Inception: No One Gets Out Alive (Arthur/Eames, PG-13, 1/2)
Inception
Arthur/Eames
Rated PG-13
Word Count: 14,311
No One Gets Out Alive
"I hate giving a shit, it never ends well."
Arthur pauses in the doorway of Room 503 of the Le Parker Meridien; he's clearly interrupting.
Mal's sitting on a taupe cloth sofa talking to someone who has their back to the door. A British someone judging by the accent. Definitely male.
"You only 'hate giving a shit' as you put it -- you English need a much better vocabulary -- because you are an incurable romantic," Mal says, looking around her guest and beckoning Arthur inside. "And because people are forever disappointing you."
Arthur's not sure if she's talking to him or her guest.
"Kindly stop announcing the family secrets to the world at large," the man says.
"I'm afraid it is too late for that." Mal sets a glass of water on the coffee table near her and stands up. Arthur sets his traveling case down on the floor by his feet and closes the door behind him.
"Am I interrupting something?" Arthur asks.
"You are never interrupting," Mal says. "But I was beginning to worry that you had got lost."
She looks amazing for someone who's going to give birth any minute.
"I didn't get lost. It's New York, not your backyard," Arthur says, unbuttoning his coat and folding it over the PASIV case. "Even Theseus could get lost in your backyard."
"It is Dom's fault the backyard looks like the Amazon rainforest, not mine. I do the cooking; he does the gardening," Mal says, striding across the sitting room of the suite they're currently occupying.
It's not a bad space; the windows have a fabulous view of Central Park but the colors are muted in a depressing way: blueish-gray carpet, drab pine wood furniture. Yet another reason Arthur wanted to stay at The Carlyle. Or the W. Or the Waldorf-Astoria.
But the client wanted Le Meridien so here they are.
Mal kisses Arthur on the cheek, picks up the coat Arthur just folded over the PASIV case and hangs it up in the closet.
Arthur slips the room's key card in his pocket as Mal's guest turns around on the sofa and gets to his feet. "Perhaps you need to hire yourself a landscaper if Dom's gifts don't lie with trimming the verge," the man says with a quirk of his lips.
He's Arthur's height, broader in the shoulders. He's wearing an eye-searing maroon shirt with pink and yellow stripes; Arthur wants to weep in horror. Or he would if the man weren't, well, the words "devastatingly attractive" come to mind, but they seem like a slight understatement.
"You know Dom is like all men," Mal says dismissively. "He likes to pretend he can do everything himself."
"We don't pretend," Arthur and the man say at the same time.
"Of course you don't," Mal says soothingly. "This is why you both jumped to his defense."
"It's not pretending if you're actually good at it," Arthur says.
"Yes, but so few of you are. Even you, Eames."
"A palpable hit," the man -- Eames -- looks up from pouring a glass of red wine.
"So where does that leave me?" Arthur says.
"You are very good at what you choose to be good at, Arthur," Mal says. "And that is why you are good at your job. Better to be good at a few things than terrible at everything."
Arthur opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
"Have a drink," Eames says, offering Arthur the glass of wine. "If it makes you feel any better, she's been subjecting me to this for the last forty minutes."
Arthur takes the glass and looks over at his fellow victim. "I've heard a lot about you," he says, extending his hand.
This is something of a falsehood. Arthur hasn't heard anything besides whispers, but all the whispers are formidable. And they all failed to mention the stubble or the thighs like a thoroughbred's.
Eames raises an eyebrow. "I apologize in advance." Eames' hand is dry, warm, solid. His handshake is firm. The sort of handshake other handshakes hope to be when they grow up.
Arthur takes a sip of his wine. Mal smiles at them. "You two are very handsome together."
Arthur chokes.
Eames smacks him on the back.
"Mal," Eames scolds. "Try not to kill him before the job. I know we're supposed to be competitors, but I'd like to beat him, not have him die prematurely from a coronary."
Arthur gives Eames a very obvious once over. "I assume this won't be a sartorial competition," he says to Eames.
Eames raises an eyebrow. "Well, aren't you charming?"
Arthur's mouth quirks. "I do what I can," he says, going back to his wine.
It's a very nice red. Possibly a Shiraz.
Something else occurs during this exchange that has nothing to do with their conversation or Arthur choking on his wine. Arthur looks at Eames and Eames looks at Arthur and in under ten minutes Arthur is completely smitten.
This is not how his jobs tend to go.
"Oh, yes, you will do nicely," Mal says.
Arthur tears his eyes away from Eames' full mouth long enough to glance over at Mal.
She looks entirely too pleased.
This cannot possibly bode well for him.
"Eames is not your competition," Dom says over brunch at Sarabeth's Central Park South.
Arthur swirls a spoon through his oatmeal, mixing in raisins and brown sugar.
He's sitting with Dom at a table in the back, next to a window that's covered with spatters of today's rainstorm. There's a heater by Arthur's right ankle that's blowing air up the leg of his trousers and he keeps trying to block the breeze by turning his foot in different directions across the vent.
Arthur sets his spoon beside his bowl and takes a sip of his coffee. "And yet, that's exactly what he said."
"You two don't have the same skill set."
"So what is it that Eames does that I don't?"
Dom chews a bite of his bacon thoughtfully. "Well," he says once he's done. "I heard he does windows for a start."
Arthur raises an eyebrow.
"I can't make a joke?" Dom protests.
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
Dom rolls his eyes. "Mal warned me that this was going to happen."
"That what was going to happen?" Arthur says. It's possible that he sounds slightly hostile.
"Eames is not your competition. He's supposed to be an enhancement."
"I didn't know I needed enhancing."
"Try not to let your ego get the better of you."
Arthur narrows his eyes.
Dom grins. "This is reality; you can't shoot me here."
"That doesn't mean the thought isn't crossing my mind." Arthur drinks more of his coffee. "What does the great Mr. Eames even do? People talk about him like he's some sort of mix between Houdini, Laurence Olivier, Einstein and -- I can't think of any famous successful thieves."
"That's because if they're successful you never hear of them." Dom forks several pieces of the pancake on his plate. "And as for what he can do: I heard he can eat fifty hard-boiled eggs."
Dom chews his food with a satisfied smirk.
"This isn't Cool Hand Luke," Arthur retorts.
Dom raises an eyebrow.
Arthur scratches at his neck; the collar of his shirt is bothering him. Cotton itches just as much as wool.
"Arthur, he's not your competition. We want you two to work together. You're both trying to achieve the same end -- knowing as much about the mark as possible. Does it really matter how you do it? Although I suspect the better question is: can you do that or is there a real problem here? Mal said she thought you two were going to be great together."
Arthur reaches for his coffee, but it's all gone. He looks around for the waiter. "Mal said that, did she?"
"Yeah, she did."
Arthur looks back at Dom, because there's something off in his voice. That smile shouldn't be on his lips.
"What?" Arthur says.
Dom leans in. "You're the most professional person I know; what did Eames do to get under your skin this fast?"
"Nothing," Arthur says automatically.
He finally catches the eye of the waiter with the coffee and waves him over.
After the waiter is gone, Arthur spends an inordinate amount of time doctoring his coffee. He doesn't ever take this much sugar. The first taste is like drinking a pound of coffee-flavored sugar slush. He can feel his blood pressure spiking in shock.
"Okay, now that you've tried to avoid the subject, you can answer my question."
Arthur rolls his eyes. "Everything's fine with Eames. We'll be fine."
"Uh huh," Dom says. He sounds less than convinced.
Arthur is sitting on the banks of the Yamuna River with Eames. The dirt underneath Arthur is reddish, moist. Not damp, just not bone dry.
The sky is cloudless, and for once, Arthur's in India and not ready to expire from heat stroke. "We're not supposed to work from memory." Arthur looks over at Eames as a man in a small boat rows past.
Eames raises an eyebrow. He's wearing a white linen shirt and khaki linen trousers. "Who said this was a memory?" Eames gestures behind him. "The last time I saw the Taj Mahal I was three and slept through the whole thing. This is purely based on the Discovery Channel programming on the flight over from Abuja."
A woman in a red sari passes by them. She's holding the hand of a little boy with enormous eyes and incredibly unruly brown hair. He has skinned knees and his shirt is stained with some sort of red drink. He smiles at Arthur and Eames; he's missing a front tooth.
"Your subconscious likes me," Eames says as he gets to his feet.
Arthur makes a dubious noise and takes the hand Eames offers. Eames looks down at his clay-stained hand after Arthur lets go. "Charming."
"That's the second time you've called me 'charming,'" Arthur says, wiping his hands on the thighs of his jeans. One of the things he loves about his job is that he can get tremendously dirty at work and not have to deal with the laundry when he gets home. "If I didn't know better, I might think your conscious likes me."
"That might be the case," Eames says, "but as this is my dream you won't get to find that out, now will you?"
"Not today," Arthur admits, adjusting the brim on his fedora.
"Not tomorrow either." Eames scratches his jaw. "You get jeans, a t-shirt and a fedora and I'm dressed like bloody James Bond. I feel the need to object."
"You're English, you're dashing, and according to the rumors you have the prowess of 007. I thought you'd like it."
"Rumors are always useful to have," Eames says. "Especially the ones that are blatantly untrue." Eames gestures for them to move away from the river and toward the wall that surrounds the Taj Mahal. Only in dreams is there a convenient door from the banks of the Yamuna to the walkways by the reflecting pool. "But on occasion they can become incredibly burdensome."
Arthur glances sideways at Eames. Eames is twirling a pocket watch around the index finger of his right hand. "Are you saying reports of your greatness are greatly exaggerated?"
The corner of Eames' mouth quirks upward. "I'm saying that you shouldn't believe everything you hear."
"So what scurrilous rumors about you shouldn't I believe?"
Eames looks at Arthur and smiles. It's a real smile, full-bodied and amazing. It's the sort of thing that would make Arthur weak in the knees if he were prone to such Victorian behavior.
"Well," Eames begins. "The rumor about me and that Frida Kahlo from the Tate Modern for a start."
"What Frida Kahlo?"
"Oh, wait," Eames stops mid-stride. "That's not a rumor. Forget I said that."
Arthur stops a step away and raises an eyebrow. "What about the Fabergé cufflinks from the Harrogate Museum?"
"That's such a small museum, how on earth -- why am I asking an omnipotent giant like yourself such a pointless question. It's your business to know everything, isn't it?"
"Not everything, just a few things." He pauses. "So that would be a yes?"
Eames leans in conspiratorially; Arthur meets him halfway.
"I'm afraid I can't confess," Eames says. His eyelashes are obscenely long, and they cast shadows from the sun high in the Agra sky. "Not even to you."
