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[neededforger]

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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[neededforger.livejournal.com]

Eames smiled faintly when he spotted Arthur, he knew that the tension across the other man's shoulders and down his back was probably his fault, which was why he didn't say anything, and even kept his distance, at least until the elevator emptied and he slipped inside. He gave Arthur as much space as he could allow in the enclosed space.

At least, that had been his plan, it was a good fan so far as plans went, and it worked for all of four floors, which was when the car lurched distressingly for a moment and the lights flickered, "Well that doesn't sound good." Eames murmured, mostly to himself, but to Arthur too, since he was there.

[littlspecificty]

Ending up in the same elevator with Eames for a second time in the same day was more than annoying, it was downright disturbing in a lot of ways. Again, fucking universe.

And when the elevator basically stopped and they weren't near their floor and the doors were closed, lights flickering, it gave Arthur the most distressing sense of deja vu (except this time he wasn't in zero gravity).

"That's because it isn't good." He remained where he was, tense, not really knowing what to expect. He was hoping the car would resume functioning but didn't rule out plummeting down the four floors they had just passed...

[neededforger.livejournal.com]

Eames waited, listening, when the lights flickered again and then died, aside from the faint yellow ones around the top of the car he sighed, "Power's out." He shrugged then, sliding himself down the wall to sit, "Means it'll be a while before they notice us, unless the security camera and the monitors are both on backup power like the emergency lights, but personally I'm not going to put that much faith in whoever rigged the electricals for this place."

This had to be some sort of epic cosmic joke, the stars had aligned to allow them to perform an actual, successful inception (at least, in theory) but that same alignment was going to keep throwing he and Arthur against each other until something broke.

[littlspecificty]

Arthur remained standing, looking at the doors - or maybe glaring was more correct - as if his will alone would make them open, would make the elevator start working again. Then he went and pressed the red emergency button once, twice, three, four times...

When that didn't seem to magically get the car moving, Arthur's shoulders slumped slightly and his forehead landed on the metal doors with a defeated thump and he just remained standing there. 'Fuck. My. Life.'

[neededforger.livejournal.com]

Eames just shook his head, arms looped around one drawn up knee, looking almost perfectly at ease even in a stalled elevator during a power outage with a man that apparently wanted nothing to do with him.

"We'll be here a while, Arthur, we might as well make the most of it." A shrug, "Now normally I'd suggest cards, but I haven't got any, so we might have to resort to actually talking to each other, as terrible as that may be."

[littlspecificty]

"Go to hell." Came the slightly muffled reply. The universe could go fuck itself as far as Arthur was concerned.

[neededforger.livejournal.com]

He shrugged, "Or we can just sit here and stare at each other, I suppose, though that's likely to get awfully boring awfully fast." He wasn't sure, really, why he kept pushing, especially when he knew it was a bad idea. But he kept at it anyway, because he'd already started and things were probably going to turn out the same either way, so he saw no reason to stop, "Then again, I never really had a problem with staring at you before."

[littlspecificty]

"Yes. Because saying things like that will make me feel infinitely more comfortable while being trapped in an elevator with you."

He ended up sitting in a corner, as far away from Eames as he could get. Knees propping up his elbows and wearing a plain scowl and still soaking wet from the rain he had ran through just minutes earlier. [And for the record, he was not sulking. Goddammit.]

[neededforger.livejournal.com]

"Funny, never seemed to bother you before, it was always 'you've got my left ear wrong' and I'm still not sure how you could tell since you can't see your own left ear and I certainly can." HE realized, dimly, that he was babbling and should probably shut up, but now that he'd started talking, he was finding it increasingly difficult to stop, "I've still got most of the drawings, you know, squirreled away somewhere, just in case anyone ever needs proof that you really aren't a robot."

[littlspecificty]

Arthur had mainly done that just to antagonize Eames, even though he had actually been flattered by him doing such a thing. The fact that he also had a talent for it made it even more touching, in a way.

Arthur wanted to say 'things change' but he couldn't really make himself say anything at all. Not just because it would only sound stupid if he said it but he knew it would be a contradiction if not outright lie because he had kept the sketches he had taken from Eames' note books on occasion and still had the new one he had sketched that morning in his pocket. So, he just remained silent. Still turning over his conversation with Dom in the back of his mind.

[neededforger.livejournal.com]

"Actually had one of them framed." He continued, apparently taking Arthur's silence as encouragement, or, more likely, he hadn't really given the other man a chance to interject yet, "Must have been during the Mercer job, since you were at that roll-top desk." He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment, "Lord you hated that desk."

Eames remembered offering to take it out back and shoot it, if it would make Arthur feel better, but of course he'd declined.

