Fic: Honor Amongst Thieves [Inception]
Title: Honor Amongst Thieves
Character/Pairings: Arthur/Eames, Ariadne, Cobb, James, Phillipa, Saito, Yusuf
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Mr. Nolan owns it all
Warnings: non-graphic descriptions of torture
Summary: The first time Eames found himself up a creek without a paddle, he's young and arrogant, cocky as hell and careless. He actually doesn't remember all too well how it happened, whether it was a bet gone wrong or a slip of the hand, twitchy fingers or shooting his mouth off to the wrong person - all he remembers is the aftermath, where they took a hammer to his hands.
Author's Notes: Written for the wild card square for hc_bingo and for the prompt on inception_kink : "Eames gets captured and tortured for information about the team. He refuses to give it up and gets tortured more. It's up to the team to save him and nurse him back to health."
Like so many stories these days, it starts off in medias res, with the protagonist (who's not so much a dashing and charming hero when drunk off his rocker and stuffed into the back of a van with a black bag jammed over his head) facing certain peril. He's transported roughly from van to pavement to inside a building, then flung roughly into a chair, hands uncomfortably and securely fastened behind his back with a zip tie around the wrists. The bag is jerked off and away, leaving him blinking blearily in the dim light of a drab grey room; he takes one look at his captors and grins, the slow, knowing smirk of a Cheshire cat.
"Well, now. Evening, gentlemen."
Said gentlemen exchange swift and somewhat confused glances, the whites of their eyes darting about rapidly like that of deer, stupid and momentarily frozen in the headlights, because that's not how it's supposed to go. Their prisoner shouldn't be grinning lazily at them like he knows their every move, knows what they're going to do next; he should be shaking and blubbering with fear, pissing his pants even, crying and telling them he'll do whatever they want. Instead, he's leaning back casually in the hard-backed, plastic chair as if making himself comfortable, like he's seen this song and dance routine before, and it infuriates them.
And like any good mafia movie or B-rated flick about gangsters and lowlife thugs, they start in first with a baseball bat.
Eames lets out a less than dignified "oof" as the bat slams into his stomach, but he can't help but chuckle a little though through gritted teeth because the poor fools are wearing black stocking caps and ski masks, the lot of them. Black stocking caps. And ski masks. Well, that's good for them; really, it is. Because Eames may not have an eidetic memory like Cobb, but he's a forger, and although their faces are covered, he knows their kind.
He's been them before.
He's spent days running the streets with the attitude of one too good for this world, pick-pocketing and roughhousing and generally being a little terror because staying home meant seeing his mother wasting away into nothing. He's worked with and against dozens of thugs ever since: the ones with a generous benefactor with guns even larger than their egos and gangsters bound by some inward, warped sense of morality; hoodlums with gaudy jewelry and pistols stuck down the front or backs of their pants, goons of all brawn and little to no brain - and they're all the same, really - overgrown boys using violence as intimidation.
And Eames has never been easy to scare.
They must want something; in fact he knows they do, because otherwise, they would've already killed him or taken his wallet. Or both. They might as well save their energy and skip the preliminary beating and get to asking questions, because Eames can be tight-lipped as a monk under a vow of silence when he wants to be, and he says as much. Of course, he earns another few smacks for that.
"Easy there, love," he laughs as a fist catches him across the jaw and he spits onto the floor, blood mingled with saliva and the aftertaste of one too many drinks. "Don't want to break my jaw before you get me to talk."
There are five of them, and in his mind, the forger has already assigned them numbers and guessed their respective roles. Number One is obviously the leader, his eyes narrowed into slits at Eames's nonchalance. Number Two steps back, his knuckles wet with fresh blood. He's a stout fellow, but thick-limbed and barrel-chested, the grunt man on the team. Number Three is standing at the door, semi-automatic in hand, on guard. Number Four stands menacingly next to the leader, and he looks like an overgrown stage prop, tall and huge and imposing but with nothing to do but stand there and look dumb. Now where's the other one? Eames swears he counted five when they nabbed him... Ah, and here he comes, number Five, a skinny little kid, trotting up to the group like an eager little puppy. Must be returning from parking the van out back.
"Now that we're acquainted," the forger grins and it's a predatory smile, a flash of white teeth already stained with red, "what the bloody hell do you tossers want?"
Number One speaks up, his voice a low rasp. English, that much is certain. Cockney accent, must be a Londoner. "Your team, Mr. Eames."
Eames raises an eyebrow. He can feel a lump forming above his eye already. "What team?"
Slowly, the leader reaches into the file folder he's holding and extracts four large 8x11 photographs shot paparazzi style, glossy and embossed, black and white and familiar. Eames's mouth goes dry. His eyes roam past the picture of a laughing Ariadne sitting with her friends, of Yusuf peering out of some shady-looking lean-to, and of Cobb looking stern and troubled through the window of a train. He glances at all of them but the one that sends his heart thumping double time and starts to make his palms sweat is the image of a frowning Arthur, dressed to the nines as usual, brow furrowed in concentration as he stares intently down at a file.
If they didn't have his attention before, they surely have it now.
- * - * -
Hundreds of miles and a couple of time zones away, Ariadne sits in a huge lecture hall, the first of her classes for the day. The professor is up at the front, scrawling away on the blackboard, muttering more to himself than to his students as the three hundred-some members of his audience mumble and try to keep up, pencils scratching against graph paper, fingers flying over keyboards. But Ariadne?
She's staring out the ceiling to floor windows, and she's bored stupid.
Her sketchpad is covered with drawings of impossible things, a blueprint of mazes that can never exist, buildings that can never be constructed. Penrose stairs crisscross each other and whirl on and on forever, elevators designed to go up but never down, corridors that wind on and on into dead ends - and beyond. She's been charmed, she's hopelessly captivated, and now she's fallen in love, and everything else pales in comparison to the world of dreams, where she can build and build whatever she pleases.
Now, she's confined by gravity and physics, by the rules of reality - and it sucks.
The boy sitting next to her glances at her curiously when he senses her lack of attention and Ariadne looks away from where his notebook his covered in lopsided handwriting, copies of the professor's rambling, statements and proofs and postulations drawn from textbooks and taken as truth. She pities him, for he'll never know the wonders she's been shown, never see the breathtaking impossibility of a city folding in upon itself. He'll never know how to dream.
He smiles warmly and leans in close. "Bored?"
Ariadne blinks at him. "How could you possibly tell?" she asks flatly, an unspoken leave me alone in her tone, and either the other is too clueless to notice, or he doesn't care.
"I've been watching you sketch for about ten minutes now and it's a hell of a lot more interesting than what old Gaffrey has to say." He leans in even closer and although she should be annoyed, Ariadne...isn't. Besides, he's cute - not in a rakish, roguish way like Eames, or in the clean-cut, gentlemanly way like Arthur - he's actually kind of dorky looking, badly in need of a haircut and his sweater is a hideous orange. She likes it.
"Brad," the boy says by way of introduction, sticking out a hand smeared with pencil dust and Ariadne smiles.
Well, this could be interesting.
- - - - -
"What's wrong, Jamie?" Dom asks quietly, sitting up slightly. His son stands in the doorway, clutching a corner of his dark blue security blanket and rubbing a small fist over his eyes, pouting slightly. "Did you have a bad dream?" The little boy nods and sticks his lip out even further, and Dom smiles, patting the bed. "Come here."
James pads toward the bed, bare feet slapping a little against the wooden floorboards and crawls into his father's arms, looping tiny arms around Dom's waist and snuggling in close.
Ten minutes later, Phillipa sticks her head around the doorjamb, peering into the room. Her hair is unbrushed, sticking up in odd places and she's got her lower lip in between her teeth, worrying the skin as if deciding whether to enter. Dom smiles and pats the coverlet again, and she scampers into the room, bounding up on the other side of the bed and pillows her head on her father's arm, tiny head tucked into the crook of his neck.
With his arms wrapped tightly around both his children, Dom gazes at the picture on his nightstand, of Mal's sparkling eyes and cupid bow lips curved into a smile. She's got an arm around Arthur's shoulders and she's holding little James in the other; Arthur has Phillipa propped up on one hip and the little girl has got her small fingers splayed against his face, her expression gleeful and mischievous. Dom remembers the Saturday afternoon when he took the picture; immediately afterwards, Phillipa had reached up and thoroughly mussed up Arthur's hair, shrieking with glee when the point man growled playfully and began to tickle her mercilessly, Mal laughing in the background as James held out his hands and babbled, wanting a chance to play with Uncle Arthur too. He remembers the smell of barbeque chlorine from the pool, his children chasing each other around the backyard, of Mal asking Arthur when she's going to have a little boy or girl calling her "Auntie Mal" and Arthur flushing scarlet to the tips of his ears.
Closing his eyes and with a smile still twitching at his lips, Dom drifts off into sleep.
- - - - -
Across the world, a man sits at a rough old wooden desk, squinting at the pipette dropper he holds, and more importantly, at the amber yellow liquid in the beaker. It's rapidly turning a deep purple color with every drop of the clear agent he's adding.
Just one more...or. Wait. His brow wrinkles in sudden confusion. Is it supposed to be 1 milliliter or 11 milliliters?
His fingers squeeze involuntarily, and Yusuf jumps back at the mini-explosion and the mushroom cloud of orangey smoke, coughing and waving his hands about. Eyebrows? Check. Vision? Check. Hallucinations? Hmm.
The chemist peers about himself, but no purple blobs come bursting out of the walls demanding waffles and he's not seeing a symphony of sound, so everything must be okay.
From across the room, his cat peers out of the shadows and hisses, obviously displeased at the stench of rotten eggs filling the air, and he offers her an apologetic shrug.
