A.N: This is a crack fic inspired by a line from one of my other fics 'The Dating Show' where Arthur names a spork Excalibur, wondering why he's never attempted to name any of his weapons Excalibur since he's a man named Arthur. (In the fic that spork is mounted on a plaque with the phrase 'Take me up/ Cast me away (But do not recycle)' inscribed on it.)
Disclaimer: I don't own Inception or anything related to King Arthur. I know there are really messed up spelling/ grammar errors that I can't see because it's well after midnight and I can't read the screen anymore. Fix them later.
Arthur found Excalibur on a unseasonably hot day in October when he ducked into an old antique store, trying to shake a persistent tail.
He didn't mean to find Excalibur- he was just in the right place, at the right time. Eames was the first one he showed it to. Arthur simply thought his find was interesting, funny even, because how often could he say that he, a man going by the name Arthur, had discovered this treasure?
When he told Eames, when he showed the mythical blade to the forger, Eames was certain of one thing- that it was pure destiny. That it was a sign.
"This is it," Arthur said as he balanced the flat of the surprisingly sharp blade on his lap, taking care not to accidentally nick his fingers against it.
Eames sat close to Arthur; not right by his side because he'd run the risk of accidentally cutting himself on the blade. So Eames sat on the ottoman in front of Arthur's couch, right in front of Arthur's seat on said couch.
The forger was examining the words inscribed on the blade. On one side it said take me up, almost begging for some poor fool to pick it up and take it. Eames's fingers twitched with the irrational wish to do that, to take it, but he knew that he couldn't.
It wasn't his.
Eames licked his lips, fought off the twitchy finger feeling, the burning fingertips, and the need touch the sword that now belonged to Arthur.
"Tell me the story again? Please, darling?"
Arthur smiled for him and began to tell him the story, even though this was the third or fourth time that Eames had asked him to repeat it. From the outside, Eames had no idea if Arthur was even the least bit amazed by his find, if he knew how valuable it was, how important! He wondered if Arthur believed it was a mystical artifact, if it was the sword of legend, or if it was truly a loving recreation.
Arthur told the story again.
"So I don't usually go into antique stores, but when I was walking past trying to decide if the person who had been not-so-secretively tailing me was being serious, I thought that I'd slip inside. If he was sent to kill me and hadn't tried to do it in broad daylight, maybe I could lure him into the store and neutralize him."
"I love it when you talk dirty," Eames commented, smirking a little at Arthur, who shrugged.
"He didn't follow me in- lucky bastard, too. If he did he'd have gotten hit with the first handy blunt object I could reach."
Eames could imagine Arthur patiently waiting just out of the way of the antique store's doorway, holding something like an ornate ashtray or a music box.
"I was sure that the coast was clear and was going to leave, but I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was catching the light, making whatever it was in the back of the store kind of wink at me. Curious, I went to check it out. And that's how I found it."
Eames leaned forwards from his spot on Arthur's ottoman, in Arthur's apartment, across from the man himself with the legendary sword; apparently the second owner of the sword who happened to have the same name as the first.
"Don't leave the last bit out, that's the most important!"
Arthur rolled his eyes, but continued on as if indulging Eames was something that caused him great hardship (even though it didn't).
"In the back of the store, someone had jokingly begun to decorate for Halloween- though I don't even know why they'd bother to do something like that. Who goes into an antique store for Halloween?"
"Darling, it's important. The way you found it is so very important. It means something!"
"I found it," Arthur said slowly, "sticking up from a frothing pile of silky blue scarves. Underneath a scattering of shimmery sequins, was the hand of a mannequin hoisting the blade free from it."
"You found Excalibur in an antique store- the Lady of the Lake, and don't you dare argue with me, Arthur, don't you dare, because you know all the blue material was meant to evoke water! She gave it to you!"
"The arm of the Lady of the Lake gave me Excalibur," Arthur said instead. Because he'd checked- it had only been an arm, nothing more, nothing less. "And how am I supposed to know it's the Lady of the Lake? This arm didn't look particularly female."
This pricked Eames's interest. Everything about this situation pricked Eames's interest. "Did you bring it along?"
Now Arthur laughed. "Do you know how stupid I would have looked if I walked out of the store with that fake arm?"
"But you took the sword…"
Arthur considered the blade, thoughtful, but mostly proud.
"I took a shine to it."
Eames almost didn't want to ask- it was a piece of English history, it was priceless, it was fantastic! But he asked anyway.
"How much did you pay for it?"
