the place that i call home pt. I
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3345
Summary: Arthur surrenders to heartbreak when one of the most important people in his life leaves him.
Warning: Depression.
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Originally posted here.
Part II
Arthur stares up at the oceanic night sky, his eyelashes sticking a bit when he blinks, stiff and frozen. He curls a hand around a clump of snow, fingertips flushed and going numb as they dig in and clench together. His ragged breaths manifest as pale, fleeting wreathes (ghosts) stemming from the red cartilage of his nostrils and the frosty blue of his chilled lips. The stars spin webs over his head and he watches, half-entranced (lost), from glistening eyes that project his misery (solitude) onto the constellations. Arthur can't tell if the feeling in his chest, congealing there beneath his breastbone, is the weight of his decision or the absence of everything altogether (the absence of happiness). His fingers tremble, long and riven, full of snow. His body quivers, soaked to the bone (to the marrow, to the core). He can't feel anything, can't see anything, save for the weight or non-weight (presence or absence) in his chest and the broken-hearted stars floating in their galaxial rivers.
Yusuf finds him while crunching his way through the dying grasses. He swears; feels for a pulse. He drags Arthur back to the house, Arthur's legs hanging over his shoulder, Arthur's skull thunking against his back.
Arthur wakes, wrapped in blankets, on the floor next to a fire that's burned down to glowering charcoal and ash. He blinks. He doesn't want to move but he can smell coffee brewing somewhere under the same roof as him.
"I know you always said freezing to death would be the most painless way to commit suicide, but I never realized you were actually in danger of trying it," Yusuf says lowly when Arthur darkens the kitchen, slouching into a chair. "Asshole," Yusuf breathes, harsh (scared), even as he's setting (slamming) a mug of coffee down in front of Arthur and feeling his forehead for fever.
By the end of the day, Arthur hasn't said a word and has taken up residence on the couch in front of the fire place, cocooned in a coral fleece blanket, staring at the clock on the mantle. Yusuf sits next to him, bearing paper plates of buttered corn on the cob and sweet potatoes. Arthur takes one but makes no move to consume anything. Yusuf cleans up and leaves him to his suffering, understanding that sometimes a wound needs to breathe.
Arthur spends a week narrowing (scraping) down the planes of his existence to his bed and the space between his mattress and his pillow. He's listless, nonspeaking, and making no effort to live besides expending the effort needed to wander down the hall to take a piss. His beard grows in mangy patches, his ribs become more prominent than his muscles (the only hunger in him is the way his eyes burn, starving for sleep). He feels trapped under an inch of decay that's coating his skin, waxy like a skinned animal being primed for display. He doesn't care.
Yusuf decides Arthur's had ample time practicing as a corpse and locks him out of his room when Arthur makes a trip to the toilet. He leans against the wall as Arthur fiddles dazedly with the doorknob upon his return. "Arthur," Yusuf says. He circles Arthur's wrist with two fingers, pulls his hand away. "Enough, now."
Yusuf guides Arthur back into the bathroom, perches him on the edge of the tub, diligently shaves Arthur's neck beard and the wispy beginnings of a mustache (uniform of neglect). All is silent as he works, and when he's finished, Yusuf strips him out of his bed clothes (his deathbed clothes) and manhandles him into the shower. A little desperately, he pries Arthur's fists open, places a bar of soap in one hand and a wash cloth in the other. "At least try to scrub," Yusuf says. "I'll be back in five."
Arthur lets Yusuf tip (shove) him into a kitchen chair, and when a plate of steamed vegetables and chicken broth is placed before him, he realizes he is, in fact, hungry. He eats with fervor (animal) until Yusuf gentles him into a slow, steady pace so that he won't vomit it all back up.
Yusuf brings him his coat and scarf. "Let's go for a walk." So they do.
"What happened?" Yusuf asks the question he's surely been wondering for the past week. Arthur casts his gaze out along the thick (horizon) line of pine trees, snow covered much the same way waves are capped with sea-foam. He watches the windmills, far off and still (like Arthur wants to be).
"He left," Arthur whispers, voice awkward, rusty and unused (gravel and broken glass). He looks down to where his boots are sinking deep into the snow. "I lost him."
Yusuf hooks his elbow around Arthur's. "No," he says. "He lost you." Arthur can't bring himself to answer, so he closes his eyes and lets Yusuf guide him through the trail.
