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Eames considered himself a suspicious man. Reasonable, but suspicious. He'd seen and replicated too much of human nature to trust anyone out of the box, so to speak.
"So what do you know about Saito?" he asked Arthur one evening, when the warehouse was quiet and Saito was off doing whatever it was that billionaires did.
Arthur looked up from contemplating his little black notebook. "What do you want to know?"
Eames pulled a chair over to the desk Arthur had claimed. He straddled the chair and started poking around in one of the neat piles of paper that Arthur had constructed like ramparts. "He's awfully insistent on coming along. Just seems odd, is all."
Arthur shrugged. "He wants to make sure we do the job and stop that, I won't be able to find anything."
Eames waved a hand and moved on to a stack of photographs. "Of course that's what he says, but this is a complicated job, little room for error, blah blah. He knows that, and he's not stupid. He knows that having to bring along someone not trained is asking for trouble, yet he's pushing the issue anyway. I'm missing something, and that makes me nervous. I don't like being nervous, darling. Lend me your wisdom."
"I usually charge for information, you know," Arthur said, smiling.
"My sexual favors are yours for the asking, as always."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "What you're missing is that he's not untrained."
Eames stopped poking. "He's not."
"He's not. His degrees are in business and civil engineering. He was hired straight out of college by a construction firm that for awhile couldn't decide if they wanted to use him on the business end or as an extractor. They trained him as an architect, but he eventually impressed the higher-ups so much that they put him on the corporate ladder instead."
"Well," Eames said, tilting back his head to look up at the ceiling. Something fluttered up in the rafters. "Well, well, well, that explains a few things. Still. Cobb keeps positioning him as backup. I like to know just what kind of skills are backing me up." He grinned. "Maybe we could have a little friendly spar."
Arthur just looked at him, his expression clearly lamenting that he couldn't take Eames anywhere. "Eames. Might I remind you that Mr. Saito is our employer and perhaps not the best man to pick a fight with?"
"I know! I'm not going to offend the man, merely...get to know him." He waved a magnanimous hand. "I'll let you know what I learn."
Arthur's lips twitched, and he opened his mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it. "Fine," he said. "You do that."
----
The next time Saito showed up to check in, Cobb suggested that Ariadne show Saito the finalized Level 1. As she was arse-deep in designing Level 2, elbows-deep in Level 3 (where Eames had a very personal interest in her not doing a rush job), and starting to show the whites around her eyes, Eames laid a hand on her shoulder. "I'll do it. I know you're busy, love."
Ariadne twisted around to look at him. "You're sure you've got it well enough to--"
Eames nodded. "I wandered the place last time you showed us about. I've got it. Very clever, by the way, how you constructed the streets like the outline of Arthur's favorite staircase."
She smiled. "Thanks." She looked over at Saito. "Is that all right with you?"
Saito spread his hands, smiling slightly. "If Mr. Eames wants to play tour guide, who am I to refuse?"
Eames grinned and bowed, arm sweeping out to the lawn chairs. "Right this way, sir."
----
Eames put them in an actual tour bus purely to be a smart ass. Saito just laughed and climbed up to the open top to get the best view.
It was a pleasant enough ride, with the sun indistinct but warm and a rather nice breeze. Finally, Saito nodded, pointing. "And this just links back up with the plaza."
"Got it in one."
Saito nodded, standing. "I see." The bus trundled to a stop, and the two of them got off near the edge of the great paved plaza along the river's edge. "The buildings are functional?" Saito asked as they crossed the plaza, nodding his chin at the ever-present rows of gray stone across the street.
"Oh yes. Virtually the same layout in them all, practically a run straight through, stairs up, all that. The upper levels all have fire escapes on the back sides that go back down to the street. Hopefully unnecessary, but perfectly useful in an emergency."
Saito nodded. "I see. Very impressive."
"That's Ariadne, all right. Impressive is her bread and butter." Eames leaned back against the railing separating the plaza from the park. There were a few projections about, but they kept their distance. Eames waited through the appropriate pause before changing the subject. "Might I ask you a question, Mr. Saito?"
