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: Sorry it took a bit longer to write, and doesn't match in length but... #dealwithit
Disclaimer: Characters are property of Chris Nolan<3
Previous Chapters: 1, 2
STAGE THREE: BARGAINING
It doesn’t matter what totem he uses, they both tell him that he’s in reality. This doesn’t stop him from rolling the die or flipping the poker chip. One time, it’s going to be different. It’s going to show that this is all a horrible dream and he’ll force himself to wake up. He tries to convince himself of this or at least come up with an idea that depletes his faith in totems. Who said they actually worked anyway? Cobb? Mal? What did they know? Look what happened to them. He thinks that he should just shoot himself in the head. To him, it’s a win-win situation because anywhere is better than here. He doesn’t because he knows someone else will come to do the job soon. Either he’ll wake up or he’ll be taken away from the horrors of this world once and for all.
He pleads each time he gets ready to roll the die. Please let it be a dream. He swears to be a better person if he can just wake up. He will stop with the extraction and the inception if this could just be a dream. This never happens. He still pleads. All he wants is to go back. You can cheat, God, because he won’t tell anyone. Turn the tables back and he’ll save Arthur. He’ll do whatever it takes this time, even if it means dying in his place. If God’s there, it’s not listening. Eames doesn’t know what he expected from such a cruel deity in the first place.
Somehow, he brings himself to stop with the totems. There’s a bottle of whiskey that calls to him. He wonders how much longer he has left. He knows by now that word has got around about him, but he can’t bring himself to care. As he sits down and takes the first shot of whiskey, he thinks about his life and what a tragic mess it had been. There was once a time when he was a child yearning for attention that never came. His father had been a miserable drunk, a police officer that had seemed to let too much of his time on the force delude his view of reality. He could recall being a child and asking when father would come home. It was usually around three in the morning when he finally stumbled in, smelling like an entire liquor cabinet.
When they met that Fischer character, he’d felt strangely attached to the man, despite coming from two entirely different backgrounds. Eames knew what it felt like to be cast aside, to be a disappointment. Once they thought he’d been lost in limbo, he found himself greatly disappointed, not because the job failed, but in a way, Fischer finding closure helped him. It was some strange hope he wanted to cling to, that his father too wanted something better from him, something that he could never amount to being. But look at him now, cradling a bottle of whiskey just like his father would have in times of struggle. He can’t help but think that his father was always right about him. He was simply a disappointment.
----------
This time when he dreams of Arthur, they aren’t in the usual bar. They’re in an apartment they once shared back before everything went wrong. Before Mal and Cobb ventured too far in the dream world, before she killed herself, before Arthur decided that things between them could never work because he didn’t want to end up like what Cobb was turning into. They’re happy here. They’re together and in love. The world around them doesn’t matter.
Eames lays there in bed with Arthur’s head resting on his chest, slowing moving in unison with his breathing. This was how he always wanted things to be. Arthur would disclose things to him about growing up without a father and having to take care of his slightly psychotic mother. He would talk about how he was empty until he met Cobb when he was much, much younger. There was a time where he would do anything to be like him. He claimed it wasn’t like that, and though Eames knew otherwise, he never questioned him. Arthur revealed how he once thought he was in love with Cobb, but he’d mixed his emotions up somewhere along the lines, confused being grateful for love. The older man, the famed extractor, had given Arthur a sense of purpose in the world. Eames never talked about his past.
“We could go deeper,” Eames suggests. “I could stay with you, here, where we belong.” He prays that Arthur would agree, but he knows he wouldn’t, because that’s not what his Arthur would do and that’s not how he imagines him to be.
“You need to get out. Go somewhere that they can’t find you,” Arthur says. Eames doesn’t respond to this. He simply runs his fingers over Arthur’s soft cheek. Running is useless, he knows this, or at least perceives it this way. They would find him, no matter where he went. That was their job, after all.
“I never wanted this,” Arthur speaks up.
“I know,” Eames says softly, ignoring the implication.
“I wanted you to move on. Have a life without me so I wouldn’t be a projection of your subconscious for the rest of your life.”
“Are you sure you didn’t want to be the projection or you didn’t want me to be yours?”
Arthur takes a moment before he says, “Both. Neither of us deserved this.”
“You would have done the same.” It doesn’t matter how either want to look at this from a rational standpoint because when it came down to it, life wasn’t logical. People, regardless of what they wanted to make themselves believe, were driven by emotion. Sometimes it took another person to push them in that direction. It was what used to scare Eames. He could see people around him that were in love and he never wanted that for himself. He wanted to be cold and selfish, never willing to risk anything if there wasn’t a reward. He never expected to fall in love. It just happened. So while he knew Arthur’s reasons for breaking it off, he knew they were futile. Even in Arthur’s last moments of life, he believed the same. Arthur knew Eames would never let him go because he wouldn’t. They were bound together, regardless of what life served them.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur says.
