I'll Turn And I'll See You
Title: I'll Turn And I'll See You
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames, referenced Ariadne/Yusuf
Summary: Mallorie Cobb's tragic fate destroyed two couples, not one. And while death is irreparable, there is still a chance that lesser divides can one day be closed. Arthur and Eames were torn apart by one misunderstanding, and countless others keep them that way. But if it's not what either of them truly want, is there hope for a second chance?
Author's Note: I don't usually do this... However, the song quotes in this are both from Elton John's Someday Out of the Blue, which I recommend you go listen to right now! It's a gorgeous song, I absolutely love it. It's kind of sad, though. (Also the video has a cartoon Elton John. How can you pass that up?)
I still believe
I still put faith in us
We had it all and watched it slip away
Where are we now?
Not where we want to be
Those hot afternoons
Still follow me
Someday out of the blue
Maybe years from now
Or tomorrow night
I'll turn and I'll see you
As if we always knew
Someday we would live again, someday soon
I still believe, I still put faith in us...
“When she gets back,” Cobb says, “you'll have her building mazes.”
Arthur forgoes the topic of Ariadne and her by no means certain return to ask something completely different. “Where are you going to be?”
“I've gotta go see Eames.”
There are so many reactions Arthur can have to that, but he forces himself to stay calm, to focus on the practical. “Eames? No, he's in Mombasa, that's Cobol's backyard.”
“It's a necessary risk.”
His pulse is racing, but all Arthur says is, “There are plenty of good thieves.”
“We don't just need a thief. We need a forger.”
Cobb walks out and Arthur waits precisely thirty seconds after the door bangs closed before sinking into the nearest lawn chair, dropping his head into his hands. He hasn't seen Eames in three years, since just two months after Mal died, and now...
He's not sure how he feels, or even how he should feel. How exactly is someone supposed to react to the information that they're going to be working on the craziest job of their career with the love of their life, someone who hates their guts?
~ ~ ~
The truth is, Arthur never actually planned on going on the run with Cobb. He likes the other man well enough, but Mal had been his best friend, not Cobb. That's why he's stuck around so long, why he'd been the one to get Cobb to the airport after his contact in the FBI had given him one last chance to run. It's for Mal, to do what he knows Mal would have wanted him to do.
But he can't explain that to Eames.
“Patrick, please. Look, I'm not going to stay with him, I just need to make sure he's not going to do something stupid. He's lost everything, and I owe it to Mal's memory to keep him safe.”
“You're not telling me anything I don't already know, Arthur. Dom Cobb's your first priority now, and who cares if you just up and vanish on me, right?” Eames snaps.
“That's not true!”
“The hell it's not! Ever since he went on the run, all you've been doing is jumping when he calls. Well, fuck that, I'm out of here.”
“I... What?” Arthur just stares at him, mouth dry. Eames can't mean what it sounded like he meant, can he?
“We're finished. That's it.” This particular apartment is in Arthur's name, which he notes with bleak humor is probably a good thing, since it means he's not kicked out onto the curb. Eames is angry enough that he would probably do it. Instead, Arthur's left standing alone in his living room, and as the sound of the front door slamming fades from the room, he falls back against the wall, his legs giving way as he slides to the floor. He stays like that, half-slumped against the wall, for the entire night.
~ ~ ~
Working with Eames again, with the shadow of the last time they saw each other hanging over everything, is nothing more or less than a clever sort of torture. And his suspicion that Eames hates him is all but confirmed. Arthur wishes he could take Eames' little pranks as the friendly ribbing they'd once been, but he knows better. There's a real undercurrent of malice there, glinting in Eames' gray eyes or in a cruel little smirk when Arthur's tumbling to the ground after the latest kick.
Arthur's trying to at least patch things up a little. They were friends before they were lovers, and good-natured rivals before that. He'd hoped they could at least find some of that again, but apparently not. Even his genuine attempts at being friendly are rebuffed.
“Eames, I am impressed.”
“Your condescension, as always, is much appreciated, Arthur, thank you.” He wasn't the one being condescending there, and they both know it, but it certainly made everything clear to Arthur. There's no going back, and the two of them may as well be in armed enemy camps as far as Eames is concerned.
He doesn't try after that.
The irony is that the only one who notices is Ariadne. But then again, she picks up on everything; it's disconcerting at times, how sharp she is. “Why does Eames have such a problem with you?” she asks one day.
Can't she leave him alone and go pester Cobb some more? It's not that Arthur doesn't like Ariadne; he does. She's as bright as he'd suspected at their first meeting, and her immediate love of creating is more than a little endearing. But he doesn't want to talk to her about this. “We didn't part on good terms,” he says finally, at a loss for anything else to say. He doesn't look at her, instead focuses his attention on sorting his latest batch of notes on the Fischers.
He waits for Ariadne to say more, but she doesn't, and when he finally looks up, she's giving him a compassionate look that is oddly similar to Mal's. He can't help but think that the real Mal would have liked her, especially when she just gives him a slight smile and walks away. He knows why she's letting it go. Obviously, she thinks he can handle it, and she pesters Cobb because she doesn't trust him to do the same. Arthur wishes he could have the same faith in himself that she does, but it's hell, working like this.
It's not like he has a choice in the matter, though, so he's just going to have to carry on. He can do that, it's what he's always done, after all.
~ ~ ~
They weren't introduced to the other agents assigned to the program, just sedated and thrown right in. Arthur doesn't even know if the British guy he's teamed himself up with is another member of the team or a projection, and right now he doesn't care. The firm line of the other man's back pressed against his own means that he can focus on the attackers in front of him and not worry about the ones he can't see.
One of the projections gets a lucky shot, and Arthur dies immediately. In some ways, a clean headshot is a relief. Almost everyone else is already awake, and a few seconds later the last sleeper sits up, gasping for breath. He looks up and Arthur recognizes him as the Brit from the dream. Their eyes meet for a second, but then their handler's talking and they have to pay attention to him instead.
“I'm Eames, MI6,” a low, accented voice says in his ear two days later, just after Arthur sits down with his lunch tray. He glances up at the other man, a faint smile on his face.
“Arthur, CIA.”
Eames sits down across from Arthur, a wry grin on his face. “I have to say, mate, good to know you're real. It's fucked up down there, isn't it?”
“Just a bit, yeah.”
They don't talk any more about dreams, instead they talk about mundane things. Movies, music, easy topics. But the next time they're sent into dreams as a large group, Eames is right there. They always find each other, every time they go under. Their bosses don't know what to make of it - these jobs are meant to be every man for himself, and you're not supposed to be able to tell who's real and who isn't. But Arthur and Eames can always be sure of each other; Arthur can even see through the illusions - forgeries - Eames learns to use. They bicker constantly, mock each other's every action, but behind the fake derision a deep and real trust grows, and even affection.
Eventually the two of them are just made official partners, because it's clear they work best together.
~ ~ ~
The job goes to hell almost immediately, which, really, Arthur kind of knew it would. Every job with Cobb's been going wrong lately. Little things, usually, though the Cobol job was an example of a rather more serious mishap. And this, well... This is pretty much catastrophic. Because the danger here isn't a corporation baying for their blood, it's falling into limbo and losing their minds. And Arthur could kill Cobb for putting them in this position.
They leave Eames-as-Browning alone with Fischer and Arthur goes off to a quiet corner of the old warehouse they're in, trying to clear his head. He still remembers, for a moment, being sure that Eames was the one shot, and while he's not glad that it's Saito... He's relieved as hell that it wasn't Eames. He shouldn't still care, but he does. He wishes he didn't, but he does.
His reprieve doesn't last long, and soon enough they're getting ready to leave, he and Eames tossing a few short comments at each other about how to get past Fischer's father issues as Arthur readies his assault rifle to take out the projections that have them surrounded. He takes up a spot at the door, firing and then dodging back, for a few minutes, before footsteps come up behind him.
