A.N- And this is a story that definitely belongs in the show me your fury universe but doesn't have an awesome title of its own yet. Maybe I'll change it later, maybe I won't. This was the product of a frustrated November. Editing isn't amazing so I'll probably have to sweep through it and make silly corrections that I've missed because FINALS! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Inception and I don't own Codex Alera, I just wrote one decent fanfic that concerns the two.
Arthur was standing in front of a screen, the carefully assembled slides projected there appearing to glow across the front of his shirt- the graphics representing a human figure calling an air fury and the process of taking flight using said air fury.
"Now, I know that it seems counter-intuitive to do so, but you must create a shield before you and behind you. For those who have windcrafted for awhile or if the crafter has a great ability with that element, the shielding becomes instinctive."
Arthur stepped away from the screen and used a laser pointer to put greater emphasis on what he was teaching his two students. A red dot appeared on the projection screen.
"As you can see," Arthur began, first indicating the fury depicted on the screen, which for the sake of offering something relatable to his two students, he'd used a depiction of his own wolf shaped wind fury, Spot. Even the line drawing of his crouching wolf appeared fierce and strong. "The fury must be capable of manifesting for true flight, like an earthcrafter's need of a manifest earth fury for battling against other furies. But we could argue the Imposed versus Naturalist theories of crafting all day." Arthur smiled and pressed another button on the laser pointer, so that the slide changed to a figure flying without a visible fury at all. "Remind me what the Imposed theory is, Phillipa?"
Barely ten years old, little Phillipa Cobb almost shot out of her chair, hand raised even though she had been called on directly. She waved her hand anyway, smiling at her uncle.
"Oh, oh! It's the theory that the forms our furies take are due to the things we think our furies should look like and be capable of."
Arthur nodded, satisfied with the answer. Then he spoke to his second student.
"And what about the Naturalist theory," Arthur asked, his voice warming a little more as he spoke, "Mr. Eames?"
The forger crossed his arms over his chest and considered Arthur's question- the man had gone over the theories with him before holding the class. They'd had arguments for and against, but both knew that neither was exactly right or wrong- it just depended on how one crafter looked at it.
"The Naturalist theory states that furies have shapes and personalities that are different from other furies. That these furies are more likely to be discovered in more rural, uncultivated areas where they haven't bonded with many crafters."
"Correct."
Though Eames said nothing in response, it was clear to Arthur that the man was so pleased with Arthur's approval, no doubt the forger would be able to sense that too with his water fury.
Arthur turned off the projector, put away the screen, and rolled up his sleeves.
"Well, it looks like we've done all that we can with talk of theories and showing slides. I think you're both ready for a practical application of windcrafting."
Phillipa began to cheer, nearly flying out of her seat to hug her uncle around the waist. Arthur ruffled her hair with one hand and extended the other towards the still seated forger.
"Let's go outside and practice."
Eames trusted Arthur explicitly. Their long separation, their soppy-sweet adoring and worrying, but being too skittish to begin anything again, had been broken off by the occurrence of the Fischer Job; their completion of the first (but really second inception) ever brought them together and reignited the old feelings that never went away. The fire had sunk low but the embers were still hot, needing just a little more fuel to burn bright again.
And now they were together and better than ever- Cobb was back with his children and Arthur was free to be with Eames whenever he wanted.
Except when a certain child needed her flying lessons from her uncle…and that was when Arthur had encouraged Eames to try to augment his flying- mainly taking it from a probability of 0 to 1. Arthur had led Eames through the process of finding another air fury, one that was strong enough to manifest and give the forger a chance at flying with Arthur.
But that didn't mean that Eames wasn't worried about the entire process. Would he remember all the steps? Would his fury even do as he asked? He had a mental image of falling from a great height and breaking every bone in his body.
Eames swallowed hard and forced that irrational worry down- he pressed his hand against his old watch. It was clunky and made of metal, of course, so he'd be able to use his metalcrafting for calm and logical thinking. It wasn't the watch that Arthur had gotten him for his birthday. No, that was a diving watch. It was great; it was made with corrosion resistant material for the watch band and crystal watch face, was obviously waterproof, and a hardened mineral glass watch crystal.
It was the perfect watch for a watercrafter to wear, just in case they had to take a sudden dip. Eames had ruined many things like watches, cell phones, and wallets, by escaping into the element his furycrafting was most powerful in.
But the area around Cobb's house wasn't near to any water, happened to have neighbors who live far enough away that they wouldn't exactly notice the two men and small girl practicing flying.
It also helped that Arthur had thought to teach them how to hide their presence using windcrafting, how to create a veil.
But to reduce the likelihood of them all being noticed at once, Eames offered to go second and let Phillipa take the first run.