The weeks that follow consist of Arthur slowly coming back to (half) life. He flickers on the heels of Yusuf to parties and feels sorry for himself as he stares down the neck of many a sweating Guinness, tucked in the corner of whoever’s couch. There's a lot of soap opera watching and Chinese takeout and brooding silence broken by Yusuf's firm coaxing and coaching (digging a splinter out of soft flesh).
And then there's the reoccurring dream that is really a memory, haunting him on a next-to-nightly basis. Arthur chasing the retreating figure into the train station, calling, yelling, screaming out his name; rushing, jogging, sprinting (abandoning all pretenses). The single-syllable being wrenched from his throat, raw and careless, emotive to the point it scalds and shreds his trachea. His thighs burning, his lungs burning, his mouth flaying from inhaling freezing air as he runs. Fighting against the attendant's arms. "Sorry kid, no ticket, no entrance." (This isn't a movie). Watching the train chug dutifully off down the track (vanishing point). Collapsing on a bench, biting viciously into his knuckles (don't cry).
"Ariadne is coming home next week," Yusuf says one morning. They're eating grapefruit for breakfast.
Arthur concentrates on hollowing out his grapefruit with his spoon. "Okay," he says. He looks up and holds Yusuf's searching gaze. "Thank you."
The days fold up past him like origami and Arthur stays numb because if he doesn't, his disappointment will mangle him beyond recognition.
Ariadne comes home from the lengthy winter break grad school affords her. She hugs Yusuf in the doorway, wheels her suitcase through the kitchen. "Wow," she sniffs. "What died in here?"
"Arthur," Yusuf answers, sighing. Arthur barely glances up to them from his seat in front of the fire place. He doesn't bother to deny it. He can feel Ariadne's eyes on him. When she leaves to take her suitcase upstairs, he thinks he's off the hook. When she marches back down, pulling gloves onto her hands, and stands in front of him, feet squared and arms crossed, he realizes he was wrong (he is always wrong, it seems). They go for a walk. Ariadne lets him lead without telling him he's leading and Arthur doesn't notice that he's leading until they end up in front of the train station (auto-pilot).
They grind to a halt beneath a streetlamp. It's snowing lightly. "So he left?" Ariadne asks.
Arthur's fingers curl into his palms and he nods. He can see himself there, running up the stairs, and there, running through the doors; he can hear himself calling out.
"Just like that?" she asks. Arthur thinks Yusuf must have informed her, at least a little bit, about what's been going on during her two months of absence.
"Just like that," he answers anyway, feeling like he doesn't really have control over this conversation.
"How’d it happen?"
Arthur stuffs one hand into his pocket. He shrugs. "I wasn't fast enough," he says and wishes that he hadn't because voicing the words that have been bouncing around inside his head all this time feels dangerously like accepting hysteria and panic through his semi-permeable defenses (into each cell).
Ariadne snorts. "He should have waited," she scolds some phantom. And before he knows it, Arthur is crying (metamorphosis).
"But he didn't," he chokes, biting down hard on his lower lip and turning his face away from Ariadne. He feels the anger swell up over him (at being hurt and at being able to be hurt) and consume him, part-sadness and part-injustice.
Ariadne wraps an arm around him. "He should have, Arthur. That's his mistake." Arthur agrees, echoes the sentiment so hard he wants to hit something.
"He didn't wait," he croaks, and scrubs a hand over his face. "He didn't even give me a chance."
"Bastard," Ariadne whispers, sounding near tears herself (a little bit of it is her hurt, too). She pulls Arthur into a full hug, and he doesn't resist it (exhaustion).
On the walk back, she texts Yusuf to have the liquor ready.
It isn't so horrible, after that. Together, Yusuf and Ariadne haul him back to work, off of couches at parties, and turn the lights behind his eyes back on (slowly). Arthur does his part, of course, as he can. He swallows the sticky syrup of depression that pools in his throat overnight when he wakes up each morning, and when he feels like giving up he summons Yusuf's face and Ariadne's voice to mind and clings to them, because he owes them, if nothing else (and there is nothing else).
"Absolutely not," Yusuf hisses at Ariadne, eyes darting nervously to the staircase that goes up to Arthur's room.
"Why not? It'd be good for him!" Ariadne argues, twirling her spoon in a bowl of cereal.
"What? No! That's what they do for old, lonely people, Ari. I don't think that's the message we want to send him, do you?"
Ariadne rolls her eyes and eats her cereal. Yusuf can see her scheming from across the room.
