Das Vorbewusste
Pairings: Eames/Arthur
Original prompt: Arthur likes boys, and Arthur likes girls. But the one thing that gets him hotter than anything else is intelligence. Suffice it to say: he doesn't think Eames is his type at all. But then something happens that puts the two of them alone in a brand-new setting, and Eames just switches on on a whole new level that Arthur's never seen before. (There are a million better fills in this thread, go and read them all!)
Summary: Eames navigates the preconscious world straight into Arthur's pants.
Notes: The original posting dates were too much work to look up, haha. Backlog posting might be mostly alphabetical from now on!
All Arthur wants is someone who won't bore him.
Well, maybe that qualifier is misleading in its simplicity. Everyone Arthur has met in his life so far has managed to bore him. He doesn't mean it with rancor, or with disdain; they aren't boring people, and a good number of them have actually been frighteningly intelligent. He loves a vast majority of all these people who have bored him.
It's just that he loves them only from the heart, a sort of soft, platonic love. Anything that sizzles hotter inevitably dies away with the first pang of boredom like a symptom of an incurable disease. As soon as they start to bore him, Arthur can only love them like he loves his family, or like he loves stray animals.
Somewhere inside the wiring of his body, his brain must have become inextricably connected to his penis. He doesn't call it a problem, because problems drag you down and keep you from greatness. He doesn't feel guilty about it, because as far as he can tell, this is just the way his mother made him.
Instead, he acts on it.
+
It starts with Eleanor in the third grade. Arthur is not yet quite acquainted with the complicated world of erections, but even then he feels something spark in his spine, and all his limbs go weak whenever she performs long division in her tiny brown head.
Unfortunately, Eleanor considers human language to be an inferior substitute for the elegant perfection of numbers. With every English class and every answer she mumbles through, she slips away from him, until one day he is surprised to discover that he feels nothing for her at all.
That is the mold that sets the pattern for the rest of his life. He gets into extraction in the first place because dreamshare technology is the next hot thing, which means that to Arthur, it is almost literally the next hot thing.
He begins legitimate; he throws himself into Project Somnacin like an innocent bachelor signing up for an online dating site. I'll meet some great people! And he does. That captain is particularly promising, what is his name, Darren something-- he lasts two whole months before Arthur realizes that his intelligence only provides him with a good excuse for being stodgy. Overall it is a good year, but he runs out of candidates at around the same time that the military gets wise. He and it decide to stop seeing each other, and he becomes a criminal.
If anything, the people he works with on the illegal side of the tracks turn out to be even more fascinating. But there is always something that makes him turn away. There is Cobb (brilliant, but with no room in his heart), Nash (brilliant, but unscrupulous), Ariadne (brilliant, but too fanciful), Yusuf (brilliant, but too earnest), Saito (brilliant, but not in areas that make Arthur's knees give out)--
and then there is Eames (most certainly not brilliant at all).
+
Arthur considers himself unlucky in love, so he just takes it in stride when everyone except Eames disappears after the Fischer job. Cobb goes home, Ariadne goes to school, Saito goes to work, Yusuf goes to his shop, and Nash is probably already in Hell. Arthur is in love with none of them, but even what's left of Nash would make better company than Eames.
Of course it's Eames that stays. Eames, who is nothing he wants. Who has lucky moments but no real brilliance. Eames wears suits that aren't pressed, can't spell, isn't much good at math, and is always, always, always fidgeting. Always. So of course it's Eames who calls him two weeks after the plane lands in Los Angeles.
"You should come to Marrakech," says Eames.
"Why?" asks Arthur. "Is it a job?"
"No," says Eames. "I just wanted to see you."
"Then no," says Arthur.
"It's a job," says Eames.
"Is Yusuf going to be there?" asks Arthur, hopeful.
"He let me raid his supplies, but he's still catching up with his customers," says Eames. "Come to Marrakech. It's about an heiress and her good-for-nothing boyfriend. Her father wants to know if his daughter's just a way to get to his fortune. Some light work for your time off."
Arthur has never been to Morocco, and he's always wanted to visit the Djemaa el-Fna. The warmth of the breeze when he lands is more welcoming than the sight of Eames, waiting for him with a sign that reads LIMOSINE READY FOR HOITY-TOITY OVERDRESED AMERICAN. Especially since Eames then informs him that they are about to embark on a two-person job.
"I don't care how easy it is," says Arthur. "Two is never enough."
"Yusuf gave us the compounds," says Eames. "I'll forge and extract, and you can architect and point."
"Those aren't even the right verbs," yells Arthur.
"This mark is clueless," says Eames. "He doesn't even know that mindheist exists. Look, I've even done most of your preliminary research for you; this is Ricky Schafer. All Ricky Schafer cares about is how to gamble away his girlfriend's money."
"Seems," says Arthur. "Seems to care about. Never assume. If one always meant the other, the client wouldn't have hired us in the first place."
"I'm very glad you're here," says Eames, and just like that, Arthur has apparently taken the job.
+
Arthur balks until Eames agrees to fly in an architect all the way from Mombasa. Tamir is a failed hotelier that Yusuf has known for seven years, poor but not desperate, honest but no pushover. He's not outstanding but he's passable, and Arthur needs the manpower. At least it's one less thing to worry about.
Tamir builds a maze of a hotel to the mark's taste, and the attention to detail is fastidious enough that Arthur briefly considers kissing him. But he looks much too impressionable, and so Arthur doesn't.
It's not a difficult job. Arthur plans it as a modest affair. They snatch Ricky Schafer just before he meets his girlfriend for their Tuesday dinner date; she'll be on his mind, and that provides a good direction for the sort of secrets he'll think to hoard away. With his cell phone, they inform her via text message that he is behind schedule. Barbara im sorry im going 2 b 20 mins late xx.
