Smanie implacabili: Part II
Ships: Arthur/Cobb, Arthur/Phillipa (one-sided), Eames/Phillipa
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Phillipa is coming to suspect that only when he's sleeping are those lips not lying.
A/N: Fear not the shortness of this chapter, for it is only a bridge to bigger and better things. Also, I'd like to say thank you to my beta: you will always be my Kate Bishop of punctuation and general ficcery.
Part I| Part II| Part III| Part IV| Part V| Part VI
Two months in she sacks his apartment to find his spare key. He is out of town, and she has broken in again. She empties all of his drawers and cabinets, looking for it. The apartment looks as if very careless but through thieves broke in. Everything goes in heaps on the floor that she rakes through, looking for her prize. Eames is imaginative. She finally finds the damned thing at the bottom of a tea tin in the back of a kitchen cabinet.
Phillipa holds the key up to the light and asks herself when it got this far. It was only supposed to be a short affair--maybe a week or two, just long enough to piss off the folks back home. Somehow, two months have slipped by. He is much too old for this to go anywhere and she is only twenty, yet she still finds herself turning down classmates and coming back to his apartment invited or not. So far, there haven't been any angry calls from home or emails full of disapproval. It may be that they don't know yet. Somehow, she doubts that her father would ever approve of her hooking up with a conman, let alone one more than twice her age. In her hands is evidence of that relationship, even if she's stealing it. She wasn't going in for a long con and wonders when it became one, if it is even a con anymore. Phillipa puts it in her pocket, but she doesn't put it on her keyring.
Eames drunk dials her that night. Phillipa almost doesn't answer the phone, but picks up on the last bar of her ringtone. He won't say where he is, but she will know when the cellphone bill comes at the end of the month. However imaginative he is, he doesn't think everything through. She would have expected better from a career criminal.
"If you're so in love with opera, why are you in Paris?" Eames asks her, his voice stuttering and slurred.
"I'm studying art history. The exchange program to Paris is just better... besides, they have opera in France."
"Art history?"
"Yes, paintings and shit."
She kicks a pile of his shirts out of the way that she dumped on the floor but never cleaned up on her way to the bed.
"That sounds right boring."
She laughs, but he doesn't join in.
"Why I didn't know that?" Eames asks.
"You're not observant?"
"You sound like Arthur."
Phillipa cradles her cell between her ear and shoulder so she can slip out of her jeans before climbing into bed.
"Don't say that."
"You do... I miss you."
"Then come back."
The sheets need to be washed, but she won't be the one to do it. They smell faintly like him.
"I can't, darling. I'm here for another week."
"Then I guess you'll just have to miss me until then."
She says nothing about the key.
++ + ++
She can see why her father and Arthur find him completely insufferable, although she sort of likes it. They must have been like oil and water. He's loud, impulsive, a liar, and apparently a gambler. The first date he takes her on that isn't just drinking and sex is a trip to Monaco for a long weekend, and even that becomes drinking, sex, and gambling. By the time they head home, he's completely tapped out. It was supposed to be his treat in honor of her birthday, but he doesn't even have enough money to buy breakfast the last morning. Phillipa buys food from one of the vending machines before they board the train, and she slips him a bag of chips when he starts grumbling about hunger. While he eats, she rests her head on his shoulder for a nap.
He leaves for another job the next week.
Eames confuses her. She knows that he is a liar. Hell, he gets paid well to lie. At four months on, the lies are not so apparent anymore.
He has a habit of sneaking up behind her in public to press a kiss to the back of her neck. It sends shivers down her spine, and she flushes bright red. Eames always seems quite pleased with himself. When they're somewhere crowded, he'll hold her hand or casually put his arm around her shoulders. It is childish, transparent, and cute.
Other times it as if he's ashamed. They never go to the discothèques her friends from university frequent. They go to cheaper, darker clubs where no one ever looks at them twice and she can only assume that he doesn't want to be seen with her.
"Come with me," she repeats for the third time. Getting him to do what she wants is like pulling teeth.
"I have to rest up, darling. Big job."
"Sleep when you're dead. Come out tonight."
"I simply can't."
She hangs up on him without another word. Phillipa is coming to suspect that only when he's sleeping are those lips not lying.
++ + ++
The first picture Dom receives of Phillipa in Paris is a hastily snapped photo of she and Eames in a bar, surrounded by football fans. Eames takes the picture with her phone and sends it to her father while she's distracted by a last minute goal. She notices that he has her phone, but "Paris is goood. Miss U" the text reads when she discovers it in her phone a week later. At the time, she thought nothing of it. He was always messing with her phone, claiming to be intrigued by all the applications and such, though sometimes she thought he was reading her texts. Phillipa realizes that he is more intelligent than she gives him credit for. He has done her a favor, even if he didn't know it.
The picture accomplishes something she's been meaning to do. Her father and Arthur now know that she's with Eames. The arm wrapped around her waist, just barely visible in the picture, leaves no doubt as to their relationship in the keen observer's eye. Phillipa knows that they won't miss it. She considers warning Eames of their probable retaliation, but he knew what he was getting into when he took her home that first night.
