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The job on which Eames first met Arthur was supposed to be easy. It was sold to him as painfully routine: in, out, theft accomplished. Their mark was a notorious drug dealer who worked the London docklands. All they had to do was to extract the location of his stash. Easy.
Their employers, two large skin-headed gentlemen, were to meet them at a pub in East London two hours before the extraction was to take place, where they would finalise the arrangements for the information drop-off after the job was complete.
There were three of them, originally - Eames, an architect, and a passable extractor – but on the night their employers turned up with a fourth team member, as promised, who was to remain in the warehouse and watch over the team while they were all under.
Arthur was an American student who was on a placement year at UCL, looking to make a quick buck. He was clearly out of place amongst hardened criminals in his Converse and jeans, with a grubby Glastonbury entrance band sealed around his wrist and his hair carefully mussed. The kid spoke quietly and kept up a good poker face, but there was something about the straight set of his shoulders which made it easy for Eames to tell; Arthur was not somebody to be underestimated.
When they reached the docklands, their mark was not as alone as they had expected him to be, but was instead standing with several other loitering figures, their heads bent close in conversation.
Inside the van, there was a scuffling of blame, disagreement over whose fault it was that they were not prepared for this situation and then further disagreement over whose responsibility it was to get them out of it.
“Somebody’s going to have to get out there and lure him away from the rest of them. It’s not rocket science,” Eames snapped, one arm thrown around the driver’s seat, leaning back to talk to the rest of them.
“I’ll do it,” Arthur said, a little too quickly, earning himself a round of sceptical snorts from the rest of the team.
“How? Say you’re buying?” Eames asked, watching with narrowed eyes as Arthur licked his lips in a gesture not of nervousness, but of concentration. “And when you don’t have the money to show him? Then what?”
“Not buying. This guy, if you look into his background, it’s pretty clear that he’s,” Arthur began, and Eames was about to interrupt to ask what the hell a kid like Arthur would know about ‘looking into’ the lives of docklands drug dealers when Coulson, the architect, beat him to it.
“This ain’t a video game, mate,” Coulson said, staring at Arthur in disdain. “Those are real men out there with real guns. They’ll shoot a guy soon as look at him.”
“Right,” Arthur countered. “That’s why I should go. I’m the youngest. I’d look more innocent. Less threatening.”
Coulson made a dismissive noise at the back of his throat and exchanged an exasperated glance with their extractor. Apparently, though, Arthur had a good sense of group power dynamics because he seemed unconcerned with Coulson’s lack of faith. It was Eames whom he turned to instead, his eyes so earnest.
“He’ll come with me,” Arthur said. “I bet you.”
Eames had allowed Arthur to go partly because Eames was never one to shy away from a bet. But he had mostly agreed out of curiosity and an itching desire to see his own instincts proved right. Arthur had a kind of magnetic confidence about him which amounted to more than just the average American swagger and Eames wanted to see what might come of it.
“If that kid winds up at the bottom of the Thames, you’ll only have yourself to blame,” Coulson warned as he sloshed chloroform over a rag in preparation. Eames shushed him, tilting the van’s wing mirror so that he could watch Arthur disappear around the corner.
“He’ll be fine,” Eames muttered, more to himself than to Coulson.
Sure enough, less than five minutes later Arthur was back. The swing was still in his hips and the mark was trotting after him like a dog at his heels.
From the eagerness with which their man climbed into the van behind Arthur, Eames suspected that it had been exactly the opposite of this kid’s ability to appear ‘innocent’ which had lured their mark. Eames tried to give Arthur a look which said ‘I’m on to you’, but could not catch his eye to do so. Arthur was already busy clinging like a limpet to one of the mark’s arms, helping to hold him down while Coulson pressed the chloroform over his mouth and nose.
In the end, the pick-up went so smoothly that they made it to the warehouse ahead of schedule. Eames and Coulson carried the mark’s limp body inside and propped him against a pile of empty packing crates in the corner of the warehouse, while their extractor, a wiry Scot with a heavy brow, set about preparing the PASIV.
The last thing that Eames felt before he slipped under was Arthur pressing two fingertips against his wrist, checking the pulse as he’d been instructed to.
The job was as easy as it promised to be. It was only when they went to drop off the information that things turned sour.
“What do you mean you don’t have our fucking money?” Coulson growled. His cheeks were flushed red with anger. His hands were clenched into fists. The skin-heads exchanged looks and Eames knew that a gun was about to be pulled long before the first shot was fired.
Arthur was standing closest to him, so it was Arthur’s shoulder that Eames grabbed. It was Arthur’s body which Eames tugged safely to the floor, instead of Coulson’s. Perhaps this was why Coulson took the first hit; perhaps Coulson just wasn’t fast enough.
The next few minutes were chaos. Gunfire echoed through the warehouse, ringing against the metal rafters and shattering the window panes. Eames punched one man in the stomach and kicked out the legs of another, but there were more of them outside, more of them shouting and piling in.
When someone threw a grenade, Eames realised in just enough time to hurl himself through the nearest broken window, ducking his head into his elbows and barely rolling clear of the rocketing debris.
He was the only one to stand up again afterwards. The only one besides Arthur.
They ran together from the scene, slipped through the closing doors of a departing tube train and sat side by side, gasping for breath.
It was only then, in the flickering underground light, that Eames even paused to consider the incongruity of Arthur having escaped the explosion when other vastly more experienced members of his team had most likely been blown to smithereens.
* * * * * *
Eames took Arthur back to his flat in South Kensington because Arthur was blood-spattered and shivering and because Eames did not know what else to do with him. He gave Arthur a towel and a change of clothes, and soon Arthur was showered but still shivering, with Eames’s shirt hanging off his skinny shoulders.
When Eames offered him the guest bed, Arthur fell into it gratefully and slept like the dead.
The next morning, Eames was reading The Times at his kitchen table, a cup of tea at his elbow, when Arthur came and sat down in front of him, folding wiry arms on the tabletop, leaning forwards.
“How do I get into this line of work?” Arthur asked right off, without so much as a ‘good morning’.
Eames studied him for a moment, scratching thoughtfully at the morning stubble on his cheek. Arthur had perfect skin and sweet features. He looked too young to have even really lived and yet his eyes were as sharp and as cold as any that Eames had ever seen.
Eames cleared his throat and shuffled the pages of his paper so that he could see to read the next paragraph.
“I’ll get you in,” he said, reaching for his tea.
* * * * * *
Arthur asked questions, a lot of questions, but he was a fast learner from the very start.
The first time that Eames took Arthur under he used one of his staple dreamscapes. It was a residential British street with terraced houses and red-brick walls which blocked them in at either end. Eames stood in the centre of the road, hands tucked into his pockets, and watched as Arthur trailed up and down the pavements with one arm outstretched so that he could drag his palm across the textures, the gritty warmth of sunlit brick, the tiny, waxy clusters of privet leaves, and marvel at their authenticity.
“There should be no way to tell,” Eames told him, his gaze following the path of Arthur’s hand. “Everything must be faultless. One detail wrong can mean a whole job going up in smoke.”
Arthur turned to face him, his Converse grating against the asphalt as he moved.
“And if that happens?”