“You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling,” Eames says, before he lifts an honest-to-God rocket launcher and blows the projections away. Arthur looks over to where they were and gives a little shrug; he's not about to be annoyed that Eames jumped in when it worked. Not to mention...
No one else would know the difference between the tone Eames used just now and the one he's employed all through the months of job prep, but Arthur does. A mocking tone, yes, but not a malicious one. Just Eames, the way he always was with Arthur, almost from the beginning. Even in the middle of this crazy job, there's a flare of something in Arthur's chest. It's not exactly hope, but it's close.
It's that which, later, has him dropping to the ground and hooking up Eames' IV, holding the other man's hand in a light grip. Eames looks up at him, and his eyes are serious, with what might even be a hint of worry lurking there. “Security's gonna run you down hard.”
Arthur can't help but smile a little. “And I will lead them on a merry chase.”
“Just be back before the kick.”
“Go to sleep, Mr. Eames.”
They get out, and it's the start of a new truce between them. The team stays together, with the exception of Cobb, who goes back to his family. None of them really expected it to happen, but when they try to split up it gives their enemies a chance to try and chase them down. Besides, they're a bigger draw together - despite attempts to keep the inception quiet, there are enough whispers that it was done on someone, that they were the ones who did it, that they're in high demand. And everyone who wants to hire one of them wants all of them.
Through it all, Arthur finds himself bonding with the two team members who were strangers to him when all this began. He and Yusuf turn out to share the same eclectic taste in books, while Ariadne becomes very much the little sister he never had. And it gives him a warm feeling he's not accustomed to, watching the architect and chemist move ever so slowly into each other's orbits. He was the first to notice how intrigued Ariadne was with Yusuf, back in the days prepping for Fischer, and he's also the first one she told when she realized that she was “falling in like, at least.” It's good to see them come together.
But it hurts too. And that's because of Eames. To some extent, they're back where they were before. That is, before they were more than casual friends. They banter and they have each other's backs, but they don't talk about anything but the most casual of topics. They never touch, not even accidental brushes against each other (to be fair, that's more Arthur's doing, an odd sort of self-preservation), and sometimes... Sometimes Eames comes in still trailing faint hints of perfume or some other man's aftershave.
Arthur doesn't think Eames is trying to be cruel anymore. He's just living his life, having clearly moved on from what he and Arthur had. Arthur thinks he'd almost prefer the hate - it would mean what happened between them still meant something to Eames. Clearly, it no longer does, and that actually hurts even more. Because Arthur can't forget, he can't seem to move on. But then, Eames left him. That probably makes it easier.
~ ~ ~
They quit together, vanishing into the criminal underworld with the same ease that they have together in dreams. And they take a PASIV with them. Arthur and Eames are agreed on one thing; it's going too far, what the government is asking them to do. Both of them are haunted by literal nightmares, and that's not even the worst of it. So they run, but they go together.
A life of crime is really all that's left to them, since running away got them burned. Being burned isn't like being fired, it's more like being eradicated from the records. You've got no way to get a job, no resources to fall back on, only your wits and your own ability to adapt and survive. Arthur and Eames are both particularly skilled in those areas.
But sometimes you still get caught.
The job went well, but the mark found out about what happened, which is why Arthur and Eames are running down back alleys, trying to escape the men chasing them even as they fire at them over their shoulders. Only Arthur happens to see one of them take aim at Eames, and there's no time to shout to the other man, to tell him to duck. Arthur can't get him get shot, for reasons he's only beginning to understand. He knows Eames means a lot to him, more than anyone he's ever known in his life, and that's all he needs to know. He knows it, and that's why he throws himself forward, knocking Eames to the ground. For a moment he thinks they're both all right, and then he feels a burning pain in his side.
“Arthur? Jesus Christ.” Arthur feels himself being moved, lowered to the ground, and his eyes focus on the sky above, streaked with red as the sun sets. There are more gunshots, but they sound oddly muted, and Arthur's not sure if it's minutes or hours before Eames' face comes into view. “Why did you do that?” Eames demands. “Huh? Arthur?”
Arthur's eyes are closing, but Eames shakes him. “Don't you dare, Arthur. Look at me, keep your eyes open. God, why did you...”
“Had to,” Arthur murmurs, and then he can't keep his eyes open anyway.
They never talk about that incident specifically, but it's not long after Arthur recovers when he and Eames kiss for the first time, and then fall into bed together. It's not long after that when, though the words are never said, they know that they love each other.
~ ~ ~
Arthur learns to live with it. He tells himself to be happy with what he has; two close friends in Ariadne and Yusuf, and a trusted teammate in Eames. It's easier to be casually friendly with Eames than to get those malicious looks, it has to be. And he eventually does convince himself of that.
He even tries to date. They've based themselves in Philadelphia, of all places, mostly because it's a city large enough to get lost in, but not one you'd immediately think of. Even Americans tend to think of New York, Los Angeles, Miami. Arthur blames this on fiction. Not to mention, he grew up in Philadelphia and knows the city like the back of his hand. Being back here actually helps him to deal with the parts of his life that are hard; he's home, and that counts for something. But the dating still doesn't go well. One of the people he brings home, a man named Ian, says bluntly, “You're gone on someone else, man. Maybe you should do something about that.” Arthur doesn't bother to explain that there isn't anything he can do.
He hasn't got any living family left, but he still visits his father's grave semi-regularly, now that he actually can. Sometimes he talks to his father, tells him about his life. One day, he tells him about Eames, about everything that went right and then went so very wrong. He lets everything out, for the first time, and only when he's finished does he realize someone's watching him.
Ariadne stares at him, wide-eyed, and then looks down at her shoes. “I... You didn't answer your phone, we were worried. Eames knew how to activate the tracker, he told me to come and get you.”
Arthur looks anywhere but at her, and flinches when she puts a hand on his arm. “Arthur... You should tell him.”
He jerks away. “Ariadne, what would be the point? It's over, I ruined it, and I know that.” He does. Because even though he had the best of intentions, Eames was right. Arthur had been dropping everything for Cobb. If he could go back, he doesn't know what he'd do, because he still believes he did the only thing he could, knowing what Mal would have wanted him to do, and yet... It wasn't worth the price he's paying. Still, the one time he visits Cobb, sees him with James and Philippa, he can almost believe their happiness is worth the sacrifice of his own. He just wishes it hadn't been necessary.
Ariadne doesn't press, probably sensing that she won't do any good if she does, and something he's noticed about her is that she does hold back when she thinks she might make something worse. But he can't get her words out of his head. Everyone thinks he should talk to Eames, but he can't. But maybe he can at least get this out, somehow.
He gets a piece of paper and a pen, sits down at his kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey and writes a letter. It's addressed to Eames, as is the envelope he puts it in when he's finished, but he doesn't mean for the other man to see it. It's just cathartic, to write it as though he were really writing to Eames. And he does feel a little better. It's not enough, but it's something.
~ ~ ~
Arthur and Eames meet the Cobbs about a year after they leave the government. Mal in particular quickly adopts them, and Arthur falls in a different kind of love with the dark-eyed, vibrant Frenchwoman. It's a pure, wholly platonic sort of love, and completely new to him. She's family, in a strange way, and soon she's his best friend. They can and do talk about anything, and they use the PASIV together to wander the world's most famous cities. Eames doesn't understand why they need to dream it; he thinks it's only worth it to actually go there. Cobb just thinks it's foolish to explore things that already exist; he'd rather build something entirely new and explore that.
But Arthur and Mal wander old cities, as they are in the modern day and as they were in previous centuries. It's magical in a way they can't explain to the men they love, and they have the time of their lives doing it. While down there, they talk, and Mal is actually the one to hear Arthur say aloud that he loves Eames. “We've never said it out loud,” he tells her as they walk through the streets of Octavian's Rome. “I'm afraid if we do, we might ruin it somehow, as ridiculous as that sounds.”