"You can do it, honey!" shouted Cobb from Eames's left, not noticing how the forger flinched at the noise.
"She's not even in the air yet, Cobb," Eames was quick to point out, rubbing at his left ear for a second.
"I can't help it. I'm excited!"
"Yeah, I couldn't tell," Eames said in a deadpan that would have done Arthur proud.
Cobb looked over at Eames for a moment, weighing his comment and deciding that it did sound like sarcasm.
"It's okay to be worried."
"I know."
"No, really, you hadn't gotten there the first time they made Arthur fly- it was brutal."
Eames bit the inside of his cheek and tried to not say the first thing on his mind. He'd wait till Phillipa was in the air and couldn't hear what was said to her father. It might not be a good thing for Phillipa to hear Eames's opinions about her father; that he was a jerk, insensitive, and crazy.
So instead of saying any of those things, Eames agreed with Cobb as they stood side by side in the yard.
"It was bad because they were testing the limits of abilities they didn't understand."
Eames knew very well what had been done in the military dreamshare program. That when they discovered the furycrafting which lain dormant in certain soldiers was awakened after using the PASIV, they had to discover what their newly augmented soldiers were capable of. It was, as Cobb said, brutal. Eames came from the British Army, was on transfer to the Americans because of his own crafting abilities which they believed had been revealed through their PASIV. It didn't mean that Eames ended up correcting them, because that would have led to all sorts of uncomfortable questions about his family and their furycrafting abilities that had gone on unchecked and hidden from the rest of the world.
It made him an oddity. But that was alright. On Cobb's team, even though the man himself wasn't taking part in jobs anymore, where everyone had some crafting, odd was normal and that was fine.
Arthur had told Eames about the furycrafting experiments that had been done on the strongest crafters; that Arthur had been buried alive for his earthcrafting, that Arthur's head had been forced underwater and he'd been asked to breathe deep for his watercrafting, and that he had been ripped away from his wind fury and tumbled end over end to the ground when some ass had broken Arthur's windstream with a handful of thrown salt.
Eames had similar experiences but things became much better when he had been paired with Arthur so long ago, so they could help each other develop their crafting and become better- the fact that it generally just meant they spent a lot of time together doing stuff that wasn't just furycrafting was a bonus. And the whole 'don't ask, don't tell thing' was the double-edged sword that offended as much as it protected them, as long as they kept their romantic relationship private.
But Eames was getting away from himself now. He had to focus on the flying lessen. He had made a private oath to himself. He woke up that morning, left Arthur to softly snore to himself for another twenty minutes, comfortably curled up in their warm bed, stood before the bathroom mirror and said, "I will not be shown up by a child."
So Eames watched as Arthur stood a few feet away from Phillipa and showed her his hands, asking her to do the same. Perfectly audible from the distance they were standing, both Eames and Cobb could hear Arthur, too.
"Are your hands clean? No dust, no dirt?"
Phillipa was nodding vigorously, showing him her clean palms, the little crescent moons of her short fingernails.
"Do you know why it's important to make sure there's no dirt on you when you try to fly?"
Phillipa nodded again, showing him that her clothes were nice and clean, doing a little twirl to get that over with faster.
"I can't dig in the dirt or get stuck in the mud because my fury won't be able to hear me. Because earth is against air."
Arthur nodded his approval. "Tell me all of them, just so I remember?"
Phillipa laughed at him, her funny uncle Arthur! "But how could you forget? You know everything!"
"Humor me. Tell me that you know and then we'll start."
Phillipa nodded and began to recite them. "The elements can be canceled out by each other. Earth against air stops flying, but air against earth can stop an earthcrafter from drawing their strength from the ground, like if you pick them up and make them fly!"
Arthur nodded and gestured for her to continue.
"Fire can stop water, like making it so a watercrafter can't contact their water furies to sense emotions or heal. But water can put out fire, too. Metal and wood are kind of hard to describe, because you could put a metalcrafter in a wooden box or cage and they wouldn't be able to call to their metal furies or a woodcrafter wouldn't be able to call to their wood furies if they were wrapped in chains, even if they were left in the middle of a greenhouse!"
"Good. Your basic take away from this is that if you want to fly you must make sure that you aren't covered in dirt or mud. You also have to be careful around salt. If you ever see someone trying to throw salt at you or your fury while you're flying, you have to dive out of the way, okay?"
Phillipa already knew these things. This was a part of Aircrafter 101, as Arthur jokingly called it.
It appeared that they were ready to get started.
"You can do it, Phillipa!" Cobb decided that shouting encouragement to his daughter was absolutely necessary the moment Arthur had asked her to concentrate.
Arthur, shot a look over his shoulder, glared at Cobb, and then made a quick gesture with one hand, one that Eames was familiar with.
