FIC, FIC, FIC!!! (Inception) (Part 1)
It won't look like it, but this story is quite personal to me. If someone has a negative opinion about it (too confusing, too disjointed, too whatever), I'd actually want to know (if you feel inclined to share, it's okay if you don't).
Title: Cut-out Cookies (Part 1/3)
Author: Lauand
Beta: Avierra
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 14.800
Summary: Einstein was right. Arthur was wrong.
A/N: My deepest thanks to avierra for the help (once again). Concrit welcome.
A lot of animals hid their symptoms so that, when they finally died, you hadn't seen it coming.
Eames hadn't seen it coming.
Not that Arthur was dying. Or an animal, because he had the kind of over-analytical mind that made for anal retentives and sticks-in-the-mud of the highest class. And sure, the man had instincts, instincts that worked, but that was not the thing. The thing was...
Eames hadn't seen it coming.
“Sure,” he said instead of asking why, of searching for a sign he had missed, something wrong. He even managed a very natural smirk and a wink. “It was fun, though.”
He didn't try to read Arthur's expression. He was not one to overthink everything. He knew beforehand it would lead him nowhere. After all these months, he could be sure of that.
“See you around, Arthur.”
He didn't kiss Arthur goodbye. He never did. It was not the kind of thing they indulged in. Not because they were denying themselves, it just didn't seem like the thing to do, like the impulse was not there. There had been other impulses, though, and those had come naturally for both of them, and Eames had thought that it was enough, but obviously it hadn't been.
The door clicked softly shut when he went out. He briefly pondered his course of action. Getting drunk was not a stereotype he appreciated right now. It implied some maudlinness and worse, weakness, that he didn't really thought fit him. Gambling didn't look appealing, either. He only went for melodramatics when there was an audience who clapped afterwards. He decided to go back to his hotel and think, because he was at a loss and he didn't enjoy the sensation. He didn't know what he was supposed to be feeling right now. He just hadn't seen it coming.
Arthur read a lot. He supposed that it was not that common an occurrence amongst other, less sophisticated, criminal rings, but he had never understood why, since half the job of a criminal was to wait. In airports, in safe houses, in hotels, in warehouses, in cars. Wait. With nothing to do but read.
Dom and Mal, coming from the academic side of things, enjoyed reading, too. But for them it was like that kind of sport you took pleasure in but never felt like practicing. Arthur always felt like reading. Literature, essays, articles, textbooks or the trashiest romance novels. Arthur loved reading. Arthur knew Eames didn't, but he didn't want to think about Eames.
The thing was, Arthur read a lot. A lot. And he had thought he was above letting the fiction influence him, but maybe he had been wrong. Or maybe, maybe it wasn't the reading, it was Dom and Mal. Because their life was the kind you found in books, good books, the ones you could and wanted to believe in. So maybe it had been them, and not the stories. Even being moderately good at knowing himself, Arthur honestly didn't know.
Their own story had begun in such an indistinct manner that neither of them could really pinpoint a date, not even a year. There had been a first time they had had sex, of course, but having sex with someone didn't start a story. In their case, their story started in the middle, without a fancy meeting, or a long courting, or paths miraculously crossed by destiny; only long hours of work, a great deal of banter, and that kind of relaxed interaction that came easily to Eames but not to Arthur. Only later Arthur had learned that it didn't really come easily to Eames, either, he just liked to arrange things to look like it did. Because Eames was always ready to bolt regardless of the artless sprawl he chose to display.
But the truth was that there was something to be said about them, there was something to be said about the complex-free sex and the morning-afters full of laughter and uncompromising anecdotes. About the tables overflowing with files and wrappers of fast food. About texting from opposite corners of the world with short snarky remarks about other teams and other countries and other people, all the 'them' outside of their 'us'.
So theirs had been a story without a start, without momentous events or heady pinnacles. Without a plot. But with an end. A bit anticlimactic and nearly as indistinct as their beginning, but an end nonetheless. Arthur made sure of that.
In truth, it had all come down to the fucking butterflies.
Arthur was a man with a plan. Dom would say that this was not a current but a permanent state, something that defined Arthur as a whole much more than it defined a moment in his life. But Dom didn't say anything because Arthur didn't talk about these things with him, so Dom didn't know what kind of plan Arthur had this time.
He was good at getting what he wanted. He was focused and relentless and clever and methodical. His plan would succeed.
The problem was, as always, the time. His line of work didn't leave him much free time in the same place, and for the kind of scheme he had, he needed a bit of stability.
Arthur decided to spend less time reading and more time out. Looking. Searching. Polishing his plan.
According to Eames, Arthur's main flaw was his desperate need to be perfect. Eames was of the opinion that people in dreamsharing often forgot that paradoxes weren't only fancy staircases and looped corridors.
According to Eames, it was a mistake to try and be perfect because people weren't meant to be perfect. The world wasn't meant to be perfect. Things weren't meant to be perfect.
According to Eames, every child's favorite tin soldier was the defective one. Because that was what made it special. Arthur couldn't wrap his mind around that concept, but that was okay because, well, that made him the defective tin soldier in Eames' box.
According to Eames, it sucked to lose one's favorite tin soldier.
Amanda was beautiful, Arthur thought over his glass of wine. She had a really wondrous smile and the kind of bright eyes that reflected the subdued lights of the restaurant in the most perfect way. It said as much about Amanda's face as it did about the quality of the restaurant's lighting scheme.
“You're beautiful,” he said to her, smiling, confident, putting down his glass to observe her better.
Her laugh was very pleasant and her blush endearing, the tips of her hair dancing as she shook her head as if bashful to accept the compliment.
Arthur kept on gazing at her. She was truly wonderful. He liked her a lot.
Amanda delicately put her hand on his and looked at him under her lashes.
“Thank you,” she said.
Arthur took her hand, squeezing it gently, caressing her soft skin. She was exquisite.
He didn't usually need closure to move on. Eames had lived fast and left a lot of things half-done. Seeing how it had turned out, with him being more or less rich and master of his own dreams-- as well as a generous portion of other people's-- he couldn't bring himself to regret it.
So he couldn't be too sure why the hell every time he decided to have a wank he ended up thinking of Arthur. Okay, yes, he had been a splendid fuck, but Eames didn't really rank him number one in his “best lays I've had” list, much less in his masturbatory fodder.
Eames hadn't had closure with his family. He hadn't had closure with the guy who taught him everything when he lived in the streets of London. He hadn't had closure with the man who had introduced him to dreamsharing. He hadn't had closure with a million and a half sex-partners before. He just didn't need it. He could move on without knowing why he had to. He could move on from Arthur. Having to work with him again was no problem because Eames didn't need closure.
“So, what do you do for a living, Arthur?”
He had met Linda through a dating website. Even if socially scorned, this kind of service provided the kind of information Arthur definitely appreciated having beforehand. It made compatibility easier.
“I'm some kind of travel agent,” Arthur lied through his teeth. Only, not really, because as Eames always said, truth was just a matter of perception. “My clients tell me their ideas, and I provide the travel of their dreams.”
“Oh, that's fascinating!”
That reply would have been actually accurate had he been more precise with the nature of his job, but Arthur wasn't sure he wouldn't have received the same answer if he had said he was an accountant, a non-descript administrative or a street sweeper.
“Isn't it?” he said, his smile stilted and his tone bland.
Maybe dating websites weren't such a good idea after all.
One hand wrapped around his cock, other hand playing with his balls, Eames idly thought that having back his ability to jerk off to other people would be nice. It was worse when he did it without watching porn, just his fantasies to spur his desire, because that lead invariably much faster to Arthur, and Eames was starting to feel fed up with all this nonsense. It was like treating yourself to the most awesome steak to suddenly realize that what you were really craving was a lousy salad. The steak was a hundred, a thousand times better, smelled delicious, looked delicious, tasted delicious, but the thing was that you wanted a fucking salad and that's what your brain was trying to tell you.
