Work Text:
While he doesn't consider himself so gauche as to be unduly boastful about it, Eames knows he is considered a handsome man. He's had both men and women attracted to him, and it has never failed to serve him well in both work and pleasure.
He is not, however, the type of man to spend hours staring intensely at his own reflection in the mirror while strong hands hold a white knuckle grip on the hard edges of the sink as if this, his only reassurance that the face looking back at him is still his own, might fly away and leave him adrift in darkness and uncertainty.
It is not vanity driving this death grip, borne of desperation just this side of panic.
He should not be on the borderline of hyperventilating in a shitty Los Angeles hotel room a stone's throw from the airport. He shouldn't even still be here. He should be skipping his merry way back over to Mombasa, or Cairo, or any of the myriad places where he doesn't have arrest warrants with his real picture on them (the most pressing, if not only, reason why he spends his life giving Jolly Old England a wide berth; they even have his real name). As much as he gives an impression of blithe recklessness, Eames is not a careless man outside the gambling dens. He's not going to stop looking over his shoulder until enough time has elapsed to be certain beyond any doubt that the seed of inception firmly took root and is growing into a mighty tree that will choke the life out of Fischer-Morrow, that Robert Fischer himself remembers nothing of any of them besides some vague faces he shared a plane ride with, and that Saito is actually keeping up his end of the bargain and letting them all walk away from this.
Eames trusts men like Fischer about as far as he can throw them. He trusts men like Saito even less. It's one thing to have teamwork inside the dream---he'd grinned, genuinely if grudgingly, when Saito choked out blood to toss his tourist jab back in his face---and another for that to hold up in the real world, when tangible bothers like profits and margins and arse-covering return to the forefront of one's mind.
Eames is used to looking over his shoulder. It's his default state of existence.
But right now, the mirror is commanding most of his attention.
Peter Browning had been handsome too, once. Eames had seen younger photos in his research, a hotshot young executive on the come, climbing the corporate ladder of power through the '70s and '80s. Once upon a time he hadn't looked so very unlike Eames, and that's always a dicey thing to recognize about a mark. Like Cobb's rule against taking from real places, any symmetry between yourself and a mark could risk blurring the lines, losing sight of what was the mask and what was the real face.
It wasn't that he and Browning had ever borne that much of a resemblance in technical terms of features, but that cocky swagger, the self-assured arrogance of a man who takes in the whole world at a wink; Eames recognized that. He saw it in Browning's photos, and saw it in the mirror.
The man he'd forged on the job had lost his good looks but the arrogance remained, its edges softened and rounded out with the accumulations of age and wealth and power, gone from hungry wolf to circling vulture. Decades of overindulgence were written all over Browning, the same as Eames wore them in his paunch and ruddy cheeks.
Eames blinks, and for a moment it's not his own visage, sternly appraising, reflected back at him, but a tired old man turned fat and gray.
Eames flails in what would be an entirely embarrassing manner were there anyone to see him. His poker chip tumbles from the counter and skitters across the floor, and Eames' heart is in his throat.
The forger crawls frantically after it, visions of Limbo, of snowy fortresses going up in fiery ruin, of building rising and falling, of mirrors reflecting different faces everywhere he turns, dancing through his mind, as he palms the chip, red like Saito's blood in the snow.
He stares at it hard, wills it to multiply. It remains stubbornly singular in his open palm, and finally he heaves a ragged, lingering exhale of relief.
"....Eames?"
The voice is not soft, exactly, but hesitant, tentative in a way its owner seldom is, and Eames darts startled eyes to the doorway. Arthur hovers there, trim Arthur with his sharp suits and sharp features, dark and lean with his slicked-back hair and slender graceful figure and his stuck-out ears and surprisingly deep voice. He still has his tie, but he's taken off his suit, leaving himself in trousers and undershirt. He still looks like he's come straight from a board meeting, but by Arthur's standards this is practically softcore porn.
Eames attempts an appreciative leer as he drags his gaze up Arthur's trim figure, such a striking contrast to his own seemingly ungainly sprawling bulk, Arthur all perfectly compact and put-together, not an inch of excess space. It's not his best effort, but focusing on Arthur, so composed and self-assured, keeps his hands from shaking long enough to fist the poker chip and cram it into his pocket.
The point man already saw it, because of course he did, but Arthur is polite enough not to bring it up. What Arthur does say is, "Hey, are you okay?" and his voice again verges to, well, not soft exactly, but soft-for-Arthur, a little of the edge taken off its clipped businesslike beat.
"Never better now that you're here, darling," Eames drawls, shooting one last glance into the mirror and playing it off as pretending to smooth his side part back into place. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
"Your hands were shaking at the carousel," Arthur offers dryly, as if the answer is obvious, and Eames scowls at the thought of being so transparent.
"Thought I should follow you," Arthur continues, "Make sure you were alright."
