This chap is more difficult to write than I thought, pray they are not OOC...
To all those who have reviewed: Thank you! and I'm truly sorry for not responding to you personally.
Chapter 2
Let's come back to today, to the hospital where Eames lay unconscious, mind trapped somewhere too far down for Arthur to reach.
Cobb stayed a little longer than usual, trying to coax the point man into conversations, but Arthur wasn't listening. The older man left defeated, taking the PASIV with him. Arthur did not protest.
Not long after Cobb's departure, thunder roared as rain poured down, whipping the window, making small ping, ping, ping noises. The room darkened rapidly, but Arthur remained motionless, still holding Eames' hand.
Arthur never liked rainy days; this offers him a lame explanation to why he was so short-tempered back there in London, where it could rain for five days in a row. They had a fight in Eames' apartment, the kind of fight that involves angry shouting, glaring, huffing, teacup smashing and door banging – Arthur was the one who banged the door and left. He took a flight back to the States the next morning, and he didn't bother to retrieve his stuff from Eames' place, so he didn't see how the other man crumbled on his worn-out couch and drank until he passed out.
A knock at the door snapped him back to reality. A nurse strode in with the confident certainty that spelled "professional", and flipped the lights on with one sharp motion. Arthur recognized her face but failed to recall her name (was it something that began with an 'L'?). She came to brief him about the brain scan tomorrow. Out of habit, Arthur scribbled the time and room number on his Moleskine. Time doesn't matter, he thought, not for Eames, anyway.
Arthur knew very well that old age is never the major cause of death of people like him. He'd imagined the many ways in which he might be killed: a clean shot in the head while he was walking home alone at night; A plane explodes with him in it; car wreck; A long-hoped-for bullet after seemingly endless torture – he can accept a quick and soundless death, or a brutal and painful one, but not this, not a coma, not a half-dead brain - a three-quarters dead brain, perhaps, in Eames' case - in a still-living body.
He left the ward, went downstairs to the small cafeteria. Arthur wouldn't admit it, but he was practically living in the hospital now. He fell asleep almost every night in that uncomfortable chair beside the bed with a book still open on his laps. Cobb had suggested bringing him a camp bed or something. Arthur stared at him as though he were insane, don't be silly, Cobb, he said, I'm not living in the hospital. I come by a few hours each day, that's all.
They both knew "a few hours" meant "at least 12 hours". Cobb had the sympathy not to point it out.
Arthur had no appetite at all but he ordered tomato salad and chicken sandwich anyway, then brought the food back to the ward where Eames and a Penguin Paperback were waiting. "You are not the best forger as you claim to be, you know." He told the unconscious man, as he sat down by his bed, "You're the biggest trouble-maker in the history of mankind, Mr. Eames."
His voice sounded hollow in the silent ward. Unlike all the soothing bullshit Arthur had heard or read. Eames didn't look as though he were asleep; he was just…empty, so lifeless that Arthur wanted to smack him. Instead he turned away, dragging his chair to the window, gazed at the flooded world outside, food forgotten on the bedside table.
—
Arthur might never find out exactly who did it, but it wasn't hard to guess. Both of them had made enemies over the years, some of which powerful enemies, and there are rival teams, old targets, old grudges. All of them would be more than happy to see Eames dead. Arthur wasn't too worried; he had always thought they were careful enough.
…but you can't run away from hatred.
Twenty-two days after that Christmas, Eames called. Arthur heard the transcontinental blip before the other man spoke, he muted the TV, "…you're in Mombasa again, aren't you."
Eames' chuckle sounded like static on the phone, "Are you tabbing on me with you own spy satellite?"
"Don't be silly."
"Where are you right now, darling?"
"My apartment."
"Which one?"
"The one with ugly green curtains."
"I picked those curtains, Arthur dear."
Arthur suppressed a smile, "Thanks for the tip, I finally see why they are bright green and ugly."
"Look, turns out the job's going unexpectedly well, I'll be home in a few days."
"Which home?" Arthur asked, mimicking his accent.
"You know very well that I've got only one home, darling."
Arthur tried to drown his laugh in a cough, he didn't know if he'd succeeded, "so this is why you're calling," he said, "to ask me to leave the door open for you, and to show me how many old MGM movies you've watched."
