Fic: Bloodless - 4/6
Master post of all chapters here.
Chapter 4: Atlantic City, United States of America, Earth
"Is this what you're going back to?"
"Piss off, Yusuf." Eames halted, one hand on the door. "This doesn't involve you."
"It does if you're about to waste all the money Saito's spent on you," Yusuf said, suddenly on a few feet away.
Eames closed the door and leaned forward against it, breath fogging the glass. "Just let me have this night, and I promise I'll be right as rain in the morning."
"You know there's no such thing as just one night," Yusuf said quietly, one hand surprising gentle on Eames' shoulder. "Not for junkies like us."
Eames opened his eyes and stared longingly at the dazzling lights and displays within, the faint hum of wins and losses whispering through the door. "This time will be different."
"No," Yusuf said as Eames allowed himself to be pulled away. "It never is."
When Eames turned around, Yusuf was holding out a chip. "I believe you forgot this," Yusuf said quietly.
Eames accepted it, allowed his thumb to trace over the worn ridges. "I thought I'd lost it."
"Let's get you back to the airship," Yusuf said as he took Eames' arm and led him to a car.
"Did you know?" Eames asked, once they were on the road. "About Arthur."
"I had my suspicions."
"You should have told me." Eames wanted to feel angry, the way he'd been furious at Yusuf for years--but the familiar heat of it wouldn't come. Instead, he mostly felt tired. Defeated.
"What difference does it make? You already received a confirmation from Saito." Yusuf turned to look at Eames. "Unless you plan on telling him."
"Your company's resident mad scientist beat me to the draw on that, I'm afraid." Eames stared out the window, buildings rushing by. "But you knew that already, I'm sure."
"No." Yusuf said, and Eames looked over at him. "Arthur didn't mention it in his report."
Eames paused. "Arthur's still filing reports?"
"His last was submitted just yesterday." Yusuf frowned. "Is there something I should know?"
"No." Eames shrugged. "We've been busy, is all. Split up to cover more bars that feature possible Replicant singers."
"You're lying."
"And you're working for Saito," Eames shot back. If he didn't know better, he would have thought something akin to hurt crossed Yusuf's face.
"It's a job," Yusuf replied. "That I need to take care of my family. You remember what that is, don't you?"
"Vaguely."
"And since when do you care about what happens to Replicants anyway?" Yusuf sounded angry now. "I don't remember any of this concern five years ago."
"I don't care," Eames said. "That's why I'm running again, staking out a place to find a Replicant I can blow to smithereens."
Yusuf laughed, a sound without warmth. "Right."
The conversation lapsed into hard-edged silence as Yusuf drove and Eames stared out the window at the city lights going by.
"Do you ever think about it?" Eames didn't need to ask what it Yusuf was talking about; it was the thing that had hung over them for years, choking the life from their partnership until there was nothing left but impossible regret.
"Every goddamn day of my life." Eames tipped his forehead against the cool glass. "Isn't it obvious?"
"I still dream about it," Yusuf said quietly. "I wake Ling up with it sometimes."
At least you still have her, Eames thought. "Yeah."
"Do you remember the way Ellie-the way she got quiet when she saw? The way she stopped crying and just--"
"You told her not to look," Eames said, and closed his eyes. He didn't need to dream about Ellie's face, her wide little girl eyes; it all came back like it'd happened yesterday.
"We should have known better than to think she'd listen." Yusuf's voice was tight, angry. It didn't sound like it was directed at Eames, though-for once.
"She would have found out sooner or later," Eames said, but it was halfhearted.
"We should have protected her. We should have."
"We did our best," Eames said, but he didn't believe it. He never had.
"You're a cold son-of-a-bitch, you know that?" Yusuf looked over at Eames, and even though his eyes were clear and steady, there were dark smudges underneath them. Eames wondered if they'd been there all along-whether he simply hadn't noticed, before.
"You used to like that about me," Eames replied, tone aggressively flip. "Said it made me a better Runner."
"Good Runner, lousy friend."
"Yes, and you were a sheer dream to be around once you made the executive decision that being high was preferable to being coherent enough to watch my back on the job," Eames snapped.
"And instead of trying to help me, you turned me in to the commissioner," Yusuf replied. "Tell me again: whose back were you watching there?"
"I tried. I tried so many goddamn times," Eames twisted in his seat to glare at Yusuf. "I tried to get through to you, but you wouldn't listen to a bloody thing-"
"Well maybe you should have tried harder!" Yusuf bellowed, and Eames snorted.
