Archive of Our Own

Eames has a fascination with language. Language, linguistics, phonetics, syntax, diction—for such a complicated task humans perform it with astonishing regularity. Though that doesn't mean that everyone uses it equally well. From the very beginning of their acquaintance, he decides that Arthur does. The first real, verbal contact they have comes in the form of a voicemail message. A completely unassuming, barely twenty seconds long voicemail message.

"Mr. Eames, you come highly recommended by a mutual acquaintance of ours in Naples. My colleague and I are organizing some independent contract work in Zurich. If you're interested, please meet me for dinner at the Savoy Baur en Ville. Ask for Arthur."

The message is direct, with all the information he needs to make a decision and subtle without sounding too cloak and dagger. The language is formal, precise, and appropriate to the circumstances, but the voice is younger than might use that diction naturally. The juxtaposition intrigues him. And it's really that, rather than the prospect of potentially upending the ordered world of Swiss finance, that decides it for him.

It's not something he notices straight away. The Ribeau job in Zurich was simple and then Barcelona went swimmingly, the beginnings of their antagonistic relationship notwithstanding. Arthur doesn't swear. Well, it's more that when he does, he doesn't put to effective use the breadth of vulgarities in English or the other two languages in which Eames knows Arthur is conversationally fluent. It makes the Stockholm job stand out in his memory.

"Damn it all. Damn it all to fucking hell."

"Some addition you'd like to make to the discussion, Arthur?"

"Not now, Eames. We're supposed to be picking up Lindgren in nine, shit, eight-teen hours and I just found out he's got a damned secondary laptop. Now, go screw with that joke of an architect."

He can't imagine that Arthur doesn't know the words. Which means he chooses not to use them. Eames spends a good amount of his idle hours pondering the implications of this. He studiously doesn't question his own growing fascination with Arthur.

Accents and their mimicry are something of a speciality of Eames’. Speak with perfectly selected vocabulary and flawless grammar and you sound like a professor, but master the lilt of conversation and the common mistakes native speakers are too lazy to fix and you'll be accepted like a long lost child of the motherland. It's a skill that has had a definite impact on the variety of countries he holds passports for. His own accent is a bit of a hodgepodge, picking up cadences and shifting pronunciations almost involuntarily. It keeps the distinctly personal information, like the question of whether he's a South London street rat or a public school prat from Derbyshire, out of the hands of his criminal colleagues.

Eames loves to inhabit the expansive rounded vowels of French, consciously exaggerating the use of his lips; they are, after all, one of his best features. He revels in the harsh velar fricatives in German. He might be the only person to thank seventy-five years of militarism and international aggression for the cultural baggage it left the German language, and the unspoken threats that the majority of people will hear if you speak to them in German. The Germans themselves don't react in the same way, of course, but then sometimes, silence really is golden.

Arthur's accent, especially when taken in combination with his speech patterns, suggest he grew up in the northern region of America’s eastern coast. But it's controlled, too consciously free of dialect for him to place any more precisely than that. It's like his suits, Eames thinks. It's a layer between the Arthur that Arthur wants you to see and the Arthur with a family, a childhood, and a hometown. He pronounces French the way he does everything else: clinically. His accent is distinctly American, and no one would think him anything anything other than a traveling businessman. Which is so close to and so far from the truth, Eames wonders if Arthur tries to fit paradoxes into every aspect of his life.

Forging in the dream space is something that isn't required by most jobs, so Eames is used to coming into established partnerships or teams. But each group has their own set of terms, Eames likes to think of them like individual dialects within the dreamsharing language, and he has to pick up on the nuances and operate, if only for a contracted time, as a regular part of the team. He's worked with Dominic Cobb before, but with Cobol making enquiries, he's surprised to find him in Mombasa. Which means he has a job big enough for a forger and interesting enough that he trusts Eames won't sell him out. Eames glances at Dom warily as he picks up and squints at one of the chips.

"I see your spelling hasn't improved."

"Piss off," he snaps. Just leave it to Dom Cobb to bring scrutiny to the chips he's been quietly slipping into the house's cache for the past month. Whether or not he takes the job offer, he might have to lie low in Nairobi for a few weeks. He likes all his fingers where they are.

"How's your handwriting?" Cobb asks.

Ah, there it is. Not that he was under any illusions that this was a social visit, but he forgot the simple elegance of Cobb's dialect. So he answers truthfully, responding to Dom's opening overture.

"Versatile."

He is one of the best forgers—in and out of dreamsharing—it wouldn't do if he was anything but.

He may be a bad speller, that’s what spellcheck is for nowadays, but neither that nor an ignorance of the concept of specifics has anything to do with asking Arthur to repeat specificity. He purposefully mouths the word with a condescending quirk to his brow and a confident tilt to his chair—at this point he's just daring Arthur pronounce the word with a little extra ounce of force. That little thrill when he does just that shouldn't mean as much as it does, but getting Arthur to do anything that Arthur has the sense benefits you more than him is frankly impossible. He's stubbornly independent like that.

