Fic: Walsingham (4 of 5)
Title: Walsingham
Authors: agaryulnaer86 and myself
Pairing/Character(s): Arthur/Eames, and Ariadne
Rating: R
Warnings: Graphic violence and disturbing imagery, the foulest of language, adult situations and sexual content, and an adorable kitten. But just the one.
Summary: Ariadne, Eames and Arthur work a job over the holidays. Hijinks ensue, including but not limited to: chicken soup, a stray kitten, avoidance of the casting couch, a clown, and a job gone a bit sideways. Also, Chrismukkah.
Author's Notes: Written for the prompts exploring dreamshare and canonverse and messy blowjobs :)
master post
part one
part two
part three
----
When the hospital room door bangs open and there is the sound of a shot and several shouts, Eames is, for a moment, absolutely convinced he’d just died. Except he knows what dying feels like, has died a thousand times over in dreams, and usually it hurts a great deal for some indeterminate length of time, and then there is the panic, and then it’s over, done, and it doesn’t hurt anymore.
Frankly, he hurts far too much to be dead right now.
He’d given up his resolve not to shout as soon as he’d felt himself beginning to bleed, at which point Eames is pretty sure he’d lost his damn mind. It’s not sensible to struggle and worsen the bleeding, some distant, rational part of his brain knows this. But Eames had flailed anyway, trying to tip the bed, to rip his own arm off to get himself out, anything, and he’d started out swearing and then progressed to near-screaming despite the scalpel at his neck. Fuck going out with dignity. He’s got to at least make Walker work for it.
And then… this.
He stops struggling when he realizes that Walker has gone out of his line of sight, even though he can feel himself bleeding. From the neck. Which is, he reflects through a continued haze of drugs, pain, and terror, probably not the best place from which to be bleeding, if he had his pick. Clearly he does not, though, and so Eames moves on to wondering what the hell is going on, turning his head fast enough at the next shot from the direction of the doorway that the glasses fall off of his face, hit the hospital bed and then fall with a clatter to the floor.
His heart is racing in terror, he’s shaking as though he’d just run a marathon, and Eames’ eyes may or may not be watering, just a little. So maybe he’s a bit biased when he comes to this conclusion, but bugger it all if Arthur standing in the doorway to the hospital room, Glock in hand, isn’t the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
Still shaking, eyes wide and almost wild, Eames stares at Arthur in something approximating shock. He’s not sure if Walker is dead or alive but Eames is unwilling or unable to focus on anything but Arthur, and how he’s here, he'd come, and before the forger’s neck had been cut enough to kill him outright. It might even be a touching, or at least climactic, moment if he could only keep his mouth shut. “Cutting it a bit close, darling.”
"Jesus fuck," Arthur manages, half-choked and half-snarling. His own heart is pounding right out of his ribcage as he crosses the floor, kicking the scalpel away from a now-disabled Walker, who isn't dead yet but who is bleeding out from his femoral artery and shot in his hand, as well, for good measure. They've got about four minutes, down here, before he'll die. Arthur wouldn't give a shit except for the part where if Walker wakes up before they do, that puts him alone up above with Ariadne, who has no idea of anything that's just happened. "Jesus fucking fuck."
He yanks a towel from the nightstand, pressing it to the wound on Eames' neck, and then bends down to kiss him perhaps harder than he should, considering the fact that Eames' throat has just been cut. "I'm sorry," he says hoarsely when he pulls back. "I'm sorry, I was- it- I was looking, and I couldn't- " He couldn't find Eames. Here he is, doing his absolute fucking best to not mess up on this job, and his best is not good enough because here's Eames bleeding, tied to a fucking bed right in front of him because Arthur couldn't get ahold of himself and deal with shit, and so didn't get to him in time.
Fuck, he is useless. He really fucking is. But he says none of this, not right now, and concentrates on undoing the straps holding Eames to the bed before picking up the Glock and offering it to the other man. Maybe it wasn't necessary to untie Eames before shooting him out of the dream, but Arthur wasn't about to leave him stuck there even that much longer.
Dazed, Eames stares at Arthur for a moment in confusion before reaching to take the gun from him. It’s not his Browning, but it’ll do, and Eames wants nothing more than to get the fuck out of here right now. He’s not picky about guns. Except everything is still a bit wobbly, and his heart is going too fast in his ears for him to be sure he heard and understood everything Arthur had said. Not to mention the bit where he’s bleeding from the neck, perhaps fatally. And when he reaches for the gun, it takes him several tries to close his fingers around it, he’s shaking so much.
“You’re sorry,” he repeats, not understanding. Arthur just saved him. He’s the one who was stupid enough to be drugged and nearly killed. Eames doesn’t understand what Arthur is talking about, but he is still shaking, and he is not about to stand in this hospital a moment longer, even to talk to Arthur. Maybe especially to talk to Arthur. There is no need to look this pathetic in front of Arthur, of all people.
But still, even as he’s lifting the gun to his head, trying to steady his hand and succeeding enough to aim from an inch away, Eames shakes his head, swallowing because he can barely speak, and says, for once in his life completely honestly, “You saved the day, love.” And then the forger pulls the trigger, and the dream begins to fall apart.
Arthur stares at him, watching, as he usually doesn't, until Eames hits the mattress again, quite dead. It's much less disturbing, somehow, and he has no idea why, but maybe it's because it comes with the knowledge that Eames is awake now, and taking care of things with Ariadne, up above, rather than still here, bleeding out slowly. He doesn't know.
Speaking of bleeding out slowly, though... he turns, as the walls begin to shake, and tiles fall from the ceiling, to Walker, who is still lying prone on the floor, surrounded by a pool of blood. He only has a moment for multiple reasons, and Arthur doesn't waste time. He lunges, grabbing the other man, physically close to his own size, and lifting him, slamming him back against the pink wall of the hospital room. He holds Walker there, the other man struggling weakly, with one hand for a moment as he reaches for the cart of surgical implements with the other, grabbing onto a jagged-edged saw and lifting it to Walker's throat.
More of the ceiling is collapsing, the floor breaking apart under their feet, as he pulls it, slowly, across Walker's jugular, never saying a word but keeping his eyes on the other man's the entire time, his own black with rage but the rest of his expression composed.
This, at least, he can do.
The blood spurts, covering Arthur's face and chest, and he shoves the other man away, into the abyss beneath their feet as the floor around them gives out. And then, closing his eyes, he lets himself fall.
Getting out of Walker’s apartment goes surprisingly easily, after the mess they’d left behind in the dream. Neither Eames nor Arthur says anything more than what’s necessary to explain what had happened to Ariadne; they’d gotten the information they’d come for, and as far as either of them seem to be concerned, that’s all Ariadne needs to know.
As for Walker, they leave him sleeping peacefully at his desk. Eames gathers Greg’s things and resolves to leave notice tomorrow by way of phone message. And if he’s in a bit more of a hurry to vacate the scene of the crime than usual, doesn’t even consider robbing the man blind while he’s there, no one says a word about it.
The cleanup, the payoff, everything else goes exactly as planned. It’s almost surreal, as though this is all the dream and the horrifying thing they’d been in with Walker was reality. It was only one in the afternoon when they woke up; it had felt like nights had passed while they’d been in the dream, even though time wasn’t nearly that distorted at only one dream level. It’s an odd sensation, of time lost, odder than usual, and Eames spends most of the day in a bit of a haze, going through the motions of completing the job properly.
It’s not until that night, after Ariadne has gone back to her room with promises to see them the next morning before she catches her plane, that Eames allows himself to revisit the dream at all. Even now, it feels like he’s holding his breath, as though at any moment Walker is going to appear and attack, like he might turn a corner, and be in some hellish hospital room…
It’s as he’s considering this possibility, the reassuring weight of his totem in his hand as he stands over the desk he’d commandeered and does nothing but stare down at it, that he hears a tiny mewling noise and starts, looking down. He finds himself face-to-face with adorable blue cross-eyes, looking up at him pleadingly, and Eames melts just a little, putting the poker chips back in his pocket before reaching down to pick up Wally. “Hello, pet,” he mumbles into the kitten’s soft fur, holding him close. Wally is squirmy and adorable and smells like kitty litter and Ariadne’s hand lotion, drowning out the lingering (if imaginary) scent of disinfectant. Eames allows himself a small smile. “Do you know, I am very glad you aren’t a zombie kitten.”
"I think we're all happy about that," Arthur says from behind him, setting down his now-packed briefcase. Everything is properly disposed of, and the space is wiped for prints, as though they'd never been here in the first place. They're going back to Arthur's apartment tonight, rather than staying in the hotel for Christmas. Arthur had felt a little shock when he'd looked at the calendar as he'd packed it up, and seen the date. He'd known, of course, that it's the twenty-third of December, but he supposes it hadn't registered. He doesn't celebrate Christmas aside from giving out a few presents, generally, to Cobb and his kids, but he usually at least marks the day. It's impossible to miss in America these days, with the constant commercialism.
His mind has been focused on the task of cleaning up and cleaning out the office space, on crafting a plan for that night and the next day, on making sure Eames was safe, even if he'd be murdered if he ever admitted that to the other man.
