til i save your heart

[hungerpunch]

Rating: A mature PG-13.
Words: 4151
Summary: Eames and Arthur drop out of dreamsharing in favor of building a family, but something goes frighteningly astray with Arthur.
Warning: Drug abuse, though no graphic depictions. 
Disclaimer: First time in forever that I've written in past-tense, so forgive me.
Beta: gelbwax ♥



Arthur tended to work late, but Eames always knew when it was too late, especially when he hadn’t heard from him all night. He sat at the kitchen table, long after sending Benjamin to bed, and watched the clock on the microwave tick minutes away until it was past any hour that Arthur might be coming home, sending fruitless texts that received no response. He rested his forehead into his palm, or his glass, or on the table itself sometimes, and uttered curses, or pleas to a god he only half-believed in, or just sighed.

The very least that Eames was thankful for was that Arthur never brought it into their home, never let it infiltrate the space they built together, and that Benjamin had no idea.

Benjamin, who shuffled into the kitchen well after dinner, well after Arthur usually made it home. “Papa?” he asked, blue eyes crisp and questioning despite their innocence. “Where’s Daddy?”

Eames scooped him up, settled him into his lap. Benjamin was still small enough, young enough, to delight in snuggling back into his father’s stomach. Eames secretly despaired the day he’d be too big. “Daddy got tied up at work, Benny,” Eames lied, reaching around to flip the channel on TV or the page of a book he was reading. “He’s working on a big case, he might have to stay the night.”

“Oh,” Benjamin pouted, and so Eames engaged him in a tickle war, or a pillow fight, or read him a story before bed to distract him from the absence of his other father.

Arthur returned at the oddest of hours that weren’t so odd when you knew everything Eames did, like 5:and-some-changeAM, walking ragged like he’d been hollowed out and filled with lead, stitched back together as crudely as Frankenstein’s monster, thumping heavy-footed through the halls before Benjamin had to wake up for school. Of course, Eames never slept a wink. He waited up at the kitchen table or on the couch a few hours in some spare, vain hope that something at the office delayed Arthur but it almost never did, and Eames eventually migrated to bed.

He was always watching with both eyes open, though, when Arthur came through the bedroom door, shutting it with a quiet click behind him. Arthur stripped down to his underwear without looking at anything, and then he came to slide under the sheets. Eames stared at him, and he knew Arthur knew he was staring.

Eventually Arthur turned his head towards Eames, but his eyes remained closed in their crypts. Eames always caved first. “Arthur,” he whispered in the dark that was giving way to dawn. He groaned and crossed the expanse of mattress to his husband, melding the line of Arthur’s shoulder and arm down the middle of his own chest and stomach. From the close proximity, he could inhale that disgusting, familiar smell. That too-sweet, thick smell of something Eames couldn’t place. Arthur always smelled like that, like some rancid candy shop, when he came home that way. Eames reached up and ran the pad of a finger, gentle, along the line of a decade below Arthur’s eye.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur murmured, a sudden breaking wave in the stagnant silence.

“I am so angry at you,” Eames said, and what he lacked in brutality and volume was made up for in scintillating sincerity.

“I know,” Arthur said, exhaling the words on a soft hush. “I’m sorry.”

“Everything we’ve worked for,” Eames trailed, letting his hand drop to the sheets, starting the same rant he tried every time, “getting out of Dreamshare, getting married, this house, Benjamin...” None of it had been easy; almost everything had been oppressed by external forces for numerous reasons, compounded by the fact that they were a same-sex couple. “We finally have everything in it’s place and you’re fucking around with this shit.”

“I know,” Arthur intoned.

“You’re still fucking around with this shit.”

“I know.” A pause. “I’m so fucking sorry.” He finally opened his eyes, and he would have looked terrified and repentant if not for the exhaustion deadening every feature on his face. “I’m sorry, Eames. I...I can’t explain it. I can’t explain myself.” He became trapped under the weight of all the emotions he couldn’t verbalize, or maybe the knowledge that even the perfect words wouldn’t help Eames understand. Arthur turned over and Eames let it drop for the time being.

