Fic: Quietus (Chapter 7)
Title: Quietus
Pairing: Eames/Arthur
Rating: R
Summary: (Modern day slave!AU) In life, Eames is a beaten down slave, but in the dreamworld he's smooth, dangerous, and sexy. And even though he's Dom's property, he's gotten under Arthur's skin.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Slavery, implication of previous non-consensual sex, classism, brutality, and possible dubious consent depending on how you see it, treating people as objects, implied mild to moderate torture, suicide (in a dream), moral ambiguity by the good guys, and forced silencing.
I don't want to give the impression this is some sort of ultra-dark fic, because it isn't, but the last thing I want to do is trigger anyone. So if you are at all sensitive to these issues I ask that you give this fic a pass. You are reading at your own risk.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
*****
Arthur didn't meet up with Dom and Eames again for nearly a month - not until he could be sure that the tail he'd picked up had been shaken off, and not until Dom had secured another job.
He hated to admit it, but they were developing a reputation in the business as a team that would take jobs no one else would touch. It attracted some clients - the underhanded kind - and in Arthur's opinion, scared away the types of jobs they should be putting their talents to.
Case in point, the current rush job Dom had signed them up for, without consulting Arthur first. He'd arrived in Italy two days ago only to be told that their client needed the extraction done within forty-eight hours or the deal was off.
That gave Arthur time to do exactly shit. They were forced to improvise, with Dom more or less throwing together a hackneyed dream version of the mark's corporate office building.
The tight timeline and lack of intel meant they had no one for Eames to forge. Arthur made the call to keep him up top for this one, to watch their bodies while he and Dom worked the extraction.
Arthur checked his watch. An hour had passed in the dream, which left them three to go. He and Dom were to meet in a nearby copy-room to reconvene and plan the next steps.
He was a few minutes early, but that would only give him time to plan. Arthur glanced around to make sure he wasn't being observed by the mark's casual projections, then opened the copy room door.
Mal sat perched on the large copy machine. She still wore that same elegant black dress she'd died in, and gave him a soft, sad smile. "Am I early?" she asked, when he froze at the door. "Dom should be here soon, no?"
Arthur didn't allow himself to think about it. He shot her three times - a triangle around the heart.
Turning away, he nearly ran into Dom who was hurrying down the hallway in his direction. Dom slowed as he saw Arthur's gun out, and passed silently by him to glance into the copy room. The color drained from his face as he saw Mal's body, now bleeding out on the floor, and for an insane moment Arthur thought Dom was going to shoot him too.
"I thought she wouldn't be showing up again. You said you'd taken care of this, " Arthur said.
Dom's eyes were hard. "I did."
"Then why is she here?" he demanded, exasperated.
"It doesn't matter. It looks like you took care of it." Dom clapped Arthur upon the shoulder.
His hand came down a touch too hard to be friendly, and Arthur wanted to snap at him. I didn't want to shoot her, you asshole. I loved her too!
But the clock was counting down and they had a job to do.
Of course the next client had to reside in India during the monsoon season. At least they had a twenty day window to work the mark, this time.
Arthur had been up late last night working his contacts to find another decent chemist, and to his embarrassment had actually overslept his alarm. It was nearly 10 AM - though Dom wasn't likely to complain about his lateness, it was Arthur's turn to watch the PASIV device.
In the short amount of time it took for Arthur to sprint from the cab to the warehouse door with the PASIV in hand, he was nearly soaked through. Swearing, he walked straight to his desk, unbuttoned his soggy jacket, and laid it over his chair. The humidity fogged the windows of their warehouse, and he didn't have much hope for it to dry.
The next job, he promised himself as he unpacked the PASIV, will be done in the deepest, darkest part of Siberia. Some place in the tundra, cold and dry.
It was only then that he looked about and realized Dom was the only other one in the room; sitting at his desk and working intently over a blueprint for the next dream.
"It's a little early to send Eames out for lunch," Arthur said, annoyed. Dom had recently gotten into the irritating habit of ordering food on Arthur's behalf without consulting him.
Dom's pen stilled over the blueprint. His lips pressed into a thin line. "I found something interesting in here this morning before work." He pointed to a notebook - a moleskin Arthur had purchased for Eames to take notes in several months ago.
