Who: Eames and Arthur What: Preparing for a job and dealing with Eames being an emo bitch Where: Australia - Inception door When: Nowish Warnings/Rating: None
The part that really bothered Arthur about this situation was that Eames was able to predict his behavior, and Arthur couldn’t do the same. He had absolutely no idea why some job in Australia was worth the horrific plane ride (even in his little blue pod in first class) when Eames wouldn’t even carry on a full conversation with him on the journals. Arthur was even worse at reading Eames in writing than Eames in person. He had a feeling he was making mistakes, but he couldn’t see where, or why. Despite Eames’ incessant rhetorical questions, Arthur could tell he was upset about what had happened with Evan, but Arthur was under the impression Eames didn’t take any physical relationship seriously, and he didn’t think Eames had been so possessive of him as to be angry and jealous about it. Apparently he was mistaken.
If that was all the extent of the problem, Arthur didn’t understand why an apology and the return of his full attention wouldn’t be enough. Eames thrived on attention, especially physical. Perhaps because Arthur wasn’t available, Eames was annoyed, and wanted to prove he didn’t need Arthur if he didn’t feel like it. Arthur might have been able to navigate these treacherous waters if Eames had not thrown their professional relationship into the discussion. He had known that he risked losing any chance of Eames’ attention and affection by allowing a casual physical relationship to form, but the idea that Eames would then discount his abilities in the field left Arthur in a confusing swirl of emotions. He’d be heartbroken if Eames hated him, but he would be truly angry, not just hurt, if Eames then refused to work with him. Arthur had not expected to risk this essential part of himself, his professional reputation and ability in the field, and it raised the stakes almost to the point of impossibility. The chance that Eames might actually learn to care about him was so slim that risking every single point of contact with the man in the attempt was simply not a logical decision.
Arthur chewed on these problems as he literally crossed the globe, but he still managed a few hours of blank, dreamless sleep and another rousing fight for control with Cory before he left Melbourne in a rented car and drove out to Eames’ coordinates. He still hadn’t decided what to do. Maybe it would come to him when he saw the man.
Benalla was unforgiving.
Beyond the city limits, the place was nothing but dust and heat and the cry of animals that sounded as hungry as they did mournful. The sky was wide open, a clear expanse with no city to sully it, and a few miles out it was like being alone in the world. If Mombasa was remote, this was another planet.
The coordinates would normally only be accessible by a bribe at a local bar, in some old jeep without windows and so caked in dust that it looked like the paintjob was murky brown. But this was a big event, and there was money to be had in carting the “Dreamers” to the tent city in the middle of nowhere. Old cabs, older cars, and those jeeps were all waiting at the airport, locals glad to take the money available for the ride past the dingos and devils.
The tent city was precisely that - a tent city. As far as the eye could see, fabric flapped and plastic crinkled in the unforgiving sun. Bright blue outdoorsman tents, and dingy brown makeshift tents, and the occasional eight-pole number that belonged to someone with too much money to be playing this game in the middle of nowhere. But this was about winning, and this particular gambit drew all sorts. In the center, a tarp stood that was guarded by the sponsors of this event. Two men, armed, and enough space for a dozen dreamers.
But it wasn’t time for that yet.
In a tent somewhere northeast of the center, Eames sat with a bottle of cheap beer and an even cheaper cigar. He was talking to a man named Elon about the chemical that would be used the next day, and he was paying more attention than even Elon expected - and Elon trusted no one. That was the thing about Eames; he did a very good job of looking like he simply didn’t give a rat’s arse what was going on around him. Tan slacks that were too shiny for the desert, a white shirt that had three open buttons along a line of ridiculous paisley, and his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. “Yes, darling, so you’ve said,” he told the man, who had been boasting rather vocally after his third drink. Eames longed for Yusef, and for a chemical he trusted, but this game involved playing with the sponsors’ chess pieces, even if he didn’t much care for that uncertainty. He had no chemist of his own, and Elon was “provided” to competitors. He would need to do.
