[a merry chase what-if] Lost My Drink, Can't Find My Keys

[triedinception]

TECHNICALLY WHAT HAPPENS HERE IS NO LONGER PART OF MERRY CHASE CANON.

Eames didn't even remember what the fight had been about.

He wasn't so deluded as to thing that things with Arthur would be smooth sailing and hearts in their eyes ( because Eames and Arthur couldn't stand that all the time ) but he never expected to have a fight like the one they'

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[littlspecificty]

Arthur knew the fight had been stupid

[triedinception]

Eames knows he should be happy to see Arthur, that the man has returned. But his backstabbing mind throws all kinds of bad reasons- he's going to ask Eames to leave, this is his place, he needs to pick some things up, and that terrifies him - and so Eames sneers at him instead.

"Oh, look who has deigned to return," he says, emphasizing the word as though to petulantly prove he's still his wits about him

[littlspecificty]

Arthur felt himself immediately frown at seeing that Eames had nearly consumed his whole bottle of vodka. He was the one who could suck vodka down straight-up; Eames hated it. He was about to comment on that when the other man's sneer makes him frown even more.

"Well, yeah. I live here. Why wouldn't I come back?" Arthur hasn't taken another step further into the apartment; something about this is... unsettling.

"You're drunk." It's not a question. It's been a while since Arthur has seen it - years, really - but he remembers Eames can get drunk.

Did the fight honestly upset him that much? Arthur shakes his head and steps forward, "Look, Eames, I'm about all that shit I said earlier --"

[triedinception]

Eames prefers to enjoy alcohol; scotch, whiskey, dark red wines. When he wants to get shitfaced, it's cheap beer or tequila. Drinking the vodka was a sign of true misery or laziness from Eames. He was being transparent and didn't give a shit about it.

"Stunningly observant of you to notice that," Eames spits about the drunk comment, ignoring the first one. Arthur came back to leave again, that was a possibility. His brain was running its cogs together, coming up with ideas in explosions of sparks.

And then he says he's sorry and just - the guilt flares up again but why should he feel guilty when Arthur was the one to leave, and it feeds his ragepanic.

"Shut up," he hisses, cutting the other man off, lurching off the couch. He overbalances and stumbles, but uses the momentum to keep going, to get his hands in fistfuls of Arthur's shirt and shove him against the door frame. Eames is larger, Eames could easily hold him here.

Eames could keep him here, his drunken brain supplies helpfully. Then he wouldn't have to worry about him