Arthur looks up at Eames from underneath his own eyelashes. "I wouldn't expect anything less."
Eames wets his lips. "But I will tell you that hypothetically speaking the Duke very much appreciated his birthday present and then made me return them the same day."
"The Duke?"
"I prefer to call him 'father.' Or in more sentimental moments 'dad.'"
Arthur's mouth thins into a line. "That's not in your file."
"It's important to keep some things private, that is why it's called a 'private life.'"
Arthur blinks as Eames gestures toward the walkway. "Shall we?"
Arthur nods and takes up his place at Eames' side.
They walk in silence for several moments. "It amazes me that one of the most beloved buildings in the world is nothing more than a glorified mausoleum," Eames says.
The look Arthur gives him is nothing short of incredulous. "Aren't you supposed to be the idealistic one? The great lover and heartbreaker? You can't just omit the love story angle: the great gift from Shah Jahan to his favorite wife Mumtaz that ended with him in jail and usurped by his son."
Eames' smile this time is sharper, more appraising. "Your reputation never said anything about you being a romantic."
"I'm not," Arthur says reflexively.
Eames nods his head, but doesn't say anything. Arthur adjusts the angle of his fedora again; the sun is making his face hot. That's why he's feeling so flustered.
"This is your dream anyway," Arthur points out some time later. It's practically a non sequitur.
"You've found me out," Eames says. "This is all part of my great plan to seduce you."
For three seconds Arthur wishes that were true. "It's not nice to tease people, Mr. Eames," he says.
"You're right," Eames agrees. "It's not."
On the other side of the reflecting pool the woman in the red sari is collecting flowers with the little boy with the missing tooth. Arthur looks around him at the perfectly manicured grass. At the perfectly pruned shrubbery. The air is still. There are no birds singing.
For their first experience in dream sharing they couldn't have asked for anything better.
Mr. Frank Erlich is a fifty-three-year-old non-practicing Jew who is madly in love with his twenty-eight-year-old atheist personal assistant, Amelia Rayder. He wants to marry her. To adopt her three-year-old son, Max, and give him Frank's name.
Mr. Erlich doesn't think Amelia is after his money; Mr. Erlich's sister, Rachel, does not agree.
When Rachel invites Amelia to her suite at Le Parker Meridien to "chat," Dom, Eames and Arthur are waiting in the bedroom.
From the time it takes for Amelia to arrive, for Rachel to order tea and for Mal to arrive with said tea as "room service," twenty minutes pass.
No hotel's room service is that efficient.
Arthur hooks up a sedated Amelia while Eames and Dom are taking care of their own inserts and Rachel Erlich checks her Blackberry.
Before Arthur sits down, he removes his jacket and folds it over the back of the sofa. Then he takes his place between Amelia and Eames, pushes up his sleeve and readies his own IV.
"I like the jumper," Eames says, tugging on the sleeve of Arthur's forest-green pullover. "What is it? Paul Smith?"
Arthur smiles as Mal reaches for the injection trigger. "No, Target," he says, slouching down next to Eames on the sofa, their thighs pressing together in a fight for leg room. "I got it last week when I was buying toilet paper and laundry detergent."
Arthur is not an architect. He can build to minute specifications; he can dream it if he knows what's required; he has the imagination to build beautiful cities, but most of the time he's simply not that inspired.
He doesn't have to be.
To that end, for the last three days he's been inside Eames' mind learning everything possible about the Taj Mahal. The four minarets that frame the dome. The main chamber house with the false sarcophagi of the Shah and Mumtaz. The herringbone patterns and plain motifs. The three-hundred meter Mughal garden.
This is why when Eames walks by with Amelia, there are roses for him to snag and hand to her. Pardon, for Frank Erlich to hand to her. Silver roses.
Eames chose them because he likes the color.
Arthur dreamed them up because that's what Eames wants.
Dom is the Canadian tourist who bumps into Amelia. Arthur is the man who points out that the Canadian tourist has dropped his wallet. A wallet with five thousand dollars in cash in it.
And then there's the loose diamond that falls into Amelia's hand when she picks up the wallet.
The idea behind this extraction is nothing more than finding out the trustworthiness of Amelia Rayder.
Is she the kind of woman to take your wallet or will she give you your money back?
Is she a thief or is she an honest woman?
What makes someone an honest person?
What makes someone worth loving?
"It doesn't have anything on it," Arthur says as Eames tucks into his hamburger.
Eames chews for several moments before swallowing. And then he sucks obscenely on the straw in his chocolate milkshake. "It's a hamburger," he says. "It's not supposed to have anything on it."
"It's a hamburger," Arthur says, chasing the taste of ketchup from the corner of his mouth. "Of course it's supposed to have something on it."
"If it's not any good on its own merits, it doesn't matter how you dress it up."
"Shut up, Confucius," Arthur says.
Eames grins and steals one of his fries.
In the lobby of Le Parker Meridien, down a long hall, past the sign with the burger and arrow on it and behind a thick black curtain is The Burger Joint.
The seating is spare, but the prices are pretty reasonable and if it's late at night or early in the morning and you've just finished a very easy, very well paid extraction, it's just the place to go.
Well, you can do that or go fuck in your client-expensed hotel suite, but Eames and Arthur aren't Mal and Dom. And Mal is eight months pregnant. It might be for the best if Arthur didn't dwell on what they're doing.
Arthur swats Eames' hand away from his fries. "You have your own," he says, pointing to Eames' food.
"Yes, but I don't want mine, I want yours."
This playful side to Eames is new; Arthur likes it. "Well, you can't have what's mine," he says.
Eames steals another fry. "You sure about that?" he asks, chewing on a perfectly fried potato. "It looks like it's mine now."
"Fucking thief," Arthur says, mocks disgusted.
"Everyone has to be something."
"And is that your something?" Arthur says, pushing his vanilla milkshake aside to steal some of Eames' chocolate one. "Being a thief?" He should've gotten the chocolate. Every time he gets a vanilla milkshake he realizes he should've gotten the chocolate instead.
Eames wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. "I said everyone has to be something; I didn't say that you couldn't be more than one thing."
Eames takes another bite of his burger, grabs a napkin and causes a pen to materialize out of somewhere. He scribbles something down on the napkin and then folds it up and sticks it in the suit pocket where Arthur's handkerchief would go if he were wearing one.
Arthur reaches for it, and Eames bats his hand away. "Later," he says, going back to plundering Arthur's fries.
It's only after their meal is over and they've gone their separate ways that Arthur pulls out a balled up napkin covered in blue ballpoint ink.
Eames' handwriting is neither flawless nor illegible. It's just Eames, who is apparently everything and nothing like his reputation.
Arthur smiles at the Abraham Lincoln quote.
WHATEVER YOU ARE, BE A GOOD ONE
Seventeen hours later, Arthur is back in Los Angeles, buying shaving cream and tissues from the Target in Burbank. He gets his groceries from Ralph's on San Fernando Boulevard, gets the Volvo washed and detailed by the car wash on Hollywood Way and then he hops back on the 5 and heads back downtown. He drops off his groceries and then stops at Pho Siam for a spontaneous Thai massage.
Most people wouldn't be relaxed by a woman standing in wooden stilts stepping on their calves. For Arthur it's almost as good as that cheeseburger he had with Eames.
The next day Arthur completes various other tasks; he stays busy.
Arthur does his job, lives his life and gets on with it.
Whatever he is, he is a good one.
The first time a projection of Eames shows up in one of Arthur's training dreams, he's wearing a gray Hugo Boss suit that Arthur is having made to measure. The suit is superfine merino wool and has shawl lapels. Eames is wearing it with a pink shirt covered in a henna-like print.
Arthur shoots himself in the head.
He's not shooting Eames.
That's just uncalled for.
They take a job in Florence. James is five months old and Mal is ready to go back to work. "Go back to work" meaning the children are with her parents in Paris, and she's depending on Dom and Arthur to do most of the leg work on this one.
Arthur's just finished a freelance job in Stockholm. He's over pickled herring. He likes freelancing, but he prefers working with Dom and Mal. He doesn't have to worry about their competency. Plus, Arthur loves Florence. The art, the food, the leather goods... the food.
While Dom is off doing surveillance, Mal takes Arthur to L'Osteria de' Benci, a trattoria near their pensione on Via Ghibellina that serves Coniglio al Forno con Olive Nere, an amazing rabbit dish with olives.
Arthur doesn't even like olives.
He's on his third glass of red wine -- the house red, shockingly enough -- when Mal drops the bomb. "Eames is coming in tomorrow."
Arthur pauses with his glass of wine midway to his mouth. "Why?"
Mal does something suspicious with her lips. It's possible she pouts. "I thought you would be happy to see him."
Arthur sets down the wine. "Why would you think that?"
"Because you like him." Mal says, her spoon midway between the blood orange sorbetto on her left and the scoop of pistachio gelato on her right.
Arthur doesn't bat an eyelash; he got used to this sort of culinary flexibility years ago when Mal was pregnant with Phillipa. "No, I don't."
Mal waves her spoon at him dismissively. "You two are very good together."
"We are not."
"Yes, you are."
"Have you seen the way he dresses?"
Mal pauses with a spoon full of sorbetto. "Arthur."
"And the way he talks?"
"You do not like his voice?"
A muscle jumps in Arthur's jaw. That is most definitely not the problem. "Can't we get someone else?"
"Arthur," Mal repeats.
Arthur swallows the last of his wine and then refills his glass.
Mal stops his next sip with a hand on his wrist. He looks at her in confusion and her eyebrows creep upward. "Oh, Arthur, you are adorable."
"What?"
"You like him that much?" she says.
Arthur sputters.
Mal pats his wrist consolingly. "Why did you not say so?"
"I do not," he protests once he finds his voice.
"I am not surprised," Mal says. "He's your type."
"He is not 'my type,'" Arthur says loudly enough that at least two people look over at their table. He lowers his voice when he says, "He dresses appallingly."
"He is incredibly smart," Mal agrees.
"That's not what I said."
"You find him attractive."
"I didn't say that either."
"His sense of humor is formidable."
"Are you listening to anything I'm saying?" Arthur protests.
"He likes you," Mal says, reaching across the table with her fork and stealing a piece of Arthur's rabbit. She's already put away a starter of strawberry rice with cream and Parmesan cheese and her main dish of beef carpaccio on an arugula salad.
"Isn't that his job? To like everybody."
"No, his job is to understand people. He does not have to like them; he tolerates them. As far as I know he has not liked anyone in quite a while."
