FIC: Throw My Ticket out the Window (Inception)

[aerographie]

Title: Throw My Ticket out the Window (AO3)
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~10,300
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Summary: In which Arthur pines, Eames is patient, and homes are found.

A/N: This is my story for i_reversebang, where I was lucky enough to have the wonderful jazzyjinx as my artist. Thank you so much, Jazzy, for your beautiful art and for being so supportive and exceedingly patient throughout this whole process. It's been an absolute pleasure working with you! ♥♥♥ And thank you sirona_gs and gelbwax for the lightning fast beta work; you guys are lifesavers! Any remaining mistakes are, of course, mine.


Breaking into Eames' room is painless.

The hotel is practically archaic, and all Arthur needs is a credit card and eight seconds to get around the piss-poor security. There's no time to be grateful for management's negligence, though. Not when he's being slammed face-first into the wall, barely through the fucking door.

The body behind him is strong, and Arthur struggles in vain. For a split-second he thinks he's been got, that he's too late....

“As you should know, Arthur,” Eames says, pressing his forearm against Arthur's neck, “the done thing is to knock.”

Arthur feels a rush of annoyed relief. “This was faster,” he grunts out, elbowing Eames in the gut so that he'll back off. Eames is an asshole, though, and only loosens his hold, forcing Arthur to push back against his chest-warm, solid, bare-to get free.

He sees Eames' pleased smile out of the corner of his eye, but they don't have time for this, so Arthur roughly shoves past him. He heads straight for Eames' bed, grabs the still-packed duffel laying on the covers and tosses it out the open balcony door and into the summer night.

“What the fuck are you-”

“We've been made,” Arthur says, pulling off his own shoulder bag. “The job's off. We need to disappear right now.” This time he's more careful with his aim, dropping the bag down three floors and straight on top of a well-groomed yew hedge.

“Fucking Cobb,” Eames grumbles under his breath, shoving his feet into a pair of two-toned Oxfords and pulling on his shirt.

Arthur's already swung himself over the iron railing, but he takes the time to state the obvious. “Jennings ratted us out,” he says, before dropping down to the balcony below.

Declan Jennings is the architect they'd been forced to bring in when Dom dropped out at the last minute-his fear of leaving his children's sides proving stronger than the flaring itch to get back in the dream-sharing business. Jennings was an unknown entity, and there hadn't been enough time for Arthur to dig up his deepest-darkest. Under normal circumstances, Arthur would have postponed the job until he could bring in someone he trusted, but the clients insisted on going through with the extraction as planned and they weren't the type to take 'no' for an answer.

Eames clambers down behind him. “I told you he was dodgy.”

“You also think Dom's dodgy,” Arthur returns, arguing for the sake of it.

“And this clusterfuck is a shining example of just how trustworthy Dom Cobb is, hmm?”

Arthur chooses not to answer-they're both well aware of Dom's shortcomings by now, but he'd spent years working with the man and Arthur can be loyal to a fault, once he feels that loyalty is earned. Instead, he leaps off the balcony and lands on the small patch of grass below, rolling to one side to break the fall.

He's reaching into the hedge to extract his bag when he hears Eames thud down behind him. No sooner does Eames sling his own duffel bag over his shoulder than a couple of figures appear in the balcony above. They're spotted right away-no place to hide-and within seconds there are shouts ringing out and bullets drilling into the earth at Arthur's feet, strays clanging off the wrought-iron fence.

They race down the street, feet pounding the pavement, bags bouncing against their sides, and their pursuers not far behind. They cut through alleys and hurdle over fences, panting too hard for conversation. Then they're climbing up fire escapes, bounding across rooftops, and it takes a good few minutes to lose their tail. Even then, they keep up the pace for good measure. Finally, they're crossing a seemingly clear intersection, heading for the Underground entrance on the sidewalk opposite.

Out of nowhere, a car speeds around the corner and Arthur barely avoids being run over. He throws himself onto the hood, body moving on instinct. The metal buckles under the impact, and Arthur rolls across and off, feet hitting the ground running. The move is seamless.

The owner of the car yells after him-Oi, wanker! Look what you did to my fuckin' car!-but Arthur neither stops nor cares. His whole side feels like one big bruise.

“I hate this parkour shit,” Arthur bites out, following Eames down the steps to the tube.

Eames just grins, wide and delighted. “Of course you do, darling.”

*

“Where will you go?” Eames says, pressed up against Arthur in the crowded subway train. They've changed lines twice, and are already dozens of stops away from the hotel.

Arthur doesn't respond. They're going to have to lie low for a bit now that the job's gone south, and it's much easier to do when nobody knows where you are. Even under the best of circumstances, Arthur isn't so foolish as to give anything like that away-as Eames well knows.

“I was thinking Cayman Islands, myself,” Eames continues, undeterred by Arthur's reticence. “You should join me. Get a bit of sand and sun. I'm certain you'd look positively fetching in a pair of swim trunks, love.”

Arthur forces himself not to roll his eyes. He's been sleeping with Eames for months now, but they don't do this. They don't go away on vacation together; they don't even see each other much outside of work. It's just become a habit, spending the night together after a job. So routine that Arthur doesn't bother asking any more. Eames simply follows him back to whatever room he's renting in whatever city; it's an unspoken thing, but it happens every time, without fail. And then the next morning, they part ways.

Arthur's not one for mixing business and pleasure, and he knows that sleeping with Eames at all is a liability. But he likes Eames, so he allows himself this much. It's an easy arrangement, and it works, and Arthur doesn't see any reason to change things.

“What do you say, Arthur?”

The train is screeching to a halt, and Arthur widens his stance to steady himself. “This is our stop.”

*

Back at street level, Eames touches Arthur's elbow, tries to direct him towards a bar for a post-job drink, but Arthur pulls away.

Arthur stands at the edge of the pavement, scanning the street for an unoccupied taxi. His hair is dishevelled from all the running around, loose strands waving around his face with the light evening breeze. He runs a hand over his head, trying to tame the mess and glances over at Eames, who's leaning against a wall now, fiddling with a pack of Marlboros. When he notices Arthur watching, Eames opens the pack and holds it out, offering. Arthur shakes his head. He watches Eames' fingers as he pulls out a cigarette for himself.

“The first thing you learn in the shared-dreaming business,” Eames says, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, “is that the PASIV device is a finely-calibrated instrument.” He flicks open his lighter and cups his hand around the flame.

Once he's lit up, Eames takes a long drag and turns his head to the side to blow out the smoke. “Precise, delicate,” he continues, “and, above all, expensive.”

