Fic: Made to be Broken, 1/2 [Inception]
Title: Made to be Broken, 1/2
Character/Pairings: Arthur/Eames, Robert Fischer, Peter Browning
Rating: PG - 13
Word Count: 3,603
Disclaimer: Mr. Nolan owns it all
Warnings: Language, mentions of self-harm
Summary: After the Inception, Robert Fischer begins an attempt to dissolve Fishcer-Morrow Industries, but the opposition he faces sends him spiraling downwards in a self-destructive lifestyle from which he cannot escape - until he receives unexpected aid from an unlikely source.
Author's Notes: written for the square "self harm" for hc_bingo and for this prompt on inception_kink : "He breaks up his father's empire. Then he breaks himself."
BANG. BANG. BANG.
His eyes move around unseeingly in the dark, blindly, before he remembers that one usually opens one's eyes before the occipital nerves can receive sensory input. Willing the effort into the muscles necessary to lift his eyelids is almost too much, but when he finally does so, what he sees is simply more of the same: darkness.
"Fischer!" BANG. BANG. "Fischer, open up!"
If Robert could dredge up the strength, he would tell whoever that's trying his damn hardest to break down his front door to kindly fuck off, but he can't. He doesn't remember the last time he moved from his position sprawled across the couch - except he must have moved or fallen, because now he can feel himself half on the ground and half...not.
He turns his head ever so slightly and a slice of glass on the carpet below opens up a gash along his cheek. Oh. He must've slipped off the couch and fallen into the glass coffee table, then. Robert can feel a sticky warmth on the back of his head, and wonders for just a moment how long he's been lying here, bleeding, until he remembers that he doesn't give a damn, because what does it matter? Nothing matters anymore.
"My father wants me to become my own man. My own man."
And look what type of man Robert Matthew Fischer has turned out to be.
"Goddamn it, he's not answering." Someone's fist pounds against the door again, this time with more urgency and a hint of desperation. "Robert Fischer!"
They're here to kill me, Robert realizes, and he almost sobs in relief. Somehow, the knowledge that everything would be over soon gives him the will to attempt turning over onto his stomach, muscles atrophied, limbs flopping uselessly, not at all unlike a dead fish. His protruding ribs dig into the carpet, his flailing hands and scrabbling fingers find no purchase but the rough edges of glass instead, and the pain is startling; the needle jammed into the crook of his elbow breaks off at the tip and he gasps into the carpet, startled at not the discomfort, but at being able to feel anything at all.
"Darling, listen to me-"
Another voice joins the first, this one with a definite accent, and Robert strains his upper torso towards the door, as his legs apparently refuse to comply - or at least where he thinks the door is. He stopped being able to tell right from left or even up from down a good while ago.
"Either help me, or stay out of my way, Eames." A smooth voice, sophisticated; the words are clipped and polished. Familiar. But who is Eames (broad shoulders, a smooth accent, a dropped passport) and why does Robert know that voice?
Robert licks his lips and tries to speak, tries to tell the voices here, in here. Please. His tongue feels swollen, rough over his cracked lips, too big for his mouth. He's thirsty, and the air tastes of cigarette smoke and darkness, of disappointment and failure and death.
And death.
With a magnificent sound, the door breaks and light floods the room. Robert utters a garbled, unintelligible cry as his vision explodes in white sparks; he tries to raise an arm up to mitigate the agony but can't, and his dry eyes ache with the tears his body can't produce.
"Oh, bloody hell-"
"Fischer?!"
A shadow falls over him and Robert thinks he reaches out a hand in a wordless plea for mercy, please, do it quickly, begging a God he stopped believing in at eleven years of age when his mother died. But he freezes when the warmth of another living being touches his skin, a hand brushes against his cheek gently (gently! When was the last time he encountered anything of the sort?), lifting his face away from the broken glass and another hand falls over his eyes, shutting out the light.
"Easy there, Fischer," he hears, and then "Eames, call the paramedics. He's-"
Robert gives a start and tries to speak, tries to ask who, why, please- because he thinks...he thinks that, for the first time in six months, he hears something other than abuse and cold silence, something other than chastisement and death threats-
"Fischer? Fischer. Robert!" The hands cradling his face tighten. "Goddamn it, stay with me. Stay with me!"
-something that sounds oddly like care.
* - * - *
Six months ago
"...to disband Fischer-Morrows Industries in the wake of my father's death." A collective gasp arises, as if all the air has been sucked out of the boardroom by the words, and from the corner of his eye, Robert sees Uncle Peter dropping his coffee mug, bug-eyed and mouth agape in incredulity; ceramic shatters and brown liquid (cream and two sugars) splatters upwards, drenching the cuffs of his neatly-pressed trousers. "Thank you."
