(fic) A Long Slow Collision, part 10
Oct. 10th, 2010 04:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cicer...Wow, it was like pulling teeth to get this part finished. :(
Eames contemplates his hotel room from where he is sprawled in an armchair near the small sitting area. The room is empty and the décor is rather bland, but it’s clean, at least. And spacious.
Light streams in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The sky outside is clear and bright today, and the weather’s turned warm. Eames squints at the blue sky, then returns his attention to his room.
Altogether, the hotel room is fine, perfectly serviceable. And yet, he finds he can’t quite get comfortable in it.
It shouldn’t be a problem. He can’t begin to count all the hotel rooms he’s been in over the years; it must be several hundred at least. He’s never had any difficulty settling in anywhere.
But then, this is different. There’s no job to be done here, but he’s not in Paris for pleasure either. And he doesn’t have even the roughest of ideas of how long he’ll be here. For now, he’s waiting.
Just waiting.
He left Arthur at her apartment yesterday, when it became clear that they didn’t have much to say to each other. Or, more accurately, that they didn’t seem to know how to say anything to each other.
The whole conversation went better than he had any right to expect, and Eames is sure he has no cause to feel disappointed, but the feeling squirms in the back of his mind all the same.
She didn’t slam the door in his face, at least. She let him in, talked to him a bit, and made it clear that she would not be entirely averse to talking more, later, once they’d both had some time to regroup.
That was all right. It was fine. He hadn’t had any real hopes that they’d sort all this out in the span of a fifteen minute conversation. That wasn’t reasonable, wasn’t realistic, and he knew it.
Still. There’s a strange, bitter sense of disappointment hanging over his head when he thinks about their little talk.
Eames remembers, now, why he never tried to have anything resembling a serious relationship before. It’s hard, is what it is. It’s work, and it’s harder than extraction, harder than forgery, and you had to put yourself in a very vulnerable position.
He’s never liked doing that. He supposes that’s part of the reason he’s still alive today, of course. Professionally, that mixture of ego and cautiousness is very helpful. In one’s personal life? Not so much, he thinks.
It’s too late for regrets now, though. What’s done is done, and there’s not a hell of a lot he can do to change anything. The only thing Eames thinks he can do now is decide where he’s going to go from here. But even there his options are limited.
He could cut and run, and he knows it. He could, and he could probably do it without his conscience bothering him too much. Arthur would be fine, might even be relieved not to have to deal with him anymore.
It wasn’t like he would be throwing her to the wolves, he tells himself. She’s be all right. Cobb might very well put a bounty on his head if he took off like that, and Ariadne would probably try to track him down herself, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, he could leave, if he wanted to. He’d seen Arthur, confirmed that she was in one piece and handling things on her own. He could leave.
The really, really awful thing was, Eames didn’t think he actually wanted to leave. He didn’t. When it came right down to it, he’d rather stick around, loitering in a mostly-empty hotel room, waiting for her to call him.
It was degrading, and he it seriously wounded his pride. Worse yet, it actually made him feel insecure, and that was a feeling he had studiously avoided ever since he left grammar school. It was not good.
But his only other option was picking himself up and walking out, dropping off the map, and never seeing Arthur again…well, in that case, he’d rather stick around, even if she didn’t particularly want to talk to him.
It was all very embarrassing, and Eames was very glad that at least the whole business was still somewhat private. Cobb and Ariadne and Yusuf were all sticking their noses into the situation, of course, but there were only three of them. Neither he nor Arthur had any family or other close friends gossip about Eames’ appalling display of passivity.
And at least Arthur wasn’t the sort of woman to hold that over him, or try to use it to control him. He was very lucky indeed that she wasn’t that sort of person.
Come to think of it, though, Eames wasn’t altogether sure that Arthur knew exactly how things were between them. It wasn’t as though he’d ever gone down on one knee and professed his undying love, but he’d always supposed she must have some idea that she was more than a quick fumble to him.
But then, lovely and brilliant as Arthur might be, Eames had noticed that she could be astonishingly slow on the uptake every now and then, usually when emotions were involved.
Eames isn’t quite sure what to do with that thought, but he’s spared from having to think it over any longer where there’s a sharp rapid knock on the door.
He knows who it is at once. He’s been in enough hotels to know that the maids and other employees always knock slower and softer.
No one else knows he’s here, but he still thinks he’s got a pretty good idea who’s rapping at his door like that at ten thirty in the morning. He flings open the door.
Ariadne stands in front of him, face bright, her arms loaded down with shopping bags and packages. She drops them unceremoniously in the hall before throwing her arms around his shoulders.
She’s hilariously tiny, Eames thinks, as he hugs her back. He picks her up briefly, just because he can and because he knows it will make her laugh. It does, and when he drops her down again she beams at him and shoves his shoulder affectionately.
He doesn’t bother to ask how she knew he was here. She spent only a few months in the extraction business, but she’s already developed an astonishing ability to dig up information. She might very well give Arthur a run for her money one day.
Eames looks her up and down, studies her pile of parcels and asks, amused, “Don’t you have school or something?”
“Not today!” She unwinds her scarf, drags her things into the hotel room without an invitation, and surveys the place thoughtfully.
“Did you see the staircase down in the lobby? I wish I had my camera so I could take pictures. I want to copy it. I think I could really make something from it. ”
“What for?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow.
