Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s not boring, strictly speaking, starting off Friday evening by hitting the gym and then the grocery store once he’s gotten off work. It’s routine. There’s an enormous difference. Eames has learned to value routine very much, thanks to a few too many years of not having any at all.

So when he comes home juggling his bags and trying to text one-handed that he has no fucking desire to go to a fucking hockey game in another fucking city, he doesn’t expect to practically trip over the person hunched outside his door.

Someone in worn jeans and an oversized maroon hoodie, someone who grunts when Eames drops everything to make sure he doesn’t have an actual corpse to deal with. If his home is being robbed, he’s got a very lackluster lookout on his hands. Eames takes his chances and tentatively crouches down a bit more. “Hey, all right there?”

The shape stirs some at that, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “Oh, shit.” There’s not nearly enough of a chill in the air for exposure to the elements to be fatal and Eames absurdly thinks at least he doesn’t have to deal with the bureaucracy of reporting a dead body.

“This probably looks really creepy, huh?” his visitor sighs, sitting up and pulling back his hood.

It’s Arthur.

Arthur, who muted the better part of Eames’s conscience and spilled out too many confessions for him to properly process the last time they saw each other.

He’s still waking, still half-curled around a white bakery box, which is clearly the position he’s been in for some time. The expression on his face is a mixture of embarrassment and sleepiness.

Eames has a distinctly bad feeling about all this. “Arthur, what are you doing here?”

“I brought you these.” He holds out the box, looking absolutely miserable, like some bizarre version of Little Red Riding Hood bringing treats to the wolf, which doesn’t make Eames think very highly of himself at all. It comes back to him all at once: Arthur swearing to bake him anything he wanted, swearing to keep his mouth shut about every unacceptable second of attention Eames had lavished on him nearly two months ago.

He never imagined Arthur would remember his promise, much less actually turn up at his home.

Eames takes the parcel from his hands because he doesn’t know what else to do. He knows what he should do—look away, send him away, anything but encourage him—but he can’t. “Your mother’s got to be—”

“My mom’s away till Sunday.” Arthur stands, a study in lanky angles and incongruous grace. “Helping a friend with an opening.”

“How did you get here?”

“Drove. I parked in the visitors’ area.” Shoulders slumped, eyes downcast, he doesn’t even look old enough to drive. “I was just gonna wait a minute to see if you were home, but I didn’t sleep too much last night and I guess I—” He breaks off, shoving both hands into his pockets. “Look, I know I’m freaking you out. I’d be freaked out if someone randomly passed out at my door. Sorry.”

He seems so tired, nervous and annoyed with himself and not even cracking a smile when Eames invites him in.

It’s exactly what he shouldn’t do, which is at least in keeping with the theme of his actions around Arthur. Eames sits him down, fetches him a bottle of water and the remote control, and puts away his groceries while Arthur drinks and drowses on the couch. They’re going to have to talk, that much is unavoidable. The least he can do is remember his manners.

“I really am curious to know how you found out where I live.”

“I asked,” Arthur says, like there’s nothing to it. “I said my mom wanted to send you a thank-you present and was too shy to ask herself.” Even under his messy hair, Eames can tell he’s arching an eyebrow. “Apparently she’s not the first.”

He can see it very easily in his mind’s eye: Arthur walking right up to the front desk and playing the cute little kid with the receptionist, the new one, asking her to please not breathe a word to Eames about this on behalf of his poor sensitive mother. This just reminds him that Arthur’s mother is a perfectly lovely woman who doesn’t deserve to have her son’s erstwhile doctor enabling his reckless behavior. Eames swallows hard and gives himself a mental shake, a quick reminder that he’s the responsible one here. Or at least he’s supposed to be. “Must have been a persuasive argument. You’re a devious little creature, aren’t you?”

“I guess so,” Arthur agrees. His gaze is glued to the television and Eames, taking a seat in the armchair across from the couch, has to wonder what kind of teenager willingly watches CNN. Either Arthur’s doing it to make a point or he’s too anxious to pay attention to what’s on the screen at all. “I’m mature for my age,” he adds, as if Eames’s mind has been broadcasting every ridiculous thought in it. “Everyone says so.”

“Do they.”

Arthur sets down the remote and goes very still, but when he speaks again he’s looking Eames right in the eye. “I’m eighteen now,” he says, sounding perfectly serene despite the obvious stiffness in his posture. “As of yesterday. I just thought you should know.”

More than anything, Eames wants to touch him, reach out and hold him and soothe his nerves, but he can’t so much as look at him without feeling a sickening twist in his belly. The things he did to this boy, these are the reasons some parents have reservations about taking their children to see any sort of pediatrician, no matter how impressive their reputation is. Eames is used to defying stereotypes, not becoming them. And he doesn’t have a clue what to say that would be appropriate and not seem like a double entendre. Happy belated. Welcome to adulthood. Do you feel any different yet? Get everything you wanted?

But Arthur sits there calmly and talks for him, like he did before when Eames was grappling with the magnitude of what he’d done in the exam room. Arthur had kept chattering on to try and pacify him then, maybe without even realizing it.

“You know, when I first starting seeing you, I thought you’d be one of those really patronizing doctors. But you always treated me like an equal and not just one more kid coming in for a checkup, even back then. The guy I had before really sucked at that.” There’s a hint of amusement in his words, then, the hint of a dimple on his face, and it suits him so fucking well Eames can’t think of anything other than ways to keep it there. “Seriously, Dr. Eames, I think you gave me some unrealistic standards.”

All things considered, Eames certainly hopes so. “Not your doctor anymore, am I? Just Eames is fine.” It’s more intimacy than he should be encouraging, but hearing Arthur refer to him by his title is far worse.

Arthur blinks, suddenly seeming so shy and small. “That’s what I’m supposed to call you?”

