Part 2.
First thing Eames does after he's made sure Arthur is deeply asleep, having spilled everything to him, is calling Cobb.
Cobb answers when Eames is almost hanging up on him.
«Dom Cobb speaking.»
«Cobb, this is Eames,» Eames says tiredly. After listening to Arthur for almost two hours he feels like all life has been sucked out of him.
«Eames?» Cobb says, sounding unpleasantly surprised. «Huh, didn't expect to hear from you, especially so soon after… well, you know…» he pauses, and Eames can imagine him squinting really hard. «Anyway, what can I do for you?»
«Yeah, sorry to bother, you know I wouldn't if this wasn't important, but this is about Arthur.»
There's a long pause on the line.
«Is- Is everything alright?»
Eames says: I don't know.
Then: No.
And: Everything's worse than you can imagine.
Cobb listens.
…
***Inception***
…
Only after speaking to Cobb does Eames let himself actually think about what he has just learnt. A simple idea of something being wrong with Arthur seems absurd, let alone something as huge and horrific like this. It seems absolutely surreal.
Arthur is sick.
He lets the thought roll around in his mind. He says it out loud. It tastes vile on his tongue.
He can't possibly imagine something so absolutely horrible, tremendous happening to Arthur, his Arthur, his perfectly composed, always only-business-like Arthur, who has everything and everyone under control, who can find his way out of any particularly difficult situation using this wonderful brain of his; his tight, stick-in-the-mud Arthur, who always argues with him just for the sake of arguing and having the last word; his Arthur who sometimes smiles at Eames' jokes and looks at him with unbelievable warmness in his eyes when he thinks Eames is not looking.
Eames is always looking.
Eames is always concerned when anything concerns Arthur.
His Arthur.
Arthur is sick
Arthur is sick
Arthur is sick
He looks down at Arthur's sleeping form and pulls a fag out of the pack, lights it up. Even in his sleep Arthur looks troubled, deep frown on his face.
Okay. So Arthur is hallucinating. Since his very childhood. Arthur has an imaginary friend that he hasn't grown out of.
Only it's not as simple as that. Arthur is actually dangerous.
Arthur has killed someone at the age of thirteen.
Even though not consciously, without any intent or purpose, he still committed a murder in cold-blood.
Arthur is sick.
Eames shakes his head, clearing this thought out.
Okay, so Arthur is not perfectly well. He's still the same Arthur, same man, only now Eames knows the side of him only he can see. Arthur confided in him and Eames sure as hell will do everything he can to live up to Arthur's trust. That is, if he still has any.
Why has Arthur really called him in the first place? Why told him all this? What does he expect Eames to do? To run away? To help him? To put him in an asylum for the greater good of the humanity?
Eames sighs heavily, looking around the room. So somewhere around here Arthur is seeing some fucked-up bloke who keeps tormenting Arthur since he was thirteen, who stares at him with cold deadly stare; who threatens him and talks shit to him, and just won't leave Arthur alone.
Automatically, Eames turns around, trying to see that person.
Eames would gladly beat the living shit out of that Edward character, if only he were a real person and not a product of Arthur's sick imagination.
Eames opens the window and throws the cigarette butt away. Arthur obviously needs his help and if he does, if he trusts Eames enough with that tiny little problem of his, then Eames will help.
Not that there was anything he wouldn't do for Arthur, really.
…
***Inception***
…
Cobb arrives the next day, looking very soft and out of practice. Eames supposes being a Dad has done Cobb some actual good.
Cobb sets the PASIV down on Arthur's coffee table, ignoring Arthur's shifting and uncomfortable looks he keeps throwing at Eames.
Cobb is only here to help, as Eames has reassured Arthur. He doesn't know the whole problem, he only knows there is one.
"How many levels down are we gonna go?" Arthur says just for the sake of saying anything, Eames suspects, though however nervous Arthur might look he sounds perfectly composed, Eames will give him that.
"Three," Cobb says with the air of cold professionalism around him, "As I already said, you and Eames go down to the third and solve whatever issue you have there that you won't let me in to see."
Cobb is offended, Eames realizes suddenly. He's actually offended that Arthur confided in Eames and not him.
Well, he thinks, smugly, tough.
"It's not that I don't trust you enough, Cobb," Arthur says, obviously having picked on Cobb's attitude as well. "It's just that what is down there – you won't like it."
"Let me decide whether I'm gonna like it or not!" Cobb exclaims, his cold composure forgotten. "Trust me, Arthur, I've seen a lot, and whatever is down there will hardly surprise me!"
"Believe me, it will," Arthur says quietly.
"Arthur –"
"Cobb," Arthur cuts him off. "Please."
Several seconds (or maybe minutes – it definitely feels like minutes) pass where Cobb keeps piercing Arthur with his squinting glare and if Eames were in Arthur's shoes even he would probably get uncomfortable under the scrutiny.
"Fine," Cobb says finally, admitting defeat after the quite long staring match. "Fine."
"Thank you," Arthur says and looks up at Eames, his gaze wondering. Eames nods. "Okay then, I think we're ready."
