Fic:" White Feather" (Arthur/Eames) Chapter 3
Title: White Feather
Rating: R
Summary: The one where Eames is color blind…
Written for this prompt for the inception_kink meme. Eames POV. This story runs parallel to Black Moon-the one where Arthur is touch deprived and battles OCD. Both stories can be read alone but encouraged to be read together as it will make more sense later. The stories will interweave and lock together. Is slow building A/E.
Notes: I own nothing Inception wise.
Word Count: 2,979
Almost Dark
Chapter 3
The boarding school wasn't as bad as he thought though he ached for his mum.
Instead of wearing the feather necklace around his neck he removed the feather from the chain. At first he would keep it in his dresser drawer and pull it out secretly every once in a while but as time went on and he got increasingly more homesick and missed her he started carrying it around in his trousers.
He felt like one of those religious fanatics that carried around little metal crosses or rosaries, putting them in their pockets, touching them to feel closer to God or to remind themselves that they weren’t alone, that someone or something was driving them or watching over them.
He would laugh at the imagery and the similarities but he too would be reminded that he wasn’t alone when his fingers would brush the delicate feather. The idea that he “shouldn’t forget to keep dreaming” was what drove him.
And he did dream, he dreamt bigger. Tried to make the most of what he had.
The life that his step father had built up for him made him good around strangers and the other boys warmed up to him.
He earned that reputation of wearing exactly the wrong clothes in their off times from wearing their uniform but most of the boys were used to this and only lightly teased him. He became popular even.
He used his schmoozing and persuasive skills to win boy's hearts as well or at least convince them to sleep with him; he probably didn’t own any hearts. He was always after someone, chasing some Tom, Dick or Harry.
He would have liked to have been chased but pursuing always came easier. As with his condition he just got used to it, accepted it.
It was that sense of duty instilled in him that made him want to pursue, wanting to give instead of take but he got bored easily.
But he did have boyfriends even though it was heavily frowned upon and other boys made fun of him. He didn't care. He frequently got in trouble-caught smoking underage, drinking, again underage, and “fighting”-it was just some good, clean rough housing really, a little drugs, gambling, public nudity (that was hardly his fault), public, grand displays of snogging and of course sneaking into other boy’s dorms for a shag.
They couldn’t kick him out though-he was at the top of his class due to his expert cheating and bribing or conning his way into other boys doing his homework and papers. They would threaten to expel him and call up his step father but he would just throw more money at them to keep Eames there and out of sight. He was financing their private, expensive institution.
He was golden. If only he didn’t have a dull ache in his heart he would think he was almost happy.
______________________
He was 17, almost 18 that May when he graduated. No one attended of course. They weren’t “allowed to” as his step father apparently made all the decisions for the household.
Once he graduated he made immediate, hasty plans to return home. He didn't care if his step father didn't want to see him. His heart and body, really his whole being was aching to see his mum, only for a little while. To hold her frail body in his strong arms, to let her know she wasn't alone, to return a little of what she had given him with the necklace.
The day he bought his train ticket to go home he got the call.
"Mum's dead… auto accident. Perry was with her, driving, but I guess he’s ok…” his sister was sobbing, hysterical, words barely audible and running together.
Eames couldn’t hear much after : “Mum’s dead.” He couldn’t hear anything at all except his blood pounding behind his ears.
He fingers fumbled numbly for the feather in his pocket, he grasped at a light post to support himself and almost fell to the ground, feeling breathless, the wind knocked out of him. The life knocked out of him...
"Dan? Dan?"
"I'm here." But he wasn't.
"Are you coming home? We need to arrange things."
Where was his step father? Where were his brothers?
As if she knew what he was thinking, about to say…
"They left, Dan. They took off right after it happened..." she barely could get the words out through sobs.
"What do you mean they left?" His voice was robotic, small sounding.
"Don’t know. Went over to their apartment and everything was gone. GONE!” she practically screamed in frustration.
“Apartment?” his mind was too overloaded with new, frightening knowledge.
“Yes. Our old house on Trimble? They moved weeks ago, Dan. I thought Perry phoned you?"
He felt like he was melting into the pavement. His world was fiery crimson, anger replacing some of the crushing agony of loss. He was having trouble catching his breath, black dots swirling in front of his vision and before he knew what was happening he was slumping to the ground, caving in on himself.
A con.
It was all a con.
Car accident? Them leaving right after it happened?
He played her, played them like a fiddle.
“She had a life insurance policy?” he heard himself ask, burying his face in his hands, his voice sounding like it was coming from a long tunnel.
“Yeah,” she sniffled.