There's a single second of complete silence before the entire room erupts in shouts, questions, protests, threats, and Robert squares his shoulders, fists clenched, one man facing down an entire army with no armor but his Armani suit, no weapons but his words, no voice but his own. He's never been good at handling confrontation, but strangely, he's not afraid - not of Matthew Reynolds, the head of the Board of Directors who's reaching for him with fingers like claws, mouth stretched in a truly grotesque manner; not of the members of the press who wait outside, hungry and vicious, eager to sink their claws into the story of exactly why the young Fischer heir called this not-so-clandestine meeting; not of any of these men who, not five minutes ago, all smiled at him like the sun shone out of his ass, who now look like they'd like nothing more than to rip his throat out.
A hand closes around his wrist, fingers like steel and for a moment Robert thinks it's his father - but it's not Maurice who hurries him away from the podium and out the side door, it's his godfather, red in the face, panic in his eyes. "Dear God, boy - have you completely lost your damn mind?"
"Uncle Peter-"
"Out of all the-" Peter Browning looks like he wants to hit something or someone, but given that he and Robert are the only ones in the little adjacent hallway, he settles for pacing instead, hands clasped tightly behind his back. "I...I don't even know what to say, Robert. I...why?" He stops and pierces the younger man with a torn gaze. "Tell me why."
"I'm not asking you to understand, Uncle Peter," Robert begins tiredly, because he knew this would be the most difficult part, explaining to his godfather why he intends to bring an end to the reign of Fischer-Morrow Industries - because of a dream? Best to do it fast, like ripping off a band-aid. Uncle Peter will understand; he has to. Robert knows his godfather will understand. "It's just that-"
"I know it's a big responsibility." Peter puts a hand on his godson's shoulder, entreatingly. "Your father's death still weighs down heavily upon all of us. But I can help you." The hold tightens ever so slightly, hinging on the borderline between beseeching and threatening. "Don't do this, Robert."
"I'm sorry, Uncle Peter." Robert pulls away, willing his voice not to tremble. "I intend to go forward with this, whether I have your support or not."
Peter lifts his chin haughtily, a company man to the last, choosing money over affection - and a chill runs up Robert's spine at the swiftness in which his godfather's face becomes that of a stranger's, eyes turning cold at the unspoken refusal, features hardening until they might've been carved out of marble. "Do you intend to fight me on this, Robert?"
It's a warning, a last extension of a chance at reconciliation, a nightmarish parody of some game show - is that your final answer?
He hesitates, but only for an instant, and recovers quicker than he thought possible. "If necessary, then yes."
The answer is immediate and final, a judge's sentence before the fall of the gavel, the coldest rejection possible: "I'm disappointed in you, Robert." With that, Peter Browning turns on his heel, and walks out of his godson's life, leaving nothing but coffee-stained footprints behind.
- - - - -
"Huh," he murmurs thoughtfully, and nudges his bedmate in the side, gently. "Would you look at that?"
"Mrfph," comes the unintelligible grunt of a reply, and Eames smirks, reaching out to skate his fingers up the length of the other's spine; the smirk widens into a grin when the action elicits a most unmanly mewl of protest and a great deal of squirming before his victim flips over with a growl, glaring at him from under mussed hair with sleepy, half-open eyes. "Eames."
"Darling," Eames says sweetly in reply and reaches out, only to get his hand swatted away by a decidedly grumpy point man.
"This had better be good," Arthur grumbles, sitting up and letting the sheets pool around his waist, rubbing his eyes before peering at the blonde reporter gabbling away on the TV screen and at Robert Fischer's face plastered all over the news. "Oh."
"'Oh'?" Eames parrots, and cocks an eyebrow. "You already knew?"
Arthur shoots him a look that clearly says of course I bloody well knew; I'm a poncy genius with a stick up my arse (okay, so Eames takes certain liberties in interpreting the point man's looks, but still, something along said lines) and literally flops over again like a rag doll, burying his face in the pillows again, mumbling something into the cushion.
"What was that?"
"I said, 'no more mistakes'."
Eames winces ever so slightly, and makes no comment in return. Arthur doesn't make mistakes, never does; it's just a part of who he is as a point man and as a man in general. The overlooked detail on the Fischer job - not to mention Cobb's less than favorable reaction (although the extractor had apologized later, after his reunion with his children) - had been a deep wound to Arthur's pride. Even now, three months after the fact and finally with the solid evidence that the idea had indeed taken, the tenseness in Arthur's shoulders still speak the volumes he doesn't and never will express verbally.
