A/N: Hello! This is just a little chapter from something I was working on a while ago.
I woke up in a different place again, and like always, it was completely different than where I fell asleep at.
And I'm not talking about Eames carrying me from a couch to a bed; I mean falling asleep in Venice and waking up in Canada. Throwing both factors of moving me without waking me up and in the matter of ten hours, it makes me think: does he drug me every time or do I really sleep for that long?
This time, I woke up on a train, the same train that went through the Alps, on the same exact couch in the same exact room.
"Good morning, Darling," Eames whispered from the rooms entrance. I opened my eyes wide enough to see that he had the American persona on, which explained why he whispered.
"Good morning," I repeated, saluting him and sitting up on the couch. "Are we in Austria?"
"Yes we are," he answered, louder and in his perfect American accent, "in the same exact place where we first met."
"I noticed," I said in between yawns. "You brought me here to bring back repressed memories?"
"No," he chuckled. "I have a job to do."
Since him and I were both platinum grade assassins, we were mainly hired by the same type of people: rich business men looking to get rid of some competition, other hit men in extreme cases when/if the guy knew his target, and even sometimes the FBI or CIA, known as the alphabet agencies, if their own hit men weren't good enough. Usually, in the case where hit men were contracting other hit men, it was to either partner up with them or to sic us on someone they know personally. Still, even if the situation is tricky, we were very independent people. It's why we were careful to be hired by independent contractors.
I stood up and furrowed my eyebrows. "You couldn't leave me at a bus stop with change or anything?"
Eames offered me a hand, and I gladly accepted it. Before he led me out of the room, he turned back.
"Look, I guess this is time to start explaining things," he said in a stressed tone. His eyebrows furrowed in what seemed like regret. "You've been asking too many questions."
I hesitated with my next question. "Can I ask you one last question?"
"You promise this is the last one?"
"Depends if you tell me everything," I said, raising my eyebrows. He seemed to be a bit more serious.
"I promise you I will."
"Okay," I said, trying to lighten the mood by shining a sexy smirk of my own. "Why didn't you kill me?"
He took this question more seriously than I meant it. Before I could ask him why a sullen look spread across his face, he dragged me out of the room. I'd never seen him so serious other than when we'd fought for real. On that train, in that room.
"Come on, I want to show you something," he said, pulling my hand that he never let go in the first place.
He took me out into the hall, not taking a right into where Gustav was probably shining glasses but taking a left, towards the very last car of the train. I strangled along, trying hard to keep up with his urgent pace as we jumped into the last car. The very end car was the kitchen.
"Uh, hello, sir," Eames said in his American accent. I suppressed a giggle. "There is no privacy in this train." He chuckled, pausing for a minute and shaking his head as if it was embarrassing. "If you know what I mean."
I bit my lower lip a tad to add to the effect.
"A little privacy, eh?" the heavyset Austrian chef laughed and looked into the distance to see past memories. I thanked god that he wasn't homophobic. "I remember when I was young. I'll give you too some privacy."
He smiled and stopped stirring what I could only assume was soup and turned off all the stove's knobs.
"Don't take too long," he commented deviously before moving into the other car."
Once the chef left the car, Eames swung me around and took my other hand. Our chests were touching. "Thank you for going along with it. I know you're confused."
"I don't think confused isn't quite intense enough to express how I'm feeling right now," I nervously chuckled. "What is it that you want to show me?"
"Where was your first kill?" he asked, pulling me intimately closer.
I lost my train of thought as he kissed my forehead, then moving down to my cheek. "Uh, New York, why?"
Before answering, he moved down to my neck and gently kissed my collarbone. "No, in more detail."
"Um," I said, not helping a tiny moan escape my lips as he let go of my hands and traced my arms with his palms. "It was in a subway. I was just out of Mercenary School. "It was my first, uh-"
He stopped me from finishing my sentence by looking at me in the eyes with such intensity, I completely forgot how we got in the kitchen car. I didn't stop him when he leaned in, giving me a tender kiss on the lips. At first, I almost jolted back in a simple reaction, but he took over, grasping my neck with one hand and my chin in the other. Once he moved away, only centimeters from my face, I looked up into his eyes.
"Why are you doing this?" I whispered, feeling almost sad when he moved away, letting go of me completely. He walked over to the counter opposite of the stove and grabbed a moderately sized knife.