There's a strange, halting monotone to his words, like he's reciting from a script he's not sure he believes. Or perhaps like he's carefully seeping any emotion out of them.
Eames grins enough to show his wonky top tooth. "Why Arthur, you do care."
Arthur doesn't grin, but he smiles. It looks a little grudging, but it's enough to show a hint of the dimples Arthur flashes on rare occasions. "Never said I didn't."
They stare at each other in uncertain silence. Surprisingly, Arthur breaks it first. "You did really great down there," and his tone is the softest it's been the whole conversation.
Leave it to Arthur to have the most feeling about his job performance. Eames smirks instead of rolling his eyes. "And compliments! You're behaving particularly effusive this evening, darling, are you running a temperature?"
Arthur smiles that same subdued grudging smile again, leaning against the doorway and folding his arms, almost hugging himself, as if still carefully holding things back. "I just wanted you to know that I acknowledge your work." And then Arthur is ducking his head, and Eames watches in a little fascination as Arthur's stuck-out ears turn red. "And I....I care." He flashes a smile back up with that last admission, still restrained but....warmer. Softer. And almost shy.
Eames feels a little tingle in his toes. "Well well. Today's just full of surprises, innit? And I trust your opinion of me is not so low that it doesn't go without saying that the sentiments are returned."
Arthur's eyes crinkle at the corners. "Are they."
"I find you rather endlessly fascinating, Arthur," Eames says finally, because he's run out of reasons not to, and because apparently narrowly avoiding spending eternity in Limbo until your brain turns to scrambled egg pushes emotionally constipated grown men into talking about their feelings like schoolboys.
Arthur fiddles with his fingers. His dark, serious gaze appraises Eames in a calculating manner, like he's deciding what to do with that information and how much to say in return. "I like you," he finally offers. It comes out soft but matter-of-fact. Arthur isn't given to emotional displays---or any discernible emotion whatsoever---and in his shaky condition, Eames is oddly appreciative, lest Arthur make some dramatic love declaration and pitch Eames' emotional equilibrium over the side and leave him embarrassingly blubbering all over him.
But the specter of Peter Browning is still close enough on his heels that Eames ducks his head, suppresses a shiver, shrugs evasively. "You don't even know who I am, pet."
Oddly, Arthur smiles the fondest he's done all night. "I know enough, Eames." His voice is low, quiet, but he sounds so certain.
"Arthur," Eames drawls the point man's name for emphasis, flails a little helplessly, "I don't even know who I am. My name isn't even Eames, for fuck's sake..."
"And my name isn't Arthur," Arthur tosses back with an easy shrug.
The imperturbable flippancy is getting a little aggravating. "Have you ever spent three straight hours staring into a mirror, because you're afraid if you glance away for one second, you won't be there anymore?"
Arthur's gaze turns a little pitying. "No, I haven't."
"So you don't really know me then, do you?" Eames gesticulates wildly, and he's not sure when he started talking so loud, but his voice is rising up like a storm, filling this tiny hotel bathroom, and he doesn't know how to stop, the genie is out of the bottle, "You know who you are, Arthur or whatever your bloody name is, you look in the mirror and it's the same face every time, you don't.....you can't----"
"Hey. Hey," Arthur is saying, and he's suddenly right in front of him, strong steely grip gently but firmly tugging Eames' hands away from his face where he's shielding his tears and when did that happen? And Arthur cups Eames' face and forces the forger to meet his sure, steady gaze. "You're here. You're real."
Eames wobbles a bit, and Arthur surges forward and plants his lips on his.
Eames had imagined Arthur being either a terminally uptight lover whose kisses are Victorian chaste, or a dirty sex fiend beneath that proper facade. The kiss is neither one, open-mouth but not obscene, just pushing his mouth firmly against Eames', putting his whole body into it as if willing his whole being to the other man, willing him to believe this is real.
When they part, Arthur looks more flushed than Eames has ever seen him. His lips stay parted and his gaze, darkened and heated with arousal, falls back down to Eames' mouth, as if he wants to dive back in. But one hand cups Eames' scruffy cheek and the other is a steadying anchor on his shoulder.
"This is real. You're real. You're okay," Arthur clips out, as cool and professional as if reassuring Ariadne bursting in a panic from a dream of swarming projections on Parisian streets.
Eames feels the warmth of Arthur's palm, and the strength of his hand on his shoulder, and the mirror is still at his back, but suddenly it feels very far away.
And when he takes his next step, it's further away still, into the light and warmth of the hotel room. Into reality. Into Arthur, and the point man lets him step into his arms and wraps him up in them without a second thought, one hand cradling the back of Eames' head, nosing into Eames' cheek and neck, breathing him in like this is something precious.
Here, in a rubbish LA hotel in Arthur's arms, Eames dares to believe maybe it is.