"I take it that you are not a good Catholic?" Eames asked teasingly when they were on their way back.
"No." Arthur kept his eyes on the road, but the way his hands clenched around the wheel told Eames everything he needed to know.
"Imagine that. That was a short visit, by the way. Wouldn't you rather have stayed for dinner with the family, like he asked you to?"
"The fact that they're family doesn't mean that I get along with all of my cousins," Arthur replied, tight-lipped. It had started to rain and heavy drops of water were splashing against the windshield.
"I see. That Antonio for example…?"
"For example."
The road was quickly turning slippery, and Arthur had to concentrate on his driving, so Eames decided to let the matter rest for now.
"Huh. So that was Salvatore Santangelo," he mused, changing the topic. "He is an interesting person. Seems a little too pleasant for a mafia boss, though."
"Don't let his charming personality fool, you. He's got another one that isn't nearly as affable."
"I take it that you've met that other side of his?"
"Often enough to regret bringing you into this at all," Arthur replied, the frown on his face audible in his voice.
"Awww, are you worrying about my safety, pet? I'm touched," Eames teased, but there was some truth to the words, anyway. Arthur was worried, and he was touched by it. Maybe he should have been worried, too, but he justified his lack of caution by reminding himself that Arthur gave him preciously little to nourish his hopes and that he had to grasp onto every little straw.
"I just don't want your untimely death on my conscience," Arthur huffed, "it's troubled enough as it is."
"And here was me thinking that you cared about me," Eames pouted.
To his surprise, Arthur turned slightly to meet his eyes for a fraction of a minute, before he turned back to face the road again. The movement came accompanied by an even more astonishing statement: "I do, and I shouldn't. In any case, it's no reason to gloat. People I care about have a tendency to get hurt."
"I already took a bullet for you," Eames reminded him cheerfully, "so how much worse can it get?"
"I'd rather not answer that," Arthur replied gloomily, effectively ruining Eames' sudden good mood.
"I always thought Cobb was a worrywart, but you almost make him look like an optimist, darling," he complained. "The world is not all bad and hostile, you know."
"Yes, I know, there are flowers and kittens and happy endings. There are little girls like Philippa who believe in them, and little boys like James who think Santa Claus is real. But I know that when I raise my gun and shoot somebody, he's dead and doesn't get up again. Or he isn't, and in that case, I am dead. Most likely. I know that Gabriele Ajala had the son of his niece killed merely to spite an old enemy. A little boy, maybe three or four years old. His name was Giulio. And now Salvatore is sending me to get his sister, not because he fears for the girl's safety, but because he wants to teach Gabriele a lesson. And she might very well die in the process, if she isn't dead yet. Do you expect me to rejoice at the fact that at the end of the day, it might be her blood on my hands?"
Eames was startled by this sudden outbreak and remained silent for a minute or two, trying to find an answer to that. He saw Arthur's fingers clench around the wheel, saw him swallow hard. He seemed upset, maybe even angry. Eames could hardly blame him, but he also couldn't help but notice that Arthur's mood swings kept getting more erratic, and his moods darker. Once again, he wondered where this journey would take them, and for the first time he felt anxious.
Nevertheless… "I'll go with you."
"No, you won't," Arthur replied in that quiet, no-nonsense tone that held an edge of warning.
Eames rolled his eyes. Don't ask for help, if you're not willing to accept it, darling…
"You could try to stop me, I suppose. But since I already know where, when, what and who, it'll be quite difficult, unless you're planning on tying me to the bed."
"I could just put another bullet through your shoulder," Arthur said.
"That would defeat the purpose. If you don't want me to go there, because you don't want me to get hurt, hurting me yourself would be paradoxical."
"Everybody loves a paradox," Arthur replied, shrugging. "Besides – I don't want you to get killed. I have no problem with you getting hurt, or doing it myself."
"Now that hurt." Eames said, and he meant it.
"You'll live. If you want cuddly, sympathetic company, go find Ariadne. I never asked you to follow me around, and I don't know why you're doing it anyway."
Eames felt about ready to cry out in frustration, or maybe strangle Arthur, but neither would have solved his problem. This infuriating problem that was sitting right next to him, in all his splendid, cold, unreachable and unbelievably dense glory.
"I hate you," he said emphatically, because in that moment, it was true.
Arthur turned to throw him an irritated look. "So shoot me. Because that's what people usually do when they hate somebody. They most certainly don't risk their life for the person they hate and attach themselves to him like a third leg. What…? Why are you looking at me like that, it's true!"
"I can't figure out what I want more right now – to kill you or to kill myself," Eames replied between gritted teeth.
"Here's an astonishing idea: how about you just leave me alone…?"
Eames remained silent for a long moment, weighing his answer, before replying: "You're not the only one with a conscience, Arthur."
