secretly a reef rat: part II
secretly a reef rat: part II
by templemarker
part I | part II | part III | masterpost | notes
***
They did finally get some sleep, dragging the loveseat from the waiting room into Steve's room. Eames flirted with the nurse, and he looked the other way, even brought them a couple of pillows. It was comically uncomfortable and it took ages for them both to settle, but finally they did, Eames curling Arthur close by virtue of his broader body.
An attendant woke them around six, preparing Steve to go down to the CT machine, and Steve was groggy but aware of what was going on.
"We'll be here when you get back," Arthur promised him, clutching his hand for a moment.
"Don't make me deport your boyfriend," Steve slurred, with some attempt at a smile, and Arthur smiled back.
"What makes you think you could?" he said as they wheeled Steve out of the room. Arthur returned to Eames, sitting next to him and resting against Eames' side.
"I don't think I could have done this alone," Arthur said into the otherwise empty room.
"You could do anything, Arthur," Eames said, a bit groggily, and he might've said more embarrassingly flattering things were it not for a stern-faced, decidedly fit man brandishing a paper bag at the door.
"Guess I hit the wrong time for breakfast, huh?" the man said. He wore a garish, tropically themed shirt. Eames very much wanted to know where he purchased it from.
"Chin," Arthur said warmly. "Hi, man, how's it going? It's been awhile."
"It has, kanaka," Chin said, holding out his hand for Arthur to shake. "Your bro's been a little hardheaded, I hear?"
Arthur snorted. "You don't know the half of it." He turned to face Eames, and then glanced back at Chin. "This is my, um. My person. Eames."
Eames held out his hand. Chin had a strong grip, one Eames usually associated with law enforcement officers. He knew it well, from the times he had pretended to be one. "Pleasure."
"Likewise," Chin said, looking him up and down. "So the local picked a malihini, huh? Saw that one coming, man."
Arthur sighed, a little dramatically. "C'mon, don't give me a hard time, Chin. What did you get for breakfast?"
Chin shook the bag. "Breakfast burritos, Artie. Steve's favorite. Hospital food is shitty."
"Artie?" Eames asked disbelievingly, as they moved to the small table in the hospital room.
"Something no one is ever allowed to call me, ever," Arthur said, a constipated look on his face. "Chin used to work with my dad. He knew me when I was a kid. So he gets one pass," Arthur said, glaring at Chin when he handed him a burrito.
Chin held up his hands defensively. "Sorry, just trying to keep the memories alive," he said, grinning wide.
"Those memories can rot," Arthur informed him. "It's Arthur. Which you know perfectly well. Also, I know how to disable a man with a paperclip."
Chin just laughed. "I'm sure you do, little brah."
"Stop calling me little."
"No chance."
"This burrito is pretty good," Eames said, trying to switch the track of the conversation. He wasn't quite sure when his default response had switched from using information such as that to tease Arthur within an inch of his life (not that he wasn't inclined to save it for future use) to protecting him in whatever manner he required, but apparently such was the case.
Arthur threaded his foot around Eames' ankle; Eames suspected he was perilously close to developing a fetish. Chin talked about the place he'd acquired the burrito, the people who ran it, their family history and their apparently incestuous relationship with his own family. They carried on with meaningless small talk for the better part of an hour, until finally Steve was rolled back into his room, looking no worse for wear and awake in his bed.
"Chin," he said, holding out his IV'ed arm for Chin to bump his fist.
"Boss," Chin said, dragging a chair to sit by Steve's bed.
"Did you find Harris?" Steve asked trying very much to look alert even as he clearly needed to go back to sleep.
"We found his car," Chin said, "but the bastard is pretty squirrely, it looks like he was down by the port--"
"Arthur," Eames murmured, "shall we go get a coffee? It is rather early."
Arthur tracked away from the two men discussing things that were none of their concern, and set on Eames. "Yeah," he said. "Okay."
The hospital commissary was slightly busy, but they had no trouble acquiring coffees and settling in to one of the booths by a window. The sun was beginning to fill the room, and Eames watched the light play across Arthur's face as he pushed his hair from his eyes for the dozenth time.
"I bet, right now, you're missing your hair gel," Eames said, smiling slightly at Arthur.
Arthur's hand stopped midway through pushing it back. "You have no idea," he confessed, shaking his head a bit. "But the last time I was here the first two days were spent making fun of me for my hair, my clothes, my shoes, and my T. Anthony luggage, so this time I just gave up as soon as we set foot on the island."
Eames laughed. "Darling, you gave up earlier than that."
Arthur quirked an eyebrow.
"Don't you recall the button you undid on the plane?" Eames said, finger tracing the rim of his paper cup. "I was very nearly undone myself by the sight."
Arthur's smirk turned into full-board laughter, which resulted in his hair falling once more into his face. "You're so easy," he teased. "I bet you almost fainted when you saw my ankle."
"Victorian prudery is your fetish, dearest, not mine," Eames said in a blatant lie.
"I can't imagine what you think of me now," Arthur said slyly. "All undone, casual clothes, unsocked feet and all."
"You have no idea," Eames said fervently.
"I do," Arthur said, his tone turning slightly serious. "Eames, god, I do. I--fuck, I want you when you breathe at me, you have to believe me, I just. I can't. Right now."
"Hey," Eames said. "Arthur. This," he waved his hands between them, "is something we've managed to make work for years. I can wait until it's appropriate. I've waited longer before."
"I want to suck your cock," Arthur said softly. "I was thinking about it on the plane. I really want, I want you to fuck my face. I never told you that, but I want it, I think about it when I don't see you for months."
"Arthur," Eames said helplessly, "I can wait unless you talk dirty to me in a hospital refectory."
Arthur, of course, did not look at all repentant. "I also want to fuck you until you can't walk," he informed Eames in a hushed tone. "Remember that time in Bogotá? I want it like that again, where you come just from me fucking you, and then we make out for an hour and then I fuck you again until you're all loose and messy and can't say anything but my name and 'please' and you fall apart."
Eames made a strangled noise. "Arthur," he said urgently, "will you kindly shut the fuck up!"
Arthur's eyes had glazed over a little but he snapped back at Eames' tone. "Um," he said, one hand dipping below the rim of the table where Eames' hand already was, squeezing the life out of his cock, "sorry. I mean. You're right, this the longest we've ever been in the same place without having sex."
"Why don't you ever listen to me," Eames agreed, trying to ignore the flush on Arthur's neck that surely mirrored his own.
"I'm usually thinking about fucking your mouth so you'll shut up," Arthur said apologetically.
Eames dropped his head to the table and concentrated on breathing steadily.
Somehow they made it out of the refectory without causing impromptu pornography. Arthur disappeared for a moment and returned with a leer and a shave ice. "It'll cool you down," he promised, but that was so clearly, farcically untrue.
Eames ate it all anyway.
Back on the ICU floor, where their little crowd of McGarrett supporters were breaking hospital visiting rules right and left (Eames suspected that was something of a theme), Chin stood leaning on the nurses' station, talking with a woman who was clearly a doctor at the hospital, but not Steve's doctor. He looked up when he saw them and put his hand on the woman's forearm, pausing their conversation.
"Hey guys," Chin said, "Steve fell asleep, and I figured he could use it. He's been fighting pretty hard the last few days."
Arthur frowned. "You have no idea," he said, and Chin smiled a little.
"I really do," he said, and came up to throw an arm around Arthur's shoulders. To Eames' surprise--for Arthur was never much for physical affection, and then (barring yesterday's episode in the corridor) rarely in public--Arthur took it with grace, hooking his own arm around Chin's shoulders. "Listen, I know it's hard. But your brother has changed a lot in the last couple of years. He's gotten--well, he cares about things he'd fucked up before. And he sees that, which for Steve is a pretty big deal."
Arthur looked down at the floor, and Eames followed his line of sight: Arthur's toes curled into the soles of his flip-fops, a surprisingly young motion. Eames wondered if Arthur ever did that in his wing-tips, in his oxfords, where no one could see the vulnerability. And what did it say about being here, with this extended, exasperating family he'd tucked away like a well-read note, that he would let others see and take notice?
"He's still a bastard," Arthur said finally, and Chin laughed and clapped him on the back.
"I never said he wasn't, little brah. I'm just saying, give the man a break. He's finally realized he has emotions, and the Navy really didn't prepare him for that." They shook hands, and Eames did as well. Arthur leaned against the wall next to Steve's room, crossing his arms, and Eames moved next to him.
"Family friend, Chin, yeah?" Eames asked, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt he'd grabbed from the car that morning and unbuttoning another button. The floor was a bit stifling, not that Arthur had noticed, the half-dressed thing.
"One of the closest," Arthur said. "He stuck with my dad after my mom died, and when I came back home for high school he was the one that got me to go out for soccer. He kept on me a lot of the time, about my grades and stuff for college. I mean, I was pretty determined to get back to the mainland either way, but Chin's probably the reason I went to Brown instead of UCLA."
"Good man," Eames said.
Arthur's mouth turned down. "Yeah, well. He was a good cop, too, and he got burned by the brass for shit he didn't do. I'll give my dad this--he stuck with Chin, too, when shit went down with him. A lot of the HPD wouldn't get within a hundred feet of Chin after he got pushed out of the department, but my dad had him over for dinner every week, took him fishing, made him apply for jobs. I was gone by then, but Chin emailed me a couple of times and let me know what was going on. My dad was a shitty father, but he was a good friend."
Eames paused. "Could've been worse," he said finally. "You could've been raised by clown people."
Arthur gave him a look that conveyed exactly what he thought of Eames' attempt at levity, and pushed off the wall, ducking back into Steve's room. Eames followed.