Eames smiled crookedly and tilted his face up to catch the cool British sunlight.
“If that happens,” he said, “then not getting paid will be the least of your worries.”
Arthur did little in the dream besides asking more questions, pointing and inquisitive. He spent his energy looking at everything closely and analysing each feature of the street with a sharp frown tugging at his eyebrows. Although, by the time their five minutes were up, Arthur’s unarmed projections had already managed to smash spectacularly through the wall at one end of the road, creating clouds of brick dust and sand which brought tears to Eames’s eyes.
* * * * * *
Arthur already knew how to shoot. He had grown up with parents who were both members of the NRA ande had been in the JROTC all through high school.
Eames mostly let Arthur have his way with projections. It was good practice for him, to help him get used to the shock of shooting things which looked like actual human beings. Arthur’s aim was good, but he had a tendency to second-guess the shot as he pulled the trigger, his eyes going wide in a split-second of undisguised horror at the reality of hitting flesh. It made him less accurate than he could be. Eames tried to be patient, only taking a projection down himself at the last possible moment and then only when it was absolutely necessary.
The first time Eames did this, they were crouched beneath a crumbling fire escape with a particularly vicious mob of projections advancing on them fast. Eames had been struck in the back of the head by a stray lump of concrete, when his projections had deemed the use of explosives to be a necessary step in eradicating the dreamer from their midst. Now, with Eames bleeding profusely from a wound which was clearly imminently fatal, and the eyes of all the projections fixed on Arthur, the situation was a little too out of control for comfort. One particularly burly projection was getting far too close and Arthur was not quick enough.
“I could have made that shot,” Arthur snapped peevishly, when they awoke. He ripped the line from his arm and scowled at Eames from the other side of the sofa.
Eames sighed, flexing the life back into his fingers before removing his own line much more gently.
“I know you could. But I just wanted to make sure. I didn’t want to leave you there alone with them,” he said.
“Why?” Arthur’s favourite question.
“Because you don’t know yet what it feels like when they catch you,” Eames told him, before proceeding to explain to Arthur, as best he could, exactly how it felt to have one’s body torn apart, limb from limb.
By the time Eames had finished, the light pooling through the windows had taken on an amber tinge and Arthur was staring at him with parted lips, looking so desperately young.
“Wow,” Arthur muttered, sucking in a long breath and scraping his fingers through the styled spikes of his hair. “That kind of makes me want to drink. A lot.”
Eames smiled.
“Ah. Now, drinks? Drinks I can do.” He stood up and offered one hand to Arthur, tugging him up to his feet.
They sat together in a quiet pub on Gloucester Road, at a table tucked into the corner, drinking whiskey.
“It’s my twenty-first birthday next week,” Arthur said, looser and more conversational than Eames had yet seen him. He tilted his glass, watching the golden liquid rush to its lip, and held it there, balanced just short of spilling. “I’ll be able to drink this legally.”
“You can drink it legally now. You’re not in Kansas anymore, sunshine,” Eames told him.
Arthur looked at him wryly, a little flushed.
“Right,” he said, almost self-deprecating. Then he smiled and a dimple which Eames had never seen before appeared in his cheek. “And I’ve been able to drink illegally now for so long that I’m probably not even going to notice the difference.”
“It bodes well for your success in this business that legality is not high on your list of priorities,” Eames grinned.
They sat for a moment, companionable, sharing smiles, before Arthur looked away, setting his glass down on a promotional cardboard coaster shaped like a pint of Guinness. He shuddered, a quick ripple of movement all across his shoulders.
“Somebody walk over your grave?” Eames asked, sipping at his drink.
The old festival entrance band had recently been cut from Arthur’s wrist. Now there was a strip of slightly paler skin where it had been. Arthur rubbed his fingertips against the mark, absently, as if trying to scrub off a stain.
“I guess so,” he said. “Something like that.”
* * * * * *
Arthur’s projections were quick to acquire weapons and once they had them, they wielded them with brutal grace. The day that a group of them finally managed to get their hands on Eames, Eames did not even pause to think before tucking the muzzle of his gun up under his chin and shooting once, straight up.
Arthur had never seen anyone do this before. The last thing that Eames heard before he woke was the sound of Arthur, desperate and held back by a flood of jostling projections, shouting at him to stop.
“It’s the fastest way out when things go wrong,” Eames explained afterwards, when Arthur was sat beside him on the sofa. Their thighs were almost touching. Arthur’s lips were pale. He kept swallowing as though he might vomit.
“You don’t feel anything,” Eames said, quietly. “Dying just wakes you up.”
Arthur swallowed once more before turning to face Eames, grim and determined.
“Show me,” he said.
Eames didn’t want to. The power to be able to wake again after taking one’s own life was a dangerous thing to give. Once acquired, that knowledge could fester in one’s brain, doing odd things to the way one thought. Eames wasn’t sure he wanted Arthur to know what it felt like to die. Not yet.
They went under into a hotel room, sealed on all sides so that projections would not find them in a hurry. This was not what Eames usually used this room for, but it was one of the most intimate settings in his admittedly limited repertoire. The lights here were always lowered to set the mood. Eames kept them that way this time, to make things as calm as possible.
“It’s really not a big deal,” Eames said, although he still remembered the first time he had to do this. He had been alone, with no instruction, desperately copying another team member who had already punched out of a dream ahead of him. It had felt like a terribly big deal at the time.
Arthur was stony in his silence as Eames took one of Arthur’s hands and pressed two of his fingers against his temple, massaging them gently into skin and bone.
“You want the gun to sit right against the skull. It will help keep it steady,” he said.
Once he had passed a semiautomatic pistol into Arthur’s hand and helped him to angle the muzzle just right, Eames stepped behind him, clear out of range. He rested a palm atop Arthur’s shoulder, the weight of it soothing. He could feel Arthur’s muscles rising and falling beneath his touch, steady with each breath.
“The most important thing is to relax so that you don’t panic. The last thing you want to do is fluff up your aim. Head injuries are nasty,” Eames said, speaking slowly, nice and calm, trying not to think about Arthur’s tendency to flinch at the crucial moment.
“You want a good clean shot. So just take your time, steady yourself and-”
Eames never got any further. He was too busy lunging to support Arthur’s suddenly collapsing body as the sound of the gunshot rang in his ears.
It had been so fast. Eames had not even seen Arthur’s finger move to the trigger.
His arms locked around Arthur’s torso, the body’s slim ribcage still whole and impeccable, even as its shattered skull drooped wetly against Eames’s shoulder.
A ripple of disgust pulled at Eames’s gut. He dragged the body towards the bed, the scene of many of his most pleasant dreams, and heaved it onto the mattress.
He wiped the back of his hand across the sweat on his forehead, leaving a rusty smear of blood behind.
“I’ll be fucked,” he muttered to himself, not wanting to stare too long at the body, but somehow unable to tear his gaze away.
Eames had seen many a colleague this way. He was used to the sight of friends lying crumpled on the ground, glassy-eyed, with cavities blown in their heads. Eames had always been sure in the knowledge that they would be waiting for him when he woke up.
There was something inexplicably awful about seeing Arthur in the same condition, Arthur who was so young and ferocious, with his eyelashes completely still and his blood seeping out.
