The quiet extends out for what seems like hours, though is really probably only a minute or two. Arthur is sipping his coffee, eyes half-lidded, a kind of bemused, humorless half-smile on his lips. Eames stares openly, and he has no idea what to do with his hands, and his mouth is dry despite the perfectly serviceable mug of tea, which is going to waste, useless. Cooling rapidly on the counter.
Eventually Arthurs sets down his empty cup, and Eames hopes he doesn't look half so hungry as he feels. Like he's been slowly starving to death, maybe for years, and he hadn't even realized until this – this bloody impossibility has drifted just into his reach, transient, without depth or form, and maybe – maybe it wouldn't be so bad. To just take what he goddamn wants for once. Even if it's only ever going to be once. Even if it might ruin things.
Like everything hasn't already gone to shit.
Maybe, after two years, all that fallout from their natural-bloody-disaster of a breakup is finally starting to settle.
So Arthur doesn't say anything, but he kind of tilts his head, and Eames shoves his hands into his pockets, tightly fisted. Clears whatever pathetic expression of lust and longing and loneliness and bloody fucking shit, hell, how could I have known, I'm not whole without you off his face. And he follows Arthur into what used to be their bedroom.
Arthur doesn't turn the light on, and Eames doesn't know what this means, or if it means anything, or if maybe they've degenerated to the level of anonymous sex and Arthur doesn't even want to look at him, what the fuck, they used to be in fucking love – except then Arthur's fumbling for the lamp on the bedside table, and he misses a few times. And if Eames hadn't been so wrapped up in his own bloody fucking circle-jerk of self-loathing, he might've noticed.
Arthur is drunk.
"Arthur," Eames says, voice pale in the semi-darkness since Arthur's managed the lamp and the dim light is hazy and half-glowing as it soaks into the point-man's smooth skin.
"Yeah," he murmurs, quiet and noncommittal, and Eames knows there's something he should say here, but. Arthur's started peeling off his sweater, and his undershirt comes off with it, ending up in a clumsy heap on the floor, and there's Arthur's back: lean and curving, light dispersing like numberless twinkling solar systems over his flesh. He's carved of highlight and shadow, gilded, severity gone silky-soft at the edges.
Eames inhales sharply. He's never wanted anything half so much.
Except that he's always wanted Arthur, it's always fucking been Arthur. Even when he'd had Arthur.
Arthur's fumbling with his belt by the time Eames gets over himself and over to him, and maybe putting his hand on Arthur's bare shoulder wasn't the best idea since the shock of contact jolts the forger's heart into his throat. The way the point-man tenses, then relaxes into his touch. The way his bones shift beneath the layers of tissue and muscle as he moves his hands.
Eames wonders, vaguely, when he turned into such a fucking teenager.
"Hang on a minute," he says gently. "Arthur."
Arthur looks at Eames over his shoulder, and maybe Eames needs to get laid or something, this can't be his life, he can't be destroyed by one fucking look.
Eames does something that feels completely natural, muscle memory right down to the rush of blood in his head. He fits against Arthur's back, hooks an arm around that bare waist, splays his hand over the smooth angles of hip and belly even as he trails his fingertips down a lean forearm. Links their fingers together. Speaks with a gesture all the wordless things he's said before, long ago, tries to communicate something that might last.
He presses his face into the side of Arthur's neck and breathes him in; for just a moment, it's like no time has passed at all. For just a moment, the universe is slow-spinning and perfect, Eames is happy again, and nothing can ever hurt him. Since no matter how bad it gets, there's still Arthur, strong and capable, competent to a fault. In his arms and devoutly lethal and just enough of an asshole to mean it, when he says Eames is his; belonging, and everyone else can just fuck off.
Except Arthur isn't his, and hasn't been for years, and even as he's relaxing back into Eames' broad chest and tipping his head so they're cheek-to-cheek, turning his face in so they're breathing in the same air, it doesn't matter. It can't matter. If it matters, if he means it...
"You've had hardly a thing, darling," Eames murmurs, voice lower and rougher than he intends. "Are you quite in control of your faculties?"
"Low tolerance. Don't drink much anymore," Arthur murmurs, exhaling through his nose. The warmth of it ghosts over Eames' ear, sends shivers lancing down his spine. "Not since."
"Was I really so terrible an influence, Arthur," he laughs, low and surprised, and when Arthur starts swaying in his arms, he sways right along: a slow-dance in a dim room, with no music but their matched lungs and no rhythm but the uneven pace of their hearts. Arthur's body radiating heat, Eames' body soaking it up.
It's all very high school.
"Eames," Arthur says pointedly. "We are mind criminals."
Says, "All of us are a terrible influence."
Says, after a bit, "And anyway. It's not – it's like – I wouldn't play blackjack. Either. Since."
Eames coughs quietly, thinks about maybe letting go of Arthur, of putting him to bed and then passing out on the couch. This proximity is starting have a noticeable physiological effect on him. "What?"
"I wouldn't play cards," Arthur sighs, leaning heavily into Eames. It's a perfect weight, exactly where he ought to be, and Eames despairs. "With anyone else. Has to be you. Mr. Eames."
Arthur is nonsensical and loose, soft and bleary and gorgeous, rolling words over his tongue in a terribly, horribly distracting manner, and Eames finally gets it together enough to guide him to the bed. Gently nudge him down onto the mattress, tug the blankets out from under his arse to tuck up around Arthur's chin. It's an intimate gesture, but it adds some distance between them. A barrier.