"Let me out." Eames tested the door handle, but it wouldn't open. "Let me out of the damn car."
"And let you get back to gambling your life away? Not bloody likely," Yusuf said. "You're getting on the airship."
"I can walk myself over," Eames said, testing the handle again, uselessly. "I don't need this."
"Where is Arthur, really?" Yusuf asked, and Eames let go of the door. "What happened?"
"It's not your concern," Eames said, slumping back in his seat. "You're my handler, aren't you?"
"If there's something that Saito should-"
"Don't," Eames said, and forced himself to look back at Yusuf. "Don't tell him that Arthur knows."
"Why?" Yusuf asked as they pulled up in a parking lot where the airship was waiting. "Has something happened?"
Eames put a hand on Yusuf's arm, grip probably too tight. "If you ever considered me a friend, please-don't tell Saito that Arthur knows."
"Another favor, Eames?" Yusuf yanked his arm out of Eames' grip. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You never did know where to stop."
Eames closed his eyes and let out a shallow breath as he opened the car door, but even the cool night air was no relief. "I'm not asking you to do this for me. I'm asking-"
"Because you care about him." When Eames opened his eyes, Yusuf was staring at him, disbelieving. "You actually care."
"I know I was a piece of shit partner and a worse friend," Eames said quietly. "I know I don't deserve your trust or respect. But this isn't about me. I hope you can believe that."
Yusuf didn't reply for a long minute, turning his face away from Eames. "Eternelle."
"What?"
"Eternelle," Yusuf repeated. "That’s the nightclub where A-528xz has been singing the past two weeks."
Eames searched Yusuf's voice for any hint of emotion, but he couldn't hear a thing. "She'll be there tomorrow night?"
"I don't know," Yusuf said as Eames climbed out of the car, into the empty parking lot. "Why don't you do your damn job and find out?"
New York, United States of America, Earth
Eternelle was a dark, moody lounge heavy with atmosphere and complicated drinks. Eames allowed himself to nurse one as he watched the singer, all decked out in a slinky dress and too much makeup. As she sang an old jazz standard, she looked like just another young girl, really. Someone too young to be crying over someone that had left, and too young to have lost faith in the world.
At the end of the night, it was a simple enough matter to tail Ariadne from the club to an empty parking garage a few blocks away.
“Who are you, and why are you following me?” Ariadne stopped in front of a parked car and confronted Eames like she’d known he was there the whole way over.
Eames pulled out his gun and tried not to meet her eyes. “You were pretty good back there.”
“You’re a Blade Runner.” Ariadne’s gaze flicked down to the barrel of his gun. “But you’ve got the wrong girl. I’m just another two-bit nightclub ingénue.”
Eames smiled sadly. “I’d give a lot to make that true.”
“And what is the truth?” Ariadne countered. “We both know Replicants don’t sing. They only do the job they were programmed to do.”
“They can sing if they’re taught,” Eames said. “They can sing if they’re given something to sing about.”
“You don’t have to do this,” she said softly. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Eames took a step forward. “And what way could it be?”
“You could let me go. I could hop in my car and drive away, go off-world, disappear. I promise I won’t cause any trouble and you’d never hear from me again.”
“It’d be just that easy, would it?” Eames flicked off the safety. “Run away, escape?”
“You could tell them I’m dead. I could cut off my toes, an arm-give you some proof of a body if we fake an explosion,” Ariadne said. "I could rig this car."
“Clever,” Eames said, taking another step forward. “You’ve put some thought into this?”
“I know I’ll die someday-whenever my termination date is up,” Ariadne said, face calm and unafraid. “But I just-I want the chance to live in the time I have left. I want the chance to be someone.”
Eames’ finger wavered over the trigger and she must have sensed it, that minute hesitation. Before he even knew what was happening, she was on top of him, gun skittering off along the pavement as he hit the ground hard.
“I don’t want to do this,” Ariadne whispered as she put one hand around his neck, contracting her fingers against his windpipe as she threw him up against the car. “But I’m not going to stand here and let you kill me.”
Eames struggled and kicked uselessly against her. It wasn’t even a fight, not really, and as he gasped and choked against her fingers, the edges of his vision began to fade, red spots dancing across his eyes.
So this would be how it ended, he thought. They'd find his body the day after and the world would go on with a barely hiccup-it wasn’t as though he had anything to go back to anymore. But Arthur, Eames thought wildly and suddenly--he would have liked to see Arthur one more time before he went.