Cobb nods reluctantly, looks at Eames like he's somehow offended Cobb personally.
Then he presses the button.
…
***Inception***
…
"Eames," Arthur says suddenly when they are two levels down. He sounds pained and weary. The only thing Eames wants at the moment is to make him feel better.
"Yes, darling?"
Arthur looks at him for a long time, silently searching his face. "Thank you, for… uh, this. For doing this," he can't even look Eames in the eye while saying it; he looks positively crushed. "You can't even imagine, uh, what it means to me…"
Eames looks at him, his pale frowning face, a little bit pink on the cheeks, his perfectly combed and gelled hair even at a time like this, and just breathes Arthur in, the whole of him, with his tiny awkward 'uh' sounds that are so uncommon for him because that's what he sounds like when he's actually thanking Eames, absolutely sincere and adorable.
Eames wants to draw closer to him and press a soft kiss to his lips. He'd be happy to just stand there and kiss Arthur forever but the problem they have keeps tugging at him, constant reminder that things are not okay, Arthur has serious, very serious issues and if the thing they're trying to pull here doesn't work, Eames is out of ideas on how to help Arthur, besides seeking professional help.
But he's going to think about that after they've tried out everything.
…
***Inception***
…
Eames opens his eyes, looking around frantically in search of Arthur. Three levels down to Arthur's subconscious and it's the first level Arthur is not beside him.
Eames takes in his surroundings. He stands on a back yard of a small old-looking house, the grass turned brown and yellow under the sun, though there's no sunshine at the moment. The sky above him is grey and dark and the air is electrified with fear and loneliness and madness.
Eames shudders.
There are old swings right behind him, the red paint that used to cover them peeled off almost completely.
He keeps turning around, fear beginning to grow cold in his chest at the absence of Arthur.
Fear seems to be the only natural feeling in this place.
There's suddenly a sound of crying behind him.
Eames turns around and there's a boy who wasn't there a moment ago sitting on the old swings, his shoulders shaking as he sobs.
"Hey" Eames says tentatively, reaching out to touch the boy's shoulder. "Hey, what's wrong?"
The boy keeps crying, not reacting to Eames as if he's not there. Eames frowns: he's in Arthur's subconscious – usually his projections don't only ignore him but would gladly glare at him murderously. This one's actually acting as if there's no Eames at all.
The boy's still crying and Eames shudders again. The boy looks about twelve, though his sobs sound so heavy and so pained as if the boy has been through much more than any grown-up.
There's no wind but Eames suddenly feels very cold. Despite his goal to help and fix Arthur he doesn't want to be here a second longer. He doesn't like this place at all.
What is this place?
Where's Arthur?
"Hey, mate," Eames tries again to draw the boy's attention but the kid won't even look at him.
"You can't help him," says a voice behind his back and Eames turns around, his gun in his hand, ready to fire any moment.
There's a bloke standing a few feet away from him, tall and muscular, ginger hair falling over his eyes. He has an air of confidence about him and also that of danger, radiating from him in waves.
The air is more electrified than ever now. The eeriness of the place feels like a fist clenching around Eames' heart and suddenly everything is very still around them, still and quiet, the only sound heard is the boy's sobs.
Eames thinks he sees red with a corner of his vision, but when he turns to look at it, there's only brown, burnt out grass. He looks at the ginger bloke, and, there it is again, something red that catches his eye, but he can't look at it directly, and he thinks he imagined that.
He swallows hard, his heart beating crazily in his chest, and he wishes for all that to be over soon, so he could just leave this fucking place.
"He's a lost case," says the man Eames assumes is Edward. "The only thing he can do now is cry. Not that it will help him"
Arthur – and Eames is now one hundred percent sure the boy is little Arthur – pays no attention to their words whatsoever. Eames looks at him again, quickly, and there he sees it then – the small red spot of blood on the collar of Arthur's shirt.
He raises his gun and points it at the smug bastard in front of him.
Edward smirks.
The temperature drops for about ten degrees in one second.
"Oh go ahead, darling, shoot me," Edward says with malicious glee. "You can't actually kill me"
"And why is that?" Eames says through gritted teeth, gun still pointed at the man.
"Try and use your brain to answer it"
"Try and use your bloody mouth to answer it before I start putting bullets through you. You say I can't kill you? Well, let's try and see how true that claim is."
"Ooh, brutal and perfect body," Edward sneers. "No wonder he fancies you so much"
"He?" Eames asks, looking at the boy. "You mean Arthur?"
"Can't say the same about your brain though," Edward shakes his head. "Yes, Arthur. Pathetic little psycho, wishing to feel loved and safe his whole life, but subconsciously rejecting each and every thought of actually having anyone. It's so sad I'm gonna cry, pass me the tissues, would ya?"
The bastard is fucking mocking Arthur! Eames pulls his finger on the trigger, second away from shooting the twat in the smirking face.
He pauses, taking a deep breath, trying to calm down. He could first listen to what the bastard has to say.