Okay. Deep breathes. He can fucking handle this.
"I just wanted to be in the same place you were," Arthur mumbles, abstracted and absent. "I don't care where anyone else is. Also," he trails off, squinting. "Sit down, Eames." He sounds tired, and looks tired, and Eames should be tired, too. Only he's suddenly wide-awake.
"'Also'...?" He asks, and he can't help it, he can't, he tries: he reaches out, brushes his fingertips over Arthur's forehead, pushes the brown curls of hair out of his face. Tangles his fingers a bit in the silk of Arthur's hair.
"Sit down," Arthur repeats, and Eames does. The sharp hip knocking presently against his own is simultaneously comforting and alarming. Also, Eames is apparently a crazy person who wants what he can't have and rejects anything he is given, even when he wants that, too.
"Also," Arthur whispers, quiet and insistent, "no one mixes a drink like you do."
"Of course they don't," Eames says softly. And then he gets it, just a bit.
"You drink around me," he says slowly. "Because I'm a fun drunk. And... you, contrary to popular belief and expansive study, also like to have fun? Arthur?"
Arthur snorts, only it's almost a bit of a giggle, and Eames is betrayed his own small half-smile.
"Yeah," Arthur replies. He waves a hand ineffectually. "Everyone else is just," he says, pauses. Picks back up. "Just not you."
"Oh." Eames offers. He closes his eyes, tries to put this together in his head, tries to look at this in any way that won't destroy him. He's always been so careful, his whole life, to assume that – that people aren't actually confessing. That you never actually get what you want. It's the only way he can hang on to reality, instead of constructing some beautiful, self-deceptive lie-world where Arthur might still conceivably love him. Where he's drunk and he's saying it.
"Wait, hang on," Eames says, appalled. "You haven't played a game of cards in two years?"
Arthur reaches over and takes Eames' hand. "Can we please talk about this?" He doesn't mean blackjack. His voice is worn, sad. Lonely as anything Eames has ever heard, and then Arthur is propping himself up on his elbows and struggling just a bit with the blankets.
"I don't know what you mean," Eames says stoically. Or, he tries, but – Arthur with his bare chest and bare eyes, direct and close and dark with scrutiny, slightly unfocused with gin and – andarousal. Eames can absolutely recognize this.
"Goddamn it," Arthur hisses, low under his breath. "How many fucking times do I – do I have to throw myself at you, fuck, how can you – how can we – "
It's like a spear of ice lancing through his gut, twisting deep and freezing him from the inside out. That's how it feels – like everything's gone cold beneath his hot, tight skin. "I'd hardly say you've been throwing yourself at me," he whispers, words slow and gentle as his mind furiously tries to work out what Arthur could possibly be talking about.
"I thought," Arthur says, anchoring Eames with their linked hands, reaching up with his other one to grip the forger's neck, pull him close, look hard into his eyes, forever the immovable object. "Sometimes I think you're over me. Sometimes I think you just, you just don't give a shit, and I'm fine, I am, I can live with – with this, if you don't, if you," but then Arthur is kissing him.
Everything evaporates.
The problem is, when Cobb and Mal got engaged, Arthur was really fucking depressed. Eames was still in the making-out-in-abandoned-hallways-and-closets stage with him, which, really, does anyone ever grow the fuck up, it would've been nice to get laid – but. Cobb and Mal go on their honeymoon, and when they come back, Arthur is a bit listless and a bit despondent and he looks so fucking lonely all the time, and Cobb and Mal are in their own little marital bliss bubble, and – well, there really isn't a whole lot going on.
So Eames takes a vacation, except it's actually just time off for a freelance job in Budapest, and he takes Arthur with him. So Arthur can get his mind off things, to have something to do, because if Arthur is in love with Cobb and that's – that's where all this shit is coming from, then. Then Eames wants to do something for him. Eames more or less probably knows what it's like, to love someone who loves someone else. Maybe.
Arthur is extraordinarily pleased. After a day or two, he already knows more about the mark – their employers – the men who own their shitty temp flat – the local language and culture – than Eames does. Even if his accent is rubbish.
He's energized, and he's happy, and he's brutally competent, and Eames is just glad he's not – not moping around anymore.
Also he doesn't mind having Arthur to himself, since it's entirely possible that Eames is a jealous, possessive individual who's just really, really good at compartmentalizing. So while he respects Dom Cobb and is sincerely happy for him, and trusts the man more than he trusts almost anyone else in the business, there's a small part of him that viciously hates the fact that Cobb getting married depresses Arthur. The same part of him that gets sick with jealousy, wroth with it.
When they get back, though, everything is better. Arthur, who'd been shy and basically living with Eames for a month (but not living, unfortunately, In Sin), doesn't act like someone with a broken heart. And he's a really terrible actor, you always know exactly how he feels, so. He's got to be sincere. Arthur has no choice but to be sincere. The world of theatre sighed in collective relief when he became a career criminal, instead of (dis)gracing the stage.
Eventually Mal gets pregnant, and Cobb is absolutely mental about it, and Arthur and Eames are present when Philippa is born. Mal doesn't scream or cry or anything, just holds Cobb's hand tight, white-lipped and flushed, and Arthur holds Eames' hand in the observation room.
And then Eames is released from his below-board SIS dealings, and Arthur is discharged (or isn't) from the US military and they go off to start their glamorous life of crime.
Three years later, Mal dies and Arthur leaves.
Eames braces his weight, suspended over Arthur, in their old bedroom.