Steve was passed out, bed raised and mouth hanging open. His arm was limp against his side, and Eames noted the nicely efficient job that had been done with his IV. Arthur went to the table and rummaged through his bag, pulling out his Kindle and the day's New York Times, which had cost a small fortune to purchase at the gift shop. He handed the Kindle to Eames, murmuring, "I put The Shadow of the Wind on there for you. I noticed you were reading it, but you forgot to bring it."
Eames took the thing from him, looking up at Arthur from the seat he'd taken on their shared uncomfortable loveseat. Arthur smiled, and Eames took his hand when he made to pull back. Instead, he tugged Arthur down to sit next to him, feeling every bit like the sort of teenager he never was.
"Arthur," he said on no more than an exhalation, "why did we never do this before?"
Arthur folded his hand into Eames' own and crossed his feet at his ankles. "I never thought you wanted this before."
"How wrong you were," Eames said.
"How wrong I was," Arthur echoed. "In the kitchen a couple of days ago--that was the first time you'd ever asked. I know you looked, I have traces and my own informants and a few red herrings thrown into my background for good measure. But you never asked me about my life, or my family, so I figured we were just...enjoying each other's company a few times a year." Arthur smiled, showing off the dimples so well hidden on the job.
"You never asked me about mine, darling. There's always a line in this business, and that was it," Eames said, not troubled, exactly, but wondering how he might've missed this simplest of keys to the most recalcitrant of doors.
"As you say," Arthur said, "there's a line."
"So whereas I thought we were pulling pigtails," Eames mused, "we were actually playing chicken. How very droll."
Arthur ducked closer, and in the flushed shell of Eames' ear, he whispered, "And you blinked first."
"You bastard," Eames breathed back.
Arthur smirked. "I guess it's a family trait."
Eames pinched his side and laughed silently as Arthur tried to wrestle out of Eames' very firmly planted arm.
They settled down to read, and around eight-thirty Danny returned, his daughter in tow. She was a young thing--Eames pinned her at around ten--and had a finger threaded through one of the loops on Danny's trousers, as if she felt too old to hold his hand but not quite old enough to let go yet. To his credit, Danny didn't seem to notice, just walked in step with her into the room. She had some kind of fierce defensive look on her face, and it reminded Eames of Philippa, for just a moment, at Mal's funeral standing a few feet away from her coffin.
"Go on," Danny said softly, and she darted from his side to climb up next to Steve on the bed.
"How's Grace doing?" Arthur asked, muted.
"Not great," Danny said. "Hi, good morning, how are ya, did Steve try to muscle his way out of incarceration again? No? Good. Yeah, Gracie's not doing so hot with having her Step-Steve end up in the hospital. Would you know, despite all odds to the contrary, only Kono has ended up doing serious time here? And even then she was in and out in less than forty-eight hours." He looked grim, like a father who'd had to have more than one iteration of the same difficult conversation.
Eames looked over at Grace, who had rested her head very carefully on Steve's chest. Steve was coming awake now, and he rested a hand on top of her head. "Hey monkey," he said hoarsely. Arthur untucked himself from Eames' side and murmured, "Ice chips," before slipping out of the room.
"Are you okay?" Grace asked carefully.
Steve looked down at her. "No," he said, and Eames gave him points for being honest. He'd always hated when adults lied to children, or tried to smooth things over. Better to give the truth than to sustain a lie. "But I will be."
Arthur returned with a plastic cup, and Danny took it from him, crossing to the other side of Steve's bed and holding it out to him. Steve and Grace were in quiet conversation, Grace inching her way up Steve's bed until she had draped herself lightly on top of him. Steve was supporting her with his arm, and Danny was running a hand up and down her back.
"Kid from his first marriage," Arthur murmured to Eames. "It's why he moved here, followed her for custody."
"She seems like a sweet girl," Eames said.
Arthur smiled. "She is. I'm surprised Danny didn't bring her in earlier--she's kryptonite for Steve."
Eames snorted. Danny returned and said, "Listen, you guys can head home if you want, I'm just gonna drop Grace off at school and then I'm going to be back in here for most of the day getting through paperwork. But listen, Arthur, I know we haven't seen much of each other doing shifts here, but I wanted to let you know I'm bringing Grace home tonight. Rachel said she hasn't been sleeping well since Steve's been here, and we figured it might get her through the night to be at the house."
"Of course," Arthur said. "No problem. We'll probably be back here tonight anyway."
Danny looked relieved. "Great, excellent, glad to hear it."
Arthur stood again and went to the foot of Steve's bed. "Listen, we're going to take off," he said, placing a hand on Steve's blanketed foot. Steve nodded, arm still keeping Grace tucked into his side.
"Can you water the hydrangeas?" he asked. "Mrs. Kim usually does it, but they're on vacation right now."
Arthur grinned, transforming his face in a moment. "Gardening, huh?" he said. "Never would've pegged you for it."
Steve rolled his eyes, but he smiled back. "They were mom's," he said. "She always liked them on the front of they house."
Arthur nodded. "I'll water them for you."
"Thanks," Steve said.
"Bye, Arthur," Grace said, muffled a bit.
"Bye Grace. Say good bye, Eames."
"Goodbye, Eames," Eames said automatically, and was rewarded with a little giggle. He waggled his fingers at her for good measure, and she waggled hers back.
They went back to the house, and every mile seemed to convey more exhaustion on the pair of them. This time, Arthur took care to point out Grace's room, and Steve and Danny's room, before they both collapsed into bed. Arthur tugged Eames to his chest, fitting his leg between Eames' own, and the last thing Eames thought before he fell asleep was, "I wonder what Arthur wants," but the thought was too big to answer.
Eames awoke alone again, knowing this time a bit of what to expect. He took his coffee, filched the glasses from the living room, and took Arthur's kindle out into the back garden, sitting in a wicker chair and setting his feet on the matching table. He read Zafón in the waning light, occasionally glancing up to see if Arthur had made it back to shore, but it was easy enough to get engrossed in his book. The story reminded him of a dream he'd been in once, for a client who had been a wealthy older gentleman wanting to relive his memory of youth. It had been a sepia-toned world they'd built for him, inviting his sleeping self to wander through a maze of half-real experiences that a man of twenty-five would be eager for. When he woke--Eames recalled his name was Bertinelli, now that he thought about it--the man couldn't remember all of it, but he could remember enough to put a light back into his eyes.
Near seven, Arthur returned, wearing the same gear from the day previous, board clutched beneath his arm.
"Hullo, Arthur," Eames said, setting aside his book as Arthur set aside his board and leaned down to kiss Eames a hello back. The water from his hair fell in fat droplets onto Eames' shirt, and Arthur's body beneath the fabric felt taut and wonderful.
"I do like those glasses," Arthur said when he pulled back, a rueful smile on his face. He picked up his board and moved towards the porch--no, the lanai, Arthur had corrected him on the word earlier. "Did you sleep well?"
"Well enough," Eames said, collecting his things and following.
"I spoke with Paolo after I got up," Arthur said, stripping out of his wetsuit with terrible efficiency while Eames watched the show. "He said Maude's run into a stumbling block with the medication the mark is taking, and he thinks we're going to have to push it back a couple of weeks more."
"And does Maude agree with that opinion?" Eames asked wryly, ducking back into the house to refill his mug, leaving Arthur on the other side of the open door to hose off.
Arthur sighed. "She thinks she's going to have a breakthrough," he said. "But you've worked with her before, you know how she is. I told her that we can't schedule a breakthrough, and she gave the phone back to Paolo and refused to talk to me any more."
Eames laughed. "I do know how she is. You might as well buy your chocolates now, love, or she's going to push the deadline back further just to spite you."
Arthur made a face. "I already sent some things over," he admitted. "She's so fucking temperamental, but I know she's going to get the compound right. That's why I brought her in. Those damn anti-psychotics are a bitch to work around, and she's going to get it right."
"Good man," Eames said approvingly.
Arthur ran off to take a shower, and Eames poked at the refrigerator, trying to see what he could throw together for dinner. He ended up with stir-fry, rice boiling on the rear of the stove, and was just reading a bit more of his book, leaning against the counter, when Arthur came up next to him smelling clean and damp.
"We should probably go relieve Danny after this," Arthur said, poking at the skillet with a wooden spoon. "He texted me to let me know he and Gracie are there, they got some dinner and ate it with Steve and are watching some movie about fish."
"Finding Nemo," Eames said immediately, and Arthur blinked at him.
"Yeah," he said. "How did you know?"
Eames shrugged one shoulder and dished out the food, setting the reading glasses (still a bit too small) atop his head. "Educated guess."
"I--" Arthur said and then shook his head, smiling a bit. "I don't want to know."
They ate in companionable silence, sometimes talking about the food or Arthur's wave set or bit about Grace, but mostly not talking at all. There was a faint echo of the ocean from the open door, and the low hum of the refrigerator rounded out the peace of the house. Eames wondered what it was like when it was full of people, what it looked like with a happy family.
The phone rang as Arthur was rinsing the plates and Eames was tidying the sitting room, and Eames swiped Arthur's mobile from its place on the kitchen counter. The phone read "Mary" and featured a picture of a women holding a very large cheese wedge hat with something of a maniacal grin. "It's your sister," Eames said, still a bit shocked that he can say those words and know them for what they mean.
"Shit," Arthur said, grasping for a towel. "I left her a message yesterday but I didn't think she'd actually get back to me."
Eames hit the "answer" button and held the phone up to Arthur's ear. Arthur flashed him a grateful look, the first time Eames had ever seen such a thing on Arthur's face not directly attributable to the exchange of ammunition.
"Mary," Arthur said, and Eames pulled a kitchen towel from the refrigerator door and offered it to Arthur. He climbed onto the stool at the kitchen island and was gratified when Arthur didn't leave the room--when Arthur let him listen.