Arthur's eyebrows rose as he came over to take a closer look, and Dom flipped it to a dog-eared page in the middle. Dom's bold handwriting was scrawled across the page - paragraphs detailing the mark's habits. They were forgery notes. But...
Dom flipped the page and Arthur felt a swooping sensation in the pit of his stomach. His fingers were cold as he snatched the notebook up for closer scrutiny. It was his handwriting. No... it wasn't exactly right. The E's looked foreign to him, nestled along with his own pin-neat letters. The rest was close. Very close.
The man was a brilliant forger in dreams. It just never occurred to Arthur that he was also so in the original sense of the word. He had been an idiot - hadn't Eames pick pocketed someone right in front of him? Hadn't he known that Eames was a thief?
"Do you think he was practicing to forge his own release papers?" It was the only thing Arthur could immediately think of that would be of any value to Eames. It wasn't as if he and Dom carried around checkbooks, and slaves were not allowed to handle money.
Eames could theoretically copy the papers in Dom's hand - but why would he need Arthur's as well? Maybe to plant evidence, a paper trail for incrimination?
Arthur flipped rapidly through the rest of the notebook, but nothing else stood out on a quick scan, other than a few traces where several pages had been ripped out. He firmly swallowed down a hot acid feeling of betrayal. There would be time for that later. Now, they had to do damage control. This was what he was good at - compartmentalizing, doing what was needed, even if it was unpleasant.
And wouldn't I do the same? Asked a very small voice in his thoughts. Take any chance at freedom?
"We should drop the job," Arthur said, firmly pushing that thought away, too. "We don't know what he's managed to compromise." Dom had been sending Eames out on simple errands to pick up food and supplies during jobs for months now. He could have been in contact with the client, or their competitors.
Arthur strode to his desk, grabbing up his files into a neat stack. He could burn those before they left. His hands were trembling, and he told himself it was from shock. "Where did you sell him?" he asked, although he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Dom didn't answer - he hadn't spoken this entire time, Arthur realized - and looked up to see his friend still sitting at the desk, but staring out the window, his face drawn and unhappy.
"Dom," Arthur said, a chill going down his spine. "You got rid of him, right?"
"He's back at my hotel room - he won't be going anywhere." Dom sighed, suddenly looking years older as he smoothed his palms over his hair. "In fact, I've been expecting something like this to happen for a little while now."
Arthur's jaw worked as he literally had to bite back the urge to snap something he would probably regret later. Instead, he thumped the files back on his desk, hard. "Explain."
It was telling how Dom met his gaze. There was no remorse in it. He was never the type to apologize for doing what he thought he had to do. "Eames killed his last owner," he said, bluntly. "I extracted it from him when we went under the first time. He was abused very badly for three years, but was still clever enough to make it look like an accident so that he was simply sold off as part of the estate, rather than executed."
Arthur stared. "And you still bought him?"
"We needed a forger," Dom said.
A second burning wave of betrayal flooded through Arthur. He could taste it in the back of his throat. "You should have never kept this from me."
Dom sighed, as if Arthur was being the unreasonable one. "I knew I could keep an eye on him, and watch for signs he was testing his limits."
"Is that what you think this is?" Arthur demanded, holding up the notebook. "Because it looks like a prelude to a setup to me."
The look on Dom's face was hard. "I have it under control, Arthur," he said. "Eames has tested his boundaries once, and won't be doing anything like this again. I guarantee it."
There was a certain finality to those words that raised the hair on the back of Arthur's neck. "What do you mean?"
Dom looked away, his face tight and unhappy. "For my sake and yours, for James and Phillipa, I needed to know he'll think twice before... considering crossing us." He added, his voice lower, "I don't like doing it."
Arthur stared at him for a long minute. He wasn't an idiot, he knew what Dom was implying, but something recoiled inside at trying to reconcile it with his friend - the man who he knew was capable of so much care and generosity. "Owner and slave," he said, bitterly. "You two deserve each other."
Dom flinched, but didn't try to call him back as Arthur grabbed his jacket, snapped the PASIV lid shut, and strode out - seething at Dom for his secrets, and at Eames for his own. In that moment he even felt angry at Mal for throwing them into this mess, for shattering Dom and leaving Arthur to pick up the pieces.
