin, broad sweep of his thumb across the cut his cheekbones, fingers tracing the line of his nose, the arch of an eyebrow. By the time a calloused thumb settles on his lower lip, Eames' breath is rough and fast in his chest. His tongue flickers out, unbidden, to taste Arthur's skin.
He hazards a glance upwards, to find Arthur watching him, eyes like deep wells of dark water, the firm line of his mouth curled in a faint smile.
"I'm always careful," says Arthur, "not to frighten a new sub away with too much, too soon." His hand twists around to cup Eames' jaw, and he presses his thumb into Eames' mouth. Making a low sound in his throat, Eames suckles it, eyelids falling half-mast. "Then again," and here Arthur is definitely smiling, "maybe I needn't have worried."
Eames lets out a quiet noise, finding himself oddly content, and lists just far enough to the left to rest against Arthur's thigh. Quirking an eyebrow, Arthur nudges him in the shoulder with his knee. "I can see we're going to need to work on your training," he says, but he's smiling still. "Eyes on the floor, Eames."
"How'd it go?" Cobb asks, before Eames has even opened his eyes.
"Good," Arthur says, and when Eames looks over he finds he is being watched. "Surprisingly good."
Cobb nods, looking relieved. "Okay," he says. "Now let's get started on the actual plan."
Eames lies awake for a long while, that night, staring at the ceiling. He can almost feel the phantom touch of Arthur's hand on his neck, the heat of his thighs bracketing his shoulders.
He'd be the first to admit that he's wanted Arthur in his bed almost since they met, and he's never tried to hide it, not really. He's never seen a need to. He flirts, it's part of his very nature. He can't really help it. On good days, Arthur will almost flirt back. Some days he reacts poorly, gets angry, snaps at him. Sometimes he ignores him. But there is no one they've worked with who doesn't know.
But as Eames has always been, he'd just assumed he would be the one doing all the work, that he'd be taking Arthur apart beneath him. That it would be Eames in charge, and Arthur coming undone under his hands.
"Do what I tell you, and only that," Arthur had said, as if he'd been discussing the weather. As if he hadn't just turned Eames' world upside-down.
Eames takes a deep breath, remembers the scent of Arthur's cologne heavy in his throat. He rolls over, and very deliberately sets about falling asleep.
He wakes in the morning to a layer of snow fresh on the windowsill, and the walk to the warehouse is cold and brisk, coat pulled tight around him, hands deep in the fur-lined pockets. There is a coffee waiting for him when he arrives, still hot. Arthur's coat has been hung neatly from the back of his chair. Someone has cranked the heater, enough that he undoes the top two buttons of his shirt and rolls up his sleeves.
Cobb wanders from a side room, still looking a little sleep-ruffled, says, "Morning," around his own cup of coffee. It's the same brand as Eames', he notices.
"Did Arthur deign to treat us to coffee, this morning?" he asks, a little surprised.
"Mm," says Cobb, whose eyes are all but closed, clearly not entirely awake yet. Eames grins.
Then Arthur rounds the corner and though he looks no different than usual -- sleek and gorgeous, all sharp angles and pinstripes, sleeves rolled up to his elbows to bare the length of his forearms -- Eames can't seem to look away. Arthur spares him a quick, evaluating glance, and Eames swallows.
He has the feeling this is going to be a long day.
The three of them gather around the table about noon, eating takeout from the falafel joint down the street. Amidst the crackle of aluminum foil Arthur pauses between bites to say, "We should go under again, when we're done."
Eames says, joking, "Yes, sir," and as he laughs lightly Arthur gives him a long, charged look. Eames stops laughing. A frisson of something strange, electric shivers down his spine.
Between them, Cobb clears his throat, eyes fixed deliberately on his falafel. There is a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
Dropping his eyes to his own food, Eames licks his lips and swallows heavily. He is wholly out of his depth, here.
After a long, only slightly awkward silence, Cobb straightens in his seat, flips through a large folder Arthur has compiled on their mark. "Okay," he says, and takes the folder in hand, moves to his feet. "I'm going to look through this in the other room." He gives Arthur a look, and when he glances at Eames the expression on his face is amused, knowing. "I'll just leave you two alone, then."
Eames scowls. Yes, Cobb is having far too much fun with this.
"On your knees," says Arthur.
He hesitates for a moment, then sinks to the floor. He looks around, curious, and is surprised at what he sees.
The room is oriental in design, the floor lined with tatami mats, elegant lines and muted colors, latticework sliding doors covered in thin rice paper. Eames supposes it shouldn't surprise him, but it's all so very Arthur he has to sit for a moment and blink. It is also, at least, more comfortable than the linoleum.
"We need to get you more accustomed to this," Arthur is saying, and Eames turns to find him settling cross-legged in the middle of one of the rice mats, head cocked to the side. He's sitting on a pillow, the bastard. His expression is placid, although there is something very expectant about him. Eames stares blankly, until Arthur sighs and pats the mat by his side. "Come here," he says. "Sit."
Eames raises an eyebrow -- he's not a bloody dog -- but obeys, finding himself to his surprise wearing a pair of sweatpants and a ratty heather gray t-shirt. He blinks. "What--"
"You need to be more comfortable," Arthur says, "or this will never work." He smiles faintly. Eames realizes Arthur is wearing a pair of battered jeans, frayed at the hems, threadbare around the knees. He stares; he can't really help it. Arthur laughs, and Eames feels something warm somersault in his chest. "Here," Arthur says, and reaches towards him, "lie down." And he wraps a hand around the base of Eames' skull and tugs him gently downward so that his head rests on Arthur's thigh.
It's almost nothing, and it takes all of Eames' will to restrain a moan. The denim is soft against his cheek, and Arthur's thigh beneath it is hard with muscle. He can smell his cologne, and underneath it something warm and clean and natural, something Arthur. His heart is pounding in his chest. He'd never actually thought he'd get this close to him. For a long moment Eames just closes his eyes and breathes.
A hand cups his jaw, and Eames jumps, looking up.
"We need to lay down some ground rules," Arthur says. His gaze is steady, eyes liquid. "For both of us."
Eames licks his lips, not entirely certain what Arthur means. He nods anyway.
"First things first." His face is serious, but his eyes are dancing, warm. Eames feels himself, caught, his breath sticking in his chest. His mouth has run dry. Arthur says, "Whatever you do, don't lie to me. If you don't like something, if something makes you uncomfortable, tell me."
"I'm a little surprised," says Eames, "that you think I wouldn't." His voice is alarmingly rough.
Arthur quirks a small smile. "You might think so," he says. "But I've had people try and impress me before. It always ends badly."
Eames makes himself swallow, licks his lips to wet them. He'll admit, if only to himself, that he might have tried if Arthur hadn't said anything.
The way Arthur's smile widens makes him think he might know exactly what Eames is thinking. What he says, though, is, "Second, unless I tell you to, or ask you a question, you are not allowed to speak. You will keep your eyes on the floor, and I will expect you to know when I want you to kneel, or sit." He swipes a thumb across Eames' lower lip, says, "Don't worry. We'll have plenty of practice." His eyes are smoldering. "Any questions?"
"Yes," Eames says, and clears his throat. "What-- What do I call you?"
Arthur's expression doesn't change, not really. Except that it does, and the gleam of his eyes is obscene, sears Eames to the bone. "Sir will do," Arthur says.
Eames remembers the look in Arthur's eyes when he'd jokingly called him 'sir,' earlier. Oh, god. He has to swallow before he can speak. "You said for both of us." He sounds like he's swallowed broken glass. "What does that mean?"
"It means that if anything makes you uncomfortable, I stop." Arthur shrugs, blandly. "And if you want something, even if I don't find it particularly appealing, I do my best to give it to you."
That takes him by surprise. "You make it sound like there's less of a power differential than I'd thought," Eames observes.
Arthur smiles and nods. "Play is all about the power exchange," he agrees. "The dom is in charge, acts upon the sub, maybe even hurts or punishes them. But the real power lies with the sub, at least in a proper, consensual relationship." He shrugs. "Everything the dom does is something the sub wants, or has agreed to. It's why we have safe words."
"Oh," says Eames, whose mind is currently rearranging itself around this new information. Maybe he can do this. "So when you say ground rules for both of us..."
"Boundaries," says Arthur. "What you will do, what you might do, what you absolutely won't. Are you into pain, humiliation, electric shock, shibari bondage, caning, toys... Things like that."
Eames stares, blankly. His head is spinning, and he is stricken suddenly by a slew of images, Arthur tying him up, holding him down, astride his chest and fucking his mouth, taking a flog to his back. He moans, unbidden.
Arthur smirks. He says, "I'm going to kiss you, now."
Eames sucks in a sharp breath, rasps, "Yes."
Then Arthur bends and takes his mouth in a kiss that shakes him to the core, licks him open and breathless. His mouth is hot and wet, and his hand on Eames' cheek keeps him exactly where Arthur wants him. Arthur traces the inside of his mouth with a thoroughness that drives Eames wild, and when they finally separate for air, what seems like hours later, he can do little else but stare at him in a daze.
"Hm," says Arthur. "I think I like you like this."
That snaps him into proper awareness. Before he can do more than glare, though, Arthur slants his mouth over his again, practically fucks his mouth with his tongue. Almost against his will Eames moans, heat surging in his bones. When Arthur pulls away, Eames is gasping for breath. He realizes his fingers have clenched into a fist in Arthur's shirt, twisting the fabric into creases that stretch like a starburst across his chest.