It had all happened far too easily. Arthur’s blood was so bright. Eames hadn’t prepared himself for it.
His mouth was dry as he fumbled in his pocket for his totem, just to make sure, before he picked up the gun from the floor. It was slippery with blood. Eames aimed quickly into his skull, pulling the trigger before he could meet Arthur’s lifeless stare again.
They hadn’t used a kick, but Eames still awoke with a jolt, his eyes a little wild in their search for the man who sat quietly in the armchair beside Eames’s empty fireplace.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Arthur said, only slightly breathless.
Eames begged to differ.
“If you have any doubt,” Eames told Arthur later, over cartons of Chinese takeaway, “any doubt at all, about whether or not you’re dreaming, you don’t ever pull that trigger. Do you understand?”
“How would I tell?” Arthur asked. His food was already abandoned. He sat with his fingers laced together, hands hanging between his knees and the heel of one foot tapping incessantly. He was buzzing with energy, barely keeping his excitement reined in. Eames was disturbed by the dilation of Arthur’s pupils and the slight tugging at the corners of his mouth. It was the expression of a child fresh off their first ride on a roller coaster.
“What?” Eames said.
“How would I know if I was dreaming? Who’s to know what’s a dream and what isn’t?” Arthur stared pointedly around the room. “Who says we aren’t dreaming right now?”
Eames swallowed his mouthful of chow mein and set the carton of noodles down on the coffee table.
“Little tip for you,” Eames said. He moved to sit beside Arthur, pulling a poker chip from his pocket, rubbing a thumb over the familiar scratches in its surface. "An acquaintance of mine passed this idea on to me. You get yourself a small object, something you can keep in your pocket. Then you learn it like the back of your hand. In a dream, it won’t ever be quite the same as it is in reality.”
Eames held up the chip for Arthur to see but moved it out of reach when Arthur tried to take it.
“Never let anyone else touch it,” Eames explained. “Nobody else should get to know its intricacies.”
Arthur blinked at him. “‘Casino’ is spelt wrong,” he said, his finger hovering a respectable distance away from the double ‘s’ printed in the middle of the word. Cassino.
“Exactly,” Eames said and he could practically see the gears working inside Arthur’s head.
Arthur said slowly, “So, in a dream it would be spelt the right way. That’s how you tell.”
“Bingo.”
Eames grinned. He flicked the chip into the air and caught it in one fist, holding his fingers closed safely around it, hiding it from view like a coin which had just been tossed.
* * * * * *
Arthur built beautifully. The lines of his buildings were clean and sharp and he placed elegant little flourishes of design at every turn. He had the potential to be far better than Eames at constructing dreamscapes but Eames could only teach him as far as the level of his own skill would allow. To make up for his own shortcomings as an educator, Eames bought Arthur books on architecture and engineering and plied him with travel magazines full of exotic locations. Arthur pored over these, settled quietly at Eames’s kitchen table and with the same rapt attention he applied to everything else. It was clear that Arthur had never been anything less than a good student.
In fact, Arthur seemed to be good at most things. And when he encountered something which he was not actually good at, Arthur was adept at learning just enough to fake being good at it; a most indispensable skill in Eames’s books.
Arthur was smart and quick and flexible and it was clear from the very beginning that he was a man to depend on.
It was for this reason that Eames decided to take Arthur along with him on his next job, rather than out of any real desire to further Arthur’s professional development. The job was a shady corporate affair and Eames needed to know that he was working with at least one person he could trust.
“It’s nothing exciting. But there should be a five-figure cut which we can split between us,” Eames explained casually, blowing on the surface of his tea to cool it.
Arthur drank his tea and coffee scalding hot. His mug was already half empty as he stared at Eames over the top of it, his eyes huge.
“Five figures?” he repeated, incredulous. Eames smiled at him.
“Nobody would be involved in crime if it wasn’t lucrative,” Eames said. He handed Arthur a copy of the brief which had been emailed to him and took a careful sip of his tea.
Another thing which Arthur was good at was encouraging people to underestimate him, as most were instantly inclined to. Underestimation always left one with the power of surprise. With his slim build and youthful face, Eames had thought it to be a happy coincidence that people seemed predetermined to think too little of Arthur. It seemed the simple payoff of genetics. Yet, when they arrived at the scruffy flat on Brick Lane and Eames watched Arthur shake hands with their employers, lowering his eyes in deference and sucking nervously at his bottom lip as they spoke to him, clearly invoking habits which were not his by nature, Eames realised that it was not coincidence. Quite to the contrary, Arthur played up to his looks and worked them hard to his advantage. Had somebody pulled a gun on these men now, they would have been caught so off-guard by this strange, harmless-looking kid that they would have all been dead before they’d even had a chance to look shocked. Eames was almost tempted to pull his own gun, just to test the theory.
Arthur caught Eames’s eye as he stepped back from his third handshake and smiled, just a little, the brief acknowledgement of a shared secret, and Eames’s respect for him was raised another notch.
The flat was theirs for the duration of the job. The walls were papered in a garish seventies print and the sitting room smelled damp. Their employers left them after carefully outlining their expectations and not so subtly hinting at what would be the consequences if these expectations were not met.
They were a team of four, Arthur included. There was an architect named Nash whom Eames had worked with once before and Wells, a large black man from Hackney, who was an old, fair-weather contact of Eames’s and who had called him about the job in the first place. They all piled in around the table in the kitchen to discuss how to approach things, spreading out the folders of information which Wells had collected as best they could across the small space.
The mark was the managing director of a jewellery firm who was spectacularly undercutting all of his competitors. Their employers wanted to know who was supplying him with gold so cheaply in the midst of a recession when the price of gold was sky high.
“We use the wife,” said Wells, looking at Eames. “Forge her. Reach him that way.”
Arthur, who had been silent until then, cleared his throat.
“No good. They’re separated,” he said, surprising everyone, Eames included, with the confidence in his voice. The doe-eyed uncertainty which had been exaggerated for their employers was gone now and every line of Arthur’s expression was hard.
Wells laid a large palm on a copy of a housing contract, pushing it towards Arthur.
“What are you talking about?” he said. “They live together.”
Arthur did not even look at the contract before he pushed the paper firmly back across the table.
“No. They don’t. This thing is bullshit. It’s a sham marriage. She’s from New Zealand. It’s the only way she could stay in the country. He spends all of his time in the home counties.”
Wells’s laugh was derisive.
“Sorry to shit all over your theory, kid, but they pay the bills for that house out of a joint account.”
Arthur did not bat an eyelid.
“Yeah, but it’s not really a joint account, is it? If you checked you’d find that only her salary goes into it,” Arthur said. “They actually hardly see each other.”
Wells blinked. When he looked to Eames for confirmation, Eames simply raised both eyebrows and made a little gesture with one hand to show that the decision belonged entirely to Wells.
“I can get you the print-outs to prove it if you need them,” Arthur added levelly, allowing his mouth to twist with just the barest hint of condescension, and it was perhaps that which did it. Wells sighed, frowning at Arthur with a level of trepidation that an airport security guard might bestow upon a mysteriously abandoned package.
“Fine. Forget the wife,” Wells said briskly, shuffling through his papers, and an odd feeling of pride tightened Eames’s chest.
