OPINIONS WON'T KEEP YOU WARM AT NIGHT
Title; Opinions Won't Keep You Warm at Night
Rating/warnings; PG.
Word count; 1078
Characters; Eames/Arthur
Notes; Written for this prompt on the inception_kink meme. Unbeta'd.
Summary; "Arthur doesn’t return for two weeks. This is when Eames starts to worry."
“Dinner?” Because they’re both working with different people and Eames is starting to miss the house they own in England for majority of the year.
He misses the fireplace and the toast for Sunday night dinner when neither of them can be bothered.
Arthur agrees, easy smile on his face when he leaves the apartment.
In the first weeks Eames learns to hate Russia - Russia, where things that go missing don’t have a tendency to be found.
It’s not even a conscious discussion on his part:
“Just a tea, please,” all in mangled Russian. Morning after and he returns because it’s the last place he’s promised to meet him.
Eames isn’t worried yet. Because in the past there have been plenty of times either of them have missed a meeting point. There was that time in Australia where Eames couldn’t fly from Sydney to Darwin for over a week.
Arthur had pretended not to be worried then too - but hey, that was ten years ago and neither them had learnt how to hide it at that point.
Arthur had waited in Fanny Bay for a week. More than that: he returns to Fanny Bay Super Pizza each day. Each day for a goddamn week.
They were kicked out for violence when Eames finally arrived.
Eames starts to teach them English.
Elvira is a dear. She minces words better then Cobb slurring drunkenly in French, swears at Eames constantly in Russian and bitches about the Ukrainians moving in next door - “what kind of Ukrainians run a supermarket anyway?” Eames doesn’t understand the logic behind that one.
She can’t be a day younger then seventy-six and her restaurant is charming.
He teaches the regulars too, and Elvira’s husband. Or more accurately: he answers their questions. He tells them what this word means, and if what little English they already know makes sense (“Нет,” and then they laugh).
He teaches the serving boy the words bugger, twat and wanker. Mainly because all school boys should know those ones.
Arthur doesn’t return for two weeks. This is when Eames starts to worry.
He has a habit of coinciding beginnings with the start of a new week, so Eames starts looking for Arthur on a Monday.
He throws everything into looking for Arthur: calls in favours he’d been meaning to savour; renews contacts years past dead; spends every waking hour pooling everything he knows into one single purpose.
He works from Elvira’s restaurant because even dream-sharing criminals hesitate to wield guns in a Russian woman’s domain.
Six months in and Eames sells the house in England.
Eames and Arthur meet in the army.
Mal was always under the impression that they were the be all and end all of them Dreaming Sharing program. That people begged to do their bidding and they were known for their brilliant minds and outstanding partnership - they weren’t: Mal liked to romanticize things.
They communicate for the first time when they both steal a PASIV device on the same night.
(That day had been the last straw for a lot of them: four men emptying their minds into limbo and, upon awaking emptying bullets into everyone who’d been in the room. Eames had been on a coffee run. The Americans were scheduled to use the room in half an hour.)
Two years in Eames stops trying to find him.
Him. Arth -
Eames inhales his tea.
Arthur.
Arthur is dead and Eames sits in the same restaurant, pretending he doesn’t twitch whenever a what would you like? Comes from Elvira.
Ignoring a single man’s calls for over five years is harder then Eames thinks it should be.
Sometimes, he forgets to check the caller ID when he picks up the phone for example, or he can’t really remember what he’s avoiding when he’s drunk. Eames is drunk a lot.
Eames supposes it’s because there’s a part of him that expects Cobb to sound the same on the phone as he did the night Mal died.
He’s not sure why - Arthur and Dom were no more than civil to each other until Mal death.
When it does happen though, its somewhat of a surprise Eames does it on purpose:
“Dom?”
“Jesus.”
Eames cries then, on the phone to the one man who knows what’s happening and in the middle of Elvira’s goddamn fucking shop.
Joseph, Elvira’s husband, invites he into the kitchen after that.
“Why did it take you six years?” is what he asks after Eames finishes his drink.
Eames isn’t one of the regulars. He’s as expected as chairs placed at the tables.
Elvira dies.
Eames pays for her funeral and later, when Joseph is arse over sloshed - after the grandchildren have left - Eames offers to shoot him.
“I wish I had been strong enough to offer you the same,” is what he says, “When you stopped looking.”
Eames leaves the gun on the table when he leaves for the night.
Eames never leaves Russia. Not even when Elvira’s restaurant is someone else’s.
Not even when there’s a threatening war, or the coldest winter recorded in fifty years. Not when the apartment burns down because he left the stove on.
Not when he ships over all the things he’s ever owned - from the house in England, the apartment in Paris; the several places they had stateside - and when he opens the first box the whole place suddenly smells of Arthur.
Not when he wears the colour from Arthur’s favourite jumper.
In Russia, Eames reverts back to the weight he was in sixth form.
He dies five days later, aged eighty-two.
Here’s what happens to Arthur:
The door smashing open, that’s the first thing he hears.
Gunshots follow and by this time Arthur has pushed aside the working table he’d been sitting at, gun in each hand.
Their architect goes down first, vomiting blood and clawing at the gaping hole angled towards her lungs.
Arthur shoots, fast, and several men die at his hand. He shoots and throws the chemist out the back door with a bump of his hip.
Arthur is shot in the doorway, bullet entering his stomach.
He’s passing out in a pool of bloody blue prints; he hopes the blood isn’t his.
The way he’s been flung onto the ground angles his watch hand towards his face; he hopes Eames wont pretend to make him sleep on the couch for being late.
