Inception - Quiet In My Town (1/6)
Title: Quiet In My Town (1/6)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Word count: 4,949
Pairings/Characters: Arthur/Eames, OC
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, mentions of death, Arthur being an asshole, Eames being chatty
Summary: When Arthur falls off the grid, Eames finds him taking care of a teenage boy that apparently is his brother.
1.
When Arthur stopped working, Eames didn't notice at first. Eames was busy with his own work after all, whether it was actual working or just dicking around in whatever place he fancied. He and Arthur didn't work together on every job together because a lot of the jobs Arthur took seldom needed a forger, so he didn't think anything of it when he didn't get a call from the point man over the course of months.
It was only when other people started talking about how he'd fallen off the grid that Eames started to pay attention. He listened while this extractor or that architect whispered about how the best point man in the business had just quit, that he'd only recently made his presence known in the dreaming business again and that he was only doing his work over the internet and sending it to the people who needed the information. No one had actually seen him in several months.
After a little more fishing, Eames found out he'd been missing for about three months.
After some more digging, Eames found out the e-mail Arthur had been sending all of his information from.
After some intense searching, he managed to figure out the address of Arthur's high rise apartment, not far outside of Los Angeles.
Now, it seems appropriate to mention that Eames wasn't desperately hunting down Arthur for any major reason. He actually quite liked a challenge, and Arthur always presented him with one. That was all that was to it. He wasn't terribly concerned about the man's safety since he could damn well take care of himself, and he was still working, so clearly he wasn't being held prisoner. They had fucked once in Amsterdam (Eames was drunk) and once in Germany (Arthur was), but their relationship didn't go any further than their somewhat playful rivalry. In fact, after the night in Germany, after Arthur had accidently gone back on his promise to not let the one night stand become more than that, the banter had all but stopped. Arthur had distanced himself from Eames altogether, and Eames wasn't terribly surprised. The man could be unbelievably cold when faced with the aspect of something serious that wasn't work coming into the equation. Eames had tried to explain that people could have one night stands with each other more than once, but Arthur thought that it was entirely too close to a casual fling which was entirely too close to a serious relationship. He would not be convinced otherwise.
Maybe that didn't make entirely too much sense, Eames looking for a man who clearly wanted nothing to do with him outside of work (as was everything with Arthur), but Eames wasn't one to lay down and die when given orders. In fact, he generally took great joy in defying them. When Arthur decided to delete himself from the dreamsharing world, Eames decided that he couldn't just accept that and move on. Curiosity would be the death of him surely, but he really wanted to know why Arthur was now a proverbial hermit when it came to working.
Sure, it could have been something as simple as Arthur lost his passport, but…
…well…
Nothing was ever that simple when it came to people in the dreamsharing biz. As committed to work as Arthur was, he surely would have gotten over his little awkward feelings with Eames and just had him forge a new one.
So, he knocked on the door and waited.
He waited longer than a person would normally wait, since he knew Arthur never answered the door without a gun on his person somewhere.
The door cracked open with the chain still on, and Arthur's eyes widened just slightly. "How did you find me?" he asked almost as if he had been expecting him. Almost.
"Never tempt the best," Eames replied coolly. "You'll always lose."
Arthur just stood there staring, so Eames continued, "You didn't really make it that difficult with the e-mail address after all. I just traced the fake address back to your real one, traced the I.P. address from your real one, found your home address, and here I am. It only took me twenty minutes."
Actually it had taken him four days, but it wasn't like Arthur needed to know that. If he was going to gloat, he figured he might as well go all in.
"Why are you here?" Arthur asked then, blinking slowly. He looked really tired, Eames thought… more tired than usual.
"Don't you know how dangerous it is to do your job from home? To stay in one spot? People can track you down that way. Also, as a point man, I'm sure you're aware that your information is more likely to be read if you're there informing them of it. Do you honestly think everyone is going to comb over your extensive histories in eight point font until they have it memorized?"
"None of this so far has had anything to do with you," Arthur replied, rubbing his temple. "Should I just keep waiting for you to explain or can I shut the door now?"
"I heard you were missing, and I wanted to know why," Eames said simply. Lecturing wasn't really his style anyway.
"It's complicated," Arthur said vaguely.
"I've got time."
"I don't," Arthur replied, going to shut the door, but Eames shoved against it, and while Arthur was powerful in his speed and agility, Eames still made up for it in brute strength. "What?" Arthur complained.
"I've got a job coming up in a few months in India. Interested?"
"You already know about the job, but they're not meeting yet?"
"I'm the only one who knows about it," Eames shrugged.
"So, you're extracting on this one then."
"Indeed. It's a favor for a friend."
"In other words, you owe somebody money."
"Something like that," Eames said, grinning a little. Arthur knew him so well. Eames never did favors for friends. "Interested?" he asked again.
"How much does it pay?"
"How much do you want?"
Arthur silently appraised him, pursing his lips. "You can go to India. I'll help you, but I'm staying here."
"Which brings us back to 'why'," Eames said, leaning against the doorframe, invading as much personal space as he could.
"Eames, I don't-" Arthur started but suddenly there was a sound of something crashing to the floor from somewhere in the apartment, and Arthur turned at the sound, expression that of someone who wanted to be angry but couldn't find the strength.
Arthur really did look weary. He hadn't shaved, and his hair was falling loose.
"Let me in, darling," Eames said gently.
Arthur shut the door, and for a moment Eames expected it to stay that way, but then he heard the chain move.
Eames opened the door to find Arthur briskly making his way down the hallway and swinging open a door. "What the fuck-how did that happen?" he asked, voice strained.
Eames approached quietly and peeked over Arthur's shoulder to see a teenage boy sitting in the middle of the floor in front of a laptop with a broken screen.
