In Celebration...
...of my 92 (NINETY-TWO) watchers (because I am too impatient to wait for 100)! I bring you these drabbles three! They are all from the Requiescat verse, all little things I tapped out and never seemed to find a story to fit them into (the exception is the first one, which is currently part of a longer sequel that's going veeery slowly).
Again, this journal is my very first foray into fanfiction, and I cannot believe how awesome you all are. So here is to 92 watchers, and to everyone who's ever read and commented on one of my stories! I hope you enjoy! :D
ETA:
LOVE YOU GUISE. And my subscribers too! I just don't know how to count you. xD
+++
Words: 2245
WARNING: Self-harm.
Timeline: During the main Requiescat story (between the second-last and last chapters). A coda.
The first time Arthur ended up in therapy, it happened like this:
At first, after Cobb took him home, during the night, he would cry until he was sick. During the day, he pretended to sleep, curled on his side and facing the wall so that he wouldn't have to face Cobb or, worse yet, Eames, who hovered over him constantly, and tears scalded the backs of his eyelids.
“Eat,” Eames would say, coaxing, filling up the space between them with inane chatter. “Please, darling. You've got to eat something. Look, see what I've brought you? They're banana chocolate chip scones. I've buttered one for you, it's right here if you want it. I already tried one, they're very good. They're from a bakery nearby. It's called Cobb's Bakery, isn't that odd? Cobb swears there's no relation. Can you imagine?”
He didn't want to waste food on himself when he knew he'd only throw it up later. He stared at the ceiling and concentrated on breathing: In. Out. Eames sighed, and eventually gave up.
He blamed Eames, because it had always been Eames before, making his head hurt so bad he threw up and cried. Eames reminded him of who he used to be, who he was supposed to be -- somebody who was attracted to men and was raped because of it -- and that was why his mind had always stonewalled him at that thought, viciously broken him down and then reassembled him with no memory of his near slip-ups.
So he lay in bed and let shudders wrack his body. He was the best point man in the world -- he was a messed-up kid who prostituted himself to older men. He was a smooth-talking con man and a thief -- he was a worthless fuck-up from Kansas. He lay in bed, and shuddered, and thought numbly, I was raped.
Arthur would never let himself be raped. Who the hell was he?
He felt like he was screaming and nobody was listening.
Eames kept coming back and he just couldn't stop fucking crying, he didn't even know where it was coming from anymore, he was so fucking exhausted; and so finally, he told Eames to leave.
And Eames did.
It was the worst night of his entire life.
He'd never felt this alone, not even in limbo.
That's how, the next day, he wound up kneeling on the bathroom floor, pressing a razor into his wrists so hard the blade was trembling--
There was so much blood on the floor. He was gasping for breath. It surrounded him and he thought, it's poetic, because a bathroom's where he died the first time--
Looking back now, he doesn't remember actually dialling 911. He just remembers thinking over and over and over to the point where he was probably repeating it out loud, I made a mistake. I made a mistake. I made a mistake.
+
Cobb took him home.
He wore a grey hoodie with long frayed sleeves and slouched in the passenger seat, pressing trembling fingers to the window he was staring out of.
Cobb didn't say anything right away. He looked haggard and pale. But eventually, he managed, and his voice was hoarse.
“What if you'd actually done it?” he said, grief twisting the words. “What the hell would I say to Eames?”
He hunched his shoulders, shrunk defensively into himself like a sullen teenager.
“You almost killed yourself, Neil.”
“Don't call me that,” he mumbled, still gazing out the window so that he couldn't see Cobb's face. Cobb was silent.
When they got back to Cobb's house, he parked in the driveway, killed the engine and just sat there. Arthur sat quietly next to him, plucking absently at his sleeves, which covered the bandages on his wrists.
“I talked to your doctor,” Cobb said at length. “He wants you to start seeing a therapist.”
“Why,” Arthur said in a dull whisper, not caring.
“To help you. I think it would help you. I'll pay for it, if you want.”
Arthur just retreated deeper into his seat, like it could hide him from Cobb, and closed his eyes.
Cobb exhaled slowly and got out of the car. After a moment Arthur followed suit.
Later, when the kids were in bed and he was in his room, lying in bed and gazing up at the ceiling as usual, trying to imagine spending day in and day out lying here in this same bed and staring at this ceiling (spending every day of his life without Eames), he heard his name. He slid out of bed and crept to the top of the stairs. Cobb was on the phone downstairs. His voice was indistinct.
Arthur slipped into Cobb's bedroom and lifted the phone as quietly as he could. He raised it to his ear and could hear Cobb speaking.
“... and I just -- God, it just seems like a horrible thing to even be thinking about. It's Arthur, he's practically family. He's like a brother to me. Part of me doesn't even want to be considering it. But on the other hand ...”
“You're not a psychiatrist, Dom.” Miles' voice, recognizably English, was reassuring. “Nobody expects you to handle this on your own.”
“I feel like I'd be betraying him or something. But I'm scared he's going to do it again.” There was an unfamiliar waver in the words. “I just don't know what else to do. The doctor said it's a nice place.”
“Mental institutions have cleaned up a lot.”
“And he'd get regular treatment. He needs something. I don't know how to help him. He's a danger to himself and I, I have a job, a life ...”
“Well, I think it's a good idea,” Miles said gently. “Think about what's best for you and the children and for Arthur. He's not going to get any better lying around your house all day. He needs help, Dom.”
“It's not like I want to make him someone else's problem,” Cobb said desperately. “It's not that. It's just, shit, I already went through this with Mal, and I can't, again, I can't ...”
Arthur hung up silently.
He stayed up all night with a migraine that made him shiver and sweat and vomit, as usual. He didn't know why. He was terrified that, in the morning, an ambulance would show up to have him involuntarily committed; but he didn't think it was that. This time, his whole body was crying out for Eames. He wanted to be so, so far away from this place.
He wanted to run away, since Cobb had hidden away every sharp object and pill in the house; but he couldn't, because of his headache, so he just scrunched up in bed and breathed through clenched teeth, all night. He tried not to think of the blurred memories he had of his previous episodes and the way Eames promised to take care of him each time.
In the morning he waited until he heard Cobb get up, then followed him down to the kitchen where Cobb was making coffee.
“I'll do it,” he said quietly, voice husky from lack of use. “The therapy. I'll try it.”
Cobb turned to him with a tired but warm smile of relief, and patted his arm briefly, comfortingly.
“It'll help, Arthur, I promise,” he said softly, and Arthur thought, it'll have to.
+
The therapist told him to call her Jo. Her real name was Josephina.
“Obviously, my parents hated me,” she said.
“I thought we were here to talk about my issues,” he replied.
Jo laughed and he decided, cautiously, to like her.
“Okay, Arthur,” she said. “Why don't you start by telling me why you're here and what you hope to get out of this?”
“Okay,” he said. “I was sexually abused by my baseball coach when I was eight, I became a hustler when I was fifteen, and I was raped when I was nineteen, and until recently, I had repressed all of this. You tell me why I'm here.”
“Touché,” said Jo. “No more bullshit psychotherapy questions for you, huh?”
“I would appreciate it.”
Jo was as good as her word. After that, she conversed with him as though they were old friends catching up after a long period of estrangement. Arthur didn't make it easy on her, though. She had to pry every answer out of him like he was clutching his secrets protectively in his hands. He wasn't used to baring himself to people. Half of him still felt like his former life was nothing but a dizzying, exhilarating dream. For at least three sessions it was a frustrating endless loop: Jo didn't know how to help him achieve what he wanted; Arthur didn't even know what it was he wanted. At first, all she did was ask him questions about his life to try and form a solid background, and Arthur puzzled together his dichotomous life with her.
