Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ariadne’s day started simply.

It almost always did.

She got dressed for the day, tied her hair up simply, and encoded secret information over breakfast. She walked about ten minutes to the metro station and rode the twenty minutes in before a very short walk to her office building. She scanned her fingerprint and sent her bag through the metal detector, greeting the security officer whose name she did not and was never intended to know.

Her workspace was a small, closed-off office. Nothing fancy, but no cubicle either.

She clicked on the bank of computer screens she had- some screens for information, some for video feeds- and nestled the small earbud into her ear. The connection clicked into place, her video feeds blinking to life and the staticky sound of a windy day feeling her ear from the other side.

She greeted him the same way she always did, only changing his name as she referenced her current notes on where he was and what he was going by now. Of course, she really already knew, she was good at keeping track of her people, but she still liked the notes and memos she kept.

“Good morning, Mr. Everett,” she welcomed pleasantly.

A fake gagging sound came from the other end. “I’ll be so glad to leave Everett behind.”

“I think it suits you.”

“That is cruel and unusual.”

She laughed to herself before getting down to business. “Are you at the coordinates?”

She asked despite being able to see through his little video feed on his jacket and through the CCTV feeds on the street around him. She knew where he was.

“Just around the corner. Do I get to know what crazy stuff I’ll be getting up to today?”

“Nothing crazy. There is a warehouse nearby that we have reason to believe is being used by our client’s competitor and is housing dangerous information we need on a computer hard drive. Your part is simple. Get the hard drive.”

“It’s always the simple things that get screwy.”

“Then don’t let it ‘get screwy’.”

The warehouse appeared on the feed.

“As you might have guessed, I don’t have cameras inside.” She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from commenting to be safe once again, she was already softer towards this agent but constantly worrying about him seemed to be pushing that line between work and friendship. Even though he still did not know her name.

“Yes, yes, I’ll be careful.”

He made his way into the warehouse with little trouble, though he did have to scale the outside to the top window since the doors were locked. They didn’t want to set off any alarms or make it look like they had been there at all, so brute force was not the name of the game today. His video feed showed the inside of the warehouse as he landed on the catwalk underneath the window.

The interior was dimly lit with only a few crates being stored inside.

“Hey, uh… Sparrow? There’s nothing in here.”

“I can see that,” she responded warily. “Perhaps the crates have something in them?”

“Do you want me to check them?” He asked because it was technically her job to make the decisions, he was just a vessel.

She didn’t want to make a choice. Something seemed off, but she needed that information and if she and the agent left without even confirming it wasn’t there… things might not be pretty.

“I… yes, check the crates.”

He went to the edge of the catwalk, swinging himself over. He landed on a taller crate and then jumped down to the floor. The second his feet hit the floor all of Ariadne’s video feeds cut out, the earbud following shortly after with a high, metallic whine that made her cringe.

“Agent Everett? Agent?” She tried a couple of times with no response. “Agent?”

She was typing furiously, trying to get her video feeds back with growing pressure in her chest. She was clicking her monitors on and off, but nothing.

“Eames! Please respond!”

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Just that loud metallic whine she couldn’t bear to take out of her ear.

Then that was gone too. Cut off from his end.

-----

Eames was on his first real assignment, working on a senator’s staff as some guy named Ben Hayden. He had been there for about a week now, making sure that the information the client had asked for was actually there in the computer system and that the senator wouldn’t have any firewalls or fail-safes in place for attempted information extraction.

Of course, the senator wasn’t stupid so he had all those things which is why Eames had needed to introduce a virus to the computer system that would slowly dismantle all those things while he played dress up as a political science major who had just graduated. Tonight though, he was going to talk to his earbud for the first time since being given the assignment and they were going to get the information he had come here for.

He stood outside the office building with a hot americano in his hand and a business casual fit that made him itch- he would never that his colorful patterns for granted again. He sipped at his americano and pressed the earbud deep into his ear, where it wouldn’t be too visible.

“Good evening, Mr. Hayden,” a pleasant, feminine voice stated on the other side.

“Good evening, Love. I take it you will be my earbud for this little run.”

“You are correct. Should we both perform well we will continue to be partnered together for some time.”

“Wonderful, in that case, is there something I can call you?” He asked, still sipping a bit on his coffee.

“You know I can’t give you a name.”

“How about I call you Sparrow? That way if someone goes ‘dear lord, how did you know all of this?’ I can say ‘a little bird told me’ before I… I don’t know shoot them or ruin their life or whatever fits best with the hypothetical.”

“If you must. Would you like to begin now?” She sounded a bit nervous and it occurred to him that he was probably not the only person on a trial period.

“Ah, yes, I suppose I am stalling. Let’s go.”

There weren’t many staffers in the office at that time, just enough that Ben Hayden’s being there wouldn’t be too noteworthy. Especially as Eames carried himself with as much general weariness as possible to make it look like he really was overworked and clocking in some overtime.

As planned the other overworked staffers barely glanced at him except for one girl who greeted him blithely. She had, for some reason, self-appointed the role of office leader but also seemed to absolutely hate everything that went along with it. So much the better, she probably wouldn’t even remember Ben Hayden’s presence or name.

Getting to the office was simple. The senator was far too comfortable in seeing his staffers as friends and believing in the efficacy of his security.

Eames dumped his mostly full americano down the drain of the water fountain and tossed the cup into a nearby trashcan before waltzing into the senator’s empty office with a cheerful “good riddance.”

“To the americano?”

“Yes, blech.”

“They aren’t so bad, I like them.”

“Horrible taste, unless they are made with a nice espresso. This one… was not,” Eames wrinkled his nose. Even a nice americano tasted awful to him, he wanted caramel and mocha and so many seasonal sugary additions.

“Then why are you drinking them?”

Eames shrugged as he reached the senator’s desk and set his bag in the seat. “Ben Hayden struck me as an americano kind of guy.”

“The fictional alias that you created?” She sounded skeptical.

“Yes. Did I mention I wanted to be a theater major?”

Eames switched the computer on. The background was a lovely picture of him on a fishing boat with all of his buddies. A picture of his wife holding a small child was propped up next to the monitor in a shitty wooden frame that read ‘Happy Fathers Day’. It certainly painted a picture.

Eames plugged a flash drive in and easily pulled up the senator’s documents and download history. No passwords, no walls, nothing. He scrolled through, lazily looking for something incriminating before asking Sparrow.

“What exactly is it I’m looking for? This dude has all his stuff stored under strings of random letters and numbers. I have no idea how he finds anything.”

The voice in his ear listed out a truly god-awful string of numbers and letters which he typed in faithfully.

“This one?” He asked, hovering over one of the five folders that had popped up in their search.

“Turn on your camera.”

He clicked on the camera on his lapel with a tap.

“Yes, I think so.”

Eames clicked into the folder, somewhat to ensure it was the dirt that the client was hoping for, mostly because of curiosity. His eyes widened as the images and video previews loaded in.

“Sparrow, are you seeing this?”

“Yes, let’s get the folder and go.” Despite her words being a bit brusque, she sounded like she was going to be ill on the other end.

Eames looked back at the screen for a moment, feeling ill, before backing out of the folder and copying it to the drive. As it loaded he checked the other folders, copying over some of their content as well, then he sat back and let it load.

It finally loaded and he ejected the drive before exiting out of all the open windows and shutting the monitor down. In the morning the senator wouldn’t even know someone had been here… well until the client did whatever they planned to do with the incriminating evidence he had just collected.

Eames straightened his jacket, tucked the drive into his pocket, clicked the camera off, and slung his laptop bag back around his shoulders.

“Do you think this makes us good people?” He asked jovially as he exited through the back staircase where there wasn’t anyone.

“I don’t know about good, but I’m glad we weren’t helping him,” She stated in a reasonable voice. “You should drop the drive where you were told and go get something that isn’t an americano to celebrate. You may or may not get another assignment soon.”

Eames sighed with a smile. “Alright, alright. Lovely meeting you, Sparrow. I hope to work with you in the future.”

Then he clicked his earbud off and pocketed it. He was going to get something caramel, he decided.

Chapter Text

Ariadne sat with her hands in her lap outside of the boss’s office. Well, Cobb’s office, anyways. They all called him the boss, but they were well aware that there was a long chain of people coming before him and connected to him that they would never see. As far as the office was concerned, however, being the only visible one with any power qualified him as ‘boss’.

Cobb finally hung up the phone that she hadn’t been able to hear any of the conversation with before he came and opened the glass door.

“Come in.”

She stood on the other side of the desk as he settled back into his chair.

“What seems to be the problem?”

“I…” she twisted her fingers around her thumb, pulling nervously at the skin. “I lost an agent.”

Cobb straightened a bit. “I’m sorry to hear that. You’re a diligent worker, but… our line of work is a dangerous one. If you need time off I can grant that.”

“No, no, I didn’t have an agent die, I lost an agent.”

He looked mildly perplexed. “Explain that.”

“All the video feeds and audio just cut out and I haven’t been able to get anything back, I can’t even brute force my way into anything… Anything I could use to track him is dead. Whatever happened, it was planned. He walked into a trap.”

Ariadne chewed on her bottom lip as Cobb took in that information, turning it over in his head.

“Or he disappeared on purpose,” Cobb finally said. “It’s a possibility we have to consider, it’s certainly one the higher-ups will.”

Ariadne’s eyes widened. “I- I really don’t think he would do that.”

“Either way, he needs to be found and we need to ascertain how much information he could possibly know and could have possibly shared. This isn’t the first time one of ours has gone missing or tried to disappear, but time is of the essence.”

“I know. I’m doing my best, but I can’t get anything from my end technology-wise and I feel like without being on location there isn’t any more information I can get from the scene.”

“Then I’ll send you to the scene.”

Ariadne looked up in shock. “Sir?”

“Ariadne, you are officially on suspension from your normal duties until you can track down our missing agent.”

“By… by myself?”

“Of course not. You will be pairing with Yusuf. He’s on suspension for unauthorized experimentation so he’s perfectly free.”

“Oh,” Ariadne smiled weakly. “Perfect.”

-

Dom sent her back home to gather up anything she may need while he called up Yusuf. Sure enough, a good fifteen minutes after Ariadne arrived home and began shoving stuff into a backpack she got a text that Yusuf was waiting down at the curb.

He had a nondescript silver sedan with no special license plates or stickers that would have made it identifiable. She wondered momentarily if it was actually a rental, but the vehicle was obviously older and a bit beat up, so if it was a rental it certainly wasn’t a nice company.

Yusuf was more smiley and welcoming and nervous than what Ariadne had expected from someone who did “unauthorized experimentation”. He helped her shuck off her backpack and jacket into the back seat. She settled into the front seat.

“The boss told me a bit about your situation, missing agent and all that.”

“...oh, yeah,” Ariadne responded, feeling a bit small. Of course, Cobb would have talked to Yusuf, but she just cringed at every reminder.

“Are you doing ok?” Yusuf asked, unsure. He obviously had been leading somewhere else with his question, but now he was looking over at Ariadne who was hunched in her seat like a teenager.

She forcefully straightened herself. She was younger than many at the agency, but that didn’t mean she was a pouty teen or a spoiled college brat.

“Yes. I’m doing fine. I just… I don’t make mistakes and I don’t lose agents.”

“Well, I mean that was kind of out of your control, wasn’t it? Besides, no matter how good you are at your job agents just get lost sometimes.”

He shrugged in a casual way she was sure was supposed to be reassuring, but it really just made something fester deep in her stomach. The loss of agents was so… expecting. She wasn’t stupid, to some extent she had already known that, but it had never been one of her agents.

“I expect Cobb told you about the unauthorized experimentation?” Yusuf asked as he started up the car.

“Yeah.”

“Wanna know about it?”

“Please.” At least if she knew that it would be one thing she knew in a sea of the things she didn’t.

“I work with chemicals and there are things I am meant to be making those chemicals do and things that the agency does not feel like funding and that rarely overlaps with the things I think I can do.”

“Like MK Ultra chemicals or Napalm chemicals?”

“Both and neither. A little bit of everything, really. Usually things like undetectable poisons and really strong sleepy-time drugs, but honestly just anything and everything. I studied really well in chemistry and I like mixing things together and seeing what happens.”

“Fair, I suppose.”

“As long as I don’t napalm you?” He asked with a smile.

“Yes. As long as you don’t napalm me.”

“Fair’s fair then. So, where to?”

Ariadne leaned over and typed the address into the navigator.

Yusuf clicked his tongue against his teeth. “That’s a ways away.”

“I hope you have good music taste, then.”

-----

Eames ruffled his hair a bit to give some life back to it after traveling for so long. He was dressed in jeans and a simple tee with a black jacket, walking the line between being genuinely rough around the edges and too rough or trying too hard. The outfit still lacked the color he liked, but was comfier than the last couple of business and business casual wardrobes he had had to adopt on his previous assignments.

The taxi dropped him a couple of doors down from the bar he was aiming for and he paid the man giving a decent tip to make up for him having been somewhat offputting as he adopted the mannerisms of his new character, Mick Jacobs. He walked the short way to the bar before cracking his neck and knuckles and then entering.

His newest assignment was information gathering (easy enough) from a crime family basically running their own little mafia (less easy). And by little mafia they apparently meant a decently large gang that was responsible for a good deal of drugs being shipped around, not to mention quite a few murders and disappearances that could be eventually traced back to them.

Tonight’s goal was to get their in. Sparrow had already picked out a member who seemed to be more casual in talking to new people and might be able to get Mick in without much trouble. His nickname was Twitch which wasn’t the most reassuring thing Eames had ever heard, but it’s what he had.

Sparrow wasn’t in his ear tonight or watching through a camera… well, she was probably watching through the traffic cams and CCTV she could get her hands on, but that didn’t mean much. They had decided that if Eames was able to get in tonight then it was likely someone might search him and they couldn’t risk that so Eames was under strict orders to report in once he was back in his apartment.

