Inception - Pretend That You're Alone (9/11)

[osaki_nana_707]

Title: Pretend That You're Alone (9/?)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Word count: 4,637
Pairings/Characters: ArthurxEames, Yusuf
Rating: R(this part)
Warnings: language, underage, age difference (16/32), mentions of non-con
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 Nine

"I've gotten some complaints."

Eames stood in front of Cobb's desk, hands in his pockets, eyes staring at the floor. "Yes, sir," Eames said, "I realize that I was out of line the other day. I said some things I shouldn't have said."

"That's true," Cobb said, running a hand over his hair. "You cursed in the middle of class, badmouthed the students."

"Yes, sir… I've been having some personal problems, and while that's not an excuse, I have taken care of them… I promise I won't let it happen again."

"Yes, well…" Cobb said, sitting back in his chair. "They do say that you're supposed to leave your problems at the door when you come to work, but I don't think that's possible. I understand how it can affect you."

"It still doesn't excuse my behavior, and I apologize," Eames said. Truthfully, he wasn't sorry for anything he'd said and could in fact not give a shit if he hurt anyone's feelings, but he certainly didn't want to be in trouble, especially when his boss was a friend. He needed people on his side at the moment, needed to feel liked and not used by someone.

"It's all right," Cobb said with a sigh. "Just don't let it happen again, all right? You've been burning the candle at both ends, so try and let a little air out of your tires once in a while, all right? The end of the semester is tough on all of us, and I don't want to see you crack under pressure."

If anyone knew about cracking under pressure, it was Cobb. Eames had come into his office more than once during finals weeks of the past and found things tossed about and Cobb's hair looking mysteriously similar to a palm tree. Cobb wasn't quite as good at hiding his insanity as he thought he was, but Eames wasn't going to be the one to mention it.

"I'll be fine now," Eames assured him. "No need to worry about me, Cobb."

…and there wasn't any need.

Eames went to class and taught with renewed vigor. He threw himself into his work because he literally had nothing else to do but think of Arthur. He would not, could not allow himself to do any such thing.

No matter his feelings, he had to forget about Arthur, for his own protection. It didn't matter if he was beautiful or charming or out there all alone. Arthur had made his bed, and now he had to lie in it (and Eames was sure Arthur would have no problem lying in any sense of the word).

No, Arthur had been nothing but one mistake of gigantic proportions. Yusuf was right to tell Eames that he was better off without him in his life. Eames didn't have to worry about STDs or if Arthur was stealing from him or if he was going to get weird tonight and do something like lock himself in the bathroom or break things or… well, Arthur was capable of a lot more than Eames had expected when they'd met. It could have been any number of things that Arthur could have done.

Eames was much safer. He never should have trusted him in the first place. It was best just to forget him.

…If only it were that easy.

The problem was, Arthur wasn't that easy to forget.

It wasn't so much that Arthur's memory lingered throughout Eames's flat (it did for a few days but Arthur honestly hadn't been there long enough to leave a permanent imprint anywhere). Sure, when Eames found Arthur's clothes still in the drawer, thatwas difficult, yes…

…and yeah, when he washed the green bowl Arthur liked to eat out of, he had a little difficulty…

…and sure, Eames hadn't really gotten up the nerve to take the book Arthur had been reading off of the coffee table and put it back on the shelf just yet or washed the sheets of his bed or thrown the ashes from his ashtray on the balcony in the garbage…

No, Arthur's little memory around the house wasn't the problem, even if it very much did exist. The problem was that Eames seemed to see Arthur everywhere.

Eames had to stop going to the park, of course. He'd been stupid enough to assume Arthur wouldn't show his face there if Eames had lunch there, but he did. No, Arthur wasn't waiting on the bench for him when he got there. In fact, he didn't even approach him. Eames just noticedhim, halfway across the park, hunched with his arms wrapped around himself, a cigarette dangling between his lips, throwing on a fake smile for the much older gentleman he was talking to.

It sickened Eames so much that he threw his lunch away and decided not to return to the park.

Ever.

Of course, avoiding the park didn't free him from seeing him, not at all. The very next weekend, Eames was leaving the grocer's to notice Arthur across the street, arguing with another clearly homeless person.

He saw Arthur two evenings later, curled up on a bench, asleep.

He caught eye contact with Arthur four days later at the library, but Arthur quickly looked away.

He spotted him getting thrown out of the goodwill an afternoon later.

