~Past-
"No, darling, you're doing it wrong." Eames chided, taking a document from her as he eyed the typed wording suspiciously.
"What do you mean I'm doing it wrong?" Raylie snapped back offended, having made a lot of headway in what she was doing.
They had been working on a simple con job involving extraction and Eames took it upon himself to stroll in and criticize her work.
"Look, right here. It's clearly a fake. You don't have their watermark correct." He pointed to the forged document as she snatched it back to eye what he was talking about, "They'll know right away, love." His smooth voice brushed over her, the closeness of him not going unnoticed.
"Well if you're so good, why don't you show me whats wrong you smartass." She replied in a joking tone, putting the document back on the table for him to explain. Eames chuckled as he slyly moved behind her, trapping her between him and the table.
"Right here..." he moved his arm around her to point at the watermark on the document as his lips brushed the side of her neck ever so slightly when he spoke.
"The shape of it is completely wrong. You're too distracted, love. You need to focus." He whispered, still at her neck. She could feel his chest rumble in silent laughter, knowing he was doing this very well on purpose. She was trying not to squirm as his hand snaked around her waist.
"Well..." She said near breathless. "Maybe it's time I take a break for a little bit. Come back to it later." She whispered as she felt Eames mouth turn to a triumphant smirk and began to kiss her neck.
"You're despicable." She remarked quietly, leaning into his kisses.
"Ah, but you love it." He chuckled, hands impatiently fiddling with the waistband of her pants.
... - ... - ...
~Present-
It had been a few days since Cobb had briefed them on the assignment. Each of the team members had found their own spots in the large warehouse to focus on their tasks with the occasional group huddle to check in on everyone's progress. Raylie made a point to not say a word to Eames the past few days, and he had graciously done the same.
Raylie was standing over her table, palms flat and shoulders hunched as she stared at the mass of paperwork in front of her. It was shuffled every which way with no logical sense to it. Just a large pile of unkempt papers to anyone else. But to her, it was organized chaos. Her brain was connecting pieces together, but the work was still monotonous.
Pulling out her 3rd cigarette and fumbled in her jacket pocket for a moment, her fingers lightly grazed on a lighter before moving to a pack of matches she had instead. Using them, she lit it up and took a big drag. If she had a stiff drink in her other hand then she believed she could have been even more focused, but she refrained, already hearing the judgemental tut and lecture from Cobb that would be sure to come her way.
"Having troubles?" An accented voice drifted over to her. Raylie closed her eyes briefly, trying to find any ounce of patience for what was to come. Peace couldn't have lasted forever she guessed. For the past few days they had mostly left one another alone, too busy with their work to bother each other. Plus, she was still mad at him and didn't want to explode. Eames though must have just made a breakthrough on his part as he sauntered over, glancing down at her mess of papers.
"Why would you say that? Everything is peachy." She retorted through clenched teeth, rubbing a hand over her forehead.
"Because...You're chain smoking." He said matter-of-factly. "These will kill you, ya know." He chided, pulling the cigarette from her mouth only to take a long drag from it himself. "Hypocrite." She mumbled, eyeing him suspiciously at what he was really doing over here. "Plus. I think the smell is bothering Ariadne." He added before dropping the cigarette onto the concrete floor and snuffing it out with his shoe.
"Need some help?" He suddenly asked in a falsely sweet tone, straightening up as he eyed her with a Cheshire grin. "I'm fine." She snipped back, trying to ignore him as she looked back down at the papers, not going to be quick to forget his words from the other day.
"Why don't you go take a breather. By the time you get back, I'll have this all sorted." He said confidently, taking a jab at any progress she had made. They both knew that wouldn't be the case as the assignment was much more complicated than that, but it didn't mean he couldn't try and poke the bear.
"COBB!" She suddenly shouted, more as a threat to Eames as Cobb wasn't even in the room.
"Cobb!" Eames mimicked back in a dramatic high pitched tone before backing off of the table and leaving her to her work.
Instantly, she pulled out the pack of cigarettes again. "Does this bother you?" She suddenly snapped to Ariadne who's workspace was the closest to hers. The girl was clearly taken aback by the harsh tone, shaking her head, "No..." She responded timidly as Raylie turned away. "Good." She snipped back, fumbling for her matches.
... - ... - ...
~Later...
"So...whats up with you and Eames?" Ariadne asked carefully many hours later, wanting to give the woman time to cool off, but her curiosity getting the better of her.
It was evening now and everyone had retired for the night except for Ariadne, who was a perfectionist and workaholic by nature, and Raylie, who wanted to continue if only to prove that she was competent and to shut Eames up and also to shut down any doubts Cobb might be having about her.
"Whats up is that Eames wants me to get frustrated and quit so he can take this part over and get some more cash out of the deal." Raylie answered bitterly.
"No...I mean, from before... You guys have a history?.." Ariadne treaded lightly.
Raylie eyed her for a few moments. She wasn't quite sure she wanted to engage in 'girl chat,' especially with this nosy woman, but on the other hand, the invitation to be able to bitch and complain to a listening ear was also tempting. There were very few opportunities to do so in a line of work that was mostly dominated by men.
