Fic: I Tremble
Title: I Tremble
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: R
Summary: For this prompt on
, where Arthur is buried alive and Eames is looking for him.
Warnings: Arthur is buried alive, man, so uh, extreme situations involving being buried alive.
Author's Notes: Of course this is what I write after a month of posting nothing. :| Thanks to sorrynotsorry
ETA: This entry is now locked due to being an incredible spam magnet. Please leave feedback at AO3.
Arthur is never unprepared for someone to knock on his door and try to take him out, and he’s managed to get this far in the extraction business without being kidnapped.
But there’s a first time for everything.
When his door is shot off its hinges, he’s already shooting. There’s a lot of goons in suits, though, and he’s eventually clipped in the leg and then clubbed in the back of the head, and then he’s drugged.
He’s shoved in a van, semi-conscious and pissed as fuck, but the drugs knock him out.
He wakes up in the van, and it’s dark, and he feels like shit. Four men pull him out and he kicks out, sweeping someone behind the knee and taking him down.
Arthur wasn’t expecting the taser, which knocks him to the dirt.
His hands are tied but he tries to use them to swing around, hit the guy behind him in the face, but he just laughs and his buddies grab him around the shoulders. They shove him into a box made of pine and then a lid clatters down, and Arthur surges to push it off but they’ve already fucking started nailing it down.
The box is shoved into a hole, where it falls with a thump.
It’s fucking dark, and Arthur can’t move, can’t twist his body, and he hears the thud of earth hitting his coffin.
His coffin.
He knows he should last about two hours, four at the most.
Except they’ve thought of that. He hears a man’s voice, “Don’t you worry about suffocating, kid, there’s a tube that’s going to give you all the oxygen you need.” Then more earth is crashing on top of him, right above his face, and Arthur’s whole body shudders involuntarily.
Arthur is a gambler and a collector of facts - he knows he could last three days here, underground, in a box he’s unable to move in. He knows he could last a week, potentially, and hopes to god he’ll stop fighting before then.
He wonders if anyone will find his body, and tries to take slow, measured breaths.
-
His internal clock is excellent. Arthur is always on time, and that means he is always early.
So he knows when four hours is over and they haven’t plugged the hole that’s giving him oxygen that he’s going to die in the slowest way imaginable, in cold darkness in a wood box.
He starts yelling. Hopes someone can hear him.
-
Twelve hours and Arthur’s throat is burning, his back is tight and his legs have cramped from not moving. His hands aren’t tied together tightly, but they feel warm and swollen.
He wonders if he’ll still be able to use them when he gets out, and he feels the laugh in his throat rather than hears it, desperate and sad. When he gets out is too worthless a thought to even entertain.
He’s going to die here, and it’s going to hurt.
-
Hour fifteen has him trying desperately to curl into himself. Arthur’s stomach aches with a desperate pressure and he can feel his body shaking and he’s still mentally ticking off minutes.
He takes a deep breath, nostrils flaring, and doesn’t know why he’s fighting so hard.
Arthur pisses himself and coughs at the smell, harsh and acidic. His legs are warm and he tries to pull his hands up to his chest, away from his legs which might not even exist, because he can’t see them. The smell is acrid and he knows it’ll take fifteen minutes for him not to notice it anymore.
He drags his hands up the tight space and feels the skin tear as it catches on wood, as the bones squeeze together, and he tries to see his fingers, to maybe lap at the blood welling and dripping down his palms.
-
He wakes after a fitful sleep and decides he’s on hour twenty-two. Theoretically, only fifty-six more hours left of this.
He wonders, not for the first time, if this is even real.
Arthur doesn’t really want to entertain the possibility of a dream. If it’s a dream, then the waking reality will be worse. He’s caught either way.
-
Arthur’s feet go numb from settled blood and disuse, and his mouth is bone dry and cracking.
Underground, he knows he should think of Cobb, think of James and Phillipa, of how maybe he’ll see Mal again. He should be trying to say goodbye to the Eames in his head.
Instead, he thinks of Fischer. Was that the last straw for Arthur? Making him think his father cared, letting him be his own man? Crime was never easy, but he never thought too hard about the mark when it was done.
