A/N: So. My first Inception fic. I'm always quite uneasy diving into a new fandom, especially diving into a fandom where the characters in the pairing are not the protagonists, but I've given it my best shot. Hope you enjoy, my loves!
Please don't forget to comment!
Alone
000
Arthur says the job, Eames, keep your mind on the job, and the fit of his shirt is tailored and snug and his trouser-legs smooth, all too sure of themselves, and Eames feels that the whole thing's ridiculous and gets a glare when he voices this feeling aloud.
"You're supposed to be halfway professional," Arthur says, and Eames gives him a smirk in response, a low, sly thing, almost scraping a hum.
"Only halfway, sweetheart? How our standards have dropped."
"I never bothered to set any standards for you."
The second dream level is sheer, plunging cliff, just a railing between here and up above, Arthur's hands in his pockets and waiting for Cobb, who is late in the way that he never is, that he never was in the times Before. The job is simple but Arthur's on edge all the same, tense darts in his shoulders that Eames can see. The kick is in twenty. The false sky stretches, blue.
Eames leans an elbow against the railing, points out, "But you bothered to shine your shoes. Really, Arthur. This is a dream, you know."
"Yes, I can imagine personal hygiene being unimportant to you."
"Shoe-shining, darling, does not constitute hygiene."
"Your definition of hygiene has always been rather lax."
"Or perhaps yours is more than a little excessive."
"I did not hear you complaining about my sense of hygiene when I put your shirts through the wash last week."
"That's because I did not notice you putting them through the wash, love."
"For a forger, Eames, you are really very unobservant."
"I prefer to observe people;" and here Eames edges closer, one eyebrow up and his spine curved down, careless smile like it sloughed itself there without notice, "as opposed to piles of dirty laundry, you know, as surprising a notion as that may be to you."
That gets half a laugh, thankfully, Arthur with hands clenched in fists that show through the fabric of his trouser pockets, eyes tight around the edges, trying not to count minutes, seconds, not take them as hours. Eames can see the plot starting to seed in those eyes, the turning back, the gun, the search for Cobb who is much too late when he's not meant to be, when he's meant to be here. Eames says darling, says don't, says he'll be alright. Arthur shoots him a look like a gun going off.
"I wasn't going to do anything," Arthur tells him then, though his fists have gone somewhat slacker now. "Not as stupid as you."
Eames shrugs. "Your loss."
000
The hotel suite feels a little too small, although most things feel too small for Eames. Eames likes space, likes room to manoeuvre, to sprawl, to muss up and disrupt things on impulse alone. The low ceiling is like losing one of his lungs.
Arthur places his suitcase carefully against the bed. Eames dumps his on the floor beside.
"Right side or left?" he says, though it doesn't really matter, they always end up on each other's side anyway.
Arthur looks at the bed, at the placement of tables. "Right."
"Suit yourself."
"I'm showering first."
"There's no need to be so assertive, sweetheart. A shower is something very easily shared."
Arthur gives him a frown, brow wrinkling with it, and Eames thinks that Arthur is really quite pretty at times when he's not even meaning to. There's finesse in the brown eyes, even when they glare. Eames puts his hands in his pockets, rocks up on the balls of his feet, and treats Arthur to the full expanse of a grin.
"Oh, don't look so scandalised. Lord knows we've done worse."
"I don't know how I ever put up with you," Arthur says to that, squats by the suitcase to locate a change of clothes. Eames tips his head to observe the long back, the curve in the trousers just beneath. "Or, really, how anyone ever puts up with you."
"I have never received any direct complaints – except, of course, from you, my dear."
"Perhaps you should pay attention to those complaints once in a while."
"Oh, I do. When I'm not paying attention to you."
Arthur snorts, somehow making it elegant and derisive simultaneously, straightening with a T-shirt and pants in one hand. "That must be all the time, then."
"Actually, it's damnably rare. You're incredibly high maintenance, darling, you know." Eames catches an arm when Arthur moves past. "I put it down to the fact that you think too much."
"Or the fact that you yourself think too little."
"Don't blame yourself," and Eames means it as seriously and as suddenly as it comes out.
"I'm not."
"You are."
Arthur tries to pull his arm out. "I'm going to take a shower now, Mr Eames. If I find at any point that you have followed me in, I swear to you, I will break your jaw."