As Arthur drove into the city, he realized what he was moving into. It was like a convention, like a competition, like an old hunt of old, but without the tally ho and the horses. Very few people knew Arthur on sight, but almost everyone knew him by reputation, as he had been in this business since before the business had even existed. He wasn’t eager to volunteer his name, but he had to ask around to see who was sponsoring without revealing that he didn’t actually know, and that required some give and take. The rumor of his presence was going around before he was halfway through the tent city with his leather bag over one shoulder, and a goodly number of people already knew where Eames was. He followed the low chatter, cataloging faces that he knew and growing grimmer by the moment.
Arthur didn’t announce himself before he ducked into the tent, but he didn’t put down his bag, either. His eyes swept from one side to another and settled on Eames. He was a shiny white Buick in the middle of a sea of dune buggies, the blue of his shirt like Grecian water and his cargo pants without so much as a stitch. He was wearing tennis shoes too stylish for the name. “Are you crazy?” he said to Eames, talking over Elon’s head.
“Ah, hello, Arthur,” was Eames’ reply to the question. He tipped back in his chair, so that he could get a better look at Arthur in all his travel-worn glory. He still looked gloriously out of place, which Eames expected. He looked annoyed, which Eames appreciated. And he looked like he was all business, which Eames had been counting on. “This is Elon. I’m afraid his chemical is rather second rate.” As if Arthur would fix that situation for him somehow. This was Arthur; Arthur fixed things. Perhaps the statement made it all feel like a trap, but it wasn’t. Eames wasn’t actually counting on Arthur going under, but he would be invaluable in the lead-up, and he did like knowing he’d worried Arthur enough to make him fly to a tent city in the middle of nowhere. “Lovely in bed, Elon, but terrible at chemicals.”
Arthur glanced at Elon. The man joined many before him that Arthur had classified as Eames' conquests, easily acquired and as easily dismissed as unimportant not long after. He was exactly the type that Arthur feared he would become, the reason he had been so careful to avoid muscling Eames into bed for a night or two and no more. He hadn't heard of the man, but that didn't mean anything. His presence meant only that Eames was taking foolish chances with a second-rate chemist and a dangerous game. Elon was at least wise enough not to attempt to introduce himself with a friendly handshake, and the cold look on Arthur's face made it clear he would not be bridging the gap.
Arthur set the bag down and pushed open a folding chair not far from Eames', though not within reach. He didn't want to impose his presence, and besides, these tent walls were thinner than paper. Extractors did so love to gossip. He lounged backward with one heel in the dirt, folded his arms, and looked expectant, as if any moment someone would provide him with a layout of what was happening and how.
“We’re done here, Elon, thank you,” Eames said, his ease indicating that the horrible little tent was his, and not the chemist’s. And it was, truly, a horrible little tent. Four posts and dingy brown fabric rusting in the wind. The tarp overhead would do little good if rain came, but rain never came here, and Eames wasn’t terribly worried. He followed Elon to the tent’s flap, and he fastened the cheap tie that held the flap closed, the facade of privacy in a world where there was none.
“Did you bring us a better tent, Arthur?” Eames asked, because it would be just like Arthur to do that, though he honestly expected there to be very little but designer clothing and the PASIV in Arthur’s luggage. Oh, he knew Arthur was put out, but that was rather the goal, and Eames felt better for having seen the annoyance on Arthur’s features. Too, he enjoyed the fact that Arthur’s shoes would be perpetually dusty here, and that Arthur’s haircare regime would not hold up in the brutal desert. “You never did like the desert, did you, darling?” he asked, knowing that, no, Arthur did not. Eames was used to unforgiving heat and barely habitable places. Arthur liked his niceties, and Eames knew it better than most.
"No one likes the desert, Eames. It's hot, empty, and dry. The whole point of a desert is for normal humans to hate it." Arthur tracked Eames' movement away from the center of the tent, to the flap, and back. He ignored Elon's footsteps as they moved away, watching the dust swirl at ground level. It was no less hot inside the tent than it was outside. Arthur was definitely not enjoying himself. "What are you doing here?" And, slightly delayed: "What do you mean, did I bring us a tent?"
“I figured you were here to work, darling,” Eames said, walking back and sprawling out on the horrible aluminum excuse for a camping cot in the corner. He folded his hands behind his head, and he crossed his ankles, and he turned his head to regard Arthur. “As that’s what I’m here to do. The contract up for grabs is worth seven digits, Arthur. Everyone worth their salt is here. You honestly mean to tell me you don’t want to make a run for it?” Eames asked, and there was taunting in the question. Whatever anyone said about them, they were good at what they did. Their names had largely fallen into disuse, too many months out of the game, but that was easily remedied. But they needed to prove they could do it without Cobb, because Eames didn’t have much faith in Dom joining their happy family anytime soon.