Eames squeezed his eyes shut, her one word the final nail in his coffin.
He imagined how his step father got his mum into the car. How he orchestrated the motor accident, timing things correctly so that only the passenger side of the car would be destroyed or maybe he just dived out of the car at the right time, expecting the crash. Either way he knew what he was doing. Eames didn’t doubt for an instant he was behind it.
He took the life insurance policy money that clearly was all left to him and ran.
The money he had stored in their basement for all those years, in his coffers wasn’t for them to go to college, to fix up the house, to put food on the table. It was for him and his sons to start a life together, to move on to the next con.
Eames had taken part in it, had helped him get some of that money.
Oh God…
His sister was still crying, trying to speak through the sobs but he could barely make it out, could barely concentrate through the dizzying revelations.
"Are you coming home?" she repeated.
He had no idea where that was anymore.
_________________________
His step father and brothers were nowhere to be found; they looked and exhausted all their connections. They did not attend the funeral of course. It was so hard not to think that his step father repeated his mum’s first husband's performance, his sons following.
He couldn’t believe he didn’t see it. All this time he thought he out grew him, out mastered him, was better at conning and thieving and here he pulls the biggest con right under his nose. He pretended to love his mum, pretended to give a damn about his step children.
He made Eames’ life a living hell. He had made him who he was out of pure selfish purposes, to get more money and maybe just to fuck with him. He had sent him away when he realized that Eames was getting better than him and he knew that if Eames stayed around long enough he would probably catch on to the con.
He didn’t know what the worst feeling was: that they were all conned, Eames contributed, his life felt like a total sham or that she was dead-the one hurt most by all of this, it cost her life.
They buried her at dusk. Eames wished he knew exactly what that meant. He guessed it was how much light was in the sky but to him it just looked almost dark. His world felt much like that: almost dark
His sister squeezed at his hand, almost clinging to him, unable to look as she was lowered into the ground. Eames understood the feeling. He kept an arm around her protectively and one buried deep in his pocket.
Him and his sister bonded over the experience, having to plan the funeral, making all the tough decisions. You don’t go through something like that and not get closer to someone. They were tighter now than they ever were. It was a shame he would have to leave her.
He knew what he had to do.
"Where are you going to go now? What are you going to do? she asked, wiping at her small face.
"I don't know."
But he knew.
He took two buses.
He wanted to see it with his own eyes. To know that the house he grew up in was just that, no longer his home but just a house. The house built from shame, from a lie. The house where he was forced into becoming something else.
The shabby "For Sale” sign was perched outside.
The locks had been changed but he knew how to pick a lock, something his dead beat step father showed him once a long time ago.
He walked from room to room, taking in the familiar musty smells.
He took in everything familiar but yet strange since he hadn't walked through the house in at least a year-the peeling wallpaper, chipped paint, water stained ceilings, buckling wood floors, bare light bulbs, and thread bare and stained carpets all greeted him like old friends.
He walked to the room he shared with his brothers.
All that was left were the badly scuffed wood floors and a couple wire hangers in the small closet.
He stood in the middle of the room feeling he was taking up negative space.
He found himself down in the basement in his: "father's area."
His smell still lingered, mingled with the scents of the space-his tobacco, aftershave, sweat, disinfectant, dust and mold.
There were still some of his things scattered around, little odds and ends like they packed up in a hurry. Which they did.
He found something useful and pocketed it.
He walked through the small house one more time, touching the walls, reveling in old memories and finally standing in the space where his mum’s rocking chair used to sit in the corner. Standing in her space, the empty void made his brain hum.
It was unnerving, standing in a space she always occupied. It just felt so wrong.
This house was wrong.
He went into what used to be their dining room and dumped what was left of the lighter fluid he found downstairs on the disgusting wood floor. He lit a fag, taking a few puffs, not wanting to waste the whole thing.
He flicked it into the spot doused with lighter fluid, knowing but not caring that he was leaving behind evidence.
The old dining room erupted in flames a second later, engulfing the space.
He walked out slowly, backwards; watching the flames eat away at the walls, lick away at the floor. He saw the dark spots it left on the ceiling.
He stayed inside as long as he dared until thick smoke singed his lungs, made his eyes water, until he was coughing and feeling dizzy and breathless.
He walked around outside, circled to the back yard, new fag lit.
"It was a day like this and my house burnt down and the walls were thin and they crashed to the ground It was a day like this and my life unwound you could've struck me a line and that's okay now we could always put it together again. You could've told me a lie, and a lie so thin, so thin now everything's clear day after day and the life goes on and I try to see the good in everyone. If I ever find myself here again I'll give everything."
