Red Oni, Blue Oni 7/7
Dec. 29th, 2010 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tabi_essentiallyWarning: NC17 lite
Previous:
Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.
** ** **
Eames came awake slowly. Arthur was gone, and he could hear the water running down the hall, from those communal showers. Before Yusuf could get in here (and the man was tactful, he had to give him that, too,) he stripped the sheets from the bed and dumped them in the laundry bin in the hall. He would have to wash his clothes, so he went into one of the utility rooms and found some scrubs that Yusuf kept around for when he was working in the lab.
He went into the shower room, where the stalls were separated by green-tiled walls and flimsy curtains. When he closed the door behind him, Arthur poked his head out from behind one of the curtains, frowning suspiciously.
"Oh," he said when he saw that it was Eames, and ducked back into the shower.
Eames stripped off his clothes. He was covered in sweat, and the billowing steam from the shower blew a draft in his direction, chilling him.
"All right there, Arthur?" he asked, his voice light and casual.
"Yeah," Arthur answered. "You?"
"Just fine. A little woozy but that will wear off." He stood looking at the showers, thinking for a moment. Arthur was behind the closed curtain, and Eames, by habit, didn't initiate contact. Arthur always touched first; it was a known rule as old as their relationship, if you could call it that. Probably as old as all of Arthur's relationships. Mal had always touched him without permission, and she seemed to be the only one who didn't make him scowl when she did it.
Eames went into the shower stall next to Arthur's and turned on the water.
After about ten seconds, Arthur poked his head out again, this time pulling Eames's curtain aside. He was scowling anyway, gloriously annoyed.
"What?" Eames said.
In reply, Arthur reached around the tile wall and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him into his stall. It was a damn good thing, Eames thought, that he wasn't as prickly as Arthur.
Arthur looked him over critically, even going so far as to checking his eyes, the way Yusuf did after a chemical experiment.
"I'm fine," Eames said, suddenly feeling strangely unbalanced and shy. "It was mild."
"Yeah, well, you did it for me, so. Thanks for that." He tossed a bottle of body wash to Eames.
"So," Eames said, trying not to feel awkward as he soaped himself up, starting with his hair. "Do you think it was helpful?"
"I think so. I mean, it worked, right? I dreamed the kinds of things that I never did. Not since, you know."
Eames didn't know, at least not the details. He mused that he never would.
"It feels weird," Arthur went on. "I mean, unreal. I can't imagine not being able to tell those dreams from reality while I'm awake. Why would I even need a totem after dreams like that? It's so easy to tell the difference."
"But when you get used to dreaming without lucidity, those dreams can also become mundane in some cases, and because we dream so often, it's still a good idea to use the totem."
"Do you use yours after your non-lucid dreams?"
"Well, no," Eames answered honestly. "I just use mine when I've been working a lot. But I can forge, so it's easy to tell when I'm awake. I can't change myself, can't call certain things into existence."
"I need to start over," Arthur said, his voice quiet.
"What do you mean?"
Arthur turned to him, naked not only literally. "With dreaming. With work. Everything. I've been lucid for so long, and now that I see where that got me—losing my mind when I'm awake—I have to re-train in dreaming. I have to, if I want to keep working. It has to be an on and off kind of thing. Lucid and then normal, back and forth, until I can do both easily and at will. How do you do it?"
"It's just the way I've always been," Eames said. "You were trained to be lucid when you were too young. It helped, so that you could escape the nightmares. You probably need to let them back in and keep working through them. Can you afford the time off?"
Arthur smiled. "I can afford anything I want, if you're talking about money. It's just. I love it. The work. You know?"
Eames wanted to reach for him, to touch his wet hair. Instead he smiled, an invitation. "Dreaming will still be there when you go back," he said. "It's not going anywhere. Neither is your skill. I promise you."
"What if I can't get work? If I leave for a while and then no one will hire me?"
"Arthur, really. You've never stopped working. Lying low for a while isn't going to destroy you. And you can do point work without going under, at least for a while. Have you considered it? And I always need a good point man anyway. Believe me, I'd be thrilled if I had you running some of my more complicated heists, especially in England where people already know of me."
"You're looking for help?"
"I'm always in need of the best," Eames said. "And I need someone to protect me topside in some cases, do the physical work, awake."
Arthur turned away and went back under the stream of water, considering this. "I could do that," he said.
"If you're going to stay in England for a while..." Eames said.
Arthur turned back around, with a close-lipped smile as he wiped a patch of suds from Eames's neck. Then his hand traveled around to the front of his throat, tracing a scar. It was the newest in Eames's collection of them and still felt sensitive. Arthur seemed to realize this and pulled his hand away.
"Yeah, I could protect you," Arthur said.
