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They have just been torn apart by Cobb’s projections.
Despite Arthur’s objections, they have been experimenting with dropping deeper through the dream levels, in preparation for the job in Miami. It is the second time that Eames has worked with these men, but it is the first time that Eames has died quite so horribly in a dream. When he wakes up, he feels sick to his stomach and his forehead is prickling with sweat.
While Eames tries to will away the lingering wrenching sensation which plays around his joints by lying still, Arthur is on his feet instantly, raging at Cobb, who is out of his seat equally fast and holding up both of his hands in defence.
“Are you fucking satisfied now?” Arthur bellows. “Is that enough to make you understand how dangerous this is?”
Cobb eyes Arthur with the frustration of an older brother whose sibling is starting to grow out of the convenient habit of blind hero-worship.
“It was just a dream, Arthur,” Cobb says, condescending. “We’re fine.”
It is as Arthur’s hands curl into fists that Eames finally stands up.
“Speak for yourself,” Eames says, tugging down the sleeves of his shirt in an attempt to still the shivers which keep rolling over him. “I’ll be suffering from post-traumatic stress after that lovely affair. Do you always treat your guests with such hospitality? Or am I just a lucky one?”
Arthur tosses him an impassioned glance, the sudden, eager recognition of a comrade. It is a look which warms away Eames’s shivers.
Cobb scowls.
“We aren’t going to try that again,” Arthur says, turning back to Cobb, his voice hard, rebellious. “If you want to take yourself into that kind of danger, risk that kind of destruction, then that’s your business. But you won’t be doing it with us.”
When Arthur walks away, he pauses beside Eames to squeeze a firm hand around Eames’s shoulder, a thank you perhaps, or an apology. And then Arthur smiles a little, with a gentle shift of his elegant jaw and Eames falls in love with him on the spot.
Eames imagines that his eyes must dance with stars, the way that he has seen it happen in cartoons.
* * * * *
Over the next few weeks, as they continue to prepare for the job, Eames discovers that Arthur is a spectacularly easy person to love. He has slim hips, a chiselled face and a fabulous arse. His entire body is packed with stream-lined, whip-chord muscle. He is clever and efficient and he takes every inch of Eames’s teasing like he was made for it.
Eames finds himself struck by inappropriate and somewhat baffling urges when he is around Arthur. There is the urge to lick the corded tendons of Arthur’s wrist, as it is extended past Eames’s face, passing an envelope of surveillance photographs to Cobb. There is the urge to bite vampire-like into Arthur’s throat, as Arthur drops his head back against his chair, staring up at the ceiling in thought. There is the urge to grip Arthur’s skull hard in his hands and hold it still, so that he can finally just stare at every inch of that face for as long as he needs to and be done with all the stupid carefully-timed glances.
Naturally, acting on any of these urges would prove unproductive and awkward, so it is lucky for everyone involved that Eames is very good at hiding things, starry eyes included.
At least, Eames thinks that starry eyes are included until the next time they all go under and they slip into one of Arthur’s pristine dreams, its perfection marred only by the motley rabble of Eames’s projections.
“We need to create more space here,” Cobb is saying, sweeping his hands apart in the middle of Arthur’s hotel lobby. “We’d be too boxed in if something went wrong.”
“Now you’re interested in what could go wrong?” Eames starts to ask, but is distracted by Arthur swearing and moving jerkily beside him, his shoulder bumping against Eames’s as he backs away from a spot of ground which has apparently caused him offence.
“What the hell is this?” Arthur asks.
Eames manages to stop looking at Arthur’s face, Arthur’s hips, Arthur’s everything, to glance down at the floor, where, inexplicably, a small tabby cat is winding its way between Arthur’s ankles, purring like an engine.
There’s a moment of silence where all three men stare at the cat.
Then, Cobb is walking over to them with quick strides. He seizes Arthur’s elbow in one hand, Eames’s elbow in the other and tugs both of them backwards, out of range of the cat as if it might suddenly explode.
They all stare at the cat again.
The cat sits down quietly, picks one paw up off the ground and licks at it.
“Did you make that?” Arthur says and it takes Eames a moment to recognise that the question is intended for him.
