five stages
Title: Five Stages
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Eames deals with his grief from losing Arthur.
Warnings/Spoilers: Character death.
Author's Notes: Uhm, I might finish this! This is all Ashley's fault. Never forgiving you for performing inception on me.
Disclaimer: Characters are property of Chris Nolan<3
STAGE ONE: DENIAL
He rolls the die between his fingers, caressing each contour of it to convince himself of the layout. With a snap of his fingers, the die propels itself into the air and sputters across the table. When it lands, there are six white dots facing upward. He walks over to the other side of the table and picks up the die before he shoves it into his pocket.
Eames is in reality. He isn’t sure how he feels about this, because reality is no longer a place he wishes to reside. In reality, there is no Arthur. No arrogant, yet charming, Arthur who occasionally put on too much cologne and tried too hard to emulate Dom Cobb. No strong and silent type Arthur who would insist on looking at things rationally. There were people who wept for him, but never really knew him, at least not the way Eames had. Eames could tell you now that most of what people knew about Arthur was a lie. What they perceived as cool and casual was something that Eames had looked at as a man projecting some kind of persona he’d made up for himself to deal with his insecurities. It was a cruel reality that had taken Arthur away nearly six months ago. All that was left of him was this red die.
As soon as he puts it away, he realizes his error and pulls it right back out of his pocket. He continues to fondle the thing as his eyes close, as if it would somehow raise Arthur from the dead. He knows that it cannot happen. If he wants to see Arthur, there is only one way to do it, and this real world just wasn’t it.
----------
“What are you doing?” The familiar voice asks. Eames sets down his drink and looks over. Though a smile plays on his lips, the same emotion does not reach his eyes. Even as he stares at his beautiful projection of Arthur, knowing the truth cannot bring him to fully enjoy it.
“I’m having a drink, darling,” he says. Arthur is not content in this answer, as shown by how he rolls his eyes.
“You know that’s not what I meant.” It doesn’t matter how upset Arthur may be, he still takes a seat and orders a drink from the bartender. The projection of Arthur reacts to the situation in the same way the real Arthur would have: begrudging acceptance. “Why do you do this to yourself? Just let me go.”
Eames smiles, but it’s not the same. He moves closer to his projection and inhales deeply. The smell of some horrible musk intrudes his nostrils. Just like Arthur. His lips move to brush softly against Arthur’s neck and trace a path up toward his earlobe.
“Because I miss you.”
He can feel Arthur pull away slightly, but as with everything, he eventually gives in. When Eames nibbles gently on his earlobe, each hair on Arthur’s neck stands up. Their touch is like magnetism. Eames would gladly not step foot in the real world again if he knew it meant staying there with Arthur, feeling his warm skin under his lips and tasting every inch of him. He’s almost tempted to do it when he feels something is wrong. They’re not alone.
Eames whirls around quickly to catch the eyes of Ariadne. She doesn’t look surprised, not in the slightest, but somewhat disappointed. He really couldn’t care about her feelings, though, because now he’s angry. This solitude he was spending with Arthur, this moment that he wanted to hold on to, was ruined because of her.
“What are you doing here?” He scowls and rushes toward her to strip her away from the scene.
“I knew it.” She replied, and this only furthers Eames’ frustration. “This is exactly what Cobb did with Mal. You can’t do this. What happened with-”
She can’t finish her words because Eames is already pulling out his gun, intent on ending the dream now.
----------
“Let’s get a few thing straight here, Ariadne,” he says, and he’s moving quickly, yanking wires and piling them back into the suitcase. “I am not Cobb. I’m not some poor lost soul you think you can fix. If you come into my dreams one more time, I swear to God-” he doesn’t finish his sentence because he isn’t quite sure what to say, but he hopes that as long as his bluff isn’t called, the gravity of his withdrawal is clear.
Ariadne is having none of it. She’s seen it before. She’s a strong girl, too strong to just shrug off. He was never clear of the exact circumstances between her and Cobb, but he knew that she’d seen something bad enough to risk her own life in order to keep others safe. Eames was a smart guy. He could put bits and pieces together. Whatever she’d seen with Cobb, she was seeing in him now, drawing cruel parallels between them.
