Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Arthur unlocks the door about five hours later than planned. The apartment is quiet, and he drops his bag unceremoniously in the hall, pulling at his scarf as he makes a beeline for the bathroom; he’s needed a piss for the last fifty miles but was reluctant to stop when he was so close.

While he’s in there he scrubs the taste of too many hours travelling off his tongue with wooden movements and gives the key areas a cursory wash, knowing he’ll thank himself for it when he wakes up.

He’s hungry, and too wired to sleep yet, but the thought of climbing into bed draws him like a moth to a bare bulb on a back porch.

He strips his clothes off, leaves them in a heap on the floor. He tries to climb into bed without waking Eames up, but can’t deny he’s pleased when Eames stirs and rolls over, pressing his face against Arthur’s chest.

“Wha- time iz’t,” slurs Eames, never once opening his eyes, and something about how trusting this is slips between Arthur’s ribs, piercing something vital.

“Three in the morning,” he replies, one hand creeping up to the back of Eames’ head, chilled fingertips seeking the sleepy warmth under his hair.

They’re both quiet for a minute, and Arthur still feels kind of like he’s flying, or driving; like he’s still in motion, the absence of movement not having caught up to him yet. He knows if he said that out loud Eames would say something about oxymorons, would manage to be obnoxious even when he’s half asleep.

He takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, then lets it out slowly.

There is a lot that is unsaid in those short moments, things that Arthur isn’t sure he’s willing to draw the attention of yet but that are lurking in the corners of the room anyway. These things feel too big for three am when this is the first time he’s come back to this—come home , says something inside him, but it is in a questioning tone.

“You’re cold,” says Eames, a note of complaint in his voice, like Arthur has done it on purpose. “And you smell like sweat and aeroplanes.”

“Well, sorry,” he says, not even trying to sound apologetic because he’s not. “It’s freezing outside, and Mal thought it was a good idea to try and argue with the client over her undisclosed prescriptions rather than just shutting the test down. Apologies if this is inconvenient.”

“It was an observation rather than a complaint,” replies Eames.

“Sorry,” says Arthur, meaning it this time. “I’ve had a long day.”

Eames takes a deep breath in through his nose, sending something shivering through Arthur’s chest. Eames wraps a warm arm around Arthur’s waist, and it isn’t just the physical chill that Arthur feels leaving him — able to admit, now, here, in this quiet room bathed in bedside lamplight, that he had been afraid he might not get here.

“Tried to wait up,” Eames mumbles, voice still thick with sleep. He wriggles ridiculously, shuffling around until he manages to get his face against Arthur’s own. It’s only then he opens his eyes, squinting against the light. “Do I get a good morning kiss?”

“How can it be good morning when I’ve not even got to bed yet?”

“It’s after midnight and you’re back, that makes it a good morning.”

Despite being bone tired, Arthur is wide awake, still wired. He runs his fingers through Eames’ hair absently. Eames is breathing loudly against him, open-mouthed and damp against his skin, practically still asleep.

The funny thing is, if anybody had asked him six months ago whether he would willingly tie himself down with a name on the deeds to a property, even one as secret and temporary as this, he would have laughed in their face.

But here he is. This is the first time he’s come back to this. Something that’s his. Something that’s theirs, even if exactly what that means is still nebulous and unformed, still unsaid .

“Good morning,” he says quietly against Eames’ cheek, because even though they are the only ones here there is something close and intimate about keeping it quiet enough that it stays contained in the space between them, keeping it a secret even from the lamp and the curtains and the walls.

“Morning,” Eames murmurs in answer, and presses his face against Arthur’s.

The kiss is clumsy, and sweeter than he would admit to, but it’s okay if it’s kept hidden in the hours between midnight and dawn, kept safe in this tiny shitty apartment that nobody else knows about. Arthur presses the cold tip of his nose against Eames and thinks about all the things he thinks he might be starting to feel, that even if they’re not voiced at least he’s said them like this.

I'm glad to be alive, he thinks, and Eames’ lips are warm and sleep-soft against his own.

I want to breathe you in, he adds, brushing a thumb over the corner of Eames’ jaw, but I don't want to hold on so tight that you feel trapped.

Something thaws inside him when Eames sucks his bottom lip into his mouth.

There are a lot of things I think I might want to say. But I’m afraid, because you’re here but I’m still… what if it’s just me?

The curl of Eames' tongue against his own is like hot coffee after eating ice cream. He rolls onto his back, pulling Eames with him.

I don't want to ruin something else, he thinks, as Eames settles his face against Arthur’s chest, head tucked in under Arthur’s chin.

Arthur takes another deep breath, tries to hold the safe and slept-in smell of the sheets in his head, commit them to memory. Eames’ breath whistles almost inaudibly on each inhale, and he’s starting to drool slightly as he drifts off to sleep again, but Arthur can’t bring himself to move — he’ll take everything he can get.

It's good to be here, he thinks, even if it is temporary.

Chapter Text

Arthur sleeps for eleven hours before he wakes up, face half-buried in the pillows and once again being dictated to by his bladder.

The smell of coffee stops him from crawling back into bed after he’s taken care of that, and he pulls on a threadbare pair of boxers before stumbling out of the bedroom, the sound of the radio filtering in from the kitchen.

“I wasn’t sure if this would be breakfast or lunch or what, so I just made pasta,” says Eames, looking up from where he’s sitting at the table writing a list of something.

“As long as there’s coffee it can be whatever you like,” replies Arthur, heading for the pot.

“It’s ready when you are,” says Eames, once Arthur has slumped down opposite him at the table, hands curled around a cup.

“I’m ready now”, says Arthur, before taking an overly ambitious mouthful of hot coffee.

Eames raises an eyebrow. “The only thing you look ready for at the moment is maybe another kip.”

It’s far too early for this. Or late, depending on how he looks at it.

“Sure you don’t want to change?” Eames continues. “Because your bollocks seem to be making a break for freedom down the leg of those boxers. Wouldn’t want you to spill arrabbiata sauce on your tackle.”

Arthur thinks about this. “Fuck off,” he says.

Eames grins, and tosses him two mismatched socks off the top of a pile of clean washing.

“At least put those on, you’ll get cold feet.”

Arthur scowls. He does put the socks on though, before retreating to the sofa.

He grabs Eames’ hand after he puts a bowl down in front of Arthur on the coffee table, kisses the inside of his wrist.

“If this is a ploy to try and steal the remote then you’ll have to try harder,” says Eames, waggling it at Arthur when he looks up.

He could correct Eames. He could tell him that he was just letting him know all this was appreciated. He could tell him it’s because he’s glad Eames is here. He could tell him all the things he thought about last night, while Eames was fast asleep and drooling all over him, but he won’t.

He won’t tell him because this is temporary. A means to an end. It is convenient for now, somewhere to anchor themselves having been spat out by Project Somnacin. It is a safe port in a rough sea, and the last thing they need are sharks to find the mouth of the harbour.

“Then pick something that isn’t just a bunch of people LARPing in the woods. Or fucking cooking,” says Arthur, grabbing the bowl off the table and putting his feet in it’s place.

In the end they settle on something about Antarctica, having agreed to disagree.

“I think Mal’s pregnant,” Arthur says around a mouthful of food, watching a pair of emperor penguins try and keep their egg off the ground with their feet.

“What makes you say that?” Eames asks.

“You mean aside from the fact that without fail these jobs always result in some spectacular hangovers and Mal didn’t touch a drop?”

“Ah, yes, I do like it when she gets in the swing of things.”

“Yeah,” says Arthur. “I went out with Dom one night, but it wasn’t the same; he’s a lightweight.”

“Sounds like you missed my presence,” says Eames, attempting to slide each tine of his fork into it’s own piece of penne.

Arthur doesn’t answer right away, trying to decide why Eames has dropped this into the conversation, because it certainly isn’t by chance, and neither is the fact that he appears to be utterly engrossed in dinner.

“It’s certainly possible,” he says, matter of fact, letting Eames steer the conversation if he wants to.

“Maybe I’ll have to start accompanying you on these trips. Can’t have you drinking alone.”

Something complicated lurches through Arthur at hearing Eames say that.

It’s almost a year since they found themselves adrift from Project Somnacin. Arthur had spent six months desperately trying to find a way to plug back in, claw back the wonder he’d found in it from this shadow that called itself reality. Then he met Mal.

He knows that Eames doesn’t feel the same.

They’ve not discussed it, and Arthur won’t ask, but the little bits they do talk about seem to be held in different lights. For Eames it seems it’s not something he’s trying to reclaim but something he’s holding at arms length, unwilling or unable to put it down completely but nervous of it all the same.

“Dreaming will always be there,” he says quietly, after a while. He thinks he knows why Eames said what he did, but there is always room for error.

Eames doesn’t say anything, barely even looks up except to flash Arthur an almost shy look, but he smiles around his mouthful of pasta, and somehow that says enough.

They both watch as the penguins huddle together in a blizzard.

The rest of the afternoon is a warm haze, drinking sugary tea that Eames makes for him and dozing on the sofa.

“Come on,” says Eames, later, the day having turned to night outside. At some point Eames has draped a blanket over him, because despite still only wearing his boxers and some odd socks, Arthur is warm all over. “Bed time.”

He lets Eames bundle him into bed. He still feels tired. He wonders if he will feel this tired for the rest of his life, or at least as long as he is chasing dreams.

“G’night,” Arthur mumbles, eyes already closed and pressing a kiss to whatever bit of Eames he bunts his face against first — he thinks it might be an ear.

“Night Arthur,” is the reply. He feels Eames stroke his thumb over one of his eyebrows, the press of his lips against his cheekbone. A hand settles in his hair.

Arthur slips an arm around Eames’ waist, and the last thing he recalls as sleep drags him down again is Eames’ arm brushing over his own, the weight of it settling against him as if he is trying to hold them both in place.

Chapter Text

Arthur is rummaging around trying to find matching socks when Eames walks into the kitchen and puts the kettle on.

“If you put them in the washing machine at the same time, maybe you’d be able to pair them up after the fact,” Eames says, dropping a teaspoon into a mug with a clatter.

He says it like he’s picking a fight.

The last few weeks have been a strange mixture of domestic and uncertain, the truce between the two things uneasy. Arthur can feel the way they’re both trying to adjust to this new thing, trying to make space for each other. It’s good, mostly, but that doesn’t mean they don’t clash.

“If you did some work maybe you’d be less bothered by whether my socks match,” Arthur counters.

Eames puts the jar of coffee down forcefully, turning to face him.

“I made three grand last week Arthur. Two weeks before that it was fifteen hundred. What, pray tell, do you think I was doing if not working? Because I certainly wasn’t fraternising with the less salubrious members of the gambling community for fun.”

“Weren’t you? You seemed to come back in pretty high spirits for somebody who was just doing his job.”

“Woe betide I enjoy it,” Eames replies, nostrils flaring.

“Looked more like you were overcompensating,” Arthur says, unable to stop himself.

Eames doesn’t say anything else, turning back to pour water into his mug. His shoulders are tense, but the fact he’s turned around makes Arthur wonder what his expression is doing, because Eames is never bothered by being angry in front of him, but embarrassment is another thing all together.

So is hurt.

Arthur leaves him to it and goes to the bedroom to continue packing, because they’ll only wind each other up more like this. He can hear Eames opening one of the kitchen windows, the click of the igniter where he’s using the gas stove to light a cigarette.

He does think Eames is over compensating. He thinks that this reticence to come with him when he goes and does anything dreamshare related is becoming problematic. As far as Arthur can see, getting back on the horse would do Eames good.

Eames appears in the doorway after a few minutes. He doesn’t come in, just leans against the frame, hands in his pockets as he watches Arthur packing.

“You could come with me, you know,” Arthur says. He regrets it almost instantly when he sees the look on Eames’ face.

“So you can keep an eye on me?” Eames replies, a mean twist to his mouth that it is very difficult not to respond to.

“Don’t put words in my mouth, you know what I mean.”

“Do I?” Eames says, sounding pissy and pedantic.

“Yes,” says Arthur. “You might not want to though,” he adds, watching the way Eames almost flinches at the words and immediately feeling guilty.

Because Eames does know. Eames clearly knows Arthur isn’t asking because he wants to keep tabs on him. He knows that Arthur is saying this out of concern, and maybe that’s part of the problem. That Eames might not want it stings like salt on blistered palms, but Arthur can’t help how he feels.

He drops the t-shirt he’s got balled in his hands into the top of his open bag and walks over to Eames, still leaning against the door frame. The rigidity of his slouch is a complete give away.

“I think part of the reason is because you’re afraid,” he says, watching to see how Eames takes this.

“Fuck off Arthur,” Eames says, the uneasiness around his mouth hardening into something angry, but his eyes still look wary.

“No I think this needs to be said,” Arthur replies, unable to keep his mouth shut. “I’m not saying this to have a go. Fuck, I can’t imagine, it was bad enough for the rest of us. I just…”

He trails off, trying to figure out how to put into words that he’s afraid the harder Eames runs from this, the more of a problem it’s going to become. Because what does he know? He knows what the Project was like for himself, but he doesn’t know what it was like for Eames.

“You’ve clearly got no imagination then,” Eames says, something cornered and defensive to his voice.

The accusation in it hurts.

“No, I don’t. Not when it comes to this, not when it comes to you, I have no fucking clue, but you won’t tell me either!”

He doesn’t mean to shout, but having his words repeated back to him like this is exasperating, Eames twisting them to suit whatever narrative he seems to think this is following. If Eames is set on the story there’s no arguing with him; he’ll push buttons to get what he wants, and he’s very good at pushing sometimes.

Eames doesn’t say anything, clenching his teeth and looking away.

“You know what? Fine.” Arthur says, because there’s no point in trying to argue when Eames is like this. “I’m going.”

He goes back to the bed and picks his bag up, zipping it closed with an embarrassing amount of vitriol; he can’t seem to control his hands properly.

He pauses when he gets to the doorway. Eames doesn’t get out of the way, back still to the door jamb, and even though he’s angry Arthur leans in to kiss him, pressing his mouth to the unhappy clench of Eames’ jaw.

He’s about to say goodbye, but he stops, suddenly unable to say it in case it’s true.

“I’ll see you,” he says instead, then shoves past Eames. He wedges his feet into his shoes, glad for once that he never undoes the laces because it means he doesn’t have to stop and tie them now.