Tamir dreams the first level, because you always want at least two people with experience working on the extraction itself. He distracts the projections while Arthur and Eames make their way to the basement, where they've placed a safe for Ricky Schafer's use. They're in and they're out in a quarter-hour, tops. Easy-peasy, says Arthur. Lemon squeezy, adds Eames.
Except it isn't.
+
"It's not opening," says Eames, punching in another string of numbers.
"What do you mean, it's not opening?" asks Arthur. "It can't not open, it's a dream safe!"
"When I say it's not opening," says Eames, "I mean that the safe isn't opening, Arthur."
"That's ridiculous," mutters Arthur. He brushes Eames aside, because obviously Eames is doing something wrong. Dream safes don't have particular combinations; the mark's subconscious takes the mere presence of the safe to be security enough, and any random code ought to be enough to spring it open. But Arthur tries number after number and the safe stays stubbornly locked.
"What happens now?" asks Tamir. "Do you blow it open?"
"No, that's direct assault," says Arthur. "Much too violent. It'll set off all the alarms. We don't have nearly enough people or enough time to fend off the sort of attack that'll trigger-- fuck, why is this happening, why is his dream safe--"
He cuts himself off, distracted by the dance of a poker chip across Eames' knuckles.
"Will you stop that," he snaps. "I'm trying to think, Eames."
"Hmm," says Eames.
"If you're going to be useless--" begins Arthur.
"I think," says Eames, "you two should wait here a moment."
Briskly, he strolls out of the hotel room. Arthur gapes and cranes his head past the doorway, turning back to stare at Tamir, then out the door again.
"What?" he manages to ask.
"Here are some things I've heard about Eames," says Tamir.
"I've worked with him before," says Arthur. "And let me tell you, all the slander is true."
"It's not really slander," says Tamir.
"Then it's a lie," says Arthur. "He's probably gone to get a drink or something. Why does this asshole's dream safe have a real combo? What does that even mean?"
"He's building from memory," says Eames, indistinct through the black balaclava.
He comes in with a PASIV suitcase in one hand, where an IV line trails to the wrist of a man now dragging along the floor. Arthur stares.
"Meet Ricky Schafer," says Eames.
"What are you doing?" demands Arthur. "Why is Ricky Schafer two levels down? Why are you wearing a ski mask?"
"Sorry I didn't explain," says Eames, pulling it off. "We've only got fifteen minutes here, so I thought it best to go on ahead. It seems like it'll work."
"Eames," says Arthur, "what will work?"
"Our friend Ricky here is burdened with a severe case of literal-mindedness," says Eames. "I've seen it once before, maybe, I think that time in Caracas a couple years back. Hell on the nerves. You're checking your totem every couple of seconds just to make sure it's a dream, and that's all wrong because it's the other way round, isn't it?"
"You're digressing," says Arthur.
"So I am," says Eames. "What Ricky is doing is projecting a real safe onto its dream counterpart. He's reversed the dynamics of influence-- taken a safe that exists somewhere in the real world and used it to flesh out the concept of the hiding place. It's a rare talent, being this dull. It's almost interesting."
"Stop contemplating theoretical details and just focus," yells Arthur. "We can't crack an actual safe, Eames! At least not in fifteen minutes-- we have about ten left, and that's a generous estimate--"
"We won't have to," says Eames, and tosses Tamir a set of headphones and a music player. "Give us a heads-up at one minute and fifty seconds into the second level, will you? The kick should be at two minutes sharp. That gives us around twenty-five minutes down below."
"Got it," says Tamir. "Will the projections be a problem?"
"Not this early, they won't," says Eames. "Don't worry."
He whisks out two extra lines from the PASIV case and stretches out on the floor, motioning for Arthur to follow.
"At some point," says Arthur, "you're going to have to explain yourself."
"We'll have plenty of time for that in the next layer," says Eames. "Dream up a casino, will you, love? Make it red -- use the color scheme from the hotel, I'll tell you why later -- and make it just a little seedy. The carpets too plush, the lights too low, you know the works."
"What about a maze?" asks Arthur, slipping the needle in under his skin.
"Won't need one," says Eames. "Twenty minutes, and we won't be bothering anything there. Under in three-- two--"
+
Arthur blinks asleep to the sound of laughter, and instinctively he joins in. He feels an arm around his waist and knows it belongs to Eames before he turns to look.
"Get off me," he whispers, out of the corner of his smile.
"Can't," Eames whispers back. His accent is American.
"You're wearing enough cologne to kill a horse," says Arthur.
"Don't think it doesn't pain me," says Eames. "I'm in character."
That's true-- Eames is, outwardly at least, subtly different. His hair is longer, his stubble is scruffier. His suit is more expensive, but in poorer taste. His jaw is heavier, his nose slightly bent, and there's something tired and sordid about him.
"Does this character make a habit of harassing his co-workers?" asks Arthur.
"Not here, you're not my co-worker," says Eames. "You're a pretty thing I noticed hanging about the bar. Having you here makes me look like a wastrel, and wastrels play to impress. Wastrels play to lose."
"How will losing at poker help us with the job?" asks Arthur.
"Makes us less of a threat. Sit on my knee," says Eames, then loudly, "Fold!"
"I-- what?" asks Arthur.
"Sit on my knee," repeats Eames. "Do you want this to work or not?"
Gingerly, Arthur lowers himself onto Eames' knee. The hand around him tightens. There are six people sitting round the table, the overhead light shrouded in cigar smoke. Ricky Schafer is across from them, in a beige suit too large for him, fiddling with his stack of chips. The round continues as Eames begins to explain.
"We got Ricky in the real world while he was in transit," he says, voice low. "His subconscious knew he was going somewhere, and in a hotel level, the only way to go anywhere is on an elevator. The two states of travel are linked in the mind. Sure enough, he was there-- I pulled on the balaclava, screamed at him to tell me what the combo for the safe is, and knocked him out. Now, the moment we activated the Somnacin and he plunged into this dream, all that was on his mind was the safe."
