Inception - Grace Under Pressure (8/10)
Title: Grace Under Pressure (8/10)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Word count: ~4,400
Pairings/Characters: ArthurxEames
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mentions of underage, language, mentions of past drug abuse, currently un-betaed
Summary: AU. Sequel to Bite Hard. Arthur reunites with Eames. By the next day, they're living together. Still, with the two of them, there's always the opportunity for things to get complicated.
Part Eight
Arthur hadn't said anything.
Eames was somewhat disturbed by the silent treatment, though he knew he deserved it. He'd realized his mistake about two seconds after Arthur had left the room, but when he'd tried to go after him, he was bombarded with questions from angry looking Cobb. Mal was staring at him wide-eyed like she was seeing him for the first time. Olivia was nowhere to be found, probably off looking for Arthur, but Eames knew that the boy could disappear when he didn't want to be found.
"What the fuck happened?" Cobb had asked, and Eames knew that even if it had been Arthur's fault, he would have been getting all the blame from his blue-green eyes.
"A little… a little spat is all," Eames had said, trying to make light of it while he wiped blood away from his upper lip with the side of his hand. He hoped Arthur hadn't broken his nose. "Too much time cooped up together, I guess. It's all right."
"I do hope for your sake you did not overstep your boundaries, Monsieur Eames," Mal said, and the fact that she was calling him Eames explained her attitude.
"Everything is all right," Eames replied, forcing on a smile, trying to ignore the bite in both of their words.
They didn't trust him. They never did, Cobb especially. Eames couldn't blame them.
…and clearly, things were not all right.
Arthur wasn't speaking to him.
Olivia was giving him the eye, like she was expecting him to do something, like he'd punched Arthur instead of the other way around, like Arthur was the one with the bruise on his not-broken-but-still-really-fucking-hurting nose.
Worst of all, Eames had a heroin problem.
Maybe it was progress to admit that he had one, but it sure didn't feel like a good thing. Clearly, he'd gotten a bit too attached to the stuff, and it was causing issue, but he told himself he'd been worse off before, that he could handle himself, that he just needed to get a grip and slow down on his usage, and then everything would be fine.
He had a bad habit, a real problem, but he wasn't an addict yet.
No, things were not fine, but they would be fine. He'd wean himself off until he was only using as much as he was before he reunited with Arthur, and then maybe quit for good just because he had better things to be spending his money on. Everything would be fine and good and back to normal. Soon.
(He hoped).
Arthur had been a wreck when his mother found him, crouched in the middle of the road, sobbing like he'd just seen his dog get hit by a car. She'd gotten him back on his feet and wrapped her coat around him, cooing soft words and giving warm hugs, but eventually she'd had to slap him to get him out of his hysteria.
He'd apologized but said nothing else.
He didn't want her to know what had taken place up in the room. He knew that she liked Eames, and he didn't want her to get the impression that Arthur didn't make wise decisions when it came to partners. He didn't want her making assumptions while he was still wondering himself. He needed to know for sure.
…Well, it wasn't like he didn't know, but he couldn't prove it… and that wasn't his only dilemma.
He still loved Eames, and despite the fact that he knew he had a problem, and quite possibly a very severe one, there was a part of him who wanted to shove it under the rug and deny, deny, deny. He didn't want to believe that Eames had a problem because that meant that they had a problem. If they had a problem, Arthur wasn't sure if he could fix it.
If he couldn't fix it… what did that mean?
It terrified him. He'd been without Eames before, but he'd never really been without him. Even without intending to, he'd saved himself for him. He'd still clung onto the remnants of their short whirlwind of a relationship with the drawing and the photograph and the rose-tinted memories, the sweet words and soft touches… It had never really ended for him then, even though he had said it was over. It had just been put on hold. He was always waiting, hoping for his stupid high school love to fade or for something to come out of it, and it just so happened that the latter came first.
…if Arthur couldn't fix it, if they couldn't be fixed, it would be over.
Over.
Ended.
Arthur didn't know how he'd be able to handle himself if that happened. Eames was his first love, his first kiss, the man he'd lost his virginity too, the man he'd opened up his heart and bared his fucking soul to, and for it to be over meant that all of that would be null and void. It would be meaningless.
…all of those years and emotions just… wasted…
It made him feel sick, and horrified, and confused, and doubtful, and… he didn't want that to be the case and so part of him continued to long for another reason for Eames's behavior, that he was paranoid and foolish and everything was fine.
He probably would have been better with coming up with something if he could even look Eames in the eye, but he felt guilty for punching him in the nose and worried he might blurt out something he'd regret. So, he didn't say anything else.
Thankfully, Arthur's mother seemed to understand that it wasn't something she could fix by forcing them to talk, and so she focused on the radio and the road and didn't talk to either of them either except to ask if they were ready to stop.
