neededforger | (no subject)

(no subject)

Eames could have gone back to Mombasa, he knew he could have, and he could have gone right back to what he'd been doing when Cobb came to find him. But he'd decided not to, after all, it had been a while since he'd been stateside, and he didn't have anyone breathing down his neck (yet) and it had also been a while since he'd gone to visit his mum, so he figured he'd stick around for a while, do some sightseeing.

The first thing to do, after debarking, and being careful not to pay attention to any of his compatriots, at least not actively, and never with more than the faint, gentle recognition of people who'd just spent more time in a plane together than most people spent together at work in a day. He paged through his phone, checking his funds, not at all surprised to find that Saito was a man of his word, and they'd already been paid.

The next thing he did, while waiting for his checked baggage to come around on the carousel, was to check mid-range hotels in the area, looking for one that had a week's vacancy at such short notice, since that was the minimum he was going to need to wait for the world to settle again and start looking for another job. Booking didn't take long either, which he was pleasantly surprised by.

That evening he found himself in the restaurant down the block from the hotel, enjoying a celebratory steak dinner, and collecting details. The way that woman folded her hands, the way that man held his knife and fork, the way the bartender smiled at one of the waitresses. Each of these, and others, were stored away for later perusal, practice, and eventual use. He didn't always have to forge someone in particular, sometimes he just had to be a person other than who he was, background, security and observation and those little details could make or break a character.

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He nodded once, giving Arthur a nudge towards his room, "Get changed then, dry off, I'll have some called up by the time you're finished."

And he would, in fact, likely he'd also check the listings to see if there were any movies that were actually worth watching. He'd always been a fan of the real classics, Bogart and Stewart and their ilk.

He didn't do a dance of joy once he was alone in his own room, but it was a narrow miss, really. He was still grinning, and it was enough to prompt the concierge to ask: "Having a good evening?" when he called down for room service, he replied that he was, in fact, and thanked her for asking.

When Arthur closed his door, he couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe this was happening. Hadn't he left this room, just hours ago, wanting nothing to do with the man? But... he had kept that sketch. After turning on some lights, he reached down into his pants pocket and gingerly pulled it out. It was a little wet and bent up but still in relatively good condition.

He set it on the nightstand by his bed and started to undress. He wasn't sure where this was going to go exactly but... if Eames really wanted to try again and it genuinely made him as happy as it seemed to then Arthur was willing to try, too. Because, when faced with the opposite possibility, he had not wanted that. At all. Not as much as he had once thought. So, if he wanted to avoid that, then he'd have to take a chance and really learn to trust Eames.

He ended up taking a quick shower and drying off, redressing in his other casual clothes and after taking a minute to check his die again, he took a deep breath and left his room. The walk down the hall to Eames room, while only two doors down from his, seemed far too long and he hesitated in knocking on the door. He had to shake himself before finally getting up enough nerve to knock on the door. Now if only he could get his heart rate down.

Eames had taken the time to tidy a little, not that he'd left much laying around, he never did, mostly for ease of making a quick getaway if he had to.

He'd finally given up finding a worthwhile movie as a lost cause when he heard the knock, not sure whether it would be Arthur or the desserts he answered looking mild and polite, but the smile broke through again when he found Arthur there.

He hadn't realized until that moment that he'd been half-afraid that Arthur would just stay in his room and that would have been the end of it. He stepped aside, "Make yourself at home, haven't found anything worth watching, crème brulèe should be here soon enough. Kitchen was still recovering from the power outage as well."

Arthur was relieved to see the smile but still felt awkwardly shy entering Eames' room. A part of him still couldn't believe this was happening, but by the die in his pants pocket, he knew it was. Maybe the longer he was around Eames, it would sink in more - and feel less he didn't belong here.

He silently sat down on the couch not really knowing what else to do. It was horribly embarrassing but he just couldn't shake it off. Even though they were restarting their relationship it just felt so... new. Like they had never done this before.

He just sprawled himself on the other side of the couch, looking perfectly at home there, just as he had in the stalled elevator, and the cafe, and basically anywhere he was. It was a gift.

If he were the sort to have awkward moments instead of the sort to cause them, this would have been one of them, instead he just smiled, not quite as brightly as before, but it was genuine all the same, "Since there's nothing on we might as well talk." Though he was at something of a loss for subjects.

Arthur rolled his eyes slightly at the obvious differences between them. He could almost swear they were like the freakin' "odd couple" sometimes. It was almost disgustingly cliche. But then it seemed to fit them.

Arthur allowed himself to lean back into the couch, still feeling a bit out of place here but, when in doubt, being a smart-ass always seemed to work for him. "Cobb told me you were losing more than you were winning in Mombasa. That hasn't seemed to change much..."

He laughed softly, shaking his head, "Which was rather the point, can't get counterfits into play if you don't lose them." It was a hobby of his, really, counterfitting chips just to see how far they could spread. It was something he'd done even before he'd gotten into dream-forging. He shook his head then, "Didn't get a chance to watch that set, more's the pity." A one-shouldered shrug then, "Ah well, just have to try again sometime."

