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snoozing_kittenTitle: These Days are Strange, it’s True (If looks could kill)
Pairing: Eames/Arthur
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Murder, D/s-y themes, light gunplay
Summary: Arthur is given a job he probably shouldn’t take, but where would the fun be in that? Murder, the mob, dirty cops, hidden identities, and one positively filthy cop, it’s all in a day’s work for a private dick.
ART POST: NSFW
Notes: First off, thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
track_04 for the beta and for being my own personal cheerleader. This is my first real Inception fic, and I hope I did this awesome fandom justice, and more importantly froggie my artist and her fabulous piece, I hope I managed to capture everything that was going on and convey it. Thanks for inspiring me bb.
“I’d like to hire you.”
“Well yes, that is why most people come here. They need something.” He regarded her carefully. Overhead the fan spun lazily, making the air dance over his exposed forearms, leaning forward over his desk, all business. She met his stare unflinchingly, giving nothing away with her face, and Arthur couldn’t help but admire the strength he could see in the petite set of her shoulders and demure cut of her top. A wolf in sheep’s clothes if you will. “And what do you need?”
“I need to find who killed a man.” There was the faintest hint of French in her accent, barely there, slurring her Hs. Spoke French as a child, probably, mostly gone now. “I’ve heard that you are the best.”
Arthur wasn’t so sure whom she’d be hearing stuff like that from, but he nodded slowly, noting carefully the curl of her dark brown hair across the delicate planes of her face, the rest of it tied up. He would be able to recognize her again if he needed to, all pixie cheeks and large eyes. He’d had a bad feeling the moment she strode into his office, low heels clicking on the floor, strong and even stride, a woman who wasn’t scared of anything.
“The police usually handle that kind of thing.” They weren’t entirely incompetent, usually just busy and underfunded.
“The police are useless. They’ve already stopped investigating, the ‘trail has gone cold’. It has only been a month now.” Her mouth twisted and the only way to explain the look as ‘highly unimpressed’. “I need to know what happened to James.”
~~
She had given him no last name, ‘Ariadne’ only, and a roll of bills in lieu of a paper trail. Smart girl, smart girl who obviously didn’t want to be traced to this investigation; she left him a number if he needed anything more from her (obviously a disposable cellphone; she wasn’t going to trip up this early in the game.) ‘You’re the detective, go detect.’
If he had to take a guess, he’d say crime syndicate. Which one he couldn’t say, and in what capacity he had no idea yet. Still he was leery of helping her. That was the kind of business that bought you cement shoes and bad blood.
There was a huge part of him, the practical, responsible part that he wore like armour, which bled through in perfectly tailored slacks and the crisp folds in his jacket, that told him to call her back and tell her to find someone else, he wasn’t doing the dirty tango with the mob. These days the most excitement Arthur saw was following slightly overweight men as they chased their own excitement with women other than their wives.
It paid the bills. Kept his business running smoothly. Prim, practical Arthur was okay with that.
Arthur didn’t call.
No, instead he booted up his PC, not the old apple clunker he kept on the desk for show, but a machine as great and terrible as Frankenstein’s monster, hidden in the back room, cobbled together out of pieces of others, stitched and wired together until they all worked together in perfect harmony, maximizing speed and processing power. He couldn’t hack into the full Police intranet, but he could access their archive files.
James Smith died on the corner of Aurberdeen and Jackson, in an old parking lot. A passerby found the body early in the morning and police were called to the scene. He had been shot in the back twice and left for dead where he fell.
Arthur wandered the small lot; it had rained since then and there wasn’t even a rust stained smudge where his body had been. The scene matched up with the one described in the notes - there was a fence on the far side, dirt tracks for a car, the body had been far enough from the road and the lights that at night it would be pitch black.
The neighbourhood wasn’t in the best end of town. There wasn’t anything at the scene, no evidence of who had shot him and Arthur didn’t blame the police at all for giving up in the lack of evidence. Arthur looked around the lot for the next hour, picking through the garbage that lined the edges with the side-walk, news paper and soda cans, more cigarette butts. Nothing relevant to the scene at all. It wasn’t like he was expecting to find something forensics didn’t, especially not after so long.
There was more than one way to skin an investigation.
If you can’t profile the crime, profile the victim.
James Smith just appeared one day, popping onto the grid with a shiny new credit card and a police warning. No birth certificate, nothing prior to him at age 14. Arthur dug until it got dark (he drove a dark blue Mazda coupe, lived in an apartment not too far away and had no one listed as any emergency contact.) No history of finishing high school, and absolutely nothing helpful in any official records.
When it was suitably dark enough, Arthur drove out to James’ apartment building, parked around the block and strolled up to the short squat building. Old, but not trendy vintage, just beaten down. The mailboxes that lined the lobby were dented brass, and the carpet tried to hide the multitude of stains with a dizzying pattern of colours. The lock on the door to the lobby didn’t work, making it easy to just slip in like he belonged there. He spun his keys around his fingers as he took the stairs up to the third and top floor.
No one was around, the hall was empty, dully lit with yellow light from aged and stained glass coverings. More ugly utilitarian-bare carpeting, and that was all. Perfect.
The lock wasn’t too hard, a simple five tumbler system, each one clicking under his pick and it was no time at all before the handle was turning, rattling slightly in the old bracket but letting him into the small flat. Dark. The whole place smelled of fruit gone bad, a kitchen uncared for. Arthur frowned at the strong smell of decay. At least no one would have been through here to clean up any clues if they hadn’t bothered to take the basket of rotted peaches off the table.
This was how one really went about an investigation, breaking and entering, a spot of hacking. It wasn’t like he was constrained by the need to explain himself to the courts. If he ever did it wouldn’t be from the witness stand anyways. But James’ apartment was cautious with her secrets, the whole place was rather Spartan; everything was in its right place with a place for everything, lined up with military precision. Institutionalized, then. Often people left that sort of setting with a pathological need to impose that rigid order upon the world beyond the padded walls. That’s how people end up back there.
Arthur was gearing down to rip the place apart to find a clue when he found it. Next to the bed was an ash tray piled high with white powdery ash and slim butts, but more importantly, piled next to it was a stack of match books that all seemed to come from the same bar. It could be a clue, or it could just be a guy who grabbed a hand full of match books, but it was worth a shot.
~~
Belle Rêve, was a lot less classy than the name. The building was old, worn comfortably like Arthur’s jogging trainers. Everything else he owned was sharp, but those were worn and stained and comfy. Just like that everything about the bar was worn in around the edges, the neon signs in the window for different beers buzzed dully as moths beat themselves against them dumbly. There was a group of people smoking outside, a mix of young and old, voices all mingling in the stillness of the night air.
Arthur ran the edge of his nail over the flimsy cardboard cover of the matchbook in his pocket and slipped into the dimly lit bar. The place was long, extending to the back of the building across a small area of pool tables and booth seating. He slid through the sparse crowd, people yelling over the loud music and laughing in little clusters. The bar itself wasn’t too busy, the surface sticky under his fingertip, salt spilled across it like small galaxies in the inky blackness.
To one side was an older duo, a man and a woman just chatting, the man’s back all but turned to Arthur. His other side was a little more distracting. Blond, shoulders like a football player, all width and muscle. His t-shirt looked like it was having trouble containing him, stretched from one shoulder to the other and clinging on for dear life. Arthur wasn’t here cruising, but fuck, if he was. He would be all over that, thighs like a tree, and Arthur would climb him like one, pinning all that strength between his thighs. But life’s unfair, and he’s busy.
He was tapping the matchbook on the table top when the bartender finally wandered over to him. She was a petite woman with huge eyes and curly pale hair.
“A Strongbow please.” She was tall, willowy, and there was something familiar about her face, pretty but not distractingly so, maybe just one of those faces.
“Seven dollars.” She slid the pint towards him, and he leaned in, tilting his head in such a way that it made him look the right mix of non-aggressive and curious. Playing on his strengths, he couldn’t help the fact that he looked far younger then he was; she was wearing a wedding band, but that didn’t mean shit.
“I have some questions. Do you think you could help me?” He pushed the picture forwards before she could deny him. “I’m looking into the death of this man, do you recognize him?” He trailed off; her face had closed down completely when she saw the photograph, last call already. “I have reason to believe he came here.”
“Y-yeah. He was a regular here. Shitty tipper.” She wasn’t a very good liar.
“Did he hang out with anyone in particular? Do you remember the last time you saw him?”
“No, his friends aren’t here and I don’t know anything. Sorry I can’t be of more help.” Someone on the other side of the bar flagged, and she took off like a spooked animal. He left the whole twenty on the bar. Arthur’s father had been a government spook, cloaks and daggers and lies lies lies. The bartender wasn’t a particularly good liar and now Arthur just needed to work out how to get what she knew out of here. The bar hadn’t come up in the police report.
Arthur sipped his brew and tried to look like he fit in, elbows on the bar and watching the hockey game that was playing on the monitor above the bar. Mr. Buff and Beautiful had left, and Arthur missed the bit of eye candy he offered. He tended to spend his downtime fucking and researching. Building connections in places high and low, reading into forensics methods and psychology. He wouldn’t have minded to spend a few days losing himself with that one. Once he finished his beer, the crowd had really started going, and it was getting more packed, pressing him up against people and the hard edge of the stool he was perched on. There wasn’t anything more he could do here tonight. He could do some research into the police call record of the bar - maybe something would pop. Some odd complaint or something, or fishy record keeping.
For now it was time to go.
