Rough Trade coda
Untitled Rough Trade coda
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Words: ~5400
Rating: NC-17
Author's Note: Rough Trade coda taking place during the middle of the story and then right after the last bit, before the epilogue. Someone in the comments recently asked for Arthur's first time giving Eames a blowjob, so here's that, tangled up in some other issues~ It's handy to have read Rough Trade prior to this but not required. More coda here.
There's a creak near the vicinity of the door. Arthur startles awake.
“Sorry,” Eames says, poised awkwardly near the door with a steaming Starbucks cup in hand. “Wasn't trying to wake you.”
Arthur sighs and sinks back into the pillows, rubbing a hand over his face and trying to bring his brain online. He's neither sore nor sticky, so they mustn't have fucked last night, or while he was sleeping-that's never happened, but he wouldn't put it past Eames. He's fallen asleep during sex and Eames has finished anyway, so. “What time is it?”
“Almost eight,” says Eames, setting down the cup on the bedside table.
“Eight?” Arthur scrambles out of bed and bounds across the room, flinging open the door to his walk-in closet. “Eight? How did I sleep until eight!”
He feels like he's going to puke. He riffles through his clothing frantically and behind him, Eames says, “What's wrong?”
“What's wrong is I'm late for work, asshole!” Arthur shouts. “I was supposed to be up two hours ago! What am I supposed to tell-”
“Arthur, it's Sunday,” Eames says, bemused, standing in the closet doorway. “You finished your project last night and told me to come over and you were asleep when I got here.”
Arthur stops. Cautiously, he says, “It's Sunday?”
“Yes, it's Sunday. I switched off your alarm.”
“Oh.” Arthur's shoulders droop. He turns around. Eames is watching him with raised eyebrows. “I rescind my asshole comment,” he mumbles, abashed.
“Thank you,” says Eames. He lifts the cup in his hand. “I got your favourite. Warm piss in an expensive cup.”
“Thanks,” Arthur says, feeling even worse. Eames hates Starbucks, doesn't even step foot in there normally, because he prefers the kitschey independent coffee shops with postcards on the walls and unknown jazz groups playing on the weekends. Arthur takes the cup from him, takes a sip and pulls a face. “It's sweet.”
“Really?” Eames leans into his space and steals a kiss; a long, lingering one. He pulls back. “Tastes alright to me. For warm piss, that is.”
Arthur doesn't say anything. Just because he doesn't mind kissing Eames doesn't mean he wants to do it all the time. And now he feels foolish, and tired on top of that, burnt out from the project he's been working all week. He got home at one last night, knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, fought with himself for fifteen minutes and finally called Eames. Apparently, he'd passed out immediately after.
Eames should have just gone home. Arthur's annoyed that he's here. But he did bring coffee, even if it isn't made the way Arthur likes, so Arthur makes an effort to drink it while he reads the newspaper in bed and Eames, sprawled next to him, turns on the flatscreen TV on the wall and channel-surfs. He finds some British soap opera and settles on that.
Normally, unless Arthur has a reason to go to the office, Sundays are empty and bleak. His apartment makes him feel confined, but he has nothing else to do. Lately he's just been letting the hours drag by until it seems reasonable to call Eames-hoping against hope that Eames hasn't made other plans, hating his own desperation.
He's unsettled by Eames' presence now. They've never done a morning after, before. He's woken up next to Eames, but he always dashes off to work right away. They've never done-this. Coffee and TV in bed. Before long he starts wondering what he'll do if somebody important comes to the door, what he'll say if any of his neighbours mention seeing Eames enter his apartment. He thinks about this until he realizes he's been staring at the same article for fifteen minutes, his eyes glazed and unfocused.
He snaps out of it and starts reading again. Just ignore Eames, he tells himself. This is your apartment. Pretend he's not here. And he almost can, until Eames, who has been shifting around, getting comfy, scratching his neck, suddenly reaches over and drags his hand up Arthur's thigh till it brushes his cock through his pyjama bottoms.
Arthur jerks away. “Don't.”
“No?” Eames looks at him, eyes hooded. “This is what you called me here for, isn't it?”
“Last night, when I was tired,” Arthur says. “I'm good now.”
Eames slides his hand in again, cupping Arthur's cock, and squeezes. Arthur grits his teeth. He can feel the blood starting to fill his cock. He hates how his body responds to Eames.
“Tell me to stop,” Eames says, smiling slyly.
Arthur doesn't know what the right answer is. He could say stop and Eames would-probably. And then what? He might sulk, or leave. Maybe leave for good, and then what the hell would Arthur do? Unwittingly, he's fallen right into Eames' trap. The only way to get out of this is to find himself a woman to be with, and he can't do that if he's exhausted all the time, and he's only ever not exhausted when he's letting Eames take up all his spare time.
Isn't this part of what he likes, anyway? Letting Eames push him, so that Arthur doesn't have to decide?
He closes his eyes, drops his head back on the pillow in defeat. Eames mutes the TV and climbs over him, settling on Arthur's knees so that he can't move and pulling his pants down slowly. Arthur swallows hard, and tries not to flinch when Eames' mouth envelops him. The first time Eames did this Arthur couldn't handle it, having a man's mouth on him, but now, God, it's good, it's so good. He tilts his head back and lets Eames drag his mouth up the side of his cock, tonguing it messily like it's an ice cream cone before sealing his lips around the head and sucking.
Eames sucks cock like he's starved for it. No blowjob Arthur has ever received from a woman compares to any one of Eames'. It makes sense, of course, a man would know what other men like, but it still seems ... wrong. It's just-he likes it. He reaches up over his head and grips the headboard with one hand, trying to keep quiet. He just can't look. One day he'll be able to look down and watch Eames slide those plush dick-sucking lips down his cock, or more likely Eames will demand that he watch, just to remind him who he's with, but thinking about it too much makes Arthur panic, a little. If he looks, he'll either lose his hard-on altogether or he'll come harder than he ever has in his life, and both outcomes are equally undesirable.
So he keeps his eyes shut and his face tilted toward the ceiling, swallows repeatedly on nothing, breathes hard in and out through his nose and listens to all the wet sucking sounds Eames is making down there. Every now and then Eames will give a little groan that reverberates around Arthur's cock, as if to let him know how much he's enjoying this. It makes Arthur want to laugh, call him a freak, get shoved good-naturedly in return.
