Chapter Text
Chapter One
The rules were these:
(1) They made people who didn’t know they were unhappy happy.
(2) They didn’t break up happy couples.
(3) They especially didn’t break up people for religious and racial reasons.
“We work for a higher power,” Eames liked to say. “We work for the greater good.”
“We work to pay off your gambling debts,” said Ariadne.
“That, too,” agreed Eames.
But he couldn’t help it: He was good at breaking people up. He didn’t cross lines. He didn’t sleep with people, he didn’t lead people on into thinking there might be a relationship with him at the end of the day. He just opened their eyes to the possibility that they deserved better, that there was more out there than what they were settling for.
Eames liked that.
“We sell people dreams, you know,” he told Ariadne. “That’s what we’re peddling: the ability to reach for your dreams. Or at least to keep believing in them.”
“Uh-huh,” said Ariadne.
Eames leaned against the window and looked out at the dingy back garden of the flat they were renting and sipped his beer and said, “Do you think they go on to be happy? The people we help? Or do you think we’re just selling them a lie? That there really isn’t anything better out there?”
“Not like you to be negative that way,” Ariadne scolded him. “Come on, you’re the grand romantic in this operation. That’s why you turn people’s heads.”
“Keeping stats on what happens to people after we break them up isn’t a bad idea,” mused Yusuf. “It would make a good database.”
“What would be the point?” Ariadne asked. “We can’t make people go out and make the right choices. If they made one terrible choice, they’ll probably make other ones.”
“Uplifting,” said Eames, and sipped his beer again. “Thanks for improving the mood.”
“I’m just saying. And did you break up with your latest whatever?”
“‘My latest whatever’?” Eames echoed.
Ariadne waved her hand. “What do you call them? The people in your life when you’re not working?”
“Girlfriends. Or boyfriends.”
Yusuf snorted.
Eames frowned at him. “And what’s that for?”
“Nothing,” Yusuf said innocently.
“Don’t you think that’s a generous name for them, Eames?” said Ariadne. “What did this one think you did?”
“She thought I…worked for a bank.”
Yusuf laughed energetically, tried to choke it back when Eames glared at him.
“So what happened?” Ariadne asked blandly.
“She realized I was lying about working for a bank.” Eames sipped his beer. “And then she didn’t believe that I’m a spy on a top-secret mission.”
“Oh, Eames,” said Ariadne, and shook her head.
“Look. Clearly we weren’t meant to be. I don’t want to end up in one of the unhappy relationships we break up. I’m just saying, do you think there’s such a thing as a happy relationship? Do you think any of these people ever find a happy ending? Or are we just…delaying their acceptance of their disappointment?”
“Eames.” Ariadne took the beer out of his hand and said, “Stop being maudlin. Of course there’s such a thing as a happy relationship.”
“You think so?” asked Yusuf.
“Yes.” Ariadne glared at him. “Don’t you think so?”
“We’re not exactly poster children for happy relationships.”
“We haven’t found the right people yet. There are right people out there for everyone. Even you.” She poked Eames in the chest. “In the meantime, though, we need to take another job, because we are behind on rent and you keep buying really, really, really expensive liquor and caviar and what’s this a bill for?” Ariadne brandished it in front of him.
Eames looked at it and frowned briefly and then placed it. “Oh. It was for a piece of art.”
“Eames. Art?”
“The soul can’t survive on bread alone.”
“I bet we can do pretty well.”
“We have appearances we need to keep up, Ari,” said Eames. “I need to be dashing and attractive, and I need to have pleasure in my life to be dashing and attractive. Art brings me pleasure. Hence.” Eames indicated the bill.
“You could spend some money on your wardrobe,” said Ariadne, “if you need to be dashing and attractive.”
“People find my shirts irresistible, I’ll have you know.”
“The odor of mothballs must lure them in,” commented Yusuf. “Magnetic, that is.”
“Everyone is hilarious tonight,” said Eames drily. “How much money do we need?”
“Twenty thousand. We need a good job.”