“Why not? My first name doesn’t suit me.” He musters a smile. “Everyone says so.” Changing the subject, that’s what needs to happen, and fast. Eames grabs the first topic that occurs to him. “How are you handling your last year of school?”

And Arthur, bless him, deftly takes the hint and goes right on talking, about schoolwork, about senioritis, about how he thought of doing ROTC when he was younger but his mother didn’t approve. Unwittingly, he fleshes out the staid bits of data entrenched in his medical records and then some. Eames learns that his father died when he was eight and they moved here the year after because his mother wanted nothing to do with whatever military project her husband had been working on—some kind of simulation program that didn’t pan out, but Arthur doesn’t know the details—and ended up starting her own business instead. He learns that Arthur hadn’t actually planned on joining the armed forces anyway on account of his sexual orientation, once he’d figured it out. That he’s been faring well with the college application process, that he wants to study international relations, that he’s holding out for a few choice academic scholarships from some of the state universities.

He rattles on long enough for Eames to actually start feeling something like a sense of ease, and then interrupts himself midsentence to laugh drolly. “Sorry, you didn’t ask for the story of my life.”

“Don’t stop on my account,” Eames assures him. “I like hearing it.” He pauses, stares at the television without registering a thing, and then bites the bullet. “I’m the one who needs to be apologizing.”

“No, you’re not,” Arthur says instantly, and there’s a sharpness to his tone Eames has never heard before. Like a textbook example of teenage sullenness, Arthur draws in one of his knees and goes slumping further into the couch. “Because that means you wish it didn’t happen.” His voice is so hoarse and low Eames can hardly hear him.

Eames’s fingertips press whitely into the arms of his chair. Arthur. Oh, Arthur.

He can’t say a thing in response that isn’t incriminating or inconsiderate or—very possibly—even intelligible. Arthur seems oblivious, his gaze once again fixated on the floor and his mouth opening and closing as if he can’t find the proper words to fill it.

“What’s the matter?” Eames ventures.

There’s no hiding the hurt in Arthur’s eyes when he looks up. “You don’t have to sit so far away. I’m not gonna do anything.”

Eames can’t rebuff him. In two strides, he’s crossed the space between them to sink down beside Arthur on the sofa. He’s ready to tell Arthur he’s got it all wrong, that it’s got nothing to do with Eames not trusting him and everything to do with Eames not being so sure he can trust himself anymore. He’s had to distance himself from an impressive array of bad influences in the past and it unnerves him to think of just what this attraction to Arthur could mean for him, what other lines he’s in danger of crossing.

Arthur watches him with round eyes. It’s plain that he didn’t actually expect Eames to come to him, which only has Eames wanting to wrap him in his arms and make him swear never to sell himself and his capabilities short, not to anyone.

He stays hunched in his seat at first, but then shifts over so easily, so readily, when Eames gives into his baser instincts and puts an arm around him. Arthur steals a glance at him and scoots in a little closer, thin-limbed and lithe even through the bulk of his hideous hoodie. And trusting, so completely trusting. Eames wants and he knows and he can’t put his thoughts into speech for the life of him.

“It isn’t like that. I’m afraid I—” But he stops himself there because there’s nothing else to be said. I’m afraid pretty much covers it. And that isn’t the sort of thing he needs to be spilling to a freshly eighteen-year-old former patient, no matter how mature he claims to be.

He cinches his arm tighter and Arthur’s brittle exterior chips away even more. It doesn’t escape Eames that he’s holding him almost like he had on the exam table—Arthur melting against him, Arthur’s wiry arms coming around him and holding him in return as if Eames is the one who needs it. When Arthur exhales, even more of the tautness seems to bleed from him. “Just so you know, I didn’t follow you or ask the receptionist for your schedule or anything that weird. I wasn’t even sure you’d be home.”

His face is warm when he ducks it into Eames’s shoulder; Eames can smell the peachy scent of his hair, is close enough to press his nose to the top of Arthur’s head and breathe him in deeper still. He doesn’t.

“And I kept thinking all this stuff,” Arthur says softly, “like, ‘oh, maybe he’s out with a girlfriend, maybe a boyfriend, or maybe he’s sleeping and won’t open the door for hours, or maybe he knows I’m out here and isn’t opening the door anyway.’”

Eames feels a fervent rush of protectiveness. “I wouldn’t have done that to you.”

“I only fell asleep out there because I was thinking about this last night and couldn’t sleep until it was really late,” Arthur explains, still so quietly, almost as hushed as the news that’s still on in the background. “And then I realized I had to do the cupcakes over again because the icing was strawberry the first time—I know you like strawberry, I saw you with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at the café once—but they were the gayest looking cupcakes ever and you’ve gotta draw the line somewhere.”

“You do indeed,” Eames says, not thinking of baked goods at all. “It’s not always as simple as it seems, is it? For the record, I wouldn’t have turned away any sort of cupcake you brought me, no matter how pink.”

This is the point where he’s meant to thank Arthur and show him the door he never should have opened to him in the first place. But Arthur lifts his head, brow creased, and Eames can’t imagine the torment he must have put himself through, trying to psych himself up and convince himself to go through with paying Eames a visit in the first place. “I’m not gonna stalk you or try to steal your fingernail clippings or whatever. I’ll leave you alone if you want me to. I just wanted to see you and make sure you don’t feel bad about anything. And that you aren’t mad.”

“Arthur, I’m not angry.”

Even as he says it, everything replays. Arthur without a stitch of clothing on, flushing and holding back and aching for more in spite of his embarrassment. The way he’d made such an agonized little sound when he came, then begged so nicely for Eames’s fingers inside him. The way he’d asked Eames, afterward, if he really considered him a mistake. It makes Eames ashamed to remember it, ashamed it happened where it did and when it did, but not that it happened at all.

And that’s the kicker. That’s the bit he’s been trying to lock away, the bit that fought its way to the forefront of his mind when Arthur looked at him with unassuming dark eyes and announced he’d turned eighteen.

