Archive of Our Own ^beta

In the spring, they commit to working back to back jobs together with a quick turnaround, giving themselves just two days to get from Barcelona to San Francisco and shake off their jet lag.

The first extraction, though relatively simple once they’re under, requires a grueling three months of preparation to get their ducks in a row; they charge the client a small fortune, of course, and Barcelona in the spring is lovely, but it’s getting to Eames, the monotony of being betwixt and between. He’s not quite at leisure to enjoy the city, thrumming with sex and several-wine-bottle-dinners stretching late into the night, followed by dancing; but he’s not quite up on the high of a knife’s edge job, living out of the warehouse on coffee and takeout, in and out of dreams testing levels and compounds, the buzz of rapid fire brainstorming with the team.

No, this Barcelona job is slow and steady, appropriately helmed by Arthur, who walks the middle path neatly and with implacable calm. Arthur, who hangs his suit jacket on the back of his chair and rolls up his sleeves when he sits down at his laptop to research, research, research. He adjusts to the lazy summer hours and siesta schedule the mark, his mistress, and his associates are keeping, but he expects the team to assemble every morning at ten for a debriefing before scattering to their desks for building or across the city for the intricate recon necessary to pull the dream and the job together. Eames, the extractor, the architect, and the chemist—well, during the week she’s onsite—fall into line.

They pull the job off. Eames isn’t quite bored out of his mind. The forge is an interesting one, though not quite fascinating enough to hold his interest for three months—and then there’s Arthur.

Something has shifted between the two of them since the inception job.

Here’s what happened in Los Angeles: Eames was lingering at the baggage claim, looking for Arthur.

As they shuffled off the plane, Arthur had stepped right up into his personal space, pressing that lithe body of his against Eames’s back and breathing down his neck. “You need a ride.” It wasn’t even a question; what the fuck. “Let me give you a ride to your hotel.”

So where had Arthur disappeared? Eames was fairly certain the inarticulate whimper he had bit back as Arthur’s lips brushed against his ear was an unmistakable well, alright then, Arthur.

After several long minutes, Eames almost cut out for the taxi line; he’d hung around to see if Dom would get hauled away by airport security out of human interest and, well, a sense of self-preservation, but now that that touching moment had passed, he was itching to put some distance between himself and the job.

Finally, there Arthur was. Hands in suit pockets, cool as anything. He nodded to Eames, and Eames followed him out of the terminal, all the way to extended parking, where Arthur proceeded to apparently hack a chrome-colored Tesla, using a stolen fob and an iPhone that he promptly smashed once he’d unlocked the car.

“I’ve been wanting to drive one of these,” he said as Eames tossed their bags in the back and hurried to climb into the passenger seat.

“Lovely,” Eames said, thinking of Arthur’s determined driving in that hellscape of a first level, how he had whipped around in the driver’s seat after the first shots, yelling Eames’s name, face alive with panic and concern. “Now that we’re richer than God, you could just buy one, you know.”

Arthur smiled. He looked relaxed now, behind the wheel, easing the Tesla from its parking space and gunning it out of the parking garage, taking the corners fast but with control. Eames fought the temptation to look behind them for pursuers. Arthur’s driving took him back to the first level so viscerally. He settled for hastening to clip his seat belt into place.

“Saito’s richer than God,” Arthur mused. “We’re just richer than—”

“Idols and demigods? CEOs and corrupt politicians?”

“Sure.”

They were zig-zagging through surface streets in the fly over neighborhood. Eames tried to relax. Careful, methodical Arthur. His driving had to be as precise and dependable—as quality—as his work. There was no need for Eames to be so on edge. His nerves were raw; that was understandable, after wrapping a job like that. He had left Arthur on the second level with regret, putting a brave face on it, had tried not to think about how they might not make it out together.

Arthur swung the Tesla onto a freeway ramp, nearly clipping a parked car; they began to pick up speed—faster, faster, definitely above the speed limit—weaving between lanes and other cars.

Eames curled his fingers into his palms and breathed in, breathed out. Thought about reaching for the radio dial, thought better of it. Arthur was certainly one of those Americans who would take your hand off for an offense like that. “You know,” Eames said again, “We could find a hotel, go under. I know you have the PASIV.”

“You want to go under again? Already? Jesus. I don’t think you could pay me enough to shoot up Somnacin right now.”