"Yeah, he--yeah. Well, you know how he is, mostly it's just amazing that he hasn't been in the hospital more times. The doctor said--okay. Well, if you talked to Danny you're probably more updated than I am, but we saw him this morning and they kept him today and maybe tomorrow, just to be sure. Yeah. No, I don't think--okay--well, it's up to you, but--yeah. Yeah, I can do that. Are you sure you can take the time--? Okay, jesus, give me a break, it's not like you've made any special effort to come to the islands in the last decade." Arthur made a face and then snorted. "Okay, pot, but I think I had slightly more of a reason to head to the mainland than you did. Fine. Fine! Look, I'm not going to--no, you shut up. No, you--that's what she said, Mary, and you are now officially my least favorite sibling right now. That's pretty harsh considering one of them put himself in the hospital by way of a hero complex." Arthur was grinning, belying the tenor of his words, and Eames rested his chin on a hand and contemplated how different Arthur was with his sister compared to his brother.
"Look, I'll send you the itinerary tonight, okay? You're going to have to rent a car, though, or get someone to pick you up because I don't think we can spare the manpower between trying to keep Steve in his hospital bed and actually eating and sleeping. Okay. Okay. Oh my god, Mary, just shut up and pack, okay? Okay. Okay, bye."
Arthur was still smiling when he hung up the phone, and he said to Eames, "My sister's coming out here too, to yell at Steve. Looks like you get to punch all your family cards in one go."
Eames snorted. "My god, what luck."
Arthur set his phone on the counter and comes over to Eames, nudging him until he scooted back a bit. Arthur set himself in Eames lap, one leg on either side, hooking his wrists behind Eames' neck. "Thanks for going through all this with me."
"Arthur," Eames said seriously, "I can't think of anywhere I would rather be."
They made out in the kitchen until a key turned in the front door and Danny and Grace spilled in; Eames and Arthur pulled apart, flushed and smiling, and Danny rolled his eyes at them as he ran them down of the non-events of the day. After sorting out the next day's plans and wishing Grace a good night's sleep, Arthur and Eames headed out to the hospital for another night of babysitting.
When they arrived Steve was already half-asleep. Arthur had a murmured conversation with him that Eames didn't try to overhear. As Steve drifted off, they watched an old episode of Jeopardy and ate green jell-o and read until they finally give in to a nap in the wee hours. Steve had stayed put another day, and their duty was well done.
In the morning, marked mostly by the stab of sunlight through the east-facing window next to Steve's hospital bed and the agonizing tangle of twisted muscles and shared pain between two adults who really should've known better than to sleep a second night on the damnable institutional love seat, the doctor making the rounds told Steve he would be released later that day.
"Are you sure?" Arthur asked, the severity of his face undermined by the loose curl of his hair around his eyes.
Dr. Kealoha arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow; Eames noted the action and immediately started breaking down its component parts in his head. A handy bit of power play, that. He was still listening with one ear even as catalogued the attendant muscle groups in his face.
"Mr. McGarrett, I think any attempt to keep your brother under medical care at this point would do more harm than good," she said, swinging the metal lid of the patient chart closed and sliding her pen into her pocket. "You know him better than I do--do you honestly think he'll stay now that he's set for release?"
Arthur deflated slightly, disappointment a strange look on him. "I suppose," he said, the lovely culture of his vowels matching the doctor's own educated accent. Eames wondered if Arthur even realized the ease with which he switched verbal modes, and decided not to tell him, for then Eames' amusement would be gone.
"Arthur, shut up, I'm getting out of here," Steve said, already twitching in his bed though he wouldn't be leaving for several hours yet.
Arthur threw him a glare. "Excuse the shit out of me for being concerned that you're not well enough to be released," Arthur said snippily, and that right there, the slide between Ivy Leaguer and younger brother was far too delicious to acknowledge.
The doctor was clearly hiding her laughter under a well-balanced facade, and Eames quirked a smile at her in acknowledgement. She took a breath and her mask fell back into place; Eames was already mirroring her stance. What a useful forge--power and control wrapped into a beautiful package. Very useful.
"Gentlemen, I'll leave you to work out the details," she said, pulling a card from her breast pocket and handing it to Arthur. "If he's still breathing poorly in twenty-four hours, page me and bring him back in. The ribs should heal on their own, and we're out of the woods on the lung, but he'll need to be monitored for the next four or five days to really be clear." She took her leave, and Eames marked her walk--no sway at all, just a purposeful stride in functional clogs, her green scrubs slightly too long for her height.
Arthur smacked him on the shoulder, and Eames jolted back to awareness.
"Stop checking out the doctor," Arthur ground out.
"I was just trying to imit--" Eames protested, and Arthur smacked him again.
"Seriously, I don't care, she's too hot for you anyway," Arthur says as dismissively as he could manage, and when Eames turned his incredulous gaze upon Steve, he found the man hiding his grin behind a hand, IV cannula disrupting the tan flesh.
"Your brother is a menace to all perfectly respectable Englishmen," he informed Steve, and Steve couldn't contain his laughter this time.
Arthur was rather irritated.
It turned out that it was Saturday, and Danny and Grace and Kono all arrived at once with coffee and food and loud, bustling conversation. At first Arthur refused to sit next to him on the loveseat again, but Eames kept entering his personal space to "get a doughnut" or "hand Grace a sugar packet" or "poke holes in Arthur's general demeanor." He finally gave up and sat huffily next to Eames, an image rather ruined by his somewhat collegiate appearance. Arthur placed a possessive hand on Eames' thigh, and Eames found himself stuck with a rather foolish smile on his face.
Kono and Danny agreed to bring Steve home, and genial goodwill was exchanged as Arthur and Eames took their leave. Arthur placed his hand on Eames' thigh again as they drove back to the house, and Eames pretended not to notice even as he inched his own hand atop Arthur's.
They really were a insufferably well-matched set, Eames thought ruefully. Arthur had ruined him for truly satisfying sex with other people some time ago; perhaps it was due time that Arthur had ruined him for other things as well.
It was only nine in the morning, but several days of unrelenting stress and their newfound familiarity had made them inclined to head immediately towards the guest rooms after attending to a handful of menial things. Eames took a shower, using Arthur's shampoo and finally relegating himself to a thorough shave. When he returned to the bedroom, Arthur was tucked beneath the sheet, chest bare and Kindle in hand. At the sight of Eames in his towel--which Eames had thoughtfully not removed from his person to better exploit Arthur's clear lust--he placed the Kindle on the nightstand and said in a demanding tone, "Come here."
It wasn't as though Eames was going to do anything else.
The towel dropped to the floor, and he was gratified by the sharp breath Arthur took. Eames walked to him, not his own gait but a borrowed one, and his cock rose as Arthur's eyes locked on his waist.
He stopped just before the bed, to see what Arthur would do.
Predictably, it was not what Eames expected--Arthur rolled his eyes and withdrew one leg from the confines of the bedclothes, wrapping it around Eames' waist and managing some kind of ninja-judo flip that resulted in Eames landing on his back, squarely in the middle of the bed.
"Now I declare," Eames said in as gaudy a voice as he could imagine, considering he sprang to full attention at that bit of trickery, "what kind of girl do you think I am?"
"The kind about to get a blowjob," Arthur said dryly, ducking his head down to swallow Eames down.
Eames barely managed to control his voice, and then didn't bother when he remembered in a flash that there was no one else in this big, airy house other than the two of them. Arthur was very talented at this particular skill, laving the slit in repeated motions until Eames was a shuddery wreck beneath him. Eames writhed and panted as Arthur worked his mouth tortuously slowly down Eames' cock, only stopping when his nose pressed against the thin skin of Eames' groin.
Arthur kept himself there, pressing down on Eames' hips with strong, unmoving hands, so that Eames could only jerk a millimeter or two away from the obscene stretch of Arthur's lips and back in again. Eames knew his eyes were wide, his mouth open, sounds escaping from him that were shocky and filthy. Arthur met his eyes and hummed deep in his throat, until Eames bowed and jerked from the vision and feel of it all. He was insensate for a long, bliss-ridden moment, and only came back to himself when he felt Arthur pulling off as slowly as he first went down. The air on his cock felt like another bit of Arthur, another bit of Arthur's direction, and his legs fell weakly open in a pornographic sprawl.
Arthur finally released Eames' cock from the wet confines of his dirty, wonderful mouth, and were Eames not so utterly spent from delayed desire and a thoroughly satisfying orgasm from the man he was now considering fitting with a GPS tracker, he would very much have liked to do something about Arthur's own particular concern.
He raised a hand weakly, and Arthur batted it away. His mouth was wet and red, spit slicking the corner and sweat sticking the line of his forehead. He was naked, which Eames did not recall, and his eyes were fixed on Eames' limp form with something akin to avarice and self-satisfaction. Eames adjusted only minutely, to better fuel whatever reel was spinning in Arthur's head. He arched a bit, gratified by the rising flush in Arthur's skin. It was turning quickly from its natural pale colour to an island tan, and Eames was fascinated by the change.
Arthur straddled Eames' legs, knees bracketing his hips, and stroked himself off. The tip of his cock escaped with every downward motion, red and leaking from the vise Arthur held himself in. Eames arched again, and Arthur's eyes travelled from Eames' soft cock, up his chest to land on Eames' mouth, before meeting his eyes and making the journey down again.
"Arthur," Eames said, hearing his voice shake a bit from exertion and the thing swelling in his chest. "Arthur, dearest, do it, I want it, I want you on me. Won't you come for me?" and Arthur did, a sound wrenching from him like it was dragged up from somewhere deep. Even as he was still shuddering it out, he reached a wavering hand down to rub himself into the skin of Eames' stomach, some kind of ancient ritual he couldn't help but enact. Eames rumbled his pleasure in response, arching into the touch, and Arthur gasped once, twice, falling atop Eames with his mess between them.
