Fic: Till Death Do Us Part, 2/2 [Inception]
Title: Till Death Do Us Part, 2/2
Character/Pairings: Arthur/Eames, Ariadne, Mal, mentions of Cobb, James, Phillipa
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,965
Disclaimer: Mr. Nolan owns it all
Warnings: Death
Summary/Author's Notes: Written for this prompt at inception_kink in which Eames is a ghost and Arthur is the stranger who's the only one who ever brings Eames flowers. Romance (of an odd sort) ensues.
A couple of days pass, then a week, then two weeks. Time has no real meaning to the dead, but Eames counts each passing afternoon - his darling has a habit of coming at exactly the same time everyday, like clockwork, a scheduled affair - at first with the raw scrape of hurt, then mounting worry, then finally, desperation.
"Eames, you can't keep doing this to yourself," Ariadne tells him firmly, but he can tell she's concerned, worrying her bottom lip - split and still caked over with clotted blood - between her teeth. "Look, you're getting all...wispy." She waves a hand at him and he dodges it.
"Go away, Ariadne."
She sighs and jams her fist into her hips. "Alright, look. Instead of sitting here and being all mopey, why don't you just do a haunting?"
Eames balks, fingers reaching into his pocket for the poker chip, eyes nervously darting to the floor. "Well, you see...I don't really think that..." At Ariadne's impatient foot tapping, he sighs. "I've actually never done a haunting before."
Ariadne blinks, stunned. "But you're so...so old," she says frankly, confused. She's already been haunting her parents, trying to help them lessen the grief of her passing, and her ex-boyfriend, doing her damnedest to drive him out of his mind. You know what they say about a woman scorned, well imagine what havoc a wrongfully slain spunky young woman like Ariadne can wreak.
It's not that Eames has never wanted to try his hand at haunting, it's just that he's never had anyone who wanted his ghostly presence in their lives before. And truly, he doesn't know if his darling would want him either, because really, he's nothing more than just a stupid headstone.
- - - - -
There are specific rules about haunting. These aren't merely suggestions or helpful hints to consider - no, they're mandatory. As in, if you don't follow them, you're going to get your incorporeal ass kicked.
One, the visited must in some way, shape, or form, want the presence of the departed. Not so surprising, right? What, you don't think the idiots who go chasing after imaginary spirits and phantom noises deserve to get the shit scared out of them? And the ignorant victims really aren't so innocent after all - they move into houses that by all intents and purposes aren't theirs - they're asking for it!
People go on and on about unfinished business, blah blah blah - but in truth, they're the ones who beckon, and the visitors can only heed the call, however unconscious. It's not like the dead like waltzing up out of their graves to go attend to whatever the living can't let go of. Have you ever tried being dead in a live world? It ain't easy.
Rule number two: the dead is a watcher, nothing more and nothing less, and are in no way to intervene with the events in the life of the living. They had the chance to do so when they were alive, and if the deceased so desperately wants or needs to do so in the here, and now, you know what? Tough luck. Distant communication is fine, some hints dropped here and there - so long as the visitor doesn't suddenly become an invisible Jiminy Cricket, planning out lives here and there.
And number three, which is the most important rule of all: do not, under any circumstances, touch the visited. Even if the dead can manage to do so - it's a difficult skill to acquire and maintain - it's absolutely forbidden. The dead aren't supposed to be masquerading some kind of incubus or succubus here. Picking up inanimate objects is fine, though. (Try the whole rattling the window blinds trick. It's a classic; gets them every time.)
But touch them - and that is a whole other shit storm you do not want to start.
- - - - -
"Okay," Ariadne smiles, stepping back, satisfied. "You're ready."
Eames looks down at himself, at the camouflage-colored paratrooper's uniform he'd been wearing when he died, circular dog tags of the British military polished to a shine. "Is all this really necessary?"
"Well, you want to look your best, don't you?" is the distracted answer, and Ariadne straightens up from where she'd been dusting off his boots. "Okay. You do know all the rules, right?"
"By heart, dove."
(Of course, Eames doesn't bother to mention that he's always been balls at actually following rules.)