"Sorry mate, left them in my other pants," Eames says, "don't get too distracted on Arthur's behalf. Why can't I kill you right now?"
Edward looks at him for what feels like ages before saying "You know why"
And there it is, it all suddenly makes perfect sense in Eames' head now. Of course he can't kill him, of course he can't and how could he not see it before, because –
"You are him," Eames says finally.
"You are quite right, darling," Edward says mockingly in a fake awful-sounding British accent. "I am just as much Arthur as the sobbing piece of shit over there. He and I – we are two sides of one coin, we complete each other, and we are both Arthur. You can't just kill a vital part of him and expect him to be all right. Killing me you'd kill a huge part of Arthur's personality. We are the pieces that together make Arthur who he is. He won't be the same person without either me or him" he shoots a glance at the boy.
Eames lowers his gun, shuddering from both the cold and the feeling of despair that has crept into him after the words.
"So as you see, you are quite useless here, my dear" Edward keeps on, "And as much as that little faggot fancies you to be his lovebird, I hate you every equal bit of that."
He voice grows colder and more serious by the end of the speech and the electricity in the air reaches its maximum. Eames can feel the hair on his arms and neck stand up with goose bumps and quite frankly, this is the most eerily depressive dream he's been in for a long, long time. He actually feels like shrinking into a ball and crying, crying, crying, until this fear and despair flow out of him, leaving him completely devastated.
Edward is slowly coming closer to him. Eames can't really see him moving but he's getting closer and closer, his eyes visible under the ginger fringe only for a second to reveal the blackness of his eyes.
"And now no one will help you," Edward says in an eerie whisper that echoes right in Eames' head.
Frankly, the closer Edward gets, the more scared Eames suddenly feels.
"Nothing's going to remain of you, dear" is the last thing he hears before putting his gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
…
***Inception***
…
"So, how did it go?" Cobb asks first thing as Eames jerks violently awake, his heart beating loudly in his ears. He looks at Arthur who's still hooked up to a machine, frown on his sleeping face.
"Worse than I expected," Eames says and that's the understatement of the year. "I have no idea what to do now," he admits quietly.
"Is it- Is that problem of Arthur- how serious is it, Eames?"
"Mal kind of serious," Eames says, looking Cobb in the eye.
Cobb flinches as if he were slapped on the face.
"Oh god, I had no idea," he mutters, shaking his head, and suddenly he looks a lifetime older.
"Anyway, wake him up, I don't want to leave him there alone" Eames says, thinking about the horror he's just went through and not wishing it on anyone else, let alone Arthur. Let alone small, scared kid Arthur, face-to-face with that bloody monster. He shuts his eyes tight until it hurts.
"I'll call Ariadne," Cobb says, reaching out to the PASIV. "I think she'd be glad to help"
Eames nods, eyes still painfully shut.
Cobb pauses and looks at Eames carefully. "And Eames?"
"Yes?"
"Go get some rest. You look worse than shit"
Eames rolls his eyes. He has a bit of more important business than sleeping right now.
"What, worse than Arthur then? He at least looks like shit"
Cobb sighs heavily and heads to the door. He pauses at the doorway, looks at Eames.
He says: I'm not sure I can help you this time.
Eames nods. I'm not sure anyone can, he answers.
Cobb closes the door behind him.
…
***Inception***
…
Things get pretty tense after that. Realizing that Eames couldn't deal with Edward in Arthur's subconscious, Arthur closes in on himself almost completely, becoming snappy and irritable, attacking Eames for as much as breathing too loudly.
Eames goes along with all of it and doesn't say a word, firstly because Arthur is going through a hell of bloody lot right now and secondly because Eames is afraid to trigger something inside Arthur that will make him give control to Edward completely. Just like he did when he was thirteen.
Eames stays in Arthur's LA apartment without so much as asking Arthur's opinion on it and Arthur doesn't call him on it. It's win-win situation, Eames thinks, as Arthur has someone to watch him to make sure he doesn't go completely bonkers, and Eames is just happy to stay so close to Arthur.
It's anything but a happy stay though.
A week into their life together, Arthur can't ignore the presence of his hallucination anymore, and more and more often Eames hears Arthur talking and screaming at thin air, begging and pleading for Edward to go away, to leave him alone.
Edward never does.
Soon after that Eames starts noticing how Arthur's right hand starts twitching rather violently after another screaming session. Arthur tries and fails for Eames not to see it, but Eames does anyway, and Arthur turns snappy and aggressive in a matter of seconds after Eames tries to discuss the issue.
Arthur gets aggressive very often, lately, Eames thinks, screaming and arguing with Eames with a note of desperation to it that Eames can sense, as if Arthur tries his best to pretend that they are back to the way things were – Arthur's cool subtle insults that were spoken with a tiny hint of smile on the pointer's face and Eames witty replies, provoking Arthur for more, more, always more.
Eames knows there's no coming back now.
Some days, Ariadne comes to check on them, helps to calm Arthur down on another one of his bad days. Not that Eames can't handle Arthur on his own, but Ariadne insists.
