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A month after a paper pinwheel in a safe, he's alone, leaning against his kitchen counter, smoking his one cigarette of the day. He smokes it after breakfast, so he keep the taste in his mouth for as long as he can, and after he showers, he can still sometimes smell it on his fingers.
He hasn't really heard from anyone; Cobb shot him a quick email that says he's remembering how to live in a proper house with the sound of his children in the morning; Ariadne sent a text three weeks ago, ‘Don't forget me in Paris.’ As if working with her, as if working with the whole team had been a dream.
He likes the humor in that. Arthur smiles, rubs fallen ash into the countertop and there's a knock on the door. He listens, waits, pulling a gun out of a drawer next to a spatula, then there's knocking again.
"Arthur."
That accent that smoothes all the consonants almost into vowels.
"Eames," Arthur says, exasperated; he unlocks the door, flings it open to see Eames's grin.
"There you are, darling," the forger says.
"Was I supposed to be someplace else?" Arthur asks and Eames leans on the doorjamb. He reaches out towards Arthur's face, quick, and snatches the cigarette from his mouth, Arthur forgot he'd been smoking it.
"There are so many ways I could answer that,” Eames says, the cigarette bobbing as he speaks, smoke sliding out. "I have a job for you."
"A job."
"Or maybe I missed you."
Arthur sighs. "You're the worst liar I know."
"And you know so many liars, I'm hurt that you think I'm the worst. You obviously haven't been keeping good company, love."
"Obviously, since you're darkening my doorstep, stealing my cigarette."
"I'm much more interesting," Eames says, matter-of-fact. He raises an eyebrow, a smirking question, and Arthur rolls his eyes.
Then he decides his fate. "You can stay for a day. One day."
-
Eames stays for three months.
Sometimes he’s gone, off on a job, complaining about Arthur and his ‘vacation,’ he gives Arthur a once over with a bag dangling from his hand, “pet, you’re going to go pale, paler than usual, and possibly turn into a vampire, then I might have to shoot you and it would pain me to do so”; he returns with a constipated look on his face, “I can’t believe the bloody morons these days, darling, why do you make me work with these people?” to which Arthur says, “I don’t make you do anything, you do it to yourself all on your own. I told you not to work with Golding and I warned you that Mercedes said she would cut your throat the next time she saw you.”
Until one day, Eames sits down next to Arthur on the couch, so close Arthur and his book tip into Eames’s space before he can recover, but Eames just slings an arm around his shoulders, talking because the Brit can’t ever seem to shut up when Arthur’s reading, “I refuse to work anymore unless you’re working with me, I can only put up with a certain level of bullshit.”
Arthur pushes out from under his arm because Eames doesn’t need to be touching him, they don’t need to be touching, they might be friends of a sort, the only trustworthy people they know in this business, but there’s no need for touching. He stares at Eames.
“So are you admitting I’m the best?”
“Quite readily,” Eames replies, picking at a thread on his shirt.
“Huh. Okay.”
Arthur goes back to his book and Eames falls asleep. When he wakes later, Arthur’s burnt his way through a frozen lasagna.
Arthur’s daily cigarette turns into three, one at each meal, then turns into half a pack; Eames leaves burning cigarettes like he leaves mugs of tea, sometimes lighting up in one room only to be distracted and wander into another room to find a lit cigarette he smokes down to the filter.
They take a job together, in another city, hotel rooms down the hall from each other and Arthur thinks his room is too quiet. He walks to the bar on the corner and disappears into a black hole made by four men.
-
He wakes to pain. He wakes to blood and freezing water, a ragged screaming tear in his shoulder and his ribs are crooked in a way his body doesn’t like, especially when he breathes. A fist, then another, then another, and he can’t open one eye any more.
His captors ask him over and over about inception, ask him over and over about Fischer, ask him questions he’s not even sure he hears correctly because his ears are ringing in a way that makes his skin crawl.
He thinks boot camp was like this once upon a time, nothing but endurance and breathing through pain, he’d broken his wrist and ankle climbing a fucking wall. Once on an op, he’d been captured by the other side, beaten badly with a rifle before he could shoot them; somehow the rifle was still able to fire.
So he smiles and spits blood and says, “You owe me a new suit.”
He says, “I’m still talking, you guys need a little more imagination.”
He smiles and spits blood and in the end, takes a warning bullet to the arm.
Then the world is fuzzy with pain and surreal with blood loss and a final kick to his ribs. He’s left to die and Arthur’s relieved. Peace at last.
He hears gunshots and waits for more bullets in his body, like the one plugging the leak in his arm, but all he gets is Eames saying, “Arthur, bloody buggering fuck, Arthur, stay awake, stay—“
-
Arthur.
Arthur wakes with a start and tries to break the fingers holding him down.
“It’s me, fuck, it’s me, Arthur,” the voice says, filtering in like the sunlight, and he blinks one eye to see Eames.
One eye, he reaches up and feels ripped silk over his other eye, “don’t touch it, it’s wrapped, don’t touch it,” Eames says, tone low, so angry and low for a moment, Arthur thinks the forger’s angry with him.
“I didn’t—I’m so, Eames, what, I’m—“
“Are you fucking apologizing?” His accent is deep, thick with something red, Arthur knows because suddenly, all he can see is liquid red. “Stop moving, you’re making yourself bleed.”
Is that my tie holding my head together, Arthur thinks, and Eames says, “Yes, just until we get you hidden.”
Eames can read my mind, Arthur panics, he can read my mind, he’ll see and he’ll know. Arthur closes his eyes, the feeling of his body moving without him; he says, “They better be dead.”
Laughter, quick and sharp, then Eames breathes into his ear, “They went to pieces when they saw me.”
Arthur tries to laugh, but his throat and lungs don’t play well together anymore, and the world is really dark.
Arthur.
He wakes again, dragging in air as if he was dreaming of drowning, but he wasn’t dreaming and he thinks he really needs to stop waking up, no, he needs to stop passing out.
You lost.
He hears the words like he’s eavesdropping, then he realizes he can’t see. He blinks rapidly, vision adjusting to the dark, pain coming with each close of his eyes until he’s breathing in short injured bursts, then Eames trips against the doorway.
“You’re awake.”
“Don’t sound”—Arthur has to clear his throat, old blood clogged in his airway—“so disappointed.”
“Ah, yes, I saved you,” Eames says, “so I could shoot you myself, you stupid sod.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Do you want a bedtime story?”
Glancing at Eames, Arthur notices he’s fidgeting, smoking fast, his fingers keep switching their hold on the cigarette. “Yeah, bedtime story.”
“Once upon a time, there was a very smart man who wore very smart suits and he was an utter prick,” Eames says as he steps close to the bed, a small smile on his mouth. The smoke curls around his hand as if he’s conjuring it. “He got himself kidnapped because he didn’t invite his blindingly attractive coworker Eames out for a drink with him. When the unbelievably handsome Eames discovered the man’s expensive jacket in the street, he knew something was wrong. Fortunately for all involved, Eames had a mate in town who could do some dirty work.”
“Eames—“
“So they discovered where this angel of suits was taken, then they rescued this infuriating damsel in distress, and slew the four-headed dragon. A nice little training exercise. Then the fucking wanker who caused all the trouble kept passing out and losing his blood everywhere, so they brought him to the mate’s flat until they could all get out of town.”
“And you’ll be bleedin’ grateful for it, too. Cheers!” calls a rough voice from another room and Eames laughs.
Arthur takes the dwindling cigarette from Eames, his split lips sting as he takes a drag. “I’ll leave in the morning.” He coughs, ribs flaring intense like the taste of tobacco.
Eames laughs again, bitter and unbelieving. “I don’t think you understand. You’re staying here until you don’t look like a tiger mauled you, then we’re going back to your flat.”
“That’s sweet.” He feels fucking stupid, he doesn’t know how any of this happened, he was blind and Eames had to come after him; the job is a wash, everything is broken, Eames’s hands are split and swollen, there’s a ring of bruises around his neck. Then Arthur can’t think anymore, the remaining blood in his head puts him to sleep as Eames says, “Honestly, darling, fuck off.”
-
The apartment belongs to a bald, burly man taller than Eames who says, “Call me Ishmael,” laughing a deep chest laugh, so Arthur calls him Ishmael even though he believes it’s not his name, like most things in the world Arthur knows.