Eames slept or at least pretended to be asleep for most of the drive, and Arthur sifted through pictures he'd taken by pressing the back arrow on his viewfinder. There were some really great shots, he thought. He had some really nice, professional looking ones, but he also had the somewhat awkward posed ones of everyone together, most of them taken by his mother. They only brought him one fleeting moment of peace, Mal's glowing smile nowhere near as beautiful in real life, Cobb never realizing a picture was being taken until it was too late… but Eames…
He looked so tired and thin, staring at the lens like a stranger.
A picture really was worth a thousand words.
It was nearly midnight when Arthur and Eames returned to the apartment. Arthur turned the key in the lock and it sounded unbelievably loud amongst the silence. He went first to the thermostat to turn on the heat and then to go flick on a light, but before he could reach the switch, he was grabbed gently by the wrist.
"Arthur," Eames said, voice so quiet Arthur wondered for a moment if he had heard it in his head.
He turned slowly towards Eames and stared unsurely at him in the moonlight. His expression looked tortured, magnified by the bruises under each eye from the hard hit he'd taken.
"What?" Arthur asked, trying to sound defiant, but it came out in an uncertain little whisper.
Eames inhaled through his nose, frown deepening on his face, and for a moment Arthur thought he might cry, but instead he just shook his head and said, "I'm sorry."
Arthur didn't respond, but he felt his lip quiver a little with the longing to believe him.
"I'm… sorry for fucking up your vacation and for freaking out on you and for… for everything… I'm such a wanker, and I… I really hate myself right now, and you had every bloody right to hit me, and… if you want me to leave, I… I understand."
Arthur raised his eyebrows just a little. "Wh… I never told you to… I…" he stopped himself, pulling his hand away from Eames's slack, clammy grip. "Don't be fucking stupid…"
"You don't want me to-"
"Fuck up again, and that's it," Arthur replied, finding some form of resolve.
Surely Eames would quit with an ultimatum like that.
He loved Arthur enough to do that for him, right?
"Arthur-"
"I mean it," Arthur said, feeling his hands tremble just slightly, but his gaze held strong. "You've been acting like an asshole and a psychopath, and if you piss me off again, I'm done. You're out, and you're on your own. Understand?"
Eames's shoulders slumped in something like relief. "Of course I understand… I can't believe you're actually giving me another-I… I don't bloody deserve you."
He pulled Arthur to him then, holding on for dear life, and Arthur could feel him shaking underneath his fingers.
"Why do you keep saying that?" Arthur whispered, unconsciously stroking his spine, but Eames didn't seem to hear him.
Arthur's eyes fluttered closed, and he breathed in Eames's scent… that familiar scent with the unfamiliar undertone of dirt and sweat and something else, and… even with Eames being his main cause for concern, he felt unbelievably safe inside his arms. It sent him back to five years ago when Eames held him together every time his edges frayed.
"I love you," Arthur said, and apparently Eames heard him that time, because he kissed his shoulder and mumbled the same into his sleeve.
The next day went by without incident.
The day after that, Arthur went to see Robert and give him his Christmas gift.
"You came without the boyfriend, I see," Robert said as soon as he opened the door to his apartment (which was actually the size of a decent sized house, the rich bastard), eyebrows raised in the way he usually did when he was silently appraising someone or someone's decisions. "Everything all right?"
Arthur pretended not to notice the quirk of a smirk that came and went on Robert's lips.
"Just because we fuck doesn't mean we do everything together," Arthur replied, shoving inside so he wouldn't have to stand out in the cold staring into Robert's icy colored eyes. "If you'd ever had a real relationship, you'd know that only the clingy, insecure couples do that."
"Relationships are for the weak," Robert huffed, shutting out the cold.
Arthur glared at him a bit more sharply than necessary.
"I was just kidding," Robert replied irritably. "Don't look at me like that."
"Do you want your gift or not?" Arthur asked.
"Depends on what it is, what's wrong?"
Arthur sat down at Robert's kitchen table a bit harshly, chair legs scraping against the linoleum. If that wasn't a sign that something was wrong, Arthur didn't know what was. He needed to learn how to lie more easily.
"It's nothing," Arthur said anyway, hoping Robert would just let it go since he so seldom cared. "I'm fine."
Robert sat down across from him, leaning his chin on his fist and smiling the shit-eating, slasher smile that he got when he realized that he must have been right about something and was just waiting for the argument to start so that he could prove it. Arthur was already focusing heavily on his words to make sure he wouldn't give Robert the satisfaction.
"So, what classes are you taking next semester? You have signed up for them, right?" Arthur asked, digging his schedule out of his pocket to hand over.
"Of course I have," Robert replied, quickly reading over Arthur's classes. "I mean, it really doesn't matter since, with my father being the dean and all, I could get into any class I want, but I can fucking handle myself. We have two classes together."
"Really? That's all?" Arthur asked, retrieving the schedule.
"I'm taking a lot of night classes," Robert shrugged. "They're a bit more fast-paced, and it's not like I've got anything better to do on a weeknight when all the beautiful people are inside studying."