That's why he's not really surprised when Ariadne comes home with a barking box. Arthur’s tucked into an armchair, reading, and Yusuf darts in from the kitchen.
“I just want to say, right now, before this even...” Yusuf waves his hands, “happens, that this is absolutely not my responsibility, now or ever, I did not even agree to this.” Ariadne shoots him a poisonous glare, as if he’s some sort of traitor. He steadfastly does not waver under her gaze, just gestures her to get on with it, lip curled slightly.
Arthur’s not stupid (relatively). He knows what’s in the box because he’s fairly certain only one thing in the world barks like that, but this doesn’t mean he’s prepared for when Ariadne tips the box over, dumping a lapful of wriggling puppy upon him. “What the--!” he exclaims, hands moving instinctively to constrain the hyper creature. “When did we ever talk about getting a dog?”
“We didn’t,” she quips, dropping the empty box to the floor. “Happy birthday.”
Arthur’s not stupid (relatively). He looks up at her. “My birthday’s not for another month. And a half.”
She shrugs. “Well this puppy wouldn’t be there in another month and a half. It had to be now.”
Arthur’s lips purse to one side of his mouth and he considers the dog, still scrambling around on his thighs. It looks like a mutt of some sort, fluff aplenty, light grey with darker grey splotches at random and one of his eyes a bright blue color. “Where did it come from?”
“The ASPCA.”
“So...this is a gift?”
“Yes. You should name him. It’s a him.”
Arthur blinks. He’s bad at naming things. He’s never really had a pet either. He had a rat once. His name had been Rat. Case in point. “Rex,” he says.
“Solid name,” Ariadne agrees (lies). He’s Arthur’s dog, Arthur can name him whatever he wants.
“Did you ever consider I might not want a dog?”
“I did,” Yusuf mutters in the background, sulking still but seeming to be a little less resentful upon actually seeing the big, multicolored eyes; the little white-socked paws; the tiny panting mouth with miniature tongue lolling out carelessly.
“Nope,” Ariadne breezes, one hand on her hip, one extended to scratch at Rex’s ears. “You’ll have to get him a collar, I forgot.”
Arthur’s not stupid (relatively). He gets what this is all about. “Thank you,” he says quietly, itching under Rex’s chin as the puppy bounds up to lick at his neck.
Rex sleeps in Arthur’s room. In fact, that first night, he sleeps right on his chest. Arthur peers down at him, strokes the top of his head. “They say dogs can sense emotions,” he murmurs aloud. Rex blinks open a sleepy blue eye at him. “What about that, huh? Do you feel this?” (Can you see through it all?) As if on cue, Rex squirms a little closer, a little higher, worming around til his maw is nuzzled in the crook of Arthur’s neck and he snuffles there, loud in Arthur’s ear, before licking his cheek. Arthur smiles. “Gross,” he groans, laughing softly despite. They fall asleep just like that.
Rex grows quick, at first, from tiny puppy to lanky pup. Arthur is a good trainer, owner (friend). He’s never been particularly merciful with human beings, but for the adopted mutt, his patience is an endless sea. He gets Rex a collar, a leash, and some plastic dog bowls. He spends thirty minutes deliberating over the vast array of dog food options before settling for the one boasting the most vitamins. He never buys him a dog bed because, well, why waste all the space at the end of Arthur’s?
With Ariadne’s help, Arthur teaches Rex to sit and to stay. They give up on rolling over and shaking, causing Yusuf to huff a sigh at them, bitterly explaining that, “It’s all about operant conditioning.” He has Rex rolling over and shaking hands with his paw in less than 24 hours. Arthur does him a favor and pretends to still believe that Yusuf doesn’t like the dog, even though he sees Yusuf feeding Rex the long strips of fat off his bacon slices under the table.
Arthur walks Rex in the morning before he goes to work, strolling through the high grasses and the fog with a lax grip on the long leash, smiling as Rex jumps and lunges at the heads of the tall wheat stalks. In the evening, Arthur takes him out through the streets, lit dimly by aging lamps. This is when he curls the leash a few times round his fist, keeps Rex at even-stride with himself and talks to the dog. He speaks, softly, about his day, about everything... “He was my best friend,” he confesses one night. “But I guess that’s your job now, huh?” Rex cocks one ear towards Arthur and keeps straining at the leash, staring into the darkness. Arthur takes that as a yes.