He clatters down the stairs in a rush and throws his bag into the trunk, slamming it with more force than necessary. But when he gets into the car and puts the key into the ignition, he can’t turn it. The look on Eames’ face as he left makes something twist unpleasantly in his chest.

Eames is in the kitchen again when Arthur gets back up to the apartment, window open and a cigarette clamped between his fingers.

Arthur walks over to him, pulling it out of his grasp and stubbing it out in the ashtray.

“I can’t leave like this,” Arthur says, holding a hand up when Eames goes to say something, because he knows if he stops he’ll lose the momentum. “I’m sorry, okay? You don’t need to tell me, I’m just…”

He wants to tell Eames that he’s worried about him, worried that this growing sense of malaise is only going to get worse. He wants Eames to know that he’s here, wants him to be able to talk about it. At the same time, he’s afraid that putting it into words will make it worse, that it will be like starting the countdown to when Eames leaves.

That Eames will construe concern as a demand for compliance.

“Will you’ll be here when I get back?” he says, searching Eames’ face for clues.

“Are you coming back?” Eames returns, the accusation in it like a slap to the face.

“What the hell, of course I’m coming back,” he says, the question taking him by surprise. “Where the hell else would I go?”

You're here, he wants to add, but he can’t quite manage it past his heart beating in his throat.

Eames is looking at him with something assessing lurking behind the attempt at aloof, but then Arthur feels him twist his fingers in the front of his jumper.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Eames says quietly.

The relief Arthur feels at hearing him say that is staggering.

Arthur wraps his arms around Eames’ shoulders. He’s far from relaxed, but he bows his head against Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur isn’t sure which of them moves first, just that they meet somewhere in the middle.

I'm sorry, the first kiss says. It’s an insistence, a hard press of lips.

When Arthur leans back slightly Eames doesn’t look particularly sure of anything, but then Arthur doesn’t really feel sure either, a jittery worry buzzing under his skin.

I'm scared, says the second, both of them yielding to it slightly. Eames tastes like cheap tobacco and instant coffee.

But I'm trying, Arthur says with the third, chasing the warmth of him.

Arthur rests his forehead against Eames’, just breathing into the same space. He doesn’t know if Eames can infer from the way Arthur kissed him what he was trying to say — unlikely, he’s not a fucking mind reader — but for now this feels okay.

Eames’ fingers are still curled in the front of his jumper.

“I need to go,” Arthur says.

Eames sighs, sounding somewhere between resigned and relieved.

“This isn’t a kiss goodbye,” Arthur adds, speaking against the corner of Eames’ mouth.

Arthur feels more than sees Eames smile, knows without looking that it’s the sort of smile that tends to appear when Eames is feeling one thing but trying to insist on another.

“I’ll see you soon,” Eames replies, kissing Arthur’s jaw. “Say hello to Mal for me,” he adds.

Something expansive blooms in Arthur’s chest. Probably for the best, because it stops him saying anything else, something like come with me and tell her yourself.

He squeezes Eames’ shoulders one more time. He leans in, not aiming for anywhere in particular, and the last kiss lands somewhere between the bridge of Eames’ nose and his eyebrow.

I'll miss you, it says.

Chapter Text

Arthur gets back to a dark apartment, Eames reading in the cold living room.

The light bulb buzzes overhead, loud in the quiet.

“Hey,” Arthur says.

“Hi,” Eames says shortly, folding the corner of the page he’s reading before looking up. “I take it you had a good trip?”

“Not so bad,” Arthur says.

The beat before Eames speaks again feels longer than it has any right to.

“How’s Mal?” Eames asks.

“Definitely pregnant,” Arthur replies. He’d say more, but it’ll keep.

Eames hums, politely interested.

“How are you?” Arthur asks, feeling weirdly awkward.

“Oh you know,” Eames says, not getting up. “Fine.” There is something too easy in the way he says it, like the words are overused and worn smooth.

Arthur looks around the room. Half the couch is taken up with a pile of dry washing, spilling onto the floor. Some of it was definitely there when Arthur left. That the side filled with clean clothes is the one Arthur tends to use feels significant.

Arthur can’t help but wonder at the sudden thought that, when he isn’t here, Eames only takes up half the space available to him.

“I hope you’re not hungry, because there’s fuck all to eat,” Eames says, getting up and walking towards where Arthur is standing in the doorway. Arthur is fifty-fifty on whether Eames is going to brush right past him, and it’s a relief when Eames stops in front of him.

“Welcome back,” Eames says, and pecks Arthur on the cheek. His nose is cold where it touches Arthur’s skin.

Arthur turns his face into it, follows Eames’ mouth with his own.

The welcome feels like apology and accusation rolled into one, but the soft press of Eames’ tongue is warm.

-

They head out to buy food and end up buying dried pasta and a jar of cheap marinara, the best of a bad selection in the all night shop. It does mean they get to spend the change in the slightly less shit of the two bars though, just enough to cover two beers.

They huddle outside, shuffling their feet in the cold night air.

“I mean, I get it,” Eames says, scraping the label on the bottle with his thumb nail. “At least, I think I do.” He looks apprehensive, like he knows he’s going to say the wrong thing but needs to say it anyway.

Arthur doesn’t say anything, wanting to let Eames speak for himself.

“I get that you want that,” Eames says after a while. “I want you to want it. I want to see the alive look on your face when you talk about it. I want to see you chase after this. I want it to be good for you.”

The expression on his face wavers, falters, rallies. The smile that floats to the surface is slightly wobbly looking, but sincere.

“I just.” He takes a drag on the cigarette, snatching the inhale, blowing hard and shallow on the exhale. “Sometimes it feels like you think I’m being. Dunno, silly, I guess.”

The feeling of shame that envelops Arthur is awful.

“Eames,” he says. “I never— That wasn’t—”

It would be a lie to say that he didn’t think Eames was hiding from this. If it was Arthur himself he thinks it would probably be a good idea to go back sooner rather than later.

But what’s good for him wasn’t necessarily good for Eames.

“I’m worried that this is growing into something bigger than it needs to,” Arthur says, which is the truth, up to a point.

Eames’ expression hardens.

“See this is exactly what I was talking about,” Eames snaps. “You always know best. You always think you know what’s good for everybody else, well mind your own fucking business Arthur.”

He picks up the shopping bag off the floor.

“This needs to be in the fridge,” he says. “See you in a bit.”

Arthur lets him go, Eames’ accusation like a slap in the face.

The fact that they didn’t buy anything that needs to be refrigerated isn’t lost on him.

-

Arthur walks around the block twice, letting Eames calm down. When Arthur gets back into the apartment Eames is standing by the open window in the cramped living room, cold night air blowing in.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says without preamble. “I’m just worried about you.”

Eames doesn’t make any move to acknowledge the apology, the muscles in his face tensing and relaxing, like he’s clenching his teeth slightly.

“Yeah, well,” he says. He takes the last drag from the cigarette, flicking the filter off into the darkness. He holds the breath, then blows it out in a sigh, cheeks puffing out.

Arthur comes to stand next to him, shoulder to shoulder. Eames’ arm feels chilled, like he’s been standing here in the cold for a while. Arthur wants to reach out and wrap his arms around him, but he doesn’t know if it would be welcome.

Arthur leans out of the window, looking up.

“I think it’s amazing,” he says quietly.

“Spit it out Arthur,” Eames says. He sounds resigned, like there is an inevitable conclusion to this conversation that he isn’t looking forward to hearing.

Arthur glances sideways at him. He’s fiddling with his lighter, looking straight ahead into the night.

“I mean, dreaming is amazing,” Arthur says, “but it isn’t everything.”

Eames turns to look at him, the slight widening around his eyes giving away his surprise.

“You’re not going to tell me that the ability to forge is incredible? That I’m wasting a talent by not dreaming?”

The sneer is audible in his voice. It would be easy to take it at face value, but that would also be grossly unfair.

“No,” is all Arthur says. He’s told Eames that it’s incredible before, but he’s starting to realise it isn’t the right thing to say; reiterating the brilliance of Eames’ ability isn’t what he needs to hear, too much like what they’d said during the trials.

Arthur doesn’t know what gives Eames the ability to slip into somebody else like that, take on the appearance of others. He doesn’t know why he and so many of the other’s couldn’t grasp the technique of it, but he does know that the ability was seized upon like starving dogs falling on a piece of meat.

The relentlessness with which they had pursued it would have been horrifying, but by then it had all felt grimly predictable.

Eames narrows his eyes at him, like he’s trying to read Arthur’s expression in the dim light.

Something relaxes in Eames’ face at whatever he sees, and a tension Arthur didn’t realise he was holding floats free.

“I mean, nobody ever got those right,” Arthur says. “The stars, I mean.”

“Don’t overdo it Arthur,” Eames says. He’s still looking out of the open window, but his shoulders don’t look quite so hunched.

Arthur plucks the lighter out of Eames’ fidgeting fingers, replacing it with his own hand.

“Come on,” Arthur says, squeezing Eames’ hand. “Bed.”

-

“I’m afraid I’ll like it too much,” Eames says, later. “Being somebody else.”

Arthur can feel the tension in his arms where Eames is holding him, doesn’t want it in the bed, but he doesn’t know what to say.

He settles for squeezing Eames’ forearms, wrapping his fingers around his wrists and holding him in place.

He feels Eames take a breath behind him, the gust of it over the back of his neck.

“It is amazing,” Eames says quietly. “And that— I don’t—”

Eames takes another breath, holds it, lets it out slowly.

“That’s part of the problem. A part of me wants it. Every time you leave I berate myself for being ridiculous about this, that I’m blowing it all out of proportion. Or that I’m, I dunno, letting them win, or something stupid like that. But.”

His arms tighten around Arthur.

“I miss it, but I can’t silence the bit of me that says ‘this is dangerous.’ That says ‘this will eat you alive if you let it’. That this death will be far sweeter than I ever thought a death could be, because. Because I. Me, the things that make me me, will no longer exist."

Eames’ fingers are gripping the front of Arthur’s t-shirt, the words stumbling out of his mouth.

“I can’t stop thinking that,” Eames continues. “Every time I think about going back, every time I think it’ll be okay, I run up against it again. That this is death by sleeping pill. This is falling asleep in the snow and drifting away from myself and not realising. This is not death by firing squad or knife. This isn’t something I can see coming and avoid.”

Arthur twists in his hold, slipping his arms around Eames’ shoulders.

Arthur kisses his forehead, over his heart. He kisses the unhappy curl at the corner of Eames’ mouth, the crease between his eyebrows. Arthur kisses places he holds fear, where he hurts, because he might not be able to do anything to help, but he can do this.

“I can’t come with you,” Eames says finally.

“It’s okay,” Arthur says, capturing Eames’ lips with his own.

It isn’t okay. It isn’t okay, but he wishes it was, and he doesn’t know what else to say.

Eames’ mouth is an unhappy curve when Arthur leans back to look at him.

“I’ll always come back,” he says, talking against Eames’ forehead.

There is something blind and hopeful and in it, in the assertion that it is true. Trusting, even.

Arthur hopes it is the truth, but some part of him feels a trickle of doubt, icy and chilling.

He brushes his thumb softly over Eames’ temple. Sleep is a long time coming.

Chapter Text

“My ribs hurt,” Eames says, wincing as he tries to move from the position he’s in, his head in Arthur’s lap and his legs arranged over the arm of the sofa.

“What a shame for you,” Arthur replies, not looking up from the book in his hands.

There is quiet for a few minutes, Eames breathing shallowly and shifting around, clearly uncomfortable.

“My legs ache to fuck,” Eames says.

“Poor baby,” Arthur tells him, then turns another page.

“No need to be sarcastic,” Eames mumbles, then opens one eye slightly to look up at him. “Though this is you we’re talking about; maybe you can’t help it.”

Arthur resists the urge to smile.

“If you insist on trying to sweet talk your way into clandestine poker games then slip up and use the wrong name, what do you expect?” Arthur replies, maintaining a straight face.

“You’re a supercilious prick sometimes,” Eames says, but there is amusement in his voice.

“You should have considered the consequences before you decided it was a good idea to punch Lukas in the face.”

“He showed all the signs of being a lumbering oaf, I wasn’t expecting him to be that fast,” Eames rues.

Quiet falls again. Arthur can’t really remember what he’s just read, so he turns the page back.

Eames holds his hand up, waving his skinned knuckles in Arthur’s face. “Kiss it better?” he asks.

“Maybe later,” Arthur says, not quite sure why he suddenly feels self-conscious.

“You’re a cruel man, Arthur,” Eames says, sweeping the back of his hand across his brow. “Even my poor battered body doesn’t elicit sympathy from you.”

It might have been more effective if Eames wasn’t affecting a tone of theatrical suffering.

It’s not that Arthur doesn’t feel a bit sorry for him; the bruising to Eames’ legs is of moderate severity, and he’s pretty sure one of Eames’ ribs is cracked, but the worst casualty is his ego. It was bad enough that he’d been caught cheating, but all Faas had done was threaten to have him removed; Eames had managed the rest himself by picking an ill-advised fight with his brother.

“You’ve only got yourself to blame,” Arthur says. He tries for disparaging but misses the mark, residual concern and a quite frankly embarrassing amount of care colouring the words.

But then, it was probably a losing battle anyway; he’s running the fingers of one hand through Eames’ hair — so far the top of his head is about the only place he’s not mentioned hurting.

“You’re out of practice. You’ve spent the last eighteen months forging authenticity certs and gambling,” Arthur says.

Eames tenses, hissing in pain as a result.

“Cheers for that Arthur,” he grits out. “I know, all right? I know. I know this is unsustainable and I know in the long run it’s not doing me any good. I know. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less difficult. It just means it’s easier to beat myself up about it every time you bring it up.”

His voice sounds pained, a breathy quality to it where he’s breathing shallowly because of the bruised ribs.

“Beat yourself up? Why, was Lukas handing you your ass not enough for you?” Arthur asks.

“Sod off, you know what I meant,” Eames says. He goes to cross his arms across his chest then appears to reconsider, wincing at the movement.

If Arthur didn’t already feel guilty then that would have gone a long way towards ensuring it. He can feel the tension in Eames’ shoulders where he’s resting against Arthur’s leg; if Eames wasn’t bruised and feeling sorry for himself it’s highly likely that he would have got up gone and into the other room, if nothing else.

“This isn’t about dreaming,” Arthur says. “This is about it being a year and a half since you did anything more strenuous than jerk off.”

Then he sighs, ashamed that probably sounds like he’s having a go at Eames again. He reaches over and squeezes Eames’ bicep.

