Inception - Bite Hard (1/11)

[osaki_nana_707]

Title: Bite Hard
Author: osaki_nana_707
Word count: ~5,300
Pairings/Characters: ArthurxEames
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: language, age difference/underage, dub-con, currently un-betaed
Summary: AU. Sixteen year old Arthur wakes up in another man's apartment.



Bite Hard

(Disclaimer: Don't own it.)

Arthur supposed it was only a matter of time before he completely snapped.

He supposed it was only a matter of time before he ended up doing something regrettable or something stupid, but really, even he didn't expect it to go as far as it did.

He really, truly, honestly did not expect to wake up in someone's apartment with his face squashed into an unfamiliar pillow and his head pounding so incessantly that there was instant nausea.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember what happened through the pain.

Arthur had been sitting in class, the tie of his school's uniform strangling him almost as much as the boredom. He had been tapping his pencil on the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The teacher had pointed to some kind of equation, explaining. She might as well have been speaking French.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A girl behind him had whispered to the girl sitting next to her about some hot older guy she was meeting up with after school and how he was going to give her a ride in his Corvette.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Arthur had looked up at the clock.

Tick-tock. Tap. Tick-tock. Tap. Tick-tock. Tap.

It was the same thing again. It was the same damn day again. He could have sworn that Tuesday was yesterday, but this was the same fucking day. He'd been feeling that way all week, all month, every repeated Tuesday for what felt like forever. He'd get up. He'd take a shower. He'd get dressed in his school uniform. He'd go downstairs. He'd eat breakfast alone: cold cereal, a piece of buttered toast, a grapefruit, a glass of milk. He'd listen to his mom flirt with the pool boy because his father was away on another business trip because apparently three days a year with his family was more than enough. He'd walk to school. He'd sit in class. His teacher would talk about Math or French or whatever the hell she was talking about while nobody listened. He would go home. He would eat dinner. He would go upstairs. He would do his homework. He would get into his pajamas. He would go to sleep.

Wash, rinse, repeat. Every day.

Tick-tock. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Every FUCKING day.

Snap.

"Arthur?"

He had looked down at the two pieces of his pencil in his fist and then up at the teacher who had her hands on her hips and her eyebrows arched and her nostrils flaring. He just stared at her.

"Is anybody home in there, Arthur?" she had asked, voice condescending and snooty.

"Uh…" he'd so eloquently replied.

"What class are you in?" the teacher asked.

"Uh…" he said again.

"We're in Algebra, Arthur, so do care to explain why you have your literature book out on your desk?"

The class had snickered.

"Uh…" he said again.

Same. Fucking. Thing.

"Is that all you know how to say, Arthur? Do I need to send you back to pre-school to learn how to speak English?"

And that was when it happened.

Snap.

"Fuck you," he grumbled, stood, and left the room. The teacher was so stunned, all she could do was stand there with her eyes bugging out of her head and her jaw hanging slack. All of the other children were equally such.

He had walked away from the school then and never slowed his stride. He walked as far as he could from his house, stripping out of his blazer, his tie, and his button-down so that he was only in his black undershirt and slacks. He shoved each piece of discarded clothing into his bag, never stopping. Before he had realized it, he was in the dirtiest, most dangerous part of the city, deeper into the slums than he'd ever been. He saw prostitutes on the corner, thugs spraying graffiti, all kinds of things he'd heard about but never actually seen. A flutter of panic had settled in his chest then, as soon as one of said thugs locked eyes with him, and he immediately slipped inside an alleyway, descended some stairs, and slipped inside a door.

Inside, there had been music blaring so loud that he couldn't think. It boomed through his bones, rattled his brain around inside his skull with such an intensity that he didn't even notice the smell of alcohol and sweat and cigarettes, even though it was pungent, or the fact that the club was occupied by only men… at least, he didn't notice it at first.

He blinked, squeezing his eyes shut a few times, and slowly built up the courage to peel himself off of the wall. No one was paying him any mind inside of the club, so he had felt safe.

He couldn't believe what he had done, then. He was amazed by his own bravado, how he had just… after his sixteen years of life in complete silence, living the same day over and over and over again, he had…

He ran a hand through his floppy bangs, trying to smooth them back a little. He was sure he wasn't old enough to be inside the club, and he was sure that he wasn't fooling anyone with his baby face and good-boy haircut and limp noodle physique. Still… it was pretty dark in the club. Arthur could barely see the faces of the people right next to him.