Arthur is insistent and hot beneath him, gripping Eames by the shoulder, elbow, hip – ever-shifting, and tight, like he's afraid Eames will disappear. And it could be the brandy, or it could be the fucking disorienting nostalgia, but Arthur is sliding his tongue into Eames' mouth, rough and wanton and clumsy with need, and then his hands are on Eames' face, smoothing over his cheeks, and he opens his eyes and tips his head back and stares at the forger's lips - and the room is spinning. And everything is perfect.
"God," Eames curses, and throws in the towel. Just gives up, gives in, he's only one bloody human in the face of – of this. "Fuck."
So Eames pulls messily at the covers, hands slipping down the flat expanse of Arthur's belly and fumbling with his trousers, even as Arthur picks at the buttons on Eames' shirt. It takes longer than it should, because Arthur will stop to spread his fingers greedily over each newly-exposed patch of skin, and Eames has to break the kiss to slide the flat of his tongue down the smooth, hard lines of Arthur's neck, dip in beneath his collar bones, the hollow of his throat, the salty stretch of sweat along his sternum as he finally manhandles Arthur's slacks down around his knees. Arthur struggles a bit, and Eames without preamble slips the dark-haired man's cock out of the slit in his boxers, takes him wholesale into his mouth.
"I – " Arthur manages, before it dissolves into a long, low moan. Eames goes fast, hot and wet, working his throat muscles around the heavy, smooth length; revelling in the weight of it on his tongue, the familiar ache in his jaw and the wet slide of flesh over his lips as Arthur helplessly bucks up into it.
It's flawless, everything: from the play of his fingers on Arthur's thighs to the way he nuzzles and inhales against that coarse patch of hair with each deep thrust, kissing and pressing his lips over the swollen head, everything feels and smells and tastes exactly as it should. Like the last time he blew Arthur was two days ago instead of two years. By the time Arthur is writhing and laboring for breath beneath him, coming in long spurts, Eames is so hard he can't see straight.
"Jesus fucking christ," Arthur gasps, panting, and Eames is moving off of him, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist, but – then there's Arthur's hand, his iron grip on Eames' forearm, and he jerks the heavier man toward him, kisses him hard, licks his own come off Eames' smooth lips and says, brokenly,
"Do you have any condoms." He wriggles impatiently out of his boxers. They'll end up, probably, between somewhere between mattress and wall.
Eames shakes his head, No, tries to pull away.
"This can't happen," he says, voice hoarse and weak and not at all convincing, even to his own ears, and Arthur glares at him, angry, hurt. But then his lovely eyes fall to Eames' swollen mouth, and Eames can feel heat ignite all along his body as that dark gaze traces each tattoo, slips over the solid muscle of Eames' stomach. The painful and obvious bulge of his erection.
"Eames,' Arthur whispers, and fucking hell, his post-orgasm voice is sex, low and ridiculously rough. Everything Eames could ever think of, lust and longing, begging and bullying, sharp desire, greed. Love. It's all fucking there. "This is already happening."
"I can't, Arthur, you don't – " But he stops when Arthur takes his face in his warm hands, pulls them together, nuzzles his cheek and fixes his teeth over Eames' earlobe.
"Is this really so hard," he whispers, stilted, thighs parting slowly so Eames is pressed between them. "Do you – hate the idea of being with me so much," Arthur murmurs harshly, and – and his voice breaks, here. And his cheeks are wet. Arthur's crying.
Arthur never cries.
"You don't understand," Eames says, and he can't help the tenseness of his body, the strain, the way his goddamn dick points at Arthur like a fucking divining rod, like water in the fucking desert. "You don't know what you fucking do to me, Arthur, I," but Arthur is kissing him again, wet and salty, nipping at his lips enough that it hurts, and there's a rustle and a clatter and before Eames realizes it's from Arthur's hand in the bedside table, he's already produced a bottle of lube and a foil-wrapped package. Like he knows where they're kept, like he lives here, because he did. Once upon a time.
"Filthy liar," Arthur mutters against his mouth, and god, what Eames would fucking give for everything that's happening right now to actually happen, in a universe where they wouldn't regret it immediately, or in the morning, or during, or in three goddamn years. Where they'd never regret it. A world where they'd still be together.
"Those – those are old," Eames mutters, and Arthur kisses him a moment longer before the words hit home and he stops suddenly, falls back, shakes his head incredulously.
"Are you telling me, Mr. Eames, that you – that you haven't had anyone back here since – "
"That's exactly what I'm telling you." There's no way around it, so Eames doesn't even attempt the lie. But apparently this abysmal piece of information is sobering, because Arthur's looking less and less unfocused.
"Oh," the point-man says quietly, something warm and familiar and painfully unreadable welling up in his shining eyes. He wipes absently at his face, fingers slipping over the silvery tracks of moisture. "Come here, Eames," he says. Then he slides his hand down the forger's belly, beneath the popped button and undone zipper, and wraps his fingers lazily, almost wonderingly, around the thick length of Eames' cock.
"Arthur – "
"Shut up, Mr. Eames," is the growled response, and he works him slowly, dry, just long enough to where Eames really just – just needs to put his dick in something, something hot and wet, and then there's Arthur letting go of him, squeezing the lube messily onto his fingers, propping himself up and splaying his legs and working himself open with expert fingers.
Eames stares at him, palms tingling with the urge to slip a blunt thumb inside Arthur, stretch him open himself, but he maintains enough higher brain function to mutter, "Get a lot of practice with that, do you?"
