FIC: My Shore to Your Sea || Arthur/Eames || PG
Title: My Shore to Your Sea
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Word count: ~2,700
Warnings/Spoilers: Eames is (assumed) dead. Ambiguous ending <-- highlight to read
Summary: When somnacin isn't enough, Arthur finds a way around it, not caring about the consequences.
A/N: Written for ae_match (the original post is here.) The title is a modified quote from "I Love You" by Sarah McLachlan. Many heartfelt thanks to eternalsojourn for beta-reading! ♥ Any and all remaining mistakes are mine.
*
i.
It's not new, this thing between them. They've skirted around it for years, falling in and out of hotel rooms together, working with, and sometimes against each other. It's not new, having Eames in his bed at night, a heated line of skin and muscle at his back, their fingers brushing as they exchange sections of the newspaper over breakfast; but there is something new here, something that settles uncomfortably in Arthur's bones and buzzes along in his blood.
Permanence. That's the part they never got right, before. Never even tried, really, when it comes right down to it. It doesn't sit well with either of them, and yet it's as easy as breathing, all of their edges clicking together like pieces of a child's puzzle.
Arthur wouldn't change it for the world.
"Do we still have orange juice?" Eames asks, absently scratching at his bare chest as he wanders into the kitchen. They're both early risers, but Arthur more so than Eames.
"No," Arthur says, "We're out. There's cranberry, if you'd like, but we should probably take the afternoon to do some grocery shopping anyway."
The villa they're in is on the coast of Italy, secluded, remote; it's a bit of a drive to the nearest population centre, but neither of them mind.
Eames grunts what Arthur assumes is an affirmative, and picks up the mug set out for him next to the coffee machine.
Arthur goes back to reading yesterday's paper.
ii.
Arthur's tooth aches, and he worries it with his tongue. It's been bothering him for a while now, but he keeps forgetting to call a dentist to make an appointment. He's told Eames to remind him, but he's just as bad at remembering as Arthur is.
Professionally they always saw to every last detail, but their personal lives are a different story.
-
"There's been an accident," Eames says one evening when they're sitting in the living room after dinner, reading. "Twelve dead."
"In Italy?" Arthur asks, distractedly licking his thumb to turn a page.
"No," Eames says. "In Mumbai."
"That's a world away," Arthur says, just to say something, and then looks up. Eames is frowning at the paper.
"How long have we been here?"
Arthur closes his book and sets it down on the coffee table.
"Does it matter?" He asks. He plucks the paper out of Eames' hands and tosses it on top of the book before rising up to straddle Eames' lap. Eames runs warm hands up his thighs, rests them just above the swell of his ass.
"What was the question again?" He asks, pushing at the hem of Arthur's shirt, and Arthur smiles, resting his arms over Eames' shoulders.
-
That night, Arthur spits blood down the drain along with toothpaste.
He looks into the mirror and tilts his head, trying to see into his mouth. Poking at his teeth, he finds the one that's been bothering him moving loosely in its slot. He tugs at it experimentally with his thumb and forefinger, and it comes off easily, like a milk tooth.
He drops it down on the palm of his hand and frowns down at it.
When Eames calls out to him through the closed door, asking what's taking him so long, he drops the tooth into the trash and rinses out his mouth. There's a hollow ache where the tooth used to be, and even after it's stopped bleeding, Arthur still tastes blood, thick at the back of his throat.
iii.
The weather stays perfect for so long, Arthur starts to whimsically wonder if it ever rains in Italy.
The next afternoon, thunder rolls in and it rains for days.
"You jinxed it," Eames says, curled up around him in bed. The room smells of sex, and outside the rain has gone from a downpour to a gentle summer shower.
"It was long overdue," Arthur says. It's the truth, but at the same time he can't help but wish his irrational musings about the Italian weather had been correct. The rain leaves him feeling unsettled.
He shifts his shoulder blades against Eames' chest, and draws Eames' arm tighter around himself. Eames hums against his neck, content, and Arthur closes his eyes.
-
In the morning, Arthur wakes up to find that the clocks in the villa have all stopped working during the night, time frozen at 1:37a.m.
