[Fic] Room of Angels
Title: Room Of Angels
Author: elesteria
Team: Angst
Prompt: Touch
Word count: 3326
Rating: R
Warnings: Character death.
A/N: So, I'm not very happy with this fic, but I guess we can't always be completely happy with anything we create ourselves, or I know I can't at least. I'm posting this against my better judgement, because I know if I don't do it now, I never will. I hate writing endings so... yeah. No more complaining.
Special thanks to lathaina who beta'd the first half this fic. She also let me bounce ideas off of her. Thank you dove for your time! Then to heavenly_rain and five_of_five who helped me figure out what being sedated felt like. You two got me past my writer's block! I have all the love in the world for these girls.
Room of Angels
Eames was laughing as he took Arthur’s hands in his own, pulling the slimmer man close. He rocked back and forth slightly, tugging Arthur into following the movement. Arthur frowned, but let Eames lead him in a dance across the living room of their apartment. “What are you doing?”
“We’re dancing Arthur. Now just move,” Eames murmured into his ear, his voice a familiar bur. He was grinning, his eyes sparkling with mischief. Arthur couldn’t restrain his answering smile, showing white teeth and dimples. They were open to each other, more so than they were to anyone else.
It had been easy for Arthur to open up to Eames in the beginning, even more so when he had realized that maybe they could have a working relationship. It had taken much longer for Eames to be comfortable being himself around Arthur, to accept a relationship, but in the end he had welcomed it.
“There we go,” Eames sighed as he moved across the room. They glided across the floor, bare feet silent against the warm timber. Eames was dressed in a light blue dress shirt, open at the collar.
They didn’t say a word, content to just dance in the morning sunlight filtering in from the living room window. After three years; one of casual fucking, one of figuring everything out and another of this, they had grown accustomed to each other. Of course they still had their moments of snarled anger and hissed disagreements. Their fights would last a handful of day, but they were spaced by moments of complete understanding; moments where Eames was a mix of everyone he had ever been and Arthur wasn't stressing over a job.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough.
Arthur sighed, relaxing into Eames’ sure grasp, his forehead nested in Eames’ shoulder. His right hand slid out of Eames’ and traced upwards from his arm to his shoulder. His other hand remained tight around Eames’ as they continued to move. Eames’ free hand palmed his hip.
His finger’s glided under the collar of Eames’ shirt, finger tips skirting over his skin. He closed his eyes as his fingers smoothed over puckered flesh. The scar from a gunshot wound when he had been working a job in Panama.
His fingers dipped lower, down a pectoral and skimming over ribs; fingers easily finding the long raised line of a scar that spanned the length between his ribs and hip; a knife wound from a night of gambling in Pattaya.
Arthur knew the story of every scar on Eames’ body. They had spent afternoons learning each other’s bodies, answering whispered questions, because the moment had been too delicate for them to speak normally. Eames’ assortment of scars told a lifelong story of being a criminal.
Arthur had always found beauty in Eames’ body, because it told the story of a man who had self-preservation down to a fine art, who wasn’t afraid to name names, who in an instant could turn on you. It spoke of things that Eames would never admit too; his gambling addiction, his need for challenging jobs and his thrill for danger. It told the story of a ruthless man.
Arthur’s eyes fluttered open when his fingers passed over Eames’ stomach and touched something warm and wet. He came to a stop and lifted his face from the crook of Eames’ neck.
Everything was blurred and it took Eames raising his hand to wipe the tears from his face for Arthur to realize that he was crying. His chest hurt and the pain was growing exponentially, but he ignored it. “I can’t remember how I got here, Eames.”
“I know,” Eames admitted as he freed his other hand from Arthur’s grasp and lifted both of them to cup Arthur’s face. He leaned forward, resting their foreheads together, but Arthur flinched away. It wasn’t real. Eames sighed, releasing Arthur.
Arthur kept a hand on Eames’ stomach, not willing to see what was coating his fingers. There was no doubt in his mind as to what it was.