Instead of speaking, the forger merely curves himself around the point man's slimmer form and presses a kiss to the bare skin of his shoulder, one arm winding around the slender waist and pulling Arthur close, to which Arthur responds with a sleepy murmur of approval, already nodding off again - and no surprise there, getting grazed by a bullet across the temple and falling out of a helicopter can do that, no matter how hard-headed one may be.
Eames' other hand reaches out behind him for the remote and as he clicks the TV off, cutting the blonde reporter off mid-speech ("-and Mr. Browning has vowed to take the issue to court, citing the late Maurice Fischer's mental instability and Robert Fischer's own inability to-"), the young Fischer heir's mien dissolves into black.
* - * - *
"-careful...in pitch black darkness...eyes need to be-"
"-like a bag of bones...too bloody thin..."
The voices filter down to him as if through a long tunnel, and Robert can feel himself being lifted up off the ground; maybe they're going to throw him off a cliff? God knows there are some people out there who would just love to do that...
"...when...goddamn paramedics going to..."
But wait, he doesn't like heights; he just remembered, and, in a flash of panic, Robert tries to struggle against his captors, tries to open his mouth to call for help because he suddenly doesn't want to die, not like this, oh god, not like this. All that escapes is a barely audible whimper.
Or maybe he's dreaming. He's had so many dreams that it's hard to distinguish between...between...maybe - maybe Mr. Charles will come to save him. Just like last time.
* - * - *
Three months ago
Robert looks down and his brow puckers slightly. His slacks hang loosely on his hips, and he'd just had them altered last week. With a sigh he pulls his belt another notch tighter, and then lifts his head to stare at his reflection in the wardrobe mirror.
The face looking back at him looks more mask than man: dark shadows underneath the glassy bloodshot eyes, the gauntness of his hollowed out cheeks, the sharpness of his jaw, the sallow pallor to his skin. He's practically swimming in the clothes that hang off his frame, and as he continues to stare, he sees someone who looks more dead than alive, and shudders.
Robert knows he hasn't been eating, but then again, fighting a losing battle with an entire army of far more seasoned businessmen who know more about the loopholes of wills and Fischer-Morrow Industries than the Fischer heir himself doesn't leave much room for anything else than work and stress. God, he's following in his father's footsteps already, becoming an obsessive workaholic in efforts to break out of the late Fischer's shadow. Irony at its finest.
Slowly, slowly he leans forward, slumping against the wardrobe's open door, forehead pressed against the cool glass of the mirror and closing his eyes. Sleep doesn't come easily these days either, not when he's up working into the wee hours of the morning - most of the time throughout all hours of the morning up until the very minute he has to leave for another court date or another meeting with a round of lawyers or businessmen or whoever - they could be a high school debate team for all Robert knows or cares; they all look the same anyway - filled with squabbling and bribes, rife with cajoling, subtle threats, and some not-so-subtle threats, appointments that always end the same way no matter their nature.
When he does sleep, he dreams of the magnificent and the impossible, of snow-capped mountains exploding, of his father lying in a hospital bed and locked away in a safe, of a femme fatale with a vampire smile stuffing a gag into his mouth, of a blonde man with shrewd blue eyes who called himself Mr. Charles, of a shootout in a taxicab in the middle of the pouring rain. A young woman with kind eyes and a red scarf looped around her neck removes the gag from his mouth and speaks softly to him before pushing him off the top of a skyscraper, a British man brings him back from the brink of death with a defibrillator, and a slim shadow in a well-cut three piece suit lurks in the shadows of his mind, always watching with the eyes of a hawk and a Glock 17 in his hands.
Most nights though, whenever he shuts his eyes, he sees a child's pinwheel spinning faster and faster in the eye of a hurricane, paper curls shredding to torn bits of paper in the wind, of the tiny toy's axle snapping and splintering to pieces.
Bzzzt. Bzzzzt.
Without opening his eyes, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the vibrating cell phone, bringing it to his ear. "Yes?"
"Mr. Fischer? The car is ready."
"Thank you." Robert hangs up and straightens, heaving a sigh as he turns to the panoply of bottles lining the desktop, prescriptions scribbled down by doctors who are only all too eager to squeeze every last cent out of him, just like everyone else. One to sleep, one to stay awake, two more for depression and another to help him concentrate - he grabs one at random and then another, unscrewing the tops and dry-swallowing the pills on his way out the door.