"There must've been a power surge," Eames says, tilting his head at the microwave display. "Something to do with the storm."
"Must be," Arthur agrees, though it doesn't really make sense. If it was a power surge, the digital clocks would have been wiped, not stopped, and there are a few that work on batteries. Nothing else seems to have been affected.
Eames goes to turn on the TV so they can check the time and set the clocks right, but Arthur takes hold of his arm and pulls him close, stopping him.
"Let's deal with that later," he says, and leads Eames back into the bedroom, where there are no clocks.
The rain keeps falling.
iv.
Arthur steps out of the shower and wraps a towel around his waist. He reaches out to wipe condensation from the mirror, and for one heart stopping second, he thinks he can't see his reflection.
Then he blinks, and everything is fine again.
He shakes his head at himself and goes back to clearing the mirror. He's been having trouble sleeping; he must be more tired than he thought.
-
"Did you take a shower just now?" Eames asks as he comes into the living room.
"No, in the morning," Arthur says, frowning at the TV. There's flooding in India. "Why?"
"That's what I thought," Eames says, "But the mirror's still fogged and the walls are wet."
Arthur blinks, but doesn't look away from the news feed.
"Weird."
"You could say that," Eames says, sitting beside Arthur on the couch and throwing an arm around his shoulders. "The shower keeps dripping too. Do we have any tools? I could take a look at it."
"Maybe in the garage," Arthur says, tilting his head back against Eames' arm.
"It's probably just the weather," Eames says after a pause. "It's so humid here, with the rain and all."
Arthur hums, noncommittal, and absentmindedly laces their fingers together.
v.
He's laying face down on the floor. Why is he laying face down on the floor? Arthur presses his forehead against the wooden floor boards and swallows, trying to remember.
He fell.
He fell for no reason. Like someone yanked his legs from right under him.
He gets up -- he plans to get up; he stops, kneeling, and stares at his hands.
The floor is wet.
-
It keeps getting worse; the house is falling apart. The water is everywhere now. The sink is overflowing, and the floors are wet, the walls weeping. The shower is running, but there's no one there.
Outside, it's still raining.
Arthur stands in front of the living room window and looks out to the veranda. Eames is there, facing the unsettled sea, his shape made blurry and distant by the rain. They've been separated by countries, oceans, continents, but never before has there been such distance between them. Arthur tries to move, but the water keeps rising, swirling around his ankles, and he feels rooted to the spot.
The house is falling apart.
vi.
The dream falls apart.
-
Arthur opens his eyes.
There's nothing to see; the ceiling is white, a hairline crack above the bed running toward the lone window. Arthur knows this ceiling. It's not one he was hoping to see.
"Finally," comes a ragged voice from off to the side. Arthur doesn't bother turning his head, just keeps contemplating that crack in the ceiling. He shifts his arm and blinks; there's an IV line attached to his hand, but it's the wrong hand, not the one he used to hook himself up to the PASIV. He tilts his head until he can see the IV stand. Fluids.
"Jesus Christ," says Cobb, the meddler. "Are you trying to kill yourself?" He demands, and Arthur looks away.
"Answer me, Goddamnit!" Cobb snaps, coming to loom over the bed. He almost never curses.
Arthur pushes himself up to a sitting position, not entirely surprised by how weak he feels. His hands shake as he pulls out the needle and tosses it aside -- on the bed, on the floor, it doesn't matter. Blood wells up in the puncture mark.
"Arthur," Cobb says, his hand coming to rest on Arthur's shoulder, his grip too hard.
"What do you want me to say, Cobb?" Arthur finally asks, his mouth painfully dry, and looks up. He doesn't know what Cobb sees in his eyes, but it makes him flinch, so it can't be anything good.
-
Cobb stays with him for thirteen days, playing nursemaid. Two more if you count the days he spent in the apartment while Arthur was under.
"I couldn't wake you up," Cobb says while heating soup for dinner, his back to Arthur. "Nothing I tried worked, and I couldn't follow you down, couldn't take the risk, not with --"
He breaks off, uncomfortable, and Arthur feels an echo of guilt; he didn't even think to ask about Phillipa and James.