They’re SAS buddies, Ishmael claiming that Eames saved his life, smiling wryly at Arthur, “not that I did anythin’ to get myself killed, but y’know this boyo here, he’s gotta make everythin’ ‘bout him and his dramatics.” When Arthur’s awake and able to focus, he listens to Ishamel’s stories, Eames jumping in with corrections and cussing blue streak, his accent bending to meet Ishmael’s, two ex-pats wandering the earth, there was this one time when this soddin’ idiot—oh no, you can’t tell him that story, he’ll never look at me with fear, or is that supposed to be respect, ever again—it’s not my fault you were wearin’ a pair of guns and nothin’ else—being naked helps me move quicker, helps my aim too.
Arthur’s put in Ishmael’s bed, Ishmael taking the couch and Eames getting the guest room, “I’ll be on my best behavior. Clothes and all.”
“We thank all the saints for that,” Ishmael says, bringing Arthur a glass of water and before Arthur falls in the black of sleep, he catches them talking about aliases.
Arthur. You lost. They bled you. You let them bleed you.
The first night Arthur wakes screaming, only he doesn’t have the breath to scream, it’s more of a hoarse whine that scares the shit out of him when he hears it and Eames stampedes into the room, “Arthur, Arthur, you’re alright, Arthur, you’re alright.” Arthur grabs onto him, ignoring the hurt pull of his wrists as he grabs Eames’s arms, digging fingers into the ink of tattoos, Eames talking the whole time and running his hand through Arthur’s hair.
They don’t need to be touching, Arthur doesn’t want to be touched or coddled, he can’t handle it in this state, his eyes burn with pain and frustration, and he tries to shrug Eames away, but the forger holds on. Worse, he locates Arthur’s totem, passing it over without handling it, then he looks away as Arthur grips it, shakily rolling it, six six six six. Eames doesn’t let go throughout. Embarrassingly, he decides he’ll share the bed with Arthur, despite all of Arthur’s threats, “fuck you, motherfucker, I’m not a baby, I will smother you in your sleep, my limbs still work and I won’t have any moral qualms about killing you.”
The second night Arthur wakes because it feels as if his chest is collapsing, he’s flat on his back, and he can’t take in oxygen, hands scrabbling out like claws as he stares at the ceiling. He’s had broken ribs before, he’s been beaten almost unrecognizable, but he’s exhausted, he’s fighting every minute, he knows he and Eames are still in danger and they’re putting Ishmael in danger too. It’s all so exceedingly fucked up because Arthur had loosened his tie and gone out for a drink.
Eames doesn’t say a word as he eases Arthur to sitting, then the bed dips and Arthur’s world is slurred, sliding funny, “what’re you doing, Eames?” he rasps.
“Just—just a moment,” Eames says as he shifts gingerly, a noise like fabric, “buggering bloody—there we go.” He throws his legs outside of Arthur’s, holding Arthur in the vee of his body, palms splayed over Arthur’s chest and belly as he keeps them both upright with Arthur propped against Eames’s chest. “Go to sleep.”
“You want me to sleep like this?” Arthur’s incredulous, what kind of shitty idea is this, Eames caging him like a straitjacket, tight like the bandages around his middle.
“Yes. Now go to sleep.” He hums in the back of his throat, swaying a little, and Arthur struggles, ignores his instincts to just give in. “Stop it,” Eames orders sourly, “you can sleep sitting up, I’ve seen you. Once you looked like a statue, thought you’d died in your chair with your tie and your notebook—“
“Fine, fuck, you go to sleep,” Arthur grumbles because he can suddenly feel air, inhale exhale inhale exhale inhale exhale. Eames sways again to the slow, hypnotic beat of a song Arthur swears he’s making up as he goes, then he’s so tired, so very tired, his head feels so heavy, he rests, closes his eyes, a touch like Eames’s fingers in his hair and he hears Eames say, “I won’t tell anyone. You can cut me stem to stern if I tell.”
Arthur. Look at you. You’ve been brought so low. Helpless.
They stay a week until Arthur notices his bruises changing colors and Ishmael packing bags; he’d slipped to the hotel to fetch Arthur and Eames’s things from their rooms, now the former SAS soldiers are preparing to vanish while Arthur sits on the couch, wrapped in blankets and bandages, watching Die Hard.
“Eames, I fucking hate you, you pushy asshole,” Arthur hisses between his teeth.
“I know, I hate you too, you’re a right proper bastard.” Eames sounds dangerously close to anger, but the vibration against Arthur’s back feels like laughter and Arthur elbows Eames, maybe if he’s lucky, he can injure Eames the way he’s injured. His other eye is open again, his ribs will be shot for a while, but everything else is healing, he doesn’t smell blood anymore, and after a few nights, Eames doesn’t have to sit with him so they can both sleep. He attempts to push Eames out of bed one night because the fucker won’t stop snoring and he ends up almost ruining the careful stitching job on his arm.
Then the apartment is clean, bleached, Ishmael’s catching a flight to Malaysia, saying, “I’d tell ya to stay out of trouble, but with him”—he points at Eames and Eames makes an obscene gesture—“you’re in for a world of it, an absolute planet of trouble.” The bald man pats Arthur carefully on the shoulder and whispers, “You don’t owe me a thing. Like keepin’ my hand in with the rescuin’ business.” A big smile, then he’s gone like a tall ghost.
Eames and Arthur board the same plane separately, dismissing each other like strangers, bound for New York.
In the air over the heartland of the country, Arthur hears the voice a little clearer.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
It sounds like him, his intonations.
Then he gets to his apartment, Eames on his heels, and he falls asleep in front of the TV with an empty pizza box and that snoring motherfucking Brit at his feet.
He forgets.
-
Eames stays for two months. He’s about to drive Arthur insane.
For the first month, Eames takes care of his wounds, but does it as if Arthur is a totem he’s not allowed to touch until Arthur snaps, “Eames,” and the forger looks shocked, eyes wide, mouth open, then he glares.
“You’re a horrible patient, love.”
Arthur has to put up with Eames singing in the shower. Smoking is forbidden until Arthur’s chest stops twinging as he breathes, so he starts lying to Eames to get a cigarette, which is truly pathetic, but it’s his apartment, his rules, he should have some say.
He watches Eames read. He watches Eames cook. He watches Eames smoke, then he remembers the bleary night when he saw Eames smoking fast, cigarette switching in his fingers like he was playing with fire, practically hissing with smoke; here, Eames smokes as if he savors each drag and he lets the smoke flow out instead of pushing it.
Arthur doesn’t analyze that, the fidgety shaky Eames he remembers versus the casually easy Eames sitting at his table playing solitaire. The cards flip with a snap each time, he slides them around with the flair of a gambler, pursing his lips as he deals out one-two-three, put the red queen on the black king and move the red jack-black ten-red nine-black eight over.
You enjoy this too much. You should be fighting. You used to love fighting.
Each night, Arthur sleeps better and better, able to get jerkily comfortable without jarring anything. But every few nights, he dreams and when he wakes, he doesn’t remember. He’s only left with the disappearing ash outline of a face, the windy noise of words spoken to him, a conversation, an argument.
He wakes too warm and shaky under his skin.
I’ll find a way to see you better.
One day, they’re watching a movie, occasionally dissecting the poor excuse for a plot and ludicrous dialogue when Eames’s phone rings. A glance at the number and he shakes his head.
“No jobs,” he says instead of a greeting, turning away from Arthur and Arthur doesn’t eavesdrop, Eames is merely loud. “I said no, no jobs, not right now. Send me paperwork and I’ll look it over, but—“
Arthur turns off the television, wandering into the kitchen for some more coffee. It’s weighing on him, having Eames here, because they’re quiet for the most part, bumping into each other like roommates with nothing in common, which isn’t true, they’ve had drunken discussions before, they’ve had sober debates, Eames is well-read and possibly smarter than Arthur though he hides it as a mechanism to court other people’s underestimation of him.
But they wander silent through Arthur’s apartment these days and Eames doesn’t need to be here, it’s not like Arthur needs a nurse or has a little bell he rings for someone to fluff his pillows and bring him bonbons, he’s been injured before, worse than this, but Eames hasn’t left and Arthur hasn’t asked him to.
And he thinks he’s hearing things. Having Eames gives him a solid presence instead of the dark he hears when he closes his eyes.
He’ll let people beat him to death before he admits this to anyone.
A blank afternoon, Eames looks at him, actually looks at Arthur, says, “Fuck it,” then he grabs the bottle of whiskey and starts drinking.
They get drunk, passing the bottle back and forth, smoking as they plot the perfect murder.
Eames blots out the voice Arthur hears and he doesn’t dream.
Time is on my side.
They wake with matching hangovers, growling at each other over coffee and eggs and toast until Arthur settles with a book on the couch and Eames scatters the plans for a possible extraction all over the coffee table, then Arthur has to fix his spelling and his mazes as Eames doodles Mobius strips everywhere.
