"I don't know," Eames bites back. "I don't know why you were hooking up with me. I figured it was for sex. You seemed to enjoy that quite a bit. Nothing pitiful about that."
Arthur's left staring at Eames with something close to dumbfounded stupor. Someone out there must surely be appreciating the miracle of Arthur being at a loss for words, for once.
"... You're an idiot, you know that?" he manages at last, shaking his head with an exasperated huff, just a touch insulted by the insinuation that Arthur was just after sex. "Yeah, the sex was great. But I didn't just stick around because of your dick. When you weren't being a jerk, you were actually fun to be around."
And maybe there were the beginnings of deeper feelings happening, but with Eames' constant hot and cold moments (now understood to be due to Cobb), Arthur had ignored them completely. That way lay danger for sure.
Eames downs the drink with one go, hand splayed on top of the table as he takes a moment press the back of his hand to his mouth and think. Or try to at least. Everything in him wants to dismiss what Arthur said just now but he can't.
He draws in a breath, clonking the glass down and turns around, staring at Arthur.
"So, you were attracted to me not just because of my dick," Eames says slowly. "I am an idiot, I know. But apparently I'm an idiot who you like."
There's something thoughtful and quiet in his gaze as he regards Arthur across the room.
"And now?" he finally asks, head tilting to the side just a little. "How do you feel now?"
"Now, I..." he falters, looking a touch lost as he stares back at Eames.
How does he feel, now?
He's pretty sure they'd been headed fast towards something deeper, before the drowning incident, either thanks to Duplicity's influence or just... them spending so much time together.
But there's also the matter of Gerard, the broken trust, Duplicity repeatedly fucking them over...
"... I don't know," he finishes at last, quieter than before and dropping his gaze.
He hadn't expected anything more after all. It makes his heart shrink because it had a moment to hope earlier but now it's back to where he started.
He leans back against the table and then ventures quietly: "So, I will offer you a contract again. Take it or not, it's yours whenever you want it. I know this will change things."
There's an exhausted, humorless snort at that, Arthur absently reaching for the water to just have something to occupy his hands. Eames isn't the only one feeling something painful happening in his chest, but in Arthur's case, it's also a knot of confused emotions balling tighter and tighter.
"What kinda asshole would I be to get in a contract with you for convenience, when you..." he falters on trying to say the forbidden word, and smooths it over with, "... have strong feelings about me."
But at the same time, the thought of contracting with someone else feels so wrong. Even moreso now that Eames has dropped this bomb on him.
Eames lets out a drawn out sigh, watching Arthur over his arms folded over his chest.
"I know it's going to change something, but let me just say that I want a contract with you." There's something very determined and steady in the way he says it. "I understand that you might not feel the same given our different viewpoints of each other but you needn't feel like you're using me. I can take care of myself, Arthur, and I'm offering this contract out of my own pure selfish desire, not out of misguided sense of responsibility."
He shrugs mildly. "To tell you the truth, it bothered me a little towards the end that we made one out of convenience. I'm not saying that I'm buying into this idea that Duplicity is selling about dominants and submissives, but a part of it wasn't so repulsive in the end, and I doubt we would have tried the things we did without it. So, a part of me is grateful for it, while the other part is angry that you need to lean on a dominant just because they thought to tattoo your throat with that line."
There is a sense of tiredness in Eames' tone of voice, perhaps a touch of bitterness. But he feels much calmer than he has for months. It's not the first time in his life that his feelings of love and adoration aren't returned fully, it's been more of a rule than an exception, it would only make sense this would follow that same pattern.
"Think about it," he says finally, turning around to pour himself another drink. "I'm not trying to pressure you into something. It's your own decision."
Eames' shoulders tighten and he pauses with a hand on the neck of the bottle, holding it like a hammer for a moment, feeling the weight of it and loving fondly the idea of crashing it to the skull of whoever would be dumb enough to contract with Arthur.