"So you disconnected me from the PASIV," he says, not angry or relieved, just numb.
"And even then, it took far too long for you to wake up," Cobb says. The line of his shoulders is tense. "I thought --"
"You thought I'd fallen into limbo," Arthur finishes for him.
"A logical assumption, yes," Cobb says, taking out plates for them. "But you did something to the drugs, didn't you? That wasn't regular somnacin in the vials."
"No," Arthur agrees. It took months to find a chemist who was able to create a formula for what Arthur needed, and synthesize the drug for him. Yusuf might have been the better choice, and Arthur has enough money that he probably could have swayed him in case of any objections, but he didn't want to answer any questions. Even if he could have bought Yusuf's silence on the matter, the knowledge would still have been there between them, every step of the way.
"Tell me what it does," Cobb says, setting a steaming bowl of chicken soup in front of Arthur.
Arthur leans his elbows on the table and pokes at the soup with a spoon. There's really no reason not to tell Cobb what he wants to know.
"You were half-right," Arthur eventually says. "The drug creates a sort of," he pauses, looking for the right words. "A sort of artificial limbo."
"What's the difference?" Cobb asks, his own bowl of soup forgotten.
"It works like a regular dream, and you don't need more than one level. When you first drop in, you have control over it." Arthur shrugs, drawing lines into his soup that get swallowed up immediately. "It's not much like limbo at all, except that once you're in, it's self-contained, and the drug -- the point of it --"
Arthur breaks off, his lip curling. Maybe telling Cobb isn't such a good idea, after all.
"The point?" Cobb urges when it looks like Arthur might not continue.
"It makes you forget," Arthur admits softly. He looks up, waiting for Cobb's reaction.
Cobb leans back in his chair, and Arthur can't tell if he looks surprised or not.
"Forget," Cobb repeats.
"That you're dreaming," Arthur says.
vii.
The problem, once you get a hang of lucid dreaming, once you make a profession out of it, is that you can never again dream without being aware of the fact that you're asleep. Somnacin is not a kind mistress; eventually, you stop dreaming on your own.
For the longest time, Arthur didn't mind. Even now, he still thinks it was a fair trade off for all he gained. But eventually, every contract comes under evaluation, and Arthur is used to bending the rules and twisting reality to suit himself. When somnacin couldn't deliver what he needed, he found a way around it.
Cobb doesn't approve. He doesn't say it outright, but he's not trying to hide it either; it's there in the lingering, concerned looks, and the careful way he moves about the apartment, attempting to put Arthur's life in order like it's as easy as picking up toys left behind by his kids. Arthur plays along until Cobb can't prolong his stay anymore -- eating the food Cobb puts in front of him, going to bed at night without complaint, not touching the PASIV.
"I'll get you a ticket," Cobb says, shrugging his coat on. "You can come stay with us."
"Thanks," Arthur says, "But I'll be fine."
"You'll be fine if you work on being fine," Cobb says sharply, the look in his eyes knowing. Arthur knows Cobb would take the PASIV with him, and the drugs too, if he thought for a second Arthur wouldn't shoot him for it. "Eames --"
Hearing the name is like an electric current, like being submerged in freezing water, like dying in a dream and not waking up.
"Don't." Arthur says. His voice is raw, his insides cut up and torn; it's the first time since waking up that he's felt anything real, and the anger and bitterness are threatening to choke him. "Don't talk about Eames," he continues in measured tones, forcing some degree of calm into his voice.
"Arthur," Cobb says, and the gentleness in that single word burns.
"I didn't even get to bury him," Arthur says, accusing, and Cobb flinches at the sharp, barely veiled reminder of Mal. Arthur has never used her like a weapon before.
"Just... don't use the PASIV," Cobb says eventually, his hand clenched around the strap of his duffel bag. "It's not safe, and it's not doing you any good."
Arthur declines to answer.