When he arrived for his fourth session he declared, “I want to have a relationship with Eames.”
Jo blinked, and a smile spread across her face. “That sounds like a very worthwhile goal, Arthur.”
“Really?” he said. It struck him that he may have been slightly belligerant about his declaration. He took a seat and tempered his tone. “Do you think I can do it?”
Jo's bright smile warmed him. “I really do.”
He believed her. And after that, with this goal in mind, they set out to solve Arthur's problems.
It was several sessions more before he had any kind of breakthrough. He wanted Eames -- he knew he wanted Eames -- but he couldn't untrain his brain's defensive mechanism of repression, trying to hide things away where nobody could find them. He struggled pathetically to verbalize any kind of emotion he felt. He grew sullen and closed-off when they discussed sex. He hated talking about Coach and Brighton Beach even more. He already knew that it wasn't until the latter that he'd realized how wrong the former was; he didn't need Jo to tell him that. Their breakthrough happened quite unexpectedly.
“Have you ever seen a therapist before, Arthur?” Jo asked.
“I had psych evals in the military,” he said. “And we all had to do a session with a psychologist when we started dream-sharing.”
Jo's eyebrows raised. “Dream-sharing? As in extraction?”
Arthur nodded, looking away; this seemed so irrelevant. “I was involved in that Project, he was an extractor hired by the government.”
“Did he diagnose you with anything?”
Now Arthur shook his head, briskly. “He just went under with each of us for a few minutes and poked around to see if he could find anything unusual, anything that could jeopardize our training or dreambuilding.”
“And what did he find in your dream?” Jo asked. Arthur shifted in his seat.
“He found out I was gay. Look, can we not talk about this?”
“Is it making you uncomfortable?”
“No,” he said. “I just don't ... see the relevance.”
“He found out you were gay,” said Jo. “That must have been awkward, given that you were in the military.”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Arthur, rubbing at his arm distractedly.
“What happened then?”
“He didn't tell anyone,” said Arthur.
“No?”
“No. I gave him a blowjob and he didn't tell anyone.”
Jo stopped writing on her clipboard then. She looked up at him, her eyes both piercing and concerned behind the lenses of her glasses, reminding him strangely of Eames for a moment.
“You had oral sex with him?”
“He asked for a blowjob,” said Arthur. “I gave him one. I didn't want him telling anyone.”
“Arthur,” said Jo, so intense it made him feel self-conscious. “That's a serious abuse of position of trust.”
“He asked,” said Arthur, growing defensive and uncertain.
“Did you want to do it?”
“No, of course I didn't want to. It was a business transaction, alright?” said Arthur, somewhat flustered now. “He wanted a blowjob and I wanted to not be kicked out of the military, it was win-win.”
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“No. It's not important.”
“You seem quite upset about this.”
“Because it wasn't fair!” Arthur broke suddenly. “I shouldn't have had to do that! I'd been good! I hadn't had sex for years, I wasn't even thinking about guys like that anymore! I was doing really well, and I didn't want to do it and I shouldn't have had to! It wasn't fair!”
He was breathing hard; he felt like he'd just been sucker-punched in the gut. His gaze swivelled to the big stuffed panda bear that sat in the corner of the room, for Jo's child patients. He stared at it hard so that he wouldn't have to look at her. He wanted to curl up on the floor next to it. He didn't like therapy anymore. He wanted out.
He just wanted to be with Eames.
That was what held him in his seat, right then, for all those unbearable seconds while Jo soaked this in. He was doing this for Eames.
At last, Jo said softly, “Does that mean you think what happened to you when you were nineteen was fair?”
That was when Arthur had a breakdown and cried in therapy.
Jo gave him a box of tissues. He wished she was Mal.
Something amazing happened after that: Slowly, gradually, Arthur got better.
+++
Words: 1581
Timeline: Post-Requiescat.
Arthur feels a very long way from Kansas right now.
Eames' parents' house is not actually their home. It's their country house, a weekend retreat, the remains of what was once an estate but now would be content to be called a mansion. It has a name.
He wants to hate Ashby Hall on principle, but finds that he can't, because the place is so beautiful it hurts. It's all British colonial throughout: everything is made of oak and mahogany and polished to a sheen. The ceilings are high and the beds are four-poster. There's a conservatory, and a chandelier in every room. Nothing is out of place.
"I bet you had a pony, growing up," Arthur says.
"It was a horse," Eames replies, pained. "Not a pony."
Arthur can barely wrap his head around this. To know that Eames is from old money is one thing. To be actually standing in his country house, which is actually a mansion (that has a name), to learn that if so many people die in rapid succession Eames would be the King of England by default (a terrifying thought in itself)--
"You went to a prep school, didn't you."
"Yes," Eames admits reluctantly.
Arthur has never felt so inadequate.
And this is all before Eames' parents actually show up. Then he's not even sure what to feel.
+
He doesn't even have a name for the room he's occupying currently. There are some cushioned chairs with warm patterns on them. There's a table covered in lit candles and silverware and an elegant Christmas centerpiece, cream poinsettias and evergreen pinecones and white pine boughs and magnolia leaves arranged in a silver vase. The garland, draped prettily over the hearth, is faux pine with more cream poinsettias and magnolia leaves, gold fruit and a hundred tiny fairy lights.
The hearth is tall, bathing the whole room in a warm liquid glow from the fire that crackles merrily inside, not loud enough to drown the distant, shouting voices of Eames and his father.
Arthur can disassemble a gun in the dark and shoot a man from a block away, but he has no idea what to do in this situation. He rubs his hands surreptitiously over his pants, both to smooth them and to wipe away any moisture on his palms.
"This is good," he offers, glancing at a painting that hangs on the wall. It's one of several. "Did, ah, did William do this?"
There's a sniff from the corner where Eames' mother is hovering. "It's an original."
"Hard to tell sometimes," says Arthur. "He's very good," he adds.
She makes a short, discontented sound. "If he had any real skill to speak of at all, he wouldn't be copying the paintings of artists much more talented than he."
"Forging paintings takes a lot of skill," Arthur says quietly.
They're both quiet enough for a moment that they can hear the deep, carrying voice of Eames' father:
"I know you love to paint yourself as the black sheep of the family, but this is going too damn far--"
"Perhaps I shouldn't have come," says Arthur, tactfully.
"It's nothing to do with you personally," Eames' mother replies dismissively. "He just loves to provoke a reaction from his father and I. It's a bit of a game for him."
"I'd like to think our relationship is more to him than just a rebellious statement."
She takes a sip of her sidecar and says, "You're not the first pretty boy my son has brought home to meet his parents."
Arthur looks down at the rug and just thinks about that. That there are other pretty boys. He pretends to busy himself examining each of the paintings, and when he glances round again, Eames' mother has taken a seat in an armchair by the hearth.
"So what do you do for a living, Arthur?"
"I'm retired from the military," says Arthur, reaching up unconsciously to the spot where his dog tags lie flush against his chest under his shirt.
"I see."
Down the hall:
"You're a waste, William, you're a bloody fucking waste, you wasted our money on art school and you wasted your time on the army, the only thing you're good for is carrying the family name and you can't even bed a woman--"
"Oh, keep your fucking family name, then, I'd rather have Arthur anyway--"
"Sit down, Arthur," says Eames' mother, calmly.
He hesitates, then crosses the plush rug and takes a seat in the armchair facing hers. Her hands are folded primly in her lap. He sits up straight and looks across at her steadily.
"I want you to understand that everything my son does, he does to spite his family," she says. "First he wanted to become an artist, instead of going to Cambridge or Oxford, which he could have. Then he dropped out and decided to join the army for a lark. Now he's been caught dabbling in crime. I have always been supportive of him, but this is going too far. You seem like a nice boy, which is why I bring this up now, instead of letting this become more complicated than it needs to be. How much can I offer you to leave my son and never contact him again?"
