Inception/Mysterious Skin - Every Me and Every You (17/30)
Title: Every Me and Every You (17/30)
Author: osaki_nana_707
Fandom: Inception/Mysterious Skin fusion
Word count: 2,979
Pairing: Neil/Eames
Rating: R
Warnings: language, allusions to rape,child molestation, and prostitution
Summary: Neil McCormick is fraying at the seams. Then he meets Eames, professional dreamer.
Neil woke up just as the plane was touching down to find his head pillowed against Eames's shoulder. He felt marginally better than he had waking up in Hutchinson but not by much.
"Feeling all right there, mate?" Eames asked softly, and Neil could've sworn he felt the man's lips brush against his forehead as he sat up.
"Yeah… fine," Neil mumbled, digging the heel of his hand into one eye. "We're already here?"
"We are. You slept pretty much the whole time."
Neil yawned and unbuckled his seatbelt (Eames must have buckled it for him), and stood, legs a little wobbly from sitting for so long. "So," he said as they grabbed their bags from the overhead compartment and followed the rest of the passengers down the pathway to the door, "we spend a few days in New York, and then we head off to France or whatever to start setting up shop?"
"That's my plan," Eames said. "I'll need some time to put a passport together for your dearest Wendy."
Neil nodded and continued his bee line for the baggage claim until he realized Eames had gone noticeably silent behind him. He turned back around to see the man's brow just slightly furrowed, a guarded way of looking uncomfortable. "What?" Neil asked.
"Just… I'm a bit curious about your relationship with Wendy. I mean, what exactly is it?"
It wasn't the first time people had been confused by them. There was a kind of closeness between them that many would mistake for romance, but then they would find that Neil's sexual escapades catered only to men and that Wendy wasn't shy about having a partner or two herself (male or female). Even someone as observant as Eames would probably find it a bit odd and difficult to put together. Neil and Wendy often shared the same bed, and Neil didn't mind kissing her goodbye even though he didn't exactly give off the impression that he was a touchy-feely guy.
At that moment, he wasn't entirely sure how to explain it because it had always been just a little bit beyond them both. He and Wendy had figured there was no reason to really think about it because they just lived the way they wanted. It worked for them. Here and now though Eames wanted an answer to at least that question, and since Neil wasn't opening up on anything else, he figured he might as well at least try to explain it. "Wendy's my soul mate," Neil told him, slowing down so that he and Eames could fall into step together. "She's my partner-in-crime, you know? I'd probably be in love with her or some shit if I wasn't queer, but Wendy and I are closer than that. We just have a connection, I guess."
Eames seemed to take a moment to let that sink in, processing it until he came to his own conclusions. "It's quite funny, isn't it?" Eames asked, smiling a little, and Neil didn't quite know what he meant until he added, "You claim to have no heart and yet you have a soul mate. You do find yourself capable of love."
Neil wasn't sure why that statement made him feel nervous and tingly.
"Have you ever been in love?" Eames asked.
Neil went completely still and for a long minute just stared at Eames. Eames looked a bit gleeful by the reaction. "You have, haven't you?" Eames asked.
Neil looked down at his feet, feeling suddenly ill again, and he didn't realize how long he'd been quiet and unmoving until Eames put his hand on his shoulder. Neil jolted away from the touch a little and looked up at him, and Eames's expression had lost its glee, turning concerned and sympathetic. "Hey… I didn't mean it like that," Eames said softly. "It's all right. Did it end badly then?"
"I don't know if I've ever been in love," Neil said softly, and his voice felt strained, like he'd forgotten how to use it. "I thought I was once… Now, I'm not so sure."
Eames squeezed Neil's shoulder a little. "What happened?"
Neil shook his head. "I don't know," he said, and he honestly didn't. He hadn't known where Coach had disappeared to after that summer, but he'd felt like his special prize right up until he reunited with Brian. Brian had tainted that memory, and now he wasn't sure how he felt about it. He didn't know why it felt connected to that awful night in Brighton Beach, why it made him feel queasy when he thought about it sometimes, why he couldn't just bottle it up and send it away like he usually did. Was the fact that he couldn't forget about it proof that he'd been in love? If not, then what did it mean?