He spotted Twitch on one side of the bar and went over to introduce himself.

“Hey, Twitch right?”

“Hell yeah bro, but I’m not working so you can me Nash. We meet before?” Nash responded with a smile. He was obviously already a little drunk (which would be good for Eames) and he truly was as friendly as Sparrow had been banking on.

“Ah, we’ve talked here and there. Nothing much, but uh… you mentioned the crew you run with and, well, I’ve hit a rough patch.” Eames did the appropriate gestures, rubbing the back of his neck and flicking his eyes away, to make it seem like Mick was embarrassed about his predicament.

“Hey, happens to the best of us and the worst. You wanna drink? First one will be on me mister rough patch.”

“Then how could I say no?” Eames replied with a smile.

Nash looped his arm over Eames’s shoulder, leaning just a bit too much weight against Eames.

“To the bar!”

Eames began lugging the mostly deadweight over to a barstool and propped him up.

“You know, if ya really wanna join the group we’re gonna have to think of a good name for ya.”

“Like Nash?” Eames asked jokingly.

“Well that’s my name so you can’t be taking that one,” Nash responded seriously.

“Right.”

“What can I get you, gentlemen?” A voice interrupted and Eames looked up at a thin, dark-haired man. Eames first thought was how beautiful he was which… wow, embarrassing, he wasn’t even drunk.

The man had warm brown eyes that had a sort of sharpness to them and he was wearing a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows to show his bare forearms, which anyone with a brain could tell was hot. There was something about his that seemed almost too clean and too sharp for a seedy bar like this. Something about his presence was incongruous.

“Heya Barman.”

“Hi Nash, beers?”

“For sure, gotta start the new guy off easy til I find out if he’s a lightweight or not,” Nash thumbed over to Eames which brought the bartender’s attention back to him.

He looked at him appraisingly, dark brown eyes flitting over him in a way that was probably actually really normal and it was beginning to occur to Eames that he hadn’t hooked up in a bit.

“I’m going to go with ‘not’ on this one.” Which kind of hurt Eames’s feelings until he remembered they were talking about him being a possible lightweight. “Do you have a beer preference?”

“Blue Moon?” Eames responded because it was the only beer he could remember, by name, being on draft in an American bar.

The bartender's face said he might have been judging that choice, but he could just be judging beers in general.

Eames's eyes followed the guy as he went around to get their beers. Nash seemed to notice him looking.

“You’ll wanna be careful around that one.”

“Why?” Eames asked, trying not to sound too into the information. “Who is he?”

“Well, we all call him Barman cuz uh-”

“Cuz he works a bar?”

“Yeah. He’s a bit of a bender,” Eames felt himself stiffen at the term and because he was still watching the bartender he could see his shoulders stiffen just slightly as well. He could hear better in this crowded bar than he seemed to be letting on. “But, ya know, he’s the Right Hand’s cousin so none of us really bother him or anythin’. He makes good drinks and went to college and everything so the Right-Hand keeps him around.”

The bartender plunked the two glasses on the bar, the heaviness of his hands the only sign that he was bothered by anything and Nash clearly didn’t pick up on it. “Here you are.”

Eames made momentary eye contact with the bartender before he moved on to serving other people. There was something there, a part of Eames wanted to call it disappointment. He took a swig of the beer to wash it down and cringed, he missed fruity drinks already.

“So any thoughts on nicknames?”

“How about Bender?” Eames asked with a sharp grin, despite the fact he could totally be tanking his chances here.

“No shit, you’re like him huh? I wouldn’t have guessed.” Nash looked at him appraisingly, this look being much more uncomfortable and making Eames want to squirm more than the look from the bartender had, but he stood his ground- or stayed seated, as it were.

“Maybe if ya sleep him you can get in with the Right-Hand, get a nice little promotion over the rest of us,” Nash said and Eames was tense for a moment before Nash burst into laughter. Eames laughed along with him despite not really knowing what was so funny about the whole thing. “Hey, if ya try to sleep your way up lemme piggyback off ya just a bit, you know, as thanks for introducing you two.”

Eames felt a bit of tightness in his smile when he responded. “Sure thing.”

Nash smiled and smacked him on the back before drinking the rest of his beer. “Anyways, I’ve gotta get goin’.”

With that Nash slid off the barstool and made his way through the bar. Eames was watching him go until he disappeared into the crowd so he was surprised when a voice spoke fairly close to him.

“He didn’t leave any form of payment did he?”

Eames turned to see the bartender was back around.

“Uh… no.”

“What’s your name?”

“Mick.”

“Well, Mick, you’re going to want to get yourself a nickname when you can and not drink with Nash again unless you’re prepared to pay for the both of you. I’ll cover this round for you though, as a welcome gift.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Nash does that to every new recruit, that’s why he likes talking to them so much. Just be glad he’s not a top-shelf guy.”

“No, I’m sorry he called you a bender.”

“Oh, did he?”

Eames raised an eyebrow at the bartender’s cool expression as if to say ‘I know you heard it’.

The bartender shrugged. “Listen, you seem to be pretty familiar with this kind of setting, so I’m assuming you already know, but guys like Nash are pretty harmless and the language they use ends up just kind of baked in, I think half the time he doesn’t even realize he’s being offensive.”

“Still, we shouldn’t have to hear it all the time.”

“We?” The bartender questioned in a calm, even tone.

“I’m assuming you’re teasing me now because I know you overheard the rest of what Nash said too.”

That made the bartender smile just slightly. “Observant. Maybe I did. Are you going to try and sleep your way up?”

Eames pretended to debate this in his head, tilting it side to side. “Nah, I’m only trying to make a bit of extra cash to move out of my dump of an apartment and maybe afford a bike. Being ‘Right-Hand’ or anything close to it sounds like way too much work.”

“Really?”

“This may shock but I was more of an in-and-out-of-juvie kid and less of a group-projects-JROTC-leadership-classes kid.”

“Shocking.”

“I know, right?”

“Ok Juvie, if that’s true then why are you still chatting with me?”

“Because I find our dialogue entertaining and despite not wanting to move up ranks I do find you quite attractive.”

“That’s a lot of big words, Mick who was in and out of juvie.”

“I mean, I still latched on way too hard to my English teacher as is the queer rite of passage.”

“I don’t know, I was more attached to my psychology professor.”

“Was it a Socratic Seminar?”

“Of course, it was,” the bartender responded with a cheeky smile.

Eames’s fun was ruined by more people coming up to get drinks. The bartender turned to them letting them know he would be there in just a moment. He turned back to Eames, looking just a bit disappointed.

“Could I ask you out for Italian or would that be too forward, Socrates?”

The smallest hint of a smile flitted over the bartender’s face. He took a napkin from the bar and scribbled something out on it before handing it to Eames.

“Italian, but I choose the place,” he stated and before Eames could respond he turned and began serving the rest of the patrons.

Eames stepped outside and unfolded his hand to find the bartender’s number written in thin, straight handwriting that was far too perfect for having been written on a napkin.

That night he laid down on his shitty thin mattress in his shitty apartment and reported in to Sparrow.

“I think I’ve got my in.”

Chapter Text

The warehouse was empty. Of course, it was, but that didn’t stop Ariadne from feeling a disappointed ache in her chest at the sight.

They weren’t worried about being stealthy this time and Ariadne overrode the computerized locks while Yusuf broke the chain around the door handles with a bolt cutter he had brought in his trunk. The attempts to lock up the warehouse had made Ariadne hopeful for just a moment.

Nothing.

They split up to search through the space for any sort of clues, remaining in earshot of each other just in case, but every blank expanse of floor and every silent space and unbroken crate made further information seem less and less likely. There had to have been a struggle, otherwise, Cobb and the higher-ups were right, but she couldn’t find any signs of one. So it must have been cleaned up. It must have been.

After a while, Yusuf called out to her. “Any luck over there?”

She came back to the middle of the warehouse shaking her head. “No, no luck at all.”

She sat down on one of the few crates with a heavy sigh, placing her head in her hands.

“Listen, I… I really don’t think we’re going to find anything here. It might be time to consider that he actually skipped out on us, on purpose.”

“No, he wouldn’t do that,” Ariadne responded with just a bit of bite to her voice.

“You seem very sure of that.”

“I am. I… I’ve been his earbud for a while, longer than most would be, and I can tell you, I’ve collected so much information and there is nothing in any of his files that makes it sound like he would just up and run. I mean, he isn’t the happiest here, but he knows the risks and he wouldn’t risk it.”

“People have risked far more for far less.”

“Not like this, he wouldn’t risk…” She trailed off.

“Risk what?” Yusuf asked pointedly. “Ariadne, if you are keeping something from me you need to tell me now. We need to find this guy and we can’t afford to withhold anything, especially not over misplaced loyalty.”

“It’s not misplaced!” She immediately defended before deflating a bit. “But there is someone we need to go talk to.”

“And who might that be? He doesn’t have anyone in his file.”

“He’s in a relationship.”

“He’s hidden a whole relationship and you don’t think he would have reason to try and disappear? Where is she?”

“He.”

“What?”

“His partner, Arthur, is a man.”

“Oh.” There was a pause before Yusuf spoke again. “I’m not going to be weird about it.”

“I don’t know man, it’s feeling kind of weird.”

“I’m just surprised, he had a real ladies' man energy going on. I was surprised to hear he even had a partner. Though I guess that was all an act then.”

Ariadne shrugged. “Hard to tell.”

“And he was hiding all this because…?”

“Because he knows what the agency asks of us and what it holds over our heads.”

“Fair, but you know about him, so why didn’t you give that information up?”

“It honestly didn’t seem relevant.” It was a little less than honest, there were other reasons, but she needed to be credible in the eyes of the agency right now; she couldn’t afford anyone getting ideas, even Yusuf, who seemed fairly nice.

“And you wouldn’t happen to have this guy’s address?”

Ariadne smiled at that. Despite everything, being good at her job and having the relevant information still felt good. “Of course I do.”

-----

Eames met the bartender outside the restaurant he had picked out after texting back and forth for a while. He was even cleaner cut when he wasn’t working, his clothes pressed and ironed into flat planes and sharp lines that were weirdly complementary of him despite Eames having been sure he could never fall for the look. His hair was gelled back and his eyes were sharp despite his neutral expression.

His expression shifted just slightly to something warmer as he spotted Eames and Eames smiled back at him, but kept his fists shoved into the pockets of his dark jacket so he wouldn’t completely lose the cool and edgy look by waving like an excited middle-schooler.

Eames whistled lowly as he took in the restaurant front. “Nice place.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be covering the meal tonight.”

“What?”

The man turned to him with an apologetic expression. “You said that you were trying to make some extra cash to move and afford a bike, so I assumed that you wouldn’t mind me taking the bill. I didn’t mean any offense.”

Ah, of course, his cover. He had unintentionally made it a bit awkward, but at the same time thought it was sweet that the bartender was apparently keeping better track of their conversation than he was.

“I just don’t want you to feel like you have to.” Saved it. “By the way, I don’t think I ever caught your name and if I’m honest, I don’t really want to call you Barman all night.”

The man smiled at that.

“Arthur,” he stated cordially. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Pleasure’s mine,” Eames responded as if he were in an old romance book, but it was worth it because it made something flit across the bartender- Arthur’s- mostly neutral face, a slight warmth rooting there.

They went in and, of course, Arthur had thought ahead and gotten them a reservation and apparently had requested a specific table. He seemed somewhat familiar with the menu and recommended certain dishes to Eames.

It occurred to Eames, over the course of dinner and conversation, how controlled Arthur’s expressions were. Even when they weren’t completely neutral they were… curated. Which meant that Eames found instant joy in trying to get him to break his expressions as often as possible.

His greatest victory was somehow fumbling his glass of wine so bad that it tipped right over and poured into his water cup to which Arthur looked genuinely shocked and then proceeded to have a laugh burst out of him; to which he looked embarrassed, but Eames was beaming.

Shit. He was gaining some horribly inadvisable feelings for this guy.

They finished their dinner off with tiramisu and a nice tip before heading out.

“Would you like to go on a walk?” Eames asked. “I don’t feel quite ready to head home yet.”

Arthur gave him a warm look. “Of course, a walk sounds wonderful after pasta.”

Eames smiled his thanks before leading them toward a park he had seen on their way there. He knew his camera was on even though he didn’t have the earbud in and that was going to cause some issues. They walked a ways in before Eames came to a stop. No one else was around. He flicked off his camera.

“Arthur, I-”

“Why are you here?” Arthur asked, surprising him.

“What?”

“I said ‘why are you here?’ I know something strange is going on with you and I want to know what it is.”

“I-” Eames breathed out, actually feeling somewhat relieved. “Yeah, my name is Eames and I’m here to gather information on your family and their little mafia.”

“Ah.” His expression had darkened slightly. “So you are trying to get to the Right-Hand through me.”

“Sort of? I did genuinely enjoy tonight if it makes you feel better about any of this.”

Arthur’s jaw tightened. “I’ll have you know that despite what everyone else seems to think the Right-Hand is not a fan of mine. I have avoided him killing me by being very smart in what I do. You aren’t going to endear yourself to him by pinning yourself to me.”

“I don’t mind. I just need information and being a part of the group is the easiest way to make sure it isn’t an automatic bullet to the head if I get caught sneaking around.”

“Don’t get caught sneaking.”

“I mean, yeah, that’s generally the plan.”

“No, don’t go sneaking at all. I’m going to help you.”

“What?” Eames asked, genuinely surprised at this turn.

“I want you to take down my family.”

-

Eames was back in his apartment, laying in bed with the earbud in his ear. He was waiting for Sparrow to come in, he needed to perform some damage control before anyone got the wrong- well, technically right- idea.