Bloody vegetarians, Eames thought uncharitably-- and hypocritically, seeing as he still longed for the damned green thing.
He wasn't going to ask why the salad was not on the menu, though. He didn't need closure.
Eames could work as extractor, but he made more money as a forger. Not every job required a doppelgänger, though. But every job required a thief.
Conning people in their dreams wasn't so different from conning people in the street.
“Because you wouldn't want anyone to know that, would you?” he drawled, delighted at the mark's startled reaction. Bringing up dark secrets in a dream was like conjuring them, like making them present somewhere, like a magical summoning. Now he only had to guess where the mark's subconscious would have hid them. Or better yet, force him to hide them where Eames wanted. Conjuring them up a bit closer.
Eames eyes traveled the room and did a double take when he spotted the mini-bar. He then fixed his eyes on the mark and smirked as if he knew something the mark didn't. The mark's brow was drenched in sweat and he started to shiver when Eames got up and walked towards the mini-bar.
Elephants. It was just too easy to make people think of them.
“No, wait!” the mark shouted, lunging at him just when Rickman and Baum entered the room.
Eames loved his job.
Arthur had his hopes high with Jenny. They had been going out for three months, now. The expensive bouquet of roses was a silent (or a screaming, because it was huge and attracted the attention of practically everybody in a ten miles radius) testimony of that.
When Mal had gotten pregnant again, Arthur had decided to take some time off himself. Not that he hadn't worked without the Cobbs before; he had and he would again, but he trusted Dom and Mal and enjoyed dreaming with them. A nice working environment did wonders for not only the quality of the job, but also Arthur's personal happiness. Because putting up with assholes always put him in a horrid mood.
And so, he had had the time and opportunity to rekindle the old flame that was Jenny. And what a flame that was. Jennifer Daniels was an exceptional woman. Pretty, intelligent, funny, great in bed... Arthur's memory of her was nothing compared to the reality of her now. Arthur thought that he might be in love.
More than a gasp, it was a long, excited inhalation of air that Jenny did when she saw him.
“Oh my God!” she shrieked before bursting out laughing and running to hug him, roses carelessly crushed between them.
Yeah, Arthur thought, she might be it.
It was around that time that Maurice Fischer's health began to decline. But no one in the dreamsharing business knew or gave a damn about it. Not yet.
“Call me?” Paul suggested, voice lazy with sleep.
Eames finished pushing the tails of his shirt inside the waistband of his pants and offered him a smile.
“Sure,” he lied as he leaned down to kiss him deeply, with tongue.
Paul-- Eames was reasonably sure that was his name, he was ace at remembering that sort of thing-- moaned in appreciation and kissed back, but didn't try to catch Eames' mouth again when he pulled apart.
Eames nodded his goodbye and walked out. Once he had closed the door behind him, he didn't bother keeping his smile in place.
The worst of it, Arthur reflected, wasn't being stuck with baby-sitting duty. Although, admittedly, that was bad enough. The three of them had fretted a little at the arrangement. Mal because she thought James was too small yet and needed her, Dom because he found Mal's distress contagious and Arthur because he thought he sucked at children, even if Philippa tended to wordlessly disagree. In spite of it, Arthur had volunteered (sort of) because Mal's parents were in Europe and he knew that their anniversary was important to them.
The worst of it, Arthur reflected, was having the time to think. Because he hadn't had the foresight to bring his current read and he knew the Cobbs' books by heart at that point, and it was in moments like these that the memory of Eames would come to mind, unbidden, unwelcome and illogical. Because he knew he had made the right decision, that Eames was not what he was searching for, would never be. And that was okay, really, because that's why Arthur had come up with his plan. But it still puzzled him how come it wasn't Jenny, or Amanda or-- God forbid-- Linda he thought of when, against all statistics, his plan didn't work out and he found himself alone, out of books and off the job.
The worst of it, Arthur reflected, was how horribly he felt thinking about his own sexuality while holding a baby. Because he was starting to suspect that maybe he wasn't as bisexual as he had thought. Maybe he had difficulties establishing emotional links with women or something. It was the only plausible explanation for his lack of success, even if his body had never given him an indication that hinted at it. In any case, he was a rational man; he would use his intellect and modify his scheme so that it contemplated the masculine gender. Arthur could adapt. Arthur still had a plan.
It had been a while since the last time he had had to forge and, goddammit, he had nearly forgotten how fun it was. How thrilling to rise up to the challenge, to focus on what he knew no other could pull off as well as he did. And that meant the whole of it. The research, the infiltration, the observation, the rehearsing, the character analysis, the modeling of the shape, accent, mannerisms... he liked the planning stages of extraction, but there was nothing quite like forging. Nothing like being someone else. Nothing like finding the delicate equilibrium between what you had to hold on to and what you had to let go of so that the mark's subconscious filled it in for you. That's where most forgers fucked up, they tried to control the dream, control the forge so much that they forced-fed the mark their own vision of the character. No, the vision had to be the mark's.
However, if Eames was good at anything, it was walking the line, finding the balance. Well, not really. He was good at a lot of things. But playing with fire without getting burned was definitely one of them.
He shook his head and let out a delighted laugh when the silky ends of his pigtails brushed his cheeks. His voice was very high-pitched now, his laughter giggly and tinted with the most heartbreaking innocence. Eames was eight and he was having a blast. He started skipping towards the mark.
Eames fucking loved his job.
Arthur was a decent architect. He was an acceptable extractor. But the position he really enjoyed taking was point. And not only because he was exceptional at it (he was), but because it really suited his tastes better. The point man always went under, never stayed topside watching the clock count slowly down. He did his own research and didn't depend on others' ability to follow the right leads and dig the right dirt. He didn't have to bullshit the mark, only take care of the problems, keep his eyes open, know when they could push and when they had to run. He got shit done. But the best, the fucking best, was keeping his team alive when the mark's subconscious caught up with what was happening.
“Coburn! Take Yoshinaga upstairs and try to finish the job!” He shouted to be heard over the gunshots.
He rolled from his cover and knelt up in the middle of the corridor, shooting as many projections down as he could. Getting rid of them wasn't the issue; there were too many. But if there was something that the human subconscious held as a priority was not dying and avoiding pain, so Coburn and Yoshinaga's escape was effectively covered as the magazine steadily, and as slowly as Arthur dared, got emptied.
When he ran out of bullets, he dove for cover again and replaced the mag. He was vaguely aware that he was smiling.
Shit, he fucking loved his job.
Eames thought that, after all this time, he had most obviously moved on.
Arthur thought that, after all this time, he had most obviously moved on.
Both of them thought that, after all this time, the other had most obviously moved on.
It was a big job. Big enough to afford them both. And that was, indeed, more tempting than the actual paycheck: the dare, the challenge, the knowledge that they were doing something important, something difficult, something that wouldn't be easy and exactly because of that, it would be fun.
“If I may have a word, Mr. Eames,” Arthur had said after the morning meeting.
Actually, when they found themselves desperately kissing in the dingiest, most sadly stereotypical broom closet in the world-- naked bulb light of low potency included-- they still believed that they had moved on, that this wouldn't affect their professional performance, not even their personal interaction, that this was just sex.
And that's how hands didn't roam as much as frantically groped, how mouths kissed, and nipped, and panted and bit and kissed again, and how Eames' usually dexterous fingers opened Arthur's pants and fumbled with the fabric until he realized that Arthur was wearing suspenders and that was the reason why the fucking garment wouldn't go down. When the damned things resisted his attempts at removing them (what were those, stapled?) and he started cursing under his breath about it, Arthur first snorted, then tried to hold it in and finally started to laugh. He had forgotten how easy sex was between them. How fun.
