Archive of Our Own ^beta

Location: Paris, France

Arthur watches the flight path of the twin engine jet as it circles Milan Linate Airport.

The little yellow plane icon on the flight tracking site draws another circle, drifts away, then forms another circle directly next to it; more like a pair of aviator lenses than a figure of eight. As far as Arthur can see, there’s no reason for the landing delay. He squints, tracing the line on the screen with a fingertip.

Callsign OCA625 is a Boeing 767-200ER belonging to Oceanic Airlines, which in turn belongs to Proclus Global, which in turn belongs to one Ryuichi Saito, CEO and occasional dreamshare adrenaline junkie. It had set off from Julius Nyerere International Airport ten hours ago, 1 hour ahead of its scheduled departure time, stranding 9 crew members and 120 passengers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Three hours after OCA625 took off, Saito calls Arthur, which means that Arthur is gratifyingly high on Saito’s rolodex for criminal matters. The ensuing conversation is quick.

It takes another 30 minutes on his laptop to find the unsecured security camera feed from the departure gates of Dar es Salaam Airport. The spark of recognition is instant.

Eames is doing the bare minimum to disguise himself; he slouches towards the gate in his usual gait with his hands in the pockets of a stolen pilot's uniform. Most damningly of all, he looks up into the security camera and winks before making his way down the airbridge.

Arthur finds a feed of the Dar es Salaam air traffic control radio and goes back three hours. "Toodles, boys" is definitely not approved Aviation English, but all ATC can do is squawk indignantly as OCA625 ascends to cruising altitude and flies off.

He calls Saito back.

When Saito asks Arthur to track Eames down, Arthur very nearly tells Saito: You’re giving him exactly what he wants. He wants the chase. He wants the attention. And then Saito names a dollar figure that makes Arthur swallow those words and start booking a flight to Milan.

In the meantime, he watches the plane circle the airport.

The plane completes the circle and heads off on a straight course. Oh no he isn’t. That’s a—

Arthur sighs and rolls his eyes.

On the screen, the plane’s flight route draws out the perfect outline of a penis as it comes in to land.

Location: Milan Linate Airport, Italy / LIN

Arthur’s first order of business when landing in Milan is to look up. Specifically, to look up at the security cameras in the airport terminal to identify the placement, make and model. He steals a security guard’s unlocked phone while the guard is waiting for a coffee, sits down at a table with his laptop, and uses the phone to gain access to the airport’s internal network.

Arthur knows Saito was right to call him to track Eames down. He knows his shit. And of course, Arthur’s a foremost expert in watching Eames—his micro expressions, his tells, his habits. He knows Eames’ real name, rank, and serial number. Arthur’s got a regular payment going to the woman who lives next door to Eames’ house in Mombasa to keep track of people coming and going (Arthur suspects the nosy old biddy would do it for free). He justifies this to himself as human resources monitoring.

Arthur tries not to acknowledge that his interest is nothing as clinical as that, because if he does he’ll have to reckon with the fact that regardless of how mutual this undefined flirty thing they have is, his obsessive interest in his colleague has gotten well out of control.

He especially tries not to think about this while he’s hacking a computer system in a foreign country in order to track down said colleague.

The problem is that Arthur finds competence extremely arousing. In his junior year at high school, Arthur blew Tyrone Green in the bathroom of a bowling alley because he bowled a 300 game. Arthur once got off to a sleep aid ASMR YouTube video of a French confectioner building the Burj Khalifa out of sugar candy (his soft tenor as he explained replicating the buttressed core design with caramel was what tipped him over the edge). He’s never felt that way about Cobb, thank god, but Cobb has only ever been one half of a whole for as long as Arthur’s known him.

Eames is the best in the world at what he does. Tyrone’s strikes have nothing on the guy.

Topside, he’s light-fingered, clever, and as lethal with his words as he is with his gun. In dreams, he’s goddamn Michelangelo. Arthur has files on every single player in dreamshare and has catalogued the limits of every single forger he’s worked with. Cristiano can only forge women. Parker can’t act. Eun-soo can’t hold a forge under semi-automatic fire (and boy was that knowledge hard-earned). Eames sees those limits and laughs, then transforms into his blonde femme fatale or Beyoncé or maybe Arthur himself and laughs some more.

