Author's Note: Sorry it took me a while. So far things have, more or less, been following a loose chronological order, but from here onward it may get a little confusing. I'm going to try my best to keep it clear. Thank you all for your lovely feedback! I hope you're having as much fun reading as I am writing it.

PART IV

TERESINA, BRAZIL

[ 7 years, 1 month ago ]

His phone goes off at something like four in the morning.

"Hello," he half-mumbles, and on the other end of the line there is only a muffled whimpering, and soft a sob crackled with static. Arthur props himself higher on his elbows, and repeats himself more firmly into the phone. "Hello?"

"Arthur," it is a feminine voice, cracked with tears and panic. Eva. "Arthur, I think you… better get down here." Arthur straightens, fully awake now, and gets out of bed, fishing in his closet for clothing. Eva doesn't like him. Eva hardly acknowledges him when Eames invites them out for dinner, or drinks, and if she is calling now it is important. Between static and choked breaths, she continues. "He's—he's not moving, he's not even blinking. He's breathing, I don't know what to do, I can't call emergency—" she cannot phone the authorities because there would be too many questions. Leave it to Eames to inform his flavor-of-the-week on every detail of his criminal career.

"I'm coming," is all he says before he hangs up, and throws on an undershirt and heads for the door. The elevator sloths its way down two floors, and when it finally opens he all but runs down the hallway of the hotel. He is uncertain of what to expect—they aced the Hamilton job last night, and it meant a lot of money for each team-member, enough to take the next six months off. Eames celebrated extravagantly at the prospect of having ham instead of turkey in his sandwich for lunch, and so thinking him to spend their last night in Teresina quietly and without incident was just plain stupid.

Arthur knocks on the door and Eva answers, looking quite ragged but still beautiful. He says nothing as he pushes past her into the room and finds Eames on the bed, naked save for a pair of dark blue boxer-briefs. He is strewn across it with his arms spread wide and his eyes half-lidded, rolled up high. He looks sunken this way, distorted, his inked torso and chest rising and falling so slowly Arthur cannot see it at first, and with a calm urgency he presses a hand to Eames' forehead. There is a fire blazing beneath his skin, and Arthur does not look at Eva as he thumbs one of Eames' eyelids, pulling it upward: his pupils are so dilated his eyes look black.

"What'd he take?"

"I…" Eva chews her thumb nervously, and is shaking. "The—the bouncer said it was, ah, it was supposed to be E, um, about—about twenty minutes ago—"

"Idiot," Arthur breathes, and slides onto the bed behind Eames, pulling him upward with some difficulty—he is already larger than Arthur, and is dead weight. He manages to get him sitting up, and his skin is hot and wet against Arthur, who gently pushes him forward so that his head hangs limply between his shoulders. "I need something to put down his throat, we've got to get him to vomit."

"Like what?"

"A toothbrush, a pen, a comb, something, come on!" he snaps, and Eva rummages through her purse clumsily and thrusts a tube of mascara into his palm. Arthur resists the urge to roll his eyes—what a fucking pair—and one of his hands snakes around Eames' front, feeling soft lips and slippery teeth as he forces his fingers between them and maneuvers the mascara tube into his mouth. This is about to get disgusting, fast, but he grits his teeth and guides the tube slowly to the back of Eames' tongue. Nothing. Arthur does roll his eyes at the idea of Eames having a very stubborn gag reflex (go fucking figure), and pushes further, lacking the gentleness of the first attempt. Eames shudders dully, then gags, then wretches. He does this three times before anything comes up, and then white foamy vomit spurts out of him, running over the back of Arthur's hand and down his forearm. He bites back what would have been a very un-manly yelp and looks away.

Eva is beginning to look rather green herself, and covers the bottom half of her face with a hand.

Arthur presses himself against Eames' back and shoulders, pushing him a little further over so that he won't be completely covered in vomit by the end of this, and thrusts the tube further into the mess. Eames coughs this time, and has apparently regained consciousness, because after the second round—this one containing more white froth and whatever alcohol Eames had drank at the club—he gasps, shudders, and is able to weakly break away from Arthur. "Fuck," he half-coughs, painfully, and an unexpected third round comes up, spattering over his bare legs and Arthur's pajama pants. "Fuck, I'm—sorry," he groans, and ends up leaning against Arthur again, exhausted, and heaving ragged breaths.