But perhaps murdered isn't the best word to use, today, even in his head. He flinches away from the thought, and sets the cat carrier on the desk, eyeing Eames pointedly. The rest of Wally's things are in a box next to their suitcases, by the door, ready to be carried out to the subway. It's amazing how much pet paraphernalia they've accumulated after just a couple of weeks. He doesn't have the heart to think about what will happen to Wally, now, though. Not when the kitten has just made Eames smile for the first time since early that morning.
"Ready?" he asks. He is more than ready to get home, himself. Back to his printer, and to his desktop, and everything he needs to finish off his little project tonight. But more than that, he's ready for the safety and security of his own space, to know that he won't be alone there, that he'll walk out of the kitchen and find Eames there, alive and his throat not cut.
But of course, he says none of that. "It's starting to snow. We should get going."
Eames is about to sigh and capitulate, to banish Wally to the carrier even though the little kitten hates that thing, when Arthur mentions snow. It’s true that Eames has recently been annoyed by the cold. It’s also true that he tends to gravitate towards warm climates when he can. But the fact is, Eames loves snow. Especially the first snow of the season, before it’s gotten old and everyone is tired of it, when it’s new and perfect and almost magical. He loves the way everything is a bit brighter when the sun reflects off of it, and how when it’s snowing the world is a bit quieter, like it’s muffled by the clouds in the sky and snow on the ground.
He’s well aware, he supposes, that it turns him into a bit of a kid. Especially when it happens on (or near) Christmas. He’s at the window in about two seconds flat, Wally still held in his arms. It is indeed starting to snow. Well, nothing bad can happen when it’s snowing. Eames feels a bit better about the world in general, so much so that he doesn’t even give Arthur a haughty look when he goes back to put Wally in his carrier and finds the point man staring at him like he has perhaps lost his marbles.
Silly of Arthur to wonder, of course he’s lost his marbles, but Eames is certain the snow had nothing to do with it. Eames very nearly smiles, but says nothing by way of explanation. For once in his life, Eames does not really feel like talking, even about snow. And his sense of wonder is a bit muted by the shivers he keeps getting every time he turns a corner, shivers that have nothing to do with the cold weather. “Well, in that case, let’s be off.”
Arthur's brows are raised, but he doesn't say a word, silently hefting the box of cat things along with his suitcase handle and letting Eames take the carrier. Wally is mewling unhappily inside, but he is ignored, and once they step outside he stops, to both their surprise. Of course, this is explained when Arthur notices a little paw swiping out through the holes in the carrier's door, trying to catch the snowflakes.
Okay, so that's damned cute. No arguing that.
Of course, Wally is less pleased by the subway, but that's not surprising. It's a pleasant walk through the thin layer of snow to his building, although the guard looks slightly startled to be letting them in without a car. Still, as soon as they get to the apartment and shut the door, Wally is set free to speed around the apartment at top speed, running into at least three things as Arthur sets up his laptop. "He's going to get brain damage," he observes as he turns on his monitors.
Already having fallen unceremoniously down onto the couch, Eames watches the kitten run around madly, not looking particularly afraid for the health of his brain. “Wally is very resilient,” he assures Arthur. “He’ll be all right.”
Eames is sure that Wally can bounce back from anything. But then, being a kitten, Wally doesn’t have to worry about being nearly murdered in a dream, or chased down by demonic clowns or zombie ponies. Or suddenly finding himself in a hospital with a madman. At this particular moment in time, Eames is rather jealous of Wally, really.
But then, that’s the profession he chose- they both chose. They’ve both seen and experienced disturbing things before, and this won’t be the last time, either. And it’s never enough to keep them from going back and doing it all over again. Eames knows that this won’t stop him from taking the next job, or the one after that. So perhaps he bounces back just as well as Wally does. Or perhaps he’s stark-raving mad. It’s a toss-up, really, at this point.
They sit for a while, Eames uncommonly quiet as he watches the snow falling through the window and Wally running around the apartment. As usual, after a job, Eames is a bit at loose ends, but today it’s worse than usual. And he doesn’t want to discuss it, but there’s precious little else on his mind. So eventually, it has to happen: Eames finds himself staring at Arthur over his monitors. He has no idea what the point man is doing over there, but then, he rarely does. Arthur might as well be working a spaceship for all Eames understands what he does on his computers.
“So,” the forger says, finally, starting the conversation that has to happen mainly because he wants to get it out of the way. “What are we doing about him?” Because obviously something has to be done. They both know that. Criminals they might be, but there is no way they can leave a madman like Walker to roam free.
"Working on it," Arthur says distractedly, in the middle of a thought. After a moment, though, he finishes what he'd been doing for the moment, which is to say hacking into the FBI databases, and looks up over the monitors at Eames.
"There were driver's licenses," he says briefly before turning back to the screens. "In the safe, with the scripts. Six. Young men. More or less blond and blue eyed. Built." The words are crisp and clinical, but there's an edge to them. "I'm tracking them down. There has to be a link to Walker." They cross state lines, so if he can connect them to Walker, it's a federal case and in the FBI's jurisdiction, which means he has something to work with.
And maybe he wants to go out and shoot the shit out of the fucker, but he's not going to do it that way. He's going to play by the rules, because he wants to watch Walker lose everything. He's going to do it the right way.
Because this fucker hurt Eames.
"Just give me a few hours."
Eames is silent for a moment. “Oh,” he says shortly, not quite certain how to respond to that.
Sadly, he isn’t particularly surprised to hear that Arthur had found driver’s licenses in Walker’s safe. After what had happened… he knows, can easily guess, what that means. Trophies, of course, of the men he’d killed. It doesn’t surprise Eames at all, after what had happened this morning, nor does it surprise him that he is apparently exactly Walker’s type.
It does, however, give him a shiver before he can control himself, to think that they’d been working on this mark for weeks, that he’d worked for and been around Walker for weeks, and not once had he realized that the man was a sociopath. A bit odd, certainly, obsessed with his work, but writers are artists, and Eames understands eccentric artists if he understands nothing else. He’d never suspected… they’d walked right into the subconscious of a serial murderer.
You always struggle, he’d said, and Eames hadn’t understood at the time, hadn’t cared what he was going on about, but now… as the words replay in his head, Eames can’t help that he suddenly feels a bit ill. So he remains silent for another long span of time, sure Arthur doesn’t notice, caught up as he is doing… whatever it is he’s doing. Eames is glad of that, because he shouldn’t be letting this get to him so much, shouldn’t let himself be so affected. But even knowing that he’s behaving pathetically, Eames can’t help but be glad that he’s in Arthur’s apartment, that Arthur is right there, and that he doesn’t have to go anywhere so that he doesn’t have to worry about turning any corners.
He knows a response is necessary, would be missed, and so some time later, Eames finally works himself up to a comment regarding all of that, even if Arthur is hardly paying him any mind. “Well you’re just on top of things, and here I was planning to shoot the lunatic.” He says nothing else about Walker, about the description of the men he’d killed and how they resemble him, about what Walker had said to him, or about how he’d been alone with the madman for hours every day in the real world. Perhaps it would be best, to discuss such things with Arthur, but like most difficult things in life, Eames much prefers to ignore it until it sorts itself out. So instead, he stands abruptly and says, “I’m going to make supper, pet, you’ll be having something. You’ll need fuel to work your wizardry.”
"Mmm," Arthur says distractedly, never taking his eyes from the screen. It's ten minutes later when Eames' words actually make it through to his mind, and he looks up, startled. "Thanks," he says, sounding startled.
He gets a bit of blinking for that, and he smiles a bit sheepishly. "Supper. Fuel. Wizardry." See, he heard. He pays attention, his brain just can only do so much at one time. By this point, there is a pot moving to a boil on his stove, and he doesn't question the food, just grateful that it's happening. Now that he can smell the pasta, he realizes how long it's been since the bagel he'd eaten before the job, that morning.
It's a few minutes later when a plate of pasta is set down in front of him, followed by a couple of pieces of the Texas Toast he'd had in the freezer. He smiles, actually moving his hands from the keyboard to grab Eames' elbow before he can leave. "Hey. Thanks."
Startled, Eames stops and turns to blink down at Arthur, glad that he hadn’t jumped at the unexpected touch. As with every time in the past, Arthur’s smile surprises Eames in the way it makes him look younger, transforms his normally cool, nearly expressionless face. Arthur rarely smiles, so rarely that Eames forgets how much he likes seeing Arthur smile. The dimples. Those get him every time. But he never says a word, because that is a very silly thing to adore so much.
“No problem,” he says with a bit of a smile of his own, certain that in order to make Arthur smile, he would do much more drastic things than make him supper while he works on taking down a serial murderer. “I’m not much help in your CSI bit. Least I can do.”
Arthur nods, accepting that, more or less, although he's a little bothered by that statement. "You do plenty," he says, the little furrow appearing between his brows. But Eames knows that, knows what he's capable of, and he doesn't need Arthur to reassure him. Or stroke his ego, Arthur would say, on any other occasion... but not this one. Not right now.
