A/N:
General:
-
I want to get a feel for the reaction of this story before I post like crazy. I'll continue writing, regardless, because this story WANTS OUT OF MY BRAIN NAO.
- This will be a multi-chapter story.
- Song is Matthew Perryman Jones's "Save You". MUST LISTEN. :)

Warnings:
- Major character death. That's pretty much the basis of the story.
- Sadness! Angst!
- Likely OOC.

Disclaimer:
- Don't own Arthur or Eames, wish I did.
- Don't own Inception, don't wish I did.


"Someone call an ambulance! Tell them there are a man and two little girls badly hurt! Hurry!"

"What happened here?"

"I don't know! There was… something happened… and this man tried…"

"Is he awake?"

"I don't know."

"He saved them. He saved them."

His eyes fluttered open as he heard the voices. He ignored as best he could the sudden chaos and the shriek of sirens. The cacophony threatened to rip apart his already throbbing skull.

"They're both okay, then?"

He could taste the blood as it crawled up his throat and muddled his words.

"I think so. Look, help is on its way, all right? It's so close. Please, just hold on."

He tried to find his voice so that he could respond, but nothing came. Instead, he closed his eyes, an image of a dark-haired young man the last and only thing on his mind as the blackness consumed him.

Arthur is sitting on a couch in the dark, and that is all that he is doing. An abandoned coffee cup, half-empty and long since gone cold, rests on the small, wooden coffee table in front of him. For company, it has no newspapers, no magazines, no photos; only a menagerie of water stains and a single red die that refuses to land on anything but three. Arthur is completely awake, of that fact he is all too certain now, but he does not feel it. Honestly, he does not feel much of anything anymore. The emptiness reminds him of life before Eames. It reminds him of how easily he detached himself from places, from people, from memories. It should feel comforting, but all he feels is numb. The emptiness was never this bad before.

The apartment is sparkling clean, sterile, and blank. Not a single thing is out of place. This morning, before… just before, Arthur had set about the place, straightening the little things that bothered him, and the big things, too. No, not a single item in the entire apartment is out of its proper home. Not Eames's toothbrush, which is usually abandoned on the counter. Not Eames's dirty laundry, which is usually littering the bathroom floor. Not Eames's shoes, which are usually thrown haphazardly down the hallway. Not Sean Eames himself. No, nothing real remains. In fact, the whole place seems like something from a hastily forged dream - too perfect, too fake. The details are in place, but the feeling is wrong, if there is any feeling at all.

His phone buzzes on the couch beside him. It is Ariadne who is calling him, yet again, and he will not answer, yet again. She wants to check on him, to make sure he is all right. He has never been prone to suicidal tendencies, he wants to tell her, but he somehow doubts that those would be the reassuring words for which she has been searching. Arthur tries his best to not be selfish, to believe that he was not the only one that loved Eames and now misses him. However, some things are easier said than done, and Arthur cannot bring himself to speak aloud at all. He has a feeling that that does not bode well for the 'done' part. His phone finally stops vibrating and chimes once to announce a missed call. More than likely, there will be no room for new voice messages in his inbox, so his phone will not go off again until Ariadne calls again. He gives it five minutes.

Just as Arthur expects the phone to buzz, there is a knock at the door. For a split second, he nearly smiles. Relief swells his chest and his heart aches deeply, but he does not care, because Eames is home. That is why he can feel again at all. Then, realization comes crashing down and Arthur retches into the wastebasket at his feet. He hates the idea of the unsanitary area he is creating, but vomiting in the bathroom would require his getting up, and he just cannot risk seeing… anything.

Eames cannot be found in any particular place in this home, and that is because he is everywhere. Arthur assumes that the couch is safe, because if he stares straight ahead, he can see only a TV and a fireplace. He assumes that in this open space, where nothing lingers, he will not be able to sense the irreplaceable scent of tobacco, commingling gracefully with worn leather and the slightest hint of apple. He assumes that if there is nothing of Eames's staring him in the face, Arthur can pretend for just a little longer that his totem is defective and he can continue to wait for a kick that will never come.

He assumes that whoever is at the door will not be leaving any time soon. They have been knocking incessantly. This is no random passerby; no one but Cobb would be so persistent. Cobb knows the feeling of abandonment, the feeling of having the rug swept from under your feet in the blink of an eye and being helpless to fight it. He understands what Arthur is going through, but apparently, he does not understand that Arthur is not him. Arthur does not want comfort. Arthur wants to be left alone. Well, that is a lie. He wants to be with Eames. He wants this to be a dream, and he wants to wake up. Now. But he is not as thoroughly convinced, as Mal was, that this world is fake. In fact, today has proved to him just how real life can be, how fragile. Arthur will not be jumping from a ledge anytime soon. Then again, he inherited his mother's never-say-never attitude, so he has not entirely ruled out any one course of action, not yet, anyway.

Arthur pauses for a moment as he thinks of his mother, and how everyone that he loves leaves too soon. Then, he thinks of how he does not even have the luxury of having had a picturesque childhood to make up for the losses he has suffered. No, it has been a shitty life in general; it has been full of great moments, great feelings, great memories, certainly, but those gentle ghosts are all that remain. He hopes the bitterness he feels will not drown the happy memories until those too are worthless. He wonders if his dreams will be the same as his existence from now on, if his brain can now only compute in shades of grey and faded black and nothing else. No colors, no sounds, no smells, just blankness, emptiness. Or, maybe, in his dreams there would be places on the wall where the sun has not so completely bleached the paint, places where pictures used to hang and depict better days. Maybe there would be small mementos for him to cling to, shreds of something substantial. Or maybe there would be nothing.


A/N:
- Review, please? :)