It's not like Arthur's never broken Eames' jaw before, that time in Mumbai after five drinks and Eames forgetting himself, his hand sliding under the table, that hard look in Arthur's eye like something frightened and fearless at the same time. Eames thinks he can see the same hardness now, the look Arthur wears when things spiral out of control, Cobb on the second dream level screaming as bullets tear into his knees, his elbows, Arthur and Eames barely fifty metres away on the other side of soundproof walls and oblivious, spitting barbs on laundry and shoes. Eames thinks that, really, it's his fault, him wanting Arthur for ten more minutes, just ten, and surely Cobb is fine, no need to worry, surely he knows how to handle himself.
Surely not.
"Alright," Eames says, and his hand lets go. "Alright. Just make sure not to drown yourself."
000
Arthur with his hair wet is delectable, folded towel and his die clutched there in one hand. Eames has swiped drinks from the mini-bar and is pouring a glass of Vodka Brut out.
Arthur says, "Didn't you bother to find us some food?" and Eames says, "Of course, darling," and hands him the glass. For a moment, Arthur just stares down at it, then sighs.
"I don't know why I'm surprised any more."
"Are you surprised enough to dial room service, dear?"
Arthur isn't, but he dials room service anyway, Eames propped up against the headboard of the bed and the unslept sheets tangled up already. The vodka disappears much too quickly to be normal, Arthur taking measured sips and Eames taking unmeasured gulps, always all-the-way-in or nothing at all, fingertips tracing Arthur's shoulders while Arthur flips through the hotel menu. The view from the room's window is unimposing but Eames thinks he'll take a look later nonetheless.
Afterward, when Eames' hair is wet as well and leaving a dark patch on the pillowcase, Arthur turns on his side, says, "He shouldn't have come."
"Four isn't enough for a team though, love," Eames says. "Not if we want to get into third level."
"He has children."
"That never stopped him Before."
"That's because he was trying to buy his way back to them, Before."
"It was a dream, Arthur. No lasting damage done. Cobb knows the risks more than anyone."
Arthur hums, not entirely satisfied, a curl of brown hair sticking to his forehead. Eames itches to ruffle the rest of it too and decides to make a bet with himself, ten minutes, he can resist the urge for ten minutes, perhaps more.
"If the kick had come just ten minutes later he would've dropped into Limbo, you know," Arthur says, and Eames can feel his fingertips twitch. "He wouldn't have remembered his children, coming out. I can't imagine how it would feel, dropped into Limbo alone."
Eames can't either, though he prides himself on his rampant imagination, so he doesn't admit this. "Saito survived it intact."
"You wouldn't."
"How so?"
"You've not enough self-control."
"You've been sleeping with me for two years now, Arthur," Eames smirks at him, trying to coax out a laugh. "You should understand more than anyone else in this world how extensive my self-control can be, especially in certain... situations of ours."
"I'm being serious, Eames."
"What makes you think that I'm not?"
They fall silent at that, spills of neon light coming in and across the carpet pile, and Eames thinks he should probably close the curtains but is too lazy to pry Arthur's arm off his chest. Arthur says I can't imagine, and then why do we do this at all, are we crazy, we're gambling all that we have. Eames runs his hand down the length of Arthur's bare spine and says darling, you're thinking too much again, kisses him since that's the best way to shut Arthur up and Eames doesn't think about how he's asked the very same questions, wondered what he would do if he woke up from Limbo not knowing Arthur, not knowing all that they were.
000
"I'm quitting."
This is in the warehouse in Paris, Ariadne out to get them baguettes and Yusuf pottering about in the back room somewhere. Eames looks up from the paper he's fiddling with, not reading, just bending a crease back and forth.
"You volunteered yourself for the experiments, darling. It's entirely your own fault."
"No, that's not what I mean."
Arthur is up and pulling wires, his mouth very tight. Eames sets the paper aside on a chair. "Arthur."
"You're right," Arthur says and doesn't look at him. "Four isn't enough. I'm not taking the risk again. I'm not heading to the third level on only four."
"We can find someone else. Maybe call in Saito."
"He's not trained for this, Eames, and you know that he's not."
Eames does know this, yes, though he says all the same, "But don't you find that it adds an element of uncertainty to the job, love? Excitement, and all that. Adrenaline rush."
"I don't like uncertainty when Limbo's involved."