Arthur slipped out the side door, going to cut through the alley to his car when a low voice drawled from the end of the shadows.
“Hey there.”
Arthur was tempted to ignore it, but there was the guy from the bar, all broad shoulders and the most incredible mouth Arthur had ever seen on a man. He could be off the clock for the night. He tipped his head a little, trying not to be too obvious about sizing him up.
“Yes?” He’d been picked up by seedier men in seedier places; the evening could go either way still.
“Just a few questions.” He pushed off the wall and he was limber for his size, clearly trained in some martial art and not just a weight lifter. Really fucking hot, and dangerous. Arthur kept his stance relaxed; the exit to the alley wasn’t that far and he could run for it if he needed to. In an enclosed space his odds in a fight weren’t as good. All it would take was one good punch from those huge hands and Arthur would be stunned, and that really shouldn’t turn him on as much as it did. “What’s the James Smith case to you?”
Arthur frowned. “None of your business.”
“Oh darling, I beg to differ.” He took a step closer and Arthur was re-running the odds. He really didn’t want to ruin this sweater. “You see, I have a vested interest in this matter.”
“Not interested.” He was blocking Arthur’s path, and if he didn’t move Arthur was going to break his nose. “Leave me alone.”
“Not happening.”
Arthur threw the first punch. He wasn’t actually aiming to break his nose - not yet, anyway, because people always underestimated him - and then backed off once he bared his teeth. Of course it didn’t quite go according to plan; the other man took a quick step back, his boot scuffing loudly on the ground as he dodged the weight of the hit. Arthur wasn’t quite ready for that, pulled back too fast, center of gravity too far out over his feet. Usually that wouldn’t have been a problem; Arthur was lean and light, quick on his feet. What he didn’t account for was this man being a fighter, knowing when and how to press an opening.
Arthur’s back hit the wall with a rush that knocked the breath from him and he gasped for breath, pinned up against the wall. The rough brick was scraping at his sweater, and it was on. Arthur lashed out, bringing his elbows up. He wasn’t going to go easy anymore, clearly it wasn’t needed here. In an annoying show of strength, the other man caught his elbow but Arthur twisted, using the motion to use his other hand to jab at his ribs. It connected solidly, and he grunted, but it didn’t seem to slow him any. He literally just grabbed Arthur by the shoulders and gave him a solid shaking, which didn’t go over so well with Arthur.
He twisted, and he’d fight like a bitch if it helped him win, but the knee to the groin was anticipated and Arthur found himself with the rough grain of the brick digging into his face head spinning from being twisted around so roughtly, raising on his toes to try and ease the strain in his shoulder from being put in an arm lock. He was breathing hard, and forced himself to relax into the hold before he pulled anything in his shoulder.
“Now. Let’s try that again,” he said, too close to Arthur’s ear, and at least he sounded winded. “You’re going to tell me what you know about the James Smith case.”
“Let me go.” Arthur snarled, he couldn’t move, but fuck if he was going to give up.
“How about, we take a ride? I’ll take you down to the station where I can hold you until you feel more cooperative?”
“Why of course officer when you show me some credentials.”
“You’re not going to try and hit me if I let you go are you?” His voice was deep, unhurried and Arthur bristled, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. The officer let go of his arm first, but he was still a solid line of heat at Arthur’s back. He twisted so that his shoulders were pressed against the wall, and he was still too close, but now they were eye to eye. “Better?”
“Much.” Arthur bit out.
“Now, tell me, what is a pretty little thing like you doing investigating a death like this?”
“Let’s see your badge.” Arthur crossed his arms over his chest, pulling his spine straight so that he seemed taller, he had maybe an inch on him, and he was going to work that inch for all he could.
“Detective Eames.” The badge looked legit and Arthur squinted at him. Well shit.
“I was hired by a client to look into the matter,”Arthur said stiffly. “I don’t know anything about it. I just took the case.” He took his P.I.’s licence from his wallet and handed it over.
“Arthur is it?” His named rolled off his tongue like a wave, one long caress, which wasn’t fair in the least. “Let me guess, you’ll tell me as soon as you know something?” Eames gave him a look, let him know just what he thought of that.
“Of course,” he lied through his teeth, giving Eames a tight, annoyed smile.
~~
Arthur didn’t have a secretary, he had an espresso machine. Overall it was far more efficient and complained less about his harsh manner. He was quite possibly even worse in the mornings; it wasn’t that he was grumpy, he was just a lot less happy to be doing stuff than, say, later, when Arthur had had his morning Americano.
When Detective Eames showed up bright and early at 9 am when Arthur was just starting to dig into some files he was less than impressed.
“Did you sleep in that suit?” he hissed. Eames looked different by daylight, wearing an ill fitting grey suit, with a truly hideous green and mauve striped tie.
“Something wrong with it?” Eames ran his hand down the front, over where it was faintly creased.
“Of course not. Can I help you?” Arthur seriously hoped not, but that would be too good to be true.
“I looked you up last night.” Eames sat down in the chair for visitors, sprawling his legs and looking at Arthur across the desk. “You’re an interesting guy.”
“Not really.” It would have been too obvious to wipe only the electronic records when paper records still existed, so he would need to wait until the eight year record period was up to completely purge his trail from the police system. The case had mob written on it in glittery letters, and if the police were sniffing around it was about to make Arthur’s job that much harder. He didn’t need Eames involved, the hassle far outweighed any potential sex they could have.
“But you are, no imagination.” He ran his eyes slowly and obviously down Arthur’s slicked back hair to the tailored fit of his shirt, indicating with one hand his entire office.
“Is there a reason you’re here?”
“Of course.” Eames smiled at him, and for a moment Arthur was struck by how at ease Eames looked, the sprawl of his legs and the loose set of his shoulders. Any normal man who had read his file would have been at least a little cautious. There was more to this man then Arthur could see, so much more, like the placid surface of a lake, and then he would be distracted by how badly the tie managed to clash with itself. “I want your help.”
“My... help?”
“Yeah. With a record like yours, I assume you know the contents of the police record already?” Eames smirked at him, daring him to deny it. Arthur said nothing. “Even you had to realize there was something off with the way the case was handled. There is something going on here, and I want to find out what.”
“And you need my help?”
“We’re both after the same thing, I want to know what happened to James Smith and so do you, besides, wouldn’t it be nice to do something legally for once?”
“I’m pretty sure sharing documents with me is illegal.” Eames grinned at him. “At the very least unethical.”
“Now, no one needs to know about that, besides it’s not like you wouldn’t go get them yourself. So, really, it’s like it never happened.” Arthur was quite sure that it didn’t quite work that way, but Eames didn’t seem to be the type to be dissuaded easily. Still, working with him could get him in trouble, entrapment and all that. “You look like you don’t trust me.”
“I don’t.” Arthur shook his head; it was nothing personal, he just didn’t trust a lot of people.
“I’m wounded. We’re both investigating the same thing, only I have a badge and people are going to talk to me.” Arthur snorted at that, but Eames was giving him this look, amused and curious, and Arthur figured that he really didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. It would mess up his plans a bit, but it couldn’t hurt to have Eames on his side. It’s not like he didn’t look him up himself last night, in the event they ran into each other again.
Detective Jonathan Eames, suspiciously clean record, made detective young and recently transferred in for unspecified reasons. All in all, nothing but a name, a birth date and social, and he couldn’t be sure those were real either. Arthur knew another ghost when he saw one.
“Or we could just agree to stay out of each other’s way, but where is the fun in that?”
Arthur could very rarely be accused of making rash decisions; he was a straight shooter, practical to a tee, and more than capable. He didn’t do things for the fun in them. But this was one of those times, those rare times where Arthur did something because it looked like a good time. Because the edges all around Eames looked rough and Arthur kind of just wanted to rub himself up against them to see what it would feel like. “Okay.”
“Good.”
“But.” Because Arthur won’t give in that easily, to anyone. “We do things my way, and you don’t get to complain, because you asked for this.”
“Now that depends, if you’re going to do them the right way or not.” Arthur wondered if he might be able to get away with shooting him somewhere non-vital.
The crime scene looked a lot like it did when Arthur was there yesterday, but now Eames was poking around the edges, toeing things with the tip of his shoe and glancing at Arthur every now and then. Arthur had been thorough when he went over this yesterday, and he was beginning to get the feeling that there was just nothing to be found here. Maybe it wasn’t just shitty police work and this was just an impossible case.
“Excuse me!” A middle aged woman was waving at him, her dog sniffing at a clump of weeds on the side of the road intently. Closer, she didn’t seem as old as he had thought, track pants and a simple t-shirt. “Are you the police?”
“Yeah.” Close enough, anyways. Eames flashed his badge and she nodded, clearly appeased.
“Have you found out what happened to him yet? Just awful, scared me so bad.”
“We’re going over the initial investigation looking for leads,” Eames said, smoothly, all small, flirty half smiles and Arthur watched her melt all over herself. Not that Arthur could entirely blame her - his smooth tone was soothing, it rumbled from his chest like something alive.
“Do you know anything about the investigation?” Arthur tipped his head, smiling politely.
“I told the other cop what I saw.”
“As I said, we’re going over the evidence; it would be a great help if you could just tell us.” It wasn’t the first time he had impersonated a cop to get what he wanted, just the first time he had an actual badge to back it up.
“I called them when George here found the gun, and they came and took it away. I didn’t hear anything, just knew something was wrong when they started putting up all the tape.”