Maybe he deserved this.
-
He can feel his fingernails snap where he digs them against the wood above him but he can’t stop, raking them again and again and again just to hear the noise, to feel like he has control over something. He can’t move them far at all and each time he tricks himself into thinking he can feel dirt at his finger tips.
Arthur doesn’t pray, but if he did, he’d pray for death. A pragmatist, the possibility of rescue dwindles every hour, and was fairly low to begin with.
There’s no hope underground, in this box, and he knows it in his aching bones. The numbers in his head can be recalculated only so many ways and will tell him the same thing each time: eventually he’ll stop breathing.
He starts screaming until he can’t anymore.
-
It’s cold. He’s cold and he can feel his tongue swelling so he figures it’s been about sixty hours. He hopes he dies before it cracks open - he’d rather not suffer the indignity of choking to death on his own blood.
The thought makes him laugh and that hurts, shooting pain through his mouth and throat.
At least the screaming helped dull the incessant thrum of his rabbit-fast heart, working hard to move his sluggish blood. He’s not sure when his last drink of water was, but his whole body is full of aches and tingles and even when he wants to cry he can’t, so he knows it’s been longer than he’s spent underground.
Maybe four days. He could go for ten, under ideal conditions, but he knows he isn’t in them.
He drifts asleep.
-
He wakes up.
Everything around him is still dark, is still painful, and he still can’t speak, can barely rasp.
He wonders which of his organs will shut down first.
His head hurts and he tries to determine what to be thinking of when he dies. Should it be his mother, may she rest in peace? Cobb, his best friend? Eames, his sometimes lover? Maybe a book or a poem.
It’s hard to think, though, to remember why those things are important. It’s hard enough to keep breathing.
-
There are noises where there hadn’t been noise. Arthur can’t see anything, is hyper aware of each tiny ache and sharp pain in his body, and then he hears scrapes against the lid.
Hello, I’m here, he tries to shout, but he can’t make the words come with no spit in his mouth. He knocks S-O-S in Morse code on the wood above him, with his forehead, the white pain in his eyes the first thing he’s seen in almost ninety hours.
“He’s here, he’s in here!”
Arthur knows he should know that voice but isn’t sure why, and suddenly his box is being hoisted into the air and it lands with a thump that shakes his bones.
There’s a terrible creak of wood and the lid cracks as it’s pried off, splinters hitting him and even the dim light of the evening hurts his eyes.
“Oh, fuck, Arthur, darling,” and Arthur’s brain slowly connects the fuzzy image of the man in front of him and his voice to the name Eames, which he tries to say.
It comes out as more of a raspy cough, making his lips bleed, and he tries to sit up but he can’t. He watches Eames lean closer and then jerk back, recoiling from the stench of urine and the desperation of Arthur’s fear which must be filling this box, pouring out of it in waves. His heart is thudding so fast he thinks it might kill him.
“Yusuf, Jesus, come over here,” and then Yusuf is also peering down above him. Arthur blinks up, his eyes dry and sunken, his skin sallow.
“Fuck,” Yusuf says, and then disappears from view. Eames pulls out a knife and Arthur tries to flinch, but Eames just slices through the ropes at his hands. Arthur hisses as his blood moves.
“Don’t worry, Arthur, alright?” Eames says, and Arthur opens his mouth again. It’s dry and the movement hurts but he should try, he thinks, to say he’s okay. He just makes a strangled noise, and he thinks Eames might be crying. It doesn’t make much sense to him, because he’s not dead.
That doesn’t make any sense either.
Yusuf appears with an IV bag in one hand and a hypodermic needle in the other.
“Do you really think -“ Eames starts but Yusuf just stares at him and jams the needle into Arthur's neck.
It’s dark again.
-
Arthur wakes up.
He’d expected to be in the box, or in a hostage situation, but instead he’s in a king-sized pillow top bed covered in a lovely soft blue comforter. His left arm is hooked to an IV fluids drip and the constant drilling pain in his head is gone.