“I’m sorry your ribs hurt,” he says. He tries not to jostle Eames too much, shifting so he’s curled towards Eames a bit better. “And your legs. And your back.”

He frowns.

“Actually, is there anything that doesn’t hurt?” he asks, brushing a thumb over the discoloured skin around Eames’ eye.

“Does the black eye make me look dashing?” Eames replies, squinting up at Arthur through the swelling.

“No. It makes you look like you got careless and left your face in the way of somebody’s fist,” Arthur says.

Eames snorts quietly, a small expulsion of breath that tickles the hairs on the back of Arthur’s wrist. His expression flickers when Arthur touches the graze over his temple.

“Shit, I’m probably hurting you doing that,” Arthur says, moving his hand away slightly.

“Yes,” Eames says softly. “But I don’t want you to stop.”

It pulls at something in Arthur’s chest, the thing he’s been ignoring for weeks in case he did something stupid, something like open his mouth and let all the things he’s been hoarding under his ribs spill out into the open.

Arthur can’t tell him how fucking furious he’d been when Eames stumbled back home covered in blood. He can’t tell him because it’s completely over the top. They’ve seen each other battered and bruised enough times by now that it should have been a familiar sight, and that was without even mentioning all the times he’s seen Eames crumple to the floor in a dream. But the lurch of dread in the pit of Arthur’s stomach at opening the door to find Eames slumped against the wall opposite keeps replaying in his mind, reminding him of all the shit that could go wrong.

Arthur can’t tell him how worried he was that somebody had done this.

He can’t tell him how terrified he is that there is some part of Eames that seeks this out.

He can’t tell him he thinks he’s in love.

“You didn’t answer the question,” Arthur says.

Eames gives him a blank look.

“I asked if there was anything that didn’t hurt.”

“I think my right ear is okay,” Eames says eventually.

Arthur leans over him, trying not to press against anything painful, and kisses the shell of Eames’ ear.

“What else?” he asks, talking softly against Eames’ earlobe.

“Tickles,” Eames says, shifting slightly at the words.

“What else?” Arthur repeats.

“Seems he managed to miss my nose,” Eames says, smiling slightly.

“He’s got shit aim then,” Arthur replies, then kisses the bridge of Eames’ nose, right where it wrinkles when he really laughs.

“My left bicep seems to have escaped unscathed,” Eames continues.

Eames is wearing a thick jumper, so it doesn’t really have the same effect, but Arthur leans down and kisses it anyway.

“What about here?” Arthur asks, touching a fingertip to Eames’ neck, in the hollow under his ear.

“See, there are conflicting truths at play now,” Eames says, plucking at Arthur’s sleeve slightly. “Because on the one hand I want you to kiss my neck, but the fact of it is I can’t turn my head without it hurting.”

“I didn’t think ‘does your neck hurt?’ could be turned into a philosophical question; clearly I’ve been underestimating you,” Arthur says.

“What can I say? I have a talent,” Eames replies.

“Yeah, a talent for playing devil’s advocate and being a shit stirrer.”

“Stop, you’ll make me blush,” Eames says, then moves his head from side to side slowly.

“On balance, I think it’s worse to the left,” Eames says.

“I’ll take the risk,” Arthur says, and presses his mouth to Eames’ neck, flicking the tip of his tongue against his skin.

He feels Eames’ fingers touch the underside of his jaw, thumb pressing into his chin.

“Actually, now that I consider it,” Eames says softly, looking at Arthur’s mouth as he talks quietly, “It seems apart from the wallop he gave me to the side of the head, he kept his ministrations strictly below the neck.”

“How considerate of him,” Arthur says, entirely unable to do anything about the silly grin that has plastered itself across his face.

“Oi, where’s my kiss,” Eames says, then puckers his lips and makes exaggerated kissy noises.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Arthur, feigning ignorance.

“Arthur you pillock, just kiss me.”

“I’m assuming that’s an insult and not an architectural term,” Arthur says.

“Stop being obtuse,” Eames says.

“Oh wow, more insults, what happened to asking nicely?”

“That went out of the window when you reneged on the promise of kisses,” Eames says.

“You’re ridiculous,” Arthur says, then leans over and kisses him properly, or at least as well as he can considering the angle he’s at.

Eames’ tongue is a soft pressure against his bottom lip, a tiny sound catching in his throat as he breathes into it. His fingers twist in the front of Arthur’s shirt, holding him close.

“I’m sorry,” Eames says. “And thank you. I’ll… get there. Don’t push me, because I’ll push back. But—” He swallows. “It helps to know you’ve got my back.”

“We’ve got each other’s,” Arthur says.

Eames smiles at him.

“I’ve thought of somewhere else that doesn’t hurt,” Eames says.

“Where?”

His smile turns lecherous.

“Oh come on now Arthur, use your imagination,” Eames says, then points to his crotch.

“I should have seen that coming,” says Arthur.

“Well, if you play your cards right I can probably muster something up,” Eames says.

“Oh god, that’s terrible, shut up,” Arthur replies.

“It was worth a shot,” Eames says.

They’re grinning at each other, and it feels like relief. Relief that Eames is okay; relief that he’s there; relief that they’re okay.

Relief that they’re still laughing.

“You’ll have to move slightly,” Arthur says, pushing gently at Eames’ shoulders. “I’ll get a crick in my neck if we do that like this.

“I can always kiss it better,” Eames says.

Arthur might not be able to tell him, at least not out loud, but maybe he’s given up on trying to pretend he’s not in love.

Chapter Text

“Why are we watching this?” Arthur asks, falling back on the sofa in a tired slump.

“So you can see what it’s like where I come from,” Eames says, pressing play.

“You’re British, it’s not that different,” Arthur says around a yawn.

He rubs his eyes. At this rate he’ll sleep through whatever they end up putting on. He’s been asleep for what feels like weeks but he can’t seem to get any rest.

“Just humour me,” Eames says. “Plus I liked Father Christmas; he’s a grumpy sod just like you, but he means well. This was written by the same bloke.”

“I think there’s a compliment in there somewhere,” Arthur replies, lifting his arm so Eames can sit up close to him.

It’s nice, if a little cutesy, a bit overly sweet. Eames occasionally makes comments about the cars people are driving, reminded of his dotty old aunt’s Morris Traveller that half the time had a couple of chickens in the back.

“No seat belts,” Eames says, as if that was something to be pleased about.

He’s not really expecting the ending. It takes Arthur completely by surprise. One minute he’s watching the animated couple on the screen moving into their little house, growing potatoes and waving their son off from the door, and the next thing he knows he’s trying to stop himself audibly sobbing, pressing his face against his knees as the credits start rolling as a surge of what he can only assume is grief washes over him.

The worst part is, he can’t stop it. He feels completely helpless as this vast thing shakes him in it’s jaws.

He can sense Eames hovering, no doubt wanting to pretend this is a normal reaction, but presumably Arthur is making far too much of a scene for him to ignore it.

He feels Eames slip a hesitant arm around his shoulders. Arthur wants to shrug it off and cling on to him at the same time, caught in the middle of two conflicting desires and rendered motionless.

“Was the film that bad?” Eames tries, and Arthur wants to shout at him, because the alternative is to cry harder.

He bites back on it, because the fact that Eames is still sitting there, still stroking his thumb against Arthur’s shoulder as he tries in vain to get his ridiculous crying under control speaks volumes.

“No,” Arthur says, a croak, because he needs to say something but doesn’t think he can manage anything else at the moment.

He feels unmoored, cast adrift, like something in him has been cut loose to drift around in the waves.

He’s not thought about it in years, and all it’s taken is some cartoon and he’s right back there, door slamming behind him as he leaves, all the guilt and the regret of it rising up in his throat until it feels like it’s going to bubble over, trample over his tongue in an effort to make itself known.

It doesn’t even make any sense, because the only real similarity to the movie plot and his own life is the part about forgetting, but it wrenches at him all the same.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Eames asks, tentative.

Arthur doesn’t think he can speak. He wraps his fingers around Eames’ wrist, holding him in place, and that seems to be answer enough for the time being.

Somehow Eames manoeuvres them so he’s got a leg either side of Arthur, resting his chin against the top of Arthur’s head while Arthur stays hugging his knees to his chest.

“I grew up with my grandparents,” Arthur says after a while, mumbling wetly against his knees. “I always felt like they were trying to apologise for something by stepping in to look after me when my mom remarried, and I didn’t want to hear it. Like, they… thought she wasn’t good enough, or something.”

He glances at Eames.

“Dad’s parents,” he elaborates. “He died when I was quite young. I think— thought, they blamed her for it.”

“I was a bit of a shit really,” he says, an understatement. “And, you know, I get it, but that still doesn’t… excuse it, or maybe I just regret it, I dunno.” He swipes at the tears that threaten to spill over again. “For fuck’s sake.”

Neither of them speak for a moment, the dvd credits coming to an end.

“Anyway, I left as soon as I was old enough to enlist,” Arthur continues.

Eames doesn’t say anything, but then what is there to say.

“I didn’t make it to my grandfather’s funeral. He died when I was nineteen.”

He isn’t sure why he’s still talking, only that now he’s started it feels hard to stop, even if he’s only telling half the story.

“I didn’t go back much. Then I pulled my head out of my ass. Realised I was being a massive dick.”

The breath he takes is shuddery.

“I’ll never forget the look on my grandmother’s face when she opened the door and saw me standing there. She looked like she’d aged ten years in four, and all I can think now is that she just looked grateful that I was okay.”

He laughs humourlessly. “Too bad she thought I was my dad.”

He risks a glance at Eames, half afraid he’s going to see something like impatience on his face, but the look on his face is strangely neutral, like he isn’t quite sure what to say.

“Sorry, you probably don’t give a shit,” Arthur says. “We’ve all got pasts.”

He expects Eames will latch onto this, use it as an opportunity to escape into the kitchen, but he doesn’t.

Something almost like guilt flickers over Eames’ face as he glances around the room. He takes a deep breath, fiddling with the zip on one of the sofa cushions.

“Just because—” Eames frowns briefly, a terse snatch of an expression before it settles into something approaching remorse.

“There’s nothing to apologise for Arthur, bloody hell,” Eames says, sounding almost pained. “I’m just… a bit shit at this sort of thing, really.”

He glances up at Arthur before looking away again.

“Never really learnt how,” he adds, pulling the zip open and closed repeatedly.

It occurs to Arthur, looking at Eames fidget on the sofa, that this isn’t awkwardness at Arthur making a scene. The note in Eames’ voice isn’t isn’t an indicator that he would rather Arthur kept this to himself.

It isn’t pained, it’s embarrassed, and it is directed entirely inwards.

Up until five minutes ago Eames knew nothing about Arthur’s upbringing, and it’s the same for him about Eames.

Something conflicted passes across Eames’ face, like he’s trying to decide something.

Then he leans forward, pressing a kiss under Arthur’s eye, against whatever tears Arthur hasn’t managed to wipe on his sleeve.

“Don’t apologise,” Eames says quietly. "I'm... honoured, actually."

Arthur tries to speak, but all he manages is an awkward wet noise in the back of his throat.

“You are a bit snotty though,” Eames says, smiling lopsidedly at him.

He pulls Arthur against him and falls back against the sofa cushions.

They lie like that for a while, the credits ending and the menu on the dvd playing over and over again, jarring in the quiet.

He’s made the neck of Eames’ t-shirt all wet, but Eames doesn’t seem to mind, just carries on stroking a hand over Arthur’s shoulders.

“And anyway, it wasn’t like that where I grew up,” Eames says after a while.

“What, so you’re not actually from the 1950’s? And you didn’t have tea with the Queen? What a let down.”

“Alas, my childhood did not consist of playing tig with all the other little lords and ladies,” Eames says.

The contrition is overplayed, but given the circumstances Arthur isn’t going to draw attention to it. Besides, Eames’ fingers are a comforting presence in his hair.

“Anyway, I meant the bit about charming parents who love each other, actually,” Eames says eventually. “Think less tea and blitz spirit, more lies and alcoholism.” He’s doing that thing where his inflection is laced with false cheer, something slightly sing-song about the way he’s talking that makes the hairs on the back of Arthur’s neck stir slightly.

He presses his face against Eames’ neck.

It’s a strange thing, hearing Eames say it. On the one hand he feels like Eames is trusting him with this, oddly relieved that Eames feels he can share this with him, and on the other he feels something inconsolably sad sweeping through him in the wake of it.

“You’re doing okay,” Arthur mumbles against him.

“What’s that?”

“You’re doing okay. At the comfort thing.”

He hears Eames swallow audibly, and his arms around Arthur's shoulders tighten.

“It’s a work in progress,” Eames says, voice thick.

Arthur leans back, getting his elbows underneath himself so he can see Eames’ face.

“That makes two of us,” Arthur replies, then he smiles, if he can call it that.

“Come here,” Eames says, pulling Arthur’s weight down against him again. “Maybe we should have watched Ferris Bueller instead,” Eames adds, the words spoken against Arthur’s temple.

A small huff of amusement escapes Arthur, which was probably the intention. He feels Eames press a kiss against his forehead.

“No, I’m…”Arthur takes a deep breath, holds it before letting it out slowly. “This was probably overdue.”

By the time they get into bed Arthur feels exhausted, barely able to summon the energy to get changed.

He’s practically asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, both of them curled against each other.

When he wakes up the following morning, he feels more rested than he has done in months.

Chapter Text

Arthur pulls his bag out of the closet, dumping it on the unmade bed next to where Eames is sitting.

He’s leaving again in the morning. They’re onto something amazing, and every time Arthur gets home he wants to get back to it, chase the next high. He wants to talk about it, wants to tell Eames about the breakthroughs and the developments, about the things they’re going to test. He’s probably being obnoxious, but the one person he wants to talk to probably doesn’t want to hear about it.

It’s conflicting.

So he avoids the issue. He talks about when his plane got delayed, about how Mal was, but that’s as close as he gets to talking about where he’s going, what they’re doing. He doesn’t talk about the restless sensation under his skin when he thinks about going under, about the breathless wonder he feels when he wakes up in dreams of a composite paradise.

He’s pretty sure Eames would listen. He’s half convinced Eames might even like discussing it, at least on a theoretical level, but at the same time he can’t be sure. He doesn’t want to make it sound like he’s trying to talk Eames into coming with him. He doesn’t want to chance it when it’s a reasonable bet that any enthusiasm Eames shows might be put on.