-
Arthur starts seeing the face clearly in his sleep.
It looks familiar.
-
Tuesday night, Eames says, “I’m headed to Melbourne.” He turns his cigarette to stare at the burning tip and he flips something in his other hand.
Arthur realizes it’s the forger’s totem; Eames flicks it into the air, catches it.
“Good luck,” Arthur says. “Who’s your point.”
A drag, smoke forming the name, “Babette.”
“She’ll take care of you.”
Eames nods, as if he needed the reassurance, but to Arthur, it all feels wrong, sad, broken and he wonders if he’s created this predicament.
“I know she will.”
Not as good as I would, Arthur thinks, then he shakes his head, lights a match off the book. He doesn’t have anything to say. He watches Eames smile. This whole conversation seems to be made of questions no one’s really asked.
“At least you’re looking fit enough for your suits again.”
“They might take me back now,” Arthur replies, measuring out a smile.
“Tragic love affair right there,” Eames says as he crushes the cigarette.
In the morning, Arthur’s woken by the front door closing.
He starts running again, to test his limits; he eases himself back into life, but he’s jumpy, too aware of the noises around him, too suspicious of people, he locks his door and stays up late into the night because he suddenly doesn’t want to sleep.
All alone, aren’t you.
The bruises are disappearing and he rubs at his chest in the shower. He recognizes himself in the mirror. That’s important.
All alone.
-
A gift from the somnacin, Arthur’s always had bouts of insomnia, it comes with the territory, like the diminished ability to dream naturally. He functions, he deals with it, he can handle it and control it, lack of sleep was drummed into him in high school when he’d simply prefer to be awake, then the military got a hold of him and forced him to be on his feet for days on end.
He’s healing, but he’s not sleeping. At all.
He can control it. He can function.
Arthur looks at his notes from a job he’s reading over for Yusuf and he can’t read his handwriting anymore. He’s been awake for almost three days now.
Just sleep. I’ll meet you there, at the corner of Styx and Lethe.
“What the fuck.”
The voice is louder when he’s sleep deprived, but after he sleeps, he forgets.
A week ago, he slipped in the kitchen and hit his head on the cabinets; that night, he slept like a baby. He shouldn’t have to knock himself out to sleep.
-
He has the warehouse to himself, everyone gone and he's looking over the mazes because something doesn't feel right. The straight lines blur and curve in his eyesight. It's wrong, somewhere, he knows it. An itch at the back of his brain, the same itch he gets when there’s a gun behind him or he grasps last-minute logic or the dream is shivering at the edges of collapse.
Then he hears his name, clear and loud and echoing.
Arthur.
His head snaps up and he reaches for his gun. Hunching, Arthur balances by the table, gazing out into the dark from the circle of the lamp, the light gradient extreme. The shadows look thick, viscous, deep, as if he could dip his hand in the black, maybe a little sticky, maybe a little runny, like coffee.
Arthur, I can see you.
He doesn't see movement, eyes adjusting. If anyone wanted him dead, they'd have attempted it already. If they wanted to steal, they'd have waited until he left.
He risks a sound.
"Eames."
Eames was the last of the team to leave Arthur here, sharing takeout in non-committal silence, glancing over their combined notes. He'd left Arthur with a cup of tea and his big, indulgent smile, saying, “You should sleep,’ and Arthur rolled his eyes, “What's that word? ‘Sleep’?”
Winking, Eames ran a thumb down Arthur's tie and Arthur swatted him away with a glare.
Now he waits, down on one knee, listening.
No reply, no Eames. No other noise, he’s alone. He’s heard his name before, in the murmur of a public place, sometimes in the middle of a song or movie. It’s a trick of hearing, vowels and consonants mushed together and his brain translates it as his name. So Arthur turns back to the mazes. He keeps his gun close. A marker rolls and hits the floor, but he doesn’t flinch.
His tea is cold.
He doesn’t need sleep, he needs to figure out where the break is in this maze here, for the second layer.
-
"Arthur. Arthur."
He opens his eyes too fast, thin silver diamonds in his vision and he sees Eames behind them.
"Eames?"
"It's morning, Sleeping Beauty," Eames says, smirking, eyebrow raised as if he's nefarious.
"Fuck you."
The forger's gaze narrows. "Did you sleep here? Darling, I could've taken you home."
"That 'fuck you' wasn't a statement of intent." Arthur's face is stuck to his hand and it's mildly annoying. He's in the warehouse, the mazes in front of him, his free hand palms his gun.
Eames laughs and it distracts Arthur long enough until he feels Eames plucking the gun from his fingers. "Arthur, love, when I proposition you, you'll know it." The words are light, the way Eames always talks, but his tone sounds off, questioning.
Arthur glances at him and sees concern under the careful smirk. Eames is good at his disguises, the best Arthur's ever known, but he's oddly open to Arthur, he can read the Brit more than Eames likes.
And vice versa.
"Why did you sleep here?"
"The mazes," Arthur says, then he remembers the reason he was holding his gun. The shadows. His name.
Hello, Arthur.
He blinks hard, swallowing, and Eames is suddenly closer, holding him by the arm as if Arthur is about to fall over.
"Arthur?"
He shakes Eames off, digs in his pocket, finds the tiny comforting weight of his die. It rattles in Eames's silence as the forger looks away, six six six six.
"This is reality," Eames says next to him and Arthur nods.
It’s almost time.
"I need to shower, change clothes," he says quickly, grabbing his jacket.
A hand out, Eames talking, "Do you want anything to eat or—"
Arthur waves him away because he's hearing his own name in a voice like his, it’s fucking talking to him, but it's wrong. Like the mazes. Like the slant of sunlight. Like the lost expression on Eames's face.
Maybe the mazes weren’t wrong. Maybe it’s—
When he closes his eyes, he sees the face and he recognizes it.
Hello.
-
Hot water pours over his head and his mouth opens instinctively at the heat, sluicing across his lips and Arthur knows he’s possibly going crazy.
He’s not new to dreamshare any more, he’s heard the stories, the urban legends and fairy tales. People who go under and come back convinced they’re different. People who disappear for decades in their minds and come awake thinking the world isn’t the world isn’t the world. People who splinter and shiver under the weight of all the dreams they’ve had that aren’t theirs. People who simply break because they remember. Sometimes it’s best if you don’t remember your dreams.
Arthur scrubs at his shoulders. Mal lost her mind, lost to time and a single, spinning idea. Cobb almost lost his to guilt, living too much in the dreams. Yusuf’s seen the addiction, he helps ease it as best he can, helping people go under to wake up. Ariadne is too firmly rooted in her reality, lines and curves explained by math and physics, regardless of the purity of creation. Nash was a fuck-up who thought dreams meant profit. Saito is the power man who sees the power in dreams and knows what it can do and he won’t fall prey. Arthur thinks Eames might some day be held together by nothing but fragments of all the people he’s ever forged, even the imaginary ones, which would be worse since they never existed at all.
But Arthur doesn’t have time to go crazy, he doesn’t need this, and he won’t allow it to happen. Insanity can make an appointment. Arthur’s a stubborn bastard, according to Eames, “I bet if you spilled coffee, you wouldn’t let it splash on you, like Moses parting the Red Sea,” he’d said, gesturing grandly, arms open wide as if holding back the vicious hot liquid, “you’d perform a sodding miracle just to keep your loafers clean.”
Arthur, hello, it’s nice to speak to you.
It’s in his head, a voice like his, except darker, rougher, and he can almost see a face when he closes his eyes.
Don’t you want to meet me?
Pouty, almost in Eames’s voice this time, with the tilt of an accent. His foot slips against the slick side of the tub and he’s forced to push against the wall to catch himself.
It’s best if you get used to me.
His own voice again, innocent, his eight-year-old self, higher pitch, and he hears it, that sweltering summer day asking his sister to get him some ice cream, so much chocolate he made himself sick, it’s almost identical.
Rubbing at his eyes, Arthur shakes his head, water streaming down his skin and he’s turned red from the heat. He’s here on a job, with Eames, Macaulay, and Garner, and he’ll get it done.
He doesn’t need to talk to anyone about this. He hasn’t talked to anyone about anything since the military shrink when they skipped him through sniper school straight to other strategic things.
“Go away.”
No.
“Go the fuck away.”
All he hears is water.
-
They’re on a test run. Garner’s topside, keeping an eye out, so it’s Arthur, Eames, and Macaulay.
“What a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” Macaulay says, sunlight glinting in his hair as he squints, glancing around.
