So the first time Eames meets Arthur, they aren't on a job. Cobb is still on the right side of the law, Mal is alive and whole, and Nash doesn't have a drug problem – probably. They actually don't know him, so his theoretical drug problem is of no consequence.
And Eames – Eames is working for the SIS, a sort of you-scratch-our-back-we'll-clear-up-some-charges arrangement. This does not actually work out too well for him in the end, but that's another story for another day.
So, before dreamsharing became common study in scientific and technological circles, but after Eames' government had started using it for international espionage: Arthur is sent to London as the US's contribution to a sort-of joint business venture between England and America and France.
Arthur, impossibly young and extraordinarily organized, specializing in military intelligence and with a veritable pedigree of references; Arthur, who shakes Eames' hand and smiles in such an openly genuine way that it does, in fact, distract the forger (and, at the time, thief; counterfeiter; con artist; card sharp) from the very elegant and very beautiful and very French Mallorie Pennyworth. But after that, Eames can't look away.
He meets Dom Cobb, who is apparently a package deal with Arthur, and who has endless theories about information storage in the brain; how people hide it and hoard it; and he talks at length about lock boxes and vaults and bedside tables. He's the first generation architect, though the term won't be formally used for some time. He knows everything, before any of them know anything.
They find out during the course of the operation that it's entirely fabricated – a training exercise devised by their three governments to learn how dream espionage might be put into practice. They were given the name of the mark, and loose instructions that basically boiled down to, "Tell us what you find." Arthur absolutely hated it, since apparently he has a love affair with information. Which includes, but is not limited to: what their target/goal actually is; where the mark was born and raised, and who his high school sweetheart was, and why they aren't together anymore; his shoe size; his training, if any, and whether he excelled at sports; where he went to school, and his major, his minor, his considered major before he made his final decision, and his extracurricular activities; what he reads in his spare time if he reads at all.
Long story short, Arthur learns that their mark is actually from an auxiliary branch of M15. Which makes this both obvious and suspicious, but they were all too new to draw conclusions based on that.
Mal seduces information out of the man like nobody's business, and Eames is pretty sure that Cobb's jealousy is unwarranted – as though he thinks being strapped to a chair with a Frenchwoman coldcocking you and grinding down on your balls with her stiletto is something to aspire to. But Cobb keeps twitching and sweating and flushing, and this should probably have communicated something vital to everyone in the group. It doesn't.
Clearly Mal is never one to mess about, and it certainly helps that Arthur's research revealed the man as a fetishist.
Eames just kills a whole hell of a lot of projections, dreaming up sub-machine guns and rocket launchers and AK47s, revelling in his awesome, godlike supremacy; the infinite versatility; the sheer rush of the anything-you-want powerhouse that is lucid dreaming. It's later that he learns it's a gift, what he can do. It's later still that he figures out how to control his form the same way, shift into being, create from whole cloth any new persona as easily as pulling on a pair of gloves.
During, Arthur's firing his Beretta with sniper accuracy, and he doesn't flinch or freeze up once – not when a projection hurls an axe at his head (he steps precisely to the side), or when a screaming dominatrix dressed in Elizabethan finery comes within an inch of his levelled gun. Arthur fires once, twice, three times, six times – and each one manifests into a tiny, perfect hole, dead-center, and Arthur is eventually surrounded by tidy, unmessy corpses.
The only time Arthur actively panics is when he runs out of bullets.
Eames is there, laying waste, shoving Arthur behind him; he keeps jerking back against Arthur's chest with the kick (a different kind than what comes later) of his weapon, but Arthur stays close and has his hands on Eames' shoulder blades, and Eames is shouting at him over the roar.
"Bullets, Arthur? You're dreaming! Dream up some more!"
But he can't. In fact, after a good twenty minutes, the best Arthur can do is take one of Eames' own monsters, wield it messily and with great distaste.
In the end, Cobb stays alive long enough for Mal to get the info before the dream collapses, Eames gets his head bashed in gracelessly, and Arthur is strangled by tinkling chains. Someday it will be impossible to believe there was a time when they were all so new to this.
When Cobb wakes up, he dry-heaves phantom blood from the knife he took to the throat while Mal touches his face and neck with graceful dancer's hands.
After, when they're debriefed, they're told that this was a process of exploration, to determine the boundaries of dreamsharing potential. This is the first time an extraction has been done in any official capacity.
Except that this is patently untrue, but neither party betrays a thing.
After, they're under supervision for two weeks with routine physicals, cataloguing any and all reactions to what will eventually become a Somnacin prototype. As they're shirtless for most of this, Eames studies the arch of Arthur's naked back, shamelessly admiring the view, and endeavors to learn every faint spattering of freckles, each flat, tiny mole.
"So you've been working with Cobb and Pennyworth for some time, then?" Eames is drinking his whiskey neat, while beside him Arthur is stirring his dirty gin martini with absent fingers.
"About a year and a half," he offers, tilting his head to consider, and the dingy pub where Eames has brought them has the quality of a grimy window: you put a light behind it, a flickering candle, and it could have all the delicate traceries of frost, all the elegance of fogged glass.