"He doesn't even know what safe you were talking about," says Arthur.
"Not consciously, no," says Eames. "But he modeled the dream safe after something particular, and there's a particular code for that safe. The number is floating around in his subconscious."
"And we're in it now," says Arthur. "Where do we find it?"
"Ah," says Eames, "there lie the intricacies of the subconscious. What we call the subconscious, Arthur, is really a catch-all term for anything the mind isn't aware of. Far be it from anyone enlightened to depend on Freud for accuracy, but his distinctions come in useful for our plight at the moment."
"Which are," asks Arthur. There are three people left holding cards. Ricky is one of them.
"Put very simply, the unconscious is for what is repressed," says Eames, "and the preconscious is for what is forgotten. It takes a lot of work to pry anything out of the unconscious, but the preconscious is a different matter-- that's just a matter of giving the mark the right jolt, making them want to remember it hard enough. Want to know it bad enough."
"And I suppose what we provide," says Arthur, "is a blank slate for the mark to project what he wants to know."
"Precisely," says Eames. "Being threatened by a man in a balaclava puts him in a state of alertness; he knows this is something important. The continuation of the color schemes between levels causes retention of mood, and so in this level, anytime he feels a desire to know anything, that feeling will be dramatically intensified. So dramatically intensified, in fact, that he'll reach straight into his preconscious and conflate the unknowns."
"Whatever he wants to know on this level," says Arthur, eyes widening, "will show up as the combination for the safe."
"Well done, Arthur," says Eames. "Such is the beauty of das Vorbewusste."
And maybe it's the heat of Eames' hand curling around him, and maybe it's the soft hiss of air into his ear-- maybe the sight of teeth dragging over those lips to form German consonants, maybe the German consonants themselves-- or the sheer fucking brilliance of the plan it took Eames approximately half a minute to formulate, but Arthur feels all his hair stand on end.
"Next pot opens," calls the dealer.
+
Arthur has never seen Eames in a casino. It shouldn't come as a surprise, since the first thing anyone learns about Eames is that this is his natural element, but the inimitable cool of a consummate gambler still throws Arthur off balance.
"And raising," says Eames, flicking a small pile of purple chips onto the table, almost like he's bored.
"Careful," calls Arthur, clear enough for the table to hear. "Leave something to entertain me with."
"Not that I'll do that with what's in my wallet," says Eames. He leers and the table chuckles.
"Raise," says Ricky, dipping into the burgundy. "Let's do this."
"By the way," Arthur murmurs into Eames' ear, "your cards are shit."
"Even you can tell," says Eames. "Not for long, though. Raise!"
The bets go once more around the circle before the players begin to fold. One after another, they slam their hands down onto the table, and Eames only runs a slow finger down the seams of Arthur's suit.
"What about you," Ricky asks Eames, "don't you have somewhere else to be?"
"I don't know, I'm getting good feelings from this hand," says Eames, and shrugs. "I'm sure my date can wait for me to clean you out."
"Is that what they call a bluff?" Arthur asks the man next to him in a loud stage whisper.
Ricky laughs and the burgundy chips roll into the middle of the table again. It's not long until everyone else sits back in their chairs, and it's Ricky and Eames facing off across the table.
"Raise," says Eames.
Ricky Schafer narrows his eyes.
"Raise," he says.
"Be still, my heart," says Eames. "Raise!"
"Raise," says Ricky, through his teeth.
As Arthur and Eames watch their hand, Ricky tries to bore a hole through the backing of their cards by the burn of his stare. He's no natural gambler like Eames is, but he has a competitive streak, and his brows furrow as he tries to work it out. As he tries to deduce what his chances are, how far they've come, and what the hell those cards are that this stranger at his table is holding--
What the hell those cards could possibly be--
And the face of the cards flicker.
"Oh," whispers Arthur, "my god."
"Remember it," whispers Eames.
The array of shit cards shifts into another array of shit cards, except this time, it's as good as gold. Two of clubs, seven of spades, four of spades, nine of diamonds. The king of hearts as the fifth placeholder.
Arthur's blood pressure spikes so fast that he has to clutch to Eames' knee for support.
"Why don't I try my luck here," says Eames. "I'll call."
Ricky's hand isn't anything glamorous, with a pair of sixes and a pair of eights. Eames throws his head back and curses as the dealer rakes away the chips, and Ricky raises a glass in a mockery of a toast.
"Tough," he says.
"That's probably a sign," says Eames, and rises roughly from the table, sending his chair skidding back. "Guess I wasn't made to gamble. You fellas keep at it, then. I'm off to occupy myself otherwise for the night-- that must be where I spent all my luck. Come on, sweetheart."
He gives Arthur's ass a pat as they turn and walk away, and Arthur is too breathless to protest. There's the old feeling, he thinks, the fire in my backbone. His heart is pounding so fast that it blurs the edges of his vision.
"Two, seven, four, nine," says Eames, hot in his ear.
Arthur's fingers tighten white around his arm.
+
He's numb as they stumble out of the building, hardly noticing the sunlight or the milling of the crowd. They enter directly into the Djemaa el-Fna and Arthur doesn't see anything around him.
"You dreamt up the square?" says Eames. "Wow, Arthur. You must have really wanted to see it."
Faintly Arthur notices that his real accent is back, and that the offending cologne is gone.
"Too bad we can't tour around after the job is done," says Eames. "Maybe we'll come back, in a month or two, when the heiress and Ricky wander off somewhere else and the case blows over. Right now, we have about-- five minutes to kill."
He stops to order something from a market stall, a cross between an egg roll and a samosa. And it really shouldn't turn him on this much that Eames is eating something Arthur doesn't even know the name for, but it does, fucking hell, it does.