She connected on the other side and was immediately speaking. “Why would you do that? That was a dangerous, dangerous move.”

“I needed to talk to him privately, without anyone peeking in.”

“You can understand how that doesn’t help your case, right? You shouldn’t need to speak to a target privately, ever.”

“I can explain.” He couldn’t, not in a way that would help him. “But the important thing is I have definitely got our in.”

“At least there’s that,” Sparrow stated and Eames could almost picture the sour expression he imagined was covering a face he had never seen.

“Arthur, a cousin of the Right-Hand, wants their family taken down.”

“Really? And it’s not a trap or a lie?”

“It’s not, I’m sure. He really means it.”

Sparrow sighed. “Fine, I’m going to scrub most of this conversation and the video logs. Do not do something like that again, you are lucky no one else looked before me and I will not be putting my job on the line for you again and again. This will not be a pattern.”

“Sir yes sir,” Eames responded with a thankful smile.

“Get some rest, Eames. And don’t do anything stupid tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

The apartment complex was what one would call modest, not really messy or all that old, but not sparkling either. Just modest. It was on the older side and made out of a sturdy brick that could withstand almost anything and the doors all had a fresh coat of paint on them with small, fairly self-sustaining plants, along the pathway up.

It was all very Arthur, which- Ariadne’s brain spoke up- was an insane thing to think about a person one has never met.

Inside, they climbed the stairs up to the third floor where they found Arthur’s door which was a nice navy color with a shiny brass 303 across the front. Ariadne looked over at Yusuf before she reached out and knocked.

“Who are you?” A voice asked cagily from the other side, almost immediately.

“Hi, we’re friends of,” Ariadne stuttered just slightly as she tried to remember Eames’s current name. “Everett’s.”

“He isn’t here.”

“I know,” Ariadne responded genuinely. “That’s what I’m concerned about.”

“Leave.”

“Please, I-” She began, but was interrupted.

“I want you to leave. Everett isn’t here.”

“Let me speak to you.”

“You have. Leave.”

Ariadne wanted to stop her foot like a child. She glanced over at Yusuf and he sighed.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist.” Yusuf finally spoke up.

“Then I’m afraid I’m going to call the cops.”

“They won’t help,” Ariadne stated meekly.

“Is that a threat?” Arthur bit out.

“No, I-”

The door opened a crack and a pale, strained face appeared in the crack under the chain that ran across the gap. His hair, which Ariadne had always seen slicked back and perfect was mussed up and surprisingly wavy, the skin under his eyes was just slightly bruised with sleeplessness that told her he had waited up for Eames to come home and he hadn’t shown. It had only been two days (with the time it had taken them to travel over), but then again when your job was that dangerous a lack of punctuality was disturbing.

“What is it you want?” Despite the rumpled and sleepless look his expression and voice were still sharp.

“Any information you have. My job is to keep track of those I work with and to find those who can’t be found and I won’t lie, I’m fairly decent at it, but I need information in order to do it.”

Arthur looked her up and down. “You’re from the agency?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I can help you.”

“I just want to find him.”

“And what if he doesn’t want to be found?”

Ariadne stared at him for a moment, unsure how to proceed, Arthur sighed and carded his hand through his hair.

“Listen, I want to believe that he wouldn’t disappear on purpose and that he wouldn’t give away information no matter the situation and that he’s trying to get home, but I don’t know any of those things for certain and I do know that the agency plays it safe when it comes to information. I don’t know, I don’t know that I can trust you and as much as I want to send you out in the hopes that you will bring him back fully intact… I know the more likely scenarios.”

“I just want to find him,” Ariadne repeated.

“I want to believe you’re telling the truth, but I don’t know if I can. If you aren’t lying, I wish you the best of luck. Please bring him back. But, as it is, I’m going to ask you to leave now.”

Yusuf placed a hand on Ariadne’s shoulder. “Ok, we’ll go. If you think of anything just let us know.”

With that Yusuf placed a card in the little mail cubby next to the door and steered Ariadne out of the building.

Ariadne shook her head, annoyed, as they got back into the car. “Why? Why wouldn’t he tell us anything?” She asked with a scowl.

“Because he’s smart.”

Ariadne made a small scoffing noise.

“No, I mean it. You heard what said, he knows the agency plays it safe and he doesn’t know you. Those two pieces of information would make me very skeptical in his shoes.”

“I-” Some of her anger dissipated. “I know that. I just… I want to help, I want to find him.”

“You’re different than a lot of Earbuds.”

“Really?”

Yusuf shrugged as he pulled out of the parking lot. “I mean… yeah, most of the Earbuds I’ve worked with act like this whole thing is just a game of super high stakes chess, they don’t nearly have breakdowns over missing agents unless they somehow think that it means they’ll ‘lose’.”

“Oh.” Ariadne stated simply, picking at a loose string on her shirt, she had known she was attached a bit more, but she hadn’t realized she was noticeably different.

“That’s a good thing, by the way.”

They drove in silence for a while, Ariadne blithely watching the scenery outside and Yusuf focused on the road when he spoke again.

“Y’know, I’ve never actually been out in the field, not for real, but I kind of expected gunfights.”

“Really?” Ariadne asked with a yawn.

“Yeah, I mean, a whole agent goes missing and he didn’t set up any traps or red herrings or anything to cover his trail and no one is shooting at us or blowing stuff up to cover their own trail if they took him. I don’t know, it’s all been very smooth. I mean, entirely lacking helpful information, but smooth.”

Ariadne straightened in her seat, sleepiness falling away.

“No, you’re right. It has been smooth,” She agreed with widening eyes. “Make a U-turn.”

“What?”

“Right now, make a U-turn! We need to go back.”

Yusuf obliged immediately, turning in the middle of the road, and making other cars slam on their horns while Ariadne yelped and gripped the armrest.

-----

Arthur had been drip-feeding information to him over the course of about a month, little bits of information here and there so no one would notice his cataloging or snooping. Eames was ever-thankful. He had built a nice little folder with all of that information, some of it had already been passed on to the client through Sparrow while the rest was ready for the big drop.

Eames had never thought he would be sad to leave behind a shitty apartment and a shittier cover story, but he was. He and Arthur hadn’t really been romantic since the first date. They kept it as a decent cover for why Arthur was talking to ‘Mick’ so often and even going over to his place from time to time, but that in and of itself was a whole balancing act since most of the members- while not aggressively violent about it- weren’t necessarily fans of queer people.

Eames had been trying to earn Arthur’s trust back and he had to a degree. Arthur genuinely trusted him to not turn on him or be a trap set up by members who would rather see him dead and he had allowed himself to even playfully roll his eyes at Eames’s bad attempts at jokes from time to time. Eames counted that as a slow-crawling win. But now he would be leaving.

He had paced around his apartment, wondering what to do.

Obviously, the Right-Hand was going to figure out the information leak, but he couldn’t necessarily know that it was Arthur’s doing, he had been smart- he was always smart- and had been very diligent about covering any and all tracks. Then again, his positioning was already precarious, but so was Eames’s. The agency ran tightly.

Arthur also didn’t know that Eames was handing over all of the information tonight and disappearing.

That decided it for him. He simply couldn’t leave Arthur extremely unprepared, he owed him that much even if the agency might not agree.

He set out towards Arthur’s place.

Arthur lived in a small bungalow on the edge of town with dark wood finishings. It had a very small square footage, but did sport a second floor which made it the perfect, practical, modest living quarters for one Arthur. Eames had been inside a whole two times and the first time he had joked that Arthur had gotten far too into tidying up for just little old him and the second time he had realized that Arthur actually just lives like that. Which had been completely baffling.

That evening, Arthur had a few lights on and his house sat perfectly quiet.

Which is why Eames felt like he might vomit when he realized that Arthur’s door was slightly ajar.

He was thankful for the gun he had tucked into his waistband if only so he could have something to hold as he entered. The lights were on in his living room and the somewhat open floor plan of the downstairs meant that Eames could see into the kitchen where a body was slumped on the ground with a growing pool of blood around him. It took him only a moment to realize that it was Nash.

The blood had been disturbed by a couple of footprints that moved messily around the room but generally towards the stairs. The sound of a small scuffle came from upstairs, accompanied by the sounds of people yelling and that was enough for Eames. He launched himself up the stairs.

He came around to Arthur’s room where he could hear at least one person’s voice now escalating to yelling. Eames pushed Arthur’s door the rest of the way open to reveal two men and Arthur. One guy had Arthur by the throat and the other was gesturing with his gun while shouting.

“Right-Hand knows you’ve been sneaking around. What the fuck information did you give out? Who was your partner? You were working with someone, who the fuck was it?!”

“Fuck you,” Arthur forced out past the pressure of a hold on his throat and spit.

“I bet it’s that Mick guy, huh?” The other man added in. “Should’ve fuckin’ know bitches like you two were disloyal.”

Arthur caught Eames’s eyes and his expression warmed ever so slightly and Eames could be waxing poetic for the rest of eternity about that warmth in the middle of being choked and held at gunpoint except now he was dealing with two armed men who had also noticed him.

“Who the f-” the man holding Arthur began, but was immediately cut off by a bullet to the brain as Eames fired.

“Shit!” The other guy stated emphatically, wheeling around to point his gun at Eames instead of Arthur, but he never got the chance to do more than that before he was shot too.

“My cousin figured us out,” Arthur stated simply, evenly, as if he hadn’t just almost been killed. He straightened his shirt slightly.

“Yeah, no shit. We need to get out of here now.”

Eames helped Arthur grab a couple of items and shove them into bags before heading down to where Arthur’s nice black car sat parked in the driveway. They would need to ditch it eventually, but it was fine for the first quick get-out-of-there portion of the journey.

“Where am I going?” Arthur asked as he slid into the driver’s seat.

“Just go East, I have some stuff I need to settle.”

Arthur took off at a decent pace that would get them out of there, but not get them pulled over. Eames took his earbud out and nestled it into his ear.

“Congratulations, Mr-”

“Sparrow, I need two days,” he interrupted, trying to not sound frantic.

“What?” She asked politely.

“Can you get me a minimum of two days?”

“May I know the reason?”

“I have a feeling you already do.”

“Of course I do. Is there a location you both are trying to get?”

“Anything East coast, VA might be nice. I’ll have no problem getting a fake ID but a fake passport would take a bit longer.” Eames was aware of Arthur glancing over at him as he was speaking.

“Of course. I will drop a couple of currently available rentals as well as some flights into your personal email.”

“The one I don’t have on file?”

“Precisely the one.” There was a self-satisfied smile in her voice that he did not have to see her face to picture.

“Your level of knowledge is formidable.”

“I do my best. And Eames?”

“Yes?”

“If you get caught it is not my fault and I never helped you.”

“Of course,” he stated kindly before putting his earbud away again. “I’ve got us a general plan incoming.”

“Wonderful.” Was Arthur’s slightly mystified response.

Chapter Text

Arthur stood on the other side of the door for a while after their footsteps receded. It had been a bad idea to even talk to them, who knows how much he could have revealed or confirmed in only the short couple of answers he had given them. He felt sick. He felt tired. He felt like an idiot.

He went back towards the kitchen and turned the espresso machine on. He hadn’t slept in a bit and it was looking like he wasn’t going to any time soon. He had suspended all his projects and instead had the coffee table in the living room covered with his multitude of notebooks, scribbles around the margins.

As the espresso was pouring into his cup another knock came at the door. He cursed under his breath. If he was stupid, these two were proving stupider.

Later, he would blame the sleep deprivation and all-around stress, but he reached out and yanked the door open, the chain clinking pitifully as the old thing popped right out of the slider.

He was looking up at a tall, well-dressed man.

Shit. He was stupid.

He immediately went to slam the door closed, but the man quickly stuck one polished shoe through the threshold.

“Remove your foot before I crush it,” Arthur warned cooly.

The man gave a sickening smile. “Don’t be difficult. I just want to talk. I would hate for any of my friends to get the wrong idea.”

It could be a bluff. But it also could be true. Arthur was going to have to play the odds.

He eased the door open slightly.

“That’s better.” The man took this as a sign to step into the apartment and offer his hand to shake. “You can call me Nolan.”

Arthur did not shake his hand and instead let it hover out there before ‘Nolan’ got the message and tucked it into his pocket. “I told the other two that I don’t know anything.”

“How well do you know the man you live with?” The man asked, ignoring Arthur’s statement.

“Everett? Not any better than I’ve known any of my roommates before him. And now he’s gone and skipped off on our rent payments and random people are coming around to ask about him, so I’m inclined to say: less than I thought I did.”

Arthur was lying through his teeth, but he was good at it. He had a poker face even Eames had a hard time cracking.

“Could I trouble you for a glass of water?” Nolan asked with a kindly smile that did not reach his eyes.

The problem with the lie Arthur had constructed was that he had to attempt the appearance of civility. He hadn’t done himself any favors by threatening to crush the guy’s foot or refusing to shake his hand, but he was in Arthur’s home and Arthur needed to give him no reasons to stay.

“I would rather you leave since I can’t help anyways. I don’t know anything about Everett other than that he’s a giant dick that’s saddled me with two rent payments.”

“Just a water for the road please, I’m afraid you don’t live particularly close to any convenience stores.”

Arthur scowled, but was hoping that this could get the guy out of his damn house and so turned to grab a bottle out of the fridge.

“You know, some of your neighbors seemed to understand that you and Mr. Everett were more than roommates.”

It was leading and Arthur picked his words carefully. “I’ll be honest, most of my neighbors are older folk that get confused. At some point, I just started smiling and nodding to anything they said. Lord knows what they think of me.”

Nolan gave a fake laugh to accompany the fake humor in Arthur’s voice. “Of course, older people can be that way.”

Arthur held the water bottle out and the man reached out to grab it, his hand just barely brushing Arthur’s but there was a sharp spark of pain. Arthur snatched his hand back.