"Every time I think about you," is the flat reply, but Arthur's face his flushed and he's chewing his lip and Eames gets a hand under his thigh, fingers sinking into the pale skin and sure to bruise, and he leans forward and slowly works the fingers of his other hand in over Arthur's own. He splays them, and Arthur makes small, pleased sounds, opens beneath Eames, curves into it.
"How often would that be," Eames whispers against the sweat behind Arthur's ear before following the words with as many kisses.
"Every – ungh – every goddamn day, Eames," he sighs, legs tense, and Eames swallows and withdraws his hand and Arthur does, too, staring up at him with glazed eyes and wet lips. "Sometimes twice."
Eames fumbles with the old condom, fingers sliding from the lube, until Arthur makes a frustrated sound and hisses, "Forget about the fucking condom, Eames, I just – I want – " and Eames thinks, Fuck.
Thinks, This won't be the first bad decision I've made tonight.
So Arthur's shoving a pillow under his hips, just like their first time, and Eames is pressing the thick, blunt head of his cock into Arthur's arse, and it's still so fucking tight, and he holds his breath as he pushes in. Long, fluid stroke. Slow and deep. Arthur making a sound that's almost a scream and almost a cry, bit back and strained through his teeth. It sounds a bit like Eames' name.
"So you were thinking about me," he whispers, rocking back slowly, rocking in slowly, "since – since we..."
"Fuck you," Arthur pants, "yes. What part of," he makes a high, keening sound as Eames slides home again, equal parts arousal and frustration, "every goddamn day," and he shifts and pulls his legs up, flattening the backs of his thighs against Eames' chest, deepening the angle, "don't you understand."
Eames has his fingers on Arthur's hips, and he can't help it – he bucks forward, hard and fast, and Arthur's dragging his nails down Eames' arms and moaning, "Harder, harder, fuck," and Eames does.
"You're," he says, voice catching in his throat, "a terrible fiancee, Arthur," and it's so good, so good, Arthur laid out beneath him, hot hot heat, the tight, slick ring of muscles clamped down around Eames' cock and the beautiful music of his voice, ringing through their flat, and he'll have cuts on his forearms tomorrow, long gouges from Arthur's nails, and maybe they'll scar. So Eames can have them forever.
"Yeah," Arthur says, working his hips up, his eyes closed tightly and sweat pooling in the hollow of his throat, the dips and curves and ridges of his chest and belly, "but I was a hell of a boyfriend, Eames."
"You fucking were," he whispers, and then he's coming, and Arthur's coming again without Eames having to fucking touch him this time, hadn't even realized he was hard again, and as it streaks messily over Eames' chest, he lays heavily on Arthur and bursts inside of him, comes and comes and fucking comes.
Arthur's legs settle loosely over Eames', tuck in around his knees, and they lay like that until they're sticky with drying ejaculate and their breathing has more or less evened out.
Eames smells sex, and Arthur, and clean sweat. He smells sheets that he hasn't slept in for a week, and he smells Arthur's aftershave and shampoo, and the fact that he apparently hasn't changed his bathing habits in six fucking years, he smells exactly like he did the day they fucking met, it just. It makes it worse, it makes it – it makes him think it's possible. It makes him want to scramble for his totem, palm it, read the inscription with his fingertips.
"Eames," Arthur says drowsily beneath him. He shifts a bit, makes room, and their chests are stuck together and it's kind of disgusting, and maybe Eames needs a shower.
"Yeah," he asks quietly, and doesn't look at Arthur – except he does, since Arthur gets his hands on Eames's face again. Leans up, kisses him. Soft and slow, speaking volumes, and maybe Eames doesn't know this language anymore – maybe he never did – but Arthur's being pretty fucking clear.
"I'm going to stay here tonight," he says, eyes deep and brown and sober. "And in the morning, you're going to fuck me into the mattress." He takes his sweet time saying this, draws it out, half a whisper and half a kiss, his lips never quite losing contact with Eames'. "And then we'll shower, and wash your filthy fucking sheets. And then we'll talk about this – this nonsense with Joseph Couric."
"Right," Eames says, and puts a bit of effort into getting the sheets in order while Arthur grabs someone's socks and mops up most of the come on his belly. Then he does Eames, only he smears it more than anything. But it's the thought that counts.
"Hey," Eames says as Arthur flings the really disgusting bit of clothing across the room, into the hamper, "those were my favorite pair."
"It's argyle," Arthur murmurs, settling against his neck. "They are gross."
"Well, now they are."
"Now," Arthur says firmly, "they are slightly improved, yet remain unfit for public display."
What Eames remembers before they fall asleep:
The rise and fall of Arthur's chest. The solid presence of his body, curled in towards his own. The way his fingers trace smooth circles over Eames' arms and back, trail down his spine, squeeze at his thigh and palm his ribcage. The way he tucks his head up under Eames' neck, and the way Eames doesn't feel vulnerable, sleeping without boxers, his bits pressed comfortable and loose against Arthur's stomach.
Arthur whispering unintelligibly against Eames' neck, and Eames thinking he maybe understands.
He expects this morning to be terrible. Maybe they'll actually start the dumb row they should've just had when they first broke up, instead of terse, clipped words over thousands of miles and a phone call. Or maybe Arthur will just be gone, or maybe none of this has actually happened.
Or maybe all the bad parts have just been a dream, and Eames is going to wake up with Arthur drooling a bit on his pillow, starfished in the middle of the bed since he's always been kind of an arse like that.