He is my friend, too, she says.
He is so much more than just a friend to me, Eames wants to say but he doesn't. Ariadne gets her own key to the apartment after all.
Sometimes, some days, he and Arthur, they have spectacularly great time together. They go for walks in the evenings, talking about everything and nothing, stop for dinner in some cheap but comfy diners and Arthur smiles and laughs and makes jokes and laughs again, his dimples showing brilliantly, and looks at Eames like he is the most precious thing Arthur's looked at in his entire life.
And Eames can't get enough of him.
But these are Arthur's good days.
***Inception***
"Pass the remote, Eames," Arthur nothing but orders from his left on the coach.
"Saying please and thank you once in a while won't kill you, Arthur, dearest," Eames smirks but complies.
"Thank you," Arthur says pointedly, his tone still authoritative enough to believe he was speaking to a servant. Eames sighs.
"What, you find Jersey Shore not up to your perfect taste?"
"Eames, I find the whole of MTV channel offensive to so much as a phrase 'perfect taste'," Arthur replies, grimacing, clicking through infinite channels on the TV.
"And I suppose Lost is so much better," Eames says, as Arthur stops clicking and puts the remote on his side, satisfied at last. "Because there is a group of people, trapped in one place they can't leave, one of them dying every week one after another… Are we watching the more fancy Jersey Shore version, darling?"
"Shut up, Eames, there's plot," Arthur grumbles, but Eames catches tiny smile on his lips. "And there's time travel. Who are you to object to time travel?"
Sometimes Eames forgets how much of a geek Arthur actually is.
"But, darling, if you want time travel – what are we doing watching this bollocks? I could download all of the Doctor Who series and we'd have a marathon!"
"Download? What are you, a pirate now?" Arthur says, looking at him incredibly. "Eames, you've made enough on the last job alone to buy a small country. Would it kill you to once in a while actually, oh I don't know, spend those money?"
"Love, I once downloaded a movie I had on a DVD just because I couldn't get bothered to get up from the couch and get it from across the flat. I reckon, the amount of money I may or may not have doesn't play any role in that."
"Even for Doctor Who? You won't be bothered to get up for your huge British cult show that every English boy secretly geeks after?" Arthur grins, turning to him, and Eames snorts at being called 'English boy.'
"Unlike someone, and I won't point fingers, I am not a geek, Arthur."
"Yeah, sure," Arthur smirks, "that coming from a person who has the whole Doctor Who and Star Trek collection on DVDs. Even the bad ones."
"Hey, there are no bad ones in Star Trek!" Eames exclaims. "And you can't blame me for having Doctor Who! Every self-respecting Brit must have a Doctor Who DVD!"
"Keep calm and carry on, Mr. Eames," Arthur says and laughs at Eames' sour expression.
Eames looks at Arthur, laughing, relaxed and young, in this so very domestic environment they've built around themselves, and he can almost pretend that it's always like that – that simple, domestic, boring life with the two of them sitting in front of TV and arguing about what to watch.
He can almost pretend.
He almost can, except for the times when even though Eames can't see him, he can still feel Edward being the third one in the room, sitting with them on the couch. He doesn't have to be able to see Edward to know precisely when he appears in the room.
He shakes his head, his smile draining from his face.
This is one of the good days, Eames reminds himself.
He lets himself enjoy it while it lasts.
***Inception***
On his bad days, Eames finds Arthur sitting in the corner of the room, shrinking himself in a ball, crying and shaking and muttering things Eames can't make out.
Arthur says there are spiders and snakes crawling up his arms.
He says the walls are shrinking down on him.
He says he sees a ball of black mist in the air, following Arthur everywhere he goes.
He says he looks at himself in the mirror and sees a face he doesn't recognize. He says his reflection in the mirror does things Arthur doesn't.
He says he hears voices that are not his or Eames'.
He says Edward is sucking life out of him. He says Edward slowly kills him from the inside.
He says: I think I'm going crazy, Eames.
And sometimes: I think I might already have.
Arthur's arm twitches violently every time something like this happens. It comes to a point where his hand turns completely dysfunctional and Arthur can't even hold anything in it, let alone write.
That's the first time Eames actually suggests going to a shrink. Get some meds.
It's not the first time he thinks about it.
He's thought about it a hundred times before: every time Arthur visibly flinches when Eames calls him darling, every time Arthur smiles at him and then startles as if hearing something and his whole posture changes and he looks like a scared little boy Eames saw there, on the swings, crying.
It all breaks Eames' heart. He imagines what it would've been like for them if there wasn't anything wrong with Arthur's head, if Arthur didn't look humiliated and self-disgusted each time he says something sweet to Eames, like he should be ashamed of himself; if they just kept working jobs together and eventually Arthur would've opened up to him, trusted him, maybe even come to love him.
Eames doesn't like to dwell on what-ifs. He always preferred doing something productive to sitting around and wasting time for unrealistic hopes and dreams. As productive as, for example, show Arthur to a shrink.