“So am I.”
----------
He’s awake again. He wants to go back, but there’s something strange about the room. Nothing he can put his finger on, but it’s a strange feeling. A dreadful feeling. Cold air blows across the room and onto his face, sending chills throughout his entire body. He’s not alone. Before he can move from the chair, he hears the voice.
“Who are you?” The voice asks. He doesn’t move because he doesn’t see the point in it.
“Have you come to kill me?” Eames asks, and for a moment, there’s something in his voice, like he almost cares what happens to him.
“I was going to ask the same of you,” The voice says. He can hear the man move around from behind him. When he comes into sight, it’s just who he expected. Marvin Kelly, world class assassin, father of two.
“I was,” Eames replies. He nods to the bottle of whiskey on the table. “You can have some if you’d like. Little strong for my taste.”
Kelly doesn’t seem to care.
“What do you mean you were? What changed your mind?”
It takes a while for Eames to bring himself to speak again, but he does and says, “You’re someone.” It doesn’t make sense to Kelly. He stares, his eyes narrowed, urging Eames to continue.
“You have children. To them, you’re someone. I know what it’s like to lose someone. I don‘t think I could do that to children.” He sighs. “If you’re going to kill me mate, just bloody do it already.”
Kelly doesn’t do anything. There’s a gun in his hand that was formerly pointing at Eames’ chest, but now it’s lowered and facing the floor. It seems that he’s never faced this kind of situation before. There aren’t a lot of morals in the criminal world, especially when it comes to protecting your own life. When someone makes as loud of a statement as Eames did to get Kelly’s name, they didn’t usually decide that it went against their moral fiber.
“You have twenty-four hours to get the hell out of here,” Kelly says as he begins walking toward the door, but he never turns away. “If I here you come looking for me again, Mr. Eames, I will kill you.”
This is what Eames doesn’t understand, for the same reasons mentioned above.
“Why are you sparing me?” He questions. Kelly stops and looks at him, directly in the eye.
“You spared me when I didn’t deserve it.”
Before he can process it, the man is gone. He understands it. Apparently there is honor among thieves. He decides to leave. He doesn’t know why he does it, why he gives his life another chance, but he does.
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Eames deals with his grief from losing Arthur.
Warnings/Spoilers: Character death.
Author's Notes: Sorry it took a bit longer to write, and doesn't match in length but... #dealwithit
Disclaimer: Characters are property of Chris Nolan<3
Previous Chapters: 1, 2
STAGE THREE: BARGAINING
It doesn’t matter what totem he uses, they both tell him that he’s in reality. This doesn’t stop him from rolling the die or flipping the poker chip. One time, it’s going to be different. It’s going to show that this is all a horrible dream and he’ll force himself to wake up. He tries to convince himself of this or at least come up with an idea that depletes his faith in totems. Who said they actually worked anyway? Cobb? Mal? What did they know? Look what happened to them. He thinks that he should just shoot himself in the head. To him, it’s a win-win situation because anywhere is better than here. He doesn’t because he knows someone else will come to do the job soon. Either he’ll wake up or he’ll be taken away from the horrors of this world once and for all.
He pleads each time he gets ready to roll the die. Please let it be a dream. He swears to be a better person if he can just wake up. He will stop with the extraction and the inception if this could just be a dream. This never happens. He still pleads. All he wants is to go back. You can cheat, God, because he won’t tell anyone. Turn the tables back and he’ll save Arthur. He’ll do whatever it takes this time, even if it means dying in his place. If God’s there, it’s not listening. Eames doesn’t know what he expected from such a cruel deity in the first place.
Somehow, he brings himself to stop with the totems. There’s a bottle of whiskey that calls to him. He wonders how much longer he has left. He knows by now that word has got around about him, but he can’t bring himself to care. As he sits down and takes the first shot of whiskey, he thinks about his life and what a tragic mess it had been. There was once a time when he was a child yearning for attention that never came. His father had been a miserable drunk, a police officer that had seemed to let too much of his time on the force delude his view of reality. He could recall being a child and asking when father would come home. It was usually around three in the morning when he finally stumbled in, smelling like an entire liquor cabinet.
When they met that Fischer character, he’d felt strangely attached to the man, despite coming from two entirely different backgrounds. Eames knew what it felt like to be cast aside, to be a disappointment. Once they thought he’d been lost in limbo, he found himself greatly disappointed, not because the job failed, but in a way, Fischer finding closure helped him. It was some strange hope he wanted to cling to, that his father too wanted something better from him, something that he could never amount to being. But look at him now, cradling a bottle of whiskey just like his father would have in times of struggle. He can’t help but think that his father was always right about him. He was simply a disappointment.
