the_ragnarok (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_ragnarok) wrote2011-03-20 01:12 am
the_ragnarok) wrote2011-03-20 01:12 am
Entry tags:
FIC: Kiss Trick, 12/13
OK, scratch that, apparently I can't take cliffhangers. So here's the next to last installment. IDEK.
Eames didn't really remember it, when it happened, needed the time to understand and parse it, put it into words and store it in the back of his mind.
He thinks what he has now is a good approximation of how it went, and this is it.
~~
"Do you like the place?" Bayliss asked him, when he entered the corridor. "I try to keep my babies somewhere good."
The place wasn't bad, but there was something off about it. Eames had the uncomfortable feeling that if he looked at anything closely enough, he'd see the pixels. "We're dreaming," he said.
Bayliss waved this off. "Of course we are," he said. "We're both busy people, right? This means I don't have to actually kidnap you, transport you a considerable distance, and then take the time off my schedule. Besides," he said, and there's the sharp grin Eames remembered again, "this seemed... appropriate."
By now, Eames had figured out how this worked. "You were militarized twice," he said. Just as Arthur suspected. Appropriate, that.
Bayliss ignored him, which was pretty predictable, actually. This wasn't Bayliss, not really. It was something else, more like a recording of him than anything. A living memory, likely planted in their mark, worming its way into Eames by pathways wrought during the job they did on Bayliss.
Instead of saying anything, Bayliss pulled a cord, and a curtain behind him parted. Eames was only sort of surprised so see it there.
Emiliana. This was just a dream reproduction of her, crude and untrue. Eames wanted to resent that Bayliss hasn't even bothered to rent a proper architect to get her right.
"So you did buy her," Eames murmured, resisting the urge to step closer. Damn fool thing, falling in love with a painting, but Eames always had a tendency to be foolish with his heart.
"I bought this," Bayliss said, looking past him to where Eames stood a moment ago. It's a little freaky-uncanny. More than it should be, considering. "I bought this for a very specific reason."
At this point, Eames started feeling distinctly unsettled.
"You reveal more about yourself than you think," Bayliss said, "going into people's dreams like that. Now, I did enjoy your attempt at deflection." He grinned, sharklike. "Sending me after who I'm told is one of the most deadly people in your field – that was nice. I do like a joke. But next time, please try a better diversion than trying to sell me a professional killer as your boyfriend."
Eames half-wanted to protest – Arthur was hardly anything as crude as a professional killer, but Bayliss wasn't likely to listen to him. Better if he didn't, in fact. Bayliss was right, Arthur could make short work of anyone they could send after him, but it was always preferable not to have to deal with little annoyances like assassination attempts.
"But the painting," Bayliss said. "When they told me about that, I believed."
And, right, of course there was a trap. Of course there was something in Bayliss' brain that had teeth to bite back. A name passes through Eames' mind, a memory – Pierre, Arthur mentioned that name, but Eames knew it before, too. Pierre l'Ingénieur, who builds trapdoors into minds, who puts neat little points of entry in an intruder's dreams. Far less flashy than Althea's work, but just as deadly.
There's little to no point in Eames beating himself up over it, although he feels like he should, just for form's sake.
Well, nothing for it. "What is it you want, then? Revenge?" If that was so, well, revenge could take more than one shape. He might just want to make Eames grovel, humiliate him a bit. For the sake of love, Eames can take that.
Bayliss' eyes met his, and Eames was hard-pressed to remember that he wasn't actually talking to a person. That the thing in front of him resembled a glorified projection more than anything else.
"I want," Bayliss' shade said, "your forgery. I want Alex."
Which was a fucking joke, all right. Eames laughed humorlessly. "You can bloody go on wanting, mate."
They were obviously in the audience participation stage of this little charade. Bayliss leaned closer and said, conversationally. "You'll do what I tell you, Mr. Eames. Because if you don't, I'll personally set fire to this painting and mail you the ashes."
Oh, fuck Bayliss. Eames wanted to snarl at this, and only barely reined himself in. "I don't believe you," he said instead, which was true. He and Bayliss may not have the same tastes, but Eames recognized this in Bayliss: He didn't have it in him to destroy anything beautiful.
Bayliss laughed, short and mirthless. "You think?" The projection casually flicked a lighter and leaned back, letting the flames lick casually at the painting. Eames gritted his teeth. Just a dream, he reminded himself. It wasn't even a particularly good reproduction.