“Fucking chastity braces...”
That made Arthur laugh even harder until he felt Eames give up and slide down to his knees. His laughter died slowly because Eames on his knees with his mouth so close to Arthur's groin was a sobering sight and deserved some breathless respect, but also because he knew that Eames didn't care about getting dirt on the knees of his pants, he didn't even care about potential stains of semen, the mess of impromptu sex in a seedy broom closet at their workplace. He didn't give a damn, but Arthur did. He did and Eames knew. And that's why he was the one on his knees, and not Arthur. Eames also knew that he didn't need to crack the combination of his chastity braces because, seeing him on his knees, it wouldn't take Arthur five seconds to ditch them himself. He slid the elastic bands down his arms through the holes of his vest in less than three.
Eames was unholy good at giving head. Or maybe it had been too long since Arthur last got a blowjob. Yeah, maybe it was that, he thought as he traced Eames' lips where they were tightly wrapped around his cock. Eames was the kind of shameless person who stared at you fixedly while he blew you, knowing perfectly well what it was doing to you, but drinking in the reactions anyway, as hungry for the visuals of a man's undoing as he was for his cock. He was the kind of shameless person who looked good on his knees.
“Oh, fuck...” Arthur breathed with a voice that didn't sound like his at all, “your mouth...”
Eames grinned-- or that's what his eyes told Arthur, mouth occupied otherwise on a steady rhythm-- because, well, yes, that was the idea, wasn't it? Arthur actually chuckled at that but just then Eames did that number with his tongue on Arthur's frenum and the only thing Arthur could do was groan, and buck, and force his cock deeper into Eames mouth, once, twice, again and again and again, knowing he could take it, those eyes fixed on Arthur even as Eames held his hips still and gulped him down and it was just too much, Eames deepthroating him was too much, the sensation as he swallowed around his cock was too much, and with a muted, unspecific, desperate sound, Arthur came, and came and came and it lasted forever, even if a handful of seconds later he was coming down from it but still, woah, that had been...
He felt Eames releasing his cock (when had Arthur closed his eyes?) and tugging at his hand, silently asking for a bit of help in getting up gracefully. Arthur pulled him up, and close, and they kissed again. Arthur didn't really like the taste of come, his or anyone else's, but he wasn't squicked by it either, so he had no problem showing his appreciation after a good blowjob.
When he reached down, he found Eames' pants already undone. His cock felt hard and heavy, familiar even after all the time that had passed since the last time he had had it in his hand. He kept Eames close as he jerked him off. Arthur could feel his breath as Eames panted against his mouth, not really kissing anymore, just there, lips brushing nearly accidentally from time to time.
Arthur could tell, but Eames gave him a warning anyway when he started to get close. He was always quiet when he came, all shuddering breath but no sound. He was quiet this time, too.
They stood like that for a while, just breathing next to each other, careful not to let the come caught in their hands get anywhere near their clothes.
They cleaned up with one of the musty rolls of tissue paper stored in the closet and Eames smiled knowing that the bathroom would be their first stop after this anyway.
“Hey,” Eames said when they were mostly ready to go, “fancy a drink after work tonight?”
“No.”
Eames paused at the unexpected force and swiftness of the reply. He hadn't even been looking at Arthur when he had asked, not giving the offer importance because it had none. But Arthur had just given it some, because you didn't snap with a curt, nearly aggressive 'no' to something like 'is it going to rain tomorrow?'
“I think we should talk...” Eames started.
Arthur reached calmly for the door.
“There's nothing to talk ab--”
Eames pushed the door closed again from behind him, because he hadn't known before, but now it was evident that there was something to talk about, goddammit, and he would be damned if...
His thoughts were cut by a sharp elbow in his stomach and a blow with the forearm that sent him one step back.
The sound of the door opening should have managed to mask Eames' words, but for some reason didn't.
“Don't come to me again,” he said with the low, flat tone that meant death.
There was the tiniest pause in Arthur's exit. His own words came through undisturbed, even if he hadn't looked back when he had uttered them, before closing the door behind him:
“I won't.”
Arthur, Eames thought, was a first-class bastard. Which was fitting, since he was generally a first-class everything. For example, he was also a first-class prick. And Eames was all for casual, no-strings-attached, I-don't-need-to-be-chatted-up-let's-just-get-to-it sex but if Arthur was going to be a bitch about it he could start propositioning the stick up his ass for all that Eames cared.
He didn't need closure, but he had received it anyway.
After a while, Eames surprised himself thinking of Arthur again without feeling the uncontrollable urge to punch him in the face.
He hadn't been doing anything special, just watching TV. Just a regular, stupid, American sitcom; nothing to do at all with the memory of Arthur on his knees, blowing him with efficiency, that had suddenly sprung to mind.
It had been a really silly day. Eames had those often, if he felt comfortable enough. In that particular occasion he had proceeded to grab Arthur's ears, one in each hand, and twist the wrists as if revving a bike. He had even made the rumbling sounds accordingly. The deadpan expression Arthur had cast at him had said 'I'm going to kill you' so loud and clear that Eames hadn't been able to avoid bursting out laughing, because, really, Arthur should have seen his face. And he laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and couldn't stop so Arthur had given up on him and said something that Eames couldn't remember exactly, but it had probably involved Eames' ancestors and what Arthur thought they had done with the farm animals in their free time. And the thing was that Eames hadn't come that day but he hadn't given a damn because, hell, it had been so worth it...
It was that actor, Eames thought, eyes on the TV screen again. His ears stuck out a little bit. That had been it.
Arthur couldn't bring himself to think that Michael had been a bad idea. He hadn't been, he was lovely. They still hadn't lasted a week, though. It was probably too soon after his tryst with Eames, too difficult not to compare them. Which was totally unfair to Michael who, lovely or not, wasn't Eames. And that should be more or less the point, that he wasn't Eames, because Arthur and Eames weren't compatible the way Arthur needed them to be, there was no future for them, just a chunk of present a bit longer than expected. So it was more than okay, it was fucking ideal that Michael wasn't Eames. Except that it wasn't.
Arthur would let some time pass, and then keep on trying.
For the first time in ages, Dom thought of their sleeping bodies topside. The sea down here sounded like the lullaby they weren't hearing up there. And, conversely, it was whispering him to wake up.
They had thought it was a good idea. It had been a good idea. But, like all of those, there was a point when it had been already carried out and it was time to move on to the next good idea.
They had explored the deepest recesses of their combined subconscious. It felt like really melting and becoming the proverbial one. He had always thought they were meant to be. Like two halves of a whole, like all the possible corny lines in the world, only them being the truth and not only corny lines anymore. And still, Dom kept on being him and Mal kept on being her. It was like eternal life, like being granted infinite time and the power to build a better, more perfect world, custom made for them because it was they who had made it. He had thought that one life with Mal wasn't enough, that he wanted more...
But now, what he really wanted was for it to be real and not a dream. Dom wanted to wake up.
But Mal didn't.
The first time Eames' team attempted inception, it had been a problem of approach. Or rather, misconception of the nature of ideas. Because extracting was all about evoking thoughts and then taking a look at them, but that didn't work reversely, you couldn't come up with a safe, tell the mark that his most important opinions were there and then put a manila folder with the wanted thoughts in it.
The human mind didn't work that way and, if Eames had really stopped to think about it, he would have discarded the idea as ludicrous in half a second.
But he had been hired to forge, not to think, as the extractor had not-that-politely reminded him the very first day of work, so he didn't fight his case. He wouldn't stop giving the idea some thought, because that's how Eames' head worked, but he didn't need to voice his conclusions.
He would be paid whether they succeeded or not, anyway.