Arthur leans forward in his chair, elbows propped on his thighs.
"I'm independently wealthy," he says quietly, not breaking eye contact. "But thank you."
"I don't think you understand."
"I think I understand better than you do," he says. "Your son is gay. He's attracted to men. He's actually attracted to me. We care very much for each other, and it's normal, and we're not going to stop caring for each other, even if you pay me off, or if you suddenly become accepting of him and he feels the need to rebel in some other way. Thank you for your concern. But your son is gay."
"Do you love him?" she asks, and there's something very Eames about the calculating slant of her eyes, the shrewd glint that makes Arthur feel like she can see straight through him to the armchair he's sitting in.
And he doesn't know what to say.
A door slams. In a moment Eames is there, in the doorway, flushed and furious.
"Arthur," he says loudly, and Arthur gets to his feet, brushing his pants off again unnecessarily.
"It was nice meeting you," he says to Eames' mother. She smiles, shrewd still, a little curve of the lip.
"You too, Arthur," she says.
Arthur reaches the doorway and Eames puts an arm around his waist and pulls him just a little closer, just close enough to lean his forehead to Arthur's and exhale, a short, frustrated puff of breath against Arthur's face.
"Come on," he mumbles, drawing away. Louder, he says, "Happy fucking Christmas, Mum."
+
In the car Eames is still scowling, angry, gripping the steering wheel white-knuckled.
"I thought it might have gone better than that," he says eventually. "Sorry."
"Your mother seems nice," says Arthur, still tactful, with a touch of caustic irony.
"My mother is an emotionally manipulative harpy who loves nothing more than to sink her talons into my life and control every aspect."
"She said you've brought boys home before."
"When I was a teenager in school," Eames snorts. "They still think this is a phase, you know. Well, twenty years is a bloody long phase. I thought they might have grown up by now, but apparently it's only been me."
"I thought about telling her that I was a hooker," Arthur says, musing, gazing out the window at the English countryside where sheep dot the hills, and Eames makes a choking sound beside him.
"Oh Christ, Arthur, you," he manages, before he starts laughing, uncontrollably, gasping. "Oh, please do, would you, I can turn the car around right now--"
Arthur breaks, and laughs, too, and Eames has to pull over because he's not watching the road anymore, and eventually Arthur's just laughing at him laughing because he doesn't understand why it was that funny. And then Eames is reaching over and saying, "Come here, you silly thing," and they're kissing, and the glide of Eames' tongue over his lip tastes sweet.
"How did you grow up so liberal," Arthur asks, pausing for breath, "in a family like that."
"I was an art student," Eames replies simply, like this is the answer to everything.
+
They're almost back in London and Chris Rea is singing on the radio about driving home for Christmas, and Eames is whistling absently along, and he says, abrupt, "We should see your mum for Christmas."
"No," says Arthur, gazing out the window again.
"I'm sure she misses you. And Christmas is family-time. Go on."
"I said no, Eames."
"I think it would be really nice to see her," Eames says. "I like your mum. She's nicer than mine. And then we could at least say we're spending Christmas with fam--"
Arthur slams his hand against the side of the car door. "We're not fucking going to Kansas for Christmas!"
Eames is silent and so is Arthur, for a minute, because he can't manage to verbalize how much he fucking hates this holiday and the lights and the decorations, how much like a scared teenager it makes him feel, and how much he despises that feeling.
"Just a suggestion, anyway," Eames says softly.
+++
Words: 2315
Timeline: Pre-Requiescat, post-Monaco.
They've officially been working this job in New York for eight days, seven hours and thirteen minutes by the time they make a breakthrough.
Not like Eames is counting, or anything. It's not like it's been eight days, seven hours, thirteen minutes, one long plane ride and one trip to the airport from their last hotel that Eames decided this would be the job during which he finally manages to seduce Arthur.
"Would you stop fellating that pen," Arthur says sharply when he enters their work hotel room, barely batting an eye.
Eames stops, sadly.
"I've made a minor breakthrough."
"Let's have it, then," says Eames, eyeing Arthur's ass as he strides toward the desk where his blueprints are laid out.
"We've been thinking this politician is clean as a whistle and that you'd have to forge somebody close to him in order to get the information, but today I found out: he has a secret penchant for anonymous hook-ups."
"At least someone's hooking up," says Eames.
Arthur shoots him the most withering of glances.
"My source says he can be found at this bar every other Thursday." He slides over a cocktail napkin with an address scrawled on it.
"So we scope it out, you do your architect thing, I slip into something comely and seduce the information right out of him."
"Do you have any qualms with that plan?" Arthur asks, and he's still crisp and detached, but there's a tiny note of doubt there. Eames waves a hand.
"Nothing will happen, trust me. I've done this many times before, remember? You think I sleep with every skeevy mark in the dream when I'm working?" he says. "Besides, do you have any qualms? You're the one who has to step outside the box for this one."
Arthur tugs at his tie a little, self-conscious. His tie's always slightly crooked, even at his most professional. Eames loves it.
"I can be the architect," he says.
"Are you sure?"
"Mal taught me," says Arthur simply. Like that should say it all -- end of discussion.
+
It's a gay bar.
"Oh my God," says Arthur, looking like he's just swallowed something extremely unpleasant. "It's a gay bar."
"It's a gay bar," says Eames, tugging Arthur's sleeve giddily. "We're at a gay bar, look."
Arthur looks exquisitely pained. Eames almost wants to feel sorry for him. It's not that Arthur doesn't approve of gay people. It's just that he disapproves of all the frivolity and rowdiness that someplace like a gay bar implies.
Nonetheless, Arthur is a professional. He sucks it up and approaches the bar manfully. Eames pulls out his phone, snaps a picture of Arthur entering the bar with its lurid sign, proclaiming The White Swallow, above his head, and immediately sends it to Ariadne.
"Don't get any ideas," says Arthur, when Eames catches him up inside. "I can hear you thinking."
Eames frowns. It's a coincidence that he's thinking of that tiny sliver of a chance that the environment might loosen Arthur up. Open his mind a little.
"I'm not thinking anything," he lies.
"I can believe that."
"You are so acerbic when we're working."
Arthur scowls at him. "Look, I know you think extraction is all fun and games, but I happen to take my work very seriously. And I happen to dislike gay bars. I also dislike the type of people who inhabit gay bars. So I'm going to do my job as quickly as possible, and you are going to sit right there, and keep to yourself, and not move. Can you do that?"
He leaves without waiting for an answer. Eames trudges over to the bar stool Arthur indicated, orders something pink with a slice of fruit floating around in it, because it's delicious and he can, and sulks. He watches the men grinding on the dance floor to the bass music currently thumping out of the speakers, and wishes Arthur would indulge him just this once. What's the point of even being at a gay bar if he can look but not touch? This is torture.
"Hi," says a stranger, sliding onto the stool at Eames' side.
"I have a boyfriend," Eames lies immediately. He'll never get Arthur in bed if he winds up in someone else's. The guy just chuckles.
"Yeah, me too. I just came over 'cause I thought you looked bored."
"Oh," says Eames, relaxing, and feeling rather less afraid for his life should Arthur catch him flirting on the job. "Yes. Well. Would you believe I'm working?"
"Must be a nice job," the guy says.
"It has its perks."
"What do you do?"
"I'm an internationally-wanted thief."
The guy glances over at his drink sceptically. "You're stealing the bar's supply of strawberry mojitos?"
Eames heaves a long-suffering sigh. "Forget it."