“One’ll come up,” said Eames. “I’m positive.”
***
Dom Cobb frowned at his laptop screen and said, “I’m telling you, Mal. It’s just not right.”
Mal, passing behind him on her way to the kitchen, leaned over his shoulder and looked at the website Dom was frowning at, which was an announcement that wealthy British scion Jonathan Garfield was getting married.
“Still?” said Mal. “You’re still obsessing over this?” Mal continued on her way.
“I just don’t see that he’s right for Arthur. I just can’t see Arthur marrying that.” Dom gestured at the screen.
“Yes,” said Mal, coming out of the kitchen with a glass of wine. “Rich, handsome, works with charities… Ugh, it would be a misery for anyone to be stuck with that.”
“Look.” Dom exhaled in frustration. “I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice man. But I know Arthur. Arthur used to love a good shoot-out. And now he’s going to marry Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes there?”
“Maybe Arthur’s settled down,” Mal suggested, resting her hand on Dom’s shoulder and looking speculatively at the computer. “It’s been known to happen, you know.”
“There’s a difference between ‘settling down’ and ‘settling.’ Come on, you’re French, you must acknowledge this.”
“Oui,” said Mal, and turned away from him, walking toward the couch.
If she was putting her back to him, it meant she thought he was right and didn’t want him to see it in her face. Dom, feeling cautiously victorious, pressed his advantage.
“And you know Arthur. Do you think it’s likely that he wants to spend the rest of his life as an investment banker?”
“There are worse things,” said Mal uncertainly, curling up on the couch.
“The only thing worse than being an investment banker is being an investment banker married to another businessman when you are Arthur. Come on, you remember him, right? Arthur. Dark hair, frowny, wears expensive suits?”
Mal sipped her wine. “I remember that he stopped working with you because he said he wanted to ‘grow up.’”
“Right. Okay. And he had a point.”
“Yes.” Mal gave him a look that Dom knew meant Because we have children and you needed to be responsible. “He had a point.”
“But there’s a difference between ‘growing up’ and this, Mal.” Dom gestured to the computer again.
Mal looked thoughtful. And then she said, on a soft sigh, “You’re right.”
Dom could scarcely believe he’d heard that correctly. “I’m right?”
“Oui. And it doesn’t happen very often, so revel in it. But you’re right. Arthur was…a free spirit. He was full of joie de vivre.”
Dom lifted his eyebrows. “Not that I want to cast doubt on your agreeing with me, but we are talking about Arthur, who never had a hair out of place, right?”
“He likes order and discipline. That never made him boring. You were just yourself saying that he used to come alive in gunfights.”
“Yes,” Dom said. “Okay. Not sure I would have used the term ‘free spirit’ so much as…‘scary and dangerous.’ But okay.”
Mal gave him a look, and then said, “You will think me very…French. But I have an idea.”
“A French idea?” said Dom. “French ideas are my favorite ideas.”
“It’s a service I’ve heard about,” explained Mal slowly. “About helping people who haven’t realized they’re unhappy.”
***
It was a great deal of money, and they needed a great deal of money, so it was annoying that Arthur’s relationship with Jonathan was apparently rock-solid.
“Jonathan sends love notes,” Ariadne said, and held them up from the garbage of Arthur’s that she was rifling through.
Eames wrinkled his nose. “That seems a little twee, doesn’t it?”
“I would love to get a love note,” said Ariadne longingly. “It’s romantic.”
“I think it’s overkill when you’re getting married in ten days,” commented Eames.
“They’re keeping the romance alive,” Ariadne retorted.
“Ten days,” said Yusuf. “They’re getting married in ten days, and you’re supposed to break them up?”
“Apparently,” said Eames, and sighed. “The guy who hired us, Arthur’s friend. What did he say is wrong with their relationship?”
“He said Arthur’s going to get bored,” said Ariadne.
“It’s monogamy. Of course he’s going to get bored,” said Eames.
“Eames,” Ariadne sighed at him.
“I’m just saying,” Eames said.