…Or in front of him, apparently, he discovered because he rammed face first into a man whose back felt like a brick wall.

"Ah, I-" he stammered, and the man turned around, just as one of the flashing lights of the club illuminated his face in gold and…

Jesus Christ.

Arthur had never seen men other than his father, his father's occasional business associates, the teachers at his school, and the hired help. Every single man in his life had had their uniforms and their painted on expressions, their dark circles under their eyes and their frown lines, their pages of boring information…

This man was not like any man he had ever seen. This was a man. He had messy hair, and underneath his skin tight white t-shirt, Arthur could see lines of ink peeking through. His jeans were loose and splotched with what looked to be paint. His nails were bitten down to the quick, and he had a scar over his eyebrow, and his mouth... Holy God, his mouth… Arthur was positive he'd never seen lips like that on any man, hell on anybody before.

Arthur had been too caught up in his boredom to ever think much about his sexuality, but he was definitely considering it now. Staring at this man, all he could do was lick his lips.

"Careful there," the man said, somewhat irritably, and fuck, he was British. Arthur could have melted into the floor.

Then, the man raised an eyebrow at him, leaned forward so that he could get a closer look at Arthur and asked, "Are you old enough to be in here?"

"I'm twenty-one," Arthur said, unable to take his eyes off of the man's mouth. The sporadic brain cells that had sent him spiraling into this madness in the first place were igniting with all sorts of filthy ideas he didn't even know he was capable of.

This must have been the lust he'd heard his mother refer to in her ridiculous love letters to the staff member of the month.

"I don't believe you," the man said.

"I just look young. Believe me, I get it all the time," Arthur said, when he really wanted to say fuck me. "Would I be here if I was too young?"

"Don't know," the man admitted, looking over Arthur's shoulder towards the door. "Is the bouncer out there, or did he sneak off to get high again?"

"I had a hell of a time convincing him I was old enough."

Arthur couldn't believe what he was saying. He was lying to a complete stranger, with devious intent no less. Hell, he was standing in the middle of a club in the middle of the slums in the middle of the city in the middle of the afternoon. His teachers, his classmates, his mother, none of them knew where he was. The man could have been a fucking serial killer, but he couldn't stay away. Not now. Not ever.

The man smirked and pounded his fist on the bar to signal the bartender. "Tell you what, angel," he said, placing a warm hand on Arthur's back and leading him to a stool, "for every truth you tell me, I'll buy you a drink. How does that sound?"

Arthur licked his lips again. He'd never drank. He'd been brainwashed by his community to never even think about it, even though his mother went to bed sloshed every night. "I'm Arthur," he said, sitting, "and I'm actually eighteen."

It turned out telling a truth and a lie made the lie sound like the truth because the man bought him two shots of tequila.

"Old enough to drink in my country," the man shrugged. "People call me Eames."

Arthur tipped back the shot, and it burned like hellfire on the way down. If it was a warning, he didn't take the hint. He downed the second shot immediately.

"Have you ever drank before?" Eames asked.

"Of course I have," Arthur lied, and with two shots of tequila in him, it was easier.

"You drink like an amateur," Eames smirked and ordered another shot before downing the two he'd ordered for himself. "Do you frequent the gay bars? I've never seen you around."

"Gay-this is a gay bar?" Arthur stammered, and he felt his cheeks flush from more than just alcohol. It came out before he could stop himself.

"It's called The Screaming Rooster, and it's filled with nothing but men. What did you think it was?"

Arthur downed the shot. "I've never been to a gay club," he admitted, and then lied, "but I've fucked guys before."

"Oh, really?"

Another shot.

"Oh, yeah," Arthur said, grinning, and he saw a little sparkle in Eames's eyes. "I've fucked tons of guys. I usually just met them online or at college."

"A college man, eh?" Eames asked. "What brings you here on a Wednesday afternoon?" He dug a cigarette out of his pocket and slipped it between those god-like lips of his and lit it.

"Boredom," Arthur said, and that was the truth. Boredom and insanity…

"Do you smoke?" Eames asked, pulling the cigarette from between his lips. He blew out smoke, and Arthur was intoxicated by it.

"Yeah," Arthur practically sighed.

Eames offered Arthur his cigarette. "Fine then, prove it."