“You need to wake up,” Eames stated. Arthur gasped, the pain in his chest having reached a level that he could no longer ignore. He closed his eyes and tried to figure out why he was dreaming. He didn’t protest against the press of cold steel to his temple, only leaned into the chilled touch.
A shot.
::: ::: :::
His eyes flew open. He coughed, spluttering for air, hands flying up to cover his mouth. There was a tube in his mouth and he felt a wave of panic, before hands were prying his off of the tube and pulling it out.
He blinked under the bright lights, trying to see where he was, who all these people were and what was going on. A face hovered over his, half covered by a light blue mask. A doctor, Arthur recognized.
He focused on the man’s face, fingers flexing and chest throbbing in pain. He took shallow breaths, before he pushed himself up into a sitting position. It caused the doctor to jerk back in surprise. He cursed, fighting for air as his limbs trembled with exhaustion and agony. The voices’ in the room grew louder, alongside the wailing of one of the machines in the room.
One of the nurses jumped forward, settling her hands on his shoulders and then attempting to push him back down. Arthur pushed her back, the intense urge to flee digging its claws into him. He gritted his teeth as the movement caused a wave of pain to rush through his system.
He made a grab for his pocket, reaching for his die, but hands were on him, too many to push away. They forced him back down on the stretcher and pinned him there. He thrashed slightly against the people holding him down, but everything was reaching too high a level for him to fight effectively. The sounds were getting louder, the pain becoming more intense and the fear that he couldn’t tell if this was a dream was reaching an insurmountable level.
He gasped for breath, his eyes squeezing shut as he tried to work past his growing confusion. He felt a pinch in his arm and then slowly everything began to fall away. Warmth bled through his system, a mix of soothing and uncomfortable. His fingers began to tingle and he opened his eyes in an attempt to gain some kind of control.
“The results are back doctor Shipman.” He heard someone say, but it was hard to focus on the soft voice. He blinked, but it was a struggle to open his eyes again, so he let them stay shut. “He has high doses of somnacin in his system. It’s dangerous to put him out right now. It’s some new compound, one of the street mixtures. It’s not breaking down in his system at the right speed; its breaking down much too slowly.”
“It’s more dangerous to have him awake. He’ll have to survive the corners of his mind until tomorrow.” The response was the last that Arthur heard before he let go. He tumbled back into the oblivion of his mind, a world created of memories and things he knew.
::: ::: :::
“Do you remember that time in Cinque Terre?” Eames asked as he carded his fingers through Arthur’s hair. Arthur blinked slowly, twisting slightly so that he was on his back, looking up at Eames. They were sprawled across a bed, Arthur’s head in Eames lap and Eames leaning back against the wall. Arthur quirked a brow, but Eames only smiled in response.
“How could I forget?” Arthur asked, a returning smile slipping onto his face. He stretched, languid. The sunlight filtered in from the bedroom window, cutting across the bed and heating the rumpled white sheets they lay on. “We’d just finished the Marino job in Milan.”
“And the mark woke up as we were packing the PASIV,” Eames continued. He breathed a light chuckle, fingers keeping up their constant movement through Arthur’s loose hair. Arthur laughed, because that job truly had been a giant cock up.
“So you pulled a gun on him and told him that if he so much as moved, you wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him.” Arthur gave a slight shake of his head. Luckily for them, Eames had made it look like they had been robbing the man. Their architect hadn’t had any idea how to play his part and had bolted straight away, leaving Arthur and Eames to clean up the mess.
“You got a lovely pair of cufflinks out of it.” Eames hummed, reminding Arthur of a perfectly satisfied cat. He traced his fingers through his hair one last time, before guiding them down the side of Arthur’s face and coming to a stop at the corner of his lips.
“We got out of their quickly, but we knew that taking off on foot would be useless. We could already hear the sirens, so we raced to the train. You bought tickets to the first place out of there, Cinque Terre.” Arthur recalled, Eames’ fingers sliding over his lips, tracing them as he spoke.
“We ended up in Riomaggorie, in the middle of the tourist season. It took us an hour to find a place to stay. That woman at the bed and breakfast didn’t know what to make of us; two men in suits willing to share a room with a single bed.” Eames continued on fondly, fingers moving from Arthur’s lips to trace up his cheek.