He lets it go, mostly because he has no idea what to say about it that won't come out sounding like some kind of an encouraging greeting card, but he doesn't let Eames pull away for another few seconds, his grip tightening on the other man's arm. He'd almost fucked up. Dream or not, he'd almost let Eames have his throat cut. He should have been there sooner. He can't fuck up like this again, he tried so fucking hard, this whole damned job, just like everything else, but no matter what he does he'll never do it right, and...
He forces his hand to let go of Eames' elbow, and forces his eyes back to the screen. He has a job to do. Wallowing in his own head isn't going to help anything. "This shouldn't take me too long." He does pause before he starts typing to take a big bite of pasta, and his eyes widen slightly in appreciation. "This is good."
Eames is already walking away by this point, his back to Arthur, so he doesn’t have to hide the small smile that he allows himself. “Don’t sound so surprised,” he says, the expected response, but really, Eames doesn’t mind hearing that Arthur thinks his pasta is good. It’s just pasta, nothing particularly exciting, but though Eames is no master chef and normally just subsists on the nearest available food that requires no work to make, cooking a decent meal is a skill he has picked up at some point in his life.
As for doing plenty, he doesn’t argue that, just sits back down at the table- he won’t take pasta to Arthur’s couch, because he doesn’t want to be murdered if he gets something on it- and eats quietly. He appreciates the sentiment, but Eames knows where his talents lie, and hacking or whatever it is Arthur is doing is not one such department. He can use a computer, can do so more than passably when it is in conjunction with forging documents, but Eames’ skills have always been put to better use on people. Machines can’t be conned by an act and a cleverly improvised story.
Eames reads people the way Arthur reads situations; that’s what he is a wizard at. And maybe that’s what’s bothering him the most about this. He didn’t have a clue that something was wrong with Walker until they made it into the man’s subconscious. He should have known. He should have seen something. But he didn’t, and then when everything went to hell, he lost his head and was caught off-guard. It doesn’t matter how he feels about hospitals; he’s a grown man, he should have been able to conquer that fear for two seconds, long enough to see what was going on. But he didn’t, and that’s how Walker got to him.
Despite not being particularly hungry anymore, Eames forces himself to eat, uncommonly silent until he finishes. Both his and Arthur’s dishes disappear quietly, and then the forger relocates to the couch, ready to wait out Arthur’s mission, which he is absolutely sure will not be over as quickly as Arthur assures him.
Sure enough, it's about six hours later, nearly midnight, when Arthur sits up perfectly straight, the opposite of how he'd been, slumped over the computer screen, and swears viciously.
"Motherfucker," he snaps, jumping up from his computer and startling both Eames and Wally, who'd been asleep on Eames' chest on the couch. "Sorry," he says distractedly, digging through his briefcase until he finds what he's hunting for, the zip drive containing the copy of Walker's hard drive, and plugs it back into his laptop, dropping back down into the chair with none of his usual grace.
Ten minutes later, in a less-angry and more sober voice, he repeats, "Motherfucker. Jesus Christ."
When he looks over his shoulder, Eames is staring at him, and he shakes his head slowly, his eyes wide. "The early scripts. The first one, about the carnival. He killed the first one in the sewers below his county fairgrounds. All of them, the scripts are modeled, at least partially, on the six deaths. Jesus Christ."
Having been asleep until Arthur had started shouting ten minutes ago, Eames just blinks at him for a minute, trying to process all of this. His scripts… are based off of people he actually killed. Aside from the fact that that’s quite stupid of him, the first thing Eames thinks is that that is almost clever, really. And then he wonders what the hell sort of movie Walker would have made about killing him- or rather, killing Greg, since Walker didn’t know who he truly was- and decides he doesn’t care if it’s clever, it’s really just quite disturbing.
Slowly, Eames sits up, lifting Wally so that the kitten can lie on his lap and go back to sleep if he so desires, instead of running around the room like someone had given him speed. For all that that knowledge is disturbing, it’s a perfect place to start an investigation, if one is the FBI.
The carnival… the first man he’d murdered had been killed at the carnival. Eames fights a shudder. This is just like when I was a kid. Greg, did I ever tell you about the summer I turned sixteen… Eames blinks the sleep away with startling ease, now that he’s thinking about this, and turns to look at Arthur. “The first one,” he says after a moment. “At the fairgrounds. How old was Walker?”
Arthur turns back to the monitor, clicks through a few screens, and then lands on the earliest of the six. "It was about a month after his sixteenth birthday. The boy went to his high school. Football player, scholarship to the state university... the works." He looks at the picture, a larger version of the one he'd seen on the driver's license in the dream... and pales a little.
Dirty blond hair, blue eyes, handsome... and bearing no little resemblance to the man sitting on the couch behind him, albeit significantly younger. "Damn."
Judging from the way Arthur looks at him after that, Eames can easily guess what the boy had looked like. He doesn’t have to guess, really; Walker had made it very clear that he has a type, and Eames- Greg- fit that type perfectly. And that is exactly what Eames has been doing his level best not to think about, so he doesn’t now.
Of course, this doesn’t help when the next thing he thinks of is the fact that Walker had been about to tell him about that summer, maybe even about the boy he’d murdered… subconsciously, the writer might have been plotting to murder him the entire time, or at least considering it. Why else would he feel it was acceptable to tell Greg something so damning?
The very idea that he might have been considering that- that it might even have eventually made its way into Walker's conscious mind- makes Eames’ mouth go a bit dry, and so he says nothing for another long minute. He would have defended himself, up here. He’s perfectly capable of handling himself; Eames has faced worse odds than one aging serial murderer in his time. In fact, he makes a habit of getting himself out of almost impossible scrapes. There’s no reason to worry about what might have been when even if it had been, Eames would have been perfectly fine.
Despite the fact that in the dream, where he has the most practice being well-prepared and defending himself, Eames had needed Arthur to save him before he’d had his throat slit by one unassuming man. “Ah,” he says, not explaining why he’d asked, or revealing the fact that he’d expected as much. “Is that enough of a link for you?”
Staring at him, Arthur nods slowly, and then turns his eyes back to the monitor, unable to bear looking at the expression, or lack of one, on Eames' face. "Yeah," he says quietly.
By the time he has the scripts and the necessary information compiled in a file and has sent it off to his friend in DC, who will then pass it on to the appropriate FBI contact, it's nearly one, and Arthur turns off his computer, turning to see if Eames is still awake.
Frankly, he can't tell. The room is dark, save for the television, and he stands, sinking down onto the edge of the couch next to the other man, who is stretched out with a cat on his lap. "It's done," he says quietly, when he sees Eames' eyes in the dim light. "There's a bed, you know."
Having been dozing by this point, Eames eyes Arthur in the dark for a moment before tilting his head enough that he can look in the general direction of the bedroom. He knows there’s a bed, but to be honest, it had never occurred to him to go there without Arthur. He’s perfectly content to be on the couch, where he could hear Arthur typing and clicking away over there, the television could distract him and Wally asleep on his lap could remind him that this is the real world and everything is fine.
Really, no reason to go into another room, to be left alone with his thoughts. Eames has always been better in company. He’s a social person.
He can’t make out the bedroom door even stretching, so eventually Eames gives up and just looks up at Arthur again. He doesn’t say that he hadn’t wanted to leave Arthur, that he’d rather stay awake right now than sleep, that he’d wanted to know when something had been done about Walker. But then, Eames is so rarely given to saying what he’s really thinking that it’s no surprise. “It’s so far away.”
"Lazy ass," Arthur say dryly, but his tone is surprisingly... gentle, of all things. He stands, and offers Eames a hand; with the kitten scooped up in one hand, Eames takes it, and Arthur leads them back toward the bedroom, willing himself not to grip the other man's fingers hard enough to break them.
It's dark in the bedroom, too, and Arthur doesn't bother with a light, doesn't even bother with pajamas, just strips out of everything but his boxers and lets them fall, to be picked up the next day. He slides between the sheets and waits for Eames to join him, trying not to think about anything but sleep.
It's difficult. Maybe impossible. But he tries.
On the other side of the bed, Eames sets Wally down on the sheets while he undresses himself, startled to find himself still wearing what he’d gone to work in today. Greg’s suit and tie, glasses tucked in his pocket. Eames pulls those out carefully, inspecting them in the darkness; up here, they’re unbroken. Eames fights the urge to check his totem, then, putting the glasses on the nearest chair and throwing his suit jacket over top of them.
The trousers, tie, and shirt follow in short order until Eames has shed Greg’s clothes as he'd shed the persona earlier, what feels like ages ago. He feels much better, more at peace with the world when he climbs into bed, then, in only his boxers, to find Wally already having jumped off and run somewhere to explore, and Arthur already a reassuring weight on the mattress.
They’re silent for a long moment, even though both men are awake and aware of that fact. There are about a million and a half things Eames could say, should say, but the forger would prefer to leave the morning behind with Greg’s clothes and glasses, and really, he can think of other important subjects to be discussed. “So is the moratorium on shagging lifted? Because this is driving me absolutely mad, I don’t know how I’ve made it this long without luring you into a locked room and hiding the key beneath my clothes.” Or in his mouth.
Arthur laughs, then, really laughs, reaching up to run a hand over his eyes. "That was not my best idea." And frankly, it hadn't even worked. He'd only insisted on it to keep himself from getting distracted and screwing up, and that hadn't exactly worked out. In all his research, he'd somehow still managed to miss the fact that Walker is a psychopath. He sighs, then looks over at Eames, finally relaxing.