Then he pours himself a drink and downs it before answering hoarsely: "No, but I don't get a say in that. You don't owe that kind of responsibility to me either."
The tension in the man's frame is telling even if Eames wouldn't say it out loud.
Arthur stares at his back for a long moment, letting Eames have his drink in silence, his mind still going a hundred miles a second at this point. Then he finally clears his throat and looks away again.
"Think I could borrow your bathroom and some clothes?"
Eames tilts his head towards Arthur, the line of his cheek visible, the sharp angle of his nose, but he doesn't look back at him, even if it might seem like he might.
"Of course," he says. "Clothes are in the bedroom, and there are fresh towels in the bathroom."
Arthur's in need of an escape, but he's also aware he won't get far out of the apartment, thanks to Duplicity and the tattoo on his throat, so the bathroom will have to do.
He slips away from the main area, doing his best not to show any stiff tension in his movements, all the way until he's got the clothes with him, bathroom door locked at his back. Rather than going straight in for a shower, he decides to fill the bath, needing as much time as possible to just try to gather his mind. His hands move on autopilot after that, stripping off the stolen clothes, setting them neatly aside even if they're probably just going to go in the bin, later.
Then he catches sight of himself in the mirror. The fatigue clear in his eyes, as well as the faint panic still lingering from that short conversation with Eames. The fucking black line on his throat and chest.
His hands clench painfully tight at his sides as he stares at himself, heart pounding hard and fast, blood rushing through his ears.
I've loved you for a quite some time now.
Like Arthur's even worth that sort of affection. Especially now. After how Duplicity has made a point of fucking him over in all senses of the word. After all the shit he himself has put Eames through.
Self-loathing rises up like bile in his throat, making his face twist with anger, and maybe some of that drug was designed to make him lose some self-control, because before he realises what he's doing, his fist is shooting out and smashing right into the mirror.
Eames remains where he is, listening to Arthur go about his business, grab the clothes, click there goes the bathroom lock. He drinks a few more glasses of scotch, standing by the table, leaning against it with his eyes fixed on the bathroom door.
He's thinking, quietly assessing the situation. It's not much different than he expected it to be to be honest. It had always been an assumption between himself and Arthur that there were no feelings involved and Eames had sort of betrayed that trust, hadn't he?
It doesn't make the ache any less so in his chest, though.
He's about to go back to the kitchen to fix Arthur something to eat when he hears the the crashing of glass in the bathroom. He pushes himself up quickly and to the bathroom door in the next moment, knocking on it gingerly.
"Arthur?" he calls through the door. "Are you alright? What happened?"
Hand throbbing and trembling slightly from the shock and pain of it, Arthur's left breathing heavily as he stares at the cracked mirror, some of the shards having fallen to the sink. He can distantly hear Eames at the door over the sounds of the bath filling.
There's no way to hide this. Even if Eames keeps a first-aid kit in the bathroom, there's the matter of the mirror.
"I slipped and hit the mirror," he answers distantly, lifting his bloody hand to examine the knuckles, spotting the tiny pieces of glass embedded in the red mess. "... I'm okay."
At least the pain is a welcome distraction from how uncomfortable his chest is feeling.
"Do you want to open the door so I can help you patch up?" Eames asks through the door, voice tight with worry. Arthur doesn't slip and hit the bloody mirror.
Unless...
"Are you dizzy from the drugs?" He should open the door so Eames can check up on him in the bath if that's the case. "Arthur, let me in."
Which would be easier to admit/lie about? Being dizzy, or deliberately punching the mirror?
Arthur's going to swallow his pride and answer, "Yeah, I guess I'm a little woozy, still."
He first wraps the towel around his hips then the discarded shirt around his hand before opening the door, giving Eames a disgruntled look that could easily be interpreted as being annoyed at being drugged. Hopefully.
"Are you sure you can handle a bath?" Eames asks as he grimaces, looking at Arthur's hand that has been wrapped in the shirt, blood already staining the fabric.