A familiar voice, suddenly close to his ear whispered, "I'm going to murder him if he distracts her one more time, Eames."
Arthur had windcrafted his voice to Eames, so softly and carefully that Eames doubted that either of the Cobbs was aware of this conversation. It was a subtle crafting, but in his efforts to teach his two students better, Arthur had continued to practice, to sharpen his own skills, too.
Eames didn't want Cobb to know that he was being spoken about, so he said, in a very soft undertone, "On it."
Then the crafting was broken.
Cobb must have noticed something happening, but had been unable to put his finger on what.
"Shut up, Cobb," Eames said, before the man could begin to be more annoying than necessary. Sure, he knew that this was a big day for him as a father. That Cobb was really proud of his daughter, but if he tried to go back in his house and come back with a pot and pan so he could beat them together like an obnoxious parent at a graduation ceremony, Eames was going to smack him. No, punch him. Wait, the child was there, that wasn't a nice thing for a kid to witness.
Eames resorted to using his words, being polite about it.
"Shut up, Cobb," Eames repeated, but very pointedly tacked on "please" at the end. Cobb did shut up, but Eames was certain that it wasn't because of his use of the magic word. This was confirmed when he looked back in Arthur and Phillipa's direction.
Phillipa was calling her fury. Arthur had been there when it happened the very first time, when Phillipa first bonded with this stronger air fury. It wasn't all that long ago; it happened on a recent visit and this new claiming of a fury had prompted this flying lesson.
"She just-," Arthur had been at a loss for words that night as he cuddled against Eames's side in bed, the lights turned down low. "She just reached out her hand and called to it. It wasn't bound to her will so much as it willingly agreed to join up with her."
"What did it look like? What shape did it take?" Eames had asked.
"It was hard to see at first, but it resolved itself into something with wings. That was the first impression I got of it- something with massive wings made from this swirling gust of wind. It looked like an osprey."
A bird of prey, the shape her fury had taken was one that would be more than capable of protecting her and since it was so powerful, it would also grant Phillipa the ability to fly like her uncle. And maybe since both of their wind furies were hunters, they'd get along for this lesson.
The nameless osprey, who called with a sound like the shrieking of the wind in a storm, appeared fully formed, two feet high with an almost six foot wingspan. Once called to into visibility by Phillipa, the osprey shaped fury awaited her commands.
Arthur demonstrated for Phillipa.
"Spot," the point man said, confident in his ability and that of his fury. Instead of prowling around Arthur, the wolf shaped fury softly growled at his side, waiting for Arthur's next order. Arthur didn't waste any time. The point man jumped and called on his fury with one word. Arthur said, "UP!"
Immediately, the wolf dispersed, becoming a swirling windstream which appeared just under Arthur's feet, keeping him aloft and steady. The point man was hovering, arms away from his body and extended. By moving one hand or the other, Arthur would move from side to side or raise his arms to go higher, kicking up the leaves that Cobb had forgotten to rake up. The windstream beneath him remained just as steady, sending leaves and particulate matter flying around the area.
Phillipa was already shielding her eyes but not doing anything with her fury.
"Come on, Phillipa," Arthur called over the noise his fury made in keeping him aloft. "Look at how my fury is shielding my eyes from what's being kicked up into the air."
Eames, from his position, couldn't really tell. Maybe if he was the one standing just in front of Arthur, he'd see the movement of the fury through the air? But, Phillipa had stopped shading her eyes and actually looked at her uncle who continued to hover before her. Her eyes actually widened and it appeared that she had caught on to what he was saying.
She smiled and laughed, immediately turning to her osprey shaped fury and calling to it! But she did one thing different than Arthur- instead of jumping in the air, she ran past him and took a flying leap into the air!
"Come on!" she yelled to her fury, almost shocked when the fury's form dispersed like Spot's and returned as a powerful windstream just under her feet…and then she was flying.
The fury had gathered beneath her and without any obvious directions from Phillipa, angled her body upwards, straightening her out a little more so that she flew in a graceful arc, coming to a stop near to Arthur, who had watched her carefully, ready to intervene if he must.
"Like that?" She was asking him over the sound of their combined windstreams. "Like that? Did I do it right?"
Arthur was nodding his head, reaching out to ruffle her already wind mussed hair.
"Flying low to the ground is harder, you consume more energy. If you promise to stay close to me, I'll take you up higher!"
Phillipa nodded quickly and waited for further instructions. "My shielding? Is it okay? I looked at yours and thought that I wouldn't get it on the first try but…" Phillipa reached out her hand and encountered the shield before her, the one in the back too.
"For some it's natural. Let's go!"