"Yeah, it's lifted." He barely has time to finish the sentence before he's suddenly tackled, then, the other man on top of him, bearing his weight down into the mattress, his tongue invading Arthur's mouth with no warning.
Groaning, Arthur kisses him back, sliding a leg between Eames' much more muscular thighs, and lifting the other up to hook around Eames' hips. Best sort of distraction in the world, in his opinion.
Despite the fact that he’d been exhausted and half-asleep before they’d begun, once they’ve finished (and made a thorough mess out of the previously well-kept bed), Eames finds himself wide awake once more. To be honest, he hadn’t been even a little interested in sleeping before, but he’d given in due to exhaustion. Now that he’s awake… it’s not likely he’ll go back to sleep any time soon.
Which he’s not sure is a good thing, but it is what it is. And Arthur looks to be in about the same boat, at least once they can both breathe properly again. Soon enough Eames knows even he- who has a furnace inside of him, as Arthur puts it- will get cold, but right now he’s happy lying naked half on top of Arthur. An entire job without any sex was killing him. Killing him. And worse, he couldn’t figure out why Arthur insisted upon it. He’d respected it- he wasn’t about to force Arthur into anything he didn’t want to do- but he hadn’t understood it.
Naturally, since the phrase “curiosity killed the cat” was actually coined in reference to Eames but changed to “the cat” afterwards to aid in his relative anonymity, the “why” of all of this has been killing Eames almost as much as the lack of sex itself.
Add on top of that the fact that even before everything had gone to shit, Arthur had been much more uptight than usual and frankly focused on the job to the exclusion of everything else, much more than is normal even for Arthur or healthy for anyone... well, Eames has really been a bit worried, he’ll admit. Mention of the ban on sex brings it all rushing back, and Eames is more than happy to think about that over the other options. Once he can think again, that is.
Of course, he has to convince himself to speak instead of biting Arthur’s neck where it is not a hand’s span away from his face, but Eames does love to hear himself speak. “Arthur,” he begins, voice lower than intentional, and a bit hoarse. “Don’t take this the wrong way, darling, but you’ve been absurdly obsessive and borderline fanatical about things since we started this job.” He pauses, perfectly aware that prefacing something with ‘don’t take this the wrong way’ and then insulting him is probably not very tactful. But even so, he knows Arthur very well, he flatters himself to think, and he knows the signs of nerves in the point man. “More than usual, I mean. It’s one thing to be thorough, but it’s quite another to forget to sleep for a week and ban sexual activity with someone as attractive as me when you know very well I’d accept having a scheduled time for shagging if you insisted.”
There is a moment of silence, during which Arthur contemplates Eames' observation, and marvels that that last sentence had actually come out of the other man's mouth. But it works as Eames had intended it to, because after a pause, Arthur chuckles in genuine amusement.
"I'll keep that in mind for next time," he says dryly, turning his head to press his lips against Eames' temple. It's a simple gesture, and he doesn't make a big deal of it; he's not usually one for affectionate kissing, but right now it's not so bad. He's getting better at not feeling awkward with intimacy. It's more relaxing than stressful, these days.
"I was afraid of fucking up," he finally answers, his voice having dropped a few decibels. But his mouth isn't far from Eames' ear, so he doesn't think the other man will have any problems hearing him. "Again. It's the first time we've worked a job together since... all of this started. And you're fucking distracting, it's not your fault, but I see you and all I want to do is drag you off and get naked and I can't fucking think."
He clears his throat, shoving the hair from his forehead with his free hand and looking off to the side, at his closet. "I fucked up before, and it almost got us all dropped into Limbo. And when I was down in the tunnels, I had Mal over my freaking shoulder, telling me how much of a goddamned fuck-up I am, that I'm incompetent, useless..." That everyone would leave him, because he was worthless to them. And all he could think was that he couldn't fucking find Eames anywhere. "At the very least, I'm apparently losing my mind."
All thoughts of being thrilled that he is so distracting to Arthur fade quickly from Eames’ mind at this bit of information. He’d known, even during the Inception job, how much the fact that he hadn’t known Fischer’s subconscious was militarized before they’d gone in had killed Arthur. Cobb had gone totally off on him about it, too, despite the fact that he’d been the one who’d brought along his dead wife, a train, and nearly gotten them all dropped into Limbo. Saito had fallen into Limbo.
Eames, for one, has never forgiven Cobb. Cobb had lied to him to get him to work on the job; he’d put Eames in more danger than he’d ever signed up for, and then he’d effectively forced Eames’ hand when the forger had refused to carry on. All of that would be quite enough to have Eames holding a grudge until the end of time. But he’d also shouted at Arthur about it, as though it was the point man’s fault. And here is the evidence of how hard that had hit Arthur, who was loyal to Cobb to a bloody fault. Really, Eames would like to strangle Cobb. Might have, actually, after the job ended, if the bastard hadn’t been going home to his children. But right now, there are more important things to think about. Such as Arthur… and what he’d just said.
“Ah, we’ll revisit that last bit in a moment, darling, but first off, let me just say this one thing,” Eames begins, quietly. “It’s true that you made a mistake during that job. But it wasn’t you who nearly got us dropped into limbo. That is on your mate Cobb. Yours was a mistake, which people do make now and then, that at most could have cost us the job. His was a deliberate omission that nearly cost us all our bloody minds.”
Eames knows, of course, that Arthur will continue to blame himself no matter what he says, but the facts remain, and he’s not going to let Arthur think that anyone else blames him. He might send Cobb a subscription to Neo-Nazi newsletters and send a donation to the nearby Mormon church in his name, though. As for the rest… Eames recalls, suddenly, how Arthur had looked when he’d finally appeared in the hospital room. He’d been too drugged and too pained and terrified to really notice at the time, but Arthur had been in a state, himself.
Arthur had been followed about by Mal in the tunnels, while Eames had been dropped into a bloody hospital. Neither of those things could have come from Walker’s subconscious, but it makes no sense for them to have both suddenly lost control (or their minds) at once.
“Onward, anyway,” he says, perfectly willing to defend his position, but unwilling to battle Arthur over it. “You may have failed to notice, love, but when you found me, I was not in the tunnel I ought to have been in. I turned a corner down there and walked straight into a hospital from hell, where I promptly turned into a very good approximation of a ten year old girl, which is how Walker caught me unawares.” Eames’ voice quiets with that admission, but he says it. Arthur deserves to hear it. Eames remembers how he’d been apologizing down there. But it hadn’t been Arthur’s fault at all, it had been Eames’. Eames had been the one who hadn’t realized what Walker was, hadn’t killed himself when he had the chance. Hadn’t been able to control his fear enough to handle the situation calmly. Had walked right into the man’s trap, had apparently attracted him enough that… well. “So unless we’re both going batty simultaneously, which admittedly does have a demented sort of doomed romantic quality to it… well, I don’t think it was you losing your mind. It was just sharing a dream with a sociopath.”
"A sociopath who must have some innate skill at lucid dreaming," Arthur mumbles, staring up the ceiling, now, and considering all of that. With the stress of trying to find everything he could to pin those murders on Walker, he hadn't allowed himself to delve too deeply into the psychological reasons behind why Mal, his best friend's wife and his friend before that, had followed behind him through all of those tunnels, hitting his deepest fears and insecurities with the pinpoint accuracy of someone who knows him better than anyone actually could, outside of his own head.
The realization that the source of that misery, and of Eames' fears coming to light, hadn't been his own incompetency is an enormous relief, but still worrying, even if it does explain a lot. "With that on top of a talent for manipulating people's fears," he muses after a moment, "it's not outside the realm of possibility. I'd like to never encounter that again, though."
He wants, really desperately wants, to ask why Eames is afraid of hospitals, but he won't. Eames hasn't pried into Arthur's admissions, and he'll return the favor. He doesn't want to delve any deeper into his own insecurities, frankly, and he won't push Eames, either.
"I gave the feds everything they need to put together a case against him," he says quietly, reaching up to rest his free arm across Eames' broad back. "The last one was ten years ago. Watching his ass arrested will be a fantastic Christmas-" He pauses, then corrects himself. "-holiday present." His arm tightens around Eames. "Let him rot in prison until he dies. If they fuck it up, I'll go and shoot him."
Eames’ smile is oddly genuine for the forger. He would have settled for killing the twat, but this is somehow better, him being locked away. Paying for his crimes. Eames has never been particularly concrete on the idea of heaven or hell, so he supposes it’s sensible, to want a bloke to pay for his crimes here and now. Plus, odds are in prison, the bloke will not be on the top of the chain. Which Eames hopes means a very uncomfortable stay for Walker.
“Mmm.” His response is more of a noise than an agreement. “Lovely holiday present indeed. But if that’s the case, pet, I’d appreciate a go at him, myself. But I trust you found enough that even the government can’t muck it all up.”
With that only slightly veiled compliment, the forger stretches a little, settling in. And then, for the first time since that morning, in bed with Arthur’s arm around him, Eames feels safe enough to close his eyes and maybe even go to sleep.