It was strange to him how comfortable things were at the moment, and mostly it was strange because it wasn't. It was almost like nothing had changed, even though he knew full well that everything had.

Arthur nodded, knowing that Eames had a tendency to try all sorts of things when bored (some of which had led him to getting swatted at like a bad dog by Arthur when they were together - the other man just didn't know when to stop back then and then had the gaul to look like a kicked puppy when Arthur had given him fair warning multiple times; it had usually led to Arthur apologizing and letting Eames "cuddle" him - a word that Arthur couldn't say and cringed openly when he heard it). It was so strange that Arthur was remembering all of these things now while in the same room with Eames but...

"Well, he's also under the misimpression that you can't spell." Which Arthur knew was also a ruse - Eames was much smarter than he would let on, so he couldn't help but smirk a little at the other man, his look saying along the lines 'really? that's the best you could do?'

Eames was affectionate when it came right down to it, and he was never quite sure what to do when Arthur got prickly about it. Of course, half the time he was doing it just to ruffle Arthur's feathers, he'd already made a mental note to do less of that and more of it when it was genuine.

There was another shrug at that statement, his own smile gone crooked, "A lot of people are, no idea where they get such an absurd notion." Well, aside from the fact that he let them think what they like and only rarely corrected people when their assumptions about him were wrong. Granted, if it was something that didn't really matter, a quick note to someone or to himself, sometimes the tenses weren't quite right, but it was because he was fluent in more than just English, and sometimes he got the syntax mixed up if he was in a hurry.

While Arthur often found it difficult to relax into affectionate gestures of any kind he did more or less get used to Eames' show of affection. Even grow to like it (although he would never willingly or openly admit to that). That was part of why when it seemed like Eames was becoming distant it had affected Arthur significantly. But that was the past, Arthur needed to stay in the present.

Arthur continued to smirk, crossing one leg over the over in that elegant way he did (even while wearing jeans), "Hmm. I think I can deduce a few reasons. One of the main ones being you yourself don't really do a thing to correct them."

He laughed then, it was his honest, amused laugh, the one that only a few people were privy to, Arthur was one of them, as was Yusuf (and for that matter, Yusuf's cat)

He shrugged, "If they're going to assume something like that, why would I bother correcting them when going against their assumptions is ever more entertaining?" That was just how Eames operated, really, one of the ways he kept people off-balance like he liked to do.

Arthur couldn't help but smile a little then, watching and hearing Eames laugh (feeling that familiar ache return - he had missed hearing that laugh).

But snorted anyway, shaking his head, "I always knew you operated vaguely through spite." Although, they both knew Arthur could be far more spiteful (like that one time Arthur had denied Eames sex for nearly a whole week after he found out Eames had taken pictures of Arthur naked - and sleeping - with his camera phone).

Eames had always said to his defense that he had been roaringly drunk, and for that matter they both had, and he'd erased the pictures again the very next day, aside from the one that he'd later sketched because he couldn't not, the expanse of Arthur's bare back was just too pretty not to save for posterity.

He nodded, mulling that over, "Spite and porn, mostly, I believe." He said, though he was still smiling. He had a feeling that he was going to be smiling a lot more in the days to come, and at the moment he couldn't make himself feel that that was a bad thing.

To Eames' defense Arthur had always responded that it didn't matter how drunk either of them had been - nor did it matter how much Arthur had grown to enjoy those surprisingly spectacular bouts of drunken sex - that did not give Eames permission to take pictures of it afterward.

Nodding again, allowing his own smile to grow a little wider, "That sounds about right for you."

There was the laugh again, low and rolling and almost tactile, just a little more rare than the occasional, sudden burst of laughter that Ariadne had been so good at getting from him, he'd quipped once that she was the precocious little sister he'd never known he'd wanted.

"Well I'm certainly glad of that." He said, cocking his head in what was almost a shrug, "Should hate to think I'm losing my touch with my roots."

Arthur hadn't heard that particular laugh in quite a while. Hearing it then had sent a tingle down the back of his neck.

"I could tell you hadn't changed much when you walked back into the warehouse with Dom."

Eames just smiled again, shaking his head and settling himself more comfortably on the couch once more, taking up more space, somehow, than he ought to have been able to, "Was I really that obvious? Hm, I'll have to work on that." His tone, however, belied the fact that he probably wasn't going to, not even a little.

Shaking his head, but smiling, "No you won't."

Yes, Arthur was staying in his own space on the couch, still feeling a little too tense to do much else.

He laughed again, shaking his head once more, still resisting (at least for the moment) the urge to reach over and ruffle Arthur's hair, "Yes, well, you know that, and I know that, but no one else needs to, you see?"

"But of course, that would ruin all your fun." Oh yes, Arthur did know Eames pretty well. And now, sitting on the couch with him like this - not focusing so much on projecting hostility or disinterest but just allowing himself to be with the other man - a lot of their year together kept coming back to him.

It all just served to show that he had not been nearly as willing to let go of Eames as much as he thought he had. That wasn't very easy to admit to, for him, but it was pretty undeniable by now.

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