Nic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
trillianastra) wrote2010-11-16 08:18 pm
trillianastra) wrote2010-11-16 08:18 pm
Fic: Family Matters [Inception/Leverage/RED, PG-13]
Title: Family Matters
Author: trillianastra
Fandoms: Inception, Leverage, RED
Characters/Pairings: Eames/Arthur, Ariadne, "Sophie", Eliot, and a cameo by Victoria
Prompt: For this at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
inception_kink.
Wordcount: 2392
Disclaimer: not my characters, just for fun.
Summary: Eames' sister disapproves of Arthur, because she thinks he isn't committed to her brother. Then Eames disappears and Arthur raises hell to get him back.
A note of explanation: The original prompt was not a crossover. But I have this idea where Eames' sister is Sophie from Leverage, and their mum is Victoria from RED (Helen Mirren's character). I also have this idea that "Sophie"'s real name is Irene Adler, because I'm a nerd like that. Anyway, enjoy...
~~
“Jeremy, we need to talk. Call me, you have the num-”
“Where are you, darling... I need to talk to you, please cal-”
“I know this is the number you're using, don't push me into coming to get-”
“I'll tell Mother you're not ret-”
Arthur looked through the open door of the room Eames had chosen as an 'office', and saw the forger glaring at his phone as his voicemail messages played. None of the messages got played to the end, as he hit delete increasingly hard.
The messages all seemed to be from the same person, a woman.
“...is something wrong?”
Eames looked up sharply. “No. Nothing.”
“Right. So who's leaving all the messages, Jeremy,?”
“It's nothing. It's personal....”
Arthur leant against the doorframe. “Someone's worried about you.”
Eames looked at him, and sighed in resignation. “It's... my sister.”
You have a sister?, Arthur wanted to say, because Eames' family was something he still knew nothing about, but instead he said, “What about her?”
“I told her about you. About us. She's been wanting to meet you, but I... may have blown her off a few times.”
“Your sister wants to meet me? Why?”
“She's my big sister, she gets protective. It's silly, now that we're both adults, and from what she's told me she has enough problems of her own, but she likes to look out for me. Mother does as well, of course, but Renie's more insistent about it.”
“Why don't you want me to meet them? You've met my parents.”
Eames scrubbed a hand across his face. “It's... complicated. My family's not really what anyone would call conventional. And, frankly, we know some rather dangerous people.”
“I can handle myself. They can't be that bad.”
“All right,” he sighed, “I'll give her a call.”
**
Eames picked up the phone and dialled a number he didn't use much. The call was answered on the second ring.
“Who is this?” a gruff, unfamiliar male voice said.
“Uh.. I'd like to speak to...” he wracked his brains for his sister's current favourite alias, “...Sophie, please. It's important.”
He heard the man call out for 'Sophie', followed by some other voices and some rustling as the phone was passed over. “Sweetie?” he heard.
“I'm not five any more, you know.”
“Yes, I know, just give me a second to get somewhere quiet.”
“What's going on there, anyway?”
“Oh, planning a job, that's all, the usual.”
“Right. Can we talk now?”
“All right. I'm glad you called, Jeremy. I only left you eight messages asking you to call me.”
“You knew how I felt.”
“You're being ridiculous, you know. This Arthur... he's special to you, so it's only natural that you let us meet him. We care about you.”
“Going to introduce me to Nate, then?”
He could almost hear her turn pale through the phone. “That's different,” she snapped.
“Right.”
There was a long pause, and finally she said, “We don't have to do this. If you'd rather not...”
“No,” he said abruptly, “we may as well get it over with. You're still in Boston, yeah?”
“That's right.”
“We're in London. Think you can spare a few days?”
“Always. The Ritz, like usual?”
“I thought so.”
“All right then. I'll see you soon.”
**
Arthur looked at him in surprise when he said where they were meeting.
“The Ritz?”
“Yes, why is that an issue?”
“It's... I thought you were being secretive about your family to protect them.... it's a little public.”
Eames had to stop himself from laughing at the idea of his mother and sister letting anyone protect them, and said, “It's a tradition. Not something we have a lot of, but it's important to us.”