"If you wanted to party, you should have gone to a party school," Arthur replied, slapping a Starbucks gift card onto the table. "Merry Christmas. This should help you stay awake."
"Gracias," he said, immediately digging out his three hundred dollar wallet to slide it inside one of the pockets. "I don't mind drinking on your money once in a while. So, how are things with the boyfriend?"
"Fine," Arthur replied curtly, getting up to grab a drink out of the fridge, mostly to continue avoiding eye contact. "Things are fine."
"You sure don't sound convinced."
"Everything's fine, Robert. Stop trying to hear things in my voice that aren't there."
Robert snorted. "They are there. Are you really that much in de-"
Arthur slammed two sodas down on the tabletop. "I'm not. Everything is fine. I'm tired of you trying to poke holes in my relationship. You don't even know him."
"I've only spoken to you about him like… twice…" Robert said, eyebrows furrowing. "You're the one getting all pissed off. Can't a friend genuinely be concerned about another friend? What kind of angle do you think I'm trying to find?"
"You didn't like him from the moment you met him, and you think that everyone should feel the same way you do, so you're trying to convince me that he's trouble," Arthur grumbled, cracking the top of the soda only for it to foam over the edge and force him to frantically sip away at it.
"You really think I'm that much of a conniving son of a bitch?" Robert asked honestly.
In fact, his voice was so honest that it threw Arthur off for a minute, and then it made him feel guilty.
"I'm not," Robert continued, propping his head up with his fist. "I might give off that impression sometimes, but I'm not. No offense, but he looks kind of…" he paused to come up with a better word than the one he was thinking, "like trouble, so I thought you should be forewarned. I've fucked around with guys that looked like that before, and it was some of the biggest mistakes of my life."
"W-what'd they do?" Arthur asked hesitantly.
"One of them stole my television set, and another guy waited until after we'd had sex to tell me he had hepatitis."
Arthur's mouth fell slack.
"I didn't get it, if that's what you're wondering," Robert said with a roll of his eyes. "I was lucky, I guess. I always protect myself now at least. Have you been tested recently?"
"I-Well, uh…"
"Have you, or haven't you? It's not that difficult a question."
"The only one I've ever had sex with is Eames…"
He expected Robert to raise an eyebrow, snort, laugh at him, something, but he didn't. "How many people has Eames had sex with?"
"He says he hasn't slept with anyone since me… only like… blow jobs and stuff… and he only had one partner before me, um-his ex-girlfriend, Roxanne."
"Yeah, and how many people did she have sex with?" Robert continued, and Arthur realized that he was attempting to make a point.
"I don't know…" Arthur admitted. Eames had told him that she'd sold herself for drug money. It could have been dozens if not more. "Eames said he'd been tested since they broke up though."
"You know, the funny thing about words is that they can often be put together in a lie," Robert said, finally opening his own can of cola and sipping at it. "How do you know that any of those things he said were true?"
"He wouldn't-"
Actually, he'd never gotten an answer to the question when he'd asked Eames if he would lie to him.
"Also, you are aware you can get STDs from more than just sex, right?"
Arthur did know that, but he had refused to think about it.
"Eames doesn't do anything that-" he tried to say, but the real reason why he was upset was exactly that… and he believed Robert now knew that too. To try to save his floundering confidence, he said sternly, "he's not a drug addict."
"Whatever you say," Robert said, lifting his hands, "but all I'm going to say to that is if it looks like a duck and it sounds like a duck, it's probably a duck."
"He's not," Arthur tried again, and it came out sounding more desperate than he'd intended. "If he was, I would have known by now."
…but he did know…
He just didn't have any proof and therefore still had the ability to convince himself otherwise.
"Why? Is he actually living with you?" Robert asked, and he didn't sound mocking or condescending at all. He actually sounded concerned. It made Arthur unconsciously worry about his own safety.
"So… So what if he is? He's-I mean, we're a couple. Couples do stuff like that."
"Yeah, if they've been dating for a long time, but you guys just hooked up like… two months ago or so, right?"
"We were together before."
"Why'd you break it off last time?" Robert asked, and Arthur could tell he was waiting for him to spill about a past drug problem.
"I was sixteen and he was twenty-two, and I was trying to protect him."
"Oh," Robert said, apparently not expecting that even though he'd accused him of being jailbait before. Maybe he hadn't believed Arthur for real. He didn't know.
"I never stopped loving him though," Arthur tacked on, as if it would make a difference to Robert who didn't believe in love, as if it would make Arthur's suspicions go away and fix everything.
Robert sighed, running a hand over his hair. "Has anything gone missing yet?"
It made Arthur unreasonably angry. "Just because your television got stolen, doesn't mean-"
"What about Eames himself?" Robert asked, and that shut Arthur up for a long time.
"I don't-"
"So he acts exactly the way he did before. He's completely peachy and nice and fun and all that shit," Robert said skeptically.
"N-no, but people aren't like that all the time…"
He was grasping at straws he'd already grasped at before.
Robert stood. "Get up. I'm taking you to get tested down at the free clinic."
