a little starchy, a little stiff

by Lovebites and Popcorn

It's been six months since the Fischer job. Arthur takes it upon himself to conduct a business meeting that is not really a business meeting. And the rather unsettling phone call that interrupts said meeting makes everything unreasonably complicated.

a little starchy, a little stiff.

It's been six months since the Fischer job. Arthur takes it upon himself to conduct a business meeting that is not really a business meeting. And the rather unsettling phone call that interrupts said meeting makes everything unreasonably complicated.

---

It is late November.

They find themselves at a small, cheap sidewalk café in London. The sky is overcast and gloomy, the weather decidedly chilly. Arthur looks slightly overdressed in this setting, his immaculate suit clashing with the surrounding individuals donning less expensive articles of clothing. His companion from across the table looks far less conspicuous. In fact, Eames looks very much at home as he slouches in his seat in his frayed polyester jacket, discoloured shirt and patched dress pants.

"So really, I'm quite interested to know how much they're paying you for this job." Eames' voice is light, curious. "A sizable amount, I'm hoping."

Arthur takes a sip from the glass of water placed in front of him. Tap, he notes mentally with distaste before setting the flute down again with an audible clink. The expression he assumes is placid.

"I wasn't aware you knew of the motives behind this arrangement." His voice is careful, displaying no hint of surprise.

"Don't be silly, Arthur," Eames chides amiably. "Despite your somewhat degrading opinions about me, I'm not stupid. There's only one reason you would actually bother to personally seek me out. A job. Not an offer – because lord knows you would never deign to work with me if you can help it – but a job that I'm part of nonetheless. I'm not going to ask who's hired you, but I'm dying to know how much they're willing to pay."

"A quarter million each," is the shamelessly immediate reply.

Eames looks almost baffled by this. "And how many in your team this time?"

"Three."

"Three quarts of a million. To be quite honest, I find that quite insulting on my behalf."

Arthur cocks an eyebrow, slightly amused. "One would think you'd find being our designated mark much more of a pressing concern. Seems I've been mistaken. You are incorrigible at best, Mr. Eames."

Eames smiles back lazily. "It's all about reputation, Arthur."

"Of course it is," Arthur agrees without conviction, nodding absentmindedly. "Well, rest easy. It's just a simple extraction. One layer, that's all. They wouldn't pay much for something like this."

A waiter arrives at their table and deposits an apple and rhubarb crumble in front of Eames and a Cobb salad in front of Arthur.

Eames regards Arthur for a long moment as the two of them silently wait for the waiter to take his leave.

"Is there a reason you're telling me this?" Eames finally asks when he feels it's safe to speak again. "Because you and I both know your team isn't going to succeed."

Arthur actually grins at this. "Cocky, Eames. Very cocky."

"Just telling it like it is, darling. But really."

Arthur nods, picking up a fork and carefully stabbing into his bowl of salad. "It's crossed my mind," he admits slowly. "I've even brought it up with the others. They don't believe me."

"What did you tell them, exactly?"

"That I knew the mark was in the business of dream-sharing and will thus prove a difficult target."

"And?"

"They're willing to go ahead."

"Oh are they?"

"They're rookies."

"Clearly," Eames says dryly. "Do they even know who I am?"

"Who are you?"

"The best damn forger in the world, that's who."

"No."

"Exactly."

"I didn't tell them you're in the habit of carrying around a totem either," Arthur shrugs nonchalantly. "You'll know. And you'd try to kill yourself before anyone knew what was going on."

Eames pauses, a forkful of his dessert stopping short of his open mouth. He frowns. "Which side are you on, Arthur? You're working for this team, yet you seem to be setting the job up for failure."

"Perhaps." Arthur's expression is unreadable. "Or maybe I just like a challenge."

"Oh, believe me, love. If you go ahead with this extraction, that's exactly what you'll be getting."

"And believe me when I say I'm not going ahead with their plans. The moment they told me who the mark was, I decided to make plans of my own."

Eames raises an eyebrow. "Let me guess. Part of your plan involves meeting me at a cheap café in London and just extracting the information firsthand all by yourself. Right here, right now."

Arthur rolls his eyes. "There's a reason I never told them that we knew each other personally and that I'm arguably on fairly tolerable terms with you."

"Oh, you adore me."

"Fairly tolerable terms," Arthur repeats with more force.

"Hmm. Well, be that as it may, if I didn't know any better, I'd say the professional, trustworthy, loyal-to-a-fault point man sitting before me is currently alluding to selling out his team. To me."

