Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at
http://archiveofourown.org/works/135516.
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning: o
Choose Not T Use Archive Warnings
Category: Gen, M/M
Fandom: Inception (2010), Mysterious Skin (2005)
Relationship: Arthur/Eames (Inception), Eames (Inception)/Original Male
Character
Character: Eames (Inception), Miles (Inception), Mal (Inception), Dom
Cobb, Arthur (Inception), Neil McCormick
Additional Tags: Backstory, Friendship, School, Quest, Pre-Relationship,
Crossover
Stats: Published: 2010-11-25 Words: 3009
Shall be mine
by mayachain
Summary
"I shall call him Arthur, and he shall be mine, and he shall be my
Arthur."
Or: Young Mr Eames embarks on a quest that will take eleven
years.
Notes
Warnings for implied past abuse, implied consensual underage
sex, and talk of addictions. The story was inspired by a prompt left
by zeto.
About the fifth time Mother starts in on her lecture about how people will
always leave you, thirteen-year-old Eames decides that he is going to prove
her wrong.
“They will always let you down, no matter what you do,” she says with her
hand hovering over the drink she prepares for herself each night but never
actually touches. “You might think you're the best of friends, but in the end,
they aaaalll just want something from you. All of them, darling. Maybe it will
be your money, or some connection through your family, or even a skill – you
do have many skills, darling...”
This is two months after his father has gone to jail for some political scandal
that Eames is too young to understand, and he is two days away from
starting at a new, exclusive school. I still have money, Mother had said when
he had asked her about it, And I believe the best for you is to just get away
from it all.
Eames doesn't want to go, doesn't want to leave his mates at his old school.
Okay, so maybe they're not really talking to him now. Maybe they are all
looking at him like he did something wrong, and no, that's not fair, but really,
surely it'll blow over, since it has to be all their parent's fault?
“You'll see,” he tells her, half to soothe her, half a challenge. “You'll see. I'll
make the greatest friends the world has ever seen.”
Mother just smiles sadly at him and pours his father's thirty-year-old Scotch
down the sink.
***
During his first year at his new school, Eames is happy. A few of the older
students and some of the teachers raise their eyebrows when they learn his
name, but Eames thinks they all must have parents or spouses with
scandalous secrets as well, because whatever it was that got his father
convicted doesn't seem to matter, here. Here, his year-mates invite him to
join in on all sorts of games, like his old mates have stopped to, and it's both
a relief and great fun. His room-mate doesn't even take the piss when he has
a nightmare one night and calls for Mother.
By the time the third year rolls around, however, he has discovered that all
is not gold in this shiny new world after all. The blokes he hangs out with
don't want his money – Mother is not the richest parent by far – and they do
not want his connections (“Yet,” Mother warns him during their vacation it
Italy). They all do crave the protection of his easy-going nature, though.
Eames has a gift to sweet-talk their teachers, can bail just about anyone out
of trouble. Will, who can't wrap his head around foreign languages but
trades essays for maths homework, and Stephen from the year above them
even want his body. Eames doesn't mind giving it to them for a short while
because it feels bloody brilliant, but...
He must admit to Mother that he has not yet found the kind of friendship he
envisioned.
He tells himself it doesn't matter, really. His classmates and he get on well
enough, and if none of them are real special friends, then fine. Eames'll just
have to wait a bit longer before that friend – after four years, he is ready to
settle with just one – comes along.
Eames discovers that he may be good at lying, but he is not good at lying to
himself.
One night, when his and Marcus' room is packed with people and all of them
are spectacularly illicitly drunk, he decides to give a name to this impudent
person that flat-out refuses to show up in his life.
“And he shall return in times of great need,” he recites to the great hilarity
of the others. Sadly, they have no idea what he's on about.
***
A few weeks before Eames graduates, his father is released from prison.
Mother is overjoyed, judging by the animation in her voice whenever she
calls her son. She's taking Father back, speaks of little but her preparations
for and the eventual arrival of her husband. Apparently, when preaching
about the universal constant of people leaving, she left a tiny room for
spouses being an exception.
By then, Eames does understand what his father went to prison for. The fond
memories he has of the man are not enough to turn it into something he can
condone.
As expected, he aces most of his exams, surpasses everyone's expectations
regarding maths thanks to Will. He speaks to Mother on the phone every
evening and exchanges the odd word with Eames senior. Then he leaves
takes the only path he can think of to make her proud (leaves) while staying
well away from home: He (leaves) joins the military.
***
During basic training and beyond, Eames discovers that he is quite skilled
with a gun. He is faster than many (but not most) of his mates, and the quick
mind that ran rings around the faculty always seems to find the quickest (if
not most efficient) way through whatever scenario their superiors throw
them into. There are a few tensions whenever instructors like Bottony have
difficulties with what they tend to call Eames' “bloody cheek,” but his salutes
are perfect and so is his marksmanship. He comes up with better strategies
than even Brigadier Warton could have originally thought of, and he charms
them, and he charms them, and he charms them.
