⚂ [ a u d i o || a c t i on ]|

[specifics]

Never liked this tradition. I mean, I'd rather not take orders from a plant. Seriously, just...

[ - annnnd, some subsequent mumbling, as well as the words - you know it's a parasite are articulately audible but not much else before the device turns off. ]

[ ooc/accosting reference: Arthur today will have been in order - getting coffee,

Comments

action;

[specifics]

[ Arthur understands the necessity of it but he also knows that moving around as if he's not rest deprived won't help Dom either. All the same, he simply nods, jaw tight with something unhappy. There's a spark in Dom that has never utterly died or Dom would have died with it; Arthur recognizes this, it's what drew him to him initially other than the actual entanglement with the Dreamshare in the military. He was a charismatic magnet and his dreams were things that promised to open you up and remake what you thought you knew. Arthur who had, from a young age been a very lucid dreamer, had reveled in Dom's innovation, in his admitted brilliance not just in building but in theory. And Dom, had, yes, been beautiful, though perhaps no more so than when he and Mal were engrossed with each other, Mal's fingertips playing some silent sonata across Dom's cotton clad shoulder in the half-dying light of late afternoon.

Arthur thinks Dom has something impossible in him now, something that makes everything difficult because certain things were true and others were true and remain without room for fixing. Mal's death. Years of separation. He swallows, taking Dom by the elbow and leading him backward into the room again, directing him with a slight push to sit on the bed. Then he steps back. ]

Just hold on a second.

[ He disappears from the room only to return with a glass of water, pressing it into Dom's hand before again leaning back against the wall across from where Dom is seated, Arthur's arms lightly crossed. ]

You've been in here all day. I can get you some food, if you'd rather not... [ he nods at the window. ] well you've seen the network.

action;

[spinorfall]

[Dom makes some soft protest in the back of his throat as he's lead back into the bedroom, placed back down on the bed. He's not a child--he doesn't like to be treated like one.

But it's a chance, from before, isn't it. Arthur is touching, guiding, making him do things. And Dom is allowing it--when he wouldn't before. The dream--the shared nightmare of reality has shifted things between them, somehow.

It helps that Eames isn't around, to make Dom bristle, and make Arthur play mediator. He's always been easier when it was just the duo, these past years. The last left of the perfect whole.

When the water is pressed into his hand, he takes a long sip, before placing it on the side table. The space between the bed and the wall is small... but enough.

To give them both room to breath, to sort it all out.]

Amazing what a poisonous plant can do to people.

[specifics]

Amazing, [ Arthur echoes, no small amount of sarcasm punched into it, rubbing a hand down over his mouth - tasting almost nauseatingly much of the minty wash normally reserved for post-toothbrushing. It's possible Arthur himself smells a lot like he's just showered even though he hasn't - plans on it though. He's about to say something actually contributory when the previously empty ceiling is abruptly ridden with said poisonous plant. Arthur doesn't even see it, doesn't think at all about what he's doing when he steps forward, the compulsion this time strong enough to warrant action alone from him.

Well no, there's one thought, a repeating offender just as the kissing happens to be: sorry.

This isn't what Dom needs really and it took some truly humiliating situations today for Arthur to conclude suddenly but clearly that it's not what he needs either, or at least not what he wants - to gather second-hand comfort where he can. Strange though, to close the day out like this, closing the small gap by crossing from the wall to the bed, leaning down to press his mouth against the ex-architect's. He knows this mouth in other ways - knows the words, the beautiful theories and explorations of dreams, the world-building articulated from it. But this is singularly different and though it's nothing planned (as nothing has been for a while) Arthur will remember it with the same kind of clarity.

But really it's like he's always trying to say the same thing, even cursed: I'm still here.

Maybe that's all there is to it - the curl of his fingers under Dominick Cobb's jaw. ]

[spinorfall]

[Dom should have pushed Arthur away. Should have retreated the moment he sees the mistletoe.

