Fic: Greater than Want, Deeper than Need (Part 2 of 3-4)
Title: Greater than Want, Deeper than Need (Part 2 of 3-4)
Authors:: eternalsojourn and countrypixie1
Team: Angst
Prompt(s): Hunger, Sensual and Touch
Word Count: ~3950
Rating: Mature (this part - ultimately NC-17)
Beta: night_reveals
Warnings: Angst, Torture (Happy ending)
Summary: In a world where touch is as essential to human survival as food and water, Arthur and Eames are forced to face the repercussions of their line of work.
Part 1 here
Greater than Want, Deeper than Need
Arthur has no way to tell how long ago he and Eames were grabbed, but he estimates that it’s been well over a day. He feels his hunger keenly. The brief contact he’d had with Eames and the chemist throughout the day had faded long ago, leaving him ravenous.
Movement draws his eye. Eames is swinging his right knee back and forth as far as the bond around his ankle will allow, his eyes closed. He gives off the air of being unconcerned, even bored, with the situation, but Arthur knows better than to underestimate Eames.
Arthur is just about to look away when Eames leans his head back, dangling it over the back of the chair. The move bares his throat, and Arthur finds himself yearning to touch it. It would feel so smooth and warm under his hand, alleviating the hunger in a way simply touching hands could not. He could wrap one hand around Eames’s neck and put the other on his cheek. The stubble would do nothing to diminish the pleasure from the touch, and he could finally quench his hunger.
Eames pulls his head up, the position apparently too uncomfortable to maintain for long. Arthur’s still staring when Eames opens his eyes, but Arthur doesn’t look away, already caught. His eyes drop to Eames’s lips, and he stretches his fingers as if he can actually feel the soft skin beneath them.
“Arthur,” Eames says sharply.
Arthur pulls himself out of the fantasy. His heart rate has sped up. His head, already aching and spinning from being pistol-whipped, has now decided to shoot sharp spikes of pain as well. His hands are shaking, his mouth is almost unbearably dry, and his muscles are cramping - he doesn’t need to torture himself to make this any worse.
“Yes?” he asks, refusing to be embarrassed about ogling Eames.
Eames stares for a few seconds. Arthur knows he’s being appraised, but he doesn’t look away.
“How did you get into dreamshare?”
Arthur raises his eyebrows slightly in surprise. “Why do you want to know?”
“Just curious,” Eames says. “It’s not like we have anything else to do,” he continues when Arthur doesn’t speak.
His brain feels sluggish, but something clicks and he realizes Eames is trying to distract him. “I suppose not,” he answers.
“Excellent. Regale me,” Eames orders. Arthur doesn’t know how Eames manages to look superior while tied to a chair, but he has that crooked grin on his face that Arthur always takes as a challenge.
“It’s not that exciting actually,” Arthur says. “Dreamshare was just the natural progression of my family’s business.”
“The family business?” Eames questions, sounding amused. “What type of family business naturally progresses into illegal dreamshare?”
“Exactly the kind that you’re probably imagining,” Arthur answers. He’s not sure why he’s telling Eames about his family, whether it’s an effect of his likely concussion, intense boredom, or deprivation, but he keeps talking. “Where I grew up, it was considered impolite to discuss murder and torture over dinner, but that kind of talk was readily accepted elsewhere. Encouraged, even.”
“Arthur, are you from a Mafia family?” Eames asks gleefully.
“You can call it whatever you’d like, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says, neither affirming nor denying. “You sound surprised.”
“I am surprised,” Eames admits. “I assumed you followed the Cobbs into dreamshare, since you appeared with them.”
“Assuming will get you into all types of trouble,” Arthur says.
"In case you hadn't noticed, Arthur," Eames says with a pointed glance around the room, "I don't need any help finding trouble."
"Maybe you should stop inviting it," Arthur says wryly, knowing full well how useless it is to suggest such a thing.
"And live a pure and virtuous life just like you?" Eames’s dig, with mild bite but no real animosity, puts Arthur back in familiar territory. "I'm sure you've had your fair share of vengeful marks. Say...hmm, let me think...Saito?" he asks.
"Saito wasn't vengeful," Arthur defends, but he knows it's a weak rejoinder. Eames grins at him like he knows it, too.
Arthur stares at the way Eames’s skin crinkles ever so slightly as he smiles. He’s known Eames for years, has looked at his face every day for months at time, and he’s never wanted to touch Eames like he does now. To touch a person’s face when not closely related or intimately connected is aberrant, but Arthur can think of nothing else.
Eames’s smile fades, turns into a frown. Arthur forces his eyes away. He doesn't say anything else and Eames doesn't push.
They stay silent until the guards escort them to the bathroom again an hour or so later. They’re presumably the same men who captured them, since Arthur recognizes the same brick wall guard who took Eames down in the warehouse. Brick Wall comes within reach, while the smaller guard stands back, gun held securely in his gloved hands to prevent any attempt to escape.
