Fic Post: A Step Inside's A Step Too Far
Title: A Step Inside's A Step Too Far
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,700
Summary: That one where the team has to save Eames from an actual prison after a job goes bad and he doesn't believe that he ever left the dream.
Author's Note: Written from a bunny I stole from philosiraptors. I hope this is okay, hon. Thanks to brilligspoons for looking over parts of it for me, and to tailoredshirt for reading it several times and letting me pester her with questions.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I have yet to learn to control my grabby hands. My mom would be disappointed in me.
Arthur hadn’t spoken to Dom in almost a year, so he wasn’t sure what he expected to hear when he answered the phone, but it certainly wasn’t “What the fuck was Eames doing in Pretoria?”
“Oh, you heard about that,” Arthur said. He closed his laptop with a quiet click and leaned back in his chair.
“Heard about it? I’ve had four people update me on his situation in the last three hours. I’m out of the business, Arthur.”
“I know you are. I’m sorry. I told him not to take the job. It’s never safe, getting too deep in politics. What’s happened to him now?”
There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone. Dom sighed. “You mean you don’t know?”
“No?” It annoyed Arthur to have to admit that. It was his business to know things, but after he and Eames had argued over whether or not Eames should take the job at all, Arthur had been trying to stay away from news.
“Arthur, Eames is in holding. In a prison, and not one of the nice, state run ones from what I can tell.”
Arthur felt the air rush out of his lungs. All of them had been in scrapes with very powerful people at one time or another, but even working outside the law as they did, none of them had ever been in an actual prison cell. “Is there...is there going to be a trial or something?”
“No.”
There was an air of finality to the word and it rang in Arthur’s ears. “We have to go there.”
“Arthur, I can’t.”
“I have to go then.” He jumped out of his chair and bounded to his bedroom to pack. “I know who the mark was; I should be able to find him quickly enough if you’ll tell me what you know.” What he wanted to say but didn't was: It’s my fault, so I have to fix it.
Arthur could hear the TV going in the background behind Dom. He heard the children laughing, and he felt incredibly empty. “I’ll meet you in Cape Town,” Dom said.
. . .
It wasn’t that Eames wouldn’t have ratted out his employer; it was just that no one had asked him. By nature he didn’t have any sort of loyalty to those who hired him. He did jobs and got paid, and liked to keep things exactly that simple. Which was why finding himself doubled over and bleeding in what amounted to a concrete box was not exactly unexpected given the nature of the current job, but it wasn't preferred all the same.
He pulled his arm in to his side slowly, because everything in him ached, and tried to reach into his pocket for his totem. When he discovered it wasn’t there he laughed and spat out the blood that was pooling in his mouth.
“You can’t fucking keep me here,” he called. His voice echoed through the chamber. “I’m bound to wake up eventually! And then what are you going to do?” His shouting started up a chorus of echoed cries around him.
There was a rattle of keys outside and a low scraping sound as the lock turned in the door. Two men entered, shouting at each other in Afrikaans. Eames knew enough to be able to pick out the language, but he didn’t understand what they were saying. It probably wouldn't help his situation if he did anyway.
The men were arguing, and they’d left the door open behind them. They didn’t seem to be paying much attention to him at all. He grunted and tried to pull himself forward. There was a gun snugged into a holster on one of the mens’ thighs. He could use it to kill himself and escape. He pushed himself up and reached for it. A boot caught him swiftly in the back of the head and he was out again.
. . .
They were holed up in a back room in a shitty hotel on the edge of Johannesburg and Dom was pacing. Arthur, who had slept for two hours of the last 45, was slumped in a chair holding his temples. “Can you please stop moving?”
Dom ignored the question. “Why isn’t Yusuf here? He said he could meet us here.”
“I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he can. It gives us extra time to think.”
“We don’t have extra time.”
“We also don’t have any idea how to break into a military prison in the middle of the fucking desert. Dom, it’s not the same.”
Dom wheeled around on his heel and started back across the room. “I know. If we get shot we die for good. You don’t have to remind me.”
“It’s not just that. We’re not prepared for this.”
Dom paused and looked down at his watch. “We can’t be prepared for this. We just have to do it the best way we know how, and make it any way we can.”
Arthur tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “No honor among thieves, eh?”
“None at all.” Dom started his pacing again.
Arthur wouldn’t say it out loud, but he was glad Dom was there. He scrubbed his face with his hands and rolled up the sleeves on his shirt, which were wet with sweat and covered in dust. “No wonder Eames always looks so haphazard. It’s impossible to dress decently in this heat.”
Dom chuckled at that. He ran his hand through his hair and wiped the sweat from his brow. There was a knock at the door and Yusuf came through it carrying a canvas bag that bulged awkwardly. “Oh, thank Christ,” Dom said.
Yusuf settled his bag on the bare wooden table in the middle of the room and started pulling vials and bottles out of it and scattering them across the surface. “I think we’ll be able to get through this without killing anyone,” he said. “I’ve mixed up an incredibly strong tranquilizer. One that shuts down parts of the nervous system for a short time. If we can hit everyone we encounter we should be able to make it in and out with no problem.”
“Are you thinking needle injections?” Dom asked.
“No, you’d have to get too close to them and they'll no doubt be armed. I brought dart guns.”
Dom moved closer to the table and pulled one of the guns out of Yusuf’s bag. “We’ll need to figure out how quickly we can reload.”
“Yeah, and how many are we planning for then?” Arthur stood up and kicked the leg of his chair, sending it toppling. “Ten? A hundred? And then we just have to figure out how to make it out of the country with a felon. Where are we going to take him where we won’t be found? Hunted?”
“I talked to Saito before I got on the plane,” Dom said. “He said he’ll have a private jet for us at a small airport outside of Pretoria. From there we’re going to Berlin. He has a safe house set up there.”
“That’s some fairy godfather you’ve got there, now.”
Dom tilted his head and looked at Arthur. “He’d help you too, you just have to ask him, which I know you don’t like to do. He said he still owes us a great debt. He’ll meet us when we get there.”
. . .
It was dead quiet when Eames came to, which was odd. From what he could tell his holding area could have been made entirely of noise. Guards shouting, other prisoners laughing or crying or screaming, metal clanging against concrete. He didn’t have long to reflect on the new found solitude before he heard the tell tale scrape of a key in the lock. The door swung open.
“Jesus Christ.”
When Eames looked up he could just make out Dom stepping into the cell. Eames tried to make a joke about the cleaning staff, but all that tumbled out was a grunt and a moan. His jaw felt broken.
“Is it him?” another voice called, and Arthur stepped into view. “Fuck. How are we going to get him out here?”