The thing to do is ask, really. Ask if Eames minds him talking about dreaming, rather than assuming he doesn’t. Only there never seems to be a good time. It always feels like he’ll be souring the mood.

There’s never going to be a good time though, not really, and the longer he feels like he doesn’t know if it’s okay to talk about it the more conflicted he feels. This conversation feels stilted, the omissions seeming all the more obvious because Arthur keeps starting sentences with ‘Dom said’, or ‘Mal thinks’, then cutting himself off and changing the subject.

Eames doesn’t say much, takes items of clothing out of the jumbled mess of Arthur’s bag to fold them and put them back in again neatly.

All of a sudden something increasingly familiar wells up in Arthur’s chest. Three little words he's been aware of for weeks, and they keep trying to assert themselves. He nearly said it when they were in a queue in the grocery store last Thursday, and again when Eames made them cheese on toast, after Arthur nearly set the kitchen on fire trying to cook toad in the hole.

“Stop it, mom,” Arthur says instead.

“You always complain when you can’t find anything,” says Eames pragmatically, putting several pairs of Arthur’s boxers in one end of the bag before moving onto t-shirts.

“I don’t need you to pack my bag for me,” Arthur replies. He knows he sounds churlish, frustrated by his apparent inability to talk about the things that matter.

“Well you’ll just have to put up with it, and suffer the indignity of neatly folded shirts,” Eames counters.

Arthur tries to muster a glare, but it’s halfhearted at best.

“Sorry,” he sighs. “It isn’t really about the clothes.”

“I know,” Eames replies. There is a flicker of understanding in his expression, and somehow that makes it worse, that Eames is being considerate when Arthur is being an ass.

“Arthur,” Eames says, and something in his voice cuts through, bringing Arthur up short.

He turns to face Eames, about to ask what the hell the problem is now, but Eames beats him to it.

“It’s okay,” Eames says. “Honestly. If talking to me about dreamshare means you’re going to end up constantly haranguing yourself for doing it, then don’t. But I honestly don’t mind hearing it.”

Arthur glances between Eames and the open bag on the bed, a bundle of unpaired socks and undershirts clutched in his hands. He can’t tell if Eames is being genuine or not.

“How do I know you’re not just saying that because you think it’s what I want to hear?” Arthur asks him, managing to maintain eye contact.

“Oh you know me,” Eames says, as if that was the last thing he would ever do.

“That’s the thing,” Arthur says quietly. “I do.” He considers his next words. It’s not that he thinks Eames does it to be pleasing, not as such — it isn’t a favourable response that he’s steering for, it’s a predictable one.

“I don’t want you to placate me,” Arthur says. He wants to say that Eames doesn’t need to be honest. He wants to say he hopes Eames feels like he could be, but it’s not something Arthur can ask for. “I don’t want you to have to manage me. Which… I don’t mean I don’t want you to try and say the right thing, I don’t mean that.” He pauses, trying to decide how to word this.

“I don’t want to be something you feel like you need to control,” he adds after a moment. “I don’t want to be something unpredictable you need to, I dunno, accommodate for? To preempt?”

He scowls in frustration, grabbing a shirt off the pile of clothes on the bed and stuffing it into the bag.

“Wait, that doesn’t sound right,” Arthur says. “I don’t know— I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know how to say that it’s okay if you piss me off, because it’s pretty easy to piss me off. And I know you’re quite happy pissing me off, because you do it all the time.”

Eames smiles at him, but it’s a quirk of his mouth rather than amusement.

“But sometimes,” Arthur continues, fumbling for the words and not sure if he’s on the right track. “Sometimes, I also feel like you do it because it’s familiar. Like… that’s what you expect. Like… you’re hiding behind something rather than being honest.”

He says the last part softly, trying to gauge the look on Eames’ face and finding he can’t.

When Eames doesn’t say anything, just continues to fiddle with the collar of a shirt, Arthur drops the remaining clothing into his bag. He’s not sure he’s avoided it sounding like a criticism, and Eames’ lack of response isn’t filling him with confidence, but at the same time he’s glad he said it.

“I don’t want you to say it’s okay if it isn’t,” Arthur says. He looks down at the untidy pile of clothing in his bag. “Huh. That was kind of what I was trying to say all along.”

“I’m not just saying it,” Eames says. He reaches for Arthur’s hand, pulling him so he’s kneeling on the bed. “Stop worrying.”

“But—”

Eames kisses him.

Arthur knows it’s a distraction, but he wants to be distracted. He leans forward, and he wants the press of his tongue to be a missive, to say all the things he doesn’t think he could put into words if he tried.

All the things he isn’t sure would be well received but that he hopes might be.

There is a hitch in Eames’ exhaled breath, a brief pause, and in the gap it’s like the possibility of that exists.

He slides his hands over Eames’ shoulders, cupping his face. He presses his thumbs against Eames’ jaw, and kisses him.

He licks over the swell of Eames’ bottom lip, two day’s worth of stubble rasping his tongue when he goes outside the lines. Eames slides his hands up Arthur’s back, wrapping over his shoulders from behind, pulling Arthur’s weight down against him.

He can feel it in his chest, in his throat, the words he’s not said yet that manage to steer his actions all the same, try their hardest to get out past his defences when he’s not expecting it.

This morning he nearly said it when Eames walked into the kitchen to show him the unfortunately placed hole in the crotch of his boxers. Last night he almost said it when Eames slowly inched his feet into Arthur’s lap, angling for Arthur to warm them up.

The night before Eames put his freezing cold hands against Arthur’s back when he got into bed and Arthur managed to stop the words spilling out into the open by yelling ‘fuck your fucking hands are fucking cold’ instead. He almost embarrassed himself by saying it in response to Eames telling him his repetitive use of the word ‘fuck’ was gauche and unimaginative, that Arthur might like to consider another choice of expletive.

He’s nearly said it more times than he can count. He knows it’s only a matter of time before it escapes, but for now Arthur kisses him. He chases the changes in the rhythm of Eames’ breath, the irregularities that speak of something unscripted, and the hypocrisy of wanting Eames to be honest when Arthur himself is trying to conceal the truth is not lost on him.

“I know you did that just to shut me up,” Arthur breathes against his mouth, then closes the distance again. Eames’ fingers tangle in his hair, pulling him an impossible amount closer.

“Well,” Eames says, tipping his head back slightly so he can look at Arthur. An uncoordinated smile passes over his face, the expression gangly; all limbs but earnest. “You’re partly right.”

The words nearly escape again, at the look on Eames’ face, the playful tone of his voice; at the honesty Arthur knows he’s seeing but can’t trust himself enough to believe.

“Partly?” Arthur asks instead, swallowing them down again. They sit uneasily in his stomach, trapped and waiting for an opportunity to get out.

“Partly it was because you were getting a bit tautological,” Eames says smugly.

“Using words like that in conversation makes you sound like a dick,” Arthur says, because the alternative is to tell the truth.

“That was sort of the idea, yes,” Eames replies, amusement tugging at his mouth. His expression sobers.

“But partly it was just because you’re lovely,” Eames says softly, a flush across his cheekbones. “I know you’re doing it because you’re looking out for me. I. I don’t want you to stop, I just… Want you to know you don’t have to.”

“I… What? Why would I be doing that because I have to?”

Eames doesn’t say anything for a moment, fiddling with the neck of Arthur’s t-shirt.

“Eames?”

“I know I’ve not exactly always told the truth,” Eames says.

The way Eames says it is like an opening line; not quite that it comes with caveats but that the point he’s making bears elaborating on. Arthur waits for him to continue, content to let him reach his conclusion at his own pace, comfortable lying half on top of Eames in the muddle of his packing.

Eames isn’t looking at him, instead looking at his own hands, his fingertips tucked under the neck of Arthur’s t-shirt.

Arthur brushes a thumb over Eames’ cheekbone, and a faint smile ghosts it’s way across his face.

Arthur can’t help it, he presses a kiss to where his thumb has just been, breathing in the smell of him as he waits for Eames to speak.

“And it’s not your responsibility to gatekeep that for me,” Eames says finally. “If I’m ‘hiding behind’ what I say — as you put it — and then you keep asking me whether it’s the truth… Even if it isn’t, I’m not suddenly going to take it back.”

His fingers clutch slightly at the back of Arthur’s neck before he runs them down his spine.

“I’ve said I want you to tell me about this,” Eames says finally. “Which I do. If that isn’t the truth - which it is - then that’s my problem.”

“But—”

“But nothing. You asked, I answered.”

“Okay. But I don’t want to do it on purpose.”

Eames makes a face. It's not a smile and not a grimace, hovering somewhere between the two.

“I feel like we’re going round in circles,” Eames says. His hands are warm on the small of Arthur’s back, his thumb stoking lightly against Arthur’s skin. He takes a deep breath, holds it, and it’s warm where he exhales against Arthur’s throat.

“Maybe,” Arthur replies, running his fingers through Eames’ hair.

They are. They’ve had this conversation more than once, will no doubt run up against the same hurdles again. They can’t be circumnavigated, so maybe it’s a question of practice, of jumping smaller ones so that the next time this one comes around they’ve had more time to get better at the approach.

“Why don’t you tell me what you love about it, instead of avoiding all the things you think I’ll hate,” Eames says. “I like hearing your enthusiasm.”

Arthur knows he’s telling the truth, but at the same time he’s afraid he isn’t.

And maybe it’s not just about practice, about throwing himself at the same problem at the same speed every time and hoping that this is the time he makes it over the obstacle, manages to pick his feet up high enough to make the jump.

Maybe it’s about trust, about trusting instinct rather than precedent.

About trusting Eames, too. Trusting Eames’ words rather than his history, their present rather than their pasts.

Eames hasn’t always told the truth. He’s a liar, falls back on falsehoods like they’re a comfort. But just because he’s a liar doesn’t mean all the things he says are untrue.

Arthur thinks about the way Eames sounded the other day, the clear indicator that he thought he was lacking when he said he didn’t know what to do to help, how to comfort.

The look on his face when Arthur said he was doing okay.

He presses a kiss to Eames’ eyebrow.

Maybe if he hears it enough he’ll believe it.

That goes for both of them.

Chapter Text

“Cobb’s been asking questions,” Eames says, out of the blue.

They’re sitting on the sofa with plates of bolognese on their knees. The television is set to something about jellyfish, because Eames had objected to Junkyard Wars. Arthur resists the urge to glance round at him, to see what expression accompanies the bland tone of Eames’ voice.

“I didn’t realise you two were in contact,” Arthur replies, talking around a mouthful of food.

He watches a diver float through clouds of small golden jellyfish on the TV. He nearly tells Eames that his timing is atrocious, that this conversation is a terrible one to have over dinner, but it’s probably a deliberate choice rather than him suddenly not being able to keep it in.

“Oh we’re not, but occasionally Sinclair drops me a line,” Eames replies. He’s twists his fork in the spaghetti, but he doesn’t eat any of it. “And usually it’s nothing particularly noteworthy; how Amira is, the price of a pint, people trying to muscle in on his patch, that sort of thing.”

Eames pauses, the silence stretching between them. On screen the diver swims through hazy blue water, surfacing in an isolated lake.

“But this time he said something rather interesting,” Eames continues, still toying his food. “He said Cobb had been sniffing around after trial data. Now, I know that’s his thing; I know what he’s interested in, and I know he’s good at it. From what you’ve told me, his insights are nothing short of inspired.”

Something drops through Arthur’s chest. Neither of them are looking at each other. Eames is still maintaining his conversational tone, but it’s wearing thin over the elbows; Eames wouldn’t normally be that nice about Dom.

“But it occurred to me,” Eames continues, as if he was talking about the weather being pleasant this time of year, “that as far as I was aware, nobody outside of the Project had any idea about the nature of what they were doing.”

That Eames says they, when we would technically be more accurate, says a lot.

“I didn’t tell him anything, if that’s what you’re implying,” Arthur says, giving in to the temptation to look. Even in the dimly lit room he can see the tension in Eames’ posture, the clench of his jaw. “Eames, I would never—”

“Are you sure?” Eames cuts in, the veneer of amiability having worn through. “Because he seemed particularly interested in phase two.”

“Yes I’m fucking sure,” Arthur says.

“What about Mal?” Eames asks softly.

“No, I— ” Arthur is almost certain that he didn’t, but the question plants a seed of doubt. He might have done. Back when he was desperate for another chance to dream he might have said something, tried to make himself seem like he knew enough to be interesting, enough to make them curious.

Enough for them to let him dream again.

He doesn’t think he did, but he might have mentioned something about phase two.

Something he wasn’t supposed to.

They asked, because the fact that Arthur had come from the military wasn’t the bit he was supposed to conceal. Since then the four of them had met, though as far as Mal and Dom were concerned Eames had only tangential links to the whole thing.

At least that’s what Arthur had thought.

He thinks back through all the times he can recall Mal asking about Eames. He remembers the one and only time they all met, how he’d managed to convince Eames to come with him after he’d discovered that there were people researching this stuff. Proper research, not just questionable military experiments. Arthur had been sure that, once presented with an alternative, Eames’ hostility to dreaming would lessen. That he would realise that this could be groundbreaking, beneficial. That it didn’t have to be all bad.

Only it hadn’t really worked out that way.

Eames had done an unnervingly good job of pretending he was curious, and the evening had ended up with the four of them going out and getting drunk. Looking around at the strangers in the bar, many of them in their mid-twenties, the pervading sense of seemingly carefree optimism had been almost cloying. Their naivety was startlingly sobering when Arthur remembered that at twenty two he’d been deliberately shot in the face and woken up screaming for the first time.

They’d hopefully managed to hide the nature of their relationship, or at least that they were as close as they were, that they shared anything other than an interest - Arthur was the only one with a disclosed link to any of the military research, and they both wanted to keep it that way. As far as anybody else was concerned, Eames was a curious layman. Dom and Mal had given up asking questions when Arthur didn’t elaborate on his own experience all that much, let alone that of anybody else.

It wasn’t even that he wasn’t supposed to talk that had kept him quiet; he had no particular loyalties to the project, even less after Eames had haltingly told him some of his own experiences, arms wrapped around each other in the dark. The lack of words somehow said more than all the strategically placed ones Eames often employed, as if the cost of deflection was more than he could afford this time.

“If I did, it wasn’t directly, and it definitely wasn’t deliberate,” Arthur says. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure that even if they have heard more than they’re meant to, they probably don’t associate any of that with you.” He risks a glance at Eames. “I’d know.”