Arthur said, "I paid twenty dollars and got a gumball with my change."
Eames slumped. "I don't know what I find worse about that- that you paid a mere twenty bucks for a legendary sword, or that you also got candy. Like it was a reward!"
"The gumball was the size of a quarter and bright blue."
"That doesn't make it better!
Arthur, rather than lock the blade up in a safe, or put it somewhere else it wouldn't be stolen, began to carry Excalibur on his person all the time.
He even took it to work.
He fashioned a swordbelt, going to a type of shop seen during a Renaissance faire to get a good one fitted, something that would last him awhile and went with his suits.
It was supple brown leather and a custom sheath that even matched other things he wore to work, like his messenger bag.
It shouldn't have been a point in his favor, but it somehow made its presence much more acceptable. It didn't stop the questions though.
"Um, Arthur?"
Arthur looked up from his computer screen and frowned at Ariadne.
Rather than look at Arthur's face, or catch his mild expression, Ariadne only had eyes for the sword sheathed at Arthur's waist.
"Yes, Ariadne?"
Is that really, really sharp?
"I just wanted to ask… about, well, you know…?"
"Not a mind reader. I'm going to need a little bit more than a fractured sentence."
Ariadne pointed at the sword, one eyebrow raised, waiting for an answer.
"Do you like my Excalibur?"
She continued pointing at it.
"I got it from the Lady of the Lake, if you listen to Eames tell the story."
The architect's raised eyebrow slowly dropped as she continued to stare, repeating after Arthur, "Lady of the Lake? Eames told the story?"
Arthur stood, carefully adjusting the sword. He didn't draw the blade but did gesture at it, smiling widely.
"I think it looks great, the ultimate accessory!"
"But why do you have it?"
"Destiny. And it was on sale. But mostly because of destiny."
Then, when Ariadne didn't say much else in response to that, Arthur offered to go and fetch lunch, still wearing the sword.
He was out the door before Ariadne could think of any other arguments against the sword or Arthur's possession of it. It did look great on him, after all.
When Arthur entered Yusuf's lab, bearing sandwiches and chips, he didn't expect something to catch fire.
But it did.
"Get down, get down, get down-," Yusuf had been in the middle of yelling, a gas mask half on and half off his face because he was busy hugging an uncooperative cat to his chest as he tried to flee.
The chemist stopped dead when he noticed Arthur standing there with a sword hanging from his waist. If Yusuf noticed that the point man also had lunch, it didn't leave a lasting impression in Yusuf's memory- he was busy thinking about the story he'd tell later about Arthur with a sword. The cat, already pissed at being yanked from it's sleeping quarters on the sunny windowsill, hissed at Yusuf before scratching the chemist and wriggling from his grip.
Thinking rationally, Arthur dropped the bag containing one sandwich, one bag of chips, and let the fountain drink he purchased for Yusuf drop to the ground as the cat raced past him and into the hall. Arthur immediately found the fire extinguisher he had purchased for the chemist- it was laboratory grade and should handle chemical fires, should any start by accident or on purpose.
While Yusuf stared at the sword hanging from Arthur's fancy new sword belt, Arthur put out the fires quickly and efficiently.
Yusuf pulled off the gas mask so he could stare some more.
"You're welcome," Arthur said before leaving the lab.
Arthur expected Cobb to overreact over the sword because he was Cobb and that was what Cobb did best. His default setting was overreacting.
"Arthur, I don't know if this is some weird mid-life crisis thing, but I want you to know that you can talk to me if you want to."
Arthur stopped what he was doing (mainly, sharpening Excalibur) and stared at the extractor.
"What makes you think that I'm having a mid-life crisis?"
"The sword."
"Because I would have thought that getting a flashy car would be more of a mid-life crisis sort of thing."
"I was really talking about the sword."
"But now that you mention it, I was wondering if I had to worry about something like that in the future."
Cobb squinted. "For you?"
Arthur waved one hand, imperious. "No! For you!"
And then Cobb overreacted some more! "What? Oh, don't you dare try and suggest that I'm going to do something crazy like that."
Arthur continued to sharpen Excalibur, paying the sword more attention than Cobb.
"You've already proven that you're capable of doing all sorts of crazy things- like inception."
"But it worked!"
"Almost getting us stuck in Limbo."
"But I didn't…well, Saito got stuck there, but hey, I fixed that, too!"
"And even though you don't think its going to happen, sooner or later, you're going to become a frumpy dad instead of a sexy dream criminal."
