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.this little piggy went to market...
The business of illegal extraction is not currently well-known. Lucrative, yes, but it would hardly continue to be so if those involved let the secret out to just anyone.
Finding trustworthy newbies is one of the most time-consuming and expensive processes: one must first be subtly tested in a variety of situations in order to gauge competence and initial drive and teamwork. Explaining the process of dream-sharing and consequently extraction only comes after a group has thoroughly deliberated and decided upon the newcomer.
Real names are a thing of the past. Sometimes a potential recruit catches on or turns out to have morals or less than satisfactory willpower and succumbs to the temptations (namely, retention of one’s life) of those that would shut extraction down for good. In those situations, everyone involved needs a new passport, a new name, a new identity.
Arthur has burned down more than a few warehouses, personally, to dispose of evidence.
Betrayal hurts in more ways than the emotional blow to the head. There are corporations out there that are not above hunting down and torturing potential contacts for information about extractors and their team members -- Arthur has seen men beg to die, and Arthur has seen men brutally butchered even after giving up information.
The setbacks that circumstances like that cause are monumental, but there’s nothing to do but continue with the routine, obtain new documentation and a new base of operations... Find a replacement and move on.
Once a person has passed the tests and has been acquainted with the technology and has worked with the other players for a while, he or she may begin training.
Some people take a while to get the hang of dream-sharing -- they could, and do, spend hours of real time tangled up in dreams, learning to fight off projections or how to make a room with two doors open into itself or how to remain calm in the case of a mishap. How to kill themselves in the quickest and most efficient way. Some people take to it like they were born for it.
Eames was born for this, Arthur is sure of that.
##
Arthur has always been a little awed by, a little frustrated by, maybe secretly a little envious of Eames’s apparent ability to remain cool-headed in the most dangerous of situations.
Arthur doesn’t know anyone else who would have the balls to crack a tasteless joke in the middle of a real car chase, or make a horrible pun about nipples while trapped in a snowed-in cave in the middle of a job.
To Arthur, Eames is a necessary annoyance and a constant state of several types of frustration.
Eames will waltz into a job like it’s the most casual thing in the world to be an international criminal, all clumsy hands and slouching attitude.
When he opens that distracting mouth of his, half the time Arthur wants to punch it for all the calculated snark that comes out, and the other half of the time Arthur wants to kiss it raw for the stunningly simple and brilliant ideas that always seem to show themselves at the last possible moment.
Arthur doesn’t trust Eames. He doesn’t trust anyone, not in this business. Hell, he barely trusts Cobb lately -- Cobb will sometimes get a haunted look in his eyes like he’s seriously considering doing something irrational, and Arthur has to remind himself they’re friends, or once were, and that he’s made promises that he feels compelled to keep, perhaps more for Cobb’s children’s sake more than for Cobb’s.
Eames, though. Eames just has this feeling he exudes, to Arthur, like he’s a loose cannon. Like he could up and leave them at the first scent of a better opportunity. Yet despite this sneaking suspicion, again and again Arthur finds himself in the company of the man, fleeing a hail of bullets or sparring with words in the middle of a warehouse or staring, inspired, at the easy way Eames shifts into another person’s identity in a dream.
Arthur finds himself seduced by and drawn to Eames’s effortless interactions and hidden intellect. He wants to hate him, he really does, but there’s some kind of pull there that he tries to deny.
Arthur has never been very good at lying to himself.
##
.this little piggy stayed home...
Arthur gets his chance to hate Eames after all, one night on a job in Peru.
It’s just the three of them on the job -- Arthur, Cobb, and Eames. Arthur is running point and creating the dreamscape due to Cobb wanting to have a limited space for the subject; they don’t need much room down in the dream, but they need a lot of traps and optical illusions, Arthur’s specialty.
Perhaps it’s the stress of doing two jobs at once, or perhaps Eames really is as distracting as he likes to think he is. Either way, fifteen minutes after they go under, Cobb gets shot in the leg by a projection. The subject’s mind isn’t heavily militarized but it clearly has some training -- probably enough that someone was expecting an attempted extraction, which means their prone bodies up above may be exposed. They hired a local farmer to keep watch but there’s no way to know what’s going on in reality.
Arthur drags Cobb to a shadowed alcove and leaves him with a pistol as he races through the streets he built, muscles burning and ears ringing with the reverberations of gunfire. He needs to finish the job as quickly as possible, then they need to get the hell out of Peru.
He crashes into Eames as he rounds a corner and he clutches at soft female arms to keep them both standing. Eames is still in his forgery’s body, looking perfect as always, but there’s a fire in his now-golden brown eyes and he jerks away from Arthur’s grip.
“I’m getting out of here,” he says, voice low, and glances over Arthur’s shoulder at the dark city around them. “Too dangerous... didn’t know we’d be facing thugs down here.”
