"You want to what? No that's a horrible idea." John is angry, and is doing a terrible job at hiding it, he doesn't like Eames, not at all right now. The smarmy British fuck is leaning against his desk, fiddling with a desk toy that the chemist had brought with her. John -liked- the chemist on the other hand, she was small, didn't speak English too well, and was sweet. He had been having a conversation with her in garbled French when Eames had interrupted them. "I don't believe you have a choice in the matter, you can either cooperate and let me study you and ask direct questions, or I will do it anyway." Eames' smile is smooth but John knows it's a lie, which maybe pisses John off a little bit more, since fuck if everything the Brit did wasn't a lie.
Bringing Arthur coffee and no one else, and then pretending it was nothing, always hitting John's heater with his foot just hard enough to trip the circuit and shut it off, and John even knew why Eames didn't like him. Which made it a hundred times worse, because saying something wouldn't do shit, because Eames would lie and skirt around it, but John knew jealousy, and this was it. "Why would you even want to forge me? What would the purpose of that even be?" John is growling, a subtle sign that even Arthur knew to back the fuck off from, but Eames just glinted a grin in his direction.
"Because of this, because you don't want it to happen so desperately, emotions go two ways Sheppard. Whatever ticked you, it ticked him too, and so we need to have a chat about it." John notices a little too late that they are alone in the room now, Arthur whom is normally always right there in the corner at his desk is gone as well. John knows then it's too late, he's been dealt his cards, and it's either tip the table and fuck their job, or tell Eames exactly everything that happened, and while it was deep and lasting for him, it probably wasn't anywhere near that for McKay who lived it like breathing.
John gives in, even though he doesn't want to, but he's been loosing for so long now that really what is this but another bad hand anyway. He sits in the back room of the warehouse, the one Arthur had titled as storage and told Eames everything. How he fucked up, how he just kept fucking up, and then how things progressively got weirder. Sometime around his very monotone explanation of chasing a serial killing Alien life-form around Vegas he looked up to note that Eames didn't look particularly distrustful of him. Nor did the Brit look like he thought John was crazy, mostly Eames just seemed to be taking it all in. By the end, Eames is shaking his head a little. "McKay just let you drive away with all of that money, and you do not think you are important to him? I would love to have the interaction between him and this other you to go off of, because whatever it was, what you've just told me, you have -no- idea how much he wanted you around Sheppard." Eames believes him, this is enough to shock John into not arguing.
"This man would rather be stabbed then to admit he had a weakness brought on by himself. Appealing to you in the way he has, he was admitting just how broken things ended up for him in comparison to the Universe he prefers." Eames' words are like cold ice-water, John doesn't particularly like that feeling. "Have you stopped to think perhaps, how affected you were by his words Sheppard? He obviously thinks there is a better version of you out there." John isn't sure Eames' words are meant to curl that way in his gut, to broil up rage, he pushes the reaction down though. "Yeah, and maybe there is a universe where you're fucking Arthur and subsequently aren't such a prick." John still cant help the comment though, despite it all. Eames laughs, and suddenly some tension bleeds away, John looses some of the stress from his spine he wasn't even aware of till it was gone.
After that Eames is actually amiable, and John starts to understand why it is everyone likes him so much. They spend a few hours together every day after Eames works as a bodyguard, and they just talk. John finds Eames is knowledgeable about a wide variety of subjects, and to his surprise, also enjoys surfing and roller-coasters, and they've both traveled extensively enough to have plenty of both to talk about. He knows on some level that Eames is actually studying him, learning his every mannerism, but somehow he's okay with it now.
It's a week before they are set to pull the job when John experiences the illusion Eames has created for the first time. He's having to stand in for Arthur during a trial run, as the chemist needs him for experimenting exact chemical levels and so Arthur is testing kicks with the Architect. Eames is standing across from him, he knows it has to be Eames, but it feels more like he's standing in front of a mirror. "It just a little hard to get used to at first." Eames speaks, but John hears his own voice, what he knows he must sound like to other people. It's unnerving. He speeds through everything mostly because he just -doesn't- want to see himself move anymore, see what everyone else can see when they look at him. He doesn't want to look at the thing he has become, that Eames has learned so well.
Everything is moving smoothly, two layers and the only risk being that they won't know McKay's exact chemistry, but nothing could go wrong enough to send them into something they couldn't handle. The real job would take place on that second level, the first only existing to disorient McKay a little, dislocate him from reality. The real job all took place in the hotel-casino John had helped to build. They had McKay's basic medical records that showed fit health and no chemical imbalances, straight from a contact Arthur had in the Air Force, so everything would run smooth. Just as long as John didn't have to fill in for Arthur too many more times in practice runs, they'd be fine, just another job well done, and this close to everything coming together, John was finally loosing a little bit of that guilt.
Of course it helped to have Eames there to talk to him, to keep his mind off exactly what they were doing. Eames was remarkably good with sleight of hand John had come to see, and also good at pick-pocketing. Currently the score was 4 to 7 in John's favor with wallet snatching, and John had come to learn what fun could be had annoying Arthur when Eames was around to take all the aggression and glares.
Two days away from the job John stands opposite of Eames, sharing his last proper cigarette in seriously bitter weather. "You know you're fucking insane, goading him like that?" John stares hard at Eames and watches the Brit smile up at the moon. "He'll love me one of these days John, you'll see." Eames' words actually twist something up in John, they are open in a way he isn't sure he's seen Eames be before. "I'll follow him until he loves me." Eames adds, throwing John a leer, or maybe a grin, in the light John cannot tell. John is pretty sure that maybe Arthur already does love him, but he keeps that to himself, their game isn't his business.