The staircase is a three-story spiraling marvel, and even Eames, who knows little about creating dream architecture, can see the possibilities there. But so far as he knows, Ariadne hasn’t got any new jobs lined up, nor is she likely to have any in the near future, unless Arthur or Cobb can find her a team who’s looking for an architect.
Ariadne just smiles, and lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug.
“I’ll find something.” She wanders into the middle of the room and spins slowly, examining the décor with professional interest, before swinging around to smile at him again.
She’s such a tiny little thing, and though she’s a smart girl, there’s a certain naiveté about her, Eames thinks, something he really only sees from people who haven’t gone too deep into the extraction business.
He doesn’t know whether Ariadne means to continue on this path, keep building dreams. He thinks she does. She’s too clever, and too deep into it now, and he’s thinks it’s probably too late for her to quit. She’d never be satisfied with just reality anymore.
But he hopes that even if she stays in the business, she’ll somehow keep that sense of innocence. He hopes he’ll never see her develop that closed-off, beaten-down, weary, wary look he sees on so many veteran dreamers.
People who spend too much time dreaming tend to shut off a bit. He knows that. He’s done it himself, Arthur’s done it, Cobb…poor bastard that he is, he’s more beaten down and hardened than nearly anyone Eames has ever met. It happens to most dreamers, and Eames hopes it won’t happen to Ariadne.
She stands before him now, hands on her hips, face expectant. Eames has to work very hard to keep from smiling at her, and possibly picking her up again.
“Dare I ask how you found me, pet? Have you hacked airline records or put a tail on me?”
She grins and shrugs again. “Nah. I just called Arthur.”
“Ah.”
There’s not too much to say to that, really, and Ariadne doesn’t offer anything more.
Eames sort of wants to ask, pathetic as it might be. Sort of wants to ask, what did she say about me? but he doesn’t. He’s got enough pride not to do that, at least. Not yet, anyhow.
Ariadne rocks back on her heels and scrutinizes his face, thoughtfully.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” she admits, almost apologetically.
Eames doesn’t know whether she thinks she’s apologizing for selling him short, or for…well, who knows what she’s thinking. He shrugs, because he hasn’t got anything to say to that either, and looks down at the bags and boxes she’s scattered all over the entryway.
“What’s all this, hm? Been spending Saito’s money, have we?”
Ariadne grins and dives into the pile, pulling out a bundle of sweaters and a silk skirt. “Look!” she holds them up to her frame, twisting this way and that, modeling for him.
“Very pretty.”
She does look nice, glowing and happy, tearing through piles of tissue paper and pulling out items of clothing for his perusal. Her taste has improved, clearly, or perhaps the money has merely allowed her to show her good taste more clearly.
Ariadne digs out another handful of items, then drops them back onto the pile and looks up at him. Crouched there on the ground, she seems very far away from him, and she gives him an odd, determined, somewhat awkward smile.
“So,” she ventures, and Eames groans, because he knows exactly where this conversation is going.
“Oh God. I’d tell you get out, but I’m fairly sure that would only drive you into the shadows where I can’t keep an eye on you.”
He walks over to the couch and drops onto it heavily. Ariadne stands up and watches him carefully. Eames rolls his eyes.
“Honestly, pet, remind me to introduce you to some of the people I work with. If you’re going to stalk someone, you might as well get paid for it.”
Ariadne has the good grace to look slightly abashed, but she comes over to the couch and sits beside him anyway. Her knees are pressed together, her hands are folded primly on her lap, and she looks at him as though she is his therapist.
Eames half expects her to whip out a notepad and start asking him about his relationship with his mother.
“I’m just worried,” she says gently. “You know. About both of you.”
The worst part is, he can’t even be annoyed, because it’s clear she means it, and she’s looking at him so expectantly, so hopefully he can’t really bear to tell her he doesn’t want to talk. Eames wonders when he became so soft.
She smiles at him winningly. “So? You two…? How’s it going?”
He shrugs, because he spent all last night thinking about it, and he still doesn’t quite know how to put it into words.
How’s it going? Fucked if he knows. His general rule of thumb for evaluating treacherous situations is to take stock of whether or not his life has been threatened.
As far as this whole mess goes…well, he hasn’t been shot yet, so he can only suppose that it’s going all right.
Ariadne looks dissatisfied. “You guys talked, right?”
Eames doesn’t need to answer that, apparently, because she plunges on without waiting for a response.
“Look. I know this is kind of…”
She visibly wrestles with what she’s about to say, and Eames watches the expressions dart across her face.
It’s fascinating, really, the way a person’s face can say so much, so many conflicting things, all at once. He’s tried to mimic it a few times while forging, tried to replicate that strange confused mess of emotions, but he doesn’t think he’s ever really mastered it. He thinks it’s the sort of thing that can only be induced by genuine emotion. It’s too hard to manufacture.
Ariadne bites her lip, then blows out a heavy exasperated breath and looks at him with a sort of weary distress.
“It’s just,” she begins slowly. “It’s just, I think Arthur is really kind of bad at this. At, you know. Emotions.”
It’s a remarkably astute observation from someone who’s only known Arthur for a handful of months, and it’s so painfully true that Eames has to repress the perverse desire to laugh. He quirks a wry smile.
“I’ve noticed that, actually,” he remarks dryly
Ariadne gives him a sharp look; evidently she does not approve of his flippancy.