“George?” Eames quirked an eyebrow and Arthur was actually impressed he didn’t give anything away with his face or his tone. There was no mention of any gun in any of the reports.
“This is George.” The mid-sized poodle looked a bit messy, fur grown too long, and it looked at Arthur, huge brown eyes, tongue lolling from its open mouth. He hated dogs, they were messy and a waste of time and space. Huge, stupid eyes. “He found it when we were out for a walk.”
“I see.” Arthur hummed.
“Did the officer take your information?” Arthur flipped open his note book. “I think it might have been taken down wrong, could I get it again?”
“Of course.” She listed off her name, address and phone number, helpfully.
“Could you tell me what the officer who came to collect it looked like?” Eames’ smile went a long way to gloss over the oddness of the question; Arthur doubted she even registered what she was answering anymore.
“Brown-guy, curly hair.” With her free hand she sort of gestured at her head, as if to show what curly hair was like. George was still staring at Arthur, and he was doing his best to just ignore it.
“Ah, forensics. Of course, that explains the mix up.” Eames nodded, expression shifting to something harder. Arthur caught the change out of the corner of his eye, he doubted she noticed at all.
“George seems to like you.” She looked up at Arthur, coy smile on the edges of her mouth, and Arthur hated to admit it even to himself, but Eames' mouth was more lush, full and tempting. It made every one of his quirking little smirks into a tease, and if he wore the same orangey lipstick that Mrs. Westfeild was wearing, Arthur might just need to bite there, at the fleshy part of his bottom lip. If Eames wore lipstick Arthur would smear it everywhere, lipstick rings around his dick, and all over Eames’ chin and holy fuck, eyes forward.
“I love dogs,” Arthur said after a slightly awkward pause. Holding his hand out to sniff, George seemed pleased with this, and butted his forehead against Arthur’s outstretched hand.
“Would you like to come inside for coffee? I live over that way. You look like you’ve been hard at work.” She tilted her head down the block and Arthur gave a wry smile.
“We should probably be heading back, there was a mix up in evidence and we need to sort it out before the evidence becomes inadmissible. Evidence laws are tricky things. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Westfield.”
“You’ve been very helpful.” Eames smiled at her easily.
“Lany, please.” She shook first Eames’ hand and then Arthur’s.
As they were walking back toward Eames’ car, he looked at Arthur sidelong. “You don’t like dogs.”
“I hate them,” Arthur agreed.
Eames dropped Arthur off at his office, leaning across the center panel and slightly into Arthur’s space, looking him in his eyes, and Arthur fought to urge to stare at his mouth, but it was right there, so close. So many things you could do with a mouth like that and shoulders that filled the space with their own presence; Arthur kept his composure by force of will alone.
“Look.” Arthur flicked his eyes to the radio instead, making sure it was dead. “The gun wasn’t in any police report.”
“I know,” Eames agreed. “I read them.”
“Is there something going on you’re not telling me about?” If he leaned away from Eames a little, well, it was for his peace of mind. Eames smelled spicy, like something warm and inviting. Besides it wasn’t likely to be noticed.
“There have been a few too many unsolved cases lately. Usually there are a few; there isn’t the time or the manpower to solve them all.” Arthur’s uncle had been a detective before corruption had forced him from the job; he knew the ins and outs of the police investigative process, but he kept quiet. “Anyways, Saito, my boss, is beginning to get suspicious, so he asked me to look into a few things.”
“You’re new, no ties, a spy.” Eames didn’t have the grace to look startled, in fact he looked pleased. “So you did look me up, I knew it.” Arthur gave him a pinched look.
“Essentially, yes. Just a watchdog, really. This case looked suspicious, so I started following the clues.”
“And me?”
“Well, I’m technically off the clock right now, keeps me from being bogged down with paper work, having some company is nice.” Arthur couldn’t be sure if he was being flirted with over death investigations or if maybe this was just the way Eames was. At least Ariandne was right, the police were not handling the investigation very well. When Arthur had time, he was going to look into her, see what her connection to James was; maybe something would come up there, but in his experience, usually the murderer didn’t go about hiring detectives to solve the case. “So, how about we pay a visit to forensics tomorrow? Yusuf would be the one she was talking about, he should be on shift tomorrow. Unless of course that isn’t your way.”
Arthur tried for a polite way to tell him to fuck off, failed. “Fuck off.”
Eames smiled at him, all teeth and wry amusement. “It’s a date then.”
Arthur didn’t look back when he climbed out of the car.
That night when he was showering, he imagined the set of Eames’ shoulders, and the way the dim light had hit the planes of his face when he was pressing Arthur to the wall. He looked dangerous in that moment, had proven himself to be a threat, and Arthur was helpless against the dizzying rush of lust, the way his pulse pounded in his ears and his dick got hard. Gritting his teeth, he pressed his forehead against the coolness of the tile wall; it fanned his hot breath back against his damp face and the warm water cascaded down his back, running down his legs like dancing fingertips and he wrapped his fingers around his cock, the heat of it against his palm. The water was slick, not quite slick enough, but it was okay.
It didn’t take too much anyway, just a montage of images flashing behind his eyelids, strong hands holding his hips and flattening him against something (anything would do), filthy cock-sucking mouth wrapped around his dick while one of those thick fingers opened him up, and he was coming, stomach going tight and back curling, making a mess of his hand.
Shit. Well, a fantasy was a fantasy and no one needed to know about it. Except that when Eames was looking at him Arthur wanted to squirm, he wanted to hide because those dark eyes were trying to undress him, to see all his hidden parts. No one was supposed to make Arthur feel that way; he had a reputation-- untouchable.
The next day Eames showed up again while Arthur was enjoying his morning coffee and skimming through the paper. He didn’t look any better than the day before, but at least he didn’t look any worse. At least there was that. The suit was dark, and the tie had cartoon cats on it. Arthur stared at it over the rim of his cup and Eames just smirked, smoothing it down against his chest like a taunt. There really wasn’t anything he could do about that.
He just sat there, fiddling with his phone while Arthur finished his coffee. He tried not to hurry, just to spite him, but he couldn’t help it.
“Shall we?” Eames held out his arm for Arthur.
“Yeah.” He just looked at the arm pointedly until Eames pulled it back, bowing slightly to let Arthur by. He probably shouldn’t be flattered by the attention or the teasing, but it was one of those willpower things and he needed to pick and chose his battles.
Eames parked in the basement, and they rode the elevators up to the fourth level. Uniformed patrol milled about, and it was like the police station from when Arthur was a kid, but it had been smaller, all men; now there were severe looking police women scattered about, trying to pull off the androgynous look so that assholes didn’t give them a hard time.
“I’ve just got to go to my desk and pick up the file folder, it’s good for waving about incriminatingly; works in interrogation and it should help with Yusuf.” Eames shrugged, and Arthur just followed him past a few doors that Eames swiped to open. Eames’ desk was surprisingly neat given the state of his suit. No photographs, just badly spelled sticky-notes trimming the overhead cabinet like a frill. Names, dates sometimes, and other times an acronym with a string of numbers underneath. He was going to comment on it, because Arthur was quickly learning that he should take every opportunity to insult Eames’ suit, if only for the fondly exasperated look the other man would give him.
“John? What are you doing here, isn’t it your day off?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Robert.” Eames smiled, loose and easy, friendly. Arthur gave Robert a quick once-over-- his suit was pressed perfectly, delicate facial structure, razor sharp cheekbones and big blue eyes. Arthur had every reason to like him, young, impossibly pretty, and well dressed. Instead he found himself annoyed with his very presence.
“I still have paper work left over from when I was sick, I came in today to do some of it.” Robert smiled at Eames, and Arthur imagined it wouldn’t take much at all for Eames to get such a pretty little twink in bed with him.
“Ah, yeah. I forgot some files I need to look over for the next court date, dropped in on my way to pick them up. Have you met Arthur?” Eames pulled Arthur forward, and he wasn’t sure what the jig was, but he was willing to play along. “Arthur, this is my partner, Detective Fischer.”
“Nice to meet you.” Arthur tipped his head politely, and looked to Eames for some cue on how to act. Eames was standing closer now, and he wouldn’t dare try something like that at a police station would he?
“Me and Arthur are heading out to a late lunch, maybe catch a movie.” He wiggled his eyebrows and Arthur didn’t need to fake looking offended, but Robert just chuckled, a soft breathy little sound, his blue eyes lighting up.
“I see. I’ll leave you to that. It was nice to meet you Arthur.” Detective Fischer was entirely too young and pretty and Arthur didn’t like him at all.
“Well that was unexpected,” Eames whispered near his ear, steering him into the alcove where his desk with a hand on his back; Arthur followed him for lack of any reason to resist. He dug through one of the locked drawers until he could pull out a thin file.
Arthur waited until they were alone in the elevator to give Eames a sceptical look, once arched eyebrow. Eames grinned at him unrepentantly.
“What?” Eames knew exactly what.
“You don’t trust your partner?” Arthur said instead, he wasn’t going near the other issue unless Eames dragged him to it. Best to just ignore that; there were a lot of things Arthur wanted to do to Eames and food and the cinema didn’t even register on that list.
“Don’t trust anyone, pet. I thought you’d approve, you’re still entirely too suspicious of me.”
“That’s because you’re shady.” Arthur managed before the elevator doors opened with a ding and let them out into the second floor where forensics had their offices and desks.
