shoot to thrill, play to kill (1/4)
title: shoot to thrill, play to kill (1/3)
rating: R
word count: 2830
pairing: arthur/eames
summary: Eames only calls Arthur 'darling' when they dream, never in reality.
note: title from “Shoot to Thrill” by AC/DC. Set in the months to year(s) following Inception. Over-reliance on the word 'darling' to form a tenuous, barely-there plot.
Darling, pass me that pistol would you?
Watch your six, darling.
You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.
Darling, what do you think of the mustache? Too much?
Again and again, he says it - darling. Darling.
Arthur hates it. Not just because the way Eames says that damn word (ironic, laconic, sardonic; lips quirked into a small secretive smirk) makes Arthur want to punch him in the mouth, but also because he only says it when they are dreamsharing.
Not often enough that anyone else picks up on it but subtly, flippantly, offhandedly - as if he doesn't even know he's doing it.
The truly horrifying thing is, since the Fischer job and Cobb's subsequent retirement (abandonment), Arthur finds himself working increasingly more jobs with Eames.
It is only to be expected - they're both the best in their respective fields and their select clientele tend to employ the best. Rationally, Arthur knows he can't remain in the profession and avoid Eames.
He never asks Eames why he does it.
Because Eames may be doing it to merely piss him off. Because admitting to his discomfiture seems all too much like giving in, like losing. Because if it is some weird verbal tic, Arthur doesn't want to be the one to call attention to it.
But mostly because it feels like he is reading more into it than he should.
***Since the corroded shower-head had clunked and gurgled and stubbornly refused to emit anything more than a pathetically thin dribble of lukewarm water, Arthur eases himself into the grimy bathtub instead.
Hissing (because everything suddenly flares and burns and screams), he allows his head to fall back against the hideous wall tiles with a muffled thud, eyes lidded and breathing labored. As water laps at the bruises and cuts, dirt and blood coalesce to create rusty ripples and sooty swirls.
Afterward, he spares himself a cursory glance in the cracked mirror whilst toweling his hair dry. The reflection that stares blankly back is nothing like the Arthur he has become accustomed to. There is an ugly gash snaking across one cheekbone (fucking falling plaster) and his dark hair sticks up haphazardly, unstyled and coarse. And though he has just had a bath, the oppressive heat envelopes him again almost instantly; a warm rush that is not unlike stepping into a sauna.
He buttons up the faded shirt, tucks the Glock into the back of his jeans and tosses the loaded die out of habit rather than nerves or need for reassurance.
It clatters into the sink, red-glazed and predictable.
Stepping out into the dingy bedroom, he pulls back a tattered curtain to peer out a smoke smudged window. All he can see are slashed tires and charred vehicles, murderous mobs and armed militia, a distant glow in the distance that must mean fire.
Arthur sighs. Fantastic.
Eames is sitting on the edge of the rumpled motel bed, guns neatly and methodically disassembled on the sheets. Arthur is unable to repress the slightly repulsed shudder at what those sheets have probably gone through; sweat, sex, booze, blood, ash, piss. He is cleaning his Beretta, movements precise and routine.
Arthur takes a moment to watch his fingers (slender and long in this incarnation) run the cloth rag over the pistol, the arch of his neck, the set of his eyebrows.
He is nearly unrecognizable in this current guise, this forgery; all angular lines and gaunt frame, sun-browned skin and a thick thatch of crow's feathers for hair.
His mouth is harsh, unfamiliar and thin-lipped, and his eyes are so disconcertingly pale that they are perhaps colorless.
The tattoos are still there, though they seem incongruous on this fucking adolescent who runs his mouth off and caresses the Beretta between skeletal fingers and occasionally looks at Arthur like he wants to devour him.
It's just a training exercise; Arthur and Eames versus O'Keefe and Wesson.
One level of dreamspace, no holds barred. The aim is simple enough; kill or be killed. It's messy and morally dubious, but effective as a lesson in assault and defense, camouflage and combat. In fact, he thinks wryly, it is really no different to what they had to do in the military.
It's just a training exercise, but Arthur intends to win. They have been down here for three days already and neither side has made a kill.
Arthur has had enough of hiding and waiting, filth and smoke, sweat and death. He thinks of clean sheets and detergent, crisp shirts and that shiny new espresso machine that sits, innocuous and untested, on his kitchen counter top.