Eames put his hand between Neil's shoulders, and for the second time that day helped him along to his destination. He stayed thankfully quiet about it, even though Neil knew he was curious. They gathered their bags and headed out to the curb, and as Eames was hailing a taxi, Neil asked softly, "Have you ever been in love before?"
Eames paused, biting down on his bottom lip for a moment. "Well… yes, I suppose so. I was in love once with a man I was in the military with. He was straight though, had a wife and a baby back home. It didn't change the way I felt, but it did change the way I approached these feelings… I didn't want to ruin his life just because of my feelings, so I never really told him."
"What happened to him?" Neil asked.
Eames turned and looked Neil in the eye, not a trace of deception in his own gaze, and he said, "He was shot in combat. He died in my arms."
Neil swallowed thickly, feeling like all of the air had just disappeared from his body.
He'd never seen anybody die before, and he certainly couldn't imagine it. There was something a little bit tragically romantic about it though, even though Neil thought it was wrong to think that way. He wondered what would happen if he died in Eames's arms. He wondered if Eames would cry and tell the story to the next rookie he took under his wing, tell him how Neil McCormick's blue eyes had glazed over as he'd stared up at Eames, blood on his mouth, happy that at least they got to see each other in their final moments.
It was a weird fantasy… but Neil was a bit less disturbed by his bloody demise than he was about the thrill of knowing Eames was currently the last thing he would want to see if he did pass on. He'd only known the man for a short period of time, and he'd come to mean quite a bit to the boy who didn't care about anyone but himself. Something was happening to him, and he couldn't identify it any more than he could stop it.
Perhaps Neil was more capable of love than he'd first thought.
When they got back to the apartment, Wendy was waiting with a table set with Thai takeout. "You are a goddess among mortals," Eames said when he smelled it, and Neil kissed her lightly before leaving his bag by the door and going directly to the food.
"Well, I figured you guys would want something besides shitty airline food," Wendy said. "How was the fam, Neil?"
"Same as always," Neil said, already scooping noodles into his mouth, "Smothering."
"That bad, huh?"
He paused and then shrugged. He really wasn't sure how to describe that trip home.
"Well, you're back in the city now, so you don't have to worry so much about corn fields and boredom," Wendy said lightly. "I don't know if New York has missed you a lot, but I know I have. This new place is too big for one person to be in."
Neil smirked a little. "Well, we won't be sticking around this place for long. In a few days we've got another job. You want to take a little vacation?"
Wendy's face lit up. "A little vacation, huh? Where are we going?"
Neil shrugged. "Eh, nowhere really. Just Paris."
Wendy's mouth would have dropped to the floor if it wasn't connected to her jaw. "Neil McCormick, if you are lying to me right now, I will fucking punch you so hard your mother will feel it, you hear me?"
"I'm not lying," Neil assured her. "Eames is going to make you a passport and everything with a fake name so that they can't trace our criminal acts back to you."
Wendy jumped to her feet and very nearly squealed, wrapping her arms around Eames and giving him a big kiss. "Oh, my God, this is fucking amazing! I'm going to call work right now and tell them I won't be around for-how long are we going to be there?"
Eames shrugged one shoulder. "At least a few weeks, probably a little over a month depending on when I can get the architect and chemist there."
"Just quit your stupid job," Neil said. "You can travel the world with us. You won't need a job with the money I'm making."
Wendy's smile was as wide as the moon. "You're right. Fuck it! Fuck that job. I'm going to Paris!" She disappeared somewhere into the apartment, probably to go call and quit, and Neil resumed eating his meal. Eames was grinning over her reaction as he did the same.
"You know, it could be dangerous to bring her along with us for every job."