"Wannabite?" Eames mumbles through a mouthful of food, and something sharp flares up in Arthur.
"Just stop it," he snaps, snatching the pastry away from Eames. "That act isn't going to work anymore, Eames. You just performed an entire job, on the fly, on your own, and didn't even rile up the projections. There's a point where I have to stop blaming dumb luck, and you've passed it. I think you owe me an explanation."
"What's there to say?" Eames swallows. "Didn't you know I was good at my job?"
"Well, maybe," says Arthur, "but that was--"
"That was what?" asks Eames.
"It was--" says Arthur.
"Intoxicating?" asks Eames, stepping closer, up in Arthur's personal space. "...Arousing?"
Arthur flushes and stuffs the pastry into his mouth instead of an answer.
"Oh, hey," he mumbles. "This is really good."
"Arthur," says Eames, "let me tell you an old Chinese story. It's about a monkey named Sun Wukong."
"Where is this going," says Arthur.
"After he wreaked havoc in the heavenly world, it was decided that Buddha himself must imprison Wukong," says Eames. "When the Buddha challenged Wukong to escape from the grasp of his palm, Wukong flew to the edge of the world, only to discover that the pillars he found there were the fingers on the Buddha's hand."
"Eames," says Arthur.
"You're the monkey," says Eames, pointing a finger in his face. "You're in the palm of my hand."
"Don't-- don't get cocky," says Arthur. He curls his hands into fists to concentrate. "Maybe I may have underestimated you, but you're nothing special."
"You know better than that," says Eames. "Do you want to listen to me talk about handwriting forgery? The trick, Arthur, is to treat the document as a holistic entity. You can't copy it line by line, curve by curve-- what you have to simulate is the mentality of the original creator, and to do that you need to withdraw into a solipsistic state, through the total abnegation of your own self--"
"Eames," wheezes Arthur, "oh god, stop, Eames."
"Or we could discuss your taste in opera," says Eames. "You probably go around telling people that you like Monteverdi, but really you have advance tickets to every major opera house for anything Puccini. You have the poster for La Fanciulla hanging on your bedroom wall."
"I don't!" shouts Arthur. "And there's nothing wrong with Puccini!"
"Of course not," says Eames, soothingly.
"Be professional, Mr. Eames," says Arthur, turning on a shaky heel. "the job isn't over yet."
"What happens when it is?" asks Eames.
Just then, through the bustle of the marketplace, Edith Piaf begins to play. For some reason, it starts near the end. Aujourd'hui, ça commence avec toi--
"How appropriate," says Eames, and he's smirking.
+
Two, seven, four, nine, and the safe pops open. Eames looks over his shoulder and crooks a knowing eyebrow, and Arthur remembers just in time to turn his smile into a grimace.
"So I gather everything went well," says Tamir.
"Oh, yes," says Eames.
"What did you do?" asks Tamir.
Arthur is about to answer, but then he realizes that really, he didn't do anything. Just sat on Eames' knee and spent his time being arm candy. Eames could have just as well used a projection for the purpose-- in a mind like Ricky Schafer's, there was bound to be a willing lush in reach.
"I got the code out of Ricky," says Eames. "Arthur was there to watch me."
And that's the absolute last straw. That's as much as Arthur can possibly endure. All that easy brilliance, so much careless raw intelligence, panoramic knowledge, and a skill set he could swoon over if he isn't careful-- and on top of all that, the grandstanding designed specifically to impress Arthur.
To hell with being careful, thinks Arthur, and decides to swoon.
"Tamir," he says, "I need to wrap up some loose ends with Eames-- could we have a moment in private?"
"No problem," says Tamir. "I've had fair warning from Yusuf, you know. He told me working with you two might be a little strange."
"Send him my regards," says Arthur, and Tamir closes the door behind him.
"Hey, look," says Eames, peering inside the safe. "What do you know."
There's a small velvet box with a ring inside, and a snapshot of Ricky and the heiress together. For Barbara on Tuesday, says a post-it note.
"He's not so bad after all," says Eames.
"Wonderful," says Arthur, and pushes Eames up against the wall.
"Are you intoxicated?" asks Eames. "Aroused?"
"How much of this was planned?" demands Arthur. "Is this job even real? Is Tamir even a real architect?"
"Heavens, yes," says Eames. "I didn't really mean for the job to get so complicated. I'm good, Arthur, but I'm also immensely lucky. It isn't always one or the other."
"That's not even fair," says Arthur.
"I'm not complaining," says Eames.
Arthur lunges forward in a kiss like a surge of current, hands knotting into Eames' shirt, and he thinks that maybe he tastes flakes of pastry on their tongues but that can't be right, can it. This is like every fling he's ever had, all rolled into one. A perfect, infuriating, fucking smart as all hell package.
"I can't believe you noticed," says Arthur, drawing back only far enough to speak.
"It was difficult not to," says Eames. "You go starry-eyed for anyone with anything worth saying."
"Why do you pretend, then?" asks Arthur. "What's the point?"
"I mean, my job," says Eames. "It's hard to disappear into someone when you're very noticeable as yourself. I try to tone down my excellence."
"But then why today?" asks Arthur. "Why am I allowed to know you like this?"
"Arthur," says Eames, "I thought it was time you started noticing me."
Oh, he notices, all right. That's all he can do. Eames' lips curve up, and Arthur nearly falls into them, knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that the Somnacin is wearing off. Ricky Schafer is facedown on the carpet, still dreaming his dreams of squalid poker tables.
"When the job is over," says Arthur, "you're taking me out for dinner."
"Gladly," says Eames.
"Also," says Arthur, "I want you to say 'preconscious' again."
"Preconscious," says Eames.
"No, asshole," says Arthur, "in German."
"Ah," says Eames.
He tilts his head off the wall, mouth against the shell of Arthur's ear.
"Das Vorbewusste," he says, and Arthur is in love.