- - - - -
Eames crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the doorjamb, watching Arthur tap relentlessly at the keyboard, dressed impeccably as usual, while the forger himself stands barefoot and in nothing but a pair of worn, faded jeans and a sleeveless tee. "Working a job?"
Taptaptap. "Yes."
"One of Cobb's?"
"You could say that."
Eames steps further into the room. "Who's the mark then?"
Arthur doesn't miss a beat, doesn't even glance upwards from the laptop screen. "Skip the twenty questions, Eames. You're here to lecture, so go right ahead."
To his credit though (because it's not given as often as it's truly due), Eames doesn't back down and takes the challenge head on. "You need to stop this, Arthur."
"Look at this, Eames," the point man replies, and tosses a sheaf of papers onto the desktop. "That's the case Browning's lawyers are making against Robert Fischer. It's convoluted, circumstantial, and full of loose ends that-"
"And why is it any of your concern, darling?" Eames cuts in smoothly. "We finished the job and the idea took. What you're doing now - none of it's necessary." His brow furrows slightly. "Fischer isn't your responsibility. Not anymore." When Arthur doesn't reply, the forger slams a hand down on top of the laptop, barely missing the other man's fingers. "Pet, just - listen to me."
Arthur's black glare is molten steel. "Kindly remove your hand, Mr. Eames." His tone brokers no argument.
"Just leave bloody well enough alone, Arthur. You don't owe him anything."
"I could say the same about you, couldn't I?"
The words are barbed, sharpened to wound, and Arthur's aim is always dead on. A flash of hurt crosses Eames' features and he retracts his hand, but when Arthur moves to flip the screen back up, he reaches out once more and grabs the point man's wrist, resolve strengthened, because that's the type of man Eames is - always bouncing back, always rolling with the punches, always recovering from whatever he's thrown because that's the only way he's been able to get this far in life, and with Arthur. "Why are you doing this?"
After a pause, when Arthur replies, his eyes are tired, world-weary, and look so much like Cobb's that Eames feels a flash of fear sear through his chest.
"Because, Eames, I know what it's like when no one in the world gives a damn about whether you live or die." His voice is hoarse, stripped raw in the type of honesty that hurts to admit. "I know what it's like when no one's there to stand behind or beside you, when everyone wants to see you fail - and Robert Fischer is not the type of man who can survive this on his own."
- - - - -
"GODDAMN it!"
Robert throws his briefcase across the room; it hits the wall with a dull thump and out slides files upon files of information, reports, compilations of data and multiple copies of his father's last will and testament - all of which he had to put together himself, given that no lawyer in the world wants to go up against the combined forces of Peter Browning and the entire Board of Directors of Fischer-Morrow Industries in a part corporate, part inheritance legal battle that so far has been messy, merciless, and utterly ruthless. In three short months, he's seen Peter Browning turn from paternal godfather to complete stranger to a coldhearted monster who no doubt bribes the judges and smirks in victory at his every win in the courtroom.
Sinking down in the desk chair he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands, inhaling deeply and trying to calm his racing heart. There's a dull ache behind his eyes and he presses his palms against his eye sockets, willing the pain to go away, just like the rest of this mess that's clearly only going to turn into even greater of a disaster, and all too soon, and to no avail.
Reaching in the bottom desk drawer, his fingers close around the neck of a bottle of whiskey and a tumbler and as he fills the first glass and throws back its contents, Robert closes his eyes against the burn and prays for a dreamless sleep.
* - * - *
"He's got enough Valium in him to knock out a fucking horse-"
"No shit. Fuck me, look at his arm...heroin, it looks like."
Yes, heroin, but it was a mistake, he thinks, because the doctor had called it diamorphine and prescribed it as a painkller. He tries to look at the mess his arm must be - he couldn't find a vein and missed a couple of times - but he can't see anything, although he can tell he's lying on something flat and soft, and that he's moving. A car. Why is he in a car? His driver quit two weeks ago, but Robert doesn't blame him. He'd been getting death threats for daring to keep his job, and he has a family after all, so Robert understands, really.
Behind his closed eyelids, he sees a pinwheel spinning in an easy breeze funneling in from the west, and the colors whirl in his line of vision - a blur of red and yellow and blue, bleeding together faster and faster-
"Mr. Fischer? Hey, hey - Mr. Fischer, take it easy. You're in an ambulance; there's a bandage over your eyes to protect them. If you can hear me and you understand what I'm saying, squeeze my hand."
Red and yellow and blue, red and yellow and blue, red-yellow-blue, red-yellow-blue, red-
"Mr. Fishcer?"
SNAP.
"Oh, shit. Code blue, CODE BLUE!"
