When You Grow Up Your Heart Dies 13/20
Fandom: Inception x Dark!Breakfast Club
Pairing(s): Arthur/Eames, Cobb/Mal
Summary: They went into detention with nothing in common. They witnessed something frightening that may or may not have actually happened: a dead body and blood on the walls spelling 528491. Can a nerd, a jock, a criminal, a pampered prince and basket case, brave crossing the social cliques in order to stick together and solve this mystery?
[previous parts are all tagged "breakfast club"]
....
Swim practice at six o’clock in the morning was just what Eames needed. They were first in the gym-O Eleven, captain after all, it was kinda necessary-so with a parting kiss, Arthur curled up on a bench in the lobby and went to sleep while the jock changed quickly and dove into the inviting waters. One by one, the others on the team showed up, and Eames worked with the coach to whip them into spirits. Saito had apparently called with a doctor’s excuse to get out of the entire rest of the season, so his replacement eagerly shaped up in his lane.
Bobby Fischer didn’t arrive, nor call with an excuse. He simply didn’t show up.
Eames allowed Coach to rant about the absences-personally, the captain was relieved and terrified. On one hand, he wouldn’t know how to look at Bobby. The first couple of pages of the journal Eames had heard in the car was nothing spectacular (except for being spectacularly private) so Eames felt intensely guilty. And then there was the fact that Bobby would have discovered his room trashed and his journal missing and know that someone now knew whatever it was that the others had found deeper in the journal that was such an exciting development. And whatever it was, it was worth skipping practice to sort out.
And Saito was most likely with the others passed out and drooling on his game room floor with pages of the journal all around them, but he could be running for his life-they all could-Bobby could have tracked them down and they could be running for their lives.
Silly, but Eames couldn’t bring himself to dismiss it. Not with Bobby’s old number written in Tiffany’s blood flashing before his eyes every time he closed his eyes.
So, admittedly, even the captain’s focus was off today as he obsessed over what could have been in the book, and by the end of the morning workout, Coach was not happy at all. Eames didn’t care, winning a stupid trophy was the last thing on his mind.
He felt sick. What was in the journal? Arthur had tried texting for more details in the car, but it was too early, no one answered them. Eames wondered if any replies had come yet-it was the first thing he asked when he met Arthur in the front lobby after practice.
The basket case sat in the center of the school insignia on the rug, spinning his phone around and around as if he were playing spin the bottle, but he emitted noises like grenades exploding every time the phone came to rest pointing at a trophy.
Eames smiled fondly at the way Arthur didn’t seem at all embarrassed to be caught playing like a child. He simply stood and straightened his clothes.
“Anything?”
“Nope,” Arthur said. “I couldn’t sleep on that stupid little bench for wondering though.”
“I’m sorry,” Eames said, taking his hand. Arthur batted it away. “How was your swim?”
Eames sighed and told him all about practice on their way into the school. The building showed the usual bustling life now, minutes before homeroom.
The basket case turned heads as he strolled down the hallways of Sherman High with Eames on their way to class, and Eames felt a mixture of strange emotions.
Arthur deserved this. He knew it, and seeing how happy it made him, Eames was happy. But...
It was like he missed having Arthur as a secret. And, okay, it kind of hurt that he wasn’t wearing the jacket anymore-a lifetime of conditioning, Eames couldn’t fight it, the jacket meant a lot, and Arthur didn’t want it anymore. Plus there was no other way to make sure everyone knew that this stud was his. He wanted to shout it. Yes that’s right guys, the weird boy in girl pants is sexier than all of you in men’s clothes, so shut your face--
“Owen. Hello.”
Eames’ sneakers squeaked on the tile he stopped so fast. In front of him stood Yusuf, as dumpy and nerdy as ever, the school paper reporter badge around his neck like always, even though he didn’t need it to get into his classes. The sight of the foreign exchange student turned Eames’ stomach over with sudden guilt and shame. He literally cowered away, but then cleared his throat. “Yusuf. Hi. How are you?”