Arthur is taken first, but far from providing relief, the short jaunt only serves to accentuate his discomfort. His vision blurs almost to the point of blackness when he is pulled to his feet; it clears after a few seconds, but the pain in his head spikes sharply. His muscles refuse to cooperate after being immobile for so long, so Brick Wall simply drags him until he can walk. Like the first time, he analyzes what he is able to see from the hallway, but as the bathroom is just on the other side of what looks to be a closet, it isn't much.
On the way back, Arthur is just able to see a staircase that he had missed last time. It leads up, and combined with the lack of windows, Arthur surmises that he and Eames are being held in a basement.
Once Arthur is bound to the chair again, the process is repeated with Eames. While he's gone, Iliana returns with a bottle of water. She places a straw in the bottle and holds it up to his mouth, her fingers brushing his lips. She's changed into a skirt and blouse ensemble, but she's still wearing the same black gloves from before and Arthur can feel the warmth of her fingers through them. He's torn between his need for water and his hunger for touch, no matter how ineffective that touch would be with her gloves.
He drinks, but Iliana pulls the straw away before Arthur can swallow more than a couple times, his thirst not even close to slaked.
She steps back and looks at him, meeting his eyes properly for the first time.
"I take it he explained why you're here?" she asks. The fury in her voice from when she spoke to Eames is gone, but the hatred is still there.
Arthur takes a second to note the apparent lack of surveillance in the room before saying, "He explained why he thinks he is here."
"And you can't figure out why you're here with him?"
"I've never done anything to you," Arthur says.
Iliana sneers. "Interesting choice of words. You may not have been the one who stole my face and made my husband terrified of me, but how many lives have you waltzed in and destroyed, never giving the repercussions a second thought? I'm doing this for those families."
Arthur looks at Iliana calmly. "I'm sure you have your reasons for doing this, but don't pretend this is for anyone but yourself. I'm here because you want to see as many dreamworkers suffer as possible."
Her face twists in revulsion. "You deserve this just as much as he does," she spits. She’s about to continue when the door opens and Eames and the guards reappear. They leave as soon as he is restrained, and Iliana gives Eames his small portion of water before leaving wordlessly.
Eames licks his lips of the tiny bit of water that dripped there, then tilts his head to the side, stretching his neck as far as it will go. Arthur hasn't touched anyone for at least thirty-six hours, and he's always found Eames's skin to be pleasant. He knows exactly how his hands feel, how his touch is a soothing, almost paradoxical combination of rough and soft. Eames's skin is usually the slightest bit dry, but his touch is always gentle, at odds with his sometimes tough appearance. Arthur can imagine the way his neck must feel, so much softer than his hands.
"Tell me about young Mafia Arthur," Eames says. Arthur realizes he's been staring again.
“I never said I was in the Mafia,” Arthur says, hedging out of habit.
“No, but you did say I could call it what I like, and I choose to call it that.”
Arthur assents with a small nod of his head and a small huff of a laugh. “What would you like to know?”
Eames purses his lips as he thinks, full lips pressing together but never obscuring their soft texture. Arthur knows Eames would be tapping a finger against his mouth if his hands weren’t tied, has seen it a hundred times before. Arthur is momentarily distracted again, but he forces himself to think about his childhood rather than skin. “Were you groomed to take over the family business, or did your parents want you to choose a respectable career? You’d make a fabulous accountant, with your lack of imagination.”
“You’ve obviously never met my father’s accountant,” Arthur says dryly. He thinks about how to answer Eames's question, finally deciding that he's already shared enough of the truth that he might as well continue.
"My father has never intended for me to take his place. My brother is much better suited to lead. That doesn't mean I'm not an important part of the family.” Arthur smiles with a hint of mischief. “The secrets of multinational corporations come in handy every now and then."
"Arthur, you little demon," Eames says, pretending to be scandalized. "You double-crossed Cobb the entire time you worked with him?"
Arthur shrugs. "I don't think so, but I'm aware that others may disagree. I never sold him out - just shared some information."
"I'm seldom wrong about people, so forgive me for being surprised. Your loyalty to Cobb was loyalty to your family all along?" Eames asks, his question sounding more like a statement.
"I've never had reason to choose one or the other. I'm loyal to both."
"But if you had to?" Eames presses.
"My family, of course. Everyone else is just looking for a way to screw you over before you do them."
"Well, that's a pleasant outlook on life," Eames says.
"I've seen it happen far too many times to doubt it," Arthur argues.
"I've no doubt you have, growing up in a crime family. But not everyone is out to get you, Arthur."
Arthur laughs. "Evidence suggests otherwise," he says cynically, pulling at his bonds for emphasis. "Life is much neater when you simply take what you need and go."
Eames tilts his head and squints his eyes, as if he's suddenly realized something.
"What?" Arthur asks, suddenly defensive. Eames's mind works in ways Arthur has never understood, and he feels exposed after telling so much about himself.