Eames relishes the moment.

The way Arthur shoots out the s-p-e and then hangs on the sibilant "c," throwing away the first "i" like a breath but catching his lower lip with his teeth on the "f," teasing and tantalizing, the last two syllables of the word the detente, and all too soon it's over. Cobb's strategizing again, and all that attention is no longer focused on him.

Eames never thought he'd be envious of a word.

He can’t blame it on the adrenaline. By the time Cobb and Saito woke, the adrenaline had been replaced by anxiety and followed by cool detachment. Ending a job was always delicate, especially in circumstances that kept them play-acting roles instead of scattering to the proverbial winds. He figures asking Arthur to come out with him to toast their triumph will earn him the same response it did their last successful job together (“Goodbye, Mr Eames.” ), so he slips into the back of his cab without prelude. For the benefit of the cabbie, they strike up mindless chatter about the Hong Kong markets and the coming shitstorm if the UN really does suspend China’s privileges after more North Korean aggression. Two traders are far less memorable than a shouting match.

Despite having little organic imagination, Eames does think Arthur works very well within defined boundaries, and they keep up the ruse all the way to the door of Arthur’s hotel room.

“I suppose you’re here for a celebratory drink?” Arthur asks, leaning languidly against the doorframe.

Eames smiles slowly. It was just like Arthur to have read his intentions perfectly. “We can start there.”

There’s the barest hint of Arthur’s dimples before he turns away to explore the mini-bar. Eames sheds his jacket, leaving it hanging on the back of a chair before joining Arthur.

“Vodka or whiskey?” There are two miniature bottles of each; barely enough for a decent-sized drink.

“Whichever appalls you less, considering a Hilton mini-bar isn’t likely to stock anything top shelf.”

“How sweet of you,” Arthur says in a complete deadpan as he hands Eames a glass of whiskey.

Eames swirls the liquid experimentally before raising his glass. “To a successful, and well-paying, job.”

“To a job that didn’t land anyone in jail and has yet to be proven completely successful,” Arthur counters. Eames smiles and clinks their glasses before taking a deep swig. The whiskey is too cold to really taste, but it might be better that way. A familiar warmth spreads from his throat and chest. He and Arthur spend several minutes in silence, chasing the fuzzy state between sober and inebriated enough for the world to look just a little brighter.

“What do you think will become of Mr. Fischer, Arthur?” Eames asks, adding just a little extra roll to the ‘r’ of Arthur’s name.

Arthur has loosened his tie and slumped down into his chair, his glass held by his fingertips. “I’d rather not speculate. And it’s not as if we can properly take credit.”

“Word always gets out. It’s natural in a field as small as ours.”

Arthur shrugs his shoulders noncommittally before bringing his glass to his lips, finishing his drink. He places the glass on the table deliberately, watching Eames finish his own drink. Eames adds his empty glass to Arthur’s and leans forward, taking Arthur’s wrist in his hand. It makes Arthur raise an eyebrow in question. If they’re honest with each other, this has been a long time coming. Eames simply watches Arthur as his thumb runs almost absentmindedly across the inside of his wrist.

It must be a snap decision on Arthur’s part, because suddenly all Eames knows is that Arthur is kissing him, demandingly. It’s not pretty; their teeth clack, Eames catches Arthur’s lip, hard, and neither can seem to find a comfortable position. Eames tightens his grip on Arthur’s wrist, standing up and pulling him with him. Arthur gets the idea, backing him into the nearest wall. As he kisses along Eames’ jaw, settling for single-mindedly sucking a hickey onto his neck, Eames works open the buttons of Arthur’s shirt and runs in blunt fingernails along his back. Arthur lets up only to rip off his tie and shirt. Eames takes the opportunity to turn and pin Arthur to the wall, finding his mouth again and pressing the length of his body into him.

Arthur is busy unbuttoning Eames’ shirt, trying to get skin against skin. Eames is whispering ridiculous, filthy promises into Arthur’s ear, punctuating what he says by tugging on his earlobe, sucking it into his mouth like a preview.

"Eames," Arthur groans, "don't you ever shut up?"

"You should know, Arthur, that my fascination with language has led me to develop a rather talented tongue." Eames says while letting the puffs of aspirated letters tease Arthur's ear.

"Then why don't you quit bragging and put that tongue to good use?"

Eames thinks it's a brilliant suggestion on Arthur's part, and sinks to his knees, looking up with a smirk. The first gutteral groan that Arthur doesn't quite suppress Eames takes as a challenge. Now he has a whole nonverbal vocabulary he's obliged to catalogue.