Eames shift slightly in his seat. He’s about twice her size, but she has always had a certain air about her that suggests that she will not hesitate to kick you in the kneecaps if she thinks you deserve it. And really, Eames can’t help but respect that, and maybe fear it a little bit. Short people tend to have very powerful legs.
“I just mean that she’s sort of not so good at figuring these things out, I think. And I don’t know exactly how you feel about her.”
She gives him another look, one that suggests that she actually has a fairly good idea. “But I just think that maybe you should be patient. Because I think she likes you a lot, but isn’t very good at letting people get close to her.”
Ariadne is really quite good at this, Eames thinks. It had surprised him before, that she and Cobb had dropped into limbo and managed to claw their way out, especially given Cobb’s many psychological issues, but if Ariadne kicked him in the pants like this, Eames is no longer very surprised.
Still. This is really not a conversation he wants to be having with her, or with anybody in particular, so he gives her another flat smile and ruffles her hair.
She makes an annoyed face and pushes his hand away.
“Fine. OK. Fine. No more talking about Arthur, I get it.”
Eames pats her knee. “Much obliged, my dear.”
She makes another face and sits up. “If you won’t talk to me, then you have to take me out to lunch,” she announces brightly.
Eames can’t help but laugh out loud at that.
“You’re very demanding, aren’t you?” he asks.
She nods fiercely and goes to get her coat.
“Lord. What a monster we’ve made,” he mutters.
Ariadne drags them both out the door, and Eames barely manages to shut the door behind them.
***
She keeps her promise fairly well, Eames has to give her that.
Throughout the lunch, which takes place at a truly excellent little hole-in-the-wall that Ariadne had discovered, she makes only a couple, very careful references to Arthur, nothing more than would be natural between two people who share a common acquaintances.
Eames is frankly impressed, since he can see that she’s nearly bursting with questions, but she manages to hold them back and instead delivered a prolonged monologue regarding her classes, her classmates, the projects she was working on, the job she and Arthur had just finished, and her plans for the next semester.
Eames nods in all the right places and make appropriate noises of assent when she seems to expect a response, but he mostly says nothing and just lets her voice wash over him.
It’s surprisingly soothing, and it’s almost a new experience. He’s always been a talker; he remembers his mother telling stories about how he started speaking in complete sentences absurdly young, how by the time he was two they absolutely could not shut him up.
He’s always carried on conversations, both for business and for pleasure. It’s what he does. He can’t remember the last time he just sat and let someone else talk at him without contributing a word.
After they’ve finished eating, Ariadne walks with him back to his hotel, hugs him, collects her packages, waves off his offer to see her to the Metro, and traipses off.
Eames watches her go, then spends the next fifteen minutes crafting a carefully-worded text to Arthur.
He goes through at least six drafts, and thinks with a sort of wry amusement that he didn’t even put this much effort into most of his A-levels. Finally, he just texts her saying that he wants to talk to her and asks when he can drop by.
Within twenty minutes she texts back: Tomorrow, 12pm.
Very succinct. It’s just like Arthur.
He spends the rest of the evening ordering room service, raiding the minibar, and watching bad television.
It occur to him briefly that he could go downstairs to the bar, have a couple drinks and try to chat someone up, but the idea sounds about as appealing as a root canal. He doesn’t think he’s particularly fit company tonight; if he couldn’t muster up more than a couple vague grunts for Ariadne, he doesn’t think he’ll do much better with a roomful of strangers.
And, frankly, the idea of bringing someone back to his room for a tumble seems horribly sketchy. He’s not quite sure why. It’s not as if he and Arthur have any sort of understanding. It’s not as if he even feels there’s much hope of things going anywhere between the two of them.
He’d like it if they did. He’d like a lot more than he wants to admit. But it’s too much to hope for, and anyway Eames thinks Ariadne’s hit it on the nose. Arthur isn’t the sort of person who’s good with relationships. Neither is he, for that matter. Between the two of them, Eames thinks they could make a really spectacular mess, and while he’s never shied away from making a mess before, it’s different now.
For one thing, there’ll be a kid involved. And while he’s fine with making a mess of his own life, and he’s fine with helping Arthur make a mess of hers, if that’s what she wants, it isn’t fair to the kid to be stuck with two parents who aren’t any good at commitment. If it’s not going to work, he thinks it’s best if they don’t even try, really.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow. It isn’t as though he ever seriously thought that he and Arthur would end up together. That would be asking too much of the universe, and Eames has always been very careful not to do that.
But just knowing that there was always the possibility that they’d cross paths sometime in the future, knowing there was a chance they’d crash into each others lives and end up twined around each other for a few days or a few weeks, that was…well. That was undeniably nice.
He thinks that maybe that’s over now. Any time they cross paths from here on out, it’ll be with this thing between them, this thing that will make them both careful not to get too close, because if they ruin things, they’ll be ruining three lives.
The last of the minibar slides down his throat easily, and Eames goes to bed. He doesn’t dream.
***
In the morning, he surveys his scant wardrobe with distaste, then throws on whatever comes to hand that isn’t too wrinkled. It feels like pathetic act of defiance, a willful refusal to dress himself carefully for Arthur’s benefit, as if he doesn’t care what she thinks.
He doesn’t know who he thinks he’s fooling, really.
He walks to Arthur apartment, because he likes walking in Paris and doesn’t much like taxis.
It also gives him time to clear his head.