- - - - -
The coffee is already percolating in the machine when Arthur steps into the kitchen again, his hair damp from the morning shower. His eyes skim over the file open on the marble countertop as he pours himself a mug, not really caring that the beverage is scalding hot and black as sin, as long as it wakes him up. There's creamer in the fridge and sugar sitting in a little container pushed against the wall, but they're certainly not his, and so he leaves them untouched.
Six sips later, the lingering fogginess of sleep have finally dissipated and Arthur returns to the bedroom, surveying the suit laid out on the bed, carefully pressed and ready to be slipped on, like a second skin. As he reaches back into the wardrobe for a tie, his fingers brush something and there's a crinkle of what sounds like plastic. With a frown, he reaches up to remove the offending object, and finds himself staring at a pack of cigarettes that have been hidden there like a guilty pleasure.
Arthur doesn't smoke.
A muscle in Arthur's jaw twitches and he catches his reflection in the mirror and his brow is furrowed so deeply one could cut it with a knife. He crushes the cigarettes in his fist, trying not to think of two cups of coffee, one black and the other doctored until it's sweet as a malt, of two toothbrushes in the bathroom and the collection of hideous paisley-patterned shirts and ill-fitting jackets tucked away in the wardrobe next to the neatly hung suits, the objects not belonging to him that he still hasn't the heart to throw out, of a quiet voice murmuring but you must have breakfast, darling; most important meal of the day in his ear. Trying not to think of how the sheets on now impeccably made bed should have been mussed up on both sides.
He doesn't miss him. He doesn't. He doesn't.
- * - * -
Arthur looks well. Or...as well as he can look in a photograph (which is always stunning; if the whole point man thing falls through, he can always take up modeling) and Eames feels a pang in his chest that has nothing to do with his bruised ribs. There's a sudden lump in his throat and he swallows it down so his voice doesn't shake or crack when he speaks. "What do you want with them?"
(With him, he means. What do you want with Arthur - my Arthur? Because that's something these goons should understand right here and right now: Arthur is Eames's, and if they choose to do something idiotic like, say, treat the point man in the same way they're treating Eames right now...well, the forger isn't going to be responsible for any knee-jerk reactions of rage.)
As expected, his head snaps to the side and then thug number Two leans over him, breath smelling like sauerkraut and spoiled milk. "You're not in any position to be asking the questions here, Mr. Eames," he snarls, and Eames snorts because honestly, If this gets any more cliche, they'll be pulling out his fingernails next. "What we want is our business."
"Oh pet," the forger drawls, sarcasm and condescension dripping from each syllable. "It's not nice to hit and not tell, you know."
He's spared another ringing blow to the head as number One charges forward, grabbing the other man by the elbow and manhandling him backwards, words flying fast and angry in a sharp hiss. He twitches when one large booted foot steps down squarely on the photo of Arthur, but bites his tongue in favor of interestedly watching the scene playing out before him. Whatever the conversation is about, it involves a lot of angry hand waving and finger-pointing before thug number One suddenly draws a gun and cocks it. Number Two is not easily cowed though, and draws his own pistol. The remaining members seem unsure of what to do, although their hands are straying toward their own weapons as well.
Eames cocks his head. "Oh, brilliant, a coup. Don't mind me," he mutters. "I'm just here to watch the show." He turns to thug number Five, the kid, and grins, even though something grinds and pops painfully in his jaw. "Can I get a bucket of popcorn, then?"
That stops the argument, and the leader (for now, anyway) glares, his eyes narrowed into slits. "Go get the pliers," he barks, and the kid jumps, hastening to obey as number Two and number Four circle around behind the chair, cutting the tie around Eames's wrists and holding him still while one of them wrenches one hand up and brings it to the front.
"Ah, so we are starting with the fingernails. Lovely." Shame, Eames thinks mournfully. He actually rather likes having fingernails.
Arthur's photograph stares up at him from the floor and for a moment, the forger imagines he can hear the point man sighing wearily and asking just what kind of trouble he's managed to land himself in now. Eames wishes he knew.
- * - * -
His cell phone rings once, twice, and without taking his eyes away from the laptop screen, Arthur fishes into his pocket and retrieves the small object, bringing it to his ear. "Hello?"
"Uncle Arthur!!" The sweet little voice shouts out over the line and Arthur starts, jerking in his seat and nearly knocking over his coffee (the fourth one today, and it's still as black and bitter as ever.) as he sits up straight.
"Phillipa?" He checks his watch; it must be around eight over in Los Angeles. "Why...what are you doing on the phone?"
"Daddy's making pancakes!" The little girl all but squeals, and Arthur allows himself a small chuckle, some of the tension seeping out of his shoulders as he leans back in his chair, trying to imagine Cobb standing at the stove in a pink apron and waving around a spatula, getting batter absolutely everywhere (or rather, that's what happened the last time Arthur was over for breakfast and Dom tried to cook. Mal ended up shooing him out and banning him from her kitchen).
"Is he now? I hope nothing's on fire?"
"Very funny, Arthur," Cobb's voice rings out, and Arthur guesses he must be on speaker phone before there's a click and the sounds of objects being shuffled around. "Phillipa, watch your brother. I'm going into the next room to talk to Uncle Arthur, okay?" The noises die away as Cobb apparently ducks into the living room, and only then does Arthur speak up again.
"Cobb, what's wrong?"
"You need to keep your head down, Arthur," Cobb replies, and there's a worried note in his warning tone. "I've been hearing things through the grapevine, and they're not entirely positive."
"Is it Cobol Engineering again?" Arthur asks in a low voice, closing the laptop and carefully sliding it into the briefcase at his side. His eyes are scanning the passerby and roving along the street outside the little cafe, searching for any signs of suspicious activity. Of course he'd already done so before sitting down when he first arrived, force of habit being a point man and all, but it never hurts to check again. "I thought we were done with them after that little...incident in the Himalayas."
"No, it's not Cobol. I already took care of that." Cobb's tone goes low, dark, and Arthur wonders if the extractor is remembering getting Ariadne's frantic phone call, flying all the way out to Nepal and spending hours upon hours searching for his former point man and forger in a snowy labyrinth with no clear routes or map or any advantage against Nature despite all his skill and expertise in the art of extraction (and, as of late, inception). When Cobb speaks again, his voice is flat. "Word is, there're some shady figures looking for the rumored successful 'inception team'."
Oh, Christ on a cracker.
"They call themselves 'Defenders of Free Minds and Conscious Will'."
"The Gestapo against subconscious security. Yeah, I know of them." Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, already feeling the migraine coming on. "And you're saying they're after us now? How did they even find out who we are?"
"No clue, but I've already gotten the message out to Ariadne through Miles and along the proper channels to reach Yusuf. We all know Saito is untouchable, so that leaves you and Eames."
Looking back, Arthur knows he shouldn't have reacted like he did, but at the mention of the forger, his response is sharp and barbed, undeniably cold and snappish. "And what makes you so sure I can reach him? Eames is a drifter, Cobb; a wanderer. He goes wherever he wants whenever he damn well pleases, and there's nobo-nothing that can tie him down."
Silence reigns supreme over the line for a moment, and then, tentatively: "So what happened between the two of you?"
Arthur's fist clenches. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he says stiffly.
"Arthur."
"Cobb."
"How long have we known each other?"
He doesn't even have to count; the answer is automatic. "Eleven years."
"Yeah. You think I wouldn't know by now?" Cobb pauses. "Even the kids know, Arthur. James was just asking the other day when 'Uncle Eames' is going to visit with Uncle Arthur again."
Arthur should be angry. He should be annoyed because Cobb's tone is understanding and kind and just this side of patronizing - but he's not. Suddenly, all he feels is tired, a bone-deep weariness that makes him ache. "I'll tell him if I see him," he says quietly, and both of them make no comment on the "if" and not "when" as choice of words.
"You do that." Cobb is equally quiet.
"Daddy!! The pancakes are turning black!!" Phillipa calls, and Cobb mutters a curse before saying a hasty goodbye and hanging up.
Arthur sits there for a long time, just staring off into the distance. His coffee is cold and bitter enough to choke a man when he raises the cup to his lips, but he swallows it down anyway.
- * - * -
The first time Eames found himself up shit creek without a paddle, he's young and arrogant, cocky as hell and careless. He actually doesn't remember all too well how it happened, whether it was a bet gone wrong or a slip of the hand, twitchy fingers or shooting his mouth off to the wrong person - all he remembers is the aftermath, where they took a hammer to his hands.
Over. And over. And over again. A common punishment for a petty thief, they said.
It took seventeen surgeries to fix the damage, and to this day, his knuckles still look funny (it's part of what attracts him to others' hands so much. Arthur's fingers and long and elegant, like an artist). As soon as he got out of the hospital though, Eames went back to that same establishment and showed the people who smashed his hands into putty just how petty of a thief he could be.
He robs them blind and uses a small portion of his winnings to pay his medical bills. The rest, he sends back home to his mother.
- - - - -
Snap.
Goon number Two releases the pinky when the bone breaks, and grins triumphantly down at their bloodied, beaten captive. "Ready to talk?"
Eames doesn't reply.
His chest heaves unsteadily, blossoming bright with purple-black bruises in the shape of a baseball bat, a crowbar, imprints of knuckles. He's slumped, no longer cocky and defiant; his mouth is now sans two molars (lying discarded on the dirty floor) and he feels like one giant aching muscle. He can barely hear anything through the screaming of the nerve endings in his mangled hands, of which all his fingers are broken, bent out of shape and in the back of his mind there's the niggling wonder of how many surgeries it'll take to fix them this time.
His throat is raw from biting back screams and sobs alike.
