Chapter 7

"Goodbyes"

Fuck.
Did he just say that out loud?
To the man?
He was dead. Doomed to a life time of endless teasing about this one moment.
Goddammit! What was he thinking?
Oh, that's right. He wasn't.
Wasn't thinking about how Eames' eyes were twinkling so prettily or about how his lips looked so soft and kissable. And he definitely wasn't thinking about how his stubble looked adorably fuzzy and would probably tickle if he kissed him.
Fuck.
He was so royally screwed.
Blushing bright red, he ducked his head for the second time that night, trying to escape the mockery that would inevitably follow such an outburst. His eyes shut tight in anticipation, and his teeth ground together. But, it never came. No, instead, a smooth, rich sound filled the room as Eames' chest shook with light laughter. Arthur allowed himself to look up, confusion written clearly on his face. To his surprise -and great relief- the thief's eyes were alight with warm amusement.

"You, Darling, have had much too-"

Arthur wasn't listening. Eames' lips just looked so damn tempting and instead of listening to the words flowing from them, he found himself wondering what they would feel like. They were right there. So full and inviting. It would be so easy to just lean forward and taste them.
It wasn't until he noticed how silent it was that he realized he had done just that, cutting the forger off mid-sentence by shoving his lips roughly against the other man's.
He immediately pulled away.

"Shit! M'sorry. You-you should, uhm, you should probably go."

Now, Arthur had seen enough romantic comedies to know that this was where Eames was supposed to tell him to shut up and then kiss him back and they would end up living happily ever after. If this was a movie. But it wasn't. And while Arthur had seen a lot of romantic comedies, he had also seen enough of the real world to know that this was going to end badly. Eames was either going to explode in anger and disgust, or he going to be passive aggressive and just ignore him for the rest of his life. There was no possible outcome that didn't completely fuck their already strained relationship to hell and back. Not one of the possibilities that flew through Arthur's mind had a happy, realistic ending. Of course, because of this, Eames' actual reaction had to be the one he never expected.
He laughed.
The fucker just laughed.

"Bloody hell, mate," he said between breaths, "you finally get what you've been after all this time and you're just going to kick me out before we even get to the shagging?"

He laughed again. And, going beyond what he thought was humanly possible, Arthur's face turned to an even deeper shade of red, this time from both embarrassment and anger.

"Get out."

Arthur muttered, head hanging in shame.

"What was that, pet?"

"Get out. I said, get out! Now!"

He growled, voice raising with every word as his anger steadily began to bubble up inside of him.
Eames' shocked face was enough of a reply as the older man stood slowly, defeat and pain settling deep into his features.
Had Arthur been looking, he may have been taken aback by the Brit's expression. He'd never witnessed that level of honest emotion in the man's face. But, as it was, Arthur's eyes were trained on the carpet in a stony glare.
Soft footsteps shuffled away from him before stopping at what Arthur assumed was the door.

"Goodbye then, Arthur."

AN: And thus begins the angst.