A/N: I uploaded this on livejournal, but never got around to putting it up here. Inception is love, and also not mine 3
At the Bottom of a Pint Glass
The night of Mal's funeral is the first time—the last time—Arthur goes and gets himself roaring drunk.
And he knows he shouldn't. Knows it is wrong of him. Knows Dom needs him—Dom, who couldn't even be at his own wife's funeral for fear of being arrested for her murder—but, fuck it all, he needs to watch the world tip over.
Maybe if he can tip it over just once, it might be right side up again. Maybe.
He is not out of place in the bar, to his surprise—plenty of well dressed saps melting across the counter. Marriage problems for most of them. Mistress problems for the others.
They don't know anything. Mal was family. Sister, mother, friend all wrapped up in one beautiful, wonderful woman.
"Mal was" is the problem. Mal was.
So he drinks until he can't see straight, and then he drinks a little more, just for good measure. He is a mess in a rumpled waistcoat and haphazardly rolled sleeves.
"Last place I thought I'd find you," Eames says as he settles in beside him. His voice is tired and listless—without its usual charm.
"Screw you—Eames." It takes a great deal more effort to force his mouth into cooperation than he'd expected.
Eames cocks an eyebrow and looks Arthur over. He is without comment for once in his life.
"What?" Arthur barks, but the words lose their bite by way of the slur and the slosh.
"You look awful, Arthur." No tease to it, no ulterior motive, nothing coy—probably the most straightforward comment Arthur has ever heard come out of Eames's mouth.
"Flattery will get you no where," he chides. It's meant to be something of a joke, but Eames looks back at him with a somber, almost pitying expression that doesn't do anything except piss him off.
"Let me take you home." Eames says, calm and sad and serious.
"Don't want to go home," Arthur informs his half-downed glass. When he reaches for it, Eames's hand catches his and there is a split second where everything seems to stop. The world wobbles on the precipice.
Time resumes and the world rights itself and Eames gives up his hold on Arthur's hand.
"I think you've had enough, love," he says. He is almost smiling, but the quirk of his mouth doesn't touch his eyes.
Arthur downs the rest of the glass—scotch, he thinks; honestly, he's stopped paying attention at this point—just to spite him. It burns all the way down. It's a good burn. Arthur likes that he can still feel it.
"Come on," Eames says. He stands and gets a loose grip on Arthur's arm, leading him away from the counter. Arthur lets him. Eames's fingers are something of an anchor—and when he stumbles, Eames's fingers keep him from meeting a floor that looks oddly far away. He is having trouble remembering if the ground has always been so far down.
The nausea only takes hold after he's been upright for a good minute and then it comes in waves. The bar, which is already less in-focus than it was when he walked in at the start of the evening, wibbles and warps in and out of clarity. The room spins in spite of his b-line course.
He tugs on Eames's jacket much like he would a mother's dress if he were a child. "Eames," he tries to say, but it comes out garbled with drink and queasy liltedness.
Eames ushers him out the door, murmuring something that Arthur is too distracted to listen to. Two steps into the chill of the night air and Arthur's stomach presents itself over Eames's shoes.
"Ah—Christ, Arthur!" Eames barks, caught juggling a buckling Arthur in the midst of trying to step out of his soiled shoes. "These cost me a fortune!" He bends over—somehow managing to keep Arthur from dropping face first onto the pavement in the meantime—and lifts the shoes up with two careful fingers in the heels, watching in disgust as vomit drips off the toes. He heaves Arthur's arm over his shoulder and supports him with an arm around his waist. Turning, he says, "You owe me for this one, love," and, shaking his head, leads Arthur to his car.
All that Arthur can make sense of during the ride to his apartment is his own sense of vague amazement that Eames doesn't have to ask where it is. Then again, he realizes, he shouldn't be surprised at all. It's Eames. Eames knows everything.
It is something between a wrestling match and a circus act to get the still off-kilter Arthur through his apartment door, and something else altogether to try and help him into not-vomit-stained clothes.
With Arthur tucked into clean pajamas, Eames goes about the task of wiping off his face. He runs a wet cloth over Arthur's mouth with a soft smile. "You're going to be in such a tiff about the waistcoat in the morning," he says, mostly to himself.
"Don't care," Arthur manages. The cool cloth feels wonderful on his skin. He closes his eyes as Eames rinses it and draws it across his temples, his forehead, his neck. Down each arm. "Mal was worth more than a waistcoat."
Eames stops for a second, searching Arthur's eyes. But Arthur doesn't look at him. He looks at the carpet, the walls. He is beginning to feel much too sober much too soon. With a sigh, Eames resumes his work with the cloth. "That she was."
"I had no idea. I-" Arthur's voice catches and he hangs his head. "She hadn't been herself, but I never would have thought—I'd never have-"
"Shh," Eames soothes, catching Arthur's jaw in gentle fingers. "No one would have."