"You don't touch anyone enough during the work day to survive."
“And?” Arthur asks. “Few people do.”
“Yes, but few people are like you,” Eames says, speaking slowly as if he’s thinking of something else. “Not many would say that it’s neater to take and go. Not for the amount of touch you need. Most go home to family or out to socialize, but you do neither. At least, not often enough.”
Arthur tenses, cursing Eames for asking such an unacceptable question while being vague enough to not cross the line. "Whom I touch is none of your concern," he bites.
"Of course not," Eames agrees amiably. He’s silent for a few moments before he continues. “Arthur, our activities are not exactly legal, and you know full well I’m...morally flexible, shall we say? I won’t judge you.”
Arthur doesn't know how Eames managed to work out his secret, but he sees no sense in denying it any longer. "I've been visiting prostitutes since I was sixteen. As I said, it's neater."
"And absolutely forbidden," Eames says. "To pay to touch and be touched? If it was about pleasure that’s one thing, but it’s not for you, is it? You get nothing more from it than what you get from touching a person’s hand.”
“Thought you said you weren’t going to judge,” Arthur says, not really caring one way or the other.
Eames shakes his head. “What you do is your business. I’m just playing devil’s advocate.”
“I don’t see the point in dealing with the emotions that come with touching someone in that manner when I obviously don’t feel anything.”
“Then go to the concierge at your hotel. It’s part of the job description.”
Arthur smiles humorlessly. “Why is this bothering you so much?”
“I wouldn’t say it bothers me. I’m just trying to understand,” he says with a small shrug, and Arthur doesn’t miss the flicker of discomfort that crosses Eames’s face from the movement. Eames continues as if nothing happened. “Only social pariahs and hermits and the like go to prostitutes. You’ve got to be as far from their normal clients as possible.”
“Probably,” Arthur agrees. “It’s just what I do, Eames. My father taught me from a very young age to keep my emotions out of business transactions, and what is touch between strangers but that?”
“So your father taught you this? To see touch and sex as alike to dinner at a restaurant?” Eames asks.
Arthur raises his chin and meets Eames’s gaze unashamedly. “Are you going to tell me he’s wrong?”
“No,” Eames says. “I just think you’re missing out on a crucial part of life. Touch is about more than survival.”
“That’s your opinion,” Arthur says calmly. “That doesn’t mean I have to agree.”
Eames nods his head once in acknowledgment, neither man saying any more on the matter.
----
A loud bang startles Eames awake, though he hadn’t realized he’d drifted off. He’s beginning to reach that gritty-eyed, zombie-like state that comes from lack of real rest, but he’s instantly alert anyway.
Iliana stalks into the room in a blind rage, and despite its futility, Eames presses back into his chair and tugs at his wrists again.
“He’s dying,” she spits. “You fuckers, do you hear me? He’s in the hospital and I have to watch him screaming as the nurses forcibly touch his skin.” She’s in jeans and a worn-soft checkered button-up rolled to the elbow, but has taken the time to put on the gloves again. In her right hand she holds a pair of large scissors, drawing Eames’s eye as they catch the light of the bare bulb above them.
She launches herself forward and Eames jerks in his restraints. Arthur shouts but Eames doesn’t catch the words, can only pay attention to the hurricane of fury descending on him. She yanks his shirt from his waistband and roughly hacks at it with the scissors, cutting upwards. Eames tries to lean out of the way of the points and grunts when they stab into his clavicle. She cuts up each sleeve in turn, teeth bared and intent on her task. Wrenching the material away from his body, it’s still attached at the collar, so she snips the last of it and pulls it all away. It drags between his back and the chair and he, perhaps absurdly, lifts himself off to make room. She drops the rags to the side.
Realizing her intent Eames stops struggling, hoping she doesn’t mean to cause any physical damage beyond the humiliation of exposing his skin. He can feel Arthur’s eyes on him and he glares at Iliana.
Iliana rakes her eyes over him and lays a mockingly gentle hand on his chest. He can feel the heat of her under the material of her glove and it flares his needful ache. She sees the longing in his face and smiles cruelly. “Getting hungry, are you?” She turns to look at Arthur and her smile broadens when she sees the way he can’t tear his eyes from Eames.
She walks over and, with less fury but not any more careful for that, she cuts away Arthur’s once-crisp white shirt. Despite himself, Eames stares at the smooth white skin that’s exposed. Arthur yelps when her scissors catch his forearm, and a red bloom spreads on his shirt before it’s cut away.
When it’s all done she stands back, breathing heavily and looks back and forth between the two of them. Her lips twitch but she can’t seem to muster the satisfied smile from before. Instead she just looks haggard, broken. The scissors hang loosely at her side. “When I can’t watch his agony any more I think of you. Of how you must be feeling in here, wasting away. I tried to tell him once, but he doesn’t listen to me any more. Sometimes he thinks I’m a projection, sometimes he thinks I’m trying to trap him so I can go inside his head. But it’s enough that I know you’re in here.”