Two days later, he saw Arthur get into a car with another guy.

Eames couldn't seem to escape him, not even in his dreams where he would wake up reaching for the warm lump beside him that wasn't actually there. He seldom dreamed of fucking him, of one touching the other; most of the time, he just dreamed of his smile-the crinkle of his eyes, the appearance of dimples, the line of slightly yellowed teeth… the only time he looked his age, the only time when he didn't look like he was faking his emotions.

It was absolute misery.

So, Eames did the only thing he could do.

He buried himself even more deeply into his work, rereading books on psychology for the hell of it, constantly coming up with study guides and ideas to help his students while he was out and always writing them down in his notes. When he wasn't writing, he of course had his nose in books-first just the psychology books, then any book he could get his hands on. He did anything he could not to pay any mind to the people around him (other than at school where he knew he was safe from Arthur-not that he was in danger by any means… but still).

Surprisingly, or perhaps not, Eames actually started taking the time to get to know his students. He didn't ask anything outright or anything, but he came to remember that he learned a hell of a lot more when he actually started listening. They weren't just spoiled, rich wankers (well, some of them were). Some of them were actually pretty good kids. He really started to pay attention to how heavy their workloads really were, how stressed they were about finals. It wasn't that the students lacked passion; they just didn't necessarily have it for psychology. Eames's class was on their lists of pre-requisites, and they'd had no choice but to take it. So many had too much on their plate, and his class had simply fallen to the wayside, since he'd gone and made them believe he didn't care about them anyway.

When he started paying attention, so did they.

Suddenly, his class was back to it was when he'd first started-laughing, smiling faces and curious, focused minds. Eames felt like such a fool. He'd been the one holding them back, not them, but he couldn't worry about it anymore. He'd fixed his issues, and he'd do the best he could not to slip up again just because he was feeling lonely and unsatisfied with life.

So, Arthur's existence in his life hadn't been a complete disaster. If anything, the boy had gotten him off his ass and forced him to start taking charge of the dissatisfaction he'd been dealing with for so long. He certainly had realized that his life wasn't so goddamned bad.

…but Arthur brought all of his angst on himself.

Eames didn't care anymore.

At least, that was what he told himself every morning when he'd wake up.

…and one morning, he woke up, put the book back on the shelf, tossed out the cigarette ashes, threw his sheets in the wash, ate out of the green bowl, and walked to the bus stop.

He didn't see Arthur.

In fact, over the next few days, weeks even, he didn't see him at all. It was as if he had disappeared, and maybe he had. Maybe he had vanished from the city, hitchhiked somewhere else in his search…

…Maybe…

…or perhaps Arthur had become as invisible to Eames as he was to everybody else.

Finals ended.

Most of Eames's class passed, shockingly (he may have been a bit gentle with their scores considering they had tried so hard).

Eames was actually in a pretty good mood…

…apart from the fact that he was completely empty inside, but that was irrelevant.

The play had actually gone off without a hitch as well, considering they'd only had a limited three and half weeks to rehearse (it had taken way too long for Eames to get the go-ahead to actually do a show, considering by the time he'd gotten what he wanted he hadn't wanted it anymore). Eames even went out with the cast after opening night and drank until he couldn't really remember what he was doing. The claps on the back from students and the devious grins of Robert Fischer and his friends the next day suggested he'd had a good time.

Eames had figured he'd go give it another try the next night, but at that time he went out on his own and came out of a blackout kissing a man. Eames was so alarmed by it that he left the guy where he was standing and stumbled home.

He wasn't sure why he was so upset. He'd been an attractive bloke, and a damned good kisser considering the alcohol, and it wasn't like Eames had failed to realize he was a homosexual… He knew that… It wasn't even so much the idea of him being caught out of the closet by one of his students or friends.

It was however, the first time he really thought about Arthur in a while.

After all, Arthur had been the first male he'd ever kissed and the only kiss he'd genuinely gotten excited about. Kissing someone else almost felt like… cheating, but that didn't make any sense because they'd never been together by any means…

It was just that he was still in love with Arthur.

Realizing that, or rather admitting to it, felt like a sledgehammer to his gut.

He didn't know how it was possible. He'd seen through Arthur's charade, had let him leave, had done his best not to come into contact with him since. There was no reason why he should have been harboring any feelings for him (other than resent and maybe the occasional bout of pity).