"At least put it on timer," Cobb says, proving that he really doesn't get it. Arthur barely manages to suppress a snort; he had thought that Cobb, out of all people, would understand. "I'm serious. I don't want to come back and find a dead, withered husk attached to the PASIV. In the mean time, you better answer when I call, you hear me, Arthur?"
"Yeah," Arthur says, tucking his hands under his arms. "Okay."
He stands there for a long time after the door closes behind Cobb, not thinking about anything at all.
viii.
Some might say he's taking the loss harder, or dealing with it worse than Cobb did losing Mal. Arthur doesn't think that's true; he was there every step of the way. He knows exactly how hard Cobb took it.
The only real difference he can see is that Cobb had his kids, something real to keep him from losing it for good, and even with that taken into account he still went off the rails. Whatever, Arthur thinks, unspooling the wires; it's not a competition.
He wipes his wrist with disinfectant and thinks that maybe he should drop into limbo. Maybe that would be a more permanent solution.
But no; he already dismissed the idea once. He has no control over limbo, no guarantee that Eames will be down there waiting for him.
He lays down on the bed and blinks slowly at the ceiling, at the hairline crack pointing toward the window like it's looking for an escape.
The PASIV lets out a gentle hiss as it activates; Arthur closes his eyes. He can almost feel the warmth of the sun on his skin, and there's a familiar scent in the air, a hint of cologne and clean sweat.
-
A pair of strong arms wrap around him from behind, and Arthur relaxes into the embrace, tension leeching out into the cool, crisp sheets.
"You okay?" Eames asks in a sleepy murmur, pressing a soothing hand against Arthur's stomach.
"Just a dream," Arthur says, giving Eames' hand a reassuring squeeze; it's rare, but he still gets the occasional nightmare. "Everything's fine now. Go back to sleep."
Eames murmurs a quiet assent, his lips brushing against Arthur's neck. The balcony doors are open, the sheer curtains moving softly in the breeze. Arthur drifts in and out of a light doze, letting the last, lingering remnants of the nightmare fade under the Italian sun and the heavy, warm weight of Eames' embrace. It's early yet; it'll be a while before either of them can be bothered to get up.
Arthur makes a mental note to remember to make a grocery list after breakfast. They're out of orange juice.
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Word count: ~2,700
Warnings/Spoilers: Eames is (assumed) dead. Ambiguous ending <-- highlight to read
Summary: When somnacin isn't enough, Arthur finds a way around it, not caring about the consequences.
A/N: Written for ae_match (the original post is here.) The title is a modified quote from "I Love You" by Sarah McLachlan. Many heartfelt thanks to eternalsojourn for beta-reading! ♥ Any and all remaining mistakes are mine.
*
i.
It's not new, this thing between them. They've skirted around it for years, falling in and out of hotel rooms together, working with, and sometimes against each other. It's not new, having Eames in his bed at night, a heated line of skin and muscle at his back, their fingers brushing as they exchange sections of the newspaper over breakfast; but there is something new here, something that settles uncomfortably in Arthur's bones and buzzes along in his blood.
Permanence. That's the part they never got right, before. Never even tried, really, when it comes right down to it. It doesn't sit well with either of them, and yet it's as easy as breathing, all of their edges clicking together like pieces of a child's puzzle.
Arthur wouldn't change it for the world.
"Do we still have orange juice?" Eames asks, absently scratching at his bare chest as he wanders into the kitchen. They're both early risers, but Arthur more so than Eames.
"No," Arthur says, "We're out. There's cranberry, if you'd like, but we should probably take the afternoon to do some grocery shopping anyway."
The villa they're in is on the coast of Italy, secluded, remote; it's a bit of a drive to the nearest population centre, but neither of them mind.
Eames grunts what Arthur assumes is an affirmative, and picks up the mug set out for him next to the coffee machine.
Arthur goes back to reading yesterday's paper.
ii.
Arthur's tooth aches, and he worries it with his tongue. It's been bothering him for a while now, but he keeps forgetting to call a dentist to make an appointment. He's told Eames to remind him, but he's just as bad at remembering as Arthur is.
Professionally they always saw to every last detail, but their personal lives are a different story.
-
"There's been an accident," Eames says one evening when they're sitting in the living room after dinner, reading. "Twelve dead."