"I should probably tell you," Arthur says. There is something in his eyes that Eames, dazed though he may be, does not like. "I don't play around. I'm just doing this for the job."
Eames stops, everything, just for a second. He knows, distantly, that Arthur is still talking, but he can't hear him for the roaring in his ears. Then he recovers his composure, smiles. "Of course," he says, and it's believable, because he's a forger, and if there's anything he can do it's fake things.
Arthur falls silent, gives him a strange look. "Okay," he says, finally. "Just so long as we both understand."
And Eames does, now, even if he didn't before.
The timer on the PASIV wakes them up a moment later. Eames is up and out of the chair before Arthur has even pulled the IV from his wrist. He shrugs hurriedly into his coat, swearing when his arm tangles in the sleeves. He can feel Arthur watching him.
"Eames?"
Absurdly, he sounds concerned. Across the warehouse Cobb's head pops around a doorway, looking surprised.
"I've an appointment in twenty minutes," Eames says, artfully bright, careless. When he turns around Arthur's brows are furrowed; he seems utterly thrown. He adds, with just the right amount of self-deprecation, "I'd forgotten entirely."
Cobb and Arthur share a meaningful look, all raised eyebrows and facial tics, but Eames ignores them, strides briskly out the door. "Don't wait up," he calls, laughter in his voice.
Behind him, he can hear Cobb say, "What the hell was that?" He doesn't hear Arthur's reply.
Outside there is still snow on the ground, dirty gritty heaps of it, frozen and crumbling. The sidewalk is a morass of half-melted slush, pools of filthy, polluted water frozen over with a vitreous film of ice. He hugs his coat tight around his chest and waits until he rounds the corner before he lets his shoulders slump. A muscle tics in his cheek. His shoes, fifteen hundred dollar New & Lingwood loafers, are being ruined by the slag of a city winter; he can't even bring himself to care.
He slams the door to his flat and pulls out the bottle of Macallan scotch he keeps in the cupboard for when he needs something drastic.
Eames wakes and the world's most horrific drum solo is being played, in surround sound, inside his skull. He groans, rolling over and shoving his face into a pillow. He doesn't dare open his eyes.
After a while a noise drills its way into his awareness, and he whines, refuses to move. It stops after an agonizing moment, thank Christ. Only when it starts up again does he realize it's his mobile.
He gropes blindly at his bedside table, knocks something over with a crash that makes him cringe, and when he finally finds his phone he drags it under the sheets. He stares blankly for a second at the display, then swears. Arthur, it reads, and then under that 10:37. He fumbles it open, brings it to his ear. "Yeah?" he rasps, sounding as if he's swallowed sandpaper.
There is a brief silence. Then, a little surprised, "Eames?"
"Speaking," he says, and forces himself free of his cocoon. Late morning light falls through his window and directly into his eyes, and he groans, shielding his eyes with his hand. "What?" It comes out more curtly than he'd really intended, but his head is throbbing and Arthur is a total prat and he can't really make himself care.
For a long moment Arthur says nothing. Then, sounding almost hesitant, "Are you okay?"
"Course I am," Eames snaps, gritting his teeth. "Why the bloody hell wouldn't I be?"
There is another silence, this time longer. Arthur must be eating or something, because he doesn't normally hesitate so long when speaking. Eames resolutely ignores the complete absence of any sound that eating would make. Finally Arthur says, "No reason," carefully, like something might be wrong. "Just-- Come in whenever you're ready, okay? There's no rush."
The condescending bastard. Eames scowls. "Yeah," he grunts. "Right."
He still has a splitting headache when he ambles into the warehouse around noon. The front room is entirely empty, although the heat is on full blast again to battle the chill and Arthur's coat is hanging by the door. When he gets to his customary desk, a thing he rarely uses except as a place to leave his belongings, he is surprised to find a bottle of water, a glass of orange juice and, bizarrely, a banana. There is a small piece of paper held in place by the water bottle.
Eames stares blankly for a moment, then shrugs, takes a long swig of the water. He hesitates, then picks up the note.
To battle the hangover. Find me when you're done. -A
Eames scowls and crumples the note, tosses it into the waste bin. He drinks the orange juice, eats the banana, and glowers all the while.
He's sulking, he knows this. But his head aches, and he's frustrated, and Arthur is apparently incredibly thoughtful when all Eames wants is to be angry with him. It's not just that Arthur is apparently only doing this with him because he has to.
Eames is a forger. He prides himself on being able to watch a person for a couple of days and then impersonate them with hardly a noticeable difference. He's one of the best in the business, and that means he can read people in a way that the average person can't even fathom. To have spent so much time with Arthur and not noticed this about him... He almost feels as if he's been deliberately slighted, though he knows it's irrational.
For a moment he seriously debates going home, taking a cab to the airport, disappearing.
Then Cobb pops up from behind a desk or something and scares the living daylights out of him, saying, "Ah, there you are," no more than a meter away. Eames jumps, and Cobb's mouth twitches as he very obviously does not smile and says, "Arthur was worried," as though this is something totally normal. "He's in the back."
Well, there goes that shoddy plan. Eames sighs.
Arthur is waiting for him, sifting through an enormous sheef of paper. He pauses when Eames enters the room, looks him up and down. The expression on his face is unreadable. "Glad to see you're feeling better," he says.
Eames knuckles his forehead, shaking his head. "I'm not, really," he grumbles, glaring.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Arthur says, and straightens from where he'd been bent over the desk. He's frowning slightly. "Drink some more water," he suggests.
"Yes, sir," Eames sneers.
Arthur throws him a sharp look at that, eyes narrowed. There is none of the heat of before at the title. After a moment he says, "I think we should go under again in about twenty minutes, if that's alright with you."
He looks away, swallows. Clenches his jaw. "Brilliant."
The room is the same as before, simple and elegant and just long, clean lines and sharp angles. Thankfully the headache has mostly eased, slipping into Arthur's dream, but there remains a hint of the hangover in the corners of his eyes, things abruptly too sharp, lurid swimming colors that melt away when he turns his head to look at them.
One look around and Arthur says, "No, this will never do." He doesn't move, seems in fact to do nothing at all, but something indefinable rearranges itself and then the dream room settles with a snap into place, and all vestiges of Eames' hangover disappear. Arthur glances at him, eyebrows furrowed. "You should have told me you still had a headache, I would have found something to help."
"I'm not your bloody gimp, Arthur," Eames snaps, and glares at the far wall. He almost wishes he still had the headache.
Silence, for a brief span. Then Arthur is on him before he even realizes he's moved, shoving him face-first into the wall, one of his arms twisted up behind his back so that he cries out. He presses full-length against him, and something hot and brilliant courses through Eames' blood. "Okay," Arthur says, and his voice is deadly quiet. His breath puffs hot and damp against the side of Eames' neck, the shell of his ear. "Let's make one thing very clear." He gives the arm in his grip a tight squeeze, and the air hisses between Eames' teeth. "You can throw a tantrum in the real world, and I can't do anything about it. Whatever. But right now, in here I own you."
Eames shivers, staring wide-eyed and blind at the wall.
Arthur gives him a moment to let that sink in, then presses closer, as if that were actually possible. "What this means," he says, clipped, "is that you will respect me, and you will do what I tell you, when I tell you. Are we clear?"
But Eames can't really respond, his senses swimming. He can feel the heat of Arthur's body all along his back, the hard, solid muscles. Every breath he takes makes Eames shiver, gusting across his skin.
"Are we clear."
He manages a shaky nod, his breath sticky in his throat. "Yes," he whispers.
Arthur gives his arm another good yank and says, "Yes, what?"
"Sir," Eames says, quickly. "Yes, sir." His voice cracks.
"Good," says Arthur, and then abruptly he is gone, and Eames is cold all down the length of his body. "Sit down."
He turns, realizes he is shaking. Arthur is seated on the far side of the room, his face expressionless, the line of his shoulders stiff. "Sit down," he says, and every word is bitten off like a shotgun blast.
Eames does, almost has no choice in the matter; his legs seem incapable of holding him.
"I don't know what your problem is, today," Arthur says, mouth white-lipped from tension, "but we are dealing with this. Right now.
"Talk."
He almost says nothing, doesn't want to talk about this at all. But the look in Arthur's eyes brooks no argument, and so Eames slumps forward over his own crossed legs and mutters, "You said you were only doing this for the job."
Arthur blinks, taken aback. Then he closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I knew you weren't listening," he says.
"What?" Eames frowns.
"You're an idiot," Arthur tells him, rolling his eyes.
Eames scowls.
"Eames," Arthur sighs. He actually looks exasperated, now. "If you'd actually listened to what I said..." He shakes his head. "Not important. Don't make me repeat myself again."
The look in his eyes makes it clear this is an order. Eames nods.
"Good," he says, then, "I'm not comfortable having sex with someone for a job. That's all I meant, Eames."
The bubble of tension in his chest pops, relief a thing he can almost taste. Eames opens his mouth to say something, closes it again when he can think of nothing. He can't help but stare. He feels like a right git.
"Yeah," Arthur says, grinning wryly. Then he sobers so quickly it is as though the smile was never there. "I won't fuck you, Eames, not for the job. But afterwards, if you're still interested..." He shrugs, eloquently.
"I will be," he blurts, voice hoarse.
Arthur's eyes are steady, but that strange vulnerability Eames had noticed in the warehouse has returned. "You don't know that," Arthur says.
"Yes, Arthur," he says. There is a lump in his throat. "I really do."
For a long moment Arthur says nothing. Eames can see the muscles working in his jaw, the bob of his Adam's apple. "We can argue about this later," he finally says. "Come here."