He very carefully does not think about anything, or at least does not think about Arthur or himself or anything related to their situation. He watches the flower vendors and thinks about spring in Holland, and he watches the stream of people going in and out of the cafes and thinks of all the lovely little restaurants in Mombassa.
Then he’s more or less on Arthur’s doorstep, so he stops thinking altogether.
He knocks, and she lets him in.
She looks lovely, cleaned up and carefully dressed, exactly the way she wasn’t the last time he saw her.
It has been a bit of a shock, seeing her like that. Eames hadn’t even known she owned sweatpants, and in any other situation he would have been all to happy to tease her about that.
But she’d looked beautiful then, too, all rumpled and disheveled, her hair hanging loose and her shirt looking like she’d slept in it. He’d almost wanted to tell her how pretty she looked, then, but he’d held back.
Arthur never took compliments the way most women did, or even the way most people did. He’d tried them out on her before, offered genuine praise when they were in bed together and sly murmurs of appreciation when they were at work, but each time her mouth went tight and her shoulders stiffened, and she looked at him like she thought she was being creatively insulted.
And Eames didn’t quite know what to do with that, but it wasn’t at all the effect he was going for, so he’d stopped complimenting her altogether.
She lets him in. Her apartment smells like coffee and perfume, and Eames sort of wants to lie down on her couch and close his eyes for a while. But Arthur doesn’t say anything, just points to the chair where she evidently wants him to sit and goes off to the kitchen to pour the coffee.
Eames sits, and waits.
Arthur brings out the coffee and puts the mug in front of him, and of course it’s made just the way he likes it, because she notices those sort of things.
He makes a point of taking his coffee, and his tea, and his steaks, and pretty much everything he eats, in different ways. Today it’s cream, no sugar. Tomorrow, it’s black. Today, medium-rare, tomorrow, well-done. He likes to change things up, likes keep people guessing. He likes to put on that act, make people wonder whether or not they know the real him, or if they’re just seeing another of his forgeries.
But the coffee Arthur gives him has two sugars and just a splash of cream, and that’s exactly the way he really, truly likes it. And Eames thinks that’s really rather unfair of her to do that, when he’s come all this way and prepared to be indifferent and keep his distance, and let her tell him to fuck off if that’s what she wants. This feels like a tease, even though he knows perfectly well that she doesn’t mean it that way. She probably thinks she’s just being polite.
Arthur sits across from him with her own coffee. “I’ve been thinking,” she says.
Eames almost says, of course you have, but bites his tongue at the last possible second. Sarcasm is a second nature for him, and it’s always been the language that he and Arthur speak to each other, but that’s something that he supposes will have to change.
“I want to stay in Paris,” she says.
He nods, because she’s looking at him like she expects some sort of response.
“Of course,” he says, like that’s a given, only it’s not really. Paris isn’t Arthur’s home anymore than it’s his, and it frankly wouldn’t surprise him much if she told him she wanted to go and settle in Timbuktu. It wasn’t as if either of them had ever put down real roots anywhere.
She grips her mug of coffee tightly and stares at him steadily.
She looks very different than she had the day before last, Eames thinks. She seems like herself again, very businesslike and controlled.
He’s surprised to find that he sort of liked the way she was before, messy and raw and exposed.
She presses her hands together carefully. “I want to stay here, and raise the baby here.”
Eames nods, and Arthur purses her mouth like she’s not very comfortable with what she’s about to say.
“I’m not…” She looks at her coffee, and then meets his gaze, almost defiantly. “I’m not going to try to keep you from being involved, if that’s what you want. You’re the father. If you want to be a part of the kid’s life, that’s fine.”
“All right,” Eames says, and she nods.
Neither of them say anything after that, and the silence is terribly awkward. Eames takes a sip of his coffee and tries to think what he ought to say. He’s fairly sure that he used to be much better at thinking on his feet like this.
Arthur licks her lips, and Eames watches her tongue glides across the plump part of her mouth. He forces himself to look away.
“I have an appointment for an ultrasound next week,” she says, finally. “You can come, if you want.”
For a moment, Eames reels back. The idea of an ultrasound shocks him, somehow. He knows that Arthur’s pregnant, of course, but it all seems very abstract right now. She’s not showing, at least not that he can see, and so this whole business of a child seems very intellectual. A ultrasound means pictures. It means proof that there is if fact a baby growing inside her. It seems suddenly, illogically overwhelming, and Eames isn’t sure what to say to that.
But apparently he takes too long to answer, because Arthur’s face shutters carefully.
“You don’t have to,” she says, swift and dispassionate. “Ariadne will probably want to come along anyway.”
There’s something almost heartbreaking in her voice, a sort of frantic need to assure him that she doesn’t need him, she’ll be just fine without him.
Eames swallows hard.
“I’d like that,” he says, partly because he actually would, but mostly because he can so clearly see that Arthur is bracing herself for him to say no.
The look on Arthur’s face is hard to decipher, and it almost seems like she can’t decide which expression she wants to settle on.
She stares at her coffee, and Eames stares at his, and for a long time after that, neither of them say anything.
Onto the next part...
Thanks so much for your patience and kind comments. You are all so lovely. ♥
Eames contemplates his hotel room from where he is sprawled in an armchair near the small sitting area. The room is empty and the décor is rather bland, but it’s clean, at least. And spacious.
Light streams in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The sky outside is clear and bright today, and the weather’s turned warm. Eames squints at the blue sky, then returns his attention to his room.