As thoughts slowed to a sluggish crawl through his brain, Eames dimly heard what sounded like gunshots in the distance. He tried to focus on where they were coming from, whether they were aimed in his general direction or not, but the truth was that it probably didn’t matter anyway. Ariadne was doing quite an efficient job ending his life already-gunshots wouldn’t change things, though they might expedite the process.
But then Eames found himself dropped unceremoniously onto the asphalt, chin thudding painfully against the rough surface. He laid there for what seemed like forever, sputtering for breath and spitting out mouthfuls of blood. It seemed he had bitten some part of his mouth (his inner cheek, perhaps?) quite hard on the way down.
As Eames concentrated on breathing first and not choking on his own blood second, he got rolled onto his back, fresh air hitting the stinging cuts on his face like a slap. Above him, he could make out a figure--too tall and muscular to be Ariadne.
“Arthur?” Eames wheezed, wondering whether he was hallucinating due to a possible concussion or the lingering effects of oxygen-deprivation. Arthur’s hair fell around his face--loose and disheveled--his shirt and trousers were dirty and torn, and nary a jacket was in sight.
But then he spoke. “I don’t know why I came back.”
Eames rasped out a chuckle that turned into a cough as he struggled to sit up, Arthur’s hand cool and firm against his side. “I guess we’re even now,” Eames said.
Arthur traced the line of Eames’ right brow so gently that Eames would have suspected he’d imagined that too, but then there was the way Arthur looked at him. “Not quite yet.”
Arthur wrapped an arm around Eames’ waist and pulled him to his feet easily, taking on most of his weight while Eames sagged and swayed unsteadily. They made their way across the parking lot to a dented silver car Arthur had clearly stolen, Eames sprawling in the passenger seat while Arthur drove through the streets of New York, hands grim on ten and two.
Arthur brought Eames to an empty warehouse at the outskirts of the city, long abandoned and left to decay with the rest of the blighted area. There was a thin mattress covered in a few twisted-up sheets on the floor in one of the backrooms. Only one door led into the room, and there were no windows.
“I’ve been booking a hotel room but staying here the past few weeks,” Arthur said by way of explanation.
“Saito doesn't suspect-you needn't live like a fugitive.” The yet hung unspoken in the air as Eames sat in an uncomfortable wooden chair Arthur dragged into the room for him.
“He can monitor my movements through my bank accounts,” Arthur rolled up his sleeves to reveal track marks. “And they-the people I reported to--used to download my vitals and other information while I slept. My story's that I've been staying out all night, tracking Ariadne.”
“A hard download?” Eames reached out to take Arthur’s wrist in hand, more than a little surprised when Arthur let him. “I thought that went the way of the dinosaur ten years ago?”
“I don’t have an operational remote interface,” Arthur said, staying still while Eames traced over the blue lines of his veins. "There's a device-a briefcase I used to carry. A doctor told me when I was young that I needed to sleep connected to it every night due to a rare heart condition. A false memory, doubtless. Foolish for me to have believed it all this time."
“Saito said he kept your data separate from the Mainframe for fear of contaminating the others,” Eames said. “In case anything went wrong.”
“You mean like my becoming aware of being a Replicant, having a meltdown, and then trying to start a revolution?” Arthur asked wryly.
Eames chuckled. “Something like that.”
The smile disappeared from Arthur’s face as quickly as it came. “Did you tell Saito about-about what happened?”
“No,” Eames said, releasing Arthur’s wrist. “He knows I know about what you are, but nothing else.”
“And does he think you’ll say anything to me? That I’ll figure it out?”
“No. And-I don’t know.” Eames allowed himself to take in Arthur's face-gorgeous even with grime and weariness--greedy after all this time apart. "I thought you'd gone for good."
"I wanted to." Arthur dropped his gaze to the ground. "I got off the island and flew to South Africa-I was going to try to get off-world."
"So why did you come back?"
"To take care of A-528xz." Arthur took a deep breath. "And to buy myself time to formulate an actual plan."
"I see," Eames said, and pushed away the faint disappointment in his chest. "Thank you, by the way. It's lucky you found me when you did."
"Not luck. Merely that tracking application you installed on my phone." Arthur smiled faintly. "Goes both ways."
Eames chuckled, wincing when it caused his lip to crack open and bleed again.
