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Entry tags:
"drop your differences at the door" - 2/2
Title: drop your differences at the door
Rating/Warning: PG
Wordcount: 2,800
Spoilers: None
Fandom: Inception
By:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Category: Arthur/Eames AU - Underworld fusion.
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Summary: They really shouldn't - but they do.
Part One | Part Two
The thing was, werewolves killed Arthur's family.
He didn't see it happen and these days he was equal amounts relieved and regretful for that. He'd been visiting the farm the next up from his family's property, seeing a girl who he'd been thinking about asking to marry him and whose name he couldn't even remember anymore. He didn't remember much about that night but the screams of the horses and the blood-soaked straw underfoot.
He remembered Saito and how the elegant-looking man had swept in and promised to make him strong enough to avenge his family's death.
Cobb was there that night too, that Arthur also recalled. Every now and again he had to fight the urge to ask Cobb what really happened that night because he didn't want to appear to be disloyal. It was just that, after knowing Eames, he was starting to wonder. He knew that werewolves in their first few months of life were uncontrollable, feral and tended to stay in wolf form, higher human brain function wiped away and leaving nothing but the animal underneath.
The horses were screaming but they were still alive, the werewolves having gone right past them in favor of a locked house and the humans sleeping inside.
000
Arthur's standing outside Eames' apartment building when the other Death Dealers arrive. He knows Eames is long gone because he watched him pack a bag of mismatching items and snag a few framed photos off his living room wall through the window from across the street before he left. Arthur didn't have a chance to see any of the photos and he regrets it now, possibly his last chance to learn anything about Eames that wasn't related to making him curl his toes in hotel bedsheets.
"How'd you get here so fast?" Ariadne asks, suspicious as always.
"Why'd it take you so long?" Arthur counters and she snorts indelicately and brushes past him into the building. Nash follows in her wake, a twitchy individual that always makes Arthur nervous, plus Henrietta and Blake who are fairly new and not affiliated with anyone so far as Arthur knows.
Arthur's very aware that he's lucky that Saito would take it as a personal insult if he was taken down. He's never felt compelled to align himself with any of the inner circles of vampire society and for anyone outside an Elder's protection, that would be a risky decision. Arthur enjoys a freedom that few do and with it comes resentment. This is another reason he doesn't want to question Saito, because if he ever lost that protection, he wouldn't last long.
He stays outside while the other four do a sweep of the abandoned apartment and the rest of the building, not wanting to see them in Eames' space. When Ariadne emerges she's looking thunderous. "Cleared out, probably not too long ago by the stench," she says and she's still looking at Arthur with calculating eyes, like she's trying to make him fit into this strange puzzle in a way that incriminates him.
He's not surprised in the slightest.
"We know they've been more organized lately," Arthur says. "They took out Aaron's team when they were outnumbered."
"That's all we need, the puppies learning tricks," Nash snarls from behind Ariadne's shoulder. She reaches behind her to pat his head and Arthur has to bite down on a smirk because talk about puppies.
"Whatever," Ariadne huffs. "We'll see if Rick and Elliot had more luck tracking the other one."
"Other one?" Arthur blurts and right then he realizes he's been very stupid. He was so focused on Eames that he barely remembered that Eames hadn't been alone when he'd been attacked. Eames had left maybe twenty minutes before Ariadne arrived and if he knew he was being tracked, he would know that whoever his companion had been would be hunted down as well.
Arthur didn't know much about Eames, but he did know he had a strange and compelling sense of honor and loyalty and he wouldn't be thinking about himself first. He'd probably be on his way to warn the other werewolf to get out of the city and if the timing was right and the other werewolf was far enough away, he would probably reach him right when the Death Dealers did. Ariadne pulls a ringing cell phone from her pocket as Arthur's hands clench and says, "Hello?"
Arthur grabs for the phone but Ariadne twirls out of his grip and she's smiling. "Both of them? Excellent," she says and snaps the phone shut. She turns her smile on Arthur and it's become a predator's grin. "Maybe they aren't getting smarter after all," she says and spins, Arthur watching helplessly as she darts the way she came down the street, Nash, Henrietta and Blake on her heels.