Altogether, the hotel room is fine, perfectly serviceable. And yet, he finds he can’t quite get comfortable in it.
It shouldn’t be a problem. He can’t begin to count all the hotel rooms he’s been in over the years; it must be several hundred at least. He’s never had any difficulty settling in anywhere.
But then, this is different. There’s no job to be done here, but he’s not in Paris for pleasure either. And he doesn’t have even the roughest of ideas of how long he’ll be here. For now, he’s waiting.
Just waiting.
He left Arthur at her apartment yesterday, when it became clear that they didn’t have much to say to each other. Or, more accurately, that they didn’t seem to know how to say anything to each other.
The whole conversation went better than he had any right to expect, and Eames is sure he has no cause to feel disappointed, but the feeling squirms in the back of his mind all the same.
She didn’t slam the door in his face, at least. She let him in, talked to him a bit, and made it clear that she would not be entirely averse to talking more, later, once they’d both had some time to regroup.
That was all right. It was fine. He hadn’t had any real hopes that they’d sort all this out in the span of a fifteen minute conversation. That wasn’t reasonable, wasn’t realistic, and he knew it.
Still. There’s a strange, bitter sense of disappointment hanging over his head when he thinks about their little talk.
Eames remembers, now, why he never tried to have anything resembling a serious relationship before. It’s hard, is what it is. It’s work, and it’s harder than extraction, harder than forgery, and you had to put yourself in a very vulnerable position.
He’s never liked doing that. He supposes that’s part of the reason he’s still alive today, of course. Professionally, that mixture of ego and cautiousness is very helpful. In one’s personal life? Not so much, he thinks.
It’s too late for regrets now, though. What’s done is done, and there’s not a hell of a lot he can do to change anything. The only thing Eames thinks he can do now is decide where he’s going to go from here. But even there his options are limited.
He could cut and run, and he knows it. He could, and he could probably do it without his conscience bothering him too much. Arthur would be fine, might even be relieved not to have to deal with him anymore.
It wasn’t like he would be throwing her to the wolves, he tells himself. She’s be all right. Cobb might very well put a bounty on his head if he took off like that, and Ariadne would probably try to track him down herself, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, he could leave, if he wanted to. He’d seen Arthur, confirmed that she was in one piece and handling things on her own. He could leave.
The really, really awful thing was, Eames didn’t think he actually wanted to leave. He didn’t. When it came right down to it, he’d rather stick around, loitering in a mostly-empty hotel room, waiting for her to call him.
It was degrading, and he it seriously wounded his pride. Worse yet, it actually made him feel insecure, and that was a feeling he had studiously avoided ever since he left grammar school. It was not good.
But his only other option was picking himself up and walking out, dropping off the map, and never seeing Arthur again…well, in that case, he’d rather stick around, even if she didn’t particularly want to talk to him.
It was all very embarrassing, and Eames was very glad that at least the whole business was still somewhat private. Cobb and Ariadne and Yusuf were all sticking their noses into the situation, of course, but there were only three of them. Neither he nor Arthur had any family or other close friends gossip about Eames’ appalling display of passivity.
And at least Arthur wasn’t the sort of woman to hold that over him, or try to use it to control him. He was very lucky indeed that she wasn’t that sort of person.
Come to think of it, though, Eames wasn’t altogether sure that Arthur knew exactly how things were between them. It wasn’t as though he’d ever gone down on one knee and professed his undying love, but he’d always supposed she must have some idea that she was more than a quick fumble to him.
But then, lovely and brilliant as Arthur might be, Eames had noticed that she could be astonishingly slow on the uptake every now and then, usually when emotions were involved.
Eames isn’t quite sure what to do with that thought, but he’s spared from having to think it over any longer where there’s a sharp rapid knock on the door.
He knows who it is at once. He’s been in enough hotels to know that the maids and other employees always knock slower and softer.
No one else knows he’s here, but he still thinks he’s got a pretty good idea who’s rapping at his door like that at ten thirty in the morning. He flings open the door.
Ariadne stands in front of him, face bright, her arms loaded down with shopping bags and packages. She drops them unceremoniously in the hall before throwing her arms around his shoulders.
She’s hilariously tiny, Eames thinks, as he hugs her back. He picks her up briefly, just because he can and because he knows it will make her laugh. It does, and when he drops her down again she beams at him and shoves his shoulder affectionately.
He doesn’t bother to ask how she knew he was here. She spent only a few months in the extraction business, but she’s already developed an astonishing ability to dig up information. She might very well give Arthur a run for her money one day.
Eames looks her up and down, studies her pile of parcels and asks, amused, “Don’t you have school or something?”
“Not today!” She unwinds her scarf, drags her things into the hotel room without an invitation, and surveys the place thoughtfully.
“Did you see the staircase down in the lobby? I wish I had my camera so I could take pictures. I want to copy it. I think I could really make something from it. ”
“What for?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow.
The staircase is a three-story spiraling marvel, and even Eames, who knows little about creating dream architecture, can see the possibilities there. But so far as he knows, Ariadne hasn’t got any new jobs lined up, nor is she likely to have any in the near future, unless Arthur or Cobb can find her a team who’s looking for an architect.
Ariadne just smiles, and lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug.
“I’ll find something.” She wanders into the middle of the room and spins slowly, examining the décor with professional interest, before swinging around to smile at him again.