“We all miss Arthur,” she says, but this only proves to further his rage.
“Don’t pretend like you know how I feel,” he snarls.
“Right, bad choice of words. Sorry.” He pays no attention to her apology. His hand is in his pocket, clutching the red die. All he wants is to go back before it ever happened. If he could take Arthur’s place, he gladly would. It was selfish, of course, but when your actions were fueled by pain and regret, you never really made the selfless choice. It wasn’t as if he wanted to curse someone else with his pain. He could never wish that on his dear Arthur. He knows, however, that the world would have been better off losing him instead of that glorious point man.
“What I’m saying is,” she starts to speak again. “It wasn’t your fault. You don’t have to live with this guilt.”
“Wasn’t my fault?” He repeats as if it confuses him. There are tears welting in his eyes that he tries to contain, but it’s nearly impossible. Instead, he looks away from her briefly to wipe them away. When he returns, however, his eyes lock in to her chocolate brown ones, there’s a look on his face that sends a shiver coursing through her body. The pain, the anguish, is now mixed with bitter rage. “You weren’t there. You were off in your fancy school because you decided you were too good for us. He didn’t die in your arms. You didn’t sit there for an hour as the color faded from that beautiful face telling him that everything was going to be fine. How dare you come here and try to tell me to let him go when you can’t possibly understand anything outside of your simple, inane little world.”
A silence falls between them. Ariadne stands, looking numb, with a single tear breaking off and sliding down her cheek. Guilt rises inside of him because he knows what he said wasn’t fair. Ariadne was a young soul who only tread into their world with the promises of some kind of magic. She was not a thief, not a criminal like they were, and it wasn’t right to condemn her because of this. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to utter an apology. Eames was not a man keen to making himself humble. The world, and no one in it, deserved his apologies. They’d done nothing for him.
“Leave,” he orders her, calmly, and she does.
----------
The bullet whizzes by his ear and makes the sound akin to a loud insect. He turns, points, and shoots at the source of the fire, taking the man down in one shot. Another bullet barely misses him and he decides to take cover behind a wall. When he peeks out, he can see the shooter’s head pop out from his hiding place. Eames takes this opportunity to blow it off. He doesn’t hear anymore bullets, but that doesn’t mean he’s in the clear. He pokes out from behind the wall, but the wave of fire that comes tells him that it’s not safe out there. His thoughts immediately go to one place.
“Arthur!” He calls out. The silence worries him, but he is convinced that the point man is fine, just wedging himself out of a pickle and can’t hear the call. Eames scans the area and searches for better cover. He finds it behind a stack of boxes. The old warehouse doesn’t make it easy to hide. They’re being closed in on and it isn’t the dream world. Eames can’t make a bigger gun appear to him at will. It was all over a job. One stupid job they managed to screw up. Things hadn’t been easy since Cobb retired. Finding a replacement for him was like replacing Mick Jagger from the Stones. You just couldn’t get something as good. Callahan, their replacement extractor, was dead now, and by the looks of things, they would be too.
He drops one guy, then another, but he was still taking fire. How many were there? Five? Something like that. Then another guy is hit, but he didn’t shoot him. Arthur. He looks around. Another guy falls. Where the hell is he? Another. One more. Then Eames finds Arthur’s position. There’s one more shooter, at least by Eames’ count, but he’s taking cover and Arthur can’t find him from where he’s at, positioned on the second floor of the warehouse. Then a shot rings out, only it isn’t the shooter that falls. It’s Arthur. It feels like slow motion when he watches it. Arthur is hit in the shoulder, then he stumbles, and falls forward, lands roughly on his back.
“No!” Eames yells and he looks behind him to see the shooter come out from his cover. He takes the opportunity to pump a shot into the guy’s head and it hits like a bullseye. This doesn’t matter to him. Nothing matters. He didn’t shoot the guy to keep himself safe, he did it for Arthur. Before he can process the kill, his legs are moving, fast, towards Arthur, and the sight is nearly crippling. Arthur can’t move. There’s blood pooling around him, slowly, moving like molasses. The look on his face is of pure terror. His eyes roll toward Eames and it’s like they’re pleading to him. Help.
Eames drops to his knees and pulls Arthur close, but Arthur groans and coughs up blood.