Arthur slept the whole day away. Eames entertained Benjamin and told him Daddy was recovering from the night at work, but he went into their bedroom every once in awhile and banged things around, just to remind Arthur he was upset. “You better make an appearance at dinner tonight,” he said, tense, always slightly more acidic once the sun was up. “Your son wants to see you.” And he left that gaping void there, in the sentence, the Your son, not me, the I can’t even look at you right now, and exited the room once more.

Arthur came down to dinner in the dregs of his wardrobe--faded pairs of blue jeans or drawstring pajama pants and holey t-shirts, face creased from pillows and voice rough. “Hey Benny,” he said, and he always tried to smile for their son. He ruffled Benjamin’s hair and sat down to dinner which consisted of Arthur asking Benjamin about his day and everything going on in it, Benjamin responding enthusiastically, and absolute silence--the nasty, loud sort of silence--from Eames.

Arthur was ravenous, and ate three plates of food by the time Benjamin picked through one. Eventually the boy was excused and Arthur stood to help Eames clean up.

It didn’t matter what small talk they started with as they washed and dried dishes, it always revolved back around to the same thing. “You have to stop this, Arthur, you can’t keep doing this, I can’t keep doing this,” Eames half-sagged against the counter, eyeing his husband warily, one ear listening for the scrape of Benjamin’s toys on the floor above them.

Arthur stared at his own hands, or his knees, or the floor. “You’re right,” he said, overwhelmed. “You’re right.”

“Rehab was supposed to fix this,” Eames hissed, not out of malice but desperation.

Arthur snorted, “Rehab.” Arthur had been to state rehab once--what a joke that had been. But Eames and him had agreed to send him away for three months to a highly respected facility in Florida. They’d told Benjamin he was working an important case overseas somewhere, South Korea, or something like that. He’d missed Eames’ birthday, but anything would have been worth it if it had worked. And it had worked. He came home, and was sober. For 207 days.

In those 207 days, Eames found the man he’d fallen in love with again. Arthur was...not exuberant, but happy enough, dedicated, home every night for supper, involved in their family, and affectionate with Eames in a way he hadn’t been in a few years. Eames thought, truly believed, things were over, behind them. Arthur would have to continue to go to his support groups, and to therapy, but he would be okay, and they would be okay, and Benjamin would never have to know.

But it had all come crashing down, replaying five times over by now.

“Each time you do this,” Eames said, “I just think you’re dead somewhere, Arthur. I stay up all night, and I fucking think you’re dead somewhere.” He wasn’t always be able to contain himself when it came to these confessions; he turned away to the sink, or the window, and cupped his palm over his mouth while a tear or two escaped and visions of Arthur dead by overdose or at the hands of some junkie-goon danced in his head.

Arthur wasn’t able to raise his head. He wasn’t able to say anything. He knew. He knew it all. He’d heard Eames say the same things from the beginning. “I just don’t understand why we’re not enough,” Eames said sometimes.

“I don’t understand either,” Arthur whispered. “I love you so much, and I love Ben so much, you should be enough...” he trailed off, gulping air.

“But it’s not a choice,” Eames recited. “It’s a disease. I know, Arthur. I know.” He came to sit at the table then, resigned, and took one of Arthur’s hands, kissed the back of it; he worried a visible vein there with a large thumb, his eyebrows crinkling in thought. “Sometimes, darling, I wonder if I’d never taken you out of Dreamshare...”

Arthur shook his head, closed his eyes. “Don’t say that. It was for the best. If we hadn’t left when we did, well.”

Eames nodded, reassuring himself. “Yes,” he resolved, remembering the state he’d been in when Arthur had found him, annihilated the heavies guarding him, and spirited him out of the mess through a well-timed, well-rigged series of explosives, several guns, and an Audi A4. He recalled how the list of their trusted had dwindled and turned into a list of funerals they’d had to attend. “It was the best intention, but I wonder if we went about it in the best of ways.”

They’d gone cold turkey, disconnecting from it all in one fell swoop. Arthur only fell victim to the crippling hands of cocaine after several months being bereft of a PASIV; a device that Eames had no plans of having in the home with their child.

It was this cruel sequence that Eames turned over and over in his head; by the time he’d realized what was going on, even a PASIV couldn’t have kept Arthur from his preferred method of self-medication (or self-mutilation, as Eames saw it). They had forsaken Dreamshare, and with it all it’s connections and possibilities--there was no longer a feasible way of obtaining either a PASIV or somnacin to fuel it lest they risk revealing their new identities, their new family, to a world empty of trust and loyalty.