“Very carefully,” Dom said, and crossed the floor. He reached down and wiped the blood off Eames' forehead and cheek with the back of his hand.
Eames lurched to the side, moving into the touch. He felt Dom pull on his arm and try to drag him up. The pain caused him to cry out, which triggered a resurgence of the cacophony he'd grown used to. Oddly, the noise lessened the pressure that had been building at the base of his skull.
“I know, this is going to hurt a lot, but we have to get you out of here before the patrol realizes everyone is down.”
“Mmmfggh,” Eames said, as Dom lifted him under the arms and up to his feet.
“Are his legs broken?” Arthur asked. He was leaning out the door into the hallway, gun pointed at the floor.
Eames leaned forward a little and tested his weight. He hadn’t used his legs in what felt like years, so they were unsure under his weight, but they didn’t feel broken. He shook his head in an exaggerated motion.
“No,” Dom said, “we should be good.”
“Alright, let’s move then.” Arthur disappeared around the corner and Dom guided Eames out the door and around the bodies of the guards that were splayed out on the floor all down the hallway. They made their way through the maze of corridors, Arthur moving ahead and checking any bend or turn before them.
Their progress must have been agonizingly slow, but Eames couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t been able to keep tabs on the time since he’d been brought there. When they finally broke through a set of double doors and into the hot, heavy night air, Eames felt something wet roll down his cheek. He would have been ashamed if he wasn’t so fucking relieved.
It was too easy, really, the way they struggled through the gates without so much as a shout from a guard. There was a van waiting and Yusuf jumped out of it and helped Dom and Arthur get Eames inside. When the doors had been slammed closed again and they were making their way down a bumpy road, Eames closed his eyes and let his head slump back against the seat, still waiting for the kick.
. . .
Dom was once again pacing, moving back and forth across the parlor in the safe house as they discussed what to do with Eames while he healed. It was like Dom’s mind wouldn’t work if his feet weren’t moving. Arthur had never really noticed it before, but at the moment every one of Dom's steps was like a hammer blow to the end of his last nerve. Saito had been at the German airport to greet them and Ariadne had flown in a couple days later. Dom had tried to make her stay in Paris, but she insisted that Eames would need all of the familiar faces that he could get. Arthur had silently agreed.
“There is no bounty out for his head, as far as I can tell,” Saito said. “It appears that for now the government of South Africa does not want it known that they have lost a prisoner. Or perhaps they just don’t want to admit to having someone like him in custody.”
Arthur looked up at Saito at the words ‘like him’ and frowned. “How widely known do you think he is? We all live on the edges of society, for the most part. It’s not as if he pays taxes for the money he makes.”
“This is true,” Saito said, “but all types pay attention to the information stream. Even if the job was completed successfully and Eames was just left for dead by the rest of his group, he’d be seen as a loose end by both sides at this point. They may just not want the competition.”
“A loose end they’ll want tied up,” Dom said.
Saito nodded and Ariadne, who was sitting on the floor next to Arthur’s chair with her knees pulled up to her chest, let out a long, slow breath. “Can you take care of them?” she asked.
Saito frowned. “I have a great many influences, but I’m afraid this might be out of my jurisdiction. I’m going to have to see if there aren’t some strings I can tug, though.”
“Thank you, Saito,” Arthur said.
Saito shook his head. “It’s the least I can do. Though, perhaps once we get past this little hitch, you’ll try to see that none of you are as...careless again.”
Arthur clasped his hands together between his knees and looked down at his feet.
“Well then, I will be off. Gentlemen. Lady.” Saito nodded at Ariadne who jumped up to see him out. “Please let me know if there is anything you need. I’ll keep you informed as to my findings.”
The clock on the mantle ticked loudly and added a rhythm to Arthur’s thoughts. All in total Eames had been left badly bruised and nearly entirely dehydrated. His right arm was broken in three places, four ribs were cracked, and his jaw had been dislocated. And yet the sum of the injuries still didn’t add up to the way that Eames rarely acknowledged that they were there. When he did acknowledge them it was with anger. Or fear. Arthur sometimes couldn’t tell the difference. When Eames was feeling responsive he would flail about and knock the water from his bed stand. His hands endlessly groped for the totem that they hadn’t been able to find on him.
Yusuf came into the parlor from Eames’ bedroom. “He’s still mumbling in his sleep,” he said.
“Can you make out anything he’s saying?” Ariadne asked as she returned from the entryway.
“No, but he seems to be taking to the sedative well. I added a touch of morphine to it, along with something else that should act as a mood stabilizer.”
“What do we do?” Arthur said.
“We wait,” Dom replied, and Arthur hadn’t even realized that he’d asked the question out loud.
“I’ll take the next shift,” Ariadne said, moving to the door.
“No.” Arthur pulled himself from the chair and stood on unsteady legs. “You go get some sleep. I’ll stay with him over night.”
“But you stayed up with him last night,” Ariadne said.
“Bring me some strong coffee in the morning,” Arthur said. He gave them all a small shrug that said goodnight, and then stepped into Eames’ dark room, shutting the door behind him.
. . .
Eames rolled over and tried to shake off the haze. He felt warm. Too warm. He kicked a little to push the covers down to his feet. A movement in the dark just outside of his field of vision startled him and every muscle in his body tensed.
“Are you awake?” a voice whispered. Eames grunted in reply. He could move his jaw again, but it was incredibly sore. Talking hadn’t been worth the effort.
The figure leaned forward and Eames could see Arthur’s face, pale in the light from the streetlamps outside. His mouth was etched across it in a thin, rigid line. Arthur wiped his hand down his cheek and Eames could just make out the shadow of stubble. He’d never seen that before, because Arthur was meticulous about his appearance, and it was curious to him that his projection of Arthur would present that way.
“You’ve really got us all going, you know,” Arthur said.
Eames remained silent and waited for the inevitable I-told-you-so. It was something Arthur would never say in real life, but here in Eames’ dreams things were bending in a way he couldn’t keep up with. He wouldn’t put it past his subconscious to feed him something that he already felt guilty about. He wondered how long it would be before he finally received the kick.
Arthur looked like he hadn’t slept in years. His eye lids were hanging low and his shoulders were slumped. You look horrid, Eames thought. He reached his good arm toward the bedside table for the glass of water that was perched there. Arthur moved across the room and got to it first. He dropped to his knees and held it out so Eames could wrap his lips over the edge before he tilted it.
When he was done drinking he lay back onto the pillow and Arthur placed the glass back onto the table. He didn’t move back to his chair. Instead he reached over Eames and grabbed the covers he’d tried to rid himself of earlier. Arthur folded them back until they were draped across Eames’ thighs. He smoothed them down with his hand and let his fingers linger where Eames’ shin was, giving one light squeeze before he leaned back.
