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sirona_ficsTitle: I Won't Dance
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: NC-17
Part One
Eames does call him some ten hours later, when Arthur’s only just coming to from the night before.
“It’s pissing it down, it’s freezing, my suitcase is muddy, and my sister’s insisting on me going round to hers tomorrow morning, says Valerie’s missed her uncle more than any three-year-old is supposed to. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.”
Eames sounds exhausted, but despite the deplorable headache trying to knock his head off his shoulders Arthur is so happy to hear his voice that he could cry.
“Was the flight horrible?” he asks, voice gruff from too much vodka and feeling sorry for himself the night before, a cocktail made in hell.
“Yeah,” Eames groans, and Arthur hears a solid thump and another groan down the line that he interprets as Eames throwing himself down on his sofa. “An awful, grasping blonde would not take my word for it that I am very much taken, despite me swearing on any god or saint she’d care to name,” he grumbles, and mixed with the irritation Arthur detects a fondness in his voice that makes him warm all over and does wonders for his headache.
“Well, get some sleep before your sister brings your damned cat back tomorrow, he’s bound to be upset with you for being gone so long.”
“Nah, Keating’s a big softie; he’ll just rip the sofa apart, nothing it hasn’t seen before.” There’s a massive yawn coming through loud and clear, and Arthur thinks wistfully of two nights ago, when Eames was still making that sound in his ear and not from the other side of the ocean.
“Get some sleep, Mr Eames,” Arthur tells him gently. He’s rather afraid that hell would freeze over before he stops missing Eames.
“G’night, darling,” Eames mutters, and there’s a slight pause before the line disconnects.
Arthur drops the phone onto the bedside table and buries his face back down in the pillow that still smells like Eames, trying to sink back into blissful unconsciousness.
---
Two weeks turn into a month, and Eames still calls him every night, 8PM sharp Arthur’s time no matter where in the world he’s been sent to that week.
It’s “Darling, you should see what Keating did to that Statue of Liberty rubber duck I brought him, I’m not sure there’s a part of it not scratched or bitten to death yet,” and
“Arthur, be a love and send me those spreadsheets on my email, will you, I need to file for expenses with the top brass,” and
“If we go on like this, we’ll have wasted enough money on phone bills for ten plane tickets. Now, I know you hate it, darling, but I have made the sacrifice to sign on to AIM, and so should you!”
And it doesn’t stop. Arthur can’t quite believe it, but he is allowing himself to tentatively hope that maybe, just maybe, it might work out this time.
---
Two months turn into four, and Arthur’s hope slowly withers and fades.
“I said I’m sorry, love, I’m so sorry, but I just can’t make it next week. Cobol has me by the short hairs; if I don’t finish that job in Mombasa the bastards won’t release me from my contract earlier, like I’ve asked,” Eames rasps, sounding frustrated and miserable.
“Fine,” Arthur says, and he knows he’s being unfair – it’s not Eames’ fault that Cobol haven’t honoured their agreement, and are pushing for Eames to complete a full year’s notice before releasing him from his contract rather than the six months it stipulates. Damn it all to hell, though, he misses him, and it hurts.
“Darling,” Eames says, and he sounds exhausted. Arthur feels like a dick.
“Don’t worry about it,” he tells him, and it’s still aloof, but he’s trying. “Worst case scenario, it’s just another two months, right?”
“Right,” Eames replies, but there’s a pause before he speaks, a slight hesitation that makes Arthur sit up and take notice.
“Eames. Is there something you’re not telling me?” he asks, instantly suspicious.
“I might not make it for Ariadne’s wedding,” Eames admits, and the bottom of Arthur’s stomach drops out.
“I see,” Arthur says, not seeing at all; or rather, seeing only too well.
There’s such a long silence that Arthur thinks the line’s cut off – it happens sometimes when it’s such a long-distance call. Eames does not explain, and Arthur is too morose to ask.
“Are you ever coming back?” he doesn’t say; except that he does, it slips out without his permission and he immediately wants to take it back when there’s a sharply indrawn breath on the other side of the phone.
“Arthur.” There’s reproach and hurt in the tone, and Arthur wants to die. “You don’t trust me.” And there it is.
“Of course I t—I tr—“ Arthur tries, but it won’t come out past the huge lump in his throat.
There’s a bitter laugh on the other end. “Listen to yourself, you can’t even say it,” Eames accuses, and Arthur chokes miserably. “After everything, after everything, Arthur, goddamn it, I can’t believe you’re running away again. Fuck!” Eames growls, and ‘fuck’’s right, Arthur’s such a colossal ass, because no one who cares as little as Eames supposedly does about him should sound so unhappy and defeated.
“Eames,” Arthur starts to say (to apologise, to grovel) but Eames cuts him off.
“I can’t do this right now. I—I’ll call you, okay?” Eames says, and the quiet click of the call being terminated is the loudest thing Arthur has ever heard.
---
When Ariadne hears about this – or rather, when she interrogates it out of him – she looks like she wants to strangle him with her bare hands.
“Arthur, you absolute idiot,” she yells, oblivious of the startled glances from the other patrons at their usual coffee shop; Arthur cringes in his seat. “I can’t believe you did this to yourself, again. I’m starting to think that you don’t want to be in a proper relationship at all!”
Arthur doesn’t say anything. Normally he’d have points, arguments, whole cases prepared in his defence, but this time he knows there’s nothing to say that might excuse his lack of faith in the one person that might have proven to be the exception to the rule.
“When was this again?” Ariadne asks, at a more decorous volume this time.
“Five days ago,” Arthur replies, subdued. He hadn’t thought it possible to miss Eames more than he already did, but not hearing his voice at all is even worse than hearing him upset and shouting.
Ariadne scowls at him, but he can see her devious mind coming up with a plan already. “Okay, I wasn’t going to tell you this – I didn’t want you to get your hopes up too much, but that was before you went and acted like such a monumental ass. Dom wants to offer Eames a permanent spot in the firm. Says he’s the best consultant he’s ever worked with, and he and Mal are thinking of expanding, opening an office in LA so that they could move the kids somewhere warmer. You, me and Eames would stay here and handle the New York branch; we’d keep the staff and Dom and Mal will hire some new people out of LA. Now you’re trying to screw all that good stuff right up! Dom’s going to be pissed when he finds out!” she squints at him. It’s surprisingly terrifying.