"I want her," Bayliss said while the fire ate into the canvas and the dyes. "I want your Alex. And if I can't have her, then trust me when I say," he pulled the lighter away for a moment, "I will burn everything I own to the ground before I let her go."
Eames couldn't restrain himself from saying, "Is that what you think love is?"
But the projection wasn't listening anymore, had pulled back to watch the painting burn, dispassionately. "It was fucking ugly, anyway," he said, and Eames lunged at him and woke to see Arthur, enraged.
~~
Arthur goes quiet when he's angry, withdraws and pulls himself tightly closed. Eames hates it, but he frankly doesn't see anything he can do about it at the moment. He calls Ariadne, because she asked, and to take his mind off things.
Her voice is cheerful on the other end. She occasionally halts the conversation to yell instructions in Portuguese at some unknown entity. Eames doesn't ask.
"How's Sandra?" he asks during a lull in the conversation, just for something to say.
"Ask her yourself," Ariadne says, and passes the phone before Eames can object.
"Fine, thank you," Sandra says a moment later. "I suppose you want her back now?"
"Unless you've got something else to say." He's sorry already for being short with her, but honestly he doesn't feel like dealing with this right now.
"Don't take your problems out on Ari," Sandra says, and all right, she's fairly observant, he'll give her that.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he says, and gets Ariadne back for his troubles.
"Um," she says, after a lengthy dissertation on the subject of ergonomics as applied to wide-scale design (or something similar, possibly Eames has not been paying as much attention as he should), "so. How's Arthur?"
"Fine," Eames says. "You were saying, about ideal distances...?"
Ariadne snorts. "Yeah, try harder, buddy."
He's never needed to, frankly. It was always sufficient to just mention anything relating to Ariadne's latest obsession to set her off-course.
"I'm learning," she says, quietly, after he mentions something along that line. "Let's just say, some people said things. I'm trying to be better."
Which is very nice for her, Eames supposes, but to him this is rather inconvenient at this time. "Never listen to them," he says, because he might as well try a distraction.
"Eames." And nothing more, until he sighs and says, "Fine, he's not talked to me for a week. Happy now?"
She makes a strangled noise. "What did you do?"
"What makes you think it was me who did anything?" But Eames recognizes this as the petulant nonsense it is the minute it leaves his mouth, and amends by saying, "Nothing I had much of a choice about."
"Just tell me you didn't sell him to the highest bidder," Ariadne says. "Because if you did, we can't be friends anymore."
"I didn't – " Eames says, disgusted. "Honestly, some days I don't even know why I talk to you."
"You love me," she says, unrepentant. "Also, who else will listen to your lovesick ramblings?"
"I do not ramble," Eames says severely. "I have no idea what you are going on about and if you persist in this line of thinking, I will hire thugs to destroy your car."
There's a laughter in stereo coming from the other side of the line. How kind of Ariadne to mention that she was putting him on speaker phone.
"Sorry," Sandra says, gasping. "But you have no idea how much you sounded like Arthur for a minute there."
Well, now that Eames thinks about it, he knows exactly how much like Arthur he sounded. Which is just adding insult to injury, really. Arthur's ingrained in him now, imprinted deeper than habit, to a level where Eames couldn't pull Arthur out of his life if he wanted to.
He sinks into a glum silence until the giggles on the other end dissipate. "I really am sorry," Sandra says. Eames has difficulties hearing her over the noises at the other end. He seriously considers just hanging up. "Look, you should know. Arthur's serious, okay? He's always serious. Give him some time to calm down and you'll sort it out. Don't worry about it too much."
"'Course not," Eames says, with a cheer he doesn't feel. "Can't see what I could possibly have to worry about." Then he hangs up the phone, because he's a grown man and therefore entitled to a good sulk if he feels like one.
~~
Of course he worries.
The worst of it is, he can tell that if he apologizes, if he makes even the smallest concession, Arthur will be all over himself trying to put things back together. Eames reads Arthur's silences easily now, the small twitches in his movements. Arthur doesn't want to fight. He doesn't want to stay angry at Eames. He just needs one gesture, the tiniest possible thing Eames can give.
Eames can't give him anything.
Because he has to take this job. Has to do it – the alternative isn't thinkable. Can't take Arthur with him, either, because there's no use making a bad job worse.