The stranger offers his hand. "I'm Eric."
"Eames," says Eames, and he shakes it. Eric clasps his hand and leans in.
"And I actually lied. I don't have a boyfriend, and I came over here to tell you to watch yours. In a place like this, he's like a shark in a tank full of fish. Don't take your eyes off him for a second."
Eames snatches his hand back. For a second this feels unnervingly surreal. He almost reaches for his totem.
"What do you know?" he asks. It comes out more challengingly than he intends. Eric stirs his drink calmly.
"Just trust me, Neil McCormick can't do monogamy if his life depends on it." And that is one of Arthur's aliases, no doubt, Eames knows it is. "Never mind, though," Eric says, getting to his feet, "here he comes."
"Hang on," Eames starts to say, but then Arthur is there, looking flustered and slightly nauseous.
"I've been hit on by five men."
"Should've let me come with you, then, shouldn't you?" says Eames, sipping his drink. Arthur brushes off the front of his jacket, as though to flick away invisible gay germs.
"I just need to look at the washrooms, and then we can leave."
"I'd call it a night, actually," Eames says loudly, sucking up the last of his mojito and leaving the glass on the bar. Slipping off his stool, he leans in close and murmurs in Arthur's ear, "We may have just been made."
Arthur's expression barely flickers. Eames is the only one who can see the air about him readjust, suddenly shrewd and alert.
"So soon?" he says mildly, taking Eames' hand. His other hand draws back towards his concealed holster just as Eames realizes that Eric is still hovering nearby, watching them.
"Yes, you know me, can't hold my liquor," he says, with a self-deprecating laugh. "Time to go, I'm afraid."
"Neil," Eric calls over.
Arthur stills, not looking at him. Eames tugs his hand, trying not to enjoy it. It's the most physical contact they've had all week.
"Yes, let's go," Arthur says belatedly, quiet, but Eames hears him perfectly well over the bass thump of music in the bar. Eames nods, ready to take Arthur's lead on this. But before they can slip away, Eric catches up and takes Arthur by the sleeve.
"McCormick, hey, where are you--"
Like lightning, Arthur grabs him by the front of the shirt and shoves him up against the bar. The close press of their bodies could be miscontrued for passion, but Eames knows he's just using his body to conceal the gun in his other hand, its blunt barrel pressing into Eric's abdomen. He feels, for a moment, absurdly jealous of the guy anyway.
"How do you know that name?" Arthur demands, low and soft and dangerous, and Eames is almost getting turned on just from this. He loves seeing Arthur like this.
"Sorry!" Eric yelps, putting up his hands. "I just mistook you for--" Then he squints, and Arthur's words seem to register. "It is you! I fucking knew it!"
Disgusted, Arthur lets him go, covertly holsters his gun and turns on his heel to leave. Eames follows, bemused. So does Eric.
"Neil, it's me, Eric Preston, remember--"
"Fuck off," Arthur snarls, shouldering his way through the crowd. Eames is right on his heels, excusing himself as he jostles people.
"Neil!"
They make it out the door and onto the sidewalk. Arthur keeps going. He's almost quivering, Eames notices, from -- rage? The cold?
Preston skids onto the sidewalk after them, almost begging now. "Neil, wait!"
"Arthur," says Eames reprovingly, nudging Arthur slightly with his elbow.
Arthur stops. The glint in his dark eyes is dangerous. He turns around.
"What," he says.
"I just want to ... hey," Preston says hesitantly. He seems taken aback by Arthur's hostility. "I haven't seen you in like ten years. Last thing I heard, you were joining the army."
"I did," says Arthur. His tone is blunt and challenging.
"Okay, well," says Preston, obviously unsure of himself. Eames takes him in: skinny jeans, unkempt hair with dyed tips, facial piercings, most definitely gay. "Um, how've you been?"
Arthur just stares at him. Eames has been on the receiving end of that stare before and knows how unpleasant it is. Like Preston has just blurted out the most ridiculous, painfully stupid statement ever expressed by mankind. Preston wilts slightly under the weight of it.
Then, without a word, Arthur turns and starts walking away again.
Eames stands there for a moment longer, utterly perplexed by this entire exchange. He offers Preston a commiserating shrug, a sort of you know how he is shrug, since, by the sound of it, Preston does know.
"Wait!" Preston calls again, urgently, when Eames turns to leave. He pauses, and Preston moves closer. "You are with him, right?"
Eames considers and says, "Yes," since he likes the idea of that.
At this confirmation Preston looks momentarily defeated. Then he recovers.
"Can you tell him to meet me here tomorrow night? At twelve? I just want to talk to him. Will you please tell him?"
"I don't know," says Eames hedgily. "Who're you, his ex-boyfriend or something?"
Preston laughs, a sound chiselled straight out of pain. "Yeah. I wish."
Eames feels considerably heartened by this.
+
They're staying in the Plaza, just because they can.
Actually, they're sharing a bed at the Plaza, because they can, because the nicer suites with two beds are taken, and because Arthur doesn't give a single fuck about Eames' sexual needs because Arthur is an enlightened being who apparently is above such frivolities as sex when he's on the job. Or, well, ever.
Eames wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and yell in his face, Don't you know that you are killing me here?!
But he doesn't, because he's afraid Arthur would make him sleep on the couch. Anyway, it's a big bed, so Eames has loads of empty space on his side for him and his unwelcome nocturnal hard-ons.
Besides, Eames loves watching Arthur sleep, to the point where he feels like a weird, skeevy pervert about it. He can't help it. Arthur looks so calm when he sleeps. He's so vigilant, so ... bristling with paranoia in the waking (and dream) world. But when he sleeps, even when it's artificial, Somnacin-induced, he looks calm and beautiful and slightly mussed and he occasionally makes cute little noises when he breathes, like a puppy. Eames wants to pet him.
(He doesn't, because he values his fingers. But he wants to.)
The moment Eames took to linger cost him. Arthur had disappeared into the crowd and by the time Eames gets back to their hotel room, Arthur is already in the shower.
"Cheater," Eames scowls at the closed door. He flops onto their bed and stretches out on Arthur's side, wondering what would happen if he just stripped off as soon as he heard the shower stop running and posed as seductively as he could.
But when it's been thirty minutes and the shower is still going, Eames gets suspicious. He gets up and knocks on the bathroom door.
"Arthur?"
"What?" Arthur snaps back. His voice isn't muffled by the running water or a shower curtain.
Eames thinks suddenly of those mysterious episodes of Arthur's, and a chill grips him. "Are you ill?"
No answer. He jimmies the lock open and finds Arthur sitting fully clothed on the toilet seat lid. His head is in his hands. Eames crosses the room quietly and kneels in front of him, pulling Arthur's hands away from his face. He doesn't look like he's having an episode, but he looks about on the brink of one.
Arthur glares. "You're not supposed to be in here when I'm showering."
"You're not showering."
"I could have been."
"But you aren't, tragically."
Arthur blinks at him. Then he leans way over, stretching an arm out to turn the faucet off. The sheeting of water becomes a slow trickle.
"What?" he says.
"That guy," says Eames. "He knew you. Your alias, anyway."
"Yes, I had friends when I was a teenager, what of it," says Arthur tersely.
Eames feels inexplicably stung. Teenagerhood is a piece of Arthur's life that he's refused to bare to anyone. If he even has a high school transcript, Eames has never found it. To think this kid gets to have all of Arthur's teenaged secrets, for nothing...
"Go away now," Arthur orders. "I'm going to shower for real."
Eames gets up and hesitates.
"Did you ever fuck him?"
"Probably," says Arthur impatiently. "Now get out."