“Sorry about that,” Nolan stated.

“What the-” Arthur suddenly felt a wave of nausea roll over his body.

He had been fucking drugged. That really wasn’t helping his ego on the stupid/not-stupid debate front.

Arthur’s vision was still swimming, but he knew just how good his chances were if he stood there and waited for it to clear so he dashed in the general direction of the front door. The man snatched his upper arm, pulling Arthur back when he couldn’t get his bearings enough to shake the hold off.

“Let go of me.”

“The thing is, we know you’re more important than some stupid roommate.”

Arthur’s knees buckled underneath him and Nolan let him collapse to the floor while he rolled up his sleeves.

Arthur turned himself over onto his stomach and dragged himself towards the door, his vision blurring almost entirely and his mind swirling. The door opened and a figure stepped through.

“Eames?” Is what Arthur’s sleepless and drugged brain came up with.

“You were taking a while,” a voice stated, the words seeming muffled and echoing distantly in Arthur’s brain.

“The prick didn’t want to shake my hand.”

The polished toe of a shoe Arthur had recently threatened to crush kicked him over onto his back and Nolan straddled Arthur- who was becoming increasingly limp- grabbed Arthur’s wrists and zip-tied them together before pasting a piece of duct tape over his mouth as Arthur tried to turn his head away.

Finally, Arthur couldn’t fight it any longer, his head tipped back and his vision went dark.

-----

Eames eventually did put a workable plan together with the help of Sparrow’s emailed information. They ditched the car and hopped on a flight and were out of there. The trip was tense, to say the least.

Eames helped Arthur move into an apartment that wasn’t too far away from his own in Virginia, though he didn’t tell Arthur about the closeness. They collapsed there in the early hours of the morning after their flight and then a taxi ride from the airport, Arthur on the bed and Eames on the couch that made up the sum total of the furniture in the “partially furnished” apartment.

The next morning greeted Eames with Arthur already up and well dressed, obviously waiting for him to wake as well.

“I thought you were supposed to be some sort of high-class agent,” Arthur stated casually.

“I am,” Eames grumbled, covering his eyes with the crook of his elbow to block the daylight.

“I always thought agents would wake up early and be dressed in something better than Hawaiian shirts they bought during a layover at the airport.”

Eames couldn’t help but look down at his new shirt and smile, it really was fairly hideous.

“And I thought you were supposed to be a bartender. What kind of bartender is awake at-” Eames checked his watch. “9 A.M.?”

“The kind that is also working for his criminal family members and doesn’t relish the idea of being murdered.”

“Ah, fair.”

“There’s no food and coincidentally no dishes in this entire apartment.”

And that’s how Arthur informed Eames that they would be going out for breakfast. Eames could hardly argue.

Eames chose Denny’s and Arthur turned his nose up at it but still ate hungrily, with very little conversation once the food hit the table. They finished quickly and Eames tipped the waitress well before they set out for a day of buying necessities for Arthur’s apartment as well as some more clothing for the both of them.

The evening saw the two of them sitting in the apartment, surrounded by package debris from setting up the new furniture and eating microwaveable lasagna.

“How are you doing?” Eames asked in the silence.

“With what? Putting together an apartment or moving somewhere completely new?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of ‘with your cousin having sent men to kill you’.”

“Ah,” Arthur moved his fork somewhat absentmindedly. “I didn’t expect that to be a problem until after you disappeared into the night, never to be seen again, so it was a bit of a surprise.”

“I wasn’t going to disappear, at least not without warning you,” Eames said, sounding only slightly hurt at the implication.

“Apparently, but I really was under the idea that you were using me and just got lucky that I was down with giving you information, thus making your life easier.” Arthur looked over at him with an unreadable expression. “But you weren’t. You came to check on me.”

“I’m sorry you almost died for it.”

Arthur shrugged. “My cousin wanted me dead for a while, but I had too much information and I was far too careful. As soon as he caught wind of a leak it was good enough reason to finally be rid of me, even if I hadn’t been the leak it would have been a good enough excuse.”

Eames nodded as if he could understand what that was like. As if he wasn’t just some army-wannabe meathead that was just smart enough and unattached enough to be desirable for the agency but not smart enough to recognize the obvious issues with signing up. He wasn’t like Arthur who had been born into a rough position and played his cards beautifully, he was just some guy. At least he got paid well.

“So what now?” Arthur asked.

“Uhm, the coffee table, I think.”

“No, what are we doing now? You asked for some time from Sparrow which means you have to go back to work eventually and I’m no longer the information guy for a mafioso-wannabe.”

“I do need to return to work soon. I can stay one more day to help you get everything settled and then it will just start to look too suspicious, I think.”

“What if I came with you?”

“What?”

“What if I came with you? It’s not like I’m some dainty little flower, I’ve worked in shady dealings before. Besides, I could be like this ‘Sparrow’ or something.”

“No, no. That’s a bad idea. This job is dangerous.”

Arthur scoffed lightly and annoyance was breaking through just a bit on his curated, even expression. “I can handle myself.”

“I don’t mean in that way. I mean… there’s a reason why I asked Sparrow for the time and to not let anyone know where I was headed. There’s a reason I’ve been kind of cagey.”

“I do understand that, but I’ve been in tenuous positions before.”

“Are you keen to get back into one after almost being murdered less than three days ago?”

Arthur scowled at him and Eames scowled back.

“It’s better if I set you up here as best as I can and then we never see each other again,” Eames stated.

“That’s bullshit. Why go through all the trouble to help me if we’re not going to interact ever again and you’re going to ignore my existence?”

“Because you deserved to have someone fucking try for once and the whole point was to keep you safe and you are not safe if the agency knows about you, especially not if they know about our connection.”

“What would that connection be?” Arthur asked crossly.

“Well, you’re the only person I’ve ever saved against orders and I went through all the trouble of setting you up in a decent apartment. Regardless of how you feel about me, that says a lot to them about how I feel about you.”

“So now I just pretend to be a normal person who hasn’t worked for any criminal groups and doesn’t know about any sort of agency?”

“To the best of your abilities,” Eames stated, knowing it would piss him off. “This whole thing was about making you safe.”

“And how can you know I’m safe if you completely ignore my existence?” Arthur asked, perhaps a tad pedantically.

“I trust that you can deal with the dangers faced by normal people pretty handedly and I also trust that if I’m not in your life in any capacity those will be your only problems.”

Arthur still seemed cross, but it also seemed like his baseline sat only slightly above ‘generally cross’ so Eames didn’t take it too personally. He did hold out his hand and ask for Arthur’s new phone they had bought which Arthur handed over easily enough.

Eames entered his personal number and handed it back to Arthur.

“There, if you ever have any life-threatening emergencies you can call me about it. Don’t use it otherwise. I’m still trying to ignore your general existence after this,” Eames said with a slightly teasing tone.

He got up to clear away the remains of their microwave lasagna and his phone began buzzing in his pocket. The ringing stopped before Eames could answer it and he turned back to look at Arthur who was holding his phone in his hands.

“Just wanted to check,” Arthur stated amicably.

True to his word, Eames stayed one more day and when Arthur headed to bed that night he waited just a moment before grabbing his stuff and leaving, walking to his apartment that was only a few blocks away.

He really did hate to leave, but it really would go better for both of them if he did.

Chapter Text

Arthur’s door was shut when they arrived. The door seemed untouched, no signs that someone had attempted to break in, not even scratches from a pick around the lock. It looked perfectly fine. It made Ariadne hopeful.

Yusuf knocked and there wasn’t any response.

“Arthur?” Ariadne called hopefully. “We aren’t here to bother you anymore, we just need to confirm that you’re okay.”

Still there was no response.

“If you don’t respond, I’m going to try and come in.”

Again there was no response so Yusuf sighed and pulled out his lock picks. He leaned against the door handle as he lowered himself to his knees, but it wasn’t necessary, with his lean he had turned the handle and the door swung open freely.

Ariadne stepped into the apartment, taking the place in. The chain hung free next to the door and a random water bottle sat in the middle of the floor.

“Arthur?” Ariadne called into the clearly empty apartment.

“He’s not here,” Yusuf stated.

Ariadne closed her eyes and swore. “Goddamit, I lost another person!”

Yusuf patted her shoulder awkwardly. “You couldn’t have known.”

“Oh yes I could have. That’s my whole job- knowing things. And suddenly- suddenly I don’t know anything and everyone who could tell me anything is refusing to or disappearing…” she gestured wildly at the apartment space, “or both!”

“Then let’s dig through his stuff and find out the information he didn’t want to tell you,” Yusuf offered lightly.

Ariadne smiled waveringly. “Yeah, let’s completely breach his privacy.”

It didn’t take long to find something of use. The coffee table in the otherwise clean living room was scattered with notebooks of varying ages, all with nice, straight handwriting and scribbled notes in the margins. There were about eight in total.

Ariadne picked up one of the notebooks and took a glance at the page. It was a list of names ending in Nathan Everett. She read over the names, all of them familiar because- she realized- this was a list of Eames’s aliases. She set the notebook down and picked up the next one which also had a list of names, these weren’t familiar to her but they were all masculine names and sometimes shared a last name with Eames’s aliases and sometimes didn’t. She concluded that they must have been Arthur’s.

Yusuf was similarly looking at one of the notebooks and he held it up for Ariadne to see. It was a list of phone numbers, systematically crossed off.

“What is all of this?” Yusuf asked, baffled.

Ariadne held up her notebooks for Yusuf to see the list of names. “I think they were keeping track of their aliases and contacts.”

“In notebooks? Isn’t that risky?”

“I mean, a computer system can be hacked I suppose.”

“A notebook can be stolen.”

“That’s true, but I think they were careful with them… up to the point that all of this fell apart, that is.”

Ariadne stacked the notebooks neatly on the coffee table so that they could take them with when they left. She had kind of hoped that Arthur had just decided to clear out before they arrived, but it wasn’t looking good. He wouldn’t have left the notebooks which, if Eames was in hiding, would lead right to him and, if Eames had been taken, would be needed again once he got free.

They found little else of importance in the apartment. Arthur’s current phone had been left on his bedside, but even once Ariadne got past the password there was very little on it, it was obviously just one of many burner phones. She tried Eames’s number just to see, but- as expected- no one picked up.

Everything else seemed to be hard copies- printed photos of them together, written notes, certificates, and driver's licenses- all stowed away in a firebox.

Without having found much more, Yusuf finally spoke up. “We should probably get going. We already know this location was compromised, it’s best not to linger.”

“Where should we go?”

Yusuf held up one of the notebooks. “I was thinking the closest safehouse listed.”

-----

Arthur was lonely. That wasn’t much of a surprise. After spending most of his adult life watching his own back and constantly walking on eggshells he had begun to really excel at it, but that meant for normal people who didn’t need to do all that there was quite a disconnect.

He had picked up a job at a bank and was fairly happy there, even if it was a tad monotonous. He dreamed, from time to time, of dangerous missions and hacking and secret aliases. As it was he only had one, his new name, Christopher Daniels. He went in and out of his apartment every day- work and home, sometimes the grocery, but never really talked to people or made friends and still sat on the edge. His coworkers were normal people who he kept at arm's length and they returned in kind.

The only person who hadn’t gotten the memo was his elderly and very chatty neighbor, Mrs. Kyung.

She had already asked him to watch her cat multiple times for her trips out of the country and took great joy in offering him food and drink and telling him he looked tired as well as asking him for financial advice since she had seen him at the bank.

Even now, as he was heading from the bus stop back to his apartment fairly late in the evening (thanks to traffic and a bus delay) she was sitting out on her front step with a purring cat in her lap and a cigarette between her lips. She smiled and waved at Arthur and he stopped to greet her.

It had been weird at first, but it was now, strangely, one of his favorite evening activities. Stop at Mrs. Kyung’s place, answer how his day went and ask her the same, accept some of whatever fruit was seasonal that she had just so happened to cut up that morning, and then pet Pigeon (the cat) and go home with a promise to see her in the morning. Arthur had even begun baking so that he could offer her something in the morning every now and then so he wouldn’t feel guilty about constantly eating her fruit.

He finished his conversation with her as usual, gave Pigeon a scratch behind the ears, and then turned back to his house. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yes, yes. Tomorrow,” She responded, waving him away and taking another drag of her cigarette.

Arthur smiled and went up to his place, setting his bag down inside his door and kicking his shoes off. His apartment was clean and still rather impersonal despite having been there almost a year. He sighed and headed to the bathroom, deciding to hop in a shower before making something to eat.

All in all, it was fairly relaxing before he had a gun leveled at him as he was leaving the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

He froze in shock for just a moment before his experience kicked in. “What do you want?”

“You’re coming with me.”

“If you’re going to kill me I would rather you do it here.”

“You do what I say and you won’t die,” The guy stated flatly.

Arthur was standing there with no weapons and a towel that was barely holding onto his hips, so he debated his response for a moment.

“Can I put my pants on first?”

“Put those on,” the guy said, gesturing to the pants Arthur had taken off to get in the shower. “Do it right here and no funny business.”

Arthur nodded and grabbed his pants, thankful for the familiar weight of his phone in the pocket. He pulled them up under the towel, ignoring the awful feeling of the fabric on his still slightly damp skin. He buttoned his pants and let the towel drop and the guy gestured toward the door.

Arthur got the message and started that way, reaching for his shoes.

“No shoes,” the guy stated harshly.

Arthur sighed, that would make things more difficult, especially since his shoes had razor blades tucked in the heel of them and he would have appreciated at least a small weapon.

The guy had an older car pulled up on the curb with a woman in the front seat who seemed to be his getaway driver. He popped the trunk and gestured with the gun, clearly intending for Arthur to get in.

