Chapter Text
Three days into Arthur's second job, the extractor, a scrawny man by the name of Fauvre, turned to Arthur and said,
"I don't suppose you know how to forge?"
"Forge what?" Arthur asked absentmindedly, his attention divided between balancing his chair on two legs and going over the mark's schedule for the next few weeks.
"Didn't think so," Fauvre grumbled. "We need Eames," he said to the architect, a French woman called Mal.
"Eames?" Arthur glanced up. The name didn't mean anything to him, but that wasn't exactly surprising. At twenty-two, he had been out of the military for less than a year, and while he'd been keeping tabs on the dream sharing community for longer than that, there weren't always names attached to the stories of past jobs that got told. "Wait," he said, letting the front legs of his chair drop back to the floor. "Forging as in, in a dream?"
He'd heard of it, but he'd never seen it.
"Yes, that's right," Mal said and turned to Fauvre. "I don't know why you sound so put off at the prospect. Eames is very talented, is he not?"
"I wouldn't suffer him if he weren't," Fauvre said, spitting to the side. Arthur made a face and kicked back in his chair again. It was just a warehouse floor, but they had to walk there. Was it too much to ask that people didn't splatter their bodily fluids around?
"I've only worked with him twice," Mal said, "but I thought he was quite charming."
"Sure, he can be, when he wants to be," Fauvre said, "but see how charmed you are when he runs off with half your pay."
"Oh?" Mal leaned back in her chair and put one leg over the other. "The way I heard it, he saved that job and quite possibly your lives. Perhaps he deserved whatever extra he took?"
"Is that what he's telling people?" Fauvre asked, his nostrils flaring with affront.
"Can't be too far from the truth if you're not out for his blood. But no, I heard it from someone else." Mal brought her fingers to her mouth, half-obscuring her smile. "I do not think you want to know what Eames has been telling people."
Fauvre made a sputtering sound and apropos to nothing, so it seemed to Arthur, launched into a rant about the lack of professional conduct and the general state of affairs in the dream sharing community; Mal did nothing but make the occasional, seemingly innocent comment that only fueled Fauvre's indignation. Judging by the way she kept hiding behind her hand, she was well aware of what she was doing.
Arthur thought Fauvre might have a point, somewhere in there, but he wasn't too bothered about it; he definitely wasn't getting in the middle of it. Instead, he reached over to his desk and picked up a green highlighter, choosing to tune out the argument and go back to the mark's schedule. Someone had to keep working if they wanted to have any hope of completing the job in a timely manner.
It was fall in Prague. The air was crisp with the promise of winter, and all Arthur knew of Eames was that he was a thief and a forger.
-
Arthur was new to the world of extraction but not to dreams. If he was honest with himself, he'd been looking forward to the focus of said dreams being on stealing information instead of killing people. He'd gotten more than his share of the latter while in the military. He wasn't naive enough to think he'd never again have to look a projection or a teammate in the eye and pull the trigger, but as long as it was just a part of the job, rather than the main course, he didn't have a problem with it.
Establishing contacts within the relatively small, loose community of mind crime had been a slow task and often frustrating. For all that the members of the community liked their secrets and generally avoided names when talking about past jobs, people usually found their way in through recommendations and word of mouth; no one had wanted to take a chance on someone who appeared seemingly out of nowhere and had little experience he was willing to speak of.
It could have been even harder for Arthur to get his foot in the door, but whatever his perceived flaws were, he had one, undeniable advantage: he had a PASIV.
"However did you get your hands on it?"
As far as Arthur could tell, there was nothing but idle curiosity in the question, but he couldn't be certain it wasn't something sharper and more dangerous, something that only masqueraded as idle curiosity. He'd never been very good at reading people, and Eames, the thief, the forger, was a master of masks.
"Got lucky," Arthur said, because lying seemed like the only safe thing to do.
"Yes," Eames said, running his eyes over Arthur in a manner that was frankly dismissive. "It would seem so."
Arthur had to consciously relax his jaw before he could speak. He knew that despite his best efforts, he still looked younger than he was -- but there was no need for Eames to be a dick about it.
"Whatever you might think," he said, the words clipped and terse, "I promise you, I can pull my weight."
"Ah," Eames said, his eyes flickering over Arthur's body again. "Perhaps. Army, yes?"
Arthur's spine straightened with surprise; he hadn't exactly planned on giving that away. What looked like genuine amusement flared up in Eames' eyes, there for a heartbeat and then gone, and Arthur's displeasure at the situation grew. Eames tapped the side of his nose and turned back to the PASIV.