And then they shot upwards so fast, Eames got that feeling of being in an elevator that's going up, that somehow his stomach had been left behind on the lower floors.
He let out a shaky breath and noticed that Cobb was watching the sky, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.
"Want a beer?" asked Cobb, gesturing to a small cooler he had brought for just this situation. The water-starved grass practically crunched underfoot as Cobb knelt down and opened the cooler, pulling one out for himself and waiting for Eames's answer.
Eames shook his head. "No, thanks. I don't want to learn what drunken flying is like."
"I'll have one," Cobb said, standing up and cracking the lid on one. He took a deep drink. "I didn't think it would be so…"
"Fun?"
"Good god, terrifying."
"But you watched Arthur fly all the time!"
Cobb squinted at Eames.
"Arthur isn't one of my babies."
"Thank god," Eames said, keeping his eyes heavenward, wondering if he'd see the pair of windcrafters or if they'd be too far up.
When they came back down, Phillipa's hair was an absolute mess and would no doubt require a lot of patient care to untangle and comb.
Her father had wrapped her up in his arms, exclaiming, "You're so cold! How did you get so cold?"
Phillipa, who didn't care about the new crow's nest of tangled brunette hair atop her head, leaned in close and said in a voice full of wonder, "We went up really high, Daddy! Like really, really high! We couldn't even see you from that high up!"
Cobb immediately looked at Arthur for confirmation, narrow eyed and protective. "How high was high, Arthur? I mean, you could have gotten hit by a plane!"
Arthur shook his head, allowing Eames to come forwards and fuss over him- Arthur didn't need Eames to smooth out the wrinkles of his shirt or to warm his ice-cold hands for him, taking the point man's hands in his own and gently breathing on them. They both knew that Arthur's watercrafting would have given him a very small amount of relief from the cold by reducing his sensation of cold or by causing his blood to flow steadily throughout his body. It didn't change the fact that it still felt nice.
"No, Cobb. Planes fly at about 40,000 feet. We were veiled and flying just above that. A decent distance away from any pilot's notice, I promise."
Cobb's eyes narrowed and he stared at Arthur, as if the point man was going to suddenly breakdown and tell Cobb everything he wanted to know.
"You're going to want to warm her up and take care of that hair," Arthur advised.
"Can I have some hot chocolate, Daddy?"
Cobb was torn between interrogating his former point man or getting his daughter back into the house where it was warm.
"She's going to want me to gel her hair after this, isn't she?" Cobb almost sulked.
Arthur raised his eyebrows. "It's practical if you spend a lot of time flying. I'll talk her around to wearing a hat. One with a little strap beneath her chin so it doesn't fly off."
Cobb was already gathering Phillipa up into his arms, the former extractor looking just a little awkward with his arms full of gangly pre-teen daughter. She was resting her head against her father's chest, already looking a little tired, waiting for her father to walk her back home.
"I would prefer a helmet."
"That wouldn't make her very aerodynamic, Cobb."
"But it would make her safe!"
Arthur didn't want to bring up the fact that a helmet would be useless if Phillipa fell from a height of 40,000 feet. It would have as good an effect as wrapping an egg in tissue paper.
Thankfully, Arthur didn't have to say anything when there was an insistent child still waiting to be taken home.
"Daddy?"
Cobb looked down at the child he carried and smiled.
"Hey, you did great up there, honey! Let's get you home, okay?"
Phillipa nodded and Cobb actually began to carry her homewards, calling over his shoulder to Arthur and Eames, "Thanks! I hope I can call on you guys for earthcrafting lessons for James next?"
Eames, who hadn't let go of Arthur's hands, stopped breathing on them so he could press a kiss against the other man's fingers.
"You're not so chilly, Arthur," Eames commented, noticing how Arthur's fingers weren't white with cold anymore.
"Can't beat everyone's first impression of me, now can I?"
Eames dragged him in closer, removing his hands from Arthur's to pull the man in for a hug.
"You should have worn a coat," Eames chided, resting his chin against Arthur's shoulder.
"And fry when I get back down?"
Arthur was right; it was the middle of a sweltering summer in California.
"Something light-weight that will keep you a little warm while you avoid airplanes."
Arthur snorted. "I didn't just avoid the planes."
"The planes avoided you, then?"
Arthur shrugged a little. "Why not, I'm not just the best point man."
They could both agree that Arthur had many talents; from his work as a point man, to his skills as an aircrafter, Arthur never failed to amaze Eames.
"She was good, wasn't she?"
Arthur nodded. "She took to it naturally. Like a duck to water. Like I'm sure you're going to once we practice."