“I,” Eames says and then stops, because although he really wants to say ‘no’ he is not entirely convinced that this would be the correct answer.
“Have you ever seen an animal projection, before?” Arthur asks, sensing that Eames is not in a state of mind to be helpful and looking at Cobb instead. Cobb bobs his head in a single, grave nod.
“Once,” he says, “Mal and I went under with an ex-boyfriend of hers. A forger. There was a dog there.”
The cat looks up at them before dropping its head sideways and rolling down onto the floor, still purring, its belly flirtatiously exposed.
“And was it, er, pleased to see you?” Arthur asks.
“Not exactly,” Cobb says. “It chased me. Went for the throat. It was like the Hound of the Baskervilles.”
Cobb’s hands tighten on their elbows and, as one, they take another step back away from the cat.
“This one seems friendly enough,” Eames says eventually, when they have stood still for at least a minute and all the cat has done is roll backwards and forwards a few times before stopping to stare at them sleepily.
Despite this, Cobb still makes an involuntary grab after Arthur when Arthur leaves the safety of their huddle and crouches slowly down in front of them, extending one hand to the cat.
Eames can’t help but notice how the fabric of Arthur’s trousers pulls taut across his arse as he does so, which is enough of a temporary distraction to cause Eames to jump when the cat springs suddenly to its feet.
When Arthur makes a little clicking noise with his tongue against his teeth, the cat trots towards him and drags the side of its face wantonly against Arthur’s knuckles.
“This one doesn’t seem like the ‘go for the throat’ type,” Arthur says, indulging the cat by scratching it under its chin.
While Eames is trying to prevent himself from saying something very unwise (and really, probably, not at all funny) about the cat being a master of restraint when presented with a golden opportunity to go for a throat as delicious as Arthur’s, Cobb finally unclamps his fingers from around Eames’s elbow and squats carefully down beside Arthur.
The cat is purring with delight at Arthur’s caresses but Cobb’s hand does not even get within a foot of the animal before it turns on him ferociously and, okay, yes, probably does go straight for Cobb’s jugular.
They escape the ensuing chaos when they wake up, just moments later.
“Maybe it’s you,” Arthur says, with a frown in Cobb’s direction, as he sits up straighter in his chair. “Maybe dream animals naturally hate you.”
“Or maybe it’s you,” Cobb retorts, in a tone which unfairly suggests that these mishaps are always connected to Arthur. “Maybe it was your projection, and you’re still angry at me from the other day.”
“I am not angry,” Arthur snaps, in a very angry way.
Even as their argument begins to escalate, Eames does not intervene this time. He is too busy panicking over the distinct possibility that a bestial projection which wants to be felt up by Arthur and to savage Cobb could well be something spawned from his very own subconscious.
* * * * *
The incident with the cat is weird, but nobody honestly suspects that it might become a real problem until the next time they go under, when the cat trips Cobb up as it rushes out of nowhere to throw itself down at Arthur’s feet. Or maybe it is the time after that, when Arthur is unable to practice setting the explosives behind the hotel bar because the cat keeps persistently trying to climb into his lap. Perhaps it is even the third time, when they attempt to create handfuls of fireflies (integral to a treasured memory from the mark’s past) to illuminate the hotel’s walled garden, and the cat ruins everything by catching and eating the fireflies faster than they can dream them up.
Eames can’t be sure which is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, but he does know that Cobb does a great deal of shouting and they end up spending two entire days researching abnormal projection behaviours.
“The only thing I’ve come up with, the only thing that there’s any reference to,” Arthur says, as the three of them sit dejectedly around the desk they have set up in the warehouse, “is this idea that animal projections represent, um, not parts of the subconscious proper, but rather parts of the conscious mind which, for one reason or another, are being wilfully repressed by the subject.”
“Why would that make it an animal?” Eames asks.
“The suggestion is that the related feelings tend to be animalistic in nature, the kind which are difficult to repress. So, feelings of anger, say, or lust,” Arthur says and Eames tries to swallow through a throat which is suddenly unusually dry. “Some kind of territorial instinct, perhaps,” Arthur continues. “But really, really, basic, stuff. Raw, primitive impulses. That’s what we’re looking at.”
