Fic: Chaos Out Of Shape: Part I

[speak_me_fair]

i.{draws all forces inward}

It was the sort of day that felt as if it should be raining. Of course, on a space-station with a false atmosphere that at best managed the vague impression of a mild and damp day, that should have been impossible, but there it was. It felt grey, cloudy, and there should have been a corresponding downpour.

At least then Arthur could have been justified in going back to his room, going to bed, and not coming out until the weather improved. With optional covers over his head. And possibly ear-plugs. And the need to draw the curtains because there would be windows, and then he could know that the rain was coming down outside and he wasn't looking at it, and it was entirely possible that he needed coffee now.

Or to kill Yusuf, whose latest temp-mod after-effects seemed to have ensured he had turned into an idiot whose brain was focused on not-looking at non-existent rain.

"This fucking thing is a piece of crap. I'm telling you, Arthur, if the pay wasn't so good I'd tell them they need to just shit-can their entire ship and start over instead of hiring me to fix things." Ariadne tossed the part she was working on down on the table. "Why do I do this? I used to create beautiful things... and now I just fix up all this ugly crap."

There were a lot of very good answers to that, including because you're the only one who can and because we need the ugly crap and look, you chose to come with us, stop complaining, but since Arthur had said all of these things at various times, in different tones of voice, and with infinite variations, he really couldn't be bothered to try again on a day that felt as if it should contain rain. "Yeah," he said instead.

Ariadne glared at him instead of her whatever-it-was. "Wow. Thanks. You should take up motivation as your main profession, seriously."

"Let me have some more coffee first and I'll be a little more motivational." Arthur walked over and refilled his cup.

"You're beginning to sound like Dom, you know that, right?"

"Oh the horror," said Arthur flatly. It was, actually, a fairly horrific thought, but not really because of the coffee. Just the thought of sounding like Dom, in general, was one to be avoided.

"Coffeeeeeeeee," Ariadne said in sepulchral tones. "Coffeeeeeee. Coffeeeeeee... oh, lords, does anyone else miss real coffee? This so doesn't count."

"Can someone tell Yusuf that his latest schematics make me think it's supposed to be raining?" Eames demanded from the doorway. "Because I think I might kill him slowly for it if I have to talk to him."

"Oh good, it's not just me," Arthur muttered. "No, Eames, I won't. Go find someone else to annoy."

"Coffeeeeeeee," said Ariadne again, lost in her own special brand of being annoying that was hopefully never to be inhabited by anyone else, and giggled.

"Tea?" Eames said hopefully.

"I turned the kettle on, but tea? You're on your own. You might have to design it from scratch, thinking back, you drank the last ages ago, and we've not traded since." Ari picked up the part she had tossed down on the table earlier and started fiddling with it.

"Ta, love." And there went Eames, not listening to a word anyone said.

"You're welcome." Ari rolled her eyes, and forced a screwdriver under the edge of a restraining ring, then smiled when it finally popped loose. "You do seem a bit... fadey today, Eames. Time for a new mod?"

"Unfortunately." Eames pulled a face that to Arthur just looked stupid, but on whatever holo he was wearing apparently looked repulsively cute, because Ariadne made a sort of awwww noise, and put down her screwdriver to go over and give him a hug.

Arthur had no idea who she thought she was cuddling.

He couldn't see holos. He was never going to be able to see holos, thanks to his damaged perm-illuminator, now as much part of him as his nerve-endings and blood, and he regretted its malfunction and its ineradicability more deeply each time everyone else got the benefit of them and he was stuck with seeing Eames be... himself. Because he could see everything that was hidden so very well from the rest of the space station.

Not that looking at Eames was a hardship, he was honest enough with himself to admit that, but sometimes the expressions he made just... well, Arthur would have to assume that they looked more appropriate on the face of the holo than Eames's own. It also made him wonder if that was truly what made Eames so good at what he did, the fact that he didn't rely solely on the modification.

He had seen more than a few holo-wearers at work before his own modification had malfunctioned, and had often wondered how they fooled anyone; their body language hadn't changed enough to hide the person underneath.

But of course Eames was more than a holo-wearer, he was a holo-master, it was part of his arsenal, not simply his chosen guise - a perm-mod, wired in to be attached whenever needed.

Eames a master of any craft - it defied belief.

It was oddly disorientating, though, to watch Eames interact with the rest of the world - affected in no small part by the knowledge that while Arthur was one of the very, very few people on the space station who knew what Eames really looked like, he had no earthly idea what Eames looked like.

He could only go by others' reactions, and sometimes they seemed so at odds with what Arthur could see that it had the effect on him of something that felt like nothing less than a giant disconnect with his surroundings.

It didn't help that much as he tried to stay on top of it, Eames had bad days just as the rest of them did now, and on those days he actively hated the fact that Arthur could see what he was really feeling, that there was no way of concealing himself with appearance in front of Arthur's damaged, damnably permanent mod.

It had led to some incredibly unpleasant exchanges, and even dragged Dom out of his haze of despair and design to shout at them both for what seemed like a very unfair length of time.

"Mmmm..." Eames made an agreeable noise, his head bent into Ariadne's hair. He liked even approximations of physical contact, even when he knew that the person touching him was sensing another body entirely. "Yusuf is working on it."

Yes, Yusuf would be working on the mod. Yusuf always was working on someone's mod. He supplied temporary modifications for half the base... maybe more like three quarters. He was just that damned good.