Original prompt: Arthur likes boys, and Arthur likes girls. But the one thing that gets him hotter than anything else is intelligence. Suffice it to say: he doesn't think Eames is his type at all. But then something happens that puts the two of them alone in a brand-new setting, and Eames just switches on on a whole new level that Arthur's never seen before. (There are a million better fills in this thread, go and read them all!)
Summary: Eames navigates the preconscious world straight into Arthur's pants.
Notes: The original posting dates were too much work to look up, haha. Backlog posting might be mostly alphabetical from now on!
All Arthur wants is someone who won't bore him.
Well, maybe that qualifier is misleading in its simplicity. Everyone Arthur has met in his life so far has managed to bore him. He doesn't mean it with rancor, or with disdain; they aren't boring people, and a good number of them have actually been frighteningly intelligent. He loves a vast majority of all these people who have bored him.
It's just that he loves them only from the heart, a sort of soft, platonic love. Anything that sizzles hotter inevitably dies away with the first pang of boredom like a symptom of an incurable disease. As soon as they start to bore him, Arthur can only love them like he loves his family, or like he loves stray animals.
Somewhere inside the wiring of his body, his brain must have become inextricably connected to his penis. He doesn't call it a problem, because problems drag you down and keep you from greatness. He doesn't feel guilty about it, because as far as he can tell, this is just the way his mother made him.
Instead, he acts on it.
+
It starts with Eleanor in the third grade. Arthur is not yet quite acquainted with the complicated world of erections, but even then he feels something spark in his spine, and all his limbs go weak whenever she performs long division in her tiny brown head.
Unfortunately, Eleanor considers human language to be an inferior substitute for the elegant perfection of numbers. With every English class and every answer she mumbles through, she slips away from him, until one day he is surprised to discover that he feels nothing for her at all.
That is the mold that sets the pattern for the rest of his life. He gets into extraction in the first place because dreamshare technology is the next hot thing, which means that to Arthur, it is almost literally the next hot thing.
He begins legitimate; he throws himself into Project Somnacin like an innocent bachelor signing up for an online dating site. I'll meet some great people! And he does. That captain is particularly promising, what is his name, Darren something-- he lasts two whole months before Arthur realizes that his intelligence only provides him with a good excuse for being stodgy. Overall it is a good year, but he runs out of candidates at around the same time that the military gets wise. He and it decide to stop seeing each other, and he becomes a criminal.
If anything, the people he works with on the illegal side of the tracks turn out to be even more fascinating. But there is always something that makes him turn away. There is Cobb (brilliant, but with no room in his heart), Nash (brilliant, but unscrupulous), Ariadne (brilliant, but too fanciful), Yusuf (brilliant, but too earnest), Saito (brilliant, but not in areas that make Arthur's knees give out)--
and then there is Eames (most certainly not brilliant at all).
+
Arthur considers himself unlucky in love, so he just takes it in stride when everyone except Eames disappears after the Fischer job. Cobb goes home, Ariadne goes to school, Saito goes to work, Yusuf goes to his shop, and Nash is probably already in Hell. Arthur is in love with none of them, but even what's left of Nash would make better company than Eames.
Of course it's Eames that stays. Eames, who is nothing he wants. Who has lucky moments but no real brilliance. Eames wears suits that aren't pressed, can't spell, isn't much good at math, and is always, always, always fidgeting. Always. So of course it's Eames who calls him two weeks after the plane lands in Los Angeles.
"You should come to Marrakech," says Eames.
"Why?" asks Arthur. "Is it a job?"
"No," says Eames. "I just wanted to see you."
"Then no," says Arthur.
"It's a job," says Eames.
"Is Yusuf going to be there?" asks Arthur, hopeful.
"He let me raid his supplies, but he's still catching up with his customers," says Eames. "Come to Marrakech. It's about an heiress and her good-for-nothing boyfriend. Her father wants to know if his daughter's just a way to get to his fortune. Some light work for your time off."
Arthur has never been to Morocco, and he's always wanted to visit the Djemaa el-Fna. The warmth of the breeze when he lands is more welcoming than the sight of Eames, waiting for him with a sign that reads LIMOSINE READY FOR HOITY-TOITY OVERDRESED AMERICAN. Especially since Eames then informs him that they are about to embark on a two-person job.
"I don't care how easy it is," says Arthur. "Two is never enough."
"Yusuf gave us the compounds," says Eames. "I'll forge and extract, and you can architect and point."
"Those aren't even the right verbs," yells Arthur.
"This mark is clueless," says Eames. "He doesn't even know that mindheist exists. Look, I've even done most of your preliminary research for you; this is Ricky Schafer. All Ricky Schafer cares about is how to gamble away his girlfriend's money."
"Seems," says Arthur. "Seems to care about. Never assume. If one always meant the other, the client wouldn't have hired us in the first place."
"I'm very glad you're here," says Eames, and just like that, Arthur has apparently taken the job.
+
Arthur balks until Eames agrees to fly in an architect all the way from Mombasa. Tamir is a failed hotelier that Yusuf has known for seven years, poor but not desperate, honest but no pushover. He's not outstanding but he's passable, and Arthur needs the manpower. At least it's one less thing to worry about.
Tamir builds a maze of a hotel to the mark's taste, and the attention to detail is fastidious enough that Arthur briefly considers kissing him. But he looks much too impressionable, and so Arthur doesn't.
It's not a difficult job. Arthur plans it as a modest affair. They snatch Ricky Schafer just before he meets his girlfriend for their Tuesday dinner date; she'll be on his mind, and that provides a good direction for the sort of secrets he'll think to hoard away. With his cell phone, they inform her via text message that he is behind schedule. Barbara im sorry im going 2 b 20 mins late xx.
