Inception - Pretend That You're Alone (6/11)

[osaki_nana_707]

Title: Pretend That You're Alone (6/11)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Word count: 4,107
Pairings/Characters: ArthurxEames, Yusuf
Rating: very heavy R(this part)
Warnings: language, underage, age difference (16/32)
Summary: AU. Eames is a burned out university professor who goes to the park for lunch to get away from the chaos of his life. There he meets 16-year-old Arthur and begins to befriend him for his ability to have an intelligent conversation with him. When he discovers the boy is homeless, he decides to take care of him, but things with Arthur get more complicated than he could ever expect.



Part Six

Arthur still kissed clumsily, Eames realized.

He realized it, surprisingly, even while he was in the middle of sliding his hands up under Arthur's shirt, hiking it up on his body as much as he possibly could without peeling it off. Even with heat crawling up his spine and trying to devour him, Eames still noticed the way he nipped at him unsurely and didn't seem to know what to do with his tongue. With all the finesse he used when sucking someone off, kissing was still something entirely new to him.

Eames broke off the kiss, panting into his mouth before sitting back to look down at Arthur splayed out along the cushions. "All right there, love?" Eames asked, and he wasn't smiling fondly at him, he wasn't.

Arthur blinked slowly as if coming out of a trance. "Yeah," he breathed. "I'm… I'm okay… Come on… Let's-let's get on with it."

Arthur lifted himself off of the cushions, lifting his arms to let Eames slip his shirt over his head for him, and then Eames leaned back in to kiss him languidly. Eames swore for a moment that Arthur's lip trembled between his. He broke the kiss and trailed up his jawline to his ear where he flicked his tongue along the shell, and Arthur just whimpered. "Please… Please," Arthur begged, and there was a part of Eames that wondered if he was really that antsy or if he was genuinely disturbed by the gentle way Eames handled him.

Eames really didn't have time to truly question it because Arthur was tugging at Eames's shirt, fiddling with the buttons until he got frustrated and snapped the fabric apart, sending buttons flying across the room.

"You're going to have to tell me the stories of these sometime," Arthur said, sliding his ice cold fingers down Eames's tattooed chest. "Man, how can any of your students not think you're cool?"

"I don't do this with any of my students," Eames said, watching through heavily lidded eyes while Arthur loosed his belt. "I never would."

"Why?" Arthur asked, dimpling his cheeks while still concentrating on the task of unbuttoning Eames's trousers. "Because they're young? Because office romances are a drag? Because they're idiots?"

"I guess it depends on the student, doesn't it-" Eames started to reply but was cut off by a moan when Arthur wrapped a hand around his freed cock. "Oh, you like to get right to the point, don't you?"

"I've never been much for foreplay, no," Arthur replied, and his voice took on almost a bitter quality, a nervous quality. Eames couldn't comment because Arthur swallowed him down to the hilt and all he could do was let his eyes roll back in his head and let his eyelashes flutter.

"Christ, Arthur," Eames choked. Arthur shut him up by shoving his fingers into Eames's mouth to suck on.

Arthur only swallowed Eames down a few times before coming up for air, wiping excess drool off of his chin with his free hand. "Do you still not want to have sex with me?" Arthur asked, chest heaving beautifully.

"I still have some semblance of self-control," Eames grunted, and that sounded like a lie if he'd ever heard one. Arthur was smirking at him as if he knew it too, so Eames tried again in order to save himself from… whatever he was saving himself from. "Besides," he said, "I thought you didn't do the 'penetration' thing."

Arthur suddenly backed away from him as if he'd been stung, stumbling on the heels of his feet and hands until he nearly fell off of the couch. He planted one foot on the ground to keep himself balanced, giving Eames a ridiculously appealing view of the noticeable bulge in his jeans. Still, Eames couldn't help but look at that horrified face on the boy.

"What?" Eames asked, confused.

"I never said that you'd be fucking me," Arthur growled as if Eames had gone out of his way to personally offend him. "No one penetrates me. That's how I work."

"I never said that I was…" Eames started to say, but trailed off when the look of fear didn't diminish. "What did you want to do, then?"