“Oh, cherie, don't worry so much,” Mal says, sliding an arm around Arthur's waist and reaching with her other hand to ruffle his hair. She and Eames are agreed on the idea that Arthur is too put together when at work, that he needs to relax a little. Usually he tries to bat away the hands of whichever of them is on ruffle duty, but they're dreaming so it's not like it matters. So instead Arthur just shakes his head.
“I can't help it.”
“I'm sure it won't chase him away. The way he looks at you... It's the same look that made me sure that Dom loved me as much as I did him.”
Arthur remembers that conversation, months and months later at Mal's funeral. Then he looks at Cobb, a broken mess, and knows that for Mal's sake, he's going to have to try to pick up the pieces. He just doesn't realize then that he'd be destroying the best thing in his own life to do so.
~ ~ ~
When Arthur is an hour late to work, Ariadne, Eames, and Yusuf exchange puzzled looks. When he's two hours late, Ariadne calls him three times in the span of fifteen minutes, and bites her nails almost to the quick. When it's three hours, Eames grabs his coat and catches the SEPTA bus to Arthur's apartment. He knows something's wrong when he realizes that the lock is broken, and that's only proven to him more spectacularly when he pushes the door open.
The first thing Eames thinks is that Arthur would be furious about this mess, furniture overturned and broken, things scattered everywhere. The second thing he thinks is that some of the mess is blood on the floor, and Arthur might not even be alive to be angry about it. The third thing is that if the second is true, he is going to make whoever is responsible pay. In spades.
He pushes aside his homicidal thoughts to take a careful look around, trying to see if there's anything left behind that might tell him where Arthur is and who has him. He doesn't find anything, but he does find, among the contents of a dumped-out drawer, an envelope with his name on the front in Arthur's neat, slanted hand. “What the hell? Arthur, this had better not be an 'If you're reading this I'm dead' letter,” he says aloud to the empty room.
It's not, Eames finds when he gets back to his car and opens it. It's a letter that Arthur clearly never meant for Eames to see - hell, he says as much in the first line. Eames reads it once, then twice, and it feels like the words are burning themselves into his mind.
Eames,
I'm not planning for you to ever read this, but I needed to write it, so as stupid as it seems... No, I'm not drunk, though I almost wish I was as it would be a better excuse for this.
I don't even know where to start. I guess... Fuck, Patrick, do you even know how hard it is to work with you now? Sometimes I think it was better during the Fischer prep, when I could tell you hated me. At least I knew I meant something, that we, whatever we were, meant something to you. I mean, I guess I'd rather have this, what we started with, rather than you hating me, but... I don't know how you do it. Is it because you're the one who left, that it's so easy for you to move past it? Because that doesn't make sense, if I pushed you away shouldn't it be easier for me?
The thing of it is, though, I wasn't trying to do that. I meant it, I wasn't going to stay with Cobb, I wouldn't have done that. He asked me and I told him I wasn't going to do that. I wanted to be with you, I only did go with Cobb when I didn't have a reason not to. But that doesn't mean you weren't right, I mean, looking back I can tell you were. I just... I was trying to do the right thing, I didn't want this to happen. And now, you act like we were never anything but casual friends and somehow it hurts so much more than when you hated me. I'm next to nothing to you now and I still love you, I always did. I don't know how to stop and I probably never will.
And maybe I am sort of drunk after all, but that doesn't make this any less true. It just means I can't ignore it anymore.
Arthur
Eames doesn't know what he is supposed to think about this. To say he's surprised is an understatement, not least because how the fuck did Arthur read him so wrong? Arthur, who can still pick him out in a dream, even when Eames is using a forgery he knows the point man has never seen? Arthur thinks he's over them, that Eames... Fucking hell, Eames really hadn't thought he was being that convincing.
Eames hasn't ever gotten over Arthur. He's not even sure that's something he will ever be capable of. He's locked that part of himself away, yes, but that's different than it actually being gone. And he can't, he can't think about this now. He can't think about the fact that he'd assumed Arthur didn't give a fuck anymore if he ever really had, he can't because Arthur's gone and could be dead for all Eames knows.
So he drives back to the old bookstore they're working out of, probably breaking half a dozen speed limits on the way. He tells the other two what he found, his voice clipped and tight as he says that they need to get ahold of the security camera footage outside Arthur's building, and figure out who has him.
Eames sits down to sketch out a plan, because really he's the thief here. He doesn't even notice the worried looks Ariadne and Yusuf give him, or exchange with each other, and if he did he wouldn't care. Not right now.
~ ~ ~
Eames ends up in Mombasa after eighteen months of mindless wandering. By this time he's already heard that Arthur and Cobb are working together full-time, and his first, savage thought is that it didn't take Arthur long. But one night, his mind a bit fuzzy from whiskey, he can't help but remember the way Arthur said his name, the first name that Eames never goes by and Arthur only used rarely.
The pleading tone was one Arthur never used, and for a moment Eames wonders if, perhaps, his former lover was telling him the truth and he's only working with Cobb now because Eames walked out on him. But the thought that he could have been wrong, even though he regrets leaving, even though he wanted to go back less than a day after he left, isn't something he wants to consider. He'd rather think of Arthur in the wrong and nurse his own hurt feelings.
When Cobb approaches him about inception, and says oh so confidently that Eames wouldn't sell him out, Eames has to laugh. “Of course I would,” he says lightly, but behind his tone is pure truth. It's Cobb's fault, what happened to him and Arthur. It's Arthur's fault too, but Cobb started it, the fucking bastard.
But Arthur will be on this job. And Eames will be able to see for himself if Arthur likes it, working with Cobb. If he was right and Arthur was just waiting for him to leave, or if Eames pushed Arthur to Cobb by walking out that night. He really doesn't know, and he can't know unless he sees Arthur and Cobb together.
~ ~ ~
It's the mark, of course. Somehow, Aaron Roane has been tipped off, and Arthur's been the one shadowing him. Eames has been following Roane's sister, Terri, in order to forge her, but Arthur's job is similar to his with the mark as the target instead. So of course, if Roane were to pick out any of them...
This logic does not make Eames feel better. The fact is, he could tell from the state of Arthur's flat that the other man put up a fight, and was simply outnumbered. All Eames can think is, if he'd been less of an idiot and tried to patch things up - the way he'd tried to convince himself he hadn't wanted to, only he did - then Arthur wouldn't have been alone. And maybe this wouldn't have happened.
Logic tells Eames that it's equally likely both he and Arthur would be gone now, and Ariadne and Yusuf may be brilliant but their skill set doesn't run to this like his does. And he knows none of that is going to matter to him if his skill doesn't get them there fast enough. If all they find is Arthur's body. It won't matter then that there's no way he could have known about this. It will be his fault, because there's so much he could have done, and should have said.
He pushes those thoughts aside, because they leave him numb and unable to think. And he needs to be able to focus right now. One of the men on the security footage is known as a local thug, and if there's one thing Eames can do it's get information out of the dregs of society. A bit of charm, a generous supply of cash, and a few broken noses, and he's got names and a location.
Yusuf isn't foolish enough to suggest he does anything but drive the getaway car, but Ariadne, on the way there, tries to insist on going in with him. He and Arthur have been training her, mostly in dreamspace where any damage won't be permanent, but she is not ready for this. He knows she means well, that she and Arthur have become very close in the nearly two years since they've met - six months on the Fischer job and a year and a half of working together since - but he doesn't have time for this.
“No.”
“Eames, you can't just - ”
“Yes, I can.”
Ariadne opens her mouth again but Yusuf cuts her off quietly. “Ariadne, listen to him.”
Her lover manages what Eames can't, and silence fills the car again. Eames pushes the car as fast as it will go, cursing every tiny delay. He has to get there, he can't lose Arthur now, not when there's so much that needs to be made clear between them. It's just that simple.
~ ~ ~
At first, Eames is gleeful when he realizes that under Arthur's composure, he's damn near miserable. There is a tension about Arthur and Cobb, like both of them have reason to think this is all going to go to hell, and that both of them are terrified of that. Good, he tells himself, they deserve it. But the way Arthur watches him, with so much caution despite the jabs he throws back at Eames without hesitation... Eames wants to like it, wants to be darkly pleased that Arthur is worried about what he'll do, but he's just sad. Sad that it's come to this between them.