Eames is basically wrong on all counts.
He gets up and the bed is empty, but still warm. There's water running in the bathroom, so Arthur's probably taking a shower.
Unless, the paranoid part of Eames mutters darkly, he left it on for you and got the hell out, and you won't know to look for him for another half hour.
Only then Arthur materializes, steam curling around him, pale with varying opacity against his flushed skin. Water dripping from his soft, slick hair. And he's looking at Eames like Eames is his favorite game and it's the last save point for a thousand years.
"I was given to understand," he says, cautiously hopeful, "that there would be some bother about a mattress and you getting fucked into it?"
Arthur, already hot from his shower, still flushes perceptibly as he licks his lips.
"I had a better idea," he grins, and it's kind of at half-mast as far as smiles go. Like whatever he had in mind's not as tempting as it was prior to this conversation. "I thought we could shower first. And then maybe you could fuck me over the kitchen table. And then maybe we could wash those sheets." His towel – Eames', really, but not really since it's theirs, he really can't help the feeling of community, of everything-that's-his-is-Arthur's, especially with the aforementioned dripping enticingly before him - is actually tied at a decent height around his waist, but every movement causes it to slip and shift, reveals the lean length of a thigh or the edge of a hip through the terrycloth folds.
"You're absurdly filthy," Eames remarks in dry tones, and it earns him a supercilious raised eyebrow for his trouble.
"Not anymore. Not like some filthy Englishman I may or may not choose to associate with." Arthur wanders over and kisses Eames without preamble, warm and wet and deep, but when Eames reaches for him, tries for more, he steps back. Just outside the circle of Eames' arms.
"Shower, Mr. Eames." Eames glances down, wrinkling his nose. He's certainly a bit crusty.
"Then... kitchen sex?"
"Then kitchen sex," Arthur smiles, and leaves him to it.
By the time Eames gets out of the shower, Arthur's made breakfast. It's pancakes. Eames isn't sure where the ingredients for pancakes came from, or the mashed bananas that Arthur mixes in, or the chocolate chips he sprinkles into the batter.
Or the maple syrup. He probably ought to accept that Arthur maybe did some grocery shopping.
Eames, after a cursory dry-off, doesn't really bother with a towel.
Arthur, lightly dusted with flour, doesn't seem to have bothered with much of anything, either.
He's carefully transferred their breakfast onto two plates, and it's about when he's set the still-hot pan in the sink that Eames shifts behind him, nudging his rock-hard dick teasingly between Arthur's arse cheeks.
"Table, Eames." Arthur arches back, turns his head and whispers raggedly against the forger's ear, and Eames happily obliges. He takes steers him over to the table by the hips, bends him slowly with a gentle, firm hand between those perfect shoulder blades until Arthur's face is pressed into the old wood. The little slag pushes up on his toes, slides the flat of one foot up Eames' calf, and Eames can hardly stand it, fumbling with the lube and forcing himself to slow down, to do this right. He works two fingers in, up to the first knuckle, and Arthur – well, he moans, but he tenses, too.
Eames leans forward, his chest and belly against Arthur's back, and murmurs "Hey, if you're – I mean, you can top. If you're still sore." He traces the shell of Arthur's ear with his tongue, just because, and Arthur relaxes by fractions. He's definitely going to have table bruises after this. Eames looks forward to kissing them.
"I've been topping for almost a goddamn year," Arthur snaps, bucking back against Eames' erection. "So if you could please just get on with fucking me," and it should cool things off a bit, this reminder of little Ariadne, of Arthur sleeping with her every night for the past eight months – but it doesn't, if anything it just makes Eames' cock ache, makes the tip bead with precome, the thought of Arthur unsatisfied for so long, wishing for the solid press of Eames inside of him.
He slips a third finger in, and Arthur whines, and it's not enough but it's slick, and he holds Arthur open and forces himself through.
They're still for a minute, breathing roughly, Arthur flexed painfully around Eames, but he slowly starts to unclench and finally grinds out, "Fucking move," and Eames does.
It's faster than last night, rough and desperate, like now all the emotional rubbish is out of the way and they more or less know where they stand, well. They can get around to the fact that they've basically been going through withdrawal for a couple of years, like sex with each other is crack and they've been stealing TVs and shit, just to get their goddamn fix. Or what-the-fuck-ever.
By the time they finish, sweaty and sated and stacked over each other on the table, Eames has left some finger-sized marks on Arthur's ribs, reddening by degrees, and Arthur hums softly and tries to stand, sticking a bit to the table where it's dug into his hips.
There's come on the floor, which is really, really unsanitary, and there's also come sliding down Arthur's thighs, which is – okay, it's fucking brilliant.
He kisses the tiny mole next to Arthur's spine, skims his fingers along Arthur's back.
After they've more or less cleaned up, they eat breakfast. The pancakes are still warm, and the room smells like hot batter and coffee, and not like tea since the coffee is barbarically strong and masks the subtle, clean aroma of Earl Grey, and there's a sweet undertone of syrup to everything.
Also, as the room smells pervasively of sex, and the flat itself smells like it did when Arthur lived here with him before, it's pretty much the best breakfast ever.
Until Eames says, "Look, we really need to talk about this."
Then it devolves into maybe the worst breakfast ever, except Arthur is still naked, sitting at their table, with his ankle hooked over his knee.
He wipes his mouth with a paper napkin, looking studiously at his plate, and Eames needs to do something with his hands, so he gets up and takes the dishes to the sink and turns the water on as hot as it will go. He hopes Arthur isn't gone when he turns around. He kind of wants to check.
