See
PART ONE or
MASTER POST for warnings etc.
Word Count for this part: ~5,150
*
V: The Box
Arthur's reservations about Ariadne, which had little to do with her to begin with, faded fast once they started working together. She was a quick study, and he liked her well enough that by the time he received a message from Dom about the meeting with Eames (successful), and their ETA (too soon), Arthur didn't feel too sore about having been left to deal with giving their new architect a crash course on dream sharing while Dom waltzed into hostile territory like he was daring Cobol Engineering to catch him.
All right, so maybe Arthur still wanted to have some words with Dom -- but that was basically his default setting these days, and he'd learned early on not to push it. Besides, thinking about Dom, no matter how infuriating, was infinitely better than thinking about Eames.
Arthur had known Eames turning Dom's offer down had been too much to hope for; a challenge like this, combined with the sort of paycheck Saito was willing to sign on? It wasn't surprising in the least that Eames had said yes. With the way things had been going for Arthur lately, it was only a wonder his luck hadn't ran out sooner.
He wasn't even sure why the thought of seeing Eames again was so -- difficult. It wasn't like he'd spent all these years pining. He'd locked Eames away; he'd moved on. There were so many years standing between them, and Arthur was so far removed from the teenager he'd been, he might as well be another person entirely. There was no reason to get anxious about the prospect of working with Eames. In fact, his reluctance probably had nothing to do with Eames, as such; he just hated the thought of Eames dragging up memories he would rather keep buried. That was all.
He had nothing to worry about. For all he knew, Eames might not even remember him.
The thought wasn't as comforting as it should have been.
-
Arthur arrived at the workshop late. It wasn't by design, but for once he didn't mind the delay. Not that postponing the inevitable would help in the long run, but right now he welcomed every extra minute of reprieve he was allowed to have. What use was it not being a teenager anymore, if Eames didn't even have to be present to make him feel like one again? Arthur took the stairs up to the workshop two at the time, feeling frustrated and sort of furious at himself. He was supposed to be better than this; he was better than this.
He could hear them before he reached the top -- the curious cadence of Ariadne's voice echoed by the dubious tones of a man Arthur didn't recognize, eclipsed by Eames' rumbling laughter that washed over Arthur, impossibly familiar, and made his heart skip a beat. He forced the reaction down, scoffing at himself as he climbed the last few steps and walked into the workshop.
He was spotted immediately.
"Arthur," Ariadne called out to him, waving him over. Arthur took a moment to duck under the strap of his shoulder bag and shrug out of his coat before making his way over. The way Eames' gaze roamed over him as he approached them made Arthur feel electrified, unbalanced; ignoring it wasn't as easy as he might have hoped, but at least he could be reasonably certain none of his inner turmoil showed on the outside.
"This is Arthur, he's on point," Ariadne said, matter of fact, when Arthur reached them. "That's Yusuf," she told Arthur, indicating the man Arthur assumed was the chemist Dom had mentioned would be coming with them, "And this is Eames."
"Oh, we've met," Eames said, his stance casual, his expression not nearly so as he looked Arthur over. "Well, well. Look who's all grown up."
Arthur met Eames' slow appraisal with a cool look, ignoring the shiver running down his spine. So much for Eames not remembering him.
"Eames," he said, relieved that his voice came out sounding normal. Arthur had changed, sure -- he was taller, fitter, more sharply dressed, to name a few -- but so had Eames. There were lines on his face Arthur didn't remember, and shadows in his eyes that were unfamiliar. Most noticeably, he'd bulked up over the years, the extra muscle adding to his solid build and the breadth of his shoulders.
He looked like a thug, and Arthur didn't find him appealing at all.
Arthur looked away, feeling flustered.
"Where's Cobb?" He asked Ariadne, trying to redirect his thoughts. He felt numb with the realization that whatever he might wish to tell himself, the attraction he'd felt for Eames was still there, low in his belly; the only difference now was that he knew better than to let it show, never mind acting on it.
"I think he's somewhere in the back," Ariadne said, glancing over her shoulder with a frown that was slow to fade. Before Arthur could excuse himself to find Dom, Ariadne, curious and misguided, said, "I didn't realize you and Eames knew each other."
"Neither did I," Yusuf said, looking between them with some interest.