Arthur stares at her while he runs the scenario over and over in his head, already working out the angles and the logistics of integrating an office in another city into the larger scheme of their business. The thought of working, maybe even living with Eames for the foreseeable future, derails his planning and makes his insides tie up in knots of anticipation and longing; then his brain comes back online.
“Wait, Eames is in Mombasa, Cobol’s still got him on contract. He won’t be able to get free for months yet.”
Ariadne smirks. “Cobb’s sicced Saito on Cobol. As our biggest investor, he’s perfectly placed to gain a substantial return from the coast-to-coast expansion, so it’s in his best interests to get Eames out of Cobol’s grasp as quickly as possible. He’s got about a month—month and a half at the most to go before he’s worked his notice and he can leave, Saito’s lawyers will see to that.”
There’s something vicious in Ariadne when she sets out to defend one of her own, Arthur observes with the part of his mind that isn’t dancing with glee at the prospect of sticking it to Cobol. He smiles for what feels like the first time in weeks. It slides right off his face when Ariadne refocuses her attention on him.
“Now then. How are we going to fix this mess you’ve made of your personal life?” she asks, and there’s a twinkle in her eye that should worry Arthur. Instead, it makes him feel like laughing out loud with a sudden, visceral joy.
---
It’s been a week since the infamous phone call, and he’s heard not a word from Eames. Arthur sits at his kitchen table and picks at a loose thread on the cuff of his shirtsleeve, a cardinal sin he’d shoot himself for if he were even aware of doing it. Pulled up on the screen of his laptop is an email waiting to be sent, an open window blank but for the small, humble three lines of black ink that could change everything.
“I’m sorry.
I love you.
Please.”
He could write whole treatises on apology, and fear, and regret, but somehow the words won’t come when applied to the simple setting of him and Eames and the way he feels about him. So he hopes that the man is as infuriatingly perceptive as always, and will read between the lines (few as they are). And if that doesn’t work… Arthur spares a glance for the attachment that he has guarded jealously for so long, a certain statistical evaluation that only he and Ariadne know of. He hopes it’s enough for Eames to at least understand where Arthur’s coming from. He’d be a liar if he said that he isn’t hoping for another chance, but after wasting two already he’s not too optimistic.
He knocks back the tumbler of whisky he’s been nursing and lets out a long sigh. Well, here goes nothing. He presses ‘send’.
---
Another three weeks go by and Eames doesn’t call, or email, or IM. Only the job of extracting him from Cobol’s clutches is stopping Arthur from becoming a mess of anxiety and dejection. He’s appropriated the task of co-ordinating the effort, getting together all the research and playing the go-between for Saito, his lawyers, and Cobb. All the while he waits with bated breath for any word of the proceedings, any word from Eames.
He expects Saito’s people to call him with the outcome of the negotiations, never mind that it’s 2AM New York time; he hardly sleeps at all these days, what with everything that’s going on, and the gnawing worry in the pit of his stomach that he’s really screwed up irrevocably this time.
What he doesn’t expect is the quiet knock on his door just as he’s checking his email for he’s lost count of which time today.
He walks to the door warily – it’s far too late for visitors, and everyone he knows would have called in an emergency, not come to his place on foot. He looks out through the peephole warily, and almost falls back on his ass in surprise when his eyes make sense of the excruciatingly familiar shape of Eames slumped against the door jamb, arms weighed down with luggage. Arthur almost falls over himself to get the door unlocked and flings it open so hard that it bounces off the wall behind it.
“Eames,” he breathes, almost afraid to speak louder than a whisper lest it breaks the illusion.
Eames’ lips curve slightly, but it hardly makes a difference to his expression – he looks shattered, drained beyond belief, and much thinner than Arthur remembers; ‘haggard’ is the word that comes to his befuddled mind. Arthur is frozen in place, part from surprise and part from a sudden paralyzing fear of what Eames is about to do – punch him? Berate him? Kiss him (oh god please)?
Eames takes a step into the room, hefts the weight of the bags forward; Arthur unfreezes and reaches to take them and help him in. One of the cases moves when he takes it, more than it should from the simple shifting of weight. Something inside it hisses and Arthur almost drops it in shock.
“Eames, there’s something alive in your case!” he splutters, and Eames chuckles gruffly, shattering the uncomfortable silence into tiny glittering fragments.
“I sure hope so,” he rasps, and his voice sounds ravaged, like it’s been weeks since he last spoke.
Arthur puts the cases by his sofa and turns to look at him again – instantly forgetting about any weird noises or strange creatures at the sight of Eames standing in his living room again after so long. “You’re here,” he says, surprised at how broken his own voice sounds. “I didn’t think—“
“You didn’t think I was going to keep my promise?” Eames cuts in when Arthur pauses, unsure of how to phrase it, and there’s something angry and restless in the way he shifts to stand closer to Arthur.
“No!” Arthur yelps, desperate to make Eames understand. “No, that’s not it at all! I—I didn’t think you’d want to come back, not after what I—god, Eames, I’m sorry, I’m so damn sorry, I can’t even tell you—“
“Arthur,” Eames interrupts, sounding so kind, it’s like a balm to his strained nerves. He reaches for Arthur’s hand, twining warm fingers with Arthur’s cold ones, and it doesn’t make sense, it should be the other way round, Eames has just come in from outside, and Arthur can’t believe that this is what he’s thinking after seeing Eames for the first time in six months.
He opens his mouth to—his thoughts scatter at the small, tentative meow that comes from one of the cases set at his feet, reminding him that he had been about to interrogate Eames before he got distracted. His head snaps down to it, and he almost jumps away in shock; only the tightening of Eames’ hand around his stop him from putting the sofa between himself and whatever creature the case houses.
Eames tries to stifle a chuckle, but Arthur knows that he must look ridiculously jumpy right now. “What the hell have you brought into my house?” Arthur demands, but there’s no heat in the unspoken threat.