He hopes he would, anyway. There’s nothing he can think of that’s ever made him think they knew more than they were letting on. He trusts them, but now he can’t help but wonder.

Eames takes a deep breath, blows it out through pursed lips.

“I want to believe you,” Eames says.

“But you don’t,” Arthur finishes, pushing his plate of half-eaten food onto the coffee table. He’s not in the least bit hungry anymore.

On the television the diver holds out his gloved hand, delicate jellyfish swarming around him.

Eames glances over at him, still twisting his fork in the rapidly cooling food.

“Looks like I need to book a flight,” is all Eames says.

-

Dom seems to think that Eames coming along is a great idea when Arthur suggests it, that another brain working on the problem can only be a good thing.

Eames says all the right things in all the right places, sounding like what he knows is from his research into neuroscience and psychology, that hearing about what Mal and Dom were doing was a happy synchronicity. He feigns intrigue surprisingly well when Dom shows him the PASIV, considering he’s more than merely familiar with one.

The plan is that Cobb will go under with the trial subject to begin with, see how things went. He’d suggested that he might be amenable to taking Eames under later in the week.

Eames’ halting words about being afraid run cold fingers down Arthur’s spine. He remembers Eames saying I’m afraid I’ll like it too much and this isn’t something I can see coming and avoid, and something icy settles in the pit of his stomach.

Arthur listens as they fence theories for therapeutic applications, a ribbon of unease slithering it’s way through him. The possibility of preemptive exposure sounds rather too close to home, far too much like the ends would be leveraged to justify the means.

It sounds far too close to reality.

If Eames keeps this up, keeps offering theories, surely Dom is going to twig, start wondering why somebody who professes no knowledge of the technology seems to ask such pointed questions.

“I’m going to get lunch, who wants what?” Arthur announces, when he can’t stand it anymore.

Arthur feels Eames looking at him as he heads for the door, but doesn’t look up to catch his eye.

-

It’s immediately apparent that he’s missed something when he walks back in.

Eames is leaning against the wall by the window, tapping an unlit cigarette against his forearm. Dom is suspiciously engrossed in whatever he’s doing.

He’d hoped this wouldn’t be a problem, but Eames’ underlying resentment coupled with Dom’s apparent capacity to disregard tact in pursuit of the truth was probably never going work.

He looks at the top of Dom’s head, glances over at Eames again.

Even before all this, they were probably never really going get on. It isn’t outright animosity, but it would be a stretch to say they hide it well. It is hidden beneath polite expressions and flippant comments, but Arthur is getting familiar enough with the ways Eames evades things to be able to identify the footprints.

The afternoon goes about as well as the morning. When Cobb leaves briefly to get coffee, Arthur takes the opportunity to squeeze Eames’ hand.

He desperately wants to ask, but there’s no use doing that now because Arthur knows Eames won’t talk. It pulls at him. He wants to kiss his face all over but doesn’t know if it will be welcomed, doesn’t know if Eames will appreciate it or if he’ll think Arthur is being condescending.

Instead he brushes his thumb over Eames’ knuckles, a kiss to his temple.

Eames doesn’t do it right away, but he does squeeze Arthur’s hand in return.

When Cobb walks back in three minutes later they are at opposite ends of the table again.

-

“What did he say to you?” Arthur says, as soon as he’s shut the hotel room door behind him. “Did he ask you how you knew so much?”

“No,” Eames says, his tone angry. “He didn’t ask me anything, he—”

Arthur watches as Eames bites off whatever he was going to say, his jaw clenching. He breathes through his nose, measured.

“He didn’t ask me anything, because he didn’t need to,” Eames says. There is a dangerous flatness to his voice, a concealed current. Arthur leans back against the door slightly. He’s trying to appear relaxed, but he isn’t.

“He didn’t need to ask because he knew all about it,” Eames continues. “He knew all about how I appeared as somebody else, about the time it took for me to remember who I was. He had some rather interesting thoughts on the matter, as it turns out, and he told me all about those, too.”

Arthur doesn’t ask what Dom’s opinions are. Not because he isn’t curious, but because Eames will either tell him or he won’t. Whatever they are, it seems unlikely they were something Eames was pleased to hear.

“I find it hard to believe this doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Eames says.

“Are we still talking about that?” Arthur parries. “If you don’t believe me, I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to say.”

Eames doesn’t reply, instead going over to the window and attempting to open it. When all he manages is the two inches the safety regulations allow it to be opened he yanks the curtains closed, his breath loud in the quiet.

Arthur doesn’t repeat that he had nothing to do with Dom knowing, it won’t do any good. All he can really think of to do is try and say it another way, tell Eames he isn’t going anywhere and that they’ll work it out.

“Come on,” Arthur says, taking his hand. “I’m beat. Fucking air con kept me awake last night.”

He’s not convinced he’s said the right thing. Whatever Eames is thinking plays out on his face in a mixture of expressions, reluctance chased off by resignation. He sighs.

But he does let himself be led to bed.

-

“Maybe you’re right,” Eames says after a while.

“I frequently am,” Arthur replies, trying to lighten the mood.

“Piss off,” Eames says brightly. Then he sighs. “I mean about going back,” Eames says quietly.

“You don’t have to prove anything,” Arthur says.

“I know I don’t have to,” Eames replies. He’s talking against Arthur’s chest, the words damp and slightly ticklish. “And it would be a stretch to say I want to. Maybe I feel like I need to be closer to it, I’m not sure.”

“If you want,” Arthur says, bringing his hand up to the back of Eames’ head. “Anyway… I’m sorry.”

Eames leans back to look at him, a questioning look on his face.

“If I did something or said something. I’m sure I didn’t… But what if I did?”

Eames doesn’t reply right away, his expression almost sad.

“I believe you,” he says quietly. “Plus, I don’t even blame Cobb. I think he’s just enthralled.” He smiles without humour, something wistful in it. “Who knows, if this had been my introduction to it I might feel the same.”

Eames wriggles around, shuffling up the bed until his face is level with Arthur’s.

“Doesn’t mean I like it though,” he adds, brushing a thumb over one of Arthur’s collarbones.

Eames is watching his thumb as it moves backwards and forwards on Arthur’s skin, and Arthur reaches up, catching his fingers in his own. He kisses the pads of Eames’ fingers, drags his mouth against them.

Eames makes a small noise in the back of his throat, and Arthur presses his mouth to Eames’, swallowing the sound. He doesn’t want to let it out into the open, wants to keep it hidden in his chest where nobody else can find it.

In some ways maybe it was fortunate it had been Dom sniffing around; the next time they might not be so lucky. The thought that Arthur might inadvertently be responsible for this, that his bull-headed enthusiasm had contributed to this, was horrible. He can’t stand the idea that it might be because of him that the rumours end up connected with Eames. Working together was too much of a risk.

He crushes his lips to Eames’, stubble prickling the inside of his bottom lip where he smears his mouth against him. Eames kisses him like he knows, like he’s trying to hide something in the press of his tongue, and Arthur wants to believe it’s not just wishful thinking but he isn’t sure he dares.

Arthur thinks about the words he’s not been brave enough to say yet, and something in him breaks. If keeping this a secret means he doesn’t have to see the the look on Eames’ face as he tries to cover up his unease, then it is a small price to pay.

They’ll keep this between them, concealed in breath and private smiles.

“I don’t want to dream,” Eames says, and it sounds like a declaration. “I’m just starting to think I might have to.”

Chapter Text

Eames is in the kitchen when Arthur gets back, scribbling something on a loose piece of paper.

Arthur doesn’t say anything, just puts the plane tickets face down on the table on his way to the sink. He can’t really afford it, but after that last job he couldn’t stop thinking about it, wanted to do something about the resignation that seemed to settle over Eames like a shroud, even if it might only be a temporary respite.

When he turns back Eames hasn’t moved. He’s stopped writing, but he’s still holding the pen, nib poised over the paper. He looks at the tickets, and a muscle in his face tenses.

“I might have said I’d try dreaming again, but you could have at least asked first,” Eames says. His voice is flat, but underneath it there is something that sounds suspiciously pointed.

“Fuck,” Arthur says, realisation dawning on him when Eames doesn’t reach out to turn them over. “Shit, sorry, I—. It’s not for a job.”

“No?” It hovers somewhere between hurt and accusation.

“I would never— Fuck, Eames, I wanted to surprise you,” he says, walking back over hurriedly and picking them up. “I’m not making a very good job of this, am I?”

Eames looks up at him, seemingly trying to decide if he’s telling the truth. That he feels he can’t trust what Arthur says cuts like a knife, but whatever Eames sees is apparently enough for him to believe Arthur isn’t lying.

“It’s not the best, admittedly,” Eames offers, then huffs quietly in amusement, or something like it. “Sorry, I’m a bit quick to judge.”

He reaches over and takes Arthur’s hand. He doesn’t say anything else for a moment, tapping the pen on the table and then giving Arthur’s hand a squeeze before taking a breath.

“Where are we going?” There is a shy sort of excitement tugging at his mouth when he looks up at Arthur. The expression pulls on something in Arthur’s chest; it’s slightly child-like, almost surprised, and Arthur can’t help but wonder at what it means, that a couple of budget flights to an as yet undisclosed location can have that effect on him.

“I told you, it’s a surprise,” Arthur replies, giving his hand a squeeze in return. That it’s a surprise based partly on the fact that Arthur is almost embarrassed to admit that the location was chosen because they were the cheapest flights he could find isn’t something Eames needs to know.

“But how do I know what to pack? I mean, are we talking bucket and spade or waterproof trousers?”

Arthur considers this. It’s a reasonable question, after all.

“Of the two, think bucket and spade." He smiles. “Though speedo and sunscreen might be more appropriate.”

“Speedo?”

“Well, swimwear of some description then.”

Eames grins. “No no Arthur, you’ve called it now, speedo it is.”

“Ta da!” Eames says on the first day, emerging from the bedroom of the apartment they’re staying in with a triumphant look on his face.

“You can’t wear those in public,” Arthur says, trying not to laugh.

“Course I can,” Eames says, striking a pose in the doorway. “Admit it, you’re impressed.”

“They’re hideous!”

“Lies. I can see you undressing me with your eyes. You want to pull them off me with your teeth.”

Arthur grimaces whilst simultaneously trying not to laugh. “They have a face on,” he says helplessly, the squints at the image stretched over Eames’ crotch. “Is that the Mona Lisa?”

“I was worried you wouldn’t be able to tell who it was, she’s a bit distorted because of my massive package,” Eames says, grinning.

“I suspect that it has more to do with the way they’re printed than what they’re containing, but ignoring that for a minute, there is no way I’m going out with you wearing that.”

“Why not?”

“Eames your dick is looking at me.”

“An eye on the balls, if you will,” Eames offers magnanimously, walking over to Arthur and sliding his hands around Arthur’s waist.

Arthur gives up trying not to laugh, pressing his face against Eames’ shoulder.

“You needn’t worry that I’ll steal the show,” Eames says, fingers tickling up Arthur’s spine. “I bought you one too.”

“Oh god.”

“You got off lightly, the only other ones they had were Van Gogh’s Starry Night.”

“That’s getting off lightly?”

Eames shrugs. “When you consider that I was looking for Caravaggio’s Incredulity of Saint Thomas, yes.”

Arthur winces. “Jesus I don’t want to know.”

“Trust me, you dodged a bullet.”

Arthur looks up, at the soft amusement Eames has tucked into the corner of his mouth, and it feels like a weight has lifted off his chest at the sight.

“Anyway, I’m not worried about you stealing anything from me,” Arthur tells him. He isn’t. Or at least, the things he might have been bothered by Eames stealing, Eames already has. “I am going to pull them off you with my teeth though.”

“See, I knew you were impressed.”

Eames somehow manages to befriend a wizened little old woman by the end of their first day, carrying on a conversation in a jumble of hand gestures, gap-toothed grins and a mixture of what sounds like three different languages. After dinner they encounter an unsuspecting couple on the quay and Eames makes up the biggest load of bullshit, telling them that they’re here to look for a villa to buy, that his trust fund will pay for the property while Arthur’s work as an architect will pay for their lifestyle. He invites them to the entirely fictitious housewarming, then starts giggling when they walk off.

“He builds things you can only dream of?” Arthur says, repeating what Eames had said to the couple. “Bit close to the truth, isn’t it?”

“The best lies always play on the truth,” Eames says, and winks at him. “Come on, let’s go and find a drink.”

They find a shop, and while Eames is perusing the choices Arthur loiters outside. A small cat the colour of milky tea peeps down at him from the top of a wall, and Arthur reaches up to say hello.

“Hey baby,” he says, holding his fingers out for the cat - kitten really - to sniff. He receives a headbutt in return. When he strokes the cat under the chin a small paw bats at his fingers.

“Are you hungry? I’m afraid I haven’t got anything for you.” He looks at the cat critically. “You don’t look like a stray. Do you have a home? If you’re here tomorrow I’ll bring you something.”

Clearly Arthur’s answers are acceptable, because the cat starts purring. “That’s a very big purr for such a tiny cat.”

He catches sight of Eames, standing in the shop doorway with a plastic carrier bag in one hand and a smile on his face, something soft in the way his eyes are crinkling at the corners.

“How long have you been standing there?” Arthur says, feeling self-conscious about being caught talking to the cat.

“Long enough,” Eames says, the smile not leaving his face. He steps out of the shop, and when he gets to Arthur’s side all he does is wave the bag in his face. “I thought we should try something local. I think he said he made it in a bathtub, but admittedly my Greek isn’t the best.”

They meander back to where they’re staying, the early evening sun casting long shadows. It’s hot, and by the time they get back they’re both sweating. Their cheap room doesn’t have air conditioning, doesn’t even have a fan, but the little balcony looks out over the treetops towards the glittering sea, and Arthur realises how grateful he is that he could do this.

Eames pours him a drink, placing it on the table in front of Arthur with a smirk.

“Chin chin,” Eames says, and takes a mouthful of his own.

He immediately starts coughing.

“Christ me that’s like paint thinner,” he splutters.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Arthur says, picking up his glass off the table and tasting it. He doesn’t start coughing immediately, but only because he tries not to. The second mouthful is better, and by the time they’re on their second Arthur has decided he likes it.

They sit in companionable silence, just watching the sun go down.

“Thanks,” Eames says after a while, staring out at the silhouetted trees.

“Huh?” Arthur says eloquently, startled from his thoughts. He’s very deliberately been not thinking about Dom.

