royal_musings | Reincarnates 03: for NeededForger

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Reincarnates 03: for NeededForger

The town they were settling in for the foreseeable future was nice enough and large enough that they weren't going to stand out too much and be able to blend in pretty easily. Which, for Arthur, was as good as anything else they could expect.

As they had anticipated, the further in the city they went, the more there was available to them. Including an electronics store and a department store where they were bound to find more than novelty glassware and paper plates and anything else they may need for their new abode.

They arrived back at the house later that afternoon after exploring their surroundings, ordering the few things they needed for their home security network and buying new dishware.

It felt domestic, not that it didn't that morning or other times they holed up together, but this felt even more so for reasons he hadn't yet considered.

Once they were inside and settled in, the call to the cable and phone company made, Arthur looked over at Eames. "Do you think it's too much to hope that it was a one time occurrence?" The flash.

After all, since they made a run from the building, they hadn't had another.

Yet.

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Eames had gone about brushing his teeth and then washing his hands, having to turn the water to cold almost immediately because hot was too reminiscent of Arthur's blood spilling across his fingers, something that had happened once or twice in recent memory and wasn't something he ever wanted to feel again if it could be helped.

After that he'd brushed his teeth again because he could still taste bile in the back of his throat, and he had to sit on the edge of the tub just so that he couldn't see his own face in the mirror, because that was something else he couldn't handle just then.

He knew that he should go check on Arthur -it had to have been more traumatic for him than it had been for Eames- but he couldn't quite bring himself to do so yet. Soon, certainly, but not just yet, still trying to wrap his own mind around everything he'd experienced just in those few moments.

He brought his legs up close to his chest, keeping his hands on his chest. Although there was no flesh wound there and the feeling of being stabbed was starting to fade, he felt as though he could still taste, see and feel everything that had happened right then.

Fuck.

That had been... well... fucking traumatic would be one way to describe it.

He had yet to see Eames reemerge from the bathroom but he couldn't blame the man. Not really. Arthur wasn't sure how he would take being the one to kill Eames either.

It was a good few minutes later before he felt mentally well enough to stand and put his lunch away for later. After that... he wasn't so sure he could keep anything down.

Eames did finally emerge after checking his totem three times just to be absolutely sure, still pale and a little drawn. The first thing he did was to draw Arthur into a hug, voice low and more than a little shaken, "I'm sorry, Arthur. I wouldn't... you know I'd never... I am so sorry."

The fact that Eames was at a loss for words was a testament to just how shaken he was, as that wasn't the sort of thing that generally happened to him, Eames who had a comeback ready for almost any situation, but not this time, it seemed.

His hands weren't shaking anymore, though that was through sheer determination more than it was any semblance of having recovered from the shock.

Once Arthur had put away the food, he too had checked his totem time and time again just to make sure this was, in fact, reality and he was still here. He had just pocketed the dice when Eames came back in and pulled him into a hug. He didn't think about it for a second before returning the hug tightly. The way he clung onto him betrayed how shaken he still was.

"I know," he said.

It was one thing when they both died as Bonnie and Clyde; it was another when one of them ended up killing the other.

After a long minute, though he found a part of him really didn't want to, Arthur started to pull away from him. This Eames wasn't the one that killed him those years ago. That was a different time and a different place.

"I put the food up... I didn't think either of us would be that hungry after... that."

Finding that Arthur was reassuringly solid and equally reassuringly present did settle him a little, though he was as reluctant as Arthur was to lose that contact.

He did, however, nod at the statement, "Good idea. I think really what I need right now is a cuppa." Either that or a drink, but it was too early in the day to start drinking, mostly because he knew after a shock to his system like that had been, alcohol was the last thing he needed, because if he started he wouldn't likely stop any time soon.

So instead he stepped away from Arthur to make sure there was water in the kettle, putting it on the stove, leaning back against the counter, "I think we can officially rule out Somnacin hangover at this point." Not that it had really been a serious consideration in the first place, but it had, at least, been somewhere on the list.

Arthur nodded and slid a hand around to the back of his neck and gave it a little squeeze - finding that action soothing for one reason or another. "I think that's a good idea. That or whiskey," he agreed and watched as Eames stepped away to start the kettle up.