Eames suddenly looks unsure, and Arthur wants to kick himself for putting that look back in his eyes. Eames visibly pulls himself together and lets go of Arthur’s hand so that he can scoot down and unlatch the little metal cover that Arthur hadn’t even noticed. He reaches inside – a second later he flinches, but doesn’t move away until he’s grasping at a large, ginger, twitchy-looking cat and extracting it from what Arthur now realises is a carrier cage; his tanned hand only bleeds a little bit from a nasty scratch across the heel. Eames winces a little as the cat squirms in his arms, but holds on tight regardless.
“You’ll have to excuse Keating, love; he’s not used to travelling, and apparently he and it don’t suit at all.”
The cat yowls angrily and tries to claw his way out of the circle of muscles that Eames has locked around it. Arthur watches him in disbelief.
“You—you brought your cat. To my flat. In New York.” He’s sure something somewhere makes perfect sense, but he’s not as yet acquainted with it.
Eames gets a panicked look in his eyes. “Oh god, you’re not allergic, are you? You never said when we talked on the phone, and I didn’t think to ask—“
“No, I’m not allergic,” Arthur hurriedly tells him, and watches the tension drain from Eames’ broad shoulders. “I just—I don’t understand. Doesn’t he live in London with you?”
“Well, he lives with me wherever I live, and I have every intention of making my residence anyplace you live.” The words are decisive, but the tone is faintly questioning, and Eames doesn’t quite manage to look him in the eye, lowering his gaze nervously to Keating’s head instead.
Something warm and fantastically joyful explodes inside Arthur’s chest as he finally manages to comprehend the very firm statement of intent that Eames is clutching to his chest. It would have been enough to have the man come to him, but he knows enough about how Eames feels about his cat to understand just what the gesture implies.
“Eames,” he says very calmly, “put the cat down.”
“What? Why?” Eames asks a little wildly, clutching at Keating even tighter. Keating looks on the verge of taking his head off in his attempted escape.
“Please put the cat down?” Arthur tries again, but Eames only looks more worried.
“You don’t like him?” Eames questions plaintively; the little-boy-lost look should not be this adorable on the face of a 34-year-old grown man, and it certainly shouldn’t make Arthur’s heart leap like that.
“I like him plenty,” Arthur allows, smiling reassuringly; “or at least I will once he calms the fuck down and stops mauling my boyfriend to death.” Eames perks up. “I want you to put him down,” Arthur explains in his best ‘placate the mad man’ tone, “because I want to kiss his dad stupid, and I don’t feel like getting my chest ripped open in the process.”
Eames drops the cat immediately. As soon as he’s free, Keating skates on the wooden floor, finds purchase on the rug and crams himself in the space between the sofa and the wall. Arthur barely notices, because at fucking last he has his arms wrapped around Eames’ neck and shoulders, and is holding on for dear life while his mouth is being devoured. He can’t stop making these small, choked noises in the back of his throat at the feels of Eames’ warm, solid body pressed to his, at the feel of dry lips dragging against his own, of a tongue flicking to wet them and tangle with his in his mouth. Eames’ familiar taste makes his head spin, makes him fight to press closer, to climb inside the mouth he has missed and missed.
Eames breaks the kiss to bury his head in Arthur’s neck, dragging his nose and his tongue over the smooth cord of muscle, his exhales making the skin prickle with sensation. Arthur tangles his fingers in the hair at the back of Eames’ head, presses him closer, tries to absorb him into his body.
They stagger into the bedroom, barely stopping to undress before they fall onto the bed. Eames’ fingers fumble with the buttons of Arthur’s shirt, clumsy with need, until Arthur swears into his mouth and rips the damned thing off over his head. His hands get caught in the cuffs and Eames groans at the sight, pinning them over his head and letting his weight sink on top of Arthur. Arthur is almost delirious, the familiar caresses spiking his need higher and higher. He wraps his legs around Eames’ waist and uses the leverage to buck into his body, rubbing their groins together. It works – Eames lets go of his wrists and instead pulls at the belt of his slacks frantically, getting them off him in record time.
Arthur manages to pull his damned shirt all the way off at last and unzips Eames’ worn jeans as quickly as he can with Eames mouthing at his stomach like that; and he definitely does not scream when Eames leans down and takes his drenched cock in his mouth and into the back of his throat in one smooth slide. He does grip his head and tug at his hair weakly, trying not to whimper when Eames circles the base tightly with one hand and teases the wet fingers of the other at his twitching hole.
Eames works two thick, long fingers inside one at a time, helping them along with little flicks of his tongue that liquefy Arthur’s spine and make him press lower, trying to push them further inside. When Eames starts scissoring them, Arthur is in real danger of passing out. Six months is a long damn time to go without sex, especially sex with someone so very addictive.
Eames finds what he’s probing for, and Arthur jerks so violently that he almost falls off the bed. Eames groans deep in his throat at the way Arthur squeezes around his digits, trying to keep them buried deep inside him, and bows his head to suck Arthur’s cock back inside the heated depth. Arthur paws at his head, trying to push him off and thrust himself deeper inside at the same time.
“Eames, please, I want you inside me, goddamn it, please, fuck!” he tries to make Eames understand, tries to tell him that he needs to feel him inside, where his body has been craving him for too long, where he belongs.
Eames withdraws his fingers and mouth, making Arthur want to kick himself for the stupid, stupid idea of ever making Eames stop—he reaches for the top drawer by the bed, rummaging inside until he lets out a triumphant grunt and holds the half-empty tube up, along with a strip of condoms. He wastes no time in equipping himself while Arthur tries not to come from the anticipation the sight alone sends thrumming through his blood; and then finally, finally, he’s pushing inside and Arthur fells like he’s falling apart, the only thing holding him together the feel of the delicious, devastating burn at the point where Eames invades his body.
When he’s finally seated, the sound that Eames makes is almost too much, as is the way he twitches inside and falls on top of Arthur, biting hard at the juncture where his neck meets his shoulder. Arthur yelps and tightens around him out of reflex and, well, after that Arthur loses all coherency and just hands all means of communication over to his body. Luckily, it seems to know exactly what to say.
---
Afterwards, Arthur lies spread-eagled on the bed, almost exactly where Eames dropped him (so to speak), too fucked-out to be bothered to move for the foreseeable future. Eames is slumped against his side, an arm and a leg thrown over him possessively, nose buried in his neck and huffing small, satisfied breaths over the damp skin.
