Inception - Pretend That You're Alone (8/11)
Title: Pretend That You're Alone (8/11)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Word count: 4,135
Pairings/Characters: ArthurxEames, Yusuf
Rating: 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 Eight
While Eames slept, he started to dream.
In the dream he found himself, oddly enough, in his own bed with Arthur straddling his waist. The boy looked down at him blank-faced, the same expression he'd had before when he'd started babbling nonsense, only this time his eyes had no whites to them. There was nothing but blackness there, two bullet holes glaring straight into Eames's soul, looking at all of him at once. He was completely naked, ashen and bruised, but Eames just couldn't look away from those soulless eyes.
"Arthur," Eames started to say, but the boy put his finger to his lips and shushed him.
"Do you think I'm beautiful?" Arthur asked, voice light but otherwise eerily expressionless, tilting his head to the side.
"Y… yes…" Eames said hesitantly. "Normally, I do, but your eyes, darling-"
Arthur pressed his fingers back to Eames's lips, silencing him. "You love me," he said, grinning. There was something stilted and unnerving about his smile. Perhaps it was the sharpness of his teeth, not pointed, but unusually noticeable.
"I never said that," Eames said.
"You didn't have to," Arthur replied, looking around the room. "How do you love someone you can't possibly trust?"
"I-"
"Oh, don't worry. I have the answer to the question. I'll tell you."
Eames closed his mouth again, staring worriedly at the boy. "Arth-"
"You can love someone you don't trust when you don't actually know the person at all. It's not real by any means, but to you it is. Of course it is. See…" he trailed a finger down the side of Eames's face, across Eames's lips, down his chin, and along his jugular. "See, the thing is, the thing is… You were so desperate for a human connection that you went and fabricated one with someone nobody else knows exists, not really… You chose me because you can have me-"
He touched his forehead. "All."
His nose. "To."
His mouth. "Your."
His Adam's apple. "Self."
"How do you-"
Arthur silenced him again, this time by clamping a hand over his mouth the way Eames had done him in the kitchen before they'd kissed.
"You've made a grave error, Mr. Eames," Arthur said, face and voice dropping into a terrifyingly vacant daze. "You've misunderstood. You think as long as no one knows that I'm here, everything is picture perfect. You get to have me, and no one else does. It doesn't matter what you do to me or with me because I fucking belong to you, and no one even knows I'm here. There will be someone for you to talk to when you get home from your shitty job, someone to steal away your loneliness in the privacy and darkness of your bedroom whenever you're feeling sad. However…"
He was tracing his finger lazily along Eames's collarbone then, and by the way Arthur's eyes looked, Eames couldn't tell where he was looking.
"However, the problem is, you've gone and put blinders on, haven't you? You won't let yourself realize that I could be, that I probably am… no, definitely fucking other guys besides you. After all, where did all the money come from? I lied about selling clothes, and you don't make that kind of money panhandling."
Eames couldn't reply since Arthur's hand was still clamped quite tightly over his mouth, but that didn't mean he didn't try. Arthur continued talking, despite Eames's stifled protests, "I could be disease ridden, you know. Fucking around with all those random guys, I could have every STI and STD in the book. I could be giving all of those diseases to you, but you don't want to believe someone my age is capable of such a thing. It's too depressing, too scary to think about, so you don't. Ha, you thought I was suffering from some fucked up coping mechanisms."
Eames made a muffled sound.
"I could be digging out your credit cards while you're sleeping, clearing out your bank account a few dollars at a time. You haven't even checked, have you? You've put your life in danger because you're lonely. Pff, and you thought I needed therapy."
There was the distant sound of ringing, and Arthur kept looking at him as he said, voice weird and echoing, "How do you turn this thing off? How do… is it off?... Whatever…"
Eames was confused but quickly forgot about it when Arthur knelt down close to his ear and said, "You need to wake up, Eames, and face reality. All you're accomplishing this way…" he scraped his nails across Eames's chest, leaving impossibly deep, ruby red gashes. "All you are accomplishing is your own self destruction. You're letting me tear you apart."
"Fuck!" Eames shouted as Arthur removed his hand to start clawing him apart, ripping away his skin and muscles with no effort whatsoever. "STOP-"
"You're doing it to yourself!" Arthur shouted, howling with laughter, and Eames was terrified.
He jolted awake, gasping for air, hands scrambling over his chest to block the non-existent wounds. Slowly he came back to himself to find Arthur still asleep next to him, the first dregs of dawn peeking through the windows, and no ghastly destruction across his body.
"Fuck…" he whispered, rolling out of bed. Arthur didn't even move.
Something hit Eames then, perhaps just the lingering words of dream Arthur that had clearly been a part of his own subconscious screaming for attention, and he found himself marching into his living room, eyes wide and ferocious. There in the corner of the foyer, he found what he was hunting, only knowing he was hunting it when he saw it-Arthur's backpack.