Cobb was honestly shocked. "You…wait, you mean that just overnight I'm going to stop being the guy who pulls a gun in the middle of a conversation and become the guy that falls asleep during the evening news?"
Arthur, now finished sharpening his sword, smiled at Cobb reassuringly. "Its not happening right now. But later. You'll see the signs when you develop a paunch, get a new car, and try to start acting hip for your children."
"You've been carrying around that sword for a month, Arthur. I think that you might be losing it."
"Nope," the point man said, cheerful and sharply dressed, armed and ready to go with Excalibur at his side. "I didn't lose anything. I found it for twenty bucks and a gumball! See you later!"
If Eames were to be totally and completely honest, he'd mention that King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table was his favorite game to play when he was a boy, ages six to sixteen. His fascination with the game was only spurred on by his dearest friend, boyhood playmate, and first crush, Arthur (no relation to the deadly point man he would meet much, much later on).
He wouldn't call it a rant though it probably sounded like one, but he did occasionally have an ongoing argument about how things had changed or were much different from how they used to be, when talking about childhood games from his youth.
He mostly did this when spectacularly drunk. And because he only got spectacularly drunk by himself, the only one he embarrassed was his reflection as he did shots and paced before a mirror- or multiple mirrors depending on the route he took pacing through his home, shifting from living room to bedroom to bathroom. He was a pacing ranter.
"See, when I was a boy…no. I was a lad. When I was a lad, we didn't need all of these plastic and neon, breaks the second you have some decent fun with it toys. No!" Eames said as he took a shot of something vile but good enough to get him walking less of a straight line than he had before he'd taken the shot before last. "We used our imaginations! And the stuff we would build for ourselves! Or, maybe if our parents weren't too busy, they'd help with the tree house, the wooden swords and the stick-horses, and what have you. There was a time when if you wanted to play like you were on a telephone, you got a tin can and a length of string and you made do!"
Eames was very passionate about this argument, and it always cycled back to his favorite games as a child. He would play with Arthur and a few of his friends who would always balk at playing Guinevere if they were playing 'Arthur and Lancelot and the other Knights Rescues Guinevere' even though it took them awhile to figure out that not all the Knights did this. That mainly Lancelot was attributed to having rescued Guinevere while also cheating with her and cuckolding his best friend Arthur. Not that Eames knew what that meant when he was six years old, he didn't learn that till much much later and even now he had to laugh at the idea of his being cast as the female character, considering much of what made his forgeries so realistic and useful was his ability to forge either gender in dreams.
Not that he was saying being the one to wear Guinevere's bed sheet dress and the straggly yellow yarn wig they'd made with the supervision of one of their curious, but still sniggering mothers, meant he'd looked his six-year-old self in the mirror and said Yes, someday I'll become a pretty girl without wearing the itchy wig and magic bed sheet.
Either way, it was still something funny to think of as he ranted about the way things had changed. He'd had great fun, even when he drew the short straw and had to be Guinevere. And when he got older and he got to be Lancelot for Arthur, who always, always got to be King Arthur because it made sense, Eames wouldn't question the wriggly sort of happy feelings he got when he had to rescue King Arthur, or when he had to play Guinevere when he was older and secretly liked it when he got the basic 'yay, King Arthur and Guinevere are together again, hug and kiss on the cheek'.
"So," Eames rationalized to himself during his latest argument and pacing session. "It makes sense to be in a relationship with the Arthur of now because he's got an Excalibur and I'd still maybe not so secretly like it if he rescued me when I'm Guinevere. Or even when I'm not."
It made his wishes for a relationship with his Arthur all the more poignant. And that was why it was so important that Arthur not learn that. It was one thing for Eames to find Arthur's discovering Excalibur as a sign that they should totally be together.
It was another thing entirely for Arthur to believe Eames was delusional. And that was why Eames drank alone.
If anyone believed that Arthur had gone off the deep end, was having his own version of a mid-life crisis, it didn't stop the jobs from coming in- and as often as Arthur wore Excalibur up above, he'd also begun to use it during their dreams. Forgoing his Glock 17, Arthur would fight against hostile projections with Excalibur, reaping the benefits attributed to the mythical blade.
Because while up above it was still disputed whether or not the sword Arthur had found was the true Excalibur, it didn't matter in dreams. In dreams it was all that legend promised.
During a job that went badly (as they sometimes did), Eames had been shot in the stomach and forced to hold the level together long enough for Cobb to finish the extraction they were paid to do. He'd been left in a dreamed up version of the mark's office building, back against the wall of a hallway that ended in a dead end, a hallway that could only be reached by a Penrose Stairway.