Eyes set forward, he steps through the curtain separating the world of the dead from that of the living, and, for the first time in more than half a century hears soft music playing, and feels the soft breeze blowing on his face.
* - * - *
He's standing facing a window, staring out past the gauzy curtains at the paved streets, at the strange automobiles driving around, at the brightly dressed women walking around in articles of clothing that most definitely did not protect their modesty, at a world so alive that, for a moment, Eames can almost pretend that his lungs are expanding and his heart is beating.
"-Cobb, I've told you already, no."
That voice. Eames turns around - his eyes widen, his lips part in awe, and he stares.
The young man - his darling - is a dark-haired, lithe-limbed, sleekly dressed, bloody gorgeous creature, running his fingers through his hair in aggravation as he speaks curtly into a strange little device he hold against his ear - and yes, Eames does indeed gulp at the sight of those long fingers, elegant and beautiful.
"I don't care that there's a higher survival rate." He sits down at the table with a sigh, picks up a pen and grips it tightly, frowning down at the papers spread out everywhere. "You don't know that." He pauses suddenly, jaw clenching tight and eyes narrowing. "No, I don't," he snaps, then slams the tiny device shut and throwing it across the room, where it passes straight through Eames and hits the wall with a resounding CRACK.
Looking up from where the device had gone through his stomach, Eames watches his darling bury his handsome face in his hands, shoulders tense with stress, and he crosses quickly over to the other's side - or floats, whatever you please - and reaches out, intending to comfort, to soothe away the angry lines downturning the corners of the young man's mouth, to give back just a fraction of what the other had already given him.
Do not, under any circumstances, touch the visited. It's absolutely forbidden.
He jerks his hand away, a mere millimeter away from the shoulder of the starched white Oxford shirt because then his darling is turning his head, and Eames wonders in a panic if he's accidentally given himself away so easily -
-but apparently not, for the dark eyes stare straight through him, and the young man stands. Quickly stepping aside - because he really would rather not be walked through, thank you - Eames watches his darling move toward the fashionable and comfortably sized apartment's kitchen, heading towards the stove and the pot simmering atop the burners, bending down to pull something from the bottom cupboards.
Old Ms. Eloise was right. His darling does have a marvelous arse.
The spread of papers catches his attention and Eames looks down, eyes darting back and forth, taking in the documents and dossiers, the supposedly secure files and hacked reports, eyebrows rising, impressed. His darling appears to be a private military contractor of some kind, and a damn good intelligence officer, it seems, and Eames smiles. This is something he knows.
Staring hard at his own hand, he flexes his fingers and wills every ounce of concentration into it as he reaches out for the abandoned writing instrument, hoping and stretching, please, oh please -
The pen is cool in his grip, solid, and Eames nearly chokes out a delighted bark of laughter, smothering it down just in time. Quickly then, he scans through the logistics of the mission, and, putting pen to paper, begins to write, large loopy script next to the small neat print, taking great care to address his list of suggestions to Darling and signing it E.
Only as he's fading away does he see the shadow standing next to his darling in the kitchen - his darling who's now mumbling obscenities under his breath and covered in red tomato paste, a sight Eames is going to memorize and replay in his mind over and over again, because it's simply adorable - a shade of what looks like a shapely woman.
Eames would be angry (because who else has the right to be haunting his darling?) if not for the fear that swells in his gut, the fear from the realization that the shade is neither dead nor alive.
- - - - -
"So," is the first thing he hears when he wakes from the exhausted sleep he'd fallen into after his excursion (haunting is hard, mind you), dreaming for the first time in forever not of bullets and blood, but of the red of tomato paste and his darling, young and adorable and so alive. "I'm sorry for being away for so long. Work-related matters. Unavoidable."
Eames waits patiently and true to form, warmth and light blossoms in the form of the head of a sunflower gazing up at him, and he smiles, gently stroking the petals.
There's a pause from above, a chuckle, then, "Are you haunting me, Mr. Eames?"
He tosses his head back and laughs, long and loud and pleased. Ariadne, my dear, just wait until you hear of this.
- - - - -
Ariadne is nowhere to be found.
