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When Bryce Emerson is six-years old, he learns the importance of rules. There are a lot of rules in his life, and he’s always known that rules are something you’re supposed to follow. But that’s the year when Bryce learns, for the first time, what happens when you don’t.
Nanny is the one who finds the photo, pressed between the pages of the book, more like a forgotten Tesco receipt than a cherished flower. She hands it to Papa at dinner time, almost certainly thinking he’ll want to celebrate the discovery. But Papa only glances at the picture before stuffing it in his trouser pocket.
After dinner, Bryce follows Papa to the study—he’s learned how to be very good at going unnoticed—and watches through the cracked door as Papa hides the photo in a dusty metal box, high up on the bookshelf.
Bryce doesn’t need to be told that this is a rule. Don’t look in the box. Don’t look at the photo. Only—in the brief seconds that he had to see, as Nanny held the photo out for Papa to take—Bryce saw a woman with dark hair, her smiling mouth all curvy and fat like his. His mouth doesn’t look as silly when it’s on a smiling lady, and Bryce just wants to see it one more time.
He looks in the box.
Somehow Papa knows.
Papa always seems to just look at him and know. He calls Bryce into the study the next day, and the photo is sitting on the desk. The lady gives Bryce an upside down smile, and Bryce doesn’t know what to feel now that she isn’t being hidden any longer.
“Do you know who that is, Junior?”
“No, sir.” But he thinks he does.
And Papa explains in his heavy voice exactly who she is and how his stupid whore of mother left the very same year that photo was taken because the lazy cunt didn’t want to deal with a screaming child, and she left you here for me to deal with, so you look at that face, Christ, you look just like her, don’t you, it’s no wonder, is it, you look and you mark my words, Junior, women are all stupid cunts, the world’s full of nothing by greedy tossers that will use you and lie to you, and you can’t trust a one of them, are you listening to me, you look at me when I talk to you.
And Papa makes him tear up the photo and put all the pieces in the bin. And then Papa locks him in his room and gives Nanny the weekend off. Punishment for going into the study and touching things he wasn’t supposed to.
Lying in bed, eyes hot with unshed tears, Bryce comes to the understanding that there are different kinds of consequences from breaking the rules. And that, sometimes, looking in the box isn’t worth it.
When he’s thirteen, Bryce learns that there are different sets of rules in life. That different people follow different sets, and it’s important to figure out which one you belong to.
That’s the year he meets Declan Porter—older, smarter, all around more equipped to handle the world than Bryce is. Declan goes to his school but is rarely in class, and on those rare occasions that he makes an appearance, Bryce is enchanted by the air of calm and irreverence that Declan projects from the slumped lines of his slouching body. The bright, constantly amused tone of his voice is mesmerizing to a boy so accustomed to dire severity.
Why Declan even takes notice of him, Bryce couldn’t begin to guess, but for once he doesn’t care to know why. He just wants a friend. So he embraces the new friendship with full enthusiasm.
At first it’s just hanging out with Declan after school. Father is rarely home these days, anyway, so there’s no one to care when Bryce doesn’t get home until well after dinner. Before long, Bryce doesn’t even bother with the school part.
Instead, he starts learning a new sort of curriculum. Under Declan’s tutelage, and at the side of Declan’s extensive network of friends, Bryce learns how to hotwire cars and lift wallets. He learns how to trick tourists into thinking he’s a poor young runaway from Ireland, panhandling for enough money to find his way home. He learns how to chase the perfect high with a mellow buzz, how to navigate his own sexuality and get a boy off in three minutes flat with just two fingers.
Most of all, Bryce learns that there are entire pockets of the world that operate under different rules than those he grew up with. Rules that are more about do than don’t. Rules that don’t just allow him to be more than he ever had been before but that actually encourage it. It’s his first taste of freedom, of control, and it’s addicting.
Life is good.
On his fifteenth birthday, Bryce’s father throws him out. Turns out that of all things Bryce Emerson, Senior chooses to ignore about his son, snogging boys on the kitchen counter is not one of them.
Deep down, Bryce is a little gratified that his father even notices enough to be disgusted. The bruises, the screaming, are worth it for that brief minute when his father turns those raging eyes on his son and sees him. It’s probably the most intimate moment they’ve ever shared.
It’s also the last.
Fortunately, Bryce has gotten much better at making friends. There’s no shortage of mates and acquaintances with an open sofa or floor space for a sleeping bag. And earning money is plenty easy, what with him being a dab hand at identity theft and the occasional hustle.