Arthur clambered unsteadily to his feet and looked down at Eames, and the fear was gone. In fact, any hint of real emotion seemed to vanish. "That's right," he said quietly, as if to himself. "We do things my way… I play the game, but no one goes against the rules. No one."

Eames wasn't sure if he wanted the boy anymore with him talking like that. In fact, he'd forgotten about it momentarily, standing and planting his hands lightly on his shoulders. "Arthur," he said softly but firmly. "Arthur, are you still in there?"

Arthur's wild black eyes blinked, and recognition seemed to return to them then. He looked up to Eames as if seeing him for the first time. "I'm here," he said, voice cracking. He swallowed and said again, more steadily, "I'm here."

Arthur wrapped his arms around Eames's waist, pressing himself against him in a rather crushing embrace, as if he was clinging onto Eames for dear life.

"That's enough nonsense for the night," Eames whispered to him, combing Arthur's hair with his fingers, trying to calm the boy's nerves. "Let's just get ourselves into the bath and to bed, all right?"

Arthur wouldn't budge when Eames tried to pull him off of him, so Eames resorted to stroking his head and back again for a few minutes until Arthur's tense muscles relaxed a little.

"Come now, Arthur, let's get you to the bath," Eames offered again.

"Don't make me go there by myself," Arthur said timidly.

Eames sighed. "I won't. Come on, we'll go there together then, all right?"

Arthur held his hand on the way to the bathroom and didn't seem to get back to his senses until he was sinking into the hot water of the tub.

"Arthur," Eames said, leaning against the side of the tub, "did something happen to you?"

"No," Arthur replied immediately and tugged on Eames's wrist. "Get in."

Eames hesitantly did as told, figuring he might as well. "Well, at least you're starting to sound like yourself again," he said.

"Just taking care of business," Arthur replied, wrapping his hand around Eames again and stroking him until he became fully hard again. He did this with a laser focus that was anything but enchanting, but Eames's body couldn't help but react to the touch. He just tried not to look too much at the boy at that moment, eyes squeezing shut.

"You don't have to do this," Eames choked.

Arthur's mouth curved into a hard frown, but he didn't slow down, didn't look up at Eames. "Yes," he said roughly, "I do."

The nerves coiling up Eames's spine made him climax undeniably quickly. It wasn't nearly as maddening and powerful as the one from the night before, but it was still better than any he'd ever experienced with any woman he'd slept with in the past. He was pretty sure he was a homosexual by this point.

He slumped in the tub and found Arthur had laid his head on his chest. The boy was breathing harder than Eames was, and all Eames could do was put an arm around him and stare up at the ceiling as the steam around them fluttered upwards in ribbons and vanished.

"One of these days, you're actually going to talk to me," Eames said to him and pressed a small kiss to the top of his head.

Arthur didn't say anything.

The next morning, Eames found himself entangled in his bed sheets and Arthur's limbs.

He blinked a few times, yawning and considered going back to sleep until Arthur lifted his head from Eames's chest and drowsily smiled.

"Breakfast?" Eames asked.

"In a bit," Arthur mumbled, lying back down. "Sorry about last night. I was a little weird yesterday."

Eames was tempted to shrug it off and allow himself to not worry about it, but he couldn't help but ask, "What was that all about anyway?"

"I just get like that sometimes…" Arthur replied vaguely. "I probably just have some mental problems or something."

"It seems to me like you've been experiencing some coping mechanisms," Eames offered, his hand finding his way into Arthur's hair once again. "That's just a theory of course. I have a degree in psychology, but that doesn't mean I'm a therapist."

"Coping mechanisms?" Arthur scoffed. "For what?"

"I don't know," Eames shrugged. "Your mother, being homeless… you tell me, Arthur."

"I don't have to tell you anything," Arthur mumbled. "Besides, there's nothing to tell."

Eames was pretty sure trying to force an answer out of him was a bad idea, so he decided to let it go… for the moment anyway…

…but after his bizarre shift in attitude, Eames most definitely intended to find out just what was going on underneath his surface.

He had to know.