"Buggering bloody fuck," Eames swears when he burns his hands.
Arthur, who must've creeped up silently behind him like a creepy creeping creep, reaches over Eames' thick forearms and turns the cold tap on a bit. "What have we learned," he asks, not unkindly.
"Not to put my hands in burning fucking water," Eames says, sighing. He dumps some soap into the sink and waits a bit until the water is bearable, then starts scrubbing.
Wordlessly, Arthur falls in beside him and dries while Eames washes, and they're naked doing dishes and Eames can't figure out why his life isn't great right now.
"So when Mal died," Arthur starts quietly, blinking in the sunlight slating in through the blinds, and Eames remembers.
So when Mal dies, this is how Eames finds out:
He's coming home from the market with a bottle of red and Italian take-out. It's not their anniversary, or anyone's birthday; it's not any particular holiday that Eames is aware of. But Eames is happy, and they've been together for awhile, and he's comfortable and pretty much exactly where he wants to be in the world. It fills him up near to bursting with the desire to perform romantic gestures.
He'd left Arthur curled up on the couch with a blanket and a book on his lap, taking full advantage of the beautiful afternoon creeping in through the open window.
He comes home and it's still gorgeous outside, and their flat is bright and beautiful and practically glowing. It smells a bit like lilacs from the tree outside, and like the fresh bread Arthur was baking earlier since he got it into his head to do a domestic thing. But when Eames finds Arthur, he is standing next to the phone, which is dead – Eames can hear the dial-tone from the doorway – his knuckles are white, and his eyes are red. When he walks in, Arthur drops the headset with a loud clatter.
"Arthur," Eames says, but it comes out a whisper and he sets down his groceries and goes to him. "Arthur, what's happened?"
The point-man picks up the phone and sets it into the cradle. His hands are shaking, and he looks at Eames like nothing will ever be okay again, too vulnerable to touch, too shattered to hold. To sincere to be lied to, to be told, Everything will be okay, please, just stop looking at me like that.
"Mal's dead," he says simply, and it hits Eames like a lead pipe to the knee. Like he's lost his balance, like he can't walk straight, like his world's upset and angled beneath him and he can't get his footing.
"They think Dom did it. I've got to get him out of the States."
His voice isn't shaking. It's hard, clipped, and Eames recognizes this as Arthur closing down, pulling everything tightly together. Work mode. He'll let himself get angry, but he'll never let himself grieve. Not while he's still needed.
Eames swallows, mouth dry, and he says, "Contact his lawyer if you haven't already. I'll get the papers in order."
Between the two of them, they smuggle Dom out of the US, and Arthur doesn't touch Eames once for the entire hour it takes to get everything together. Everything about his posture is rigid and closed-off, and he keeps a careful distance. They fall into their work pattern, efficient and actually a pretty remarkable team, but without that usual underlying affection.
Eames gives Arthur his space. Later, he'll wonder if maybe he should've pressed the issue. Made Arthur talk about it. Tried to keep him.
As it stands, however, Arthur is wordlessly packing a bag and Eames says, quietly, "How long will you be gone?"
Arthur, if possible, goes even tenser than before, tight, like his bones are cramped and made of iron.
"I don't know, Eames." He says. "I'll call you."
He doesn't kiss Eames when he leaves. There is no last embrace.
Three days go by. Three days of Eames surreptitiously keeping tabs on where Arthur is and what he's doing, three days of sleepless nights in an empty bed in an empty flat, three days of third-party information.
When Arthur finally calls, he sounds ragged and tired, like maybe he hasn't slept either. He sounds maybe a little angry, in that tight way he gets when he's panicky and miserable.
And he breaks Eames' heart, because he says, "I think we should go our separate ways for now."
When there is no response, Arthur sighs impatiently and says, "Eames? Fuck. Just," and his voice is so layered – there are so many inextricable emotions – that Eames doesn't even try.
"What are you thinking?" Arthur asks, at last.
"Nothing at all," Eames says, because the exact biological opposite of a truth is almost another truth. "You're quite right. It was a good run. Best of luck, Arthur, and give Cobb my best," and he hangs up before he can say anything really impossibly unfairly cruel like, How long have you been waiting to get the jump on him, or disgustingly desperate like: Arthur, please, you can't. This can't be it for us.
He half expects Arthur to call back, maybe. To explain things, or offer him closure, or argue. Maybe they can work it out. Maybe Arthur will fly home and they can have angry makeup sex and everything will be okay again.
But Arthur doesn't call, and Eames doesn't call, and he shuts up the flat after six months of fucking waiting. And he goes to Mombasa for a change of scenery, to get the fuck out of that lonely place he used to love, and spends listless evenings in seedy gaming dens.
For a long time he drinks, forges immigration papers, gambles, pickpockets, gambles, does a bit of illegal substance work with Yusuf, drinks, steals all manner of valuable and invaluable and worthless items, and drinks, and gambles, and drinks, and drinks, and drinks.
Until Cobb ferrets him out, lord knows how since Eames wasn't exactly advertising, and offers him a job too interesting to decline. Name-drops Arthur, and it takes everything Eames has to keep a straight face and a colorless voice. Even so, he isn't sure he succeeds.
Sunlight glares over half of Arthur's face, as he's turned to Eames, leaving the rest in transparent shadow.
Eames reaches out, traces the point-man's lips with a wet finger. Idle. Listening.