Arthur’s an all or nothing guy; once Eames had caught his attention, that was it.

He’s hooked on a beautiful man whose craft is mutability. Arthur himself wants to pin him down in more ways than one, but Arthur the point man needs Eames the forger free to do anything and anyone he wants.

Being with Eames makes Arthur feel constantly out of control, while Arthur will eventually make Eames feel stifled and controlled. And then one day one of them will snap and Eames will leave; sometimes when Arthur is particularly drunk and maudlin, he admits it would break him. And he’s seen what happens to broken men in dreamshare.

He doesn’t want anyone to use Eames against him, and between them they have far too many enemies. Arthur’s done the risk assessment. There’s too much at stake: their professional relationship, their lives, Arthur’s dignity.

So he watches Eames. He never touches. Walls up, safely sarcastic and trying trying trying not to respond to the flirtations. Never approaching, not even last spring in Kyoto that evening after the job, warm and sweet with plum wine, when Eames’ eyes softened and maybe if Arthur had turned towards him instead of away—

No, Arthur just makes out a money transfer to Mrs. Mburu every month and tries not to taste the shame and regret. Arthur can only suffer through this with firmly buttoned down resolve.

Scanning the network finds a landing page for the CCTV server, where he types in the default username and password from the security camera manual he finds online. Arthur’s almost disappointed by how easy it is when it lets him in and gives him access to the recordings from the past month. He scrolls through them to find the video he needs.

Arthur spots Eames on the CCTV at Linate Airport, and Saito is right; no one does it better.

Location: Milan, Italy

After questioning the staff at the airport, Arthur discovers that Eames had taken the plane into a hangar, engaged the emergency slides, evaded la polizia surrounding the plane and escaped into the crowds.

Arthur dutifully reports back to Saito, but not before spending a day browsing designer menswear stores among the stone buildings and narrow streets of the Quadrilatero della moda. He orders a new pair of brown bespoke calf leather derbies from his favorite shoemaker to be sent care of his landlady in Paris. He pre-orders a panettone to be shipped to the Cobb family for Christmas. He hopes he can be there to enjoy it. Cobb will probably disapprove of him spoiling the kids, but they both know Mal would’ve loved it.

He takes his time savoring the city; there’s nothing to report, after all.

And when a hot pink and green patterned limited edition Moleskine arrives at his hotel (still in its bag from the Milano Linate Airport branch) Arthur is almost expecting it.

Location: Rome, Italy

The key to this, Arthur knows, is to predict where Eames will go next. But the planes seem random. The next report after Milan is another Oceanic Airlines plane stolen from Watertown, New York. There’s a heart drawn in the sky above the city, but what cinches it is the phone call.

"Arthur!" Eames sounds incongruously cheerful for someone currently the subject of an international manhunt.

Arthur figures he might as well cut to the chase. "Why are you doing this?"

"Oh, I felt like I wanted to stretch my wings a bit. See the world. There’s just something so liberating about being up in the sky. Makes a man feel like he can do anything."

Arthur knows, of course, that before Eames was Eames—preeminent forger of the criminal dreamshare world and wanted on 3 continents on a colorful variety of charges—he was Flight Lieutenant Charles Emmett of the Royal Air Force. And Flight Lieutenant Emmett had, at some point prior to being assigned to top secret Project Somnacin, presumably flown planes.

Thankfully, one of the admin users of the UK Civil Aviation Authority pilot database is the kind of guy who likes insecure porn sites and reuses the same password (ManchesterUnited1999, and no doubt Eames has opinions about that) across all of his accounts. Arthur had found a photo of a surprisingly clean-cut Eames in a pilot’s cap worn at a jaunty angle. The pilot's license has an expiration date three years from now.

"You renewed your pilot's license for this?"

"’Course I did. Otherwise it would be illegal, wouldn’t it?"

Eames always has a trace of ironic mirth in his voice when he’s needling Arthur like this. It’s frustrating not having his body language to read, but Arthur can imagine him sprawled shirtless over a hotel bed perhaps, or leaning against a wall in some out of the way alleyway, pose insouciant but eyes constantly alert.

