163
such was our calling
inception (arthur/eames)
3,271 words STREET KIDS AU SEQUEL. yeah, you heard that right. more self-indulgent angst! follows oh, what a bargain.
Arthur visits Eames in prison exactly three times. They’re all during the first two months.
The third time, Arthur sits across the table from him, and it’s all Eames can do not to touch his bruised cheekbone, the corner of his mouth where it’s frowning down. He looks thin. Eames fucking hates it.
Arthur shifts in his seat, puts his hand on the table. He appears to think better of it, then, and puts it back in his lap. He’s fidgeting. It’s new.
“I can’t do this,” he says, and for a minute Eames isn’t sure if he means the visit or the life itself. Theft. Pick-pocketing. “You shouldn’t even be in here.”
“Yes, I should,” Eames says, and his voice is harsher than he means it to be. It’s worse, being here and seeing him and not being able to help at all. It’s worse than just the looks he gets from the other inmates, or the terrible food, or - any of it. “Better me than you.”
Arthur shakes his head like he knows Eames is wrong, but also knows he won’t be able to convince him otherwise. “I’m not better than you,” he says. Eames doesn’t care if Arthur thinks so or not. It doesn’t make it not true.
They stare at each other for a few long moments, and Eames finds himself trying to memorize Arthur’s face. The minutes are winding down. They don’t have much time left.
“I have to go,” Arthur says. His face is completely even, the way it is when there’s something he’s not saying. The way it is when he should be yelling, instead, or maybe crying. He never does either of those things. “I’ll visit again, if I can.”
“Don’t,” Eames says. He hates seeing Arthur here. He thinks he hates it more than not seeing him at all. “Please don’t, love.”
Arthur doesn’t say anything at all. He just stands and walks out.
It surprises no one, except maybe Arthur, that Eames takes the fall for him. When Ariadne drives Eames to the station - to bail Arthur out, to put Eames in - she doesn’t even try to talk him out of it. He tells her to keep an eye on Arthur for him, though. She clasps his hand in hers, and says that she’ll do her best.
“It was my idea,” he says to the officer, even though it’s not true. All the complicated ones are Arthur’s ideas. “I’m older, so he listens to me. Just - I’ll tell you whatever you want, just don’t send him to jail.”
It’s not the most strategic of deals, but it doesn’t matter. Arthur gets off clean. Eames gets a maximum of four years and the understanding that he’ll probably serve two. The crime itself - wouldn’t have warranted that high a penalty, but there’s the assault charge to deal with. And there’s no taking that back.
Eames may sound British, but he was still born in the United States. Dual citizenship. They can send him to jail for however long they want.
Eames doesn’t see Arthur at all after that. Sometimes Eames desperately wishes he hadn’t said anything. Sometimes he feels the opposite. He gets a few letters, and he makes sure to read them in his bunk, just before lights out. Arthur isn’t very detailed in his descriptions, but he’s still writing. And that’s something.
His first roommate is a man named Cobb. He says he’s in because, “They think I murdered my wife, you know? But I didn’t do that. I’d never do it.” He pauses and leans back against the wall. “I just want to see my kids, man.”
“Sure you do, mate,” Eames says, but doesn’t comment further. No one says they’ve actually committed the crime they’re in here for. Some proclaim their innocence, and some don’t talk about it at all. Cobb is the former, and Eames is the latter.
“Their grandma won’t let them visit me. Mal’s mom. I understand, though. This isn’t really the place for children.” Cobb looks at him like there’s a deeper meaning to his words, but Eames isn’t a child. He hasn’t been one for a long time.
Eames keeps his head down. It doesn’t keep him from getting an elbow or two in the face, but it keeps him from needing stitches in the infirmary. There’re worse things than swallowing a little blood.
Cobb helps as much as Cobb can, which is not much. Mostly Eames gets by on his wits, and his quick tongue. His accent doesn’t hurt, either. This isn’t maximum, or anything, and so he sticks with Cobb, works out as much as possible, and he reads.
He starts with the books he got for Arthur - Lord of the Flies, which is more fucked up than he’d thought it would be, and then Catcher in the Rye. He’s not a fast reader, but he’s getting better. He has time.
