Arthur showed him the worst thing in his head and as soon as it was done, he shot himself to wake himself up before Eames could get out of the dream. He was almost out of the front door when Eames called out from behind him.
"I don't think any less of you,"
Arthur stopped for a moment but then proceeded swiftly out of the door. He didn't want to deal with the questions that were bound to be with Eames. He knew that if he wanted to continue whatever his relationship with Eames was.
Eames was asleep on the sofa by the time he got in. He was pissed out of his mind and had various burns on his hands where he had been fumbling with his cigarettes. Eames looked peaceful enough, but uncomfortable, as he'd fallen asleep on the couch in their shared hotel room. It didn't matter, he woke up when Arthur slammed his shin into the coffee table and screamed out a string of profanities with none of his natural accent held back.
"A little drunk there, Darlin'?" Eames muttered. His voice sounded dry and his eyes were half open.
Arthur nodded unsteadily, as he tried to remain standing. "Feel better though," He replied and then proceeded to stumble into the bedroom and pass out on the bed, in what he would say was a dignified manner a day later.
The job ended in disaster that ended up with Malory and James dead. Ariadne was pretty shook up about the ordeal. It was her first job gone wrong and it had knocked her confidence. Eames thought that it would do her good in the long run, if she was going to stay in the business. It would motivate her to learn how to defend herself. She'd wanted to get the first flight out to Paris. They left her as soon as they were sure she was on the plane.
Arthur was relatively silent. He wasn't grieving for their fallen comrades. He'd had no true feelings for them. They were acquaintances and nothing more. But it had come as a blow to Arthur, who was currently blaming himself for being too preoccupied with the past, which then led him to blame Eames and turn on him.
"This is your fault you know." Arthur stated in the car as they headed towards a safe house. Eames raised an eyebrow but did not offer any words. Instead he focused on driving.
"If you hadn't been so god damn intent on finding anything else this wouldn't be happening."
Eames said nothing.
"You're a bastard, Eames."
"It's been five years, Arthur and you woke up with blue fucking eyes." Eames snapped back. Once again he turned his focus on driving to the safe house. Arthur turned to look at him, anger flaring up in his eyes.
"Get the fuck over it," He hissed back. "There was never any reason for you to find out. You were never meant to find out. And now you have and you've managed to fuck everything up."
"Fuck you, Neil." Eames sneered. Arthur pointed his Glock at his head. Eames didn't even flinch.
They'd been at the safe house for a few days now and the tension between them was slowly choking them. Eames refused to talk to Arthur and Arthur was growing slowly irritated. He watched as Eames fussed at a newly stitched bullet wound, one which he'd taken on the job that Arthur himself knew he'd messed up.
Arthur had taken Eames' silence to calm himself down, which was proving to be a difficult task. Whenever he looked at Eames he remembered Eames voice calling him Neil and his fingers twitched above his gun. After the first day Arthur handed it over to Eames wordlessly. Eames didn't even look up.
Since then, he decided that they would probably be here for a few weeks. So he started planning on telling Eames everything. It was a lot harder than showing him his memories through dreams, but Eames would probably appreciate it more. He sighed and grabbed a cigarette. It was going to be long.
They'd started sleeping in the same bed again, but Arthur managed to sleep right on the edge of the mattress, so as not to crowd Eames when he was asleep. The nightmares started again but both remained silent on the subject.
The nightmares were getting more and more focused on Brian and The Coach. He hated Brian nearly as much as he hated The Coach. Brian took everything he thought he knew and spit on it. The Coach didn't love him and he never had. Brian had accepted what had happened to them and moved on. Neil couldn't. The Coach wouldn't even remember him. But in his dreams he had started referring to him as a slut.
He started waking up with nosebleeds.
Arthur put his hand to his nose as the felt the warm liquid treacle down his chin. "Fuck," He growled and continued wiping his hand across his mouth.
"You should sit back and tilt your head back that should stop it, darling." Eames said quietly. God, Arthur forgot how much he missed his voice. He looked up at the forger.