“I don't know about you, darling,” Eames' voice hasn't changed either - still that silky, sensuous, irksome drawl, “but I'm more than ready to ditch this charade. We've been under for at least ten hours by now and I'm going stir-crazy.”
Arthur is barely listening, still staring out the window, “Only twenty minutes till the timer runs out.”
He then stiffens, recognizing a certain figure amidst the seething mass of chaos in the street, “I see Wesson, armed and moving fast.”
Eames grins, sharp teeth and clear-glass eyes, picking up a slim sniper from the bed.
“Fantastic.”
***Mombasa is sweltering at this time of year. Even the strong wind currents off the ocean do little to stem the sweat that trickles down his neck and the clamminess of his shirt against his skin. In what is admittedly desperation, Arthur reluctantly resorts to unbuttoning his cuffs and loosening his tie.
Following Eames down seemingly never-ending narrow roads; past dusty curio shops and ornate mosques; he finally finds himself in a second-story office. They are surrounded by corked glass bottles filled with varying shades of honey and treacle-colored liquid, tiny burnished drawers with meticulous labels and stray cats.
The midday sun glares off whitewashed stone walls and grimy glass panes, bathing everything in a halo of gold.
"It was four months ago that I told Mr. Cobb three levels of dreaming weren't possible,” Yusuf sighs, wire-rimmed glasses hanging from his neck, regarding them from behind the cluttered desk, “How things change, no?”
“You must be doing good business since then, hm?” Eames grins, not bothering to look up from the mark's file, mouth curled around a pen. His face is split by light and shade, contours thrown into stark relief.
Yusuf smiles, keen and unhurried, but does not answer. He turns to Arthur instead, gaze appraising, “You should stay away from the southern end of Old Town. Cobol is slow to forget old grievances.”
Arthur nods absently, filing the information away for later consideration, then gestures at the file, “What do you think?”
“What I honestly think is that you should get out of the country before you're gunned down in some alleyway,” he says sourly before shaking his head resignedly, gently nudging a mewling cat out of the way, “but here, this compound should do it.”
He hands a bottle filled with pale ocher liquid to Arthur, then plucks a heavy iron ring of keys from the desk. They jangle, clean and musical, cutting through the noise of the marketplace around them.
“Please excuse me for a few minutes; I have to check on my clients. We'll have lunch when I get back - there's this great place up the road. Try not to break anything, Eames.”
Eames frowns aggrievedly, reaching for the icy bottle of Tusker lager that is set precariously close to the edge of the desk. It leaves a perfect circle of condensation on the grainy wood.
“That was one bloody time. And I paid for the damages anyway, you miser.”
Yusuf yells back, most likely something insulting and vulgar, but Arthur doesn't catch it.
He sips tentatively at his own lager, grimacing at the sharp taste, watching the blur of figures beyond the window.
It makes him uncomfortable, Yusuf's office. It's nothing concrete or expressible, just pure instinct (that gut feeling) and self-preservation; some deeply-ingrained remnant of prior training in another lifetime.
Too much glass, limited escape routes; ideal for an ambush.
He inhales, lemon disinfectant and damp must, forcing himself to snap out of it.
Paranoia's a bitch.
“Has daddy issues to rival Fischer, this kid,” Eames is saying, flipping over another page.
Arthur shrugs, shifting against the wooden shelving, “Job's fairly standard otherwise. Only two levels needed and an unmilitarized subconscious. Nothing we haven't seen before.”
“In our illustrious experiences, circumstances never pan out exactly as planned for though, do they? Eames says lightly, idly scratching a fat tabby behind her ears. She purrs delightedly, jumping onto his lap, overturning the file and nearly the bottle.
He turns over the bottled compound in his hands; glass warm from sitting in the sunlight, clear liquid glinting. “But we're still around. Must be doing something right.”
Eames grunts out a derisive laugh, white teeth and sun-scorched skin, raising the bottle to his lips.
“Or else we're just incredibly lucky.”
***Arthur opens his eyes.
O'Keefe snaps that infernal gum of his, peering down to stare at him through black-rimmed spectacles,
“You okay?”
He blinks once, then moves instinctively to pull the cannula from his wrist. O'Keefe fumbles to help, and for once Arthur allows it. He sits back in the uncomfortable chair, heartbeat still erratic.
