Fic: Sand & Stones & Bricks & Rocks [Inception/Brick/Rocknrolla]
Title: Sand & Stones & Bricks & Rocks
Rating: R to NC-17
Word Count: 7,000
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Warning: Spoilers for Brick and Rocknrolla
Summary: Brendan Frye is dead. Handsome Bob doesn't exist anymore. Unfortunately, neither Arthur's nor Eames's subconscious agrees.
A/N: Soooooo yes, this would be an Inception/Brick/Rocknrolla crossover, and has MAJOR spoilers for all three. It's set about eightish years after Rocknrolla, twelveish years after Brick, and plays a bit fast and loose with the ages of some of the characters in Rocknrolla. Title taken from the Aromabar song of the same name.
Massive massive thanks to space_raider182, who put up with me flailing in her direction every time i wrote more than three words of this fic, and to beanarie who pushed for it to be longer, which pretty much transformed the story. It wouldn't have been nearly this good without you, bbs! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
It would almost be funny if it weren’t so horrible--the sight of a seventeen year old girl born out of Arthur’s subconscious, fragile yet determined, coming after him with a brick. She’s fast, fast enough that Eames barely has time to wonder if she’s Arthur’s version of Mal--a pretty dead girl wreaking havoc on his subconscious--before she bashes his skull in.
He wakes gasping, knows that Arthur had only barely seen them before she’d killed him. He has at least a minute to pull himself together before the others wake up. Eames pulls the cannula out of his arm, then staggers to the bathroom and splashes water on his face. The whole time he’s turning over the jagged splinter of information that had come just prior to his lethal head injury--Arthur shouting the name Emily, and the projection turning to look.
They’re not on a job, at least, but they are doing a dry run for the biggest job any of them have had in months, so now is not the time to fuck things up. He hears the others wake, Dom clearly asking what the fuck just happened. Eames flushes the toilet for good measure, then pats his face dry before sauntering back into the main room, headed for a spot just past Arthur’s chair. "I have always adored your astonishingly disturbed mind,” he calls to Arthur as he approaches, hands in his pockets. “Pity it doesn’t adore me."
Arthur looks sincerely unhappy. "I’m sorry about that. I didn’t--"
Eames waves him off, aware that everyone’s awake and watching. "Next time, darling, make them Japanese schoolgirls." And he’s ambled past Arthur before the other man can reply.
* * *
The next time they’re in a dream, it’s clear that Arthur expects retaliation and has tried to plan accordingly. To be fair, so has Eames. What neither one of them expected was the appearance of a burly, six-four Scotsman with a sock full of coins and a wild look in his eyes. Eames sees, vaguely horrified, as Arthur tries to shoot One Two’s knees out, but then Mumbles is smacking the gun out of Arthur’s hands and they’re wrapping him up tightly. Of course, in Eames’s dream One Two and Mumbles (but especially One Two) are actually competent rather than lucky, and they get Arthur pinned by the time Eames is close enough to do anything.
That doesn’t stop Arthur from fighting like a madman, the only way he knows how, nor does it stop One Two from giving Eames that crooked grin of his and saying "Alright then, Bobby boy?" before bashing Arthur in the face with the sock full of coins. They bludgeon the shit out of Arthur, crushing the smooth right off of his face, even as Cookie and Fred and the others hold Eames back--bloody obnoxious, especially as it means that he’s holding himself back, yelling at One Two to just fucking stop it already. And then finally Arthur drops, and One Two looks at Eames and does his familiar pantomime of sucking cock, at which point Eames finally tears free and shoots them all and then himself.
He manages to make it back to consciousness in time to see Arthur smoothing down his waistcoat, just before the frantic helplessness disappears from his eyes, leaving only a barely-visible tightness around them. "What the fuck was that?" Arthur snaps at him, and Eames can’t blame him.
But Eames isn’t exactly the apologizing, throat-baring type either, and so he looks Arthur up and down, eyes cool, cataloguing every wrinkle and smudge of dust from where Arthur must have thrown himself out of his chair and landed on the floor. "I suppose now we’re even, pet."
* * *
Neither of them mention it until that Friday night, when one thing leads to another like it always does with them and Eames is thinking that there are worse ways to deal with the stresses of the job than letting Arthur pound him into the mattress and oh god right there don’t--
"What kind of crazy person gives his projections numbers instead of names?" Arthur gasps, tilting his hips just so until Eames is clawing at his biceps and trying not to whimper.
"Wha?" Eames replies dazedly, and to be fair he would have had trouble with the question even if he hadn’t been massively distracted by Arthur’s dick in his ass.
"You called them--oh fuck--you called them One and Two," Arthur grits out, then sinks his teeth into Eames’s collarbone, tonguing the tattoo there.
"Wha--oh god, oh," and distressingly, it’s just as much the sex as it is the realization that Arthur’s asking him about One Two, of all people, that makes him moan like that. Eames gets a clumsy hand on Arthur’s face and drags his mouth up for an almost desperate kiss, trying to ignore the sudden mental image of One Two watching them fuck and being just as disturbed and disgusted as he is turned on by the sight. "No, it’s not--One and Two--it’s--" but he cuts himself off there, because there might be nothing worse than fucking Arthur in front of One Two--imaginary or not--than screaming out One Two’s name as he comes.
Eames hasn’t done that in years, and never with anyone else in the room.
He’s hoping Arthur will let it drop as they both collapse onto the bed, but this is Arthur, and there’s no such thing as 'letting it drop.' "So they have names then," Arthur murmurs into his skin. This is one of the few things Eames has always found sexy yet totally fucking weird about Arthur--a bloody single-mindedness that won’t let him stop thinking through things, even at the height of orgasm. Eames considers it a major victory if he can make Arthur come hard enough that it shuts his brain down for a full minute; usually he’ll settle for fifteen seconds. Today he’s made it about five.
"They have names," Eames sighs. "One Two was the Scottish bloke, and Mumbles the other one."
"And Cookie," Arthur replies, and Eames realizes that said bloody single-mindedness not only includes the moment of orgasm but also Arthur getting his brains smashed in. "He was on you."
"Yes," Eames replies quietly. The memory is oddly disturbing; he’d always been fond of Cookie.
Arthur rolls him onto his side, then settles into the curve of Eames’s arm. "What was your name?"
Eames would lie, but unlike Arthur he’s still waiting for his brain to reboot post-climax, so he settles for a half-truth. "Handsome."
Arthur snorts, disbelieving. "Please."
"Well, it was," Eames says quietly, a little miffed.
"Sure, Eames." Arthur nuzzles his head beneath Eames’s chin sleepily. "I’m sure it was."
* * *
Arthur draws first blood--not a surprise, given who he is and what he does. It doesn’t hurt that he’s got an easier quarry, too; London thugs tend to have records that get entered into databases, easily searchable even if all you have is an alias and a face. Eames, on the other hand, is looking for a blonde American high school girl named Emily--because there are only about eleven billion of those, thanks.
It’s not until Eames narrows things down to where he thinks Arthur might be from (California, and he can’t narrow it in any further than that) and starts combing the news before he even begins to make progress. He’s in the middle of that--although not at work, never at the job--when Arthur drops a photo on his desk as he passes, not pausing or looking at him.
It’s One Two’s mugshot, from when he got sent up. Even after all these years and despite the fact that One Two will never get over himself to even give the question of Eames any thought, something in Eames’s chest constricts at the sight of him. As much as he’s got a much better, if more complicated, life than he ever did in his Wild Bunch days, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss the boys.
He looks up in time to realize that Arthur has paused and is watching him from his desk. Arthur’s head snaps down when Eames catches sight of him. Eames gives the picture of One Two one last look, then drops it in the bottom drawer of his desk and closes it. Not quite thrown away, but not something he’ll be in the habit of pulling out and looking at, either.
Arthur ignores him, even when Eames tries to catch his eye. Frustrating, really; all Eames wants to do is tip his metaphorical hat in acknowledgement. First blood to you, my dear.
First. But not the last.
* * *
It’s another week after that before Eames gets a major break, and he only accomplishes this by calling in a few favors and threatening a few acquaintances. Finally, though, a scanned newspaper article arrives in his email. Eames opens the attachment to find the fragile but dangerous face that had crushed his skull smiling back at him almost sarcastically, like she’s in on the joke that is Eames thinking he could find out anything about Arthur by looking for a dead girl. The accompanying article gives him her name, which he already knew, the printable details of her murder, which he didn’t, and the information that she went to San Clemente High School, which is better than gold. Eames shoots an email back, promising money and favor and thinly veiling threats to his contact. A full day passes before he gets a reply, during which Eames is completely and utterly useless--even their architect snaps at him for not listening to something important, and she’s usually the most tolerant of anyone on this particular team.