"It was a long time ago," Arthur said. "Excuse me."
"Hey, hey now," Eames said, standing up from where he'd been leaning against a table, a move which, incidentally, brought him closer to Arthur. Too close; Arthur could smell him, a warm, masculine scent that made him swallow. "No need to rush right off."
"I need to talk to Cobb," Arthur said, curt. "We have work to do."
"Work, is it," Eames said, and it sounded amiable enough, but his expression was closed off.
"Yes," Arthur said, sharper than he'd normally would. "Perhaps you've heard of the concept?"
"Oh, I've heard of the concept," Eames said, settling back against the table. "I'm wondering if you've heard of anything else?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" Arthur demanded.
"Well, with the reputation you've build for yourself, one wonders if you do anything but work. Then again, with the way you apparently follow Cobb around like a puppy... or is that part of your job description now?"
"Excuse me?" Arthur said, barely recognizing his own voice. He didn't realize he'd taken a step forward until Ariadne took hold of his arm, tugging him back.
"Guys," she said, sounding as tentative as she ever got, which wasn't much -- but it was still enough to give Arthur a pause.
"The two of you don't get along particularly well, I take it?" Yusuf said, taking a pair of glasses from his chest pocket and beginning to clean them with the hem of his shirt. "What an auspicious starting point for us as a team."
Arthur took a deep breath and backed down -- because whatever issues he might have, whatever Eames' problem was, this job wasn't about him, or Eames, or the two of them put together. It was about Dom, and Arthur intended to see it through. Letting Eames get to him was a stupid, immature thing to do.
"It'll be fine," he told Yusuf. "We're both professionals."
He sent a challenging look Eames' way, daring him to disagree. The look in Eames' eyes was opaque, but finally he shrugged and looked away, conceding Arthur's point.
It didn't matter, Arthur told himself as he left to find Dom. It wasn't like he'd expected -- well, he didn't know what he'd expected. It wasn't important. Eames wasn't important; his presence, necessary as it was right now, wouldn't last beyond the completion of the job. Whatever problem Eames had with him, Arthur could deal with it until Dom was home free.
And by 'deal', he meant 'ignore'.
-
After that, things between them were -- civil. Eames turned out to be even more annoyingly brilliant and competent than Arthur remembered him being, which was unfortunate for Arthur personally but boded well for the job, which was the priority. The fact that his policy of ignoring Eames was working beautifully made it easier to swallow it when Eames did something to get on his nerves; Arthur's cool facade seemed to annoy him to no end. It did mean that whenever Arthur did acknowledge him, he responded with thinly veiled sarcasm and snark, but if Arthur was to be completely honest with himself, he didn't exactly count that as a downside; maybe they'd never be even, but right now, Arthur had the high ground. So to speak.
It didn't last for long.
"What exactly are you trying to say?" Arthur asked, frowning at the stairwell. From the corner of his eye, he could see a woman's hand coming to rest on the railing.
"I'm saying, it's out of proportion," Eames said.
"Your boobs are out of proportion," Arthur retorted, because it had been a long day and being around Eames reverted him all too often back to the teenager he'd been last they saw each other; usually he just had better control over it. That, and they were arguing about the proper dimensional measurements of a stairwell.
"Hmm," Eames said. "Better? I wouldn't want you to get-- distracted."
Despite himself, Arthur looked -- and sure enough, the forgery's chest was much smaller than it had been a moment ago. He shook his head and looked away, not wanting to dwell on the form Eames had taken.
"I'll talk to Ariadne," he said, wanting to bring the argument to an end.
"Talk to me about what?" Ariadne asked, the safety door closing behind her as Arthur turned around at the sound of her voice.
"Eames thinks we should re-do the stairwell," Arthur said.
"Oh," Ariadne said, peering down the stairs. "I can make some adjustments, I guess." Then she tilted her head at Eames. "That's pretty cool. Is that the one you're planning on using to distract Fischer?"
"You like?" Eames asked, holding his arms out to give her a good look. Ariadne blushed like she never did when Eames was himself.
"She's, uh, pretty," she said, sliding her hands into the front pockets of her jeans.