----
part five
Authors: agaryulnaer86 and myself
Pairing/Character(s): Arthur/Eames, and Ariadne
Rating: R
Warnings: Graphic violence and disturbing imagery, the foulest of language, adult situations and sexual content, and an adorable kitten. But just the one.
Summary: Ariadne, Eames and Arthur work a job over the holidays. Hijinks ensue, including but not limited to: chicken soup, a stray kitten, avoidance of the casting couch, a clown, and a job gone a bit sideways. Also, Chrismukkah.
Author's Notes: Written for the prompts exploring dreamshare and canonverse and messy blowjobs :)
master post
part one
part two
part three
----
When the hospital room door bangs open and there is the sound of a shot and several shouts, Eames is, for a moment, absolutely convinced he’d just died. Except he knows what dying feels like, has died a thousand times over in dreams, and usually it hurts a great deal for some indeterminate length of time, and then there is the panic, and then it’s over, done, and it doesn’t hurt anymore.
Frankly, he hurts far too much to be dead right now.
He’d given up his resolve not to shout as soon as he’d felt himself beginning to bleed, at which point Eames is pretty sure he’d lost his damn mind. It’s not sensible to struggle and worsen the bleeding, some distant, rational part of his brain knows this. But Eames had flailed anyway, trying to tip the bed, to rip his own arm off to get himself out, anything, and he’d started out swearing and then progressed to near-screaming despite the scalpel at his neck. Fuck going out with dignity. He’s got to at least make Walker work for it.
And then… this.
He stops struggling when he realizes that Walker has gone out of his line of sight, even though he can feel himself bleeding. From the neck. Which is, he reflects through a continued haze of drugs, pain, and terror, probably not the best place from which to be bleeding, if he had his pick. Clearly he does not, though, and so Eames moves on to wondering what the hell is going on, turning his head fast enough at the next shot from the direction of the doorway that the glasses fall off of his face, hit the hospital bed and then fall with a clatter to the floor.
His heart is racing in terror, he’s shaking as though he’d just run a marathon, and Eames’ eyes may or may not be watering, just a little. So maybe he’s a bit biased when he comes to this conclusion, but bugger it all if Arthur standing in the doorway to the hospital room, Glock in hand, isn’t the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
Still shaking, eyes wide and almost wild, Eames stares at Arthur in something approximating shock. He’s not sure if Walker is dead or alive but Eames is unwilling or unable to focus on anything but Arthur, and how he’s here, he'd come, and before the forger’s neck had been cut enough to kill him outright. It might even be a touching, or at least climactic, moment if he could only keep his mouth shut. “Cutting it a bit close, darling.”
"Jesus fuck," Arthur manages, half-choked and half-snarling. His own heart is pounding right out of his ribcage as he crosses the floor, kicking the scalpel away from a now-disabled Walker, who isn't dead yet but who is bleeding out from his femoral artery and shot in his hand, as well, for good measure. They've got about four minutes, down here, before he'll die. Arthur wouldn't give a shit except for the part where if Walker wakes up before they do, that puts him alone up above with Ariadne, who has no idea of anything that's just happened. "Jesus fucking fuck."
He yanks a towel from the nightstand, pressing it to the wound on Eames' neck, and then bends down to kiss him perhaps harder than he should, considering the fact that Eames' throat has just been cut. "I'm sorry," he says hoarsely when he pulls back. "I'm sorry, I was- it- I was looking, and I couldn't- " He couldn't find Eames. Here he is, doing his absolute fucking best to not mess up on this job, and his best is not good enough because here's Eames bleeding, tied to a fucking bed right in front of him because Arthur couldn't get ahold of himself and deal with shit, and so didn't get to him in time.
Fuck, he is useless. He really fucking is. But he says none of this, not right now, and concentrates on undoing the straps holding Eames to the bed before picking up the Glock and offering it to the other man. Maybe it wasn't necessary to untie Eames before shooting him out of the dream, but Arthur wasn't about to leave him stuck there even that much longer.
Dazed, Eames stares at Arthur for a moment in confusion before reaching to take the gun from him. It’s not his Browning, but it’ll do, and Eames wants nothing more than to get the fuck out of here right now. He’s not picky about guns. Except everything is still a bit wobbly, and his heart is going too fast in his ears for him to be sure he heard and understood everything Arthur had said. Not to mention the bit where he’s bleeding from the neck, perhaps fatally. And when he reaches for the gun, it takes him several tries to close his fingers around it, he’s shaking so much.
“You’re sorry,” he repeats, not understanding. Arthur just saved him. He’s the one who was stupid enough to be drugged and nearly killed. Eames doesn’t understand what Arthur is talking about, but he is still shaking, and he is not about to stand in this hospital a moment longer, even to talk to Arthur. Maybe especially to talk to Arthur. There is no need to look this pathetic in front of Arthur, of all people.
But still, even as he’s lifting the gun to his head, trying to steady his hand and succeeding enough to aim from an inch away, Eames shakes his head, swallowing because he can barely speak, and says, for once in his life completely honestly, “You saved the day, love.” And then the forger pulls the trigger, and the dream begins to fall apart.
Arthur stares at him, watching, as he usually doesn't, until Eames hits the mattress again, quite dead. It's much less disturbing, somehow, and he has no idea why, but maybe it's because it comes with the knowledge that Eames is awake now, and taking care of things with Ariadne, up above, rather than still here, bleeding out slowly. He doesn't know.
Speaking of bleeding out slowly, though... he turns, as the walls begin to shake, and tiles fall from the ceiling, to Walker, who is still lying prone on the floor, surrounded by a pool of blood. He only has a moment for multiple reasons, and Arthur doesn't waste time. He lunges, grabbing the other man, physically close to his own size, and lifting him, slamming him back against the pink wall of the hospital room. He holds Walker there, the other man struggling weakly, with one hand for a moment as he reaches for the cart of surgical implements with the other, grabbing onto a jagged-edged saw and lifting it to Walker's throat.
More of the ceiling is collapsing, the floor breaking apart under their feet, as he pulls it, slowly, across Walker's jugular, never saying a word but keeping his eyes on the other man's the entire time, his own black with rage but the rest of his expression composed.
This, at least, he can do.
The blood spurts, covering Arthur's face and chest, and he shoves the other man away, into the abyss beneath their feet as the floor around them gives out. And then, closing his eyes, he lets himself fall.
Getting out of Walker’s apartment goes surprisingly easily, after the mess they’d left behind in the dream. Neither Eames nor Arthur says anything more than what’s necessary to explain what had happened to Ariadne; they’d gotten the information they’d come for, and as far as either of them seem to be concerned, that’s all Ariadne needs to know.
As for Walker, they leave him sleeping peacefully at his desk. Eames gathers Greg’s things and resolves to leave notice tomorrow by way of phone message. And if he’s in a bit more of a hurry to vacate the scene of the crime than usual, doesn’t even consider robbing the man blind while he’s there, no one says a word about it.
The cleanup, the payoff, everything else goes exactly as planned. It’s almost surreal, as though this is all the dream and the horrifying thing they’d been in with Walker was reality. It was only one in the afternoon when they woke up; it had felt like nights had passed while they’d been in the dream, even though time wasn’t nearly that distorted at only one dream level. It’s an odd sensation, of time lost, odder than usual, and Eames spends most of the day in a bit of a haze, going through the motions of completing the job properly.
It’s not until that night, after Ariadne has gone back to her room with promises to see them the next morning before she catches her plane, that Eames allows himself to revisit the dream at all. Even now, it feels like he’s holding his breath, as though at any moment Walker is going to appear and attack, like he might turn a corner, and be in some hellish hospital room…
It’s as he’s considering this possibility, the reassuring weight of his totem in his hand as he stands over the desk he’d commandeered and does nothing but stare down at it, that he hears a tiny mewling noise and starts, looking down. He finds himself face-to-face with adorable blue cross-eyes, looking up at him pleadingly, and Eames melts just a little, putting the poker chips back in his pocket before reaching down to pick up Wally. “Hello, pet,” he mumbles into the kitten’s soft fur, holding him close. Wally is squirmy and adorable and smells like kitty litter and Ariadne’s hand lotion, drowning out the lingering (if imaginary) scent of disinfectant. Eames allows himself a small smile. “Do you know, I am very glad you aren’t a zombie kitten.”
"I think we're all happy about that," Arthur says from behind him, setting down his now-packed briefcase. Everything is properly disposed of, and the space is wiped for prints, as though they'd never been here in the first place. They're going back to Arthur's apartment tonight, rather than staying in the hotel for Christmas. Arthur had felt a little shock when he'd looked at the calendar as he'd packed it up, and seen the date. He'd known, of course, that it's the twenty-third of December, but he supposes it hadn't registered. He doesn't celebrate Christmas aside from giving out a few presents, generally, to Cobb and his kids, but he usually at least marks the day. It's impossible to miss in America these days, with the constant commercialism.
His mind has been focused on the task of cleaning up and cleaning out the office space, on crafting a plan for that night and the next day, on making sure Eames was safe, even if he'd be murdered if he ever admitted that to the other man.