“Your face,” Arthur said, and then went get a rucksack filled with medical supplies from another room. He proceeded to slather Eames' face, neck, and assorted body parts in medigel, bringing the swelling down and stopping the bleeding.
“I thought it was time for my curtain call,” Eames said as Arthur inspected his throat. "Before."
“I wouldn’t have let that happen.” Arthur backed away a few inches, seemingly satisfied with the condition of Eames' neck and jaw. “You did save me twice before.”
Eames huffed a laugh. “As if you ever really needed my help with Nash or Fischer.”
“Maybe not.” Where Arthur’s fingers had been clinical and efficient the last time he’d patched Eames up, this time they lingered across Eames’ newly healed skin, faintly warm to the touch. "But it would have been more difficult without you."
Eames smiled, and this time his lip didn't bleed. "When did you get to be such a sweet-talker?"
"Must have learned from the best," Arthur replied, the corner of his mouth curving up slightly.
"I wasn't sure if I'd ever see you again." Eames touched Arthur's shoulder, his chest. "Yusuf told me you were still filing reports and I wondered if it was just me you were avoiding."
"I didn't want to drag you into this." Arthur's gaze dropped to the ground. "Any more than I already had. But I--I missed you."
"And I couldn't stop thinking about you." Eames toyed with a button on Arthur's shirt. "Wondering where you were, what you were doing."
“Eames, you don’t even know how you-" Arthur halted, and his fingers fell from Eames’ face to his shoulders.
“What?” Eames leaned forward to try to catch Arthur’s gaze again. When Arthur shook his head, Eames closed the remaining distance between them and kissed him-a chaste graze of the lips. “What?”
“I’m not real,” Arthur whispered, so close Eames could feel the flutter of his eyelashes against his cheek.
"Real," Eames repeated numbly. "You mean human."
"I mean more than a carefully arranged compilation of memories copied from Mal's research team," Arthur said. "I don't even know where I end and where the implanted ideas begin."
"Does it matter?"
"Of course it does." Arthur pulled away a few inches. "I want to know what's me and what's-something else."
"And if you knew, what difference would it make?" Eames asked. "Both are a part of you now, and as real to me as anything else."
"You don't understand," Arthur said tightly. "You don't know what it's like to wonder if you really did anything you think you did, if it's just a fantasy or, worse, someone else's modified recollection of an event."
"The thing about the memories you've actually lived through is that you can't take them back," Eames said as he studied Arthur's beautifully expressive face. "The consequences of your actions-they're all on you."
"There's nothing I want to take back," Arthur declared, lifting his chin defiantly.
"No?" Eames looked away. "Lucky you, then. Most of the rest of us-we don't get lives that were so thoughtfully laid out."
Arthur fell silent for a moment before he put a hand on Eames' cheek. "Eames."
"Sometimes a man wakes up and wonders: how did my life become nothing more than a series of regrets?" Eames said. "Sometimes he thinks, well, I've lost everything, so what's one more?"
"Eames," Arthur said before he leaned forward and kissed Eames, nothing chaste in this kiss at all. "Jack." Eames pressed back, a little frantically, and Arthur parted his lips to let him in.
"Is this real?" Eames muttered as he tangled his hands in Arthur's clothing. "If this was a fake memory, would you want it to stop? Would you want to wake up tomorrow morning having forgotten it?"
"No," Arthur said as he shoved Eames back onto the mattress and crawled on top of him. "No, let this be real."
"Arthur," Eames said, almost dizzy as Arthur bore down on him, heavy and wiry and solid.
"You don't know how long I've wanted to do this," Arthur said, panting a little when he finally pulled away for air.
"Ever since I first saw you standing in front of those glass doors," Eames replied as he began to unbutton Arthur's shirt.
"Before." Arthur stripped off his shirt and then pulled his undershirt over his head. "I saw your file. There were-photographs."
A grin began to spread across Eames' face. "Did you have a wank to my photos, sweetheart?" Eames asked as he ran his hands up and down the perfectly defined musculature of Arthur's chest, his abdomen. "Did you imagine what I'd be like?"
"No." Arthur's eyes were hooded as he gazed down at Eames, at his lips. "But I thought about it."
"Do you want me to suck you?" Eames asked, and he could feel his mouth watering at the prospect of finally getting to see Arthur's cock, to touch it and feel the heat of it on his tongue.
"I-" Arthur paused, then grazed his fingertips across the still tender bruises ringed around Eames' neck; Eames tried to suppress the wince, but couldn't quite. "Not tonight."