"In Italy?" Arthur asks, distractedly licking his thumb to turn a page.
"No," Eames says. "In Mumbai."
"That's a world away," Arthur says, just to say something, and then looks up. Eames is frowning at the paper.
"How long have we been here?"
Arthur closes his book and sets it down on the coffee table.
"Does it matter?" He asks. He plucks the paper out of Eames' hands and tosses it on top of the book before rising up to straddle Eames' lap. Eames runs warm hands up his thighs, rests them just above the swell of his ass.
"What was the question again?" He asks, pushing at the hem of Arthur's shirt, and Arthur smiles, resting his arms over Eames' shoulders.
-
That night, Arthur spits blood down the drain along with toothpaste.
He looks into the mirror and tilts his head, trying to see into his mouth. Poking at his teeth, he finds the one that's been bothering him moving loosely in its slot. He tugs at it experimentally with his thumb and forefinger, and it comes off easily, like a milk tooth.
He drops it down on the palm of his hand and frowns down at it.
When Eames calls out to him through the closed door, asking what's taking him so long, he drops the tooth into the trash and rinses out his mouth. There's a hollow ache where the tooth used to be, and even after it's stopped bleeding, Arthur still tastes blood, thick at the back of his throat.
iii.
The weather stays perfect for so long, Arthur starts to whimsically wonder if it ever rains in Italy.
The next afternoon, thunder rolls in and it rains for days.
"You jinxed it," Eames says, curled up around him in bed. The room smells of sex, and outside the rain has gone from a downpour to a gentle summer shower.
"It was long overdue," Arthur says. It's the truth, but at the same time he can't help but wish his irrational musings about the Italian weather had been correct. The rain leaves him feeling unsettled.
He shifts his shoulder blades against Eames' chest, and draws Eames' arm tighter around himself. Eames hums against his neck, content, and Arthur closes his eyes.
-
In the morning, Arthur wakes up to find that the clocks in the villa have all stopped working during the night, time frozen at 1:37a.m.
"There must've been a power surge," Eames says, tilting his head at the microwave display. "Something to do with the storm."
"Must be," Arthur agrees, though it doesn't really make sense. If it was a power surge, the digital clocks would have been wiped, not stopped, and there are a few that work on batteries. Nothing else seems to have been affected.
Eames goes to turn on the TV so they can check the time and set the clocks right, but Arthur takes hold of his arm and pulls him close, stopping him.
"Let's deal with that later," he says, and leads Eames back into the bedroom, where there are no clocks.
The rain keeps falling.
iv.
Arthur steps out of the shower and wraps a towel around his waist. He reaches out to wipe condensation from the mirror, and for one heart stopping second, he thinks he can't see his reflection.
Then he blinks, and everything is fine again.
He shakes his head at himself and goes back to clearing the mirror. He's been having trouble sleeping; he must be more tired than he thought.
-
"Did you take a shower just now?" Eames asks as he comes into the living room.
"No, in the morning," Arthur says, frowning at the TV. There's flooding in India. "Why?"
"That's what I thought," Eames says, "But the mirror's still fogged and the walls are wet."
Arthur blinks, but doesn't look away from the news feed.
"Weird."
"You could say that," Eames says, sitting beside Arthur on the couch and throwing an arm around his shoulders. "The shower keeps dripping too. Do we have any tools? I could take a look at it."
"Maybe in the garage," Arthur says, tilting his head back against Eames' arm.
"It's probably just the weather," Eames says after a pause. "It's so humid here, with the rain and all."
Arthur hums, noncommittal, and absentmindedly laces their fingers together.
v.
He's laying face down on the floor. Why is he laying face down on the floor? Arthur presses his forehead against the wooden floor boards and swallows, trying to remember.
He fell.
He fell for no reason. Like someone yanked his legs from right under him.
He gets up -- he plans to get up; he stops, kneeling, and stares at his hands.
The floor is wet.
-
It keeps getting worse; the house is falling apart. The water is everywhere now. The sink is overflowing, and the floors are wet, the walls weeping. The shower is running, but there's no one there.