She walks out once more, leaving Arthur and Eames exposed and alone.
Eames stares at Arthur, knowing full well it’s extraordinarily rude to do so but unable to help himself. Arthur is doing the same, though. Eames closes his eyes for a moment, overwhelmed by want, but opens them again to take in the expanse of flesh, the dark nipples that are lightly pebbled, unused to the air. Eames’s fingers twitch and his skin prickles all over. He rubs his hands together compulsively, although it does nothing to alleviate his need.
Arthur swallows audibly. “You have tattoos,” he says, and it’s not really like Arthur to point out the obvious, but Eames can understand Arthur’s shock.
Eames looks at Arthur until Arthur meets his eyes, but then Arthur looks back at the ink that adorns Eames’s skin.
“I’ve been getting these for years, although my last one was about four years ago,” he says, as much to distract himself from all that skin as to satisfy Arthur’s curiosity. Arthur had been so open about his father, he figures they’re beyond professional courtesy by this point.
“Who did them? Were you sleeping with them?”
Eames smiles. “No.”
“Why, then?” Arthur looks genuinely baffled.
Eames has thought of this many times, and his reasons for getting them have evolved over the years. It’s risky and the worst sort of taboo, baring yourself for people who aren’t your lover, much less letting them touch you, and mark you.
“At first it was simple rebellion against an overly formal upper middle class upbringing. My philosophical justification came after the fact.” He pauses, adjusts in his seat and his mind goes back to the early days. He thinks of his nanny holding his hand - that last nanny. Most of them came and went, and none of them ever had any real affection for him. That last nanny, though, she held his hand like she enjoyed it. She had stroked up his arm to above his elbow, and his young self had been as shocked as he was titillated. That was as far as she had gone before his father had sent him off to boarding school, but that touch was burned in his brain.
“It’s such a connection, a way of transcending social construct. I’d never be so melodramatic as to compare it to religion, but experiencing another person touching me in that way, having them put ink on my skin, it’s a declaration of sorts. It says a person can indulge in sensual pleasures without guilt.”
Arthur meets his eyes again, and Eames is concerned at the sunken look of them, the shiny, feverish desire that betrays his deteriorating health. He’s still very lucid, though, which is a relief. They’re not too weak yet to make a move if the opportunity presents itself. Eames gives it another day before they begin to reach that point.
“But you said four years. Why nothing since then?”
Eames closes his eyes, partly in fatigue, party to think about his answer. The truth is, he’s not sure why he stopped. His kneejerk reaction is to say that he just got too busy, that work has been too much of a distraction. But something about this room, his exposed torso, the extended quiet they’ve had between them makes him want to find the truth.
“I suppose it lost its appeal,” he says, eyes still closed, head rolled to the side, stretching his neck. He takes a deep breath and looks at Arthur once more, at the smooth lines of his shoulders. He can almost feel the skin under his fingertips. “What once felt like a hedonistic sort of pleasure just... failed to deliver.”
The look of concern that Arthur gives him makes Eames chuckle wryly. “Oh don’t get me wrong, love. I don’t regret a single one. But neither am I in a rush to go out and do it again. Take away the urge to stick it to the old man and suddenly grandiose statements seem a little less important than who you share that connection with.” Eames slumps a little, deflated, hungry, tired.
He thinks about how long it’s been since he last let himself go with someone, allowed them to feel the tender skin under his upper arms, felt the intimacy of fingertips on his chest. He’s had the odd dalliance but it’s been a long time since he’s taken the step of touching and being touched in that way. It sort of fell off his list of priorities - never made the top five, really.
He sees Arthur squirming slightly, trying to get circulation going; he feels his own growling, clawing need and it hits him in a wave. He can’t do this for another day, two days, three. They’re unlikely to last beyond that, and by tomorrow they may be too weak to do anything effective.
“Arthur, how’s your strength?”
Arthur looks up, finding a level of alertness Eames hasn’t seen in the better part of a day. “What do you have in mind?”
“She left about thirty minutes ago, yeah? We can assume she’s not going to come back with food or water for a while. And if she does...” Eames doesn’t finish that thought. “I can tip over in your direction, and if you can do the same, we might be able to shift around enough so that I can get at your hand bindings.” Eames wiggles his fingers. “My fingers are numb from these bindings. Would you be able to undo mine?”
Arthur shifts, tugs, shakes his head.
“I could bite them open, then. It’s nylon but I think I could do it,” Eames says, looking over at Arthur to gauge his reaction.
Arthur gets that look: the one when he’s entering the action portion of a job. A frown, a flexing of his jaw, a grim-set determination. It puts Eames in action mode as well and it feels good to take control.
“We’ll get out of here,” Eames says, as much to reassure Arthur as himself, as if declaring it into being.