Arthur pulled his shirt from his chest, where it was sticking uncomfortably, and then touched his forehead right at the hairline, unwilling to muss the pomade and yet searching for some gesture to relieve his feelings. “Spend your take from our last job already?” He was deliberately circumspect about mentioning Dom or Fischer among so many listening ears. “I’m not interested in seven digits. I was on vacation while dealing with Vegas.” Obscure, obscure. He narrowed his eyes at Eames, trying to figure out what was going on. Eames did like thrills, but the timing was suspicious.
“Then go. By all means,” Eames said, acting like he wouldn’t mind in the slightest bit if he was left there, in the middle of Australia, alone. “I thought you’d be interested in earning our reputation back as well. It has been awhile, darling. We’re being showed up,” he said, and he didn’t mind whoever heard. There was something to be said for appearing harmless, the old wolf in a pack. “I’ve had three offers so far for a team,” he added, because he knew there was no secret in that either. The percentage of the take kept climbing with each new offer. As soon as word got out that Arthur was here, that percentage would climb again. It was simply how it was. If Dom was here, they would be bribed not to compete. If bribing didn’t work, other methods would be employed. But Cobb wasn’t here, and they weren’t as valuable as they were together, nor as menacing.
Arthur was silent for a little while. He continued to pull at his shirt as if it was responsible for the heat, and he avoided looking at Eames for the intervening time. Without warning he spread his heels forward and let his head hang loose on his spine. “You need me to drive back in town to get a better tent and some supplies?” Eames was probably out here with a gallon of water and a bag of chips. “Tell me that you’ve got at least one person watching this tent when you’re sleeping?” Some people skipped bribing and went right to the disqualification.
“Do you think I sleep with one eye open in Mombasa, Arthur?” was Eames question, because Arthur had never much cared about his living conditions. Eames had spent three years in Lagos once, living in a shack on stilts in the water, and Arthur hadn’t worried about his sleeping conditions then. Benalla didn’t frighten Eames. It was places like Paris that felt unsafe to him, pristine and clean and with laws that prevented him from shooting anything that walked through his door. “If you’ve brought nothing, this tent will suffice.” He motioned to the corner, where there was clean water and a few boxes of Pop Tarts. Chips were harder to transport, took up more space.
Arthur closed his eyes without even looking into the corner. “That’s your idea of nutrition?” He wasn’t going to leave Eames here without someone to watch his back. “At least in Mombasa you’d know strangers were coming. Which, I assume, is why you’re there.” Arthur took in a very deep breath. “I’ve got some more things in the car. Try not to get killed in your sleep until I get back.” He stood up and tried to unstick his shirt from his between his shoulder blades, unsuccessfully for the most part, since he couldn’t reach it.
“You can pull at that shirt all you want, darling, it’s not going anywhere unless you take it off,” Eames offered helpfully. He didn’t correct Arthur’s assumption that he intended to subsist on Pop Tarts, because he figured it rather made Arthur feel better about running out here in the first place. “You’re going to walk back to the car?” he asked a moment later, casually, as if the concept didn’t concern him at all. “Are you sure that’s wise, Arthur?” But he knew Arthur would take the opportunity to scope out everything along the way. It was Arthur’s job, of course, and Eames was more than willing to let him do it. “I’m not that easy to kill, you realize?” A smug grin. Arthur was just being an overprotective tit. It was somewhat endearing.
“I realize,” Arthur said, dryly. Bending down to his bag, he took out a bottle of water and tipped it up for a swallow. He was annoyed at Eames for taking unnecessary risks, but they were fairly well calculated risks and Eames could probably manage, even if Arthur liked to think his presence pivotal. He dropped his hands from his shirt and gave Eames a long look. The sun made it through the cheap material around them without effort, making the interior muggy and bright, highlighting the line of Eames’ shoulder, his neck, and the squint to his eyes. He looked fine to Arthur. Unaffected. Relatively content. Arthur shook his head, unable to understand how he could read one person so wrong, when everyone else seemed an open book. He turned and pulled at the tie of the tent.