"Charging - clear!"
* - * - *
Continued here
Character/Pairings: Arthur/Eames, Robert Fischer, Peter Browning
Rating: PG - 13
Word Count: 3,603
Disclaimer: Mr. Nolan owns it all
Warnings: Language, mentions of self-harm
Summary: After the Inception, Robert Fischer begins an attempt to dissolve Fishcer-Morrow Industries, but the opposition he faces sends him spiraling downwards in a self-destructive lifestyle from which he cannot escape - until he receives unexpected aid from an unlikely source.
Author's Notes: written for the square "self harm" for hc_bingo and for this prompt on inception_kink : "He breaks up his father's empire. Then he breaks himself."
BANG. BANG. BANG.
His eyes move around unseeingly in the dark, blindly, before he remembers that one usually opens one's eyes before the occipital nerves can receive sensory input. Willing the effort into the muscles necessary to lift his eyelids is almost too much, but when he finally does so, what he sees is simply more of the same: darkness.
"Fischer!" BANG. BANG. "Fischer, open up!"
If Robert could dredge up the strength, he would tell whoever that's trying his damn hardest to break down his front door to kindly fuck off, but he can't. He doesn't remember the last time he moved from his position sprawled across the couch - except he must have moved or fallen, because now he can feel himself half on the ground and half...not.
He turns his head ever so slightly and a slice of glass on the carpet below opens up a gash along his cheek. Oh. He must've slipped off the couch and fallen into the glass coffee table, then. Robert can feel a sticky warmth on the back of his head, and wonders for just a moment how long he's been lying here, bleeding, until he remembers that he doesn't give a damn, because what does it matter? Nothing matters anymore.
"My father wants me to become my own man. My own man."
And look what type of man Robert Matthew Fischer has turned out to be.
"Goddamn it, he's not answering." Someone's fist pounds against the door again, this time with more urgency and a hint of desperation. "Robert Fischer!"
They're here to kill me, Robert realizes, and he almost sobs in relief. Somehow, the knowledge that everything would be over soon gives him the will to attempt turning over onto his stomach, muscles atrophied, limbs flopping uselessly, not at all unlike a dead fish. His protruding ribs dig into the carpet, his flailing hands and scrabbling fingers find no purchase but the rough edges of glass instead, and the pain is startling; the needle jammed into the crook of his elbow breaks off at the tip and he gasps into the carpet, startled at not the discomfort, but at being able to feel anything at all.
"Darling, listen to me-"
Another voice joins the first, this one with a definite accent, and Robert strains his upper torso towards the door, as his legs apparently refuse to comply - or at least where he thinks the door is. He stopped being able to tell right from left or even up from down a good while ago.
"Either help me, or stay out of my way, Eames." A smooth voice, sophisticated; the words are clipped and polished. Familiar. But who is Eames (broad shoulders, a smooth accent, a dropped passport) and why does Robert know that voice?
Robert licks his lips and tries to speak, tries to tell the voices here, in here. Please. His tongue feels swollen, rough over his cracked lips, too big for his mouth. He's thirsty, and the air tastes of cigarette smoke and darkness, of disappointment and failure and death.
And death.
With a magnificent sound, the door breaks and light floods the room. Robert utters a garbled, unintelligible cry as his vision explodes in white sparks; he tries to raise an arm up to mitigate the agony but can't, and his dry eyes ache with the tears his body can't produce.
"Oh, bloody hell-"
"Fischer?!"
A shadow falls over him and Robert thinks he reaches out a hand in a wordless plea for mercy, please, do it quickly, begging a God he stopped believing in at eleven years of age when his mother died. But he freezes when the warmth of another living being touches his skin, a hand brushes against his cheek gently (gently! When was the last time he encountered anything of the sort?), lifting his face away from the broken glass and another hand falls over his eyes, shutting out the light.
"Easy there, Fischer," he hears, and then "Eames, call the paramedics. He's-"
Robert gives a start and tries to speak, tries to ask who, why, please- because he thinks...he thinks that, for the first time in six months, he hears something other than abuse and cold silence, something other than chastisement and death threats-
"Fischer? Fischer. Robert!" The hands cradling his face tighten. "Goddamn it, stay with me. Stay with me!"
-something that sounds oddly like care.
* - * - *
Six months ago
"...to disband Fischer-Morrows Industries in the wake of my father's death." A collective gasp arises, as if all the air has been sucked out of the boardroom by the words, and from the corner of his eye, Robert sees Uncle Peter dropping his coffee mug, bug-eyed and mouth agape in incredulity; ceramic shatters and brown liquid (cream and two sugars) splatters upwards, drenching the cuffs of his neatly-pressed trousers. "Thank you."
