Repercussions
25 Oct 2010 15:47![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alchemyaliceTitle: Repercussions
Fandom: Inception
Genre/Pairing: drama, hurt/comfort, Arthur/Cobb
Rating: PG-13, for violence
Word Count: ~1,400
Summary: It isn't easy to get the drop on Arthur. And anyone who does deserves everything coming to them.
A/N: This is an effort towards multitasking and also avoidance of my long WIPs, which are being...difficult. Anyway. Written in two parts for two prompts at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
inception_kink, the second of which is also going towards one of my kissbingo squares (body: wrist):
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
"Then why are we going 85 miles an hour?"
and
"You've done enough for me, more than enough. Now it's my turn."
Eames eyed him. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
"Then why are we going 85 miles an hour?"
Cobb gritted his teeth. "Because we just stole a shitty car that doesn't break a hundred on a good day."
Eames paused. "That wasn't really the answer I was looking for. Also, why the hell did you come to me? There's no love lost between Arthur and I, you do realize."
The car roared miserably, but kept up its frantic pace. They hurtled down the highway, rain ripping at the windshield. Eames could tell even in the shadows that Cobb's foot was pressing the pedal straight into the floor.
Cobb said, "That's exactly why. You know him enough to help me, but you also don't care enough to stop me when I try to tear apart the people who took him."
"Arthur can take care of himself," Eames pointed out.
"I know. That's why anyone who can take him deserves what's coming to them."
"Namely, you," Eames commented.
"Namely, me," Cobb affirmed.
Eames made a mental note to never, ever get on Cobb's bad side. He wasn't even sure he'd be able to stop him once they reached their destination. Cobb's leather-gloved hands were bright, sharp silhouettes on the steering wheel.
They kept driving, a sodden metal knife cutting through the dark.
***
Eames had always known that Cobb, though a loving father and a doting husband, was a wolf at heart. But he’d only seen that impulse in dreams, and in dreams everyone was a bit harder, a bit darker and rougher around the edges—it was all part and parcel of being closer to the subconscious, acting on it just a little more.
There wasn’t anything subconscious about the way Cobb moved now, his stride long and easy like a panther’s, the suppressor on his gun smoking as he silently caught and pocketed fallen shells and moved on to the next room.
He ripped them all apart. And they were like wet cardboard under his gun.
Eames provided cover as needed, which wasn’t much.
The cartel was well-organized, but this had been a hasty kidnapping, Cobb and Eames were heavily armed, and Arthur hadn’t gone without a fight. Some of the heavies were still nursing injuries, and Cobb exploited them all, wrenching an already tender shoulder, fist impacting on taped up cartilage, shattering it. Eames smothered their cries as they went down.
Arthur was in the last room, an empty concrete box too cliché to be anything but an interrogation space.
He looked bad. Cobb made an inarticulate noise in his throat as he slipped in the door.
Eames watched from the door frame as Cobb knelt in front of Arthur, putting his gun back in its shoulder holster. He took off his gloves so that his fingers didn’t chafe Arthur’s skin when he pulled aside the blood-soaked gag from his mouth. “Hi, Arthur,” he said quietly.
“Hey boss.” Arthur’s voice was hoarse and damaged, and the words were slurred from a swollen tongue, and maybe missing teeth. He sounded more irritated than anything else though, which was…well, which was just Arthur, Eames thought dryly.
“Sorry about this,” Arthur mumbled, absurdly.
Cobb looked like he was about to lunge in outrage, but at the last minute he settled for curling his hand gently around the back of Arthur’s head, where he felt the dampness of congealed blood and chose not to acknowledge it. “Nothing to be sorry about,” he said.
Eames said, stepping inside the room and closing the door behind him, “We’re going to have to go out the back; I think the cavalry is about to arrive.”
“There’s an exit,” Arthur said. “Twenty paces back, steel door, fifty-two paces left.”
Cobb smiled thinly as he unfastened the last of the bindings. “Can you walk?”
Arthur nodded over a grimace. Cobb was diffident as he pulled Arthur forward out of the chair and then upward. Arthur’s right leg crumpled; he cursed.