Yusuf shrugged, eyes going to Arthur, down and up, and then back to Eames. “Back to normal no thanks to you.”
“I’m so sorry,” Eames said. The words came out on broken breath. He swallowed and cleared his throat again. “Look. That was-God, that was terrible of me. I don’t even know how to begin apologizing-“
“You’re the kid he beat up, or whatever, right?” Arthur cut in to ask. Yusuf gave him another look, this time a grimace of disgust. “I’d rather be the kid he beat up than the one he-“
“Watch it, Yusuf,” Eames said, suddenly on edge. Yusuf looked alarmed and then looked at the close space between the jock and his boyfriend, blushed and said innocently, “I only meant a traditional ass-kicking would have been better than what you did to me!”
Arthur looked very interested, but Eames looked frantically around to see who might be eavesdropping. “I said I am sorry, alright? Let’s just never talk about it again!”
“That would be nice, but the rumor has caught the wind and now it’s spread like wild fire. And this,” the reporter motioned between the jock and the weirdo, “this is just making it worse; now they say you did it because you had a crush on me.”
“WHAT?” Eames roared. He glared around at the passersby like it had been each of their personal opinion. Arthur bumped into him gently, reminding him that he was there and that none of it really mattered. The athlete clamped a lid on it, and steamed in silence.
“Anyway, Arthur, would you mind doing an interview? I’m doing my human interest piece on you, popular demand.”
“Me?” Arthur asked, utter shocked, but smiling. It made Eames smile too, “Yeah, you.”
Arthur shrugged. “Sure. Okay. Yeah. Right now?”
“If you don’t mind; it goes to print second period, so you’ll have to miss first period.”
“Cool,” Arthur said happily. Before they parted ways, Eames received a quick kiss to his cheek that made him blush and glance around, but if anyone had seen it, they pretended they hadn’t.
.....
By lunch time, they’d received another official text from Cobb that designated the meeting place to be the quad, not the flagpole, so after grabbing a couple of trays, Eames and Arthur pushed through the doors into the hot sunshine.
None of the others were here yet. Mal’s friends stirred like a pack of wild animals, coming to life to protect their burrow and eat the weaker creatures that ventured so near. More than one pulled blades out of their boots or their pockets and sneered. Arthur and Eames came to a stop and held their ground. After a long, piercing stare-down between the young couple and the grunge-crowd, whose stoned eyes flicked to the windows and the judgmental crowd inside, the junkies turned away and ignored them completely.
All and all, one of the top three most terrifying moments in Eames’ life, and that included finding a dead body and being texted by a murderer hiding in the shadows. But Arthur smirked, and that pulled a light laugh out of Eames that faded quickly.
While on one hand, winning the right to eat in the quad felt like a great victory, it also felt like a kick in the gut-an initiation into the world of the outcasts.
Was this what being openly gay would always mean?
Arthur nudged him gently and gave him a smile reminded him of Mal talking about the hidden beauty in the world. The jock’s spine straightened. So what if the rest of the world didn’t see it, it was still there, and still true. They chose a bench under the cafeteria windows, respectfully away from the druggies.
Arthur unfolded the newspaper that was still hot off the press and told him to keep reading it aloud, as they had taken to doing in the lunch line, “And do it in Yusuf’s accent again, that was funny.”
Arthur had had nothing to say for himself by way of any major scoops. Other than that he’d been going to this school for forever, he was passing all his classes and wasn’t in a single after-school activity except for detention where he and Eames met. Not a very interesting kid, beneath all the weird things he did that isolated him.
And since Yusuf had been working to a deadline, he’d ended up turning in an article quoting everybody else’s view of the weirdo. Those who knew of Arthur had plenty of stories to tell about him, like the time he blew his nose all over a picture he drew for art class, or all the different times he was dancing with no music, or how he never spoke, like ever, and different theories about what was in his bag-those were particularly fun to read while Arthur fed Eames French fries and the jock trailed a finger under the lines of print he read through his laughter.