In turn, Eames reached for the scar that ran horizontally across Arthur's shoulder. "Knife wound," he said. Then he touched a deeper scar on his other shoulder. "Bullet."
Smirking, Arthur reached towards Eames's face and touched the small scar that split his eyebrow. "Diamond ring," he said. "I probably know them all. I think." He ran his hand down Eames's side, to a jagged one right beneath the last rib. "Broken bottle." Lower, down to his left hip. "Shrapnel." Arthur got on his knees and touched the long stretch of lines on the outside of his thigh. "Road burn from the motorcycle spill when you were twenty." He wrapped his hand around the opposite ankle. "Dog bite, breaking and entering." He looked up, considering Eames for a moment, and then stood abruptly.
Eames turned Arthur around; Arthur went willingly, with a small chuckle. Eames touched the scar on his shoulder-blade. "Another bullet; this one was close." He turned Arthur to face him again and took his wrists in hand. Thin lines marked them – to any other eye it might look like a suicide attempt, but Eames knew better. "Zip-tie from abduction; you could have lost your hands." Arthur shrugged as if this didn't matter. Eames reached toward his face and ran his fingers along the thin line on his forehead, that slanted down from his hairline. "Bashed yourself on a fire escape, acting like a daredevil." This time, he went down on one knee, and took Arthur's leg in both hands. He gently gripped him at the knee, looking at three precise, circular scars. "Surgery," he said. "Torn meniscus."
Arthur clucked his tongue in annoyance and pulled his leg away. "I hate those."
"Not ill-gotten enough for you?" Eames asked, smiling. "This one, then." He ran his hand up the long length of Arthur's inner thigh. This scar was jagged. "Chain-link fence as you tried to get over it. Of all your scars, this one bled the most." And suddenly he was back in the dream, pressing Arthur onto the bed and licking blood from him. In the light of the showers, in reality, the thought of it made his stomach jump unpleasantly. It was always harder to look at dreams like that in the light.
He patted the inside of Arthur's thigh companionably and stood up again.
"You missed one," Arthur said.
"Did I?"
With a smile that was almost shy, Arthur ran his tongue over his own lip, and pulled the bottom one away from his teeth. Sure enough, there was a tiny scar on the inside of his lip. And Eames remembered: Arthur bleeding from the mouth, laughing, smearing the blood with the back of his hand as he got up off the mat.
"I did that," Eames said. "Our first sparring match. I didn't know it scarred. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You have a hell of a straight punch."
"You were supposed to weave."
"I remember that I was looking at you," Arthur said. "I got distrac--"
Eames cut him off with a sudden kiss, sliding his hand around the back of Arthur's neck and jerking him forward. Before Arthur could pull away, he kept on with a few shallow kisses, until Arthur decided to join in and gripped Eames's arm in his strong fingers.
"Distracted," Arthur said, when Eames allowed him to speak.
"Arthur," Eames said, pressing their foreheads together, "stay in England for a while. Stay at my flat. We can finish this dream thing together. I can help you, let me finish the job. It's no good, you staying at the clinic. Nothing that Yusuf can cook up in his lab will be able to accomplish what we did tonight."
Arthur thought it over for a minute, taking his time. "If I can still work," he said, finally. "I mean right away. I don't want to take any time off. And I don't just mean sitting at the computer. I'll go crazy. Crazier."
"You're not crazy," Eames said. "You're just having a moment, is all. We all have them, Arthur. Allow yourself, all right? And anyway, between jobs we can dream-share and see where it goes. You can practice both, lucid and non-lucid. Until you're doing it on your own. Yeah? What have you got back home in the states? Any jobs lined up?"
"No, no jobs. I didn't take any, after I started seeing fish in my stairwell and fire falling from the sky."
The idea of Arthur losing control chilled him, but he smiled anyway and ran his thumbs along the angle of his cheekbones. "It was that bad?"
"It was worse," Arthur said, pulling away, finally having had enough of the intimacy for the moment. It was always a countdown with him. "By the time I got here I didn't know what was real anymore. I was awake all the way here, but still dreaming. I have no idea what I was saying to people, probably some seriously fucked up nonsense. I'm lucky I didn't end up in jail."
"Jesus," Eames said, stepping off and allowing him space. "I'm sorry."
"It's better now," Arthur said. "I'm freezing. Aren't you?"
"We should get out, I guess."
But instead of turning the water off, Arthur reached for him, took him by the arms, and pushed him against the wet tiles.
"Oh," Eames said, unable to find any other words.
And then Arthur was kissing him, pressed against him full-length, his hand sliding lower.
"Good heavens, Arthur," Eames said, as his hand joined Arthur's, gripping around them both. He thought of a thousand more clever things to say, then he reminded himself that he always talked too much when Arthur got quiet, so he closed his mouth and let Arthur continue.