“Is there anyone you miss, kid?” Cobb asks him one day. Cobb’s been calling him kid since they met. Eames doesn’t mind so much anymore, though he hated it for the first six months. Cobb’s lying back on his bunk, his voice floating up from below, and Eames is reading, pressed back against the wall. He’s got The Fellowship of the Ring facedown on his lap.
“Sure,” he says. “Plenty of people.” Mostly just one, though.
“Yeah?” Cobb says, though it’s not really a question. They don’t pry, either of them.
“Aye, yeah.” Eames sits for a moment, listening to Cobb breathe. Sometimes he misses Arthur so much he thinks it’ll show, like a bruise. Like the last time Lopez punched him in the face. It doesn’t, though. It doesn’t.
One year, two months in, and Eames is so used to the cell, the five steps across, twelve steps back he’s paced thousands of time, that he can’t imagine what it will be like to be back in a squat with Arthur. He thinks of Arthur’s sharp face, the exaggerated roll of his eyes, but he wishes he had a photograph. It’s hard to put the pieces together in his mind, most of the time. They don’t add up to a real person, just a Picasso of exaggerated body parts.
He holds close the memory of Arthur’s smile against his neck that last night they went to sleep together, before Arthur was in lockup and Eames had to get him out. Arthur’s fingertips sliding against his spine. Arthur’s dirty hair against his palm.
He doesn’t let himself wonder if Arthur is still going to be there when he gets out.
Cobb’s transferred after Eames has been in for just shy of a year and a half. He doesn’t get to say goodbye, though they both knew it was coming. Just not when. His new cellmate is a guy named Leroy. Eames has to punch him in the face twice in the first week, and gets a shiner and a split lip for his troubles. They ignore each other as much as possible after that, but the cell isn’t precisely safe, either. Leroy fits right in with the other useless, moronic white trash, and Eames doesn’t want to make enemies of all of them.
“Hey, Brit,” they yell, sometimes, across the rec yard. He pays them no mind, but he’ll fight if he has to. He’s spent years living in squats, keeping Arthur safe, keeping everyone else out. He hopes he doesn’t have to.
“Why’re you in American prison, Brit,” Leroy asks him. It’s been two months. Eames still doesn’t know what Leroy did, and he doesn’t want to. His doesn’t give a shit, and doesn’t see why he should.
“Doesn’t matter much, does it?” he says, like a fuck you. I took the fall,, he doesn’t say. I don’t regret it, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t owe Leroy anything. Eames misses Cobb, then, with a sharp pang. He still misses Arthur more.
Eames gets out of prison on a Tuesday. The sun is shining. It’s February, and he’s gotten his coat back, and his wallet, and all of these things he didn’t need in prison. The twelve dollars he has to his name. His library card. Ariadne’s address written on a piece of scrap paper, her handwriting round and worn.
Arthur’s not waiting for him when he gets steps through the gates, out into freedom. He shouldn’t be surprised - he’s never had an address for Arthur, and he hasn’t gotten a new letter in months. He hadn’t mailed Ariadne, either.
Still, there’s a pang in his chest when he walks out, feet crunching on the already-compacted snow, and there’s no one to greet him. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, huffs out a breath in white curls of fog, and starts walking.
On Wednesday morning, he’s sitting on the steps to Ariadne’s apartment building, and wishing that he had anywhere else to go. He rung the buzzer up to her apartment half an hour ago, but she hadn’t answered, and now he’s just waiting. His feet are completely numb, and he’s been shivering for hours, now. He could probably find somewhere safer, warmer to sleep - the train station is always a good option, for example - but he wants. Well, he wants Arthur.
“Eames?” Ariadne’s voice is exactly the same, deeper than expected and carefully enunciated.
“Hey,” Eames says, and tries on a smile. His voice trembles a little, but it’s the cold. He’s so fucking cold.
“Jesus,” she says, and for someone who volunteers at a church, she certainly doesn’t have a problem taking the lord’s name in vain. “Jesus Christ. You didn’t call!” She flings herself down and wraps her arms around him. He tries not to press his face against her shoulder, but he fails. She’s so warm, and he’s missed her, too.
