When You Grow Up Your Heart Dies [MISSING CHAPTER]
Fandom: Inception x Dark!Breakfast Club
Pairing(s): Arthur/Eames, Cobb/Mal
Summary: They went into detention with nothing in common. They witnessed something frightening that may or may not have actually happened: a dead body and blood on the walls spelling 528491. Can a nerd, a jock, a criminal, a pampered prince and basket case, brave crossing the social cliques in order to stick together and solve this mystery?
[Someone I missed a chapter, sorry guys! ALso, forgive typos from here on out, I was obviously in a hurry posting these.]
Night concealed everything outside the wall of windows, everything but what trespasser the dogs were pulling at their chains to get at. Eames choked on the soda. Arthur dropped his. The fizzy drink sprayed everywhere as it spread a dark stain across the floor. Belatedly he started patting Eames on the back. The others had moved away from the window with shouts of surprise and fear.
“FUCK!” Mal cried.
“Calm down!” Saito said, looking out into the dark of the night with a forced look of amusement on his face. “It’s probably just another stray cat-“
Eames’ phone chimed, silencing all except the dogs, who were still howling and barking like mad.
Ariadne was standing closest to where Eames had left his phone charging on the sofa. She opened the message and said in a shaky voice, “It’s him.”
“What’s it say?” Cobb demanded, surging forward to see for himself.
Good, the message read, now keep having your party and don’t mess with this again.
“Jesus Christ, he can see us!” Cobb said, looking at the windows like he could maybe see past the reflection of the brightly lit room.
“No he can’t,” Saito insisted. The dogs barked and barked, and Saito looked like he was forcing himself to be as sure as ever that he was right, even when he didn’t believe it. “Listen, no one’s out there.”
The phone chimed again.
S I like your dogs.
Saito jolted. Eames slipped in Arthur’s spilled soda, landed on his bottom and curled up. His eyes stung with fear. “Oh my god.”
Arthur had gracefully followed him to the floor, squatted balanced on his toes as he rubbed Eames’ shoulders. “It’s okay,” he said, but even his voice was a thin whisper, yet still somehow as steady and reassuring as always. Eames closed his eyes.
“Give me that!” Saito demanded, suddenly fierce. He snatched the phone out of Ariadne’s shaking hand. “I’m calling this mother fucker right-“ the words reversed themselves the moment his eye caught the number. He said something in Japanese.
“What? What is it?” Cobb asked, eyes ablaze, because he had been all for calling the number from the beginning, but Saito’s anger shifted.
Aghast, the rich jock seemed to harden from a desperate panicky anger to a very refined, well known annoyance. He even laughed, the sound strange mixed in with the chaotic dog barking. “This is Bobby’s number.”
Eames lifted his head. “What?”
Saito read the phone number and added at the end, “This is Bobby’s number! This is a prank-okay, guys, you got me. Good one,” he laughed heartedly from his gut and turned to address the window, the dogs outside, the trespasser, “Good one, Bobby! Now come in!”
“Saito,” Ariadne said weakly, shaking her head. Everyone knew that Saito and Fischer’s friendship was ridiculously competitive, and they were known for their pranks on one another getting out of hand, but this didn’t feel right.
“What do you mean, Bobby’s number?” Arthur asked, lifting effortlessly from his crouch to his full height. “You mean Bobby Fischer?”
“No, I mean Bobby Dylan. Of course I mean Bobby Fischer!” Saito dialed the number and put the phone to his ear. Everyone traded wide-eyed looks of confusion and panic and after a moment, Saito ended the unanswered call with a muttered swear and went to the outside basement door.
To everyone’s horror, he threw it open--the volume of the barking and howling amplifying and now they could hear other sounds, the thuds and scratches of dog paws on the wooden fence in the yard as if they were trying to climb up and over it. Saito walked right outside, screaming into the night over the sound of his pets, cursing his friend for as an asshole and the son of a whore and stuff like that.
When the door opened, Mal moved instinctually and took Cobb’s hand as they both backed away. Ariadne scampered half up the basement stairs while Eames and Arthur only stared in horror at the sight of the other boy outside where a killer was taunting vicious dogs. Saito was by now mooning the darkness that he was sure Bobby was hiding in.