“I used to have a spine,” Arthur muses mildly, tangling his fingers weakly in Eames’ messy hair. “Quite a fine one at that. You haven’t seen it by any chance, have you?”
Eames muffles his amused snort in Arthur’s shoulder; his voice sounds like warm honey when he speaks. “I think it ran off with my knees – no doubt to have a sordid love affair, the sneaky bastards.” He sounds fond, and sleepy, and Arthur falls in love just a little bit more.
“I find myself wondering if I should be asking you for a refund,” Eames goes on. His voice is light, but there’s a note of seriousness woven in between the teasing.
“Oh?” Arthur plays along.
“Well, you see, I was lead to believe by a certain statistic that I should be throwing you over for my one true love any time now,” Eames clarifies, and Arthur tenses under him. Eames just settles over him more comfortably. “So I keep thinking that I should be asking for a refund, because I would be universally stupid to be throwing over the very person I’m supposed to be finding,” he finishes, sounding pleased with his reasoning.
For a moment, Arthur can’t think of a single thing to say. He feels a little light-headed, which is odd, because he’s lying down already. He’s certainly giddy and grinning like a loon, though.
“You are many things, Mr Eames, but stupid is not one of them,” he says, trying for grave but ending up somewhere around embarrassingly mushy.
Eames huffs a laugh; his breath teases along Arthur’s collarbone. “Your confidence in my cognitive abilities is overwhelming, Darling,” he deadpans, pressing a kiss to the underside of Arthur’s jaw.
Arthur considers punching him, but he’s still disinclined to move, other than rubbing soothing circles on the back of the arm Eames has strewn over him. He would have liked to take a shower, but his spine still hasn’t returned, and it’d take too much effort to move for something so inconsequential, anyway – which is why he’s caught by surprise when Eames does move, and doesn’t quite let go of Arthur’s arm as he gets up.
“Come on, love. You’ll kill me in the morning if I let you fall asleep like this, and I quite enjoy my life right at the moment.” He prods Arthur’s languid body into the tiny shower stall and follows him in, where he proceeds to rub himself against him every time he adjusts the water temperature, or reaches for the soap, and – well, Arthur thinks as he tackles Eames into the wall, Arthur is only human.
---
Arthur’s alarm goes off at its usual time of 7.15AM the next morning. It is swiftly and efficiently defeated, by way of being knocked off the bedside table by a well-aimed left hook from a disgruntled Eames. Arthur peeks out from under the cover, hair flopping everywhere, sleepy eyes only cracked half-open, and proceeds to snicker quietly at the way Eames burrows back under the covers, grumbling unintelligibly about stupid o’clock in the bloody morning.
It’s a Thursday, thus it is a work day, but the way Eames clings to him disabuses Arthur of any notions regarding actually leaving the warm cocoon of blankets and pillows. He scrambles for his phone, and for the first time in his life he calls Dom to let him know he would be late for work today. Since he’s spent the last month working himself into the ground so as to avoid actually thinking about stuff he’d rather not think about, Dom is not just a little concerned about him. As soon as he hears the reason why Arthur will be in late, however, he tells him not to bother coming in at all.
“You can take one damned day off, Arthur, for god’s sake, you’re not a robot. Rest up and sort yourselves out. I’ll expect both of you in the office bright and early tomorrow morning,” he says dryly and hangs up on him.
Arthur stares at the silent cell in his hand for a moment; then he shrugs, tosses it back onto the bedside table and absolutely does not snuggle back into the warm weight behind him.
---
A few hours later, after a much more pleasant wake-up call, Arthur staggers out into the kitchen to put the coffee on and almost ends up falling to his death when something solid starts twining around his ankles. He looks down into the inquisitive brown eyes belonging to the newest addition to his household; Keating stares at him intently, small nose twitching, and Arthur can do nothing but stare back, feeling a little lost. He’s never had a pet before; his mother is allergic, and when he’d moved out he’d been much too busy to bother getting one. He crouches down and carefully reaches forward to stroke the silky fur.
Keating hesitates, shying away at first, but a moment later he headbutts Arthur’s hand, directing it over his head and shifting his whole body into the caress. Arthur scratches down his neck and Keating starts purring like a chainsaw, a deep rumble that is not at odds with the way Eames sounds when he’s waking up in the morning. Keating moves away and walks into the kitchen, leaving Arthur to follow. He starts rubbing his back against Arthur’s legs again, and Arthur is faced with the dilemma of having no idea what to feed his significant other’s cat. Keating is quite insistent by now, mrowling incessantly as Arthur pokes into his fridge and wonders if last night’s leftover chicken chow mein constitutes a healthy breakfast for cats.
Eames ambles in just as Keating is polishing off the leftover container and Arthur is sipping at his second cup of coffee for the day, and makes a beeline for the coffee pot. It’s almost gone lunchtime by then, but Eames is still dressed in an old pair of sweatpants and a faded T-shirt of Arthur’s that almost fits him now that he’s lost so much weight. Arthur decides then and there that he’s going to shove food into him until he bursts.
Eames makes the same detour by the fridge that had defeated Arthur earlier and spends a good five minutes with his head poking inside, until the open door starts beeping in protest. He emerges, finally, with a day-old container half-full of curry, and looks at Arthur reproachfully.
“Shopping,” he declares decisively. “Now that I’m back home, I don’t see the need to compromise with leftovers any more.”
Arthur nods sedately, trying and failing to keep a silly smile from taking over his face, until he has to duck his face to maintain any sort of dignity. It’s not like he’s had the time (or the inclination) to shop for food or to cook recently, but he can feel the latter recovering in leaps and bounds.
Eames proceeds to drink the rest of the coffee, appropriates yesterday’s newspaper, and generally makes a nuisance of himself while filling in the crossword until Arthur almost forgets that he only got him back earlier this morning. Before he knows it, the spaces in the dresser and in the wardrobe that have stood empty for months and months will be filled again with eye-watering prints and colours that defy belief and understanding, and the bathroom will get cluttered again with half-empty tubes of toothpaste and at least three toothbrushes (he still has no idea why Eames needs more than one, but he does know that the sight of his toothbrush all alone in the holder has tormented him almost unbearably all this time). He smiles to himself happily and pesters Eames until he capitulates and tells him the clue for 10 across.