He stomped down the sodden street, pissed off anew as he was soaked to the skin within minutes. But he wasn't about to go back.
The Mumbai streets were crowded with people headed for late shifts at work, and bald-headed slaves scurrying back and forth with domestic duties for their masters. Despite the downpour, Arthur was sweating with heat and the air was thick with the smell of hot spices and car exhaust.
I want to go home, he thought, his voice sounding like a ten-year-old version of himself inside his own head.
He wanted to see his family again. Take up his older brother's long standing offer to help manage their father's old machine shop - celebrate Chanukah and light the menorah that sat upon their old scarred table, and eventually learn to dream unassisted again. No more living out of hotels, or coming across Mal's vicious projection, his friend's hollow eyes, or untrustworthy slaves.
... But that was just the type of boring future he had run away from when he joined the service, wasn't it? And eventually Dom's children would be orphaned, because there was no way Dom could do this alone. Not with the risks he regularly took.
Eames' voice came back to him from a dream they'd had together months ago: "My master does love taking his risks. You, on the other hand, have a way of injecting logic into the situation. He listens to you."
Eames, who had killed his last master before Dom. Not that Arthur was at all surprised.... or sorry to hear about it if Eames had been rented out as a dream-whore for three years, and probably abused otherwise.
Arthur was only certain he wouldn't have waited as long to do the same if he was in Eames' place.
Arthur stopped in his tracks, tilting his head to stare up at the slate-gray sky and let the water wash his face. He was a terrible excuse for a hardened criminal, he thought, as he turned and headed in the direction of Dom's hotel.
It was ridiculously easy to break into Dom's hotel room - so much so that Arthur made a mental note to revaluate his own security procedures.
The first thing he heard as the door opened was the sound of rapid, shallow breathing, broken by a low, animalistic grunt. It would have sounded almost pornographic, in other circumstances.
Arthur hesitated at the threshold. He wasn't an idiot, or naive. He knew how slaves were typically disciplined - the ugly little reality that most liked to keep behind closed doors. It was something he didn't especially want to see, but at the same time... that was why he needed to come. He couldn't turn his back and pretend this wasn't happening.
He thought about how Eames called him 'darling' down in the dreams and how quick he was invent a solution around a problem; his dry sarcasm. How he had started to smile at Arthur, topside. An echo of the man he was locked in his own mind - fragile and hopeful and beautiful.
Arthur stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind him.
Eames lay there on a cot set up for him at the foot of Dom's bed. He was turned away with his back to the door, curled up and trembling, his shirt was soaked through with sweat. Arthur could see a ring of red lights around his collar, slowly pulsating as it stimulated different pain centers of the brain.
As Arthur watched, a broken noise escaped from Eames' lips on a sharp exhale. The red lights flared briefly brighter and the sound cut off, jaws locking as Eames tensed and curled tighter around himself, shuddering in agony.
Slaves were not permitted to make a sound. Not even to scream.
It felt like Arthur had been standing there, paralyzed, for hours. In reality, it had only been a handful of seconds. He moved to kneel by the cot. The urge to rip the collar off was so fierce that he had to snatch his hand away at the last second. It would probably take a pair of bolt cutters to get through tempered steel, and even then, the device was made to short circuit with tampering, killing the slave and possibly electrocuting the person cutting it, too.
Eames rolled his head around to look at him. His eyes were half-lidded, his pupils contracted to tiny dots. Arthur still saw vague recognition break briefly through to wherever his mind had fled to escape. It died as the lights around the collar pulsed brighter again, drawing a horrible, strangled wheeze.
"Hold on, Eames. Just... hold on." Arthur's voice came out thankfully calm as he fished out his cell phone and punched the speed-dial.
"Turn it off," he said, the moment he heard the line click open.
There was pause from the other side. Then Dom said, "Damn it, Arthur..."
"Turn it off right now, Dom," Arthur's voice was as hard as steel. "Do it, or I'm out. I'll walk away."
Dom let out a long, aggravated sigh, and in it Arthur sensed that something had changed between them. Something important yet indefinable.
