Disclaimer: Don't own anything.
Author's Note: Okay. Had a long day today and I wrote about half of this while I was supposed to be doing my algebra homework. I read it over at lunch and saw quite a few typos, so I'm fixing them now.
I've begun watching The Newsroom. It's not a show I'll ever be crazy about, but I kind of enjoy watching it for some reason. Suits is back on, ladies and gents! I'm so excited. It's one of my top shows on right now. I'm waiting for White Collar, but that's gonna take a little longer.
And did anybody else see the teaser trailer for Legend of Korra? Because that looked awesome. I'm mostly excited for Lin, Asami and Tenzin, to be honest. And of course, Bumi and Iroh. Basically, everyone but Korra and Mako. Because I even like Bolin, 'cause he's sweet and I liked Mako up until he got annoying with being unable to make up his mind. Korra-it's not that I dislike her, it's just that while I'm happy for a cool, strong female protagonist, something about her is off.
So I finally got me a PS2 and therefore can finally finish playing Kingdom Hearts 2. It's fun, of course, but sometimes, since it's been so long since I played the first one or the last mission, I just kept staring at the screen going, What am I supposed to do?
I rewatched Inception yesterday, as I had a day to myself and, after watching A Good Year with Russel Crowe and Marion Cotilliard, (That movie being the inspiration for the second section) I really wanted to watch her again. She's got a subtlety to her acting that I love. And when I was watching the elevator scene, something clicked in my head, which gave way to the first section of this chapter. Huge burst of inspiration there.
Summer 2013's coming to an end. It feels like all I've done is go to class and work. Hardly been in the pool or seen my summer shows on time instead of taping them. I don't like the monotony of a constant schedule, I've got to be honest. I like the easiness of it, while at the same hating it because I keep wanting something exciting to happen. And then it doesn't.
Sometimes, the only available transportation is a leap of faith.
-Margaret Shepard
As much credit as people give Eames for how observant he is, it isn't enough.
It's a few weeks after Fischer's inception, when they're sitting on a bench in a forgettable city, that Eames brought it up.
"How did you drop us, darling?" he'd said, looking at him. "While the van was falling, there must've been no gravity up on your level." He'd certainly felt lighter on his, had made jumps that he'd never be able to do at normal gravity.
"There wasn't." Arthur finished off his can of soda before explaining the elevator. (He can still feel the railing on the elevator wall in his hand, burning because he was holding it so tight…)
"Ingenious," Eames murmured. "You forced gravity to happen." Arthur had always been clever, had always managed to pull through for jobs, but never in this spectacular of a manner. Blowing up an elevator. Incredible. Then a thought struck him. "But, Arthur—the explosion—"
"It's fine," Arthur interrupted. "I was fine." Clutching at the railing, terrified of what he was about to set off (His brother's weight tackling him to the ground, covering him…the remnants of a mirror image's face and a tattoo hardly visible through the burns…). It had gone against every instinct to let go of the rail so he could allow himself to die. He hadn't been able to breathe, coming back to the airplane, the terror still frozen in his throat, in his lungs.
Eames leaned forward, eyes narrowed at him. "…You're lying."
"Eames, everything turned out alright. We're all alive and we're all sane. It was a good day."
"…That's why you wanted to go drinking that night, when we got into LA. That's why you invited me along." Arthur avoided his eyes. Something about that movement made Eames' temper snap to attention. "Dammit, Arthur, say something!"
The words made Arthur stiffen, jabbed at a fire inside him. "What do you want me to say? That being right in the middle of that again scared the shit out of me? Fine, it did. But that doesn't matter. It needed to get done, so I did it. End of story."
"Not end of story. Have you even slept? At all?" Foreseeing Arthur's next point, Eames barreled on. "And I don't mean where you drunk yourself to sleep because I know that's what happened." The first night, after both of them lay exhausted in the sheets and even then, Arthur hadn't slept long. Eames heard him wake in the early morning. "I mean real sleep."
"…No."
"Arthur…"
"It's not like I don't try. I just can't." It hadn't happened in a long time. It used to happen more often, but it hadn't been so many nights in a row since his brother died. He used to wander the military base then. He tried wandering the city now, but he was too tired. Not physically, but mentally. He didn't want to wander. Just sleep. "It'll go away."
"I don't believe you."