Arthur’s first impression of Eames had been of that effortlessness, although younger Arthur had disapprovingly deemed it laziness. That impression has long shifted, and since Cobb retired Arthur has to admit there is no one he would rather have at his side. Cobb is like a brother, but Eames… By the time Arthur had realized his professional admiration of Eames had grown to include broad shoulders and plush lips and had become decidedly unprofessional, it was much too late.

But Eames can still drive Arthur up the wall.

"You hijacked a plane!"

"Is it really a hijacking if no one was on board at the time?"

Arthur rolls his eyes. "What do you call it then? Grand theft aero?"

"Personally, I’d call it borrowing. Tell Saito I’ll return it once I’m done, darling."

"Done doing wha—" Arthur finds himself saying to empty air.

Location: Hawthorne Municipal Airport, California, United States / HHR

Eames is gone by the time Arthur lands in California of course, swapping planes and flying off to hell knows where. The flight plan says Nebraska, but Arthur’s sure it’s forged.

Once they get over the theft of their support plane, the engineers at Saito’s spaceflight startup at Hawthorne Airport are surprisingly friendly. They tell him Saito wants to visit the moon; Arthur wonders if going to limbo did serious damage to Saito’s concept of "tourism". He vows never to go on vacation with him. At least not until he ups his security measures, he thinks as he adjusts the sleeve of his stolen FAA jacket.

The engineers take Arthur on a tour of their HQ and Arthur genuinely has fun geeking out over the rocket engines and support infrastructure and avionics systems. He even gets to hear about all of the classified defense contract launches due to his Federal Aviation Administration disguise. Never mind that when he broke into the locker room for the uniform, the fake badge with his name and photo was already there.

Location: Pelotas, Brazil

Eames had sketched a bowtie across the sky of Pelotas in the space company’s plane before landing and disappearing into the ether.

Eames is long gone by the time Arthur arrives, so he spends a relaxing day browsing airport security footage and eating an alarming amount of doces, the local sweet pastries.

Evening finds him in the outdoor courtyard of a bar. The climate has Arthur relaxing without a tie, sleeves rolled up, and sipping a caipirinha when his phone rings. Eames had set his personal ringtone to Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy three jobs ago; in a fit of sentimentality, Arthur hasn’t changed it back. At the time Arthur reasoned that his phone was nearly always on silent and that it wasn’t a big deal, but judging by the sudden pause in conversation and half-second of awkward eye contact from the next table over, maybe it is.

"Yes?"

"Hello, pet."

Arthur has tried everything in his power short of murder to stop Eames from using this unprofessional purr on him. It only makes Eames try harder.

"Do you remember when we did the KLM job?"

"You mean the king of the fucking Netherlands job?"

Arthur still regrets not pulling the plug on that job when the client had finally spilled who their top secret mark was.

It was years ago, but had something to do with Old Masters paintings potentially being smuggled on board the Dutch royal family’s plane. Their first job together without the buffer of Cobb and Mal. The details of the job are a bit fuzzy compared to the aftermath, where he and Eames barely managed to avoid being shot by the royal protection detail as they fled Amsterdam. Arthur’s strongest memory of that job is being pressed up against Eames’ back—nose nearly in his hair and full of his woodsy scent—as they hid together in a bathroom on the Eurostar. Every man for himself, and yet Eames had stayed with him.

Apparently this was not the most memorable part of the job for Eames.

"The one where the architect quit because he failed to meet a deadline and you threatened to rip his ears off and send him to the Van Gogh museum." He chuckles fondly. "You were so angry."

Arthur frowns, wondering where this conversation is going. "And when we didn’t have a build, you told me to 'build the bloody thing yourself’ and so I fucking did it."

"Indeed you did, love."

Arthur takes a deep breath and wills away the sudden sense memory of a deep sandalwood scent layered over the clatter of a moving train.

Eames pauses for a beat, deliberately casual. Clicks his tongue.