"'Course she is," Eames said, looking down with a pleased expression as he ran his hands over the forgery's stomach and hips. "Do you think her tits should be bigger, though? They were, but Arthur didn't appreciate them."
"Um," Ariadne said, her eyes dropping to Eames' chest like she couldn't help it. "I think they're, uh... fine."
"Okay, enough of this," Arthur said, glaring at Eames who was leaning against the railing, a wicked smile curving the lips of a woman who'd never existed anywhere but in Eames' mind. "Don't you have a meeting with a mirror or something right about now?"
"I wanted your opinion, Arthur," Eames said, painstakingly pleasant. "Since you've had the opportunity to meet an earlier version of her. I'm sure you remember."
"That's bullshit," Arthur said, unimpressed. "You don't need me to tell you she passes."
The only reason Eames was using this particular forgery at all, as far as Arthur could tell, was to get under Arthur's skin.
"So," Ariadne piped up, breaking the staring contest between Arthur and the blonde bombshell Eames was pretending to be. "Did something happen on a job, or have you always had trouble getting along?"
Arthur pressed his lips together, dismayed. Ariadne was smart, but she was also -- blunt, for lack of a better word. Right now she was probably just trying to distract them from having another unpleasant exchange of words, but her methods left something to be desired.
"Ariadne," he said. "What makes you think --"
"Oh, you know how it is with ex-lovers sometimes," Eames said, his tone bored, and Arthur stilled.
Ariadne was staring at Eames, her mouth hanging open. It wasn't a flattering look for her.
"Really?" She said, glancing at Arthur again. "You and --"
"Well, perhaps the term I used was a bit misleading," Eames said, and continued before Arthur could unfreeze enough to interrupt; "We shagged a couple of times, but we were hardly in --"
Arthur shot himself out of the dream before Eames could finish.
He opened his eyes to the workshop and got up, ignoring the curious look Yusuf sent his way. He felt nauseous. He felt like walking out of the workshop completely -- but he was a professional, and professionals didn't skip work just because something caught them unawares and made them feel like shit.
Professionals, as it turned out, dealt with their unwanted emotions by finding a bathroom to hide in; Arthur locked the door, opened the tap, and braced himself against the sink with his eyes closed. For a few minutes, there was nothing but the sound of running water filling the small space, filling the hollows of his mind until there was no room for thought, until the urge to punch Eames subsided and floated away. For a few minutes, he didn't have to think, or feel.
It lasted until someone knocked on the door. Arthur ignored it, but the person on the other side didn't take the hint.
"Arthur," Eames said -- and of course it would be him. Getting no answer, he knocked again. Arthur shut off the water and took a moment to stare into the mirror, making sure none of his mixed feelings showed on his face. Then he moved to the door and opened it.
"What do you want?" He asked, leaning against the doorknob.
"I don't know why I said what I said," Eames said, a muscle in his cheek jumping. Arthur waited for him to continue, but nothing more seemed to be forthcoming.
"Okay?" Arthur said, raising an eyebrow. "Well, as long as we're clear on that."
"Piss off," Eames said, shifting his weight like he didn't know whether he wanted to back off or step forward. Arthur let out a frustrated breath.
"Just, what is your problem. We haven't seen in years, and then this job -- five minutes in and you're acting like --"
"I already said I was sorry, didn't I," Eames snapped.
"No, actually, you didn't," Arthur said, straightening up and crossing his arms.
Eames frowned. After a pause, his face cleared up. "Bugger. I didn't, did I? I am, though, alright?"
"Okay. Okay then," Arthur said, looking down. It wasn't fair that he felt more vulnerable now than he had when Eames was just taking a piss on him. "I don't remember you being such a dick, before."
"I half-wondered if you'd remember me at all," Eames said with a weird sort of self-deprecating smirk, and Arthur's breath caught a little, surprised at hearing his thoughts echoed by Eames'.
"You're hard to forget," Arthur said before he could think better of it. It was true -- Arthur had certainly tried hard enough to erase Eames from his mind to know -- but it wasn't a compliment, though of course Eames took it as such; he grinned and rocked on his feet a little.
"Well," he said. "Naturally. I knew that, of course."
"Of course," Arthur said, his voice dry, and leaned his shoulder against the door frame, beginning to relax.