Arthur raises his eyebrows and wonders why he's being treated to this impromptu lecture in Dreamshare 101.

“So of course you, Arthur,” Eames says, gesturing with his cigarette, “in all your infinite wisdom, decide to chuck your nigh-irreplaceable PASIV out the bloody window.”

He sounds almost impressed.

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Better than leaving it there, gift-wrapped for Jennings and his thugs.”

“Jennings and his thugs,” Eames repeats, voice light and amused. “When are you going to realize that you're just as much a thug as anyone of Jennings' ilk, hmm? Only with better packaging.” The last is said with the expected leer, but it's missing Eames' usual verve.

Just then, a black cab pulls up in front of them, the yellow “for hire” light flicking off. Arthur yanks open the door and slides in, expecting Eames to follow.

But Eames is hanging back, lazily smoking his cigarette.

“You done?” Arthur asks finally, annoyed. The engine's idling and the cabbie is twisted round in his seat, waiting for directions.

“Hmm,” Eames hedges, not looking up. “I'm just going to head home, if it's all the same to you.”

Arthur tries to hide it, but he's completely thrown.

“Okay,” Arthur says slowly. “Do you want to share the cab?”

Eames sniffs and looks away. “Thanks for the offer, love, but I think I'd rather walk. It's not far from here.” He sounds completely casual. As if he hasn't just basically rejected Arthur and-more importantly-made an off-hand reference to the location of his personal residence.

This time Arthur can't hide his surprise. This isn't the kind of profession where you can freely reveal that sort of information. And Eames knows better. Until now, Arthur had no idea where Eames lived, which neighbourhood, which city. He couldn't even have said which country.

Eames finishes his cigarette, drops the butt on the ground, and crushes it under the sole of his shoe. Then he steps forward, and Arthur thinks maybe he's changed his mind but he's only leaning down with one hand braced on the taxi's open door.

“Goodnight, Arthur,” he says, smiling slightly. His voice is firm, but not unkind. “Give me a ring sometime.”

Eames presses the door shut, slaps the hardtop, and steps back as the taxi pulls away.

“Where to?” says the cabbie.

A few moments pass before Arthur rouses himself enough to answer.

*

At any given moment, Arthur usually knows where Eames is.

If Eames flies into LAX on a job, Arthur gets an e-mail alert. If Eames uses a credit card in Mumbai or Kyoto or Abu Dhabi, Arthur can find out within 20 minutes. Arthur's ability to keep track of someone is, according to Ariadne, “scarily efficient.” Arthur likes to think of it as prudent.

So he keeps track of all of Eames' various aliases-he does that with everyone, trusted colleagues and double-dealing competitors alike. But every so often, Eames will simply fall of the map.

Blip.

Gone. No trace left behind. No leads that Arthur can find, and if Arthur can't find someone, nobody can.

Arthur's always assumed that those were the times Eames went home; mini-vacations from forging and thieving and trekking halfway round the globe, bouncing from one dream job to the next. So he knows that Eames is far from careless with his privacy, always covering his tracks when he needs to. It's a well-established fact.

But then, why?

Why would he give himself up like that? He has to know Arthur will go digging. How could he not? And while Eames didn't reveal much-just his neighbourhood, really-it's more than enough information for Arthur to go on. Way more than he had before, which was fuck-all.

This kind of knowledge? Arthur could use it against him. You don't last as long as they both have in this line of work without making a few enemies, and Arthur could sell Eames out to the highest bidder.

It doesn't make any sense.

*

Three weeks later, Arthur is offered a job in Johannesburg. One of Dom's old contacts-now Arthur's contact-works for a mining company and needs an extraction performed on a rival CEO. It's a simple case of corporate espionage, nothing Arthur hasn't done before. He runs his plans by Dom out of habit, more than anything.

“And what does Eames think?” Dom asks, scraping James' half-eaten dinner into the trash. The kids are in bed, exhausted from their day out with Uncle Arthur.

Arthur's sitting at the kitchen table while Dom, having waved away his offers of help, cleans up for the night.

“He-he's not working this one.”

“Oh.” Cobb sounds confused. He adds James' plate to the dishwasher and shuts the door. “You do realize you're going to need a forger, here.”

Arthur does. Yesterday, he almost called Eames, actually dialled the number-an automatic response-only to hang up frantically before the first ring fully sounded out.

“Yeah, I've got someone lined up.”

The dishwasher whirs to life, and Dom turns around to lean against the counter. “Who?”

“Ming Xiang,” Arthur says, leaning back in his chair. “She operates out of Singapore.”

“Never heard of her.”

“She's new to the game. Young. Driven. By all accounts, talented.” Arthur tells himself it only makes sense to try her out, see what she can do.

Dom laughs. “Hey, you don't have to convince me,” he says, and then, his voice fond and almost wistful, “You're the boss, Arthur.”

The team is rounded out with Abdi Usman, an Ethiopian architect-extractor that Arthur's worked with before. He's quietly competent, a good counterpoint to Xiang, who turns out to be a strange mix of foul-mouthed chattiness, earnest optimism, and cocky over-confidence. At least Arthur thinks she's over-confident, but that only lasts until Xiang forges a burly 50-year-old Australian, the mark's right-hand man, without breaking a sweat.

They work well together and the extraction comes off perfectly. No complications, no surprises. They walk out of the mark's home $90K richer apiece and with time to spare.

Arthur tells himself he's not bored.

*

He has a couple of hours to kill before his flight out of Johannesburg, so Arthur tugs his tie loose with one hand and flips through the hotel's selection of channels with the other.

Click. Al-Jazeera's weather report. Click. A Hollywood action flick on M-Net.

He spreads his legs out on the bed with a sigh, back propped up by a heap of pillows, and absently undoes the top button of his shirt.

Click. A Mzansi soap opera. Click. An infomercial.

Finally, he stops at SuperSport. They're showing cricket highlights-South Africa v. Zimbabwe-and Arthur watches Hashim Amla hit the ball with a resounding thwack, the crowd roaring as the umpire lifts his hands in the air.

It's a six.

Arthur knows this because of Eames. They worked a job together during the last World Cup and Eames had driven him mad, commandeering Arthur's laptop at regular intervals to watch low-quality streams of England's matches online. (Why he even bothered was a mystery; they never seemed to win.) The first few times, Arthur objected.

(“We have work to do, Eames.”

“I know, darling. It's almost over,” Eames said, distracted.

“You said that an hour ago.”

“And it's still true,” said Eames, squinting at the screen. “Come on, come on, you idiots. Just one run a ball. Easy does it.”