Eames searches high and low, at the young woman's grave, at some of the headstones of the other resident dead, above ground and around the graveyard itself, all to no avail. It's not until he he hears of the news that Ariadne's ex-boyfriend and killer flung himself headfirst off a bridge, that he understands his friend is gone forever.
* - * - *
The dead think they stay behind because of the unfinished business of the living - and in that, they're half right. What they don't know is that the relationship between the dead and the living is a symbiotic one - they too have to want to stay in this metaphysical plane, and stay they will until their purpose, whatever it might be, is fulfilled.
Once said fulfillment occurs, what more is there to stay for?
* - * - *
Things have been quiet lately. Ariadne had always been quite the chatterbox, and with his darling gone away on a business trip ("only for a few days; I'll be back soon"), Eames feels lonely. Idly, he holds the last bundle of flowers laid on his grave, a sprig of forget-me-nots, cupping the tiny blossoms in his hands, wondering if his darling's surrogate niece Phillipa would end up writing about Africa or Antarctica for her school report (the young man's topic of conversations had been growing increasingly nostalgic and somewhat scattered as of late, but it doesn't bother Eames in the least bit).
Suddenly then, he feels his darling in a sharp, horrible burst of white exploding across his consciousness, feels something for the first time in decades, and hears a familiar voice in pain, hears his darling screaming.
Screaming.
Eames hurls himself through time and space, tearing across reality without anything on his mind but the other man, racing through existence and over creation-
A hotel lobby.
A fallen chandelier, collapsed ceiling beams, a pipe ripped out of place.
People running everywhere and screaming.
His darling lying on the floor, blood blossoming bright and vicious and nothing at all like tomato paste all over his suit, his pale face, seeping out of him, his life leaking away.
Eames screams in disbelief and horror, dropping to his knees - rules be damned - and presses his hands against the largest of gaping wounds, swallowing down the hysteria as he sees his fingers against his darling's torn abdomen, as his darling gasps for breath, blood rattling in his lungs.
"William Eames?"
He looks up, tears blurring his vision - and then he's all anger and spitting fire at the intangible woman, at the beautiful Shade. "Get the fuck away from him," he growls, and wraps his arms around the dying young man, protectively.
"My name is Mal." Another step closer. "I'm a reaper."
"I don't give a damn who or what you are," Eames spits, but his (missing) insides grow cold. A reaper.
"Eames, you need to let him go," Mal tells him, kind and understanding, but Eames laughs brokenly, because he can't, he can't.
"I won't."
"You must." She kneels on the marble floor, and gazes sadly into the young man's face, at the pained grimace, the mask worn by so many men before death. "It is his time, and I must take him."
"Then you'll have to pry him from my cold, dead hands," Eames snaps nastily, but then his darling gurgles choking, uttering one word:
"Eames?"
(There are times when all things seem to not necessarily stop, but slow down. People always claim that this is when miracles happen, when the nonbelievers finally see the light and for one glorious instant, the blind can see. Moments like these are rare. These are the times when the lame walk and when the line between reality and imagination is blurred, when wrong and right do not exist, when the curtain slips between the dead and the living.)
The young man's fading dark eyes are fixed on the dog tags hanging from Eames' neck, right in his line of sight, and then they slip out of focus - and he gazes upwards, right into Eames' eyes -
Eames sobs openly, dry heaving breaths - no matter that he can't cry and doesn't breathe; he feels himself fading from existence as Mal reaches out. "No," he sobs, "no, not him. Please, not him."
"I'm sorry," she whispers, and lays a hand on the young man's forehead.
"NO!" Eames howls as his darling convulses once, and then goes still.
* - * - *
"...and yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil."
Eames raises his head from the dirt, rousing from a fitful sleep, accidentally crushing the dead sunflower he'd been clutching to his chest. He hadn't moved from this position since...well. Since he started wishing he could die, again.
"Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest for me a table in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup overflows."
A funeral, then. Eames stands slowly, and cocks his head slightly, straining to hear.
"He wanted to be buried here, in this exact spot." A man's voice says, gruff with too many cigarettes. "Arthur was always particular about these things."
Who the bloody hell is Arthur?