Eames doesn't either, but he can't imagine a job without Arthur, the empty feeling on the right side of his body as if something essential is missing there. Uncertainty is the weighted poker chip, landing always words-up in the waking world but tossed over to Chance in the many dream levels, fifty-fifty, words-up or maybe words-down, so that even when it lands words-up Eames can't be exactly certain where he is, has to flip it again and again and again until probability points to one world or another, but always with the chance the whole thing is a fluke. Eames knows never to let anyone else understand his totem but Arthur has flipped his chip before, Arthur knows, because Eames trusts him never to tell. Eames takes risks because some tiny part of him needs that feeling of freedom, of impromptu.
"If you quit now, sweetheart, we'll be down to three. And that makes it more likely I'll drop into Limbo."
Arthur squints at him, shirt pulling taut at the shoulders. "Then quit with me."
"No."
"You've got nothing to prove."
"I've got a job to perform. I'm a professional."
Arthur sighs, hands braced on the work desk before him, head low and the sun glancing off his dark hair. Eames nudges at him with a loafer-clad foot.
"Besides," he adds, when Arthur doesn't move, "it's not like you to leave a job half-done. Ariadne can barely shoot straight and all."
"It's not like me, no. But now I have more to lose."
"I'm touched."
"I'm not referring to you."
"I never said that you were referring to me, Arthur dearest. You leapt to that conclusion yourself."
Arthur laughs, a little, says you're so damn conceited, but still the wound note is in the tendons of his neck and in the tiniest of muscles around his jaw, a worry that Arthur never lets out so Eames is surprised he's said what he has so far. Arthur does what he has to do because there's no other choice, because he's loyal from the deepest marrow of his bones, intelligent enough to realise when others depend on him. Arthur is never this selfish, and Eames tells him so.
Arthur looks at him, old familiar hard granite brown look, mutters softly, "It's not wrong to be selfish once in a while."
000
They still end up on the third level together, Yusuf on first and Ariadne on second, Eames and Arthur with handguns ready and drawn and canals stretching far as the eye can see, Ariadne reading too many books about Venice. The cobblestones are polished and cracked and Arthur has his back pressed against a wall, flakes of rock erupting from around the corner, gunshots.
"Dreadful weather," Eames says, looking up at the clouds as Arthur tips a spent cartridge out. "Couldn't you have thought happier things before plunging us into this dream, sweetheart?"
"You're English," is what Arthur says to that. "Deal with it."
The vault belongs to a bank, maze of underground rooms in a maze of winding canals, doubly safe, Ariadne had said, since there's just the two of you and neither of you want to die down there, I suppose? Eames had laughed, said he had dying down to an art, not for lack of practice and Arthur had said nothing at all, knuckles white against the edge of the tabletop.
"Your continual slander against my nationality is disconcerting, my dear," Eames says now, and a wall opposite them explodes.
"You may reprimand me once we've made it out of here alive."
Eames can hear the if in place of the once, and when he ducks out to put three bullets into three projected skulls the sky darkens, clouds roiling, a storm pulling close.
"I can decoy them away from here, if you want. Leave you open to reach the vault and all."
"No."
Eames pauses to look at him. "Why not?"
"Just no."
"I know how to take care of myself."
"I believed that once about Cobb as well."
It's the worst possible moment but Eames feels a smirk coming on, in time with the trigger of his Smith and Wesson. "Is this concern for my wellbeing I hear, Arthur? How revolutionary. Should I expect an Apocalypse soon?"
"You can expect a bullet, Eames, unless you concentrate," and Arthur's face is carefully blank. "Come on."
They run, wind caught in their jackets, small alleys that manage to all look the same with the silent hulks of canal water beside them, another world reflected wisp-like in the dark surface and Eames wonders briefly how many there are, how many worlds, worlds within dreams within dreams within worlds.
"Don't get lost," Arthur tosses him over a shoulder and Eames snorts.
"You couldn't lose me in Moscow, you won't lose me here, love."
"And don't die."
"I'm doing my best, sweetheart."
