{ No Way Back : Log 02 } - for artfulforger
Right after this.
It wasn't very much longer until they were entering the hotel room that Arthur had reserved - one bed - and he dropped his bag down onto a chair. He ran a hand over his face. "No more people randomly popping in and out, right? No shifting hallways or hammers. If I see another hammer, it'll be too soon ( Read more... )
It wasn't very much longer until they were entering the hotel room that Arthur had reserved - one bed - and he dropped his bag down onto a chair. He ran a hand over his face. "No more people randomly popping in and out, right? No shifting hallways or hammers. If I see another hammer, it'll be too soon ( Read more... )
He typed in the address on a search and bit on his bottom lip as he scrolled through some information. "No, I don't think there will be a website dedicated to that house. I do think that if someone else has experienced something similar, then there will be news articles relating to the owners and any disappearances." Fuck, what was he even talking about. Arthur nodded and in another tab started doing another search for 'Rose Red' and another tab dedicated to 'Sukeena' to see what that would pull up. The last was would be like a needle in a haystack he was sure but it was worth a shot anyway.
"How about you come up with a list of names that would have a grudge against us or want us out of the way at an abandoned house and we can mark them off as we go." Any idea was worth something at this point. People they've worked with, people who would just want them out of the way for some purpose -- how the hell did a house text Eames?!
"Not only have our totems not lied to us before but the fact that I'm thinking logically about this and researching it shows that I'm still in my right frame of mind."
"Ah, here we go...," he muttered and looked at the screen when a newspaper clipping came up about the house and it's original occupants.
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"Arthur the list of those we've worked with who don't want revenge on is shorter than those that do," he pointed out. "Cobb. Ariadne. Saito. Not sure on the last one either," he admitted with a snort. "He could buy the right codes to my cellphone. It came unlisted, just as yours always do," he pointed out."
Except he was making no point of making a list. There's was no point and much as he was loathe to even think it, he knew the truth. It hadn't been any enemy either of them shared.
"You don't believe it was an enemy of ours, do you," he asked, moving to pull the computer back, trying to get Arthur to look up at him. "Tell me what you believe."
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They had a much, much shorter list of those who didn't want revenge on them than they did those who did want revenge. "You may have a point," he conceeded with a rueful smile.
When Eames pulled his computer away, Arthur lifted his gaze and looked up at Eames. To be completely and truthfully honest, though he hated to admit it, there was probably a spark of fear in his eyes and in his mind that they couldn't explain what happened and that they were truly going a little nuts. It was beyond anything he'd ever experienced and had known to be there. "No - I don't believe an enemy of ours could have done something like that. Not all of them could have pulled something like that off." He paused. "I don't know exactly what I believe, Eames. It goes against all logic and common sense."
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The way he said the name was almost pained as he dipped down, pressing his fingertips to the other man's cheek.
"Just tell me you believe we're sane. Don't say it because you think I need to hear it but tell me what you truly believe," he said in a soft voice, needing the world to be as it should be and not the way it was quickly spiraling out of control.
And yet he hoped, deep down, that if Arthur didn't believe it, then he would lie to him. He'd almost rather the lie than believing they would lose whatever the house had made them face.
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Out of everything he was feeling, the one thing he felt for certain (though, yes, there was that 1-2% fear), it was of their own sanity. So he didn't have to lie to Eames when he responded. "Eames," he said softly and looked the other man in the eyes. "We - you and I - are sane. Perhaps -- perhaps this was a fluke. It was just a thing." He paused and thought over the TV shows he flipped through at night when he couldn't make himself fall asleep and he didn't have work to distract him. "It happens, right? It doesn't mean that we're going to come by it again."
With their normal - criminal lives, things like this just didn't happen, no. But, they worked in dreams. Who was to say this wasn't bound to happen? But, why them?
Arthur lifted his free hand and brushed his fingertips over Eames' cheek. "What do you believe, Eames?" he said, softly.
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"Do your research then. Find out what you can," he said, pulling away reluctantly from Arthur's touch so he could drag a chair closer, dropping down into it so he could see the screen. "Okay then. What can you find," he asked, willing to trust in Arthur.
"You're what I believe in," he whispered softly.
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Arthur lifted his head away from the laptop when he heard Eames whispered words and looked at him - not sure exactly what to say about that. If he was honest - and usually, he was - Eames was the man Arthur trusted above all others and who he believed in. He gave the other man a true smile before reading over the information in the news paper article he'd found.
"House was built in 1906 by the Rembauers. Looks like over the course of the years many died in or around the house and there were several more disappearances." Arthur fell silent as he stared at the photos attached to the article - spotting two recognizable women. "They look familiar, don't they?" he asked dryly, turning the laptop toward Eames so he could see better. "It says they both disappeared in the home, never seen again."
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"So you're telling me we saw two women that have been missing for years on years. Like a hundred of them, and look just like they do in this picture?" And they were sane. That was the part he kept telling himself.
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He sat there quietly for a minute. They were sane and yet this, this entire thing made absolutely no sense. But -- they were sane.
Arthur scrolled down through the article. "Says that at the time of this article, a group of "psychics" were planning on visiting the house before it was to be tore down for condominiums."
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"So you're telling us people believed it to be haunted and maybe that it was actually seeking us out to what? Help add on to a house that somehow texted me," he said, as if trying to convince himself as much as anything.
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He stood from the bed and walked over to the chair and found the invitation he had been handed before walking back over and handing it over to Eames. "That's what I was given," he said, looking at him.
Arthur returned to his spot on the bed. After finding this out - if he were truly being honest - he didn't want to look up any more information. He didn't want to know more about this fucking house and it's former occupants. He just wanted -- well, he wanted the man sitting next to him but that wasn't right. At least not after everything they've been through that night.
He ran a hand over his face and clicked back to find another article that would be a little more recent than the last.
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"Arthur... this is my handwriting," he admitted in a low voice. "One I use often enough anyway," he said, hand shaking slightly as he let it fall onto the bed.
"Dammit, I don't want to believe in haunted house. I don't want to deal with that," he admitted, sounding petulant and a bit whiny.
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"Where do you want to go for vacation?" He'd tell the extractor in Bolivia he wasn't doing it; it wasn't a hardship on his part. It was, more or less, his way of saying that he didn't want to either and didn't want to know more about this house for the first time in his life. It was no wonder, considering an article he had briefly scanned about the house being demolished years prior.
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"You want beaches? What about Skiathos, Greece?"
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Turning back to the laptop, he saved the searches and pulled up his trusted site for flights. "When do you want to go?" Personally, Arthur was more than wanting to leave as soon as possible - or tomorrow.
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"I... I've got time. Now. Anytime we want to go. I'm relative free, between jobs."
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