"Wendy's a tough chick. No one would mess with her," Neil said. "Besides, isn't it better to keep the things you care about close to your chest? I can protect her more easily if she's with me than if she was here in New York by herself, but of course she wouldn't need my protection anyway."
Some of the humor left Eames's face, and he looked back down at his meal. "All right," Eames said. "It's your call. You and she both best be as careful as you can though. Mind crime has some pretty high stakes, after all."
"Don't worry about it," Neil said. "I stay in control."
"Well, yes, I'd certainly hate to see you out of control."
Neil was pretty sure that was a jab at something he'd done (either his subconscious turning on itself or the crying fits in the bedroom), but he didn't call the man on it for now. He just let his gaze harden a little to let Eames know he'd caught that little statement.
Eames sighed and said, "I'm not trying to insult you. I'm just wondering if it's just Wendy your protecting, or if you're protecting the things Wendy knows about you."
"You're just jealous because she knows and you don't," Neil huffed.
"I'm not jealous of anyone," Eames replied. "I've told you before though that secrets are what we deal in. I know and you should be starting to know just how much secrets are worth and the destruction they can cause. As careful as we are, there is always room for error in this business. No one is ever one hundred percent safe. I just need you to remember that."
"I remember," Neil said, rolling his eyes. "Stop worrying so much."
"You can never worry too much."
Neil spent the next two days looking up whatever information he could find on their mark, a Seymour Bell who was allegedly part of a criminal organization running throughout Europe. They'd been hired by some higher-ups in the government to pick his brain and see if they could find the location of their hideout. There wasn't much Neil could find out while still in New York, but he did find a couple of articles that he'd been mentioned in when searching through some older newspapers. The man had been arrested on quite a few occasions for many numbers of things-drug possession, domestic violence, theft. He'd been accused of just about every crime in the book, but the evidence to his crimes was surprisingly absent, thus allowing him to go free almost every time. Odds were, this criminal organization he worked for was helping clean up the messes he made.
In his photograph, Seymour had a sneer on his face and rings in his nose and eyebrows. He was an ugly son of a bitch, Neil thought, looked almost to be in his forties even though he was only twenty-seven years old. He dressed a bit like the kids Neil and Eric had hung out with back at home though, and Neil made a mental note to pack some of his regular clothes in case he needed to go undercover in this guy's circle.
When he wasn't looking up information on Bell, he was actually looking through some beginner French books and listening to audio tapes. It was frighteningly dull, but if he was going to be overseas, he figured he might want to have at least the most basic grasp on the language. In the end it would just make things easier. He and Wendy would practice together, learning basic phrases and the occasional curse word when it got too boring.
At night, Eames would sleep in Neil's bed. Neil had figured Eames had gotten sex with him out of his system, and that was why he'd slept on the couch in Hutchinson, but apparently it was more out of respect for his mother's home. When Neil had looked at him like he was insane the night he'd crawled between the sheets, Eames had kissed him right between the eyebrows and gone to sleep. Neil was confused, but it did feel nice to have a warm body next to him in the morning.
By the third day, they were packing up to head overseas, preparing for the long flight with their French tapes and portable cassette players, plenty of books and magazines, and comfy pillows in their carry-ons. Eames had gotten Wendy a passport under the name of Bonnie Fairchild (which she had suggested herself because it sounded cool), and all three of them had first class seats.
Neil put on his Arthur-suit and slicked his hair back (it looked much nicer slicked back now that it had been cut), and Wendy had slid into her Vivienne Westwood clothes she'd bought the night of his first paycheck, allowing herself to look professional but with the punk-kid flair she'd always loved to sport. She even painted her lips ruby red, not caring that they were going to be sitting around for a long time. She had every intention of looking gorgeous and presentable should anything interesting befall them.
"I don't want to stick out like a sore thumb between you two yuppies and your suits," she had said.
Eames had dressed in a navy suit with a pin-striped white shirt and patterned tie and was looking pretty fucking dapper if Neil did say so himself. It made Neil want to rumple him up in the bathroom before take-off.
