There are secrets between Arthur and Eames that Dom doesn't know, ones that Ariadne can only make guesses at and wonder about.
When they're on the Fisher job, she thinks that they're barely cordial to each other. They have a shared history; that much is obvious even to Ariadne, who's still trying to fit dreaming into her understanding of the world. Arthur doesn't speak to Dom for a week after he gets back from Mombasa, and barely ever speaks to Eames at all unless he absolutely has to. Then, one day, Eames brings two cups of coffee with him in the morning and puts one on Arthur's desk, and Arthur drinks it without looking at it, and Ariadne has something new to fit into her worldview.
[He's furious at Eames for agreeing to work with Cobb, and it doesn't matter how much of a hypocrite that makes him.
He cut communication with everyone- with Eames- when he ran off with Cobb for a reason, and maybe in hindsight he can see what a bad decision that was, but it doesn't change the fact that Eames being here messes up all of Arthur's carefully laid plans. Arthur carefully ignores the little voice in his head that tells him that his carefully laid plans had already been rapidly unraveling, and instead tries to feel as irritated as he can at Eames.
Even so, each time when Eames kicks over Arthur's chair- ever so "helpfully" providing a kick out of the dream- he has to take a moment to compose himself before glaring at him so that Eames doesn't see the instinctive smile that forms on his face.
He sees, of course, just like he always does when it comes to Arthur.]
Arthur and Eames have known each other for as long as anyone else has known them, and there may or may not be a bet throughout the dreamsharing community about the nature of their relationship. (There is. There's at least sixty people involved, across six continents, with a small fortune bet.) Everyone agrees that the two men have a long history, that much is evident to anyone who has been around the two for just five minutes. What they can't agree on is whether they hate each other or love each other -or both, both is always an option.
[Eames has an expression of glee on his face- one that she last saw on her five year old cousin's face right before he threw a water balloon at her- as he helps Yusuf with his testing of the new somnacin mixture. Ariadne's watching them, taking a short break from building cardboard mazes to catch up on the soap opera she's been living with for weeks now.
The forger leans back in his own chair casually, stretching ever so slightly to tap his foot on Arthur's precariously balanced chair, sending him crashing to the ground. Arthur glares at him each and every time.
Eames puts a fist to his mouth to stifle his giggles each and every time Arthur tips over, while Arthur stops glaring quite as hard at Eames.
Eames is smirking while Yusuf readies another syringe to test, and Ariadne idly thinks that Eames enjoys pulling Arthur's pigtails, and feels that the comparison fits perfectly.
Only afterwards does she think about why she compared Eames to a six year old trying to get the attention of someone he likes.]
The first time that she starts to understand what's between Arthur and Eames is when she sees how Arthur reacts to Eames- or, rather, how he doesn't react. With anyone else, with Saito or Yusuf or Dom or even her, Arthur is always on alert. He almost never allows them to be behind him and he looks up every time someone enters or exits a room. He swivels in his chair so that he's able to see the exits of whatever warehouse they're in and is always within reach of at least one weapon at all times.
However, with Eames, Arthur does none of that. He doesn't look at the door when Eames walks in. He doesn't tense up when the other man walks behind him. He doesn't react to Eames' presence the same way he reacts to everyone else's, and Ariadne initially just dismissed it as Arthur being annoyed at Eames.
Eames does the same thing that Arthur does, but he's usually able to hide his slight paranoia a little bit better. He's almost constantly carrying on a conversation with at least one, usually two, of them, and keeps on turning in his chair so that he can look at them as he talks. He's always the first to greet them with a smile when they walk through the door, and never fails to say goodbye to them as they leave. He walks around as he reads from his files, pacing around the room as He picks a workspace right next to the wall and turns his desk so that he faces out into the room. It takes her a while to realize that beneath his facade of flirtiness and charm, Eames is just as paranoid as Arthur is. After she realized that, it was easy to realize that both of them, while so wary of the world, were the exact opposite with each other.
[Arthur doesn't react to Eames because he doesn't need to. Arthur has a list in his head titled 'safe' and Eames is at the top of that very short list. Eames is far from being safe- out of the countless times that he has gotten shot at, Arthur can count on two hands the number of times Eames wasn't around. He's lost count of the number of times that Eames has saved his life and he's saved Eames.
Every once in a while, he thinks about how he doesn't react to Eames and thinks about removing a tell. Distancing them both just that little bit more from the past. It's like a blatant sign that tells the rest of the world just how much he trust the other man.
He can't do it. He can't bring himself to act like Eames is as deserving of his suspicion as the rest of the world is.
Arthur never asks Eames why he does the same thing.]
Eames tries to teach her forging, which she completely and utterly fails at. She can't so much as change into a blonde, much less slip out of her skin the way that Eames does so easily. 'It's okay, love,' he tells her from behind Marilyn Monroe. 'Forging takes practice. The best forgers are people who are either completely comfortable in their own skin or those who would do anything to be someone else.' Edith Piaf starts ringing out before she can ask the obvious question, and Arthur slaps a file into her hands as soon as she wakes up, telling her to go study the architecture of one of the churches in the city.