"Truce, then?" Eames said, the corners of his eyes crinkling a little as he smiled. Arthur hesitated, but finally shrugged.
"Truce," he said. His smile was a tentative, fledgling thing, but it was there, reflected in the deepening of the laugh lines on Eames' face.
Maybe they didn't have to be at odds. Maybe they could be -- friends, Arthur thought, testing the concept. Friends, like they might have been had Arthur not ruined everything by throwing himself at Eames.
Everything would be different, this time around. Better than before; easier.
Could-have-beens weren't worth wondering about.
-
Arthur remembered the job in flashes. Rain slicked streets, gunfire -- the sudden fear grasping at him, making him turn to make sure Eames was okay. The red, blooming stain on Saito's chest.
The utter dismay of realizing he'd made a mistake, and the hopeless, defeated anger that surged within him when he found out what Dom had kept from him.
Kissing Ariadne, because the situation reminded him of another time, another place, and another person in ways that made him feel angry at himself (at Eames).
The calmness he felt after putting everyone asleep on the second level, the calmness he was able to hold on to even when he lost gravity, even when he had to come up with another plan on the go.
Being underwater, unable to wake Dom up, his lungs burning with anxiety and fear as much as they did with the lack of oxygen.
Sitting on the rocks by the river on the first level, giving Fischer and Eames-as-Browning time to make it to the city before them, rocking back and forth and not even trying to stop; he was wet and cold, and even with Ariadne's assurances, he feared the worst. He couldn't get it out of his head, the possibility (probability) of Dom being lost, and all of it having been for nothing.
The trek back to the city was miserable and did nothing for Arthur's state of mind. He wasn't looking forward to spending days on end cooped up in a hotel room, no matter how nice Ariadne had built it to be, but it turned out to be not as bad as that. She'd turned the whole top level of a building into an apartment set up, which at the very least meant plenty of space and comfort for each of them.
Eames was supposed to be joining them after making his excuses as Browning and disappearing on 'business', because spending extended amounts of time in Fischer's company, pretending to be someone he knew, was too risky, no matter how good Eames was. Despite Fischer's mellow state of mind at the moment, it would be similarly too risky for them to draw attention to their presence, which meant staying in one place until the clock ran out.
After Eames turned up and they were all accounted for, there was nothing for them to do but wait.
-
The first couple of days in the dream were uneventful. They had food and water and space, and they got along well enough that they started playing games and watching films in the living room. The games had rules that changed on a whim, and the movies were only entertaining because they were such bizarre re-tellings of actual movies, since memory was all they had to work with. Arthur didn't mind. He'd take the distractions and be grateful for them.
The problem was, pooling their thoughts within the enclosed space of the apartment turned out to have some unforeseen consequences.
In the beginning the apartment had provided them with the basics, but as the four of them settled in, they started coming up with little things to improve their environment or to alleviate boredom -- things like favorite foods or care products, nothing big enough to cause alarm; but eventually they started finding little pieces of themselves all over the apartment.
The cat was little more than a shadow at first, but gained color and density until it looked real.
"So I miss my cat," Yusuf said, shrugging as he settled onto a sofa in the den with a purring feline on his lap.
Yusuf also, apparently, missed his notebooks, a shelf of multicolored vials, a broken Bunsen burner, and a drawing of an elephant and a bunny wearing party hats, as drawn by his niece.
After finding a book on architecture that, apart from the covers, had nothing to do with architecture, Arthur decided to leave alone anything else he might find that even vaguely had to do with Ariadne; he didn't need to know about her sex life, and definitely not in such loving detail.
Eames was harder to pinpoint. There was a stamp collection in the kitchen with stamps from all over the world that Arthur thought probably belonged to Eames. A broken vase appeared in the living room, on the table beside the chair Eames preferred to sit in, and one morning Arthur walked into the bathroom to find the bathtube filled with water, dozens upon dozens of art prints floating lazily within, moving along with invisible currents.
One evening, Arthur found a night sky sketched onto the ceiling of his room, the constellations just as he'd seen them as a child, laying on the roof of the garage attached to their house. Another time, Yusuf's cat found a plastic dinosaur Arthur had bought for Phillipa no more than a year ago.
It was all fairly benign, or else only held meaning to the person it belonged to.
And then there was the box.
