Based off the prompt on the inception_kink meme which I can't link here, but will put on my account - there are other wonderful fills that came before mine so you should check those out, too! It's a popular prompt that I was inspired by as well, I hope the addition of one more is an enjoyable read (if dark and morbid) as well. I posted the beginning of it on the prompt, but I've made a few editing changes yes, the anon one is mine.

This story will contain kidnapping, torture of the mind and body, violence, swearing, being buried alive, and all the repercussions of those things, if this story gets long and out of hand, maybe more, SO HEED THESE SERIOUSLY

As an important sidenote: I hope everyone who is or will potentially be effected by the hurricane will be smart and safe. Best wishes from everyone that things turn out alright once this storm is over.

I do not own this, Inception and recognizable characters belong to Christopher Nolan

Warnings for this chapter: graphic description of fighting

Going Under

In comparison to their last couple jobs together, the one lined up next for Eames and Arthur is actually fairly simple. Even though the mark is an ex-military man, he is not militarized in the head because of his dishonorable discharge long before the PASIV program came into being. The lack of militarization always makes the extraction business much more colorful and sporadic when the dreamer isn't trained to be suspicious of dreams. Eames had teased Arthur about it when it came up, with this dream having the potential of being a lot more creative than their recent ones. In a quieter part of the brain he was still marveling at the idea of creating a kick in free fall. He certainly wouldn't have been able to come up with an answer to that with all his out-of-the-box boasting. His comment was met with an eye-roll. So okay, maybe Arthur wasn't as one dimensional as a loyal puppy to Cobb, and he had the habit of knowing everything that was going on, and maybe Eames respected this kid who he couldn't quite out a finger on and had no real person for the Forger to copy down to a T. Plus, Arthur seems to have warmed up to Eames as well. Their constant baiting of each other hasn't diminished any, but the bite has seeped from their words over the course of their makeshift partnership.

It's the first day of their latest job together. Halloween, actually. Eames personally hadn't celebrated it to such an extent back in his hometown, but respected the holiday of looting candy and pretending you're someone else. He never could have imagined spending Halloween invading people's dreams and stealing their innermost secrets back when he was a kid.

Their mark was Gerald Lexington. He had been seen lingering in the little Missourian town that is closest to that of a no-longer-operational governmental lab, hidden beneath the soil and under the guise of grain processing plant. Some higher ups who didn't give their names (but had flashed some pretty and completely official badges) wanted to know what was going on in Lexington's head. Eames got the call from an old friend of his and he called Arthur soon after.

The two strikingly different men had started a fragile project together of becoming the revamped duo of Cobb and Arthur. Well, it isn't necessarily what they intended initially, but after job after job closing like clockwork, their fame grew in the dreamshare world each day, not only meeting the reputation Arthur used to have with Cobb, but blowing that status out of the water. This had its drawbacks being so well known, but gallivanting the globe, pulling off 'the impossible' with a full pocket and no sense of self preservation in the line of duty had no price tag. It is exciting; it's what makes Eames feel alive. After inception, he realized that Arthur got the same thrill of defying the impossible that he did; and without the need to make sure Dom made it home, Arthur agreed to work alongside Eames for a large majority of his jobs.

So call it what you will, maybe a shiver down his spine, or the constant twitch of his fingertips, or his newly acquired spider sense, what have you, but Eames knows something is wrong the moment he enters the hangar.

He saunters in through the cracked open sliding door of the abandoned military base they've decided to take refuge in. With a scan of the room, he takes a quick headcount and it's clear they are short one Arthur. He motions to the empty desk with his thermos of tea (he couldn't risk buying a cup of it in this small of a town, his clothes and accent would be a little too memorable for his liking), asking anyone in the room who happens to be looking at him where the tightly wound proprietor of the desk was.

Eames has never really been known for his sparkling attendance, but at least he made an effort to get there within thirty minutes of their designated starting time. As for Arthur, he is always always the first one to the 'office'. So with knowing this, the lack of files and a humming laptop on the first day catches Eames off guard quite thoroughly.

Wilkes barely glances up from his Bristol board model of his museum before focusing his attention back to the paper he was cutting through with his Exacto knife.