Arthur follows because it's all he can do.
000
They wind up at another older apartment building but this one Arthur recognizes. They mount twisting staircases to the apartment that takes up the whole top floor, the rest of the building vacant, never to be occupied. This is one of Saito's properties, a safe house used for daylight hours and interrogation.
When they reach the top floor, Rick and Elliot are waiting. Rick has an already healing welt over his right eye and Elliot's left arm is hanging by his side at an odd angle. There's someone Arthur doesn't recognize chained to a steel chair bolted to the floor in the middle of the space and Eames strapped to a surgical table near the large bay windows. Elliot grins when he spots Arthur and darts over to him. "Hey, pop this in for me would you? Rick's probably the only squeamish vampire I've ever met," Elliot says, nudging up to Arthur with his left side.
Arthur obliges and when Elliot is hopping around and swearing after his shoulder is popped back into place, Arthur takes everyone's momentary distraction to glance at their prisoners. The werewolf he doesn't know is slumped in the chair and obviously out cold but Eames is awake and aware, his unblinking eyes fixed to Arthur. "You started?" Arthur asks, trying not to let his voice betray how torn he's feeling.
"Nah, waiting for Cobb," Rick says.
"Boring," Ariadne says with an eye roll and she's up on Eames' table before Arthur can stop her, feet on either side of his hips and hands braced on his chest. She leans into him, grinning, the points of her teeth showing below her lips. "This one looks nice and solid. I'm sure he could take a bit of a beating before he shows it."
Eames doesn't even acknowledge her, his head still tilted sideways, eyes on Arthur. Ariadne dips her head down and follows his gaze, smirking. "Hey Arthur, think he likes you?"
"More likely he's imagining what the room will look like with my limbs thrown all over it," Arthur snaps. "Get down!"
"Spoil sport," Ariadne says but obliges.
"You dose them?" Arthur asks.
"Just a half-dose of nitrate," Elliot says, flicking a hand at a table on wheels that's been pushed up against the wall and has a green cloth and syringes on it. "Cobb didn't want them to be able to change but he wanted them to not be so out of it they couldn't... cooperate."
Arthur nods. Cobb will probably be bringing another four or five Death Dealers with him so Arthur figures he might as do something stupid while his odds are better than hopeless. He crosses to the table Eames is lashed to, Eames' eyes following him, eyebrows climbing steadily as Arthur gets closer. He's got a leather muzzle over his mouth but Arthur doesn't waste time with that, just reaches down and has the straps binding his right arm to the table undone in a quick flick of his hands. Arthur's moved onto the left side, having to lean over Eames to get at it and that's when someone comes at him from behind.
Arthur's not sure who it is but he plucks his pistol from the holster at his hip and shoots behind him without looking. There's a squeal and a thud and even though bullets don't kill vampires, a good head shot will buy him a few precious minutes. He sees Ariadne launch herself at him with a feral shriek out of the corner of his eye but he has Eames' left hand undone and is hoping it's enough for the werewolf to free himself as he spins.
Ariadne hits him in the chest, locks her arms around his neck so she's almost embracing him. Arthur manages to get one arm up between himself and her body as she snaps at his neck with her teeth bared and he manages to get a grip on her chin so he can force her face backwards. Arthur's waiting for the other Death Dealers to get involved but the two younger ones seem to be frozen in indecision, Nash has retreated to the corner of the room nearest the door like he's about to flee and as Rick moves to help Ariadne, Elliot having been the one shot in the face, a hulking blur tackles him from the side, Eames having managed to free his legs but still wearing the muzzle.
Arthur, avoiding Ariadne's teeth and trying to pry her grip loose from around his torso edges towards the table with the syringes. Eames can't shift while he's doped with silver nitrate but on the same table will be a few shots of adrenalin laced with untainted werewolf blood which should counteract the affects. Eames will be devastating in a small room if he can shift but he'll be no match for Rick if he's still in his human form.