“Can’t phone when one doesn’t have the number, love,” he mumbles against the arm of her coat. “Though I suppose I could have used the post.”
“You stupid, stupid boy,” she says. She doesn’t sound angry; she sounds like she might cry. “Come inside, right now.”
“If you insist,” he says, and tries to get his feet in working order. She doesn’t let go of his arm until they’re safely ensconced in the elevator. It’s only then that he asks, “Do you know where Arthur is?”
He’s not sure what to do when she shakes her head.
Ariadne invites him to sleep on her couch. He insists he won’t be staying long, and he means to make it true.
“He still comes to the church on Sundays, sometimes,” she says, and hands him a cup of tea. He presses the mug between his hands for a few moments. The tea in prison had been utter shit. “He’s been - in an out, the past six months. You two were always like that, but after you went in, he was more regular.”
“Okay,” Eames says, and pretends that he’s not panicking. He’d wondered - but he hadn’t really thought. “I’ll - okay.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, and carefully stands. She has to get to work. Eames takes a sip of his tea, and stares out into space.
Eames still shows up that Sunday. And the Sunday after that, and the Sunday after that. He turns twenty-one, and he celebrates his birthday by sharing a beer with Ariadne. He gets a shitty job as a store-clerk for a minimart, and he works the night shift most of the time. He’s working his way through the completely works of Ray Bradbury, and he underlines the passages thinks Arthur would like.
He’s not happy. Sometimes, he misses prison, because at least then he still thought he’d sacrificed two years of his life for something important.
Near the end of April, Eames finally gets out of the apartment. His job is like prison - the same repetitive acts over and over until he can do them without even thinking about them. It doesn’t take a brain to work a register, even at eleven PM. It’s a Saturday, and he’s off shift, so he bundles up in a sweater and takes the spare key Ariadne’s made him. He sets off without a goal in mind, and the sky is gray over his head. It’s been raining for the last week, and there are still puddles in the middle of the sidewalk. He avoids them as best he can; his shoes aren’t entirely waterproof, at this point, and he can’t afford new ones yet.
He passes familiar places - the corners in the business district where he’d always bump into the rich, careless elite. Most of them don’t even spare him a glance, with his collar turned up and his hands in his pockets. He’s not even thinking about it when he stumbles into a businessman talking loudly on his cell phone. He picks the wallet, and mumbles a careless, “Sorry, mate,” before he can think better of it.
Half of him is glad that he still knows what to do. The other half wonders if he’ll ever be able to stop. Once a thief, always a thief.
He turns the corner and pulls the cash out, stuffing the empty wallet back in his pocket. He thumbs through the cash with quick, practiced fingers. Enough there for a hot meal and a place to sleep, just in one man’s pocket.
Some people have never wanted for anything.
It’s Sunday. Eames is sitting in the pews, watching Ariadne pass out slices of French toast. She smiles at a small girl and her mother, and Eames leans forward to prop his arms on the back of the pew in front of him. The wood is cool underneath the bare skin of his arms.
Eames attends every Sunday, but he doesn’t help out. Mostly he just tags along after Ariadne, and sits and watches. The other volunteers smile at him, recognize him, but none of them talk to him. He doesn’t really want them to.
He’s sure that coming here every week like it’ll make a difference is unhealthy - a symptom of his infatuation, something he should be trying to rid himself of, not wallow in. Not yet, he thinks, though. He’ll do it, eventually, just not yet.
He flips through the businessman’s wallet - the cash is safely stowed away, and he’s thrown out the cards, but the leather is supple, soft, and there’s a picture of two small children there. A card marking a future dentist appointment. A list of miscellaneous unmarked telephone numbers. Little snippets of a life Eames really doesn’t care very much about.
Someone laughs, loudly, and the sound of it makes Eames look up. Ariadne’s eyes are wide with shock.
“What?” Arthur asks. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”
He looks - he doesn’t look half-dead, or irreparably scarred, or emaciated. He just looks older. Eames watches him, the quick, stealthy step of his feet over the wood floor, the familiar style of his slicked-back hair.
“Arthur,” Ariadne says, and she glances over at Eames. Eames can see her look, but he’s too busy staring at Arthur, his slowly fading smile.