"No!" Arthur shouted.
"Yeah, I am, and if you refuse I'm just going to go ask your boyfriend up front, and then I'll call your mom and friends and tell them. Now, let's go."
"-but-"
"If you trusted your boyfriend completely, you wouldn't even be in this mess, so stop feeling guilty about it and get it taken care of. You don't look like you've slept, so get this off of your chest at least."
"I trust Eames."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"One hundred percent?"
Arthur hesitated and then finally admitted, "…no…"
Robert placed his hand between Arthur's shoulder blades and lightly shoved him to the door. "This is just my opinion, but you should really be rethinking your options right now."
"You can take your opinion and shove it up your ass, Robert," Arthur replied bitterly because he could still be angry about him being right.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Don't worry. They keep this whole doctor-patient confidentiality code. Nobody will find out if you have something or don't unless you tell them."
Eames had told himself that he'd wean himself off of the stuff, and yet here he was not a day after getting home and already knocking on Vince's door.
"So, you're back in town," Vince said when he opened the door. "Did you have a fun X-mas?"
"Vince, I don't have any money," Eames said guiltily. He'd searched Arthur's entire apartment, even under the couch cushions, and contemplated pawning some of Arthur's super nice things, but then Arthur would figure out what was going on.
He picked at the skin on the tip of his thumb where he'd bitten after chewing all of his nails down to the quick.
"You expect me to do something about that?" Vince asked but still let Eames inside. There was a young man in Vince's kitchen with scraggly hair and the build of a skeleton, heating a spoon over a flame on the stove.
"Who's that?" Eames asked.
"A customer who actually paid for his shit, so why are you here? I don't want any of your crummy paintings, and I don't do the whole 'I owe you this much money' shit."
"I know," Eames said, and while, when he'd first discovered that he was out of money, he'd assumed it was a sign to stop using and it was a good thing, it certainly didn't feel that way now. He'd tried to paint, but the tremors in his hands made it look like absolute shit, and he had no inspiration anyways, only managing a rough smattering on a canvas that looked eerily like Roxanne.
"And… why are you here?" Vince asked again, growing impatient.
"Well, I ah… I thought since um…"
"You thought that since you and I go way back that I'd make an exception for you?" he asked, and Eames nodded pathetically.
"Sort of… I mean, I used to buy from you back when-"
"Roxy was around, yeah I know. What the fuck happened to her anyway?"
"She died."
"Oh, right, I think I remember that now. Sorry, Eames-y, but no can do. You know how it works. I gotta eat, and favors don't put food on the table."
Vince actually could deal with eating more, Eames thought.
He would have been ready to give up and go if he didn't feel like he was dying.
"I'll pay for both next time. I just need to sell a painting and that should cover it-" Next time?
Vince chewed on his chapped bottom lip, seeming to think over Eames's offer.
"You know I'm good for it," Eames said, wiping at his nose with his wrist. A bead of sweat slipped down his temple, even though it was freezing outside. He was getting desperate, he realized, and that made him feel worse than he already did.
"I can't just give you anything," Vince said, digging out a cigarette and lighting it, "but you are a pretty good customer, so I guess I could give you a break, being that you look so shitty and all, and I mean we're friends right?"
They weren't, but Eames said, "Yes. Friends. Good friends."
"-and friends do stuff for each other."
"Y…yeah."
Vince paused for another moment, watching the smoke from his cigarette drift into the air. "Tell you what," Vince said, grinning his horrible teeth at Eames, "if you suck my cock, I'll give you a dime bag. No charge."
"What? I… no, I can't do that," Eames said.
"Roxanne did it back in the day, and you didn't seem to mind then."
"Yeah, but Roxanne-"
Roxanne was a heroin addict.
An addict.
"But Roxanne what?" Vince asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Nothing."
"Do we have a deal, Sunshine?"
Eames swallowed heavily, and he could feel waves of nausea continuing to wash over him, could feel the ache of his muscles and bones, could feel the beads of cold sweat forming on his brow and under his arms, could feel the dull sting from the almost-healed injection site on the back of his knee…
"I'm a bloody mess…" Eames mumbled.
"You never deserved-"
Eames cut off the memory before it got too far into his skull. "Fine. Once."
He didn't think about anything while Vince led him back to that same room where the girl had slept with the needle in her arm.
He didn't think about Arthur or Roxanne while Vince unzipped his fly.
He didn't think about Yusuf or Ariadne or Nash or Julia or Mal or Cobb or Olivia while he took him into his mouth.
He didn't think about the tremors or the sweats or the insomnia or the guilt or the pain in his joints or the nausea or the runny nose or the busted nose or the look on Arthur's face when he'd pinned him against the wall.
Actually, he did. He thought about all of those things.
…but mostly he just thought about the fact that he was an addict.
"You never deserved to be-"
He silenced the thought again.
Ahhh.... this is so late... Sorry for the delay you guys, but I had finals last week (4 A's and 3 B's LIKE A BOSS).