"It was Dom's first time dying in a dream," Arthur murmurs, his American accent sharp over his soft voice.
"But not yours?"
"No. Or Mal's." Arthur sips his drink, and his throat flashes; his hair: dark against the flesh of his neck, curling low behind his ear, hidden like a secret.
"He seems like a good person," Eames manages, because he's honestly at a loss for words. He isn't used to feeling like – this. But there's a kind of quiet around Arthur, a sort of intrinsic exclusion, like he has a world put together in his head, and it works for him, but if anyone else gets involved...
"He is," Arthur says, and smiles so brilliantly, looking into his glass and trying to hide it, that it catches Eames completely off guard. It's the very first time Eames wonders about – that.
Arthur talks about Cobb for the rest of the night, and a bit about Mal, and more about Mal's father. Eames learns from fleeting details that Arthur is in the US Army; that Arthur has specific abilities and training, and that Arthur was introduced to Mal's father to learn the science of dreamsharing. Mal came into the picture then, and after, when they needed someone who'd been studying dream theory, they appropriated Dom Cobb at Arthur's suggestion. So Arthur's been actively working with the PASIV for a year and some change, which is about as long as Eames has been involved.
They're pretty drunk at the end of the night, and fumble their way back to base. Arthur'd sat perfectly straight all night, even as his collar had come loose, even as he'd unbuttoned cuffs and rolled up sleeves. Now, he leans into Eames, palm warm on the thief's shoulder, head bent close as he laughs and laughs at every absurd thing Eames says.
At one point, Eames forgets himself and settles his hand at the small of Arthur's back, thrills at the feel of material sliding over skin. The promise of lean muscle on either side of that bony spine, above the expanse of dips and flats that form the back of Arthur's hips. But the younger man stills, meets his eyes with guarded intensity, too close, and so Eames finds an excuse to put some distance between them.
In this instance, it's stopping abruptly to light a cigarette.
Arthur watches him all the while, eyes narrowed and mouth in a thin line, up until the cherry is bright and smoldering. Then he reaches forward, snatches it from Eames' lips, and drops it on the ground.
"Really?" He asks frankly, eyebrows knit. "Are you stupid? That's shit for your cardio."
Eames looks at him blankly for a long moment, then grimaces. "I'm not in the service, Arthur."
There's a long silence, but neither of them start walking again.
"Then... how did you get involved with this?" His bald curiosity clarifies (somewhat) the otherwise heavy slur that coats his tongue like honey. Or come.
Jesus christ.
Eames willfully distracts himself by telling Arthur stories – about owing favors to some of the higher-ups (a blatant lie); his military record, before honorable discharge (a half-truth); and his unique skillset that M16 may or may not have found beneficial to the study (the only honest thing he has said all night).
Arthur takes everything he says at face value, and if Eames ignores the way the man touches his elbow from time to time, or fixes those liquid brown eyes on his mouth or arms or waist – really, Eames knows when he's being sized up – well, then that's how these things go.
Except.
"Regardless," Arthur is saying, voice less intimate by degrees but willfully matter-of-fact. "You clearly keep to a soldier's regimen."
"You've found me out," Eames mutters, and makes a show of yawning. "Got to keep the birds pining after me." As he says this, he's thinking, Shit. A man can only restrain himself to a point. Arthur this close, Arthur deadly competent until he isn't, and then needing Eames. Arthur agreeing, for no reason Eames can rightly fathom, to have a drink with him in some seedy pub Eames has been frequenting for at least his last five aliases. Arthur telling him things, and maybe not lying at all.
But right now, something has arrested in Arthur's expression; a kind of chagrin, and then disappointment, and then irritation. They chase each other until he visibly forces everything away, like clearing off a table by throwing everything on the floor. Closes up like a book, like a door slamming shut, and he says, "It was a pleasure working with you, Mr. Eames. Enjoy the rest of your evening."
So that's the first time Arthur walks out of his life, because he's actually gone the next morning – called away to some new project or another. A bloke can really expect to get passed around, this business.
But it doesn't matter, because SIS offers to pull some foreign strings so that Eames can feasibly use a passport again under his own name. Because France needs him for a paramilitary project.
Battle simulation: they want Eames to do the introductory training to shared dreaming, because they're going to make their soldiers battle for hours topside – so, days spent under, killing each other. It wouldn't do for them to run out of bullets, after all.
Eames isn't a very good teacher; it's hard to show someone else how to learn what comes naturally to you. But he supervises the training, and it's infinitely exhausting, but he doesn't get killed too much – and all three times, he's reasonably sure it's an accident. He just keeps wandering the battlefield and restocking various artillery depositories, trying to look back on his life and figure out how he got to this point. Anyway, he reasons, it's not like they'd be able to dream up ammunition in real life. It's probably not a good idea to get in the habit of trying. Here, at least, he feels necessary.
This is when Eames starts passively contemplating a method for telling the difference between dreams and reality. But he doesn't think too hard on it, just leaves it on the backburner, since in the evenings he goes to shithole pubs and wins quite a lot of money at cards. There are enough in Paris that no one gets too used to seeing his face.