Eames didn't stiffen up or do anything else that would suggest he had gotten frightened. Besides, if that was the case, Arthur would know it in a second because of his crafting. Not that he'd be so obviously keeping the line open, so to speak. It was difficult for a watercrafter to be so open at all times- sure, they were alone right now, but Arthur wouldn't have done so in a crowd where the jumbled riot of emotions from passersby would be deafening to his ears, abrasive to his skin, something that shouldn't be felt on such a level but was, because of the strength of their crafting.
But he tried to keep the line open for Eames, always. So that they always understood each other. And because Eames had his hands pressed against the man's body, he could tell with just as much certainty what Arthur was feeling.
The little threads of worry were running through his previously sunny emotional atmosphere.
"If you're not ready, we don't have to," was what Arthur whispered against Eames's neck, nestled there, comfortable and happy with his two feet on the ground. Almost as if he was showing Eames that he was fine with it.
Eames pushed away, just a little bit, just enough. "We can at least try, darling. I'm not a quitter."
Rather than say anything like 'I never said you were' or 'If you're absolutely certain' or 'You really, really, don't have to- let's go make out against that tree because Cobb's not around', Arthur nodded and stepped away from Eames.
"You understand all the theories."
Eames nodded.
"You've seen my notes, my PowerPoint presentations, and have watched me fly multiple times."
Once again, Eames nodded.
"But doing it yourself is a little harder. I know that you are skilled, that you listen, and I trust that you'll take any criticisms or advice I have seriously. I want you to do better than just understand the theory, I want you to feel it in your bones. This is part of the trouble with learning any furycrafting when we're older. It's like we experience this strange learning curve…I don't want you to have my experience learning to fly." Arthur's back straightened and he looked Eames in the eye, serious.
"I'm trusting you to tell me when you've had enough, if you've been harmed, or if you need further instructions. Some things will become second nature to you while others will be lessons harder learned."
Eames smiled, just a little. "Are you feeling protective of me?"
Arthur blushed and narrowed his eyes. "So what if I am?"
Eames reached out and pinched Arthur's cheek. "You have no idea how sweet that is."
With one cheek pinched between Eames's fingers, Arthur's face lost some of its point mannishness- he fought not to smile and failed, dimpling. He smacked Eames's hand away and asked that he focus.
"You watched mine and Phillipa's examples. You could either jump and command your fury to create the windstream beneath your feet or do as Phillipa did and try after a running jump. Do whichever feels comfortable. But first, you need to make sure your fury can hear you. Call to it."
Eames did as he had practiced since he had claimed his newest fury. He imagined her in his mind's eye (yes, because he felt that his wind fury had a distinctly feminine feeling to her) and tried to recall the shape she'd appeared to him as. Not all wind furies took the shape of things capable of flight- some looked like horses, some looked like Arthur's wolf. If Eames listened to Arthur's descriptions of the theories, there were some who pictured what they thought they should see and it was so, or the shape and personality of the furies was dictated by the area they were found and bonded with their crafter.
His fury was lovely and strong, he knew that much at once when she found him. Because that was what it felt like to him, just like Arthur had described it, just like it happened for him and his water fury.
Eames's new wind fury was a cat. At first, he thought that his fury was displaying a very good sense of humor, considering that his windcrafting teacher had a wind fury shaped like a large, scary canine. She also made it a point to greet Arthur when she could- twinning around his legs, doing what should have been purring, but really sounded like the pleasant sort of breeze you hear through the trees, sometimes. It's a whispering, sort of alluring sound.
The first time, it didn't take long for Spot to manifest, growling and angry at this intrusive feline wind fury that dared to encroach on his territory; that dared to encroach on his Arthur!
"Down!" Arthur had commanded, filling his voice with that particular tone that dogs, even dogs that were truly just barely domesticated canine shaped elemental, sit and obey. Spot did as he was asked, but growled at the cat each time she appeared.
After working hard with Arthur and with Spot, the furies had come to know each other rather well and understood that it didn't help anyone if they fought. This time, there was peace between them.
Eames's fury still didn't have a name. But still he called to her. When he was sure, when he felt that gathering of energy, when he felt the pressure of the wind fury surrounding him, waiting for him to do something- that was when he jumped, trusting his fury to do as he silently asked her to.
I want to go up, was what Eames thought.
And just like that, his deceptively powerful fury gathered beneath and around him as a shapeless column of wind, forcing Eames to stay aloft. At first, Eames leaned to far forwards.
"Careful, keep your center of gravity and remain upright."
Eames nodded shortly and kept his arms extended away from his sides, hands open, trying to project the calm he didn't feel because he was separated from the earth.
But he wasn't falling. He was managing to stay upright with his fury beneath him, nice and steady.
Remembering how Arthur could move from side to side, Eames tried it. First hesitantly and then with greater certainty, Eames sort of swayed from side to side without falling face first from a height of a little over two feet in the air.