There; his ill feelings are already being leached out of him. He's able to relax, finally, squeezing the headboard and just letting Eames do his thing. And as usual, once he gives in, he can feel Eames kicking it up a notch as if to reward him for letting go of his reservations. He gets sloppy now, kneading Arthur's thighs, then wrapping his hands around Arthur's hips and holding him down; he sucks until Arthur's cockhead hits the back of his throat and then bobs his head up and down a few times, making Arthur squirm and give a sort of breathy whimpering noise. He pulls off and licks, and a lot of girls won't do that, they'll suck but they won't lick, but Eames licks like he wants to cover every inch of Arthur's cock with his tongue. His balls, too; he sucks one and then the other into his mouth, alternating, scraping his teeth ever so gently and it feels amazing, Arthur hadn't even known he was sensitive there until Eames came along...
“I'm gonna come,” Arthur warns him hoarsely.
Eames immediately returns to his cock and sucks hard on the head. Arthur's shaking, and Eames pins his hips even more firmly to the bed, his hands wide and strong and rough and nothing, nothing like a woman's; and Arthur's gone, coming in Eames' mouth, on his lips when Eames pulls back a bit. It takes him a moment to swallow it all.
Arthur relaxes into the bed, feeling like he could actually go back to sleep if he tried. “Thanks,” he mumbles, because he still doesn't know what to say after sex with Eames. Eames laughs, as usual.
“Was thinking you might return the favour,” he husks, dropping down next to Arthur.
“And why would I do that?” Arthur asks idly. Eames' fingers trail up his side, skating over his ribs.
“Because,” he says, “we made a deal. Remember?”
Arthur's quiet, and then his face starts to grow hot. He does remember. Eames had bet him a blowjob that he could make Arthur come on his cock alone, teasing him for loving it so much, and Arthur had accepted, angry, because he's not that gay and he doesn't love Eames' dick and he's always needed a hand on his own cock to get off, even if that hand is Eames'. By next Tuesday he'd forgotten the stupid bet altogether, out of his mind with work and just needing to get laid, and Eames had paid him special attention, made him feel so good, fucked him deep and slow and rough for a long time so that when Arthur finally came he was nearly in tears. And no one had touched his cock.
Eames had taken advantage of his exhaustion. But he'd lost fair and square.
“I wasn't-serious,” he says. Eames rolls over, even closer, nosing against Arthur's ear. His voice is a purr.
“We shook on it, darling.”
Arthur pushes him away, alarmed now. He didn't think Eames would cash in. He didn't think Eames would win, of course, or he wouldn't have made the bet, but-
He flounders. “I didn't-you know I can't.”
“It's very easy,” says Eames.
“I can't,” Arthur says, certain his face is red by now.
Eames sounds bitter, suddenly. “Arthur, I am shocked at your selfishness. I have given you plenty of blowjobs, and you can't give me even one? For shame.”
“I'm not you, Eames,” Arthur forces out, angry and embarrassed and feeling cornered. “I'm not-queer. I don't like dick.”
“You like it stuffed up your arsehole well enough.”
“Fuck you!” Arthur snarls at once. “Just fuck you, Eames. I hate your fucking dick and I hate you.”
There's so much emotion in his voice it surprises even him. They both lie there for a minute, not looking at each other. Arthur rolls over on his side, facing the wall. His hands are shaking.
“You're such a hypocrite,” Eames says, after a minute.
Arthur tries to speak and can't. He wants to say he doesn't want to do this anymore, and he doesn't even know what he means-fucking, or fighting.
He's spared from having to say anything when there's a distant knock at the front door. They both tense. Then Arthur slides out of bed, adjusts his pants and pulls a t-shirt on quickly.
“Stay here,” he says to Eames. “Please,” he adds just before he sprints out of the room, to impress the point. Eames just blinks at him, his eyes dark and hooded again.
Heart thudding, Arthur gets to the door and opens it. It's his neighbour, Mrs. Freedman, the widow who lives across the hall from him. He relaxes, slightly.
“Good morning, Arthur,” she says, smiling fondly at him. She has a tin foil-wrapped bundle in her arms. “I made some extra banana bread and I thought you could use it.”
She's convinced he doesn't eat enough. She tells him every time she sees him, fretting over how pale and thin he is. He smiles back, takes the loaf from her.
“Thank you,” he says. “That's really kind of you. Thanks.”
“Oh, it's nothing, my dear,” she says warmly. “You need to eat more, anyway. You need a nice young woman to take care of you, is what you need.”
“I've got you to take care of me,” he says, and she laughs, patting his arm.
“Well, I just wanted to check up on you and bring you that banana bread. Oh, and how is your friend doing?”
“My friend?”
“Yes, Eames-he helped me carry in my new coffee table last week, he was so nice. Isn't he still staying with you? I thought I saw him go into your apartment this morning.”
Arthur licks his lips, rocking back and then forward slightly, thoughtfully. “Yes, he's still staying here,” he says, eventually.
“He's a lovely man,” says Mrs. Freedman, sounding more than a little smitten. “You tell him to give me his resumé and I'll start giving it out to my friends. I'm sure any one of them will hire him in a heartbeat.”
“I'll tell him,” Arthur promises.
She beams and pats his arm again. “Alright, well, you have a good week, Arthur.”
“You too,” he says, and watches her return to her own apartment. Then he shuts the door and locks it.
Eames is very pointedly avoiding his eyes when he walks back into the bedroom. Arthur puts the banana bread loaf down on the bedside table.
“You talked to my neighbour,” he says flatly.
“I had a cup of tea with her,” says Eames, shrugging. “She's a lonely old lady.”
“How do you know she's lonely?”
“Because she's always looking out her spyhole when she hears the elevator. I've run into her a few times in the hall. I told her I'm your friend from out of town and I'm just crashing with you till I get a job and a place of my own. We had tea last week, when I helped move her table,” Eames adds, glancing up at Arthur warily. “She just wants someone to talk to.”
“And you're a regular good Samaritan,” Arthur says bitingly.
“Yeah, I am, actually,” says Eames.
He is. Arthur's starting to realize that about him. However cold and brutish Eames had been to him at first, he's not actually a bad person, no matter how badly Arthur wants to believe he is. It makes him feel even worse about-well, everything. Eames covered for him. He listened to Arthur and didn't tell the neighbour about them.
“I don't hate you,” Arthur says in a very low voice, because he can't keep doing this. He can't keep shooting himself in the foot like this. Eames barely blinks.
“I know.”
“It's not you I hate. I hate-I hate being like this, Eames. So I take it out on you, and I know it's not right and I do it anyway. I'm sorry. I'm-I've been trying not to.”
“I noticed,” says Eames.
Arthur gets back on the bed. The TV is still on, muted, still playing that stupid soap opera. Eames doesn't move to unmute it.