She’s such a tiny little thing, and though she’s a smart girl, there’s a certain naiveté about her, Eames thinks, something he really only sees from people who haven’t gone too deep into the extraction business.
He doesn’t know whether Ariadne means to continue on this path, keep building dreams. He thinks she does. She’s too clever, and too deep into it now, and he’s thinks it’s probably too late for her to quit. She’d never be satisfied with just reality anymore.
But he hopes that even if she stays in the business, she’ll somehow keep that sense of innocence. He hopes he’ll never see her develop that closed-off, beaten-down, weary, wary look he sees on so many veteran dreamers.
People who spend too much time dreaming tend to shut off a bit. He knows that. He’s done it himself, Arthur’s done it, Cobb…poor bastard that he is, he’s more beaten down and hardened than nearly anyone Eames has ever met. It happens to most dreamers, and Eames hopes it won’t happen to Ariadne.
She stands before him now, hands on her hips, face expectant. Eames has to work very hard to keep from smiling at her, and possibly picking her up again.
“Dare I ask how you found me, pet? Have you hacked airline records or put a tail on me?”
She grins and shrugs again. “Nah. I just called Arthur.”
“Ah.”
There’s not too much to say to that, really, and Ariadne doesn’t offer anything more.
Eames sort of wants to ask, pathetic as it might be. Sort of wants to ask, what did she say about me? but he doesn’t. He’s got enough pride not to do that, at least. Not yet, anyhow.
Ariadne rocks back on her heels and scrutinizes his face, thoughtfully.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” she admits, almost apologetically.
Eames doesn’t know whether she thinks she’s apologizing for selling him short, or for…well, who knows what she’s thinking. He shrugs, because he hasn’t got anything to say to that either, and looks down at the bags and boxes she’s scattered all over the entryway.
“What’s all this, hm? Been spending Saito’s money, have we?”
Ariadne grins and dives into the pile, pulling out a bundle of sweaters and a silk skirt. “Look!” she holds them up to her frame, twisting this way and that, modeling for him.
“Very pretty.”
She does look nice, glowing and happy, tearing through piles of tissue paper and pulling out items of clothing for his perusal. Her taste has improved, clearly, or perhaps the money has merely allowed her to show her good taste more clearly.
Ariadne digs out another handful of items, then drops them back onto the pile and looks up at him. Crouched there on the ground, she seems very far away from him, and she gives him an odd, determined, somewhat awkward smile.
“So,” she ventures, and Eames groans, because he knows exactly where this conversation is going.
“Oh God. I’d tell you get out, but I’m fairly sure that would only drive you into the shadows where I can’t keep an eye on you.”
He walks over to the couch and drops onto it heavily. Ariadne stands up and watches him carefully. Eames rolls his eyes.
“Honestly, pet, remind me to introduce you to some of the people I work with. If you’re going to stalk someone, you might as well get paid for it.”
Ariadne has the good grace to look slightly abashed, but she comes over to the couch and sits beside him anyway. Her knees are pressed together, her hands are folded primly on her lap, and she looks at him as though she is his therapist.
Eames half expects her to whip out a notepad and start asking him about his relationship with his mother.
“I’m just worried,” she says gently. “You know. About both of you.”
The worst part is, he can’t even be annoyed, because it’s clear she means it, and she’s looking at him so expectantly, so hopefully he can’t really bear to tell her he doesn’t want to talk. Eames wonders when he became so soft.
She smiles at him winningly. “So? You two…? How’s it going?”
He shrugs, because he spent all last night thinking about it, and he still doesn’t quite know how to put it into words.
How’s it going? Fucked if he knows. His general rule of thumb for evaluating treacherous situations is to take stock of whether or not his life has been threatened.
As far as this whole mess goes…well, he hasn’t been shot yet, so he can only suppose that it’s going all right.
Ariadne looks dissatisfied. “You guys talked, right?”
Eames doesn’t need to answer that, apparently, because she plunges on without waiting for a response.
“Look. I know this is kind of…”
She visibly wrestles with what she’s about to say, and Eames watches the expressions dart across her face.
It’s fascinating, really, the way a person’s face can say so much, so many conflicting things, all at once. He’s tried to mimic it a few times while forging, tried to replicate that strange confused mess of emotions, but he doesn’t think he’s ever really mastered it. He thinks it’s the sort of thing that can only be induced by genuine emotion. It’s too hard to manufacture.
Ariadne bites her lip, then blows out a heavy exasperated breath and looks at him with a sort of weary distress.
“It’s just,” she begins slowly. “It’s just, I think Arthur is really kind of bad at this. At, you know. Emotions.”
It’s a remarkably astute observation from someone who’s only known Arthur for a handful of months, and it’s so painfully true that Eames has to repress the perverse desire to laugh. He quirks a wry smile.
“I’ve noticed that, actually,” he remarks dryly
Ariadne gives him a sharp look; evidently she does not approve of his flippancy.
Eames shift slightly in his seat. He’s about twice her size, but she has always had a certain air about her that suggests that she will not hesitate to kick you in the kneecaps if she thinks you deserve it. And really, Eames can’t help but respect that, and maybe fear it a little bit. Short people tend to have very powerful legs.
“I just mean that she’s sort of not so good at figuring these things out, I think. And I don’t know exactly how you feel about her.”
She gives him another look, one that suggests that she actually has a fairly good idea. “But I just think that maybe you should be patient. Because I think she likes you a lot, but isn’t very good at letting people get close to her.”
