Work Text:
Arthur's entire career and modus operandi can be simplified into a single, representative problem — two points, A and B, identified and labeled clearly on a grid of as-of-yet indiscernible size, filled with indiscernible pit stops and potholes and sometimes deadly drops straight down into nothing. His job is to figure out the most efficient way to get from Point A to Point B with the optimal number of surprises, injuries, and sometimes deaths.
(Hint: The optimal number is 0.)
A few things that are not part of his job description: finding Point B (because he's not an extractor; it just isn't his thing), dealing in uncertainties, and explaining to other people how to do their own jobs.
Or perhaps these should be listed as 'things Arthur does not like having to do' because he's been saddled with all of these at various points in his work regardless. Arthur's found that if he thinks of these as unforeseen potholes in his route from Point A to Point B, he can trick himself into not feeling quite so aggravated by everything.
Because Arthur likes what he does. He likes specifics, likes devising methods to unearth all kinds of information, likes knowing that his effort will yield clarity — insight, a decision, a solution, simple understanding. There is no conundrum that cannot be picked apart, examined, and eventually understood.
Which means it stands to reason that what Arthur hates most is not being able to figure something out.
And all of this is conducive to why Eames's existence in Arthur's carefully managed, carefully defined life is both irritating and fascinating. Every time Arthur thinks he has Eames figured out, Eames comes up with something completely bizarre to baffle Arthur with.
For example, Exhibit A:
Eames is not, by any means, stupid. You don't get very far in the illicit world of underground dreamshare by being stupid. In fact, Eames manages to be so unexpectedly brilliant at times that it gives Arthur whiplash.
Why? Well, because reconciling the Eames who masterminded the Fischer inception job, who has profiling down leagues better than the Feds, who spends an unseen portion of his time forging documents with every precise detail (precision, another favorite of Arthur's), with the Eames who somehow doesn't know how to work secure network connections and online correspondence because he prefers doing things analog, the Eames who has managed to rack up a phenomenal 4 simultaneous hits for things Arthur knows Eames should have known better to do, the Eames who set his kitchen ceiling on fire—
Well.
Then there's Exhibit B:
Arthur knows how conmen work. He recognizes the signs, remembers them from courses, from books, from experience. And of course, he also knows a little about how to sidestep their little charms, even if it takes a little while at times for Arthur to realize there was something else at work in the undercurrent.
But either Arthur is actually worse than he thought at reading people or Eames just doesn't follow any textbook rules, Arthur can't figure it out. It's incredibly frustrating, his not being able to figure it out. And Eames doesn't help at all, playing or perhaps actually meaning that loose-browed look of sincerity he wears when Arthur can't stand not having his clarity any longer and snaps at him to explain himself, to make sense.
Every time Arthur thinks he has everything added up, carried his ones, counted his zeroes, Eames slides out of perspective again. He can't tell which of them is doing it, which of them is drawing the other in.
Eames tells Arthur sometimes that it's Arthur, but how much of Eames's word can Arthur really take? Besides, Arthur isn't really doing anything. He has his job, he has the parts of other people's jobs that he does because he's a professional and he's the best, and he'll do things he doesn't like sometimes, but Arthur doesn't think this thing with Eames fits into any category here.
Exhibit C:
Arthur's in a room and it's not his room. The sheets are some motley of terrible patterns, but they're comfortable and there's an extra comforter wrapped over him like someone thought he was made of glass. Arthur isn't fragile.
But he stays where he is because it's 0739 in Paris and the light coming through the window blinds in long, lazy strips makes the terrible patterns look less terrible and it's warm. He's warm and comfortable and there's someone in the shower so he has to wait his turn.
Arthur remembers how he got here. If he concentrates, he can remember all the events leading up to here, Point B, but he can't find Point A. That's not usually how it goes.
Was Point A yesterday evening after the job when he'd spotted Eames under the streetlight where Arthur hadn't expected him to be? Or was Point A when he let Eames lead him out the door after he'd agreed to drinks? Or maybe Point A was when they'd reached the door to a place Arthur didn't recognize, but he'd invited himself in anyway? Or maybe that's too recent, maybe Point A was the actual job, maybe the job before that, or that one time Eames got over his dislike of emails to give Arthur the heads-up about a trap he would have walked into, or the time Arthur called a favor in to make those four consecutive hits turn into just one, much more manageable? Point A was maybe the first time they'd sat down together and talked about something other than the job? Or the big one, the Fischer job and inception? Or that year after Mal and when Arthur finally found out that it was Eames who had forged the passport that got Cobb out of the States? (He'd thought Eames was just another slippery character, loyal to no one but himself, before that.) But maybe he should go all the way back, back to the beginning when they first met—
The mattress depresses behind him and Arthur realizes that the water has stopped, had stopped a while ago actually. A drop of water hits his cheek.
"Ah, so you are awake," Eames says, low and in Arthur's ear. "Could hear you thinking from all the way over there."
"You're dripping water everywhere, Mr. Eames," Arthur says, because it's easier to work with facts.
Then: "I can't find Point A." And that's not really representative of everything that this is, but it's the most immediate thing.
And then immediately after: "I didn't know you had a place in Paris." Because clearly, this is Eames's apartment, everything here is so blatantly Eamesian. There are scorch marks on the kitchen ceiling even.
It shouldn't make any sense to Eames, Arthur thinks. He's never been very good at explaining his thoughts, only good at explaining why exactly something is or isn't going to work.
"You don't actually mind," Eames says.
"Does it really matter?" Eames says.
"I like defying your expectations," Eames says, then continues, "Because you think too much about everything that confuses you, darling, it's both aggravating and endearing."
There are several things in there that Arthur should probably be reacting with some amount of offense to probably, but Eames is worming his way under the blankets, wet from the shower still, and Arthur loses his train of thought when he shifts around and realizes the towel had been lost somewhere.
So Arthur doesn't register the last part because Eames murmurs it somewhere on the way down from Arthur's mouth, leaves it in a trail down his chest, over his belly (for Arthur to puzzle over later, when he runs everything by himself again, because that's what he does).
"And I can't pass up a chance to dominate your thoughts for the rest of the day."