The boy was scrawny and lanky with short dark hair. He was pallid like he never saw daylight and his eyes were so pale blue they were almost white. His shirt was so big on him that it slid down one shoulder, and his jeans had holes in the knees, and he stared up at Arthur with a clenched jaw and troubled eyes, hands planted between his knees.
He glanced at Eames and then looked back to Arthur, staring him down but saying nothing.
"Who is this?" Eames asked Arthur, cocking an eyebrow. "Are you holding him hostage or something?"
"He's my brother," Arthur replied emptily, kneeling down to pick up the damaged laptop and set it gently on the bed in the room. As soon as Arthur said it, Eames knew it was true. He recognized the familiar slope of the nose, the familiar shape of the lips, the same long fingered hands and dark hair.
"Owen, this is Eames. He's a guy I work with."
The boy (Owen apparently) looked Eames up and down but didn't move from his spot on the floor.
"Owen, did you drop it on accident?" Arthur asked, but he sounded as though he already found the prospect hopeless.
Owen turned his gaze on Arthur again but still said nothing. He never even opened his mouth.
Arthur rolled his eyes and left the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
"So, your ah-brother is ahm… interesting. Is he visiting you?" Eames asked awkwardly as he watched Arthur slump into a chair at the small table by the window that was stacked high with paperwork.
"He lives here," Arthur replied tiredly. "I'm his legal guardian. The mother and father were killed, and I'm the only one who could take him in. Otherwise he would have gone to a home."
Eames was baffled and rendered speechless for a moment. "So, that's why you can't go on jobs?" he finally managed to say, and he was mentally kicking himself for saying it. Even he knew that it was a bit tactless to talk about work when someone had just mentioned that their parents had been killed, but he wasn't sure what else to talk to Arthur about.
"He doesn't know about mind crime or any of that stuff. I figured it'd be safer to just keep him here so that he can go to school when fall comes. He's already been uprooted enough." Arthur didn't sound sympathetic to the boy's plight or anguished over the fate of his parents. He just sounded tired, and that was it. "Don't talk about it. I don't want him getting any ideas that I'm working in an illegal business."
"You think he'll tell someone?"
Arthur snorted bitterly. "Doubt it. He hasn't said one goddamned word since he got here two months ago. All he's done is destroy my stuff and stare at me like I fucking did it."
"It sounds like he could deal with a little therapy," Eames said, offering Arthur a cigarette when it was clear the pack the point man was grabbing at didn't have any inside. "Didn't you quit smoking by the way?"
"Old habits die hard," Arthur grumbled, taking it and lighting it. "He's already been to therapy. He doesn't talk there either. He can't really be mentally evaluated if he won't fucking say anything. They can only say that he doesn't appear to be hearing voices, and he's probably just grieving. That's such bullshit, so I stopped it."
"Surely it must have been hard on him," Eames said. "My father had a heart attack when I was eleven, and I was devastated."
He wasn't sure why he revealed that information. He didn't normally reveal truths to anyone. Arthur probably thought it was a lie anyway.
"Aren't you upset?" Eames asked after a moment.
"Fuck no," Arthur said around the cigarette while he was rolling up his sleeves. "I blew out of that place when I was sixteen and never looked back. I hated them both. Who cares if they're dead?"
It was extremely cold, even from Arthur.
Eames was sure the sound he heard coming from Owen's bedroom was that of the laptop being thrown against the wall.
"That's really not-"
"I don't want to talk about it, Eames. Tell me about the India job," Arthur said, dropping his face into his freehand while his cigarette burned between the fingers of the other. Eames remembered the last time he'd seen a cigarette between those fingers in Germany in the dim light of his hotel room, both of them sweaty and naked and hazy from alcohol. He remembered how he'd had to snag it away when Arthur drifted off to sleep so that he wouldn't set the bed on fire.
Eames cleared his throat and banished the memory before he rewound it to something a little naughtier. He'd have to save that state of mind for later when he was alone in his hotel room or at least someplace private.
"Shouldn't you go investigate that noise?" Eames asked.
"I don't care anymore," Arthur mumbled. "It's not my laptop he's breaking. If he wants to break his own shit, I'm perfectly content with that because he's not breaking my shit anymore. India job, Eames."
Eames took a seat across from Arthur and started to explain that there was a rich sheik there that was suspicious that his son had been stealing his money, and he wanted them to go under and find out for sure. The job was going to be an easy one and a well-paying one which was next to impossible to come across. The job wouldn't go into session for a few months because his son was not returning from his travels until then.
It was just as Eames finished talking about it that the bedroom door down the hall opened and Owen padded into the room in sock feat, hunched over with his arms wrapped around his chest as if he was cold.
"I'm not buying you another laptop," Arthur said to him.
The boy didn't really look at either of them this time, choosing instead to dig in the refrigerator until he found a can of Dr. Pepper. He cracked it open and took a small sip, holding it with both hands.
"Close the fridge door," Arthur said.
The boy looked at him, pausing at sipping his soda and then proceeded to pour the rest of it onto the carpet.
"God damn it!" Arthur shouted, jumping to his feet.
The boy started taking things out of the refrigerator and throwing them on the ground, but he only managed to remove a head of lettuce, a jar of maraschino cherries, and a Tupperware container of leftovers before Arthur grabbed him sharply by the arm and dragged him back to the room he'd come from, slamming the door as soon as he'd thrown him inside.
Afterwards, he sank to the floor outside the door and sighed, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.
Eames didn't join him on the floor but stood there with his hands in his pockets. "You haven't seen him since you were sixteen, so that would make him about four when you two were last together, correct?"
"Yeah, why," Arthur said flatly into his knees.
"Why did you take him in?" Eames couldn't help but ask. It didn't seem like Arthur had any affection for the child (not that he was making it easy), nor cared how he handled him when he'd been pushed to the end of his rope.