“I don't hate your penis,” Arthur adds after a minute, softly.
Eames touches his shoulder. Just for a second, not intimately. It's a sort of comforting gesture.
“You're a fucking mess and a twat,” he says. “But you try and that's something, I suppose. And I wouldn't make you do something you aren't comfortable with, so let me know if it's alright to fuck you now or if I have to go and rub one out in the loo.”
Arthur snorts. Eames looks at him.
“What's funny?”
“You,” Arthur says after a moment. “The loo,” he adds. And, quieter: “You're so gay.”
Eames shoves him over, not maliciously. Arthur picks himself back up, and says, “You don't have to-loo. I'll-” He swallows quickly. “If you want. I'll try.”
Eames raises his eyebrows questioningly.
“We made a deal,” Arthur says, very stiffly, and Eames grins.
“Well, alright then,” he says, and pulls Arthur over for a kiss. Arthur makes a strangled sort of squawking sound of indignation, and Eames raises his eyebrows again. “What, never kissed a girl after you've come in her mouth?”
“That's-” Arthur's about to say 'different', but he thinks about it and it's not, really. And anyway, it might help prepare him for this. So he lets Eames kiss him, and only feels a little queasy. Then he sits back, takes a look at Eames' groin, the substantial bulge there.
With fumbling fingers he undoes Eames' belt, then his fly, and pulls his pants down partway. Eames' erection springs free, fat and red and uncut and not entirely hard, nestled in thick hair, and Arthur has to take a deep breath again. He forces himself to stare, to take in the veins, the way it throbs slightly under his gaze, the thickness, and he realizes he's panting. It's-a dick, it can't be anything but a dick, it even smells like one from here-
“Start by touching,” Eames says, obviously knowing Arthur's about to panic again. “Here.” He takes Arthur's hand-gently, so he can pull free-and brings it to his cock. Arthur shuts his eyes and breathes deep, curling his fingers carefully around Eames' length. Soft. Hot. Feels like his own, really, just thicker and with extra skin, and different from this angle. Eames moves his fingers gingerly for him, showing him how to touch, how to ease the foreskin back, and eventually Arthur can open his eyes to watch what he's doing.
He wants to just get it over with, so he takes another deep, fortifying breath and leans down. He slides his mouth down on Eames, trying to keep his tongue and teeth out of the way, and he's barely got the head in before it hits the roof of his mouth and nearly makes him gag. He draws back. How is he supposed to do this if he can't even get the whole head in his mouth?
“You can just lick first,” Eames suggests. “Get used to it.”
He smells like he's showered, at least, so that's something. Arthur takes his advice and licks, up the sides, not too creative. He tries to pretend it's something else, a popsicle, anything, but he can't, it tastes too much like-a cock. He avoids the head at first, but eventually he has to do something with it, so he slides Eames' foreskin down and laps at it, screwing his face up. It's slick and salty. He's certain this is the worst blowjob of Eames' life.
“Try again now,” Eames says. “Just use your hand for what you can't get in your mouth.”
Arthur nods. He tries again. This time he forces maybe another half inch into his mouth before he gags.
“I can't,” he says, pulling off.
“Everyone's like that at first,” Eames says reassuringly. “Takes practice.”
Not particularly convinced, Arthur tries taking him in again. This time he stops after the first inch and just laps at the underside a bit. Eames sighs, a little breathy groan.
“That feels good,” he says.
Encouraged, Arthur keeps doing it. He remembers after a moment to use his hand, and grips the base awkwardly. Eames wraps a loose fist around his and sets a rhythm for him, so Arthur doesn't have to think, can just concentrate on the dick in his mouth. He experiments a bit, sucking and using his tongue on the head, because that's what he likes, and trying not to take in more than he can manage. Eames squeezes his hand a bit tighter and quickens the pace.
When he's getting close-Arthur's mouth is sore and he isn't even half as vigorous as Eames was-Arthur moves aside and grabs a few tissues from the bedside table, so that Eames doesn't get come all over his sheets. Eames rolls his eyes.
“You could at least finish me off,” he says.
So Arthur takes him in hand again, and this time Eames doesn't interfere. Arthur sets the same pace he'd had before, works his wrist and tries not to think, tries not to think, and doesn't look when Eames comes. He can feel the spill of semen on his fingers, though, and it feels like profound shame.
Eames wipes them both off. Still not looking at him, ignoring the churning in his stomach that might be arousal or fear or both, Arthur lies down and says, “I'm gonna try to get some more sleep.”
“Alright.” He hears Eames shift around next to him, adjusting his pants. Arthur lies there, staring at the wall, thinking about the fact that he just put another man's dick in his mouth. But he can't be gay if he didn't enjoy it. If he were gay, he would like cocks. He lets that thought reassure him, clings to it, however flawed it is.
Eames breaks the silence. “Can I ask you something?”
“Fine.”
“What did you mean when you said you hate being like this?”
“I meant you're not the problem. So don't worry about it.”
“No,” says Eames. “Tell me.”
Arthur sighs. He sits up again, dragging a hand through his hair.
“I don't know,” he says. “I guess-” His throat tightens unexpectedly. He says, “I just hate-being someone I hate.”
He intends to stop there, but after a minute, Eames says, “And?”
“And I don't know. I hate ... living like this. Not being in control of myself. I hate that I can't stop. I want to have my life together. I don't want to live like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like I'm just trying to survive every week,” Arthur says wearily. “And at the end of every week it should feel good, because I made it, but all I can think of is how many more weeks there are ahead of me and how I'm supposed to get through all of them. Everyone else is so happy with their lives. Me, I-I make goals, I set them up and knock them down, that's what I do. I wanted to get my MBA at Harvard, so I did it; I wanted to be an investment banker and I did it. I can make everything happen for me, except happiness.”
“Why d'you suppose that is?” Eames asks. He sounds like a shrink. It's weird, having a conversation like this with him, and Arthur laughs, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Because I'm broken, I guess,” he says. “Look at me, I have sex with men-no. I let them fuck me. And now I can't stop, because you're the only thing in the world that makes me feel-anything, so-I'm not strong enough to stop. That's what I hate. I hate being pathetic. I want to be someone I could like, or at least respect.” His voice cracks. “I just hate hating myself, Eames.”
There's an awful, awkward moment wherein Arthur is close to tears and they both know it and both pretend he isn't. Eames is polite enough to pretend to be distracted by the television, which is still on mute, while Arthur wipes his eyes hastily. Sometimes Eames is like that; he's always surprising Arthur. Maybe Arthur had wanted to think of Eames as the bad guy in this, but he's found that the less abrasive he is to Eames, the more Eames softens around him, warily. His roughness had been exactly what Arthur needed, at first, but there are different sides to him, and maybe sometimes Arthur needs ... soft.