"But you do know better," Arthur deadpans.

"Naturally," Eames shrugs. "This could be an elaborate ploy to lower my defenses. For all I know you could be lying. You might be attempting to gain my trust before stabbing me in the back."

"You've dabbled in deception long enough to make your own decisions on whether or not I'm playing you. But that's besides the point of this meeting."

"What is the point of this meeting, pray tell?"

"Someone's made you their target."

"Obviously. That would be you," the forger points out smartly, popping an obscenely large chunk of dessert into his mouth.

"My client," Arthur corrects him dryly.

Eames chews almost thoughtfully for a moment, swallows, licks his bottom lip distractedly, and finally returns his attention back to Arthur.

"Right, this Enrico Mueller fellow," he drawls. "I know him. Well, heard of him. Owns a large majority of casino chains across the globe. Wears his sunglasses at night. Walks with a limp. Vegan, if I'm not mistaken. Smarmy bastard. Personally, I don't think he deserves the reputation he's managed to build for himself."

Arthur ignores the tail end of Eames' repartee and grates out a question. "Is there any reason why he would want to extract information from you? I've met him personally and you seem to have done something to piss him off. He's taking it very seriously."

"Very seriously?" There's a mocking expression of disbelief etched on the forger's face. "Seven hundred and fifty grand all up, Arthur. That's not serious. That's nigh trivial. He should be paying all of you at least triple that amount."

"Eames," Arthur growls. "What did you do?"

"Surely Mueller told you?"

"I want to hear it from you."

"Here we go, you're already starting to extract information from me. We aren't even dreaming. Doing this the old fashioned way, are we? Gonna bring out the torture rack and a few thumbscrews? Lie detector, maybe? Those things don't really work, you know?"

Arthur sighs and lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Alright Eames, I know you have every reason to be suspicious, despite the fact that I've been nothing but truthful with you from the start. Mueller briefed us on what happened in Dubai, but as with most extraction cases, he wants us to find out how you pulled it off. Impressive job, by the way. Very Ocean-esque."

"Why thank you, Arthur. Your comparison of my heist to that of the fabled Ocean's team and their unethical debauchery makes my toes curl in delight. However, unlike George Clooney, I didn't need a party of thirteen, twelve or even eleven."

"So it was a one-man job, then? No accomplices?"

Eames grins. "Now that would be telling, darling."

Arthur scowls. "You still don't trust me. After all we've been through."

"Mmm, yes, we've been through quite a number of horrible escapades, haven't we?" Eames looks thoughtful for a moment. "Well. Let's put it this way, love. Would you trust me?"

"Of course not," Arthur mutters. "You're a forger, a liar and a thief."

"There. You don't trust me, so at least cut me some slack when I say I can't trust you."

"You're impossible," Arthur huffs.

"Of course I am. And you might want to consider my earlier suggestion with the torture devices. You'll get more luck out of that than trying to crack me in a dream state. You should know. Both you and Mr. Limbo trained my subconscious. Unless you want to try your hand at seeing how good you and Cobb have mentored me, I advise you to do it some other way. Enter my mind and you'll probably be blown straight out of it in a matter of seconds."

"A matter of seconds? Have a little faith. I'm not incompetent."

"That's true. Maybe not seconds," Eames concedes. "Three minutes, five at the most."

There's a moment of silence.

"Alright," the point man finally says, fidgeting a little. "Let's say I'm not… let's say I decided to pull out. Yesterday."

"Too late, you've already planted the seed of suspicion in my head and no matter what you say, I'm still going to believe you're trying for extraction."

Arthur shrugs. "Good. I more or less suspected that would be your base reaction. My intention was only to alert you of the fact you've been made a mark. Nothing more. Whether you trust me or not has no effect whatsoever on this arrangement. By all means, continue to keep your defenses up. Can't be too careful. Were I in your shoes, I would do the same."

"All this for little old me, Arthur? Oh darling, you're such a martyr."

"Poetry. Flattering."

"Unintentional, but you're welcome. How's Cobb?"

Arthur doesn't comment on the abrupt, highly unsubtle change in subject. "James and Phillipa are keeping him busy. Doesn't seem like he'll be globetrotting anytime soon. If you ask me, I think the Fischer job may have been his last."

"He never saw it as a job."

"No," Arthur agrees. "We did. He saw it as a ticket home to his kids."

