InsaneJournal

Who: Ariadne and Eames
When: This morning
What: Back to normal for Eames. And then discovering bad things.
Rating: Sad
Status: Complete.



This was possibly the worst week of her life. And perhaps it was melodramatic to say that when she'd already survived a zombie apocalypse, but in some ways this was worse. When Eames and Sirius had died she'd been able to mourn them, to grieve properly and share her feelings. But this was unlike that. Arthur was gone, simply vanished into the void, and she hoped he was back where he belonged but she had no way to verify that and she missed him. Eames was still here, but he was different in ways that felt wrong even as she was unable to define them. Phil was a teenager and frankly frightened her, like a changeling that had replaced the preschooler that Ariadne was growing fond of. Morpheus was either playing some private game with them or was being affected by the changes, and a dream-god's sense of playfulness had the potential to be terrifying indeed. Sirius had been changed twice, the second time to a version that both frightened and saddened her. And Regulus was wearing Arthur's face and had been nicer than the point man ever had, and was apparently dating her doppelganger. It was more confusing than anything Ariadne wanted to encounter in the world she accepted as reality, and she was starting to feel like a string that had been pulled too tight and was about to snap.

She headed into the kitchen and started the water heating for tea. Having Eames around meant she was drinking more of it, and it made her less edgy than coffee. Which was probably a good thing, at this point. Ariadne leaned against the counter and put her hands over her face, wishing abstractly that she could just wake up and have everything be normal again.

Eames was asleep on the couch. Or he had been up until he heard someone moving round in the kitchen, and then a kettle being filled. He yawned and stretched a bit, then stopped when he realised he was on a couch and not actually in his bed. Very strange. Perhaps that night out with Sirius had turned into an absolute bender. Huh.

He got to his feet, and blinked when he noticed the clothes he was wearing. A tee-shirt that was far too small on him, and a pair of tracksuit bottoms that were thankfully drawstring ones. He managed to pull off the tee-shirt, loosened the waist of his tracksuit bottoms so that he could actually breathe and then looked around the room. This was Ariadne’s place. Had she shown up at some point in the evening? He really couldn’t remember. But his head didn’t hurt in the slightest so he couldn’t be hungover. How bizarre. His totem was tucked in just under the couch, so he picked it up and checked it, and yes, this was reality. He slipped it into his pocket and stretched once more, wincing as his spine popped back into place.

He wandered off to use the toilet, and to wash his face, and then padded back out to rejoin Ariadne in the kitchen. “Good morning, my lovely, I do hope you’re making tea. Is there a reason I’m on your couch?”

The voice was different. That was what made her head snap up, eyes wide. As she took in the familiar details she'd been missing - the added breadth to his shoulders, the assortment of tattoos - Ariadne could feel something like a smile on her face. "Oh, thank god." She pushed her hair out of her face and wanted badly to hug him for a moment, but that would only confuse him further. Answering his second question seemed too complicated at the moment, so she settled for the first one. "Yes, I'm making tea, and it includes a cup for you."

He grinned back at her when she smiled. “It’s not really necessary to thank whatever architectural deities you choose to sacrifice slide-rulers and craft knives to for my appearing in your kitchen, you know. But I quite like it, so feel free to carry on if you wish.”

He yawned and stretched again before crossing the room to lean on the counter beside her as he waited for his tea. While he could switch from sleeping to awake in an instant if he chose to, there was something to be said for a pleasant slow wake-up. “Is Sirius here too? He was fairly insistent on destroying his innards last nigh-” and he broke off to yawn behind his hand, then idly scratched at his side. “Excuse me. I’m still very tired,” he explained, before ducking his head to knuckle sleep out of his eyes.

Oh, fuck. "That... wasn't last night, Eames," Ariadne said carefully, looking up at him. "I guess you don't remember, but whatever it is that messes with us here was doing it again. And this time it picked you." She paused, looking to see a hint of a reaction. "You don't remember any of it?" she asked. More to figure out how much of the past few weeks she was going to have to explain.

That wasn’t last night? He frowned and rubbed at his nose as he poked at his memories, and everything was as sharp as usual up until a number of drinks into his night out with Sirius. Then, there were strange fuzzy ones that felt almost like a half-remembered dream. He was younger and Sirius was... well. Serious. Or mental. A cheerful Regulus had taken him apparating again, which was just stupid, and had they gone to a supermarket? Really? He thought a bit more, but... no, that was all he was getting for the moment. “I dreamt some weird shit, if that’s what you mean. I was younger, and Sirius was older, and Regulus was there. But nothing more than that.”

He went to lift a mug from the cupboard, picking the one that seemed like his for whatever reason, and passed it over to her. If he didn’t get some tea, and soon, he’d be yawning for the rest of the morning and that would never do.

Well, at least that gave her a baseline, she thought as she dropped the teabags into the mugs. Eames had apparently picked the one he'd been using all week. Weird. "That wasn't a dream. Everybody was mixed up, like they'd come from different realities. Sirius was older and he was raising Harry instead of being in prison, and then he went back to normal and then he was an older version who'd been in prison and gone crazy. Regulus was a Gryffindor instead of a Slytherin and he and Sirius were best friends..." She lowered her voice. "He's been crashing here occasionally since he and Sirius still don't get along here." The kettle whistled and Ariadne turned to pour the water over the teabags. "Who else... Phillipa was older, like she'd been living in Colligo for ten years. You'd taught her to play poker."