“There was no way that we would be found there. Or we pretended at least, because it was really lovely there.” Eames supplied before Arthur could speak the next part. Arthur shifted again, settling in for Eames to finish the shared memory. He could listen to him speak for hours, his soft voice soothing in a way that he had never found anything else to be. “We spent the first day in bed, because everyone needs a break from running.”
“One of the couples in the room over mentioned a quaint trail. How could we resist something so intriguing and completely different than what we were used to?” Eames asked, not expecting an answer to the question. Arthur knew his part well and answered instead with a name.
“The Via dell’Amore,” Arthur spoke the words like a lovers name.
“The pathway from Riomaggorie to Monarola,” Eames’ smile softened. “That was the job that made us realize we were something more than casual fucks. You were the first one to break and ask what the hell we were doing. The one who turned whatever we had been doing, into this.”
“God, how are you real?” Arthur breathed, completely in love with this single man. Eames’ hand froze, where it had been tracing circles on his temples. His grey eyes darkened and his smile shattered. It took the sunlight stained room and comforting warmth of his partner with it.
::: ::: :::
“-for now. The surgery went well and we managed to remove the fragments of the bullet from his chest. It’s a miracle that he survived at all.” The hushed voice grated through Arthur’s system, wrong in comparison to the voice that had filled his dreams. He shuddered, feeling the urge to cover his ears and tune it out.
He could feel the darkness tugging at him, begging him to once again fall into its embrace. He struggled against it, because it seemed like he needed to do it. He gave a light hiss as he twisted in the bed, his chest flaring in a numbed agony.
“Out of the four of them, he’s the only one that...” the familiar voice trailed off. Dom, Arthur recognized after a moment. His voice was thick though, wrong. It sounded deeper, worn and rattled.
“Yes,” the first voice responded to the unfinished question. It was all Arthur heard before he was being pulled back down into a place where he could no longer tell what was a dream, what was a memory and what was reality.
::: ::: :::
“New York, London, Toronto, Tokyo, Paris, Los Angeles, Milan, Prague, São Paulo and Osaka,” Eames listed off as he leaned back in his chair. He lifted his cup of black tea to his lips, which did little to hide his growing smile.
They were sitting outside a small cafe, the afternoon sun warm against their skin. Eames’ tea, Arthur’s vanilla latte and an assortment of baking covered the table.
“All the places that we’ve worked jobs together,” Arthur said immediately. Eames brushes his foot up Arthur’s ankle, the contact welcomed by the other man. Arthur’s finger’s danced across the lip of his coffee cup, expectantly waiting for Eames to explain why he had brought up the list of jobs.
“Do you know which one was my favourite?” Eames asked, causing Arthur to bark out a laugh. That hadn’t been what he was expecting.
“I don’t know your favourite, but mine is easily Tokyo.” Arthur smile grew at the memory. Even if it hadn’t been the perfect job, even if Eames and him had been at each other’s throats, it had been the beginning of it all.
“Tokyo was mine too,” Eames agreed before putting his tea cup back down on its glass saucer. “I can still hear Mal yelling at us, while Cobb pretended that his wife wasn’t having a breakdown over our behaviour. ‘You two are acting like children; non, you are worse than children! You are not allowed to step foot in this building, until you two have resolved whatever problems you have with each other. Now go!’.”
“We were both stunned that she had yelled at us that we went without a word. We ended up in some alley, when you threw the first punch. Beating the shit out of each other was just what we had needed. I can’t remember how we ended up fucking, but it was much better than the fighting.” Eames traced his toe up Arthur’s ankle and under his slacks. Arthur had a moment to wonder why he wasn’t wearing his shoes, but he put it out of his mind. The touch was comforting.
“I never hated you, you know.” Arthur looked down at his latte, the words a low rasp. He cleared his throat, a rueful smile making its way onto his face. He glanced up at Eames, trying again. “After three years, I never told you that I didn’t hate you. I don’t think that I could ever hate you, I just found you frustrating as all hell.”
