John is pretty much doing nothing, he has been doing nothing for the last few days, his role turned to glorified copy boy and lunch fetcher as they start getting ready for the next stage of research. Jobs have predictable and easy to understand stages, research, plan, practice, implementation. At the moment they don't know how many levels they'll need, how intricate security will be. McKay had been working in Russia for a little while now, John was still keeping tight lipped about what had happened, about how he'd actually met McKay. It was a little too hard to believe anyway, even for him, and he was hoping they could go through the whole job without weird shit cropping up somewhere. Their client just wanted codes, wanted security clearance codes, and they'd get that from McKay and be done with it, John could go back to hiding and wasting time on a beach somewhere, and he would not feel bad about giving a rival company access to McKay Industries' internal network.
It was still just the three of them too, they wouldn't get an architect till later, even though he was pretty sure Arthur already had most of their crew lined up in advance. Currently John was printing out documentation for "Gerald Waite" the man that was being hired into McKay Industries as a secretary, the man whom Eames was slowly becoming. Across the warehouse Eames was sitting in a chair, head tilted back as Arthur bleached his hair. The scent of the chemicals was acidic in the enclosed location and even across all the space it made John's throat hurt a little. Or maybe it was just memories of Nancy and how she bleached her hair, how much shit he'd fucked up that did it either way he tried to ignore it. Focusing on the paperwork he forged signatures and made duplicates.
The work is monotonous, easy for John to loose himself in, he's never liked paperwork, but it was something to busy his hands with. He'd seen Arthur make false identities, had learned the skills to create his own from the kid, but this was a fucking art. He could understand why they called Eames the Forger now, he wasn't just in the extraction business, the man was a con-artist, identity thief, a real forger and more. Creating Mr. Waite had been a work of art, and John knew there was no way he could work people like that, make a call that resulted in a man just suddenly -existing- perfectly legal, with date of birth, social security number, job history.
Arthur helps Eames to dress, tightening his tie, helping him with his cuff links, John tries not to watch them but pretty much fails. It doesn't take someone skilled in microexpressions to recognize the look Eames throws him when he catches him watching. A flash of jealousy quickly replaced by a smile, and John knows intimately that Eames had let him see that on purpose. John holds his hands up in a sign of surrender, looking back to his paperwork, and really he wasn't interested in getting into whatever shit was going down between them. He didn't need the problems that would come from it, definitely didn't need a knife in his back for something he didn't even want. Sure Arthur was attractive, but on the same hand so was Eames, John wasn't much interested in either of them.
He hadn't expected Arthur to be in that type of game, not before he'd met Eames, but if anyone could have gotten Arthur to play, it would have had to be Eames. John was not interested in playing their games, at all, and while sex was nice, he had come to the conclusion that nothing was ever that simple with people as paranoid as those working in the extraction business.
Eames thanks him for the paperwork before leaving, it's his first day on the job and he'll get there early to scope it out. John watches him go, and despite the tension he'd felt just being around Eames, whom was quickly becoming a higher risk than Arthur on the internal threat scale, he missed the Brit when he'd gone. Arthur just didn't talk, unless he was giving orders or explaining some new detail, and John didn't talk much himself, preferred to have others fill in the silence. So without Eames, John quickly discovered there was a whole lot of silence he'd just noticed, and no one to fill it.
Around the time it was "lunch" John was offering to walk though the cold seven blocks just to get away from that silence. They were in positively one of the worse parts of the city, but he had a gun holstered under his thick leather coat and wasn't really worried about it. Arthur just handed him money and sent him on his merry way with his lunch order, which was the same curry dish he'd been getting since they got there. Trudging through the slush John not for the first time really wanted a stiff drink. Just thinking about it reminded him of the shoulder wound that still carried a scar despite the utterly neat work Arthur had done on patching him up. He didn't even remember how he'd gotten shot or why, and really that should have worried him more than it did.
He kind of envies Eames, who was at least doing something, could feel useful, and also whom also now had their car, which meant he was stuck walking, as he'd learned Arthur didn't think seven blocks was a large enough distance to warrant a cab. The distance was more like anything more than a mile, and then he'd still be hard-pressed to let you call one anyway. John -could- walk everywhere, that did not mean he wanted to walk everywhere, he'd done enough walking during training and it was a definite that he preferred to drive or fly. He liked the speed, and while he could buy a motorcycle or something, there was no telling how long they'd actually be here, and he didn't want to just waste the money, let alone go through the bother of getting a license. Of course he could have asked Eames to get one for him, but then he'd owe Eames something, and John really didn't want to do that. So for now and for an indeterminate time he would be walking everywhere, which meant the cold and the wet, and he hated the cold.
Getting a motorcycle wouldn't do much to protect against the cold anyway, and would in fact make it worse, so that wasn't much incentive either. He couldn't understand how an entire civilization of people would think it was a good idea to live somewhere this fucking cold.
The waiter already had their usual order rung up when he walked in, and he didn't have the heart to tell the Indian immigrant that they didn't need the chicken and chickpea order so he paid for Eames' lunch as well anyway and began the trudge back, surprised when he got there to see the car was already back. He hovered outside of the door, listening to the voices inside, Eames sounded highly amused and animated, but John couldn't make out the words. Straining to hear wasn't helping much, and Arthur was a quiet humming mumble, so he gave in and entered. "I've been fired." Eames sounded -proud- waving his papers in the air, and Arthur did not look particularly upset either, so John wasn't immediately worried. "They hired me as a bodyguard instead pending training." Eames laughed, eyes sparkling and John handed out the tin-wrapped styrofoam plates. Arthur thanked him and started eating, still sorting through paperwork with his free hand.
"A little elaboration would be nice." John prompted, receiving a grin from the Brit for his troubles. "I identified an armed gunman and disarmed them, McKay was so impressed he hired me on as a bodyguard. As it was I was already being kicked I had no idea what the bloody fuck they were talking about and I was supposed to be able to take intricate notes on experimental physics. That number prep you gave me did jack Sheppard, which isn't your fault, I'm not even sure they were using real numbers anymore. For a few minutes I was sure they were going to figure out I was a complete plant and throw me into a river, and then out of nowhere, it was brilliant. McKay now thinks I'm just a cheating hack with military training who couldn't cut it. I start tomorrow."
John feels ill, he remembers the acidic empty McKay, who had an ego and who had been passionately desperate and honest about his need for John's gene, for -John-. Feels ill because someone might have shot McKay today, would probably have managed to do it too, had Eames not been there. He feels ill because despite that, despite the worry and alarm curling in his gut, he's still going to help invade and take something he has no right to have. He's going to help people get inside and the one thing he remembered of Rodney was that everything on the outside was a lie. All the ego, all the harsh acidic wit, all of that asshole demeanor and self-confidence. He'd seen a glimpse of honesty when McKay had asked him to work for them, to be the thing they had always been missing. Knowing all that and we was still going to do this, and that's what made him feel sick.
Eames' silky brilliance, Arthur's cool dislocation, they had no right to be in McKay's head, and John was going to put them there. He was right all along, this would just prove it, he's not the man McKay needed. He's not that John.