Then the red lights blinked off around the collar and Eames seemed to relax all at once, pulling in deep, sobbing breaths.
"I'll be in tomorrow." Arthur said, and hung up.
Before he could rise, Eames' hand closed about his wrist. "Thank you," he mouthed. "Thank you."
An echo of the cold anger he'd felt in the warehouse flared back up. Arthur shook off the grip and grabbed Eames' chin. "Look at me," he ordered, and waited until Eames' wide eyes fixed on him. "I stopped this because it's inhumane." His grip tightened to a painful strength - hard enough to leave bruises. "But if I ever find out you tried to double-cross me or Dom, I'll drop-kick you so deep into your own subconscious you'll go insane years before you ever wake up. Do we understand each other?"
Eames nodded, wearily, and when Arthur let him go he sagged to the cot.
Arthur stood up, venting the rest of his feelings giving a sharp kick to the boxspring of the hotel bed. Dom - who had been too squeamish to ever spank Phillipa or James - had been able to turn on the discipline settings of his slave's collar and walk away knowing he would be in agony until he deemed it necessary to turn it off.
It worried him - made him wonder what his friend was becoming in this business, or if he had always been capable of this and Arthur had not seen it.
Eames had turned away from him again, his shaved head cradled in his own arms for the illusion of privacy. His shoulders shook as he wept - either out of delayed reaction from the punishment he'd just endured, or some sense of shame, Arthur didn't know.
Arthur sighed and shook his head. If it were him in Eames' place... well. Arthur's "master" would be waking up with a knife lodged in his throat. Then again, this sort of treatment had been Eames' reality for over ten years. It was enough to grind anyone down.
The PASIV device was still by the door where he had set it down. Seeing it, Arthur hesitated, torn between wanting to give Eames space to collect himself and the knowledge that his mental defenses would be frayed from hours of pain.
He had come for answers, hadn't he?
For his part, Eames was limp and unresisting as Arthur took his arm and slid the needle in, hooking himself up after. Eames gave a breathless sigh as Arthur pressed the plunger and his eyes slid shut: It sounded like relief.
Pairing: Eames/Arthur
Rating: R
Summary: (Modern day slave!AU) In life, Eames is a beaten down slave, but in the dreamworld he's smooth, dangerous, and sexy. And even though he's Dom's property, he's gotten under Arthur's skin.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Slavery, implication of previous non-consensual sex, classism, brutality, and possible dubious consent depending on how you see it, treating people as objects, implied mild to moderate torture, suicide (in a dream), moral ambiguity by the good guys, and forced silencing.
I don't want to give the impression this is some sort of ultra-dark fic, because it isn't, but the last thing I want to do is trigger anyone. So if you are at all sensitive to these issues I ask that you give this fic a pass. You are reading at your own risk.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
*****
Arthur didn't meet up with Dom and Eames again for nearly a month - not until he could be sure that the tail he'd picked up had been shaken off, and not until Dom had secured another job.
He hated to admit it, but they were developing a reputation in the business as a team that would take jobs no one else would touch. It attracted some clients - the underhanded kind - and in Arthur's opinion, scared away the types of jobs they should be putting their talents to.
Case in point, the current rush job Dom had signed them up for, without consulting Arthur first. He'd arrived in Italy two days ago only to be told that their client needed the extraction done within forty-eight hours or the deal was off.
That gave Arthur time to do exactly shit. They were forced to improvise, with Dom more or less throwing together a hackneyed dream version of the mark's corporate office building.
The tight timeline and lack of intel meant they had no one for Eames to forge. Arthur made the call to keep him up top for this one, to watch their bodies while he and Dom worked the extraction.
Arthur checked his watch. An hour had passed in the dream, which left them three to go. He and Dom were to meet in a nearby copy-room to reconvene and plan the next steps.
He was a few minutes early, but that would only give him time to plan. Arthur glanced around to make sure he wasn't being observed by the mark's casual projections, then opened the copy room door.
Mal sat perched on the large copy machine. She still wore that same elegant black dress she'd died in, and gave him a soft, sad smile. "Am I early?" she asked, when he froze at the door. "Dom should be here soon, no?"