"I didn't think it'd be this bad," Arthur mumbled. "Fuck… I didn't even really decide. He just showed up on my doorstep. I couldn't turn him away. He's still… He's still my brother."
"You know, I took some courses in psychology in college," Eames said. "I majored in it actually."
"You didn't go to college. You were in the military."
"I had to pay for college somehow. What do you say to me sticking around and seeing if I can get him on better behavior? I'm really good with people, as you well know."
"As I well know, you're insufferable."
"It would give you a break from him at least. Come on, Arthur, I'm not even asking for anything in return. Given our history, I feel like I owe you some sort of service at least. We're not best mates by any means but-"
Arthur looked up at him resignedly, and the bags under his eyes were so heavy. "If you could just get him to stop screaming at night, I'd appreciate it. I'll do the India information for you no charge if you can just… do something."
Eames wasn't sure why he offered to help, and really curiosity was his only answer. He hadn't gotten to stretch his legs in mental evaluations in a while, and he liked the idea of getting Owen to talk and beating Arthur by doing it first (everything was a competition with them, it seemed, so why not this too?). Plus, Eames didn't trust ninety-nine percent of the people he knew, but Arthur was of the one percent he did, so when Arthur was looking desperate he couldn't help but oblige. He may not have been the nicest guy in the world, but he wasn't heartless.
Also, there was the slimmest chance that sex would be involved again. He was always game for that.
The boy didn't make another sound or come out of the room for the rest of the night, and Arthur was up for most of that night communicating with an extractor over the internet. Apparently the man wasn't satisfied with Arthur's notes, claiming that there was too much unnecessary information. Arthur tried to inform him that there was no such thing as unnecessary information being that dreams could go any kind of direction and preparation for anything was necessary for a successful extraction, that he'd weeded out anything that could be avoidable for this particular job. It led from that to Arthur angrily typing that if the extractor didn't want to actually read the information, then maybe he shouldn't have hired a point man and wished him luck going into the man's subconscious without knowing anything about whether he was militarized or not, to have fun in limbo.
Eames read all of this idly over Arthur's shoulder in intervals, taking time to cook himself up a meal of some kind of pasta and meat, experimenting by adding whatever he could find around Arthur's kitchen that he liked (within reason of course-he wasn't about to add cocoa powder or cereal to anything), since he hadn't eaten since before he'd gotten on the plane.
"Here," Eames said, setting a plate down next to Arthur just as he sent off another scathing e-mail.
Arthur looked at the plate and then up at Eames.
Eames shrugged, digging a fork into his own plate as he went to take a seat on the other side of the table.
"You made me dinner?" Arthur asked flatly.
"No, I made me dinner, but there was more than I needed, so I fixed you a plate," Eames said. "Try it. It's actually pretty good."
Arthur looked at him warily but actually took a bite. It made Eames feel good to know that Arthur trusted him not to poison him.
"What is this?" Arthur asked, brow furrowing.
"I don't know, but it's good, right?"
"It's fine, but… you cooked it. Shouldn't you know what it-you know what, never mind."
After half a plate and a few more frantically typed e-mails, Arthur finally gave up for the night and went to bed. It was a shame that it was already four-thirty A.M. by then.
Eames fell asleep on Arthur's couch, wrapped in an afghan, wondering just what the fuck he was still doing there.
Well, despite the uncomfortable couch, at least he didn't have to pay for a hotel room. He'd play this game with Arthur's brother for a couple of days and afterwards get the hell out of L.A. with assurance that Arthur would be working for him (and he'd be getting his share of the pay). He didn't trust anyone else to get the information quite like Arthur did.
Eames was jolted awake when he heard rattling around in the kitchen. He lifted himself as quickly as he could, unconsciously scrambling for the gun holster under his shirt. He stopped himself when he realized that it was Owen, frozen in the light of the refrigerator, holding a milk carton and looking like a frightened puppy. He apparently hadn't expected Eames to be there.
"Didn't mean to scare you," Eames said, smiling in the attempt to relax the kid's nerves. "Your brother and I were working, and I must have fallen asleep…" The sunlight slipping in from the windows proved that it must have been morning.
The boy's shoulders slumped a little, and he shut the fridge before taking the milk to a bowl he'd set out and poured cereal into.
"So, ah…" Eames said, getting to his feet and stretching, "You like cereal, eh? Not many kids like Raisin Bran as far as I know…"
The boy stood at the counter, spooning said Raisin Bran into his mouth, staring but saying nothing.
"You and your brother look a little bit alike," Eames said, leaning against the counter.
The boy dropped his spoon into the cereal, looking down at it with disdain. Clearly, he did not like Arthur at all, and it wasn't like Eames could blame him after the way Arthur had treated him.
"He's a bit of a hard ass, isn't he?" Eames asked with a smirk. "All work and no play makes Arthur a right twat sometimes."
The boy blinked, looking a little confused, and then he looked down at the bowl again, and… he smiled a little, nodding.
Oh, dear, Eames thought with wonder, Owen had Arthur's dimples.
"He's not always like that, you know," Eames offered. "He can be a pretty nice guy if you get some liquor in him." Handsy too, but he figured Owen wouldn't want to know that. "I think he lets himself get too caught up in things and ends up bitching at other people. I don't think he even knows he does it. He's like a robot."
The boy snorted, biting down on his bottom lip as his smile widened against his will.
"If you like, I can talk to him. I can tell him to back off when it comes to you. He listens to me… well, sometimes he does. I mean, it can't hurt, right? It's worth a shot. In the meantime, it might be a good idea to avoid his wrath. I reckon throwing around his things isn't really the best way to get on his good side. Arthur's like an animal, you see? If you leave him alone, he'll leave you alone."
Quietly, "So is he a robot or an animal?"
