Fic: The Heart of Darkness
Title: The Heart of Darkness
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: Arthur and Eames being selfish bastards.
Summary: Inception_kink prompt: Arthur/Eames, hint of Arthur/Cobb. They share a cigarette.
When Arthur was young, he had no control and no power over his life. He hated it. He grew out of it.
***
Arthur might have turn out differently if he hadn't met Eames first. But he did.
Eames took the cigarette from his lips and pressed it against Arthur's. Arthur was eighteen and desperate to prove himself, so he swallowed his inhibition and took a drag.
Wrong move. He ended up wheezing and choking and spluttering and making a fool of himself. Eames smirked, and that was the worst part, because while Arthur was busy trying to be someone other than himself, he didn't noticed that Eames was reeling him in like a fish.
Arthur was eighteen when Eames cornered him in a dark cold alley outside the bar, pressing against him with all that sinful friction, and Arthur was desperate. He was eighteen and rebellious and wanted nothing do to with his bourgeois father, the usual byproducts of a lost youth not knowing his place in life, so he clawed his fingers into Eames' skin and blundered his inexperienced tongue into Eames' mouth, hot and wet and clumsy, desperate for an anchor, desperate to be more than who he was.
Eames took and gave nothing.
Arthur woke up the next day in a strange hotel room, flopping over a foreign bed hungover and alone and helpless like a little doll. There was a faint feeling of numbness near his inner left wrist, and Arthur recalled a daze memory of a needle sliding into his skin.
His father's company almost collapsed under the sole of a rival corporation by the next week.
***
After that, Arthur stopped sneaking into bars, stopped the alcohol and the sex and the weed and cleaned himself up nicely. He graduated university as a math major. He learned things from his father. He began wearing suits. He started to climb up in life. Arthur might be naive at eighteen, but he was a fast learner, so it wasn't long until he began taking from others and giving nothing. He learned how to invest and make a profit.
Arthur's father was an excellent businessman, hence his company “almost” collapsed but never did. He taught Arthur all he knew and more, so in effect, Arthur became an even better businessman than he, a great asset to the company.
His father told him that even with Arthur's youthful self-destructive streak, he was a worthwhile investment, if given time. Arthur took that statement and folded it neatly into his heart.
***
Arthur met the Cobbs when they were seeking funding for their dream-technology research. He saw an investment opportunity and he took it, reeling the Cobbs in with his wide-eyes and youthful face and enthusiasm. They taught him all they knew about building everything from nothing, and Arthur taught himself the rest. He was new to this technology, yes, but he was no tourist. Arthur already knew the potential use for the PASIV, the way that it could be utilized to take more things and give nothing. He was a conquistador. An imperialist. The dream world will be his. Arthur was an excellent businessman; it wouldn't be difficult to make the leap.
He asked the Cobbs to come with him, but they refused, saying that they wanted to stay on the legal side and start a family. Arthur let them go; the only remorse he felt was the lost of investment opportunity, but he wasn't going to dwell on it. He wasn't eighteen and naive anymore; he was older and stronger and knew his terrible potential for power. He knew how to take and and not to give.
Arthur met Eames again, when he was twenty-five and an established figure in the underground dream-sharing community. He found Eames through another contact, who promised him the best forger in the business. As the two worked a job together, they realized how similar they had become: selfish and manipulative and unashamed of it.
Naturally, they hated each other. Exploiters hated their own kind after all. As exploiters, however, they knew that an alliance among the likes would be beneficial, and that was all they want: a profit. For Eames it was a profit of money and excitement. For Arthur it was a profit of more dreams and power. They sealed the deal with a fuck and a share of cigarette in Milan, for old times' sake.
Arthur left the hotel room first, leaving Eames behind flopped on a foreign bed. A week later, one of Eames's not-so-satisfied clients will received Eames's whereabouts from a mysterious source and seek revenge.
Eames will be forced to hide in Mombasa, where Arthur wanted him.
***
Sometimes, Arthur will stop and think. He would think about how he was broken and molded back together, but the pieces of him didn't fit quite right. He wondered if the person he became was worse than the person he had been at eighteen.
But then he thought about what he had and what he will have, and he didn't stop to think anymore.
***
Cobb killed his wife. When Arthur had heard of the news, he called someone who knew someone who could get Cobb out of the country.
When Eames had asked, Arthur simply replied. “He'll be a worthwhile investment, if given time.”
But to Cobb, Arthur said instead. “My condolences. Mal was lovely,” since Cobb insisted that his wife committed suicide. It didn't matter to Arthur, but he pretended that it did.
He took a drag from his cigarette and watched the wrecked man sitting across from him, wonderfully broken and crumbling inside. Arthur heard that he used to be a smoker, but he gave it up when he met Mal.
Arthur took the cigarette from his lips and pressed it against Cobb's.
Cobb froze. He wanted to say “no,” wanted to back away, but Arthur knew that he wasn't going to.
When Cobb took a drag of the cigarette, lips trembling and hands shaking for the nicotine, he didn't notice that Arthur was reeling him in like a fish.
Arthur smirked. Cobb was broken but Arthur was going to mold him back together until all of the pieces don't fit quite right.
He was going to teach Cobb how to take and give nothing back.