"And you're mad at him, so you're not going to see him, and now you look like one of Dom's old shirts, you know, frayed and a bit skanky," Ari supplied, drawing back and pulling at Eames's hand until he followed her over to the workbench. "Kind of self-defeating. Here, hit this."

"I'm not mad at him, I just want to kill him," Eames said sulkily, but he obligingly picked up Ariadne's little hammer and started thumping hell out of the metal disc she pointed at. "He made the world rain at me."

"And everyone else, apparently," Arthur practically had to shout over the noise. That did nothing to improve his mood, but at least Eames seemed to be as out of sorts as he was, and misery just loved company.

"Oh pfft..." Ari wasn't at all sympathetic. "When was the last time either of you even saw real rain? You should be happy about the variation."

"Says the girl not suffering from the side-effects EAMES WILL YOU STOP HITTING THAT FUCKING THING," Arthur said all on one breath.

"She told me to," Eames pointed out, gleefully continuing his percussive assault on the airwaves. Arthur put his head in his hands and groaned.

"I got the one where everything tasted like headache, though," Ariadne pointed out, which was a sentence that made no sense at all in the abstract, but if you had been one of the people enduring that particular fade, was a vivid and unpleasant memory. Yusuf had somehow managed to give it to the entire space-station, which would have been impressive if had hadn't been so utterly horrendous. "Okay, Eames, stop."

"I was enjoying that," Eames said in mild protest. "I was imagining it was Dom's face."

"Not Yusuf's?" Ari teased.

"I keep telling you, I want to kill Yusuf, that's completely different." Eames sat back on the high work-chair and stretched into a kind of yawn that sounded as though something inside him was creaking. "Dom, on the other hand, Dom... hell, I could happily smash this hammer into his stupid face for fucking hours and it wouldn't come close to explaining how annoying he is."

Arthur felt he should protest this. Unfortunately, the small part of his brain that wasn't currently rain-obsessed was taken up with quiet agreement. Dom was usually easy to deal with by means of ignoring, unrelenting depression and all. Dom on a design tear and raving on about ideas no-one else either understood or wanted to was infuriating.

"What's he obsessing about this week?" Ariadne asked as she picked up the piece that Eames had just pounded into a semblance of what it might have been previously. "I mean when he's not bemoaning Mal's fate."

"Be fair, Ari, Dom has been pretty deva -"

"- devastated, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got the memo." Ari cut him off. "We all know that... and understand it. But it's been over a year now, and he needs to get a hobby, or something. One that doesn't require any of us to be guinea pigs..."

"Not that I'm arguing with the sentiment, love, but be fair," Eames said after an odd little silence in which Arthur tried and failed to think of how not to yell something unforgivable if he opened his mouth. "Dom doesn't test on us. He'll only do that on himself and he'll make sure to run it by Arthur here if - when he gets to that point." He passed the hammer over to Arthur, smiling a little wryly. Arthur wondered what he looked like to Ariadne's curious eyes. "Here. Hit something. Pretend it's us. Or you can come annoy Yusuf with me, that'll help. Rain payback."

Sometimes Arthur really, really wished Eames were a little less perceptive. It wasn't that Ariadne didn't have a perfect right to be exasperated with Dom. It was more that he still felt, even after a year stuck on the damn space-station with Dom's grief and Mal's absence and Yusuf's gleeful experimentation and the total lack of any sort of comfort of any kind, that no-one had a right to say why Dom was so impossible.

It felt like letting someone else pick at a scab on his arm, an unwarranted and unwanted and painful clawing at healing skin that he should only have been able to inflict upon himself.

**

It was such a beautiful day. His lunch had been a lovely green curry chicken, he had plenty of work to keep him busy through the end of the week, he'd just finished the last touches on a sports modification, and his cat was standing on the counter where he was working, head butting against his wrist in a bid for attention. Any one of those would have kept Yusuf happy for the foreseeable future, but the fact that he got to experience them all at once was just... brilliant!

If only there were fewer mosquitoes.

Wait.

There shouldn't be mosquitoes. They certainly shouldn't be buzzing in his ear in his workshop.

That was definitely wrong. Yusuf swatted vaguely at the direction of the whining, and his eye mods were wrenched off him with a complete lack of care -

"- that this new world of yours is a nice quiet place, Yusuf, because you are about to be dead. Treasure your last moments."

Ah. This workshop. On the space station. Without a cat, without tasty lunches, and unfortunately and definitely and irrefutably, with the pirates-who-weren't-at-all, but were a lot less fun and demanded a lot less story-style pirate-ish things and a lot more hard work; Arthur, who was batshit insane and made extra work for him; and Eames, who was just hard work all round, and also currently glaring at him.

"Bollocks," he said sadly.

"Yours? In a vice? Can do," Eames said with murderous cheer.

Yusuf cleared his throat, "Eames, my dear friend. How nice to see you. I... hmmmm... your modification is due to be renewed, isn't it? You've begun to fade."

"Oh, yes. All hail the King of Understatement!" Eames growled, "Yes, Yusuf, my modification has begun to fade. How nice of you to notice."

"Ah. Perhaps if you had come here a little earlier -"

"Why, did you have the surround sound on at that point?" Eames demanded, waving the eye mods at him threateningly.

"Eames, those are fragile, please do not -"

- throw them at Arthur, how wonderfully kind of him, yes, why did he expect anything else...

"Those work on you?" Eames asked then, and Yusuf hunched his shoulders in a vague kind of shame, because oh, yes, that had been his original plan, hadn't it, getting something that would override the damage to Arthur's perm-mod, oops...

"No," Arthur said after a moment in which Yusuf could see both him and Eames not quite successfully not-hoping. "And it's still raining."

