gelatin silver

[wldnst]

.gelatin silver
arthur teaches eames how to make gelatin silver prints. darkroom schmoop, written for this prompt.
r . 3174 words . chestnut_filly's podfic

Usually Arthur is sensible about his secrets, and keeps them. He knows that secrets ought to be kept, so he only has himself to blame when Eames catches Arthur on the sidewalk, and asks him to teach him how to make gelatin silver prints.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Arthur says, and keeps walking.

“I know you have a darkroom. Ari told me,” Eames says, easily, and Arthur wants to kick himself, and also box Ariadne’s ears.

“Even if I did have a darkroom, maybe I don’t print gelatin silver,” Arthur says. “Maybe I do cyanotype. Or platinum. Or daguerreotypes, in which case you should really stay away, because the mercury could make you madder than you are already.”

“See?” Eames says, dodging an old woman carrying a parosel. “You wouldn’t know all this stuff if you didn’t have a darkroom.”

“Did you know, the phrase mad as a hatter originated because mercury was used in felt production, and the fumes make people properly crazy?” Arthur continues. “Isn’t that interesting.”

“Arthur,” Eames says as they approach Arthur’s subway station. “This is all very interesting, but you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Why do you need to know?” Arthur asks, finally. Given the nature of the job they’re on, the answer is obvious, but the obvious answer is not always the right one.

“For the forge,” Eames says, and Arthur sighs, because the obvious answer was also the only one he really couldn’t refuse.

“My place,” Arthur says. “Tomorrow night at seven. Don’t be late. Ask Ariadne if you need directions.”

Arthur descends down the stairs before Eames can ask any questions Arthur doesn’t feel like answering.

Arthur has always liked film photography, and he likes it even more now that it’s supposed to be obsolete, although he wouldn’t admit that to anyone. Mostly he likes the process of the darkroom, the quiet and the safe lights, the slow way images bloom across photographic paper. It makes as much sense to him as anything, really.

His pictures are mostly of people he doesn’t know; he takes them on the street. He realizes it’s strange, but he doesn’t really look at the pictures, once they’re printed perfectly, he just keeps them in boxes under his bed, around his apartment. They don’t mean anything once the opportunity to take and print them has passed. It’s really more about the process.

When Arthur gets to his apartment he goes to his darkroom and turns out the lights, sits on the floor with his back pressed against a bank of drawers. He falls asleep that way.

He calls Ariadne the next morning, early enough that he knows he’ll wake her up.

“Why,” he says before she can get a word in. “Did you tell Eames about the darkroom?”

“Was that a secret?” she mumbles, groggy. “I don’t understand what things are secrets with you and what aren’t.”

“Yes,” Arthur hisses. “That was a secret.”

“Sorry,” she says. “But it is relevant to the job. Also, I was asleep when you called.”

She hangs up on him.

Ariadne is not Arthur’s friend, except that she is. Arthur was as surprised to realize it as anyone, but after he helped her get a second job and then a third, and then they got drunk and didn’t have sex but woke up spooning, and Ariadne called him when she had to break up with her college boyfriend because she was a criminal, and Arthur told Ariadne a series of his secrets--after all of that, it was apparent that the only way for Arthur to get rid of Ariadne without spilling his private life everywhere was to kill her, and Arthur found he didn’t really want to do that. So they were friends. Which is why she knows things about him, things like the fact that he has a darkroom in the tiny New York City apartment where he’s based (‘home’ makes it sound like he’s attached or something, and Arthur doesn’t do attachment, not in his line of work).

So the darkroom was a secret, and now, because they’re doing a job where Eames is forging an art photographer’s lover, Arthur has to give him some sort of darkroom experience, so he can discuss it convincingly or fully inhabit the forge or whatever it is Eames does.

Speaking of words Arthur doesn’t like to use, “lover” is one of them. Up there with “attachment” and “home.”

Arthur goes into the kitchen and makes a cup of coffee. Caffeine, counter intuitively, calms him down. He also makes a half-assed attempt at the New York Times crossword puzzle, mostly to clear his head, and then he goes out to talk to art dealers.