Bayliss thinks he's in love with Alex. He might as well be in love with a character from a story for all the good that'll do him, but he's decided to delegate the hopelessness of this situation by dumping it into Eames' lap. Splendid.
The requisite solution to this problem is a simple theft, but Eames has received an anonymous email the day after he received the latter. It contained a detailed listing of the publicly known security measures in Bayliss' facilities. They are... prohibitively well-made.
Normally Eames would treat that kind of thing as a challenge, but the letter also contained a photo of the painting, an unlit lighter held underneath it. Eames caved.
He's been working on Alex since, bringing her into sharper and sharper contrast, going into a ludicrous level of details on her history, her psyche. Trying to make her into someone he could bear to be, someone he could cast off afterwards with no ill effects.
Eames has no way of knowing whether it will work until he tries. He dreads the attempt.
~~
The meeting is on a Thursday. Eames has no preparations at all to make for it. He goes armed, of course, but it's only a gun in an ankle holster, which he'll likely be frisked of in any case. Weapons are more likely to be a hindrance than a help in this case.
He doesn't bring a PASIV, mostly out of the childish hope that if they don't have one this whole thing could be rendered moot. He's practiced his character over and over. He has a train ticket and some change in his pocket, and nothing else.
Arthur's sitting at the kitchen table, pointedly not looking at Eames except when he turns his back. Then Eames can feel Arthur's eyes on him, boring into him, like they're trying to cut Eames up into manageable pieces.
On impulse, Eames turns back, fast enough to catch Arthur at it. Arthur has the grace not to quickly avert his eyes.
"You'll be staying here," Eames says, for confirmation.
"You didn't ask me to come." Arthur looks at him steadily. "So that's a yes," he adds, when Eames stares at him.
"Promise me you'll stay here tonight," Eames says, softer than he means to. It just escapes from his mouth like that.
Arthur slowly straightens in his seat. Eames takes in the picture he makes, greedy, the curl of Arthur's hair barely touching his shoulders, his fine dark eyes, his graceful fingers, his soft mouth pursed in disapproval. "Why should I?" Arthur says, and Eames wants to go to him, to lay hands on Arthur, to apologize and stay and shut away everything else.
"Because I asked," Eames says, and after a moment Arthur nods.
"I promise," he says. "I'll stay here."
"Good," Eames says, then turns away and gets the fuck out before he can change his mind.
If he could, he'd paint a picture of Arthur as he was, right then and there, tuck it into his wallet for safekeeping. But that's no help, really. He doesn't even has his wallet on him.
~~
It's strange, not breaking in. Eames has done his share of playing a legitimate corporate businessperson, but that's all it ever was. Playing. It makes him feel odd not to have that tiny frisson of excitement, knowing he might get caught.
They keep him waiting in a nondescript room for interminable minutes before Bayliss decrees he's ready to receive him.
"Thank you for coming," Bayliss says when Eames enters the office. Eames smiles at him tightly. He doesn't feel like playing games right now, thank you very much.
"Do you have a PASIV?" he asks.
Bayliss pulls one out from under his desk, wordlessly, and there goes Eames' best idea.
"Five minutes," Bayliss says. "To start with."
"Who synthesized your material?" Eames says. "I'm not using any old crap, you know."
"You're not in any position to be making demands, Mr. Eames," Bayliss says mildly. "Also, you're stalling."
So Eames shuts the fuck up and lies down, extending his arm for the IV like the good boy he really isn't.
It's a stupid thing he's doing, he does realize that. Likely the dumbest thing he'll ever do, less for sheer magnitude and more for the growing unlikeliness he'll be able to walk away from this. The more he dreams with Bayliss, the more sensitive information Bayliss will be able to get out of him, more soft spots for Bayliss to use against him.
If Bayliss thinks he's in love, once won't be enough for him, and he'll have the leverage to get more out of Eames. Doubtlessly he'll tire of Alex eventually – he's this sort of person – but that's not the question.
Alex was terrifyingly hard to shake off, that one time. Another is very unlikely to be good for Eames. Slipping into her repeatedly, for interaction-intense scenarios...
The IV is set, and Eames closes his eyes.
~~
In the dream, he's alone, and the room is full of mirrors.
He has no idea why this is. Perhaps Bayliss is trying to help, in his way. It's true that getting into a forge is easier with a visual aid, but Eames knows Alex by heart now, can find his way into her by feel. And once he does, those mirrors are not going to make her happy.