"Yeah, noted. Yusuf, you suck."

"But I had such a nice lunch," Yusuf said reminiscently. "It was green curry. Quite delicious."

Arthur stared at him. "Okay," he said slowly, "I want to kill him instead. Sorry, Eames, you just got moved down the hitman list."

"I don't think so, Arthur, but you know we've always worked well as a team." Eames smirked.

"Gentlemen..." Yusuf began, but instantly realized that he'd get no sympathy there. "Ariadne?"

She had entered right behind the two men and was leaning against his workbench with a wicked smile on her face. Ah, well, at least if he were going to die, he'd have something pretty to look at while it happened.

"I can call someone for clean-up duty when they're done," she said unreassuringly. "Seriously, Yusuf, you made them whine. You know how hard it is to work when they're whining at you."

"Mosquitoes," Yusuf said, nodding as he made the connection. "Yes."

"Ari, love, you need to bugger off," Eames said, ignoring Yusuf.

"Aw, come on, just once -"

"No," Eames said with rare force. "We've been over this and -"

"Yeah, but no-one will tell me, come on, Eames, you wouldn't want me to have to spy on you -"

"But you wouldn't break my trust like that, I think," Yusuf interjected before the wheedling could get out of hand. "Not nice, miss. Threatening my workshop with spyware..."

"Saito," Ariadne said, with a gesture to the screen where the station's AI image was watching them in what might even have been partly genuine interest, "likes me better. So I could just ask him to take a picture -"

"I believe I prefer to remain sentient, thank you," said the AI politely. "Though I do, of course, like you best."

"Of course you do. Everyone does," Ari beamed at the avatar. "Well, everyone but Arthur, but he doesn't like much of anyone so he doesn't count."

"I like people," Arthur frowned.

"Yusuf, what have you been doing?" Eames said with mock sadness in his voice. "People will be so angry that I've killed you, I want to be sure that I can, at least, give your replacement something to start working on."

"Too kind," Yusuf murmured. "Ariadne, go away."

"Some people," Arthur amended thoughtfully. "Sometimes. Sometimes I like some people."

Ariadne's eyes went very wide as she tried not to laugh at that incredibly erroneous statement. Eames looked impossibly happy to hear this, which was another sign that his holo wasn't working very well, because he was almost certainly not on that list and so he shouldn't have looked even remotely pleased, let alone happy.

Yusuf sighed. "Everyone who isn't me or Eames and can actually see holos," he tried again, "please leave."

"That's just me," Ariadne pouted.

"Why yes, it is," Yusuf agreed in mock surprise. "Oh dear."

"No-one ever lets me have any fun," Ariadne said mournfully, but she at least left, even if it was as slowly as possible and with enough looks backward at them to resemble an owl.

Yusuf waited until the door slid shut behind her before speaking, "As it happens I have your new mod completed, Eames. I finished it last night, but then..."

"You got distracted?" Somehow Eames didn't seem at all placated by anything he was saying.

"By making the world rain," Arthur agreed venomously.

"You are being stranger than usual today," Yusuf told him. Arthur glared at him.

"World. Raining," he repeated.

"After-effects," Eames translated.

That would certainly explain why they wanted to kill him, if nothing else. Yusuf's head started to hurt just above his nose.

"Sorry?" he ventured. "And Eames, I am going to disconnect you in ten seconds, so if there's anything I need to know about before the holo drops, tell me now."

"Like?" Eames's holo looked frighteningly eager. Given that he currently looked like a rather small and scruffy professor, glasses swooping precariously towards the end of his nose, it was a disconcerting effect. Yusuf ignored him.

"Arthur?"

"No, he's fine," Arthur said, from where he was apparently engaged in a game of stare-chicken with the AI. Yusuf wondered wildly who would blink first.

"Sit down, my friend," Yusuf pointed at the chair. It was always odd working on some of Eames's more drastic holos. This professor, for instance, was a good eight inches shorter - almost as small as Ariadne - and at least, at least thirty pounds lighter than Eames's actual bulky frame.

A part of him was always worried about accidentally putting one of his client's eyes out or something else that was just as unpleasant. He often wondered how Eames managed to shave in the morning, since the mirror reflected the holo back at him, although if Arthur's running commentary on his appearance was to be believed, he didn't often bother.

"Do I get to know what's next in line?" Eames asked, sitting down obediently.

"It's a surprise," Yusuf said with a faint smirk, because Eames and new holos went together in terms of patience about as well as small children and wrapped presents. "And you are taking at least ten minutes before you put it on - do not argue with me, I have told you before you cannot stop the fade with willpower and it annoys me that you are still trying. Sit still, please. I don't want to sever an ear."

"Lies," Arthur said, still fixed on the AI. "Hideous lies. You have an ear collection, Yusuf, and we all know your only pleasure in life is planning on how to add one of Eames's to it."

"Not helping, Arthur," Eames said dryly, but he looked a lot less tense, so Yusuf thought that the hideous lying might well be on his part.

"Oh. Would you like me to? Yusuf, just pass me that electronic thing there, we'll wire it into me on a temp mod, and I'll -"

Ah yes, it was Comedy Hour. Oh, the joy that was Yusuf's life.

"I think not." Yusuf interrupted, before things could get out of hand. Well, more out of hand.

Or maybe completely was the word he wanted.

He adjusted the sonics on the deactivation tool so that they matched the cycle of Eames's hologram and set it to rest where Eames's neck met his collarbone. "This is right?"

