Shattered Beneath Your Fingers (Part 7)
Author's notes: This is a companion story to The Consequences of Trust a.k.a. Eames POV.This story is also no longer being beta'd.
Warnings: Suicide Themes, mentions of torture, mental health, ptsd
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
Or read both stories together on AO3
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Eames’ chest feels as if it has been kicked in, like he can’t breathe, can’t focus on anything but the spreading ache behind his ribs. He’s looking at Arthur, who seems so sure, face hard with a confidence Eames hasn’t encountered from him in over a year. Eames can see that the set of his shoulders is squared off, back straight to imply power and control. But this person before him is like a hologram of the old Arthur, blurred around the edges, not quite reality. The old Arthur wouldn’t have the flicker of uncertainty, the unsteady hands twitching at his sides.
Eames would feel relief over the fact that Arthur is finally taking more control and making a difficult decision, except for the fact that the decision hurts like a sucker-punch. It drives the air from his lungs.
There was brief hope before this. Eames felt it like a strand of hair caught in his fingers, invisible, slipping away before he could properly grasp it to keep hold and wrap it around his knuckles tightly. Arthur, this morning, stepping into the kitchen from the hall in a pressed white shirt that was already folded up at the elbows had made Eames’ heart skip and then beat faster. He wanted to say something about the fact that Arthur was wearing his fitted slacks again. He wanted to say anything about the sudden change but he couldn’t for fear of pushing Arthur away. If Arthur reacted poorly to approval, would he regress? And if he reacted well, would that give Eames too much hope?
Eames knows that he can never have Arthur. He might have been able to, once, if Arthur was interested, if Eames ever allowed himself to know the truth of his own feelings without the catalyst of this tragedy. But not now, never. If Arthur had any of the same feelings before (Eames will never know) he certainly doesn’t anymore. Eames can think of no way to redeem himself. What he did was unforgivable. He bites his tongue and allows himself the briefest assessment of Arthur’s clothing, lets the happiness of seeing the tiniest inkling of normality from Arthur wash over him as he chews on his fingernail to keep from speaking. Progress is progress, and whether it’s beneficial to Eames’ relationship with Arthur is not important.
The drive to the office is quiet, the droning hum of the motor and the airy whoosh of passing traffic is the only soundtrack to their journey. The ride to Arthur’s appointment is not uncomfortable, for once, and Eames fights the urge to break the amicable silence by drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He pulls the car into the lot and throws the gearshift into park. It still feels strange to him, driving Arthur around. Everything feels off kilter since Colombia, as if the world has shifted it’s axis and the familiar landmarks have all disappeared or morphed into something unrecognizable. Arthur had always been a rock, a certainty in the climatic whirlpool that is the business of illegal dreamshare. Eames hadn’t realized how much he had relied on Arthur until Arthur wasn’t there, until Arthur was no longer the reliable anchor, but instead something set adrift, waiting to be tossed over the edge of a fall.
Arthur opens the door and unfolds himself from the car. His spine is straighter as he crosses the few meters to the door and that tickle of hope crawls over Eames’ skin again. An hour, he thinks, only an hour to see if there is any more progress. Turning the radio on to a Mexican station with the volume set low, Eames listens to the trumpets and guitars play as the sun burns through the windows.
Arthur bursts through the door forty minutes later. He’s seething; Eames can see from here. His posture is rigid; jaw clenched and shoulders heaving as he breathes. Arthur’s body is like a wound rubber band that is ready to snap. He tugs open the door gracelessly, pulling it shut with force after his body drops into the front seat. Eames turns his eyes forward and starts the car without a word. He doesn’t look at Arthur the entire ride home, though he wants to. He wants to dissect every twitch of Arthur’s cheek, every line of Arthur’s furrowed brow. He wants to sooth them away with his fingers, wondering what could have set Arthur off after such a good morning. Eames wants to shoot the doctor for setting Arthur off. He would tear her heart out through her throat if he could, though he certainly knows that anger is misdirected.