Arthur watched him, his dark eyes almost holding a challenge, nearly arrogant in his power. He smirked, which just about parted his lips. Anybody else, and Eames would want to punch that self-satisfied look off his face. But on Arthur, the look almost made him stop breathing. He gave himself up to Arthur's control, and sort of reveled in Arthur's trust of him. He knew the weight of it. It didn't come cheap and had taken him years to earn.
Arthur touched him with practiced ease, and the same confidence that he gave to everything he performed. It hadn't always been so easy.
Eames put his arms around Arthur's waist and drew him close, knocking the breath out of him. Arthur dropped his head to Eames's shoulder. He could still feel the smirk on his lips.
"We could get caught," Arthur said into his ear, before fastening his teeth to his neck.
Everything in Eames's body tensed at the words; coiled tight in his stomach. Any of the other people staying here could walk in at any moment. He thought of the dream, when they were both military boys, doing this in front of their superior.
"Someone could see," Arthur whispered. His hand moved faster. "We could be in trouble."
"Oh, god," Eames said, choked off at the end. That was all it took, the idea of it. That this was still forbidden, that someone could easily see him with his back pressed against the tiles as Arthur touched him. That maybe that someone would watch while it happened, could see what Arthur did to him. A kink that he never even knew he had.
"We have to be quiet... ah..." Arthur gasped into his shoulder and tensed against him, pressing him back into the tiles.
Apparently, Eames thought, a kink that Arthur hadn't known he'd had, either.
It was interesting, that they could still find surprises about each other after working together for ten years or so. He'd never be bored, at least. He kind of liked the idea, when he thought about it.
** ** ** **
Low music drifted in from the kitchen, from Yusuf's iPod. "Moonlight Serenade," Eames thought. Yusuf himself was coming down the stairs, drying his hands, when Eames came into the kitchen wearing scrubs. Grey, mid-morning light filtered in through the window above the sink.
"Good morning," Yusuf said. "Where's Arthur?"
"Getting changed. He's all right."
Yusuf glanced down at Eames's scrubs.
"I borrowed these, hope that's okay. My clothes got all sweaty. Hope you don't mind if I used your washer."
Yusuf must have known what really happened to his clothes, but he didn't say anything, god love him. He just nodded and put the kettle on.
"So, speaking of Arthur," Eames began. "I think it went fairly well, so..."
"Yes, speaking of Arthur," Yusuf said, his voice hushed, "you must know that the next few weeks... or likely months... are not going to be easy. I debate whether he should go back to work so soon. I debate whether he should be alone."
"Oh, we kind of already talked about that," Eames said, rubbing the back of his head. "He'll stay with me for a while, I think. I'm not far from you, in case we should need you. And he'll work topside for a while. You know he can't not work. Then he'll really lose it."
Yusuf got three cups down from the cupboard and set them around the table. "Earl Grey?"
"Yes, please. For Arthur, too."
And if Yusuf had his own thoughts about Eames knowing what tea Arthur preferred in the morning, he kept those to himself, too. "You should expect him to cycle through everything he cut himself off from in the past. You know that, right?"
"Nightmares?"
"Nightmares, anxiety, what-have-you. I don't know exactly what happened to him. I don't need to. But it was enough to make him lock it away. An extractor like Mr. Cobb could probably draw it out of him, but that also would not be natural." Yusuf smiled. "Sometimes it's simply more effective to be a human being before being a dreamwalker."
"That's why you don't do it often?" Eames asked. "Not because of the compounds?"
"Precisely."
"Do what often?" Arthur asked, coming into the kitchen. He wore a pair of old, faded jeans and a flannel, button-down shirt. His hair was wet and beginning to dry into curls.
"Go under," Yusuf said."I try not to live like that. And now you see why. Sit." He indicated a free chair for Arthur, and when the kettle whistled, he poured tea.
"Thank you," Arthur said.
"I'm afraid all I have is cereal and scones to go with tea," Yusuf said. "Not much for cooking."
"Anything's fine," Arthur said.
"Eames has been telling me you're going to stay with him for a while."
"Yeah, I guess so," Arthur said.
"I think it's a fine idea. I can't think of a better place for you to be, actually. Being here isn't going to help you, and I've got other people who need far more care than you. I don't mean that you're not worthy of my time, but you're self-sufficient where these others are not, and I have less worries about you."
"That's heartening," Arthur said.
Eames was amused, and pleased that Yusuf had figured Arthur out enough to say the exact correct thing." You're not helpless. You're strong enough for this.
"I want you off compounds for a month, Arthur. Use the PASIV if you're just using it to dreamwalk with Eames—but don't get hooked on that, either. Dream alone some of the time. Sleep alone. Write down what you dream and how it made you feel."
