Love Notes on Their Headstones [standalone 1/3]
Title: Love Notes on Their Headstones
Author: my_0wn_madness
Beta: fuzzyniffler (bless her soul)
Rating: NC-17 [violence, torture and, of course, sex]
Characters: Arthur/Eames
Summary: Filled for this prompt over at the inception_kink meme: Eames is a very dangerous man. Sure, he's charming and handsome, seems playful, even. But if you seriously cross him, Eames can and will destroy your life and your sanity. When the men behind Cobol decide that Cobb is too risky to attack, being under Saito's protection, they go after Arthur. Eames is there for the first attempt on Arthur's life, and after watching him take the assassin apart Arthur isn't sure whether to be turned on, pissed off, or afraid. Then Eames goes after Cobol, and Arthur is all three.
Disclaimer: Inception is not mine in any way, shape or form. Sad day.
Word Count: 23,213
Author's Notes: Here, have a piece of my soul! Seriously, wow, this fic was supposed to be about four scenes long. And it turned into this. It's not a surprise to me, really, but still. What's really surprising is how quickly I wrote it all. Anyway, I did my best to stay true to the prompt, though I will admit this story may have gotten away from me in the slightest. I hope you'll enjoy anyway ♥ Oh, and the lovely banner was made my fuzzyniffler . ♥
Hovering before and around the window, Arthur knew, was probably not the brightest idea but, then again, a sniper shot from the window of a car-black, 2011 Honda Insight, Chicago plate belonging to a confidential party- that had occurred outside the window of his apartment complex several times in a couple of days, was also not the brightest idea. There were too many witnesses, it was too sloppy and, in the off chance that a camera hadn't picked up the car's license plate, Arthur had written it on the door of his fridge yesterday, just moments after he had spotted it idling on the street curb, in the same exact place for the fifth time in three days. Knowing Chicago's authorities, it could very well take them awhile to piece these bits of information together were Arthur to be murdered with a bullet through his window, but they would figure it out eventually. If that car really was Cobol's men keeping tabs on him, surely they were intelligent enough to not leave such a messy trail.
And if that car actually wasn't Cobol's men? Well, Arthur hated it a little bit for putting him so on edge.
Arthur had planned to stay in the US simply to stay away from the Cobol headquarters that resided overseas and more or less owned every country around it. What he hadn't taken into consideration, however, was the possibility that the news about him and Cobb had leaked across the ocean and to the second headquarters building that lied right there, in Chicago.
That night, Arthur was regretting that ignorant decision. He was sat once more on the sofa right before the open window and held a book in his hands though he hadn't turned the page for twenty minutes. The lights in his apartment were dim to reduce the glare on the inside of the glass and he eyed that car, squinted to better see inside the tinted windows. There were no shadows, no signs of movement, nothing. And that's how it had been for the past few nights.
A taxi pulled up behind said car, sending Arthur's heart into his throat. A rush of adrenaline went through him-he wasn't entirely sure why, especially as the door opened and out stepped Eames, unmistakable and clad in his hideous, tan coat, brown pants and… was that shirt paisley pink? Christ.
The Point Man rolled his eyes and watched the Forger until he had disappeared from his line of sight, having stepped up to his front door step. Sure enough, there was a knock on the door and, sure enough, before Arthur even had time to get up, Eames easily opened the door and stepped in. For the record, the door had been locked. And Eames didn't have a key, not anymore.
With one more glance at the car, Arthur closed his book and dropped it on the couch, standing. He heard Eames' footsteps climbing the stairs.
"If you broke the lock on my door, I will break your fingers," the Point Man mumbled lowly and drew the curtains upon second thought. He glanced behind him, finding the Forger smirking subtly and stripping off his jacket. Thankfully, he had the good grace to leave his shoes at the door.
"Honestly, darling, I wish you would put a little more faith in my fingers," he purred easily, draping his jacket across the back of one of the living room's chairs. Arthur grimaced at the full sight of that ungodly shirt and silently wished he'd put that jacket back on. Eames held up a hand, stretching his fingers before his face as his full lips curled into an even broader grin. "They know what they're doing. And damn, it's dark in here. Am I interrupting something?"
Arthur rolled his eyes and stepped away from the window, moving to push the light switch up just a bit further. The shadows faded from Eames' body. "I'm the one who told you to come over," the Point Man reminded him. "Would you like something to drink?"
"For which I'm flattered. I didn't know whether I should expect another invitation ever again. And whatever you have is just fine." As Arthur moved to the kitchen, he decided to ignore the weight of Eames' first statement. Honestly, he never thought he'd invite Eames to his place again either; it was no secret that him and the Forger alone at night was a bad idea.
Eames would argue otherwise, of course. Eames had argued otherwise, back when they used to spend their nights with cigarettes, bruised lips and choking breaths. Back when Arthur decided this needed to stop, that it could compromise their careers and whenever they worked together. Back when Arthur slapped the word 'professional' on their relationship, not without difficulty and not without many nights of hiding his cell phone from his sight so that he hadn't been tempted to call Eames to take the place of his hand. When Eames had moved to Mombasa, Arthur hadn't been sure if he should be relieved or upset.
Arthur snatched the first two bottles he saw from the fridge-beer-and distractedly popped the caps off. When he handed one to Eames, he was careful of his movements, doing his damndest to not perform any of his "tells" as Eames would call them and, by his own standards, he succeeded quite easily at not showing that anything was bothering him.
Eames' standards, however, were different. Not that it was surprising-the man was a Forger and watched people for a living, for god's sake.
"What's eating you, love?" the Forger murmured quietly after taking a quick sip of his beer, his voice a bit huskier than before, holding its low tone even when quieted. He leaned his hip against the countertop, one leg crossing over the other as he did so.
And there was no reason in denying this, so Arthur didn't even bother. Instead he took a long sip of his own beer, set it down and walked back to the couch. He stood beside it in what had recently become a habit, perching himself right next to the window. "What gave it away?" Because he honestly wanted to know.
Eames scoffed and followed Arthur, plopping down on the sofa. "Please, darling. But if you must know, your movements are too clipped, too calculated. And you usually move with such a grace that I swear it's inhuman. You called me over without specifying why, insisting that I get here as soon as possible, and god knows this isn't a booty call, unfortunately. Unless there's something you're not telling me…?"
Arthur just looked entirely unamused at the suggestion, staring at the closed curtain.
"Right, see," Eames continued after a moment, visibly drooping a bit against the couch. He took a brief sip of beer before he smacked his lips. "On top of that, you won't look me in the eye and there's a license plate number written on the door of your refrigerator." He tilted the lip of the bottle towards the fridge, as if pointing this out.
The Point Man didn't bother to try and correct any of his flaws that Eames had drawn attention to. There was no point, no argument to make, because the Forger was right. He crossed his arms, his fingers itching to draw the curtain back just to check and see if that car was still there, but he didn't and instead clutched the sleeves of his button-up tighter.
"Have you heard from Cobb lately?" he murmured quietly, still eyeing the closed curtain. He stepped away in the slightest, just so his shadow disappeared from off of the cloth.
Eames nodded faintly, his piercing eyes so focused on Arthur that Arthur could practically feel them burning against his skin. "He rang after I landed here a few days ago… Why?"
"He's fine, right?"
"Of course he's fine. He's finally with his kids, his name cleared and Saito's blessing over everything he does."
The dread that coursed through Arthur's veins chilled and froze him briefly, the words confirming what he already knew. "Exactly," he breathed out with a voice that was barely there. Exactly. Cobb was safe and would be safe for the rest of his life. He was safe, hundreds of miles away from Arthur, and that expanse between them was too large to ensure Arthur's safety as well.
Eames was silent for a moment, clearly trying to comprehend just what all of this meant. When he reached out gingerly, brushing his fingertips against Arthur's side, the Point Man had no choice but to pull back the curtain just enough to peek out. It was difficult to see now, but that car was still there, and Arthur hated the way nausea swelled in his throat. "Arthur," Eames pressed carefully, his voice graver than before especially with the use of Arthur's actual name, "what is it? What's going on?"
Arthur had to swallow in his dry throat before he could speak. "Did Cobb ever tell you about the Cobol job? The one right before Fischer's?" He kept his expression selectively blank, but finally voicing his paranoia made him feel all the more uneasy.
"That was how Saito found you guys, yeah? Something about espionage? You failed that job, right?"
The Point Man's gaze finally met with Eames, his eyes dark, endless pools in a contrast to Eames' sharp irises. "Yeah," Arthur mumbled quietly, his voice a bit husky. "We failed it miserably and I know that Cobol wants blood. But they'd have to be less than idiots to go after Cobb, with the way Saito is watching over him…"
He trailed off and it was barely a moment before realization passed over Eames' face. He didn't respond and instead crawled to the opposite end of the couch, peeling back the curtains as well and Arthur knew just then that Eames understood entirely. He didn't need to say anymore, for which he was actually extremely grateful.
Let it be known that Arthur wasn't afraid, not of Cobol's men coming after him because he was more than confident in his abilities to take out whoever dared to come his way. But what really made him uneasy was not knowing. If that really was Cobol's car sitting outside of his complex every day, that meant that they had found him, and that they had kept tabs on him. That meant that they knew more than he did, had a plan while he didn't. They had the advantage, a rather large advantage, and Arthur never liked being behind. He never liked being without control of a situation and this was certainly one of those occasions where he was anything but in control.
And that's what set his teeth on edge, what made his nerves stutter at the slightest touch, what made him keep a gun on his person whenever he went out. What made him keep a gun under his mattress, just for good measure.