Eames watched him go, and he spent the intervening moments listening for trouble outside, and wondering what that exiting headshake had meant. In truth, Eames was too emotional to plan anything through properly. He only knew he was annoyed - without really putting much deep consideration into why - and that coming here would aggravated Arthur in a multitude of convenient ways - the dust, the heat, the tent, the gauntlet. In the same way he knew it would aggravate Evan to be gone from Las Vegas when Louis might be captured at any moment. He thought nothing of the longterm problems any of these things could cause. And, too, he was fairly certain he and Arthur were a better team than anyone in this place. Victory - be it in cards or dreams - always tasted sweet to Eames. He closed his eyes, and he dozed.
Arthur returned to the tent with two more of the designer leather bags (last year’s spring collection, but he just couldn’t let go of all those buckles) and a cooler on wheels. The cooler wasn’t cool, but there were some foodstuffs in there that had actual nutritional content. One of the bags held more personal necessities, and the other one had what limited weapons Arthur could acquire on such short notice in a foreign country. He didn’t plan on shooting anyone while he was here, nor cutting his way out of the tent, but he liked to be prepared in case anyone tried to take them out of the running early. The preparation involved implied that Arthur had planned to stay even before he had come, but he would have had such items even if he had not; Arthur simply liked to have his options open.
When Arthur returned, he was not surprised to see Eames with his eyes closed and he did not attempt to wake him. He rustled around the tent, suffering from the usual jet lag that kept him up even if he was tired, and he tried to avoid sneaking looks at the sleeping man out of the corner of his eye. Eventually he got things arranged the way he wanted them and sat down on his own cot, a horrendous saggy thing which would be like sleeping tied to a tree, no doubt. His shirt was already sweat through, so he gave up and peeled it off his back, draping it gently off to the side in the hope that it would dry and recover. After that he prodded at his journal with a pencil, making notations on his sketched layout of the surrounding field and campgrounds. He had a knot between his shoulders, and he didn’t know if it was this fucking mess with Eames or someone pointing a gun at his back.
Eames opened his eyes a few minutes into the scribbling, though it wasn’t certain he’d ever truly been asleep at all. “Arthur, all that scratching must be unnecessary,” he said rolling onto his side and making the entire aluminum frame of the cot groan and moan beneath his weight. He gave Arthur a long sweep of attentive eyes, lingering on that expanse of bare chest a few minutes longer than absolutely necessary. Then he glanced around the tent, lazy curiosity about what Arthur had procured getting the better of him for a few seconds, before settling his attention back on the man himself. “Why did you come, darling?” he finally asked, the smug annoyance gone from his voice in favor of honest curiosity. Arthur was all about logic, about compartmentalization, and that meant Eames had trouble understanding why Arthur did nearly everything Arthur did. Oh, he’d known Arthur would come, he just didn’t know how Arthur justified it to himself.
Arthur paused what he was doing, trapping his pencil under one thumb and holding it steady against the cover. He swung his feet down and set them flat on the packed dirt, leaning over his knees the way he always did when somewhat at his ease. He still had his shoes on, and it was possible he was going to refuse to take them off in case of scorpions or, worse, dirt. His eyes weren’t visible in the growing shade. “I knew you had just walked into this without doing any planning at all, and in my experience that’s when people get killed. I thought--” he emphasized the past tense here, keeping his voice quiet and trying to remove the emotion from it, “--that you had done it to spite me.”
Eames watched him a moment longer, and then he rolled onto his back and stared up at the dingy roof of the tent. “I was rather annoyed,” he admitted, using feeling words. “Spite might be going a bit far,” he conceded, and he looked over at Arthur without rolling back, hands folded over his chest and ankles folded off the edge of the ridiculous cot. “You see, Arthur, you made quite a bit of noise about being different than me, and I rather took it for granted that you were.” Which was rather telling, and it was likely a good thing that Eames didn’t concentrate on his statements for too long before speaking. “As for here, I wanted to work. It helps calm my nerves.” Here, he grinned, because normal people didn’t find the constant threat of death calming, but Eames did. No maelstrom of emotions on the job, and it gave him an odd sort of purpose, a grounding, so to speak.