Ariadne scampered down the stairs and bravely ran to the door, grabbing the doorknob. She didn’t shut it but called out into the night, imploring Saito to come back inside. Mal joined her and so did Cobb. Eames stayed paralyzed on his bottom in the floor and Arthur stood beside him, chewing his bottom lip with his eyes locked on the darkness beyond the reflection of the room on the glass.
The dogs quieted down and Saito disappeared from his classmate’s sight as he went over to give them each a pat and to shout some more insults after his retreating friend/main competitor. With the howling and barking ceased, the panic of the situation ebbed, but the reality of it was still there.
Saito came back inside, now thoroughly amused with the whole thing, all anger gone.
“Saito, I don’t think that was Bobby,” Cobb said thickly.
“Sure it was,” Saito said. “Come on, admit it. He paid you guys to fool me. I’d be mad, but it was too good. I give you your props ladies and gentlemen.”
“It wasn’t us, man,” Arthur said. The first shadow of doubt flickered across Saito’s face. He laughed. “Sure it was.”
The others shook their heads.
“I wouldn’t joke about something like this,” Mal said, crossing her arms, feeling small and helpless in a world where murder could twice be written off as a prank. Cobb stood closer to her and took her hand. “Neither would I-and come on, would Bobby seriously go out of his way to get Ariadne and Arthur involved? No offense,” he added with a glance at each of them. The basket case and the geek traded looks. Arthur shrugged, and Ariadne stood up for herself. “Even if he had offered me money, I wouldn’t have sacrificed my academic record for a joke.”
“We saw a dead body, and someone put it there, and Bobby Fischer isn’t playing a prank on all of us. It’s way to elaborate.”
“You’re underestimating Fischer, my friends,” he said. “And after I convinced him that his dad moved to Brazil without him last year, he would have to reach for the stars to top that anyway. Crossing the social classes though-nice touch. That’s what sold it, I think, made it real--”
“It is real-it was a real body,” Cobb insisted without moving his jaw.
“It’s a real masterpiece, I will give you that. Even better than that time he got all the janitors to make me think I drown in the pool and walked out of the gym a ghost-“ he chuckled warmly at the memory.
Arthur even laughed. “He made you think you died?”
“He’s got a power, I am telling you!” Saito praised. “It is what I am talking about! I can hardly compete anymore! I didn’t think he’d get me with death again, but you have all done your part excellently, and the prank was a success-I really thought someone was going to kill me for driving you to a gas station.”
Dom and Mal traded a look.
“Tell them Mal,” he said lowly. She tensed.
“Tell us what?”
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“Like hell it is!” Cobb said. Exasperated, he turned away from her and addressed the others, “Mal’s step brother is a little unhinged, and I think he’s behind this.”
A few beats of silence permeated the game room as that sunk in.
“Define unhinged,” Arthur said.
Cobb took a deep breath through his nose and licked his lips before explaining everything Mal had told him. His version was edited to spare as much privacy as possible, but he made his point. Rod Green, the new afterschool janitor, secretly likes to see pain and torture, and last Saturday was his first day on the job.
“You knew about this the whole time and you didn’t say anything?” Ariadne asked, livid. “We have to go to the cops!”
And it was the same argument all over again about Uncle Steve and favoritism and the girl who cried wolf. The geek wouldn’t hear it. If they all stormed the police station with reports, then they would have to listen, probable cause and all of that. Though small and sweet looking, the academic star had a colorful vocabulary and was mad enough to use it on the criminal and her boyfriend for withholding information like this.
Cobb defended himself and his girlfriend. “I’m sorry okay? But until five minutes ago, we couldn’t even be sure what happened last Saturday! It wasn’t my business to spread around without a reason!”
“Rod didn’t do it,” Mal insisted, but she was pale and spoke with an edge in her voice that meant she felt vulnerable.
“Who else could it have been?” Ariadne demanded, speaking for Eames and Arthur and Satio, who were too shell shocked by the Rod information to speak.
“I thought you liked Browning for the murderer?” Mal asked darkly.
“That was before I knew there was a crazy janitor working at the school!” Ariadne shrieked.