And then there's the little things, like how when Arthur goes on food or coffee runs he still remembers what Eames likes when he's not there to order for himself. Eames, the first time he gets the chance, deliberately gets something he knows Arthur hates, but the point man doesn't even react. He doesn't eat it either, but he doesn't put up a fuss or order anything else. In fact, except for the caustic words tossed between them, Arthur doesn't rise to anything Eames does. Eames wants him to, wants to settle all this in one savage, knock-down fight, but Arthur won't let him. And he doesn't know why.
It's the way Cobb yells at Arthur in the first level, the look on Arthur's face, that tells Eames the truth. Arthur might not hate Cobb, but he doesn't like him very much either. It's not even a new resentment, it's something old and bitter, and that's when Eames realizes that Arthur didn't want things to end between them, and that Eames is not the only one who holds Cobb at least partly responsible for that, on some level. On the second level, Arthur hooks up Eames' IV for no real reason, and it's the first time they've touched in three years. Eames doesn't know what it is supposed to mean, or even what he wants it to mean, so he waits to see what will happen next.
When they're all working together after inception, though, Arthur doesn't touch him at all. He goes out of his way to avoid it, as though touching Eames will dirty him somehow. So Eames assumes that Arthur was just trying to smooth things over between them, no deeper meaning. The way he all but avoids Eames completely confirms that, and the forger decides it's time he tried to move on properly rather than stew in his resentment.
It doesn't work as well as he'd like, and when he realizes that, male or female, he's always picking up bedmates who are tall and slender, with dark hair and eyes, he stops. Bad copies don't do anyone any good, really.
~ ~ ~
Eames would love to kill the bastards slowly and painfully, but he doesn't have time. The element of surprise lets him shoot two of them in the head before he's noticed, and after that it's a firefight. He gets grazed twice, on his left forearm and hip, but he's too focused to notice it, or to care if he does.
Only four of the seven men he saw on the camera are here right now, and as long as the other three aren't in the building Eames doesn't care where they are. He might want to kill them too but finding Arthur is more important. With the four men dead around him, he starts yanking doors open, and finally the last of them opens and there's Arthur, sprawled out on the floor. He's too still, and for a second Eames can't move, sure he's too late and that Arthur's already gone, but then the other man makes a small noise, and Eames snaps out of his paralysis, crossing the room in three strides and dropping to Arthur's side.
“Hey, darling, come on, wake up,” he says, putting a hand on Arthur's bruised cheek. He looks like hell, beaten half to death, and Eames wishes again that he could have spent more time on making those bastards pay.
Arthur's eyes slit open, and even that tiny sliver of brown is glassy enough to worry Eames, because Arthur has knife wounds too, little ones meant just to cause pain, and any one of them could be infected. “Eames? Wh... What're you doing here?” Arthur slurs, sounding genuinely confused.
“Of course I... Arthur, don't close your eyes, don't - ” But Arthur's already slipped back into unconsciousness again.
They get him to the hospital, and Eames couldn't tell you what story Yusuf and Ariadne come up with to explain the point man's injuries, only that it's clearly good enough to keep the cops away. He just sits there, waiting to find out if Arthur's going to be all right.
“The two of you are like Dom and me, halves of a whole,” Mal said to him once with a laugh. “I think it is why we four work so well together.” Eames had brushed her off at the time, but he'd known, then and now, that she was right. And it's one thing to be apart from Arthur, separated by misunderstanding and bitterness. That's bad enough. It's quite another to contemplate the possibility of a world where Arthur is no longer alive.
Three days go by when no one knows what's going to happen. Arthur did catch an infection, and for those three days he tosses and turns in the hospital bed, muttering nonsensical things. Eames catches bits and pieces from the doorway - they don't let him in but he sits outside and he can sometimes hear Arthur when he gets loud enough. One of the things he catches is his own name, and that's the worst of all. Because he recognizes the tone Arthur's using, and he thinks Arthur's reliving that last night.
Eames has to distract himself somehow, and there's no question of him leaving, so what he does instead is beg a clipboard, paper, and pen from the nurses' station. The young nurse he asks gives him a piercing look reminiscent of Ariadne, taking in his exhausted, disheveled appearance and half-broken expression. Without a word she gives him what he asks for, and Eames sits back down and starts to write a letter. It worked for Arthur, didn't it?
~ ~ ~
When Arthur wakes up, the first thing he is aware of is a terrible headache. The second thing is that his entire body feels like someone took a meat tenderizer to it. He forces his eyes open and winces at the bright light, turning his head slowly to see Eames asleep in the chair next to his bed.
So he wasn't hallucinating Eames there, the forger's familiar and callused hand on his cheek. But why is he here? It doesn't make any sense. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Arthur slowly pushes himself up a little, enough to reach the button on the bed to press so that the bed itself puts him in a seated position. To his surprise, Eames doesn't stir.
“I slipped something into his tea,” a voice says from the doorway. “And you shouldn't be trying to sit up yet, Mr. James,” the young nurse scolds him, red curls flying around her face.
He must be here under the name Matthew James then. Good to know. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. The nurse, who introduces herself as Gianna, pours water into a cup, grabs a straw to put in it, and slides the other end of the straw between his lips. Arthur drinks gratefully, then tries again.
“He won't thank you for that.” His voice is rough but serviceable. Gianna smiles wryly.
“I guessed, but he's been with you this whole time, sitting outside when you were feverish and no one was allowed in. I figured it was time he actually slowed down for a little bit.” Eames had stayed with him? Arthur's head is spinning, and he doesn't think it's the drugs his IV must be pumping into him or the effect of his healing injuries.
“The doctor should be by shortly,” Gianna says briskly, putting the cup down. Then she sees something on the floor and goes to pick it up. “Here, he was writing this when he was stuck outside, I'm going to guess it has something to do with you.” For some reason Gianna is reminding him of Ariadne now, but then she pushes the thin notepaper into his hands and leaves, presumably to inform the doctor that he's awake.
Arthur looks at the still-sleeping Eames for a long moment before unfolding the paper. He reads it three times, his hands shaking harder every time. He doesn't know where his totem is, and suddenly he really wishes he had it.
Arthur,
To say that your letter shocked me would be an understatement, to put it mildly. I had no idea you felt that way, that I was so very convincing. You can always see through my forgeries, love, why not this one?
The truth is, I never hated you. I wanted to, I tried to, but I didn't. I'm not sure I ever really could. And you weren't lying about Cobb after all, were you? If I could take it back... If it were possible, I would. You can't imagine how much I wish I could take so much back, especially now. Arthur, I thought you were the one who was past all of it, you wouldn't even go near me. It was as though you couldn't stand to have me touch you even accidentally, what was I to think?
And then I found that letter of yours, and you were... I thought you were dead when I first found you, I thought I was too late, and I still don't know if you're going to pull through. You can't die now, Arthur. You're not the only one still in love, darling, I've always loved you and always will, and that's not going to change. Just give me the chance to actually tell you that, don't leave me now, with all this left unsaid between us. I won't survive it if you do, I know I won't.
Patrick
While he reads, Arthur becomes aware of someone watching him, and he knows the weight of this particular gaze. Arthur looks up into a pair of familiar gray eyes, and he knows he's not dreaming, even without his totem. Even his best projections of Eames can't match that intensity, the focus and emotion that Arthur's only seen a few times. He knows he's awake, and he knows that Eames' letter is the truth, not all the assumptions that have been eating away at him all this time.
Their eyes meet, and then, tentatively, Eames' hand closes around his, neither of them taking their eyes from the other's gaze. And Arthur knows, somehow, that it's all going to be all right now. That they've got to talk this out, of course, but the hardest part is over. They've already found their way back to each other.
Someday out of the blue
In a crowded street or a deserted square
I'll turn and I'll see you
As if our love were new
Someday we can start again, someday soon...