"I feel like I'm in DreamTech again," Arthur said, before taking a sip of tea.
"Indeed," Yusuf said, "what did you do in DreamTech when you were asked to journal your dreams, if you were lucid throughout all your dream classes?"
"I made shit up."
"Don't, this time. Keep track of the real ones. Toss and turn in the night. Wake up without a kick or a countdown. Wake up crying in the middle of the night. Like a normal person."
"None of that appeals to me," Arthur said drily. He held up a hand before Yusuf or Eames could disapprove. "But, it appeals to me more than asking strangers on the tube if they can see the blood coming up through the floor. I'll do it, all right?"
"Christ, Arthur," Eames said. He could just about picture it: Arthur, the madman on the train, his eyes wild and lost, babbling about his hallucinations. It hurt his mind to think about it.
"It's done," Arthur said.
"It's not," Yusuf warned. "That's why you shouldn't be alone. And no caffeine, either. No sleep aids. No NyQuil. Nothing that will alter your mental state. If it says not to operate heavy machinery, don't take it."
"I don't like pills anyway," Arthur said.
"Then I release you to your own care," Yusuf said. "And I'm here if you need me."
"I owe you," Arthur said. He turned to Eames. "Both of you. I'll make it up to you."
"You can pay me," Yusuf said, casual but serious. "Or you can do some work for me when you're sorted out."
"I'd be glad to," Arthur said.
"You'll already doing my hard work," Eames said. "So you don't owe me after those jobs are done. We're square."
Arthur finished his breakfast in silence, thinking it over.
** ** ** **
"You steal this?" Arthur asked, getting into Eames's car after shoving his suitcase and the PASIV into the back.
"Don't assume," Eames said, keying the ignition. "I do buy things on occasion."
Arthur looked over at him and tried to read his expression. Eames was smirking, trying to remain mysterious, his eyes fixed ahead. He didn't care if Eames had stolen the car or not. He just liked watching his profile as he decided whether to tell the truth or let Arthur guess. Eames was unreadable, it was part of his job description. But he let Arthur read him on a regular basis.
Arthur had never noticed that before.
"You did steal it," Arthur said.
Eames pulled away from the curb, and a sleek, black hearse pulled out in front of the car.
"Watch out for the..." Arthur began, breathless. He bit back the words and shook his head. The hearse wasn't there. He checked for Eames's reaction. "Sorry."
Eames didn't look flustered in the least. "That's to be expected, we're not in the clear yet. It takes some time. Yeah? What was it?"
"A hearse."
"Ah. Better than a fish, I suppose."
"Yeah."
Eames kept his eyes on the road. Arthur stared openly at him. At his close-cropped hair, dark from months in England. The scar on his eyebrow, the elegant slope of his nose. The curve of his mouth. Without realizing he was doing it, Arthur put his fingers to his own lips, as if trying to remember the pressure of Eames's lips against his. Then he dropped his hand into his lap. These forays into his subconscious urges during waking hours were going to have to stop. He felt like a walking dream, all his thoughts and feelings on display. And they weren't even hooked up.
Eames was probably the single most dishonest person Arthur had ever met. He lied for a living. For all of his livings, really. He cheated at cards, stole money, information, cars, nabbed secrets and sold them to the highest bidder. He lied to people's minds, in their dreams. Became other identities, awake and sleeping.
"You're thinking," Eames said, with a glance toward him. "I can practically hear you."
It gave Arthur a quick jolt, as if Eames could really read his mind while they were awake. Impossible, though.
"Yeah, I'm thinking," Arthur said.
"'Bout what?"
About who you are, about your mouth, and your strange, focused eyes, about what you do, and how you do it, about how you lie your way through life. About how you would probably not lie to me. Or maybe you really can't anymore. About the things you hide and the ones you can't hide. About how you stole my phone and forged my passport when we first met, about the first time we fucked in Germany, about how you got Cobb out of the country and how you saved the Fischer case.
About how you showed up yesterday and took me under without any hesitation.
About how I'm supposed to get through this, and all I have to accomplish that is you.
"About when I was a kid," Arthur finally said. "I told some of it to Mal, some to Dom. Never really the whole thing though."
Eames kept his eyes on the road, but there was a flicker of something in them. Interest, surprise, warmth or some combination of them. He didn't urge Arthur to go on.
"When I was in school, I got involved in a situation. It cost me. A lot. It cost a lot of kids their lives."
Eames listened, nodding. He didn't offer any comment.
"I lost someone that I tried to help," Arthur said. "That was how it started."
** ** ** **
END.
I really don't have the words to thank you all for reading, and for all of your wonderful comments on this fic, and on all the others over the last few months. Simple "thank you" never quite seems enough.
All the same, thank you. ^_^
Previous:
Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.