To Eames' chagrin, he fell asleep like that, Arthur's dead weight crushing him to the bedclothes, bedroom door ajar and light left on in the bathroom. His feet dangled off the bed and the sun was far too bright, but it hardly mattered.
Eames started awake to Grace's high shriek of laughter, finding himself unable to move, Arthur pinning him down to the bed. Arthur seemed to gain twice as much density when he slept as when he was awake. Eames had to brace a foot on the floor to flip him over, slipping off the bed to shut the door and grabbing his towel from the floor.
He looked down and rubbed a thumb ruefully over his stomach; he really ought to take another shower altogether. But there was something wonderfully dirty about leaving it there too, for Arthur to find later on. He mentally shrugged and tossed the towel over Arthur, obscuring his bum from inappropriate eyes.
Eames dressed and debated the likelihood of waking Arthur. He had two settings: on-the-job, where he barely managed to get into REM sleep at all; and off-the-job, where wailing sirens had been known to go off and still Arthur wouldn't stir. He grasped Arthur's ankle where it was hanging off the bed and moved it over a bit. Arthur didn't wake at that, so Eames left him. He probably needed the rest, with all that had happened in the last several days.
He closed the door behind him and went to the kitchen, where Kono and Chin were doing something on the cooker while a smiling, somewhat intimidating gentleman Eames has not yet met leaned over the kitchen island. Steve and Danny weren't there, but Grace was sitting on the stool next to the new bloke, grinning like she'd just won the lottery or been told unicorn ponies actually did exist.
"No, you gotta add the soy sauce in before the water, brah," the man argued, not seeming to mind Grace poking his shoulder incessantly, trying to get his attention.
"That's not how my mom does it, Kame," Chin argued back, stirring something around in a wok.
"Kame," Grace whined, "Kame Kame Kame Kame."
"Look, little wahine, didn't your papa ever tell you it's rude to interrupt a conversation?" Kame said, his smile softening the rebuke.
Grace rolled her eyes. Eames liked that about her, the spirit of being a well-off only child with none of the spoilt unpleasantness. "Danno told me I need to speak my mind because girls are just as important as boys and boys don't always believe that."
Kono laughed, sweet and loud. "I'm with the kid here, Kame," she said.
Kame rubbed Grace's head affectionately. "You speak your mind, hey, but stop poking me, you get me, girl?"
Chin looked up from what he was doing and spotted Eames. "Hey there."
Eames waved a bit. "Hullo there. Sorry to interrupt, just woke up and wanted to see what all the fuss was."
"We're making dinner!" Grace said cheerfully, holding up a squash and waving it around.
"I can see that," Eames said, smiling at her. "Where's your father, then, and the wayward McGarrett?"
"Out on the lanai," Kono said, whisking something in a bowl as she inclined her head.
"Right, I'll just--do you need any help?" Eames asked, cutting himself off as he headed in that direction.
"Nah," Chin said. "Too many cooks already, with Kamekona and Gracie here."
"I resent the implication I am too much of anything," Kamekona said, pretending to be affronted.
"What if I said you were too much of a pain in my ass?" Kona said, brandishing her whisk. The other three gasped in mock-shock, and Grace held out her hand.
"Quarter, please," she said primly, and Kono groaned and dug out a quarter from her pocket.
"I see I'll have to mind my words," Eames said, sliding his hands into his pockets.
"She's too well-trained," Kono complained.
"Shave ice doesn't pay for itself, Kono," Chin said, hiding his own grin but revealing it in his eyes.
"I'll just--" Eames said, slipping out of the room to the sound of happy bickering. It was what greeted him on the lanai, too; it did seem to be a running theme here. Perhaps that explained him and Arthur, a bit. Or Arthur's reaction to him, and to Ariadne, and to one or two others Eames had seen Arthur work with.
"What, are you pissed that we could actually catch a criminal without you?" Danny's agitated voice floated out over the evening air, a bit like his daughter's in the rhythm and fall. "Jesus, we don't all have to be Army Rangers to be competent at our jobs," Danny continued, sounding a little bitter.
"Navy--fuck you, Danny, that wasn't funny the first two hundred times and it isn't funny now," Steve retorted, a little weaker, Eames thought, than he probably was normally. He walked up behind them, careful to kick a stone or two to alert them to his presence. Both looked up when he approached, and Danny gave him a little wave.
"Mind if I join?" Eames asked. Danny waved him into one of the other rattan chairs, and Eames slid his ankle over his knee, making himself look relaxed and non-threatening. In this context, he was both of those things, but he had been in Steve's position (benched and drugged and unhappy about both things) and preferred to keep him from tensing up at all, not when Eames' demeanor was so well under his own control.
Danny had a beer, Steve had some iced tea, and there was a paradisical sunset dropping low over the waters. The rosy light made Steve look less sallow than he had in his hospital room.
"Did you nab George Harris, then?" Eames asked.
Danny raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I heard about your little trick with Kono's files. Notice me not commenting, right, but yes, we got the asshole. He was holed up in a trailer park with a .22 and a bottle of whiskey. Harris didn't even ditch his phone, which was the second dumb thing he did after trying to drop Steven here from a construction platform. It had all his pick up and drop off records, including a cheat sheet to the code system in the Notes application. Dumb fuck. He's sitting in a holding cell down in District 1-2, nursing a hangover and waiting on a judge."
Eames smiled a bit. "Well played, then. Glad you got him."
"They should've called for backup," Steve said grumpily from his slump in his chair. One arm was wound around his torso, bruising visible on his arm and hand pressed against his side.
Danny glared at him, but moved his glass into his hands. "We would have, if we hadn't needed to defuse the situation right the fuck then. I'm all about letting SWAT do their thing, McGarrett, but if there's a drunk scared asshole with a gun and kids playing down the road, I make that a priority."
Steve made a face but sipped his tea, tilting his head back and staring at the sky.
"Where's your recalcitrant half?" Danny asked, turning to Eames and resting his head on his hand.
"Asleep, I believe. He could sleep through an earthquake at times," Eames said, noting the tired lines around Danny's eyes, the neutral set of his mouth. It was automatic, his dissection of visual expressions. He didn't even pay attention to doing it most of the time, anymore.
"He did that when he was a little kid, too," Steve said, a half-smile on his face. "Sometimes I'd have to carry him back to the car after we were out on the beach, and he'd never even flinch. He'd wake up the next morning in his bed and bug the crap out of me, worried that he missed something."
"He doesn't miss much now," Eames said.
Danny snorted. "That's the god's fucking truth."
They moved to lighter topics, the weather and closing the case and whether the American football playoffs were worth ordering pay-per-view. Eames contributed a bit, but his mind was elsewhere, wondering about the job they've left behind and Maude's penchant for pecan candies and whether Arthur would be able to walk away from all this as cleanly as he thought he could.
Arthur appeared at the lanai, and Eames' eyes were automatically drawn to him. Sometimes it was as though he was the only thing in a room, and Eames had catalogued every expression, every gesture Arthur made and he still found himself fascinated. And clearly more than a little besotted.
"So, Steve," Arthur said, with that determined look he gets when he had to do something he didn't like to do, "I may have neglected to inform you of something important."
Steve turned, very slowly and still protecting his ribs, and a frown crossed his face. "What did you do," he asked, trying for intimidating but mostly coming out petulant.
"WHERE'S BIG BROTHER?" came a voice louder in volume than should be possible from such a compact frame. Mary hopped out from the house and threw an arm around Arthur, who looked simultaneously long-suffering and delighted. "Steven James McGarrett, what the fuck did you do to yourself?"
"You called Mary?" Steve asked, eyes wide. If possible, he was shrinking back into his rattan chair, trying to fold up his large frame into a tiny ball. Eames watched, a bit impressed; he couldn't fold himself into that position, broken ribs or no.
"Yes he did!" Mary said, entirely too gleeful for the situation. "And guess who took her two weeks of vacation time to stay here and help you recuperate?"
"Oh god," Steve said.
"That's right!" Mary came over to them and ducked down, fringe falling in her eyes. "And don't think you can ship me off to the mainland again, brother, because you're on medical leave and I took all the batteries out of the remotes already."
"Arthur," Steve said, sounding a bit desperate, "Arthur, can't you stay? I mean, we don't want Mary to lose all her vacation time, right?"
Arthur's smile would have been epic if he were a different sort of man; as it was, the edges of his dimples were just threatening to show. "Steve, I already lost a week to this. And my job doesn't come with a vacation accrual."
"Danny?" Steve turned to him hopefully. "Aren't you worried about having a guest for that long?"
Danny rolled his eyes. "Mary's not a guest, dumbass, she's family," he said, and Mary high-fived him right in front of Steve's face. "Besides, I'm not taking my vacation time to stay home and feed you chicken soup. We're taking Grace to New Jersey for Thanksgiving, if you haven't forgotten--don't forget, Steve, you have to come too, it's mandatory--and I've already purchased those plane tickets. So Mary here is gonna keep you in line and nurse you back to health."
Steve's face warred between horror and resignation and finally settled on resignation. "I can't believe you called Mary," he muttered at Arthur one last time before staring moodily at the ocean. Mary ducked down and kissed him on the temple, and Steve took it without complaining.
Mary hopped back up and settled on Eames. "So," she said, her eyes going sharp in the way that seemed to be a McGarrett family trait, "you're the guy who’s been fucking my baby brother and never coming home with him, right? Eames?"
Eames spared a glance at Arthur, who was smiling a bit more freely now, the tips of his ears pink. He liked this, Eames realized. Arthur liked how Mary treated him with no regard for his well-established boundaries. A bit like Eames treated him, or used to treat him, before they fell into this new thing between them.
"I rather prefer to think of it as Arthur fucking me," he demurred with a slight leer, and Mary laughed, delighted.
"That's not unusual," she assured him, and both Danny and Steve were complaining, telling them to shut up.
