Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Author's Note: Been on an Anna and the King and King and I kick. I love the story and, if you haven't seen either of those movies, or read the book they're based on, Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon, I urge you to to do so. They're, absolutely gorgeous. And, if you have seen/read them, I recommend the excellent oneshot that's here on fanfiction called A Process of Evolution by Leraiv Snape.

Heading out to the river tomorrow with some family. The water's going to be freezing-even now when summer's just getting started-but I'll be grateful. It's been 98 degree weather here almost nonstop since the end of April.

"Good things don't happen when people put aside their differences, but when they embrace them."

-Anonymous

By the time Eames met him, Arthur was still a soldier, just not a good one.

The first time Eames saw the wound, the medic was gently cleaning it in the infirmary. The wound was splattered across Arthur's side, still raw-looking and healing at the edges. It's too much for a kid who couldn't be more than, what, twenty? Maybe twenty-one.

He was the newest recruit—Arthur, Marines, served in Iraq for two years before having to be discharged on account of injuries—and he was quick to understand what was going on with the dreamwork, even if, for the first few, long months, he couldn't go under with them because they weren't sure how the somancin would react with the drugs in his system that were fighting off any possible infection from that wound.

So he would sit and study the levels, asking questions and making suggestions. The kid was intelligent, they'd all give him that, but he was too quiet, too withdrawn. Eames never mentioned how he knew that something had gone wrong out there in Iraq because a person didn't get hollow eyes like the ones the kid had from just being blown up.

"Don't overexert yourself." The medic warned as he finished bandaging him up.

The kid nodded, wincing a little as he shrugged his shirt back on. All Eames saw him wear were button shirts, but he supposed it made logical sense if on one didn't want to mess with an injury of that size by trying to pull clothes over the head.

It was one of the sleepless nights—one of many that Eames had because, sometimes, he still dreamed of Sheral's familiar warmth beside him or he would stare at the door on stormy nights and wait for his beautiful little girl to poke her head inside and dash across the floor in pitter-patters like rain and ask, Daddy, can I stay with you?—that Eames wandered the base, cigarette wobbling between his lips. He wandered past the barracks, past the mess hall, past the training area outside that had been known to change overnight.

There was a light on in the weights room. Curiosity—an old friend of Eames'—touched her hand on his shoulder and led him there with silvery, seductive eyes and a lover's smile.

Somehow, he wasn't surprised to find the kid there. He was sitting, dumbbells in each hand and it was the left side—the one with the pink-and-red wound stretching from below the waistband of his pants up to hover below his pectorals—that made him clench his jaw with every movement.

Don't overexert yourself, the medic had told him. Clearly, the kid had some of a rebel in him.

"I pictured you more of a track and field type." Eames said and the kid glanced up.

"You like putting people in boxes?" The kid replied, continuing in his weight-lifting.

"I like knowing who doesn't fit in their boxes."

The kid's arms were trembling now and he set down the weights with an air of futile frustration. "Gotta have a hobby."

Eames sat on the next bench and offered him a cigarette. He didn't usually offer them to kids—well, perhaps this one wasn't as much of a kid as he kept thinking. There was obviously a good brain in there and anyone who went to war couldn't very well be called a child anymore—but he thought he'd make an exception.

"Trying to give me lung cancer?" The kid—Arthur, his name was Arthur—took one anyway and Eames lit it with an unconscious motion. He didn't even have to think about pulling the lighter out anymore.

"The doctors who tell you that are overrated."

Arthur snorted before inhaling. It was calming, sitting there and smoking, even if they weren't supposed to and, one of these days, they were going to set off the fire alarm. They sat there until they were smoking filters and that was when they left for the barracks, the smell of smoke lingering behind them.

-/-/-

Everyone heard the mutters and the grumbles of the medic the next day. "Dammit, Arthur, you can't just rest like you're told? You keep splitting the scabs with whatever you're doing."

And Eames would smirk silently as he slid the needle in his arm, leaning back against the chair and waiting for the somancin to take effect. It was possible that the good little soldier that Arthur had been was gone, that there was a part of him that was done with following orders. And wasn't that interesting?

Once a year, Arthur drops off the grid.

On October twenty-fourth of every year, Arthur becomes the Invisible Man. No one knows where he is, no one knows why and no one has any way to contact him.

It isn't until several years of knowing about Arthur James Reynolds that Eames pieces it together. Of course, he knows of the one day where Arthur is utterly unreachable. The first few times it happened, he gave both him and Mal quite the scare. But Arthur would return their calls on October twenty-fifth and assure them that yes, he was alive, and no, he wasn't kidnapped.

