Work Text:
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
"Hotter'n blue blazes this mornin', innit boys?"
Arthur and Eames nod at this observation, sweltering under their button downs.
Cap' is walking towards them carrying three beers; one fully in his left hand, and the other two hanging by their necks between the fingers of his right.
8:27 in the morning. Not only is that too early to start drinking, but those beers could not have been five seconds out of the refrigerator and already they've begun to sweat.
Cap' is short for Captain, and despite the epithet the only thing the man has ever been the captain of is the S.S. Delusion. He has a formidable girth; a round, taut belly that Eames mentioned he might thump like a melon to check its ripeness. His thick, American accent is off amidst the flurry of Portuguese, but the sound is also reassuring--at least to Arthur.
"S'pose we should get down to business then," Cap' says, settling back into the protesting chair. He lays out the scenario: who the mark is, what information to extract, how much money the team stands to make...
Hot, Arthur thinks. Fucking hot out here. What's he saying? Need to listen. Listen.
Eames takes a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, taps one out, shows it to Cap'.
"You mind?"
Cap' says, "Not at all." He calls to one of his men to bring out an ashtray.
And the conversation continues.
We're on the surface of the fucking sun. How can he smoke?
He does.
Eames makes love to every cigarette he smokes; makes sure each one dies with the same amount of pleasure that it has given him. He distorts his lips to blow smoke rings. If he tires of that he alternates between letting it roll out from between his lips in slow motion, and simply blowing it out through his nose.
"Gentleman's asking you a question," he says.
"Hmm?" is Arthur's quick and stupid reply.
"Cap' would like to know how long it will take."
Arthur is floundering. He's finished his beer--when did that happen?--and the sun has stolen his focus.
"Forgive me. How long will what take?"
Eames stubs the cigarette out in the bottom of the glass tray, giving Arthur a sideways smirk. "What my colleague means to say is..."
Arthur feels a bead of sweat trail down his neck. He shivers under the unrelenting heat.
"No more than a month," he interrupts Eames. "For the whole thing--the research, the building, the actual extraction--no more than a month. Do we have a deal?"
Eames leans back in his chair, pleasuring yet another stick of nicotine.
Arthur indulges in another beer while Cap' signs the contract. Smoke roils out from the space between Eames' lips, which are now tugged into a shit-eating grin.
There is a round of handshakes, and slaps on the shoulder, and then goodbye.
Connecting the courtyard and the car park is a long, yellow-bricked corridor with arches on either ends. Small windows are spaced evenly, revealing a beautiful view of the ocean. Arthur thinks about Ariadne, how once he tells her about the place she will be disappointed that she hadn't tagged along for this leg.
Amidst his stream of consciousness there is one concrete fact: there is a hand in his pocket that is not his own. His eyes follow the arm up, finding it attached to Eames.
"What the hell are you doing?"
He has fished out the car keys, and transferred them into his own pocket.
"You're not driving," he says.
"I had one beer."
"Two. You had two. And a quarter."
"I had two and a quarter beers. I'll be fine. Let me drive."
"Not a chance. You're mostly bone, and you haven't eaten anything."
"You drank, too!"
"I sipped. Never even finished the first one. You drank."
"Fine," Arthur says, casting a glance through the yellow window, out onto the blue water. Eames' red patterned shirt adds a third contrasting layer to the scene. "Do you have to smoke every cigarette like you're giving head?"
Eames stops to take a long, suggestive pull of nicotine; careful to make certain that Arthur is watching. He closes his eyes, raises them to the sky in pleasure as dopamine is released.
Arthur feels another droplet of sweat ease down his neck. He shivers again.
Eames brings his chin back down, smoke obscuring his face. He cups his fingers around the back of Arthur's neck, and thumbs away the perspiration falling from behind his ear. The warm pad remains there rubbing small circles.
Arthur is rendered paralyzed for a moment. Can't think. Can't speak. Can't act.
And then a seagull perches in a window and lets out a piercing squawk.
"It's distracting," Arthur says, and walks on. Eames follows two and a quarter steps later.
"I do apologize," he says. "Although, you weren't exactly professional yourself. Getting pissed in front of a client."
Arthur is steps away from the car, but really he's back in the middle of that corridor. Really he has Eames pushed back against the wall. And really, he's kissing that goddamned mouth, and biting those fucking lips.
He pulls open the passenger's door, and slips into the seat.
"Get in the car, Eames."
Eames has the door open, but he's just standing there ducking to see in, fingers drumming on the top of the car. "Where we hurrying off to?"
"Why don't you get your ass in the car and find out."
The leather squeaks under his weight. "Am I going to like it?"
Arthur tugs him to the middle and kisses him. Lips, tongue, teeth--it's all a blur of raw nerves, and shattered resolves.
"Well," Arthur asks after. "Did you?"
"Did I what?"
Arthur laughs for the first time that day. "You taste like cigarettes."
"You taste like beer."
"Let's go back to the hotel," Arthur says as he secures his safety belt. "I have a feeling this is going to be our last day off for awhile."