Re: Eames/Rey/Atticus/Manning: the B&B
Eames didn't have ocean breezes or woods, he didn't have time to get the rime of parenthood off his back teeth where it clung as unfamiliar as the smell of wet blood and was familiar. He was there, a little bored and deliberately not wondering about Atticus's face and then -
"Eames." He's spinning it. The little weighted, metal top. Spinning it, testing it. If he spins it fast, if he times it right, it could spin for Britain. If he tweaks it gently, it'll fall over in a second. But in a dream, he won't tweak it. He needs to remember the feel of it. The weight of it. For the heart-stopping second he realizes it will spin and spin without falling and it isn't in fact, this little metal top.
"Eames." He sounds annoyed. "Yes, love," Eames says. Mockingly. He's always sounded mocking, but he's early thirties and his grin is huge and inviting everyone along on the mockery, isn't this fun, and he stuffs his hand into his pocket with the metal top and sallies forward in a stride that's about as forceful an announcement of himself into the knot of people, as it could.
It's a collection. They're always a collection. He's a walking mercenary when it comes to this kind of stuff and he has itchy feet, so he's not really a loyal bastard for a job. And then the moving about a bit helps with the er, unfortunate set of circumstances he runs into, now and again. Macau is a bit too hot for the time being.
"Three levels," he sounds bossy, and Eames is always faintly curious (lazily curious: he rarely stirs himself to know the answer, because don't shit where you eat, darling) as to whether the bossy would carry all the way over into bed. "Remember. The third is where we'll find it. Are you paying attention, Eames."
He grins. It's as lazy as the saunter over. He salutes. Mockingly. Obviously. It's army-issue snapped down from the temple, with his expression trying to purse itself around serious and desperately failing. "I'm the blond," he says, "First level, second level I'm his mother, third," he leans forward, both hands in his pockets, a stage whisper: "It's very Oedipal, isn't it? Lover, mother, back to lover again?"
"Shut up, Eames." Terse. But he's already sitting down, and undoing his sleeve to push it up his arm. He flashes a smile, the deeply irritating kind, and he extends the crook of his elbow jauntily to the chemist, and he inhales, one long, measured breath.
And he's at a bar. It's a nice bar, Eames thinks. She's got the detail down exactly. He's been drinking here before. The bartender is a nice touch, and he's sat with his heels hooked onto a stool and facing the opposite wall and he can feel the approach as clearly as a cloud of perfume. There is a mirror, one scarred and misted over, on the opposite wall and he can see a slice of his own face.
"I'm sorry I'm late," the mark says. He's wearing a blue suit. Orange tie. He has the open, pleasant, wondering face of a man who has seen part of the past dredge itself up to the surface. Confused, but delighted.
"Hello," Eames says. Husk, and honey, and he rotates round on the bar stool, tips his cheek into a palm soft as butter, and he smiles, slow and full and painted dark rose. "You could buy me a drink," she suggests. In the purse, clasped on her lap, there is a little top. If he spun it on the bar now, it would spin and spin and spin forever. But they're only level one. And there's time to go.