"Do you know why I got sent to kill you, Arthur?" Eames asked seriously, twisting the handle of the knife in between his fingers.
"Don't you think if I knew why, this situation would be much different?"
He pondered this question. "I suppose so. I'll tell you why."
Eames took an urgent step toward me, giving me that sexy smirk. But this time, it had an edge of danger in it. I backed up in little steps, and even though I wasn't afraid of him when we first fought, he had a knife this time. I, on the other hand, was unarmed. He's an assassin, I thought, he must have some sort of weapon in his room. Only if I could get there before he stabbed me.
"Are you gonna tell me or are you gonna kill me?" I asked.
He laughed. Laughed at my foolishness, it seemed! Not only was he trying to kill me, he was trying to humiliate me.
"This is where I made my first kill," he boasted proudly, stepping even closer until I was backed up to the corner of the car. When I realized that I couldn't back up any further, he got close to me again, only centimeters from touching his lips to mine. As if to tease me, he lightly raked the tip of the knife across the part of my lips.
"Is this your idea of foreplay?" I sarcastically asked. I never would have admitted that it actually kind of turned me on. Hey, who says I'm admitting it now?
Eames took his fake glasses off with his free hand, setting them on the corner right beside us. It was almost like a light switch: when the glasses came off the real Eames came on. And the sexy meter overflowed.
"Oh, how much I've fallen for you these past weeks," Eames practically spat in sarcasm. Well, I think it was sarcasm. I hope it was.
I resisted the urge to trace the scar on the right side of his neck. It was the first thing I noticed about him when he first sat next to me.
"You brought me here for a reason. I want to know why," I demanded.
"Just wait," he patiently said, removing the knife from my face, "it'll be clear soon."
Just as I was about to snap at him for being so damn cryptic, the heavyset chef came slamming back in the car. Eames slowly set the hand that held the knife on the table, not letting go of the weapon. He glanced at me, fully looking into my eyes, before directing his attention to the Austrian.
"I'm sorry if I was interrupting," the chef said, suspiciously moving back to his stove in a rush. "I must attend to my post, now."
Eames turned around and smiled. "Okay. We're done anyway."
He turned back to me and nodded very faintly; small enough that only people trained to recognize the small action could pick it up. I watched him slide the knife into his leather jacket's sleeve smoothly and walk towards the door, purposefully leaving his glasses.
I moved to the right side of him to prepare for whatever was going to happen.
"Ah, sir, you left your glasses," the chef said, almost slyly, his eyes wide open as he walked over to where he left the glasses. With a glance to my left, both the Austrian chef and Eames were getting ready to throw some shit.
Eames was there first, whipping out the knife and stabbing the chef in the neck before he could even reach the silenced Beretta in the apron's pocket. Before the chef's body went limp, Eames retrieved the knife and threw the Beretta at me.
"Back up," he urgently commanded, "there'll be more."
I gulped and took a few steps back, intently watching the window on the door that lead into the next car. Sure enough, about a dozen guys in suits were headed our way.
I unloaded the clip and counted off the empty slots.
"There are only four rounds left," I commented, mostly to myself. Eames nodded to the door.
"It's okay, they won't be armed. I've gotta ask this, so bare with me. You know what to do, right?" he asked, but it was more of a reminder for me to get myself in check.
Do you know hard that is when you don't know what the fuck's going on?
"Aim for one-shot deadly spots, never fire more than one shot."
The guys were more than three seconds from slamming our car's door open.
"And?"
"Always know what to do, never hesitate," I said under hushed breath, slowly pointing the gun to the door just as the herd of men here to presumably kill us charged in the door.
The first one to make his was into the door immediately got stabbed by a hiding Eames. There was no time to pick up the gun that lodged into the dead man's chest; the next one, then the next one, then almost all of the men came in the room.
I heard one of the men yell to another, "you said they wouldn't be armed!"
So, I shot that one first.
I used my other three rounds on the guys that came close to us, making sure that the Beretta didn't dry fire so I could use it as a scare factor.
Eames and I were backed up to the back of the car, with his fists in the air, ready to strike and me with the gun held steady in my hands. My plan was to drop the gun when one side went to make a move.
We all stood there in relative silence and stillness, waiting for somebody to do something; we were all looking for anything that could be considered as a threat, a reason to attack the other side.