When Eames finally let the curtain drift closed again, his eyes looked back to Arthur's, but those irises seemed … brighter. Not happier, but brighter, even sharper than before and crisp to attention. They were utterly lethal, Arthur realized after a moment's more worth of inspection. Daring.
"How long has that car been out there?" The Forger murmured lowly after a moment, taking a small sip of his beer.
Arthur shrugged. "It didn't start appearing until three days ago and it's been out there at random intervals throughout each day since." Very random intervals, Arthur had noticed.
Eames nodded, glancing once more towards the curtain. "You know they want blood… And you think they want your blood," he breathed as if looking for confirmation, though it seemed more like he was engraving this idea in his mind.
"Correct," the Point Man responded quietly.
There was a heavy moment of silence, in which Eames set his shoulders back and looked back to Arthur with that brisk gaze. His full lips parted, as if he was clearly going to suggest something, but he seemed to think better of it and resigned, taking another sip of his beer. Arthur didn't press, not that he needed to, because the Forger seemed to overcome his hesitation after he pulled the bottle's lips from his own. "I'd like to stay with you a few nights. I'll sleep on the couch, but I'd like to be here if they do try to even touch you."
Arthur's pride prevented him from feeling any sort of relief in those words. "I can take care of myself, Eames."
Something flickered in those eyes and, this time, Arthur couldn't figure out what it was. There was an unknown shift in Eames' gaze that seemed to reach even deeper through his skin, wrap around his insides and constrict, constrict even harder when Eames whispered, "Please, Arthur."
Arthur had difficulty sleeping that night, not because the car was still parked outside, but because Eames was curled on his couch, his full lips being wasted on simply breathing.
|.|.|
Arthur should have noticed immediately that the face on the taxi driver's license didn't exactly match the one that was reflected in the rearview mirror. He should have noticed the way the driver barely waited for Eames to direct him back towards Arthur's apartment complex before driving. He should have noticed the way the man's hands were white and stiff against the steering wheel but he didn't, he didn't notice any of these things as he sat beside Eames and took an experimental sip of his coffee that he had just bought-well, Eames had actually bought it after much persistence.
No, he didn't notice any of these things, but he did notice when the driver sped up as they were approaching his apartment, flying right past it.
"Hey-" Eames started in protest but stopped as the taxi veered right, whipping into a parking garage that usually charged a fee, but the gate was open and waiting for them.
The weight of his gun against Arthur's side was abruptly heavy and he knew this was it. This was it and it had, of course, been pre-meditated, planned and he was one step behind.
The parking garage was dark and empty, perfect for a clean murder-or, two clean murders-and Arthur abruptly undid his seatbelt, set his coffee on the seat between himself and Eames, and instinctively reached into his jacket to grip his own gun. It didn't matter, though; he was thrown against the back of the driver's seat as the cab slammed to a halt and when he recovered-it didn't take him very long-he was staring into the barrel of a cocked and loaded gun.
There was less than a second before the man's curled finger applied enough pressure to the trigger and Arthur acted fast, knowing that he himself had absolutely no place to go. So he instead turned, dipped his shoulder before slamming his elbow up into the man's wrist and then gun went off, a deafening blast in the cab, and shot a bullet right through the top of the car.
Arthur was ready to move then, about to dive into the front seat and knock the man out, but Eames sprung first, fast and violent. The Forger pounced into the front of the cab and there was a sickening smack as he gripped the driver's head and slammed it against the steering wheel. The other man's body immediately fell limp, the gun dropping onto the backseat and it was some sort of miracle that it didn't fire again. Arthur's coffee was knocked over, spilt and staining the backseat, but somehow missing his pants. Eames' coffee cup was set beside the gun, unharmed.
The Point Man realized that he hadn't breathed in the past few seconds, his body trembling with adrenaline and his heart pounding in his ears as he just stared at the gun for a moment. He glanced up at the bullet hole in the roof after a moment before he shakily sat up, swallowed and detached himself from what almost happened and glanced back to the front, where Eames was hauling the body out of the driver's seat and tossing it into the passenger's.
When the Forger climbed hurriedly behind the steering wheel, Arthur leaned forward and raised an eyebrow. "What the hell are you doing?"
Eames didn't respond for a long moment and instead set about rubbing his fingers over the dash until he gave a quiet grunt and ripped out the wires of the taxi's fee calculator and, Arthur assumed, GPS. The red numbers on the screen disappeared immediately and the Forger opened the window to throw the device into the garage. "Getting us the fuck out of here," he growled, rolling up the window before he slammed the car into gear, spinning around quickly and speeding towards the entrance. "We only have moments before any back up realizes what happened and, at that point, we might as well be blindfolded with our backs to a firing squad."
Arthur couldn't argue with that before he put the safety back on the assassin's gun as a second thought and took hold of Eames' coffee. His heart was still pounding as Eames whipped out into traffic, weaving between cars much like a professional taxi driver.
"Right side of the road," the Point Man warned when Eames drifted uncomfortably close to the center line. He didn't receive a response as the Forger drove, knuckles white against the steering wheel. He glanced sideways, looking briefly at the crumpled body in the passenger's seat. The man's black hair hung before his face, a few strands matting in the bloody gash at the center of his hairline. He looked as if he was merely sleeping.
With a trained hand, Arthur reached out and pressed two steady fingertips to the man's neck and felt a slow but solid pulse.
"He's still alive," he breathed quietly.
"Of course he's alive," Eames mumbled lowly in response but didn't elaborate-a move that made Arthur's eyes narrow with skepticism and he glanced again at the Forger. Eames' profile was hard, his lips pressed into a firm line and gray eyes intent on the road. His jaw was set in place.
"What are we going to do with him?" the Point Man pressed, his voice standing on edge. When Eames didn't respond and barely moved, Arthur grit his teeth and mumbled firmly, "Eames. What are you planning to do with him? We should just-"
Arthur stopped as his eyes caught the windshield. It hadn't been long since they had left the parking garage, he was sure, but they had already made it out of the city, speeding on the highway above the desolate suburbs surrounding Chicago. The tall skyscrapers had faded into distant houses that were few and far between. Arthur had lived in Chicago for a total of a few years over his life, but he had no idea where they were going, and something told him that Eames didn't either. His hands were shaking as he folded them in his lap, still perched between the two front seats.
"Put your seatbelt on," Eames mumbled quietly after a moment, his posture unchanging otherwise. His voice was low and dark, a little terrifying to the untrained ear.
"No," Arthur murmured, hovering over Eames' shoulder. He watched as the Forger's jaw tightened further at the refusal but he didn't push the matter, especially since his own seatbelt wasn't hooked around him either.
When Eames pulled into what seemed to be an abandoned parking lot, Arthur glanced at his watch and saw that it had only been twenty minutes since they had left the city. It had seemed like much longer than that, like hours, and it didn't help that there was nothing but fields and crumbling, brick buildings on all sides of them. The concrete of the parking lot was cracked, giving away beneath the pressure of a few weeds that had forced their way through it.
"Hand me my coffee," Eames murmured once he parked the car, finally looking back at Arthur. "Please," he added as an afterthought.
With a moment's hesitation, Arthur did as he asked and watched as Eames set the cup the empty of the two holders; the other one held a pen.
The Forger killed the engine and that's when the knocked-out man stirred.
"Oh good," Eames breathed and turned to face the other man and there was a glint in his eye as he spoke, a sort of spark that Arthur had never seen before. Arthur watched as Eames reached over and briefly touched the gash on the assassin's forehead, causing the man to groan lowly in protest further. And Eames smirked very subtly, the corners of his lips crooking upwards in the slightest as he watched the driver slowly open his eyes, his pupils uneven.
Before the assassin could move too much, Eames slipped out of the driver's seat and into the passenger's with the other man, his firm hands pinning the man's shoulders to the seat. His eyes were dark and driven but somehow light with an unspeakable sharpness, intent on the assassin's confused and wakening face.
Arthur didn't know what to do. That look in Eames' eyes was foreign to him and made the Forger unpredictable and, surely, dangerous. He watched the other two for a long moment before starting warningly, "Eames-"
"What's your name?" The Forger cut him off sharply, and the grin was cruel on his lips. The man pinned beneath him tried to move against Eames' hold, but with no avail, and he just stared. There was a brief moment before Eames abruptly knocked his fist against the man's jaw, earning a low and pained grunt. "What is your name?" he repeated, his voice more of a hiss now.
Arthur swallowed hard and listened as the man's breathing feel rigid from his lips, filling the silence that preceded his weak voice, "Talcott…"
Eames didn't miss a beat, both of his hands curling around Talcott's shoulders again. From the way his veins protruded from his skin, it was clear his grip was none too kind. "Hn, Talcott, who do you work for?"
Talcott inhaled shakily. "Cobol," he whispered a bit distractedly.
A silence settled over them for a brief moment, one that sent a shiver down Arthur's spine as he watched Eames' eyes drill into Talcott's. He knew what the Forger was doing, gathering information so they could be on the same level, but there was something that brought his nerves to the utmost attention, like this situation could get out of control very quickly. That glint in Eames' eyes wasn't something that he could bring himself to trust.
The Forger made a soft noise of acknowledgement and tilted his head back, releasing one of Talcott's shoulders to grab the pen from the cup holder at his side. Using its metal tip, he gently removed the matted, black strands of hair from the wound on the other man's forehead. Talcott winced faintly, and Arthur noticed then that the man's body was shaking.
"What, exactly," Eames continued, the smirk gone from his lips as he continued to part Talcott's hair away from the gash, "were your orders?"