They round corners and climb them and Eames thinks of Moscow, the ankle-deep snow, the crisp white streets and Arthur in a scarf and black trench coat, the ice crystals that formed on his lashes and hair, made him foreign and eerie and beautiful. They round corners and Eames thinks of Arthur in front, running, very much in the way that he's running now, the sharp crunch of snow underneath his boots and that quick way of his, that darting quality, flickering in and out of narrow roads and bicycles, occasionally risking a short glance back and then Eames would catch that clean-cut profile, brown eyes as hard as all that snow and when Eames had finally taken an alley shortcut and rammed Arthur mid-stride against a brick wall those brown eyes had locked on him, furious but still so composed, and Arthur had said fuck off Mr Eames, fuck off, and Eames had kissed him for the very first time and said no, said no, said no, said no.
000
They round corners and Eames is still thinking of Moscow when the bullet hits him straight from behind, a sharp burn square between his shoulder blades.
000
Eames thinks fuck, and then he wants to laugh, for no reason, find a quiet spot on the cobbles somewhere and laugh. What comes out instead is a half-mangled scoff and then he's down, his handgun clattering down with him, and ahead he hears footsteps slow and then stop.
He hears Eames, then again, Arthur's voice rising, Eames! Then no, fuck no, you idiot, no, and then someone is grabbing Eames under the arms and heaving, and stars burst underneath his eyelids, and Arthur is saying no, Eames, no, you can't do this, fuck, and a door is being kicked open and Eames is being dragged in somewhere and Eames tries to focus solely on breathing now, just in, then out, then in, then out, then Arthur is slamming something shut and dragging a steel box against the door.
Eames thinks you're not supposed to change things here, then figures it's not important anymore, the projections aren't exactly being tame anyway.
"You idiot," Arthur says, spits it out like a curse, but his eyes look crumpled and much too brown. "I told you not – "
" – to die?" Eames says. He feels that urge to laugh again, makes a bet with himself, ten minutes, that's all. "Yeah, I'm – sorry. Didn't have – my mind – on the job."
"You idiot."
"Couldn't help – myself."
There's something wet trickling down Eames' back and Eames thinks no prizes for guessing that one, and then Arthur is trying to pull his jacket off and Eames stops him, too late, and too much blood.
"Guess I'll get to – practise my self-control, love," Eames says, and Arthur looks like he's about to slap him.
"You won't. The kick is in thirty, Eames. Stay for thirty."
"I'll try."
"Just thirty, Eames."
Eames tries but it's barely five when he says, "You should – go. The vault. Should get to the vault," and the world is starting to haze at the edges, like Eames has plunged into some fourth dream level with shapes rising up from a darkened, grey ether, and Arthur's face in the centre of everything else, brown eyes hard, all things spiralling out of control.
Arthur glares but his hands are shaking somewhat, and he says, "Shut up, Eames. Just shut up."
000
At ten minutes the projections find their door, bullets thudding against the peeling wood and Eames says vault, again, says vault, the vault.
His tongue is thick and is not obeying him and Arthur's got his handgun up, face steady and set and Eames says vault, and Arthur's eyes flick down to him. Eames is losing, fingers clawing at a high slope, sight slippery. He thinks Limbo, and then alone, and then Limbo alone, fear corked low in his gut, an unfamiliar sensation that terrifies him.
Eames says vault, and then Arthur says shut up, twenty minutes, it's not wrong to be selfish once in a while.
000
The last thing Eames sees of this world is the handgun wedged beneath Arthur's throat, cocked and ready, black on vulnerable skin.
Eames is losing, and when the slope lets go Eames thinks Limbo, the way Arthur sleeps on his left side, Arthur flipping his poker chip into the air and how Eames knows that Arthur's die should read three, Arthur smiling with his head dipped low to hide it and Arthur with snow on his lashes and hair and a gunshot too close, sounding from there right beside him, and Eames thinks with Arthur's head dropping onto his shoulder, thinks Limbo, then finally:
Not alone.
000
The End.
000
A/N: Short, I know. But it felt right that way. Cross my fingers in hope that I managed to get their characters – this is always a hit-and-miss business with me, especially since Inception is such a complex movie – let me know what you think, alright, bbs?
Please don't forget to comment! And if you liked what you just read, please feel free to friend me on my LJ (knowmydark [dot] livejournal [dot] com) or put me on Author Alert, since I will no doubt be putting up more Eames/Arthur if people like the way I write them! And previews, fic news, etc. all go on my LJ first. Or maybe I'll even attempt a sequel to this fic, although Limbo confuses me excessively. We'll see.
[EDIT: SEQUEL NOW UP. PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT MY PROFILE PAGE TO FIND IT.]