The second time Eames took part in an incepting attempt, everything ran much more smoothly. Eames had been able to taste the success with the tip of his tongue. They had actually tried that thing Cobb pulled off sometimes, introducing a new level by putting the team under again while being still in the dream. But the incepted idea hadn't been simple enough, too difficult to translate emotionally into a concept the mark could feel connected to.
Eames was sure that the key to inception was conning the mark into thinking that he had been the one coming up with the idea in the first place. Like the most classic Fiddle Game. If you find out what moves a man, he's yours.
“It's been interesting to work with you, Eames” had said the extractor afterwards, when they were parting ways.
“My pleasure,” he answered, sincerely enough for once, as he shook her hand. “You sure you don't need a hand?”
He still thought it was bad manners to leave the clean up to the point man and the extractor, even if that's how they had planned it out from the start.
“We got it covered,” she said, self-confident without sounding arrogant.
It was nice when a job ended so calmly, without having to run for it, even in failure. Eames nodded his goodbyes and walked away.
“You seem to be distracted today,” Austin said.
Arthur didn't quite startle, but he did return to the present moment. It was a very nice moment, too, both of them in a loose embrace, standing against the wall of the room.
For one fleeting moment, Arthur debated if he should talk to Austin about Mal.
After much thinking, Arthur had come to the conclusion that he needed to try it with someone who was into dreamsharing, because couples were supposed to trust each other and it was straining and generally inconvenient to have to lie about how boring the business trip to Billings, MT had been or what those suspicious tracks on his inner forearm were.
And yet, it was not Austin's business if Mal was acting strange lately, in fact since she had woken up from her trip down with Dom. It was not Austin's business that they had gone so down, so deep, that they had reached a part of the subconscious where time virtually stopped. So, even if Arthur was worried, and Dom was... there had to be a stronger word to describe how much Dom fretted and tried to hide it... even if that was the case, Arthur rarely ever felt the need to confide in anyone. He wasn't going to make an exception now, and least of all with an extractor.
“Jet lag,” Arthur explained with a husky voice, pressing against Austin as the extractor's hands felt him up.
“You unarmed?” Austin mocked him. “Rumor has it that you never go around without at least a dozen weapons on your body.”
“I seldom carry topside. It ruins the line of a perfect suit.”
Austin didn't snort. He didn't even smile. Arthur refrained the impulse to sigh. The problem with people in dreamsharing was that they didn't expect Arthur to have a sense of humor, so they always took his comments at face value. Arthur didn't want to think what concept they had of him if everything he tried to say in joke ended up being the official truth in the eyes of the community.
There wasn't much point in dwelling on it, so Arthur leaned into Austin and kissed him.
Mal died.
A big portion of Dom died with her.
Arthur did his best to keep the rest of Dom alive.
Mal's death changed a lot of things. Them, for example. Dom was still the best, but where once his motivations had been varied and colorful and positive, now it was only desperation that fueled him. He wanted to come back to his children but knew he couldn't. He was trying to buy time, literally buy time, with money, and Arthur didn't have the heart to tell him it wasn't going to work, that clocks just didn't work that way. Dom thought he was going to come up with the solution one of these days. Arthur was there for the jobs, always, no matter how crazy they were, how risky to take certain clients, how immoral the use of the information they extracted for them. He wasn't there for their slow times, forcing the separation because he was afraid of what folly could get into Dom's head if he was left alone, but he was even more afraid of being infected by his devastating grief, all the more obvious because Dom tried to hide it and pretend he was fine.
Mal's death changed a lot of things. She had been a stunning woman. Arthur had known that she wasn't quite the same when she had woken up, but hadn't expected suicide. Mal had loved life. Mal had loved her children. Mal had loved Dom. It made no sense that she set him up, but it made even less sense that Dom could have pushed her out that window. Arthur had had to know, though, so he had asked, back when they had started running. It had been quite the row and Arthur had been tempted to punch Dom, not because he wanted, but because he thought that maybe Dom needed to punch back and Arthur didn't really mind the pain if there was a good reason to stand it.
Mal's death changed a lot of things. Arthur didn't regard dreamsharing the same, now. It had never been a game for him, but when you got used to firing a gun for kicks, you tended to forget it actually could kill people. Not that you didn't know, you just forgot. Arthur wouldn't forget again. He would keep his totem at hand and limbo away.
Mal's death changed a lot of things, but not Arthur's plan. If anything, it reaffirmed it. But it also postponed it, because now he had to focus on Dom, and on the jobs, and in just a couple of months he would have to focus on Mal's shade, too. Not that the three weren't the same thing.
Mombasa was close to the equator, but the climate was rather tropical instead of equatorial. Maybe it was its closeness to the sea. Maybe it was the winds. Eames didn't particularly care.
“You got something for a headache?” He asked to the Indian-looking guy at the bar as he took a seat beside him. It was the kind of old, dirty establishment that Eames actually missed when he was doing corporate work. People seemed more alive here, more ready to enjoy a drink, no matter how cheap. Even sad drunkards looked less lonely in a place like this. “It's been an awful flight, you see, and I've been told you run a very nice pharmacy here.”
The man looked at him with a pleasant smile on his lips. Eames had tried to pull off that kind of friendly smile many, many times, but it didn't work that well on his face.
“I've got aspirins if you want,” the man answered, not disturbed in the least to be asked in a bar and not at his workplace. “For anything stronger than that, I'll need to see a doctor's prescription, I'm afraid.”
“Sure.”
Eames produced a folded paper from his breast pocket and slid it on the bar's rough surface towards him as the man took a swing at his soda.
“If you'll excuse me,” the man said.
Eames gestured agreeably and ordered a beer as the other man made his call. He usually kept his gambles apart from his work, because money was easy to replace when you lost it, but other things were not. He was quite sure of his chances in this one, though. The handwriting had been perfect, he knew, and that was in fact the best cover letter for a man of his skills, especially since he already had a reputation and, without a doubt, the man's contact would tell him through the phone that he hadn't actually written the note but had heard of Eames anyway and he was to be trusted.
He took a sip from the bottle and waited, letting the man observe him without looking back at him. If his eyes wandered through the room it was more out of habit than paranoia, although he had always thought that a healthy dose of paranoia was a perfectly good thing.
When the man came back, he did it offering that friendly grin of his again.
“You seem to be a very interesting man, Mr. Eames. Care to take this conversation to my humble home?”
Eames' grin wasn't open enough to look as honest and friendly as Yusuf's, but it sufficed.
Mombasa was close to the equator, but the climate was rather tropical instead of equatorial. Maybe it was its closeness to the sea. Maybe it was the winds. Cobb didn't particularly care.
“Arthur,” Eames had said with a chuckle, “you're still working with that stick-in-the-mud?”
Cobb was aware that Arthur and Eames had some kind of history and weren't exactly eager to work with one another; they hadn't for the longest time, maybe more than two years. Arthur had never told him what had happened and Cobb had never asked, because that was not the kind of thing they talked about, not even when Mal had been alive and conversation was easy and full of laughter.
“He's good at what he does, right?”
Because it was the truth, and he needed them both. Cobb was sure that both men would leave differences aside and put the job first. Cobb was also sure that Eames wouldn't let the chance to perform inception pass, he had heard rumors. They were all junkies, the lot of them. They always wanted more.
“Oh, he's the best, but he has no imagination.”
“Not like you,” Cobb compromised.
“Listen, if you're gonna perform inception you need imagination.”
Eames spoke as if he knew what he was talking about. Maybe those rumors were right. Eames was difficult to read and he had been in Mombasa for a very long time with no indication that he wanted to leave any time soon, but Cobb's guts told him that he had him, that Eames would accept and fly back to Paris with him, that he was in the way to assembling the perfect team, that he would go back to his children.