"He's-" Eames paused. "Did you just speak?"
The boy looked back down at his cereal and shoved another mouthful between his lips and didn't say anything.
"Well," Eames said then, recovering from his falter, "for the record, he might be a robot animal… Like those creepy CGI ones you seen in the movies. That, or maybe he's one of those things from Blade Runner."
The boy made a face with a raised eyebrow, and he looked entirely too much like Arthur for Eames's taste at that moment.
"Wh-" Eames paused, mocking offense. "You've never seen Blade Runner? Harrison Ford? 'All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain'?"
The boy just stared.
"Oh, Jesus Christ, you haven't lived yet! Arthur really is abusing you. What movies does he let you watch? I hope it's not musicals and art films… not that there's anything wrong with those if they're good. You have to see this movie, kid. Oh, but you definitely need to see the director's cut and not the theatrical version. They bloody ruined it with a bad narration and deleted scenes from The Shining."
The boy took another bite of cereal, eyes curious and innocent.
"You have seen The Shining, right?" Eames asked.
The boy shook his head.
"Kids these days don't know what good movies even are! This is bloody pitiful."
The boy grinned and sipped at the milk in his bowl.
Arthur was just walking into the room as Eames was shaking his head, rubbing his mouth with his hand and dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a wife-beater.
"You sick bastard, how dare you deprive him of The Shining and Blade Runner?" Eames asked, pointing dramatically at Owen.
"What are you talking about?" Arthur asked sleepily. He was so useless before his coffee, Eames thought.
"Oh, forget about it," Eames grumbled. "I am renting some films before I leave this apartment though. Oh, and by the way, I got him to speak. I told you I could." Actually, Eames wasn't sure if he'd told him that or not, but there was no point in taking it back now.
"Oh, really," Arthur said flatly. He clearly didn't believe him.
Eames gestured to Arthur when Owen looked at him in surprise. "Go ahead and say something. Prove that I'm right. Don't leave me high and dry here, mate."
Owen seemed to shrink as he went to put the bowl in the sink while Arthur started a pot of coffee. He clearly wasn't planning on speaking up.
"It was a nice try, Eames," Arthur said as he dug a red coffee mug out of the cupboard. Eames had seen him use it quite often at work, so it must have been his favorite one. "You haven't bet money on it though, so there's really no need to prove anything."
Owen suddenly snatched the mug out of Arthur's hand, and his sleep-addled brain didn't have the reflexes to stop him before he sent it flying towards the wall and shattering.
"FUCK!" Arthur shouted, and Owen stood defiantly, looking angry but not proud.
"Why do you always do this?" Arthur continued, voice loud and strained and sounding both frustrated and fed up at the same time somehow. "Damn it, I-I didn't even say anything to you. I don't ever have to say anything to fucking set you off, you know? It's not really fair that you-I just… I… fuck… what am I supposed to do? What do you fucking want me to do? Just be silent all the fucking time? That might work for you, but it doesn't for me! Damn… Damn it…"
Owen slumped away to his bedroom while Arthur knelt down to pick up the pieces of the cup.
Eames watched the boy go, feeling like he'd just witnessed something he wasn't supposed to. "Ah… Arthur," he said gently, "it was only a coffee cup."
"Mal gave me this cup," Arthur said quietly, and he actually sounded almost hurt. Almost.
So, Arthur did have feelings after all, Eames thought.
He would bet that Owen did too.
"Would you like for me to ah-" Eames started awkwardly.
"Just leave me alone," Arthur mumbled, placing the handful of porcelain pieces on the counter in the same place where the boy had been eating his cereal, throwing himself into the same chair he'd sat in the night before, and opening his laptop to get back to work.
Eames shrugged and wandered off down the hallway, wondering why Arthur hadn't told him to leave yet, that letting him stay even one night was a stupid mistake, just like the time in Germany and the time before that in Amsterdam. It seemed like something he would do, but then again, it also seemed that Arthur really didn't want to be alone with this teenage boy anymore at all. Perhaps the very reason he'd let Eames inside was because it gave him the opportunity to breathe for a second or to have someone to complain to at least.
Eames wondered how many people Arthur had seen since Owen started living with him. He'd put money on it being nobody (except for maybe Cobb once since he didn't live far, but Arthur never did like for Cobb to see him strained).
He found Owen back in his room, sitting on the bed, staring out the window with his pillow shoved between his chest and his knees.
Owen's room was plain. It had a bookshelf with lots of books, but it didn't look like any of them had been cracked open recently considering the layer of dust on top of them. It had a desk with a lamp on it and an empty space where his laptop probably used to be (it was now smashed in the corner underneath some crumbling plaster where it had actually hit the wall. There were clothes hanging in the closet, but Owen was wearing the same ones from the day before, and a lot of the clothes looked like they were Arthur's anyway. He didn't have a television set (he may have had one at one time, but considering how he liked to destroy things it was possible it had been taken away from him) or any pictures or posters. The room looked like a guest room because that was what it was.
"You all right there, sprog?" Eames asked.
"I hate him," he said, barely above a whisper. Eames had to struggle to hear him. "He thinks I'm obligated to feel happy to be here because he took me in. It's fucking bullshit. We don't even know each other."
"You could attempt to get to know him," Eames offered, shutting the door with a quiet click behind him before crossing to sit on the bed. It was weird playing mediator between Arthur and Owen, but there was a part of him that felt sympathetic to the kid since his parents had just died. He knew how alone he felt when his father died, and he still had his mother to go to then. "He's really not so bad all the time."
The boy shook his head, pressing his cheek against the pillow. He clearly had no interest in getting to know him or finding out how good or bad he could be.
The boy had been with Arthur for a while now, Eames remembered. It seemed like both of them were already done with each other.