***
part I | part II | part III | masterpost | notes
by templemarker
part I | part II | part III | masterpost | notes
***
They did finally get some sleep, dragging the loveseat from the waiting room into Steve's room. Eames flirted with the nurse, and he looked the other way, even brought them a couple of pillows. It was comically uncomfortable and it took ages for them both to settle, but finally they did, Eames curling Arthur close by virtue of his broader body.
An attendant woke them around six, preparing Steve to go down to the CT machine, and Steve was groggy but aware of what was going on.
"We'll be here when you get back," Arthur promised him, clutching his hand for a moment.
"Don't make me deport your boyfriend," Steve slurred, with some attempt at a smile, and Arthur smiled back.
"What makes you think you could?" he said as they wheeled Steve out of the room. Arthur returned to Eames, sitting next to him and resting against Eames' side.
"I don't think I could have done this alone," Arthur said into the otherwise empty room.
"You could do anything, Arthur," Eames said, a bit groggily, and he might've said more embarrassingly flattering things were it not for a stern-faced, decidedly fit man brandishing a paper bag at the door.
"Guess I hit the wrong time for breakfast, huh?" the man said. He wore a garish, tropically themed shirt. Eames very much wanted to know where he purchased it from.
"Chin," Arthur said warmly. "Hi, man, how's it going? It's been awhile."
"It has, kanaka," Chin said, holding out his hand for Arthur to shake. "Your bro's been a little hardheaded, I hear?"
Arthur snorted. "You don't know the half of it." He turned to face Eames, and then glanced back at Chin. "This is my, um. My person. Eames."
Eames held out his hand. Chin had a strong grip, one Eames usually associated with law enforcement officers. He knew it well, from the times he had pretended to be one. "Pleasure."
"Likewise," Chin said, looking him up and down. "So the local picked a malihini, huh? Saw that one coming, man."
Arthur sighed, a little dramatically. "C'mon, don't give me a hard time, Chin. What did you get for breakfast?"
Chin shook the bag. "Breakfast burritos, Artie. Steve's favorite. Hospital food is shitty."
"Artie?" Eames asked disbelievingly, as they moved to the small table in the hospital room.
"Something no one is ever allowed to call me, ever," Arthur said, a constipated look on his face. "Chin used to work with my dad. He knew me when I was a kid. So he gets one pass," Arthur said, glaring at Chin when he handed him a burrito.
Chin held up his hands defensively. "Sorry, just trying to keep the memories alive," he said, grinning wide.
"Those memories can rot," Arthur informed him. "It's Arthur. Which you know perfectly well. Also, I know how to disable a man with a paperclip."
Chin just laughed. "I'm sure you do, little brah."
"Stop calling me little."
"No chance."
"This burrito is pretty good," Eames said, trying to switch the track of the conversation. He wasn't quite sure when his default response had switched from using information such as that to tease Arthur within an inch of his life (not that he wasn't inclined to save it for future use) to protecting him in whatever manner he required, but apparently such was the case.
Arthur threaded his foot around Eames' ankle; Eames suspected he was perilously close to developing a fetish. Chin talked about the place he'd acquired the burrito, the people who ran it, their family history and their apparently incestuous relationship with his own family. They carried on with meaningless small talk for the better part of an hour, until finally Steve was rolled back into his room, looking no worse for wear and awake in his bed.
"Chin," he said, holding out his IV'ed arm for Chin to bump his fist.
"Boss," Chin said, dragging a chair to sit by Steve's bed.
"Did you find Harris?" Steve asked trying very much to look alert even as he clearly needed to go back to sleep.
"We found his car," Chin said, "but the bastard is pretty squirrely, it looks like he was down by the port--"
"Arthur," Eames murmured, "shall we go get a coffee? It is rather early."
Arthur tracked away from the two men discussing things that were none of their concern, and set on Eames. "Yeah," he said. "Okay."
The hospital commissary was slightly busy, but they had no trouble acquiring coffees and settling in to one of the booths by a window. The sun was beginning to fill the room, and Eames watched the light play across Arthur's face as he pushed his hair from his eyes for the dozenth time.
"I bet, right now, you're missing your hair gel," Eames said, smiling slightly at Arthur.
Arthur's hand stopped midway through pushing it back. "You have no idea," he confessed, shaking his head a bit. "But the last time I was here the first two days were spent making fun of me for my hair, my clothes, my shoes, and my T. Anthony luggage, so this time I just gave up as soon as we set foot on the island."
Eames laughed. "Darling, you gave up earlier than that."
Arthur quirked an eyebrow.
"Don't you recall the button you undid on the plane?" Eames said, finger tracing the rim of his paper cup. "I was very nearly undone myself by the sight."
Arthur's smirk turned into full-board laughter, which resulted in his hair falling once more into his face. "You're so easy," he teased. "I bet you almost fainted when you saw my ankle."
"Victorian prudery is your fetish, dearest, not mine," Eames said in a blatant lie.
"I can't imagine what you think of me now," Arthur said slyly. "All undone, casual clothes, unsocked feet and all."
"You have no idea," Eames said fervently.
"I do," Arthur said, his tone turning slightly serious. "Eames, god, I do. I--fuck, I want you when you breathe at me, you have to believe me, I just. I can't. Right now."
"Hey," Eames said. "Arthur. This," he waved his hands between them, "is something we've managed to make work for years. I can wait until it's appropriate. I've waited longer before."
"I want to suck your cock," Arthur said softly. "I was thinking about it on the plane. I really want, I want you to fuck my face. I never told you that, but I want it, I think about it when I don't see you for months."
"Arthur," Eames said helplessly, "I can wait unless you talk dirty to me in a hospital refectory."
Arthur, of course, did not look at all repentant. "I also want to fuck you until you can't walk," he informed Eames in a hushed tone. "Remember that time in Bogotá? I want it like that again, where you come just from me fucking you, and then we make out for an hour and then I fuck you again until you're all loose and messy and can't say anything but my name and 'please' and you fall apart."
Eames made a strangled noise. "Arthur," he said urgently, "will you kindly shut the fuck up!"
Arthur's eyes had glazed over a little but he snapped back at Eames' tone. "Um," he said, one hand dipping below the rim of the table where Eames' hand already was, squeezing the life out of his cock, "sorry. I mean. You're right, this the longest we've ever been in the same place without having sex."
"Why don't you ever listen to me," Eames agreed, trying to ignore the flush on Arthur's neck that surely mirrored his own.
"I'm usually thinking about fucking your mouth so you'll shut up," Arthur said apologetically.
Eames dropped his head to the table and concentrated on breathing steadily.
Somehow they made it out of the refectory without causing impromptu pornography. Arthur disappeared for a moment and returned with a leer and a shave ice. "It'll cool you down," he promised, but that was so clearly, farcically untrue.
Eames ate it all anyway.
Back on the ICU floor, where their little crowd of McGarrett supporters were breaking hospital visiting rules right and left (Eames suspected that was something of a theme), Chin stood leaning on the nurses' station, talking with a woman who was clearly a doctor at the hospital, but not Steve's doctor. He looked up when he saw them and put his hand on the woman's forearm, pausing their conversation.
"Hey guys," Chin said, "Steve fell asleep, and I figured he could use it. He's been fighting pretty hard the last few days."
Arthur frowned. "You have no idea," he said, and Chin smiled a little.
"I really do," he said, and came up to throw an arm around Arthur's shoulders. To Eames' surprise--for Arthur was never much for physical affection, and then (barring yesterday's episode in the corridor) rarely in public--Arthur took it with grace, hooking his own arm around Chin's shoulders. "Listen, I know it's hard. But your brother has changed a lot in the last couple of years. He's gotten--well, he cares about things he'd fucked up before. And he sees that, which for Steve is a pretty big deal."
Arthur looked down at the floor, and Eames followed his line of sight: Arthur's toes curled into the soles of his flip-fops, a surprisingly young motion. Eames wondered if Arthur ever did that in his wing-tips, in his oxfords, where no one could see the vulnerability. And what did it say about being here, with this extended, exasperating family he'd tucked away like a well-read note, that he would let others see and take notice?
"He's still a bastard," Arthur said finally, and Chin laughed and clapped him on the back.
"I never said he wasn't, little brah. I'm just saying, give the man a break. He's finally realized he has emotions, and the Navy really didn't prepare him for that." They shook hands, and Eames did as well. Arthur leaned against the wall next to Steve's room, crossing his arms, and Eames moved next to him.
"Family friend, Chin, yeah?" Eames asked, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt he'd grabbed from the car that morning and unbuttoning another button. The floor was a bit stifling, not that Arthur had noticed, the half-dressed thing.
"One of the closest," Arthur said. "He stuck with my dad after my mom died, and when I came back home for high school he was the one that got me to go out for soccer. He kept on me a lot of the time, about my grades and stuff for college. I mean, I was pretty determined to get back to the mainland either way, but Chin's probably the reason I went to Brown instead of UCLA."
"Good man," Eames said.
Arthur's mouth turned down. "Yeah, well. He was a good cop, too, and he got burned by the brass for shit he didn't do. I'll give my dad this--he stuck with Chin, too, when shit went down with him. A lot of the HPD wouldn't get within a hundred feet of Chin after he got pushed out of the department, but my dad had him over for dinner every week, took him fishing, made him apply for jobs. I was gone by then, but Chin emailed me a couple of times and let me know what was going on. My dad was a shitty father, but he was a good friend."
Eames paused. "Could've been worse," he said finally. "You could've been raised by clown people."
Arthur gave him a look that conveyed exactly what he thought of Eames' attempt at levity, and pushed off the wall, ducking back into Steve's room. Eames followed.