“You weren’t doing too well when I left,” Arthur tells him bluntly. “I just wanted to...I missed you.” His eyes dart downward and Eames can practically see him weighing the options in his head before he takes a chance and moves closer still. Cuddling. He’s not in Eames’s lap, but it’s a very near thing.

Even though he should know better, Eames lets Arthur’s knee nudge at his thigh, lets his fingers slip to the back of his neck and his head drop down against his collarbone. He refrains from touching him back, just staring blankly ahead at CNN, which is showing something about a Japanese company negotiating an energy deal.

Eames sighs, turns it off. “I shouldn’t have encouraged that.”

Arthur gives a curt little snicker. “You encourage it by existing,” he counters, gesturing at Eames as a whole. “Besides, I’m an adult now anyway. Don’t you want—”

And he stops, looking stricken, and Eames touches him without thinking, thumbing a cheekbone. Arthur’s lashes drop, excruciatingly fragile. “Of course I do.” He can’t deny it, not with his past actions speaking more loudly than anything.

Arthur’s always shown himself to be very intelligent and capable, but he’s still so young. Slight, unsure, still in high school. And whispering now, so close his lips are brushing Eames’s ear. “I dream about it and come in my sleep, then wake up and make myself come again. It’s happened so many times.”

Oh, God.

Eames is still holding him, Arthur’s mouth still open and skimming the hot skin of his ear. “And I fingered myself. But it wasn’t the same, since yours are bigger and I needed more.”

When he sighs, squirms, clings at the cloth of Eames’s tee, Eames squeezes his eyes closed and wills his body not to betray him no matter how badly he wants to pin Arthur down and make him wail. “Wanted it to feel like it was you,” Arthur goes on, ducking and not looking at him but still steady-voiced. “And I tried…like before, I tried touching myself like you did,” a hand drifting to his stomach, “and I pretended you were doing it to me. So I guess what I want to know is if you’ve thought of me too, at all, or if you’ve just been trying to forget about everything.”

Fuck, oh fuck, Arthur.

Very carefully, Eames encircles both of Arthur’s wrists and places his hands in his lap. “Let me tell you something important.” He reaches until he’s framing Arthur’s face with his own hands. Cheekbones under his fingertips, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth--soft and open and pleading so, so beautifully to be kissed even though Arthur’s not making a sound. And Eames doesn’t. Wants to, but doesn’t.

“You deserve to be appreciated and doted on and treated like gold.” Even to himself, he sounds raspy, feral. “Understand, Arthur? You need to realize this. You need to.”

Arthur regards him with heavy eyes. “But you do treat me like that.”

“You need time to be young. Learn yourself. Have messy experimental teenage sex.”

“Whatever. I know myself well enough to know I don’t want messy experimental teenage sex.” Arthur’s fingers are folding around one of Eames’s hands, clasping. “I like getting stuff right.”

Eames is doomed. “What else do you like?”

“You. Your hands. The way you talk.”

He hesitates and Eames’s hand strokes down the length of his throat when he swallows.

“Your mouth,” Arthur adds, and he traces it, one slender finger to Eames’s lips. “When you touch me. How you say my name.” The way he looks at him, every emotion bare on his face, only has Eames aching to hold him tighter and kiss that worry away.

It isn’t kissing, what happens next. Not yet. It’s more incremental, more about closeness than actually making contact. He can feel the warmth of Arthur’s breath soft against his lips, could lean in and taste him with the barest flicker of tongue. Only lips brushing at first, dry and nearly accidental, little grazes of heat.

Arthur is the one who closes the final sliver of space between them, his face pink and his mouth opening against Eames’s, clumsy and soft.

Eames is clutching at him so firmly he’s half afraid of snapping him in two. When he gingerly eases his tongue inside, Arthur quivers, gives a hot little gasp right into Eames’s mouth. Then he really does climb into Eames’s lap, letting Eames suck the tip of his tongue, letting him learn every little nook and corner of his mouth until Eames loses track of time completely. It’s wetter now, dirtier, and Arthur is braver about allowing his hands creep into Eames’s hair, allowing his tongue to venture deeper.

He’s hard, squirming and wanting and straining against the seam of his jeans. Eames can tell.

Eames has made plenty of wrong decisions in his life. He wandered into heaps of stupid situations as a kid and thought the most improbable thing would be for him to pull his act together and become a doctor, surprising himself in the process and staying on track. He knows what it’s like to be young and underestimated. And Arthur really is wiser than his years, probably doesn’t have many friends his own age, or at least no one close, which just makes Eames want to give him all the attention deserves.

As far as decisions go, that doesn’t feel wrong at all. It’s rather alarming.

Arthur’s lips are pink and his eyes are dazed and he looks even younger now, sounds younger. Plaintive. “Why’d you stop?”

And Eames kisses him again, until Arthur is whining and trying to grind down onto him. Eames forces himself to still him with a hand to center of his chest.

“Just hear me out. This is—you really—” He can’t fucking think. “I should mention that I’m twice your bloody age.”

“Oh, I know,” Arthur says seriously. “It’s really, really hot.”

Eames swats him. Arthur just grins and holds on, settling his head onto his shoulder.

“When I did it…I felt so open.” He stutters when Eames slips his hand through the soft mop of his hair, kissing his temple this time. “You think I don’t know what I want. But I do.”

“I didn’t say—”

“You’re a doctor,” Arthur interrupts impatiently. “It’s your job. I know.” Lightly, he touches the phoenix tattoo on Eames’s arm, half visible from under his sleeve. “I’m not stupid. I mean, my mom trusts me and I always make the honor roll. If it makes you feel better, I’m actually really, really boring most of the time. It’s not like I’m going up to random guys and asking them to chain me up and spank me.”

It’s an unfortunate example because now the only thing Eames can do is picture it in great detail. “But suppose I wanted that? Not everyone thinks the way you do. Not everyone’s going to have the same intentions.”