Before Arthur could object further, Bhatia, their architect, materialized with two cups of tea and a packet of Marie biscuits. “Eames,” he called out, shouldering past Arthur.

Eames barely looked up as he accepted the proffered cup. “Cheers, mate.”

Bhatia didn't respond, nor did he promptly return to his maze-designing as Arthur had hoped. Instead, much to Arthur's dismay, he hooked one ankle around the leg of a chair to pull it closer and sat down to the match, his models and blueprints forgotten.)

Arthur soon realized that resistance was futile. He was clearly outnumbered; Bhatia turned out to be rabid in his enthusiasm for the sport, and his team actually stood a chance of winning the damn thing. So Arthur, knowing when to pick his battles, found himself begrudgingly scheduling cricket breaks into their working day, locating a high-definition stream of the matches which didn't freeze up at crucial moments in the proceedings-

(“Arthur, I could kiss you” Eames said, beaming and actually looking at Arthur for a change, instead of the newly-crisp images on the screen.

Bhatia patted him on the back. “Me too. A full-on snog.”

Arthur turned away, clearing his throat. “Well, I had to do something before one of you threw my laptop across the room,” he said, busying himself with organizing his workspace. “God forbid you miss three seconds of some bowler rubbing the ball against his crotch.”

“It's called strategy, Arthur,” Eames said, admonishing.)

-and spending hours with Eames' warmth at his side and Eames' voice at his ear, deep and enthusiastic, as he explained the rules, deciphered the umpire's signals, and made sure that Arthur knew the difference between a leg break and a googly.

*

Arthur briefly considers not looking for Eames' address, respecting his privacy, for a change. But knowing everything is part of Arthur's job description, and soon enough he's positively itching to go digging, like it's a physical urge, like it's against his constitution to not pursue a lead.

Even with the search radius drastically narrowed down, it still takes Arthur a few weeks to find it, slowly getting closer and closer to the right street, the right building, the right floor. In the end, it's pretty anti-climatic, actually. Just some words and numbers on the glowing computer screen, but Arthur traces over them with his finger, diligently commits it all to memory.

*

It's the last week of October in New York City, and the autumn leaves are glowing in the sunlight, nothing but brilliant yellows and fiery reds when Arthur finally picks up the phone.

“Arthur,” Eames says, slow and rumbling, drawing out the syllables of Arthur's name like he's savouring the feel of it in his mouth. “Been a long time. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Arthur hesitates. They haven't spoken in months, not since London, and he feels inexplicably nervous. His heart's racing and it makes him more brusque than intended when he speaks. “There's a job in Prague. About three weeks' work. You'd have to be there by the fourteenth.”

Eames is silent for a long time. Much longer than necessary, if you ask Arthur. He's almost ready to hang up, to tell Eames to forget it. If he can't work with Arthur now, just because they're not sleeping together....

“Who's the architect?” Eames asks, tired.

“...Rodríguez.”

Eames makes an approving sound. “She's good. What's the pay like?”

“Substantial.”

There's some rustling over the line, as if Eames is settling down on a sofa made of newsprint. “Send me the details.”

“You're in?” Arthur asks, surprised.

Eames huffs out a laugh. “What do you think, Arthur?” he says, before the line goes dead.

*

The first time he saw Yusuf after the Fischer job, Arthur threatened his life. Arthur doesn't take too kindly to having the wool pulled over his eyes, so he put the fear of Allah into him, made sure that he'd never so much as think of pulling that kind of shit again.

Then he paid upfront for a three month supply of Somnacin.

Yusuf may be a bit too unscrupulous for Arthur's tastes, but his compounds are the best, producing dreams of such clarity and sharpness that Arthur has begun to rely on his totem much more than usual. So even though it's out of his way, Arthur makes a stop in Kenya before meeting up with Eames and Rodríguez in Prague.

“Send my regards to Mr. Eames,” Yusuf calls out as Arthur's leaving, a dozen vials of the compound carefully secured in his briefcase. “Be sure to tell him he's an asshole; they've got me flagged up at the Golden Key. I make one mistake, one time I allow myself to be seen with him, and it's the very night the bastard takes the casino for all they're worth.”

Arthur slowly turns and walks back to the counter. “What makes you think I'll be seeing Eames?”

While Arthur prides himself on knowing where people are, who they're working for, and with whom, he hates the idea that somebody could find out the same about him. He goes to great pains to make himself difficult to track, so either Eames told Yusuf they'd be working together, or Arthur has a problem.

Yusuf's got his head down, going over a ledger of some sort. “Well, he's your... you know,” he says, with a distracted shrug.

“He's my what?” Arthur bites out.

Yusuf's head snaps up in surprise. “Your b-.” He must see something in Arthur's expression then, because he all but recoils. And then the backtracking begins. “You-you work together, the two of you. He's your... colleague.”

Yusuf eyes him warily, glasses perched at the end of his nose.

“Yeah,” Arthur says finally, gut clenching. “My colleague.”

*

November in Prague is colder than usual. Arthur walks down the Charles Bridge with his coat collar popped up against the wind, the PASIV a familiar weight on his shoulder. The sky's still dark and his steps are loud in the quiet of dawn. It's too early for the usual crowd of camera-clutching tourists, but there's a smattering of merchants setting up for the day, unfolding tables and easels to display their wares. The bridge is lined with towering baroque statues, half-obscured by the morning mist, and Arthur crosses over under the watchful gaze of saints.

He passes through the Old Town, walks down narrow cobbled streets until he sees a green sign and steps leading below. The subway trains are new, clean, and Arthur forces himself to sit still as he waits for his stop.

“Příští stanice: Křižíko-”

Before the announcement is even over, Arthur's up and ready to exit through the sliding doors. Back above ground, Arthur walks purposefully to his destination: an abandoned factory in Karlín. From the outside, the structure is shabby, covered in graffiti and crumbling paint. Inside, the floors have been cleared, and there's electricity and running water and more than enough space to work.

Arthur drags some chairs together, a couple of tables. He takes out the PASIV device, carefully cleaning the parts and checking the lines. Then he sets up his laptop, spreads out his research, until there's nothing left to do but wait for the others to arrive.

*

The mark is Dr. Petr Krejci, a researcher at IKEM's Department of Experimental Medicine. Krejci is believed to have recently made a breakthrough: a genetically modified pig that would finally make the transplantation of porcine pancreatic cells a safe, viable option in the treatment of human diabetes. GenoCell, their client, is a large biotechnology firm based in the United States. They want Krejci's research so that they can patent and commercialize these genetically modified cells for clinical use.

“Why not just steal the research?” Eames asks, sprawled out in his chair. “Seems simpler than raiding Krejci's mind.”