Talcott then turned his head to the side, glazed eyes meeting Arthur's. There was fear in the other man's eyes, layered beneath the obvious trouble he was having thinking with the condition he was in. Now that it was exposed, Arthur could see that the wound on his forehead was nasty, probably having resulted in a cracked skull. At least.
"No, no," Eames almost cooed, using the bloody pen to guide Talcott's head back towards him. The tone of Eames' voice made Arthur's heart pound, and he chose to believe that it was out of something similar to anxiety at what the Forger was about to do. "Tell me what your orders were."
There was a long pause. Talcott's lips pressed into a firm line as he stared into Eames' eyes, which, at this point, were becoming terrifyingly light with fury. When the silence stretched a bit too long, the Forger growled and smashed his fist into the side of Talcott's face. The man's head thrust to the side and he spit blood along the passenger side window.
"To k-kill him." The words finally came out on a wheeze, so quiet with his head hanging towards the taxi's door. His breathing was heavy and rigid and sounded painful.
Arthur opened his mouth to perhaps stop Eames before this got out of hand, but the Forger wasn't satisfied. He dropped the pen and curled the fingers of one hand in Talcott's hair, jerking the other man's head back and up so that his maniacal eyes could get a better view of Talcott's swollen and bleeding face. "Who gave you these orders?"
For reasons unknown to the Point Man, those words sent a thread of heat down to his crotch. Well, perhaps not the words, but the tone with which they were spoken.
"Cobol-" Talcott tried but was cut off when Eames lifted his other arm and slammed his elbow against the man's other cheek.
"Specifics, Talcott, who sent you?!" Eames' voice was shrill now, with no room for argument, but that's when Talcott's defiance showed itself and he pressed bleeding lips into a firm line. Arthur could see his eyes narrow as they stared up into Eames', whose irises were alight with rage. They didn't even need a moment to see that Talcott didn't plan on answering that question and Arthur braced himself for another fist to the man's face.
But it didn't come. Instead, Eames grinned crookedly, his lips peeling back over his teeth and he laughed. The sound was low and dark from beneath his teeth as he tilted his head to the side, keeping his eyes on Talcott and looking absolutely insane.
The hairs on the back of Arthur's neck stood up. He felt uncomfortably hot in his suit.
"Don't play the hero," Eames breathed huskily through that bent smirk, his free hand slowly reaching down to curl around his coffee cup. His thumb smoothly popped the cap off of it and let it fall to the side. "It's not worth it, I promise you… Let me ask you once again: Who sent you?"
The Forger's hand slowly lifted the coffee cup in the brief silence that followed, the coffee's steam brimming across the top.
"Eames," Arthur finally hissed warningly, sure that the other men could hear his heart pounding in his voice, "Don't-"
Eames' hand slowly tipped, pouring the scalding hot coffee right into Talcott's wound.
The man's scream echoed around the small confinement of the cab as he tried to move his head but the Forger was having none of that. His fingers tightened in the back of Talcott's hair, holding him place as he watched, his eyes cold and his lips still curled in the slightest of satisfied grins, as the coffee burned in the gash.
Arthur grit his teeth against the sharpness of the cry before he shouted demandingly, "Eames-!"
"Who the fuck sent you?!" Eames yelled over him, the coffee pouring at a maddeningly slow pace to assure that this could last for a long while. Talcott's body thrashed beneath Eames, surely going into shock, but the Forger was unmoving, unrelenting and without mercy.
"Eames!" Arthur shouted again because enough was enough, and now all he wanted to do was punch the Forger in the face and get the fuck out of here before someone somehow found them. He began to lunge forward, just as Talcott screamed, "Shane Ridge!"
And just like that, Eames threw the coffee cup aside, the rest of the liquid splattering all across the driver's seat. Talcott inhaled sharply with the relief before he sobbed, tears streaming down his red face as he trembled violently in the aftermath of the burning pain.
"Now was that so hard?" Eames growled lowly before he abruptly slid off of Talcott. Arthur barely had time to react before the Forger smashed the man's head against the passenger side window, causing the glass to abruptly blossom with a spider web of cracks. Then there was Eames' gun in his hand, cocked, Talcott's bleeding and glass littered face pulled and turned from the window only to have his teeth smashed in by the barrel of the Forger's gun. When Eames fired, the sound of Talcott's skull caving beneath the bullet was immediately drowned out by the shattering of the window doing the same. The man's brains and bone fragments splattered across what was left of the broken glass.
The silence that followed was horribly still and Arthur couldn't move for a long moment. It appeared Eames couldn't either, as he stared at Talcott's dead and drooping body, at Talcott's unrecognizable face.
The Forger was the first one to move. He slipped his gun back into its holster before he looked at Arthur. Those eyes were dark again and considerably softer as he whispered huskily, "Shall we?"
Eames slipped out the driver's door, maneuvering across the spilt coffee, and it was a long moment before Arthur's legs were working enough to drag himself out the back door.
Amidst the shock pulsing through his trembling body, Arthur noticed that Eames had managed to only stain his knuckles with Talcott's blood.
|.|.|
The cab that Eames had called after a few miles of walking back towards the city had actually been a taxi cab driven by a legitimate taxi driver, who, kindly, didn't ask any questions about why there were out in the middle of nowhere or why Eames' knuckles were stained with blood. The ride back to Arthur's apartment had been horribly silent and an experience that Arthur had been utterly disconnected from. He hadn't glanced across the backseat at Eames, he hadn't talked to the other man or even considered it, not with the way that he had been tucked within his own mind. He had stared blindly out the window and could only see the craze in Eames' irises and that cruel grin that had curled his full lips. In the silence he had only heard Eames' voice, that low and merciless tone and, every time Arthur had thought about it, every time he heard those words again-"Who gave you those orders" -, he had felt a shudder course down his spine. And whenever he had imagined that laugh, that harrowing and lingering laugh, his heart had begun to pound, his skin had seemed to heat up and it had driven him to the point of clenching his fists in his lap, anchoring them to his unsettled legs, so he didn't drive them through the taxi window's glass.
Like Eames had similarly done to Talcott's skull. The connection had caused Arthur to set his jaw.
Eames had paid for the cab with his cleaner hand and thanked the man before they both silently had stepped into Arthur's apartment. This brought them to now, when they were both stripping off their jackets and Arthur was hanging his up as Eames tossed his onto the back of the lesser of Arthur's two chairs. The Point Man knew that Eames had somehow managed to keep his coat clear of blood, so he didn't even bother raising a protest about that.
"I would ask what's wrong, but I have more than a passing sense that it would be a wasted question," Eames finally murmured and broke stiff silence, his voice back to its usual octave and without any fury. From the corner of his eye, Arthur saw the Forger perch himself on the edge of the same chair he had thrown his jacket onto, like he wanted to sit but something told him he'd need to stand in too short of a moment for it to matter.
The Point Man didn't look at him. He instead went to start a pot of coffee despite the fact that he really didn't want coffee anymore, not after he watched Eames pull his entire fucking cup into some guy's forehead.
He just needed something to do with his hands. He needed excuses to not look at Eames, to not look into those eyes that couldn't possibly hint at the deeds the Forger just performed.
As Arthur stuffed the coffee filter into the top of the pot and went about pouring an unnecessary amount of ground beans into it, he concluded that the worst part of this entire situation was that he had no idea of how to feel about it. It was obvious that he didn't have a weak stomach-he dug around in people's subconsciouses for a living, for god's sake, and some people were screwed up to an unspeakable degree. But that… That was…
Arthur nearly slammed the coffee tin back down onto the counter once he was finished with it. That was disgusting, unnecessary, and he was pissed off.
"I know silence is easier, darling, but you need to talk to me." Eames was now hovering in the doorway.
The Point Man went to get a cup of water for his coffee and he saw, yet again, the way Eames had laughed with the glee and opportunity to torture that man. He saw the stretch of the Forger's full lips, the way they pulled back to reveal his crooked teeth and an even more crooked and disturbing sound that was hollow with malice. He heard that laugh as he poured the water into the pot and he was afraid.
"Arthur, for god's sake, knock it off."
But, what was worse, was when he replayed that laugh in his head, set it on repeat like a broken record, he felt his knees go weak and his body grow hot beneath his clothing.
He didn't know what to do. He was pissed, terrified and- Christ, and it made his body shake, made his movements stiff as he shut the top of the coffee pot and clicked the machine to brew. It made him want to shove his fist into Eames' face, made him want to scream at the other man, made him want to-
Arthur jumped when Eames' hand clamped around his upper arm in a grip that was firm, but not threatening. He didn't mean to, but he did: he looked into Eames' eyes. And, just like he expected, he didn't catch a hint of murder within those entrancing irises. It made him even more upset, but he couldn't look away for anything.
"You're spooked, I get it," the Forger murmured lowly, his lips barely moving with the words. If Arthur looked down, he'd be able to see that the blood was now dried and crusted along Eames' knuckles.
"Do you really?" he instead hissed, his voice hoarse from misuse. His eyes narrowed and he realized just how close Eames was, with the front of his body touching Arthur's own and his grasp still secure around the Point Man's arm. Eames seemed taller than usual, seemed to be about Arthur's height now.
"I do-"
"You don't," Arthur corrected sharply and now his voice was shaking in time with his body, the words having brimmed along the edges of his lips for long enough and they were now pouring from them. "You don't get it, Eames, because you just-You just-"
He couldn't say it.
Eames' lips pressed into a flat line briefly. "He was going to kill you, Arthur," he tried calmly, though forcefully.