A second later, Arthur was curled over the stool with a hacking cough, cigarette dangling between his fingers. Eames took it back and lifted Arthur's chin to look at him. "No shot for you, you darling little liar," he whispered, and somehow Arthur heard him over the music.

…and that was when Arthur kissed him, sloppily and feverishly. He'd been wanting to do it since they'd made eye contact.

"What was that for?" Eames asked when Arthur pulled away.

"I just wanted to," Arthur breathed, and that earned him another shot.

Twenty minutes later, Eames had Arthur up against the wall, tongue slipping its way between Arthur's teeth, and all Arthur could do was copy him and tangle his fingers in his hair. "Fuck… Fuck…" he groaned, and his hips sprung forward to rub against Eames's.

Five minutes later, Eames had dragged Arthur out the back door of the club to the parking lot where he had a motorcycle.

He had a fucking motorcycle.

Fuck that chick and her hot guy and his corvette. Eames had a motherfucking Harley.

Arthur had to bite down on his bottom lip to keep from moaning. He stumbled a little from the tequila and Eames laughed at him.

Arthur pressed himself up against Eames's back, feeling the heat emanating off of his skin even through the shirt and vaguely thought, as the wind whipped back his hair, Eames's motorcycle screaming out of the parking lot, what am I doing?

That was about as far as he got when it came to regret at that moment.

Eames's apartment was only a few blocks away. It was a loft at the very top floor of an old, run-down building, and it was only one large room. The bathroom was closed off by an extra wall and a curtain, the furniture was mismatched, and there were canvases laid out along almost every surface. Some of them were painted on, some not. One of them in particular looked to be a half-finished landscape with the word FUCK OFF painted across it in bright orange.

Arthur turned back on Eames then, and before Eames could dare to get a good look at him in the light, he smashed his lips against his again, hands snaking around his neck. Eames kissed him back with fervor, slipping his hands under Arthur's shirt.

He pulled away only long enough to let Eames pull his shirt over his head and then lunged back in.

"You kiss like an amateur," Eames whispered against Arthur's jaw, sending him stumbling backwards as he lead him to the bed. "Those boys didn't teach you how to do it properly."

"You weren't complaining before," Arthur slurred, partially out of drunkenness and partially out of arousal. His knees hit the edge of the mattress, and he fell upon the quilt with Eames on top of him.

"Not a complaint. Just an observation," Eames replied and pressed his palm to Arthur's cock, stroking him through his trousers.

Arthur's breath hitched, and he almost yelped. He'd never been touched by anyone other than himself, and he'd been scared by the church to never do it to himself or he'd be sent to Hell. Now he was thinking that maybe Hell was worth it.

"Fuck me," Arthur groaned.

Eames seemed willing to oblige, even when Arthur whined when he lost contact. Eames tugged his shirt over his head, revealing tattoos Arthur couldn't have dreamed of and couldn't wait to dream of. "Trousers off. Now," Eames commanded.

Arthur fumbled with the button and zipper, his hands dumb with alcohol. He tugged them down, underwear and all, over his straining cock, and by the time he managed, Eames was already slicking his fingers.

He tugged Arthur's legs up onto his shoulders and slipped a finger in, only as far as the first knuckle, and he cursed. "Fuck, you're tight," he hissed. "You sure you've done this before?"

Arthur could only gape like a fish, eyes shut, mewling.

Eames shoved the finger in and started to work Arthur open, sliding in another finger after only a few thrusts, and Arthur was whimpering as he said, "Fuck me now."

He didn't care if he was impatient or foolish or a bunch of other vocabulary words he couldn't remember with as much tequila in his system as there was. He wanted to feel the burning pain. He wanted to be wrecked.

Eames scissored his fingers a couple of more times before saying, "Your wish is my command."

When Eames pushed himself inside, Arthur howled. Tears were streaming instantly, and the pain was something he'd never imagined… and yet, underneath it all, there was a thrumming heat of arousal that made him dizzy… well, dizzier.

Eames wasn't gentle. He slammed into Arthur, grunting over the sound of skin slapping against skin, and he reached down and started jerking Arthur off in rhythm of it, and Arthur was so blinded by it all that he was no longer aware of who he was. He just sobbed against the pain, groaned and moaned amongst the heat, arched and bucked and begged and gripped the quilt until he was white knuckled.

It built and built and built, the heat in his stomach, until he was so hot that he thought he was going to explode, and explode he did, coming all over Eames's hand and his own stomach, and he was screaming. Eames thrust into him a few more times and then he was growling as he came.