He crosses the room more quickly than he would have thought possible, settles down at Arthur's side.
"We need to get you used to the subtleties of this," Arthur says, thoughtfully. Abruptly he is sitting in a chair, Eames on the floor at his feet. One of Arthur's hands makes its way into his hair. He takes it in a fist and tugs, gently. "On your knees."
Eames moves without thinking, eyes half-mast. Something about this, giving in to Arthur's will, is soothing, relaxes something deep in his gut that he'd never noticed before. He settles into it with an ease that surprises him, rests his head against Arthur's knee.
He wonders who hurt Arthur before, so badly that he can't even trust his own sub.
It doesn't surprise him that the thought of it makes him angry.
They spend three hours in the dream. When Eames wakes up, fifteen minutes have passed in reality, and he feels like something huge has changed in him. Arthur woke first, and his fingers on Eames' wrist as he removes the line are as the touch of a moth's wing, light and ephemeral. Eames finds he cannot drag his eyes away from the lengths of Arthur's forearms, the way the shadows jump as his muscles shift beneath the skin.
That is, until Arthur straightens, and then Eames is captured by the slope of his shoulders, the lines of his chest as they converge on his trim waist, the slant of his jaw, the shadow of his throat where it dips above his collarbones. He feels as though the breath has been knocked from his lungs.
"It's impolite to stare," Arthur says, and he is smiling faintly. His thumb is stroking idle, shapeless forms into Eames' wrist.
Eames swallows thickly. "Right," he agrees. He doesn't look away.
Arthur's smile curls deeper, and his eyes are full of promise. "Why, Mr. Eames," he says, lightly, "you might start giving me the wrong idea."
"Oh, I hardly think that's possible," Eames says, and laughs, rough, scraping his throat in its honesty. "We all know I've wanted you for years." He smiles, pained.
Suddenly Arthur's face is void of all expression. The thumb on his wrist has stopped. "Eames..."
"Don't worry about it, darling," Eames says, doesn't even bother hiding the way his throat has clogged. He slips around Arthur, standing frozen beside him, and to his feet. "It's nothing new."
He has his coat on and is about to walk out the door when Arthur's voice, calling his name, stops him. He turns, and Arthur stands behind him, shifting uncertainly on his feet. Then the insecurity, so unusual, is masked by a sharply quirked eyebrow, a firmed mouth. "Don't lie to me again," Arthur says.
Eames has to clear his throat to free it of rocks before he says, quietly, "Yes, sir."
Then he turns and walks out the door.
Eames jerks off that night until his dick is raw and his forearm cramping. He imagines Arthur, pressing him into the mattress, cock heavy in his arse and teeth in the back of his throat; Arthur, still wearing one of his impossibly perfect suits, fucking Eames' face as Eames bucks and writhes beneath him; Arthur in nothing but a pair of slacks, the muscles in his forearm tensing, relaxing, with every thrust of his fist in Eames' arse; Arthur, Arthur, always Arthur. He lies gasping and sweaty in the middle of his bed, the sheets a tousled, sticky mess around him, his belly slick with come.
He sleeps, and for the first time in long years he dreams naturally, Arthur taking him over and pulling him apart, piecing him back together whole and transformed. He wakes to the sound of the city coming to life outside his window, and the memory of Arthur's expression yesterday in the warehouse is bitter in his mouth. Outside, it is snowing.
When he arrives at the warehouse Arthur has treated them to coffee again. Eames' sits still hot on his desk, just the way he likes it (hazelnut, two sugars, no cream), next to a cranberry walnut muffin -- his favorite -- and an orange. He raises an eyebrow, remembers Arthur's words, in that second dream. If you want something, I do my best to give it to you.
He can't help it. He laughs, and smiles, and doesn't feel quite so miserable about the fact that Arthur is occasionally a bloody coward.
"You're in a good mood this morning," Arthur says from behind him.
Eames turns, and want kicks him low in the gut. Arthur must just have come back from a run to the store, because he's wearing his coat and there is a light dusting of snow across the shoulders. His cheeks are rosey, his eyes glittering. There is a faint curl to his lips.
"Slept well," Eames says, not bothering to hide his desire as he looks Arthur over from top to bottom. The slacks especially are drawing his eye, sleek and pressed, falling just right about his thighs. "You're looking particularly fetching today."
Arthur lifts an eyebrow. "Thank you."
"I might throw up," says Cobb from the other side of the room, where he has been standing since Eames arrived.
Arthur rolls eyes, and then strides over to his desk. If Eames watches his arse beneath the slacks, well. One can hardly blame him.
"I'd tell you two to get a room," Cobb says, transcribing notes from Arthur's report to the whiteboard, "but it goes without saying that I already know you intend to."
"I envy you your biting wit," Arthur says blandly.
Cobb smiles. Eames eats his muffin, grinning all the while.
Over the course of the next week they go under progressively longer, until they're staying in the dream for six or seven hours at a time. Cobb leaves them to it, and when Eames wakes up hard and breathless he does little more than pretend to be scandalized. Arthur has developed a habit of disappearing immediately after each session. He always returns impeccable as ever, but there is no disguising the heated looks he'll often toss in Eames' direction when he thinks no one is looking.
Eames is finding it harder and harder, now, to ignore the impulse to kneel at Arthur's feet in reality. Arthur need only hint at wanting something, a pen, a coffee, a printout of all of their mark's most recent phone calls, and Eames is moving to get it for him before he even realizes what he's doing.
Cobb laughs at him a lot, much to his chagrin.
"You don't need to do that, you know," Arthur says, late one night. Cobb left hours ago to call the children before they were sent to bed, and Eames has just alphabetized an entire folder of mugshots because Arthur had hinted earlier that it was bothering him.
"Do what?" Eames looks up in surprise.
Arthur's expression is guarded, his mouth flat. "Bend over backwards to please me."
Eames straightens in his chair, eyebrows raised. "Darling," he says, "every morning you have bought my favorite breakfast fresh from the bakery. There is always hot coffee waiting for me."
Arthur works his jaw for a long moment, drums his fingers in agitation against the table. "What's your point?"
Eames shrugs. "You do it for me," he says. "Why shouldn't I do it for you?"
The point man stares at him silently, then says, finally, "I guess."
"There," Eames says, and smiles. "That wasn't so hard, now, was it?"
Before Eames knows what's happening the day of the job is upon them. They've booked a suite down the hall from the hotel room in which their mark is staying. The plan is that they'll sneak in after he's had his final nightcap; he won't wake for hours, and it's the perfect time to slip him under. Arthur is out doing some last minute reconnaissance when Cobb turns to Eames and says, "Be careful with him."
Eames blinks and stares. "I'm sorry?"
"Arthur." The expression on Cobb's face is the epitome of that worn by a concerned father. "After the job's done. I've seen him hurt before, I don't want to again."
"No offense," Eames says, deliberately misunderstanding, "but I think you're telling the wrong person." Cobb looks to be terribly unimpressed, and Eames licks his lips, laughs, low and rough. His expression turns bitter. "I hardly think it'll be a problem, anyway."
Cobb raises an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?"
"Oh, nothing." Eames looks away, mouth twisting. "I just don't see it becoming an issue. Arthur's made it perfectly clear he's not interested."
For a long moment Cobb simply looks at him. "Sometimes," he finally says, "it's like the two of you are speaking entirely different languages." There is something alarmingly like pity in his eyes.
He starts to respond, and Arthur opens the door. Eames falls silent, and when they both turn to look at him Arthur raises an eyebrow, obviously catching the somber atmosphere. All he says, though, is, "It's time."
They wait another hour, monitoring the room with bugs Arthur had planted earlier, like the ninja Eames secretly believes he is, and when all signs of movement have stilled they creep out the door of their suite and down the hall. It's late, almost two in the morning, and the hotel is quiet and still, the only sounds that of someone down the hall watching television. Arthur has mysteriously appropriated a copy of the room key, and they slip into Sinclair's room unseen.
It is the work of minutes to get them all hooked up to the PASIV. Cobb will be staying behind to keep watch over them. They don't have a definite plan; Arthur's going to have to improvise based upon what Sinclair brings to the dream, playing architect and point man and extractor all in one. Eames does not envy him.
He and Arthur go first, and Cobb will give them about ten minutes in the dream to make certain everything is stable before putting Sinclair under.
Even after all these years, the transition between waking and dreaming is like the shock of cold water. He takes a deep, steadying breath, and looks around.
The club is enormous, bare black walls and naked concrete floor, the ceiling towering high above them. Sheer curtains, a rich, damson plum, drape in diaphanous sheets between dark, square columns. The floor is populated by a series of low oaken tables and heavy chairs, a long, high bar located in the corner of the club nearest them. Along the far wall is a stage, and from where Eames is standing he can see what looks to be Penrose tiling.
Arthur's projections are immaculate as per usual, although there seems to be more leather and latex than is strictly the norm. Eames, when he looks down at himself, is wearing a pair of simple, if pristine, gray slacks and alligator-skin loafers. His chest is bare.
He quirks an eyebrow, turns to Arthur to comment, and almost swallows his tongue.
Seeing Arthur in a suit is not new, not really. But there is just something about the man in a waistcoat and slacks, jacket snug and flawlessly tailored, all the long clean lines of him, that makes lust roil low in his gut. The suit, English, slim-cut, is a pearl gray so pale he seems to glow in the dark of the club, waistcoat a deep plum to match the drapes, undershirt white and pinstriped. The top two buttons are undone, his tie loose at his throat. He discards the jacket, hangs it from a conveniently located rack on the wall that Eames is almost certain was not there before, and rolls his sleeves up, and dammit if that isn't a direct line from Eames' brain to his dick, blood thumping and cock already twitching with interest.