----------
This time when he dreams of Arthur, they aren’t in the usual bar. They’re in an apartment they once shared back before everything went wrong. Before Mal and Cobb ventured too far in the dream world, before she killed herself, before Arthur decided that things between them could never work because he didn’t want to end up like what Cobb was turning into. They’re happy here. They’re together and in love. The world around them doesn’t matter.
Eames lays there in bed with Arthur’s head resting on his chest, slowing moving in unison with his breathing. This was how he always wanted things to be. Arthur would disclose things to him about growing up without a father and having to take care of his slightly psychotic mother. He would talk about how he was empty until he met Cobb when he was much, much younger. There was a time where he would do anything to be like him. He claimed it wasn’t like that, and though Eames knew otherwise, he never questioned him. Arthur revealed how he once thought he was in love with Cobb, but he’d mixed his emotions up somewhere along the lines, confused being grateful for love. The older man, the famed extractor, had given Arthur a sense of purpose in the world. Eames never talked about his past.
“We could go deeper,” Eames suggests. “I could stay with you, here, where we belong.” He prays that Arthur would agree, but he knows he wouldn’t, because that’s not what his Arthur would do and that’s not how he imagines him to be.
“You need to get out. Go somewhere that they can’t find you,” Arthur says. Eames doesn’t respond to this. He simply runs his fingers over Arthur’s soft cheek. Running is useless, he knows this, or at least perceives it this way. They would find him, no matter where he went. That was their job, after all.
“I never wanted this,” Arthur speaks up.
“I know,” Eames says softly, ignoring the implication.
“I wanted you to move on. Have a life without me so I wouldn’t be a projection of your subconscious for the rest of your life.”
“Are you sure you didn’t want to be the projection or you didn’t want me to be yours?”
Arthur takes a moment before he says, “Both. Neither of us deserved this.”
“You would have done the same.” It doesn’t matter how either want to look at this from a rational standpoint because when it came down to it, life wasn’t logical. People, regardless of what they wanted to make themselves believe, were driven by emotion. Sometimes it took another person to push them in that direction. It was what used to scare Eames. He could see people around him that were in love and he never wanted that for himself. He wanted to be cold and selfish, never willing to risk anything if there wasn’t a reward. He never expected to fall in love. It just happened. So while he knew Arthur’s reasons for breaking it off, he knew they were futile. Even in Arthur’s last moments of life, he believed the same. Arthur knew Eames would never let him go because he wouldn’t. They were bound together, regardless of what life served them.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur says.
“So am I.”
----------
He’s awake again. He wants to go back, but there’s something strange about the room. Nothing he can put his finger on, but it’s a strange feeling. A dreadful feeling. Cold air blows across the room and onto his face, sending chills throughout his entire body. He’s not alone. Before he can move from the chair, he hears the voice.
“Who are you?” The voice asks. He doesn’t move because he doesn’t see the point in it.
“Have you come to kill me?” Eames asks, and for a moment, there’s something in his voice, like he almost cares what happens to him.
“I was going to ask the same of you,” The voice says. He can hear the man move around from behind him. When he comes into sight, it’s just who he expected. Marvin Kelly, world class assassin, father of two.
“I was,” Eames replies. He nods to the bottle of whiskey on the table. “You can have some if you’d like. Little strong for my taste.”
Kelly doesn’t seem to care.
“What do you mean you were? What changed your mind?”
It takes a while for Eames to bring himself to speak again, but he does and says, “You’re someone.” It doesn’t make sense to Kelly. He stares, his eyes narrowed, urging Eames to continue.
“You have children. To them, you’re someone. I know what it’s like to lose someone. I don‘t think I could do that to children.” He sighs. “If you’re going to kill me mate, just bloody do it already.”
Kelly doesn’t do anything. There’s a gun in his hand that was formerly pointing at Eames’ chest, but now it’s lowered and facing the floor. It seems that he’s never faced this kind of situation before. There aren’t a lot of morals in the criminal world, especially when it comes to protecting your own life. When someone makes as loud of a statement as Eames did to get Kelly’s name, they didn’t usually decide that it went against their moral fiber.
“You have twenty-four hours to get the hell out of here,” Kelly says as he begins walking toward the door, but he never turns away. “If I here you come looking for me again, Mr. Eames, I will kill you.”
This is what Eames doesn’t understand, for the same reasons mentioned above.
“Why are you sparing me?” He questions. Kelly stops and looks at him, directly in the eye.
“You spared me when I didn’t deserve it.”
Before he can process it, the man is gone. He understands it. Apparently there is honor among thieves. He decides to leave. He doesn’t know why he does it, why he gives his life another chance, but he does.