"Exactly. When a man puts something like that on the line, you know he'll do everything in his power to succeed. And evidently, his efforts paid off in the end."

Arthur shakes his head. There's a small smile playing on his lips. "Eames," he starts. But that's all he gets out, because there's a faint ringing and Arthur realises quite suddenly that his phone has gone off.

Momentarily distracted, Arthur hastily fumbles for the device in his pocket, pulls it out and glances at the caller ID. Surprise flickers in his eyes briefly. It doesn't escape Eames' attention.

"Who is it?" the forger asks mildly, voice carefully hiding his interest.

"I don't know," Arthur mutters. "But judging by the first few numbers, I'd say it's from France."

Eames' brow creases. "Very strange not to be a private number," he notes. He's pretty sure the majority of Arthur's phone calls come from numbers marked 'private' on caller IDs. This is mainly because people in The Business understood that anonymity came hand-in-hand with the profession.

"Well, are you going to answer it? Or just watch it ring? That's not a particularly attractive ringtone, just so you know."

Arthur swipes at the answer button immediately and presses the phone to his ear, if only to prevent further goading from his companion. Usually, the point man wouldn't even bother to answer his phone were it to ring during a one-on-one business meeting. However, this isn't a business meeting and being civil to Eames isn't exactly far up on his list of priorities.

"Bonjour," he greets briskly out of common courtesy more than anything. "S'il vous plaît indiquer votre nom et d'affaires."

Eames sits back in his chair, impatient and somewhat disgruntled that Arthur's attention has been diverted from him to this ill-timed caller. He looks down at his cup of cooling Earl Grey, preparing himself for a long wait. However, his eyes snap back up once more when the man before him abruptly switches back to English.

"Ariadne, please calm down."

All of a sudden, Eames is extremely interested in the conversation. Even more so when a worried frown plasters itself onto Arthur's face.

"Deep breaths, take deep breaths. Breathe, Ariadne. Don't rush. Slow down. You're not making any sense."

Eames knows better than to interrupt by asking questions that could easily be addressed later, so he stays silent.

The conversation continues and Arthur's voice gets sharper by the second.

"No, that's not- Have you gone to see… Ari, listen to me. Have you… What? You haven't stepped out of your apartment in two weeks?" Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose. "Okay, stop. Stop talking." He's giving orders now. Something is definitely wrong. "Okay," the point man says again, exhaling deeply as he glances at his watch. "Right. This is what I want you to do. I want you to go and see Professor Miles. Right now. It's two in the afternoon. He'll be at the university. Go. Right now. I'm not saying you have to tell him anything, Ari. Just go. No, don't give me that," Arthur admonishes almost aggressively. "You're on the verge of hysteria, Ariadne. It is imperative that you are not alone. I'm going to catch the next flight into Paris. I can be there in less than three hours."

Eames can almost hear the heated protest on the other end. Arthur listens for all but five seconds before saying, "You do what I say. Three hours." And hangs up.

It takes a moment for Eames to read the fear on Arthur's face. The point man was always good with hiding his emotions. Not good enough for Eames.

"Well?" he demands, a little harsher than he intends. He puts it down to his unnerved state.

"We have a problem."

"We? Unless I've developed a case of selective hearing, I'm pretty sure it's Ariadne who has a problem."

Nerves. They never brought out the best in Eames.

Arthur's eye twitches in irritation. "Of course, forgive me for instantly assuming you would be concerned about her wellbeing. You wouldn't even care if she dropped dead in the next hour."

Eames hides his surprise at the vehemence in Arthur's voice and realises how tense the point man's shoulders have become. "Of course I care," the forger says quietly. "It's serious, isn't it?"

Arthur stands. "I need to go to Paris," he says brusquely, ignoring Eames' query, eyes still on his phone as he deftly scrolls through a list of contacts.

"Yes, of course," Eames says, nodding. Then: "What's wrong with her?"

"That's exactly what I intend to find out." Arthur punches a few more buttons and holds the phone up to his ear. "I'm booking a flight out right now." He glances down at the empty plates on the table. "Think you can foot the bill, Mr. Eames?"

Eames tugs at his bottom lip for a bit, studies the point man's rigid posture.

"Only if you foot my ticket to Paris," he says finally. "I'm coming with."

Pure astonishment flits across Arthur's face, but before he can protest, the receptionist on the other end asks how she may help him and all Arthur can do is quash down his objections and request two business class seats on the next flight out to Paris.