Dom Cobb is glaring. He's always glaring, seems like, and this is a patented "you're in big fucking trouble, young man," glare mixed with just a touch of the "I'm genuinely concerned but not going to give you the satisfaction" and a dash of "this is a ridiculous situation and I am unhappy you've put me here." It's a multi-layered glare, and the layer joke suddenly seems like the funniest single moment of Eames's entire life, and he's still giggling when Dom jabs him with a syringe.

When he wakes up, Eames is cool and dry and not giggling anymore. The IV restricts his movement a bit, but the poker chip feels right — the engraving on the edge, the code hidden away there, it's all correct — and he relaxes a bit. Looks around. He's in a treatment center, probably; not a hospital, not enough med staff for that, but the wall color and window construction scream "we keep people locked up but want them to think they're free," which means some kind of a secure facility. Could be a psych ward, but his hands aren't restricted past the IV so some kind of a sobering-up place is the logical option. That, plus the fact that Dom had told him six months ago that if he got caught using again he'd wake up in a treatment center until he was clean. So. Eames is fairly sure he's correct.

"Mr. Eames, your lunch is ready." The nurse is chubby and sweet, round-faced, probably thirty. Eames knows enough about her from her walk and her scrubs and the shaggy cut of her hair to forge her, if he wanted, but the voice would be hard — she doesn't talk as she wheels him down the hall. The wheelchair pisses him off, he's not an invalid, and he vents his rage in her direction.

"Your sister will never, ever forgive you." He's rather proud of that line delivery. Venomous and cold and said with a smile. The drugs make it easier to be a bastard, and they also make him feel less bad about the results. The nurse cries quietly, with no fuss and very little blushing, he notes, adding it to his portrait of her. A voice in his mind that sounds altogether too familiar nudges him to make it right. I'm in rehab, pet, I've no need to be kind. "Also, you're not pregnant, so don't worry about that." His conscience shuts up and he eats mushy food in various shades of khaki, and manages to con a different nurse into letting him walk back to his room.

And he smiles and nods and cries when needed, and they let him out with big grins, thinking they fixed it. But of course you can't cure a forger, never can, not of anything. Arthur would know that, but Dom Cobb was never good with forgers. Arthur would have known, Eames tells himself, if he'd been here. He can almost picture it: Arthur frowning at him, pulling at his cuffs, calling him a liar and forcing him to go cold turkey in a room with no windows. The too-familiar voice prods him, bites at him. Fuck you, pet, I'm not locking myself in a room just to prove something to you, all right?

—-

Eames wakes up in a hotel room. There are no drugs in the room. There is no alcohol in the room. There are windows, but he apparently thought ahead: they're nailed shut, and there is no hammer in the room. Room service happily brings him food, but will not bring him alcohol. The chipper blonde maid won't even take a tip, or a bribe, or a come-on. Eames is fairly certain she's a happily married lesbian, but he's more upset that she won't be bribed than that she has absolutely no interest in him.

He checks his totem, retraces his steps: he's not dreaming, he knows how he got here. He's been here for three days so far, and he's apparently paid up for four weeks. See, pet, I can do it, he tells the voice in his mind. It answers him, sardonic and disbeliving. Well I didn't want to before, all right? Now I do. It's nothing to do with you. He is proud of himself for not answering aloud, and for managing to pry up one of the nails. It's taken three days to do that one, so with seven nails per window and three windows…he stops trying to do the math, and turns on the telly.

—-

The sun is too bright, and his head hurts, and he's exhausted. He's also clean for the first time in five years, and he's free to go. The front desk gladly hands him his wallet and keys. Dom Cobb is out of the country on a job, and Eames wouldn't know where the others were even if he hadn't been out of his mind for a long while and then sequestered himself for a month. So he's not expecting anyone to meet him in the parking lot. That's why he checks his totem three times when he sees a tall, lean figure propped against his car.

"Hello, Eames," Arthur says, a guarded smile flickering across his face. "You look like shit."

"Arthur, you look fabulous as always."

Arthur steps up to him, peers into his face. "Well?"

Eames holds up his hands in surrender. "Clean as a whistle, darling. A month in a hotel after two weeks in that godawful center of Dom's will work wonders." Drops one hand to Arthur's waist, lets it rest gently. "I mean it, Arthur."

The other man's face hasn't changed. "You meant it last time, too."

"I know."

"This can't keep happening, Eames. I'm not…"

"I know, I know, love, I'm sorry."

They get in the car. They drive to Arthur's house. They watch shitty movies and don't drink, and Arthur makes Eames sleep in the guest room. And in the morning they start over again, like the first time. And two months later, when Eames bumps into an old dealer at dinner, Arthur's face goes white and still. And when Eames chats politely and says goodbye without money or notes or small brown packages changing hands, Arthur takes him home and lets him sleep in their bed.