He fell to his knees and zipped open the largest pocket. Inside he found several library books, his old pair of clothes, dozens of fake I.D.s with men looking similar to Arthur and some with actual pictures of Arthur… and then he found paperwork, an insanely large pile of it from different free clinics around town, all with the names from the fake I.D.s, dating back as far as three years.
All of them were tests for STIs and STDs. Most of them showed up clean, but a couple from a year or so back revealed a case of gonorrhea that seemed to have taken a couple of weeks to get rid of. One of them had even showed an early case of syphilis that had been, thankfully, nipped in the bud before causing any actual damage.
That explained why, in the second pocket, along with a pile of cigarettes of all different brands, there were empty medication bottles for each illness, the dates on them long expired.
The smallest pocket revealed an impressive wad of cash, and a tiny, black notebook. Eames wet his lips and ball-parked the amount to be nearly three hundred dollars. He opened up the little notebook and came across a ripped photograph of a thin, tired woman with limp dark hair, wearing a pink top and still looking like she was frowning even though she wasn't. He turned the picture like he would a page to find on the first page… a name.
In what he could only assume was Arthur's inelegant chicken scratch writing, it read:
Jeremiah
Good money, handsy, doesn't like you to look at him
He flipped a few pages to find:
Diego
Carrys carries a gun; always be nice
Likes to come on your face so always pull off
Page upon page revealed more of the same. Mason always wants things done quickly because he has to get back to work; Demarcus likes it when you call him 'daddy'; Carter likes it rough; leave Paul alone when he's strung out on meth; Micah likes to try and get out without paying so don't offer him services unless he shows you the money first…
Eames…
Eames
Doesn't care what you do as long as you touch him.
Eames swallowed the knot that formed in his throat, and for a moment he feared he couldn't breathe. His hands were trembling as he turned to the next page to find nothing there except for a business card for someone Eames didn't know. His vision blurred, and for a second he thought he might black out, but when the second passed, he heard the bedroom door creaking open.
"What are you-" Arthur started but seemed to stop when he saw exactly what Eames was doing.
"What is all this?" Eames asked quietly, moving to his feet.
"What do you mean-why are you going through my-"
Eames turned to look at him, and it was as if the spell had been broken.
Eames saw clearly for the first time in days, as if he'd been drunk and finally sobered up.
Arthur wasn't a sweet, misunderstood boy in need of help that fit snugly into Eames's pocket of loneliness.
He was a whore.
He was a filthy, manipulative bastard and a whore, playing Eames for all he was worth, devouring every inch of him until there was nothing left. He wasn't letting Eames use him; he was using Eames, playing coy and sad when Eames started to even give an inkling that he was getting wise to his schemes.
It was a game. It was always a game.
Eames should have seen it long before now, but disdain at himself was only part of the way the rage boiled up in him like a volcano about to blow its lid.
"What is all this?" Eames shouted, throwing down the notebook.
"I never said you could go through-" Arthur started, but Eames wasn't going to let him do the talking, not this time.
"You are in my flat!" Eames yelled. "Everything you've brought in here belongs to me, and I have a right to know what the fuck it is you are up to!"
Arthur took a step back, lower lip quivering a little. "…I-I don't…"
"No, I don't care about your trust issues or your fears or your compulsions… I don't care, all right? I let you come into my home. I didn't ask anything, not anything of you except that you stop whoring yourself out to other men. I didn't tell you to get a job, to go back to school, none of that because I felt like it wasn't my place to-but… but I didn't want any of your illegal activities linked back to me, and you couldn't even do that one thing that I asked!"
"I had to!" Arthur tried to explain, expression turning desperate. "You don't understand-"
"No, I don't bloody understand! You haven't told me one bloody thing! You just expect me to understand when you say nothing? You expect me to be a fucking psychic?"
"No, but-"
"But nothing! You think I'm an idiot, don't you! You expected me to just let all of this go, to let you keep up this game? You're sick, and I'm letting your sickness infect me."
"I'm not sick, I-I'm clean, I swear-"
"I'm not talking about your dick," Eames spat. "It may be the only thing you think with, but it isn't the only thing I think with."
Arthur awkwardly retreated another step.
"Now… now, I know you're not completely to blame about this-I-I let this go on for far too long. I pretended there wasn't a problem for far too long. I've let you control me, and it should have stopped a long time ago. I never should have let it start actually."
"Um… okay, what-"
"No, no, you don't talk right now. I need you to listen to me, you got that? Just-listen."
Arthur's expression was unreadable, but he appeared to be paying attention, eyes locked on Eames, lips pressed together, fists nervously clenching and unclenching at his sides.