He still can’t speak but manages to make an eerie sounding bark, which is loud enough to bring Eames to his door.
Eames’ eyes are red and bloodshot, and he’s in sweats and a worn t-shirt that’s smeared with dirt and some blood, and Arthur comes to realize that he’s been changed and dressed in a long shirt and shorts.
He can feel his cheeks burning with shame and he doesn’t meet Eames’ eyes as he walks up towards him and sits on the edge of a bed. He’s holding a bowl of ice chips.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t bring you to a hospital where there’d be lovely nurses to do all this for you,” Eames says and picks up an ice chip. Arthur dutifully opens his mouth and it’s cold, shockingly cold. He flinches because it hurts in his mouth, against dried skin and it hurts to swallow.
“Yusuf’s going to be patching you up, but he’s sleeping now,” Eames continues. Arthur nods, slowly, and blinks up at Eames. They’ve put drops in his eyes, he notices, because it doesn’t hurt and he can see more clearly.
“You’ve lost about 12% of your body weight,” Eames says and Arthur can hear the tremble in his voice. He is fed another ice chip and this one feels better, his mouth remembering what to do. “Your kidneys are fairly beat, but nothing failed, which is a miracle.”
Eames runs the next chip over Arthur’s lips and god, that does feel nice. Arthur moves his jaw experimentally, stretching the skin, and then lets the ice melt in his mouth to swallow.
They sit in silence after that, and Arthur dutifully eats three more ice chips before shaking his head no.
“Alright,” Eames says and places the bowl on the table next to the bed. It’s marble topped, expensive, and there’s a bottle of Gatorade there. “This is here in case you feel up to it.”
Arthur finally looks down at his hands.
It’s better and worse than he thought, and he notices Eames’ heavy gaze on them.
“Nerve damage?” Arthur grunts out. The skin is dry, flaking and split open around the knuckles, but the ripped skin on the sides of his palms is bandaged up.
Eames’ eyes are sad, but he shrugs. “Won’t know for a while.”
“Ah.”
They look at each other and Arthur can feel himself turning flush again. “Thanks,” he rasps. “And. Sorry.”
Eames shifts uneasily. “You don’t. Don’t be, alright? Don’t.”
“Can I take a shower?” Arthur barely manages to say all the words, and then he’s finished speaking for a while, he thinks.
“Oh, uh. Let me ask Yusuf,” Eames says and he hurries out of the room, and Arthur feels rattled. He doesn’t like Eames off his game, an Eames that isn’t rough around the edges and mean without being hurtful.
Eames comes back in, Yusuf in tow. Yusuf makes him open his mouth, shines a light down his throat, takes his pulse, and looks at him critically.
"It's going to take you a while to get better, Arthur,” he says, “and I know you extractor types think you’re super human, but you aren’t.”
Arthur nods. “I feel like shit,” he whispers, and Yusuf laughs. Arthur gives him a small smile in return, but Eames is just tight faced in the background.
“Well, whatever keeps you in that bed for the next week or so. You’re cleared for a shower, but Eames has to help.”
Arthur shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, then nods. Yusuf smiles. “You’re a much better patient than he is, just so you know.”
Eames doesn’t even take the bait, though, and the two men help Arthur to his feet and walk him into the bathroom. Yusuf leaves once it seems that Eames has it under control, and Eames settles him on the toilet and starts pulling his shirt off. Arthur fumbles with the drawstring on his shorts but his hands are clumsy, slow, and he finally just tries to yank them down. Then he stares straight ahead at a particularly floral wallpaper, because even glimpses of his body are too much.
He turns the water on before helping Arthur into the shower, so the spray is already warm and soothing. His muscles still feel tight and angry from disuse, from being locked up.
Arthur’s propped up by Eames in the tub, leaning back into him. Eames is naked, too, but of course it isn’t anything either of them haven’t seen before.
Except Arthur hasn’t seen this body before. His skin sags around his stomach and his hips, and he can count his ribs. He’s always been lean but muscled, never skinny, but now he feels like a doll of skin and bones in Eames’ strong arms. He reaches for soap and manages to hold onto it, but he can’t really do much more than lather his shoulders before he feels exhausted.