Finally pulling out her trusty flask, she took a sip and offered it to Ariadne. "Want a swig?" Raylie offered in which Ariadne obliged, taking it from her with a triumphant smile. Raylie moved to sit on the table, letting out a deep sigh, trying to figure out just where to begin.
"I guess you could say, in the simplest terms, that Eames and I had flings...here and there. I mean, we're both con artists, our #1 is ourselves, our #2 is money, and if there's room for a #3, then that can be reserved for others. Back then, it was fun when we were together so I guess that's why we kept coming back to each other. We aren't the type to talk about our future and get married and have 2.5 kids and a white picket fence. That would have never happened. Never. Not our style." Raylie began, it almost feeling good to think about the good times of the past.
"Well, a few years before you guys did your inception job, me and him found ourselves in Thailand...a place full of crooks and bad choices. It was perfect." She said, a reminiscent tone in her voice.
"Cobb was dealing with some personal stuff back then so Eames and I were in-between jobs. We finally took up the first one that came to us.. It wasn't anything like how it is now. Cobb is a professional who expects certain standards. With this team, we were just a gang of disorganized misfits only looking out for their own best interests." She shrugged.
Taking another sip, she continued, "This job was a simple extraction. Just needed to get a few bank account numbers and good blackmail material, and we were just going to rob The Mark blind." She chuckled lightly at the thought, Ariadne however, wasn't sure how such a thing could be taken so nonchalantly.
"Kai was our self appointed leader. A crazy, coked up Columbian that had a rap sheet longer than probably me and Eames put together. But even so, he knew how to get jobs done. He was 100% only out for himself, but he needed the help of others to get it done so he tolerated us as long as we were able to do the job."
Raylie took a brief pause in her story, either reminiscing or trying to figure out how to continue.
"For some reason on this job, I was struggling.. My mind wasn't were it should have been, I was exhausted, couldn't focus.. I don't know. Just things were different and it was starting to become noticable that I wasn't going to be up to snuff on this one." She didn't elaborate on the reasons and Ariadne knew there was definitely more to the story than that, but she didn't ask, surprised that Raylie was opening up to her at all.
"Eames offered to help with my portion but I knew that would just make things look worse if I couldn't do it on my own. There would be no way I'd be selected for the next job, or the next. I panicked.. I knew my head was on the chopping block. So...I started to get...friendly with Kai.
"He enjoyed the attention, and certaintly didn't turn it down, but he also wasn't being fooled it. It was becoming evident that he was getting impatient with my work and my ass was going to be on the line, so.. I upped the ante and sold Eames out. I knew that would be the only way Kai would keep me around and know that I was serious. We made a plan that once the job was completed, we would shake Eames from the group and take his portion of the cut."
She sighed, "Unfortunately, Eames found out before we got to the end of the job though. He came into the room when me and Kai were both asleep under the PASIV device, he got curious and decided to go in himself. Caught red handed you might say. Kai didn't keep his mouth shut, he told Eames the whole plan, thinking it was funny to make the situation worse for us. That led to quite the explosion, words were said on both sides that neither of us are probably proud of, then Eames eventually left, skipped town, and a short time later, a suspicious anonymous tip led the police right to our little operation. They found guns and drugs, but most of all, the PASIV... I don't know if the others have told you or not, but they're quite illegal to have without the proper permits. I did a couple years, then was able to slip out of the country before I could be extradited to whatever other country has it out for me." She gave a nonchalant laugh.
"The last I heard, Kai is still rotting in a Thai prison. Eames, got away with it. Kai gave the cops Eames' name. I denied he had anything to do with it so they didn't go after him. I guess I felt bad."
There was a silence from Ariadne as she processed the story. "Look, I'm not proud of it, but he would have sold me out too if the shoe was on the other foot." Raylie reasoned, seeing a small look of judgement on the other woman's face.
"Would he have though?" Ariadne asked and Raylie hesitated a bit too long to answer. Furrowing her brows, she scoffed, "You can think what you want, but let me tell you, he's far from being a saint himself. I could tell you stories that would make your skin crawl. But, unlike him, I keep to the thieve's code that you don't rat others out. Under most circumstances, his actions would have been a death sentence for him. He just got lucky." Raylie finished, trying to defend herself.
"I mean...can you blame him for being angry though?" Ariadne asked, trying not to sound too accusing.
"It wouldn't have lasted anyways. We weren't good for each other. My track record with choosing decent men isn't the best...And Eames was no exception." She explained. "But sure, he has every right to be angry, but so do I. I wasted 2 years sitting behind bars because of him. That's 2 years of jobs and money missed. Plus I'm getting screwed over on this one too because of him. I'm sure he didn't inform you that he tried to strand me in Africa and now it's costing me a lot to be here." She added bitterly. She wasn't going to look like the complete bad guy here.
Ariadne raised her brows at the last bit, curious about the Africa story, but didn't ask now. "I guess he's still bitter then.." Ariadne tried to lightly joke.
"He's worse than a woman with holding grudges." Raylie said back, adding a half smile.
"Well, I don't know about you, but my eyeballs are about to melt out of my face... Want to call it a night?" Raylie asked after a moment, knowing she wasn't going to be able to work anymore tonight.
Ariandne nodded, "Want to go get a night cap?"
... - ... - ...
Thank you for reading! Love to hear and comments or feedback!