* * * *
Eames’s favourite curry house in all of London was on Brick Lane, so he and Arthur walked there from the flat after they had finished planning and settled at a cramped table over lager and jalfrezi.
“How did you know about the wife?” Eames asked, in between bites.
Arthur glanced at him, briefly, before returning his attention to his food.
“I looked into it. Researched,” he said.
Eames paused with a forkful of curry halfway to his mouth.
“You researched,” he repeated sceptically.
“I’m good at research,” Arthur said, a little defensive, but mostly just smug.
“So it would seem.”
“I’m a student. Research is all I do. This is fucking hot.”
Arthur jabbed his fork towards the dish of jalfrezi. He coughed, lifting one hand to cover his mouth as Eames smiled and helped himself to more.
“You poor thing,” Eames cooed, dripping sarcasm. “Shall we order you a korma instead? I can call the waiter.”
Arthur scowled at him. He caught the waiter’s eye himself, raising his empty pint glass and gesturing to it.
“No need. I’ve got it under control.”
“Of course. Drink through the pain. That’s always a good philosophy.”
“Is that still sarcasm?” Arthur asked, one eyebrow raised. “Sometimes the things you say are so ridiculous that it makes it hard for me to tell.”
Eames smirked.
“No. I think you can take that one seriously.”
“Nobody we work with takes me seriously,” Arthur said. “Thank you,” he added, eyeing the penguin-suited waiter who placed the fresh glass of beer down in front of him
“They’ll grow to,” Eames said.
Arthur sipped his beer, licking at the scraps of foam which clung to his lips and tilting his head to follow the waiter’s retreat between the tables.
“I should buy a suit or something,” he said thoughtfully. “People might take me more seriously then.”
Eames, who was tearing off a hefty chunk of naan to mop into the sauce on his plate, shook his head in bewilderment.
“The last thing you want is for people to take you more seriously, Arthur. Life’s already serious. Don’t make it worse.”
“I might cut my hair,” Arthur said. “Do you think I should?”
Eames glanced at the loose tendrils of dark hair, which softened every feature of Arthur’s face. He shrugged and said, “I think you should do what you like.”
Arthur did not cut his hair.
He did, however, buy a suit using his money from the job with Wells and Nash. Eames accompanied him to a ridiculous tailor on Savile Row and stood around looking out of place while Arthur was measured and later, fitted.
There were mirrors all around, reflecting the impotent but impeccably-dressed torsos of headless mannequins. The glass made Eames uncomfortable. He spent so many working hours in front of mirrors, learning and tweaking and rehearsing, that their presence made him shifty. Mirrors caused him to look at everything too closely.
When Arthur turned to face him, Eames caught the movement in a mirror first of all, out of the corner of his eye, and he had to make a conscious effort to turn away from the glass instead of towards it. He turned, facing Arthur, who was real and not reflected, and who had beauty clinging to his every corner.
“What do you think?”
Arthur’s eyebrows were raised. He tugged one hand through his hair, pulling it back from his forehead and shaking it back from his cheekbones. The suit sharpened each line of Arthur’s body, smoothing and tightening what had been previously hidden behind ill-fitting jeans and t-shirts. It was like looking at a new person and for a moment Eames had no idea what to say.
“It fits well,” he said, eventually, because it would have been too strange for him to say nothing at all.
Arthur turned back to the mirror, lifting his chin and staring openly at himself. He said, “Yeah. I think so,” as he twisted at the hips, clearly entranced by his new reflection.
There was something so self-satisfied in his eyes, and Eames was reminded with a chill that he was not sure he liked the way that Arthur was growing into all of this.
But then Arthur looked at the tailor and smiled his dimpled smile, said, “Thank you, it’s perfect,” and Eames forgot all over again.
* * * * * *
Eames could not decide whether or not he was relieved that Arthur had absolutely no gift for forgery.
Arthur’s gunshots were always steady now and his aim was ruthless. The splendour of his architecture so exceeded Eames’s that Eames rarely bothered to build anymore. Indeed, he had almost forgotten what it was like to work a job without Arthur working point alongside him. Arthur’s attention to detail was staggering, as was his ability to unearth information which Eames did not even know was required until after he had received it.
The degree of Arthur’s success in other fields was equalled only by his complete failure to grasp the art of forgery.
Eames had explained the techniques in every way that he knew how. He had simplified the theories underpinning his craft to the point where even a child would have understood. And yet despite spending hours sealed into dreams, surrounded by mirrors, with his hands placed encouragingly on Arthur’s shoulders, all of Eames’s best efforts appeared to be wasted.
“You aren’t letting go,” Eames growled, eventually. He was sick of staring and staring at Arthur’s face reflected at him from the mirror and sick of how every fragment of Arthur’s image had become burned into his retina, so that now even when Eames closed his eyes he could not seem to get rid of the sight of Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.
“I can’t,” Arthur snapped back, teeth gritted and stubborn. “I can’t shake away my own face like that.”
Eames dug his fingers deliberately hard into the muscles of Arthur’s shoulders.
“You don’t want to,” he said, inexplicably angry, remembering the narcissistic tilt of Arthur’s chin back in the fitting room on Savile Row.
Arthur’s lip curled. He shrugged Eames’s grip away.
“Same thing,” he snapped.
When he walked away, skyscrapers of glass and iron unfolded ahead of him, Arthur creating something of his own to walk towards.
* * * * * *
As university finals approached, Arthur started turning up unannounced at Eames’s door, his arms laden with books and his face set in the now-familiar expression of determination. Eames always let him in, even after he learnt that letting Arthur in effectively meant relinquishing control of his home, often for hours at a time. Arthur would monopolise every inch of space in the flat, covering it with coffee mugs, and sheets and sheets of his tiny, scrawling notes.
“Is this all absolutely necessary?” Eames asked, picking up another two dirty mugs, hooking a finger through each of their handles and adding them to the collection clinking together in his other hand. Arthur was in the process of highlighting a messily-stapled photocopy. His fingers were twisted tightly, probably painfully, into his hair.
“The world won’t end if you get a second,” Eames said. He reached out and disentangled Arthur’s fingers, making Arthur sigh and glance up at the sudden loss of discomfort.
“I like to be the best at things,” Arthur said.
Eames resisted the urge to reach out again and ruffle up the hair on the other side of Arthur’s head, so that it all matched.
“Well, certainly,” he said, “but you could be the best at other things which don’t result in quite so much distress all around. You could learn to be the best at things which suit you.”
Arthur leant back in his chair a little, to better meet Eames’s gaze. He clicked the lid onto his highlighter.
“Oh yeah?” he said. “Let me guess. Like you were?”
“Precisely like I was.”
“And what were you so good at when you were my age?”
“Getting by without studying my arse off,” Eames said. “And playing poker,” he added thoughtfully.
Arthur snorted. He looked ready to uncap his highlighter again.
“You can’t put that on a CV,” he said.
Eames readjusted his hold on the mugs.
“Where you’re headed you’ll find that you have absolutely no need of a CV. People go on reputation alone. And provided you stick with me, you shouldn’t have much to worry about on that front,” Eames said.
“In any case, I rather meant if it was necessary for it all to be spread over my flat, than whether it was necessary at all.”