"When you say 'like' what exactly do you mean?"
"I mean it is nice to see this side of him again."
"What side?" Arthur presses. "What do you know that I don't?"
"Lots of things," Mal says idly. "But that is not the point."
"So what is 'the point'?" Arthur huffs. "I haven't heard from him since New York. He probably won't even remember me."
Mal finishes chewing before she replies. "No, Arthur," she says, "he has not forgotten you."
Arthur's heart does a weird leap-spin-flip in his chest.
His heart shouldn't be able to do things that he can't do without the aid of the PASIV Device.
Arthur wakes up because someone is knocking on his door.
No one should be knocking on his door. It doesn't matter that it's 7:15 in the morning. This is Italy: no one does anything of significance before ten in the morning unless it involves going to mass or breakfast.
Arthur clambers out of bed, hitching up the waistband of his pajama bottoms. He grabs his Sig Sauer from the nightstand before crossing the room and unfastening the Relais Santa Croce's poor excuse for a deadbolt.
"Hello, Arthur."
Arthur blinks. His right hand is holding his Sig behind his back, so he uses his left to push his hair out of his eyes. It's in his way. He tries to push it behind his ear, but only some of it obeys.
Eames is standing in the hallway in a pale blue shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Arthur can see the curl of a tattoo at Eames' collarbone and a smattering of fine brown chest hair, but his mind is much more interested in the black-framed glasses Eames is wearing.
Arthur blinks again.
Eames' mouth quirks at the corners. "Are you going to let me in? I brought you an espresso and today's paper."
Arthur looks down at the copy of La Repubblica in Eames' right hand and the small paper cup in his left. And then he keeps looking down at the dark jeans and the black square-toed shoes.
God hates him because Arthur is an atheist.
He looks back up at amused eyes and a smirking mouth.
Arthur grunts, steps back and lets Eames in.
He closes the door, puts the safety back on his gun and goes back over toward his bed. It's a gorgeous piece of work: a four-poster made entirely of steel with a gray bed bench at the foot. Arthur drops the gun back on the nightstand and climbs back in the bed. Lying on his stomach, he tucks his pillow under his head and pulls up the bed linens as far as he can be bothered.
If he's dreaming, Eames' projection will join him, and if he's not... Well, he'll cross that bridge when he gets there.
"So the great Arthur does actually sleep," Eames says. Arthur lifts his head up. Eames is standing in the middle of Arthur's suite looking as though he should be in a catalog selling the red leather chairs by the window and the suede bed bench.
Arthur closes his eyes and counts to five. The bed is still marginally warm from his body heat. He wriggles onto his back for a moment, but he doesn't sleep on his back and Eames is in his room. He needs to pay attention.
Arthur scratches at his bare chest and props himself up on his elbows. "I was sleeping," he corrects around a yawn. "Now that you've gotten me up, that's clearly not the case."
He reaches onto the nightstand and hefts a red plastic die in his hand, feeling the imperfections. He rolls once. Six. No, not dreaming.
Eames comes and sits down on his side of the bed. The mattress dips with the additional weight, and Arthur has to shift his body so as not to end up rolling into Eames' knees.
Eames offers Arthur the espresso. "I thought the military would've cured you of such inefficient habits as sleeping."
Arthur lifts the lid and sniffs the cup. His eyes water from proximity to so much caffeine. "I'm afraid some of us are simply not as perfect as you are."
Eames raises an eyebrow. "You think I'm perfect?"
Arthur sips at the espresso and his brain starts firing. Finally. He hates mornings. "I'm sure you have innumerable flaws somewhere," Arthur says between sips of his espresso. "I'll be sure to let you know as I find them."
Eames taps him on the shoulder with the newspaper. "I have no doubt you will."
Arthur chuckles and pushes himself to a sitting position.
"All right, Mr. Eames," he says, scratching at his chest again. "You have my undivided attention, what can I do for you?"
Eames wets his lower lip. "I'm sure you can do plenty for me, but we can start with a discussion of the unfortunate habits of Cardinal Giordano and take it from there."
"How unfortunate are we talking about?"
"Let's just say the Cardinal could stand to brush up on his Dante."
"Any particular circle?"
Eames unfolds his copy of La Repubblica on the bed to expose several glossy photos it's been hiding in its folds. "I'm putting my money on the second."
"Really? Looks more like the fourth to me." Arthur leans in to study the photos closer. He can smell Eames' soap, the tea he must've had for breakfast. Eames is breathing on the crown on his head, stirring his hair, and it's sending all kinds of messages to Arthur's cock. Thank god he's still wrapped up in the sheets.
"Oh, father," Arthur says, studying Cardinal Giordano offering a gold chalice with a papal coat of arms on the bottom to a woman with crimson hair and spectacular breasts. "You have definitely sinned."
Arthur and Eames are sitting on the steps of the obelisk in St. Peter's Square sharing a paper bag of mutant-sized red grapes they bought from a local produce seller.
They've taken a day trip to Rome to do some recon, which mostly involves observation with a side order of note-taking and sketching.
This is their third trip.
There are pigeons and tourists everywhere and the sun is oppressive. In between throwing the grapes' seeds at the pigeons, Arthur is counting members of the Papal Swiss Guard with little notches in his notebook and Eames is sketching the basilica around them. The sketch is basic, a drawing on a yellow legal pad with a nubby pencil.
Eames' lines aren't particularly well realized, but he has an eye for detail. His competency makes the nape of Arthur's neck sweat.
"You're good at this," Arthur says, making a note of the fourteenth Swiss Guard, twelfth camera and third plainclothes polizia.
Eames' laugh is quiet, soft. "I'm sure you're much better."
"No, in this I can admit you're better."
Eames looks up from his sketch. "Is that a compliment from the competition?"
Eames' face is shaded by the coffee-colored baseball cap pulled down to mid-forehead but Arthur can see the smile on his lips.
"I wouldn't say it's a compliment," Arthur says, watching a young mother with her two daughters. "Just an observation."
In a purple floral t-shirt advertising Virgin Mobile phones, wearing faded jeans and with a rucksack at his feet, Eames looks like a typical tourist.
Arthur's wearing a pink shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a gray flat cap. He's got a messenger bag resting against the toes of his black Chuck Taylors.
"An observation." Arthur can hear the mocking tone in Eames' voice. When he looks to his left, Eames is still smiling at him. "Is this the part where I 'observe' your ability with a sidearm or your attention to detail? Should I 'observe' this new shirt of yours or that hat that I'm going to steal from you before this job is over?"
Arthur clutches at his hat. "I just bought this."
"It'll look better on me," Eames promises. Arthur elbows him in the ribs. Eames laughs. "I didn't say it would look better on me naked, there's no reason to resort to violence."
"If I end up resorting to violence I'm blaming you."
"If you end up resorting to violence it'll just be falling back on your training."
"Says the former SAS specialist."
"Says the former Special Ops specialist."
Eames taps his pencil against the brim of Arthur's hat, ruining the three minutes Arthur spent styling it this morning. Arthur throws a grape at him.
Eames catches the grape and pops it in his mouth. Arthur watches him chew and thinks about the time they've spent together over the last three weeks. All the little things he's learned about Eames: his love of the Lake District, for his little sister Poppy and his mom's dogs. His favorite color (blue), his favorite number (three), his favorite book (a toss-up between Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach and Terry Pratchett's The Color of Magic).
The way Eames starts a conversation about one thing, moves on to three other topics and still manages to circle back around to the original subject.
Basic information is easy enough to procure: you just have to pretend to be interested, and if you really are interested, so much the better. It's only when you're trying to extract something specific that the problems arise.
"Do you want to get dinner when we're done?" Arthur asks, cutting his eyes to the right when a familiar figure in clergyman's robes walks by them.
Eames' eyes automatically track where Arthur is looking. "Yeah, how do you feel about Italian?"
Arthur smirks. "It's okay."
"Can we go back to--"
"- that place that makes that lobster pasta that you've been talking about for six days?"
Eames chuckles. "Yeah."
Cardinal Giordano has a mistress named Cosima Bonetti. She has flaming red hair and spectacular breasts. Every Thursday the Cardinal travels to Florence from the Vatican to visit her. Sometimes he brings her presents that don't exactly belong to him. This week, however, the Cardinal has contacted Cosima to tell her that he has a meeting with His Holiness on Thursday and will visit her on Tuesday.
Arthur may not be able to forge in dreams, but he's damn good at hacking email in reality.
On the Tuesday in question, Mal delivers a bottle of very fine Chianti to the pensione where Cosima has rented a room for the day. The wine is a present from the proprietor who likes to stay on the good side of anyone associated with the Church. Even if they're committing mortal sins.
Mal uncorks the bottle and pours Cosima a glass. Sadly Mal can't partake herself despite Cosima's generosity, because of the bambino she's expecting. Or just had. No need to be pedantic.
It's always nice when reality meshes with a job.
Mal's still standing there when Cosima passes out on the rose-colored satin bedspread.
Five minutes later, Cosima has the starring role in Arthur's dream.
The rule about never working from memory doesn't preclude taking something familiar (St. Peter's Basilica) transporting it somewhere else (Glasgow via Madrid), giving it a complete cosmetic make over (Eames is partial to the gold leaf details so popular in Versailles) and giving it a little something extra.
In this dream Cosima is walking through this vastly improved Vatican with Eames-as-the-Cardinal. They're holding hands, being more obvious and affectionate than they could ever be in reality. In this case, it's important Cosima feels that she's in a dream. That she feels the safety of not actually exposing herself to the outside world.
Cosima is happy, unselfconscious: apparently she genuinely cares for the Cardinal. It's just a shame about the demands of his job. About his inability to give Cosima what she really wants: a husband, children.
It's especially unfortunate when Mal shows up as the Cardinal's other mistress.
There is a lot of rapid-fire screaming. A lot of fingernails aiming for the Cardinal's eyeballs. And then the projections attack.
Nobody wants to be attacked by projections dressed up as the Swiss Guard. They may all be dressed like they're on their way to a Renaissance fair but they're carrying halberds and Arthur really doesn't want to get impaled today.
Arthur will never get used to watching Mal die. Not ever. But he has to focus because he's in St. Peter's bastardized Basilica with Eames and they're trapped behind the pillars bracketing the monument to Christina of Sweden.
Eames' back is pressed up against rose marble. He's sweaty and flushed, his breathing labored, which is what happens when somebody stabs you in the shoulder with a halberd. Arthur is rapidly running out of ammunition. When the strains of Billie Holliday start up they both slump down to the floor. Arthur's never been so happy to hear "God Bless the Child" in his life. Arthur's head rolls onto Eames' shoulder; Eames pats his face with bloody, sticky fingers.