Arthur hadn’t moved. His hands intertwined over the book, and the pencil made strange appearances inside of his wrists and over his knuckles as he moved it around in his grip without paying the slightest bit of attention to what he was doing. He tried to be cautious. “I didn’t realize you wanted--” He stopped, so cautious that he hadn’t gone all the way through with the sentence, and now “exclusive” sounded like a ridiculously childish word. Finally he rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling, stood in a movement that was more awkward than anything Arthur should have been capable of, and crossed the tiny space under the tent roof in one stride. A few spare inches from Eames’ shoulders, he dropped so that his knees were out in front of him and his right arm was propped against them, almost sitting on his heels. His face was still mostly in shadow, but he was close enough that it was possible to perceive the movement of his mouth as he spoke. “If you are still interested, and you don’t want me to be with anyone else, then I won’t.” He understood that this was handing Eames a dangerous amount of ammunition, but it was true, and he’d just gotten off the fucking plane into the desert, hadn’t he?
Eames hadn’t expected the approach, and he hadn’t expected the offer, and he hadn’t even realized he wanted it. But Arthur’s words made the reality of it come crashing, cold water and something from being rather young that he’d all but forgotten in subsequent years. Arthur was shadows, but Eames’ confused expression was skylit, the moon filtering through a rip in the tent fabric. He sat up, the movement alone forcing Arthur to move or be accosted by Eames’ knees in the darkening tent. “Darling, that isn’t how it works. You don’t agree not to be with other people. It’s a recipe for disaster.” And that was pure honesty, Eames style. Nothing made Eames want to cheat like promises of fidelity. “If it comes naturally, that’s one thing. But agreements? No, love,” he said, hands on thighs as he pushed himself to standing, the tent suddenly feeling exceptionally small. He crossed to the other side, and he stood near Arthur’s cot, broad back to the other man. He’d developed expectations, it seemed, without even realizing it.
When Eames rolled to standing Arthur automatically shifted back, rising onto his heels, rocking backward, and withdrawing into the edge of the tent as far as the low ceiling and tight space would allow. The bad light made his skin even more pale than usual, the indentations of his bones against his skin tight against worked muscle. He listened, and tried not to let the words make it far enough to stick, where he knew they would just bleed, and do him no good. He wasn’t sure what Eames was asking him to do, and after a few seconds he thought perhaps the abhorrence of agreements meant that he simply didn’t want to talk about it. Nothing happened, and because it had not “come naturally,” that meant it would not. He watched Eames’ silhouette for a little while, hoping for more clues, but found none. Defeated, he tried to sound neutral. “Alright.”
That alright, surprisingly, pushed every last button on Eames, and he crowded Arthur against the tent’s side, the fabric billowing outward. “What does that mean, darling?” he asked, dangerously close and dangerously dangerous.
Arthur had already shifted to one side, thinking to occupy himself with some chore, and he was not expecting Eames to want to continue this conversation. When he looked up Eames was already in arm’s reach (how did a man that big move that quiet?) and before he could react Eames was in effortless killing range. Arthur blinked, real surprise moving across his face at the question, and he tried to keep his balance without making the unstable tent collapse down on both of them. “I... I don’t know. What did you mean?” Forced to choose between falling and support, Arthur put an arm out and caught Eames by the back of the elbow to steady himself.
Eames didn’t shake Arthur off, didn’t work to dislodge the other man’s grip. “No, Arthur,” he said, enunciating carefully. “You agreed to something, darling. I want to know what you agreed to,” he said, one hand sliding along Arthur’s chest, down to his stomach, and then coming to rest at the other man’s hip, calloused fingertips pressing against warm skin, favoring it over the fabric of Arthur’s designer pants, the ones that would surely be ruined come morning. He pulled Arthur back with that grip, pulled him back just enough to get him back in the tent entirely. There was no privacy here, but it wouldn’t do to have Arthur fall out into the dust, even if it would be quite entertaining to watch.
Arthur blinked again and looked up into Eames’ face. A flash of helpless frustration took over his features, but it was fast as a match catching fire, and just as quickly snuffed. Why was it that he could never understand what this man was saying?! He let the larger man haul him forward, mostly because he was too churned up by the preliminary stroke of palm and fingers over his skin to protest. “You said you didn’t want to agree to anything,” Arthur said, blankly. He let out an angry sigh and braced one foot in the dirt behind him. His palms went against the solid mass of Eames in front of him and he shoved at him. “I don’t fucking get you, Eames.” He forgot to keep his voice down. “You can have anything you want, and you’re still doing this cat and mouse shit.” Another mostly useless shove.