“Use your brain!” Mal hissed. “It can’t be Rod. Tiffany was from Pinwheel which means he didn’t just happen upon her and kill her. She was lured to this town, to school, and to that bathroom! Why would Rod do that? He’s only ever been interested in hurting me.”
Ariadne rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, still peeved that she had been left out of the lead this whole time. A boiling silence fell in the basement.
“You’re right,” Arthur said after a moment of contemplation. “Rod doesn’t have motive to kill Tiffany Penrose--if she was a stranger to him.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mal asked nastily.
Arthur shrugged, “You said it yourself: you’ve been avoiding him for years. Kind of hard to be buddy-buddy enough with him to know who all he hangs out with. If he knew Tiffany somehow, then he could have a million reasons to want to kill her.”
“But it sounds like Rod only needs one,” Eames said.
“If that,” Ariadne huffed. “He might have just saw Tiffany and snapped or something, who knows.”
“Tiffany,” Saito echoed, confused. “You guys keep saying Tiffany--Is that the dead girl? You know her name? How?”
“Arthur is brilliant,” Eames said simply. The blatant praise made Arthur color and look away with a huff. Eames gently nudged him. “Show Saito what you showed us.”
Clearing his throat and not looking at anyone, Arthur sat down at the computer desk and shared his research with Saito. As the jocks leaned over Arthur’s shoulders to see the screen, Ariadne curled up on the couch, facing the threatening windows, and ignoring Cobb and Mal, who were silently trying to get her attention.
Mal sat on the cushion beside her. Ariadne snorted, left the couch, and sat on the stairs. Mal gave Cobb a lost look. He shrugged, equally lost, but after a second of thought, circled the couch and went to the stairs banister, hung from the rail as he talked softly to her through the slats.
“We didn’t mean to cut you out of the circle,” he said kindly. “It was just private stuff, you know?”
“Whatever,” she mumbled, looking away. After a second, she glanced at the prep, saw the true concern on his face and nearly lost her cool. But she had enough public-speaking training to maintain her composure. “It’s just...sometimes it feels like I’m in this by myself. I mean, you and Mal paired off pretty fast, and Arthur and Owen...”
Cobb straightened to look across the room with a frown. What he saw made his lips part in surprise. Both jocks crowded Arthur to get a look at the screen, but Saito was maintaining personal space, while Eames stood close enough to share body heat. Both he and Arthur had secret grins on their faces.
“Oh...” Cobb said. Ariadne huffed and nodded. “So where do you think that leaves me all the time? Just an outsider looking in, like freaking always...”
“You’re not an outsider,” Cobb said. “And hey, we got Saito in on this now,” he said with a wink. “You two have Scooby Doo in common and everything.”
She laughed and rolled her eyes but failed to hide a blush. “As if...” she muttered on principle. Saito’s good looks and charm already helped him straddle the gap between jock and prep-she didn’t appreciate his displays of intelligence and nerdy obsessions that would help him fit into a third crowd just as easily.
Saito was a lot of things, but mainly he was a vain prick with way too much money, and Ariadne had too much pride to have a sugar daddy.
Cobb laughed, let the subject go, and gave her a one armed hug. “No more secrets. We’re a team.”
“Thanks,” she said.
From the couch, Mal sat watching Cobb talk softly to the geek, being the charming, good hearted boy that could make bad girls princesses and sad girls laugh, and the criminal’s smile was a tender, pensive expression. Behind her, the boys’ voices overlapped as Arthur’s cop-like debriefing triggered a reaction.
“Oh my god, sweet Jesus,” Saito said, stumbling backwards from the computer. Arthur spun the desk chair around as Eames asked, “What do you mean you know her?”
“Bobby and I flirted with her at the meet that Friday!” Saito said.
“You sure it’s the same girl?” Arthur asked, eyes bright, a hunting dog with a fresh scent.
“Positive,” Saito said through clenched teeth. He sat on the couch next to Mal and buried his fingers in his hair. “As if I could forget--Bobby embarrassed himself pretty bad-I mean like: it was horrible,” the memory actually pulled laughter out of Saito but he stemmed it and looked guilty, “He struck out with her and I teased him about it for the rest of the night. I mean I really gave it to him, because it’s not often Bobby Fischer fails that epically, you know? You should have seen it! Then when I scored with her, I was king for the night! And now she’s....oh god,” he put his head between his knees.