For a throwaway with no real home to call his own, he does quite well for himself over the next couple of years, and life is good.
Through everything, Declan is his constant. Friend, mentor, protector, leader. He’s the one person that always has time for a chat or a sympathetic ear, the voice of wisdom when Bryce gets lost in his adoptive world. More than once he protects Bryce against thugs and bashers, even teaches him a thing or two about hitting back. Declan is his best mate, the big brother he’s desperately needed all his life, and Bryce knows he would be lost without him.
Only, this time, Declan is the one that breaks the rules.
A little heroin between friends isn’t something to fuss over, even if it isn’t Bryce’s drug of choice. He doesn’t like the heavy blanket of lethargy that drapes over him, the slowing down of his thoughts and feelings. But Declan gives it to him, and Declan always looks out for him. It’s what he does. So Bryce settles in for a lazy afternoon in front of the telly. There’s nothing better going on that day, so why not?
He doesn’t pay much mind to the touches at first—Declan knows Bryce is gay, but he’s never acted like those pissant tossers that think homosexuality is contagious. Declan’s never hesitated to sit close to Bryce or bump shoulders after a good laugh—and Bryce is too fuzzy-headed to notice when the hand on his leg changes from a solid weight to a grasping fumble at his flies.
And, yes, Bryce likes the boys, but he’s never looked at Declan that way. Doesn’t want to look at him that way because the promise of family is worth more to Bryce than getting off. But the drugs in his system prevent his voice from working properly, and Declan isn’t listening anyway.
The ratty old sofa becomes a brick wall at Bryce’s back, preventing escape while Declan looms over him, hands and teeth tearing at him, hissing about his cocksucker mouth, posh little git, think you’re too good for my prick, you owe me this.
And Bryce doesn’t think—can’t think—can only strike out at the nauseating touches and oppressive weight. Later he’ll feel the bruises, the burning sting of parallel scratches across his left hip, the oily shame. He functions on only one instinct now. This can’t happen.
A fist across the jaw leaves him gasping and blinking, stunned. It gives Declan the opportunity to drag Bryce’s jeans and pants over his thighs, but he has to bend Bryce’s leg up to get the bunched material out of the way. And Bryce still isn’t thinking when he braces his foot on Declan’s chest and shoves with all the strength that desperation can give him.
Declan goes flying. It’s panic—not courage or even rage—that sends Bryce stumbling in pursuit. The visceral urge to just make it stop demands that he wrap his hands around Declan’s throat and drive them both to the ground. The only source of safety he’s ever known has mutated into a nightmare, and Bryce knows he has to hold that monster down before it can ever get the jump on him again.
Bryce eventually comes to his senses straddling a dead body, pants around his knees still and his dick hanging out. He gets his jeans as far as his hips before he’s vomiting and crying in the doorway.
It’s the first time Bryce kills a man. The first time he puts his survival before that of another. It’s also the first time he makes rules of his own.
Self-reform turns out to be surprisingly easy. Bryce has a natural talent for reinventing himself, when he puts his mind to it, and there’s something healing about setting fire to his own life and walking out of the ashes.
He takes a path leading in the completely opposite direction than where he’d been headed, enlists with the British Army and pledges to serve queen and country to the bloody end.
It’s part of his new rules—be the perfect soldier, a credit to his team. And damned if it doesn’t work. The men he trains with embrace his dedicated, no-drama attitude with open respect. They dub him “Emsie” in laughing fondness (which, thankfully, morphs into “Eames” by year’s end) telling him he needs to smile more. Sometimes, eventually, he does.
And somewhere along the way, that nasty coil in his gut unknots itself. In time, he even discovers how to laugh again.
The life of a soldier suits him. Nomadic, physical, structured… Eames thrives under these conditions, to his own astonishment. He earns his way up the chain, becomes a corporal, even lands himself in the SAS and discovers an unexpected zeal for adventure and the open skies when he joins up with the mountain troops.
For a born and raised city boy, he does pretty well for himself.
And life is good, for a time. Until he starts to get tired of blood and pain, of coming face to face with some of the worst that humanity has to offer and taking orders to hurt people.
So he raises his hand when the offer comes around, gets himself recruited by Special Reconnaissance to become part of an elite, ultra-classified task force that’s going to revolutionize the relentless war on terror. He has brothers-in-arms at his side, challenging a new frontier together with matching grins as they defy the impossible.
And life can maybe be good again.
Until Wisher goes crazy and kills himself.
