14. Let It All Go With Me

Feb 07, 2012 23:22

Fandom: Inception
Genre: angst/romance
Length: 1630 words
Pairings: Cobb/Arthur
Disclaimer: Talk to the creators of Inception. I'm just a fan.
Summary: Cobb and Arthur have a tender moment after a hard day....prompt from inception_kink. Originally posted under the username shywritergirl


What a day. In this life, it was the kind of thing expected to happen but it did not actually happen as often as one would think--being cornered into such a close brush with death. They failed Cobol and then got caught by Saito and now they were in Paris with plans to do the impossible in exchange for their lives, and Cobb could see it in Arthur’s shoulders, the tension and the weariness combined.

“Listen, I’m sorry I got us into this,” Cobb said into the quiet of the hotel room. From where he sat on his bed with his back to Cobb, the younger man shrugged a shoulder and said, “I guess you know what you’re doing.”

“I guess I do, too,” Cobb said with a little smile that was traced in his voice and Arthur twisted around to smirk at him. His dark eyes looked him up and down and then he went back to facing away, unbuttoning his shirt.

Already undressed and ready for bed under his robe, Cobb crossed the room from the bathroom door to the phone, the carpet soft under bare feet, “Hungry? I’ll get room service.”

“Nah,” Arthur answered.

“All you had was that airplane-quality salad six hours ago,” Cobb said.

“I don’t have an appetite,” Arthur admitted. Cobb sighed, knew it to be true. Arthur never ate when stressed. He wasn’t a compulsive worrier, but there were a few things that really round him up and a job going as badly as this last one had gone was one of them.

Cobb ordered himself a sandwich and hung up. He ignored the second bed in the room and sat on the same one Arthur was sitting on, still looking all tensed. Arthur pulled off his undershirt in time for Cobb to put a hand on his bare shoulder, “You worry too much.”

“Life and death is worth worrying about,” was Arthur’s fast and steady reply without turning. Cobb heard the light derision in it. Arthur had once said, while they were hiding out in Rio, that he was astonished that a man who so needed to get home to his children would take such frequent and wild risks on his life with no worries.

Cobb’s reply had been a smile and a joke but really, he risked so much so easily because he died more the longer he stayed away from home, so he might as well risk dying to get back as soon as possible.

Now, he did not joke about it, but sighed heavily, told the back of Arthur’s head--where the product still needed to be washed out. “Even if we manage to fuck this up, we could still survive, get away. You will, I’m sure; you’re good at it.”

Arthur turned, dragging up and leg onto the bed so he could face him, “Hey, I don’t leave people behind. Especially when they have babies to get home to.”

Cobb’s lips parted in surprise, “You’re--You’re worried about my life?”

Arthur huffed, shaking his head, looking a mixture of offended and amused, “Of course, I’m not some heartless robot, you know.”

“I never thought you were,” Cobb replied with hard sincerity.

Arthur looked away with a hidden smile, folded his shirts and tossed them over onto the other bed, and Cobb watched the suppressed smile give away to that worry again. “Saito doesn’t strike me as someone who makes it easy for his employees to run away after they disappoint him.”

Cobb’s stomach tightened with agreement and anxiety and he nodded curtly, “That’s why we’re going to give him what he wants. Inception.”

Arthur visibly bit back all of his doubt and philosophies on the matter and nodded absently, surrendering to what he sincerely believed was nonsense, because he was too exhausted to put up a real fight. Cobb glanced over to the other bed and decided he didn’t feel up to taking the five or so steps over to it.

They always got one room with two beds, for the security, but every now and then the second bed ended up just being there for appearances. Now was one such time.

He slid closer and wrapped a fluffy-towel-robed arm around Arthur’s bare torso and rested his chin on his crime partner’s shoulder, “hey, relax alright? We’re alive and safe in Paris. Aren’t you glad to be in Paris with me?”

Arthur snorted, “Atmosphere’s a little heavy for romantic frolicking, don’t you think?”

“Won’t be if you let it all go,” Cobb replied in a soft sing song voice. It was how he himself managed, letting it all go whenever he could, because the constant threats and worries and heartache would shred him to pieces if he held on to it all for too long.