“I know. You never needed to tell me. I knew the instant you smiled at me the first time.” Eames’ smile softened as he stood up. He leaned across the table and brushed his lips across Arthur’s forehead. “I always knew love.”
And the world faded.
::: ::: :::
Arthur’s eyes fluttered open, this time lacking the sluggish feel of the sedative. His mind felt surprisingly clear, quietly figuring out what had happened in the last while. He remembered how he had gotten here, remembered the doctor hovering over him when he had first woken in the hospital.
“Arthur?” He glanced over to find Dom sitting in a chair. He looked weary, pained and older. The lines in his face seemed more prominent and it looked like he hadn’t slept in days. A smile fell into place on his face, but it looked like it would break in an instant.
“Hey,” Arthur rasped. He raised his hand to scrub down his face, wiping away the remnants of the dream. He dropped his hand back down onto the bed and pushed himself up, ignoring the slight twinge in his chest.
He’d been shot.
“Shit, we were sold out,” he whispered emotionlessly. He leaned back against the wall and turned to face Dom again. He didn’t want to think about the job, not now at least. There was nothing he could do about it while he was in the hospital. What mattered was the rest of the team. “There were four of us. Eames was our forger.”
“I know,” Dom nodded and his expression seemed to freeze. Arthur noted the tightening of his knuckles and the ways his lips drew tight. What Dom couldn’t hide was the sudden flare of emotion in his eyes. It was the same look he got when someone mentioned Mal, just more controlled.
Arthur tensed and it felt like the breath had been punched from his lungs. Dom didn’t need to say anything, because Arthur knew. He had always known, subconsciously at least. He opened his mouth to say something, anything at all, but all that escaped was a small gasp. And still Dom remained silent, because he knew... he knew how it felt to be cracked wide open.
“How?” Arthur managed past the lump growing in his throat. He jerked his gaze away from Dom, focusing on the white wall ahead of him.
“Two shots to the stomach,” Dom supplied after a moment’s hesitation. It was something Arthur had known though, he remembered dragging his fingers across Eames’ stomach in the dream and the wet that his finger’s had encountered.
His hands were shaking, even as the rest of him was still. On some level he had prepared himself for the news, but preparing had nothing on the reality of the situation.
“There was so much that I never told him,” Arthur finally whispered. The words echoed quietly in the room, harmonizing with the beeps keeping track of his heart rate.
He felt the brush of finger’s against his shoulder, a vague memory of nights spent with Eames and the handful of recent dreams. It was the comfort his body craved, but not one that it would ever receive again. It tore a snarled “fuck!” from him.
He had a right to lose control, after everything he had been through; he deserved to lose control now. He gasped for breath, his chest tight and eyes stinging. He leaned forward, ignoring the pain in his chest that was a mix of mental and physical. Already he could feel the burn of guilt cutting its way to his core, the litany of ‘I should have know, I should have know.’ playing through his head, like a torturous symphony.
Beside him, Dom said nothing, Dom didn’t move.
And Arthur remembers the time right after Mal died that Dom threw a punch at him. He remembers how he took it, before wrapping the other man in his arms, because they were family, they were like brothers. But now, Dom is all shuttered emotions and all Arthur wants to see is some sign that he actually cares.
He felt the brush of finger’s over his lips and cheeks, then over his neck; the ghost of a touch.
And that was the reason he had never left Dom’s side when he had been haunted by Mal’s shade, even though Eames had told him not to. In that time though, they hadn’t meant anything to each other and Arthur hadn’t taken his advice to heart. He had known that if anyone had ever wormed their way into his life and they died, his mind would probably do the same thing.
It was some twisted way to preserve, some twisted way to never let go.
He felt the tears dripping down his face, but this time there was no one to wipe them away. There was no one to pull him close and comfort him. This time there was no one to put a gun to his head and wake him. And he wouldn’t try to wake himself up, because he knew that this was no dream. And he knew Eames wouldn’t have agreed with the idea of ending this pain.
There had been so much left unsaid, but there was a small part of him that thought maybe, just maybe they had heard each other anyways.