“With grace and aplomb, I’m sure,” Arthur says, ghost of a smirk twitching the corner of his mouth.
----
Part Three
Authors:: eternalsojourn and countrypixie1
Team: Angst
Prompt(s): Hunger, Sensual and Touch
Word Count: ~3950
Rating: Mature (this part - ultimately NC-17)
Beta: night_reveals
Warnings: Angst, Torture (Happy ending)
Summary: In a world where touch is as essential to human survival as food and water, Arthur and Eames are forced to face the repercussions of their line of work.
Part 1 here
Greater than Want, Deeper than Need
Arthur has no way to tell how long ago he and Eames were grabbed, but he estimates that it’s been well over a day. He feels his hunger keenly. The brief contact he’d had with Eames and the chemist throughout the day had faded long ago, leaving him ravenous.
Movement draws his eye. Eames is swinging his right knee back and forth as far as the bond around his ankle will allow, his eyes closed. He gives off the air of being unconcerned, even bored, with the situation, but Arthur knows better than to underestimate Eames.
Arthur is just about to look away when Eames leans his head back, dangling it over the back of the chair. The move bares his throat, and Arthur finds himself yearning to touch it. It would feel so smooth and warm under his hand, alleviating the hunger in a way simply touching hands could not. He could wrap one hand around Eames’s neck and put the other on his cheek. The stubble would do nothing to diminish the pleasure from the touch, and he could finally quench his hunger.
Eames pulls his head up, the position apparently too uncomfortable to maintain for long. Arthur’s still staring when Eames opens his eyes, but Arthur doesn’t look away, already caught. His eyes drop to Eames’s lips, and he stretches his fingers as if he can actually feel the soft skin beneath them.
“Arthur,” Eames says sharply.
Arthur pulls himself out of the fantasy. His heart rate has sped up. His head, already aching and spinning from being pistol-whipped, has now decided to shoot sharp spikes of pain as well. His hands are shaking, his mouth is almost unbearably dry, and his muscles are cramping - he doesn’t need to torture himself to make this any worse.
“Yes?” he asks, refusing to be embarrassed about ogling Eames.
Eames stares for a few seconds. Arthur knows he’s being appraised, but he doesn’t look away.
“How did you get into dreamshare?”
Arthur raises his eyebrows slightly in surprise. “Why do you want to know?”
“Just curious,” Eames says. “It’s not like we have anything else to do,” he continues when Arthur doesn’t speak.
His brain feels sluggish, but something clicks and he realizes Eames is trying to distract him. “I suppose not,” he answers.
“Excellent. Regale me,” Eames orders. Arthur doesn’t know how Eames manages to look superior while tied to a chair, but he has that crooked grin on his face that Arthur always takes as a challenge.
“It’s not that exciting actually,” Arthur says. “Dreamshare was just the natural progression of my family’s business.”
“The family business?” Eames questions, sounding amused. “What type of family business naturally progresses into illegal dreamshare?”
“Exactly the kind that you’re probably imagining,” Arthur answers. He’s not sure why he’s telling Eames about his family, whether it’s an effect of his likely concussion, intense boredom, or deprivation, but he keeps talking. “Where I grew up, it was considered impolite to discuss murder and torture over dinner, but that kind of talk was readily accepted elsewhere. Encouraged, even.”
“Arthur, are you from a Mafia family?” Eames asks gleefully.
“You can call it whatever you’d like, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says, neither affirming nor denying. “You sound surprised.”
“I am surprised,” Eames admits. “I assumed you followed the Cobbs into dreamshare, since you appeared with them.”
“Assuming will get you into all types of trouble,” Arthur says.
"In case you hadn't noticed, Arthur," Eames says with a pointed glance around the room, "I don't need any help finding trouble."
"Maybe you should stop inviting it," Arthur says wryly, knowing full well how useless it is to suggest such a thing.
"And live a pure and virtuous life just like you?" Eames’s dig, with mild bite but no real animosity, puts Arthur back in familiar territory. "I'm sure you've had your fair share of vengeful marks. Say...hmm, let me think...Saito?" he asks.
"Saito wasn't vengeful," Arthur defends, but he knows it's a weak rejoinder. Eames grins at him like he knows it, too.
Arthur stares at the way Eames’s skin crinkles ever so slightly as he smiles. He’s known Eames for years, has looked at his face every day for months at time, and he’s never wanted to touch Eames like he does now. To touch a person’s face when not closely related or intimately connected is aberrant, but Arthur can think of nothing else.
Eames’s smile fades, turns into a frown. Arthur forces his eyes away. He doesn't say anything else and Eames doesn't push.
They stay silent until the guards escort them to the bathroom again an hour or so later. They’re presumably the same men who captured them, since Arthur recognizes the same brick wall guard who took Eames down in the warehouse. Brick Wall comes within reach, while the smaller guard stands back, gun held securely in his gloved hands to prevent any attempt to escape.
