Author's Note: I saw Warrior, I loved Warrior, and I wanted to bring Eames and Tommy together into somewhat of the same character. I haven't stopped Volatile, but this idea wouldn't budge until I did something about it. It will be about four or five parts, no longer, I promise! =) In order to understand this, all the character quirks of Limbo, you should see the movie. Hope you guys enjoy!

The Catalyst

To get back up to the shining world from there, my guide and I went into that hidden tunnel; where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.

Dante's Inferno

"Eames… Eames, listen to me!"

The Forger moans, and digs his fingers into his short hair, and claw them down his face—Arthur's pleas fall on deaf ears. There is no point to this, Eames will not hear him. Eames cradles his brother's lifeless body in one bloody arm, and the weapon used to take that life is shaking against his temple. Tears and saliva mingle with still running blood down his chin and neck as he screams up into the black starless sky; no words, just raw, primal grief. There is nothing Arthur can do to comfort him, nothing he has not tried a thousand times before. "Don't do this—do you hear me? Eames, don't do this, you just have to trust me… please—we're waiting, we're just waiting for a kick!" Any second now, the kick will bring the world rushing back, and the calm of reality will return; but only if Eames is alive, and Eames cannot not hear him. Not here, because Down Here, Eames is not Eames. "I know it hurts, I know you blame yourself but you have to trust me. None of this was your fault—none of it, please put the gun down."

Instead, Eames cocks the weapon and takes a deep, shuddering break. Arthur's hand shoots out to the thin air to stop him. "NO! No, please, please don't. Please don't, just listen," he takes half a step forward, stooped to eye level, reaching out but Eames shakes his head, and his eyes are screwed shut so hard his tears roll in tracks down his blood streaked face. "Just trust me, Eames. This will all be over soon. Remember what I told you. Remember what I promised…"

"Over?" Eames whispers, a harsh sound passing through gritted teeth. He shakes his head again, and twists the gun into his hair. "Is he—in your world, is he alive?"

Arthur cannot lie. He exhales, hard, and can only reply brokenly, "No. No he's not, but just listen to me—"

"I'm going where he's going," Eames' eyes open, one at a time, and his lips are pale and trembling. "I'm sorry."

"Eames, he's not—" the crack sears through the evening air, a rush of red, yellow, and thunder, and the Forger has joined the crumpled heap with his brother. In the seconds before the dream is collapsed, and the purgatory ends its last track, Arthur bites back his own grief, and reaches out to stroke a piece of damp hair out of Eames' closed eyes. Pain is still etched on the beautiful features, and as the ground and sky begin to shatter around them, Arthur only murmurs his name.

"Eames," he breathes, between the black, and the beginning, and the end. "Why won't you trust me."

…

"I've done it all," Arthur moans, his face pressed into his sleeve and his arms crossed, up against the hotel room wall. His body slackens with exhaustion, and a heavy grief. "I've tried everything, I've lived that life a thousand times over and it always ends the same. Nothing ever changes, and no matter what does change, it always ends the same. He never waits for the kick." The others in the room are quiet. They are unsure of what to say, or how to comfort the Point Man. Ariadne takes a step forward, and reaches out to flatten a hand against his shoulder, curling her fingers in the material of his shirt in an attempt at a tender gesture.

"There's something we're missing. There's a piece to all of this that we just can't see yet, but it will reveal itself, Arthur," her words are soft, and certain. "Every time he has made a connection with reality, it has been with you. Every time we're close, it is because of you. Don't give up on him now."

Arthur's body is heavy against the wall. His will is failing. "And what if he's trapped in this loop because of me? What if I'm preventing him from finding whatever keeps taking him back there?"

Dom's arms are folded, and his gaze does not leave the floor. Distantly, he replies, "No way to know."

"That doesn't mean giving up on him!" Ariadne insists angrily, whipping around. "We promised each other, if any of us ever fell down there-we promised him, we would always find peace, if nothing else!"

"All I'm saying," Dom continues, in that grave, cryptic tone. "Is that we don't know what goes on down there without us. All we know, is the results, the ripples we create when we insert ourselves into his new reality. What if he is at peace, and we're what's keeping him from—" Dom catches himself, before he says the words Arthur may not forgive him for. "—from finding that peace, whatever it means."

Arthur listens to them bicker, and argue, and he feels himself sink further into the wall. He feels hopelessness around him, as though it were something tangible, and if he cannot crawl out of it soon it will smother him. And he will be trapped, too.

…

"Why won't you trust me?"

"I don't trust people who find serenity with giant… aquatic…. Killing machines," Arthur does his best to keep from the edge. They stand alone on a plane of glass in the middle of an ocean, and all around them swim the largest creatures of the sea. Fins, black and silver, circle in what Arthur cannot decide to either be a hunting pattern, or just a pod of dolphins. Eames has a sick sense of how to train one in the dreamscape. He knows Arthur fears the ocean. "So… you have about four or five seconds to tell me the point of this little exercise before I blow my brains out and wake up in a lawn chair, ecstatic with joy because I'm not on a piece of glass in the middle of the Pacific."