Long moments pass until Eames finds a door. He opens it to see a small room, not unlike the office they were just in. The two lawn chairs and the PASIV waiting there are almost painfully predictable. Bayliss is already lying in one of said chairs, wired in. Of course five minutes wouldn't actually be enough, for Bayliss. Of course he wouldn't want his employees to know that.
What is less expected – and therefore takes him a moment to see – is Ariadne, standing over Bayliss' body.
Eames looks at her, up and down, takes in her immaculate suit, the coiffed bun her hair's held in. It's rarely that Eames finds himself at a loss for words, and now is one such time.
"Oh good," Ariadne says, straightening from where she'd been kneeling over Bayliss, "you haven't changed yet. I was worried I was going to have to deal with your forge."
"Perfectly nice person once you get to know her," Eames answers automatically before bursting into, "what are you doing here?"
"Looking after your sorry ass," she says. Her eyes have an utterly guileless look that Eames doesn't trust for a second. "Specifically, I'm here because Arthur asked me to."
Eames is torn between that slimy bastard and helpless pure adoration. Of course Arthur did. "And now that you're here," he says, "what do you intend to do?"
"Uh, my job?" Her mouth quirks into a smile. "Look, go down to the other level. But don't go into the forge until you see Bayliss. Trust me, okay?"
Eames takes a long look at her. If this fails, Ariadne stands to be in the same position he is. Between the two of them, they're likely to drag Arthur in after them. It's a terrible idea. Eames ought to call it off. He's frankly lost control over this entire situation.
Oh, bugger it. Eames had no control over the situation to begin with. He lies down and lets Ariadne intubate him. She has quick careful hands, which Eames appreciates.
"Trust me," Ariadne says as he sinks deeper. "I know what I'm doing." Eames has no choice but to believe her, because, at this point, what good would doubting do?
~~
The second level is a garden, which Eames didn't expect.
He thinks he spots Ariadne's touches, here and there, in the unlikely level of detail in a bug's carapace, in how the brilliant blue of the sky washes into gray at the edges. But it might just be wishful thinking. It occurs to him that the Ariadne he saw might be no more than a projection, conjured by his mind to soothe him in a stressful situation. He doesn't ponder it much. That way madness lies.
The garden is quiet, a pre-dawn hush in spite of the midday look of the light. Eames walks on well-raked gravel paths, taking in the scent of the flowers. He doesn't take Alex's form. Not yet.
A small eternity passes until the curved paths straighten. The peaceful drone of the few solitary bugs dies down, replaced by a louder, more insistent beat. It quickens as Eames moves along. The vegetation grows thicker, wilder, until Eames moves from a tame garden into what feels like a jungle, riotous around him in color and sound.
Then he reaches a small clearing, and an abrupt silence.
Bayliss is in there, with his back turned to Eames. Eames takes a deep breath, and becomes.
It's imperfect, wrong – he can tell as soon as he assumes her form that he's doing it wrong. For once, he's still thinking as himself. He's not sure what he did and how it happened, but he's lost who Alex is and he can't find her.
He's starting to worry that this is going to be a problem when Bayliss turns around, his face twisting in confusion.
"Honey?" he says, and that's all the warning Eames gets before his face gets ground into the dirt.
"That's not me," he hears a voice growl above him, near-hysterical and too familiar for comfort. "That bitch can't wear my face. She's not me."
"Of course," Bayliss says, almost frantic himself. "Of course she isn't. Come here, honey, we'll fix it."
The weight slowly lifts off Eames' back. He feels the cold muzzle of a gun against the back of his neck.
"Stand up," Alex snarls, and Eames rises to his feet, hands held above his head.
"I've got her," Bayliss said. "You come here now, sweetie. Come here to me." Like he's talking to a dog, Eames thinks, disgusted.
Alex walks to him. Eames doesn't dare turn around so he sees her when she walks around him, gun still carefully trained on him, walking backwards to Bayliss. Her doe's eyes are wide, her hair unkempt and tousled artistically. No leaves in her hair, and the tears Eames can see tracking down her face have left no redness in her eyes.
"It's fine," Bayliss whispers into her hair. "It's fine, she's not you, I'd know you anywhere," until she collapses against him, sobbing, gun falling soundlessly on the mossy ground. She grips Bayliss' arms hard. Eames can see him wince even as he pulls her closer.