“Well, actually, I couldn’t agree more,” Eames admitted. “It’s just—don’t take this the wrong way, darling, but you’re kind of a terrifying driver—”

“I’m an excellent driver.”

“— and I’d rather you get your road rage out downstairs, where we won’t die permanently in twisted, fiery wreckage.”

“Would you pull me out of the fiery wreckage and hold me in your arms, Mr. Eames?”

Eames had done more or less that on a few jobs over the years—cradling Arthur while he bled out, tying hasty tourniquets, putting his field medic training to good use—trying to prolong Arthur’s participation in the dream, forgetting just a little every time that he would wake up with Arthur sharp and intact next to him. On those occasions when Arthur had been pliant under his touch, Eames had relished the intimacy brought on by the blood loss, he couldn’t deny it.

So it was a foolish question. “You know I would.”

Arthur laughed. And veered in front of a BMW. The driver lay on the horn—the sound was not as jarring as it should have been, because they had already left the car behind. Eames glanced over at the speedometer and felt his pulse quicken. Where was that famous LA gridlock when you needed it?

“Seriously, pet, you’re giving me Thelma and Louise vibes right now.”

“You’re such a killjoy,” Arthur said. But he slowed the car down.

Eames let his breath out. “There are other ways to live dangerously.”

“Are you offering to fuck me, Mr. Eames?”

Eames almost choked on his own saliva—because, good Lord, yes, Eames had been offering to fuck Arthur for years: flirtation, innuendos, being brilliant on the job until Arthur looked at him appraisingly, as if seeing him anew, and said something droll; “Eames, I am impressed.” Not subtle, but not outright declarations of intention either.

Eames looked at Arthur, who was just driving, eyes on the road, maneuvering the Tesla from the freeway into the curve of an off ramp far, far too fast. What should Eames say? The truth, or some evasion? Perhaps Arthur was just playing with him. Arthur, driving with a death wish, Eames’s life in his hands; oh yes, Arthur was certainly playing with him.

Somehow, screeching, they made the impossible turn.

“This thing can corner,” Arthur murmured with appreciation and surprise.

The sunlight was fading, giving way to streetlights and storefronts, to Chevron sign beacons, rainbow oil slicks, and constellations of safety glass glinting at the shoulder of the road. Arthur whipped left at the end of the ramp without waiting for the light, directly into the path of a souped up Camaro.

Eames had only a frozen second to wonder how bad the accident would be, if a head-on at this speed would be enough to cause fatalities, what he should say.

“I want to fuck you,” he shouted into the roar of metal on metal.

With cat reflexes, Arthur threw them as far to the right as he could, so that mercifully the cars grazed bumpers and tore at each other’s sides instead of colliding head on. The Tesla was thrown up across the sidewalk but stopped short of ramming the concrete wall of the underpass. Somehow, the airbags didn’t deploy.

In the mirror, Eames saw a man extricate himself from the Camaro and stalk toward them, spitting profanities. Arthur didn’t even move; he rolled down the window and tossed a wallet at the man, palming the cards from it first. The man caught the wallet reflexively.

“Just go,” Arthur said. He didn’t even need to pull out his gun; his voice was leaden with the threat of further danger.

The man looked at the wallet and the bills inside, looked back at Arthur. He got into his scuffed Camaro and drove away.

Arthur rolled the window back up. He turned the car off. Only then did he slump against the seat. “Fuck,” Arthur said, winded. “That was—fuck.”

“That was—” Exactly what Eames had been expecting to happen for the last half hour. “Yeah, fuck.”

Eames was positive he’d have nasty whiplash tomorrow; he raised a tentative hand to his neck. The seatbelt was tight across his chest, unyielding. He unbuckled it with a wince. They were lucky the airbags hadn’t erupted straight into their faces. He felt a sort of morbid curiosity, like a desire to get out and examine the Tesla’s front fender, which must be dented and scraped all to hell. Instead, he turned to Arthur. He should have felt angry—he’d asked Arthur to stop driving like a maniac—but he didn’t feel angry yet. He felt—calm? Numb? Poised right at the skin, surface layer of his experience. Perceiving, reacting without letting deeper analysis and emotions rear up. The way he had gotten through the first and third levels. Not thinking too hard about what could go wrong. Trusting Arthur.