"You know, while your lot were busy with enhanced interrogation techniques and whatnot, one of the goals of the RAF during Project Somnacin was to see if it could be used for pilot training. Tried for months and could never get it to work."

Arthur’s eyebrows go up. Eames has never particularly been a "for Queen and Country" kind of guy, but oaths made at impressionable ages tend to stick. He’s never told Arthur about the British side of the experiments before. He compartmentalizes any sentiment attached to that thought, and thinks through the problem.

"Why? Even non-lucid dreamers can fly in a dream."

"Oh but of course, creating the sensation of flying in a dream is simple. I’m talking about building flight from first principles. It’s the difference between birds and the Wright Brothers."

Arthur nods along, wondering if he needs to get his notebook out.

"In the Project Somnacin days we didn’t have anyone with the engineering knowledge to hold a functioning plane in their head to the level of detail required for an accurate pilot sim. Our architects could barely build a working toaster off schematics. I certainly couldn’t do it. No one we had was brilliant enough to build out an entire modern jet plane inside their head from blueprints."

"And you knew all this and just told me to build the plane anyway," Arthur says flatly. It was nearly 5 years ago and he doesn’t have it in him to get angry. Too angry. Fine, he’s a little pissed.

"I wanted to see what would happen."

Arthur makes a disapproving noise. Eames saying this has classically been a windup to throwing a massive wrench into a job.

"I don’t know if you remember, but I was the dreamer on that job. And what I certainly wasn’t expecting was you coming into my mind and dumping a whole bloody Boeing 747 into my head without so much as a by-your-leave."

"It was—"

Eames doesn’t let him finish.

"You did something that the entire RAF had thought impossible with that logical clever mind of yours. You managed to work out every single moving part of a 747, specced to precision. That build was a thing of beauty."

Arthur goes still.

"And all those hours you said you were working on the forge?" Arthur hopes his voice is somewhere near his usual detachment.

"Well, the forge was a pilot so I had to play with it, didn’t I? Plus there was a scary bloke topside who kept yelling about ripping peoples’ ears off."

Arthur can’t help his smile.

"So don’t you worry your big brain, darling. I have plenty of simulator hours in this thing. You taught me how to fly again."

"And you’re using that to draw dicks in the sky," Arthur says, shaking his head.

Eames’ distracted noise of agreement is nearly drowned out by a sudden burst of beeping in the background.

"Wait, what’s that noise? Are you—are you calling me from the cockpit? Eames!"

Location: Karel Sadsuitubun Airport, Indonesia / LUV

Arthur’s here because according to Saito, an alarm tripped on a lonely Oceanic Airlines seaplane in a rented hangar on a remote island in Indonesia. Arthur wonders if Saito has another mistress here.

Flight tracking had shown a cube—no, a die—drawn in the sky before the plane returned to its hangar.

Karel Sadsuitubun Airport security is a complete bust. None of their systems are connected wirelessly. Physical access is blocked and the really embarrassing thing is they aren’t even security guards, just regular staff members. Arthur tries talking his way past them with what little Malay he’s picked up in Kuala Lumpur, but between the vast accent gulf and his extremely limited vocabulary ("where is the hospital?" and "don’t move or I’ll shoot" aren’t very helpful here), it’s a complete loss.

He gives up and makes his way to the exit.

There’s a woman standing at the arrivals area holding a sign with his name on it. To be precise, the sign reads "Arthur Darling" in Arthur’s own handwriting. Arthur definitely needs to secure his notebooks better on his next job with Eames. His hand twitches to pull out a notebook to write that thought down, then aborts the movement and smoothes down his jacket instead.

"Mr. Darling?"

Arthur’s eye twitches. "Arthur, please."

"Welcome to the Kai Islands. I’m Icha from Sofia Cottages." Icha’s voice is soft and lightly accented and her handshake is firm.

"Your friend, the Englishman, has booked you a room. Please, allow me to take your baggage."

Arthur stops for a moment, wondering if he should simply turn around and go back. But he remembers the overgrown rainforests and vivid turquoise seas on the landing approach. Arthur loosens his grip on his suitcase and allows Icha to take it, and he follows her through the doors to blue skies, heat, and wilderness.