“Let me ask you something,” he said, trying to tone down his enthusiasm, “Have you done it before?”
Next part
Title: Cut-out Cookies (Part 1/3)
Author: Lauand
Beta: Avierra
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 14.800
Summary: Einstein was right. Arthur was wrong.
A/N: My deepest thanks to avierra for the help (once again). Concrit welcome.
A lot of animals hid their symptoms so that, when they finally died, you hadn't seen it coming.
Eames hadn't seen it coming.
Not that Arthur was dying. Or an animal, because he had the kind of over-analytical mind that made for anal retentives and sticks-in-the-mud of the highest class. And sure, the man had instincts, instincts that worked, but that was not the thing. The thing was...
Eames hadn't seen it coming.
“Sure,” he said instead of asking why, of searching for a sign he had missed, something wrong. He even managed a very natural smirk and a wink. “It was fun, though.”
He didn't try to read Arthur's expression. He was not one to overthink everything. He knew beforehand it would lead him nowhere. After all these months, he could be sure of that.
“See you around, Arthur.”
He didn't kiss Arthur goodbye. He never did. It was not the kind of thing they indulged in. Not because they were denying themselves, it just didn't seem like the thing to do, like the impulse was not there. There had been other impulses, though, and those had come naturally for both of them, and Eames had thought that it was enough, but obviously it hadn't been.
The door clicked softly shut when he went out. He briefly pondered his course of action. Getting drunk was not a stereotype he appreciated right now. It implied some maudlinness and worse, weakness, that he didn't really thought fit him. Gambling didn't look appealing, either. He only went for melodramatics when there was an audience who clapped afterwards. He decided to go back to his hotel and think, because he was at a loss and he didn't enjoy the sensation. He didn't know what he was supposed to be feeling right now. He just hadn't seen it coming.
Arthur read a lot. He supposed that it was not that common an occurrence amongst other, less sophisticated, criminal rings, but he had never understood why, since half the job of a criminal was to wait. In airports, in safe houses, in hotels, in warehouses, in cars. Wait. With nothing to do but read.
Dom and Mal, coming from the academic side of things, enjoyed reading, too. But for them it was like that kind of sport you took pleasure in but never felt like practicing. Arthur always felt like reading. Literature, essays, articles, textbooks or the trashiest romance novels. Arthur loved reading. Arthur knew Eames didn't, but he didn't want to think about Eames.
The thing was, Arthur read a lot. A lot. And he had thought he was above letting the fiction influence him, but maybe he had been wrong. Or maybe, maybe it wasn't the reading, it was Dom and Mal. Because their life was the kind you found in books, good books, the ones you could and wanted to believe in. So maybe it had been them, and not the stories. Even being moderately good at knowing himself, Arthur honestly didn't know.
Their own story had begun in such an indistinct manner that neither of them could really pinpoint a date, not even a year. There had been a first time they had had sex, of course, but having sex with someone didn't start a story. In their case, their story started in the middle, without a fancy meeting, or a long courting, or paths miraculously crossed by destiny; only long hours of work, a great deal of banter, and that kind of relaxed interaction that came easily to Eames but not to Arthur. Only later Arthur had learned that it didn't really come easily to Eames, either, he just liked to arrange things to look like it did. Because Eames was always ready to bolt regardless of the artless sprawl he chose to display.
But the truth was that there was something to be said about them, there was something to be said about the complex-free sex and the morning-afters full of laughter and uncompromising anecdotes. About the tables overflowing with files and wrappers of fast food. About texting from opposite corners of the world with short snarky remarks about other teams and other countries and other people, all the 'them' outside of their 'us'.
So theirs had been a story without a start, without momentous events or heady pinnacles. Without a plot. But with an end. A bit anticlimactic and nearly as indistinct as their beginning, but an end nonetheless. Arthur made sure of that.
In truth, it had all come down to the fucking butterflies.
Arthur was a man with a plan. Dom would say that this was not a current but a permanent state, something that defined Arthur as a whole much more than it defined a moment in his life. But Dom didn't say anything because Arthur didn't talk about these things with him, so Dom didn't know what kind of plan Arthur had this time.
He was good at getting what he wanted. He was focused and relentless and clever and methodical. His plan would succeed.
The problem was, as always, the time. His line of work didn't leave him much free time in the same place, and for the kind of scheme he had, he needed a bit of stability.
Arthur decided to spend less time reading and more time out. Looking. Searching. Polishing his plan.
According to Eames, Arthur's main flaw was his desperate need to be perfect. Eames was of the opinion that people in dreamsharing often forgot that paradoxes weren't only fancy staircases and looped corridors.
According to Eames, it was a mistake to try and be perfect because people weren't meant to be perfect. The world wasn't meant to be perfect. Things weren't meant to be perfect.
According to Eames, every child's favorite tin soldier was the defective one. Because that was what made it special. Arthur couldn't wrap his mind around that concept, but that was okay because, well, that made him the defective tin soldier in Eames' box.
According to Eames, it sucked to lose one's favorite tin soldier.
Amanda was beautiful, Arthur thought over his glass of wine. She had a really wondrous smile and the kind of bright eyes that reflected the subdued lights of the restaurant in the most perfect way. It said as much about Amanda's face as it did about the quality of the restaurant's lighting scheme.
“You're beautiful,” he said to her, smiling, confident, putting down his glass to observe her better.
Her laugh was very pleasant and her blush endearing, the tips of her hair dancing as she shook her head as if bashful to accept the compliment.
Arthur kept on gazing at her. She was truly wonderful. He liked her a lot.
Amanda delicately put her hand on his and looked at him under her lashes.
“Thank you,” she said.
Arthur took her hand, squeezing it gently, caressing her soft skin. She was exquisite.
He didn't usually need closure to move on. Eames had lived fast and left a lot of things half-done. Seeing how it had turned out, with him being more or less rich and master of his own dreams-- as well as a generous portion of other people's-- he couldn't bring himself to regret it.
So he couldn't be too sure why the hell every time he decided to have a wank he ended up thinking of Arthur. Okay, yes, he had been a splendid fuck, but Eames didn't really rank him number one in his “best lays I've had” list, much less in his masturbatory fodder.
Eames hadn't had closure with his family. He hadn't had closure with the guy who taught him everything when he lived in the streets of London. He hadn't had closure with the man who had introduced him to dreamsharing. He hadn't had closure with a million and a half sex-partners before. He just didn't need it. He could move on without knowing why he had to. He could move on from Arthur. Having to work with him again was no problem because Eames didn't need closure.
“So, what do you do for a living, Arthur?”
He had met Linda through a dating website. Even if socially scorned, this kind of service provided the kind of information Arthur definitely appreciated having beforehand. It made compatibility easier.
“I'm some kind of travel agent,” Arthur lied through his teeth. Only, not really, because as Eames always said, truth was just a matter of perception. “My clients tell me their ideas, and I provide the travel of their dreams.”
“Oh, that's fascinating!”
That reply would have been actually accurate had he been more precise with the nature of his job, but Arthur wasn't sure he wouldn't have received the same answer if he had said he was an accountant, a non-descript administrative or a street sweeper.
“Isn't it?” he said, his smile stilted and his tone bland.
Maybe dating websites weren't such a good idea after all.
One hand wrapped around his cock, other hand playing with his balls, Eames idly thought that having back his ability to jerk off to other people would be nice. It was worse when he did it without watching porn, just his fantasies to spur his desire, because that lead invariably much faster to Arthur, and Eames was starting to feel fed up with all this nonsense. It was like treating yourself to the most awesome steak to suddenly realize that what you were really craving was a lousy salad. The steak was a hundred, a thousand times better, smelled delicious, looked delicious, tasted delicious, but the thing was that you wanted a fucking salad and that's what your brain was trying to tell you.
