AUTONOMOUS
Arthur looked at himself in the mirror and grinned. It wasn't often that he really, truly enjoyed his reflection, but this was different. He paused to really take it in, really admire his perfectly slicked hair, his dark, peering eyes, the slimness of his figure which wore a suit so well. Damn he looked good.
There was one small problem: he wasn't Arthur.
But this wasn't really a problem, not as far as Eames was concerned. Eames was in it for the practice. He'd pulled off Americans, he'd pulled off girls, no reason he couldn't pull off an uptight prat.
However much he enjoyed admiring the end result, he always enjoyed the process of immersion. Studying a person, learning his movements down to a solid science, the art of impersonation, of being someone else. On occasion he wondered if he'd have been a great actor, always tossing it off because of course he would, but when faced with the pressure of grueling rehearsals and actor-pay, hell, stealing shit was where it was at.
What made this particular transformation particularly enjoyable was that Arthur had absolutely no idea. They were between jobs, there'd been a bit of a dry spell, and no one was really ready to do anything big again after what happened with Cobb. So they settled for downtime and spending a hell of a lot of Saito's money. And Eames was bored, tired of playing casinos and losing money, so he took up the practice of watching Arthur.
Arthur was pretty boring. This Eames knew already, but it was grandly reinforced over the course of a couple of days, watching him work, jotting things down, talking business with Yusuf and Ariadne, who tolerated him politely. No one was really sure if they were a team that was going to continue functioning together, but no one had left yet and it was safe to say their harrowing experience in the pit of pretty Mr. Fischer's brain had left them all a little closer and a lot strung out, and no one was in a hurry to run off alone. So in the absence of Cobb, Arthur took over, and it was as if the man had never played a day in his life. Eames was beginning to suspect he'd actually had no childhood—just emerged one day, a beautiful, stern-faced twentysomething in a vest and suspenders, ready for business and utterly unwilling to crack a genuine smile.
Watching Arthur hit on Ariadne was the closest he got to being interesting at first. He was a resilient little bastard, and he was good at pretending he didn't mean anything by it, but Eames knew bullshit like he'd invented it. Ariadne was a good-looking girl, and smarter than the lot of them, and powerful besides, and sure, that was hot. Arthur liked her kind of like she was a car—she occupied his time and his energy, she was reliable and useful and shiny and new, but it didn't smack an ounce of romance. She treated him with courteous indifference in all matters personal, and he would smile at her and pay her his little condescending compliments now and again, and that was that. Ariadne was too smart for him; she was too busy building, expanding, learning. It was only a matter of time before Arthur got bored and moved on.
And then, and this is where things got interesting, he did. As Eames watched, lounging in one of their lawn chairs and gazing vaguely across the room, poker chip between his fingers, Arthur's focus drifted and became inward; before Eames really knew what was happening, Arthur was transforming into a naval-gazing brooder. He started wandering off on his own a lot more, spending hours scribbling notes, reading notes, editing notes, staring off into space, this compounded by erratic bursts of energy wherein he would demand that Yusuf craft some clever new sedative, etc, etc, and then one day, all of a sudden, rather without warning, he went under.
Eames was vaguely aware that everyone else was vaguely aware what was going on, and there was no fuss kicked up about it, but one afternoon, Arthur was just asleep. Yusuf shrugged it off with a line about testing some new compound, some new maze Ariadne'd dreamt up, and he was going it alone because it was no big deal, really.
Yusuf disengaged himself for a quick lunch, and Eames was alone with his target. He watched intently for a while, Arthur's eyelids fluttering softly as his eyes roamed around, observing god knew what. Eames came very close to slipping in under as well. Something stopped him, and he settled for tipping Arthur's chair instead.
Arthur woke with a satisfying start, and the uncharacteristic flail that accompanied it threw Eames into a pleasant laugh. Arthur scrambled to his feet and shoved him aside, not even bothering to insult him as he stalked off. Eames turned to watch him go, following his quick, sharp movements, the gait, the way his arms hung stiffly at his side. Duly noted. Eames smiled.
Eames tried smiling as Arthur, and the result was marginally upsetting. He tried again, subtler, more in-character, and after some practice found that Arthur really had a very nice smile indeed. The process of immersion taught him a lot about a person; the actual act of becoming was the final step. He saw things now he'd never noticed before, and reaffirmed things he'd started to suspect in the process of watching.