Eames watched his projection of Arthur watching over him. The last thing he’d said to the real Arthur had been a long and detailed description of the journey Arthur could take to hell if he didn’t think Eames was capable of making his own decisions. It was more than a little funny to Eames that it seemed like he was the one who’d ended up in hell. He tried to laugh, but it came out as a weak cough.
“Just go back to sleep,” Arthur said. He stood up and crossed back the few feet to his chair. Eames closed his eyes and tried, for once, to do as he was told.
. . .
When Arthur greeted Ariadne at the door the next morning she pushed something round, plastic, and jagged into his hand with his coffee. He raised an eyebrow and looked down at it. “Oh,” he said. “Where did you get this?”
“There’s a casino in the area. I’m sure that’s not right, but it’s all I could find. He’ll be missing it, I know. Even though he hasn’t said anything about it. He hasn't had anything to fiddle with.”
“He'll have to find something entirely different eventually.” Arthur closed his fingers around the chip and let the plastic cut into his hand. “I don’t. I don’t think he knows we’re real.”
Ariadne frowned. “Is there anything we can do?”
“Beat it into him. Maybe. You know how stubborn he is on his best days.”
“I think we should put him under,” Dom said. He came shuffling down the hall to the entryway wearing a badly wrinkled button up and his khakis from the day before.
“Do you think that’s safe?” Arthur said.
“I don’t think there’s anything too detrimental about it. If anything else he won't be in as much pain down there.”
Ariadne hummed softly in agreement. She pushed past Arthur and mumbled “I think you should give that to him. He trusts you.”
Dom and Ariadne settled in the sitting room, discussing what kind of dream they should build to make Eames come out of the shell he’d built around himself. Arthur slipped back into Eames’ room and pulled the door to behind him. He was going to just leave the chip on the bedside table by the water glass, but as he pulled his hand away Eames reached out and gripped his wrist.
“Hey, good morning,” Arthur whispered. He wished he could bring himself to speak in a normal voice. All he wanted to do was yell at Eames. To force him out of the ridiculous world he'd built in his head. But the whole house had been covered over with the air of a sick ward and he felt like all the work they'd done so far would be undone if he treated Eames the way he usually did.
“Mornin,” Eames murmured. “What’s that?”
“Oh, Ariadne brought it for you. It’s a poor substitute I know, but....”
Eames let go of Arthur’s wrist and picked up the poker chip. He flipped it through his fingers a few times and sighed. “Too light.”
“Do you remember what happened to your totem?”
“I imagine it’s in my pocket back in the hotel room. I just have to wake up and make it back there.”
Arthur studied Eames, who looked up at him with his chin jutting out, every part of him daring Arthur to prove him wrong. “Eames. You’re not dreaming. This is all real.”
“That’s what you keep saying, but I don’t remember waking up. I was captured in the dream, imprisoned in the dream, and rescued in the dream. Which I appreciate, but...” He reached out again and ran his finger down the back of Arthur’s hand. “Don’t tell the real Arthur, but the stick up your ass must be much shorter.” Eames smiled and Arthur barely caught it before it turned into a wince.
Arthur looked down at the back of his hand, burning now where Eames’ lingering finger was resting on his knuckle. “I won’t tell anyone,” Arthur said. He pulled his hand away and curled his fingers into a fist. “Call if you need anything. I just. I need to.” He turned and left the room without coming up with a suitable excuse.
. . .
Eames turned the poker chip over in his good hand. He ran it through his fingers like he had so often done with his own totem before. It threatened to slip away several times before he learned the right amount of pressure to add to it to make up for what it lacked in weight.
He wanted to believe them. He knew they thought he was being stubborn, had overheard Arthur telling Ariadne as much when they'd thought he was sleeping. Eames really, truly wanted to believe that - despite being combative, argumentative, stubborn, and a bit of an asshole - he had managed to align himself with people who cared enough about him to risk their lives breaking into a military prison in the middle of fucking nowhere.
And then there was Arthur, who was the most on edge. Arthur, who’s facial and movement ticks Eames had learned to read some time ago, because it helped him to better get under his skin. Arthur who, even as a projection, was blaming himself because of their fight over whether Eames should take the job in the first place. Or maybe that's just what Eames wanted to see. He had wanted to tell Arthur over and over in the week since they’d retrieved him that it wasn’t his fault, but the words wouldn’t come out right, and it hurt like a bitch to speak at all. So he stayed silent for the most part.
No, it was simply that Eames wanted to believe in all of that, but he couldn’t. Therefore, none of it was true. He might have very well still been in a shitty holding cell hooked up to a PASIV that was feeding him this one bit of hope. And if he crumbled and accepted that only to be kicked back to a reality of filth and certain death.... He didn’t know. He couldn’t risk it.
. . .
It had been Ariadne’s idea to build the dream into a small village on the edge of the savanna. It would be someplace familiar, but not someplace Eames would have been likely to visit often. For all the time he spent in Africa, he mainly kept himself to busy areas full of people he could study.
The five of them wandered through the village center, Eames hanging close to Arthur and Dom. “It sure is something, not feeling like I’ve been hit by a tank.” He did short series of zig zag dance movements experimentally and kicked up a lot of dust.
Arthur wrinkled his nose and waved his hand in front of his face. “Whose dream were you in when you were captured?”
“Mine,” Eames said. He shrugged, as if to say he knew that wasn’t the answer Arthur had wanted, and then turned off behind one of the huts to explore. Yusuf trailed after him.
“Well that’s problematic,” Dom said. “At least it’s easier for him to talk in here while his jaw is healing. Might be able to get more out of him than we’ve been able to up ‘til now.”
Arthur kicked at the side of one of the huts halfheartedly. “I don’t know why he keeps insisting we’re the ones in the wrong. He should know enough about this stuff by now to know the difference.”
“Arthur, it's easy to get lost in here. I know it's not something you've experienced, but I promise you that it's happened to more experienced men than Eames. And honestly, it was some real shit that dragged him out of the job in the first place. You saw him when we found him. Can you blame his subconscious for not wanting to accept that as real?”
Arthur let a frustrated growl escape and then turned off in the other direction. When he reached the outside of the village he doubled back around. There was a man coming in from the plain herding six small goats in front of him. As he got closer Arthur could tell it was himself. It was always a strange feeling to see his own doppelganger, no matter how many times it had happened. He stepped into the shadow of the hut so the goat herd wouldn’t see him.