Outside, it's still raining.
Arthur stands in front of the living room window and looks out to the veranda. Eames is there, facing the unsettled sea, his shape made blurry and distant by the rain. They've been separated by countries, oceans, continents, but never before has there been such distance between them. Arthur tries to move, but the water keeps rising, swirling around his ankles, and he feels rooted to the spot.
The house is falling apart.
vi.
The dream falls apart.
-
Arthur opens his eyes.
There's nothing to see; the ceiling is white, a hairline crack above the bed running toward the lone window. Arthur knows this ceiling. It's not one he was hoping to see.
"Finally," comes a ragged voice from off to the side. Arthur doesn't bother turning his head, just keeps contemplating that crack in the ceiling. He shifts his arm and blinks; there's an IV line attached to his hand, but it's the wrong hand, not the one he used to hook himself up to the PASIV. He tilts his head until he can see the IV stand. Fluids.
"Jesus Christ," says Cobb, the meddler. "Are you trying to kill yourself?" He demands, and Arthur looks away.
"Answer me, Goddamnit!" Cobb snaps, coming to loom over the bed. He almost never curses.
Arthur pushes himself up to a sitting position, not entirely surprised by how weak he feels. His hands shake as he pulls out the needle and tosses it aside -- on the bed, on the floor, it doesn't matter. Blood wells up in the puncture mark.
"Arthur," Cobb says, his hand coming to rest on Arthur's shoulder, his grip too hard.
"What do you want me to say, Cobb?" Arthur finally asks, his mouth painfully dry, and looks up. He doesn't know what Cobb sees in his eyes, but it makes him flinch, so it can't be anything good.
-
Cobb stays with him for thirteen days, playing nursemaid. Two more if you count the days he spent in the apartment while Arthur was under.
"I couldn't wake you up," Cobb says while heating soup for dinner, his back to Arthur. "Nothing I tried worked, and I couldn't follow you down, couldn't take the risk, not with --"
He breaks off, uncomfortable, and Arthur feels an echo of guilt; he didn't even think to ask about Phillipa and James.
"So you disconnected me from the PASIV," he says, not angry or relieved, just numb.
"And even then, it took far too long for you to wake up," Cobb says. The line of his shoulders is tense. "I thought --"
"You thought I'd fallen into limbo," Arthur finishes for him.
"A logical assumption, yes," Cobb says, taking out plates for them. "But you did something to the drugs, didn't you? That wasn't regular somnacin in the vials."
"No," Arthur agrees. It took months to find a chemist who was able to create a formula for what Arthur needed, and synthesize the drug for him. Yusuf might have been the better choice, and Arthur has enough money that he probably could have swayed him in case of any objections, but he didn't want to answer any questions. Even if he could have bought Yusuf's silence on the matter, the knowledge would still have been there between them, every step of the way.
"Tell me what it does," Cobb says, setting a steaming bowl of chicken soup in front of Arthur.
Arthur leans his elbows on the table and pokes at the soup with a spoon. There's really no reason not to tell Cobb what he wants to know.
"You were half-right," Arthur eventually says. "The drug creates a sort of," he pauses, looking for the right words. "A sort of artificial limbo."
"What's the difference?" Cobb asks, his own bowl of soup forgotten.
"It works like a regular dream, and you don't need more than one level. When you first drop in, you have control over it." Arthur shrugs, drawing lines into his soup that get swallowed up immediately. "It's not much like limbo at all, except that once you're in, it's self-contained, and the drug -- the point of it --"
Arthur breaks off, his lip curling. Maybe telling Cobb isn't such a good idea, after all.
"The point?" Cobb urges when it looks like Arthur might not continue.
"It makes you forget," Arthur admits softly. He looks up, waiting for Cobb's reaction.
Cobb leans back in his chair, and Arthur can't tell if he looks surprised or not.
"Forget," Cobb repeats.
"That you're dreaming," Arthur says.
vii.
The problem, once you get a hang of lucid dreaming, once you make a profession out of it, is that you can never again dream without being aware of the fact that you're asleep. Somnacin is not a kind mistress; eventually, you stop dreaming on your own.