Steve was passed out, bed raised and mouth hanging open. His arm was limp against his side, and Eames noted the nicely efficient job that had been done with his IV. Arthur went to the table and rummaged through his bag, pulling out his Kindle and the day's New York Times, which had cost a small fortune to purchase at the gift shop. He handed the Kindle to Eames, murmuring, "I put The Shadow of the Wind on there for you. I noticed you were reading it, but you forgot to bring it."
Eames took the thing from him, looking up at Arthur from the seat he'd taken on their shared uncomfortable loveseat. Arthur smiled, and Eames took his hand when he made to pull back. Instead, he tugged Arthur down to sit next to him, feeling every bit like the sort of teenager he never was.
"Arthur," he said on no more than an exhalation, "why did we never do this before?"
Arthur folded his hand into Eames' own and crossed his feet at his ankles. "I never thought you wanted this before."
"How wrong you were," Eames said.
"How wrong I was," Arthur echoed. "In the kitchen a couple of days ago--that was the first time you'd ever asked. I know you looked, I have traces and my own informants and a few red herrings thrown into my background for good measure. But you never asked me about my life, or my family, so I figured we were just...enjoying each other's company a few times a year." Arthur smiled, showing off the dimples so well hidden on the job.
"You never asked me about mine, darling. There's always a line in this business, and that was it," Eames said, not troubled, exactly, but wondering how he might've missed this simplest of keys to the most recalcitrant of doors.
"As you say," Arthur said, "there's a line."
"So whereas I thought we were pulling pigtails," Eames mused, "we were actually playing chicken. How very droll."
Arthur ducked closer, and in the flushed shell of Eames' ear, he whispered, "And you blinked first."
"You bastard," Eames breathed back.
Arthur smirked. "I guess it's a family trait."
Eames pinched his side and laughed silently as Arthur tried to wrestle out of Eames' very firmly planted arm.
They settled down to read, and around eight-thirty Danny returned, his daughter in tow. She was a young thing--Eames pinned her at around ten--and had a finger threaded through one of the loops on Danny's trousers, as if she felt too old to hold his hand but not quite old enough to let go yet. To his credit, Danny didn't seem to notice, just walked in step with her into the room. She had some kind of fierce defensive look on her face, and it reminded Eames of Philippa, for just a moment, at Mal's funeral standing a few feet away from her coffin.
"Go on," Danny said softly, and she darted from his side to climb up next to Steve on the bed.
"How's Grace doing?" Arthur asked, muted.
"Not great," Danny said. "Hi, good morning, how are ya, did Steve try to muscle his way out of incarceration again? No? Good. Yeah, Gracie's not doing so hot with having her Step-Steve end up in the hospital. Would you know, despite all odds to the contrary, only Kono has ended up doing serious time here? And even then she was in and out in less than forty-eight hours." He looked grim, like a father who'd had to have more than one iteration of the same difficult conversation.
Eames looked over at Grace, who had rested her head very carefully on Steve's chest. Steve was coming awake now, and he rested a hand on top of her head. "Hey monkey," he said hoarsely. Arthur untucked himself from Eames' side and murmured, "Ice chips," before slipping out of the room.
"Are you okay?" Grace asked carefully.
Steve looked down at her. "No," he said, and Eames gave him points for being honest. He'd always hated when adults lied to children, or tried to smooth things over. Better to give the truth than to sustain a lie. "But I will be."
Arthur returned with a plastic cup, and Danny took it from him, crossing to the other side of Steve's bed and holding it out to him. Steve and Grace were in quiet conversation, Grace inching her way up Steve's bed until she had draped herself lightly on top of him. Steve was supporting her with his arm, and Danny was running a hand up and down her back.
"Kid from his first marriage," Arthur murmured to Eames. "It's why he moved here, followed her for custody."
"She seems like a sweet girl," Eames said.
Arthur smiled. "She is. I'm surprised Danny didn't bring her in earlier--she's kryptonite for Steve."
Eames snorted. Danny returned and said, "Listen, you guys can head home if you want, I'm just gonna drop Grace off at school and then I'm going to be back in here for most of the day getting through paperwork. But listen, Arthur, I know we haven't seen much of each other doing shifts here, but I wanted to let you know I'm bringing Grace home tonight. Rachel said she hasn't been sleeping well since Steve's been here, and we figured it might get her through the night to be at the house."
"Of course," Arthur said. "No problem. We'll probably be back here tonight anyway."
Danny looked relieved. "Great, excellent, glad to hear it."
Arthur stood again and went to the foot of Steve's bed. "Listen, we're going to take off," he said, placing a hand on Steve's blanketed foot. Steve nodded, arm still keeping Grace tucked into his side.
"Can you water the hydrangeas?" he asked. "Mrs. Kim usually does it, but they're on vacation right now."
Arthur grinned, transforming his face in a moment. "Gardening, huh?" he said. "Never would've pegged you for it."
Steve rolled his eyes, but he smiled back. "They were mom's," he said. "She always liked them on the front of they house."
Arthur nodded. "I'll water them for you."
"Thanks," Steve said.
"Bye, Arthur," Grace said, muffled a bit.
"Bye Grace. Say good bye, Eames."
"Goodbye, Eames," Eames said automatically, and was rewarded with a little giggle. He waggled his fingers at her for good measure, and she waggled hers back.
They went back to the house, and every mile seemed to convey more exhaustion on the pair of them. This time, Arthur took care to point out Grace's room, and Steve and Danny's room, before they both collapsed into bed. Arthur tugged Eames to his chest, fitting his leg between Eames' own, and the last thing Eames thought before he fell asleep was, "I wonder what Arthur wants," but the thought was too big to answer.
Eames awoke alone again, knowing this time a bit of what to expect. He took his coffee, filched the glasses from the living room, and took Arthur's kindle out into the back garden, sitting in a wicker chair and setting his feet on the matching table. He read Zafón in the waning light, occasionally glancing up to see if Arthur had made it back to shore, but it was easy enough to get engrossed in his book. The story reminded him of a dream he'd been in once, for a client who had been a wealthy older gentleman wanting to relive his memory of youth. It had been a sepia-toned world they'd built for him, inviting his sleeping self to wander through a maze of half-real experiences that a man of twenty-five would be eager for. When he woke--Eames recalled his name was Bertinelli, now that he thought about it--the man couldn't remember all of it, but he could remember enough to put a light back into his eyes.
Near seven, Arthur returned, wearing the same gear from the day previous, board clutched beneath his arm.
"Hullo, Arthur," Eames said, setting aside his book as Arthur set aside his board and leaned down to kiss Eames a hello back. The water from his hair fell in fat droplets onto Eames' shirt, and Arthur's body beneath the fabric felt taut and wonderful.
"I do like those glasses," Arthur said when he pulled back, a rueful smile on his face. He picked up his board and moved towards the porch--no, the lanai, Arthur had corrected him on the word earlier. "Did you sleep well?"
"Well enough," Eames said, collecting his things and following.
"I spoke with Paolo after I got up," Arthur said, stripping out of his wetsuit with terrible efficiency while Eames watched the show. "He said Maude's run into a stumbling block with the medication the mark is taking, and he thinks we're going to have to push it back a couple of weeks more."
"And does Maude agree with that opinion?" Eames asked wryly, ducking back into the house to refill his mug, leaving Arthur on the other side of the open door to hose off.
Arthur sighed. "She thinks she's going to have a breakthrough," he said. "But you've worked with her before, you know how she is. I told her that we can't schedule a breakthrough, and she gave the phone back to Paolo and refused to talk to me any more."
Eames laughed. "I do know how she is. You might as well buy your chocolates now, love, or she's going to push the deadline back further just to spite you."
Arthur made a face. "I already sent some things over," he admitted. "She's so fucking temperamental, but I know she's going to get the compound right. That's why I brought her in. Those damn anti-psychotics are a bitch to work around, and she's going to get it right."
"Good man," Eames said approvingly.
Arthur ran off to take a shower, and Eames poked at the refrigerator, trying to see what he could throw together for dinner. He ended up with stir-fry, rice boiling on the rear of the stove, and was just reading a bit more of his book, leaning against the counter, when Arthur came up next to him smelling clean and damp.
"We should probably go relieve Danny after this," Arthur said, poking at the skillet with a wooden spoon. "He texted me to let me know he and Gracie are there, they got some dinner and ate it with Steve and are watching some movie about fish."
"Finding Nemo," Eames said immediately, and Arthur blinked at him.
"Yeah," he said. "How did you know?"
Eames shrugged one shoulder and dished out the food, setting the reading glasses (still a bit too small) atop his head. "Educated guess."
"I--" Arthur said and then shook his head, smiling a bit. "I don't want to know."
They ate in companionable silence, sometimes talking about the food or Arthur's wave set or bit about Grace, but mostly not talking at all. There was a faint echo of the ocean from the open door, and the low hum of the refrigerator rounded out the peace of the house. Eames wondered what it was like when it was full of people, what it looked like with a happy family.
The phone rang as Arthur was rinsing the plates and Eames was tidying the sitting room, and Eames swiped Arthur's mobile from its place on the kitchen counter. The phone read "Mary" and featured a picture of a women holding a very large cheese wedge hat with something of a maniacal grin. "It's your sister," Eames said, still a bit shocked that he can say those words and know them for what they mean.
"Shit," Arthur said, grasping for a towel. "I left her a message yesterday but I didn't think she'd actually get back to me."
Eames hit the "answer" button and held the phone up to Arthur's ear. Arthur flashed him a grateful look, the first time Eames had ever seen such a thing on Arthur's face not directly attributable to the exchange of ammunition.
"Mary," Arthur said, and Eames pulled a kitchen towel from the refrigerator door and offered it to Arthur. He climbed onto the stool at the kitchen island and was gratified when Arthur didn't leave the room--when Arthur let him listen.
