Work Text:
2010
His chair tips back-
*
2003
Arthur is nineteen. Nineteen, two years in the military, dropped out of high school because who cares it was too easy, burning through his chest with a rage that he can't control, the type of emotion that makes him clench his fingers white-hard around his shotgun, that made him drive a hole in the granite when he finally saw his mom's grave.
At the time he's angry enough to counteract his caution, the careful strategizing that's stuck to him like glue ever since he was fifteen.
Angry enough to throw caution to the fucking wind.
He walks like he talks, like he fights; clipped, efficient movements, chin up, never breaking eye contact, never slowing down. He can't, he fucking can't, every time he pauses, every time he glances at his thoughts all he sees is that motherfucker-
Those same damned voices, the same three people he's been hearing for weeks, using terms he doesn't know, terms like somnacin and PASIV and projections and shared dreaming . They're always running over the same problems, the ones they can't quite seem to figure out.
"But every time we try to change something, their subconscious just attacks us!" He hears one of the men say, the one without the British accent.
Arthur's not a genius. The only thing he's naturally good with is a longshot gun. But this shit is one frustration too many and fuck it, what are they going to do, throw him out? He'll be happy. Nothing wrong with another bridge burned.
He jams open the standard-issue Army doors that he's long since figured out how to pick. Kicking it to the side, he steps in the room and politely informs the people in it; "You idiots, of course their subconscious is trying to attack you, you can't let them know you're there. First rule of combat; use surprise to your advantage."
Everyone stares. The Sergeant - three stripes, white hair- looks at him sharply. "What are you-"
But a dark-haired woman in civilian clothes interrupts him. "No, he's right."
The third guy is giving Arthur an appraising look. "Not bad." He says, "Say, how'd you know what we were doing?" He sounds friendly enough, but Arthur narrows his eyes. The man's a foreigner; British. Lieutenant, or a Captain, maybe.
He's too bloody familiar.
"You talk loudly, for an ultra-secret project."
He looks around. There's four beds that look like lawn chairs, stationed around a machine that has medical tubes attached. Nearby, a coffee table is covered in blueprints.
Arthur pauses. He walks towards the machine and plucks out a cannula.
"So," he says, keeping his expression blank. "How does this work?"
They stare. The Commander looks furious, the woman, intrigued.
The Brit though, he's smiling, wide enough that Arthur can see the edges of his teeth.
"Give us a few hours and we'll explain it all," he says, and holds out his hand. "You can call me Eames."
Arthur shakes his hand. Firm grip, no hesitation. The man’s eyes - Eames’s eyes - twinkle.
"What happened to your first name," Arthur hears himself say.
"You'll have to find out," Eames says, and they must not have Don't Ask Don't Tell in England, because he winks.
Arthur realizes that he's close to smiling, in a way he hasn't in years. He tamps it down ruthlessly. This man's either a genius or insane or both, and either way Arthur shouldn’t get close.
*
After staring at Eames and him with their jaws dropped, the commander and the woman tell him to meet at that same room next week. Arthur already knows and dislikes Sergeant Jones. The woman introduces herself as Mal, which makes Arthur wince on the inside. That name is begging for bad luck.
For the next week Arthur goes through his tasks the same way he always does; with efficiency, but there's an edge to it this time, more punch than there should be. He nearly knocks out a guy in training; they tell him it's lucky no one got put in a coma. Arthur scoffs. "No one? You mean him. "
He shows up next week with three guns hitched to his belt and a neutral expression.
They flip on the PASIV, and he listens carefully as they unravel the newfound science of dreams. He watches Jones explain how it's for drills, drills and torture. That right there is the first thing he learns about dreaming; nothing's real except the pain.
He goes under without hesitation.
*
2004
He meets Dom a year later. An American studying architecture in France, and the love of Mal's life, he appears almost out of thin air in Buffalo one day, when Arthur's on leave and Mal has abruptly decided that he needs to be introduced to high culture.
"Your suits are too good for this city, mon cher Arthur," she says, and Arthur steadfastly refuses to bristle. She's probably right, but Arthur can't help it; Buffalo was the closest thing he ever had to home, for better or for worse.
A shadow falls over the alley as they walk by, and he thinks, maybe for worse.
But this time Mal is there, dragging him toward the light, fingertips over his cufflinks, smiling that subtle way she always does. She takes him to a restaurant so fancy he feels like he’s stepped onto another planet. The Curtiss Hotel is glitz and glamour and all the other things he’s never had, a lightbulb chandelier and pure white walls and a golden ceiling.
Arthur swallows. He started dressing nicely to give off an impression, and for the most part it works, but he knows there are certain gaps he can't fill. For fifteen years, home was a beat-up apartment with peeling wallpaper and stains on the curtains. He hunches his shoulders in, wishing he knew how to belong.
Dom is sitting at a table near the center, shifting constantly and looking out the window. Arthur likes him immediately.
He sits down and watches Mal's eyes light up as the two of them talk over the theoretical possibilities of dreaming. He sees the brilliant way Dom maps it all out, and he thinks that he likes Dom even more.