Arthur clicked open his seatbelt. He was breathing heavy, lips parted; his slicked back hair had shaken loose across his face. One hand was white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and the other was—the other was pressed to his crotch. Eames stared. Arthur’s legs were splayed wide across the leather seat, and yes—there was no disguising it—he was palming his cock through the fabric of his suit.

“Arthur,” Eames said.

“Fuck,” Arthur repeated. He looked at Eames, and—yes—it was an invitation. Arthur threw his head back against the seat with a groan as Eames pushed his hand aside to work open his flies and free Arthur’s stiff, leaking cock. “Put your mouth on it,” Arthur said. “I want to fuck your mouth.”

The angle was awkward, and Eames’s neck hurt, damn it, but before Arthur could ask twice, Eames was bent over the console, his face pressed in Arthur’s groin, taking Arthur’s cock; Eames felt the press against the back of his throat as Arthur thrust up into his mouth. The taste of Arthur’s pre-come, the sting of tears in his eyes as he fought not to choke, the sharp pain of Arthur’s fingers yanking on his hair—it was so good. Eames didn’t care that it wasn’t even completely dark outside and that they were halfway up the sidewalk under a freeway. Arthur was moaning. With no more warning than the stiffening of his body, he came down Eames’s throat, and Eames pulled off him, sputtering but still licking him, unwilling for it to be over, unwilling to stop sucking his cock.

“You’re so good,” Arthur murmured. Eames wondered if Arthur would kiss him, but he didn’t—just kept his hawk eyes pinned on Eames as he worked his long-fingered hand into Eames’s pants and jacked him off in several long strokes.

“Okay,” Arthur said into the aftershocks of Eames’s orgasm. “Let’s get out of here.”

They walked down to the end of the block, where Arthur called a Lyft to—as promised—drop Eames off at his hotel.

“So, what do you think?” Eames asked before climbing out—as much of an offer as he could manage in that moment.

Arthur looked out the window. “The Tesla was alright. Goodbye, Mr. Eames.”

So that’s what happened in Los Angeles. But seriously, Eames wonders, what the fuck happened in Los Angeles?

Just two days between jobs, and Arthur shows up in San Francisco looking like someone mean has worked him over with a crowbar. Did the Barcelona job go south? Apparently not. The money is in their accounts, and Arthur assures him that he hasn’t heard a sour word from anyone involved. So what happened? Arthur’s brow is swollen and bruised surrounding a cut that bisects his eyebrow. His lip is split. He’s walking like he’s trying to smooth out a limp and favoring his right arm like he’s dislocated his shoulder. There are abrasions on his hands, the right side of his face. Who knows what further damage his crisp, tailored gray suit hides.

So, nothing happened with the job. Is Arthur entangled with somebody else in the business? No. Did he get mugged? Jumped? Pick a bar fight unwisely? Has he been indulging in heavy impact play, chained up in some dungeon, paying through the teeth to have the shit beat out of him? Well, they are in San Francisco.

Whatever happened, Arthur isn’t talking. He doesn’t seem worried, like there’s some hit or hidden shame or devil’s bargain hanging over his head. In fact, he seems…cheerful, when Eames isn’t pestering him with questions. He walks around their sublet loft space with a spring in his shuffling step; he overtips the takeout joint; he laughs at the architect’s jokes.  

Eames is perplexed. More than that: he’s upset. Concerned. He wants to seriously fuck up whoever laid hands on Arthur.

“What’s gotten into you,” Arthur wonders one night when Eames gets up to leave their workspace. Eames pulls on his coat, shoves his files into his bag, and gets ready to slink back to the hotel to drink and to stew. The bruise over Arthur’s eye has lightened from an awful black purple to a greenish hue; or maybe that’s just the light of his laptop in the too dark room, casting a sick, cyborg pallor over his point man’s busted features. Arthur’s leaning back in his seat, watching Eames. His legs are propped up on a second chair—ankles crossed, revealing whimsical, constellation-patterned socks.

“What’s gotten into me? ” Eames asks.

“You seem—tense.”

What to say? I’m worried about you. I wish you would talk to me. It’s not going to happen; Arthur’s made that clear. Eames shrugs. Tense is as good a word for it as any.