"If you're going to stay here, you're going to have to abide by my rules," Eames said firmly. "I'm not going to take any more of this bollocks. If you're going to live here in my flat, you are going to study and work to get a GED, and you're going to look for a real job-there will be no more whoring yourself out to any neighbor you happen to come across… a-and you're going to be honest with me. There's not going to be any more of this cryptic bullshit, this keeping to yourself about things. I want to know what really happened to you. I want to know who hurt you and made you act the way you do. I need to know what's happened to you. I need you to fucking trust me."
"That's not fair-"
"It is fair!" Eames shouted. "I deserve that much, Arthur, considering I've never given you a reason not to trust me! I've taken you into my home, and I've taken care of you, but I'm not going to let you play me anymore. If you don't abide by these rules, then I'm taking you to a shelter, do you understand?"
"-but-"
"Do you understand?"
Arthur shut his mouth, looked at the floor. After a full minute of silence, he said, "…I need that money… Any 'real' job I get won't be enough. All of that money in my bag is just from Thursday and Friday."
"Why do you need to make so much, Arthur? I feed you, I clothe you, I give you a roof over your head, and I keep you clean, and I don't ask for any sort of reimbursement. Why do you need so much money?"
"…b…because th-that guy charges by the hour, even when he doesn't find anything," Arthur stammered, pointing at the notebook, no-at the business card that had been shoved into the notebook.
Eames picked up the card and really examined it. "…A private investigator?" he questioned. "Why on earth would you need one of these?"
"I'm…"
Eames stared at him, waiting for his answer.
"Forget it," Arthur said, tugging off Eames's shirt and tossing it at him, digging out his old pair of clothes. "I can't follow those rules, so I'm out of here."
"What?" Eames asked, stunned. "You-you didn't even try-"
"I only came here because you offered," Arthur said, tugging his shirt over his head, frowning deeply. "Now, you're assuming that you can control what I do, make me into the perfect little angel you thought I was, and I can't-I can't do that. I'm not doing that. It's just like you said. It wasn't your place, and it still isn't, so I won't do that."
"Arthur, I'm trying to help you-"
"I never said that I wanted to be helped!" Arthur shouted, jaw set.
Silence.
Arthur took a shaky breath and continued, more quietly, "I never said I wanted your help, Eames… I was doing just fine on my own. You offered to let me come to your place, and I did, but from the beginning it was clear on both sides that I could leave whenever I wanted to. I'm not your son, and I'm not your boyfriend. You don't actually have any right to tell me how to live."
"Arthur, please… There are better ways to make money than being a whore."
"Not any that I know… if there was, I wouldn't be doing it still."
"There are. You can go to school, get into college. You're already so smart, smarter than I was at your age. You could do it-"
"There isn't enough time!" Arthur explained, voice lending towards desperation. "You don't understand! The more time I wait around, the less likely it'll be that I'll even find her!"
"Find who?"
Arthur's chest was heaving like he'd run a marathon, tears welling up in his eyes but not falling, never falling. "…my mother…" he whispered.
Eames was silent, taking that information is as Arthur repacked all of the things Eames had scattered. The woman in the picture must have been her. It seemed so obvious now. "Arthur…" he said again, gently.
"I have to find her," Arthur said, sliding his bag over his shoulder. "I have to know why she left me. I've been looking for her since day one. I just… I need to know… and I can't do it on my own. If anyone can find her, it's this P.I. person, this Walt Phillips guy… but it isn't cheap, and I do what I have to do. I'm fine. I have rules, and people abide by-"
"Always?" Eames asked, but he knew Arthur would lie if he even answered at all.
Arthur chose not to answer.
"I appreciate you thinking I'm capable of living a normal life, but we both know it's too late for that. Stop looking at the world like a dreamy-eyed kid, Eames."
"It's never too late, darling," Eames whispered, touching his face gently. "I can help you pay the man-"
"No."
"-but-"
"I can't, I won't… I can handle my own problems on my own. I won't let you do that. I'm not a fucking charity case yet… I already owe you too much as it is."
"You don't owe me anything."
"I do. I really do…" Arthur stared at the floor, tugging at his shirt. "You've spent money on me, you've been really nice to me, and I've let you do it. I was just enjoying the special treatment… I… I didn't realize how much I was hurting you by treating you that way. I'm kind of selfish, so I don't really pay that much attention most of the time to what's happening to other people around me… and I thought that you weren't any different from the other guys… that you just wanted me for sexual favors because that's all anyone's ever wanted me for… but you're not… like them…"
Eames took his words with a grain of salt. As much as he wanted to let the boy fall into his arms and cry with those big dark eyes of his, but he didn't want to be fooled again. Arthur could be pulling it out of his arse, Eames reminded himself, feigning sadness and pitifulness to get Eames's sympathy, to get him to take back the things he said, to let him continue with his tirade through Eames's existence. He couldn't fall for it, couldn't let himself get wrapped up in the boy's spell just because he was so pathetically lonely. He'd woken up from all of that now.