"Here..." Eames adjusted it a bit further out. It was standard procedure because Eames could at least feel the proper spot. "'M ready."

"Good," Yusuf depressed the switch and shut down the old modification.

There was always a moment of fascination as the mod shut down, a brief quarter-second where both Eames's own body and the holo interface overlapped and blended, and just as Yusuf was starting to think he understood, he got it, he knew why Eames was the best at this, it was gone, and Yusuf was left with the original, carbon-based lifeform of his friend.

And every time, it was a shock that he had to conceal for fear of causing real offence.

There were reasons Eames didn't like people to see what he really looked like. In a society that prided itself on modifications, on scarless, unblemished, perfect skin and enhanced attraction of every variety imaginable, Eames had chosen to go back to the tradition of what had once been his home planet, and was now simply one of many dead moons.

He carved what mattered to him into his skin and stamped it there with ink and ground metal and ash, a living memorial to places and people and times that no-one wanted to think about.

Eames wore what he had done and who he had been on his skin, and it was a terrifying sight.

The first time Yusuf had seen him, his whole upbringing had come to the fore in a sudden terrible flood, and he had been repelled with a sickening force that had horrified him even as it took him over.

To his everlasting shame, his first thought had not been anything but the sound of his father's voice, uttering one word, and the word was not one he was ever going to admit to Eames had even crossed his mind.

Abomination.

On his darker days, he thought Eames knew that all too well, and was never going to forgive him for it.

"You blinked."

"I did not. Avatars do not need to blink, Arthur, they have no tear ducts and, similarly, no need to moisturize their eyes."

"You still blinked," Arthur insisted.

Yusuf had the sudden urge to kiss him for breaking the always awkward moment.

"I did not blink -" Arthur had the superhuman ability to actually annoy the AI. It was kind of awesome.

"Yeah, you did." Arthur folded his arms and looked smug. The AI scowled, then rather obviously changed the subject.

"Mr. Eames. Good to see you again."

"Hey, Saito." Eames waved at the AI. "How's life?"

"Filled with beautiful women, good liquor, expensive carpeting, and of course gold bathtubs," the AI responded. Yusuf grinned, and shook his head. The established pretence that when Eames took back his own appearance he was just coming into the room was something that had developed between him and the AI, wasn't a joke that anyone else was allowed to share in, and freaked everyone out completely on a daily basis, particularly at times such as the period when Saito had insisted to everyone that he had not seen Eames for over a week and was concerned as to his well-being.

"Excellent, well done you," Eames said, and got up out of the chair, shaking himself as though he had been unexpectedly doused in water. "Urgh. That fade was shite, Yusuf."

"Because you left it too long," Yusuf said, aiming for patience. "I have told you -"

"Yeah, yeah," Eames said, dismissing his complaints somewhat exasperatedly. To be fair, Yusuf thought, he had heard them before. "Hey, Arthur, did you -"

Arthur's smile could only be described as self-congratulatory. It made Yusuf mildly afraid. "I did."

"You star," said Eames, and grinned.

"Excuse me?" said Yusuf.

"I get to use your shower," Eames said in tones of a man who was about to experience rapture of a kind usually only provided by extremely good drugs.

"No you don't, I need the rations -"

"Bought 'em, stole 'em, got Arthur to trick Dom out of his," Eames cut across him.

"Self-defence, you reek," Arthur said calmly, but he was still smiling.

"You're no violet yourself," Eames snorted. "You want to join me?"

Arthur just waved a vague hand and went back to staring at Saito.

Yusuf sighed with relief. Someday Arthur would take Eames up on one of his off-hand offers and then? Yusuf had a feeling that his water ration would be the least of his worries.

"Yusuf?" Arthur said, as soon as Eames was safely out of the room and they could hear Yusuf's shower spluttering into pained life.

"Mm-hm?" Yusuf asked, not really interested and checking over the new mod one last time.

"You know he forgave you ages ago, don't you," Arthur said, and it was a statement, not a question. Yusuf let out a breath he hadn't even realised he had been holding somewhere inside him since before Mal's defection to Cobol and her descent into mod-induced madness, before Dom's wilderness of grief, before their flight from the city-planets to the space station, here in the middle of the unclaimed territory that was Sector 9.

"I do now," he said honestly, and looked up, ready to thank Arthur from the bottom of his soul. But Arthur was back to staring at Saito, and the AI was busy appearing bored.

"Thanks," Yusuf whispered anyway.

**

Eames hadn't quite used up all of Yusuf's water rations, but it had been a close thing. It didn't really matter, Yusuf would just take his next payment in water instead of money. Most of his clientele were fairly willing to bargain on the terms.

He ran a towel over himself, wiping away the remaining dampness and then tying it loosely around his hips. His near nudity would frazzle Arthur, but that was the whole point, wasn't it? It kept the other man on his toes, kept Eames from seeming predictable, and really, did his ego nothing but good when he caught Arthur pretending not to stare.

It hadn't always been that way though. Early on, he'd thought Arthur was avoiding the sight of him because of the tattoos. He'd been rather angry and a bit disappointed and had taken it out on him with all due violence... even if it was verbal rather than physical. After they'd gotten to know each other though, he came to realize that Arthur didn't care about the tattoos, but rather had been trying to give Eames the privacy that he himself would have wanted.

Arthur couldn't help seeing him, and felt personally offended that not only was he not given a choice any more, but he had ended up forcibly removing the holo-wearers' choices from them as well.