When the reply comes, it’s frustrating as all hell; there was no one at the school at that time with the first or last name Arthur. However, the contact has apparently taken pity on him--or perhaps Eames was a bit more scary than he’d meant to be--and has scanned in the entire yearbook from the year Emily was murdered. Eames blinks, then downloads the file.
He scans the pictures warily, somehow off-balance at the sight of so many earnest, awkward teenagers. He doesn’t really think he wants to see Arthur among these kids, looking just as painfully young and naive. Still, he thinks of the mug shot of One Two, and then realizes that despite the fact that the evidence against him was 'lost,' there was almost certainly a copy of Handsome Bob’s mug shot from his arrest wherever Arthur had been digging. Eames shakes his head and resists the old urge to rub a hand over his no longer shorn short hair, scrolling through more suburban teenaged smiles.
He almost misses Arthur entirely. He’s expecting a young, smiling, suit-wearing Arthur, or at least someone incredibly well-put-together for a high school kid. Eames is moving on to the next page of pictures when something catches his eye, and he scrolls back to look--and then his breath catches.
It’s Arthur. But it’s no Arthur he’s ever seen.
This kid is angry, defensive, Eames can see that right away. His curly hair hangs over dark eyes that aren’t hidden in the slightest by the wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and Arthur is wearing a hooded sweatshirt--that alone is so incongruous that Eames shakes his head, looks away and looks back again. But no, it’s no version of Arthur he’d ever thought to see--this kid is even further from Arthur than Handsome Bob is from Eames, and Eames is nothing of the wiry, pot dealing getaway driver that used to run around with the rest of the Wild Bunch--but it’s still Arthur.
His eyes trace along the row of pictures until they come to the names printed alongside. Brendan Frye. It’s a stunningly normal name, one that might have fit this angry, tousle-headed scruffy kid, but doesn’t fit Arthur at all. Still, Eames rolls the name around on his tongue. Brendan. Brennnnndannn.
Eames takes a long last look at the picture, then closes the file.
* * *
The knowledge of who Arthur really is--or rather, where he really comes from, since Eames thinks he’s got a much better handle on who Arthur is than he ever could have found in a high school yearbook that’s a decade past its due date--eats at Eames, the kind of itch he can’t scratch.
Until they finish the job, and Eames doesn’t just scratch it, he rips it open.
They’re having a victory fuck to celebrate and Eames is pounding into Arthur, about to come, when without thinking he moans "oh fuck, oh Christ in Heaven, Brendan--"
Arthur pushes away from him like he’s been electrocuted, and before Eames even realizes what he’s said has flipped them over and straddled him, his hand tight around Eames’s neck. It’s incredibly hot, especially the murderous look in his eyes as he hisses, "There is no Brendan, do you hear me? Brendan is dead."
Eames gapes up at him as it hits him what he’s done, but by the time he gets enough oxygen back to his brain to see straight Arthur and his clothes are gone, leaving a slamming door behind him.
They don’t talk again until the Fischer job.
* * *
They land in L.A. when it’s all over and Eames hasn’t booked himself either a hotel or a flight, partly because he’s superstitious enough that he didn’t want to jinx a job this big, partly because ever since he arrived he’s been playing cat and mouse with Arthur, almost like old times. Everyone else melts into the bustle of the airport--Saito and Ariadne and Yusuf towards the International terminal, Cobb to Miles and his waiting car. When Arthur picks up his bags, Eames follows him to the cab stand. "Mind if I borrow your couch, love? The next flight out to my neck of the woods doesn’t seem to be until morning."
Arthur looks just as tired and just as adrift as Eames himself feels, which might explain why he shrugs and gestures towards the cab that pulls up. "You pay the fare."
"Only fair," Eames quips, loading his bags into the trunk before he flops into the backseat.
They don’t talk as the city goes by, and Arthur looks to be fighting sleep the whole way. For a moment, his eyes droop closed and Eames gets the chance to look at him, really look at him, for the first time in much too long. Then Arthur blinks awake, catches Eames looking at him, and rolls his eyes. Eames smiles and looks out his window again, comfortable.
When they get to Arthur’s, they drop their bags in the front hall, and then Arthur’s fingers hook through Eames’s belt loops and he tugs him along into the bedroom. "Just sleep," Arthur warns, and Eames holds up his hands in his universal sign for Really, Darling, I Can Be A Gentleman. They strip to their underwear and then slide into bed, Eames’s head tucked beneath Arthur’s chin, his arms around Arthur’s narrow waist, listening to his heartbeat.
It never fails to amaze Eames how much sleep he needs after a job--all of the running around and shooting and blowing things up they do is apparently quite taxing on the mind, despite the fact that they’re asleep at the time. The Fischer job has been everything a usual job is but tenfold, and so when he wakes, the first bars of the next day’s dawn are seeping through the windows.
His brain’s been through so many different realities in the last day that it takes him a minute to put the narrative together, figure out how he got here and where here is. And then he remembers and smiles as Arthur’s arms tighten around him from behind. Arthur’s always been protective like this, always tried to wrap himself around Eames in bed despite Eames’s larger size, and it’s always been incredibly endearing.
A soft kiss brushes across his tattooed shoulder blade, then the bare one, before Arthur’s nose comes to rest against his neck. "You grew your hair."
"You don’t like it?" Eames murmurs lightly; it’s hard to tell whether this is complaint or observation.
"S'different," Arthur replies, one hand coming up to play with the longer hair on top of his head.
"I was thinking about slicking it back--ow!" he yelps as Arthur nips him on the shoulder for that. "No?"
"Don’t make me hurt you, Mr. Eames."
Eames smiles. "Wouldn’t dream of it, darling."
Arthur’s quiet for a moment, long enough for Eames to think maybe he’s asleep again and give some serious consideration to doing the same, before he speaks again. "So who’s One Two?"
Eames blinks, but he figures if Arthur’s bringing it up then he should probably take advantage of the opportunity. "He was a bloke I used to run around with, yeah? Back when I was younger."
"The Wild Bunch," Arthur says dryly, and Eames snorts; it had been a great name when he’d been twenty-two and thought they were dangerous, but a decade’s hindsight makes it a bit ridiculous, especially when hearing it said in Arthur’s voice.
"The Wild Bunch," he agrees quietly. "Back in my apprentice days." He twists his head, trying to look at Arthur over his shoulder and mostly failing. "It really is scary how good you are at what you do."
"Thank you," Arthur replies with an audible smirk. "Do you still talk to any of them?"
Eames shakes his head. "No. Grew apart, right? They’re probably still running scams in South London." He twines his fingers through the hand at his waist, brings it up for a kiss. "Nowhere near our level." It had been something of a shock, the day he’d realized that Mumbles and One Two had gone as far as they ever were going to go, but that he didn’t have to stop if he didn’t want to. That he was already better than they were ever going to be. The lawyer he’d seduced had been the start of that, and then came the moment when he was kneeling on wet concrete with the name Sidney Shaw in his jacket pocket, and it was the beginning of the end, really.
Arthur is nodding against his neck. "They seemed a bit too petty for you."
"Mmm. We had some good times, though." The arm he’s laying on’s gone to sleep, so he rolls over, rolling Arthur with; it’s his turn to watch the back of Arthur’s neck as he asks his questions. "Was Emily your girlfriend?"
"Was One Two your boyfriend?" Arthur shoots back without hesitation.
Eames doesn’t blink. "Mmm, no, but I quite fancied him. The most I ever got out of him was a dance." In a way, One Two’s complete inability to Get It had likely been a godsend for Eames; he can only imagine how torrid and drawn out things could have been if One Two had been flexible enough in his sexuality to accept--or god help him, give--blowjobs when offered.
His honesty seems to disarm Arthur, and the other man relaxes a little in his arms. "She was. In high school. Sort of."
"Sort of she was your girlfriend, or sort of because she was killed?" Eames asks, soft against the back of Arthur’s neck.
"Sort of because she wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t see me, and then got killed," Arthur says. "And, y’know, it was high school."
"How did she die?" Eames asks, knowing that Arthur knows he’s read the relevant articles but wanting to hear Arthur’s side of the story.
"One of the other guys she was sleeping with did it." There’s a level of remove there that he’s not used to hearing, even from Arthur. "When he found out that he wasn’t the father."
Eames, who’s so good with words, doesn’t trust himself to say anything in response to that, not at first.
"I think about that kid sometimes," Arthur says, fingers tapping out a rhythm against the back of Eames’s, where they’re spread across Arthur’s stomach. "He’d be what, eleven or twelve now. Almost ready for high school himself. Jesus." Eames wants to soothe him, but is fully aware that this is something that doesn’t rub away, doesn’t work itself out. Instead, his arms tighten around Arthur just a little bit more. "I wonder sometimes how much different things would be if she’d lived, if I’d never gone into the Army, if she’d just let me stay with her, protect her."