Even after piecing it together, Eames still doesn't know if he's right. Arthur is one of the best at tricking people, even outside of dreams. He's managed to fool most of the world that he's someone else; it would be child's play to trick people into believing he was somewhere where he wasn't.

So Eames is careful to keep a very sharp eye on his movements in the week leading up to October twenty-fourth. He notices the extra tension in his lover's shoulders, in the fact that, sometimes, Arthur would wake up curling instinctively toward his scarred side. Eames knows about things like that; old scars—particularly the kinds with memories attached—tended to twinge sharply if you thought about them too much.

The night of October twenty-third, Eames settled in beside Arthur like always, one arm wrapped around his waist, his face close enough to the back of his neck that he could smell him. Not his shampoo or his aftershave, but him.

In his mind, he thinks he should have felt Arthur get up. He probably did, but, in the wee hours of the morning when all he wants is to go back to bed, Arthur can persuade him to do just about anything. And that includes believing that Arthur had just gotten up to go to the bathroom.

But he's always had his files with names on them in the back of his mind. And he pulls out Arthur's and a flurry of information comes up. Everything from favorite ice cream flavor—strawberry—to everything about Arthur James Reynolds. And, somewhere in all this is the date October twenty-fourth and he follows the threads that connect his information and it leads him to Arthur James Reynolds and Eames knows of only one reason why a date would be important when related to him.

So he catches the first flight to Vermont and he has to check just about every cemetery in the near vicinity of Arthur's hometown before he finds him.

It shouldn't be shocking, the sight of Arthur-no suit. He is very good at not getting noticed when he wants to be—seated in front of a grave. It's simple, square with an endless knot carved into it.

Here lies
Arthur James Reynolds
Beloved brother and son
September 27, 1984—October 24, 2004

Arthur hasn't noticed him yet, is still sitting with his knees up and his elbows resting on his knees. Vermont is cold in autumn and he's huddled in his coat a little, his cheeks pink from the wind. When the wind turns, Eames hears a snippet of his voice and he wonders what Arthur's telling his brother. Or asking.

So Eames goes to a lamppost at the edge of this row of graves and waits. He considers lighting a smoke, but decides against it in honor of the dead. He leans there until sunset, watching the trees with their wash of warm, beautiful colors.

Arthur stiffens when he sees him. "What're you doing here?"

Eames doesn't look at him; this isn't simply crossing a line. This is The Line. "…You know me, darling. Can't keep my curiosity at bay."

"Maybe that's something you should work on." Arthur's voice—icy as the promise of snow on the wind—lets Eames know the extent to which he's crossed The Line. Most of Arthur's lines composed of his brother and Eames knows that he's lucky he isn't getting punched right now. Because when Arthur feels backed into a corner, he does one of two things: lashes out or stows it away as fuel for the next time.

"I've talked to him, y'know." Eames calls as Arthur walks away. "Your brother."

There is a terrible stillness to Arthur after that statement. "What?"

"In your mind. I've talked to him." The actual Arthur James Reynolds, not the half-feral shade of him that was the projection. He'd liked him; the protectiveness, the slow curl of the arrogant smile, the unashamed laughter. "Perhaps I just wanted to pay my own respects."

Arthur looks like he's struggling to find words before he just says, "Go ahead." and leaves.

Eames does pay his respects. He stands in front of the grave and, after a hesitant moment, tells Arthur James Reynolds about the man his little brother has become.

-/-/-

He doesn't go back to Arthur's apartment—technically their apartment now—right away. He lets Arthur work out the anger that is surely there for a day before he goes back the next night. He slips in the door (Like a thief) and undresses before sliding under the covers.

Arthur's awake, he knows. Has probably been awake since the moment he heard the front door open. But he doesn't react to Eames coming in or getting into bed. Eames leans his forehead against Arthur's shoulder, one hand gently tracing the red-brown scar tissue on his side. "I'm sorry." He says finally.

(Sorry that the war had to happen, sorry that you and your brother were in the wrong place at the very wrong time, sorry that your brother was killed, sorry that he'd had to deal with it all alone because the dreamsharing program didn't allow him to go back to his family, to his feisty, smart little sister and his strong mother. Sorry about it all)

Arthur doesn't make any motion that he heard him for a moment before he relaxes back into Eames. He's forgiven.

Arthur was the one to come up with the plan to steal the PASIV from the military.

He found Eames in one of the dreams. Arthur, that is.