Eames snorts. “For this,” he elaborates, gesturing vaguely with his hand. “I.” He grimaces. “Just…”

“No problem,” Arthur says, and Eames shoots him a grateful glance. He raises his glass to Arthur.

“To holidays,” Eames proposes.

“To holidays,” Arthur echos, clinking his glass to Eames’ before taking another mouthful.

The sunset is beautiful, a riot of vermilion and lilac, and as they sit talking the sky deepens to twilight, stars twinkling in the blue. The air smells of warm stone and pine trees, and at one point Arthur laughs so hard he has ouzo coming out of his nose.

By the time Eames leans over and kisses him they’ve drunk most of the bottle. The night air is warm, the cicadas loud all around them, and the stutter of Eames’ breath on his face seems almost verbal, urgent and intent, and it is impossible for Arthur to miss the feeling in it.

When they stumble into bed at some time towards midnight they fumble drunkenly against each other, skin tacky with sweat and slippery with the words they gasp against each other. Arthur pushes Eames onto his back and straddles his thighs, watching Eames’ face as he licks his palm and wraps it around his cock. He’s open mouthed, watching the slide of Arthur’s hand, shifting his hips as much as he can with Arthur’s weight on his legs, and Arthur wants to hear the words he can see Eames whispering to himself.

“Let me hear you,” Arthur says, twisting his hand, and the strangled groan that escapes from between Eames’ teeth makes something catch under his ribs.

He leans forward, licking at Eames’ mouth, hand slick on his cock. He tastes of aniseed and garlic, his lips kiss-swollen and flushed, and he lifts his head when Arthur tries to sit back up, chasing another kiss with a noise of protest in his throat and a damp hand on the back of Arthur’s neck.

“Kiss me again,” Eames breathes, before sucking lightly on Arthur’s bottom lip. The hand on the back of Arthur’s neck slides over his jaw, thumb on his cheekbone and index finger behind his ear. His skin feels slippery, Eames’ fingers sliding in the sweat on his skin. “I love it when you kiss me. When you kiss me I feel—. Wanted. I feel like you want me.”

Eames’ words are punctuated with gasps, a hitch in his breathing, with the drag of his mouth against Arthur’s skin in place of full stops; lips on his cheek, his forehead, the side of his nose. They’re not quite eloquent enough to be called kisses but more articulate than just licking, and all the things Arthur has managed to resist saying before are now crowded behind his teeth, effervescent on his tongue. He feels like if he could just open his mouth they would all bubble over, spill out into the air between them as something else that will condense on their skin, drench them both, shaken champagne utterances that he can lick from the hollow of Eames’ throat. He’ll collect them back up onto his tongue and press them into Eames' mouth so he can taste them, swallow them, let them take root in his chest so he will know that every time Arthur kisses him he is wanted, that he is more than wanted, that he is so much more than merely wanted.

Arthur slides their slick fingers together, pulling one of Eames’ hands to his mouth and licking over Eames’ knuckles. He kisses the callouses on the palm of his hand, and again at the base of his thumb. He kisses the bones in the back of his hand, the soft skin on the inside of his wrist. He kisses the terrible tattoo above Eames’ elbow, terrible once because it’s technically awful and terrible twice because of the way Arthur is helpless to think of it as anything other than endearing.

He leans forward, and he kisses the racing pulse in Eames’ neck, kisses his temple, an eyebrow, the prickle of stubble on his chin.

When Arthur kisses the corner of his mouth the sound Eames makes is almost a whimper, open and undone. Arthur still has one hand on his cock, thumb stroking over the head, smearing precome, and it’s Eames that speaks first but if Arthur could speak he would say the same thing: “I want to taste you,” Eames says, tongue hot against Arthur’s jaw. “I want to taste your sweat. I want to see you smile more often. I want to see the wonder on your face when you dream, and I want to— God, I want to suck your cock.” He swallows, expression a grimace of ache and ecstasy all in one and Arthur feels drunk on it, on the flush across his cheekbones and the slack pleasure of his mouth, on the desperate clutch of his fingers.

“What else?” Arthur says, both hands on Eames’ cock now, his own hips shifting rhythmically. “What else do you want?”

Eames swallows again, fingers tightening over Arthur’s hips. "I want to lick you out," he says, voice low. “I want to bring you to the edge and hold you there. I want to listen to the sounds you make when I bury my tongue in the heat of you, all the little noises that slip out between your teeth when you let your guard down, and then I want to feel your arsehole fluttering around my tongue when you come.”

The things he says are like brands against Arthur’s heated skin, searing, a physical sensation for all that they are merely words. He can feel sweat trickling down his sides from under his arms, and Eames’ fingers slide against his thighs, palms damp.

“I want. I want— Christ, I want, more than I ever thought I would. I want all of it, Arthur, I want—.”

“I want you,” Arthur says, speaking against Eames’ mouth, the words dripping off his tongue, and Eames comes, hot and wet over Arthur's hand on his own cock, his breath fast against Arthur’s face and an inarticulate sound fighting it’s way out of his throat.

“Let’s climb to the top today,” Arthur suggests, handing Eames a cup of black coffee.

“But it’s hot as balls out there,” Eames complains, attempting to sip at the coffee without sitting up on the bed and spilling it slightly on the sheet.

“You can sweat out all the booze then,” Arthur replies sweetly, smiling at the look Eames gives him.

“Don’t mention booze,” Eames says with a grimace.

“The sooner we get up there the sooner you can come back and lie down again.”

“You’re a cruel man Arthur,” Eames says, all mock suffering and overblown sense of injustice. He does get up though.

By the time they’re halfway to the top Eames seems to have forgotten his grievances, other than the fact that his sunglasses keep slipping down his sweaty face. There are other people on the path, most of them looking like they’re starting to regret the decision to climb a small mountain at midday, despite the trees that shade the path.

When they finally reach the top the neck of Eames’ t-shirt is dark with sweat. He slips the bag off his back and pulls out a bottle of water, drinking half of it in one go, the plastic crackling in his hand.

Arthur watches him walk to the other side of the flat top of the hill, hands on hips. He stares out to sea, and when Arthur walks over to stand next to him he doesn’t say anything. The water darkens towards the horizon, going from brilliant turquoise to hazy azure, and Arthur feels like he could fall into it, drown from all the way up here without getting wet.

“It’s a good view, I’ll give you that,” Eames says after a few minutes.

“Glad I made you get up then?”

“… Yeah.”

They stand there for a while, just looking out to sea. Up here the worries of everyday feel easier to ignore, like it’s easier not to get weighed down by what if’s and fears. Arthur takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, hoping the faint breeze will carry his doubts away.

“I want a Piña Colada,” Eames says eventually.

“You hate coconut.”

“A technicality,” Eames replies airily, wiping at the sweat on one side of his nose. “But if you have want specifics, fine; I’d like a cold beer, a fag, and to dunk my balls in the sea because currently they are sticking to the inside of my thigh. Happy?”

Arthur snorts, and Eames grins at him. He looks at ease like this, hair damp at his temples, face flushed with the sun and the hangover they’re both suffering from. It’s a far cry from the trapped look on his face on that last job, back when he told Arthur that Dom knew everything, or at least knew enough to be worrying.

Unbidden, what Eames said last night echoes in his head, the look on his face when he asked Arthur to kiss him.

They’re not the only people up here at the viewpoint, but that’s exactly what he wants to do. He wants to kiss Eames out here in the sun, where everybody else can see, where the breeze tickles over their skin and nobody cares who they are.

“Eames,” he says, before he loses the nerve. He reaches for Eames’ hand, twisting their fingers together. “I want to kiss you.”

Eames looks almost surprised, and Arthur thinks of the look on his face when he put the plane tickets down in front of him, the quiet joy when he realised what they were, like he was taken aback that somebody might want to do that for him.

When Arthur kisses him, he feels Eames smile into it.

Chapter Text

Arthur squints as they walk back to their rented holiday apartment, kicking up dust as they amble along by the side of the road. The sun is still long inches off the horizon out over the sea, the hours of the afternoon powdery and sun-splintered as they recede like the sand in an hourglass. The climb up the mountain feels like it was a different day, the time syrupy and stretched by the combination of a hangover and everything being new. He feels sticky with exertion, his face tight, almost stinging, a combination of sun and the sweat dried on his skin, and he wouldn’t change a thing.

Eames looks properly relaxed for the first time in ages. He’s good at hiding it, and over the last few months of their arrangement Arthur has got better at looking, but back in their everyday lives he always seems slightly curled in on himself. Here he is unfurled, face tilted up to face the world again, in it rather than hiding from it. Arthur doesn’t feel ready to give that up, but it’s conflicting, complicated, an uneasy sensation in the pit of his stomach. It is a tangled knot of thoughts that he has tried to avoid picking at, because there is no easy answer, no simple solution.

Their shadows are twenty feet long on the cracked asphalt, elongated shapes that shift and merge and split apart again into two separate entities. The thought that he doesn’t want the day to end feels like it is ambushing him at every turn, something he isn’t ready to face up to but that he knows is just waiting for him to lower his guard.

“Come on,” he says, nudging Eames towards the shop they’re passing with his shoulder. “You said something about a beer earlier.”

Eames’ eyebrows quirk upwards. “That is an excellent idea, you should thank me.”

“I’ll thank you by paying for yours,” Arthur tells him, ducking below one of the faded Coca Cola umbrellas that shade the mismatched arrangement of plastic tables and chairs outside the shop.

When Arthur steps inside an electric fan is faintly stirring the warm air around the interior. He grabs two green bottles out of the fridge, wrapping his fingers around cold glass and taking them to the till to pay. He doesn’t understand the price when he hears it, handing a note to the man behind the counter with an apologetic smile before pocketing his change, mangling the pronunciation of ‘thank you’ in Greek. The coins jingle in the pocket of his shorts, and the bottles clink together in the plastic carrier bag when he steps outside.

Eames is leaning against a tree and looking inland, eastwards, towards where the trees on the hilltops will soon sink into the deepening blue of the hour before sunset. Even from twenty feet away Arthur can see the hint of pale lines at the corners of his eyes where he’s been squinting against the sun for a week, prematurely ageing him. Give it ten years and the beginning of crow’s feet might not look so out of place, but as it is the sight just leaves Arthur feeling like time has slipped away from him, like he’s missed out on the years it took to get there, a strange approximation of time dilation that has nothing to do with dreams. It is a premonition of what nearly forty might look like on Eames but with none of the memories of how they got there, none of the highs or lows or experience of time, just the physical markers. It is the familiar disorientation of waking up in unfamiliar surroundings only this time it’s reality, like he’s missed out on all the possibilities of time unravelling before them, left with all of the regrets of it folding in behind.

Arthur isn’t normally cynical. Pragmatic maybe; he tells himself it’s just being realistic. This doesn’t usually slip into pessimism, but standing there looking at Eames he can’t help but think that the lines etched into Eames’ face by the sun are a lie, suggestive of one truth but revealing another, something unintended. These lines, this holiday costume, are the outcome of the way Eames’ eyes crinkle when he smiles. It’s barely noticeable, but Eames twists his mouth slightly more to the right when he laughs, and the suggestion of smile lines are deeper on one side of his mouth than the other. There is no trace of brooding etched into his forehead, none of the preoccupied evasiveness that had shaped his expression when they were dreaming everyday. His face is weathered by actual weather right now, slightly sunburnt, a ruddy pink across his cheekbones. He is in the world in a different way somehow, walking towards the things in front of them rather than away from the things behind. It feels sad, almost, a glimpse of how things could be if reality was different; these sun-etched lines on Eames’ face are in the wrong places for the future Arthur is afraid of, a product of wonder rather than worry. They don’t fit with a reality where Eames frowns more than he laughs.

Maybe sooner or later Eames will decide that the constant reminders of dreaming aren’t something he wants to have to live with, and leave. Arthur doesn’t want to remind Eames of something he would rather not recall, but he wants to believe Eames when he says he wants to hear. He wants to do the right thing, but he doesn’t know what that is, tangled up in indecision.

He swallows. If he can’t believe Eames when he says that he wants Arthur to talk about it then he doesn’t know where that leaves them, both of them afraid of honesty in their own way. He squeezes the handle of the bag, short nails digging into his palm. Eames is standing in a patch of late afternoon sunlight, and Arthur has never been happier, but somehow he feels like crying. He feels guilty, selfishly and stubbornly chasing after something, in danger of flying too close to the sun.

Arthur knows Eames would be happy to leave the last few years – leave dreaming – behind him. He knows that the constant reminders he brings back with him are not something Eames welcomes. But he also knows it would be a lie to say they didn’t exist. Every time he leaves for a job he feels like he is making a point of it, but he knows he can’t give it up.

But they’ve been through this before, the topic rearing its ugly head every now and again. So far they’ve managed to navigate it, but there is a nagging doubt in the back of Arthur’s head that, sooner or later, he is going to fuck this up.

He forces himself to walk forward. 

“Where to?” Eames asks, turning to face Arthur when he stops next to him.

“Don’t really have a plan, just… It’s our last day…”

Eames gives him a lopsided smile. “We don’t need a plan, we can just wander about a bit until we feel like doing something else.”

Arthur smiles, but it is partly so he doesn’t grimace. The way Eames says it makes it sound so easy. And Arthur knows he is only talking about now, here, not their actual lives, but right then Arthur wishes he meant it more generally. Things would be so much easier without the necessity of planning, but when he doesn’t plan things go to shit. When he doesn’t plan it isn’t because he is leaving things to play out as they are meant to, it is because he is avoiding making a decision. It is so he doesn't have to face the truth of making a choice and then having it be the wrong one, and that doesn’t sit well either.

He isn’t sure quite what set him off on this trip into brooding introspection. Maybe it’s all the booze; hangovers always did make him anxious. Either way, it’s ruining the last day of their holiday, and he tries to concentrate on the here and now, deliberately jostling Eames slightly with his shoulder as they start walking again.

They find a faint path through the trees by the side of the road, less an obvious track and more a change in the texture of the floor, the pine needles compacted slightly by the passage of people walking through. There is a stillness in the air, a sleepy timelessness, the indistinct path meandering through the trees. The air beneath the branches is silvery against his skin after the glaring heat of the sun, and off in the distance between the trunks he can see the sea, glittering, the white gold of the sun on the water dazzling. The smell of pine sap fills his head, last years’ sun warmed needles cushioning their footfalls. It feels like dreaming.