"There are no weapons here," Eames reminds him, gently, but cruelly. "I thought you may take that way out. You're unarmed. Your only way out is to drown."

Arthur jerks his head around to regard Eames through narrowed eyes, and a clenched jaw. "You are an asshole."

"I didn't bring you out here to torture you, Arthur," there is a light laughter on the edge of his words. He reaches out, and the tips of his fingers just touch the other's shoulder. "I brought you out here to trust me."

"You're doing a bang-up job, really," he can hear his voice getting rough. He can feel his own irrationalities creeping up on him, over his skin, under his skin. The scope seems to get even wider, and all he wants to do is close within himself, to fold his body into the smallest position possible, and keep himself as far from the edge as he can. But Eames is here, and so he cannot. "Can you get to the point?"

"I'm at the point. Don't draw within yourself, like you want to. Don't shrink from the edge, like you want to. Embrace it. It's there—and you're either going to drown, or you're going to swim with them."

"You're out of your mind," Arthur's hand slides to the small of his back instinctively, for a weapon he knows is not there. Just beneath his feet the dark blue is disturbed, and something gargantuan in size, textured, and blacker than the depths moves slowly under them, and when it sinks further in to the darkness the water all around them ripples, and spills over the plane of glass, over their shoes, and almost to their knees before it recedes again. Arthur wants to vomit. He can only stifle his fear so much longer.

There is simply nowhere to feel safe here—he cannot back away from the edge, because the edge is always less than a foot or two away from him. He cannot lower himself to the ground and take the comfort of blending in because Eames made the 'ground' a transparent strip of glass, and he is no safer there than he is in the water. There is nowhere to run, and no bullet to save him.

"Why are you doing to this me?"

…

It is hard to say exactly how they meet, each and every time, but they always do. It is as though Eames is drawn to him, without even knowing his name, or remembering his face. Even here, where Eames is not Eames, and the parts of him that are still himself are buried deeper than Arthur could first imagine, Eames is still drawn to him. The days pass by, long and surreal, and it becomes harder and harder for one to not lose themselves in this purgatory. Arthur has struggled with it himself, and maintaining a constant sense of self awareness down here is like trying not to get swept up into a rip current. He must always swim alongside it, and never try to challenge it more than he may.

And yet, he must always do his best to challenge it a little more with each passing day, and night, because it is times like these, when Eames comes to his door on a rainy Monday night, wet, hair plastered to his head, and droplets of water cling like diamondsto his lashes, that Arthur lets him in. Eames—or Tommy, the identity he has adopted down here—needs him in that way Arthur used to need him. It is not a clear understanding of the implications of such an action, just a need, and a single emotion that draws him here.

He seldom speaks when he shows up on Arthur's doorstep, and Arthur does not challenge him to do so. He steps back and allows the other man to shake the moisture off his hoodie, and shed it, and his t-shirt, and his undershirt like a second and third skin, revealing the inked and muscled body Arthur knows so well. He has considerably more of that muscle in this reality—comes with the territory, of course—but it is still Eames. Tommy closes the distance between them, and takes what used to be his Point Man's face in large, calloused hands, pressing their foreheads together and breathing him in like a memory he cannot place, but cannot lose.

Arthur never lets him linger here, uncertain. In life, Eames is comfortable with who he is, comfortable with his body, Arthur's body—this incarnation is quite the opposite. Down here, Eames is Tommy, and Tommy is lost; lost in this labyrinth, lost within himself, and so Arthur moves long-fingered hands up Tommy's sides and feels him shiver. He digs his fingertips into the hard, smooth skin of his shoulders, and leans in to touch his lips lightly against the others'. The kiss is accepted, hesitantly, and finished hungrily. They make it over to the bed, on the way pulling Arthur's shirt over his head, and rolling over one another on the perfectly made covers. For a night, at least, Arthur has Eames back.

It doesn't always go about so smoothly. The story here—this interpretation of grief is so deep, so twisted, sometimes Tommy is purely here to take that out on him. Sometimes the grief, and the anger, cannot find a home, and so Tommy is drawn to the one familiar element down here he can hurt. You always hurt the one you love.

…

"This sort of thing—Limbo—is easily turned into a sort of dissociative regression. It's like a photograph. It's a snapshot in time, but the only information you have access to is within the frame of the snapshot. When you're with Eames."

"What are you talking about, his subconscious created that world, it has to be… bursting with information—"

"Maybe. Maybe there's a lot there, but without him, you won't have access to that information, not deep enough. There will be minor details, mood reflections at best!"