"I'm fine," Eames said as he surged up, catching Arthur off-guard. "The medigel-"
"Accelerates healing but still requires some time to work," Arthur interrupted as he sat back and got to work on Eames' shirt buttons. "We can do other things."
"But I want to," Eames breathed in Arthur's ear, enjoying the visible shudder that passed through his shoulders.
"Maybe I want blow you," Arthur replied, and that cut short any response Eames had been readying in his arsenal. Arthur finished unbuttoning Eames' shirt so he could slip out of it, and Arthur hummed in appreciative surprise over the fact that Eames wasn't wearing an undershirt. "You're even better than the photos," Arthur murmured as he slid his calloused hands up and down Eames' stomach and then bent down to lick at a nipple. "And the file never mentioned anything about your voice."
"Arthur," Eames moaned as he put a less than gentle hand on the back of Arthur's head to encourage him to keep going. Dimly, Eames was also aware that he was being levered back onto the mattress, but then Arthur moved to sucking on his right nipple and Eames forgot to care.
"Will you let me fuck you?" Arthur asked as he kissed up Eames' neck to bite an ear. "Your ass is just-"
"Yeah," Eames replied, already mindless and willing to do whatever Arthur asked. "Yeah, do it."
"Okay." Arthur's voice shook a little as fumbled at Eames' belt, dropping to work at his fly when Eames moved his hands down to help.
"Don't move," Arthur instructed after he finished jerking Eames' trousers off and tossing them somewhere on the floor.
Before Eames could move or even make a sound in response, Arthur bent down, wrapped his lips around the head of Eames' cock, and licked.
"Fuck." Eames narrowly avoided jerking upwards into the unexpected damp warmth. "Arthur-"
But the words-and thoughts-all vanished as Arthur took more of Eames' prick into his mouth and began to suck in earnest. When Eames looked down at him, Arthur's hair was disheveled, his mouth obscene, and his eyes gleamed hotly back at Eames.
"You-" Eames gasped as he brought a hand down to touch at Arthur's hair, curling from sweat and moisture. "I'm not going to-I can't-"
But that only seemed to spur Arthur on, and he began to bob up and down, suction alternating with tonguing at the slit, the underside of the head. Eames had to force himself to stay still when Arthur reached up to roll his balls in his hand as well.
"Fuck." Eames gave Arthur's hair a light warning tug before the last of his self-control give way to an orgasm that roared through his entire body, pleasure sizzling from his cock to his arse to the tips of his fingers and toes.
When Eames' eyes came back into focus again, Arthur was sitting up and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Arthur smiled, saying something while Eames stared back at him in euphoric, hazy incomprehension. After a moment, Arthur reached out to smooth his hand down Eames' right side and then rolled him onto his stomach.
Arthur said something more, but all Eames could concentrate on was the looseness in his muscles and the trail of openmouthed kisses Arthur left down the length of Eames' spine, culminating in a nearly gentle nuzzle at his tailbone. A finger, covered in slick that was cool enough to make Eames shiver, pressed in, and Arthur made a soothing noise against the back of Eames' neck.
"Mm," Eames murmured as he spread his legs wider and Arthur began to stroke inside. It wasn't until Arthur was up to three fingers that Eames rediscovered the muscle coordination necessary to push back encouragingly, and the stuttered breath that Arthur took made the effort worthwhile.
"Will you roll onto your side for me, Jack?" Arthur asked, and at this point, everything he suggested sounded like a splendid idea to Eames. It only took a few tries before Eames could get his boneless body to cooperate, and Arthur rewarded his hard work by moving behind him so they were lined up from chest to feet.
"Arthur," Eames murmured as he reached back blindly to palm the curve of Arthur's hip. "Are you going to fuck me like this?"
"Was thinking about it," Arthur replied, and Eames could feel him shifting, the heat and blunt of Arthur's prick between his cheeks. "Do you like it like this?"
"Don't remember," Eames said, and then added, honestly, "It's been a while."
Arthur hummed and pressed another kiss to Eames' shoulder as he brought a hand around to skim Eames' inner thigh. "Do you want to come again?"
"S'alright," Eames replied, voice still lazy and drawling in post-orgasm bliss. "I like this."
"Okay." Arthur's hand went to grip Eames' hip instead as he pushed in, slow and easy while Eames relaxed. "Okay."
When Arthur was fully inside, Eames could hear him taking deep breaths, clearly trying to hold off. "Hey," Eames said as he took Arthur's hand off his hip and brought it to his lips. "It's okay."