…but again, Eames always did enjoy a challenge.
Author: osaki_nana_707
Word count: 4,949
Pairings/Characters: Arthur/Eames, OC
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, mentions of death, Arthur being an asshole, Eames being chatty
Summary: When Arthur falls off the grid, Eames finds him taking care of a teenage boy that apparently is his brother.
1.
When Arthur stopped working, Eames didn't notice at first. Eames was busy with his own work after all, whether it was actual working or just dicking around in whatever place he fancied. He and Arthur didn't work together on every job together because a lot of the jobs Arthur took seldom needed a forger, so he didn't think anything of it when he didn't get a call from the point man over the course of months.
It was only when other people started talking about how he'd fallen off the grid that Eames started to pay attention. He listened while this extractor or that architect whispered about how the best point man in the business had just quit, that he'd only recently made his presence known in the dreaming business again and that he was only doing his work over the internet and sending it to the people who needed the information. No one had actually seen him in several months.
After a little more fishing, Eames found out he'd been missing for about three months.
After some more digging, Eames found out the e-mail Arthur had been sending all of his information from.
After some intense searching, he managed to figure out the address of Arthur's high rise apartment, not far outside of Los Angeles.
Now, it seems appropriate to mention that Eames wasn't desperately hunting down Arthur for any major reason. He actually quite liked a challenge, and Arthur always presented him with one. That was all that was to it. He wasn't terribly concerned about the man's safety since he could damn well take care of himself, and he was still working, so clearly he wasn't being held prisoner. They had fucked once in Amsterdam (Eames was drunk) and once in Germany (Arthur was), but their relationship didn't go any further than their somewhat playful rivalry. In fact, after the night in Germany, after Arthur had accidently gone back on his promise to not let the one night stand become more than that, the banter had all but stopped. Arthur had distanced himself from Eames altogether, and Eames wasn't terribly surprised. The man could be unbelievably cold when faced with the aspect of something serious that wasn't work coming into the equation. Eames had tried to explain that people could have one night stands with each other more than once, but Arthur thought that it was entirely too close to a casual fling which was entirely too close to a serious relationship. He would not be convinced otherwise.
Maybe that didn't make entirely too much sense, Eames looking for a man who clearly wanted nothing to do with him outside of work (as was everything with Arthur), but Eames wasn't one to lay down and die when given orders. In fact, he generally took great joy in defying them. When Arthur decided to delete himself from the dreamsharing world, Eames decided that he couldn't just accept that and move on. Curiosity would be the death of him surely, but he really wanted to know why Arthur was now a proverbial hermit when it came to working.
Sure, it could have been something as simple as Arthur lost his passport, but…
…well…
Nothing was ever that simple when it came to people in the dreamsharing biz. As committed to work as Arthur was, he surely would have gotten over his little awkward feelings with Eames and just had him forge a new one.
So, he knocked on the door and waited.
He waited longer than a person would normally wait, since he knew Arthur never answered the door without a gun on his person somewhere.
The door cracked open with the chain still on, and Arthur's eyes widened just slightly. "How did you find me?" he asked almost as if he had been expecting him. Almost.
"Never tempt the best," Eames replied coolly. "You'll always lose."
Arthur just stood there staring, so Eames continued, "You didn't really make it that difficult with the e-mail address after all. I just traced the fake address back to your real one, traced the I.P. address from your real one, found your home address, and here I am. It only took me twenty minutes."
Actually it had taken him four days, but it wasn't like Arthur needed to know that. If he was going to gloat, he figured he might as well go all in.
"Why are you here?" Arthur asked then, blinking slowly. He looked really tired, Eames thought… more tired than usual.
"Don't you know how dangerous it is to do your job from home? To stay in one spot? People can track you down that way. Also, as a point man, I'm sure you're aware that your information is more likely to be read if you're there informing them of it. Do you honestly think everyone is going to comb over your extensive histories in eight point font until they have it memorized?"
"None of this so far has had anything to do with you," Arthur replied, rubbing his temple. "Should I just keep waiting for you to explain or can I shut the door now?"
"I heard you were missing, and I wanted to know why," Eames said simply. Lecturing wasn't really his style anyway.
"It's complicated," Arthur said vaguely.
"I've got time."
"I don't," Arthur replied, going to shut the door, but Eames shoved against it, and while Arthur was powerful in his speed and agility, Eames still made up for it in brute strength. "What?" Arthur complained.
"I've got a job coming up in a few months in India. Interested?"
"You already know about the job, but they're not meeting yet?"
"I'm the only one who knows about it," Eames shrugged.
"So, you're extracting on this one then."
"Indeed. It's a favor for a friend."
"In other words, you owe somebody money."
"Something like that," Eames said, grinning a little. Arthur knew him so well. Eames never did favors for friends. "Interested?" he asked again.
"How much does it pay?"
"How much do you want?"
Arthur silently appraised him, pursing his lips. "You can go to India. I'll help you, but I'm staying here."
"Which brings us back to 'why'," Eames said, leaning against the doorframe, invading as much personal space as he could.
"Eames, I don't-" Arthur started but suddenly there was a sound of something crashing to the floor from somewhere in the apartment, and Arthur turned at the sound, expression that of someone who wanted to be angry but couldn't find the strength.
Arthur really did look weary. He hadn't shaved, and his hair was falling loose.
"Let me in, darling," Eames said gently.
Arthur shut the door, and for a moment Eames expected it to stay that way, but then he heard the chain move.
Eames opened the door to find Arthur briskly making his way down the hallway and swinging open a door. "What the fuck-how did that happen?" he asked, voice strained.
Eames approached quietly and peeked over Arthur's shoulder to see a teenage boy sitting in the middle of the floor in front of a laptop with a broken screen.