He’s been given the job of nosing information out of art dealers, mostly because he can dress the part and act disinterested. They tell Arthur more information than they intend to, they answer questions he doesn’t ask, because they think he has money. It’s surprisingly easy.

But then again, information has always been his job. In high school, he’d worked for a reference librarian, and he was pretty sure he was better at it than the woman he worked for.

When he writes everything down before he can forget, and changes into jeans and a stained t-shirt, so the scent of chemistry won’t cling to his work clothes. It’s already on his hands, most of the time: acrid, bitter, beautiful. He likes to have the smell on his fingers, like a reminder.

When Eames shows up Arthur is eating a grilled cheese sandwich, and Eames frowns at him.

“You told me not to be late.”

Arthur shrugs.

“Do you have any film?” Arthur asks, and Eames shakes his head. Arthur picks an aging Minolta up off the table by its strap. He holds it out.

“Take this, shoot a roll. Come back, I’ll reload it for you, shoot another, and then we can talk.”

Eames looks at him, and Arthur sighs.

“So, I have to show you how to use the camera, too?”

“Well, darling,” Eames says. “Maybe if you had talked to me yesterday instead of just telling stories about hatters and then leaving for the subway, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

Arthur fiddles with the dials on top of the camera, and thrusts it at Eames.

“I’ve set it on automatic, just for you. Wind the film here after each shot. Use the lens to focus. If you don’t have enough light, use the other ring on the lens to change the aperture. You’re a big boy. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“Thanks for the vote of faith, Arthur,” Eames says. “If I break this, do I die?”

“Of course not,” Arthur scoffs. “It’s a Minolta.”

Eames comes back in fifteen minutes, which doesn’t bode well for the quality of the thirty-six exposures. But Arthur loads another roll for him, and hands the camera back.

Eames takes it, quickly, and snaps one of Arthur without focusing. Then thirty-five more.

There are two types of photographers, or maybe two types of people: those who like being in front of the camera, and those who don’t. Arthur is of the latter type.

Arthur doesn’t punch Eames, because even if it’s a Minolta it’s still one of Arthur’s cameras, in front of Eames’ face. Mostly he just curses and averts his eyes. He can see, from here, that the aperture is low--Eames probably hasn’t even bothered changing it--and in all likelihood, nothing in the pictures will be in focus, anyway.

“Are you smiling?” Eames asks.

“No,” Arthur says. “You’re a bastard.”

Eames shrugs, and Arthur unloads the second roll of film. When he’s done, he socks Eames in the shoulder, just for good measure.

“What’s that?” Eames says. “Is someone pulling my pigtails?”

Arthur doesn’t even dignify that with a response. Eames is the one who pulls Arthur’s pigtails. Everyone knows it.

“Come on,” Arthur says. “Let’s get this over with.”

Arthur’s darkroom is immaculate; it’s important that it be this way, when he’s working in the dark. He has a bulletin board by the door pinned up with pictures he likes, but otherwise there are no decorations--no way to see them, anyway. There’s a lightbox and an enlarger on counters on one side of the room, and a long sink on the other. Arthur nods to a stool in the corner.

“Sit,” he says, and Eames does, without protest. Arthur goes to the drawer underneath the enlarger to get a rusty bottle opener he uses for film canisters. He pulls two reels and a canister out of the drying bins under the sink, and sets them next to the bottle opener and the film on the counter.

“So I’m going to turn the lights off,” Arthur says, using his foot to nudge a strip of cloth along the bottom of the door to block light. “And I’ll load the film in the canister, to develop it. There’s not really anything to see, anyway--I’ll just wind it on these reels and put it in.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Eames asks.

“Winding film is an acquired skill. Your body has to know what to do,” Arthur tells him. When Arthur first learned, he’d carried a roll of film and reel with him everywhere, until he could do it without looking at his hands, and with his eyes closed. It was comforting, now, and no longer required thought--sometimes he wished he still carried a reel and film with him, just to keep his hands busy when there was nothing else.