Arthur followed him through another series of magnetically locked doors and corridors that looked similar enough to confound someone who didn’t know where they were going. Either a very clever security measure or poor interior decorating skills, Arthur couldn’t be sure. Eames seemed to have an idea because he popped around a corner and pushed Arthur the other way, signalling with a nod to stand behind a cabinet, and pointed to a door off the other side of the intersection. From his hiding place Arthur could hear the exchange that followed.
“Yusuf on scene?” he asked.
“Nope, he’s in the labs fuming some fingerprints for Detective Woo’s case, you know the one with all the cans?”
“Right.” Eames nodded. “Want to let me in?”
There was a small mechanical beep, and the locks disengaged. Arthur waited; he peeked around the corner and Eames was looking through the small window beckoning for him. Arthur moved from his hiding spot quickly towards the door. Once it was closed behind him, Arthur leaned in close. “What, not allowed to bring your new boyfriend back here?”
“Oh, they’d probably disapprove.”
He checked the rooms one by one until they walked into a large room with a long metal bench covered in brown paper and a multitude of masonry jars in plastic bags. Yusuf wore a white lab coat, the wrists smudged with black powder. The radio was on, blasting techno, and Arthur arched an eyebrow at Eames. Eames smiled back at him. He hit the power button on the small boom box and Yusuf turned. “Ahh, Eames.” He looked at Arthur. “No regard for protocol as usual.”
“Don’t mind him.” It was probably best to let Eames handle this one; he had the home turf advantage, after all. “There is something I want to ask you about.”
“If it is about bowling next week, I’m off the day before, it’s all good.” Yusuf smiled, and he didn’t look like a dirty cop, but what, he forgot to log the evidence? And what about the investigating detective?
“No Yusuf, it isn’t about bowling.”
“Then what is it?” His eyes were large and dark, and his hair was messy, like he had been running his hands through it, and he just looked so harmless. Arthur knew better than anyone that looks were deceiving, but he also needed to get good at reading people and there was just something about Yusuf that set off little alarm bells. Not bad person alarm bells, but a person with a secret they were having trouble keeping.
“It’s about the James Smith case.”
There wasn’t anything quite as telling as the way that the colour just completely drained from his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with all the forced cheer he could manage. “Wasn’t that the case from last week? Eric processed the scene.”
“Now Yusuf, why do you lie to me?” Eames’ smile was soft but his voice was hard, cold. Arthur watched, impassive, when Yusuf sent a desperate glance his way. “I know about Mrs. Westfield and the gun. Mostly I want to know why.”
For a moment, Yusuf looked like he was going to keep trying, drawing himself up to his full height, but he wasn’t able to meet Eames’ eyes. He kept looking at the door, like maybe it would swing open and save him, but there was nothing but the hum of the tank behind him, the hiss of the cyano acrylate vaporizing and being vented across the items inside.
“The call came in, I don’t know who made it, but I was already out getting lunch so I went to pick it up.” Yusuf looked somewhere around Eames’ shoulder. He shook his head, running his hands through his hair, and the curls caught on the latex making the whole thing stand up in a bigger mess. “I got back and there was a message for me, I tried to trace it, but it came from in-house. Man, it said that they’d fire me if I finishing logging and processing it, and to leave out all the footprint analysis from my report. I got scared Eames. They included a copy of my restricted file, only brass can get their hands on that shit.”
“Tell me more.”
“There isn’t really any more. I couldn’t find anything, just the messages. I ran the gun anyways, and I’ve got the chain of custody papers, a thorough defence would contest it, but I do have them. I couldn’t... just. Fuck.” Yusuf stared hard at the table top. “I am in forensics to stay out of all this police politics shit.”
“Give me the evidence, and I’ll work the case.” Yusuf nodded, peeling off the blue gloves and tossing them.
“Do you believe him?” Arthur asked once Yusuf was out of earshot. Eames gave him a blank look.
“Unless I find evidence otherwise, he’s a brilliant guy, but not the best people skills. I wonder if he had the balls for something like this alone.”
“If you say so.”
Yusuf came back, holding a file folder. “I wasn’t sure what to do with the gun, so I kept it.” He handed it all over to Eames, looking relieved to be handing it off. “Trust me, I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know who to tell.” Eames didn’t say anything to that; Yusuf rolled his shoulders. “I’m losing my job either way.”
“Cheer up mate,” Eames said with a grin. “We’ve still got bowling next Thursday.”
“Fuck. You.” Yusuf said with a sour look and it startled a laugh out of Arthur.
~~
The gun had a history. Yusuf ran the comparisons himself (apparently late into the evening shift and under much duress). The reports were neat and tidy, all filled out.
Arthur read over them sitting in a cafe not too far from the police station. They didn’t have an excuse to hang around there anymore. Arthur didn’t ask what Eames was going to do about Yusuf because he really didn’t care. The gun was interesting; it matched an unrelated armed robbery a few years back. He looked up and caught Eames watching him over the rim of his tea cup.
Arthur arched a questioning eyebrow; he was pretty sure the plan was to not talk about it. Eames just smiled at him, loose and filthy-like. Arthur glared at him, shifting his attention back to the paper.
“It still doesn’t make any sense,” Arthur said, putting the papers down with a frown. The footprint analysis didn’t help a lot either; the soles were direct injected rubber, and they would be immediately able to match them to the prints if there was a comparison available. The prints had been destroyed when Arthur was looking at the scene; he wouldn’t have missed anything that obvious.
It was obvious, looking at the footprints, that James had known his attacker-- two pairs of shoes in the muddy field, one a pair of Italian loafers, and the other more generic trainers, Nike from the looks of the sole. Neither of them were running, and then James went down; there was no struggle, nothing, maybe he didn’t see it coming or didn’t believe that the other person would really pull the trigger. Arthur frowned.
He needed more information.
“Nope,” Eames agreed.
“Why hide this evidence if there isn’t any connection?” Arthur frowned, eyes scanning over and over the first page of the report.
“Well it must be there. Maybe we are still missing a few pieces.”
Arthur had a few ideas. But he couldn’t take Eames with him.
“I need to get going.” Arthur dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. He’d been eating a muffin while Eames read over the report first.
“That eager to be rid of me?” Eames looked up at him through his fan of long blond lashes.
“It’s Sunday, almost four,” he said in his most deadpan voice. “Mrs. McInnes has her palates classes. I need to see if I can’t get any good photos of the neighbour’s wife sneaking into their house to meet Mr. McInnes. My regular job.”
Eames made a face at him. “That sounds dreadfully boring.”
“It can’t be murder and intrigue all the time.”
He was lying through his teeth again, but Eames doesn’t need to know that. Arthur pushed in his chair and Eames was doing the same.
“At least let me drive you back to your office.”
He was about to get out of the car when Eames grabbed him, fingers circling his wrist, and Arthur had to suppress a shiver; he’d never thought of himself as delicate, but he couldn’t deny the way that Eames’ hand felt against his, competent and dangerous, a thrill of excitement, like your first smoke or your first blowjob. “Arthur.”
“Yeah?” Arthur looked at him, ignoring the way Eames’ eyes flicked down to his mouth, because as cliché as it was, that way madness lay. Maybe when the case was over, he’d put more thought into it, but as it was Eames was already inspiring a lot of bad decision making on his part.
“Never mind,” he said slowly, in the way that meant he obviously wanted to say something. Arthur shook his wrist free.
“Goodbye Mr. Eames.”
“Later,” Eames said; it sounded a lot like a promise.
Arthur needed to make sense of some of the clues, and the only way to do that would be to go to the source. So he called Ariadne and arranged a meeting, she agreed readily enough. Arthur had to assume she had been just waiting for him to catch up.
He had some time before he needed to leave to meet her, and he thought about digging into Eames’ history a little more aggressively. Everyone left a paper trail somewhere; it was just a matter of finding it. He had his doubts that ‘John’ was really his first name; it wasn’t anything solid, just a hunch born of someone with a similar philosophy. Arthur felt almost reluctant to, like that would be crossing some sort of intimacy line.
There was just something about Eames, something that made his stomach flutter and his mouth dry. He couldn’t be sure it was anything past professional respect and an intense urge to just fuck and gorge himself on that body until it hurt. But that was more than Arthur felt for most people, so it was probably a good place to start.
Arthur wondered if Eames had ever fucked Robert, made pretty little detective Fischer kneel and take it.
Arthur wondered what Eames would do if he asked him.
Arthur decided to leave early for his meeting. He needed to stretch his legs anyway.
Ariadne showed up early and standing she was even more petite than Arthur remembered. She didn’t seem to notice at all, enough confidence that it didn’t matter that she needed to talk up to Arthur.
“Making progress?”
“Of course.”
“I just need some more information on James.” It was unwise to show too much of his hand to anyone, even his client, until he absolutely needed to. Eames was probably right and he was overly suspicious, but in this case it was probably for the best. If it wasn’t dead mobsters, it was crooked cops. An arms race of information. Getting the whole story was the equivalent to being the fastest draw, or maybe more like poker.
“James was quiet, but he was sweet.” Ariadne didn’t look a whole lot older then James--what could the connection be? “You should probably ask his sister. Phillipa and James were close, she took care of him when he was getting back on his feet.”
“Phillipa?”
“Yeah, Phillipa Jones, she owns a bar.”
“Belle Rêve?” Ariadne looked startled for a second, and some of the clues were slotting into place.
“If she won’t talk, you can tell her I sent you.”
“That’s all?”
“Do you need anything more from me, Mr. Detective?” Ariandne gave him a long assessing look and Arthur couldn’t help but smile at her. She was obviously dangerous in her own way and he couldn’t help but respect that.