What turns Eames' mouth dry, though, what really knocks the wind from his sails, is the pair of black leather gloves, the way he tugs deliberately at them one by one, stretching his fingers out like he's trying them on for the first time.
When Arthur finally looks at him Eames jumps like he's been galvanized. A smug smile tugs at the corners of Arthur's mouth, his cheeks dimpling.
Eames is bewitched.
"Well, Mr. Eames," says Arthur, a wicked glint in his eye, "let's make ourselves ready, shall we?"
He leads Eames to a dark alcove by the stage with a hand at the small of his back. Even with the gloves -- or, perhaps more accurately, because of the gloves -- the touch is electric, skating up his spine so that he trembles, breathing ragged.
Arthur sits in one of the heavy chairs, sprawls out with his legs akimbo. Eames drops without prompting to his knees, settles between Arthur's spread thighs. The smell of him, here, is enough to make his mouth water.
"Good boy," Arthur says, fond.
Long fingers have already tangled in his hair, stroking lazily. If it were physically possible Eames would be purring. Arthur is a veritable furnace, heat pressing against him from all sides. The air around them is redolent with the smell of his cologne. Eames' world shrinks to the small space that encompasses them, to the fingers that coil skeins of his hair between them, the warm affectionate press of Arthur's knee to his shoulder. The pain in his own knees is phantom.
He doesn't even notice their mark has arrived until Arthur tugs lightly at his hair.
"He's here."
Sinclair's projection of himself, even in Arthur's dream, is not what he is in reality. The man is no troglodyte, but Eames is positive he'd remember if the man looked like that, a laughable parody of Greek masturbatory fantasies. If they weren't in a fetish club there would likely be sunlight gleaming off the oil on his densely muscled chest, his long blond hair.
Eames wants to gag. From the snort behind him, Arthur's opinion of their mark isn't much better.
There is a tense moment in which all of the projections turn and stare and the club seems to freeze, and then everything returns to normal. Except-- Eames realizes there is music playing, thick and gritty, heavy bass line. Suddenly the lighting has changed, a dull red glow that leaves everything in shadow, spotlight on an enormous metal contraption dead center of the stage that looks like nothing so much as a gyroscope with added leather restraints and chains. The projections are clad entirely in fetish gear, assless chaps and whips, rubber catsuits and latex hoods and enough leather to make an army of comic book supervillains jealous.
Eames' eyes catch on a leather collar and leash, and a sudden burst of longing clogs his throat.
When next he looks Sinclair is a nightmare of fetish gear, buckle gag, rubber dog collar, black neoprene racing vest over assless latex pants, cockring on blatant display. There are chains and buckles and D-rings on everything, and he looks as though he'll trip over himself if he moves too quickly. He seems to be waiting for something.
The fingers of Arthur's unoccupied hand drum thoughtfully against his thigh. "Stay here," he says, and in one smooth movement has stood up and moved over Eames, striding confidently across the floor.
Eames is left reeling from the all too brief contact of what could only have been Arthur's erection against the back of his neck, thick and heavy and burning hot through the fabric of his trousers, the brush of his thighs against his bare shoulders.
This man is going to be the death of him, and he can't even make himself care.
As Arthur moves across the club his clothes are changing, melting from Merino wool to thick black leather, waistcoat and shirt into something that Arthur might actually wear in reality if it weren't made entirely of leather, pants that cling like a second skin to his thighs. Almost as an afterthought, the Oxfords whip apart and then back up along his calves, congealing like wisps of smoke before settling into a pair of knee-high lace-up boots that leave Eames' tongue clinging to the roof of his mouth. By the time Arthur reaches their mark, all that remains of what he'd first worn are the leather gloves.
They are too far away for Eames to hear what they're saying, but Sinclair's eyes grow very, very wide, and he drops almost immediately to his knees, slouching to best show off the spread of his thighs. A high flush clings, just barely visible in the dim light, to his cheeks.
Arthur's expression is unreadable. He kicks the man's thighs closed, disgust a thick curl of his lips. He says something, and Eames can practically hear him, the haughty disdain, the rich baritone. Sinclair straightens like a firecracker going off. Eames can see his chest heaving. Arthur says something more, and Sinclair nods frantically, leaning forward slightly, eager as a bitch in heat.
His stomach drops as Arthur leans in close, close enough that the mark's bangs dance with each puff of his breath. Sinclair is listening intently to whatever Arthur is saying, and he nods again, hands clenching into fists against his thighs. He presses his face into Arthur's hips, and Arthur lets him.
There is a sour taste in Eames' mouth. He wishes, quite abruptly, that he were blind, or blindfolded, or that he could simply will himself awake. He can't seem to look away.
One of Arthur's hands wraps itself in a leash attached to Sinclair's collar that was not there mere moments ago. He pulls Sinclair up on his knees so that he's no longer resting on his heels, and with the other hand unbuckles the mark's gag.
Richard Sinclair hands them all of his secrets, and Arthur listens, and remembers, and just like that they wake up.
There is a taste in Eames' mouth like he might be sick.
MASTER POST | PART II | GRAPHICS
by strzyga
He feels ridiculous.
The linoleum is hard beneath his knees, and he's not wearing any of the gear, not yet, but he is terribly uncomfortable. He shifts his weight, staring sullenly at the floor, and tightens his fists where they rest on his thighs.
"Eames," Arthur says, sharply.
He breathes out roughly through his nose and settles back on his heels, biting the inside of his cheek.
Arthur, sprawled loosely at the table, reaches down almost idly and runs a hand through Eames' hair, level with his knee. The touch, careless and proprietary, makes Eames shiver. The unexpected caress travels to the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in the fine hairs, and a thumb presses very lightly into the hollow behind his ear, resting deliberately against the pressure point. Eames breathes and does not move.
"Much better," says Arthur, and there might actually be a smile in his voice.
This is really not what Eames had expected, when Cobb had called them up with a new job. This certainly was not how he'd hoped to get into Arthur's pants, but he is man enough to admit he'll take what he can get. He's wanted Arthur for what feels like an eternity, now.
"Richard Sinclair," Cobb had said, and tossed a manila folder onto the table.
Eames quirked an eyebrow, sprawling indolently in his chair. On the other side of the table Arthur leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "That name sounds familiar," he said.
There was an odd smile on Cobb's face. "I'm not surprised," he said. "He runs in the same circles you do."
Arthur straightened at that, a peculiar look in his eyes. "Does he, now." His voice held no inflection, utterly bland.
"Would anyone like to share with the rest of the class?" Eames interrupted, attention well and truly caught.
Cobb shook his head, still smiling faintly. "Oh, it's nothing important," he said, and his tone was almost breezy. Eames raised an eyebrow, but Cobb continued before he could say anything. "Sinclair's been suspected of stealing some very delicate company secrets," he said, and shoved his hands in his pockets, the picture of nonchalance. His eyes were still fixed on Arthur. "We've been hired to find them, if he has."
Eames found himself watching Arthur, without really knowing why. Arthur had not moved, but something about him had changed.
"What's the plan?" Arthur asked.
Smiling faintly, Cobb cocked his head. "It's apparently well known, underground, that Sinclair's interested in some more... unusual pursuits, shall we say?"
The stillness around Arthur was charged, electric. "Spit it out, Cobb," he said.
Clearly Cobb was enjoying this too much. He was all but grinning when he said, "Sinclair visits a respected BDSM club in Portugal every two weeks."
Eames stared. "I'm sorry," he said. "Could you repeat that?"
Arthur gave him a slant-eyed look, but otherwise ignored him. "So we bring him to a club," he said. "Then what?"
"I'll leave that part in your experienced hands," Cobb said, grinning wickedly. "I figured Eames could go in as your sub, to be safe."
Eames almost swallowed his tongue. "You're barking," he blurted. "Pull the other one, why am I the sub?"
For a long moment both Arthur and Cobb stared blankly at him. Then Arthur stood up, brushing imaginary wrinkles from his waistcoat, and walked slowly around the table. There was nothing unusual about this, not really, but something about the roll of his hips, the line of his shoulders, made the hair stand up on the back of Eames' neck. He sat up warily.
Somewhere in the distance, Cobb said, "Arthur," like a warning.
They ignored him. Arthur didn't stop until he was standing directly between Eames' spread thighs. "Stand up," he said.
This close, the smell of Arthur's cologne was thick in Eames' nostrils, something dark and a little spicy. He was surprised to find himself breathing heavily. He asked, "What?" and his voice was hoarse.
Arthur's eyes were smoldering at this distance, dark, glittering. "Stand up," he repeated.
Eames did, and had to remind himself that he was actually taller than Arthur, even if only by a centimeter or so. It didn't really feel like it, at the moment.
"Good boy," said Arthur, and there was a strange half-smile on his face. He reached up a hand, curling it around the back of Eames' neck. Eames shivered, but Arthur only stroked his fingers lightly over his skin. Then the smile disappeared, and Arthur dug his thumb into the pressure point behind the hook of his jaw, and Eames dropped with a cry, eyes wide.
Expression entirely closed off, Arthur crowded him backwards, bending him back over his heels so that his head rested against the seat of his chair. He loomed over him, until all Eames could see was Arthur, long, sharp lines and the deceptively fragile dip of his collarbones, his thighs pressed close and burning against Eames' sides. His breath was rocketing in his lungs.