*
2003
Dreaming is like nothing he's ever experienced before.
He steps into Mal's subconscious seamlessly. A glittering blue butterfly flies off into Paris's sparkling skyline.
He walks on the streets, following an unmarked path. He thinks of having a red string tied around his finger, and wants to smile. He can't help it; it's the first time it was about something other than guns and blood, the first time he's really dreamed.
*
2009
Dreaming, he’s learned, is like a drug. He thinks back to that first time, and figures that he should've ran while he still could.
*
2003
He's supposed to meet up with Mal, but time is difficult to keep track of down here.
His fingers fall to his wrist. When he looks down he sees a red string.
That's...not supposed to be there. He raises a hand, and before he can draw any conclusions, the string shimmers and disappears.
A projection bangs his shoulder. A few of Mal's well-tailored creations are looking at him, suspicious but not yet hostile. He remembers the first words he said to her, don't let them know you're there.
But he hadn't done anything. He'd just...thought.
He sees Mal, and he doesn't tell her. He doesn't tell anyone, for the longest while.
There's a lot of things he doesn't tell.
*
2006
He stares at the knife. Looks out the window. It's raining; the electricity cut out two hours ago. But it's a full moon and Arthur refuses to be scared of the dark.
Not anymore.
He looks at the knife. He looks at the picture.
He waits.
*
2004
Eames is either fucking with him, or trying to fuck him and either way Arthur is at the end of his rope.
He calls Arthur darling . He smiles like it actually means something. He's a bloody genius, and he doesn't look half bad in a uniform and his smiles are just a bit crooked and sometimes when they're in dreams Arthur will see him - change - just for the slightest second. It makes him narrow his eyes.
Because there has to be something beyond that beautiful smile and appeasing tone of voice, and the part of Arthur that remembers how bloodstains feel wants to keep digging until he finds it.
Arthur wants to pick through Eames's mind the same way he picked through Spanish and German and French when he was a kid, the way he barreled over military drills for the last two years.
"Alright, so Mal figured out that you can modify dreams by implanting small things of your own mind. However, that still doesn't explain how we, as foreign elements, might be able to genuinely shape the dreamer's world."
"And why would we want to do that?" Jones says, looking up from his notebook. Arthur doesn't fool himself into thinking it's for anything other than a list of his suspicions about them, about Arthur- anything he could do to get him kicked off. He's been watching Arthur like a hawk, and if it weren't for Eames's initial good impression and the fact that Mal's taken a liking to him, he knows he'd be out not only of the project, but of the military entirely.
He keeps his chin up. Keep it together. Calm. Cold. Professional. Same as always, ever since he was fifteen.
"Corporal?”
Arthur's gaze snaps up. He keeps wandering off. It's unlike him. He blames it on all the artificial dreaming.
"Sir?"
"I repeat; what relevance does your little tirade have to the actual job ?"
Eames tilts his head, and flips one of those poker chips he always seems to have in abundance.
"Arthur here means that if we can shape the dreamer's world, then we might be able to coerce their subconscious into giving up secrets inadvertently. The problem is; how do you shape someone else's dream, without making them aware of your presence?" Eames talks before him and Arthur would be annoyed if he wasn't impressed.
Jones is nonplussed. "We can already do that."
Arthur knows what uses the military sees for dreaming: torture. Endless, constant torture, where there's no escape and no relief and no death, just blood and thirst and spit on the floor.
Eames sighs. "Does being in the military really mean you must possess a complete dearth of imagination, Jones?" He says, in a way that leaves Arthur partially in awe, but mostly with a desire to knock his teeth out.
Jones looks annoyed. "I'll remind you, Eames, that participation in the project is a privilege, not a right-"
The corner of Eames' mouth quirks into a smile. "And I'll remind you, Sergeant, that the British have a third share in this project-"
Mal shakes her head. She's sighing to herself, muttering ces putains d'hommes under her breath in a way that makes Arthur want to smile.
"Arthur's right," she says, and Arthur very much likes how she neglects to mention Eames. "If we can do this - artfully, then we minimize the chances of the mark remembering the dream, giving us fewer enemies. Torture doesn't work half the time in real life anyway; why would it work in dreams?"
Sometimes Arthur feels out of place, with Mal and Eames. The two of them turn words into weapons like it's a business. Mal phrases things so that disagreeing with her is like being on the wrong side of a knife, and as much as Arthur hates to admit it, Eames could probably charm a potted plant.
Arthur's never been particularly charming, nor convincing. People who manipulate like they breath are unreachable to him; words have never been his strength. He's always preferred action.
But it's because of them and their pretty words that Jones acquiesces to Arthur's theories, so Arthur keeps his mouth shut.
On his way out, Mal catches him by the wrist. "Are you always in the business of being so stubborn?" She says, smiling just a bit.
"Only when I have a stubborn woman to back me up," he says, and it's not true but it makes her laugh, so that's alright.
"Ah, so therefore you would not refuse a promenade?" She says, and Arthur adores her, just a little bit, for using the type of words that no one who spoke English as a first language would even think of, even though it's what gives her away, because her accent's impeccable. Some part of him just can't resist people who choose to have flaws.