Arthur’s eyebrows draw together and he grabs Eames’s arm again.
“What the hell are you talking about? We have to finish the job. We don’t even know where the subject is yet.”
Eames removes Arthur’s hand with a death grip around his fingers, which only makes Arthur’s neck flare red with anger.
“You lot can do whatever you please, but I’ve no desire for getting my arms torn off, thank you very much,” he says, and shoves past Arthur. He reaches into his purse for a handgun but Arthur shoots him in the back of the head before he has a chance to use it.
Arthur barely manages to get back to Cobb in time -- there are four projections converging on him with what look like rusty machetes.
“Arthur, what--” Cobb starts, but Arthur silences him with a bullet, then swallows one of his own just as a blade slices through his shoulder.
When they wake up, Eames is already gone. They pack up the PASIV, Arthur staring down any of Cobb’s attempts to get an explanation, and when they manage to climb out a back window, the farmer they hired is dead, strung up on a clothesline in his yard, stained t-shirt crumpled across his face.
Later, when they’re crouched low in the back of a pick-up, hitching a ride to Pisco Airport, Arthur sees Cobb gingerly rub his leg, and he feels phantom pain in his own shoulder. Cobb doesn’t ask about what happened but Arthur wants to tell him.
“That fuckhead ditched...” he says quietly, leaning in to be heard over the roar of the gravel kicked up by the truck. “I didn’t... I mean, it didn’t show... the militarization. It wasn’t even that bad, just...”
Cobb sighs heavily and Arthur shuts up for the rest of the ride, opting instead to stick a hand in his jacket and massage his shoulder.
Sometimes Arthur really hates this job.
##
Eames answers the door after five minutes. Arthur has his thumb over the peephole, and as soon as the door opens, he sucker-punches Eames in the stomach and he doubles over, water from his hair dripping on the hotel carpet and towel dropping off to pool around his ankles.
Arthur steps over him and paces by the window after stealing Eames’s firearm from the bedside drawer.
“I guess I deserved that... Glad it wasn’t lower,” Eames says after a while, re-donning his towel and rubbing his stomach warily.
“You guess? Are you actually blind?”
“Arthur, look--”
“Shut the fuck up, Eames,” Arthur says, tone venomous, and levels Eames’s own gun at him. Eames raises his hands defensively and backs up until he’s against the door.
“Whoa, listen, if I hadn’t--”
“I said shut. The fuck. Up. Eames,” Arthur hisses, and they stand there for minutes, maybe hours, until Eames lowers his hands and Arthur’s breathing returns to normal. Arthur lets out a breath and lets his arm drop to his side. The safety on his gun is still turned on. Eames makes a hesitant noise but Arthur stares at the floor, studying the cigarette burns in the carpet.
“Someone...” Eames starts, testing. Arthur doesn’t move. “Someone had to do something drastic or we’d all be pig food. Those thugs... You never make mistakes, Arthur, I knew something was wrong.”
Arthur’s brows draw together again and he feels his teeth grinding. There’s no way Eames bailed on them to warn them, Arthur doesn’t believe that for a second. All Eames cares about is self-preservation, and he’s made that clear. Arthur thinks then, that he will probably never see Eames again.
He tosses Eames’s Beretta on the bed as he moves to leave, and he can feel Eames’s gaze hot on him, trying to read him, simmering deep into his skin, but he doesn’t meet those eyes as he brushes past.
“You’re wrong. I do make mistakes,” he says, and leaves Eames staring after him.
##
.this little piggy had roast beef...
Finding and maintaining a romantic relationship when in the line of work Arthur’s in is next to impossible. He can’t explain what he does to anyone outside (and sometimes even inside) the business, so he must sustain a double life at all times -- it gets tiring after a while.
He’s gone through at least a dozen passports in the last five years and no attempt at romance has lasted longer than a month, tops.
He likes to think he’s like a CIA agent, identity kept under wraps, action hero by day and family man by night...
Except he spends most of his days pushing paper or asleep, and he doesn’t have a family to come back to.
He’s taken to trolling quiet bars, picking out a stranger from the crowd and taking him back to a hotel room (he never takes people back to his apartment... He’d call it excessive caution but he’s heard of extractors who couldn’t deliver being hunted down by undercover operatives and besides, one can never be too careful these days).
It’s nice while it lasts -- Arthur has tasted enough to know which flavours he prefers, and he has a good time with his beautiful strangers. He is a selfish lover with them, probably unintentionally; he gets what he wants then leaves.
Sometimes he’ll wait around for a few hours, smoking and making up stories about a life he thinks they want to hear about -- about how he’s a stock broker or an editor or a teacher.
Sometimes he’ll actually find someone interesting and they’ll talk about art and films and they’ll fall back into bed a second time and go slowly this time, making the heat and haze last.