The hot water is loosening his raw throat and he tips his head back. “Can I sit?” he asks, and Eames slowly lowers him to the floor of the shower. He leans over Arthur and makes the water hotter so he’ll still be warm, and then he takes the bar of soap from his hands and begins to wash his back.
Arthur wants to say this is humiliating but he doesn’t think he can make it through the syllables. “Not a baby,” he mumbles as Eames is rubbing shampoo into his scalp.
“I know, Arthur, I just. Just let me.” Eames sounds pained, so Arthur closes his eyes and leans back and lets him condition his hair as well, and it is rather nice. The touch isn’t painful, and he’s relaxed by the end of it. The sharp edge of panic has dulled a shade.
Eames wraps him in an enormous towel and Arthur lets himself be dried off, and then dressed in fresh bedclothes.
The sheets have been changed, he notices, and he realizes he probably smelled foul, but Eames tucks him under blankets and cracks open the lid of the Gatorade and hands it to him.
Arthur sips gingerly, and he has to think hard about how to swallow. The taste is so strong on his tongue he almost gags, but he doesn’t, and then he looks at Eames, who is just watching him.
“I won’t break,” he says.
Eames crouches so their faces are level. “I almost. You almost,” he starts, and then pauses and rests his hand against Arthur’s cheek. “You almost died.”
Arthur’s eyelids fall closed and he leans into the touch very slightly. Eames is comforting but seeing him so close hurts his eyes. “Not the first time.”
He hears Eames snort in frustration. “You almost died and I wasn’t there.”
Arthur wants to call him petulant, but then Eames continues. “I want to be there next time, and the next time, and I want you with me when it’s my turn.”
Arthur looks at him again, with the heaviness of Eames’ words resting against his sternum.
Eames looks horrible, though Arthur knows he has no room to talk. He looks like he hasn’t sleep for days, and his hair is drying in unflattering cowlicks, and he looks terribly terribly earnest. Eames drops his hand.
“Okay,” Arthur says, and falls back into the pillows. “Okay.”
He falls asleep.
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: R
Summary: For this prompt on
, where Arthur is buried alive and Eames is looking for him.
Warnings: Arthur is buried alive, man, so uh, extreme situations involving being buried alive.
Author's Notes: Of course this is what I write after a month of posting nothing. :| Thanks to sorrynotsorry
ETA: This entry is now locked due to being an incredible spam magnet. Please leave feedback at AO3.
Arthur is never unprepared for someone to knock on his door and try to take him out, and he’s managed to get this far in the extraction business without being kidnapped.
But there’s a first time for everything.
When his door is shot off its hinges, he’s already shooting. There’s a lot of goons in suits, though, and he’s eventually clipped in the leg and then clubbed in the back of the head, and then he’s drugged.
He’s shoved in a van, semi-conscious and pissed as fuck, but the drugs knock him out.
He wakes up in the van, and it’s dark, and he feels like shit. Four men pull him out and he kicks out, sweeping someone behind the knee and taking him down.
Arthur wasn’t expecting the taser, which knocks him to the dirt.
His hands are tied but he tries to use them to swing around, hit the guy behind him in the face, but he just laughs and his buddies grab him around the shoulders. They shove him into a box made of pine and then a lid clatters down, and Arthur surges to push it off but they’ve already fucking started nailing it down.
The box is shoved into a hole, where it falls with a thump.
It’s fucking dark, and Arthur can’t move, can’t twist his body, and he hears the thud of earth hitting his coffin.
His coffin.
He knows he should last about two hours, four at the most.
Except they’ve thought of that. He hears a man’s voice, “Don’t you worry about suffocating, kid, there’s a tube that’s going to give you all the oxygen you need.” Then more earth is crashing on top of him, right above his face, and Arthur’s whole body shudders involuntarily.
Arthur is a gambler and a collector of facts - he knows he could last three days here, underground, in a box he’s unable to move in. He knows he could last a week, potentially, and hopes to god he’ll stop fighting before then.
He wonders if anyone will find his body, and tries to take slow, measured breaths.