For the longest time, Arthur didn't mind. Even now, he still thinks it was a fair trade off for all he gained. But eventually, every contract comes under evaluation, and Arthur is used to bending the rules and twisting reality to suit himself. When somnacin couldn't deliver what he needed, he found a way around it.
Cobb doesn't approve. He doesn't say it outright, but he's not trying to hide it either; it's there in the lingering, concerned looks, and the careful way he moves about the apartment, attempting to put Arthur's life in order like it's as easy as picking up toys left behind by his kids. Arthur plays along until Cobb can't prolong his stay anymore -- eating the food Cobb puts in front of him, going to bed at night without complaint, not touching the PASIV.
"I'll get you a ticket," Cobb says, shrugging his coat on. "You can come stay with us."
"Thanks," Arthur says, "But I'll be fine."
"You'll be fine if you work on being fine," Cobb says sharply, the look in his eyes knowing. Arthur knows Cobb would take the PASIV with him, and the drugs too, if he thought for a second Arthur wouldn't shoot him for it. "Eames --"
Hearing the name is like an electric current, like being submerged in freezing water, like dying in a dream and not waking up.
"Don't." Arthur says. His voice is raw, his insides cut up and torn; it's the first time since waking up that he's felt anything real, and the anger and bitterness are threatening to choke him. "Don't talk about Eames," he continues in measured tones, forcing some degree of calm into his voice.
"Arthur," Cobb says, and the gentleness in that single word burns.
"I didn't even get to bury him," Arthur says, accusing, and Cobb flinches at the sharp, barely veiled reminder of Mal. Arthur has never used her like a weapon before.
"Just... don't use the PASIV," Cobb says eventually, his hand clenched around the strap of his duffel bag. "It's not safe, and it's not doing you any good."
Arthur declines to answer.
"At least put it on timer," Cobb says, proving that he really doesn't get it. Arthur barely manages to suppress a snort; he had thought that Cobb, out of all people, would understand. "I'm serious. I don't want to come back and find a dead, withered husk attached to the PASIV. In the mean time, you better answer when I call, you hear me, Arthur?"
"Yeah," Arthur says, tucking his hands under his arms. "Okay."
He stands there for a long time after the door closes behind Cobb, not thinking about anything at all.
viii.
Some might say he's taking the loss harder, or dealing with it worse than Cobb did losing Mal. Arthur doesn't think that's true; he was there every step of the way. He knows exactly how hard Cobb took it.
The only real difference he can see is that Cobb had his kids, something real to keep him from losing it for good, and even with that taken into account he still went off the rails. Whatever, Arthur thinks, unspooling the wires; it's not a competition.
He wipes his wrist with disinfectant and thinks that maybe he should drop into limbo. Maybe that would be a more permanent solution.
But no; he already dismissed the idea once. He has no control over limbo, no guarantee that Eames will be down there waiting for him.
He lays down on the bed and blinks slowly at the ceiling, at the hairline crack pointing toward the window like it's looking for an escape.
The PASIV lets out a gentle hiss as it activates; Arthur closes his eyes. He can almost feel the warmth of the sun on his skin, and there's a familiar scent in the air, a hint of cologne and clean sweat.
-
A pair of strong arms wrap around him from behind, and Arthur relaxes into the embrace, tension leeching out into the cool, crisp sheets.
"You okay?" Eames asks in a sleepy murmur, pressing a soothing hand against Arthur's stomach.
"Just a dream," Arthur says, giving Eames' hand a reassuring squeeze; it's rare, but he still gets the occasional nightmare. "Everything's fine now. Go back to sleep."
Eames murmurs a quiet assent, his lips brushing against Arthur's neck. The balcony doors are open, the sheer curtains moving softly in the breeze. Arthur drifts in and out of a light doze, letting the last, lingering remnants of the nightmare fade under the Italian sun and the heavy, warm weight of Eames' embrace. It's early yet; it'll be a while before either of them can be bothered to get up.
Arthur makes a mental note to remember to make a grocery list after breakfast. They're out of orange juice.