“No, no, no,” Eames repeats as he looks down at the man. His head drops down to Arthur’s chest as he fights back his sudden urge to cry. He can’t cry. He won’t do it. He needs to force himself to be strong. When he looks back up, Arthur is moving his hand, trying to go into his pocket. Eames does it for him and pulls out the loaded red die.
“Keep it,” Arthur manages to stammer out. Eames is in denial.
“No, I can’t keep it. You’re going to need it when we get out of here.”
There’s something in Arthur’s eyes. A glimmer of something that he couldn’t quite place. Then Arthur does his best to form a slight smile.
“Remember that time,” he says, but he stops because he’s coughing again and Eames has to delicately lean him over so he can get it out. Just as soon as he’s done, though, he’s telling the story again because he wants to get it out. “In Mombasa, when the girl came up to you at the bar and-”
Eames decides he can tell the story because it’s putting too much of a strain on Arthur and he needs to save his energy, so he continues it with, “She started hitting on me. I went along with it, too, in jest, until she invited me back to her hotel room.”
“But you told her you couldn’t because you were in love with someone,” Arthur jumps in. Eames smiles and runs his fingers through Arthur’s hair, which is matted with hair gel and blood.
“You,” he says simply. He remembers the night very vividly. It was the first time they made love. Arthur had been nervous, tight, because he’d never been with anyone like that before. For the most part of the young man’s life, he’d repressed himself from the majority of his sexual desires based upon his insecurity and how society had raised him with a certain view of right and wrong. There was no denying how he felt for Eames, though. Whenever the two were together, there was a certain tension that built in the room which made how they felt evident to everyone but themselves. That night was a release and an acceptance on Arthur’s behalf.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur chokes out as tears form in his eyes.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about, love,” Eames assures him.
“No, there is. I pushed you away after what happened with Mal. I should have never-” Eames moves his finger down to Arthur’s lips to silence him.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I love you, Mr. Eames.”
Eames smiles and runs his fingers over Arthur’s face.
“As I love you.” Eames holds Arthur close to him for nearly an hour in silence before he stops breathing. That’s when the tears came.
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Eames deals with his grief from losing Arthur.
Warnings/Spoilers: Character death.
Author's Notes: Uhm, I might finish this! This is all Ashley's fault. Never forgiving you for performing inception on me.
Disclaimer: Characters are property of Chris Nolan<3
STAGE ONE: DENIAL
He rolls the die between his fingers, caressing each contour of it to convince himself of the layout. With a snap of his fingers, the die propels itself into the air and sputters across the table. When it lands, there are six white dots facing upward. He walks over to the other side of the table and picks up the die before he shoves it into his pocket.
Eames is in reality. He isn’t sure how he feels about this, because reality is no longer a place he wishes to reside. In reality, there is no Arthur. No arrogant, yet charming, Arthur who occasionally put on too much cologne and tried too hard to emulate Dom Cobb. No strong and silent type Arthur who would insist on looking at things rationally. There were people who wept for him, but never really knew him, at least not the way Eames had. Eames could tell you now that most of what people knew about Arthur was a lie. What they perceived as cool and casual was something that Eames had looked at as a man projecting some kind of persona he’d made up for himself to deal with his insecurities. It was a cruel reality that had taken Arthur away nearly six months ago. All that was left of him was this red die.
As soon as he puts it away, he realizes his error and pulls it right back out of his pocket. He continues to fondle the thing as his eyes close, as if it would somehow raise Arthur from the dead. He knows that it cannot happen. If he wants to see Arthur, there is only one way to do it, and this real world just wasn’t it.
----------
“What are you doing?” The familiar voice asks. Eames sets down his drink and looks over. Though a smile plays on his lips, the same emotion does not reach his eyes. Even as he stares at his beautiful projection of Arthur, knowing the truth cannot bring him to fully enjoy it.
“I’m having a drink, darling,” he says. Arthur is not content in this answer, as shown by how he rolls his eyes.
“You know that’s not what I meant.” It doesn’t matter how upset Arthur may be, he still takes a seat and orders a drink from the bartender. The projection of Arthur reacts to the situation in the same way the real Arthur would have: begrudging acceptance. “Why do you do this to yourself? Just let me go.”
