A/N: Hey, guys, it's been a while. I've moved countries and jobs, and it's been so long that I can't...actually...remember where I was going with this part. So, have 1000 words of something!
BLACK OUT
Part Four in the Series ONE SHOCK FOR YES (TWO FOR NEVER)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognise.
Word Count: ~1200
Summary: Unsurprisingly, the first person Dom Cobb calls when Arthur drops off the face of the earth is Eames.
BadActs
Unsurprisingly, the first person Dom Cobb calls when Arthur drops off the face of the earth is Eames.
Well, it's not surprising for Cobb, at least – apparently his mind had automatically gone to Eames on realising Arthur had disappeared. Eames, currently on vacation in Mexico where he has so far watched too much incomprehensible daytime television, ate too much pizza and gone through far, far too many bottles of tequila, is puzzled by Cobb's thought processes. He's pretty sure he doesn't let this on.
"I haven't seen him face-to-face since the job we pulled in Milan," Eames supplies. "That was, what, a month ago? I spoke to him on the phone maybe a fortnight ago, asking me about a job in…oh, fuck."
Apparently Cobb actually was right to get in touch with him. Eames has been pulling up his email as they talk, the download painfully slow, and there is a message from Arthur in there. The date it was sent was three days ago. The subject line reads FUBAR.
"You know what? I'm going to have to get back to you," Eames says distractedly, and hangs up on the extractor.
It only takes him two hours to track down Arthur, thanks to a prodigious number of very real threats applied to the right people. It takes him a lot longer than that, though, to get from Mexico to the back alleys of San Diego where Arthur is apparently being tortured for information on his vast network of contacts.
Eames isn't subtle in his approach – he walks straight up to the door and knocks. The person who answers shoves the muzzle of a handgun straight into Eames' cheek.
The thug – hired muscle, by the looks of it – ends up on the floor unarmed, bleeding and unconscious in very short order. Eames spent his time of the plane stewing, and now he's just plain pissed off.
He leaves the building going up in flames, and he doesn't even care about the body count. He doesn't care if the whole block burns to the ground.
It's not like him. Not the man he's meant to be, and not the man he is, either.
Arthur is going to be the death of him. Eames admires him and even loves him a little bit, even if he can only admit it when the shit hits the fan, and the combination is either going to end up with MI6 putting a bullet in his skull or Arthur doing the same.
The point man, right now, needs to be in hospital yesterday. Eames procures enough fake papers to check him into one legitimately under a very false name and then vamooses the fuck out of there. He calls Cobb from the payphone outside and gives him the details, tells him to get his ass down there as soon as possible.
Then Eames leaves. It's something he's good at.
Arthur, of course, is even better at finding him.
He tracks him down two months later to Kenya, where Eames has been losing his legitimately earned money from MI6 gambling and then using forged poker chips to earn it back. It's maybe not the best and most subtle way to use his time.
He hasn't been in contact with his superior agents since before San Diego, and he doesn't much care. They've almost left him to his own devices, seeing as they and the Americans can't touch the Cobbs right now. He's in a position of power and knows it, which he thinks makes MI6 nervous.
He enters his flat as the sun is dying, and stops in the doorway when he becomes aware of another presence in the room with him.
Arthur says, "your fans don't work, you know."
"I'd noticed," Eames replies, and his voice is admirably even. Arthur takes a measured step into the last of the light falling through the window, hands held out from his sides. He's in shirt-sleeves, wearing his handgun tucked into the back of his belt as he always does. He looks much better than he did last time Eames saw him, and Eames tells him as much.
"I should hope so," Arthur replies with a bladed smile. There is a sort of caution in his eyes that Eames has never before seen directed at him. It says that Arthur knows just how dangerous Eames actually is, this once, rather than just suspecting it.
Eames sighs and sits. "What are you doing here?"
"I came after you," Arthur says, and that is obvious. Eames only has to raise an eyebrow at Arthur to emphasise that. He is somewhat surprised when the point man scrambles, as though Arthur doesn't have a reason beyond that. "I mean, you – you didn't have to go, you know. You could have stayed."
"No. I couldn't have," Eames replies, and his voice sounds like stone even to his own ears. He doesn't have a reason. Officially, he couldn't really stay because of his position with MI6. In reality, he could have stayed right at Arthur's bedside and no one would have questioned him. No one there, certainly, and he doubts that his bosses care enough about him to keep such a close eye on him.
"Because of me? Or because of you?" Arthur asks, and he's closer, too close, not close enough, swinging a leg over Eames in his chair and perching in his lap so that they are sharing breath. It's been too long since they've been together like this, but Eames is getting used to the deprivation.
"What does it matter?" Eames murmurs back, drowning in the sight and smell of him.
"Because it determines why I'm pissed at you," Arthur says, except that he doesn't sound angry. He sounds wanting, wanton, his hands sliding up to cup Eames' neck and stroke his spine. He kisses like he always does, with the same kind of intensity that he fights with, but there is something softer there that Eames couldn't identify even if he wanted to.
"Why Kenya?" Arthur asks, the vibrations of his voice against Eames' jaw. From this angle, Eames can make out a new scar on his neck, above the tiny white nick that McClane left. This one is deeper and too close to the jugular. Eames is surprised that the point man didn't bleed out. He can remember the thick stink of blood too clearly, how he tried to wash it from under his nails with more than a little hysteria.
He can remember wondering whether Arthur would actually live. The memory is comfortless, even with Arthur himself right here, warm and breathing and vital.
"Because it's not home, and it's not where you are," Eames says, which is all true.
"I'm here now," Arthur points out, lips quirking like he knows how Mombasa is Eames's self-enforced punishment. Eames wouldn't put it past him. "What are you going to do about that?"
So Eames says, "I can think of a few things," because it's expected, because it's what he does, because it's what they do.
Look out for the next part: RESIDUAL CHARGE
Also now on AO3 under the same name.
Cheers
BadActs