“And you believe that’s what this is?” says Cobb.
Arthur holds his hands out helplessly.
“I don’t know. I’ll be the first to admit that it sounds far-fetched. But we don’t have anything else to go on.”
“Alright, so let’s run with that theory,” Cobb says. “We still need to work out who the thing is coming from.”
Arthur clears his throat. He looks at Eames.
“Historically, it’s a phenomenon connected to people who forge on a regular basis,” Arthur says.
Eames feels his eyes go wide and innocent.
“‘Historically’?” he says. “And how many other cases of this fantastically rare occurrence in this fantastically new field are there on record, exactly?”
“Well,” says Arthur.
“Two,” says Cobb. “And one of those is my dog story.”
Eames snorts with as much derision as he can muster, which is quite a lot.
“Hardly conclusive, wouldn’t you say?” he says. Arthur narrows his eyes and Eames feels his own skin start to prickle under Arthur’s gaze, as if it is about to peel back from his flesh, revealing everything that he does not want Arthur to see.
* * * * *
Eventually, they sort of learn to work around it. Arthur becomes what Cobb calls “far too attached” to the cat, names it Macavity (“Because he’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard,” Arthur says, grinning, while Cobb shakes his head in something akin to disgust) and treats it as some kind of point man mascot. Wherever Arthur goes the cat pads quietly after him, sprinting and bounding to keep pace when Arthur runs, nudging at him affectionately whenever Arthur stays still long enough. Arthur gets fast at scooping the cat up into his arms whenever it looks like it is about to launch itself at Cobb or pounce on the wires of live explosive devices.
The cat seems mostly indifferent to Eames. It tends to stay clear of his feet and will tolerate the occasional pat on the head. Eames is only really concerned for what the cat might represent, and if it weren’t for Cobb, they might have been able to continue to the end of the job without anything being done about it all. But Cobb?
Oh, the cat still hates Cobb.
“Can’t we just shoot the damn thing?” Cobb says after a trial run two days before the job, when the cat has sliced its claws across Cobb’s face because it took offence at the way Cobb had tried to shove it off of the top of the bar.
Eames nearly laughs out loud at the look of horror which appears on Arthur’s face.
“No,” Arthur says, appalled and Cobb looks at him in disbelief.
“What do you mean ‘no’, Arthur?” he says. “You’ll shoot a man without a second thought. This is a fucking cat.”
“Yeah, exactly. It’d be like killing a mockingbird. All it wants to do is...” Arthur trails off, scowling like a defiant teenager.
“Love you?” Cobb supplies.
“Well, yes,” Arthur says and Eames can tell from his unusually flustered tone that even Arthur thinks this is ridiculous.
“Sure. And sabotage our work and eat my face,” Cobb snaps.
“Oh, I don’t think a cat would,” Eames finds himself saying, but loses his conviction when Cobb turns to stare daggers at him. “I mean, steady on. Eat you face? That’s a bit extreme,” he finishes lamely.
Cobb does not even bother to grace this with a response. Instead, he squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose hard between his thumb and finger.
“Alright, look. We know that it’s nothing to do with me,” Cobb says, when he opens his eyes. “Why would my own projection attack me? It’s got to be either yours,” he points at Eames, “or his,” pointing at Arthur. “Frankly, I don’t give a damn which one of you it is. But work it out between you and get rid of it fast, because I won’t have it in the way when I am trying to do my job.”
To Eames’s horror, Arthur wants to run ‘tests’ to determine whose mind the cat is a product of. So they begin going under in pairs, trying to isolate the source.
When Cobb and Arthur wake up from their trial, Eames is hardly surprised to learn that neither of them saw any sign of the cat.
“So it’s mine,” Eames says, then, not bothering to make it a question.
Cobb squints at him with some suspicion, but Arthur concludes that this evidence alone is not enough to go on, so they diligently continue the trials with Eames going under alone with Cobb (the cat appears, but does nothing more than watch them from a distance), and then with Arthur.
It is Arthur’s dream, as it was the first time, refined and crisp. They are crouched in the walled garden of the hotel, with soft clouds panning overhead and the cat purring luxuriously as it rubs its body along Arthur’s thighs.