Eventually, Arthur realizes his room smells stale (a tomb, a crypt). Nothing has changed within it since That Night; mementos of the past lingering on and choking the space until one day Arthur wakes up wheezing, seeing them as though for the first time (he’s been blind). He decides they must go.
Rex lies on the floor, mismatched eyes fixed on Arthur as he moves around. Arthur brings a large cardboard box and begins filling it with tokens (memories).
The first is a rock he takes from its perch on his bookshelf. It’s a rock from a mountainside in Colorado--dusky and weathered. He remembers the text message that had preceded its arrival by a week: Wish you were here.
The next, a Swedish flag that he unpins from above his bed. It came to him wrapped in brown paper, a small card attached with spidery handwriting inside it. I hope you’re keeping up on the games at home! The World Cup, of course.
The third is a jar of bottle caps--various in age, quality, and other natures. They hadn’t discriminated against any sort of bottle cap; had scooped them from the dirt and grime, from playground and railroad track, keeping them wedged in pockets until they made it to one of their respective homes (they both had jars, old mason ones, filled to the brim).
From a shelf over his desk he retrieves a broken drumstick from a Cold War Kids concert, on the first tour they’d ever done. It’s autographed by the drummer and Arthur almost leaves it on the shelf, but thinks better of it. He knows every time he’d look at it, he wouldn’t be thinking of the drummer.
Other odds and ends make their way into the box; a baseball with a patch of the rawhide torn off, a postcard from Cancun, a poster for Les Misérables.
He rifles through the drawers of his nightstand (veritable junk drawers) and pauses when his fingertips brush across a leathery spine. Slowly, he draws the thick book out and into his lap. It’s a photo album, the only one he’s got. His mother helped put it together.
Hesitantly, he cracks it open, and the first photo is of two young toddlers in a playpen, crawling through a sea of Matchbox racers, Legos, and a G.I. Joe or two.
The following photo is of the same two boys, roughly six years later, in Cub Scout uniforms. Arthur is looking surly, eyes angry beneath a mass of frizzy, black curls. The other boy is grinning, blonde hair parted down the middle, framing his then-delicate heart-shaped face. Day and night, Arthur’s mother had called them. Arthur’s eyes fixate on the caption, neatly block-lettered below: Arthur and Dom, ‘93. Arthur’s eyes begin to well without his consent and he snaps the book closed, throwing it into the box, a trill of panic lacing up his arm.
Rex uncurls and slinks over to put his head on Arthur’s knee. Arthur strokes his silky ears for a few moments before he stands, grabs a marker of his desk, labels the box Stupid Shit and shoves it to the back of his closet.
Not longer after that, Eames shows up.
Arthur supposes that ‘shows up’ is not precisely the right way to describe it; after all, he had known the man was coming. Yusuf had stopped him one morning while he was half-way through a turkey and avocado club. “Listen, I’ve got a friend looking for a place to stay awhile, and well, since we have a room open now...” he trailed off like he knew the exact way Arthur’s chest had tightened, the way his mind had flown to the empty vacuum (black hole, vortex) at the back of the house. A door that hadn’t been opened since That Night.
Arthur had cleared his throat, startling Yusuf. “What’s he like?”
“Um, smart. He’s brilliant, really. He’s a bit of a joker, always you know...very sociable. A positive sort of aura to have around.”
“Is he clean?” Arthur grunted from beyond the rim of his coffee mug.
“I shouldn’t think he’d make much a mess, no,” Yusuf said.
“Sure, fine. Just make sure he’s good for rent.” Arthur was a little past caring that morning.
Yusuf grinned. “Thanks Arthur. He’ll be here within the week.”
“What’s his name?” Arthur had asked, a last-minute, tacked-on shadow of a question.
“Eames.”
Eames comes with a few things, just some rather pregnant looking trash bags and a couple boxes of books, and Arthur tries to push down the twinge of annoyance (rage) that there is someone new moving into Dom’s old room, but he doesn’t really manage as well as he’d hoped. He takes a peek inside the door to find the bed covered in some garish patterned sheets, the shelves stocked with playbooks and psychology texts. It’s wrong, it’s all so wrong, and Arthur just barely restrains himself from snatching all the guy’s shit up and tossing it out, telling him there’s been some grave mistake, that they don’t have a vacancy at all, that the previous tenant is on his way home right now.
But Dom isn’t, so Arthur doesn’t, and Eames makes it through the first night without getting his throat slit.