Bloody vegetarians, Eames thought uncharitably-- and hypocritically, seeing as he still longed for the damned green thing.
He wasn't going to ask why the salad was not on the menu, though. He didn't need closure.
Eames could work as extractor, but he made more money as a forger. Not every job required a doppelgänger, though. But every job required a thief.
Conning people in their dreams wasn't so different from conning people in the street.
“Because you wouldn't want anyone to know that, would you?” he drawled, delighted at the mark's startled reaction. Bringing up dark secrets in a dream was like conjuring them, like making them present somewhere, like a magical summoning. Now he only had to guess where the mark's subconscious would have hid them. Or better yet, force him to hide them where Eames wanted. Conjuring them up a bit closer.
Eames eyes traveled the room and did a double take when he spotted the mini-bar. He then fixed his eyes on the mark and smirked as if he knew something the mark didn't. The mark's brow was drenched in sweat and he started to shiver when Eames got up and walked towards the mini-bar.
Elephants. It was just too easy to make people think of them.
“No, wait!” the mark shouted, lunging at him just when Rickman and Baum entered the room.
Eames loved his job.
Arthur had his hopes high with Jenny. They had been going out for three months, now. The expensive bouquet of roses was a silent (or a screaming, because it was huge and attracted the attention of practically everybody in a ten miles radius) testimony of that.
When Mal had gotten pregnant again, Arthur had decided to take some time off himself. Not that he hadn't worked without the Cobbs before; he had and he would again, but he trusted Dom and Mal and enjoyed dreaming with them. A nice working environment did wonders for not only the quality of the job, but also Arthur's personal happiness. Because putting up with assholes always put him in a horrid mood.
And so, he had had the time and opportunity to rekindle the old flame that was Jenny. And what a flame that was. Jennifer Daniels was an exceptional woman. Pretty, intelligent, funny, great in bed... Arthur's memory of her was nothing compared to the reality of her now. Arthur thought that he might be in love.
More than a gasp, it was a long, excited inhalation of air that Jenny did when she saw him.
“Oh my God!” she shrieked before bursting out laughing and running to hug him, roses carelessly crushed between them.
Yeah, Arthur thought, she might be it.
It was around that time that Maurice Fischer's health began to decline. But no one in the dreamsharing business knew or gave a damn about it. Not yet.
“Call me?” Paul suggested, voice lazy with sleep.
Eames finished pushing the tails of his shirt inside the waistband of his pants and offered him a smile.
“Sure,” he lied as he leaned down to kiss him deeply, with tongue.
Paul-- Eames was reasonably sure that was his name, he was ace at remembering that sort of thing-- moaned in appreciation and kissed back, but didn't try to catch Eames' mouth again when he pulled apart.
Eames nodded his goodbye and walked out. Once he had closed the door behind him, he didn't bother keeping his smile in place.
The worst of it, Arthur reflected, wasn't being stuck with baby-sitting duty. Although, admittedly, that was bad enough. The three of them had fretted a little at the arrangement. Mal because she thought James was too small yet and needed her, Dom because he found Mal's distress contagious and Arthur because he thought he sucked at children, even if Philippa tended to wordlessly disagree. In spite of it, Arthur had volunteered (sort of) because Mal's parents were in Europe and he knew that their anniversary was important to them.
The worst of it, Arthur reflected, was having the time to think. Because he hadn't had the foresight to bring his current read and he knew the Cobbs' books by heart at that point, and it was in moments like these that the memory of Eames would come to mind, unbidden, unwelcome and illogical. Because he knew he had made the right decision, that Eames was not what he was searching for, would never be. And that was okay, really, because that's why Arthur had come up with his plan. But it still puzzled him how come it wasn't Jenny, or Amanda or-- God forbid-- Linda he thought of when, against all statistics, his plan didn't work out and he found himself alone, out of books and off the job.
The worst of it, Arthur reflected, was how horribly he felt thinking about his own sexuality while holding a baby. Because he was starting to suspect that maybe he wasn't as bisexual as he had thought. Maybe he had difficulties establishing emotional links with women or something. It was the only plausible explanation for his lack of success, even if his body had never given him an indication that hinted at it. In any case, he was a rational man; he would use his intellect and modify his scheme so that it contemplated the masculine gender. Arthur could adapt. Arthur still had a plan.
It had been a while since the last time he had had to forge and, goddammit, he had nearly forgotten how fun it was. How thrilling to rise up to the challenge, to focus on what he knew no other could pull off as well as he did. And that meant the whole of it. The research, the infiltration, the observation, the rehearsing, the character analysis, the modeling of the shape, accent, mannerisms... he liked the planning stages of extraction, but there was nothing quite like forging. Nothing like being someone else. Nothing like finding the delicate equilibrium between what you had to hold on to and what you had to let go of so that the mark's subconscious filled it in for you. That's where most forgers fucked up, they tried to control the dream, control the forge so much that they forced-fed the mark their own vision of the character. No, the vision had to be the mark's.
However, if Eames was good at anything, it was walking the line, finding the balance. Well, not really. He was good at a lot of things. But playing with fire without getting burned was definitely one of them.
He shook his head and let out a delighted laugh when the silky ends of his pigtails brushed his cheeks. His voice was very high-pitched now, his laughter giggly and tinted with the most heartbreaking innocence. Eames was eight and he was having a blast. He started skipping towards the mark.
Eames fucking loved his job.
Arthur was a decent architect. He was an acceptable extractor. But the position he really enjoyed taking was point. And not only because he was exceptional at it (he was), but because it really suited his tastes better. The point man always went under, never stayed topside watching the clock count slowly down. He did his own research and didn't depend on others' ability to follow the right leads and dig the right dirt. He didn't have to bullshit the mark, only take care of the problems, keep his eyes open, know when they could push and when they had to run. He got shit done. But the best, the fucking best, was keeping his team alive when the mark's subconscious caught up with what was happening.
“Coburn! Take Yoshinaga upstairs and try to finish the job!” He shouted to be heard over the gunshots.
He rolled from his cover and knelt up in the middle of the corridor, shooting as many projections down as he could. Getting rid of them wasn't the issue; there were too many. But if there was something that the human subconscious held as a priority was not dying and avoiding pain, so Coburn and Yoshinaga's escape was effectively covered as the magazine steadily, and as slowly as Arthur dared, got emptied.
When he ran out of bullets, he dove for cover again and replaced the mag. He was vaguely aware that he was smiling.
Shit, he fucking loved his job.
Eames thought that, after all this time, he had most obviously moved on.
Arthur thought that, after all this time, he had most obviously moved on.
Both of them thought that, after all this time, the other had most obviously moved on.
It was a big job. Big enough to afford them both. And that was, indeed, more tempting than the actual paycheck: the dare, the challenge, the knowledge that they were doing something important, something difficult, something that wouldn't be easy and exactly because of that, it would be fun.
“If I may have a word, Mr. Eames,” Arthur had said after the morning meeting.
Actually, when they found themselves desperately kissing in the dingiest, most sadly stereotypical broom closet in the world-- naked bulb light of low potency included-- they still believed that they had moved on, that this wouldn't affect their professional performance, not even their personal interaction, that this was just sex.
And that's how hands didn't roam as much as frantically groped, how mouths kissed, and nipped, and panted and bit and kissed again, and how Eames' usually dexterous fingers opened Arthur's pants and fumbled with the fabric until he realized that Arthur was wearing suspenders and that was the reason why the fucking garment wouldn't go down. When the damned things resisted his attempts at removing them (what were those, stapled?) and he started cursing under his breath about it, Arthur first snorted, then tried to hold it in and finally started to laugh. He had forgotten how easy sex was between them. How fun.