~~
Part 2
Pairing: Eames/Arthur
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Murder, D/s-y themes, light gunplay
Summary: Arthur is given a job he probably shouldn’t take, but where would the fun be in that? Murder, the mob, dirty cops, hidden identities, and one positively filthy cop, it’s all in a day’s work for a private dick.
ART POST: NSFW
Notes: First off, thanks to
track_04 for the beta and for being my own personal cheerleader. This is my first real Inception fic, and I hope I did this awesome fandom justice, and more importantly froggie my artist and her fabulous piece, I hope I managed to capture everything that was going on and convey it. Thanks for inspiring me bb. “I’d like to hire you.”
“Well yes, that is why most people come here. They need something.” He regarded her carefully. Overhead the fan spun lazily, making the air dance over his exposed forearms, leaning forward over his desk, all business. She met his stare unflinchingly, giving nothing away with her face, and Arthur couldn’t help but admire the strength he could see in the petite set of her shoulders and demure cut of her top. A wolf in sheep’s clothes if you will. “And what do you need?”
“I need to find who killed a man.” There was the faintest hint of French in her accent, barely there, slurring her Hs. Spoke French as a child, probably, mostly gone now. “I’ve heard that you are the best.”
Arthur wasn’t so sure whom she’d be hearing stuff like that from, but he nodded slowly, noting carefully the curl of her dark brown hair across the delicate planes of her face, the rest of it tied up. He would be able to recognize her again if he needed to, all pixie cheeks and large eyes. He’d had a bad feeling the moment she strode into his office, low heels clicking on the floor, strong and even stride, a woman who wasn’t scared of anything.
“The police usually handle that kind of thing.” They weren’t entirely incompetent, usually just busy and underfunded.
“The police are useless. They’ve already stopped investigating, the ‘trail has gone cold’. It has only been a month now.” Her mouth twisted and the only way to explain the look as ‘highly unimpressed’. “I need to know what happened to James.”
~~
She had given him no last name, ‘Ariadne’ only, and a roll of bills in lieu of a paper trail. Smart girl, smart girl who obviously didn’t want to be traced to this investigation; she left him a number if he needed anything more from her (obviously a disposable cellphone; she wasn’t going to trip up this early in the game.) ‘You’re the detective, go detect.’
If he had to take a guess, he’d say crime syndicate. Which one he couldn’t say, and in what capacity he had no idea yet. Still he was leery of helping her. That was the kind of business that bought you cement shoes and bad blood.
There was a huge part of him, the practical, responsible part that he wore like armour, which bled through in perfectly tailored slacks and the crisp folds in his jacket, that told him to call her back and tell her to find someone else, he wasn’t doing the dirty tango with the mob. These days the most excitement Arthur saw was following slightly overweight men as they chased their own excitement with women other than their wives.
It paid the bills. Kept his business running smoothly. Prim, practical Arthur was okay with that.
Arthur didn’t call.
No, instead he booted up his PC, not the old apple clunker he kept on the desk for show, but a machine as great and terrible as Frankenstein’s monster, hidden in the back room, cobbled together out of pieces of others, stitched and wired together until they all worked together in perfect harmony, maximizing speed and processing power. He couldn’t hack into the full Police intranet, but he could access their archive files.
James Smith died on the corner of Aurberdeen and Jackson, in an old parking lot. A passerby found the body early in the morning and police were called to the scene. He had been shot in the back twice and left for dead where he fell.
Arthur wandered the small lot; it had rained since then and there wasn’t even a rust stained smudge where his body had been. The scene matched up with the one described in the notes - there was a fence on the far side, dirt tracks for a car, the body had been far enough from the road and the lights that at night it would be pitch black.
The neighbourhood wasn’t in the best end of town. There wasn’t anything at the scene, no evidence of who had shot him and Arthur didn’t blame the police at all for giving up in the lack of evidence. Arthur looked around the lot for the next hour, picking through the garbage that lined the edges with the side-walk, news paper and soda cans, more cigarette butts. Nothing relevant to the scene at all. It wasn’t like he was expecting to find something forensics didn’t, especially not after so long.
There was more than one way to skin an investigation.
If you can’t profile the crime, profile the victim.
James Smith just appeared one day, popping onto the grid with a shiny new credit card and a police warning. No birth certificate, nothing prior to him at age 14. Arthur dug until it got dark (he drove a dark blue Mazda coupe, lived in an apartment not too far away and had no one listed as any emergency contact.) No history of finishing high school, and absolutely nothing helpful in any official records.
When it was suitably dark enough, Arthur drove out to James’ apartment building, parked around the block and strolled up to the short squat building. Old, but not trendy vintage, just beaten down. The mailboxes that lined the lobby were dented brass, and the carpet tried to hide the multitude of stains with a dizzying pattern of colours. The lock on the door to the lobby didn’t work, making it easy to just slip in like he belonged there. He spun his keys around his fingers as he took the stairs up to the third and top floor.
No one was around, the hall was empty, dully lit with yellow light from aged and stained glass coverings. More ugly utilitarian-bare carpeting, and that was all. Perfect.
The lock wasn’t too hard, a simple five tumbler system, each one clicking under his pick and it was no time at all before the handle was turning, rattling slightly in the old bracket but letting him into the small flat. Dark. The whole place smelled of fruit gone bad, a kitchen uncared for. Arthur frowned at the strong smell of decay. At least no one would have been through here to clean up any clues if they hadn’t bothered to take the basket of rotted peaches off the table.
This was how one really went about an investigation, breaking and entering, a spot of hacking. It wasn’t like he was constrained by the need to explain himself to the courts. If he ever did it wouldn’t be from the witness stand anyways. But James’ apartment was cautious with her secrets, the whole place was rather Spartan; everything was in its right place with a place for everything, lined up with military precision. Institutionalized, then. Often people left that sort of setting with a pathological need to impose that rigid order upon the world beyond the padded walls. That’s how people end up back there.
Arthur was gearing down to rip the place apart to find a clue when he found it. Next to the bed was an ash tray piled high with white powdery ash and slim butts, but more importantly, piled next to it was a stack of match books that all seemed to come from the same bar. It could be a clue, or it could just be a guy who grabbed a hand full of match books, but it was worth a shot.
~~
Belle Rêve, was a lot less classy than the name. The building was old, worn comfortably like Arthur’s jogging trainers. Everything else he owned was sharp, but those were worn and stained and comfy. Just like that everything about the bar was worn in around the edges, the neon signs in the window for different beers buzzed dully as moths beat themselves against them dumbly. There was a group of people smoking outside, a mix of young and old, voices all mingling in the stillness of the night air.
Arthur ran the edge of his nail over the flimsy cardboard cover of the matchbook in his pocket and slipped into the dimly lit bar. The place was long, extending to the back of the building across a small area of pool tables and booth seating. He slid through the sparse crowd, people yelling over the loud music and laughing in little clusters. The bar itself wasn’t too busy, the surface sticky under his fingertip, salt spilled across it like small galaxies in the inky blackness.
To one side was an older duo, a man and a woman just chatting, the man’s back all but turned to Arthur. His other side was a little more distracting. Blond, shoulders like a football player, all width and muscle. His t-shirt looked like it was having trouble containing him, stretched from one shoulder to the other and clinging on for dear life. Arthur wasn’t here cruising, but fuck, if he was. He would be all over that, thighs like a tree, and Arthur would climb him like one, pinning all that strength between his thighs. But life’s unfair, and he’s busy.
He was tapping the matchbook on the table top when the bartender finally wandered over to him. She was a petite woman with huge eyes and curly pale hair.
“A Strongbow please.” She was tall, willowy, and there was something familiar about her face, pretty but not distractingly so, maybe just one of those faces.
“Seven dollars.” She slid the pint towards him, and he leaned in, tilting his head in such a way that it made him look the right mix of non-aggressive and curious. Playing on his strengths, he couldn’t help the fact that he looked far younger then he was; she was wearing a wedding band, but that didn’t mean shit.
“I have some questions. Do you think you could help me?” He pushed the picture forwards before she could deny him. “I’m looking into the death of this man, do you recognize him?” He trailed off; her face had closed down completely when she saw the photograph, last call already. “I have reason to believe he came here.”
“Y-yeah. He was a regular here. Shitty tipper.” She wasn’t a very good liar.
“Did he hang out with anyone in particular? Do you remember the last time you saw him?”
“No, his friends aren’t here and I don’t know anything. Sorry I can’t be of more help.” Someone on the other side of the bar flagged, and she took off like a spooked animal. He left the whole twenty on the bar. Arthur’s father had been a government spook, cloaks and daggers and lies lies lies. The bartender wasn’t a particularly good liar and now Arthur just needed to work out how to get what she knew out of here. The bar hadn’t come up in the police report.
Arthur sipped his brew and tried to look like he fit in, elbows on the bar and watching the hockey game that was playing on the monitor above the bar. Mr. Buff and Beautiful had left, and Arthur missed the bit of eye candy he offered. He tended to spend his downtime fucking and researching. Building connections in places high and low, reading into forensics methods and psychology. He wouldn’t have minded to spend a few days losing himself with that one. Once he finished his beer, the crowd had really started going, and it was getting more packed, pressing him up against people and the hard edge of the stool he was perched on. There wasn’t anything more he could do here tonight. He could do some research into the police call record of the bar - maybe something would pop. Some odd complaint or something, or fishy record keeping.
For now it was time to go.