Eames resists the annoyed twitch of his lip at the man and moves to his section of the sprawling space instead, deciding to let this one go as an anomaly of Arthur's track record. He flops into his chair with the grace of a lumbering dog and picks up the neat stack of files placed there for him the night before on the man he was supposed to forge for the mission.

After ten minutes of flipping through the list of restaurants George Kotsiopoulos frequents, Eames can't take it anymore; the silence is getting heavy due to the lack of furious flying of fingers tapping on the keyboard from Arthur's desk.

He tosses the open file onto the mess of files he's scattered about already and leans back in his seat, arms twined across his chest when he raises his voice to be heard by each of the team members. "So where is our Point Man?"

"Late," Wilkes sniffs, his tone raspy from his bad smoking habit, "how's he s'posed to brief us on the job when he's not here? We can't work blind."

An airy, Italian lilted voice cuts through the string of complaints like a knife. "He sent us all the brief in an email so there's nothing for you to be confused about unless you admit to not being fully knowledgeable about what you were getting into, Charles. Stronzo." The words are sharp and efficient, if not deceptively alluring in the voice they're strung together with.

Their extractor, Catalina, was the one who invited Eames onto the job and seems infinitely more interested in the potential situation than the architect muttering to himself is. It's hard to care about Wilkes and the rod shoved up his ass (such a large pole in fact, that the one Arthur is known for having is dwarfed in comparison) when Cat is slinks over, a soft smile on her face when she nicks the Englishman's tea and takes a small sip, eyes sparking with a barely concealed taunt. The damn minx.

She opens her mouth and okay, maybe she wasn't trying to conceal that taunt at all. "Are we just not interesting enough for you, darling?" her eyebrow raises in challenge. But her expression sharpens instantly when Eames purses his lips into a worried line, the lack of volleyed flirtations cuing her instantly on weight of the situation.

Cat sobers up her playful mirth quickly. "He hasn't called, if that's what you're asking." She straightens to meet Eames eye to eye and Wilkes hacks out a phlegmy cough from his dark corner.

Idiot he thinks first. Eames glares at the bitter architect before pulling his attention back to Cat. She's wearing a worried crease in her brow and it takes the man a second to realize that she's mirroring his. Shit is what he thinks second.

"He could just be late you know," Cat offers hopefully.

But Eames shakes his head to dismiss the preposterous suggestion. He's not being paranoid, knowing peoples' tics is his job, and he's damn good at it. The best, from what he knows. And even a forger wet behind the ears after three jobs should know that Arthur is set up and neck deep in his research long before the rest of the team even decides to show up. This particular heist is about their fortieth job on the same team. Arthur being late - scratch that - one hour late, has wrong written all over it.

"He doesn't do late."

Cat nods in understanding and whips out her phone, dialing the number which Eames is sure the lovely woman can recite by heart already, with the rate of information exchange that goes on between extractor and point.

But when Cat shoots him a look when she tries to call Arthur, one that says he didn't pick up, Eames is already halfway out the door. Any good forger would know that Arthur always picks up when someone on the team calls. Eames tells himself that he only knows this because it's his job to observe how people act, not because he knows this from the fact that he's sending a majority of those calls and text messages.

He's sitting in his nondescript 1982 Ford pickup for a minute, staring off into the field that stretches out in all directions from their hideout with the car already sputtering with life. He tries to keep the knot of worry down but he just can't push it away. His grip clenches like iron on the steering wheel and he's shaking it as if he could rip it right off. He probably could too, with this hunk of junk.

"Shit. Fuck!"

People like Arthur are too good to just be bait nowadays. Whatever happened, he was the target. Vendettas against dreamers are rarely pretty. And rarely are they ever hostage situations. In this world - the seedier world Eames dragged Arthur into – people like these aren't looking for money.

But he can't afford to think like that.

He puts the car in drive and speeds off.

Arthur was taken up by Mal and Dom during his stint in the military for one reason: he was the best. He didn't get to be the top of the subdivision without knowing how to fend for himself.

He's had a couple of scuffles; he's been chased through cities, chases with guns even. True, he's taken a few bullets before, but he's dusted off his mournfully ruined suits each time and pulled off an escape. The last time took him by surprise at an Opera house, and he had been wearing a heavenly black Fendi with narrow lapels and two buttons and it fit him so well that he didn't even have to get it tailored; it was such a shame he took a bullet right in the shoulder while wearing it, with a goddamn shotgun no less, so the back was now a wasteland of holes and tears and blood.

