Fic: Mr. Eames and The Third Eye - Part 2
Title: Mr. Eames and The Third Eye (wip)
Author: avocado_love
Team: Angst
Prompt(s): Naked, Horizon, Natural
Word count: 2,500 (this chapter)
Rating: PG-13 (eventual NC-17)
Warnings: Character death in this chapter (Mal)
Notes: Based off of this prompt in the Kink Meme. This chapter is light-ish on angst right now, but expect more in the following chapters.
Summary: After a near fatal reaction to a bad somnacin mixture, Eames wakes up with the ability to see auras.
Part 1 |
*****
Cobb's newest point man's aura was gold.
Eames had seen golden auras before, on rare occasions, but none quite like this. Arthur's was the shade of burnished honey, but with a richness Eames had once only seen in a hundred-pound-a-glass finely aged Tokay. Whorls of bronze made a graceful marbling pattern through the lighter amber, giving the impression of both depth and competence. And all of it was backlit by a low, almost indefinable glow coming from within.
For the first time since he had learned to see, Eames wanted to run his fingers through that aura, find how that complex gold felt against his own reflective nature.
It took a few seconds to realize that the man underneath was rather fetching, as well. He was dressed in a three piece suit, as neat as a new pin, and young - although Eames still balked a little inside at identifying anyone around twenty-five as young - with brown, neatly combed back hair, matching brown eyes and a handsome, if serious, face.
"I'm-" Eames was about to introduce himself, then remembered belatedly that Cobb already had. "Pleased to meet you, Arthur. I've heard good things from Mal, here."
Arthur shook his hand in return and smiled politely. The bronze marbling moved through the amber aura in a slow shifting pattern, never the same from one moment to the next, as if the man was taking in details of his environment and actively thinking. "Likewise," Arthur said, expression betraying nothing. Then he turned away from Eames, all business, and pulled out what looked to be a thick dossier to hand to Cobb.
He had a nice ass, too, Eames noticed. He returned to his seat, feeling a bit clobbered.
As Cobb started the initial meeting, outlining what the client wanted from them, the job and the main objectives, Eames found himself listening with half an ear: he would pick up what he needed later on.
Gold, he thought, rolling it around in his mind. Its rarity sprung from the union of two opposites: yellow, which belonged to confident, outgoing, and unconsciously sensual people: those who took the world in by touch, and delighted in the use of their bodies. Athletes were usually yellow. And strippers. The second color was brown, which usually meant the person was a deep thinker - bronze hues in particular were stanch loyalists with an engrained sense of honor. Odd to find that in a criminal.
Arthur's eyes flicked to his, catching him staring, and his eyebrows went up as the complex whirls of his aura rippled in surprise. Eames looked away first - not because he was intimidated, but because he could sense Mal watching the two of them. He didn't want to give her any ammunition for an 'I told you so' later on.
I think I could grow to like this one, he thought.
*****
The Cobbs were nothing but ambitious, and although the job could have been pulled off without a dream-within-a-dream scenario, the very idea of two levels was more than enough to keep Eames interested.
Arthur's presence was icing on the cake.
He was utterly fascinating to Eames at first: nearly inscrutable with professional calm on the outside, but brilliant with nuances of research - as if every small detail stuck and was absorbed by the honey aura.
Arthur also acted as an effective buffer between the Cobbs' lofty ambitions and what the team could realistically accomplish. Mal and Dom dreamed big - Mal from her pink optimism and Dom from his more egocentric purple - and Arthur essentially brought them down to earth by ruthlessly pointing out flaws in any given plan.
He was fun to tease, as well.
Eames wasn't certain when was the last time he indulged in so much pigtail pulling, but Arthur at least returned as well as he got, and it was lovely how his aura would light up from within as he caught onto a carefully lobbed bit of innuendo. Arthur's expression would hardly give anything away to the usual observer, but Eames was anything but usual: he could watch for hours when Arthur was deep in thought, when the bronze whirls would become more prominent and slowly swirl, ever changing, like watching clouds drift across the sky. Or when Eames hit upon something particularly witty, and he could tell Arthur wanted to laugh, but restrained himself out of professionalism: the honey backdrop would lighten to nearly the color of whipped butter.