Words: 3345
Summary: Arthur surrenders to heartbreak when one of the most important people in his life leaves him.
Warning: Depression.
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Originally posted here.
Part II
Arthur stares up at the oceanic night sky, his eyelashes sticking a bit when he blinks, stiff and frozen. He curls a hand around a clump of snow, fingertips flushed and going numb as they dig in and clench together. His ragged breaths manifest as pale, fleeting wreathes (ghosts) stemming from the red cartilage of his nostrils and the frosty blue of his chilled lips. The stars spin webs over his head and he watches, half-entranced (lost), from glistening eyes that project his misery (solitude) onto the constellations. Arthur can't tell if the feeling in his chest, congealing there beneath his breastbone, is the weight of his decision or the absence of everything altogether (the absence of happiness). His fingers tremble, long and riven, full of snow. His body quivers, soaked to the bone (to the marrow, to the core). He can't feel anything, can't see anything, save for the weight or non-weight (presence or absence) in his chest and the broken-hearted stars floating in their galaxial rivers.
Yusuf finds him while crunching his way through the dying grasses. He swears; feels for a pulse. He drags Arthur back to the house, Arthur's legs hanging over his shoulder, Arthur's skull thunking against his back.
Arthur wakes, wrapped in blankets, on the floor next to a fire that's burned down to glowering charcoal and ash. He blinks. He doesn't want to move but he can smell coffee brewing somewhere under the same roof as him.
"I know you always said freezing to death would be the most painless way to commit suicide, but I never realized you were actually in danger of trying it," Yusuf says lowly when Arthur darkens the kitchen, slouching into a chair. "Asshole," Yusuf breathes, harsh (scared), even as he's setting (slamming) a mug of coffee down in front of Arthur and feeling his forehead for fever.
By the end of the day, Arthur hasn't said a word and has taken up residence on the couch in front of the fire place, cocooned in a coral fleece blanket, staring at the clock on the mantle. Yusuf sits next to him, bearing paper plates of buttered corn on the cob and sweet potatoes. Arthur takes one but makes no move to consume anything. Yusuf cleans up and leaves him to his suffering, understanding that sometimes a wound needs to breathe.
Arthur spends a week narrowing (scraping) down the planes of his existence to his bed and the space between his mattress and his pillow. He's listless, nonspeaking, and making no effort to live besides expending the effort needed to wander down the hall to take a piss. His beard grows in mangy patches, his ribs become more prominent than his muscles (the only hunger in him is the way his eyes burn, starving for sleep). He feels trapped under an inch of decay that's coating his skin, waxy like a skinned animal being primed for display. He doesn't care.
Yusuf decides Arthur's had ample time practicing as a corpse and locks him out of his room when Arthur makes a trip to the toilet. He leans against the wall as Arthur fiddles dazedly with the doorknob upon his return. "Arthur," Yusuf says. He circles Arthur's wrist with two fingers, pulls his hand away. "Enough, now."
Yusuf guides Arthur back into the bathroom, perches him on the edge of the tub, diligently shaves Arthur's neck beard and the wispy beginnings of a mustache (uniform of neglect). All is silent as he works, and when he's finished, Yusuf strips him out of his bed clothes (his deathbed clothes) and manhandles him into the shower. A little desperately, he pries Arthur's fists open, places a bar of soap in one hand and a wash cloth in the other. "At least try to scrub," Yusuf says. "I'll be back in five."
Arthur lets Yusuf tip (shove) him into a kitchen chair, and when a plate of steamed vegetables and chicken broth is placed before him, he realizes he is, in fact, hungry. He eats with fervor (animal) until Yusuf gentles him into a slow, steady pace so that he won't vomit it all back up.
Yusuf brings him his coat and scarf. "Let's go for a walk." So they do.
"What happened?" Yusuf asks the question he's surely been wondering for the past week. Arthur casts his gaze out along the thick (horizon) line of pine trees, snow covered much the same way waves are capped with sea-foam. He watches the windmills, far off and still (like Arthur wants to be).
"He left," Arthur whispers, voice awkward, rusty and unused (gravel and broken glass). He looks down to where his boots are sinking deep into the snow. "I lost him."
Yusuf hooks his elbow around Arthur's. "No," he says. "He lost you." Arthur can't bring himself to answer, so he closes his eyes and lets Yusuf guide him through the trail.