But even with a new set of stitches and a few extra bruises, he always wakes up the morning after the chase with a light feeling in his chest and a heavy sum in his wallet, signs of a job well done. Most of the time, these hijinks are when he decides to take up the jobs with Eames and his less than savory clientele who are so deep within the underbelly of the illegal world that they know actually quite a lot about dreamshare, or rather, what they can do with it. Nothing better than extracting from crime syndicates and mobsters all over the world. But he just can't say no whenever Eames rings him up with the customary "Arthur! I was wondering, look, sorry about the close call last time, but I really think you'd enjoy this next job..." And god help him, he goes every time. He can get shot at and chased and threatened, but like a shadow, he slips out of their fingers each time, and they will never know it's him. And the call of the chase sucks him back all over again.

Bottom line, Arthur doesn't get caught. Ever since entering this globetrotting web of stealing thoughts from bad guys, he has about ten names on rotation (Arthur only being used for the more political jobs rather than the recently monikered 'black market' ones that Eames has a habit of taking). No one comes after him once he's disappeared. He changes his social security number once every month. He doesn't exist. A man who doesn't exist can't be tracked.

He's the best, by far, he's made sure of it. That's why a year after the inception job he and Eames worked together more often than not. In the realm of dreamshare, they had their reputation, even with the whole Fisher-Morrow fiasco under wraps.

But when you're the best, it damn well means that others won't be. Other people in this business can be caught when they're not as meticulous at getting out of trouble as Arthur is. Those ones tend to be the squealers.

So even though Arthur locks checks his lock ten times and stares out the window of his motel room in the middle of nowhere Missouri for a good fifteen minutes, he's a bit startled when a heavy blow comes at the door when he's checking his laptop.

He has his Glock off the safety and trained at the door before he can even blink. His muscles are wound tight, still like a predatory cat ready to pounce upon its prey.

When the second blow comes, it's an elbow through the thin door and Arthur takes no time fighting his way out. He has 17 rounds in the magazine of his gun, but he hopes he doesn't have to resort to using any. He flicks on the safety and spins the gun around his thumb for a little extra bite to his punches, making sure his palm smothers the guard in place so that there's no accidental bullet to the face due to his own stupidity. He darts out quickly, his free arm extended. He snatches the searching hand and twists it straight out toward him, locked in place. With his other arm flexed and bent, Arthur brings down the flat of his elbow onto the delicate bones right above the wrist, gracing the room with the loud snap and muffled gasp from outside.

The arm snaps back when Arthur lets it go. There's whimpering on the other side of the door and multiple voices hissing at each other. From the voices, Arthur counts at most five of them. He's already at least slowed down grunt number one. There's a faint "fucker broke my arm!" which he can't help but smirk at.

"What can I help you boys with?" His voice is steady, but his eyes can't help but wander over to his phone thrown on the table a good ways away. Someone should know, just in case...

"Oh Arthur," a gravelly voice coos, and a shiver drips down his spine at the utterance of his name. "You've made an important man very angry."

His stance shifts from an offensive position to a defensive one, just waiting for the next blow. Pissing them off even more doesn't look like it's going to make it any easier for himself. So he could have smacked the back of his head for the next word that comes out, but he was never really known for giving much of a snarky monologue anyway.

"Sorry." He gives a sad attempt of a shrug and says it like he doesn't mean it. Probably because he doesn't. They can tell.

"Get him!"

There's a roar and the whole door flies off its hinges. So much for being discreet. Two bulky men shoulder their way through the frame of the door, flanking him on each side. And here he was thinking he was going to have a relaxing three days before the next job. Hopefully he wasn't going to be getting any broken bones he has to treat while working point.

He lashes out, silently and with deadly intent.

Darting to his left, he smashes his heel onto the burly guy's toes, tucks a fist into his gut, and swings his elbow to catch the side of the temple, effectively stunning Thug Number Two without a scratch. He's not so efficient with Thug Number Three, who had moved in with a kick to the back of his knee and rendered Arthur to the floor. A punch followed not soon after, but Arthur managed to roll to the side to avoid the man staggering from the continued momentum of his haymaker. Springing up from his crouch, he lands a couple successive jabs to his opponent's side, cracking a rib or two with his gunned hand.