Arthur is taken first, but far from providing relief, the short jaunt only serves to accentuate his discomfort. His vision blurs almost to the point of blackness when he is pulled to his feet; it clears after a few seconds, but the pain in his head spikes sharply. His muscles refuse to cooperate after being immobile for so long, so Brick Wall simply drags him until he can walk. Like the first time, he analyzes what he is able to see from the hallway, but as the bathroom is just on the other side of what looks to be a closet, it isn't much.
On the way back, Arthur is just able to see a staircase that he had missed last time. It leads up, and combined with the lack of windows, Arthur surmises that he and Eames are being held in a basement.
Once Arthur is bound to the chair again, the process is repeated with Eames. While he's gone, Iliana returns with a bottle of water. She places a straw in the bottle and holds it up to his mouth, her fingers brushing his lips. She's changed into a skirt and blouse ensemble, but she's still wearing the same black gloves from before and Arthur can feel the warmth of her fingers through them. He's torn between his need for water and his hunger for touch, no matter how ineffective that touch would be with her gloves.
He drinks, but Iliana pulls the straw away before Arthur can swallow more than a couple times, his thirst not even close to slaked.
She steps back and looks at him, meeting his eyes properly for the first time.
"I take it he explained why you're here?" she asks. The fury in her voice from when she spoke to Eames is gone, but the hatred is still there.
Arthur takes a second to note the apparent lack of surveillance in the room before saying, "He explained why he thinks he is here."
"And you can't figure out why you're here with him?"
"I've never done anything to you," Arthur says.
Iliana sneers. "Interesting choice of words. You may not have been the one who stole my face and made my husband terrified of me, but how many lives have you waltzed in and destroyed, never giving the repercussions a second thought? I'm doing this for those families."
Arthur looks at Iliana calmly. "I'm sure you have your reasons for doing this, but don't pretend this is for anyone but yourself. I'm here because you want to see as many dreamworkers suffer as possible."
Her face twists in revulsion. "You deserve this just as much as he does," she spits. She’s about to continue when the door opens and Eames and the guards reappear. They leave as soon as he is restrained, and Iliana gives Eames his small portion of water before leaving wordlessly.
Eames licks his lips of the tiny bit of water that dripped there, then tilts his head to the side, stretching his neck as far as it will go. Arthur hasn't touched anyone for at least thirty-six hours, and he's always found Eames's skin to be pleasant. He knows exactly how his hands feel, how his touch is a soothing, almost paradoxical combination of rough and soft. Eames's skin is usually the slightest bit dry, but his touch is always gentle, at odds with his sometimes tough appearance. Arthur can imagine the way his neck must feel, so much softer than his hands.
"Tell me about young Mafia Arthur," Eames says. Arthur realizes he's been staring again.
“I never said I was in the Mafia,” Arthur says, hedging out of habit.
“No, but you did say I could call it what I like, and I choose to call it that.”
Arthur assents with a small nod of his head and a small huff of a laugh. “What would you like to know?”
Eames purses his lips as he thinks, full lips pressing together but never obscuring their soft texture. Arthur knows Eames would be tapping a finger against his mouth if his hands weren’t tied, has seen it a hundred times before. Arthur is momentarily distracted again, but he forces himself to think about his childhood rather than skin. “Were you groomed to take over the family business, or did your parents want you to choose a respectable career? You’d make a fabulous accountant, with your lack of imagination.”
“You’ve obviously never met my father’s accountant,” Arthur says dryly. He thinks about how to answer Eames's question, finally deciding that he's already shared enough of the truth that he might as well continue.
"My father has never intended for me to take his place. My brother is much better suited to lead. That doesn't mean I'm not an important part of the family.” Arthur smiles with a hint of mischief. “The secrets of multinational corporations come in handy every now and then."
"Arthur, you little demon," Eames says, pretending to be scandalized. "You double-crossed Cobb the entire time you worked with him?"
Arthur shrugs. "I don't think so, but I'm aware that others may disagree. I never sold him out - just shared some information."
"I'm seldom wrong about people, so forgive me for being surprised. Your loyalty to Cobb was loyalty to your family all along?" Eames asks, his question sounding more like a statement.
"I've never had reason to choose one or the other. I'm loyal to both."
"But if you had to?" Eames presses.
"My family, of course. Everyone else is just looking for a way to screw you over before you do them."
"Well, that's a pleasant outlook on life," Eames says.
"I've seen it happen far too many times to doubt it," Arthur argues.
"I've no doubt you have, growing up in a crime family. But not everyone is out to get you, Arthur."
Arthur laughs. "Evidence suggests otherwise," he says cynically, pulling at his bonds for emphasis. "Life is much neater when you simply take what you need and go."
Eames tilts his head and squints his eyes, as if he's suddenly realized something.
"What?" Arthur asks, suddenly defensive. Eames's mind works in ways Arthur has never understood, and he feels exposed after telling so much about himself.
"You don't touch anyone enough during the work day to survive."
