When Patience is Worn Thin
Arthur hasn't slept for at least forty-eight hours. But that's nothing new. Arthur never act's any different, never looks different. Maybe nobody's noticed yet. Eames just sat motionlessly at his desk, chin propped up on his open palm as he mulled over his new problem.
There are only a few subtle changes in the pointman when he's tired. Tired. Not fatigued, tired, because Arthur insists there's a difference. The small changes people barely notice, like when he's in the office eariler than everybody else. This is also not unpredictable, only, he's wearing the same clothes as the day before. That's one of the only ways you could tell that Arthur never really left the office. Eames's flirts and teasing was responded to with a level of hostility today, and Arthur's blink rate heightens with the severity of his fatigue. Oops, not fatigue, tired-...ness?
Eames shook his head with an exasperated sigh. Give Arthur a few more hours of work and he'll start snapping at people. Eames glanced over at Cobb and immediately knew that the extractor was also aware of their dilemma. The rest of their team was blissfully unaware of the dire situation.
Cobb caught Eames glancing at him and casually walked over. "Hey." he greeted with a slight nod of his head.
"Hey yourself." Eames replied as calmly as possible.
Cobb glanced over at Arthur's desk, watching the pointman scribble some innocuous detail in his trusty moleskin notebook before chewing the end of his pencil with a dissatisfied frown. Just like always. Cobb moved to sit on the edge of Eames's desk. "Look at him." Eames spoke before Cobb had the chance to. "Isn't this situation perfectly reminiscent of the calm before the storm?"
Cobb nodded slowly, almost sagely. "Is there any way to somehow..." He flailed his hand to make up for the lack of appropriate adjectives for the unexplainable atmosphere. "... you know."
Eames grimaced. "Well, I'm open to suggestions." Then he sent a dirty look in Ariadine, Yusuf, and Saito's direction. "Lucky buggers."
Cobb snorted and hopped off Eames's desk, giving Eames's shoulder an encouraging squeeze. "Well, try to get him to sleep."
Eames's mouth fell open and he turned his best kicked puppy-dog look at Cobb. "Wait, you're not going to help?"
"I've known Arthur for a long time Eames," Cobb sighed sadly, "I've never once been able to get Arthur to take a break. Mal had better luck with that." Eames sighed in despair but let Cobb leave.
Eames waited until the rest of their team had left before finally gathering up enough courage to talk to Arthur.
Arthur was now in Ariadine's office territory, studying her newest dream layout and taking notes. The pointman didn't even look up when Eames approached him. "Eames? What are you still doing here?" Eames winced at the slight hoarseness in Arthur's voice.
"You sound awful, darling. When was the last time you slept?" Eames ignored Arthur's previous question.
Arthur finally turned away from his work to send Eames annoyed look. "I sleep, Eames." Arthur sighed, rubbing his tired eyes.
"I didn't ask whether you slept, Arthur, I asked when you slept." Eames murmured with a worried frown, Arthur shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the dizzying maze spread out before him.
"Not tired." Did Arthur know just how childish he sounded at that moment?
Eames wisely decided not to bring that detail to attention. He moved behind the now work-focused pointman and wrapped his arms around the man's midsection, frowning at how thin Arthur was. "Come on, Darling," he positively purred, "militarized subconscious, or no, you've got to sleep." He almost begged, almost. "Take a break."
Arthur rolled his eyes and broke out of Eames's grip. "Sorry, Eames," Arthur retorted curtly, "but a target with a militarized subconscious holds alot more priority than rest, right now. We've got only one shot at this extraction and we can't afford to be unprepared." Arthur honestly didn't mean his response to be as annoyed at it sounded, and the forger knew it. Eames frowned, Arthur was alot more stressed than he first expected.
"Arthur, you snapping turtle." Eames pouted. Arthur couldn't stay mad at Eames when he pouted, but he could sure be annoyed.
"Eames..." Arthur stopped himself and massaged his head with an exasperated sigh. "Can you just... not, right now?"
Eames's shoulders sagged visibly, he could tell the situation was getting more worse than it was better. "Alright." he relented. "But you, sleep, alright?" Arthur gave a lolling nod and flapped his hand to shoo the forger off.
Eames turned and left. He needed a new strategy.