Arthur rolls his eyes, points at the hotel.
“Always trying to get me into a hotel room, love,” Eames says as Macaulay clears his throat and Arthur sighs, says, “Your subtlety astounds me, Eames.”
“It wouldn’t kill you to ask.”
Macaulay opens the door. “I’m askin’ you, Eames, shut the hell up.”
The lobby is tasteful, but it looks familiar to Arthur; he’s been in a lot of hotels, real and imaginary, and this looks like one he knows, why, he’s not the architect, why—
Suddenly, Macaulay grunts out a startled “hey” and Arthur can’t see anymore, he’s trying to breathe through the black, rough cloth on his head, Eames loud next to him, “bloody hell”—
He can open his eyes. They’re tied to chairs, settled in a row, Arthur in the middle, and Eames is the one closest to the bed, he tries to put his feet up on the mattress.
“I told you to tie them down, and I meant it,” says a voice. Arthur chokes and Macaulay whispers, “That sounds like a kid, a fuckin’ kid.”
“I am a kid,” says the voice, flowing into the room. A little boy, about eight years old, steps in front of them, smiling. Shaggy dark hair, bright brown eyes, a tooth missing from his grin, wearing a Batman t-shirt and jeans, scuffed sneakers. “Hello.”
Eames stares, struggles a little next to Arthur.
“You’re Macaulay,” the boy says, pointing with a small hand.
Macaulay says, “And who’re you, little man? Or are you the big man?”
The boy laughs, unabashed delight, eyes almost scrunched closed, dimples in his cheeks, and Arthur can feel it when Eames goes suddenly still. “I’m the brains. I know how things work. I plan how things go. It’s like Legos.”
“I love me some Legos,” Macaulay says, confident, like he can talk this kid into something, but the boy brings a hand out from behind his back to reveal a gun. “Almost as much as I love water guns.”
“Me too!” the boy says. Arthur winces because he’s cold, so very cold, he knows, he knows the voice, the face, how the decal on that t-shirt itched a little but he never wanted to take it off because it was Batman. He wore that shirt for a whole summer. The summer he got sick of chocolate ice cream.
Then the boy swings the gun up with unnatural ease for his size, aims, and pulls the trigger. The bullet hits Macaulay under his eye, he’s immediately gone before the spray of blood can settle.
“One down, two to go…” the boy says, singsong, giving a little skip. “You’re Mr. Eames.”
Eames smiles, but Arthur’s surprised to see hesitation, something like fascination behind it. “And you’re King Arthur.”
The change is sudden and complete: the boy frowns, gaze burning angry, little hand clenched in a fist, white knuckles where his fingers hold a gun that should be too heavy for him. “No one calls me that.”
“Your sister did, didn’t she,” Eames says, scooting forward a little in his chair until he’s caught by the ropes. Arthur begs in his head, please stop please stop just stop.
“She still does, sometimes, when she calls me on the phone,” the boy says, “but no one else calls me that. Ever.”
“You don’t like being king?”
“I already am king. But I’m not that King Arthur. He was a dupe,” comes the disdainful reply. The boy points the gun at Eames.
“It wasn’t all his fault,” Eames argues, “there were loyalty issues, sure—“
“He shouldn’t have trusted them, he shouldn’t have trusted anyone!“
“Oh, come now, Your Majesty, what do you think he should’ve done.”
Arthur twists his wrists against the knots as the boy studies Eames for a moment. “You talk too much.”
“It’s bloody likely, but—“
The bullet cuts off the rest of Eames’s sentence.
Arthur stares at his younger self, feeling helpless. “What are you doing.”
The smile on the little face is one he’s never had, he’s never seen a look like that before. “Meeting you properly. Face to face.”
Then the timer runs out and Arthur wakes. Macaulay is already yelling, “What the fuck was that? Some fuckin’ kid shot me in the fuckin’ face!”
“Did you not duck fast enough?” Garner asks, expression amused as Arthur stares at the ceiling, feeling the needle in his skin and Eames steps up to Macaulay, right in his space.
“You need to calm down,” Eames orders, hands on his hips. “This was a test run and the kid was a test. Imagine how that works.”
“Oh, so this was all a test? A test designed to do what?“
“Shut your piehole, Macaulay, and stop whining. Did everything else look okay?” Garner asks, already distracted by a sheaf of papers. Arthur finally remembers to sit up because he’s thinking about the young Arthur with the gun, wanting to meet, the voice who keeps trying to talk to him.
For the first time since he was about that age, he’s well and truly scared.
Macaulay and Garner are arguing, but he ignores them and vanishes off to the bathroom. The water is cold on his skin as he scoops it into his hands, onto his face, as he pushes wet fingers into his hair.
“Don’t drown,” Eames says, letting the door close behind him with a squeak. “Wouldn’t do for you to drown.”
“It might help,” Arthur says before he thinks about it. Eames lets out a breath.
“That was you, wasn’t it. The sprog in the Batman shirt. That was you.”
Arthur doesn’t reply, just scoops more water and doesn’t care as it runs down into his collar.
“I’d recognize that smile anywhere, darling.” Again, that jovial tone, but underneath it is a thick line of worry. “Arthur.”
“Eames.” He bows his head.
The forger watches him, he’s always watched Arthur, something that made Arthur bristle a few years ago, but he doesn’t mind it now because Eames is one of the very, very few people he trusts, he doesn’t mind Eames watching him, keeping an eye out for him, even when he doesn’t need the help. Blue eyes dark, Eames bites his lip, uncertain, one of his few tells.
“You lied out there.”
Eames nods. “It’s what I do.” He glances in the mirror, catches Arthur’s gaze. “We can talk about this later.”
So nice to see you again, Arthur.
Closing his eyes, Arthur listens to Eames leave.
-
They don’t talk about it later. The job almost goes to shit, Arthur distracted by the appearance of his younger self flanked by two bodyguards, strolling by, and the little boy gives him a happy wave before a bullet hits him in the thigh, then the chest, and it doesn’t matter because they’ve gotten what they came for, they can leave.
He shoots himself in the head to the sound of childish laughter.
Everyone scatters and Arthur is careful to make sure Eames doesn’t follow him. It won’t help if Eames is with him, it will only makes things more complicated, this is Arthur’s problem, his fucking subconscious, he’ll deal with it.
He doesn’t see Eames for another six months. He gets texts constantly: ‘wish you were here’; ‘Babette again and she doesn’t stack up anywhere close to you, darling, you’re much better, take that how you will’; ‘no, I’m not drinking at eight in the bloody morning’; ‘of course I robbed that museum, just for fun’; ‘Arthur Arthur Arthur Arthur’; ‘I thought you were in Mumbai, but I’m here and you’re not, you sodding wanker.’
Arthur still can’t sleep. It causes him to hear his childhood King Arthur everywhere and when he does collapse from exhaustion, the face is there to talk to him, “through a mirror darkly,” it says in his voice.
The jobs he takes fall apart. In the middle of a beautiful reproduction of Paris, Rome, and Vienna two layers down, a Black Hawk helicopter screams into sight and crashes into the street, a huge rolling fireball with shockwaves of heat and debris, a jagged chunk of rotor whistling through the air, taking out their architect. Arthur stares at the wreckage; he narrows his eyes at the large silver ‘A’ painted on the fuselage.
In another dream on another job, military projections stream down into the buildings, black ops precision, and they target Arthur, chasing him until a bullet breaks his spine and he’s kicked up out of the dream. The extractor thinks Arthur abandoned them. He has to run for his life.
The projections wore insignias of a silver ‘A’.
He can’t sleep.
The next time, Arthur stands his ground, hands out and he fights a projection, CQC, taking its knife and slitting its throat. He steals the squadron patch as boots thunder after him. The silver ‘A’ with a red die underneath it with a motto: alea iacta est.
‘The die has been cast.’
Another projection finds him, holding him at knifepoint.
“Don’t you see what’s happened? There is no return,” it says before it stabs him in the heart.
-
Arthur is in hiding. He has two contracts on his head and when he sleeps, his subconscious kills him, over and over.
He’s met Abaddon in person, in his sleep. The man who took over Arthur’s militarized subconscious calls himself Abaddon. The Destroyer. The angel of old, the angel of the bottomless pit, because the name is also the title of an ancient place; Arthur’s own mind is the land of destruction.
Arthur’s seen him, had a cup of coffee with him, little King Arthur building cities at their feet out of Legos. He’s watched Abaddon tear his mind to shreds. His work is something Arthur knows, like that of a mad artist, since he’s seen his subconscious defend itself, taking pleasure in the defeat of its enemies.