Location: Kai Kecil, Indonesia

Staying in a remote location without anyone trying to track him down and kill him is a novel experience. Arthur sits on an empty beach in his undershirt drinking a Bintang lager, looking out at a glorious fiery sunset. Maybe he could get used to this. Not the white sand beaches and exotic birdcalls exactly—Arthur’s too much of an urbanite at heart—but the peace of being a civilian.

Maybe this is what it feels to be normal. To be the Arthur who never enlisted, the Arthur who never joined Operation Morpheus, the Arthur who was never a criminal. This Arthur might have normal dreams, like presenting a quarterly earnings update in his underwear. But that person would have never met Eames. No rich masculine scent on a high-speed train. No curious blue-green eyes under nighttime cherry trees. Never being the one to slide a needle into a strong arm, sharing one last look before falling into a dream.

The insects quiet as the light fades. He is cocooned in a sultry breeze. All Arthur can hear is the rhythmic splash of the waves as the Milky Way begins to sprawl wide above him, appearing star by star in the darkening sky. He is alone and feels a chill.

Arthur stands and brushes off the sand. Time to go.

Location: Singapore Changi Airport, Singapore / SIN

Arthur’s sitting in the Oceanic Airlines lounge at Changi Airport, trying to figure out where Eames will go next. Around him is the occasional quiet murmur of conversations in a dozen or so different languages, the muted roll of luggage wheels on carpet, and business travellers typing on laptops. His own laptop is open and plugged in and he has an espresso sitting on the table next to him. The document on the screen is blank. He’s stumped. He takes a sip of coffee.

Arthur types out what facts he has.

Dar es Salaam to Milan.
Watertown to Hawthorne.
Pelotas.
Kai Kecil.

Africa, Europe, the Americas, Asia. Evenly split between hemispheres. He’s truly been chasing Eames over the world.

He drums his fingers against the desk. None of this information is helping.

Penis. Heart. Bowtie. Die.

That’s even worse.

DAR LIN.
ART HHR.
PET.
LUV.

Fucking Eames.

His phone buzzes. Arthur unlocks it and sees chatter about a weird flight in a planespotting WhatsApp group he joined a few weeks ago. Eames’ sky drawings have been gaining attention, so there’s always a bit of noise whenever someone spots a plane flying an unusual route. Honestly, Arthur’s enjoying keeping tabs on what’s happening in the skies. The geopolitical insights alone are fascinating.

Arthur opens the flight tracking site on his laptop and tracks down the callsign mentioned in the chat. Napakiak Airport? Where the hell is—Alaska?

Eames must have planned this one carefully. Callsign OCA72X is a luxury business jet used by Proclus execs, who are (according to the Ketchikan Daily News) currently in Alaska touring potential sites for new fuel extraction facilities. Who are now stranded in Napakiak, Alaska (pop. 358) after their plane took off without them.

The flight tracker shows the jet flying a shape in the sky. It’s a bit rounded, could be a heart or maybe—

One of Eames’ many contradictions is that he has a strong romantic streak. Arthur once saw him forge a handwritten birthday card when the mark he was tailing forgot his wife’s birthday (Eames also forged the mark’s signature when using his credit card to buy an accompanying bouquet of a dozen red roses, of course). But at his core, under the unexpected romanticism and a few vestiges of English public schoolboy manners, Eames is crude. Part of Arthur’s confidence in his OPSEC comes from the fact that he’s never received a strippergram for his birthday. Arthur finds Eames’ unapologetically filthy mouth a massive turn-on and honestly, he enjoys the odd double entendre (only the ones that don’t end in "that’s what she said"), but there’s no avoiding the fact that the man can be immature and vulgar in ways that make Arthur regularly question his own taste in men.

—yep, it’s a penis. This flight route for one is more complex than the last one—it even has a glans and a slit. The latter is a line that extends past the end and becomes a stream of… Arthur feels sorry for whatever assistant is currently having to brief Saito on this now.

The line points to the southwest, beginning what looks like a straight line across the Pacific.

WNA to…

Arthur sighs, rolls his eyes, picks up his phone and calls Saito to get a charter plane to Fukuoka, Japan.

