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Author:
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Word Count: ~1.3K
Pairings: Eames/Arthur
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, non-graphic, off screen nastiness, vague blood and bad implications
Author's Note: This is a 'Arthur and Eames meet, don't really get along, get thrown together under distressful circumstances, and then have Certain Misunderstandings' kind of fic. Because I haven't written one of those in a while.
Summary: When they meet (in a hot sunny desert with impossibly complex and towering tents spread as far as the eye could see) for the first time, Arthur shoots him in the head.
Over the Hill
The invariable mark of a dream is to see it come true. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
When they meet (in a hot sunny desert with impossibly complex and towering tents spread as far as the eye could see) for the first time, Arthur shoots him in the head. They wake up in the same dingy motel they fell asleep in, with their mutual mark stretched out and snoring in between them.
Eames is here to find whether the man was cheating on his wife; Arthur is after whether he's cheating his investors. (He's actually doing both, which makes him twice the arsehole.)
“That wasn't very nice,” Eames says as they quickly gather their belongings and vacate the room. “I rarely let people shoot me on the first date.”
Arthur (who Eames doesn't know, though he would like to) doesn't reply; he just walks away, and Eames is left with no idea who he is.
---
They ran into each other many times after that, both in and out of dreams. Sometimes they're working the same job, sometimes they're working different jobs, and sometimes they just happen to be in the same place at the same time. Eames finds out that Arthur is Arthur through business partners – Dom Cobb and his lovely wife Mal – and tries to do his own research. (He's no point man, but you can't pull a con if you don't know your target.)
He only turns up an exemplary success record, and he's left with nothing more than a mere name and two business partners who won't say or do anything more than smile vaguely at each question.
It's very frustrating.
---
They officially team up when a job they're doing – opposite sides, trying to find out who can get to the information first – goes horribly, horribly wrong. The subconscious isn't just militarized, it's down right vicious, and Eames realizes that as much as he wants to get Arthur talking (to him), he never wants to hear him scream. (Again.)
It takes Eames less than three seconds to toss all of his employer's plans. He grabs a gun from one of his guards, drags himself and his shattered leg to the room where they're holding Arthur, and shoots him, right between the eyes. As he turns the gun on himself, he sees the blood stains smeared across the walls and floor, spreading from Arthur's perfect, ruined suit.
Eames puts the gun under his chin and pulls the trigger.
---
Arthur tries to run again, after they get away while awake, but Eames catches him before he makes it through security at the airport.
“Arthur—” he says, but Arthur's face tightens in denial. “You shouldn't work alone, darling,” Eames says instead.
Arthur pauses as he turns away, but he still shakes his head. “I won't.” Then he leaves.
Eames is a hypocrite; he doesn't work with anyone, and both of them know it.
---
Eames hears things, from time to time, about the great team: Mal, Dom, and Arthur, who together do the impossible. Dom is their Architect; they say that he can build entire countries in minutes, as exact and beautiful as heaven. Mal is their Chemist; she composes the most intricate and perfect compounds anyone has ever seen, so pure that others compare it to raw music. Arthur's skill as a point man quickly becomes legendary, with job offers flooding from all corners of the globe. (Good point men are rare, almost as rare as good forgers.) But he stays with the Cobbs, no matter how high the incentive.
Eames tells himself that this is what he wanted – Arthur is safe with them, and happy – but he can't get the lie to stick. He knows that it's just something that he's trying to get himself to believe, and the mind can always recognize when a thought doesn't belong.
---
(He can't get Arthur's screams out of his head.)
---
After Mal dies (jumps), Eames finds himself looking for Arthur. He does a few jobs with Cobb, and he's almost shocked to see how ruined the man has become. His grief is pulling him under, and he's adopted Mal's totem like it isn't a horrendously bad idea to depend on something that isn't you.
He asks Dom where Arthur is, only to get a confused stare in response. Arthur hasn't been seen in months, not since right before Mal and Dom went too deep and pushed themselves right off the edge of sanity.
Eames gets a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. It's not like Arthur to simply disappear, especially when it's obvious that Dom needs something to hold him together. It's not like Arthur to completely vanish. (Leave, yes. Run away, yes. But he always turns back up again, usually sooner rather than later.)
Eames starts looking because he's not sure if Dom realizes that he should.
---
He finds him again three weeks later. Eames has never killed anyone while he's awake (only in dreams) but he doesn't hesitate to pull the trigger against everyone who's standing over Arthur's mangled body. Again and again, until the room is filled only with echoes, his own breathing, and Arthur's choked whimpers of pain.
“Oh, love,” Eames says as he picks the locks on the handcuffs. “What have they done to you?”
(I'm sorry.)
---
They never do figure out who it was that took Arthur, though Eames has his suspicions. He doesn't say anything, and Arthur doesn't either, and they pretend that it doesn't have anything to do with Eames shooting Arthur in a dream so that he won't have to listen to him being tortured.
---
After the rescue, they stick together for a while. They share jobs and hotel rooms and, eventually, beds.
---
Eames calls Arthur pet names (in the beginning) for the dichotomy. It is both intimate and distant, a backhanded form of control. He continues to do it for the slightly raised eyebrow and the upward tick of the left corner of Arthur's mouth.
(That part is his favorite.)
---
Eventually, Arthur gets a call from Dom. Eames had known that the day was coming, but it still stabs him in the heart to know that he's about to lose his partner.
“He wants to team up,” Arthur says, as they drift off to a dreamless sleep together. “He has a job for us.”
When Arthur wakes up the next morning, Eames is gone. There's no note.
(Eames can't imagine that that us involved him.)
(I'm sorry.)
---
He keeps tabs on Arthur, and Arthur keeps tabs on Eames, and they don't meet again until Dom drags them together for one. Last. Job.
---
Just be back before the kick.
Go to sleep, Mr. Eames.
---
Arthur likes his coffee with two sugars, as exact and precise with that as he is with everything else. Eames buys it when he has the chance, be it on the job or off. (They always find each other.) If left to his own devises, Arthur would exist off of protein bars and meal-replacement shakes. Eames considers it his personal and professional duty to expand Arthur's entrenched horizons. (Eames loves a challenge; so does Arthur.)
As for himself, he prefers tea, brewed strong and with enough honey to make a bee jealous. (Arthur makes it best.)
---
“You are a stupid moron,” Arthur tells him later. “A simplistic, oblivious, stupid moron.”
“I know, love,” Eames says, “I know.”
(I'm sorry.)
(Me too.)
---
END. Or something. Gah, I don't even know. *headdesk*
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Date: 2010-08-09 04:16 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2010-08-10 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-09 06:56 pm (UTC)Love it. So pretty.
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Date: 2010-08-10 11:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-09 11:15 pm (UTC)in less words: very beautiful and engaging. Loved it.
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Date: 2010-08-10 11:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-10 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2010-08-11 10:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-15 11:06 pm (UTC)LOVED this. i would love to see this expanded and filled in, too. if you're thinking about the inception big bang at all (only 15k!), this would be a great, great idea to use.
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Date: 2010-08-16 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-30 07:18 am (UTC)Awesome! In character, sweet, tense and lovely!!
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Date: 2010-08-30 11:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-16 11:13 am (UTC)Strong, though. God yes. I hate when people dunk the tweabag in for like, a second. It's just hot water with milk, then!
Picky tea-drinking aside, I love this to pieces. The short little sentence paragraphs. And the screaming, always. You've mastered the shortness. Well doneski, old chum :D
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Date: 2011-05-05 11:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-07 07:09 pm (UTC)Lovely story and beautifuly written!
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Date: 2011-08-17 07:16 am (UTC)