Chapter Text
Arthur wasn’t avoiding him.
That would be ridiculous, they were essentially living together. He was certainly going out of his way to give them time apart, though, Eames had cottoned on to that much.
In the space of a week, Arthur had suddenly taken up hot yoga, joined a book club, started training to become a volunteer firearm safety instructor, and was constantly blockading himself in his office for some reason or other. It was a bit too much of a coincidence for Eames to swallow.
Left to his own devices, Eames put together the storage cabinet Arthur had bought for his records, then moved the records themselves while taking great pains to keep from getting them out of order. He reorganized the kitchen since Arthur had been making noise about needing to get around to it. He snooped on the fringes of current dreamshare heists and fretted about the state of his career. And, finally, he decided to bite the bullet and try to make a dent in Amarinder’s demands.
Of course, this was exactly when Arthur decided to start making himself mildly accessible again. Eames was out shopping for a scanner, since Arthur for some reason didn’t own one, when Arthur sent him a text that consisted of only one thing.
“You have got to be bloody joking,” Eames muttered, staring down at the number four.
By the time he made it back to Arthur’s place, it appeared Arthur had gotten bored and was stretched out facedown on his bed--which had been feeling an awful lot like their bed, and there was a thought Eames was determined to keep right on circumventing forever--wearing nothing but a towel. Damp hair starting to dry into waves, sunlight caressing the dip at the base of his back, phone glued to his ear.
“What,” Eames said, staring. He’d planned on ribbing Arthur about needing to upgrade his sexting skills, but all that seemed vastly unimportant now.
“I’m on hold. Harvey’s got his architect on the other line. He needs a second opinion.”
Arthur was still talking, presumably detailing just what this second opinion was on, but it could have involved custard pie and Shor's algorithm and a carload of kittens for all Eames cared. Something about Arthur in a towel made most of his thought processes sputter out.
“I thought you weren’t going to work while you were here.”
“This isn’t work,” Arthur said earnestly. “This is fun. And I get to mentor the up and coming point people of tomorrow.”
Eames rolled his eyes and set about working his towel off, stroking over the curve of his arse once it was bared. “You make me cut short my errands because you want a bit of fun and now you’re doing business, also for fun. I don’t understand you.”
“This won’t take long. Did you buy anything more interesting than a scanner?”
“I did. It should be getting dropped off sometime tomorrow, by the way, so don’t turn the hose on any deliveries.” Eames rummaged through his bags, discarded the shaving cream and sensitive-teeth toothpaste, and produced the belt he’d bought on an impulse.
Arthur’s eyes went a little hooded.
“Ah,” Eames said slowly, letting himself preen a bit. “I thought you might approve.”
Granted, he’d expected Arthur to approve solely on a sartorial scale because Ferragamo was Ferragamo and Arthur was predictable beyond belief sometimes. Eames made a mental note to stop underestimating Arthur’s capacity to surprise him. Then, with great deliberation, he slipped off the belt he was wearing. It was older, more worn in than the new one, and he doubled it up without glancing away from Arthur for an instant, drew it taut between both hands with a snap like a gunshot.
Arthur was looking at him with flushed cheeks and arched brows. Eames swallowed and halfheartedly tried to hold back his smirk.
“Still at a four?” Eames asked, cresting a thumb over his arse, along one of the dimples at the base of his back.
Arthur nodded.
“Still on hold?”
Another nod.
“I’m starting to think,” Eames mused, leaning in until his lips were brushing Arthur’s ear, “that maybe you should speak to Harvey some other time.”
Without batting an eye, Arthur turned off his phone and set it aside.
Eames’s cock went from pressing slightly against his flies to full-on aching in record time. “Yes. Right. Good.”
He took a seat on the edge of the bed and then Arthur was on him, naked and eager, his arms winding around Eames’s neck and mouth slanting over Eames’s own. The contrast alone was enough to make Eames’s mind blur; he was still completely clothed, while Arthur was bare and graceful and whipcord-strong against him.
“Not my back or anything, okay?” Arthur said, rolling his hips lightly against his thigh. “And no blood. Can’t get into it and you know it’s a bitch to wash out of the sheets.”