…but there they were, sneaking up on him all of a sudden and leaving him lost.

The feeling passed after that night, but Eames could no longer fool himself.

He was still in love with Arthur, and he would just have to deal with that until it faded or until he died (whichever came first). He just wished he knew how to deal with that information, how to process it, how to store it away. It was frustrating and devastating and there was literally nothing he could do about it.

The worst part was that he would have given anything just to see Arthur, just in passing, just to make sure that he was okay, just once… but the boy really had seemed to disappear from his usual haunts. Eames didn't actively look for him, but considering he'd been seeing him everywhere until he actively tried not to, he'd expected to spot him at least once.

…and it was getting so cold too… It was the coldest winter they'd had in several years. There was already snow on the ground and more in the forecast.

He dreamed about him every night, eyes dark as nighttime watching him from every shadow.

Cobb invited all of the teachers out for a staff Christmas party a week before the holiday at a pub in the busiest part of town. Eames would have just as well stayed in and slept (that seemed to be all he was doing lately), but Yusuf came by to pick him up, and it wasn't as if he could let Yusuf know how miserable he was. Eames really was a damned good actor.

Once he got a couple of bottles of liquor in his system, it was easier, but Eames didn't make the mistake of getting piss drunk. He spaced out his drinking so that he only suffered from a light buzz, socializing with the people he normally saw but never talked to at work. He discovered from this that most of them were as burnt out as he had been; it was no wonder his students had been so lazy and careless. It was as if the whole school had been consumed by disappointment. Eames put the information in his pocket and decided to see if he could change things up all over campus first thing next semester. At least it would give him something to do.

The party was a fun distraction, Eames thanking Mal for the sweater she'd purchased him, Eames laughing with Yusuf about this or that. He was the perfect guest, but it felt eerily similar to how he'd behaved in college, putting on a show for everyone around him in the hopes that he too could one day believe it. It was alarmingly less effective these days.

"Eames," Yusuf said, sipping at a cola (after all, he was driving). "Don't look so down in the dumps! It's the holidays!"

"I'm not down in the dumps," Eames assured Yusuf, plastering on his best and brightest smile. It was lacking its usual wattage, but it was enough to convince Yusuf in the smoky bar that smelled like Arthur's cigarettes. "I'm tired. All those late nights are starting to catch up with me."

"What late nights? You never came out to the clubs with me!" Yusuf chuckled, clapping him on the back.

"Some of us do our work in the evenings, Yusuf," Eames said with a smirk. "I'd rather not spend my time being the creepy old bloke in the club, thank you very much."

"You've got to come out with me sometime at least, Eames. You're always locked up in that flat of yours. What kind of life is that?"

The corners of Eames's mouth twitched, and all he could do was shrug.

He was back at square one, if not a million more steps backwards.

He allowed himself a little sigh when Yusuf got up to flirt with the recently divorced Ms. Marling. It was nice to see Yusuf pursuing someone his own age, but it made Eames feel just that much more alone… and it wasn't like he hadn't done it to himself. He only had himself to blame for his loneliness. He was so afraid of being hurt that he gave up on people before they could give up on him (the habit he'd managed to pick up and break with his students, at least in a professional sense), and the one person he'd taken a chance on had been an absolutely terrible choice from the beginning.

Eames wanted to go home.

He didn't get to leave the bar until two hours later when Yusuf was done chatting up Ms. Marling and leaving with her phone number and a date.

They left the building, hunched in their coats as snow softly fluttered through the frigid night air, Yusuf joking and talking animatedly about his new prospect. Eames nodded and smiled, halfway listening, wishing that they hadn't had to park in a parking lot all the way down the street. It was too bloody cold.

Up ahead, a single figure walked out from an alleyway and hailed a taxi, and Eames got a bad feeling about him. At first Eames thought maybe he knew him, but no… he didn't recognize the smudge of a face from the distance he was at, and Eames had always been good with faces, even from far away. Perhaps it was just the stiff-shouldered stance he took while waiting for the car to pull up, impatient to get away. It made sense of course, given the weather, but… still…

"Do you know that bloke?" Eames asked Yusuf.

"What bloke?" Yusuf asked, looking up from his phone. He appeared to already be texting Ms. Marling.

Sure enough, the man was gone, the taxi disappearing into the snow.

Eames figured he must have been losing his mind.

At least he did until the two of them were closer, and he heard sobbing.