“Can I do it with you?” Eames says, slowly, and Arthur blinks at him.

Eames flirts, frequently. Arthur does, too, if he’s honest with himself--what was asking Ariadne to kiss him on the inception job? Though Eames had played that one on Arthur, first. The point is: Arthur can usually withstand Eames’ flirting, and flirt back, because they are on jobs that are as transitory as they are. But the darkroom isn’t transitory--the darkroom is possibly the only real place in Arthur’s life. If anything happens here, it’s real.

“No,” Arthur says, and turns out the lights. He closes his eyes, when it’s this dark, because he knows there’s nothing to see. When he opens his eyes, Eames is still sitting there on the stool in the corner, and the entrails of two rolls of film are on the counter.

“Okay,” Arthur says. “I’m going to mix up some developer and fix, now.”

And then Arthur walks Eames through that part of the process, and hands Eames the canister for a few of the agitations. They’re mostly quiet. Eames interrupts, occasionally, because the darkroom has become such a dance to Arthur that he doesn’t really consider the steps--Eames asks him to explain why he bangs the canister on the sink periodically, and why he holds it at an angle to pour things in, and Arthur is surprised to find that Eames’ questions are good.

He really shouldn’t be surprised. For all his foibles, Eames is not unintelligent.

The film has to dry, then, and Arthur hands it in the drying cabinet and turns on the fan, then looks at Eames.

“We have half an hour, I think. I need to set out the chemistry, but,” Arthur shrugs.

“I can watch,” Eames tells him. Since they’ve entered the darkroom, Eames has been so quiet and--gentle is the right word, almost--that it’s strange.

So Arthur sets out the trays, developer, rinse and fix.

“It’s pretty much the same as the film,” Arthur says.

They go out to the other room to wait for the film to dry, and Eames props his feet up on the coffee table.

“How’s the forge coming?” Arthur asks.

“Along,” Eames says with a shrug. “Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t.”

Eames looks at him strangely, then, just for a moment.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in jeans,” Eames says, instead of something else.

Arthur looks at his own legs.

“I own some.”

“I see that,” Eames says.

Arthur is pretty sure he’s never had a more awkward conversation with Eames, ever, and that includes the time they both woke up naked in bed together in Singapore.

“Remember that time in Singapore?” Arthur says, against his better judgment.

“No,” Eames says, and there’s a laugh just underneath his words. “But I think that half the memory of that time in Singapore is not remembering it.”

Which is true.

“That’s true,” Arthur says.

They sit in silence for a little longer, and then Arthur goes to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Eames follows him, and Arthur twists around to look at him.

“Want coffee?”

“Sure,” Eames says, and sits down at the kitchen table.

“What’s with the darkroom?” Eames asks, then, from where he’s sitting behind Arthur.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Arthur says, and even to him it sounds stiff.

“Arthur,” Eames says, and his voice is low.

“It’s just a thing,” Arthur says, and the coffee machine is doing its job and doesn’t need him to watch it, but he doesn’t turn around.

“Arthur,” Eames says, again.

“It’s just a thing,” Arthur repeats. “But it’s the only thing I do that doesn’t have to do with my job.”

“Oh,” Eames says, and now his voice is soft, and he sounds surprised. Arthur doesn’t like being surprising, not really. If you’re surprising, people can’t ignore you.

The coffee is done, and Arthur pours it into two mugs and sets one down in front of Eames, then sits across the table from him. He studies Eames’ face.

Eames is not flirting, any more. Arthur isn’t sure what that means.

When they go back to the darkroom, Eames sits back down on the stool in the corner, and Arthur sighs.

“You can help, with this part,” Arthur tells him. “It’ll make more sense than if I just explain it.”

He gets the film, cuts one roll into strips and gives the other roll to Eames. Even with the blurry negatives, Arthur can see the roll he has is of his face, over and over again. He brings it over to the lightbox when he’s done, and most of the images are out of focus--all of the images, actually, except one. Arthur sets that roll aside, and shows Eames how to use the lightbox.