Eames smiles, but it’s not the same. He moves closer to his projection and inhales deeply. The smell of some horrible musk intrudes his nostrils. Just like Arthur. His lips move to brush softly against Arthur’s neck and trace a path up toward his earlobe.
“Because I miss you.”
He can feel Arthur pull away slightly, but as with everything, he eventually gives in. When Eames nibbles gently on his earlobe, each hair on Arthur’s neck stands up. Their touch is like magnetism. Eames would gladly not step foot in the real world again if he knew it meant staying there with Arthur, feeling his warm skin under his lips and tasting every inch of him. He’s almost tempted to do it when he feels something is wrong. They’re not alone.
Eames whirls around quickly to catch the eyes of Ariadne. She doesn’t look surprised, not in the slightest, but somewhat disappointed. He really couldn’t care about her feelings, though, because now he’s angry. This solitude he was spending with Arthur, this moment that he wanted to hold on to, was ruined because of her.
“What are you doing here?” He scowls and rushes toward her to strip her away from the scene.
“I knew it.” She replied, and this only furthers Eames’ frustration. “This is exactly what Cobb did with Mal. You can’t do this. What happened with-”
She can’t finish her words because Eames is already pulling out his gun, intent on ending the dream now.
----------
“Let’s get a few thing straight here, Ariadne,” he says, and he’s moving quickly, yanking wires and piling them back into the suitcase. “I am not Cobb. I’m not some poor lost soul you think you can fix. If you come into my dreams one more time, I swear to God-” he doesn’t finish his sentence because he isn’t quite sure what to say, but he hopes that as long as his bluff isn’t called, the gravity of his withdrawal is clear.
Ariadne is having none of it. She’s seen it before. She’s a strong girl, too strong to just shrug off. He was never clear of the exact circumstances between her and Cobb, but he knew that she’d seen something bad enough to risk her own life in order to keep others safe. Eames was a smart guy. He could put bits and pieces together. Whatever she’d seen with Cobb, she was seeing in him now, drawing cruel parallels between them.
“We all miss Arthur,” she says, but this only proves to further his rage.
“Don’t pretend like you know how I feel,” he snarls.
“Right, bad choice of words. Sorry.” He pays no attention to her apology. His hand is in his pocket, clutching the red die. All he wants is to go back before it ever happened. If he could take Arthur’s place, he gladly would. It was selfish, of course, but when your actions were fueled by pain and regret, you never really made the selfless choice. It wasn’t as if he wanted to curse someone else with his pain. He could never wish that on his dear Arthur. He knows, however, that the world would have been better off losing him instead of that glorious point man.
“What I’m saying is,” she starts to speak again. “It wasn’t your fault. You don’t have to live with this guilt.”
“Wasn’t my fault?” He repeats as if it confuses him. There are tears welting in his eyes that he tries to contain, but it’s nearly impossible. Instead, he looks away from her briefly to wipe them away. When he returns, however, his eyes lock in to her chocolate brown ones, there’s a look on his face that sends a shiver coursing through her body. The pain, the anguish, is now mixed with bitter rage. “You weren’t there. You were off in your fancy school because you decided you were too good for us. He didn’t die in your arms. You didn’t sit there for an hour as the color faded from that beautiful face telling him that everything was going to be fine. How dare you come here and try to tell me to let him go when you can’t possibly understand anything outside of your simple, inane little world.”
A silence falls between them. Ariadne stands, looking numb, with a single tear breaking off and sliding down her cheek. Guilt rises inside of him because he knows what he said wasn’t fair. Ariadne was a young soul who only tread into their world with the promises of some kind of magic. She was not a thief, not a criminal like they were, and it wasn’t right to condemn her because of this. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to utter an apology. Eames was not a man keen to making himself humble. The world, and no one in it, deserved his apologies. They’d done nothing for him.
“Leave,” he orders her, calmly, and she does.
----------
The bullet whizzes by his ear and makes the sound akin to a loud insect. He turns, points, and shoots at the source of the fire, taking the man down in one shot. Another bullet barely misses him and he decides to take cover behind a wall. When he peeks out, he can see the shooter’s head pop out from his hiding place. Eames takes this opportunity to blow it off. He doesn’t hear anymore bullets, but that doesn’t mean he’s in the clear. He pokes out from behind the wall, but the wave of fire that comes tells him that it’s not safe out there. His thoughts immediately go to one place.