"Don't get too worked up about it, darling," he told Arthur, skimming his fingers over the machine like he was feeling out a musical instrument. He had big hands; wide palms, strong fingers. Arthur wished he hadn't noticed. "Let's just hope they taught you something more useful than saying Yes, sir."
"Sir, yes, sir," Arthur deadpanned, and Eames, evidently taken by surprise, laughed. It made him look younger, carefree.
"I'll admit," Eames said, the corners of his eyes crinkling, "it does have its appeal when you say it like that."
Like what, Arthur wanted to ask but didn't. Eames' voice was raspy and warm, several degrees removed from the low, cool tones he'd been using up until now.
"A kid like you with a PASIV of your own." Eames ran his tongue over his bottom front teeth. "You'd better use it as a pillow and sleep with one eye open."
"Is that a warning or a threat?" Arthur asked, unimpressed.
"I haven't decided yet," Eames said. "No, you needn't glare at me like that. I'm just telling it like it is; if you don't keep an eye on it, you don't deserve to keep it, full stop."
"Don't worry, I'm keeping it," Arthur said, raising his chin. "I already broke one guy's arm over it in Tallinn."
"That was you?" Eames asked with a delighted smile. "Richardson, right? The greedy bastard had it coming."
"Yeah," Arthur said, uncomfortable with the sudden, easy rapport. Not the response he'd expected; it felt like a trap. The Tallinn job had been his first -- a clusterfuck, though not one of his doing. If someone was talking about it, it was probably the architect. Arthur doubted Richardson, the extractor -- who, in retrospect, had likely arranged the job just to get his hands on a PASIV, severely underestimating Arthur in the process -- would have been eager to share how he got his ass kicked by a newcomer who looked like he was under the legal drinking age. In Estonia.
Sadly, Arthur was only exaggerating a little about that last bit.
"He's been avoiding me since Greece," Eames said, looking contemplative. "Pity. I'd have broken more than just his arm. Always was a sorry fuck up, that one."
Arthur didn't know anything about the history between the two and didn't really care to.
"You think you could do better?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, I know I could." Eames' smile was not friendly in the least. "Trust me on this, pet," he said, his voice dangerously soft. "You don't want to challenge me."
There was nothing overtly menacing about Eames' words, tone or stance, but that didn't stop tension from gathering in Arthur's muscles, like some part of his brain was expecting a fight.
What he said was, "Yeah? How about this: if you promise to never call me pet again, we won't have to find out what happens if you do."
What his instincts said was, danger; stay the fuck away from this guy.
What his body said -- well, Arthur preferred not to think about it. He must have gotten his wires crossed at some point while the military was messing with his subconscious.
"You've got balls," Eames said, and between one blink and the next, the half-realized threat of violence was gone. "I do like that in a guy."
Arthur snorted.
"I mean it, Arthur," Eames said, the way he drawled Arthur's name just shy of mocking. "Prove that you have what it takes on the job, and I might even put out a good word for you."
Based on what Arthur knew of Eames so far, he had to wonder whether Eames recommending him would work in his favor or against him. It probably depended on who Eames talked to.
"And if I screw up?" Arthur asked, not out of concern, but curiosity.
"Then you'll be carted to the nearest hospital without a PASIV to burden you," Eames said, his crooked smile showing a hint of teeth. "Cheers."
At the time, Arthur just shook his head, reluctantly amused. Later, he thought it was a minor miracle that he wanted anything to do with Eames after that first job. Or maybe miracle was the wrong word.
Tragedy was probably a better fit.
-
The job could have gone better, was the thing. All right, so having a forger on the team had been a good idea, and the tales about Eames' skills, as it turned out, had not been greatly exaggerated. Arthur was even willing to privately concede that Eames had had some good ideas when it came to putting the plan together, but there was a point where good ideas turned into elaborate ideas turned into absurd plans, and Arthur felt a little betrayed that not even Fauvre, with his vocal reservations about Eames, had noticed that they'd passed that point fairly early on. Despite Arthur's best attempts, Eames had ended up with far too much creative freedom, and now --
Eames was laughing. Granted, it was sort of weak and not aimed at Arthur, but still, laughing. The bastard.
"There's nothing funny about this," Arthur said, keeping his voice low. Not that the volume made a difference; the only thing separating them from a gruesome death was a barricaded door that might or might not hold for the eight or so minutes they had left in the dream until the timer ran out.
He paced the windowless room, trying to rein in his temper. There was blood running down his arm, a steady drip of red at his fingertips. Eames was squatting with his back against the far wall, a gun held loosely in one hand.
"Arthur, Arthur," he said, shaking his head. "Cheer up. I'll be quite happy to shoot you in the head if they get through before we wake up."