She forgets about it until a few jobs later, when she notices Arthur during one of the dreams. He's the only one on the team that can chat with the mark to find out the information they need, and they're all very aware of the man's aversion to young men in suits, particularly brunettes. (David's wife had run off with her personal assistant, a man who favored suits and was a decade younger than him, breaking David's heart in the process.) She brought it up to Arthur before they went under, but he just shook his head with a smile. She sees him ripple -there isn't really any other word for it- as he approaches David's favorite bar. It's the same way that Eames forges, when he's trying to be subtle and gradually change his appearance instead of all at once. Arthur's still got brown hair, and he's still in a suit, and he still looks like Arthur, but it's ever so slightly… off. His hair lengthens gradually, and by the time he passes through the entrance of the bar, it's brushing his collar bones. His face is just so slightly different, and his body looks just a little bit softer; there's a few less angles. It's still Arthur, but also, unmistakably, a female.
Ariadne can see that Arthur's definitely a good forger, light years ahead of her and Cobb, maybe even as good as Eames. Which side of the line is he on? She wonders, is Arthur comfortable being Arthur, or does he want to be someone else?
She wakes up to see Eames by Arthur's side, a place where he can be more often found than not. "Lovely show, as always, Arthur," he says as he helps Arthur remove the needle
[Arthur learned forging the same way that he learned how to dream. Someone said that it was impossible, so he decided to do it.
Both of them started learning at the same time, starting with the small things- hiding the silver dollar scars at the crooks of both elbows was the first thing that either of them did.
The first time Arthur managed to change the color of his eyes was the first time that Eames kissed him. The first time that Eames forged a person was the day that both of them fired a gun in real life for the first time.
Arthur learned how to forge faster, but Eames learned to forge better.]
For two men who have done a very good job at concealing every bit at information about themselves, they do have a few habits that Ariadne has noticed. Eames, on every single job they've worked together, claims the desk right next to the window (or under the light, if no windows are available), saying that he sees better in direct light. Ariadne's caught him zoning out more than once, staring at the shadows across his desk and on the floor.
Arthur glances behind him every dozen steps or so, a habit that she always thought was due to the sheer amount of people after him and the price on his head until she sees him in a dream. He takes a single, deliberate step, and then looks at the imprint he leaves behind.
Both Arthur and Eames have imagination enough to have totems beyond the poker chip and the die.
[Totems work, of course, but not nearly as well as everyone thinks they do: the best lies are based off of truth. They're much too easily recreated, anyways; a weighted die and a counterfeit poker chip are just physical things.
Physical objects are the easiest things, by far, to make in dreams.
They'd found that out for themselves, back when dreaming was brand new and untested, when they were the lab rats used to find out the rules of dreaming. They decided to create decoys, to make it easier for them and harder for everyone else.
They carry the die and the chip, for appearances, and put other things in instead.
Eames sometimes has two shadows or no shadow or shadows that point the wrong way.
Arthur sometimes leaves footprints behind him, whether he's walking on dirt or polished steel or grass or concrete.
They switch it up, using more than one tell at a time, combining them to remind themselves of what's real and what's not.
Only one thing stays constant through the years.]
Ariadne guesses, from the slits of skin she sees in the dreams, the ones that she can glimpse for the split second Eames creates a forge, the split second that a bullet tears through Arthur's suit before he repairs it. She sees ink licking across Arthur's back and tanned skin through Eames' shirt.
[They have each other's tattoos when dreaming.
Eames has a star inked above his heart and a dog tag on his sternum and a sword on his last rib. Arthur has meandering swirls of ink across his shoulder and chest and back. Both of them have a small infinity sign on the inside of their ring fingers.
That is the only tattoo on them in dreams that doesn't exist on either one of them when awake.]
Ariadne guesses, from the times that they arrive at jobs in two cars but leave in one, the times that they arrive in one car and leave in two, and the times that they arrive and leave together. There have been times when she or Dom have called Arthur at 3 in the morning and Eames is the one that answers the phone, and they've called Eames when they're all on their lunch break and they hear Arthur ordering for them in the background.
[They know each other's safe houses and have keys to all of them.
Eames has sets of papers with Arthur's pictures on them and Arthur has bank accounts with Eames' identities.]
Ariadne guesses, from the shape of Arthur's mouth as he forms a word that is not 'Eames', from the quiet breath that Eames makes that is not 'darling' or 'Arthur.'
[Eames knows Arthur's last name and Arthur knows Eames' first.]
I'm finally done! I've literally been working on this story since last June, and I'm so glad to be finally finished with this story. There's a lot of backstory to the boys' relationship and unexplored parts of their dynamic that I didn't address in Ballad, and I'm planning on writing at least one sequel to this- which should hopefully be done soon. I hope you guys liked the story!- Inky