The boy was scrawny and lanky with short dark hair. He was pallid like he never saw daylight and his eyes were so pale blue they were almost white. His shirt was so big on him that it slid down one shoulder, and his jeans had holes in the knees, and he stared up at Arthur with a clenched jaw and troubled eyes, hands planted between his knees.
He glanced at Eames and then looked back to Arthur, staring him down but saying nothing.
"Who is this?" Eames asked Arthur, cocking an eyebrow. "Are you holding him hostage or something?"
"He's my brother," Arthur replied emptily, kneeling down to pick up the damaged laptop and set it gently on the bed in the room. As soon as Arthur said it, Eames knew it was true. He recognized the familiar slope of the nose, the familiar shape of the lips, the same long fingered hands and dark hair.
"Owen, this is Eames. He's a guy I work with."
The boy (Owen apparently) looked Eames up and down but didn't move from his spot on the floor.
"Owen, did you drop it on accident?" Arthur asked, but he sounded as though he already found the prospect hopeless.
Owen turned his gaze on Arthur again but still said nothing. He never even opened his mouth.
Arthur rolled his eyes and left the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
"So, your ah-brother is ahm… interesting. Is he visiting you?" Eames asked awkwardly as he watched Arthur slump into a chair at the small table by the window that was stacked high with paperwork.
"He lives here," Arthur replied tiredly. "I'm his legal guardian. The mother and father were killed, and I'm the only one who could take him in. Otherwise he would have gone to a home."
Eames was baffled and rendered speechless for a moment. "So, that's why you can't go on jobs?" he finally managed to say, and he was mentally kicking himself for saying it. Even he knew that it was a bit tactless to talk about work when someone had just mentioned that their parents had been killed, but he wasn't sure what else to talk to Arthur about.
"He doesn't know about mind crime or any of that stuff. I figured it'd be safer to just keep him here so that he can go to school when fall comes. He's already been uprooted enough." Arthur didn't sound sympathetic to the boy's plight or anguished over the fate of his parents. He just sounded tired, and that was it. "Don't talk about it. I don't want him getting any ideas that I'm working in an illegal business."
"You think he'll tell someone?"
Arthur snorted bitterly. "Doubt it. He hasn't said one goddamned word since he got here two months ago. All he's done is destroy my stuff and stare at me like I fucking did it."
"It sounds like he could deal with a little therapy," Eames said, offering Arthur a cigarette when it was clear the pack the point man was grabbing at didn't have any inside. "Didn't you quit smoking by the way?"
"Old habits die hard," Arthur grumbled, taking it and lighting it. "He's already been to therapy. He doesn't talk there either. He can't really be mentally evaluated if he won't fucking say anything. They can only say that he doesn't appear to be hearing voices, and he's probably just grieving. That's such bullshit, so I stopped it."
"Surely it must have been hard on him," Eames said. "My father had a heart attack when I was eleven, and I was devastated."
He wasn't sure why he revealed that information. He didn't normally reveal truths to anyone. Arthur probably thought it was a lie anyway.
"Aren't you upset?" Eames asked after a moment.
"Fuck no," Arthur said around the cigarette while he was rolling up his sleeves. "I blew out of that place when I was sixteen and never looked back. I hated them both. Who cares if they're dead?"
It was extremely cold, even from Arthur.
Eames was sure the sound he heard coming from Owen's bedroom was that of the laptop being thrown against the wall.
"That's really not-"
"I don't want to talk about it, Eames. Tell me about the India job," Arthur said, dropping his face into his freehand while his cigarette burned between the fingers of the other. Eames remembered the last time he'd seen a cigarette between those fingers in Germany in the dim light of his hotel room, both of them sweaty and naked and hazy from alcohol. He remembered how he'd had to snag it away when Arthur drifted off to sleep so that he wouldn't set the bed on fire.
Eames cleared his throat and banished the memory before he rewound it to something a little naughtier. He'd have to save that state of mind for later when he was alone in his hotel room or at least someplace private.
"Shouldn't you go investigate that noise?" Eames asked.
"I don't care anymore," Arthur mumbled. "It's not my laptop he's breaking. If he wants to break his own shit, I'm perfectly content with that because he's not breaking my shit anymore. India job, Eames."
Eames took a seat across from Arthur and started to explain that there was a rich sheik there that was suspicious that his son had been stealing his money, and he wanted them to go under and find out for sure. The job was going to be an easy one and a well-paying one which was next to impossible to come across. The job wouldn't go into session for a few months because his son was not returning from his travels until then.
It was just as Eames finished talking about it that the bedroom door down the hall opened and Owen padded into the room in sock feat, hunched over with his arms wrapped around his chest as if he was cold.
"I'm not buying you another laptop," Arthur said to him.
The boy didn't really look at either of them this time, choosing instead to dig in the refrigerator until he found a can of Dr. Pepper. He cracked it open and took a small sip, holding it with both hands.
"Close the fridge door," Arthur said.
The boy looked at him, pausing at sipping his soda and then proceeded to pour the rest of it onto the carpet.
"God damn it!" Arthur shouted, jumping to his feet.
The boy started taking things out of the refrigerator and throwing them on the ground, but he only managed to remove a head of lettuce, a jar of maraschino cherries, and a Tupperware container of leftovers before Arthur grabbed him sharply by the arm and dragged him back to the room he'd come from, slamming the door as soon as he'd thrown him inside.
Afterwards, he sank to the floor outside the door and sighed, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.
Eames didn't join him on the floor but stood there with his hands in his pockets. "You haven't seen him since you were sixteen, so that would make him about four when you two were last together, correct?"
"Yeah, why," Arthur said flatly into his knees.
"Why did you take him in?" Eames couldn't help but ask. It didn't seem like Arthur had any affection for the child (not that he was making it easy), nor cared how he handled him when he'd been pushed to the end of his rope.