He chanced looking at Arthur. The point man was nodding, smiling and appeared to be encouraged by Eames's progress.
"Do you want to try going a bit higher with me? I promise that once you practice flying you don't truly forget the way to do it. It's a lot like riding a bike."
"Yes!"
Without another word, Arthur jumped up in the air where his fury collected beneath his body and created a windstream so calm and quiet, it was like Arthur had just decided to fly without fanfare.
Eames was almost jealous of the ease that Arthur did such things, but had to remind himself that Arthur had been flying for much longer than he had. That there was a way of learning to do it. That he would do it!
And because Arthur's flight was so quiet when compared to Eames's, the forger could hear that the other man was humming to himself. Something catchy and familiar…
"Really?" Eames asked, reaching out to grab for Arthur's wrist so he could tug the point man closer to him without disrupting or cutting off either of their windstreams. "You're really going to romance me with a little Sinatra?"
"Come Fly With Me is a classic. And of course, you damn well know that the angel's cheer because we're together."
"I do, too," Eames assured Arthur. "You should hear me cheering for us sometime, darling." And then Eames began his cheer. "Arthur and Eames, Arthur and Eames, they're the ones who rob your dreams. You might cry cause it's not fair and they'll remain beyond compare!"
"That's not bad," Arthur said as he leaned in closer to place a very quick kiss against Eames's half-open mouth, the forger still smiling over his own silly cheer. "Well, for something you've clearly based on the Treat or Treat Rhyme."
"Really? Damn, I thought I had something clever there!"
"No one has to know that, Mr. Eames. Cause we're Arthur and Eames, Arthur and Eames, we're the ones who rob their dreams."
"Your," Eames corrected softly.
"No, no. If we're doing the cheer by ourselves and no one's listening in, we should change your to their. Because we don't rob each other's dreams. It wouldn't be ethical."
"And you'd murder me."
"Only a little."
"I'm probably going to ask you to cross-stitch that rhyme so I can hang it up somewhere."
"Next to the one that says show me your fury?"
"Possibly."
Arthur gave him another kiss, just one, and then pulled away, leaning back and angling his body as he raised his hands up from his sides, encouraging his fury to lift him up higher.
"Then you'll have to show me how good you're at flying, Mr. Eames. Try and catch me!"
Two seconds had barely passed when Arthur seemed to vanish under an aircrafted veil and shot upwards so quickly his fury seemed to howl!
"No you don't!" Eames shouted after him, doing as Arthur had; Eames leaned forwards, feeling his fury move into place to adjust, to tilt his body at the proper angle. When he raised his arms up from his sides, his fury began to propel him upwards, following a sweeping curve that would take him upwards but give him time to perfect his shielding – the one in front and the one in back. Once he was certain, Eames, feeling the coiling potential of his fury, encouraged her.
"Let's go," he said to his fury, amazed that he could hear himself over the sound of the column of wind supporting his body as if he weighed nothing at all. "Let's find him!"
Without another word, Eames flew. Not the bounding hops or halfhearted lunges through the air that he'd made before, but honest to god flight.
Eames, feeling certain of his crafting, feeling comfortable in his growing abilities, rose higher and higher, now keeping his arms pressed against his sides and his eyes open for just a hint of the point man.
He heard a voice. It sounded so close to him, though through his watercrafting, Eames knew that there wasn't anyone near enough to be speaking to him. And the voice belonged to Arthur.
"I'm thinking of giving you a very nice reward if you can spot me," Arthur said using his windcrafting. His voice was laced with a throaty, masculine chuckle, something that almost always pricked Eames's interest. It was something related to Arthur and just Arthur alone- it was Arthur's sex appeal divided from his earthcrafting which could most definitely leave Eames's brain a puddle of mush even as he was hard as a rock. This was where Arthur as a talented and successful man became one of Eames's favorite things. He almost wanted Arthur to be so well hidden to prove the man's competence, which happened to be one of the sexiest things about him.
Eames thought his way through it, thinking about everything that Arthur had taught him about aircrafting while they practiced for this day. An aircrafted message was easy to tamper with or waylay. In the real world, when using an aircrafting for messages, the crafter had to see the person they were trying to give the message to…that meant Arthur could be anywhere within range of the message, which wasn't very far in the first place. It was why watercrafting was a little more reliable.
Eames directed his fury to rotate him on the spot, wreathed as they were in thick clouds as big and fluffy as marshmallows. He couldn't see anyone watching him.
But he could hear Arthur still.
"Warmer."
Eames instructed his fury to hold his position before moving forwards, waiting to hear something else from Arthur.
"Little warmer."
Eames still looked around, not sure where Arthur was hiding. He extended his watercrafting senses, curious if he'd sense him while he was still so far away.