At first, there's an easy camaraderie between Cadet Eames and the men and
women training beside him, with him, but as Mother points out more than
once, “That's a thin line you are walking, darling”: If he's too competent, all
they're going to see are his skills; if he pretends he's less competent than he
wants to show the higher-ups he can be, they have no chance of seeing the
real Eames. For all that Ian Horowitz slurs, “You're the bestest, bestest,
bestest ever, Eton” - the nickname the price Eames had to pay for admitting
where he got his education – the bestest Eames is thoroughly buggered, the
damage is done.
By the time he tells Mother the news of his umpteenth promotion, his peers
like him, speak highly of him. The orders he gives make his unit look good,
he pulls one or two arses through training, and he makes them laugh. Most
days end with Eames walking toward his bed, high on competent, funny
people's jokes, one or two arms slung over his shoulders.
It does not compare to the notion he still has, can't seem to give up, of
someone who can see inside of him and know him, someone whose gaze
negates the need to pretend. Neither casual touches nor intimate
exploration of Jon Mills (nearly a doctor, mind full of medical knowledge) or
Miranda Bernstein (the lady to call when diffusing bombs) are enough to
stop the dreams. It's no longer about the challenge a naïve thirteen-year-old
issued to his mother. Eames wants, needs someone he can hug without
reservation whenever he feels like it. He dreams of hugs that go on for
hours and are never taken for anything more or less than Eames has to give.
His superiors keep noticing him, keep moving him up the ranks and
commenting on his imagination. Part of Eames is wary (suspicious) of all the
attention he garners. Another part, a perhaps (“Definitely,” Mother's voice
says) foolish but, if Eames is honest, bigger part is continuously excited
about it. Before he knows it, he has four years of experience behind him and
Brigadier Warton himself is talking to Eames in person and he is on his way
to Paris.
***
Professor Miles is a man Eames comes to like and respect a lot, even if he is
far too close to his own parents' age to become someone Eames could call a
friend. If Eames is a little reluctant to let the Professor's assistant slide the
needle into his arm the first time, he soon discovers a whole new world. The
rules of physics don't apply any more, not to the buildings around him, to
the people he meets, not to Eames himself.
Miles' teaching assistant is also his son-in-law. His architect's eyes see
through most of Eames' acts easily enough, but he is too focused on his
research, his lovely wife and his newborn child to be what Eames has not
stopped craving. Dominic Cobb wants Eames for skills Eames didn't know he
had, and he is upfront about it.
Eames likes that about him.
The lovely wife, Miles' daughter whom Eames only meets a few times, comes
closest. Her eyes seem to see right into Eames' soul, to draw him out of
himself until there is no more hiding. At the same time, she is dangerously
intent on studying the world of dreams beyond its property as a tool.
Mallorie Cobb never quite heeds the Professor's warnings to “Take a step
back, my dear,” which, for Eames, turns out to be the most important advice
he was ever given.
On a professional level, the assignment to the PASIV project is the greatest
thing that has ever happened to Eames in all of time. There are no limits for
his imagination, for his creativity here.
On a more personal level, it's the most brilliant discovery since Stephen
kissed him and pushed him down onto Marcus' bed. Sometimes, though,
Eames looks at his own projections and wonders what it would take, how
much life, how much affection he could will into them. That's when he
remembers Mother pouring Scotch down the sink evening after evening and
deliberately steps off a window ledge. He thanks the heavens that the
Professor ranks above Eames' own superiors in the chain of command, and
lets himself be warmed by Miles' kind, understanding smile when he tells
him, “I need a little time.”
***
The man's name is Neil McCormick. He wears his uniform as if it were a suit,
and whenever the dream allows it, he wears his suits like armour. He knows
his way around damn near every weapon there is. Granted, almost every
soldier Eames knows has learned how to (poor Collins, luckily he'd had
Eames to charm him into a place in administration), and Eames is entitled to
pride in that department himself, but no-one he has met can fire a gun quite
like Neil.
He knows how to build near undetectable boundaries into a dream. Cobb
and Miles had shown Eames how it was done. Though he'd never developed
a knack for architecture, Eames can manage it, if crudely. McCormick rarely
builds, their superiors (and, apparently, Professor Miles) think he's better
suited to both be the dreamer and run point. When he does build, though,
even if Eames knows he is looking for boundaries, he (and the five others
now training with him) almost never find them.
The only way to collapse a dream for which McCormick provides the
groundwork is to kill him. The other option Eames reluctantly learns to use
against Segers and Nash is to convince them to kill themselves. This works
easily enough on McCormick when the projections have turned against them
(“C'mon, then, darling, let's jump!”). In any other situation, McCormick is too
in control to be manipulated.
(If Eames wants to cheat, he can off himself and tip over the man's chair, but,
well... The look on Neil's face never stops being funny, but they both know it
doesn't count, it's cheating.)
Out of all the soldiers that initially trained with Professor Miles and the
Cobbs, Neil and Eames are the best. As a result, they do have to spend some
of their time tutoring Nash, Segers and the rest of them. It makes Eames
think fondly of Will, and of Sgt. Bottony, for some reason. Most of the time,
though, their international triad of superiors team them up. Suddenly,
Eames has something besides casual friends, superior officers, or baby
soldiers: He has a partner.