"Eva," Arthur says firmly. "Towels. And ice, he needs to be cooled down." The slender, black-haired woman is sliding into her slippers before he even finishes his sentence. Eames is slowly becoming more aware of the situation, and he sees the vomit trail down his chest, and on Arthur's pants. His palm slides over his face.

"Oh God," he says in a rough, throaty voice. Arthur tenses.

"What—you need to throw up again?"

"No," Eames whines, somewhat brokenly. "You'll never fuck me now. Never living this one down."

"Can you stand?" he asks, ignoring the statement. Eames nods mutely. He is entirely too out of it, and Arthur is too caught in some distant calculation on what it is going to take to move Eames into the shower to notice Eva hesitating by the door. She sees something they do not: the way her lover leans into the other man, and a look in his glazed, bleary eyes that she cannot quite place. Sadness, the thought crosses her mind, briefly. Arthur, in turn, for all the disgust written across his otherwise expressionless visage is strangely tender, and gentle, whilst goading Eames to come off the bed and get into the shower. Eva does not linger in the moment. She has seen enough.

After about twenty minutes getting from the bed to the bathroom, and easing the Forger out of his boxers and into the shower it became obvious that Eames was not going to stand in the shower. So he sat, beneath the falling water, legs against his chest and his arms loosely draped over his knees. Arthur cleaned himself up before coming to sit beside the tub—it had been long enough for Eva to have gotten ice and returned, and he felt it was safe to assume she was probably on her way to the airport. Eames does not seem so broken up about it, and says nothing, so Arthur does.

"You were shot a year ago," Eames stirs. His hair is plastered to his head, and his eyes are squinted under the waterfall. "That wasn't enough? You have to keep pushing that envelope, don't you?" Arthur's voice is rising but Eames manages a tiny smile, and closes his eyes again. The water droplets cling to his eyelashes, the scruff on his chin and above his wet lips. "I get the thrill, I do, the idea of going to the edge and teetering and then coming back. But you're going to end up dead, Eames. And there will be no thrill to follow that."

"I knew I wasn't going to die," Eames tilts his head back to let the water hit his face head- on, and opens his mouth to catch it. Arthur scowls, and looks away.

"Oh, okay. So this train-wreck cluster fuck of drugs and drinking is all just to forget then?"

Eames spits the water out, and reaches over to turn the faucet, and shut it off. "I don't drink to forget. I drink to remember. Remember what I am. What I've done," Arthur's scowl deepens, and so Eames does not explain himself further. He runs his hands over his face, shakes off the remaining moisture from his hair, and accepts the offered towel. "I'm sorry," he says after a moment. "For this—this, it was… it was stupid."

Arthur nods to the front door, where Eva had long since disappeared. "Just… get someone else to do your dirty work." He feels skin on his, sliding over the back of his hand and curling damp, warm fingers around it. Arthur does not react, save for turning his head enough so that he may look straight ahead and regard Eames through the corner of his eye.

"There is no one else," Eames says softly. "I don't have anyone else but you. There's only you." Arthur sees that look in his eyes, and resigns to turning his head to fully look at Eames, allowing the other man to have this moment. Eames pauses, but does not immediately release Arthur. Instead, he gives his head a little shake, and the smile widens. "But don't worry, love. I won't do this again. Suppose I'll start acting my age." He takes his hand back, and Arthur quickly rises to yank down another towel. He drapes it over Eames' shoulders and grips his forearm to help him up. Eames does not bother to cover his modesty, and clamps a hand on Arthur's shoulder to steady himself. Another quick smile. "Suppose I should start taking care of you, for a change."