"Do you think it would have been better?" Eames asks, hating himself for it without really knowing why.
Arthur turns over to lie on his back, still in the circle of Eames’s arms. His eyes are trained on the ceiling. "Different. I don’t know. I don’t know where I would have ended up if she’d been there to... tie me down. Like if you’d never left London and the Wild Bunch, who would you be now? Not Eames, I’m guessing."
"No," Eames agrees. "Not hardly."
"I meant it before, when I said that Brendan is dead," Arthur says, eyes flickering over to meet Eames’s for the briefest of moments. "As far as I’m concerned, he hasn’t existed for over a decade now."
"I shouldn’t have brought it up," Eames replies, contrite.
Arthur shrugs. "I should have been expecting it, once I started digging on you. Do you know Cobb doesn’t even know?"
"About Emily?"
"About Emily, my name, any of that. I changed my name when I was eighteen, between high school and the Army. By the time I met Cobb, I had been Arthur for a couple of years."
Eames, he of the mutable personality, knows exactly what Arthur means when he says he’d been Arthur--not been named Arthur. And he also knows that when Arthur says Cobb doesn’t even know, he means nobody else knows. "Why did you pick the name Arthur?"
Another shrug. "It was different." He makes eye contact again, finally. "Why Eames?"
"It was my mum’s maiden name," Eames says almost ruefully. "I just always liked it."
Arthur chuckles at that, and then suddenly he moves with his usual explosive fluidity. Before Eames knows what’s happened, Arthur is on top of him, hands bracketing Eames’s head where they’re braced on the mattress. "I was trying to apologize, by the way."
"I--Wha?" Eames replies dumbly, a little dazed and having a bit of a flashback to the last time Arthur had been on top of him like this. Instinctively he takes a deep breath, just in case he doesn’t get the opportunity for the next little bit.
"I wasn’t being condescending. I really was impressed," Arthur continues, and oh, Eames gets it. And then takes another deep breath, just in case.
"Look, just--come here," Eames says, fond and irritated, and he pulls Arthur down into a kiss. "We’ve always been good at being complete pricks to each other. Let’s not go apologizing for it now or we’ll be here all night."
"Mmm. You have a point," Arthur replies, kissing him again, and that would be the last thing either of them had to say until the 'oh god yes' portion of things, except that Eames is terminally incapable of letting a line like that go to waste.
"Yes," he smirks, rolling his hips up into Arthur’s, "I do. A rather nice one, at that."
Arthur doesn’t break his stride, simply smacks him with a pillow and then returns to kissing Eames breathless. I’ve missed this, Eames thinks, and smiles against Arthur’s mouth.
* * *
Eames leaves after a few days, because Arthur deserves some space to figure out who he is now that he’s not watching Dom Cobb’s six and because Eames has some things to do in Mombasa. ("You have an accountant?" Arthur asks dubiously, and Eames generously allows him to do a full background search to prove it.) They make vague plans to get together at some point in the future, and when he drops him off at the airport Arthur snogs him senseless over the gearshift, all of which means things are back to normal between them.
He settles back into life in Mombasa, all faded colors and humidity and some of the best curry he’s had outside of London. He has a few beers and plays a round of darts with Yusuf, deciding at the end that while the chemist is completely untrustworthy, he makes an acceptable darts partner and useful business contact. He spends a day at the beach, reveling in the feel of the warm equatorial sun and the sand between his toes. He does the rounds of his favorite restaurants and haunts, catching up on the gossip he’s missed.
Eames gives himself a week to enjoy his adopted home, then falls into his usual routine, working during the week, passing his chips off on Saturday when the casinos are busier. Sundays he picks up a copy of the Sunday Times and breakfast, taking both to the roof of his flat and enjoying them in the sunshine.
A month after he’s left Arthur in L.A., he’s flipping through the Times, the remains of his breakfast cooling on his plate. He skims the obituaries out of old habit and morbid curiosity; more than once, he’s caught the name of a client or a mark, and while he’s no Arthur, he likes keeping up on the news.
His eyes stutter as they snag on a name, and he stares at it dumbly for a moment, trying to parse, trying to convince himself he’s mistaken. But no, there are the names of the man’s wife and kids--it’s Cookie’s name, Cookie’s obituary. The service is on Tuesday.
Eames books a flight to London.
* * *
His flight arrives at Heathrow at ten to seven on Tuesday morning, which is just time enough to pick up a car, check into a hotel, shower and change. He shaves, thinking it’ll make him look less like Bob, but all it does is make him look less like Eames. He combs his hair in the hard part he’s been wearing lately, decides it makes him look like a douche, then decides to keep it anyway. "You’re looking less than Handsome, Bobski," he grumbles at his reflection as he knots his tie. His suit is sober, nice but not flashy, a little loose fitting as to not stand out.
He packs a gun, just in case. Arthur would undoubtedly be proud.
Eames sits in the back row at the service, letting the familiar ritual of the Anglican liturgy wash over him. One Two and Mumbles are there, a few rows from the front, tall enough that even from the back he can tell they tower over everyone around them. Fred is in the second row, just behind Cookie’s family, his red hair going silver. Eames thinks he spots Archy, but he can’t be sure--the man he sees is bald and it’s hard to tell from behind, although the posture seems right. It seems like everyone’s turned out, unsurprisingly--everyone except his mum, but Cookie and Fred were friends with Eames’s dad, so that’s no surprise.
One Two and Mumbles and Fred are pallbearers, along with Cookie’s twin boys (and fuck if they aren’t full grown) and brother. It occurs to Eames that if he’d stayed, he’d be one of the six hoisting Cookie’s casket to his shoulder now, eyes trained on the back of One Two’s head. The thought hits him harder than he’d expected it to--he feels like he’s letting Cookie down, in a way, even though he hasn’t seen or spoken to the man in almost a decade. His mum had always blamed Fred and Cookie for getting him involved with the Wild Bunch, but Eames knew better; they weren’t bringing him into a life of crime as much as they were providing him with a family, one he desperately needed after his dad died.
Eames watches as the casket approaches; One Two stares resolutely ahead, so Eames gets the chance to study him from his position mid-pew. One Two looks the same, but older--his face is more weathered, the lines deeper. There’s grief in his eyes, even though he’s clearly trying to fight it, jaw set in grim determination. Eames glances away as the procession passes by, looking down at the unfamiliar Christian names of his chosen and forsaken family in the funeral program.
Sitting in the back means leaving the church first. He’s not going to the wake afterwards--it’s at the Speeler, of course, and even if he were sure he’d be welcome Eames knows he couldn’t stand going in there, not now. Instead he slips free as the mourners scatter and disperse, putting a quick but casual distance between himself and the church.
"Looking good, Bob," calls a voice from behind him. Eames considers walking like he hadn’t heard it, disappearing down an alley, but its owner knows these streets even better than he does anymore. Instead he turns to face the man leaning against the brick like this is a casual conversation between friends, not their first meeting since Eames disappeared eight years ago.
"Mumbles," he greets him quietly, warily. Eames is bigger now, burlier now than when he was Handsome Bob, but he still feels tiny compared to Mumbles’s height and bulk. He remembers lounging on a weight bench all those years ago, taking the excuse to watch One Two press iron, unable to fathom the work and dedication it would take to get to that level of brawn.
Mumbles looks him over, clearly noting the changes in him. "I thought you’d be back. Also thought maybe you’d try to sneak out at the end."
"Right on both counts," Eames allows. The London softness has crept back into his speech already, despite the fact that he’s been on his home territory for all of four hours now.
"Don’t suppose you’re coming to the club?"
Eames shakes his head. "Was thinking I’d pop in on my mum, see her before I leave." It’s a piss-poor excuse and they both know it. Mumbles smiles, dangerous as ever, and Eames does his best to tamp down on his skittishness. Bob was skittish. Eames is calm, cool, brash when needed. It’s hard to remember, though, when faced with Mumbles’s shark grin.
"The boys miss you. We was talkin’ about you just the other day, as a matter of fact."
"All good things, I hope," Eames replies.
"Nothin’ good, nothin’ bad. In fact, tha’s what we talked about--that we don’t know nothing. Your mum says you turn up from time to time, but other than that..." Mumbles shrugs as if to say, one last time, Nothing.
Eames runs a hand through his hair before he remembers not to, before he remembers that it’s not cropped close anymore. Jesus--two minutes talking to Mumbles and he’s twenty-two again. "Look," he says, choosing his words carefully, "it’s not--I miss you guys, I do. But--I’m not Handsome Bob anymore. Haven’t been in a long time. I can’t just pull him out at parties and on holiday and pretend anymore."