Something was happening in the office, Saito knew the moment he stepped inside, he was an observant man, afterall. The air was thin and tense, almost like the office was made of playing cards and the whole team was too afraid to speak, in fear of blowing the whole warehouse down. He sidled quietly to Cobb's desk. "What is going on here?" The Japanese businessman asked in a hushed whisper.
Cobb frantically motioned for Saito to follow him to the next room for some privacy. "There's a... minor problem." Saito raised an eyebrow in more curiosity than concern. Cobb sent a worried glance at the closed door as if he was afraid someone from outside would hear him. "Arthur's been, well..."
"...Slightly overworked." Saito finished Cobb's sentence. "I noticed."
"Yes, and today was supposed to be a team-building exerscise, more of a test-run for the extraction, see." Saito nodded, he had heard of this from Yusuf and that was why he was here today.
"And...?" he coaxed the usually calm extractor. This whole situation was strange, Saito had never known Cobb to be easily worried about something.
"And..." Cobb continued in despair. "...Eames hasn't shown up yet."
As if on cue, they heard the sound of the office door opening and closing loudly, followed by Arthur's most terrible growl. "Eames..!"
Cobb and Saito exchanged apprehensive glances and rushed out of the room, fully braced for the need of chaos control. They gaped at the scene in front of them, barely aware of the similar expressions on the rest of the team's faces.
Eames was a mess. His hair was disheveled, his face was red and grinning, his breath smelled of alcohol, and he staggered... straight into Arthur and latched himself to the aggravated pointman's neck. "Aaaarrrthuuuur!" The intoxicated forger crooned merrily.
Arthur's eyes narrowed and Cobb noted, with trepidation, that his eyebrow twitched. "Eames..." The poor pointman really tried to be mature about the situation.
"Nonononono, Arthur, darling. I really have something really important to tell you!" Eames interrupted, rolling his tongue more than necessary on the 'darling'.
Arthur sighed, two 'really's in one sentence? Eames was really out of it. "Well? What is it, Eames?" he asked with all the patience of a parent speaking with a really, really, annoying child.
Eames tightened his grip on Arthur's neck, pulling the pointman closer to him, if possible. "You're sexy when you're angry." Eames whispered in a perfectly seductive slur that was only heard by Arthur and Cobb, who was closest to them. Cobb blanched at Arthur's livid look and could almost swear that he heard something snap.
Smack! Cobb winced when Arthur's fist connected with Eames's nose, sending the forger sprawling. But in Arthur's defense, Eames had that one coming."Angry, Eames! I'll show you angry!" Arthur exploded, stomping his foot for good measure, scaring the Hell out of the three newest additions to the team. "And I know you're not drunk, Eames, because I've seen you drunk before! And you wern't coherent at the time!" The pointman continued accusingly.
Cobb took that moment to bodily steer the rest of the team out of the office with an 'okay, let's call it a day!' Ariadine shot a concerned look over her shoulder at the two men's contest of stare-down. "Are you sure it's okay to leave them?" she asked.
"It's fine, they're always like that." Cobb shrugged his shoulders. "They've been going through this routine for a while, leave it to Eames, he's the expert."
Yusuf cocked his head to the side in confusion. "I'm sorry, he's the expert of what?"
They left the office and began walking toward the nearest cafe. "Arthur rarely gets angry for anything, and when he does, it's quite simply destructive. And Eames, it seems, is always the nearest punching bag he could find." Cobb explained, Ariadine grimaced at Eames's bad luck. "It's really Eames's fault, in the first place." Cobb continued. "It's karma for always picking on Arthur." he justified.
"Still, you feel sorry for him." Ariadine frowned.
Cobb shook his head with a reminiscent laugh. "Yes..." They heard a window breaking. "...yes, you do."
"Ohh, ow, now I wish I carried this plan out over the phone." Eames groaned, nursing his nose. He was quite satisfied to see Arthur wiping a spot of blood from his shirt where it had dripped from the corner of his lip.
"It wouldn't have saved you, nope." Arthur shook his head, quite confident in his statement.
Eames peeled himself off the floor, where Arthur had thrown him, and guided the still seething man to a desk, Arthur's own desk, to be prescise. "Oh, yeah, there was that one time when..."
"... I kicked your door in after one too many pet-names." Arthur finished his sentence. "Mal and Cobb were 'waiting out the storm' and you tried to call me on my cell to get me to vent from a safe distance." Arthur shot Eames a suspicious look. "How did you know my cell number, anyway?" he asked.