LONDON, ENGLAND

[ 5 years, 11 months ago]

"Do you need me to hold your hair back?" Arthur laughs hard when he manages to dodge Eames' fist, and steps back lightly, waving his upturned hands at the other man in mocking invitation. "Come on, I don't mind, really—I think it's charming to puke and piss all over yourself because you're so fucking wasted you can't even—" This time Eames gets a rather impressive hit in, and Arthur is briefly thrown off balance. He tries to stop the spinning in his head, and manages to do so in time to duck another swing, and deliver a hard blow into Eames' solar plexus. Eames' eyes go very wide before he coughs, hard and hollow, and doubles long enough for Arthur to easily grab his shoulders and deliver the little shove that sends him stumbling to the floor.

They have been at this for the best part of an hour now, and an outsider would have trouble determining who was winning and who was losing. Arthur is quicker on his feet than Eames, because he is physically smaller and leaner, and this helps him stay out of the other man's reach for a good portion of their sparring session. Eames, on the other hand, has the bulk of more muscle on his side, brute-strength, and when he does manage to hit Arthur it sends him reeling. At this point it is almost a draw—both men are bloodied, and bruised, and yet far from tiring. This is good—their upcoming job is going to involve a lot more violence than the usual variety. Arthur has strongly urged each team member to begin strengthening their pain tolerances, rage tolerances, and hand-to-hand combat skills.

That, and he really, really wanted to beat on Eames for a while. He cannot exactly place why, but lately whenever the other man so much as glances in his direction he wants to beat him unconscious. There is an aggression racing inside him, and he wants nothing more than to put it all on Eames.

"Oh, get back up," he leers, and turns his head to spit out a mouthful of blood as Eames staggers back onto his feet, unmitigated rage contorting his features and making him look positively deadly. "Sorry if you were expecting me to coddle you, again, but I'm really tired of picking up after you," Arthur's ugly, bloodied grin only widens when Eames slowly begins to move toward him. "Hurt your feelings, darling? Pet? Something bothering you, love?" he taunts, and before he can artfully side-step again one of Eames' big hands snaps out and seizes his collar. With sheer momentum he is able to slam Arthur into wall, once, twice, and finally so hard that the back of his head painfully collides with it and Arthur sees stars.

"Well, see, it's not half as charming when you say it," Eames snarls. "Arthur." The Point Man does not think. He backhands Eames across the face, as hard as he can, but only manages to send spit and blood flying to the side. Eames does not move, but when he turns back he is grimacing—and laughing.

"The fuck are you laughing at?" Arthur spats, searing anger rising off him like heat over a tarmac.

"At you-because you loved picking up my messes. You got off on it," Eames does not release his vice-grip and only leans in closer. "You love being my white knight."

"You're fucking crazy, you're—" Arthur is utterly indignant, scrabbling for words that his brain will not allow to surface. Eames thrusts him back again, and his swollen, wet lips are suddenly on Arthur's ear, sending a hot prickle over every bruise and laceration on his body. Arthur turns his head away as much as he can, but Eames follows, and whispers something Arthur said two years ago, on a cold Chicago sidewalk to a frightened paramedic.

"If he dies, you die," Eames' teeth are against his skin as his lips move. "If he dies, everyone dies."

There it is. Arthur is ripped wide open, and he is hollow, and feelings and emotions and thoughts and reactions he has no name for course through him, like acid running through his veins, and the dream begins to crumble around them. Eames realizes what is happening, and his grip is loosened just enough to give Arthur an opportunity to jaw him hard, and bring them both falling onto the floor.

Cracks begin to turn into canyons in the walls, the floor, but Arthur keeps hitting Eames as hard as he can. It is a moment before Eames has the presence of mind to arrest Arthur's bloody fist and twist it hard enough to make him stumble onto his side, and the Forger follows suit.

The rage has not cleared, but has turned into something else entirely—every bit as intense, and blinding, and controlling. Arthur fists Eames' hair, and pulls so that Eames' mouth is on his, and the kiss is rough, and starving and bleeding, crushed together in such desperate need that they ignore the chunks of plaster and drywall falling around them. Eames understands that this is not a chance that will come around again, and so he makes the most of it by taking control, moving over Arthur and crushing him to the ground, unwilling to let him escape now. Arthur gasps into his mouth when the Forger's hands slide beneath his shirt, palms hot and fingers eager to scratch and dig into him.