"You think we won’t know you if you’re not Handsome Bob?" Mumbles asks, eyebrow raised, and it’s a fair question. "You think not running with us changes things to where you ain’t got a place with the Wild Bunch anymore?"
"Mumbles," Eames protests, because the only thing worse than being shunned is being welcomed like he never left. It’s why he avoided everyone in the church, hiding in the back.
"Is this about One Two?" Mumbles asks, his eyes narrowing to a painfully familiar squint. "Because you an’ I both know he’s an idiot sometimes, but once ‘e quits getting in his own way ‘e’s fine."
"It’s not about One Two," Eames sighs. "It’s not about anyone. Really. I came to pay my respects to Cookie, and that’s all."
Mumbles pulls a face. "What, in the church? The way to pay your respects to Cookie is with a glass in hand and a girl on your lap--although I believe he’d be willing to make an exception to the latter for you--and you ain’t gonna do that in the church."
"Mumbles," Eames says again, miserably. "Look, I don’t want to take away from Cookie with my prodigal son bullshit, okay? Today should be all about him, and if I go in there, it’ll be all sorts of questions about me. And I don’t have any good answers." Most days, and to most people, Eames can lie convincingly about any number of subjects--himself best of all. The day of Cookie’s funeral, though, after spending the night on a plane, and surrounded by people who knew him when he was a punk kid... that’s another thing entirely.
"Alright, alright," Mumbles says placatingly, hands up. "But one of these days, you better come back."
"I will," Eames says, and he means it; Cookie’s death has unearthed a thousand regrets that he never knew he was carrying, and he wants to set some of them to rights.
Mumbles watches him for a long moment, weighing Eames’s sincerity, before he finally seems to accept it. "Does that one belong to you, then?" He nods down the block, towards Eames’s rental. Eames turns to look and sees that there’s a familiar figure leaning against the car. Arthur nods at Mumbles, a gesture of respect, and Mumbles nods back.
Eames shrugs, trying to hide the fondness that’s wrapping itself around him from the inside out. "Inasmuch as he belongs to anyone, yeah."
Mumbles smiles at that--not one of his scary shark smiles, but one that’s got genuine warmth behind it. "Not bad, Bob. Not bad. Not nearly as pretty as Mr. One Two, but they can’t all be."
That startles a genuine laugh out of Eames, and it’s bittersweet--home means the people who know you best of all, the people who never let you forget how far you’ve come, for good or ill. "This one actually reciprocates from time to time. It goes a long way."
Mumbles shakes his head and offers his hand, and when Eames takes it he pulls him in for a quick hug, their hands clasped between their chests. "You take care, boyo. I don’ want to be the one to explain to the boys why it is they have to wait another eight years to see you, yeah?"
"I promise," Eames says. "Take care of the boys until I get back."
"Always do," Mumbles says, turning away. "Always do."
Eames doesn’t dare look at Arthur until he’s back at the car, taking the time to put Bob away and be Eames again. It’s only half successful, but it’ll do. "I didn’t expect to see you here."
"What, and miss the chance to see you in a suit that fits?" Slim fingers straighten Eames’s tie, casually, and the sensation anchors him once again. "Well, one that almost fits."
"So it’s true, then? You planted a tracking chip in my neck the last time we went out drinking?" Eames teases, trying to resist the urge to simply melt into Arthur.
"Someone has to keep you out of trouble," Arthur shoots back, smoothing Eames’s lapels. "Besides, you only ever come to London for your mother’s birthday. I figured something was wrong."
Eames just looks at Arthur, a little fond, a little exasperated, and a little dumbstruck. His conversation with Mumbles had left him aching for the familiarity that was being offered by the Wild Bunch--and yet here it is with Arthur, Arthur who knows Eames better than Eames himself, some days. "Arthur," he says slowly.
"What, am I wrong?" Arthur asks, as infuriating as ever. "Seeing as you just walked out of a funeral, I--"
"Arthur," Eames cuts him off, then surges forward and catches him in a kiss. "Sorry," he says when they come up for air, tilting their foreheads together. "Sorry, I just--I can’t believe you’re here."
"Do you need to check your totem?" Arthur asks dryly; Eames nips his lower lip for that before pulling him into another kiss. He lets him go once the realization dawns that anyone from the neighborhood could go wandering by at any second, clearing his throat and looking away.
"So that was Mumbles?" Arthur asks after a moment, glancing back towards the church.
"That was," Eames confirms.
"Huh. I thought he’d be smaller," Arthur says. At Eames’s sidelong look, he shrugs. "I didn’t expect your projection of him to be as accurate as it was."
Arthur giveth, Arthur taketh away. Eames gives him a wry smile. "You’re impossible."
"Yeah, but you knew that already," Arthur counters.
"True." Eames pushes him towards the car, already edgy and antsy about lingering too long in the neighborhood.
"You know, I used to figure you were gentry of some sort," Arthur says thoughtfully, curious eyes fixed on the church as they drive past, and the sea of people still milling about on the sidewalk.
Eames looks straight ahead, afraid of who he might see and who might see him. "Gentry?" he says with a forced laugh. "Me?"
Arthur shrugs. "Take it as a compliment, because it is one. You fooled me into thinking that you were a wealthy, spoiled ex-pat who’d gotten into crime and confidence scams to rebel against his upper-crust parents. Because that’s who Eames is, isn’t he? The public school boy who has enough money to not care how he dresses." Arthur makes a noise of frustration before Eames can answer. "Do you know it took me an extra week to find that mugshot, simply because I thought you were too posh to have ever been able to fool real gangsters?"
It’s a revelation, in so many ways--Arthur admitting he’d been fooled by Eames, Eames who’s always felt like Arthur can see right through him. Eames isn’t quite sure what to say, and once again Arthur doesn’t give him the chance.
"When I found the mugshots, and Handsome Bob--" and oh, that is deeply weird to hear his old name in Arthur’s voice-- "I was impressed. I thought I’d been wrong." Arthur’s eyes have never left the buildings they’re driving by, cataloguing them, even as he hunts for the right words. "But now, looking at the people there today--I think you’re from a different kind of gentry. This world that you’re from, these people, they’re really the cream of the crop, aren’t they? Nobility in their own right." He shrugs. "Which isn’t to say that Eames isn’t brilliant, don’t get me wrong. Just that you seem to come from a much different background, one I never would have guessed at."
Eames slides the car into a parking space, smoothly, before looking at Arthur. "That makes two of us, then."
Arthur smiles at him, then, not his usual self-confident dimply smirk, but something softer and more honest and, if Eames is reading him right, a little terrified. Eames knows the feeling, because they’re parked in front of the building that he’s fought tooth and nail to keep out of his dreams--not because of any terrible association, but because he’s felt all along that it’s important to keep something in reserve, something his and his alone. And now he’s sitting here with Arthur.
Eames clears his throat. "D’you want to come up and meet my mum?"
Arthur tilts his head, caught off guard, looks at the building and then back at Eames. "You’re serious?"
"As the grave," Eames confirms.
"How are you going to explain me to her?" Arthur asks, and it’s a valid concern, really. Eames hasn’t quite gotten that far--but at the end of the day, he’s still Eames, and still quite good at thinking on his feet. He grins.
"She knows I always was good with the posh ones," he teases. "Let her draw her own conclusions. Besides, you’re not a London gangster. That makes you aces in her book."
Arthur laughs at that, then nods. "You do know that I’m going to take advantage of this to get as many embarrassing stories out of her as I can."
"I expect nothing less, Arthur," Eames says fondly, "it’s who you are"--and with that, it’s decided.
As they get out of the car, Eames considers telling Arthur how this is going to go--his mum will let them in, pretend to be surprised (although she won’t be, not really), and she’ll dote over Arthur and embarrass them both. She’ll pour them whiskey in her kitchen and they’ll have themselves a wake of their own, for Cookie and Handsome Bob and Brendan and Eames’s dad, sending off their ghosts without ever speaking of them directly, letting them fade into the ether. He’ll kiss her goodbye and promise to call, promise to be back for her birthday, and then Arthur will drive them back to Eames’s hotel and they’ll take turns pressing each other into the mattress and signing their names with their lips on each other’s skin, again and again until ‘Eames’ and ‘Arthur’ are second nature once more. And in the morning, they’ll go back to Heathrow and get on a plane--maybe separately to L.A. and Mombasa, maybe together to Paris or Casablanca. Either way, Eames will wake in the morning on rumpled sheets with Arthur tangled around him, Arthur trying to protect him.
And Eames will let him.
Eames considers telling Arthur this, but Arthur smiles at him as they step onto the stoop and Eames decides not to. Arthur’s good at improvising, he thinks. I’ll let him figure it out.