"Is this your idea of checking a dream for structural integrity?" Eames asked.

Arthur glanced around before saying, "I have a proposition for you."

"I thought your government had a law against that sort of thing in the military, but if you insist—"

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Not that kind of proposition."

Eames uncurled a smirk. "You should really be more specific. So what is this proposition of yours?"

There wasn't anything but confidence in the coffee-brown eyes. "I'm planning to steal a PASIV and some somancin and get out of here."

"And you need my help?"

"No. But I would prefer it. Think about it, Eames. What they've invented here is a powerful thing; do you really want to leave the decisions of when it gets used and what for to the government?"

Eames folded his arms across his chest; the kid had a good point. "If you really thinking that stealing one PASIV is going to be enough, you're more of a kid than I thought."

"It isn't, but it means we can run counter-government if we have to. That anyone can if they can get their hands on one of the PASIVs."

"And everyone's so capable of doing that."

"They are if we sell the blueprints of the PASIV and the somancin formula. Stealing secrets from people's dreams; it's corporate espionage's wet dream."

Eames had known that Arthur was intelligent, but he had some elements of a criminal mastermind. "I like it, but why cut me in on this?"

"We can both extract secrets, that isn't the hard part. The hard part is what you can do. Forging. The military's found one other person that can do it. It's a great asset in the field."

"And you? Where do you fit in?" Eames had seen Arthur work in a dream and he's fairly certain that, even if someone could do what he could do with his understanding of manipulating things into the impossible, that they wouldn't be quite as good at it as he was.

"You need someone who knows how to fight and how to work the dream. Besides, trying to make it in this business on your own is suicide."

He knew how to drive a bargain. Besides, he'd already done a few things to catch Eames' interest and this was only adding to the list. Eames liked interesting people.

So he agreed. "Alright then. You've got yourself a partner. How exactly do you plan to steal the PASIV."

"I can't. But you can, can't you?"

Eames narrowed his eyes at him. "You are good." Never revealing his hand until he had what he wanted because he knew, even after such a short acquaintance with Eames that Eames would keep his word. And he already had a frighteningly accurate measure of Eames' talents. "So if I'm stealing the PASIV…"

"And the somancin. I'll steal the blueprints and the formula."

"And how do you intend to do that, Mr. Master Thief?"

Arthur flashed a dimpled grin—a false one, but Eames only knew that from his observations and damn if it didn't have just the right mixture of adult appreciation and boyish charm. "The scientists' assistants like me."

"Oh, I'll bet they do." The ground began to tremble beneath them. "It's starting to collapse. We must be out of time."

Arthur held out a deceptively slim hand. "See you up top then?"

Eames shook his hand once, decisively. "Absolutely."

Arthur and cold nights don't get along.

One would think that people that disliked the cold as much as they did would stop living near it. The cold that was enough that the windows were frosted and that there would likely be a snowy slush, at the very least, on the ground tomorrow. Sometimes, it was worse and the hail would rail against their windows and the snow would be halfway up their shins.

Years before they ever kissed, ever had sex, ever did more than tease and snipe at each other, they'd had to curl beneath the same blankets for warmth because they couldn't always afford central heating.

It wasn't that they were bad bed partners, really. At least when it was cold, they weren't because they had their priorities. Warmth before hogging covers or pillows, or sprawling out on the bed, as Eames tended to do (He still remembers Sherallyn, with her slow glide of a smile and the ease with which she'd fit beside him, blonde curls tumbling over her bare shoulders. He can't stand the empty space on the bed where she used to be). They actually tended to fall asleep rather easily on those nights.

Of course, at some point on time on those nights, Eames will be jerked awake and he'll bolt upright, instincts on high alert. Arthur will turn over a little and blink blearily at him.

"The hell're you doin'?" He'd mumble, one hand sweeping disheveled curls out of his face.

Once Eames' mind recognized that there was no danger, he'd glare at his bed partner. "Have you ever heard of these new-fangled things called socks, darling?" Arthur frowned in confusion. "Your feet are bloody freezing." And, because of said cold feet, Arthur would look for the closest warmth there was, which was generally Eames' shins.

Arthur would mumble something that sounded suspiciously like that Eames was warmer than socks before telling him to just go back to sleep, that it would be dawn in a few hours and that he was warm now anyway.

Eames would settle down a little grumpily and, after a half a moment's indecision, tug Arthur closer by the waist and swear to himself that, next Christmas, he was buying the point man some of those ridiculous fuzzy socks that came in the bright colors. See if he got cold feet then.