He nudged at the stack of books which were balanced precariously on the edge of his kitchen table, so that Arthur had to reach to steady them.
“I can’t work around my housemates.” Arthur replied, scowling. “They annoy me. And if I go to the library, somebody always manages to find me there. I never get anything done. It makes more sense for me to come here.”
Eames raised his eyebrows.
“Because I don’t annoy you?” he asked.
“You annoy me less. Usually,” Arthur said, tugging a page of notes away from where Eames had turned it round so that he could read it.
“Really, Arthur. Anyone would think that you’d come to university to actively avoid having a social life,” Eames said. “I’m sure your friends must have a thing or two to say to you about this travesty.”
Arthur shrugged.
“I don’t talk to my college friends much anymore.”
The lid was off the highlighter again and it was already hovering over the next photocopied paragraph. Eames frowned, watching Arthur stroke the neon ink across the page.
“Why ever not?” he asked.
Arthur didn’t reply straight away. When he did, all he said was, “Find us another job soon, will you? I need something to look forward to at the end of all this.”
* * * * * *
The next job to fall into Eames’s lap felt new and exciting even to him. The client had contacted him in the strictest confidence with a request which was, by her own admission, “morally reprehensible”. Her name was Eleanor Milner. She wanted her geriatric husband to change his will, writing his ex-wife and their children out of it completely, thus leaving her as the sole benefactor. She did not want Eames to remove an idea. She wanted him to implant one.
The sum she was offering was more than Eames had ever been paid for a single job, but even without such payment, the challenge alone would have been enough to reel him in.
The revolutionary nature of the concept had all of his nerves on fire and he was barely able to contain himself whilst sitting on the Northern line, counting down the stops to Camden Town. On the doorstep of the house which Arthur shared with three other students, Eames repeatedly relaxed and clenched his fingers around the poker chip in his pocket, feeling as invigorated as he had in years. There was thunder on the stairs and then Arthur was in the doorway, swinging his arm through the sleeve of his coat, calling over his shoulder that he might not be back tonight.
Eames hurried him to the closest pub, ignoring all of his questions, ignoring all the ‘why’s. Eames waited until they were safely tucked away somewhere darkly lit and dingy. Only then did he explain.
“Inception,” he enunciated carefully. He watched Arthur’s face from across the table as he passed one of the pints he had carried back from the bar into Arthur’s hand.
“What do you mean?” Arthur asked.
“I mean implanting an idea instead of removing one,” Eames said, leaning closer.
Arthur just stared for a moment before setting his beer to one side and leaning forwards also. He let his hand fall carelessly close to Eames’s and as their fingers brushed, Eames felt something electric pass between them.
“How?” Arthur asked and his eyes were so focused, unblinking in the glare of this brilliance.
It was this shared enthusiasm, this sense of being on the very brink of something historic, which drove them through the preparation for the job. Eames recruited Wells to work with them, but nobody else. He spent hours perfecting a forgery of Milner’s ex-wife, from the pearls of her earrings to the patent tips of her toes. Arthur, free of his studies in the aftermath of finals, was able to really go to town on the recon. They went under better prepared than Eames had been for any other job he had worked.
It was not enough.
The idea was too complex. None of it felt believable. By the time the projections turned on them, Eames already knew that they were going to fail.
Arthur’s research had shown that Milner’s mind had been trained to defend itself, so the guns were not a surprise, but the sheer ferocity and sophistication of the defensive work was something that none of them could wrap their heads around until Eames caught sight of a projection of Dominic Cobb at the centre of the mob. His was a name which even Arthur, with his limited experience, knew well. Had they known that Cobb had been here before them, they might have thought twice about their strategies. Eames watched the projection of Cobb gun Wells down ruthlessly even as he was being struck in the back by Arthur’s bullets, falling to the ground far too slowly for comfort.
Eames could not hold back a wry smirk, as the remaining projections descended. They had done everything right, yet still had no idea of quite what they had been getting themselves into.
While the Cobb projection was still choking, writhing on the floor, Eames and Arthur ran the streets. Their feet pounded the concrete as they searched for shelter from the raging mob, looking for a place to wait out the rest of their time in the dream before Wells initiated a kick or, failing that, a place they could swallow a bullet without being jostled out of their aim.
Eames was himself unscathed save for a graze or two, but Arthur had been shot just below the shoulder. The noise he made when they vaulted over the railings of a low bridge and dropped down to the street below was enough to make Eames’s heart wrench.
They were out of sight beneath the bridge and temporarily safe. Eames peered up and down the street along the sights of his gun, checking for more projections as Arthur leant carefully over the kerb and spat out blood into the gutter. His breath was coming in wet gasps. With no projections in sight, Eames retreated to Arthur’s side to peer at the wound. It was raw and open and far too deep. It must have been agony.
“Fuck,” Eames ground out, hating this sting of failure.
“I’m not waiting for this kick,” Arthur choked out, leaning into Eames for support as he checked the safety of his gun, his hands shuddering with the pain.
Eames shook his head, sick to his stomach. Arthur’s blood on his hands was as bright as it had ever been.
“No,” he agreed.
A sinister feeling wrenched inside of Eames’s chest. It was bitter and aching, like guilt, and Eames’s muscles yearned to crush something for it. His fingers clenched too hard against Arthur’s wounded body, and Arthur hissed, tensing with the pain of Eames’s grip, as tears sprang up between his eyelashes.
“I’m sorry for getting you into this, love,” Eames murmured roughly. He adjusted his grip on his gun, but did not raise it, even as he heard the running steps of projections start across the bridge. A dark flash of intent in Arthur’s eyes was the only warning that Eames received before there was a sudden hand clenched at the back of his neck and Arthur’s mouth was dragging against his, all teeth and blood and silken tongue, lasting up until the kick.
Kissing back was Eames’s first mistake. He drew something of Arthur into him when he did so. It lodged quietly in his chest, too deep inside for him to ever be able to dig it out again, and that made it so much harder for Eames to listen to his better judgement when Arthur followed him home later that night.
Still reeking of failure, they fell into bed together, to lose themselves in their reality, so sharp and brittle and wonderfully irreversible.
Arthur’s skin was pristine without the blood. It stretched taut across his wiry muscles, which were blissfully unruptured, never touched by bullet holes. His lips were soft where they nudged against Eames’s.
When Eames ground his fingers tightly around Arthur’s wrist, pinning it back to the mattress above their heads, he could damn near feel the body-warm fabric of a ghostly festival band. Out of that suit and away from his books, this was the boy who, almost a year ago, had ducked miraculously free of an explosion in the docklands and in doing so had unthinkingly swept Eames off his feet.
This was the last time that Eames saw him that way.
The next morning, when Eames opened his eyes and met Arthur’s gaze across a cold expanse of pillow, it was clear that sex with his point man had been the second big mistake.
The space between them was shuttered. Arthur’s voice was unfeeling when he spoke.
“I have to go back to the States,” he said. “Graduation is in a week and my visa expires after that.”
The curtains were open on the bedroom window. Eames could see thick London clouds churning in the sky beyond Arthur’s shoulder. Eames rolled over, turning his back to the window and trying not to invent connections between the unprecedented sex and Arthur’s imminent need of a new visa.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said.
