Fic: "White Feather" Chapter 6 Part 1 (Arthur/Eames)
Title: White Feather
Rating: R for part 1 will move to NC-17 for part 2
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
Word Count: 2,202 for part 1
A/N: I had to split up the chapter because this chapter is going to be a bit long! I wanted to post both parts but some things came up. I will post part 2 ASAP though!
Please don't forget to comment! :)
Chapter 6-Part 1
Turning Into Dust
He sees he what he sees. He’s never wanted more than the opportunity to show someone. But he still sees what he sees. His chest feels tight yet loose at the same time. His heart throbbed almost ached at the idea of sharing something so intimate with someone else, to let them in, a peek into his world.
And why has he? He looks over to the man whom he doesn’t even know his first name. The younger man is looking around curiously and Eames is content with just watching him, letting the other man absorb the world Eames has created. Sunlight streams through the thick wood, water drips off branches and leaves, snow is melting, puddling on the grass that’s trying to show itself. Eames sees this but he wants to know what the Corporal sees.
The Corporal takes a couple hesitant steps forward, heavy, visible breathes expelling out in front of him in the chilly air, treading on the lightly snow covered earth and reaches out his hand to touch the trunk of a nearby tree. The bark is hard and brittle and the Corporal cocks his head a little to it curiously.
“How did we get here?” he seems to ask no one in particular, his eyes on the tree.
Eames joins him on the other side of the tree, wrapping his had around the trunk, it rough under his fingers, flashing the younger man a smile.
“I’d explain it to you but it would take too long,” he winks. And he wants to ask him so badly if he sees color in his world or if everything is just black, white and gray but he’s almost too afraid to find out. He selfishly just wants to enjoy this with him.
“We’re dreaming?” the young Corporal with his hands still on the trunk of the tree cranes his neck upwards to the impossibly tall trees that obscure the sun. Sunlight bathes his form as he smiles and closes his eyes, inhales deeply.
Eames answers him by moving his hands from around the trunk of the tree and placing them around the other man’s waist and kisses him deeply. The Corporal stiffens a little as his hands loosen from around the trunk and he feels him tremble in his arms. Snow falls through early morning branches, slips through pine needles, plops to the crystalline snow already on earth, water trickles, runs down to meet the stream, the air is completely still and the Corporal’s warm mouth is exploring his like melting snow.
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They’re walking hand in hand in a snow encrusted field, still as a first breath and Eames hasn’t worked up the courage to ask him what he sees. The other man is radiant-morning sun in his dark hair, flushed cheeks and softening his normally rigid and set features. There’s a boyish charm and feeling to his light steps as they make tracks in the light snow and Eames doesn’t want to ruin the moment.
Snow falls lightly from the sky and both men crane their necks up to watch and taste it. They crest a hill and suddenly they are looking at a cemetery, dark figures gathered around a casket and snow is falling more rapidly, obscuring the world before them. They walk hand in hand, a little more slowly and the Corporal’s eyes are getting wider and wider, breath getting more and more labored as they approach the obvious funeral going on. When they are just upon the figures gathered around the casket, it being lowered into the earth, they pause. Eames can’t tell if there are tears in the other man’s eyes or if it’s just snow but Eames hasn’t dreamt this. Somehow the other man is manipulating the dream, his thoughts filtering through.
The casket dips lower and lower into the earth and the Corporal turns to him. He can barely see his face now; the snow is flying more wildley.
“I did this,” and Eames can barely hear his words.
Eames approaches him, wants to take him in his arms and comfort him since he’s obviously struggling or mourning or both. He doesn’t understand but he wants to. He reaches out a hand to the other man but the Corporal withdraws, takes a couple steps further back, craning his face up to the endlessly falling snow that blurs them both into white oblivion.
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The earth is downy and soft yet cold and wet all around him. His eyelids flutter open and are full of gray clouds that are rolling lazily past him as snow gently falls. Snow collects on his eyelids and everywhere, burying him slowly. He looks to his side and sees that the Corporal is lying closely next to him in the snow, arms outstretched a little, eyelids half lidded and a faraway look on his face as he watches pine trees sway. Eames doesn’t know what he just saw but he knows it’s troubling the other man so he gets up from their sanctuary of ice and gets the other man to his feet as well and they walk hand in hand away from this part of his world.
Eames wants to show him and because he doesn’t know where to start he starts at the beginning. He leads him through the forest, his backyard when he was growing up, to his small country home. It’s the same as he always remembered only blanketed with soft white and still Eames can’t ask him.
The Corporal’s eyes are wide with curiosity as they tread lightly over the white earth. There’s a pain in Eames’ chest as he leads the other man up the small walk to the paint chipped front door-old worn wood, hinges that threaten to fall off at any moment. It pains him greatly like he’s carrying around more weight inside him to take him back to his childhood home, the house that was a lie. But he also feels flutters of newness like his body is very much awake yet he knows he’s asleep in a chair in the training facility building with the Corporal by his side, them hand in hand. The house is just as his step father, his uncle left it-barren, full of empty dreams and broken promises. It surprises Eames that the house is empty-not how he wanted it to be but try as he might he can’t will the house to be full-to be full of people he thought that loved him and the ones that truly did were either killed or taken from him without his choice.