He leans a tad closer, and whispers, conspiratorial, "I couldn't resist."
They walk out of the base together. Eames's gaze is still on him as they leave, curious. Arthur tries not to notice.
*
2009
In spite of what the majority of the dreamshare community might believe, Arthur is not in love with Cobb. Arthur was not in love with Mal. He'd set the record straight, if he thought anyone would believe him.
Because even he'll admit they have reason to doubt. Arthur wasn't in love with either of the Cobbs, but it must have been something beyond friendship. Normal friends don't drop their lives to become a fugitive with a man accused of killing his wife.
He thinks of Mal, how she lit up a room simply by being in it, and he thinks of Dom, brilliant in every sense of the word. They shone, there was no other word for it, and Arthur couldn't help himself from wanting to be near them. How could he? He'd spent his whole life in the darkness.
Maybe it was because they'd been his first friends. The first ones to find him after… The first ones to stick around, at least.
He thinks that maybe he overcommits to relationships like he overcommits to work.
There's plenty of time to contemplate it, lying breathless on a crappy bed in Russia, cannula unhooked, grasping at the nonexistent wound in his chest. He's gotten used to dream violence, hell, he's gotten used to real life violence, but…
Mal killed him. Mal killed him.
Snowflakes flutter in through the window and land on his lashes. The ceiling is cracked. He wonders why it's so fucking cold all the time, in this country. In his life. He looks at the cracks in the ceiling, and feels as though they're slowly seeping into his bones. The Russian mob takes no prisoners, and Arthur had flunked his research. And Cobb…
Cobb would get better. He had to.
*
2004
Mal comes back from a dream restless, tossing a top from hand to hand.
"We need something to tell reality from dreams," she says. "It's too easy to get lost."
Arthur wonders what she saw that made her think that. Then he thinks of his dreams, the old ones before the PASIV, the ones painted in black white and red, and he thinks maybe she's right.
He picks a die, a rigged dice that's bright red, because that's life for you, but some part of him thinks he should've chosen a wind-up toy.
*
2005
They're running the same experiment again, the drill that Mal and Dom have dubbed extraction. By now they know what they're good at; Mal designs the dreams, Dom infiltrates, and Arthur does the rest. Jones is still supervising, a fact that Arthur tries not to be bitter about. No one is quite sure what Eames does, although Arthur has his suspicions. He catches flashes of people in his dreams- people he doesn't know, people who don't act like projections. It makes him weary, but... curious. Eames has always made him curious, in a way that grabs him by the collar and refuses to let go, and Arthur would never admit it but it frightens him.
"Going down?"
"Overdo the somnacin and I will eviscerate you."
"Dear God, Arthur, it was one time, let sleeping dogs lie."
"Not if the dog could put me in a coma."
Eames rolls his eyes. "Don't worry, you haven't got much of a brain to damage anyway." He says, sitting down on one of the beds and checking the PASIV for dosage levels. "See, an overdose of somnacin might actually improve your disposition-"
The door clicks open.
Jones marches in begrudgingly as always, but this time there's a second pair of footsteps that follows. Arthur glances at Mal; she shakes her head. Not Dom, then. Probably a higher up, supervisor of some sort, but Arthur has always been paranoid, two fingers on his gun.
He sees the man behind Jones, and his blood goes cold.
*
1999
It's dark and it's cold and it's fucking raining, but Arthur's mom has an umbrella so it's alright. He's tempted just to walk in the downpour, but his mom just looks him dead in the eye and says, "Arthur, if you're going to be ridiculous about your independence at least do it when there's someone around to see, " and that's the end of it.
The rain falls in rivets on the edges of the umbrella, leaving damp spots on Arthur's button-up. It almost makes him miss their annual guaranteed three feet of snow.
"How long 'til we get home?" He says, aware that he sounds whiny but not really caring. He'd been sitting in the office of the military base for almost four hours waiting, and he hadn't even brought a book.
"Thirty minutes, assuming you don't drag your heels." That was one thing Arthur always liked about his mom. No nonsense. He thinks it's because of the military, but years later he'll look back and realize he was the exact same way, even before he got the uniform.
He's turning around to respond, and the wind whips her purple scarf up to catch on the umbrella.
Bang.
First thing he registers is pain. He hears screaming and doesn't realize it's him. The hand he raises to his shoulder comes away coated in blood.
Thud.
His mother's body hits the floor. Arthur drops the umbrella, falls to his knees. He presses two fingers to her neck, feeling like he's watching himself in the third person.
No pulse. No pulse.
There's blood and water slick on the concrete and it's fucking dark and he can't make out anything and his mom is dead, how is she dead, she can't be dead, this can't be happening-
A branch crunches. Footsteps.
He looks up, and he hates that his first instinct is to hide, but he has no gun no weapons no money nothing-
He sees the man's face. He sees his gun. He sees the blood.
Arthur runs, turns corners and ducks through alleyways and hides behind trash cans. He makes it back to their apartment in record time, and it's only when he's there that he realizes that if they can get his mom, they can get him.