It isn't for another year that he's told he'll be loaned out again, this time to the US, due to some new training cooperative. Basically: same shit, different country.
Only here, many months later and on American soil, he meets Mallorie again. Between the two of them, they hammer out (and test, over a period of time and an overtired staff of volunteers) a working solution: totems.
Eames gets into the city after midnight, exhausted and depressed, but admittedly well-fed. International flights are too long to fly any but first class, and it's not as though he actually had to pay for the upgrade – just work for it. Child's play, really. His baby blues didn't hurt, and he long ago mastered his entirely-too-distracting mouth right along with sleight-of-hand.
He doesn't call Nash when he gets in, and he doesn't go to the Plaza Hotel where he knows someone has a room for him. Instead, he chats up the woman at Information, and she gives him a map and calls him a cab.
The map has a slogan across the top in appropriately gothic letters – "The Dark-Deco State." It also has the employee's phone number on it, and Eames wonders if maybe he comes on too strong. He tries to apply this possible revelation to the other aspects life. It neither illuminates nor assists with his current mood.
The interior of the cab is dark and a bit grimy, but the city lights spill in through the windows, shifting and chasing each other: usually white or dim yellow, but sometimes red or or blue or hot pink, dependant upon the myriad neon lights. They slip in and out of his dark little space like shooting stars, inspiring hope until you realize they're just another fabrication, giving false hope before vanishing forever.
The cabbie rattles his bone box, friendly but not incessant, and drives just recklessly enough to demonstrate his expertise. Eames doesn't fear for his life in the slightest. The man has pegged him for a tourist because of his accent, which is fine. It's almost true – he's never been to Jersey. He can pretend he's here to see the sights or whatever.
"...so some locals blame him for the crime rate, but I say it's our resident lunatics, can't be smart to lock 'em all up together like that – "
Eames hums politely, pretending to listen, and thinks about the rigid line of Arthur's shoulders, Arthur's closed-off back, Arthur furious for no reason Eames could fathom – Arthur is the one getting married. Arthur is the one building a home, who knows everything about his life, who knows what the fuck to expect, and can plan for it. Arthur's getting his fucking ducks in a row, and Eames is just – drifting around in the ether, rootless, aimless. Arbitrary.
Fuck.
It reminds Eames of Budapest. They'd gone halves on a cheap flat to run the job, and it took for-bleeding-ever, and Eames hadn't minded at all. He liked being underfoot, liked the surprise coloring Arthur's cheeks every time he seemed to remember Eames was essentially living with him for the duration of the job. They argued over work; where to eat; what to watch on the telly; Arthur's atrocious Hungarian accent; Eames' atrocious Hungarian clothing that he couldn't refrain from buying (or stealing).
But they never talked about eating without each other, or maybe watching different shows in different rooms. At one point Eames got it in his head to cook, and after arguing about what to make – well, instead of picking out two recipes, they just combined them.
And it worked. It was wonderful, but not as wonderful as Arthur, watching him over the table, happy and very shy about showing it. A bit of flour on his cheek. Olive oil on the back of his hand, and – his eyes, watchful, warmed through.
At any rate, the whole job was meant as a distraction. And it had helped. Arthur had seemed... despondent, after Mal and Cobb had gotten serious. It's possible that the point-man had simply felt left out, but – well, the forger had wondered, obviously. Arthur had never said anything about it, but then Arthur has been dedicated and loyal all the time Eames has known him. Cobb could still say "Jump," and Arthur would ask, "Who's the mark." To this very day.
Regardless, Arthur had been surprisingly enthusiastic about running point for the Budapest job. Eames hadn't even needed to lie to him about strong-arming the previous man into the Danube to make a place for him.
"...if you don't mind my asking, sir," the cabbie is saying, and Eames apologizes and asks the man to repeat himself.
"Oh, business." Eames says, meeting the man's eyes in the rearview mirror.
"Best of luck, sir," the man says, "Keep a signal eye out, yeah?"
The cab lets him off at Basin street. Eames shoulders his luggage and takes in his new temporary home: cheap and superficially clean, with a poorly-lit lobby and less-than-savory alleyways. Perfect.
Eames checks in under the name "Edward A. Mesar," and declines the very unenthusiastic clerk's offer to carry his bag up.
Creaky elevator. Tattered carpeting. Spare, stained wallpaper. He opens the door to room 402, throws his carry-on into a chair, and shrugs out of his jacket.
"Mr. Eames."
Eames pauses, glancing over into the corner. "Ah. Mr. Couric. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."
This is the problem, and it's very serious. Well, there's a whole host of them, actually, but the meat of the issue that Eames uses false names and aliases the way some men use cologne. He hadn't even chosen his hotel – not really seedy as shit, just cheap, suitably low-profile - until he'd talked to the woman, Jamie, she'd written it above her phone number. He hasn't spoken to Nash yet, and anyway Nash doesn't have his working number for bloody America. And his features shouldn't be known, or his plans, and given Eames' ability to vanish into the woodwork – these are all proof positive that Joseph Couric shouldn't be here.