Every time, he leaves before the morning, and every time, the void he feels in his chest remains.
##
The first time Arthur has actual dinner (at a fancy restaurant and everything) with Eames, it’s to discuss a job they’re both involved with. Eames cuts his steak while Arthur reads schedules from his Moleskine quietly, Eames nodding every so often as he takes in the information. It’s all business then, in a convenient innocent setting -- just two sharply dressed men discussing work.
Eames doesn’t even take notes on what Arthur is saying -- just lets him prattle on and on, nodding wordlessly at appropriate moments and drinking his wine. He sticks Arthur with the bill and Arthur scowls into his salad and tries to think about how skilled Eames is, to try and quell his frustration. They need him, even if he’s an asshole sometimes.
The third time they have dinner together, it’s because they’re staying in the same hotel, not on a job, just coincidence, or that’s what Arthur tells himself. He spots Eames in the hotel bar as he walks in, and though he tries to ignore him, Eames is beside him within minutes, cancelling Arthur’s drink order without his consent and offering to show him a better place down the street.
He’ll be gone the next day, flight booked for 10:35am, so he agrees, privately grateful for the company, even if it’s Eames’s. They go to a tiny bistro, deep hanging lights dimmed and walls adorned with framed paintings. The atmosphere makes Arthur’s cheeks feel warm and as he slides into a booth across from Eames and they slip into casual conversation, Arthur wonders if Eames knew he likes places like this or if it was a lucky guess.
The seventh time, they’re not in the same city, not even on the same continent. Arthur calls Eames long-distance from his apartment in Maine and it’s five hours ahead for Eames but they both make dinner and eat together on the phone, laughing and talking about football and dogs and hotel room service.
When they next work together, Arthur maybe notices Eames passing by his desk more than necessary, and maybe Eames’s knees brush against Arthur’s under the board table too often to be an accident, but maybe Arthur doesn’t call him on it and maybe he even smiles a little to himself.
Arthur sits alone in his apartment and he goes grocery shopping by himself and he drives to the warehouse, shoulder bag sat in the passenger seat, and he thinks about Eames. He thinks that maybe this is what he’s been searching for.
All these years spent chasing Cobb around the globe, desperate to make amends for something he has no reason to feel guilty about; the pick-ups and the hollow feeling he has when he wakes up the next morning alone; his rapidly aging body and even more rapidly aging mind. Sometimes he feels like he’s still a teenager, getting used to heartbreak.
But Eames. Eames fills him with a deep, dark hunger -- an all-consuming instinct that tops up those holes and leaves him wanting more. Eames makes him feel like that same teenager, just barely discovering the complexities of desire and wanting to be around a person always, to devour them wholly.
Eames makes him think of Cobb and Mal and the deeply intimate looks they would give each other when they thought no one was watching. Eames makes him think of how much he wanted to be a part of that, just to be able to experience that trust and need and passion.
Eames makes him feel in love.
He’s not sure what to do with that now that he’s discovered it.
##
.this little piggy had none...
When Arthur was introduced to dream-sharing, he’d been working with Mallorie Depaul for six months, holing up in an empty classroom after hours at the university they both attended in Paris -- he as an undergrad majoring in Art History and she as a grad student majoring in Architecture and Design. Her father was involved in the preliminary research phases of the PASIV device and dream-sharing technology and had procured a device to run tests in Europe. Mal had been helping him for a while, acting as an unofficial anesthesiologist.
The first time Arthur saw the sleek silver briefcase, his eyes glazed over and his mind filled with all sorts of things he’d never imagined before. What promise, what intrigue did this unassuming little case hold for him?
Mal and Arthur met in a Contemporary Architecture elective. She sat beside him one day and they shared a text because she’d forgotten hers at home. It was the mutual adoration of paradoxes that brought them together, and it was their understanding of impossible things that kept them wedged apart.
Going under was exhilarating at first -- Arthur had always dreamt, but he’d never been able to change things so freely, had never felt the rush of being chased by a crowd of three hundred while fully aware, or the ability to create entire worlds with the most minute details. He created individual lives within apartments, and shops lining cobbled streets, all as real as Paris.
Then Dominick Cobb stepped into the picture, and the dream world Arthur had built for himself with Mal at the center crumbled into the sea.
It wasn’t that Arthur was jealous of Cobb himself for having Mal -- he was jealous of what they had together, something he and Mal never could have shared. Mal ruffled his hair and hugged him like a little brother, and Arthur knew that was all he’d ever be.
School ended, Arthur moved back to Wisconsin, joined the army to make his father proud. He didn’t dream unaided very often, back then, but when he did, it was of an innocuous metal briefcase.
##
The first time Arthur meets Eames, he’s trying to steal Arthur’s wallet in a crowded bar in Madrid. Arthur lets him, then follows him into the washroom, punches him in the face, and takes it back along with Eames’s own thin leather wallet.