He knows Arthur well enough to know that he's going to be pissed about not having all his faculties in order. So he doesn't linger on that, just ushers him back into the bathroom, guides him gently to sit on the toilet while he fishes out a first aid kit. There are not a whole lot of shards on the floor thankfully. He'll take care of them later.
He should have checked with Arthur before letting him lock himself in the bathroom. These bloody feelings are affecting his judgement.
"I'll have to plug out the shards. It's not going to be fun," he says as he eyes Arthur's knuckles after pulling away the shirt, holding it still under Arthur's hand to keep the blood from running wild on the floor.
"Not my first time dealing with glass," Arthur reminds him quietly, letting Eames fuss over him with relatively little struggle for once. He'll blame it on the drugs.
Just like he's blaming them for the state of his hand and how he doesn't want to pull it away from Eames in turn. Or how he's sitting there, watching the Forge's face with unreadable, dark eyes, quietly taking in the man's features and the obvious distress he's feeling in that moment.
"Yeah, I know," Eames says with a quick glance up at Arthur's face. "Just saying it's going to hurt." It comes out like an apology, with a worried frown.
He drags a hamper in front of Arthur and perches on the edge of it, tweezers come out of the kit, disinfectant sloshed onto Arthur's knuckles in liberal amounts, onto the tweezers as well. Then he gets to work, as gently as possible removing the shards, diligently, bit by bit, his other hand holding Arthur's while he holds the tweezers in his other.
"Are you alright?" he asks somewhere along the way. "Tell me if you have another dizzy spell and we'll take a break."
Arthur makes a noncommittal noise, fingers twitching now and then against Eames' as the glass is taken out. Sure, it hurts, but he can distance himself from that... and he's distracting himself with watching Eames' face, anyway.
"Can't trust me to hold myself up?" he asks with a soft snort, finally looking away. "It's fine, it'll pass."
Eames is about to point out that he broke the mirror by slamming into it. But doesn't. Instead he shrugs and admits mildly: "Something like that."
He quiets then, focusing on the task at hand. He's very thorough, and very meticulous about it as only someone used to detailed work can be. He takes his time and then floods the wounds with more disinfectant to get the too small shards out of there.
Then come the bandages, gently applied to his hand, wrapped around and twisted around his fingers until the area is covered with white, clean wraps.
"Let me clean this up," he says as he stands up. "Do you want me to help you into the bath?"
"Not really," Arthur huffs, but then concedes softly, "But you probably should, anyway."
He absently runs his fingers over the bandages, feeling the sweat cool on his back now that the torturous part of it all is over. He should send Eames out. Take a moment in solitude to try to sort out the mess in his head.
Instead, he's sitting back and watching Eames tidy up. Finally voicing, "We're gonna regret this, you and I. If we make another contract. You know that, right?"
Because there's no way this could go well. It's Duplicity.
Eames snorts softly at Arthur's concession before he gets back to tidying. He drops everything into the sink, because he'll have to get a trash can here to finish that anyway and sweep the floor, probably vacuum it properly when the bathroom is dry enough again.
He pauses when Arthur mentions the contract and turns to look at him. The frown upon his brows is a tight one and he stares Arthur quietly for a moment.
"No, I don't think I know that," he says firmly. It's always been the difference between himself and Arthur, this right here. Where Arthur sees obstacles, Eames sees opportunities. Arthur is gifted at making those obstacles go away when he's committed. Eames is good at finding unusual ways around them, sometimes ignoring them downright (and then stumbling on them when he's not looking).
He straightens, walks to Arthur and reaches down to gently take his arm to pull him up, wrap that arm around his own shoulders while reaching around Arthur's waist, making sure he's steady on his feet. "Let's get you into the bath." They can talk about the contract later. When Arthur has had time to consider it. Eames doesn't want him to take one on lightly.