"Agreed," he said and looked at him. "That leaves us with... something outside of the realm of normal." Something supernatural? Was that what this would constitute as?

"Though, I don't have the word to describe what exactly it is." Of course, knowing how entwined they were in past lives, didn't really change who they were as people and what they did for a living. Well. Until a flash like that happened when or if they were on a job.

"Well, Arthur, that would be paranormal." It was an attempt at levity, and it almost worked, though he honestly sounded more tired than anything, "Which I know sounds ridiculous, until you take into account what it is we do for a living."

He shook his head then, going about getting mugs for the tea, "Technological advancement and heavy drugs, I know, but we're bloody dream-walkers." He shook his head again, "That isn't something that normal people are capable of. So, taking that into account, is it really that difficult to believe that we've... what? Had other lives before this one? And that we've known each other in more than one of them?"

It was that difficult to believe, and furthermore he knew it, which was part of why he was speaking aloud, just to help sort out his own thoughts on the matter.

"It does sound ridiculous but ultimately, you're right," he granted him with a little nod. He was tired too, especially after that last flash of their shared lifetimes.

Arthur stayed silent for a long moment as he leaned against the counter and gave it a good long thought. "It's hard to believe," he said after a long moment. "But, at the same time," he continued after a slight pause. "At the same time, it's also not. When we work together, we don't even need to talk to know how the other will react." And it had been like that even when they started working together.

He was never sure why but it had been there, at least for him. It had never made sense. He didn't trust those he was just starting to work with but somehow, he did with Eames.

"Have since the beginning." He agreed with a nod, going about getting mugs and tea down from the cabinet, just waiting for the water to boil, "Got under each other's skin right from the start, I think."

Mostly in a way that made people think they wanted to kill each other, and maybe sometimes they had in those early days, it had been easy to push each other's buttons as well, also right from the start, the sort of thing that Eames hadn't even thought twice about, at least not then and only rarely now.

"Still going to contact Pixel, if I know anyone who'd know a past-life-regression therapist who's not a complete charlatan it'll be her." He scrubbed a hand through his hair, shaking his head, "And that says something about my life up to this point, doesn't it?"

Arthur nodded and stood there in silence as Eames worked on their tea. He allowed his mouth to curl up a little. "There is no 'I think', we absolutely did," he said with a chuckle. He hadn't been sure what it was about Eames at first that got under his skin but it had happened and it had happened frequently.

No, that was wrong. He knew what it had been but these days, he found it less noticeable. Now, it worked for them when they were in a tough spot and had each other to fall back on.

"Good idea. She's a handy one, Pixel," he said and slid a hand through his hair, his other in his pocket.

"I think it says a lot more about this land we've suddenly found ourselves in than anything else. After the first couple of years, I became less and less surprised by the people I met in this business."

"This line of work does pull in a certain sort of people." He replied, nodding, "That's a fair point. Of course, even among that certain sort there's all sorts of variety." And that was something that did still surprise him most days, that regardless of the similar vein in people drawn to the dreamsharing business, there were vast differences as well.

While Chemists did tend to be real-world scientists of some stripe, they weren't all, some of them were cooks, some were doctors. Extractors and Forgers alike tended to be thieves of some kind, but just as many Forgers were actors as well and the list just went on. He'd never really tried to map it before, to see if there really was one common thread among them all, that was too much of a task even for him.

"I would be more surprised if there weren't such a variety," he admitted. He was of the honest belief, like Eames, that you had to be a certain sort of person to make it in this business and even then, not all were the same. Some came from military backgrounds, some from the academic side of things and others from the wrong side of the law perhaps hearing a rumor and being drawn into the land of dreamsharing.

The one thing Arthur always figured that drew them all in was both the unknown and uncharted territory that came with dreamshare. Much like the gold rush brought people looking to make a fortune, so true was it for people to drift to mindshare to see what they could make of it.

He took out two mugs from the cabinet and sat them down for their tea once it was finished.

It was another long moment before he spoke again. "It makes me curious what other lives we've met in... what we did, who we were..."