But perhaps murdered isn't the best word to use, today, even in his head. He flinches away from the thought, and sets the cat carrier on the desk, eyeing Eames pointedly. The rest of Wally's things are in a box next to their suitcases, by the door, ready to be carried out to the subway. It's amazing how much pet paraphernalia they've accumulated after just a couple of weeks. He doesn't have the heart to think about what will happen to Wally, now, though. Not when the kitten has just made Eames smile for the first time since early that morning.
"Ready?" he asks. He is more than ready to get home, himself. Back to his printer, and to his desktop, and everything he needs to finish off his little project tonight. But more than that, he's ready for the safety and security of his own space, to know that he won't be alone there, that he'll walk out of the kitchen and find Eames there, alive and his throat not cut.
But of course, he says none of that. "It's starting to snow. We should get going."
Eames is about to sigh and capitulate, to banish Wally to the carrier even though the little kitten hates that thing, when Arthur mentions snow. It’s true that Eames has recently been annoyed by the cold. It’s also true that he tends to gravitate towards warm climates when he can. But the fact is, Eames loves snow. Especially the first snow of the season, before it’s gotten old and everyone is tired of it, when it’s new and perfect and almost magical. He loves the way everything is a bit brighter when the sun reflects off of it, and how when it’s snowing the world is a bit quieter, like it’s muffled by the clouds in the sky and snow on the ground.
He’s well aware, he supposes, that it turns him into a bit of a kid. Especially when it happens on (or near) Christmas. He’s at the window in about two seconds flat, Wally still held in his arms. It is indeed starting to snow. Well, nothing bad can happen when it’s snowing. Eames feels a bit better about the world in general, so much so that he doesn’t even give Arthur a haughty look when he goes back to put Wally in his carrier and finds the point man staring at him like he has perhaps lost his marbles.
Silly of Arthur to wonder, of course he’s lost his marbles, but Eames is certain the snow had nothing to do with it. Eames very nearly smiles, but says nothing by way of explanation. For once in his life, Eames does not really feel like talking, even about snow. And his sense of wonder is a bit muted by the shivers he keeps getting every time he turns a corner, shivers that have nothing to do with the cold weather. “Well, in that case, let’s be off.”
Arthur's brows are raised, but he doesn't say a word, silently hefting the box of cat things along with his suitcase handle and letting Eames take the carrier. Wally is mewling unhappily inside, but he is ignored, and once they step outside he stops, to both their surprise. Of course, this is explained when Arthur notices a little paw swiping out through the holes in the carrier's door, trying to catch the snowflakes.
Okay, so that's damned cute. No arguing that.
Of course, Wally is less pleased by the subway, but that's not surprising. It's a pleasant walk through the thin layer of snow to his building, although the guard looks slightly startled to be letting them in without a car. Still, as soon as they get to the apartment and shut the door, Wally is set free to speed around the apartment at top speed, running into at least three things as Arthur sets up his laptop. "He's going to get brain damage," he observes as he turns on his monitors.
Already having fallen unceremoniously down onto the couch, Eames watches the kitten run around madly, not looking particularly afraid for the health of his brain. “Wally is very resilient,” he assures Arthur. “He’ll be all right.”
Eames is sure that Wally can bounce back from anything. But then, being a kitten, Wally doesn’t have to worry about being nearly murdered in a dream, or chased down by demonic clowns or zombie ponies. Or suddenly finding himself in a hospital with a madman. At this particular moment in time, Eames is rather jealous of Wally, really.
But then, that’s the profession he chose- they both chose. They’ve both seen and experienced disturbing things before, and this won’t be the last time, either. And it’s never enough to keep them from going back and doing it all over again. Eames knows that this won’t stop him from taking the next job, or the one after that. So perhaps he bounces back just as well as Wally does. Or perhaps he’s stark-raving mad. It’s a toss-up, really, at this point.
They sit for a while, Eames uncommonly quiet as he watches the snow falling through the window and Wally running around the apartment. As usual, after a job, Eames is a bit at loose ends, but today it’s worse than usual. And he doesn’t want to discuss it, but there’s precious little else on his mind. So eventually, it has to happen: Eames finds himself staring at Arthur over his monitors. He has no idea what the point man is doing over there, but then, he rarely does. Arthur might as well be working a spaceship for all Eames understands what he does on his computers.
“So,” the forger says, finally, starting the conversation that has to happen mainly because he wants to get it out of the way. “What are we doing about him?” Because obviously something has to be done. They both know that. Criminals they might be, but there is no way they can leave a madman like Walker to roam free.
"Working on it," Arthur says distractedly, in the middle of a thought. After a moment, though, he finishes what he'd been doing for the moment, which is to say hacking into the FBI databases, and looks up over the monitors at Eames.
"There were driver's licenses," he says briefly before turning back to the screens. "In the safe, with the scripts. Six. Young men. More or less blond and blue eyed. Built." The words are crisp and clinical, but there's an edge to them. "I'm tracking them down. There has to be a link to Walker." They cross state lines, so if he can connect them to Walker, it's a federal case and in the FBI's jurisdiction, which means he has something to work with.
And maybe he wants to go out and shoot the shit out of the fucker, but he's not going to do it that way. He's going to play by the rules, because he wants to watch Walker lose everything. He's going to do it the right way.
Because this fucker hurt Eames.
"Just give me a few hours."
Eames is silent for a moment. “Oh,” he says shortly, not quite certain how to respond to that.
Sadly, he isn’t particularly surprised to hear that Arthur had found driver’s licenses in Walker’s safe. After what had happened… he knows, can easily guess, what that means. Trophies, of course, of the men he’d killed. It doesn’t surprise Eames at all, after what had happened this morning, nor does it surprise him that he is apparently exactly Walker’s type.
It does, however, give him a shiver before he can control himself, to think that they’d been working on this mark for weeks, that he’d worked for and been around Walker for weeks, and not once had he realized that the man was a sociopath. A bit odd, certainly, obsessed with his work, but writers are artists, and Eames understands eccentric artists if he understands nothing else. He’d never suspected… they’d walked right into the subconscious of a serial murderer.
You always struggle, he’d said, and Eames hadn’t understood at the time, hadn’t cared what he was going on about, but now… as the words replay in his head, Eames can’t help that he suddenly feels a bit ill. So he remains silent for another long span of time, sure Arthur doesn’t notice, caught up as he is doing… whatever it is he’s doing. Eames is glad of that, because he shouldn’t be letting this get to him so much, shouldn’t let himself be so affected. But even knowing that he’s behaving pathetically, Eames can’t help but be glad that he’s in Arthur’s apartment, that Arthur is right there, and that he doesn’t have to go anywhere so that he doesn’t have to worry about turning any corners.
He knows a response is necessary, would be missed, and so some time later, Eames finally works himself up to a comment regarding all of that, even if Arthur is hardly paying him any mind. “Well you’re just on top of things, and here I was planning to shoot the lunatic.” He says nothing else about Walker, about the description of the men he’d killed and how they resemble him, about what Walker had said to him, or about how he’d been alone with the madman for hours every day in the real world. Perhaps it would be best, to discuss such things with Arthur, but like most difficult things in life, Eames much prefers to ignore it until it sorts itself out. So instead, he stands abruptly and says, “I’m going to make supper, pet, you’ll be having something. You’ll need fuel to work your wizardry.”
"Mmm," Arthur says distractedly, never taking his eyes from the screen. It's ten minutes later when Eames' words actually make it through to his mind, and he looks up, startled. "Thanks," he says, sounding startled.
He gets a bit of blinking for that, and he smiles a bit sheepishly. "Supper. Fuel. Wizardry." See, he heard. He pays attention, his brain just can only do so much at one time. By this point, there is a pot moving to a boil on his stove, and he doesn't question the food, just grateful that it's happening. Now that he can smell the pasta, he realizes how long it's been since the bagel he'd eaten before the job, that morning.
It's a few minutes later when a plate of pasta is set down in front of him, followed by a couple of pieces of the Texas Toast he'd had in the freezer. He smiles, actually moving his hands from the keyboard to grab Eames' elbow before he can leave. "Hey. Thanks."
Startled, Eames stops and turns to blink down at Arthur, glad that he hadn’t jumped at the unexpected touch. As with every time in the past, Arthur’s smile surprises Eames in the way it makes him look younger, transforms his normally cool, nearly expressionless face. Arthur rarely smiles, so rarely that Eames forgets how much he likes seeing Arthur smile. The dimples. Those get him every time. But he never says a word, because that is a very silly thing to adore so much.
“No problem,” he says with a bit of a smile of his own, certain that in order to make Arthur smile, he would do much more drastic things than make him supper while he works on taking down a serial murderer. “I’m not much help in your CSI bit. Least I can do.”
Arthur nods, accepting that, more or less, although he's a little bothered by that statement. "You do plenty," he says, the little furrow appearing between his brows. But Eames knows that, knows what he's capable of, and he doesn't need Arthur to reassure him. Or stroke his ego, Arthur would say, on any other occasion... but not this one. Not right now.