The other really major problem is that Eames is growing complacent if he didn't once think to give his room the bare minimum of fucking security checks, maybe pull his head out of his arse and look the fuck around.
Last, but most pressing: obsessing over Arthur is absolutely going to get him killed one day. And if he's just used to Arthur running point and doing all the security triple-checks for him, well, the Fischer job was almost a fucking year ago, and before that, there'd been another year of Eames pissing away his time forging physical crap, turning down every extraction job to come his way, refusing to work alongside incompetence.
So if today is the day Eames dies, he has absolutely no one else to blame.
But, since Eames is basically the best actor in the history of actors in the history of the world, he plays it up like he knew Couric was there, like it's nothing. The calm, the confidence, the knowing of it settles over him like a cloak, flawless, real-time forgery. Eames is a different person: he's someone who isn't pining or lonely, and he's someone who isn't surprised or afraid.
He is rewarded with a flicker of uncertainty in his employer's hazel eyes, and he takes a moment to mentally compare the man before him to the somewhat grainy photo that's clipped to the paperwork, tucked into his bag, well-read.
Neatly gelled and combed hair, mousey brown, parted faultlessly to the side; strong, square jaw, regular skin that is not pale nor ruddy; languid posture, correct but relaxed. He's wearing a dark suit with amethyst-enamel cuff-links, a bit kooky, but subdued enough that Arthur wouldn't slam the door in his face, like he has with Eames on several occasions.
And then Eames notices the tie, and tucks away the base hysteria, since Arthur would actually probably choke to death on it: deep emerald and lemon yellow, crossing each other haphazardly, patterned and gradated and completely wrong for the simple cut of the man's suit. It's a nightmare, ordered chaos. Eames adores it. But then he decides abruptly that he maybe needs to never think about Arthur again, if this is what he's come to. His life as related to Arthur. Bloody hell.
So Joseph Couric's sitting in a ratty maroon chair in the corner, and now he's standing and offering his hand in two quick strides. Firm grip, broad shoulders, overall musculature and bearing hinting at martial training. And he carries himself like knows half a hundred ways to fire the gun tucked into his shoulder holster. Eames doesn't allow his eyes to slide to the slight, telltale bulge even once during their conversation. Though he does scan the man's face for form's sake, and lets himself be seen doing it.
So the assessment Eames comes to is: serious as shit, but entirely capable of tempering his intensity with nonchalance. Also, in person, the scars are really a world more horrifying than on paper.
Eames sort of itches, wondering how perfectly he could manifest the whorls and puckers of flesh. Doubts it will ever come to that, but sort of wishes it might. He feels that way about a lot of things, honestly.
"Is there something I can do for you? Nash informed me that we would begin Wednesday – "
"What Nash may or may not have said," Couric interrupts, flat and businesslike with the barest hint of an edge, "is of no consequence. He is no longer attached to this project."
"I see," Eames says politely, while his head is screaming, FUCK.
"It was a quite a long flight," Eames murmurs, neatly hanging his jacket up in the closet by the door. "I hope you'll excuse me. Jet lag and all that."
"Of course," Joseph says, leaning forward a bit, open to anything Eames has or is that might give him away. Eames can see it, can practically smell the feral intelligence on this man, but he is nothing if not resourceful.
"I'd offer you a pint," the forger says apologetically, "But I've only just arrived, you see."
"You can buy the first round tomorrow." The man makes his way toward the door, and he is definitely breaching Eames' personal comfort zone as he passes. But then he settles his hand on the knob, and continues, "We'll meet at the Winnie Coto Country Club. I hope your golf skills are up to par, Mr. Eames."
He cracks a smile which clearly translates to pun intended, and it's pretty much here that Eames realizes he likes Joseph Couric. The man's a bit scary, but he doesn't seem malignant. And a sharp intellect certainly helps; Eames has worked with enough functionally retarded morons to know.
It's better to be manipulated by a genius, and risk the possibility of being sacrificed for the greater good, than to have your life threatened due to poor planning. Eames already knows of too many really stupid ways to die.
After Couric leaves, Eames pulls out a misappropriated bottle of bourbon and pours himself a drink. It even tastes a bit better for the lie. Things usually do.
Eames golfs and drinks and plays the part of the wealthy English aristocrat for the next week He does this exceedingly well, so much so that, at one point, Joseph takes him aside. He says, behind a half-empty glass of 1887 red, "I'd heard you were good, but this... You're like a completely different person on a whim, Mr. Eames. It's fascinating."
"One does what one can, Mr. Couric," Eames says modestly, but he allows himself a boastful smile. Couric gives him a hard look, then visibly relaxes.
"Call me Joe, Mr. Eames."
"Call me Eames, Joe."
There's that out of the way, then. Eames has always preferred to dispense with formalities in his professional dealings. But maybe he has it backwards, maybe he – well, Prescott Belmont approaches them then, and Eames manages to get over himself.
"Shall I deal you in, boys?" The man asks brightly, and Eames can feel Joe watching him with utmost attention, conscious of every detail. If Eames were not a performer, he'd be alarmed.