He gives himself ten minutes. Ransacking their cash and pocketing overdue credit cards, he throws all the food and clothes he can carry into a duffel bag, making an allowance for three books before he can be tempted to grab any more.
His mom's room is exactly as he left it, bare walls with a single mirror. He ransacks the drawers, finding a battered Beretta in her moth-ridden wardrobe.
The scarf is still clutched in his hands. He folds it carefully in spite of the lack of time, kneeling down to wrap it around his books. He leaves the key on the doorstep, and for a second he just balances on the threshold.
Rain slams down on the concrete. He thinks about taking an umbrella.
He doesn't.
*
2005
That scarf is still somewhere at the bottom of his duffel bag, Arthur thinks dully.
He can't talk. There are a million things he wants to do, ranging from a cold confrontation to straight-up shooting the man, consequences be damned, but he can't make himself do any of them. His fingers are still over his gun. He could do it. But-
His mother's corpse on the concrete, blood on the garbage cans.
They'd never had a funeral. Arthur had been on the run by then, hadn't settled down until he'd gotten halfway across the country, forged his papers and credit cards, gotten an illicit license and registered at a different high school. He didn't see his family for years. His grandma died and he didn't know until ten years later.
"Arthur? Arthur?" Eames snaps his fingers in front of Arthur's eyes. Arthur doesn't blink.
He can see slow realization dawning across the man's face. It's not quick; Arthur's mother must have been one of a series of targets, then. He could be a serial killer. Could have been hired. Could have been someone they owed money to. Arthur doesn't know.
"Corporal Ethan Chernivitz here has been running exemplary experiments…" The words fall past him like snowflakes in a sauna.
"Arthur!" This time it's Mal, who touches his shoulders softly. It doesn't register.
"I'm sorry," he says, shaking his head. "I have to use the bathroom."
No point in waiting for permission.
He throws up in the sink. The mirror is grimy. His reflection looks like a corpse, and the thought almost makes him laugh; between the sunken eyes and sickly pale complexion, he could be dead.
He crossed the base to his room, feeling like he’s stuck in a trance. He grabs a toothbrush. He brushes his teeth. He washes his face. He spits in the sink. He cracks a fist against the wall so hard it leaves fissures. He's pretty sure he breaks a finger or two.
Arthur has crossed a lot of lines for the military. Arthur has tortured men until they begged for mercy, for their mother, for death. Arthur has killed people. Arthur has gotten shot, knifed, poisoned, set on fire, dumped into acid, drowned, hung, and choked more times then he can count.
And amazingly, there are some things he can't do.
He steadies himself on the sink, gripping the porcelain until his fingers go deathly white.
He stares in the mirror until he doesn't look shell-shocked. He tries a grimace. He tries a scowl. He tries his usual impassiveness but it comes out all wrong. There's too much pain in his eyes.
He goes back with his chin up. His mind is ringing with military slogans, but none of them override the code that’s been embedded in his mind since that dark November night; if you don’t know what to do, run.
Walking calmly, he heads to his room, picks out the essentials and throws them haphazardly into his bag. He leaves the base without anyone noticing, slipping in the shadows where no one bothers to look. The memories wash back over him, and for a second he’s fifteen again, heading out into a freezing déluge, no idea what comes next.
But this time when he runs, it’s sunny.
He books a flight to Italy and walls himself up in a villa by the sea for three months with nothing but his laptop and a sparse plate of spaghetti arrabbiata, or, more often, shots of limoncello. He runs a VPN over his TOR searches and he forges a new passport, burns his old identities and tosses the ashes in the sea.
They never find him.
For a few years, he’s the US military’s most wanted man. He’d find a poster and frame it if the idea wasn’t gaudy beyond belief. And if he had a home to hang it in.
*
2007
Arthur hunches over his laptop and doesn’t stop until he finds it.
Anyone who sees former Lieutenant Eames of the SAS is to shoot on sight. Harm, do not kill.
It’s surface level. He’s been following his home country’s army with disinterest for the past few years, never bothering to dig further when it became clear that they weren’t planning on releasing the PASIV to the public.
Now, though, he’s interested.
It takes him a while, but two hours later he’s staring down the truth.
Former Lieutenant Eames is suspected of stealing a PASIV, a two million dollar piece of high-grade military tech. Anyone who comes across him is to capture him alive, and interrogate in regard to the machine’s location. Any pertinent information must be reported immediately.
What do you know, Eames actually did it. He’d heard rumors, but… Four years later and he’s still shaking his head, trying not to be impressed. He takes a drag from his cigarette and looks out over the sea.
He wonders if any of it was because of him, because of what he said, what Eames saw him do.
He reads the article again.
It probably wasn’t (can’t have been, too much blood too much pain too much ) but-
He can’t help but crack a smile.
*
2004
"So, Arthur, we're all dying to know what you do other than this project that's so important."
Arthur raises an eyebrow. "That's your business because…?"
"Because one should know if you're available afterward." Eames is smiling at him, bright as all hell, and everything in Arthur just-
Cracks.