As predicted, Arthur doesn't like the idea one bit. He gets aggressive and downright murderous and rants for a long time until Eames hears a lot of new things about himself. He lets Arthur have his own way, for now, lets the idea sink in.
Arthur goes to his room, shutting the door behind him tremendously loudly. Eames rubs his temples, headache starting to make itself familiar.
Everything will be alright, he thinks hopefully, desperately, foolishly, we are going to be fine.
…
***Inception***
…
Eames is lying on the bed, in a guest room he's currently staying, unable to fall asleep, tossing and turning endlessly. The conversation (if Arthur screaming at him and he listening silently can even be called that) with Arthur earlier that day won't quit repeating itself in his head.
Not for the first time Eames asks himself what, exactly, he's trying to achieve here with Arthur. What is he actually hoping for? Happily ever after with a mentally ill person who will never love him back? Is Eames that pathetic?
These are not the most pleasant thoughts.
Thankfully, and rather surprisingly, there's suddenly quiet knocking at the door, and after a few moments Arthur's head comes through the doorway.
"May I come in?" Arthur says, formally enough for Eames to immediately see how uncomfortable he is. He nods silently, too out of depth to properly react.
Arthur steps in the dark room and hovers uncertainly by the door. Eames motions for him to sit at the foot of the bed and scoots over a bit to make room for Arthur, eager to find out what the issue here is.
Arthur sits down, unsure, looking anywhere but at Eames. He can't see Arthur's face clearly in the darkness, but he's sure Arthur's blushing right now.
"Arthur?" Eames says after a few moments of silence. He's becoming to get uncomfortable, without any specific reason. There's suddenly tension in the room, though Eames can't quite put his finger on where it's coming from.
"You were right," Arthur finally says, quietly, still not looking Eames in the eye. "About getting help."
Eames is shocked into silence with that. He lets out a quiet humming sound that doesn't really mean anything; too afraid to say something that will spook Arthur. He simply stares.
"I'll go to see a professional if -," he shuts up, winces as if he has a particularly bad toothache. "If you'll come with me."
And, really, Eames doesn't even need to think about it. "Of course I'll bloody come with you, Arthur!" he blurts out, and even after all this time Arthur still looks surprised at that.
"Eames," Arthur begins tentatively, and suddenly Eames is afraid of what is going to come out of Arthur's mouth, "why are you doing all this?"
It hits right to the point. Eames feels like he's been hit hard in the stomach and all air is sucked out of him suddenly.
That's the first time Arthur ever asked that question; the first time ever that either of them even addressed the issue, said it out loud, and brought the attention to it.
And Eames has been living here for a month now, really, he should have been prepared and ready to answer a simple question like that.
He has no idea what to say. He feels like shrinking in a ball and staying like that for next hundred years.
"Eames?" Arthur repeats, louder, strange notes in his voice.
The tension in the room can be cut with a knife. Eames' heart is beating in his ears loudly, and the sound of his breathing fills the room. He feels like something tremendous is going to happen now.
"Darling, I -," he tries pathetically, desperately, and fails, and he can't even look at Arthur anymore, and what is he gonna do now –
There's suddenly a warm breath at his cheek, shutting down all coherent thought he had. He opens his eyes, and Arthur's right there, too close, what –
"Eames," Arthur whispers, "Eames, look at me."
Eames lifts his head and looks at him, and Arthur's looking at him with so much love and tenderness and warmness that Eames' heart breaks. Arthur looks at him as if he's the most precious thing Arthur could ever look at.
Arthur kisses him then.
It's not at all like anything Eames has ever experienced before, but then again, there has never been anyone Eames was crazy about as much as he is about Arthur. It's not even like that time Eames kissed him a month ago, when Arthur was breaking down – that was merely touching lips to lips, Arthur being broken and unresponsive. This is absolutely different.
Arthur kisses him like there's no tomorrow; like he's drowning, and Eames is the only thing keeping him afloat. He kisses Eames passionately and desperately, and he tastes like cigarettes and sadness.
Eames kisses back with twice as much force.
There are hands all over his body, travelling up and down, stroking his chest underneath Eames' shirt, and then Arthur is on top of him, still not breaking the kiss apart.
Eames doesn't remember ever being that hard. Or, for that matter, ever wanting somebody as much as he wants Arthur now.
He wants Arthur as close to him as possible, wants to touch Arthur everywhere at once. It's ridiculous how hard he is, his cock aching and leaking already, not even touched once, and Eames thinks shamefully that he's gonna come in his pants, like a bloody thirteen-year-old.
Arthur draws away suddenly, and Eames panics for a moment, but Arthur only takes both his and Eames' shirts off, so they can be bare skin to skin now. They kiss messily, Arthur saying Eames' name like mantra over and over again and it it's such a turn-on Eames is really afraid he's not gonna last at all. His underpants are damp already and no one has even touched his cock yet.