END
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: NC-17
Part One
Eames does call him some ten hours later, when Arthur’s only just coming to from the night before.
“It’s pissing it down, it’s freezing, my suitcase is muddy, and my sister’s insisting on me going round to hers tomorrow morning, says Valerie’s missed her uncle more than any three-year-old is supposed to. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.”
Eames sounds exhausted, but despite the deplorable headache trying to knock his head off his shoulders Arthur is so happy to hear his voice that he could cry.
“Was the flight horrible?” he asks, voice gruff from too much vodka and feeling sorry for himself the night before, a cocktail made in hell.
“Yeah,” Eames groans, and Arthur hears a solid thump and another groan down the line that he interprets as Eames throwing himself down on his sofa. “An awful, grasping blonde would not take my word for it that I am very much taken, despite me swearing on any god or saint she’d care to name,” he grumbles, and mixed with the irritation Arthur detects a fondness in his voice that makes him warm all over and does wonders for his headache.
“Well, get some sleep before your sister brings your damned cat back tomorrow, he’s bound to be upset with you for being gone so long.”
“Nah, Keating’s a big softie; he’ll just rip the sofa apart, nothing it hasn’t seen before.” There’s a massive yawn coming through loud and clear, and Arthur thinks wistfully of two nights ago, when Eames was still making that sound in his ear and not from the other side of the ocean.
“Get some sleep, Mr Eames,” Arthur tells him gently. He’s rather afraid that hell would freeze over before he stops missing Eames.
“G’night, darling,” Eames mutters, and there’s a slight pause before the line disconnects.
Arthur drops the phone onto the bedside table and buries his face back down in the pillow that still smells like Eames, trying to sink back into blissful unconsciousness.
---
Two weeks turn into a month, and Eames still calls him every night, 8PM sharp Arthur’s time no matter where in the world he’s been sent to that week.
It’s “Darling, you should see what Keating did to that Statue of Liberty rubber duck I brought him, I’m not sure there’s a part of it not scratched or bitten to death yet,” and
“Arthur, be a love and send me those spreadsheets on my email, will you, I need to file for expenses with the top brass,” and
“If we go on like this, we’ll have wasted enough money on phone bills for ten plane tickets. Now, I know you hate it, darling, but I have made the sacrifice to sign on to AIM, and so should you!”
And it doesn’t stop. Arthur can’t quite believe it, but he is allowing himself to tentatively hope that maybe, just maybe, it might work out this time.
---
Two months turn into four, and Arthur’s hope slowly withers and fades.
“I said I’m sorry, love, I’m so sorry, but I just can’t make it next week. Cobol has me by the short hairs; if I don’t finish that job in Mombasa the bastards won’t release me from my contract earlier, like I’ve asked,” Eames rasps, sounding frustrated and miserable.
“Fine,” Arthur says, and he knows he’s being unfair – it’s not Eames’ fault that Cobol haven’t honoured their agreement, and are pushing for Eames to complete a full year’s notice before releasing him from his contract rather than the six months it stipulates. Damn it all to hell, though, he misses him, and it hurts.
“Darling,” Eames says, and he sounds exhausted. Arthur feels like a dick.
“Don’t worry about it,” he tells him, and it’s still aloof, but he’s trying. “Worst case scenario, it’s just another two months, right?”
“Right,” Eames replies, but there’s a pause before he speaks, a slight hesitation that makes Arthur sit up and take notice.
“Eames. Is there something you’re not telling me?” he asks, instantly suspicious.
“I might not make it for Ariadne’s wedding,” Eames admits, and the bottom of Arthur’s stomach drops out.
“I see,” Arthur says, not seeing at all; or rather, seeing only too well.
There’s such a long silence that Arthur thinks the line’s cut off – it happens sometimes when it’s such a long-distance call. Eames does not explain, and Arthur is too morose to ask.
“Are you ever coming back?” he doesn’t say; except that he does, it slips out without his permission and he immediately wants to take it back when there’s a sharply indrawn breath on the other side of the phone.
“Arthur.” There’s reproach and hurt in the tone, and Arthur wants to die. “You don’t trust me.” And there it is.
“Of course I t—I tr—“ Arthur tries, but it won’t come out past the huge lump in his throat.
There’s a bitter laugh on the other end. “Listen to yourself, you can’t even say it,” Eames accuses, and Arthur chokes miserably. “After everything, after everything, Arthur, goddamn it, I can’t believe you’re running away again. Fuck!” Eames growls, and ‘fuck’’s right, Arthur’s such a colossal ass, because no one who cares as little as Eames supposedly does about him should sound so unhappy and defeated.
“Eames,” Arthur starts to say (to apologise, to grovel) but Eames cuts him off.
“I can’t do this right now. I—I’ll call you, okay?” Eames says, and the quiet click of the call being terminated is the loudest thing Arthur has ever heard.
---
When Ariadne hears about this – or rather, when she interrogates it out of him – she looks like she wants to strangle him with her bare hands.
“Arthur, you absolute idiot,” she yells, oblivious of the startled glances from the other patrons at their usual coffee shop; Arthur cringes in his seat. “I can’t believe you did this to yourself, again. I’m starting to think that you don’t want to be in a proper relationship at all!”
Arthur doesn’t say anything. Normally he’d have points, arguments, whole cases prepared in his defence, but this time he knows there’s nothing to say that might excuse his lack of faith in the one person that might have proven to be the exception to the rule.
“When was this again?” Ariadne asks, at a more decorous volume this time.
“Five days ago,” Arthur replies, subdued. He hadn’t thought it possible to miss Eames more than he already did, but not hearing his voice at all is even worse than hearing him upset and shouting.
Ariadne scowls at him, but he can see her devious mind coming up with a plan already. “Okay, I wasn’t going to tell you this – I didn’t want you to get your hopes up too much, but that was before you went and acted like such a monumental ass. Dom wants to offer Eames a permanent spot in the firm. Says he’s the best consultant he’s ever worked with, and he and Mal are thinking of expanding, opening an office in LA so that they could move the kids somewhere warmer. You, me and Eames would stay here and handle the New York branch; we’d keep the staff and Dom and Mal will hire some new people out of LA. Now you’re trying to screw all that good stuff right up! Dom’s going to be pissed when he finds out!” she squints at him. It’s surprisingly terrifying.