Tamir dreams the first level, because you always want at least two people with experience working on the extraction itself. He distracts the projections while Arthur and Eames make their way to the basement, where they've placed a safe for Ricky Schafer's use. They're in and they're out in a quarter-hour, tops. Easy-peasy, says Arthur. Lemon squeezy, adds Eames.
Except it isn't.
+
"It's not opening," says Eames, punching in another string of numbers.
"What do you mean, it's not opening?" asks Arthur. "It can't not open, it's a dream safe!"
"When I say it's not opening," says Eames, "I mean that the safe isn't opening, Arthur."
"That's ridiculous," mutters Arthur. He brushes Eames aside, because obviously Eames is doing something wrong. Dream safes don't have particular combinations; the mark's subconscious takes the mere presence of the safe to be security enough, and any random code ought to be enough to spring it open. But Arthur tries number after number and the safe stays stubbornly locked.
"What happens now?" asks Tamir. "Do you blow it open?"
"No, that's direct assault," says Arthur. "Much too violent. It'll set off all the alarms. We don't have nearly enough people or enough time to fend off the sort of attack that'll trigger-- fuck, why is this happening, why is his dream safe--"
He cuts himself off, distracted by the dance of a poker chip across Eames' knuckles.
"Will you stop that," he snaps. "I'm trying to think, Eames."
"Hmm," says Eames.
"If you're going to be useless--" begins Arthur.
"I think," says Eames, "you two should wait here a moment."
Briskly, he strolls out of the hotel room. Arthur gapes and cranes his head past the doorway, turning back to stare at Tamir, then out the door again.
"What?" he manages to ask.
"Here are some things I've heard about Eames," says Tamir.
"I've worked with him before," says Arthur. "And let me tell you, all the slander is true."
"It's not really slander," says Tamir.
"Then it's a lie," says Arthur. "He's probably gone to get a drink or something. Why does this asshole's dream safe have a real combo? What does that even mean?"
"He's building from memory," says Eames, indistinct through the black balaclava.
He comes in with a PASIV suitcase in one hand, where an IV line trails to the wrist of a man now dragging along the floor. Arthur stares.
"Meet Ricky Schafer," says Eames.
"What are you doing?" demands Arthur. "Why is Ricky Schafer two levels down? Why are you wearing a ski mask?"
"Sorry I didn't explain," says Eames, pulling it off. "We've only got fifteen minutes here, so I thought it best to go on ahead. It seems like it'll work."
"Eames," says Arthur, "what will work?"
"Our friend Ricky here is burdened with a severe case of literal-mindedness," says Eames. "I've seen it once before, maybe, I think that time in Caracas a couple years back. Hell on the nerves. You're checking your totem every couple of seconds just to make sure it's a dream, and that's all wrong because it's the other way round, isn't it?"
"You're digressing," says Arthur.
"So I am," says Eames. "What Ricky is doing is projecting a real safe onto its dream counterpart. He's reversed the dynamics of influence-- taken a safe that exists somewhere in the real world and used it to flesh out the concept of the hiding place. It's a rare talent, being this dull. It's almost interesting."
"Stop contemplating theoretical details and just focus," yells Arthur. "We can't crack an actual safe, Eames! At least not in fifteen minutes-- we have about ten left, and that's a generous estimate--"
"We won't have to," says Eames, and tosses Tamir a set of headphones and a music player. "Give us a heads-up at one minute and fifty seconds into the second level, will you? The kick should be at two minutes sharp. That gives us around twenty-five minutes down below."
"Got it," says Tamir. "Will the projections be a problem?"
"Not this early, they won't," says Eames. "Don't worry."
He whisks out two extra lines from the PASIV case and stretches out on the floor, motioning for Arthur to follow.
"At some point," says Arthur, "you're going to have to explain yourself."
"We'll have plenty of time for that in the next layer," says Eames. "Dream up a casino, will you, love? Make it red -- use the color scheme from the hotel, I'll tell you why later -- and make it just a little seedy. The carpets too plush, the lights too low, you know the works."
"What about a maze?" asks Arthur, slipping the needle in under his skin.
"Won't need one," says Eames. "Twenty minutes, and we won't be bothering anything there. Under in three-- two--"
+
Arthur blinks asleep to the sound of laughter, and instinctively he joins in. He feels an arm around his waist and knows it belongs to Eames before he turns to look.
"Get off me," he whispers, out of the corner of his smile.
"Can't," Eames whispers back. His accent is American.
"You're wearing enough cologne to kill a horse," says Arthur.
"Don't think it doesn't pain me," says Eames. "I'm in character."
That's true-- Eames is, outwardly at least, subtly different. His hair is longer, his stubble is scruffier. His suit is more expensive, but in poorer taste. His jaw is heavier, his nose slightly bent, and there's something tired and sordid about him.
"Does this character make a habit of harassing his co-workers?" asks Arthur.
"Not here, you're not my co-worker," says Eames. "You're a pretty thing I noticed hanging about the bar. Having you here makes me look like a wastrel, and wastrels play to impress. Wastrels play to lose."
"How will losing at poker help us with the job?" asks Arthur.
"Makes us less of a threat. Sit on my knee," says Eames, then loudly, "Fold!"
"I-- what?" asks Arthur.
"Sit on my knee," repeats Eames. "Do you want this to work or not?"
Gingerly, Arthur lowers himself onto Eames' knee. The hand around him tightens. There are six people sitting round the table, the overhead light shrouded in cigar smoke. Ricky Schafer is across from them, in a beige suit too large for him, fiddling with his stack of chips. The round continues as Eames begins to explain.
"We got Ricky in the real world while he was in transit," he says, voice low. "His subconscious knew he was going somewhere, and in a hotel level, the only way to go anywhere is on an elevator. The two states of travel are linked in the mind. Sure enough, he was there-- I pulled on the balaclava, screamed at him to tell me what the combo for the safe is, and knocked him out. Now, the moment we activated the Somnacin and he plunged into this dream, all that was on his mind was the safe."