Were Arthur anyone else, he'd sigh with exasperation. Instead, he just rolls his eyes and tugs off his towel before he lets Eames guide him to the bath, gingerly lowering himself into the steaming water with a pleased little hiss. Then he draws his hands away from Eames so the Brit can get away as well and takes a moment to duck his head underwater, soaking his hair before coming back up with a soft gasp.
Eames helps him in the tub carefully and then folds the towel onto the side. He gives Arthur a thoughtful look before busying himself with the cleaning again.
"I'll be just outside if you need anything," he says as he steps out, leaving the door open as he fetches a bin and takes care of the trash.
Then he pops out again with a quick: "I'll make you something to eat. Don't get out of there on your own."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
A healthy serving of scotch goes into his glass.
no subject
Arthur's left staring at Eames with something close to dumbfounded stupor. Someone out there must surely be appreciating the miracle of Arthur being at a loss for words, for once.
"... You're an idiot, you know that?" he manages at last, shaking his head with an exasperated huff, just a touch insulted by the insinuation that Arthur was just after sex. "Yeah, the sex was great. But I didn't just stick around because of your dick. When you weren't being a jerk, you were actually fun to be around."
And maybe there were the beginnings of deeper feelings happening, but with Eames' constant hot and cold moments (now understood to be due to Cobb), Arthur had ignored them completely. That way lay danger for sure.
Now... he's not sure.
no subject
He draws in a breath, clonking the glass down and turns around, staring at Arthur.
"So, you were attracted to me not just because of my dick," Eames says slowly. "I am an idiot, I know. But apparently I'm an idiot who you like."
There's something thoughtful and quiet in his gaze as he regards Arthur across the room.
"And now?" he finally asks, head tilting to the side just a little. "How do you feel now?"
no subject
"Now, I..." he falters, looking a touch lost as he stares back at Eames.
How does he feel, now?
He's pretty sure they'd been headed fast towards something deeper, before the drowning incident, either thanks to Duplicity's influence or just... them spending so much time together.
But there's also the matter of Gerard, the broken trust, Duplicity repeatedly fucking them over...
"... I don't know," he finishes at last, quieter than before and dropping his gaze.
no subject
He hadn't expected anything more after all. It makes his heart shrink because it had a moment to hope earlier but now it's back to where he started.
He leans back against the table and then ventures quietly: "So, I will offer you a contract again. Take it or not, it's yours whenever you want it. I know this will change things."
He doesn't expect Arthur to take it.
"You should find one quickly, in any case."
no subject
There's an exhausted, humorless snort at that, Arthur absently reaching for the water to just have something to occupy his hands. Eames isn't the only one feeling something painful happening in his chest, but in Arthur's case, it's also a knot of confused emotions balling tighter and tighter.
"What kinda asshole would I be to get in a contract with you for convenience, when you..." he falters on trying to say the forbidden word, and smooths it over with, "... have strong feelings about me."
But at the same time, the thought of contracting with someone else feels so wrong. Even moreso now that Eames has dropped this bomb on him.
no subject
"I know it's going to change something, but let me just say that I want a contract with you." There's something very determined and steady in the way he says it. "I understand that you might not feel the same given our different viewpoints of each other but you needn't feel like you're using me. I can take care of myself, Arthur, and I'm offering this contract out of my own pure selfish desire, not out of misguided sense of responsibility."
He shrugs mildly. "To tell you the truth, it bothered me a little towards the end that we made one out of convenience. I'm not saying that I'm buying into this idea that Duplicity is selling about dominants and submissives, but a part of it wasn't so repulsive in the end, and I doubt we would have tried the things we did without it. So, a part of me is grateful for it, while the other part is angry that you need to lean on a dominant just because they thought to tattoo your throat with that line."
There is a sense of tiredness in Eames' tone of voice, perhaps a touch of bitterness. But he feels much calmer than he has for months. It's not the first time in his life that his feelings of love and adoration aren't returned fully, it's been more of a rule than an exception, it would only make sense this would follow that same pattern.