Especially those who, like Eames, had the holo-mod put in as their permanent mod, whose entire existence was designed so that there was nothing else they would ever be asked for. Arthur, with his malfunctioning holo-eraser that left him reliant on only temp mods, who worked his entire time towards not being seen as a liability and had to make the one thing he hated most about himself into his greatest asset, lived in a state of permanent offense with the world, rather than permanent modification.

Knowing that the one time he would have really liked to be able to give someone else an option as well as himself was also the one time he was never, ever going to be able to had made him downright rude - before Eames figured out it was terminal fury at circumstance and fate that was causing his odd behaviour, and immediately put his not inconsiderable talents at smoothing things over towards getting the stupid situation sorted out.

"It's like visual rape," Arthur had said after one of Dom's more successful ops, back when they still lived on the city-planet, and people wanted to hire them because they were the best, rather than the only available option. He had been very, very drunk and hopped up on something Yusuf had designed to make his skin close to impermeable, which was wearing off with an effect akin to old-fashioned truth-drugs. "Do you have any idea how sick that makes me? Every day, I'm this -"

"Yeah, thing about that is, how it's not if someone says yes," Eames had pointed out, interrupting him before Arthur could go any further down the never-ending route of self-blame, and left it there, because even piss-drunk and probably hallucinating pink gerbils or whatever it was he kept staring at off in the corner, Arthur was more than capable of assimiliating the important stuff if you left him alone and gave him space to get over his stupid honourable city-born self and his ridiculous sense of ethics.

And it had worked, because Arthur had stopped avoiding him, after that.

Later on, the other part of their odd arrangement of courteous evasion had begun, the part that neither of them really liked to discuss, and had managed not to except for the first time it happened and Eames had tried to explain, and Arthur, because he was that sort of irritating man, had been more than ready to assume he was being insulted as opposed to being asked a favour.

It had been really fucking embarrassing all round.

"You want me to what?" Arthur had demanded.

"Just - touch me. Sometimes." Eames had gone incredibly red, and it was mostly from the way he knew this could be misinterpreted. Because, no, not that he would be averse to having sex with someone who actually knew who they were shagging, but stars above, he would have made his proposition a damn sight smoother than this, if that had been what he wanted, thank you so much. "I don't mean - I just want -"

"Words, Eames," Arthur had sighed, but at least he no longer looked ready to lock Eames in and yell for a guard.

"You can't see the holos, yeah? Can you feel them, the way everyone else can?"

"No," Arthur had said snappishly.

"But, see, if you put your hand on my shoulder, if you - you'd - but everyone else -"

Arthur was already nodding. "They'd just see me with your holo. And they do that all the time."

"Yeah, except -"

"It would be you. Would it help? Or - distract?"

Practical Arthur, sifting out plans from idiocy even in the midst of his own disconcertment.

"Help," Eames admitted. "It would fucking help. So much. Arthur, you have no idea what it's like to never -"

"Yeah," Arthur had said, and he had got it, all of it, every miserable permutation, what this permanent mod had done to Eames. He had got it because his was damaged, too damaged to repair, too damaged to remove because it was melded to him too closely.

Arthur's sight would never be able to stop looking past holos, his body would never be tricked by the wave-warps that should have made him believe an entirely different person stood in front of him. And Eames, because of what his real body looked like to eyes of people like Yusuf (and oh, how that initial rejection had stung, how much it still stung at times), was just as trapped, just as stuck, just as caged. "Okay," he had said then, and smiled. "No problem."

He had kept to his word then, back on the city-planet where only Eames was hiding, and still kept it now, out here on the rusting space-station where no-one should have been able to trust each other. He was the one person Eames could rely on at any time, and the oddest thing?

The oddest thing was that because to Arthur he could never and would never, as long as that damned broken mod ruled his body, change, he was Arthur's constant too.

"Ack! Eames! My eyes..." Arthur could joke about it now, tease Eames about his nakedness and not worry that Eames would be insulted.

Of course, that was a two-way street, because the more Arthur teased, the more comfortable Eames felt to tease back.

He dropped his towel.

"Eames! Really..." The tips of Arthur's ears turned pink and Eames chuckled as he tugged his pants back on.

"You love looking at me, Arthur. It's okay to admit it."

"Yeah, just like I loved that flu germ Ari caught three months ago that the lab wanted to study. So pretty to look at. In a lab, under lights, all laid out in neat little dishes."

"You want to dissect me? Kinky..."

Yusuf sighed from somewhere behind them. "When you're done flirting, if you ever feel like stopping, oh have pity on my virgin ears, etcetera, etcetera, blahblah and so forth, I have the new mod ready, Eames."

There was a time when Eames might have denied that what he and Arthur were doing was flirting, but lately, he wasn't so sure. "Jealous, mate?"

"Burning with it. Along with irritation at your timewasting, shower-stealing ways. Now make sure there is no water anywhere near your mod-connector, if you please."

With a put-upon sigh, Eames did as he was told. "Dry enough for you, o Great One?"

"You recognise my standing at last, very kind of you," Yusuf said with a nod.

The holo mods always hurt a little when they first went on, as if they were trying to get Eames to dissolve his real body into a new shape, and this time was no exception.

"Shit! That fuckin' hurts, you bastard!" Eames grabbed at his shoulder, suddenly very mindful of Arthur's hand appearing on his bare arm, and resisting with a fair amount of difficulty the impulse to clutch at that, instead. "Yusuf, you fucker, I swear you do that on purpose."

"Eames, you know that's just a -"

"Yeah, yeah... 'a manifestation of the harmonics of the hologram pressers'. You've fucking told me that every damn time, but somehow it doesn't help. Shit."