Holding his guts together with both hands, Eames was willing to focus on anything but the bullet lodged in his midsection. He must have drifted off for a moment as he sat there, so when Arthur appeared like a wavering mirage before the forger, kneeling with Excalibur drawn from its sheath, all Eames could do was heavily blink at the man.
"You've had the worst of it," Arthur was saying, laying the naked blade on the ground and detaching the sheath from the belt. Then he pressed the sheath against Eames's stomach, unmindful of the blood that marred the leather.
"Understatement, darling," Eames managed to say through grit teeth.
The point man bit back a laugh and instead focused on the leather sheath, the scabbard. "You'll feel much better, Mr. Eames. You'll be fine." Arthur glanced up at him for a second, checking Eames's progress. "You're lucky I've got a magic sword."
"Magic?"
Arthur nodded. "I've done my reading on the subject. Excalibur has its gifts but the scabbard has one gift all its own- it can stop or slow the bleeding of whoever is wearing it."
Eames had already lost blood and was feeling woozy, waiting to die and wishing he wouldn't all at the same time. "But I'm not wearing it..."
Arthur shrugged and left the scabbard where it was. "I don't care. It's my sword, it's my scabbard, and I want the bleeding to stop. I want you to survive this wound."
Eames smiled at the fierce look of concentration on the point man's face. "If you keep talking like that you'll make me think you actually like me a little."
That got him an endearing flash of dimples, a rare but rewarding smile from Arthur! "I thought you knew, Mr. Eames? I like you a lot."
Eames didn't think he was capable of blushing right now and he wanted Arthur to know how he felt.
"You know I adored you before you got the sword. I adore you because you're Arthur, but I'd let you be the rightful King of Great Britain, just because."
Arthur shushed him, looking a little fond as Eames tried to prove himself. "I know, Eames. It's fine. I think the bleeding's stopping now."
And though Eames closed his eyes and started to drift a little, he held the level together far longer than he should have been able to.
It turned out that having a guy with a mythical sword in dreamshare, earns your team a name pretty fast.
"I can't take it anymore," Cobb was saying into his cup of tea. "They're calling us his knights! They are calling our team the Knights of the Round PASIV!"
"It could be worse," Eames said, secretly liking the name because now that they had one, they could probably do something more team oriented like play a sport against other dreamsharing teams- basketball, volleyball, table tennis! Eames didn't care which, just so long as they got to flaunt their skills.
"The PASIV isn't round," Cobb said with narrowed eyes.
"You suck the fun out of everything," Eames answered him.
"Seconded," Arthur said from his spot by the PASIV, which really wasn't round, but that was fine.
"They think you're the crazy one, Arthur," Cobb was saying. "I'm working on the same team as you and they think that you are the crazy one!"
"I have no idea why they would think that, Cobb. Not when you still have your moments."
From his spot on a rolling desk chair, Cobb pointed at Arthur, exclaiming, "Last job I saw you blind some projections with that blade- literally blinded them with the light shining off the blade and then murdered them with it!"
"What's the sword supposed to do, Cobb?" Arthur asked, almost philosophically. "It's meant to hack, chop, and stab; sometimes in defense of others or in claiming things for yourself. And how is it any worse than my shooting projections as we work?"
"You-"
"I kill with my bare hands," Arthur said, cutting off Cobb.
"Sexy, darling," Eames commented.
"I shoot and stab and manipulate the dream's architecture to do what must be done, Cobb, so stop bitching about my methods."
Then Arthur smiled at Eames and said, so politely, "Thank you."
The point man left early to take care of something he didn't bother explaining to the rest of the team, leaving Eames staring after him longingly and the other members of the team staring at Eames in amazement.
"It's so strange," Ariadne began. "You're finally getting through to him. How are you making headway?"
Eames wanted to say that it was because of the sword. He felt that it was important, that it was fulfilling some childish wish he made when he was hopelessly in love with his Arthur from before, but before he got his heart stomped on and developed a complex around young, attractive men who reminded him of his first crush, leading him to try very very hard to impress them.
There had only been two Arthurs. One had ended up hating him and now the other appeared to be finally warming to him.
"That sword is magic, you know?"
When there was silence around the room, Eames clarified. "I meant nothing sexual by that."
The silence said it better than any one person could put into words. We could tell, the silence said. That was the strange part.