“I trust you anyway,” Arthur says, casual, giving a curious tug at the neck of his shirt and ducking to press his lips to the swirl of ink he reveals. “How old were you when you kissed another guy?”

His hand is perilously close to resting on Eames’s groin. “Thirteen. I was thirteen and we were drinking his gran’s cooking sherry. We thought we were kings of criminality. And you?”

Arthur’s smile is hot against his throat. “I was almost eighteen. He was my doctor.”

No, Eames wants to say. I can’t have been the first, I didn’t…

But Arthur, as if sensing the need for a distraction, is sighing into his mouth and moaning softly, pressing a hand between his own spread thighs. “I really don’t want you feeling bad about anything. I didn’t give you much of a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. I was in a position of authority and I abused it.”

“Fine.” Arthur actually rolls his eyes, adolescence at its finest. “I pardon you. Is that what you want? Besides,” he grumbles, “it’s not like I was right to do what I did either.”

“That,” Eames says, “is completely different.”

“So you never did anything that crazy when you were in high school?”

“Oh, all that and more,” Eames admits glibly. He has a hand on Arthur’s bony knee, feeling the burn of his skin where it’s bared through artfully shredded denim. Arthur gives another tiny sigh, mouth innocently slipping open as his fingers drift far less innocently over the front of his jeans, and Eames is once again reminded that the age of consent might be sixteen in some states, but he should never have acted so rashly with anyone who was a patient. And this one has barely even been legal for twenty-four hours.

“Do you eat pepperoni?” he asks, too abrupt, taking his hand off Arthur and reaching for his phone.

Arthur looks at him with calm brown eyes. “You know what I eat. You know my blood type, my middle name, and whatever other shit you learned every time I had an appointment.” Those thin hands touch him, over his forearm, his knee. “I think you know more about me than most people.”

Eames finds that rather sad, but he knows better than to say so.

Instead, he ushers Arthur back onto the couch and orders pizza.

Arthur stares at him exasperatedly the entire time, but Eames does it anyway and then flees to the kitchen for Gatorade since milk seems insulting and beer is out of the question. Then he realizes ordering pizza just means waiting for it to arrive.

By the time he returns to the living room, Arthur is stretched out on the sofa. He’s shed both his shoes and his hoodie—the t-shirt underneath is gray and looks like it’s about a size too small, which Eames wonders is deliberate or happenstance—and he’s eying the armchair like he’s prepared to set it on fire if Eames so much as considers sitting there.

Eames is prepared to settle back down in the chair anyway, a last-ditch effort at keeping a safe distance between them, but he hardly has the chance to take another step before Arthur latches onto him and kisses him. Thoroughly.

“I really,” Arthur informs him, “really don’t need any pizza.”

“Then tell me what you do need,” Eames says, mind awhirl as Arthur’s hips push against his own. Making sure he’s got his wits about him is practically impossible even without Arthur pressing his lips to the corner of his mouth and trying to draw him back onto the couch. “Go on, tell me.”

That seems to catch Arthur rather off guard. “I don’t…” he falters, and his brow furrows uncertainly. When Eames threads his fingers through his hair again, his eyes slide closed and he nestles almost chastely into the touch without seeming to notice he does it at all. “Anything,” Arthur admits softly, which gives Eames both everything and nothing to work with. “More—anything you want, just keep going.”

Slowly, Eames spreads his fingers to cup the back of Arthur’s head, steadying him as he carefully kisses over the pulse point on the side of his neck. “Is this all right, then?”

“Yeah.” There’s a little quaver in his voice as Eames noses higher, finally letting himself inhale the scent of him.

“The second you’re uncomfortable or even begin to think you want to stop, tell me. Any time at all.” He forces himself to draw back and give Arthur some time for this to sink in. “Clear?”

Arthur nods fervently, but all Eames can think of is the exam room, how Arthur had pushed the limit at every opportunity and how terrible Eames had been at stopping it. “You too,” Arthur says then, and Eames wonders if he’s remembering the same thing.

“Deal.” Eames sinks down beside him and Arthur’s arms come around him right away, pulling him close.

At first, Arthur is content with nothing more than this, pressing them together as much as possible and uttering delicious little hums each time Eames kisses him. He doesn’t seem quite sure what to do with his hands, initially alternating between splaying them flat to Eames’s shoulders and curling them around to the back of his neck. Then he goes in for the kill, reaching to take one of Eames’s and guide it along the stretch of his thigh. Eames lets him, smoothing over tight-drawn denim until the line of Arthur’s erection is hot under his hand and Arthur is tense and wriggling as Eames touches him there. His head dips forward, wet-open mouth nudging kisses against his jaw, and Eames can feel the way the breath shudders out of him.

He ends up with Arthur practically on top of him, warm and kissing and breathing hard, clasping Eames’s hand in place between his legs so he can cup and squeeze and rub, and Eames’s erection is pressing thick and hard against him, no way to hide it with Arthur boldly pressing the heel of his hand there with a pleased little moan. Then he’s sliding his other hand up under Arthur’s shirt, not waiting for Arthur to make the first move this time, palming the smooth skin of his back, grazing his stomach. Arthur’s body arches for him immediately and Eames drinks it in, feeling the litheness of musculature shifting, the daintiness of a perked nipple, playing with it as Arthur’s neck arches, pale and bare and a perfect canvas for kisses. He has his mouth open, too wrapped up in the moment to bother with touching Eames in return, looking so utterly debauched already and making small sounds like he can’t figure out how to form words anymore.

“Talk to me,” Eames urges, not wanting him to get lost, not sure he’s above getting lost himself.

“Don’t change your mind and make me leave,” Arthur blurts out, breath stuttering when Eames pinches cautiously at the nipple he’s been exploring. “I will if you tell me to, but…”

“I won’t,” Eames promises, reckless enough to mean it, not quite reckless enough to tell Arthur he’s thought of him like this too many times, too many ways.