Arthur manages to reach the table and sacrifices his hold on Ariadne's face to get a hand on one of the adrenalin shots. Ariadne darts her face forward immediately and latches onto Arthur's neck, sinking her teeth in. Arthur lets out a grunt as he turns again and then drops, landing with all his weight on her. Ariadne's is jostled loose and Arthur rolls sideways, coming up against where Rick and Eames are scrabbling on the floor as well, Eames starting to lose ground and almost pinned. Arthur backhands Ariadne and gets his feet around, planting them squarely against Rick's side and managing to push Rick off of Eames.
Eames, who'd been forced onto his belly, flips over onto his back automatically and Arthur stabs him in the chest without hesitation, depressing the syringe's plunger. Eames howls beneath the muzzle and his body shudders, bones breaking and reforming, skin stretching and claws extending.
Arthur scrabbles backwards. He's dimly aware that Nash has already beat a hasty retreat and Henrietta and Blake weren't far behind him. Rick's recovering but before he can't regain his feet before Eames is back on him, ripping and tearing. Arthur has never seen Eames in his wolf form and he's frozen in fascination, forgetting everything, including Ariadne who darts between the wall and the thrashing Eames and Rick and manages to barrel Arthur up and out the fourth storey window opposite and into the street below.
000
It's not common knowledge that vampires can and do pass out. Enough blood loss or trauma and they go under. It takes a hell of a lot to do it but Arthur supposes that a fall out of a window with a murderous Death Dealer having taken a chunk out of his neck already would be enough.
Arthur opens his eyes and he's looking at a water stained roof. There's the gentle rurr rurr ruur of a ceiling fan and the smell of too many people, but faded like a photograph left in the sun. All of these things equal hotel room and Arthur sits up slowly to see he's right. The room has two beds and Eames is sitting on the second one looking at him, muzzle still in place.
"I think I like that on you," Arthur says, voice raspy because his throat's still healing. Eames rolls his eyes but then they crinkle up like he's smiling. Arthur swivels his body and puts feet on the carpet. He isn't wearing shoes or socks and he bunches his toes a few times against the coarse fibres under his feet before he reaches across. Eames leans forward obediently and Arthur touches fingers to the puzzle lock that keeps the muzzle in place. He goes by touch, moving small metal pieces until there's a snick and the muzzle falls sideways, Eames hurling it across the room as soon as he's free.
"Bloody hell!" he says, moving his jaw gingerly with a hand at his face. "You okay?"
"Am I...? Eames, I wasn't the one strapped down to a table," Arthur barks, agitated. Eames looks fine and werewolves have the same kind of fast-healing that vampire's do but he's still concerned that maybe Rick and Elliot hadn't been telling the whole truth about forgoing the torture. "Are you okay?"
"Bit banged up love, but that never lasts long," Eames allows, scrubbing a hand over his hair. He looks around the room, down at his feet and then back up at Arthur, one eyebrow arched and a small grin on his face. "So, that whole rescuing thing? Does that mean we're going steady?"
"Oh shut up," Arthur snaps, standing and crossing the room. He can see by the light lining the thick and dusty curtains that it's day so he's stuck in the room at least until sunset if he doesn't want to get the fatal type of tan.
"C'mon Arthur, you're my very own white knight, riding to the rescue," Eames says, chuckling and Arthur flips him off without looking at him. There's silence for a moment and then Eames is right behind him, arms coming up around his waist and tugging Arthur back into his warmth. "What I'm trying to say is thank you. I'm just bad at it," Eames says into Arthur's ear."You really just made yourself vampire enemy number one back there, huh?" he adds.
"Number two," Arthur says after a moment. "Behind you." Arthur turns in the circle of Eames' arms and then looks over his shoulder, frowning. "Where's your friend?"
"Dropped him off somewhere safe for us," Eames says with a shrug that moves his arms up and down against Arthur's ribs. "Not so safe for you."
"Right," Arthur says, nodding.
"So, where to?" Eames asks.
"Not sure," Arthur says, leaning backwards. Eames doesn't release him so he settles for stretching his arms out and then curling close again. "I guess splitting up would be the most prudent course of action."