"Arthur," Cobb snapped.
It seemed for a moment that Arthur would ignore him again, but something almost vulnerable skittered across his face, and then Arthur backed off, the muscles tight in his jaw. "That's why," he said, and then he disappeared into the depths of the warehouse, the line of his back stiff.
Eames remained where he'd fallen, chest heaving, and stared after him. His face was burning. He said, "Bloody hell."
They met up again, later that afternoon. Arthur was notably more silent than usual, and Cobb kept glancing almost anxiously between the two of them.
"Okay," said Eames. His voice was still hoarse. "I'm in."
Arthur glanced briefly at him, expression unreadable. He seemed to relax a little, though, into the back of his chair.
Cobb let out a breath and nodded. "Good," he said. "Arthur, I don't really feel comfortable pulling Ariadne in, for this."
Eames snorted. That girl wasn't nearly as innocent as she seemed, but Cobb was a father, now, through and through. Arthur exchanged a wry look with him; apparently he agreed.
Ignoring them, Cobb said, "You have more experience with this kind of place than I do. Could you do the architecture?"
"Sure," Arthur said, easily. He opened his mouth, paused, and glanced sidelong at Eames. Finally, he said, "We're going to need some practice."
This is how Eames ends up kneeling beneath a heavy oaken table, Arthur's thighs splayed wide to accommodate his broad shoulders. Don't move, Arthur had said.
He does his best.
Cobb decided not to enter the dream with them, for which Eames is eternally grateful. This is so far outside of his comfort zone that he finds himself entirely uncertain of what he should do, how he should act. Do what I tell you, and only that, Arthur had said. Eames is used to being the one in charge, used to being the dominant partner in his trysts. He's never really preferred women or men, and has certainly played around with the darker aspects of sex. He remembers, quite fondly, the saucy little minx he'd met in Morocco, whose taste for scarves and spanking had gone well beyond the accepted norms.
But this is wholly new, and he finds himself unaccountably nervous. He's never been anxious before, not about sex. Sex is something he is very familiar with.
"I can hear you thinking, down there," Arthur says. His hand hasn't moved, thumb still resting lightly against the curve of his jaw. His other fingers stroke idly over Eames' scalp. "Relax."
"Easy for you to say," he mutters.
Arthur smacks him lightly across the head, and he yelps. "Did I tell you you could speak?" His voice is dangerous.
Eames bites his lip and says nothing, shakes his head minutely, and after a space of tense silence Arthur makes a low noise, pleased, and resumes stroking his scalp.
For now, at least, Arthur has done very little. The room is cavernous, smoky lighting and dark corners, but there is no music playing, no chains or otherwise questionable apparatus on the walls. Eames isn't sure what he was expecting, but this definitely is not it.
"Ask me questions," Arthur says.
He blinks, licks his lips. Stops for a moment and thinks about it. "This is-- not what I was expecting," he says, finally.
Arthur laughs lightly. "That's partially because I hate a lot of what you'll typically find in a fetish club," he admits. Eames can feel him shrug, and he chances a glance upwards. "Eyes on the floor," Arthur chides. He's not even looking. Eames looks down guiltily. "I hate the music," Arthur continues. "It always gives me a headache. Personally I find the chains and the pedestals and the suspension gear tacky."
Eames finds himself laughing. Arthur doesn't respond except to stroke briefly the shell of his ear with his thumb, so Eames asks, "Why do you do it, then?"
"Why do I-- Hm." For a long moment Arthur is silent, thinking. "I like to make people feel," he says, finally, "take them apart and put them back together, make them fly. I like to strip people down to nothing but skin and nerves, let them lose themselves without having to worry about finding their way back."
He realizes, quite suddenly, that he is holding his breath. Eames lets it out in a rush. His throat is dry, and he is staring helplessly at Arthur's face, wide-eyed. When Arthur glances down at him, his eyes are hooded. Eames feels like a moth, captured by the heat of the flame.
"Eyes on the floor, Eames," Arthur says. There is no censure in his voice, though, only exasperation. Eames is surprised to find himself flushing a little, and he fixes his eyes carefully on his hands, curled into fists in his pants, the way they crease the fabric.
"You said there was more," he says, quietly. He chews, nervously, at his lip.
Arthur hrms, and the hand on the back of his neck moves to curve along his cheek. "I did," he agrees. He says nothing, instead traces the angles of Eames' skull through his skin, broad sweep of his thumb across the cut his cheekbones, fingers tracing the line of his nose, the arch of an eyebrow. By the time a calloused thumb settles on his lower lip, Eames' breath is rough and fast in his chest. His tongue flickers out, unbidden, to taste Arthur's skin.
He hazards a glance upwards, to find Arthur watching him, eyes like deep wells of dark water, the firm line of his mouth curled in a faint smile.
"I'm always careful," says Arthur, "not to frighten a new sub away with too much, too soon." His hand twists around to cup Eames' jaw, and he presses his thumb into Eames' mouth. Making a low sound in his throat, Eames suckles it, eyelids falling half-mast. "Then again," and here Arthur is definitely smiling, "maybe I needn't have worried."
Eames lets out a quiet noise, finding himself oddly content, and lists just far enough to the left to rest against Arthur's thigh. Quirking an eyebrow, Arthur nudges him in the shoulder with his knee. "I can see we're going to need to work on your training," he says, but he's smiling still. "Eyes on the floor, Eames."
"How'd it go?" Cobb asks, before Eames has even opened his eyes.
"Good," Arthur says, and when Eames looks over he finds he is being watched. "Surprisingly good."
Cobb nods, looking relieved. "Okay," he says. "Now let's get started on the actual plan."
Eames lies awake for a long while, that night, staring at the ceiling. He can almost feel the phantom touch of Arthur's hand on his neck, the heat of his thighs bracketing his shoulders.
He'd be the first to admit that he's wanted Arthur in his bed almost since they met, and he's never tried to hide it, not really. He's never seen a need to. He flirts, it's part of his very nature. He can't really help it. On good days, Arthur will almost flirt back. Some days he reacts poorly, gets angry, snaps at him. Sometimes he ignores him. But there is no one they've worked with who doesn't know.
But as Eames has always been, he'd just assumed he would be the one doing all the work, that he'd be taking Arthur apart beneath him. That it would be Eames in charge, and Arthur coming undone under his hands.
"Do what I tell you, and only that," Arthur had said, as if he'd been discussing the weather. As if he hadn't just turned Eames' world upside-down.
Eames takes a deep breath, remembers the scent of Arthur's cologne heavy in his throat. He rolls over, and very deliberately sets about falling asleep.
He wakes in the morning to a layer of snow fresh on the windowsill, and the walk to the warehouse is cold and brisk, coat pulled tight around him, hands deep in the fur-lined pockets. There is a coffee waiting for him when he arrives, still hot. Arthur's coat has been hung neatly from the back of his chair. Someone has cranked the heater, enough that he undoes the top two buttons of his shirt and rolls up his sleeves.
Cobb wanders from a side room, still looking a little sleep-ruffled, says, "Morning," around his own cup of coffee. It's the same brand as Eames', he notices.
"Did Arthur deign to treat us to coffee, this morning?" he asks, a little surprised.
"Mm," says Cobb, whose eyes are all but closed, clearly not entirely awake yet. Eames grins.
Then Arthur rounds the corner and though he looks no different than usual -- sleek and gorgeous, all sharp angles and pinstripes, sleeves rolled up to his elbows to bare the length of his forearms -- Eames can't seem to look away. Arthur spares him a quick, evaluating glance, and Eames swallows.
He has the feeling this is going to be a long day.
The three of them gather around the table about noon, eating takeout from the falafel joint down the street. Amidst the crackle of aluminum foil Arthur pauses between bites to say, "We should go under again, when we're done."
Eames says, joking, "Yes, sir," and as he laughs lightly Arthur gives him a long, charged look. Eames stops laughing. A frisson of something strange, electric shivers down his spine.
Between them, Cobb clears his throat, eyes fixed deliberately on his falafel. There is a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
Dropping his eyes to his own food, Eames licks his lips and swallows heavily. He is wholly out of his depth, here.
After a long, only slightly awkward silence, Cobb straightens in his seat, flips through a large folder Arthur has compiled on their mark. "Okay," he says, and takes the folder in hand, moves to his feet. "I'm going to look through this in the other room." He gives Arthur a look, and when he glances at Eames the expression on his face is amused, knowing. "I'll just leave you two alone, then."
Eames scowls. Yes, Cobb is having far too much fun with this.
"On your knees," says Arthur.
He hesitates for a moment, then sinks to the floor. He looks around, curious, and is surprised at what he sees.
The room is oriental in design, the floor lined with tatami mats, elegant lines and muted colors, latticework sliding doors covered in thin rice paper. Eames supposes it shouldn't surprise him, but it's all so very Arthur he has to sit for a moment and blink. It is also, at least, more comfortable than the linoleum.
"We need to get you more accustomed to this," Arthur is saying, and Eames turns to find him settling cross-legged in the middle of one of the rice mats, head cocked to the side. He's sitting on a pillow, the bastard. His expression is placid, although there is something very expectant about him. Eames stares blankly, until Arthur sighs and pats the mat by his side. "Come here," he says. "Sit."
Eames raises an eyebrow -- he's not a bloody dog -- but obeys, finding himself to his surprise wearing a pair of sweatpants and a ratty heather gray t-shirt. He blinks. "What--"
"You need to be more comfortable," Arthur says, "or this will never work." He smiles faintly. Eames realizes Arthur is wearing a pair of battered jeans, frayed at the hems, threadbare around the knees. He stares; he can't really help it. Arthur laughs, and Eames feels something warm somersault in his chest. "Here," Arthur says, and reaches towards him, "lie down." And he wraps a hand around the base of Eames' skull and tugs him gently downward so that his head rests on Arthur's thigh.
