tellytubby101 | Inception Fanfiction: BLURRED [pt.2]

BLURRED.

Summary: Arthur/Eames. As time goes on, Arthur finds it harder and harder to see. So Eames sees the world for him. Post-canon. One shot.

[ part one ]

¤§¤

One corner of the warehouse had been commandeered by Ariadne. She was wearing denim overalls and long sleeves even with the heat wave that made the spring feel like summer. Most of her hair was tied in a ponytail, and the straggling bits were stuck to her skin from a mix of sweat and paint.

Surrounding her were opened buckets of paint and brushes. Colours were everywhere: on the walls, the floors, on Ariadne herself. There was no real order but chaos to the painting, but it was a lovely kind of chaos Ariadne was apt at pulling off flawlessly.

What had fuelled her sudden desire for an artistic outlet was Arthur. She wanted to make something amazing for him to see. Especially since his eyesight was fading more and more with every passing day. Now he saw misshapen blurs of primary colours.

The girl was an optimist if she thought he could see her art; Eames had to give her that. But it was the thought that counted in the end.

“Why didn’t you show me this before?” Yusuf asked, a frown marring his features. He looked contemplative as he shone a small penlight in Arthur’s eyes, noting how the pupils barely dilated. Yusuf had come to France only yesterday, shocked to hear about Arthur’s deteriorating eyesight.

“Didn’t know you could help,” Arthur said unapologetically as he half-shrugged, clearly trying not to move too much with Yusuf’s hand so well placed to poke him in the eye.

“In this case, I can’t help. From what I can tell, your cataracts are spreading abnormally fast.”

“Thank you for your expert opinion,” Arthur said sarcastically, but not unkindly. All of them could see how nervous he was and didn’t fault him for it.

“I do have a degree in medicine,” Yusuf ignored the slight for the most part, pocketing the light and stepping back. “I thought you knew.”

“How’d you figure that?” Arthur asked, putting his glasses back on. There was no hint of brown in the irises these days; it was almost entirely a dirty white colour.

“Well, there’s the fact I’m the chemist, and well, you’re...” Yusuf waved his hand up and down, as if it encapsulated what exactly Arthur was.

Even though he didn’t see it clearly, he seemed to get the message and said in a somewhat amused voice, “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t run background checks on all you guys.”

“Just me!” Eames called out from where he was watching them and Ariadne simultaneously. The girl was surprisingly violent with her paintbrushes; the sight was rather amusing.

“Yes, Eames,” Arthur laughed. “Just you.”

“What about me?” Ariadne asked, pausing in her painting to wipe some sweat from her brow.

“Professor Miles backed you. That man’s word is as good as gold.”

Looking satisfied, Ariadne turned back to the wall and attacked it viciously with a purple brush in her left hand and a green-soaked sponge in her right. Though Eames couldn’t be sure, he thought she might have been painting an elephant. Or a turtle. It really was hard to tell; she was getting more abstract.

On the table beside him, Arthur was compulsively rolling his totem every few minutes, his hand feeling at the deep grooves where the dots used to be. Eames suggested the idea, and Arthur carried it out carefully by hand, making sure the holes wouldn’t affect the lie of the weight. So while he couldn’t see the three dots, he could clearly feel the trio of holes embedded in the plastic.

“Come on now,” Yusuf interrupted, pulling a silver case from underneath a desk. “It’s time to see if you can dream.”

¤§¤

“Depth perception’s a little off,” Eames commented casually as his hand missed the pen he was reaching for yet again. “Colours are a bit subdued and—”

“What?” Arthur asked, eyes bright and brown and darting around in suppressed excitement that at least here he could see.

“It’s just the other things—smells, sounds, touch, taste—they’re all far stronger. Your senses must be adapting to the loss.”

“That’s something, at least.”

Cocking his head to the side in curiosity, Eames asked, “Can you tell that there’s something off?”

“Yes and no,” Arthur admits. “I’m kind of just amazed I can see, but I know what I’m seeing now isn’t like before.”

It was strange to be in a lucid dream—Arthur’s lucid dream—alone, just the pair of them. Yusuf was checking Arthur’s vitals up top, Ariadne was distracted with her artwork, and Dom was in America, finalising the sale of his old home. Even projections were giving them leeway.

“Hey, Arthur,” Eames called softly, an idea sparking in his mind like a dying fireworks explosion.