"Bugger prudence," Eames snorts. "Where you go, I do. Saving my life means I'm doomed to follow you until I can return the favor or something and considering..." Eames releases one of his arms just long enough to gesture at Arthur in his entirety and is probably meant to indicate that he's pretty much impervious to harm in the long term. "Might take a while for you to really be in jeopardy."
"You got a car?"
000
Arthur isn't exactly sure where he is. He was under a blanket in the trunk for around six hours and when he emerges the loosely named "car" which was more rust than solid, is empty outside an old service station that seems to be in the middle of nowhere.
Arthur tosses the blanket aside and circles the car, spotting Eames' bag in the back seat and wondering just how Eames managed to hang onto it when he'd been kidnapped. Arthur leans in the open window, correction, missing window and tugs the bag open, seeing garish shirts, an assortment of underwear and jammed into the side a couple of photo frames. Arthur plucks one of the photo frames free and sees it's a picture of Eames and two men who look similar enough in age and feature that they must be Eames' family, cousins or more likely brothers.
Arthur touches Eames' face in the photo almost reverentially and hears Eames snort behind him. "Sorry about the trunk. I know it wasn't the most dignified way to travel but I tried to avoid any pot holes."
"It's okay," Arthur dismisses, "Better than being on fire."
"True," Eames agrees amiably and snags the photo out of Arthur's hands. "You ever going to tell me why you were hunting werewolves when you obviously don't strike me as the lackey type?"
"You ever going to tell me what you shot those vampires with that made them cave in?" Arthur counters. When Eames looks pensive, biting his lip and squeezing the photo frame between his hands, Arthur makes an expansive gesture with his arms. "You know what? Maybe we can both let it go, huh?" Arthur proposes.
Eames still looks concerned for a moment, but then his face clears and he spares a hand to reach forward and touch under Arthur's jaw. "I guess I can agree to that," he says.
"Good. Now where the hell are we?"
Eames just smiles enigmatically. "I thought the point was to get lost, hmm? Can't do that if you know where you are."
Rating/Warning: PG
Wordcount: 2,800
Spoilers: None
Fandom: Inception
By:
kellifer_ficCategory: Arthur/Eames AU - Underworld fusion.
Disclaimer: Written for entertainment purposes only. No money, no sue.
Summary: They really shouldn't - but they do.
Part One | Part Two
The thing was, werewolves killed Arthur's family.
He didn't see it happen and these days he was equal amounts relieved and regretful for that. He'd been visiting the farm the next up from his family's property, seeing a girl who he'd been thinking about asking to marry him and whose name he couldn't even remember anymore. He didn't remember much about that night but the screams of the horses and the blood-soaked straw underfoot.
He remembered Saito and how the elegant-looking man had swept in and promised to make him strong enough to avenge his family's death.
Cobb was there that night too, that Arthur also recalled. Every now and again he had to fight the urge to ask Cobb what really happened that night because he didn't want to appear to be disloyal. It was just that, after knowing Eames, he was starting to wonder. He knew that werewolves in their first few months of life were uncontrollable, feral and tended to stay in wolf form, higher human brain function wiped away and leaving nothing but the animal underneath.
The horses were screaming but they were still alive, the werewolves having gone right past them in favor of a locked house and the humans sleeping inside.
Arthur's standing outside Eames' apartment building when the other Death Dealers arrive. He knows Eames is long gone because he watched him pack a bag of mismatching items and snag a few framed photos off his living room wall through the window from across the street before he left. Arthur didn't have a chance to see any of the photos and he regrets it now, possibly his last chance to learn anything about Eames that wasn't related to making him curl his toes in hotel bedsheets.
"How'd you get here so fast?" Ariadne asks, suspicious as always.
"Why'd it take you so long?" Arthur counters and she snorts indelicately and brushes past him into the building. Nash follows in her wake, a twitchy individual that always makes Arthur nervous, plus Henrietta and Blake who are fairly new and not affiliated with anyone so far as Arthur knows.