Ariadne had been the last thread to be snipped, and once, Eames sought solace by attempting to talk to her about Arthur. He was sure she’d be sympathetic, understanding. But when he sat down with the small brunette, for the first time in years, in a corner-hole cafe and entrusted the entire tale to her confidence, she was anything but what he’d expected.

“Eames, you have a choice here,” she’d said angrily. “You’re just enabling him. You’re stupid if you stay,” she’d scoffed, all but slamming herself back in her chair and crossing her arms, glaring daggers. Eames had been so thrown he’d literally gaped at her.

“Ariadne, it’s not that easy--” he’d tried.

“Yes, actually, yes it is! Here’s a force that’s threatening to destroy you and Benjamin. In any other scenario you would eliminate this threat immediately.”

“He’s Benjamin’s father, he’s my husband--”

“If he was physically abusive, you wouldn’t think twice about getting him away from Ben.”

Eames had to cover his eyes with a sweaty palm and take a deep breath to keep from screaming at her. “I can’t believe you think this is such a black and white issue,” he ground out lowly. He dropped his hand and returned her vicious gaze tenfold. “On the other hand, I guess I can believe it.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re still a child,” he’d spat. “You’ve never been a spouse, a parent, amongst a thousand other things--”

“It doesn’t take a fucking rocket scientist to figure out that--” she’d started raging, voice rising.

“I guess Cobb gets all the fucking second chances he wants but I should just turn my back on Arthur, is that it, hm?” he narrowed his eyes and leaned in, face tight.

“This is not the same thing at all,” Ariadne whispered, stricken. “You’re being weak, Eames.”

Eames stood abruptly, tossing a few bills down on the table. “Fuck you very much, Ariadne, and thanks for the chat,” he said with glaringly false cheer. He turned his furious eyes on her. “And if you tell anyone about this don’t think you won’t reap the consequences.”

That was the last time Eames tried to tell anybody.

Years passed in a blur of “I’m trying, Eames, I’m trying”-periods where Arthur stayed clean for promising weeks, even months, on end only to relapse when Eames least expected it until he came to expect it constantly--so much so that every night Arthur did come home was such a gargantuan relief Eames wanted to cry with it sometimes.

Arthur agreed to subject himself to therapy once again, though Eames had the niggling suspicion that Arthur was never truthful with them--the therapists, that is. It would be so like Arthur to tell the doctors only what they wanted to hear.

He tried, on more than one occasion, to explain to Arthur the law of probability. More than explain, really, because of course Arthur knew the fucking law of probability, but to get it through his skull that it applied to him too. “Look, you keep on going back to this because you never really get in trouble,” he huffed. “Yeah, I mean, I get upset with you, but there are no long-standing consequences. You’re getting lucky, Arthur. Lucky that you’re not getting caught, lucky that you’re not scraping a bad dose. You keep winning, as it were. But the law of probability says you can’t win every time, and I’m--” he paused, took a breath. “And I’m not prepared to explain to our son the nature of his father’s premature death.”

“It won’t come to that,” Arthur attempted feeble reassurances, always reaching for the slightest touch from Eames--a hand, a shoulder, a kiss.

“You can’t know that,” Eames whispered, turning his face away.

----

Eames was half-right; Arthur was gambling every time he used, and eventually, he lost.

It was another night of waiting around, chewing his fingernails, staring at the clock, when Eames’ phone actually rang, which was incredibly strange concerning these instances, and he hesitated to answer it. Phone calls that late at night were never good news.

Eames ended up retrieving Arthur from jail, face ashen and serious, body tense as a tightrope. They didn’t speak the whole ride home, one of Eames’ hands a white-knuckled grip at the top of the car’s steering wheel, the other hand an angry fist at the knee of his jeans. They arrived to a silent house, the lights in the kitchen dimmed. Eames tossed a thick envelope of discharge papers on the table, shuddering as though it burned him. He turned to face Arthur, who was still coming down from his high. “Six rotations at a stop light, Arthur. You sat through six rotations at a stop light.” He ran a hand through his short hair. “Didn’t know you’d gotten so stupid as to get into a fucking car while blitzed out of your mind.”