Arthur starts hungry messy kisses down his chest, leaving a wet trail of saliva. He takes one of Eames' nipples in his mouth, sucks on it slightly, and Eames is reduced to a moaning mess underneath him. Arthur licks and sucks at his nipple, blows on it, then does the same with another, and Eames thinks he hears an embarrassing half whimper half whine that must have come out of his own mouth.
Then Arthur's hand comes down under his pants and actually touches his dick.
Eames comes just like that.
"Arthur," he pants, orgasm taking over for several moments of white bliss. "Arthur, please," he begs, having no clue what he's asking for.
"Shh," Arthur whispers in Eames' ear, his hand still milking Eames' dick. "Shh, I'm here," and isn't it ridiculous that Eames is the one being comforted, when Arthur has been the one breaking apart all this time. Still, it's Eames who's completely fallen apart and is lying there, under Arthur, panting and whining while Arthur kisses his neck and strokes his softening cock.
And it's so dirty and so wonderful, and, for once, Eames is not the one who has to control everything, and it's brilliant and hot, and Arthur's here kissing him again, pulling Eames' sticky underwear off.
"Shh, Eames, just relax," Arthur is saying though Eames cannot hear him over the white noise of post-coital bliss. He just lies there and listens to his heart beating in his ears, and Arthur's voice gently washing over him in waves.
Then he feels a finger behind his balls, slowly circling his entrance.
"What –" he starts to say, and Arthur shushes him again, kissing his lips and then his earlobe and whispering softly: Relax, love.
It's the first time Arthur has ever called him something other than his name or bastard, or other swear words. Arthur has just called him 'love'.
Suddenly, Eames can't breathe.
All at once, despite the fact that he just came, not even half an hour ago, his dick is rapidly getting hard again.
"You like that, huh?" Arthur says, smirking, having picked on Eames' reaction. "Love. My love.'
"Arthur," Eames pants, extremely turned on, his cock achingly hard again.
Arthur's slick finger enters him, just a bit, stopping, before going further inside. It's been so long since Eames' done that and the feeling of being filled, even with just a finger, overwhelms him.
"My god, if you could just see yourself right now," Arthur said, working his finger in and out of Eames. "So flushed and so tight for me, leaking just from me fingering you, using your own come as lube, oh my fucking god, Eames"
There's the second finger in his ass, and blimey, Arthur's using Eames' come as lube, what is Arthur doing to him!
The burning in his ass gradually grows into distant pleasure, and than Arthur crooks his fingers, and fuck, Eames is seeing stars, and someone is begging…
"You want this, Eames?" Arthur asks him, mercilessly fingering the blabbering mess that is Eames, "You are so hard for my cock, aren't you? Do you want me to fuck you so hard you won't be able to walk for days after? Do you?"
And when did Arthur become such a dirty-talker? Or has he always been like that? But it doesn't matter, because Eames is just getting harder, if that's even possible, on Arthur's dirty talk.
The fingers inside him are too much now and not enough, making Eames arch and beg for more, for Arthur to finally, finally, get out his cock and fuck him through the mattress. He wants it, he wants Arthur inside him, he wants them to be as close as physically possible.
"Arthur, please," He begs, so out of it he's not even ashamed. "Please, please, please."
He opens his eyes, only now realizing he's kept them shut, to give Arthur a pleading look, and for the first time he sees that Arthur, too, looks like his control is rapidly slipping from him. His cheeks are flushed, hair disheveled, eyes gleaming and shiny with warmth and tenderness, and Eames loves him impossibly.
"Please," he begs again, rubbing his cock on Arthur's thigh to get some friction, and Arthur hisses.
"Eames," Arthur whispers, and then Eames feels Arthur's cock slowly entering him, feeling too much and not enough at once, and he moans. Arthur enters him and stops, letting Eames adjust, but he's waited too long and it's unbearable now. He whines and whimpers, too far gone to feel embarrassed, and Arthur finally moves.
It's perfect and so much better than what Eames has ever imagined. It's hot and it's desperate, and when Arthur says: Eames, love, look at me, he moans and gathers all of his strength to open his eyes and focus them on Arthur.
"Eames," Arthur says again, with so many emotions mixed in a simple word that it would take forever to name all of them. Arthur is looking at him with so much tenderness and love that Eames' chest aches and something prickles in his eyes. Arthur moves again, hitting that spot inside Eames and his body arches, eyes falling shut again.
This is almost too much: too emotional, too intense, and far too overwhelming for any sexual experience Eames has ever had.
Arthur leans down, their bodies flushed together now, and he kisses Eames messily, swallowing his breaths and his moans, and Eames almost sobs with the emotion of it.
"Come for me, my love," Arthur whispers in his ear, and Eames is coming, untouched, for the second time in half hour and the force of it is almost painful, come spurting out of his aching cock, making him sob, and Arthur is kissing his eyelids, kissing away the tears from his cheeks, kissing his nose, his chin.
Eames feels like crying and letting it all out, all of those feeling that kept building up while he's been living in this LA apartment, trapped in this castle of paranoia, misery and madness Arthur has build around himself.
He sobs and lets it all out.