Eames leaves. He's bitter and sulky all night and when Arthur finally joins him, he smells like shampoo and Irish Spring and Eames can smell it from the other side of the bed.
In the morning, Arthur doesn't remember running into Preston at all.
Again, this journal is my very first foray into fanfiction, and I cannot believe how awesome you all are. So here is to 92 watchers, and to everyone who's ever read and commented on one of my stories! I hope you enjoy! :D
ETA:
LOVE YOU GUISE. And my subscribers too! I just don't know how to count you. xD
+++
Words: 2245
WARNING: Self-harm.
Timeline: During the main Requiescat story (between the second-last and last chapters). A coda.
The first time Arthur ended up in therapy, it happened like this:
At first, after Cobb took him home, during the night, he would cry until he was sick. During the day, he pretended to sleep, curled on his side and facing the wall so that he wouldn't have to face Cobb or, worse yet, Eames, who hovered over him constantly, and tears scalded the backs of his eyelids.
“Eat,” Eames would say, coaxing, filling up the space between them with inane chatter. “Please, darling. You've got to eat something. Look, see what I've brought you? They're banana chocolate chip scones. I've buttered one for you, it's right here if you want it. I already tried one, they're very good. They're from a bakery nearby. It's called Cobb's Bakery, isn't that odd? Cobb swears there's no relation. Can you imagine?”
He didn't want to waste food on himself when he knew he'd only throw it up later. He stared at the ceiling and concentrated on breathing: In. Out. Eames sighed, and eventually gave up.
He blamed Eames, because it had always been Eames before, making his head hurt so bad he threw up and cried. Eames reminded him of who he used to be, who he was supposed to be -- somebody who was attracted to men and was raped because of it -- and that was why his mind had always stonewalled him at that thought, viciously broken him down and then reassembled him with no memory of his near slip-ups.
So he lay in bed and let shudders wrack his body. He was the best point man in the world -- he was a messed-up kid who prostituted himself to older men. He was a smooth-talking con man and a thief -- he was a worthless fuck-up from Kansas. He lay in bed, and shuddered, and thought numbly, I was raped.
Arthur would never let himself be raped. Who the hell was he?
He felt like he was screaming and nobody was listening.
Eames kept coming back and he just couldn't stop fucking crying, he didn't even know where it was coming from anymore, he was so fucking exhausted; and so finally, he told Eames to leave.
And Eames did.
It was the worst night of his entire life.
He'd never felt this alone, not even in limbo.
That's how, the next day, he wound up kneeling on the bathroom floor, pressing a razor into his wrists so hard the blade was trembling--
There was so much blood on the floor. He was gasping for breath. It surrounded him and he thought, it's poetic, because a bathroom's where he died the first time--
Looking back now, he doesn't remember actually dialling 911. He just remembers thinking over and over and over to the point where he was probably repeating it out loud, I made a mistake. I made a mistake. I made a mistake.
+
Cobb took him home.
He wore a grey hoodie with long frayed sleeves and slouched in the passenger seat, pressing trembling fingers to the window he was staring out of.
Cobb didn't say anything right away. He looked haggard and pale. But eventually, he managed, and his voice was hoarse.
“What if you'd actually done it?” he said, grief twisting the words. “What the hell would I say to Eames?”
He hunched his shoulders, shrunk defensively into himself like a sullen teenager.
“You almost killed yourself, Neil.”
“Don't call me that,” he mumbled, still gazing out the window so that he couldn't see Cobb's face. Cobb was silent.
When they got back to Cobb's house, he parked in the driveway, killed the engine and just sat there. Arthur sat quietly next to him, plucking absently at his sleeves, which covered the bandages on his wrists.
“I talked to your doctor,” Cobb said at length. “He wants you to start seeing a therapist.”
“Why,” Arthur said in a dull whisper, not caring.
“To help you. I think it would help you. I'll pay for it, if you want.”
Arthur just retreated deeper into his seat, like it could hide him from Cobb, and closed his eyes.
Cobb exhaled slowly and got out of the car. After a moment Arthur followed suit.
Later, when the kids were in bed and he was in his room, lying in bed and gazing up at the ceiling as usual, trying to imagine spending day in and day out lying here in this same bed and staring at this ceiling (spending every day of his life without Eames), he heard his name. He slid out of bed and crept to the top of the stairs. Cobb was on the phone downstairs. His voice was indistinct.
Arthur slipped into Cobb's bedroom and lifted the phone as quietly as he could. He raised it to his ear and could hear Cobb speaking.
“... and I just -- God, it just seems like a horrible thing to even be thinking about. It's Arthur, he's practically family. He's like a brother to me. Part of me doesn't even want to be considering it. But on the other hand ...”
“You're not a psychiatrist, Dom.” Miles' voice, recognizably English, was reassuring. “Nobody expects you to handle this on your own.”
“I feel like I'd be betraying him or something. But I'm scared he's going to do it again.” There was an unfamiliar waver in the words. “I just don't know what else to do. The doctor said it's a nice place.”
“Mental institutions have cleaned up a lot.”
“And he'd get regular treatment. He needs something. I don't know how to help him. He's a danger to himself and I, I have a job, a life ...”
“Well, I think it's a good idea,” Miles said gently. “Think about what's best for you and the children and for Arthur. He's not going to get any better lying around your house all day. He needs help, Dom.”
“It's not like I want to make him someone else's problem,” Cobb said desperately. “It's not that. It's just, shit, I already went through this with Mal, and I can't, again, I can't ...”
Arthur hung up silently.
He stayed up all night with a migraine that made him shiver and sweat and vomit, as usual. He didn't know why. He was terrified that, in the morning, an ambulance would show up to have him involuntarily committed; but he didn't think it was that. This time, his whole body was crying out for Eames. He wanted to be so, so far away from this place.
He wanted to run away, since Cobb had hidden away every sharp object and pill in the house; but he couldn't, because of his headache, so he just scrunched up in bed and breathed through clenched teeth, all night. He tried not to think of the blurred memories he had of his previous episodes and the way Eames promised to take care of him each time.
In the morning he waited until he heard Cobb get up, then followed him down to the kitchen where Cobb was making coffee.
“I'll do it,” he said quietly, voice husky from lack of use. “The therapy. I'll try it.”
Cobb turned to him with a tired but warm smile of relief, and patted his arm briefly, comfortingly.
“It'll help, Arthur, I promise,” he said softly, and Arthur thought, it'll have to.
+
The therapist told him to call her Jo. Her real name was Josephina.
“Obviously, my parents hated me,” she said.
“I thought we were here to talk about my issues,” he replied.
Jo laughed and he decided, cautiously, to like her.
“Okay, Arthur,” she said. “Why don't you start by telling me why you're here and what you hope to get out of this?”
“Okay,” he said. “I was sexually abused by my baseball coach when I was eight, I became a hustler when I was fifteen, and I was raped when I was nineteen, and until recently, I had repressed all of this. You tell me why I'm here.”
“Touché,” said Jo. “No more bullshit psychotherapy questions for you, huh?”
“I would appreciate it.”
Jo was as good as her word. After that, she conversed with him as though they were old friends catching up after a long period of estrangement. Arthur didn't make it easy on her, though. She had to pry every answer out of him like he was clutching his secrets protectively in his hands. He wasn't used to baring himself to people. Half of him still felt like his former life was nothing but a dizzying, exhilarating dream. For at least three sessions it was a frustrating endless loop: Jo didn't know how to help him achieve what he wanted; Arthur didn't even know what it was he wanted. At first, all she did was ask him questions about his life to try and form a solid background, and Arthur puzzled together his dichotomous life with her.
When he arrived for his fourth session he declared, “I want to have a relationship with Eames.”
