Falling in Love is a Losing Game
The scent of coffee pulls him out of his sleep. This is the scent of morning and the end of dreams. He stretches, reaching to the other side of the bed and the form that should be laying there, but he knows will not be as there is coffee in the air. He groans and buries his face in his pillow as he collects the will to get out of bed and face the day as his lover obviously has.
As he passes through the bedroom door and into the hall, he expects to see him, already dressed except for his shoes and jacket, sitting at the bar that separates the kitchen from the living room as he drinks his morning coffee, but there is no one there.
There is nothing there but the memory of what was and will never be again; not even in dreams.
When Ariadne brought him the news, Eames left without saying another word to her. He locked himself in one of the storage closets in the office building where they had set up shop, debating with himself if this was a dream or not. The weight of it in his palm was as it should be, but this must be a nightmare. It had come to disaster as he knew it would. He hadn't thought there would be any casualties of the mortal kind.
He is aware of the light weight of Arthur's die in the pocket of his pajama pants as he looks about the kitchen. It still looks the way it did when Arthur was still there. The coffee pot sits empty in its cradle on the counter, just as it has each morning and will until Eames summons the courage to pack it up or dies.
The sun is starting to break over the skyline, lighting up the kitchen. He is still tired, but knows he won't be able to go back to sleep. Eames clutches Arthur's die in his hand and watches the sunrise out the kitchen window.