"Where-are-your-teammates?"
Each word is punctuated by a sharp kick to the ribs and Eames doubles over as far as he can, his eyes squeezing shut. The breath wheezes painfully in his lungs and a small involuntary noise sneaks its way out of his mouth, something small and broken, something like a whimper of pain.
There's the sound of shuffling feet and then someone wraps cold fingers around his jaw and jerks his head upwards; he cracks his eyes open. Ah, hello there number One.
"You see, Mr. Eames, it's very simple. Just tell us where they are, and we'll let you go. We already know the chemist is roaming around somewhere in Kenya..."
Eames winces and his heavy eyes slide shut again. He thinks of Yusuf, of meeting the cheery chemist in an illegal dreaming den, of how the man's stupid cat had nearly mauled him to death (he still has the scars to prove it. Bloody creature.). Knocking back drinks together, swindling poor unsuspecting junkies high for dreaming out of their money; testing out new compounds and feeling polka-dotted elephants growing out of the floor, dropping into a dead sleep for ninety-six hours straight, seeing his dead mother and absent father dancing together to a tuneless waltz. Waking up with tears on his face and taking the tissues that Yusuf hands over wordlessly, bringing him in on the inception job.
"...and that the girl's studying architecture in Paris..."
Ariadne. Ariadne and her wide-eyed wonder, her intelligence, her knowing smiles when she catches him staring at Arthur. She was the one who helped him pick out what to wear when Arthur finally said yes to one of many dinner invitations, and truly, the girl was a godsend when Eames called her, nearly hyperventilating into the phone with anxiety and excitement. He can still feel her tears soaking through his shirt from the night when she cried into his arms after some stupid boy thought it would be okay to take her heart and throw it in the dirt before stomping all over it.
(Arthur had been listening right outside the door, his face shuttered and his expression tight. Later that night, he and the forger had taken it upon themselves to pay said boy a visit, just to show him how sorry he should be for breaking poor Ariadne's heart, and just how sorry they were going to make him.)
"We know the extractor is retired and living somewhere in the States with his children..."
Years ago, Eames wouldn't have batted an eye at turning Cobb over in such a situation, because he's a liar and a thief, working and living to his own benefit and his own advantage. Eames never pretends to be a good man, for he knows he's not, but the farces he orchestrates are only for the sake of the job. When it comes to his own identity, he lets those who are concerned know with one hundred percent clarity- he's loyal to the job, reliable for the sake of the money. If there's danger, he's saving his own arse, and bailing whenever he sees fit. Years ago, Cobb would be the one in the hands of these grubby little thugs, and Eames safely stowed away on a plane to somewhere far, far away.
But Cobb has a family now, children who are sweet and innocent and full of such life, children who deserve to have a father after they've lost their mother to dreaming. Eames's mind swirls back to a sunny summer afternoon, romping around in Cobb's backyard playing horsey with little James on his back and acting the part of the fearsome dragon guarding Princess Phillipa's castle, to Ariadne laughing herself silly at his antics, to Arthur's soft, fond smile.
So now, no. He won't give Cobb up for anything, even if just for the sake of his children.
"But there's just one man we haven't located." The fingers on his broken jaw tighten, grinding bones together. "Where is the point man?"
And then there's Arthur. Arthur with his three-piece suits and reticent intelligence, his professionalism and punctuality, his gelled back hair and poker face. Arthur with his adorable dimples that appear whenever he bloody loosens up enough to huff out that quiet, private laugh, the flutter of his eyelashes against Eames's throat as he slips into sleep, the simultaneous admirable strength and amazing vulnerability in his lithe frame as he curves in against Eames beneath the sheets. Arthur with that soft pucker in his forehead that Eames kiss smooth, who takes his coffee scalding hot and black as anything, who brushes his lips gently against the inside of Eames's wrist right over his pulse as a good morning and good night.
Arthur, with his furious eyes snapping sparks, jaw set and mouth tight, his voice low and dangerous and filled with hate snapping get out, get out, get the hell out.
Arthur.
Eames opens his eyes. Number One's eyes are a mossy green and blurry; he's waiting for an answer, for Eames to capitulate, and the forger is definitely not going to give him that satisfaction. "Go to hell," he sneers instead, and spits a mouthful of blood in the thug's face. The man growls in frustration, backhanding him roughly and scrubbing at the spittle and blood splattered across his mask.
And Eames blames the tears welling in his eyes on the physical pain, and not on the memory of Arthur.
- * - * -
Arthur sits in the study, phone cradled against his ear, brow furrowed and his foot is tapping ceaselessly against the floor, a nervous tic acquired in adolescence that he'd never quite managed to shake. It's been appearing with steadily increasing frequency over the past few months, and no wonder, he's always a nervous wreck whenever it comes to Eames.
Eames and his stupid roguish grin that he thinks a lot more charming than it actually is, Eames and his ugly paisley shirts and idiotic trousers that don't fit, Eames and his stubble that burns and leaves behind annoying rashes, Eames and his unfailing ability to get under Arthur's suits and his skin, Eames and his stupid calloused fingers that the forger likes to run through Arthur's hair whenever he can't get to sleep, Eames and the way he can always manage to make Arthur smile even after the toughest of days.
Eames, who upped and left in the middle of the night and then returned three hours later smelling of booze and perfume, of sweat and sex, with an ill-concealed hickey on his neck.
The phone finally stops ringing and Arthur is back to being professional and curt, his request and demand simple. "William Eames."
"Je suis désolée, we have not seen or heard from Monsieur Eames in a while now."
"How long is 'a while'?"
"About six months."
" 'About'?" Arthur's tone sharpens, icy, and on the other side of the line, there's the sound of hastily flipped notes.
"Five months, three weeks and five days, Monsieur."
It's more or less the same answer he's been hearing for the past two hours, and Arthur hangs up the phone with a disgruntled sigh. He's exhausted the rather lengthy list of Eames's contacts, and as he sits there, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the small indentions of dots on his die, thinking. God, does he even want to find Eames?
Hell no, he doesn't. But he absolutely refuses to play the part of the...the jilted lover (if that's what he and Eames even were), and there's no way he's going to let Eames wander around wherever he is without the knowledge of danger on his tail. No matter how much he hates the insufferable bastard, there is no denying the fact that Eames is a good man.
Unfastening and setting aside his cufflinks, Arthur rolls up his sleeves with determination and takes a deep breath, staring darkly at his laptop screen as if it's the root of all his problems. The black background stares innocently back. Then, he puts his fingers to the keys and begins to hack into the CCTV systems of countries all around Europe.
Five hours later, Arthur sits up ramrod straight in his chair, his eyes narrowing. He stops the tape and rewinds, then presses play, watches the scene again.
The pencil in his hand snaps in half.
- - - - -
Cobb is juggling. He learned how to do so a few months ago, and he's actually gotten rather good at it. James on one hip, two bags of groceries on the other, fishing for his keys in one pocket while Phillipa grabs at and swings like a monkey from his other arm - it's a delicate act, and he's barely able to unlock the door and usher everyone and everything inside without dropping something.
The phone starts to ring as soon as they set foot in the foyer and Cobb sets James down, sending the boy scampering off to play with his toys. Phillipa helpfully grabs one bag of groceries and troops off to the kitchen and Cobb takes his cell phone out of his pocket, setting it carefully on the table. It'd run out of power earlier on in the day, and he makes a mental note to recharge it soon. He's setting to follow his daughter when the answering machine picks up.
"Cobb?" Arthur's voice is frantic; Cobb's only heard him sound like this once before, when he'd been in Cairo on a job and Mal had been pregnant with James. Arthur had called, yelling about bleeding that wouldn't stop and telling him to get his ass back to LA right the fuck now because the doctors didn't know if the baby or mother were going to make it. "Cobb? Pick up. Please. Dom, please, pick up!"
The bag falls to the floor, completely forgotten as Cobb all but dives for the phone.
- * - * -
They say your life flashes before you eyes for one brief instant before you die. They also say your first time dying feels like flying. They also once said the world was flat, women shouldn't vote, and that broken hearts heal with time. Eames has learned not to trust what they say, whoever the hell "they" are. He's learned not to trust what a lot of people say; he himself lies day in and day out, and trust is something that's hard earned and all too easily lost.
He's died dozens of times before and seen nothing but blackness, so now, he thinks he must be dreaming. Of course, he hasn't dreamed naturally in years and years, but that's beside the point.
He's four years old and standing in the kitchen, seeing Mummy receive a phone call and break down in uncontrollable sobs, seeing but not understanding; understanding when Mummy says Daddy won't be back for a while, understanding but not comprehending.
He's eleven and picking his first pocket so that they'll have money to put food on the table that night. His fingers are still slim and swift and agile, slipping unnoticed into the woman's purse and lifting her three hundred dollar Coach wallet. He later sells that too, and hides the money under the loose floorboard in his bedroom. Two days later, he pries up the floorboard and takes the money to bail his eldest brother out of jail.
He vaguely feels the sensation of fists slamming into the side of his head, his chest; he feels his collarbone snapping and hears it, like a twig underneath a boot. But he can't be arsed to care.
He's seventeen and morphing his face into someone else's for the first time. A stranger stares back at him from the mirror and Eames smashes his fist into the reflective surface in a fit of black rage and hurt and pain. The wounds heal and scar over, and he takes forging beyond mere mimicry and disguise, elevates it to the level of an art form.
He's twenty-five and his breath catches in his throat as he stares at the individual standing tall at Dominic Cobb's side, and in that one instant, he knows that this is the one person he will never ever be able to forge, not in a million years.
From then on, the images swim faster and faster, like flipping through a scrapbook of memories, and all of those memories centralizing around one man.