-
His internal clock is excellent. Arthur is always on time, and that means he is always early.
So he knows when four hours is over and they haven’t plugged the hole that’s giving him oxygen that he’s going to die in the slowest way imaginable, in cold darkness in a wood box.
He starts yelling. Hopes someone can hear him.
-
Twelve hours and Arthur’s throat is burning, his back is tight and his legs have cramped from not moving. His hands aren’t tied together tightly, but they feel warm and swollen.
He wonders if he’ll still be able to use them when he gets out, and he feels the laugh in his throat rather than hears it, desperate and sad. When he gets out is too worthless a thought to even entertain.
He’s going to die here, and it’s going to hurt.
-
Hour fifteen has him trying desperately to curl into himself. Arthur’s stomach aches with a desperate pressure and he can feel his body shaking and he’s still mentally ticking off minutes.
He takes a deep breath, nostrils flaring, and doesn’t know why he’s fighting so hard.
Arthur pisses himself and coughs at the smell, harsh and acidic. His legs are warm and he tries to pull his hands up to his chest, away from his legs which might not even exist, because he can’t see them. The smell is acrid and he knows it’ll take fifteen minutes for him not to notice it anymore.
He drags his hands up the tight space and feels the skin tear as it catches on wood, as the bones squeeze together, and he tries to see his fingers, to maybe lap at the blood welling and dripping down his palms.
-
He wakes after a fitful sleep and decides he’s on hour twenty-two. Theoretically, only fifty-six more hours left of this.
He wonders, not for the first time, if this is even real.
Arthur doesn’t really want to entertain the possibility of a dream. If it’s a dream, then the waking reality will be worse. He’s caught either way.
-
Arthur’s feet go numb from settled blood and disuse, and his mouth is bone dry and cracking.
Underground, he knows he should think of Cobb, think of James and Phillipa, of how maybe he’ll see Mal again. He should be trying to say goodbye to the Eames in his head.
Instead, he thinks of Fischer. Was that the last straw for Arthur? Making him think his father cared, letting him be his own man? Crime was never easy, but he never thought too hard about the mark when it was done.
Maybe he deserved this.
-
He can feel his fingernails snap where he digs them against the wood above him but he can’t stop, raking them again and again and again just to hear the noise, to feel like he has control over something. He can’t move them far at all and each time he tricks himself into thinking he can feel dirt at his finger tips.
Arthur doesn’t pray, but if he did, he’d pray for death. A pragmatist, the possibility of rescue dwindles every hour, and was fairly low to begin with.
There’s no hope underground, in this box, and he knows it in his aching bones. The numbers in his head can be recalculated only so many ways and will tell him the same thing each time: eventually he’ll stop breathing.
He starts screaming until he can’t anymore.
-
It’s cold. He’s cold and he can feel his tongue swelling so he figures it’s been about sixty hours. He hopes he dies before it cracks open - he’d rather not suffer the indignity of choking to death on his own blood.
The thought makes him laugh and that hurts, shooting pain through his mouth and throat.
At least the screaming helped dull the incessant thrum of his rabbit-fast heart, working hard to move his sluggish blood. He’s not sure when his last drink of water was, but his whole body is full of aches and tingles and even when he wants to cry he can’t, so he knows it’s been longer than he’s spent underground.
Maybe four days. He could go for ten, under ideal conditions, but he knows he isn’t in them.
He drifts asleep.
-
He wakes up.
Everything around him is still dark, is still painful, and he still can’t speak, can barely rasp.
He wonders which of his organs will shut down first.
His head hurts and he tries to determine what to be thinking of when he dies. Should it be his mother, may she rest in peace? Cobb, his best friend? Eames, his sometimes lover? Maybe a book or a poem.
It’s hard to think, though, to remember why those things are important. It’s hard enough to keep breathing.
-
There are noises where there hadn’t been noise. Arthur can’t see anything, is hyper aware of each tiny ache and sharp pain in his body, and then he hears scrapes against the lid.
Hello, I’m here, he tries to shout, but he can’t make the words come with no spit in his mouth. He knocks S-O-S in Morse code on the wood above him, with his forehead, the white pain in his eyes the first thing he’s seen in almost ninety hours.