Now he is the enemy.
“Am I a worthy opponent?” he asks.
“Yes, at least until I win,” Abaddon replies.
He’s seen those he could call friends rounded up and beaten, Ariadne, Yusuf, Saito, Cobb, Eames; shoved to their knees and shot, execution style, one at a time. Eames is always last. Sometimes he dies with a smile on his face.
“They are just…” Abaddon says with a dismissive flick of his fingers.
Occasionally, it’s a pleasant dream until everyone Arthur talks to tells him he’s crazy and no one will believe him when he insists he’s sane; at the doors of the asylum, Abaddon greets him with King Arthur tripping along side, holding Arthur’s hand, giggling all the way, ice cream stains on his shirt.
He hasn’t eaten in two days. The light hurts his eyes and the shadows are thick again, as if they might open their mouths and swallow him whole. He’s been scared in his life, he’d be dead if he wasn’t ever scared, but now he is terrified almost out of his skin and some days he can’t hear himself breathing.
Eames calls, calls, calls and a few times, he leaves a voicemail, but it’s not a coherent message, just Arthur’s name in a slur.
Ariadne has a job, she’s worried, she’s heard rumors people want Arthur dead, she’s heard gossip he’s already dead.
Someone’s been tracking Arthur through his old extractions; the dreamshare grapevine may be small, but it produces wonderful fruit.
Arthur calls her back; he’ll take the job.
-
Ariadne makes a troubled noise when she sees him, but he’s like he always is, clean, professional, pressed, there’s nothing wrong, this is business as usual. Arthur hugs her anyway when she steps close and says, “I was worried about you. I thought Cobb was crazy, but you might just take the cake.” She smiles and he smiles and everything smoothes out.
Until Eames walks in, wearing hideous clothes and his crooked grin.
“Arthur.”
“What’re you doing here,” Arthur says, aghast, but Eames ignores him, “Hello, Ariadne, how are the studies.”
“Eames.”
Ariadne and Eames shoot him a combined glare from inside their welcoming hug, then Ariadne rolls her eyes.
“Fine, fine, I know, unprofessional,” she says with a smirk.
“That’s not—what, what—“
“Pet, use your words,” Eames says, “I know you have an extensive vocabulary,” but Arthur grabs him by the arm and hauls him into in the stairwell.
“What are you doing here.” He watches Eames’s expression, the seriousness taking over, the honesty that’s always looked too open on Eames, then he realizes. “You’re the one who’s been tracking me.”
Then Eames shrugs, looking shy and Arthur’s astounded.
“People started telling me that when they’d worked with you lately, they’d see a child, this little boy with dark hair, dark eyes, adorable grin,” Eames says. “He wore a Batman shirt. He’d laugh and sometimes the whole dream would almost explode. And suddenly, there’s big money resting on your head, Arthur. They want you dead. Because of that sprog you couldn’t control.”
Arthur shakes his head, it all needs to go away, he’s lost, he’s lost everything.
Mr. Eames. I want to meet him, Arthur.
Go away.
Reaching out, Eames straightens Arthur’s tie. “You wouldn’t reply to me.”
“You don’t need this,” Arthur says.
For a second, Eames is truly shocked into silence, so Arthur escapes.
-
He’s running and there’s a stitch in his side and a shotgun in his hands. He has that feeling, an itch crawling slowly up his spine against gravity and he’s had it for years, ever since he started dreaming and became aware.
He’s running and it used to be that his subconscious was watching him, watching out for him, making sure he was safe. Now his subconscious is watching him. Arthur felt it during inception, the projections’ eyes on him, that sensation of someone being behind you just out of reach.
He slams into a stairwell door, glancing back, and there’s no one there, of course, but this is his plan. He didn’t exactly want to drag everyone into a death cage where the only way to wake up is to die, but he needed to know.
Ariadne, Eames, and the extractor Suh are one building over. Arthur’s drawing Abaddon’s army (his army) of projections after himself.
And they are very bloodthirsty.
The dream shakes as if bombs are falling, it wouldn’t surprise Arthur in the least since his graphic military history gives Abaddon plenty of ammunition to pull from, some of those ops Arthur didn’t think he’d survive.
A sort of fatalism settles over him as he runs, shotgun warm where he holds it, because it doesn’t matter, Abaddon will kill him yet again and nothing will change. He won’t be able to dream ever again. After awhile, he will trip over the edge into insanity and he won’t even know the difference. The dreams will be reality, reality will be dreams, and Abaddon will drink coffee with him while King Arthur razes whole cities to the ground with his gap-toothed smile.
It scares the shit out of him, then Eames appears as Arthur shoves through into a hallway, the stairwell noisy with the sound of heavy boots.
“Arthur, stop, stop,” he says, grabbing Arthur by the arm and Arthur almost drops the shotgun.
“No, no, run, let’s go, you’ve got to run.”
He jerks out of Eames’s grasp and runs, making sure Eames is with him. He doesn’t know how long he’s been running; it may go on forever.
The door explodes into the hallway, soldiers storming through with wordless commands, and Eames says, “They’re all wearing A’s.”
Something inside Arthur collapses. He yanks Eames around a corner, shotgun separating them.
Eames’s blue eyes flicker when Arthur looks at him. “This is bollocks, you need to tell me—“
Laughter, little boy laughter, Arthur suddenly remembers playing hide-and-seek with his sister, he was so small he could fold himself into any space, watching the shadows to see when she was nearby—
“Arthur,” Eames is saying, “I hear it too, I know, but you need—“
“I want to meet him, Arthur, I want to meet your Eames,” Abaddon says, voice broadcasting. Eames tries to give Arthur a little push, but Arthur puts his forearm to Eames’s chest and pins him to the wall.
The soldiers are waiting. King Arthur gives a happy laugh, wherever he is.
“He’s not my Eames,” Arthur says, staring at the forger before he shoots Eames out of the dream.
Then he steps around the corner and lets the gunfire take him.
They’re kicked up a level; as he opens his eyes, Eames is staring at him. “We have to go back in,” Arthur hears himself say, “we have to finish it—“
“No. No,” Eames cuts him off, pacing back and forth, something final coming across in his expression. “They got the package and were leaving. I split off to find you—just stay here, the kick should be soon.”
And fuck, but Arthur feels so helpless, so unwound with Eames’s gaze on him and he’s exhausted, down into his bones, as if he’s old before his time.
“Eames,” he says, voice cracking. “I have to disappear.”
Thumb to his lip, Eames nods, distracted, thinking, and Arthur’s grateful because he can’t think anymore. No more. Glancing around at Ariadne, Suh, and the mark off in a crowd at a bazaar, he nods again, then crowds into Arthur’s space.
A warm hand on Arthur’s cheek, Eames says, “Let’s go then.”
They disappear into an alley where gunfire won’t be heard.
Topside, they pack up. Arthur leaves a note in Ariadne’s pocket, apologizing, telling her to give him 48 hours before she calls. He sees Eames scribble down a message for Suh, terrible spelling and all, telling her to split Arthur and Eames’s shares between herself and Ariadne.
Arthur wants to break down, but he can’t. He never has before.
-
They catch a flight. Arthur doesn’t know where they’re going, Eames bought the tickets, Eames hauling him around the airport, then a train station, then a taxi; Eames with his grim face, the one he gets when he kills, the one Arthur wants to touch when Eames makes the perfect shot; Eames with an arm around his shoulders telling him to check his totem; Eames walking him through the door of an apartment.
Eames with his fingers on Arthur’s jaw, giving him a kiss before turning away.
Then there’s a bed. Arthur sleeps.
-
Bring him. I want to talk. I have to explain to him what’s going to happen to you. It’s important that he knows so he can mourn accordingly.
-
“Arthur.”
He can hear Eames, he can smell him, but Eames is halfway around the world from here, Eames is somewhere else and Arthur has to put up with reality, the way it’s turning itself inside out around him.
“Arthur, wake up. You can’t sleep all bloody day.”
Something pokes his cheek; startled, Arthur sits up too fast. Eames is squinting, a cigarette dangling from his lips, he pokes Arthur in the face twice as if he thinks Arthur’s dead.
“What the fuck, Eames.”
“Good morning to you too, pet. Couldn’t let you just waste away like a fairy tale princess.”
“You mean you were bored and you want me to entertain you,” Arthur says, running a hand through his hair.
Eames blows a smoke ring. “I have a list of ways you could do that. And, well, you are enchanting when you sleep, but it is much too quiet around here.”