Arthur weighed his options. He was barefoot so running was going to suck and the guy still had a gun. He also didn’t have any weapons and the guy was a good deal broader than he was. He might have the guy beat in speed, but- again- gun, but he was unlikely to have him beat in strength, so wrestling wasn’t a good option. He also didn’t particularly want the cops looking too closely at his information, so avoiding a 911 call would be preferable.

His best option seemed to be to take the guy by surprise, get the gun or at least knock it away and take off and hope the getaway driver didn’t have her shit together.

He had paused for too long because the guy knocked the guy against his head. “Get in.”

Arthur took his chance, grabbing for the gun, but only succeeded in batting it out of the guy’s hand and it went skittering across the pavement. The guy looked at him surprised for just a moment and Arthur punched him as hard as he could before turning and taking off.

“Ow, you little fucker,” he heard the guy hiss behind him.

He saw the door of the car open and he dodged to the side to avoid it, but the woman didn’t seem interested in trying to actually catch him, instead she threw a glass bottle she had apparently been drinking out of on the ground as hard as she could right in Arthur’s path, the glass shattering and green tea spilling everywhere.

He would have run over the glass if that’s what it took to get away, but it gave him just enough pause that the guy- who had been able to get himself back together- was able to catch Arthur, tackling him to the ground.

It stung terribly on Arthur’s uncovered chest and the palms of his hands. It wasn’t helped by the fact that the guy had absolutely taken the punch to the face personal and grabbed Arthur by the hair on the back of his head and ground his face down against the pavement.

“Thanks, Vic, you’re the best,” the guy said from on top of Arthur.

She made a small scoffing noise. “Whatever, just do your job right.”

She got back into the car, muttering to herself, while the guy pulled Arthur up to his feet with a hand on the back of his neck and shoved him in the trunk of the car. He then pulled a roll of duct tape out of his jacket pocket and taped Arthur’s hands together with another piece over his mouth before slamming the trunk closed.

He could faintly make out the sounds of his kidnappers arguing before the wheels screeched and they were driving away.

It wasn’t too much effort to get the duct tape off his mouth and then he worked it off of his wrists, stinging all the way. The trunk was extremely cramped for a grown man, even one of a slighter build and even with the duct tape completely removed it still took some weird bending and twisting to reach his phone in his back pocket.

He finally got ahold of it and called the only number he could think of. It rang once before it was picked up.

“Hello?” The voice on the other end asked.

“Eames, I-”

Then the car hit a hard turn and Arthur bounced painfully, the phone getting jostled from his hand and sliding down to his feet where he physically couldn’t bend to reach it.

“Fuck!”

He began trying to find anything he could use to fight when they arrived where ever it was.

Chapter Text

Arthur woke up in a trunk.

At least this time it was a fairly roomy trunk, making it more pleasant than the last time he remembered being in a trunk. Also, he was fully clothed and he had been wearing shoes when he was kidnapped which they hadn’t bothered to take off his feet.

He was missing his phone, probably sitting somewhere in his apartment, which was a bummer, but he still had all the many things he stashed in the thick soles of his shoes and the lock pick set sewn into the lining of the sweatshirt he had been wearing. It would have been even better if he had been wearing one of his suits, but this outfit was functional.

He kicked as hard as he could, driving his heel into the hard plastic of the trunk walls.

“Oi, knock it off back there!” A voice instantly came from the front of the car, very clearly.

Arthur looked around the trunk space and actually realized that there was an open space above the seats that he could easily crawl over if he wasn’t zip tied. The car hummed along the road quietly and smoothly. His hands were zip-tied in front of him so it was easy enough to reach up and pull the duct tape off, which stung.

“Did you kidnap me in a hybrid?” Arthur asked.

“What? Did you want us to rent a Porsche for you, princess?” The same voice asked.

“Porsche has hybrid models,” a voice Arthur recognized as ‘Nolan’ chipped in. “Either way, you don’t need to be conversing with him. And you, Mr. Arthur, I suggest staying very quiet unless you would like me to come back there and make sure you can’t make a sound.”

Arthur didn’t particularly love the sound of that threat so he gave a slight huff but didn’t retort otherwise.

He weighed his options. They were plentiful really. He had a razor or two stashed on his person and he could, in actuality, pretty easily break or cut these zip ties and be out of there. It was obvious that his kidnappers weren’t taking him seriously, between the stupid drugging method (that wouldn’t have worked if he had been slightly more awake) and the zip ties that they didn’t even bother to wrench his arms behind him for, the fact they let him keep his shoes and that they didn’t shut him up any better than a strip of duct tape on top of the multitude of little devices, weapons, and tools they hadn’t even bothered to check for. Yeah, he could get the drop on them easily.

And normally, that’s where the option-weighing would have stopped, but chances were, in this case, they were probably taking him to wherever Eames was. That added a complication.

Except, it didn’t really, did it? He already knew what he was going to do.

They were probably going to wherever Eames was, so Arthur was along for the ride. He left his tools stowed away in his shoes and his sweatshirt and let his kidnappers believe he was just some hopeless guy who had gotten in over his head and was the easiest kidnap job of their lives. It was easy, except for the part where he had to let them assume that he was stupid, but he would get over that.

He wondered how long he had been out because despite feeling slightly cramped and beginning to get a real ache in his neck it didn’t feel like they were driving for that long before the car rolled to a stop.

The trunk opened and Arthur glared at Nolan who gave a smarmy smile. He may have decided to go along with the kidnapping, but he decided that he wasn’t going to make it too easy for them and, as Nolan reached for the front of his shirt to yank him out of the trunk, Arthur bit him.

Nolan pulled his hand back with a slightly embarrassing cry before he backhanded Arthur across the face. After that, they decided to put a bag over Arthur’s head, though he assumed that that was already the plan seeing as they had had one on hand.

They cut the zip ties from his legs and then he was led through a labyrinth of halls, almost certainly doubling back a couple of times before the kidnappers seemed sure enough that Arthur wouldn’t be able to retrace his steps. They shuffled him into a room and removed the hood, letting him get a look around the room. The zip ties were exchanged for a pair of cuffs that were bolted to a metal table, like something straight out of a cop movie.

“Get comfy,” Nolan hissed, apparently still angry about the bite. “You’re going to be here for a while.”

With that he closed the door, leaving Arthur alone in the unwelcoming room with harsh fluorescent lighting.

It took a bit of squirming, but Arthur was able to pry the lock picks out of his sweatshirt lining. Then he set to work.

-----

Eames woke to the sound of his phone buzzing in his side table drawer. He knew who it was before he even answered, no one else had that phone number.

“Hello?” He asked, the sleep already beginning to burn off.

He could hear breathing on the other side and then a quiet “Eames, I-”

Eames was instantly on his feet before the phone was filled with a staticky sound and a solid thud that Eames couldn’t tell whether it came from the phone impacting something or someone impacting something.

A very distant call of “Fuck!” came through the phone and he recognized the distress in Arthur’s voice.

“Arthur, if you can hear me, stay with me,” he urged, knowing it was unlikely Arthur could hear him at all.

He was calling up Sparrow as he pulled on his pants.

“Please, please, tell me you worked late tonight,” he muttered to himself.

“As per usual,” came the warm voice on the other side. “What can I do for you, Brendon?”

Usually, Eames would be amused with her ability to keep track of his name changes, but not right now. He pulled on his trainers, thankful that he never bothered to untie or retie them, it destroyed the heel but made the process so much faster.

“Do you remember the couple of days I took off?”

He didn’t have to give any further information, he could almost feel Sparrow bristle through the phone. “Are you really calling me at work for this?”

He could hear the implied ‘Are you fucking stupid?!’

“It’s an emergency!” He insisted. He was already out of his apartment and making his way down the narrow stairs to the street.

“Ok, wait a moment,” he could hear her typing as she fiddled with something. “Ok, I’m putting my job on the line, but we’re secure. What is happening?”

“Arthur called me,” Eames stated a bit breathlessly as he reached the street and began running the couple blocks towards Arthur’s place. “He said my name and then the phone fell or was taken from him or something, I don’t know, but he wouldn’t call unless it was bad.”

“You gave him your number?!” Sparrow hissed, quiet enough that she wouldn’t be heard outside of her office walls, but loud enough to make Eames cringe.

“It already happened, no time to argue. Can you trace his call?”

“Fine. Put your earbud in, I will be back with information.”

She promptly hung up as Eames arrived at Arthur’s apartment building. He lived on the first floor and it was easy enough to see that the door hung open in a way strangely reminiscent of the bungalow. This time Arthur wasn’t inside and neither was any blood or dead bodies. Just an abandoned bath towel in the middle of the floor and haphazardly kicked off shoes in an otherwise pristine apartment.

Eames grimaced and returned to the street only to face the business end of a bottle of pepper spray wielded by a stout Asian woman holding a downy grey cat under her other arm like a football.

“Who are you?” She asked sharply.

“I- uh,” Eames's mind scrambled for Arthur’s new name and something good to say. “I’m a friend of Christopher’s.” Ok, so he had only gotten one of those things.

“No, you are not. I am Christopher’s friend. He doesn’t talk to anyone else.”

“A coworker?” Eames tried with a smile.

“You do not work at the bank.”

“Bank?” Eames could help but ask, surprised.

It didn’t help his case and the woman shoved the pepper spray closer to his face.

“Ok, ok, I’m… complicated to explain, but Christopher called me. Something was happening, he needed my help.”

The woman’s stern expression saddened a bit. “You are too late. He is gone.” She gestured to the road which bore shattered glass and fresh black tire tracks from someone taking off at speed.

“Did you… see anything?” Eames asked, perhaps a bit desperately.

“I was inside when I heard a lot of yelling and I try to stay out of things, I don’t want problems, but I looked outside and saw a man close the trunk and get in the car with a woman and drive away very fast. I thought… I might have seen Christopher in the trunk so I went to check on him…”

She trailed off, looking over at the apartment building with a concerned look on her face.

“And you didn’t call the police or anything?”

“Christopher… he is my friend, but he is shifty. Making friends with him was like leaving a food bowl for a street cat.” Eames felt his lips quirk at the comparison. “I wasn’t sure he would want the police called. I was thinking still when you ran down the street like a crazy person.”

“You’re right. He wouldn’t want the law involved. But I’m here and I’m going to find him.”

The woman pondered this for a moment before lowering her pepper spray. “Ok, I have decided to believe you,” she stated as if it all came down to her judgment, but with how confidently she said it Eames couldn’t be sure it didn’t. “When you get him back you should visit him more often, he is lonely and doesn’t like persimmon season.”

Eames wasn’t sure exactly what that last bit meant, but nodded anyways. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The sound of Sparrow patching in echoed through his earbud and he turned slightly from the woman and pressed two fingers to his ear, which wasn’t entirely necessary but he hoped kept it from looking like he was talking to himself.

“Sparrow, are you there?”

“Yes. I’ve got a tracker on his phone, I’m sending the location to you. It looks like it’s still moving, but you can get started that way. There’s a car rental two blocks away from you.”

Eames felt at least a modicum of relief wash over him. “Good, good. I’m going to go get a car then.”

He turned back to the woman who was standing there watching him expectantly.

“We were able to track his phone. I’m going to get him. You should head back inside.”

With that Eames set off, his phone in his hand, a map pinging Arthur’s location, and Sparrow in his ear.

Chapter Text

The ride was quiet.

Yusuf drove as usual and Ariadne hunkered down in the passenger seat, scanning through Arthur’s journals. She had taken every journal that looked like it had even a crumb of information as well as Arthur’s laptop, phone, and a ziplock bag full of thumb drives that may or may not be helpful at all.

“Could I put on a podcast? Or some music maybe?” Yusuf finally asked after a large chunk of silence.

“If you think it would help,” Ariadne muttered absent-mindedly and Yusuf wasn’t exactly sure how to take that, but decided to put on a Sherlock audiobook.

It played for quite a while before Ariadne glanced up at the radio and cocked her head as if just realizing what was playing.

“Sherlock?” She asked, slightly baffled.

“I thought it was a kind of cheeky choice,” Yusuf responded with a touch of humor.

“Very,” Ariadne replied before returning to the notebook and the laptop she now had open on her lap.

Yusuf’s smile waned slightly. “I can turn it off if you’d rather not listen to it.”

Ariadne glanced over at him for a moment before shaking her head, the loosened strands of her messy hair moving with her. “No, no, sorry. I just-”

“It’s okay, I was being funny, we can put something non-crime related on.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just… this is all my fault.”

“I don’t see how that’s even possible, unless there’s some big piece of information you’ve been leaving out,” Yusuf stated with a laugh.

The silence stretched uncomfortably.

“There… there isn’t a big piece of information, is there?” He asked, the smile sliding into a tense look.

Ariadne took in a shuddering breath. “I knew about Arthur,” she almost whispered.

“Yeah, that’s how we ended up at his apartment in the first place. You weren’t keeping that from me, I knew that.”

“No. I- I knew about Arthur from the beginning. I know how he met Eames, I knew how Eames felt about him, and I helped Eames hide him from the agency.”

“That’s how he did it,” Yusuf said with dawning realization. “Of course, I was wondering this whole time how he had so thoroughly hidden anything from the agency, but he had you scrubbing files on your end didn’t he?”

Ariadne hung her head. “Yeah. At first, I thought it was just a loyalty thing then I realized that it was more than that and by that point I was so far in, I couldn’t bring myself to give up that information so I’ve been hacking the system and resetting myself as Eames’s earbud each time turn over comes around because anyone else would give him up in a heartbeat.”

“You’ve been hacking the agency?!” Yusuf yelled, swerving for a moment before he got control of the car again.

Ariadne shrunk in on herself. “I know, I know, it’s bad!”

“I mean, yeah it totally is if they ever catch you, but I’m more amazed you had the rocks to do it in the first place and you got away with it! I have never heard of anyone else who snuck half as much under the higher-ups’ noses.”