He can't do this. It's too much. No one's ever looked at him like Eames does, like he could fix the world's problems and kill a million men and still smile more beautifully than a bright summer day.
He blinks. Straightens his spine, thinks of his bones cracked on pavement, no one will ever want you, fag, motherfucker-
It’s unprofessional, really.
"I'm afraid I'm unavailable to anyone of your disposition, Eames." His voice comes out colder than he intends, like it's being dragged out on a string.
Eames looks at him once, twice. Some of the light in his eyes dies.
"If you say so, darling," he says, but his voice sounds hollow.
He still flirts with Arthur after that, but it's not the same.
*
2005
For a murderer, Ethan Chrinivitz has done shockingly little to hide his identity. The name's real. Both his date of birth and ancestry are available online, with a minimum amount of hacking required to get to the military database.
He’s American, Nevada born. Lieutenant, been in the army for over three decades. Dropped out of high school when he was sixteen.
The family contacts are all perfectly normal, as far as he can tell. Middle-class family, no ties to organized crime. Protestant but not militantly so. Friends who either joined the army or went to college. No strong political views, other than the obvious patriotism. He fought in the Gulf war for a few years, but mostly he’s been in the Nevada base. His visit to Buffalo must have been an exception.
Arthur sighs, dropping his gaze from the computer. There’s nothing apparent for motivation. When he was in high school, back when he bothered attending classes, he remembered that in English class, they always said the most important question was why. Human nature needs resolution.
He thinks that maybe this case just doesn’t have one.
He sifts through the files some more, just to be sure. He’ll go at it again tomorrow, and keep a heads-up search for the rest of the month, but otherwise…
Madeleine Baxter
His hand freezes over the keyboard. Three seconds and he's staring at a picture of his mother, camo uniform and short hair and a stern expression.
He hesitates, and clicks. Scanning through what he already knows, he skips until he finds a paragraph near the end, and he almost, almost drops his computer.
He'd expected to see censoring, but to this extent…
Ethan Chernivitz was sent to regulate the problem.
He read that sentence, over and over again. His cigarette fell to the floor and nearly started a fire before he got the presence of mind to run to the sink and tamp it out with ice-cold water.
They ordered a hit on his mother. Because she'd known too much.
He swallows.
At her time of death, Baxter had one son, Arthur Baxter. After her death, her son fled the scene. He was not seen again.
When he'd moved, he'd changed his last name. He's forged new documents and burned his old ones. They hadn't known.
The military had killed Arthur's mom, and he hadn't known.
His knees buckles and he falls to the floor. One wrist is still fucked up from when he punched the wall all those years ago, and he has no desire to add the other one to the casualty count. He's not nineteen anymore. He's not going to hurt himself because some fucker hurt him.
Don't get angry, get even. He sits back up, straightens his spine, and forces himself to pay attention.
He plots. He plans.
He waits.
*
2008
Mal dies in a hotel room halfway across the world, and Arthur runs damage control.
Arthur gets the news, barely deciphering Dom's sobs, and his blood runs cold. Arthur gets the news, and he drops his phone in a trance, and then when he comes too picks it up and throws it across the room and out the seventeen story London window. Arthur gets the news, catches the first flight to L.A, (economy class, no drinks no meals no frills, and he gets the idea that this'll be his life from now on) drives like a maniac, and when he finds Dom he's got the barrel of a gun pointed to his temple.
Arthur drops his bags and takes a step forward. "Dom, don't."
Dom looks up at him, completely unsurprised, and smiles mirthlessly. "I wasn't going to," he says. "I just wish I could." He slams the gun on the table, looking at it mournfully.
"They think I killed her." He says, and Arthur swallows. He refuses to ask if it's true. He knows it's not.
Mal was there for him. She was the one who picked him up off the floor after Chernivitz. The one who showed him how to dream. Her and Dom had made more than a name for themselves- they'd made a name for him, too.
He picks his bags off the floor. He cards through the folder of fake passports until he finds one that looks like Dom might be able to use. He strides over to the computer, jams in the ethernet cable, and books the first flight to China.
"Get up," he says. Dom looks at him with sad eyes.
"We should run," Dom says. He sounds panicked, like he's on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall off, and Arthur thinks that in a few years they'll regret this, but right now this is what Dom needs. And right now this is what Arthur needs to do. God help him, he's always been good at running from his problems.
"What do you think we're doing?" He says, and punches in a fake credit card number, books a flight to Harbin. He thinks of ice castles endless cold.
"Pack your bags," he says.
They leave LA that night. Arthur doubts they'll ever return.
He doesn't look back.
*
2010
Saito says, Sydney to Los Angeles, and Arthur almost laughs. Almost.
*
2006
Blood doesn't clean out easily.
After running jobs on the newly formed illegal dreaming scene (some magnificent bastard had the audacity to steal a PASIV from the military, and whoever he is, he's got Arthur's respect), Arthur's seen more than enough people get tortured or killed than he would care to admit. But he's never done it in real life. In real life the violence is quick; a shot here, and run. You don't stick around for the aftermath.
But this is different. This is midnight in Mexico city, precisely four days into Chernivitz's leave.