But the feel of Arthur's hand was soothing the pain away, although all it was doing was resting there. "Don't be such a baby."

"Piss off," said Eames ungratefully, and was relieved when Arthur did no such thing. "Fuck. Ah. Okay. Okay. Sorry, Yusuf. How do I look?"

"Horrible," Arthur said immediately. "What, you couldn't shave, with all that perfectly good hot water?" He patted Eames's arm once more, and moved away.

"You look wonderful, and I am a genius," Yusuf said happily.

"Mirror?" Eames suggested.

"No need," said Saito's smug voice, and the AI screen brought up a brief five-second convert-vid, the kind Mal had used on him in the time before - in the time before. Eames glanced at it, decided the woman was more than acceptable and showed damn good taste on Yusuf's part, and then found his attention wholly absorbed by Arthur instead, who was staring at the screen with his mouth slightly open.

"You can see her," Eames realised. "Holy fuck, Arthur, you can see her. Yusuf, how - not even Mal could -"

"Because I am a genius," Yusuf said smugly, and then, "Also, Saito thought of it. I just - tweaked."

"She's lovely." Arthur said quietly.

Eames considered himself rather an expert, after all these years, of reading what Arthur really meant. "It doesn't matter, does it? She could look like three day old runover bread and you'd still think I... I mean she, she was lovely."

It got so easy for him to mix up his pronouns when Arthur was staring at his image.

"No, I'd be too busy panicking, if that was a holo of three day old runover bread, and probably wondering why the fuck Yusuf was on the hallucinogens again," Arthur said, not looking away from the looping convert-vid.

"We're going to get it so it runs longer than this," Yusuf said, "but I thought you'd want -"

"Yeah," Arthur said quietly, and then gave himself an almost visible mental shake. "Well, at least this time I won't be so confused by the inevitable reaction of just about all the pilots." He took a deep breath, and turned away from the screen.

"Hi," Eames said. He sounded almost uncertain in his own ears, but that could have been the higher tone of his voice, and trying to accustom himself to it.

"Three day old bread?" was all Arthur said. "Generous assessment, Eames."

"Run over, too," Eames pointed out.

Arthur made a see-sawing gesture with his hand. "Mm-nn, no. Just the mouldy bread."

"I'm not though... mouldy. I took a shower." He nodded and then winked at Arthur.

"Very good, you noticed. Did you clean behind your ears? In your navel?" Arthur asked dryly.

"'Course I did." Eames nodded. "Used up all of Yusuf's water too."

The whimpering behind them was loud enough to be amusing. The corners of Arthur's eyes creased in his usual secretive little smile.

"You should inform Ariadne that you are finished," Saito said, more stiff than ever. Apparently Arthur's perpetual staring had finally got to him. "Or she will be unforgiving."

Well. True enough.

"Yeah, we can go and bum more coffee off her, and Yusuf, don't look like that, it's the weird frozen crystal stuff, you hate it."

"But I do like Ariadne's workshop," Yusuf said wistfully.

"And Ariadne," said Arthur in the same tones, mocking him.

For a moment Eames considered just laughing and walking away with Arthur. Of course, if Yusuf came along, he'd try to annex all of Ari's attention... then Eames could have coffee and some of Arthur's time to himself. They were both so busy lately that having time to spend with a friend was a definite luxury.

"Alright. You can come." He poked his finger straight towards the middle of Yusuf's face. "But no whining, and you owe me two more water credits..."

"How does this always happen to me?" Yusuf asked the uncaring pipes that ran along the ceiling. "I make you a beautiful, beautiful holo, I set it up so Arthur can see the glory that is holo-you today, and I still get robbed. So unfair."

"You made the world rain in my head, you deserve it," Arthur said, which satisfyingly shut Yusuf up. But it wasn't that which made Eames smile as they went out.

It was Arthur's brief touch to his back, right over the sigils that lineated Mal's loss.

I can still see you, and you're here, the brushing warmth said, and a little of the tension left Eames's shoulders.

"Tell Eames goodbye for me if you see him," Saito said as they closed the door, and Eames knew that he wasn't imagining the slight sadness in the AI's voice.

**

Arthur was definitely, positively, absolutely certain that once they left the space station he never wanted to think about his time there.

That thought flowed through his head with a clarity that he would never, previously, have ascribed to it.

His own work was incredibly boring, since Lukho had too much of an ego to listen to any of Arthur's ideas, even though they were often far more sound than Lukho's own - and that was fine by him, especially as Lukho would be the one who lost money in the long run.

It was Lukho's hold on Eames that put Arthur in such a state of denial, the way that whatever he had Eames doing for him dragged the holo-master out in the middle of his sleep cycle, often more than once, and some of the things he had Eames doing had to be horrible.

Not that Eames said so... or complained... or alluded to them in any way. But Arthur could see the stress in Eames's eyes, the way they avoided looking at him on some days, the way the skin around them darkened and wrinkled with stress and worry. More than once the look in Eames's eyes had made Arthur want to go punch Lukho in the face, and he had no definite reason why.

"I don't kill people and I don't harm children," Eames had said once, in the worst attempt at reassurance Arthur had ever got from him. "So it's all fine."

"That's your deal? That's it? Lukho's moral code is fucked," Arthur had said wearily, and Eames had shrugged.

"All of ours is, now."

Which, was, of course, true. But it didn't stop Arthur worrying over just what kind of things weren't covered under those two headings.

It really didn't stop him worrying now that he'd seen the kind of holo Yusuf was designing. Or how hard Eames had tried to avoid getting this particular one, rather than the lovely woman he'd been wearing before.