“No worries,” Cobb said. “You’re practically a beanpole; I could carry three of you.”
“There will be no carrying,” Arthur growled, even as he lolled against Cobb.
Eames smirked. “Come on, chaps.”
As they maneuvered through the dark corridors, Arthur said, “How many of them?”
Cobb was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Doesn’t matter.”
***
They left the stolen car, and acquired another one.
Cobb gunned it, gloves back on, dark coat hiding bloodstains with the collar pulled up high around his chin. Eames cleaned his gun and stowed it carefully away, shifting slightly in the passenger seat.
From the rear, where he was laid out and curled around broken ribs and who knew what else, Arthur slurred, “My equipment. It’s—“
“We have it,” Cobb cut him off, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. “We’ve got it under control, Arthur.”
Arthur chuckled lowly, and then made a noise that meant that he regretted it. “Last time you said that—“
“Was a long time ago. And I’m telling the truth this time.”
“I know. I trust you.”
Eames was pretty sure this was a conversation he did not belong in. He tried to listen to the rain that pelted the windshield, but the sharp shimmer of it wasn’t quite enough to drown out the sound of Cobb as he switched gears with a practiced gesture, and then mutter, “You trust me too damn often.”
Arthur didn’t answer.
They went to ground in a motel whose manager barely looked at them and took cash without question. Cobb half-carried Arthur into one room while Eames went to unlock the one next door. “You’ll be all right with him?” Eames said, nodding at Arthur, who glared at him in affront.
Cobb nodded, and they disappeared into the room.
Eames made coffee and put plasters on the few cuts and scrapes he’d accumulated from their altercation with the cartel. As he sat against the headboard, stretching his legs out in front of him and adding a copious amount of whiskey to his coffee, he heard murmurs through the thin motel wall. With a mixture of curiosity and resignation, he listened.
“How many, Cobb?”
“How many what?”
“How many of them did you take down?”
There was a whisper of cloth and then the silvery ring of sharp scissors. Bandages, Eames surmised, and probably only the beginning of what Arthur needed.
“As many as were there. I wasn’t counting,” Cobb answered eventually. His voice was rough and low.
There was a pause, and then Arthur said, “You shouldn’t have done it, Cobb. Saito can’t clear you twice.”
Eames could almost see it at this point; he didn’t need to be in the room to know that Cobb was leaning over Arthur on the motel bed, blood under his fingernails, and that otherworldly fierceness of conviction which made him a great architect and a better extractor darkening his eyes. When he spoke, it was with dangerous solidity.
“You’ve done enough for me, more than enough. Now it’s my turn.”
Then it was hardly imagination that put the next image in Eames’ mind: Cobb finishing the bandages on Arthur’s wrists, where the bindings had cut deep, and taping them off.
Arthur meeting his eyes.
And Cobb holding that gaze as he raised one wrist to his lips, barely grazing the inside fold of white gauze. It would be a feather touch, not enough to irritate the raw flesh beneath, just the shadow of contact, and a gesture of intent. One Eames was sure Cobb would never (and could never) have made in the past.
And it was hardly imagination, because Eames could hear Arthur’s harsh intake of breath, a mixture of confusion and hope and longing.
“Cobb?”
Another shift and rustle of clothing—Cobb bending over to adjust the bedspread. “Get some sleep, Arthur.”
Arthur, even half-dead, was not cowed. "Cobb."
"I'll take lives for you." It was quick and fierce, enough to make Eames flinch, just like in that shitty car in the rain, Cobb burning a cold and steady blue, always willing to do what was necessary--a type of foolishness and bravery that made he and Arthur more alike than they ever seemed at first glance. There was a silence, and then, "Do you understand, Arthur?"
So much silence, but Eames heard it like thunder.
Then at last: “What’s the plan for tomorrow?” Arthur said, sounding calm, and even warm.
“I’m taking you home.” There was a smile in Cobb's voice--small, but there.
Arthur’s slow, easy exhale was answer enough.
Good, thought Eames, and let the whiskey take him to sleep.