End
Author: elesteria
Team: Angst
Prompt: Touch
Word count: 3326
Rating: R
Warnings: Character death.
A/N: So, I'm not very happy with this fic, but I guess we can't always be completely happy with anything we create ourselves, or I know I can't at least. I'm posting this against my better judgement, because I know if I don't do it now, I never will. I hate writing endings so... yeah. No more complaining.
Special thanks to lathaina who beta'd the first half this fic. She also let me bounce ideas off of her. Thank you dove for your time! Then to heavenly_rain and five_of_five who helped me figure out what being sedated felt like. You two got me past my writer's block! I have all the love in the world for these girls.
Room of Angels
Eames was laughing as he took Arthur’s hands in his own, pulling the slimmer man close. He rocked back and forth slightly, tugging Arthur into following the movement. Arthur frowned, but let Eames lead him in a dance across the living room of their apartment. “What are you doing?”
“We’re dancing Arthur. Now just move,” Eames murmured into his ear, his voice a familiar bur. He was grinning, his eyes sparkling with mischief. Arthur couldn’t restrain his answering smile, showing white teeth and dimples. They were open to each other, more so than they were to anyone else.
It had been easy for Arthur to open up to Eames in the beginning, even more so when he had realized that maybe they could have a working relationship. It had taken much longer for Eames to be comfortable being himself around Arthur, to accept a relationship, but in the end he had welcomed it.
“There we go,” Eames sighed as he moved across the room. They glided across the floor, bare feet silent against the warm timber. Eames was dressed in a light blue dress shirt, open at the collar.
They didn’t say a word, content to just dance in the morning sunlight filtering in from the living room window. After three years; one of casual fucking, one of figuring everything out and another of this, they had grown accustomed to each other. Of course they still had their moments of snarled anger and hissed disagreements. Their fights would last a handful of day, but they were spaced by moments of complete understanding; moments where Eames was a mix of everyone he had ever been and Arthur wasn't stressing over a job.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough.
Arthur sighed, relaxing into Eames’ sure grasp, his forehead nested in Eames’ shoulder. His right hand slid out of Eames’ and traced upwards from his arm to his shoulder. His other hand remained tight around Eames’ as they continued to move. Eames’ free hand palmed his hip.
His finger’s glided under the collar of Eames’ shirt, finger tips skirting over his skin. He closed his eyes as his fingers smoothed over puckered flesh. The scar from a gunshot wound when he had been working a job in Panama.
His fingers dipped lower, down a pectoral and skimming over ribs; fingers easily finding the long raised line of a scar that spanned the length between his ribs and hip; a knife wound from a night of gambling in Pattaya.
Arthur knew the story of every scar on Eames’ body. They had spent afternoons learning each other’s bodies, answering whispered questions, because the moment had been too delicate for them to speak normally. Eames’ assortment of scars told a lifelong story of being a criminal.
Arthur had always found beauty in Eames’ body, because it told the story of a man who had self-preservation down to a fine art, who wasn’t afraid to name names, who in an instant could turn on you. It spoke of things that Eames would never admit too; his gambling addiction, his need for challenging jobs and his thrill for danger. It told the story of a ruthless man.
Arthur’s eyes fluttered open when his fingers passed over Eames’ stomach and touched something warm and wet. He came to a stop and lifted his face from the crook of Eames’ neck.
Everything was blurred and it took Eames raising his hand to wipe the tears from his face for Arthur to realize that he was crying. His chest hurt and the pain was growing exponentially, but he ignored it. “I can’t remember how I got here, Eames.”
“I know,” Eames admitted as he freed his other hand from Arthur’s grasp and lifted both of them to cup Arthur’s face. He leaned forward, resting their foreheads together, but Arthur flinched away. It wasn’t real. Eames sighed, releasing Arthur.
Arthur kept a hand on Eames’ stomach, not willing to see what was coating his fingers. There was no doubt in his mind as to what it was.