Ariadne is really quite good at this, Eames thinks. It had surprised him before, that she and Cobb had dropped into limbo and managed to claw their way out, especially given Cobb’s many psychological issues, but if Ariadne kicked him in the pants like this, Eames is no longer very surprised.
Still. This is really not a conversation he wants to be having with her, or with anybody in particular, so he gives her another flat smile and ruffles her hair.
She makes an annoyed face and pushes his hand away.
“Fine. OK. Fine. No more talking about Arthur, I get it.”
Eames pats her knee. “Much obliged, my dear.”
She makes another face and sits up. “If you won’t talk to me, then you have to take me out to lunch,” she announces brightly.
Eames can’t help but laugh out loud at that.
“You’re very demanding, aren’t you?” he asks.
She nods fiercely and goes to get her coat.
“Lord. What a monster we’ve made,” he mutters.
Ariadne drags them both out the door, and Eames barely manages to shut the door behind them.
***
She keeps her promise fairly well, Eames has to give her that.
Throughout the lunch, which takes place at a truly excellent little hole-in-the-wall that Ariadne had discovered, she makes only a couple, very careful references to Arthur, nothing more than would be natural between two people who share a common acquaintances.
Eames is frankly impressed, since he can see that she’s nearly bursting with questions, but she manages to hold them back and instead delivered a prolonged monologue regarding her classes, her classmates, the projects she was working on, the job she and Arthur had just finished, and her plans for the next semester.
Eames nods in all the right places and make appropriate noises of assent when she seems to expect a response, but he mostly says nothing and just lets her voice wash over him.
It’s surprisingly soothing, and it’s almost a new experience. He’s always been a talker; he remembers his mother telling stories about how he started speaking in complete sentences absurdly young, how by the time he was two they absolutely could not shut him up.
He’s always carried on conversations, both for business and for pleasure. It’s what he does. He can’t remember the last time he just sat and let someone else talk at him without contributing a word.
After they’ve finished eating, Ariadne walks with him back to his hotel, hugs him, collects her packages, waves off his offer to see her to the Metro, and traipses off.
Eames watches her go, then spends the next fifteen minutes crafting a carefully-worded text to Arthur.
He goes through at least six drafts, and thinks with a sort of wry amusement that he didn’t even put this much effort into most of his A-levels. Finally, he just texts her saying that he wants to talk to her and asks when he can drop by.
Within twenty minutes she texts back: Tomorrow, 12pm.
Very succinct. It’s just like Arthur.
He spends the rest of the evening ordering room service, raiding the minibar, and watching bad television.
It occur to him briefly that he could go downstairs to the bar, have a couple drinks and try to chat someone up, but the idea sounds about as appealing as a root canal. He doesn’t think he’s particularly fit company tonight; if he couldn’t muster up more than a couple vague grunts for Ariadne, he doesn’t think he’ll do much better with a roomful of strangers.
And, frankly, the idea of bringing someone back to his room for a tumble seems horribly sketchy. He’s not quite sure why. It’s not as if he and Arthur have any sort of understanding. It’s not as if he even feels there’s much hope of things going anywhere between the two of them.
He’d like it if they did. He’d like a lot more than he wants to admit. But it’s too much to hope for, and anyway Eames thinks Ariadne’s hit it on the nose. Arthur isn’t the sort of person who’s good with relationships. Neither is he, for that matter. Between the two of them, Eames thinks they could make a really spectacular mess, and while he’s never shied away from making a mess before, it’s different now.
For one thing, there’ll be a kid involved. And while he’s fine with making a mess of his own life, and he’s fine with helping Arthur make a mess of hers, if that’s what she wants, it isn’t fair to the kid to be stuck with two parents who aren’t any good at commitment. If it’s not going to work, he thinks it’s best if they don’t even try, really.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow. It isn’t as though he ever seriously thought that he and Arthur would end up together. That would be asking too much of the universe, and Eames has always been very careful not to do that.
But just knowing that there was always the possibility that they’d cross paths sometime in the future, knowing there was a chance they’d crash into each others lives and end up twined around each other for a few days or a few weeks, that was…well. That was undeniably nice.
He thinks that maybe that’s over now. Any time they cross paths from here on out, it’ll be with this thing between them, this thing that will make them both careful not to get too close, because if they ruin things, they’ll be ruining three lives.
The last of the minibar slides down his throat easily, and Eames goes to bed. He doesn’t dream.
***
In the morning, he surveys his scant wardrobe with distaste, then throws on whatever comes to hand that isn’t too wrinkled. It feels like pathetic act of defiance, a willful refusal to dress himself carefully for Arthur’s benefit, as if he doesn’t care what she thinks.
He doesn’t know who he thinks he’s fooling, really.
He walks to Arthur apartment, because he likes walking in Paris and doesn’t much like taxis.
It also gives him time to clear his head.
He very carefully does not think about anything, or at least does not think about Arthur or himself or anything related to their situation. He watches the flower vendors and thinks about spring in Holland, and he watches the stream of people going in and out of the cafes and thinks of all the lovely little restaurants in Mombassa.
Then he’s more or less on Arthur’s doorstep, so he stops thinking altogether.
He knocks, and she lets him in.
She looks lovely, cleaned up and carefully dressed, exactly the way she wasn’t the last time he saw her.