“What?” Arthur says, and then turns, following Ariadne’s gaze to the pews underneath Eames’ thighs. Eames watches the emotions flicker over his face too quickly to name, before he settles on an expression Eames is more familiar with - blank calm.
Eames thinks he should probably speak, but he can’t think of anything to say.
Arthur doesn’t move until Ariadne pushes at his shoulder, propelling him in Eames’ direction. He takes the steps slowly, and Eames remains perfectly still.
“You’re out,” Arthur says, stopping in the aisle. He shakes his head. “You’ve been out. How long?” His voice is as inscrutable as his face. Eames only knows how shaken he is because of how bland he sounds.
“Almost three months,” Eames says. Like he doesn’t still wake up expecting to see the same concrete ceiling. Like he doesn’t still open his mouth to tell Cobb about the book he’s reading, only to remember he probably won’t ever see Cobb again.
“God,” Arthur says. He reaches out and brushes his fingers tentatively over Eames’ cheekbone. Eames tries hard not to breathe. “I’m so sorry - I didn’t know,” Arthur says in a rush, like he’s letting out a held breath. “I would have - you know I would’ve.”
And Eames doesn’t really, but he nods anyway.
“Doesn’t matter, love,” he says, and shrugs. Arthur narrows his eyes and his mouth twists down like he wants to say you’re doing it again.
“It fucking matters,” Arthur says.
Arthur’s staying in a studio apartment across the city. They take the bus. It’s raining outside, and Eames keeps his hands clasped firmly between his thighs. Arthur’s looking out the window, and Eames is watching his profile - the clenching and unclenching of muscle in his jaw. He’s tense, and Eames would very much like to kiss him. He’s never touched Arthur without permission, though.
“You’re staring.” Arthur’s voice is tight. Eames doesn’t know what’s happened to Arthur in the last two years, but it’s made him harder, more distrustful. Eames doesn’t like it.
“It’s been two fucking years, Arthur, cut me some slack,” he says.
“You could have let me visit,” Arthur says. His voice is quiet, and Eames thinks, ah. He’s still mad.
“Would’ve just made it harder,” Eames says.
“Maybe, but it would have made this easier.” Eames doesn’t really know what to say to that.
Arthur’s apartment is tiny, tidy, and filled with books. He leaves his keys carelessly on the table beside the door. He’s been staying here for a while now.
“I have work at 7:00,” he says. “You’re welcome to stay.”
Eames is skipping work just to be here. He shrugs.
There’s a bed in the corner, unmade, and a blue crate doubling both as a bookshelf and a bedside table. There isn’t any other decoration to speak of, just light blue wall-to-wall carpeting, and the fridge. There’s a tiny bathroom, and Arthur goes to wash his hands. He leaves his jacket in a pile next to the bathroom door.
“I missed you,” Eames says, and half hopes that the words are drowned out by the faucet. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”
“You’re wrong if you think I’d just leave you there,” Arthur says. He’s wiping his wet hands off of his jeans and he’s fidgeting again. “Come here.” Eames goes.
Arthur’s fingers are still damp when they touch his nose, his cheekbones, his eyelids. Eames can feel them stick, a little, to his lips. He’s holding his breath because he doesn’t want to spook Arthur, whose free hand is wrapped in the hem of his t-shirt.
“This is real,” he says, but it’s almost a question. “I wasn’t imagining it.”
“Of course it’s fucking real,” Eames says, and kisses Arthur, one hand pressed against the back of his head. Arthur’s fingers are still on his chin, and they stutter there, for a moment, before dropping. Arthur’s lips are chapped. Eames has never wanted a kiss more.
Arthur pulls back, face flushed. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Eames just kisses him again.
They sleep in Arthur’s bed, Arthur’s leg wrapped around Eames’ hip. Arthur is asleep, but Eames isn’t yet; he’s drowsy, but he doesn’t want to close his eyes. He’s counting Arthur’s ribs with his fingers, touching bare skin as softly as he can. Arthur’s hair is a mess, sticking to the side of his face in dark clumps.