And, in Arthur's mind, there were countless things wrong with what Eames just said. He started with, "Kill me, Eames, me. Not you. Cobol's price is on my head, not yours. I can handle this by myself, I didn't need you to fucking pour your coffee-"
"Then why the hell did you call me?" Eames snapped, his eyes flashing, but not like they had before. They weren't dangerous, not like they had been while staring down at Talcott's bleeding face. "Did you call me yesterday and think that I would just sit by with my thumbs up my arse while some fucking bastard pointed a gun at you?" Arthur could feel the severity of those words against his chin as he jerked his arm from Eames' grasp and backed away in the slightest, the proximity abruptly uncomfortable in the same sense that he was just a bit too hot in his suit.
The Point Man put the coffee tin back in the cupboard because he still needed something more to do with his hands. He still needed somewhere else to look besides into Eames' eyes. "That's right, he had a gun pointed at me, so you know what we do in that situation?" His own tone was critical and didn't give time for Eames to snidely answer the rhetorical question. "We point a gun right back and we kill him, and that's it. We don't break his jaw, we don't bust his forehead open and then dump coffee into it, we don't smash his head into a window, we don't bust his teeth in and we most certainly don't fucking laugh about it!"
"I'm not leaving, if that's what you're on about," Eames shot back immediately, clearly avoiding the main point of Arthur's retaliation. "I'm not letting you go through this alone-"
"I don't want you to leave, Eames, I want you to let this be and I will handle it-" That first part was a bit unexpected, but didn't stop the Forger in the slightest.
"Then what do you want, Arthur? What do you want me to do?"
"Nothing! Absolutely nothing, that is what I've been saying!" The dark pools of Arthur's eyes finally flicked back to Eames' blazingly crisp gaze and the silence fell over them in a paralyzing pressure. Everything about their bodies was tense and wound tightly, so tightly that Arthur's hand was shaking as it clamped itself around the edge of the counter. They both knew that those words were useless. They both knew that asking Eames to do nothing was utterly ridiculous.
And, somewhere deep beneath the skin, they both knew that Arthur didn't actually want Eames to do nothing.
He was almost definitely sure, however, that he wanted Eames to not do what he just did.
"I won't," Eames breathed almost dangerously after a moment, his tone deep and reflecting the tension that was set within his broad shoulders. "I won't just do nothing while some corporation tries to murder you, Arthur, I won't, and you know it. So let's try this again: what do you want me to do?"
The words brought Arthur, again, back to sitting in that backseat, watching Eames's fingers curl around his coffee cup at an agonizingly slow pace. "To not do that," the Point Man managed to mumble, his voice quieter than before and walking upon a tightrope.
Eames' tone followed suit, backing up a bit. "I was gathering information."
"For what? You only confirmed what we already knew and got a name, that's it. A name that's no doubt on the internet and large in the business world; was it really worth it?"
Without hesitation, "It was."
"Why?"
When Eames' lips subtly curled upwards into a hint of the insane smirk that he had worn before, Arthur wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"Because," Eames murmured lethally, "now I know just whose fingers I need to break and whose throat I need to slit."
Arthur hated the way his knees went weak at that. He hated the way he shivered again, the way he licked his lower lip and wanted nothing more than to let Eames shove him against a wall, ravish him, and speak to him like that.
He hated it so much that he didn't respond and turned to grab two mugs from the cupboard. He didn't respond after he poured the coffee, he didn't respond after Eames took his own mug, and he didn't respond after they went to sit at the kitchen table in a silence that wasn't quite as deafening as before.
He didn't respond for the entire rest of the day and passed out on the couch before he got a chance to.
As he slept, he missed the way Eames didn't really watch the movie that was playing on the television after that and instead watched Arthur's sleeping face: the only time when the Point Man's brow was entirely void of any creases and when his lips were slackened with his lazy and deep breathing.
He missed the way the Forger brushed the stray hairs from his forehead with his fingers instead of the metal tip of a pen.
He missed the way Eames carefully leaned over and kissed his forehead, right at his hairline, right where he had smashed Talcott's against a steering wheel, before sitting up and getting to work.
|.|.|
Arthur woke the next morning tucked into his bed and still dressed in his button-up shirt and slacks. His tie had been removed and placed, folded, on his nightstand. The red lights of his clock informed him that was nine in the morning, a decent time, he decided, but still didn't get up for a good twenty minutes.
When he did, he trudged over to his bedroom window and was able to just barely see that the black Honda wasn't there.
He hovered beside the window for just a moment more before he pulled away and trudged out of his bedroom, his shoulder ritually slamming against the side of the doorframe as he did so. He tried to smooth his wrinkly shirt as he padded out to his living room, not that it mattered because he was alone. And, even if he wasn't, it still didn't really matter because it would just be Eames, who dressed in hideous paisley and flower patterns and disgusting colors of vomit, but it was the principle of the situation.
Arthur stepped to the kitchen and there was a hollowing moment where he found that it was empty as well and thought that Eames had left. Just like that, got up and left.
Thankfully, that moment didn't last long because he saw that there was coffee, again, brewing in the pot. There was a tin of a mocha powder sitting beside the growling device and beside it, a piece of paper. A note. Arthur's lips always crooked in distaste whenever he read Eames' chicken-scratch of handwriting, and this time was no different.
'Because your's spilt yesterday. I know this brand is kinda cheep, but I can by you another mocha later if it rubs you the right way.
Be back later. Dont take any taxis please. - Eames.'
Arthur glanced back up at the mocha powder that Eames had apparently bought just for this morning and tried to ignore the warm feeling that settled in his stomach at the idea.
For the record, the mix had been pretty good for a store bought tin.
And Arthur did lay low for that day. Not because Eames told him so, definitely not, but because there was something about nearly being assassinated by a taxi driver that just made him want to stay inside and not risk having his face blown off.
The car didn't park outside his apartment for the entire day.
Eames didn't come back until around seven at night. He climbed up the stairs to Arthur's flat with a briefcase in one hand and a suitcase in the other.
"I hope it wasn't too forward of me to checkout of my hotel room," the Forger mumbled quietly as he set the two cases down to carefully strip his jacket off. This time, he hung it in the closet beside Arthur's. "I just remembered you saying that you didn't want me to leave, so I thought that I could keep crashing on the couch for a few nights. Forgive me for getting a bit sick of wearing the same outfit a few days in a row."
Arthur didn't smile or look up from the book he was reading in a chair in the living room. Well, he didn't look up until he was sure that Eames wouldn't notice. He meant to just glance at the Forger briefly but, when he saw that Eames was actually dressed nicely, like nicely by Arthur's own standards, he couldn't look away. Eames was clad in a traditional black jacket with matching slacks and a matching tie that fell neatly over a crisp white shirt.
Once the Forger set both cases beside the couch, he sat upon the sofa and met Arthur's stunned gaze. A weak attempt at a smile curled his full lips.
"Did you like the mocha stuff?" he tried, clearly hoping that Arthur would finally say something.
The Point Man could only respond with, "Where were you?"
Eames' face fell and he looked down at the briefcase before picking it up. Arthur watched the way the other man's body moved within the tailored and nicely fitted suit and, really, it only made him want to hit Eames for not wearing nicer clothing. Years ago, back when they used to use sex for a nightly lullaby, Arthur had told Eames that his body was too sculpted to waste it on the hideously baggy slacks and the sagging shirts that he wore day in and day out. And it was now clear that Eames' body hadn't changed one bit, that it was still perfect muscles and entrancing curves.
The Forger clicked the briefcase open and let out a breath as he pulled something from it. It looked to be an identification card as he passed it to Arthur. Upon it, was Eames' picture, clearly from today, and beside it was what Arthur knew to be one of the Forger's aliases-Bryant Matheson-and beneath those bolded words read 'Cobol Engineering: Chicago Branch'.
Arthur's face must have fell as much as his stomach dropped because Eames softly explained, "I took a cab out there this morning. I explained that I'm a CEO from one of Britain's large corporations and that I'm staying here in Chicago for a few months and received a recommendation to work at Cobol for that time." With that, he pulled out what looked to be a professional document. Arthur could only assume it was forged.
The Point Man handed the card back to Eames, his lips pressed into a firm line. When he didn't speak, Eames went on, his voice quieter and almost predatory, "I got a seat right next to the CEO, whose name is Shane Ridge."
Something froze within Arthur's veins and he finally met Eames' gaze. Eames was staring at him like he stared at his targets, those eyes focused and set on watching Arthur's every move, calculating every thread of tension throughout his body, and, for the first time, it didn't make Arthur uneasy. What made Arthur uneasy was the determination beneath the Forger's calculation, the stone cold drive that showed that he would not rest until he got what he wanted.
Which, in this case, was Ridge's blood smeared over his hands as the man's corpse collapsed onto the floor.
What also made him slightly uneasy was the way his heart was pounding just from Eames' stare.
"Arthur," the Forger breathed after a moment and set the document and the card back into the briefcase before he shifted, as if to close the distance between them, but he instead rested his elbows on his legs and let his hands droop between them. "I know what you want me to do, I know you want me to sit by and watch this happen. But I need you to understand-" At that, one of his hands moved and splayed out against the air as if he was making an important point, "-that I can't do that. I can't. Please let me do this. I will tear Cobol apart for you, I promise, I just need you to let me."
When Arthur spoke, his voice was husky. "You and I both know that it doesn't matter if I 'let' you or not. You're going to do it either way. You've already begun."
He stood, much to what appeared to be Eames' displeasure, and set his book on the arm of the chair before continuing with an unoffending tone. "And you and I both know that Cobol isn't the only thing you're going to tear apart."
He meant Shane Ridge, of course. But, as he walked to his bedroom and left Eames staring after him, he realized that the Forger might have taken him to mean their relationship.