"Wouldn't miss it, old chap," Eames says, his accent polished up for show. Because what they've been doing is pretty far removed from dreamsharing, and even if Joe is more or less running point, or whatever, Eames hasn't seen hide nor hair of the mark since he got off the plane. Joe seems to be taking his time with figuring out the best approach, and so far he hasn't mentioned any of his plans. It's just as well; Eames needs the distraction more than the money, and as always – a hand of cards brings him infinite, visceral comfort.
Here's how he operates: if Eames is gambling in places he'd like to come back to, he keeps it about 65/45; he doesn't make a killing, and he doesn't win enough that people come to the conclusion that he's cheating. He staggers it, and still has plenty of extra pocket money without arousing too much notice. But if he's in a new place, a complete stranger, he purposely loses the first four or five games – generally about two-fifty quid or, in this particular instance, four-ten American.
After that, it's a slow build – every couple of games, small winnings, cautious plays That's how it's been the past few days, and though Joe has not yet expressed how very unimpressed he is, Eames can see it in the man's eyes every time he follows Eames' hands and finds them innocuous; clean; without guile or spare aces. He's appeared to be losing (or hardly breaking even) since they lied their way into the club with forged references and designer suits.
So today, Eames cleans house. He drinks a lot, which isn't unusual, but this time he projects it: fumbling, intoxicated, lucky. Game after game after game, it's perfect. When they eventually head out, he's got seven grand in his pocket and Joe is eerily silent. Eames, though. Eames feels great.
After, the mayor – Anthony Gonzales or Gardenia or something, whatever, asks them if they'd like a smoke. Joe accepts, but Eames declines respectfully. "Got a bit of healthy rivalry with a chap from Westminster," he says. "Got to keep in top form."
Mayor Anthony laughs good-naturedly, claps him on the shoulder. "If only my own life was as worry-free as yours, Reginald!"
"The height of relaxation, that's me all right," Eames says, reacting as naturally to the assumed name as if it were truly his own.
"You probably shouldn't have done that," Joe says much later in a soft vioce, looking over his shoulder. There's no one behind them, or following them – Eames has already checked. Sure, yeah, he's been distracted lately. But he's not a complete fool. "You've drawn attention to us."
"There were no hard feelings," he replies, pursing his lips and glancing sharply at his companion. "People do get lucky sometimes. And these men, they're all wealthier than god. It gives them a perverse pleasure, to see a man win like I did – especially after losing all week. They think they could be me, only in a business venture; a love affair; a hunting expedition. Their very own next card game." Eames exhales, and the Jersey air puffs up, chilled. "Can't do it all the time, of course."
Joe walks Eames back to the Basin Street Hotel, like he's done every night. Eames has no idea where the man's staying, and actually – he hasn't tried to find out. If it'd been Arthur, he'd have known immediately. Arthur would be appalled and paranoid, not knowing. Eames holds back a sigh.
"Also," Eames says at length, looking up at the blank slate sky, "if you play a long game, your quarry will eventually come to you."
Joe looks at him for a time, and Eames can practically hear the thoughts rolling over in his head, churning and crushing into each other and wearing down the cogs into a working, manhandled assertion of order. Forced, but functional. He's a just a bit like Cobb in this respect – thinks too loudly, head too full to keep it completely concealed. But Cobb has a tendency to drift, to daydream – assemble his castles with gossamer strands, panes of light, weightless creation; with Joe, it's all solid, always heavy. Immovable as stone once the parts grind into place.
"Is there anything," Joe asks, finally, "that you do not know about human nature, Eames?"
Eames smiles fiercely. "There is nothing I can't make someone want," he says, even as he thinks: I know nothing about how to make someone need.
The next day there's a handwritten note on his bedside table, and it has a time and a place in even, featureless handwriting. Eames doesn't really want to think about how Joe got into his room without waking him, and decides to take it at face value and maybe be arsed to set some actual alarms. Arthur was always good about that; everyday was an adventure, living with him.
Eames brushes his teeth, unconcerned about the snails-pace this job has taken, since Joe is paying him very good money to basically schmooze and con and steal and cheat. He's gotten them into the upper echelon, and he's won the approval and regard of some of the most powerful men in the city. He'd even come up with a creative cover for Joe's scars:
"Oh, he doesn't like to talk about it, poor fellow," he'd pitched in a stage whisper. "But he was riding trail with a lovely young lady who had a fondness for gallivanting a bit off the beaten trail." Eames has innate mastery of face and gesture, and uses both to express his story. "So Mr. Sexton takes his whip to his horse and goes after her – only it's steep, since she's a bit of a reckless daredevil." He's got the attention of everyone, at this point, and milks the pause for all it's worth. "His horse trips – breaks a leg, they had to put the poor beast down – and these branches come up out of nowhere."
When Eames makes a sharp jerk with the flat of his hand, up near his mouth, he elicits unanimous winces and more than one shocked gasp. "What's the term you gentlemen use across the pond? Closelined."
(Later, Joe will say: "You're not even British around these guys, you're a walking stereotype."