“Fucking chastity braces...”
That made Arthur laugh even harder until he felt Eames give up and slide down to his knees. His laughter died slowly because Eames on his knees with his mouth so close to Arthur's groin was a sobering sight and deserved some breathless respect, but also because he knew that Eames didn't care about getting dirt on the knees of his pants, he didn't even care about potential stains of semen, the mess of impromptu sex in a seedy broom closet at their workplace. He didn't give a damn, but Arthur did. He did and Eames knew. And that's why he was the one on his knees, and not Arthur. Eames also knew that he didn't need to crack the combination of his chastity braces because, seeing him on his knees, it wouldn't take Arthur five seconds to ditch them himself. He slid the elastic bands down his arms through the holes of his vest in less than three.
Eames was unholy good at giving head. Or maybe it had been too long since Arthur last got a blowjob. Yeah, maybe it was that, he thought as he traced Eames' lips where they were tightly wrapped around his cock. Eames was the kind of shameless person who stared at you fixedly while he blew you, knowing perfectly well what it was doing to you, but drinking in the reactions anyway, as hungry for the visuals of a man's undoing as he was for his cock. He was the kind of shameless person who looked good on his knees.
“Oh, fuck...” Arthur breathed with a voice that didn't sound like his at all, “your mouth...”
Eames grinned-- or that's what his eyes told Arthur, mouth occupied otherwise on a steady rhythm-- because, well, yes, that was the idea, wasn't it? Arthur actually chuckled at that but just then Eames did that number with his tongue on Arthur's frenum and the only thing Arthur could do was groan, and buck, and force his cock deeper into Eames mouth, once, twice, again and again and again, knowing he could take it, those eyes fixed on Arthur even as Eames held his hips still and gulped him down and it was just too much, Eames deepthroating him was too much, the sensation as he swallowed around his cock was too much, and with a muted, unspecific, desperate sound, Arthur came, and came and came and it lasted forever, even if a handful of seconds later he was coming down from it but still, woah, that had been...
He felt Eames releasing his cock (when had Arthur closed his eyes?) and tugging at his hand, silently asking for a bit of help in getting up gracefully. Arthur pulled him up, and close, and they kissed again. Arthur didn't really like the taste of come, his or anyone else's, but he wasn't squicked by it either, so he had no problem showing his appreciation after a good blowjob.
When he reached down, he found Eames' pants already undone. His cock felt hard and heavy, familiar even after all the time that had passed since the last time he had had it in his hand. He kept Eames close as he jerked him off. Arthur could feel his breath as Eames panted against his mouth, not really kissing anymore, just there, lips brushing nearly accidentally from time to time.
Arthur could tell, but Eames gave him a warning anyway when he started to get close. He was always quiet when he came, all shuddering breath but no sound. He was quiet this time, too.
They stood like that for a while, just breathing next to each other, careful not to let the come caught in their hands get anywhere near their clothes.
They cleaned up with one of the musty rolls of tissue paper stored in the closet and Eames smiled knowing that the bathroom would be their first stop after this anyway.
“Hey,” Eames said when they were mostly ready to go, “fancy a drink after work tonight?”
“No.”
Eames paused at the unexpected force and swiftness of the reply. He hadn't even been looking at Arthur when he had asked, not giving the offer importance because it had none. But Arthur had just given it some, because you didn't snap with a curt, nearly aggressive 'no' to something like 'is it going to rain tomorrow?'
“I think we should talk...” Eames started.
Arthur reached calmly for the door.
“There's nothing to talk ab--”
Eames pushed the door closed again from behind him, because he hadn't known before, but now it was evident that there was something to talk about, goddammit, and he would be damned if...
His thoughts were cut by a sharp elbow in his stomach and a blow with the forearm that sent him one step back.
The sound of the door opening should have managed to mask Eames' words, but for some reason didn't.
“Don't come to me again,” he said with the low, flat tone that meant death.
There was the tiniest pause in Arthur's exit. His own words came through undisturbed, even if he hadn't looked back when he had uttered them, before closing the door behind him:
“I won't.”
Arthur, Eames thought, was a first-class bastard. Which was fitting, since he was generally a first-class everything. For example, he was also a first-class prick. And Eames was all for casual, no-strings-attached, I-don't-need-to-be-chatted-up-let's-just-get-to-it sex but if Arthur was going to be a bitch about it he could start propositioning the stick up his ass for all that Eames cared.
He didn't need closure, but he had received it anyway.
After a while, Eames surprised himself thinking of Arthur again without feeling the uncontrollable urge to punch him in the face.
He hadn't been doing anything special, just watching TV. Just a regular, stupid, American sitcom; nothing to do at all with the memory of Arthur on his knees, blowing him with efficiency, that had suddenly sprung to mind.
It had been a really silly day. Eames had those often, if he felt comfortable enough. In that particular occasion he had proceeded to grab Arthur's ears, one in each hand, and twist the wrists as if revving a bike. He had even made the rumbling sounds accordingly. The deadpan expression Arthur had cast at him had said 'I'm going to kill you' so loud and clear that Eames hadn't been able to avoid bursting out laughing, because, really, Arthur should have seen his face. And he laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and couldn't stop so Arthur had given up on him and said something that Eames couldn't remember exactly, but it had probably involved Eames' ancestors and what Arthur thought they had done with the farm animals in their free time. And the thing was that Eames hadn't come that day but he hadn't given a damn because, hell, it had been so worth it...
It was that actor, Eames thought, eyes on the TV screen again. His ears stuck out a little bit. That had been it.
Arthur couldn't bring himself to think that Michael had been a bad idea. He hadn't been, he was lovely. They still hadn't lasted a week, though. It was probably too soon after his tryst with Eames, too difficult not to compare them. Which was totally unfair to Michael who, lovely or not, wasn't Eames. And that should be more or less the point, that he wasn't Eames, because Arthur and Eames weren't compatible the way Arthur needed them to be, there was no future for them, just a chunk of present a bit longer than expected. So it was more than okay, it was fucking ideal that Michael wasn't Eames. Except that it wasn't.
Arthur would let some time pass, and then keep on trying.
For the first time in ages, Dom thought of their sleeping bodies topside. The sea down here sounded like the lullaby they weren't hearing up there. And, conversely, it was whispering him to wake up.
They had thought it was a good idea. It had been a good idea. But, like all of those, there was a point when it had been already carried out and it was time to move on to the next good idea.
They had explored the deepest recesses of their combined subconscious. It felt like really melting and becoming the proverbial one. He had always thought they were meant to be. Like two halves of a whole, like all the possible corny lines in the world, only them being the truth and not only corny lines anymore. And still, Dom kept on being him and Mal kept on being her. It was like eternal life, like being granted infinite time and the power to build a better, more perfect world, custom made for them because it was they who had made it. He had thought that one life with Mal wasn't enough, that he wanted more...
But now, what he really wanted was for it to be real and not a dream. Dom wanted to wake up.
But Mal didn't.
The first time Eames' team attempted inception, it had been a problem of approach. Or rather, misconception of the nature of ideas. Because extracting was all about evoking thoughts and then taking a look at them, but that didn't work reversely, you couldn't come up with a safe, tell the mark that his most important opinions were there and then put a manila folder with the wanted thoughts in it.
The human mind didn't work that way and, if Eames had really stopped to think about it, he would have discarded the idea as ludicrous in half a second.
But he had been hired to forge, not to think, as the extractor had not-that-politely reminded him the very first day of work, so he didn't fight his case. He wouldn't stop giving the idea some thought, because that's how Eames' head worked, but he didn't need to voice his conclusions.
He would be paid whether they succeeded or not, anyway.