He’s beautiful, in his worn jeans with his shirt riding up his middle, hair a little longer and messier than it was the last time they met, stormy eyes and finely curving lips, and Eames knows the shape of his body beneath those folds of cotton, knows what it feels like to have this boy stripped bare and climaxing under him. He did his best not to think about it even though he’d been doing far more forward things when he was Arthur’s age and younger. He has to hand it to Arthur for daring to show his face at all.

It feels like it lasts a long time, just kissing and touching and being amazed by how responsive Arthur is to even the smallest contact. Eames doesn’t realize just how torturous this must be for Arthur until he goes writhing up against him, voice breaking as he tries to work his way free of his shirt. “I need…”

Eames helps him back into a sitting position and tries not to let on that his brain just came treacherously close to short-circuiting. “Shh, let’s get this off you, then. Yeah?”

He doesn’t wait for a verbal reply before stripping it off, smoothing both hands down his sides, his cheeks, letting Arthur nip at his fingers as he maneuvers him so Arthur’s seated between his legs with his back to Eames’s chest. “Why did you really come here? Don’t say it was because of cupcakes.”

“Because I wanted to see you,” Arthur answers, like it’s just that simple, like it’s not a big deal at all that he’s ensconced in Eames’s lap with Eames touching the pale bare expanse of his torso, letting Arthur pull his hand to splay over his groin a second time. It’s enough to have Arthur curving up and uttering a quiet whine, but doesn’t prevent him from turning just enough face Eames. He’s flushed to the roots of his hair. “And because I really want you to fuck me.”

It takes a few seconds for Eames to find his voice. “Remember, anything you aren’t okay with—”

“Do I seem like I’m not okay with this?”

Eames looks him dead in the eye and starts undoing his jeans.

“Fuck,” Arthur whispers, and his head drops back.

Eames is slow about it, still allowing time for reconsideration even as he’s drawing him out, peeling back the wet cloth of his boxers and feeling the way Arthur’s stomach tenses under his other hand. Then he bucks his hips into Eames’s grasp and there’s nothing slow about anything anymore.

Arthur doesn’t seem capable of suppressing anything, mouth slack, cock so slick and hard in Eames’s grip as he strokes over him, wraps his fingers around all that heat and savors it—he’s never touched him like this, not without a rubber glove and the most clinical of dispositions. And he whimpers, face to the ceiling and pleading little sounds spilling out of him, and Eames is riding his prick against him without even realizing it, hard and shameless as Arthur fucks his fist, his tight little arse squirming in Eames’s lap. He won’t take long, not with how worked up he is already; Eames can’t believe he’s held out as long as he has. “Christ, Arthur, you—”

“Please.” It seems so surreal that it doesn’t register at first when Arthur grips at his thigh and begs him. “Please, fuck, you’re gonna make me come, I’m so—”

“I know,” Eames tells him, and kisses his cheek. “Show me.”

“Oh,” exhales Arthur, and he comes that way, almost on command, with his jeans and pants caught around his hips and Eames holding him through it, letting him tremble through the aftershocks.

Then he smiles, sinking bonelessly into Eames’s arms with a soft groan and somehow managing to seem pure as the driven snow even though he’s practically naked with come streaking his middle. “You…” he declares—a bit muzzily, as if lounging across Eames’s lap is all he can handle just now—“you smell really good.”

Eames shrugs that off, eyes shuttering when Arthur twists around and his fingers go hooking into his waistband. “I had a shower at the gym, so I probably smell considerably better than you’re used to.” Almost anything is an improvement on doctor’s-office soap and latex gloves.

“No, that’s not it,” Arthur says decisively, picking at his shirt, pushing it up, looking at more tattoos with undisguised fascination. “I’ve never seen you wearing anything like this. It’s cool.” He touches inquisitively at a nipple, laughing when Eames twitches, then takes it upon himself to start drawing down the zip on Eames’s jeans. “I want to touch you, too, okay?”

Of course, this is when the doorbell rings.

Eames all but falls over himself trying to neaten up enough to answer the door without looking like a complete miscreant. Arthur seems to find it all hilarious.

It hits Eames like a hammer to the face just how serious the situation is when he brings in the pizza and Arthur, in spite of being a teenage boy, ignores it entirely. Arthur seems far more intent on scooping up his t-shirt and wiping himself clean while Eames sets the box on the kitchen table and goes back to him. “I’m not going to be able to get you to eat a bite, am I?”

“No,” Arthur admits, tossing the shirt aside, “but I like that you at least tried to buy me dinner first.”

First. Eames is ready to protest that, but Arthur makes for an excellent distraction by grinning at him and twisting out of the rest of his clothes, humming when Eames’s hand drifts over the curve of his arse and gives a cautious squeeze.

In response, Arthur trails his fingers over Eames’s stomach, working his way down until he’s toying at him through his jeans. He’s reaching to pop open the button when Eames grips his wrist and sits back down like a sack of bricks. “That…you…Arthur, listen, it’s not—”

Arthur frowns. “Um, you’re gonna need to take care of that sooner or later,” he points out, and then he’s crawling onto him all over again, pink-flushed and riding down on Eames’s thigh even though he just came. Naked and shameless and perfect and Eames would love to lay him down and touch him everywhere, give him pleasure every way he can. But Arthur strokes a hand up under his shirt, Eames’s pulse throbbing against his palm, and then goes sinking to the carpet between Eames’s spread knees before Eames can work out exactly what he’s supposed to say at this juncture.

The zipper gleams between Arthur’s pale fingers. “Can I see?”

Eighteen, but just barely, and sounding so fucking small even though his voice is vibrating against Eames’s thigh. Nuzzling there, pressing his cheek to the bulge in Eames’s jeans and trembling deliciously when Eames’s fingers twine their way through his hair. Young and vulnerable and eager, would do whatever Eames let him and that’s fucking terrifying even though Eames is nodding for him to go on.