“I'm taking my gun.”
**
Eames' sister turned out to be, in no particular order, strikingly beautiful, early for their meeting, and accompanied. It was the last point that had Arthur worrying before they had even stepped through the door.
“Oh no.”
“What now?” Eames said wearily.
“Do you see who that is?”
“Oh, there's nothing to worry about. He's with us. Well, my sister works with him. If she trusts him, I do.”
Arthur's respect for Eames' sister rose immeasureably at that point. They crossed the last few feet of carpet between the door and their table.
“Darling, there you are...” she ran a careful eye over first her brother, then Arthur, “you look well, he must suit you.”
Eames muttered something that sounded like, “I think so,” and his sister just smiled.
They exchanged a look, then Eames said, “Arthur, this is my big sister, Irene. And this is her friend, you can call him Eliot.”
“It's a pleasure to meet you....” Irene's eyes widened. “Arthur... oh,” she said quietly as her smile faded.
Eliot sat forward in his chair. “What's wrong?”
“You recognise him, don't you?”
“Not as such. He fits a description I recognise, though.”
“Same here,” she looked up. “Jeremy, we need to talk. In private. Now.”
“You can talk in front of Arthur.”
“Are you sure?” she raised an eyebrow, “He might not like it.”
Arthur butted in. “I can handle it.”
She hesitated for a moment. “All right then. You should sit down.”
They pulled out chairs and sat down, and Irene drank some of her tea. “Jeremy, how aware of Arthur's reputation are you?”
“I know his reputation.”
“So do I. And his reputation is that of someone cold, someone distant, someone whose only care is getting the job done. To tell you the truth, darling, he's not exactly what I thought your type was.”
“When did you start to care about types?”
“Since you paired up with him, apparently. He's not... he'll leave you one day, and it'll hurt you, and he'll just carry on as normal.”
“You were right,” Arthur interrupted, “I don't want to hear this.”
“Renie,” Eames said, “I love you, but you're wrong about him.”
“I hope so,” she said quietly, but they didn't hear her because they both stood up and walked out on the restaurant.
She sighed, and said, “Don't say it.”
Eliot kept his expression carefully blank. “I wasn't goin' to say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
**
Though they walked out together, things were not going well for Eames. Mostly, this was because Arthur was refusing to see him.
A week after the ill-fated meeting in London, Arthur got a call from an old acquaintance in Canada, asking for help with a job, and Arthur got on the next flight to Toronto.
Eames found out via a single text, which gave him the basics and told him not to worry.
**
Arthur had been in Toronto a month (the job was taking longer to plan than expected), when he got a call from a strange number. This was unusual, because there were maybe a dozen people in the world who had the number for that phone, and he knew all of them well.
He answered the phone warily. “Who is this, and how did you get this number?”
“Hello, Arthur.”
He froze, recognising Irene's voice instantly.
“How did you get this number,” he repeated.
“I know someone. He got it from my brother's phone.”
That was worrying, but not as much as the fact that this phonecall was happening at all. “Was there something you wanted?”
For a moment he thought she'd hung up, because the line went dead. Then she said, “It's Jeremy.”
He felt a rush of panic. “What about him?”
“...he's gone. Missing. I think... he's been taken by someone.”
“Has there been a ransom?”
“No.”
“How long has it been?”
“Three days.”
He didn't say Why didn't you call me earlier. He knew why.
“Are you still there?” He shook himself, and said curtly,
“I'll find him,” before hanging up.
Arthur called Ariadne next, knowing that she and Eames were close, hoping that she might know something about the circumstances of his disappearance.
She was, in fact, able to give him some information, but not before she had yelled at him for not staying in touch with Eames and for (as she put it) 'running away to Canada with your tail between your legs'. He decided to just take it and let her shout.
**
One did not get to have a reputation like Arthur's without accumulating a whole list of contacts, a number of whom owed him some quite considerable favours. He used some of those favours to find out who'd taken Eames, how, and why. To get him back, he'd had to promise a few other people favours of his own (and Ariadne and Yusuf had decided they were going to help as well).