* * * * * *
When Eames got a call from the real Dominic Cobb three weeks later, about a job in Brussels, the irony was not lost on him. Both he and Arthur travelled there under perfect British passports.
Cobb met them in the lobby of a chic but understated hotel. He was wearing a suit which had almost certainly been chosen for him by his wife. His face was stretched into a Hollywood smile as he offered Eames his jaunty handshake.
“Good to see you again. It’s been a while,” Cobb said. Eames returned the handshake and introduced Arthur, who was drawing himself up a little taller and keeping his face carefully blank.
“This is Arthur. He works point for me these days.”
Cobb turned his grin and his handshake on Arthur, radiating that peculiar glamour which made it so easy for him to charm his way into other people’s minds.
“It’s good to finally meet you. I’ve heard your name on the grapevine,” Cobb said. “You’ve been earning yourself a bit of a reputation,” he added, with an indulgent wink, when Arthur raised an inquiring eyebrow.
This was entirely the correct thing to say. After that, Arthur’s eyes never left Cobb’s face again.
“People pay attention in this business. You guys have been working together a lot, right?” Cobb said, sliding his hands into his pockets as he stared casually past them at the other people in the lobby. He watched their movements with as much unobtrusive care as one would watch projections which might at any moment turn hostile.
“You could say that,” Eames said.
Cobb looked at Arthur and grinned his big white grin.
“Well, then,” he said. “Let’s see what you can do.”
They went under into the cityscape which Arthur had designed for the job. It had the damp smokiness of London about it, but everything was too tall and regimented for it to really feel like a British city. They stood on a short bridge in the centre, staring at the skyline spread around them and Cobb nodded his approval.
“Nice,” he said, pacing up and down the length of the bridge, pausing only to look at Eames and say, “Not your work, I take it?”
Eames shook his head.
“All Arthur,” he admitted.
Cobb stared at the buildings, at their blocky up and down dynamics. He looked at Arthur.
“How long have you been doing this?”
“A year. Just under,” Arthur said and Cobb whistled.
“You’ve done a good job here. Very slick,” Cobb said.
“Thank you,” Arthur replied.
“Although, I wonder if I might make a suggestion?”
“Of course.”
Cobb stepped close to Arthur, extending his arm beside Arthur’s head and pointing towards the skyline, directing Arthur’s gaze.
“This building in the middle. It’s a beautiful statement, but it’s too large for the placement. It’s interrupting. If we were to just get rid of this,” Cobb said and dragged his hand downwards. As if by magic, the building collapsed, clouds of dust billowing around the crumbling base.
Arthur’s mouth fell open. Eames had never cared to change much about Arthur’s dreams before, but Cobb was already turning his concentrated gaze along the horizon, frowning thoughtfully.
“And then, if we were to take that statement and instead make it further along,” Cobb continued, and the building began to reconstruct itself to their right, rocketing up into existence, nudging the other structures aside to make room. Arthur stepped forwards into the railings, eyes wide, watching as the bricks wove themselves together across a skeleton of iron.
“That about right?” Cobb asked critically, his head tilted to one side.
“No,” he decided before Arthur could even find his voice. “The flourishes are too Roccoco, aren’t they? Yours were much simpler. Classier. More Biedermeier.”
He made a dismissive gesture and the embellishments around the building’s windows shivered into simplicity.
Cobb nodded, satisfied with his work.
“That’s better. It draws the eye round, do you see? This way, the dream seems like it could extend forever. It’s more realistic.”
They stood together on the bridge, staring at Arthur’s skyline as the last of the dust clouds settled. It looked only the more spectacular for Cobb’s changes.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” Cobb said, clapping Arthur loosely on the shoulder, touching him already with possessive ease.
Cobb was clearly impressed with the folder of research which Arthur presented to him when they awoke from the dream and he continued to be impressed with Arthur throughout the job. Eames would have gone so far as to use the word ‘dazzled’ when Arthur was turning back flips and gunning down projections, his interpretation of covering Cobb while he cracked into the safe.
“Where did you find this kid?” Cobb asked, swinging open the heavy door and reaching inside. Eames was wearing his own face again, the time for distractions long past. He glanced back over his shoulder at Cobb, keeping his gun trained on the doorway.
“Same place I ever find anything of value,” he replied. “The back room of a dodgy pub.”
Cobb smirked a little at that. He thrust the sheet of paper from the safe into Eames’s hands, having barely glanced at it himself, before charging valiantly back into the mess to help Arthur.
Of course, introducing Arthur to Cobb was Eames’s final mistake, because Cobb had always been a man to recognise a good investment when he saw one.
It was therefore not entirely a surprise when Arthur came to Eames’s room barely an hour after they had completed the job and sat down looking grim.
“I’m not coming back to London,” Arthur said. “Cobb’s asked me to work another job with him. I’ve said that I will.”
Eames had half known that this was coming, but his stomach still lurched at Arthur’s words.
“What’s brought this on?” Eames asked, aiming for breezy, but probably missing by miles.
“It will be good for me,” Arthur said. “Working with some new people will broaden my experience. Cobb’s the best in the business. You told me that yourself.”
“Of course,” Eames said, and he could not stop his tone growing spiteful. “And you do so like to be the best at things.”
Arthur frowned at him, the little crease between his eyebrows deepening.
“It’s important to work at career development if you want to be a success,” Arthur said and despite himself, Eames felt his lips stretch into a smirk.
“Those aren’t your words, Arthur,” he said. “You’ve worked with him for hardly a week and the man is already putting words in your mouth.”
Arthur kept his face under control, but his nostrils flared.
“You think that you never did that?” he bit out.
“No. I did not,” Eames said, truthfully, because Arthur had always resisted every piece of advice which Eames had offered to him. Arthur had wanted answers, nothing more than that.
“You don’t know me as well as you think you do, Eames,” Arthur said.
“That’s where you’re wrong, love. I know you better.”
Eames stood up, hefting the handle of his suitcase into one hand. Arthur stared up at him, still challenging, even after all this time.
“I’ll keep track of you,” Eames said, by way of goodbye.
* * * * * *
For months, Eames did keep track of Arthur. He took careful note of the places that Arthur went and the jobs that Arthur took. Arthur never managed to slip off of Eames’s radar, but then Eames somehow suspected that he probably never tried to. Arthur also never worked with anyone other than Cobb. Occasionally, he and Cobb pulled in somebody else to help them, but it was usually Mal, and was usually only for a limited time. Mal had children now and was not as good as Cobb was at leaving them behind.
Working without Arthur was not hard for Eames. After all, he had worked far longer without Arthur than he ever had with Arthur. This was simply more of the same. And if Eames occasionally missed the scattered papers all over the surfaces in his flat, if he deliberately avoided the curry house on Brick Lane, if he had begun to look at his other associates with something akin to disdain, well, then that was his business. And if Eames woke some mornings and rolled over to face his window, caught up in the memory of Arthur’s cold gaze, then that was his business too. He kept it to himself.
This did not mean that Eames had any power to resist when Cobb eventually called him, more than two years later, with a job offer.