Now, yelling Arthur, that was precisely the type of Arthur Eames was most accustomed to. For someone entirely logical, Arthur was painfully easy to get riled up, and Eames always felt more in control of things when Arthur was aggravated with him. He allowed the shoving without any attempt to stop Arthur, and he merely looked down at the smaller man, an immovable force in cheap fabric. “Since when can I have anything I want, Arthur?” he asked, impossibly calm, though his eyes hinted that it was just a facade - a good facade, but a facade all the same. “Tell me, are you interested in him?” he asked of Evan, finally reaching down and grabbing both of Arthur’s wrists in one big, rough hand, using the leverage to tug Arthur against him.
“Who, Evan?” Arthur’s eyes flashed. “You can’t possibly think I’m that stupid.” The show of temper was shortlived. Usually when Arthur became truly angry it was for serious reasons, and it took tremendous amounts of pressure to make him crack. His frustration with Eames was just so great that it spilled out at unexpected moments, and he couldn’t hold it the way he could everything else. He let Eames pull at him and abruptly went loose against the other man’s chest, sticky with the heat and the effort and tired of trying to understand an endless puzzle that would never turn out in his favor. He was supposed to be able to move circumstances so he could win, and Eames--Eames would not be moved. “Can’t you just tell me what you’re thinking and get it over with?”
“Then explain it to me, Arthur,” Eames said, as if this was a perfectly polite conversation, and not one where Arthur was stickily pressed against Eames immovable chest. All that temper, shortlived as it was, met no match in Eames, who remained entirely calm - too calm. His hold on Arthur’s wrists was tight and unforgiving, but there was a casualness to the hold, a laziness. “No,” was his simple response to Arthur’s question. He couldn’t tell Arthur what he was thinking, because he wasn’t certain, in truth. There was still that entire ‘feeling and not thinking’ thing going on. He was angry, certainly, but it was still a reactionary angry.
Arthur took in a deep breath. Eames’ calm was strange enough that he should have been wary, but he was too tired--in both mind and body, but more in the former than the latter. He took his weight off Eames in a conscious decision, and in one smooth movement that was first a drop and then a twist that was all leverage against Eames’ thumbs, rather than the rest of his hands, he freed his hands. Rather than using them for anything, whether shove or grab, he just dropped them and stood where he was. “I’m not sure.” He wasn’t expecting to have to explain himself. He’d never had to before. “I know him well enough, a friend, just from Cory. There was a lot of adrenaline. I didn’t think that you would be interested in what I did when I wasn’t with you.” It hadn’t even occurred to him. Arthur looked up, searching Eames’ face, asking him if he was wrong.
Eames just hummed thoughtfully, infuriatingly thoughtfully. “Tell me,” he said, after Arthur had freed his hands, “what would your reaction be if I walked out there and fucked Elon?” he asked. “I don’t want you to tell me you wouldn’t be surprised, Arthur. I want to tell me what you would feel.” Because Eames wasn’t in the mood for logic. This had absolutely nothing to do with bloody logic. He stepped away, and he undid the buttons of his own sticky shirt, letting it hang open a moment as he found his box of cigars and lit once, filling the tent with the distinctively sweet smell of Havanas as he lit the tip. A few puffs, and then he slipped the shirt off thick, tattooed arms and turned to look at Arthur again, the light in the tent barely nothing now, and the lantern in the corner not yet lit.
Arthur wasn't watching. He'd returned to his cot on the other side of the tent, searching out the pencil that he must have dropped somewhere on the ground at his feet. It was horrifically hot, and he couldn't imagine how the other man could smoke and add more heat to the inside of his body as well as out. Ducking his head down, Arthur worked his fingers through the back of his neck, trying to get the sweat there to dry and cool his scalp. His hair was starting to come to pieces out of its carefully structured slick. "The same thing I feel every time, Eames. It's just this time you notice me watching."
“No,” Eames insisted from across the tent. “I want you to say it, darling.”