Rating: R to NC-17
Word Count: 7,000
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Warning: Spoilers for Brick and Rocknrolla
Summary: Brendan Frye is dead. Handsome Bob doesn't exist anymore. Unfortunately, neither Arthur's nor Eames's subconscious agrees.
A/N: Soooooo yes, this would be an Inception/Brick/Rocknrolla crossover, and has MAJOR spoilers for all three. It's set about eightish years after Rocknrolla, twelveish years after Brick, and plays a bit fast and loose with the ages of some of the characters in Rocknrolla. Title taken from the Aromabar song of the same name.
Massive massive thanks to space_raider182, who put up with me flailing in her direction every time i wrote more than three words of this fic, and to beanarie who pushed for it to be longer, which pretty much transformed the story. It wouldn't have been nearly this good without you, bbs! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
It would almost be funny if it weren’t so horrible--the sight of a seventeen year old girl born out of Arthur’s subconscious, fragile yet determined, coming after him with a brick. She’s fast, fast enough that Eames barely has time to wonder if she’s Arthur’s version of Mal--a pretty dead girl wreaking havoc on his subconscious--before she bashes his skull in.
He wakes gasping, knows that Arthur had only barely seen them before she’d killed him. He has at least a minute to pull himself together before the others wake up. Eames pulls the cannula out of his arm, then staggers to the bathroom and splashes water on his face. The whole time he’s turning over the jagged splinter of information that had come just prior to his lethal head injury--Arthur shouting the name Emily, and the projection turning to look.
They’re not on a job, at least, but they are doing a dry run for the biggest job any of them have had in months, so now is not the time to fuck things up. He hears the others wake, Dom clearly asking what the fuck just happened. Eames flushes the toilet for good measure, then pats his face dry before sauntering back into the main room, headed for a spot just past Arthur’s chair. "I have always adored your astonishingly disturbed mind,” he calls to Arthur as he approaches, hands in his pockets. “Pity it doesn’t adore me."
Arthur looks sincerely unhappy. "I’m sorry about that. I didn’t--"
Eames waves him off, aware that everyone’s awake and watching. "Next time, darling, make them Japanese schoolgirls." And he’s ambled past Arthur before the other man can reply.
* * *
The next time they’re in a dream, it’s clear that Arthur expects retaliation and has tried to plan accordingly. To be fair, so has Eames. What neither one of them expected was the appearance of a burly, six-four Scotsman with a sock full of coins and a wild look in his eyes. Eames sees, vaguely horrified, as Arthur tries to shoot One Two’s knees out, but then Mumbles is smacking the gun out of Arthur’s hands and they’re wrapping him up tightly. Of course, in Eames’s dream One Two and Mumbles (but especially One Two) are actually competent rather than lucky, and they get Arthur pinned by the time Eames is close enough to do anything.
That doesn’t stop Arthur from fighting like a madman, the only way he knows how, nor does it stop One Two from giving Eames that crooked grin of his and saying "Alright then, Bobby boy?" before bashing Arthur in the face with the sock full of coins. They bludgeon the shit out of Arthur, crushing the smooth right off of his face, even as Cookie and Fred and the others hold Eames back--bloody obnoxious, especially as it means that he’s holding himself back, yelling at One Two to just fucking stop it already. And then finally Arthur drops, and One Two looks at Eames and does his familiar pantomime of sucking cock, at which point Eames finally tears free and shoots them all and then himself.
He manages to make it back to consciousness in time to see Arthur smoothing down his waistcoat, just before the frantic helplessness disappears from his eyes, leaving only a barely-visible tightness around them. "What the fuck was that?" Arthur snaps at him, and Eames can’t blame him.
But Eames isn’t exactly the apologizing, throat-baring type either, and so he looks Arthur up and down, eyes cool, cataloguing every wrinkle and smudge of dust from where Arthur must have thrown himself out of his chair and landed on the floor. "I suppose now we’re even, pet."
* * *
Neither of them mention it until that Friday night, when one thing leads to another like it always does with them and Eames is thinking that there are worse ways to deal with the stresses of the job than letting Arthur pound him into the mattress and oh god right there don’t--
"What kind of crazy person gives his projections numbers instead of names?" Arthur gasps, tilting his hips just so until Eames is clawing at his biceps and trying not to whimper.
"Wha?" Eames replies dazedly, and to be fair he would have had trouble with the question even if he hadn’t been massively distracted by Arthur’s dick in his ass.
"You called them--oh fuck--you called them One and Two," Arthur grits out, then sinks his teeth into Eames’s collarbone, tonguing the tattoo there.
"Wha--oh god, oh," and distressingly, it’s just as much the sex as it is the realization that Arthur’s asking him about One Two, of all people, that makes him moan like that. Eames gets a clumsy hand on Arthur’s face and drags his mouth up for an almost desperate kiss, trying to ignore the sudden mental image of One Two watching them fuck and being just as disturbed and disgusted as he is turned on by the sight. "No, it’s not--One and Two--it’s--" but he cuts himself off there, because there might be nothing worse than fucking Arthur in front of One Two--imaginary or not--than screaming out One Two’s name as he comes.
Eames hasn’t done that in years, and never with anyone else in the room.
He’s hoping Arthur will let it drop as they both collapse onto the bed, but this is Arthur, and there’s no such thing as 'letting it drop.' "So they have names then," Arthur murmurs into his skin. This is one of the few things Eames has always found sexy yet totally fucking weird about Arthur--a bloody single-mindedness that won’t let him stop thinking through things, even at the height of orgasm. Eames considers it a major victory if he can make Arthur come hard enough that it shuts his brain down for a full minute; usually he’ll settle for fifteen seconds. Today he’s made it about five.
"They have names," Eames sighs. "One Two was the Scottish bloke, and Mumbles the other one."
"And Cookie," Arthur replies, and Eames realizes that said bloody single-mindedness not only includes the moment of orgasm but also Arthur getting his brains smashed in. "He was on you."
"Yes," Eames replies quietly. The memory is oddly disturbing; he’d always been fond of Cookie.
Arthur rolls him onto his side, then settles into the curve of Eames’s arm. "What was your name?"
Eames would lie, but unlike Arthur he’s still waiting for his brain to reboot post-climax, so he settles for a half-truth. "Handsome."
Arthur snorts, disbelieving. "Please."
"Well, it was," Eames says quietly, a little miffed.
"Sure, Eames." Arthur nuzzles his head beneath Eames’s chin sleepily. "I’m sure it was."
* * *
Arthur draws first blood--not a surprise, given who he is and what he does. It doesn’t hurt that he’s got an easier quarry, too; London thugs tend to have records that get entered into databases, easily searchable even if all you have is an alias and a face. Eames, on the other hand, is looking for a blonde American high school girl named Emily--because there are only about eleven billion of those, thanks.
It’s not until Eames narrows things down to where he thinks Arthur might be from (California, and he can’t narrow it in any further than that) and starts combing the news before he even begins to make progress. He’s in the middle of that--although not at work, never at the job--when Arthur drops a photo on his desk as he passes, not pausing or looking at him.
It’s One Two’s mugshot, from when he got sent up. Even after all these years and despite the fact that One Two will never get over himself to even give the question of Eames any thought, something in Eames’s chest constricts at the sight of him. As much as he’s got a much better, if more complicated, life than he ever did in his Wild Bunch days, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss the boys.
He looks up in time to realize that Arthur has paused and is watching him from his desk. Arthur’s head snaps down when Eames catches sight of him. Eames gives the picture of One Two one last look, then drops it in the bottom drawer of his desk and closes it. Not quite thrown away, but not something he’ll be in the habit of pulling out and looking at, either.
Arthur ignores him, even when Eames tries to catch his eye. Frustrating, really; all Eames wants to do is tip his metaphorical hat in acknowledgement. First blood to you, my dear.
First. But not the last.
* * *
It’s another week after that before Eames gets a major break, and he only accomplishes this by calling in a few favors and threatening a few acquaintances. Finally, though, a scanned newspaper article arrives in his email. Eames opens the attachment to find the fragile but dangerous face that had crushed his skull smiling back at him almost sarcastically, like she’s in on the joke that is Eames thinking he could find out anything about Arthur by looking for a dead girl. The accompanying article gives him her name, which he already knew, the printable details of her murder, which he didn’t, and the information that she went to San Clemente High School, which is better than gold. Eames shoots an email back, promising money and favor and thinly veiling threats to his contact. A full day passes before he gets a reply, during which Eames is completely and utterly useless--even their architect snaps at him for not listening to something important, and she’s usually the most tolerant of anyone on this particular team.