Author: osaki_nana_707
Word count: ~4,400
Pairings/Characters: ArthurxEames
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: mentions of underage, language, mentions of past drug abuse, currently un-betaed
Summary: AU. Sequel to Bite Hard. Arthur reunites with Eames. By the next day, they're living together. Still, with the two of them, there's always the opportunity for things to get complicated.
Part Eight
Arthur hadn't said anything.
Eames was somewhat disturbed by the silent treatment, though he knew he deserved it. He'd realized his mistake about two seconds after Arthur had left the room, but when he'd tried to go after him, he was bombarded with questions from angry looking Cobb. Mal was staring at him wide-eyed like she was seeing him for the first time. Olivia was nowhere to be found, probably off looking for Arthur, but Eames knew that the boy could disappear when he didn't want to be found.
"What the fuck happened?" Cobb had asked, and Eames knew that even if it had been Arthur's fault, he would have been getting all the blame from his blue-green eyes.
"A little… a little spat is all," Eames had said, trying to make light of it while he wiped blood away from his upper lip with the side of his hand. He hoped Arthur hadn't broken his nose. "Too much time cooped up together, I guess. It's all right."
"I do hope for your sake you did not overstep your boundaries, Monsieur Eames," Mal said, and the fact that she was calling him Eames explained her attitude.
"Everything is all right," Eames replied, forcing on a smile, trying to ignore the bite in both of their words.
They didn't trust him. They never did, Cobb especially. Eames couldn't blame them.
…and clearly, things were not all right.
Arthur wasn't speaking to him.
Olivia was giving him the eye, like she was expecting him to do something, like he'd punched Arthur instead of the other way around, like Arthur was the one with the bruise on his not-broken-but-still-really-fucking-hurting nose.
Worst of all, Eames had a heroin problem.
Maybe it was progress to admit that he had one, but it sure didn't feel like a good thing. Clearly, he'd gotten a bit too attached to the stuff, and it was causing issue, but he told himself he'd been worse off before, that he could handle himself, that he just needed to get a grip and slow down on his usage, and then everything would be fine.
He had a bad habit, a real problem, but he wasn't an addict yet.
No, things were not fine, but they would be fine. He'd wean himself off until he was only using as much as he was before he reunited with Arthur, and then maybe quit for good just because he had better things to be spending his money on. Everything would be fine and good and back to normal. Soon.
(He hoped).
Arthur had been a wreck when his mother found him, crouched in the middle of the road, sobbing like he'd just seen his dog get hit by a car. She'd gotten him back on his feet and wrapped her coat around him, cooing soft words and giving warm hugs, but eventually she'd had to slap him to get him out of his hysteria.
He'd apologized but said nothing else.
He didn't want her to know what had taken place up in the room. He knew that she liked Eames, and he didn't want her to get the impression that Arthur didn't make wise decisions when it came to partners. He didn't want her making assumptions while he was still wondering himself. He needed to know for sure.
…Well, it wasn't like he didn't know, but he couldn't prove it… and that wasn't his only dilemma.
He still loved Eames, and despite the fact that he knew he had a problem, and quite possibly a very severe one, there was a part of him who wanted to shove it under the rug and deny, deny, deny. He didn't want to believe that Eames had a problem because that meant that they had a problem. If they had a problem, Arthur wasn't sure if he could fix it.
If he couldn't fix it… what did that mean?
It terrified him. He'd been without Eames before, but he'd never really been without him. Even without intending to, he'd saved himself for him. He'd still clung onto the remnants of their short whirlwind of a relationship with the drawing and the photograph and the rose-tinted memories, the sweet words and soft touches… It had never really ended for him then, even though he had said it was over. It had just been put on hold. He was always waiting, hoping for his stupid high school love to fade or for something to come out of it, and it just so happened that the latter came first.
…if Arthur couldn't fix it, if they couldn't be fixed, it would be over.
Over.
Ended.
Arthur didn't know how he'd be able to handle himself if that happened. Eames was his first love, his first kiss, the man he'd lost his virginity too, the man he'd opened up his heart and bared his fucking soul to, and for it to be over meant that all of that would be null and void. It would be meaningless.
…all of those years and emotions just… wasted…
It made him feel sick, and horrified, and confused, and doubtful, and… he didn't want that to be the case and so part of him continued to long for another reason for Eames's behavior, that he was paranoid and foolish and everything was fine.
He probably would have been better with coming up with something if he could even look Eames in the eye, but he felt guilty for punching him in the nose and worried he might blurt out something he'd regret. So, he didn't say anything else.
Thankfully, Arthur's mother seemed to understand that it wasn't something she could fix by forcing them to talk, and so she focused on the radio and the road and didn't talk to either of them either except to ask if they were ready to stop.