Location: Fukuoka Airport, Japan / FUK

Arthur is standing in Proclus’s private hangar as ground crew move a set of air stairs next to OCA72X. The door depressurizes and opens. Eames is standing at the top of the stairs and he’s wearing the sly grin of a successful conman. He looks surprisingly well for someone who’s just flown across the Pacific.

"I see you got my message," he calls down.

"Eames." Arthur waves a walkie-talkie in the air. "I got them to cancel the usual ground processing."

Arthur had made all the landing preparations himself; he was going to get answers and nothing was going to stop him. It was surprisingly easy since Eames had had the gall to file a flight plan for his stolen plane nearly a day in advance. All of the paperwork was a seamless mix of legitimate and forged, enough to ruin some auditor’s day somewhere down the line. The air traffic controller Eames had bribed, he left alone; professionally speaking, it would be a huge waste to burn such a potentially useful resource. Arthur briefly wonders if this is another one of Eames’ gifts to him.

He got Saito to handle security—he issued some commands into the walkie-talkie via speakerphone and quickly convinced airport security that the Proclus executives were onboard and needed discreet VIP treatment. If anything, he seemed worryingly eager to do some crime again.

At the top of the stairs, Eames hasn’t taken his eyes off Arthur.

"You’ve caught me fair and square, Arthur." He makes an exaggerated bow. "Do come in, we can chat inside."

The plane is designed as one large, luxurious cabin. The furnishings are lavish: plush carpet, wood accents, and a sleek couch against one wall. After the hangar—full of echoing machinery noises and fuel smells—it’s like dropping into a whole other world. The sudden silence makes his ears ring. Arthur brushes his fingers along the die in his pocket.

A PASIV device is on a table and Eames sits himself down on a fawn colored leather recliner directly in front of it. Eames gestures to the seat next to his.

He raises a cannula.

"Shall we?"

Location: Arthur’s subconscious

It’s like the inception job all over again as they appear in the first class cabin of a Boeing 747.

Eames is in a navy suit with four gold bars on the cuffs and pilot’s wings on the lapel. The jacket hugs his broad shoulders and he looks good, damn it. He smirks at Arthur and tips his pilot’s hat. Arthur looks down at himself. A navy polyester-blend three piece suit, a tie in a pink paisley reminiscent of amoebas under a microscope, and a name tag that declares him to be Arthur Darling, In-Flight Service Manager. He grimaces.

A female flight attendant—one of Arthur’s projections—goes past and offers Eames a complimentary glass of champagne. He declines with a wink and she giggles. Arthur coughs pointedly, and she hurries away, leaving them alone in the cabin.

Arthur tenses as Eames dreams up a plaid overstuffed couch in clashing yellow and purple and drops onto it. This whole experience already has Arthur off-kilter and given the strength of his subconscious militarization, he’s expecting a federal air marshal to come storming down the aisle to execute Eames for crimes against interior design. Instead, the curtain into first class parts and the flight attendant comes back with a drinks cart. Smiling, she hands Eames a snack and a tumbler with two fingers of whiskey. Arthur narrows his eyes at his subconscious’s betrayal and she backs away quickly, pulling the cart behind her.

Eames raises the plastic snack bag. "Nuts, darling?"

Arthur wonders if it’s possible to kick yourself out of a dream via dying of mortification.

"Fuck," he mutters, sinking onto the couch, face aflame.

"Not like my subconscious would be any better," Eames says lightly. "I’d do it topside if I weren’t worried about you kneecapping me. I’m just glad we’re on the same page."

He says it with a touch of self-deprecation and zero traces of mockery, soothing Arthur. It’s classic Eames, the way he can push Arthur’s buttons—whether to calm him down or rile him up—with just the right words and tone. Arthur doesn’t know when this happened (although it was presumably after the KLM job and the ear threats). Eames leans back on the couch, at ease.

"Did you enjoy the chase, darling?"

Every self-preservation instinct in Arthur tells him to lie. And yet—maybe it’s the jet lag, maybe he’s just plain tired of fighting all of this—he gives Eames a small, rueful smile.