Some of the tension bled from Arthur's body as Eames pressed a kiss to each of his knuckles. "I'm gonna-"
"Yeah," Eames said as Arthur began to move, a gentle rocking motion back and forth. At this angle, Arthur didn't directly press up against Eames' prostate, but there was still a pleasant tingle from the brushes nearby and the sensation of being filled--of having a cock buried deep inside him.
"Are you-" Arthur took a deep breath as Eames began to push back. "Is this-"
"Yeah." Eames exhaled deeply as he lowered Arthur's hand to press against Eames' belly right below his navel, fingers still intertwined. "Keep going."
Arthur groaned as his thrusts increased in pace, hips snapping forward more quickly as Eames tried to match him. Eames' cock began to take interest in the proceedings again, twitching as Arthur continued to fuck forward and make the most gorgeous sounds in his ear.
"Ah, ah." Arthur's grip on Eames' hand tightened to the point of near pain as he gave his last quick thrusts. "Eames, fuck-" Arthur went slack after a minute, hips rocking back and forth slowly, and Eames waited until he was sure Arthur was done before rolling over to stare at Arthur's flushed, sweaty face.
"You're amazing," Eames said as he kissed Arthur's lips and tasted salt along with the bitter of his own come.
"And you're not so bad," Arthur said, words slurring as he smiled beatifically at Eames. "Much better than my hand."
"So you did have a wank to my photos," Eames said.
"Not to your photos, technically," Arthur murmured as he scratched his fingers through Eames' chest hair. "That night in the hotel, after Monte Carlo. I couldn't get you out of my head-the way you smelled, the way you felt."
"Is that why you hurried off so quickly?" Eames asked as he carefully peeled the condom off Arthur's softening cock, tying it before dropping it off the side of the mattress. "Thought you'd lose control if you lingered a second longer?"
"I never lose control." Arthur stretched languorously, and a bare foot skated up Eames' calf. "It'd be unprofessional."
Eames allowed himself to savor the moment, the way Arthur smiled up at him, languid and carefree. "Professionalism is vastly overrated, darling."
"Perhaps in some instances," Arthur conceded, and his gaze traveled down Eames' body to his dick, which hovered at about half-mast. "Would you like me to take care of that for you?"
"Later," Eames said as he leaned down to kiss Arthur again-no heat this time, only affection. "There's no rush."
Arthur's smile faded, and Eames could see the instant everything about their tenuous situation rushed back into his mind again. "When's the last time you reported in to Yusuf?"
"Before I found Ariadne," Eames said. "But even if he suspects-he won't say anything."
"He's your handler. He-"
"He still loves me even as he hates me," Eames cut off. "Darling, I was-am-a degenerate gambler. And the one thing all semi-functional addicts understand intimately is precisely how far to push loved ones before they snap-and then proceed to push them even further."
Arthur flinched. "I shouldn't have-you're not-"
"No, you were right." Eames smiled, sadly. "I'll always be after that next win when it comes down to it. The only thing I can control is when I can take the bet-if I ever do."
Arthur brushed this thumb over Eames' eyebrows, his cheekbones, his jaw. "Maybe. But you're more than that, too."
"I know," Eames said as he lowered himself down to hide his face in Arthur's shoulder and sling an arm around his waist. "Though sometimes I wish-that could be the only mark on the universe that I'd leave."
Arthur's arms came up to wrap around him. "I read everything in your file. Nothing you've done changes the way I feel."
"Then you read about the Replicant that called herself Fahima."
"Fahima? You mean number FA-0531h16ma." Arthur started rattling off facts like he was reading straight from the file. "A Halcyon model that managed to engineer a way to extend her termination date by several months after she went rogue. It was an extraordinary achievement that hadn't been done outside of a lab before, and hasn't been duplicated by any other Replicant since."
"She also kidnapped the only child of her former owners," Eames said. "Fahima referred to the girl-Ellie-as her daughter."
"Proclus noted in the file that there was as great deal of press coverage relating to the abduction," Arthur said. "People became terrified that if they purchased a Replicant, it might steal their children. Sales of the Halcyon models bottomed out immediately after that."
"She wasn't even a custom order," Eames said closed his eyes and could see her, straight dark hair and solemn expression on a narrow face. "In fact, her particular model had a reputation for a lack of aggression and emotionality, so it was a surprise when Yusuf and I got the assignment."
"Was there was something different about this case?" Arthur asked. "Aside from the kidnapping?"