Still, he felt it important to say, "No, I'm not like them. I never was like them. I was trying to give you some kind of soft place to fall… What we've done… it never would have gotten this far, it never would have happened, if you hadn't started it. I didn't bring you here because I wanted to fuck you or anything. I brought you here because I liked you and I-"
"You felt sorry for me?" Arthur replied, smirking ruefully. "You're a real asshole, you know that?"
Eames scoffed, "because I helped you?"
"I told you, I didn't need any help!"
"You were a homeless teenager selling your body for money to live off of!" Eames exclaimed. "You don't realize how fucked up that is? If you don't, you need even more help than I realized!"
"I told you that I didn't have a choice-"
"I gave you a choice!" Eames cried.
Silence.
"I gave you a choice," Eames repeated. "I have offered to take care of you in exchange for you doing nothing but taking care of yourself so I don't have to do it pointlessly. You're going to kill yourself on the streets, and I'm not going to be there to bloody save you. Do you understand that? You are going to die out there, and I can't help you if you won't let me… Please, Arthur… All I'm asking for is your trust. Just this once put some faith in someone, please."
Arthur just shook his head, giving him that same look he had that night in the kitchen before Eames had first kissed him.
"I'm sorry, Eames," he said, voice wobbly.
"You're not sorry," Eames mumbled, his voice a mixture of regret and anger. "I may not have been like those other men, but you bloody treated me like one, now didn't you?"
Arthur straightened up and said quietly, "You're right…"
Eames looked up.
"I'm not sorry," Arthur said, and he left, door slamming shut behind him.
Eames was alone.
…At least… he was for a few minutes.
There was a pounding on his door and Eames immediately went to it, expecting Arthur to be back, scared and willing to bend to Eames's commands and-
It was Yusuf.
Eames just stared at him for far too long and then said, "What are you doing here?"
"I rang you up," Yusuf said as if he was leading up to something, and Eames for one had a bad feeling about what it was.
He apparently had a good reason.
"I heard Arthur."
Well, that explained that bizarre moment in the middle of his nightmare, Eames thought. "What makes you think it was Arthur?" Eames asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Well, it certainly wasn't your voice by any means," Yusuf growled, shoving his way inside. "Why in bloody hell was he answering your mobile, Eames? Why was he here at five in the morning?"
"Yusuf-"
"He was telling the truth, wasn't he? At the McDonald's, when he said you were fucking-Oh, God, Eames, a bloody teenager? Really?"
"You're making assumptions," Eames huffed.
"Why did he answer your phone then?" Yusuf asked, eyes wide and lips thin, though it did seem that he was giving Eames the opportunity to explain himself at least.
"I let him sleep here because it's cold outside," Eames grumbled, shuffling to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. "I told you, Yusuf, he's homeless. I bummed out on the settee and let him sleep in the bed. I must have left my phone in my room. You can go check. He's gone now."
That hurt to say more than he expected.
"Eames… that can't be all… Please tell me what's really going on. I'm your best mate, and you know that you can trust me. Just tell me."
Eames hesitated, fumbling with his tea, but all of a sudden it came spilling out. He told Yusuf everything (except for the kissing and sex of course-he didn't want to be arrested), explained that he'd been so lonely and Arthur had made him feel better but then Eames realized he was being used, being tricked. He realized that Arthur was a prostitute and wouldn't stop selling himself even after Eames commanded him to. He told Yusuf about Arthur's weird habits, how Eames thought something absolutely terrible must have happened to him, how he felt sorry for him and wanted to help him get better.
By the time he'd finished, the kettle was whistling, and he didn't feel even a little better. Yusuf was staring at his shoulders as if he could bore holes into them, and Eames for one didn't want to turn around and subject his face to that kind of intensity.
"Is that all?" Yusuf asked gravely, as if he knew Eames was leaving things out.
"That's all," Eames said cheerlessly. "He's gone now. He wouldn't comply with my demands, and he left. I feel so stupid for ever thinking he was anything more than he was."
Eames poured two cups of tea and handed one to Yusuf, dropping into a chair and sipping at it. "I just wanted to help him, Yusuf. I liked him. I thought that a little bit of TLC would get him back on track, but I guess I was just…"
"An idiot?"
"Yeah."
Yusuf took a seat across from him, ignoring his tea. "Just cut your losses, Eames. Clearly he's just some psychopath. You probably should have put him in an institution."
"I didn't want to believe he was crazy…" Eames said quietly.
"Why?"
"…because we related so well. I… I don't want to believe that I've gone insane, really and truly insane just because of my-"
Completely life-shattering loneliness and isolation.
"…my... inability to accurately judge character."
"Eames, you just made a mistake. We all do. You took him in because you thought you could help him, but some people like that just can't be saved. It's best to just move on and let it go. Don't let it bother you anymore. C'est la vie and all that."
"Yeah… I suppose that you're probably right about that… I'm better off…"
But…
I think I might love him.