“Is there something you want to print?” Arthur asks, and Eames picks a negative from his first roll, seemingly at random--a picture of the brick wall of Arthur’s apartment building, the numbered door. It will do. Arthur flicks off the lights and turns on the red safelights, and puts the negative in the enlarger.

“The enlarger lens,” Arthur says. “Is basically just a camera lens in reverse--it projects something outwards, larger, rather than within and smaller. It uses the same settings, though, aperture and focus. It’s sort of like how film chemistry and paper chemistry are really similar, just different dilutions, usually.”

Eames comes up behind him and leans against his back, and Arthur can feel the warmth radiating off his body. The darkroom is small, but not that small. Eames doesn’t need to be so close.

Arthur doesn’t mind.

Arthur runs a test strip, and then gets out a proper piece of paper and makes the print. Eames stands next to him as it sloshes around in the developer, and even though Arthur likes to develop with his paper upside-down, so he can’t see the image progress, he puts it rightside-up for Eames. The image spreads across the paper slowly, the blacks darken and tones emerge.

“This is lovely, Arthur,” Eames says.

“You took it,” Arthur says, although he can feel himself blushing.

“You know what I mean,” Eames replies, and Arthur can see him, out of the corner of his eye.

They make a couple more prints before Arthur asks Eames if he wants to make one on his own, and Eames breaks into a grin.

“Yes,” he says. “But you can’t see it until I’m done. Sit on the stool, darling.”

Arthur looks at him, but acquiesces.

It’s strange, to watch Eames doing what Arthur does. Arthur’s never seen himself work, but he can tell Eames is slower than he is, which is a given. But Eames also moves--differently, Arthur supposes. He and Arthur are of height, but Eames seems to take up more space in the small darkroom. And Eames is Eames, as well. Arthur has always liked to watch him, especially in his own body. Eames seems to inhabit his physical self differently than other people, perhaps because he’s not always in it.

“Come here,” Eames says, when he drops the paper in the developer.

The image starts in the middle of the sheet, and there’s an eye, dark squinting lines. It spreads slowly across, and Arthur watches it like a car accident, because he knows, at the end, he’s going to see himself. Eames is next to him, their shoulders pressed together--and once again Arthur wonders why they’re so close, because the darkroom is spacious enough. And once again Arthur doesn’t move away.

His face is on the paper, in full focus. He can see a dimple in his cheek, the slightest indentation, and he’s not sure how Eames found it. His hair is not quite right, and there is a hint of teeth beneath his lips, and--he is in focus.

Everything else is bokeh.

“That’s what you look like,” Eames says quietly.

Arthur isn’t sure what to say. There are things he wants to say, for sure: he wants to ask if that’s what he looks like, to Eames. He wants to ask how Eames found him in a roll of film he shot off in two minutes. He wants to ask how Eames found him at all.

Instead, he slips an arm around Eames’ waist and pulls him close, until their noses are touching.

Eames’ eyes are huge and dark, and Arthur isn’t sure if it’s from the safelights or Arthur himself, but Arthur kisses him anyway.

Arthur is surprised at how gentle Eames is, his lips soft, his hands high on Arthur’s back. It’s almost ridiculously chaste, until Arthur pushes Eames up against the sink and align their hips. It’s like giving permission, and suddenly Eames is kissing him harder, and his hands are slipping down Arthur’s back and up under his shirt, and Arthur’s own hands are trying to feel all of Eames at once--his muscled back, his arms, his hips.

When they’re done, they sink to the hard floor, leaning against one another. The room smells of chemistry and sex.

“Will that help with the forge?” Arthur asks.

Eames laughs in response, low and husky.

“You know it was more than that,” he says, and that was the only thing Arthur needed to know.

He doesn’t need to check his totem. It happened in the darkroom. It’s real.

For the second night in the row, Arthur sleeps on the floor of his darkroom.