Eames thinks about Los Angeles— the Tesla, Arthur’s breakneck driving, the fender bender, the sloppy head in the front seat. At the time, he had assumed—what? That the needy way Arthur fucked Eames’s mouth had something to do with needing release after the Fischer job, with being alive after the near brush with limbo, with how death was symbolized by their minor accident, which could have been worse. But what if that wasn’t it, Eames thinks. What if Arthur’s excitement had more to do with the crash itself?

Arthur uncrosses his ankles and stands up, steps toward Eames. “Come under with me,” he says.

They’re in a dream. Eames doesn’t need to wrap his fingers around his totem. Arthur’s face is smooth and unbruised, his posture upright without a shadow of pain.

It’s Arthur’s dream, but Eames is driving this time. Arthur’s lounging next to him, one arm stretched out across the back of the seat, taking up more than half of the bench, one sprawled knee resting against Eames’s.

They’re idling in the center of what looks like a Western American highway; its edges crumble to gravel and then nondescript scrub brush—flat land stretching on forever on either side of them in the golden, late afternoon light. But ahead of them looms a spine of mountains, covered in white.

“It’s a real place,” Arthur says. “Route 50, Nevada. The loneliest road.” He runs a hand over the dash. “The 1972 Buick Skylark. My first car.”

“Do you mind if I—?”

“Take your time.”

Eames regretfully pulls away from the warmth of Arthur’s leg, opens the door, and steps out onto the road. Arthur’s dream Nevada is eerily quiet—no hum of airplanes or birdsong, just the whistle of wind through the creosote. The wind is hot and stale against Eames’s skin, and the sun hangs larger, heavier, redder in the west; it’s like this dream world is tired, empty, inching toward supernova, at the end of its life. Eames circles the Buick, tracing its curves lightly with his fingers, and he shivers.

It’s beautiful: hunter green, a two door hardback, everything immaculate and original except the mag wheels—a funny Arthur detail. The car is rendered in sharper detail than the rusty landscape, the dying sun—than anything else in the dream.

Eames can imagine a young, lanky Arthur spending hours nurturing this car from neglect into peak condition—hunting down each part, buffing the finish, pushing his hair out of his eyes with grease-smeared fingers. Did he dream of a different life, being a different person—of becoming the person he is now?

Eames climbs back into the car. Arthur’s sitting with his back against the passenger side door now, angled so that he can watch Eames. He looks like he should be in a tight white shirt, smoking a cigarette, but he’s still buttoned up in his exquisite suit. Eames is the one in tight blue jeans, a thin cotton undershirt showing the contours of his muscles, the edges and curls of his tattoos. He realizes that he’s been cast in Arthur’s fantasy. He swallows. The jeans suddenly feel even tighter.

“Let’s drive,” Arthur says.

There’s no one else on the road, of course, and the car is an automatic, disappointingly. Eames doesn’t have to think. He just floors it, looking sideways at Arthur watching him. “This is very James Dean.”

“That’s the idea. Glad you’re keeping up.”

“How did you actually total this car?”

“How do you know I totaled it?” Arthur counters.

“A guess.”

They drive in silence for a minute, two. The whuff of wind against the sealed windows, the purr of the engine. The road stretches on, straight, unvarying, like it’s generated by algorithm at the margins of a virtual world. Has Arthur ever been here, or has he shaped the scene from pictures, from someone’s description? Eames can’t tell.

“I was sixteen,” Arthur says. “I got high, drove around all night on back roads, outside the city. Wrapped it around a tree doing seventy. Came out unscathed though. Kind of a miracle—according to my parents, anyway.”

“What, were you disappointed?”

Arthur snorts. “No. I was excited to be alive. Obviously.”

“You like this.” A statement, not a question. “You’re hard—look at you—you’re panting for me to push one twenty and flip us into a ditch.”

“I’ve never hurt anyone.”

“But you want to, sometimes.”

Arthur smiles, slowly. “That’s what dreams are for, Mr. Eames.”

You hurt yourself , Eames wants to say, now understanding the swollen lip, the cut eyebrow that will scar, the dislocated shoulder. You’ll hurt me if you off yourself topside, you crazy arsehole.

Arthur licks his lips. “You should watch the road, Mr. Eames.”

Far off ahead, just a speck in the distance against the gray of the asphalt and the mountains’ roots, there’s another car.

Eames feels a flutter of excitement in the pit of his stomach, feels the blood rushing to his cock. Is it the upcoming collision, or the fact that Arthur has slid close, taking the lobe of Eames’s ear between his teeth?