Eames looks just as relaxed as he did five minutes ago, when he showed up with Rodríguez, three cups of coffee, and an easy smile which Arthur struggled to return.

“They don't want even a hint of foul play,” Arthur says, dragging his mind away from the memory, his eyes away from Eames' splayed thighs. “Nothing that could jeopardize their patent. Just a clean extraction.”

“Krejci's routine is like clockwork,” Rodríguez says, sitting on the table, legs swinging as she flips through what research Arthur's compiled so far. Her thick, dark hair is pulled back into a loose bun, and her hand keeps reaching up to brush the fringe out of her eyes. “Late night after late night working alone at the laboratory. Get around security, and we can spike his coffee, perform the extraction there and leave him passed out at his desk.”

Eames nods along in agreement. “He'll think he just fell asleep.”

“No, no,” Arthur says. “It can't be anywhere near IKEM's facilities. Our contact at GenoCell, insisted on it.”

Rodriguez pauses, pulls out a sheet from the dossier. “He has a dentist appointment coming up. Root canal.”

“Exactly,” Arthur says.

“All right,” says Eames, straightening up. “So assuming that we do break into Krejci's mind. All that research? Which one of us will be able to make heads or tails of it, let alone retain enough of the technical mumbo-jumbo to pass on to our client? It's not like we can make photocopies.”

Arthur inclines his head towards Rodríguez.

She smirks at Eames and taps one well-manicured nail against her forehead. “Photographic memory.”

*

Working with Eames again is surprisingly normal.

Eames is the same as he ever was. He still wears his hair with a side part, still favours brightly-coloured socks and wide-splayed collars, still rolls a poker chip over his knuckles when he listens, and chews on it while he thinks. He still peppers his speech with endearments, still ruthlessly questions Arthur's every move, still brings Arthur coffee in the morning, piping-hot with a splash of cream and too much sugar. He's still the best Arthur's ever worked with, still so clever and competent and handsome sometimes that Arthur can hardly breathe.

Arthur always thought Eames was the unprofessional one, with his flirting remarks and casual touches. He always prided himself on being above all that, on keeping work strictly separate from this... thing he had going with Eames. Arthur thinks of how he always held himself back, how he'd wait for the job to be done before allowing a lingering brush of Eames' fingers, before letting Eames follow him back to his hotel room and fuck him against the door. Arthur always waited for that last night, for how Eames would mouth at his throat while Arthur clung to his shoulders, grasped uselessly at the walls, and listened to the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of the door against its frame, loud and obvious to anyone walking by.

But now, it's Arthur who can't maintain the façade of professionalism. It's Arthur who can't help but flinch when Eames leans over his shoulder to point at the laptop screen, who can barely meet Eames' eyes when they speak, who can't relax the rigidity of his spine unless he's alone, running surveillance on the mark or making the trek back to his hotel, thinking about how, this time, the job won't end with Eames laughing his way into Arthur's bed, holding Arthur down with nothing but a broad palm on his chest and a heated look.

“You shouldn't let him get to you,” Rodríguez says on the third evening, when Eames has slipped out of the factory for a smoke. Arthur's holding her model of the dreamscape in the air, angling it this way and that for a better view, as he weighs his response.

“...Who?” he asks, aiming for nonchalant confusion, and Rodríguez raises her eyebrows and smiles, not buying it one bit.

“Eames,” she says, willing to play along. Then, with a dismissive wave of her hand, “He's just a flirt. I'm sure he doesn't mean anything by it.”

“No,” Arthur says, carefully placing the model back on the table. “Of course he doesn't.”

She rubs her hands together, then, and bounces a little, standing in front of the old, clunky radiator. “Fuck, it's cold in here.”

*

A week into the job, Arthur rents a car and the three of them head out to Kačerov to case the dentist's office. Arthur drives, sticking to the main roads, and Rodríguez rides shotgun with her lace-up boots on the dash, paging through a well-thumbed paperback. Eames is stretched out in the back, rolled-up coat pillowing his head and, by all appearances, taking a nap. Every so often, Arthur catches himself sneaking glances of his face, slack with sleep, in the rear-view mirror.

They park a few streets down and walk the rest of the way. The clinic is on a relatively quiet street, narrow and tree-lined. There are cars parked all along the curb, and they're maybe a minute away when Arthur stops abruptly by a beat-up Peugeot hatchback.

He drops down to tie his shoelaces, shielded by the body of the car. “See that van up there?” he asks, breath clouding the air.

Rodríguez is looking in the opposite direction. “I see it.”

“There's a man, too,” Eames says, rubbing at his mouth with gloved fingers. “9 o'clock”

Arthur stands. By tacit agreement, he leads them down a wrong turn and away from the clinic. The man follows at a predictable distance. After a minute, they turn sharply into an alleyway between two apartment buildings and listen to their tail's quickening steps. Eames watches for his shadow on the pavement, grabs the man before he even rounds the corner.

There's a short struggle. The man pulls out a gun that Rodríguez quickly knocks out of his hand. Eames pins him to the wall-a display of easy physicality-and presses his meaty forearm against the guy's throat until he passes out.

They drag his limp body deeper into the alley and prop him up behind a dumpster, out of sight. Rodríguez pats him down. She searches his pockets and comes up with a wallet that she tosses up to Arthur without looking. Arthur takes one look at the contents and holds it out for the others to see.

An ID badge: POLICIE. České Republiky.

*

Rodríguez runs a hand through her dark hair, frustrated. “So that's it?”

They're standing next to a stall selling tote bags and umbrellas, just outside the Metro station. They had to abandon the car, and Arthur's heartbeat is still elevated from their hasty escape as he watches the milling crowd. He doesn't bother replying; they all know the job is screwed. Getting near Krejci now is too big a risk.

“It certainly looks that way,” Eames says lightly, examining the umbrellas hanging on display.

After a moment's hesitation, Rodríguez wraps her scarf more tightly around her neck, her movements decisive. She spares Arthur a quick parting nod, and then she's disappearing into the crowd.

Arthur should be making a move, himself. They need to get out of the country as soon as possible, but something keeps him from leaving just yet. Eames pulls down an umbrella. It's fire-engine red with a hooked handled, and Arthur watches as Eames swings it around in a smooth arc.

“How did they find us?” Arthur asks, honestly baffled and not a little dismayed. Eames raises his eyebrows, but doesn't offer any explanation. “I would've known if the cops were on to us. I would have-“

“It's too late,” Eames says, handing the umbrella back to the vendor. “We need to leave. Now.”