It's almost nothing, and it takes all of Eames' will to restrain a moan. The denim is soft against his cheek, and Arthur's thigh beneath it is hard with muscle. He can smell his cologne, and underneath it something warm and clean and natural, something Arthur. His heart is pounding in his chest. He'd never actually thought he'd get this close to him. For a long moment Eames just closes his eyes and breathes.
A hand cups his jaw, and Eames jumps, looking up.
"We need to lay down some ground rules," Arthur says. His gaze is steady, eyes liquid. "For both of us."
Eames licks his lips, not entirely certain what Arthur means. He nods anyway.
"First things first." His face is serious, but his eyes are dancing, warm. Eames feels himself, caught, his breath sticking in his chest. His mouth has run dry. Arthur says, "Whatever you do, don't lie to me. If you don't like something, if something makes you uncomfortable, tell me."
"I'm a little surprised," says Eames, "that you think I wouldn't." His voice is alarmingly rough.
Arthur quirks a small smile. "You might think so," he says. "But I've had people try and impress me before. It always ends badly."
Eames makes himself swallow, licks his lips to wet them. He'll admit, if only to himself, that he might have tried if Arthur hadn't said anything.
The way Arthur's smile widens makes him think he might know exactly what Eames is thinking. What he says, though, is, "Second, unless I tell you to, or ask you a question, you are not allowed to speak. You will keep your eyes on the floor, and I will expect you to know when I want you to kneel, or sit." He swipes a thumb across Eames' lower lip, says, "Don't worry. We'll have plenty of practice." His eyes are smoldering. "Any questions?"
"Yes," Eames says, and clears his throat. "What-- What do I call you?"
Arthur's expression doesn't change, not really. Except that it does, and the gleam of his eyes is obscene, sears Eames to the bone. "Sir will do," Arthur says.
Eames remembers the look in Arthur's eyes when he'd jokingly called him 'sir,' earlier. Oh, god. He has to swallow before he can speak. "You said for both of us." He sounds like he's swallowed broken glass. "What does that mean?"
"It means that if anything makes you uncomfortable, I stop." Arthur shrugs, blandly. "And if you want something, even if I don't find it particularly appealing, I do my best to give it to you."
That takes him by surprise. "You make it sound like there's less of a power differential than I'd thought," Eames observes.
Arthur smiles and nods. "Play is all about the power exchange," he agrees. "The dom is in charge, acts upon the sub, maybe even hurts or punishes them. But the real power lies with the sub, at least in a proper, consensual relationship." He shrugs. "Everything the dom does is something the sub wants, or has agreed to. It's why we have safe words."
"Oh," says Eames, whose mind is currently rearranging itself around this new information. Maybe he can do this. "So when you say ground rules for both of us..."
"Boundaries," says Arthur. "What you will do, what you might do, what you absolutely won't. Are you into pain, humiliation, electric shock, shibari bondage, caning, toys... Things like that."
Eames stares, blankly. His head is spinning, and he is stricken suddenly by a slew of images, Arthur tying him up, holding him down, astride his chest and fucking his mouth, taking a flog to his back. He moans, unbidden.
Arthur smirks. He says, "I'm going to kiss you, now."
Eames sucks in a sharp breath, rasps, "Yes."
Then Arthur bends and takes his mouth in a kiss that shakes him to the core, licks him open and breathless. His mouth is hot and wet, and his hand on Eames' cheek keeps him exactly where Arthur wants him. Arthur traces the inside of his mouth with a thoroughness that drives Eames wild, and when they finally separate for air, what seems like hours later, he can do little else but stare at him in a daze.
"Hm," says Arthur. "I think I like you like this."
That snaps him into proper awareness. Before he can do more than glare, though, Arthur slants his mouth over his again, practically fucks his mouth with his tongue. Almost against his will Eames moans, heat surging in his bones. When Arthur pulls away, Eames is gasping for breath. He realizes his fingers have clenched into a fist in Arthur's shirt, twisting the fabric into creases that stretch like a starburst across his chest.
"I should probably tell you," Arthur says. There is something in his eyes that Eames, dazed though he may be, does not like. "I don't play around. I'm just doing this for the job."
Eames stops, everything, just for a second. He knows, distantly, that Arthur is still talking, but he can't hear him for the roaring in his ears. Then he recovers his composure, smiles. "Of course," he says, and it's believable, because he's a forger, and if there's anything he can do it's fake things.
Arthur falls silent, gives him a strange look. "Okay," he says, finally. "Just so long as we both understand."
And Eames does, now, even if he didn't before.
The timer on the PASIV wakes them up a moment later. Eames is up and out of the chair before Arthur has even pulled the IV from his wrist. He shrugs hurriedly into his coat, swearing when his arm tangles in the sleeves. He can feel Arthur watching him.
"Eames?"
Absurdly, he sounds concerned. Across the warehouse Cobb's head pops around a doorway, looking surprised.
"I've an appointment in twenty minutes," Eames says, artfully bright, careless. When he turns around Arthur's brows are furrowed; he seems utterly thrown. He adds, with just the right amount of self-deprecation, "I'd forgotten entirely."
Cobb and Arthur share a meaningful look, all raised eyebrows and facial tics, but Eames ignores them, strides briskly out the door. "Don't wait up," he calls, laughter in his voice.
Behind him, he can hear Cobb say, "What the hell was that?" He doesn't hear Arthur's reply.
Outside there is still snow on the ground, dirty gritty heaps of it, frozen and crumbling. The sidewalk is a morass of half-melted slush, pools of filthy, polluted water frozen over with a vitreous film of ice. He hugs his coat tight around his chest and waits until he rounds the corner before he lets his shoulders slump. A muscle tics in his cheek. His shoes, fifteen hundred dollar New & Lingwood loafers, are being ruined by the slag of a city winter; he can't even bring himself to care.
He slams the door to his flat and pulls out the bottle of Macallan scotch he keeps in the cupboard for when he needs something drastic.
Eames wakes and the world's most horrific drum solo is being played, in surround sound, inside his skull. He groans, rolling over and shoving his face into a pillow. He doesn't dare open his eyes.
After a while a noise drills its way into his awareness, and he whines, refuses to move. It stops after an agonizing moment, thank Christ. Only when it starts up again does he realize it's his mobile.
He gropes blindly at his bedside table, knocks something over with a crash that makes him cringe, and when he finally finds his phone he drags it under the sheets. He stares blankly for a second at the display, then swears. Arthur, it reads, and then under that 10:37. He fumbles it open, brings it to his ear. "Yeah?" he rasps, sounding as if he's swallowed sandpaper.
There is a brief silence. Then, a little surprised, "Eames?"
"Speaking," he says, and forces himself free of his cocoon. Late morning light falls through his window and directly into his eyes, and he groans, shielding his eyes with his hand. "What?" It comes out more curtly than he'd really intended, but his head is throbbing and Arthur is a total prat and he can't really make himself care.
For a long moment Arthur says nothing. Then, sounding almost hesitant, "Are you okay?"
"Course I am," Eames snaps, gritting his teeth. "Why the bloody hell wouldn't I be?"
There is another silence, this time longer. Arthur must be eating or something, because he doesn't normally hesitate so long when speaking. Eames resolutely ignores the complete absence of any sound that eating would make. Finally Arthur says, "No reason," carefully, like something might be wrong. "Just-- Come in whenever you're ready, okay? There's no rush."
The condescending bastard. Eames scowls. "Yeah," he grunts. "Right."
He still has a splitting headache when he ambles into the warehouse around noon. The front room is entirely empty, although the heat is on full blast again to battle the chill and Arthur's coat is hanging by the door. When he gets to his customary desk, a thing he rarely uses except as a place to leave his belongings, he is surprised to find a bottle of water, a glass of orange juice and, bizarrely, a banana. There is a small piece of paper held in place by the water bottle.
Eames stares blankly for a moment, then shrugs, takes a long swig of the water. He hesitates, then picks up the note.
To battle the hangover. Find me when you're done. -A
Eames scowls and crumples the note, tosses it into the waste bin. He drinks the orange juice, eats the banana, and glowers all the while.
He's sulking, he knows this. But his head aches, and he's frustrated, and Arthur is apparently incredibly thoughtful when all Eames wants is to be angry with him. It's not just that Arthur is apparently only doing this with him because he has to.
Eames is a forger. He prides himself on being able to watch a person for a couple of days and then impersonate them with hardly a noticeable difference. He's one of the best in the business, and that means he can read people in a way that the average person can't even fathom. To have spent so much time with Arthur and not noticed this about him... He almost feels as if he's been deliberately slighted, though he knows it's irrational.
For a moment he seriously debates going home, taking a cab to the airport, disappearing.
Then Cobb pops up from behind a desk or something and scares the living daylights out of him, saying, "Ah, there you are," no more than a meter away. Eames jumps, and Cobb's mouth twitches as he very obviously does not smile and says, "Arthur was worried," as though this is something totally normal. "He's in the back."
Well, there goes that shoddy plan. Eames sighs.
Arthur is waiting for him, sifting through an enormous sheef of paper. He pauses when Eames enters the room, looks him up and down. The expression on his face is unreadable. "Glad to see you're feeling better," he says.