** ** **
Eames came awake slowly. Arthur was gone, and he could hear the water running down the hall, from those communal showers. Before Yusuf could get in here (and the man was tactful, he had to give him that, too,) he stripped the sheets from the bed and dumped them in the laundry bin in the hall. He would have to wash his clothes, so he went into one of the utility rooms and found some scrubs that Yusuf kept around for when he was working in the lab.
He went into the shower room, where the stalls were separated by green-tiled walls and flimsy curtains. When he closed the door behind him, Arthur poked his head out from behind one of the curtains, frowning suspiciously.
"Oh," he said when he saw that it was Eames, and ducked back into the shower.
Eames stripped off his clothes. He was covered in sweat, and the billowing steam from the shower blew a draft in his direction, chilling him.
"All right there, Arthur?" he asked, his voice light and casual.
"Yeah," Arthur answered. "You?"
"Just fine. A little woozy but that will wear off." He stood looking at the showers, thinking for a moment. Arthur was behind the closed curtain, and Eames, by habit, didn't initiate contact. Arthur always touched first; it was a known rule as old as their relationship, if you could call it that. Probably as old as all of Arthur's relationships. Mal had always touched him without permission, and she seemed to be the only one who didn't make him scowl when she did it.
Eames went into the shower stall next to Arthur's and turned on the water.
After about ten seconds, Arthur poked his head out again, this time pulling Eames's curtain aside. He was scowling anyway, gloriously annoyed.
"What?" Eames said.
In reply, Arthur reached around the tile wall and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him into his stall. It was a damn good thing, Eames thought, that he wasn't as prickly as Arthur.
Arthur looked him over critically, even going so far as to checking his eyes, the way Yusuf did after a chemical experiment.
"I'm fine," Eames said, suddenly feeling strangely unbalanced and shy. "It was mild."
"Yeah, well, you did it for me, so. Thanks for that." He tossed a bottle of body wash to Eames.
"So," Eames said, trying not to feel awkward as he soaped himself up, starting with his hair. "Do you think it was helpful?"
"I think so. I mean, it worked, right? I dreamed the kinds of things that I never did. Not since, you know."
Eames didn't know, at least not the details. He mused that he never would.
"It feels weird," Arthur went on. "I mean, unreal. I can't imagine not being able to tell those dreams from reality while I'm awake. Why would I even need a totem after dreams like that? It's so easy to tell the difference."
"But when you get used to dreaming without lucidity, those dreams can also become mundane in some cases, and because we dream so often, it's still a good idea to use the totem."
"Do you use yours after your non-lucid dreams?"
"Well, no," Eames answered honestly. "I just use mine when I've been working a lot. But I can forge, so it's easy to tell when I'm awake. I can't change myself, can't call certain things into existence."
"I need to start over," Arthur said, his voice quiet.
"What do you mean?"
Arthur turned to him, naked not only literally. "With dreaming. With work. Everything. I've been lucid for so long, and now that I see where that got me—losing my mind when I'm awake—I have to re-train in dreaming. I have to, if I want to keep working. It has to be an on and off kind of thing. Lucid and then normal, back and forth, until I can do both easily and at will. How do you do it?"
"It's just the way I've always been," Eames said. "You were trained to be lucid when you were too young. It helped, so that you could escape the nightmares. You probably need to let them back in and keep working through them. Can you afford the time off?"
Arthur smiled. "I can afford anything I want, if you're talking about money. It's just. I love it. The work. You know?"
Eames wanted to reach for him, to touch his wet hair. Instead he smiled, an invitation. "Dreaming will still be there when you go back," he said. "It's not going anywhere. Neither is your skill. I promise you."
"What if I can't get work? If I leave for a while and then no one will hire me?"
"Arthur, really. You've never stopped working. Lying low for a while isn't going to destroy you. And you can do point work without going under, at least for a while. Have you considered it? And I always need a good point man anyway. Believe me, I'd be thrilled if I had you running some of my more complicated heists, especially in England where people already know of me."
"You're looking for help?"
"I'm always in need of the best," Eames said. "And I need someone to protect me topside in some cases, do the physical work, awake."
Arthur turned away and went back under the stream of water, considering this. "I could do that," he said.
"If you're going to stay in England for a while..." Eames said.
Arthur turned back around, with a close-lipped smile as he wiped a patch of suds from Eames's neck. Then his hand traveled around to the front of his throat, tracing a scar. It was the newest in Eames's collection of them and still felt sensitive. Arthur seemed to realize this and pulled his hand away.
"Yeah, I could protect you," Arthur said.
In turn, Eames reached for the scar that ran horizontally across Arthur's shoulder. "Knife wound," he said. Then he touched a deeper scar on his other shoulder. "Bullet."