Eames breaks ahead slightly, walking faster, and Arthur doesn’t make any effort to keep up, the bag with the beer in hanging from his fingertips and brushing against his leg as he follows slowly. It looks like they’re heading towards a clifftop, and the prospect of sitting there drinking their beer while the sun goes down feels like a happy accident, one of those things that seem too good to be true but that somehow manage to happen anyway.

The cliff edge appears suddenly, the trees stopping abruptly where the ground has crumbled away into the sea. Eames is nowhere to be seen. He can’t have gone far, and the sun is throwing sideways golden light over everything, the low shrubs that cling to the cliff edge glowing a burnished bronze.

“Arthur!” Eames calls, voice drifting through the trees. “Come and look at this!” He sounds excited, his voice close by. Arthur follows the sound of it, finding Eames standing next to an old metal railing that twists out over the cliff edge, a look of almost childish enthusiasm on his face.

“I bet we can get down to a beach,” he says when Arthur stops next to him, and all Arthur can do is kiss the look of excitement on his face, pressing his cheek against Eames’ briefly before pulling away, not trusting himself to say anything else right then.

Eames gives him a small smile, sheepish almost. He can’t possibly know what Arthur is thinking, the swell of something indefinable and huge that is pressing against his sternum from the inside. Arthur can’t decide if it’s a comfort or not that Eames is unaware. He’d probably feel it was somehow his fault, like it was something he could blame himself for rather than just a product of life, of the growing realisation that sometimes things didn’t always line up.

There he goes again, getting all morose. It seems like every little thing has the capacity to set him off. He doesn’t want it to show, doesn’t want Eames to worry, but he isn’t sure how successfully he’s managing to keep it hidden. Eames hasn’t said anything, but then he often didn’t, observing everything and keeping his thoughts on the matter to himself.

Selfishly, right then he is glad of Eames’ reluctance to ask, not sure he could face up to dragging all this out of himself and into the open right then.

“What do you reckon?” Eames asks, peering down at the steps disappearing over the edge. “Think it’s safe?”

Arthur doesn’t quite trust himself to say anything, letting the act of stepping onto the top step speak for him. The railing is buckled, the concrete it’s set into starting to break away from the dry earth at the top of the cliff. Sooner or later it will crumble into the sea, but for now they can still climb down.

The top steps are concrete, crumbling away with age, but further down they are smaller, cut into the stone itself, old and not often used anymore. Rock roses cling to the cliff either side of the path, a cascade of pink and white. There are plants starting to grow over the steps, two thirds of each one now covered over with clumps of dry grass and low shrubs covered in purple flowers, the air fragrant with the leaves they’re crushing under their feet as they make their way down, tentative in case either of them slip.

The beach is tiny, not more than a hundred feet long, a narrow strip of dry white sand clinging to the base of cliffs. They take their shoes off when they reach the bottom of the steps, walking along the base of the cliff to the end of the beach. The first thing Eames does when they stop is pull his t-shirt off over his head, dropping it on top of the carrier bag. Then he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his shorts, pulling them down and kicking them off into his hand before folding them up so they sit precariously on top of his shirt.

“Don’t want to get sandy bollocks when I put them back on,” Eames says by way of an explanation, catching sight of the expression Arthur can feel on his face.

“Surprisingly, the fact that you’ve neatly folded your shorts to avoid getting sandy balls is not what I’m pulling a face at,” Arthur tells him, and Eames snorts a laugh in response.

“Come on, kit off,” Eames says, putting his hands on his hips and standing there expectantly with a smile on his face, lopsided and fond. Even in the space of a week the contrast between Eames’ chest and the untanned skin of his ass is pronounced. He’s been wearing the shortest shorts he could find that didn’t venture into indecency, but the very tops of his thighs are pale, soft cock nestled off to the left in a slightly unruly thatch of pubic hair.

“You seem very sure of the fact that we aren't overlooked,” Arthur replies, trying not to smile and not moving to take his clothes off. He will, but the look of teasing affection on Eames’ face right then feels like it is going to overwhelm him.

Eames grins at him. “So what? The worst that could happen is that we’re asked to leave, and we’re going home tomorrow anyway.”

Home.

The word is like an unforeseen up swell. Eames uses the word casually, not a suggestion but a statement of fact, something he clearly feels to be true. But home seems so permanent, a destination through uncharted waters, an unknown quantity. Arthur has reminded himself repeatedly that whatever this thing they have is, it is also temporary, and with a lurch he realises he has never thought of that apartment as home. He'd never thought he was the sort of person to get hung up on that word when it could mean something entirely different to somebody else, but there it is, his feelings on the matter appallingly apparent all of a sudden.

For months Arthur has been waiting for Eames to decide that he’s bored of it all, or sick to the back teeth of feeling like Arthur is trying to get him to do something he doesn’t want to, as if he knows better than Eames himself what would be good for him. The thought that this might become a self-fulfilling prophecy is awful, and the instinctive urge to try and explain that he’s only trying to help isn’t fair, doesn’t excuse it. It’s true, but he’d not really listened when Eames told him that his ‘shoulds’ felt like criticisms.

Arthur had thought that his insistence to himself that this was temporary was to lessen the blow when it inevitably came to an end, but standing there on that beach it feels like being in a boat crashing down on the other side of a wave. He is suddenly acutely aware that always reminding himself of the impermanence of it all was an attempt at making sure he had an exit route. He’s tried to hold it all at bay by telling himself that he was only waiting for Eames to leave, considered it an inevitability, but with a lurch he realises it was all him. He might not ever use the escape route, but the very fact that it existed made it easier to stay, calming the bit of him that felt like the cage door was closing.

“The worst that could happen is that we’re arrested,” Arthur tells him flatly, hoping it comes across as sarcasm, trying to cover for the fact that he feels like he’s sinking.

Eames waves his hand airily. It makes his cock shift slightly, free of the confines of his shorts. “Semantics.”

The juxtaposition of the sinking sensation in Arthur’s chest is so at odds with their surroundings. Eames is standing there naked in the late afternoon sun, relaxed in a way that Arthur hadn’t noticed he wasn’t until whatever habitual worries he carried with him had been set down, and Arthur feels like he is gearing up to some sort of awful epiphany, like he thought the sea floor was ten feet down but he’s actually swum out over Challenger fucking Deep.

He forces himself to his feet, pulling off his shirt, action at least quantifiable.

“Race you,” he says, flinging his t-shirt at Eames’ head and kicking his shorts off into the sand, and Eames’ honest laughter cuts deeper than anything.

He runs towards the sea, sprinting across the sand as fast as he can, and when he runs into the water it is warm, splashing up his legs and soaking him from feet to chest. The resistance slows him down and seconds later Eames barrels into him from behind, knocking him off balance, and then they're falling, Eames’ arms around his waist dragging him into the warm sea.

He twists, wrapping his legs around Eames and trying to stop him from standing back up, but Eames grabs him under the back of the thighs and lifts him into the air, flinging him backwards so he lands on his back in the water. When he surfaces, through the salt and the sun and whatever feeling it is that is trying to fight its way out of his throat he can see Eames grinning, and the sting in his eyes is not just the sea.

“I won,” Arthur chokes out, needing to say something, anything. He wipes water from his eyes and his hair out of his face, splashing water at Eames with a foot.

Eames grins. “I think you’ll find I won; I got to look at your arse as you ran towards the sea.”

It startles something loose, not just laughter, something like relief but not quite. The curve of Eames’ mouth as he stands there smiling yanks on something in his chest, a thread leading him out of the maze and back to safety.

He can hear something slightly manic is his own laughter, a note of insistence, like he’s trying to convince himself. He doesn’t know what the future will look like, but worrying about it doesn’t help. All he can do is his best with the information he has been given. The grip of anxiety isn’t gone completely, but the inertia of fear for an undefined future has eased. Nothing is certain, and all of a sudden that isn’t the crushing inevitability that it had seemed to be, a horizon that opens out before them rather than a door that closes behind.

Arthur stands abruptly, water sluicing off him. Eames’ expression is both amused and wary, like he thinks Arthur is going to pull some dirty trick to get him back.

The slight widening of Eames’ eyes when all Arthur does is brush the pad of his thumb over his jaw lightly before pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth is pay back enough. He’s not cold, but this feels like a thawing, like the thing that has been squeezing his chest and preventing him from breathing has loosened.

“Come on,” he says. “Lets swim out a bit.”

They swim out of the shadow of the shore, a hundred feet or more, and the water is cool enough to be refreshing but not so cold that they need to keep moving to stay warm. It is clear and turquoise all the way down to the sea floor, deceptively close but way out of reach, and the anxious press of words under his diaphragm seems to lessen with the lapping of the sea.

He takes a deep breath. He can just about see their belongings on the beach, two pairs of shorts and shoes and some loose change. There is nothing of any value there, but there is something precious about the easy existence of their most pressing concern being whether to have an afternoon beer or not.

Arthur tips his face up to the lowering sun, kicking his feet up so that his toes stick up out of the water. From where they are the island coast curves away, and beyond that the blue haze of the horizon blends seamlessly into the sky, the point where one becomes the other indefinable.

Neither of them say anything for a while, just treading water, the sandy sea floor deceptively close and studded with huge urchins. Arthur closes his eyes, everything orange and golden through the thin skin of his eyelids, and just floats.

“It suits you,” Eames says after a while, and Arthur opens his eyes to look at him. Eames is watching him, an unreadable expression on his face.

“What?”

“This,” he waves a hand towards the shore. “You seem… lighter. You don’t grind your teeth so much when you’re asleep.”

“That’s because with the exception of one night I’ve been so drunk when we fell asleep that I slept with my mouth open all night.”

Eames smiles, but it’s like he’s humouring Arthur somehow. He doesn’t say anything else, and Arthur is suddenly afraid to know what he meant.

They swim back to shore, and when they get back to their clothes Eames’ are still neatly placed on his shoes, not covered in sand. Arthur’s are lying discarded on the floor where he’d thrown them at Eames.

“Looks like somebody is going to have a sandy crack,” Eames remarks smugly.

Arthur picks up his shirt and throws it at Eames again, covering him in sand that sticks to his wet skin.

“Oi! You’re such a sore loser.”

Arthur shrugs, bending down and pulling one of the bottles out of the carrier bag before opening it with his teeth.

“Christ Arthur, that makes me wince every time you do it. I keep telling you I’ll do it with this.” He waves his lighter at him from where he’s retrieved it from his shorts pocket before using it to light a cigarette.

Arthur sticks his bottle in the sand to keep it upright while he shakes the worst of the sand off his clothes, laying his shorts out to sit on and his t-shirt out for Eames; no point in both of them making their clothes sandy.

They sit down without getting dressed, the sun a deep orange and just grazing the horizon, and he thinks of Eames saying it suited him, turns the words over and over in his head and tries to figure out how he feels.

“We could stay here,” Arthur says abruptly, still looking out to sea.

“That isn’t what I meant when I said it suited you,” Eames says after a moment, a measuredness to his tone. “I wasn’t implying I thought we should stay.”

Arthur looks at him. There is water trickling out of Eames’ hair, down his neck, the ends of his hair forming tiny wet spikes. There is none of the ordinary tightness around his eyes, none of the evidence of too many hours spent in underground poker dens, none of the background worry of wondering when the past will catch up with him. There is only chapped lips and freckles, tiny lines at the corners of his eyes where the sun has captured the evidence of his smiles, and Arthur’s heart aches.

This could be reality. They could wake up every morning with the windows open, sunlight pooling on the floor. They could spill coffee on the sheets, and eat tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes rather than those strange force-ripened things they sell in the grocery store.

This could be reality, rather than a brief respite from it.

“But we could,” Arthur says, the urgency in his voice surprising him. “We could stay. I could get a job on a boat, or in a bar. You can open an antique store, or a weird eclectic hotel.”

Eames smiles at him. “And upset the locals by muscling in on their turf? Nah.”

“Work in one of the bars then, I don’t know,” Arthur replies, a note of something almost like desperation creeping into his voice that he is powerless to suppress.

Eames huffs quietly, mouth quirking in a sort of smile. There is something sad in his expression, and Arthur knows what he’s going to say, clinging to the small space between his own suggestion and Eames’ inevitable refutation.

“It’s a nice dream,” Eames says after a while.

“Why couldn’t it be a reality?” he counters, stubbornly reiterating himself, as if that could change anything.

Eames doesn’t say anything for a minute, watching the sea. He rubs his thumb over the label of the bottle in his hand, the paper wearing thin. Arthur can see him weighing up what he wants to say, several conflicting emotions playing out across his face. Whatever it is, he seems reluctant to say it, taking a drag on the cigarette that dangles from between his fingers and holding his breath before blowing out the smoke.

“Because sooner or later reality won’t be enough for you,” Eames says quietly, eyes fixed on the horizon.

Arthur feels a hot prickle of indignation at the words, can feel the colour rising up his face. He feels almost embarrassed, like he’s been told off for a mistake he didn’t realise he was making. “You’re wrong.”

“Come on Arthur, think about this realistically.” Eames still isn’t looking at him, staring out to sea. The words are said quietly, his lips moving just enough to form them and nothing more. The skin is peeling across his nose, unused to the sun, normally reclusive freckles putting in a guest appearance, and Arthur wants to say the right thing. He doesn’t want to see the look on Eames' face when he takes another job. He doesn’t want to feel that his very actions are somehow upsetting to him.

“I am. I’m thinking about how it isn’t fair on you that every time I take another job I feel like I’m just carrying on as if I don’t care. I’m thinking about how you smile here, how you look relaxed in a way you never do back in that apartment. I can’t stop imagining what it might be like if you looked this happy everyday. If we stayed. I could learn to fish, and maybe you could start painting again. We could get a cat, and grow oranges, and I could get the hang of saying thank you in Greek.”

And now Eames is looking at him, a poleaxed expression on his face, like the words have flayed the skin off his defences and left something raw and glistening in their wake. And then he smiles, doing that deflective thing he always does when faced with something uncomfortable, and Arthur can’t stand that he’s been the one to make Eames do that again, he’s always doing that, saying the wrong thing when he was trying to say the right one.

“I don’t—” Eames starts.

“It’s got to be better than that cold shitty apartment,” Arthur interrupts, which probably doesn’t make any sense but he can’t think of anything else to say, isn’t sure he can handle hearing Eames try and shrug everything off, the truth a lump in his throat just like always.

“And then what? Say we do it. Say we manage to scrape together enough money to move here and start a business selling tat to tourists, or open a big gay restaurant. Hell, if we’re going for the fantasy, why don’t we just build that monstrous villa with my trust fund. Say we do that. It’ll be okay for a bit, but before long you’ll get that look on your face, the one where you’re hungry for something and you don’t even know what it is.”