When the reply comes, it’s frustrating as all hell; there was no one at the school at that time with the first or last name Arthur. However, the contact has apparently taken pity on him--or perhaps Eames was a bit more scary than he’d meant to be--and has scanned in the entire yearbook from the year Emily was murdered. Eames blinks, then downloads the file.
He scans the pictures warily, somehow off-balance at the sight of so many earnest, awkward teenagers. He doesn’t really think he wants to see Arthur among these kids, looking just as painfully young and naive. Still, he thinks of the mug shot of One Two, and then realizes that despite the fact that the evidence against him was 'lost,' there was almost certainly a copy of Handsome Bob’s mug shot from his arrest wherever Arthur had been digging. Eames shakes his head and resists the old urge to rub a hand over his no longer shorn short hair, scrolling through more suburban teenaged smiles.
He almost misses Arthur entirely. He’s expecting a young, smiling, suit-wearing Arthur, or at least someone incredibly well-put-together for a high school kid. Eames is moving on to the next page of pictures when something catches his eye, and he scrolls back to look--and then his breath catches.
It’s Arthur. But it’s no Arthur he’s ever seen.
This kid is angry, defensive, Eames can see that right away. His curly hair hangs over dark eyes that aren’t hidden in the slightest by the wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and Arthur is wearing a hooded sweatshirt--that alone is so incongruous that Eames shakes his head, looks away and looks back again. But no, it’s no version of Arthur he’d ever thought to see--this kid is even further from Arthur than Handsome Bob is from Eames, and Eames is nothing of the wiry, pot dealing getaway driver that used to run around with the rest of the Wild Bunch--but it’s still Arthur.
His eyes trace along the row of pictures until they come to the names printed alongside. Brendan Frye. It’s a stunningly normal name, one that might have fit this angry, tousle-headed scruffy kid, but doesn’t fit Arthur at all. Still, Eames rolls the name around on his tongue. Brendan. Brennnnndannn.
Eames takes a long last look at the picture, then closes the file.
* * *
The knowledge of who Arthur really is--or rather, where he really comes from, since Eames thinks he’s got a much better handle on who Arthur is than he ever could have found in a high school yearbook that’s a decade past its due date--eats at Eames, the kind of itch he can’t scratch.
Until they finish the job, and Eames doesn’t just scratch it, he rips it open.
They’re having a victory fuck to celebrate and Eames is pounding into Arthur, about to come, when without thinking he moans "oh fuck, oh Christ in Heaven, Brendan--"
Arthur pushes away from him like he’s been electrocuted, and before Eames even realizes what he’s said has flipped them over and straddled him, his hand tight around Eames’s neck. It’s incredibly hot, especially the murderous look in his eyes as he hisses, "There is no Brendan, do you hear me? Brendan is dead."
Eames gapes up at him as it hits him what he’s done, but by the time he gets enough oxygen back to his brain to see straight Arthur and his clothes are gone, leaving a slamming door behind him.
They don’t talk again until the Fischer job.
* * *
They land in L.A. when it’s all over and Eames hasn’t booked himself either a hotel or a flight, partly because he’s superstitious enough that he didn’t want to jinx a job this big, partly because ever since he arrived he’s been playing cat and mouse with Arthur, almost like old times. Everyone else melts into the bustle of the airport--Saito and Ariadne and Yusuf towards the International terminal, Cobb to Miles and his waiting car. When Arthur picks up his bags, Eames follows him to the cab stand. "Mind if I borrow your couch, love? The next flight out to my neck of the woods doesn’t seem to be until morning."
Arthur looks just as tired and just as adrift as Eames himself feels, which might explain why he shrugs and gestures towards the cab that pulls up. "You pay the fare."
"Only fair," Eames quips, loading his bags into the trunk before he flops into the backseat.
They don’t talk as the city goes by, and Arthur looks to be fighting sleep the whole way. For a moment, his eyes droop closed and Eames gets the chance to look at him, really look at him, for the first time in much too long. Then Arthur blinks awake, catches Eames looking at him, and rolls his eyes. Eames smiles and looks out his window again, comfortable.
When they get to Arthur’s, they drop their bags in the front hall, and then Arthur’s fingers hook through Eames’s belt loops and he tugs him along into the bedroom. "Just sleep," Arthur warns, and Eames holds up his hands in his universal sign for Really, Darling, I Can Be A Gentleman. They strip to their underwear and then slide into bed, Eames’s head tucked beneath Arthur’s chin, his arms around Arthur’s narrow waist, listening to his heartbeat.
It never fails to amaze Eames how much sleep he needs after a job--all of the running around and shooting and blowing things up they do is apparently quite taxing on the mind, despite the fact that they’re asleep at the time. The Fischer job has been everything a usual job is but tenfold, and so when he wakes, the first bars of the next day’s dawn are seeping through the windows.
His brain’s been through so many different realities in the last day that it takes him a minute to put the narrative together, figure out how he got here and where here is. And then he remembers and smiles as Arthur’s arms tighten around him from behind. Arthur’s always been protective like this, always tried to wrap himself around Eames in bed despite Eames’s larger size, and it’s always been incredibly endearing.
A soft kiss brushes across his tattooed shoulder blade, then the bare one, before Arthur’s nose comes to rest against his neck. "You grew your hair."
"You don’t like it?" Eames murmurs lightly; it’s hard to tell whether this is complaint or observation.
"S'different," Arthur replies, one hand coming up to play with the longer hair on top of his head.
"I was thinking about slicking it back--ow!" he yelps as Arthur nips him on the shoulder for that. "No?"
"Don’t make me hurt you, Mr. Eames."
Eames smiles. "Wouldn’t dream of it, darling."
Arthur’s quiet for a moment, long enough for Eames to think maybe he’s asleep again and give some serious consideration to doing the same, before he speaks again. "So who’s One Two?"
Eames blinks, but he figures if Arthur’s bringing it up then he should probably take advantage of the opportunity. "He was a bloke I used to run around with, yeah? Back when I was younger."
"The Wild Bunch," Arthur says dryly, and Eames snorts; it had been a great name when he’d been twenty-two and thought they were dangerous, but a decade’s hindsight makes it a bit ridiculous, especially when hearing it said in Arthur’s voice.
"The Wild Bunch," he agrees quietly. "Back in my apprentice days." He twists his head, trying to look at Arthur over his shoulder and mostly failing. "It really is scary how good you are at what you do."
"Thank you," Arthur replies with an audible smirk. "Do you still talk to any of them?"
Eames shakes his head. "No. Grew apart, right? They’re probably still running scams in South London." He twines his fingers through the hand at his waist, brings it up for a kiss. "Nowhere near our level." It had been something of a shock, the day he’d realized that Mumbles and One Two had gone as far as they ever were going to go, but that he didn’t have to stop if he didn’t want to. That he was already better than they were ever going to be. The lawyer he’d seduced had been the start of that, and then came the moment when he was kneeling on wet concrete with the name Sidney Shaw in his jacket pocket, and it was the beginning of the end, really.
Arthur is nodding against his neck. "They seemed a bit too petty for you."
"Mmm. We had some good times, though." The arm he’s laying on’s gone to sleep, so he rolls over, rolling Arthur with; it’s his turn to watch the back of Arthur’s neck as he asks his questions. "Was Emily your girlfriend?"
"Was One Two your boyfriend?" Arthur shoots back without hesitation.
Eames doesn’t blink. "Mmm, no, but I quite fancied him. The most I ever got out of him was a dance." In a way, One Two’s complete inability to Get It had likely been a godsend for Eames; he can only imagine how torrid and drawn out things could have been if One Two had been flexible enough in his sexuality to accept--or god help him, give--blowjobs when offered.
His honesty seems to disarm Arthur, and the other man relaxes a little in his arms. "She was. In high school. Sort of."
"Sort of she was your girlfriend, or sort of because she was killed?" Eames asks, soft against the back of Arthur’s neck.
"Sort of because she wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t see me, and then got killed," Arthur says. "And, y’know, it was high school."
"How did she die?" Eames asks, knowing that Arthur knows he’s read the relevant articles but wanting to hear Arthur’s side of the story.
"One of the other guys she was sleeping with did it." There’s a level of remove there that he’s not used to hearing, even from Arthur. "When he found out that he wasn’t the father."
Eames, who’s so good with words, doesn’t trust himself to say anything in response to that, not at first.
"I think about that kid sometimes," Arthur says, fingers tapping out a rhythm against the back of Eames’s, where they’re spread across Arthur’s stomach. "He’d be what, eleven or twelve now. Almost ready for high school himself. Jesus." Eames wants to soothe him, but is fully aware that this is something that doesn’t rub away, doesn’t work itself out. Instead, his arms tighten around Arthur just a little bit more. "I wonder sometimes how much different things would be if she’d lived, if I’d never gone into the Army, if she’d just let me stay with her, protect her."