He’s going to wake up with pillow creases in his cheek, and Eames is going to be here to see it.
inception (arthur/eames)
3,271 words STREET KIDS AU SEQUEL. yeah, you heard that right. more self-indulgent angst! follows oh, what a bargain.
Arthur visits Eames in prison exactly three times. They’re all during the first two months.
The third time, Arthur sits across the table from him, and it’s all Eames can do not to touch his bruised cheekbone, the corner of his mouth where it’s frowning down. He looks thin. Eames fucking hates it.
Arthur shifts in his seat, puts his hand on the table. He appears to think better of it, then, and puts it back in his lap. He’s fidgeting. It’s new.
“I can’t do this,” he says, and for a minute Eames isn’t sure if he means the visit or the life itself. Theft. Pick-pocketing. “You shouldn’t even be in here.”
“Yes, I should,” Eames says, and his voice is harsher than he means it to be. It’s worse, being here and seeing him and not being able to help at all. It’s worse than just the looks he gets from the other inmates, or the terrible food, or - any of it. “Better me than you.”
Arthur shakes his head like he knows Eames is wrong, but also knows he won’t be able to convince him otherwise. “I’m not better than you,” he says. Eames doesn’t care if Arthur thinks so or not. It doesn’t make it not true.
They stare at each other for a few long moments, and Eames finds himself trying to memorize Arthur’s face. The minutes are winding down. They don’t have much time left.
“I have to go,” Arthur says. His face is completely even, the way it is when there’s something he’s not saying. The way it is when he should be yelling, instead, or maybe crying. He never does either of those things. “I’ll visit again, if I can.”
“Don’t,” Eames says. He hates seeing Arthur here. He thinks he hates it more than not seeing him at all. “Please don’t, love.”
Arthur doesn’t say anything at all. He just stands and walks out.
It surprises no one, except maybe Arthur, that Eames takes the fall for him. When Ariadne drives Eames to the station - to bail Arthur out, to put Eames in - she doesn’t even try to talk him out of it. He tells her to keep an eye on Arthur for him, though. She clasps his hand in hers, and says that she’ll do her best.
“It was my idea,” he says to the officer, even though it’s not true. All the complicated ones are Arthur’s ideas. “I’m older, so he listens to me. Just - I’ll tell you whatever you want, just don’t send him to jail.”
It’s not the most strategic of deals, but it doesn’t matter. Arthur gets off clean. Eames gets a maximum of four years and the understanding that he’ll probably serve two. The crime itself - wouldn’t have warranted that high a penalty, but there’s the assault charge to deal with. And there’s no taking that back.
Eames may sound British, but he was still born in the United States. Dual citizenship. They can send him to jail for however long they want.
Eames doesn’t see Arthur at all after that. Sometimes Eames desperately wishes he hadn’t said anything. Sometimes he feels the opposite. He gets a few letters, and he makes sure to read them in his bunk, just before lights out. Arthur isn’t very detailed in his descriptions, but he’s still writing. And that’s something.
His first roommate is a man named Cobb. He says he’s in because, “They think I murdered my wife, you know? But I didn’t do that. I’d never do it.” He pauses and leans back against the wall. “I just want to see my kids, man.”
“Sure you do, mate,” Eames says, but doesn’t comment further. No one says they’ve actually committed the crime they’re in here for. Some proclaim their innocence, and some don’t talk about it at all. Cobb is the former, and Eames is the latter.
“Their grandma won’t let them visit me. Mal’s mom. I understand, though. This isn’t really the place for children.” Cobb looks at him like there’s a deeper meaning to his words, but Eames isn’t a child. He hasn’t been one for a long time.
Eames keeps his head down. It doesn’t keep him from getting an elbow or two in the face, but it keeps him from needing stitches in the infirmary. There’re worse things than swallowing a little blood.
Cobb helps as much as Cobb can, which is not much. Mostly Eames gets by on his wits, and his quick tongue. His accent doesn’t hurt, either. This isn’t maximum, or anything, and so he sticks with Cobb, works out as much as possible, and he reads.
He starts with the books he got for Arthur - Lord of the Flies, which is more fucked up than he’d thought it would be, and then Catcher in the Rye. He’s not a fast reader, but he’s getting better. He has time.