So here he was, infiltrating Arthur's little autonomous mission, sneaking in after assuring Yusuf he'd watch Arthur and he wouldn't give him a premature kick this time. Yusuf was glad to get outside for a change. Eames was glad to get inside. He had a mission of his own, after all. The objective wasn't particularly clear to him—mostly he was in it for the look on Arthur's pretty face. But looking at himself, enjoying his marvelous new reflection, he was beginning to expand a little on his original goals. Goodbye to bored, sexually frustrated, emotionally constipated Arthur. Time to get creative.
He took a moment to make some new expressions, trying to guess what Arthur's reaction would look like. He did a few things that were outlandish and utterly unlikely, curious to see what else this boy's face could do but never did, before taking a stab at what it might actually be, which variation on Arthur's basic facial expression, the anonymous disdain for all things. Then he tugged his vest importantly and swept away down the winding halls of this oddly art deco building, keeping in perfect step with Arthur's walk: stiff hips, decisive footsteps, efficient, small strides. What a toff.
Finding Arthur wasn't difficult. He was tucked away in a small corner of self-righteousness and debris. It looked like he'd set a bomb off. He had set a bomb off.
"What the hell is this?" said Eames, and Arthur's voice came out. The reaction was more beautiful than anything he could have hoped for; Arthur gave a jolt from the sudden noise, froze and looked like he was maybe checking himself to make sure he hadn't just spontaneously talked. Was it worse to hear your own voice, or convince yourself that you heard nothing at all and are maybe crazy?
Then Arthur turned around and stood up in a fluid but electrocuted motion, and stared at himself. He refused to let his face change. Eames held himself together for as long as he could, mirroring, before he let a grin break and said, "So which of us do you think is the doppelganger?"
"What the fucking hell," said Arthur, looking Eames up and down with developing hysterics, the furious, Arthurian brand of hysterics where he kept it together except for the part where he might be about to cause some serious physical harm. "Eames?"
Eames spread his hands as if to say "Ta-da!"
Arthur looked for a beautiful moment like he truly had nothing to say.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he hissed. "Eames, what the hell?"
"Trying you on for size," said Eames, looking himself over. "Pretty good, right?" He stuffed his hands in his pockets and cocked his head back at a slight angle, full of that self-congratulating charm Arthur radiated off in waves when he was singly proud of himself. Arthur just looked horrified.
"What the hell gives you the right—" he began, but he didn't get very far, because nowhere in hell was Eames about to get into a moralistic debate about the particulars of forgery. With Arthur.
"Blowing things up, are we?" he asked, peering at the mess Arthur had made. "What's that about?" He reached around Arthur to the debris. It looked like Arthur had been trying to blow out a support.
"None of your goddamn business," said Arthur, slapping his arm away. "Eames, you fucked-up freak. Where do you get off?"
"Same place as everybody else, darling," said Eames with a little wink he just knew looked charming on Arthur's face. Arthur must have agreed on some subconscious level, because his face fell slack, like he was suddenly having trouble being angry, when there was so much to be confused about. Or maybe he was scandalized. Either way, really.
"You look nice when you smile properly, you know," said Eames. "Unfair of you to deprive us all of such winning good looks, keep it all to yourself."
"F—" was all Arthur managed to get out before Eames wrapped an arm around his lovely slender waist and pulled him close to whisper in his ear: "Does Yusuf know what you're up to in here? Does Ariadne?"
"I don't—" Arthur's voice was caught in his throat. He was completely frozen, stiff in the grip of himself. "None of your business. It's nothing."
"Mm." Eames pressed a little closer and enjoyed the subtle twitch of Arthur's body as he jerked ever so slightly away, enjoyed the hiss of his sharp, alarmed inhale as he rested his chin on Arthur's shoulder. "Looks to me," he said softly, "like you're trying to design a self-inflicted, in-dream kick."
Arthur said nothing and Eames turned his head so that his lips brushed the base of Arthur's neck, getting a whiff of his hair. They fit together so perfectly like this, two peas in a pod. It was pretty weird to think about. Arthur was having palpable trouble digesting it; Eames had actually been commissioned to do something like this before, and it was pretty simple, really. Everyone, everyone, especially people as self-confident and as appealing as Arthur, had some very basic, very unexplored desire to know what it was like to have intimate physical contact with oneself. For his part, Eames kept his eyes on the mirrored panel before him, reflecting off the one behind, reproducing them infinitely, Arthur after Arthur into oblivion, with exactly one reflection that revealed his true self. It was that reflection he allowed himself to focus on, just a little bit.
"Did I get it right?" he murmured. "How's it working for you?"
Arthur swallowed with some effort. "Needs some work," he said. "You interrupted me before I was finished last time, I think I was closer then."
