specification | Where do we go from here?

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Where do we go from here? - for ingeniously

The job was done.

Inception was done and fuck -- from what he could tell, it had gone successfully.

So far.

Cobb had gone through customs with not so much as a blink and left with his father-in-law to his kids. Fischer Jr had left a little after that and Ariadne was heading back to Paris to return to her classes and studies. Arthur loaded the PASIV onto his luggage cart and looked around, spotting Eames standing near a pillar.

Throughout the planning stages of the job, they had been snarky, condescending (to a certain degree), and on just this side of antagonistic. It was after he found out that there was a very real possibility that they could be shot down to limbo that Arthur mentally backtracked for a split second and thought about Eames -- thought about that night and thought about what they haven't discussed yet. When Eames called him 'darling' down in the first level in what he was sure was a condescending manner, Arthur found himself wanting to say something. But, he didn't. Eames was striding away after he took his shot.

When they were on the second level and everyone was hooking themselves in, who he should have helped was Ariadne but Arthur found himself kneeling down next to Eames and helping him with his lead, giving him a quirk of his lips. Everything could be shot to hell in a matter of seconds/minutes/hours and he could feel himself wanting that lasting touch, just in case.

They couldn't risk talking in public no matter if Robert and Cobb had gone, still -- he felt ready to talk to the other man about what happened months ago. About where this left them -- if it left them anywhere.

Eames had mated with him. Well...to be fair, his wolf had mated with him and that meant something according to his research. Something that couldn't exactly be ignored. As he made his way out of the airport with his luggage, Arthur pulled out his phone and sent a quick text to Eames.

If you're not heading anywhere quick, meet me at the Renaissance hotel nearby? We can talk.

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"Why," Arthur asked, raising his eyebrows at him then taking another drink from the glass. "We've just completed a job, I don't have to babysit Cobb anymore and I have nowhere I have to be for the next two weeks at least - no reason to not celebrate, yeah?" He then sat down his glass and allowed his eyes to look over Eames' arms then pull his eyes away again.

Eames felt his own eyebrows raise at Arthur's descriptions - obviously staying at Cobb's side had bothered him more than he'd let on.

"No, there's no reason not to celebrate," he said wryly. I just don't want to have to drag you back to your hotel room he thought.

"You can go, if you want," Arthur stated flatly. "You don't have to stay." He heard the tone, even in his slightly inebriated state. His room was upstairs and he could find his way back safe and sound, thank you. "I can take care of myself."

"Do you want me go?" Eames tossed back at him, quirking an eyebrow up.

Arthur opened his mouth then closed it.

No.

Yes.

No.

"No, but that doesn't really matter, does it?" He looked at him and just lounged on his side of the booth. After all, if Eames wanted to leave, Arthur was damn sure that Eames would leave.

"It does, in fact," Eames said, leaning back on his side of the booth - stretching his arms out to rest on the back, taking up as much space as possible.

"See, I want to be here. However if you don't want me here, then I'll leave. But if you do, then I'm going to stay and enjoy you getting trashed."

Arthur didn't hide the way he watched Eames stretch out on his side of the booth and the way his arms looked. After a moment though, he looked back at Eames. "I'm not going to get trashed," he muttered, but he was well on his way to being trashed. "Stay then," he said before bringing the glass in closer with one hand.

"Of course you're not," He said, nearly patronizing, but he watched Arthur curl closer to his glass.

"So, you managed to keep us all alive during the job. I never said thank you, did I."

"No but normally 'thank you's' aren't required," Arthur said, allowing the patronizing tone bounce off his back this time. He swirled the liquid around in the glass before taking another sip from it.

"With that job? I think it very much fucking was," Eames said wryly, watching Arthur take another sip and tapping his fingers against the side of his glass. "Even without the militarization there was a huge amount of risk because of Dom. So thank you."

"I did say normally," Arthur said, mildly, setting his glass back down onto the table. He nodded silently and stretched his legs out in front of him. "You're welcome," he said. It was nice to hear that 'thank you'. It wasn't exactly something that he heard normally and frankly, he didn't need to always hear it but it was nice when it was said.

Eames smirked and waved a hand, exchanging his scotch for a glass of Guinness, which he took a deep sip of.

"Yes. Looking back to getting to normal jobs?"

Arthur thought about that for a long moment. "I am and I'm not," he settled on finally. "I liked the challenge and pushing the limits, but it will be nice to return to choosing the jobs I want to choose and not have the danger of shades over my head." The fact that Arthur was speaking frank and also paying heed to his volume spoke about how much he's had to drink so far.

"What about you? Have another job lined up soon?"