Arthur's getting dragged along outside a car like a rag doll, one arm trapped in the seatbelt as the Audi speeds away and Eames can already see blood staining the pavement, crimson against black. He releases the mark's elbow and yells out Arthur's name, feeling his heart squeeze tight in his chest. When the point man wakes, stiff and sore and unable to move, Eames shoves a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water in Arthur's face, his heart still hammering against his ribs. It doesn't slow until he feels Arthur's pulse beneath his wrist and although the other man scowls at him, Eames can only find it within himself to smile back.
Arthur's head lands awkwardly on his shoulder in the backseat of the taxi, hair come loose from its gelled prison and flopping messily over his face. Eames thinks of waking him, because no doubt when he wakes himself, Arthur is going to find some way to blame this on the forger. But then he sees the exhaustion drawing tight Arthur's features, making him look impossibly young, and he merely shifts a bit so that Arthur won't wake up with a crick in his neck, and leans his head gently against the other's.
He smells broiled meat and realizes that it's him. They're holding a lighter against his skin, holding it there and he thinks he hears himself cry out in pain, but he's not sure.
He's burning, burning, burning up and feeling as though he's going to set the sheets on fire; he tosses the coverlet aside and buries his face in the pillow, feeling miserable and achy and all around terrible. A cool, gentle hand brushes against his cheek and he very nearly whimpers, leaning into the soothing touch. From somewhere above him, Arthur's voice floats softly in the air, telling Cobb that yes, Eames is still sick; yes, sick as a dog, can't they please take today off?
The inception job, a hotel room, and Arthur's smiling fondly down at him. "Go to sleep, Mr. Eames."
He's holding Arthur close against his bare chest, cradling the point man in a cave in the snow in the Himalayas; shivering, pale, thin Arthur who's still lying limply against him. He prays for the first time in years, prays to the God who took his father and abandoned his mother, prays and begs for Him not to take Arthur away too, not yet, not yet, damn it - and from faraway, he hears the sound of rotating helicopter blades, and, throwing his head back, he laughs as tears roll down his face.
The kiss is nothing perfect - it's a mess of lips and tongue and a slight clumsy clacking of teeth, the faint taste of whiskey and scotch; Arthur's warm breath against his mouth and Eames's fingers fumble in his pocket for his totem and its familiar ridges, because this is far too good to be true.
There's the cold metal of the muzzle of a gun pressing against his kneecap and thug number One looks furious and fed up; he's yelling and raving and he's long ago taken off the ski mask in the garage's ridiculous heat. Eames personally thinks the blonde looks rather hilarious all red in the face.
Arthur, for once, looks less than presentable. His face is red, his hair falling over his forehead and his eyes are angry slits but Eames can see the raw hurt of betrayal in their depths as he duck the fist flying toward his face. He grabs Arthur, earning himself a fist in the sternum for his efforts. However agile and skilled of a fighter the point man is though, Eames has a clear weight advantage and he pins Arthur against the wall, opening his mouth to explain that he was getting information from a mark, that he had left in the middle of the night so Arthur wouldn't get the wrong idea (the mark is a high-class call girl with information on a skeezy politician's illegitimate child, of course she's handsy), and how could Arthur ever think Eames would leave him for a cow like her?
But Arthur's having none of it, and he says those words that Eames has been dreading for so long now- get out.
"Why won't you talk?!" The thug - Eames can't tell which one is which anymore, his eyes are swollen too much - screams, and then, at the end of all things, suddenly Eames is laughing.
He laughs and laughs and laughs, because they'll never get him to talk, and it's quite funny really, even though it hurts like hell to even crack open his mouth. It's funny how they think ripped fingernails and broken bones and agonizing, blinding pain will ever be enough to make him betray Arthur.
"What," the leader spits with a nasty curl of his lip, "you think you mean this much to them?" He motions to the photographs and then snatches up one at random; it's Arthur. "You think you mean this much to him?"
Eames sneers back and he has no more breath to speak but if he did, he would tell them maybe not anymore, but he still means this much to me.
One of them draws a pistol and aims it between his eyes; there's the sound of a gunshot, the mini sonic-boom of the bullet exiting its chamber at thousands of miles per hour, and the entire garage explodes in tear gas and gunfire and demands for surrender.
Eames's chair is kicked over in the ensuing scuffle and before the darkness, before death, he dreams of Arthur striding into the garage, guns out and eyes blazing with fury, bullets flying from his fingertips in slow motion. He dreams of Arthur gently lifting his head and pillowing his upper body in his lap, sees tears in the point man's eyes, dreams of Arthur pressing a tender kiss to his mangled hand, whispering for him to hold on.
Hold on, Eames. Hold on.
- * - * -
Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and science and technology (yadayadayada), it only takes ten surgeries to fix his hands this time.
Ariadne sits by his side, slipping ice chips into his mouth and feeding him through his wired jaw, soup and jello and all sorts of nauseating-looking mush when all Eames really wants is a nice, medium rare steak. Maybe with a side of caviar. He has eclectic tastes. Yusuf keeps skulking around, checking and rechecking the levels of morphine and probably altering them until Eames is high as a kite, all the while still surreptitiously asking the forger if he wants a better sedative, so he can sleep the pain off. Cobb brings cards from Phillipa and James, rough construction paper folded in half with blue crayoned words and pictures wishing "Get Well, Uncle Eames!!" and a smiley face. They sit on the bedside table, next to the rather large arrangement of sunflowers sent by Saito.
Arthur though, is nowhere to be found. And more than anything, that hurts.
One day, Eames finally plucks up the courage to ask someone, anyone.
"But Brad is great, I think you'll really like him," Ariadne says happily, stirring the straw in the chocolate milk she's supposed to be helping him with and Eames makes a mental note to look into this "Brad" character later. Maybe when he can actually speak and get to the bathroom without using someone else as a walking aid. "He's nice, and funny, and he actually has an imagination that goes beyond the textbook- hmm? What is it?"
Eames motions for the little notebook and grasps the pencil in his clumsy, bandaged fingers, writing down a shaky "Where's Arthur?" in script that looks like a three-year old's scrawl.
Ariadne takes the little notebook, reads the words, and her face falls. She looks up at him, her expression unreadable, and then glances away quickly. It's enough of an answer.
Later, he catches Yusuf in the room and nods his head once for the sedative.
- - - - -
"You did WHAT?! Arthur, what the fuck!" Cobb's voice is loud. Very loud. Eames blinks awake and looks out the shuttered window and into the hall, where a Cobb-shadow is waving his hands around angrily. "You should have let the law handle it!"
"What, like you let the law 'handle' Cobol Engineering? Cobb, we're criminals. We generally bypass the law." The other shadow is tall and slim, and has a voice that sounds suspiciously like Arthur. Eames wonders if he's hallucinating again.
"They deserve justice."
"They don't deserve shit after what they did to Eames," Arthur retorts frostily, and Eames has heard this tone before - all steel and ice and no mercy whatsoever. He shivers.
"So you executed them?!" Even as a shadow, Cobb looks close to tearing his hair out.
"No. They're still alive. They just wish that wasn't the case."
"Arthur-"
"Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't have done the same for Mal."
Silence. Eames strains his ears, but he still can't hear anything. Then, the Cobb-shaped shadow drops his head and sighs, Arthur walks away and Eames watches a Saito-shaped shadow (it's the gait of his walk and the way he holds his head) walk up to Cobb and put a hand on his shoulder, talking to him in a low murmur. Probably trying to reassure the former extractor that his almost-adopted-but not really son isn't going to be thrown in jail for whatever sort of terrible torture Arthur evidently put thugs one to five through in the dreamscape.
He leans back, only one thought drifting through his mind as his eyelids begin to slide shut again, and it makes him feel strangely airy - and he's sure it's not the drugs this time, but the fact that Arthur thinks of him in the say way Cobb would think of Mal, in the same context. To be honest, normally Eames would be miffed about being the wife, but right now he doesn't give a damn, and smiles even though it hurts.
- - - - -
Someone's holding his hand and brushing a thumb over the knuckles. Over and over. It's soothing and lulling Eames back to sleep even before he's fully awake and isn't that strange? He forces his eyes open though, because he knows that touch, and barely daring to hope, glances over to the side of the bed.
Arthur looks...awful. There's no other way to put it. He looks weary and rumpled, hard-edges worn down to dull worry and he's staring blankly at the far wall, teeth worrying his bottom lip. His foot is tapping against the floor, shoes making little click-click-click sounds.
He's still the most gorgeous thing Eames has ever seen.
The forger tightens his hold as much as he can and Arthur looks up, and his face literally lights up, like someone rekindled a fire within him and Eames tries to smile. It hurts, though. Stupid wired jaw. He must look ridiculous.
Arthur stands, his fingers still gripping Eames's tightly and he settles gently on the edge of the bed, other hand reaching out for Eames's face but stopping just an inch away, as if he's afraid. His dark eyes search the forger's and the silence stretches on for a beat. Suddenly then, his hand lands softly against Eames's cheek, light and gentle, and he speaks. "When I said get out," he says, voice low, "I didn't mean stay out or stay away. And I certainly didn't mean go get yourself kidnapped and tortured, you idiot."
Eames closes his eyes in response and turns his face into Arthur's palm, squeezing his hand as much as he can. They stay like that for a while.
- * - * -
And, like any real story, there is no happily ever after, because no one can tell the future and the presumption of fairy tale endings is stupid and childish (especially given their line of work). There is no happily ever after but there is a here and a now, there in Arthur's rare smile and here in the warmth suffusing through Eames's chest.
And it's far better.
- * - * -
A/N: This is seriously the sappiest thing I've ever written, but I'm grinning like a loon right now. Hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I loved writing it!