Eames can't be anything but glad when Bayliss takes up that gun, aims and puts Eames out of this collective misery.
Eames didn't really remember it, when it happened, needed the time to understand and parse it, put it into words and store it in the back of his mind.
He thinks what he has now is a good approximation of how it went, and this is it.
~~
"Do you like the place?" Bayliss asked him, when he entered the corridor. "I try to keep my babies somewhere good."
The place wasn't bad, but there was something off about it. Eames had the uncomfortable feeling that if he looked at anything closely enough, he'd see the pixels. "We're dreaming," he said.
Bayliss waved this off. "Of course we are," he said. "We're both busy people, right? This means I don't have to actually kidnap you, transport you a considerable distance, and then take the time off my schedule. Besides," he said, and there's the sharp grin Eames remembered again, "this seemed... appropriate."
By now, Eames had figured out how this worked. "You were militarized twice," he said. Just as Arthur suspected. Appropriate, that.
Bayliss ignored him, which was pretty predictable, actually. This wasn't Bayliss, not really. It was something else, more like a recording of him than anything. A living memory, likely planted in their mark, worming its way into Eames by pathways wrought during the job they did on Bayliss.
Instead of saying anything, Bayliss pulled a cord, and a curtain behind him parted. Eames was only sort of surprised so see it there.
Emiliana. This was just a dream reproduction of her, crude and untrue. Eames wanted to resent that Bayliss hasn't even bothered to rent a proper architect to get her right.
"So you did buy her," Eames murmured, resisting the urge to step closer. Damn fool thing, falling in love with a painting, but Eames always had a tendency to be foolish with his heart.
"I bought this," Bayliss said, looking past him to where Eames stood a moment ago. It's a little freaky-uncanny. More than it should be, considering. "I bought this for a very specific reason."
At this point, Eames started feeling distinctly unsettled.
"You reveal more about yourself than you think," Bayliss said, "going into people's dreams like that. Now, I did enjoy your attempt at deflection." He grinned, sharklike. "Sending me after who I'm told is one of the most deadly people in your field – that was nice. I do like a joke. But next time, please try a better diversion than trying to sell me a professional killer as your boyfriend."
Eames half-wanted to protest – Arthur was hardly anything as crude as a professional killer, but Bayliss wasn't likely to listen to him. Better if he didn't, in fact. Bayliss was right, Arthur could make short work of anyone they could send after him, but it was always preferable not to have to deal with little annoyances like assassination attempts.
"But the painting," Bayliss said. "When they told me about that, I believed."
And, right, of course there was a trap. Of course there was something in Bayliss' brain that had teeth to bite back. A name passes through Eames' mind, a memory – Pierre, Arthur mentioned that name, but Eames knew it before, too. Pierre l'Ingénieur, who builds trapdoors into minds, who puts neat little points of entry in an intruder's dreams. Far less flashy than Althea's work, but just as deadly.
There's little to no point in Eames beating himself up over it, although he feels like he should, just for form's sake.
Well, nothing for it. "What is it you want, then? Revenge?" If that was so, well, revenge could take more than one shape. He might just want to make Eames grovel, humiliate him a bit. For the sake of love, Eames can take that.
Bayliss' eyes met his, and Eames was hard-pressed to remember that he wasn't actually talking to a person. That the thing in front of him resembled a glorified projection more than anything else.
"I want," Bayliss' shade said, "your forgery. I want Alex."
Which was a fucking joke, all right. Eames laughed humorlessly. "You can bloody go on wanting, mate."
They were obviously in the audience participation stage of this little charade. Bayliss leaned closer and said, conversationally. "You'll do what I tell you, Mr. Eames. Because if you don't, I'll personally set fire to this painting and mail you the ashes."
Oh, fuck Bayliss. Eames wanted to snarl at this, and only barely reined himself in. "I don't believe you," he said instead, which was true. He and Bayliss may not have the same tastes, but Eames recognized this in Bayliss: He didn't have it in him to destroy anything beautiful.
Bayliss laughed, short and mirthless. "You think?" The projection casually flicked a lighter and leaned back, letting the flames lick casually at the painting. Eames gritted his teeth. Just a dream, he reminded himself. It wasn't even a particularly good reproduction.