"What do you suppose-" Yusuf said, lifting his mobile phone in the air to shine light down the dark alley, concern lacing his features.

There was a body curled up in the snow.

No, not a body.

Arthur.

"Oh, my God," Eames found himself breathing, and he rushed to his side, crouching down in the snow. "Arthur. Arthur, can you hear me?" he asked, tugging the boy up by the arm. He was very nearly completely limp, crying and shivering.

Yusuf knelt down next to him. "Jesus Christ, what is he doing out here?" he asked.

Eames ignored him, shaking Arthur gently. "Arthur, it's me, it's Eames. Arthur."

Arthur choked on a sob and fell into a fit of coughs, nearly knocking himself out of Eames's arms. "Eames…" he wailed, and Eames pulled him close to his chest to try and warm him up.

"Yusuf, go get the car. We need to get him in some heat right now," Eames begged, and Yusuf immediately jumped to his feet and took off running.

"Arthur," Eames said gently, rocking him back and forth. "Arthur, darling, where is your bag? Where is your bag? Why aren't you inside somewhere? You could have taken some of that money and gone inside."

"G-got mugged-l-l-last week," Arthur stammered, taking in a few shallow breaths before coughing violently. "B-b-been going t-to the lib-rary to stay warm, b-but it's c-closed now. Got k-kicked out of… of everywhere else. C-couldn't pay to stay." He hacked into his trembling hands.

He wasn't even wearing gloves. It was a miracle he still had his fingers.

"Just let me die…" Arthur sobbed, and Eames pulled him ever closer, wiping at his tears with his gloved hand.

"I'm not going to do that," Eames told him.

"D-didn't mean what I said…" Arthur said weakly, hands falling from his mouth to reveal a nasty mess of sputum. "I was… I was so-sorry."

"Shh, you don't need to talk right now," Eames told him, just as Yusuf's car was pulling up next to the alleyway.

Eames lifted Arthur into his arms and rushed him into the vehicle, Arthur's arms curling around his neck and holding on with as much strength as he could seem to muster (which didn't seem to be much).

"We should take him to the hospital," Yusuf said, once Eames had climbed into the backseat.

Arthur howled in terror, and Eames shook his head. "Just go back to my flat. Let's get him warmed up and coherent before we do anything like that."

Yusuf didn't look too happy with the suggestion but followed it just the same, probably because he feared Arthur would go scrambling for the car door if the idea of going to the hospital was breached again.

"What the fuck were you doing outside in the snow?" Yusuf asked Arthur, voice strained as he turned a corner a little more sharply than necessary.

"Didn't have anywhere else to go…" Arthur rasped and coughed into his coat sleeve so fiercely that it rattled his entire tiny frame. He was having a hard time breathing because of it, and the fact that he couldn't stop crying was definitely hindering it all the more. The cough was followed by a whimper and an automatic clawing of his chest.

It seemed to take forever to get to Eames's home, even though Yusuf was speeding and there didn't seem to be any other cars on the road. Arthur had stopped shivering quite so much by the time they arrived, stilling in Eames's arms but still sniffing, still coughing, still awake. The snow had melted on his clothing, leaving them soaking wet.

Eames made the walk up with Yusuf two steps at a time and only handed Arthur over to him when he needed to unlock the door. Arthur could stand by then, but he leaned against Yusuf with all of his body weight, gasping for air like he could never get enough of it.

"His heart is just racing," Yusuf said, feeling the boy's pulse in his neck.

Eames got the door unlocked and shoved his way inside, picking Arthur back up and carrying him over the threshold. "Yusuf, get me some towels and put a kettle on, would you? I'm going to get him out of these wet clothes."

Arthur was already shivering again.

Yusuf disappeared into the house and Eames gingerly carried Arthur to his bedroom, but when he went to sit him down to pull of his close, Arthur let out a yelp Eames had never heard from him before. Arthur wouldn't stop making the noise, squirming around in his grip sluggishly, until Eames laid him on his stomach instead, and then Eames understood why.

Yusuf returned with the towels to find Eames just staring dumbly momentarily. "Eames?" Yusuf asked. It was enough to knock him out of his stupor at least.

"I'm going to take your clothes off, Arthur. Is that okay?" Eames asked him softly.

Arthur stared at him with red, wet eyes and then buried his face into the pillow, nodding through another shaking cough.