Eames stares at the cat in despair and can’t help but feel slightly disappointed that his subconscious is quite this obvious.
“It is yours. It must be,” Arthur says and looks up at Eames. He is scratching his fingertips out of habit into the fur behind the cat’s jaw. Eames tries to look nonchalant, which, it just so happens, is a look that he is especially good at.
“It would appear so,” he says.
“Why does it like me?” Arthur asks, plain and unapologetic as ever.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Eames lies.
Arthur dreams three curled crayfish tails onto the palm of one hand and spreads his fingers wide so that the cat can eat them.
“I shall tell Cobb that you’re encouraging it, Arthur,” Eames says, grumpy with the desire to seize the wrist of Arthur’s free hand, turn the palm upwards and drag his own human tongue across its surface.
“I don’t care. This is the best pet I’ve ever had,” Arthur says, running his free hand along the cat’s spine, which arches into his touch. “It’s always pleased to see me, but it doesn’t bring bird carcasses into the house or vomit on my carpet.”
“We have just determined that what you refer to as a ‘pet’ is some part of my subconscious,” Eames says irritably. Arthur smiles and, because Arthur is staring at the cat, instead of Eames, there is something terribly playful in his expression.
“Then I’ve got your subconscious eating out of my hand. Haven’t I?”
Eames can’t deny this, so he just scowls and scowls until he feels the kick and they ride it back into wakefulness.
Cobb is staring at him expectantly when Eames opens his eyes.
“Well?” he says.
“It’s Eames’s,” Arthur says, unfolding himself from the deckchair beside Eames and tipping his head casually from side to side, stretching the tension out of his neck, as if they have nothing at all to worry about. “When we do the job for real, we can shoot it. But I won’t do it.”
“Fine,” Cobb says.
“I’ll take care of it,” Eames offers automatically.
Cobb looks at him in approval.
* * * * *
When Eames says that he will take care of it, he most definitely means it, although perhaps not in quite the way that Cobb would have expected.
After they finish at the warehouse for the day, Eames follows Arthur to his car and stands patiently while Arthur shrugs off his jacket and drapes it onto the passenger seat.
“Did you need something, Eames?” Arthur asks, turning, when it becomes clear that Eames has no intention of walking the few metres further to reach his own vehicle.
“The cat,” Eames says and Arthur raises one eyebrow.
“The cat?” he repeats.
And, yes, Arthur’s face might be particularly chiselled and his arse might be particularly fabulous, but Eames is all grown up and he is not new to this. So he smiles a predatory sort of smile, slow and suave and always, always effective, and he steps just too close to Arthur for there to be any misunderstanding.
Arthur’s face registers only the barest flicker of surprise, and to Arthur’s credit, it is a very brief flicker.
“I’m afraid,” Eames says, and he is close enough that he can speak almost in a whisper, “that the cat may well be a manifestation of my ‘animalistic’ - that was the word you used, wasn’t it darling? – my animalistic lust for you.”
Arthur swallows, his throat moving silkily against the collar of his shirt.
“Is that so?” he says quietly, his every muscle held still.
“Now, between us I’m sure we can come up with a much more humane solution than to shoot the poor creature. Don’t you think?”
Arthur says nothing, but he does not resist when Eames lays broad hands on those narrow hips and steps them back against the sun-warmed metal of the car door. Arthur’s lips part easily when Eames nips at them, almost as easily as his legs do, later, hitching up to fold around Eames’s waist and grip at him like steel.
When Eames moves inside of him, Arthur arches upwards, his spine curling into the sensation, just as a cat presses into a caress.
* * * * *
In the end, Eames does not have to shoot the cat on the day of the job, because the cat is nowhere to be seen. There is just Arthur, fluid and deadly, gunning down projections with practised ease, and grinning at Eames through the firefly-studded dark of the walled garden.
The job is a roaring success, so much so that when they say goodbye, Cobb swears never to work with another forger again, shaking Eames’s hand and clapping him on the back.
“Pleasure working with you, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says, professional to a fault as he hands Eames his cut and offers him his own handshake.
“Likewise,” Eames smirks, and as he shakes Arthur’s hand, he feels something inside of himself purr with satisfaction.