There's a single second of complete silence before the entire room erupts in shouts, questions, protests, threats, and Robert squares his shoulders, fists clenched, one man facing down an entire army with no armor but his Armani suit, no weapons but his words, no voice but his own. He's never been good at handling confrontation, but strangely, he's not afraid - not of Matthew Reynolds, the head of the Board of Directors who's reaching for him with fingers like claws, mouth stretched in a truly grotesque manner; not of the members of the press who wait outside, hungry and vicious, eager to sink their claws into the story of exactly why the young Fischer heir called this not-so-clandestine meeting; not of any of these men who, not five minutes ago, all smiled at him like the sun shone out of his ass, who now look like they'd like nothing more than to rip his throat out.
A hand closes around his wrist, fingers like steel and for a moment Robert thinks it's his father - but it's not Maurice who hurries him away from the podium and out the side door, it's his godfather, red in the face, panic in his eyes. "Dear God, boy - have you completely lost your damn mind?"
"Uncle Peter-"
"Out of all the-" Peter Browning looks like he wants to hit something or someone, but given that he and Robert are the only ones in the little adjacent hallway, he settles for pacing instead, hands clasped tightly behind his back. "I...I don't even know what to say, Robert. I...why?" He stops and pierces the younger man with a torn gaze. "Tell me why."
"I'm not asking you to understand, Uncle Peter," Robert begins tiredly, because he knew this would be the most difficult part, explaining to his godfather why he intends to bring an end to the reign of Fischer-Morrow Industries - because of a dream? Best to do it fast, like ripping off a band-aid. Uncle Peter will understand; he has to. Robert knows his godfather will understand. "It's just that-"
"I know it's a big responsibility." Peter puts a hand on his godson's shoulder, entreatingly. "Your father's death still weighs down heavily upon all of us. But I can help you." The hold tightens ever so slightly, hinging on the borderline between beseeching and threatening. "Don't do this, Robert."
"I'm sorry, Uncle Peter." Robert pulls away, willing his voice not to tremble. "I intend to go forward with this, whether I have your support or not."
Peter lifts his chin haughtily, a company man to the last, choosing money over affection - and a chill runs up Robert's spine at the swiftness in which his godfather's face becomes that of a stranger's, eyes turning cold at the unspoken refusal, features hardening until they might've been carved out of marble. "Do you intend to fight me on this, Robert?"
It's a warning, a last extension of a chance at reconciliation, a nightmarish parody of some game show - is that your final answer?
He hesitates, but only for an instant, and recovers quicker than he thought possible. "If necessary, then yes."
The answer is immediate and final, a judge's sentence before the fall of the gavel, the coldest rejection possible: "I'm disappointed in you, Robert." With that, Peter Browning turns on his heel, and walks out of his godson's life, leaving nothing but coffee-stained footprints behind.
- - - - -
"Huh," he murmurs thoughtfully, and nudges his bedmate in the side, gently. "Would you look at that?"
"Mrfph," comes the unintelligible grunt of a reply, and Eames smirks, reaching out to skate his fingers up the length of the other's spine; the smirk widens into a grin when the action elicits a most unmanly mewl of protest and a great deal of squirming before his victim flips over with a growl, glaring at him from under mussed hair with sleepy, half-open eyes. "Eames."
"Darling," Eames says sweetly in reply and reaches out, only to get his hand swatted away by a decidedly grumpy point man.
"This had better be good," Arthur grumbles, sitting up and letting the sheets pool around his waist, rubbing his eyes before peering at the blonde reporter gabbling away on the TV screen and at Robert Fischer's face plastered all over the news. "Oh."
"'Oh'?" Eames parrots, and cocks an eyebrow. "You already knew?"
Arthur shoots him a look that clearly says of course I bloody well knew; I'm a poncy genius with a stick up my arse (okay, so Eames takes certain liberties in interpreting the point man's looks, but still, something along said lines) and literally flops over again like a rag doll, burying his face in the pillows again, mumbling something into the cushion.
"What was that?"
"I said, 'no more mistakes'."
Eames winces ever so slightly, and makes no comment in return. Arthur doesn't make mistakes, never does; it's just a part of who he is as a point man and as a man in general. The overlooked detail on the Fischer job - not to mention Cobb's less than favorable reaction (although the extractor had apologized later, after his reunion with his children) - had been a deep wound to Arthur's pride. Even now, three months after the fact and finally with the solid evidence that the idea had indeed taken, the tenseness in Arthur's shoulders still speak the volumes he doesn't and never will express verbally.