"You don't really get the right to make an opinion now, do you?" There was still anger between them, still that tension that Eames was afraid would never go away. (He deserves it, a bit, he supposes. He'd pried, when Arthur specifically told him not to. And Arthur had retaliated. Because that's what Arthur does when pushed. And here they are)
Eames chose his words carefully. "…Darling, I think I'm one of the only people who does."
"I can take care of it, Eames." Arthur was pushing himself to his feet. Eames followed him.
"By exhausting yourself. Not by actually resting." Eames grabbed Arthur's wrist. Perhaps not the smartest move when he was agitated, but it was all he could do. Arthur whirled on instinct, twisting to try and free his wrist, but Eames kept a firm grip. "Arthur, please, stop. I don't want to leave you like this."
"There's nothing wrong with me."
"I never said there was. I said that maybe you could use a little help right now. But apparently, you don't agree."
Arthur still felt the anger inside him, the anger from Eames' prying, from Mina's email. Anger at himself, a little, for stooping to Eames' level, for going all the way out to Sheral's house. It had been justified, but that didn't mean that Arthur liked doing it. In hindsight, anyway. "…What do you want?"
"Just a week. Cobol's not after your head anymore. Saito got them off your back. You don't have to keep running." It had been weeks of travel, never resting, never staying for more than a few days in any place. And half the time, they'd slept apart. Their drunken night directly after inception—only half-drunk, in truth. They were still plenty lucid enough for decision-making—had been the extent of their intimacy. "Let me try and help. Any way I can. And after a week, if you want me to sod off, then we go our separate ways until the next job." (Because there is no point in pretending they're not going to work together. Despite whatever is going on with them personally, their lists of trusted persons are short. And the list gets a lot shorter when it comes to work)
Eames could see him, weighing the pros and the cons, taking into account whether the both of them wanted to be stubborn or not. "…One week."
Eames hadn't been a wine-drinker until he met Mal.
Eames jokes about how people speak about wine one night. They're sitting on the roof in uncomfortable, plastic chairs that creak with any weight. It's muggy and hot—as French summers tend to be. His feet are up on the banister and he sniffs the wine before tasting it.
He hums and Arthur can tell that he's been saving this by the look in his eye. "This is a…bold wine, with a hint of sophistication."
Arthur rolls his eyes, but keeps drinking. He hadn't grown up with very much wine in the house—whiskey, definitely—but not wine. He likes it, likes how it can be sweet or sour.
Mal is curled in an her plastic chair, her white sundress wrinkled and her hair—long enough to start going down past her shoulder blades—loose and lightly tangled by the wind up here. She smiles at Eames. "That movie was right, you know."
"About?"
"Wine. It is like people."
"And how would you know for sure?"
She smiles fondly, hints of sadness at the corners. "My uncle had a vineyard. I was there every summer until I was fifteen."
"What happened when you were fifteen?" Arthur asks. As a general rule, he doesn't ask people too many personal questions. Not because he isn't curious—because he is—but because he always figures that people have their right to withhold their answers. That doesn't mean he doesn't go looking for the answers himself, but he doesn't directly ask the person.
"My mother decided I needed to focus on more 'practical' pursuits than wine-making. She was afraid I would fall in love with it and she didn't think it was a suitable career for her only daughter. So she never let me go back. Not until I was twenty-two and attending my uncle's funeral."
"I'm sorry," Arthur says sincerely. He wishes that he had gotten a chance to know his uncles that well. His mother had three brothers—one that lives in Ireland, one in Pennsylvania and the other over in Arizona. He had only ever seen them on the big holidays and it wasn't enough to really know them. He wishes he had some family member to be that close to, his grandmother to tell him stories and show photographs of her and his grandfather or his aunt on his father's side to help get him and his brother into mischief. But he's never been close with his extended family, has hardly ever met his cousins. His entire world has always been made up of his brother, his sister and his mother. Until now, at least. Now he has Mal. And Eames, somehow.
"Was she right?" Eames asks quietly. "Your mum."
"About what?"
"Did you fall in love with wine-making?"
A small chuckle. "…I did. I think it will…always be that one thing that you look back on and wish you could do differently. You know how some people want to finish college and others have that person they met once and never met again, but they wanted to? Wine-making is mine. I loved working with the vines and the smell of the grapes fermenting and the cellar where my uncle kept every bottle. I loved the limestone and the lavender—well, no, not really. I hate lavender, now, thanks to that house."
"Lavender?" Arthur's perplexed. He's always been under the impression that lavender is one of those staple scents that all women like.
"Yes. We used to keep it in little boxes in the windowsill to keep out the scorpions."