"Do you think it would have been better?" Eames asks, hating himself for it without really knowing why.
Arthur turns over to lie on his back, still in the circle of Eames’s arms. His eyes are trained on the ceiling. "Different. I don’t know. I don’t know where I would have ended up if she’d been there to... tie me down. Like if you’d never left London and the Wild Bunch, who would you be now? Not Eames, I’m guessing."
"No," Eames agrees. "Not hardly."
"I meant it before, when I said that Brendan is dead," Arthur says, eyes flickering over to meet Eames’s for the briefest of moments. "As far as I’m concerned, he hasn’t existed for over a decade now."
"I shouldn’t have brought it up," Eames replies, contrite.
Arthur shrugs. "I should have been expecting it, once I started digging on you. Do you know Cobb doesn’t even know?"
"About Emily?"
"About Emily, my name, any of that. I changed my name when I was eighteen, between high school and the Army. By the time I met Cobb, I had been Arthur for a couple of years."
Eames, he of the mutable personality, knows exactly what Arthur means when he says he’d been Arthur--not been named Arthur. And he also knows that when Arthur says Cobb doesn’t even know, he means nobody else knows. "Why did you pick the name Arthur?"
Another shrug. "It was different." He makes eye contact again, finally. "Why Eames?"
"It was my mum’s maiden name," Eames says almost ruefully. "I just always liked it."
Arthur chuckles at that, and then suddenly he moves with his usual explosive fluidity. Before Eames knows what’s happened, Arthur is on top of him, hands bracketing Eames’s head where they’re braced on the mattress. "I was trying to apologize, by the way."
"I--Wha?" Eames replies dumbly, a little dazed and having a bit of a flashback to the last time Arthur had been on top of him like this. Instinctively he takes a deep breath, just in case he doesn’t get the opportunity for the next little bit.
"I wasn’t being condescending. I really was impressed," Arthur continues, and oh, Eames gets it. And then takes another deep breath, just in case.
"Look, just--come here," Eames says, fond and irritated, and he pulls Arthur down into a kiss. "We’ve always been good at being complete pricks to each other. Let’s not go apologizing for it now or we’ll be here all night."
"Mmm. You have a point," Arthur replies, kissing him again, and that would be the last thing either of them had to say until the 'oh god yes' portion of things, except that Eames is terminally incapable of letting a line like that go to waste.
"Yes," he smirks, rolling his hips up into Arthur’s, "I do. A rather nice one, at that."
Arthur doesn’t break his stride, simply smacks him with a pillow and then returns to kissing Eames breathless. I’ve missed this, Eames thinks, and smiles against Arthur’s mouth.
* * *
Eames leaves after a few days, because Arthur deserves some space to figure out who he is now that he’s not watching Dom Cobb’s six and because Eames has some things to do in Mombasa. ("You have an accountant?" Arthur asks dubiously, and Eames generously allows him to do a full background search to prove it.) They make vague plans to get together at some point in the future, and when he drops him off at the airport Arthur snogs him senseless over the gearshift, all of which means things are back to normal between them.
He settles back into life in Mombasa, all faded colors and humidity and some of the best curry he’s had outside of London. He has a few beers and plays a round of darts with Yusuf, deciding at the end that while the chemist is completely untrustworthy, he makes an acceptable darts partner and useful business contact. He spends a day at the beach, reveling in the feel of the warm equatorial sun and the sand between his toes. He does the rounds of his favorite restaurants and haunts, catching up on the gossip he’s missed.
Eames gives himself a week to enjoy his adopted home, then falls into his usual routine, working during the week, passing his chips off on Saturday when the casinos are busier. Sundays he picks up a copy of the Sunday Times and breakfast, taking both to the roof of his flat and enjoying them in the sunshine.
A month after he’s left Arthur in L.A., he’s flipping through the Times, the remains of his breakfast cooling on his plate. He skims the obituaries out of old habit and morbid curiosity; more than once, he’s caught the name of a client or a mark, and while he’s no Arthur, he likes keeping up on the news.
His eyes stutter as they snag on a name, and he stares at it dumbly for a moment, trying to parse, trying to convince himself he’s mistaken. But no, there are the names of the man’s wife and kids--it’s Cookie’s name, Cookie’s obituary. The service is on Tuesday.
Eames books a flight to London.
* * *
His flight arrives at Heathrow at ten to seven on Tuesday morning, which is just time enough to pick up a car, check into a hotel, shower and change. He shaves, thinking it’ll make him look less like Bob, but all it does is make him look less like Eames. He combs his hair in the hard part he’s been wearing lately, decides it makes him look like a douche, then decides to keep it anyway. "You’re looking less than Handsome, Bobski," he grumbles at his reflection as he knots his tie. His suit is sober, nice but not flashy, a little loose fitting as to not stand out.
He packs a gun, just in case. Arthur would undoubtedly be proud.
Eames sits in the back row at the service, letting the familiar ritual of the Anglican liturgy wash over him. One Two and Mumbles are there, a few rows from the front, tall enough that even from the back he can tell they tower over everyone around them. Fred is in the second row, just behind Cookie’s family, his red hair going silver. Eames thinks he spots Archy, but he can’t be sure--the man he sees is bald and it’s hard to tell from behind, although the posture seems right. It seems like everyone’s turned out, unsurprisingly--everyone except his mum, but Cookie and Fred were friends with Eames’s dad, so that’s no surprise.
One Two and Mumbles and Fred are pallbearers, along with Cookie’s twin boys (and fuck if they aren’t full grown) and brother. It occurs to Eames that if he’d stayed, he’d be one of the six hoisting Cookie’s casket to his shoulder now, eyes trained on the back of One Two’s head. The thought hits him harder than he’d expected it to--he feels like he’s letting Cookie down, in a way, even though he hasn’t seen or spoken to the man in almost a decade. His mum had always blamed Fred and Cookie for getting him involved with the Wild Bunch, but Eames knew better; they weren’t bringing him into a life of crime as much as they were providing him with a family, one he desperately needed after his dad died.
Eames watches as the casket approaches; One Two stares resolutely ahead, so Eames gets the chance to study him from his position mid-pew. One Two looks the same, but older--his face is more weathered, the lines deeper. There’s grief in his eyes, even though he’s clearly trying to fight it, jaw set in grim determination. Eames glances away as the procession passes by, looking down at the unfamiliar Christian names of his chosen and forsaken family in the funeral program.
Sitting in the back means leaving the church first. He’s not going to the wake afterwards--it’s at the Speeler, of course, and even if he were sure he’d be welcome Eames knows he couldn’t stand going in there, not now. Instead he slips free as the mourners scatter and disperse, putting a quick but casual distance between himself and the church.
"Looking good, Bob," calls a voice from behind him. Eames considers walking like he hadn’t heard it, disappearing down an alley, but its owner knows these streets even better than he does anymore. Instead he turns to face the man leaning against the brick like this is a casual conversation between friends, not their first meeting since Eames disappeared eight years ago.
"Mumbles," he greets him quietly, warily. Eames is bigger now, burlier now than when he was Handsome Bob, but he still feels tiny compared to Mumbles’s height and bulk. He remembers lounging on a weight bench all those years ago, taking the excuse to watch One Two press iron, unable to fathom the work and dedication it would take to get to that level of brawn.
Mumbles looks him over, clearly noting the changes in him. "I thought you’d be back. Also thought maybe you’d try to sneak out at the end."
"Right on both counts," Eames allows. The London softness has crept back into his speech already, despite the fact that he’s been on his home territory for all of four hours now.
"Don’t suppose you’re coming to the club?"
Eames shakes his head. "Was thinking I’d pop in on my mum, see her before I leave." It’s a piss-poor excuse and they both know it. Mumbles smiles, dangerous as ever, and Eames does his best to tamp down on his skittishness. Bob was skittish. Eames is calm, cool, brash when needed. It’s hard to remember, though, when faced with Mumbles’s shark grin.
"The boys miss you. We was talkin’ about you just the other day, as a matter of fact."
"All good things, I hope," Eames replies.
"Nothin’ good, nothin’ bad. In fact, tha’s what we talked about--that we don’t know nothing. Your mum says you turn up from time to time, but other than that..." Mumbles shrugs as if to say, one last time, Nothing.
Eames runs a hand through his hair before he remembers not to, before he remembers that it’s not cropped close anymore. Jesus--two minutes talking to Mumbles and he’s twenty-two again. "Look," he says, choosing his words carefully, "it’s not--I miss you guys, I do. But--I’m not Handsome Bob anymore. Haven’t been in a long time. I can’t just pull him out at parties and on holiday and pretend anymore."