He watched the small country home burn, knew it was stupid to watch it as it would pin him to the crime but he needed to see it burn to the ground. He needed it to be gone.
The house only held bad memories and didn't stand for what it should anymore.
His mother loved that little house dearly and now it seemed his step father had pissed away all her dreams.
"So you won't forget to keep dreaming."
She had given up everything for her children, for a man that clearly was using her and had given up on her own dreams.
"So you won't forget to keep dreaming."
He touched at the feather in his pocket and realized his mum’s note was a warning. “Don’t let this happen to you” type of message. She didn’t want him to repeat her mistakes. He closed his eyes.
I won’t forget, I won’t forget.
He enjoyed his fag, wishing he could see what color his old house was as the flames broke through the windows, heavy black smoke swirling up to meet the sky.
He was going to be pinned to this arson but he almost didn't care. He owed it to his mother, his sister and himself to rid them of the bad memories that still lingered in it.
He only left when he heard the fire trucks approaching.
The police found him the next day. He was sleeping on the streets, nowhere to go.
The fire reports found his fag, linked it to him.
He didn’t deny it and why should he?
He was going to do time, minimum security, practically juvie. He would still have some visitor’s rights, some other small amenities. He was only 17 and his first offense so the sentence wasn’t too bad.
He spent his 18th birthday, something he was looking forward to in a cold jail cell. He practically laid on his bunk and started up at the ceiling all day. Definitely not how he imagined spending the milestone. Birthdays were meant to be celebrated.
His sister wouldn't speak to him right away when she came to visit him, sitting with him in the supervised common area. She sat across from him at the shabby plastic table, her eyes red and puffy from crying. They would stare at each other for a while until she cracked.
"God damnit Dan, what did you think would happen?"
"I wanted it obliterated. I wanted it gone. That house doesn't define us anymore."
She searched his face; hers twisted up in shock, betrayal and bewilderment.
"You're going to get sent away after this. They’ll send you to the military or some boy’s home; you won’t be able to get a normal job. I won't see you..."
He wanted to remind her that they weren't very close for most of their lives and didn’t see each other a lot but he bit it back. Despite all that he would miss her. She was unfortunately just a necessary casualty in all this
"Sam, I'll still see you. I'll make a point to."
She clung to him and cried, the guards barking at her to release him and back away from the prisoner. No touching or too close of contact was allowed.
She regrettably released him.
"I can't lose you too,” she said as she dabbed at her face with a tissue.
He didn't understand her fear but now he thought he did.
She had lost all of her family. With him leaving she was all alone. He was in "provider" and "protective" mode once again.
It might have been his military training but he felt a huge sense of duty.
"I'll come back for you."
"You better."
____________________
Six months didn’t seem like a horribly long time locked up. His sister did come to see him but reminded him every time how angry she was at him.
Just like with the military academy he got on with the other inmates, his fellow juvies.
He got his first tattoo on the inside. The phrase: “I’ll never forget to keep dreaming” on his abdomen with sloppy prison ink. He couldn’t think of any better way to mark that time in his life and the way he got it he would always remember.
His people skills, good looks and sweet talking earned him lots of perks and he was let go on good behavior.
He was destined to come back though. He had too much time to think when he was inside. Sometimes all he had were his thoughts and he had formulated a plan.
He called up one of his old buddies from the academy almost immediately when he was let go. His sister would be furious with him that he didn’t phone her first.
He picked up after what seemed a lifetime.
“’Ello?”
“Rup, it’s me…”
“Danny?”
“The one and only.”
“Bloody hell. It’s been ages man. How you been?”
Eames bit his lip, considered telling him the truth. He had known Rupert all through his high school days. It first started as it always did-Eames chased him. They had fucked but…it was only one time and neither of them wanted to relive it, their personalities were way too similar. Rup hung around for some reason and they got on as friends somehow miraculously after that, Rup worming his way in. Eames only wished he didn’t have to keep running. He could keep friends longer.
“Alright... Listen, I need a favor.”
“I haven’t talked to you in bloody forever and you’re already asking for favors? Fuck, Dan,” he laughed. “You never change.”
“Right.”
“What do you need?”
Eames twisted around the small phone booth looking inconspicuously over his shoulders, making sure no one was around.
“I need a gun, Rup. No serial numbers, no record and I need it soon.”
_____________________
"It was a day like this and my house burnt down..." Is from the song: "A House" by The Doves.
I realize that Tom Hardy doesn't have a tattoo with the phrasing I mentioned-his real ones are about his son, being a father, his ex wife, etc so Im kind of stretching it a bit...
Reviews are lovely!