“Understood. And you, you give me a one if it hurts too much or even if it doesn’t.” He’d had no trouble raising a hand to Arthur since the first time Arthur rolled onto all fours and commanded him to do it, but this was different. This was stepping onto ground so new he was waiting for it to crumble out from under him.
“Yeah, fine,” Arthur muttered, lashes lowering as Eames’s hand wrapped around him. “And no making it last all night, either. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” Eames smoothed down his spine and whatever else he had to say tapered off rather quickly.
“Also understood.” Eames gave his prick a long, slow stroke and then released him. “Up on your knees, love.”
It took his breath away every time, watching Arthur slide into position with his arms folded beneath his head and his arse in the air. And every time, a captious little voice in the most cynical portion of his psyche demanded to know how many other lovers had seen him this way, how often Arthur had let himself be laid out like this for another. That just wouldn’t do.
Eames surveyed him, hefted the belt, and laid a quick clean blow across his arse before he could overthink anything.
“Motherfucker,” Arthur gritted.
Arthur wasn’t exactly deathly pale, but his skin took on color so easily, pinkness lingering long after each time Eames finished with him. For now, it was still unmarked aside from what was starting to bloom into an obscene red stripe.
Eames did it again.
“Fuck,” gasped Arthur. “Jesus.” His voice cracked.
Eames stopped himself on the backswing, listening to the harshness of his own breathing and waiting for Arthur to call him off.
“What the fuck,” Arthur said calmly, “are you waiting for? I’m not holding this pose all day.”
Eames knew a cue when he heard one and he obeyed it to the letter, until Arthur was rocking forward and crying out with every blow.
“You like that?” he demanded, partly for the hell of winding him up and partly to be sure Arthur was still with him.
“Yeah,” Arthur panted.
His arse was bright red, all marked up in a way Eames’s hand alone had never quite done. When Eames trailed the his nails lightly over the weals he’d left behind, Arthur shuddered and hissed but didn’t say a word. Eames let his touch trail even lower, ready to tease him open and maybe lay on a little dirty talk just for the hell of it, and Arthur squirmed again, made his finger slip down and ever so slightly in.
Slick. Arthur was slick there.
This was beyond ridiculous. Eames was going to have a fucking heart attack and Arthur was probably going raise him as a zombie just to rake him over the coals for not getting him off first.
“You really couldn’t make yourself wait, could you?” Eames said softly. Arthur’s breath caught as he slid his finger in the rest of the way. Eames dropped the belt, reached around Arthur’s hip to give his prick a few good hard jerks. “Did you get off on it, just thinking about having a cock in your tight little arsehole?”
“Might’ve,” Arthur shot back.
Eames crooked his finger.
“Yes, okay?” Arthur yelped. “Are you gonna do me one better or just sit there?”
“Christ, Arthur.” Eames couldn’t hold back a groan of his own. Just the fact that Arthur had been waiting for him like this, neatly toweled up but already wet and worked open for him...Eames definitely needed to revise his thoughts on Arthur’s predictability.
His hands were clumsy with his shirt, clumsier still working his trousers open, but not so much that they had any trouble resettling on Arthur’s hips and easing his cheeks apart. And Eames leaned in, pressed his tongue against the little clutch of muscle there, and licked into him.
Arthur moaned quietly, tremulous little spasms rocking through his body with each push of Eames’s tongue inside. Eames could have spent hours like this, rimming Arthur until he came undone and his own jaw was throbbing from eating him out, but there was only so much he could do with his mouth at a given time. “How hard did you do it?” Eames demanded, voice rough.
Arthur made a small sound of loss, then whimpered when Eames eased a finger back into him. “Did you fuck yourself open while you waited for me to come back?”
“Just in the shower, just a little,” Arthur admitted in a rush, and then cried out when Eames flitted his tongue against him once more. “Quit teasing, just give me your cock, come on.”
Images flared bright and lewd in Eames’s mind as he grappled with a condom wrapper--Arthur teasing himself and thinking of something bigger, Arthur resolutely making a business call just after making his own stodgy version of a booty call, Arthur stretching out in bed wanting more than anything to bring himself off but forcing himself to keep his hands off his cock and just wait. “Don’t say I never listened to you,” Eames murmured, pressing a kiss to his shoulder and then pressing inside him.