Arthur doesn’t eat dinner with the rest of them. Ariadne is dismayed, not just because of her pride in successfully helping with a dinner that doesn’t come from a box, but because she is worried. She keeps looking to the hall as she spoons chicken casserole and asparagus onto her plate. They are all worried and the furtive glances shared around the table don’t help to lighten the mood. The children seem to pick up on the tension, eating quietly before excusing themselves to go play. Eames wishes he could escape like them, able to forget over a game of hide and seek, or a tea party. Instead he pushes his food along his plate until he can’t sit at the table any longer, apatite lost.
After dinner, Eames walks past Arthur’s room towards his own, stopping to listen outside the door. He can’t hear anything and there is no light coming from the crack at the bottom. Moving past it dejectedly, he makes his way to his room. Cobb’s house is massive, too large for a single family. It’s beautiful, but haunting. There’s too much of Mal left here. Eames didn’t know her well, but it’s clear where her presence remains. He wonders what it must be like living with the ghosts Cobb has. He wonders if it’s also difficult for Arthur being here. Eames didn’t know just how close Arthur was with Mal, not until that moment with Cobb when Arthur broke down in the hotel in Paris.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Eames removes his shoes, his socks, and his pants. He undresses slowly and methodically, shedding each layer like he’s shedding a skin. It’s usually one of his favorite moments of the day, removing his identity, especially if that identity is not his own. But the act seems hollow tonight. He can’t rid himself of the worry, the ache in his gut like cement hardened inside, and it makes him restless, keeps him tossing and turning all night.
The morning is when it happens. Cobb is taking the kids to school, Ariadne isn’t around and Arthur is forcing confidence as he delivers a request that hurts like hell. And Eames wishes he was wearing another face, another person, that his wasn’t his emotions being wrenched to the surface. He wishes that he were dreaming, because Arthur is pushing him away, and Eames knows that this is the last time he will ever see Arthur again.
“Eames, I need you to leave. I can’t … concentrate, on recovering when you’re here.” Arthur outright doesn’t say it, but Eames can read it all over him. Eames makes Arthur uncomfortable. Arthur is afraid of him. That fact hurts more than anything else.
Arthur’s posture shifts. He looks uncertain, maybe worried that Eames won’t listen, that he has no power to ask him to go. Eames can’t allow that. He wants Arthur to know that anything that Arthur needs, Eames will give him. He nods and stops Arthur, stops him before he can take it back or before he can add more to the request.
“Of course, Arthur, of course,” he whispers urgently. Arthur’s brow furrows in confusion, as if he expected Eames to fight him on this. They look at each other for a long moment, silence hanging in the air like a suffocating blanket. Eames looks down at his feet and nods before leaving the room, not wanting to drag this out any longer.
The hallway is a long foreboding tunnel as he heads to his room. It feels as if he’s walking down death-row. Maybe that’s an over-dramatic comparison, but it feels like he’s heading towards an end. Eames packs his bag quickly, shoving clothing into it carelessly and probably forgetting things he’s left around the house. Before he leaves he searches for Ariadne but doesn’t find her in the house. He can’t leave if nobody else is here. Arthur’s made progress, but leaving him alone is out of the question. Eames anxiously waits in the sitting room with his suitcase by the door.
It doesn’t take long for Cobb and Ariadne to return, clamoring in the door with grocery bags, discussing something about structural integrity and some other architectural argument Eames only half catches. Cobb sees the suitcase and stops mid-sentence to ask, “What’s going on?”
“I have to leave,” Eames says matter of fact as he stands.
Ariadne gapes at him. “Leave?” She asks incredulously. “But I thought you said you wouldn’t.” Eames shoots her a sharp look and clears his throat.
“Yes, I know. Arthur has asked me to leave.”
Ariadne’s face falls and she swallows whatever she was about to say next. Cobb frowns as well. “I’ll have to get Ariadne a car,” he says after a moment, practical in his assessment. “She’ll need to take Arthur to his appointments.”