Arthur slipped out the side door, going to cut through the alley to his car when a low voice drawled from the end of the shadows.
“Hey there.”
Arthur was tempted to ignore it, but there was the guy from the bar, all broad shoulders and the most incredible mouth Arthur had ever seen on a man. He could be off the clock for the night. He tipped his head a little, trying not to be too obvious about sizing him up.
“Yes?” He’d been picked up by seedier men in seedier places; the evening could go either way still.
“Just a few questions.” He pushed off the wall and he was limber for his size, clearly trained in some martial art and not just a weight lifter. Really fucking hot, and dangerous. Arthur kept his stance relaxed; the exit to the alley wasn’t that far and he could run for it if he needed to. In an enclosed space his odds in a fight weren’t as good. All it would take was one good punch from those huge hands and Arthur would be stunned, and that really shouldn’t turn him on as much as it did. “What’s the James Smith case to you?”
Arthur frowned. “None of your business.”
“Oh darling, I beg to differ.” He took a step closer and Arthur was re-running the odds. He really didn’t want to ruin this sweater. “You see, I have a vested interest in this matter.”
“Not interested.” He was blocking Arthur’s path, and if he didn’t move Arthur was going to break his nose. “Leave me alone.”
“Not happening.”
Arthur threw the first punch. He wasn’t actually aiming to break his nose - not yet, anyway, because people always underestimated him - and then backed off once he bared his teeth. Of course it didn’t quite go according to plan; the other man took a quick step back, his boot scuffing loudly on the ground as he dodged the weight of the hit. Arthur wasn’t quite ready for that, pulled back too fast, center of gravity too far out over his feet. Usually that wouldn’t have been a problem; Arthur was lean and light, quick on his feet. What he didn’t account for was this man being a fighter, knowing when and how to press an opening.
Arthur’s back hit the wall with a rush that knocked the breath from him and he gasped for breath, pinned up against the wall. The rough brick was scraping at his sweater, and it was on. Arthur lashed out, bringing his elbows up. He wasn’t going to go easy anymore, clearly it wasn’t needed here. In an annoying show of strength, the other man caught his elbow but Arthur twisted, using the motion to use his other hand to jab at his ribs. It connected solidly, and he grunted, but it didn’t seem to slow him any. He literally just grabbed Arthur by the shoulders and gave him a solid shaking, which didn’t go over so well with Arthur.
He twisted, and he’d fight like a bitch if it helped him win, but the knee to the groin was anticipated and Arthur found himself with the rough grain of the brick digging into his face head spinning from being twisted around so roughtly, raising on his toes to try and ease the strain in his shoulder from being put in an arm lock. He was breathing hard, and forced himself to relax into the hold before he pulled anything in his shoulder.
“Now. Let’s try that again,” he said, too close to Arthur’s ear, and at least he sounded winded. “You’re going to tell me what you know about the James Smith case.”
“Let me go.” Arthur snarled, he couldn’t move, but fuck if he was going to give up.
“How about, we take a ride? I’ll take you down to the station where I can hold you until you feel more cooperative?”
“Why of course officer when you show me some credentials.”
“You’re not going to try and hit me if I let you go are you?” His voice was deep, unhurried and Arthur bristled, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. The officer let go of his arm first, but he was still a solid line of heat at Arthur’s back. He twisted so that his shoulders were pressed against the wall, and he was still too close, but now they were eye to eye. “Better?”
“Much.” Arthur bit out.
“Now, tell me, what is a pretty little thing like you doing investigating a death like this?”
“Let’s see your badge.” Arthur crossed his arms over his chest, pulling his spine straight so that he seemed taller, he had maybe an inch on him, and he was going to work that inch for all he could.
“Detective Eames.” The badge looked legit and Arthur squinted at him. Well shit.
“I was hired by a client to look into the matter,”Arthur said stiffly. “I don’t know anything about it. I just took the case.” He took his P.I.’s licence from his wallet and handed it over.
“Arthur is it?” His named rolled off his tongue like a wave, one long caress, which wasn’t fair in the least. “Let me guess, you’ll tell me as soon as you know something?” Eames gave him a look, let him know just what he thought of that.
“Of course,” he lied through his teeth, giving Eames a tight, annoyed smile.
~~
Arthur didn’t have a secretary, he had an espresso machine. Overall it was far more efficient and complained less about his harsh manner. He was quite possibly even worse in the mornings; it wasn’t that he was grumpy, he was just a lot less happy to be doing stuff than, say, later, when Arthur had had his morning Americano.
When Detective Eames showed up bright and early at 9 am when Arthur was just starting to dig into some files he was less than impressed.
“Did you sleep in that suit?” he hissed. Eames looked different by daylight, wearing an ill fitting grey suit, with a truly hideous green and mauve striped tie.
“Something wrong with it?” Eames ran his hand down the front, over where it was faintly creased.
“Of course not. Can I help you?” Arthur seriously hoped not, but that would be too good to be true.
“I looked you up last night.” Eames sat down in the chair for visitors, sprawling his legs and looking at Arthur across the desk. “You’re an interesting guy.”
“Not really.” It would have been too obvious to wipe only the electronic records when paper records still existed, so he would need to wait until the eight year record period was up to completely purge his trail from the police system. The case had mob written on it in glittery letters, and if the police were sniffing around it was about to make Arthur’s job that much harder. He didn’t need Eames involved, the hassle far outweighed any potential sex they could have.
“But you are, no imagination.” He ran his eyes slowly and obviously down Arthur’s slicked back hair to the tailored fit of his shirt, indicating with one hand his entire office.
“Is there a reason you’re here?”
“Of course.” Eames smiled at him, and for a moment Arthur was struck by how at ease Eames looked, the sprawl of his legs and the loose set of his shoulders. Any normal man who had read his file would have been at least a little cautious. There was more to this man then Arthur could see, so much more, like the placid surface of a lake, and then he would be distracted by how badly the tie managed to clash with itself. “I want your help.”
“My... help?”
“Yeah. With a record like yours, I assume you know the contents of the police record already?” Eames smirked at him, daring him to deny it. Arthur said nothing. “Even you had to realize there was something off with the way the case was handled. There is something going on here, and I want to find out what.”
“And you need my help?”
“We’re both after the same thing, I want to know what happened to James Smith and so do you, besides, wouldn’t it be nice to do something legally for once?”
“I’m pretty sure sharing documents with me is illegal.” Eames grinned at him. “At the very least unethical.”
“Now, no one needs to know about that, besides it’s not like you wouldn’t go get them yourself. So, really, it’s like it never happened.” Arthur was quite sure that it didn’t quite work that way, but Eames didn’t seem to be the type to be dissuaded easily. Still, working with him could get him in trouble, entrapment and all that. “You look like you don’t trust me.”
“I don’t.” Arthur shook his head; it was nothing personal, he just didn’t trust a lot of people.
“I’m wounded. We’re both investigating the same thing, only I have a badge and people are going to talk to me.” Arthur snorted at that, but Eames was giving him this look, amused and curious, and Arthur figured that he really didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. It would mess up his plans a bit, but it couldn’t hurt to have Eames on his side. It’s not like he didn’t look him up himself last night, in the event they ran into each other again.
Detective Jonathan Eames, suspiciously clean record, made detective young and recently transferred in for unspecified reasons. All in all, nothing but a name, a birth date and social, and he couldn’t be sure those were real either. Arthur knew another ghost when he saw one.
“Or we could just agree to stay out of each other’s way, but where is the fun in that?”
Arthur could very rarely be accused of making rash decisions; he was a straight shooter, practical to a tee, and more than capable. He didn’t do things for the fun in them. But this was one of those times, those rare times where Arthur did something because it looked like a good time. Because the edges all around Eames looked rough and Arthur kind of just wanted to rub himself up against them to see what it would feel like. “Okay.”
“Good.”
“But.” Because Arthur won’t give in that easily, to anyone. “We do things my way, and you don’t get to complain, because you asked for this.”
“Now that depends, if you’re going to do them the right way or not.” Arthur wondered if he might be able to get away with shooting him somewhere non-vital.
The crime scene looked a lot like it did when Arthur was there yesterday, but now Eames was poking around the edges, toeing things with the tip of his shoe and glancing at Arthur every now and then. Arthur had been thorough when he went over this yesterday, and he was beginning to get the feeling that there was just nothing to be found here. Maybe it wasn’t just shitty police work and this was just an impossible case.
“Excuse me!” A middle aged woman was waving at him, her dog sniffing at a clump of weeds on the side of the road intently. Closer, she didn’t seem as old as he had thought, track pants and a simple t-shirt. “Are you the police?”
“Yeah.” Close enough, anyways. Eames flashed his badge and she nodded, clearly appeased.
“Have you found out what happened to him yet? Just awful, scared me so bad.”
“We’re going over the initial investigation looking for leads,” Eames said, smoothly, all small, flirty half smiles and Arthur watched her melt all over herself. Not that Arthur could entirely blame her - his smooth tone was soothing, it rumbled from his chest like something alive.
“Do you know anything about the investigation?” Arthur tipped his head, smiling politely.
“I told the other cop what I saw.”
“As I said, we’re going over the evidence; it would be a great help if you could just tell us.” It wasn’t the first time he had impersonated a cop to get what he wanted, just the first time he had an actual badge to back it up.
“I called them when George here found the gun, and they came and took it away. I didn’t hear anything, just knew something was wrong when they started putting up all the tape.”
“George?” Eames quirked an eyebrow and Arthur was actually impressed he didn’t give anything away with his face or his tone. There was no mention of any gun in any of the reports.