Arthur tries to say something, anything, but Eames does not let him—he drowns the weak protests with another urgent kiss, and in return Arthur grabs the sides of his head and takes in every taste, every ridge of teeth, every corner of Eames' mouth with his tongue. There are hands at his belt, tugging and pulling, and nails just above his waist band in a frenzied effort to reach the erection straining against his pants, and Arthur cannot process what is happening. Eames breaks the kiss, and quickly turns his attention to his work, yanking the trousers down ferociously and creating glorious friction with his palm, massaging the hard flesh through the black material. Arthur releases a panicked moan, and it catches Eames' attention before it turns into an uncomfortable whimper.

There is suddenly a revolver in Arthur's hand, and as he presses it to his temple Eames lunges forward, his short, desperate cry echoing around in his head just before he pulls the trigger.

Arthur jolts on the lawn chair, awake. The dream comes rushing back to him, and his fingers scrabble at the IV in his arm, trying to unhook himself before Eames can follow him. The chair next to him stirs, and he yanks the IV out, springing to his feet without even looking at the slightly dazed man he intends to leave behind. Eames jerks the IV out, gracelessly flinging it to the side, and he rises rather clumsily into a quick steps.

"Arthur, wait—Arthur!"

Arthur is halfway to the door when Eames grabs his arm, and he freezes, wrenching it free of the other's grasp and holding both arms up. "Don't touch me," he warns, hoarsely, and Eames retreats a step.

"What the hell was that?"

"I told you before, I've told you a thousand fucking times, I'm not—" even in this heated moment, Arthur cannot bring himself to say the words. He won't turn to look at the other man, and digs his nails into the top of his head, trying to regain a grip on reality—his erection is still there, prominent, and he cannot will it away. "I'm not like you, I can't… be what you want me to be." At the risk of getting a tooth knocked out, Eames reaches out and touches his shoulder, gently, and moves his thumb up and down over the soft material of Arthur's button-down shirt. When it seems that Arthur is not going to react violently, Eames makes the even braver decision to wrap both arms around the Point Man, and step closer so that he is pressed into his back. His cheek comes to rest on Arthur's shoulder, and he can feel the muscles begin to relax.

"You are what I want you to be," he murmurs into the nape of his neck. The lean shoulders rise, and fall, and relax against him, but Arthur is still silent. "You're everything I want you to be, darling. You aren't gay, or straight, or bisexual, you're Arthur. You're the Point Man of our operation, you're positively fucking frightening, absolutely amazing at what you do, and that doesn't change. It never will." Eames loosens his grip, and places a tender, chaste kiss on the side of his neck. "Can you turn around now? I feel like I'm having a conversation with myself."

Slowly, as though learning to use his muscles for the very first time, Arthur turns, and when Eames' hands come to rest on his biceps he exhales, softly, and allows the other man to press his forehead into the underside of his chin. Arthur is still rigid in his hold, but he closes his eyes, and concentrates on the soft lips brushing against his collar bone, and the light pressure of gentle kisses working up his throat. In between these, Eames is making soft soothing noises in the back of his throat, and when he has kissed all along Arthur's jaw line he pauses at the tight line of his mouth.

"See?" he murmurs, quietly, so close that Arthur can feel the fullness of his lips speak the words. "Still alive. Both of us. The world has not ended, Arthur, you can open your eyes." Arthur does, slowly still, and when they are locked on Eames he is able to move his palms up over his hips, up until he is lightly touching the strong, hard muscles beneath his arms. Eames kisses him, eyes open, and when it ends he leans his forehead into Arthur's. "Relax—your precious Cobb is not hiding in a corner somewhere watching in horror. I promise you that."