"Thanks, but I brought my own bullets," Arthur said, flexing his bloodied hand. "I'm capable of putting one through my skull without your help."
"Suit yourself." Eames tapped his fingers against his gun, eyes on the door. "Do me a favor though and sit down, will you? It's giving me a tension headache just looking at you."
"Then don't look," Arthur said, but it wasn't like the pacing was helping anyone. He didn't sit, but he did take a position against one of the side walls, keeping both Eames and the door in his line of sight.
"You're very prickly sometimes," Eames told him, casual, like he was talking about the weather. "It's almost charming when it's not, you know, irritating as shit."
"Prickly," Arthur said, his tone flat. "I'm missing a chunk of my arm --"
"It's just a nick, darling," Eames interrupted a bit snidely, "and you're handling it admirably --"
"--your fault, by the way," Arthur kept talking over him, "so excuse me if I --"
"--really, no need to fling exaggerations and accusations around like that --"
A long, drawn out moan from the other side of the door brought their bickering to an abrupt halt. The door shuddered on its hinges, and Arthur tightened his grip on his gun.
"Eames," he said, using the sort of tone of voice that promised violence if not listened to. "Next time I tell you zombies are a bad fucking idea --"
"Noted," Eames said, his expression resigned as he pushed himself to his feet.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, winning the argument didn't do the slightest to improve Arthur's mood.
-
"I wouldn't worry about it," Mal said, looking at Arthur with dark, solemn eyes.
The bar they were in was dimly lit, and in their little corner booth it felt like they were separated from everything else, existing in a place meant for just the two of them, a place where both the lights and the sounds of the bar seemed muted, unobtrusive. Or maybe that was the alcohol.
Both Eames and Fauvre had taken off after the job, but Mal had lingered, asking Arthur to accompany her for a night out. Arthur hadn't been able to think of a good enough reason to say no, which she had taken as a yes. He hadn't particularly minded; in fact, a drink or two had sounded like a really good idea at the time.
"I'm not worried," Arthur said. Then he realized he didn't know what Mal was talking about. "What are you talking about?"
"The job," Mal said, continuing to look at Arthur with dark, solemn eyes.
"It went pretty well, right?" Arthur peered into his glass, frowning. "I mean, apart from the whole," he made a vague gesture. The thing with the zombies. That blew up in our faces. Like I said it would. By the way.
So he still wasn't quite over that. Maybe after another shot or three.
Mal nodded very carefully.
"Eames, then," She said, leaning forward with her arms loosely crossed on top of the table.
"I'm worried about Eames?" Arthur frowned. No, that wasn't right. He was irritated by Eames. Yes, that was it.
"He wasn't worried about you," Mal said, not like it was a reason for concern, more like an observation. It was Arthur's turn to nod very carefully.
"We were mutually unworried," he said. "Good. Okay." Then, a bit desperately, "Mal, is this conversation making any sense to you?"
Mal dropped her head onto her arms and started giggling. The way her hair moved, Arthur thought she might be shaking her head.
"That's a no, right?"
"Yes," Mal said, her voice muffled. "It's a no." She eventually emerged, resting her chin in her hands and meeting Arthur's eyes with a mournful look. "We're so drunk."
"So drunk," Arthur agreed, saluting her with his glass before knocking back what was left in it. He put it down on the table with too much force and pushed it to the side with the others of its kind. "We should, like, make a pyramid with those. That's what you do, right?"
Mal wrinkled her nose.
"I don't think it'd work. They're not all the same size." She looked around blearily like she was scouting the place for abandoned glassware suitable for their pyramid. No, wait, that was what Arthur was doing. He scratched at the side of his nose, trying to decide if ordering another drink was such a good idea; his lips felt kind of numb.
"I'm not really an architect, you know," Mal said out of the blue.
"What do you mean?" Arthur asked. Her maze had been pretty damn good. It wasn't her fault that Arthur and Eames had gotten themselves trapped. That had been entirely on Eames. Zombies, for fuck's sake.
"Most architects in the business," Mal said, and Arthur told himself to stop thinking about the job and focus on her. "They start out in the real world and end up in dream sharing because of, I don't know, there's a demand, or the pay is better, something."
"But not you." Arthur crossed his arms on the table, mirroring her earlier pose.
"No, not me." Mal leaned forward, like she was about to tell him a secret. "I'm a chemist. I have a degree and everything."
"Oh. I didn't know," Arthur said, a bit surprised.
"And now you do," Mal said with a quick smile that faded into something pensive and faintly troubled. "There is rarely a need for a chemist out in the field, though."
"Yeah," Arthur said. "Makes sense."