"Cheers," Eames will reply, grinning broadly.)
Later, he tells another version:
"Not that it's a secret," Eames had begun, "but you can imagine the poor old boy wouldn't know how to bring it up. Some thieves broke into his estate..." This story ends with 'Mr. Sexton' being tied up and subjected to heinous acts of torture. "Nothing I could ever repeat, my friends," Eames had said in a bitter stage whisper. "Not while those scoundrels are still at large."
("Won't they know you're lying?" Joe will ask, appalled.
Eames will grin. "It's best to keep your backstory multiple choice. Your fellows can pick out whichever rumor they like best, and be satisfied.")
But the note is for a restaurant, and it looks like dinner reservations; so Eames gives them a ring and asks what their dress code is, what the hell, it's refreshing to be straightforward every once in awhile.
Eames has the bulk of the day to himself, which gives him time to track down a decent suit. He drops by Platinum Pressers, a dry cleaning place in a wealthier area, and shamelessly flirts with the young man watching the store.
"Guess which one's mine," he purrs, and in the end he doesn't even have to search for something his size; the kid's got a good eye. He's so smooth the clerk never even asks for his ticket, though he scribbles his phone number on the back of the receipt.
Ten quid for a five-hundred quid suit? Eames hands the kid an ugly American twenty and tells him to keep the change. He hopes it isn't too much of a disappointment when he never calls.
So Eames gets lunch (he pays full price), wanders a bit, and gets a feel for the city. Eventually he ends up back in his room, and he's thinking about showering and maybe getting ready, or wanking to some pay-per-view porno.
His cell phone rings. Eames has a carefully filtered network of forwarding and misdirection and false names, and only a handful of people have a direct line to him.
It's Ariadne. So of course he answers.
"Shouldn't little girls be in bed this time of night?" he asks, double-checking his watch and counting forward in his head.
"You know me. Out-of-control teenager." Her voice crackles a bit over the phone, shitty reception halfway across the globe and all, but her laugh sounds strained all on its own.
"To what do I owe this pleasure, then?" He says warmly, smiling, making sure it can be heard in his voice. Ariadne isn't necessarily one for hello-how-are-you calls.
There's silence on the line, short enough to be overlooked by anyone but Eames; he makes it his business to ferret out tells. "I actually may need some help," she confesses, and there's just the tiniest bit of anxiety in her voice.
"I see," Eames replies slowly, while a dozen scenarios scroll through his mind. "Well, what can I do for you?"
Another pause, like she's trying to figure out what to say. "Well – where are you?"
"Abroad," he says, helpfully.
She sighs, half chuckle but all exasperation. "You know how you're – ah, very well connected?"
"Well, my dear, that depends. Politically? Financially?" Eames shifts the phone to his shoulder to free up his hands. He's giving the suit a once-over, admiring the fine fabric and the cut of the jacket. It's unaltered, which is nice – it's awkward as all get-out, moving around in clothing that's been tailored to somebody else.
"Of dubious legality," she says.
Eames hums thoughtfully, wonders why she isn't going to Arthur about this. Lord knows he's got a list of unsavories just as long as what Eames has. Ariadne can really not be wanting for criminal friends. "What do you need from the market?"
"This – well, it won't be a secret, but. I'd like to be the one to tell him."
"Duly noted. You have my utmost confidence."
"Can you – get misoprostol," she begins, "and mifepristone?"
Her voice doesn't even waver. Eames says, with hardly a pause, "The usual doses?"
He does not ask who they are for and he doesn't pry. However, Ariadne is smaller and lighter than the average female: he's not about to get her poisoned.
She says she doesn't know, and tells Eames her height and weight and, for good measure, her BMI. He writes it down with care and precision.
"Let me make a few phone calls," He says gently. "I'll give you a time and a place. Lunch, perhaps. On me."
"Thanks, Eames. Um, how much – "
"A friend of yours is a friend of mine," he says, carelessly offering her a way out.
"I'm sorry." Her voice hitches.
"Never be sorry, Ariadne," he says, firm and not at all unkind. "As I said. A friend of yours is a friend of mine."
"Thank you," she says again, with feeling, and hangs up the phone.
Eames sets her up with his most respectable contact, wires the money for lunch, and then has Yusuf write out and email the formula to a capable pharmacist in Paris. He's roundabout enough that the chemist doesn't know who they're for, and the woman meeting Ariadne for lunch doesn't know what they are. The chain of people in between know exactly what they need to do their job, and nothing else.
By the time everything is orchestrated, Eames showers and dresses and arrives at the restaurant almost right on time. This disturbs him, as he prefers to be quite early or fashionably late. But perhaps it's good it mix it up now and then.
Their names aren't on any list, which is fine, since Eames flirts with the hostess and manages to modify one of the reservations – while she's blushing and looking away – enough to say "Alex Raboulde" instead of "Ann Radack". Party of two.
Joe shows up at the tail end, wearing an inexplicably purple suit. Not garish – a deep plum, almost black. And again with the green tie. Arthur would have fits.