Eames slept or at least pretended to be asleep for most of the drive, and Arthur sifted through pictures he'd taken by pressing the back arrow on his viewfinder. There were some really great shots, he thought. He had some really nice, professional looking ones, but he also had the somewhat awkward posed ones of everyone together, most of them taken by his mother. They only brought him one fleeting moment of peace, Mal's glowing smile nowhere near as beautiful in real life, Cobb never realizing a picture was being taken until it was too late… but Eames…
He looked so tired and thin, staring at the lens like a stranger.
A picture really was worth a thousand words.
It was nearly midnight when Arthur and Eames returned to the apartment. Arthur turned the key in the lock and it sounded unbelievably loud amongst the silence. He went first to the thermostat to turn on the heat and then to go flick on a light, but before he could reach the switch, he was grabbed gently by the wrist.
"Arthur," Eames said, voice so quiet Arthur wondered for a moment if he had heard it in his head.
He turned slowly towards Eames and stared unsurely at him in the moonlight. His expression looked tortured, magnified by the bruises under each eye from the hard hit he'd taken.
"What?" Arthur asked, trying to sound defiant, but it came out in an uncertain little whisper.
Eames inhaled through his nose, frown deepening on his face, and for a moment Arthur thought he might cry, but instead he just shook his head and said, "I'm sorry."
Arthur didn't respond, but he felt his lip quiver a little with the longing to believe him.
"I'm… sorry for fucking up your vacation and for freaking out on you and for… for everything… I'm such a wanker, and I… I really hate myself right now, and you had every bloody right to hit me, and… if you want me to leave, I… I understand."
Arthur raised his eyebrows just a little. "Wh… I never told you to… I…" he stopped himself, pulling his hand away from Eames's slack, clammy grip. "Don't be fucking stupid…"
"You don't want me to-"
"Fuck up again, and that's it," Arthur replied, finding some form of resolve.
Surely Eames would quit with an ultimatum like that.
He loved Arthur enough to do that for him, right?
"Arthur-"
"I mean it," Arthur said, feeling his hands tremble just slightly, but his gaze held strong. "You've been acting like an asshole and a psychopath, and if you piss me off again, I'm done. You're out, and you're on your own. Understand?"
Eames's shoulders slumped in something like relief. "Of course I understand… I can't believe you're actually giving me another-I… I don't bloody deserve you."
He pulled Arthur to him then, holding on for dear life, and Arthur could feel him shaking underneath his fingers.
"Why do you keep saying that?" Arthur whispered, unconsciously stroking his spine, but Eames didn't seem to hear him.
Arthur's eyes fluttered closed, and he breathed in Eames's scent… that familiar scent with the unfamiliar undertone of dirt and sweat and something else, and… even with Eames being his main cause for concern, he felt unbelievably safe inside his arms. It sent him back to five years ago when Eames held him together every time his edges frayed.
"I love you," Arthur said, and apparently Eames heard him that time, because he kissed his shoulder and mumbled the same into his sleeve.
The next day went by without incident.
The day after that, Arthur went to see Robert and give him his Christmas gift.
"You came without the boyfriend, I see," Robert said as soon as he opened the door to his apartment (which was actually the size of a decent sized house, the rich bastard), eyebrows raised in the way he usually did when he was silently appraising someone or someone's decisions. "Everything all right?"
Arthur pretended not to notice the quirk of a smirk that came and went on Robert's lips.
"Just because we fuck doesn't mean we do everything together," Arthur replied, shoving inside so he wouldn't have to stand out in the cold staring into Robert's icy colored eyes. "If you'd ever had a real relationship, you'd know that only the clingy, insecure couples do that."
"Relationships are for the weak," Robert huffed, shutting out the cold.
Arthur glared at him a bit more sharply than necessary.
"I was just kidding," Robert replied irritably. "Don't look at me like that."
"Do you want your gift or not?" Arthur asked.
"Depends on what it is, what's wrong?"
Arthur sat down at Robert's kitchen table a bit harshly, chair legs scraping against the linoleum. If that wasn't a sign that something was wrong, Arthur didn't know what was. He needed to learn how to lie more easily.
"It's nothing," Arthur said anyway, hoping Robert would just let it go since he so seldom cared. "I'm fine."
Robert sat down across from him, leaning his chin on his fist and smiling the shit-eating, slasher smile that he got when he realized that he must have been right about something and was just waiting for the argument to start so that he could prove it. Arthur was already focusing heavily on his words to make sure he wouldn't give Robert the satisfaction.
"So, what classes are you taking next semester? You have signed up for them, right?" Arthur asked, digging his schedule out of his pocket to hand over.
"Of course I have," Robert replied, quickly reading over Arthur's classes. "I mean, it really doesn't matter since, with my father being the dean and all, I could get into any class I want, but I can fucking handle myself. We have two classes together."
"Really? That's all?" Arthur asked, retrieving the schedule.
"I'm taking a lot of night classes," Robert shrugged. "They're a bit more fast-paced, and it's not like I've got anything better to do on a weeknight when all the beautiful people are inside studying."
"If you wanted to party, you should have gone to a party school," Arthur replied, slapping a Starbucks gift card onto the table. "Merry Christmas. This should help you stay awake."