Author: osaki_nana_707
Word count: 4,135
Pairings/Characters: ArthurxEames, Yusuf
Rating: 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 Eight
While Eames slept, he started to dream.
In the dream he found himself, oddly enough, in his own bed with Arthur straddling his waist. The boy looked down at him blank-faced, the same expression he'd had before when he'd started babbling nonsense, only this time his eyes had no whites to them. There was nothing but blackness there, two bullet holes glaring straight into Eames's soul, looking at all of him at once. He was completely naked, ashen and bruised, but Eames just couldn't look away from those soulless eyes.
"Arthur," Eames started to say, but the boy put his finger to his lips and shushed him.
"Do you think I'm beautiful?" Arthur asked, voice light but otherwise eerily expressionless, tilting his head to the side.
"Y… yes…" Eames said hesitantly. "Normally, I do, but your eyes, darling-"
Arthur pressed his fingers back to Eames's lips, silencing him. "You love me," he said, grinning. There was something stilted and unnerving about his smile. Perhaps it was the sharpness of his teeth, not pointed, but unusually noticeable.
"I never said that," Eames said.
"You didn't have to," Arthur replied, looking around the room. "How do you love someone you can't possibly trust?"
"I-"
"Oh, don't worry. I have the answer to the question. I'll tell you."
Eames closed his mouth again, staring worriedly at the boy. "Arth-"
"You can love someone you don't trust when you don't actually know the person at all. It's not real by any means, but to you it is. Of course it is. See…" he trailed a finger down the side of Eames's face, across Eames's lips, down his chin, and along his jugular. "See, the thing is, the thing is… You were so desperate for a human connection that you went and fabricated one with someone nobody else knows exists, not really… You chose me because you can have me-"
He touched his forehead. "All."
His nose. "To."
His mouth. "Your."
His Adam's apple. "Self."
"How do you-"
Arthur silenced him again, this time by clamping a hand over his mouth the way Eames had done him in the kitchen before they'd kissed.
"You've made a grave error, Mr. Eames," Arthur said, face and voice dropping into a terrifyingly vacant daze. "You've misunderstood. You think as long as no one knows that I'm here, everything is picture perfect. You get to have me, and no one else does. It doesn't matter what you do to me or with me because I fucking belong to you, and no one even knows I'm here. There will be someone for you to talk to when you get home from your shitty job, someone to steal away your loneliness in the privacy and darkness of your bedroom whenever you're feeling sad. However…"
He was tracing his finger lazily along Eames's collarbone then, and by the way Arthur's eyes looked, Eames couldn't tell where he was looking.
"However, the problem is, you've gone and put blinders on, haven't you? You won't let yourself realize that I could be, that I probably am… no, definitely fucking other guys besides you. After all, where did all the money come from? I lied about selling clothes, and you don't make that kind of money panhandling."
Eames couldn't reply since Arthur's hand was still clamped quite tightly over his mouth, but that didn't mean he didn't try. Arthur continued talking, despite Eames's stifled protests, "I could be disease ridden, you know. Fucking around with all those random guys, I could have every STI and STD in the book. I could be giving all of those diseases to you, but you don't want to believe someone my age is capable of such a thing. It's too depressing, too scary to think about, so you don't. Ha, you thought I was suffering from some fucked up coping mechanisms."
Eames made a muffled sound.
"I could be digging out your credit cards while you're sleeping, clearing out your bank account a few dollars at a time. You haven't even checked, have you? You've put your life in danger because you're lonely. Pff, and you thought I needed therapy."
There was the distant sound of ringing, and Arthur kept looking at him as he said, voice weird and echoing, "How do you turn this thing off? How do… is it off?... Whatever…"
Eames was confused but quickly forgot about it when Arthur knelt down close to his ear and said, "You need to wake up, Eames, and face reality. All you're accomplishing this way…" he scraped his nails across Eames's chest, leaving impossibly deep, ruby red gashes. "All you are accomplishing is your own self destruction. You're letting me tear you apart."
"Fuck!" Eames shouted as Arthur removed his hand to start clawing him apart, ripping away his skin and muscles with no effort whatsoever. "STOP-"
"You're doing it to yourself!" Arthur shouted, howling with laughter, and Eames was terrified.
He jolted awake, gasping for air, hands scrambling over his chest to block the non-existent wounds. Slowly he came back to himself to find Arthur still asleep next to him, the first dregs of dawn peeking through the windows, and no ghastly destruction across his body.
"Fuck…" he whispered, rolling out of bed. Arthur didn't even move.
Something hit Eames then, perhaps just the lingering words of dream Arthur that had clearly been a part of his own subconscious screaming for attention, and he found himself marching into his living room, eyes wide and ferocious. There in the corner of the foyer, he found what he was hunting, only knowing he was hunting it when he saw it-Arthur's backpack.