Jo blinked, and a smile spread across her face. “That sounds like a very worthwhile goal, Arthur.”
“Really?” he said. It struck him that he may have been slightly belligerant about his declaration. He took a seat and tempered his tone. “Do you think I can do it?”
Jo's bright smile warmed him. “I really do.”
He believed her. And after that, with this goal in mind, they set out to solve Arthur's problems.
It was several sessions more before he had any kind of breakthrough. He wanted Eames -- he knew he wanted Eames -- but he couldn't untrain his brain's defensive mechanism of repression, trying to hide things away where nobody could find them. He struggled pathetically to verbalize any kind of emotion he felt. He grew sullen and closed-off when they discussed sex. He hated talking about Coach and Brighton Beach even more. He already knew that it wasn't until the latter that he'd realized how wrong the former was; he didn't need Jo to tell him that. Their breakthrough happened quite unexpectedly.
“Have you ever seen a therapist before, Arthur?” Jo asked.
“I had psych evals in the military,” he said. “And we all had to do a session with a psychologist when we started dream-sharing.”
Jo's eyebrows raised. “Dream-sharing? As in extraction?”
Arthur nodded, looking away; this seemed so irrelevant. “I was involved in that Project, he was an extractor hired by the government.”
“Did he diagnose you with anything?”
Now Arthur shook his head, briskly. “He just went under with each of us for a few minutes and poked around to see if he could find anything unusual, anything that could jeopardize our training or dreambuilding.”
“And what did he find in your dream?” Jo asked. Arthur shifted in his seat.
“He found out I was gay. Look, can we not talk about this?”
“Is it making you uncomfortable?”
“No,” he said. “I just don't ... see the relevance.”
“He found out you were gay,” said Jo. “That must have been awkward, given that you were in the military.”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Arthur, rubbing at his arm distractedly.
“What happened then?”
“He didn't tell anyone,” said Arthur.
“No?”
“No. I gave him a blowjob and he didn't tell anyone.”
Jo stopped writing on her clipboard then. She looked up at him, her eyes both piercing and concerned behind the lenses of her glasses, reminding him strangely of Eames for a moment.
“You had oral sex with him?”
“He asked for a blowjob,” said Arthur. “I gave him one. I didn't want him telling anyone.”
“Arthur,” said Jo, so intense it made him feel self-conscious. “That's a serious abuse of position of trust.”
“He asked,” said Arthur, growing defensive and uncertain.
“Did you want to do it?”
“No, of course I didn't want to. It was a business transaction, alright?” said Arthur, somewhat flustered now. “He wanted a blowjob and I wanted to not be kicked out of the military, it was win-win.”
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“No. It's not important.”
“You seem quite upset about this.”
“Because it wasn't fair!” Arthur broke suddenly. “I shouldn't have had to do that! I'd been good! I hadn't had sex for years, I wasn't even thinking about guys like that anymore! I was doing really well, and I didn't want to do it and I shouldn't have had to! It wasn't fair!”
He was breathing hard; he felt like he'd just been sucker-punched in the gut. His gaze swivelled to the big stuffed panda bear that sat in the corner of the room, for Jo's child patients. He stared at it hard so that he wouldn't have to look at her. He wanted to curl up on the floor next to it. He didn't like therapy anymore. He wanted out.
He just wanted to be with Eames.
That was what held him in his seat, right then, for all those unbearable seconds while Jo soaked this in. He was doing this for Eames.
At last, Jo said softly, “Does that mean you think what happened to you when you were nineteen was fair?”
That was when Arthur had a breakdown and cried in therapy.
Jo gave him a box of tissues. He wished she was Mal.
Something amazing happened after that: Slowly, gradually, Arthur got better.
+++
Words: 1581
Timeline: Post-Requiescat.
Arthur feels a very long way from Kansas right now.
Eames' parents' house is not actually their home. It's their country house, a weekend retreat, the remains of what was once an estate but now would be content to be called a mansion. It has a name.
He wants to hate Ashby Hall on principle, but finds that he can't, because the place is so beautiful it hurts. It's all British colonial throughout: everything is made of oak and mahogany and polished to a sheen. The ceilings are high and the beds are four-poster. There's a conservatory, and a chandelier in every room. Nothing is out of place.
"I bet you had a pony, growing up," Arthur says.
"It was a horse," Eames replies, pained. "Not a pony."
Arthur can barely wrap his head around this. To know that Eames is from old money is one thing. To be actually standing in his country house, which is actually a mansion (that has a name), to learn that if so many people die in rapid succession Eames would be the King of England by default (a terrifying thought in itself)--
"You went to a prep school, didn't you."
"Yes," Eames admits reluctantly.
Arthur has never felt so inadequate.
And this is all before Eames' parents actually show up. Then he's not even sure what to feel.
+
He doesn't even have a name for the room he's occupying currently. There are some cushioned chairs with warm patterns on them. There's a table covered in lit candles and silverware and an elegant Christmas centerpiece, cream poinsettias and evergreen pinecones and white pine boughs and magnolia leaves arranged in a silver vase. The garland, draped prettily over the hearth, is faux pine with more cream poinsettias and magnolia leaves, gold fruit and a hundred tiny fairy lights.
The hearth is tall, bathing the whole room in a warm liquid glow from the fire that crackles merrily inside, not loud enough to drown the distant, shouting voices of Eames and his father.
Arthur can disassemble a gun in the dark and shoot a man from a block away, but he has no idea what to do in this situation. He rubs his hands surreptitiously over his pants, both to smooth them and to wipe away any moisture on his palms.
"This is good," he offers, glancing at a painting that hangs on the wall. It's one of several. "Did, ah, did William do this?"
There's a sniff from the corner where Eames' mother is hovering. "It's an original."
"Hard to tell sometimes," says Arthur. "He's very good," he adds.
She makes a short, discontented sound. "If he had any real skill to speak of at all, he wouldn't be copying the paintings of artists much more talented than he."
"Forging paintings takes a lot of skill," Arthur says quietly.
They're both quiet enough for a moment that they can hear the deep, carrying voice of Eames' father:
"I know you love to paint yourself as the black sheep of the family, but this is going too damn far--"
"Perhaps I shouldn't have come," says Arthur, tactfully.
"It's nothing to do with you personally," Eames' mother replies dismissively. "He just loves to provoke a reaction from his father and I. It's a bit of a game for him."
"I'd like to think our relationship is more to him than just a rebellious statement."
She takes a sip of her sidecar and says, "You're not the first pretty boy my son has brought home to meet his parents."
Arthur looks down at the rug and just thinks about that. That there are other pretty boys. He pretends to busy himself examining each of the paintings, and when he glances round again, Eames' mother has taken a seat in an armchair by the hearth.
"So what do you do for a living, Arthur?"
"I'm retired from the military," says Arthur, reaching up unconsciously to the spot where his dog tags lie flush against his chest under his shirt.
"I see."
Down the hall:
"You're a waste, William, you're a bloody fucking waste, you wasted our money on art school and you wasted your time on the army, the only thing you're good for is carrying the family name and you can't even bed a woman--"
"Oh, keep your fucking family name, then, I'd rather have Arthur anyway--"
"Sit down, Arthur," says Eames' mother, calmly.
He hesitates, then crosses the plush rug and takes a seat in the armchair facing hers. Her hands are folded primly in her lap. He sits up straight and looks across at her steadily.
"I want you to understand that everything my son does, he does to spite his family," she says. "First he wanted to become an artist, instead of going to Cambridge or Oxford, which he could have. Then he dropped out and decided to join the army for a lark. Now he's been caught dabbling in crime. I have always been supportive of him, but this is going too far. You seem like a nice boy, which is why I bring this up now, instead of letting this become more complicated than it needs to be. How much can I offer you to leave my son and never contact him again?"