He fucked him facedown like that, hard and brutal and without bothering to use more than a single finger on him beforehand. Arthur pushed back against him and begged so sweetly for it, no words required. And when Eames came first, Arthur was the one who gave a full-body shiver and moaned like a porn star. Eames mumbled nonsense into his hair, rasped his chin against Arthur’s shoulder blade, marking him just that much more.
Arthur whined when he pulled out, tensing from head to heels to try and keep him from moving. “No, don’t, Eames. I’m really close, just a little more.”
“Not yet, sweetheart. I want to make you last a little longer. You don’t mind, do you?” Eames toyed a fingertip against the rim of his hole, then dipped two inside him to the second knuckle. Arthur tensed and cursed and whimpered all at once, beautifully undone. “Look at you. Just a greedy little hole for me to play with.”
Arthur let himself be turned over, the better for Eames to stroke him and lick up the smears of precome on his belly. By the time he’d finished teasing at the peaks of his nipples until they were stiff and swollen, Arthur was writhing where he lay, arse rubbing against the covers even though it had to be at least a little painful. Then he took Eames’s face between his hands and breathed please like it was a love confession.
Eames licked up the length of his cock, took him in slow and deep. “Eames,” Arthur was gasping. Not—I want you to—fuck,” and by the time Eames guided his knees apart and fucked into him with three fingers, Arthur was all out of words.
When Eames blinked sweat from his eyes and relaxed his throat, Arthur came almost instantly, squeezing tight and silk-smooth around him, his hands twisting into the sheets
Once or twice, Eames thought he heard him choking out I’m sorry, of all things.
Eames didn’t plan on asking why. He let Arthur come back down, smoothed his hair and kissed his cheek, rummaged through the nightstand until he found a bottle of lotion. Then, when Arthur was smiling dopily and seemed ready to drift off, he ventured, “You don’t normally get out much when you’re here, do you?”
After he’d first arrived, Eames had spent a fair amount of time wondering if Arthur had friends, hobbies, things he did for fun that weren’t solitary activities or actually business-related. Lately that had turned into wondering if maybe he’d only started up with the yoga and the book club because Eames was getting under his skin and making him stir-crazy. Arthur had never been too polite to give himself room when he needed it.
“I could compose a sonnet about all the ways you’re being a pain in the ass right now,” Arthur grumbled, smothering a yawn against his shoulder.
“Your talents are legion,” Eames said brightly. He trailed a hand up and down Arthur’s back for a long while, listening to his breathing even out. “That night you made me devein shrimp,” he finally asked, “what did you do?”
But Arthur either slept or pretended to.
---
Catching Arthur with his guard down was the sort of thing for which plenty of people in dreamsharing had paid dearly. Eames only had to wait until he was worn out from mowing the lawn.
“I could take a turn if you want,” he offered, not actually meaning it. He also offered to pour a pitcher of lemonade on him in slow motion, which seemed far more fun even though it only made Arthur grimace. But he did come inside and kiss him before making a beeline for the refrigerator and a ponderously enormous glass of water.
Eames went straight for the throat. “Do you have an answer for me yet?”
And there it was, a flicker of recognition in Arthur’s eyes. Eames leaned against the kitchen island and waited.
As he’d hoped, Arthur was too dignified to try and play dumb at this point. “Can’t you just believe I did something for you out of the goodness of my heart? It’s your own fucking fault for not just working for Amarinder on good faith.”
“Right,” Eames scoffed. “Funny, that. The last time I tried working a job on good faith was with this bloke named Cobb. Maybe you you’ve heard of him.” He dropped a quick kiss against Arthur’s sweaty nape, inhaling the summery scent of newly cut grass.
“Oh Christ,” Arthur groaned. “Can we not--”
“I could have turned Cobb in easily and it wouldn’t have been any skin off my nose,” Eames interrupted. “The only reason I didn’t was because the inception was your job too.”
Arthur stalked over to the sofa and slumped onto it. “Yeah. I know.”