"Yeah I did. Thanks."

Eames moves towards him on the couch and Arthur flinches back. Eames frowns.

"Eames we can’t. It’s never going to work." Arthur pauses, wondering where to start. "We’re too different."

"Of course we’re different." Eames laughs. "Why in god’s name would I want to date anyone like me?"

"That’s a good question and one I regularly find myself asking," Arthur mutters.

Eames cocks his head. "Do you just want to fuck? I would, you’re bloody gorgeous. But…" His face goes still, but there’s emotion in his eyes.

Arthur laughs mirthlessly. "It’s the opposite, actually. I get… attached. I don’t share and I don’t let go."

"Darling, I have absolutely no objection to anything you just said." Eames has the gall to begin to smile again.

Arthur scowls at Eames’ levity. "You saw what happened to Cobb."

"Then thank goodness you’re not Cobb," Eames says drolly.

"Eames, no, I just can’t do this. It—" Arthur looks away. It’s easier without eye contact. "It would kill me to lose you."

Somehow Eames has moved right next to him. He puts his hand on Arthur’s jaw and tilts his face back around so they’re eye to eye. He’s suddenly as serious as Arthur has ever seen him.

"Who says I’m leaving?"


"You will." This is something Arthur knows in his bones.

Eames’ smile is almost sad. "Arthur, why would I leave you when I already follow you everywhere around the world? It’s been years since I’ve done a job without you and I still want more."

When Arthur doesn’t respond, Eames stares at him and seems to come to a decision.

"Arthur," Eames says with an affected nonchalance Arthur has only heard from him at his most nervous. The last time Arthur had heard it, Eames had been negotiating their release with a Triad boss. "I liked those shoes you bought in Milan."

"What are you talking about?" Arthur frowns, confused by the non-sequitur. He received the delivery notice a few days ago, but he hasn’t been back to Paris yet so even he doesn’t know what his shoes look like.

Eames clears his throat. "I pay the lovely Mme. Thibault, shall we say, a little postal processing fee."

"You pay my landlady to open my mail?" Arthur says slowly.

The thought turns over in his head and he bursts into laughter, maybe a little hysterically. Eames’ look of trepidation turns to startled concern. Arthur tries to get himself under control, but every time he does, another bout of giggles erupts from him.

"Do you know," he finally wheezes through his laughter, "how much Mrs. Mburu hates Yusuf?"

Eames stops dead for a second before the meaning sinks in and then he begins to chuckle. "You’re her nephew who sends her money from America?"

Arthur nods between gasps, and that sets them both off.

Their laughter is that of sheer relief that they aren’t alone in this. Arthur has never been alone in this obsession. Arthur can have him. Arthur can look at Eames and touch him and do everything he’s so badly wanted to, because he’s not alone. They’re side by side smiling at each other and he’s so damn happy it doesn’t hurt anymore to look at him. He wants to have Eames at his side forever, and right now it feels like he can.

Arthur’s laughter dies down as the full ramifications of having Eames at his side sink in.

He looks sharply at Eames. "Do you know how many people would hurt you to get to me?"

Eames shrugs. "It’s already too late for me. If someone hurt you or took you, I’d go after them, no question—whether we’re officially together or not." He pauses. "At least if we’re together we get to have orgasms."

"Eames," Arthur says warningly.

"I think it’s already too late for you too."

Goddamnit, Arthur thinks, because Eames is right.

He obviously has some kind of tell, because Eames chuckles. "I’m certainly not in love with you for your self-awareness, pet."

Arthur glares. "Eames, I still can’t deliberately choose to put you in this situation."

"So you’d rather be miserable and alone?" Eames shakes his head. "I knew it would be something stupid like this."

"Stupid? Eames, I could get you killed!" Arthur snaps.

"Are you planning to be a monk for the rest of your life?"

"I’m Jewish, don’t be stupid."

"Do you not want me?" Eames, damn him, sounds almost amused.

"God no, Eames. You’re—" Arthur gestures inarticulately at gorgeous, infuriating, brilliant Eames, who has begun smiling at him indulgently.