Arthur's very aware that he's lucky that Saito would take it as a personal insult if he was taken down. He's never felt compelled to align himself with any of the inner circles of vampire society and for anyone outside an Elder's protection, that would be a risky decision. Arthur enjoys a freedom that few do and with it comes resentment. This is another reason he doesn't want to question Saito, because if he ever lost that protection, he wouldn't last long.
He stays outside while the other four do a sweep of the abandoned apartment and the rest of the building, not wanting to see them in Eames' space. When Ariadne emerges she's looking thunderous. "Cleared out, probably not too long ago by the stench," she says and she's still looking at Arthur with calculating eyes, like she's trying to make him fit into this strange puzzle in a way that incriminates him.
He's not surprised in the slightest.
"We know they've been more organized lately," Arthur says. "They took out Aaron's team when they were outnumbered."
"That's all we need, the puppies learning tricks," Nash snarls from behind Ariadne's shoulder. She reaches behind her to pat his head and Arthur has to bite down on a smirk because talk about puppies.
"Whatever," Ariadne huffs. "We'll see if Rick and Elliot had more luck tracking the other one."
"Other one?" Arthur blurts and right then he realizes he's been very stupid. He was so focused on Eames that he barely remembered that Eames hadn't been alone when he'd been attacked. Eames had left maybe twenty minutes before Ariadne arrived and if he knew he was being tracked, he would know that whoever his companion had been would be hunted down as well.
Arthur didn't know much about Eames, but he did know he had a strange and compelling sense of honor and loyalty and he wouldn't be thinking about himself first. He'd probably be on his way to warn the other werewolf to get out of the city and if the timing was right and the other werewolf was far enough away, he would probably reach him right when the Death Dealers did. Ariadne pulls a ringing cell phone from her pocket as Arthur's hands clench and says, "Hello?"
Arthur grabs for the phone but Ariadne twirls out of his grip and she's smiling. "Both of them? Excellent," she says and snaps the phone shut. She turns her smile on Arthur and it's become a predator's grin. "Maybe they aren't getting smarter after all," she says and spins, Arthur watching helplessly as she darts the way she came down the street, Nash, Henrietta and Blake on her heels.
Arthur follows because it's all he can do.
They wind up at another older apartment building but this one Arthur recognizes. They mount twisting staircases to the apartment that takes up the whole top floor, the rest of the building vacant, never to be occupied. This is one of Saito's properties, a safe house used for daylight hours and interrogation.
When they reach the top floor, Rick and Elliot are waiting. Rick has an already healing welt over his right eye and Elliot's left arm is hanging by his side at an odd angle. There's someone Arthur doesn't recognize chained to a steel chair bolted to the floor in the middle of the space and Eames strapped to a surgical table near the large bay windows. Elliot grins when he spots Arthur and darts over to him. "Hey, pop this in for me would you? Rick's probably the only squeamish vampire I've ever met," Elliot says, nudging up to Arthur with his left side.
Arthur obliges and when Elliot is hopping around and swearing after his shoulder is popped back into place, Arthur takes everyone's momentary distraction to glance at their prisoners. The werewolf he doesn't know is slumped in the chair and obviously out cold but Eames is awake and aware, his unblinking eyes fixed to Arthur. "You started?" Arthur asks, trying not to let his voice betray how torn he's feeling.
"Nah, waiting for Cobb," Rick says.
"Boring," Ariadne says with an eye roll and she's up on Eames' table before Arthur can stop her, feet on either side of his hips and hands braced on his chest. She leans into him, grinning, the points of her teeth showing below her lips. "This one looks nice and solid. I'm sure he could take a bit of a beating before he shows it."
Eames doesn't even acknowledge her, his head still tilted sideways, eyes on Arthur. Ariadne dips her head down and follows his gaze, smirking. "Hey Arthur, think he likes you?"
"More likely he's imagining what the room will look like with my limbs thrown all over it," Arthur snaps. "Get down!"
"Spoil sport," Ariadne says but obliges.
"You dose them?" Arthur asks.