Eames nods, he hadn’t thought about that, shamefully too wrapped up in himself, and Ariadne looks worriedly between the two of them. They stand there until Ariadne breaks the silence. “Where are you going to go? You know, in case something comes up.”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll text you, I promise.” Eames sighs, and then grabs the handle of his bag. His fingers clench and unclench as he tries to think of anything more he needs to say. Ariadne steps forward and wraps her fingers over his forearm. Her eyes are full of sympathy, which makes Eames feel worse. He pulls her into a hug and presses a kiss to her hair. “I promise I won’t drop off the face of the earth,” he assures her.
“Better not” she says, squeezing his ribs. “I’ll take care of him. I’ll call you every day with an update, if you want.”
“No. It’s better, it’s better if you don’t.” Ariadne lets him go, crossing her arms to hug her own body. Eames shakes Cobb’s hand. They don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say. Eames nods before turning and wheeling his bag out the door behind him. He throws it into the trunk of the rental and collapses into the front seat.
The drive to LAX is long, but traffic is fairly light in the middle of a weekday. Eames doesn’t bother turning the radio on, just lets the sounds of a few passing cars and the rumble of the tires over asphalt act as his soundtrack for the drive. He hasn’t booked a flight out yet, doesn’t know where he’s going, in fact. He’ll figure that out when he turns the car in. Eames will have to make sure to use one of his squeaky clean ID’s, booking a flight the day of.
After turning the car in to a bored but friendly attendant, Eames takes a shuttle to the international terminal. He’s standing in the lobby, the high ceilings making all sounds echo loudly around him as fellow travelers move like ants, forming orderly lines at the ticket counters. The screens of flights don’t focus as he stares at them. Eames feels completely lost. Usually he as a destination for any occasion, a place he can lay low if he’s on the run. But none of them feel appropriate. He isn’t on the run; he’s not escaping or having to hide out. He’s simply being discarded and he doesn’t have a suitable accommodation for the person I love just told me to get out of his life type of travel.
When he finally shakes himself out of his stupor, Eames’ gaze settles on a destination. He chews on his lower lip before deciding if that is really the place that is best for him right now. Approaching the counter, Eames purchases a one-way ticket to London.
***
“Hullo, mum,” Eames gasps; his wind is nearly knocked out as his mother flings herself into him for a tight hug. Her hair smells of lavender and cigarettes and home.
“Darling, what are you doing here?” She asks as she pulls back to study him, her hands gripping just above each of his elbows as they stand on the small set of stairs to her leading to her door. She pulls him in for another hug, then runs her hands down the lapels of his blazer and pulls at the buttons of his shirt.
“Don’t fuss,” he admonishes without malice. She smiles; there are more wrinkles around her eyes and mouth than he remembers, more gray on her head, but otherwise she looks the same. Her hair is pulled back, as always, and her cardigan is rolled up at the elbows, gold bangles clinking together on her wrists. She looks down at his bag and her mouth flattens into a knowing frown.
“Oh, darling, come tell me everything,” she says as she drags him inside. He sets his bag next to the couch before taking a seat. It’s the same sofa she’s had for the last fifteen years, an ugly abstract pattern in equally ugly colors, worn on one side more than the other where she sits. Her wallpaper is peeling in the corners and there’s trashy tabloids scattered on the coffee table. Eames stacks them on a corner as his mother bustles off to put the kettle on, not bothering to ask if he actually wants any tea.
He doesn’t tell her about Arthur. It’s enough that she’s willing to distract him as he tries not to think about it. The tea is deliciously hot. It’s also a tad too sweet, but it comforts him as his mother sits and catches him up with all that he’s missed from the family since his last visit years ago. After running out of things to tell him about the various family members, she finally drops the cheeriness and pats his leg to get his attention. “You all right, dear?”
“I did something awful, mum,” he replies, staring at the muted telly. She takes his hand in her own, squeezing it with a little shake.
“Anything I can help with?” She asks. He looks at her sadly. She wants so badly to help him and he can’t tell her what he did. She barely knows what his work even is, the idea of dreamshare never resolving into something she can quite understand.
“No,” he replies solemnly. “No this is something I’m going to have to live with.”