"I want her," Bayliss said while the fire ate into the canvas and the dyes. "I want your Alex. And if I can't have her, then trust me when I say," he pulled the lighter away for a moment, "I will burn everything I own to the ground before I let her go."
Eames couldn't restrain himself from saying, "Is that what you think love is?"
But the projection wasn't listening anymore, had pulled back to watch the painting burn, dispassionately. "It was fucking ugly, anyway," he said, and Eames lunged at him and woke to see Arthur, enraged.
~~
Arthur goes quiet when he's angry, withdraws and pulls himself tightly closed. Eames hates it, but he frankly doesn't see anything he can do about it at the moment. He calls Ariadne, because she asked, and to take his mind off things.
Her voice is cheerful on the other end. She occasionally halts the conversation to yell instructions in Portuguese at some unknown entity. Eames doesn't ask.
"How's Sandra?" he asks during a lull in the conversation, just for something to say.
"Ask her yourself," Ariadne says, and passes the phone before Eames can object.
"Fine, thank you," Sandra says a moment later. "I suppose you want her back now?"
"Unless you've got something else to say." He's sorry already for being short with her, but honestly he doesn't feel like dealing with this right now.
"Don't take your problems out on Ari," Sandra says, and all right, she's fairly observant, he'll give her that.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he says, and gets Ariadne back for his troubles.
"Um," she says, after a lengthy dissertation on the subject of ergonomics as applied to wide-scale design (or something similar, possibly Eames has not been paying as much attention as he should), "so. How's Arthur?"
"Fine," Eames says. "You were saying, about ideal distances...?"
Ariadne snorts. "Yeah, try harder, buddy."
He's never needed to, frankly. It was always sufficient to just mention anything relating to Ariadne's latest obsession to set her off-course.
"I'm learning," she says, quietly, after he mentions something along that line. "Let's just say, some people said things. I'm trying to be better."
Which is very nice for her, Eames supposes, but to him this is rather inconvenient at this time. "Never listen to them," he says, because he might as well try a distraction.
"Eames." And nothing more, until he sighs and says, "Fine, he's not talked to me for a week. Happy now?"
She makes a strangled noise. "What did you do?"
"What makes you think it was me who did anything?" But Eames recognizes this as the petulant nonsense it is the minute it leaves his mouth, and amends by saying, "Nothing I had much of a choice about."
"Just tell me you didn't sell him to the highest bidder," Ariadne says. "Because if you did, we can't be friends anymore."
"I didn't – " Eames says, disgusted. "Honestly, some days I don't even know why I talk to you."
"You love me," she says, unrepentant. "Also, who else will listen to your lovesick ramblings?"
"I do not ramble," Eames says severely. "I have no idea what you are going on about and if you persist in this line of thinking, I will hire thugs to destroy your car."
There's a laughter in stereo coming from the other side of the line. How kind of Ariadne to mention that she was putting him on speaker phone.
"Sorry," Sandra says, gasping. "But you have no idea how much you sounded like Arthur for a minute there."
Well, now that Eames thinks about it, he knows exactly how much like Arthur he sounded. Which is just adding insult to injury, really. Arthur's ingrained in him now, imprinted deeper than habit, to a level where Eames couldn't pull Arthur out of his life if he wanted to.
He sinks into a glum silence until the giggles on the other end dissipate. "I really am sorry," Sandra says. Eames has difficulties hearing her over the noises at the other end. He seriously considers just hanging up. "Look, you should know. Arthur's serious, okay? He's always serious. Give him some time to calm down and you'll sort it out. Don't worry about it too much."
"'Course not," Eames says, with a cheer he doesn't feel. "Can't see what I could possibly have to worry about." Then he hangs up the phone, because he's a grown man and therefore entitled to a good sulk if he feels like one.
~~
Of course he worries.
The worst of it is, he can tell that if he apologizes, if he makes even the smallest concession, Arthur will be all over himself trying to put things back together. Eames reads Arthur's silences easily now, the small twitches in his movements. Arthur doesn't want to fight. He doesn't want to stay angry at Eames. He just needs one gesture, the tiniest possible thing Eames can give.
Eames can't give him anything.
Because he has to take this job. Has to do it – the alternative isn't thinkable. Can't take Arthur with him, either, because there's no use making a bad job worse.
Bayliss thinks he's in love with Alex. He might as well be in love with a character from a story for all the good that'll do him, but he's decided to delegate the hopelessness of this situation by dumping it into Eames' lap. Splendid.