"You don't have to save me," Eames says. "I can take care of myself."
Arthur swallows and lifts his head. Eames' eyes are bright. His smile is pained. "Next time save us both this agony and just shoot me, okay?"
Arthur nods. "Okay."
"How many of you can boil water?"
Arthur raises his hand at the teacher's question. So do three other people. There are only seven of them in the room including the teacher.
Arthur never thought of himself as the sort of man who would ever take cooking classes. He's perfectly happy to acquire a new skill, but for a long time these skills have been job-related (Krav Maga, Muy Thai, Cantonese lessons) as opposed to practical lessons. But Downtown Cooking in L.A. promises "elegant cooking made simple."
Arthur needs simple right now.
"How many of you can cook eggs?" the teacher asks.
Five people raise their hands including Arthur.
More people can cook an egg than can boil water. Unbelievable.
And yet, the cooking teacher, Esmeralda, seems utterly unfazed by this.
Esmeralda is a forty-something black woman with blond hair. She was born in the Dominican Republic but has lived in Los Angeles for fifteen years. If she weren't quite so blond, she'd look like Halle Berry.
"So more of you can cook an egg than can boil water," Esmeralda says with a smile. "Well, at least I know you won't starve."
The class titters appropriately.
Esmeralda claps her hands. "So, is there a particular meal you want to be able to cook when this is over?"
"Breakfast," a Latino woman with a perfect nose and shockingly electric blue nails says. Her name tag reads Rita.
The class laughs.
"If my husband complains about how my pot roast is nothing like his mom's one more time, next time I'm serving him with the potatoes instead," a reedy man with gold-rimmed glasses announces. His tag says Christian.
"Okay, so, we have breakfast and we have pot roast," Esmeralda says. "What else? You guys have to have more ambition than that. This is L.A., everybody wants to be Gordon Ramsey, right? I mean I don't even like his food and I wouldn't mind his empire."
Moses wants to cook Pad Zee Ew. Nicole wants to make lamb chops. Chicken cacciatore, stuffed mushrooms, chocolate cake, sweetbreads, veal, roast asparagus, grilled mushrooms, quiche, spaghetti bolognese. The list goes on and on.
Esmeralda holds up her hand for silence. "Okay, so everybody wants to make everything. What about you?" she says, looking at Arthur with a smile on her lips. "No Thai food or charbroiled oysters for you, Arthur?"
"I'm not that complicated," Arthur says. He can hear Mal laughing in his head. "I just want to be able to cook a meal without anybody going to the ER."
"Yeah," Rita and Moses echo. "What he said."
Dom and Mal invite Arthur to a job in Brussels that involves the EU. A few months later it's a job in Wellington which has something to do with the center from the All Blacks rugby team. The work isn't necessarily scintillating, sometimes it's just amusing, but Arthur enjoys working with Dom and Mal. He always has. When Mal starts acting... strangely, Arthur just puts it down to exhaustion. She has two small children under the age of four. If both she and Dom have circles under their eyes it's only to be expected.
The Sunday after they get back from New Zealand, Arthur comes around to visit the children. Mal looks utterly wrecked; Dom refuses to talk about it.
When Arthur takes Mal aside, the smile she gives him is tight, pained. "You're always my Arthur, aren't you?" she says, patting his jaw.
Arthur doesn't know what to say this. "Of course I am."
There is a certain A-list star who is beginning to worry his handlers. He has always kept up the best of appearances, but recently he's become associated with a rather undesirable element. In fact, his beard du jour has been accused of certain illegal activities and the A-list star's agent is concerned that his meal ticket is about to get arrested by Interpol.
Eames has been hired to find out if said A-lister will actually be needing the services of Robert Shapiro.
At least this is what the voicemail Eames leaves Arthur several months after the Florence job says.
Arthur listens to the message once, twice, four times, and then stares at his phone for a moment.
The phone rings while Arthur's holding it in his hand and he nearly drops it. It's a local number he doesn't recognize.
His instincts tell him he should answer the call anyway. "Yes?"
"Most people answer their phone by saying 'hello.' Shall we try that again?"
"Hello, Eames."
"Much better, Arthur. Did you get my message?"
"What there was to get of it. Who exactly are we talking about here?"
"Surely if I told you that over the phone it would ruin the surprise."
"All right, I'll give you that one. What does this job have to do with me?"
"Well, obviously I need someone to be the dreamer here."
"You want me to dream up someplace where you can seduce a movie star? I think you can do that on your own."
"Despite the rumors to the contrary, I am not interested in seducing anything and everything with two legs. Have you seen some of the things with two legs?"
Arthur smiles at the phone. "Eames, you don't need me for this job."
"Perhaps I simply missed your charm and wit and took the job so I could have a reason to call on you."
"You don't need an excuse to see me," someone who sounds just like Arthur says.
There's a pause on the other end of the line.
It's a long pause.
It's long enough that Arthur's entire face goes hot and the rest of his body goes cold.
"Shall we have dinner?" Eames says, breaking the silence. "I was thinking we could go to the California Roll & Sushi in Larchmont. I know it's a bit far from you, but I quite like their oysters."
"I can cook," Arthur says.
"Can you?"
"So I've been told." Arthur's only attended a dozen or so cooking classes, but he can make a nice prosciutto and asparagus starter and a crispy-skinned salmon with a spicy Asian slaw. At least Esmeralda has assured him he can make it after last Sunday. "Do you want to come by around six?"
"Shall I bring anything?"
"Aren't you supposed to ask for my address?"
"Oh, I think I already have that."
Arthur looses a small chuckle. He can imagine the smile on Eames' lips. "Of course you do," he says
Arthur has never known Eames to be late. This is why when the buzzer to Arthur's loft goes off at 5:58 p.m., Arthur's just taking the prosciutto-wrapped asparagus out of the oven.
He sets the tray on the stove, turns off "Bennie & The Jets" on his iPod and removes his apron before he buzzes Eames into his building.
Arthur opens his front door and waits in the doorway until the elevator door chimes and Eames steps into the hallway. Arthur's building only has two lofts per floor; it's one of the reasons Arthur chose it. That and the six-inch thick concrete walls.
Eames is in a black suit and a white t-shirt that says "Yours Truly Angry Mob" in large block letters. He's wearing bright green sneakers and holding a white carrier bag from Silverlake Wine. When he sees Arthur waiting he hesitates for a moment. He checks something shiny that's in his hand, and then he looks up and smiles. Arthur's ears go hot.
"Afraid I'd get lost?" Eames says, slipping the item back into his pocket.
"It's not Dom's backyard, so no."
Eames' smile blossoms into a full-blown grin. "I brought you a present," he says, stepping right into Arthur's space. Arthur can smell him. Can smell toothpaste and something like the Molton Brown Thai vert lotion that Arthur has in his bathroom.
"I like men who come bearing presents," Arthur says.
He has no idea when he got so bold. He blames Eames.
Arthur feels a sudden urge to straighten his tie, but he's not wearing a tie today. He decided to go for the more relaxed approach with rolled-up sleeves, jeans and bare feet.
Eames' tongue flickers over his bottom lip and Arthur has to clear his throat, because he's in danger of choking on lust. "Well, I hope you like these," Eames says. His fingers brush against the back of Arthur's hand when they exchange the bag and Arthur's entire body goes on red alert. There are these fine lines across Eames' forehead and a tiny scar near his hairline. Eames' mouth looks soft and his eyes are bright, kind.
This is much worse than lust.
Arthur doesn't want to fuck Eames; he wants to have him.
He doesn't want to roll around for one night; he wants to do this every night.
He is not going to be satisfied with anything less than everything.
Arthur shakes his head and ducks back inside his loft.
This isn't dinner; it's trouble. It requires an entire reassessment of the situation.
"I said, 'I've never seen a woman with hair on her chest before.'"
Arthur looks over at Eames, who's ditched his jacket and sneakers, and is now sitting on Arthur's kitchen counter in a t-shirt, trousers and red and orange argyle socks, eating asparagus with his fingers and sipping at the white wine that he brought from the wine store. "You didn't say that."
"I obviously didn't mean to say it. Nobody says the right thing all the time."
"I can't believe you said that," Arthur says, flipping his salmon to sear the other side. He puts down the spatula and takes a sip of his wine.
Eames brought both red (Haut Brion Pessac) and white (Chateau d'Yquem), and even if Arthur hated Eames' guts and wanted to push him off the Golden Gate bridge and hold his head underwater until he drowned he'd have to give him credit for his taste in wine.
"That's not the best part," Eames says, smiling brightly
"There's more?"
"Then she said, 'You like it, don't you? Most men really do.'"
Arthur chokes on his wine, sputtering and wheezing as it goes down the wrong way. Eames slides off the counter and pounds on his back. It's just like the first time they met.
Arthur coughs over the sink until Eames' hand pounding on his back becomes his fingers rubbing small soothing circles. "I told you it got better," he says when Arthur turns back around with tears in his eyes and his lungs on fire.
Eames' nose wrinkles when he smiles and he sticks his tongue out playfully.
Arthur chuckles despite himself, but he freezes up when Eames reaches out and pushes an errant strand of hair behind Arthur's left ear.
"I, uh, I have to add in the orange juice," Arthur says, gesturing toward the salmon.
"Salmon and orange juice, very classy," Eames mocks. Arthur smacks him in the chest with the back of his hand to get him to move. Then he dumps the cup of orange juice in with the salmon and reaches for a lid to cover it so it can simmer properly. This is the time that the phone chooses to ring.
Arthur's phone almost never rings, but Eames reaches around him to grab it, a hand on Arthur's waist to balance himself. Arthur burns his wrist on the edge of the pan.
He turns in the circle of Eames' arms just as Eames answers the phone. They haven't been this close since Florence. "Hello?" Eames says. There's a pause. "Yeah, no, it's Eames."
Arthur holds out his hand for the phone.
Eames holds up a finger for him to wait. "Are you all right?"
Several seconds pass without Eames handing Arthur the phone. Arthur can feel his brow furrowing. "What?" he mouths.
Eames eyes shift over his right shoulder. "When?"
Arthur moves his head directly into Eames line of sight. "What?"
Eames licks his lips and looks past Arthur again. "Yes," he says. "I'll tell him."
And then Eames lowers the phone.
"That, uh, that was Dom."
A muscle twitches in Arthur's temple. "Is something wrong with the kids?"
"No," Eames says quickly. Too quickly. "It's Mal."
"What about --"
"-- she's killed herself."