He fell to his knees and zipped open the largest pocket. Inside he found several library books, his old pair of clothes, dozens of fake I.D.s with men looking similar to Arthur and some with actual pictures of Arthur… and then he found paperwork, an insanely large pile of it from different free clinics around town, all with the names from the fake I.D.s, dating back as far as three years.
All of them were tests for STIs and STDs. Most of them showed up clean, but a couple from a year or so back revealed a case of gonorrhea that seemed to have taken a couple of weeks to get rid of. One of them had even showed an early case of syphilis that had been, thankfully, nipped in the bud before causing any actual damage.
That explained why, in the second pocket, along with a pile of cigarettes of all different brands, there were empty medication bottles for each illness, the dates on them long expired.
The smallest pocket revealed an impressive wad of cash, and a tiny, black notebook. Eames wet his lips and ball-parked the amount to be nearly three hundred dollars. He opened up the little notebook and came across a ripped photograph of a thin, tired woman with limp dark hair, wearing a pink top and still looking like she was frowning even though she wasn't. He turned the picture like he would a page to find on the first page… a name.
In what he could only assume was Arthur's inelegant chicken scratch writing, it read:
Jeremiah
Good money, handsy, doesn't like you to look at him
He flipped a few pages to find:
Diego
Carrys carries a gun; always be nice
Likes to come on your face so always pull off
Page upon page revealed more of the same. Mason always wants things done quickly because he has to get back to work; Demarcus likes it when you call him 'daddy'; Carter likes it rough; leave Paul alone when he's strung out on meth; Micah likes to try and get out without paying so don't offer him services unless he shows you the money first…
Eames…
Eames
Doesn't care what you do as long as you touch him.
Eames swallowed the knot that formed in his throat, and for a moment he feared he couldn't breathe. His hands were trembling as he turned to the next page to find nothing there except for a business card for someone Eames didn't know. His vision blurred, and for a second he thought he might black out, but when the second passed, he heard the bedroom door creaking open.
"What are you-" Arthur started but seemed to stop when he saw exactly what Eames was doing.
"What is all this?" Eames asked quietly, moving to his feet.
"What do you mean-why are you going through my-"
Eames turned to look at him, and it was as if the spell had been broken.
Eames saw clearly for the first time in days, as if he'd been drunk and finally sobered up.
Arthur wasn't a sweet, misunderstood boy in need of help that fit snugly into Eames's pocket of loneliness.
He was a whore.
He was a filthy, manipulative bastard and a whore, playing Eames for all he was worth, devouring every inch of him until there was nothing left. He wasn't letting Eames use him; he was using Eames, playing coy and sad when Eames started to even give an inkling that he was getting wise to his schemes.
It was a game. It was always a game.
Eames should have seen it long before now, but disdain at himself was only part of the way the rage boiled up in him like a volcano about to blow its lid.
"What is all this?" Eames shouted, throwing down the notebook.
"I never said you could go through-" Arthur started, but Eames wasn't going to let him do the talking, not this time.
"You are in my flat!" Eames yelled. "Everything you've brought in here belongs to me, and I have a right to know what the fuck it is you are up to!"
Arthur took a step back, lower lip quivering a little. "…I-I don't…"
"No, I don't care about your trust issues or your fears or your compulsions… I don't care, all right? I let you come into my home. I didn't ask anything, not anything of you except that you stop whoring yourself out to other men. I didn't tell you to get a job, to go back to school, none of that because I felt like it wasn't my place to-but… but I didn't want any of your illegal activities linked back to me, and you couldn't even do that one thing that I asked!"
"I had to!" Arthur tried to explain, expression turning desperate. "You don't understand-"
"No, I don't bloody understand! You haven't told me one bloody thing! You just expect me to understand when you say nothing? You expect me to be a fucking psychic?"
"No, but-"
"But nothing! You think I'm an idiot, don't you! You expected me to just let all of this go, to let you keep up this game? You're sick, and I'm letting your sickness infect me."
"I'm not sick, I-I'm clean, I swear-"
"I'm not talking about your dick," Eames spat. "It may be the only thing you think with, but it isn't the only thing I think with."
Arthur awkwardly retreated another step.
"Now… now, I know you're not completely to blame about this-I-I let this go on for far too long. I pretended there wasn't a problem for far too long. I've let you control me, and it should have stopped a long time ago. I never should have let it start actually."
"Um… okay, what-"
"No, no, you don't talk right now. I need you to listen to me, you got that? Just-listen."
Arthur's expression was unreadable, but he appeared to be paying attention, eyes locked on Eames, lips pressed together, fists nervously clenching and unclenching at his sides.