Saito turned from examining one of the statues in the plaza. "Of course."
"Why exactly do you want so badly to come along?"
Oh, that was a sly smile, that was. "I already told you. I like to know that I will get what I pay for." The smile widened as Eames chuckled and shook his head. "You don't believe me?"
"I don't think that that's the whole story, no."
Saito leaned against the railing, looking out over the water that disappeared into an indistinct horizon. "You don't trust me, do you, Mr. Eames?"
"Do I strike you as a terribly trusting man?"
"No. You strike me as a very practical man."
"Then you are a keen judge of character, Mr. Saito."
Saito chuckled. "As are you, Mr. Eames."
"All part of the job description."
Saito smiled. "Yes, I know." He paused, and Eames let the silence grow to see what would come of it. "I am not a novice to extraction, Mr. Eames. When I had to make the choice, I chose business, but I have never forgotten the feeling of walking streets I designed myself, nor the thrill of success." He turned to look at Eames, his smile no longer sly, but something more akin to what Eames saw in the mirror every now and then. "Besides. I have asked you for the impossible. Can you blame me for wanting to witness it up close?"
Eames chuckled. "No. That I can't. Though I'd hate for things to get ugly down there and you to get popped back out and miss all the fun."
Saito's smile involved a lot of teeth. "Afraid that I won't be able to defend myself, Mr. Eames?"
Ah, just the opening he was hoping for. Now a bit of a needle.... "Oh, you said it, not me, Mr. Saito."
Saito looked at his watch, then at the perfect expanse of green grass in the park. "Perhaps you'd like a demonstration of how well I can defend myself?"
Eames grinned, shrugging out of his jacket as they headed over to the lawn. "Why not?"
It was only when Saito rolled up his sleeves and Eames saw the tattoos (beautiful full-sleeve work, and Eames had never seen anything that could compare to the colors of the traditional Japanese tattoos) that he began to wonder if he'd gotten himself in trouble.
Saito just smiled, took up a stance that was much more "street punk" than "karate master", and beckoned.
----
Ten minutes later, Eames woke gasping, bowed with the feel of Saito's fist in his belly, adrenaline still spiking through him from trying to scramble away from its fellows. Eames knew all the tricks in how to take a punch, but there was taking a punch and then there was being a punching bag, and he'd been leaning embarrassingly towards the latter for most of the fight.
Across from him, Saito looked insufferably smug.
Eames coughed, feeling like he had to relearn how to breathe. "Point taken. Excuse me."
He pulled out the IV, forced a deep breath, and headed for Arthur's desk. "Arthur, darling."
The ramparts were a bit higher this time. "...yes?"
"Did you know about all the lovely inkwork that Saito is hiding underneath those suits?"
Arthur's mouth twitched in a suppressed smile, the little bastard. "Not specifically, no."
"Arthur, love, pet, is Mr. Saito yakuza?"
Arthur looked up from his printouts as if Eames was being a little slow. "Of course. He's in construction in Japan. He's been one of the Sumiyoshi-kai's regional bosses for five years."
Eames rubbed his face. "And you didn't see fit to bloody warn me?"
Arthur held up a finger. "I did warn you not to pick a fight with him."
"Arthur, darling, you couldn't have been a bit more explicit about it? 'Eames, don't pick on the yakuza boss' or perhaps, 'Eames, Saito fights like a man half his age and is a fast bastard besides....' "
"I could have," Arthur said, flipping a page. "But I was kind of hoping you'd challenge him in reality and I'd get to watch him kick your ass around the warehouse floor."
"You are an evil, evil man. I am very proud."
Arthur just smiled.
Yusuf called from across the warehouse, "New formula! I need a guinea pig! Anyone not been under in 24 hours?"
Arthur sighed and called over, "I'll do it!" He stretched as he stood, and Eames said to Arthur's navel, "I will have my revenge, darling."
"I'll pencil it in," Arthur called as he walked away.
Eames smirked and followed. He knew what Yusuf had been working on lately. If Arthur was going to get dumped onto the floor repeatedly, Eames wanted to have a front row seat.