"Thank God," Arthur's voice is a little shaky, but he manages a half-smile, and a nervous laugh. "He and I have seen each other's dicks more times than we can count, he'd shit a fucking brick." Eames laughs, and it encourages Arthur to laugh a little louder—the ice is broken, and this time, when Eames kisses him again he kisses back. It starts slow, and as the moments pass the pace picks up, and they have a natural rhythm when their mouths are at each other. It is a perfect series of movements, wet lips opening and closing on one another, one neck craning to reach the innermost center of the other's mouth, tongues rolling and teeth bruising.

The heat between them begins to crescendo, and despite feeling Arthur start to tense again when his hand moves down his torso he begins to wiggle his fingers between Arthur and his belt. Arthur groans—something similar to what occurred in the dream, and Eames ignores the warning, sliding his palm downward and over the curve of the other man's erection. He does not penetrate the boxer-briefs just yet, because he feels Arthur twist, ever-so slightly, and does not know if it is out of pleasure, or panic. Eames is determined not to break the kiss this time, and his other hand cradles the Point Man's cheek, thumb stroking lightly on the spot just below his eyelashes. When his other thumb runs over the damp head of Arthur's cock he suddenly jerks, and the kiss is painfully broken.

Eames thinks quickly this time, and does not let Arthur pull away. "Hey, hey—you're alright, you're fine—" he breathes, and Arthur's hands are up again, the "don't touch me" signal, and so Eames refrains any touch of a sexual nature. He gently takes Arthur's biceps again, and tries to keep him still. "No, no, please—please, just give us a chance. Stay. Just stay."

Arthur has that nervous smile again, and shakes his head, pink beginning to burn across the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's just—" he cuts himself off, and is still not looking at Eames, trying to find the appropriate words to describe his feelings. After a moment, all he can come up with is, "You have a dick. You …you have a dick."

"Yes, and if you would give me more than four seconds you would see just how much fun they can be, darling,"

"Ah…" Arthur hesitates and briefly wonders where all of his previous fury had gone. He inhales, sharply, through his nose as if he is revving himself up for something that is either going to be amazing, or the most awkward experience of his life. "Okay… okay. I'm good."

"You sure?" At this point, Eames' erection is getting quite uncomfortable, and it takes all the control he has to ignore the crawling beneath his skin. Arthur nods, and Eames kisses him hard on the mouth again, so grateful, and maybe a little too eager. When Arthur is moaning again, and his hand is once again rubbing against the bulge in his slacks, Eames slides down the length of his body until he is on his knees before the other man, and begins to work at the belt buckle. He watches Arthur's face, which is painfully torn between lust and what looks like fucking agony. Eames gets the belt undone, and even manages to slide the trousers partway down. He leans in, and drags his tongue across the hot, hard material, and Arthur groans low in his throat.

Then he sees the look on Arthur's face. His eyes are screwed shut so tightly, and his teeth are clenched so hard that he looks like he is about to have a panic attack, the likes of which the world has never seen. Eames closes his mouth, and remains on his knees, and one of the dark eyes opens, and then both are on him. They are even somewhat apologetic.

"Right. We'll start with the basics, then," Eames sighs, and accepts the fact that he will be jerking off for dear life later. Arthur seems very confused, but the other man takes his hand and leads him over to one of the larger lawn chairs. It is a rather awkward, tight fit, but they both manage to lay on it. Eames settles comfortably on his side next to Arthur, who follows his example. They are facing one another, and the wide room is so still and silent Arthur can hear his blood pulsing off the sides of his skull, but Eames just takes his hand and places it on his thigh.

"Start here," he says. "Close your eyes if you have to, and don't think, just feel. I won't touch you unless you ask me, and you're finally comfortable with my body," then Eames reaches out and cups the side of Arthur's face. "Well, that's a lie, I am going to kiss you while you explore. Tell me if I should stop."

Arthur carries this February morning with him for years to come. He remembers every single word Eames said, every breath and every lingering stare, every smile and every brush of his lips and every slide of his tongue over every part of his body. He carries this morning with him because it seemed as though every February after that he was never quite as happy, never even half as happy. To remember it lulled him to sleep on very dark nights, when all he could think of was the horrible things they had said and did to one another. It would sustain him, and give him the strength to endure what was to come.