“Hold the phone, you’re saying Bobby killed her?” Eames demanded, with plenty of venom in his voice.
“Bobby has to win. Period. You know what I’m talking about!” Saito said to Eames, and something passed between the teammates that made Eames’ nostrils flare.
Saito looked like he was going to be sick and rubbed his scalp, chasing a headache through his hair. “Bobby can’t lose, and he lost that night. Big time, and I wouldn’t let him forget it. This is payback. To her and to me. And to Eames for that matter, that’s why he called you. He’s counting you because we would’ve lost the meet if it wasn’t for you, remember? That made Bobby twice the loser that night.”
Eames was growing steadily paler.
“That kind of makes sense...” Ariadne said. She rose from the bottom step and circled the banister in order to be in the group once more. “Somebody like him, used to getting what he wants. He could have snapped and lured her back to get what he wanted. Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her, but she put up a fight and things got out of hand...Then he finds out we’re onto him...”
Saito made a helpless noise, something part way between a dry heave and moan for help. Eames started pacing, shaking his head resolutely. “Nope,” he said. “I don’t think so.”
“But it’s his number,” Arthur said, and when their eyes met, the betrayal could have been cut with a knife. Eames just kept shaking his head, now angry. “So.”
“So what? It’s all falling into place!” Arthur insisted.
“No it’s not! Because... because...” The jock just shook his head. Because it just can’t be, that’s why. Because Eames swam with Bobby every single day, joked with him--Bobby was the very first guy on the swim team to say Hey, I don’t give a fuck that you like dudes, I’ll still shower with you, because I trust you aren’t a horny psycho whose going to rape me. You’re O Eleven. You’re awesome, and you’re always gonna be no matter who you’re humping in your free time.”
Saito sat up and gave Eames another one of those swim-team-only looks. Eames stiffened. “Fuck that!” he said resolutely. He shook his head and crossed his arms. “Not Bobby.”
“Don’t be like that. Just because he’s on your swim team doesn’t make him a saint,” Cobb said with some venom. Eames lifted his eyebrows at the prep and considered rearranging those pretty features.
Arthur didn’t move or make a sound, but somehow, Eames received a signal from the quiet guy, a signal to keep his cool. Sidetracked by this magic, a crease appeared between the jock’s eyebrows as he worked out how Arthur had just talked to him without talking. After a moment, he pinned it to the boy’s breathing. It had changed, subtly, but definitely, from a guy simply observing a scene, to one prepared to have Eames’ back if a fight broke out.
It was such a comforting notion, that it took the heat right out of the jock’s blood and he forgave the basket case for siding against him on this. Rather more calmly, he made his point, “Bobby isn’t a ruthless murderer--he’s small, for one thing--almost as small as Arthur. For another, he’s Bobby, he likes everybody and everything! He’s friends with janitors for Christ’s sake. He just doesn’t have it in him to kill somebody.”
“But Rod does,” Cobb said, looking at Mal. She threw her arms up, frustrated.
“I already told you, he doesn’t have motive!” she insisted.
“As far as you know,” Arthur defended, back to Eames’ side, suspecting the janitor.
“But now it all makes sense!” Ariadne cried. “Rod is a janitor, and Bobby is friends with all the janitors, so Rod is friends with Bobby. Maybe Rod killed her FOR Bobby, because she dissed him that night at the meet. You guys know him best,” Ariadne prompted to Eames and Saito, “Is it at all possible that Bobby could have paid someone like Rod to kill?”
Fischer liked to win, Fischer had the money, and getting the new crazy janitor to erase an epically embarrassing fail sounded exactly like something he would do to maintain the upper hand when it came to being cooler than Saito.
They spent the night in deep debate on the matter until, one by one, they dropped off to sleep, where each and every one of them had troubling dreams, complicated, wild adventures full of stress and terror, all different, but all the same: every nightmare fed the growing idea that Bobby Fischer killed the girl in the bathroom.
Chapter 8b this'll but you back on track
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