“And?” Arthur asks. “Few people do.”
“Yes, but few people are like you,” Eames says, speaking slowly as if he’s thinking of something else. “Not many would say that it’s neater to take and go. Not for the amount of touch you need. Most go home to family or out to socialize, but you do neither. At least, not often enough.”
Arthur tenses, cursing Eames for asking such an unacceptable question while being vague enough to not cross the line. "Whom I touch is none of your concern," he bites.
"Of course not," Eames agrees amiably. He’s silent for a few moments before he continues. “Arthur, our activities are not exactly legal, and you know full well I’m...morally flexible, shall we say? I won’t judge you.”
Arthur doesn't know how Eames managed to work out his secret, but he sees no sense in denying it any longer. "I've been visiting prostitutes since I was sixteen. As I said, it's neater."
"And absolutely forbidden," Eames says. "To pay to touch and be touched? If it was about pleasure that’s one thing, but it’s not for you, is it? You get nothing more from it than what you get from touching a person’s hand.”
“Thought you said you weren’t going to judge,” Arthur says, not really caring one way or the other.
Eames shakes his head. “What you do is your business. I’m just playing devil’s advocate.”
“I don’t see the point in dealing with the emotions that come with touching someone in that manner when I obviously don’t feel anything.”
“Then go to the concierge at your hotel. It’s part of the job description.”
Arthur smiles humorlessly. “Why is this bothering you so much?”
“I wouldn’t say it bothers me. I’m just trying to understand,” he says with a small shrug, and Arthur doesn’t miss the flicker of discomfort that crosses Eames’s face from the movement. Eames continues as if nothing happened. “Only social pariahs and hermits and the like go to prostitutes. You’ve got to be as far from their normal clients as possible.”
“Probably,” Arthur agrees. “It’s just what I do, Eames. My father taught me from a very young age to keep my emotions out of business transactions, and what is touch between strangers but that?”
“So your father taught you this? To see touch and sex as alike to dinner at a restaurant?” Eames asks.
Arthur raises his chin and meets Eames’s gaze unashamedly. “Are you going to tell me he’s wrong?”
“No,” Eames says. “I just think you’re missing out on a crucial part of life. Touch is about more than survival.”
“That’s your opinion,” Arthur says calmly. “That doesn’t mean I have to agree.”
Eames nods his head once in acknowledgment, neither man saying any more on the matter.
----
A loud bang startles Eames awake, though he hadn’t realized he’d drifted off. He’s beginning to reach that gritty-eyed, zombie-like state that comes from lack of real rest, but he’s instantly alert anyway.
Iliana stalks into the room in a blind rage, and despite its futility, Eames presses back into his chair and tugs at his wrists again.
“He’s dying,” she spits. “You fuckers, do you hear me? He’s in the hospital and I have to watch him screaming as the nurses forcibly touch his skin.” She’s in jeans and a worn-soft checkered button-up rolled to the elbow, but has taken the time to put on the gloves again. In her right hand she holds a pair of large scissors, drawing Eames’s eye as they catch the light of the bare bulb above them.
She launches herself forward and Eames jerks in his restraints. Arthur shouts but Eames doesn’t catch the words, can only pay attention to the hurricane of fury descending on him. She yanks his shirt from his waistband and roughly hacks at it with the scissors, cutting upwards. Eames tries to lean out of the way of the points and grunts when they stab into his clavicle. She cuts up each sleeve in turn, teeth bared and intent on her task. Wrenching the material away from his body, it’s still attached at the collar, so she snips the last of it and pulls it all away. It drags between his back and the chair and he, perhaps absurdly, lifts himself off to make room. She drops the rags to the side.
Realizing her intent Eames stops struggling, hoping she doesn’t mean to cause any physical damage beyond the humiliation of exposing his skin. He can feel Arthur’s eyes on him and he glares at Iliana.
Iliana rakes her eyes over him and lays a mockingly gentle hand on his chest. He can feel the heat of her under the material of her glove and it flares his needful ache. She sees the longing in his face and smiles cruelly. “Getting hungry, are you?” She turns to look at Arthur and her smile broadens when she sees the way he can’t tear his eyes from Eames.
She walks over and, with less fury but not any more careful for that, she cuts away Arthur’s once-crisp white shirt. Despite himself, Eames stares at the smooth white skin that’s exposed. Arthur yelps when her scissors catch his forearm, and a red bloom spreads on his shirt before it’s cut away.
When it’s all done she stands back, breathing heavily and looks back and forth between the two of them. Her lips twitch but she can’t seem to muster the satisfied smile from before. Instead she just looks haggard, broken. The scissors hang loosely at her side. “When I can’t watch his agony any more I think of you. Of how you must be feeling in here, wasting away. I tried to tell him once, but he doesn’t listen to me any more. Sometimes he thinks I’m a projection, sometimes he thinks I’m trying to trap him so I can go inside his head. But it’s enough that I know you’re in here.”