There were secret meetings in quiet corners, and the acquisition of a lot of cash (in case a ransom was needed), and bargains were struck and many guns were acquired; all of this ended in a surprisingly nondescript house in a sleepy village in the French countryside.
(The village was a lot less sleepy after Arthur and his makeshift army showed up, though.)
Once he had Eames, Arthur didn't stop moving until they were in Paris, in Ariadne's flat which was doubling as a safe-house, and coincidentally close to the warehouse they'd used while they were planning the Fischer job. Eames was asleep in the bedroom, and Ariadne had dragged Arthur away from his side and made him sit down in the kitchen, where she pushed a mug of tea into his hands.
Arthur took a sip, mostly to placate her, then took out his phone, dialling a number while Ariadne shook her head and mouthed let it go at him.
“It's Arthur.”
She sounded sleepy, and he realised it would still be very early in America. “What is it?”
“I found him. He's safe. And asleep in the other room.”
“Where?”
“Paris. Don't come here.”
“He's my brother, Arthur.”
“He can call you himself, when he's awake. This is just a courtesy.”
“Arthur, I'm sorry.... I shouldn't have said those things.”
“Too late now,” he snapped, and hung up.
“Jesus,” Ariadne said, “what was that about?”
“Eames' sister. She disapproves of me.”
“What, Renie? That's weird...”
Arthur looked at her in surprise. “You know her?”
“Yeah, we've met. Only briefly but she seemed OK to me. Her friends are weird, though.”
“Huh.”
**
Eames called his sister almost as soon as he woke up, and spent the best part of an hour talking to her on the phone, staying in the bedroom with the door shut. It didn't stop Ariadne trying to listen at the door, but Arthur stayed in the hall, arms folded.
“She's probably telling him to stay away from me.”
“Shh...” Ariadne hissed, “It doesn't sound like she is. He sounds excited.”
She almost fell over when the door opened, and Eames stepped past her. “Pack a bag, darling, we've got a little trip to make.”
“Excuse me?”
“You're getting something that almost no-one ever gets. You're going to visit the Eagle's Nest.”
Ariadne's eyes widened, but Arthur just looked blank. “You're going to have to explain.”
Eames grinned. “Well, your rescue mission seriously impressed Irene, and it seems you've attracted Mother's attention. She wants to meet you.”
“This is so cool,” Ariadne breathed.
**
The trip from Paris to the Eagle's Nest (which was in Connecticut, apparently) was unusual, given that they somehow acquired a chauffeur to take them to the airport, first-class seats for the flight that they didn't have to pay for, and another chauffeur at the other end (who turned out to be Irene's friend Eliot). And their overnight stay was in, not an ordinary motel, but a penthouse suite at a very, very expensive hotel.
Arthur tried to pay for a drink in the hotel bar, and was told quietly that Ms Devereaux will be taking care of the bill by the bartender. And the concierge, the room-service people, and the night manager. When he asked Eames what was going on, he just shrugged and said something about enjoying the perks.
**
The Eagle's Nest turned out to be, not a fortress as he'd imagined, but a well-appointed and sumptuously decorated house with extensive grounds. Eames' mother introduced herself as Victoria, and told him to make himself at home.
He felt awkward at first, until she showed him the firing range in the basement, and soon he found himself in a fascinating discussion about the pros and cons of various different machine guns.
Irene arrived the next day, with a gold watch for Arthur, a letter giving him near-unlimited credit at a very exclusive tailor, and the keys to a New York apartment that she pressed on him, saying that he could use it “any time he wanted”.
That night, he and Eames (he was still getting used to the idea of calling him Jeremy) were lying in bed, and he was still feeling a little bemused by the sudden rush of gifts.
Eames seemed to know what he was feeling, and said, “Relax. You won them over. That's the hard part.”
“What would have happened if I hadn't?”
“To you? If you hadn't won the gratitude and love of my mother and Irene? Well... there've been a few people who didn't quite make it. None of them are doing that well. One's living in a Tibetan monastery, one's in rehab, three are in prison, and I think one joined the French Foreign Legion... you've got nothing to worry about, though, they're the ones that didn't make the cut.”