In Zurich, Cobb gestured across the warehouse to where Arthur was opening the silver PASIV case. He began, “This is Arthur. He’s my,” before he paused, looking back at Eames a little sheepishly.
“Of course you know each other, though. I forgot,” Cobb said and despite Cobb’s credentials, Eames wanted to call him an imbecile.
It seemed a little incongruous that Arthur was so inept at forging in dreams, when he was able to forge himself into somebody new so easily in reality. Eames had not known what to expect from seeing Arthur again in the flesh and now, faced with him, Eames knew even less.
Arthur had filled out a little. Not a lot, but a little. He looked slightly broader in the shoulders, but that might have been merely the cut of his suit. His hair was still on the long side, but it was slicked right back from his temples, scraped into place. It aged him. Everything about him looked hard and tightly fastened. The Converse, which had long ago changed into vintage brogues, had now changed again, into slick Italian leather affairs which clicked softly when Arthur walked across the concrete floor towards them. He extended a hand to Eames, painfully polite.
“Good to see you again,” Arthur said, his voice clipped and a little deeper than was natural for him.
“Pleasure’s mine,” Eames told him. As he grasped Arthur’s hand, he could still feel that odd sense of challenge vibrating in the strength of Arthur’s grip, and suddenly things fell right into place.
“You look like you’ve come up in the world,” Eames said, raking his eyes deliberately over Arthur’s suit, taking in the glossy leather, the gold cufflinks.
“Since working with you? Yes, I’d say so,” Arthur replied, letting go of Eames’s hand and Eames could hardly contain laughter, because he’d had no idea that this would go so easily.
“Oh darling,” Eames said, screwing up his face in an exaggerated parody of affection. “You have missed me.”
Arthur’s lips thinned a little.
“Like a hole in my side? Right again, Eames.”
The glare which Arthur gave him was not even nearly sincere, but of course Cobb was not to know that and Cobb always protected his interests. He cleared his throat, stepping between them.
“Is this going to be a problem?” Cobb said, eyeing Eames sternly and Eames resisting the urge to laugh in Cobb’s face.
“No,” Arthur said immediately, his gaze sliding away from Eames’s. “No problem.”
“Good.” Cobb snapped his fingers, ending the motion with his index finger pointing towards the PASIV. “You. Get that set up,” he ordered, and miraculously, Arthur obeyed without question.
“If I ever snapped my fingers at you like that, you’d tell me where to fucking stick it,” Eames could not help commenting as he drifted over, watching Arthur tug the lines from the box with sure fingers.
Arthur paused in his work for long enough to shoot Eames a glance which was all sharpness and heat.
“I’ll tell you that right now,” he said.
Arthur was only half serious and Eames was delighted.
“Why do you guys hate each other?” Cobb asked Eames later that night over drinks in the hotel bar, while Arthur was still running through databases in his room upstairs.
Eames did not know how he could possibly explain. He did not know how to say that they did not hate each other at all, that they never could, and that things were simply a little complicated. He sipped his gin thoughtfully.
“I know what Arthur was like before all of this. I don’t think he likes to be reminded of that,” Eames said eventually, which was not really the whole truth but was close enough for now.
The job turned out easy and it was over quickly. Arthur and Cobb ran a slick operation and it was refreshing to be a part of something so well-oiled when all the other jobs which Eames had been running lately had been rather slapdash and frantic. When they were finished and paid, Eames said goodbye to Arthur with a promise to continue having far more fun than he’d ever had while Arthur had been dragging him down. Arthur just offered him a wry smile in return before he walked away, still shoulder to shoulder with Cobb.
Eames refused to torture himself by attempting to read anything into this. He did, however, hang around in Los Angeles for a couple of weeks after the job to see what else he could pick up. Eames wasn’t quite ready to return to working alongside the London drizzle and slimy cockneys. He considered heading south to Mexico or hitting Vegas to burn away some of the money he’d just been paid.
He was sitting on the bed in his hotel room with an AAA guide map spread across his knees, not even able to decide between the news coverage on BBC World and CNN, let alone which road he should follow. He was flicking between the news channels when a local bulletin made the decision for him and made Eames set down the remote control in amazement.
Arthur’s phone call came about an hour later.
“Mal’s dead,” Arthur said. His voice was tightly controlled. Each word was taut.
Eames’s knuckles were white as they gripped the phone.
“I know,” he said. “It’s all over the fucking news.”
“Well,” Arthur said, and then didn’t say anything else after that. Eames could hear the bustling noise of a large public space in the background: footsteps echoing, the tinny buzz of intercom announcements.
“Did Cobb do it?” Eames said.
There was another pause, longer, and then Arthur, saying, “Why would you ask me that?” sounding strung-out and vulnerable. There was no anger in his voice, and Eames could picture the hunted look which always came into Arthur’s eyes with the realisation that he was in over his head. It was the same look which Arthur’s facade had been prey to from the start, when he was shivering and bloody in the heartless fluorescent lights of a tube train. It was a look which Arthur would never quite be able to shake, no matter how much he tried to harden himself. Arthur’s eyes would look like that now. His lips would be tight and pale.
Something familiar twisted in Eames’s gut.
“Are you safe?” Eames asked. He did not bother to mask his concern.
“I’m calling you, aren’t I?” Arthur retorted, anxiety making him sharp.
“And why are you calling me?” Eames asked.
There was a pause, then the sound of Arthur swallowing, uncertain.
“I wasn’t sure what else to do,” Arthur said quietly.
Eames wet his lips, staring down at the map in his lap, as if it could provide him with the answers which Arthur relied on him for. Thin road lines snaked across the paper like veins, useless.
“Where are you going?” Eames asked. He heard the noise of Arthur taking the phone away from his ear, replacing it again.
“There are people here,” Arthur said tightly, ever security conscious, but Eames did not share his scruples.
“Come to London. I’ll meet you there,” he said, though even before the words were out of his mouth, Eames knew that Arthur was shaking his head.
“I won’t leave Dom.”
“So bring him with you. There’s room. London’s a big fucking place,” Eames tried, not caring if he sounded a little desperate, not caring if it was hearing Arthur call Cobb by his first name which had made him sound it.
“I have to go, Eames. I’m about to get on a plane,” Arthur said, honestly reluctant.
“Arthur,” Eames began.
“I’ll keep track of you,” Arthur said, and it wouldn’t have mattered what Eames might have said next, because the call was disconnected and there was nothing more to do.
* * * * * *
Eames travelled to Geneva and then to Sicily and then to Mombasa, picking up the kind of work which he could drop again quickly as he moved from place to place.
It meant that he was ready to leave instantly when Cobb eventually sought him out.
Sitting by the window in a sweaty Kenyan bar, Cobb seemed worn and ragged. He was lacking all of his usual glitz. In spite of this, Eames still felt a little prickle of excitement when he heard the word ‘inception’. It was clear that Arthur had not told Cobb of his involvement in a previous attempt, but then Arthur did not like to talk about failure and what Cobb did not know on this front could do no harm. Eames neglected to fill in the gaps which Arthur had deliberately left.
The team Cobb had assembled seemed remarkably promising. There was a quiet buzz of confidence around the warehouse as they worked through the preparation together. It was crystal clear to everyone that this job was something special.