“And you’re supposed to be the great romantic here.” Ariadne glared at him and kept sifting through garbage.
The garbage was supremely boring. Far too much takeaway, basically. And those ridiculous twee love letters. Eames didn’t know how Arthur could get bored, since Arthur was already extremely boring. Eames picked up the websites Yusuf had printed off with the research on Arthur. Attractive enough bloke, Eames thought, always dressed sharply and expensively, and always frowning. There was not a single photograph anywhere on the Internet of the man smiling.
The thought gave Eames pause: maybe he was unhappy.
Or maybe the most interesting thing about him was the obscene tailoring of his suits.
Eames sighed and said, “I think maybe we need to see the two of them in action.”
Which was how he found himself pretending to be homeless so that he could sit opposite the window of a swanky London restaurant and spy on a couple having dinner. Arthur was dressed to the nines as usual. The suit was expensive and impressive and…not boring. Eames looked between Arthur and Jonathan, who was also well-dressed, but Jonathan’s suit was charcoal gray and double-breasted, Jonathan’s tie was just…red. Arthur’s suit was a three-piece in a deep, rich brown check. His shirt was an equally rich custardy-cream color and Eames was sure when it caught the light just so that it was ever so lightly striped in a contrasting gold. And his tie was a rich cornflower blue with tiny chocolate brown diamonds. Arthur was…Arthur was wearing an amazing suit, actually, and making it look like a million pounds, and Eames wasn’t sure he would have noticed how much Arthur was standing out if he hadn’t been combined with the dull-as-dishwater Jonathan.
Arthur was going to get bored. Eames could see it suddenly.
“I don’t know,” said Ariadne next to him. “I think they look pretty happy.”
Eames realized he had been staring. And he was supposed to stare. But he had been staring exclusively at Arthur, whose dexterous hands were buttering bread. Eames wondered suddenly if he played the piano, because he had beautiful hands.
Ariadne’s comment made him look at Arthur with Jonathan. Jonathan was talking animatedly. Arthur was listening raptly, nodding as he chewed his bread, adding to the conversation, talking and gesturing, and Jonathan brushed a finger over Arthur’s wrist, calmly possessive, and Arthur linked their fingers together and kept talking about whatever they were talking about.
Eames frowned at the pair of them and said, “He hasn’t smiled once.”
Ariadne shrugged. “Well, maybe they’re having an intense conversation. Knowing these two, they’re probably talking about how to solve climate change or world hunger or something.”
“Jonathan doesn’t look like they’re having a serious conversation,” Eames pointed out, because Jonathan hadn’t stopped smiling like a complete lunatic. Maybe Arthur didn’t smile because he thought Jonathan definitely smiled enough for both of them.
“He doesn’t seem to smile much, Eames. He doesn’t smile in any of the photographs we’ve seen of him online. Ever.”
“Maybe because he’s so desperately unhappy.”
Ariadne gave him a look. “I think you’re grasping at straws because you want the twenty thousand.”
“You should want the twenty thousand, too,” he informed Ariadne with a sniff of indignation.
“We have rules about these things, Eames,” Ariadne reminded him. “We have principles. We’re the good guys. Arthur seems like a perfectly nice man who’s marrying a handsome, attentive, romantic millionaire, and we should stay out of his life.” Ariadne stood up, dusting herself off, as if that settled the whole question.
“Would you marry him?” Eames asked.
“Who?” Ariadne asked blankly.
“Jonathan.”
“I don’t even know Jonathan,” said Ariadne.
“You know he’s a handsome, attentive, romantic millionaire. If that’s all it takes for a happy relationship, then you could marry him and be perfectly happy.”
“Okay,” said Ariadne. “I take your point. But Arthur hasn’t given any indication that he’s not happy. And he does know Jonathan.”
Eames looked back at Arthur, at his unsmiling face, at his serious eyes, at the amazing suit, at the way Arthur’s fingers were fidgeting with everything on the table, as if he couldn’t wait to get out of there.
“I think you’re wrong,” he said simply.