FIC: Kiss Trick, 4/?

[the_ragnarok]

"So," Eames says once they're both up and dressed. "Do we need anyone else to pull this off?"

Arthur frowns. "I could do an okay art museum," he says.

Alas, that will not do. "We need better than okay," Eames decides. "Call Ariadne, her spring break should start fairly soon."

"What piece are we going for?" Arthur asks. Eames stares at the ceiling, deep in thought. What Eames would call the private portion of Bayliss' collection follows no obvious pattern, but it does have several non-obvious ones.

"Maybe we should let him choose in the dream," Arthur suggest.

Eames scoffs. "He's a collector, Arthur. He's likely to know where the pieces he wants are stored, and we won't be able to build an entire museum on the fly." Arthur makes a face at this, because of course he knows that. Eames sticks his tongue at Arthur, unrepentant.

"A preliminary extraction?" Arthur says. "Get his favorite piece, work from there," but Eames is already shaking his head.

"Leave it to me," he says. "I might need a few days, but I'll figure it out. Trust me."

As it turns out, Eames only needs a few hours before the idea strikes. He's half-idling, browsing the 'Art' category of StumbleUpon more for entertainment's sake than anything else. What occurs to him isn't even related – he's looking at an online gallery of Bosch when he makes the connection.

"Arthur!" he says, louder than he probably needs to considering Arthur is only two meters or so away. "Oi, Arthur, come take a look at this."

Arthur comes willingly enough, sitting on the couch next to Eames. "Take a look at what?"

Eames gestures at the images on his screen. "These three," he says, selecting the thumbnail images, "are all from Bayliss' collection." There's a Hepworth there, and a piece by Caro, and something by a no-name artist that Eames finds rather aesthetically pleasing.

Arthur surveys the images with a critical eye. "All right, and?

"Now look at this." Eames scrolls up the image he found just now, Reclining Figure by Henry Moore. There's an elegance to the image, a sensuality at odds with with the form's overall bulk.

"Hmm." Arthur looks it over. "All four of them are... huge, ugly and don't actually look like anything?"

Eames sighs melodramatically. "I despair of your artistic sense."

"Well, despair more quietly," Arthur says. He tilts his head so it's touching Eames' shoulder. "Do you think that's the one?"

"Yes," Eames says. Reasonably sure, anyway, but there's no need to say that. Arthur's well aware that Eames' profession is far from an exact science.

"All right," Arthur says, and gets back to his own work station. "I'll add it to the file I'm sending Ariadne."

"Excellent," Eames says, already distracted. "I'll just get on with planning the heist in the dream, then?"

"More your area than mine," Arthur says with a shrug. He keeps talking, probably to himself. Arthur tends to mutter to himself as he works, sometimes. Eames doesn't pay him any mind, concentrating instead on Googling museums, opening a .doc file to fill with additional information for Ariadne.

~~

Eames wonders about dreams, sometimes. He has a pet theory that people who engage in the dreamsharing business don't stop dreaming so much as completely stop remembering their ordinary dreams, which are pale, fractured things compared to what one can create with a PASIV. Certainly Eames has seen dreamers – Arthur, to name one, but others as well – twitch in what appeared to be at least similar to REM sleep.

Arthur goes restless in his sleep, thrashing and kicking with some regularity. He can be soothed, though, by the careful application of a hand on his forehead, a few nonsense words whispered in his ear in the right tone.

He's peaceful enough now. It's Eames who can't sleep, kept up by too many days' fucked-up sleep schedule. Combined with the excitement of a new job and a general unsettled feeling that Eames can't seem to shake off, it's no wonder he's not asleep yet.

Briefly, Eames flirts with the thought of getting up to continue on his work, but he's too tired to be actually productive and the bed is too pleasant to leave just now, occupied as it is by a warm and lightly snoring Arthur.

To occupy himself, he runs the various museums he'd researched through his mind, visualizing floor plans and trying to transform the scattered still images into something like a map in his mind. Eames has a nearly eidetic memory and an extremely vivid imagination. He ends up reassembling the pictures until he can see himself walking through corridors in a place he's never been, pausing to rearrange the locations of various pieces.

The small details create themselves for him in a way that utterly ignores the known facts of physical reality. He hears his own footsteps heavy on a wooden floor, echoing in the high enclosed space. Stone walls, by the sound. Eames is pretty sure the actual museum is nothing like this, but give him the word museum and this is what he comes up with. There's a reason Eames was never an architect.

After a while the images start fading into a blur of familiarity. One of Matisse' Blue Nudes hangs on the wall to his right. It's a reproduction, not even the correct size. It looks like the one that hung in his mother's work room. On the wall ahead, where the corridor curves left, there's a drawing Eames can't put a name to. It's a painting of a barbed-wire fence at sunset, stark and somehow hopeful at the same time.