Mal is already gone, Cobb is festering in a covert basement apartment in Hanover, and Arthur’s barely hanging on. Cobb needs to get back to the States, to his children, that much has been made clear, but they’re only just scraping by with the occasional work they can find; good lawyers are expensive and they need a damn near flawless one to erase the evidence against Cobb that Mal left behind.
Arthur wants to understand. He’s spent nights sagged against the couch in his apartment, alone with a bottle of scotch, trying to make himself feel what she must have felt. Sometimes, in a fit of rage, he’s tempted to go under like they did, somehow find a way down to Limbo and force the idea into his brain, the sensation of being so lost in a place that he knows isn’t real... But he never does, and on those nights he ends up passed out on the floor, drooling on the hardwood, or on the phone with Cobb, talking about old times and trying to remind each other that all this -- living as outlaws -- is worth it.
Arthur finds the following in Eames’s stolen wallet: eight credit cards belonging to seven different people, a pocket-sized photo of a smiling black Labrador, thirty-five Euros in bills, and a hotel room key.
When he shows up on the third floor at the Hostel Cruz Sol, Eames is slumped against his door, make-shift ice pack pressed against one side of his mouth. Somehow, he doesn’t look surprised when Arthur toes him out of the way and opens the door with the card.
“I knew you’d not be able to resist,” Eames says, and he has a luscious accent that makes Arthur look at him longer than he should. Then Eames is on his feet and herding Arthur inside, and Arthur forgets all about the threats he came here to make.
They fuck slowly, Arthur riding Eames into the cheap mattress and Eames nipping at Arthur’s neck and collarbones, sweat beading along his hairline and busted lip swelling and purple.
After, Arthur smokes in a chair by the balcony, pale skin stark in the hazy moonlight as Eames lounges with the sheets tangled around his hips. Arthur leaves him breathing deeply an hour later, feeling no less empty than he had felt this morning.
##
Half a year later, when Arthur and Cobb have rapidly shot to the big-time (as big-time as one can be in a covert freelance criminal community) and are taking on more difficult and involved jobs, Cobb brings up the idea of finding a forger. There aren’t many around, but Cobb’s of the mindset now that more complicated equals easier extraction, and from what little Arthur knows of forgers, it seems that having one around would make the whole process easier to bear, so he agrees to do some research.
He recognizes Eames’s name vaguely, but can’t remember where from until they go to meet him in Ipswich. Arthur’s face flashes hot then his skin grows cold when Eames greets them both with a languid handshake, gaze lingering on Arthur’s eyes (and mouth and neck) for far too long and intrusive lips curled into a knowing half-smile.
They interview each other in hushed tones in a dark corner of a bar, Cobb doing most of the talking and Arthur scribbling occasionally in his Moleskine. He can barely concentrate -- Eames’s eyes are on him nearly the entire time -- and Arthur fumes silently, frustration building at both Eames for not being a one-night stand and at himself for letting it get to him like this.
Later, once Cobb has given Eames information about where to meet them for the job, he asks Arthur what’s going on between them, and Arthur knows that despite Cobb’s single-mindedness lately, he still has excellent observation skills.
“We’ve met before,” Arthur manages, “not job-related. It’s not important.”
Cobb leaves it at that but Arthur can feel his heavy gaze on his back as they ride the train back to London.
##
.this little piggy went “wee wee wee” all the way home...
The public fountains in Italy are beautiful this time of year. When the sun’s just starting to go down, Arthur likes to sit and watch from across the square as light reflects and turns yellow and pink and makes tiny rainbows on the stone below.
Arthur has an apartment in Pisa, overlooking the bay. Aesthetically, though small, it is his favourite apartment. There’s a narrow hallway that extends from the front door to a floor-to-ceiling window and sometimes when he’s in town, Arthur will stretch out on the hardwood, soaking up sunshine like a cat as it streams through the sheer curtains.
There’s another flat in Liverpool, leased to Mr. Timothy Morris. Arthur doesn’t spend a lot of time there, but when he does, he plays MASH in the hallway with the eight year-old girl next door, and tells her fairy tales and lets her draw on his hands with washable marker.
“Mr. Morris? Why do you always dress up?” she asks.
“Because I have to look presentable for work,” he answers.
“Mr. Morris? Why aren’t you married?” she asks.
“And break your heart?” he answers, and she beams, dimples deep and high on her cheeks.
Arthur skips from town to town, job to job, as the months drag on.
Every so often, he’ll find himself in a warm bed, dim morning light streaking across the tangled sheets, heavy arms curled possessively around him and Eames’s solid form at his back, keeping him anchored, and he’ll think it’s funny that he has so many houses all around the world, but no matter what, it’s always this that he comes back to.
This is home.