Or whatever it was they had.
Part Two
Author: my_0wn_madness
Beta: fuzzyniffler (bless her soul)
Rating: NC-17 [violence, torture and, of course, sex]
Characters: Arthur/Eames
Summary: Filled for this prompt over at the inception_kink meme: Eames is a very dangerous man. Sure, he's charming and handsome, seems playful, even. But if you seriously cross him, Eames can and will destroy your life and your sanity. When the men behind Cobol decide that Cobb is too risky to attack, being under Saito's protection, they go after Arthur. Eames is there for the first attempt on Arthur's life, and after watching him take the assassin apart Arthur isn't sure whether to be turned on, pissed off, or afraid. Then Eames goes after Cobol, and Arthur is all three.
Disclaimer: Inception is not mine in any way, shape or form. Sad day.
Word Count: 23,213
Author's Notes: Here, have a piece of my soul! Seriously, wow, this fic was supposed to be about four scenes long. And it turned into this. It's not a surprise to me, really, but still. What's really surprising is how quickly I wrote it all. Anyway, I did my best to stay true to the prompt, though I will admit this story may have gotten away from me in the slightest. I hope you'll enjoy anyway ♥ Oh, and the lovely banner was made my fuzzyniffler . ♥
Hovering before and around the window, Arthur knew, was probably not the brightest idea but, then again, a sniper shot from the window of a car-black, 2011 Honda Insight, Chicago plate belonging to a confidential party- that had occurred outside the window of his apartment complex several times in a couple of days, was also not the brightest idea. There were too many witnesses, it was too sloppy and, in the off chance that a camera hadn't picked up the car's license plate, Arthur had written it on the door of his fridge yesterday, just moments after he had spotted it idling on the street curb, in the same exact place for the fifth time in three days. Knowing Chicago's authorities, it could very well take them awhile to piece these bits of information together were Arthur to be murdered with a bullet through his window, but they would figure it out eventually. If that car really was Cobol's men keeping tabs on him, surely they were intelligent enough to not leave such a messy trail.
And if that car actually wasn't Cobol's men? Well, Arthur hated it a little bit for putting him so on edge.
Arthur had planned to stay in the US simply to stay away from the Cobol headquarters that resided overseas and more or less owned every country around it. What he hadn't taken into consideration, however, was the possibility that the news about him and Cobb had leaked across the ocean and to the second headquarters building that lied right there, in Chicago.
That night, Arthur was regretting that ignorant decision. He was sat once more on the sofa right before the open window and held a book in his hands though he hadn't turned the page for twenty minutes. The lights in his apartment were dim to reduce the glare on the inside of the glass and he eyed that car, squinted to better see inside the tinted windows. There were no shadows, no signs of movement, nothing. And that's how it had been for the past few nights.
A taxi pulled up behind said car, sending Arthur's heart into his throat. A rush of adrenaline went through him-he wasn't entirely sure why, especially as the door opened and out stepped Eames, unmistakable and clad in his hideous, tan coat, brown pants and… was that shirt paisley pink? Christ.
The Point Man rolled his eyes and watched the Forger until he had disappeared from his line of sight, having stepped up to his front door step. Sure enough, there was a knock on the door and, sure enough, before Arthur even had time to get up, Eames easily opened the door and stepped in. For the record, the door had been locked. And Eames didn't have a key, not anymore.
With one more glance at the car, Arthur closed his book and dropped it on the couch, standing. He heard Eames' footsteps climbing the stairs.
"If you broke the lock on my door, I will break your fingers," the Point Man mumbled lowly and drew the curtains upon second thought. He glanced behind him, finding the Forger smirking subtly and stripping off his jacket. Thankfully, he had the good grace to leave his shoes at the door.
"Honestly, darling, I wish you would put a little more faith in my fingers," he purred easily, draping his jacket across the back of one of the living room's chairs. Arthur grimaced at the full sight of that ungodly shirt and silently wished he'd put that jacket back on. Eames held up a hand, stretching his fingers before his face as his full lips curled into an even broader grin. "They know what they're doing. And damn, it's dark in here. Am I interrupting something?"
Arthur rolled his eyes and stepped away from the window, moving to push the light switch up just a bit further. The shadows faded from Eames' body. "I'm the one who told you to come over," the Point Man reminded him. "Would you like something to drink?"
"For which I'm flattered. I didn't know whether I should expect another invitation ever again. And whatever you have is just fine." As Arthur moved to the kitchen, he decided to ignore the weight of Eames' first statement. Honestly, he never thought he'd invite Eames to his place again either; it was no secret that him and the Forger alone at night was a bad idea.
Eames would argue otherwise, of course. Eames had argued otherwise, back when they used to spend their nights with cigarettes, bruised lips and choking breaths. Back when Arthur decided this needed to stop, that it could compromise their careers and whenever they worked together. Back when Arthur slapped the word 'professional' on their relationship, not without difficulty and not without many nights of hiding his cell phone from his sight so that he hadn't been tempted to call Eames to take the place of his hand. When Eames had moved to Mombasa, Arthur hadn't been sure if he should be relieved or upset.
Arthur snatched the first two bottles he saw from the fridge-beer-and distractedly popped the caps off. When he handed one to Eames, he was careful of his movements, doing his damndest to not perform any of his "tells" as Eames would call them and, by his own standards, he succeeded quite easily at not showing that anything was bothering him.
Eames' standards, however, were different. Not that it was surprising-the man was a Forger and watched people for a living, for god's sake.
"What's eating you, love?" the Forger murmured quietly after taking a quick sip of his beer, his voice a bit huskier than before, holding its low tone even when quieted. He leaned his hip against the countertop, one leg crossing over the other as he did so.
And there was no reason in denying this, so Arthur didn't even bother. Instead he took a long sip of his own beer, set it down and walked back to the couch. He stood beside it in what had recently become a habit, perching himself right next to the window. "What gave it away?" Because he honestly wanted to know.
Eames scoffed and followed Arthur, plopping down on the sofa. "Please, darling. But if you must know, your movements are too clipped, too calculated. And you usually move with such a grace that I swear it's inhuman. You called me over without specifying why, insisting that I get here as soon as possible, and god knows this isn't a booty call, unfortunately. Unless there's something you're not telling me…?"
Arthur just looked entirely unamused at the suggestion, staring at the closed curtain.
"Right, see," Eames continued after a moment, visibly drooping a bit against the couch. He took a brief sip of beer before he smacked his lips. "On top of that, you won't look me in the eye and there's a license plate number written on the door of your refrigerator." He tilted the lip of the bottle towards the fridge, as if pointing this out.
The Point Man didn't bother to try and correct any of his flaws that Eames had drawn attention to. There was no point, no argument to make, because the Forger was right. He crossed his arms, his fingers itching to draw the curtain back just to check and see if that car was still there, but he didn't and instead clutched the sleeves of his button-up tighter.
"Have you heard from Cobb lately?" he murmured quietly, still eyeing the closed curtain. He stepped away in the slightest, just so his shadow disappeared from off of the cloth.
Eames nodded faintly, his piercing eyes so focused on Arthur that Arthur could practically feel them burning against his skin. "He rang after I landed here a few days ago… Why?"
"He's fine, right?"
"Of course he's fine. He's finally with his kids, his name cleared and Saito's blessing over everything he does."
The dread that coursed through Arthur's veins chilled and froze him briefly, the words confirming what he already knew. "Exactly," he breathed out with a voice that was barely there. Exactly. Cobb was safe and would be safe for the rest of his life. He was safe, hundreds of miles away from Arthur, and that expanse between them was too large to ensure Arthur's safety as well.
Eames was silent for a moment, clearly trying to comprehend just what all of this meant. When he reached out gingerly, brushing his fingertips against Arthur's side, the Point Man had no choice but to pull back the curtain just enough to peek out. It was difficult to see now, but that car was still there, and Arthur hated the way nausea swelled in his throat. "Arthur," Eames pressed carefully, his voice graver than before especially with the use of Arthur's actual name, "what is it? What's going on?"
Arthur had to swallow in his dry throat before he could speak. "Did Cobb ever tell you about the Cobol job? The one right before Fischer's?" He kept his expression selectively blank, but finally voicing his paranoia made him feel all the more uneasy.
"That was how Saito found you guys, yeah? Something about espionage? You failed that job, right?"
The Point Man's gaze finally met with Eames, his eyes dark, endless pools in a contrast to Eames' sharp irises. "Yeah," Arthur mumbled quietly, his voice a bit husky. "We failed it miserably and I know that Cobol wants blood. But they'd have to be less than idiots to go after Cobb, with the way Saito is watching over him…"
He trailed off and it was barely a moment before realization passed over Eames' face. He didn't respond and instead crawled to the opposite end of the couch, peeling back the curtains as well and Arthur knew just then that Eames understood entirely. He didn't need to say anymore, for which he was actually extremely grateful.
Let it be known that Arthur wasn't afraid, not of Cobol's men coming after him because he was more than confident in his abilities to take out whoever dared to come his way. But what really made him uneasy was not knowing. If that really was Cobol's car sitting outside of his complex every day, that meant that they had found him, and that they had kept tabs on him. That meant that they knew more than he did, had a plan while he didn't. They had the advantage, a rather large advantage, and Arthur never liked being behind. He never liked being without control of a situation and this was certainly one of those occasions where he was anything but in control.
And that's what set his teeth on edge, what made his nerves stutter at the slightest touch, what made him keep a gun on his person whenever he went out. What made him keep a gun under his mattress, just for good measure.