“This is George.” The mid-sized poodle looked a bit messy, fur grown too long, and it looked at Arthur, huge brown eyes, tongue lolling from its open mouth. He hated dogs, they were messy and a waste of time and space. Huge, stupid eyes. “He found it when we were out for a walk.”
“I see.” Arthur hummed.
“Did the officer take your information?” Arthur flipped open his note book. “I think it might have been taken down wrong, could I get it again?”
“Of course.” She listed off her name, address and phone number, helpfully.
“Could you tell me what the officer who came to collect it looked like?” Eames’ smile went a long way to gloss over the oddness of the question; Arthur doubted she even registered what she was answering anymore.
“Brown-guy, curly hair.” With her free hand she sort of gestured at her head, as if to show what curly hair was like. George was still staring at Arthur, and he was doing his best to just ignore it.
“Ah, forensics. Of course, that explains the mix up.” Eames nodded, expression shifting to something harder. Arthur caught the change out of the corner of his eye, he doubted she noticed at all.
“George seems to like you.” She looked up at Arthur, coy smile on the edges of her mouth, and Arthur hated to admit it even to himself, but Eames' mouth was more lush, full and tempting. It made every one of his quirking little smirks into a tease, and if he wore the same orangey lipstick that Mrs. Westfeild was wearing, Arthur might just need to bite there, at the fleshy part of his bottom lip. If Eames wore lipstick Arthur would smear it everywhere, lipstick rings around his dick, and all over Eames’ chin and holy fuck, eyes forward.
“I love dogs,” Arthur said after a slightly awkward pause. Holding his hand out to sniff, George seemed pleased with this, and butted his forehead against Arthur’s outstretched hand.
“Would you like to come inside for coffee? I live over that way. You look like you’ve been hard at work.” She tilted her head down the block and Arthur gave a wry smile.
“We should probably be heading back, there was a mix up in evidence and we need to sort it out before the evidence becomes inadmissible. Evidence laws are tricky things. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Westfield.”
“You’ve been very helpful.” Eames smiled at her easily.
“Lany, please.” She shook first Eames’ hand and then Arthur’s.
As they were walking back toward Eames’ car, he looked at Arthur sidelong. “You don’t like dogs.”
“I hate them,” Arthur agreed.
Eames dropped Arthur off at his office, leaning across the center panel and slightly into Arthur’s space, looking him in his eyes, and Arthur fought to urge to stare at his mouth, but it was right there, so close. So many things you could do with a mouth like that and shoulders that filled the space with their own presence; Arthur kept his composure by force of will alone.
“Look.” Arthur flicked his eyes to the radio instead, making sure it was dead. “The gun wasn’t in any police report.”
“I know,” Eames agreed. “I read them.”
“Is there something going on you’re not telling me about?” If he leaned away from Eames a little, well, it was for his peace of mind. Eames smelled spicy, like something warm and inviting. Besides it wasn’t likely to be noticed.
“There have been a few too many unsolved cases lately. Usually there are a few; there isn’t the time or the manpower to solve them all.” Arthur’s uncle had been a detective before corruption had forced him from the job; he knew the ins and outs of the police investigative process, but he kept quiet. “Anyways, Saito, my boss, is beginning to get suspicious, so he asked me to look into a few things.”
“You’re new, no ties, a spy.” Eames didn’t have the grace to look startled, in fact he looked pleased. “So you did look me up, I knew it.” Arthur gave him a pinched look.
“Essentially, yes. Just a watchdog, really. This case looked suspicious, so I started following the clues.”
“And me?”
“Well, I’m technically off the clock right now, keeps me from being bogged down with paper work, having some company is nice.” Arthur couldn’t be sure if he was being flirted with over death investigations or if maybe this was just the way Eames was. At least Ariandne was right, the police were not handling the investigation very well. When Arthur had time, he was going to look into her, see what her connection to James was; maybe something would come up there, but in his experience, usually the murderer didn’t go about hiring detectives to solve the case. “So, how about we pay a visit to forensics tomorrow? Yusuf would be the one she was talking about, he should be on shift tomorrow. Unless of course that isn’t your way.”
Arthur tried for a polite way to tell him to fuck off, failed. “Fuck off.”
Eames smiled at him, all teeth and wry amusement. “It’s a date then.”
Arthur didn’t look back when he climbed out of the car.
That night when he was showering, he imagined the set of Eames’ shoulders, and the way the dim light had hit the planes of his face when he was pressing Arthur to the wall. He looked dangerous in that moment, had proven himself to be a threat, and Arthur was helpless against the dizzying rush of lust, the way his pulse pounded in his ears and his dick got hard. Gritting his teeth, he pressed his forehead against the coolness of the tile wall; it fanned his hot breath back against his damp face and the warm water cascaded down his back, running down his legs like dancing fingertips and he wrapped his fingers around his cock, the heat of it against his palm. The water was slick, not quite slick enough, but it was okay.
It didn’t take too much anyway, just a montage of images flashing behind his eyelids, strong hands holding his hips and flattening him against something (anything would do), filthy cock-sucking mouth wrapped around his dick while one of those thick fingers opened him up, and he was coming, stomach going tight and back curling, making a mess of his hand.
Shit. Well, a fantasy was a fantasy and no one needed to know about it. Except that when Eames was looking at him Arthur wanted to squirm, he wanted to hide because those dark eyes were trying to undress him, to see all his hidden parts. No one was supposed to make Arthur feel that way; he had a reputation-- untouchable.
The next day Eames showed up again while Arthur was enjoying his morning coffee and skimming through the paper. He didn’t look any better than the day before, but at least he didn’t look any worse. At least there was that. The suit was dark, and the tie had cartoon cats on it. Arthur stared at it over the rim of his cup and Eames just smirked, smoothing it down against his chest like a taunt. There really wasn’t anything he could do about that.
He just sat there, fiddling with his phone while Arthur finished his coffee. He tried not to hurry, just to spite him, but he couldn’t help it.
“Shall we?” Eames held out his arm for Arthur.
“Yeah.” He just looked at the arm pointedly until Eames pulled it back, bowing slightly to let Arthur by. He probably shouldn’t be flattered by the attention or the teasing, but it was one of those willpower things and he needed to pick and chose his battles.
Eames parked in the basement, and they rode the elevators up to the fourth level. Uniformed patrol milled about, and it was like the police station from when Arthur was a kid, but it had been smaller, all men; now there were severe looking police women scattered about, trying to pull off the androgynous look so that assholes didn’t give them a hard time.
“I’ve just got to go to my desk and pick up the file folder, it’s good for waving about incriminatingly; works in interrogation and it should help with Yusuf.” Eames shrugged, and Arthur just followed him past a few doors that Eames swiped to open. Eames’ desk was surprisingly neat given the state of his suit. No photographs, just badly spelled sticky-notes trimming the overhead cabinet like a frill. Names, dates sometimes, and other times an acronym with a string of numbers underneath. He was going to comment on it, because Arthur was quickly learning that he should take every opportunity to insult Eames’ suit, if only for the fondly exasperated look the other man would give him.
“John? What are you doing here, isn’t it your day off?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Robert.” Eames smiled, loose and easy, friendly. Arthur gave Robert a quick once-over-- his suit was pressed perfectly, delicate facial structure, razor sharp cheekbones and big blue eyes. Arthur had every reason to like him, young, impossibly pretty, and well dressed. Instead he found himself annoyed with his very presence.
“I still have paper work left over from when I was sick, I came in today to do some of it.” Robert smiled at Eames, and Arthur imagined it wouldn’t take much at all for Eames to get such a pretty little twink in bed with him.
“Ah, yeah. I forgot some files I need to look over for the next court date, dropped in on my way to pick them up. Have you met Arthur?” Eames pulled Arthur forward, and he wasn’t sure what the jig was, but he was willing to play along. “Arthur, this is my partner, Detective Fischer.”
“Nice to meet you.” Arthur tipped his head politely, and looked to Eames for some cue on how to act. Eames was standing closer now, and he wouldn’t dare try something like that at a police station would he?
“Me and Arthur are heading out to a late lunch, maybe catch a movie.” He wiggled his eyebrows and Arthur didn’t need to fake looking offended, but Robert just chuckled, a soft breathy little sound, his blue eyes lighting up.
“I see. I’ll leave you to that. It was nice to meet you Arthur.” Detective Fischer was entirely too young and pretty and Arthur didn’t like him at all.
“Well that was unexpected,” Eames whispered near his ear, steering him into the alcove where his desk with a hand on his back; Arthur followed him for lack of any reason to resist. He dug through one of the locked drawers until he could pull out a thin file.
Arthur waited until they were alone in the elevator to give Eames a sceptical look, once arched eyebrow. Eames grinned at him unrepentantly.
“What?” Eames knew exactly what.
“You don’t trust your partner?” Arthur said instead, he wasn’t going near the other issue unless Eames dragged him to it. Best to just ignore that; there were a lot of things Arthur wanted to do to Eames and food and the cinema didn’t even register on that list.
“Don’t trust anyone, pet. I thought you’d approve, you’re still entirely too suspicious of me.”
“That’s because you’re shady.” Arthur managed before the elevator doors opened with a ding and let them out into the second floor where forensics had their offices and desks.