They'll have to split up. It isn't safe any other way, but he hasn't seen Eames in months and now, barely a week in, and they have to split up.

They both drift into silence. Arthur eyes dart over Eames' face-the creases at his forehead, the familiar line of his jaw, his strong nose and ridiculously plush lips-and Eames allows it, stays still and gives Arthur a long, assessing look.

“Well,” Eames says, finally. “I suppose I'll be off, then.”

Arthur opens his mouth to speak, but after a quick intake of cold air, all he can come up with is:

“... Right.”

It's painful, watching Eames' face close off, muscles relaxing minutely until he's the picture of a person who couldn't care less.

“Right,” he says, echoing Arthur, and then he's gone.

It's taken a long time for Arthur to admit it, but he was disappointed when Eames ended things between the two of them. Even now, there's a rawness in his chest whenever he thinks of it. But watching Eames' back as he walks away, he can't shake the odd feeling that he's misread the whole situation, that he's the one who's disappointed Eames.

*

Back at his hotel, Arthur packs up rapidly and checks out as if he has all the time in the world. People on the run should always avoid looking like they're on the run. He's not sure where he's going to go, and it doesn't really matter; he just needs to get out of the Czech Republic, and fast. He's barely out the building, the doorman's farewell still ringing in his ear, when his phone vibrates against his chest. He reaches into his suit jacket without breaking his stride.

“Hello-“

“It was Mr. Green,” Eames says, not wasting any time on pleasantries.

Arthur ducks into an empty doorway. “What?”

“Your contact at GenoCell? He tipped off the law.”

“Why would he do that?” Arthur asks, glancing nervously at the traffic on the main street.

“Seems he had a crisis of morals. Didn't want his employers stealing a life-saving therapy only to price it out of reach of your average patient. Quite admirable, really.”

Arthur lets his head fall back against rough brick. “Fuck.”

He'd been so careful-he always was-but he never thought to worry about the client compromising them. It was a careless oversight, letting Green in on the plan. The fewer people who knew the specifics of a job, the better, and GenoCell shouldn't have known anything until afterwards, until Arthur already had Krejci's research in his hands.

A red tram rattles by. A woman bundled up in a fur-lined parka mutters to herself as she shuffles past. Arthur pulls in one deep breath, then another.

“Don't take it too hard, Arthur,” Eames says, eventually. “You couldn't have known.”

Eames' voice is soft, and much kinder than it ought to be. Arthur doesn't know that he'd be so understanding himself if the situation were reversed, if it were Eames who'd fucked up, who'd been so busy worrying about working with his ex that he nearly allowed his team to walk into a trap.

“Where are y-?” Arthur begins to ask, but Eames has already hung up.

It takes a Metro train, a bus, and forty-five minutes to get to Prague-Ruzyně, and Arthur's mind is racing the whole trip through. At the airport, he waits in line for another five minutes, then he's standing in front of the ticket counter, passport and wallet at the ready while a smiling agent asks him where he wants to go.

*

Eames greets him with a gun.

It's a 9mm SIG, Arthur notes, peering through the rusty elevator grill. Military issue.

“Thanks for the warm welcome,” he says, wry.

Eames is slow to lower the barrel. He's wearing grey pinstriped pyjama bottoms, two days' worth of stubble, and a confused frown. He looks good. Better than.

Arthur adjusts the strap of his leather carry-on, settling it more firmly on his shoulder as he waits to be let in. Assuming Eames lets him in at all. Arthur's not supposed to be here-he's not even supposed to know where here is-but he's just spent the last thirty-odd hours hopping from one country to the next, abandoning passports and identities at each stop, until he reached Heathrow, got into a minicab and blurted out the memorized address before the cabbie could even ask.

Eventually, Eames clicks the safety, then stuffs the pistol into his pocket. The weight of it drags his waistband even lower. Arthur glances at the trail of soft-looking hair winding down Eames' firm stomach, the hollow at his hip, the beginnings of a faded tan line-

“Well, you must forgive me my rudeness,” Eames says, voice low and rumbling, obviously heavy with sleep. Arthur's eyes snap up, and he watches as Eames steps forward. “An unexpected guest, past midnight, when I'm meant to be lying low from the law?” The elevator grill making a grating sound as Eames slides it open. “The situation required some precaution, as I'm sure you'll agree.”

Arthur ducks his head, conceding the point.

He follows Eames into the darkness of his flat. He's always been curious to see Eames' home, but Eames doesn't bother with any lights and Arthur's too tired to look around much, anyway.

In the living room, Eames stops abruptly. Arthur expects him to ask the obvious questions, is waiting for him to say: How the hell did you find me? And: Why are you even here? But Eames just runs a hand through his tousled hair and stares somewhere around Arthur's chest. The silence is awkward, unnerving, and when it becomes near unbearable, Arthur finds himself stupidly, haltingly offering to take the couch.

“Okay,” Eames says. He sounds exhausted.

“Go to sleep, Eames.”

He doesn't look up, still staring fixedly at Arthur's travel-creased shirt. He scrubs at his face, palm rasping against the scruff. There's a speckle of what looks like paint on the side of his neck, right below his jawline. He grumbles out a noise of affirmation, and then Arthur is watching his bare feet moving against the hardwood floor, watching the shifting muscles in his back as he approaches a set of stairs, and climbs them towards his bed.

*

Arthur wakes up enveloped in warmth.

He rolls onto his back with a drawn-out sigh, body sinking into Eames' surprisingly comfortable couch. His mouth feels disgusting; he'd been so tired the night before that he'd only taken off his suit and shoes, and fallen asleep in his underclothes. For a long while, he simply stares up at the heavy wooden beams and metal pipes running across the ceiling.

So this is Eames' home.

It's an old building, a former Victorian shoe factory that looks rather shabby from the outside, nothing but a worn façade and dreary masonry in all the photos Arthur managed to find. The inside, however, is nice. High ceilings. Exposed brick. Large square-paned windows that look out upon an unspectacular view, but let in an obscene amount of light.

Arthur sits up and a quilt he doesn't remember using slides down his torso. He's looking at the intricate patchwork, running his fingers over the worsted twill, the countless tiny hexagons of brightly-coloured fabric when he hears someone clear their throat.

Eames is standing at the foot of the steps. “I see you've finally decided to rejoin the waking world,” he says. He's wearing khaki pants and a maroon cable-knit cardigan that looks like it'd be warm, soft to the touch.

It's later than he realized-almost noon according to Arthur's phone. He folds up the quilt, draping it over the back of the couch, all the while keeping one eye on Eames, who's puttering about the kitchen, pulling a mug out of the cabinet, adding water to a kettle, and generally going about his business as if Arthur wasn't even there.