"If you're going to stay here, you're going to have to abide by my rules," Eames said firmly. "I'm not going to take any more of this bollocks. If you're going to live here in my flat, you are going to study and work to get a GED, and you're going to look for a real job-there will be no more whoring yourself out to any neighbor you happen to come across… a-and you're going to be honest with me. There's not going to be any more of this cryptic bullshit, this keeping to yourself about things. I want to know what really happened to you. I want to know who hurt you and made you act the way you do. I need to know what's happened to you. I need you to fucking trust me."
"That's not fair-"
"It is fair!" Eames shouted. "I deserve that much, Arthur, considering I've never given you a reason not to trust me! I've taken you into my home, and I've taken care of you, but I'm not going to let you play me anymore. If you don't abide by these rules, then I'm taking you to a shelter, do you understand?"
"-but-"
"Do you understand?"
Arthur shut his mouth, looked at the floor. After a full minute of silence, he said, "…I need that money… Any 'real' job I get won't be enough. All of that money in my bag is just from Thursday and Friday."
"Why do you need to make so much, Arthur? I feed you, I clothe you, I give you a roof over your head, and I keep you clean, and I don't ask for any sort of reimbursement. Why do you need so much money?"
"…b…because th-that guy charges by the hour, even when he doesn't find anything," Arthur stammered, pointing at the notebook, no-at the business card that had been shoved into the notebook.
Eames picked up the card and really examined it. "…A private investigator?" he questioned. "Why on earth would you need one of these?"
"I'm…"
Eames stared at him, waiting for his answer.
"Forget it," Arthur said, tugging off Eames's shirt and tossing it at him, digging out his old pair of clothes. "I can't follow those rules, so I'm out of here."
"What?" Eames asked, stunned. "You-you didn't even try-"
"I only came here because you offered," Arthur said, tugging his shirt over his head, frowning deeply. "Now, you're assuming that you can control what I do, make me into the perfect little angel you thought I was, and I can't-I can't do that. I'm not doing that. It's just like you said. It wasn't your place, and it still isn't, so I won't do that."
"Arthur, I'm trying to help you-"
"I never said that I wanted to be helped!" Arthur shouted, jaw set.
Silence.
Arthur took a shaky breath and continued, more quietly, "I never said I wanted your help, Eames… I was doing just fine on my own. You offered to let me come to your place, and I did, but from the beginning it was clear on both sides that I could leave whenever I wanted to. I'm not your son, and I'm not your boyfriend. You don't actually have any right to tell me how to live."
"Arthur, please… There are better ways to make money than being a whore."
"Not any that I know… if there was, I wouldn't be doing it still."
"There are. You can go to school, get into college. You're already so smart, smarter than I was at your age. You could do it-"
"There isn't enough time!" Arthur explained, voice lending towards desperation. "You don't understand! The more time I wait around, the less likely it'll be that I'll even find her!"
"Find who?"
Arthur's chest was heaving like he'd run a marathon, tears welling up in his eyes but not falling, never falling. "…my mother…" he whispered.
Eames was silent, taking that information is as Arthur repacked all of the things Eames had scattered. The woman in the picture must have been her. It seemed so obvious now. "Arthur…" he said again, gently.
"I have to find her," Arthur said, sliding his bag over his shoulder. "I have to know why she left me. I've been looking for her since day one. I just… I need to know… and I can't do it on my own. If anyone can find her, it's this P.I. person, this Walt Phillips guy… but it isn't cheap, and I do what I have to do. I'm fine. I have rules, and people abide by-"
"Always?" Eames asked, but he knew Arthur would lie if he even answered at all.
Arthur chose not to answer.
"I appreciate you thinking I'm capable of living a normal life, but we both know it's too late for that. Stop looking at the world like a dreamy-eyed kid, Eames."
"It's never too late, darling," Eames whispered, touching his face gently. "I can help you pay the man-"
"No."
"-but-"
"I can't, I won't… I can handle my own problems on my own. I won't let you do that. I'm not a fucking charity case yet… I already owe you too much as it is."
"You don't owe me anything."
"I do. I really do…" Arthur stared at the floor, tugging at his shirt. "You've spent money on me, you've been really nice to me, and I've let you do it. I was just enjoying the special treatment… I… I didn't realize how much I was hurting you by treating you that way. I'm kind of selfish, so I don't really pay that much attention most of the time to what's happening to other people around me… and I thought that you weren't any different from the other guys… that you just wanted me for sexual favors because that's all anyone's ever wanted me for… but you're not… like them…"
Eames took his words with a grain of salt. As much as he wanted to let the boy fall into his arms and cry with those big dark eyes of his, but he didn't want to be fooled again. Arthur could be pulling it out of his arse, Eames reminded himself, feigning sadness and pitifulness to get Eames's sympathy, to get him to take back the things he said, to let him continue with his tirade through Eames's existence. He couldn't fall for it, couldn't let himself get wrapped up in the boy's spell just because he was so pathetically lonely. He'd woken up from all of that now.