Arthur watched as Eames unfolded Arthur, pulling himself out and leaving to toss out the condom, and Arthur rolled onto his front, sobbing into Eames's pillow a few times before he just went numb all over.

He tugged the blankets over his sweat drenched form, and suddenly everything was black.

Now he was awake with an unbelievable headache. Well, that explained a lot.

Eames glanced up from the couch where he was sitting with a sketchbook on his lap, squinting in the dim light. "Oh, you're up, are you?"

Arthur responded by hurling over the side of the bed.

"Oh, Jesus!" Eames complained, jumping to his feet.

Arthur tried to roll onto his back and just breathe, but he was met with a pain more unbearable in his ass than the headache, and he squealed before bursting into tears.

"Fuck, fuck, get the hell up," Eames growled, grabbing Arthur by the arm, and he stumbled out of the bed, falling against his chest. His legs trembled underneath him, and he tumbled back until he was clutching onto the bedpost. "Oh, fuck," Eames sighed, pulling back the blankets to reveal a reddish-brown stain. "I knew I shouldn't have done that so soon."

"I'm sorry!" Arthur screamed in a panic because Jesus Christ, what the hell was he doing here? From the window, he could tell it was the middle of the night.

Eames threw some towels over the vomit and stripped the bed before looking back at Arthur. "Sorry for what?"

Arthur could think of a few things, including getting blood all over his bed sheets, vomiting all over his floor… but he whimpered, "I'm sorry I lied."

He released the bedpost but fell almost immediately. He grabbed for his underwear and trousers, but Eames stilled his hand and pulled him back to his feet. He gently laid Arthur face first on the mattress, and he begged Eames not to. "Hush," Eames mumbled and disappeared behind the bathroom curtain for a moment before returning with a wet wash cloth. "You've got dried blood on you."

…and he softly started wiping the blood away.

"What're you…" Arthur asked weakly, "What're you doing?"

"I'm cleaning you up," Eames said, as if Arthur was stupid, "so you can put your clothes back on… This isn't so bad. It's not as bad as I thought it was. You'll probably have trouble walking straight for a few days."

Arthur snorted, and he wasn't sure if it was out of frustration or humor. His head still felt like someone was ramming jackhammers along the inside of it, but at least he'd calmed down.

"So," Eames continued, moving away to work on the mess on the floor, "which lie are you upset about? The one where you said you smoked earlier, or the one you didn't admit to in the fact that you've never been fucked by a man before?"

Arthur curled onto his side, pressing the palm of his hand into his eye socket. "I'd never been fucked by anyone," he admitted pathetically. "I'd never even been kissed before."

Eames huffed, eyebrows raised high, wrinkling his forehead. "You're taking the piss."

"I don't know what that means," Arthur moaned in pain, pressing his other hand over his other eye to try to block out any bit of light. "I never kissed anyone besides Stacey Anderson in grade school, and that was only for a second… Fuck, I can't believe I… I must have been out of my… Holy shit…"

He heard something be tossed into the trash, and Eames said from a slight distance away. "Sorry to ruin all those firsts for you, but for the record, you did practically beg me to fuck you."

"I was drunk and stupid with lust and out of my fucking mind," Arthur groaned. Feeling a tug on his wrist, he managed to pull one hand away from his eye so that Eames could place some pills in his hand before curling his fingers over them. "I'm so sorry…"

Eames rolled his eyes. "Jesus, for what? For claiming you'd never fuck me sober? I don't care about that. I was pretty arseholed myself even before you showed up, ah… I can't even remember your name."

"It's Arthur," Arthur whined and slipped the pills into his mouth, swallowing them dry.

"Arthur?" Eames tested the word on his tongue and laughed a little. "Your parents weren't too kind to you then."

"No, they're not," Arthur mumbled, wishing he could just curl into a little ball and die, "and I would have fucked you sober."

Then what's with the bloody apologies then? Did you discover you were straight?"

"I lied," Arthur lamented, pressing both hands back to his eyes. "I shouldn't have… I mean, you… I… Fuck, I…"

"You must be Catholic to be harboring that amount of guilt over a lie."

"I'm only sixteen years old."

Arthur could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped.

"You… You said you were eighteen. Fuck, before that you said you were twenty-one, are you fucking serious?"