He lets it go, mostly because he has no idea what to say about it that won't come out sounding like some kind of an encouraging greeting card, but he doesn't let Eames pull away for another few seconds, his grip tightening on the other man's arm. He'd almost fucked up. Dream or not, he'd almost let Eames have his throat cut. He should have been there sooner. He can't fuck up like this again, he tried so fucking hard, this whole damned job, just like everything else, but no matter what he does he'll never do it right, and...
He forces his hand to let go of Eames' elbow, and forces his eyes back to the screen. He has a job to do. Wallowing in his own head isn't going to help anything. "This shouldn't take me too long." He does pause before he starts typing to take a big bite of pasta, and his eyes widen slightly in appreciation. "This is good."
Eames is already walking away by this point, his back to Arthur, so he doesn’t have to hide the small smile that he allows himself. “Don’t sound so surprised,” he says, the expected response, but really, Eames doesn’t mind hearing that Arthur thinks his pasta is good. It’s just pasta, nothing particularly exciting, but though Eames is no master chef and normally just subsists on the nearest available food that requires no work to make, cooking a decent meal is a skill he has picked up at some point in his life.
As for doing plenty, he doesn’t argue that, just sits back down at the table- he won’t take pasta to Arthur’s couch, because he doesn’t want to be murdered if he gets something on it- and eats quietly. He appreciates the sentiment, but Eames knows where his talents lie, and hacking or whatever it is Arthur is doing is not one such department. He can use a computer, can do so more than passably when it is in conjunction with forging documents, but Eames’ skills have always been put to better use on people. Machines can’t be conned by an act and a cleverly improvised story.
Eames reads people the way Arthur reads situations; that’s what he is a wizard at. And maybe that’s what’s bothering him the most about this. He didn’t have a clue that something was wrong with Walker until they made it into the man’s subconscious. He should have known. He should have seen something. But he didn’t, and then when everything went to hell, he lost his head and was caught off-guard. It doesn’t matter how he feels about hospitals; he’s a grown man, he should have been able to conquer that fear for two seconds, long enough to see what was going on. But he didn’t, and that’s how Walker got to him.
Despite not being particularly hungry anymore, Eames forces himself to eat, uncommonly silent until he finishes. Both his and Arthur’s dishes disappear quietly, and then the forger relocates to the couch, ready to wait out Arthur’s mission, which he is absolutely sure will not be over as quickly as Arthur assures him.
Sure enough, it's about six hours later, nearly midnight, when Arthur sits up perfectly straight, the opposite of how he'd been, slumped over the computer screen, and swears viciously.
"Motherfucker," he snaps, jumping up from his computer and startling both Eames and Wally, who'd been asleep on Eames' chest on the couch. "Sorry," he says distractedly, digging through his briefcase until he finds what he's hunting for, the zip drive containing the copy of Walker's hard drive, and plugs it back into his laptop, dropping back down into the chair with none of his usual grace.
Ten minutes later, in a less-angry and more sober voice, he repeats, "Motherfucker. Jesus Christ."
When he looks over his shoulder, Eames is staring at him, and he shakes his head slowly, his eyes wide. "The early scripts. The first one, about the carnival. He killed the first one in the sewers below his county fairgrounds. All of them, the scripts are modeled, at least partially, on the six deaths. Jesus Christ."
Having been asleep until Arthur had started shouting ten minutes ago, Eames just blinks at him for a minute, trying to process all of this. His scripts… are based off of people he actually killed. Aside from the fact that that’s quite stupid of him, the first thing Eames thinks is that that is almost clever, really. And then he wonders what the hell sort of movie Walker would have made about killing him- or rather, killing Greg, since Walker didn’t know who he truly was- and decides he doesn’t care if it’s clever, it’s really just quite disturbing.
Slowly, Eames sits up, lifting Wally so that the kitten can lie on his lap and go back to sleep if he so desires, instead of running around the room like someone had given him speed. For all that that knowledge is disturbing, it’s a perfect place to start an investigation, if one is the FBI.
The carnival… the first man he’d murdered had been killed at the carnival. Eames fights a shudder. This is just like when I was a kid. Greg, did I ever tell you about the summer I turned sixteen… Eames blinks the sleep away with startling ease, now that he’s thinking about this, and turns to look at Arthur. “The first one,” he says after a moment. “At the fairgrounds. How old was Walker?”
Arthur turns back to the monitor, clicks through a few screens, and then lands on the earliest of the six. "It was about a month after his sixteenth birthday. The boy went to his high school. Football player, scholarship to the state university... the works." He looks at the picture, a larger version of the one he'd seen on the driver's license in the dream... and pales a little.
Dirty blond hair, blue eyes, handsome... and bearing no little resemblance to the man sitting on the couch behind him, albeit significantly younger. "Damn."
Judging from the way Arthur looks at him after that, Eames can easily guess what the boy had looked like. He doesn’t have to guess, really; Walker had made it very clear that he has a type, and Eames- Greg- fit that type perfectly. And that is exactly what Eames has been doing his level best not to think about, so he doesn’t now.
Of course, this doesn’t help when the next thing he thinks of is the fact that Walker had been about to tell him about that summer, maybe even about the boy he’d murdered… subconsciously, the writer might have been plotting to murder him the entire time, or at least considering it. Why else would he feel it was acceptable to tell Greg something so damning?
The very idea that he might have been considering that- that it might even have eventually made its way into Walker's conscious mind- makes Eames’ mouth go a bit dry, and so he says nothing for another long minute. He would have defended himself, up here. He’s perfectly capable of handling himself; Eames has faced worse odds than one aging serial murderer in his time. In fact, he makes a habit of getting himself out of almost impossible scrapes. There’s no reason to worry about what might have been when even if it had been, Eames would have been perfectly fine.
Despite the fact that in the dream, where he has the most practice being well-prepared and defending himself, Eames had needed Arthur to save him before he’d had his throat slit by one unassuming man. “Ah,” he says, not explaining why he’d asked, or revealing the fact that he’d expected as much. “Is that enough of a link for you?”
Staring at him, Arthur nods slowly, and then turns his eyes back to the monitor, unable to bear looking at the expression, or lack of one, on Eames' face. "Yeah," he says quietly.
By the time he has the scripts and the necessary information compiled in a file and has sent it off to his friend in DC, who will then pass it on to the appropriate FBI contact, it's nearly one, and Arthur turns off his computer, turning to see if Eames is still awake.
Frankly, he can't tell. The room is dark, save for the television, and he stands, sinking down onto the edge of the couch next to the other man, who is stretched out with a cat on his lap. "It's done," he says quietly, when he sees Eames' eyes in the dim light. "There's a bed, you know."
Having been dozing by this point, Eames eyes Arthur in the dark for a moment before tilting his head enough that he can look in the general direction of the bedroom. He knows there’s a bed, but to be honest, it had never occurred to him to go there without Arthur. He’s perfectly content to be on the couch, where he could hear Arthur typing and clicking away over there, the television could distract him and Wally asleep on his lap could remind him that this is the real world and everything is fine.
Really, no reason to go into another room, to be left alone with his thoughts. Eames has always been better in company. He’s a social person.
He can’t make out the bedroom door even stretching, so eventually Eames gives up and just looks up at Arthur again. He doesn’t say that he hadn’t wanted to leave Arthur, that he’d rather stay awake right now than sleep, that he’d wanted to know when something had been done about Walker. But then, Eames is so rarely given to saying what he’s really thinking that it’s no surprise. “It’s so far away.”
"Lazy ass," Arthur say dryly, but his tone is surprisingly... gentle, of all things. He stands, and offers Eames a hand; with the kitten scooped up in one hand, Eames takes it, and Arthur leads them back toward the bedroom, willing himself not to grip the other man's fingers hard enough to break them.
It's dark in the bedroom, too, and Arthur doesn't bother with a light, doesn't even bother with pajamas, just strips out of everything but his boxers and lets them fall, to be picked up the next day. He slides between the sheets and waits for Eames to join him, trying not to think about anything but sleep.
It's difficult. Maybe impossible. But he tries.
On the other side of the bed, Eames sets Wally down on the sheets while he undresses himself, startled to find himself still wearing what he’d gone to work in today. Greg’s suit and tie, glasses tucked in his pocket. Eames pulls those out carefully, inspecting them in the darkness; up here, they’re unbroken. Eames fights the urge to check his totem, then, putting the glasses on the nearest chair and throwing his suit jacket over top of them.
The trousers, tie, and shirt follow in short order until Eames has shed Greg’s clothes as he'd shed the persona earlier, what feels like ages ago. He feels much better, more at peace with the world when he climbs into bed, then, in only his boxers, to find Wally already having jumped off and run somewhere to explore, and Arthur already a reassuring weight on the mattress.
They’re silent for a long moment, even though both men are awake and aware of that fact. There are about a million and a half things Eames could say, should say, but the forger would prefer to leave the morning behind with Greg’s clothes and glasses, and really, he can think of other important subjects to be discussed. “So is the moratorium on shagging lifted? Because this is driving me absolutely mad, I don’t know how I’ve made it this long without luring you into a locked room and hiding the key beneath my clothes.” Or in his mouth.
Arthur laughs, then, really laughs, reaching up to run a hand over his eyes. "That was not my best idea." And frankly, it hadn't even worked. He'd only insisted on it to keep himself from getting distracted and screwing up, and that hadn't exactly worked out. In all his research, he'd somehow still managed to miss the fact that Walker is a psychopath. He sighs, then looks over at Eames, finally relaxing.