As soon as he asked his water fury to stop shielding him, this feeling of barely suppressed mirth nearly hit Eames with all the force of sledgehammer right between the eyes.
That was the moment that Arthur erupted from a nearby cloudbank, his clothes speckled with the water vapor held with the clouds. The shock was just enough for Eames to forget to control his fury- his concentration went out or a second then two, and then his windstream abruptly faltered.
And then Eames began to fall.
At first, he did nothing. What could he do? He had no idea how to call back his fury before he began to drop like a rock, the air whistling around him as he he fell. He was consumed with this horrible feeling, the feeling he always had when he thought about his poor aircrafting skills.
That it would be the death of him, that he wasn't meant to fly.
He had fallen no more than five or six feet and they were already high enough for that to not make much of a difference- Eames would break as many bones when he hit the ground even if he fell six feet lower rather than six feet higher, that was for sure.
The difference was he had a talented and quick aircrafter supervising. As soon as Arthur saw him begin to fall, the point man directed his fury to take him down. He pressed his arms against his sides and went down fast, almost slipping by Eames, who flailed his arms as he fell, making himself spin unintentionally. What he hadn't noticed before was just how cold it was. He hadn't noticed before, and maybe part of it had been held away from him because of his shielding. In the few seconds he'd been falling, Arthur had already made it to the proper position, his wind fury created a damned gust of wind so strong that it almost cushioned Eames midair while Arthur rode his column of air upwards to he could pluck Eames out of the sky and drag him closer to his body, supporting them both with ease.
"I'm sorry!" Arthur was saying as the wind howled around them, ruffling their clothes, Eames's hair. "I shouldn't have surprised you!"
Eames couldn't find the words yet, so he nodded his agreement. This wasn't something he wanted to fight about. He knew that part of this was his problem- yes, Arthur broke his concentration, but that didn't mean Arthur was to blame for the way Eames just froze up and let himself fall.
Arthur carefully guided them to the ground where Eames stood in the circle of Arthur's arms for a solid minute, reorienting himself.
"Wow."
"I'm sorry!"
"Wow."
"I won't ever do that again, my god, what was I thinking?!"
"That was…"Eames couldn't find the words.
Arthur took this as a bad sign. "I'm a horrible person. I'll understand if you don't ever want to fly with me again. Can you forgive me, Eames?"
Eames cupped Arthur's face in his hands and pressed a firm kiss against his mouth. Then, he said, "We're going to do that again."
Arthur was a little starry-eyed; Eames's kisses did that to him sometimes but maybe it was also part of his stress reaction to watching Eames fall out of the sky.
"What?"
"Darling," Eames said softly. "I want to do that again, only this time, I'm not going to forget about my stupid windstream."
"But I scared you!"
Eames rolled his eyes. "You surprised me. That's different than scaring me. I'll admit the falling wasn't good, but you caught me. I'm fine."
Arthur, logical and smart, tried to divide his emotional response from what just happened and went into point man- mode. "How do we fix the problem?"
"I need to practice more, to get used to flying. More practice will get me used to flying and my fury will work better with me, too."
"I should have known that you weren't ready…"
"For play? When have I never been ready for play?"
"The difference is that you fell quite far and that scared the crap out of me. I just want to make sure that you'll be able to call on your fury and maintain your windstream- you accidentally cut the stream when you stopped focusing on it."
But Arthur still looked ready to throw in the towel for the day.
"Arthur what do you do when you fall off your bike."
"I don't ride a bike," Arthur answered, distracted enough to not notice his one of his own reassurances about aircrafting being used on him.
"I know, but when you were a boy? What did you do?"
Arthur knew what was coming, but agreed to talk it out anyways. "I got back on so I wouldn't be scared."
"Messing up as I'm flying is like falling off of a bike for me. I have to get back on."
Arthur nodded.
"And if you have to, use it as a tool for Phillipa."
Arthur's raised eyebrow was question enough.
"You tell her how I fell, but I tried again."
"What do we do now?"
"We fly, darling."
"Oh god," Eames said, metaphorical inches from whining at the pain in his shoulders and back. "Why did I have to be mature and agree to continue windcrafting practice?"
Arthur hummed and approached where Eames had slumped down onto the nearest soft object in the Cobb's guest room. It happened to be the bed.
The pillows that had been stacked precariously at the head of the bed, fell in a little bunch around Eames's prostrate form. The forger had yet to try and bat the soft objects away. At this moment, Arthur was half certain that Eames hadn't because he really had hurt his shoulder when he took his last fall, thankfully, much closer to the ground than the first time.