They all got their cigarette breaks in at the front doors to the airport, chatting about nothing in particular. Wendy kept practicing her French on Eames (who apparently spoke it fluently among other languages), and Eames would correct her. Admittedly, Wendy had more of a knack for it than Neil ever could.
Neil mostly just watched Eames for the entirety of the conversation, studied the way his lips formed around words. Normally he didn't give a shit about things like that, but when it came to someone like Eames, who was always reading people and knew how to burrow his own tells deep down inside himself, it was all about looking for the subtleties.
Plus, Neil was pretty sure he was becoming infatuated with the man, though he wasn't sure if it was because he was a really good bed partner or if it was because he was a really good escape route from the monotony of his current situation.
They'd had sex that morning, lazy and slow, Neil cramming his fingers into Eames's mouth as he fucked the man open. Neil had trailed kisses down his spine and left bruises on his hips and Eames had come all over the sheets without even having to touch himself (and Neil had taken a particularly large amount of pride from that). When they'd finished fucking though, they had just laid there for a while, Eames touching him here or there, pressing a kiss to a shoulder or a hinge of his jaw or a corner of his mouth. Neil normally found these little brushes of affection annoying and pointless, but when Eames did it… well, fuck, maybe he was just becoming more stupidly sentimental or maybe Eames was just really, really good at cuddling.
Neil wasn't about to let Eames sweep him up in that affection though. He couldn't relinquish that much control to him no matter how good it felt. He gripped the PASIV device firmly in his fist as he turned his eyes away from Eames's face before the man noticed him staring.
He told Eames that he stayed in control, and he meant it. Staying in control meant that he was at the top of the chain of command, and being at the top of the chain meant that he was at his safest.
He just hoped that he wouldn't inevitably lose it even if he was holding on with both hands. He really didn't know what he would do if that was to happen again, but he had a feeling it wouldn't be pretty.
After all, last time he'd wound up waking up on the street without his coat and covered in blood.
Author: osaki_nana_707
Fandom: Inception/Mysterious Skin fusion
Word count: 2,979
Pairing: Neil/Eames
Rating: R
Warnings: language, allusions to rape,child molestation, and prostitution
Summary: Neil McCormick is fraying at the seams. Then he meets Eames, professional dreamer.
Neil woke up just as the plane was touching down to find his head pillowed against Eames's shoulder. He felt marginally better than he had waking up in Hutchinson but not by much.
"Feeling all right there, mate?" Eames asked softly, and Neil could've sworn he felt the man's lips brush against his forehead as he sat up.
"Yeah… fine," Neil mumbled, digging the heel of his hand into one eye. "We're already here?"
"We are. You slept pretty much the whole time."
Neil yawned and unbuckled his seatbelt (Eames must have buckled it for him), and stood, legs a little wobbly from sitting for so long. "So," he said as they grabbed their bags from the overhead compartment and followed the rest of the passengers down the pathway to the door, "we spend a few days in New York, and then we head off to France or whatever to start setting up shop?"
"That's my plan," Eames said. "I'll need some time to put a passport together for your dearest Wendy."
Neil nodded and continued his bee line for the baggage claim until he realized Eames had gone noticeably silent behind him. He turned back around to see the man's brow just slightly furrowed, a guarded way of looking uncomfortable. "What?" Neil asked.
"Just… I'm a bit curious about your relationship with Wendy. I mean, what exactly is it?"
It wasn't the first time people had been confused by them. There was a kind of closeness between them that many would mistake for romance, but then they would find that Neil's sexual escapades catered only to men and that Wendy wasn't shy about having a partner or two herself (male or female). Even someone as observant as Eames would probably find it a bit odd and difficult to put together. Neil and Wendy often shared the same bed, and Neil didn't mind kissing her goodbye even though he didn't exactly give off the impression that he was a touchy-feely guy.