Eames dearly wanted to hear Arthur laugh -- see what the effect of a moment of true joy or arousal would do to that aura, but the prep time was depressingly short for a job of this sort. They were all rushed for time.
In the end, it all went cock-up, anyway.
It wasn't anyone's fault. The idiotic client had sent them off on the wrong mark: a man who didn't have the information. That was easy to see, even from the first level.
So while it hadn't been their fuck-up, there was no such thing as fair consideration in the world of corporate espionage. They were still on the line for a failed job, and it was prudent to split and run in case the wrath of the client fell down upon all of their heads.
Eames helped Arthur with a brisk cleanup of their workspace while Mal and Cobb cautiously updated the client and tried to salvage what they could.
For once Eames was focused on his task and doing his very best to block out the rolling, upset colorations around him. So, when he heard Arthur curse low under his breath, he didn't look up as he asked, "What is it?"
"I was counting on us having more time," Arthur said, voice edging in frustration. "Afterwards."
"More time for what-" Eames started, and was taken utterly by surprise when Arthur pulled him around by his sleeve. He caught a flash of almost orange ocher - Arthur, when he had his mind determined on something he wanted. Then Eames ceased to think at all as Arthur kissed him.
It was a firm press of lips against his - half challenge and half question. Eames grunted in surprise, but when Arthur would have moved back, he pressed forward and curled a hand about the back of Arthur's neck to steady him. They kissed for long minutes: Eames half sitting upon the desk and Arthur moved in between the vee of his legs. Arthur still tasted of whatever mint toothpaste he'd used that morning, and Eames could almost feel the brush of the honey aura against his own - surprisingly warm and sweet, like a lover.
A small, but pointed sound of a throat being cleared interrupted them, when Eames had just gotten around to mussing up Arthur's perfectly slicked back hair.
Dom Cobb stood in the doorway, eyes looking everywhere but at them, and the green streaks through his aura alternated between generalized anxiety and older brother protectiveness.
That's right. I'm well on my way to fucking your boy, Eames thought almost gleefully, and did not completely remove his hands from Arthur's person, even when the other man reluctantly pulled back.
Arthur's expression was remarkably composed as he faced Cobb. "The client didn't take the news well?"
Cobb shook his head. "We need to be out of here in fifteen." His gaze fell to Eames as he added, "It would be safest if we all split up."
Arthur nodded, and Eames felt his heart sink before he could correct himself: he was a realist, and as much as he enjoyed sex... he did enjoy not being shot much more. He could move faster alone, in any case.
"Right," Eames said, as Arthur pulled compleatly away and went back to sorting through the papers. Eames could almost see him exercise the same type of control over himself - the bronze darkening to cover the newly lit amber glow from within.
"Until next time, darling?"
The thick honey in Arthur's aura flared in bright amusement, there and gone again, but when he spoke his voice was flat and disapproving. "I'm not your darling, Mr. Eames."
"Not yet." No doubt he would be shortly running for his life - again - but for now Eames was feeling good. Giving a jaunty wink, he turned back to finishing the stash and burn of all identifying information before he headed on out.
****
Sadly, it was more than a year and a half before he had opportunity to work again with the Cobbs and their point man. Eames suspected that Dom Cobb's protectiveness of his protégé had something to do with it.
The job itself sounded little on the routine side, but Eames was growing bored of the streets of London, and he'd always heard that Southern California was lovely in the winter.
There had been no rumors of any further jobs gone bad from the Cobbs, nothing to indicate there would be any problem at all. So Eames was nearly blind-sided when he first stepped into the small warehouse Arthur had rented to be their workspace, and caught his first sight of Mal.
Where Mal's aura had once been a perfect shade of pink through and through, there was now a ragged crack running diagonally down the middle - a single imperfection in what would otherwise be a flawless gem.
She smiled at him. "Mr. Eames, it's been some time." She held out her hand and her aura lightened a shade in genuine pleasure at seeing him - or rather, half of it did. The bottom half of the crack, where the cut through her heart, didn't react at all.
It took all of Eames' skill as a forger to plaster a polite smile on his face and settle himself in to listen to the debriefing. But he thought it would have been obvious to anyone, even if they didn't have the Eye, that something fundamental had changed in Dom and Mal Cobb.