It’s one thing to gamble life and death on the battlefield, but Eames isn’t about to risk his sanity for the military any longer. It’s time for a new iteration of the rules. Basically, fuck queen and country—even if it means striking out on his own and being truly alone for the first time since he was that little boy locked in his bedroom. And to hell with anyone that tries to dictate the role he’s meant to play in life. He’s bigger than that, now.
He tells no one of his intentions, not even Captain Gillingham, who looks thin and haunted after watching one of his men blow his own brains out. They’re all under extra watch now, the mad scientists on the look-out lest more soldiers lose track of reality, so breaking lose will be a trick in itself. Eames knows he isn’t going to be able to take more than the shirt on his back and what he can carry in his pockets. Of course, that’s more than he had when he’s father chucked him to the curb. He’ll be fine.
On the day Eames is set to leave, he’s careful to keep his behavior as normal as possible. Lately, they’ve all taken to eating meals together—an emotional defense against their grief and fear over Wisher. Conversation is subdued but comfortable. This morning, the discussion revolves around base gossip, including everyone’s favorite topic: Arthur Last-Name-Redacted.
Corporal Patel complains, again, about his most recent fail in sub-security training with the CIA’s pet agent. It’s a frustration they’re all familiar with.
“And then the smug bastard just told me to do it again, as if I hadn’t spent an hour tangling with his crazy projections. Prat.”
“You have to admit, though, he’s the best.” Maisey, ever the mediator, is actually enthusiastic about his sessions with Arthur even though he fares no better than the rest of them.
“Well, sure, of course he’s the best, but does he have to lord it over us mere humans?”
“What about you, Eames,” O’Shaughnessy interjects, “how’s your sub-sec training going? Give the Stone-Cold Killer a run for his money, yet?”
“Got another session with him tomorrow,” Eames says it as casually as he can, like an afterthought. “And no, no great successes there. I expect it will be just another morning of him shouting abuse at me.” He expects a chuckle or two for the weak joke, not the surprised stares he receives. “What?”
“He shouts at you?” Maisey asks, eyes a bit wide. “Like actual shouting?”
Eames shifts in his chair, oddly uncomfortable. “Well, you know, nothing too—”
“Bloody hell,” O’Shaughnessy exclaims, “I don’t know what I would do if that guy ever yelled at me. Probably piss myself.”
Patel snorts. “You can say that again. Seriously, though, I didn’t know Arthur had any other mode besides Icy Bastard and Scary Icy Bastard.”
Eames listens with half an ear as the conversation dissolves into a diatribe on Arthur and his frigid demeanor. To hear the other men tell it, one would think Arthur never so much as blinked, much less expressed actual emotions. Which Eames knows to be patently untrue given how frequently he’s had Arthur in his face, sneering and being an all-around prick. But Eames supposes he just has a natural talent for upsetting the man, as they tend to argue constantly no matter how many times Eames lectures himself about professionalism.
He’s strangely regretful that leaving the program means he won’t ever see Arthur again. They’re not friends, definitely not, but there’s an undeniable bond there, one that began weeks ago when Eames finally got the drop on Arthur with his fancy new trick. Forging, he’s decided to call it—in honor of his misspent youth and the first time he ever created a new identity for himself.
A trick no one else knows about.
Eames was surprised, and yet, not surprised, when Arthur told him to keep the ability a secret. They’ve never talked about it outside of the security of dreamshare except for that first day, when Eames shot Arthur in the face after his first successful forgery. Once they got back topside, Arthur had just looked at him and said, “don’t let anyone know.”
He didn’t need to explain why. Eames has witnessed enough bureaucracy and government corruption to understand the importance of hiding that ace up your sleeve until the perfect time to play it comes around. It’s an unexpected show of self-awareness from the program’s most esteemed investment, but Eames figures even Arthur appreciates how precarious the lives of lab-rats can be.
The most difficult part turns out to be getting away from Gillingham’s impromptu poker party. The captain is in obvious need of face-time with the troops, and Eames has to tap down his sense of guilt at feigning a stomach bug. He makes sure several people see him headed towards his room—and that no one sees him take a wrong turn at the end of the corridor and head right back out of the barracks.
The base is a sprawling complex of brick buildings and poorly-lit walkways, and it’s frightfully easy to lose himself within wide patches of shadow. It’s a hot night, so those milling about or standing post are too lethargic to keep watch for one of their own going AWOL. Really, it’s just a matter of strolling off the grounds—there aren’t even proper fences out here in the middle of Bumfuck, America—and avoiding the scattering of patrols until he reaches civilization. Child’s play.