The new one was young, about twenty-two Gate-Planet revolutions. It was a male with slicked back hair, and a slender wiry frame, but strong looking for all of that. Or at least that was Ariadne's description.

"Lords, Arthur, he looks like you. He could be your brother."

"Oh." Well, that explained some of the avoidance at least.

"Yeah, he's been on at Yusuf for temps that make him look like he's related to us, not sure why." Ariadne picked up something that looked like a plug, and almost certainly wasn't, and scowled down at it.

She was obviously uncomfortable, and equally obviously unwilling to say anything.

"Ari -"

"I'm good at trading," she said abruptly. "You know it. I know it. Even Dom surfaces enough to know it. So why won't Eames let me?"

Arthur blinked. "He does, what? You traded last time the salvagers -"

"Yeah, that kind of trading, I know. But - day-to-day stuff. At the docks. Why won't he let me do that?"

"I'm sure he has his reasons, Ari. Eames knows this place far better than we do. You'll just have to trust his judgement." Arthur put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Eames always does things for a good reason."

Just what those reasons might be was something that kept Arthur awake during half his sleepshift-cycles. He knew that Lukho hired Eames out to other Captains, other spacers, but he couldn't get Eames to tell him exactly what he was doing.

"I trust his judgement," Ariadne said quickly. "I wouldn't be alive if I didn't, if I hadn't, I know that. But I don't trust Lukho. And Yusuf's - worried. Or something. And none of you will tell me what's going on."

"Because we can't," Arthur said, feeling very tired indeed. "Eames could, and he's decided not. He doesn't tell us, he doesn't even tell Yusuf, I wish he would, but he doesn't. Ari - he made the deal that keeps us here. Let's not make it harder on him than we have to."

"Dom knows what he looks like, doesn't he?" Ariadne asked abruptly. "Dom, Saito - so it's just me. Me and the station. I'm not sure I like being classed with them."

"You're not, but - yeah."

"Why?"

"That's Eames's story to tell, Ari. If I told you why, it would explain why not... and it might be harder for you to take than his stubbornness about letting you go trade at the docks." Arthur answered. "But you're right about not trusting Lukho."

And he might just have to pin Eames down. The idea of them bartering Eames's life against their own was making his stomach turn.

Ariadne rolled her eyes in overdone exasperation. "Give me a break," she said. "Any guy who wears that much jewellery? He's really overcompensating for what he hasn't got. Like taste."

Sometimes, Arthur thought he might well love her, that he could see in her whatever it was that enthralled Yusuf, even if it didn't have the same effect on him.

Other times, he was just glad that there was someone left in the world with the power to make him laugh.

**

But Ariadne also made him think, almost too much at times. They had all been so grateful at first, to have a place to rest. A place for Dom to heal, for them all to be able to wash the blood and fear sweat away; a place where they could simply be and live and forget, at least for the moment, that there ever was a Mal or a Cobol or a City Planet that they could no longer return to.

But what was the price?

For the rest of them, not so much, as they were all doing things that they would have probably been doing anyway. Well, maybe Ari's would have been a bit more artistic and frivolous, but it was still basically the same.

It was only Eames, the man who could be every man, or woman, and make them all believable, that had been tossed to the wolves.

Eames, who thought he should be dead, along with the rest of the Psion-Corps, and could never be made to see that being alive meant you had to stick to those rules, as well, and actually live.

For once, Arthur decided that perhaps it was time he should be the one waiting at the docking bay for someone to come back.

It confirmed his worst fears, but at the same time it only added to the respect he felt for Eames. Respect at how far the man would go, what he was willing to do for those he considered to be his family. It made Arthur feel honoured that he was included in that family.

And it almost got him killed.

He watched the transport dock and its doors open. A large man came out, his hand latched tight on Eames's shoulder. Arthur thought at first that Eames was drunk and that the man was helping him stagger down the ramp. He thought so right until they reached the bottom and the man shifted his grip to Eames's hair, forcing him down on to his knees.

"So pretty," the man looked down at Eames, "so, so pretty when you beg. Tell Lukho the deal is made."

Arthur would have kept his mouth shut. He would have stayed where he was.

Except he kept hearing Ariadne's voice.

He looks like you. He could be your brother.

He's been on at Yusuf for temps that make him look like he's related to us.

Why won't he let me trade at the docks?

Arthur was going to kill Lukho. He was going to kill Lukho after he'd kicked Eames's teeth down his throat for being such an idiotic specimen of existence who thought anyone, any one of them needed that degree of protection.

After, that was, he'd killed the space-trader.

The space-trader who was currently bending Eames even lower, tugging him by his hair until he heard Eames's cracked voice, "Please... please no... ."

"So so, pretty," the man repeated again, then backhanded Eames across the face and shoved him away with a cruel laugh.

That was it. Arthur came charging across the deck , seeing nothing but red and the so wrong, so very wrong sight of Eames weeping on the ground.

Later, it would occur to him that using his remaining brain-cells at that point would have been a very good start to a plan that was only going to go downhill. At least then he could have said 'hey, it was working at first!'.

Unfortunately, blind fury didn't seem to be the time when he was capable of reminding himself just why Eames was a holo-master and not an ordinary mod-user.

Or, in fact, why it was really fucking stupid to go up against someone with a laser gun when you'd left yours in your quarters. As he had done, in order to get easy access to the docking bay and not need to waste time getting a weapons pass through to the Crafts Sector.