He just nodded at that, turning to lean back against the counter instead of watching the kettle and waiting for it to boil, as he knew it would be three minutes before then anyway, "Myself as well, though I'm not entirely sure I want to know, not if we were always cut down young." That would leave too many lives cut short, and too many chances for them to have left a life unlived.

He also had to believe, he needed to think that they'd had at least one go round where they'd gotten to die old and happy in their beds, but knowing the life they had now, and the glimpses of the lives they'd had, he wasn't entirely sure he could believe such a thing.

God, wasn't that the fucking truth. Arthur wasn't exactly thrilled that in both lives now they've been shot down early. He only hoped that at least one of their lives, they lived longer and happy.

"Agreed," he said with a nod. "All things considered, it doesn't surprise me that we are who we are in this life..."

He leaned against the counter and exhaled a slow breath. "I only hope that at least one of these lives we lived longer than... 35."

Just one life. That's all he was asking... even hoping for.

"Don't know about you, but I've nearly managed that now." He did, in fact, know how old Arthur was, but he still wasn't entirely sure if he was supposed to, since most people assumed Arthur was older than he actually was, and Eames wasn't the sort of person who would out a friend that way.

The statement wasn't as much of a joke as he was trying for, and he knew just how short of the mark it had fallen, shaking his head a moment later, "Oughtn't joke about it, I suppose. Though I don't know if I can really help it."

Arthur glanced at him with a wry look. There was a part of him that knew, or at least very much suspected that Eames was well aware of how old Arthur was. As long as the forger never revealed his true age, he was fine. Truth was, he was just over the 30th mark. "Nearly there," he admitted though in truth, he was five years away from that mark.

"Honestly, I would be more surprised if you didn't try to make a joke of it," he admitted. "Or... more worried, perhaps."

There was a small smile at that, fleeting and thin, but honest at least, he meant it, "Well you aren't wrong there. We could be facing down the Four Horsemen and I'd probably still find a way to crack wise about it."

Because that was just how Eames processed things, sarcasm and a certain sort of gallows humor that he'd had ever since his time in the military, and likely even before then, though it hadn't been quite so dark before then.

"Now that we've experienced what we have, who's to say we won't end up facing them," he said with a small twist of his mouth. Though, to truly be honestly? He didn't suspect they'd come across any variation of the Four Horsemen. Still. Who the hell knew what twist this would make of their lives. How many of these visions would they share?

Arthur appreciated the humor though, dark or not. It made things feel less tense than they were and brought it back to an even keel. "Wonder how many of these we'll end up going through...these visions."

"Somehow I get the feeling we'd already know if that were the case, but perhaps not. This is well out of my realm of expertise at this point."

He shook his head, "Honestly, I'd be more concerned that we're going to end up facing them than the possibility that we already have." A little shrug, "After all, historically, or at least legendarily, this sort of thing rarely goes well for the ones living through it. Though we can't have met that many times, given even a below-average life-span. There are only so many centuries between then and now."

Arthur nodded. "As much as I hate to say it and it comes to no surprise, this is well out of my wheelhouse as well," he agreed.

He tilted his head before he nodded in agreement. Eames was probably right. There were only so many times they could have met in previous lives to warrant seeing too many visions. They were very disorienting if you asked him. He only hoped, on some level, that they had one life where they died not being shot or executed in some way. Considering who they were in this life, it may be a long shot but one he was still half hoping for.

At least that one would be... easier to view.

"We will just have to wait and see." And who knew, perhaps they wouldn't get any more after that one. That could be possible as well, right?

"Hope does spring ever-eternal." He replied, giving a little shrug. Honestly it was hope that they wouldn't have any more, but it was also a hope that if they did they wouldn't be as disturbing as the ones they'd had so far.

"We can also hope that it's just some bizarre hallucination, something brought on by repeated Somnacin usage." After all, natural dreams were the first thing to go, who was to say that they didn't come roaring back as shared waking nightmares? Though he doubted that, and it said a lot that he accepted the possibility of reincarnation over the more easily proven drug interaction.

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Reincarnates 03: for NeededForger

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