The weeks that follow consist of Arthur slowly coming back to (half) life. He flickers on the heels of Yusuf to parties and feels sorry for himself as he stares down the neck of many a sweating Guinness, tucked in the corner of whoever’s couch. There's a lot of soap opera watching and Chinese takeout and brooding silence broken by Yusuf's firm coaxing and coaching (digging a splinter out of soft flesh).
And then there's the reoccurring dream that is really a memory, haunting him on a next-to-nightly basis. Arthur chasing the retreating figure into the train station, calling, yelling, screaming out his name; rushing, jogging, sprinting (abandoning all pretenses). The single-syllable being wrenched from his throat, raw and careless, emotive to the point it scalds and shreds his trachea. His thighs burning, his lungs burning, his mouth flaying from inhaling freezing air as he runs. Fighting against the attendant's arms. "Sorry kid, no ticket, no entrance." (This isn't a movie). Watching the train chug dutifully off down the track (vanishing point). Collapsing on a bench, biting viciously into his knuckles (don't cry).
"Ariadne is coming home next week," Yusuf says one morning. They're eating grapefruit for breakfast.
Arthur concentrates on hollowing out his grapefruit with his spoon. "Okay," he says. He looks up and holds Yusuf's searching gaze. "Thank you."
The days fold up past him like origami and Arthur stays numb because if he doesn't, his disappointment will mangle him beyond recognition.
Ariadne comes home from the lengthy winter break grad school affords her. She hugs Yusuf in the doorway, wheels her suitcase through the kitchen. "Wow," she sniffs. "What died in here?"
"Arthur," Yusuf answers, sighing. Arthur barely glances up to them from his seat in front of the fire place. He doesn't bother to deny it. He can feel Ariadne's eyes on him. When she leaves to take her suitcase upstairs, he thinks he's off the hook. When she marches back down, pulling gloves onto her hands, and stands in front of him, feet squared and arms crossed, he realizes he was wrong (he is always wrong, it seems). They go for a walk. Ariadne lets him lead without telling him he's leading and Arthur doesn't notice that he's leading until they end up in front of the train station (auto-pilot).
They grind to a halt beneath a streetlamp. It's snowing lightly. "So he left?" Ariadne asks.
Arthur's fingers curl into his palms and he nods. He can see himself there, running up the stairs, and there, running through the doors; he can hear himself calling out.
"Just like that?" she asks. Arthur thinks Yusuf must have informed her, at least a little bit, about what's been going on during her two months of absence.
"Just like that," he answers anyway, feeling like he doesn't really have control over this conversation.
"How’d it happen?"
Arthur stuffs one hand into his pocket. He shrugs. "I wasn't fast enough," he says and wishes that he hadn't because voicing the words that have been bouncing around inside his head all this time feels dangerously like accepting hysteria and panic through his semi-permeable defenses (into each cell).
Ariadne snorts. "He should have waited," she scolds some phantom. And before he knows it, Arthur is crying (metamorphosis).
"But he didn't," he chokes, biting down hard on his lower lip and turning his face away from Ariadne. He feels the anger swell up over him (at being hurt and at being able to be hurt) and consume him, part-sadness and part-injustice.
Ariadne wraps an arm around him. "He should have, Arthur. That's his mistake." Arthur agrees, echoes the sentiment so hard he wants to hit something.
"He didn't wait," he croaks, and scrubs a hand over his face. "He didn't even give me a chance."
"Bastard," Ariadne whispers, sounding near tears herself (a little bit of it is her hurt, too). She pulls Arthur into a full hug, and he doesn't resist it (exhaustion).
On the walk back, she texts Yusuf to have the liquor ready.
It isn't so horrible, after that. Together, Yusuf and Ariadne haul him back to work, off of couches at parties, and turn the lights behind his eyes back on (slowly). Arthur does his part, of course, as he can. He swallows the sticky syrup of depression that pools in his throat overnight when he wakes up each morning, and when he feels like giving up he summons Yusuf's face and Ariadne's voice to mind and clings to them, because he owes them, if nothing else (and there is nothing else).
"Absolutely not," Yusuf hisses at Ariadne, eyes darting nervously to the staircase that goes up to Arthur's room.
"Why not? It'd be good for him!" Ariadne argues, twirling her spoon in a bowl of cereal.
"What? No! That's what they do for old, lonely people, Ari. I don't think that's the message we want to send him, do you?"
Ariadne rolls her eyes and eats her cereal. Yusuf can see her scheming from across the room.
