Chapter 3 – Marker 2

[WARNING this chapter contains mild references to slash]

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Marker 2

~
Back to the old known things that are the new
~

June 2006, Matthews, North Carolina

The job had been a bust. Part of Eames hoped it was the team, but the way the entire inception had gone, there was very little hope of it ever working. Ideas were meant to be stolen, not implanted. It was their luck that the client wasn’t a vengeful one; jumping continents lost its appeal after the first twenty times, in Eames’ experience, and those who could afford to hire an extraction team usually paid well for hit men. Eames ordered a double and wondered not for the first time why he’d stopped working in private security.

The bar was crowded for a Wednesday night. It wasn’t even a big city, just a small place outside of Charlotte, but it was filled with students. Eames knew without having to look around that there were at least four groups of girls watching him. Three had been since he’d walked in, and another joined in some time later if the giggles and stage whispering was anything to go by. Eames sipped his drink, indifferent.

To say he wasn’t interested would have been a half-truth. Any man loves attention from young college girls on their evening off, and Eames had certainly had his fair share of them in his time. But for a while he’d had something weighing on his mind, and that dull ache hadn’t gone away for 237 stupid days. Ever since that damned bar and that bloody poker game in Mobile.

Eames pulled out the chip and rolled it across his knuckles absently. It had only been a job ago that Mal had brought about the idea of a totem. He doubted it would go over well to tell her someone HAD handled his before he got it. Eames ordered another Scotch and put the chip away as he thought about how he would’ve rather that that someone had handled him instead.

Eames hazarded a guess as to how long it would take the nearest group of girls to wander over and ask him how he was doing tonight. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes at most, depending on how many of their sweet candy-drinks they’d swallowed by then. He wondered what he would use as an excuse this time. It used to be so much easier; you’d tell a girl that you did something dangerous and she would leave you alone. Now you try that and they swarm around you like a plague.

Eames finished his second drink and decided on gay. Gay kept them around in a friendly way before they found new eye candy that would look them in the boobs instead of the eyes.

“Studying them for a job?”

Eames grinned in spite of himself. 237 bloody days. He turned.

“Business on your mind as usual, then, Arthur?”

He was wearing a blue shirt with a maroon tie today, a dark blue knitted vest and a smirk. “And not on yours, if your answer is anything to go by, Mr. Eames.”

“I was weighing the odds of telling them all I’m gay.”

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Has the line worked for you before?”

“At times. Join me for a drink?”

“Am I to be your beard?” Arthur laughed.

“Only if you want, darling, the invitation and my cover are quite unrelated.”

Arthur smiled and took the seat next to him at the bar. To Eames, he looked somehow younger. Maybe it was the fact that his hair wasn’t so severely held back by gel, or the slightly less formal attire. Or the smile on his face that reached his eyes and stayed there. Maybe it was the genuinely relaxed posture, giving the impression that he wanted to be here rather than on the verge of fight or flight. Fuck, Eames needed another drink.

“What’ll it be?”

Arthur glanced over his shoulder at the group of girls watching them curiously before turning back. “I’ll have a cosmo.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“If I’m to be a good beard I need to play the part.” Arthur’s eyebrows knotted together in a semblance of innocence. Eames shook his head and ordered, getting another Scotch for himself. While they waited Eames watched Arthur take in the bar and the people in it. His eyes scanned the floor as though searching for something; his back to the bar, leaning his elbows against it as he surveyed the room at large. When his eyes met Eames’, he held his gaze until their drinks arrived.

“So what brings you here, then? You were a few states over when you took my money, are you stalking me?”

“I daresay you would like it if I had been,” Arthur sipped his drink thoughtfully. “Work, actually.” He shot Eames an unreadable look before taking the glass in both hands and returning to his previous position. One of the groups of girls had lost interest and was moving towards a new potential at the end of the bar.

“I think you lost some admirers.” Arthur commented without looking at him.

“Only some? It certainly reflects badly on you if they haven’t all left.”

Arthur laughed, a soft sound that Eames felt to his bones, and turned to him.

“Care for another bet, then, Mr. Eames?”

Arthur was close enough to Eames to touch, close enough to feel the heat of him and feel his breath on his face. Eames smiled.

“A bet is only as good as its terms, Arthur.”

“Ah, truer words,” he leaned back and tilted his head as he finished the drink. The man either had no idea of the affect he had on Eames or he knew perfectly well. He replaced the glass on the bar and leaned forward on his elbows as he spoke.

“By the end of the night, no girl will give you her number.”

“You say that with such conviction,” Eames smiled, “But what, dear Arthur, will such a harsh bet win me?”

“You’ll get your sought-after solitude, isn’t that enough?” Arthur smirked, making a steeple with his hands. Eames ran his finger around the rim of his glass. It was a practiced movement, but the sides were too thick to sing.

“Since I will be deprived of such clever and entertaining company for the night, might I win yours?”

Arthur watched him, body poised, fingers still, mouth set in that infuriating, gorgeous smirk before blinking and leaning forward.

“I do believe, Mr. Eames,” he was close. Far too close. And he knew it. “That you owe me another brightly-coloured cocktail.”