“Careful,” Arthur breathes as Eames twitches and the car swerves. “Steady.”

“Steady,” Eames repeats, licking his lips and forcing his grip on the wheel to soften. Arthur is sucking on his ear now, flicking the delicate skin with his tongue, and Eames wants to moan and melt into the seat. But focus, focus. Arthur puts his hand on Eames’s throat—a light touch, placed as if he might want to choke him slightly—which would be redundant because Eames can barely breathe as it is. But after just a light squeeze, perhaps to feel the hammering of his pulse, Arthur moves his hand down Eames’s chest over the thin fabric of his shirt, fingers lingering on collarbones, circling nipples through the cotton—further down, slowly, until—fuck—his palm is resting on Eames’s cock, hard beneath the tight denim.

The speck in the distance has clearly taken shape as a car and is coming closer, closer, barreling toward them.

“Please,” Eames says, and Arthur mercifully undoes the zip of the jeans. Eames lifts his hips to help Arthur push the fabric and the zipper out of the way so he can curl his fingers around the length of Eames’s cock, and Eames accidentally stomps on the accelerator, making them leap forward. Arthur laughs against him; he was kissing his ear, his temple, his cheekbone, but now he’s just pressing his face against Eames, as if breathing him in, brushing his lips against Eames’s stubble. His touch is very light, gentle, for someone who is urging them toward such a terrifying, irrevocable impact.

He wants to kiss Arthur, but he doesn’t dare take his eyes off the road.

The other car is near enough that Eames can discern its color and shape. There’s a driver in it, Eames thinks—no, just a projection, Arthur’s projection, faceless, unreal.  

Fear surges up inside him. Every instinct in his body is begging for him to wrench the wheel; his hands twitch, abortive attempts to jerk them out of the path of the crash. Every instinct in his body is begging for the release of Arthur’s touch; his hips twitch as he pushes up into Arthur’s grasp, into the tight, long strokes, Arthur’s cool fingers twisting over his skin through the slick of his pre-come.

The speedometer has crawled past ninety. Arthur is panting against him. He doesn’t have to speak for Eames to know what he wants: more, more. More speed, more of Eames’s anxious gasps of pleasure.

The flare-like reflection of sun on chrome is so bright, it sears his eyes.

He can’t look; he’s dizzy, breath lost. He turns, wanting, needing to see Arthur, but Arthur nuzzles him till he’s looking forward again at the road, at the Porsche looming larger and larger, filling his vision—becoming his whole world, the Porsche and Arthur’s hand on his cock—

What if Eames is getting it wrong—what if Arthur’s expecting him to recreate the Los Angeles accident, to yank them to safety in the last possible moment?

“Arthur,” he gasps.

“Steady,” Arthur says.

He’s leaning, pressing into Eames, squirming against him. If Eames could take a hand from the wheel, maybe he’d reach for Arthur—help him find his own release—but he can’t move, if he moves he’ll shake to pieces, and there’s no time, oh—

Arthur puts a hand over Eames’s on the steering wheel, pressing as if he would entwine their fingers together.

His other hand quickens, bringing Eames to the edge; Eames feels his body brace not for release but because the Porsche is upon them; Arthur’s grip on him tightens, Eames closes his eyes, it’s happening, Arthur —   

A screeching, shattering impact that’s everywhere, everything, then nothing.

Eames jolts awake in the San Francisco loft gasping, terrified. His cock is still achingly hard. Arthur climbs on top of him and they rut together with clumsy, trembling motions. Eames’s senses are still completely overblown; they’ve barely thrust against each other, Arthur’s barely taken him in hand, when Eames comes so hard it’s like the wreck all over again—the roar, the blinding whiteness, the lost moment in time. When he’s finished, Arthur’s shirt and unbuckled pants are thoroughly splattered with their mingled come, probably ruined.

Arthur doesn’t seem to mind this indignity. He leans in and finally, finally, kisses Eames.

Eames lets his kiss push away the residual terror until only the electricity, the exhilaration, remains.

The San Francisco job plods on for a few more days before they’re suddenly in the thick of it, scrambling to finish the dream and get the mark under by their original deadline. Alone in his room at the Fairmount late at night, Eames watches and re-watches the chase scene from Bullet , wishing he could work up the courage to invite Arthur to his room.