“Anyway,” Arthur says finally, composed again. “I'll get my life back on track one day.”
“You are really the strangest person I have ever met,” Eames says, switching the TV off.
“Thanks,” Arthur replies dryly.
“I mean it. I cannot imagine being you even for a day. I truly pity you.”
“I don't need your fucking pity,” Arthur snaps. “I make more in a year than you have in your entire life.”
“And?” says Eames.
“And what?”
“How's that working for you?”
Arthur opens his mouth to-to snap, bite Eames' stupid, ignorant head off, but he catches himself suddenly. Eames isn't the one he hates. That's the exact point, anyway, isn't it? Arthur has everything and nothing. All his money is not enough. He shuts his mouth, simmering, about to tell Eames to just get the fuck out of his apartment because this whole morning-after thing obviously isn't working for them.
“For what it's worth,” Eames says, watching Arthur, his expression neutral, “when you're not convinced I'm out to ruin your life, I like you.”
Arthur's chest throbs suddenly, for no discernible reason.
“You do?” he says.
Eames nods. “When you're relaxed and you talk to me like a normal person. Or if you're really making an effort. There is, you may be shocked to know, a decent person inside you, Arthur.”
Arthur takes that in. His chest throbs again. He doesn't know what to say, and struggles for a moment.
“I like you too,” he manages finally. “Sometimes.”
Eames laughs. “Really.”
“Yes, really. I think you're a good person.” I wish I was more like you, he doesn't say. I wish I didn't care what other people think of me.
Eames rolls onto his side, still smiling, rumpled and big and tattooed and male in Arthur's bed, and Arthur wants to kiss him, all of a sudden, but he can't think of a reason to justify the impulse, so he doesn't.
“Tell me something about you that no one else knows,” Eames says.
It's-strange, as far as pillow-talk goes. Arthur wonders if this is a test. He has to think for a minute. He wants to say something that will satisfy Eames. Something worth knowing.
“I used to have a stammer when I was a kid.” He has to force it out.
“Really?” He can tell by Eames' expression that that's a good one. He nods, feeling oddly exposed. Eames smiles again, reaches up and clasps the side of Arthur's face with one hand. “I can't imagine.”
“Yeah. Well.” Arthur swallows and ducks his head, making Eames' hand fall away. “Elocution lessons.”
“Little Arthur, the stammerer,” says Eames. Arthur thinks he's being made fun of, until Eames continues, “Makes me wish I could go back in time just to give you a hug. That's adorable.”
Arthur laughs, just because he's relieved and because Eames is so ridiculous. “You can give me one now if you want,” he says, remembering what Eames said about liking him when he's making an effort.
This earns him another smile, and it's not Eames' fake, why-should-I-humour-you smile, or his I'm-about-to-make-you-wish-you-hadn't-said-that smile. It's a real, affectionate, I'm-happy smile, reaching his eyes. He pulls Arthur down and tucks him into his body, wrapping him up firmly.
Arthur huffs. “I said you could hug me, not spoon me.”
“You can be the big spoon, if you'd like,” says Eames.
Arthur just snorts and doesn't say anything. Eames' body is solid and warm against him and Arthur thinks maybe, if he can turn his brain off for awhile, he could fall asleep like this.
After a minute, Eames presses his nose to the spot behind Arthur's ear that they've discovered always makes him shiver.
“I hope you learn to like yourself one day, Arthur,” he says quietly.
Arthur opens his mouth to say me too. Instead what comes out is an awful-sounding choked laugh and: “That is never going to happen while you're still here.”
There's a silence. Arthur squeezes his eyes shut tight and bites his tongue, not knowing why he had to go and say that.
“Well,” Eames says finally. “Then I hope someday that changes.”
“Yeah,” Arthur manages to say weakly this time, knowing it will never happen, but wanting anyway. “Me too.”
+++
Eames doesn't have very many possessions from the old apartment that are worth bringing to Arthur's. Those he does want to keep are packed up in boxes and driven to the Upper West Side, where Arthur meets him at the curb and helps him unload everything and carry it into the elevator and then to the apartment. They make a little pile in the living room. Eames' stuff. Arthur wonders if he could learn to start loving this apartment the way he thought he would when he'd first moved in.
They work silently and then the last box is in the pile and Eames shuts the door, and it's just them, just the two of them standing there. Arthur puts his hands in his pockets and looks down at the boxes. Mostly he's been relying on Eames to guide him through this, because he doesn't know what to do or say.
“You can stop looking like that,” Eames says finally. Arthur's stomach twists.
“Like what?”
“Like I'm going to disappear on you.” Eames walks over to him, kisses him on the forehead. “We're going to make a go of this, alright?”
Arthur swallows tightly and nods. He wants them to be back on familiar ground, now, and he doesn't know how to put them there.
A knock at the door makes them draw apart.
“I'll get it,” Arthur says, because he doesn't know how he's going to explain this to his neighbours yet. Eames lets him go.
It's Mrs. Freedman, with a tin foil-wrapped dish in her hands. She smiles at him. “Arthur, I haven't seen you in weeks. Did you take a trip somewhere?”
“Yeah, I did,” Arthur says. In the back of his mind he wonders how she can't see, immediately, that he's different. Not straight. Maybe he's been like this for a long time, and everyone saw it but him. “I was in Australia. With my brother.”
“Australia!” she says, eyes widening. “How exciting, you'll have to tell me all about that.”
“I will,” he says suddenly, remembering what Eames once said. She's just a lonely old lady.
“Anyway, I thought I'd bring you a casserole,” she says, holding up the dish. “I know how hard it can be to get back into the swing of things when you've been on vacation.”
“Thank you,” he says.
“Did your friend Eames finally move out?” she asks, peering past him. “I saw you loading some boxes outside.”
“Yeah, he ...”
The words trail off. Arthur is so tired of lying. He can sense Eames hovering out of sight in the living room, listening.
He straightens his shoulders. “No, actually. Eames moved in. He's my boyfriend and we're going to live together now.”
Her eyes widen again. Her hands tighten almost imperceptibly around the casserole. He takes it from her, gently.
“Thank you,” he says again, and shuts the door.
Behind him, Eames says, “You didn't have to do that.”