Smirking, Arthur reached towards Eames's face and touched the small scar that split his eyebrow. "Diamond ring," he said. "I probably know them all. I think." He ran his hand down Eames's side, to a jagged one right beneath the last rib. "Broken bottle." Lower, down to his left hip. "Shrapnel." Arthur got on his knees and touched the long stretch of lines on the outside of his thigh. "Road burn from the motorcycle spill when you were twenty." He wrapped his hand around the opposite ankle. "Dog bite, breaking and entering." He looked up, considering Eames for a moment, and then stood abruptly.
Eames turned Arthur around; Arthur went willingly, with a small chuckle. Eames touched the scar on his shoulder-blade. "Another bullet; this one was close." He turned Arthur to face him again and took his wrists in hand. Thin lines marked them – to any other eye it might look like a suicide attempt, but Eames knew better. "Zip-tie from abduction; you could have lost your hands." Arthur shrugged as if this didn't matter. Eames reached toward his face and ran his fingers along the thin line on his forehead, that slanted down from his hairline. "Bashed yourself on a fire escape, acting like a daredevil." This time, he went down on one knee, and took Arthur's leg in both hands. He gently gripped him at the knee, looking at three precise, circular scars. "Surgery," he said. "Torn meniscus."
Arthur clucked his tongue in annoyance and pulled his leg away. "I hate those."
"Not ill-gotten enough for you?" Eames asked, smiling. "This one, then." He ran his hand up the long length of Arthur's inner thigh. This scar was jagged. "Chain-link fence as you tried to get over it. Of all your scars, this one bled the most." And suddenly he was back in the dream, pressing Arthur onto the bed and licking blood from him. In the light of the showers, in reality, the thought of it made his stomach jump unpleasantly. It was always harder to look at dreams like that in the light.
He patted the inside of Arthur's thigh companionably and stood up again.
"You missed one," Arthur said.
"Did I?"
With a smile that was almost shy, Arthur ran his tongue over his own lip, and pulled the bottom one away from his teeth. Sure enough, there was a tiny scar on the inside of his lip. And Eames remembered: Arthur bleeding from the mouth, laughing, smearing the blood with the back of his hand as he got up off the mat.
"I did that," Eames said. "Our first sparring match. I didn't know it scarred. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You have a hell of a straight punch."
"You were supposed to weave."
"I remember that I was looking at you," Arthur said. "I got distrac--"
Eames cut him off with a sudden kiss, sliding his hand around the back of Arthur's neck and jerking him forward. Before Arthur could pull away, he kept on with a few shallow kisses, until Arthur decided to join in and gripped Eames's arm in his strong fingers.
"Distracted," Arthur said, when Eames allowed him to speak.
"Arthur," Eames said, pressing their foreheads together, "stay in England for a while. Stay at my flat. We can finish this dream thing together. I can help you, let me finish the job. It's no good, you staying at the clinic. Nothing that Yusuf can cook up in his lab will be able to accomplish what we did tonight."
Arthur thought it over for a minute, taking his time. "If I can still work," he said, finally. "I mean right away. I don't want to take any time off. And I don't just mean sitting at the computer. I'll go crazy. Crazier."
"You're not crazy," Eames said. "You're just having a moment, is all. We all have them, Arthur. Allow yourself, all right? And anyway, between jobs we can dream-share and see where it goes. You can practice both, lucid and non-lucid. Until you're doing it on your own. Yeah? What have you got back home in the states? Any jobs lined up?"
"No, no jobs. I didn't take any, after I started seeing fish in my stairwell and fire falling from the sky."
The idea of Arthur losing control chilled him, but he smiled anyway and ran his thumbs along the angle of his cheekbones. "It was that bad?"
"It was worse," Arthur said, pulling away, finally having had enough of the intimacy for the moment. It was always a countdown with him. "By the time I got here I didn't know what was real anymore. I was awake all the way here, but still dreaming. I have no idea what I was saying to people, probably some seriously fucked up nonsense. I'm lucky I didn't end up in jail."
"Jesus," Eames said, stepping off and allowing him space. "I'm sorry."
"It's better now," Arthur said. "I'm freezing. Aren't you?"
"We should get out, I guess."
But instead of turning the water off, Arthur reached for him, took him by the arms, and pushed him against the wet tiles.
"Oh," Eames said, unable to find any other words.
And then Arthur was kissing him, pressed against him full-length, his hand sliding lower.
"Good heavens, Arthur," Eames said, as his hand joined Arthur's, gripping around them both. He thought of a thousand more clever things to say, then he reminded himself that he always talked too much when Arthur got quiet, so he closed his mouth and let Arthur continue.