Instead of speaking, the forger merely curves himself around the point man's slimmer form and presses a kiss to the bare skin of his shoulder, one arm winding around the slender waist and pulling Arthur close, to which Arthur responds with a sleepy murmur of approval, already nodding off again - and no surprise there, getting grazed by a bullet across the temple and falling out of a helicopter can do that, no matter how hard-headed one may be.
Eames' other hand reaches out behind him for the remote and as he clicks the TV off, cutting the blonde reporter off mid-speech ("-and Mr. Browning has vowed to take the issue to court, citing the late Maurice Fischer's mental instability and Robert Fischer's own inability to-"), the young Fischer heir's mien dissolves into black.
* - * - *
"-careful...in pitch black darkness...eyes need to be-"
"-like a bag of bones...too bloody thin..."
The voices filter down to him as if through a long tunnel, and Robert can feel himself being lifted up off the ground; maybe they're going to throw him off a cliff? God knows there are some people out there who would just love to do that...
"...when...goddamn paramedics going to..."
But wait, he doesn't like heights; he just remembered, and, in a flash of panic, Robert tries to struggle against his captors, tries to open his mouth to call for help because he suddenly doesn't want to die, not like this, oh god, not like this. All that escapes is a barely audible whimper.
Or maybe he's dreaming. He's had so many dreams that it's hard to distinguish between...between...maybe - maybe Mr. Charles will come to save him. Just like last time.
* - * - *
Three months ago
Robert looks down and his brow puckers slightly. His slacks hang loosely on his hips, and he'd just had them altered last week. With a sigh he pulls his belt another notch tighter, and then lifts his head to stare at his reflection in the wardrobe mirror.
The face looking back at him looks more mask than man: dark shadows underneath the glassy bloodshot eyes, the gauntness of his hollowed out cheeks, the sharpness of his jaw, the sallow pallor to his skin. He's practically swimming in the clothes that hang off his frame, and as he continues to stare, he sees someone who looks more dead than alive, and shudders.
Robert knows he hasn't been eating, but then again, fighting a losing battle with an entire army of far more seasoned businessmen who know more about the loopholes of wills and Fischer-Morrow Industries than the Fischer heir himself doesn't leave much room for anything else than work and stress. God, he's following in his father's footsteps already, becoming an obsessive workaholic in efforts to break out of the late Fischer's shadow. Irony at its finest.
Slowly, slowly he leans forward, slumping against the wardrobe's open door, forehead pressed against the cool glass of the mirror and closing his eyes. Sleep doesn't come easily these days either, not when he's up working into the wee hours of the morning - most of the time throughout all hours of the morning up until the very minute he has to leave for another court date or another meeting with a round of lawyers or businessmen or whoever - they could be a high school debate team for all Robert knows or cares; they all look the same anyway - filled with squabbling and bribes, rife with cajoling, subtle threats, and some not-so-subtle threats, appointments that always end the same way no matter their nature.
When he does sleep, he dreams of the magnificent and the impossible, of snow-capped mountains exploding, of his father lying in a hospital bed and locked away in a safe, of a femme fatale with a vampire smile stuffing a gag into his mouth, of a blonde man with shrewd blue eyes who called himself Mr. Charles, of a shootout in a taxicab in the middle of the pouring rain. A young woman with kind eyes and a red scarf looped around her neck removes the gag from his mouth and speaks softly to him before pushing him off the top of a skyscraper, a British man brings him back from the brink of death with a defibrillator, and a slim shadow in a well-cut three piece suit lurks in the shadows of his mind, always watching with the eyes of a hawk and a Glock 17 in his hands.
Most nights though, whenever he shuts his eyes, he sees a child's pinwheel spinning faster and faster in the eye of a hurricane, paper curls shredding to torn bits of paper in the wind, of the tiny toy's axle snapping and splintering to pieces.
Bzzzt. Bzzzzt.
Without opening his eyes, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the vibrating cell phone, bringing it to his ear. "Yes?"
"Mr. Fischer? The car is ready."
"Thank you." Robert hangs up and straightens, heaving a sigh as he turns to the panoply of bottles lining the desktop, prescriptions scribbled down by doctors who are only all too eager to squeeze every last cent out of him, just like everyone else. One to sleep, one to stay awake, two more for depression and another to help him concentrate - he grabs one at random and then another, unscrewing the tops and dry-swallowing the pills on his way out the door.
- - - - -
Eames crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the doorjamb, watching Arthur tap relentlessly at the keyboard, dressed impeccably as usual, while the forger himself stands barefoot and in nothing but a pair of worn, faded jeans and a sleeveless tee. "Working a job?"