Arthur didn't allow himself to think about it. He shot her three times - a triangle around the heart.
Turning away, he nearly ran into Dom who was hurrying down the hallway in his direction. Dom slowed as he saw Arthur's gun out, and passed silently by him to glance into the copy room. The color drained from his face as he saw Mal's body, now bleeding out on the floor, and for an insane moment Arthur thought Dom was going to shoot him too.
"I thought she wouldn't be showing up again. You said you'd taken care of this, " Arthur said.
Dom's eyes were hard. "I did."
"Then why is she here?" he demanded, exasperated.
"It doesn't matter. It looks like you took care of it." Dom clapped Arthur upon the shoulder.
His hand came down a touch too hard to be friendly, and Arthur wanted to snap at him. I didn't want to shoot her, you asshole. I loved her too!
But the clock was counting down and they had a job to do.
Of course the next client had to reside in India during the monsoon season. At least they had a twenty day window to work the mark, this time.
Arthur had been up late last night working his contacts to find another decent chemist, and to his embarrassment had actually overslept his alarm. It was nearly 10 AM - though Dom wasn't likely to complain about his lateness, it was Arthur's turn to watch the PASIV device.
In the short amount of time it took for Arthur to sprint from the cab to the warehouse door with the PASIV in hand, he was nearly soaked through. Swearing, he walked straight to his desk, unbuttoned his soggy jacket, and laid it over his chair. The humidity fogged the windows of their warehouse, and he didn't have much hope for it to dry.
The next job, he promised himself as he unpacked the PASIV, will be done in the deepest, darkest part of Siberia. Some place in the tundra, cold and dry.
It was only then that he looked about and realized Dom was the only other one in the room; sitting at his desk and working intently over a blueprint for the next dream.
"It's a little early to send Eames out for lunch," Arthur said, annoyed. Dom had recently gotten into the irritating habit of ordering food on Arthur's behalf without consulting him.
Dom's pen stilled over the blueprint. His lips pressed into a thin line. "I found something interesting in here this morning before work." He pointed to a notebook - a moleskin Arthur had purchased for Eames to take notes in several months ago.
Arthur's eyebrows rose as he came over to take a closer look, and Dom flipped it to a dog-eared page in the middle. Dom's bold handwriting was scrawled across the page - paragraphs detailing the mark's habits. They were forgery notes. But...
Dom flipped the page and Arthur felt a swooping sensation in the pit of his stomach. His fingers were cold as he snatched the notebook up for closer scrutiny. It was his handwriting. No... it wasn't exactly right. The E's looked foreign to him, nestled along with his own pin-neat letters. The rest was close. Very close.
The man was a brilliant forger in dreams. It just never occurred to Arthur that he was also so in the original sense of the word. He had been an idiot - hadn't Eames pick pocketed someone right in front of him? Hadn't he known that Eames was a thief?
"Do you think he was practicing to forge his own release papers?" It was the only thing Arthur could immediately think of that would be of any value to Eames. It wasn't as if he and Dom carried around checkbooks, and slaves were not allowed to handle money.
Eames could theoretically copy the papers in Dom's hand - but why would he need Arthur's as well? Maybe to plant evidence, a paper trail for incrimination?
Arthur flipped rapidly through the rest of the notebook, but nothing else stood out on a quick scan, other than a few traces where several pages had been ripped out. He firmly swallowed down a hot acid feeling of betrayal. There would be time for that later. Now, they had to do damage control. This was what he was good at - compartmentalizing, doing what was needed, even if it was unpleasant.
And wouldn't I do the same? Asked a very small voice in his thoughts. Take any chance at freedom?
"We should drop the job," Arthur said, firmly pushing that thought away, too. "We don't know what he's managed to compromise." Dom had been sending Eames out on simple errands to pick up food and supplies during jobs for months now. He could have been in contact with the client, or their competitors.
Arthur strode to his desk, grabbing up his files into a neat stack. He could burn those before they left. His hands were trembling, and he told himself it was from shock. "Where did you sell him?" he asked, although he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Dom didn't answer - he hadn't spoken this entire time, Arthur realized - and looked up to see his friend still sitting at the desk, but staring out the window, his face drawn and unhappy.