“Is there anyone you miss, kid?” Cobb asks him one day. Cobb’s been calling him kid since they met. Eames doesn’t mind so much anymore, though he hated it for the first six months. Cobb’s lying back on his bunk, his voice floating up from below, and Eames is reading, pressed back against the wall. He’s got The Fellowship of the Ring facedown on his lap.
“Sure,” he says. “Plenty of people.” Mostly just one, though.
“Yeah?” Cobb says, though it’s not really a question. They don’t pry, either of them.
“Aye, yeah.” Eames sits for a moment, listening to Cobb breathe. Sometimes he misses Arthur so much he thinks it’ll show, like a bruise. Like the last time Lopez punched him in the face. It doesn’t, though. It doesn’t.
One year, two months in, and Eames is so used to the cell, the five steps across, twelve steps back he’s paced thousands of time, that he can’t imagine what it will be like to be back in a squat with Arthur. He thinks of Arthur’s sharp face, the exaggerated roll of his eyes, but he wishes he had a photograph. It’s hard to put the pieces together in his mind, most of the time. They don’t add up to a real person, just a Picasso of exaggerated body parts.
He holds close the memory of Arthur’s smile against his neck that last night they went to sleep together, before Arthur was in lockup and Eames had to get him out. Arthur’s fingertips sliding against his spine. Arthur’s dirty hair against his palm.
He doesn’t let himself wonder if Arthur is still going to be there when he gets out.
Cobb’s transferred after Eames has been in for just shy of a year and a half. He doesn’t get to say goodbye, though they both knew it was coming. Just not when. His new cellmate is a guy named Leroy. Eames has to punch him in the face twice in the first week, and gets a shiner and a split lip for his troubles. They ignore each other as much as possible after that, but the cell isn’t precisely safe, either. Leroy fits right in with the other useless, moronic white trash, and Eames doesn’t want to make enemies of all of them.
“Hey, Brit,” they yell, sometimes, across the rec yard. He pays them no mind, but he’ll fight if he has to. He’s spent years living in squats, keeping Arthur safe, keeping everyone else out. He hopes he doesn’t have to.
“Why’re you in American prison, Brit,” Leroy asks him. It’s been two months. Eames still doesn’t know what Leroy did, and he doesn’t want to. His doesn’t give a shit, and doesn’t see why he should.
“Doesn’t matter much, does it?” he says, like a fuck you. I took the fall,, he doesn’t say. I don’t regret it, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t owe Leroy anything. Eames misses Cobb, then, with a sharp pang. He still misses Arthur more.
Eames gets out of prison on a Tuesday. The sun is shining. It’s February, and he’s gotten his coat back, and his wallet, and all of these things he didn’t need in prison. The twelve dollars he has to his name. His library card. Ariadne’s address written on a piece of scrap paper, her handwriting round and worn.
Arthur’s not waiting for him when he gets steps through the gates, out into freedom. He shouldn’t be surprised - he’s never had an address for Arthur, and he hasn’t gotten a new letter in months. He hadn’t mailed Ariadne, either.
Still, there’s a pang in his chest when he walks out, feet crunching on the already-compacted snow, and there’s no one to greet him. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, huffs out a breath in white curls of fog, and starts walking.
On Wednesday morning, he’s sitting on the steps to Ariadne’s apartment building, and wishing that he had anywhere else to go. He rung the buzzer up to her apartment half an hour ago, but she hadn’t answered, and now he’s just waiting. His feet are completely numb, and he’s been shivering for hours, now. He could probably find somewhere safer, warmer to sleep - the train station is always a good option, for example - but he wants. Well, he wants Arthur.
“Eames?” Ariadne’s voice is exactly the same, deeper than expected and carefully enunciated.
“Hey,” Eames says, and tries on a smile. His voice trembles a little, but it’s the cold. He’s so fucking cold.
“Jesus,” she says, and for someone who volunteers at a church, she certainly doesn’t have a problem taking the lord’s name in vain. “Jesus Christ. You didn’t call!” She flings herself down and wraps her arms around him. He tries not to press his face against her shoulder, but he fails. She’s so warm, and he’s missed her, too.