"Gracias," he said, immediately digging out his three hundred dollar wallet to slide it inside one of the pockets. "I don't mind drinking on your money once in a while. So, how are things with the boyfriend?"
"Fine," Arthur replied curtly, getting up to grab a drink out of the fridge, mostly to continue avoiding eye contact. "Things are fine."
"You sure don't sound convinced."
"Everything's fine, Robert. Stop trying to hear things in my voice that aren't there."
Robert snorted. "They are there. Are you really that much in de-"
Arthur slammed two sodas down on the tabletop. "I'm not. Everything is fine. I'm tired of you trying to poke holes in my relationship. You don't even know him."
"I've only spoken to you about him like… twice…" Robert said, eyebrows furrowing. "You're the one getting all pissed off. Can't a friend genuinely be concerned about another friend? What kind of angle do you think I'm trying to find?"
"You didn't like him from the moment you met him, and you think that everyone should feel the same way you do, so you're trying to convince me that he's trouble," Arthur grumbled, cracking the top of the soda only for it to foam over the edge and force him to frantically sip away at it.
"You really think I'm that much of a conniving son of a bitch?" Robert asked honestly.
In fact, his voice was so honest that it threw Arthur off for a minute, and then it made him feel guilty.
"I'm not," Robert continued, propping his head up with his fist. "I might give off that impression sometimes, but I'm not. No offense, but he looks kind of…" he paused to come up with a better word than the one he was thinking, "like trouble, so I thought you should be forewarned. I've fucked around with guys that looked like that before, and it was some of the biggest mistakes of my life."
"W-what'd they do?" Arthur asked hesitantly.
"One of them stole my television set, and another guy waited until after we'd had sex to tell me he had hepatitis."
Arthur's mouth fell slack.
"I didn't get it, if that's what you're wondering," Robert said with a roll of his eyes. "I was lucky, I guess. I always protect myself now at least. Have you been tested recently?"
"I-Well, uh…"
"Have you, or haven't you? It's not that difficult a question."
"The only one I've ever had sex with is Eames…"
He expected Robert to raise an eyebrow, snort, laugh at him, something, but he didn't. "How many people has Eames had sex with?"
"He says he hasn't slept with anyone since me… only like… blow jobs and stuff… and he only had one partner before me, um-his ex-girlfriend, Roxanne."
"Yeah, and how many people did she have sex with?" Robert continued, and Arthur realized that he was attempting to make a point.
"I don't know…" Arthur admitted. Eames had told him that she'd sold herself for drug money. It could have been dozens if not more. "Eames said he'd been tested since they broke up though."
"You know, the funny thing about words is that they can often be put together in a lie," Robert said, finally opening his own can of cola and sipping at it. "How do you know that any of those things he said were true?"
"He wouldn't-"
Actually, he'd never gotten an answer to the question when he'd asked Eames if he would lie to him.
"Also, you are aware you can get STDs from more than just sex, right?"
Arthur did know that, but he had refused to think about it.
"Eames doesn't do anything that-" he tried to say, but the real reason why he was upset was exactly that… and he believed Robert now knew that too. To try to save his floundering confidence, he said sternly, "he's not a drug addict."
"Whatever you say," Robert said, lifting his hands, "but all I'm going to say to that is if it looks like a duck and it sounds like a duck, it's probably a duck."
"He's not," Arthur tried again, and it came out sounding more desperate than he'd intended. "If he was, I would have known by now."
…but he did know…
He just didn't have any proof and therefore still had the ability to convince himself otherwise.
"Why? Is he actually living with you?" Robert asked, and he didn't sound mocking or condescending at all. He actually sounded concerned. It made Arthur unconsciously worry about his own safety.
"So… So what if he is? He's-I mean, we're a couple. Couples do stuff like that."
"Yeah, if they've been dating for a long time, but you guys just hooked up like… two months ago or so, right?"
"We were together before."
"Why'd you break it off last time?" Robert asked, and Arthur could tell he was waiting for him to spill about a past drug problem.
"I was sixteen and he was twenty-two, and I was trying to protect him."
"Oh," Robert said, apparently not expecting that even though he'd accused him of being jailbait before. Maybe he hadn't believed Arthur for real. He didn't know.
"I never stopped loving him though," Arthur tacked on, as if it would make a difference to Robert who didn't believe in love, as if it would make Arthur's suspicions go away and fix everything.
Robert sighed, running a hand over his hair. "Has anything gone missing yet?"
It made Arthur unreasonably angry. "Just because your television got stolen, doesn't mean-"
"What about Eames himself?" Robert asked, and that shut Arthur up for a long time.
"I don't-"
"So he acts exactly the way he did before. He's completely peachy and nice and fun and all that shit," Robert said skeptically.
"N-no, but people aren't like that all the time…"
He was grasping at straws he'd already grasped at before.
Robert stood. "Get up. I'm taking you to get tested down at the free clinic."