Arthur's box.
The one he'd locked and put away, the one Eames was never supposed to know about or see, let alone hold in his hands.
Arthur stood in the doorway of Eames' room, resting his head against the frame and closing his eyes for a moment, feeling somehow defeated.
"What are you doing with that?" He asked quietly, and Eames almost dropped the box in surprise.
"Arthur," he said, his voice giving out a little. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to tell you dinner's ready," Arthur said, sliding his arms around himself. "What are you doing with that," he repeated, looking at the box in Eames hands, open and damning.
"I found it here, in my room," Eames said.
Arthur didn't say anything, and after a moment, Eames snapped the lid shut and took a step forward, offering the box to Arthur, who took it with some reluctance. He pressed it against his stomach and looked down at it, wondering why this, why now.
"I didn't meant to look," Eames said. "I didn't know it was yours."
"Yeah," Arthur said.
"What," Eames said, then paused to clear his throat. "What was that?"
"You saw," Arthur said, looking up at Eames, away from the box he'd never touched like this before. "What, didn't expect me to be so maudlin?"
"I don't understand."
"Don't read too much into it. It's just a-- just a box of memories."
"But that was --"
"Symbolic. I guess they're right when they say you never really get over your first," Arthur said, making light of it. "I'm not actually heartless now, if that's what you're worried about."
"No. That can't --" Eames ran his hands through his hair, shaking his head. He looked more distressed than Arthur felt. Actually, Arthur felt calm -- sort of disconnected, but calm. "You would've told me," Eames accused him, or maybe pleaded.
"That it was my first time?" Arthur blinked and looked away. "You never asked," he said, shrugging, as if it had been that simple, as if he hadn't been doing everything in his power at the time to disabuse Eames of the notion that he was sleeping with a virgin. In retrospect, it had been a stupid thing to do, but he'd been seventeen, and he'd wanted it; he'd wanted Eames.
"Anyway," he said, wetting his lips. "Dinner's ready."
He was half-turned to leave when Eames' hand closed around his upper arm, yanking him back with too much force.
"You can't just --"
Arthur felt his fingers slipping even as he realized how close Eames had pulled him, a flash of heat running through his body, and then the box tumbled out of his grasp --
But what fell onto the floor instead, were photographs, scattered like someone had up-ended a crate full of them. For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Eames slowly released his hold on Arthur's arm. He scratched at his forehead absently, looking down at the mess.
"This is getting a bit ridiculous," he said.
Arthur silently agreed. He knelt down on the floor and began to gather up the photos; after a moment, Eames joined him. Arthur tried to be efficient, quick, but he couldn't help looking at the images -- memories -- as he picked them up. He frowned, his movements slowing down.
"Eames," he said, pausing at a candid shot of a group of people he didn't recognize. "Some of these are yours."
"Yeah," Eames said, his voice tight. "I noticed."
Arthur tried not to pay too much attention to the photos he was shuffling into piles, or Eames, who was kneeling close enough that when Arthur inhaled, he could detect a lingering echo of what Eames had smelled like in reality, a hint of clean sweat mixed with a faint scent of aftershave; he startled when their fingers brushed by accident, reaching for the same photo. Arthur snatched his hand away like he'd been burned. It was... awkward.
It didn't get any less so when Eames picked up a photo that uncovered one of Arthur -- a much younger version of him, naked, looking up at the 'camera' (at Eames) with such an open, unguarded expression that Arthur burned with retroactive embarrassment for his younger self.
"Shit," he said, stashing it in one of the piles he'd been making.
"Arthur," Eames said.
"What?" Arthur snapped, hating the way his cheeks were heating up. Eames didn't say anything for a moment, reaching out to bring closer a few lone photos that had fallen further away on the floor.
"We should talk about this," he finally said.
"I really don't think --"
"I took your virginity," Eames said, not looking at him. "And I'd like to say I would've stopped had I known -- but maybe I wouldn't have," he continued roughly. "It crossed my mind at one point, that maybe you were -- but I thought -- I didn't care enough to ask. I was a selfish bastard, back then, and you were so --"
"Eames," Arthur said, reaching out to touch, his fingers curling around Eames' wrist. "Stop."
Eames ran his tongue over his teeth and looked away.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. A lot of good any of it does for you now."