…not because he really desperately cared or any kind of nonsense like that, but because he'd always been dangerously curious. He had always gone to great lengths in the pursuit of knowledge, whether it had been climbing to the highest tree in his childhood neighborhood to see what it looked like from above or whether it had been pulling the fire alarm at school when no one was looking just to see if anyone could find out if he'd done it or not. He'd pierced his ear when he was fifteen to see how long he could hide it from his mother, run away when he was four to see how long it would take for someone to realize he was gone…

It really had nothing to do with any worry or fear he had about Arthur. Sure, he cared about him, but he didn't care about him that much. Caring about someone that much was borderline love.

"Come on," Arthur said, crawling off of him. "Let's go out to breakfast. We can get some Mickey D's or something. I already ate all the cereal."

Eames watched as the boy crossed the room, completely nude, unable to help but admire the perfect lines of his back and the freckles on his shoulder blades, the mole on his ass… and then he watched as he crouched before Eames's dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer.

In the bottom drawer were the clothes Eames had bought for him. Not only had he not sold a single article of them, he'd stashed them in the room like he already belonged there. Eames's emotions swam unsurely around inside his chest. He couldn't pinpoint quite how he felt about the fact that Arthur had moved into his room (it was only at that moment that he realized they'd started sharing the same bed without any preempting). He didn't even care that Arthur had lied about selling the clothes. The fact that he'd kept them meant that they were important to him, and that was at least proof that he gave a damn about something… but he didn't keep the clothes in his bag, and he came back at the end of the day, and… well, sure, there was the clear fact that living in Eames's place was a definite improvement from hunkering down in an alleyway but…

…but maybe, just maybe, Eames meant something to Arthur too.

"I sort of… hoped you'd be here. It's nice to have someone who doesn't just pass me off as completely invisible."

"Eames."

Eames snapped out of his daze to find that Arthur had dressed and crawled back onto the bed to snap his fingers in front of his face. "Come on. Breakfast. They stop serving at 10:30."

"Right," Eames said, throwing off the sheets. "I'll be out in a moment. Just let me get dressed."

Arthur wandered out, mumbling to himself about what he would get, and Eames wished he could get as excited about McDonald's as Arthur could, but then again, he was glad that he didn't.

He smiled a little to himself, tugging on a long-sleeved shirt, a cardigan, and some jeans and boots. It was actually a little bizarre to even be getting dressed on the weekend, considering he usually spent his time cooped up in his room or office, grading papers in his pajamas and drinking tea until his bladder nearly exploded and then going back to do it all over again. Still, it wasn't like a little change of pace was a bad thing; he'd been in a hell of a rut, after all. He wondered if the fact that Arthur had brought about this change of pace was leading to disaster, however, but he didn't let it bother him too badly for the moment.

For the moment, he just reveled in the look of surprise that Arthur gave him when he came walking into the living room. "What?" Eames asked.

"I've never seen you in civvies before," Arthur said, gesturing to Eames's clothes. "Usually you're in those ugly shirts and dress pants since you work all the time, but… I like you like this." Arthur's smile was devious, and Eames couldn't help but preen a little under his gaze.

They tugged on their coats and were out the door into the chilled morning. Eames thought it was damned cold for late October, but he didn't mind it with Arthur close to his side. He was just happy that Arthur was back in better spirits, not acting in the bizarre, insane way he had the night before…

…Still, he wondered about that. What had brought that about? It was incredibly unsettling, even just thinking about the look on his face, the way his voice had taken on that hint of madness. Arthur had been afraid, no-terrified of some unseen force that may or may not have been real, and Eames for one was beginning to wonder just what had happened to Arthur to cause that to happen… had something even really happened? What if Arthur suffered from some sort of mental disease? Quite a few people that lived on the streets did, and it wasn't like Arthur's perspective on life wasn't inhumanly warped.

…but really, Eames was just as warped, since he'd given in to his temptation and let the attraction he had to the boy fuel him into doing some probably regrettable things. If Arthur was mentally unstable, then Eames doubtlessly had just as much reason to be in an institution. He didn't think either of them needed a straitjacket for any other reason than keeping their hands off of each other.

Okay, maybe that was a bit of a real problem, but it wasn't the kind of problem that required intense therapy and medication at least.