"Really?"
"Mmhm."
"What happened to the house? And the vineyard?"
"It got sold. My parents couldn't afford to keep it and our house at the time and they didn't want to uproot me from my studies or from my father's job at the university. So they sold it. I—I have this dream sometimes—usually on nights like these, in the summer—that I'm walking through the house and I see my uncle and he gets up and hugs me and asks how I am, how the family is."
"Family?" Eames and Arthur say at the same time.
"Yeah, the family. And I laugh and say I brought them this time and I see two little shadows run in—there's no faces, no colors, but they run in shouting grand-père. And someone walks in behind them, but that's where I wake up."
"What happened to our independent woman who only wanted her career?" Eames asks cheekily.
Mal aims a light kick at his calf. "I'm still here. I don't even know why I have that dream—I can't imagine myself with a family. But it happens every year. At least once."
"It's a sign," Eames says gravely. "You're doomed to spend your life as a housewife."
That makes her laugh. "Sounds more like a terribly boring nightmare."
(In a year or so, perhaps less, she would no longer be able to dream of her uncle's vineyard and the family she didn't want, but would end up getting. She wouldn't be able to dream of anything anymore…)
Eames has a talent for changing while driving.
Medically speaking, Arthur shouldn't be driving. That was Eames' logic when he snatched the keys and got behind the wheel.
Arthur still thought he'd be safer if he drove with a concussion, but the medical world didn't think so. Then again, the medical world hadn't been in the car with Eames driving.
"They have a description of us, Eames," Arthur said, holding his balled up suit jacket to the back of his—bleeding—head. He'd gotten his head bashed into a wall less than twenty minutes ago. Eames didn't look much better—a cut above his eyebrow—shallow and it had already stopped bleeding and he'd likely be bruised tomorrow. Arthur could practically feel his ribs already turning black and blue.
This had been one of those jobs where, in the dream, things had gone pretty much according to plan minus some variations that couldn't always be accounted for. It was once everyone woke up that things went down.
Which led to them being here. In a stolen car with Eames as the driver.
"That's not a problem, darling."
"You're going to have to explain that one to me."
"Open our bag and toss me the shirt?"
They had a bag between them with spare fake ID s and clothes. Arthur managed to pull out one of Eames' shirts and held it out. Eames grabbed it and put it in his lap before using one hand to unbutton his shirt. As he drove, nearly swerving them into other lanes as he did and Arthur kept on hand on the 'oh-shit' handle on the door—the entire world shifting between fuzzing and in focus, Eames slipped out of his shirt and into the new one.
They stopped at a red light. Keeping one foot on the brake, Eames slipped out of his pants and into a pair of jeans that Arthur passed him with no small amount of wriggling. Arthur dug in the bag and found a Yankees baseball cap. Eames put it on.
"Well? How do I look?"
"You look like a tourist."
Eames grinned. "Exactly." Still at the red light—did it ever turn green?—Eames leaned over and checked the back of Arthur's head. "How do you feel?"
"Like I'm gonna be sick."
"Do you need to get out?"
Arthur started to shake his head, but thought better of it. "I'll be fine. Some sleep would be—light's green."
Eames went, but he kept glancing back at Arthur. "…You could sleep now."
Arthur gave him a look. "We're on the run."
"It'll help sell it. There's a blanket in there to cover up the bloodstains." Some of the blood from Arthur's head had dripped to his collar. The shirt couldn't be saved now.
Arthur eyed him warily—not because he didn't trust him, but because he wondered exactly how much Eames had managed to pack in the backpack. He dug through a bit and found a tightly rolled up airplane blanket. He spread is out and it managed to cover to about his knees.
"Sleep, darling. Or at least try. I'll wake you."
Arthur didn't want to—or rather, he really did because his head was killing him, but he didn't want to do it now. But he also knew that, if push came to shove, he wouldn't be very useful right now. Not with the world spinning and constantly going in and out of focus.
Eames felt it when Arthur managed to doze off. His tension was gone, his shoulders relaxed. If they actually managed to get out of the city, the forger would have to wake him at—he checked the clock—2:30. An hour from now. Both of them had had enough concussions to know the drill. Eames was careful to drive the speed limit and to blend in with everyone. No use getting caught for stupid reasons now.
-/-/
They were stopped on the way out of the city. It was 2:27. Eames rolled down his window obligingly and moved his hand subtly to nudge Arthur's knee. It was enough to spark him out of his nap, but not enough to make him go on full alert. For now, he was pretending to stay asleep.