“Can’t phone when one doesn’t have the number, love,” he mumbles against the arm of her coat. “Though I suppose I could have used the post.”
“You stupid, stupid boy,” she says. She doesn’t sound angry; she sounds like she might cry. “Come inside, right now.”
“If you insist,” he says, and tries to get his feet in working order. She doesn’t let go of his arm until they’re safely ensconced in the elevator. It’s only then that he asks, “Do you know where Arthur is?”
He’s not sure what to do when she shakes her head.
Ariadne invites him to sleep on her couch. He insists he won’t be staying long, and he means to make it true.
“He still comes to the church on Sundays, sometimes,” she says, and hands him a cup of tea. He presses the mug between his hands for a few moments. The tea in prison had been utter shit. “He’s been - in an out, the past six months. You two were always like that, but after you went in, he was more regular.”
“Okay,” Eames says, and pretends that he’s not panicking. He’d wondered - but he hadn’t really thought. “I’ll - okay.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, and carefully stands. She has to get to work. Eames takes a sip of his tea, and stares out into space.
Eames still shows up that Sunday. And the Sunday after that, and the Sunday after that. He turns twenty-one, and he celebrates his birthday by sharing a beer with Ariadne. He gets a shitty job as a store-clerk for a minimart, and he works the night shift most of the time. He’s working his way through the completely works of Ray Bradbury, and he underlines the passages thinks Arthur would like.
He’s not happy. Sometimes, he misses prison, because at least then he still thought he’d sacrificed two years of his life for something important.
Near the end of April, Eames finally gets out of the apartment. His job is like prison - the same repetitive acts over and over until he can do them without even thinking about them. It doesn’t take a brain to work a register, even at eleven PM. It’s a Saturday, and he’s off shift, so he bundles up in a sweater and takes the spare key Ariadne’s made him. He sets off without a goal in mind, and the sky is gray over his head. It’s been raining for the last week, and there are still puddles in the middle of the sidewalk. He avoids them as best he can; his shoes aren’t entirely waterproof, at this point, and he can’t afford new ones yet.
He passes familiar places - the corners in the business district where he’d always bump into the rich, careless elite. Most of them don’t even spare him a glance, with his collar turned up and his hands in his pockets. He’s not even thinking about it when he stumbles into a businessman talking loudly on his cell phone. He picks the wallet, and mumbles a careless, “Sorry, mate,” before he can think better of it.
Half of him is glad that he still knows what to do. The other half wonders if he’ll ever be able to stop. Once a thief, always a thief.
He turns the corner and pulls the cash out, stuffing the empty wallet back in his pocket. He thumbs through the cash with quick, practiced fingers. Enough there for a hot meal and a place to sleep, just in one man’s pocket.
Some people have never wanted for anything.
It’s Sunday. Eames is sitting in the pews, watching Ariadne pass out slices of French toast. She smiles at a small girl and her mother, and Eames leans forward to prop his arms on the back of the pew in front of him. The wood is cool underneath the bare skin of his arms.
Eames attends every Sunday, but he doesn’t help out. Mostly he just tags along after Ariadne, and sits and watches. The other volunteers smile at him, recognize him, but none of them talk to him. He doesn’t really want them to.
He’s sure that coming here every week like it’ll make a difference is unhealthy - a symptom of his infatuation, something he should be trying to rid himself of, not wallow in. Not yet, he thinks, though. He’ll do it, eventually, just not yet.
He flips through the businessman’s wallet - the cash is safely stowed away, and he’s thrown out the cards, but the leather is supple, soft, and there’s a picture of two small children there. A card marking a future dentist appointment. A list of miscellaneous unmarked telephone numbers. Little snippets of a life Eames really doesn’t care very much about.
Someone laughs, loudly, and the sound of it makes Eames look up. Ariadne’s eyes are wide with shock.
“What?” Arthur asks. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”
He looks - he doesn’t look half-dead, or irreparably scarred, or emaciated. He just looks older. Eames watches him, the quick, stealthy step of his feet over the wood floor, the familiar style of his slicked-back hair.
“Arthur,” Ariadne says, and she glances over at Eames. Eames can see her look, but he’s too busy staring at Arthur, his slowly fading smile.