Early on Cobb had learned to pretend to be someone else when he needed to be, a man with no worries and no rules who could breathe easily and enjoy himself. And Arthur turned out to be there for him in these times. Like now.

Cobb dropped a kiss on Arthur’s skin and the slighter man turned and shifted until he could comfortably return Cobb’s embrace and backwards they went to the pillows. Arthur’s arms snaked under the robe and Cobb pulled it around them both as Arthur’s still-trouser-clad legs slotted with his bare ones.

With his wide hand along Arthur’s jaw, Cobb felt the bones pop when Arthur yawned hugely. He chortled but his response was swallowed by a yawn of his own, caught from Arthur like a rapidly spreading virus. Arthur snuggled against him inside the robe, his eyes closed, “This is nice,” he breathed in an already sleep-slurred voice.

Cobb agreed; it was safe and the smell of Arthur’s hair was familiar and the heat from his body reassuring, and he let his eyes drop closed. A moment later, there was a knock on the door and a call that room service had arrived. They disentangled themselves and Cobb answered the door after tying his robe closed over his shorts.

Arthur slipped into the bathroom to shower and Cobb let the cart be set up and tipped the guy and locked the door behind him and then dug in. Shortly, Arthur was out with a towel tucked around his narrow hips and took half the sandwich without asking. Cobb smiled, pleased that he’d gotten Arthur to relax enough to feel his hunger.

Sliding back on the bed to recline on the pillows with his sandwich in one hand the remote in the other, Cobb said, “Game’s on.”

“Score?” Arthur asked, taking his half of the sandwich and settling in beside Cobb.

“Lakers 3 to 2,” Cobb answered passed a mouthful of food. They watched and ate in amiable silence and then, yawning more, brushed bread crumbs away from the sheets to the sound of Lakers fans cheering.

Arthur was still in his towel and ditched it with far less ceremony than his shirts, wadding it up and throwing it towards the bathroom door before climbing under the blankets. (He always slept in the nude, lithe wiry body on display, and that had been part of what had started this thing between them.)

Cobb shed the robe and, though too tired for sex, still climbed in to bed with the naked man. Arthur instantly slid to him, falling into that perfect place (where his head was on Cobb’s shoulder, his face in his neck, and his hand on Cobb’s chest) and Cobb smiled; Arthur knew just how to hold onto him so that he felt whole and safe again. And, boy, did he need it tonight.

He could pretend to be worry-free all he wanted, but it would just be pretending. Today had been terrifying and just as stressing for him as it’d been for Arthur and he was thankful for Arthur’s calm, quiet, support here at the end of it.

In truth, Cobb was thankful for a lot of things from Arthur. Like the way the man never objected to Cobb’s advances or insisted they have sex or kiss or even touch when Cobb didn’t want to. Like the way he never ever returned Cobb’s tender touches with hard or intense ones, answering instead with a tenderness that seemed completely contrary to his curt, hard-edged personality, a tenderness that Cobb sometimes felt was only for him, to help him get over Mal.

Because Arthur knew that Cobb was still not over his wife yet. Cobb was thankful Arthur was okay with that most of all; that his friend would curl up with him to hear about her for hours on end. By now, Arthur knew this woman he’d never met almost as well as Cobb did.

In a way it felt that Arthur was giving so much and Cobb was giving so little in return and Cobb had said as much once, drunk and crying and still in bed with Arthur in a Mexican motel and the point man had kissed him softly, held him, and whispered it was okay.

Now, sober and in bed with Arthur in Paris after a bad day, Cobb switched out the lights and turned off the TV and wrapped his arms around his friend and savior from the despair of being a widower on the lamb from the law.

Arthur could easily refuse, send Cobb to his own bed for punishment in agreeing to a job that would get them both killed, but instead here he was, just holding onto him, letting it all go and pretending with him, because he no doubt sensed how much Cobb needed it.

The extractor breathed in the scent of hotel soap and kissed the tender skin of Arthur’s temple. “Thank you, Arthur.”

“Sleep tight, Cobb.”

slash, angst/romance, angst, romance, cobb, arthur, cobb/arthur

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