"The Replicant-Fahima-begged us to spare her life, which was nothing new. But she claimed that it was for Ellie, and not for her own sake." Eames turned his face into Arthur's neck. "She had the biggest eyes I had ever seen, that little girl. I don't think she fully understood what was going on when we broke into that apartment."
"Did you believe--Fahima?" Arthur began to stroke a hand up and down Eames' back.
"No," Eames said shortly. "I thought it was another ploy. I told her that Replicants could never have children, and that kidnapping one wouldn't change that." Eames inhaled deeply. "She told me she would surrender willingly if we promised not to take Ellie back to her parents."
"What did you do?"
"I lied, and Yusuf pulled the trigger," Eames replied. "We brought the girl back to her parents and we were hailed as heroes. The news went wild and we received promotions, commendations from the Mayor."
"You worked together successfully on several cases after that," Arthur said. "Until Yusuf resigned."
"Until I forced him to resign," Eames corrected.
"Drug abuse isn't something-"
"I ratted out my own partner," Eames said. "That's the bottom line, regardless of the reason."
Arthur didn't speak for a moment. "What happened after that?"
"I continued working as a Blade Runner and retired a dozen more rogue Replicants." When Eames spoke, the words were flat and dull, toneless. "Three years passed, and then Ellie--her body was found at the bottom of the river. So badly beaten they could barely identify her."
Arthur's hands stilled. "Her parents?"
"In a prison colony somewhere." Eames braced himself for Arthur to pull away, to push Eames back. "I quit my job and I spent months trying to prove that it wasn't true. That it wasn't really her, that it wasn't her parents that had done it. A waste of time, of course." Eames took a deep breath, and it burned. "I thought about killing myself, but I was always too much of a coward for such things. So I went to the casino instead, and never really left."
"Eames." Arthur's arms tightened around Eames' body. "You couldn't have known. You couldn't have known if Fahima was telling the truth, or if-"
"Yusuf believed her," Eames whispered, the familiar hot shame welling up within his gut. "Yusuf-he didn't want to shoot her."
"She was a Replicant past her termination date already. She could have gone offline the next day, the next week, or the next month." Arthur pressed a kiss to Eames' temple. "Maybe nothing you could have done would have made a difference."
"Maybe." Eames clung to Arthur as a few hot tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes. "And maybe they'd have both lived."
Arthur's hands resumed their movement up and down Eames' back, so gentle the touch was barely there. He didn't comment on the way Eames shuddered in his arms, or the damp spreading across his skin.
"I used to have horrible nightmares when I was young-dreams where I would run off a cliff thinking I would fly, but then fall and fall and be unable to stop," Arthur said. "There was something my mother would always tell me-when I used to be exhausted but too terrified to sleep. She'd say, 'Everything seems at its worst when you're tired. But if you close your eyes and open them again in the morning, you'll see everything much more clearly again.'"
Arthur reached over the side of the mattress with one arm to hit a switch on the floor, plunging the room into darkness. "Go to sleep, Jack," he whispered in Eames' ear. "I'll be here to help you see in the morning."
Eames woke up alone, the room completely dark save for the light that crept in through the door.
The mattress felt cold and lumpy without Arthur in it, and Eames closed his eyes as the events from the previous night came back to him. Of course Arthur was gone.
Eames sat up, aching from the bruises and half-healed wounds scattered across his body. As he did, the door opened and he froze.
"You're awake," Arthur said as he stepped into the entryway, clad in a pressed ensemble of trousers, shirt, and waistcoat again. His hair was slicked back.
"You're still here," Eames said blankly as Arthur turned on the lights.
"Of course I am." Arthur knelt on the edge of the mattress. "I'll always come back for you."
Eames buried his fingers in the fabric of Arthur's waistcoat to keep him from moving away. "What do we do now?"
"We should go back to our hotels, clean up, and submit our reports," Arthur said. He pushed the hair back from Eames' forehead. "And I need to figure out my next step."
"You don't want to go back?"
"I can't go back," Arthur replied. "I'm a Proclus prototype-property they could recall at any instant for any reason. They could even take me apart if deemed necessary."
"You could sue for emancipation," Eames suggested, even though he already knew there was no hope of winning.
"Others have tried and lost-even the suits backed by human advocates," Arthur said. "It always comes down to the Voight-Kampff test in court, and the trials are a farce. Decided before they even begin."