Taptaptap. "Yes."
"One of Cobb's?"
"You could say that."
Eames steps further into the room. "Who's the mark then?"
Arthur doesn't miss a beat, doesn't even glance upwards from the laptop screen. "Skip the twenty questions, Eames. You're here to lecture, so go right ahead."
To his credit though (because it's not given as often as it's truly due), Eames doesn't back down and takes the challenge head on. "You need to stop this, Arthur."
"Look at this, Eames," the point man replies, and tosses a sheaf of papers onto the desktop. "That's the case Browning's lawyers are making against Robert Fischer. It's convoluted, circumstantial, and full of loose ends that-"
"And why is it any of your concern, darling?" Eames cuts in smoothly. "We finished the job and the idea took. What you're doing now - none of it's necessary." His brow furrows slightly. "Fischer isn't your responsibility. Not anymore." When Arthur doesn't reply, the forger slams a hand down on top of the laptop, barely missing the other man's fingers. "Pet, just - listen to me."
Arthur's black glare is molten steel. "Kindly remove your hand, Mr. Eames." His tone brokers no argument.
"Just leave bloody well enough alone, Arthur. You don't owe him anything."
"I could say the same about you, couldn't I?"
The words are barbed, sharpened to wound, and Arthur's aim is always dead on. A flash of hurt crosses Eames' features and he retracts his hand, but when Arthur moves to flip the screen back up, he reaches out once more and grabs the point man's wrist, resolve strengthened, because that's the type of man Eames is - always bouncing back, always rolling with the punches, always recovering from whatever he's thrown because that's the only way he's been able to get this far in life, and with Arthur. "Why are you doing this?"
After a pause, when Arthur replies, his eyes are tired, world-weary, and look so much like Cobb's that Eames feels a flash of fear sear through his chest.
"Because, Eames, I know what it's like when no one in the world gives a damn about whether you live or die." His voice is hoarse, stripped raw in the type of honesty that hurts to admit. "I know what it's like when no one's there to stand behind or beside you, when everyone wants to see you fail - and Robert Fischer is not the type of man who can survive this on his own."
- - - - -
"GODDAMN it!"
Robert throws his briefcase across the room; it hits the wall with a dull thump and out slides files upon files of information, reports, compilations of data and multiple copies of his father's last will and testament - all of which he had to put together himself, given that no lawyer in the world wants to go up against the combined forces of Peter Browning and the entire Board of Directors of Fischer-Morrow Industries in a part corporate, part inheritance legal battle that so far has been messy, merciless, and utterly ruthless. In three short months, he's seen Peter Browning turn from paternal godfather to complete stranger to a coldhearted monster who no doubt bribes the judges and smirks in victory at his every win in the courtroom.
Sinking down in the desk chair he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands, inhaling deeply and trying to calm his racing heart. There's a dull ache behind his eyes and he presses his palms against his eye sockets, willing the pain to go away, just like the rest of this mess that's clearly only going to turn into even greater of a disaster, and all too soon, and to no avail.
Reaching in the bottom desk drawer, his fingers close around the neck of a bottle of whiskey and a tumbler and as he fills the first glass and throws back its contents, Robert closes his eyes against the burn and prays for a dreamless sleep.
* - * - *
"He's got enough Valium in him to knock out a fucking horse-"
"No shit. Fuck me, look at his arm...heroin, it looks like."
Yes, heroin, but it was a mistake, he thinks, because the doctor had called it diamorphine and prescribed it as a painkller. He tries to look at the mess his arm must be - he couldn't find a vein and missed a couple of times - but he can't see anything, although he can tell he's lying on something flat and soft, and that he's moving. A car. Why is he in a car? His driver quit two weeks ago, but Robert doesn't blame him. He'd been getting death threats for daring to keep his job, and he has a family after all, so Robert understands, really.
Behind his closed eyelids, he sees a pinwheel spinning in an easy breeze funneling in from the west, and the colors whirl in his line of vision - a blur of red and yellow and blue, bleeding together faster and faster-
"Mr. Fischer? Hey, hey - Mr. Fischer, take it easy. You're in an ambulance; there's a bandage over your eyes to protect them. If you can hear me and you understand what I'm saying, squeeze my hand."
Red and yellow and blue, red and yellow and blue, red-yellow-blue, red-yellow-blue, red-
"Mr. Fishcer?"
SNAP.
"Oh, shit. Code blue, CODE BLUE!"
"Charging - clear!"
* - * - *
Continued here