“You need to wake up,” Eames stated. Arthur gasped, the pain in his chest having reached a level that he could no longer ignore. He closed his eyes and tried to figure out why he was dreaming. He didn’t protest against the press of cold steel to his temple, only leaned into the chilled touch.
A shot.
::: ::: :::
His eyes flew open. He coughed, spluttering for air, hands flying up to cover his mouth. There was a tube in his mouth and he felt a wave of panic, before hands were prying his off of the tube and pulling it out.
He blinked under the bright lights, trying to see where he was, who all these people were and what was going on. A face hovered over his, half covered by a light blue mask. A doctor, Arthur recognized.
He focused on the man’s face, fingers flexing and chest throbbing in pain. He took shallow breaths, before he pushed himself up into a sitting position. It caused the doctor to jerk back in surprise. He cursed, fighting for air as his limbs trembled with exhaustion and agony. The voices’ in the room grew louder, alongside the wailing of one of the machines in the room.
One of the nurses jumped forward, settling her hands on his shoulders and then attempting to push him back down. Arthur pushed her back, the intense urge to flee digging its claws into him. He gritted his teeth as the movement caused a wave of pain to rush through his system.
He made a grab for his pocket, reaching for his die, but hands were on him, too many to push away. They forced him back down on the stretcher and pinned him there. He thrashed slightly against the people holding him down, but everything was reaching too high a level for him to fight effectively. The sounds were getting louder, the pain becoming more intense and the fear that he couldn’t tell if this was a dream was reaching an insurmountable level.
He gasped for breath, his eyes squeezing shut as he tried to work past his growing confusion. He felt a pinch in his arm and then slowly everything began to fall away. Warmth bled through his system, a mix of soothing and uncomfortable. His fingers began to tingle and he opened his eyes in an attempt to gain some kind of control.
“The results are back doctor Shipman.” He heard someone say, but it was hard to focus on the soft voice. He blinked, but it was a struggle to open his eyes again, so he let them stay shut. “He has high doses of somnacin in his system. It’s dangerous to put him out right now. It’s some new compound, one of the street mixtures. It’s not breaking down in his system at the right speed; its breaking down much too slowly.”
“It’s more dangerous to have him awake. He’ll have to survive the corners of his mind until tomorrow.” The response was the last that Arthur heard before he let go. He tumbled back into the oblivion of his mind, a world created of memories and things he knew.
::: ::: :::
“Do you remember that time in Cinque Terre?” Eames asked as he carded his fingers through Arthur’s hair. Arthur blinked slowly, twisting slightly so that he was on his back, looking up at Eames. They were sprawled across a bed, Arthur’s head in Eames lap and Eames leaning back against the wall. Arthur quirked a brow, but Eames only smiled in response.
“How could I forget?” Arthur asked, a returning smile slipping onto his face. He stretched, languid. The sunlight filtered in from the bedroom window, cutting across the bed and heating the rumpled white sheets they lay on. “We’d just finished the Marino job in Milan.”
“And the mark woke up as we were packing the PASIV,” Eames continued. He breathed a light chuckle, fingers keeping up their constant movement through Arthur’s loose hair. Arthur laughed, because that job truly had been a giant cock up.
“So you pulled a gun on him and told him that if he so much as moved, you wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him.” Arthur gave a slight shake of his head. Luckily for them, Eames had made it look like they had been robbing the man. Their architect hadn’t had any idea how to play his part and had bolted straight away, leaving Arthur and Eames to clean up the mess.
“You got a lovely pair of cufflinks out of it.” Eames hummed, reminding Arthur of a perfectly satisfied cat. He traced his fingers through his hair one last time, before guiding them down the side of Arthur’s face and coming to a stop at the corner of his lips.
“We got out of their quickly, but we knew that taking off on foot would be useless. We could already hear the sirens, so we raced to the train. You bought tickets to the first place out of there, Cinque Terre.” Arthur recalled, Eames’ fingers sliding over his lips, tracing them as he spoke.
“We ended up in Riomaggorie, in the middle of the tourist season. It took us an hour to find a place to stay. That woman at the bed and breakfast didn’t know what to make of us; two men in suits willing to share a room with a single bed.” Eames continued on fondly, fingers moving from Arthur’s lips to trace up his cheek.