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames, referenced Ariadne/Yusuf
Summary: Mallorie Cobb's tragic fate destroyed two couples, not one. And while death is irreparable, there is still a chance that lesser divides can one day be closed. Arthur and Eames were torn apart by one misunderstanding, and countless others keep them that way. But if it's not what either of them truly want, is there hope for a second chance?
Author's Note: I don't usually do this... However, the song quotes in this are both from Elton John's Someday Out of the Blue, which I recommend you go listen to right now! It's a gorgeous song, I absolutely love it. It's kind of sad, though. (Also the video has a cartoon Elton John. How can you pass that up?)
I still believe
I still put faith in us
We had it all and watched it slip away
Where are we now?
Not where we want to be
Those hot afternoons
Still follow me
Someday out of the blue
Maybe years from now
Or tomorrow night
I'll turn and I'll see you
As if we always knew
Someday we would live again, someday soon
I still believe, I still put faith in us...
“When she gets back,” Cobb says, “you'll have her building mazes.”
Arthur forgoes the topic of Ariadne and her by no means certain return to ask something completely different. “Where are you going to be?”
“I've gotta go see Eames.”
There are so many reactions Arthur can have to that, but he forces himself to stay calm, to focus on the practical. “Eames? No, he's in Mombasa, that's Cobol's backyard.”
“It's a necessary risk.”
His pulse is racing, but all Arthur says is, “There are plenty of good thieves.”
“We don't just need a thief. We need a forger.”
Cobb walks out and Arthur waits precisely thirty seconds after the door bangs closed before sinking into the nearest lawn chair, dropping his head into his hands. He hasn't seen Eames in three years, since just two months after Mal died, and now...
He's not sure how he feels, or even how he should feel. How exactly is someone supposed to react to the information that they're going to be working on the craziest job of their career with the love of their life, someone who hates their guts?
~ ~ ~
The truth is, Arthur never actually planned on going on the run with Cobb. He likes the other man well enough, but Mal had been his best friend, not Cobb. That's why he's stuck around so long, why he'd been the one to get Cobb to the airport after his contact in the FBI had given him one last chance to run. It's for Mal, to do what he knows Mal would have wanted him to do.
But he can't explain that to Eames.
“Patrick, please. Look, I'm not going to stay with him, I just need to make sure he's not going to do something stupid. He's lost everything, and I owe it to Mal's memory to keep him safe.”
“You're not telling me anything I don't already know, Arthur. Dom Cobb's your first priority now, and who cares if you just up and vanish on me, right?” Eames snaps.
“That's not true!”
“The hell it's not! Ever since he went on the run, all you've been doing is jumping when he calls. Well, fuck that, I'm out of here.”
“I... What?” Arthur just stares at him, mouth dry. Eames can't mean what it sounded like he meant, can he?
“We're finished. That's it.” This particular apartment is in Arthur's name, which he notes with bleak humor is probably a good thing, since it means he's not kicked out onto the curb. Eames is angry enough that he would probably do it. Instead, Arthur's left standing alone in his living room, and as the sound of the front door slamming fades from the room, he falls back against the wall, his legs giving way as he slides to the floor. He stays like that, half-slumped against the wall, for the entire night.
~ ~ ~
Working with Eames again, with the shadow of the last time they saw each other hanging over everything, is nothing more or less than a clever sort of torture. And his suspicion that Eames hates him is all but confirmed. Arthur wishes he could take Eames' little pranks as the friendly ribbing they'd once been, but he knows better. There's a real undercurrent of malice there, glinting in Eames' gray eyes or in a cruel little smirk when Arthur's tumbling to the ground after the latest kick.
Arthur's trying to at least patch things up a little. They were friends before they were lovers, and good-natured rivals before that. He'd hoped they could at least find some of that again, but apparently not. Even his genuine attempts at being friendly are rebuffed.
“Eames, I am impressed.”
“Your condescension, as always, is much appreciated, Arthur, thank you.” He wasn't the one being condescending there, and they both know it, but it certainly made everything clear to Arthur. There's no going back, and the two of them may as well be in armed enemy camps as far as Eames is concerned.
He doesn't try after that.
The irony is that the only one who notices is Ariadne. But then again, she picks up on everything; it's disconcerting at times, how sharp she is. “Why does Eames have such a problem with you?” she asks one day.
Can't she leave him alone and go pester Cobb some more? It's not that Arthur doesn't like Ariadne; he does. She's as bright as he'd suspected at their first meeting, and her immediate love of creating is more than a little endearing. But he doesn't want to talk to her about this. “We didn't part on good terms,” he says finally, at a loss for anything else to say. He doesn't look at her, instead focuses his attention on sorting his latest batch of notes on the Fischers.
He waits for Ariadne to say more, but she doesn't, and when he finally looks up, she's giving him a compassionate look that is oddly similar to Mal's. He can't help but think that the real Mal would have liked her, especially when she just gives him a slight smile and walks away. He knows why she's letting it go. Obviously, she thinks he can handle it, and she pesters Cobb because she doesn't trust him to do the same. Arthur wishes he could have the same faith in himself that she does, but it's hell, working like this.
It's not like he has a choice in the matter, though, so he's just going to have to carry on. He can do that, it's what he's always done, after all.
~ ~ ~
They weren't introduced to the other agents assigned to the program, just sedated and thrown right in. Arthur doesn't even know if the British guy he's teamed himself up with is another member of the team or a projection, and right now he doesn't care. The firm line of the other man's back pressed against his own means that he can focus on the attackers in front of him and not worry about the ones he can't see.
One of the projections gets a lucky shot, and Arthur dies immediately. In some ways, a clean headshot is a relief. Almost everyone else is already awake, and a few seconds later the last sleeper sits up, gasping for breath. He looks up and Arthur recognizes him as the Brit from the dream. Their eyes meet for a second, but then their handler's talking and they have to pay attention to him instead.
“I'm Eames, MI6,” a low, accented voice says in his ear two days later, just after Arthur sits down with his lunch tray. He glances up at the other man, a faint smile on his face.
“Arthur, CIA.”
Eames sits down across from Arthur, a wry grin on his face. “I have to say, mate, good to know you're real. It's fucked up down there, isn't it?”
“Just a bit, yeah.”
They don't talk any more about dreams, instead they talk about mundane things. Movies, music, easy topics. But the next time they're sent into dreams as a large group, Eames is right there. They always find each other, every time they go under. Their bosses don't know what to make of it - these jobs are meant to be every man for himself, and you're not supposed to be able to tell who's real and who isn't. But Arthur and Eames can always be sure of each other; Arthur can even see through the illusions - forgeries - Eames learns to use. They bicker constantly, mock each other's every action, but behind the fake derision a deep and real trust grows, and even affection.
Eventually the two of them are just made official partners, because it's clear they work best together.
~ ~ ~
The job goes to hell almost immediately, which, really, Arthur kind of knew it would. Every job with Cobb's been going wrong lately. Little things, usually, though the Cobol job was an example of a rather more serious mishap. And this, well... This is pretty much catastrophic. Because the danger here isn't a corporation baying for their blood, it's falling into limbo and losing their minds. And Arthur could kill Cobb for putting them in this position.
They leave Eames-as-Browning alone with Fischer and Arthur goes off to a quiet corner of the old warehouse they're in, trying to clear his head. He still remembers, for a moment, being sure that Eames was the one shot, and while he's not glad that it's Saito... He's relieved as hell that it wasn't Eames. He shouldn't still care, but he does. He wishes he didn't, but he does.
His reprieve doesn't last long, and soon enough they're getting ready to leave, he and Eames tossing a few short comments at each other about how to get past Fischer's father issues as Arthur readies his assault rifle to take out the projections that have them surrounded. He takes up a spot at the door, firing and then dodging back, for a few minutes, before footsteps come up behind him.
“You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling,” Eames says, before he lifts an honest-to-God rocket launcher and blows the projections away. Arthur looks over to where they were and gives a little shrug; he's not about to be annoyed that Eames jumped in when it worked. Not to mention...