Still, he felt it important to say, "No, I'm not like them. I never was like them. I was trying to give you some kind of soft place to fall… What we've done… it never would have gotten this far, it never would have happened, if you hadn't started it. I didn't bring you here because I wanted to fuck you or anything. I brought you here because I liked you and I-"
"You felt sorry for me?" Arthur replied, smirking ruefully. "You're a real asshole, you know that?"
Eames scoffed, "because I helped you?"
"I told you, I didn't need any help!"
"You were a homeless teenager selling your body for money to live off of!" Eames exclaimed. "You don't realize how fucked up that is? If you don't, you need even more help than I realized!"
"I told you that I didn't have a choice-"
"I gave you a choice!" Eames cried.
Silence.
"I gave you a choice," Eames repeated. "I have offered to take care of you in exchange for you doing nothing but taking care of yourself so I don't have to do it pointlessly. You're going to kill yourself on the streets, and I'm not going to be there to bloody save you. Do you understand that? You are going to die out there, and I can't help you if you won't let me… Please, Arthur… All I'm asking for is your trust. Just this once put some faith in someone, please."
Arthur just shook his head, giving him that same look he had that night in the kitchen before Eames had first kissed him.
"I'm sorry, Eames," he said, voice wobbly.
"You're not sorry," Eames mumbled, his voice a mixture of regret and anger. "I may not have been like those other men, but you bloody treated me like one, now didn't you?"
Arthur straightened up and said quietly, "You're right…"
Eames looked up.
"I'm not sorry," Arthur said, and he left, door slamming shut behind him.
Eames was alone.
…At least… he was for a few minutes.
There was a pounding on his door and Eames immediately went to it, expecting Arthur to be back, scared and willing to bend to Eames's commands and-
It was Yusuf.
Eames just stared at him for far too long and then said, "What are you doing here?"
"I rang you up," Yusuf said as if he was leading up to something, and Eames for one had a bad feeling about what it was.
He apparently had a good reason.
"I heard Arthur."
Well, that explained that bizarre moment in the middle of his nightmare, Eames thought. "What makes you think it was Arthur?" Eames asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Well, it certainly wasn't your voice by any means," Yusuf growled, shoving his way inside. "Why in bloody hell was he answering your mobile, Eames? Why was he here at five in the morning?"
"Yusuf-"
"He was telling the truth, wasn't he? At the McDonald's, when he said you were fucking-Oh, God, Eames, a bloody teenager? Really?"
"You're making assumptions," Eames huffed.
"Why did he answer your phone then?" Yusuf asked, eyes wide and lips thin, though it did seem that he was giving Eames the opportunity to explain himself at least.
"I let him sleep here because it's cold outside," Eames grumbled, shuffling to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. "I told you, Yusuf, he's homeless. I bummed out on the settee and let him sleep in the bed. I must have left my phone in my room. You can go check. He's gone now."
That hurt to say more than he expected.
"Eames… that can't be all… Please tell me what's really going on. I'm your best mate, and you know that you can trust me. Just tell me."
Eames hesitated, fumbling with his tea, but all of a sudden it came spilling out. He told Yusuf everything (except for the kissing and sex of course-he didn't want to be arrested), explained that he'd been so lonely and Arthur had made him feel better but then Eames realized he was being used, being tricked. He realized that Arthur was a prostitute and wouldn't stop selling himself even after Eames commanded him to. He told Yusuf about Arthur's weird habits, how Eames thought something absolutely terrible must have happened to him, how he felt sorry for him and wanted to help him get better.
By the time he'd finished, the kettle was whistling, and he didn't feel even a little better. Yusuf was staring at his shoulders as if he could bore holes into them, and Eames for one didn't want to turn around and subject his face to that kind of intensity.
"Is that all?" Yusuf asked gravely, as if he knew Eames was leaving things out.
"That's all," Eames said cheerlessly. "He's gone now. He wouldn't comply with my demands, and he left. I feel so stupid for ever thinking he was anything more than he was."
Eames poured two cups of tea and handed one to Yusuf, dropping into a chair and sipping at it. "I just wanted to help him, Yusuf. I liked him. I thought that a little bit of TLC would get him back on track, but I guess I was just…"
"An idiot?"
"Yeah."
Yusuf took a seat across from him, ignoring his tea. "Just cut your losses, Eames. Clearly he's just some psychopath. You probably should have put him in an institution."
"I didn't want to believe he was crazy…" Eames said quietly.
"Why?"
"…because we related so well. I… I don't want to believe that I've gone insane, really and truly insane just because of my-"
Completely life-shattering loneliness and isolation.
"…my... inability to accurately judge character."
"Eames, you just made a mistake. We all do. You took him in because you thought you could help him, but some people like that just can't be saved. It's best to just move on and let it go. Don't let it bother you anymore. C'est la vie and all that."
"Yeah… I suppose that you're probably right about that… I'm better off…"
But…
I think I might love him.