Arthur looks at Eames and then he turns away to take the fish off of the stove.
Part II
Arthur/Eames
Rated PG-13
Word Count: 14,311
No One Gets Out Alive
"I hate giving a shit, it never ends well."
Arthur pauses in the doorway of Room 503 of the Le Parker Meridien; he's clearly interrupting.
Mal's sitting on a taupe cloth sofa talking to someone who has their back to the door. A British someone judging by the accent. Definitely male.
"You only 'hate giving a shit' as you put it -- you English need a much better vocabulary -- because you are an incurable romantic," Mal says, looking around her guest and beckoning Arthur inside. "And because people are forever disappointing you."
Arthur's not sure if she's talking to him or her guest.
"Kindly stop announcing the family secrets to the world at large," the man says.
"I'm afraid it is too late for that." Mal sets a glass of water on the coffee table near her and stands up. Arthur sets his traveling case down on the floor by his feet and closes the door behind him.
"Am I interrupting something?" Arthur asks.
"You are never interrupting," Mal says. "But I was beginning to worry that you had got lost."
She looks amazing for someone who's going to give birth any minute.
"I didn't get lost. It's New York, not your backyard," Arthur says, unbuttoning his coat and folding it over the PASIV case. "Even Theseus could get lost in your backyard."
"It is Dom's fault the backyard looks like the Amazon rainforest, not mine. I do the cooking; he does the gardening," Mal says, striding across the sitting room of the suite they're currently occupying.
It's not a bad space; the windows have a fabulous view of Central Park but the colors are muted in a depressing way: blueish-gray carpet, drab pine wood furniture. Yet another reason Arthur wanted to stay at The Carlyle. Or the W. Or the Waldorf-Astoria.
But the client wanted Le Meridien so here they are.
Mal kisses Arthur on the cheek, picks up the coat Arthur just folded over the PASIV case and hangs it up in the closet.
Arthur slips the room's key card in his pocket as Mal's guest turns around on the sofa and gets to his feet. "Perhaps you need to hire yourself a landscaper if Dom's gifts don't lie with trimming the verge," the man says with a quirk of his lips.
He's Arthur's height, broader in the shoulders. He's wearing an eye-searing maroon shirt with pink and yellow stripes; Arthur wants to weep in horror. Or he would if the man weren't, well, the words "devastatingly attractive" come to mind, but they seem like a slight understatement.
"You know Dom is like all men," Mal says dismissively. "He likes to pretend he can do everything himself."
"We don't pretend," Arthur and the man say at the same time.
"Of course you don't," Mal says soothingly. "This is why you both jumped to his defense."
"It's not pretending if you're actually good at it," Arthur says.
"Yes, but so few of you are. Even you, Eames."
"A palpable hit," the man -- Eames -- looks up from pouring a glass of red wine.
"So where does that leave me?" Arthur says.
"You are very good at what you choose to be good at, Arthur," Mal says. "And that is why you are good at your job. Better to be good at a few things than terrible at everything."
Arthur opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
"Have a drink," Eames says, offering Arthur the glass of wine. "If it makes you feel any better, she's been subjecting me to this for the last forty minutes."
Arthur takes the glass and looks over at his fellow victim. "I've heard a lot about you," he says, extending his hand.
This is something of a falsehood. Arthur hasn't heard anything besides whispers, but all the whispers are formidable. And they all failed to mention the stubble or the thighs like a thoroughbred's.
Eames raises an eyebrow. "I apologize in advance." Eames' hand is dry, warm, solid. His handshake is firm. The sort of handshake other handshakes hope to be when they grow up.
Arthur takes a sip of his wine. Mal smiles at them. "You two are very handsome together."
Arthur chokes.
Eames smacks him on the back.
"Mal," Eames scolds. "Try not to kill him before the job. I know we're supposed to be competitors, but I'd like to beat him, not have him die prematurely from a coronary."
Arthur gives Eames a very obvious once over. "I assume this won't be a sartorial competition," he says to Eames.
Eames raises an eyebrow. "Well, aren't you charming?"
Arthur's mouth quirks. "I do what I can," he says, going back to his wine.
It's a very nice red. Possibly a Shiraz.
Something else occurs during this exchange that has nothing to do with their conversation or Arthur choking on his wine. Arthur looks at Eames and Eames looks at Arthur and in under ten minutes Arthur is completely smitten.
This is not how his jobs tend to go.
"Oh, yes, you will do nicely," Mal says.
Arthur tears his eyes away from Eames' full mouth long enough to glance over at Mal.
She looks entirely too pleased.
This cannot possibly bode well for him.
"Eames is not your competition," Dom says over brunch at Sarabeth's Central Park South.
Arthur swirls a spoon through his oatmeal, mixing in raisins and brown sugar.
He's sitting with Dom at a table in the back, next to a window that's covered with spatters of today's rainstorm. There's a heater by Arthur's right ankle that's blowing air up the leg of his trousers and he keeps trying to block the breeze by turning his foot in different directions across the vent.
Arthur sets his spoon beside his bowl and takes a sip of his coffee. "And yet, that's exactly what he said."
"You two don't have the same skill set."
"So what is it that Eames does that I don't?"
Dom chews a bite of his bacon thoughtfully. "Well," he says once he's done. "I heard he does windows for a start."
Arthur raises an eyebrow.
"I can't make a joke?" Dom protests.
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
Dom rolls his eyes. "Mal warned me that this was going to happen."
"That what was going to happen?" Arthur says. It's possible that he sounds slightly hostile.
"Eames is not your competition. He's supposed to be an enhancement."
"I didn't know I needed enhancing."
"Try not to let your ego get the better of you."
Arthur narrows his eyes.
Dom grins. "This is reality; you can't shoot me here."
"That doesn't mean the thought isn't crossing my mind." Arthur drinks more of his coffee. "What does the great Mr. Eames even do? People talk about him like he's some sort of mix between Houdini, Laurence Olivier, Einstein and -- I can't think of any famous successful thieves."
"That's because if they're successful you never hear of them." Dom forks several pieces of the pancake on his plate. "And as for what he can do: I heard he can eat fifty hard-boiled eggs."
Dom chews his food with a satisfied smirk.
"This isn't Cool Hand Luke," Arthur retorts.
Dom raises an eyebrow.
Arthur scratches at his neck; the collar of his shirt is bothering him. Cotton itches just as much as wool.
"Arthur, he's not your competition. We want you two to work together. You're both trying to achieve the same end -- knowing as much about the mark as possible. Does it really matter how you do it? Although I suspect the better question is: can you do that or is there a real problem here? Mal said she thought you two were going to be great together."
Arthur reaches for his coffee, but it's all gone. He looks around for the waiter. "Mal said that, did she?"
"Yeah, she did."
Arthur looks back at Dom, because there's something off in his voice. That smile shouldn't be on his lips.
"What?" Arthur says.
Dom leans in. "You're the most professional person I know; what did Eames do to get under your skin this fast?"
"Nothing," Arthur says automatically.
He finally catches the eye of the waiter with the coffee and waves him over.
After the waiter is gone, Arthur spends an inordinate amount of time doctoring his coffee. He doesn't ever take this much sugar. The first taste is like drinking a pound of coffee-flavored sugar slush. He can feel his blood pressure spiking in shock.
"Okay, now that you've tried to avoid the subject, you can answer my question."
Arthur rolls his eyes. "Everything's fine with Eames. We'll be fine."
"Uh huh," Dom says. He sounds less than convinced.
Arthur is sitting on the banks of the Yamuna River with Eames. The dirt underneath Arthur is reddish, moist. Not damp, just not bone dry.
The sky is cloudless, and for once, Arthur's in India and not ready to expire from heat stroke. "We're not supposed to work from memory." Arthur looks over at Eames as a man in a small boat rows past.
Eames raises an eyebrow. He's wearing a white linen shirt and khaki linen trousers. "Who said this was a memory?" Eames gestures behind him. "The last time I saw the Taj Mahal I was three and slept through the whole thing. This is purely based on the Discovery Channel programming on the flight over from Abuja."
A woman in a red sari passes by them. She's holding the hand of a little boy with enormous eyes and incredibly unruly brown hair. He has skinned knees and his shirt is stained with some sort of red drink. He smiles at Arthur and Eames; he's missing a front tooth.
"Your subconscious likes me," Eames says as he gets to his feet.
Arthur makes a dubious noise and takes the hand Eames offers. Eames looks down at his clay-stained hand after Arthur lets go. "Charming."
"That's the second time you've called me 'charming,'" Arthur says, wiping his hands on the thighs of his jeans. One of the things he loves about his job is that he can get tremendously dirty at work and not have to deal with the laundry when he gets home. "If I didn't know better, I might think your conscious likes me."
"That might be the case," Eames says, "but as this is my dream you won't get to find that out, now will you?"
"Not today," Arthur admits, adjusting the brim on his fedora.
"Not tomorrow either." Eames scratches his jaw. "You get jeans, a t-shirt and a fedora and I'm dressed like bloody James Bond. I feel the need to object."
"You're English, you're dashing, and according to the rumors you have the prowess of 007. I thought you'd like it."
"Rumors are always useful to have," Eames says. "Especially the ones that are blatantly untrue." Eames gestures for them to move away from the river and toward the wall that surrounds the Taj Mahal. Only in dreams is there a convenient door from the banks of the Yamuna to the walkways by the reflecting pool. "But on occasion they can become incredibly burdensome."
Arthur glances sideways at Eames. Eames is twirling a pocket watch around the index finger of his right hand. "Are you saying reports of your greatness are greatly exaggerated?"
The corner of Eames' mouth quirks upward. "I'm saying that you shouldn't believe everything you hear."
"So what scurrilous rumors about you shouldn't I believe?"
Eames looks at Arthur and smiles. It's a real smile, full-bodied and amazing. It's the sort of thing that would make Arthur weak in the knees if he were prone to such Victorian behavior.
"Well," Eames begins. "The rumor about me and that Frida Kahlo from the Tate Modern for a start."
"What Frida Kahlo?"
"Oh, wait," Eames stops mid-stride. "That's not a rumor. Forget I said that."
Arthur stops a step away and raises an eyebrow. "What about the Fabergé cufflinks from the Harrogate Museum?"
"That's such a small museum, how on earth -- why am I asking an omnipotent giant like yourself such a pointless question. It's your business to know everything, isn't it?"
"Not everything, just a few things." He pauses. "So that would be a yes?"
Eames leans in conspiratorially; Arthur meets him halfway.
"I'm afraid I can't confess," Eames says. His eyelashes are obscenely long, and they cast shadows from the sun high in the Agra sky. "Not even to you."