"Won't work." He grumbled and let his hand drop and his nose continue to bleed. Then he started laughing manically.
Eames raised an eyebrow at him. "You alright, Arthur?"
"No. No, it would appear that I'm not. Jesus, I'm getting fucked up like Brian was." Arthur replied and then he started laughing again. "I'm so goddamn pathetic!"
"You ever going to tell me about Brian?"
Arthur looked up at him again. "I hated him with all I had, Eames. I've never hated anyone like I hated Brian."
"Why?"
"He ruined everything. You remember what I've showed you? What you've seen? God, I don't think I can even start this. Fuck you, you know that Eames. I want you to remember this and I want you to regret ever freaking out about me having blue eyes." He snapped before calming down. The nose bleed was slowing down too.
Eames watched him, "I love you, Arthur, you know that, right?"
Arthur looked into his eyes. "When I was eight, my baseball coach took me back to his house every night after practice and used me. At the time, he told me that that was what it meant to like someone, to love someone. The first time it started he just kissed me that was all.
After that, he took photos of me and recorded me talking. Then he started going down on me and makin' me suck his cock too. I'd fist him and he'd go fucking crazy. One night, it was raining after practice and Brian was there; his parents must've forgotten him or somethin',"
Eames listened to Arthur's natural accent coming back to him, and tried not to grimace at any of Arthur's story.
"We took him back with us and the coach made us do stuff to each other and then he'd do stuff to us. I was the leader, so I had to show Brian how to do everything. Afterwards, Brian just blacked-out. He fell forward and smacked his face on the floor and he got a nose bleed. We dropped him back at his house and just watched as he crawled into the crawl space beneath his house. I didn't see him for years after that. In fact, I pretty much forgot about him."
"Darling, that was not your fault, you were only eight. You didn't know any better." Eames whispered but Arthur dropped his gaze.
"You have no idea, Eames. Brian was fucked up for years after that. He thought he'd got abducted by aliens. Anyway, you want to know about me, not Brian. After coach, I tried to replicate what I thought was love. I started hustling sex, I showed you that. I must've fucked near every guy in Hudson. My mom didn't even notice. I showed Wendy. I mean, Wendy knew all the crap after that Halloween. I showed you that and I don't want to explain. I loved Wendy.
"Few years later, she managed to get herself on a bus to New York and that was it. She never looked back. She wrote me postcards though. I never replied. Didn't stop hustling either. I was good at what I did, Eames. Eric, my other friend, queer, like me, begged me to stop. The guy was in love with me, but Wendy always said I had a black hole where my heart was. None of them thought I cared. I don't even think I cared.
"I went to stay with Wendy in New York. It was great, just me and Wendy. She had a job and I had to pay rent somehow, so I started hustling in her city too. People were so weird there though; someone wanted me to fuck them although I was 16. I did it. The cash was great but Wendy worried and got me hired at the local Subway. I stopped hustling for her. Wish I'd stuck with it though.
"Eric wrote me and said that he'd befriended Brian, who'd been looking for me. The kid wanted to know if we'd really been abducted. It brought back that summer and I laughed. The kid was fucking weird, Eames. Who the hell thinks they got abducted by aliens? Eric told me about his nosebleeds and blacking-out but I didn't give a shit.
"One night I was walking home from Subway when a guy pulled over and offered to pay me good money for sex. I thought "what the hell?" I'd done it a million times, nothing bad had ever happened…Jesus, Eames, I've never been so scared. Not even when I've been shot over and over."
Eames saw tears collecting in Arthur's eyes. He reached over to him but Arthur flinched away. "You don't have to do this darling, it's okay,"
"Fuck you, you wanted to know. That guy raped me Eames. I tried to stop it and locked myself in his bathroom. He was rough and spat on me and I'm not into shit like that. He broke in the bathroom and pushed me into the tub and he cracked my head open then kept hitting me while he was raping me and calling me a slut. I tried to get out but I just turned the shower on.