"Why should I?" Petulant anger, boiling just under a thin skin. "You never tell me anything. Since when did you care?" Christ, Cory was rubbing off on him.
Eames was about to lose his patience, which was impressive. He very seldom actually threw a punch or shoved someone against a wall in his daily life, though the potential was always there. But he was coming very close to wanting to. “I’m trying to have a bloody conversation, Arthur. If you’re not interested, I’ll go elsewhere.” And it was a petulant and childish threat, but he’d been trying to get Arthur to understand, and Arthur was being bloody impossible about it.
Arthur wasn’t accustomed to Eames putting any effort into understanding his feelings, assuming that Eames preferred the sulfur snap of his own match-like personality. He was not just angry, he was afraid that honesty would make Eames withdraw even more, perhaps permanently. “This isn’t a conversation. Conversations are give and take, Eames. You’re just making a bunch of demands.” His shoulders were starting to bunch up under his neck, defensive.
“I’m asking you a simple, bloody question, Arthur. Answer it, or I’m walking out of this tent,” Eames said, as much calm as he could manage in the statement and a step toward the tent flap in preparation of that precise departure, even if it was his bloody tent.
“Disappointed!” Arthur said, again forgetting to keep his voice down and clenching his fingers around the book so tight that they went white. “I’m disappointed that you find someone else so easily, someone that doesn’t really give a fuck about you. But you like them that way.” His nostrils flared as he lifted his chin up and gave Eames an angry glare.
Eames wasn’t really expecting a response, not at that point, and stared in surprise for a few moments before retracing the step he’d taken toward the tent flap. “I was going to use whatever you felt as an example of how I felt about your involvement with Evan,” he said honestly, looking at a loss (which looked very strange on Eames indeed). “But it’s not disappointment that I feel,” he amended, meeting that angry glare with ease. He took a very long puff off the cigar that was almost forgotten between his fingers, and he moved away and sat heavily on his cot. “You see, darling, I rather believed all those things you said you felt. Me having meaningless sex, it’s rather normal, isn’t it? But you’re hardly the casual sex type, Arthur.”
Arthur made himself put the little black book down. He turned his hips blindly on the cot and dropped it atop his open bag. He tried to aim, tried to divert his thoughts so he wouldn’t let his anger get out of control, but the book slid to one side and out of sight, and he thought of it no more. Twisting back, he deliberately avoided attempting to make out Eames in the darkness and stretched out on his back in his own. It did sag. He was going to have back problems the rest of his life. “So you don’t like me being with other people because you think I’m not in love with them, so I shouldn’t?” He did his best to make the words ice and hide any real meaning in them.
“No, Arthur,” Eames said, his annoyance coming through with perfect clarity in the dark. “I’m saying you’re a bloody idiot, and I’m going to find something to drink.” He stood, the aluminum creaking in relief, and he was certain Arthur was toying with him. The man was too bloody smart to intentionally misunderstand without meaning to, and Eames was certain he was being made a laughingstock. At that moment, he didn’t know what he’d hoped to accomplish by luring Arthur here, to the desert, and he threw the cigar on the dust-packed floor and stomped it out before reaching for a white wifebeater that was crumpled at the foot of his cot. He slid the thin fabric over his head in the gloaming, and he started for the tent flap.
The voice that came out the dark was surprisingly small. “I thought you wanted to have a conversation?”
Eames stopped halfway out of the tent. “I’ve been bloody trying.” He sounded frustrated, tired and, strangely, hurt.
“I am too. So stick around, for once.” Arthur sat up to demonstrate his willingness to do the same. “It’s too soon for you to leave. I thought I would get longer.” And then, without pause for breath, “What I did with Evan, it makes you want to stop... this... thing we have?”
“You don’t have bloody casual sex, Arthur,” Eames said, enunciating clearly, as if that would help clarify what he was trying to say, what he had been trying to say since he spoke to Arthur on the journals.
Arthur rubbed his face. “What’s your definition of ‘casual sex’?” And, heading off anger, “I mean it, really. What is it?”