Arthur leans forward in his chair, elbows propped on his thighs.
"I'm independently wealthy," he says quietly, not breaking eye contact. "But thank you."
"I don't think you understand."
"I think I understand better than you do," he says. "Your son is gay. He's attracted to men. He's actually attracted to me. We care very much for each other, and it's normal, and we're not going to stop caring for each other, even if you pay me off, or if you suddenly become accepting of him and he feels the need to rebel in some other way. Thank you for your concern. But your son is gay."
"Do you love him?" she asks, and there's something very Eames about the calculating slant of her eyes, the shrewd glint that makes Arthur feel like she can see straight through him to the armchair he's sitting in.
And he doesn't know what to say.
A door slams. In a moment Eames is there, in the doorway, flushed and furious.
"Arthur," he says loudly, and Arthur gets to his feet, brushing his pants off again unnecessarily.
"It was nice meeting you," he says to Eames' mother. She smiles, shrewd still, a little curve of the lip.
"You too, Arthur," she says.
Arthur reaches the doorway and Eames puts an arm around his waist and pulls him just a little closer, just close enough to lean his forehead to Arthur's and exhale, a short, frustrated puff of breath against Arthur's face.
"Come on," he mumbles, drawing away. Louder, he says, "Happy fucking Christmas, Mum."
+
In the car Eames is still scowling, angry, gripping the steering wheel white-knuckled.
"I thought it might have gone better than that," he says eventually. "Sorry."
"Your mother seems nice," says Arthur, still tactful, with a touch of caustic irony.
"My mother is an emotionally manipulative harpy who loves nothing more than to sink her talons into my life and control every aspect."
"She said you've brought boys home before."
"When I was a teenager in school," Eames snorts. "They still think this is a phase, you know. Well, twenty years is a bloody long phase. I thought they might have grown up by now, but apparently it's only been me."
"I thought about telling her that I was a hooker," Arthur says, musing, gazing out the window at the English countryside where sheep dot the hills, and Eames makes a choking sound beside him.
"Oh Christ, Arthur, you," he manages, before he starts laughing, uncontrollably, gasping. "Oh, please do, would you, I can turn the car around right now--"
Arthur breaks, and laughs, too, and Eames has to pull over because he's not watching the road anymore, and eventually Arthur's just laughing at him laughing because he doesn't understand why it was that funny. And then Eames is reaching over and saying, "Come here, you silly thing," and they're kissing, and the glide of Eames' tongue over his lip tastes sweet.
"How did you grow up so liberal," Arthur asks, pausing for breath, "in a family like that."
"I was an art student," Eames replies simply, like this is the answer to everything.
+
They're almost back in London and Chris Rea is singing on the radio about driving home for Christmas, and Eames is whistling absently along, and he says, abrupt, "We should see your mum for Christmas."
"No," says Arthur, gazing out the window again.
"I'm sure she misses you. And Christmas is family-time. Go on."
"I said no, Eames."
"I think it would be really nice to see her," Eames says. "I like your mum. She's nicer than mine. And then we could at least say we're spending Christmas with fam--"
Arthur slams his hand against the side of the car door. "We're not fucking going to Kansas for Christmas!"
Eames is silent and so is Arthur, for a minute, because he can't manage to verbalize how much he fucking hates this holiday and the lights and the decorations, how much like a scared teenager it makes him feel, and how much he despises that feeling.
"Just a suggestion, anyway," Eames says softly.
+++
Words: 2315
Timeline: Pre-Requiescat, post-Monaco.
They've officially been working this job in New York for eight days, seven hours and thirteen minutes by the time they make a breakthrough.
Not like Eames is counting, or anything. It's not like it's been eight days, seven hours, thirteen minutes, one long plane ride and one trip to the airport from their last hotel that Eames decided this would be the job during which he finally manages to seduce Arthur.
"Would you stop fellating that pen," Arthur says sharply when he enters their work hotel room, barely batting an eye.
Eames stops, sadly.
"I've made a minor breakthrough."
"Let's have it, then," says Eames, eyeing Arthur's ass as he strides toward the desk where his blueprints are laid out.
"We've been thinking this politician is clean as a whistle and that you'd have to forge somebody close to him in order to get the information, but today I found out: he has a secret penchant for anonymous hook-ups."
"At least someone's hooking up," says Eames.
Arthur shoots him the most withering of glances.
"My source says he can be found at this bar every other Thursday." He slides over a cocktail napkin with an address scrawled on it.
"So we scope it out, you do your architect thing, I slip into something comely and seduce the information right out of him."
"Do you have any qualms with that plan?" Arthur asks, and he's still crisp and detached, but there's a tiny note of doubt there. Eames waves a hand.
"Nothing will happen, trust me. I've done this many times before, remember? You think I sleep with every skeevy mark in the dream when I'm working?" he says. "Besides, do you have any qualms? You're the one who has to step outside the box for this one."
Arthur tugs at his tie a little, self-conscious. His tie's always slightly crooked, even at his most professional. Eames loves it.
"I can be the architect," he says.
"Are you sure?"
"Mal taught me," says Arthur simply. Like that should say it all -- end of discussion.
+
It's a gay bar.
"Oh my God," says Arthur, looking like he's just swallowed something extremely unpleasant. "It's a gay bar."
"It's a gay bar," says Eames, tugging Arthur's sleeve giddily. "We're at a gay bar, look."
Arthur looks exquisitely pained. Eames almost wants to feel sorry for him. It's not that Arthur doesn't approve of gay people. It's just that he disapproves of all the frivolity and rowdiness that someplace like a gay bar implies.
Nonetheless, Arthur is a professional. He sucks it up and approaches the bar manfully. Eames pulls out his phone, snaps a picture of Arthur entering the bar with its lurid sign, proclaiming The White Swallow, above his head, and immediately sends it to Ariadne.
"Don't get any ideas," says Arthur, when Eames catches him up inside. "I can hear you thinking."
Eames frowns. It's a coincidence that he's thinking of that tiny sliver of a chance that the environment might loosen Arthur up. Open his mind a little.
"I'm not thinking anything," he lies.
"I can believe that."
"You are so acerbic when we're working."
Arthur scowls at him. "Look, I know you think extraction is all fun and games, but I happen to take my work very seriously. And I happen to dislike gay bars. I also dislike the type of people who inhabit gay bars. So I'm going to do my job as quickly as possible, and you are going to sit right there, and keep to yourself, and not move. Can you do that?"
He leaves without waiting for an answer. Eames trudges over to the bar stool Arthur indicated, orders something pink with a slice of fruit floating around in it, because it's delicious and he can, and sulks. He watches the men grinding on the dance floor to the bass music currently thumping out of the speakers, and wishes Arthur would indulge him just this once. What's the point of even being at a gay bar if he can look but not touch? This is torture.
"Hi," says a stranger, sliding onto the stool at Eames' side.
"I have a boyfriend," Eames lies immediately. He'll never get Arthur in bed if he winds up in someone else's. The guy just chuckles.
"Yeah, me too. I just came over 'cause I thought you looked bored."
"Oh," says Eames, relaxing, and feeling rather less afraid for his life should Arthur catch him flirting on the job. "Yes. Well. Would you believe I'm working?"
"Must be a nice job," the guy says.
"It has its perks."
"What do you do?"
"I'm an internationally-wanted thief."
The guy glances over at his drink sceptically. "You're stealing the bar's supply of strawberry mojitos?"
Eames heaves a long-suffering sigh. "Forget it."
The stranger offers his hand. "I'm Eric."
"Eames," says Eames, and he shakes it. Eric clasps his hand and leans in.