At that moment Eames called his name and ran past him just around the other side of the hut. Arthur had been close enough to reach out and stop him, but there was a curiosity about the scene that he couldn’t fight. He watched as Eames ran out to the projection and clapped a hand on his shoulder. The other Arthur brushed it off, but not unkindly. Arthur couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he saw Eames reach up and place a hand on the projection’s cheek. The projection turned into it and closed his eyes for a brief second before realizing one of the goats was moving away from the herd and snapping back to attention. He pulled away from Eames and continued to move toward the village. Eames followed him for a while, talking and laughing. When they neared the edge of the village again Eames gave the projection’s elbow a quick grasp with the tips of his fingers before stepping away and walking back toward the hut.
“I know you’re there,” he said.
Arthur realized he’d brought his own hand up to his cheek and let it drop to his side before he stepped out of the shade and waited for Eames to reach him. “That looked friendly,” he said.
“We aren’t always at odds,” Eames said. He looked down and drew a line in the sand between them with the tip of his shoe. “He said you’re right, by the way.”
“Because I am.” Arthur grimaced. “That’s the real world Eames, the one we just came from. Come back to us there.”
Eames studied Arthur, his expression shaded with fear. “You can hardly blame me, you know. That’s the reality where there’s probably a black market warrant out for my death. The reality where you and I haven’t spoken in months because I just had to go off and do something to prove myself.”
“Prove yourself to whom? We may never see eye to eye about how to get things done, but I’ve never thought you were anything less than entirely competent.”
Eames chuckled. “Thank you, for the vote of confidence.”
“You know what I mean.” Arthur shoved his hands into his pockets. “The others will be looking for us.”
“I do know what you mean.” Eames stepped forward and crowded into Arthur’s space. He grabbed Arthur by the back of his neck and hauled him forward so that he was knocked off balance and into Eames’ chest. Their teeth clicked together and Eames’ skin was hot against his.
Arthur let himself be pulled into the kiss. He let himself get carried away with it because it was what Eames needed. He let himself kiss back and keep a toe in their constant fight for dominance because he hadn’t seen Eames safe and happy in months now and this sparring of theirs felt like normal, if only for that moment. And then he pulled away, because to Eames this wasn’t real. Eames had never done this in the real world and probably never would, and that hurt.
“The others,” he said again.
Eames nodded and reached out to straighten the collar of Arthur’s shirt where he’d crushed it. Arthur ducked away and did it himself. Eames didn’t look him in the eye again, even after the kick.
. . .
Eames was back in his sick bed and rubbing the shoulder of his bandaged arm, trying to work a knot out of the muscle. He was smarting from the kiss just as much as he was any physical pain. It had been a stupid thing to do. But then, safety had often bored Eames. He'd probably be paying for his amusement for some time to come.
There were other truths falling into place as well. The truth that his colleagues were willing to be so much more to him than just people he worked jobs with from time to time. The truth that his ego had finally gotten the better of him. The truth that the respect he had for Arthur was mutual. That Arthur sometimes said searing, sarcastic things because he cared and not simply because he liked to ruffle Eames' feathers as much as Eames liked to ruffle his. Not entirely, anyway.
“You are a great bloody fool,” he said to himself.
Arthur pushed into the room carrying a small tray with a bowl perched on it. “I'm going to need that in writing,” he said.
“Well, that's too bad. Unless you get me one of those Stephen Hawking set ups with the microphones.” Eames winced as he sat up straighter, trying to put as little pressure as he could onto his ribs.
“I don't know.” Arthur said. “It will probably be just as legible if you use the opposite hand.” He placed the tray on Eames’ knees and plopped down into the chair.
“That chair is going to hollow into a mold of your ass if you don't do something besides sit there and stare at me night and day,” Eames said.
Arthur looked up at the ceiling as if he was contemplating this. After a few minutes passed Eames opened his mouth to say something, anything, that would drown out the deafening silence. He was cut off when Arthur said, “If you don’t believe this is real, why haven’t you just tried to kill yourself?”
“Please Arthur, don't hold back on my account.” Eames blew into his spoon as he thought. “Because you lot wouldn’t let me?”
“That’s never stopped you before,” Arthur said. He stretched out, slouching down against the arm rests of the chair and kicking his legs out across the carpet so that they almost touched the bed frame.
Eames watched him, hoping to see a tell. He wanted to find a chink in Arthur's armor. He wanted that chink to be him. Arthur stared resolutely at the ceiling and refused to return the gaze. “Because I don’t have access to anything to get the job done?”
Arthur glanced toward the bedside table, suggesting that he knew Eames was lying. There was a gun in the drawer and as far as Eames could tell, it had been there since they'd brought him in. Possibly before. He'd found it early on while he was pawing around, searching for painkillers.
“Because I’m scared?”
Arthur nodded. They sat in silence while Eames finished his soup. Through the wall they could hear Yusuf and Ariadne laughing and Eames felt empty inside, not being able to be a part of whatever was happening. He wondered how long he was going to feel disconnected from the world. How long he could handle that feeling. He placed the spoon back into the bowl and pushed the tray down his legs so that it was balancing on his shins.
Sitting up straight, Arthur dug into his trouser pocket and pulled out the red die. He slid out of the chair and dropped to his knees at the edge of Eames’ bed. Removing the bowl to the floor he rolled his die onto the tray. There was a loud clatter as the plastic bounced around against the thin metal surface. It landed four side up.
He picked it up and rolled it again. And again. Eames kept track of the rolls. Four. Four. Five. Four. One. Four. “This is how I know I’m real,” Arthur said. He rolled again and it landed on a two. “In the real world tampering with a die can cheat probability, but there’s no way to make certain that it lands on the same number every time. In a dream I get four every time.”
“I don’t want this to be real,” Eames said. He didn't say: I don't want to be the reason you haven’t slept in days.
Arthur smirked. He picked the die up from the tray and held it out to Eames. “Here.”
“I don’t want to contaminate-”
“No, just take it.”
Eames held is hand out and let Arthur drop the die into it. It was lighter than he would have assumed.
“There,” Arthur said. “Now our realities are the same.”
Eames placed the die on the tray four side up. “What now?”
“Now you get healed up, because if you think I’m waiting on you for the rest of your life you really are dreaming.” Arthur stood up and put the bowl on the tray and took it from Eames’ lap.
“About the dream,” Eames said.
Arthur shook his head. “We can talk about that when you’re well and I won’t feel bad for kicking your ass.”
“I always knew you had an interest in my ass,” Eames said.
“Sometimes I roll in order to lose on purpose.” Arthur left the room, pulling the door shut behind him.
Eames picked up the poker chip and turned it over in his hand again. It didn't prove anything. None of it did. It wasn’t exactly what he was looking for either, but it would be a start.