With the last of his strength, Eames rises above ground, a wispy figure almost completely dissipated, like a stain of breath upon a mirror, as an example to the world just how far the long fingers of grief stretch, even beyond the grave. The new headstone stands right beside his own old shabby one, and is overladen with flower arrangements. A young girl stands in front of it, tears spilling down her cheeks, tracing the name engraved into the slate with one finger: A, R, T-
"Phillipa!"
The girl turns and whispers a quick "Bye, Uncle Arthur" before pressing a kiss to the headstone and turning away, walking over to her father's side. Eames watches her go - and gradually becomes aware of another individual watching the girl depart also, a young man dressed in an impeccable suit, rubbing his cheek gently, feeling the kiss. He stares, unable to speak, frozen in place as the young man turns toward him, and speaks.
"So, I'm dead."
Eames nods, swallowing thickly. The other's dark eyes flick down to the dog tags, widen in realization, and then his face lights up on recognition, a sight more beautiful than any sunflower - "Eames?"
"I'm sorry," he blurts out, guilty. "I couldn't...I tried to, but you were..." He stops short, fearing rejection as Arthur smiles sadly, shaking his head.
"It was going to happen anyway. Pancreatic cancer." He shrugs his slim shoulders, sticking his hands casually in his pockets. "They gave me five months to live." Slowly, he turns to gaze at his own headstone and the overflowing with flowers, then returns his stare to the dead sunflower Eames had forgotten he's still clutching. "Is that...?"
Eames looks down, suddenly embarrassed, toying with the dead flower. "I only ever got anything from you, darling," he says quietly, and shuffles his weight from foot to foot. Arthur is silent. "You were the only one who ever..."
A light touch to the side of his face makes him gasp, quite literally, because Arthur's hand is gentle, warm, and suddenly Eames himself feels like more than a mere memory, more than a ghost. And when Arthur kisses him, sweet and wonderful and real, it's better than the light from a thousand sunflowers.
* - * - *
And they lived happily ever after.
Lived? Eh. Semantics. Happily? Well...matter of opinion (because what relationship is ever happy all the time?), but they are together, for eternity.
Marriage vows pledge commitment and fidelity till death do us part, but love conceived beyond the mortal veil of death lasts longer than that.
Character/Pairings: Arthur/Eames, Ariadne, Mal, mentions of Cobb, James, Phillipa
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,965
Disclaimer: Mr. Nolan owns it all
Warnings: Death
Summary/Author's Notes: Written for this prompt at inception_kink in which Eames is a ghost and Arthur is the stranger who's the only one who ever brings Eames flowers. Romance (of an odd sort) ensues.
A couple of days pass, then a week, then two weeks. Time has no real meaning to the dead, but Eames counts each passing afternoon - his darling has a habit of coming at exactly the same time everyday, like clockwork, a scheduled affair - at first with the raw scrape of hurt, then mounting worry, then finally, desperation.
"Eames, you can't keep doing this to yourself," Ariadne tells him firmly, but he can tell she's concerned, worrying her bottom lip - split and still caked over with clotted blood - between her teeth. "Look, you're getting all...wispy." She waves a hand at him and he dodges it.
"Go away, Ariadne."
She sighs and jams her fist into her hips. "Alright, look. Instead of sitting here and being all mopey, why don't you just do a haunting?"
Eames balks, fingers reaching into his pocket for the poker chip, eyes nervously darting to the floor. "Well, you see...I don't really think that..." At Ariadne's impatient foot tapping, he sighs. "I've actually never done a haunting before."
Ariadne blinks, stunned. "But you're so...so old," she says frankly, confused. She's already been haunting her parents, trying to help them lessen the grief of her passing, and her ex-boyfriend, doing her damnedest to drive him out of his mind. You know what they say about a woman scorned, well imagine what havoc a wrongfully slain spunky young woman like Ariadne can wreak.
It's not that Eames has never wanted to try his hand at haunting, it's just that he's never had anyone who wanted his ghostly presence in their lives before. And truly, he doesn't know if his darling would want him either, because really, he's nothing more than just a stupid headstone.
- - - - -
There are specific rules about haunting. These aren't merely suggestions or helpful hints to consider - no, they're mandatory. As in, if you don't follow them, you're going to get your incorporeal ass kicked.