"If I had known," Arthur presses.
"You couldn't have done anything." Eames sets the cloth aside and sits down next to Arthur on the bed. "Mal got lost. Nothing any of us said could have pulled her out."
"Is that supposed to help?" The edge in his voice is marred by the water welling in his eyes.
"No." Eames lays a hand over Arthur's, "Just dulls the pain."
Arthur's shoulders start to shake with suppressed sobs. He must be more drunk than he feels, because his attempt to fall into the pillows lands him against Eames's chest instead. There's no point moving after that. He just quivers and mumbles and lets Eames pull him in closer with the same fingers that anchored him before.
And he really must be more drunk than he feels, because he could swear Eames has started to cry.
His head throbs. The bed creaks when he lifts himself out of it and it screeches through his head. He tumbles across the floor on unsteady legs in hunt of coffee. He finds it already made, a brown cup set aside on the counter for him. Under the mug is a note and his keys.
Eames's scrawl is near impossible to read, but he has seen it often enough to make sense of it.
Arthur darling-
Nabbed your keys from your pocket and went back to the bar for your car. Figured you wouldn't mind. The coffee is strong. It's a blessing on mornings like these.
The last line is added almost as an afterthought.
It didn't help, did it?
Arthur sighs and lays the note face down on the counter, pocketing the keys.
The caffeine cuts through the headache just enough for a bit of relief. Silently, he thanks Eames, nosy busybody that he is.
It's not for a few more hours that Eames comes knocking on the door.
Arthur opens it, the last blossoming sunspots of his headache finally starting to die away. He has been useless most of the day, lying in bed and cursing the noisy neighbors in room 350C.
Eames's manner is soft and careful—nothing like his typical loud, devil-may-care attitude that sets Arthur's teeth on edge. "How's your head?" Eames asks, careful not to talk too loud.
"It's been better," Arthur groans, rubbing at a trouble spot flowering just behind his right eye.
Eames watches this for half a second before draping his coat across the counter and saying, "Here, sit down." He gestures in the direction of Arthur's bed. Too bone-weary to raise up any kind of complaint, Arthur obeys.
Eames settles himself beside him, turned and cross-legged so that he is facing Arthur. "Turn this way." Again Arthur complies.
With a gentle touch, Eames brushes Arthur's hand away, laying his fingers against the man's temples. He starts in slow circles, fingers drawing over Arthur's forehead and jaw while his thumbs work his cheeks, just below his eyes. A sigh pushes past Arthur's lips before he can think to stop it.
"Good?" Eames asks, with a hint of that devilish grin he's known so well for.
"Mhmm," Arthur hums, leaning into Eames's touch. They bump knees.
"This would be easier if you were closer."
They shift and resettle so that Arthur is framed by Eames knees, nestled into the hallow made there. Eames's fingers work magic on his head. Eames runs a hand through Arthur's hair, dislodging the remnants of whatever gel had survived the night.
"I like your hair down," he murmurs.
Arthur's eyes are still closed. "That's nice, Mr. Eames."
"Feel better?" He asks. He leans in close, given just the right jolt of courage by Arthur's closed eyes, by the knowledge that Arthur can't see him do it.
Arthur nods, losing himself in the pleasure of the head massage.
"Good." Arthur jumps a little at how close the voice is—Eames's breath tickling the side of his jaw. He peeks one eye open in time to see Eames lift his chin to plant a kiss on the point man's forehead. "Hate to see you in pain, darling," he murmurs against Arthur's skin.
Something of a smile graces Arthur's expression. "You have no concept of personal space, do you Mr. Eames?"
"Not that I care to think of." He nuzzles his nose to Arthur's temples. "Headache gone?"
"Mostly," he says with a smirk. Eames almost purrs when he feels Arthur's arms snake up to wind around his neck. The smirk is only inches away from Eames's mouth. "I can manage."
"That's not at all fair of you," Eames sings, savoring the way his lips brush Arthur's with each word. "Aren't you the one who told me I have no self restraint?"
"I am," Arthur says, and Eames thinks he might have imagined the way Arthur's lips are a hair's breadth closer. "And I'm betting on that."
Exhibiting what he himself thinks to be an admirable amount of self restraint, Eames does not close their minimal distance, but instead murmurs, "All you had to do was ask, darling."
"Mhm," Arthur taunts, and then their mouths are together, one way or another. They find themselves thanking whichever one of them it was that finally made the move to close in.
Eames is warm and soft and yielding—sprouting smiles and chuckles at each of Arthur's advances: making him angry, egging him on, driving him crazy. Crazy enough to press his lips against scratchy jawline stubble and kiss his way down.
Eames's fingers twine in his hair—his anchor.
And Arthur understands that things can start again.