"You think we won’t know you if you’re not Handsome Bob?" Mumbles asks, eyebrow raised, and it’s a fair question. "You think not running with us changes things to where you ain’t got a place with the Wild Bunch anymore?"
"Mumbles," Eames protests, because the only thing worse than being shunned is being welcomed like he never left. It’s why he avoided everyone in the church, hiding in the back.
"Is this about One Two?" Mumbles asks, his eyes narrowing to a painfully familiar squint. "Because you an’ I both know he’s an idiot sometimes, but once ‘e quits getting in his own way ‘e’s fine."
"It’s not about One Two," Eames sighs. "It’s not about anyone. Really. I came to pay my respects to Cookie, and that’s all."
Mumbles pulls a face. "What, in the church? The way to pay your respects to Cookie is with a glass in hand and a girl on your lap--although I believe he’d be willing to make an exception to the latter for you--and you ain’t gonna do that in the church."
"Mumbles," Eames says again, miserably. "Look, I don’t want to take away from Cookie with my prodigal son bullshit, okay? Today should be all about him, and if I go in there, it’ll be all sorts of questions about me. And I don’t have any good answers." Most days, and to most people, Eames can lie convincingly about any number of subjects--himself best of all. The day of Cookie’s funeral, though, after spending the night on a plane, and surrounded by people who knew him when he was a punk kid... that’s another thing entirely.
"Alright, alright," Mumbles says placatingly, hands up. "But one of these days, you better come back."
"I will," Eames says, and he means it; Cookie’s death has unearthed a thousand regrets that he never knew he was carrying, and he wants to set some of them to rights.
Mumbles watches him for a long moment, weighing Eames’s sincerity, before he finally seems to accept it. "Does that one belong to you, then?" He nods down the block, towards Eames’s rental. Eames turns to look and sees that there’s a familiar figure leaning against the car. Arthur nods at Mumbles, a gesture of respect, and Mumbles nods back.
Eames shrugs, trying to hide the fondness that’s wrapping itself around him from the inside out. "Inasmuch as he belongs to anyone, yeah."
Mumbles smiles at that--not one of his scary shark smiles, but one that’s got genuine warmth behind it. "Not bad, Bob. Not bad. Not nearly as pretty as Mr. One Two, but they can’t all be."
That startles a genuine laugh out of Eames, and it’s bittersweet--home means the people who know you best of all, the people who never let you forget how far you’ve come, for good or ill. "This one actually reciprocates from time to time. It goes a long way."
Mumbles shakes his head and offers his hand, and when Eames takes it he pulls him in for a quick hug, their hands clasped between their chests. "You take care, boyo. I don’ want to be the one to explain to the boys why it is they have to wait another eight years to see you, yeah?"
"I promise," Eames says. "Take care of the boys until I get back."
"Always do," Mumbles says, turning away. "Always do."
Eames doesn’t dare look at Arthur until he’s back at the car, taking the time to put Bob away and be Eames again. It’s only half successful, but it’ll do. "I didn’t expect to see you here."
"What, and miss the chance to see you in a suit that fits?" Slim fingers straighten Eames’s tie, casually, and the sensation anchors him once again. "Well, one that almost fits."
"So it’s true, then? You planted a tracking chip in my neck the last time we went out drinking?" Eames teases, trying to resist the urge to simply melt into Arthur.
"Someone has to keep you out of trouble," Arthur shoots back, smoothing Eames’s lapels. "Besides, you only ever come to London for your mother’s birthday. I figured something was wrong."
Eames just looks at Arthur, a little fond, a little exasperated, and a little dumbstruck. His conversation with Mumbles had left him aching for the familiarity that was being offered by the Wild Bunch--and yet here it is with Arthur, Arthur who knows Eames better than Eames himself, some days. "Arthur," he says slowly.
"What, am I wrong?" Arthur asks, as infuriating as ever. "Seeing as you just walked out of a funeral, I--"
"Arthur," Eames cuts him off, then surges forward and catches him in a kiss. "Sorry," he says when they come up for air, tilting their foreheads together. "Sorry, I just--I can’t believe you’re here."
"Do you need to check your totem?" Arthur asks dryly; Eames nips his lower lip for that before pulling him into another kiss. He lets him go once the realization dawns that anyone from the neighborhood could go wandering by at any second, clearing his throat and looking away.
"So that was Mumbles?" Arthur asks after a moment, glancing back towards the church.
"That was," Eames confirms.
"Huh. I thought he’d be smaller," Arthur says. At Eames’s sidelong look, he shrugs. "I didn’t expect your projection of him to be as accurate as it was."
Arthur giveth, Arthur taketh away. Eames gives him a wry smile. "You’re impossible."
"Yeah, but you knew that already," Arthur counters.
"True." Eames pushes him towards the car, already edgy and antsy about lingering too long in the neighborhood.
"You know, I used to figure you were gentry of some sort," Arthur says thoughtfully, curious eyes fixed on the church as they drive past, and the sea of people still milling about on the sidewalk.
Eames looks straight ahead, afraid of who he might see and who might see him. "Gentry?" he says with a forced laugh. "Me?"
Arthur shrugs. "Take it as a compliment, because it is one. You fooled me into thinking that you were a wealthy, spoiled ex-pat who’d gotten into crime and confidence scams to rebel against his upper-crust parents. Because that’s who Eames is, isn’t he? The public school boy who has enough money to not care how he dresses." Arthur makes a noise of frustration before Eames can answer. "Do you know it took me an extra week to find that mugshot, simply because I thought you were too posh to have ever been able to fool real gangsters?"
It’s a revelation, in so many ways--Arthur admitting he’d been fooled by Eames, Eames who’s always felt like Arthur can see right through him. Eames isn’t quite sure what to say, and once again Arthur doesn’t give him the chance.
"When I found the mugshots, and Handsome Bob--" and oh, that is deeply weird to hear his old name in Arthur’s voice-- "I was impressed. I thought I’d been wrong." Arthur’s eyes have never left the buildings they’re driving by, cataloguing them, even as he hunts for the right words. "But now, looking at the people there today--I think you’re from a different kind of gentry. This world that you’re from, these people, they’re really the cream of the crop, aren’t they? Nobility in their own right." He shrugs. "Which isn’t to say that Eames isn’t brilliant, don’t get me wrong. Just that you seem to come from a much different background, one I never would have guessed at."
Eames slides the car into a parking space, smoothly, before looking at Arthur. "That makes two of us, then."
Arthur smiles at him, then, not his usual self-confident dimply smirk, but something softer and more honest and, if Eames is reading him right, a little terrified. Eames knows the feeling, because they’re parked in front of the building that he’s fought tooth and nail to keep out of his dreams--not because of any terrible association, but because he’s felt all along that it’s important to keep something in reserve, something his and his alone. And now he’s sitting here with Arthur.
Eames clears his throat. "D’you want to come up and meet my mum?"
Arthur tilts his head, caught off guard, looks at the building and then back at Eames. "You’re serious?"
"As the grave," Eames confirms.
"How are you going to explain me to her?" Arthur asks, and it’s a valid concern, really. Eames hasn’t quite gotten that far--but at the end of the day, he’s still Eames, and still quite good at thinking on his feet. He grins.
"She knows I always was good with the posh ones," he teases. "Let her draw her own conclusions. Besides, you’re not a London gangster. That makes you aces in her book."
Arthur laughs at that, then nods. "You do know that I’m going to take advantage of this to get as many embarrassing stories out of her as I can."
"I expect nothing less, Arthur," Eames says fondly, "it’s who you are"--and with that, it’s decided.
As they get out of the car, Eames considers telling Arthur how this is going to go--his mum will let them in, pretend to be surprised (although she won’t be, not really), and she’ll dote over Arthur and embarrass them both. She’ll pour them whiskey in her kitchen and they’ll have themselves a wake of their own, for Cookie and Handsome Bob and Brendan and Eames’s dad, sending off their ghosts without ever speaking of them directly, letting them fade into the ether. He’ll kiss her goodbye and promise to call, promise to be back for her birthday, and then Arthur will drive them back to Eames’s hotel and they’ll take turns pressing each other into the mattress and signing their names with their lips on each other’s skin, again and again until ‘Eames’ and ‘Arthur’ are second nature once more. And in the morning, they’ll go back to Heathrow and get on a plane--maybe separately to L.A. and Mombasa, maybe together to Paris or Casablanca. Either way, Eames will wake in the morning on rumpled sheets with Arthur tangled around him, Arthur trying to protect him.
And Eames will let him.
Eames considers telling Arthur this, but Arthur smiles at him as they step onto the stoop and Eames decides not to. Arthur’s good at improvising, he thinks. I’ll let him figure it out.