"And I actually lied. I don't have a boyfriend, and I came over here to tell you to watch yours. In a place like this, he's like a shark in a tank full of fish. Don't take your eyes off him for a second."
Eames snatches his hand back. For a second this feels unnervingly surreal. He almost reaches for his totem.
"What do you know?" he asks. It comes out more challengingly than he intends. Eric stirs his drink calmly.
"Just trust me, Neil McCormick can't do monogamy if his life depends on it." And that is one of Arthur's aliases, no doubt, Eames knows it is. "Never mind, though," Eric says, getting to his feet, "here he comes."
"Hang on," Eames starts to say, but then Arthur is there, looking flustered and slightly nauseous.
"I've been hit on by five men."
"Should've let me come with you, then, shouldn't you?" says Eames, sipping his drink. Arthur brushes off the front of his jacket, as though to flick away invisible gay germs.
"I just need to look at the washrooms, and then we can leave."
"I'd call it a night, actually," Eames says loudly, sucking up the last of his mojito and leaving the glass on the bar. Slipping off his stool, he leans in close and murmurs in Arthur's ear, "We may have just been made."
Arthur's expression barely flickers. Eames is the only one who can see the air about him readjust, suddenly shrewd and alert.
"So soon?" he says mildly, taking Eames' hand. His other hand draws back towards his concealed holster just as Eames realizes that Eric is still hovering nearby, watching them.
"Yes, you know me, can't hold my liquor," he says, with a self-deprecating laugh. "Time to go, I'm afraid."
"Neil," Eric calls over.
Arthur stills, not looking at him. Eames tugs his hand, trying not to enjoy it. It's the most physical contact they've had all week.
"Yes, let's go," Arthur says belatedly, quiet, but Eames hears him perfectly well over the bass thump of music in the bar. Eames nods, ready to take Arthur's lead on this. But before they can slip away, Eric catches up and takes Arthur by the sleeve.
"McCormick, hey, where are you--"
Like lightning, Arthur grabs him by the front of the shirt and shoves him up against the bar. The close press of their bodies could be miscontrued for passion, but Eames knows he's just using his body to conceal the gun in his other hand, its blunt barrel pressing into Eric's abdomen. He feels, for a moment, absurdly jealous of the guy anyway.
"How do you know that name?" Arthur demands, low and soft and dangerous, and Eames is almost getting turned on just from this. He loves seeing Arthur like this.
"Sorry!" Eric yelps, putting up his hands. "I just mistook you for--" Then he squints, and Arthur's words seem to register. "It is you! I fucking knew it!"
Disgusted, Arthur lets him go, covertly holsters his gun and turns on his heel to leave. Eames follows, bemused. So does Eric.
"Neil, it's me, Eric Preston, remember--"
"Fuck off," Arthur snarls, shouldering his way through the crowd. Eames is right on his heels, excusing himself as he jostles people.
"Neil!"
They make it out the door and onto the sidewalk. Arthur keeps going. He's almost quivering, Eames notices, from -- rage? The cold?
Preston skids onto the sidewalk after them, almost begging now. "Neil, wait!"
"Arthur," says Eames reprovingly, nudging Arthur slightly with his elbow.
Arthur stops. The glint in his dark eyes is dangerous. He turns around.
"What," he says.
"I just want to ... hey," Preston says hesitantly. He seems taken aback by Arthur's hostility. "I haven't seen you in like ten years. Last thing I heard, you were joining the army."
"I did," says Arthur. His tone is blunt and challenging.
"Okay, well," says Preston, obviously unsure of himself. Eames takes him in: skinny jeans, unkempt hair with dyed tips, facial piercings, most definitely gay. "Um, how've you been?"
Arthur just stares at him. Eames has been on the receiving end of that stare before and knows how unpleasant it is. Like Preston has just blurted out the most ridiculous, painfully stupid statement ever expressed by mankind. Preston wilts slightly under the weight of it.
Then, without a word, Arthur turns and starts walking away again.
Eames stands there for a moment longer, utterly perplexed by this entire exchange. He offers Preston a commiserating shrug, a sort of you know how he is shrug, since, by the sound of it, Preston does know.
"Wait!" Preston calls again, urgently, when Eames turns to leave. He pauses, and Preston moves closer. "You are with him, right?"
Eames considers and says, "Yes," since he likes the idea of that.
At this confirmation Preston looks momentarily defeated. Then he recovers.
"Can you tell him to meet me here tomorrow night? At twelve? I just want to talk to him. Will you please tell him?"
"I don't know," says Eames hedgily. "Who're you, his ex-boyfriend or something?"
Preston laughs, a sound chiselled straight out of pain. "Yeah. I wish."
Eames feels considerably heartened by this.
+
They're staying in the Plaza, just because they can.
Actually, they're sharing a bed at the Plaza, because they can, because the nicer suites with two beds are taken, and because Arthur doesn't give a single fuck about Eames' sexual needs because Arthur is an enlightened being who apparently is above such frivolities as sex when he's on the job. Or, well, ever.
Eames wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and yell in his face, Don't you know that you are killing me here?!
But he doesn't, because he's afraid Arthur would make him sleep on the couch. Anyway, it's a big bed, so Eames has loads of empty space on his side for him and his unwelcome nocturnal hard-ons.
Besides, Eames loves watching Arthur sleep, to the point where he feels like a weird, skeevy pervert about it. He can't help it. Arthur looks so calm when he sleeps. He's so vigilant, so ... bristling with paranoia in the waking (and dream) world. But when he sleeps, even when it's artificial, Somnacin-induced, he looks calm and beautiful and slightly mussed and he occasionally makes cute little noises when he breathes, like a puppy. Eames wants to pet him.
(He doesn't, because he values his fingers. But he wants to.)
The moment Eames took to linger cost him. Arthur had disappeared into the crowd and by the time Eames gets back to their hotel room, Arthur is already in the shower.
"Cheater," Eames scowls at the closed door. He flops onto their bed and stretches out on Arthur's side, wondering what would happen if he just stripped off as soon as he heard the shower stop running and posed as seductively as he could.
But when it's been thirty minutes and the shower is still going, Eames gets suspicious. He gets up and knocks on the bathroom door.
"Arthur?"
"What?" Arthur snaps back. His voice isn't muffled by the running water or a shower curtain.
Eames thinks suddenly of those mysterious episodes of Arthur's, and a chill grips him. "Are you ill?"
No answer. He jimmies the lock open and finds Arthur sitting fully clothed on the toilet seat lid. His head is in his hands. Eames crosses the room quietly and kneels in front of him, pulling Arthur's hands away from his face. He doesn't look like he's having an episode, but he looks about on the brink of one.
Arthur glares. "You're not supposed to be in here when I'm showering."
"You're not showering."
"I could have been."
"But you aren't, tragically."
Arthur blinks at him. Then he leans way over, stretching an arm out to turn the faucet off. The sheeting of water becomes a slow trickle.
"What?" he says.
"That guy," says Eames. "He knew you. Your alias, anyway."
"Yes, I had friends when I was a teenager, what of it," says Arthur tersely.
Eames feels inexplicably stung. Teenagerhood is a piece of Arthur's life that he's refused to bare to anyone. If he even has a high school transcript, Eames has never found it. To think this kid gets to have all of Arthur's teenaged secrets, for nothing...
"Go away now," Arthur orders. "I'm going to shower for real."
Eames gets up and hesitates.
"Did you ever fuck him?"
"Probably," says Arthur impatiently. "Now get out."
Eames leaves. He's bitter and sulky all night and when Arthur finally joins him, he smells like shampoo and Irish Spring and Eames can smell it from the other side of the bed.
In the morning, Arthur doesn't remember running into Preston at all.