***
Eames texts Ariadne to let her know where he ended up and ignores her texts back. The rain starts a few days after he arrives and it seems fitting, the weather matching his mood. It feels hollow here, like he’s moving through a fog and everything is disconnected. He keeps thinking of Arthur, wondering how his therapy is going, if Ariadne sits outside the office in case his appointment ends early. Every once in a while he’ll see a flash of dark hair, the right size build and a nice suit as he walks along the street; his heart skips a beat. But then the random man will turn around and it won’t be Arthur, just a bloke heading to work. Eames’ face will fall and the rest of his day will be utterly ruined.
Eames tries to indulge his mum in dinners out while taking up residence in the guest room. It’s not his childhood home, but she has been there long enough for it to be familiar. It helps a little, taking her to places she’s wanted to try, letting her happiness overshadow his depression. After a few weeks he feels up to hitting the pub with the few friends he still keeps contact with. Their lives are uncomplicated and domestic: wives, children, desk jobs or small businesses. At one point Eames would have dismissed it all as boring, lacking in every way, but he feels a distinct jealousy towards them and the choices they have never and will never have to make.
At night, though, he replays the Weiss job over an over, acting out different scenarios, ones where he makes the right decision and kills Arthur quickly, and others where he hurts him more. Eames has never gone under frequently enough to lose his natural dreams permanently. He only loses them during jobs, and he ponders getting his hands on a PASIV just to rid himself of them for a while. Each one wakes him in a cold sweat and the urge to phone Ariadne to find out how Arthur is doing. But involving himself in Arthur’s progress will do nothing to sever himself from Arthur, and that’s what Arthur needs. That’s what Eames needs.
Eames breaks down one day, calculating the time difference to catch her on an afternoon that Arthur will be at his appointment. “How is he?” He asks when she picks up. She doesn’t miss a beat or get angry at him for getting to the point.
“Good,” she says. “Some days are better than others, but I think he might be doing better.” It’s good news, should be great news if Arthur is making progress, but it wrenches Eames’ heart just the same. Arthur is recovering, because Eames isn’t there. He was a problem and he was holding Arthur back. Any remaining hope that Eames had of having contact with Arthur again dies like a candle being snuffed out. “Eames?” Ariadne asks when he hasn’t said anything for a while.
“Thanks,” he says his voice tight, swallowing thickly to clear the lump that’s lodged itself in his throat. “That’s great news. Hey, I’m going to start taking jobs again, I think. I need something to focus on. I’ll let you know where I end up, yeah?”
“Okay, sure,” she says hesitantly. “You sure you are doing all right, Eames?” Her voice needles it’s way into his heart, making the ache worse.
“I’ll be fine,” he says.
***
Eames knows he has to leave when his moping starts to get to his mother. She would never ask him to go, but he can tell she’s getting frazzled by not being able to help, fluttering around him, doting, but unwilling to push him to open up. He doesn't want to burden her with his morose demeanor. She’s had a hard life, raising him and his sister on her own, working three jobs until they were old enough to help out (whatever less than reputable ways that might have been in Eames’ case). She deserves to be happy, to be out with her friends and not worrying about her son’s unsolvable problems.
He rings up a few contacts, looking for work. There are no jobs big enough to use a forger, but there are a few that call for a thief and he can always step in as an extractor if needed. The first job he snags is a few weeks worth of work out of Madrid. It’s tedious and it keeps him busy. The next job he takes is in Sicily, then after that Bucharest, Haifa and Alexandria.
Eames decidedly does not think about the fact that he’s working his way mathematically to the farthest point on the planet he can get from Los Angeles without being on a boat in the Indian Ocean. He’s actually considering a job in Mumbai a few months out, but it’s far below his skill level and half the team is brand new into dreaming. He hasn’t worked the other half before either.
It should concern Eames that he’s not taking jobs based on the best offers or the biggest challenges. It should also concern him that he’s doing exactly what he said he wouldn’t. Ariadne has tried to contact him several times over the last two months and he’s ignored her completely. He stopped bothering to tell her where he was planning to travel after he left Spain. He just doesn’t want to think about anything having to do with Arthur right now.
It seems like it is all he can think about though, especially when he’s alone at night, head pillowed on another hotel room pillow and the lights of the city reflecting off of ceiling. He had vowed not to leave Arthur, and that had been the wrong decision. Every decision he has made in regard to Arthur has been a mistake. Every night he asks himself how he could have fucked up so badly.