"Just a half-dose of nitrate," Elliot says, flicking a hand at a table on wheels that's been pushed up against the wall and has a green cloth and syringes on it. "Cobb didn't want them to be able to change but he wanted them to not be so out of it they couldn't... cooperate."
Arthur nods. Cobb will probably be bringing another four or five Death Dealers with him so Arthur figures he might as do something stupid while his odds are better than hopeless. He crosses to the table Eames is lashed to, Eames' eyes following him, eyebrows climbing steadily as Arthur gets closer. He's got a leather muzzle over his mouth but Arthur doesn't waste time with that, just reaches down and has the straps binding his right arm to the table undone in a quick flick of his hands. Arthur's moved onto the left side, having to lean over Eames to get at it and that's when someone comes at him from behind.
Arthur's not sure who it is but he plucks his pistol from the holster at his hip and shoots behind him without looking. There's a squeal and a thud and even though bullets don't kill vampires, a good head shot will buy him a few precious minutes. He sees Ariadne launch herself at him with a feral shriek out of the corner of his eye but he has Eames' left hand undone and is hoping it's enough for the werewolf to free himself as he spins.
Ariadne hits him in the chest, locks her arms around his neck so she's almost embracing him. Arthur manages to get one arm up between himself and her body as she snaps at his neck with her teeth bared and he manages to get a grip on her chin so he can force her face backwards. Arthur's waiting for the other Death Dealers to get involved but the two younger ones seem to be frozen in indecision, Nash has retreated to the corner of the room nearest the door like he's about to flee and as Rick moves to help Ariadne, Elliot having been the one shot in the face, a hulking blur tackles him from the side, Eames having managed to free his legs but still wearing the muzzle.
Arthur, avoiding Ariadne's teeth and trying to pry her grip loose from around his torso edges towards the table with the syringes. Eames can't shift while he's doped with silver nitrate but on the same table will be a few shots of adrenalin laced with untainted werewolf blood which should counteract the affects. Eames will be devastating in a small room if he can shift but he'll be no match for Rick if he's still in his human form.
Arthur manages to reach the table and sacrifices his hold on Ariadne's face to get a hand on one of the adrenalin shots. Ariadne darts her face forward immediately and latches onto Arthur's neck, sinking her teeth in. Arthur lets out a grunt as he turns again and then drops, landing with all his weight on her. Ariadne's is jostled loose and Arthur rolls sideways, coming up against where Rick and Eames are scrabbling on the floor as well, Eames starting to lose ground and almost pinned. Arthur backhands Ariadne and gets his feet around, planting them squarely against Rick's side and managing to push Rick off of Eames.
Eames, who'd been forced onto his belly, flips over onto his back automatically and Arthur stabs him in the chest without hesitation, depressing the syringe's plunger. Eames howls beneath the muzzle and his body shudders, bones breaking and reforming, skin stretching and claws extending.
Arthur scrabbles backwards. He's dimly aware that Nash has already beat a hasty retreat and Henrietta and Blake weren't far behind him. Rick's recovering but before he can't regain his feet before Eames is back on him, ripping and tearing. Arthur has never seen Eames in his wolf form and he's frozen in fascination, forgetting everything, including Ariadne who darts between the wall and the thrashing Eames and Rick and manages to barrel Arthur up and out the fourth storey window opposite and into the street below.
It's not common knowledge that vampires can and do pass out. Enough blood loss or trauma and they go under. It takes a hell of a lot to do it but Arthur supposes that a fall out of a window with a murderous Death Dealer having taken a chunk out of his neck already would be enough.
Arthur opens his eyes and he's looking at a water stained roof. There's the gentle rurr rurr ruur of a ceiling fan and the smell of too many people, but faded like a photograph left in the sun. All of these things equal hotel room and Arthur sits up slowly to see he's right. The room has two beds and Eames is sitting on the second one looking at him, muzzle still in place.