Arthur fished a cigarette out of his coat pocket, lit it. Eames watched the way his lips curled around it, how the smoke puffed out of his nose.

"Do you trust me, Arthur?" Eames found himself asking, purely out of curiosity.

Arthur looked up at him. "Not necessarily," he said without hesitation. "Did you expect a different answer?"

"No, actually, I didn't," Eames said lightly. "After all, you certainly don't tell me a lot of things. I haven't given you any reason to trust me with your secrets. Of course, even if you don't believe me, you can trust me."

Arthur's vision darted out to the street, staring blankly at the cars moving by. "You'll have to prove it to me, if you want my trust so badly."

Eames hadn't said that he wanted Arthur's trust, but… well… maybe he had been indirectly asking for it by asking him if he trusted him in the first place. Really, Eames thought, that wasn't fair because he didn't exactly trust Arthur either.

…but he wanted to.

He wanted to trust him because if he could trust him, that meant he wasn't out of his fucking mind for taking that dangerous step forward in the chaos that was their relationship. He couldn't help Arthur or himself until trust was there.

So, he would find a way to trust Arthur and for Arthur to trust him.

It was quite possible that Arthur ordered everything off of the McDonald's breakfast menu.

Eames had seen the boy devour food unabashedly, but really, he had just an inhuman love of McDonald's. He couldn't help but find it cute and endearing, watching the boy excitedly smile and gratefully accept the large cup of cola when the woman behind the counter handed it to him.

Arthur carried his tray piled high with food to a table and Eames joined him with his much smaller breakfast. "That's a good boy," Eames told him. "You definitely need to fatten yourself up a little bit. You're just skin and bones."

"I would be anyway," Arthur said around a mouthful of food. "I've always been kind of on the scrawny side. Even when I did get regular meals, I still never seemed to gain any weight."

Eames doubted Arthur had ever really gotten regular meals, but he couldn't be sure. "Whatever. Eating is good for you."

"I am a growing boy," Arthur agreed cheekily. Eames would have smacked that shit-eating grin off of his face had he not been quite so precious.

They ate, speaking companionably about nothing. Arthur would point out people in the restaurant and in a hushed voice make a clever insult. Eames wasn't ashamed to admit that he laughed loud and uproariously as Arthur continued making ridiculous comments about this person or that person. They got a couple of glares, but Eames didn't care. Arthur was funny so they could go fuck themselves.

Everything was so funny right up until someone said, "Eames?"

Both he and Arthur's laughter trailed off, and they both looked up to see Yusuf standing there looking terribly, terribly confused.

"Yusuf," Eames said, smiling through his absolute horror. "Fancy that. Wh-what, what are you doing here?"

"Coffee," Yusuf said slowly, and he wasn't looking at Eames at all. His eyes trailed over Arthur curiously, hesitant and suspicious. "Who is… ah… who is this?"

"Ah-" Eames started to say.

"I'm his friend," Arthur said innocently. "I'm Arthur."

"I… see…" Yusuf said slowly, brows furrowed. "How did the two of you come to be friends exactly?"

"We're fucking," Arthur said, completely straight-faced.

Eames's mouth fell open, and for a moment it felt like all the air in the place had disappeared. The seconds ticked by unbearably slowly, and then…

Arthur howled with laughter, pointing at Yusuf. "Your face! The look on your face! Did you really think I was serious?"

Eames's sigh of relief was simultaneous with Yusuf's, and thankfully Yusuf didn't notice it.

"Eames and I met at the park," Arthur said. "He lost a bet, so now he has to buy me breakfast."

"What bet exactly?" Yusuf asked, looking from one to the other.

"We cannot discuss the bet. Those were the rules," Arthur said, and Eames couldn't help but marvel at Arthur's ability to bluff under pressure. He thought it might do to take him to a poker game sometime.

"Oh, is that so?" Yusuf said, and if anything, he was a little bit skeptical, despite how cool-headed Arthur was.

"Ah… excuse me a moment," Eames said to Arthur and led Yusuf outside with a palm on his shoulder.

As soon as the door shut behind them, Yusuf whirled on him. "Why are you having breakfast with a teenager, Eames? What's going on here? Do you even know what you look like?"