Eames dropped his coat to the floor and then tugged Arthur's shirt off, whispering gently, "Lift your arms, love. That's it." He untied his shoes and tossed them in the corner, revealing Arthur's pale, blistered bare feet. He helped Arthur sit up on his knees, unbuttoning his jeans.

"Bring me one of those towels, Yusuf. Wet it down with warm water."

"O… okay…" Yusuf said and left to return a moment later with the towel as he asked. He seemed about ready to ask why until Eames pulled down Arthur's jeans and undergarments all at once, revealing the pink-stained skin and the blood plastered to the sides of his legs and on his ass.

Arthur buckled over with another sob that was more gasps for air than sound, and Eames took the towel, wiping at the mess while handing another one to Arthur to cough into.

"What happened?" Yusuf asked, at a loss for any other words he could say. "Jesus Christ…"

"What do you think happened?" Eames asked, voice a bit more biting than he'd expected.

Arthur cringed from the sharpness of Eames's voice, so Eames softened it again, petting his back gently as he said, "There now… it's all cleaned up."

Of course, it wasn't. Physically the blood was gone, but the mark was there. Arthur wasn't just going to forget. Eames knew he had a reason to feel bad about that man. He just wished he'd caught on that he was one of Arthur's customers sooner and hunted him down, gotten a better look at him, something.

Eames put Arthur in a pair of his boxer shorts and the same snowy white shirt he'd worn once before, not about to use the clothing he'd purchased for the boy in front of Yusuf (Arthur would likely think it odd that he still had it as well).

"Would you like some tea, Arthur?" Eames asked him, nearly whispering as he ran a hand through his hair again and again, hoping to provide some sort of comfort.

Arthur hacked into the towel and stared at Eames blearily. His lips were so chapped and pale, other than the brownish sputum at the corner. "I just want the pain to go away…" he whimpered, clawing at his chest again. He fell asleep moments later.

Eames stayed by his side, letting his curls drift through his hand for a few more minutes before moving, only noticing belatedly that Arthur had taken a weak grip of his shirt that he had to pull away from.

He shut the door quietly and joined Yusuf in the kitchen where the other man had finished with the tea, pouring it into mismatched cups. He had a very rare crease between his eyebrows, signaling that he was troubled.

"He's asleep," Eames said uselessly, voice catching in his throat a bit. His voice echoed eerily in the quietness of the room.

Yusuf nodded, pushing a slice of lemon around in his tea with a spoon pointlessly. Eames sat down next to him, sipping at his own tea but not really tasting it. They kept making subtle glances at each other, both of them waiting for the other to say something.

Eames broke first.

"He's sick," he said softly.

"He was raped," Yusuf responded with, and even though Eames knew it was true, it still felt like he'd been kicked in the nuts and then in the gut.

"S… seems so," Eames said, hating himself for not being able to come up with anything else.

"Eames," Yusuf said, looking up at him. "You can't blame yourself. You had perfectly good reasons for sending him out."

"Forgive me if it's difficult to see that after finding him half dead in the snow," Eames replied, staring at his reflection in his tea. He shut his eyes, taking a deep breath and then letting it out through his nose, massaging a temple where a headache was blooming. "He needs a doctor, but I can't take him to the hospital. Do they still make house calls?"

"Some do," Yusuf said. "I've got a few friends in the medical profession. I'll call in a favor and see what I can get."

"Thanks…"

There was a long pause, the air heavy with their knowledge of the situation.

"After he gets well, what will you do?" Yusuf asked.

"I… I don't know…" Eames admitted, running a hand through his hair. "I suppose he and I need to talk. I'll give him the option again… and if he doesn't accept it, then… well, I don't know…"

"He needs help, Eames. Physical, mental, emotional."

"I can't make him do anything, Yusuf."

"I think you have more pull over him than you think. He immediately trusted it was you, even in the darkness, even through his fear."

"I'm the only one who's ever handled him like a human being rather than a piece of meat," Eames replied, surprising himself when he said it. He cleared his throat and dropped his gaze back to the tea, awkward, adding, "I don't know if that was my wisest of endeavors, mind you."

"Mm," Yusuf hummed, nodding, eyes downcast as well. "Underneath that smile of his is a manipulative bastard."

"Yusuf-"

"Underneath that manipulative bastard, there's a scared and broken young man."

Eames sighed again, nodding quietly. "I suppose we'll see, won't we?" he said and sipped at his tea. He still didn't taste it.