"I think I like that on you," Arthur says, voice raspy because his throat's still healing. Eames rolls his eyes but then they crinkle up like he's smiling. Arthur swivels his body and puts feet on the carpet. He isn't wearing shoes or socks and he bunches his toes a few times against the coarse fibres under his feet before he reaches across. Eames leans forward obediently and Arthur touches fingers to the puzzle lock that keeps the muzzle in place. He goes by touch, moving small metal pieces until there's a snick and the muzzle falls sideways, Eames hurling it across the room as soon as he's free.
"Bloody hell!" he says, moving his jaw gingerly with a hand at his face. "You okay?"
"Am I...? Eames, I wasn't the one strapped down to a table," Arthur barks, agitated. Eames looks fine and werewolves have the same kind of fast-healing that vampire's do but he's still concerned that maybe Rick and Elliot hadn't been telling the whole truth about forgoing the torture. "Are you okay?"
"Bit banged up love, but that never lasts long," Eames allows, scrubbing a hand over his hair. He looks around the room, down at his feet and then back up at Arthur, one eyebrow arched and a small grin on his face. "So, that whole rescuing thing? Does that mean we're going steady?"
"Oh shut up," Arthur snaps, standing and crossing the room. He can see by the light lining the thick and dusty curtains that it's day so he's stuck in the room at least until sunset if he doesn't want to get the fatal type of tan.
"C'mon Arthur, you're my very own white knight, riding to the rescue," Eames says, chuckling and Arthur flips him off without looking at him. There's silence for a moment and then Eames is right behind him, arms coming up around his waist and tugging Arthur back into his warmth. "What I'm trying to say is thank you. I'm just bad at it," Eames says into Arthur's ear."You really just made yourself vampire enemy number one back there, huh?" he adds.
"Number two," Arthur says after a moment. "Behind you." Arthur turns in the circle of Eames' arms and then looks over his shoulder, frowning. "Where's your friend?"
"Dropped him off somewhere safe for us," Eames says with a shrug that moves his arms up and down against Arthur's ribs. "Not so safe for you."
"Right," Arthur says, nodding.
"So, where to?" Eames asks.
"Not sure," Arthur says, leaning backwards. Eames doesn't release him so he settles for stretching his arms out and then curling close again. "I guess splitting up would be the most prudent course of action."
"Bugger prudence," Eames snorts. "Where you go, I do. Saving my life means I'm doomed to follow you until I can return the favor or something and considering..." Eames releases one of his arms just long enough to gesture at Arthur in his entirety and is probably meant to indicate that he's pretty much impervious to harm in the long term. "Might take a while for you to really be in jeopardy."
"You got a car?"
Arthur isn't exactly sure where he is. He was under a blanket in the trunk for around six hours and when he emerges the loosely named "car" which was more rust than solid, is empty outside an old service station that seems to be in the middle of nowhere.
Arthur tosses the blanket aside and circles the car, spotting Eames' bag in the back seat and wondering just how Eames managed to hang onto it when he'd been kidnapped. Arthur leans in the open window, correction, missing window and tugs the bag open, seeing garish shirts, an assortment of underwear and jammed into the side a couple of photo frames. Arthur plucks one of the photo frames free and sees it's a picture of Eames and two men who look similar enough in age and feature that they must be Eames' family, cousins or more likely brothers.
Arthur touches Eames' face in the photo almost reverentially and hears Eames snort behind him. "Sorry about the trunk. I know it wasn't the most dignified way to travel but I tried to avoid any pot holes."
"It's okay," Arthur dismisses, "Better than being on fire."
"True," Eames agrees amiably and snags the photo out of Arthur's hands. "You ever going to tell me why you were hunting werewolves when you obviously don't strike me as the lackey type?"
"You ever going to tell me what you shot those vampires with that made them cave in?" Arthur counters. When Eames looks pensive, biting his lip and squeezing the photo frame between his hands, Arthur makes an expansive gesture with his arms. "You know what? Maybe we can both let it go, huh?" Arthur proposes.
Eames still looks concerned for a moment, but then his face clears and he spares a hand to reach forward and touch under Arthur's jaw. "I guess I can agree to that," he says.
"Good. Now where the hell are we?"
Eames just smiles enigmatically. "I thought the point was to get lost, hmm? Can't do that if you know where you are."