When Eames finally let the curtain drift closed again, his eyes looked back to Arthur's, but those irises seemed … brighter. Not happier, but brighter, even sharper than before and crisp to attention. They were utterly lethal, Arthur realized after a moment's more worth of inspection. Daring.
"How long has that car been out there?" The Forger murmured lowly after a moment, taking a small sip of his beer.
Arthur shrugged. "It didn't start appearing until three days ago and it's been out there at random intervals throughout each day since." Very random intervals, Arthur had noticed.
Eames nodded, glancing once more towards the curtain. "You know they want blood… And you think they want your blood," he breathed as if looking for confirmation, though it seemed more like he was engraving this idea in his mind.
"Correct," the Point Man responded quietly.
There was a heavy moment of silence, in which Eames set his shoulders back and looked back to Arthur with that brisk gaze. His full lips parted, as if he was clearly going to suggest something, but he seemed to think better of it and resigned, taking another sip of his beer. Arthur didn't press, not that he needed to, because the Forger seemed to overcome his hesitation after he pulled the bottle's lips from his own. "I'd like to stay with you a few nights. I'll sleep on the couch, but I'd like to be here if they do try to even touch you."
Arthur's pride prevented him from feeling any sort of relief in those words. "I can take care of myself, Eames."
Something flickered in those eyes and, this time, Arthur couldn't figure out what it was. There was an unknown shift in Eames' gaze that seemed to reach even deeper through his skin, wrap around his insides and constrict, constrict even harder when Eames whispered, "Please, Arthur."
Arthur had difficulty sleeping that night, not because the car was still parked outside, but because Eames was curled on his couch, his full lips being wasted on simply breathing.
|.|.|
Arthur should have noticed immediately that the face on the taxi driver's license didn't exactly match the one that was reflected in the rearview mirror. He should have noticed the way the driver barely waited for Eames to direct him back towards Arthur's apartment complex before driving. He should have noticed the way the man's hands were white and stiff against the steering wheel but he didn't, he didn't notice any of these things as he sat beside Eames and took an experimental sip of his coffee that he had just bought-well, Eames had actually bought it after much persistence.
No, he didn't notice any of these things, but he did notice when the driver sped up as they were approaching his apartment, flying right past it.
"Hey-" Eames started in protest but stopped as the taxi veered right, whipping into a parking garage that usually charged a fee, but the gate was open and waiting for them.
The weight of his gun against Arthur's side was abruptly heavy and he knew this was it. This was it and it had, of course, been pre-meditated, planned and he was one step behind.
The parking garage was dark and empty, perfect for a clean murder-or, two clean murders-and Arthur abruptly undid his seatbelt, set his coffee on the seat between himself and Eames, and instinctively reached into his jacket to grip his own gun. It didn't matter, though; he was thrown against the back of the driver's seat as the cab slammed to a halt and when he recovered-it didn't take him very long-he was staring into the barrel of a cocked and loaded gun.
There was less than a second before the man's curled finger applied enough pressure to the trigger and Arthur acted fast, knowing that he himself had absolutely no place to go. So he instead turned, dipped his shoulder before slamming his elbow up into the man's wrist and then gun went off, a deafening blast in the cab, and shot a bullet right through the top of the car.
Arthur was ready to move then, about to dive into the front seat and knock the man out, but Eames sprung first, fast and violent. The Forger pounced into the front of the cab and there was a sickening smack as he gripped the driver's head and slammed it against the steering wheel. The other man's body immediately fell limp, the gun dropping onto the backseat and it was some sort of miracle that it didn't fire again. Arthur's coffee was knocked over, spilt and staining the backseat, but somehow missing his pants. Eames' coffee cup was set beside the gun, unharmed.
The Point Man realized that he hadn't breathed in the past few seconds, his body trembling with adrenaline and his heart pounding in his ears as he just stared at the gun for a moment. He glanced up at the bullet hole in the roof after a moment before he shakily sat up, swallowed and detached himself from what almost happened and glanced back to the front, where Eames was hauling the body out of the driver's seat and tossing it into the passenger's.
When the Forger climbed hurriedly behind the steering wheel, Arthur leaned forward and raised an eyebrow. "What the hell are you doing?"
Eames didn't respond for a long moment and instead set about rubbing his fingers over the dash until he gave a quiet grunt and ripped out the wires of the taxi's fee calculator and, Arthur assumed, GPS. The red numbers on the screen disappeared immediately and the Forger opened the window to throw the device into the garage. "Getting us the fuck out of here," he growled, rolling up the window before he slammed the car into gear, spinning around quickly and speeding towards the entrance. "We only have moments before any back up realizes what happened and, at that point, we might as well be blindfolded with our backs to a firing squad."
Arthur couldn't argue with that before he put the safety back on the assassin's gun as a second thought and took hold of Eames' coffee. His heart was still pounding as Eames whipped out into traffic, weaving between cars much like a professional taxi driver.
"Right side of the road," the Point Man warned when Eames drifted uncomfortably close to the center line. He didn't receive a response as the Forger drove, knuckles white against the steering wheel. He glanced sideways, looking briefly at the crumpled body in the passenger's seat. The man's black hair hung before his face, a few strands matting in the bloody gash at the center of his hairline. He looked as if he was merely sleeping.
With a trained hand, Arthur reached out and pressed two steady fingertips to the man's neck and felt a slow but solid pulse.
"He's still alive," he breathed quietly.
"Of course he's alive," Eames mumbled lowly in response but didn't elaborate-a move that made Arthur's eyes narrow with skepticism and he glanced again at the Forger. Eames' profile was hard, his lips pressed into a firm line and gray eyes intent on the road. His jaw was set in place.
"What are we going to do with him?" the Point Man pressed, his voice standing on edge. When Eames didn't respond and barely moved, Arthur grit his teeth and mumbled firmly, "Eames. What are you planning to do with him? We should just-"
Arthur stopped as his eyes caught the windshield. It hadn't been long since they had left the parking garage, he was sure, but they had already made it out of the city, speeding on the highway above the desolate suburbs surrounding Chicago. The tall skyscrapers had faded into distant houses that were few and far between. Arthur had lived in Chicago for a total of a few years over his life, but he had no idea where they were going, and something told him that Eames didn't either. His hands were shaking as he folded them in his lap, still perched between the two front seats.
"Put your seatbelt on," Eames mumbled quietly after a moment, his posture unchanging otherwise. His voice was low and dark, a little terrifying to the untrained ear.
"No," Arthur murmured, hovering over Eames' shoulder. He watched as the Forger's jaw tightened further at the refusal but he didn't push the matter, especially since his own seatbelt wasn't hooked around him either.
When Eames pulled into what seemed to be an abandoned parking lot, Arthur glanced at his watch and saw that it had only been twenty minutes since they had left the city. It had seemed like much longer than that, like hours, and it didn't help that there was nothing but fields and crumbling, brick buildings on all sides of them. The concrete of the parking lot was cracked, giving away beneath the pressure of a few weeds that had forced their way through it.
"Hand me my coffee," Eames murmured once he parked the car, finally looking back at Arthur. "Please," he added as an afterthought.
With a moment's hesitation, Arthur did as he asked and watched as Eames set the cup the empty of the two holders; the other one held a pen.
The Forger killed the engine and that's when the knocked-out man stirred.
"Oh good," Eames breathed and turned to face the other man and there was a glint in his eye as he spoke, a sort of spark that Arthur had never seen before. Arthur watched as Eames reached over and briefly touched the gash on the assassin's forehead, causing the man to groan lowly in protest further. And Eames smirked very subtly, the corners of his lips crooking upwards in the slightest as he watched the driver slowly open his eyes, his pupils uneven.
Before the assassin could move too much, Eames slipped out of the driver's seat and into the passenger's with the other man, his firm hands pinning the man's shoulders to the seat. His eyes were dark and driven but somehow light with an unspeakable sharpness, intent on the assassin's confused and wakening face.
Arthur didn't know what to do. That look in Eames' eyes was foreign to him and made the Forger unpredictable and, surely, dangerous. He watched the other two for a long moment before starting warningly, "Eames-"
"What's your name?" The Forger cut him off sharply, and the grin was cruel on his lips. The man pinned beneath him tried to move against Eames' hold, but with no avail, and he just stared. There was a brief moment before Eames abruptly knocked his fist against the man's jaw, earning a low and pained grunt. "What is your name?" he repeated, his voice more of a hiss now.
Arthur swallowed hard and listened as the man's breathing feel rigid from his lips, filling the silence that preceded his weak voice, "Talcott…"
Eames didn't miss a beat, both of his hands curling around Talcott's shoulders again. From the way his veins protruded from his skin, it was clear his grip was none too kind. "Hn, Talcott, who do you work for?"
Talcott inhaled shakily. "Cobol," he whispered a bit distractedly.
A silence settled over them for a brief moment, one that sent a shiver down Arthur's spine as he watched Eames' eyes drill into Talcott's. He knew what the Forger was doing, gathering information so they could be on the same level, but there was something that brought his nerves to the utmost attention, like this situation could get out of control very quickly. That glint in Eames' eyes wasn't something that he could bring himself to trust.
The Forger made a soft noise of acknowledgement and tilted his head back, releasing one of Talcott's shoulders to grab the pen from the cup holder at his side. Using its metal tip, he gently removed the matted, black strands of hair from the wound on the other man's forehead. Talcott winced faintly, and Arthur noticed then that the man's body was shaking.
"What, exactly," Eames continued, the smirk gone from his lips as he continued to part Talcott's hair away from the gash, "were your orders?"