He's looking down now, though, from the other side of a gun, and Chernivitz is drunk, trying to get his hands up the skirt of a woman twenty years his junior.
"Chernivitz!" He shouts, a good few meters away, and Chernivitz snaps to attention. It's a good trick. No wonder they train you like that in the military. Arthur spent years tricking himself out of it.
"We've got orders that need you back early from leave." He says, running a hand through his dyed hair and over the pleated fabric of his suit. Blue this time, nothing he'd usually wear.
Chernivitz side-eyes him, before standing up and nodding at the woman. He walks across the room. Arthur sees him sliding a hand up behind his back, probably to grab his gun. Oh well. Arthur makes inventory of the knife in his shoe, the gun in his holster. It would've been too much to hope that this would be easy.
"Urgent matters back on the home front. We need you now." He said, thanking god for the military's insistence on keeping everyone on a need-to-know basis.
Chernivitz looks confused, but authority gradually settles into his features, in spite of the three shots of tequila that Arthur saw him drink. Say what you want about the man, and Arthur definitely will, but it's no wonder the military put him to the job.
"Who sent you? Where are y-"
"No time." He shoves a paper at him, a fake badge enfolded between the papers. Chernivitz holds it like it's soaked in gasoline.
"Ah. Alright." Chernivitz says, hand still on his gun, but that's alright, he may be fast but Arthur's faster.
He has to be.
They walk out of the bar. Arthur strides briskly into the alleyway, pretending he has somewhere to be.
"Wait, where are we-"
Arthur turns, and shoots him.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Head, chest, heart.
Thud.
The body falls.
There's no forensic evidence, so long as he keeps the gun. His flight leaves in four hours.
The man who murdered his mother is dead.
He doesn’t feel better. It doesn’t fix the three years he spent on the run. It doesn’t change the loneliness that’s chased him all these years, the fear that’s ingrained itself in his chest, the paranoia that runs through his veins as easily as blood.
“What the bloody hell-”
Arthur freezes.
He looks up, and-
It’s been two years but Arthur still knows Eames as well as he knows the back of his own hand. He’s too similar. Same profile, same way the light catches on his eyes.
Arthur freezes.
When he’d left, he hadn’t taken much with him, but regret had weighed him down even as he’d taken his first flight since they’d shipped him off to Baghdad. At the time, he’d had no clue why.
He sees Eames, and he gets it.
A light clicks on from somewhere, glaring neon red against the pitch-black night. Eames is looking at him... Eames is looking at him like he’s never seen him before, like Arthur is the worst person in the world, and like... he’s in love. All at once.
“Arthur,” He says, and it sounds a little choked.
“You should leave,” Arthur hears himself say, like someone’s cut his windpipe with glass.
“You should leave.” There’s no blood on his hands, but he feels dirty anyway.
Eames takes a step forward; Arthur takes a step back.
“I did some research, when you left.” He meets Arthur’s eyes. He’s close; close enough to touch. Almost within reach.
“I thought about killing him. But it crossed my mind that you wouldn’t be very pleased.” He looks down. “You’re very obsessive, you know.” He almost smiles, like he’s heard a particularly funny joke. “But I suppose we all feel the need to give our stories a conclusion.”
He looks down at the corpse. Arthur looks into his eyes, and reads, I forgive you. Eames’ hand is near his wrist. He’s less than a foot away. If he wanted to…
Arthur looks at the body.
He jumps back like he’s been scorched by fire, back against the wall. Eames’s shoulders drop, and Arthur thinks, three strikes you’re out, Baxter.
“I have a flight. Soon.” He says, and he runs.
He drives fast, foot on the floor, no stops no pauses no traffic lights (they flash; green yellow red red red as he drives by), and by the time he hits Benito Juárez he’s looking out the window and he’s thinking, one more shot, Eames, give me one more shot.
*
2007
*
There's a knock at his door. One, two, three.
Arthur grabs his gun, stands by the door's hinges. one hand on the wall as he peers through the peephole, fingers twitching on the gun.
There's no such thing as a friendly knock on your door at three in the morning. Not in this business.
He has no clue who it could be. His last job was two weeks back and he hasn't picked up a new one yet, and safe to say he hasn't made many friends over the last year.
His thoughts flash to Eames, and he grits his teeth.
Knock.
He looks at who's standing by the door, and his throat goes dry.
"Mal?"
The vision is blurred, obscured, but he can swear she smiles. "Arthur?"
He can't swallow. He feels like he's choking on his own voice. "How- how did you find me?" His hand goes to the latch without a thought, and he pulls the door open to find Mal putting her arms around him, smiling into his shoulders. Behind her, Dom looks relieved.
He wonders what they know. "How did you-"
"When you left, we tried to find out where you'd gone. We didn't know what they'd done, so we thought you'd just taken off, but-"
"What they'd done?"
"The torture, obviously," Mal says.
They thought he'd left because of the violence? He wouldn't have joined the military if he wasn't ready for violence. Wouldn't they-
No, they wouldn't know that. Mal and Dom are civilians. They'd never been in dreams where they'd had to simulate combat, interrogations where everything got stained and you could never quite wash the blood out.