Arthur colors faintly, but doesn't look away. "Eames," he says, and swallows like his throat is tight. "When – when Dom told me what happened, I," and he purses his lips, finally does look away. But he steps a little closer, far into Eames' space, the heat of his body soaking into the forger's skin. "Hang on a sec," he says suddenly, and goes into the bedroom.
When he comes back, he's got a translucent red die in his palm. The acrylic is weighted, and will land on the same number every time. Eames would know, because he made it.
Arthur looks at him, almost shy, and rolls the die. Eames' heart clenches in the moment before it falls, but it comes up one and – he's relieved. Arthur never changed it.
"The thing is," Arthur says, voice almost a whisper, "Dom knew what Mal's totem was. And now Mal is dead."
Eames is silent, watchful, all ears. He feels as though he is hearing the words from far off, but that he is grounded in Arthur's voice. He feels like things are starting to add up, little by little, the years and the months, all the little tells that Eames should've been able to pick up on because he's a goddamn card sharp.
"I don't know anyone else alive who were as good together as they were. And – Eames." Arthur's face is pinched and miserable, and he reaches up to touch the forger's face, tentatively, like he's not allowed. Like he wasn't just getting fucked into the table by Eames, like they hadn't just had breakfast and traded slow, sticky kisses that tasted syrupy and sweet.
Eames takes Arthur's hand and presses it to his cheek, scrapes his day-old stubble against the rough, gun-calloused palm. Turns his head and kisses the pads of the Arthur's fingers.
"I don't know how it got to that point, how they managed to destroy each other, and - neither of them were forgers!" Arthur says, emphatic and soft, staring at Eames' lips and curling his fingers around Eames' ear, skimming the line of Eames' jaw and settling the heel of his hand against Eames' collar bone.
And Eames knows. He does. To be a great forger, you have to forget yourself when you assume another identity. To do that in a dream, where one's grasp on reality is already tenuous at best...
He can't blame Arthur. No one can forge like Eames, but. Others have been lost, doing what he does. Doing it well.
"I'm so, so sorry. You made my goddamn totem, Eames, and unless I trusted you with everything, I couldn't trust anything. Fuck, I," and he's cut off here, since Eames is pushing into him, kissing his pale mouth and swallowing his words.
"There isn't a day that goes by," Arthur managers between heated breaths, "that I don't regret," but it trails off into loose vowels, soft moans, because Eames doesn't keep his hands to himself. He kisses Arthur soundly, and he's so sure, now. He'd known, before, because of all the small things – Arthur sleeping with his fingers hooked into the waist band of Eames' boxers, or with his fingers curled in the forger's hair, always some point of contact; the way Arthur woke up blearily every day for three years, always surprised and ridiculously pleased to see Eames; how he knew everything about everything, how he kept tabs, how if a job went badly and they had to split up, he was always at whichever safehouse Eames happened to choose off the top of his head. Usually before the forger himself was even there.
You can't buy that kind of devotion. Because you can't fabricate it.
So, even though they'd never officially said it, Eames knew Arthur had loved him. But he hadn't believed it until this moment: Arthur saying, right now, that he left because he was afraid; Arthur demonstrating, last night, that he isn't anymore.
Eames settles his hands on Arthur's shoulders, pushes him gently back. Can't stop himself from kissing the younger man's face, the corners of his eyes and his forehead and the corner of his lips, which actually degenerates into more actual kissing.
Finally, he manages to extricate himself, to pull back.
"Why Ariadne, then?" He asks searchingly. Keeps his hands on Arthur's shoulders, comforting, not condemning.
"I felt like she deserved a fair shot," Arthur says steadily. "And I didn't think you'd – after what I did, I just." He looks away, but leans into the solid warmth of Eames' chest. Presses his mouth to the forger's neck, warm and open. "If something happened to her, it would be so terrible, Eames. Like – like with Mal." He closes his eyes. Eames can feel long lashes fluttering against his skin. "Devastating, but. I'd be able to get back up from it, eventually. Since I'm not Dom."
Eames sighs, brushes his thumb over Arthur's cheekbone and then loses his fingers in Arthur's hairline. "I understand, love," Eames kisses the top of his head.
"But I'm all in, now. Everything. I don't even care anymore. I've never been this unhappy in my entire goddamn life, Eames. If – if something happens to you, and it destroys me, I'd rather. I'd rather have that. Than not have that."
"All right," Eames says. "Okay."
Arthur starts, just a tiny jump, and looks up into his eyes. His own are wide and brown and seem impossibly young. "Just like that? You're just going to take me back?"
Eames could say: You left me and you never explained anything.
Could say, I spent six months waking up to an empty flat. Six months of reaching for you in the middle of the night and coming up short every time.
Could say: No. I won't do that to myself again. I'm not capable of it anymore.
But instead, he says, "Was there ever any doubt? Really, Arthur."
And it's exactly right, the slow slide of his smile, the warmth in his eyes, the way he presses his lips tightly together to keep from smiling to broadly.
So Eames leans in and kisses his mouth open anyway.
When they get around to talking about Joseph Couric, Eames gives the man a call while Arthur waits quietly, half a meter away. They're dressed, and Eames is sitting on the bare mattress. The sheets did, eventually, make it into the washer.
Eames listens to the ring for awhile, but there's no answer. Joe's always answered before.
He gives it a minute, then calls back. This time he leaves a message. "Just touching base," he says. "Call me when you can."
As he hangs up, Arthur looks at him guardedly.