"What's this about?" Eames asks after they order the appetizers. "I don't know our mark. You haven't given me anyone to forge, and you haven't consulted me with whatever it is you're turning over in your head."
Joe dabs at his mouth, and Eames wonders at this because Joe always seems to be sitting with his hands folded to cover it, or drinking from some broad glass, or hanging his head just a bit. Eames has only now realized that – well, the man tries to casually hide them. The scars. Tries to misdirect always, and Eames imagines what it must be like, to have people staring at your mouth all goddamn day.
Well. Maybe he knows, just a wee bit, what that's like.
"It's all well and good," Eames continues, "as I certainly don't mind being paid to lie and cheat and steal. But I can't fathom what you get out of it, mate."
Joe looks at him for a long moment, and Eames can read it clearly on his face: deciding if he's going to trust Eames, or if he's going to lie; if he's going to say anything at all.
Then Eames says, "Unless you've been testing me this entire time. What, my references weren't good enough?"
Joe's face clouds, but it dissolves as soon as Eames grins. "You can always judge a forger by the merit of his forgeries."
"It's true," Joe says, smiling. "Look, I'll come clean. I need a partner. I'm looking to get in with the Odessa clan – that's one of the crime families around here, if you didn't know – and I don't act by halves. I don't get my hands dirty unless it's a sure thing."
Eames, listening carefully, thinks: I know someone just like you. I know someone who never likes to get involved unless he's reasonably certain it's a sure thing.
But then he realizes what Joe actually means, and not just what he's saying: he wants to get in with the family to take it over. He wants to use it as a stepping stone and work his way to the top. Uncomfortably, Eames wonders what Joe Couric thinks he has, that he could erect an underworld monopoly amidst families like Falcone, Galante, Maroni. Odessa.
So Eames says, "I don't appreciate being lead on," despite being paid for his time; but he also says, "I'll think about it," since the venture is not without appeal. Eames has never been a crimelord before.
But Joe says the initial job – the billionaire and whatever his 7-year secret is – hasn't gone off the table yet. The information, Joe says, can be used as leverage to get them anywhere they want. A springboard, like a jack-in-the-box – that's how he describes it.
After dinner, Eames goes back to the hotel. He takes off his stolen suit and hangs it up, then strips and stretches out on his queen-sized bed, blankets hopelessly twisted from night after restless night, and starts flipping through the television directory for some filthy gay smut.
For the second time today, his phone rings. He's tempted to let it go.
He doesn't. But he wishes he had.
"Eames," Arthur is saying furiously into the phone, and Eames thinks, bloody fucking hell.
The second time Eames meets Arthur, almost two years have passed. He's been working with Mal for months, and she really is a lovely person: brilliant and passionate and certain of everything in her heart. He's never met anyone like her. God knows Eames isn't half as sure as she is, these days.
So it's really Mal's idea, about the totems, in the end. But while the incarnation was all her own, the divine inspiration required to dream it up came strictly from Eames. He doesn't mind, though: honestly, and with some unease, he isn't sure Mallorie would ever have spared a concern to the danger of losing sense of reality.
Cobb, who has been researching with other top scholars in the field of dream theory, turns up after they've finished their fifth successful round of tests. He's a bit more confident now after some months away, and he shakes Eames' hand earnestly – but he notices the flicker of unease in Cobb's eyes as he glances between the thief and Mal.
Eames is all heart, though. He'd been bored as hell until the SIS transferred him into Mal's capable hands, and the last half-year or so has been – well, one of his best. He's grateful, sincerely. So later they're at a bar, having drinks and catching up, and he leans close to Cobb when Mal goes to the loo:
"Pay more attention to your lady friend. She's been pining all this time, and you're being quite rude to ignore her."
Cobb, shocked and delighted and relieved, looks very seriously at Eames for a long second; then his face splits into the first honest-to-god smile Eames has seen in – well, longer than he can count, and Cobb looks ten years younger.
"Go on, then," Eames says, and Cobb does.
They develop something of a group dynamic, Mallorie and Eames comfortably affectionate, Mallorie and Cobb awkwardly but more intimately so. But, whatever, with enough time monkeys could write Shakespeare, yeah?
They've only just fallen into a rhythm, though, when Eames is early at the lab writing up a report – alone, as is his wont when he actually has to concentrate; it can't all be fluid brilliance, after all – when the door creaks open. Eames turns around with a pen in his mouth and a hello on his lips.
It dies, and the pen falls to the floor and clatters loudly in the silence.
Arthur, older and harder and unsmiling, looks about as shocked as Eames feels.
Arthur, with the yellow and orange light of dawn streaking in behind him, coloring him, a desaturated specter from an old memory suddenly breathed into life.
"I'm sorry," the young man says, taking half a step back. His voice is a touch deeper. Eames feels it in his ribs. "I didn't think anyone was here."
"Please don't apologize, Arthur," Eames manages, and then stands with a fluid ease he doesn't feel and motions to the desks, the tables, the chairs. "There's plenty of room for both of us. And it's good to see you again."