"Yeah, he--yeah. Well, you know how he is, mostly it's just amazing that he hasn't been in the hospital more times. The doctor said--okay. Well, if you talked to Danny you're probably more updated than I am, but we saw him this morning and they kept him today and maybe tomorrow, just to be sure. Yeah. No, I don't think--okay--well, it's up to you, but--yeah. Yeah, I can do that. Are you sure you can take the time--? Okay, jesus, give me a break, it's not like you've made any special effort to come to the islands in the last decade." Arthur made a face and then snorted. "Okay, pot, but I think I had slightly more of a reason to head to the mainland than you did. Fine. Fine! Look, I'm not going to--no, you shut up. No, you--that's what she said, Mary, and you are now officially my least favorite sibling right now. That's pretty harsh considering one of them put himself in the hospital by way of a hero complex." Arthur was grinning, belying the tenor of his words, and Eames rested his chin on a hand and contemplated how different Arthur was with his sister compared to his brother.
"Look, I'll send you the itinerary tonight, okay? You're going to have to rent a car, though, or get someone to pick you up because I don't think we can spare the manpower between trying to keep Steve in his hospital bed and actually eating and sleeping. Okay. Okay. Oh my god, Mary, just shut up and pack, okay? Okay. Okay, bye."
Arthur was still smiling when he hung up the phone, and he said to Eames, "My sister's coming out here too, to yell at Steve. Looks like you get to punch all your family cards in one go."
Eames snorted. "My god, what luck."
Arthur set his phone on the counter and comes over to Eames, nudging him until he scooted back a bit. Arthur set himself in Eames lap, one leg on either side, hooking his wrists behind Eames' neck. "Thanks for going through all this with me."
"Arthur," Eames said seriously, "I can't think of anywhere I would rather be."
They made out in the kitchen until a key turned in the front door and Danny and Grace spilled in; Eames and Arthur pulled apart, flushed and smiling, and Danny rolled his eyes at them as he ran them down of the non-events of the day. After sorting out the next day's plans and wishing Grace a good night's sleep, Arthur and Eames headed out to the hospital for another night of babysitting.
When they arrived Steve was already half-asleep. Arthur had a murmured conversation with him that Eames didn't try to overhear. As Steve drifted off, they watched an old episode of Jeopardy and ate green jell-o and read until they finally give in to a nap in the wee hours. Steve had stayed put another day, and their duty was well done.
In the morning, marked mostly by the stab of sunlight through the east-facing window next to Steve's hospital bed and the agonizing tangle of twisted muscles and shared pain between two adults who really should've known better than to sleep a second night on the damnable institutional love seat, the doctor making the rounds told Steve he would be released later that day.
"Are you sure?" Arthur asked, the severity of his face undermined by the loose curl of his hair around his eyes.
Dr. Kealoha arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow; Eames noted the action and immediately started breaking down its component parts in his head. A handy bit of power play, that. He was still listening with one ear even as catalogued the attendant muscle groups in his face.
"Mr. McGarrett, I think any attempt to keep your brother under medical care at this point would do more harm than good," she said, swinging the metal lid of the patient chart closed and sliding her pen into her pocket. "You know him better than I do--do you honestly think he'll stay now that he's set for release?"
Arthur deflated slightly, disappointment a strange look on him. "I suppose," he said, the lovely culture of his vowels matching the doctor's own educated accent. Eames wondered if Arthur even realized the ease with which he switched verbal modes, and decided not to tell him, for then Eames' amusement would be gone.
"Arthur, shut up, I'm getting out of here," Steve said, already twitching in his bed though he wouldn't be leaving for several hours yet.
Arthur threw him a glare. "Excuse the shit out of me for being concerned that you're not well enough to be released," Arthur said snippily, and that right there, the slide between Ivy Leaguer and younger brother was far too delicious to acknowledge.
The doctor was clearly hiding her laughter under a well-balanced facade, and Eames quirked a smile at her in acknowledgement. She took a breath and her mask fell back into place; Eames was already mirroring her stance. What a useful forge--power and control wrapped into a beautiful package. Very useful.
"Gentlemen, I'll leave you to work out the details," she said, pulling a card from her breast pocket and handing it to Arthur. "If he's still breathing poorly in twenty-four hours, page me and bring him back in. The ribs should heal on their own, and we're out of the woods on the lung, but he'll need to be monitored for the next four or five days to really be clear." She took her leave, and Eames marked her walk--no sway at all, just a purposeful stride in functional clogs, her green scrubs slightly too long for her height.
Arthur smacked him on the shoulder, and Eames jolted back to awareness.
"Stop checking out the doctor," Arthur ground out.
"I was just trying to imit--" Eames protested, and Arthur smacked him again.
"Seriously, I don't care, she's too hot for you anyway," Arthur says as dismissively as he could manage, and when Eames turned his incredulous gaze upon Steve, he found the man hiding his grin behind a hand, IV cannula disrupting the tan flesh.
"Your brother is a menace to all perfectly respectable Englishmen," he informed Steve, and Steve couldn't contain his laughter this time.
Arthur was rather irritated.
It turned out that it was Saturday, and Danny and Grace and Kono all arrived at once with coffee and food and loud, bustling conversation. At first Arthur refused to sit next to him on the loveseat again, but Eames kept entering his personal space to "get a doughnut" or "hand Grace a sugar packet" or "poke holes in Arthur's general demeanor." He finally gave up and sat huffily next to Eames, an image rather ruined by his somewhat collegiate appearance. Arthur placed a possessive hand on Eames' thigh, and Eames found himself stuck with a rather foolish smile on his face.
Kono and Danny agreed to bring Steve home, and genial goodwill was exchanged as Arthur and Eames took their leave. Arthur placed his hand on Eames' thigh again as they drove back to the house, and Eames pretended not to notice even as he inched his own hand atop Arthur's.
They really were a insufferably well-matched set, Eames thought ruefully. Arthur had ruined him for truly satisfying sex with other people some time ago; perhaps it was due time that Arthur had ruined him for other things as well.
It was only nine in the morning, but several days of unrelenting stress and their newfound familiarity had made them inclined to head immediately towards the guest rooms after attending to a handful of menial things. Eames took a shower, using Arthur's shampoo and finally relegating himself to a thorough shave. When he returned to the bedroom, Arthur was tucked beneath the sheet, chest bare and Kindle in hand. At the sight of Eames in his towel--which Eames had thoughtfully not removed from his person to better exploit Arthur's clear lust--he placed the Kindle on the nightstand and said in a demanding tone, "Come here."
It wasn't as though Eames was going to do anything else.
The towel dropped to the floor, and he was gratified by the sharp breath Arthur took. Eames walked to him, not his own gait but a borrowed one, and his cock rose as Arthur's eyes locked on his waist.
He stopped just before the bed, to see what Arthur would do.
Predictably, it was not what Eames expected--Arthur rolled his eyes and withdrew one leg from the confines of the bedclothes, wrapping it around Eames' waist and managing some kind of ninja-judo flip that resulted in Eames landing on his back, squarely in the middle of the bed.
"Now I declare," Eames said in as gaudy a voice as he could imagine, considering he sprang to full attention at that bit of trickery, "what kind of girl do you think I am?"
"The kind about to get a blowjob," Arthur said dryly, ducking his head down to swallow Eames down.
Eames barely managed to control his voice, and then didn't bother when he remembered in a flash that there was no one else in this big, airy house other than the two of them. Arthur was very talented at this particular skill, laving the slit in repeated motions until Eames was a shuddery wreck beneath him. Eames writhed and panted as Arthur worked his mouth tortuously slowly down Eames' cock, only stopping when his nose pressed against the thin skin of Eames' groin.
Arthur kept himself there, pressing down on Eames' hips with strong, unmoving hands, so that Eames could only jerk a millimeter or two away from the obscene stretch of Arthur's lips and back in again. Eames knew his eyes were wide, his mouth open, sounds escaping from him that were shocky and filthy. Arthur met his eyes and hummed deep in his throat, until Eames bowed and jerked from the vision and feel of it all. He was insensate for a long, bliss-ridden moment, and only came back to himself when he felt Arthur pulling off as slowly as he first went down. The air on his cock felt like another bit of Arthur, another bit of Arthur's direction, and his legs fell weakly open in a pornographic sprawl.
Arthur finally released Eames' cock from the wet confines of his dirty, wonderful mouth, and were Eames not so utterly spent from delayed desire and a thoroughly satisfying orgasm from the man he was now considering fitting with a GPS tracker, he would very much have liked to do something about Arthur's own particular concern.
He raised a hand weakly, and Arthur batted it away. His mouth was wet and red, spit slicking the corner and sweat sticking the line of his forehead. He was naked, which Eames did not recall, and his eyes were fixed on Eames' limp form with something akin to avarice and self-satisfaction. Eames adjusted only minutely, to better fuel whatever reel was spinning in Arthur's head. He arched a bit, gratified by the rising flush in Arthur's skin. It was turning quickly from its natural pale colour to an island tan, and Eames was fascinated by the change.
Arthur straddled Eames' legs, knees bracketing his hips, and stroked himself off. The tip of his cock escaped with every downward motion, red and leaking from the vise Arthur held himself in. Eames arched again, and Arthur's eyes travelled from Eames' soft cock, up his chest to land on Eames' mouth, before meeting his eyes and making the journey down again.
"Arthur," Eames said, hearing his voice shake a bit from exertion and the thing swelling in his chest. "Arthur, dearest, do it, I want it, I want you on me. Won't you come for me?" and Arthur did, a sound wrenching from him like it was dragged up from somewhere deep. Even as he was still shuddering it out, he reached a wavering hand down to rub himself into the skin of Eames' stomach, some kind of ancient ritual he couldn't help but enact. Eames rumbled his pleasure in response, arching into the touch, and Arthur gasped once, twice, falling atop Eames with his mess between them.