“A list? A list.” There’s an odd crocheted afghan thrown over Arthur, he’s not sure when it crawled on top of him, but it looks like dismayed patchwork, clashing colors everywhere. “Go shoot something.”
“Ah, but that wouldn’t help matters,” Eames says, nonchalant. “I’d rather not be arrested at the moment.”
That’s when Arthur realizes he’s stretched out on the bed next to him, letting smoke drift towards the ceiling.
Did you sleep here all night, Arthur wants to ask, but instead he says, “Where are we.”
The bed moves as Eames shrugs. “You wanted to disappear, so voila, we have disappeared.”
Arthur stares at the window, gray light coming through, the sound of wind and rain.
“How far.”
“Very far.” One hand makes a little diving motion before Eames says, “Down the rabbit hole. You’re my Alice.”
Blinking, Arthur remembers, he’s not my Eames, he remembers a flash of hurt and surprise in Eames’s eyes. Maybe—maybe he can—
The die has been cast. He fumbles around, finding his die in his pocket because he fucking slept in his clothes, then he rolls it once. Six.
Eames is a gambler. Maybe Arthur is too.
He takes the cigarette from Eames, crushes it against the headboard, making sure the forger is looking at him. He puts his fingers on Eames’s mouth, like he’s always wanted to do, any time Eames talks, regardless of the accent he’s using.
“I guess that makes you the Cheshire cat, fat lot of good you are,” Arthur say, thinking how kiddie-foolish he sounds until Eames grins under his touch, so he kisses Eames, says against his lips, “The Jabberwocky wants to meet you.”
-
It takes four vague phone calls before Eames can locate a PASIV since they ran off without one, “it’s not exactly like leaving behind your coat, now is it,” Eames says, “we are in hiding, lest we forget,” but they track one down without too much trouble and without alerting people to their presence. A faceless meet, a cash drop-off, Eames wrapped in scarves and a coat and hat, Arthur at a distance with binoculars, it’s all very spy games and they’re both on edge about it.
They acquire their PASIV, fade back into the lights of the world.
At their nondescript apartment, Eames doesn’t get out of his scarves before they’re kissing against the wall, but they don’t do much more than that, making out, held tight together, hands bringing each other off. Arthur can’t let himself go further, not yet, not while he’s broken and breaking, not while he’s still terrified.
He comes to one morning in the shower, naked and shivering; he doesn’t know how he got there, as Eames runs into the bathroom, shouting his name with an urgency Arthur’s never heard before.
He’s scared silent and Eames talks enough for both of them, but Arthur notices that Eames doesn’t let him out of his sight after that.
Oh, Arthur, what are you scared of?
He’s terrified, and he’s terrified because this is Eames, he’s watching Arthur slowly go crazy, though every night, it feels horrifyingly fast, like being in that helicopter crash again and again, falling out of the sky.
“Tonight,” Arthur says.
Why are you afraid? Mr. Eames will be safe.
-
They’re in a town square, pretty-faced buildings with slogans and prices shoe-polish painted on the windows, awnings stretched out and fluttering, two stoplights that click as they blink through green-yellow-red-green. An American flag hangs in the doorway of a barbershop, a POW-MIA flag blends into the shadows of the gas station’s garage, and all the lampposts are twisted up in twinkly lights.
The only people milling around are wearing military black with the Silver A insignia, chattering about the weather, the city ordinances about the sidewalks, the expansion to the library.
“This is mildly disconcerting,” Eames murmurs as Arthur walks with him to an intersection. “I don’t think this is what the tourism board has in mind.”
“It’s the town my grandparents grew up in,” Arthur says, hands in his pockets, pressing his die into his palm. “We spent a lot of summers here and most of the holidays. This is where I’m going crazy.” He laughs because it’s true, he hasn’t told anyone, it’s been a secret, so he laughs, exhausted.
And just like that, the projections stop and fall into lines, hemming them into the intersection, troops awaiting inspection on all four sides, firearms at the ready.
“Arthur.”
“Eames.”
“Are you going to show me around?”
Arthur doesn’t know how to say it, how to explain it: this is my death, this is my darkness, this is me. It looks like sunny Americana, but death is usually underwhelming.
“Abaddon,” he calls instead and the soldiers part, “like the sodding Rea Sea,” Eames mutters. Arthur would laugh again but he’s too worn out.
That delighted laughter, like all of Arthur’s happy memories, and the little boy appears, running full-tilt towards them, excitement on his face.
“King Arthur,” Eames says with a salute and a smile, “hello there.”
“Mr. Eames.” He’s got an ice cream cone, chocolate melting down the sides; he grins, chocolate in the corner of his mouth, tooth missing and he sticks his tongue in the hole before he says, “You’re in for a treat.”
A man steps forward, walking down the middle of the deserted street. Arthur wants to see Eames’s reaction because this could mean everything, the end-all be-all.
Abaddon is Arthur himself, a perfect twin. His clothes are immaculate, every piece is black: shirt, tie, jacket, vest, slacks, shoes. He wears Arthur’s smile, one dimple creasing a cheek, as if everything is slightly amusing. His hair is mussed as though he’s walked through high winds to get here, it hangs loose around his temples and over the blindfold.
Eames takes a breath.
Abaddon is blindfolded with black silk and Arthur’s seen him enough to know there’s a pattern stitched into the fabric, a repeating block: אבד.
To be lost, to destroy. To go to ruin. To go around in despair, to be beyond recognition, to be given up. To forget, irretrievable.
“You seem surprised, Mr. Eames,” Abaddon says. As he speaks, his mouth bleeds and he cups a hand under his chin to catch the blood as it falls. “Am I what you were expecting?” Red slides around his knuckles. King Arthur licks noisily at his ice cream.
“I was expecting Arthur,” Eames admits. “This is close enough. Never let me tell you you don’t have an imagination, darling.”
Now Arthur does laugh, the twist to Eames’s words like they are topside, as if he’s flirting with Arthur’s Death, as if he’s about to suggest a dirty threesome here in the dream.
They both glance at him, then Abaddon runs his fingers through King Arthur’s hair, the boy winding an arm around his leg, cheek pressed to his slacks. The blindfold tilts up to the sky.
“You see, Mr. Eames, when Arthur was taken by those thugs, it wasn’t unusual, it’s happened before.” Eames frowns, angry, and Abaddon chuckles, blood bubbling on his lips. He pours the blood he’s holding onto the ground, splattering his polished shoes before he continues. “But this time he was taken and truly mistreated. Beaten like a dog. Arthur can survive, but you weren’t there and this time, it was pitiful. It was pathetic. It was fucking sad.”
The blindfold turns towards Arthur, gaze piercing, though Arthur’s never seen what’s behind the silk. Blood forms each seething word.
“His silence told them certain things and when he was delirious with pain, he told them certain other things. How he would kill them, one by one. How he would enter their heads and take them apart. He admitted to inception, he admitted to dreamshare, he admitted to being one of the best around. And yet…”
Like a snake strike, Abaddon flings a handful of blood at them.
“He couldn’t do a single fucking thing, except sit there and take his beating like a dumb, wretched animal getting its punishment. He let them bleed him. It was a defeat, one of our worst. That was the final straw. I couldn’t let that stand.”
“You have a say in the matter?” Eames says, eyes dangerous, fingers wrapping around Arthur’s wrist as a gun materializes in Abaddon’s hand. King Arthur glances between the adults, his sticky face uncertain, bottom lip pushed out.
“I am Arthur. I’m his subconscious. All his control, you don’t think that’s pathological? You don’t think he needs it to function? He doesn’t know how to exist if he can’t control the world around him. Those thugs…well, he was helpless. Vulnerable. Feeble. He had lost control. And I was going to regain it for him.” Abaddon switches his aim from Eames to Arthur. “Since he was incapable, I was the only option. His adaptation to unknown variables isn’t some sort of admirable quality, like thinking on your feet. It’s merely a weak, desperate attempt. To show everyone how perfect we are. How fucking in control we are. Why talk your way into reasoning with someone when you can simply shoot them?”
This is how Arthur knows it is damaged and done, when Eames tightens his grasp, squeezing painful, so Arthur says, “Not at all what you thought, now is it.”
Eames opens his mouth, but Abaddon stops him, holding out a liquid red palm, “Now, you must understand. This Arthur, your Arthur, the one you’ve known for years, your ‘darling,’ he will be gone.” Snapping his fingers, flecks of splatter, Abaddon sighs. “He will be like he used to be: ruthless, efficient, the killer we so love to be, crashing helicopters and shooting to kill, stealing our way across the world because it took from us. I’d hate to leave you alone, Mr. Eames, because we know what it’s like to be alone, but that’s what will happen. He’s breaking,” the black-clad shoulders shrug, the jacket stained and soaked in the sunlight, “he’s already broken.”