"I didn't think it'd be this bad," Arthur mumbled. "Fuck… I didn't even really decide. He just showed up on my doorstep. I couldn't turn him away. He's still… He's still my brother."
"You know, I took some courses in psychology in college," Eames said. "I majored in it actually."
"You didn't go to college. You were in the military."
"I had to pay for college somehow. What do you say to me sticking around and seeing if I can get him on better behavior? I'm really good with people, as you well know."
"As I well know, you're insufferable."
"It would give you a break from him at least. Come on, Arthur, I'm not even asking for anything in return. Given our history, I feel like I owe you some sort of service at least. We're not best mates by any means but-"
Arthur looked up at him resignedly, and the bags under his eyes were so heavy. "If you could just get him to stop screaming at night, I'd appreciate it. I'll do the India information for you no charge if you can just… do something."
Eames wasn't sure why he offered to help, and really curiosity was his only answer. He hadn't gotten to stretch his legs in mental evaluations in a while, and he liked the idea of getting Owen to talk and beating Arthur by doing it first (everything was a competition with them, it seemed, so why not this too?). Plus, Eames didn't trust ninety-nine percent of the people he knew, but Arthur was of the one percent he did, so when Arthur was looking desperate he couldn't help but oblige. He may not have been the nicest guy in the world, but he wasn't heartless.
Also, there was the slimmest chance that sex would be involved again. He was always game for that.
The boy didn't make another sound or come out of the room for the rest of the night, and Arthur was up for most of that night communicating with an extractor over the internet. Apparently the man wasn't satisfied with Arthur's notes, claiming that there was too much unnecessary information. Arthur tried to inform him that there was no such thing as unnecessary information being that dreams could go any kind of direction and preparation for anything was necessary for a successful extraction, that he'd weeded out anything that could be avoidable for this particular job. It led from that to Arthur angrily typing that if the extractor didn't want to actually read the information, then maybe he shouldn't have hired a point man and wished him luck going into the man's subconscious without knowing anything about whether he was militarized or not, to have fun in limbo.
Eames read all of this idly over Arthur's shoulder in intervals, taking time to cook himself up a meal of some kind of pasta and meat, experimenting by adding whatever he could find around Arthur's kitchen that he liked (within reason of course-he wasn't about to add cocoa powder or cereal to anything), since he hadn't eaten since before he'd gotten on the plane.
"Here," Eames said, setting a plate down next to Arthur just as he sent off another scathing e-mail.
Arthur looked at the plate and then up at Eames.
Eames shrugged, digging a fork into his own plate as he went to take a seat on the other side of the table.
"You made me dinner?" Arthur asked flatly.
"No, I made me dinner, but there was more than I needed, so I fixed you a plate," Eames said. "Try it. It's actually pretty good."
Arthur looked at him warily but actually took a bite. It made Eames feel good to know that Arthur trusted him not to poison him.
"What is this?" Arthur asked, brow furrowing.
"I don't know, but it's good, right?"
"It's fine, but… you cooked it. Shouldn't you know what it-you know what, never mind."
After half a plate and a few more frantically typed e-mails, Arthur finally gave up for the night and went to bed. It was a shame that it was already four-thirty A.M. by then.
Eames fell asleep on Arthur's couch, wrapped in an afghan, wondering just what the fuck he was still doing there.
Well, despite the uncomfortable couch, at least he didn't have to pay for a hotel room. He'd play this game with Arthur's brother for a couple of days and afterwards get the hell out of L.A. with assurance that Arthur would be working for him (and he'd be getting his share of the pay). He didn't trust anyone else to get the information quite like Arthur did.
Eames was jolted awake when he heard rattling around in the kitchen. He lifted himself as quickly as he could, unconsciously scrambling for the gun holster under his shirt. He stopped himself when he realized that it was Owen, frozen in the light of the refrigerator, holding a milk carton and looking like a frightened puppy. He apparently hadn't expected Eames to be there.
"Didn't mean to scare you," Eames said, smiling in the attempt to relax the kid's nerves. "Your brother and I were working, and I must have fallen asleep…" The sunlight slipping in from the windows proved that it must have been morning.
The boy's shoulders slumped a little, and he shut the fridge before taking the milk to a bowl he'd set out and poured cereal into.
"So, ah…" Eames said, getting to his feet and stretching, "You like cereal, eh? Not many kids like Raisin Bran as far as I know…"
The boy stood at the counter, spooning said Raisin Bran into his mouth, staring but saying nothing.
"You and your brother look a little bit alike," Eames said, leaning against the counter.
The boy dropped his spoon into the cereal, looking down at it with disdain. Clearly, he did not like Arthur at all, and it wasn't like Eames could blame him after the way Arthur had treated him.
"He's a bit of a hard ass, isn't he?" Eames asked with a smirk. "All work and no play makes Arthur a right twat sometimes."
The boy blinked, looking a little confused, and then he looked down at the bowl again, and… he smiled a little, nodding.
Oh, dear, Eames thought with wonder, Owen had Arthur's dimples.
"He's not always like that, you know," Eames offered. "He can be a pretty nice guy if you get some liquor in him." Handsy too, but he figured Owen wouldn't want to know that. "I think he lets himself get too caught up in things and ends up bitching at other people. I don't think he even knows he does it. He's like a robot."
The boy snorted, biting down on his bottom lip as his smile widened against his will.
"If you like, I can talk to him. I can tell him to back off when it comes to you. He listens to me… well, sometimes he does. I mean, it can't hurt, right? It's worth a shot. In the meantime, it might be a good idea to avoid his wrath. I reckon throwing around his things isn't really the best way to get on his good side. Arthur's like an animal, you see? If you leave him alone, he'll leave you alone."
Quietly, "So is he a robot or an animal?"