"I'm sorry!"

Eames grabbed him by the elbow and hauled him onto his feet. "Don't just lay there blubbering your apologies. Do you understand-Do you fucking understand that-Jesus…"

Eames's features had softened when he looked at him, and Arthur wondered if he looked as frightened and guilty as he felt. "I… I won't tell anyone, I promise. I know it's not… I mean, I know that you could go to prison for it, but you won't. I won't tell anybody. It's my fault anyway."

Eames just groaned, running a hand through his hair, looking Arthur up and down. "No, I'm to fucking blame here. Jesus, you barely look fourteen with a face like that. I should have known. Fuck."

"I… I guess I should just… go…" Arthur mumbled, turning to grab his things up off of the floor. He was flushed with humiliation and sick with guilt.

"Don't bother," Eames sighed, defeated. "It's four in the morning. I'm not going to let you out on those streets right now."

"Oh."

Eames retreated to his spot on the couch, picked up his sketchbook, and started working again. "There are some blankets under the bed. You can go back to sleep, kill off that hangover of yours."

Arthur tugged his underwear out from his pants and slipped them on. His whole body ached when he moved, so his walk over to the couch was gruelingly slow. "What are you doing anyway?"

"Nothing," Eames sighed. "Just trying not to fall out of practice."

"So, you're an artist or something?"

"I'd like to think so, but I haven't exactly gotten a lot of attention for it. I usually just sell forgeries of famous paintings. I'm good at copying I guess, but I haven't anything worthwhile that's original in a long time."

"I was never good at art in school," Arthur mumbled, leaning over to see. "Do you just do landscapes or…"

"I actually prefer to draw people. Landscapes get hung up in dentist's offices and such though, so I try to do those too."

Arthur pointed to the one with the orange FUCK OFF splattered over it. "That one's not going in a dentist's office, is it?"

Eames chuckled, despite himself. "No, it certainly is not. I gave up on it. It just didn't look right. I'm afraid my muse is dead… maybe I never had one. I can't paint anymore. I feel like I can't do anything anymore."

"Will you draw me?" Arthur asked, and if anything, he was trying to prove he didn't blame Eames for what had happened. "I promise I'll be impressed. I'll even pay you… I mean, I've only got like… five dollars in my wallet, but-"

"No, no, you don't have to pay me," Eames said in exasperation. "That'd make me feel like you were a prostitute. Go lay down on the bed, and I'll see what I can do."

Arthur did, curling up under a blanket he dug out from under the bed. Eames dragged a chair out from the table in the kitchen and balanced his sketchbook on his leg propped up on the bed stand. "Just look natural," he explained. "I hate bloody posed things."

"Okay," Arthur said, face lightly crushed into the pillow, arm hanging limply off the side of the bed, and he stared at Eames through hooded eyes.

Eames was still a gorgeous man, Arthur thought, with his soft lips and blue-gray eyes that seemed to spark to life all of a sudden as he drew. He was only in a pair of jeans so Arthur could commit all of his tattoos to memory, and he wondered what they all meant.

"So, you don't get fucked a lot at the gay bar?" Arthur asked, and his voice had taken on a scratchy, sleepy quality.

"Most of the time, they're too afraid of me, I guess. They think I'm there to beat them up. It's probably the tattoos, but I don't give a shit. I shouldn't have to change anything to get someone to fuck me. I can pay for that if I have to."

Arthur wet his lips. "I wasn't scared of you."

"You were an idiot little boy looking for danger."

It was the last thing he said that Arthur remembered before he fell asleep.

Eames finished the sketch of Arthur within about ten minutes, but the boy was long since asleep by then. He watched while Arthur languidly turned to his other side and sighed, and he thought the way the neon lights outside danced across his skin were interesting, so he broke out his pastels and drew him again. After that one was done, he found himself doing a hand study of the boy because he had such long fingers and such clean nails.

By the time the sun came up, Eames had painted a portrait of Arthur's back, wrapped loosely in a blanket around the waist, dark hair tossed up against the pillow haphazardly, and Eames realized, adding in the glimmers of light slipping into the window and onto his pale shoulder that his muse wasn't dead after all.

"Oh, bugger," he mumbled and leaned the painting against a wall where Arthur wouldn't notice it unless he went looking.

Eames flopped back down on the couch, stretching out, and went to sleep because he couldn't think of anything else to do other than obsessively draw Arthur again.