“The kind of sex I have, Arthur,” Eames replied, stepping back into the darkness and pointing to himself as he spoke. “The kind of bloody sex you’re paranoid I’m going to have every time you turn your back. You don’t do that, darling, which means Evan was not entirely casual.” And that’s what bothered him. It was plain in Eames’ tone, in the way he said the words. If he believed Arthur had tons of casual sex, then Evan would mean nothing. But Arthur didn’t, not that Eames knew of, not outside of dreaming anyway. That made all the difference in the world.
Arthur made a sound of slow understanding. It rattled a little in his chest, soft, but not uncertain. “I think I get it. I mean casual differently. It means they are a friend I feel comfortable with. I don’t get more casual than that. Evan is an ass, but I still think of him that way. That’s always how it’s been. It’s not... emotional. I don’t know. It’s not you. I... I settle for what it is.” This was a lot of words to put together for Arthur. He still thought the man was going to run for the hills any time now.
That made a bit more sense to Eames, but it still didn’t align with his own approach to relationships. Perhaps he would be better called a serial monogamist, though it wasn’t anything as defined as that. It was emotional with Eames, remember, and when he wanted someone - be it for five minutes or five days - he wanted to bury himself in that person, not in anyone else. It had nothing to do with not cheating and everything to do with his own desires, selfishly. Once he tired, he tired, and that was that. He was rather picky, he supposed, but that was what it was. Arthur, it seemed, was different. “If I start sleeping with someone else, then it means I’ve grown bored, darling,” he explained bluntly, expecting Arthur to make the connection without him needing to swallow his pride any more than he already had.
For a few seconds there was only the soft sound of Arthur’s breathing as he thought about this. His impression was that Eames just went with the moment. He didn’t know that the other man ever emotionally invested in anyone, and he didn’t know that his fickle transition from lover to lover was not as haphazard as it seemed. Arthur struggled to apply this foreign concept to his own perceptions. “So you thought I was bored,” Arthur said, plainly, somewhat amazed that Eames’ pride would allow such a thing. For once, he wasn’t smug, too surprised that the tables could so easily be switched. “How long does it take you to get bored?” he asked, before he could help himself.
“Not bored, precisely, but something like that,” Eames admitted with an impatient wave of his hand. Suddenly, he felt very foolish, standing there and having that discussion. He wanted to be anywhere else, and it was as if he didn’t fit in the flimsy tent in the middle of the desert all of a sudden. “I don’t know, Arthur,” he replied, his testiness coming out in the question about how long it took him to become bored. “I’ve no idea. It depends on the person, and it hardly matters, does it? You’ve already had sex with someone else. We’ve already crossed that line. It’s hardly important.” He gave up on leaving the tent, and he just shoved his trousers off and kicked his shoes off. “We should sleep. Tomorrow will be rather a long day.”
“I didn’t know it was a line,” Arthur protested, stunned. There was a rattle of the cheap cot and a rustle of material as he hastily got to his feet, unwilling to let the conversation slide away. “Wait. I thought you--but one time with Evan on a battlefield and that’s it? You’re done?” He was blindsided by the unfairness of it all, forgetting entirely all his logical suppositions on the way to Australia. He had just perceived that this had lost him Eames, and he never, never expected that he would be responsible for the inevitable loss. He was devastated, knocked breathless with it.
Eames ignored the questions entirely in favor of stretching back on the cot. He was being petulant, and he was well aware that he was being petulant, but he felt bloody petulant. “It isn’t a line, Arthur. It’s something that can’t be described by your rules or your bloody logic. It’s something you feel, which I realize is a bit of challenge,” he said unkindly. “Go to sleep. I’d rather not die during the first round tomorrow, if it’s at all possible.”
Arthur just stood upright in the middle of the tent. He waited there, trying to work through what this all meant. “So that’s what you feel?” That was the whole point of this conversation, obviously. Arthur had been operating with the wrong rules. He hadn’t understood that Eames, the happy conquerer of countless partners, would object that Arthur had one that wasn’t him. Eames was right, logic did not apply. Eames was not logical. Arthur should have predicted that.
It was abruptly too overwhelming. Arthur was rendered immobile trying to wrap his head around the idea that he had made a mistake, a permanent one that could not be mended. He was practical; what was done is done. He couldn’t take it back.
Arthur didn’t even think to find his shirt, or his bag, or anything in it. The journal was in his back pocket, but the pencil snapped under his feet as he walked to the tent and blindly pushed through it. He was out as quickly as he could manage the tie.