“Yeah,” Arthur says, not turning around. His heart is racing with some sense of accomplishment and he manages to smile to himself. “I did.”
more coda
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Words: ~5400
Rating: NC-17
Author's Note: Rough Trade coda taking place during the middle of the story and then right after the last bit, before the epilogue. Someone in the comments recently asked for Arthur's first time giving Eames a blowjob, so here's that, tangled up in some other issues~ It's handy to have read Rough Trade prior to this but not required. More coda here.
There's a creak near the vicinity of the door. Arthur startles awake.
“Sorry,” Eames says, poised awkwardly near the door with a steaming Starbucks cup in hand. “Wasn't trying to wake you.”
Arthur sighs and sinks back into the pillows, rubbing a hand over his face and trying to bring his brain online. He's neither sore nor sticky, so they mustn't have fucked last night, or while he was sleeping-that's never happened, but he wouldn't put it past Eames. He's fallen asleep during sex and Eames has finished anyway, so. “What time is it?”
“Almost eight,” says Eames, setting down the cup on the bedside table.
“Eight?” Arthur scrambles out of bed and bounds across the room, flinging open the door to his walk-in closet. “Eight? How did I sleep until eight!”
He feels like he's going to puke. He riffles through his clothing frantically and behind him, Eames says, “What's wrong?”
“What's wrong is I'm late for work, asshole!” Arthur shouts. “I was supposed to be up two hours ago! What am I supposed to tell-”
“Arthur, it's Sunday,” Eames says, bemused, standing in the closet doorway. “You finished your project last night and told me to come over and you were asleep when I got here.”
Arthur stops. Cautiously, he says, “It's Sunday?”
“Yes, it's Sunday. I switched off your alarm.”
“Oh.” Arthur's shoulders droop. He turns around. Eames is watching him with raised eyebrows. “I rescind my asshole comment,” he mumbles, abashed.
“Thank you,” says Eames. He lifts the cup in his hand. “I got your favourite. Warm piss in an expensive cup.”
“Thanks,” Arthur says, feeling even worse. Eames hates Starbucks, doesn't even step foot in there normally, because he prefers the kitschey independent coffee shops with postcards on the walls and unknown jazz groups playing on the weekends. Arthur takes the cup from him, takes a sip and pulls a face. “It's sweet.”
“Really?” Eames leans into his space and steals a kiss; a long, lingering one. He pulls back. “Tastes alright to me. For warm piss, that is.”
Arthur doesn't say anything. Just because he doesn't mind kissing Eames doesn't mean he wants to do it all the time. And now he feels foolish, and tired on top of that, burnt out from the project he's been working all week. He got home at one last night, knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, fought with himself for fifteen minutes and finally called Eames. Apparently, he'd passed out immediately after.
Eames should have just gone home. Arthur's annoyed that he's here. But he did bring coffee, even if it isn't made the way Arthur likes, so Arthur makes an effort to drink it while he reads the newspaper in bed and Eames, sprawled next to him, turns on the flatscreen TV on the wall and channel-surfs. He finds some British soap opera and settles on that.
Normally, unless Arthur has a reason to go to the office, Sundays are empty and bleak. His apartment makes him feel confined, but he has nothing else to do. Lately he's just been letting the hours drag by until it seems reasonable to call Eames-hoping against hope that Eames hasn't made other plans, hating his own desperation.
He's unsettled by Eames' presence now. They've never done a morning after, before. He's woken up next to Eames, but he always dashes off to work right away. They've never done-this. Coffee and TV in bed. Before long he starts wondering what he'll do if somebody important comes to the door, what he'll say if any of his neighbours mention seeing Eames enter his apartment. He thinks about this until he realizes he's been staring at the same article for fifteen minutes, his eyes glazed and unfocused.
He snaps out of it and starts reading again. Just ignore Eames, he tells himself. This is your apartment. Pretend he's not here. And he almost can, until Eames, who has been shifting around, getting comfy, scratching his neck, suddenly reaches over and drags his hand up Arthur's thigh till it brushes his cock through his pyjama bottoms.
Arthur jerks away. “Don't.”
“No?” Eames looks at him, eyes hooded. “This is what you called me here for, isn't it?”
“Last night, when I was tired,” Arthur says. “I'm good now.”
Eames slides his hand in again, cupping Arthur's cock, and squeezes. Arthur grits his teeth. He can feel the blood starting to fill his cock. He hates how his body responds to Eames.
“Tell me to stop,” Eames says, smiling slyly.
Arthur doesn't know what the right answer is. He could say stop and Eames would-probably. And then what? He might sulk, or leave. Maybe leave for good, and then what the hell would Arthur do? Unwittingly, he's fallen right into Eames' trap. The only way to get out of this is to find himself a woman to be with, and he can't do that if he's exhausted all the time, and he's only ever not exhausted when he's letting Eames take up all his spare time.
Isn't this part of what he likes, anyway? Letting Eames push him, so that Arthur doesn't have to decide?
He closes his eyes, drops his head back on the pillow in defeat. Eames mutes the TV and climbs over him, settling on Arthur's knees so that he can't move and pulling his pants down slowly. Arthur swallows hard, and tries not to flinch when Eames' mouth envelops him. The first time Eames did this Arthur couldn't handle it, having a man's mouth on him, but now, God, it's good, it's so good. He tilts his head back and lets Eames drag his mouth up the side of his cock, tonguing it messily like it's an ice cream cone before sealing his lips around the head and sucking.
Eames sucks cock like he's starved for it. No blowjob Arthur has ever received from a woman compares to any one of Eames'. It makes sense, of course, a man would know what other men like, but it still seems ... wrong. It's just-he likes it. He reaches up over his head and grips the headboard with one hand, trying to keep quiet. He just can't look. One day he'll be able to look down and watch Eames slide those plush dick-sucking lips down his cock, or more likely Eames will demand that he watch, just to remind him who he's with, but thinking about it too much makes Arthur panic, a little. If he looks, he'll either lose his hard-on altogether or he'll come harder than he ever has in his life, and both outcomes are equally undesirable.
So he keeps his eyes shut and his face tilted toward the ceiling, swallows repeatedly on nothing, breathes hard in and out through his nose and listens to all the wet sucking sounds Eames is making down there. Every now and then Eames will give a little groan that reverberates around Arthur's cock, as if to let him know how much he's enjoying this. It makes Arthur want to laugh, call him a freak, get shoved good-naturedly in return.