Character/Pairings: Arthur/Eames, Ariadne, Cobb, James, Phillipa, Saito, Yusuf
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Mr. Nolan owns it all
Warnings: non-graphic descriptions of torture
Summary: The first time Eames found himself up a creek without a paddle, he's young and arrogant, cocky as hell and careless. He actually doesn't remember all too well how it happened, whether it was a bet gone wrong or a slip of the hand, twitchy fingers or shooting his mouth off to the wrong person - all he remembers is the aftermath, where they took a hammer to his hands.
Author's Notes: Written for the wild card square for hc_bingo and for the prompt on inception_kink : "Eames gets captured and tortured for information about the team. He refuses to give it up and gets tortured more. It's up to the team to save him and nurse him back to health."
Like so many stories these days, it starts off in medias res, with the protagonist (who's not so much a dashing and charming hero when drunk off his rocker and stuffed into the back of a van with a black bag jammed over his head) facing certain peril. He's transported roughly from van to pavement to inside a building, then flung roughly into a chair, hands uncomfortably and securely fastened behind his back with a zip tie around the wrists. The bag is jerked off and away, leaving him blinking blearily in the dim light of a drab grey room; he takes one look at his captors and grins, the slow, knowing smirk of a Cheshire cat.
"Well, now. Evening, gentlemen."
Said gentlemen exchange swift and somewhat confused glances, the whites of their eyes darting about rapidly like that of deer, stupid and momentarily frozen in the headlights, because that's not how it's supposed to go. Their prisoner shouldn't be grinning lazily at them like he knows their every move, knows what they're going to do next; he should be shaking and blubbering with fear, pissing his pants even, crying and telling them he'll do whatever they want. Instead, he's leaning back casually in the hard-backed, plastic chair as if making himself comfortable, like he's seen this song and dance routine before, and it infuriates them.
And like any good mafia movie or B-rated flick about gangsters and lowlife thugs, they start in first with a baseball bat.
Eames lets out a less than dignified "oof" as the bat slams into his stomach, but he can't help but chuckle a little though through gritted teeth because the poor fools are wearing black stocking caps and ski masks, the lot of them. Black stocking caps. And ski masks. Well, that's good for them; really, it is. Because Eames may not have an eidetic memory like Cobb, but he's a forger, and although their faces are covered, he knows their kind.
He's been them before.
He's spent days running the streets with the attitude of one too good for this world, pick-pocketing and roughhousing and generally being a little terror because staying home meant seeing his mother wasting away into nothing. He's worked with and against dozens of thugs ever since: the ones with a generous benefactor with guns even larger than their egos and gangsters bound by some inward, warped sense of morality; hoodlums with gaudy jewelry and pistols stuck down the front or backs of their pants, goons of all brawn and little to no brain - and they're all the same, really - overgrown boys using violence as intimidation.
And Eames has never been easy to scare.
They must want something; in fact he knows they do, because otherwise, they would've already killed him or taken his wallet. Or both. They might as well save their energy and skip the preliminary beating and get to asking questions, because Eames can be tight-lipped as a monk under a vow of silence when he wants to be, and he says as much. Of course, he earns another few smacks for that.
"Easy there, love," he laughs as a fist catches him across the jaw and he spits onto the floor, blood mingled with saliva and the aftertaste of one too many drinks. "Don't want to break my jaw before you get me to talk."
There are five of them, and in his mind, the forger has already assigned them numbers and guessed their respective roles. Number One is obviously the leader, his eyes narrowed into slits at Eames's nonchalance. Number Two steps back, his knuckles wet with fresh blood. He's a stout fellow, but thick-limbed and barrel-chested, the grunt man on the team. Number Three is standing at the door, semi-automatic in hand, on guard. Number Four stands menacingly next to the leader, and he looks like an overgrown stage prop, tall and huge and imposing but with nothing to do but stand there and look dumb. Now where's the other one? Eames swears he counted five when they nabbed him... Ah, and here he comes, number Five, a skinny little kid, trotting up to the group like an eager little puppy. Must be returning from parking the van out back.
"Now that we're acquainted," the forger grins and it's a predatory smile, a flash of white teeth already stained with red, "what the bloody hell do you tossers want?"
Number One speaks up, his voice a low rasp. English, that much is certain. Cockney accent, must be a Londoner. "Your team, Mr. Eames."
Eames raises an eyebrow. He can feel a lump forming above his eye already. "What team?"
Slowly, the leader reaches into the file folder he's holding and extracts four large 8x11 photographs shot paparazzi style, glossy and embossed, black and white and familiar. Eames's mouth goes dry. His eyes roam past the picture of a laughing Ariadne sitting with her friends, of Yusuf peering out of some shady-looking lean-to, and of Cobb looking stern and troubled through the window of a train. He glances at all of them but the one that sends his heart thumping double time and starts to make his palms sweat is the image of a frowning Arthur, dressed to the nines as usual, brow furrowed in concentration as he stares intently down at a file.
If they didn't have his attention before, they surely have it now.
- * - * -
Hundreds of miles and a couple of time zones away, Ariadne sits in a huge lecture hall, the first of her classes for the day. The professor is up at the front, scrawling away on the blackboard, muttering more to himself than to his students as the three hundred-some members of his audience mumble and try to keep up, pencils scratching against graph paper, fingers flying over keyboards. But Ariadne?
She's staring out the ceiling to floor windows, and she's bored stupid.
Her sketchpad is covered with drawings of impossible things, a blueprint of mazes that can never exist, buildings that can never be constructed. Penrose stairs crisscross each other and whirl on and on forever, elevators designed to go up but never down, corridors that wind on and on into dead ends - and beyond. She's been charmed, she's hopelessly captivated, and now she's fallen in love, and everything else pales in comparison to the world of dreams, where she can build and build whatever she pleases.
Now, she's confined by gravity and physics, by the rules of reality - and it sucks.
The boy sitting next to her glances at her curiously when he senses her lack of attention and Ariadne looks away from where his notebook his covered in lopsided handwriting, copies of the professor's rambling, statements and proofs and postulations drawn from textbooks and taken as truth. She pities him, for he'll never know the wonders she's been shown, never see the breathtaking impossibility of a city folding in upon itself. He'll never know how to dream.
He smiles warmly and leans in close. "Bored?"
Ariadne blinks at him. "How could you possibly tell?" she asks flatly, an unspoken leave me alone in her tone, and either the other is too clueless to notice, or he doesn't care.
"I've been watching you sketch for about ten minutes now and it's a hell of a lot more interesting than what old Gaffrey has to say." He leans in even closer and although she should be annoyed, Ariadne...isn't. Besides, he's cute - not in a rakish, roguish way like Eames, or in the clean-cut, gentlemanly way like Arthur - he's actually kind of dorky looking, badly in need of a haircut and his sweater is a hideous orange. She likes it.
"Brad," the boy says by way of introduction, sticking out a hand smeared with pencil dust and Ariadne smiles.
Well, this could be interesting.
- - - - -
"What's wrong, Jamie?" Dom asks quietly, sitting up slightly. His son stands in the doorway, clutching a corner of his dark blue security blanket and rubbing a small fist over his eyes, pouting slightly. "Did you have a bad dream?" The little boy nods and sticks his lip out even further, and Dom smiles, patting the bed. "Come here."
James pads toward the bed, bare feet slapping a little against the wooden floorboards and crawls into his father's arms, looping tiny arms around Dom's waist and snuggling in close.
Ten minutes later, Phillipa sticks her head around the doorjamb, peering into the room. Her hair is unbrushed, sticking up in odd places and she's got her lower lip in between her teeth, worrying the skin as if deciding whether to enter. Dom smiles and pats the coverlet again, and she scampers into the room, bounding up on the other side of the bed and pillows her head on her father's arm, tiny head tucked into the crook of his neck.
With his arms wrapped tightly around both his children, Dom gazes at the picture on his nightstand, of Mal's sparkling eyes and cupid bow lips curved into a smile. She's got an arm around Arthur's shoulders and she's holding little James in the other; Arthur has Phillipa propped up on one hip and the little girl has got her small fingers splayed against his face, her expression gleeful and mischievous. Dom remembers the Saturday afternoon when he took the picture; immediately afterwards, Phillipa had reached up and thoroughly mussed up Arthur's hair, shrieking with glee when the point man growled playfully and began to tickle her mercilessly, Mal laughing in the background as James held out his hands and babbled, wanting a chance to play with Uncle Arthur too. He remembers the smell of barbeque chlorine from the pool, his children chasing each other around the backyard, of Mal asking Arthur when she's going to have a little boy or girl calling her "Auntie Mal" and Arthur flushing scarlet to the tips of his ears.
Closing his eyes and with a smile still twitching at his lips, Dom drifts off into sleep.
- - - - -
Across the world, a man sits at a rough old wooden desk, squinting at the pipette dropper he holds, and more importantly, at the amber yellow liquid in the beaker. It's rapidly turning a deep purple color with every drop of the clear agent he's adding.
Just one more...or. Wait. His brow wrinkles in sudden confusion. Is it supposed to be 1 milliliter or 11 milliliters?
His fingers squeeze involuntarily, and Yusuf jumps back at the mini-explosion and the mushroom cloud of orangey smoke, coughing and waving his hands about. Eyebrows? Check. Vision? Check. Hallucinations? Hmm.
The chemist peers about himself, but no purple blobs come bursting out of the walls demanding waffles and he's not seeing a symphony of sound, so everything must be okay.
From across the room, his cat peers out of the shadows and hisses, obviously displeased at the stench of rotten eggs filling the air, and he offers her an apologetic shrug.