Arthur looks up at Eames from underneath his own eyelashes. "I wouldn't expect anything less."
Eames wets his lips. "But I will tell you that hypothetically speaking the Duke very much appreciated his birthday present and then made me return them the same day."
"The Duke?"
"I prefer to call him 'father.' Or in more sentimental moments 'dad.'"
Arthur's mouth thins into a line. "That's not in your file."
"It's important to keep some things private, that is why it's called a 'private life.'"
Arthur blinks as Eames gestures toward the walkway. "Shall we?"
Arthur nods and takes up his place at Eames' side.
They walk in silence for several moments. "It amazes me that one of the most beloved buildings in the world is nothing more than a glorified mausoleum," Eames says.
The look Arthur gives him is nothing short of incredulous. "Aren't you supposed to be the idealistic one? The great lover and heartbreaker? You can't just omit the love story angle: the great gift from Shah Jahan to his favorite wife Mumtaz that ended with him in jail and usurped by his son."
Eames' smile this time is sharper, more appraising. "Your reputation never said anything about you being a romantic."
"I'm not," Arthur says reflexively.
Eames nods his head, but doesn't say anything. Arthur adjusts the angle of his fedora again; the sun is making his face hot. That's why he's feeling so flustered.
"This is your dream anyway," Arthur points out some time later. It's practically a non sequitur.
"You've found me out," Eames says. "This is all part of my great plan to seduce you."
For three seconds Arthur wishes that were true. "It's not nice to tease people, Mr. Eames," he says.
"You're right," Eames agrees. "It's not."
On the other side of the reflecting pool the woman in the red sari is collecting flowers with the little boy with the missing tooth. Arthur looks around him at the perfectly manicured grass. At the perfectly pruned shrubbery. The air is still. There are no birds singing.
For their first experience in dream sharing they couldn't have asked for anything better.
Mr. Frank Erlich is a fifty-three-year-old non-practicing Jew who is madly in love with his twenty-eight-year-old atheist personal assistant, Amelia Rayder. He wants to marry her. To adopt her three-year-old son, Max, and give him Frank's name.
Mr. Erlich doesn't think Amelia is after his money; Mr. Erlich's sister, Rachel, does not agree.
When Rachel invites Amelia to her suite at Le Parker Meridien to "chat," Dom, Eames and Arthur are waiting in the bedroom.
From the time it takes for Amelia to arrive, for Rachel to order tea and for Mal to arrive with said tea as "room service," twenty minutes pass.
No hotel's room service is that efficient.
Arthur hooks up a sedated Amelia while Eames and Dom are taking care of their own inserts and Rachel Erlich checks her Blackberry.
Before Arthur sits down, he removes his jacket and folds it over the back of the sofa. Then he takes his place between Amelia and Eames, pushes up his sleeve and readies his own IV.
"I like the jumper," Eames says, tugging on the sleeve of Arthur's forest-green pullover. "What is it? Paul Smith?"
Arthur smiles as Mal reaches for the injection trigger. "No, Target," he says, slouching down next to Eames on the sofa, their thighs pressing together in a fight for leg room. "I got it last week when I was buying toilet paper and laundry detergent."
Arthur is not an architect. He can build to minute specifications; he can dream it if he knows what's required; he has the imagination to build beautiful cities, but most of the time he's simply not that inspired.
He doesn't have to be.
To that end, for the last three days he's been inside Eames' mind learning everything possible about the Taj Mahal. The four minarets that frame the dome. The main chamber house with the false sarcophagi of the Shah and Mumtaz. The herringbone patterns and plain motifs. The three-hundred meter Mughal garden.
This is why when Eames walks by with Amelia, there are roses for him to snag and hand to her. Pardon, for Frank Erlich to hand to her. Silver roses.
Eames chose them because he likes the color.
Arthur dreamed them up because that's what Eames wants.
Dom is the Canadian tourist who bumps into Amelia. Arthur is the man who points out that the Canadian tourist has dropped his wallet. A wallet with five thousand dollars in cash in it.
And then there's the loose diamond that falls into Amelia's hand when she picks up the wallet.
The idea behind this extraction is nothing more than finding out the trustworthiness of Amelia Rayder.
Is she the kind of woman to take your wallet or will she give you your money back?
Is she a thief or is she an honest woman?
What makes someone an honest person?
What makes someone worth loving?
"It doesn't have anything on it," Arthur says as Eames tucks into his hamburger.
Eames chews for several moments before swallowing. And then he sucks obscenely on the straw in his chocolate milkshake. "It's a hamburger," he says. "It's not supposed to have anything on it."
"It's a hamburger," Arthur says, chasing the taste of ketchup from the corner of his mouth. "Of course it's supposed to have something on it."
"If it's not any good on its own merits, it doesn't matter how you dress it up."
"Shut up, Confucius," Arthur says.
Eames grins and steals one of his fries.
In the lobby of Le Parker Meridien, down a long hall, past the sign with the burger and arrow on it and behind a thick black curtain is The Burger Joint.
The seating is spare, but the prices are pretty reasonable and if it's late at night or early in the morning and you've just finished a very easy, very well paid extraction, it's just the place to go.
Well, you can do that or go fuck in your client-expensed hotel suite, but Eames and Arthur aren't Mal and Dom. And Mal is eight months pregnant. It might be for the best if Arthur didn't dwell on what they're doing.
Arthur swats Eames' hand away from his fries. "You have your own," he says, pointing to Eames' food.
"Yes, but I don't want mine, I want yours."
This playful side to Eames is new; Arthur likes it. "Well, you can't have what's mine," he says.
Eames steals another fry. "You sure about that?" he asks, chewing on a perfectly fried potato. "It looks like it's mine now."
"Fucking thief," Arthur says, mocks disgusted.
"Everyone has to be something."
"And is that your something?" Arthur says, pushing his vanilla milkshake aside to steal some of Eames' chocolate one. "Being a thief?" He should've gotten the chocolate. Every time he gets a vanilla milkshake he realizes he should've gotten the chocolate instead.
Eames wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. "I said everyone has to be something; I didn't say that you couldn't be more than one thing."
Eames takes another bite of his burger, grabs a napkin and causes a pen to materialize out of somewhere. He scribbles something down on the napkin and then folds it up and sticks it in the suit pocket where Arthur's handkerchief would go if he were wearing one.
Arthur reaches for it, and Eames bats his hand away. "Later," he says, going back to plundering Arthur's fries.
It's only after their meal is over and they've gone their separate ways that Arthur pulls out a balled up napkin covered in blue ballpoint ink.
Eames' handwriting is neither flawless nor illegible. It's just Eames, who is apparently everything and nothing like his reputation.
Arthur smiles at the Abraham Lincoln quote.
WHATEVER YOU ARE, BE A GOOD ONE
Seventeen hours later, Arthur is back in Los Angeles, buying shaving cream and tissues from the Target in Burbank. He gets his groceries from Ralph's on San Fernando Boulevard, gets the Volvo washed and detailed by the car wash on Hollywood Way and then he hops back on the 5 and heads back downtown. He drops off his groceries and then stops at Pho Siam for a spontaneous Thai massage.
Most people wouldn't be relaxed by a woman standing in wooden stilts stepping on their calves. For Arthur it's almost as good as that cheeseburger he had with Eames.
The next day Arthur completes various other tasks; he stays busy.
Arthur does his job, lives his life and gets on with it.
Whatever he is, he is a good one.
The first time a projection of Eames shows up in one of Arthur's training dreams, he's wearing a gray Hugo Boss suit that Arthur is having made to measure. The suit is superfine merino wool and has shawl lapels. Eames is wearing it with a pink shirt covered in a henna-like print.
Arthur shoots himself in the head.
He's not shooting Eames.
That's just uncalled for.
They take a job in Florence. James is five months old and Mal is ready to go back to work. "Go back to work" meaning the children are with her parents in Paris, and she's depending on Dom and Arthur to do most of the leg work on this one.
Arthur's just finished a freelance job in Stockholm. He's over pickled herring. He likes freelancing, but he prefers working with Dom and Mal. He doesn't have to worry about their competency. Plus, Arthur loves Florence. The art, the food, the leather goods... the food.
While Dom is off doing surveillance, Mal takes Arthur to L'Osteria de' Benci, a trattoria near their pensione on Via Ghibellina that serves Coniglio al Forno con Olive Nere, an amazing rabbit dish with olives.
Arthur doesn't even like olives.
He's on his third glass of red wine -- the house red, shockingly enough -- when Mal drops the bomb. "Eames is coming in tomorrow."
Arthur pauses with his glass of wine midway to his mouth. "Why?"
Mal does something suspicious with her lips. It's possible she pouts. "I thought you would be happy to see him."
Arthur sets down the wine. "Why would you think that?"
"Because you like him." Mal says, her spoon midway between the blood orange sorbetto on her left and the scoop of pistachio gelato on her right.
Arthur doesn't bat an eyelash; he got used to this sort of culinary flexibility years ago when Mal was pregnant with Phillipa. "No, I don't."
Mal waves her spoon at him dismissively. "You two are very good together."
"We are not."
"Yes, you are."
"Have you seen the way he dresses?"
Mal pauses with a spoon full of sorbetto. "Arthur."
"And the way he talks?"
"You do not like his voice?"
A muscle jumps in Arthur's jaw. That is most definitely not the problem. "Can't we get someone else?"
"Arthur," Mal repeats.
Arthur swallows the last of his wine and then refills his glass.
Mal stops his next sip with a hand on his wrist. He looks at her in confusion and her eyebrows creep upward. "Oh, Arthur, you are adorable."
"What?"
"You like him that much?" she says.
Arthur sputters.
Mal pats his wrist consolingly. "Why did you not say so?"
"I do not," he protests once he finds his voice.
"I am not surprised," Mal says. "He's your type."
"He is not 'my type,'" Arthur says loudly enough that at least two people look over at their table. He lowers his voice when he says, "He dresses appallingly."
"He is incredibly smart," Mal agrees.
"That's not what I said."
"You find him attractive."
"I didn't say that either."
"His sense of humor is formidable."
"Are you listening to anything I'm saying?" Arthur protests.
"He likes you," Mal says, reaching across the table with her fork and stealing a piece of Arthur's rabbit. She's already put away a starter of strawberry rice with cream and Parmesan cheese and her main dish of beef carpaccio on an arugula salad.
"Isn't that his job? To like everybody."
"No, his job is to understand people. He does not have to like them; he tolerates them. As far as I know he has not liked anyone in quite a while."
"When you say 'like' what exactly do you mean?"