A partner who never seems to look at Eames much, but always gives this
tiny snort whenever Eames finds himself defaulting to joviality. A partner
who never lets himself be fooled by any of Eames' forgeries.
(The one time Eames had been convinced he'd made McCormick believe his
impersonation of Col. Meyers, it had slipped his mind that the Cobbs would
be coming in. He'd waited for the session to end, inexplicably feeling worse
than he'd ever felt in his life.
“Oh, chéri, I'm so sorry,” Mal had said when she'd seen the look on his face,
after. She had never forged without explicitly telling him who she would be
again.)
Once they're put to work for real and each has to pay even more attention to
the other, one of the first things Eames learns is that Neil hates to be out of
control over when people touch him. There are training missions and, God,
real missions so full of blood that Eames wants nothing more than to hug
the nearest body in the aftermath (and one specific body, there's no use
denying it). He never does, because he has little doubt that Neil would break
his fingers, cut off his arms, ruin his knee.
He makes do. Segers and Nash are convinced they secretly hate one
another, but those two are adequate at making plans and drawing buildings,
not psychology. More often than not, they believe what they see:
Neil and Eames never pass up an opportunity to belittle the other's skills.
Eames calls McCormick's perfect marksmanship scores “A sad sight to
behold, darling,” earns a Beretta filled with blanks for his trouble. During
the week they spend on a base in Germany, everything Eames does “lässt
etwas zu wünschen übrig”. Miraculously, the beer Neil had gushed about for
days beforehand gets spiked with orange juice. They constantly argue about
architecture and strategy, the size of weapons Neil should employ and which
people Eames should forge, the clothes he should have them wear. About
the only thing they agree on is that McCormick is absolute shite at thinking
up fake names.
It's nothing like Eames would have thought a friendship could be like at all,
but it's real, it's real, it's real.
***
Later, Eames can never quite decide whether it's an upside or a downside
that no-one else – except maybe Mal, Dom and Miles – ever really knew his
mind. Of one thing he is certain, though: If they had, Meyers might have
thought twice about giving him and Neil the order, and if Haver had made
him, what happened next would not have come as a surprise.
***
Professor Miles is the first to go. He is the pioneer, the head researcher, the
man who probably has more knowledge about the PASIV device and its
capabilities than all the members of the military division devoted to it
combined. (“An invaluable asset,” Neil observes in hindsight, “but ultimately,
with regard to General Haver's long term goal, a hindrance.”) When he
voices the desire to take a strictly real-world teaching position, the higher-
ups don't try very hard to change his mind.
Dom and Mal are expecting a second child. They do most of their research in
private and only come in anymore when Col. Meyers needs an urgent
consultation.
McCormick and Eames are soldiers. They go where they are told, stake out
the people they are told, invade the minds they are told. They are neither of
them naïve men. In McCormick's words, “I never expected to feel comfortable
with every mission I'd be ordered on.”
There are things, however, that Eames' father never dirtied his hands with
himself, things that Eames refuses to do. He counts himself very, very lucky
indeed that it turns out there are limits for what Neil is prepared to do, as
well.
Their superiors shaped them into the best. Losing them is entirely their own
fault.
***
There is little time to make a plan, to decide where to go, to make even a
tacit agreement beyond getting out to meet up again. The tactical drawbacks
and advantages of making it together, of making it apart, pretty much cancel
each other out.
When Eames holes up in London, it's been 52 hours since they were
separated, and he has no way of knowing if McCormick made it out alive.
Neil, like Eames, will have grabbed what he could get. Like Eames, he is
good, the best, better even, perhaps, but –
None of these things mean that Eames is able to sleep. The knowledge of
just how well McCormick can hold his own doesn't mean he's not pacing his
hotel room, reliving all the times he has seen Neil killed in a dream.
Neil, who likely will never get to meet Eames' mother now, will never make a
face when Eames says “Mother, brace yourself, this is my friend.” Neil, who
once told Eames he'd reinvented his whole life at the age of nineteen, who is
not fond of his own name and who never protested Eames' calling him
“darling”. Neil, who unlike Meyers would not be fooled into the assumption
that Eames is too smart to hide out anywhere near his mother's home, yet
who is most likely across the globe by now and who –
Who has just calmly let himself into Eames' room.
“I'm impressed,” he informs Eames, “by your invisibility when crossing
borders.” He sets down a suitcase with a care that can only be meant for a
PASIV device. He shrugs off the jacket of a suit Eames didn't think existed in
reality, all the while completely unconcerned about the gun levelled at him.
This is it, this is Eames' breaking point. It's too much, the lack of sleep, the
sudden slide into a life of crime and eleven years. He barely remembers to
put down his gun before he throws his arms around Neil, aware that he is
risking everything, and holds on the way he has wanted to forever.
“Arthur,” he breathes.
Arthur lets him.
***
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