There; his ill feelings are already being leached out of him. He's able to relax, finally, squeezing the headboard and just letting Eames do his thing. And as usual, once he gives in, he can feel Eames kicking it up a notch as if to reward him for letting go of his reservations. He gets sloppy now, kneading Arthur's thighs, then wrapping his hands around Arthur's hips and holding him down; he sucks until Arthur's cockhead hits the back of his throat and then bobs his head up and down a few times, making Arthur squirm and give a sort of breathy whimpering noise. He pulls off and licks, and a lot of girls won't do that, they'll suck but they won't lick, but Eames licks like he wants to cover every inch of Arthur's cock with his tongue. His balls, too; he sucks one and then the other into his mouth, alternating, scraping his teeth ever so gently and it feels amazing, Arthur hadn't even known he was sensitive there until Eames came along...
“I'm gonna come,” Arthur warns him hoarsely.
Eames immediately returns to his cock and sucks hard on the head. Arthur's shaking, and Eames pins his hips even more firmly to the bed, his hands wide and strong and rough and nothing, nothing like a woman's; and Arthur's gone, coming in Eames' mouth, on his lips when Eames pulls back a bit. It takes him a moment to swallow it all.
Arthur relaxes into the bed, feeling like he could actually go back to sleep if he tried. “Thanks,” he mumbles, because he still doesn't know what to say after sex with Eames. Eames laughs, as usual.
“Was thinking you might return the favour,” he husks, dropping down next to Arthur.
“And why would I do that?” Arthur asks idly. Eames' fingers trail up his side, skating over his ribs.
“Because,” he says, “we made a deal. Remember?”
Arthur's quiet, and then his face starts to grow hot. He does remember. Eames had bet him a blowjob that he could make Arthur come on his cock alone, teasing him for loving it so much, and Arthur had accepted, angry, because he's not that gay and he doesn't love Eames' dick and he's always needed a hand on his own cock to get off, even if that hand is Eames'. By next Tuesday he'd forgotten the stupid bet altogether, out of his mind with work and just needing to get laid, and Eames had paid him special attention, made him feel so good, fucked him deep and slow and rough for a long time so that when Arthur finally came he was nearly in tears. And no one had touched his cock.
Eames had taken advantage of his exhaustion. But he'd lost fair and square.
“I wasn't-serious,” he says. Eames rolls over, even closer, nosing against Arthur's ear. His voice is a purr.
“We shook on it, darling.”
Arthur pushes him away, alarmed now. He didn't think Eames would cash in. He didn't think Eames would win, of course, or he wouldn't have made the bet, but-
He flounders. “I didn't-you know I can't.”
“It's very easy,” says Eames.
“I can't,” Arthur says, certain his face is red by now.
Eames sounds bitter, suddenly. “Arthur, I am shocked at your selfishness. I have given you plenty of blowjobs, and you can't give me even one? For shame.”
“I'm not you, Eames,” Arthur forces out, angry and embarrassed and feeling cornered. “I'm not-queer. I don't like dick.”
“You like it stuffed up your arsehole well enough.”
“Fuck you!” Arthur snarls at once. “Just fuck you, Eames. I hate your fucking dick and I hate you.”
There's so much emotion in his voice it surprises even him. They both lie there for a minute, not looking at each other. Arthur rolls over on his side, facing the wall. His hands are shaking.
“You're such a hypocrite,” Eames says, after a minute.
Arthur tries to speak and can't. He wants to say he doesn't want to do this anymore, and he doesn't even know what he means-fucking, or fighting.
He's spared from having to say anything when there's a distant knock at the front door. They both tense. Then Arthur slides out of bed, adjusts his pants and pulls a t-shirt on quickly.
“Stay here,” he says to Eames. “Please,” he adds just before he sprints out of the room, to impress the point. Eames just blinks at him, his eyes dark and hooded again.
Heart thudding, Arthur gets to the door and opens it. It's his neighbour, Mrs. Freedman, the widow who lives across the hall from him. He relaxes, slightly.
“Good morning, Arthur,” she says, smiling fondly at him. She has a tin foil-wrapped bundle in her arms. “I made some extra banana bread and I thought you could use it.”
She's convinced he doesn't eat enough. She tells him every time she sees him, fretting over how pale and thin he is. He smiles back, takes the loaf from her.
“Thank you,” he says. “That's really kind of you. Thanks.”
“Oh, it's nothing, my dear,” she says warmly. “You need to eat more, anyway. You need a nice young woman to take care of you, is what you need.”
“I've got you to take care of me,” he says, and she laughs, patting his arm.
“Well, I just wanted to check up on you and bring you that banana bread. Oh, and how is your friend doing?”
“My friend?”
“Yes, Eames-he helped me carry in my new coffee table last week, he was so nice. Isn't he still staying with you? I thought I saw him go into your apartment this morning.”
Arthur licks his lips, rocking back and then forward slightly, thoughtfully. “Yes, he's still staying here,” he says, eventually.
“He's a lovely man,” says Mrs. Freedman, sounding more than a little smitten. “You tell him to give me his resumé and I'll start giving it out to my friends. I'm sure any one of them will hire him in a heartbeat.”
“I'll tell him,” Arthur promises.
She beams and pats his arm again. “Alright, well, you have a good week, Arthur.”
“You too,” he says, and watches her return to her own apartment. Then he shuts the door and locks it.
Eames is very pointedly avoiding his eyes when he walks back into the bedroom. Arthur puts the banana bread loaf down on the bedside table.
“You talked to my neighbour,” he says flatly.
“I had a cup of tea with her,” says Eames, shrugging. “She's a lonely old lady.”
“How do you know she's lonely?”
“Because she's always looking out her spyhole when she hears the elevator. I've run into her a few times in the hall. I told her I'm your friend from out of town and I'm just crashing with you till I get a job and a place of my own. We had tea last week, when I helped move her table,” Eames adds, glancing up at Arthur warily. “She just wants someone to talk to.”
“And you're a regular good Samaritan,” Arthur says bitingly.
“Yeah, I am, actually,” says Eames.
He is. Arthur's starting to realize that about him. However cold and brutish Eames had been to him at first, he's not actually a bad person, no matter how badly Arthur wants to believe he is. It makes him feel even worse about-well, everything. Eames covered for him. He listened to Arthur and didn't tell the neighbour about them.
“I don't hate you,” Arthur says in a very low voice, because he can't keep doing this. He can't keep shooting himself in the foot like this. Eames barely blinks.
“I know.”
“It's not you I hate. I hate-I hate being like this, Eames. So I take it out on you, and I know it's not right and I do it anyway. I'm sorry. I'm-I've been trying not to.”
“I noticed,” says Eames.
Arthur gets back on the bed. The TV is still on, muted, still playing that stupid soap opera. Eames doesn't move to unmute it.