“Then Cobb turned around and fucked us all. Yusuf turned around and fucked us all. Saito could have had all our heads on a platter for what we did to him. Ariadne knew more about Cobb’s demons than any of us and didn’t breathe a word about them. For once, the only one who didn’t make any sort of misstep was me, and you’ll note that trying to be loyal didn’t do any good.”
“I was loyal,” Arthur said quietly.
Eames slid an arm around him and pressed his lips to his temple. “Of course. You’re always loyal. It’s the rest of the world that’s the problem.”
Very carefully, Arthur set his water on the coffee table. “Okay, look. I had to negotiate with Gvazava and agree to be on the next team she assembles. I told her you and Amarinder had a deal and you were actually keeping it this time. She laughed her ass off, but she also said she’d make sure to keep him in line if I keep you in line. That’s all.”
“You wanted me around that badly?”
Arthur shoved himself to his feet, tension in his jaw. “I got you blacklisted. I didn’t mean to.”
Eames eyed him, trying to ignore the seed of trepidation taking root in his stomach. “I highly doubt you had a thing to do with any of this.” But when he reached to catch hold of his arm, Arthur only shook him off.
“Amarinder was trying to round out a team. I wasn’t free, but we got to know each other some when we worked the Garrison job together. He asked me for advice. So I told him to work with a trusted colleague as a tactic once he found someone he thought he might be interested in hiring.”
“I’m not following.”
“I said if he wanted to make sure a team member could be trusted, he should have a friend make a counteroffer and see if they took it. When he had Gvazava try to hire you, that’s exactly what happened. I never thought it would be you. If I had, I would’ve tipped you off and told you not to. I should have.”
Eames frowned at him, poleaxed. Methodical Arthur, burning bridges and expectations with deadly precision. “You’re right, you should have.”
“I didn’t realize you were the one Amarinder was planning on working with,” said Arthur. He sank back down, leaning his elbows on his knees and resolutely gazing at a grass stain on his knuckles. “I should have kept track of you.”
The apprehension that had taken root in Eames’s stomach earlier flared into full bloom. “So you don’t trust me on my own. I see.”
Arthur cut him a narrow look. “I trust you most when I can see you.”
“Right, and that’s such a drastic improvement. You don't think I can fend for myself without you looking after me, do I have that right?”
“That's not what I said,” Arthur snapped. “What the fuck are you trying to tell me here? First it's ‘you should have warned me’ then it's ‘you shouldn't be keeping tabs on me.’”
“No, it’s realizing you’ve only been hosting me out of pity and whatever fucked up sense of obligation you’re hanging onto. Thanks, Arthur, much appreciated.”
Arthur faced him grimly. “Are you done now?”
“Oh, are you asking for my input now?” Eames said, knowing damn well how childish he was being. “You didn’t want to decide that for me along with everything else? Because that--”
“Let me tell you something,” Arthur said abruptly. “My first place, after I got out of the army and started taking commissions, was an apartment in Chicago. There was this old couple who lived next door, the Perrings. I wasn’t there a lot, so I didn’t know much about them, but they’d tell me about their grandkids and take in my mail when I was away. Stuff like that.”
Eames pressed his lips together and waited.
“I was young,” Arthur continued, like he still wasn’t. “I didn’t know as much as I thought I did. I didn’t cover my tracks. You don’t just walk away from something like extraction, but back then I really thought I could.”
His fingers were drumming against his knee, four muted taps in rapid succession. Eames had half a mind to reach out and grip his hand, but didn’t.
“They found my place and they tore it apart. The walls weren’t that thick.” He picked up his glass, took a long drink, and set it back down. “I wasn’t there. The guy who lived on the other side of me wasn’t home either, but the Perrings--they were. Like I said, I was stupid.”
“We’re all stupid when we first start off,” murmured Eames.
Arthur didn’t look at him. “They evacuated the whole building so they could check for explosives.” His voice was determinedly devoid of emotion. “They ripped everything apart because of a cocky twenty-one-year-old kid who didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into. I remember when I heard about it and my old CO was ordering me not to go back but I blew him off since I wasn’t under him anymore, and I needed to find out what happened to the Perrings. Even if one of them was in a coma, I thought I could pay off the whole hospital just to let me in with a PASIV and I could take them under and…explain, I don’t know. I still don’t know what I thought I was gonna do. But it didn’t matter. They didn’t make it out, and dead is dead.”