The requisite solution to this problem is a simple theft, but Eames has received an anonymous email the day after he received the latter. It contained a detailed listing of the publicly known security measures in Bayliss' facilities. They are... prohibitively well-made.
Normally Eames would treat that kind of thing as a challenge, but the letter also contained a photo of the painting, an unlit lighter held underneath it. Eames caved.
He's been working on Alex since, bringing her into sharper and sharper contrast, going into a ludicrous level of details on her history, her psyche. Trying to make her into someone he could bear to be, someone he could cast off afterwards with no ill effects.
Eames has no way of knowing whether it will work until he tries. He dreads the attempt.
~~
The meeting is on a Thursday. Eames has no preparations at all to make for it. He goes armed, of course, but it's only a gun in an ankle holster, which he'll likely be frisked of in any case. Weapons are more likely to be a hindrance than a help in this case.
He doesn't bring a PASIV, mostly out of the childish hope that if they don't have one this whole thing could be rendered moot. He's practiced his character over and over. He has a train ticket and some change in his pocket, and nothing else.
Arthur's sitting at the kitchen table, pointedly not looking at Eames except when he turns his back. Then Eames can feel Arthur's eyes on him, boring into him, like they're trying to cut Eames up into manageable pieces.
On impulse, Eames turns back, fast enough to catch Arthur at it. Arthur has the grace not to quickly avert his eyes.
"You'll be staying here," Eames says, for confirmation.
"You didn't ask me to come." Arthur looks at him steadily. "So that's a yes," he adds, when Eames stares at him.
"Promise me you'll stay here tonight," Eames says, softer than he means to. It just escapes from his mouth like that.
Arthur slowly straightens in his seat. Eames takes in the picture he makes, greedy, the curl of Arthur's hair barely touching his shoulders, his fine dark eyes, his graceful fingers, his soft mouth pursed in disapproval. "Why should I?" Arthur says, and Eames wants to go to him, to lay hands on Arthur, to apologize and stay and shut away everything else.
"Because I asked," Eames says, and after a moment Arthur nods.
"I promise," he says. "I'll stay here."
"Good," Eames says, then turns away and gets the fuck out before he can change his mind.
If he could, he'd paint a picture of Arthur as he was, right then and there, tuck it into his wallet for safekeeping. But that's no help, really. He doesn't even has his wallet on him.
~~
It's strange, not breaking in. Eames has done his share of playing a legitimate corporate businessperson, but that's all it ever was. Playing. It makes him feel odd not to have that tiny frisson of excitement, knowing he might get caught.
They keep him waiting in a nondescript room for interminable minutes before Bayliss decrees he's ready to receive him.
"Thank you for coming," Bayliss says when Eames enters the office. Eames smiles at him tightly. He doesn't feel like playing games right now, thank you very much.
"Do you have a PASIV?" he asks.
Bayliss pulls one out from under his desk, wordlessly, and there goes Eames' best idea.
"Five minutes," Bayliss says. "To start with."
"Who synthesized your material?" Eames says. "I'm not using any old crap, you know."
"You're not in any position to be making demands, Mr. Eames," Bayliss says mildly. "Also, you're stalling."
So Eames shuts the fuck up and lies down, extending his arm for the IV like the good boy he really isn't.
It's a stupid thing he's doing, he does realize that. Likely the dumbest thing he'll ever do, less for sheer magnitude and more for the growing unlikeliness he'll be able to walk away from this. The more he dreams with Bayliss, the more sensitive information Bayliss will be able to get out of him, more soft spots for Bayliss to use against him.
If Bayliss thinks he's in love, once won't be enough for him, and he'll have the leverage to get more out of Eames. Doubtlessly he'll tire of Alex eventually – he's this sort of person – but that's not the question.
Alex was terrifyingly hard to shake off, that one time. Another is very unlikely to be good for Eames. Slipping into her repeatedly, for interaction-intense scenarios...
The IV is set, and Eames closes his eyes.
~~
In the dream, he's alone, and the room is full of mirrors.
He has no idea why this is. Perhaps Bayliss is trying to help, in his way. It's true that getting into a forge is easier with a visual aid, but Eames knows Alex by heart now, can find his way into her by feel. And once he does, those mirrors are not going to make her happy.