-

Eames had met people who were not affected by alcohol at all. They could drink for hours and still walk straight and talk succinctly by the end of it while he was trying to work out which of them he was supposed to be looking at. Of course, when he drank to win Eames held his own rather well. So in this case he found himself swaying not because of alcohol but because Arthur had moved that tiny bit closer and their thighs brushed under the bar as he spoke.

“I sometimes honestly cannot fathom the sheer stupidity of the people I work with,” he was saying, one hand on his fifth glass of ridiculously coloured cocktail the other gesturing vaguely in an attempt to convey the stupidity of his aforementioned co-workers. “You would think that since everyone went through the proper training they would at least be professional.”

Eames watched him with a smile. No movement Arthur made was superfluous; every gesture and shift in expression was well-paced and necessary. He watched Arthur take another sip of his drink, frown, and set it back to the bar.

“So what is it you do then?” Eames asked, his tone low and quiet.

Arthur raised an eyebrow. “For a forger your memory is wanting.”

Eames smiled, blinking slowly. “Alright, Arthur-in-security, what security do you specialize in?”

He blinked twice and then looked at his glass, a small smile on his lips. “A specialized kind.”

“Specificity, Arthur dear, is obviously not a skill you exercise often,”

Arthur met Eames’ eyes and smiled that unreadable smile again before looking away. The bar was beginning to empty. It was getting close to last call and only the most enthusiastic bar patrons were still around. Milling near the pool tables or sitting in booths talking. That was the only problem about small towns; last call came too soon.

“My God they just don’t give up, do they?” Arthur said quietly. About 5 girls sat in a booth not far away watching them. As soon as Arthur looked at them they quickly glanced away and burst into giggles as Arthur met Eames’ gaze again. “If I have to drink one more of these things I’ll hit something.”

Eames just shook his head with a smirk, “Perhaps you should up your game,”

Arthur looked at him, his lips slightly parted, an eyebrow on the verge of being raised. Eames raised one of his own and finished his drink, setting it down and covering the top with his hand.

“And how do you propose I do that?” Arthur asked, his voice low.

What a shamefully loaded question. Eames could swear the boy had it in for him. He may have been only a few years Eames’ junior but he pushed any button he could find with almost practiced ease. If Eames was one to make more than one bet a night, he would have bet his share from the last job on the fact that Arthur knew what he was doing to him.

It took most of Eames’ willpower not to wipe that innocent look off his face and show him exactly how he could up his game, instead Eames ordered another round and leaned forward.

“Surprise me, pet.”

Arthur’s eyes widened for just a moment. Those gorgeous brown eyes that had driven Eames crazy for the last how-many days; they were darker now, whether from alcohol or something else Eames couldn’t tell. Arthur glanced down, chewing the corner of his upper lip before meeting Eames’ eyes again. He reached out, slender fingers finding his collar, and pulled.

They were so close Eames was breathing his air, tasting the sweet cranberry and slight tang of alcohol. He could feel Arthur’s nose against his, feel the heat off his body radiating in waves in time to his heartbeat. And yet…

“That is the ugliest shirt I have ever seen on a man,” Arthur whispered against his lips. They were so close that Arthur’s eyes appeared out of focus, but Eames could tell Arthur was looking at him, waiting for a reaction, waiting for something. He tilted his head, feeling his lips brush Arthur’s.

“Then why,” he breathed, “are you looking at my goddamned shirt?”

“Maybe it was the only thing I found to criticise,” Arthur breathed back, letting the tip of his tongue touch Eames’ upper lip before pulling away. “If you’ll excuse me,” with a grace that belonged to models and, apparently, Arthur, he strode off to the bathroom, past the booth of girls who were now talking behind their hands excitedly.

“Christ I need that drink,” it came out in one breath Eames hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Bloody hell. That man would be the end of him. By the time Arthur got back Eames was halfway through his drink thinking that if they didn’t get out of this bar soon he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions. He told Arthur as such as the man straddled his stool again and ignored his drink, elbows against the bar, head cocked in Eames’ direction.

“Really?” he asked, his smile radiant, “Unfortunate, that,” Arthur pulled a folded napkin from his pocket and slid it across the bar to Eames. On it, in purple gel pen was written a name and number.

Eames laughed. “By terms of the wager, since she didn’t give the number to me, I believe I have you for the night.”

“By those terms, you’re right,” said Arthur, as he unfolded the napkin. On the other side was written “to the two gorgeous men at the bar, if you’re ever looking for company”. Arthur rested his cheek on his right hand and watched Eames. “But as the invitation was made to us both, I think you’ll be leaving alone again.”

Eames found himself speechless once more. He watched something flicker across Arthur’s face before he shuttered it. He swallowed and glanced at the bar before gathering the napkin and returning it to his pocket. He finished his drink in one go, muttering a quiet curse at the taste, and stood up.

“I’ll see you around, Mr. Eames. Perhaps this time you won’t have to wait 250 days.”

“237,” Eames replied before he could stop himself. Arthur laughed quietly and backed away three steps, eyes on Eames, expression one of shadowed longing, before turning on his heel.

He pushed the door open with his elbow and left without a backward glance. Just like he had in Alabama, 237 days ago.

—

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