That's why he's not really surprised when Ariadne comes home with a barking box. Arthur’s tucked into an armchair, reading, and Yusuf darts in from the kitchen.
“I just want to say, right now, before this even...” Yusuf waves his hands, “happens, that this is absolutely not my responsibility, now or ever, I did not even agree to this.” Ariadne shoots him a poisonous glare, as if he’s some sort of traitor. He steadfastly does not waver under her gaze, just gestures her to get on with it, lip curled slightly.
Arthur’s not stupid (relatively). He knows what’s in the box because he’s fairly certain only one thing in the world barks like that, but this doesn’t mean he’s prepared for when Ariadne tips the box over, dumping a lapful of wriggling puppy upon him. “What the--!” he exclaims, hands moving instinctively to constrain the hyper creature. “When did we ever talk about getting a dog?”
“We didn’t,” she quips, dropping the empty box to the floor. “Happy birthday.”
Arthur’s not stupid (relatively). He looks up at her. “My birthday’s not for another month. And a half.”
She shrugs. “Well this puppy wouldn’t be there in another month and a half. It had to be now.”
Arthur’s lips purse to one side of his mouth and he considers the dog, still scrambling around on his thighs. It looks like a mutt of some sort, fluff aplenty, light grey with darker grey splotches at random and one of his eyes a bright blue color. “Where did it come from?”
“The ASPCA.”
“So...this is a gift?”
“Yes. You should name him. It’s a him.”
Arthur blinks. He’s bad at naming things. He’s never really had a pet either. He had a rat once. His name had been Rat. Case in point. “Rex,” he says.
“Solid name,” Ariadne agrees (lies). He’s Arthur’s dog, Arthur can name him whatever he wants.
“Did you ever consider I might not want a dog?”
“I did,” Yusuf mutters in the background, sulking still but seeming to be a little less resentful upon actually seeing the big, multicolored eyes; the little white-socked paws; the tiny panting mouth with miniature tongue lolling out carelessly.
“Nope,” Ariadne breezes, one hand on her hip, one extended to scratch at Rex’s ears. “You’ll have to get him a collar, I forgot.”
Arthur’s not stupid (relatively). He gets what this is all about. “Thank you,” he says quietly, itching under Rex’s chin as the puppy bounds up to lick at his neck.
Rex sleeps in Arthur’s room. In fact, that first night, he sleeps right on his chest. Arthur peers down at him, strokes the top of his head. “They say dogs can sense emotions,” he murmurs aloud. Rex blinks open a sleepy blue eye at him. “What about that, huh? Do you feel this?” (Can you see through it all?) As if on cue, Rex squirms a little closer, a little higher, worming around til his maw is nuzzled in the crook of Arthur’s neck and he snuffles there, loud in Arthur’s ear, before licking his cheek. Arthur smiles. “Gross,” he groans, laughing softly despite. They fall asleep just like that.
Rex grows quick, at first, from tiny puppy to lanky pup. Arthur is a good trainer, owner (friend). He’s never been particularly merciful with human beings, but for the adopted mutt, his patience is an endless sea. He gets Rex a collar, a leash, and some plastic dog bowls. He spends thirty minutes deliberating over the vast array of dog food options before settling for the one boasting the most vitamins. He never buys him a dog bed because, well, why waste all the space at the end of Arthur’s?
With Ariadne’s help, Arthur teaches Rex to sit and to stay. They give up on rolling over and shaking, causing Yusuf to huff a sigh at them, bitterly explaining that, “It’s all about operant conditioning.” He has Rex rolling over and shaking hands with his paw in less than 24 hours. Arthur does him a favor and pretends to still believe that Yusuf doesn’t like the dog, even though he sees Yusuf feeding Rex the long strips of fat off his bacon slices under the table.
Arthur walks Rex in the morning before he goes to work, strolling through the high grasses and the fog with a lax grip on the long leash, smiling as Rex jumps and lunges at the heads of the tall wheat stalks. In the evening, Arthur takes him out through the streets, lit dimly by aging lamps. This is when he curls the leash a few times round his fist, keeps Rex at even-stride with himself and talks to the dog. He speaks, softly, about his day, about everything... “He was my best friend,” he confesses one night. “But I guess that’s your job now, huh?” Rex cocks one ear towards Arthur and keeps straining at the leash, staring into the darkness. Arthur takes that as a yes.