"Pick the jobs that push the limits," Eames suggested lazily, and then shook his head. "Moon's in a week or so. Figured I would wait until after that to look at jobs," he said, reminding Arthur of his nature.

"I plan to," Arthur said and finished off his glass and turning it lazily around on the table. He was starting to feel good now. He wasn't so completely out of it where he was incapable of controlling himself but he was feeling pleasantly buzzed.

He nodded at the reminder. He hadn't even thought about the full moon coming up that quickly but it was and that meant that Eames needed to head some place with plenty of open space. "Good idea." It wouldn't do to have something like last time happen again. Not that Arthur figured Eames would.

"Don't let yourself stagnate, even if you are a point man," Eames said with a teasing lilt to his voice.

Eames cleared his throat after he took a second sip of his drink. "I do tend to have very good ones."

"Why would I allow myself to stagnate," he asked with an arched eyebrow. He licked at his bottom lip and looked down at the glass before relaxing back in the seat. He'd wait for another few minutes before ordering anymore. Right now, he was feeling pretty damn good.

"You do," he said, honestly. "I didn't thank you - without the majority of your ideas, we probably couldn't have pulled the job off in the way we did. Thank you."

"It's a warning I give to all the workers I like," Eames said airily. He'd seen too many people take the same jobs, never tackle new challenges, and become useless when the business evolved.

He gaped theatrically. "Arthur, did you just admit that I'm good at my job?"

Arthur wasn't really surprised that Eames said he liked him (least, that's what he took away from that statement), they got on amicably enough when they weren't at each other's throats (literally and figuratively). "Do you think I"m the sort to stay stagnant," he asked, curiously. He too had seen people take on jobs that offered no challenge time after time.

In this business, much like many others, it was always evolving and changing. People were starting to use the PASIV and dream share for more than extraction and using it for recreational purposes, much like Saito had. It offered new venues, new techniques and new methods to obtain information. To be honest, the continual challenge and evolution of dream share was the reason he stayed with it. It wasn't about the money (or at least, not only about the money), it was about the challenge and interest.

Arthur smirked. "Don't get used to it," he said dryly but there wasn't any heat to it and was teasing, almost.

"I think," Eames said carefully, "You don't want to, but you have a habit of staying loyal - and that can turn into stagnation if you're not careful."

Dreamshare was not like what it had started as and it was evolving, Eames knew. It was what pushed him to stay the best forger, to make sure no one took that title from him.

"I'll try not to. I don't think my heart could take it," he mockingly bemoaned.

He stayed silent for a moment as he considered the man before him, tilting his head. "I work with some of the same people," he agreed. "But, despite popular belief I do enjoy a challenge."

Inception hadn't been your typical challenge and for the last two years, he hadn't been able to fully take whatever job he wanted to take because of a sense of obligation toward Cobb. But that was going to change and he was going to take what he wanted to take. He was going to remain the best pointman if he had anything to say about it.

Arthur smirked and motioned the bartender over to refill the glass. "No?"

"No no, I know that. I'm just saying that working with the same old can get dangerous," he replied.

He watched the bartender come over to refill Arthur's glass, and the light flush on the point man's cheeks. "No, I don't. I am forty, after all, getting up there in age..."

Only he had been feeling better since becoming a wolf. Forty-one wasn't old by any means, but some of the older aches he associated with old wounds had faded after being - infected, he called it. Changed.

Arthur took a drink from the glass and nodded. "It can," he agreed. He wouldn't deny that. He felt his shoulders loosen up after a moment.

"You look good for forty," Arthur said before he thought better then froze. Oh. He cleared his throat and took another drink. It was only after he swallowed it that he came to the realization that because of the alcohol, he let something like that slip. Arthur knew Eames was older than him, he just hadn't realized by how much.

He sat down the glass before he leaned heavily against the side of the booth. "How long have you been a --," he let it hang there between them. It was both a method to change the subject (and quickly he hoped) and to gain a little more information about the forger.

Eames raised his eyebrows high when Arthur said that, surprised he would say that even whilst drunk. He wanted to examine it, to pick at it and Arthur.

Instead he took the obvious subject change gracefully.

"A year, and some change of months. Not very long," he admitted with a shake of his head. "What happened was... an accident, or maybe it was intentional. I was attacked by what I thought a dog in an alleeyway. But the next month... I knew."

Arthur tried desperately to not meet Eames' gaze for a long minute and fully expected the next words out of his mouth being something to antagonize Arthur with. He breathed a silent sigh of relief when Eames didn't and changed the subject as Arthur had hoped he would.

He nodded and lifted his gaze to Eames and nodded. "Must have been a surprising," he said. "Where were you?"

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