Arthur's head is in his hands, pieces of dark hair spilling through his fingers. He hasn't slept in days. The hospital room is dark, now. They keep the lights low in the evenings, so that Eames may sleep.

"We're missing something," he mutters, almost too himself. He cannot get the image of Eames' suicide, a thousand times over, from being burned behind his eyelids. "It can't be the brother. It can't be the father. In every single scenario, the relationships are repaired. Something—something else, we're missing something else and it feels like it's right in front of me. I just can't see it."

"Maybe it's you."

Arthur pauses. He lifts his head, and she stares back at him, earnestly.

"Limbo itself is… not about catharsis. It's just that, Limbo. It's nothing to do with catharsis to find your way out, it has to do with remembering reality. Not losing yourself. Remembering reality, and yearning for that truth. Maybe you should stop being a supporting cast member. Maybe you should switch the focus to you, and him."

"He rejects me as many times as he is drawn to me, it's too unpredictable."

"Then let's try to establish a pattern," Ariadne pulls up a chair, in front of Arthur, and beside Eames' bed. "What do you mean when you say he rejects you?"

At first, Arthur can only think about how many times he had rejected Eames, long before Tommy ever rejected him. He can only think of his own penance.

…

Once, in Pittsburg, Arthur owned a gym.

The gym was Ariadne's idea to gain more one on one time with Eames, and somehow get a better look into the other's locked-down psyche. It has not exactly back-fired, in the sense that Arthur and Tommy get closer every day, but it has back-fired in the sense that while Tommy views Arthur has an ally, he also seems to view him as an obstacle. Tommy is not exactly territorial, but he is dominant, and single-mindedly determined. These were all things Eames is not, in life. In life, Eames is very tolerant. In Pittsburg, Eames is Tommy, and Tommy is far less tolerant, as well as aggressive, and conflicted. It makes for one very interesting dynamic; one Arthur has a hard time appreciating.

It is close to two in the morning. Arthur has brought Tommy here for something of an audition—in this scenario, he has the connections to bring Tommy to Sparta, as well as a rotation of six projections more frightening than he himself has had to deal with in his years of working within the dreamscape. Tonight, one by one, they are challenging Tommy's every ability. Arthur is simply sitting back outside the ring, and waiting patiently for Tommy to reach his breaking point.

They don't get weaker, they only get stronger, more resilient. Tommy's wins come slower, and slower, and when the fifth projection goes down, taps out, Tommy is all but crippled with exhaustion. He pulls himself back up, blows some blood out of his nose, and sweat slides down his face and his torso like he just stepped out of the shower. Arthur knows he is about to start wading in very deep, very dangerous waters. Tommy is getting frustrated, and does not acknowledge the fifth man trudging out of the building, the sixth entering. He leans heavily on the ropes, and regards Arthur with that same nasty scowl he carries with him everywhere, and gives to everyone.

"Yo, how many more jokers you gonna have me dance around with tonight?"

Arthur, arms still folded, and expression one of genuine disinterest, gives a single shouldered shrug. "You gonna be asking that at Sparta?" Tommy purses his lips, and his eyes wander to the side before he makes a scoff in the back of his throat, and tosses his hands up. Arthur stands. "Because if you're going to be asking that at Sparta, it's now approaching 3 AM, and I wouldn't mind being in bed."

Tommy is making a concentrated effort to lift that scowl, and after a moment, almost manages to do it. In a different, almost respectful tone, "I was just wondering how many more before I could show you a real fight. Sir."

Arthur cannot help but almost crack a smile. He sits back down, and nods to the gentleman waiting patiently behind Tommy. "Last one."

Tommy smirks, and turns—Arthur cannot see his face, but he can only imagine the smirk melting off of it. The sixth projection is reminiscent of the Russian from Rocky IV. It wasn't the most imaginative creation, but even Tommy had to have felt that shiver as a child, watching Sly Stallone size up the man who killed Apollo Creed. Tommy rolls his shoulders, and cracks his neck, just before turning back to Arthur with an incredulous turn of his upper lip.

"This guy ain't middle weight."

"He's on the cusp."

"Bullshit," Tommy snorts, and goes back to his new opponent, who is doing nothing to fight a wide grin. "You're an asshole."

"So is he, be sweet," Arthur goes back to his magazine, and bites back a grin of his own. One thing has at least stayed the same, and that is the constant bak-and-forth. Eames always called it flirting. He pretends to read an article, but he's actually keeping very close tabs on this last match. The sixth contender is well on his way into heavyweight territory, but Eames, even before this identity, had always known his way around an unfair fight. He was resourceful, and so is Tommy.