"I love you," He sobs out, his whole body shaking, "Arthur, my Arthur, I love you, I love you…"
Arthur just keeps kissing him, holding his close, caressing his face and his shaking shoulders.
He whispers, it's alright, my love.
And shh, I'm here, it's all going to be fine.
And we are going to be fine, love.
And right here, in this moment of fragile happiness, Eames believes him.
He falls asleep to Arthur's gentle voice washing over him and promising him better, happier future.
***Inception***
Eames should have known it wouldn't last. Not with them; not with what Arthur has.
Eames returns home from the grocery store the next day, bags at his sides, and a bottle of Champaign under his armpit, and when he enters the apartment he immediately knows something is wrong.
It's to quiet and still. It's eerie and it reminds him of a dream he once went to, of a crying boy on the swings.
He tenses. His hand reaches for the gun on its own accord.
"Arthur?" He calls out tentatively. There's no response.
He puts the bags and the Champaign on the floor and takes a few careful steps into the apartment. "Arthur, darling," he calls again, his hand gripping the gun almost painfully.
The entry door behind him creaks and shuts with a slam, deafeningly loud in a silent room. Eames sweeps around.
Arthur stands there behind him. He is smirking, his head slightly cocked to the side, and he studies Eames with cold curious eyes.
"Edward," Eames greets. He doesn't let go of the gun, stupidly, because, Eames realizes bitterly, he would never shoot at Arthur. Even if it's another person, it's still Arthur's body, and Eames would never hurt him like that.
"Eames," Edward drawls, and Eames flinches at hearing his name being said like that.
They stand, glaring at each other silently. Eames feverishly tries to come up with a way to snap Arthur out of it. He needs to think of something fast, before any of them does something they will regret.
"I warned you," Edward finally says, breaking the silence, "I told you to stay away from him. He. Is. Mine."
"Why are you here, Edward?" Eames asks brokenly, exhausted, also trying to win some time before something terrible happens. "We were doing so well… Why did you have to come and ruin everything?"
"I won't stand and watch Arthur living a life of a filthy faggot!" Edward spits out. "He was mine first, I was working on him. And then you came and destroyed all of my hard work!"
"Edward, please," Eames says, trying to reason with him. "You love Arthur, right?"
"Of course I love Arthur," Edward hisses, "I am the only one who actually loves him."
"Well, if you do love him, you must realize this is not fair to him," Eames reasons, "if you do love him, you must let him live his life and make his own choices."
"What's not fair is that I raised him, I was always there for him, I was his only friend, and then you come and take him away from me," Edward says quietly and insinuatingly.
"Edward," Eames starts to say.
But in a matter of a split second, so fast that even Eames with all of his military experience barely registers what's happening, Edward pulls out a gun, Arthur's gun, and shoots Eames.
As Eames lies on the floor, crimson blood flowing around him in an almost perfect circle, he thinks we almost made it; he thinks, bitterly, we were going to be alright, and he wants to cry with that thought.
His twitching fingers still hold the gun in his hand, but he barely has the energy to lift his arm.
Edward comes to him and looms over his body.
"Come on," He encourages, smirking, "Come on, you shit, shoot me!"
Eames looks at him, his consciousness quickly slipping from him. He can't even register where, exactly, he's been shot and how vital the wound is. That alone is enough to tell him the situation does not look good at all.
Edward lifts the gun and points it straight to Eames' head.
"Come on, shoot me back!" he almost screams.
"Arthur will never forgive you for that," Eames tries to say, his voice raw and heavy in his chest. His eyes are falling closed.
He would never shoot Arthur, he knows, even if he could lift his hand and push the trigger.
"I'm gonna count to five, and then I'm shooting your fucking brains out!" Edward says, his voice coming as if through a wall.
Arthur would break apart after this.
…Two…
Oh God, who would look after Arthur when he's gone?
…Four…
We almost made it to the therapy
…Five…
I love you, darling
And then there is nothing.
***Inception***
Eames wakes feeling as though he's been run over by a freight train. His mouth feels like shit, his eyes feel like they're stitched closed and he can't move to save his life.
He realizes he is somehow still alive.
He falls back into the darkness.
The next time he wakes he actually bothers to open his eyes. It's hard but he manages and on looking around he realizes he is a hospital room. He feels someone sitting by his side and, stupidly, for a moment, he hopes it's Arthur.
It's Ariadne.
Eames swallows a lump in his throat and blinks away the prickling in his eyes.
Ariadne looks tired. She tells him what happened. She tells him how she wanted to check on them because it's been three weeks since she last had, and she went to Arthur's flat, and then just on the other side of the door she heard Eames speaking to 'Edward.' She tells him how she immediately realized what was going on, how she took the fire extinguisher from the wall in the hall of the apartment and then opened the door with her key, so quietly that no one heard her. She tells him how she crept behind Arthur, just before he fired at Eames lying on the ground, and hit him on the back of the head with said fire extinguisher. She tells him how she dialed 911 and tried to keep Eames alive until the paramedics came.
Eames listens to her as she tells him all about his surgery. He doesn't care, but he listens. He waits till she speaks about Arthur but she never does.