“Dead is dead,” Eames repeated.
For a long time, neither of them spoke. There was only the muted chirping of birds from outside, the crackle of ice from Arthur’s glass, and the two of them sitting there in the living room, on opposite sides of the sofa, in Arthur’s quiet blue house in a quiet area where the rest of the neighborhood was less likely to end up caught in the crossfire if anyone ever found him out.
“Tomatoes,” said Eames. “Explain the tomatoes.”
Arthur’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“You’ve had a bag of revolting-looking peeled tomatoes in your freezer since before I got here. Why?”
“I want to learn to make my own marinara sauce but I keep putting it off. I read online that tomatoes last a lot longer if you freeze them.”
This sounded a little dubious to Eames, but that was beside the point. “What about the straightening irons?”
“Good on shirt collars. My dry cleaner doesn’t always get them right.”
“And the...the belt.” He could hardly get the words out. “Have you been trying to get me to punish you?”
“What? Fuck, no, I just like getting spanked.”
“Oh, thank God,” Eames breathed.
And for an even longer stretch of time, they sat there on opposite ends of the couch, silent. Arthur’s head was bowed and Eames couldn’t keep from staring at him, from thinking of Arthur’s alphabetized collection of records, Arthur’s soft mouth on his chest, Arthur clearing out his closet to make room for Eames in his life without a second thought. “I don’t understand you,” Eames admitted at last.
Arthur laughed, wild. “I told you about my exes. I gave you my rating scale. I let you molest me in my sleep because I knew you wouldn’t push your luck even though you always push your luck.”
Eames looked away, a response half-forming and reforming in his mind too many times for comfort.
“I brought you home with me and gave you a key before I even let you in the door,” said Arthur, “you fucking idiot.”
Eames forced a laugh. “You always have to micromanage everything, don’t you.”
“Micromanaging is my job.”
“I’m not one of your jobs.”
“I know,” Arthur exploded. “That makes it worse. If anything worse happened with Amarinder--”
“That wouldn’t have been your fault.”
Arthur was glaring at him. “That’s not what this is about. I know this is hard for you to grasp, but maybe there are some people who don’t want you to get hurt.”
“There are other forgers,” Eames said, trying to be flip.
“Yeah, and I wouldn’t give any of them a house key,” Arthur said fiercely.
“I’d have told you, you know. If you’d asked me who I was working for.”
Arthur’s face tightened. “I needed to give you space after Toledo.”
This was news to Eames. “Did I say that?”
“The job was a mess. You could have died. If I didn’t leave, I would’ve been following you around trying to bubble-wrap you.”
Toledo. Six days of perfection, then Arthur disappearing for some trumped-up reason.
“For a point man,” Eames declared, “sometimes you’re awful at reading people.”
Arthur scowled. “Tell me what jobs you work and maybe I’ll be better.”
“What, so you can track me and be my long-distance nanny?”
He was ready for Arthur to sigh and call him an asshole, but Arthur only sat up straighter and looked him dead in the eye. “Because I care what happens to you.”
Eames helped himself to a gulp of Arthur’s water, not sure when his mouth had gone dry or why he felt like he’d just been clubbed over the head. “I suppose,” he said, “I could do that. And if you think a job looks like something I should avoid getting involved with, you could just text me your rating on a scale of one to four.”
Arthur’s face did something peculiar that was both a grin and a glare.
Eames sank back in his seat and pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is all frighteningly domestic, isn’t it?”
“I’m going to build a doghouse just to put you in it.” Arthur closed the space between them and seized hold of his collar. “This is self-preservation, Eames. I need you to preserve yourself.”
Eames started to say a thousand things at once, but then Arthur was kissing him, pulling him close and not coming up for air until he absolutely had to. Arthur, young and determined and absolute shit at non-work-related communication. Soft-mouthed and smelling like summer.
“I’m going to complain to you through every step of Amarinder’s wish list,” Eames promised, thumbing Arthur’s lower lip.
Arthur grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer. “Good.”