Phillipa waits patiently for a reaction from home.
Part III
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Phillipa is coming to suspect that only when he's sleeping are those lips not lying.
A/N: Fear not the shortness of this chapter, for it is only a bridge to bigger and better things. Also, I'd like to say thank you to my beta: you will always be my Kate Bishop of punctuation and general ficcery.
Part I| Part II| Part III| Part IV| Part V| Part VI
Two months in she sacks his apartment to find his spare key. He is out of town, and she has broken in again. She empties all of his drawers and cabinets, looking for it. The apartment looks as if very careless but through thieves broke in. Everything goes in heaps on the floor that she rakes through, looking for her prize. Eames is imaginative. She finally finds the damned thing at the bottom of a tea tin in the back of a kitchen cabinet.
Phillipa holds the key up to the light and asks herself when it got this far. It was only supposed to be a short affair--maybe a week or two, just long enough to piss off the folks back home. Somehow, two months have slipped by. He is much too old for this to go anywhere and she is only twenty, yet she still finds herself turning down classmates and coming back to his apartment invited or not. So far, there haven't been any angry calls from home or emails full of disapproval. It may be that they don't know yet. Somehow, she doubts that her father would ever approve of her hooking up with a conman, let alone one more than twice her age. In her hands is evidence of that relationship, even if she's stealing it. She wasn't going in for a long con and wonders when it became one, if it is even a con anymore. Phillipa puts it in her pocket, but she doesn't put it on her keyring.
Eames drunk dials her that night. Phillipa almost doesn't answer the phone, but picks up on the last bar of her ringtone. He won't say where he is, but she will know when the cellphone bill comes at the end of the month. However imaginative he is, he doesn't think everything through. She would have expected better from a career criminal.
"If you're so in love with opera, why are you in Paris?" Eames asks her, his voice stuttering and slurred.
"I'm studying art history. The exchange program to Paris is just better... besides, they have opera in France."
"Art history?"
"Yes, paintings and shit."
She kicks a pile of his shirts out of the way that she dumped on the floor but never cleaned up on her way to the bed.
"That sounds right boring."
She laughs, but he doesn't join in.
"Why I didn't know that?" Eames asks.
"You're not observant?"
"You sound like Arthur."
Phillipa cradles her cell between her ear and shoulder so she can slip out of her jeans before climbing into bed.
"Don't say that."
"You do... I miss you."
"Then come back."
The sheets need to be washed, but she won't be the one to do it. They smell faintly like him.
"I can't, darling. I'm here for another week."
"Then I guess you'll just have to miss me until then."
She says nothing about the key.
++ + ++
She can see why her father and Arthur find him completely insufferable, although she sort of likes it. They must have been like oil and water. He's loud, impulsive, a liar, and apparently a gambler. The first date he takes her on that isn't just drinking and sex is a trip to Monaco for a long weekend, and even that becomes drinking, sex, and gambling. By the time they head home, he's completely tapped out. It was supposed to be his treat in honor of her birthday, but he doesn't even have enough money to buy breakfast the last morning. Phillipa buys food from one of the vending machines before they board the train, and she slips him a bag of chips when he starts grumbling about hunger. While he eats, she rests her head on his shoulder for a nap.
He leaves for another job the next week.
Eames confuses her. She knows that he is a liar. Hell, he gets paid well to lie. At four months on, the lies are not so apparent anymore.
He has a habit of sneaking up behind her in public to press a kiss to the back of her neck. It sends shivers down her spine, and she flushes bright red. Eames always seems quite pleased with himself. When they're somewhere crowded, he'll hold her hand or casually put his arm around her shoulders. It is childish, transparent, and cute.
Other times it as if he's ashamed. They never go to the discothèques her friends from university frequent. They go to cheaper, darker clubs where no one ever looks at them twice and she can only assume that he doesn't want to be seen with her.
"Come with me," she repeats for the third time. Getting him to do what she wants is like pulling teeth.
"I have to rest up, darling. Big job."
"Sleep when you're dead. Come out tonight."
"I simply can't."
She hangs up on him without another word. Phillipa is coming to suspect that only when he's sleeping are those lips not lying.
++ + ++
The first picture Dom receives of Phillipa in Paris is a hastily snapped photo of she and Eames in a bar, surrounded by football fans. Eames takes the picture with her phone and sends it to her father while she's distracted by a last minute goal. She notices that he has her phone, but "Paris is goood. Miss U" the text reads when she discovers it in her phone a week later. At the time, she thought nothing of it. He was always messing with her phone, claiming to be intrigued by all the applications and such, though sometimes she thought he was reading her texts. Phillipa realizes that he is more intelligent than she gives him credit for. He has done her a favor, even if he didn't know it.
The picture accomplishes something she's been meaning to do. Her father and Arthur now know that she's with Eames. The arm wrapped around her waist, just barely visible in the picture, leaves no doubt as to their relationship in the keen observer's eye. Phillipa knows that they won't miss it. She considers warning Eames of their probable retaliation, but he knew what he was getting into when he took her home that first night.
Phillipa waits patiently for a reaction from home.
Part III