- - - - -
The coffee is already percolating in the machine when Arthur steps into the kitchen again, his hair damp from the morning shower. His eyes skim over the file open on the marble countertop as he pours himself a mug, not really caring that the beverage is scalding hot and black as sin, as long as it wakes him up. There's creamer in the fridge and sugar sitting in a little container pushed against the wall, but they're certainly not his, and so he leaves them untouched.
Six sips later, the lingering fogginess of sleep have finally dissipated and Arthur returns to the bedroom, surveying the suit laid out on the bed, carefully pressed and ready to be slipped on, like a second skin. As he reaches back into the wardrobe for a tie, his fingers brush something and there's a crinkle of what sounds like plastic. With a frown, he reaches up to remove the offending object, and finds himself staring at a pack of cigarettes that have been hidden there like a guilty pleasure.
Arthur doesn't smoke.
A muscle in Arthur's jaw twitches and he catches his reflection in the mirror and his brow is furrowed so deeply one could cut it with a knife. He crushes the cigarettes in his fist, trying not to think of two cups of coffee, one black and the other doctored until it's sweet as a malt, of two toothbrushes in the bathroom and the collection of hideous paisley-patterned shirts and ill-fitting jackets tucked away in the wardrobe next to the neatly hung suits, the objects not belonging to him that he still hasn't the heart to throw out, of a quiet voice murmuring but you must have breakfast, darling; most important meal of the day in his ear. Trying not to think of how the sheets on now impeccably made bed should have been mussed up on both sides.
He doesn't miss him. He doesn't. He doesn't.
- * - * -
Arthur looks well. Or...as well as he can look in a photograph (which is always stunning; if the whole point man thing falls through, he can always take up modeling) and Eames feels a pang in his chest that has nothing to do with his bruised ribs. There's a sudden lump in his throat and he swallows it down so his voice doesn't shake or crack when he speaks. "What do you want with them?"
(With him, he means. What do you want with Arthur - my Arthur? Because that's something these goons should understand right here and right now: Arthur is Eames's, and if they choose to do something idiotic like, say, treat the point man in the same way they're treating Eames right now...well, the forger isn't going to be responsible for any knee-jerk reactions of rage.)
As expected, his head snaps to the side and then thug number Two leans over him, breath smelling like sauerkraut and spoiled milk. "You're not in any position to be asking the questions here, Mr. Eames," he snarls, and Eames snorts because honestly, If this gets any more cliche, they'll be pulling out his fingernails next. "What we want is our business."
"Oh pet," the forger drawls, sarcasm and condescension dripping from each syllable. "It's not nice to hit and not tell, you know."
He's spared another ringing blow to the head as number One charges forward, grabbing the other man by the elbow and manhandling him backwards, words flying fast and angry in a sharp hiss. He twitches when one large booted foot steps down squarely on the photo of Arthur, but bites his tongue in favor of interestedly watching the scene playing out before him. Whatever the conversation is about, it involves a lot of angry hand waving and finger-pointing before thug number One suddenly draws a gun and cocks it. Number Two is not easily cowed though, and draws his own pistol. The remaining members seem unsure of what to do, although their hands are straying toward their own weapons as well.
Eames cocks his head. "Oh, brilliant, a coup. Don't mind me," he mutters. "I'm just here to watch the show." He turns to thug number Five, the kid, and grins, even though something grinds and pops painfully in his jaw. "Can I get a bucket of popcorn, then?"
That stops the argument, and the leader (for now, anyway) glares, his eyes narrowed into slits. "Go get the pliers," he barks, and the kid jumps, hastening to obey as number Two and number Four circle around behind the chair, cutting the tie around Eames's wrists and holding him still while one of them wrenches one hand up and brings it to the front.
"Ah, so we are starting with the fingernails. Lovely." Shame, Eames thinks mournfully. He actually rather likes having fingernails.
Arthur's photograph stares up at him from the floor and for a moment, the forger imagines he can hear the point man sighing wearily and asking just what kind of trouble he's managed to land himself in now. Eames wishes he knew.
- * - * -
His cell phone rings once, twice, and without taking his eyes away from the laptop screen, Arthur fishes into his pocket and retrieves the small object, bringing it to his ear. "Hello?"
"Uncle Arthur!!" The sweet little voice shouts out over the line and Arthur starts, jerking in his seat and nearly knocking over his coffee (the fourth one today, and it's still as black and bitter as ever.) as he sits up straight.
"Phillipa?" He checks his watch; it must be around eight over in Los Angeles. "Why...what are you doing on the phone?"
"Daddy's making pancakes!" The little girl all but squeals, and Arthur allows himself a small chuckle, some of the tension seeping out of his shoulders as he leans back in his chair, trying to imagine Cobb standing at the stove in a pink apron and waving around a spatula, getting batter absolutely everywhere (or rather, that's what happened the last time Arthur was over for breakfast and Dom tried to cook. Mal ended up shooing him out and banning him from her kitchen).
"Is he now? I hope nothing's on fire?"
"Very funny, Arthur," Cobb's voice rings out, and Arthur guesses he must be on speaker phone before there's a click and the sounds of objects being shuffled around. "Phillipa, watch your brother. I'm going into the next room to talk to Uncle Arthur, okay?" The noises die away as Cobb apparently ducks into the living room, and only then does Arthur speak up again.
"Cobb, what's wrong?"
"You need to keep your head down, Arthur," Cobb replies, and there's a worried note in his warning tone. "I've been hearing things through the grapevine, and they're not entirely positive."
"Is it Cobol Engineering again?" Arthur asks in a low voice, closing the laptop and carefully sliding it into the briefcase at his side. His eyes are scanning the passerby and roving along the street outside the little cafe, searching for any signs of suspicious activity. Of course he'd already done so before sitting down when he first arrived, force of habit being a point man and all, but it never hurts to check again. "I thought we were done with them after that little...incident in the Himalayas."
"No, it's not Cobol. I already took care of that." Cobb's tone goes low, dark, and Arthur wonders if the extractor is remembering getting Ariadne's frantic phone call, flying all the way out to Nepal and spending hours upon hours searching for his former point man and forger in a snowy labyrinth with no clear routes or map or any advantage against Nature despite all his skill and expertise in the art of extraction (and, as of late, inception). When Cobb speaks again, his voice is flat. "Word is, there're some shady figures looking for the rumored successful 'inception team'."
Oh, Christ on a cracker.
"They call themselves 'Defenders of Free Minds and Conscious Will'."
"The Gestapo against subconscious security. Yeah, I know of them." Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, already feeling the migraine coming on. "And you're saying they're after us now? How did they even find out who we are?"
"No clue, but I've already gotten the message out to Ariadne through Miles and along the proper channels to reach Yusuf. We all know Saito is untouchable, so that leaves you and Eames."
Looking back, Arthur knows he shouldn't have reacted like he did, but at the mention of the forger, his response is sharp and barbed, undeniably cold and snappish. "And what makes you so sure I can reach him? Eames is a drifter, Cobb; a wanderer. He goes wherever he wants whenever he damn well pleases, and there's nobo-nothing that can tie him down."
Silence reigns supreme over the line for a moment, and then, tentatively: "So what happened between the two of you?"
Arthur's fist clenches. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he says stiffly.
"Arthur."
"Cobb."
"How long have we known each other?"
He doesn't even have to count; the answer is automatic. "Eleven years."
"Yeah. You think I wouldn't know by now?" Cobb pauses. "Even the kids know, Arthur. James was just asking the other day when 'Uncle Eames' is going to visit with Uncle Arthur again."
Arthur should be angry. He should be annoyed because Cobb's tone is understanding and kind and just this side of patronizing - but he's not. Suddenly, all he feels is tired, a bone-deep weariness that makes him ache. "I'll tell him if I see him," he says quietly, and both of them make no comment on the "if" and not "when" as choice of words.
"You do that." Cobb is equally quiet.
"Daddy!! The pancakes are turning black!!" Phillipa calls, and Cobb mutters a curse before saying a hasty goodbye and hanging up.
Arthur sits there for a long time, just staring off into the distance. His coffee is cold and bitter enough to choke a man when he raises the cup to his lips, but he swallows it down anyway.
- * - * -
The first time Eames found himself up shit creek without a paddle, he's young and arrogant, cocky as hell and careless. He actually doesn't remember all too well how it happened, whether it was a bet gone wrong or a slip of the hand, twitchy fingers or shooting his mouth off to the wrong person - all he remembers is the aftermath, where they took a hammer to his hands.
Over. And over. And over again. A common punishment for a petty thief, they said.
It took seventeen surgeries to fix the damage, and to this day, his knuckles still look funny (it's part of what attracts him to others' hands so much. Arthur's fingers and long and elegant, like an artist). As soon as he got out of the hospital though, Eames went back to that same establishment and showed the people who smashed his hands into putty just how petty of a thief he could be.
He robs them blind and uses a small portion of his winnings to pay his medical bills. The rest, he sends back home to his mother.
- - - - -
Snap.
Goon number Two releases the pinky when the bone breaks, and grins triumphantly down at their bloodied, beaten captive. "Ready to talk?"
Eames doesn't reply.
His chest heaves unsteadily, blossoming bright with purple-black bruises in the shape of a baseball bat, a crowbar, imprints of knuckles. He's slumped, no longer cocky and defiant; his mouth is now sans two molars (lying discarded on the dirty floor) and he feels like one giant aching muscle. He can barely hear anything through the screaming of the nerve endings in his mangled hands, of which all his fingers are broken, bent out of shape and in the back of his mind there's the niggling wonder of how many surgeries it'll take to fix them this time.
His throat is raw from biting back screams and sobs alike.
"Where-are-your-teammates?"