"Good afternoon," the cop said, leaning down to see into the car. "Where are you folks headed?"
Eames smiled falsely, innocently. "Headed back home. Took forever to get here from the airport," Eames tugged his voice into a flat, Californian accent.
"Really? What was at the airport?"
Eames jerked his thumb at Arthur. "My cousin. Lives in North Carolina. It's grammy's eighty-second birthday tomorrow and she made him promise to visit."
"Why's he so tired?"
"Finals," Eames said easily. "Kid's one of those nerds one of those nerds that loves to study. Apparently he was up 'til one in the morning to get up at six so he could get to his airport. I keep telling him that he should just wing it, but hey, what do I know? I never even finished college."
"No luggage?"
"Nope. He's leaving on Saturday. Grammy's tried telling him that he should stay longer, but he doesn't like West Coast."
"Lot of east coasters don't. Carry on. And tell your grandma 'Happy birthday' for me."
"No problem. You have a good day, officer." As Eames drove away, rolling up the window, Arthur shifted upright.
"I swear they're getting dumber."
The forger laughed. "Always possible. You know how it is with television rotting kids' brains."
"So that's what happened to you."
Eames snorted, switching lanes to get out from behind a slow car. "Well, now I know you're going to be just fine. That concussion didn't seem to rattle your brain at all."
"I'm touched by your concern," Arthur said, shifting into a more comfortable position. Some bones in his spine cracked satisfyingly. "It just warms my heart."
Chuckling, Eames pulled out a cigarette. "Give me a light, won't you, darling?"
Arthur was already holding out the lighter. Eames inhaled, the nicotine calming his mind. He rolled down the window and rested an elbow on it. The radio crackled until Arthur found a rock station. Just like old times. Well, almost. At least now they had air conditioning.
Eames knows what it is to grow old alone.
Arthur woke on a rocky shore, waves lapping at his feet and a pebble digging into his shoulder blade. It took him a moment to blink to full awareness, staring at a dark gray sky. He rolled over and pushed himself to his feet, brushing dirt from his back.
The dream had changed since they'd been gone. It was quieter, atmosphere wise, but there was still that undercurrent of tension.
"Eames?" Arthur shouted, wincing a little when he heard it echo back to him. "Eames, I know you're out there!"
He climbed up to where the waist-high grass was once again. "Eames!"
No reply other than his own echo.
Deciding to try another tactic, he called, "Arty! Amara!" And who had the other projection been, the one in the dress uniform with the horrible sweater overtop? He'd seen the sweater once, in an old photograph, but there was never a name to go with it. Well, he could guess, but it was a long shot. "Charlie?!"
"You came back."
Arthur turned to look at the speaker, who—if his hunch was correct—was Charlie Anderson, the best friend killed in a car accident. He was sitting on a boulder, one knee raised so he could rest his arm on it.
"Of course I came back. I wasn't going to leave Eames down here."
A long, analyzing look. "You took a long time."
Ice slipped down Arthur's spine. "How long?" No reply. "How long, Charlie?"
"Longer than you think."
"Where is he?"
"He moves around. You follow that road," Charlie pointed. "You'll find him at some point."
"Thanks."
The path was half-there and half-not, sometimes dirt, sometimes cobblestone, occasionally concrete. The grass was always waist-high, but sometimes there was lavender growing in the fields, flamboyan trees flowering. There were buildings, sometimes. Old apartments and a storefront, one that Arthur recognized as a café in Mombasa.
"Arthur?"
He nearly didn't recognize the voice, but he whirled around as soon as he heard it. And then he couldn't find his voice to reply.
"Darling?"
The voice matched the body. No longer a mismatched, Frankenstein's monster of different people. His face was wrinkled and well-lined, all color from his hair faded. Arthur hadn't taken more than two minutes or so back in reality, calming Amara down and making the decision to use the same somancin, but translated down here, it was something like sixty years.
He finally found his voice. "Eames."
The forger was settled on a worn, weathered city bench nestled in the sand of a lagoon's beach. His weathered hands were resting on a crooked cane. "Are you real?"
Sixty years. Stuck in a dream that he couldn't escape just in case it was real. The thought was a terrible one.
Arthur nodded. "Yes, Eames. I'm real."
"How do I know that for sure?"
"That depends."
"On what?" He sounded tired, the heavy, life-tired.
"On whether you trust me or not. Do you?"