“I won’t,” Arthur says, thinking about the trapped look on Eames’ face after the last time Eames went under, after it became apparent that Eames’ misgivings about Dom were entirely justified.

Eames gives him that same sad smile, like he knows exactly what Arthur isn’t saying. It’s wistful. Wise, somehow, and if Arthur was less wound up he might be able to appreciate it more. He knows Eames is right. He does know that, but he desperately wants to not see that look on Eames’ face again, not wanting to listen to the unspoken parts of what Eames is saying.

They could stay here, become other people. He could learn how to catch squid and keep goats and run a taverna festooned with bougainvillea. There could be cats asleep in the dusty shade under the olive trees and the sound of cicadas a soporific background buzz, happy and drowsy as they wait out the hottest part of the day. They can walk down to the beach towards sunset, when the sea is gently lapping at the shore, sunlight splintering on the water, so beautiful it hurts.

But Eames is right. It might be okay for a while, but Arthur knows that the incessant pull of dreaming is a hook sunk into his mouth, pulling inexorably. Eventually he would burst, ripped open by his own desires, reality not enough. He would always wonder about the what if’s, not ready to give up on the possibilities. Sooner or later the things he tried to pretend he didn’t feel would be dragged to the surface, thrashing blindly, an accident waiting to happen, and the knowledge is gutting. That this choice exists at all is excruciating, but Arthur knows Eames is right.

“I keep thinking,” Arthur says, pausing to try and gather the words to say it correctly. “I keep thinking about how when I get back from a job it looks like you’ve only been occupying half the space. I keep thinking about the look on your face when you told me Cobb knew, or when I say I’m going to take another job, and I hate that I put that look there. I feel like it’s my fault. If I was a decent guy then I would just quit. I should be able to do that for you, but I can’t.”

As soon as he says it he knows it’s true, another wave rushing in to fill the empty space left behind by the receding of the tide.

“That doesn’t make you a bad person, Arthur,” Eames says. “You’re not wrong to want something.”

The sea laps against the shore, timeless and ceaseless, and all Arthur can think about is how finite everything feels, how sooner or later everything will fall apart and it will probably be his fault.

“Why are you so calm about this?” Arthur says, eyes prickling as he stares at the setting sun, because there is something trying to claw its way out of his chest, scared and angry, because why does the truth have to feel like grief, like giving up.

“Arthur,” Eames says, slightly strangled sounding. When Arthur pulls his gaze away from the horizon Eames is looking at him, a frown on his face. His chapped lips are pressed tightly together, like he is trapping something he’s not sure of saying behind his teeth. He looks away, back out to sea

“I’m not calm,” he says eventually. “And I do want that. The oranges and the cat and everything. But I don’t want you to resent it. I don’t want the reason you do something to be me. I want you to do it for you.”

“Why can’t it be you?”

“Don’t,” Eames says warningly. “I don’t want that responsibility. It’s too… heavy, I can’t carry that.”

“But why?”

Eames shakes his head wordlessly, a smile like a wince twisting his mouth.

“Do you think we're going to break up?” Arthur asks, the question escaping unchecked.

“You never know what's going to happen,” Eames says, too lightly.

“Sounds like you’ve already decided.”

“I— No, that isn’t it at all, it’s—”

But Eames either can’t or won’t finish the sentence, the lack of full stop an unforeseen coastal shelf, the ground beneath them dropping away vertically and the sea floor is too far down to see.

Arthur digs his fingers into the sand. The sun has sunk almost all of the way below the horizon, just a wavering sliver of orange still visible above the sea. He can’t look at Eames, and it is guilt as much as anything else that prevents him. He feels like he's trying to hold onto something he isn't sure he can name, a lump of dread sitting in his stomach.

But then Eames puts his hand over Arthur’s where he is digging his fingers into the soft dry sand, and Arthur reaches over and puts his other hand on top, thumb around Eames’ wrist. A small sound escapes from Eames’ throat.

And then Eames is kissing him, hand at the base of his skull, tasting of salt and smoke and all the hesitant unsaid things that neither of them have been brave or stupid or selfish enough to say.

He leans back, pulling Eames with him, and his nose is filled with the smell of wet skin, of Eames, of a fading dream, the sharp prickle of sand under his shoulder blades as Eames presses himself against Arthur’s chest counterpoint to the thunderous drumming of his heart in his throat. The kiss is bittersweet and fragile, slow and sad, because they can’t outrun the setting of the sun, anymore than they can stay. He brushes his thumb over Eames’ cheekbone, kisses the warm pink flush of his sun-kissed face, a lingering press of lips.

And then suddenly it is vicious, a greedy want that fills him right down to the tips of his fingers, something desperate and reckless in it, throwing himself into the rising waves. He pulls Eames against him, one hand on the back of his neck and the other around his shoulder, clinging desperately and afraid of drowning, floundering and helpless and unable to swim. Eames’ breath is wet against his mouth as he pulls back slightly, just breathing into the same space as each other, and then he catches Arthur’s bottom lip sweetly between his teeth, biting slightly before letting go with an air of finality and then just tucking his face against Arthur’s neck, fingers resting on Arthur’s collarbone.

“Thank you,” Eames says after a while. Above them, the sky has turned from orange to purple.

“What for?” Arthur says, cheek pressed to the top of Eames head and his arms wrapped around him.

“You talked about not being able to walk away from dreaming.” He takes a breath. “But you never considered that you could walk away from me.”

Arthur opens his mouth, shuts it again, squeezes his arms tighter. “That was never an option,” he says, the words escaping around the lump in his throat. “I’ll just carry on being selfish.”

He will. All they really have is now. For now, they are choosing this. They are choosing this evening under the deepening twilight, the smell of the sea and dry earth and olive trees, the knowledge that there is nowhere else they would rather be, at least for now, everything both beautiful and heartbreaking.

“Anyway, it’s not a shitty apartment,” Eames says. He’s talking against Arthur’s neck, like he isn’t sure that Arthur isn’t going to argue about it but he’s saying it anyway. “It’s ours.”

And that’s devastating all over again, a wave of guilt in his chest, because Eames sounds resigned and unsurprised again, like he does in reality. Like he's expecting Arthur to take something precious away from him, and the worst part isn’t even that.

The worst part is that Eames seems to consider it a given, and that Arthur isn’t sure it isn’t. It’s the way Eames saying because sooner or later reality won’t be enough for you echoes in his head, completely gutting and utterly true.

Chapter Text

It’s a surprise when Mal hands him an invitation to her wedding reception, his name in her sloping script on the envelope. At least, it’s a surprise to be invited — he didn’t think he’d warrant it — but it’s not a surprise that she’s getting married, that part’s obvious. She is happy and well and glowing, five months pregnant for the second time and overseeing the job they’re working in Chicago, and when Arthur glances over at Dom he can see the way he can barely contain his happiness, watching Mal as if she is the light of his life and he can scarcely believe his luck.

When he opens the envelope the gilded card has Eames’ name on as well, inviting them both in the same breath. He stares down at it for a moment, open mouthed, before looking up at Mal in shock.

She smiles at him, conspiratorial. “You were never that good at subtle,” she tells him, like she is pleased with herself, her delight at surprising him almost palpable.

And then she hands him a second envelope, one that just has Eames’ name on, and asks if he could pass it along, and Arthur is so fucking grateful for the pretence that it hurts.

-

He hands Eames the envelope, trying to act casual and feeling anything but. He doesn’t know how Eames is going to take this. They both thought they had been entirely convincing in pretending they were just sometime-colleagues, but apparently they hadn’t fooled Mal.

“She said Dom doesn’t know,” Arthur says quietly. He believes her, but he doesn’t know whether Eames will.

Eames looks up from the still unopened envelope in his hands, expression searching, before sliding his thumb under the flap and pulling the heavy card out of it, reading it through before looking back up at Arthur.

“This has both our names on, but the envelope was only addressed to me,” he says, as if he’s confirming something rather than asking for clarification.

“I thought it might,” Arthur replies, still trying to gauge how Eames feels about this. “Mine was the same.”

Eames nods. Then the corner of his mouth curls up slightly, less an artifice and more of an admittance, and Arthur lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, sagging against the door jamb.

-

They go to the effort of arriving separately, leaving their hotel at different times and arriving by different routes. Maybe it’s overly cautious; Dom hasn’t said or asked much about Eames recently, at least not to Arthur, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been digging elsewhere, and it doesn’t mean nobody else has either.

He’s pretty sure he won’t know anybody else in the room apart from Eames and Mal and Dom, quietly glad of the anonymity. By the time Arthur gets there, deliberately not on time, the party is already in full swing. When he walks in he sees Eames talking to somebody Arthur doesn’t know, glass of champagne in his hand, and it is a hardship not to go straight over to him, hard not throw all their precaution out of the window because it isn’t fair that Mal and Dom get to have everything out in the open and they have to feign indifference like this.

He’d thought by the time he left the military that the need for hiding and subterfuge would be in the past, but the secrecy had followed him out of the service, a remnant it was hard to shake and one that was continued in the name of safety. Admittedly it’s not for the same reasons, and he knows it’s necessary, but it still didn’t sit well.

He finds Mal, handing her a gift bag. It feels good to be able to do it; that he’s in a position to splash out on anything, including the suit he’s wearing, is in no small part down to her and Dom. He’s grateful, but at the same time it’s a point of contention. A small part of him is waiting for the argument, waiting for the accusation that he’s sold out, ignoring Eames’ misgivings in favour of a fat paycheck and chasing after the impossible, and that same part of him isn’t even sure it isn’t true.

“You look lovely,” he tells her.

“I look like a whale,” she counters. “I can’t drink and I can’t eat the pâté and I am tired of carrying this large baby around with me.” But she’s smiling as she says it, a protective hand under her belly — she’s almost eight months gone now — and she’s the one who holds her hand out and asks him to dance with her.

She’s taken her shoes off, shuffling around in her stockings, and she leads him in something that’s not quite a dance but more than just an artful walk. At some point Dom finds them, taking her hand and walking her around in a circle. One of the bridesmaids that Arthur is pretty sure is Mal’s sister jumps in front of him and insists on trying to teach him the dance moves to a song Arthur only vaguely recognises. And then Eames appears and presses another glass of champagne into his hand, apologising profusely and unbelievably to Charlotte when he steals Arthur away from her and practically shoves him towards a chair.

“Thank fuck,” Arthur gasps, collapsing on a chair and trying to catch his breath, too hot in his suit.

“You looked like you needed rescuing,” Eames tells him, sitting down next to him. He’s lost his jacket somewhere, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his tie sticking out of his pocket. They sit there for a while, neither of them saying anything, and it’s an easy silence. It’s easy to ignore all his worries when everybody around them is smiling and laughing and dancing, when everything feels so hopeful and full of promise and potential. It is easy to let it carry him along, laughing as Eames starts making up stories about all the guests they don’t know, and it hits Arthur all over again just how lucky he feels that they still have this, them.

There are so many ways it could have gone wrong, or never could have happened at all. There are so many times Arthur was sure he’d messed everything up, but actually hadn’t. There are so many times Eames has had more faith in him than Arthur has had in himself. Sitting there watching Eames it hits him all over again, and the weight of all the things he’s never said is almost crushing. And really it’s just one thing, one small but paradoxically huge thing, and Arthur wants to kiss him but he won’t do that, not here, won’t take the risk. Eames must feel Arthur staring at the side of his head because he looks over with raised eyebrows. Arthur isn’t sure what he sees, but Eames tips his head to the side slightly, looking at him with the hint of a question in the tilt of his cheek.

Eames gets to his feet abruptly, pulling Arthur back onto the crowded dance floor, everybody packed close. The lights are colourful and the shadows are deep, people laughing and singing, and he lets himself be led. They dance like idiots, miming along with the words, and Arthur’s face hurts from smiling, breathless and sweating and full of joy, and he imagines what it might be like to say it. He imagines shouting it in Eames’ ear over the noise, or pressing it in close in whispered admission, but he can’t imagine what it might be like to feel that free fall between the words and the response, can’t picture the expression Eames might have on his face.

Eames is still giving him the same questioning look, like he can’t quite decipher Arthur’s mood. But then, Arthur can’t quite decipher it himself, stuck somewhere between joy and apprehension. And then Eames kisses him, and Arthur has his hands on either side of Eames’ jaw, pressing himself against him and his tongue in Eames’ mouth before it filters through to him that they’re supposed to be keeping this a secret.

He pulls back, feeling like he’s done something wrong, but Eames’ expression is serious rather than accusing.

“Eames…” he says, as all around them people dance and laugh and sing.

“It’s a wedding,” Eames says, “Nobody will bat an eyelid.” Eames kisses him again, his mouth curving into a smile, and then rather than kissing they are mostly laughing into each other’s mouths because the DJ has decided that Dancing Queen is what he should be playing next, and Dom has burst onto the dance floor, tie loosened around his neck and throwing his arms into the air as he sings along in drunken enthusiasm.

The rest of the night is a blur of disco lights and snippets of nonsensical conversation, until much later when most of the guests have gone to bed or gone home. Arthur is sitting at one of the tables around the edges of the room, content and tired, watching Mal’s sister and one of Dom’s cousins dance with each other in their matching bridesmaid’s dresses. Eames has gone off to investigate the table of food down the far end, their afternoon meal feeling a long way in the past, when Mal sits down next to him.

“I’m glad you’re happy,” she tells him.

“Yeah,” he says, because he is. He can’t quite believe it himself most of the time; he is so goddamned happy it hurts, so why can’t he stop worrying?

And then he sees Eames coming back towards him, a plate of food in each hand, and Arthur wants to tell her he’s petrified, that he is so shit fucking scared that he’s already fucked this up before they’ve really started, that he’s been so concerned about making mistakes that he’s not done anything right, either. But it’s her wedding day, and he won’t do that.

He looks around the room, looking for a distraction. Dom’s mother is looking at his father in fond exasperation as he tries to scrub gravy off his shirt. A cluster of Mal’s friends are trying to get the bartender to mix them up disgusting sounding cocktails. A couple Arthur doesn’t know are on the dance floor, holding hands in a circle with a child of about four — Philippa, Arthur thinks distantly — the three of them doing a dance that is more shaking each other’s hands up and down and shuffling than dancing, but they’re all laughing.

And then he catches sight of Dom, talking to a man Arthur does know, and both of them are watching Eames.