Arthur undoes Eames’s hold on his arm with a quick twist. “I told you, you don’t need this.”
And Eames glares at him, clenching his fists, white-knuckled, Arthur has always loved seeing the fighter in Eames, but he’s staring at Arthur like it’s wrong, shattered and torn and destroyed.
“I want you to prepare,” Abaddon says.
“Prepare? This isn’t a bloody funeral,” Eames spits, “you don’t get to—“
“It is, it will be, it’s like a last supper for Arthur. I’m giving him a kindness by warning you.”
“Some fucking kindness.”
King Arthur pipes up, “He’ll be alone after this. You should know. You’re—“
“He’s not mine,” Arthur interrupts, angry and frustrated, then Abaddon shoots Eames in the stomach, to feel it, then the head, to end it, before doing the same to Arthur.
-
Arthur wakes ready to fight, body coiling to defend itself, the cannula needle dragging inside his arm, lightning shot of pain. Eames is rolled on his side, facing Arthur on the bed, eyes cracked with that honesty he hides so well, kept behind his forges and running commentary.
This is so fucked up, Arthur’s almost impressed with himself, how he can render a situation so completely fubar, and it’s funny, how he’s smart enough to get himself into this trap but not smart enough to crawl out.
But he’s lost control, utterly, lost all his clean knife-sharp control, so he gives up, he gives in. He says, “No imagination, huh?”
Eames gives a short laugh. “Yours goes the opposite direction.”
It’s a relief, such a fucking relief for someone to realize this, someone who isn’t Arthur, he’s spent his life controlling his wild imaginings, ‘overactive and rambunctious,’ his mother used to say, ever since he was little, he had to so he wouldn’t be afraid of anything, “yours is—you trust your imagination, Eames, you know you can come back from it, but mine, I’m—we don’t get along, I have to keep it reined in, hold it in the buildings and—“
“Penrose stairs and paradoxes. Mazes. The devil’s in the details,” Eames says with a long breath. “Literally.”
He’s staring at Arthur as if he’s fascinated, it’s an expression Arthur’s seen before with Eames, but it’s usually hidden, surreptitious, when he thinks Arthur isn’t paying attention and Arthur’s always thought Eames’s interest lasts for the job, wherever they are whatever they’re working on, then it’s gone, out of sight out of mind.
He doesn’t trust anyone more than Eames, he’s known Eames the longest, and he’s lost control, so he gives up, he gives in, he kisses Eames even though—
“You’re really fucking daft, you know,” Eames says into his mouth. “Kept insisting I’m not yours.”
Then Eames drags him close, kissing harder, cannulas twisting, and Arthur’s almost frantic because he’s let go of everything else, so he grips tight onto Eames. He’s biting, but Eames slows him down, kissing kissing kissing, he’s so tired he’s awake and he wants, Eames stringing him out, slowly so slowly, “it’s alright, Arthur, we have time, wait, slow down.”
“Eames, I just—“
“I know, you have no idea how—but there is the little matter of your mind trying to kill you.”
Arthur draws away, narrowing his eyes. “I thought you wanted—“
“Stop, stop right the fuck there. I do, I did, I have, I will, this is me completely propositioning you for all sort of dirty, sordid things, it’s been…years, fucking years, “ Eames says, the fighter coming back to the surface, fingers tightening in Arthur’s hair, thumb pressed to the soft join of his throat, “but you are not going to lose yourself first just so we can shag like minks. I’ve seen people wake up blank and gone, I’ve seen them fragment, not recognize their team or or or their spouses, their children, and you—that is not going to happen to you. Now, push the fucking button, put us under again, I want to show you something.”
He kisses Arthur so Arthur can’t argue, shit but Eames is annoying that way.
-
Eames drops them into London. He takes Arthur by the hand, slipping fingers together, and Arthur’s surprised to see this is an Eames he’s never met, ball cap, jeans, long-sleeve shirt, casual jacket with fake patches on the shoulders, like he’s headed to the pub for a pint and a football match.
He thinks, This is my future, topside, with Eames. And he remembers how to fight.
But Eames is talking, “Just a few more turns, actually, let me cut this short,” a taxi coming to a screeching halt to let them jog across the street, then the city unfolds for them like a flattened pop-up book until they’re in front of a house, those London houses all pieced together. Eames doesn’t hesitate, he strides through the door, tugging Arthur along with him.
“I thought you were rich. Old money. Posh,” Arthur says before he realizes it and Eames gives a dramatic shudder.
“Yes, true, but don’t use that word, especially with your accent, darling.” There’s the sound of a kettle whistling. “This is my mate’s house. I ran away and hid here. Once when I was fourteen.” He glances around, hands on his hips, then he ducks his head and Arthur can’t see him, the bill of the cap covering his face. “I was gone for a month before they came to ‘fetch’ me back home.”
Someone enters the room and Eames backs away a bit as if he’s apprehensive. And Arthur can see it’s not a someone.
There’s Eames as a child, hair lighter, blonde, eyes bluer, grin still sloppy big, then the body morphs into a tall brunette Arthur recognizes, a forge Eames has used before, then a dark-skinned man in a cheap gold chains and clothing, then a petite redhead with amazing swells of breasts, then Eames at about seventeen or eighteen, then a man, a woman, a child, age race gender, shifting shifting shifting, like a hologram, no image staying for very long.
Then Arthur notices the mouth. It’s talking, constantly talking, screaming, ranting, whispering, yelling, laughing, talking without sound.
“My subconscious,” Eames says hesitantly. “A real chatterbox. Except I can’t hear it. Mine doesn’t give itself apocalyptic names, or fancy itself some sort of sartorial genius, or take over my security, but it’s just as mad as yours.”
A hand, an ever-changing hand reaches out to Arthur, the faces lighting up to see him, that happiness Eames carries inside like a candle somewhere, and suddenly, all Arthur can see is Eames: through the metamorphoses, he sees a cocky soldier, a boxer with the black lines of tattoos, the smirk on that woman, the eyes on that man, the flirt, the fighter, the gambler, the thief.
“Mine behaves,” Eames says, arms crossed, so Arthur flips him off. “So what’s the plan?”
-
He doesn’t tell Eames what else he saw, how the signs in places simply had Arthur’s name, as if he’s staked a claim, piece by piece, in Eames’s imagination, where his subconscious lives.
He swallows to see how much Eames has let him in until he’s everywhere.
He can feel the heat, the want, the heavy underlying emotion lit like a red fuse.
He read the lips of Eames’s subconscious. Each mouth said his name, Arthur Arthur Arthur.
-
It’s going to be a fight. Arthur still hasn’t properly slept, he feels like every seam in the world might shiver open, he’s shaking as Eames rubs at his arms.
Laughing rueful, Eames kisses him, says, “This is almost better than sex,” and when Arthur glowers, “I said almost better than sex, we’ll get there yet, no worries, love. But I’ve been in your mind more than anyone else’s. Think I’m setting a record somewhere.”
Arthur gapes. “That can’t be true.” Eames has been in this business just a little longer than Arthur but long enough to have done more work, more actual thievery, diving deep, he can’t even calculate how many minds Eames has slipped into, how many dreams he’s seen.
“It is,” Eames says simply with a shrug and Arthur wonders how long he’s been blind, no wonder his subconscious wears a blindfold.
It’s going to be a fight and they don’t have a plan because whatever Arthur knows, Abaddon knows. It’s a battle of wills, a battle of control, Arthur might be running on no sleep and caffeine, but it fuels his focus, sharpens it with something wild like instinct because he doesn’t give a shit anymore and it makes him dangerous.
He fits his mouth to Eames’s, a harsh kiss as Eames presses the button, their hands falling lax, then they’re standing in a war zone.
It’s a huge city, New York but not quite, Sydney but not quite, the usual amalgamation of architecture of steel and glass, but the buildings rise higher and higher until the sky is almost blacked out.
Arthur says no.
And the buildings cut in a clean line forming the horizon.
He and Eames have worked together in shoot-outs, driving vehicles at high speeds, guns and infinite amounts of ammo, coordinating seamlessly as one ex-soldier recognizes another. But now they’re patrolling the streets like an invading army of two.
“I’ve always preferred you armed to teeth,” Eames says in a low tone. “Always with your suits and your Glock.”
“You really do make everything sound dirty,” Arthur replies, shaking out the tremor in his hands.
They duck around a corner, assault rifles at the ready, and Eames’s combat uniform catches his eye.