At that moment, he wasn't entirely sure how to explain it because it had always been just a little bit beyond them both. He and Wendy had figured there was no reason to really think about it because they just lived the way they wanted. It worked for them. Here and now though Eames wanted an answer to at least that question, and since Neil wasn't opening up on anything else, he figured he might as well at least try to explain it. "Wendy's my soul mate," Neil told him, slowing down so that he and Eames could fall into step together. "She's my partner-in-crime, you know? I'd probably be in love with her or some shit if I wasn't queer, but Wendy and I are closer than that. We just have a connection, I guess."
Eames seemed to take a moment to let that sink in, processing it until he came to his own conclusions. "It's quite funny, isn't it?" Eames asked, smiling a little, and Neil didn't quite know what he meant until he added, "You claim to have no heart and yet you have a soul mate. You do find yourself capable of love."
Neil wasn't sure why that statement made him feel nervous and tingly.
"Have you ever been in love?" Eames asked.
Neil went completely still and for a long minute just stared at Eames. Eames looked a bit gleeful by the reaction. "You have, haven't you?" Eames asked.
Neil looked down at his feet, feeling suddenly ill again, and he didn't realize how long he'd been quiet and unmoving until Eames put his hand on his shoulder. Neil jolted away from the touch a little and looked up at him, and Eames's expression had lost its glee, turning concerned and sympathetic. "Hey… I didn't mean it like that," Eames said softly. "It's all right. Did it end badly then?"
"I don't know if I've ever been in love," Neil said softly, and his voice felt strained, like he'd forgotten how to use it. "I thought I was once… Now, I'm not so sure."
Eames squeezed Neil's shoulder a little. "What happened?"
Neil shook his head. "I don't know," he said, and he honestly didn't. He hadn't known where Coach had disappeared to after that summer, but he'd felt like his special prize right up until he reunited with Brian. Brian had tainted that memory, and now he wasn't sure how he felt about it. He didn't know why it felt connected to that awful night in Brighton Beach, why it made him feel queasy when he thought about it sometimes, why he couldn't just bottle it up and send it away like he usually did. Was the fact that he couldn't forget about it proof that he'd been in love? If not, then what did it mean?
Eames put his hand between Neil's shoulders, and for the second time that day helped him along to his destination. He stayed thankfully quiet about it, even though Neil knew he was curious. They gathered their bags and headed out to the curb, and as Eames was hailing a taxi, Neil asked softly, "Have you ever been in love before?"
Eames paused, biting down on his bottom lip for a moment. "Well… yes, I suppose so. I was in love once with a man I was in the military with. He was straight though, had a wife and a baby back home. It didn't change the way I felt, but it did change the way I approached these feelings… I didn't want to ruin his life just because of my feelings, so I never really told him."
"What happened to him?" Neil asked.
Eames turned and looked Neil in the eye, not a trace of deception in his own gaze, and he said, "He was shot in combat. He died in my arms."
Neil swallowed thickly, feeling like all of the air had just disappeared from his body.
He'd never seen anybody die before, and he certainly couldn't imagine it. There was something a little bit tragically romantic about it though, even though Neil thought it was wrong to think that way. He wondered what would happen if he died in Eames's arms. He wondered if Eames would cry and tell the story to the next rookie he took under his wing, tell him how Neil McCormick's blue eyes had glazed over as he'd stared up at Eames, blood on his mouth, happy that at least they got to see each other in their final moments.
It was a weird fantasy… but Neil was a bit less disturbed by his bloody demise than he was about the thrill of knowing Eames was currently the last thing he would want to see if he did pass on. He'd only known the man for a short period of time, and he'd come to mean quite a bit to the boy who didn't care about anyone but himself. Something was happening to him, and he couldn't identify it any more than he could stop it.
Perhaps Neil was more capable of love than he'd first thought.
When they got back to the apartment, Wendy was waiting with a table set with Thai takeout. "You are a goddess among mortals," Eames said when he smelled it, and Neil kissed her lightly before leaving his bag by the door and going directly to the food.