"I mean it is nice to see this side of him again."
"What side?" Arthur presses. "What do you know that I don't?"
"Lots of things," Mal says idly. "But that is not the point."
"So what is 'the point'?" Arthur huffs. "I haven't heard from him since New York. He probably won't even remember me."
Mal finishes chewing before she replies. "No, Arthur," she says, "he has not forgotten you."
Arthur's heart does a weird leap-spin-flip in his chest.
His heart shouldn't be able to do things that he can't do without the aid of the PASIV Device.
Arthur wakes up because someone is knocking on his door.
No one should be knocking on his door. It doesn't matter that it's 7:15 in the morning. This is Italy: no one does anything of significance before ten in the morning unless it involves going to mass or breakfast.
Arthur clambers out of bed, hitching up the waistband of his pajama bottoms. He grabs his Sig Sauer from the nightstand before crossing the room and unfastening the Relais Santa Croce's poor excuse for a deadbolt.
"Hello, Arthur."
Arthur blinks. His right hand is holding his Sig behind his back, so he uses his left to push his hair out of his eyes. It's in his way. He tries to push it behind his ear, but only some of it obeys.
Eames is standing in the hallway in a pale blue shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Arthur can see the curl of a tattoo at Eames' collarbone and a smattering of fine brown chest hair, but his mind is much more interested in the black-framed glasses Eames is wearing.
Arthur blinks again.
Eames' mouth quirks at the corners. "Are you going to let me in? I brought you an espresso and today's paper."
Arthur looks down at the copy of La Repubblica in Eames' right hand and the small paper cup in his left. And then he keeps looking down at the dark jeans and the black square-toed shoes.
God hates him because Arthur is an atheist.
He looks back up at amused eyes and a smirking mouth.
Arthur grunts, steps back and lets Eames in.
He closes the door, puts the safety back on his gun and goes back over toward his bed. It's a gorgeous piece of work: a four-poster made entirely of steel with a gray bed bench at the foot. Arthur drops the gun back on the nightstand and climbs back in the bed. Lying on his stomach, he tucks his pillow under his head and pulls up the bed linens as far as he can be bothered.
If he's dreaming, Eames' projection will join him, and if he's not... Well, he'll cross that bridge when he gets there.
"So the great Arthur does actually sleep," Eames says. Arthur lifts his head up. Eames is standing in the middle of Arthur's suite looking as though he should be in a catalog selling the red leather chairs by the window and the suede bed bench.
Arthur closes his eyes and counts to five. The bed is still marginally warm from his body heat. He wriggles onto his back for a moment, but he doesn't sleep on his back and Eames is in his room. He needs to pay attention.
Arthur scratches at his bare chest and props himself up on his elbows. "I was sleeping," he corrects around a yawn. "Now that you've gotten me up, that's clearly not the case."
He reaches onto the nightstand and hefts a red plastic die in his hand, feeling the imperfections. He rolls once. Six. No, not dreaming.
Eames comes and sits down on his side of the bed. The mattress dips with the additional weight, and Arthur has to shift his body so as not to end up rolling into Eames' knees.
Eames offers Arthur the espresso. "I thought the military would've cured you of such inefficient habits as sleeping."
Arthur lifts the lid and sniffs the cup. His eyes water from proximity to so much caffeine. "I'm afraid some of us are simply not as perfect as you are."
Eames raises an eyebrow. "You think I'm perfect?"
Arthur sips at the espresso and his brain starts firing. Finally. He hates mornings. "I'm sure you have innumerable flaws somewhere," Arthur says between sips of his espresso. "I'll be sure to let you know as I find them."
Eames taps him on the shoulder with the newspaper. "I have no doubt you will."
Arthur chuckles and pushes himself to a sitting position.
"All right, Mr. Eames," he says, scratching at his chest again. "You have my undivided attention, what can I do for you?"
Eames wets his lower lip. "I'm sure you can do plenty for me, but we can start with a discussion of the unfortunate habits of Cardinal Giordano and take it from there."
"How unfortunate are we talking about?"
"Let's just say the Cardinal could stand to brush up on his Dante."
"Any particular circle?"
Eames unfolds his copy of La Repubblica on the bed to expose several glossy photos it's been hiding in its folds. "I'm putting my money on the second."
"Really? Looks more like the fourth to me." Arthur leans in to study the photos closer. He can smell Eames' soap, the tea he must've had for breakfast. Eames is breathing on the crown on his head, stirring his hair, and it's sending all kinds of messages to Arthur's cock. Thank god he's still wrapped up in the sheets.
"Oh, father," Arthur says, studying Cardinal Giordano offering a gold chalice with a papal coat of arms on the bottom to a woman with crimson hair and spectacular breasts. "You have definitely sinned."
Arthur and Eames are sitting on the steps of the obelisk in St. Peter's Square sharing a paper bag of mutant-sized red grapes they bought from a local produce seller.
They've taken a day trip to Rome to do some recon, which mostly involves observation with a side order of note-taking and sketching.
This is their third trip.
There are pigeons and tourists everywhere and the sun is oppressive. In between throwing the grapes' seeds at the pigeons, Arthur is counting members of the Papal Swiss Guard with little notches in his notebook and Eames is sketching the basilica around them. The sketch is basic, a drawing on a yellow legal pad with a nubby pencil.
Eames' lines aren't particularly well realized, but he has an eye for detail. His competency makes the nape of Arthur's neck sweat.
"You're good at this," Arthur says, making a note of the fourteenth Swiss Guard, twelfth camera and third plainclothes polizia.
Eames' laugh is quiet, soft. "I'm sure you're much better."
"No, in this I can admit you're better."
Eames looks up from his sketch. "Is that a compliment from the competition?"
Eames' face is shaded by the coffee-colored baseball cap pulled down to mid-forehead but Arthur can see the smile on his lips.
"I wouldn't say it's a compliment," Arthur says, watching a young mother with her two daughters. "Just an observation."
In a purple floral t-shirt advertising Virgin Mobile phones, wearing faded jeans and with a rucksack at his feet, Eames looks like a typical tourist.
Arthur's wearing a pink shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a gray flat cap. He's got a messenger bag resting against the toes of his black Chuck Taylors.
"An observation." Arthur can hear the mocking tone in Eames' voice. When he looks to his left, Eames is still smiling at him. "Is this the part where I 'observe' your ability with a sidearm or your attention to detail? Should I 'observe' this new shirt of yours or that hat that I'm going to steal from you before this job is over?"
Arthur clutches at his hat. "I just bought this."
"It'll look better on me," Eames promises. Arthur elbows him in the ribs. Eames laughs. "I didn't say it would look better on me naked, there's no reason to resort to violence."
"If I end up resorting to violence I'm blaming you."
"If you end up resorting to violence it'll just be falling back on your training."
"Says the former SAS specialist."
"Says the former Special Ops specialist."
Eames taps his pencil against the brim of Arthur's hat, ruining the three minutes Arthur spent styling it this morning. Arthur throws a grape at him.
Eames catches the grape and pops it in his mouth. Arthur watches him chew and thinks about the time they've spent together over the last three weeks. All the little things he's learned about Eames: his love of the Lake District, for his little sister Poppy and his mom's dogs. His favorite color (blue), his favorite number (three), his favorite book (a toss-up between Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach and Terry Pratchett's The Color of Magic).
The way Eames starts a conversation about one thing, moves on to three other topics and still manages to circle back around to the original subject.
Basic information is easy enough to procure: you just have to pretend to be interested, and if you really are interested, so much the better. It's only when you're trying to extract something specific that the problems arise.
"Do you want to get dinner when we're done?" Arthur asks, cutting his eyes to the right when a familiar figure in clergyman's robes walks by them.
Eames' eyes automatically track where Arthur is looking. "Yeah, how do you feel about Italian?"
Arthur smirks. "It's okay."
"Can we go back to--"
"- that place that makes that lobster pasta that you've been talking about for six days?"
Eames chuckles. "Yeah."
Cardinal Giordano has a mistress named Cosima Bonetti. She has flaming red hair and spectacular breasts. Every Thursday the Cardinal travels to Florence from the Vatican to visit her. Sometimes he brings her presents that don't exactly belong to him. This week, however, the Cardinal has contacted Cosima to tell her that he has a meeting with His Holiness on Thursday and will visit her on Tuesday.
Arthur may not be able to forge in dreams, but he's damn good at hacking email in reality.
On the Tuesday in question, Mal delivers a bottle of very fine Chianti to the pensione where Cosima has rented a room for the day. The wine is a present from the proprietor who likes to stay on the good side of anyone associated with the Church. Even if they're committing mortal sins.
Mal uncorks the bottle and pours Cosima a glass. Sadly Mal can't partake herself despite Cosima's generosity, because of the bambino she's expecting. Or just had. No need to be pedantic.
It's always nice when reality meshes with a job.
Mal's still standing there when Cosima passes out on the rose-colored satin bedspread.
Five minutes later, Cosima has the starring role in Arthur's dream.
The rule about never working from memory doesn't preclude taking something familiar (St. Peter's Basilica) transporting it somewhere else (Glasgow via Madrid), giving it a complete cosmetic make over (Eames is partial to the gold leaf details so popular in Versailles) and giving it a little something extra.
In this dream Cosima is walking through this vastly improved Vatican with Eames-as-the-Cardinal. They're holding hands, being more obvious and affectionate than they could ever be in reality. In this case, it's important Cosima feels that she's in a dream. That she feels the safety of not actually exposing herself to the outside world.
Cosima is happy, unselfconscious: apparently she genuinely cares for the Cardinal. It's just a shame about the demands of his job. About his inability to give Cosima what she really wants: a husband, children.
It's especially unfortunate when Mal shows up as the Cardinal's other mistress.
There is a lot of rapid-fire screaming. A lot of fingernails aiming for the Cardinal's eyeballs. And then the projections attack.
Nobody wants to be attacked by projections dressed up as the Swiss Guard. They may all be dressed like they're on their way to a Renaissance fair but they're carrying halberds and Arthur really doesn't want to get impaled today.
Arthur will never get used to watching Mal die. Not ever. But he has to focus because he's in St. Peter's bastardized Basilica with Eames and they're trapped behind the pillars bracketing the monument to Christina of Sweden.
Eames' back is pressed up against rose marble. He's sweaty and flushed, his breathing labored, which is what happens when somebody stabs you in the shoulder with a halberd. Arthur is rapidly running out of ammunition. When the strains of Billie Holliday start up they both slump down to the floor. Arthur's never been so happy to hear "God Bless the Child" in his life. Arthur's head rolls onto Eames' shoulder; Eames pats his face with bloody, sticky fingers.