But oh he's just a man and he's weak, and how long has it been since he's had any physical contact like this? From a true, real, live person. Someone who isn't a falsity. Someone who is here, who cares, who has wants, desires, who has never abandoned him, even when he abandoned himself.

That hand curls into his jaw, and maybe later he'll try to explain his actions, try to reason out why Arthur, why this reaction, but for now he stands, pressing back against those lips.

Dom is still moving forward, wanting to keep Arthur between him and the wall, hands sliding up into dark thick hair. He's always liked it out of place, anyways.]

[specifics]

[ Arthur wouldn't know how to abandon Dom if he tried, but more significantly perhaps, he wouldn't try to begin with. Some of that translates now, the fractional tip of his head that deepens the kiss as he adjusts the curl of his hand, fingertips brushing the line of Dom's jaw and just underneath only to slide down and curl in his collar instead. The wall is a solid brace against his back, but more prevalent is the warmth in front of him.

Dom carries a smell and look to him that Arthur knows defines him first in Arthur's own head than anywhere else - sleeplessness, longing, something he can't quite fix just by getting home even when he does. There's a history here and there's the desperate ache for a future that has more to it than what they've managed for the past few years and some of Arthur can understand that.

His other hand fisting in the front of Dom's shirt, it could just be to hold him in place but what it does is pull him closer. ]

[spinorfall]

[Dom isn't sure if he's ever wanted this, or if it's simply an extension of his closeness to Arthur. He's never been truly attracted to any man--he isn't sure if this is simply attraction, anyways. It transcends that. It's Arthur just as Mal was Mal. They are defined by no boxes--they are the expanse themselves.

He needs to stop, but he can't. Tongue presses out against the seem of lips, hand tightening in hair, body moving to crush against the others. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows Arthur might hate him for this, later. But he can't stop.

He doesn't want to.

Not yet.]

[specifics]

[ There's something driven about Dom right now that Arthur has missed, something that doesn't particularly reek of the brink between madness and sanity the way Dom has in the recent past often seemed to teeter upon. It's a lot of unfortunate things having come together that brought him to it, Arthur knows, and it's much of why he's stayed, or stayed rather, why he followed, why he chose to. He'd been reluctant to let go of Dom in any form the world left him. In some ways he still is and it was such a deeply cold, estranged feeling that settled into his chest, sunk into the pit of his stomach and sat there like a stone when he walked out of the airport's automatic doors.

He'd thought: well what now?

And he didn't have a plan.

He doesn't have one for this either and a part of him knows there are all sorts of lines being crossed here but he's not pushing him away. Arthur responds to the kiss with an equal if different kind of fervor, slicking along and around the other man's tongue and up in a broad sweep across the roof of his mouth, like he's digging for some other kind of taste there. His fingers are curled tight enough almost to be pulling too hard on Dom's collar, the thin line of it digging into his skin but it's just to pull him closer, no breathing room, like he's trying to eliminate all the negative space - not just physical, but every other kind that has stretched and warped between them, manifested in the shapes of all the conversations they haven't had, the fingertips of his other hand bracing at Dom's nape like an anchor, like a weight, like an old, old promise. ]

sorry for mini tag /o\

[spinorfall]

[A hand hits the wall then, to brace himself, to keep himself from crushing Arthur completely. It's different, but this is real--in ways his life hadn't been in years. And Arthur is kissing back, not holding back, holding on as if he might not have minded (the fear that Dom had in the back of his mind). Letting out a soft moan, he presses his tongue into the other's mouth, licking against the roof of his mouth.]

<3 no worries! /rolls on

[specifics]

[ Arthur hasn't kissed a lot of people and many of them not more than once or in this 'City's' case, not on his own volition, as is the case now. Kissing Dominick Cobb is one of those things that might have occurred to him has a want had a number of things been different - Mal for starters and most importantly as far as Dom himself is concerned, Eames where Arthur is though not hardly to the same degree at the time. If they'd met first maybe, or if they'd been younger, or if it hadn't been about dreams which seemed to infiltrate like inspiration in the form of either providence or a disease. Maybe then.