When Arthur was looking his way, Eames raised his hand and shifted a corner of library—a hurriedly made platform for the dream, all tarnished metal bookshelves and worn out carpet—into a replica of the warehouse. He waved his hand a little and colour burst from nowhere, shaping into the art Ariadne was so set on making for Arthur.

“What are you—” Arthur began to ask, but then Eames shook his head and cut him off with a hushing noise.

He pulled up a small stage from his imagination, his projections of Phillipa and James dancing in their little costumes of a giraffe and zebra, respectively. It was the play Arthur missed; he heard the music but couldn’t see them.

Eames saw the realisation light up his face and couldn’t stop grinning himself, edging closer to Arthur when the kids started jumping up and down, singing off-key.

Pulling a book from a shelf, Eames filled the blank pages with words from some German book he’d read on the last job. It was mainly about philosophy, not quite Arthur’s taste, but learning Braille was a slower chore than initially anticipated and Arthur hadn’t read anything new in ages.

Clapping Arthur on the back, he handed him the book. Silently mouthing the title written in golden ink on the cover, Arthur gasped under his breath, “Oh.”

“Since you can’t see,” Eames said lightly, “I figured I might as well see for you.”

Arthur looked at Eames with an oddly touched expression, brown eyes soft and almost glowing. They darted down to the embossed letter of the book and then back to Eames, almost shyly.

“Thanks.” He paused and added, “I will deny this vehemently should you ever repeat this, but... you help make all this—” he waved at his face, eyes specifically “—tolerable.”

“Just doing what I can to help, love.”

If his hand lingered on Arthur’s back for a few heartbeats longer than was normally appropriate, neither of them commented on it.

¤§¤

“Was that really necessary?” Arthur groaned, cracking his neck around, trying to ward off some phantom pain.

Eames nodded, then remembered himself and said, “Yeah. What’s the point if I don’t push you?” But he was frowning, too. He hated having to attack Arthur, even in a dream.

They were using the PASIV to re-teach Arthur fighting. They would create a variety of playing grounds—courtesy of Ariadne and occasionally Dom, when he felt up to it—and test Arthur’s capacity for fighting. Of course they’d blindfold him in the dream so that he was wholly reliant on other senses.

Arthur hadn’t quite lost all of his proficiency with a gun—if he heard the target move; he nearly always hit it, though there was some issue with momentary deafness from the resounding bang—and was regaining his old abilities with hand-to-hand combat. Instinct was a huge player in physical combat, even with eyesight, so his skill wasn’t totally decimated.

In fact, he was getting confident enough that they’d had a few real world physical fights, and Arthur fared astoundingly well, considering. He wasn’t at a level to deal with multiple projections, but he was learning fast.

What Arthur was having trouble with was using a sword or a crowbar to fight with. Still, he refused to give up and insisted Eames keep sparring with him.

It was somewhat ironic that this was the first time in years that they were using the PASIV device for its original purpose: to train soldiers.

After ripping out the IV, Eames stood and stretched, flipping his totem across his knuckles, the crack in the plastic nipping his skin with every pass, showing it was reality. The branches outside the warehouse were bright with green leaves bursting from branches fresh from winter hibernation. Colourful weeds were visible from here, their flowers surrounded by a multitude of hovering insects.

Though none of them were quite as colourful as the mural Ariadne left in the corner of the warehouse. She kept changing it when the mood struck her. Eames was pretty sure as of now, it was meant to be a phoenix. Or some poor bird on fire, but he didn’t take her as one to be so sadistic.

“Can you—? Ah, never mind,” Arthur said hastily, rolling down his sleeves and ducking his head. If he didn’t know better, Eames would swear that pinkish hue on Arthur’s cheek was a blush. But it wasn’t; couldn’t be.

“No, what is it?” Eames persisted.

Arthur started packing away the IV tubes into the PASIV with an ease that bespoke of familiarity. The loud click of the case shutting had an ominous tone to it. “It’s nothing.”

“Clearly.”

“Shut up.”

“You started it.”

“You’re seriously going with that immature line of argument?”

“Only you’re here to see it.”

Yusuf was back in Mombasa, missing the heat and his little shop. Ariadne and Cobb were on a low key job that needed extraction from a child. It would be simple, no more than a two-man job, but since Ariadne had no experience seeing the subconscious mind of a child, he took her. And Eames; he had offers from China to Australia, but he’d turned them all down.

He supposed he just didn’t feel like travelling. Not quite yet.

“Come on,” Eames pressed. “What is it?”