“What?” Arthur says, and then turns, following Ariadne’s gaze to the pews underneath Eames’ thighs. Eames watches the emotions flicker over his face too quickly to name, before he settles on an expression Eames is more familiar with - blank calm.
Eames thinks he should probably speak, but he can’t think of anything to say.
Arthur doesn’t move until Ariadne pushes at his shoulder, propelling him in Eames’ direction. He takes the steps slowly, and Eames remains perfectly still.
“You’re out,” Arthur says, stopping in the aisle. He shakes his head. “You’ve been out. How long?” His voice is as inscrutable as his face. Eames only knows how shaken he is because of how bland he sounds.
“Almost three months,” Eames says. Like he doesn’t still wake up expecting to see the same concrete ceiling. Like he doesn’t still open his mouth to tell Cobb about the book he’s reading, only to remember he probably won’t ever see Cobb again.
“God,” Arthur says. He reaches out and brushes his fingers tentatively over Eames’ cheekbone. Eames tries hard not to breathe. “I’m so sorry - I didn’t know,” Arthur says in a rush, like he’s letting out a held breath. “I would have - you know I would’ve.”
And Eames doesn’t really, but he nods anyway.
“Doesn’t matter, love,” he says, and shrugs. Arthur narrows his eyes and his mouth twists down like he wants to say you’re doing it again.
“It fucking matters,” Arthur says.
Arthur’s staying in a studio apartment across the city. They take the bus. It’s raining outside, and Eames keeps his hands clasped firmly between his thighs. Arthur’s looking out the window, and Eames is watching his profile - the clenching and unclenching of muscle in his jaw. He’s tense, and Eames would very much like to kiss him. He’s never touched Arthur without permission, though.
“You’re staring.” Arthur’s voice is tight. Eames doesn’t know what’s happened to Arthur in the last two years, but it’s made him harder, more distrustful. Eames doesn’t like it.
“It’s been two fucking years, Arthur, cut me some slack,” he says.
“You could have let me visit,” Arthur says. His voice is quiet, and Eames thinks, ah. He’s still mad.
“Would’ve just made it harder,” Eames says.
“Maybe, but it would have made this easier.” Eames doesn’t really know what to say to that.
Arthur’s apartment is tiny, tidy, and filled with books. He leaves his keys carelessly on the table beside the door. He’s been staying here for a while now.
“I have work at 7:00,” he says. “You’re welcome to stay.”
Eames is skipping work just to be here. He shrugs.
There’s a bed in the corner, unmade, and a blue crate doubling both as a bookshelf and a bedside table. There isn’t any other decoration to speak of, just light blue wall-to-wall carpeting, and the fridge. There’s a tiny bathroom, and Arthur goes to wash his hands. He leaves his jacket in a pile next to the bathroom door.
“I missed you,” Eames says, and half hopes that the words are drowned out by the faucet. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”
“You’re wrong if you think I’d just leave you there,” Arthur says. He’s wiping his wet hands off of his jeans and he’s fidgeting again. “Come here.” Eames goes.
Arthur’s fingers are still damp when they touch his nose, his cheekbones, his eyelids. Eames can feel them stick, a little, to his lips. He’s holding his breath because he doesn’t want to spook Arthur, whose free hand is wrapped in the hem of his t-shirt.
“This is real,” he says, but it’s almost a question. “I wasn’t imagining it.”
“Of course it’s fucking real,” Eames says, and kisses Arthur, one hand pressed against the back of his head. Arthur’s fingers are still on his chin, and they stutter there, for a moment, before dropping. Arthur’s lips are chapped. Eames has never wanted a kiss more.
Arthur pulls back, face flushed. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Eames just kisses him again.
They sleep in Arthur’s bed, Arthur’s leg wrapped around Eames’ hip. Arthur is asleep, but Eames isn’t yet; he’s drowsy, but he doesn’t want to close his eyes. He’s counting Arthur’s ribs with his fingers, touching bare skin as softly as he can. Arthur’s hair is a mess, sticking to the side of his face in dark clumps.
He’s going to wake up with pillow creases in his cheek, and Eames is going to be here to see it.