No one else would know the difference between the tone Eames used just now and the one he's employed all through the months of job prep, but Arthur does. A mocking tone, yes, but not a malicious one. Just Eames, the way he always was with Arthur, almost from the beginning. Even in the middle of this crazy job, there's a flare of something in Arthur's chest. It's not exactly hope, but it's close.
It's that which, later, has him dropping to the ground and hooking up Eames' IV, holding the other man's hand in a light grip. Eames looks up at him, and his eyes are serious, with what might even be a hint of worry lurking there. “Security's gonna run you down hard.”
Arthur can't help but smile a little. “And I will lead them on a merry chase.”
“Just be back before the kick.”
“Go to sleep, Mr. Eames.”
They get out, and it's the start of a new truce between them. The team stays together, with the exception of Cobb, who goes back to his family. None of them really expected it to happen, but when they try to split up it gives their enemies a chance to try and chase them down. Besides, they're a bigger draw together - despite attempts to keep the inception quiet, there are enough whispers that it was done on someone, that they were the ones who did it, that they're in high demand. And everyone who wants to hire one of them wants all of them.
Through it all, Arthur finds himself bonding with the two team members who were strangers to him when all this began. He and Yusuf turn out to share the same eclectic taste in books, while Ariadne becomes very much the little sister he never had. And it gives him a warm feeling he's not accustomed to, watching the architect and chemist move ever so slowly into each other's orbits. He was the first to notice how intrigued Ariadne was with Yusuf, back in the days prepping for Fischer, and he's also the first one she told when she realized that she was “falling in like, at least.” It's good to see them come together.
But it hurts too. And that's because of Eames. To some extent, they're back where they were before. That is, before they were more than casual friends. They banter and they have each other's backs, but they don't talk about anything but the most casual of topics. They never touch, not even accidental brushes against each other (to be fair, that's more Arthur's doing, an odd sort of self-preservation), and sometimes... Sometimes Eames comes in still trailing faint hints of perfume or some other man's aftershave.
Arthur doesn't think Eames is trying to be cruel anymore. He's just living his life, having clearly moved on from what he and Arthur had. Arthur thinks he'd almost prefer the hate - it would mean what happened between them still meant something to Eames. Clearly, it no longer does, and that actually hurts even more. Because Arthur can't forget, he can't seem to move on. But then, Eames left him. That probably makes it easier.
~ ~ ~
They quit together, vanishing into the criminal underworld with the same ease that they have together in dreams. And they take a PASIV with them. Arthur and Eames are agreed on one thing; it's going too far, what the government is asking them to do. Both of them are haunted by literal nightmares, and that's not even the worst of it. So they run, but they go together.
A life of crime is really all that's left to them, since running away got them burned. Being burned isn't like being fired, it's more like being eradicated from the records. You've got no way to get a job, no resources to fall back on, only your wits and your own ability to adapt and survive. Arthur and Eames are both particularly skilled in those areas.
But sometimes you still get caught.
The job went well, but the mark found out about what happened, which is why Arthur and Eames are running down back alleys, trying to escape the men chasing them even as they fire at them over their shoulders. Only Arthur happens to see one of them take aim at Eames, and there's no time to shout to the other man, to tell him to duck. Arthur can't get him get shot, for reasons he's only beginning to understand. He knows Eames means a lot to him, more than anyone he's ever known in his life, and that's all he needs to know. He knows it, and that's why he throws himself forward, knocking Eames to the ground. For a moment he thinks they're both all right, and then he feels a burning pain in his side.
“Arthur? Jesus Christ.” Arthur feels himself being moved, lowered to the ground, and his eyes focus on the sky above, streaked with red as the sun sets. There are more gunshots, but they sound oddly muted, and Arthur's not sure if it's minutes or hours before Eames' face comes into view. “Why did you do that?” Eames demands. “Huh? Arthur?”
Arthur's eyes are closing, but Eames shakes him. “Don't you dare, Arthur. Look at me, keep your eyes open. God, why did you...”
“Had to,” Arthur murmurs, and then he can't keep his eyes open anyway.
They never talk about that incident specifically, but it's not long after Arthur recovers when he and Eames kiss for the first time, and then fall into bed together. It's not long after that when, though the words are never said, they know that they love each other.
~ ~ ~
Arthur learns to live with it. He tells himself to be happy with what he has; two close friends in Ariadne and Yusuf, and a trusted teammate in Eames. It's easier to be casually friendly with Eames than to get those malicious looks, it has to be. And he eventually does convince himself of that.
He even tries to date. They've based themselves in Philadelphia, of all places, mostly because it's a city large enough to get lost in, but not one you'd immediately think of. Even Americans tend to think of New York, Los Angeles, Miami. Arthur blames this on fiction. Not to mention, he grew up in Philadelphia and knows the city like the back of his hand. Being back here actually helps him to deal with the parts of his life that are hard; he's home, and that counts for something. But the dating still doesn't go well. One of the people he brings home, a man named Ian, says bluntly, “You're gone on someone else, man. Maybe you should do something about that.” Arthur doesn't bother to explain that there isn't anything he can do.
He hasn't got any living family left, but he still visits his father's grave semi-regularly, now that he actually can. Sometimes he talks to his father, tells him about his life. One day, he tells him about Eames, about everything that went right and then went so very wrong. He lets everything out, for the first time, and only when he's finished does he realize someone's watching him.
Ariadne stares at him, wide-eyed, and then looks down at her shoes. “I... You didn't answer your phone, we were worried. Eames knew how to activate the tracker, he told me to come and get you.”
Arthur looks anywhere but at her, and flinches when she puts a hand on his arm. “Arthur... You should tell him.”
He jerks away. “Ariadne, what would be the point? It's over, I ruined it, and I know that.” He does. Because even though he had the best of intentions, Eames was right. Arthur had been dropping everything for Cobb. If he could go back, he doesn't know what he'd do, because he still believes he did the only thing he could, knowing what Mal would have wanted him to do, and yet... It wasn't worth the price he's paying. Still, the one time he visits Cobb, sees him with James and Philippa, he can almost believe their happiness is worth the sacrifice of his own. He just wishes it hadn't been necessary.
Ariadne doesn't press, probably sensing that she won't do any good if she does, and something he's noticed about her is that she does hold back when she thinks she might make something worse. But he can't get her words out of his head. Everyone thinks he should talk to Eames, but he can't. But maybe he can at least get this out, somehow.
He gets a piece of paper and a pen, sits down at his kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey and writes a letter. It's addressed to Eames, as is the envelope he puts it in when he's finished, but he doesn't mean for the other man to see it. It's just cathartic, to write it as though he were really writing to Eames. And he does feel a little better. It's not enough, but it's something.
~ ~ ~
Arthur and Eames meet the Cobbs about a year after they leave the government. Mal in particular quickly adopts them, and Arthur falls in a different kind of love with the dark-eyed, vibrant Frenchwoman. It's a pure, wholly platonic sort of love, and completely new to him. She's family, in a strange way, and soon she's his best friend. They can and do talk about anything, and they use the PASIV together to wander the world's most famous cities. Eames doesn't understand why they need to dream it; he thinks it's only worth it to actually go there. Cobb just thinks it's foolish to explore things that already exist; he'd rather build something entirely new and explore that.
But Arthur and Mal wander old cities, as they are in the modern day and as they were in previous centuries. It's magical in a way they can't explain to the men they love, and they have the time of their lives doing it. While down there, they talk, and Mal is actually the one to hear Arthur say aloud that he loves Eames. “We've never said it out loud,” he tells her as they walk through the streets of Octavian's Rome. “I'm afraid if we do, we might ruin it somehow, as ridiculous as that sounds.”
“Oh, cherie, don't worry so much,” Mal says, sliding an arm around Arthur's waist and reaching with her other hand to ruffle his hair. She and Eames are agreed on the idea that Arthur is too put together when at work, that he needs to relax a little. Usually he tries to bat away the hands of whichever of them is on ruffle duty, but they're dreaming so it's not like it matters. So instead Arthur just shakes his head.