“There was no way that we would be found there. Or we pretended at least, because it was really lovely there.” Eames supplied before Arthur could speak the next part. Arthur shifted again, settling in for Eames to finish the shared memory. He could listen to him speak for hours, his soft voice soothing in a way that he had never found anything else to be. “We spent the first day in bed, because everyone needs a break from running.”
“One of the couples in the room over mentioned a quaint trail. How could we resist something so intriguing and completely different than what we were used to?” Eames asked, not expecting an answer to the question. Arthur knew his part well and answered instead with a name.
“The Via dell’Amore,” Arthur spoke the words like a lovers name.
“The pathway from Riomaggorie to Monarola,” Eames’ smile softened. “That was the job that made us realize we were something more than casual fucks. You were the first one to break and ask what the hell we were doing. The one who turned whatever we had been doing, into this.”
“God, how are you real?” Arthur breathed, completely in love with this single man. Eames’ hand froze, where it had been tracing circles on his temples. His grey eyes darkened and his smile shattered. It took the sunlight stained room and comforting warmth of his partner with it.
::: ::: :::
“-for now. The surgery went well and we managed to remove the fragments of the bullet from his chest. It’s a miracle that he survived at all.” The hushed voice grated through Arthur’s system, wrong in comparison to the voice that had filled his dreams. He shuddered, feeling the urge to cover his ears and tune it out.
He could feel the darkness tugging at him, begging him to once again fall into its embrace. He struggled against it, because it seemed like he needed to do it. He gave a light hiss as he twisted in the bed, his chest flaring in a numbed agony.
“Out of the four of them, he’s the only one that...” the familiar voice trailed off. Dom, Arthur recognized after a moment. His voice was thick though, wrong. It sounded deeper, worn and rattled.
“Yes,” the first voice responded to the unfinished question. It was all Arthur heard before he was being pulled back down into a place where he could no longer tell what was a dream, what was a memory and what was reality.
::: ::: :::
“New York, London, Toronto, Tokyo, Paris, Los Angeles, Milan, Prague, São Paulo and Osaka,” Eames listed off as he leaned back in his chair. He lifted his cup of black tea to his lips, which did little to hide his growing smile.
They were sitting outside a small cafe, the afternoon sun warm against their skin. Eames’ tea, Arthur’s vanilla latte and an assortment of baking covered the table.
“All the places that we’ve worked jobs together,” Arthur said immediately. Eames brushes his foot up Arthur’s ankle, the contact welcomed by the other man. Arthur’s finger’s danced across the lip of his coffee cup, expectantly waiting for Eames to explain why he had brought up the list of jobs.
“Do you know which one was my favourite?” Eames asked, causing Arthur to bark out a laugh. That hadn’t been what he was expecting.
“I don’t know your favourite, but mine is easily Tokyo.” Arthur smile grew at the memory. Even if it hadn’t been the perfect job, even if Eames and him had been at each other’s throats, it had been the beginning of it all.
“Tokyo was mine too,” Eames agreed before putting his tea cup back down on its glass saucer. “I can still hear Mal yelling at us, while Cobb pretended that his wife wasn’t having a breakdown over our behaviour. ‘You two are acting like children; non, you are worse than children! You are not allowed to step foot in this building, until you two have resolved whatever problems you have with each other. Now go!’.”
“We were both stunned that she had yelled at us that we went without a word. We ended up in some alley, when you threw the first punch. Beating the shit out of each other was just what we had needed. I can’t remember how we ended up fucking, but it was much better than the fighting.” Eames traced his toe up Arthur’s ankle and under his slacks. Arthur had a moment to wonder why he wasn’t wearing his shoes, but he put it out of his mind. The touch was comforting.
“I never hated you, you know.” Arthur looked down at his latte, the words a low rasp. He cleared his throat, a rueful smile making its way onto his face. He glanced up at Eames, trying again. “After three years, I never told you that I didn’t hate you. I don’t think that I could ever hate you, I just found you frustrating as all hell.”