Arthur rummages around in his bag and pulls out some clothes, his toiletries.

“Hey, Eames?” he says, awkwardly standing in the living room. “Where's your-?”

“Behind you, by the stairs. Door on your right,” Eames says.

The bathroom is more modern than the rest of the flat, all clean, elegant lines with a spacious shower that Arthur wishes he could spend more time in-the water pressure just this side of too much. Instead, Arthur gets ready as quickly as he can.

There's a large work table in one corner of the flat, and Eames is hunched over it when Arthur emerges. He doesn't acknowledge Arthur, too busy looking down at his task through a magnifier lamp, occasionally reaching up to reposition it to his liking. He's wearing a pair of glasses that Arthur's never seen before, the bridge slid down low on his nose.

Now, fully awake, Arthur takes the opportunity to examine Eames' flat, takes in all the details he'd missed before: the thick sheets hanging over the windows, makeshift drapes that have been pushed aside. The coloured-glass bottles lined up on the windowsill, filled with brushes and pens and small tubes of paint. The towering stacks of books on the floor, waist-high and pushed against the couch-back, against the walls. The sparse furniture, obviously chosen with an eye to comfort. A plush wing-back chair, covered in tufted leather and battered from use. The wooden coffee table, strewn with newspapers and covered in coffee stains that are interlocked like the Olympic rings.

Eventually, Arthur wanders up to Eames, slow and cautious, not wanting to startle him.

“What's all this?”

Arthur runs his fingers over the tabletop overflowing with equipment: metal rulers, pens, brushes, small pots of paint, exacto knives, and countless rectangles of green paper.

“Recreation,” Eames says.

Arthur snorts. He picks up a sample of the finished product and runs the pad of his thumb over the paper, feeling its uncannily familiar texture. When he flips it over, Benjamin Franklin stares up at him, near flawless.

The craftsmanship is impressive.

“Wouldn't these be easier to produce digitally?” he asks, tossing the counterfeit bill back on the table.

“Oh, Arthur,” Eames says, frowning down at the watermark he's sketching out. “Where's the fun in that?”

*

Eames spends the next couple of hours planted in his chair, living up to his reputation as an excellent forger and a no-good con man. The work is obviously painstaking, but Eames is diligent.

He doesn't seem to be in any mood for conversation, though, so Arthur busies himself with making his own cup of coffee, and then settles in on the couch to get some work done. First, he has to spend a few minutes hacking into Eames' Wi-Fi network; he might have just asked Eames for the password, but once you've shown up at someone's supposedly-secret home, unannounced and uninvited, stealing their bandwidth doesn't really rate as an invasion of privacy.

It's nearly two o'clock when Eames stretches his arms out with a groan. Then he takes off his glasses, tosses them carelessly on a stack of finished $100 bills and announces that he's famished.

They go to a dodgy-looking South Indian restaurant for lunch because, according to Eames, the best places are often dodgy. It's tiny, and packed with people, but the service is good and the food better. They eat crispy masala dosas, served on metal platters with little pots of sambar and chutney. It's messy and delicious and Eames eats with relish, uses his hands.

Eames is more talkative during the meal, and everything seems almost normal until they're just finishing up.

“So,” Eames says, sucking his fingers clean. “Why are you here, Arthur?”

Arthur knew that he'd have to answer this question at some point, but he's still unprepared somehow.

“I... I needed somewhere to lie low. Like you.”

He doesn't know why he says it. As far as explanations go, this one is laughably, preposterously weak.

Eames smiles a little, humourless, and wipes the grease off his hands with a paper napkin.

“You could've done that anywhere. Maybe spent a couple of weeks with Cobb and his sprogs,” he says, challenging Arthur as he's always done, as Arthur's come to value and expect. “Or you could have gone home.” Eames meets his eyes, then, his expression serious. “Wherever that is.”

Through sheer willpower, Arthur manages to not look away.

His heartbeat skitters, but he keeps his voice slow and steady when he says, “I can leave, if you want.”

“Of course not, darling,” Eames says, turning to squint out the window at the busy afternoon traffic. “You're always welcome.”

*

It was stupid, coming to London.

That's all Arthur can think, the same sentiment on a permanent loop in his mind ever since he got here.

He knows it's ridiculous, but he hadn't really planned beyond arriving at Eames' door. A part of him truly, honestly thought he could just show up, and it would be as easy as their relationship's always been. That he wouldn't have to say anything, that Eames would take over like he always did, knowing exactly what Arthur wanted, exactly why he was there.

But Eames has been... not cold, not aloof, but not himself either. He's guarded. Distant. And Arthur feels off-balance.

They spend the rest of the day going about their respective business; Arthur's stay at Eames' flat is proving much more productive than anticipated. Arthur turns down a couple of job offers, wanting to keep his schedule clear for... for the next little while, anyway. He's just worked through the last of his backlog of e-mail when Eames climbs down from his bedroom, freshly showered and dressed in well-fitted dark trousers and an unobjectionable blue shirt. Very unobjectionable.

“I'll just be popping out for a bit, darling,” he say absently as he fiddles with his cuffs, eyes darting around the flat, searching. He rummages through the mess on the coffee table, making a small sound of displeasure when he doesn't find what he's looking for. “You can look after yourself, yes? There's food in the fridge; help yourself to whatever you'd like,” he calls out as he disappears into a room Arthur hasn't seen yet, probably a study or an office of some sort.

Arthur gets up to follow him, wanting to ask where Eames is going, wanting to say, You're avoiding me, but unsure of how. He comes to a halting stop in the doorway.

“Woah,” he says, the word popping out of his mouth almost involuntarily.

The room isn't an office.

The room is Eames' closet, and it's bursting, overflowing with clothes. It looks like the costume department of a small theatre. There are all styles and manners of clothing: beautifully-tailored suits that Arthur touches admiringly, soft cashmere sweaters and colourful printed shirts in amongst tracksuits, baggy jeans and graphic tees. There are several items that Arthur can easily imagine Eames wearing, and countless others that he'd never have dreamt would have a place here.

“I never thought of you as a clotheshorse,” Arthur says, taking it all in.

“Hmm.” Eames looks around, appraising, as he pulls on a v-neck sweater that stretches pleasingly across the width of his shoulders. “Well, it's all research, isn't it? A bit of professional development. Clothes make the man, and all that.”

“An acid-wash denim jacket counts as professional development?” Arthur asks, examining the (horrible) item in question.

Eames starts rifling through a drawer. “When are you leaving, again?” he says.