"You too, Mr. Eames," Arthur allows, and there's something guarded and careful and so very withheld about his speech and his actions, and Eames wonders where the fuck the bright not-quite-grown adolescent has been spirited off to.
They work in silence until Cobb and Mal come in, though Eames doesn't actually get anything done.
But he he doesn't mind; it's enough to witness such a happy reunion, how they put their arms around him jointly. Like he's their kid, or like he's family. Like he belongs.
Eames watches him carefully for the next few weeks, transposing the Arthur of his present with the Arthur of his memory: just a bit taller, just a bit more muscled; rigidity replaced by structured grace; mirthless, where before he was free with his smiles. He's free with his frustrations now, his criticisms and sharp observations; occasionally, his startled approval. Hopelessly blunt, still: that hasn't changed. Eames hopes it never does.
Arthur doesn't exactly avoid Eames, but neither does he speak to him more than strictly necessary. He gives no indication of like or dislike, but there are times where Eames catches an expression of open scrutiny; but then the intelligence specialist looks absently away, as if Eames has never crossed his thoughts.
About three weeks of this pass, to Eames' mounting irritation; until, working late and once again thinking he's blissfully alone, Arthur wanders into the office. Inexplicably, he shuts the door behind him. Eames can hear the lock click across the empty expanse of air, final, unavoidable.
"Can I help you, Arthur?"
There's some kind of dark intent glimmering in the young man's eyes as he approaches, steps clipped and strides long. He doesn't stop until he's leaning over Eames' desk, face hard, expression severe. He's practically baring his teeth.
"Look, Eames," Arthur says with quiet intensity, "Cobb and Mal are – look, they're all I have, alright? If you do anything to compromise – "
"Arthur," Eames says wearily. "Are you really warning me off your little made family? Do you think they like me better than you?" As if there were a world where that could be true.
"What?" Arthur asks, perplexed. "No, I – wait. I was talking about Mal."
Eames blinks, just a bit distracted by Arthur's proximity, but then his mind catches up. "Mal? Arthur, do you – you think I fancy Mal?" He pauses to consider it, then frowns. "Are we in primary, Arthur? Are we five? What?"
There is a long silence where Arthur's confusion deepens, but he moves off and takes a step back, pursing his lips. "You don't?"
"God, no, Arthur." Eames sighs, rubbing his eyes. "On all counts, even. You – are you really this oblivious? No, Arthur, put it on the record. I am not interested in Mallorie Pennyworth. I wish her and Dominic Cobb all the best."
"Oh," Arthur says, confused. "But – you just seem," he begins, and pauses. "Mal said you were – pining."
"Ah, no, Arthur. I told Cobb that Mal was pining at one point, but – "
"What?" Arthur is looking at him like he's some kind of complicated puzzle, like a sudoku with only three numbers to start off, impossible, missing almost all the pieces, so how can you know what fits? How can you solve that? "Why would you do that?"
"Because she was? And for whatever bizarre reason, he had the same concerns you do, young Arthur." Eames is tired of this conversation. He haphazardly puts his desk in order, which means he makes some stacks that are indistinguishable from other stacks, and anyway he won't even look at them again, probably. Since they're disorganized. Since he's fucking distracted by fucking Arthur, and it wasn't anything and it isn't anything now and what the fuck is Eames even doing.
"So who," Arthur starts, but he's interrupted by the abrupt slam of Eames' chair into the table, some papers falling ineffectually to the floor.
"Look," Eames says sharply, "You've basically ignored me since you've got here, and I don't know what I did to offend you or – or turn you off, and I understand a lot of time has passed, but – "
"Oh," Arthur says again, but the inflection is completely different. It's a soft exhalation, and Eames reads the dawning realization with a nervous twist in his gut. "I thought – but don't you like – birds," Arthur stammers.
Eames stares at him. And then he snorts. And then he's laughing, rubbing his nose, trying to keep from losing his mind since Arthur is fucking retarded.
"I'm fucking retarded," Arthur says quietly, palm slapped against his forehead.
Eames takes pity. "No, not retarded. Just a bit oblivious, darling."
After that, it's easier. Arthur tells Eames in a roundabout way that he's – well, that he's been thinking about the forger pretty much this whole time. How he didn't know what to say, when he saw Eames sitting alone that morning; how it was like a blow to the stomach, literally, like Eames may as well have punched him as sat there with the sun on his face.
"That's funny. I felt the same way about you," Eames murmurs, cradling Arthur's face, pressing against his mouth. He's kissing Arthur the way he thinks he maybe should've kissed him two years ago. Sliding his fingers through that silky hair, thumbing those ridiculous cheekbones, easing his tongue over Arthur's as the dark-haired man opens for him. He feels the kiss spike up in his stomach, swirl in his guts, glitter through his veins, like he's a child, like he's a teenager, this stupid, overwhelming, impossible feeling.
But Arthur, he slips his arms around Eames' waist, startled and tentative; skids his fingertips searchingly, reverently. Moans quietly like he really has wanted this, for years, clings to Eames like he's desperate and afraid this isn't real.
The heat curls low in the thief's gut even as his heart hammers and soars. He knows what that's like. He knows it exactly.