“And now it’s all falling apart! They- they know about Arthur now and even if we get Eames back who knows what the hell else they’ve figured out and- and Arthur was right to not trust us, the agency will use him or kill him or something awful!”

“Woah, woah, woah. Listen, it’s… it’s not great, but whatever is happening to them now also probably isn’t great so we’ll figure something out when we need to, but let’s handle the problems as they come okay? You can’t go freaking out about every possibility.”

“Yes, I can.” Ariadne sniffled petulantly.

“Ok, you can, but let’s not.”

Silence came again, punctured only by Watson exclaiming something or other about extraordinary circumstances with an even-toned response from Sherlock.

“I’m sorry,” Ariadne mumbled. “I’m sorry for getting you roped into all of this and I’m sorry for not being able to figure this out and I’m sorry for freaking out just a little bit.”

“Forgiven,” Yusuf said easily. “You forget that I was already trouble before I got roped into this whole and I’m sure you can figure it out and also this is really stressful for you so you deserve a small freakout every now and then.”

“Thanks,” Ariadne responded with a smile, taking her work back up but with less edge to her this time.

They drove for a while longer before they finally arrived. It was a small, cottage-like house on decent acreage, but with a couple of neighbors still in view. It had been Arthur and Eames’s next closest place and it was obviously the more cherished. A small garden of slightly overgrown plants sat next to the house and a small stone path led from the driveway to the porch which had a set of outdoor chairs that were only slightly cobwebbed.

A young woman came around the other side of the house and jumped when she saw them standing there. “Oh, sorry, I wasn’t expecting anyone there. I’m Katy, a neighbor, are you friends of the Morgans?” She thumbed back at the house.

“Yes,” Yusuf spoke up with a warm smile. “We were around the area and our hotel room got canceled so they offered up their place even though they’re out of town. Really sorry, we didn’t mean to spook you.”

“Don’t even worry about it. They pay me a bit to keep their garden watered when they’re out of town, so I was just finishing that up. You guys have a nice night!”

With that, the friendly young woman set off down the driveway. Ariadne and Yusuf shared a look, Ariadne shrugging, as they went and picked the lock to get inside. The inside was just as warm and homey (if a bit cobwebby) as the outside had been. Both Ariadne and Yusuf were starting to realize they hadn’t stumbled across another safehouse, they had probably found Arthur and Eames’s actual home.

Ariadne gave a small silent apology for intruding into the space before she lugged out all the things she had taken from Arthur’s place and piled them on the living room coffee table and got to work.

-----

The blinking dot eventually came to a stop and Eames pushed the shitty old car that he had been able to rent with no prior reservation to go faster. It led him to an abandoned office building because of course it did. He marched up the stairs towards the third floor, which was the only floor that had lights on. It screamed ‘super obvious video game style trap’, but what else was he supposed to do? Arthur was there.

Except, when he got there, Arthur wasn’t there.

Some random guy who looked like the Spirit Halloween understanding of a criminal was, his feet propped up on a table.

“Who the fuck are you?” Eames asked coldly.

“Nice to meet you too Agent whatever whatever.”

Eames already had his gun out in front of him, but his body must have noticeably tensed because the guy held up his hands, one empty, one with a black fob in it.

“Cool your jets, you don’t want to accidentally set this thing off. I’ve got your little boytoy stashed with a good smattering of C4 and he would not look nearly as cute if it got triggered. Also, it’s a deadman’s switch so don’t get any ideas about putting a bullet in me just yet.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Listen, I know you’re an agent, I don’t really care who you are beyond that, this isn’t personal so the options here are easy and straightforward. I want access to the network. I want the information your agency stores. Give me your access codes, I turn this bad boy off, and we both leave here with something we want. Me, information; you, Christopher or Arthur or whatever his name is.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about. The agency sent me here to retrieve information, I have no connection to whatever random guy you kidnapped.”

The guy clicked his tongue against his teeth in annoyance. “Now, who’s bluffing?”

“I-”

“Eames, help me, please. Eames is coming for me. Eames would never leave me,” the guy whined in a mocking tone before returning to his normal one. “I can assume you’re Eames, right?”

“Now I know you’re lying,” Eames responded coldly.

“Ok, fine, so I made up all the sobbing your name part, but-” the guy tossed something onto the table. A phone- Arthur’s phone, with a cracked screen and a very sparse contacts list. “Eames is the only name saved in the whole damn phone so I took some artistic liberties.”

Eames stared at the phone with a pit in his stomach but didn’t say anything.

“There we go, that’s the look I was hoping for. Now, with the dramatics out of the way, let’s talk business.”

“The fob’s a fake,” Sparrow’s voice fizzled in through the earbud.

“What?” Eames asked, out loud.

“Business. I want access and wasting my time is only making me more likely to blow your little boyfriend’s head off, so let’s. Talk. Business.”

“You can’t give him access so there’s nothing to talk about,” Sparrow stated. “The detonator is a fake, I can’t find anything that indicates it will actually set anything off. You need to call his bluff.”

“The detonator’s a fake,” Eames repeated seriously.

The guy’s eyes narrowed. “Really? Then you wouldn’t mind at all if I-” with that the guy moved as if to drop the fob and Eames lurched forward before he could even reason with himself. The guy paused and smiled with a Cheshire cat grin.

“Sit down, let’s talk,” the guy commanded simply.

“Agent!” Sparrow’s tense voice came in. “Trust me. Call. The. Bluff.”

“Ok,” Eames gave in.

The guy looked quite pleased with himself moments before a bullet went between his eyes. Eames then immediately shot the two accomplices that had stood behind him in the room before he froze, waiting for the sound of an explosion.

None ever came and he breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Sparrow, do you have any ideas where Arthur could be?”

She hummed on the other end. “I’m scanning for any heat signatures right now.”

Eames busied himself searching the current room, but found nothing of use.

“I have another person on the ground floor, it might be him.”

Eames's heart seized at the idea that Arthur had been sitting in the dark on the first floor while Eames breezed right past him. He took off down the stairs, following Sparrow’s direction. He turned the lights on and illuminated the space. It was generally empty space with a few doors bordering the sides of it.

He headed towards the door Sparrow instructed and yanked it open. Arthur flinched as the light poured into the dark closet.

He was tied to a chair, with his arms pulled stiffly behind him, wearing only pants. There were bruises and scrapes along his chest and face, but nothing too severe, much to Eames’s relief. His hair curled damply, slowly drying without any of his usual hair products, and he was shivering slightly with the cold.

“Hey, hey, it’s me,” Eames said quickly as he stepped into the small room so that Arthur could see him as more than just a dark silhouette backed by bright lights. He reached forward and pulled the gag off before getting to work on his bound wrists and ankles, snapping out a switchblade.

“Eames? You came?”

“Of course, you called.”

His wrists came free and Arthur brought them up to his chest and rubbed them to get a bit more blood flow back. “It was really a last-ditch effort. I wasn’t even sure how far away you were.”

“We got lucky. I was close,” Eames responded quietly before pressing his knife upwards and snapping the binds around Arthur’s ankles.

With Arthur finally free Eames wrapped his arms around him and exhaled in relief. Arthur leaned into the hold.

“I can’t live here anymore, they were able to figure out a connection somehow.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“You aren’t leaving me again,” Arthur said, it was not a question.

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

He would figure the details out later with Sparrow and thank whoever was listening that she was on his side, but for now, they needed to get out of there.

Chapter Text

Arthur had gotten one cuff off, which made the next one easier in theory, but despite being abandoned in the little cell of a room there were still patrols that went down the halls every now and then, meaning that Arthur had to somehow look still handcuffed and not guilty or suspicious at all. He achieved this by remaining hunched over in a way he hoped read as ‘defeated’ and not ‘hiding a lock pick set’.

The cuff finally came off with a light clink as it hit the metal table. Arthur remained in his fake handcuffed position until the patrol passed again, so he would have the maximum amount of time available to pick the lock on the cell door. It didn’t take long.

The patrol strolled past his door lazily, barely even glancing inside, just enough to know he was still physically in the room. He waited for the footsteps to fade. That was the easy part.

The hard part came upon the realization that the door had no inner-lock so in order to pick the lock he would have to shove his arms through the barred top portion of the door and twist them awkwardly to get the lock pick to the actual lock. Brilliant.

He missed his target a couple of times and was becoming convinced that the position might not actually be possible when he finally got the lock pick into the lock itself. This was where the second hard part came because despite being in the lock, the lock pick was not working. Arthur tried a couple more times before he was interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps.

Arthur withdrew his arms, stashing the lockpick away, but instead of returning to the table and pretending to still be cuffed, he crouched down next to the door.

The patrol went past again, this time not even glancing into the room.

“Oh for the love of God,” Arthur muttered under his breath.

He began fake heavy breathing, wheezing in and out. “Please,” he whimpered out in his most pitiful tone possible. “Please, help.”

The patrol turned and glanced back towards the cell. Time to seal it.

“Please,” Arthur made sounds like he was struggling to breathe or swallow. “I- I have asthma you have to-”

The patrol doubled back, he was close now. Peering into the room where he was greeted not by an asthmatic handcuffed to a table, but by a man with a cold expression and normal breathing patterns crouched immediately on the other side of the door.

“What the-” He began, but never finished.

Arthur’s arm whipped out, snaking around the back of his head and slamming his face forward against the bars, disorienting him. The pullback and then secondary slam sealed the deal and his body drooped as he fell unconscious. Arthur used the pressure of his face against the bars and the hand on the back of his head to keep him upright long enough for Arthur’s other hand to reach out and snag the key off his belt. Then he let him drop.

He did the awkward arm twist again to get the key down to the lock, but seeing as how turning a key took a lot less finesse compared to lock picking it wasn’t long before the door swung open. Arthur pushed the man’s unconscious body into the room and crouched over him, checking his pockets for anything useful. He left the room with a radio, a gun, and a red stripe peppermint which he tossed in his mouth.

This was either a new place or the people here were really worried about hacked camera feeds because he didn’t see a single security camera in the area. Even so, it wouldn’t be too long before the missing patrol was noticed and they put together that he had gotten out of his cell.

He tucked the gun into his waistband, clipped the radio onto his belt, and stowed the key away in his shoe, leaving his hands free. He crept down the hallways keeping his footsteps light and easing open any doors that he came across. Mostly he just found empty rooms and a couple of places for storage, nothing exciting and none of it was Eames.

He came across an occupied cell. Hope sprung up but was just as quickly squashed. The person inside was a lean brunette woman, clearly not Eames, she seemed free to roam her cell, not being handcuffed to a table or uncomfortable chair. He moved on. He must have paused just long enough to catch her attention because she was suddenly at the cell door.

“Hey,” she hissed. “You’re not a patrol. Let me out of here.”

Arthur glanced back at her, meeting her somewhat wild expression with cool indifference. “Sorry, you’re not the person I’m looking for.”

She rattled the door. “Let me out of here you dick.”

“I don’t need more trouble,” Arthur stated, turning to keep going.

“I’ll scream,” she threatened. “I’ll tell them you’re here.”

At the same time, the radio at Arthur’s side fizzled to life with a staticky voice speaking on the other side. “Mark, why have you not reported in?”

Shit.

Arthur paused and the voice came again. “Mark, do you copy?”

Deciding it was worth a shot, Arthur grabbed the radio and did his best impression of the patrol’s voice that he could remember from the two words the man had actually spoken. “Copy, I’m on my way to report in now. I’ll explain when I get there.”

“You’re not Mark,” the voice on the other side returned suspiciously.

Oh well, Eames had always been the better actor. Without a response Arthur turned the radio off. A couple of seconds later an alarm went off, the PA system crackling out an intruder alert. Arthur looked up at the flashing red light with an expression akin to a wet cat.

“I think they know I’m here,” He informed the woman.

“No shit, let me out and I’ll help confuse things.”

Arthur couldn’t argue with that so he backtracked slightly and unlocked her door.

“I would wish you luck, but you barely wanted to let me out at all so I’m not endeared to you.”

“That’s fair.”

“I do hope you kill a good number of them even if you fail.”

“Thanks,” Arthur responded dryly. “I saw a fire escape a few doors back, that might be your best bet.”

“Now that’s much more helpful of you. I overheard radio chatter about a guy on sub-level one, that might be your man.”

With that, they split in different directions. Arthur was on his way to sub-level one and (hopefully) Eames.

-----

Munich was beautiful during the winter, Eames had decided. Even if it got far too cold for his liking. The winter markets and piles of blankets he and Arthur had in their living room more than made up for it.

Their stay was coming to a close and, though Eames was hoping for warmer- possibly more tropical- waters, he was going to miss this period of time. It helped that the assignment had been fairly easy as well. He had been fronting as an American investor named Daniel Sanders and leaching information off the company, drip-feeding it away to Sparrow. No guns, just good old fashion corporate espionage; no excitement and (for once) he didn’t crave it.

Arthur was there as a foreign student name Alexander Michaels. Funnily enough, other than the fake name, Arthur really wasn’t playing a part. He had always been brilliant (Eames knew that with genuine certainty) but he had, apparently, never gotten the chance to really experience college before he had been pulled back by his family and he was taking it quite seriously despite Eames reminding him that the next fake identity they put together they could just fake a nice degree for.

It meant Eames went to work in the morning and Arthur went to class and whoever got home first did their best attempt at making good food- Arthur usually achieving, Eames… not so much. Then the other would arrive home at some point and eat and Eames would putz around the house while Arthur studied or did assignments. Eames would usually attempt to help him with memorization when he was feeling helpful or (more often) attempt to make out with him or get him to drink when he wasn’t feeling helpful.

It was shockingly domestic. If you ignored the corporate espionage.

And if Eames did have to report to Sparrow and send information to the agency regularly he could have easily forgotten about the corporate espionage.