Arthur and Eames rarely had time alone together, so when it happened it was like a gift. What they had, nameless and tenuous as anything they were too hesitant to put an official name to, was still in the beginning stages. For men who had known and worked together for years, this development in their relationship was slow. But it was still a relationship!
"Do you want anything special?"
Arthur peered at him over a menu, smiling softly, "Nothing with peanuts."
Eames raised his eyebrows. "You're allergic? I never knew!"
Arthur shook his head. "I just can't stand the things. They aren't even nuts, you know? They're legumes!"
Eames leaned forwards across the table and shyly reached for Arthur's hand. "That has to be one of the silliest things you've ever said to me. Right up there with 'Guess what Eames, I bought Excalibur!'"
Arthur rolled his eyes. "You know, you really were the only person I called to talk about it."
"Why?"
"I thought you might have an interesting opinion about whether or not I should be called King Arthur or become the rightful King of England."
"You could be my king, if you really wanted to…"
Arthur smiled. "I seem to recall you saying something like that in a dream. I will give you exactly ten seconds to attempt to retract that syrupy sweet statement. If not, I will be forced to acknowledge it. I'm starting the countdown now."
It was the longest ten seconds of Eames's life. Arthur never took his eyes off of Eames- it would have been magical if the waiter hadn't popped up at the six second mark and asked if they wanted to hear about the specials. They didn't. So after the ten seconds were up, Eames smiled and said, "Did you really think I was to going to give up an opportunity to say that? I could tell you another story, about another Arthur…"
Eames ended up telling him the tale over lunch. They were eating sandwiches that had been pierced with little plastic swords instead of toothpicks. After holding a very short, very funny mini sword toothpick duel, Arthur tossed his plastic sword into his water glass. He watched it sink to the bottom, deep in thought.
"What's wrong?"
"Its great having Excalibur," Arthur said aloud. "When I was a boy, I'd ask my mother why I was named Arthur, and she would tell me that I was Arthur because I was named for my great-grandfather on my mother's side of the family. When I was that little I'd already learned about King Arthur and kind of hoped that she'd been inspired to name me that particular name because she liked the story or the idea of having a kid named after a legendary king. And then I happen to really find Excalibur."
"Its been pretty good, right?" Eames couldn't help but ask, thinking about all the adventures they'd had in dreamshare, the name that Arthur was making for himself, that people now didn't find it so odd to see this well dressed man walking around with a sword.
"The police hardly bother me anymore."
"But it was a nuisance!"
"And I'm not saying that I got it specifically because it was going to by eye-catching or annoying to others, it's just, I think it might have fulfilled it's purpose."
Eames gave Arthur a level expression. "What do you want to do with it, love?"
Arthur smiled and looked down into this cup of water, looking at the submerged sword made of blue plastic.
They didn't try to find Lake Avalon.
"Too far."
"Not described well enough."
"I found the sword in an antique store anyway."
But Arthur took his time with it. He chose the spot well, something obscure enough that no one would find it unless they knew where to look, that they wouldn't steal it without going to great effort. If the sword was really magic, maybe it wouldn't resurface until someone else came along.
When they found it, they picked the day and traveled light.
"Did you want to make a speech or something?"
Arthur frowned and thought about it. "On one hand, I was glad to accept the sword. I felt it was my right. Not just because my name is Arthur. But maybe because I needed it. Now it's time to let it go."
Arthur, already dressed for wading into the lake with a spare change of clothes ready if he needed it, carried Excalibur into the water and tossed it in when he was at about waist depth. He watched it spin, the blade catching the light, watched it falling, and then with a splash, it was gone.
Once he moved back towards the shore where Eames waited for him, he gratefully accepted his hand for help.
Pants sodden, but having kicked off his shoes beforehand, Arthur walked along shore with Eames, who was quiet and pensive.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Wondering who is going to find it next, darling."
"Fisherman."
"Naturalist."
"Wildlife preservationist."
"Not me," Arthur said, looking peaceful now. "I don't need the sword anymore." He swung their joined hands together. "I'm cool."
"I'll still think of you as the rightful ruler of Great Britain."
Arthur laughed.
"Gonna give your king a kiss?"
"I'll give you twenty."
They started with one, then two, but Arthur got cold so they stopped at two and a half.
As they walked away towards the car, Eames said, "I should write a novel or something."
"About dreamshare or forgery?"
Eames shook his head. "No. About this. About this completely random experience that led us to starting a relationship."
"Of course you would. What would you call it?"
"Something simple," Eames said. "Something to the point. I would call it Arthur Finds Excalibur."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "Needs to be something catchier."