Arthur stares at her while he runs the scenario over and over in his head, already working out the angles and the logistics of integrating an office in another city into the larger scheme of their business. The thought of working, maybe even living with Eames for the foreseeable future, derails his planning and makes his insides tie up in knots of anticipation and longing; then his brain comes back online.
“Wait, Eames is in Mombasa, Cobol’s still got him on contract. He won’t be able to get free for months yet.”
Ariadne smirks. “Cobb’s sicced Saito on Cobol. As our biggest investor, he’s perfectly placed to gain a substantial return from the coast-to-coast expansion, so it’s in his best interests to get Eames out of Cobol’s grasp as quickly as possible. He’s got about a month—month and a half at the most to go before he’s worked his notice and he can leave, Saito’s lawyers will see to that.”
There’s something vicious in Ariadne when she sets out to defend one of her own, Arthur observes with the part of his mind that isn’t dancing with glee at the prospect of sticking it to Cobol. He smiles for what feels like the first time in weeks. It slides right off his face when Ariadne refocuses her attention on him.
“Now then. How are we going to fix this mess you’ve made of your personal life?” she asks, and there’s a twinkle in her eye that should worry Arthur. Instead, it makes him feel like laughing out loud with a sudden, visceral joy.
---
It’s been a week since the infamous phone call, and he’s heard not a word from Eames. Arthur sits at his kitchen table and picks at a loose thread on the cuff of his shirtsleeve, a cardinal sin he’d shoot himself for if he were even aware of doing it. Pulled up on the screen of his laptop is an email waiting to be sent, an open window blank but for the small, humble three lines of black ink that could change everything.
“I’m sorry.
I love you.
Please.”
He could write whole treatises on apology, and fear, and regret, but somehow the words won’t come when applied to the simple setting of him and Eames and the way he feels about him. So he hopes that the man is as infuriatingly perceptive as always, and will read between the lines (few as they are). And if that doesn’t work… Arthur spares a glance for the attachment that he has guarded jealously for so long, a certain statistical evaluation that only he and Ariadne know of. He hopes it’s enough for Eames to at least understand where Arthur’s coming from. He’d be a liar if he said that he isn’t hoping for another chance, but after wasting two already he’s not too optimistic.
He knocks back the tumbler of whisky he’s been nursing and lets out a long sigh. Well, here goes nothing. He presses ‘send’.
---
Another three weeks go by and Eames doesn’t call, or email, or IM. Only the job of extracting him from Cobol’s clutches is stopping Arthur from becoming a mess of anxiety and dejection. He’s appropriated the task of co-ordinating the effort, getting together all the research and playing the go-between for Saito, his lawyers, and Cobb. All the while he waits with bated breath for any word of the proceedings, any word from Eames.
He expects Saito’s people to call him with the outcome of the negotiations, never mind that it’s 2AM New York time; he hardly sleeps at all these days, what with everything that’s going on, and the gnawing worry in the pit of his stomach that he’s really screwed up irrevocably this time.
What he doesn’t expect is the quiet knock on his door just as he’s checking his email for he’s lost count of which time today.
He walks to the door warily – it’s far too late for visitors, and everyone he knows would have called in an emergency, not come to his place on foot. He looks out through the peephole warily, and almost falls back on his ass in surprise when his eyes make sense of the excruciatingly familiar shape of Eames slumped against the door jamb, arms weighed down with luggage. Arthur almost falls over himself to get the door unlocked and flings it open so hard that it bounces off the wall behind it.
“Eames,” he breathes, almost afraid to speak louder than a whisper lest it breaks the illusion.
Eames’ lips curve slightly, but it hardly makes a difference to his expression – he looks shattered, drained beyond belief, and much thinner than Arthur remembers; ‘haggard’ is the word that comes to his befuddled mind. Arthur is frozen in place, part from surprise and part from a sudden paralyzing fear of what Eames is about to do – punch him? Berate him? Kiss him (oh god please)?
Eames takes a step into the room, hefts the weight of the bags forward; Arthur unfreezes and reaches to take them and help him in. One of the cases moves when he takes it, more than it should from the simple shifting of weight. Something inside it hisses and Arthur almost drops it in shock.
“Eames, there’s something alive in your case!” he splutters, and Eames chuckles gruffly, shattering the uncomfortable silence into tiny glittering fragments.
“I sure hope so,” he rasps, and his voice sounds ravaged, like it’s been weeks since he last spoke.
Arthur puts the cases by his sofa and turns to look at him again – instantly forgetting about any weird noises or strange creatures at the sight of Eames standing in his living room again after so long. “You’re here,” he says, surprised at how broken his own voice sounds. “I didn’t think—“
“You didn’t think I was going to keep my promise?” Eames cuts in when Arthur pauses, unsure of how to phrase it, and there’s something angry and restless in the way he shifts to stand closer to Arthur.
“No!” Arthur yelps, desperate to make Eames understand. “No, that’s not it at all! I—I didn’t think you’d want to come back, not after what I—god, Eames, I’m sorry, I’m so damn sorry, I can’t even tell you—“
“Arthur,” Eames interrupts, sounding so kind, it’s like a balm to his strained nerves. He reaches for Arthur’s hand, twining warm fingers with Arthur’s cold ones, and it doesn’t make sense, it should be the other way round, Eames has just come in from outside, and Arthur can’t believe that this is what he’s thinking after seeing Eames for the first time in six months.
He opens his mouth to—his thoughts scatter at the small, tentative meow that comes from one of the cases set at his feet, reminding him that he had been about to interrogate Eames before he got distracted. His head snaps down to it, and he almost jumps away in shock; only the tightening of Eames’ hand around his stop him from putting the sofa between himself and whatever creature the case houses.
Eames tries to stifle a chuckle, but Arthur knows that he must look ridiculously jumpy right now. “What the hell have you brought into my house?” Arthur demands, but there’s no heat in the unspoken threat.
Eames suddenly looks unsure, and Arthur wants to kick himself for putting that look back in his eyes. Eames visibly pulls himself together and lets go of Arthur’s hand so that he can scoot down and unlatch the little metal cover that Arthur hadn’t even noticed. He reaches inside – a second later he flinches, but doesn’t move away until he’s grasping at a large, ginger, twitchy-looking cat and extracting it from what Arthur now realises is a carrier cage; his tanned hand only bleeds a little bit from a nasty scratch across the heel. Eames winces a little as the cat squirms in his arms, but holds on tight regardless.