The memory of his death remains vivid - the roar of the wind in his ears, the blur of his surroundings, the dull sickening smack as bone and flesh and innards contacted the pavement. There had been time left on the clock, too much time, and he had needed to get out now.
Jumping had seemed an efficient, if somewhat unpleasant, solution.
Still better than having to shoot himself in the head, though.
Even though he knows, he knows, that he's not really going to die, something stops him, every time.
Perhaps it is too reminiscent of his father's death. An ex-marine and war veteran, he had never recovered - just wasted away, bit by bit. And just like that, one otherwise ordinary autumn day, fourteen-year old Arthur had walked home to find an inconsolable mother and a pool of dark wetness seeping into the carpet.
Sun shines through half-drawn blinds, illuminating O'Keefe's flaxen hair as he packs away the retractable lines. His sleeves are rolled up, revealing skinny wrists and skinnier forearms. He pops his nicotine gum again and Arthur wonders if he is imagining the light whiff of citrus.
His spine aches from being inert for too long and it is only now that he notices the get-well-soon balloons floating in a corner of the room. The mark shifts restlessly on the bed, cherry-red hair strikingly juxtaposed against the pallor of her skin. The heart monitor bleeps steadily, consolingly.
He sighs and rubs at his eyes, suddenly weary.
This job had involved therapeutic intervention rather than theft, duplicity or espionage. It is not something he gains satisfaction from.
Because 'success' is a double-edged sword, merely unearthing further trauma and demons and nightmares.
He thinks of the bleak, desolate wasteland that had been her mind (or what is left of it, anyway) and his own tormented father and wonders if she can ever truly heal.
O'Keefe is watching him from the doorway, uncharacteristically silent, silver briefcase in hand.
“We should leave.”
So they do, as unobtrusively as they had entered, white coats rustling and measured footfalls fading on the sterile tiles.
***“Do you ever wonder what it would be like, down there?”
Shallow pants. Blood, blood everywhere. Cold fingers. Swigs of cloudy, burning amber liquid.
A clenched jaw. A brusque hiss; “Shut up.”
Steel forceps probe at infected, torn flesh, but still the low, rasping voice continues-
“What it would be like to gradually, inevitably, lose your mind-”
A harsh intake of breath as the silver tips dig deeper.
“-to be king of your very own, vast, lonely world-”
“Shut up. You're delirious.”
Rivulets of sweat. Neon light. The stench of refuse and, distantly, sea spray.
“But, darling,” the voice is patient and persistent, though feverish, “Don't you ever just wonder?”
A bullet is pulled out with a sluggish, sticky squelch. Blood drizzles out of the festering entrance wound, thick and black.
“No.”
A wheezing laugh, features contorting at the accompanying pain.
“Liar.”
***They must've just finished a job, Arthur thinks.
Straining through the strange fog that clouds his thoughts and slackens his limbs, he tries to remember. There had been tequila shots.
Many, many tequila shots.
Yusuf's giddy high-pitched laughter. Wesson (Sam, Arthur thinks firmly, his name is Sam) blushing prettily as they teased him about his crush on Jessica, the new Extractor. Eames watching him across the knotted wood of the table, gaze dark and considering. A toast to O'Keefe who couldn't be there.
More tequila.
Cobb, voice distorted over the phone, offering congratulations and condolences. Phillipa and James in the background, both clamoring to say their hellos, petulant that Uncle Arthur has not visited them for one whole month now.
Fumbling for his keycard, Arthur frowns because well, shit, he's pretty far from sober.
He jams it into where he thinks the lock must be. Orange. He tries again, and once more.
Orange. Orange.
He scowls. The hotel door stares back impassively, bland and impenetrable and mocking.
As he sullenly contemplates how much he despises these hotels and motels and living out of suitcases and being limited to three pairs of shoes and airplane food and jet lag, god, fucking jet lag; the keycard is slipped from his numb grasp and the door next to the one he is standing in front of clicks open.
Green.
Oh, Arthur thinks. Right.
“All right there?” Eames murmurs, smile gentler than Arthur is used to.
He finds himself irritated by that. Also by the smudge of lipstick on his collar, though he can find no logical reason as to why that should be.
He glowers, ready to say something biting and witty and disdainful about how he is not intoxicated and thus perfectly capable of opening doors, thank you very much Mr. Eames, but his vision is blurring and he feels dizzy, off-balance and -
Eames grips him as he stumbles, “Bloody hell, Arthur. Take it easy.”