“Arthur!” He calls out. The silence worries him, but he is convinced that the point man is fine, just wedging himself out of a pickle and can’t hear the call. Eames scans the area and searches for better cover. He finds it behind a stack of boxes. The old warehouse doesn’t make it easy to hide. They’re being closed in on and it isn’t the dream world. Eames can’t make a bigger gun appear to him at will. It was all over a job. One stupid job they managed to screw up. Things hadn’t been easy since Cobb retired. Finding a replacement for him was like replacing Mick Jagger from the Stones. You just couldn’t get something as good. Callahan, their replacement extractor, was dead now, and by the looks of things, they would be too.
He drops one guy, then another, but he was still taking fire. How many were there? Five? Something like that. Then another guy is hit, but he didn’t shoot him. Arthur. He looks around. Another guy falls. Where the hell is he? Another. One more. Then Eames finds Arthur’s position. There’s one more shooter, at least by Eames’ count, but he’s taking cover and Arthur can’t find him from where he’s at, positioned on the second floor of the warehouse. Then a shot rings out, only it isn’t the shooter that falls. It’s Arthur. It feels like slow motion when he watches it. Arthur is hit in the shoulder, then he stumbles, and falls forward, lands roughly on his back.
“No!” Eames yells and he looks behind him to see the shooter come out from his cover. He takes the opportunity to pump a shot into the guy’s head and it hits like a bullseye. This doesn’t matter to him. Nothing matters. He didn’t shoot the guy to keep himself safe, he did it for Arthur. Before he can process the kill, his legs are moving, fast, towards Arthur, and the sight is nearly crippling. Arthur can’t move. There’s blood pooling around him, slowly, moving like molasses. The look on his face is of pure terror. His eyes roll toward Eames and it’s like they’re pleading to him. Help.
Eames drops to his knees and pulls Arthur close, but Arthur groans and coughs up blood.
“No, no, no,” Eames repeats as he looks down at the man. His head drops down to Arthur’s chest as he fights back his sudden urge to cry. He can’t cry. He won’t do it. He needs to force himself to be strong. When he looks back up, Arthur is moving his hand, trying to go into his pocket. Eames does it for him and pulls out the loaded red die.
“Keep it,” Arthur manages to stammer out. Eames is in denial.
“No, I can’t keep it. You’re going to need it when we get out of here.”
There’s something in Arthur’s eyes. A glimmer of something that he couldn’t quite place. Then Arthur does his best to form a slight smile.
“Remember that time,” he says, but he stops because he’s coughing again and Eames has to delicately lean him over so he can get it out. Just as soon as he’s done, though, he’s telling the story again because he wants to get it out. “In Mombasa, when the girl came up to you at the bar and-”
Eames decides he can tell the story because it’s putting too much of a strain on Arthur and he needs to save his energy, so he continues it with, “She started hitting on me. I went along with it, too, in jest, until she invited me back to her hotel room.”
“But you told her you couldn’t because you were in love with someone,” Arthur jumps in. Eames smiles and runs his fingers through Arthur’s hair, which is matted with hair gel and blood.
“You,” he says simply. He remembers the night very vividly. It was the first time they made love. Arthur had been nervous, tight, because he’d never been with anyone like that before. For the most part of the young man’s life, he’d repressed himself from the majority of his sexual desires based upon his insecurity and how society had raised him with a certain view of right and wrong. There was no denying how he felt for Eames, though. Whenever the two were together, there was a certain tension that built in the room which made how they felt evident to everyone but themselves. That night was a release and an acceptance on Arthur’s behalf.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur chokes out as tears form in his eyes.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about, love,” Eames assures him.
“No, there is. I pushed you away after what happened with Mal. I should have never-” Eames moves his finger down to Arthur’s lips to silence him.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I love you, Mr. Eames.”
Eames smiles and runs his fingers over Arthur’s face.
“As I love you.” Eames holds Arthur close to him for nearly an hour in silence before he stops breathing. That’s when the tears came.