“You’ll have to excuse Keating, love; he’s not used to travelling, and apparently he and it don’t suit at all.”
The cat yowls angrily and tries to claw his way out of the circle of muscles that Eames has locked around it. Arthur watches him in disbelief.
“You—you brought your cat. To my flat. In New York.” He’s sure something somewhere makes perfect sense, but he’s not as yet acquainted with it.
Eames gets a panicked look in his eyes. “Oh god, you’re not allergic, are you? You never said when we talked on the phone, and I didn’t think to ask—“
“No, I’m not allergic,” Arthur hurriedly tells him, and watches the tension drain from Eames’ broad shoulders. “I just—I don’t understand. Doesn’t he live in London with you?”
“Well, he lives with me wherever I live, and I have every intention of making my residence anyplace you live.” The words are decisive, but the tone is faintly questioning, and Eames doesn’t quite manage to look him in the eye, lowering his gaze nervously to Keating’s head instead.
Something warm and fantastically joyful explodes inside Arthur’s chest as he finally manages to comprehend the very firm statement of intent that Eames is clutching to his chest. It would have been enough to have the man come to him, but he knows enough about how Eames feels about his cat to understand just what the gesture implies.
“Eames,” he says very calmly, “put the cat down.”
“What? Why?” Eames asks a little wildly, clutching at Keating even tighter. Keating looks on the verge of taking his head off in his attempted escape.
“Please put the cat down?” Arthur tries again, but Eames only looks more worried.
“You don’t like him?” Eames questions plaintively; the little-boy-lost look should not be this adorable on the face of a 34-year-old grown man, and it certainly shouldn’t make Arthur’s heart leap like that.
“I like him plenty,” Arthur allows, smiling reassuringly; “or at least I will once he calms the fuck down and stops mauling my boyfriend to death.” Eames perks up. “I want you to put him down,” Arthur explains in his best ‘placate the mad man’ tone, “because I want to kiss his dad stupid, and I don’t feel like getting my chest ripped open in the process.”
Eames drops the cat immediately. As soon as he’s free, Keating skates on the wooden floor, finds purchase on the rug and crams himself in the space between the sofa and the wall. Arthur barely notices, because at fucking last he has his arms wrapped around Eames’ neck and shoulders, and is holding on for dear life while his mouth is being devoured. He can’t stop making these small, choked noises in the back of his throat at the feels of Eames’ warm, solid body pressed to his, at the feel of dry lips dragging against his own, of a tongue flicking to wet them and tangle with his in his mouth. Eames’ familiar taste makes his head spin, makes him fight to press closer, to climb inside the mouth he has missed and missed.
Eames breaks the kiss to bury his head in Arthur’s neck, dragging his nose and his tongue over the smooth cord of muscle, his exhales making the skin prickle with sensation. Arthur tangles his fingers in the hair at the back of Eames’ head, presses him closer, tries to absorb him into his body.
They stagger into the bedroom, barely stopping to undress before they fall onto the bed. Eames’ fingers fumble with the buttons of Arthur’s shirt, clumsy with need, until Arthur swears into his mouth and rips the damned thing off over his head. His hands get caught in the cuffs and Eames groans at the sight, pinning them over his head and letting his weight sink on top of Arthur. Arthur is almost delirious, the familiar caresses spiking his need higher and higher. He wraps his legs around Eames’ waist and uses the leverage to buck into his body, rubbing their groins together. It works – Eames lets go of his wrists and instead pulls at the belt of his slacks frantically, getting them off him in record time.
Arthur manages to pull his damned shirt all the way off at last and unzips Eames’ worn jeans as quickly as he can with Eames mouthing at his stomach like that; and he definitely does not scream when Eames leans down and takes his drenched cock in his mouth and into the back of his throat in one smooth slide. He does grip his head and tug at his hair weakly, trying not to whimper when Eames circles the base tightly with one hand and teases the wet fingers of the other at his twitching hole.
Eames works two thick, long fingers inside one at a time, helping them along with little flicks of his tongue that liquefy Arthur’s spine and make him press lower, trying to push them further inside. When Eames starts scissoring them, Arthur is in real danger of passing out. Six months is a long damn time to go without sex, especially sex with someone so very addictive.
Eames finds what he’s probing for, and Arthur jerks so violently that he almost falls off the bed. Eames groans deep in his throat at the way Arthur squeezes around his digits, trying to keep them buried deep inside him, and bows his head to suck Arthur’s cock back inside the heated depth. Arthur paws at his head, trying to push him off and thrust himself deeper inside at the same time.
“Eames, please, I want you inside me, goddamn it, please, fuck!” he tries to make Eames understand, tries to tell him that he needs to feel him inside, where his body has been craving him for too long, where he belongs.
Eames withdraws his fingers and mouth, making Arthur want to kick himself for the stupid, stupid idea of ever making Eames stop—he reaches for the top drawer by the bed, rummaging inside until he lets out a triumphant grunt and holds the half-empty tube up, along with a strip of condoms. He wastes no time in equipping himself while Arthur tries not to come from the anticipation the sight alone sends thrumming through his blood; and then finally, finally, he’s pushing inside and Arthur fells like he’s falling apart, the only thing holding him together the feel of the delicious, devastating burn at the point where Eames invades his body.
When he’s finally seated, the sound that Eames makes is almost too much, as is the way he twitches inside and falls on top of Arthur, biting hard at the juncture where his neck meets his shoulder. Arthur yelps and tightens around him out of reflex and, well, after that Arthur loses all coherency and just hands all means of communication over to his body. Luckily, it seems to know exactly what to say.
---
Afterwards, Arthur lies spread-eagled on the bed, almost exactly where Eames dropped him (so to speak), too fucked-out to be bothered to move for the foreseeable future. Eames is slumped against his side, an arm and a leg thrown over him possessively, nose buried in his neck and huffing small, satisfied breaths over the damp skin.
“I used to have a spine,” Arthur muses mildly, tangling his fingers weakly in Eames’ messy hair. “Quite a fine one at that. You haven’t seen it by any chance, have you?”