Dom carried himself with a new weight now - his own reactions slow and unsure as if he weren't sure he was functioning in the right body. He fumbled separating the dossiers twice before handing them out. Mal looked utterly separated from the events in the room, as if she were merely a spectator watching a well rehearsed play. The top half of the schism was present, but the bottom half roiled with a deep-seeded anxiety and... anger that had certainly not been there before.
Arthur looked unaffected as always, thank god. His golden aura still marbled in its understated beauty. Eames wasn't sure what he would have done if he, too, had altered. Beat the ever loving crap out of Dom, most likely. It would have been like seeing a fine work of art destroyed.
Eames waited until the meeting broke and Dom went to ask his wife a question before he pulled Arthur to the side.
"What the devil's happened to them?" he asked, lowly.
Arthur shot him a surprised glance, then his shoulder's slumped. This close, Eames could see faint worry tightening the skin about his eyes. "Not here," Arthur said.
He and Arthur went out for lunch a few hours later, and by that time Eames was more than happy to leave. He had developed an itch between his shoulder-blades whenever Mal looked at him. The crack in her aura was hard and sharp, reminding him of a blade of a knife. It was something dangerous, and set every internal alarm bell he had to clamoring.
Arthur was evidently familiar with the neighborhood and steered him to a natural foods café, where they took their seat at an open-sidewalk table.
"What do you know about limbo?" Arthur asked.
Eames didn't think that he meant it in the catholic sense. "I've heard the theory," he said, watching closely for the tells in Arthur's aura. "Unstructured subconscious? Sort of a boogieman story if you've got a daft architect who builds with gaping holes?"
Arthur shook his head, and the corners of his lips downturned as his aura seemed to pull back in on itself. Like an internal shudder. "I don't know what happened for certain. Dom only talked about it right afterwards, and Mal... well. They were experimenting with deep levels again, but didn't bother to put anyone up top to watch." His hand clenched briefly against the table top, self recrimination plain on his face. "They went one level too far, and fell in for a very, very long time."
"How long?"
He shook his head once - a quick, angry gesture. "Dom said something about them growing old together. So thirty, forty years? Maybe more."
Eames sat back in his chair. "Oh Hell."
But Arthur was wrong, he thought. Or he hadn't been told the full truth. Auras did tend to change over the years, as life's experience left its mark on a person. Mal was like a broken thing, though. Something fundamental within her had... changed.
Their waitress came by, leaving two ice waters and a bran muffin apiece upon the table along with the menus. Eames found he wasn't very hungry at all.
Neither was Arthur, judging by the way he only glanced half-heartedly at the menu.
"That's a very long time to be trapped down there," Eames said, keeping his voice casual. "I imagine it would be easy to lose yourself, like that. Arthur," he said, after a moment, "Do you suppose they still think they're caught up in the dream?"
Arthur's eyes jerked to his, and the silent yes was plain to see even without the Eye.
****
Overall, it was an uncomfortable job, made very much worse by the fact that, two days before they were scheduled to take the mark, a shadow appeared over Mal's aura.
Eames had seen such appearances before - patients in hospital, mostly, although one time in the aura of an unlucky police officer walking the beat - and it always foretold of death.
And, judging by the way the darkness slowly advanced over what had once been flawless pink, it was no more than a few weeks away. Perhaps a month, at best.
"Arthur," Eames said, after the job was over and he was once again assisting with the clean-up. There was no after job make outs this time around - Arthur was much too anxious with worry over his friends and Eames had been unsettled enough not attempt at anything other than casual flirting. "Should... anything come up," he gave a significant nod to the Cobbs who were having an intense discussion on the other side of the room. Dom's aura was laced with growing fear. "Feel free to contact me."
"I don't anticipate that our next job will need a forger." Arthur gave him a tight lipped smile, and Eames could see that his mind was far and away on other matters. Well, he had tried. And Arthur couldn't know what was to come.
The shadow was over Mal, alone. At least, whatever was to take her was not going to kill her husband or Arthur.
Eames tried not to feel like a coward as he packed his bags and left on first flight he could book.