The first hit could be heard around the block, Arthur suspects, if in fact anyone existed at the moment outside this broken down little gym. The first hit belongs to the projection—Tommy's exhaustion has considerably reduced his reaction time, and against a fresh fighter, with a good fifty pounds on him, it is equivalent to a crowbar in the face. As expected, however, Tommy is up in an instant, and weaves around the sheer bulk of the other, pulling off a roundhouse to the side of the other's head. His speed has picked up again, and Arthur drops the magazine long enough to see that speed at full glory. The weight does make a difference, and Tommy seems to understand it is his only advantage.

They exchange blows and blocks, and at one point Tommy just barely makes it out of the way of a hit meant to shatter his sternum. The other's knuckles barely glance against Tommy's chest, and just as he darts out of the way he drops to the floor, sweeping his leg beneath the ankles of the larger man and bringing him down hard. The last moments of the struggle are intense, and Arthur comes to stand, the hair standing up on the back of his neck as he watches them pin one another in turn, until finally the projection finally manages to keep Tommy flat on his belly, and rain down blows on the other's head and shoulders until blood has streaked across the mat, and Arthur comes between the ropes to break the match up. He shoves the larger man off, and orders him out, and drops to his knees beside Tommy. In the moments between inspecting the new injuries, and trying to rouse the prostrate fighter, Arthur waits for the dream to begin to crumble.

Instead, Tommy stirs, and with one hand pushes Arthur away from him.

"You alright? Hey, Tommy!"

"I'm fine, you fuckin' asshole," Tommy snarls, and pulls himself gingerly up off the mat. His voice has become even more nasal, and blood pours of out his nose, and his ear. He stumbles for the towel hanging from the ropes, and wordlessly begins to clean himself up. Arthur just stands there, arms folded, and watches. "You want, I'll go another round with him."

"No," Arthur snaps, almost too quickly. Tommy gives a single, bitter laugh—it is a deep, hollow sound.

"Now he's babying me. Jesus Christ."

"I'm not babying you, I've seen enough," Arthur turns on his heel and ducks under the ropes, making his way down the steps and headed toward the office. Tommy rubs the bloody towel into his hair, and droplets of sweat fly when he shakes his head.

"Seen enough? What've you seen, you seen some two-ton asshole clean my clock. I think I deserve an answer now."

"I'll consider you," Arthur says, without looking back. There is only silence behind him, and the swell of a coming storm—he knew this was coming, and he braces himself for whatever the other man's reaction will be. When he makes it to the office, he does not close the door, he faces the wall, and waits. Finally, he hears movement. Tommy is in the doorway in seconds.

"Consider me? You're fucking kidding. I just took five guys out, three rounds each—that last motherfucker was twice my size, you can't hold that against me-!"

"You're a hell of a contender, Tommy, but you're a goddamn liability," Arthur turns and speaks calmly, but firmly. Tommy has a tendency to talk over everyone, and when he starts to protest Arthur holds a hand up. "You gotta see where I'm coming from here, you're a raging bull, you have no control over your temper, no respect for authority, and you're a fucking deserter." The words erupt out of him, and hang between the two men. Tommy freezes, like a cornered animal, and his eyes have gone almost black. He steps forward, once, twice, until he is hovering right in Arthur's face.

"How the fuck do you know about that?" he growls, and the heat rises off of him in waves. "No one knows about that, how the fuck did you find out?"

"I protect my investments, and I know my fighters," it is a believable lie. "You think you can hide it once all those reporters start digging around at Sparta?"

"Yeah? And have you managed to keep your mouth shut?" Tommy asks, and gets a look that tells him he is a jackass or even asking. He doesn't trust it. "And why would you do something like that for me?" It is impossible for even Arthur to keep himself expressionless through everything, and so he inhales deeply, and averts his eyes to one of the posters behind Tommy's head. Tommy is still studying him, as if he knows what to say, but does not want to say it. Finally, "No, this isn't about—this isn't about what went down the other day, you and I—you're not trying to protect me—"

"Of course I am," Arthur snaps, and Tommy shuts up, still watching him with silent uncertainty. "I care about what happens to you. Even if you don't, I always have." He knows he has fucked it up. He has taken it too far, and so he backs away from Tommy, and goes to stand over his desk, hands in his hair, trying to recollect his thoughts. Tommy just stares at him—his left eye is beginning to swell a little, and he sniffs hard at the blood still trickling from his nose. After a moment, Arthur just waves him off. "Forget it. Forget it, look—I'll make the call, I'll get you in."

Tommy nods—the only 'thank you' he seems to know—and starts to turn for the door. He hesitates, and the dark head inclines ever so slightly over his shoulder. "They start digging… they're gonna see who I really am," he says, quietly. Arthur glances over at him. "When that happens, I'll be going away for a while. I know that. But I gotta try."

"I know," is the quiet response.

"Do me a favor," Tommy turns fully to look at him, and Arthur cannot meet his eyes. He is too much like Eames right now. "Don't try to protect me."

Arthur doesn't watch him go. He sometimes wonders which of them, Eames or himself, is truly the one stuck in purgatory.