Arthur watched him, his dark eyes almost holding a challenge, nearly arrogant in his power. He smirked, which just about parted his lips. Anybody else, and Eames would want to punch that self-satisfied look off his face. But on Arthur, the look almost made him stop breathing. He gave himself up to Arthur's control, and sort of reveled in Arthur's trust of him. He knew the weight of it. It didn't come cheap and had taken him years to earn.
Arthur touched him with practiced ease, and the same confidence that he gave to everything he performed. It hadn't always been so easy.
Eames put his arms around Arthur's waist and drew him close, knocking the breath out of him. Arthur dropped his head to Eames's shoulder. He could still feel the smirk on his lips.
"We could get caught," Arthur said into his ear, before fastening his teeth to his neck.
Everything in Eames's body tensed at the words; coiled tight in his stomach. Any of the other people staying here could walk in at any moment. He thought of the dream, when they were both military boys, doing this in front of their superior.
"Someone could see," Arthur whispered. His hand moved faster. "We could be in trouble."
"Oh, god," Eames said, choked off at the end. That was all it took, the idea of it. That this was still forbidden, that someone could easily see him with his back pressed against the tiles as Arthur touched him. That maybe that someone would watch while it happened, could see what Arthur did to him. A kink that he never even knew he had.
"We have to be quiet... ah..." Arthur gasped into his shoulder and tensed against him, pressing him back into the tiles.
Apparently, Eames thought, a kink that Arthur hadn't known he'd had, either.
It was interesting, that they could still find surprises about each other after working together for ten years or so. He'd never be bored, at least. He kind of liked the idea, when he thought about it.
** ** ** **
Low music drifted in from the kitchen, from Yusuf's iPod. "Moonlight Serenade," Eames thought. Yusuf himself was coming down the stairs, drying his hands, when Eames came into the kitchen wearing scrubs. Grey, mid-morning light filtered in through the window above the sink.
"Good morning," Yusuf said. "Where's Arthur?"
"Getting changed. He's all right."
Yusuf glanced down at Eames's scrubs.
"I borrowed these, hope that's okay. My clothes got all sweaty. Hope you don't mind if I used your washer."
Yusuf must have known what really happened to his clothes, but he didn't say anything, god love him. He just nodded and put the kettle on.
"So, speaking of Arthur," Eames began. "I think it went fairly well, so..."
"Yes, speaking of Arthur," Yusuf said, his voice hushed, "you must know that the next few weeks... or likely months... are not going to be easy. I debate whether he should go back to work so soon. I debate whether he should be alone."
"Oh, we kind of already talked about that," Eames said, rubbing the back of his head. "He'll stay with me for a while, I think. I'm not far from you, in case we should need you. And he'll work topside for a while. You know he can't not work. Then he'll really lose it."
Yusuf got three cups down from the cupboard and set them around the table. "Earl Grey?"
"Yes, please. For Arthur, too."
And if Yusuf had his own thoughts about Eames knowing what tea Arthur preferred in the morning, he kept those to himself, too. "You should expect him to cycle through everything he cut himself off from in the past. You know that, right?"
"Nightmares?"
"Nightmares, anxiety, what-have-you. I don't know exactly what happened to him. I don't need to. But it was enough to make him lock it away. An extractor like Mr. Cobb could probably draw it out of him, but that also would not be natural." Yusuf smiled. "Sometimes it's simply more effective to be a human being before being a dreamwalker."
"That's why you don't do it often?" Eames asked. "Not because of the compounds?"
"Precisely."
"Do what often?" Arthur asked, coming into the kitchen. He wore a pair of old, faded jeans and a flannel, button-down shirt. His hair was wet and beginning to dry into curls.
"Go under," Yusuf said."I try not to live like that. And now you see why. Sit." He indicated a free chair for Arthur, and when the kettle whistled, he poured tea.
"Thank you," Arthur said.
"I'm afraid all I have is cereal and scones to go with tea," Yusuf said. "Not much for cooking."
"Anything's fine," Arthur said.
"Eames has been telling me you're going to stay with him for a while."
"Yeah, I guess so," Arthur said.
"I think it's a fine idea. I can't think of a better place for you to be, actually. Being here isn't going to help you, and I've got other people who need far more care than you. I don't mean that you're not worthy of my time, but you're self-sufficient where these others are not, and I have less worries about you."
"That's heartening," Arthur said.
Eames was amused, and pleased that Yusuf had figured Arthur out enough to say the exact correct thing." You're not helpless. You're strong enough for this.
"I want you off compounds for a month, Arthur. Use the PASIV if you're just using it to dreamwalk with Eames—but don't get hooked on that, either. Dream alone some of the time. Sleep alone. Write down what you dream and how it made you feel."
"I feel like I'm in DreamTech again," Arthur said, before taking a sip of tea.
"Indeed," Yusuf said, "what did you do in DreamTech when you were asked to journal your dreams, if you were lucid throughout all your dream classes?"