Arthur supposed that was meant to be comforting, but strangely he didn't feel that comforted.
~~
Author: trillianastra
Fandoms: Inception, Leverage, RED
Characters/Pairings: Eames/Arthur, Ariadne, "Sophie", Eliot, and a cameo by Victoria
Prompt: For this at
inception_kink.Wordcount: 2392
Disclaimer: not my characters, just for fun.
Summary: Eames' sister disapproves of Arthur, because she thinks he isn't committed to her brother. Then Eames disappears and Arthur raises hell to get him back.
A note of explanation: The original prompt was not a crossover. But I have this idea where Eames' sister is Sophie from Leverage, and their mum is Victoria from RED (Helen Mirren's character). I also have this idea that "Sophie"'s real name is Irene Adler, because I'm a nerd like that. Anyway, enjoy...
~~
“Jeremy, we need to talk. Call me, you have the num-”
“Where are you, darling... I need to talk to you, please cal-”
“I know this is the number you're using, don't push me into coming to get-”
“I'll tell Mother you're not ret-”
Arthur looked through the open door of the room Eames had chosen as an 'office', and saw the forger glaring at his phone as his voicemail messages played. None of the messages got played to the end, as he hit delete increasingly hard.
The messages all seemed to be from the same person, a woman.
“...is something wrong?”
Eames looked up sharply. “No. Nothing.”
“Right. So who's leaving all the messages, Jeremy,?”
“It's nothing. It's personal....”
Arthur leant against the doorframe. “Someone's worried about you.”
Eames looked at him, and sighed in resignation. “It's... my sister.”
You have a sister?, Arthur wanted to say, because Eames' family was something he still knew nothing about, but instead he said, “What about her?”
“I told her about you. About us. She's been wanting to meet you, but I... may have blown her off a few times.”
“Your sister wants to meet me? Why?”
“She's my big sister, she gets protective. It's silly, now that we're both adults, and from what she's told me she has enough problems of her own, but she likes to look out for me. Mother does as well, of course, but Renie's more insistent about it.”
“Why don't you want me to meet them? You've met my parents.”
Eames scrubbed a hand across his face. “It's... complicated. My family's not really what anyone would call conventional. And, frankly, we know some rather dangerous people.”
“I can handle myself. They can't be that bad.”
“All right,” he sighed, “I'll give her a call.”
**
Eames picked up the phone and dialled a number he didn't use much. The call was answered on the second ring.
“Who is this?” a gruff, unfamiliar male voice said.
“Uh.. I'd like to speak to...” he wracked his brains for his sister's current favourite alias, “...Sophie, please. It's important.”
He heard the man call out for 'Sophie', followed by some other voices and some rustling as the phone was passed over. “Sweetie?” he heard.
“I'm not five any more, you know.”
“Yes, I know, just give me a second to get somewhere quiet.”
“What's going on there, anyway?”
“Oh, planning a job, that's all, the usual.”
“Right. Can we talk now?”
“All right. I'm glad you called, Jeremy. I only left you eight messages asking you to call me.”
“You knew how I felt.”
“You're being ridiculous, you know. This Arthur... he's special to you, so it's only natural that you let us meet him. We care about you.”
“Going to introduce me to Nate, then?”
He could almost hear her turn pale through the phone. “That's different,” she snapped.
“Right.”
There was a long pause, and finally she said, “We don't have to do this. If you'd rather not...”
“No,” he said abruptly, “we may as well get it over with. You're still in Boston, yeah?”
“That's right.”
“We're in London. Think you can spare a few days?”
“Always. The Ritz, like usual?”
“I thought so.”
“All right then. I'll see you soon.”
**
Arthur looked at him in surprise when he said where they were meeting.
“The Ritz?”
“Yes, why is that an issue?”
“It's... I thought you were being secretive about your family to protect them.... it's a little public.”
Eames had to stop himself from laughing at the idea of his mother and sister letting anyone protect them, and said, “It's a tradition. Not something we have a lot of, but it's important to us.”
“I'm taking my gun.”
