Disclaimer: I don't own anything!
Author's Note: Recovering well from my surgery. Been back to work for a few weeks and am waiting for my brother to finish playing Dishonored so I can get a turn.
My brother and I's book, the first in an alternate history/fantasy series, is now up on authonomy. Link is on my profile and I'm putting it here with some spaces. It's not completely uploaded yet, but there are about two updates a week. I would very much appreciate it if some of you guys stopped by, took a look and offered thoughts.
authonomy books / 47917 / sanctum - files - the - dragon - scroll /
"In three words, I can sum up everything I've ever learned about life-it goes on."
-Robert Frost
Eames doesn't really believe in totems anymore.
After the failed inception, after they began dreaming together again and discovered how little use the locket was as a totem now—sometimes it worked. Sometimes, the photograph of the smiling child in her bright dress was enough. Not always though—Eames tried to change it. But changing a totem was not so simple as making that first one.
His first instinct was the poker chip. It was an obvious choice. There were few things that he could constantly carry on his person that wouldn't seem strange and the poker chip was one of the few objects that had been there just as long.
But Arthur knew when the decision was made against it. He saw the glance up, saw the glance last longer than it should have and saw the verdict on Eames' face. (Arthur James Reynolds is a destroyer of totems, of security and even Arthur can't guarantee that he's gone for good)
Arthur was careful not to be looking at Eames when he asked, "...Have you found a new totem?"
He felt the tension spread itself along Eames' shoulders; they're not healed yet, haven't managed to forgive each other their brokenness, but they can at least have this because no one else is going to be there for them. Not for this. "I believe so."
"Have you tested it?"
"Not yet. Are you offering?"
"Peterson called. Said there was a job over in Cape Town. There's room for a forger." Arthur had tried not to take the difficult or complicated jobs recently, not until his mind settled from going into limbo, but things weren't that easy. He couldn't afford to show any weaknesses and neither could Eames. Getting jobs together was one of the safer ways to do things; at the very least, they could trust one other person on the team.
Eames agreed easily because even after all of what they'd been through—which would have broken lesser bonds—he still trusted Arthur to have done his part and research the mark and the parameters of the job. Arthur's eye, without a conscious thought on his part, caught Eames' fingers moving in his left-hand pocket, like someone rubbing a good luck charm.
(Arthur's known plenty of men with good luck charms, most from his military days. He remembers Charles Baptiste from New Orleans, who always carried with him an old fading chain of purple Mardi Gras beads "to remind him of better times". Frank Lawrence from Kansas carried an actual rabbit's foot. Travis Chang had a handcrafted coin with Buddha imprinted on it—his grandmother's, he said. Carter Elliot carried a photograph of his girl back in Oregon, a volleyball player and writer. Arthur James Reynolds used to joke, as he hugged Cameron 'round the shoulders, that he didn't need a good luck charm, that he had his brother for that)
The job went fairly smooth—there was a rough patch with uncooperative projections, but those were easy enough to deal with—and afterward when everyone was waking and scrambling to different parts of the room, backs to the others, to check their totems, Arthur didn't look at Eames and Eames didn't look at him. Boundaries had been reestablished and, for now, perhaps that was enough.
Eames has strong genes.
He was sitting in an airport bar in Sydney—not drinking. The only thing in his glass is some Coca-Cola because it was far too hot for coffee and he needed some kind of caffeine—when she sidled up to him. She was pretty, all light brown hair with honey blonde streaks and sunglasses, with tan lines hooking around her neck, just visible thanks to her thin blue shirt. Her capris still managed to show off her legs nicely and she wore her purse hooked diagonally over her torso.
Arthur registered it all immediately because his paranoia wouldn't let him do otherwise. She smiled, no lipstick, no makeup at all, and offered to buy him a drink.
"No, thank you," Arthur told her.
"Too early or don't you trust me?" Her accent rolled familiar and hardly there, like it was long forgotten.
"A bit of both, really."
She held out a hand. "Selina. Selina Wyatt."
"Justin Peterson." It was the name on the passport in his pocket and the Nevada driver's license in his wallet.
"What brings you all the way out here, Justin Peterson?" She crossed one leg over the other, but it was almost non-flirtatious.
"Vacation," Arthur replied easily.
Selina ran her eyes over him and while he saw approval, there was no active interest. "Are you an outdoors man, Justin?"
"Not particularly. Big fan of the opera though."
She laughed and it was sweet and warm. "Good to hear."
"And what brings you here, Ms. Wyatt?"
"I thought we'd progressed past such formalities." Something about that phrase touches a bell in the back of Arthur's mind and he forced himself not to tense. "And I came to look for someone."
"Did you find them?"
Selina rested her chin on her palm, elbow on the bar. "You tell me, Arthur. Ah, don't get up. There's three agents within a twenty foot radius. Not counting myself of course." She slipped a hand in her purse and pulled out a badge, flipping it open. "Interpol."
"...You're good." There were very few government agents that had managed to catch up to him.
"Thank you." She slipped her sunglasses off and uncrossed her legs, leaning forward a little. "Now, what can you tell me about a Mr. Eames?"
(Later, Arthur will laugh when he remembers her eyes, a familiar shade of gray. Because of course it had been a long enough time that little Amara Evans is old enough to have been recruited and of course she has her father's talent for being able to become anybody. She could be a terror in dreamwork, he knows and he makes a note to keep the encounter from Eames)
Eames likes to take long showers.
It's their first chance to relax since escaping the military, PASIV in hand. Arthur said that he'd keep first watch and Eames didn't argue (There's an old suspicion there, an old thing that keeps him sleeping light at night).
But chances were that no one would find them out here in Corner of No and Where, Kentucky. When Eames finally stepped out of the shower, ready to sleep for a while, Arthur arched an eyebrow at him.
"You leave any hot water for me?"
Eames just smirked at him. "Well perhaps next time, you'd like to share with me, darling."
The pink flared in Arthur's cheeks, but that didn't stop him from saying, "I've never believed in sharing."
"Too bad."
Eames knows Arthur too well.
Cobb's cell rang, an obnoxious tone that Cobb stared at, which meant he had no idea who'd changed the ringtone. Arthur was willing to bet it was one of the kids. They were too good with technology for their own good.
"Hello?"
"Cobb, put Arthur on for me."
"Why didn't you just call him?"
"We have our reasons."
Cobb rolled his eyes, not sure about what, exactly, Arthur and Eames had between them this time, but he handed Arthur the phone.
"Eames."
"Blocking my number, darling? That's cold even for you."
"There's a reason for that."
"Oh, I'm aware. I'm also aware that you're not telling me something."
"And why is that?"
"I spoke to Sheral the other day." In which the conversation would have gone to Amara, which could have gone in a direction Arthur didn't much like.
"Where are you?"
"Munich."
"Don't leave. I'll be there soon." With that, Arthur hung up the phone.
"Lover's spat?" Cobb asked, but his eyes—too old for his face—were studying Arthur and looking for a specific reason. He wouldn't find one. This time, the animosity between him and Eames was full of stale stories and old hurts that neither of them were entirely responsible for.
"Something like that." Arthur shrugged on his coat as he stepped back into his shoes. "I gotta head to the airport."
"Want a ride?"
"No thanks. Kids'll be home from school soon. You should be here."
Dom knew better than to argue. His stubbornness was no match for Arthur's. "Have a safe flight then."