Eames takes the job in Mumbai and barely makes it out alive. The entire team is in over their heads and he knows it the moment he arrives. But instead of turning around and flying himself straight back out of the country, Eames decides to stick around and see if he can salvage the job. Nobody dies, thankfully, but it is a close call. The adrenaline boost of the escape makes Eames feel better than he has since Colombia. The high of almost dying is intoxicating, flushing out any thoughts of Arthur, and Eames’ miserable existence, as he fights to survive. It’s short lived, however, when he has to lie low to for a week in India’s sweltering heat. The next job Eames picks up is just as dangerous, albeit with a more skilled and experienced team. It’s difficult, but not as thrilling, and Eames finds that he goes right back to thinking about Arthur when he’s not out tailing his prospective forge.
It gets to him, the inability to block Arthur out, so the next job he chooses next is another rough and unscrupulous gig with rough and unscrupulous people. Their client tries to sell them out (Eames still doesn’t know how that is supposed to work in the client’s favor) and he ends up with a broken finger, a cracked rib, and too many bruises to count.
It feels good.
Each job that Eames takes gets progressively more dangerous. They’re below his pay grade, below his standards, below his sense of safety. But concentrating on staying alive in the shittiest situations means that Eames isn’t thinking about anything other than saving his own neck.
This is how he winds up in the control of the Albanian Mafia. Control is a pretty accurate word for it. Eames is bound, wrists tied expertly and legs secured on a rolling chair. He’s blindfolded and being wheeled through some sort of hallway as far as he can tell from the width to each wall as he tries to see out the gaps at the bottom of the fabric. The lights are bright, the walls cleanly painted and the floor clean. Eames has to assume it’s a permanent location, somewhere worthy of taking care of. This works in his favor, as he is less likely to be murdered here, so there’s a little hope.
Eames has to hand it to his captors for thinking ahead, not having to carry him or force him to walk on his swollen, sprained ankle. Clearly they are used to keeping hostages, or prisoners, or witnesses that need coercing, because they don’t want to be slowed down getting him to the destination. They’re probably moving him for another round of questions, which leaves Eames feeling jittery and queasy.
They don’t draw the sessions out. No, they get straight to the point, short and sharp with their methods. Nothing too injurious to render him incoherent, but it is still bloody painful. His ankle was an accident from being captured, but the deep black series of bruises along his inner thighs are very purposeful. They’ll probably move up and in next, nothing quite beats threatening a man’s bollocks to get him to open up, but Eames might be able to hold out until they get to his fingers. He needs those to survive.
The only problem with interrogation is that he doesn’t have much to give him. If he were part of his normal type of team for this extraction he would have information. But Eames didn’t vet this job, didn’t make a backup plan, didn’t get to know his team, barely knows who the client is (and will be unable to offer a reverse extraction), and has no other valuable information that they may want. He is royally fucked.
The wheels of his chair catch on the metal threshold of a doorway and Eames is nearly thrown on his face. He’s a little surprised that they catch him. Normally that tactic can be used to put the subject ill at ease, the inability to catch themselves, the utter sense of helplessness jarring them just enough to start panic before leading them with questions. The knot of discomfort in his stomach tightens.
“Ah, Mr. Eames,” a voice greets in heavily accented English. Eames’ blood goes cold. He didn’t tell them a name, any name. The only name they could have gotten from him was Kensey Williams off of his false identity.
“So nice of you to join us. You have a visitor here. You are a lucky man, Mr. Eames. Somebody thinks your are far more valuable than we do.” Mind racing, Eames works through a list of enemies that could have tracked him. He doesn’t think anyone has connections with the Albanian Mafia, at least not that he can remember. There are a couple that would pay off an organized crime group for the opportunity to kill him themselves, though.
“He is all yours, Mr. Weiss. Do you wish my men to take him to your car?” Eames very nearly rips his wrists open when he panics, struggling against the ropes violently. He doesn’t hear an answer to the question, blacking out when something very hard hits him on the back of the head.
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