"Oh, yeah." He said, "The torture." He ignores the part of him that's screaming liar.
"We're sorry we didn't find you earlier," Mal says, still smiling at him.
"It's alright," Arthur says. "You've got me now."
*
2010
His chair tips back, and Arthur thinks about falling.
He looks at Eames. It makes his heart stop, momentarily.
*
2007
*
Mal jabs a knife through the guy's neck. Arthur wishes it hadn't come to this.
He shoots her.
They wake up, him and Mal and Dom and José, three inches from a guy holding a gun. Arthur's got his Glock out in a second flat, but the guy beats him to it, a bullet in the shoulder. They never train the guards right.
Arthur shoots him point-blank. He doesn't think about it.
It's nothing like killing Chernivitz.
"This can't be real, this can't be real," He hears Mal saying to Dom as they walk out, stumbling where she usually strides.
That's probably when it starts to go downhill.
*
2011
They might not need the world's best forger for this job, but Arthur’s not taking any chances.
Mariana narrows her eyes at him from across the table. “You mean Eames? The Eames?”
Arthur rolls his eyes. “Don’t say that to his face. He’s got a big enough head already. But yes, if we’re going to construct a three-level structure and include the mark’s ex-wife, then we need someone who knows what they’re doing.”
It takes him a while, but he convinces her.
He dials in the number of Eames’s most recent burn phone without even realizing that he’d memorized it.
“Darling,” Eames always greets him without a question now, like he’s finally decided that Arthur’s a certainty. Arthur can’t decide whether he likes it or hates it.
“We need you for a job. Tarragona. Next week.”
“Then you have me,” Eames says, and something in Arthur aches, because he says it like he means you always have.
*
2008
Arthur checks every country with extradition treaties to the States. In his head, Arthur bids his home country good-bye, probably for the rest of his life, and tries not to get frustrated with the feeling that fills his chest, like he's a puzzle whose final piece has been removed. There are some things you can't help coming back to.
But for now, there's this; running jobs, because someone needs to keep Dom from losing his mind as well as his wife, and running jobs, because if Arthur can't work then he isn't alive, and running jobs, and sometimes looking in the mirror and wondering when his reflection got so weary.
He rolls his dice on the hardwood table. Three, four, one, two, five, one, three. He almost wishes it would land on six.
*
2007
Dom orders beer where Mal opts for the wine.
"Cheers," he says, grinning. They'd finished their first case not five hours ago, and now they're two hours away at a restaurant so clean it glitters, one none of them had known existed until now.
The case had been simple; steal a secret from a wife whose husband thought she'd been cheating. But the dream had been exhilarating, nevermind the payoff.
Dom's holding Mal's hand, Arthur's two glasses into the best wine he's ever drunk, and it shouldn't be this easy, nothing's ever been this easy, but goddamnit, for this one moment it is.
*
2009
Love, he knows, is what really drives Cobb to the edge, so that he’s standing with no railing looking down at the turbulent waters below.
Arthur hates Mal. Cobb’s projection made him hate one of his best friends, that’s how good of a dreamer Cobb is. That’s how much Cobb loved Mal.
It’s a thousand times over, double vision blurring; Mal kills Arthur, red velvet. Mal kills Arthur, dark sea. Mal kills Arthur, black, moonless night. Mal kills Arthur, Arthur wakes up, and Cobb doesn’t.
He wants to shake Cobb, sometimes. Sometimes he wants to kill him. Because Arthur’s thrown in his lot with a maniac; a brilliant maniac, sure, but the type of person who sees his best friend and his dead wife in a room and picks a fucking projection every time. Over and over and over again.
Arthur wonders, more than he probably should, what it would have been like if they didn’t love each other so much. If it hadn’t been passion compounded by shared goals by compatible personalities. He thinks maybe Dom would have gotten out sane. He thinks maybe Mal would have gotten out alive.
He doesn’t tell Dom this, because it doesn’t matter. Nothing changes what you’ve done. All you can do is look forward.
Arthur looks forward, and remembers; always control your weaknesses.
He never calls Eames.
*
2010
“We need Eames.”
“Try Mombasa.”
Cobb looks at him curiously. Arthur doesn’t care. He’s a point man; it’s his bloody job to know this shit.
A list of things that Cobb doesn’t know and doesn’t need to know about Arthur and Eames would stretch continents, but the short version goes; Arthur knows Eames’s favorite type of coffee, Eames once gave Arthur dice that was bright red, and Eames is the only person Arthur could hand a gun to and trust not to pull the trigger.
*
2010
“And I will lead them on a merry chase.”
That’s when the foundations he’d built himself fall apart. It’s not because of what he sees in Eames’s eyes. He’s always seen it; you’re a bloody stick in the mud, but you really are funnier than you should be, God save us all if you ever became a hitman, Arthur, half the planet would be dead, here, take this bloody thing it’s been bothering me all week, then you have me, we all feel the need to give our stories a conclusion.