Eames knuckles his forehead, shaking his head. "I'm not, really," he grumbles, glaring.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Arthur says, and straightens from where he'd been bent over the desk. He's frowning slightly. "Drink some more water," he suggests.
"Yes, sir," Eames sneers.
Arthur throws him a sharp look at that, eyes narrowed. There is none of the heat of before at the title. After a moment he says, "I think we should go under again in about twenty minutes, if that's alright with you."
He looks away, swallows. Clenches his jaw. "Brilliant."
The room is the same as before, simple and elegant and just long, clean lines and sharp angles. Thankfully the headache has mostly eased, slipping into Arthur's dream, but there remains a hint of the hangover in the corners of his eyes, things abruptly too sharp, lurid swimming colors that melt away when he turns his head to look at them.
One look around and Arthur says, "No, this will never do." He doesn't move, seems in fact to do nothing at all, but something indefinable rearranges itself and then the dream room settles with a snap into place, and all vestiges of Eames' hangover disappear. Arthur glances at him, eyebrows furrowed. "You should have told me you still had a headache, I would have found something to help."
"I'm not your bloody gimp, Arthur," Eames snaps, and glares at the far wall. He almost wishes he still had the headache.
Silence, for a brief span. Then Arthur is on him before he even realizes he's moved, shoving him face-first into the wall, one of his arms twisted up behind his back so that he cries out. He presses full-length against him, and something hot and brilliant courses through Eames' blood. "Okay," Arthur says, and his voice is deadly quiet. His breath puffs hot and damp against the side of Eames' neck, the shell of his ear. "Let's make one thing very clear." He gives the arm in his grip a tight squeeze, and the air hisses between Eames' teeth. "You can throw a tantrum in the real world, and I can't do anything about it. Whatever. But right now, in here I own you."
Eames shivers, staring wide-eyed and blind at the wall.
Arthur gives him a moment to let that sink in, then presses closer, as if that were actually possible. "What this means," he says, clipped, "is that you will respect me, and you will do what I tell you, when I tell you. Are we clear?"
But Eames can't really respond, his senses swimming. He can feel the heat of Arthur's body all along his back, the hard, solid muscles. Every breath he takes makes Eames shiver, gusting across his skin.
"Are we clear."
He manages a shaky nod, his breath sticky in his throat. "Yes," he whispers.
Arthur gives his arm another good yank and says, "Yes, what?"
"Sir," Eames says, quickly. "Yes, sir." His voice cracks.
"Good," says Arthur, and then abruptly he is gone, and Eames is cold all down the length of his body. "Sit down."
He turns, realizes he is shaking. Arthur is seated on the far side of the room, his face expressionless, the line of his shoulders stiff. "Sit down," he says, and every word is bitten off like a shotgun blast.
Eames does, almost has no choice in the matter; his legs seem incapable of holding him.
"I don't know what your problem is, today," Arthur says, mouth white-lipped from tension, "but we are dealing with this. Right now.
"Talk."
He almost says nothing, doesn't want to talk about this at all. But the look in Arthur's eyes brooks no argument, and so Eames slumps forward over his own crossed legs and mutters, "You said you were only doing this for the job."
Arthur blinks, taken aback. Then he closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I knew you weren't listening," he says.
"What?" Eames frowns.
"You're an idiot," Arthur tells him, rolling his eyes.
Eames scowls.
"Eames," Arthur sighs. He actually looks exasperated, now. "If you'd actually listened to what I said..." He shakes his head. "Not important. Don't make me repeat myself again."
The look in his eyes makes it clear this is an order. Eames nods.
"Good," he says, then, "I'm not comfortable having sex with someone for a job. That's all I meant, Eames."
The bubble of tension in his chest pops, relief a thing he can almost taste. Eames opens his mouth to say something, closes it again when he can think of nothing. He can't help but stare. He feels like a right git.
"Yeah," Arthur says, grinning wryly. Then he sobers so quickly it is as though the smile was never there. "I won't fuck you, Eames, not for the job. But afterwards, if you're still interested..." He shrugs, eloquently.
"I will be," he blurts, voice hoarse.
Arthur's eyes are steady, but that strange vulnerability Eames had noticed in the warehouse has returned. "You don't know that," Arthur says.
"Yes, Arthur," he says. There is a lump in his throat. "I really do."
For a long moment Arthur says nothing. Eames can see the muscles working in his jaw, the bob of his Adam's apple. "We can argue about this later," he finally says. "Come here."
He crosses the room more quickly than he would have thought possible, settles down at Arthur's side.
"We need to get you used to the subtleties of this," Arthur says, thoughtfully. Abruptly he is sitting in a chair, Eames on the floor at his feet. One of Arthur's hands makes its way into his hair. He takes it in a fist and tugs, gently. "On your knees."
Eames moves without thinking, eyes half-mast. Something about this, giving in to Arthur's will, is soothing, relaxes something deep in his gut that he'd never noticed before. He settles into it with an ease that surprises him, rests his head against Arthur's knee.
He wonders who hurt Arthur before, so badly that he can't even trust his own sub.
It doesn't surprise him that the thought of it makes him angry.
They spend three hours in the dream. When Eames wakes up, fifteen minutes have passed in reality, and he feels like something huge has changed in him. Arthur woke first, and his fingers on Eames' wrist as he removes the line are as the touch of a moth's wing, light and ephemeral. Eames finds he cannot drag his eyes away from the lengths of Arthur's forearms, the way the shadows jump as his muscles shift beneath the skin.
That is, until Arthur straightens, and then Eames is captured by the slope of his shoulders, the lines of his chest as they converge on his trim waist, the slant of his jaw, the shadow of his throat where it dips above his collarbones. He feels as though the breath has been knocked from his lungs.
"It's impolite to stare," Arthur says, and he is smiling faintly. His thumb is stroking idle, shapeless forms into Eames' wrist.
Eames swallows thickly. "Right," he agrees. He doesn't look away.
Arthur's smile curls deeper, and his eyes are full of promise. "Why, Mr. Eames," he says, lightly, "you might start giving me the wrong idea."
"Oh, I hardly think that's possible," Eames says, and laughs, rough, scraping his throat in its honesty. "We all know I've wanted you for years." He smiles, pained.
Suddenly Arthur's face is void of all expression. The thumb on his wrist has stopped. "Eames..."
"Don't worry about it, darling," Eames says, doesn't even bother hiding the way his throat has clogged. He slips around Arthur, standing frozen beside him, and to his feet. "It's nothing new."
He has his coat on and is about to walk out the door when Arthur's voice, calling his name, stops him. He turns, and Arthur stands behind him, shifting uncertainly on his feet. Then the insecurity, so unusual, is masked by a sharply quirked eyebrow, a firmed mouth. "Don't lie to me again," Arthur says.
Eames has to clear his throat to free it of rocks before he says, quietly, "Yes, sir."
Then he turns and walks out the door.
Eames jerks off that night until his dick is raw and his forearm cramping. He imagines Arthur, pressing him into the mattress, cock heavy in his arse and teeth in the back of his throat; Arthur, still wearing one of his impossibly perfect suits, fucking Eames' face as Eames bucks and writhes beneath him; Arthur in nothing but a pair of slacks, the muscles in his forearm tensing, relaxing, with every thrust of his fist in Eames' arse; Arthur, Arthur, always Arthur. He lies gasping and sweaty in the middle of his bed, the sheets a tousled, sticky mess around him, his belly slick with come.
He sleeps, and for the first time in long years he dreams naturally, Arthur taking him over and pulling him apart, piecing him back together whole and transformed. He wakes to the sound of the city coming to life outside his window, and the memory of Arthur's expression yesterday in the warehouse is bitter in his mouth. Outside, it is snowing.
When he arrives at the warehouse Arthur has treated them to coffee again. Eames' sits still hot on his desk, just the way he likes it (hazelnut, two sugars, no cream), next to a cranberry walnut muffin -- his favorite -- and an orange. He raises an eyebrow, remembers Arthur's words, in that second dream. If you want something, I do my best to give it to you.
He can't help it. He laughs, and smiles, and doesn't feel quite so miserable about the fact that Arthur is occasionally a bloody coward.
"You're in a good mood this morning," Arthur says from behind him.
Eames turns, and want kicks him low in the gut. Arthur must just have come back from a run to the store, because he's wearing his coat and there is a light dusting of snow across the shoulders. His cheeks are rosey, his eyes glittering. There is a faint curl to his lips.
"Slept well," Eames says, not bothering to hide his desire as he looks Arthur over from top to bottom. The slacks especially are drawing his eye, sleek and pressed, falling just right about his thighs. "You're looking particularly fetching today."
Arthur lifts an eyebrow. "Thank you."
"I might throw up," says Cobb from the other side of the room, where he has been standing since Eames arrived.
Arthur rolls eyes, and then strides over to his desk. If Eames watches his arse beneath the slacks, well. One can hardly blame him.
"I'd tell you two to get a room," Cobb says, transcribing notes from Arthur's report to the whiteboard, "but it goes without saying that I already know you intend to."
"I envy you your biting wit," Arthur says blandly.
Cobb smiles. Eames eats his muffin, grinning all the while.
Over the course of the next week they go under progressively longer, until they're staying in the dream for six or seven hours at a time. Cobb leaves them to it, and when Eames wakes up hard and breathless he does little more than pretend to be scandalized. Arthur has developed a habit of disappearing immediately after each session. He always returns impeccable as ever, but there is no disguising the heated looks he'll often toss in Eames' direction when he thinks no one is looking.