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5,700
Summary: That one where the team has to save Eames from an actual prison after a job goes bad and he doesn't believe that he ever left the dream.
Author's Note: Written from a bunny I stole from philosiraptors. I hope this is okay, hon. Thanks to brilligspoons for looking over parts of it for me, and to tailoredshirt for reading it several times and letting me pester her with questions.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I have yet to learn to control my grabby hands. My mom would be disappointed in me.
Arthur hadn’t spoken to Dom in almost a year, so he wasn’t sure what he expected to hear when he answered the phone, but it certainly wasn’t “What the fuck was Eames doing in Pretoria?”
“Oh, you heard about that,” Arthur said. He closed his laptop with a quiet click and leaned back in his chair.
“Heard about it? I’ve had four people update me on his situation in the last three hours. I’m out of the business, Arthur.”
“I know you are. I’m sorry. I told him not to take the job. It’s never safe, getting too deep in politics. What’s happened to him now?”
There was a brief silence on the other end of the phone. Dom sighed. “You mean you don’t know?”
“No?” It annoyed Arthur to have to admit that. It was his business to know things, but after he and Eames had argued over whether or not Eames should take the job at all, Arthur had been trying to stay away from news.
“Arthur, Eames is in holding. In a prison, and not one of the nice, state run ones from what I can tell.”
Arthur felt the air rush out of his lungs. All of them had been in scrapes with very powerful people at one time or another, but even working outside the law as they did, none of them had ever been in an actual prison cell. “Is there...is there going to be a trial or something?”
“No.”
There was an air of finality to the word and it rang in Arthur’s ears. “We have to go there.”
“Arthur, I can’t.”
“I have to go then.” He jumped out of his chair and bounded to his bedroom to pack. “I know who the mark was; I should be able to find him quickly enough if you’ll tell me what you know.” What he wanted to say but didn't was: It’s my fault, so I have to fix it.
Arthur could hear the TV going in the background behind Dom. He heard the children laughing, and he felt incredibly empty. “I’ll meet you in Cape Town,” Dom said.
. . .
It wasn’t that Eames wouldn’t have ratted out his employer; it was just that no one had asked him. By nature he didn’t have any sort of loyalty to those who hired him. He did jobs and got paid, and liked to keep things exactly that simple. Which was why finding himself doubled over and bleeding in what amounted to a concrete box was not exactly unexpected given the nature of the current job, but it wasn't preferred all the same.
He pulled his arm in to his side slowly, because everything in him ached, and tried to reach into his pocket for his totem. When he discovered it wasn’t there he laughed and spat out the blood that was pooling in his mouth.
“You can’t fucking keep me here,” he called. His voice echoed through the chamber. “I’m bound to wake up eventually! And then what are you going to do?” His shouting started up a chorus of echoed cries around him.
There was a rattle of keys outside and a low scraping sound as the lock turned in the door. Two men entered, shouting at each other in Afrikaans. Eames knew enough to be able to pick out the language, but he didn’t understand what they were saying. It probably wouldn't help his situation if he did anyway.
The men were arguing, and they’d left the door open behind them. They didn’t seem to be paying much attention to him at all. He grunted and tried to pull himself forward. There was a gun snugged into a holster on one of the mens’ thighs. He could use it to kill himself and escape. He pushed himself up and reached for it. A boot caught him swiftly in the back of the head and he was out again.
. . .
They were holed up in a back room in a shitty hotel on the edge of Johannesburg and Dom was pacing. Arthur, who had slept for two hours of the last 45, was slumped in a chair holding his temples. “Can you please stop moving?”
Dom ignored the question. “Why isn’t Yusuf here? He said he could meet us here.”
“I’m sure he’ll be here as soon as he can. It gives us extra time to think.”
“We don’t have extra time.”
“We also don’t have any idea how to break into a military prison in the middle of the fucking desert. Dom, it’s not the same.”
Dom wheeled around on his heel and started back across the room. “I know. If we get shot we die for good. You don’t have to remind me.”
“It’s not just that. We’re not prepared for this.”
Dom paused and looked down at his watch. “We can’t be prepared for this. We just have to do it the best way we know how, and make it any way we can.”
Arthur tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “No honor among thieves, eh?”
“None at all.” Dom started his pacing again.
Arthur wouldn’t say it out loud, but he was glad Dom was there. He scrubbed his face with his hands and rolled up the sleeves on his shirt, which were wet with sweat and covered in dust. “No wonder Eames always looks so haphazard. It’s impossible to dress decently in this heat.”
Dom chuckled at that. He ran his hand through his hair and wiped the sweat from his brow. There was a knock at the door and Yusuf came through it carrying a canvas bag that bulged awkwardly. “Oh, thank Christ,” Dom said.
Yusuf settled his bag on the bare wooden table in the middle of the room and started pulling vials and bottles out of it and scattering them across the surface. “I think we’ll be able to get through this without killing anyone,” he said. “I’ve mixed up an incredibly strong tranquilizer. One that shuts down parts of the nervous system for a short time. If we can hit everyone we encounter we should be able to make it in and out with no problem.”
“Are you thinking needle injections?” Dom asked.
“No, you’d have to get too close to them and they'll no doubt be armed. I brought dart guns.”
Dom moved closer to the table and pulled one of the guns out of Yusuf’s bag. “We’ll need to figure out how quickly we can reload.”
“Yeah, and how many are we planning for then?” Arthur stood up and kicked the leg of his chair, sending it toppling. “Ten? A hundred? And then we just have to figure out how to make it out of the country with a felon. Where are we going to take him where we won’t be found? Hunted?”
“I talked to Saito before I got on the plane,” Dom said. “He said he’ll have a private jet for us at a small airport outside of Pretoria. From there we’re going to Berlin. He has a safe house set up there.”
“That’s some fairy godfather you’ve got there, now.”
Dom tilted his head and looked at Arthur. “He’d help you too, you just have to ask him, which I know you don’t like to do. He said he still owes us a great debt. He’ll meet us when we get there.”
. . .
It was dead quiet when Eames came to, which was odd. From what he could tell his holding area could have been made entirely of noise. Guards shouting, other prisoners laughing or crying or screaming, metal clanging against concrete. He didn’t have long to reflect on the new found solitude before he heard the tell tale scrape of a key in the lock. The door swung open.
“Jesus Christ.”
When Eames looked up he could just make out Dom stepping into the cell. Eames tried to make a joke about the cleaning staff, but all that tumbled out was a grunt and a moan. His jaw felt broken.
“Is it him?” another voice called, and Arthur stepped into view. “Fuck. How are we going to get him out here?”