"Ariadne," he stops her and she looks a little bit guilty, "how long have I been here?"
"A week and a half," she says sympathetically.
"Where is Arthur?" Eames finally brings himself to ask, and she looks as if she's been dreading this particular question. There's a long silence.
"He is in the asylum," she finally answers, looking away.
"What? Which one? How?" Eames says desperately trying to grasp on what's going on.
Ariadne sighs. She starts telling him how Arthur came back to himself in the ER of the same hospital, arms and legs bound; Ariadne was with him at the moment and Eames was at surgery. She tells him how Arthur became terrified as soon as he couldn't spot Eames anywhere and then realized he didn't remember how he got there. She tells him how Arthur didn't believe her, how he asked her to untie his hands so he could check his totem; she tells him how Arthur fell apart all over again when he saw he wasn't dreaming. She tells him how Arthur became unstable after that and the doctors had to give him sedatives intravenously to calm him down.
She tells Eames that after Arthur blacked out, they sent him to Hawkins Mental Health Center. She tells him she only visited Arthur once since then and sorry Eames, but I don't want to talk about that.
Eames lies there silently in the bed and wonders at how extremely fast it all went to absolute Hell. He knew their life in LA wouldn't last forever since they've lived on borrowed time, but that time wasn't enough.
He closes his eyes. He thinks he hears Ariadne quietly stand and walk out the room, closing the door behind her.
Inception
Eames visits Arthur at least three times a week. He still tries to sniff out jobs whenever he can, but his life mostly revolves around Arthur, like, frankly, it always has.
He comes to Hawkins every time he can, he flirts with the nurses, and then he goes to the room he has to go before they let him in to Arthur. In that room he takes off his watch, his belt, removes every sharp object that could be of danger to Arthur.
Then they let him in to Arthur.
Arthur lives in a white room with a sealed window, soft walls, and a bed. The mattress on the bed has a special surface that can't be broken, so Arthur won't try and choke himself on the mattress stuffing.
They keep Arthur mostly on Thorazine nowadays, and sometimes on Clozaril and Trilafon. They keep him medicated at all times. When they don't Edward comes and tries to hurt Arthur and everybody around him. When he's not medicated he gets dangerous.
Like Eames said, Arthur would never forgive Edward for what he did to Eames. Arthur also has never forgiven himself.
Eames knows that Arthur is to go through his month-long Thozarine course and then they are going to try therapy again. Another month and then they'll give Arthur another chance.
He goes inside. Arthur is sitting in a chair by the window. Nurses tell him that it's one of the two things Arthur ever does – sits in a chair by the window.
"Arthur," Eames calls softly, careful not to spook Arthur. Arthur doesn't react in any way; he looks completely unaware of anything around him.
"Darling," he tries again.
Arthur slowly looks up to him with his glassy eyes.
"Am I dead?" Arthur says monotonously.
Eames flinches. He swallows a lump in his throat and comes closer. Arthur loses interest in Eames and goes back to looking through the window.
"No, darling, god no," Eames says and feels like sobbing, and hating the world and Arthur's father in general for doing this to his brilliant son, "you are not dead, why would you say that?"
"Am I dead?" Arthur says again, as if no one has spoken. He doesn't look like he realizes Eames is even there. "Am I dead? I feel dead."
Eames briefly shuts his eyes. Arthur starts drawing something on the window glass with his finger. That's the second thing Arthur ever does, nurses tell him – drawing on the window glass.
"You are not dead, love, you are not," Eames says desperately, convincing himself probably just as much as Arthur. He looks at this crunched man in a white room and he doesn't recognize the brilliant pointman he once was, the perfect know-it-all and stick-in-the-mud that Eames fell in love with. He thinks of the couch in front of TV and conversations about shows and time travel and he can't think of Arthur of those days and this man as a same person. He sees only the empty shell of the man Arthur once used to be.
He'll go through therapy, Eames reminds himself again and again and again. He'll go through therapy and he'll make it, and we'll be fine.
We will be fine, love
Eames thinks if he will repeat that enough times, then maybe he'll believe it.
That time they had was nearly not enough. It could never be enough.
He comes closer to Arthur and looks at the glass on the window. On the foggy glass Arthur draws the letter E again and again, probably not even realizing he's doing it.
Nurses tell him, it's always the same letter.
"What are you writing there, darling?" Eames asks him as he always does, and Arthur replies nothing like he always does. It's just that E letter being drawn again and again that lets Eames hope that Arthur hasn't forgot. That somewhere, in that fractured and broken mind of his, there is still a memory of them together, a memory of Eames.
Eames hopes that the E that Arthur so stubbornly writes on the window glass stands for Eames and not for Edward. He hopes that it stands for Eames, and if it does, then Arthur is not completely lost, he can still be fixed and put back together. With time, with a lot of time and work and energy, but Eames hopes and believes that they will have that.
The time they had was not enough.
And all Eames can do is be there and hope that someday they will have more.
He hopes.
The End.