One, the visited must in some way, shape, or form, want the presence of the departed. Not so surprising, right? What, you don't think the idiots who go chasing after imaginary spirits and phantom noises deserve to get the shit scared out of them? And the ignorant victims really aren't so innocent after all - they move into houses that by all intents and purposes aren't theirs - they're asking for it!
People go on and on about unfinished business, blah blah blah - but in truth, they're the ones who beckon, and the visitors can only heed the call, however unconscious. It's not like the dead like waltzing up out of their graves to go attend to whatever the living can't let go of. Have you ever tried being dead in a live world? It ain't easy.
Rule number two: the dead is a watcher, nothing more and nothing less, and are in no way to intervene with the events in the life of the living. They had the chance to do so when they were alive, and if the deceased so desperately wants or needs to do so in the here, and now, you know what? Tough luck. Distant communication is fine, some hints dropped here and there - so long as the visitor doesn't suddenly become an invisible Jiminy Cricket, planning out lives here and there.
And number three, which is the most important rule of all: do not, under any circumstances, touch the visited. Even if the dead can manage to do so - it's a difficult skill to acquire and maintain - it's absolutely forbidden. The dead aren't supposed to be masquerading some kind of incubus or succubus here. Picking up inanimate objects is fine, though. (Try the whole rattling the window blinds trick. It's a classic; gets them every time.)
But touch them - and that is a whole other shit storm you do not want to start.
- - - - -
"Okay," Ariadne smiles, stepping back, satisfied. "You're ready."
Eames looks down at himself, at the camouflage-colored paratrooper's uniform he'd been wearing when he died, circular dog tags of the British military polished to a shine. "Is all this really necessary?"
"Well, you want to look your best, don't you?" is the distracted answer, and Ariadne straightens up from where she'd been dusting off his boots. "Okay. You do know all the rules, right?"
"By heart, dove."
(Of course, Eames doesn't bother to mention that he's always been balls at actually following rules.)
Eyes set forward, he steps through the curtain separating the world of the dead from that of the living, and, for the first time in more than half a century hears soft music playing, and feels the soft breeze blowing on his face.
* - * - *
He's standing facing a window, staring out past the gauzy curtains at the paved streets, at the strange automobiles driving around, at the brightly dressed women walking around in articles of clothing that most definitely did not protect their modesty, at a world so alive that, for a moment, Eames can almost pretend that his lungs are expanding and his heart is beating.
"-Cobb, I've told you already, no."
That voice. Eames turns around - his eyes widen, his lips part in awe, and he stares.
The young man - his darling - is a dark-haired, lithe-limbed, sleekly dressed, bloody gorgeous creature, running his fingers through his hair in aggravation as he speaks curtly into a strange little device he hold against his ear - and yes, Eames does indeed gulp at the sight of those long fingers, elegant and beautiful.
"I don't care that there's a higher survival rate." He sits down at the table with a sigh, picks up a pen and grips it tightly, frowning down at the papers spread out everywhere. "You don't know that." He pauses suddenly, jaw clenching tight and eyes narrowing. "No, I don't," he snaps, then slams the tiny device shut and throwing it across the room, where it passes straight through Eames and hits the wall with a resounding CRACK.
Looking up from where the device had gone through his stomach, Eames watches his darling bury his handsome face in his hands, shoulders tense with stress, and he crosses quickly over to the other's side - or floats, whatever you please - and reaches out, intending to comfort, to soothe away the angry lines downturning the corners of the young man's mouth, to give back just a fraction of what the other had already given him.
Do not, under any circumstances, touch the visited. It's absolutely forbidden.
He jerks his hand away, a mere millimeter away from the shoulder of the starched white Oxford shirt because then his darling is turning his head, and Eames wonders in a panic if he's accidentally given himself away so easily -
-but apparently not, for the dark eyes stare straight through him, and the young man stands. Quickly stepping aside - because he really would rather not be walked through, thank you - Eames watches his darling move toward the fashionable and comfortably sized apartment's kitchen, heading towards the stove and the pot simmering atop the burners, bending down to pull something from the bottom cupboards.
Old Ms. Eloise was right. His darling does have a marvelous arse.