"Dom," Arthur said, a chill going down his spine. "You got rid of him, right?"
"He's back at my hotel room - he won't be going anywhere." Dom sighed, suddenly looking years older as he smoothed his palms over his hair. "In fact, I've been expecting something like this to happen for a little while now."
Arthur's jaw worked as he literally had to bite back the urge to snap something he would probably regret later. Instead, he thumped the files back on his desk, hard. "Explain."
It was telling how Dom met his gaze. There was no remorse in it. He was never the type to apologize for doing what he thought he had to do. "Eames killed his last owner," he said, bluntly. "I extracted it from him when we went under the first time. He was abused very badly for three years, but was still clever enough to make it look like an accident so that he was simply sold off as part of the estate, rather than executed."
Arthur stared. "And you still bought him?"
"We needed a forger," Dom said.
A second burning wave of betrayal flooded through Arthur. He could taste it in the back of his throat. "You should have never kept this from me."
Dom sighed, as if Arthur was being the unreasonable one. "I knew I could keep an eye on him, and watch for signs he was testing his limits."
"Is that what you think this is?" Arthur demanded, holding up the notebook. "Because it looks like a prelude to a setup to me."
The look on Dom's face was hard. "I have it under control, Arthur," he said. "Eames has tested his boundaries once, and won't be doing anything like this again. I guarantee it."
There was a certain finality to those words that raised the hair on the back of Arthur's neck. "What do you mean?"
Dom looked away, his face tight and unhappy. "For my sake and yours, for James and Phillipa, I needed to know he'll think twice before... considering crossing us." He added, his voice lower, "I don't like doing it."
Arthur stared at him for a long minute. He wasn't an idiot, he knew what Dom was implying, but something recoiled inside at trying to reconcile it with his friend - the man who he knew was capable of so much care and generosity. "Owner and slave," he said, bitterly. "You two deserve each other."
Dom flinched, but didn't try to call him back as Arthur grabbed his jacket, snapped the PASIV lid shut, and strode out - seething at Dom for his secrets, and at Eames for his own. In that moment he even felt angry at Mal for throwing them into this mess, for shattering Dom and leaving Arthur to pick up the pieces.
He stomped down the sodden street, pissed off anew as he was soaked to the skin within minutes. But he wasn't about to go back.
The Mumbai streets were crowded with people headed for late shifts at work, and bald-headed slaves scurrying back and forth with domestic duties for their masters. Despite the downpour, Arthur was sweating with heat and the air was thick with the smell of hot spices and car exhaust.
I want to go home, he thought, his voice sounding like a ten-year-old version of himself inside his own head.
He wanted to see his family again. Take up his older brother's long standing offer to help manage their father's old machine shop - celebrate Chanukah and light the menorah that sat upon their old scarred table, and eventually learn to dream unassisted again. No more living out of hotels, or coming across Mal's vicious projection, his friend's hollow eyes, or untrustworthy slaves.
... But that was just the type of boring future he had run away from when he joined the service, wasn't it? And eventually Dom's children would be orphaned, because there was no way Dom could do this alone. Not with the risks he regularly took.
Eames' voice came back to him from a dream they'd had together months ago: "My master does love taking his risks. You, on the other hand, have a way of injecting logic into the situation. He listens to you."
Eames, who had killed his last master before Dom. Not that Arthur was at all surprised.... or sorry to hear about it if Eames had been rented out as a dream-whore for three years, and probably abused otherwise.
Arthur was only certain he wouldn't have waited as long to do the same if he was in Eames' place.
Arthur stopped in his tracks, tilting his head to stare up at the slate-gray sky and let the water wash his face. He was a terrible excuse for a hardened criminal, he thought, as he turned and headed in the direction of Dom's hotel.
It was ridiculously easy to break into Dom's hotel room - so much so that Arthur made a mental note to revaluate his own security procedures.
The first thing he heard as the door opened was the sound of rapid, shallow breathing, broken by a low, animalistic grunt. It would have sounded almost pornographic, in other circumstances.
Arthur hesitated at the threshold. He wasn't an idiot, or naive. He knew how slaves were typically disciplined - the ugly little reality that most liked to keep behind closed doors. It was something he didn't especially want to see, but at the same time... that was why he needed to come. He couldn't turn his back and pretend this wasn't happening.
