Darling,

The job ends up going down without a hitch. Eames’ forgery of Reeves’ dead wife is flawless and achieves the desired effect of making Reeves snap and dump every last secret of the murder into their hands. The team walks away with a very nice paycheck and a new, very valuable connection, for Eames is quickly earning himself the reputation of being the industry’s best Forger and will join them on many subsequent jobs.

Arthur and Mal and Dom work some jobs on their own and some with Eames, and, Arthur notices, Eames just gets more and more irritating. He may have started out as perfectly polite and maybe a little too laid back for Arthur’s tastes but at least he was tolerable; now, now he’s just plain annoying. He flirts shamelessly with Arthur and sweet talks Mal and is just all around lazy; not to mention his standard of dress has gotten progressively worse.

And then, as if that isn’t bad enough, the pet names start. Arthur can’t quite pinpoint exactly when it starts, but once it does, it doesn’t stop. Eames calls Arthur pet and darling and love and countless other nauseatingly demeaning names, and Arthur learns to reply back with biting retorts and sharp glares, only this seems to encourage Eames ever more (and Arthur knows this, but he doesn’t know how to stop snapping at Eames; it’s become almost a habit, a bad one that he just can’t seem to break).

It’s not like Arthur can say no to Dom, though, when Dom asks him to track Eames down for a job, because the jobs get more complicated as the year passes and more often than not, they find themselves in need of a forger, once or twice they even need to find themselves a chemist, as one dream layer isn’t enough. Two dream layers are needed; sedatives are needed to make sure the dreams are stable. It’s complicated, but they’re uncannily good at this; their success rate is uncommonly high.

And then Melbourne happens.

In Melbourne, it all really starts, with a job gone wrong, too much alcohol, and not enough discretion.

In Melbourne, the job goes disastrously. They don’t get the information they need and Arthur winds up with two holes in his chest and one in his left thigh, bleeding out on a tiled hospital floor for five agonizing minutes before Dom puts a bullet through his head and wakes him up. There’s no way to go back under to get the information they need and they’re forced to flee the scene or risk being caught and gunned down. They’re able to get away safely enough, but they’re shaken, to say the least. They’ve never failed before, never faced the risk of real world violence, but this is a warning. They’ve gotten cocky. They need to be more careful.

“Let’s go out for drinks, yeah?” Eames suggests as they all silently muse and panic over their narrow escape. Arthur looks at Eames like he’s crazy, but Eames just smiles beatifically. “Oh come on, we’re safe now. No use fretting. Might as well go out and have a good time while we can.”

They’ll leave the next day, each of them to different corners of the world to lose any tail they might have picked up on this job. Their flights are staggered throughout the next day, and the first of them (Eames? Or is it Dom? No one even knows at this point; they’re all too glad to have gotten away with their lives to worry about trivial things like that) doesn’t leave for at least another twelve or so hours.

Arthur rolls his eyes and makes as if to leave (he has better things to do, he says), but Mal objects and puts a light hand on his arm.

“You know what?” she says, looking at Eames even though it’s perfectly clear her comment is directed towards Arthur. “I think that is a fantastic idea. We have all been working too hard.” – Now she looks at Arthur – “We all need to relax.”

Arthur gives her an exasperated look but reluctantly agrees.

(Why, he thinks, why is it that he can never manage to say no to Mal? Is it because he’s still in love with her? No, no, he scolds himself as soon as the thought enters his brain, that’s not right. Don’t think that. That’s a bad path to travel, dangerous, like opening old wounds, completely and utterly unnecessary. Don’t. It’s done. It’s nothing. Just don’t.)

All this flies through Arthur’s mind in a matter of seconds and his countenance doesn’t change one bit. He’s gotten very good at this.

(Repressed, Eames sometimes says to him. No, Arthur thinks, just in control. There’s a difference.)

“Excellent,” Eames smiles, “I happen to know the perfect place.”

Eames’ “perfect place” is just some obscure little bar in the middle of nowhere but it suits them all just fine. It’s not like they want to be hanging around in any highly populated place right now or anything, lest they be spotted. Arthur is rather unenthusiastic about the whole thing to begin with, but once they’ve got a couple drinks in him, he loosens up considerably.

See, Arthur isn’t as uptight as some people seem to think. He’s just not entirely fond of letting his emotions get the better of him at inappropriate moments. It gets people into messy situations, he’s noticed, and he’d rather avoid things like that if he can help it. But in any event, now is not the time to be worrying about that and he’s soon laughing along with the rest of them, starry eyes and flushed cheeks.

Arthur looks younger when he’s like this, looks more his age. It’s refreshing to those around him, and it’s a wonder they don’t try to get him like this more often. But then again, an excess of alcohol would make him less efficient at his job, and that’s the last thing they want, so perhaps it makes sense.

Mal and Dom wander off a couple hours into the night, but Arthur and Eames are in the middle of an intense drinking competition. Eames is surprised by how much alcohol Arthur can take without becoming completely incoherent, and Arthur is just determined not to lose. Eventually, though, the drinks start to catch up with them, and they forget they’re even competing in the first place.

Eames smiles lazily at Arthur and drapes himself across Arthur’s shoulders. “You look so lovely when you smile, darling,” Eames coos, and Arthur can’t tell if Eames is being serious or not but laughs anyways because everything always seems ten times funnier to him when he’s drunk. “You should do it more often.”

Arthur looks over at Eames and smirks. “You’re just looking for an excuse to stare at my mouth,” he says, and he’s not quite sure where that came from but there’s no taking it back now.

“Am I really that transparent?” Eames feigns a pout. He drops his voice to a low purr, “There are many, many more things I’d rather be doing to you than just staring, you know. If you’d let me, that is.”

Arthur raises his eyebrows. Somewhere in the back of his head, the rational part of him is warning him that he’s going to regret the next words that come out of his mouth, but at the moment, he’s far too blissfully intoxicated to care.

“Like what?” he challenges, and he’s got this dangerous glint in his eye.

Eames’ mouth curves up into a smirk and he leans closer to Arthur to whisper something completely obscene in his ear, and maybe it’s the stress or maybe it’s the alcohol, but what Eames is suggesting is sounding more and more appealing by the moment.

“If you’d let me,” Eames murmurs.

“And if I do let you?” Arthur asks. “Where would we go?”

Eames smiles. “I think it’s safe enough to go back to our hotel now, don’t you?” he says.

Oh yes, Arthur thinks, very much so – and even if it’s not, he honestly doesn’t even care anymore. He’s wanted this for a while, he realizes now; this strange tension between them has just been building and building and he desperately needs a release. His eyes flash with wanting, and even drunk, Eames notices. It’s what he does for a living, after all, noticing the things people say without words. Eames stands and tugs Arthur along.

“This way, love,” he beckons, and Arthur follows more than willingly. He looks over his shoulder at Arthur, at his easy smile and hair falling out of its usual slicked back style, and Eames smiles. “I think this’ll be fun.”