It has been a bit of a shock, seeing her like that. Eames hadn’t even known she owned sweatpants, and in any other situation he would have been all to happy to tease her about that.
But she’d looked beautiful then, too, all rumpled and disheveled, her hair hanging loose and her shirt looking like she’d slept in it. He’d almost wanted to tell her how pretty she looked, then, but he’d held back.
Arthur never took compliments the way most women did, or even the way most people did. He’d tried them out on her before, offered genuine praise when they were in bed together and sly murmurs of appreciation when they were at work, but each time her mouth went tight and her shoulders stiffened, and she looked at him like she thought she was being creatively insulted.
And Eames didn’t quite know what to do with that, but it wasn’t at all the effect he was going for, so he’d stopped complimenting her altogether.
She lets him in. Her apartment smells like coffee and perfume, and Eames sort of wants to lie down on her couch and close his eyes for a while. But Arthur doesn’t say anything, just points to the chair where she evidently wants him to sit and goes off to the kitchen to pour the coffee.
Eames sits, and waits.
Arthur brings out the coffee and puts the mug in front of him, and of course it’s made just the way he likes it, because she notices those sort of things.
He makes a point of taking his coffee, and his tea, and his steaks, and pretty much everything he eats, in different ways. Today it’s cream, no sugar. Tomorrow, it’s black. Today, medium-rare, tomorrow, well-done. He likes to change things up, likes keep people guessing. He likes to put on that act, make people wonder whether or not they know the real him, or if they’re just seeing another of his forgeries.
But the coffee Arthur gives him has two sugars and just a splash of cream, and that’s exactly the way he really, truly likes it. And Eames thinks that’s really rather unfair of her to do that, when he’s come all this way and prepared to be indifferent and keep his distance, and let her tell him to fuck off if that’s what she wants. This feels like a tease, even though he knows perfectly well that she doesn’t mean it that way. She probably thinks she’s just being polite.
Arthur sits across from him with her own coffee. “I’ve been thinking,” she says.
Eames almost says, of course you have, but bites his tongue at the last possible second. Sarcasm is a second nature for him, and it’s always been the language that he and Arthur speak to each other, but that’s something that he supposes will have to change.
“I want to stay in Paris,” she says.
He nods, because she’s looking at him like she expects some sort of response.
“Of course,” he says, like that’s a given, only it’s not really. Paris isn’t Arthur’s home anymore than it’s his, and it frankly wouldn’t surprise him much if she told him she wanted to go and settle in Timbuktu. It wasn’t as if either of them had ever put down real roots anywhere.
She grips her mug of coffee tightly and stares at him steadily.
She looks very different than she had the day before last, Eames thinks. She seems like herself again, very businesslike and controlled.
He’s surprised to find that he sort of liked the way she was before, messy and raw and exposed.
She presses her hands together carefully. “I want to stay here, and raise the baby here.”
Eames nods, and Arthur purses her mouth like she’s not very comfortable with what she’s about to say.
“I’m not…” She looks at her coffee, and then meets his gaze, almost defiantly. “I’m not going to try to keep you from being involved, if that’s what you want. You’re the father. If you want to be a part of the kid’s life, that’s fine.”
“All right,” Eames says, and she nods.
Neither of them say anything after that, and the silence is terribly awkward. Eames takes a sip of his coffee and tries to think what he ought to say. He’s fairly sure that he used to be much better at thinking on his feet like this.
Arthur licks her lips, and Eames watches her tongue glides across the plump part of her mouth. He forces himself to look away.
“I have an appointment for an ultrasound next week,” she says, finally. “You can come, if you want.”
For a moment, Eames reels back. The idea of an ultrasound shocks him, somehow. He knows that Arthur’s pregnant, of course, but it all seems very abstract right now. She’s not showing, at least not that he can see, and so this whole business of a child seems very intellectual. A ultrasound means pictures. It means proof that there is if fact a baby growing inside her. It seems suddenly, illogically overwhelming, and Eames isn’t sure what to say to that.
But apparently he takes too long to answer, because Arthur’s face shutters carefully.
“You don’t have to,” she says, swift and dispassionate. “Ariadne will probably want to come along anyway.”
There’s something almost heartbreaking in her voice, a sort of frantic need to assure him that she doesn’t need him, she’ll be just fine without him.
Eames swallows hard.
“I’d like that,” he says, partly because he actually would, but mostly because he can so clearly see that Arthur is bracing herself for him to say no.
The look on Arthur’s face is hard to decipher, and it almost seems like she can’t decide which expression she wants to settle on.
She stares at her coffee, and Eames stares at his, and for a long time after that, neither of them say anything.
Onto the next part...
Thanks so much for your patience and kind comments. You are all so lovely. ♥
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-10-11 01:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-11 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-11 06:52 pm (UTC)Oh.
Well, I do believe that this is an absolute masterpiece of human emotion. It really is lovely.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-11 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-11 09:28 pm (UTC)Arthur never took compliments the way most women did, or even the way most people did. He’d tried them out on her before, offered genuine praise when they were in bed together and sly murmurs of appreciation when they were at work, but each time her mouth went tight and her shoulders stiffened, and she looked at him like she thought she was being creatively insulted.
And Eames didn’t quite know what to do with that, but it wasn’t at all the effect he was going for, so he’d stopped complimenting her altogether.
This detail feels very real to me. Loved this chapter!
no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-16 05:32 am (UTC)