The spread of papers catches his attention and Eames looks down, eyes darting back and forth, taking in the documents and dossiers, the supposedly secure files and hacked reports, eyebrows rising, impressed. His darling appears to be a private military contractor of some kind, and a damn good intelligence officer, it seems, and Eames smiles. This is something he knows.
Staring hard at his own hand, he flexes his fingers and wills every ounce of concentration into it as he reaches out for the abandoned writing instrument, hoping and stretching, please, oh please -
The pen is cool in his grip, solid, and Eames nearly chokes out a delighted bark of laughter, smothering it down just in time. Quickly then, he scans through the logistics of the mission, and, putting pen to paper, begins to write, large loopy script next to the small neat print, taking great care to address his list of suggestions to Darling and signing it E.
Only as he's fading away does he see the shadow standing next to his darling in the kitchen - his darling who's now mumbling obscenities under his breath and covered in red tomato paste, a sight Eames is going to memorize and replay in his mind over and over again, because it's simply adorable - a shade of what looks like a shapely woman.
Eames would be angry (because who else has the right to be haunting his darling?) if not for the fear that swells in his gut, the fear from the realization that the shade is neither dead nor alive.
- - - - -
"So," is the first thing he hears when he wakes from the exhausted sleep he'd fallen into after his excursion (haunting is hard, mind you), dreaming for the first time in forever not of bullets and blood, but of the red of tomato paste and his darling, young and adorable and so alive. "I'm sorry for being away for so long. Work-related matters. Unavoidable."
Eames waits patiently and true to form, warmth and light blossoms in the form of the head of a sunflower gazing up at him, and he smiles, gently stroking the petals.
There's a pause from above, a chuckle, then, "Are you haunting me, Mr. Eames?"
He tosses his head back and laughs, long and loud and pleased. Ariadne, my dear, just wait until you hear of this.
- - - - -
Ariadne is nowhere to be found.
Eames searches high and low, at the young woman's grave, at some of the headstones of the other resident dead, above ground and around the graveyard itself, all to no avail. It's not until he he hears of the news that Ariadne's ex-boyfriend and killer flung himself headfirst off a bridge, that he understands his friend is gone forever.
* - * - *
The dead think they stay behind because of the unfinished business of the living - and in that, they're half right. What they don't know is that the relationship between the dead and the living is a symbiotic one - they too have to want to stay in this metaphysical plane, and stay they will until their purpose, whatever it might be, is fulfilled.
Once said fulfillment occurs, what more is there to stay for?
* - * - *
Things have been quiet lately. Ariadne had always been quite the chatterbox, and with his darling gone away on a business trip ("only for a few days; I'll be back soon"), Eames feels lonely. Idly, he holds the last bundle of flowers laid on his grave, a sprig of forget-me-nots, cupping the tiny blossoms in his hands, wondering if his darling's surrogate niece Phillipa would end up writing about Africa or Antarctica for her school report (the young man's topic of conversations had been growing increasingly nostalgic and somewhat scattered as of late, but it doesn't bother Eames in the least bit).
Suddenly then, he feels his darling in a sharp, horrible burst of white exploding across his consciousness, feels something for the first time in decades, and hears a familiar voice in pain, hears his darling screaming.
Screaming.
Eames hurls himself through time and space, tearing across reality without anything on his mind but the other man, racing through existence and over creation-
A hotel lobby.
A fallen chandelier, collapsed ceiling beams, a pipe ripped out of place.
People running everywhere and screaming.
His darling lying on the floor, blood blossoming bright and vicious and nothing at all like tomato paste all over his suit, his pale face, seeping out of him, his life leaking away.
Eames screams in disbelief and horror, dropping to his knees - rules be damned - and presses his hands against the largest of gaping wounds, swallowing down the hysteria as he sees his fingers against his darling's torn abdomen, as his darling gasps for breath, blood rattling in his lungs.
"William Eames?"
He looks up, tears blurring his vision - and then he's all anger and spitting fire at the intangible woman, at the beautiful Shade. "Get the fuck away from him," he growls, and wraps his arms around the dying young man, protectively.
"My name is Mal." Another step closer. "I'm a reaper."