They haven’t touched since that nervy makeout session following the Buick wreck a week ago, but Eames has felt Arthur’s gaze heavy on him from across the loft, a tangible weight that sucks the air out of the room and scatters Eames’s thoughts. If their team members have noticed the tension, they’ve decided not to comment. Arthur’s work is, as always, quality; Eames feels like he’s stumbling through the forge, his mind racing ahead of the job to how he’ll approach Arthur once it’s over.

He has to tread lightly. More than anything he’s scared of what will happen if Arthur slips away. Will he make it back to Eames, whatever job they find each other on next, or will he waste himself in some stupid wreck, all out of miracles, all out of his many lives?

It’s their last day, time to break down their workspace, to clean up and get the fuck out. While Eames is staring, lost, down at his sidearm and his gear, Arthur corners him.

“Can I give you a ride to the airport, Mr. Eames?” His voice is casual, but the tension in how he holds himself and around his eyes reveals his uncertainty. As if Eames would refuse him. His heart lurches at Arthur’s tentative smile when he accepts.

Eames follows Arthur down to the street, bag in one hand and PASIV case in the other.

It’s Arthur’s own car at the curb, not a stolen car. Eames can tell. Something about the shine on the thing, the immaculate upholstery, the proud way Arthur’s hand rests on trunk before he unlatches it and stows their gear.

“A 1967 Shelby GT500,” Arthur tells him. Eames can feel it building—that intoxicating mixture of terror and arousal—as Arthur ducks into the car and settles behind the wheel. Eames slides his fingers over the butter leather of the upholstery until their hands meet.

They could bring themselves to the edge flirting with death flying up and down the city’s towering hills; they could dodge trucks on the 101; they could race across the Marin Headlands, losing the yellow and white lane markers in the fog. They could crash full throttle through the guard rail separating road from cliff from sea on Highway 1, down in Big Sur. West on Highway 1, as far west as you can go. Arthur wants it, and fuck, Eames wants him like that—at his most dangerous, at his most alive, an inch away from oblivion.

“Arthur,” he says, putting his hand gently on the back of Arthur’s neck. “Come back to my hotel.”

Eames keeps that hand on Arthur, steadying, as they drive up the steep, San Francisco hills to the Fairmount. Every time they tip, rollercoaster-like, over a hill, a vision of the bay, bright and cluttered with sailboats, greets them. Arthur doesn’t speed or clip corners; he’s careful, dependable, solid under Eames’s touch. An excellent driver.

They valet park the Mustang, and Eames hefts the PASIV across the lobby, up the elevator, to his room. He keeps his free hand on Arthur’s healing shoulder.

“Lie back on the bed,” Eames instructs, as he runs the lines of the PASIV to their arms and dials in the machine; he knows the timer doesn’t really matter because they won’t be letting it run out. Arthur surprises him by settling for sleep on Eames’s shoulder, snuggling close until Eames wraps his arms around him.

Eames dreams Big Sur, the waves on the rocks below, an empty road snaking along the cliffside.

“My grandfather’s 1985 Aston Martin V8 Volante,” he tells Arthur from the passenger seat. “My first car.”

Arthur looks beautiful against the matte black interior, the black exterior that gleams in the emerging California sun. Eames watches him run his hands over the dash and the wheel with reverence that feels like a promise of how he’ll touch Eames later.

“What happened to the car, Mr. Eames?” Arthur asks, voice low and throaty with desire.

“Well, it’s a long story.” Eames slides a hand over Arthur’s thigh as Arthur throws the convertible into gear and accelerates. “Let me tell you.”

Eames doesn’t stop talking until they spin out and are swallowed by the Pacific.

After the kick of the crash, they strip each other, and Arthur works himself open with slick fingers while Eames watches. Then he pushes Arthur’s hand away to lick and tongue his hole until Arthur’s squirming and bucking, despite Eames’s large hands holding his hips in a bruising grip; he’s still doing everything he can to steady Arthur.

Eames fucks him for a long time, pinning Arthur to the sheets with the advantage of his muscle and greater bulk. Arthur sucks marks onto Eames’s neck; he kisses Eames’s tattoos. He wriggles and twists his wrists in Eames’s grasp hard enough to almost break free. Almost.

Beneath him like this, Arthur is safe enough.

Eames thinks he’s kind of a miracle.