Arthur doesn't respond to the jab. He's running his hand over Eames' surprisingly large collection of silk ties when he hears a soft “Ha”. Eames seems to have found what he was looking for: a pair of silver cufflinks.

He takes a moment to carefully put them on, struggling a little, and Arthur watches intently, wanting more than anything to close the distance between them, wanting to hold Eames' wrist steady as he puts on the cufflinks himself. But Eames manages to get them through the buttonholes quickly enough, and then he's rushing out the door with a distracted farewell, only stopping long enough to grab his wallet, his keys, and pull on a dark, knee-length coat.

Arthur tries to stay up until Eames gets back, but he can only mope about the flat for so long. Eventually, he lies down on the couch, Eames' warm quilt tucked around him, and drifts off to thoughts of Eames, out in the London night, probably charming the pants off some flexible young thing in a dimly-lit lounge on Old Street.

*

A loud crash startles Arthur awake, and he's reaching for the gun stashed in his bag before he's even fully alert. He moves fast, crouching down behind the sofa in his pyjamas. He keeps his body still and his finger in position by the trigger as he listens for any movement in the dark flat.

The elevator grill rattles open. Footsteps. A loud thump. “Bloody hell...”

Arthur sags in relief. It's just Eames.

He scrubs a palm across his face, then puts away the gun. In the entrance he sees Eames hopping on one foot, clutching at the other and cursing furiously under his breath.

“Don't tell me,” Arthur says, flipping on some lights. “The wall walked into you.”

Eames lets go of his foot and stumbles into the console table, jostling the lamp on top before righting himself. “Arthur,” he says, loud and overly serious in the way Eames only gets when he's trying to pretend he's not completely hammered. “I was-I was trying not to wake you.”

Arthur takes Eames' arm to guide him towards the couch, grunting when Eames trips a little, suddenly forcing Arthur to bear his weight.

“You're drunk,” Arthur says, bringing his arm across Eames' body to steady him.

“No, no, darling. Of course not,” Eames insists, patting Arthur's chest, his brow furrowed with concern. “I believe the-the word you're looking for is 'sloshed'.”

Eames drops heavily onto the couch and immediately begins stripping off his v-neck. Arthur sits on the coffee table opposite and doesn't bother pretending not to stare. Tossing the sweater aside, Eames slouches back and lazily starts in on the buttons of his shirt, slowly revealing his lightly-haired chest, his firm middle, the dark edges of a tattoo that Arthur's always secretly loved. Eames tries to take the shirt off too, but he's forgotten about his cufflinks and the shirt gets caught at his wrists. He grumbles, pulling uselessly at his sleeves, and Arthur takes mercy on him, tugs at his wrist until Eames extends his arm, allowing Arthur to remove the little silver knots.

Arthur keeps his eyes on Eames' wrist, on the task at hand, but he's hyper-aware of Eames' body so close to his, the solid warmth of it. He smells good. Even drunk and with the faint whiff of smoke on his clothes, he smells so good that Arthur wants to bury his face in Eames' shoulder, his neck. Eames begins shifting in place, and when Arthur switches to the other wrist, Eames leans forward so that he can drag his now-free hand, wide and warm, across the worn-soft cotton of Arthur's t-shirt. Arthur feels it in the pit of his stomach and takes in a sudden shallow breath.

“Arthur?” Eames says wonderingly. “Arthur, I....”

Arthur finishes up quickly, and the cufflinks clink together when he drops them into an empty ashtray on the coffee table for safekeeping. He leans into Eames' palm a little, brushes his thumb across the soft skin of Eames' wrist as he waits for him to continue.

Eames looks down at Arthur's hand on his wrist, confused. “Arthur?” he asks, “...Where are my shoes?”

Letting out a soft exhale, Arthur glances around the flat perfunctorily. “I don't think you were wearing any.”

“Christ.” Eames slumps back against the couch, his hands dropping listlessly to his thighs. “I quite liked that pair.”

He looks a little heartbroken over the loss, so Arthur pats his knee consolingly and rises to get Eames a tall glass of water. Maybe some aspirin, if he can find it.

*

Eames insists that he can see himself to bed, but Arthur climbs the stairs behind him anyway, just in case.

He hasn't been up here before, so Arthur can't help but take a look around while Eames mutters to himself and yanks off his belt. The loft space is a decent size, comfortably fitting the bed, a couple of night stands, and a cozy-looking armchair in one corner. Along the front of the room there's a wood-lined wall that reaches Arthur's waist when he leans over to look down at the rest of the flat.

Arthur doesn't linger, though. Once Eames is spread out on top of his fluffy white duvet-face-down, his breath already deepening-Arthur ghosts his hand over Eames' soft tousled hair and returns to the living room, lying down on the couch he's already come to think of as his.

*

Eames, understandably, sleeps in the next morning.

Arthur doesn't bother changing out of his pyjamas. He spends the morning sitting in an armchair by the window, his coffee mug on the floor beside him as he goes through some of Eames' many books. He's flipping through a volume on Moorish architecture, when Eames finally plods down the stairs. He meets Arthur's eyes from across the flat, his expression vaguely chagrined, then trudges over to the bathroom. Arthur puts on a fresh pot of coffee while Eames showers. He pulls a few items out of the fridge, locates a pan, and by the time Eames wanders out, hair damp and dressed in nothing but a flimsy paisley-print robe, there's a plate waiting for him on the table.

Eames pauses just short of the kitchen, tightly fastening his robe with its obi-esque sash. He looks at his breakfast-eggs, bacon, toast-and then at Arthur with his eyebrows raised.

Arthur motions for Eames to sit down. “It's getting cold,” he says, uncomfortable under Eames' scrutiny.

“You're not joining me?” Eames asks, pulling out a chair, and Arthur busies himself with pouring out the coffee, trying to stave off his nerves.

“I already ate.”

Arthur sets a coffee cup down next to Eames, who thanks him through a mouthful of toast. Arthur nods absently and sits at the table, eyes fixed on Eames' chest, his collarbone, where his (ridiculous) robe is gaping open.

They sit in near-silence for a bit, nothing but the crunch of toast being eaten and the occasional clang of Eames' fork against his plate. Arthur gets out his phone, pretends to check his inbox and instead surreptitiously glances over at Eames' strong muscular thigh, distressingly bare as Eames lounges back against his chair. If Eames shifted just a little, Arthur's sure he'd be seeing a whole lot more...