"I don't --" Arthur said, and stopped. He squeezed Eames' wrist a little. "I wanted it. You didn't take advantage of me."
Eames glanced at him, a humorless smile on his lips.
"That's sweet of you to say, love," he said. "But really, I did."
"Eames," Arthur said, trying to reason with him, but was met with a sharp shake of Eames' head.
"Come now," he said, gently extracting his wrist from Arthur's hold and going back to picking up memories. "These won't gather up themselves."
Arthur sighed but didn't push it. When they were almost done and Arthur had gotten good at ignoring the little glimpses of himself he was gathering up -- his hands, mid motion; the curve of his lips; the slant of his eyes when he smiled; his profile; the shape of his ears, and the arch of his neck; it didn't mean anything. Eames was a forger, he noticed these things -- Eames cleared his throat.
"I was wondering," he said.
"Yeah?" Arthur prompted when he fell silent. From the corner of his eye, he saw Eames pause and slowly pick up a photo. "Eames?"
"Nothing," Eames said. Arthur frowned, turning to look at him. "It's nothing," Eames repeated when he notice the look, sending him a quick smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Who's this, then? An old boyfriend?"
"Oh," Arthur said, looking at the photo Eames had turned his way. "A current one, actually," he said, though it was a bit of a stretch to call Hale that. They hadn't seen each other in over four months -- not that that was unusual. When he'd first followed Dom out of the country, Arthur had thought Hale was one of the bridges he'd burned in order to do so. By the time he'd gotten a chance to visit, they'd gone months without any kind of contact, and he'd expected Hale to send him packing, figuratively speaking. But Hale was one of the more unconventional people Arthur had known in his life, and their relationship, such as it was, had never had many strings attached; apart from Hale now calling him 'my lovely stray' with some frequency, there had been no consequences for Arthur's prolonged absence.
The photo was from a time before Arthur's life had fallen apart. The only reason he was in the picture was because he'd been standing in front of a mirror, getting ready to leave; he'd been doing his cuff links, and Hale had come to stand beside him, taking over -- helping, even as he chided Arthur for not being able to take more time off work. Hale was often contrary like that, but it was a good memory.
Arthur took it from Eames' motionless hands and put it on top of his pile, raising an eyebrow in inquiry when Eames didn't resume finishing up with the photos, just absently rubbed his fingertips together, a distant look in his eyes.
Before Arthur could open his mouth to ask, he was interrupted by Yusuf coming to stand in the doorway.
"Hey," Arthur said, looking up at him.
"We were wondering what kept you," Yusuf said, glancing down at the photographs, now in neat piles instead of littering the floor. "But I see our collective subconscious has made its presence known again."
"That's one way to put it," Eames said, snapping out of whatever thoughts had preoccupied him, groaning as he pushed himself to his feet. Arthur shifted the stacks closer to the wall and got up as well.
"Pray tell me," Eames continued, "Is there anything left for us, or has sweet Ariadne already demolished our food supply?"
"She does eat a lot for such a small person, doesn't she?" Yusuf shrugged, smiling. "But there should still be enough left that you won't go hungry. It is getting colder as we speak, however."
"We better get to it, then," Eames said. "We're done here, in any case."
He didn't look at Arthur when he passed by.
-
Waking up on the plane was a relief. Seeing Dom wake up was something more. Arthur shook his head, unable to contain his smile, and thought, Dom, you son of a bitch. You amazing bastard. You did it; you're going home.
And he'd go see them, see Dom in his own home, with his children, in a few days -- but right now, Dom didn't need him, and Arthur didn't begrudge him for it. For Arthur, being at loose ends like this was a relief on its own, proof that they'd really done it. He felt like his life was his own again.
He thought, tentatively, that he could find out if Eames wanted to celebrate. See if Eames would maybe want to come with him to visit Dom and the kids, to witness the good that had come out of the job; but by the time Arthur had gotten his luggage and made his way outside, Eames was nowhere to be found.
It shouldn't have mattered. Arthur had just successfully completed the biggest job of his life, Dom was going home, and the weather was perfect; he should have felt like he was on top of the world.
Instead, he stood in the taxi queue, surrounded by people, and felt lost.
***
VI: Secrets