“I can't help it.”
“I'm sure it won't chase him away. The way he looks at you... It's the same look that made me sure that Dom loved me as much as I did him.”
Arthur remembers that conversation, months and months later at Mal's funeral. Then he looks at Cobb, a broken mess, and knows that for Mal's sake, he's going to have to try to pick up the pieces. He just doesn't realize then that he'd be destroying the best thing in his own life to do so.
~ ~ ~
When Arthur is an hour late to work, Ariadne, Eames, and Yusuf exchange puzzled looks. When he's two hours late, Ariadne calls him three times in the span of fifteen minutes, and bites her nails almost to the quick. When it's three hours, Eames grabs his coat and catches the SEPTA bus to Arthur's apartment. He knows something's wrong when he realizes that the lock is broken, and that's only proven to him more spectacularly when he pushes the door open.
The first thing Eames thinks is that Arthur would be furious about this mess, furniture overturned and broken, things scattered everywhere. The second thing he thinks is that some of the mess is blood on the floor, and Arthur might not even be alive to be angry about it. The third thing is that if the second is true, he is going to make whoever is responsible pay. In spades.
He pushes aside his homicidal thoughts to take a careful look around, trying to see if there's anything left behind that might tell him where Arthur is and who has him. He doesn't find anything, but he does find, among the contents of a dumped-out drawer, an envelope with his name on the front in Arthur's neat, slanted hand. “What the hell? Arthur, this had better not be an 'If you're reading this I'm dead' letter,” he says aloud to the empty room.
It's not, Eames finds when he gets back to his car and opens it. It's a letter that Arthur clearly never meant for Eames to see - hell, he says as much in the first line. Eames reads it once, then twice, and it feels like the words are burning themselves into his mind.
Eames,
I'm not planning for you to ever read this, but I needed to write it, so as stupid as it seems... No, I'm not drunk, though I almost wish I was as it would be a better excuse for this.
I don't even know where to start. I guess... Fuck, Patrick, do you even know how hard it is to work with you now? Sometimes I think it was better during the Fischer prep, when I could tell you hated me. At least I knew I meant something, that we, whatever we were, meant something to you. I mean, I guess I'd rather have this, what we started with, rather than you hating me, but... I don't know how you do it. Is it because you're the one who left, that it's so easy for you to move past it? Because that doesn't make sense, if I pushed you away shouldn't it be easier for me?
The thing of it is, though, I wasn't trying to do that. I meant it, I wasn't going to stay with Cobb, I wouldn't have done that. He asked me and I told him I wasn't going to do that. I wanted to be with you, I only did go with Cobb when I didn't have a reason not to. But that doesn't mean you weren't right, I mean, looking back I can tell you were. I just... I was trying to do the right thing, I didn't want this to happen. And now, you act like we were never anything but casual friends and somehow it hurts so much more than when you hated me. I'm next to nothing to you now and I still love you, I always did. I don't know how to stop and I probably never will.
And maybe I am sort of drunk after all, but that doesn't make this any less true. It just means I can't ignore it anymore.
Arthur
Eames doesn't know what he is supposed to think about this. To say he's surprised is an understatement, not least because how the fuck did Arthur read him so wrong? Arthur, who can still pick him out in a dream, even when Eames is using a forgery he knows the point man has never seen? Arthur thinks he's over them, that Eames... Fucking hell, Eames really hadn't thought he was being that convincing.
Eames hasn't ever gotten over Arthur. He's not even sure that's something he will ever be capable of. He's locked that part of himself away, yes, but that's different than it actually being gone. And he can't, he can't think about this now. He can't think about the fact that he'd assumed Arthur didn't give a fuck anymore if he ever really had, he can't because Arthur's gone and could be dead for all Eames knows.
So he drives back to the old bookstore they're working out of, probably breaking half a dozen speed limits on the way. He tells the other two what he found, his voice clipped and tight as he says that they need to get ahold of the security camera footage outside Arthur's building, and figure out who has him.
Eames sits down to sketch out a plan, because really he's the thief here. He doesn't even notice the worried looks Ariadne and Yusuf give him, or exchange with each other, and if he did he wouldn't care. Not right now.
~ ~ ~
Eames ends up in Mombasa after eighteen months of mindless wandering. By this time he's already heard that Arthur and Cobb are working together full-time, and his first, savage thought is that it didn't take Arthur long. But one night, his mind a bit fuzzy from whiskey, he can't help but remember the way Arthur said his name, the first name that Eames never goes by and Arthur only used rarely.
The pleading tone was one Arthur never used, and for a moment Eames wonders if, perhaps, his former lover was telling him the truth and he's only working with Cobb now because Eames walked out on him. But the thought that he could have been wrong, even though he regrets leaving, even though he wanted to go back less than a day after he left, isn't something he wants to consider. He'd rather think of Arthur in the wrong and nurse his own hurt feelings.
When Cobb approaches him about inception, and says oh so confidently that Eames wouldn't sell him out, Eames has to laugh. “Of course I would,” he says lightly, but behind his tone is pure truth. It's Cobb's fault, what happened to him and Arthur. It's Arthur's fault too, but Cobb started it, the fucking bastard.
But Arthur will be on this job. And Eames will be able to see for himself if Arthur likes it, working with Cobb. If he was right and Arthur was just waiting for him to leave, or if Eames pushed Arthur to Cobb by walking out that night. He really doesn't know, and he can't know unless he sees Arthur and Cobb together.
~ ~ ~
It's the mark, of course. Somehow, Aaron Roane has been tipped off, and Arthur's been the one shadowing him. Eames has been following Roane's sister, Terri, in order to forge her, but Arthur's job is similar to his with the mark as the target instead. So of course, if Roane were to pick out any of them...
This logic does not make Eames feel better. The fact is, he could tell from the state of Arthur's flat that the other man put up a fight, and was simply outnumbered. All Eames can think is, if he'd been less of an idiot and tried to patch things up - the way he'd tried to convince himself he hadn't wanted to, only he did - then Arthur wouldn't have been alone. And maybe this wouldn't have happened.
Logic tells Eames that it's equally likely both he and Arthur would be gone now, and Ariadne and Yusuf may be brilliant but their skill set doesn't run to this like his does. And he knows none of that is going to matter to him if his skill doesn't get them there fast enough. If all they find is Arthur's body. It won't matter then that there's no way he could have known about this. It will be his fault, because there's so much he could have done, and should have said.
He pushes those thoughts aside, because they leave him numb and unable to think. And he needs to be able to focus right now. One of the men on the security footage is known as a local thug, and if there's one thing Eames can do it's get information out of the dregs of society. A bit of charm, a generous supply of cash, and a few broken noses, and he's got names and a location.
Yusuf isn't foolish enough to suggest he does anything but drive the getaway car, but Ariadne, on the way there, tries to insist on going in with him. He and Arthur have been training her, mostly in dreamspace where any damage won't be permanent, but she is not ready for this. He knows she means well, that she and Arthur have become very close in the nearly two years since they've met - six months on the Fischer job and a year and a half of working together since - but he doesn't have time for this.
“No.”
“Eames, you can't just - ”
“Yes, I can.”
Ariadne opens her mouth again but Yusuf cuts her off quietly. “Ariadne, listen to him.”
Her lover manages what Eames can't, and silence fills the car again. Eames pushes the car as fast as it will go, cursing every tiny delay. He has to get there, he can't lose Arthur now, not when there's so much that needs to be made clear between them. It's just that simple.
~ ~ ~
At first, Eames is gleeful when he realizes that under Arthur's composure, he's damn near miserable. There is a tension about Arthur and Cobb, like both of them have reason to think this is all going to go to hell, and that both of them are terrified of that. Good, he tells himself, they deserve it. But the way Arthur watches him, with so much caution despite the jabs he throws back at Eames without hesitation... Eames wants to like it, wants to be darkly pleased that Arthur is worried about what he'll do, but he's just sad. Sad that it's come to this between them.