Eventually, Arthur realizes his room smells stale (a tomb, a crypt). Nothing has changed within it since That Night; mementos of the past lingering on and choking the space until one day Arthur wakes up wheezing, seeing them as though for the first time (he’s been blind). He decides they must go.
Rex lies on the floor, mismatched eyes fixed on Arthur as he moves around. Arthur brings a large cardboard box and begins filling it with tokens (memories).
The first is a rock he takes from its perch on his bookshelf. It’s a rock from a mountainside in Colorado--dusky and weathered. He remembers the text message that had preceded its arrival by a week: Wish you were here.
The next, a Swedish flag that he unpins from above his bed. It came to him wrapped in brown paper, a small card attached with spidery handwriting inside it. I hope you’re keeping up on the games at home! The World Cup, of course.
The third is a jar of bottle caps--various in age, quality, and other natures. They hadn’t discriminated against any sort of bottle cap; had scooped them from the dirt and grime, from playground and railroad track, keeping them wedged in pockets until they made it to one of their respective homes (they both had jars, old mason ones, filled to the brim).
From a shelf over his desk he retrieves a broken drumstick from a Cold War Kids concert, on the first tour they’d ever done. It’s autographed by the drummer and Arthur almost leaves it on the shelf, but thinks better of it. He knows every time he’d look at it, he wouldn’t be thinking of the drummer.
Other odds and ends make their way into the box; a baseball with a patch of the rawhide torn off, a postcard from Cancun, a poster for Les Misérables.
He rifles through the drawers of his nightstand (veritable junk drawers) and pauses when his fingertips brush across a leathery spine. Slowly, he draws the thick book out and into his lap. It’s a photo album, the only one he’s got. His mother helped put it together.
Hesitantly, he cracks it open, and the first photo is of two young toddlers in a playpen, crawling through a sea of Matchbox racers, Legos, and a G.I. Joe or two.
The following photo is of the same two boys, roughly six years later, in Cub Scout uniforms. Arthur is looking surly, eyes angry beneath a mass of frizzy, black curls. The other boy is grinning, blonde hair parted down the middle, framing his then-delicate heart-shaped face. Day and night, Arthur’s mother had called them. Arthur’s eyes fixate on the caption, neatly block-lettered below: Arthur and Dom, ‘93. Arthur’s eyes begin to well without his consent and he snaps the book closed, throwing it into the box, a trill of panic lacing up his arm.
Rex uncurls and slinks over to put his head on Arthur’s knee. Arthur strokes his silky ears for a few moments before he stands, grabs a marker of his desk, labels the box Stupid Shit and shoves it to the back of his closet.
Not longer after that, Eames shows up.
Arthur supposes that ‘shows up’ is not precisely the right way to describe it; after all, he had known the man was coming. Yusuf had stopped him one morning while he was half-way through a turkey and avocado club. “Listen, I’ve got a friend looking for a place to stay awhile, and well, since we have a room open now...” he trailed off like he knew the exact way Arthur’s chest had tightened, the way his mind had flown to the empty vacuum (black hole, vortex) at the back of the house. A door that hadn’t been opened since That Night.
Arthur had cleared his throat, startling Yusuf. “What’s he like?”
“Um, smart. He’s brilliant, really. He’s a bit of a joker, always you know...very sociable. A positive sort of aura to have around.”
“Is he clean?” Arthur grunted from beyond the rim of his coffee mug.
“I shouldn’t think he’d make much a mess, no,” Yusuf said.
“Sure, fine. Just make sure he’s good for rent.” Arthur was a little past caring that morning.
Yusuf grinned. “Thanks Arthur. He’ll be here within the week.”
“What’s his name?” Arthur had asked, a last-minute, tacked-on shadow of a question.
“Eames.”
Eames comes with a few things, just some rather pregnant looking trash bags and a couple boxes of books, and Arthur tries to push down the twinge of annoyance (rage) that there is someone new moving into Dom’s old room, but he doesn’t really manage as well as he’d hoped. He takes a peek inside the door to find the bed covered in some garish patterned sheets, the shelves stocked with playbooks and psychology texts. It’s wrong, it’s all so wrong, and Arthur just barely restrains himself from snatching all the guy’s shit up and tossing it out, telling him there’s been some grave mistake, that they don’t have a vacancy at all, that the previous tenant is on his way home right now.
But Dom isn’t, so Arthur doesn’t, and Eames makes it through the first night without getting his throat slit.