Chapter Text
Arthur pulled the pill bottle out of his duffle and counted the pills again. The number still hadn't changed if they didn't get out of this safe house soon everyone was going to be finding out Arthur’s not-so little secret.
A week earlier, when Arthur had received the report they had been made, Arthur had quickly cleaned up the hotel they had been meeting in, retrieved Ariadne, and headed for the safe house. Eames who Arthur had called was already here, setting up. Unfortunately working out of a small island country in the south pacific had some disadvantages, one of those being that, when you get made pulling an extraction on a militant dictator, they have the ability to suspend international travel and set every police man in the city on a mission to hunt you down. However, Arthur knew they couldn't suspend international travel for much longer, as this was a popular tourist destination and word from Arthur’s sources was that people were starting to figure out something was up, but as for Arthur with just 5 pills left his days were numbered at 3.
Arthur heard footsteps outside his door and quickly shoved the bottle back into the bag, and stuffed it back under the bed. Arthur could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up sensing the approaching Alpha.
Quickly moving to dresser across the room, he angled himself so that he was partially facing Eames as he pushed the door open with a quick tap to announce his presence.
Arthur could see the smirk on his face, as he walked into the room like he owned it. Arthur fought to roll his eyes at the typical Alpha behavior, behavior he found annoying along with the aggressiveness and ego that went along with typical Alpha bravado. Arthur, though he abhors Alphas as a whole, has realized that, much to his mortification, Eames has made himself into an exception to the rule. He knows that Eames would revel in that fact, and it is the second most important secret he keeps hidden.
Eames didn't even stop and immediately slid into Arthur’s personal space, which led to Arthur whipping his head to the door which had conveniently been nudged closed by Eames as he sauntered in.
“Darling” Eames purred, just inches from his ear.
“Mr. Eames, I am not here for your personal entertainment. I told you earlier that no ‘shagging our brains out’ is not how I want to fill the time between now and our eventual freedom. Besides I don’t think that Ariadne would approve.”
“Oh Darling, but Ariadne wouldn’t care, actually it would give her a subject to gossip to Yusuf about when they catch up after this is all over.”
As Eames spoke he stepped closer to Arthur, putting a proprietary hand on Arthur’s hip and letting his lips lightly brush Arthur’s ear. So close that when Arthur allowed himself to give into biology for once and sink into the Alpha’s embrace he could feel the smug expression on Eames’s face.
“Ah, there we are.” Eames breathed out.
Arthur immediately straightened up and put inches between himself and Eames.
“Ariadne, would most certainly care. This place has two rooms, and paper thin walls.” Arthur turned to the door, but stopped short before he left the room. “And why is Ariadne gossiping with Yusuf?”
Arthur really didn’t expect an answer to that and continued out into the kitchen-living area, that had a small door off to one side leading to the squatting toilet, and another door heading to the outside. Arthur stared at that door for a moment, wondering if there was any way for him to get a note out, unfortunately the only person who knew about him was Cobb and that would bring far too much trouble to Cobb at the moment for him to risk. Arthur would just have to hope that he could figure a way out of this before those pills ran out.
Arthur spotted Ariadne sitting on the couch.
“So, you’ve been talking to Yusuf?”
Ariadne raised an eyebrow as she looked up from some random airport novel that Arthur’s sure she stole from Eames.
“Yes, he is the biggest gossip in the dreamshare community, and he keeps me informed of everything that’s going on. Plus, unlike some people, he doesn’t think of me as a naïve child.”
“Thinking you didn’t need to get involved in this job was not thinking of you as a naïve child. I was trying to protect you from this…” Arthur gestured to the room and sighed. “I don’t even know when we are going to get out of this. Cobb wouldn’t want you to end up on Interpol’s most wanted list.”
Ariadne scoffed, “If not for Cobb I would never have even heard of dreamshare, let alone that he is responsible for my first venture into a career as an international criminal. Besides I needed something to do during my holidays anyway, my next seminar doesn’t start until next month. And on that note, when do we expect to get out of here?”
Arthur looked thoughtful for a moment before answering, “To be honest I’m not sure, I talked to a couple contacts this morning but it would be better if we are not seen in the city or attempting to leave the country on any of the identities we are currently using. They are combing the streets pretty heavily for ‘us’ at the moment, though we are lucky according to my research they don’t know who ‘we’ are. I’m not even sure if they know how many of us there are, they did find the hotel room that we were using but I had enough time to remove anything from the room that would have given us away.”
Ariadne hummed her approval and went back to her book. Arthur quickly realized that he had been dismissed. His fingers itched to do something, and he retrieved his laptop bag from beside the couch before moving it over to the kitchen. He had no internet access but at least he could use Minesweeper to keep himself occupied.
Arthur hadn’t been playing long before Eames found his way into the room, his highly accurate internal alarm to his presence in his vicinity tipping him off even before Eames made a single sound. He watched from the corner of his eye as the Alpha proceeded to practically plant himself on top of Ariadne’s feet where they had been perched on the couch.
“Ariadne, you must tell me what did you think of our dear Arthur when you first met him?”
Arthur turned and glared at Eames as he asked this question, who just smiled back as innocently as he could. This was a remarkable failure for someone who was such an excellent forger and thief.
Ariadne briefly looked up at Arthur with an evil glint in her eye before answering, “Well, at first meeting due to his surly attitude, anal retentiveness, and rather handsomely tailored, and appropriate, power suits.”
Ariadne actually had the gall to wink at Eames following that. “I thought he was an Alpha. Imagine my shock when I came to realize that he was a beta, like me, but a beta who could keep big, strong Alphas under his thumb.”
At that she poked Eames with her toes for emphasis.
“Ariadne, our dear Arthur does not have me ‘under his thumb’ as you say.”
“Right.” Ariadne scoffed at the attempted defense.
Eames just ignored her and started talking again. “See when I first met Arthur I apparently saw someone completely different than the rest of you. You, Cobb, Yusuf, and many others all of the same opinion of Arthur, and all of you seemed to think he was an Alpha. Now myself on the other hand I believed something completely different of our dear Arthur. See even with that very large stick lodged so delicately in his arse, our Arthur seems like the most suitable Omega mate to my Alpha.”
Arthur didn’t even flinch, he just continued to glare at Eames. And after a moment hesitation where Eames had met Arthur’s eyes, he turned back towards Ariadne and gave her a wink. Ariadne of course at this point burst into laughter.
Eames just turned back towards Arthur with this annoying little knowing grin on his face. Arthur just continued to glare.