Arthur very carefully and very cautiously crawled onto the bed, moving over Eames's body without hitting anything or jarring him. From this position, the point man would be able to get a better idea of what was wrong with Eames's back and try to do what he could to alleviate Eames's pain.
"I think that you did pretty well, Eames," Arthur said as he pressed his hands against the forger's back.
"I think you're being too kind," Eames answered, his voice a little muffled as he'd pressed his face against his forearm, as his head was partially hidden beneath the large and fluffy pillows that Arthur didn't recognize, thinking that Cobb must have gone shopping before they had arrived and purchased better pillows for his guest room.
Arthur closed his eyes and began to search Eames's body with his water fury. It took him a moment to get started, to get into the right mindset.
"We can wait to do this until the master bath is free," Eames said, finally pushing away the fluffy pillows, wincing as he did it. They would have made use of it first to try and craft away some of his soreness, but the children were getting their evening baths and Arthur didn't want to disrupt their nightly routine.
"No," Arthur said softly, still concentrating. If Eames had to learn how to aircraft better, then Arthur was trying to enhance his watercrafting abilities, too. It wasn't an insurmountable problem- Arthur just had a greater difficulty picturing how his fury was meant to go through a physical object such as a human body that wasn't his own. That was purely instinctual- his water fury, maybe because adult males were composed of roughly sixty percent water, could reside within…but even that was a difficult concept for Arthur to wrap his head around. He knew that it was easier to call on his fury if he had consumed enough water. That it was easiest of all if he was next to a body of water. It was something he had to work on because they wouldn't always have the chance to use a tub or find a source of water to help heal in the field. Arthur had the ability already at his fingertips to send his fury into another person's body; to help them or to harm them.
So Arthur took a deep breath and pressed his hands against Eames's back so that the flats of his hands were pushing gently against Eames's shoulder blades, making Eames bow his head against the pressure. He hurt, Arthur could sense it with his watercrafting. And he was going to make Eames feel better.
"Inside," he whispered to his fury, feeling more than seeing, sensing her leaving him to flow past his hands, to move through Eames's body and begin to search for the hurt, for the injuries.
Once his fury was on the inside, she was no longer a water fury shaped like a butterfly, but a sentient force that could feel Eames's pain and give Arthur a better idea of how to evaluate the situation.
Arthur removed his hands from Eames's back briefly, only to trace his fingers gently down the man's spine. Eyes still closed, Arthur immersed himself in discovering the parts of Eames which hurt the most.
He felt the hairline fracture on Eames's right shoulder blade, the strained muscles of his back. Sore. Eames was very sore, but aside from hurt he'd taken from his occasional falls, the practice they had taken so that Eames would know exactly how to take a fall and how to minimize the damages, there was also a bit strain from just overdoing it with his furycrafting. He was exhausted in more than one way. They probably should have come back to the house sooner, but there had been a beautiful sunset...
"First, I'll take care of your pain," Arthur said softly, directing his fury to move to the specific sites of Eames's back that were injured and flood the area with a soothing numbness to dull the pains and then a gentle heat to relax the muscles in Eames's back. Furycrafting's answer to Icy Hot.
Eames's groan of pleasure, the way he was finally capable of arching his back just a little, showing that even just that was a good start at loosening up the stiffness there. While Eames lay there, boneless and tired with Arthur straddling him, pressing his hands against the man's shoulder and focusing on the fracture with his fury, the point man and the water fury knitted the bone together till it was perfect once again.
Once he was finished with that, Arthur ran one last check, encouraging his fury to look for anything else they might have missed. But it was fine- Eames checked out. He was healthy and strong and had managed to not do anymore damage to himself.
Arthur called back his fury, quietly thanking her for her work. The answering emotion, the love and care he always felt from his little water fury, made him smile and nod as he dismissed her. Previously he would have wondered where she went when she vanished, but now he was more certain than ever that she chose to reside as close to him as possible, that she resided somewhere close to his heart, deep in his chest where she would be safe and sure that he was okay.
Before he could get anymore soppy, Arthur carefully leaned over Eames's limp body and pressed a kiss against the man's healed shoulder.
"You'll feel better after some sleep."
Eames was too tired to turn his head. The sound of his voice was a little husky with want, desire, but also a good watercrafting to dull the pain. He sounded kind of drunk.
"Mmm," Eames muttered. "I thought I was going get something special?"
That was what Eames clearly intended to say, obviously, but what Arthur really heard was 'Thought was gonna git shumthing special.'
Arthur hid his smile and nodded. "Of course, but when you sound less like a drunk and more like an Eames, I'll take you up on that."
Eames was silent for a moment before saying, "'Kay." And then thinking about it and enunciating, which seemed to be much harder for him than usual. "Okay. I meant okay."
Arthur didn't bother to hide his smile now. "I know."