"I do like being a chemist," she said. "I'm good at it. I should be happy staying in the lab, but sometimes I -- I'm not."
"So you go out and build instead," Arthur said. He could sympathize with her. Dream sharing. Extraction. It was a hard world to give up, once you were in. "You're good at that, too, so no reason you shouldn't do it, right?"
"My father would disagree. Dom, too."
"Dom?"
"My husband," Mal said, touching a necklace she was wearing. She'd been keeping it under her shirt during the job; Arthur hadn't paid much attention to it. She didn't bother hiding it now, and he could see that instead of a pendant, there was a ring threaded on the chain.
"Huh." Another thing about her Arthur hadn't expected. "They disapprove?"
"My father, he would have a fit if he knew how I am using what he taught me." Mal waved a hand as if to brush away a philosophical debate she'd had many times before. "Because of that, I have not told him. Dom knows, but he doesn't really -- get it. So it is not that they disapprove; it is that they do not approve."
"I've had too many shots to see the difference," Arthur admitted, and Mal reached out to pat his hand.
"It's okay," she said. "I only see the difference when I've had a few. The truth is probably somewhere in between."
Arthur snorted and rubbed at his eyes.
"Definitely too drunk for this," he said, shaking his head
"Or not drunk enough?" Mal suggested, smiling.
"Could be." Arthur shrugged, dragging a finger through a ring of moisture left on the table from a glass. "So your dad's the one who taught you. He's -- an architect?"
"He and Dom both are, but yes, I learned dream sharing from my father. He's firmly on the academic side of things." Mal picked at the worn surface of the table with her nails, her mouth pulling down a little. "He wouldn't agree with what I'm doing, but I do it anyway. I just can't stand not having my way, it's terrible of me, really."
"And your husband?" Arthur asked, not interested in passing judgement on Mal's choices.
"He's -- doing legal work. Experimenting with dreams, mostly, in a research program my father founded. Sometimes militarizing people."
"You're not interested in any of that?"
"Oh, I am," Mal said, her expression keen for a moment. "Dream theory especially, it's fascinating."
"Sure," Arthur said, taking her word for it. He didn't deny there was wonder in dreaming, but he'd always been more interested in the technical aspects, himself.
"But sometimes," Mal said, looking down at her hands, "sometimes I simply must get away, and extraction --"
"Is the furthest you can get while still dreaming," Arthur finished for her. Mal looked up at him and smiled.
"Yes, you are quite right, Arthur." Mal laughed a little, shaking her head. "Listen to me, telling you my whole life story. And you, nothing in return!"
She sounded supremely unconcerned. Arthur felt vaguely guilty, but not enough to respond in kind.
"You should come visit us some time," Mal told him; it didn't sound like she was joking. "I think you would like Dom."
"You're drunk," Arthur said, shaking his head. "Inviting near-perfect strangers to meet your husband."
"Arthur," Mal said, very nearly pouting. "I do not say things I do not mean. Come on, tell me you'll visit."
"Maybe." Arthur shrugged. "I like you," he said, because that much was true.
"Of course you do," Mal said, reaching over to pinch Arthur's cheek in a manner he probably should have taken offense to; he didn't. "I like you too. It's not just any near-perfect stranger I invite to my home."
Arthur ducked his head, smiling despite himself.
"Ask again when we're both sober, and I'll think about it," he promised, and Mal sat back, looking satisfied.
"It'll be wonderful," she said. "You'll see."
Arthur wasn't sure he believed her -- but he didn't not believe her, either.
-
Waking up was usually an unremarkable event. Waking up after a night out with Mal wasn't what Arthur would call remarkable, but it was definitely out of the ordinary for him, and far from a positive experience.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd had an actual, shoot-me-now hangover.
There was a pitiful moan somewhere to his left, but he didn't turn to look, busy telling himself that he wasn't actually dying, it just felt like he was. Maybe if he stayed absolutely still, the feeling would go away.
Mal blindly reached out and patted at Arthur's chest.
"We didn't have sex, did we? Still wearing clothes. That's good."
"Urgh," Arthur said by way of agreement. Mal's arm flopped down, her knuckles pressing against his side.
"Are we sober yet?" She sounded a bit queasy but was obviously expecting an answer, for which Arthur hated her a little.
"I dunno," he muttered. "Yes?"
"Yes, all right then. You're still invited, by the way," Mal told him. She slapped a hand over her mouth, her voice muffled. "Ohhh, I'm going to throw up."
She practically fell off the bed in her rush to get to the bathroom. Arthur's stomach rolled at the sound of her retching.
"Urgh," he said again.
The ceiling stared back at him, utterly unsympathetic.