Long moments pass until Eames finds a door. He opens it to see a small room, not unlike the office they were just in. The two lawn chairs and the PASIV waiting there are almost painfully predictable. Bayliss is already lying in one of said chairs, wired in. Of course five minutes wouldn't actually be enough, for Bayliss. Of course he wouldn't want his employees to know that.
What is less expected – and therefore takes him a moment to see – is Ariadne, standing over Bayliss' body.
Eames looks at her, up and down, takes in her immaculate suit, the coiffed bun her hair's held in. It's rarely that Eames finds himself at a loss for words, and now is one such time.
"Oh good," Ariadne says, straightening from where she'd been kneeling over Bayliss, "you haven't changed yet. I was worried I was going to have to deal with your forge."
"Perfectly nice person once you get to know her," Eames answers automatically before bursting into, "what are you doing here?"
"Looking after your sorry ass," she says. Her eyes have an utterly guileless look that Eames doesn't trust for a second. "Specifically, I'm here because Arthur asked me to."
Eames is torn between that slimy bastard and helpless pure adoration. Of course Arthur did. "And now that you're here," he says, "what do you intend to do?"
"Uh, my job?" Her mouth quirks into a smile. "Look, go down to the other level. But don't go into the forge until you see Bayliss. Trust me, okay?"
Eames takes a long look at her. If this fails, Ariadne stands to be in the same position he is. Between the two of them, they're likely to drag Arthur in after them. It's a terrible idea. Eames ought to call it off. He's frankly lost control over this entire situation.
Oh, bugger it. Eames had no control over the situation to begin with. He lies down and lets Ariadne intubate him. She has quick careful hands, which Eames appreciates.
"Trust me," Ariadne says as he sinks deeper. "I know what I'm doing." Eames has no choice but to believe her, because, at this point, what good would doubting do?
~~
The second level is a garden, which Eames didn't expect.
He thinks he spots Ariadne's touches, here and there, in the unlikely level of detail in a bug's carapace, in how the brilliant blue of the sky washes into gray at the edges. But it might just be wishful thinking. It occurs to him that the Ariadne he saw might be no more than a projection, conjured by his mind to soothe him in a stressful situation. He doesn't ponder it much. That way madness lies.
The garden is quiet, a pre-dawn hush in spite of the midday look of the light. Eames walks on well-raked gravel paths, taking in the scent of the flowers. He doesn't take Alex's form. Not yet.
A small eternity passes until the curved paths straighten. The peaceful drone of the few solitary bugs dies down, replaced by a louder, more insistent beat. It quickens as Eames moves along. The vegetation grows thicker, wilder, until Eames moves from a tame garden into what feels like a jungle, riotous around him in color and sound.
Then he reaches a small clearing, and an abrupt silence.
Bayliss is in there, with his back turned to Eames. Eames takes a deep breath, and becomes.
It's imperfect, wrong – he can tell as soon as he assumes her form that he's doing it wrong. For once, he's still thinking as himself. He's not sure what he did and how it happened, but he's lost who Alex is and he can't find her.
He's starting to worry that this is going to be a problem when Bayliss turns around, his face twisting in confusion.
"Honey?" he says, and that's all the warning Eames gets before his face gets ground into the dirt.
"That's not me," he hears a voice growl above him, near-hysterical and too familiar for comfort. "That bitch can't wear my face. She's not me."
"Of course," Bayliss says, almost frantic himself. "Of course she isn't. Come here, honey, we'll fix it."
The weight slowly lifts off Eames' back. He feels the cold muzzle of a gun against the back of his neck.
"Stand up," Alex snarls, and Eames rises to his feet, hands held above his head.
"I've got her," Bayliss said. "You come here now, sweetie. Come here to me." Like he's talking to a dog, Eames thinks, disgusted.
Alex walks to him. Eames doesn't dare turn around so he sees her when she walks around him, gun still carefully trained on him, walking backwards to Bayliss. Her doe's eyes are wide, her hair unkempt and tousled artistically. No leaves in her hair, and the tears Eames can see tracking down her face have left no redness in her eyes.
"It's fine," Bayliss whispers into her hair. "It's fine, she's not you, I'd know you anywhere," until she collapses against him, sobbing, gun falling soundlessly on the mossy ground. She grips Bayliss' arms hard. Eames can see him wince even as he pulls her closer.
Eames can't be anything but glad when Bayliss takes up that gun, aims and puts Eames out of this collective misery.