Eames feels weak in the knees and struggles for breath. He hadn’t expected this. He thought it would be so easy to manipulate the dream, having no real experience being the dreamer but as his eyes wander over faded, peeling wallpaper, buckling, water stained wood floors and cracked ceilings he realizes it’s not a dream, it’s a memory. He cannot control or change the past.
He faintly realizes he’s paused, standing in the middle of the empty living room right where the coffee table used to be. The Corporal is still holding his hand and when he realizes that Eames has stopped he pauses too and shoots the other man a curious look over his shoulder, eyebrow cocked. There must be something showing on Eames’ face because as the Corporal takes him in his own face softens and he approaches his space at once, searching his eyes.
“This is my home,” Eames closes his eyes when he says it because everything has become difficult, even the words and he’s still having trouble breathing.
“But it isn’t anymore,” the Corporal’s voice is excruciatingly gentle and he feels a squeeze at his hand. Eames begrudgingly opens his eyes and the Corporal is smiling beautifully, eyes shining and Eames feels like he can breathe. He feels that the Corporal’s emotion, his attention and dare he say his love is giving him air, breathing life into him. He feels he’s returning the smile and he squeezes back-something real and palpable despite him knowing it’s a dream.
And then the Corporal is leading Eames around his old childhood home and Eames lets him. They pass from room to room. The Corporal touches the walls faintly like he wants to understand and Eames finds it touching, touching that the Corporal is accepting it all even if Eames isn’t.
He’s lead into the basement, his uncle’s secret place, the place where Eames’ life as a lie started and Eames is resistant but he feels the Corporal’s strength flood into him as he takes his hand and leads him down the concrete steps.
“This is where it started,” Eames breathes smelling the familiar musty smells, his uncle’s tobacco and aftershave, his mum’s antique things now long gone. He remembered he wanted to show the Corporal the beginning and in a lot of ways it all started here. But not anymore.
Eames tugs at the younger man’s hand. “Let’s go.”
The Corporal is looking around like he doesn’t want to leave, like he’s content with staying and Eames isn’t sure why but he knows what happens next and they can’t be inside the place when it happens.
They just make it back outside and even though Eames can’t see color he senses that the sky has changed. He guesses its dusk but he’s not certain. The snow is also gone. The grass has shown itself. Its summer he knows because again this is all a memory.
The flames and smoke rise out of the house slowly and Eames doesn’t remember if it happened that way or not. The two men stand with clasped hands and watch as the house is consumed with dark heavy smoke and rising flames and despite the heartache Eames is glad it’s gone, his home and what it stood for. The Corporal was right it- it isn’t his home anymore. He wanted a house by the rolling ocean, someplace completely different than his small country home.
Ash falls from the sky like little paper shards but it’s all wrong. Snow is falling steadily again and Eames looks to the other man because he isn’t dreaming this but now he’s not sure anymore. The memory fades, blurs and the Corporal’s constant presence gives him the push he needs. The snow and ash morph into white feathers. Eames cranes his head upwards and laughs and laughs because his mum told him to never forget to keep dreaming and Eames was worried he did. He turns to the man next to him and he’s smiling too, feathers dancing and gliding off his young face. The other man has helped him to remember to keep dreaming.
They watch as his former home is consumed by flames-breaking windows, charring walls, wood spitting and crackling. The feathers, pure as the snow itself and dawn’s earliest light covers everything, obscuring the scene and themselves. He can barely see the Corporal as the feathers are falling faster and faster-a world of white.
“I did this,” Eames says after a time and just like when the Corporal was confessing his sin around the cemetery with the coffin being lowered into the ground he can barely hear his own voice.
He thinks the Corporal is looking at him but he can’t be sure, he can barely see his hand in front of his face, the feathers clinging to every surface.
“I know,” he thinks he hears the Corporal say and Eames reaches for him desperately but the world is being consumed by fire, ash and feathers-black, white and gray, all that Eames has ever known and he can’t find the Corporal in all of it. They’re burning too he knows, the flames and smoke have somehow impossibly found them in his dream and they are dwindling, becoming a part of it all.
“What do you see?” again he can barely hear it as the fire and feathers are drowning out all sounds.
His heart is on fire too at the Corporal’s question and he swears just for the briefest of seconds he can see something beautiful dance in front of his vision, like a swirl and maybe its color or maybe it isn’t and he almost doesn’t care. There isn’t anybody else now. He only wants this man, the man he barely knows and can’t see clearly because he’s asked him the question, the most important question.
“You, darling. I only see you.” It was true and wasn’t at the same time and his heart is bursting, being consumed by the flames, the ash and smoke. If he could construct a dream, a world strictly based off this perfect creature, the Corporal, than he would. He would live and dream only for him.
His limbs are disappearing and still he reaches for the Corporal, him feeling so close. He’s becoming nothing but he feels he’s gained everything just by him asking Eames what he sees. Their fingertips brush through the billowing smoke and swirling debris. He feels his body consumed by heat and he isn’t sure if it’s from the fire or his burning desires. His body is broken apart, whisked away with the feathers and wind, both of them carried away like dust.
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Part 2 is Here