Talcott then turned his head to the side, glazed eyes meeting Arthur's. There was fear in the other man's eyes, layered beneath the obvious trouble he was having thinking with the condition he was in. Now that it was exposed, Arthur could see that the wound on his forehead was nasty, probably having resulted in a cracked skull. At least.
"No, no," Eames almost cooed, using the bloody pen to guide Talcott's head back towards him. The tone of Eames' voice made Arthur's heart pound, and he chose to believe that it was out of something similar to anxiety at what the Forger was about to do. "Tell me what your orders were."
There was a long pause. Talcott's lips pressed into a firm line as he stared into Eames' eyes, which, at this point, were becoming terrifyingly light with fury. When the silence stretched a bit too long, the Forger growled and smashed his fist into the side of Talcott's face. The man's head thrust to the side and he spit blood along the passenger side window.
"To k-kill him." The words finally came out on a wheeze, so quiet with his head hanging towards the taxi's door. His breathing was heavy and rigid and sounded painful.
Arthur opened his mouth to perhaps stop Eames before this got out of hand, but the Forger wasn't satisfied. He dropped the pen and curled the fingers of one hand in Talcott's hair, jerking the other man's head back and up so that his maniacal eyes could get a better view of Talcott's swollen and bleeding face. "Who gave you these orders?"
For reasons unknown to the Point Man, those words sent a thread of heat down to his crotch. Well, perhaps not the words, but the tone with which they were spoken.
"Cobol-" Talcott tried but was cut off when Eames lifted his other arm and slammed his elbow against the man's other cheek.
"Specifics, Talcott, who sent you?!" Eames' voice was shrill now, with no room for argument, but that's when Talcott's defiance showed itself and he pressed bleeding lips into a firm line. Arthur could see his eyes narrow as they stared up into Eames', whose irises were alight with rage. They didn't even need a moment to see that Talcott didn't plan on answering that question and Arthur braced himself for another fist to the man's face.
But it didn't come. Instead, Eames grinned crookedly, his lips peeling back over his teeth and he laughed. The sound was low and dark from beneath his teeth as he tilted his head to the side, keeping his eyes on Talcott and looking absolutely insane.
The hairs on the back of Arthur's neck stood up. He felt uncomfortably hot in his suit.
"Don't play the hero," Eames breathed huskily through that bent smirk, his free hand slowly reaching down to curl around his coffee cup. His thumb smoothly popped the cap off of it and let it fall to the side. "It's not worth it, I promise you… Let me ask you once again: Who sent you?"
The Forger's hand slowly lifted the coffee cup in the brief silence that followed, the coffee's steam brimming across the top.
"Eames," Arthur finally hissed warningly, sure that the other men could hear his heart pounding in his voice, "Don't-"
Eames' hand slowly tipped, pouring the scalding hot coffee right into Talcott's wound.
The man's scream echoed around the small confinement of the cab as he tried to move his head but the Forger was having none of that. His fingers tightened in the back of Talcott's hair, holding him place as he watched, his eyes cold and his lips still curled in the slightest of satisfied grins, as the coffee burned in the gash.
Arthur grit his teeth against the sharpness of the cry before he shouted demandingly, "Eames-!"
"Who the fuck sent you?!" Eames yelled over him, the coffee pouring at a maddeningly slow pace to assure that this could last for a long while. Talcott's body thrashed beneath Eames, surely going into shock, but the Forger was unmoving, unrelenting and without mercy.
"Eames!" Arthur shouted again because enough was enough, and now all he wanted to do was punch the Forger in the face and get the fuck out of here before someone somehow found them. He began to lunge forward, just as Talcott screamed, "Shane Ridge!"
And just like that, Eames threw the coffee cup aside, the rest of the liquid splattering all across the driver's seat. Talcott inhaled sharply with the relief before he sobbed, tears streaming down his red face as he trembled violently in the aftermath of the burning pain.
"Now was that so hard?" Eames growled lowly before he abruptly slid off of Talcott. Arthur barely had time to react before the Forger smashed the man's head against the passenger side window, causing the glass to abruptly blossom with a spider web of cracks. Then there was Eames' gun in his hand, cocked, Talcott's bleeding and glass littered face pulled and turned from the window only to have his teeth smashed in by the barrel of the Forger's gun. When Eames fired, the sound of Talcott's skull caving beneath the bullet was immediately drowned out by the shattering of the window doing the same. The man's brains and bone fragments splattered across what was left of the broken glass.
The silence that followed was horribly still and Arthur couldn't move for a long moment. It appeared Eames couldn't either, as he stared at Talcott's dead and drooping body, at Talcott's unrecognizable face.
The Forger was the first one to move. He slipped his gun back into its holster before he looked at Arthur. Those eyes were dark again and considerably softer as he whispered huskily, "Shall we?"
Eames slipped out the driver's door, maneuvering across the spilt coffee, and it was a long moment before Arthur's legs were working enough to drag himself out the back door.
Amidst the shock pulsing through his trembling body, Arthur noticed that Eames had managed to only stain his knuckles with Talcott's blood.
|.|.|
The cab that Eames had called after a few miles of walking back towards the city had actually been a taxi cab driven by a legitimate taxi driver, who, kindly, didn't ask any questions about why there were out in the middle of nowhere or why Eames' knuckles were stained with blood. The ride back to Arthur's apartment had been horribly silent and an experience that Arthur had been utterly disconnected from. He hadn't glanced across the backseat at Eames, he hadn't talked to the other man or even considered it, not with the way that he had been tucked within his own mind. He had stared blindly out the window and could only see the craze in Eames' irises and that cruel grin that had curled his full lips. In the silence he had only heard Eames' voice, that low and merciless tone and, every time Arthur had thought about it, every time he heard those words again-"Who gave you those orders" -, he had felt a shudder course down his spine. And whenever he had imagined that laugh, that harrowing and lingering laugh, his heart had begun to pound, his skin had seemed to heat up and it had driven him to the point of clenching his fists in his lap, anchoring them to his unsettled legs, so he didn't drive them through the taxi window's glass.
Like Eames had similarly done to Talcott's skull. The connection had caused Arthur to set his jaw.
Eames had paid for the cab with his cleaner hand and thanked the man before they both silently had stepped into Arthur's apartment. This brought them to now, when they were both stripping off their jackets and Arthur was hanging his up as Eames tossed his onto the back of the lesser of Arthur's two chairs. The Point Man knew that Eames had somehow managed to keep his coat clear of blood, so he didn't even bother raising a protest about that.
"I would ask what's wrong, but I have more than a passing sense that it would be a wasted question," Eames finally murmured and broke stiff silence, his voice back to its usual octave and without any fury. From the corner of his eye, Arthur saw the Forger perch himself on the edge of the same chair he had thrown his jacket onto, like he wanted to sit but something told him he'd need to stand in too short of a moment for it to matter.
The Point Man didn't look at him. He instead went to start a pot of coffee despite the fact that he really didn't want coffee anymore, not after he watched Eames pull his entire fucking cup into some guy's forehead.
He just needed something to do with his hands. He needed excuses to not look at Eames, to not look into those eyes that couldn't possibly hint at the deeds the Forger just performed.
As Arthur stuffed the coffee filter into the top of the pot and went about pouring an unnecessary amount of ground beans into it, he concluded that the worst part of this entire situation was that he had no idea of how to feel about it. It was obvious that he didn't have a weak stomach-he dug around in people's subconsciouses for a living, for god's sake, and some people were screwed up to an unspeakable degree. But that… That was…
Arthur nearly slammed the coffee tin back down onto the counter once he was finished with it. That was disgusting, unnecessary, and he was pissed off.
"I know silence is easier, darling, but you need to talk to me." Eames was now hovering in the doorway.
The Point Man went to get a cup of water for his coffee and he saw, yet again, the way Eames had laughed with the glee and opportunity to torture that man. He saw the stretch of the Forger's full lips, the way they pulled back to reveal his crooked teeth and an even more crooked and disturbing sound that was hollow with malice. He heard that laugh as he poured the water into the pot and he was afraid.
"Arthur, for god's sake, knock it off."
But, what was worse, was when he replayed that laugh in his head, set it on repeat like a broken record, he felt his knees go weak and his body grow hot beneath his clothing.
He didn't know what to do. He was pissed, terrified and- Christ, and it made his body shake, made his movements stiff as he shut the top of the coffee pot and clicked the machine to brew. It made him want to shove his fist into Eames' face, made him want to scream at the other man, made him want to-
Arthur jumped when Eames' hand clamped around his upper arm in a grip that was firm, but not threatening. He didn't mean to, but he did: he looked into Eames' eyes. And, just like he expected, he didn't catch a hint of murder within those entrancing irises. It made him even more upset, but he couldn't look away for anything.
"You're spooked, I get it," the Forger murmured lowly, his lips barely moving with the words. If Arthur looked down, he'd be able to see that the blood was now dried and crusted along Eames' knuckles.
"Do you really?" he instead hissed, his voice hoarse from misuse. His eyes narrowed and he realized just how close Eames was, with the front of his body touching Arthur's own and his grasp still secure around the Point Man's arm. Eames seemed taller than usual, seemed to be about Arthur's height now.
"I do-"
"You don't," Arthur corrected sharply and now his voice was shaking in time with his body, the words having brimmed along the edges of his lips for long enough and they were now pouring from them. "You don't get it, Eames, because you just-You just-"
He couldn't say it.
Eames' lips pressed into a flat line briefly. "He was going to kill you, Arthur," he tried calmly, though forcefully.