“He’s here, he’s in here!”
Arthur knows he should know that voice but isn’t sure why, and suddenly his box is being hoisted into the air and it lands with a thump that shakes his bones.
There’s a terrible creak of wood and the lid cracks as it’s pried off, splinters hitting him and even the dim light of the evening hurts his eyes.
“Oh, fuck, Arthur, darling,” and Arthur’s brain slowly connects the fuzzy image of the man in front of him and his voice to the name Eames, which he tries to say.
It comes out as more of a raspy cough, making his lips bleed, and he tries to sit up but he can’t. He watches Eames lean closer and then jerk back, recoiling from the stench of urine and the desperation of Arthur’s fear which must be filling this box, pouring out of it in waves. His heart is thudding so fast he thinks it might kill him.
“Yusuf, Jesus, come over here,” and then Yusuf is also peering down above him. Arthur blinks up, his eyes dry and sunken, his skin sallow.
“Fuck,” Yusuf says, and then disappears from view. Eames pulls out a knife and Arthur tries to flinch, but Eames just slices through the ropes at his hands. Arthur hisses as his blood moves.
“Don’t worry, Arthur, alright?” Eames says, and Arthur opens his mouth again. It’s dry and the movement hurts but he should try, he thinks, to say he’s okay. He just makes a strangled noise, and he thinks Eames might be crying. It doesn’t make much sense to him, because he’s not dead.
That doesn’t make any sense either.
Yusuf appears with an IV bag in one hand and a hypodermic needle in the other.
“Do you really think -“ Eames starts but Yusuf just stares at him and jams the needle into Arthur's neck.
It’s dark again.
-
Arthur wakes up.
He’d expected to be in the box, or in a hostage situation, but instead he’s in a king-sized pillow top bed covered in a lovely soft blue comforter. His left arm is hooked to an IV fluids drip and the constant drilling pain in his head is gone.
He still can’t speak but manages to make an eerie sounding bark, which is loud enough to bring Eames to his door.
Eames’ eyes are red and bloodshot, and he’s in sweats and a worn t-shirt that’s smeared with dirt and some blood, and Arthur comes to realize that he’s been changed and dressed in a long shirt and shorts.
He can feel his cheeks burning with shame and he doesn’t meet Eames’ eyes as he walks up towards him and sits on the edge of a bed. He’s holding a bowl of ice chips.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t bring you to a hospital where there’d be lovely nurses to do all this for you,” Eames says and picks up an ice chip. Arthur dutifully opens his mouth and it’s cold, shockingly cold. He flinches because it hurts in his mouth, against dried skin and it hurts to swallow.
“Yusuf’s going to be patching you up, but he’s sleeping now,” Eames continues. Arthur nods, slowly, and blinks up at Eames. They’ve put drops in his eyes, he notices, because it doesn’t hurt and he can see more clearly.
“You’ve lost about 12% of your body weight,” Eames says and Arthur can hear the tremble in his voice. He is fed another ice chip and this one feels better, his mouth remembering what to do. “Your kidneys are fairly beat, but nothing failed, which is a miracle.”
Eames runs the next chip over Arthur’s lips and god, that does feel nice. Arthur moves his jaw experimentally, stretching the skin, and then lets the ice melt in his mouth to swallow.
They sit in silence after that, and Arthur dutifully eats three more ice chips before shaking his head no.
“Alright,” Eames says and places the bowl on the table next to the bed. It’s marble topped, expensive, and there’s a bottle of Gatorade there. “This is here in case you feel up to it.”
Arthur finally looks down at his hands.
It’s better and worse than he thought, and he notices Eames’ heavy gaze on them.
“Nerve damage?” Arthur grunts out. The skin is dry, flaking and split open around the knuckles, but the ripped skin on the sides of his palms is bandaged up.
Eames’ eyes are sad, but he shrugs. “Won’t know for a while.”
“Ah.”
They look at each other and Arthur can feel himself turning flush again. “Thanks,” he rasps. “And. Sorry.”