"He doesn't even know what safe you were talking about," says Arthur.
"Not consciously, no," says Eames. "But he modeled the dream safe after something particular, and there's a particular code for that safe. The number is floating around in his subconscious."
"And we're in it now," says Arthur. "Where do we find it?"
"Ah," says Eames, "there lie the intricacies of the subconscious. What we call the subconscious, Arthur, is really a catch-all term for anything the mind isn't aware of. Far be it from anyone enlightened to depend on Freud for accuracy, but his distinctions come in useful for our plight at the moment."
"Which are," asks Arthur. There are three people left holding cards. Ricky is one of them.
"Put very simply, the unconscious is for what is repressed," says Eames, "and the preconscious is for what is forgotten. It takes a lot of work to pry anything out of the unconscious, but the preconscious is a different matter-- that's just a matter of giving the mark the right jolt, making them want to remember it hard enough. Want to know it bad enough."
"And I suppose what we provide," says Arthur, "is a blank slate for the mark to project what he wants to know."
"Precisely," says Eames. "Being threatened by a man in a balaclava puts him in a state of alertness; he knows this is something important. The continuation of the color schemes between levels causes retention of mood, and so in this level, anytime he feels a desire to know anything, that feeling will be dramatically intensified. So dramatically intensified, in fact, that he'll reach straight into his preconscious and conflate the unknowns."
"Whatever he wants to know on this level," says Arthur, eyes widening, "will show up as the combination for the safe."
"Well done, Arthur," says Eames. "Such is the beauty of das Vorbewusste."
And maybe it's the heat of Eames' hand curling around him, and maybe it's the soft hiss of air into his ear-- maybe the sight of teeth dragging over those lips to form German consonants, maybe the German consonants themselves-- or the sheer fucking brilliance of the plan it took Eames approximately half a minute to formulate, but Arthur feels all his hair stand on end.
"Next pot opens," calls the dealer.
+
Arthur has never seen Eames in a casino. It shouldn't come as a surprise, since the first thing anyone learns about Eames is that this is his natural element, but the inimitable cool of a consummate gambler still throws Arthur off balance.
"And raising," says Eames, flicking a small pile of purple chips onto the table, almost like he's bored.
"Careful," calls Arthur, clear enough for the table to hear. "Leave something to entertain me with."
"Not that I'll do that with what's in my wallet," says Eames. He leers and the table chuckles.
"Raise," says Ricky, dipping into the burgundy. "Let's do this."
"By the way," Arthur murmurs into Eames' ear, "your cards are shit."
"Even you can tell," says Eames. "Not for long, though. Raise!"
The bets go once more around the circle before the players begin to fold. One after another, they slam their hands down onto the table, and Eames only runs a slow finger down the seams of Arthur's suit.
"What about you," Ricky asks Eames, "don't you have somewhere else to be?"
"I don't know, I'm getting good feelings from this hand," says Eames, and shrugs. "I'm sure my date can wait for me to clean you out."
"Is that what they call a bluff?" Arthur asks the man next to him in a loud stage whisper.
Ricky laughs and the burgundy chips roll into the middle of the table again. It's not long until everyone else sits back in their chairs, and it's Ricky and Eames facing off across the table.
"Raise," says Eames.
Ricky Schafer narrows his eyes.
"Raise," he says.
"Be still, my heart," says Eames. "Raise!"
"Raise," says Ricky, through his teeth.
As Arthur and Eames watch their hand, Ricky tries to bore a hole through the backing of their cards by the burn of his stare. He's no natural gambler like Eames is, but he has a competitive streak, and his brows furrow as he tries to work it out. As he tries to deduce what his chances are, how far they've come, and what the hell those cards are that this stranger at his table is holding--
What the hell those cards could possibly be--
And the face of the cards flicker.
"Oh," whispers Arthur, "my god."
"Remember it," whispers Eames.
The array of shit cards shifts into another array of shit cards, except this time, it's as good as gold. Two of clubs, seven of spades, four of spades, nine of diamonds. The king of hearts as the fifth placeholder.
Arthur's blood pressure spikes so fast that he has to clutch to Eames' knee for support.
"Why don't I try my luck here," says Eames. "I'll call."
Ricky's hand isn't anything glamorous, with a pair of sixes and a pair of eights. Eames throws his head back and curses as the dealer rakes away the chips, and Ricky raises a glass in a mockery of a toast.
"Tough," he says.
"That's probably a sign," says Eames, and rises roughly from the table, sending his chair skidding back. "Guess I wasn't made to gamble. You fellas keep at it, then. I'm off to occupy myself otherwise for the night-- that must be where I spent all my luck. Come on, sweetheart."
He gives Arthur's ass a pat as they turn and walk away, and Arthur is too breathless to protest. There's the old feeling, he thinks, the fire in my backbone. His heart is pounding so fast that it blurs the edges of his vision.
"Two, seven, four, nine," says Eames, hot in his ear.
Arthur's fingers tighten white around his arm.
+
He's numb as they stumble out of the building, hardly noticing the sunlight or the milling of the crowd. They enter directly into the Djemaa el-Fna and Arthur doesn't see anything around him.
"You dreamt up the square?" says Eames. "Wow, Arthur. You must have really wanted to see it."
Faintly Arthur notices that his real accent is back, and that the offending cologne is gone.
"Too bad we can't tour around after the job is done," says Eames. "Maybe we'll come back, in a month or two, when the heiress and Ricky wander off somewhere else and the case blows over. Right now, we have about-- five minutes to kill."
He stops to order something from a market stall, a cross between an egg roll and a samosa. And it really shouldn't turn him on this much that Eames is eating something Arthur doesn't even know the name for, but it does, fucking hell, it does.
"Wannabite?" Eames mumbles through a mouthful of food, and something sharp flares up in Arthur.