“Very carefully,” Dom said, and crossed the floor. He reached down and wiped the blood off Eames' forehead and cheek with the back of his hand.
Eames lurched to the side, moving into the touch. He felt Dom pull on his arm and try to drag him up. The pain caused him to cry out, which triggered a resurgence of the cacophony he'd grown used to. Oddly, the noise lessened the pressure that had been building at the base of his skull.
“I know, this is going to hurt a lot, but we have to get you out of here before the patrol realizes everyone is down.”
“Mmmfggh,” Eames said, as Dom lifted him under the arms and up to his feet.
“Are his legs broken?” Arthur asked. He was leaning out the door into the hallway, gun pointed at the floor.
Eames leaned forward a little and tested his weight. He hadn’t used his legs in what felt like years, so they were unsure under his weight, but they didn’t feel broken. He shook his head in an exaggerated motion.
“No,” Dom said, “we should be good.”
“Alright, let’s move then.” Arthur disappeared around the corner and Dom guided Eames out the door and around the bodies of the guards that were splayed out on the floor all down the hallway. They made their way through the maze of corridors, Arthur moving ahead and checking any bend or turn before them.
Their progress must have been agonizingly slow, but Eames couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t been able to keep tabs on the time since he’d been brought there. When they finally broke through a set of double doors and into the hot, heavy night air, Eames felt something wet roll down his cheek. He would have been ashamed if he wasn’t so fucking relieved.
It was too easy, really, the way they struggled through the gates without so much as a shout from a guard. There was a van waiting and Yusuf jumped out of it and helped Dom and Arthur get Eames inside. When the doors had been slammed closed again and they were making their way down a bumpy road, Eames closed his eyes and let his head slump back against the seat, still waiting for the kick.
. . .
Dom was once again pacing, moving back and forth across the parlor in the safe house as they discussed what to do with Eames while he healed. It was like Dom’s mind wouldn’t work if his feet weren’t moving. Arthur had never really noticed it before, but at the moment every one of Dom's steps was like a hammer blow to the end of his last nerve. Saito had been at the German airport to greet them and Ariadne had flown in a couple days later. Dom had tried to make her stay in Paris, but she insisted that Eames would need all of the familiar faces that he could get. Arthur had silently agreed.
“There is no bounty out for his head, as far as I can tell,” Saito said. “It appears that for now the government of South Africa does not want it known that they have lost a prisoner. Or perhaps they just don’t want to admit to having someone like him in custody.”
Arthur looked up at Saito at the words ‘like him’ and frowned. “How widely known do you think he is? We all live on the edges of society, for the most part. It’s not as if he pays taxes for the money he makes.”
“This is true,” Saito said, “but all types pay attention to the information stream. Even if the job was completed successfully and Eames was just left for dead by the rest of his group, he’d be seen as a loose end by both sides at this point. They may just not want the competition.”
“A loose end they’ll want tied up,” Dom said.
Saito nodded and Ariadne, who was sitting on the floor next to Arthur’s chair with her knees pulled up to her chest, let out a long, slow breath. “Can you take care of them?” she asked.
Saito frowned. “I have a great many influences, but I’m afraid this might be out of my jurisdiction. I’m going to have to see if there aren’t some strings I can tug, though.”
“Thank you, Saito,” Arthur said.
Saito shook his head. “It’s the least I can do. Though, perhaps once we get past this little hitch, you’ll try to see that none of you are as...careless again.”
Arthur clasped his hands together between his knees and looked down at his feet.
“Well then, I will be off. Gentlemen. Lady.” Saito nodded at Ariadne who jumped up to see him out. “Please let me know if there is anything you need. I’ll keep you informed as to my findings.”
The clock on the mantle ticked loudly and added a rhythm to Arthur’s thoughts. All in total Eames had been left badly bruised and nearly entirely dehydrated. His right arm was broken in three places, four ribs were cracked, and his jaw had been dislocated. And yet the sum of the injuries still didn’t add up to the way that Eames rarely acknowledged that they were there. When he did acknowledge them it was with anger. Or fear. Arthur sometimes couldn’t tell the difference. When Eames was feeling responsive he would flail about and knock the water from his bed stand. His hands endlessly groped for the totem that they hadn’t been able to find on him.
Yusuf came into the parlor from Eames’ bedroom. “He’s still mumbling in his sleep,” he said.
“Can you make out anything he’s saying?” Ariadne asked as she returned from the entryway.
“No, but he seems to be taking to the sedative well. I added a touch of morphine to it, along with something else that should act as a mood stabilizer.”
“What do we do?” Arthur said.
“We wait,” Dom replied, and Arthur hadn’t even realized that he’d asked the question out loud.
“I’ll take the next shift,” Ariadne said, moving to the door.
“No.” Arthur pulled himself from the chair and stood on unsteady legs. “You go get some sleep. I’ll stay with him over night.”
“But you stayed up with him last night,” Ariadne said.
“Bring me some strong coffee in the morning,” Arthur said. He gave them all a small shrug that said goodnight, and then stepped into Eames’ dark room, shutting the door behind him.
. . .
Eames rolled over and tried to shake off the haze. He felt warm. Too warm. He kicked a little to push the covers down to his feet. A movement in the dark just outside of his field of vision startled him and every muscle in his body tensed.
“Are you awake?” a voice whispered. Eames grunted in reply. He could move his jaw again, but it was incredibly sore. Talking hadn’t been worth the effort.
The figure leaned forward and Eames could see Arthur’s face, pale in the light from the streetlamps outside. His mouth was etched across it in a thin, rigid line. Arthur wiped his hand down his cheek and Eames could just make out the shadow of stubble. He’d never seen that before, because Arthur was meticulous about his appearance, and it was curious to him that his projection of Arthur would present that way.
“You’ve really got us all going, you know,” Arthur said.
Eames remained silent and waited for the inevitable I-told-you-so. It was something Arthur would never say in real life, but here in Eames’ dreams things were bending in a way he couldn’t keep up with. He wouldn’t put it past his subconscious to feed him something that he already felt guilty about. He wondered how long it would be before he finally received the kick.
Arthur looked like he hadn’t slept in years. His eye lids were hanging low and his shoulders were slumped. You look horrid, Eames thought. He reached his good arm toward the bedside table for the glass of water that was perched there. Arthur moved across the room and got to it first. He dropped to his knees and held it out so Eames could wrap his lips over the edge before he tilted it.
When he was done drinking he lay back onto the pillow and Arthur placed the glass back onto the table. He didn’t move back to his chair. Instead he reached over Eames and grabbed the covers he’d tried to rid himself of earlier. Arthur folded them back until they were draped across Eames’ thighs. He smoothed them down with his hand and let his fingers linger where Eames’ shin was, giving one light squeeze before he leaned back.