"You!" Arthur shoved the man away from Eames and would have knelt down to help him except for the fact that he found, all too quickly, exactly what brand of laser gun the space trader used. Found out all too quickly and uncomfortably, because the damned thing was almost instantly shoved under his nose. He decided to ignore it for the moment and looked down at Eames instead. "Are you alright?"

"You might want to pay more attention to the man with the laser," the spacer remarked. "What the fuck is this all about?"

"What do you think-" Arthur began, but was instantly cut off.

"He's just a bit put out," Eames interrupted, moving close enough to touch the spacer. He ran one hand up the inseam of the man's trousers, and rubbed his face against his fabric covered thigh.

The spacer was momentarily distracted, but his laser never wavered. "Put out?"

Eames shrugged. "Older brother?" he said, apologetically.

"Ouch," said the spacer. The gun went down. "Man. I don't envy you. He's fucking nuts."

"Yeah," Eames said a bit grimly. "Tell me about it."

Arthur winced.

"Yeah, fuck, Lukho said keep it off the station - fuck." The spacer had the audacity to look worried. "You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah... we were just a bit late and he hasn't had his meds today."

"My what-?" Arthur looked down at where Eames was leaning against the other man, still rubbing his cheek against his trousers.

"You sure you'll be okay if I leave you with him?" the spacer asked.

"Yeah... he's crazy but he's never hurt me, not even for fun." Eames winked up at the spacer, who laughed, holstered his laser, and pulled Eames to his feet.

"Okay, kid," the man tugged him close and kissed him, hot and nasty, before letting him go. "I'll see you again, maybe, next trip."

"That's up to Lukho." Eames shrugged, and moved to wrap his arms around Arthur now, almost petting him. Or at least that was probably what it looked like. It felt more like being held by a very unfriendly set of sentient iron clamps.

"Fuck," the spacer suddenly went a bit vague and starey. "Think if I give Lukho a good enough deal I could get both of you?"

"No," said Arthur viciously.

"Right," said the spacer, blinking a bit. "Just -"

"Thoughts to keep you warm," Eames said, and got a surprisingly nice smile in return.

"Yeah, they'll do that all right. Go on now, boy. Get yourselves out of here."

"Will do," Eames replied, still holding Arthur in a deceptively firm grip."Safe journey, Maf."

The spacer just waved absently, already heading back up the ramp.

"Don't say a word," Eames hissed into his ear, "just walk calmly and slowly back towards the hatchway."

"Eames, are you fuc-"

"Not a word, I said."

Arthur, displaying what he recognised was an attack of common sense for the first time since he'd decided to go to the docks, closed his mouth firmly and did what he was told.

He had a vague idea that the teeth-kicking process was not exactly going to go as he'd planned.

In fact, he managed to keep his mouth shut all the way to the relative privacy of Eames's quarters, even waiting until the door was closed before he spoke, "Do you mind telling me what the fuck that was all about?"

"Yes, honestly, I do mind," Eames answered. "That was a job, Arthur. Not as pleasant as some, but much better than others because at least Maf knows it's all pretend."

"Except for the bit where he doesn't know you're a holo!" Arthur yelled, never one to take embarrassed defeat gracefully, and then realised just how damned stupid that sentence had been when Eames got in his face and snarled -

"I am not a fucking holo, you arrogant little shit, where do you get off on -"

"That he was with a holo!" Arthur cut him off. "Fuck, Eames, you know that's not what I -"

"Yeah? Do I? Well if it's not, watch your mouth."

Arthur took a very deep breath, and tried to think of what words he actually wanted Eames to hear before he said anything else. "I just meant," he gritted out, "that your friend Maf isn't exactly someone that -"

"Maf wanted a whore, he wanted to play, he wanted tears and he wanted weakness and he wanted someone who could deal after, and he got what he paid for."

"What did he -"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Arthur, you don't want to finish whatever that question's going to be."

"He wanted a fake. He wanted you to pretend. But not a holo. And you could give him -"

"The fake. Yeah. Now do you get it?"

"Yes. No... I - why do you look like me, Eames?"

"I don-"

"Ariadne told me. She said you looked enough like me to be my brother." And he wanted to know why. Was that how Eames saw him? Weak, underneath it all, waiting for someone else to take charge?

Eames paced over to the other side of the room, his back to Arthur. "It's Lukho's way of keeping me in control."

"What?"

"He thinks if I use your face, or Ari's face, I'll remember why the fuck I'm doing all his fucking jobs. What I'm protecting. What could happen if I forget."

"So you make them look like us but not quite like us." Arthur got it. He was pretty sure Yusuf had got it some time ago. "I'm going to kill him."

"Do you want to be the one running this fucking place?" Eames demanded. "Because that's what you're signing up for, if you take out Lukho. Why the sodding hell do you think I haven't done it yet?"

And Arthur... really hadn't thought of that.

"No," he said slowly. "But fuck. We have got to get out of here."

Eames just looked at him. "Arthur. Where've you got your head, these days? We've nowhere else to go."

And that hurt. That hurt more than anything else that had happened in the whole horrible cycle. It hurt because it was the first completely true thing that had been said, the first thing that wasn't arguable.

"Just tell me," he said, giving up on murderous intent for desperation and returned honesty, "tell me he can't get past the holos. Tell me none of them can."

"Nah." Eames grinned at him. "I'm too good for that."

He was too good, Arthur agreed.

Too good to let them through.

Too good to keep being Lukho's toy.

He'd talk to Dom in the morning. There had to be something else, something they could do, somewhere else they could go. Somewhere safe and hidden. There had to be.

**

PART II