He couldn't help it. He hadn't realized how beautiful the boy was back at the bar because his vision was blurred with tequila. He was clearly as young as he said he was, but his skin was flawless. His limbs were gangly and long and awkward, and it made him a fascinating subject. His hair and eyes were dark and clean and innocent, his little white teeth straight from wearing a retainer. He'd obviously been well-off, Eames had decided, after finding his uniform's blazer falling out of his tipped over bag, and smart too with books on Advanced Calculus and Latin and French.

Well, that didn't mean he was smart. He just took smart people classes. He could have been flunking miserably. Clearly, he didn't always make the best decisions.

When Eames woke up, it was to the sound of Arthur falling out of his bed. "Problem?" he asked sleepily, sitting up to see the boy scrambling around like he couldn't control his limbs, trying to get to his feet.

"What… what time is it?" he asked blearily, hooking onto the same bedpost as he had before for support.

Eames lifted his wrist to check his watch. "Eleven thirty," he said, "on the dot."

"Oh, fuck," Arthur squeaked, tugging his pants on. "I didn't go home last night… I-I didn't go to school this morning. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck! They'll send the police out after me. I've got to get out of here before they do that."

"Why?" Eames sniffed, smirking a little.

"Because I don't want them to find me here with you or you'll get in trouble."

Eames was a bit surprised by the response. He'd been half-expecting Arthur, clearly thinking without the hangover and pain blinding him, to accuse him of rape and go running to the cops immediately. He of course had hoped that wouldn't happen, but didn't put it past him.

"I doubt they'd come storming in here looking for you. I don't see how they would even know where you are unless you have some kind of tracking device buried behind your ear or something."

Arthur pulled his shirt over his head, sending his hair flying even more out of place. "I don't," he mumbled, "but what if somebody saw us?"

"You've never been outside of suburbia, have you?" Eames snorted. "People in the city don't have time for anyone but themselves."

"I won't take my chances," Arthur replied, buttoning up his shirt before tucking it in. "I'm sorry for all of this shit. I shouldn't have… I just… Yeah, I'm sorry."

"All is forgiven," Eames replied lightly, slouching back on his couch to go back to sleep. "Just don't forget to lock the door on the way out, love, and in the future don't let yourself get so wound up that you have to do something stupid just to be set free."

Arthur paused in the knotting of his tie and stared at the couch where Eames was with wonder. "How did you know…" he started.

"Why is it that we people do anything? You said you were bored, and you were clearly not in the right state of mind."

"If you knew how I lived, you'd think I was being a selfish little shit," Arthur responded in shame. "I'm nothing but a whiny rich kid who has all the free time in the world because my parents don't bother with me, and yet I spend every day going through the motions, school, homework, bed, repeat. I do this to myself, really…" He went back to knotting his tie, too ashamed of himself to look at anyone.

"That sounds like a right terrible life," Eames said then, making Arthur jump a little.

"What?"

"Money is important, but it's not the only thing. If all I wanted was money, I sure as hell wouldn't be trying to scrape by as an artist. I do art because I want to, because I have a passion for it. You strike me as the type who's never had a passion for anything. You've never been allowed to." Eames popped back up then, looking Arthur directly in the eyes, and he couldn't say anything else because the boy had started to cry.

Eames crawled off the couch and approached him just as his sounds started to ascend from sniffles to actual sobs and touched his cheek. "Hey now, don't… I didn't mean to imply that you…"

"You're right," Arthur blubbered, "you're completely right. It's not fair… It fucking sucks, and no one ever seems to notice that I'm screaming on the inside. No one cares…" He buried his face against Eames's chest and cried and cried and cried, letting Eames stroke his hair gently and shush him until he finally did calm down. "I… I'm sorry-"

"Enough of these apologies," Eames said, brushing his tears away. "You should never apologize for feeling trapped. You shouldn't apologize for things that aren't your fault."

He picked up Arthur's blazer and slipped it over the boy's shoulders. "I'm sorry," Eames said. "That really sucks."

Arthur sniffled and wiped his nose with his wrist. "Goodbye," he mumbled, tugging his bag over his shoulder. As an afterthought, he turned back and kissed him, slowly, innocently, and half-limped away.

Eames's shoulders drooped, the apartment feeling empty without the company. It was the first time anyone had stayed.

He went back to the couch, grabbed his sketchbook, and doodled to pass the hours.