It made him surprisingly angry, actually. Younger him had been so solid on the idea that he would never have a partner as a gay man growing up mired in homophobia and he had been so pressed to prove that he could still be useful despite his “shortcomings” he had kind of wrecked his chances for a permanent cozy situation like this before the dream was even dreamt.

But then again, if he hadn’t joined the agency then it wouldn’t be Arthur with him. In fact, Arthur would almost certainly be dead at the hands of his cousin and whatever careless agent they would have sent instead of Eames. That thought always brought him back around.

He arrived back at their place, kicking the sludgy snow off his boots and hanging his coat up next to the door. Arthur was in the living room area with a blanket thrown over his lap and the rubber of a pencil squished between his teeth as his eyes scanned the text of the most archaic-looking book Eames thought he had ever seen.

“I’m home!” Eames announced in a sing-songy voice when Arthur didn’t even flinch at the door squeaking open.

It was such a funny thing for Eames to be happy about, but he always remembered what Arthur’s old neighbor (who he later learned was named Mrs. Kyung) had said, something along the lines of Arthur being a street cat she enticed into friendship with a food bowl. It was a surprisingly apt description. Arthur had been deeply paranoid and extremely jumpy for the first year they had traveled together, it had only recently been calming a bit. Eames distantly wondered if domestic bliss in Munich was a contributing factor.

Arthur glanced up at him and smiled, an expression that radiated throughout Eames’s body.

“Did you get my text?” Eames asked as he dropped his bag and entered the actual living space.

“The one to not make dinner despite me having found a really interesting recipe yesterday?”

“Precisely the one,” Eames responded with a kiss to the cheek that he imagined felt more like the press of an ice cube based on how warm Arthur’s skin felt where he touched him, Arthur took it in stride though.

“Is this where you reveal why?” Arthur asked with playful suspicion.

“It’s our anniversary!” Eames announced with jazz hands.

“Mm… no it’s not.”

“Tonight makes three years from the day I took you out for Italian and you said you would give me all of your family’s criminal secrets.”

“Most couples celebrate their anniversary on the day they actually got together.”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, my dearest love, we are not most couples.”

“Right. But the day I agreed to ruin my cousin’s criminal enterprise even if it meant my own death?”

“Is that not the day we got together?”

“Seeing as how I was convinced you were only using me for information and then following that all coming to a head you went no-contact while I lived in Virginia for a year… no not really.”

“All right then,” Eames said with a challenging smile. “What is our actual anniversary?”

“I would say when you found me tied up in the dark closet of an office building and I informed you that you would not be leaving me anywhere again. Besides, if Italian night was our anniversary then why didn’t we celebrate it last year?”

“I had been caught and had my molar pulled out for information. Which I did not give, by the way,” Eames responded with comedic bluster, despite that having been one of the worst weeks of his life.

“Oh yeah,” Arthur responded, his expression pinching slightly.

“And if the office building closet is our anniversary why haven’t we celebrated it before?”

“I made a fancy dinner that night and neither of us said anything about the date so I assumed we were one of those couples that just don’t celebrate anniversaries,” Arthur said with a shrug.

“Arthur, I celebrate my half-birthday and you think that I wouldn’t celebrate our anniversary?” Eames asked in dramatic shock.

“I concede, that doesn’t sound like you,” Arthur held his hands up in a joking truce.

“Good, now put on a nice jacket, I’m taking you out for fancy Italian food.”

“Because we have a great track record with Italian food.”

“I’ll have you know, that dinner went wonderfully and we were both delightful. It was the espionage later that was a mess.”

Arthur laughed as he stepped into the bathroom to touch his hair up before they headed out. They walked down the street with their hands linked, Eames purposefully steering them the long way around to go through the Christmas market and Eames found himself wishing that they could stay in this perfect little bubble of a moment forever.

Chapter Text

Yusuf heated up some of the canned soup from the stack of nonperishables in the otherwise sparse pantry while Ariadne continued the work she had been doing in the car.

She had Arthur’s laptop open next to hers and the stack of notebooks all opened and strewn around her in a semicircle of information that made her nearly unreachable. All she was missing was red thread, Yusuf thought to himself.

“Ariadne,” he called as he entered the living room with two bowls of soup, setting his down gently on the coffee table.

She muttered vaguely, but didna seem to register his presence otherwise, her eyes flitting between computer screens and notebooks.

“Ari,” He called a bit louder.

She hummed before leaning forward and typing something into the computer, practically folding herself in half.

He sighed and decided to try one more time, his attention catching on a single bird sticker on her laptop. “Sparrow?”

“What is it?” She asked, her voice all business.

“I made soup,” Yusuf responded simply.

“I-” she faltered for a moment, her hands stilling on the keyboard.

“What?” She asked as she looked up.

“Soup.”

He held the bowl up to punctuate his sentence.

“Ooh. Oh, thank you.”

She unfolded herself, her knees cracking as she stood and accepted her bowl.

“Sorry,” she said a bit bashfully.

“Don’t worry about it, I just wanted to make sure you ate.”

They settled onto separate ends of the couch, Yusuf sitting normally and Ariadne curling her legs up and holding the warm bowl to her chest.

“I’m just so close, I can feel it.”

Yusuf hummed in understanding.

“Arthur was smart and Eames… had me and Arthur in his corner. There’s information buried in all of this that will make it all blow wide open. There’s something I haven’t thought of.”

“How do you know? Even the smartest people can’t think of everything. Maybe Arthur just didn’t plan for this eventuality.”

“But he would have. They planned for being separated, they planned for one of them being taken, they planned for them having to flee someplace quickly, they would have planned for this too.”

“But you haven’t found anything?”

“No. Arthur would have hidden it well. He knew that people from the agency would have come looking, he wouldn’t have made it too easy. He would have hidden it so only those he wanted to have access to his information could have found it.”

“So what are you looking for?”

“A way to track them? There has to be a way. Arthur left his phone behind, but he and Eames would have been better than to just rely on phone trackers after last time,” she seemed to be getting focused in again, muttering more to herself than Yusuf.

“Last time?” Yusuf asked curiously.

“But Eames obviously didn’t have his tracker on or working, otherwise Arthur wouldn’t be looking for him, he would already know where he was.”

“Right, but Eames was snatched up in a pre-set trap. They knew he was on a mission, they would have searched him thoroughly. But Arthur…”

Ariadne met Yusuf’s eyes. “But Arthur was a clueless civilian in their minds. He could have gotten away with a lot more if he played along.”

“You’ve been looking for Eames this whole time-”

“And they had their information divided under their names,” Ariadne finished the thought.

“So of course you weren’t getting any pings,” Yusuf stated leadingly.

“Because I need to be looking for Arthur, not Eames.”

Ariadne abandoned her half-eaten soup on the coffee table and returned to her position on the floor folding herself up and removing the hard drives she had plugged into either computer and replacing them with others before flipping through the different notebooks.

Yusuf sat back and finished his soup, satisfied with having helped.

-----

Eames missed the Christmas markets of Munich but not so much the cold and snow, though it did still get nippy in South Carolina. Though his definition of nippy was obviously different from Arthur’s who took to the weather wonderfully, in a nice jacket that he said was just enough.

They were walking down by the water, though not hand in hand as Eames would have preferred. They had arrived only a few days ago so they were still trying to get a feel for the area.

It was a windy day and Arthur’s cheeks were a bit ruddy across the top and his hair was slightly tousled, seemingly less gelled than usual. He was talking about the newest job he had picked up to keep himself busy, working for a book publisher. It was such a perfect picture that Eames couldn’t stop himself from leaning over and kissing Arthur.

“What was that for?” Arthur asked when they finally pulled apart, a smile on his face.

“You look stunning this evening, doctor.”

Arthur laughed softly. “I got my Master's Degree, I didn’t get a doctorate.”

“That’s too bad, you’d make a hot doctor.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for the next time I decide to be a student again,” Arthur stated before kissing Eames again.

They strolled for a bit more, the sun sinking in the sky.

“Do you remember what today is?” Eames asked casually.

Arthur pondered it for a moment. “Oh, it’s the day you’ve decided is our anniversary.”

“Correct,” Eames responded with a smile.

“Does that mean you’re going to take me to Italian for dinner again? Because I was just thinking it’s about time to eat.”

“Well, where do you think we’re walking to?”

“I should have known better than to underestimate your love of an end destination.”

“You absolutely should have.”

The Italian restaurant was warm and cozy compared to the weather outside. They settled into their corner booth and ordered their drinks and food, happily chatting about nothing while they waited. They were finished with their food and waiting to flag the waiter down for dessert when Arthur excused himself to make a trip to the bathroom.

He was washing his hands at the sink when a man stepped in. Arthur paid him no mind until he saw that he hadn’t moved at all in the reflection of the mirror, so Arthur turned to him cautiously.

“Can I help you?”

“You should leave,” the man responded gruffly.

Arthur looked at him, perplexed. “Leave?”

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but believe me; your date is a dangerous man.”

“My… my date?” Arthur asked, his brain starting to put together what was happening.

“Yeah, whatever he’s told you is his job and his name, they’re lies.”

Arthur was now purposefully putting on a character. “Lies? Wha- why would you tell me this?”

“Because something is going to happen tonight. I don’t want you to end up in the crossfire. Just ditch your date, make up an emergency or whatever.”

“Are you, like… FBI or something?” Arthur asked.

The man smiled, satisfied. “Yeah, something like that. Of course, I can’t tell you the details.”

“Of course! But… if this guy is really so dangerous I- I want to help you.”

The man’s smile curled slightly. Arthur felt like rolling his eyes, even if this guy believed Arthur was just some poor stupid guy he was being so obvious about it.

“No, I couldn’t possibly ask you to put yourself in danger like that.”

“You said he’s dangerous though. He trusts me, at least enough to ask me out, I’m sure I could lead him on.”

“Well,” the man hummed like he was considering it, but Arthur already knew where this all was going. “If you insist, it really would help.”

Arthur smiled and decided to really send it home. “Yes, of course, anything to help the FBI.”

About ten minutes later Arthur finally left the bathroom and rejoined Eames.

“You were in there for a while. The tiramisu was ordered and delivered,” Eames gestured to the beautiful dessert that hadn’t been touched. “If this was the first date I would think you had dashed out on me.”

Arthur couldn’t help his laugh. “I actually have something really funny to tell you about that later.”

They tucked into their dessert and paid the bill, heading out into the chilly night. As they were walking down the street Arthur pulled Eames into a kiss in the lip of an alley.

“Ooo,” Eames said as they paused in kissing. “not exactly where I expected this evening to go,” He glanced around the cramped alley.

“I met a man in the bathroom.”

Eames’s expression turned perplexed. “Oookay, definitely not where I thought this evening was going to go.”

Arthur rolled his eyes lovingly. “He seemed concerned that I might be some poor guy you duped into a first date who was going to get caught in the crossfire.”

“Ah, that makes more sense. I’m assuming you played along?”

“Of course,” Arthur pulled him in for another kiss. “I have no clue how many people he’s working with on this and so it was a bit iffy to tell you in the restaurant.”

“Kissing in a cold, dark alley is a perfectly acceptable alternative.”

Arthur hummed. “We’re close to where he wanted me to lead you through. Thought we might take the long way and surprise them instead.”

-

Eames sat in the tub as Arthur sat on the edge of it, cleaning up the bloody wound on his shoulder. Thankfully it was shallow, but it stung something fierce with each dap of the cloth.

“There, that should do it,” Arthur announced, pasting a bandage over it. “No need for stitches, lucky lucky.”

“Aw, it wasn’t luck. You had my back,” Eames said with a soft smile, turning to hold Arthur’s hand as they just sat there for a moment.

“I could more often.”

“What?”

“I could work with you. I have the skills, I proved it back there. I’m tired of watching you go out and deal with stuff that I won’t be there for.” He brushed his thumb along Eames’s jaw with his free hand. “I’m tired of you losing molars while I’m playing student or editor or accountant.”

Eames reached up and took Arthur’s free hand in his. “In an ideal world, that would be a wonderful offer, dearest. But- they use the people you care about against you, we’d be held over each other’s heads and if we kept each other a secret then we could be scattered to the winds. We might not see each other again for months or years.”

“I know,” Arthur sighed. “I just also know how tonight could have gone if you were alone or out with someone else. I have skills and I could use them.”

“You did use them. Every day before we left your cousin’s shit behind us. I know you, I know this isn’t something you actually enjoy doing, it’s just something you’re good at.”

“And you, Agent Eames, are you happy doing this?”

Eames’s expression hardened slightly. “I don’t have a choice, you know that. I got into this when I was young and stupid and thought I didn’t have a future, you aren’t any of those things.”

Arthur turned his head away from Eames, his jaw set stubbornly.

Eames sighed in annoyance, not at Arthur really, but at the whole shit situation and the loss of his plans for the night. “Let’s get packed. I need to call Sparrow and tell her I’m compromised here.”

He rose and stepped out of the bath, placing a gentle hand on Arthur’s shoulder as he went, but he didn’t say anything further.

It wasn’t the first time they had had a conversation like this and the problem was that both of them understood the other and understood that their current situation was the best they could do, but it didn’t make those feelings go away. They would take a bit to cool down.

By the time they were on the plane, Arthur will have admitted it’s a bad idea for him to be an agent and Eames will have told him he understands how hard it is to be a secret and on the sidelines and they would kiss about it and then forget it until one of them was in danger again.

“Hey Sparrow,” Eames greeted as Arthur cleaned up the first aid kit. “Yeah… um, the Carolinas might be a bust.”

Chapter Text

Arthur had made it down to the sublevel. It had been painstakingly slow going; moving too quickly was risky and attracted attention, taking too much time increased the chances of them guessing who he was here for and Eames’s rescue turning into a shitty (and deadly) shell game.