And Arthur is drawing open his flies and murmuring you’re really hard. Which is most certainly true, but he sounds a little surprised, like he’s amazed with himself for having this kind of effect on Eames at all.

“You’ve got foreskin.” There’s an adorably perplexed look on his face, but Eames knows better than to laugh.

“I do, yeah.” Sighing when Arthur plays over it with curious fingers, tracing inside the opening.

“It doesn’t hurt, right?”

Eames allows himself a smile since Arthur’s gaze is still absorbedly downcast. “No more than it hurts when you touch yourself.”

“I…” Arthur hesitates. “I want to try and—”

He wants to suck him, Eames realizes with a jolt. Quickly, he lays a hand to Arthur’s shoulder to stop him. “I’m in close contact with other people’s bodies on a daily basis.” It’s very hard to sound rational and cautionary when he can scarcely keep from thrusting into the barest touch of Arthur’s hand.

Arthur seems wary now. “Did you…catch something?”

“I didn’t say that. But it’s a high-risk profession in that way.”

“So you’re clean.”

“Arthur…”

“Can I?” he asks again, and Eames’s hand clenches over the curve of his shoulder.

He’s guarded at first, uncertainty permeating every touch, slim fingers repeatedly drawing the delicate skin back and then forward until Eames’s hips are arching. Then and only then does Arthur seem to content himself with the fact that Eames was telling the truth.

The first tentative lap of his tongue has Eames choking back a curse. Arthur takes what feels like ages suckling carefully at his foreskin, letting his tongue ease inside to trace the tip of Eames’s erection while it’s still covered. Sliding it back, then, curling his tongue over the exposed head and pursing his lips around him, sucking loud and wet. He seems a little taken aback at how crude he sounds and pulls off for a moment, then apparently decides to compensate by trying to swallow, but just ends up having a coughing fit and swiping at his eyes. Eames can’t even feel guilty for finding him beautiful even then, thinking not for the first time of how much he’d love to fuck Arthur’s throat until he cries for him, then kiss his tears away and slip fingers up inside him until he cries out with desire instead. “Shit, sorry.”

Eames strokes his head, his nape. “You’re learning, that’s all right. Here,” he reaches to help draw him off the floor, “up you get.”

“Look, I’ve seen enough porn to do better than this,” Arthur says, shaking him off and sounding awfully prim considering the situation. “Let me try again.”

“There’s no need to just jump right in. Take it slow. You don’t have to try everything at once.”

Arthur scowls up at him, practically pouting. “C’mon, I want to keep going.”

“I know you do, but I don’t want you hurting yourself somehow.”

“I’d be doing fine if you didn’t keep stopping and commenting.”

“Don’t be stroppy,” says Eames mildly.

“Don’t be what?” Arthur demands.

Then he’s frowning and whipping out his phone, which is one of the strangest things Eames has ever seen anyone do while kneeling naked between his legs.

“What in the world are you doing?”

Arthur cuts a glance at him. “Urbandictionary.com. And I am not stroppy.”

“Life-threateningly inquisitive, then.”

That seems to make Arthur wilt around the edges. “Sorry I’m not good at it. It’s not like I can do this with anyone at school. I keep thinking it can only go uphill after I graduate, though. Maybe in college no one gives a shit if you’re a fag who can’t even—”

“Hey,” Eames interjects. “There’s no need say things like that about yourself. Come here.”

This time, Arthur goes willingly when Eames takes him back into his arms. It’s strangely nonsexual, considering he’s stark naked and there’s no way to miss the redness of his mouth. “Is it really that bad for you?” Eames asks gently.

Arthur shakes his head. “Not too many people know. I’m not proud of it. It’s just easier.” Eames has a fierce urge to stroke him and kiss him and swear to him everything will be fine.

“No one’s got the right to make you feel like you’re less of a human.” He feels a bit like he’s giving yet another exam-room speech to yet another confused kid who hasn’t quite figured himself out. Eames can’t put the comparison out of his head fast enough. “You don’t have to take any cheek from anyone.”

“Did you?”

“I did a lot of punching when I was your age,” Eames confesses. “But I don’t recommend that either. I also wasn’t very bright when I was your age.”

“You turned out pretty okay, though,” Arthur says matter-of-factly. He tilts his head for another kiss and Eames gives it to him, lapping the taste of himself from his mouth until Arthur’s breathing is ragged and he’s grinding against him, ready to come a second time, fuck, and seeming almost awed when he finally gets Eames’s shirt off. “I kept counting down until my birthday and almost didn’t come, but I had to see you.” He drags one fingernail in an experimental line down the center of Eames’s chest, words half muffled when he leans in to kiss the pale pink mark it leaves in its wake. “Had to make sure you were all right.”

“Arthur, I’m fine.”

“No,” Arthur says firmly. “You’re not. You got all weird about corrupting me or being unprofessional or whatever, but I don’t care. I’m glad it happened. And, I mean, I’m not glad you freaked out, but that’s normal. I’d be more worried if you didn’t, since then I’d be wondering if you made a habit of feeling up your patients.” He’s tomato-red and Eames is certain he’s well on his way to matching.

“Christ, of course not.” Eames doesn’t generally prefer partners more than a few years younger than he is, leaning towards older ones half the time as it is. Arthur is an anomaly in more ways than he knows and Eames intends to keep it that way. “None of them have ever been quite like you, thank God.”

Arthur snorts. “What am I?”

“You’re lovely,” Eames says without a moment’s hesitation, drawing him close and slamming the door on the part of his brain still reprimanding him for not turning Arthur away the second he woke him. “You’re smart and determined and you don’t let anything stand in your way and there’s a fair chance you’ll be the death of me.”