"That's part of the plan."
Arthur shifted on the couch, staring at an imaginary spot on the opposite wall, "okay, what's the other part of you master plan."
"Happy birthday, love."
"C'est très gentil, except the fact that it's not my birthday today."
"It's not?"
"No, Mr. Eames, you've stolen the wrong file."
He heard some shuffling on the other side, "well, before I say I miss you I need some kind of cover-up, right, love?"
"I can't believe I'm having this stupid conversation with you." he sighed before hanging up.
—
Eames sneaked into Arthur's flat in his usual way - meaning, climb in through the living room window - one Sunday morning while the resident was brewing coffee. "You've got a problem with the front door?" the point man asked without turning round.
"Your landlady seems disagreeable."
"Mrs. Turner is very amiable. I've told you the only reason why she keeps staring at you is that you do look suspicious." he opened the cupboard in search of teabags; Eames prefers black tea, "Don't touch my cookies, Mr. Eames."
The other man had already stuffed a handful of the said cookies into his mouth, "Whatdiyesay?"
Arthur tried to murder Eames by staring at him, "Never mind."
Eames flashed him a self-satisfied grin, which is rather hard to accomplish with a mouthful of almond cookies.
"Is it safe for you to be here?" Arthur asked, slapped his hand away from the beloved snack, "I heard –"
"Don't worry about that, love, I'll find a way to straighten things out."
Arthur raised a questioning eyebrow.
"What did you do, Eames?"
"Nothing."
"Then why would Kener Technology want you in a body bag?"
Eames shrugged, "because I double-crossed them?"
Arthur set the kettle aside, "the job didn't 'go well'," he said, "you messed it up, again. Eames, do you always have to – whatever." he shook his head, "I should kick you out before the Kener guys rush in with loaded guns."
"You should."
They stared at each other like a pair of idiots for a few minutes, an hour maybe, until Arthur broke their eye contact and sipped at his now lukewarm coffee. "Don't sing me silly lullabies, unless you want to sleep on the couch." he muttered into the cup.
"As you wish, darling."
"…and no smoking in my bedroom."
"Wouldn't even dream of it."
"Don't set foot in the kitchen without my permission, your cooking is declared unfit for human consumption."
"Are we done with the regulations?"
"No, don't try to dis -"
Eames pinned him to the fridge and swallowed all the unsaid words.
Carelessness, plus excessive confidence, Arthur thought, will someday, somehow get Eames killed. However on his way back home from the supermarket Arthur had certainly not expected that day to be someday. There was an accident on the highway, turning his usual 45-minute drive into a three-hour nightmare. By the time he left his rental on the shoulder of the road he was hungry, exhausted and really pissed. He made his way to the miserable-looking townhouse ("barracks." Eames once said.), carrying the grocery bag under one arm as though it were a loaded hand canon.
The hallway was dark, which was quite unusual; normally Mrs. Turner would have all the lights turned on before nightfall. Arthur reached for the switch, no use, electricity was out, again, one of the many drawbacks of old houses. Why didn't Mrs. Turner call the electrician?
There was something – someone, a silhouette - at the other end of the hallway. Arthur squinted, trying to discern who that was. "Mrs. Turner?" he ventured.
He dropped the grocery bag, reached for his Browning as he slowly approached the motionless figure.
It was his landlady, with a bullet hole in the forehead and blood all over her face and chest. Arthur's heart sank.
He rushed upstairs, not caring if this was a trap. It was even darker in his apartment; all he could make out was the bulky outline of the couch, two toppled chairs and an overturned table.
"Eames?" he called out tentatively. There were dark stains on the floor; Arthur tried not to think about it.
Silence, wind gushed in through the broken window, making those ugly green curtains dance like desperate ghosts.
"They have him." Arthur told Cobb on the way to the airport. He hated the transcontinental blip, now more than ever.
"Who are 'they'." the line was a bit unstable, Cobb sounded like an old man with asthma.
"I don't know."
There was a pause.
"You must disappear, Arthur. Whoever is after him will come after you too."
"I'm on my way to the airport."
"I mean, don't try to look for him."
A longer pause.
Arthur considered saying I know, or I won't, or who cares, that arrogant bastard might already be dead.
Instead he hung up.
tbc.