Arthur blinks dazedly, because really? Eames telling him to take it easy? Eames staring at him, eyes narrowed and stupid mouth twisted in concern?
He has no fucking right.
Rousing up some modicum of sobriety, he mutters grudgingly, most definitely not slurring, “Thanks. I'm fine.”
He snatches up the keycard and moves to close the door.
Too late, he realizes that Eames' heavy hand is still curled around his arm.
“I'm fine,” he reiterates, pointedly trying to shake him off but only feeling queasy for his trouble.
Eames sighs, merely tightening his hold, the bastard, “Arthur, please. It's not-”
Arthur laughs, a shrill unnatural sound, “I'm the Point Man, Eames. It's my job to research and know things and be prepared,” he takes a deep shuddering breath, “So don't fucking lie to me about how it's not my fault.”
Eames seems almost angry now, fingers digging painfully into the woven fabric of his shirt.
“Arthur, you're not fucking responsible for what happens in reality. It could have been any of us. But for whatever inexplicable and unjust reason, it wasn't me or you or Sam this time, it was Charlie O’Keefe. And I know it fucking hurts, I know, but you can't keep doing this.”
His eyes are fire-bright and Arthur wants, more than anything, to believe him.
Instead, he slips out of Eames' grip and slams the door harder than he had intended, chest tight and head throbbing.
Arthur spends the rest of the night immersed in the bathtub, cradling a bottle of whiskey in one hand and watching his toes prune. His clothes for the next day lie neatly folded on the unused bed. A few more bottles litter the shabby carpet, ranging from empty to full. The die is clenched in his other fist, but the outcome does not change no matter how many times he rolls it.
O'Keefe is still lifeless and limp in some fucking pine box, six feet under, green eyes glassy and vacant.
He will no longer snap that goddamn nicotine gum, trying futilely to break a habit he had spent years succumbing to. He will no longer blearily amble into the warehouse, two fucking hours late, wearing threadbare jeans and the old Ramones T-shirt that Arthur had secretly really wanted. He will no longer break into a mark's safe deposit box, looking bizarrely like a younger Cobb, all straw-blond hair and brash grin as he turns to Arthur and says, “Got it.”
And even if Arthur is crying, it doesn't matter because there is no one to see it.
rating: R
word count: 2830
pairing: arthur/eames
summary: Eames only calls Arthur 'darling' when they dream, never in reality.
note: title from “Shoot to Thrill” by AC/DC. Set in the months to year(s) following Inception. Over-reliance on the word 'darling' to form a tenuous, barely-there plot.
Darling, pass me that pistol would you?
Watch your six, darling.
You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.
Darling, what do you think of the mustache? Too much?
Again and again, he says it - darling. Darling.
Arthur hates it. Not just because the way Eames says that damn word (ironic, laconic, sardonic; lips quirked into a small secretive smirk) makes Arthur want to punch him in the mouth, but also because he only says it when they are dreamsharing.
Not often enough that anyone else picks up on it but subtly, flippantly, offhandedly - as if he doesn't even know he's doing it.
The truly horrifying thing is, since the Fischer job and Cobb's subsequent retirement (abandonment), Arthur finds himself working increasingly more jobs with Eames.
It is only to be expected - they're both the best in their respective fields and their select clientele tend to employ the best. Rationally, Arthur knows he can't remain in the profession and avoid Eames.
He never asks Eames why he does it.
Because Eames may be doing it to merely piss him off. Because admitting to his discomfiture seems all too much like giving in, like losing. Because if it is some weird verbal tic, Arthur doesn't want to be the one to call attention to it.
But mostly because it feels like he is reading more into it than he should.
***Since the corroded shower-head had clunked and gurgled and stubbornly refused to emit anything more than a pathetically thin dribble of lukewarm water, Arthur eases himself into the grimy bathtub instead.
Hissing (because everything suddenly flares and burns and screams), he allows his head to fall back against the hideous wall tiles with a muffled thud, eyes lidded and breathing labored. As water laps at the bruises and cuts, dirt and blood coalesce to create rusty ripples and sooty swirls.
Afterward, he spares himself a cursory glance in the cracked mirror whilst toweling his hair dry. The reflection that stares blankly back is nothing like the Arthur he has become accustomed to. There is an ugly gash snaking across one cheekbone (fucking falling plaster) and his dark hair sticks up haphazardly, unstyled and coarse. And though he has just had a bath, the oppressive heat envelopes him again almost instantly; a warm rush that is not unlike stepping into a sauna.