To Eames' chagrin, he fell asleep like that, Arthur's dead weight crushing him to the bedclothes, bedroom door ajar and light left on in the bathroom. His feet dangled off the bed and the sun was far too bright, but it hardly mattered.
Eames started awake to Grace's high shriek of laughter, finding himself unable to move, Arthur pinning him down to the bed. Arthur seemed to gain twice as much density when he slept as when he was awake. Eames had to brace a foot on the floor to flip him over, slipping off the bed to shut the door and grabbing his towel from the floor.
He looked down and rubbed a thumb ruefully over his stomach; he really ought to take another shower altogether. But there was something wonderfully dirty about leaving it there too, for Arthur to find later on. He mentally shrugged and tossed the towel over Arthur, obscuring his bum from inappropriate eyes.
Eames dressed and debated the likelihood of waking Arthur. He had two settings: on-the-job, where he barely managed to get into REM sleep at all; and off-the-job, where wailing sirens had been known to go off and still Arthur wouldn't stir. He grasped Arthur's ankle where it was hanging off the bed and moved it over a bit. Arthur didn't wake at that, so Eames left him. He probably needed the rest, with all that had happened in the last several days.
He closed the door behind him and went to the kitchen, where Kono and Chin were doing something on the cooker while a smiling, somewhat intimidating gentleman Eames has not yet met leaned over the kitchen island. Steve and Danny weren't there, but Grace was sitting on the stool next to the new bloke, grinning like she'd just won the lottery or been told unicorn ponies actually did exist.
"No, you gotta add the soy sauce in before the water, brah," the man argued, not seeming to mind Grace poking his shoulder incessantly, trying to get his attention.
"That's not how my mom does it, Kame," Chin argued back, stirring something around in a wok.
"Kame," Grace whined, "Kame Kame Kame Kame."
"Look, little wahine, didn't your papa ever tell you it's rude to interrupt a conversation?" Kame said, his smile softening the rebuke.
Grace rolled her eyes. Eames liked that about her, the spirit of being a well-off only child with none of the spoilt unpleasantness. "Danno told me I need to speak my mind because girls are just as important as boys and boys don't always believe that."
Kono laughed, sweet and loud. "I'm with the kid here, Kame," she said.
Kame rubbed Grace's head affectionately. "You speak your mind, hey, but stop poking me, you get me, girl?"
Chin looked up from what he was doing and spotted Eames. "Hey there."
Eames waved a bit. "Hullo there. Sorry to interrupt, just woke up and wanted to see what all the fuss was."
"We're making dinner!" Grace said cheerfully, holding up a squash and waving it around.
"I can see that," Eames said, smiling at her. "Where's your father, then, and the wayward McGarrett?"
"Out on the lanai," Kono said, whisking something in a bowl as she inclined her head.
"Right, I'll just--do you need any help?" Eames asked, cutting himself off as he headed in that direction.
"Nah," Chin said. "Too many cooks already, with Kamekona and Gracie here."
"I resent the implication I am too much of anything," Kamekona said, pretending to be affronted.
"What if I said you were too much of a pain in my ass?" Kona said, brandishing her whisk. The other three gasped in mock-shock, and Grace held out her hand.
"Quarter, please," she said primly, and Kono groaned and dug out a quarter from her pocket.
"I see I'll have to mind my words," Eames said, sliding his hands into his pockets.
"She's too well-trained," Kono complained.
"Shave ice doesn't pay for itself, Kono," Chin said, hiding his own grin but revealing it in his eyes.
"I'll just--" Eames said, slipping out of the room to the sound of happy bickering. It was what greeted him on the lanai, too; it did seem to be a running theme here. Perhaps that explained him and Arthur, a bit. Or Arthur's reaction to him, and to Ariadne, and to one or two others Eames had seen Arthur work with.
"What, are you pissed that we could actually catch a criminal without you?" Danny's agitated voice floated out over the evening air, a bit like his daughter's in the rhythm and fall. "Jesus, we don't all have to be Army Rangers to be competent at our jobs," Danny continued, sounding a little bitter.
"Navy--fuck you, Danny, that wasn't funny the first two hundred times and it isn't funny now," Steve retorted, a little weaker, Eames thought, than he probably was normally. He walked up behind them, careful to kick a stone or two to alert them to his presence. Both looked up when he approached, and Danny gave him a little wave.
"Mind if I join?" Eames asked. Danny waved him into one of the other rattan chairs, and Eames slid his ankle over his knee, making himself look relaxed and non-threatening. In this context, he was both of those things, but he had been in Steve's position (benched and drugged and unhappy about both things) and preferred to keep him from tensing up at all, not when Eames' demeanor was so well under his own control.
Danny had a beer, Steve had some iced tea, and there was a paradisical sunset dropping low over the waters. The rosy light made Steve look less sallow than he had in his hospital room.
"Did you nab George Harris, then?" Eames asked.
Danny raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I heard about your little trick with Kono's files. Notice me not commenting, right, but yes, we got the asshole. He was holed up in a trailer park with a .22 and a bottle of whiskey. Harris didn't even ditch his phone, which was the second dumb thing he did after trying to drop Steven here from a construction platform. It had all his pick up and drop off records, including a cheat sheet to the code system in the Notes application. Dumb fuck. He's sitting in a holding cell down in District 1-2, nursing a hangover and waiting on a judge."
Eames smiled a bit. "Well played, then. Glad you got him."
"They should've called for backup," Steve said grumpily from his slump in his chair. One arm was wound around his torso, bruising visible on his arm and hand pressed against his side.
Danny glared at him, but moved his glass into his hands. "We would have, if we hadn't needed to defuse the situation right the fuck then. I'm all about letting SWAT do their thing, McGarrett, but if there's a drunk scared asshole with a gun and kids playing down the road, I make that a priority."
Steve made a face but sipped his tea, tilting his head back and staring at the sky.
"Where's your recalcitrant half?" Danny asked, turning to Eames and resting his head on his hand.
"Asleep, I believe. He could sleep through an earthquake at times," Eames said, noting the tired lines around Danny's eyes, the neutral set of his mouth. It was automatic, his dissection of visual expressions. He didn't even pay attention to doing it most of the time, anymore.
"He did that when he was a little kid, too," Steve said, a half-smile on his face. "Sometimes I'd have to carry him back to the car after we were out on the beach, and he'd never even flinch. He'd wake up the next morning in his bed and bug the crap out of me, worried that he missed something."
"He doesn't miss much now," Eames said.
Danny snorted. "That's the god's fucking truth."
They moved to lighter topics, the weather and closing the case and whether the American football playoffs were worth ordering pay-per-view. Eames contributed a bit, but his mind was elsewhere, wondering about the job they've left behind and Maude's penchant for pecan candies and whether Arthur would be able to walk away from all this as cleanly as he thought he could.
Arthur appeared at the lanai, and Eames' eyes were automatically drawn to him. Sometimes it was as though he was the only thing in a room, and Eames had catalogued every expression, every gesture Arthur made and he still found himself fascinated. And clearly more than a little besotted.
"So, Steve," Arthur said, with that determined look he gets when he had to do something he didn't like to do, "I may have neglected to inform you of something important."
Steve turned, very slowly and still protecting his ribs, and a frown crossed his face. "What did you do," he asked, trying for intimidating but mostly coming out petulant.
"WHERE'S BIG BROTHER?" came a voice louder in volume than should be possible from such a compact frame. Mary hopped out from the house and threw an arm around Arthur, who looked simultaneously long-suffering and delighted. "Steven James McGarrett, what the fuck did you do to yourself?"
"You called Mary?" Steve asked, eyes wide. If possible, he was shrinking back into his rattan chair, trying to fold up his large frame into a tiny ball. Eames watched, a bit impressed; he couldn't fold himself into that position, broken ribs or no.
"Yes he did!" Mary said, entirely too gleeful for the situation. "And guess who took her two weeks of vacation time to stay here and help you recuperate?"
"Oh god," Steve said.
"That's right!" Mary came over to them and ducked down, fringe falling in her eyes. "And don't think you can ship me off to the mainland again, brother, because you're on medical leave and I took all the batteries out of the remotes already."
"Arthur," Steve said, sounding a bit desperate, "Arthur, can't you stay? I mean, we don't want Mary to lose all her vacation time, right?"
Arthur's smile would have been epic if he were a different sort of man; as it was, the edges of his dimples were just threatening to show. "Steve, I already lost a week to this. And my job doesn't come with a vacation accrual."
"Danny?" Steve turned to him hopefully. "Aren't you worried about having a guest for that long?"
Danny rolled his eyes. "Mary's not a guest, dumbass, she's family," he said, and Mary high-fived him right in front of Steve's face. "Besides, I'm not taking my vacation time to stay home and feed you chicken soup. We're taking Grace to New Jersey for Thanksgiving, if you haven't forgotten--don't forget, Steve, you have to come too, it's mandatory--and I've already purchased those plane tickets. So Mary here is gonna keep you in line and nurse you back to health."
Steve's face warred between horror and resignation and finally settled on resignation. "I can't believe you called Mary," he muttered at Arthur one last time before staring moodily at the ocean. Mary ducked down and kissed him on the temple, and Steve took it without complaining.
Mary hopped back up and settled on Eames. "So," she said, her eyes going sharp in the way that seemed to be a McGarrett family trait, "you're the guy who’s been fucking my baby brother and never coming home with him, right? Eames?"
Eames spared a glance at Arthur, who was smiling a bit more freely now, the tips of his ears pink. He liked this, Eames realized. Arthur liked how Mary treated him with no regard for his well-established boundaries. A bit like Eames treated him, or used to treat him, before they fell into this new thing between them.
"I rather prefer to think of it as Arthur fucking me," he demurred with a slight leer, and Mary laughed, delighted.
"That's not unusual," she assured him, and both Danny and Steve were complaining, telling them to shut up.
***
part I | part II | part III | masterpost | notes