Arthur looked back at him with the most disconcerting combination of vacancy and misery Eames had ever seen--he just seemed utterly lost. When he took a wavering step forward, reaching out to Eames uncertainly, Eames couldn’t help but to gather him into his arms, regardless of his anger. “I can’t help you this time, Arthur,” Eames whispered into Arthur’s neck. “This is for real. Court date and everything. We can’t just run away like the old days.” Arthur nodded weakly against Eames’ chest. “We’ll get a good lawyer, but, fuck...” Eames let go, putting an inch or so of space between them. “You need to go to bed,” he directed tightly, unable to meet Arthur’s unsettling eyes.

The time between Arthur’s arrest and his court date passed in a slip-sliding way in which each day felt incredibly long and drawn-out while struggling through it, and yet as they crawled into bed each night, they wondered where their time had gone. Arthur stayed clean for it, but it was hard to celebrate while suffering the anticipation of impending events.

The lawyer was good, great even. The judge was more than fair, sympathetic to the fact that Arthur was supporting his family. Arthur sat, head bowed, throughout the proceedings. When the judge ruled court-ordered therapy, weekly attendance of AA meetings, and 90 days in prison (which were to be served on the weekends as the judge didn’t see the point of causing Arthur to lose his job, ergo punishing his whole family), Arthur clenched his jaw and nodded. It was a lot better than it could have been; it was a lot better than Arthur had dared to hope for.

Saying goodbye the first time was hard--telling Benjamin that his dad was going on a weekend business trip, that he would be back soon; the overstrung drive as Eames fiddled with radio stations; helping Arthur unlace his shoes and divesting him of multiple cellphones and other possessions before kissing him quickly, desperately, and watching him walk into the prison. It was the first time Arthur was ever going to jail for real, as in, without a plan to break out within 24 hours, and Eames could see the dread in the set of his shoulders.

Picking him up the first time, however, was harder. Eames parked outside the prison, leaned against the car with a hot cup of coffee from Arthur’s favorite cafe in his hand. When Arthur stumbled out into the daylight, Eames felt a sick lurch in his stomach. Arthur’s steps were clumsy and heavy with the awkward, loose fit of his tennis shoes, yet imbued with an alarming fragility. He almost tripped twice on his way over to Eames. As he drew closer, Eames took note that he looked more haggard than ever, 72 hours of stubble speckling his face.

Eames pushed off the car as Arthur drew up directly in front of him, and he had to bite his lip to try and get a grip on the sudden rush of emotions that seeing Arthur look so ghastly brought on.

“Hi,” Eames said meekly, and handed Arthur the coffee.

“Thanks,” Arthur said, eyebrows pinching together as if that one small coffee was the kindest thing anyone had done for him in years. The thought made Eames’ chest constrict painfully.

“Let’s get you home,” he said.

Eames had made arrangements for Benjamin to be out on a play-date for the few hours it would take to bring Arthur home and get him cleaned up and fed; he told Arthur this much on the drive home and Arthur nodded.

Coming home the first time was surreal, was like something from a movie. Eames unlocked the door and went in first, heading to the phone to check and make sure there were no urgent voice mails out of habit. There weren’t, and Eames’ senses prickled suddenly at the loaded silence behind him. He turned slowly.

Arthur stood in the entryway, staring at him plaintively, trembling. “Arthur--” Eames started, and Arthur began to move forward, his gait the same unsteady shuffle from earlier that was so disturbing to Eames because Arthur was consistently surefooted, no matter what. As he walked, his body shook so badly that the coffee lurched over the side of the Styrofoam cup and spilled down onto his hand, pooling in the groove of his thumb. Eames met him halfway, folding him into his arms. “Okay, okay,” he soothed, extracting the still-hot coffee from Arthur’s hand and setting it on the kitchen table.

“It’s awful,” Arthur moaned into Eames’ shirt, clutching at him with a violent neediness uncharacteristic of him. “It’s so awful,” his voice sounded like it’d been shredded and ground into a pulp. Eames realized Arthur was crying.

“Fuck, Arthur, I can’t imagine,” he whispered, and then there was nothing else he could say so instead he held onto Arthur with equal force, trying to anchor Arthur down to all his love and life.