He thought about how Eames called him 'darling' down in the dreams and how quick he was invent a solution around a problem; his dry sarcasm. How he had started to smile at Arthur, topside. An echo of the man he was locked in his own mind - fragile and hopeful and beautiful.
Arthur stepped inside, letting the door swing shut behind him.
Eames lay there on a cot set up for him at the foot of Dom's bed. He was turned away with his back to the door, curled up and trembling, his shirt was soaked through with sweat. Arthur could see a ring of red lights around his collar, slowly pulsating as it stimulated different pain centers of the brain.
As Arthur watched, a broken noise escaped from Eames' lips on a sharp exhale. The red lights flared briefly brighter and the sound cut off, jaws locking as Eames tensed and curled tighter around himself, shuddering in agony.
Slaves were not permitted to make a sound. Not even to scream.
It felt like Arthur had been standing there, paralyzed, for hours. In reality, it had only been a handful of seconds. He moved to kneel by the cot. The urge to rip the collar off was so fierce that he had to snatch his hand away at the last second. It would probably take a pair of bolt cutters to get through tempered steel, and even then, the device was made to short circuit with tampering, killing the slave and possibly electrocuting the person cutting it, too.
Eames rolled his head around to look at him. His eyes were half-lidded, his pupils contracted to tiny dots. Arthur still saw vague recognition break briefly through to wherever his mind had fled to escape. It died as the lights around the collar pulsed brighter again, drawing a horrible, strangled wheeze.
"Hold on, Eames. Just... hold on." Arthur's voice came out thankfully calm as he fished out his cell phone and punched the speed-dial.
"Turn it off," he said, the moment he heard the line click open.
There was pause from the other side. Then Dom said, "Damn it, Arthur..."
"Turn it off right now, Dom," Arthur's voice was as hard as steel. "Do it, or I'm out. I'll walk away."
Dom let out a long, aggravated sigh, and in it Arthur sensed that something had changed between them. Something important yet indefinable.
Then the red lights blinked off around the collar and Eames seemed to relax all at once, pulling in deep, sobbing breaths.
"I'll be in tomorrow." Arthur said, and hung up.
Before he could rise, Eames' hand closed about his wrist. "Thank you," he mouthed. "Thank you."
An echo of the cold anger he'd felt in the warehouse flared back up. Arthur shook off the grip and grabbed Eames' chin. "Look at me," he ordered, and waited until Eames' wide eyes fixed on him. "I stopped this because it's inhumane." His grip tightened to a painful strength - hard enough to leave bruises. "But if I ever find out you tried to double-cross me or Dom, I'll drop-kick you so deep into your own subconscious you'll go insane years before you ever wake up. Do we understand each other?"
Eames nodded, wearily, and when Arthur let him go he sagged to the cot.
Arthur stood up, venting the rest of his feelings giving a sharp kick to the boxspring of the hotel bed. Dom - who had been too squeamish to ever spank Phillipa or James - had been able to turn on the discipline settings of his slave's collar and walk away knowing he would be in agony until he deemed it necessary to turn it off.
It worried him - made him wonder what his friend was becoming in this business, or if he had always been capable of this and Arthur had not seen it.
Eames had turned away from him again, his shaved head cradled in his own arms for the illusion of privacy. His shoulders shook as he wept - either out of delayed reaction from the punishment he'd just endured, or some sense of shame, Arthur didn't know.
Arthur sighed and shook his head. If it were him in Eames' place... well. Arthur's "master" would be waking up with a knife lodged in his throat. Then again, this sort of treatment had been Eames' reality for over ten years. It was enough to grind anyone down.
The PASIV device was still by the door where he had set it down. Seeing it, Arthur hesitated, torn between wanting to give Eames space to collect himself and the knowledge that his mental defenses would be frayed from hours of pain.
He had come for answers, hadn't he?
For his part, Eames was limp and unresisting as Arthur took his arm and slid the needle in, hooking himself up after. Eames gave a breathless sigh as Arthur pressed the plunger and his eyes slid shut: It sounded like relief.