Months on the run had truly taken their toll on Cobb. All of his moves were twitchy and his voice was always hollow. He never smiled.
This time, it was Arthur who seemed unchanged. He looked as cool and unshakeable as he had when Eames had last seen him. His collars were still perfectly crisp. His slicked-back hair still hid the softness of his face. He still challenged Eames at every turn. And yet, there was a steady warmth tucked beneath all of Arthur’s careful control, which made Eames feel at home.
“You know, I should really resent you for leaving me with nothing but what little talent the East End has to offer. It’s been slim pickings these last couple of years,” Eames said one evening, when Arthur delivered Browning’s latest batch of emails to Eames’s hotel room long after Eames had left the warehouse for the day
Arthur was in his shirtsleeves, the cuffs open and rolled to the elbow. His tie was pulled a little loose at his throat.
“I should resent you,” Arthur said and the corner of his mouth curled. “For corrupting me in the first place.”
Eames chuckled. He said, “Oh, you didn’t need much corruption, love. You were already corrupt by the time I met you. To be honest, you’ve gotten yourself where you are today with really incredibly little effort on my part.”
Eames placed the printed emails on the desk by the windows, where the desk lamp dropped a spotlight of brightness over the pages. When he turned around, Arthur was still standing at the door, hesitating and quiet as though waiting to speak.
There was a creeping sense of certainty in the air around them.
“Would you like a drink?” Eames asked, when Arthur continued to show no sign of either leaving or speaking. He gestured to a mahogany cupboard in the corner. “The mini-bar has been terribly neglected since I arrived.”
Arthur shook his head immediately and laid his hand on the door handle.
“I have some things I need to look into. There are still holes to fill in Fischer’s background,” he said, and then, frowning, “He has these odd transactions on his bank records, a couple of them. They’re payments to some company with a bullshit name. I don’t know what they are.”
Eames stepped towards him and said, “Stay for a drink.”
Arthur looked at him.
“There can’t be things I don’t know going into a job like this,” he said.
Arthur’s hand was on the door handle, so Eames took it in his own and drew it across the wall to the light switch instead. He pressed Arthur’s fingers down on the switch, throwing the room into the near-dark of the shaded desk light.
Arthur turned without hesitation, stepping into him, pressing their mouths together and sliding one hand up Eames’s arm to his neck.
All of Eames’s blood rushed to his cock and he was instantly hard, as though he was a teenager again and still so inexperienced that the slightest touch could set him off. He closed his eyes and breathed in, drawing Arthur closer to him.
The sensations were the same as before. The soft graze of stubble against Eames’s top lip and the solid weight of Arthur’s body in his arms were exactly the same. Arthur’s tongue was soft and wet, sweeping alongside Eames’s, just as it had been. Still, rather than thinking of the kid with scruffy hair whom he had first met in a damp London pub, this time Eames only thought Arthur.
As Arthur shifted against him, Eames curled his fingers into the nape of Arthur’s neck, feeling the soft hairs there, which were spread like silk over firm tendons.
Arthur pulled away a little so that he could slot his hands around Eames’s jaw. The movement was slightly awkward, with Arthur’s elbow jostling against Eames’s, but Eames just lowered the hand which was resting at the base of Arthur’s skull, smoothing his fingers down Arthur’s back. His touch ghosted over each bullet of Arthur’s spine, firm through the thin cotton of Arthur’s shirt.
Arthur held him there, looking at his face.
I know you better than I know anyone, Eames thought, as Arthur’s thumbs stroked along his cheekbones, and Arthur smiled.
“Oh darling. You have missed me,” he said, dimpling, the words sounding so different from his mouth. He flexed his hips just lightly against Eames’s. The motion would have seemed almost innocent had it not been for the press of Arthur’s erection against Eames’s hipbone, and that was it.
Eames was already fumbling blind with the buckle of Arthur’s belt when Arthur’s Blackberry buzzed in his pocket. Eames felt the vibration against his wrist.
“Forget it,” Eames breathed, mouthing the advice against Arthur’s throat.
But Arthur gave a little growl of frustration and reached between their bodies so that he could fish the phone out of his pocket. He studied the glow of its screen for a moment before pushing Eames back a step, his jaw clenching.
“Fuck,” Arthur said, with such vehemence that Eames almost did not need to be told.
“That was my contact in Sydney. Maurice Fischer is dead,” Arthur explained. “Fuck,” he said again, more bitterly, and added, “We’re not ready,” as he hurried to roll down his sleeves and straighten his tie.
Eames was already snagging his jacket from the back of the desk chair. He switched off the lamp which still glowed above the emails he had not had a chance to read through.
“We are ready,” Eames told Arthur, reaching past him to tug open the door. “But being ready doesn’t really mean a thing.”
* * * * * *
Everyone became hardened professionals as they slid into the job together. The enormity of their task weighed heavily on each of them. Every individual was a self-contained unit, clicking against the others like pieces of clockwork, smooth and trained.
It still was not long before everything went to shit.
Under siege, in the level one warehouse, wet from the rain and stepping in Saito’s blood, Cobb shouted full-throated into Arthur’s face and Eames felt his hackles go through the roof. He was quite surprised by the strength of his sudden conviction that this loan was over. It was professionalism alone which stopped him from decking Cobb right there in front of everybody.
A level down, Eames managed to catch Arthur’s eye and thought he could see a reflection there of the same conviction, but then Arthur’s fingers were pressing against his pulse and Eames awoke into a blizzard.
He was just a passenger then, riding on the back of instinct and adrenaline, trusting his experience to make the decisions for him and to see them through. He had to trust his reflexes to get him out in time.
* * * * * *
Eames opened his eyes to the steady hum of cabin air pressure. His limbs were loose and numb, his brain drug-groggy. The realisation of success was a blooming warmth in his chest.
Down the aisle, Arthur carefully avoided looking at Eames, his eyes remaining always focused on Cobb instead.
It took forever to get through customs. The lines were long and slow and kept them all separated, making it easier to resist the overwhelming desire to reach out to one another, to pat backs and congratulate. Eames caught sight of Arthur time and again, Arthur handing his passport over, his back straight and confident, Arthur moving through the crowds around the baggage carousel, Arthur prowling distractingly at the edges of Eames’s vision.
Eames could never pretend not to know him.
Arthur lingered until the others had filtered out, watching each of them go with careful eyes. Once they were gone, he walked over to where Eames still stood with his hands in his pockets and his suitcase at his feet. Arthur tugged a luggage trolley behind him with one hand. They stood quietly for a moment, watching the remaining bags turn on the conveyor belt.
Eames could not account for the fluttering in his stomach and when he could stand it no longer, he said, “What are you going to do now?”
Arthur sighed heavily, world-weary and peaceful, like somebody who was letting go. He looked at Eames.
“I was thinking I might try London,” he said, straight-faced. “I hear South Ken is lovely this time of year.”
“If by ‘lovely’ you mean ‘grey and wet’, then yes. You are correct,” Eames said, through the quivers of a smile which was threatening to break loose across his face.
“I’m always correct,” Arthur said.
And then he pulled Eames’s suitcase onto the trolley with his own, turning the wheels in the direction of a sign which read ‘Departures’, and there were dimples on his cheeks.