He thinks of Eames dying, of Eames no longer existing in his world, and things just...stop. No one to pick up the phone at three AM because Eames doesn’t bother with timezones, no one who’ll smile at him that same way, no one left on the entire fucking planet who can beat him in a game of chess.
Eames goes unconscious - everyone goes unconscious, but it’s Eames that Arthur watches fall under.
Arthur thinks, what if I never see you again. What will I do then, Eames.
It hits him like a ton of bricks.
If you fall into Limbo, I'll jump after you.
He has to shove it away. He has to get the job done. He can't afford a distraction, not now, not ever.
But the thought haunts him when he wakes up and walks away.
*
2011
Arthur watches as Mariana and the rest of the team wave goodbye, leaving him with nothing but a stack of now-worthless papers and an empty room surrounded by glass.
Eames is the last one to leave.
“Fear not, I’m sure our paths will cross again,” he says with a wink, and Arthur pauses.
“Actually…” He lets the word hang on his tongue, lets himself consider.
He dives.
“There’s this coffee shop nearby. Thought maybe you’d like a drink?” His expression almost turns into a smile, but not quite.
He watches Eames’ expression light up.
“Darling, you needn’t even ask,” He breathes.
The rest is history.
*
2012
“Do you regret it?”
“Which part?”
“Any of it.”
“...Not a thing.”
“Really?”
“It got me here, didn’t it?” Arthur says, and tosses an arm over his pillow, smiling across the bed. Eames has the worst bedhead in the world and the sheets most definitely need to be washed and there’s at least seven thousand things he needs to do. But for now...for now, it’s alright.
Eames’s eyes go soft in that way that Arthur associates with lovestruck poetry. “It sure did,” he says. He closes his eyes, and Arthur smiles.
*
2003
Eames grins as he picks off another pawn. “You’re not very good at this, you know.”
He’s got; two pawns, one rook and a king to Eames’s five pawns, two knights two rooks one bishop king and a queen. Arthur looks at the board, and drops a hand to his breast pocket.
“What can I say, I’ve always preferred games with a little more chance.” He flips the pocket open and pulls out a dice, bright red. He could crack it in his fingers, if he wanted to, but for the first time, he doesn’t.
He doesn’t miss the way Eames’s eyes catch with realization; first, he’s shocked, but then his smile settles.
“Anything with a poker chip,” he says, as Arthur lines up his rook, puts his pawn at a diagonal. He smiles.
“Checkmate,” he says, and his cigarette tastes like sugar when Eames smiles with just a tad more teeth.
*
2002
The guy’s been looking at him funny. Must be a Brit. The Americans know better, and the only Iraqis Arthur’s seen so far have been in body bags.
The guy’s got brown hair and golden eyes and the type of smile that somehow makes it past regulations, and he keeps looking at Arthur in a way that reminds him too much of high school, the way he used to look at boys, the type of expression that got him called a fag.
Arthur sees him looking again, and flips him off. Most people are smart enough to leave it at that.
This asshole, though, he smiles.
*
2002
Smoke and drinks and something that might be a dart whizzing past his head, and Arthur looks up and sees that fucker, the one who’s always smiling at him like he’s property. He’s got three or four guys surrounding him, but hell if that’s ever stopped Arthur before.
He turns on a dime and walks toward the guy without hesitation.
“You-” he says, and stops.
The guy’s cheating four rough-looking types straight out of their pocket money, and no one’s even noticing. He plays like a pro, but Arthur’s spent his whole life being a liar, so it’s not hard to pick out. Quick glances across the table, a shift of the hand when he deals - he must have markers on the cards somehow, but even Arthur can't figure that out.
The guy must have heard him, though, because he turns.
For just one second, Arthur sees his hand.
“Ah,” The guys says, with an expression that says you.
“Must be nice to get pocket aces every time, huh?” He says, because he’s a liar if he says he’s not looking for a fight.
The guy looks momentarily shocked, but he comes back quickly.
“Luck always comes when you least expect it,” He says as Arthur takes the empty chair next to him, hands still curled into fists.
He looks Arthur up and down again, like he likes what he sees. Then, slowly, deliberately, he reaches to his pile of chips, and slides one over. The guys deal a new hand.
Arthur knows a challenge when he sees one.
He comes second place that round, and the guy leans over and whispers something that might’ve been flirtation but was probably a shot at cheating. Arthur’s not listening, which is probably why he wins the next round because jesus, his mouth .
He wins, leaves the guy staring at him gaped-jaw, and as he stands up, he snatches the bright red dice right off of the table. He tosses the poker chip back - still marked with that strange chipped edge - and the guy catches it.
*
2003
He tilts his ear to the wall and hears that same voice saying, luck always comes when you least expect it, and he thinks, it’s about time I knew your name.
He thinks, I know precisely when I'm getting into.
*
2013
Ten years later, and he wasn't fucking wrong.
*
2003
“Love, are you sure about this? Dreaming isn’t for the...stick in the mud type.”
“Maybe you just don’t know me well enough, Mr. Eames. I’ve got hidden depths, you know.”
Eames snatches a bright red die off the table, tosses it in the air so it lands atop the poker chip with a clink.
“I suppose I’ll just have to find out, then.”