Eames shifts uneasily. “You don’t. Don’t be, alright? Don’t.”
“Can I take a shower?” Arthur barely manages to say all the words, and then he’s finished speaking for a while, he thinks.
“Oh, uh. Let me ask Yusuf,” Eames says and he hurries out of the room, and Arthur feels rattled. He doesn’t like Eames off his game, an Eames that isn’t rough around the edges and mean without being hurtful.
Eames comes back in, Yusuf in tow. Yusuf makes him open his mouth, shines a light down his throat, takes his pulse, and looks at him critically.
"It's going to take you a while to get better, Arthur,” he says, “and I know you extractor types think you’re super human, but you aren’t.”
Arthur nods. “I feel like shit,” he whispers, and Yusuf laughs. Arthur gives him a small smile in return, but Eames is just tight faced in the background.
“Well, whatever keeps you in that bed for the next week or so. You’re cleared for a shower, but Eames has to help.”
Arthur shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, then nods. Yusuf smiles. “You’re a much better patient than he is, just so you know.”
Eames doesn’t even take the bait, though, and the two men help Arthur to his feet and walk him into the bathroom. Yusuf leaves once it seems that Eames has it under control, and Eames settles him on the toilet and starts pulling his shirt off. Arthur fumbles with the drawstring on his shorts but his hands are clumsy, slow, and he finally just tries to yank them down. Then he stares straight ahead at a particularly floral wallpaper, because even glimpses of his body are too much.
He turns the water on before helping Arthur into the shower, so the spray is already warm and soothing. His muscles still feel tight and angry from disuse, from being locked up.
Arthur’s propped up by Eames in the tub, leaning back into him. Eames is naked, too, but of course it isn’t anything either of them haven’t seen before.
Except Arthur hasn’t seen this body before. His skin sags around his stomach and his hips, and he can count his ribs. He’s always been lean but muscled, never skinny, but now he feels like a doll of skin and bones in Eames’ strong arms. He reaches for soap and manages to hold onto it, but he can’t really do much more than lather his shoulders before he feels exhausted.
The hot water is loosening his raw throat and he tips his head back. “Can I sit?” he asks, and Eames slowly lowers him to the floor of the shower. He leans over Arthur and makes the water hotter so he’ll still be warm, and then he takes the bar of soap from his hands and begins to wash his back.
Arthur wants to say this is humiliating but he doesn’t think he can make it through the syllables. “Not a baby,” he mumbles as Eames is rubbing shampoo into his scalp.
“I know, Arthur, I just. Just let me.” Eames sounds pained, so Arthur closes his eyes and leans back and lets him condition his hair as well, and it is rather nice. The touch isn’t painful, and he’s relaxed by the end of it. The sharp edge of panic has dulled a shade.
Eames wraps him in an enormous towel and Arthur lets himself be dried off, and then dressed in fresh bedclothes.
The sheets have been changed, he notices, and he realizes he probably smelled foul, but Eames tucks him under blankets and cracks open the lid of the Gatorade and hands it to him.
Arthur sips gingerly, and he has to think hard about how to swallow. The taste is so strong on his tongue he almost gags, but he doesn’t, and then he looks at Eames, who is just watching him.
“I won’t break,” he says.
Eames crouches so their faces are level. “I almost. You almost,” he starts, and then pauses and rests his hand against Arthur’s cheek. “You almost died.”
Arthur’s eyelids fall closed and he leans into the touch very slightly. Eames is comforting but seeing him so close hurts his eyes. “Not the first time.”
He hears Eames snort in frustration. “You almost died and I wasn’t there.”
Arthur wants to call him petulant, but then Eames continues. “I want to be there next time, and the next time, and I want you with me when it’s my turn.”
Arthur looks at him again, with the heaviness of Eames’ words resting against his sternum.
Eames looks horrible, though Arthur knows he has no room to talk. He looks like he hasn’t sleep for days, and his hair is drying in unflattering cowlicks, and he looks terribly terribly earnest. Eames drops his hand.
“Okay,” Arthur says, and falls back into the pillows. “Okay.”
He falls asleep.