"How did you know where I was staying the night? If memory serves, we wern't... together, then." Eames asked in reply, then a feral smile crawled across his features. "Arthur, darling, do you have something to tell me?" he purred teasingly.
"Eames, do not make me hit you again." Arthur was clearly not amused.
"I'll gladly skip the concussion, darling." Eames chuckled nervously.
"Eames..." Arthur shook his head.
"What's on your mind, darling?" Eames asked, hopping up on Arthur's desk and sitting cross-legged.
"Did you have to pretend to be drunk?" Arthur asked annoyedly.
"Well, experimentation shows that you respond better emotionally to severe embarrassment rather than to urgency."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "You'd know." Then he stared miserably at the glass-littered floor. "That's going to be a pain to clean up."
Eames leaned back and supported himself on his hands. "Leave it, we could take care of it later." he grumbled. Then a bright look crossed his face. "You know, darling..."
"I really don't." Arthur interjected, but Eames continued anyway.
"...we should really have angry sex." Eames said, wagging his eyebrows suggestively.
Arthur rolled his eyes and looked away so he wouldn't see Eames's pupils dilate. "No, Eames." he growled. "Glass first, and then we need to call the team, try to convince them we're not unfit for the job."
Eames leaned close to Arthur, forcing the pointman to lean back and catch his gaze. "Cobb knows we're ready for the extraction, and the team trusts Cobb. And besides..." Arthur could feel Eames's breath on his lips. "... you didn't think I'd let you brush me off in favor of a job, did you?"
"Careful, Eames, I'm still mad." Arthur warned.
"It's not anything I can't handle." Eames replied in a near whisper before he cupped Arthur's neck and pulled him in for a kiss. "What I can't handle," Eames continued when they broke apart, "is not having your attention at all."
Arthur pushed him back. "Fine, but not in the office, Eames. Cobb talked to us about this."
Eames's expression, when he heard that, was like a mischevious child who was told not to touch wet paint. "Well..." Arthur stopped him with a hand clamped over his mouth.
"Don't even think about it." Arthur got up from his seat and observed the extent of the damage. Ariadine's maze was crushed and Yusuf's chemical compounds were splashed all over the room, Arthur hoped it was nothing dangerous.
His tally was up to the grave dent in Cobb's desk when he was suddenly lifted off his feet and slung over Eames's shoulder. He let out an indignant squawk and flailed his limbs, managing to clip Eames good upside the head. "God, Eames! Let me down!" he spluttered helplessly.
Eames just laughed and trotted out of the office door. "Sorry, darling, got to get your mind off work! Desperate times call for desperate measures!"
"Eames, I swear to God!" Arthur kicked and pounded Eames's back the whole way to Eames's car. "I'll kill you when I get down!"
Cobb raised his eyebrow when Arthur came into the office alone the next day. "Where's Eames?" he asked, the pointman had the decency to look embarrassed.
"Cobb, do you think, maybe, we could go through the extraction without a forger?" Cobb watched Arthur's expression for any signs of him joking about the suggestion. There wern't any.
"What happened to Eames?" Arthur glanced around sheepishly and lowered his voice.
"Yes, well, let's not talk about that." Cobb raised his other eyebrow in silent admonition. "In my defense, I warned him I was mad."
Cobb sighed and nodded. "We'll see what we can do."
He sat back at his dented desk and watched Arthur gather his notes, a hint of a smile on his face. Eames was a trickster, not even Cobb could control him. He often compared himself humourously to a wild tiger that he sometimes forgot that Arthur was a natural-born hunter.
But Eames had an admirable persistancy. Arthur was on his cell, Cobb could tell, when Arthur hissed 'Now how did you get this number, Eames!' Cobb shook his head with a sigh. If Eames was well enough to annoy Arthur over the phone, he would be well enough to go with them on their extraction.
The End
Extra 1: Eames: I really was serious, though, darling, about the angry sex.
Arthur: Only if I get to top, Eames. You should be more careful with what you wish for.
Eames: Oh, I'm wishing for the right things, alright! No worries, darling!
Extra 2: Arthur: Cobb, when you said those things about ideas being the most resilient parasites, I don't think you placed Eames into the equation...