"You don't have to save me," Eames says. "I can take care of myself."
Arthur swallows and lifts his head. Eames' eyes are bright. His smile is pained. "Next time save us both this agony and just shoot me, okay?"
Arthur nods. "Okay."
"How many of you can boil water?"
Arthur raises his hand at the teacher's question. So do three other people. There are only seven of them in the room including the teacher.
Arthur never thought of himself as the sort of man who would ever take cooking classes. He's perfectly happy to acquire a new skill, but for a long time these skills have been job-related (Krav Maga, Muy Thai, Cantonese lessons) as opposed to practical lessons. But Downtown Cooking in L.A. promises "elegant cooking made simple."
Arthur needs simple right now.
"How many of you can cook eggs?" the teacher asks.
Five people raise their hands including Arthur.
More people can cook an egg than can boil water. Unbelievable.
And yet, the cooking teacher, Esmeralda, seems utterly unfazed by this.
Esmeralda is a forty-something black woman with blond hair. She was born in the Dominican Republic but has lived in Los Angeles for fifteen years. If she weren't quite so blond, she'd look like Halle Berry.
"So more of you can cook an egg than can boil water," Esmeralda says with a smile. "Well, at least I know you won't starve."
The class titters appropriately.
Esmeralda claps her hands. "So, is there a particular meal you want to be able to cook when this is over?"
"Breakfast," a Latino woman with a perfect nose and shockingly electric blue nails says. Her name tag reads Rita.
The class laughs.
"If my husband complains about how my pot roast is nothing like his mom's one more time, next time I'm serving him with the potatoes instead," a reedy man with gold-rimmed glasses announces. His tag says Christian.
"Okay, so, we have breakfast and we have pot roast," Esmeralda says. "What else? You guys have to have more ambition than that. This is L.A., everybody wants to be Gordon Ramsey, right? I mean I don't even like his food and I wouldn't mind his empire."
Moses wants to cook Pad Zee Ew. Nicole wants to make lamb chops. Chicken cacciatore, stuffed mushrooms, chocolate cake, sweetbreads, veal, roast asparagus, grilled mushrooms, quiche, spaghetti bolognese. The list goes on and on.
Esmeralda holds up her hand for silence. "Okay, so everybody wants to make everything. What about you?" she says, looking at Arthur with a smile on her lips. "No Thai food or charbroiled oysters for you, Arthur?"
"I'm not that complicated," Arthur says. He can hear Mal laughing in his head. "I just want to be able to cook a meal without anybody going to the ER."
"Yeah," Rita and Moses echo. "What he said."
Dom and Mal invite Arthur to a job in Brussels that involves the EU. A few months later it's a job in Wellington which has something to do with the center from the All Blacks rugby team. The work isn't necessarily scintillating, sometimes it's just amusing, but Arthur enjoys working with Dom and Mal. He always has. When Mal starts acting... strangely, Arthur just puts it down to exhaustion. She has two small children under the age of four. If both she and Dom have circles under their eyes it's only to be expected.
The Sunday after they get back from New Zealand, Arthur comes around to visit the children. Mal looks utterly wrecked; Dom refuses to talk about it.
When Arthur takes Mal aside, the smile she gives him is tight, pained. "You're always my Arthur, aren't you?" she says, patting his jaw.
Arthur doesn't know what to say this. "Of course I am."
There is a certain A-list star who is beginning to worry his handlers. He has always kept up the best of appearances, but recently he's become associated with a rather undesirable element. In fact, his beard du jour has been accused of certain illegal activities and the A-list star's agent is concerned that his meal ticket is about to get arrested by Interpol.
Eames has been hired to find out if said A-lister will actually be needing the services of Robert Shapiro.
At least this is what the voicemail Eames leaves Arthur several months after the Florence job says.
Arthur listens to the message once, twice, four times, and then stares at his phone for a moment.
The phone rings while Arthur's holding it in his hand and he nearly drops it. It's a local number he doesn't recognize.
His instincts tell him he should answer the call anyway. "Yes?"
"Most people answer their phone by saying 'hello.' Shall we try that again?"
"Hello, Eames."
"Much better, Arthur. Did you get my message?"
"What there was to get of it. Who exactly are we talking about here?"
"Surely if I told you that over the phone it would ruin the surprise."
"All right, I'll give you that one. What does this job have to do with me?"
"Well, obviously I need someone to be the dreamer here."
"You want me to dream up someplace where you can seduce a movie star? I think you can do that on your own."
"Despite the rumors to the contrary, I am not interested in seducing anything and everything with two legs. Have you seen some of the things with two legs?"
Arthur smiles at the phone. "Eames, you don't need me for this job."
"Perhaps I simply missed your charm and wit and took the job so I could have a reason to call on you."
"You don't need an excuse to see me," someone who sounds just like Arthur says.
There's a pause on the other end of the line.
It's a long pause.
It's long enough that Arthur's entire face goes hot and the rest of his body goes cold.
"Shall we have dinner?" Eames says, breaking the silence. "I was thinking we could go to the California Roll & Sushi in Larchmont. I know it's a bit far from you, but I quite like their oysters."
"I can cook," Arthur says.
"Can you?"
"So I've been told." Arthur's only attended a dozen or so cooking classes, but he can make a nice prosciutto and asparagus starter and a crispy-skinned salmon with a spicy Asian slaw. At least Esmeralda has assured him he can make it after last Sunday. "Do you want to come by around six?"
"Shall I bring anything?"
"Aren't you supposed to ask for my address?"
"Oh, I think I already have that."
Arthur looses a small chuckle. He can imagine the smile on Eames' lips. "Of course you do," he says
Arthur has never known Eames to be late. This is why when the buzzer to Arthur's loft goes off at 5:58 p.m., Arthur's just taking the prosciutto-wrapped asparagus out of the oven.
He sets the tray on the stove, turns off "Bennie & The Jets" on his iPod and removes his apron before he buzzes Eames into his building.
Arthur opens his front door and waits in the doorway until the elevator door chimes and Eames steps into the hallway. Arthur's building only has two lofts per floor; it's one of the reasons Arthur chose it. That and the six-inch thick concrete walls.
Eames is in a black suit and a white t-shirt that says "Yours Truly Angry Mob" in large block letters. He's wearing bright green sneakers and holding a white carrier bag from Silverlake Wine. When he sees Arthur waiting he hesitates for a moment. He checks something shiny that's in his hand, and then he looks up and smiles. Arthur's ears go hot.
"Afraid I'd get lost?" Eames says, slipping the item back into his pocket.
"It's not Dom's backyard, so no."
Eames' smile blossoms into a full-blown grin. "I brought you a present," he says, stepping right into Arthur's space. Arthur can smell him. Can smell toothpaste and something like the Molton Brown Thai vert lotion that Arthur has in his bathroom.
"I like men who come bearing presents," Arthur says.
He has no idea when he got so bold. He blames Eames.
Arthur feels a sudden urge to straighten his tie, but he's not wearing a tie today. He decided to go for the more relaxed approach with rolled-up sleeves, jeans and bare feet.
Eames' tongue flickers over his bottom lip and Arthur has to clear his throat, because he's in danger of choking on lust. "Well, I hope you like these," Eames says. His fingers brush against the back of Arthur's hand when they exchange the bag and Arthur's entire body goes on red alert. There are these fine lines across Eames' forehead and a tiny scar near his hairline. Eames' mouth looks soft and his eyes are bright, kind.
This is much worse than lust.
Arthur doesn't want to fuck Eames; he wants to have him.
He doesn't want to roll around for one night; he wants to do this every night.
He is not going to be satisfied with anything less than everything.
Arthur shakes his head and ducks back inside his loft.
This isn't dinner; it's trouble. It requires an entire reassessment of the situation.
"I said, 'I've never seen a woman with hair on her chest before.'"
Arthur looks over at Eames, who's ditched his jacket and sneakers, and is now sitting on Arthur's kitchen counter in a t-shirt, trousers and red and orange argyle socks, eating asparagus with his fingers and sipping at the white wine that he brought from the wine store. "You didn't say that."
"I obviously didn't mean to say it. Nobody says the right thing all the time."
"I can't believe you said that," Arthur says, flipping his salmon to sear the other side. He puts down the spatula and takes a sip of his wine.
Eames brought both red (Haut Brion Pessac) and white (Chateau d'Yquem), and even if Arthur hated Eames' guts and wanted to push him off the Golden Gate bridge and hold his head underwater until he drowned he'd have to give him credit for his taste in wine.
"That's not the best part," Eames says, smiling brightly
"There's more?"
"Then she said, 'You like it, don't you? Most men really do.'"
Arthur chokes on his wine, sputtering and wheezing as it goes down the wrong way. Eames slides off the counter and pounds on his back. It's just like the first time they met.
Arthur coughs over the sink until Eames' hand pounding on his back becomes his fingers rubbing small soothing circles. "I told you it got better," he says when Arthur turns back around with tears in his eyes and his lungs on fire.
Eames' nose wrinkles when he smiles and he sticks his tongue out playfully.
Arthur chuckles despite himself, but he freezes up when Eames reaches out and pushes an errant strand of hair behind Arthur's left ear.
"I, uh, I have to add in the orange juice," Arthur says, gesturing toward the salmon.
"Salmon and orange juice, very classy," Eames mocks. Arthur smacks him in the chest with the back of his hand to get him to move. Then he dumps the cup of orange juice in with the salmon and reaches for a lid to cover it so it can simmer properly. This is the time that the phone chooses to ring.
Arthur's phone almost never rings, but Eames reaches around him to grab it, a hand on Arthur's waist to balance himself. Arthur burns his wrist on the edge of the pan.
He turns in the circle of Eames' arms just as Eames answers the phone. They haven't been this close since Florence. "Hello?" Eames says. There's a pause. "Yeah, no, it's Eames."
Arthur holds out his hand for the phone.
Eames holds up a finger for him to wait. "Are you all right?"
Several seconds pass without Eames handing Arthur the phone. Arthur can feel his brow furrowing. "What?" he mouths.
Eames eyes shift over his right shoulder. "When?"
Arthur moves his head directly into Eames line of sight. "What?"
Eames licks his lips and looks past Arthur again. "Yes," he says. "I'll tell him."
And then Eames lowers the phone.
"That, uh, that was Dom."
A muscle twitches in Arthur's temple. "Is something wrong with the kids?"
"No," Eames says quickly. Too quickly. "It's Mal."
"What about --"
"-- she's killed herself."
Arthur looks at Eames and then he turns away to take the fish off of the stove.
Part II