"Think about it," he says finally, turning around to pour himself another drink. "I'm not trying to pressure you into something. It's your own decision."
no subject
Arthur can't help but glance over at Eames as the man makes his case, that brittleness in Eames' voice echoing that in his chest.
"And you'd be okay with that?" he asks, low and pointed. "If I went off to contract with someone else?"
no subject
Then he pours himself a drink and downs it before answering hoarsely: "No, but I don't get a say in that. You don't owe that kind of responsibility to me either."
no subject
The tension in the man's frame is telling even if Eames wouldn't say it out loud.
Arthur stares at his back for a long moment, letting Eames have his drink in silence, his mind still going a hundred miles a second at this point. Then he finally clears his throat and looks away again.
"Think I could borrow your bathroom and some clothes?"
no subject
"Of course," he says. "Clothes are in the bedroom, and there are fresh towels in the bathroom."
no subject
"Thanks."
Arthur's in need of an escape, but he's also aware he won't get far out of the apartment, thanks to Duplicity and the tattoo on his throat, so the bathroom will have to do.
He slips away from the main area, doing his best not to show any stiff tension in his movements, all the way until he's got the clothes with him, bathroom door locked at his back. Rather than going straight in for a shower, he decides to fill the bath, needing as much time as possible to just try to gather his mind. His hands move on autopilot after that, stripping off the stolen clothes, setting them neatly aside even if they're probably just going to go in the bin, later.
Then he catches sight of himself in the mirror. The fatigue clear in his eyes, as well as the faint panic still lingering from that short conversation with Eames. The fucking black line on his throat and chest.
His hands clench painfully tight at his sides as he stares at himself, heart pounding hard and fast, blood rushing through his ears.
I've loved you for a quite some time now.
Like Arthur's even worth that sort of affection. Especially now. After how Duplicity has made a point of fucking him over in all senses of the word. After all the shit he himself has put Eames through.
Self-loathing rises up like bile in his throat, making his face twist with anger, and maybe some of that drug was designed to make him lose some self-control, because before he realises what he's doing, his fist is shooting out and smashing right into the mirror.
no subject
He's thinking, quietly assessing the situation. It's not much different than he expected it to be to be honest. It had always been an assumption between himself and Arthur that there were no feelings involved and Eames had sort of betrayed that trust, hadn't he?
It doesn't make the ache any less so in his chest, though.
He's about to go back to the kitchen to fix Arthur something to eat when he hears the the crashing of glass in the bathroom. He pushes himself up quickly and to the bathroom door in the next moment, knocking on it gingerly.
"Arthur?" he calls through the door. "Are you alright? What happened?"
no subject
Hand throbbing and trembling slightly from the shock and pain of it, Arthur's left breathing heavily as he stares at the cracked mirror, some of the shards having fallen to the sink. He can distantly hear Eames at the door over the sounds of the bath filling.
There's no way to hide this. Even if Eames keeps a first-aid kit in the bathroom, there's the matter of the mirror.
"I slipped and hit the mirror," he answers distantly, lifting his bloody hand to examine the knuckles, spotting the tiny pieces of glass embedded in the red mess. "... I'm okay."
At least the pain is a welcome distraction from how uncomfortable his chest is feeling.
no subject
Unless...
"Are you dizzy from the drugs?" He should open the door so Eames can check up on him in the bath if that's the case. "Arthur, let me in."
no subject
Which would be easier to admit/lie about? Being dizzy, or deliberately punching the mirror?
Arthur's going to swallow his pride and answer, "Yeah, I guess I'm a little woozy, still."
He first wraps the towel around his hips then the discarded shirt around his hand before opening the door, giving Eames a disgruntled look that could easily be interpreted as being annoyed at being drugged. Hopefully.