Eames watched his projection of Arthur watching over him. The last thing he’d said to the real Arthur had been a long and detailed description of the journey Arthur could take to hell if he didn’t think Eames was capable of making his own decisions. It was more than a little funny to Eames that it seemed like he was the one who’d ended up in hell. He tried to laugh, but it came out as a weak cough.
“Just go back to sleep,” Arthur said. He stood up and crossed back the few feet to his chair. Eames closed his eyes and tried, for once, to do as he was told.
. . .
When Arthur greeted Ariadne at the door the next morning she pushed something round, plastic, and jagged into his hand with his coffee. He raised an eyebrow and looked down at it. “Oh,” he said. “Where did you get this?”
“There’s a casino in the area. I’m sure that’s not right, but it’s all I could find. He’ll be missing it, I know. Even though he hasn’t said anything about it. He hasn't had anything to fiddle with.”
“He'll have to find something entirely different eventually.” Arthur closed his fingers around the chip and let the plastic cut into his hand. “I don’t. I don’t think he knows we’re real.”
Ariadne frowned. “Is there anything we can do?”
“Beat it into him. Maybe. You know how stubborn he is on his best days.”
“I think we should put him under,” Dom said. He came shuffling down the hall to the entryway wearing a badly wrinkled button up and his khakis from the day before.
“Do you think that’s safe?” Arthur said.
“I don’t think there’s anything too detrimental about it. If anything else he won't be in as much pain down there.”
Ariadne hummed softly in agreement. She pushed past Arthur and mumbled “I think you should give that to him. He trusts you.”
Dom and Ariadne settled in the sitting room, discussing what kind of dream they should build to make Eames come out of the shell he’d built around himself. Arthur slipped back into Eames’ room and pulled the door to behind him. He was going to just leave the chip on the bedside table by the water glass, but as he pulled his hand away Eames reached out and gripped his wrist.
“Hey, good morning,” Arthur whispered. He wished he could bring himself to speak in a normal voice. All he wanted to do was yell at Eames. To force him out of the ridiculous world he'd built in his head. But the whole house had been covered over with the air of a sick ward and he felt like all the work they'd done so far would be undone if he treated Eames the way he usually did.
“Mornin,” Eames murmured. “What’s that?”
“Oh, Ariadne brought it for you. It’s a poor substitute I know, but....”
Eames let go of Arthur’s wrist and picked up the poker chip. He flipped it through his fingers a few times and sighed. “Too light.”
“Do you remember what happened to your totem?”
“I imagine it’s in my pocket back in the hotel room. I just have to wake up and make it back there.”
Arthur studied Eames, who looked up at him with his chin jutting out, every part of him daring Arthur to prove him wrong. “Eames. You’re not dreaming. This is all real.”
“That’s what you keep saying, but I don’t remember waking up. I was captured in the dream, imprisoned in the dream, and rescued in the dream. Which I appreciate, but...” He reached out again and ran his finger down the back of Arthur’s hand. “Don’t tell the real Arthur, but the stick up your ass must be much shorter.” Eames smiled and Arthur barely caught it before it turned into a wince.
Arthur looked down at the back of his hand, burning now where Eames’ lingering finger was resting on his knuckle. “I won’t tell anyone,” Arthur said. He pulled his hand away and curled his fingers into a fist. “Call if you need anything. I just. I need to.” He turned and left the room without coming up with a suitable excuse.
. . .
Eames turned the poker chip over in his good hand. He ran it through his fingers like he had so often done with his own totem before. It threatened to slip away several times before he learned the right amount of pressure to add to it to make up for what it lacked in weight.
He wanted to believe them. He knew they thought he was being stubborn, had overheard Arthur telling Ariadne as much when they'd thought he was sleeping. Eames really, truly wanted to believe that - despite being combative, argumentative, stubborn, and a bit of an asshole - he had managed to align himself with people who cared enough about him to risk their lives breaking into a military prison in the middle of fucking nowhere.
And then there was Arthur, who was the most on edge. Arthur, who’s facial and movement ticks Eames had learned to read some time ago, because it helped him to better get under his skin. Arthur who, even as a projection, was blaming himself because of their fight over whether Eames should take the job in the first place. Or maybe that's just what Eames wanted to see. He had wanted to tell Arthur over and over in the week since they’d retrieved him that it wasn’t his fault, but the words wouldn’t come out right, and it hurt like a bitch to speak at all. So he stayed silent for the most part.
No, it was simply that Eames wanted to believe in all of that, but he couldn’t. Therefore, none of it was true. He might have very well still been in a shitty holding cell hooked up to a PASIV that was feeding him this one bit of hope. And if he crumbled and accepted that only to be kicked back to a reality of filth and certain death.... He didn’t know. He couldn’t risk it.
. . .
It had been Ariadne’s idea to build the dream into a small village on the edge of the savanna. It would be someplace familiar, but not someplace Eames would have been likely to visit often. For all the time he spent in Africa, he mainly kept himself to busy areas full of people he could study.
The five of them wandered through the village center, Eames hanging close to Arthur and Dom. “It sure is something, not feeling like I’ve been hit by a tank.” He did short series of zig zag dance movements experimentally and kicked up a lot of dust.
Arthur wrinkled his nose and waved his hand in front of his face. “Whose dream were you in when you were captured?”
“Mine,” Eames said. He shrugged, as if to say he knew that wasn’t the answer Arthur had wanted, and then turned off behind one of the huts to explore. Yusuf trailed after him.
“Well that’s problematic,” Dom said. “At least it’s easier for him to talk in here while his jaw is healing. Might be able to get more out of him than we’ve been able to up ‘til now.”
Arthur kicked at the side of one of the huts halfheartedly. “I don’t know why he keeps insisting we’re the ones in the wrong. He should know enough about this stuff by now to know the difference.”
“Arthur, it's easy to get lost in here. I know it's not something you've experienced, but I promise you that it's happened to more experienced men than Eames. And honestly, it was some real shit that dragged him out of the job in the first place. You saw him when we found him. Can you blame his subconscious for not wanting to accept that as real?”
Arthur let a frustrated growl escape and then turned off in the other direction. When he reached the outside of the village he doubled back around. There was a man coming in from the plain herding six small goats in front of him. As he got closer Arthur could tell it was himself. It was always a strange feeling to see his own doppelganger, no matter how many times it had happened. He stepped into the shadow of the hut so the goat herd wouldn’t see him.