As I waited, I silently counted the heads of the official looking men. As I got to the back of the crows, the head count already reaching 10 cramped and slightly over muscular guys who wanted to kill us, the crowd parted, revealing one last guy into the room.
I assumed he was the leader of this little clan, looking super sharp in his tacky light blue suit.
"Please, let's try and solve this in a non-violent manner" the boss man said, taking his hands out of his pantsuit pockets and making a lowering motion.
Me, being the sarcastic one, decided to open my mouth first.
"Coming in here like the Crazy 88 ain't helping your peacemaker case," I snarled, throwing the gun down. It was empty anyway, and I could already tell that this was going to take a nasty turn by the way boss man sighed and lowered his head into his palms.
"Ya see, I'm just in no mood ta be dealin' with no smart mouthed bastard today," he casually said, like he was greeting a neighbor or letting somebody with less things go in front of you at the checkouts. This was something along the lines of what he said everyday. "On the brighter side, Eames. How's my favorite failing assassin doin' these days, huh?"
Boss man looked up from his despised look and held out his arms in a hug invitation. Eames simply glared at him.
"What do you want, Vincenzo?" he asked cautiously, making it clear that he already know the answer to this.
"You know what I want," Vincenzo said slowly, made out to be a warning, topped off by a raise of one eyebrow. Vincenzo glanced at me pointedly.
"Eames, what does he mean?" I asked between barred teeth, glancing at him. He showed off an I-got-caught expression like a kid stealing from a candy jar.
"Oh, hon," Vincenzo said with fake sympathy, "lover-boy hasn't told you yet? My Jesus, and it's been, what, three weeks now?"
Vincenzo started laughing; small chuckles at first but escalating to bigger gasps of air. He shook his head at Eames.
"Here's what you can do, Eamesie. You can hand over tha guy or my men can kill both of yah. And they's platinum, too, so don't be thinkin' you can overpower 'em. "
I had the intense urge to tackle Eames and punch him in the nose until he couldn't smell his own blood oozing out of it.
"You're not leaving here without him," Eames growled, getting into a defensive fighting stance. "So you better kill me first."
The hatred I had just felt got swept away by a wave of heat that scourged through my body. Eames would die for me?
Vincenzo chuckled humorlessly, messing with the dirt under his perfectly manicured nails before whistling to his men. "Get 'em, boys."
He then turned around and parted the crowd again, so confident that his gang would take care of us. I, and hopefully Eames, knew better than that.
All of us stayed as silent and still as when before Vincenzo entered the room. None of us made a single move.
Assumingly co-boss man, the chunky asshole in the front, took a quick step forward, possibly testing out reflexes. We didn't bat an eye.
"Eames, right?" Co-boss man bellowed. "Why don't you put the knife down, huh? We'll have ourselves a nice, old-fashioned brawl."
"I swear on my side if you swear on yours," Eames offered, meaning business. I nodded, agreeing.
"We came unarmed. But you've shot four of our men. And stabbed one. I see that as unfair," he pointed out, waving to include the pinpoint accurate bullet holes in four of the dead men and a knife in the chest of the fifth.
"Shut up, Jasir," one of the guys said impatiently, "I wanna kill these fucks already."
"That time will come!" Jasir snapped, glaring at the guy who spoke. He would be my first target once shit started, and I already assumed that Eames would go after Jasir. "To even this out, we will have first action. Do you agree to these terms?"
"That don't make it-" I tried to argue, but got immediately shut up with a smack to the arm by Eames.
"We do," he forced out, opening the end door and throwing the knife out of the train. "Alright. You get first hit."
Jasir chuckled and took another step forward as Eames sarcastically leaned one cheek closer to him.
Before Jasir went to make his move, Eames made direct eye contact with me, making that same nod that only I could pick up. I sent one back to validate his plan.
Jasir sent a fist toward his cheek, but before he made brutal contact with his jaw, I made my signature move: a powerful kick to his chest, the same kind I did to Eames in his room. It sent him flying into the crowd, startling the ones that stood in the front. Their reflexes were also quick, rebounding from the attack in a matter of seconds.
The one that caught surprised Jasir pushed him away, walking right to me and punching me directly in the chest. It knocked the wind out of me as well as knocking me flat on my ass. Eames counterattacked by round house kicking him back into the crowd.
Nothing like kicking off a day with a few hundred bruises, two broken ribs, and a sore ass.