Eames is finding it harder and harder, now, to ignore the impulse to kneel at Arthur's feet in reality. Arthur need only hint at wanting something, a pen, a coffee, a printout of all of their mark's most recent phone calls, and Eames is moving to get it for him before he even realizes what he's doing.
Cobb laughs at him a lot, much to his chagrin.
"You don't need to do that, you know," Arthur says, late one night. Cobb left hours ago to call the children before they were sent to bed, and Eames has just alphabetized an entire folder of mugshots because Arthur had hinted earlier that it was bothering him.
"Do what?" Eames looks up in surprise.
Arthur's expression is guarded, his mouth flat. "Bend over backwards to please me."
Eames straightens in his chair, eyebrows raised. "Darling," he says, "every morning you have bought my favorite breakfast fresh from the bakery. There is always hot coffee waiting for me."
Arthur works his jaw for a long moment, drums his fingers in agitation against the table. "What's your point?"
Eames shrugs. "You do it for me," he says. "Why shouldn't I do it for you?"
The point man stares at him silently, then says, finally, "I guess."
"There," Eames says, and smiles. "That wasn't so hard, now, was it?"
Before Eames knows what's happening the day of the job is upon them. They've booked a suite down the hall from the hotel room in which their mark is staying. The plan is that they'll sneak in after he's had his final nightcap; he won't wake for hours, and it's the perfect time to slip him under. Arthur is out doing some last minute reconnaissance when Cobb turns to Eames and says, "Be careful with him."
Eames blinks and stares. "I'm sorry?"
"Arthur." The expression on Cobb's face is the epitome of that worn by a concerned father. "After the job's done. I've seen him hurt before, I don't want to again."
"No offense," Eames says, deliberately misunderstanding, "but I think you're telling the wrong person." Cobb looks to be terribly unimpressed, and Eames licks his lips, laughs, low and rough. His expression turns bitter. "I hardly think it'll be a problem, anyway."
Cobb raises an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?"
"Oh, nothing." Eames looks away, mouth twisting. "I just don't see it becoming an issue. Arthur's made it perfectly clear he's not interested."
For a long moment Cobb simply looks at him. "Sometimes," he finally says, "it's like the two of you are speaking entirely different languages." There is something alarmingly like pity in his eyes.
He starts to respond, and Arthur opens the door. Eames falls silent, and when they both turn to look at him Arthur raises an eyebrow, obviously catching the somber atmosphere. All he says, though, is, "It's time."
They wait another hour, monitoring the room with bugs Arthur had planted earlier, like the ninja Eames secretly believes he is, and when all signs of movement have stilled they creep out the door of their suite and down the hall. It's late, almost two in the morning, and the hotel is quiet and still, the only sounds that of someone down the hall watching television. Arthur has mysteriously appropriated a copy of the room key, and they slip into Sinclair's room unseen.
It is the work of minutes to get them all hooked up to the PASIV. Cobb will be staying behind to keep watch over them. They don't have a definite plan; Arthur's going to have to improvise based upon what Sinclair brings to the dream, playing architect and point man and extractor all in one. Eames does not envy him.
He and Arthur go first, and Cobb will give them about ten minutes in the dream to make certain everything is stable before putting Sinclair under.
Even after all these years, the transition between waking and dreaming is like the shock of cold water. He takes a deep, steadying breath, and looks around.
The club is enormous, bare black walls and naked concrete floor, the ceiling towering high above them. Sheer curtains, a rich, damson plum, drape in diaphanous sheets between dark, square columns. The floor is populated by a series of low oaken tables and heavy chairs, a long, high bar located in the corner of the club nearest them. Along the far wall is a stage, and from where Eames is standing he can see what looks to be Penrose tiling.
Arthur's projections are immaculate as per usual, although there seems to be more leather and latex than is strictly the norm. Eames, when he looks down at himself, is wearing a pair of simple, if pristine, gray slacks and alligator-skin loafers. His chest is bare.
He quirks an eyebrow, turns to Arthur to comment, and almost swallows his tongue.
Seeing Arthur in a suit is not new, not really. But there is just something about the man in a waistcoat and slacks, jacket snug and flawlessly tailored, all the long clean lines of him, that makes lust roil low in his gut. The suit, English, slim-cut, is a pearl gray so pale he seems to glow in the dark of the club, waistcoat a deep plum to match the drapes, undershirt white and pinstriped. The top two buttons are undone, his tie loose at his throat. He discards the jacket, hangs it from a conveniently located rack on the wall that Eames is almost certain was not there before, and rolls his sleeves up, and dammit if that isn't a direct line from Eames' brain to his dick, blood thumping and cock already twitching with interest.
What turns Eames' mouth dry, though, what really knocks the wind from his sails, is the pair of black leather gloves, the way he tugs deliberately at them one by one, stretching his fingers out like he's trying them on for the first time.
When Arthur finally looks at him Eames jumps like he's been galvanized. A smug smile tugs at the corners of Arthur's mouth, his cheeks dimpling.
Eames is bewitched.
"Well, Mr. Eames," says Arthur, a wicked glint in his eye, "let's make ourselves ready, shall we?"
He leads Eames to a dark alcove by the stage with a hand at the small of his back. Even with the gloves -- or, perhaps more accurately, because of the gloves -- the touch is electric, skating up his spine so that he trembles, breathing ragged.
Arthur sits in one of the heavy chairs, sprawls out with his legs akimbo. Eames drops without prompting to his knees, settles between Arthur's spread thighs. The smell of him, here, is enough to make his mouth water.
"Good boy," Arthur says, fond.
Long fingers have already tangled in his hair, stroking lazily. If it were physically possible Eames would be purring. Arthur is a veritable furnace, heat pressing against him from all sides. The air around them is redolent with the smell of his cologne. Eames' world shrinks to the small space that encompasses them, to the fingers that coil skeins of his hair between them, the warm affectionate press of Arthur's knee to his shoulder. The pain in his own knees is phantom.
He doesn't even notice their mark has arrived until Arthur tugs lightly at his hair.
"He's here."
Sinclair's projection of himself, even in Arthur's dream, is not what he is in reality. The man is no troglodyte, but Eames is positive he'd remember if the man looked like that, a laughable parody of Greek masturbatory fantasies. If they weren't in a fetish club there would likely be sunlight gleaming off the oil on his densely muscled chest, his long blond hair.
Eames wants to gag. From the snort behind him, Arthur's opinion of their mark isn't much better.
There is a tense moment in which all of the projections turn and stare and the club seems to freeze, and then everything returns to normal. Except-- Eames realizes there is music playing, thick and gritty, heavy bass line. Suddenly the lighting has changed, a dull red glow that leaves everything in shadow, spotlight on an enormous metal contraption dead center of the stage that looks like nothing so much as a gyroscope with added leather restraints and chains. The projections are clad entirely in fetish gear, assless chaps and whips, rubber catsuits and latex hoods and enough leather to make an army of comic book supervillains jealous.
Eames' eyes catch on a leather collar and leash, and a sudden burst of longing clogs his throat.
When next he looks Sinclair is a nightmare of fetish gear, buckle gag, rubber dog collar, black neoprene racing vest over assless latex pants, cockring on blatant display. There are chains and buckles and D-rings on everything, and he looks as though he'll trip over himself if he moves too quickly. He seems to be waiting for something.
The fingers of Arthur's unoccupied hand drum thoughtfully against his thigh. "Stay here," he says, and in one smooth movement has stood up and moved over Eames, striding confidently across the floor.
Eames is left reeling from the all too brief contact of what could only have been Arthur's erection against the back of his neck, thick and heavy and burning hot through the fabric of his trousers, the brush of his thighs against his bare shoulders.
This man is going to be the death of him, and he can't even make himself care.
As Arthur moves across the club his clothes are changing, melting from Merino wool to thick black leather, waistcoat and shirt into something that Arthur might actually wear in reality if it weren't made entirely of leather, pants that cling like a second skin to his thighs. Almost as an afterthought, the Oxfords whip apart and then back up along his calves, congealing like wisps of smoke before settling into a pair of knee-high lace-up boots that leave Eames' tongue clinging to the roof of his mouth. By the time Arthur reaches their mark, all that remains of what he'd first worn are the leather gloves.
They are too far away for Eames to hear what they're saying, but Sinclair's eyes grow very, very wide, and he drops almost immediately to his knees, slouching to best show off the spread of his thighs. A high flush clings, just barely visible in the dim light, to his cheeks.
Arthur's expression is unreadable. He kicks the man's thighs closed, disgust a thick curl of his lips. He says something, and Eames can practically hear him, the haughty disdain, the rich baritone. Sinclair straightens like a firecracker going off. Eames can see his chest heaving. Arthur says something more, and Sinclair nods frantically, leaning forward slightly, eager as a bitch in heat.
His stomach drops as Arthur leans in close, close enough that the mark's bangs dance with each puff of his breath. Sinclair is listening intently to whatever Arthur is saying, and he nods again, hands clenching into fists against his thighs. He presses his face into Arthur's hips, and Arthur lets him.
There is a sour taste in Eames' mouth. He wishes, quite abruptly, that he were blind, or blindfolded, or that he could simply will himself awake. He can't seem to look away.
One of Arthur's hands wraps itself in a leash attached to Sinclair's collar that was not there mere moments ago. He pulls Sinclair up on his knees so that he's no longer resting on his heels, and with the other hand unbuckles the mark's gag.
Richard Sinclair hands them all of his secrets, and Arthur listens, and remembers, and just like that they wake up.
There is a taste in Eames' mouth like he might be sick.
MASTER POST | PART II | GRAPHICS