One month to the day, he got the call from Arthur.
( Part 3)
Author: avocado_love
Team: Angst
Prompt(s): Naked, Horizon, Natural
Word count: 2,500 (this chapter)
Rating: PG-13 (eventual NC-17)
Warnings: Character death in this chapter (Mal)
Notes: Based off of this prompt in the Kink Meme. This chapter is light-ish on angst right now, but expect more in the following chapters.
Summary: After a near fatal reaction to a bad somnacin mixture, Eames wakes up with the ability to see auras.
Part 1 |
*****
Cobb's newest point man's aura was gold.
Eames had seen golden auras before, on rare occasions, but none quite like this. Arthur's was the shade of burnished honey, but with a richness Eames had once only seen in a hundred-pound-a-glass finely aged Tokay. Whorls of bronze made a graceful marbling pattern through the lighter amber, giving the impression of both depth and competence. And all of it was backlit by a low, almost indefinable glow coming from within.
For the first time since he had learned to see, Eames wanted to run his fingers through that aura, find how that complex gold felt against his own reflective nature.
It took a few seconds to realize that the man underneath was rather fetching, as well. He was dressed in a three piece suit, as neat as a new pin, and young - although Eames still balked a little inside at identifying anyone around twenty-five as young - with brown, neatly combed back hair, matching brown eyes and a handsome, if serious, face.
"I'm-" Eames was about to introduce himself, then remembered belatedly that Cobb already had. "Pleased to meet you, Arthur. I've heard good things from Mal, here."
Arthur shook his hand in return and smiled politely. The bronze marbling moved through the amber aura in a slow shifting pattern, never the same from one moment to the next, as if the man was taking in details of his environment and actively thinking. "Likewise," Arthur said, expression betraying nothing. Then he turned away from Eames, all business, and pulled out what looked to be a thick dossier to hand to Cobb.
He had a nice ass, too, Eames noticed. He returned to his seat, feeling a bit clobbered.
As Cobb started the initial meeting, outlining what the client wanted from them, the job and the main objectives, Eames found himself listening with half an ear: he would pick up what he needed later on.
Gold, he thought, rolling it around in his mind. Its rarity sprung from the union of two opposites: yellow, which belonged to confident, outgoing, and unconsciously sensual people: those who took the world in by touch, and delighted in the use of their bodies. Athletes were usually yellow. And strippers. The second color was brown, which usually meant the person was a deep thinker - bronze hues in particular were stanch loyalists with an engrained sense of honor. Odd to find that in a criminal.
Arthur's eyes flicked to his, catching him staring, and his eyebrows went up as the complex whirls of his aura rippled in surprise. Eames looked away first - not because he was intimidated, but because he could sense Mal watching the two of them. He didn't want to give her any ammunition for an 'I told you so' later on.
I think I could grow to like this one, he thought.
*****
The Cobbs were nothing but ambitious, and although the job could have been pulled off without a dream-within-a-dream scenario, the very idea of two levels was more than enough to keep Eames interested.
Arthur's presence was icing on the cake.
He was utterly fascinating to Eames at first: nearly inscrutable with professional calm on the outside, but brilliant with nuances of research - as if every small detail stuck and was absorbed by the honey aura.
Arthur also acted as an effective buffer between the Cobbs' lofty ambitions and what the team could realistically accomplish. Mal and Dom dreamed big - Mal from her pink optimism and Dom from his more egocentric purple - and Arthur essentially brought them down to earth by ruthlessly pointing out flaws in any given plan.
He was fun to tease, as well.
Eames wasn't certain when was the last time he indulged in so much pigtail pulling, but Arthur at least returned as well as he got, and it was lovely how his aura would light up from within as he caught onto a carefully lobbed bit of innuendo. Arthur's expression would hardly give anything away to the usual observer, but Eames was anything but usual: he could watch for hours when Arthur was deep in thought, when the bronze whirls would become more prominent and slowly swirl, ever changing, like watching clouds drift across the sky. Or when Eames hit upon something particularly witty, and he could tell Arthur wanted to laugh, but restrained himself out of professionalism: the honey backdrop would lighten to nearly the color of whipped butter.