“I was wondering,” Arthur hesitated and then continued in a rush, “whether or not you wouldn’t mind coming over my house?”

Eames didn’t reply immediately, digesting the information, and then Arthur said quickly, voice slightly panicky, “Not for anything! I’m not assuming anything! It’s just really dull and quiet there—”

“Stop, love, calm down,” Eames chuckled. “It’s fine, really; I don’t mind giving you some company.”

“Thanks. I mean,” Arthur scratched the back of his head. “Yeah. Thanks.”

At the time, the request and acceptance were more than innocent enough. It was just later, when they were on the couch together, Eames reading Arthur a new book he’d bought in normal print because a Braille version didn’t exist yet, that things changed. He had stopped mid sentence and told Arthur that his eyes—foggy white eyes—were beautiful.

Arthur kissed Eames. It was impulsive but felt somehow inevitable. He missed the lips and got the cheek, but the intention was there. Then Eames dropped the book, grabbed Arthur’s chin and showed him where to direct his attentions.

That was when Eames learned that Arthur had grown surprisingly sensitive since losing his eyesight. A fact he exploited wickedly and repeatedly.

¤§¤

The team had talked about getting Arthur some black glasses and a cane—and maybe a dog, until they learned Arthur was more of a cat person at heart. Though really, Arthur wanted none of that. Well, until Eames found a sort of bamboo stick at a black market op-shop that could pull the handle out to display a rather impressive blade.

Ariadne had shaken her head and muttered something about, “Boys will be boys.”

So Arthur, though now declarable as completely blind, was dead set against covering his eyes and only carried the bamboo stick around because he found the idea of having a concealed weapon more tolerable than a walking aid. It was a bitch to get through airport security sometimes, but it was hard to argue against a blind man. Not to mentions the references Eames made for Arthur were utterly impeccable.

Right now, the team were in France’s infamous countryside, doubly relaxing since they didn’t need to pass the trials of the airport. Strangely enough, none of them—bar Ariadne—had actually been to the countryside and it was fortunate that the job landed them on what was essentially a holiday. Ironically, they were checked in a Fischer hotel.

“He’s the bastard that just keeps on giving, isn’t he?” Eames pointed out with a laugh.

Dom rolled his eyes and tried to engage Arthur in a conversation about the client’s uncle; he wanted to know about the exact parameters of the job, but his point man was sidetracked by the hotel’s outside café and garden. The smells of the foods and flowers, the excited chatter of foreign tourists and feel of sunshine and gravelly underfoot were all very distracting.

“Arthur!” Cobb finally barked out of irritation. It was hard to take him seriously when he was wearing a floppy straw sunhat and Phillipa was pulling on his arm.

Arthur turned to face Cobb with a dazed smile on his face before shaking himself out of it. On one of the ornate little tables—decorated with curved white metal in the shape of vines and a top made of glass—he opened a battered leather suitcase and began sorting through the files, feeling for the little Braille labels he’d stuck atop each one so he could organise everything.

It turned out that there were such things as Braille printers and label makers, and it was little difficulty finding a program that could read out text from a computer. Technology was fascinating, but more than that, it helped Arthur stay as point man.

Either it was kudos to Arthur’s skill or a shame about others’ that he was still the best in the business. Now really, when they couldn’t get more dirt on a target than a blind man who refused a walking aid, it was something to be ashamed of. Then again, they couldn’t mimic Arthur’s voice when he was on the phone coercing the information out of his many unnamed sources—it was like a pendulum, either a seductive purr or a deadly calm threat.

On the odd occasion someone tried to attack him face-to-face, they’d inevitably lower their guard when they saw the milky-white eyes and Arthur would unsheathe his blade and cut them down. He lost none of his speed or ruthlessness, even though he had to relearn certain skills to compensate. Ariadne would ask why he didn’t use his gun, and Arthur would mumble some excuse of the blade being easier—since he couldn’t see the target anymore—but Eames would secretly grin like a madman knowing Arthur was beginning to get fond of the ‘blasted bamboo stick’.

In the end, being blind wasn’t so much a handicap for Arthur. It was a fucking huge mountain he had to climb over to reign victorious, but once he did that, it was incredible. And Eames couldn’t be more proud of him.

“Did you want two rooms or one?”

Eames looked down to see Ariadne waiting for his answer, single eyebrow raised in silent mirth as if she’d already guessed the answer.

He said, “One,” at the exact moment as Arthur said, “Two.”