"I must've blacked-out cause next thing I know, I'm waking up outside in my clothes and bleeding and the guy didn't even fucking pay me and he stole my bag. I went home on the subway. It must've been 3AM, but nobody asked me how I was. Nobody even looked back.
"I got in at Wendy's and saw her sleeping and I realised what a shit friend I was. I couldn't tell her about it, she'd hate me and never talk to me again. And I needed Wendy. I hid my clothes and just sat naked in her bathroom. Then I'd remembered my mom had sent me a plane ticket so I could go home.
"I grabbed as little stuff as I'd need and headed for the airport. I didn't wake Wendy or leave her a note. That was the last time I ever saw her, Eames, and I fucked it all up. She meant more to me than that but I just didn't want to let her down.
"I got back to Hudson and my mom was waitin' for me at the airport. She saw my face, it was all bruised and my hair still had traces of blood in it. She took one look at me and burst into tears. It made me feel like shit, so I told her that I got mugged, that was all. It didn't make her feel any better and it made me feel worse.
"Got home and I went straight to my old room. Next mornin' Eric comes in with Brian, I guess that they must've spent more time at my house than I ever did, cause mom invited them to stay for Christmas Dinner. Brian asked if I was home yet, and I just stood in the doorway and watched them react. Brian looked at me like I was some kind of god. Told you the kid was a fucking idiot.
"I made Eric drive us to the coach's old house. He was fussing over my face and asking what happened and I told him the same thing I told my mom. He looked disappointed anyway – like he knew. Me and Brian broke into the house; it belonged to some dumb family now. The coach was long gone. I looked at him and asked if he really wanted to know. He did. Couldn't just live thinking he'd been abducted by aliens.
"I told him everything and he had a breakdown on me right there, his nose started bleedin' real bad and then he just curled up on me, his head on my lap. And I let him. Eric picked us up sometime later and he took Brian home, asking if he was going to be okay. Brian shrugged and we left him. Eric asked me what happened but I couldn't tell him. No-one knows this Eames. No-one."
Eames looked at Arthur, really looked at him, and then he could see it. The way he held himself, like he had the world on his shoulders. The bags under his eyes from keeping himself working so he wouldn't have to sleep. Even his clothing, when he wore his suits and gelled his hair and wore the contacts, it was so he really could become a different person. He could feel his heart breaking.
Arthur looked up at him sadly. "I still didn't accept what the coach had done to me was wrong. I thought that he loved me, that I was special to him. Brian took that all away, Eames. I showed you right? He came to the park one time. I'd stopped hustling, but I still liked sittin' on the swings.
"Brian looked good, Eames. Then he comes talking shit about how I'd been molested and abused and used. And I couldn't accept that. He made me so angry that I nearly hit him, but he wasn't afraid of me. It's like he knew how I was feeling and that he could make it better. Credit to him, he tried. He kept coming round my house every day to see how I was. My mom loved the kid. I hated him. I put up with it for a few weeks, but then I realised I hated Hudson almost as much as New York.
"Ran away that night to LA, best thing I ever did. Reinvented myself, called myself Arthur and never looked back. I even managed to forget about it for a while. Hooked up with Dom and Mal, they took me in, and I learnt how to become what I am today. But I've never ever hated anyone as much as I hate Brian."
Arthur finished his story and felt his nose. The bleeding had stopped. He looked up to see if Eames looked disgusting in him. He was surprised to see Eames getting closer to him. Eames reached out his hand and cupped Arthur's cheek.
"Oh, darling, that's the first time you've ever admitted it, isn't it?" He murmured as he watched Arthur lean into his touch. Arthur nodded.
"Why aren't you angry, Eames?"
"I'm fucking furious, Arthur, but not at you. Never at you."
"I'm dirty."
"No."
"Eames?"
Eames leaned towards Arthur, and stopped when their noses were touching. Arthur's eyes were closed. "Hmm?"
"Sleep with me tonight?"
Eames kissed him. It was light and easy, nothing rushed or forceful.
"Of course."