The second time Eames took part in an incepting attempt, everything ran much more smoothly. Eames had been able to taste the success with the tip of his tongue. They had actually tried that thing Cobb pulled off sometimes, introducing a new level by putting the team under again while being still in the dream. But the incepted idea hadn't been simple enough, too difficult to translate emotionally into a concept the mark could feel connected to.
Eames was sure that the key to inception was conning the mark into thinking that he had been the one coming up with the idea in the first place. Like the most classic Fiddle Game. If you find out what moves a man, he's yours.
“It's been interesting to work with you, Eames” had said the extractor afterwards, when they were parting ways.
“My pleasure,” he answered, sincerely enough for once, as he shook her hand. “You sure you don't need a hand?”
He still thought it was bad manners to leave the clean up to the point man and the extractor, even if that's how they had planned it out from the start.
“We got it covered,” she said, self-confident without sounding arrogant.
It was nice when a job ended so calmly, without having to run for it, even in failure. Eames nodded his goodbyes and walked away.
“You seem to be distracted today,” Austin said.
Arthur didn't quite startle, but he did return to the present moment. It was a very nice moment, too, both of them in a loose embrace, standing against the wall of the room.
For one fleeting moment, Arthur debated if he should talk to Austin about Mal.
After much thinking, Arthur had come to the conclusion that he needed to try it with someone who was into dreamsharing, because couples were supposed to trust each other and it was straining and generally inconvenient to have to lie about how boring the business trip to Billings, MT had been or what those suspicious tracks on his inner forearm were.
And yet, it was not Austin's business if Mal was acting strange lately, in fact since she had woken up from her trip down with Dom. It was not Austin's business that they had gone so down, so deep, that they had reached a part of the subconscious where time virtually stopped. So, even if Arthur was worried, and Dom was... there had to be a stronger word to describe how much Dom fretted and tried to hide it... even if that was the case, Arthur rarely ever felt the need to confide in anyone. He wasn't going to make an exception now, and least of all with an extractor.
“Jet lag,” Arthur explained with a husky voice, pressing against Austin as the extractor's hands felt him up.
“You unarmed?” Austin mocked him. “Rumor has it that you never go around without at least a dozen weapons on your body.”
“I seldom carry topside. It ruins the line of a perfect suit.”
Austin didn't snort. He didn't even smile. Arthur refrained the impulse to sigh. The problem with people in dreamsharing was that they didn't expect Arthur to have a sense of humor, so they always took his comments at face value. Arthur didn't want to think what concept they had of him if everything he tried to say in joke ended up being the official truth in the eyes of the community.
There wasn't much point in dwelling on it, so Arthur leaned into Austin and kissed him.
Mal died.
A big portion of Dom died with her.
Arthur did his best to keep the rest of Dom alive.
Mal's death changed a lot of things. Them, for example. Dom was still the best, but where once his motivations had been varied and colorful and positive, now it was only desperation that fueled him. He wanted to come back to his children but knew he couldn't. He was trying to buy time, literally buy time, with money, and Arthur didn't have the heart to tell him it wasn't going to work, that clocks just didn't work that way. Dom thought he was going to come up with the solution one of these days. Arthur was there for the jobs, always, no matter how crazy they were, how risky to take certain clients, how immoral the use of the information they extracted for them. He wasn't there for their slow times, forcing the separation because he was afraid of what folly could get into Dom's head if he was left alone, but he was even more afraid of being infected by his devastating grief, all the more obvious because Dom tried to hide it and pretend he was fine.
Mal's death changed a lot of things. She had been a stunning woman. Arthur had known that she wasn't quite the same when she had woken up, but hadn't expected suicide. Mal had loved life. Mal had loved her children. Mal had loved Dom. It made no sense that she set him up, but it made even less sense that Dom could have pushed her out that window. Arthur had had to know, though, so he had asked, back when they had started running. It had been quite the row and Arthur had been tempted to punch Dom, not because he wanted, but because he thought that maybe Dom needed to punch back and Arthur didn't really mind the pain if there was a good reason to stand it.
Mal's death changed a lot of things. Arthur didn't regard dreamsharing the same, now. It had never been a game for him, but when you got used to firing a gun for kicks, you tended to forget it actually could kill people. Not that you didn't know, you just forgot. Arthur wouldn't forget again. He would keep his totem at hand and limbo away.
Mal's death changed a lot of things, but not Arthur's plan. If anything, it reaffirmed it. But it also postponed it, because now he had to focus on Dom, and on the jobs, and in just a couple of months he would have to focus on Mal's shade, too. Not that the three weren't the same thing.
Mombasa was close to the equator, but the climate was rather tropical instead of equatorial. Maybe it was its closeness to the sea. Maybe it was the winds. Eames didn't particularly care.
“You got something for a headache?” He asked to the Indian-looking guy at the bar as he took a seat beside him. It was the kind of old, dirty establishment that Eames actually missed when he was doing corporate work. People seemed more alive here, more ready to enjoy a drink, no matter how cheap. Even sad drunkards looked less lonely in a place like this. “It's been an awful flight, you see, and I've been told you run a very nice pharmacy here.”
The man looked at him with a pleasant smile on his lips. Eames had tried to pull off that kind of friendly smile many, many times, but it didn't work that well on his face.
“I've got aspirins if you want,” the man answered, not disturbed in the least to be asked in a bar and not at his workplace. “For anything stronger than that, I'll need to see a doctor's prescription, I'm afraid.”
“Sure.”
Eames produced a folded paper from his breast pocket and slid it on the bar's rough surface towards him as the man took a swing at his soda.
“If you'll excuse me,” the man said.
Eames gestured agreeably and ordered a beer as the other man made his call. He usually kept his gambles apart from his work, because money was easy to replace when you lost it, but other things were not. He was quite sure of his chances in this one, though. The handwriting had been perfect, he knew, and that was in fact the best cover letter for a man of his skills, especially since he already had a reputation and, without a doubt, the man's contact would tell him through the phone that he hadn't actually written the note but had heard of Eames anyway and he was to be trusted.
He took a sip from the bottle and waited, letting the man observe him without looking back at him. If his eyes wandered through the room it was more out of habit than paranoia, although he had always thought that a healthy dose of paranoia was a perfectly good thing.
When the man came back, he did it offering that friendly grin of his again.
“You seem to be a very interesting man, Mr. Eames. Care to take this conversation to my humble home?”
Eames' grin wasn't open enough to look as honest and friendly as Yusuf's, but it sufficed.
Mombasa was close to the equator, but the climate was rather tropical instead of equatorial. Maybe it was its closeness to the sea. Maybe it was the winds. Cobb didn't particularly care.
“Arthur,” Eames had said with a chuckle, “you're still working with that stick-in-the-mud?”
Cobb was aware that Arthur and Eames had some kind of history and weren't exactly eager to work with one another; they hadn't for the longest time, maybe more than two years. Arthur had never told him what had happened and Cobb had never asked, because that was not the kind of thing they talked about, not even when Mal had been alive and conversation was easy and full of laughter.
“He's good at what he does, right?”
Because it was the truth, and he needed them both. Cobb was sure that both men would leave differences aside and put the job first. Cobb was also sure that Eames wouldn't let the chance to perform inception pass, he had heard rumors. They were all junkies, the lot of them. They always wanted more.
“Oh, he's the best, but he has no imagination.”
“Not like you,” Cobb compromised.
“Listen, if you're gonna perform inception you need imagination.”
Eames spoke as if he knew what he was talking about. Maybe those rumors were right. Eames was difficult to read and he had been in Mombasa for a very long time with no indication that he wanted to leave any time soon, but Cobb's guts told him that he had him, that Eames would accept and fly back to Paris with him, that he was in the way to assembling the perfect team, that he would go back to his children.
“Let me ask you something,” he said, trying to tone down his enthusiasm, “Have you done it before?”
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