"Yusuf, it's just breakfast," Eames complained, and really, it wasn't like Yusuf didn't have a right to be suspicious… but if there was one thing Yusuf wouldn't understand, it would be his and Arthur tumultuous fling. Hell, Eames didn't even completely understand it.

"Men don't just have breakfast with boys unless they're related, Eames," Yusuf said. "Everyone in that restaurant probably thinks you're some kind of dirty pervert."

"Who cares what those people think? It's bloody McDonald's, Yusuf. I'm sure that ninety percent of the people in there have more disturbing hobbies than sharing a meal with a young man."

"Why are you sharing a meal with him, Eames?"

"Well, he's my mate," Eames said simply.

"How can the two of you possibly have anything in common? A-and why haven't you told me about him before now if he's such a good 'mate' of yours?"

"Don't act jealous, Yusuf, it's unbecoming," Eames teased, but clearly Yusuf wasn't in a joking mood. Eames thought that Yusuf was most definitely overreacting to all of this, and it was so bizarre to witness since Yusuf never overreacted to anything. "He's just a nice kid, is all," Eames explained, holding his hands up in defense, "He's smart, and we just sort of got to know each other by chance. We're not ridiculously good mates or anything, so I didn't think it was worth mentioning."

"Eames…" Yusuf said, and he looked anxious. "I was watching the two of you interact. You two are terribly familiar, and I know that you're not generally the kind of person who acts familiar with people unless you're terribly close. What's the real story?"

Eames looked back inside at Arthur. Arthur was watching them over his food as if he was attempting to read their lips (and maybe he was).

"I just… I felt sorry for him, all right?" Eames said with a sigh. "He's all alone in the world, and I just wanted to help him a little."

Yusuf raised an eyebrow, so Eames clarified. "He's homeless, Yusuf. He's been living on the streets since he was twelve. I'm just buying him a hot meal or two, giving him someone to talk to and confide in. Is that so bad?"

"Shouldn't you have just taken him to the police, or to a shelter?" Yusuf asked.

"I can't do that, Yusuf. He's just a kid I met, all right? I can't make him do anything anymore than he can make me do anything."

Actually, if Yusuf had known what was going on, he would have been aware of just how poor a choice of words that was.

Still, it seemed to be enough to somewhat satisfy Yusuf because he huffed and broke eye contact for a moment or two, signaling defeat. "All right… fine… He's just a poor little homeless boy. At least, that's what he's told you… but Eames, there's something about him that is off. Don't tell me you haven't noticed it. I noticed it immediately, and you've always been more astute than I have been when it comes to people."

"I've noticed it," Eames said, and of course he'd noticed it. He was still reeling from the night before. "That's no reason to treat him like a bloody leper. He's had a hard life. I'm sure he's had his fair share of unsettling experiences. He's perfectly fine company though. It's just breakfast, may I remind you again? That's all."

Eames was really too good at lying… but hey, that's what acting was. Professional lying.

"I don't have any say in who your friends are, Eames," Yusuf said, lifting his arms and dropping them at his sides, "but all I'm going to say is you might want to back off with the doe eyes you keep giving him or people are going to start to think there's something going on between you two."

"Doe eyes? I was not giving him doe eyes."

"You were, Eames. You were, I saw you."

Eames scoffed and didn't let the panic show on his face over the idea that he really might have been. Was he really? He'd never been the type to stare at anyone like that, and most certainly not at other men. Sure, Arthur was a lovely creature (if not vindictive at moments and teetering on the edge of psychotic), and he cared about him, but he didn't care about him enough to be giving him starry-eyed looks.

…but he had been. Yusuf had confirmed it.

That was a dangerous symptom proving that the disease that was Arthur in Eames's brain and bloodstream was quite possibly progressing into something much worse than he'd ever expected.

Oh, this was bad.

This was very, very bad.

It was a damned good thing that Eames was such an actor, or Yusuf would have noticed the mental breakdown fighting to take place behind Eames's cleverly constructed façade.

"You're barmy," Eames told him and went inside, signaling the end of the conversation.

Fuck, Eames thought.