"No!" Arthur shouted.
"Yeah, I am, and if you refuse I'm just going to go ask your boyfriend up front, and then I'll call your mom and friends and tell them. Now, let's go."
"-but-"
"If you trusted your boyfriend completely, you wouldn't even be in this mess, so stop feeling guilty about it and get it taken care of. You don't look like you've slept, so get this off of your chest at least."
"I trust Eames."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"One hundred percent?"
Arthur hesitated and then finally admitted, "…no…"
Robert placed his hand between Arthur's shoulder blades and lightly shoved him to the door. "This is just my opinion, but you should really be rethinking your options right now."
"You can take your opinion and shove it up your ass, Robert," Arthur replied bitterly because he could still be angry about him being right.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Don't worry. They keep this whole doctor-patient confidentiality code. Nobody will find out if you have something or don't unless you tell them."
Eames had told himself that he'd wean himself off of the stuff, and yet here he was not a day after getting home and already knocking on Vince's door.
"So, you're back in town," Vince said when he opened the door. "Did you have a fun X-mas?"
"Vince, I don't have any money," Eames said guiltily. He'd searched Arthur's entire apartment, even under the couch cushions, and contemplated pawning some of Arthur's super nice things, but then Arthur would figure out what was going on.
He picked at the skin on the tip of his thumb where he'd bitten after chewing all of his nails down to the quick.
"You expect me to do something about that?" Vince asked but still let Eames inside. There was a young man in Vince's kitchen with scraggly hair and the build of a skeleton, heating a spoon over a flame on the stove.
"Who's that?" Eames asked.
"A customer who actually paid for his shit, so why are you here? I don't want any of your crummy paintings, and I don't do the whole 'I owe you this much money' shit."
"I know," Eames said, and while, when he'd first discovered that he was out of money, he'd assumed it was a sign to stop using and it was a good thing, it certainly didn't feel that way now. He'd tried to paint, but the tremors in his hands made it look like absolute shit, and he had no inspiration anyways, only managing a rough smattering on a canvas that looked eerily like Roxanne.
"And… why are you here?" Vince asked again, growing impatient.
"Well, I ah… I thought since um…"
"You thought that since you and I go way back that I'd make an exception for you?" he asked, and Eames nodded pathetically.
"Sort of… I mean, I used to buy from you back when-"
"Roxy was around, yeah I know. What the fuck happened to her anyway?"
"She died."
"Oh, right, I think I remember that now. Sorry, Eames-y, but no can do. You know how it works. I gotta eat, and favors don't put food on the table."
Vince actually could deal with eating more, Eames thought.
He would have been ready to give up and go if he didn't feel like he was dying.
"I'll pay for both next time. I just need to sell a painting and that should cover it-" Next time?
Vince chewed on his chapped bottom lip, seeming to think over Eames's offer.
"You know I'm good for it," Eames said, wiping at his nose with his wrist. A bead of sweat slipped down his temple, even though it was freezing outside. He was getting desperate, he realized, and that made him feel worse than he already did.
"I can't just give you anything," Vince said, digging out a cigarette and lighting it, "but you are a pretty good customer, so I guess I could give you a break, being that you look so shitty and all, and I mean we're friends right?"
They weren't, but Eames said, "Yes. Friends. Good friends."
"-and friends do stuff for each other."
"Y…yeah."
Vince paused for another moment, watching the smoke from his cigarette drift into the air. "Tell you what," Vince said, grinning his horrible teeth at Eames, "if you suck my cock, I'll give you a dime bag. No charge."
"What? I… no, I can't do that," Eames said.
"Roxanne did it back in the day, and you didn't seem to mind then."
"Yeah, but Roxanne-"
Roxanne was a heroin addict.
An addict.
"But Roxanne what?" Vince asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Nothing."
"Do we have a deal, Sunshine?"
Eames swallowed heavily, and he could feel waves of nausea continuing to wash over him, could feel the ache of his muscles and bones, could feel the beads of cold sweat forming on his brow and under his arms, could feel the dull sting from the almost-healed injection site on the back of his knee…
"I'm a bloody mess…" Eames mumbled.
"You never deserved-"
Eames cut off the memory before it got too far into his skull. "Fine. Once."
He didn't think about anything while Vince led him back to that same room where the girl had slept with the needle in her arm.
He didn't think about Arthur or Roxanne while Vince unzipped his fly.
He didn't think about Yusuf or Ariadne or Nash or Julia or Mal or Cobb or Olivia while he took him into his mouth.
He didn't think about the tremors or the sweats or the insomnia or the guilt or the pain in his joints or the nausea or the runny nose or the busted nose or the look on Arthur's face when he'd pinned him against the wall.
Actually, he did. He thought about all of those things.
…but mostly he just thought about the fact that he was an addict.
"You never deserved to be-"
He silenced the thought again.
Ahhh.... this is so late... Sorry for the delay you guys, but I had finals last week (4 A's and 3 B's LIKE A BOSS).