He can feel the years of not having this, and he knows it's different for Dom who was married, Dom who grew old with Mal in a dream far from and yet incredibly close to the reality of their prime. Their bond had been visceral - mental, physical, all encompassing. To have lost and then gone without, he wouldn't presume he could imagine. How he severed ties with Eames is a very different situation; they were new, on the cusp of something bigger than themselves and Arthur had refused it then, decided he had to focus in just one direction and he's not necessarily proud of how he'd shut off, how he'd simply channeled himself into being the hand on Dom's shoulder that was never quite the hand he wanted, or so it seemed to Arthur.

Here though it may be the curse (Arthur figures it is or will afterward) but it feels like Dom does want him, if not manifested in the way he'd expect. His moan is a slow drag that ticks down Arthur's spine and he's not sure why even when he's getting as good as he gives that he feels a little like caving in on himself. Arthur wants to be wanted. He's not inhuman, he's not above that kind of selfishness and even is more so than others - cutting people out, letting others get away with hell because he doesn't trust them to do better when maybe he should have. It's like years of something good and then years of something bad have all snowballed into this one problematic compulsion where it's a little like betraying the dead.

When Arthur's teeth catch on Dom's lower lip it's to breathe but it's half-mindedly apologetic too, that hazy glimpse not of what people are but what people could have been - to themselves and to each other. ]

[spinorfall]

[Dom needs to stop. He knows he needs to stop--its a litany repeating in his mind, trying to get his body (his emotions, his heart) to react correctly. But it's not working.

Not now. He could rely on Arthur to pull back when they need to stop--but that's what he always relies on his friend for. To know when too much is happening, when the line has been crossed.

Except in the last few years, neither of them seem to have known where the line is, anymore.

But he can't allow Arthur to have to take that on his shoulders again. When the younger man teeth catch on his lip, Dom finds himself breathing hard, eyes half open as he tries to unclench his hand from the other's hair.]

We should stop.

[They should. He doesn't want to. He wants to press and touch and forget everything for once. It's wrong. Arthur isn't his, he doesn't deserve anyone to be that anymore.

But even as he breathes in, Dom finds himself nudging his nose against the side of Arthur's, lips moving in to close the gap once more.]

[specifics]

[ The words register but it's like the curse has tapped into real things even while compelling what neither of them would otherwise allow - Arthur because he wouldn't think Dom would want this to begin with and always with Mal in mind too. On an intuitive level that's visceral as Dom's fingers in his hair slipping away and his mouth finding his again, something bitingly real, Arthur gathers that Dom is starved in more ways than Arthur perceived or understood. It's stupid when he thinks about it, because it should have been obvious. But Arthur forgets sometimes that other people don't operate the same way, other people don't just shut off or shelve things up high out of sight to trick themselves into accepting not having them - dead or alive - that really that's not the usual thing, that the normal thing is to grieve and to lose and to long.

It's as if all of Dom's cumulative need or want or both come barreling together here and Arthur can't think of any time he's been able to deny him much of anything. Loyalty sounds too simple at this point for something made of snarls and knots. But there used to be something beautiful about those too. Arthur doesn't have any words, just kisses Dom back and braces his hand against his collarbone in a way that will leave a thumbed bruise at the base of the other man's neck. He kisses him like an apology though whether for not pushing him further or not doing something else altogether he doesn't know.

Not quite realizing he's saying it out loud, into Dom's mouth against his teeth or his tongue, it's a murmur, ] Sorry.

[ All kinds of lines have been crossed and it's not like it's just starting here. This is just a very different kind of line. And that's the strangest thing, to find himself without the control and the restraint he would sometimes try to impose on Dom, remind him to hold back or to stop if he could. This place or dream strips them of it here and there, their own volition and gives or calls up everything else. They're in the thick of a curse, yes, but it's an entanglement of sorts that's much older than that. With his apology he shifts his weight to send them both stumbling sideways.

It's enough to get out from under the plant, the curse's compulsion dissipating slowly this time, like a warm haze to blink out of. ]