Each word is punctuated by a sharp kick to the ribs and Eames doubles over as far as he can, his eyes squeezing shut. The breath wheezes painfully in his lungs and a small involuntary noise sneaks its way out of his mouth, something small and broken, something like a whimper of pain.
There's the sound of shuffling feet and then someone wraps cold fingers around his jaw and jerks his head upwards; he cracks his eyes open. Ah, hello there number One.
"You see, Mr. Eames, it's very simple. Just tell us where they are, and we'll let you go. We already know the chemist is roaming around somewhere in Kenya..."
Eames winces and his heavy eyes slide shut again. He thinks of Yusuf, of meeting the cheery chemist in an illegal dreaming den, of how the man's stupid cat had nearly mauled him to death (he still has the scars to prove it. Bloody creature.). Knocking back drinks together, swindling poor unsuspecting junkies high for dreaming out of their money; testing out new compounds and feeling polka-dotted elephants growing out of the floor, dropping into a dead sleep for ninety-six hours straight, seeing his dead mother and absent father dancing together to a tuneless waltz. Waking up with tears on his face and taking the tissues that Yusuf hands over wordlessly, bringing him in on the inception job.
"...and that the girl's studying architecture in Paris..."
Ariadne. Ariadne and her wide-eyed wonder, her intelligence, her knowing smiles when she catches him staring at Arthur. She was the one who helped him pick out what to wear when Arthur finally said yes to one of many dinner invitations, and truly, the girl was a godsend when Eames called her, nearly hyperventilating into the phone with anxiety and excitement. He can still feel her tears soaking through his shirt from the night when she cried into his arms after some stupid boy thought it would be okay to take her heart and throw it in the dirt before stomping all over it.
(Arthur had been listening right outside the door, his face shuttered and his expression tight. Later that night, he and the forger had taken it upon themselves to pay said boy a visit, just to show him how sorry he should be for breaking poor Ariadne's heart, and just how sorry they were going to make him.)
"We know the extractor is retired and living somewhere in the States with his children..."
Years ago, Eames wouldn't have batted an eye at turning Cobb over in such a situation, because he's a liar and a thief, working and living to his own benefit and his own advantage. Eames never pretends to be a good man, for he knows he's not, but the farces he orchestrates are only for the sake of the job. When it comes to his own identity, he lets those who are concerned know with one hundred percent clarity- he's loyal to the job, reliable for the sake of the money. If there's danger, he's saving his own arse, and bailing whenever he sees fit. Years ago, Cobb would be the one in the hands of these grubby little thugs, and Eames safely stowed away on a plane to somewhere far, far away.
But Cobb has a family now, children who are sweet and innocent and full of such life, children who deserve to have a father after they've lost their mother to dreaming. Eames's mind swirls back to a sunny summer afternoon, romping around in Cobb's backyard playing horsey with little James on his back and acting the part of the fearsome dragon guarding Princess Phillipa's castle, to Ariadne laughing herself silly at his antics, to Arthur's soft, fond smile.
So now, no. He won't give Cobb up for anything, even if just for the sake of his children.
"But there's just one man we haven't located." The fingers on his broken jaw tighten, grinding bones together. "Where is the point man?"
And then there's Arthur. Arthur with his three-piece suits and reticent intelligence, his professionalism and punctuality, his gelled back hair and poker face. Arthur with his adorable dimples that appear whenever he bloody loosens up enough to huff out that quiet, private laugh, the flutter of his eyelashes against Eames's throat as he slips into sleep, the simultaneous admirable strength and amazing vulnerability in his lithe frame as he curves in against Eames beneath the sheets. Arthur with that soft pucker in his forehead that Eames kiss smooth, who takes his coffee scalding hot and black as anything, who brushes his lips gently against the inside of Eames's wrist right over his pulse as a good morning and good night.
Arthur, with his furious eyes snapping sparks, jaw set and mouth tight, his voice low and dangerous and filled with hate snapping get out, get out, get the hell out.
Arthur.
Eames opens his eyes. Number One's eyes are a mossy green and blurry; he's waiting for an answer, for Eames to capitulate, and the forger is definitely not going to give him that satisfaction. "Go to hell," he sneers instead, and spits a mouthful of blood in the thug's face. The man growls in frustration, backhanding him roughly and scrubbing at the spittle and blood splattered across his mask.
And Eames blames the tears welling in his eyes on the physical pain, and not on the memory of Arthur.
- * - * -
Arthur sits in the study, phone cradled against his ear, brow furrowed and his foot is tapping ceaselessly against the floor, a nervous tic acquired in adolescence that he'd never quite managed to shake. It's been appearing with steadily increasing frequency over the past few months, and no wonder, he's always a nervous wreck whenever it comes to Eames.
Eames and his stupid roguish grin that he thinks a lot more charming than it actually is, Eames and his ugly paisley shirts and idiotic trousers that don't fit, Eames and his stubble that burns and leaves behind annoying rashes, Eames and his unfailing ability to get under Arthur's suits and his skin, Eames and his stupid calloused fingers that the forger likes to run through Arthur's hair whenever he can't get to sleep, Eames and the way he can always manage to make Arthur smile even after the toughest of days.
Eames, who upped and left in the middle of the night and then returned three hours later smelling of booze and perfume, of sweat and sex, with an ill-concealed hickey on his neck.
The phone finally stops ringing and Arthur is back to being professional and curt, his request and demand simple. "William Eames."
"Je suis désolée, we have not seen or heard from Monsieur Eames in a while now."
"How long is 'a while'?"
"About six months."
" 'About'?" Arthur's tone sharpens, icy, and on the other side of the line, there's the sound of hastily flipped notes.
"Five months, three weeks and five days, Monsieur."
It's more or less the same answer he's been hearing for the past two hours, and Arthur hangs up the phone with a disgruntled sigh. He's exhausted the rather lengthy list of Eames's contacts, and as he sits there, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the small indentions of dots on his die, thinking. God, does he even want to find Eames?
Hell no, he doesn't. But he absolutely refuses to play the part of the...the jilted lover (if that's what he and Eames even were), and there's no way he's going to let Eames wander around wherever he is without the knowledge of danger on his tail. No matter how much he hates the insufferable bastard, there is no denying the fact that Eames is a good man.
Unfastening and setting aside his cufflinks, Arthur rolls up his sleeves with determination and takes a deep breath, staring darkly at his laptop screen as if it's the root of all his problems. The black background stares innocently back. Then, he puts his fingers to the keys and begins to hack into the CCTV systems of countries all around Europe.
Five hours later, Arthur sits up ramrod straight in his chair, his eyes narrowing. He stops the tape and rewinds, then presses play, watches the scene again.
The pencil in his hand snaps in half.
- - - - -
Cobb is juggling. He learned how to do so a few months ago, and he's actually gotten rather good at it. James on one hip, two bags of groceries on the other, fishing for his keys in one pocket while Phillipa grabs at and swings like a monkey from his other arm - it's a delicate act, and he's barely able to unlock the door and usher everyone and everything inside without dropping something.
The phone starts to ring as soon as they set foot in the foyer and Cobb sets James down, sending the boy scampering off to play with his toys. Phillipa helpfully grabs one bag of groceries and troops off to the kitchen and Cobb takes his cell phone out of his pocket, setting it carefully on the table. It'd run out of power earlier on in the day, and he makes a mental note to recharge it soon. He's setting to follow his daughter when the answering machine picks up.
"Cobb?" Arthur's voice is frantic; Cobb's only heard him sound like this once before, when he'd been in Cairo on a job and Mal had been pregnant with James. Arthur had called, yelling about bleeding that wouldn't stop and telling him to get his ass back to LA right the fuck now because the doctors didn't know if the baby or mother were going to make it. "Cobb? Pick up. Please. Dom, please, pick up!"
The bag falls to the floor, completely forgotten as Cobb all but dives for the phone.
- * - * -
They say your life flashes before you eyes for one brief instant before you die. They also say your first time dying feels like flying. They also once said the world was flat, women shouldn't vote, and that broken hearts heal with time. Eames has learned not to trust what they say, whoever the hell "they" are. He's learned not to trust what a lot of people say; he himself lies day in and day out, and trust is something that's hard earned and all too easily lost.
He's died dozens of times before and seen nothing but blackness, so now, he thinks he must be dreaming. Of course, he hasn't dreamed naturally in years and years, but that's beside the point.
He's four years old and standing in the kitchen, seeing Mummy receive a phone call and break down in uncontrollable sobs, seeing but not understanding; understanding when Mummy says Daddy won't be back for a while, understanding but not comprehending.
He's eleven and picking his first pocket so that they'll have money to put food on the table that night. His fingers are still slim and swift and agile, slipping unnoticed into the woman's purse and lifting her three hundred dollar Coach wallet. He later sells that too, and hides the money under the loose floorboard in his bedroom. Two days later, he pries up the floorboard and takes the money to bail his eldest brother out of jail.
He vaguely feels the sensation of fists slamming into the side of his head, his chest; he feels his collarbone snapping and hears it, like a twig underneath a boot. But he can't be arsed to care.
He's seventeen and morphing his face into someone else's for the first time. A stranger stares back at him from the mirror and Eames smashes his fist into the reflective surface in a fit of black rage and hurt and pain. The wounds heal and scar over, and he takes forging beyond mere mimicry and disguise, elevates it to the level of an art form.
He's twenty-five and his breath catches in his throat as he stares at the individual standing tall at Dominic Cobb's side, and in that one instant, he knows that this is the one person he will never ever be able to forge, not in a million years.
From then on, the images swim faster and faster, like flipping through a scrapbook of memories, and all of those memories centralizing around one man.