She risked a glance at him before setting the kettle back down. "And you were... you were younger, and everything that had happened to you was one really long dream. A training exercise, you said."

He nodded as she went through things that did actually sound familiar, now that he thought on it. And then she mentioned what had happened to him. “...A training exercise? Oh. Oh, no. No, please don’t tell me...” he trailed off, knowing exactly how much younger he’d been. “My first experience with dreamsharing, right? I couldn’t have been much older than you. And in the army.” How wonderful. He randomly thought about the next load of facts he didn’t want people to know, and how the experiments could find new and exciting ways for everyone to find out.

“You and Arthur are fine, though. Right? No turning into future versions of yourselves or aliens who live in, I don’t know, Ohio, or anything like that?”

"Yeah, just about." She smiled; it was funnier now that he was back to normal. "Lieutenant Eames. I don't know which was weirder, the lack of tattoos or the fact that you moved like a soldier instead of slouching everywhere." Ariadne passed his mug over and wrapped her hands around her own. "Or maybe the fact that you actually told me things instead of just vaguely slipping out of answering questions."

His own question made her glad she had both hands on her mug, because otherwise she might have dropped it. "I was fine. Arthur.... Eames, Arthur is gone. Whatever brought us here sent him back." Telling him a second time wasn't any easier. Possibly harder, since this version knew what that loss would feel like.

He laughed and shook his head at her reaction to his past self, but the good mood did not last very long. “...Excuse me, what did you say? Because it sounded like you said Arthur was gone.”

“He’s gone, Eames,” she said, and he stared at her for a moment, then checked for his totem. He put his mug down at the same time, and went back out to the couch where he’d seen his pile of stuff. He looked at his totem as he walked, and apparently, this was still reality. His keys would be in with the rest of his belongings, of course (because even though he was a master thief, keys were still much faster than breaking and entering) and once he’d found them, he was out in the hallway and opening the door to his own flat. Barechested, barefoot, he didn’t really care.

He checked every room. The only things in the flat belonged to him. There weren’t even any ties or, or any of the many ridiculous things that belonged to Arthur. No suits, no waistcoats, no shoes, no shirts, no books or moleskines or pens, none of them. Fuck, he couldn’t even smell Arthur any more.

Arthur, his Arthur was gone.

He looked round at Ariadne, because of course she’d followed after him. “The. uh. The PASIV. It’s. It was Arthur’s, so, uh.”

He was going to sit down.

Ariadne watched the search, as it got more frantic and Eames clearly found nothing left. She should have expected this since he hadn't remembered everything that happened. But she'd just blurted it out and - well, this was obviously the consequence. As Eames more or less collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table, she hovered near him, not sure what to do.

"Yeah, I know. I. I'm sorry, Eames." Because what the hell else was she supposed to say? She put a hand on his shoulder carefully. He'd been the one to tell her in the first place, had walked her home from her job with an arm around her shoulders and steered her into her flat, and she hadn't even - well. She'd loved Arthur in her own way but it wasn't reciprocated. And it was nothing like what Eames had felt. But the forger was all about the facade, and seeing him like this made her feel as if the floor was tilting under her feet.

He leant over in his chair and covered his face with his hands. Not to cry, good God, no. He just needed to regroup. He needed to pull himself back together, that was all. Of course, to do that, he needed to find all the parts of him that had just sort of shattered everywhere, and he was fairly certain that Arthur had taken a few essential bits with him, but he’d sort it out. He’d be fine.

After a brief pause, he reached up to his shoulder with one hand and covered Ariadne’s tiny hand with his, then took a few deep breaths before sitting up straight. “Right. uh. Well. That’s thrown a huge fucking spanner in the works, hasn’t it? Jesus.”

Crying would have been horrifying coming from Eames, but it still would have been a reasonably normal reaction for a person. But Ariadne was secretly glad that he didn't. Their relationship was strained enough as it was without her having to hold him as he wept. She let out a breath when he covered her hand and gave him a brief smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Yeah, basically. I mean, apparently everybody just goes back to whatever they were doing when they were brought here, so I'm sure he's fine." She said it as much to convince herself as to reassure him. "And I'm not going to ask if you're okay, because that would be really fucking stupid."

“It is, yes. Oh, shit. Uhm. Arthur is no doubt more than fine. He’s Arthur, after all.” Eames fell silent after that, because really, what else was there to say? He stood up once more, kissed Ariadne on the forehead and walked back to the bedroom he’d shared with Arthur. He paused at the doorway and looked round at her. “Thanks, sweetheart. I’ll see you later, okay?”

He had forgotten all about his mug of tea and his pile of belongings in her flat, but that was fine, he really didn’t give a shit. He was going to have a bit of a mope, and then head down to the pub at a slightly less psychotic and more socially acceptable time. He shut the bedroom door after he went into the room and then lay down on the bed. The pillows didn’t even smell like Arthur now. Well, fuck.