"It’s going to be a problem no matter who you decide to get involved with. At least you know I stand a fighting chance."

"Eames."

"None of this is going to change. We might as well get a head start on getting rid of all our enemies while we’re still young." He stretches out and cracks his neck. "And then we can retire together somewhere nice and sunny."

Arthur’s eyebrows raise. "What?"

"Oh I’m sorry, I thought you were the one complaining about getting overly attached." He grins. "I’ve had a lot of flight hours to think about this. What about South America? I want to hear you yelling things at me in Spanish."

"Fuck’s sake, Eames."

"Look, Arthur." Eames is serious again, but patient. "I’m sure you’ve already thought of every single thing that could go wrong with us together. It’s what makes you the best in the business and I love that about you. But have you even considered we could be good together?"

"Eames we c—"

Then Eames kisses him.

It’s awkward at first. Their noses bump into each other and Eames’ aim is a little off so their lips don’t quite meet. But he makes the necessary course corrections and suddenly everything is firm and wet and Arthur’s surrounded by Eames everywhere. God, that scent again, but stronger than ever. He gets a hand behind Eames’ neck and pulls him closer, kissing into him harder. Eames’ mouth opens with a little sigh that is lost in Arthur’s moan as they come together again, this time with tongues and teeth and hands grabbing each other.

This is everything. After so many years of denying himself, Arthur’s greedy for everything Eames gives him. He just wants to fucking devour him. Every moan, every lick of their tongues together. There’s a sting as Eames grabs his hair and he retaliates with a bite of those lips that have haunted him for so long. Arthur bears down on Eames, rubbing himself against Eames’ thigh and pushing him down onto the couch. His hands pull Eames’ shirt loose and work their way under it to stroke across muscles he’s only seen hints of. Eames’ arms wrap around Arthur and pull him ever closer.

They finally separate, panting, foreheads pressed together, embracing. Arthur’s lying on top of Eames, straddling one thigh while Eames has his other leg braced on the floor to keep them from tumbling over. Their clothes are awry. Eames’ lips are flushed and plump and slick from their frantic kisses and Arthur wants him more than ever.

"Fuck," Arthur breathes.

"Have you decided if you’re going to keep me yet, darling?" Eames whispers, tracing Arthur’s jaw with his fingers.

Arthur stares intently down into Eames’ blue-green eyes. "Are you going to stay?"

"How many more planes do I have to steal to convince you that I’m mad about you?" Eames chuckles and shakes his head. He smiles up at Arthur. "As many as you want, love."

Arthur pulls back. "I’m supposed to be stopping you from stealing planes."

"Oh." Eames keeps smiling up at Arthur, undeterred. "Well then in that case my crime spree is over."

Eames' mouth quirks. "Saito called me earlier and he wants a million favors from me. Something about me being an investment, which I suppose sounds better than peon or serf." He snorts. "When you meet my family, you’ll realize the irony of that."

Arthur raises an eyebrow. "When I meet?"

Eames snickers. "I’ve already met your auntie, after all."

"You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?" Arthur groans.

Eames grins, then quickly turns serious. "So we might have to stick around in Japan for a bit." His voice turns quiet. "You like Japan, don’t you?"

"Yeah, I—I enjoyed it last time," Arthur says, heart full. "I’ll stick around."

"Good." Eames’ smile turns mischievous. "Then let’s kick ourselves out of here and find a hotel room where I can keep you indoors and naked for three days straight."

"More like where you’ll sleep for three days straight." Arthur rolls his eyes. "How’s the jet lag?"

"I admit I did overlook that element when I planned this whole scheme, yes."

Arthur smirks. "This is why you don’t run point, Mr. Eames."

Eames slides himself out from under Arthur and stands, extending a hand and pulling Arthur up to standing. He maintains hold of his hand and pulls him to the cockpit where he locks them in.

Eames disengages the autopilot, points the nose of the plane straight towards a mountain several miles away, and increases the throttle.

They kiss and kiss and kiss while the cockpit computer’s robotic voice repeatedly warns them to pull up—and the final thought that goes through Arthur’s head as they smash into the side of a mountain at 500 miles per hour is that he really does love air travel.