"It's not that bad."
no subject
He knows Arthur well enough to know that he's going to be pissed about not having all his faculties in order. So he doesn't linger on that, just ushers him back into the bathroom, guides him gently to sit on the toilet while he fishes out a first aid kit. There are not a whole lot of shards on the floor thankfully. He'll take care of them later.
He should have checked with Arthur before letting him lock himself in the bathroom. These bloody feelings are affecting his judgement.
"I'll have to plug out the shards. It's not going to be fun," he says as he eyes Arthur's knuckles after pulling away the shirt, holding it still under Arthur's hand to keep the blood from running wild on the floor.
no subject
"Not my first time dealing with glass," Arthur reminds him quietly, letting Eames fuss over him with relatively little struggle for once. He'll blame it on the drugs.
Just like he's blaming them for the state of his hand and how he doesn't want to pull it away from Eames in turn. Or how he's sitting there, watching the Forge's face with unreadable, dark eyes, quietly taking in the man's features and the obvious distress he's feeling in that moment.
no subject
He drags a hamper in front of Arthur and perches on the edge of it, tweezers come out of the kit, disinfectant sloshed onto Arthur's knuckles in liberal amounts, onto the tweezers as well. Then he gets to work, as gently as possible removing the shards, diligently, bit by bit, his other hand holding Arthur's while he holds the tweezers in his other.
"Are you alright?" he asks somewhere along the way. "Tell me if you have another dizzy spell and we'll take a break."
no subject
Arthur makes a noncommittal noise, fingers twitching now and then against Eames' as the glass is taken out. Sure, it hurts, but he can distance himself from that... and he's distracting himself with watching Eames' face, anyway.
"Can't trust me to hold myself up?" he asks with a soft snort, finally looking away. "It's fine, it'll pass."
And then what excuse will he have?
no subject
He quiets then, focusing on the task at hand. He's very thorough, and very meticulous about it as only someone used to detailed work can be. He takes his time and then floods the wounds with more disinfectant to get the too small shards out of there.
Then come the bandages, gently applied to his hand, wrapped around and twisted around his fingers until the area is covered with white, clean wraps.
"Let me clean this up," he says as he stands up. "Do you want me to help you into the bath?"
no subject
"Not really," Arthur huffs, but then concedes softly, "But you probably should, anyway."
He absently runs his fingers over the bandages, feeling the sweat cool on his back now that the torturous part of it all is over. He should send Eames out. Take a moment in solitude to try to sort out the mess in his head.
Instead, he's sitting back and watching Eames tidy up. Finally voicing, "We're gonna regret this, you and I. If we make another contract. You know that, right?"
Because there's no way this could go well. It's Duplicity.
no subject
He pauses when Arthur mentions the contract and turns to look at him. The frown upon his brows is a tight one and he stares Arthur quietly for a moment.
"No, I don't think I know that," he says firmly. It's always been the difference between himself and Arthur, this right here. Where Arthur sees obstacles, Eames sees opportunities. Arthur is gifted at making those obstacles go away when he's committed. Eames is good at finding unusual ways around them, sometimes ignoring them downright (and then stumbling on them when he's not looking).
He straightens, walks to Arthur and reaches down to gently take his arm to pull him up, wrap that arm around his own shoulders while reaching around Arthur's waist, making sure he's steady on his feet. "Let's get you into the bath." They can talk about the contract later. When Arthur has had time to consider it. Eames doesn't want him to take one on lightly.
no subject
Were Arthur anyone else, he'd sigh with exasperation. Instead, he just rolls his eyes and tugs off his towel before he lets Eames guide him to the bath, gingerly lowering himself into the steaming water with a pleased little hiss. Then he draws his hands away from Eames so the Brit can get away as well and takes a moment to duck his head underwater, soaking his hair before coming back up with a soft gasp.
no subject
"I'll be just outside if you need anything," he says as he steps out, leaving the door open as he fetches a bin and takes care of the trash.
Then he pops out again with a quick: "I'll make you something to eat. Don't get out of there on your own."
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)