**
Eames' sister turned out to be, in no particular order, strikingly beautiful, early for their meeting, and accompanied. It was the last point that had Arthur worrying before they had even stepped through the door.
“Oh no.”
“What now?” Eames said wearily.
“Do you see who that is?”
“Oh, there's nothing to worry about. He's with us. Well, my sister works with him. If she trusts him, I do.”
Arthur's respect for Eames' sister rose immeasureably at that point. They crossed the last few feet of carpet between the door and their table.
“Darling, there you are...” she ran a careful eye over first her brother, then Arthur, “you look well, he must suit you.”
Eames muttered something that sounded like, “I think so,” and his sister just smiled.
They exchanged a look, then Eames said, “Arthur, this is my big sister, Irene. And this is her friend, you can call him Eliot.”
“It's a pleasure to meet you....” Irene's eyes widened. “Arthur... oh,” she said quietly as her smile faded.
Eliot sat forward in his chair. “What's wrong?”
“You recognise him, don't you?”
“Not as such. He fits a description I recognise, though.”
“Same here,” she looked up. “Jeremy, we need to talk. In private. Now.”
“You can talk in front of Arthur.”
“Are you sure?” she raised an eyebrow, “He might not like it.”
Arthur butted in. “I can handle it.”
She hesitated for a moment. “All right then. You should sit down.”
They pulled out chairs and sat down, and Irene drank some of her tea. “Jeremy, how aware of Arthur's reputation are you?”
“I know his reputation.”
“So do I. And his reputation is that of someone cold, someone distant, someone whose only care is getting the job done. To tell you the truth, darling, he's not exactly what I thought your type was.”
“When did you start to care about types?”
“Since you paired up with him, apparently. He's not... he'll leave you one day, and it'll hurt you, and he'll just carry on as normal.”
“You were right,” Arthur interrupted, “I don't want to hear this.”
“Renie,” Eames said, “I love you, but you're wrong about him.”
“I hope so,” she said quietly, but they didn't hear her because they both stood up and walked out on the restaurant.
She sighed, and said, “Don't say it.”
Eliot kept his expression carefully blank. “I wasn't goin' to say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
**
Though they walked out together, things were not going well for Eames. Mostly, this was because Arthur was refusing to see him.
A week after the ill-fated meeting in London, Arthur got a call from an old acquaintance in Canada, asking for help with a job, and Arthur got on the next flight to Toronto.
Eames found out via a single text, which gave him the basics and told him not to worry.
**
Arthur had been in Toronto a month (the job was taking longer to plan than expected), when he got a call from a strange number. This was unusual, because there were maybe a dozen people in the world who had the number for that phone, and he knew all of them well.
He answered the phone warily. “Who is this, and how did you get this number?”
“Hello, Arthur.”
He froze, recognising Irene's voice instantly.
“How did you get this number,” he repeated.
“I know someone. He got it from my brother's phone.”
That was worrying, but not as much as the fact that this phonecall was happening at all. “Was there something you wanted?”
For a moment he thought she'd hung up, because the line went dead. Then she said, “It's Jeremy.”
He felt a rush of panic. “What about him?”
“...he's gone. Missing. I think... he's been taken by someone.”
“Has there been a ransom?”
“No.”
“How long has it been?”
“Three days.”
He didn't say Why didn't you call me earlier. He knew why.
“Are you still there?” He shook himself, and said curtly,
“I'll find him,” before hanging up.
Arthur called Ariadne next, knowing that she and Eames were close, hoping that she might know something about the circumstances of his disappearance.
She was, in fact, able to give him some information, but not before she had yelled at him for not staying in touch with Eames and for (as she put it) 'running away to Canada with your tail between your legs'. He decided to just take it and let her shout.
**
One did not get to have a reputation like Arthur's without accumulating a whole list of contacts, a number of whom owed him some quite considerable favours. He used some of those favours to find out who'd taken Eames, how, and why. To get him back, he'd had to promise a few other people favours of his own (and Ariadne and Yusuf had decided they were going to help as well).
There were secret meetings in quiet corners, and the acquisition of a lot of cash (in case a ransom was needed), and bargains were struck and many guns were acquired; all of this ended in a surprisingly nondescript house in a sleepy village in the French countryside.