Eames dearly wanted to hear Arthur laugh -- see what the effect of a moment of true joy or arousal would do to that aura, but the prep time was depressingly short for a job of this sort. They were all rushed for time.
In the end, it all went cock-up, anyway.
It wasn't anyone's fault. The idiotic client had sent them off on the wrong mark: a man who didn't have the information. That was easy to see, even from the first level.
So while it hadn't been their fuck-up, there was no such thing as fair consideration in the world of corporate espionage. They were still on the line for a failed job, and it was prudent to split and run in case the wrath of the client fell down upon all of their heads.
Eames helped Arthur with a brisk cleanup of their workspace while Mal and Cobb cautiously updated the client and tried to salvage what they could.
For once Eames was focused on his task and doing his very best to block out the rolling, upset colorations around him. So, when he heard Arthur curse low under his breath, he didn't look up as he asked, "What is it?"
"I was counting on us having more time," Arthur said, voice edging in frustration. "Afterwards."
"More time for what-" Eames started, and was taken utterly by surprise when Arthur pulled him around by his sleeve. He caught a flash of almost orange ocher - Arthur, when he had his mind determined on something he wanted. Then Eames ceased to think at all as Arthur kissed him.
It was a firm press of lips against his - half challenge and half question. Eames grunted in surprise, but when Arthur would have moved back, he pressed forward and curled a hand about the back of Arthur's neck to steady him. They kissed for long minutes: Eames half sitting upon the desk and Arthur moved in between the vee of his legs. Arthur still tasted of whatever mint toothpaste he'd used that morning, and Eames could almost feel the brush of the honey aura against his own - surprisingly warm and sweet, like a lover.
A small, but pointed sound of a throat being cleared interrupted them, when Eames had just gotten around to mussing up Arthur's perfectly slicked back hair.
Dom Cobb stood in the doorway, eyes looking everywhere but at them, and the green streaks through his aura alternated between generalized anxiety and older brother protectiveness.
That's right. I'm well on my way to fucking your boy, Eames thought almost gleefully, and did not completely remove his hands from Arthur's person, even when the other man reluctantly pulled back.
Arthur's expression was remarkably composed as he faced Cobb. "The client didn't take the news well?"
Cobb shook his head. "We need to be out of here in fifteen." His gaze fell to Eames as he added, "It would be safest if we all split up."
Arthur nodded, and Eames felt his heart sink before he could correct himself: he was a realist, and as much as he enjoyed sex... he did enjoy not being shot much more. He could move faster alone, in any case.
"Right," Eames said, as Arthur pulled compleatly away and went back to sorting through the papers. Eames could almost see him exercise the same type of control over himself - the bronze darkening to cover the newly lit amber glow from within.
"Until next time, darling?"
The thick honey in Arthur's aura flared in bright amusement, there and gone again, but when he spoke his voice was flat and disapproving. "I'm not your darling, Mr. Eames."
"Not yet." No doubt he would be shortly running for his life - again - but for now Eames was feeling good. Giving a jaunty wink, he turned back to finishing the stash and burn of all identifying information before he headed on out.
****
Sadly, it was more than a year and a half before he had opportunity to work again with the Cobbs and their point man. Eames suspected that Dom Cobb's protectiveness of his protégé had something to do with it.
The job itself sounded little on the routine side, but Eames was growing bored of the streets of London, and he'd always heard that Southern California was lovely in the winter.
There had been no rumors of any further jobs gone bad from the Cobbs, nothing to indicate there would be any problem at all. So Eames was nearly blind-sided when he first stepped into the small warehouse Arthur had rented to be their workspace, and caught his first sight of Mal.
Where Mal's aura had once been a perfect shade of pink through and through, there was now a ragged crack running diagonally down the middle - a single imperfection in what would otherwise be a flawless gem.
She smiled at him. "Mr. Eames, it's been some time." She held out her hand and her aura lightened a shade in genuine pleasure at seeing him - or rather, half of it did. The bottom half of the crack, where the cut through her heart, didn't react at all.
It took all of Eames' skill as a forger to plaster a polite smile on his face and settle himself in to listen to the debriefing. But he thought it would have been obvious to anyone, even if they didn't have the Eye, that something fundamental had changed in Dom and Mal Cobb.