"Have you taken the Voight-Kampff test since-"
Arthur looked away. "I feel real," he said. "And I don't want to belong to anyone. Shouldn't that be enough?"
"It is to me," Eames said as a put a hand on the back of Arthur's neck, thumb rubbing circles behind his ear. "Maybe Saito-"
"Saito sank millions of dollars into my development and creation. Maybe more," Arthur said. "Even if he were a sentimental man-which he isn't-there's no way he would let an investment like me just get up and walk away."
"He hasn't attempted to replicate the experiment?" Eames asked. "Make others like you?"
"Attempted and failed," Arthur replied. "From what I was able to learn from the Proclus database, I’m the only active Replicant they've been able to successfully implant with an entire lifespan's worth of memories. Apparently, the technology needed to imprint complex memories before activation is extremely expensive and prone to failure. God knows how Dom managed to pull it off with Mal so quickly.”
"Single-minded focus and terrifying obsession?" Eames offered.
"That and access to Mal's research notes," Arthur said wryly. "It seems she was rather cagey even when it came to Proclus. They humored her because she was brilliant, and produced results."
"So Proclus definitely didn't authorize Cobb's recreation of her?"
"They didn't even know about her until the Venusian uprising hit the news," Arthur replied. "I think the only reason they didn't fire Cobb right then and there is because they're hoping eventually he'll tell the company how he did it."
"So what now, then?" Eames asked. "Saito won't spare any expense in sending Blade Runners after you if he knows you've defected. They'll hunt you wherever you go."
"I know." Arthur eased into a sitting position, Eames' arm around his shoulder. "My only advantage at this point is time. So long as they don't know that I know, I'm relatively free to travel and act independently. At any rate, I don't think Saito will want to recall me until Mal is dealt with."
"Some Replicants have escaped to the colonies on the far reaches," Eames said. "No governments, no Blade Runners-only lawless frontier."
"That's what I was thinking," Arthur agreed. "I've started making arrangements for passage off-world, but it'll take longer to find someone willing to go into the far reaches."
"Is there room enough for me?" Eames asked as he turned to look Arthur in the eye.
"Always." Arthur tipped his forehead forward to rest against Eames'. "You'll never be able to go back to your old life, though."
"What life?" Eames chuckled tiredly. "My ex-wife has moved on and I have no other family. My friends wisely dropped me once I became nothing more than a leech that kept hitting them up for money and fiftieth chances."
"I'll never drop you," Arthur said, and Eames had to smile, for a moment, at how young he sounded.
"How long do you need before the rest of the arrangements can be made?" Eames asked.
"A few more days at the very least. Two weeks, tops."
"And in the meantime, we keep working," Eames said. "Do you happen to know where Mal is?"
"No, but Cobb does." Arthur sighed. "We only need to convince him to share that information with us. Somehow."
"Tell him you've reconsidered your position on Replicants," Eames said. "You understand why he did what he did, and you want to help him get Mal back."
Arthur looked at Eames quizzically. "You think he'll believe that?"
"I think he'll want to." Eames shrugged. "It must be rather lonely, feeling as if no one in the world understands you or why you did what you did. You also happen to be in a unique position, given your shared history with him and Mal. Hopefully, he'll trust you at least a little because of that."
Arthur ran a thoughtful hand through Eames' hair before he stood up. "You really are brilliant at this, you know that?"
Eames smiled faintly up at Arthur. "Worth every penny Saito paid, I suppose."
"What do we do after we handle Mal?" Arthur asked. "Saito's not just going to let us go."
"No, we'll need something to convince him that there's either no point in coming after us or, perhaps, that there's nothing to come after." Eames paused to think. "Perhaps we can fake our own deaths?"
"He'll send teams to check for the bodies," Arthur said. "He'll especially want to recover mine to gather as much data as he can."
"Then it needs to be something that leaves no remains. Or very few ones." Eames pushed aside the sheets and stood, getting off the mattress to fish his underwear off the floor. "I'll think on this further while you go see Dom."
"Yes," Arthur said, and then startled Eames by grabbing him by the waist and kissing him fiercely. When Arthur let go, Eames blinked, a little dazed.
"Darling-"
"I should go now," Arthur said, turning towards the door. "Before I-before it gets too hard not to."
"Arthur," Eames said, and Arthur halted in the doorway. "Stay safe. We'll deal with Mal together."
Arthur looked back over his shoulder at Eames and smiled--a small, private one. "I'll come back for you. I promise."
Next: Chapter 5