He buttons up the faded shirt, tucks the Glock into the back of his jeans and tosses the loaded die out of habit rather than nerves or need for reassurance.
It clatters into the sink, red-glazed and predictable.
Stepping out into the dingy bedroom, he pulls back a tattered curtain to peer out a smoke smudged window. All he can see are slashed tires and charred vehicles, murderous mobs and armed militia, a distant glow in the distance that must mean fire.
Arthur sighs. Fantastic.
Eames is sitting on the edge of the rumpled motel bed, guns neatly and methodically disassembled on the sheets. Arthur is unable to repress the slightly repulsed shudder at what those sheets have probably gone through; sweat, sex, booze, blood, ash, piss. He is cleaning his Beretta, movements precise and routine.
Arthur takes a moment to watch his fingers (slender and long in this incarnation) run the cloth rag over the pistol, the arch of his neck, the set of his eyebrows.
He is nearly unrecognizable in this current guise, this forgery; all angular lines and gaunt frame, sun-browned skin and a thick thatch of crow's feathers for hair.
His mouth is harsh, unfamiliar and thin-lipped, and his eyes are so disconcertingly pale that they are perhaps colorless.
The tattoos are still there, though they seem incongruous on this fucking adolescent who runs his mouth off and caresses the Beretta between skeletal fingers and occasionally looks at Arthur like he wants to devour him.
It's just a training exercise; Arthur and Eames versus O'Keefe and Wesson.
One level of dreamspace, no holds barred. The aim is simple enough; kill or be killed. It's messy and morally dubious, but effective as a lesson in assault and defense, camouflage and combat. In fact, he thinks wryly, it is really no different to what they had to do in the military.
It's just a training exercise, but Arthur intends to win. They have been down here for three days already and neither side has made a kill.
Arthur has had enough of hiding and waiting, filth and smoke, sweat and death. He thinks of clean sheets and detergent, crisp shirts and that shiny new espresso machine that sits, innocuous and untested, on his kitchen counter top.
“I don't know about you, darling,” Eames' voice hasn't changed either - still that silky, sensuous, irksome drawl, “but I'm more than ready to ditch this charade. We've been under for at least ten hours by now and I'm going stir-crazy.”
Arthur is barely listening, still staring out the window, “Only twenty minutes till the timer runs out.”
He then stiffens, recognizing a certain figure amidst the seething mass of chaos in the street, “I see Wesson, armed and moving fast.”
Eames grins, sharp teeth and clear-glass eyes, picking up a slim sniper from the bed.
“Fantastic.”
***Mombasa is sweltering at this time of year. Even the strong wind currents off the ocean do little to stem the sweat that trickles down his neck and the clamminess of his shirt against his skin. In what is admittedly desperation, Arthur reluctantly resorts to unbuttoning his cuffs and loosening his tie.
Following Eames down seemingly never-ending narrow roads; past dusty curio shops and ornate mosques; he finally finds himself in a second-story office. They are surrounded by corked glass bottles filled with varying shades of honey and treacle-colored liquid, tiny burnished drawers with meticulous labels and stray cats.
The midday sun glares off whitewashed stone walls and grimy glass panes, bathing everything in a halo of gold.
"It was four months ago that I told Mr. Cobb three levels of dreaming weren't possible,” Yusuf sighs, wire-rimmed glasses hanging from his neck, regarding them from behind the cluttered desk, “How things change, no?”
“You must be doing good business since then, hm?” Eames grins, not bothering to look up from the mark's file, mouth curled around a pen. His face is split by light and shade, contours thrown into stark relief.
Yusuf smiles, keen and unhurried, but does not answer. He turns to Arthur instead, gaze appraising, “You should stay away from the southern end of Old Town. Cobol is slow to forget old grievances.”
Arthur nods absently, filing the information away for later consideration, then gestures at the file, “What do you think?”
“What I honestly think is that you should get out of the country before you're gunned down in some alleyway,” he says sourly before shaking his head resignedly, gently nudging a mewling cat out of the way, “but here, this compound should do it.”
He hands a bottle filled with pale ocher liquid to Arthur, then plucks a heavy iron ring of keys from the desk. They jangle, clean and musical, cutting through the noise of the marketplace around them.