“Well,” Eames says, before swallowing the last of his coffee. “I must admit, Arthur, I'm a little confused. The eggs were delicious, don't get me wrong, but I'm fairly certain you didn't come all this way just to sleep on my couch and cook me breakfast-”

Arthur stands up suddenly, chair legs screeching across the floor, and takes Eames' plate to the sink. “How's your head?” he asks quickly, and it's just pathetic, how his heart's racing, how he's too chicken-shit to just tell Eames the truth. “You were pretty wasted last night.”

“Arthur-“ Eames says quietly.

“I found your shoes, by the way,” he continues, turning on the faucet. “They were in the elevator for some reason.”

“Arthur?”

Rinsing off a dirty dish is suddenly the most fascinating task in the world.

“Arthur, look at me.”

Arthur lets go of the plate and turns off the faucet. He takes one deep, steadying breath, hands braced on the counter, before forcing his head up. Eames is twisted round in his chair and looking at him with an expression of such sad kindness that Arthur can barely stand it.

“Why are you here?” Eames asks, his voice soft and low.

Arthur feels something clench in his chest, feels his stomach drop. He looks at Eames, helpless. He doesn't know why it's so hard to say, why he can't just tell Eames that it's been awful these last few months, that Arthur's missed him with a fierceness as strong as it was unexpected, that Arthur-

“Come here,” Eames says firmly, and Arthur goes to him instantly, as docile as a child. He lets Eames pull at him until he's straddling his legs, sitting on Eames' lap and resting his arms on Eames' strong shoulders. Eames' rubs at his back, soothing, and Arthur might've bristled over such treatment once, but right now he can't feel anything but relief at being so close. He lets his head rest against Eames and feels his breath slowly even out.

Eames' fingers toy with the soft hair at Arthur's nape. When he speaks again, his breath is warm on Arthur's ear. “Why are you here, Arthur?”

It seems easier to answer, somehow, with Eames' arms around him-with the slowly growing certainty that Eames still wants him. So Arthur pulls back just far enough to look Eames in the eyes, and says:

“I came for you.”

Eames smiles at that, sweet and private.

“Did you?” he says wonderingly, running his thumb over Arthur's lips. It makes Arthur breathless, makes him say “yeah”, even though no answer was necessary.

Eames drags his palm over Arthur's neck and all the way down his front. “Did you miss me?” he asks, voice taking on a low teasing lilt.

Arthur's heart beats wildly at Eames' easy touch.

“Mmm,” Eames rumbles out, rubbing at Arthur's dick through soft cotton. “Yeah, you did, didn't you?”

Arthur gasps and pushes up into Eames' hand, instantly hardening.

“I missed you too, you know,” Eames says, sliding his hand away despite Arthur's hum of displeasure. “Missed your slicked-back hair, your grumpy disposition,” he continues, roughly palming Arthur's ass. “Your lovely narrow hips.”

He pulls Arthur forward then, pressing him close so that he can grind up against his ass. Arthur lets out a feverish groan, clutches at Eames' ridiculously broad shoulders. The wooden chair creaks warningly underneath them as he begins to rut against Eames stomach, shameless.

“That's it,” Eames says, mouthing wetly at Arthur's neck, and soon enough, they find a hurried rhythm.

Arthur rocks back and feels Eames' hard cock drag sweetly across his balls. He thinks about how Eames must look right now, how his dick gets so red and flushed..

“I want to suck you,” Arthur says, suddenly desperate for it.

“Oh,” Eames groans, hips thrusting up sharply.

Arthur's fingers fumble at the tie on Eames' robe, tugging uselessly at the tight knot. “Eames, please. I want to-“

“Oh god, shut up,” Eames snarls, grasping the back of Arthur's neck and dragging him down into a harsh kiss. Arthur mouths at Eames' plush lips, sucks frantically at his tongue as Eames' hips begin to jerk hard, lifting Arthur up bodily with each thrust. Then his hands are tightening almost painfully at Arthur's hips, holding him still, holding Arthur close as he comes.

Eames slumps back, exhausted, and Arthur knows he should wait, that he should give Eames time to recover, but it feels as if he's been waiting forever and Arthur can't hold back a small greedy moan. He writhes on Eames' lap until Eames lazily lifts a hand to his mouth, licking messily at his own palm. Once he's got it nice and wet, he reaches into Arthur's pants and begins tugging roughly at Arthur's aching cock.

Arthur comes far too soon, spurting into Eames' hand and crying out, dismayed.

But it's all right, Arthur tells himself, panting into Eames' neck. It's okay, because they've got time.

Because tonight Arthur's not going to sleep alone on the couch. Tonight he's going to get Eames naked and spread out on his bed, and then Arthur's going to lick at his chest, rub his palms over Eames' nipples and ride his thick cock, slow and steady, until Eames bucks underneath him, until he's cursing with it, saying, “Fuck. Oh, fuck. Arthur. You fucking wanker. Oh. Oh, god. Oh.”

*

Arthur wakes up with his face buried in Eames' shoulder, one hand clutching at his side as if he'd been unwilling to let go even in sleep. He stretches out his legs and arches his back, groaning softly at the pleasing ache. Then he presses a sweet, lingering kiss to the side of Eames' neck and rolls out of bed.

He's pulling his boxers over his hips, when he hears rustling behind him.

“Leaving already?”

Arthur turns to see Eames, propped up on his elbows. His hair's a mess and he's smiling a little, sleepy, and Arthur, feeling horribly sentimental, imagines waking up every morning to the sight.

“I have a home too,” Arthur says, without thinking.

He knows right away that he sounds abrupt, that the words have come out all wrong, not at all the way he meant.

Eames face falls and he looks so disappointed that Arthur, not wanting to fuck this up again, not wanting to spend any more time missing Eames and thinking about him and having regrets, rushes to correct himself.

“No, no, Eames. I-I mean.” Arthur takes a calming breath. “I have a house,” he says carefully, willing Eames to understand. “In New York.”

In the moments that follow, Arthur feels like he's just jumped off the edge of a fathomless canyon: exhilarated and terrified and praying to any god that's listening that the harness is secure.

“Oh,” Eames says, quiet. He sits up then, swinging his legs around and off the bed. Arthur looks at the relaxed curve of Eames' spine, looks at Eames' twinkling eyes and the way his mouth is twitching at one corner.

His heart clenches sweetly in his chest, and Arthur feels a little breathless when he says, “It's a brownstone. On the Upper West Side.”

Eames turns away from him then. His hands are clutching at the edge of the mattress, and he seems to be staring at his feet, but Arthur can still see his face, can still see the wonderful curve of his mouth, pulled into a wide, helpless grin.

When he speaks, his voice is almost shaky. “I can't wait to see it, darling.”

THE END


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