“I don't hate your penis,” Arthur adds after a minute, softly.
Eames touches his shoulder. Just for a second, not intimately. It's a sort of comforting gesture.
“You're a fucking mess and a twat,” he says. “But you try and that's something, I suppose. And I wouldn't make you do something you aren't comfortable with, so let me know if it's alright to fuck you now or if I have to go and rub one out in the loo.”
Arthur snorts. Eames looks at him.
“What's funny?”
“You,” Arthur says after a moment. “The loo,” he adds. And, quieter: “You're so gay.”
Eames shoves him over, not maliciously. Arthur picks himself back up, and says, “You don't have to-loo. I'll-” He swallows quickly. “If you want. I'll try.”
Eames raises his eyebrows questioningly.
“We made a deal,” Arthur says, very stiffly, and Eames grins.
“Well, alright then,” he says, and pulls Arthur over for a kiss. Arthur makes a strangled sort of squawking sound of indignation, and Eames raises his eyebrows again. “What, never kissed a girl after you've come in her mouth?”
“That's-” Arthur's about to say 'different', but he thinks about it and it's not, really. And anyway, it might help prepare him for this. So he lets Eames kiss him, and only feels a little queasy. Then he sits back, takes a look at Eames' groin, the substantial bulge there.
With fumbling fingers he undoes Eames' belt, then his fly, and pulls his pants down partway. Eames' erection springs free, fat and red and uncut and not entirely hard, nestled in thick hair, and Arthur has to take a deep breath again. He forces himself to stare, to take in the veins, the way it throbs slightly under his gaze, the thickness, and he realizes he's panting. It's-a dick, it can't be anything but a dick, it even smells like one from here-
“Start by touching,” Eames says, obviously knowing Arthur's about to panic again. “Here.” He takes Arthur's hand-gently, so he can pull free-and brings it to his cock. Arthur shuts his eyes and breathes deep, curling his fingers carefully around Eames' length. Soft. Hot. Feels like his own, really, just thicker and with extra skin, and different from this angle. Eames moves his fingers gingerly for him, showing him how to touch, how to ease the foreskin back, and eventually Arthur can open his eyes to watch what he's doing.
He wants to just get it over with, so he takes another deep, fortifying breath and leans down. He slides his mouth down on Eames, trying to keep his tongue and teeth out of the way, and he's barely got the head in before it hits the roof of his mouth and nearly makes him gag. He draws back. How is he supposed to do this if he can't even get the whole head in his mouth?
“You can just lick first,” Eames suggests. “Get used to it.”
He smells like he's showered, at least, so that's something. Arthur takes his advice and licks, up the sides, not too creative. He tries to pretend it's something else, a popsicle, anything, but he can't, it tastes too much like-a cock. He avoids the head at first, but eventually he has to do something with it, so he slides Eames' foreskin down and laps at it, screwing his face up. It's slick and salty. He's certain this is the worst blowjob of Eames' life.
“Try again now,” Eames says. “Just use your hand for what you can't get in your mouth.”
Arthur nods. He tries again. This time he forces maybe another half inch into his mouth before he gags.
“I can't,” he says, pulling off.
“Everyone's like that at first,” Eames says reassuringly. “Takes practice.”
Not particularly convinced, Arthur tries taking him in again. This time he stops after the first inch and just laps at the underside a bit. Eames sighs, a little breathy groan.
“That feels good,” he says.
Encouraged, Arthur keeps doing it. He remembers after a moment to use his hand, and grips the base awkwardly. Eames wraps a loose fist around his and sets a rhythm for him, so Arthur doesn't have to think, can just concentrate on the dick in his mouth. He experiments a bit, sucking and using his tongue on the head, because that's what he likes, and trying not to take in more than he can manage. Eames squeezes his hand a bit tighter and quickens the pace.
When he's getting close-Arthur's mouth is sore and he isn't even half as vigorous as Eames was-Arthur moves aside and grabs a few tissues from the bedside table, so that Eames doesn't get come all over his sheets. Eames rolls his eyes.
“You could at least finish me off,” he says.
So Arthur takes him in hand again, and this time Eames doesn't interfere. Arthur sets the same pace he'd had before, works his wrist and tries not to think, tries not to think, and doesn't look when Eames comes. He can feel the spill of semen on his fingers, though, and it feels like profound shame.
Eames wipes them both off. Still not looking at him, ignoring the churning in his stomach that might be arousal or fear or both, Arthur lies down and says, “I'm gonna try to get some more sleep.”
“Alright.” He hears Eames shift around next to him, adjusting his pants. Arthur lies there, staring at the wall, thinking about the fact that he just put another man's dick in his mouth. But he can't be gay if he didn't enjoy it. If he were gay, he would like cocks. He lets that thought reassure him, clings to it, however flawed it is.
Eames breaks the silence. “Can I ask you something?”
“Fine.”
“What did you mean when you said you hate being like this?”
“I meant you're not the problem. So don't worry about it.”
“No,” says Eames. “Tell me.”
Arthur sighs. He sits up again, dragging a hand through his hair.
“I don't know,” he says. “I guess-” His throat tightens unexpectedly. He says, “I just hate-being someone I hate.”
He intends to stop there, but after a minute, Eames says, “And?”
“And I don't know. I hate ... living like this. Not being in control of myself. I hate that I can't stop. I want to have my life together. I don't want to live like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like I'm just trying to survive every week,” Arthur says wearily. “And at the end of every week it should feel good, because I made it, but all I can think of is how many more weeks there are ahead of me and how I'm supposed to get through all of them. Everyone else is so happy with their lives. Me, I-I make goals, I set them up and knock them down, that's what I do. I wanted to get my MBA at Harvard, so I did it; I wanted to be an investment banker and I did it. I can make everything happen for me, except happiness.”
“Why d'you suppose that is?” Eames asks. He sounds like a shrink. It's weird, having a conversation like this with him, and Arthur laughs, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Because I'm broken, I guess,” he says. “Look at me, I have sex with men-no. I let them fuck me. And now I can't stop, because you're the only thing in the world that makes me feel-anything, so-I'm not strong enough to stop. That's what I hate. I hate being pathetic. I want to be someone I could like, or at least respect.” His voice cracks. “I just hate hating myself, Eames.”
There's an awful, awkward moment wherein Arthur is close to tears and they both know it and both pretend he isn't. Eames is polite enough to pretend to be distracted by the television, which is still on mute, while Arthur wipes his eyes hastily. Sometimes Eames is like that; he's always surprising Arthur. Maybe Arthur had wanted to think of Eames as the bad guy in this, but he's found that the less abrasive he is to Eames, the more Eames softens around him, warily. His roughness had been exactly what Arthur needed, at first, but there are different sides to him, and maybe sometimes Arthur needs ... soft.