[littlspecificty]

Arthur ended up bowing his head down while interlacing his hands between his bent knees. He closed his eyes and wished that he could stop remembering every thing that Eames was bringing up.

It made him angry. It made him frustrated. It made him fucking hurt.

He hated Eames right then. Acting as if it had been so wonderful and why had they ever stopped...

[neededforger.livejournal.com]

He huffed a laugh, shaking his head and leaning back against his corner, "I offered to put it down for you, put you both out of your misery." A faint, almost wistful smile, shaking his head again, "Said you'd rather deal with the desk than disturbing the neighbors."

He did finally shut up then, giving another head shake, voice having dipped a little, "But I suppose things change, don't they?"

[littlspecificty]

At hearing the last part, Arthur felt something in him snap. And without even thinking it over, he just said it. Finally looking at him, the look hard and even accusing,"What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you acting like this?"

[neededforger.livejournal.com]

His brow furrowed then, not entirely sure what Arthur was asking, mostly because as far as Eames could tell, he wasn't acting any differently than he ever did, and so he asked: "Do you mind clarifying that a bit?

[littlspecificty]

That only seemed to make Arthur more angry.

"Talking about shit and acting like you want what we had again!" As if it was obvious. [Granted, not one of his more articulate or eloquent moments but Arthur wasn't really caring about that right now.]

[neededforger.livejournal.com]

Eames' brow furrowed further at that, not so much at the hostility as at the statement itself. He shook his head again, "Why wouldn't I? Was one of the best years of my life and it ended far too soon."

A shrug then, shifting himself more comfortably into his corner, "Maybe I'm just being a sentimentalist, forget it."

[littlspecificty]

Arthur huffed out a laugh, but there was no mirth in it. Shaking his head, "That is such bullshit."

[neededforger.livejournal.com]

Eames' jaw set, just for a moment, and his brow quirked a moment later, "Arthur?" He leveled a look at the other man, "Have I ever lied to you about something like this? Not counting Kiev." Since that hadn't really been lying to Arthur so much as it had been lying to their client about Arthur and the nature of their relationship.

[littlspecificty]

Arthur leveled his own look at Eames, not a glare, but a look that spoke of how he believed what he said. "You were the one who didn't want it anymore, Eames. So, no, I don't believe you when you say that."

[neededforger.livejournal.com]

That just confused him further, studying Arthur for a moment and finding him increasingly difficult to read, though he could blame that on the tension, "I didn't? Funny, I don't remember that. What I recall is waking up to a note on the kitchen table saying that you'd gone, you wouldn't be coming back, and you'd shoot me if I followed you. Forgive me for deciding that I'd rather not be full of holes." He added, dryly.

Of course, that didn't negate the fact that he'd gone off somewhere where Arthur couldn't easily follow him, but he'd needed time to lick his wounds, so to speak.

[littlspecificty]

Arthur continued to give Eames that look, "Yeah, I left before you could." Shaking his head and turning his eyes away from Eames, not giving him the opportunity to read Arthur any easier than he probably was, "You grew bored. Got distant. You were always more demonstrative than I was, you think I wouldn't notice when that happened? I could just feel things growing stale... and you kept taking more and more jobs to keep you away, wherever you were. Postcards got less and less frequent, even on "run of the mill" jobs... Right when I was starting to feel..." Shaking his head again, "I wish you just would have told me instead of just dragging it out. I got tired of waiting for you to just say it. And no, I didn't want you to follow me and try to give me your bullshit excuses like you always did."

Arthur didn't know where all of that came from but it just came out. Guess it really had been building up all this time... Too bad he didn't feel any better for saying it. It probably wouldn't do any good at all and just prove that Arthur was as weak as he felt right then to admitting any of that.

[neededforger.livejournal.com]

"I didn't realize the postcards meant anything to you. They were always shuffled off into a drawer somewhere by the time I got back. I must have mis-read. Thought you saw them as an annoyance." His voice had dipped again, tone still conversational, but quieter than before, "And I was taking more jobs at the time because they were being offered. Not everyone needs a forger, we're hardly an integral part of most jobs, and I like the work, but more than that, I like knowing I'll be able to get through another dry patch without having to resort to old methods."

[littlspecificty]

"Consistency is what matters to me, Eames. Someone willing to commit." Still not looking at the other man.

[neededforger.livejournal.com]

"Arthur, I'm as loyal as they come. If I'm in something, I'm in with both feet, don't do anything halfway." This was, in fact, true. Even if, on occasion, it meant failing spectacularly, Eames owned that failure.

He shook his head then, "You know that, and if you don't, I'm sorry I never had a chance to prove it."