“Please excuse me for a few minutes; I have to check on my clients. We'll have lunch when I get back - there's this great place up the road. Try not to break anything, Eames.”
Eames frowns aggrievedly, reaching for the icy bottle of Tusker lager that is set precariously close to the edge of the desk. It leaves a perfect circle of condensation on the grainy wood.
“That was one bloody time. And I paid for the damages anyway, you miser.”
Yusuf yells back, most likely something insulting and vulgar, but Arthur doesn't catch it.
He sips tentatively at his own lager, grimacing at the sharp taste, watching the blur of figures beyond the window.
It makes him uncomfortable, Yusuf's office. It's nothing concrete or expressible, just pure instinct (that gut feeling) and self-preservation; some deeply-ingrained remnant of prior training in another lifetime.
Too much glass, limited escape routes; ideal for an ambush.
He inhales, lemon disinfectant and damp must, forcing himself to snap out of it.
Paranoia's a bitch.
“Has daddy issues to rival Fischer, this kid,” Eames is saying, flipping over another page.
Arthur shrugs, shifting against the wooden shelving, “Job's fairly standard otherwise. Only two levels needed and an unmilitarized subconscious. Nothing we haven't seen before.”
“In our illustrious experiences, circumstances never pan out exactly as planned for though, do they? Eames says lightly, idly scratching a fat tabby behind her ears. She purrs delightedly, jumping onto his lap, overturning the file and nearly the bottle.
He turns over the bottled compound in his hands; glass warm from sitting in the sunlight, clear liquid glinting. “But we're still around. Must be doing something right.”
Eames grunts out a derisive laugh, white teeth and sun-scorched skin, raising the bottle to his lips.
“Or else we're just incredibly lucky.”
***Arthur opens his eyes.
O'Keefe snaps that infernal gum of his, peering down to stare at him through black-rimmed spectacles,
“You okay?”
He blinks once, then moves instinctively to pull the cannula from his wrist. O'Keefe fumbles to help, and for once Arthur allows it. He sits back in the uncomfortable chair, heartbeat still erratic.
The memory of his death remains vivid - the roar of the wind in his ears, the blur of his surroundings, the dull sickening smack as bone and flesh and innards contacted the pavement. There had been time left on the clock, too much time, and he had needed to get out now.
Jumping had seemed an efficient, if somewhat unpleasant, solution.
Still better than having to shoot himself in the head, though.
Even though he knows, he knows, that he's not really going to die, something stops him, every time.
Perhaps it is too reminiscent of his father's death. An ex-marine and war veteran, he had never recovered - just wasted away, bit by bit. And just like that, one otherwise ordinary autumn day, fourteen-year old Arthur had walked home to find an inconsolable mother and a pool of dark wetness seeping into the carpet.
Sun shines through half-drawn blinds, illuminating O'Keefe's flaxen hair as he packs away the retractable lines. His sleeves are rolled up, revealing skinny wrists and skinnier forearms. He pops his nicotine gum again and Arthur wonders if he is imagining the light whiff of citrus.
His spine aches from being inert for too long and it is only now that he notices the get-well-soon balloons floating in a corner of the room. The mark shifts restlessly on the bed, cherry-red hair strikingly juxtaposed against the pallor of her skin. The heart monitor bleeps steadily, consolingly.
He sighs and rubs at his eyes, suddenly weary.
This job had involved therapeutic intervention rather than theft, duplicity or espionage. It is not something he gains satisfaction from.
Because 'success' is a double-edged sword, merely unearthing further trauma and demons and nightmares.
He thinks of the bleak, desolate wasteland that had been her mind (or what is left of it, anyway) and his own tormented father and wonders if she can ever truly heal.
O'Keefe is watching him from the doorway, uncharacteristically silent, silver briefcase in hand.
“We should leave.”
So they do, as unobtrusively as they had entered, white coats rustling and measured footfalls fading on the sterile tiles.
***“Do you ever wonder what it would be like, down there?”
Shallow pants. Blood, blood everywhere. Cold fingers. Swigs of cloudy, burning amber liquid.
A clenched jaw. A brusque hiss; “Shut up.”
Steel forceps probe at infected, torn flesh, but still the low, rasping voice continues-
“What it would be like to gradually, inevitably, lose your mind-”
A harsh intake of breath as the silver tips dig deeper.
“-to be king of your very own, vast, lonely world-”
“Shut up. You're delirious.”