Dom carried himself with a new weight now - his own reactions slow and unsure as if he weren't sure he was functioning in the right body. He fumbled separating the dossiers twice before handing them out. Mal looked utterly separated from the events in the room, as if she were merely a spectator watching a well rehearsed play. The top half of the schism was present, but the bottom half roiled with a deep-seeded anxiety and... anger that had certainly not been there before.
Arthur looked unaffected as always, thank god. His golden aura still marbled in its understated beauty. Eames wasn't sure what he would have done if he, too, had altered. Beat the ever loving crap out of Dom, most likely. It would have been like seeing a fine work of art destroyed.
Eames waited until the meeting broke and Dom went to ask his wife a question before he pulled Arthur to the side.
"What the devil's happened to them?" he asked, lowly.
Arthur shot him a surprised glance, then his shoulder's slumped. This close, Eames could see faint worry tightening the skin about his eyes. "Not here," Arthur said.
He and Arthur went out for lunch a few hours later, and by that time Eames was more than happy to leave. He had developed an itch between his shoulder-blades whenever Mal looked at him. The crack in her aura was hard and sharp, reminding him of a blade of a knife. It was something dangerous, and set every internal alarm bell he had to clamoring.
Arthur was evidently familiar with the neighborhood and steered him to a natural foods café, where they took their seat at an open-sidewalk table.
"What do you know about limbo?" Arthur asked.
Eames didn't think that he meant it in the catholic sense. "I've heard the theory," he said, watching closely for the tells in Arthur's aura. "Unstructured subconscious? Sort of a boogieman story if you've got a daft architect who builds with gaping holes?"
Arthur shook his head, and the corners of his lips downturned as his aura seemed to pull back in on itself. Like an internal shudder. "I don't know what happened for certain. Dom only talked about it right afterwards, and Mal... well. They were experimenting with deep levels again, but didn't bother to put anyone up top to watch." His hand clenched briefly against the table top, self recrimination plain on his face. "They went one level too far, and fell in for a very, very long time."
"How long?"
He shook his head once - a quick, angry gesture. "Dom said something about them growing old together. So thirty, forty years? Maybe more."
Eames sat back in his chair. "Oh Hell."
But Arthur was wrong, he thought. Or he hadn't been told the full truth. Auras did tend to change over the years, as life's experience left its mark on a person. Mal was like a broken thing, though. Something fundamental within her had... changed.
Their waitress came by, leaving two ice waters and a bran muffin apiece upon the table along with the menus. Eames found he wasn't very hungry at all.
Neither was Arthur, judging by the way he only glanced half-heartedly at the menu.
"That's a very long time to be trapped down there," Eames said, keeping his voice casual. "I imagine it would be easy to lose yourself, like that. Arthur," he said, after a moment, "Do you suppose they still think they're caught up in the dream?"
Arthur's eyes jerked to his, and the silent yes was plain to see even without the Eye.
****
Overall, it was an uncomfortable job, made very much worse by the fact that, two days before they were scheduled to take the mark, a shadow appeared over Mal's aura.
Eames had seen such appearances before - patients in hospital, mostly, although one time in the aura of an unlucky police officer walking the beat - and it always foretold of death.
And, judging by the way the darkness slowly advanced over what had once been flawless pink, it was no more than a few weeks away. Perhaps a month, at best.
"Arthur," Eames said, after the job was over and he was once again assisting with the clean-up. There was no after job make outs this time around - Arthur was much too anxious with worry over his friends and Eames had been unsettled enough not attempt at anything other than casual flirting. "Should... anything come up," he gave a significant nod to the Cobbs who were having an intense discussion on the other side of the room. Dom's aura was laced with growing fear. "Feel free to contact me."
"I don't anticipate that our next job will need a forger." Arthur gave him a tight lipped smile, and Eames could see that his mind was far and away on other matters. Well, he had tried. And Arthur couldn't know what was to come.
The shadow was over Mal, alone. At least, whatever was to take her was not going to kill her husband or Arthur.
Eames tried not to feel like a coward as he packed his bags and left on first flight he could book.
One month to the day, he got the call from Arthur.
( Part 3)