Arthur followed him through another series of magnetically locked doors and corridors that looked similar enough to confound someone who didn’t know where they were going. Either a very clever security measure or poor interior decorating skills, Arthur couldn’t be sure. Eames seemed to have an idea because he popped around a corner and pushed Arthur the other way, signalling with a nod to stand behind a cabinet, and pointed to a door off the other side of the intersection. From his hiding place Arthur could hear the exchange that followed.
“Yusuf on scene?” he asked.
“Nope, he’s in the labs fuming some fingerprints for Detective Woo’s case, you know the one with all the cans?”
“Right.” Eames nodded. “Want to let me in?”
There was a small mechanical beep, and the locks disengaged. Arthur waited; he peeked around the corner and Eames was looking through the small window beckoning for him. Arthur moved from his hiding spot quickly towards the door. Once it was closed behind him, Arthur leaned in close. “What, not allowed to bring your new boyfriend back here?”
“Oh, they’d probably disapprove.”
He checked the rooms one by one until they walked into a large room with a long metal bench covered in brown paper and a multitude of masonry jars in plastic bags. Yusuf wore a white lab coat, the wrists smudged with black powder. The radio was on, blasting techno, and Arthur arched an eyebrow at Eames. Eames smiled back at him. He hit the power button on the small boom box and Yusuf turned. “Ahh, Eames.” He looked at Arthur. “No regard for protocol as usual.”
“Don’t mind him.” It was probably best to let Eames handle this one; he had the home turf advantage, after all. “There is something I want to ask you about.”
“If it is about bowling next week, I’m off the day before, it’s all good.” Yusuf smiled, and he didn’t look like a dirty cop, but what, he forgot to log the evidence? And what about the investigating detective?
“No Yusuf, it isn’t about bowling.”
“Then what is it?” His eyes were large and dark, and his hair was messy, like he had been running his hands through it, and he just looked so harmless. Arthur knew better than anyone that looks were deceiving, but he also needed to get good at reading people and there was just something about Yusuf that set off little alarm bells. Not bad person alarm bells, but a person with a secret they were having trouble keeping.
“It’s about the James Smith case.”
There wasn’t anything quite as telling as the way that the colour just completely drained from his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with all the forced cheer he could manage. “Wasn’t that the case from last week? Eric processed the scene.”
“Now Yusuf, why do you lie to me?” Eames’ smile was soft but his voice was hard, cold. Arthur watched, impassive, when Yusuf sent a desperate glance his way. “I know about Mrs. Westfield and the gun. Mostly I want to know why.”
For a moment, Yusuf looked like he was going to keep trying, drawing himself up to his full height, but he wasn’t able to meet Eames’ eyes. He kept looking at the door, like maybe it would swing open and save him, but there was nothing but the hum of the tank behind him, the hiss of the cyano acrylate vaporizing and being vented across the items inside.
“The call came in, I don’t know who made it, but I was already out getting lunch so I went to pick it up.” Yusuf looked somewhere around Eames’ shoulder. He shook his head, running his hands through his hair, and the curls caught on the latex making the whole thing stand up in a bigger mess. “I got back and there was a message for me, I tried to trace it, but it came from in-house. Man, it said that they’d fire me if I finishing logging and processing it, and to leave out all the footprint analysis from my report. I got scared Eames. They included a copy of my restricted file, only brass can get their hands on that shit.”
“Tell me more.”
“There isn’t really any more. I couldn’t find anything, just the messages. I ran the gun anyways, and I’ve got the chain of custody papers, a thorough defence would contest it, but I do have them. I couldn’t... just. Fuck.” Yusuf stared hard at the table top. “I am in forensics to stay out of all this police politics shit.”
“Give me the evidence, and I’ll work the case.” Yusuf nodded, peeling off the blue gloves and tossing them.
“Do you believe him?” Arthur asked once Yusuf was out of earshot. Eames gave him a blank look.
“Unless I find evidence otherwise, he’s a brilliant guy, but not the best people skills. I wonder if he had the balls for something like this alone.”
“If you say so.”
Yusuf came back, holding a file folder. “I wasn’t sure what to do with the gun, so I kept it.” He handed it all over to Eames, looking relieved to be handing it off. “Trust me, I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know who to tell.” Eames didn’t say anything to that; Yusuf rolled his shoulders. “I’m losing my job either way.”
“Cheer up mate,” Eames said with a grin. “We’ve still got bowling next Thursday.”
“Fuck. You.” Yusuf said with a sour look and it startled a laugh out of Arthur.
~~
The gun had a history. Yusuf ran the comparisons himself (apparently late into the evening shift and under much duress). The reports were neat and tidy, all filled out.
Arthur read over them sitting in a cafe not too far from the police station. They didn’t have an excuse to hang around there anymore. Arthur didn’t ask what Eames was going to do about Yusuf because he really didn’t care. The gun was interesting; it matched an unrelated armed robbery a few years back. He looked up and caught Eames watching him over the rim of his tea cup.
Arthur arched a questioning eyebrow; he was pretty sure the plan was to not talk about it. Eames just smiled at him, loose and filthy-like. Arthur glared at him, shifting his attention back to the paper.
“It still doesn’t make any sense,” Arthur said, putting the papers down with a frown. The footprint analysis didn’t help a lot either; the soles were direct injected rubber, and they would be immediately able to match them to the prints if there was a comparison available. The prints had been destroyed when Arthur was looking at the scene; he wouldn’t have missed anything that obvious.
It was obvious, looking at the footprints, that James had known his attacker-- two pairs of shoes in the muddy field, one a pair of Italian loafers, and the other more generic trainers, Nike from the looks of the sole. Neither of them were running, and then James went down; there was no struggle, nothing, maybe he didn’t see it coming or didn’t believe that the other person would really pull the trigger. Arthur frowned.
He needed more information.
“Nope,” Eames agreed.
“Why hide this evidence if there isn’t any connection?” Arthur frowned, eyes scanning over and over the first page of the report.
“Well it must be there. Maybe we are still missing a few pieces.”
Arthur had a few ideas. But he couldn’t take Eames with him.
“I need to get going.” Arthur dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. He’d been eating a muffin while Eames read over the report first.
“That eager to be rid of me?” Eames looked up at him through his fan of long blond lashes.
“It’s Sunday, almost four,” he said in his most deadpan voice. “Mrs. McInnes has her palates classes. I need to see if I can’t get any good photos of the neighbour’s wife sneaking into their house to meet Mr. McInnes. My regular job.”
Eames made a face at him. “That sounds dreadfully boring.”
“It can’t be murder and intrigue all the time.”
He was lying through his teeth again, but Eames doesn’t need to know that. Arthur pushed in his chair and Eames was doing the same.
“At least let me drive you back to your office.”
He was about to get out of the car when Eames grabbed him, fingers circling his wrist, and Arthur had to suppress a shiver; he’d never thought of himself as delicate, but he couldn’t deny the way that Eames’ hand felt against his, competent and dangerous, a thrill of excitement, like your first smoke or your first blowjob. “Arthur.”
“Yeah?” Arthur looked at him, ignoring the way Eames’ eyes flicked down to his mouth, because as cliché as it was, that way madness lay. Maybe when the case was over, he’d put more thought into it, but as it was Eames was already inspiring a lot of bad decision making on his part.
“Never mind,” he said slowly, in the way that meant he obviously wanted to say something. Arthur shook his wrist free.
“Goodbye Mr. Eames.”
“Later,” Eames said; it sounded a lot like a promise.
Arthur needed to make sense of some of the clues, and the only way to do that would be to go to the source. So he called Ariadne and arranged a meeting, she agreed readily enough. Arthur had to assume she had been just waiting for him to catch up.
He had some time before he needed to leave to meet her, and he thought about digging into Eames’ history a little more aggressively. Everyone left a paper trail somewhere; it was just a matter of finding it. He had his doubts that ‘John’ was really his first name; it wasn’t anything solid, just a hunch born of someone with a similar philosophy. Arthur felt almost reluctant to, like that would be crossing some sort of intimacy line.
There was just something about Eames, something that made his stomach flutter and his mouth dry. He couldn’t be sure it was anything past professional respect and an intense urge to just fuck and gorge himself on that body until it hurt. But that was more than Arthur felt for most people, so it was probably a good place to start.
Arthur wondered if Eames had ever fucked Robert, made pretty little detective Fischer kneel and take it.
Arthur wondered what Eames would do if he asked him.
Arthur decided to leave early for his meeting. He needed to stretch his legs anyway.
Ariadne showed up early and standing she was even more petite than Arthur remembered. She didn’t seem to notice at all, enough confidence that it didn’t matter that she needed to talk up to Arthur.
“Making progress?”
“Of course.”
“I just need some more information on James.” It was unwise to show too much of his hand to anyone, even his client, until he absolutely needed to. Eames was probably right and he was overly suspicious, but in this case it was probably for the best. If it wasn’t dead mobsters, it was crooked cops. An arms race of information. Getting the whole story was the equivalent to being the fastest draw, or maybe more like poker.
“James was quiet, but he was sweet.” Ariadne didn’t look a whole lot older then James--what could the connection be? “You should probably ask his sister. Phillipa and James were close, she took care of him when he was getting back on his feet.”
“Phillipa?”
“Yeah, Phillipa Jones, she owns a bar.”
“Belle Rêve?” Ariadne looked startled for a second, and some of the clues were slotting into place.
“If she won’t talk, you can tell her I sent you.”
“That’s all?”
“Do you need anything more from me, Mr. Detective?” Ariandne gave him a long assessing look and Arthur couldn’t help but smile at her. She was obviously dangerous in her own way and he couldn’t help but respect that.
~~
Part 2