And then there's the little things, like how when Arthur goes on food or coffee runs he still remembers what Eames likes when he's not there to order for himself. Eames, the first time he gets the chance, deliberately gets something he knows Arthur hates, but the point man doesn't even react. He doesn't eat it either, but he doesn't put up a fuss or order anything else. In fact, except for the caustic words tossed between them, Arthur doesn't rise to anything Eames does. Eames wants him to, wants to settle all this in one savage, knock-down fight, but Arthur won't let him. And he doesn't know why.
It's the way Cobb yells at Arthur in the first level, the look on Arthur's face, that tells Eames the truth. Arthur might not hate Cobb, but he doesn't like him very much either. It's not even a new resentment, it's something old and bitter, and that's when Eames realizes that Arthur didn't want things to end between them, and that Eames is not the only one who holds Cobb at least partly responsible for that, on some level. On the second level, Arthur hooks up Eames' IV for no real reason, and it's the first time they've touched in three years. Eames doesn't know what it is supposed to mean, or even what he wants it to mean, so he waits to see what will happen next.
When they're all working together after inception, though, Arthur doesn't touch him at all. He goes out of his way to avoid it, as though touching Eames will dirty him somehow. So Eames assumes that Arthur was just trying to smooth things over between them, no deeper meaning. The way he all but avoids Eames completely confirms that, and the forger decides it's time he tried to move on properly rather than stew in his resentment.
It doesn't work as well as he'd like, and when he realizes that, male or female, he's always picking up bedmates who are tall and slender, with dark hair and eyes, he stops. Bad copies don't do anyone any good, really.
~ ~ ~
Eames would love to kill the bastards slowly and painfully, but he doesn't have time. The element of surprise lets him shoot two of them in the head before he's noticed, and after that it's a firefight. He gets grazed twice, on his left forearm and hip, but he's too focused to notice it, or to care if he does.
Only four of the seven men he saw on the camera are here right now, and as long as the other three aren't in the building Eames doesn't care where they are. He might want to kill them too but finding Arthur is more important. With the four men dead around him, he starts yanking doors open, and finally the last of them opens and there's Arthur, sprawled out on the floor. He's too still, and for a second Eames can't move, sure he's too late and that Arthur's already gone, but then the other man makes a small noise, and Eames snaps out of his paralysis, crossing the room in three strides and dropping to Arthur's side.
“Hey, darling, come on, wake up,” he says, putting a hand on Arthur's bruised cheek. He looks like hell, beaten half to death, and Eames wishes again that he could have spent more time on making those bastards pay.
Arthur's eyes slit open, and even that tiny sliver of brown is glassy enough to worry Eames, because Arthur has knife wounds too, little ones meant just to cause pain, and any one of them could be infected. “Eames? Wh... What're you doing here?” Arthur slurs, sounding genuinely confused.
“Of course I... Arthur, don't close your eyes, don't - ” But Arthur's already slipped back into unconsciousness again.
They get him to the hospital, and Eames couldn't tell you what story Yusuf and Ariadne come up with to explain the point man's injuries, only that it's clearly good enough to keep the cops away. He just sits there, waiting to find out if Arthur's going to be all right.
“The two of you are like Dom and me, halves of a whole,” Mal said to him once with a laugh. “I think it is why we four work so well together.” Eames had brushed her off at the time, but he'd known, then and now, that she was right. And it's one thing to be apart from Arthur, separated by misunderstanding and bitterness. That's bad enough. It's quite another to contemplate the possibility of a world where Arthur is no longer alive.
Three days go by when no one knows what's going to happen. Arthur did catch an infection, and for those three days he tosses and turns in the hospital bed, muttering nonsensical things. Eames catches bits and pieces from the doorway - they don't let him in but he sits outside and he can sometimes hear Arthur when he gets loud enough. One of the things he catches is his own name, and that's the worst of all. Because he recognizes the tone Arthur's using, and he thinks Arthur's reliving that last night.
Eames has to distract himself somehow, and there's no question of him leaving, so what he does instead is beg a clipboard, paper, and pen from the nurses' station. The young nurse he asks gives him a piercing look reminiscent of Ariadne, taking in his exhausted, disheveled appearance and half-broken expression. Without a word she gives him what he asks for, and Eames sits back down and starts to write a letter. It worked for Arthur, didn't it?
~ ~ ~
When Arthur wakes up, the first thing he is aware of is a terrible headache. The second thing is that his entire body feels like someone took a meat tenderizer to it. He forces his eyes open and winces at the bright light, turning his head slowly to see Eames asleep in the chair next to his bed.
So he wasn't hallucinating Eames there, the forger's familiar and callused hand on his cheek. But why is he here? It doesn't make any sense. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Arthur slowly pushes himself up a little, enough to reach the button on the bed to press so that the bed itself puts him in a seated position. To his surprise, Eames doesn't stir.
“I slipped something into his tea,” a voice says from the doorway. “And you shouldn't be trying to sit up yet, Mr. James,” the young nurse scolds him, red curls flying around her face.
He must be here under the name Matthew James then. Good to know. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. The nurse, who introduces herself as Gianna, pours water into a cup, grabs a straw to put in it, and slides the other end of the straw between his lips. Arthur drinks gratefully, then tries again.
“He won't thank you for that.” His voice is rough but serviceable. Gianna smiles wryly.
“I guessed, but he's been with you this whole time, sitting outside when you were feverish and no one was allowed in. I figured it was time he actually slowed down for a little bit.” Eames had stayed with him? Arthur's head is spinning, and he doesn't think it's the drugs his IV must be pumping into him or the effect of his healing injuries.
“The doctor should be by shortly,” Gianna says briskly, putting the cup down. Then she sees something on the floor and goes to pick it up. “Here, he was writing this when he was stuck outside, I'm going to guess it has something to do with you.” For some reason Gianna is reminding him of Ariadne now, but then she pushes the thin notepaper into his hands and leaves, presumably to inform the doctor that he's awake.
Arthur looks at the still-sleeping Eames for a long moment before unfolding the paper. He reads it three times, his hands shaking harder every time. He doesn't know where his totem is, and suddenly he really wishes he had it.
Arthur,
To say that your letter shocked me would be an understatement, to put it mildly. I had no idea you felt that way, that I was so very convincing. You can always see through my forgeries, love, why not this one?
The truth is, I never hated you. I wanted to, I tried to, but I didn't. I'm not sure I ever really could. And you weren't lying about Cobb after all, were you? If I could take it back... If it were possible, I would. You can't imagine how much I wish I could take so much back, especially now. Arthur, I thought you were the one who was past all of it, you wouldn't even go near me. It was as though you couldn't stand to have me touch you even accidentally, what was I to think?
And then I found that letter of yours, and you were... I thought you were dead when I first found you, I thought I was too late, and I still don't know if you're going to pull through. You can't die now, Arthur. You're not the only one still in love, darling, I've always loved you and always will, and that's not going to change. Just give me the chance to actually tell you that, don't leave me now, with all this left unsaid between us. I won't survive it if you do, I know I won't.
Patrick
While he reads, Arthur becomes aware of someone watching him, and he knows the weight of this particular gaze. Arthur looks up into a pair of familiar gray eyes, and he knows he's not dreaming, even without his totem. Even his best projections of Eames can't match that intensity, the focus and emotion that Arthur's only seen a few times. He knows he's awake, and he knows that Eames' letter is the truth, not all the assumptions that have been eating away at him all this time.
Their eyes meet, and then, tentatively, Eames' hand closes around his, neither of them taking their eyes from the other's gaze. And Arthur knows, somehow, that it's all going to be all right now. That they've got to talk this out, of course, but the hardest part is over. They've already found their way back to each other.
Someday out of the blue
In a crowded street or a deserted square
I'll turn and I'll see you
As if our love were new
Someday we can start again, someday soon...