"Just stop it," he snaps, snatching the pastry away from Eames. "That act isn't going to work anymore, Eames. You just performed an entire job, on the fly, on your own, and didn't even rile up the projections. There's a point where I have to stop blaming dumb luck, and you've passed it. I think you owe me an explanation."
"What's there to say?" Eames swallows. "Didn't you know I was good at my job?"
"Well, maybe," says Arthur, "but that was--"
"That was what?" asks Eames.
"It was--" says Arthur.
"Intoxicating?" asks Eames, stepping closer, up in Arthur's personal space. "...Arousing?"
Arthur flushes and stuffs the pastry into his mouth instead of an answer.
"Oh, hey," he mumbles. "This is really good."
"Arthur," says Eames, "let me tell you an old Chinese story. It's about a monkey named Sun Wukong."
"Where is this going," says Arthur.
"After he wreaked havoc in the heavenly world, it was decided that Buddha himself must imprison Wukong," says Eames. "When the Buddha challenged Wukong to escape from the grasp of his palm, Wukong flew to the edge of the world, only to discover that the pillars he found there were the fingers on the Buddha's hand."
"Eames," says Arthur.
"You're the monkey," says Eames, pointing a finger in his face. "You're in the palm of my hand."
"Don't-- don't get cocky," says Arthur. He curls his hands into fists to concentrate. "Maybe I may have underestimated you, but you're nothing special."
"You know better than that," says Eames. "Do you want to listen to me talk about handwriting forgery? The trick, Arthur, is to treat the document as a holistic entity. You can't copy it line by line, curve by curve-- what you have to simulate is the mentality of the original creator, and to do that you need to withdraw into a solipsistic state, through the total abnegation of your own self--"
"Eames," wheezes Arthur, "oh god, stop, Eames."
"Or we could discuss your taste in opera," says Eames. "You probably go around telling people that you like Monteverdi, but really you have advance tickets to every major opera house for anything Puccini. You have the poster for La Fanciulla hanging on your bedroom wall."
"I don't!" shouts Arthur. "And there's nothing wrong with Puccini!"
"Of course not," says Eames, soothingly.
"Be professional, Mr. Eames," says Arthur, turning on a shaky heel. "the job isn't over yet."
"What happens when it is?" asks Eames.
Just then, through the bustle of the marketplace, Edith Piaf begins to play. For some reason, it starts near the end. Aujourd'hui, ça commence avec toi--
"How appropriate," says Eames, and he's smirking.
+
Two, seven, four, nine, and the safe pops open. Eames looks over his shoulder and crooks a knowing eyebrow, and Arthur remembers just in time to turn his smile into a grimace.
"So I gather everything went well," says Tamir.
"Oh, yes," says Eames.
"What did you do?" asks Tamir.
Arthur is about to answer, but then he realizes that really, he didn't do anything. Just sat on Eames' knee and spent his time being arm candy. Eames could have just as well used a projection for the purpose-- in a mind like Ricky Schafer's, there was bound to be a willing lush in reach.
"I got the code out of Ricky," says Eames. "Arthur was there to watch me."
And that's the absolute last straw. That's as much as Arthur can possibly endure. All that easy brilliance, so much careless raw intelligence, panoramic knowledge, and a skill set he could swoon over if he isn't careful-- and on top of all that, the grandstanding designed specifically to impress Arthur.
To hell with being careful, thinks Arthur, and decides to swoon.
"Tamir," he says, "I need to wrap up some loose ends with Eames-- could we have a moment in private?"
"No problem," says Tamir. "I've had fair warning from Yusuf, you know. He told me working with you two might be a little strange."
"Send him my regards," says Arthur, and Tamir closes the door behind him.
"Hey, look," says Eames, peering inside the safe. "What do you know."
There's a small velvet box with a ring inside, and a snapshot of Ricky and the heiress together. For Barbara on Tuesday, says a post-it note.
"He's not so bad after all," says Eames.
"Wonderful," says Arthur, and pushes Eames up against the wall.
"Are you intoxicated?" asks Eames. "Aroused?"
"How much of this was planned?" demands Arthur. "Is this job even real? Is Tamir even a real architect?"
"Heavens, yes," says Eames. "I didn't really mean for the job to get so complicated. I'm good, Arthur, but I'm also immensely lucky. It isn't always one or the other."
"That's not even fair," says Arthur.
"I'm not complaining," says Eames.
Arthur lunges forward in a kiss like a surge of current, hands knotting into Eames' shirt, and he thinks that maybe he tastes flakes of pastry on their tongues but that can't be right, can it. This is like every fling he's ever had, all rolled into one. A perfect, infuriating, fucking smart as all hell package.
"I can't believe you noticed," says Arthur, drawing back only far enough to speak.
"It was difficult not to," says Eames. "You go starry-eyed for anyone with anything worth saying."
"Why do you pretend, then?" asks Arthur. "What's the point?"
"I mean, my job," says Eames. "It's hard to disappear into someone when you're very noticeable as yourself. I try to tone down my excellence."
"But then why today?" asks Arthur. "Why am I allowed to know you like this?"
"Arthur," says Eames, "I thought it was time you started noticing me."
Oh, he notices, all right. That's all he can do. Eames' lips curve up, and Arthur nearly falls into them, knowing somewhere in the back of his mind that the Somnacin is wearing off. Ricky Schafer is facedown on the carpet, still dreaming his dreams of squalid poker tables.
"When the job is over," says Arthur, "you're taking me out for dinner."
"Gladly," says Eames.
"Also," says Arthur, "I want you to say 'preconscious' again."
"Preconscious," says Eames.
"No, asshole," says Arthur, "in German."
"Ah," says Eames.
He tilts his head off the wall, mouth against the shell of Arthur's ear.
"Das Vorbewusste," he says, and Arthur is in love.