"Yes?" Eames asks, canting his head for show.
"You didn't leave your name."
Eames raises an eyebrow. In the event that Joseph Couric is arrested – as criminals are wont to do – and his assets seized, any association with him would be poor form. Arthur knows this, naturally. Which means he's hedging.
"Is there a problem?" Eames asks.
Arthur looks sullen for moment, one of the rare instances where Eames is reminded that he is, actually, hardly out of his twenties. Then it clears and he asks, face carefully blank, "Are you sleeping with him?" There's hardly any hesitation at all to the words.
Eames snorts, shakes his head. "He'll recognize my voice because I've been working with him for the past week."
Arthur narrows his brown eyes, purses his lips.
The forger sighs. "No, Arthur. Jesus." The denial earns him a steady, focused scrutiny; but then Arthur relaxes, smiles just a bit: self-deprecating, embarrassed.
"I don't mean to," he begins, almost shy. Changes tack. "Sorry, Eames, it's... not my business."
Eames thinks, Okay. Here we go. "It sort of is your business," he mentions carefully. "Seeing as how we're back together." It's a question, more than anything.
Arthur's entire face lights up. "Yeah. Yeah, Eames, we are." Like he still doesn't believe it could be so easy.
Eames glances down at his mobile, frowning. "I was going to fly back on Sunday," he says. At Arthur's quick look, he adds, "Not that there are any loose ends. But I do need to properly decline his offer and pick up the PASIV."
"I see," Arthur says thoughtfully. "Can you get me on your flight?"
Eames reaches over and takes Arthur's hand, at once unused to the gesture and intimately familiar with it. Feels the brief squeeze in response.
"We leave at seven," he replies.
"So we should probably stop by Dom's at some point," Arthur says, tugging Eames off the bed and onto his feet. "If I'm not going to be in town for James's birthday. It's next week," he adds.
"Tuesday. I remember," Eames says, and sort-of smiles. "Also," he says quietly, "maybe you should get ahold of Ariadne?"
Arthur grimaces, but eventually nods. "Okay. I'll give her a call."
They spend the rest of the morning working. Arthur's got his laptop out, sitting on the same side of the couch he's always sat on, typing furiously, face expressionless. Eames is on the floor, hovering over the low coffee table with a magnifying glass, tweezers, an assortment of inks and chemicals, and several grades of stationary.
He's carefully assembling a letter of recommendation, movements deliberate, motor control fine-tuned, when Arthur very gently touches the top of his head.
Eames sets down his tools and leans back against Arthur's legs, tilting his head back inquiringly.
"Is that letterhead for Laforgue Law Offices?" He asks, spidering his fingertips idly through Eames' hair.
"It happens to be so, yes."
"How funny," Arthur murmurs. "I'm currently working with them as a security advisor."
"Oh? Do tell." Eames sort of pushes up with his legs so he can slide onto the couch, settling in next to him.
"It appears as though someone – a monsieur Remus Chernard? – has been taking clients on behalf of the firm, pocketing the front money, and tarnishing their professional reputation by neglecting to actually appear in court."
"How on earth is the man getting away with that, I wonder," says Eames, who doesn't, really.
"It's the strangest thing," and Arthur's smiling now, minimizing the screen he has up and setting his laptop aside. "There's paperwork, dated and signed, an employee file, even an entry in their database – and yet, no one recalls ever working with the man."
"Funny old world, innit," Eames grins. "Turnover's so high in the job market these days. So many passing faces."
Arthur leans over Eames, and the forger's heart stops for a moment; but he's gesturing to the signature at the bottom of the stationary. His mouth is hot against Eames' ear when he murmurs, "Monsieur Laforgue has two 'r's in his first name."
"Ah," Eames concedes. Best not get the senior partner's name wrong. "My eternal devotion and gratitude, darling."
It's nice, working in the same space again. He keeps having to glance over at Arthur, double- and triple-checking that he's actually here, in the flesh; to press his foot into Arthur's heel if he has to lean forward, or stays settled against his long legs when he moves back down to the floor. The contact, the quiet, is companionable.
They're getting used to each other in this context all over again. Once, when Eames twisted his knee during a pretty bad (but not disastrous) getaway, it was months before he could properly strength-train again; and when he could, the whole area felt tight and disused. But after that first day back at the gym, the tightness and the burn of working muscles, the ache of it was delicious. He felt stronger than he had in months, even if he'd felt weak at first.
Anyway, once everything sorts itself out and all the extraneous parts are caught up, it's. Well. It's a lot like this. Reassuring, to have everything in working order again. To be fully functional and whole.
That night, they order in. They take their time in the bedroom after dinner, until Arthur's choked pleas for release loosen Eames' resolve, and they both come, loud and messy and foul-mouthed.
The next morning they go to see Cobb, bearing birthday gifts. From Eames, a basic and age-appropriate How Things Are Made book with very detailed illustrations ("It all starts somewhere, yeah?"); and from Arthur, an elaborate logic puzzle cleverly masquerading as a detective game ("You're exactly right, Mr. Eames.").
Cobb is living in Paris now. It's a beautiful house, if not large - just the right size for a man and his two children, who will eventually become teenagers, who will eventually become adults and move out. There's ivy curling up around the wrought iron fence of a small courtyard, and when Arthur knocks on the door, smiling when Eames meets his eyes, there's the soft pad of young feet scrambling toward the foyer.
Presently, it swings open. Arthur's expression arrests, and then fades.
Because the person at the door is Ariadne.