Ariadne’s eyebrow rose even higher in response and Eames raised one finger and mouthed the number, winking. With uncanny accuracy, Arthur’s eyes found out Eames and sent a stern glare his way.

“Eames,” he hissed, “Cobb brought his kids with him.”

“So? That shouldn’t mean I get cockbloc—”

“Language,” snapped Dom without looking up from one of the many files Arthur had handed him. Phillipa was still tugging on the edge of his sleeve, quietly asking to get something from the gift shop. She never whined, like other kids; it was strange, but she was pretty persistent in the near silent sulking technique.

Arthur’s influence knew no bounds.

Clearing his throat, Eames changed track, crouching down so he was at eye level with Phillipa.

“Yes, Uncle Eames?” she looked at him instead of her dad, gaze curious and slightly suspicious. Arthur’s influence, definitely, he decided with a small grin.

“If I had to stay in Arthur’s room so I could help him see all the furniture and not bump into anything, would that be okay with you?” This wasn’t a lie, per se, because Eames would certainly help Arthur find the bed, the floor, and maybe the couch—

“Uncle Arthur never bumps into anything at home though,” she declared, openly distrusting now, her free hand twisting at her hair.

Behind her, Arthur was crossing his arms and leaning against the table, grinning widely as he listened. Ariadne was unsuccessfully hiding her smirk behind her hands.

Yusuf, previously unengaged with the conversation—he was entertaining James by showing him various insects of the garden—looked up from a butterfly resting on a tulip and said in a dry voice, “Surely Arthur’s bumped into a few things.” He gave Eames a pointed look.

Phillipa, thankfully oblivious, shook her head and said, “No, he doesn’t.”

“Yes, well,” Eames paused for a moment and then lowered his voice conspiratorially, “This is a different part of France, now isn’t it? He’s never been to the country.”

Phillipa let go of her dad’s sleeve and stopped twirling her hair. She straightened up and crossed her arms.

“It’s okay. I’m eight now. I know these things.” Nodding confidently, she stepped closer and whispered (unintentionally loud), “Dad explained it. Mummies and daddies are allowed to share rooms because they love each other very, very much.”

“Oh?” Eames shot an amused look at Cobb, who was suddenly watching the conversation with interest. “So who’s the mummy in this relationship?”

“You, obviously,” Phillipa laughed.

“What?” Eames spluttered while the others laughed.

“You wear pink,” she said simply, her attention slipping. Phillipa started tugging on Dom’s sleeve, quietly muttering about something she saw in the gift shop. Cobb, the bastard, nodded and lifted her on his shoulders, taking her to the shop probably to get away from Eames, who was rightfully considering murder. Or at the very least, shooting him in the head the next time they dream shared.

Unable to tone down her shit-eating grin, Ariadne walked off as well, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll confirm you lot as one room then. Since you’re both married and have Phillipa’s approval.” There was a decidedly wicked edge to her cackling laughter.

Arthur groaned into his hand, but he was smiling beneath that. Quietly as Eames could, he sidled up beside the man, gently taking one calloused hand in his own.

Leaning down to whisper, he offered, “Once we get the room keys, I really should give you a tour so you know where things are.”

“I’m not—”

“—invalid, yes I know,” Eames huffed, impatient. Then he continued in a smoother voice, “It’s just that I thought you’d like help finding the bed, the floor and the—”

“—shower?” Arthur’s grin was positively evil, and he’d slid his arm around Eames’ waist in a comfortable, familiar gesture.

“Not what I was thinking, but definitely on the list now, love.”

“Eames, you are utterly incorrigible.”

“I think the word you’re really looking for is ‘irreplaceable’.”

Arthur laughed and shook his head; his clouded eyes lit up with mirth, corners crinkling with laugh lines. Grabbing his suitcase and bamboo stick, he indicated forwards.

“Let’s go start that tour then, shall we?”

¤§¤

A/N: IDEK how I got this word count (9500+?!). *Facepalm*.

I did it! I wrote romance without one character telling the other that they loved them. XD

Enjoyed this? Yay or nay? Please do tell. ~~And leave cookies.~~

Current Mood: cheerful

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From:

therandomgirlie.livejournal.com

YAY, YAY, A HUNDRED TIMES YAY :D
Seriously, this was wonderful. I love how there wasn't a quick fix-it ending, but you still managed to make it happy and believable.
Going to go and read it again now!

From:

♪ let us fight the status quo together and tear down the invisible walls ♪

Inception Fanfiction: BLURRED [pt.2]

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