"I don't give a damn who or what you are," Eames spits, but his (missing) insides grow cold. A reaper.
"Eames, you need to let him go," Mal tells him, kind and understanding, but Eames laughs brokenly, because he can't, he can't.
"I won't."
"You must." She kneels on the marble floor, and gazes sadly into the young man's face, at the pained grimace, the mask worn by so many men before death. "It is his time, and I must take him."
"Then you'll have to pry him from my cold, dead hands," Eames snaps nastily, but then his darling gurgles choking, uttering one word:
"Eames?"
(There are times when all things seem to not necessarily stop, but slow down. People always claim that this is when miracles happen, when the nonbelievers finally see the light and for one glorious instant, the blind can see. Moments like these are rare. These are the times when the lame walk and when the line between reality and imagination is blurred, when wrong and right do not exist, when the curtain slips between the dead and the living.)
The young man's fading dark eyes are fixed on the dog tags hanging from Eames' neck, right in his line of sight, and then they slip out of focus - and he gazes upwards, right into Eames' eyes -
Eames sobs openly, dry heaving breaths - no matter that he can't cry and doesn't breathe; he feels himself fading from existence as Mal reaches out. "No," he sobs, "no, not him. Please, not him."
"I'm sorry," she whispers, and lays a hand on the young man's forehead.
"NO!" Eames howls as his darling convulses once, and then goes still.
* - * - *
"...and yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil."
Eames raises his head from the dirt, rousing from a fitful sleep, accidentally crushing the dead sunflower he'd been clutching to his chest. He hadn't moved from this position since...well. Since he started wishing he could die, again.
"Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest for me a table in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup overflows."
A funeral, then. Eames stands slowly, and cocks his head slightly, straining to hear.
"He wanted to be buried here, in this exact spot." A man's voice says, gruff with too many cigarettes. "Arthur was always particular about these things."
Who the bloody hell is Arthur?
With the last of his strength, Eames rises above ground, a wispy figure almost completely dissipated, like a stain of breath upon a mirror, as an example to the world just how far the long fingers of grief stretch, even beyond the grave. The new headstone stands right beside his own old shabby one, and is overladen with flower arrangements. A young girl stands in front of it, tears spilling down her cheeks, tracing the name engraved into the slate with one finger: A, R, T-
"Phillipa!"
The girl turns and whispers a quick "Bye, Uncle Arthur" before pressing a kiss to the headstone and turning away, walking over to her father's side. Eames watches her go - and gradually becomes aware of another individual watching the girl depart also, a young man dressed in an impeccable suit, rubbing his cheek gently, feeling the kiss. He stares, unable to speak, frozen in place as the young man turns toward him, and speaks.
"So, I'm dead."
Eames nods, swallowing thickly. The other's dark eyes flick down to the dog tags, widen in realization, and then his face lights up on recognition, a sight more beautiful than any sunflower - "Eames?"
"I'm sorry," he blurts out, guilty. "I couldn't...I tried to, but you were..." He stops short, fearing rejection as Arthur smiles sadly, shaking his head.
"It was going to happen anyway. Pancreatic cancer." He shrugs his slim shoulders, sticking his hands casually in his pockets. "They gave me five months to live." Slowly, he turns to gaze at his own headstone and the overflowing with flowers, then returns his stare to the dead sunflower Eames had forgotten he's still clutching. "Is that...?"
Eames looks down, suddenly embarrassed, toying with the dead flower. "I only ever got anything from you, darling," he says quietly, and shuffles his weight from foot to foot. Arthur is silent. "You were the only one who ever..."
A light touch to the side of his face makes him gasp, quite literally, because Arthur's hand is gentle, warm, and suddenly Eames himself feels like more than a mere memory, more than a ghost. And when Arthur kisses him, sweet and wonderful and real, it's better than the light from a thousand sunflowers.
* - * - *
And they lived happily ever after.
Lived? Eh. Semantics. Happily? Well...matter of opinion (because what relationship is ever happy all the time?), but they are together, for eternity.
Marriage vows pledge commitment and fidelity till death do us part, but love conceived beyond the mortal veil of death lasts longer than that.