And, in Arthur's mind, there were countless things wrong with what Eames just said. He started with, "Kill me, Eames, me. Not you. Cobol's price is on my head, not yours. I can handle this by myself, I didn't need you to fucking pour your coffee-"
"Then why the hell did you call me?" Eames snapped, his eyes flashing, but not like they had before. They weren't dangerous, not like they had been while staring down at Talcott's bleeding face. "Did you call me yesterday and think that I would just sit by with my thumbs up my arse while some fucking bastard pointed a gun at you?" Arthur could feel the severity of those words against his chin as he jerked his arm from Eames' grasp and backed away in the slightest, the proximity abruptly uncomfortable in the same sense that he was just a bit too hot in his suit.
The Point Man put the coffee tin back in the cupboard because he still needed something more to do with his hands. He still needed somewhere else to look besides into Eames' eyes. "That's right, he had a gun pointed at me, so you know what we do in that situation?" His own tone was critical and didn't give time for Eames to snidely answer the rhetorical question. "We point a gun right back and we kill him, and that's it. We don't break his jaw, we don't bust his forehead open and then dump coffee into it, we don't smash his head into a window, we don't bust his teeth in and we most certainly don't fucking laugh about it!"
"I'm not leaving, if that's what you're on about," Eames shot back immediately, clearly avoiding the main point of Arthur's retaliation. "I'm not letting you go through this alone-"
"I don't want you to leave, Eames, I want you to let this be and I will handle it-" That first part was a bit unexpected, but didn't stop the Forger in the slightest.
"Then what do you want, Arthur? What do you want me to do?"
"Nothing! Absolutely nothing, that is what I've been saying!" The dark pools of Arthur's eyes finally flicked back to Eames' blazingly crisp gaze and the silence fell over them in a paralyzing pressure. Everything about their bodies was tense and wound tightly, so tightly that Arthur's hand was shaking as it clamped itself around the edge of the counter. They both knew that those words were useless. They both knew that asking Eames to do nothing was utterly ridiculous.
And, somewhere deep beneath the skin, they both knew that Arthur didn't actually want Eames to do nothing.
He was almost definitely sure, however, that he wanted Eames to not do what he just did.
"I won't," Eames breathed almost dangerously after a moment, his tone deep and reflecting the tension that was set within his broad shoulders. "I won't just do nothing while some corporation tries to murder you, Arthur, I won't, and you know it. So let's try this again: what do you want me to do?"
The words brought Arthur, again, back to sitting in that backseat, watching Eames's fingers curl around his coffee cup at an agonizingly slow pace. "To not do that," the Point Man managed to mumble, his voice quieter than before and walking upon a tightrope.
Eames' tone followed suit, backing up a bit. "I was gathering information."
"For what? You only confirmed what we already knew and got a name, that's it. A name that's no doubt on the internet and large in the business world; was it really worth it?"
Without hesitation, "It was."
"Why?"
When Eames' lips subtly curled upwards into a hint of the insane smirk that he had worn before, Arthur wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"Because," Eames murmured lethally, "now I know just whose fingers I need to break and whose throat I need to slit."
Arthur hated the way his knees went weak at that. He hated the way he shivered again, the way he licked his lower lip and wanted nothing more than to let Eames shove him against a wall, ravish him, and speak to him like that.
He hated it so much that he didn't respond and turned to grab two mugs from the cupboard. He didn't respond after he poured the coffee, he didn't respond after Eames took his own mug, and he didn't respond after they went to sit at the kitchen table in a silence that wasn't quite as deafening as before.
He didn't respond for the entire rest of the day and passed out on the couch before he got a chance to.
As he slept, he missed the way Eames didn't really watch the movie that was playing on the television after that and instead watched Arthur's sleeping face: the only time when the Point Man's brow was entirely void of any creases and when his lips were slackened with his lazy and deep breathing.
He missed the way the Forger brushed the stray hairs from his forehead with his fingers instead of the metal tip of a pen.
He missed the way Eames carefully leaned over and kissed his forehead, right at his hairline, right where he had smashed Talcott's against a steering wheel, before sitting up and getting to work.
|.|.|
Arthur woke the next morning tucked into his bed and still dressed in his button-up shirt and slacks. His tie had been removed and placed, folded, on his nightstand. The red lights of his clock informed him that was nine in the morning, a decent time, he decided, but still didn't get up for a good twenty minutes.
When he did, he trudged over to his bedroom window and was able to just barely see that the black Honda wasn't there.
He hovered beside the window for just a moment more before he pulled away and trudged out of his bedroom, his shoulder ritually slamming against the side of the doorframe as he did so. He tried to smooth his wrinkly shirt as he padded out to his living room, not that it mattered because he was alone. And, even if he wasn't, it still didn't really matter because it would just be Eames, who dressed in hideous paisley and flower patterns and disgusting colors of vomit, but it was the principle of the situation.
Arthur stepped to the kitchen and there was a hollowing moment where he found that it was empty as well and thought that Eames had left. Just like that, got up and left.
Thankfully, that moment didn't last long because he saw that there was coffee, again, brewing in the pot. There was a tin of a mocha powder sitting beside the growling device and beside it, a piece of paper. A note. Arthur's lips always crooked in distaste whenever he read Eames' chicken-scratch of handwriting, and this time was no different.
'Because your's spilt yesterday. I know this brand is kinda cheep, but I can by you another mocha later if it rubs you the right way.
Be back later. Dont take any taxis please. - Eames.'
Arthur glanced back up at the mocha powder that Eames had apparently bought just for this morning and tried to ignore the warm feeling that settled in his stomach at the idea.
For the record, the mix had been pretty good for a store bought tin.
And Arthur did lay low for that day. Not because Eames told him so, definitely not, but because there was something about nearly being assassinated by a taxi driver that just made him want to stay inside and not risk having his face blown off.
The car didn't park outside his apartment for the entire day.
Eames didn't come back until around seven at night. He climbed up the stairs to Arthur's flat with a briefcase in one hand and a suitcase in the other.
"I hope it wasn't too forward of me to checkout of my hotel room," the Forger mumbled quietly as he set the two cases down to carefully strip his jacket off. This time, he hung it in the closet beside Arthur's. "I just remembered you saying that you didn't want me to leave, so I thought that I could keep crashing on the couch for a few nights. Forgive me for getting a bit sick of wearing the same outfit a few days in a row."
Arthur didn't smile or look up from the book he was reading in a chair in the living room. Well, he didn't look up until he was sure that Eames wouldn't notice. He meant to just glance at the Forger briefly but, when he saw that Eames was actually dressed nicely, like nicely by Arthur's own standards, he couldn't look away. Eames was clad in a traditional black jacket with matching slacks and a matching tie that fell neatly over a crisp white shirt.
Once the Forger set both cases beside the couch, he sat upon the sofa and met Arthur's stunned gaze. A weak attempt at a smile curled his full lips.
"Did you like the mocha stuff?" he tried, clearly hoping that Arthur would finally say something.
The Point Man could only respond with, "Where were you?"
Eames' face fell and he looked down at the briefcase before picking it up. Arthur watched the way the other man's body moved within the tailored and nicely fitted suit and, really, it only made him want to hit Eames for not wearing nicer clothing. Years ago, back when they used to use sex for a nightly lullaby, Arthur had told Eames that his body was too sculpted to waste it on the hideously baggy slacks and the sagging shirts that he wore day in and day out. And it was now clear that Eames' body hadn't changed one bit, that it was still perfect muscles and entrancing curves.
The Forger clicked the briefcase open and let out a breath as he pulled something from it. It looked to be an identification card as he passed it to Arthur. Upon it, was Eames' picture, clearly from today, and beside it was what Arthur knew to be one of the Forger's aliases-Bryant Matheson-and beneath those bolded words read 'Cobol Engineering: Chicago Branch'.
Arthur's face must have fell as much as his stomach dropped because Eames softly explained, "I took a cab out there this morning. I explained that I'm a CEO from one of Britain's large corporations and that I'm staying here in Chicago for a few months and received a recommendation to work at Cobol for that time." With that, he pulled out what looked to be a professional document. Arthur could only assume it was forged.
The Point Man handed the card back to Eames, his lips pressed into a firm line. When he didn't speak, Eames went on, his voice quieter and almost predatory, "I got a seat right next to the CEO, whose name is Shane Ridge."
Something froze within Arthur's veins and he finally met Eames' gaze. Eames was staring at him like he stared at his targets, those eyes focused and set on watching Arthur's every move, calculating every thread of tension throughout his body, and, for the first time, it didn't make Arthur uneasy. What made Arthur uneasy was the determination beneath the Forger's calculation, the stone cold drive that showed that he would not rest until he got what he wanted.
Which, in this case, was Ridge's blood smeared over his hands as the man's corpse collapsed onto the floor.
What also made him slightly uneasy was the way his heart was pounding just from Eames' stare.
"Arthur," the Forger breathed after a moment and set the document and the card back into the briefcase before he shifted, as if to close the distance between them, but he instead rested his elbows on his legs and let his hands droop between them. "I know what you want me to do, I know you want me to sit by and watch this happen. But I need you to understand-" At that, one of his hands moved and splayed out against the air as if he was making an important point, "-that I can't do that. I can't. Please let me do this. I will tear Cobol apart for you, I promise, I just need you to let me."
When Arthur spoke, his voice was husky. "You and I both know that it doesn't matter if I 'let' you or not. You're going to do it either way. You've already begun."
He stood, much to what appeared to be Eames' displeasure, and set his book on the arm of the chair before continuing with an unoffending tone. "And you and I both know that Cobol isn't the only thing you're going to tear apart."
He meant Shane Ridge, of course. But, as he walked to his bedroom and left Eames staring after him, he realized that the Forger might have taken him to mean their relationship.
Or whatever it was they had.
Part Two