“Anyway,” Arthur says finally, composed again. “I'll get my life back on track one day.”
“You are really the strangest person I have ever met,” Eames says, switching the TV off.
“Thanks,” Arthur replies dryly.
“I mean it. I cannot imagine being you even for a day. I truly pity you.”
“I don't need your fucking pity,” Arthur snaps. “I make more in a year than you have in your entire life.”
“And?” says Eames.
“And what?”
“How's that working for you?”
Arthur opens his mouth to-to snap, bite Eames' stupid, ignorant head off, but he catches himself suddenly. Eames isn't the one he hates. That's the exact point, anyway, isn't it? Arthur has everything and nothing. All his money is not enough. He shuts his mouth, simmering, about to tell Eames to just get the fuck out of his apartment because this whole morning-after thing obviously isn't working for them.
“For what it's worth,” Eames says, watching Arthur, his expression neutral, “when you're not convinced I'm out to ruin your life, I like you.”
Arthur's chest throbs suddenly, for no discernible reason.
“You do?” he says.
Eames nods. “When you're relaxed and you talk to me like a normal person. Or if you're really making an effort. There is, you may be shocked to know, a decent person inside you, Arthur.”
Arthur takes that in. His chest throbs again. He doesn't know what to say, and struggles for a moment.
“I like you too,” he manages finally. “Sometimes.”
Eames laughs. “Really.”
“Yes, really. I think you're a good person.” I wish I was more like you, he doesn't say. I wish I didn't care what other people think of me.
Eames rolls onto his side, still smiling, rumpled and big and tattooed and male in Arthur's bed, and Arthur wants to kiss him, all of a sudden, but he can't think of a reason to justify the impulse, so he doesn't.
“Tell me something about you that no one else knows,” Eames says.
It's-strange, as far as pillow-talk goes. Arthur wonders if this is a test. He has to think for a minute. He wants to say something that will satisfy Eames. Something worth knowing.
“I used to have a stammer when I was a kid.” He has to force it out.
“Really?” He can tell by Eames' expression that that's a good one. He nods, feeling oddly exposed. Eames smiles again, reaches up and clasps the side of Arthur's face with one hand. “I can't imagine.”
“Yeah. Well.” Arthur swallows and ducks his head, making Eames' hand fall away. “Elocution lessons.”
“Little Arthur, the stammerer,” says Eames. Arthur thinks he's being made fun of, until Eames continues, “Makes me wish I could go back in time just to give you a hug. That's adorable.”
Arthur laughs, just because he's relieved and because Eames is so ridiculous. “You can give me one now if you want,” he says, remembering what Eames said about liking him when he's making an effort.
This earns him another smile, and it's not Eames' fake, why-should-I-humour-you smile, or his I'm-about-to-make-you-wish-you-hadn't-said-that smile. It's a real, affectionate, I'm-happy smile, reaching his eyes. He pulls Arthur down and tucks him into his body, wrapping him up firmly.
Arthur huffs. “I said you could hug me, not spoon me.”
“You can be the big spoon, if you'd like,” says Eames.
Arthur just snorts and doesn't say anything. Eames' body is solid and warm against him and Arthur thinks maybe, if he can turn his brain off for awhile, he could fall asleep like this.
After a minute, Eames presses his nose to the spot behind Arthur's ear that they've discovered always makes him shiver.
“I hope you learn to like yourself one day, Arthur,” he says quietly.
Arthur opens his mouth to say me too. Instead what comes out is an awful-sounding choked laugh and: “That is never going to happen while you're still here.”
There's a silence. Arthur squeezes his eyes shut tight and bites his tongue, not knowing why he had to go and say that.
“Well,” Eames says finally. “Then I hope someday that changes.”
“Yeah,” Arthur manages to say weakly this time, knowing it will never happen, but wanting anyway. “Me too.”
+++
Eames doesn't have very many possessions from the old apartment that are worth bringing to Arthur's. Those he does want to keep are packed up in boxes and driven to the Upper West Side, where Arthur meets him at the curb and helps him unload everything and carry it into the elevator and then to the apartment. They make a little pile in the living room. Eames' stuff. Arthur wonders if he could learn to start loving this apartment the way he thought he would when he'd first moved in.
They work silently and then the last box is in the pile and Eames shuts the door, and it's just them, just the two of them standing there. Arthur puts his hands in his pockets and looks down at the boxes. Mostly he's been relying on Eames to guide him through this, because he doesn't know what to do or say.
“You can stop looking like that,” Eames says finally. Arthur's stomach twists.
“Like what?”
“Like I'm going to disappear on you.” Eames walks over to him, kisses him on the forehead. “We're going to make a go of this, alright?”
Arthur swallows tightly and nods. He wants them to be back on familiar ground, now, and he doesn't know how to put them there.
A knock at the door makes them draw apart.
“I'll get it,” Arthur says, because he doesn't know how he's going to explain this to his neighbours yet. Eames lets him go.
It's Mrs. Freedman, with a tin foil-wrapped dish in her hands. She smiles at him. “Arthur, I haven't seen you in weeks. Did you take a trip somewhere?”
“Yeah, I did,” Arthur says. In the back of his mind he wonders how she can't see, immediately, that he's different. Not straight. Maybe he's been like this for a long time, and everyone saw it but him. “I was in Australia. With my brother.”
“Australia!” she says, eyes widening. “How exciting, you'll have to tell me all about that.”
“I will,” he says suddenly, remembering what Eames once said. She's just a lonely old lady.
“Anyway, I thought I'd bring you a casserole,” she says, holding up the dish. “I know how hard it can be to get back into the swing of things when you've been on vacation.”
“Thank you,” he says.
“Did your friend Eames finally move out?” she asks, peering past him. “I saw you loading some boxes outside.”
“Yeah, he ...”
The words trail off. Arthur is so tired of lying. He can sense Eames hovering out of sight in the living room, listening.
He straightens his shoulders. “No, actually. Eames moved in. He's my boyfriend and we're going to live together now.”
Her eyes widen again. Her hands tighten almost imperceptibly around the casserole. He takes it from her, gently.
“Thank you,” he says again, and shuts the door.
Behind him, Eames says, “You didn't have to do that.”
“Yeah,” Arthur says, not turning around. His heart is racing with some sense of accomplishment and he manages to smile to himself. “I did.”
more coda