"I made shit up."
"Don't, this time. Keep track of the real ones. Toss and turn in the night. Wake up without a kick or a countdown. Wake up crying in the middle of the night. Like a normal person."
"None of that appeals to me," Arthur said drily. He held up a hand before Yusuf or Eames could disapprove. "But, it appeals to me more than asking strangers on the tube if they can see the blood coming up through the floor. I'll do it, all right?"
"Christ, Arthur," Eames said. He could just about picture it: Arthur, the madman on the train, his eyes wild and lost, babbling about his hallucinations. It hurt his mind to think about it.
"It's done," Arthur said.
"It's not," Yusuf warned. "That's why you shouldn't be alone. And no caffeine, either. No sleep aids. No NyQuil. Nothing that will alter your mental state. If it says not to operate heavy machinery, don't take it."
"I don't like pills anyway," Arthur said.
"Then I release you to your own care," Yusuf said. "And I'm here if you need me."
"I owe you," Arthur said. He turned to Eames. "Both of you. I'll make it up to you."
"You can pay me," Yusuf said, casual but serious. "Or you can do some work for me when you're sorted out."
"I'd be glad to," Arthur said.
"You'll already doing my hard work," Eames said. "So you don't owe me after those jobs are done. We're square."
Arthur finished his breakfast in silence, thinking it over.
** ** ** **
"You steal this?" Arthur asked, getting into Eames's car after shoving his suitcase and the PASIV into the back.
"Don't assume," Eames said, keying the ignition. "I do buy things on occasion."
Arthur looked over at him and tried to read his expression. Eames was smirking, trying to remain mysterious, his eyes fixed ahead. He didn't care if Eames had stolen the car or not. He just liked watching his profile as he decided whether to tell the truth or let Arthur guess. Eames was unreadable, it was part of his job description. But he let Arthur read him on a regular basis.
Arthur had never noticed that before.
"You did steal it," Arthur said.
Eames pulled away from the curb, and a sleek, black hearse pulled out in front of the car.
"Watch out for the..." Arthur began, breathless. He bit back the words and shook his head. The hearse wasn't there. He checked for Eames's reaction. "Sorry."
Eames didn't look flustered in the least. "That's to be expected, we're not in the clear yet. It takes some time. Yeah? What was it?"
"A hearse."
"Ah. Better than a fish, I suppose."
"Yeah."
Eames kept his eyes on the road. Arthur stared openly at him. At his close-cropped hair, dark from months in England. The scar on his eyebrow, the elegant slope of his nose. The curve of his mouth. Without realizing he was doing it, Arthur put his fingers to his own lips, as if trying to remember the pressure of Eames's lips against his. Then he dropped his hand into his lap. These forays into his subconscious urges during waking hours were going to have to stop. He felt like a walking dream, all his thoughts and feelings on display. And they weren't even hooked up.
Eames was probably the single most dishonest person Arthur had ever met. He lied for a living. For all of his livings, really. He cheated at cards, stole money, information, cars, nabbed secrets and sold them to the highest bidder. He lied to people's minds, in their dreams. Became other identities, awake and sleeping.
"You're thinking," Eames said, with a glance toward him. "I can practically hear you."
It gave Arthur a quick jolt, as if Eames could really read his mind while they were awake. Impossible, though.
"Yeah, I'm thinking," Arthur said.
"'Bout what?"
About who you are, about your mouth, and your strange, focused eyes, about what you do, and how you do it, about how you lie your way through life. About how you would probably not lie to me. Or maybe you really can't anymore. About the things you hide and the ones you can't hide. About how you stole my phone and forged my passport when we first met, about the first time we fucked in Germany, about how you got Cobb out of the country and how you saved the Fischer case.
About how you showed up yesterday and took me under without any hesitation.
About how I'm supposed to get through this, and all I have to accomplish that is you.
"About when I was a kid," Arthur finally said. "I told some of it to Mal, some to Dom. Never really the whole thing though."
Eames kept his eyes on the road, but there was a flicker of something in them. Interest, surprise, warmth or some combination of them. He didn't urge Arthur to go on.
"When I was in school, I got involved in a situation. It cost me. A lot. It cost a lot of kids their lives."
Eames listened, nodding. He didn't offer any comment.
"I lost someone that I tried to help," Arthur said. "That was how it started."
** ** ** **
END.
I really don't have the words to thank you all for reading, and for all of your wonderful comments on this fic, and on all the others over the last few months. Simple "thank you" never quite seems enough.
All the same, thank you. ^_^
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Date: 2010-12-30 03:15 pm (UTC)THANK YOU.
Please continue writing.
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Date: 2011-01-01 06:42 am (UTC)I did just jump on a prompt, so. ^_^ Yeah.
Thank you!