The boys were thusly distracted with student-written articles and ketchup kisses when the rest of the club finally arrived. They’d just made it to school, that much was evident. Ariadne’s hair was still dripping wet, everyone but Saito was in the same clothes from yesterday.
“Heey, Mally, what’s up, girl?” one of the stoners said when he recognized Mal beneath her clean and brushed hair. She said hello in French as Ariadne parked her tiny frame on the slice of bench left over with Arthur using most of it to lay with his head in Eames’ lap.
“GUYS! There’s been a development!”
“I know, got your text this morning,” Eames said, sucking ketchup from his fingers and perking up. Arthur sat up with core muscle. “What is it?”
“HUGE!” Ariadne said, spreading her hands through the air. “Unbelievable!”
“Tell us!” Eames insisted, too sun-warmed and comfortable to get too aggravated at the delay, though his entire back was tensing up in protest to having this whole ugly situation pushed back into his mind.
“Bobby’s journal,” Cobb said. “We read it through last night.”
“And he isn’t behind it,” Mal said happily.
“What? How’s this a good thing?” Arthur asked, exasperated. “He was our lead.”
“Rod’s our lead!” Ariadne reminded him. “And he’s threatening Bobby!”
“What?”
“It’s all right here,” Ariadne said, flipping open the big binder. “He wrote about it last night-it’s kinda in blank verse. About twenty pages in, he starts writing poetry to unburden his mind-anyway,” the geek said quickly, catching herself mid-gush. She cleared her throat and the others traded smiles and winks as she returned to the evidence with her professionalism back in place. “He says someone’s been leaving notes in his locker threatening him, and look, he has all the notes stuck in, look! Look!”
Three slips of paper covered in sloppy penmanship had been neatly tucked into the pages.
Pretty fish, you weren’t nice today be good or else, the first one said. Eames studied the nickname and how the first word was capitalized and the second one wasn’t. He knew of no one Bobby allowed to call him that. The next one was crumbled, but written in the same hand with the same ink.
I’m losing patience with you fishy you know better than that, the second one said.
I’ll make it look like you did it fish they’ll say you did it, the last one said. “No punctuation,” Eames noted aloud.
“What can you tell from that?” Cobb asked readily. All attention turned expectantly to the jock, whose eyes popped round.
“Oh. Nothing. I just noticed. I. Uh,” he laughed frozen on the spot and admitted. “I don’t know, I’m not a real handwriting expert!”
Arthur took Eames hand with a smile digging deep dimples in his face again. Relaxed with everyone attention broken up, he was able to think for a moment and supply his best guess. “He was in a hurry each time, didn’t have a second to think about grammar.”
“Rod didn’t finish high school,” Mal supplied.
“It fits,” Eames said gravely. He didn’t like being the one pointing fingers. If they figured this whole thing out based on his guesses, then the murderer would target him for revenge. It had already happened once, when he’d given definitive proof Tiffany wrote the numbers and they decided to drive out to Pinwheel to ask about them.
“So we are sure it is Rod?” Mal asked.
“Pretty sure,” Cobb said, speaking like a doctor confirming a terminal cancer diagnosis. This time, Mal didn’t fight back, but nodded quietly and bit her lip, worried. Cobb put his arm around her.
“Bobby didn’t show up for practice,” Eames said, now truly sick. His lunch stirred unpleasantly in his stomach, and he looked very pale. “Do you guys think he might be in trouble? What if--”
“He’s fine, O,” Ariadne said, touching his elbow. She pointed through the lunchroom windows. “See? Looks pretty bad, like he didn’t sleep a wink.”
“No excuse,” Saito said with a dry chuckle. He, after all, looked as sharp as ever, and he’d not even laid down in his bed. Ariadne rolled her eyes.
Eames squinted through the glass. Bobby was sitting at his usual spot, surrounded by their usual friends, but pale and practically catatonic-not entirely, as he jumped every time anyone passed by behind him, and he kept running his hands through his hair.
“I think we scared the shit out of him,” Mal said with a hint of guilt for the vandalism last night. She thumped Eames’ shoulder blade. “Let’s go talk to him.”
Chapter 14