Fandom: Inception
Genre/Pairing: drama, hurt/comfort, Arthur/Cobb
Rating: PG-13, for violence
Word Count: ~1,400
Summary: It isn't easy to get the drop on Arthur. And anyone who does deserves everything coming to them.
A/N: This is an effort towards multitasking and also avoidance of my long WIPs, which are being...difficult. Anyway. Written in two parts for two prompts at
inception_kink, the second of which is also going towards one of my kissbingo squares (body: wrist): "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
"Then why are we going 85 miles an hour?"
and
"You've done enough for me, more than enough. Now it's my turn."
Eames eyed him. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
"Then why are we going 85 miles an hour?"
Cobb gritted his teeth. "Because we just stole a shitty car that doesn't break a hundred on a good day."
Eames paused. "That wasn't really the answer I was looking for. Also, why the hell did you come to me? There's no love lost between Arthur and I, you do realize."
The car roared miserably, but kept up its frantic pace. They hurtled down the highway, rain ripping at the windshield. Eames could tell even in the shadows that Cobb's foot was pressing the pedal straight into the floor.
Cobb said, "That's exactly why. You know him enough to help me, but you also don't care enough to stop me when I try to tear apart the people who took him."
"Arthur can take care of himself," Eames pointed out.
"I know. That's why anyone who can take him deserves what's coming to them."
"Namely, you," Eames commented.
"Namely, me," Cobb affirmed.
Eames made a mental note to never, ever get on Cobb's bad side. He wasn't even sure he'd be able to stop him once they reached their destination. Cobb's leather-gloved hands were bright, sharp silhouettes on the steering wheel.
They kept driving, a sodden metal knife cutting through the dark.
***
Eames had always known that Cobb, though a loving father and a doting husband, was a wolf at heart. But he’d only seen that impulse in dreams, and in dreams everyone was a bit harder, a bit darker and rougher around the edges—it was all part and parcel of being closer to the subconscious, acting on it just a little more.
There wasn’t anything subconscious about the way Cobb moved now, his stride long and easy like a panther’s, the suppressor on his gun smoking as he silently caught and pocketed fallen shells and moved on to the next room.
He ripped them all apart. And they were like wet cardboard under his gun.
Eames provided cover as needed, which wasn’t much.
The cartel was well-organized, but this had been a hasty kidnapping, Cobb and Eames were heavily armed, and Arthur hadn’t gone without a fight. Some of the heavies were still nursing injuries, and Cobb exploited them all, wrenching an already tender shoulder, fist impacting on taped up cartilage, shattering it. Eames smothered their cries as they went down.
Arthur was in the last room, an empty concrete box too cliché to be anything but an interrogation space.
He looked bad. Cobb made an inarticulate noise in his throat as he slipped in the door.
Eames watched from the door frame as Cobb knelt in front of Arthur, putting his gun back in its shoulder holster. He took off his gloves so that his fingers didn’t chafe Arthur’s skin when he pulled aside the blood-soaked gag from his mouth. “Hi, Arthur,” he said quietly.
“Hey boss.” Arthur’s voice was hoarse and damaged, and the words were slurred from a swollen tongue, and maybe missing teeth. He sounded more irritated than anything else though, which was…well, which was just Arthur, Eames thought dryly.
“Sorry about this,” Arthur mumbled, absurdly.
Cobb looked like he was about to lunge in outrage, but at the last minute he settled for curling his hand gently around the back of Arthur’s head, where he felt the dampness of congealed blood and chose not to acknowledge it. “Nothing to be sorry about,” he said.
Eames said, stepping inside the room and closing the door behind him, “We’re going to have to go out the back; I think the cavalry is about to arrive.”
“There’s an exit,” Arthur said. “Twenty paces back, steel door, fifty-two paces left.”
Cobb smiled thinly as he unfastened the last of the bindings. “Can you walk?”
Arthur nodded over a grimace. Cobb was diffident as he pulled Arthur forward out of the chair and then upward. Arthur’s right leg crumpled; he cursed.
“No worries,” Cobb said. “You’re practically a beanpole; I could carry three of you.”
“There will be no carrying,” Arthur growled, even as he lolled against Cobb.