"Well, I figured you guys would want something besides shitty airline food," Wendy said. "How was the fam, Neil?"
"Same as always," Neil said, already scooping noodles into his mouth, "Smothering."
"That bad, huh?"
He paused and then shrugged. He really wasn't sure how to describe that trip home.
"Well, you're back in the city now, so you don't have to worry so much about corn fields and boredom," Wendy said lightly. "I don't know if New York has missed you a lot, but I know I have. This new place is too big for one person to be in."
Neil smirked a little. "Well, we won't be sticking around this place for long. In a few days we've got another job. You want to take a little vacation?"
Wendy's face lit up. "A little vacation, huh? Where are we going?"
Neil shrugged. "Eh, nowhere really. Just Paris."
Wendy's mouth would have dropped to the floor if it wasn't connected to her jaw. "Neil McCormick, if you are lying to me right now, I will fucking punch you so hard your mother will feel it, you hear me?"
"I'm not lying," Neil assured her. "Eames is going to make you a passport and everything with a fake name so that they can't trace our criminal acts back to you."
Wendy jumped to her feet and very nearly squealed, wrapping her arms around Eames and giving him a big kiss. "Oh, my God, this is fucking amazing! I'm going to call work right now and tell them I won't be around for-how long are we going to be there?"
Eames shrugged one shoulder. "At least a few weeks, probably a little over a month depending on when I can get the architect and chemist there."
"Just quit your stupid job," Neil said. "You can travel the world with us. You won't need a job with the money I'm making."
Wendy's smile was as wide as the moon. "You're right. Fuck it! Fuck that job. I'm going to Paris!" She disappeared somewhere into the apartment, probably to go call and quit, and Neil resumed eating his meal. Eames was grinning over her reaction as he did the same.
"You know, it could be dangerous to bring her along with us for every job."
"Wendy's a tough chick. No one would mess with her," Neil said. "Besides, isn't it better to keep the things you care about close to your chest? I can protect her more easily if she's with me than if she was here in New York by herself, but of course she wouldn't need my protection anyway."
Some of the humor left Eames's face, and he looked back down at his meal. "All right," Eames said. "It's your call. You and she both best be as careful as you can though. Mind crime has some pretty high stakes, after all."
"Don't worry about it," Neil said. "I stay in control."
"Well, yes, I'd certainly hate to see you out of control."
Neil was pretty sure that was a jab at something he'd done (either his subconscious turning on itself or the crying fits in the bedroom), but he didn't call the man on it for now. He just let his gaze harden a little to let Eames know he'd caught that little statement.
Eames sighed and said, "I'm not trying to insult you. I'm just wondering if it's just Wendy your protecting, or if you're protecting the things Wendy knows about you."
"You're just jealous because she knows and you don't," Neil huffed.
"I'm not jealous of anyone," Eames replied. "I've told you before though that secrets are what we deal in. I know and you should be starting to know just how much secrets are worth and the destruction they can cause. As careful as we are, there is always room for error in this business. No one is ever one hundred percent safe. I just need you to remember that."
"I remember," Neil said, rolling his eyes. "Stop worrying so much."
"You can never worry too much."
Neil spent the next two days looking up whatever information he could find on their mark, a Seymour Bell who was allegedly part of a criminal organization running throughout Europe. They'd been hired by some higher-ups in the government to pick his brain and see if they could find the location of their hideout. There wasn't much Neil could find out while still in New York, but he did find a couple of articles that he'd been mentioned in when searching through some older newspapers. The man had been arrested on quite a few occasions for many numbers of things-drug possession, domestic violence, theft. He'd been accused of just about every crime in the book, but the evidence to his crimes was surprisingly absent, thus allowing him to go free almost every time. Odds were, this criminal organization he worked for was helping clean up the messes he made.