“I know. You never needed to tell me. I knew the instant you smiled at me the first time.” Eames’ smile softened as he stood up. He leaned across the table and brushed his lips across Arthur’s forehead. “I always knew love.”
And the world faded.
::: ::: :::
Arthur’s eyes fluttered open, this time lacking the sluggish feel of the sedative. His mind felt surprisingly clear, quietly figuring out what had happened in the last while. He remembered how he had gotten here, remembered the doctor hovering over him when he had first woken in the hospital.
“Arthur?” He glanced over to find Dom sitting in a chair. He looked weary, pained and older. The lines in his face seemed more prominent and it looked like he hadn’t slept in days. A smile fell into place on his face, but it looked like it would break in an instant.
“Hey,” Arthur rasped. He raised his hand to scrub down his face, wiping away the remnants of the dream. He dropped his hand back down onto the bed and pushed himself up, ignoring the slight twinge in his chest.
He’d been shot.
“Shit, we were sold out,” he whispered emotionlessly. He leaned back against the wall and turned to face Dom again. He didn’t want to think about the job, not now at least. There was nothing he could do about it while he was in the hospital. What mattered was the rest of the team. “There were four of us. Eames was our forger.”
“I know,” Dom nodded and his expression seemed to freeze. Arthur noted the tightening of his knuckles and the ways his lips drew tight. What Dom couldn’t hide was the sudden flare of emotion in his eyes. It was the same look he got when someone mentioned Mal, just more controlled.
Arthur tensed and it felt like the breath had been punched from his lungs. Dom didn’t need to say anything, because Arthur knew. He had always known, subconsciously at least. He opened his mouth to say something, anything at all, but all that escaped was a small gasp. And still Dom remained silent, because he knew... he knew how it felt to be cracked wide open.
“How?” Arthur managed past the lump growing in his throat. He jerked his gaze away from Dom, focusing on the white wall ahead of him.
“Two shots to the stomach,” Dom supplied after a moment’s hesitation. It was something Arthur had known though, he remembered dragging his fingers across Eames’ stomach in the dream and the wet that his finger’s had encountered.
His hands were shaking, even as the rest of him was still. On some level he had prepared himself for the news, but preparing had nothing on the reality of the situation.
“There was so much that I never told him,” Arthur finally whispered. The words echoed quietly in the room, harmonizing with the beeps keeping track of his heart rate.
He felt the brush of finger’s against his shoulder, a vague memory of nights spent with Eames and the handful of recent dreams. It was the comfort his body craved, but not one that it would ever receive again. It tore a snarled “fuck!” from him.
He had a right to lose control, after everything he had been through; he deserved to lose control now. He gasped for breath, his chest tight and eyes stinging. He leaned forward, ignoring the pain in his chest that was a mix of mental and physical. Already he could feel the burn of guilt cutting its way to his core, the litany of ‘I should have know, I should have know.’ playing through his head, like a torturous symphony.
Beside him, Dom said nothing, Dom didn’t move.
And Arthur remembers the time right after Mal died that Dom threw a punch at him. He remembers how he took it, before wrapping the other man in his arms, because they were family, they were like brothers. But now, Dom is all shuttered emotions and all Arthur wants to see is some sign that he actually cares.
He felt the brush of finger’s over his lips and cheeks, then over his neck; the ghost of a touch.
And that was the reason he had never left Dom’s side when he had been haunted by Mal’s shade, even though Eames had told him not to. In that time though, they hadn’t meant anything to each other and Arthur hadn’t taken his advice to heart. He had known that if anyone had ever wormed their way into his life and they died, his mind would probably do the same thing.
It was some twisted way to preserve, some twisted way to never let go.
He felt the tears dripping down his face, but this time there was no one to wipe them away. There was no one to pull him close and comfort him. This time there was no one to put a gun to his head and wake him. And he wouldn’t try to wake himself up, because he knew that this was no dream. And he knew Eames wouldn’t have agreed with the idea of ending this pain.
There had been so much left unsaid, but there was a small part of him that thought maybe, just maybe they had heard each other anyways.
End