"Yes, well, it's a bit useless, isn't it?" said Eames, his hands wandering, feeling his way around the trim young body. "Easy enough to just shoot yourself."
"Not if we do another job as big as inception," muttered Arthur, his heart pounding, doing everything he could to keep from completely losing his shit. Morbid curiosity and indomitable spite drove Eames to tighten his grip a little, and Arthur gasped and choked a little on his words. "I—it could have gotten bad in there, when the van was in freefall, it was just luck that I—"
"It wasn't luck, you stupid idiot," said Eames, and although this was an incredibly Arthur thing to say, he felt a bit of his natural accent creeping out around the edges, through the cracks. He corrected himself immediately and his eyes darted away from the damning reflection. "It was all you. Clever boy, that elevator trick and all. I'd never have thought that one up."
"Eames, what do you want?" demanded Arthur in a sudden burst of strong will, frustrated and wriggling suddenly. Eames gripped him hard around the waist and looked into his eyes, and he went still, his breath quick and shallow.
Eames took a good long look, figuring out what to say. Without even fully realizing it, he'd waited a long time to hear those words, to have this opportunity. And now that it was here, and he had to get it right. It was a lot of pressure.
"Well, it would appear," he said finally, his fingers trailing along the edge of Arthur's vest, "that I have what I want."
Arthur didn't know what to say that. The look on his face was pure shock. Eames wished he could have that moment forever.
"And what about you, Arthur?" he said, sliding his arms up to Arthur's shoulders, hanging loosely about his neck, as if at any moment they might begin dancing like awkward teenagers. "What do you want?"
Arthur really couldn't answer that one. To be fair, Eames had done his level best to bewilder the living daylights out of him.
"Haven't you ever wondered what it'd be like to kiss yourself?" he said very quietly.
Arthur laughed, abruptly, startlingly. Eames smirked.
"What?" said Arthur, his last shreds of composure beginning to crumble like the wall behind him. "Hell n—"
Eames didn't let him finish.
Arthur enjoyed it. Oh, he did. There was the startled, muffled noise, the squirming, the fruitless protestation, and the eventual, dubious surrender. He fell into it naturally, because it was impossible not to. He was good at it, and Eames was a goddamn champion, and he was using everything he had and not the least of his assets were Arthur's magnificent teeth. He bit down gently on Arthur's lip, and Arthur actually moaned.
Pulling away ever so slightly, he said, "Arthur, you've always been a very bad liar. Don't you know that's what you need me for?"
He half-expected to be punched, but to his immense surprise and subsequent pleasure, Arthur grabbed him whole-heartedly and kissed him hard. Eames smiled into it and backed him into the dusty, half-destroyed wall, where Arthur proceeded to dig a hand into his—his own—sleek hair, mussing it gently, pulling Eames closer. Eames had to admit, deep down, he was surprised. He didn't know what this was—whether Arthur was worse-off in the sexual starvation department than he'd thought, or this was narcissism in the extreme. But he didn't care. Arthur tasted just as good as he looked. Like champagne and regret, only that was ridiculous and as soon as he thought it he started laughing.
Arthur was looking at him with another new face, perplexed, maybe. "Eames," he said softly.
Eames realized, moments late, that he was himself again.
"Shit," he said. "I've never dropped a character that fast."
That was when Arthur's blown-out wall gave way and Eames jerked awake.
He shot a look across at Arthur, who was stirring more slowly, easing himself into it. He blinked around himself, then turned his gaze to Eames. His face was utterly blank. Eames didn't know what his own face was doing—a bizarre and uncharacteristic lack of self-awareness had taken him. He hadn't thought the plan through to this end; he hadn't thought about what would happen upon waking.
For the longest time, Arthur just looked at him. They were still alone; Ariadne was at school, Yusuf was still out.
Finally, after an achingly long stand-off, Arthur stood up very calmly, and he approached with a slow walk that wasn't like his at all, and he leaned down very close.
"Eames," he said, and enunciated each word slowly and carefully. "Don't you ever do that ever again."
Eames had expected as much. Mentally he shook himself and switched on a grin.
"You liked it," he said.
Arthur straightened up and slid his hands into his pockets, and the little bitch actually grinned, surveying the big empty warehouse.
"If you ever tell anyone about this you're a fucking deadman," he said. "I guarantee it."
Eames said nothing, watching him.
Arthur glanced at him and smiled, a real, genuine, lovely smile. Then he turned and walked away.
Eames grinned and leaned back in the chair. Mission accomplished.