At that moment Eames called his name and ran past him just around the other side of the hut. Arthur had been close enough to reach out and stop him, but there was a curiosity about the scene that he couldn’t fight. He watched as Eames ran out to the projection and clapped a hand on his shoulder. The other Arthur brushed it off, but not unkindly. Arthur couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he saw Eames reach up and place a hand on the projection’s cheek. The projection turned into it and closed his eyes for a brief second before realizing one of the goats was moving away from the herd and snapping back to attention. He pulled away from Eames and continued to move toward the village. Eames followed him for a while, talking and laughing. When they neared the edge of the village again Eames gave the projection’s elbow a quick grasp with the tips of his fingers before stepping away and walking back toward the hut.
“I know you’re there,” he said.
Arthur realized he’d brought his own hand up to his cheek and let it drop to his side before he stepped out of the shade and waited for Eames to reach him. “That looked friendly,” he said.
“We aren’t always at odds,” Eames said. He looked down and drew a line in the sand between them with the tip of his shoe. “He said you’re right, by the way.”
“Because I am.” Arthur grimaced. “That’s the real world Eames, the one we just came from. Come back to us there.”
Eames studied Arthur, his expression shaded with fear. “You can hardly blame me, you know. That’s the reality where there’s probably a black market warrant out for my death. The reality where you and I haven’t spoken in months because I just had to go off and do something to prove myself.”
“Prove yourself to whom? We may never see eye to eye about how to get things done, but I’ve never thought you were anything less than entirely competent.”
Eames chuckled. “Thank you, for the vote of confidence.”
“You know what I mean.” Arthur shoved his hands into his pockets. “The others will be looking for us.”
“I do know what you mean.” Eames stepped forward and crowded into Arthur’s space. He grabbed Arthur by the back of his neck and hauled him forward so that he was knocked off balance and into Eames’ chest. Their teeth clicked together and Eames’ skin was hot against his.
Arthur let himself be pulled into the kiss. He let himself get carried away with it because it was what Eames needed. He let himself kiss back and keep a toe in their constant fight for dominance because he hadn’t seen Eames safe and happy in months now and this sparring of theirs felt like normal, if only for that moment. And then he pulled away, because to Eames this wasn’t real. Eames had never done this in the real world and probably never would, and that hurt.
“The others,” he said again.
Eames nodded and reached out to straighten the collar of Arthur’s shirt where he’d crushed it. Arthur ducked away and did it himself. Eames didn’t look him in the eye again, even after the kick.
. . .
Eames was back in his sick bed and rubbing the shoulder of his bandaged arm, trying to work a knot out of the muscle. He was smarting from the kiss just as much as he was any physical pain. It had been a stupid thing to do. But then, safety had often bored Eames. He'd probably be paying for his amusement for some time to come.
There were other truths falling into place as well. The truth that his colleagues were willing to be so much more to him than just people he worked jobs with from time to time. The truth that his ego had finally gotten the better of him. The truth that the respect he had for Arthur was mutual. That Arthur sometimes said searing, sarcastic things because he cared and not simply because he liked to ruffle Eames' feathers as much as Eames liked to ruffle his. Not entirely, anyway.
“You are a great bloody fool,” he said to himself.
Arthur pushed into the room carrying a small tray with a bowl perched on it. “I'm going to need that in writing,” he said.
“Well, that's too bad. Unless you get me one of those Stephen Hawking set ups with the microphones.” Eames winced as he sat up straighter, trying to put as little pressure as he could onto his ribs.
“I don't know.” Arthur said. “It will probably be just as legible if you use the opposite hand.” He placed the tray on Eames’ knees and plopped down into the chair.
“That chair is going to hollow into a mold of your ass if you don't do something besides sit there and stare at me night and day,” Eames said.
Arthur looked up at the ceiling as if he was contemplating this. After a few minutes passed Eames opened his mouth to say something, anything, that would drown out the deafening silence. He was cut off when Arthur said, “If you don’t believe this is real, why haven’t you just tried to kill yourself?”
“Please Arthur, don't hold back on my account.” Eames blew into his spoon as he thought. “Because you lot wouldn’t let me?”
“That’s never stopped you before,” Arthur said. He stretched out, slouching down against the arm rests of the chair and kicking his legs out across the carpet so that they almost touched the bed frame.
Eames watched him, hoping to see a tell. He wanted to find a chink in Arthur's armor. He wanted that chink to be him. Arthur stared resolutely at the ceiling and refused to return the gaze. “Because I don’t have access to anything to get the job done?”
Arthur glanced toward the bedside table, suggesting that he knew Eames was lying. There was a gun in the drawer and as far as Eames could tell, it had been there since they'd brought him in. Possibly before. He'd found it early on while he was pawing around, searching for painkillers.
“Because I’m scared?”
Arthur nodded. They sat in silence while Eames finished his soup. Through the wall they could hear Yusuf and Ariadne laughing and Eames felt empty inside, not being able to be a part of whatever was happening. He wondered how long he was going to feel disconnected from the world. How long he could handle that feeling. He placed the spoon back into the bowl and pushed the tray down his legs so that it was balancing on his shins.
Sitting up straight, Arthur dug into his trouser pocket and pulled out the red die. He slid out of the chair and dropped to his knees at the edge of Eames’ bed. Removing the bowl to the floor he rolled his die onto the tray. There was a loud clatter as the plastic bounced around against the thin metal surface. It landed four side up.
He picked it up and rolled it again. And again. Eames kept track of the rolls. Four. Four. Five. Four. One. Four. “This is how I know I’m real,” Arthur said. He rolled again and it landed on a two. “In the real world tampering with a die can cheat probability, but there’s no way to make certain that it lands on the same number every time. In a dream I get four every time.”
“I don’t want this to be real,” Eames said. He didn't say: I don't want to be the reason you haven’t slept in days.
Arthur smirked. He picked the die up from the tray and held it out to Eames. “Here.”
“I don’t want to contaminate-”
“No, just take it.”
Eames held is hand out and let Arthur drop the die into it. It was lighter than he would have assumed.
“There,” Arthur said. “Now our realities are the same.”
Eames placed the die on the tray four side up. “What now?”
“Now you get healed up, because if you think I’m waiting on you for the rest of your life you really are dreaming.” Arthur stood up and put the bowl on the tray and took it from Eames’ lap.
“About the dream,” Eames said.
Arthur shook his head. “We can talk about that when you’re well and I won’t feel bad for kicking your ass.”
“I always knew you had an interest in my ass,” Eames said.
“Sometimes I roll in order to lose on purpose.” Arthur left the room, pulling the door shut behind him.
Eames picked up the poker chip and turned it over in his hand again. It didn't prove anything. None of it did. It wasn’t exactly what he was looking for either, but it would be a start.