A squadron insignia, a red letter made of two, an overstamped ‘A’ and ‘E’, and Arthur glimpses the motto in puris naturalibus.
He translates quickly: ‘completely naked.’
“You fucker!” Arthur says and Eames replies, “Well, not with you, at least not yet, jealous?” He winks, then a bullet whistles between them. Abaddon’s army looms close, chasing them.
They run, firing as they can, covering each other, shouting commands like breathing, that feeling spindling its way up Arthur’s spine again, of being watched, of his subconscious waiting.
He suddenly knows.
So he says not today.
Everything freezes, stops, bullets in mid-air, the Silver A troops halted in their rampage, Eames warm against his back, his weight shifting surprised.
“It’s your subconscious, Arthur,” he says, “you do what you want.”
“Exactly.”
The soldiers disappear, his security system vanishing into the streets, he can almost see the lines they take like a motherboard, gone and waiting, under his tenuous control.
He takes a deep breath and looks up at the sun until his eyes water. Then he shoots a round at the sky.
He’s so tired, he can still feel the slippery edge of insanity like oil dragging at his feet, at his fingertips, at the nape of his neck, like sleep, come and rest, Arthur, come and settle down and rest, let it all wash away, you won’t have to worry anymore, let go.
Arthur sways in place, gun falling from his grasp, but Eames fires by his head, the sound pierces and mushrooms into his brain like a hollow-point. Eames looks at him with those eyes, his lips moving the same as his subconscious, saying Arthur’s name, and everything speeds up in a rush, waterfall pouring over Arthur until he gasps.
“Okay, okay, I’m okay,” he says, inhaling sharply, “Eames, Eames.”
“You bastard, you fucking arse, god fucking—fuck you, let’s go,” Eames yells, furious.
Arthur laughs. He picks up his gun and laughs, makes a swiping motion with his hand. The city dissolves, color draining from a photograph, then a warehouse takes shape out of a fog, the windows boarded and dusty. In the dirt, someone’s sketched out a maze and underneath it in round sprawled handwriting, your imagination leaves much to be desired.
“You spelled everything correctly in that sentence,” Arthur says. Eames stares around them in what looks like awe, rifle hefted onto his shoulder.
“This is our first job together,” he says.
“Would you prefer where we first met?”
“No, darling, no, this is…”
“This is where he lives,” Arthur says. On cue, King Arthur appears from a side room, bouncing bustling energy, shouting their names in a rapid child loop. Behind him steps Abaddon.
Eames snatches up the little boy in a giant bear hug, tousling his hair as he whispers to him, and Abaddon doesn’t say a word before he shoots them. The bullet hits under King Arthur’s shoulder and goes right into Eames, his gaze widening glassy. They crumple to the floor, Eames cradling the boy close, scared hurt screams flavored with pained breaths, an ugly sucking sound of air, red soaking their clothes.
“The idea is will. The idea is control,” Abaddon says, blood flowing into his palm.
“It’s mine,” Arthur says. He drops his gun and draws a knife in one raw motion, and Abaddon meets him halfway.
They collide like a bomb hitting a target, he’s fighting himself, fuck, they can predict each other’s moves, they can read each other’s minds, they fight without rules. Arthur’s excellent with a knife and Abaddon’s synpases-fast, and the blood sprays from wounds, not Abaddon’s mouth. They’re torn, jagged cuts, thick-marbled bruises, Arthur might have a dislocated shoulder and Abaddon’s arm is broken; Arthur goes to one knee and Abaddon almost slices his jugular.
It becomes a blur, Arthur can’t see clearly or think clearly, it’s absolute compulsion, he’s fighting because he has to fight, his exhaustion taking over and they’ve smashed through glass, shards sticking out of their skin as if growing up from their marrow, then Arthur kicks him in the teeth and Abaddon smiles, cracked bones in his mouth, the blindfold darker than the blackest black.
Arthur puts his knee against Abaddon’s spine and it’s strange to realize he knows what his own back would feel like if it broke.
“You lost,” he says against Abaddon’s temple. “You let me bleed you.”
Then he unties the blindfold, turning Abaddon to see him, and he looks and looks and looks.
-
They wake up on a breath. Arthur’s hands automatically curl in Eames’s shirt, and he can’t let go, he lets Eames curve around him as Eames whispers to him, but he can’t make out what he says before he falls into black sleep.
He sleeps for a day.
Eames is there when he wakes again, a warm solid presence in the bed next to him, and he kisses Eames into wakefulness, then straddles him, squeezes with his knees.
“Oh, hello,” Eames says with a smarmy grin before he pulls Arthur in. Their kisses heat quickly, and they almost slide out of bed as they get naked, laughing, and they fuck right there on the floor, Eames pressing him down, pressing in, Arthur stretching long to feel Eames against him.
In the middle of the night, Arthur jerks, a sensation of unraveling before he can grab the thread, but it stops as his eyes open; he makes a fist and feels his control slide back into place, whole and tangled. He’s sweating and shaking and Eames, the fucking asshole, situates them again into sitting, with Arthur between his legs, resting against his chest, his hands splayed possessive on Arthur.
“Stop trying to fondle me, you fuck, that's what it was last time, wasn’t it, you took advantage of me in my injured situation,” Arthur hisses, twists to punch Eames before Eames can catch his arms.
“No, last time, you couldn’t breathe and I helped. This time, I want to fondle you. So shut it.”
Eames watches him, Arthur knows it, but he can tell the forger isn’t waiting for his control to slip, he isn’t waiting for Arthur’s mind to go over the brink.
He’s waiting for Arthur to leave because that’s what he expects; Arthur remembers Abaddon telling Eames he didn’t know what it meant to be alone, but it’s not true. Eames, the confident trickster, the sly con man, the gentleman thief, Eames knows what it’s like to be alone. The Eames in the jeans and ball cap, ducking his head, shy, a month passed before they came to fetch me.
They’re alone all the time.
On Tuesday, Arthur thinks back to Eames smoking, saying Melbourne, walking out the door Wednesday morning, and he realizes he’s waiting for Eames to leave because that’s what he expects.
But not what he wants.
He wants Eames to stay.
He watches Eames read. He watches Eames cook. He watches Eames smoke, clever fingers playing with the cigarette. He rolls his die in the bathroom, six six six six, then Eames slides a hand over his damp belly, nose skimming his wet hair, and Arthur looks in the mirror at the dark ink of Eames’s tattoos, he’s memorized the taste of the skin there under the lines. He has a bruise on the back of his knee from Eames’s mouth and Eames has teeth marks on his bicep.
He watches Eames play solitaire. The cards flip with a snap each time, and Arthur says, “Red queen on the black king.”
“Thanks, love.” Then Eames pauses in his shuffle as the sounds of the street crowd in through the windows, little boy laughter on the wind. “That’s—we’re dreaming, why are we dreaming.”
Arthur pads barefoot to the fire escape and Eames follows him out, the air warm and humid. Below them, King Arthur crashes two cars together in a magnificent explosion, the gap in his teeth whistling a little as he shouts KA-BOOM, and from the shadows, a pair of boots emerge.
Arthur’s subconscious isn’t Arthur anymore. It’s Eames, dishevelled hair, boots, jeans, long-sleeved shirt, casual jacket with the ‘AE’ insignia patch high on the shoulder. The blindfold is a Union Jack stretched across his eyes. He tilts his face towards them and his mouth doesn’t bleed as he grins, sloppy big.
And Arthur might die of embarrassment. They’re touching, Eames with a hand on his thigh, they don’t need to be touching because Arthur’s control is intense, his whole imagination alight with silver-sharp will, and Eames smirks.
“I think I should be flattered, if I wasn’t so afraid.”
“You should be afraid.”
“Is his name still Abaddon? Or did he change it to something else absofuckinglutely esoteric and obscure? Arthur, your subconscious is rather pretentious, but sadly, I’m attracted to your ambitions towards grandiosity.”
“Sadly, I’m attracted to correct spelling, legible handwriting, and people who know how to do laundry.”
-
Eames stays. He drives Arthur insane.
-
He thinks about Eames’s subconscious, how the mouth moved, always talking, but Eames couldn’t hear it.
There’s silence in Arthur’s head, behind his usual intricate train tracks of thoughts. He feels it sometimes like a memory, the way he used to when he first started in dreamshare, as if he’s just about to remember something.
He sees the little boy in his own natural dreams from time to time, his sister holding his hand, grass stains on his legs.
The smeared stripe of British red-white-blue and flash of a sloppy grin. A red insignia.
“Arthur,” Eames says, “go back to sleep.”