Past the corner, the walls are bare. Eames goes forward and the corridor narrows, a trick of perspective turned into a physical reality. When he reaches the end of it, there's one image in front of him. He stands to face it.

He can't make her face come out right. He knows that. His memory is a skill, and while it's supported by some innate talent it's not much by itself. He wasn't trained yet when he first saw this picture, and he never saw it in person again afterwards.

They say you never forget your first love. Eames can only wish that was so. He looks at her, reconstructed as she is from the dregs of his memory. The flutter of her shawl remains, and the riot of colorful black in the middle where the cloth parts to reveal something unknown, but Eames can never get her smile to look like it should.

Her name is Emiliana, the lady in the picture, but her smile belongs to Eames' mother, and there's something strange about her eyes. He comes closer, and Emiliana reaches out to him.

Eames stops. "Hello," he says, softly. He's not sure his mouth is even moving, but her eyes flicker like she heard him.

Her hands go back to their previous position, twisting in the folds of fabric as if desperately trying to keep everything in place. She doesn't say anything. Of course she doesn't; she's a painting, and it's only occurring to Eames now that it's a little odd for her to move around like that.

Then she blinks, and her voice is like the turning of pages, old paper shuffling against itself. "Being here won't help you," she says. Eames is a fan of the direct attitude.

"It's not meant to," Eames says. "This is just a practice run."

"Everything is practice, to you," she says, and the scolding tone is a familiar one. "What are you trying to do?"

Eames half-shrugs, a minute shift of one shoulder. "Finish the job," he says. "Get the money."

She shakes her head slowly. The curves of her outfit cling to her neck as if something unpleasant might pour out if she turned too fast. "You never came for me. I thought you would."

"You're a painting." He says it gently, just to remind her. No need to be hurtful about it. "You don't think."

"But you loved me." It's not a question. The only odd thing about it is that it's in past tense.

"Yeah," Eames says. "Still do. Just have no place to put you." He grins at her, and maybe it's ridiculous to try and charm the memory of a painting, but he sees no reason not to make the attempt. "I wouldn't tear you away from the lifestyle to which you're accustomed, love. I need you kept where you're safe and beautiful."

Her laughter is kindling-dry. "Isn't that what love is?"

"Is it?" Eames says, then blinks and sees only darkness.

Arthur snuffles beside him, turning over to look at Eames with heavy-lidded eyes.

"Hush, darling," Eames says, stroking a hand over Arthur's hair. "Go back to sleep."

"Heard you talking," Arthur says. His voice is slurred, words coming soft and misshapen out of his mouth.

"Nothing of importance." But Arthur ignores this, as he often does, continuing to blink at Eames until he has no choice but to sigh and pull Arthur half on top of him. Arthur goes easily, loose-limbed, a pleasant heaviness to weight Eames down against his wild thoughts.

"You could sleep like this," Eames says, "couldn't you?" The question is largely rhetorical. There are very few situations in which Arthur can't sleep. Arthur nods into Eames' collarbone, too tired to lift his head.

He rubs his fingers up and down Arthur's spine, the soft skin against his calming and clearing his mind. Eames never liked to sleep alone.

There's something stirring against Eames' thigh. Eames might as well transfer his restless stroking to an area where it would be more appreciated. He turns Arthur to lie on his back and holds his cock in a loose fist, setting a slow rhythm while his mind wanders. Arthur turns his head to touch his lips to Eames' shoulder, pressing soft, open-mouthed kisses there.

Today and yesterday and most days, Arthur arches into Eames' hand whenever Eames offers it. Eames used to think that anyone that wasn't like him would always arch into a pressing hand, that to other people there was no such thing as an unwelcome touch. He learned the error of this soon enough, but some lingering traces of that belief remained.

This isn't true for Arthur. Eames knew that for as long as he knew the man. Arthur likes to keep himself tucked away, his desires sorted and stored out of sight. He reaches for Eames not out of want, but out of dissatisfied need. Eames' hand tightens at the thought, unconsciously, and Arthur moans and bucks into his hold.

He turns to look at Arthur, noting the spread of his thighs, the way his mouth hangs half-open. He kisses into it, backing away when it turns demanding, Arthur sucking on his tongue with a hunger that Eames never understood. He speeds up his hand, and Arthur whines in the back of his throat, twisting under Eames as he comes.

Arthur falls asleep as Eames cleans him up, his hand resting on Eames' thigh. Eames gathers him up and tucks his face into the warm skin between Arthur's shoulder blades.

Maybe Eames should just try to offer more often, but he's been down that road too many times. He doesn't ever want to resent the slide of Arthur's hands on his skin, Arthur's mouth against his. The way things are now is too good to give up.

Some deity or other willing, perhaps it isn't too good to last.