"Yeah, it's lifted." He barely has time to finish the sentence before he's suddenly tackled, then, the other man on top of him, bearing his weight down into the mattress, his tongue invading Arthur's mouth with no warning.
Groaning, Arthur kisses him back, sliding a leg between Eames' much more muscular thighs, and lifting the other up to hook around Eames' hips. Best sort of distraction in the world, in his opinion.
Despite the fact that he’d been exhausted and half-asleep before they’d begun, once they’ve finished (and made a thorough mess out of the previously well-kept bed), Eames finds himself wide awake once more. To be honest, he hadn’t been even a little interested in sleeping before, but he’d given in due to exhaustion. Now that he’s awake… it’s not likely he’ll go back to sleep any time soon.
Which he’s not sure is a good thing, but it is what it is. And Arthur looks to be in about the same boat, at least once they can both breathe properly again. Soon enough Eames knows even he- who has a furnace inside of him, as Arthur puts it- will get cold, but right now he’s happy lying naked half on top of Arthur. An entire job without any sex was killing him. Killing him. And worse, he couldn’t figure out why Arthur insisted upon it. He’d respected it- he wasn’t about to force Arthur into anything he didn’t want to do- but he hadn’t understood it.
Naturally, since the phrase “curiosity killed the cat” was actually coined in reference to Eames but changed to “the cat” afterwards to aid in his relative anonymity, the “why” of all of this has been killing Eames almost as much as the lack of sex itself.
Add on top of that the fact that even before everything had gone to shit, Arthur had been much more uptight than usual and frankly focused on the job to the exclusion of everything else, much more than is normal even for Arthur or healthy for anyone... well, Eames has really been a bit worried, he’ll admit. Mention of the ban on sex brings it all rushing back, and Eames is more than happy to think about that over the other options. Once he can think again, that is.
Of course, he has to convince himself to speak instead of biting Arthur’s neck where it is not a hand’s span away from his face, but Eames does love to hear himself speak. “Arthur,” he begins, voice lower than intentional, and a bit hoarse. “Don’t take this the wrong way, darling, but you’ve been absurdly obsessive and borderline fanatical about things since we started this job.” He pauses, perfectly aware that prefacing something with ‘don’t take this the wrong way’ and then insulting him is probably not very tactful. But even so, he knows Arthur very well, he flatters himself to think, and he knows the signs of nerves in the point man. “More than usual, I mean. It’s one thing to be thorough, but it’s quite another to forget to sleep for a week and ban sexual activity with someone as attractive as me when you know very well I’d accept having a scheduled time for shagging if you insisted.”
There is a moment of silence, during which Arthur contemplates Eames' observation, and marvels that that last sentence had actually come out of the other man's mouth. But it works as Eames had intended it to, because after a pause, Arthur chuckles in genuine amusement.
"I'll keep that in mind for next time," he says dryly, turning his head to press his lips against Eames' temple. It's a simple gesture, and he doesn't make a big deal of it; he's not usually one for affectionate kissing, but right now it's not so bad. He's getting better at not feeling awkward with intimacy. It's more relaxing than stressful, these days.
"I was afraid of fucking up," he finally answers, his voice having dropped a few decibels. But his mouth isn't far from Eames' ear, so he doesn't think the other man will have any problems hearing him. "Again. It's the first time we've worked a job together since... all of this started. And you're fucking distracting, it's not your fault, but I see you and all I want to do is drag you off and get naked and I can't fucking think."
He clears his throat, shoving the hair from his forehead with his free hand and looking off to the side, at his closet. "I fucked up before, and it almost got us all dropped into Limbo. And when I was down in the tunnels, I had Mal over my freaking shoulder, telling me how much of a goddamned fuck-up I am, that I'm incompetent, useless..." That everyone would leave him, because he was worthless to them. And all he could think was that he couldn't fucking find Eames anywhere. "At the very least, I'm apparently losing my mind."
All thoughts of being thrilled that he is so distracting to Arthur fade quickly from Eames’ mind at this bit of information. He’d known, even during the Inception job, how much the fact that he hadn’t known Fischer’s subconscious was militarized before they’d gone in had killed Arthur. Cobb had gone totally off on him about it, too, despite the fact that he’d been the one who’d brought along his dead wife, a train, and nearly gotten them all dropped into Limbo. Saito had fallen into Limbo.
Eames, for one, has never forgiven Cobb. Cobb had lied to him to get him to work on the job; he’d put Eames in more danger than he’d ever signed up for, and then he’d effectively forced Eames’ hand when the forger had refused to carry on. All of that would be quite enough to have Eames holding a grudge until the end of time. But he’d also shouted at Arthur about it, as though it was the point man’s fault. And here is the evidence of how hard that had hit Arthur, who was loyal to Cobb to a bloody fault. Really, Eames would like to strangle Cobb. Might have, actually, after the job ended, if the bastard hadn’t been going home to his children. But right now, there are more important things to think about. Such as Arthur… and what he’d just said.
“Ah, we’ll revisit that last bit in a moment, darling, but first off, let me just say this one thing,” Eames begins, quietly. “It’s true that you made a mistake during that job. But it wasn’t you who nearly got us dropped into limbo. That is on your mate Cobb. Yours was a mistake, which people do make now and then, that at most could have cost us the job. His was a deliberate omission that nearly cost us all our bloody minds.”
Eames knows, of course, that Arthur will continue to blame himself no matter what he says, but the facts remain, and he’s not going to let Arthur think that anyone else blames him. He might send Cobb a subscription to Neo-Nazi newsletters and send a donation to the nearby Mormon church in his name, though. As for the rest… Eames recalls, suddenly, how Arthur had looked when he’d finally appeared in the hospital room. He’d been too drugged and too pained and terrified to really notice at the time, but Arthur had been in a state, himself.
Arthur had been followed about by Mal in the tunnels, while Eames had been dropped into a bloody hospital. Neither of those things could have come from Walker’s subconscious, but it makes no sense for them to have both suddenly lost control (or their minds) at once.
“Onward, anyway,” he says, perfectly willing to defend his position, but unwilling to battle Arthur over it. “You may have failed to notice, love, but when you found me, I was not in the tunnel I ought to have been in. I turned a corner down there and walked straight into a hospital from hell, where I promptly turned into a very good approximation of a ten year old girl, which is how Walker caught me unawares.” Eames’ voice quiets with that admission, but he says it. Arthur deserves to hear it. Eames remembers how he’d been apologizing down there. But it hadn’t been Arthur’s fault at all, it had been Eames’. Eames had been the one who hadn’t realized what Walker was, hadn’t killed himself when he had the chance. Hadn’t been able to control his fear enough to handle the situation calmly. Had walked right into the man’s trap, had apparently attracted him enough that… well. “So unless we’re both going batty simultaneously, which admittedly does have a demented sort of doomed romantic quality to it… well, I don’t think it was you losing your mind. It was just sharing a dream with a sociopath.”
"A sociopath who must have some innate skill at lucid dreaming," Arthur mumbles, staring up the ceiling, now, and considering all of that. With the stress of trying to find everything he could to pin those murders on Walker, he hadn't allowed himself to delve too deeply into the psychological reasons behind why Mal, his best friend's wife and his friend before that, had followed behind him through all of those tunnels, hitting his deepest fears and insecurities with the pinpoint accuracy of someone who knows him better than anyone actually could, outside of his own head.
The realization that the source of that misery, and of Eames' fears coming to light, hadn't been his own incompetency is an enormous relief, but still worrying, even if it does explain a lot. "With that on top of a talent for manipulating people's fears," he muses after a moment, "it's not outside the realm of possibility. I'd like to never encounter that again, though."
He wants, really desperately wants, to ask why Eames is afraid of hospitals, but he won't. Eames hasn't pried into Arthur's admissions, and he'll return the favor. He doesn't want to delve any deeper into his own insecurities, frankly, and he won't push Eames, either.
"I gave the feds everything they need to put together a case against him," he says quietly, reaching up to rest his free arm across Eames' broad back. "The last one was ten years ago. Watching his ass arrested will be a fantastic Christmas-" He pauses, then corrects himself. "-holiday present." His arm tightens around Eames. "Let him rot in prison until he dies. If they fuck it up, I'll go and shoot him."
Eames’ smile is oddly genuine for the forger. He would have settled for killing the twat, but this is somehow better, him being locked away. Paying for his crimes. Eames has never been particularly concrete on the idea of heaven or hell, so he supposes it’s sensible, to want a bloke to pay for his crimes here and now. Plus, odds are in prison, the bloke will not be on the top of the chain. Which Eames hopes means a very uncomfortable stay for Walker.
“Mmm.” His response is more of a noise than an agreement. “Lovely holiday present indeed. But if that’s the case, pet, I’d appreciate a go at him, myself. But I trust you found enough that even the government can’t muck it all up.”
With that only slightly veiled compliment, the forger stretches a little, settling in. And then, for the first time since that morning, in bed with Arthur’s arm around him, Eames feels safe enough to close his eyes and maybe even go to sleep.
----
part five