Arthur's getting dragged along outside a car like a rag doll, one arm trapped in the seatbelt as the Audi speeds away and Eames can already see blood staining the pavement, crimson against black. He releases the mark's elbow and yells out Arthur's name, feeling his heart squeeze tight in his chest. When the point man wakes, stiff and sore and unable to move, Eames shoves a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water in Arthur's face, his heart still hammering against his ribs. It doesn't slow until he feels Arthur's pulse beneath his wrist and although the other man scowls at him, Eames can only find it within himself to smile back.
Arthur's head lands awkwardly on his shoulder in the backseat of the taxi, hair come loose from its gelled prison and flopping messily over his face. Eames thinks of waking him, because no doubt when he wakes himself, Arthur is going to find some way to blame this on the forger. But then he sees the exhaustion drawing tight Arthur's features, making him look impossibly young, and he merely shifts a bit so that Arthur won't wake up with a crick in his neck, and leans his head gently against the other's.
He smells broiled meat and realizes that it's him. They're holding a lighter against his skin, holding it there and he thinks he hears himself cry out in pain, but he's not sure.
He's burning, burning, burning up and feeling as though he's going to set the sheets on fire; he tosses the coverlet aside and buries his face in the pillow, feeling miserable and achy and all around terrible. A cool, gentle hand brushes against his cheek and he very nearly whimpers, leaning into the soothing touch. From somewhere above him, Arthur's voice floats softly in the air, telling Cobb that yes, Eames is still sick; yes, sick as a dog, can't they please take today off?
The inception job, a hotel room, and Arthur's smiling fondly down at him. "Go to sleep, Mr. Eames."
He's holding Arthur close against his bare chest, cradling the point man in a cave in the snow in the Himalayas; shivering, pale, thin Arthur who's still lying limply against him. He prays for the first time in years, prays to the God who took his father and abandoned his mother, prays and begs for Him not to take Arthur away too, not yet, not yet, damn it - and from faraway, he hears the sound of rotating helicopter blades, and, throwing his head back, he laughs as tears roll down his face.
The kiss is nothing perfect - it's a mess of lips and tongue and a slight clumsy clacking of teeth, the faint taste of whiskey and scotch; Arthur's warm breath against his mouth and Eames's fingers fumble in his pocket for his totem and its familiar ridges, because this is far too good to be true.
There's the cold metal of the muzzle of a gun pressing against his kneecap and thug number One looks furious and fed up; he's yelling and raving and he's long ago taken off the ski mask in the garage's ridiculous heat. Eames personally thinks the blonde looks rather hilarious all red in the face.
Arthur, for once, looks less than presentable. His face is red, his hair falling over his forehead and his eyes are angry slits but Eames can see the raw hurt of betrayal in their depths as he duck the fist flying toward his face. He grabs Arthur, earning himself a fist in the sternum for his efforts. However agile and skilled of a fighter the point man is though, Eames has a clear weight advantage and he pins Arthur against the wall, opening his mouth to explain that he was getting information from a mark, that he had left in the middle of the night so Arthur wouldn't get the wrong idea (the mark is a high-class call girl with information on a skeezy politician's illegitimate child, of course she's handsy), and how could Arthur ever think Eames would leave him for a cow like her?
But Arthur's having none of it, and he says those words that Eames has been dreading for so long now- get out.
"Why won't you talk?!" The thug - Eames can't tell which one is which anymore, his eyes are swollen too much - screams, and then, at the end of all things, suddenly Eames is laughing.
He laughs and laughs and laughs, because they'll never get him to talk, and it's quite funny really, even though it hurts like hell to even crack open his mouth. It's funny how they think ripped fingernails and broken bones and agonizing, blinding pain will ever be enough to make him betray Arthur.
"What," the leader spits with a nasty curl of his lip, "you think you mean this much to them?" He motions to the photographs and then snatches up one at random; it's Arthur. "You think you mean this much to him?"
Eames sneers back and he has no more breath to speak but if he did, he would tell them maybe not anymore, but he still means this much to me.
One of them draws a pistol and aims it between his eyes; there's the sound of a gunshot, the mini sonic-boom of the bullet exiting its chamber at thousands of miles per hour, and the entire garage explodes in tear gas and gunfire and demands for surrender.
Eames's chair is kicked over in the ensuing scuffle and before the darkness, before death, he dreams of Arthur striding into the garage, guns out and eyes blazing with fury, bullets flying from his fingertips in slow motion. He dreams of Arthur gently lifting his head and pillowing his upper body in his lap, sees tears in the point man's eyes, dreams of Arthur pressing a tender kiss to his mangled hand, whispering for him to hold on.
Hold on, Eames. Hold on.
- * - * -
Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine and science and technology (yadayadayada), it only takes ten surgeries to fix his hands this time.
Ariadne sits by his side, slipping ice chips into his mouth and feeding him through his wired jaw, soup and jello and all sorts of nauseating-looking mush when all Eames really wants is a nice, medium rare steak. Maybe with a side of caviar. He has eclectic tastes. Yusuf keeps skulking around, checking and rechecking the levels of morphine and probably altering them until Eames is high as a kite, all the while still surreptitiously asking the forger if he wants a better sedative, so he can sleep the pain off. Cobb brings cards from Phillipa and James, rough construction paper folded in half with blue crayoned words and pictures wishing "Get Well, Uncle Eames!!" and a smiley face. They sit on the bedside table, next to the rather large arrangement of sunflowers sent by Saito.
Arthur though, is nowhere to be found. And more than anything, that hurts.
One day, Eames finally plucks up the courage to ask someone, anyone.
"But Brad is great, I think you'll really like him," Ariadne says happily, stirring the straw in the chocolate milk she's supposed to be helping him with and Eames makes a mental note to look into this "Brad" character later. Maybe when he can actually speak and get to the bathroom without using someone else as a walking aid. "He's nice, and funny, and he actually has an imagination that goes beyond the textbook- hmm? What is it?"
Eames motions for the little notebook and grasps the pencil in his clumsy, bandaged fingers, writing down a shaky "Where's Arthur?" in script that looks like a three-year old's scrawl.
Ariadne takes the little notebook, reads the words, and her face falls. She looks up at him, her expression unreadable, and then glances away quickly. It's enough of an answer.
Later, he catches Yusuf in the room and nods his head once for the sedative.
- - - - -
"You did WHAT?! Arthur, what the fuck!" Cobb's voice is loud. Very loud. Eames blinks awake and looks out the shuttered window and into the hall, where a Cobb-shadow is waving his hands around angrily. "You should have let the law handle it!"
"What, like you let the law 'handle' Cobol Engineering? Cobb, we're criminals. We generally bypass the law." The other shadow is tall and slim, and has a voice that sounds suspiciously like Arthur. Eames wonders if he's hallucinating again.
"They deserve justice."
"They don't deserve shit after what they did to Eames," Arthur retorts frostily, and Eames has heard this tone before - all steel and ice and no mercy whatsoever. He shivers.
"So you executed them?!" Even as a shadow, Cobb looks close to tearing his hair out.
"No. They're still alive. They just wish that wasn't the case."
"Arthur-"
"Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't have done the same for Mal."
Silence. Eames strains his ears, but he still can't hear anything. Then, the Cobb-shaped shadow drops his head and sighs, Arthur walks away and Eames watches a Saito-shaped shadow (it's the gait of his walk and the way he holds his head) walk up to Cobb and put a hand on his shoulder, talking to him in a low murmur. Probably trying to reassure the former extractor that his almost-adopted-but not really son isn't going to be thrown in jail for whatever sort of terrible torture Arthur evidently put thugs one to five through in the dreamscape.
He leans back, only one thought drifting through his mind as his eyelids begin to slide shut again, and it makes him feel strangely airy - and he's sure it's not the drugs this time, but the fact that Arthur thinks of him in the say way Cobb would think of Mal, in the same context. To be honest, normally Eames would be miffed about being the wife, but right now he doesn't give a damn, and smiles even though it hurts.
- - - - -
Someone's holding his hand and brushing a thumb over the knuckles. Over and over. It's soothing and lulling Eames back to sleep even before he's fully awake and isn't that strange? He forces his eyes open though, because he knows that touch, and barely daring to hope, glances over to the side of the bed.
Arthur looks...awful. There's no other way to put it. He looks weary and rumpled, hard-edges worn down to dull worry and he's staring blankly at the far wall, teeth worrying his bottom lip. His foot is tapping against the floor, shoes making little click-click-click sounds.
He's still the most gorgeous thing Eames has ever seen.
The forger tightens his hold as much as he can and Arthur looks up, and his face literally lights up, like someone rekindled a fire within him and Eames tries to smile. It hurts, though. Stupid wired jaw. He must look ridiculous.
Arthur stands, his fingers still gripping Eames's tightly and he settles gently on the edge of the bed, other hand reaching out for Eames's face but stopping just an inch away, as if he's afraid. His dark eyes search the forger's and the silence stretches on for a beat. Suddenly then, his hand lands softly against Eames's cheek, light and gentle, and he speaks. "When I said get out," he says, voice low, "I didn't mean stay out or stay away. And I certainly didn't mean go get yourself kidnapped and tortured, you idiot."
Eames closes his eyes in response and turns his face into Arthur's palm, squeezing his hand as much as he can. They stay like that for a while.
- * - * -
And, like any real story, there is no happily ever after, because no one can tell the future and the presumption of fairy tale endings is stupid and childish (especially given their line of work). There is no happily ever after but there is a here and a now, there in Arthur's rare smile and here in the warmth suffusing through Eames's chest.
And it's far better.
- * - * -
A/N: This is seriously the sappiest thing I've ever written, but I'm grinning like a loon right now. Hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I loved writing it!