He ducked into a random corridor as he heard steps echoing down a different one. Now came the tricky part. Even limited down to a single level that he hoped Eames was on, the search was going to take a while. He stepped into an open room and gathered his thoughts.

From a quick glance, all the floors seemed to be constructed almost identically. A series of rooms for different purposes with one or two much larger rooms for equipment or controls. Judging from the floor he had been on, that gave him about ten to fifteen rooms that could be holding Eames. Down here the doors seemed made for more permanent holding, thick metal with a slot in them, and no one was making any sounds so there was a good chance the doors were at least mildly sound-proofed.

Not having any grand ideas springing to mind, Arthur got started on the simple plan. Any room that could hold Eames was to be checked and any guards were to be avoided and hopefully his luck would hold out.

He was about five doors down when the sounds of steps returned, this time shockingly close. Without a second to check or consider his options, Arthur inserted the key and wrenched the door behind him open, and stepped backward into the room, easing the door shut just as two men came around the corner.

Arthur watched through a crack in the door as the two figures breezed by chatting to each other low enough that Arthur wasn’t able to hear them. He quietly closed the door the rest of the way and turned to face the room he had stepped into blindly.

He was almost sure it was a hallucination when the only thing in the room was Eames staring back at him owlishly.

“...Arthur?” Eames asked.

Arthur unfroze from his shock and flashed a relieved smile. “Eames.”

Eames was strapped down to an uncomfortable-looking metal chair, harsh straps pulled tightly over raw wrists and ankles. He was without a shirt and his chest was a blotchy swirl of varying shades of bruised, with a couple of rough-looking cuts here and there. His lip had been busted and pulled strangely with his expression and dried blood flaked from much of his arms and face, making it difficult to tell what was injured and how badly.

“Arthur, what the fuck are you doing here?”

Arthur was at his side, getting to work on the straps. “You don’t look happy, Eames.”

“Damn right I’m not. How did you get here? What are you doing?”

Arthur felt like pausing to put his hands on his hips, but he stayed focused on getting the straps undone. “Well, what I’m doing is saving you. How I got here… I, uh, got kidnapped.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, but they were really bad at it, didn’t even bother to take my shoes away so we’ve got a tracker,” Arthur stated happily.

“Did they hurt you?”

“I mean, they weren’t nice, but I was knocked out for most of the ride. Then I woke up, kicked the tracker on, and played stupid until they put me in a room alone. Easy enough.”

The straps on Eames’s ankles were off and Arthur started on his wrists.

“I should probably mention that I met your earbud friend Sparrow and steered her in the right direction to find the tracker, I wasn’t sure about her partner or anyone else in the agency so I was vague, but hopefully she’s got us. Otherwise… I already tripped the alarm and it’s going to be an interesting time getting out of here.”

Eames looked up at the flashing red light on the wall.

“Yeah, I can see that.”

One wrist came free and, as Arthur had suspected, Eames began to tip to the side. Arthur caught him and propped him up on his shoulder.

“Hold on Eames, I’ve got one more strap. Don’t pass out.”

Eames was looking slightly woozy. “They did a number on me, I think.”

“Yeah,” Arthur responded, his mouth dry. “I think so, but I’ve got you now, you’ll be fine.”

“I thought I might never see you again,” Eames admitted.

The last wrist came free and Arthur lowered Eames out of the chair and to the ground.

“But I made it, we found each other again just like we always do.”

Eames smiled. “Yeah, just like we always do.”

Despite sitting on the cold concrete of what was basically a prison cell with an unknown number of enemies right outside they were both smiling.

“Let’s get out of here, get you cleaned up.”

“Sounds lovely,” Eames responded with a cheeky smile.

-----

Arthur used his elbow to open the door, huffing as he turned and place the grocery bags along their counter space and kicked off his shoes. The lights in the apartment were still off, despite the fact that he had expected Eames to get home while he was out running errands. Eames had work, but it was supposed earlier in the morning and he hadn’t expected it to stretch into the evening.

It was times like these that Arthur really wished Eames worked a normal job so that he could call up and ask where his husband was.

He sighed, fiddled with the ring on a chain around his neck, and then tucked it away against his chest again and set to work on unpacking the groceries. When that was finished, he began dinner, specifically picking one of the more complicated and involved recipes he’d been meaning to try.

It kept him busy for a while.

The sun had fully set and it was dark outside and there was still no Eames.

He ate some of his dinner without really enjoying it and then packed up the rest for leftovers, putting a plate of it in the microwave for Eames. He brought out a book he had been working on and made a tea and sat in the chair that had direct sightlines to the door, he didn’t really focus too much on the words on the page.

Eames never came.

When the sun rose, Arthur got the plate from the microwave and scraped the cold dinner into the Tupperware box with the rest of the leftovers before he pulled on his shoes and headed for their agreed meet-up point if things ever went wrong.

The small, dinky 24-hour diner had a couple of truckers stopped in it for breakfast, but no Eames, and Arthur stood out like a sore thumb. Still, he ordered himself a coffee and a waffle and sat in a booth. And he waited.

To fill the time he had brought one of his notebooks filled with phone numbers and went through it systematically, calling all the possible numbers Eames might have picked up if his current one was tapped and not safe anymore. No luck.

Every now and then the waitress would swing back around, remind him that he couldn’t sit there for free and he would order a random drink off the menu; Pepsi, orange juice, sweet tea, more coffee, anything. Finally, she stopped by the table as the sun was beginning to set.

“Listen, hun, you seem nice and I don’t know what has you in a truck stop all day, but you need to be headed home. Whatever you’re waiting for isn’t coming here and you look like you need sleep.”

It was a mix of exhaustion, slight concern, tough love, and customer service and Arthur felt awful for having taken up a table all day. Not that the place got busy, but still- on principle- he shouldn’t have.

“Could I stay one more hour?” He asked hopefully.

“Sure, I can’t make you go.”

He nodded his thanks and ordered another black coffee. She brought this one out with a piece of toast and Arthur realized he hadn’t really eaten anything.

Finally, the hour rolled over and there was still no Eames.

He asked the waitress if he could leave a message in case someone came in looking for him and she shrugged as if to say ‘why not’ and Arthur ignored the fact that she seemed pretty sure that no one was coming, it wasn’t her fault. He left the message for Mick and Everett- Eames’s first name and his current name. Arthur wasn’t sure which he would use, but if things really were bad then he wouldn’t be using Eames.

Arthur paid the waitress with all the money in his wallet, plus some on his card so that the tip was wholly hers. Then he went back home.

To his empty apartment.

Chapter Text

Yusuf had fallen asleep on the couch, only realizing so when his arm was roughly shaken and he snapped awake, his chin coming up from his chest as he made a confused and startled sound. Ariadne was there, clutching his arm in one hand, Arthur’s laptop (quite precariously) in the other, and leaning in only inches away from him.

“I found him,” Ariadne crowed in triumph. “Get your shoes on, we need to get moving.”

-

Arthur had been able to get Eames out of the cell he had been in and was making slow but steady progress down the hall when he heard a shout from behind them. Without looking back or communicating with each other, he and Eames both ducked to the side and entered what looked to be a sort of control room for the building. A volley of bullets went through where they had been standing.

Arthur slammed the door shut and pulled a chair under the knob as Eames dispatched the guard that had been in the room before he could retaliate. The radio on the man’s hip went wild with calls of their exact location.

“Shit,” Arthur grumbled, looking around the room.

It wasn’t great. A couple of circuit boards, not much to make a weapon out of, and a band of glass windows along one side that was going to become a real issue for them shortly. He glanced over at Eames and saw that he comprehended the same thing.

“The least we can do is make it a bit trickier, don’t you think?” Eames asked, his hands hovering over the circuit board and a devious smile stretching across his face.

Arthur felt himself smile in return. “Go for it.”

“And God said ‘Let There be Darkness’!” Eames exclaimed theatrically before flipping the master switch, plunging the building into darkness. The only light remaining was the alarm that had gone off earlier, blinking eerily red in the darkness.

Both Arthur and Eames shuffled behind the only table in the room, shielding them from immediate view through the glass.

“I think it’s ‘let there be light’,” Arthur said quietly.

“Huh?”

“And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. That’s the scripture.”

“Do I look like someone who knows scripture?”

“You’re the one who tried to quote it.”

“Eh, my version was better anyways.”

It wasn’t long before the glass loudly shattered as someone fired at it multiple times. Arthur pulled the gun out of his waistband and checked the bullets and took the safety off.

“Hey, why do you get a gun?” Eames asked.

“Because I stole it off an unconscious guard fair and square.”

“Fine,” Eames grumbled, grabbing the guard’s ankles and dragging him towards them so they could stay behind the table. He checked him for anything useful before coming up with his own gun. “Now we’re in business.”

-

Yusuf drove while Ariadne called Cobb to inform him of the location they were headed to.

“We have reason to believe these people took Eames,” she didn’t mention Arthur. “But we’re going to need backup.”

“Very well,” Cobb responded, “I have backup inbound, but it will take them a while. Call me if you find anything of interest.”

“Yes sir.”

With that, she hung up. They drove in silence for a while, just listening to the rumble of the road underneath them.

“You’re still protecting them,” Yusuf finally said, a mix of softness and bafflement.

Ariadne sighed. “Yeah, and I’m going to keep doing so.”

“Well I already stuck with you this far so I’m in.”

-

Eames’s gun clicked.

“Shit,” he hissed before he peeked over the table, throwing the gun and nailing one of the men in the head. “Out of ammo.”

Arthur glanced over at him. “I have three bullets left.”

He took aim, hitting a man with a kill shot.

“Two. I have two bullets left.”

“Christ,” Eames said, running his hand through his hair in a stressed motion. “This is why I didn’t want you here. Now you’re just in the same position I was.”

Arthur kicked him lightly. “We aren’t dead yet, or captured for that matter, we just need to figure something out.”

“Like what?” Eames asked.

“Take this,” Arthur said, tossing the gun to Eames who caught it easily before he pulled the razors out of his shoes.

“What are you going to do with those.”

“Not sure yet, but I’m going to make something,” Arthur replied, eying the circuit boards.

“Ok, real quick before you do that.”

“Yes?”

“Were you named Kevin McCallister as a kid? Because your improv abilities scare me and my whole job is doing that.”

“No, I just took apart and rebuilt toasters.”

“Ah yes, like every healthy American boy does,” Eames responded with light sarcasm.

“Haha. Can I go build a weapon now?” Arthur asked, crouched and ready to run for the circuit boards.

“One last thing?”

“Sure.”

“Kiss me before you go? Just in case.”

“Just in case,” Arthur agreed, kissing Eames softly, careful of the bruising and cuts on his face.

Arthur returned to his position about to sprint out of cover when another volley of bullets rang out and Eames grabbed him to hold him back, but none of the bullets pinged off of the table or walls of the room. They glanced at each other, confused. More shouting came and then more firing and then dead silence.

The dead silence was broken by someone testing the door handle to the room.

Arthur and Eames shared a look, Eames nodding to the chair under the handle. Arthur took up position beside the chair as Eames stood and aimed at the door. With a silent count, Arthur pulled the chair out and the door came swinging open.

“You, sir, were exceeding hard to find,” a familiar voice stated, making Eames’s finger hesitate on the trigger.

“Sparrow?” He asked, letting the gun lower.

“Who else?” She responded with a cheeky smile. “It’s Ariadne, by the way, it’s kind of pointless to stick with that rule after everything else.”

“Damn, I should have been calling you something spider-related this whole time, not a bird,” Eames responded, he wobbled for just a moment and Arthur was there at his side, holding him up.

Ariadne smiled at the two of them before looking over at Yusuf.

“I should call,” She stated, stepping into the hallway where she could still be clearly heard.

The phone rang once before it was picked up.

“Sir, Yusuf and I found the base of operations.”

“Wonderful, backup is about fifteen minutes out. Higher-ups want this cleaned, so if you find Eames or anyone connected to him, you are to dispatch them, are we clear?” He spoke up before she could say anything further.

She glanced back at the group. “Yes sir, but there’s a slight problem, we weren’t able to find Eames.”

The attention of the three men snapped to her as she said it.

“Really?”

“Yes, evidence suggests that they probably killed him before we even got here and they’ve disposed of him.”

Eames and Yusuf both had confused looks on their face, but Arthur’s had dawned with realization and he was looking at her with an expression of appreciation as he supported half of Eames’s weight.

“And anyone connected to him?”

“No evidence of anyone connected, sir. I would say this has wrapped itself up quite nicely, back-up won’t have too much on their plate.”

“Very well, I’m tired of having good people out on a wild goose chase, I want you and Yusuf to report back in at central in two days, we’ll see you then.” With that, he hung up.

Ariadne turned to Arthur and Eames. “You two need to get out of here, more people are on their way in fifteen and the higher-ups wouldn’t be too pleased if it turned out you were still breathing. I recommend somewhere tropical this time of year.”

Arthur and Eames shared a look, Eames smiling. “I think we can swing that.”

Ariadne smiled in return. “I’ll transfer your funds over to one of your accounts.”

“The ones that the agency doesn’t know about and aren’t on my files?”

“Precisely,” Ariadne stated with a smirk. “It should be enough to get you out of here and get you back on your feet. After that, you might have to get a normal job, though.”

“I think that’s a pretty good deal,” Eames said.

“Great. It was great knowing you Eames, so sorry to hear about your passing.”

Eames laughed as Arthur shouldered his weight and started to move them out.

“I’m stealing your car, by the way,” Arthur called over his shoulder.

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” Ariadne assured.

She then turned to Yusuf.

“We’ve got some cleanup to do.”

-

In his office, Dom hung up the phone. Ariadne was lying to him, she was good at it, he almost couldn’t tell, but he had been playing this game for a while now and he knew a lie when he heard it.

He rocked back in his chair with a satisfied sigh.

“Good,” he said to empty air, sending the sentiment out into the world. “That’s good.”