She walks out once more, leaving Arthur and Eames exposed and alone.
Eames stares at Arthur, knowing full well it’s extraordinarily rude to do so but unable to help himself. Arthur is doing the same, though. Eames closes his eyes for a moment, overwhelmed by want, but opens them again to take in the expanse of flesh, the dark nipples that are lightly pebbled, unused to the air. Eames’s fingers twitch and his skin prickles all over. He rubs his hands together compulsively, although it does nothing to alleviate his need.
Arthur swallows audibly. “You have tattoos,” he says, and it’s not really like Arthur to point out the obvious, but Eames can understand Arthur’s shock.
Eames looks at Arthur until Arthur meets his eyes, but then Arthur looks back at the ink that adorns Eames’s skin.
“I’ve been getting these for years, although my last one was about four years ago,” he says, as much to distract himself from all that skin as to satisfy Arthur’s curiosity. Arthur had been so open about his father, he figures they’re beyond professional courtesy by this point.
“Who did them? Were you sleeping with them?”
Eames smiles. “No.”
“Why, then?” Arthur looks genuinely baffled.
Eames has thought of this many times, and his reasons for getting them have evolved over the years. It’s risky and the worst sort of taboo, baring yourself for people who aren’t your lover, much less letting them touch you, and mark you.
“At first it was simple rebellion against an overly formal upper middle class upbringing. My philosophical justification came after the fact.” He pauses, adjusts in his seat and his mind goes back to the early days. He thinks of his nanny holding his hand - that last nanny. Most of them came and went, and none of them ever had any real affection for him. That last nanny, though, she held his hand like she enjoyed it. She had stroked up his arm to above his elbow, and his young self had been as shocked as he was titillated. That was as far as she had gone before his father had sent him off to boarding school, but that touch was burned in his brain.
“It’s such a connection, a way of transcending social construct. I’d never be so melodramatic as to compare it to religion, but experiencing another person touching me in that way, having them put ink on my skin, it’s a declaration of sorts. It says a person can indulge in sensual pleasures without guilt.”
Arthur meets his eyes again, and Eames is concerned at the sunken look of them, the shiny, feverish desire that betrays his deteriorating health. He’s still very lucid, though, which is a relief. They’re not too weak yet to make a move if the opportunity presents itself. Eames gives it another day before they begin to reach that point.
“But you said four years. Why nothing since then?”
Eames closes his eyes, partly in fatigue, party to think about his answer. The truth is, he’s not sure why he stopped. His kneejerk reaction is to say that he just got too busy, that work has been too much of a distraction. But something about this room, his exposed torso, the extended quiet they’ve had between them makes him want to find the truth.
“I suppose it lost its appeal,” he says, eyes still closed, head rolled to the side, stretching his neck. He takes a deep breath and looks at Arthur once more, at the smooth lines of his shoulders. He can almost feel the skin under his fingertips. “What once felt like a hedonistic sort of pleasure just... failed to deliver.”
The look of concern that Arthur gives him makes Eames chuckle wryly. “Oh don’t get me wrong, love. I don’t regret a single one. But neither am I in a rush to go out and do it again. Take away the urge to stick it to the old man and suddenly grandiose statements seem a little less important than who you share that connection with.” Eames slumps a little, deflated, hungry, tired.
He thinks about how long it’s been since he last let himself go with someone, allowed them to feel the tender skin under his upper arms, felt the intimacy of fingertips on his chest. He’s had the odd dalliance but it’s been a long time since he’s taken the step of touching and being touched in that way. It sort of fell off his list of priorities - never made the top five, really.
He sees Arthur squirming slightly, trying to get circulation going; he feels his own growling, clawing need and it hits him in a wave. He can’t do this for another day, two days, three. They’re unlikely to last beyond that, and by tomorrow they may be too weak to do anything effective.
“Arthur, how’s your strength?”
Arthur looks up, finding a level of alertness Eames hasn’t seen in the better part of a day. “What do you have in mind?”
“She left about thirty minutes ago, yeah? We can assume she’s not going to come back with food or water for a while. And if she does...” Eames doesn’t finish that thought. “I can tip over in your direction, and if you can do the same, we might be able to shift around enough so that I can get at your hand bindings.” Eames wiggles his fingers. “My fingers are numb from these bindings. Would you be able to undo mine?”
Arthur shifts, tugs, shakes his head.
“I could bite them open, then. It’s nylon but I think I could do it,” Eames says, looking over at Arthur to gauge his reaction.
Arthur gets that look: the one when he’s entering the action portion of a job. A frown, a flexing of his jaw, a grim-set determination. It puts Eames in action mode as well and it feels good to take control.
“We’ll get out of here,” Eames says, as much to reassure Arthur as himself, as if declaring it into being.
“With grace and aplomb, I’m sure,” Arthur says, ghost of a smirk twitching the corner of his mouth.
----
Part Three