The smile Arthur gives him lights up the room. It has Eames’s pulse thrumming triple-time, has him yearning to bury his face between those pale thighs and make him sob with delight, to learn everything that makes him feel good. He kisses him lightly, throwing what remains of his caution to the winds and hoping like hell his heartbeat doesn’t drown out his words. “Whatever you like, just ask. I’d prefer it if you didn’t kill me too soon, is all.”

“Even if I’m asking you to take me upstairs and do awful things to me?” Arthur’s voice is hushed, lips velvet-soft at his ear. “I’ll sign a consent form if it makes you feel better. Just say you will.”

And, without even making an effort to curb his impulse, Eames does.

Actually getting upstairs, on the other hand, does end up taking some effort. There are clothes on the floor and curious hands on bare skin and Arthur seems to think he’s being helpful by clarifying what kind of awful things he has in mind. “Just your fingers if that’s all you’re okay with, but anything, seriously, just do something.”

It all makes walking in a straight line almost impossible, but the bathroom is mercifully close to the top of the stairs and Arthur has no qualms at all about being herded against the doorframe. Eventually, Eames manages to actually step through the door and pull open a drawer, thinking of stopping in the bathroom for more than just fetching supplies, of making Arthur watch his own beautiful reflection as Eames bends him over the counter and starts preparing him. But bed is better for the first time, more safe and comfortable, and Eames isn’t about to lose sight of just how important it is to keep Arthur comfortable.

Arthur follows him, seeming almost too dazed to move even though his prick is flushed dark and straining wetly against his stomach. Eames presses against him from behind, one hand resting on his belly, smoothing up and back. “Still all right?”

His eyes are huge as he regards the juxtaposition of their reflections. “You have…a lot of muscles.”

It’s so candid that Eames doesn’t quite succeed at stifling a laugh.

“It’s a good thing.” Arthur elbows him without any actual malice and turns, kissing him there in front of the sink, lips soft and swollen. Eames can’t keep from stealing glances at them in the mirror. He notices Arthur doing the same right up until Eames hefts him bare-arsed onto the counter, and then those slim legs are instantly locking around his waist, Arthur’s cock nudging at him insistently. When Eames draws back, strokes him, he expects Arthur to bound off his perch and start looking for Eames’s bedroom.

But Arthur only brings up his heels, planting them on the edge of the counter and whimpering when Eames lets a dry fingertip glance over his exposed little arsehole. His stomach is taut, body anxiously clenching up even tighter in response. The fingers of one hand are idly pinching at one tiny nipple, the other playing over his cock, and Eames watches obligingly. Arthur scarcely seems to realize he has an audience at all, uttering a surprised groan when Eames rubs a fingertip over the head of his erection, entreating Arthur to suck the taste of himself off his finger, lapping up his own wetness, slicking him just enough to let the tip of his finger push inside when Eames touches him again.

And Arthur whines and spreads for him as much as he can, bucking and trying to draw him in even though it’s not nearly enough yet. “Please, please.”

Eames kisses his forehead. “Not yet, darling, you’re all closed up.” He keeps his eyes on Arthur’s face as he lubricates a finger this time actually inserts it, slowly, which has Arthur’s eyes fluttering closed and his cock pulsing out another stream of precome. Christ, he must be close. “I’m going to take my time with you,” Eames promises in a voice gone too soft, too hoarse. “We’ll have you so open and ready you won’t even hurt, you’ll take me right in.”

He can’t believe the things he’s saying to him, but Arthur seems to love it, twisting down onto his finger and smiling crookedly. “Lie back, relax, and I won’t feel a thing, right, doctor?”

“I didn’t say that. Trust me, you’ll feel it.” Eames gives his shoulder a nip. “And don’t call me that.”

He’s not above whisking him off the counter and physically carrying him into the bedroom, but Arthur gets there first and sprawls on the bed as soon as Eames points them towards the correct doorway. He watches intently when Eames drops the lube and condoms onto the mattress, eyes tracking the movement of his hands as he takes one. “If you’re so responsible, you should know better than to assume the other guy’s going to take care of everything,” Eames tells him, jabbering on to hide the fact that he’s having a terrible time tearing the wrapper open. “Always bring your own, just in case.”

“This really, really isn’t the time for a lecture,” Arthur says. And he sprawls out, legs spread indecently.

He’s entertained thoughts of spending an agonizingly long time opening Arthur’s body to him, making him come again and again until he can barely stand it, then having Arthur ride down onto him until he’s shaking, until he’s crying for Eames to fuck him hard and fill him up just the way he needs. Arthur doesn’t deserve that sort of torment, but Eames still has no intention of rushing through any of this. He starts by prodding along the perineum and making Arthur writhe—fuck, and the last time they met Arthur didn’t even know what that part of him was called— slender legs splaying open further, feeling him bear down and try to take him in when Eames presses with a slick fingertip between the cleft of his arse until the delicate clutch of muscle relents and lets him slip in.

He’s so tight it’s enough to have Eames groaning right along with him, almost searing hot and shuddering around Eames’s finger as if he’s burning up from the inside. Stroking until he grazes his prostate, kissing his damp forehead when Arthur gasps and grips his cock firmly at the root. “Good, well done, can you take another? Would you rather do it yourself?”

Arthur frantically shakes his head. “No, need you to, like the way it feels, you’re better…”

“Hush. Over for me, there you are.” Eames pulls back and positions him bent on elbows and knees. Eyes eating up every centimeter of him from his narrow shoulders to his pert little arse, pale skin still smooth and unblemished, all of him so eager to spread and bend and be taken. It’s nothing at all like seeing him in an exam room. “It’ll be easier this way, I promise.” Arthur’s thighs are still parted widely enough that he can see it all, tight balls and slick open-closed movement of his hole, as if he’s trying to pull something inside him even now. Mouth parting, lashes brushing pink cheeks, Eames watching as his fingers disappear inside him once again, so responsive to everything.

Then Arthur whimpers and Eames stops right away. “Are you okay?”

“I can’t see you like this,” Arthur says simply. “It was better before, is it okay if—?”