Rivulets of sweat. Neon light. The stench of refuse and, distantly, sea spray.
“But, darling,” the voice is patient and persistent, though feverish, “Don't you ever just wonder?”
A bullet is pulled out with a sluggish, sticky squelch. Blood drizzles out of the festering entrance wound, thick and black.
“No.”
A wheezing laugh, features contorting at the accompanying pain.
“Liar.”
***They must've just finished a job, Arthur thinks.
Straining through the strange fog that clouds his thoughts and slackens his limbs, he tries to remember. There had been tequila shots.
Many, many tequila shots.
Yusuf's giddy high-pitched laughter. Wesson (Sam, Arthur thinks firmly, his name is Sam) blushing prettily as they teased him about his crush on Jessica, the new Extractor. Eames watching him across the knotted wood of the table, gaze dark and considering. A toast to O'Keefe who couldn't be there.
More tequila.
Cobb, voice distorted over the phone, offering congratulations and condolences. Phillipa and James in the background, both clamoring to say their hellos, petulant that Uncle Arthur has not visited them for one whole month now.
Fumbling for his keycard, Arthur frowns because well, shit, he's pretty far from sober.
He jams it into where he thinks the lock must be. Orange. He tries again, and once more.
Orange. Orange.
He scowls. The hotel door stares back impassively, bland and impenetrable and mocking.
As he sullenly contemplates how much he despises these hotels and motels and living out of suitcases and being limited to three pairs of shoes and airplane food and jet lag, god, fucking jet lag; the keycard is slipped from his numb grasp and the door next to the one he is standing in front of clicks open.
Green.
Oh, Arthur thinks. Right.
“All right there?” Eames murmurs, smile gentler than Arthur is used to.
He finds himself irritated by that. Also by the smudge of lipstick on his collar, though he can find no logical reason as to why that should be.
He glowers, ready to say something biting and witty and disdainful about how he is not intoxicated and thus perfectly capable of opening doors, thank you very much Mr. Eames, but his vision is blurring and he feels dizzy, off-balance and -
Eames grips him as he stumbles, “Bloody hell, Arthur. Take it easy.”
Arthur blinks dazedly, because really? Eames telling him to take it easy? Eames staring at him, eyes narrowed and stupid mouth twisted in concern?
He has no fucking right.
Rousing up some modicum of sobriety, he mutters grudgingly, most definitely not slurring, “Thanks. I'm fine.”
He snatches up the keycard and moves to close the door.
Too late, he realizes that Eames' heavy hand is still curled around his arm.
“I'm fine,” he reiterates, pointedly trying to shake him off but only feeling queasy for his trouble.
Eames sighs, merely tightening his hold, the bastard, “Arthur, please. It's not-”
Arthur laughs, a shrill unnatural sound, “I'm the Point Man, Eames. It's my job to research and know things and be prepared,” he takes a deep shuddering breath, “So don't fucking lie to me about how it's not my fault.”
Eames seems almost angry now, fingers digging painfully into the woven fabric of his shirt.
“Arthur, you're not fucking responsible for what happens in reality. It could have been any of us. But for whatever inexplicable and unjust reason, it wasn't me or you or Sam this time, it was Charlie O’Keefe. And I know it fucking hurts, I know, but you can't keep doing this.”
His eyes are fire-bright and Arthur wants, more than anything, to believe him.
Instead, he slips out of Eames' grip and slams the door harder than he had intended, chest tight and head throbbing.
Arthur spends the rest of the night immersed in the bathtub, cradling a bottle of whiskey in one hand and watching his toes prune. His clothes for the next day lie neatly folded on the unused bed. A few more bottles litter the shabby carpet, ranging from empty to full. The die is clenched in his other fist, but the outcome does not change no matter how many times he rolls it.
O'Keefe is still lifeless and limp in some fucking pine box, six feet under, green eyes glassy and vacant.
He will no longer snap that goddamn nicotine gum, trying futilely to break a habit he had spent years succumbing to. He will no longer blearily amble into the warehouse, two fucking hours late, wearing threadbare jeans and the old Ramones T-shirt that Arthur had secretly really wanted. He will no longer break into a mark's safe deposit box, looking bizarrely like a younger Cobb, all straw-blond hair and brash grin as he turns to Arthur and says, “Got it.”
And even if Arthur is crying, it doesn't matter because there is no one to see it.