Eames smirked. “Come on, chaps.”
As they maneuvered through the dark corridors, Arthur said, “How many of them?”
Cobb was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Doesn’t matter.”
***
They left the stolen car, and acquired another one.
Cobb gunned it, gloves back on, dark coat hiding bloodstains with the collar pulled up high around his chin. Eames cleaned his gun and stowed it carefully away, shifting slightly in the passenger seat.
From the rear, where he was laid out and curled around broken ribs and who knew what else, Arthur slurred, “My equipment. It’s—“
“We have it,” Cobb cut him off, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. “We’ve got it under control, Arthur.”
Arthur chuckled lowly, and then made a noise that meant that he regretted it. “Last time you said that—“
“Was a long time ago. And I’m telling the truth this time.”
“I know. I trust you.”
Eames was pretty sure this was a conversation he did not belong in. He tried to listen to the rain that pelted the windshield, but the sharp shimmer of it wasn’t quite enough to drown out the sound of Cobb as he switched gears with a practiced gesture, and then mutter, “You trust me too damn often.”
Arthur didn’t answer.
They went to ground in a motel whose manager barely looked at them and took cash without question. Cobb half-carried Arthur into one room while Eames went to unlock the one next door. “You’ll be all right with him?” Eames said, nodding at Arthur, who glared at him in affront.
Cobb nodded, and they disappeared into the room.
Eames made coffee and put plasters on the few cuts and scrapes he’d accumulated from their altercation with the cartel. As he sat against the headboard, stretching his legs out in front of him and adding a copious amount of whiskey to his coffee, he heard murmurs through the thin motel wall. With a mixture of curiosity and resignation, he listened.
“How many, Cobb?”
“How many what?”
“How many of them did you take down?”
There was a whisper of cloth and then the silvery ring of sharp scissors. Bandages, Eames surmised, and probably only the beginning of what Arthur needed.
“As many as were there. I wasn’t counting,” Cobb answered eventually. His voice was rough and low.
There was a pause, and then Arthur said, “You shouldn’t have done it, Cobb. Saito can’t clear you twice.”
Eames could almost see it at this point; he didn’t need to be in the room to know that Cobb was leaning over Arthur on the motel bed, blood under his fingernails, and that otherworldly fierceness of conviction which made him a great architect and a better extractor darkening his eyes. When he spoke, it was with dangerous solidity.
“You’ve done enough for me, more than enough. Now it’s my turn.”
Then it was hardly imagination that put the next image in Eames’ mind: Cobb finishing the bandages on Arthur’s wrists, where the bindings had cut deep, and taping them off.
Arthur meeting his eyes.
And Cobb holding that gaze as he raised one wrist to his lips, barely grazing the inside fold of white gauze. It would be a feather touch, not enough to irritate the raw flesh beneath, just the shadow of contact, and a gesture of intent. One Eames was sure Cobb would never (and could never) have made in the past.
And it was hardly imagination, because Eames could hear Arthur’s harsh intake of breath, a mixture of confusion and hope and longing.
“Cobb?”
Another shift and rustle of clothing—Cobb bending over to adjust the bedspread. “Get some sleep, Arthur.”
Arthur, even half-dead, was not cowed. "Cobb."
"I'll take lives for you." It was quick and fierce, enough to make Eames flinch, just like in that shitty car in the rain, Cobb burning a cold and steady blue, always willing to do what was necessary--a type of foolishness and bravery that made he and Arthur more alike than they ever seemed at first glance. There was a silence, and then, "Do you understand, Arthur?"
So much silence, but Eames heard it like thunder.
Then at last: “What’s the plan for tomorrow?” Arthur said, sounding calm, and even warm.
“I’m taking you home.” There was a smile in Cobb's voice--small, but there.
Arthur’s slow, easy exhale was answer enough.
Good, thought Eames, and let the whiskey take him to sleep.
no subject
Date: 26 Oct 2010 09:42 (UTC)Oh Eames you're a creep XD
no subject
Date: 26 Oct 2010 16:07 (UTC)Haha, Eames can't help being an awesome stealth observer :D