(The village was a lot less sleepy after Arthur and his makeshift army showed up, though.)
Once he had Eames, Arthur didn't stop moving until they were in Paris, in Ariadne's flat which was doubling as a safe-house, and coincidentally close to the warehouse they'd used while they were planning the Fischer job. Eames was asleep in the bedroom, and Ariadne had dragged Arthur away from his side and made him sit down in the kitchen, where she pushed a mug of tea into his hands.
Arthur took a sip, mostly to placate her, then took out his phone, dialling a number while Ariadne shook her head and mouthed let it go at him.
“It's Arthur.”
She sounded sleepy, and he realised it would still be very early in America. “What is it?”
“I found him. He's safe. And asleep in the other room.”
“Where?”
“Paris. Don't come here.”
“He's my brother, Arthur.”
“He can call you himself, when he's awake. This is just a courtesy.”
“Arthur, I'm sorry.... I shouldn't have said those things.”
“Too late now,” he snapped, and hung up.
“Jesus,” Ariadne said, “what was that about?”
“Eames' sister. She disapproves of me.”
“What, Renie? That's weird...”
Arthur looked at her in surprise. “You know her?”
“Yeah, we've met. Only briefly but she seemed OK to me. Her friends are weird, though.”
“Huh.”
**
Eames called his sister almost as soon as he woke up, and spent the best part of an hour talking to her on the phone, staying in the bedroom with the door shut. It didn't stop Ariadne trying to listen at the door, but Arthur stayed in the hall, arms folded.
“She's probably telling him to stay away from me.”
“Shh...” Ariadne hissed, “It doesn't sound like she is. He sounds excited.”
She almost fell over when the door opened, and Eames stepped past her. “Pack a bag, darling, we've got a little trip to make.”
“Excuse me?”
“You're getting something that almost no-one ever gets. You're going to visit the Eagle's Nest.”
Ariadne's eyes widened, but Arthur just looked blank. “You're going to have to explain.”
Eames grinned. “Well, your rescue mission seriously impressed Irene, and it seems you've attracted Mother's attention. She wants to meet you.”
“This is so cool,” Ariadne breathed.
**
The trip from Paris to the Eagle's Nest (which was in Connecticut, apparently) was unusual, given that they somehow acquired a chauffeur to take them to the airport, first-class seats for the flight that they didn't have to pay for, and another chauffeur at the other end (who turned out to be Irene's friend Eliot). And their overnight stay was in, not an ordinary motel, but a penthouse suite at a very, very expensive hotel.
Arthur tried to pay for a drink in the hotel bar, and was told quietly that Ms Devereaux will be taking care of the bill by the bartender. And the concierge, the room-service people, and the night manager. When he asked Eames what was going on, he just shrugged and said something about enjoying the perks.
**
The Eagle's Nest turned out to be, not a fortress as he'd imagined, but a well-appointed and sumptuously decorated house with extensive grounds. Eames' mother introduced herself as Victoria, and told him to make himself at home.
He felt awkward at first, until she showed him the firing range in the basement, and soon he found himself in a fascinating discussion about the pros and cons of various different machine guns.
Irene arrived the next day, with a gold watch for Arthur, a letter giving him near-unlimited credit at a very exclusive tailor, and the keys to a New York apartment that she pressed on him, saying that he could use it “any time he wanted”.
That night, he and Eames (he was still getting used to the idea of calling him Jeremy) were lying in bed, and he was still feeling a little bemused by the sudden rush of gifts.
Eames seemed to know what he was feeling, and said, “Relax. You won them over. That's the hard part.”
“What would have happened if I hadn't?”
“To you? If you hadn't won the gratitude and love of my mother and Irene? Well... there've been a few people who didn't quite make it. None of them are doing that well. One's living in a Tibetan monastery, one's in rehab, three are in prison, and I think one joined the French Foreign Legion... you've got nothing to worry about, though, they're the ones that didn't make the cut.”
Arthur supposed that was meant to be comforting, but strangely he didn't feel that comforted.
~~
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Hugs, Soraya ;)
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