Eames is thirteen meters into his new-found freedom when he hears that too-smug voice behind him.
“Something tells me you’re going to be late for training.”
He turns, outwardly composed even though his heart is jumping. “Arthur. Darling. Lovely to see you at this time of night.”
“Surprising, too, I’m sure.”
Arthur is barely discernable in the dark, his ebony hair and black clothes absorbing the scant amount of ambient light. From what Eames can see, though, Arthur looks calm and unconcerned, as if they were two gents meeting in the park instead of a government-trained assassin catching a deserter in the act.
Eames adjusts his stance, ready to move quickly event though he knows Arthur sees him do it and is prepared to counter any action Eames takes.
“Well, you’re always full of surprises, aren’t you?” Eames pauses, reluctant to tip his hand without a sense of how this is going to play out, but the silence between them draws out until he finally says, “I can’t help but notice you’re not sounding the alarm.”
Arthur takes a step closer, arms loose at his sides. “That would defeat the purpose of hacking the security feed. I don’t like wasted effort.”
“Yes, I’m aware,” Eames remarks absently, considering this enigmatic creature. While he’s pretty confident that he’s earned Arthur’s respect over the last few weeks, he never would have expected the man to actively become his accomplice. It’s questionable, to say the least. “Why are you helping me?”
“Why are you leaving?” Arthur shoots back.
“Self-preservation. Pure and simple.”
Arthur doesn’t respond right away, but neither does he ask for clarification. Hell, he probably knows better than any of them what happened in Wisher’s mind to finally drive the man to suicide. “You’re nothing like Wisher,” he finally says, practically reading Eames’s thoughts. “I’ve never seen anyone take to dreaming like you.”
Eames is grateful for the darkness because he has the horrible feeling that he might be blushing. Compliments are not exactly something that exists between the two of them, and receiving one now is almost more nerve-wracking than Arthur’s anger ever had been. “Be that as it may, I’d rather get while the getting is still marginally sane.”
Arthur nods like he expected no different. “You’ll want these, then,” he says, tossing over something small and metallic. Eames catches it on reflex—a set a keys, he discovers. Warm from being in Arthur’s pocket, an inane part of his brain notes. Eames firmly tells that stupid little voice to shut up.
“And here I didn’t get you anything,” he quips.
“The colonel’s car. It’s parked in a service bay at the eastern edge of base, waiting for an oil change. There’s a pack with basic supplies, clothes and cash, behind the passenger seat.”
“Arthur...” Eames trails off, not knowing what to say.
“Head west. The nearest town is twelve clicks north, but you’ll want to get to the metropolitan area as soon as possible.”
“Arthur—”
“If you drive through the night, you should hit Portland well before daybreak. They’ll have more resources there, but so will you.”
Eames has to smile at the knowledgeable tone in Arthur’s voice. “Been reading my file, have you?”
“I—”
“No matter,” he waves that off. Just because he failed to get at Arthur’s file doesn’t mean he holds a grudge. Besides, it hardly matters now. “Listen, Arthur… I don’t know why you’re doing this, but thank you.”
He doesn’t expect a you’re welcome and doesn’t receive one. “Corporal—”
“Considering the immediate turn of events, maybe you’ll finally call me Eames, hm?” And Arthur makes a noise of acknowledgement. Or disagreement. It’s hard to say as the two have always sounded the same to Eames.
“You know they’ll be coming for you. My government and yours. You’re not going to have much of a head start before they’re on your tail.”
Eames lifts a shoulder. “Yeah, I know. And I’ll lead them on a merry chase, let them think they’re close before going to ground. Should be fun.” Come with me, he almost says, you don’t have to do this to yourself. But the words stay locked in his throat, an impulse so beyond ridiculous that it’s not worth mentioning.
If Arthur has an opinion on his odds, he doesn’t voice them. Just holds out a hand. “Good luck, Mr. Eames.”
Eames steps forwards and takes the proffered hand. It’s the first time they’ve ever really touched, and Eames is shocked by the heat of Arthur’s skin. He wonders—before he can stop himself—if Arthur is that warm all over. “You too, Arthur.” He lingers possibly a second more too long before releasing Arthur’s hand, shoving his own in his pockets.
He departs with a final nod, once again walking away from the ashes of his life. Only this time, Eames can detect a difference in the act. In himself. Life isn’t exactly good, but there’s a burning ember of potential he’s only felt one other time, once upon a dream.
And as he drives across the state in a stolen vehicle, he swears he can still feel Arthur’s warmth against the palm of his hand.