In his photograph, Seymour had a sneer on his face and rings in his nose and eyebrows. He was an ugly son of a bitch, Neil thought, looked almost to be in his forties even though he was only twenty-seven years old. He dressed a bit like the kids Neil and Eric had hung out with back at home though, and Neil made a mental note to pack some of his regular clothes in case he needed to go undercover in this guy's circle.
When he wasn't looking up information on Bell, he was actually looking through some beginner French books and listening to audio tapes. It was frighteningly dull, but if he was going to be overseas, he figured he might want to have at least the most basic grasp on the language. In the end it would just make things easier. He and Wendy would practice together, learning basic phrases and the occasional curse word when it got too boring.
At night, Eames would sleep in Neil's bed. Neil had figured Eames had gotten sex with him out of his system, and that was why he'd slept on the couch in Hutchinson, but apparently it was more out of respect for his mother's home. When Neil had looked at him like he was insane the night he'd crawled between the sheets, Eames had kissed him right between the eyebrows and gone to sleep. Neil was confused, but it did feel nice to have a warm body next to him in the morning.
By the third day, they were packing up to head overseas, preparing for the long flight with their French tapes and portable cassette players, plenty of books and magazines, and comfy pillows in their carry-ons. Eames had gotten Wendy a passport under the name of Bonnie Fairchild (which she had suggested herself because it sounded cool), and all three of them had first class seats.
Neil put on his Arthur-suit and slicked his hair back (it looked much nicer slicked back now that it had been cut), and Wendy had slid into her Vivienne Westwood clothes she'd bought the night of his first paycheck, allowing herself to look professional but with the punk-kid flair she'd always loved to sport. She even painted her lips ruby red, not caring that they were going to be sitting around for a long time. She had every intention of looking gorgeous and presentable should anything interesting befall them.
"I don't want to stick out like a sore thumb between you two yuppies and your suits," she had said.
Eames had dressed in a navy suit with a pin-striped white shirt and patterned tie and was looking pretty fucking dapper if Neil did say so himself. It made Neil want to rumple him up in the bathroom before take-off.
They all got their cigarette breaks in at the front doors to the airport, chatting about nothing in particular. Wendy kept practicing her French on Eames (who apparently spoke it fluently among other languages), and Eames would correct her. Admittedly, Wendy had more of a knack for it than Neil ever could.
Neil mostly just watched Eames for the entirety of the conversation, studied the way his lips formed around words. Normally he didn't give a shit about things like that, but when it came to someone like Eames, who was always reading people and knew how to burrow his own tells deep down inside himself, it was all about looking for the subtleties.
Plus, Neil was pretty sure he was becoming infatuated with the man, though he wasn't sure if it was because he was a really good bed partner or if it was because he was a really good escape route from the monotony of his current situation.
They'd had sex that morning, lazy and slow, Neil cramming his fingers into Eames's mouth as he fucked the man open. Neil had trailed kisses down his spine and left bruises on his hips and Eames had come all over the sheets without even having to touch himself (and Neil had taken a particularly large amount of pride from that). When they'd finished fucking though, they had just laid there for a while, Eames touching him here or there, pressing a kiss to a shoulder or a hinge of his jaw or a corner of his mouth. Neil normally found these little brushes of affection annoying and pointless, but when Eames did it… well, fuck, maybe he was just becoming more stupidly sentimental or maybe Eames was just really, really good at cuddling.
Neil wasn't about to let Eames sweep him up in that affection though. He couldn't relinquish that much control to him no matter how good it felt. He gripped the PASIV device firmly in his fist as he turned his eyes away from Eames's face before the man noticed him staring.
He told Eames that he stayed in control, and he meant it. Staying in control meant that he was at the top of the chain of command, and being at the top of the chain meant that he was at his safest.
He just hoped that he wouldn't inevitably lose it even if he was holding on with both hands. He really didn't know what he would do if that was to happen again, but he had a feeling it wouldn't be pretty.
After all, last time he'd wound up waking up on the street without his coat and covered in blood.