The rest of the trip passed silently, and it was an uncomfortable silence. They switched transports – car, airplane, car – and Eames was glad when they finally arrived in Rome. It was past midnight, and they hadn't had a real dinner, but for some reason he didn't feel hungry, and the prospect of sitting across a table from Arthur did not seem very appealing right now.
He grabbed his bag and started to look for directions. Arthur's quiet question caught him off guard. "Where are you going?"
"To find a place to sleep. Where else would I be going at this hour? I know a hotel from a job I did a couple of years ago. It's quiet and they serve you a decent breakfast… but then of course, the owner is British…" He added with a lopsided smile.
Arthur shook his head. "Commenting on that would just lead to another argument… but you could stay with me. That is, if you think you'll survive my taste in breakfast."
Eames stared at him. Arthur would never cease to surprise him… here was the invitation he had been dreaming about for months, maybe years, and it came on the heels of their worst disagreement so far. Weird? No, not at all…
"Eames?" Arthur asked, shifting his weight. Either he was nervous, or eager to get out of the airport. Eames was betting on the latter.
"I… you just caught me by surprise, pet. I simply didn't expect to be invited after you told me to get lost. Talk about paradoxical behavior…"
Arthur shrugged. "It sort of makes sense. I have a two-bedroom apartment here, and if you stay with me, I don't have to go looking for you tomorrow. Besides, I was trying to be nice."
"Keep practicing," Eames advised, suppressing a grin. "Okay, I guess I'll accept. Thank you. You sure you can tolerate me that close-by?"
"Come off it," Arthur huffed, "I've slept in the same bed as you, I think I'll be able to share my flat with you. Can we cut this discussion short, please? I'm tired."
"Sure. Lead the way."
Arthur's apartment was in Trastevere, on the fourth and top floor of a house that even in the dark looked older than any Eames had ever lived in. Eames idly wondered, how often Arthur stayed here, how many of those apartments he had, scattered across the globe, and whether or not he considered any of them his home.
He had expected to see an impersonally and practically furnished space; a place to stop by from time to time, but not to linger… but when they entered, he was surprised. Arthur softly closed the large, wooden door behind them, turned on the light and Eames was free to look around. An obviously antic chandelier hung from the high ceiling of the living area, illuminating the scenery. The furniture was old, heavy and slightly battered, all dark, undecorated wood. The floor was wooden, too, but most of it was covered by a lush white and grey carpet that softened all steps to a barely audible sound. A table surrounded by four chairs was covered with a white cloth and atop of it sat an empty silver bowl and a stack of papers.
And then there were the drawings. Eames counted fourteen of them, the fifteenth, unfinished one lay atop the stack of papers on the table. They were all the same large format, all done in pencil, even though several of them held a set of notes, numbers or a schematic done in ink somewhere to the side. He walked closer to study them. From afar, they looked like the work-drawings of an architect, something he would do to explain his vision to a prospective investor. But a closer look revealed them as the work of an artist.
Something about those pictures struck Eames as odd, and yet the oddity was strangely familiar. Something was off, but he had seen that something before. It took him a couple of minutes and a walk around the room, glancing at each drawing, to figure out what it was: none of these could have been constructed in the real world. It started with tiny things, but once you saw it, you detected a pattern of flaws, flaws that made the buildings unreal, but all the more beautiful. Angles were off, pillars to thin to carry the weight put upon them, the stairs had neither beginning nor end, and the domes would crush the buildings that carried them. They could never exist in the real world… but in dreams they would thrive and form entire cities of haunting, surreal beauty. And in that moment, Eames knew that Arthur himself was the artist, and the reason the drawings looked so familiar became evident.
They were incredibly complicated. Part of their beauty lay in the fact that they were unreal, or more than real, but the other part was due to the intricacy, the loving attention to detail that the artist had lavished upon them. It was hard to imagine that a human mind could dream up such creations, but to ban them on paper, make them visible to others…! Arthur had bared his soul in drawing them, and he had bared his soul to Eames, who felt like a wide-eyed intruder.
"Are you alright?" Arthur's voice drifted across the white, cloudy space in Eames' mind.
Eames opened his mouth and breathlessly voiced the first thought that would agree to be put into words. "You are amazing."
It probably sounded quite odd to anyone but himself, but it was exactly what he felt.
"Right," Arthur said slowly, a line of confusion showing on his front, "let me show you your bedroom." He sounded faintly embarrassed. Eames smiled.
So... I guess right now, all of you are busy doing your last minute Christmas shopping ;) Nevertheless, if you have the time to stop by and read this, I would absolutely love it if you could linger a moment longer and drop me a short review! (Think of it as a Christmas present to me...^^)
Trastevere, by the way, is one of Rome's old quarters. I like it, and I would kill for an apartment like Arthur's...