His body is incinerated in the burning warehouse.
Arthur dies in Russia.
Rating/warnings; PG.
Word count; 1078
Characters; Eames/Arthur
Notes; Written for this prompt on the inception_kink meme. Unbeta'd.
Summary; "Arthur doesn’t return for two weeks. This is when Eames starts to worry."
“Dinner?” Because they’re both working with different people and Eames is starting to miss the house they own in England for majority of the year.
He misses the fireplace and the toast for Sunday night dinner when neither of them can be bothered.
Arthur agrees, easy smile on his face when he leaves the apartment.
In the first weeks Eames learns to hate Russia - Russia, where things that go missing don’t have a tendency to be found.
It’s not even a conscious discussion on his part:
“Just a tea, please,” all in mangled Russian. Morning after and he returns because it’s the last place he’s promised to meet him.
Eames isn’t worried yet. Because in the past there have been plenty of times either of them have missed a meeting point. There was that time in Australia where Eames couldn’t fly from Sydney to Darwin for over a week.
Arthur had pretended not to be worried then too - but hey, that was ten years ago and neither them had learnt how to hide it at that point.
Arthur had waited in Fanny Bay for a week. More than that: he returns to Fanny Bay Super Pizza each day. Each day for a goddamn week.
They were kicked out for violence when Eames finally arrived.
Eames starts to teach them English.
Elvira is a dear. She minces words better then Cobb slurring drunkenly in French, swears at Eames constantly in Russian and bitches about the Ukrainians moving in next door - “what kind of Ukrainians run a supermarket anyway?” Eames doesn’t understand the logic behind that one.
She can’t be a day younger then seventy-six and her restaurant is charming.
He teaches the regulars too, and Elvira’s husband. Or more accurately: he answers their questions. He tells them what this word means, and if what little English they already know makes sense (“Нет,” and then they laugh).
He teaches the serving boy the words bugger, twat and wanker. Mainly because all school boys should know those ones.
Arthur doesn’t return for two weeks. This is when Eames starts to worry.
He has a habit of coinciding beginnings with the start of a new week, so Eames starts looking for Arthur on a Monday.
He throws everything into looking for Arthur: calls in favours he’d been meaning to savour; renews contacts years past dead; spends every waking hour pooling everything he knows into one single purpose.
He works from Elvira’s restaurant because even dream-sharing criminals hesitate to wield guns in a Russian woman’s domain.
Six months in and Eames sells the house in England.
Eames and Arthur meet in the army.
Mal was always under the impression that they were the be all and end all of them Dreaming Sharing program. That people begged to do their bidding and they were known for their brilliant minds and outstanding partnership - they weren’t: Mal liked to romanticize things.
They communicate for the first time when they both steal a PASIV device on the same night.
(That day had been the last straw for a lot of them: four men emptying their minds into limbo and, upon awaking emptying bullets into everyone who’d been in the room. Eames had been on a coffee run. The Americans were scheduled to use the room in half an hour.)
Two years in Eames stops trying to find him.
Him. Arth -
Eames inhales his tea.
Arthur.
Arthur is dead and Eames sits in the same restaurant, pretending he doesn’t twitch whenever a what would you like? Comes from Elvira.
Ignoring a single man’s calls for over five years is harder then Eames thinks it should be.
Sometimes, he forgets to check the caller ID when he picks up the phone for example, or he can’t really remember what he’s avoiding when he’s drunk. Eames is drunk a lot.
Eames supposes it’s because there’s a part of him that expects Cobb to sound the same on the phone as he did the night Mal died.
He’s not sure why - Arthur and Dom were no more than civil to each other until Mal death.
When it does happen though, its somewhat of a surprise Eames does it on purpose:
“Dom?”
“Jesus.”
Eames cries then, on the phone to the one man who knows what’s happening and in the middle of Elvira’s goddamn fucking shop.
Joseph, Elvira’s husband, invites he into the kitchen after that.
“Why did it take you six years?” is what he asks after Eames finishes his drink.
Eames isn’t one of the regulars. He’s as expected as chairs placed at the tables.
Elvira dies.
Eames pays for her funeral and later, when Joseph is arse over sloshed - after the grandchildren have left - Eames offers to shoot him.
“I wish I had been strong enough to offer you the same,” is what he says, “When you stopped looking.”
Eames leaves the gun on the table when he leaves for the night.
Eames never leaves Russia. Not even when Elvira’s restaurant is someone else’s.
Not even when there’s a threatening war, or the coldest winter recorded in fifty years. Not when the apartment burns down because he left the stove on.
Not when he ships over all the things he’s ever owned - from the house in England, the apartment in Paris; the several places they had stateside - and when he opens the first box the whole place suddenly smells of Arthur.
Not when he wears the colour from Arthur’s favourite jumper.
In Russia, Eames reverts back to the weight he was in sixth form.
He dies five days later, aged eighty-two.
Here’s what happens to Arthur:
The door smashing open, that’s the first thing he hears.
Gunshots follow and by this time Arthur has pushed aside the working table he’d been sitting at, gun in each hand.
Their architect goes down first, vomiting blood and clawing at the gaping hole angled towards her lungs.
Arthur shoots, fast, and several men die at his hand. He shoots and throws the chemist out the back door with a bump of his hip.
Arthur is shot in the doorway, bullet entering his stomach.
He’s passing out in a pool of bloody blue prints; he hopes the blood isn’t his.
The way he’s been flung onto the ground angles his watch hand towards his face; he hopes Eames wont pretend to make him sleep on the couch for being late.
His body is incinerated in the burning warehouse.
Arthur dies in Russia.