After awhile, he managed to guide Arthur to the shower. Sensing Arthur’s desire for privacy in that moment, he left with just a firm kiss, depositing a change of Arthur’s more comfortable clothes onto the bathroom counter.

Arthur didn’t come out for a long time.

When he did, he seemed to be partially re-energized but Eames wasn’t fooled. The scruff was shaved, and the stale odor of prison vanquished, but Arthur still had the air of a traumatized person. Not that Eames could blame him. He set a plate of hot lasagna in front of Arthur and watched as Arthur devoured it and asked for another helping, and then another. When his stomach was finally sated, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it, not yet,” he said eventually, nostrils flaring.

“Okay,” Eames said. He moved to sit in the chair next to Arthur and slowly brushed the stark curve of a cheekbone with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry, Arthur, I really am,” he murmured, flipping his hand to stroke down Arthur's jaw. “I know I said it was coming, but that doesn’t mean I want to see you go through this.”

Arthur turned his head, pushed his lips into Eames’ warm palm. And then, tremulous but genuine, “It might be the best thing that could have happened, Eames.”

Benjamin came home an hour later, hyper and covered in dirt. He greeted Arthur with a loud cheer and wriggled up into his lap at the table. “Hi Daddy,” he said, “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, Ben,” Arthur smiled, but Eames heard the slight crack in his voice.

“Why doesn’t Daddy make you a grilled cheese while I help you finish your homework, okay?” Eames intervened, catching Arthur’s eyes.

Arhur nodded, gently helping Benjamin off his lap and going to make said grilled cheese. He brushed by Eames, touched his forearm fleetingly in silent thanks. Eames sat down to help Benjamin finish his history assignment which was to read an incredibly flawed story about the historical event of Thanksgiving and answer questions. When Arthur returned with a plate of diagonally-sliced grilled cheese and a small fruit salad, he kissed the top of both of their heads, muttering in Eames’ ear, “What lies are they teaching my kid?”

“Nothing they didn’t teach you, dear,” Eames replied out of the side of his mouth. “Thank Daddy for your dinner, Ben.”

“Thank you,” Benjamin said, distracted, around the crust of his sandwich. Arthur tipped an imaginary hat and headed upstairs. Eames heard how tired his footsteps sounded against the floor above.

Later, Eames wrangled Benjamin into the tub--an affair that left them both soaking wet--and scrubbed him clean, even behind his ears. He dried him off and dressed him in footie-pajamas before ushering him into the living room. “Why don’t you watch a movie before bed, hm? While Papa does some laundry?”

“Where’s Daddy?”

“He’s sleeping, sweetheart. You’ll see him in the morning, he’s gonna drive you to school. You want to pick a movie?”

“Okay,” Benjamin bounced on the balls of feet. He picked out The Matrix.

“Um, haha, no,” Eames vetoed. “What about The Land Before Time?” Benjamin assented with little fuss, and Eames thanked god for small mercies as he settled his son on the couch before going off down the hall to do laundry.

When he returned, just fifteen minutes later, Benjamin was nowhere to be seen, the movie playing without an audience. Eames searched the first floor thoroughly before trekking upstairs, loathe to call out too loudly for fear of waking Arthur. When their bedroom became the last viable option, Eames resigned himself and gingerly opened their door.

Through the darkness, Eames could see Benjamin, curled up against Arthur’s chest, little arms tucked into his own body while Arthur’s arms circled him and held him there, steady, the pair of them breathing even and deep. Arthur’s face was finally at peace, mouth lax with sleep, at ease with his son next to him.

For the first time all day, Eames really smiled, hovering in the doorway a moment to revel in the sight before him, the sight of his family--this thing that he made from the ground-up, from scratch, with love and pain and dedication, with bullheaded determination and stubbornness and ferocious loyalty. An undeniable protectiveness welled up within him and he went to the bed, kicking off his shoes en route, climbing in behind Arthur. He looped his right arm over Arthur’s waist and his left he burrowed under Arthur’s neck and the pillow, reaching down so that he could lightly stroke the top of Benjamin’s head with his fingers. “Day one down,” he sighed to himself, pressing a kiss to Arthur’s hair and closing his eyes, drifting off to sleep with hopes for a better tomorrow.