Eames muffles his amused snort in Arthur’s shoulder; his voice sounds like warm honey when he speaks. “I think it ran off with my knees – no doubt to have a sordid love affair, the sneaky bastards.” He sounds fond, and sleepy, and Arthur falls in love just a little bit more.
“I find myself wondering if I should be asking you for a refund,” Eames goes on. His voice is light, but there’s a note of seriousness woven in between the teasing.
“Oh?” Arthur plays along.
“Well, you see, I was lead to believe by a certain statistic that I should be throwing you over for my one true love any time now,” Eames clarifies, and Arthur tenses under him. Eames just settles over him more comfortably. “So I keep thinking that I should be asking for a refund, because I would be universally stupid to be throwing over the very person I’m supposed to be finding,” he finishes, sounding pleased with his reasoning.
For a moment, Arthur can’t think of a single thing to say. He feels a little light-headed, which is odd, because he’s lying down already. He’s certainly giddy and grinning like a loon, though.
“You are many things, Mr Eames, but stupid is not one of them,” he says, trying for grave but ending up somewhere around embarrassingly mushy.
Eames huffs a laugh; his breath teases along Arthur’s collarbone. “Your confidence in my cognitive abilities is overwhelming, Darling,” he deadpans, pressing a kiss to the underside of Arthur’s jaw.
Arthur considers punching him, but he’s still disinclined to move, other than rubbing soothing circles on the back of the arm Eames has strewn over him. He would have liked to take a shower, but his spine still hasn’t returned, and it’d take too much effort to move for something so inconsequential, anyway – which is why he’s caught by surprise when Eames does move, and doesn’t quite let go of Arthur’s arm as he gets up.
“Come on, love. You’ll kill me in the morning if I let you fall asleep like this, and I quite enjoy my life right at the moment.” He prods Arthur’s languid body into the tiny shower stall and follows him in, where he proceeds to rub himself against him every time he adjusts the water temperature, or reaches for the soap, and – well, Arthur thinks as he tackles Eames into the wall, Arthur is only human.
---
Arthur’s alarm goes off at its usual time of 7.15AM the next morning. It is swiftly and efficiently defeated, by way of being knocked off the bedside table by a well-aimed left hook from a disgruntled Eames. Arthur peeks out from under the cover, hair flopping everywhere, sleepy eyes only cracked half-open, and proceeds to snicker quietly at the way Eames burrows back under the covers, grumbling unintelligibly about stupid o’clock in the bloody morning.
It’s a Thursday, thus it is a work day, but the way Eames clings to him disabuses Arthur of any notions regarding actually leaving the warm cocoon of blankets and pillows. He scrambles for his phone, and for the first time in his life he calls Dom to let him know he would be late for work today. Since he’s spent the last month working himself into the ground so as to avoid actually thinking about stuff he’d rather not think about, Dom is not just a little concerned about him. As soon as he hears the reason why Arthur will be in late, however, he tells him not to bother coming in at all.
“You can take one damned day off, Arthur, for god’s sake, you’re not a robot. Rest up and sort yourselves out. I’ll expect both of you in the office bright and early tomorrow morning,” he says dryly and hangs up on him.
Arthur stares at the silent cell in his hand for a moment; then he shrugs, tosses it back onto the bedside table and absolutely does not snuggle back into the warm weight behind him.
---
A few hours later, after a much more pleasant wake-up call, Arthur staggers out into the kitchen to put the coffee on and almost ends up falling to his death when something solid starts twining around his ankles. He looks down into the inquisitive brown eyes belonging to the newest addition to his household; Keating stares at him intently, small nose twitching, and Arthur can do nothing but stare back, feeling a little lost. He’s never had a pet before; his mother is allergic, and when he’d moved out he’d been much too busy to bother getting one. He crouches down and carefully reaches forward to stroke the silky fur.
Keating hesitates, shying away at first, but a moment later he headbutts Arthur’s hand, directing it over his head and shifting his whole body into the caress. Arthur scratches down his neck and Keating starts purring like a chainsaw, a deep rumble that is not at odds with the way Eames sounds when he’s waking up in the morning. Keating moves away and walks into the kitchen, leaving Arthur to follow. He starts rubbing his back against Arthur’s legs again, and Arthur is faced with the dilemma of having no idea what to feed his significant other’s cat. Keating is quite insistent by now, mrowling incessantly as Arthur pokes into his fridge and wonders if last night’s leftover chicken chow mein constitutes a healthy breakfast for cats.
Eames ambles in just as Keating is polishing off the leftover container and Arthur is sipping at his second cup of coffee for the day, and makes a beeline for the coffee pot. It’s almost gone lunchtime by then, but Eames is still dressed in an old pair of sweatpants and a faded T-shirt of Arthur’s that almost fits him now that he’s lost so much weight. Arthur decides then and there that he’s going to shove food into him until he bursts.
Eames makes the same detour by the fridge that had defeated Arthur earlier and spends a good five minutes with his head poking inside, until the open door starts beeping in protest. He emerges, finally, with a day-old container half-full of curry, and looks at Arthur reproachfully.
“Shopping,” he declares decisively. “Now that I’m back home, I don’t see the need to compromise with leftovers any more.”
Arthur nods sedately, trying and failing to keep a silly smile from taking over his face, until he has to duck his face to maintain any sort of dignity. It’s not like he’s had the time (or the inclination) to shop for food or to cook recently, but he can feel the latter recovering in leaps and bounds.
Eames proceeds to drink the rest of the coffee, appropriates yesterday’s newspaper, and generally makes a nuisance of himself while filling in the crossword until Arthur almost forgets that he only got him back earlier this morning. Before he knows it, the spaces in the dresser and in the wardrobe that have stood empty for months and months will be filled again with eye-watering prints and colours that defy belief and understanding, and the bathroom will get cluttered again with half-empty tubes of toothpaste and at least three toothbrushes (he still has no idea why Eames needs more than one, but he does know that the sight of his toothbrush all alone in the holder has tormented him almost unbearably all this time). He smiles to himself happily and pesters Eames until he capitulates and tells him the clue for 10 across.
END
no subject
Date: 2010-10-13 01:50 pm (UTC)