When Thug Number Three flinches, he doesn't have enough time to block the heel slamming into his knee from the side, knocking him down with a shocked grunt of pain. Arthur barely has time to catch his breath to steady himself before he's tackled from behind, newly dubbed Thug Number Four. He catches the corner of the mattress with his shoulder on his way down, one armed pinned to his body thanks to the clamp-like arms circling his middle. They land with a solid thump face down on the carpet, probably a lot less expensive than the carpet Saito was thinking about when he pointed out the crucial flaw in that ever fateful extraction plan he thinks dreamily, as he's momentarily stunned from being thrown to the ground. A thunderous blow to his ribs from the back wakes Arthur up and nearly instantaneously spurs him into action. He bucks back, trying to kick himself some wiggle room, grateful for any space created to get any better angle for punching Mr. Stereotypical gangster bodyguard right in the head with his gun. They switch off blows, both struggling to land solid hits from all the squirming around on the floor, neither men daring to make it easy for the other. Arthur gets a few good gun-assisted punches to the unlucky guy's ear, sure to have his head ringing. The beating on his back and side weaken as if on cue, the constant stream of unsteady blows to the head enough to briefly paralyze.

They're comparable to militarized projections with their ferocity, minus the important fact that they aren't projections. He's on the ground with one more active man (Thug Number Five, Arthur checks off on his mental list), his odds aren't looking good. He slips his arm free and switches his gun back around its regular position, stabilizing himself on the floor with his elbows for a more accurate shot.

"You're a dead man, Arthur."

He's met the barrel of a gun from across the room, as he expected. But Arthur hesitates, his silencer still stashed away in his suitcase. Thug Number Five steps forward with a lilt in his smile, sensing Arthur's hesitation. The stare they have locked on each other doesn't waver.

"Who are you working for?" Arthur asks as steady as he can manage, slightly winded and a little more wary.

The man stalks forward, a grim smirk on his face. He crouches down a few feet away from Arthur's unfortunate prostrate position, a man still tangled around his midsection slowly coming to and steadily decreasing his chance of escape with each passing second.

The man before him is a gaunt faced but able bodied young man, the smile twisting on his mouth not reaching his eyes. He blinks once and cocks his head.

"I'm not hired for this one. I volunteered." There's such glee in these words that Arthur has to repress a shudder.

Sigh. Why doesn't he like the sound of that?

But... this boy sounds deadly, and his gun doesn't have a silencer on it, so if his threat is authentic like Arthur thinks it is, they must be certain that no one is around to hear this. They must have bought out the motel if they don't think anyone is here to get them in trouble.

Shooting to incapacitate, he clips the young man in the bicep with his initial shot, and then with a sudden snap and gurgle of red, Arthur gets the boy in the collarbone. He tries to scramble free with the sudden commotion, but the boy recovers quicker than Arthur expected. He's met with the cool, hard, familiar touch of the gun barrel pressing against the crown of his head before he can shimmy free. He stills completely, knowing when he's been beat. Had he been more prepared, he could've taken out all five guys. But now, he doesn't think he can twist out of the hold around his waist and get a good shot before being fatally wounded in his his current position.

"Drop the gun, Arthur." The command hangs in the air but the Point Man is less compliant with being stripped of his last defense. He closes his eyes and mouths over the shape of a swear.

His head is yanked up by a fist in his hair, and now the gun's being aimed straight at his left eye. His scalp prickles uncomfortably.

"I said. Drop. The gun. You don't want that information swimming in your head to get blown to bits, do you?"

Arthur's tries to hide his wince at the irony not lost on him. All his precious graphs and lists and research, stored in the left side of the brain, gone. The right side, with its lack of analytic ability, already considered a shriveled up piece of unused brain matter, according to some in the business, having got around through jobs whenever Eames mentioned it.

He drops the gun, watching the boy smile.

The gun draws back and the wavery expression is replaced with an ugly sneer, the anger boiling in there verging on the moment of overflowing that it ages Thug Number Five by ten years and suddenly he looks like he's not so new to this kind of situation anymore. "I promised I wouldn't kill you, but this is for my father."

Ah, 'Vengeful Son,' Arthur thinks, not 'Thug Number Five' the ever running list in his head registers for categorical sake before the punch hits him in the side of the head and he's out like a light.