Eames doesn’t give him enough time to finish, just lays him out on his back and maps him with his hands and mouth all over again, daring to slip his mouth over the dark-flushed head of his cock this time and sucking for as long as Arthur allows, which isn’t very. Only a few seconds in and he’s crying out and wriggling and nearly spilling over Eames’s lips, but not hesitant at all about pushing into a sitting position and kissing the remnants of himself away, whispering “Sorry, sorry,” into Eames’s mouth.

“Don’t ever apologize for something like that,” Eames murmurs, and lays him back down. “There’s no need at all.”

Together, they slide Arthur’s knees over his shoulders until he’s nearly bent double, blushing and writhing there on his back. “Don’t…I…it feels like you’re just looking.”

“Oh,” Eames says, “I am.” And he touches, there where he’s slick and pink and still so tight, yielding just a bit when he presses at it, unable to look away from Arthur’s erection smearing his belly with dampness. “You’re such a pretty sight like this. Can’t I look at you?” Stroking with his clean hand at the downy little hairs at the nape of his neck, drifting over his soft-smooth cheeks and delicately tight nipples, and Arthur keens when Eames fucks him with two fingers, slowly.

“I dunno if I can—” there’s a desperate note to his voice.

“It’s all right. If you come again, you’ll last longer the next time.” Arthur’s so overwhelmed that the last thing he needs is Eames pressuring him to hold out even more than he has already.

He slicks Arthur’s hand, urges him to add a finger of his own, setting a rhythm as they open him up together, leaving him stretched and reddened and glistening when they pull out. “Are you ready?”

Even now, knees at his red-rimmed ears and hands splayed on Eames’s back, Arthur still manages to look at him like he’s lost his mind. “Want it, yeah, please. Just fuck me, stop asking questions.”

Eames chuckles and pushes his hips forward.

The sound that comes out of Arthur’s mouth is positively filthy.

Arthur doesn’t stop, splayed out for him on the sheets, trembling and taking him in, a hand still tight around his cock as Eames fills him up with his own. His face is screwed up in pain at first and Eames kisses every part of it he can reach, mumbling praises at him and not daring to move even though his entire body feels ready to quake into pieces, but then the pleasure kicks in and he’s telling Eames to please give him more, to do it harder. Eames doesn’t heed him right away, drawing it out, letting him learn the feel of having someone inside him.

Gradually, he does give Arthur what he’s asking for, and Arthur’s hands twist in his hair as all manner of obscenities twist their way out of his throat.

“God, you’re beautiful,” Eames whispers at one point, and Arthur may not even hear him at all, lost in a hot slur of oh my God and please and fuck, there, there. On the exam table, he had been pleading for a kiss when he was about to come, something to smother him because he didn’t trust himself to keep quiet. This time, Eames isn’t having it.

He’s scarcely finished saying, “Let me hear you when you come,” when Arthur’s head thrashes back on the pillow and his cock throbs in Eames’s fist, streaking his fingers with white. He nearly misses it when his own orgasm sneaks up on him.

When he collapses on top of the covers, he has just enough presence of mind not to crush Arthur in the process. Eames reaches for him blindly and Arthur comes, shifting over him, kissing him, settling in. “You did so well,” Eames praises him, feels Arthur’s skinny form give a jolt. “So well,” Eames says again, and wraps his arms around him.

For a long time, they stay that way, Arthur a warm, content weight on top of him, squirming as Eames’s hands trail over his body.

“That,” Arthur finally says dreamily, "was fucking awesome.”

He could happily spend the rest of the night doing nothing but lying there, drowsing and petting over him, but Eames makes himself come back down to Earth anyway. “Your mum isn’t going to miss you?”

“I’ve got my phone. If she tries the house line, I’ll tell her I had my headphones on or something.”

“You need to check in tomorrow morning, then,” Eames tells him, reluctantly extricating himself just enough to discreetly dispose of the condom. “Fair enough?”

“Yeah.” Stretching, smiling when Eames’s eyes follow the arch of his spine. “You could’ve just sent me home right away. Thanks for not doing that.” Arthur kisses without pretense, eager and sloppy and artlessly sweet.

It’s more than comfortable enough to fall asleep, but Eames drags Arthur up despite his protests, gets a spare toothbrush and washcloth for him in the bathroom, and tells him in no uncertain terms to clean up. No one wants their first morning after to be a disgusting one and Eames is still a doctor even in his off hours. “Trust me, you’ll be glad of it later.” Then he’s wiping down Arthur’s stomach, having him part his legs so he can reach there too. He doesn’t comment on the flush that spreads over his cheeks, but he also notes that Arthur doesn’t stop him and insist on doing it himself.

Once he has Arthur spread out in bed a second time, only his legs covered by the sheet, Eames watches him for a long while before letting himself touch—his back, his hip, the crest of his arse. He’s positive that Arthur’s fallen asleep, but then Arthur turns to face him, smiling without opening his eyes. “You called me darling. In the exam room, before we kissed for the first time.”

He remembers. It was out of line, but everything he’s done with Arthur has been out of line.

Arthur snuggles in more closely. “And in the bathroom, too. No one’s ever called me anything like that. No one I’m not related to, I mean. It was nice.”

Eames’s heart is melting, but he still feels the uncertainty creeping back into his bones, oily and insidious.

“It was nice,” Arthur repeats sleepily.

Eames squeezes his hand. “Get some rest.”

“You said whatever I want, right? I don’t want you thinking you did anything wrong. And I don’t want to wake up alone.”

If Eames has learned one thing, it’s to trust that Arthur has his head on straight enough to understand the gravity of this thing between them, whatever it is. For now, there’s sleeping through the night with Arthur curled up beside him and cold pizza waiting in the kitchen and maybe, just for now, Eames doesn’t need to concern himself with anything more than that.

So Eames kisses his head, wraps around him. “You won’t.”