"He's-" Eames paused. "Did you just speak?"
The boy looked back down at his cereal and shoved another mouthful between his lips and didn't say anything.
"Well," Eames said then, recovering from his falter, "for the record, he might be a robot animal… Like those creepy CGI ones you seen in the movies. That, or maybe he's one of those things from Blade Runner."
The boy made a face with a raised eyebrow, and he looked entirely too much like Arthur for Eames's taste at that moment.
"Wh-" Eames paused, mocking offense. "You've never seen Blade Runner? Harrison Ford? 'All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain'?"
The boy just stared.
"Oh, Jesus Christ, you haven't lived yet! Arthur really is abusing you. What movies does he let you watch? I hope it's not musicals and art films… not that there's anything wrong with those if they're good. You have to see this movie, kid. Oh, but you definitely need to see the director's cut and not the theatrical version. They bloody ruined it with a bad narration and deleted scenes from The Shining."
The boy took another bite of cereal, eyes curious and innocent.
"You have seen The Shining, right?" Eames asked.
The boy shook his head.
"Kids these days don't know what good movies even are! This is bloody pitiful."
The boy grinned and sipped at the milk in his bowl.
Arthur was just walking into the room as Eames was shaking his head, rubbing his mouth with his hand and dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a wife-beater.
"You sick bastard, how dare you deprive him of The Shining and Blade Runner?" Eames asked, pointing dramatically at Owen.
"What are you talking about?" Arthur asked sleepily. He was so useless before his coffee, Eames thought.
"Oh, forget about it," Eames grumbled. "I am renting some films before I leave this apartment though. Oh, and by the way, I got him to speak. I told you I could." Actually, Eames wasn't sure if he'd told him that or not, but there was no point in taking it back now.
"Oh, really," Arthur said flatly. He clearly didn't believe him.
Eames gestured to Arthur when Owen looked at him in surprise. "Go ahead and say something. Prove that I'm right. Don't leave me high and dry here, mate."
Owen seemed to shrink as he went to put the bowl in the sink while Arthur started a pot of coffee. He clearly wasn't planning on speaking up.
"It was a nice try, Eames," Arthur said as he dug a red coffee mug out of the cupboard. Eames had seen him use it quite often at work, so it must have been his favorite one. "You haven't bet money on it though, so there's really no need to prove anything."
Owen suddenly snatched the mug out of Arthur's hand, and his sleep-addled brain didn't have the reflexes to stop him before he sent it flying towards the wall and shattering.
"FUCK!" Arthur shouted, and Owen stood defiantly, looking angry but not proud.
"Why do you always do this?" Arthur continued, voice loud and strained and sounding both frustrated and fed up at the same time somehow. "Damn it, I-I didn't even say anything to you. I don't ever have to say anything to fucking set you off, you know? It's not really fair that you-I just… I… fuck… what am I supposed to do? What do you fucking want me to do? Just be silent all the fucking time? That might work for you, but it doesn't for me! Damn… Damn it…"
Owen slumped away to his bedroom while Arthur knelt down to pick up the pieces of the cup.
Eames watched the boy go, feeling like he'd just witnessed something he wasn't supposed to. "Ah… Arthur," he said gently, "it was only a coffee cup."
"Mal gave me this cup," Arthur said quietly, and he actually sounded almost hurt. Almost.
So, Arthur did have feelings after all, Eames thought.
He would bet that Owen did too.
"Would you like for me to ah-" Eames started awkwardly.
"Just leave me alone," Arthur mumbled, placing the handful of porcelain pieces on the counter in the same place where the boy had been eating his cereal, throwing himself into the same chair he'd sat in the night before, and opening his laptop to get back to work.
Eames shrugged and wandered off down the hallway, wondering why Arthur hadn't told him to leave yet, that letting him stay even one night was a stupid mistake, just like the time in Germany and the time before that in Amsterdam. It seemed like something he would do, but then again, it also seemed that Arthur really didn't want to be alone with this teenage boy anymore at all. Perhaps the very reason he'd let Eames inside was because it gave him the opportunity to breathe for a second or to have someone to complain to at least.
Eames wondered how many people Arthur had seen since Owen started living with him. He'd put money on it being nobody (except for maybe Cobb once since he didn't live far, but Arthur never did like for Cobb to see him strained).
He found Owen back in his room, sitting on the bed, staring out the window with his pillow shoved between his chest and his knees.
Owen's room was plain. It had a bookshelf with lots of books, but it didn't look like any of them had been cracked open recently considering the layer of dust on top of them. It had a desk with a lamp on it and an empty space where his laptop probably used to be (it was now smashed in the corner underneath some crumbling plaster where it had actually hit the wall. There were clothes hanging in the closet, but Owen was wearing the same ones from the day before, and a lot of the clothes looked like they were Arthur's anyway. He didn't have a television set (he may have had one at one time, but considering how he liked to destroy things it was possible it had been taken away from him) or any pictures or posters. The room looked like a guest room because that was what it was.
"You all right there, sprog?" Eames asked.
"I hate him," he said, barely above a whisper. Eames had to struggle to hear him. "He thinks I'm obligated to feel happy to be here because he took me in. It's fucking bullshit. We don't even know each other."
"You could attempt to get to know him," Eames offered, shutting the door with a quiet click behind him before crossing to sit on the bed. It was weird playing mediator between Arthur and Owen, but there was a part of him that felt sympathetic to the kid since his parents had just died. He knew how alone he felt when his father died, and he still had his mother to go to then. "He's really not so bad all the time."
The boy shook his head, pressing his cheek against the pillow. He clearly had no interest in getting to know him or finding out how good or bad he could be.
The boy had been with Arthur for a while now, Eames remembered. It seemed like both of them were already done with each other.
…but again, Eames always did enjoy a challenge.