Re: [Dreaming: Atticus & Eames]
If it isn't self-evident, Eames had more chance of identifying a soldier's moll in a crowd full of whores than he did whoever Burroughs and Hughes were. If he let it, darling, it wouldn't matter. Nothing did, this far down. The dream soothed ragged edges until they snagged on nothing. It buried sensations that abraded away the single track that the dream was bound and determined to run along, greased wheels and no brakes.
Eames reached for his pocket, unthinking and found nothing within the seam. He blanched and he sucked deeply on the cigar between his fingers instead. This, more than anything made clear that the dream's limits and walls were what they were. Eames, darling, clung to sensation and did not leave go. Humanity, darling, could fuck right off.
"It's pretty," Eames said of the silver, examining it in his hand. "Why not, darling? Does it bite?" He hadn't even the vaguest idea of what might put silver out of reach. It joined Burroughs and Hughes, a clamor of references that bounced off the breadth of his shoulders. He smiled: it was teeth and genuine amusement.
"In that case, I like my friends bloody and medium-rare," he drawled. "Shaw sounds daft as a hatter, darling. But I'm very glad you don't eat your guests." He let the dreamer stream consciousness at him as Eames examined the way the light died, the slow dissipation of color from the room in the gloam of spirits that lurked. Eames loathed things that lurked.
"If you're finished, darling." Eames had no problem with the cigar and tobacco and he wedged it in the corner of his cheek as he finished his survey of the room. It was complete, which Eames thought was memory. Unless the dreamer was an architect in another life, and he was far too lacking in deliberation for that.
"I'm hugely keen on not dying." He lunged after the dreamer; Eames had no idea if the dream would sag out and collapse when the dreamer was not in the room and he wasn't intending on finding out. Death would take him out cleanly, but lost in the depths of someone else's subconscious? It haunted Eames' nightmares.
"Give me the tour then, darling. What do I call you?"