FIC: Say It Right [Eames/Arthur kid!fic/marriage!fic] Part 1
Once Emily’s eyes have shut and Arthur’s sure her breathing has evened out, he shifts her tiny body in his arms and lays her, as carefully as he can, on the bed, pulling her blankets up to her chin (tucks them under her sides and shoulders, just for good measure), and finally, with a weary sigh, pushes away from the edge of the bed for what feels like the first time in ages.
His muscles ache the way they do when his body is about ready to give out on him. It’s a deep pain that resonates from some mysterious part of him and spreads until every last inch of him is tender to the touch. He wants to sleep. He wants to eat. He wants to bathe, because he feels infected, dirty, unclean -but he squashes that desire quickly, as he gathers up all of the used tissues that have accumulated within the last sixteen hours, and listens to the soft but strained breathing in the twin bed behind him, because what kind of father would think something like that about his sick little girl?
Arthur carries that guilt with him, and, yes, a mound of moist used tissues, to the bathroom, where he dumps it all into the trashcan beside the toilet (but not the guilt - if only), and proceeds to wash his hands once, twice, three times, all the while avoiding eye contact with his reflection in the mirror above the sink. It’s been hours since he’s had a moment alone. He should enjoy it, he thinks; take advantage of it somehow. But the house, this tiny little suburban two bedroom home is far too quiet tonight, save for the occasional hacking cough from Emily’s room two doors down. The stillness makes it impossible for Arthur to drown out his own thoughts.
Because he would rather not have to think about the fact that it is nearly midnight and for the first time in years, Eames has yet to come back home after their fight.
He finally lifts his head to face his reflection and is appalled, but unsurprised, at what a mess he really is. There’s a smear of something on his left cheek that has begun crusting over - Emily’s mucus, he imagines - and his hair is hanging in greasy disarray above his eyebrows. He is the shadow of the man he’d once been, not all that long ago: Cobb’s Point Man, all slicked back hair, tailored suits, suave and cool and collected. Right now, in a stained white t-shirt and jeans, he is anything but. Suddenly frustrated, and mildly disgusted at himself, he turns on the cold water again and scrubs his face until he thinks his skin feels human again.
There is another wet and chesty cough from Emily’s room, then, once again, silence.
It takes a monumental amount of effort for him not to reach into his pocket and check his phone for a missed call, or text.
Instead, he pats his face dry, shuts off the bathroom light, and makes his way slowly down the hall, back toward Emily’s bedroom where the tiny little girl is still lying in the same position he’d left her in, her chest rising and falling beneath the blankets with every labored breath. Arthur watches from the doorway, hand braced against the wall beside him, the other cupping the outside of his pocket where he can feel his phone. Just in case.
Emily’s soft dark curls are matted against her forehead and cheeks, damp with sweat and fever. A rosy flush has settled onto the apples of her cheeks. At three years old she is beginning to look like a tiny person, Arthur realizes; no longer just the baby who had come into their lives by way of a very long, complicated, and at some points contentious adoption process. It had seemed like the most natural thing to do, having been an orphan himself for most of his life. Until Cobb and Mal had come along. He’d found family when they’d found him. So when Eames had asked “hypothetically”, one Sunday after a slow and indulgent bout of afternoon sex, what Arthur thought of maybe raising “a brat” one day together, he’d skipped playing along and had gone straight to “let’s do it.”
While the idea itself had been impulsive on both their parts, the actual decision to adopt had been, and still probably was, the only thing about their relationship that had not been done on impulse.
Let’s date, officially, had been an impulse.
Let’s move in together, officially, had been an impulse.
Will you marry me, as officially as possible by this state? had been an impulse.
But their daughter had not.
The name ‘Emily’ had been Eames’s idea. It was his mother’s name, he’d said, and he’d spent most of his life doing wrong by her, up until she died. I want her to know I did care. Wherever she is now. I think she would like it if I named my first after her.
Arthur had wanted Edith, because it seemed correct. It fit him and defined him and their lives together up until that point. It was pretty, and classic, and demure. But Arthur had conceded, because the look in Eames’s eyes that night had spoken of years of guilt, of lack of closure, and a desire for something only he could define.
Looking at her now, Arthur thinks he made the right decision. She looks like an Emily, even if she doesn’t look like either of them, and even less Eames’s late mother.
Suddenly, a thought of his husband out there somewhere right now, still angry, perhaps drinking - or worse - makes Arthur’s jaws clench and calls from somewhere deep inside of him a searing jealousy, an ache, that settles in his chest like a weight on his heart. His hand, restless now, plunges into his pocket, fumbles for his phone. When he checks , there are no missed calls, no texts.
He grips the phone so tight his knuckles go white, then, after a moment, stuffs it back into his pocket, frustrated that he’s allowed himself, that he’s allowed Eames, to make him feel this way, married or not. Leaving had been Eames’s choice, after all. It had never been out of character for him to do so - so why should Arthur care so much whether or not the bumbling Brit, instead of fighting the issue out, reverted to old habits?
But his eyes are beginning to sting, and now, more than humiliated by this development, Arthur simply feels hopeless, and lonely, and lost, and when he slaps a quivering hand over his eyes to keep the hot moisture at bay all he can hear is Eames’s voice saying, well, maybe I’m sick of always being stuck here with you, and maybe I’m sick of you hounding me, and maybe I’m tired of living this way.
It isn’t the first time they’ve had a falling out like this, but now, with Eames still gone and Emily still sick and he, himself, as exhausted inside as he is outside, Arthur can’t help but wonder if he meant it this time. And if so, what that will mean for the little girl sleeping in the bed across from him, their daughter, and what it will mean for this house, and their lives, and Arthur’s heart.
He thinks back on the months preceding their argument this morning, the ever increasing frequency of their fights. The agitation, and a deep resentment that hangs in the air between them now, whenever they’re together. A resentment that he knows only hangs between them because it isn’t really about them, and yet somehow it still is.
Arthur wonders if he wants Eames to mean it this time.
The question leaves him rubbing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose until the dull throbbing in his head becomes unbearable, and finally he forces himself away from Emily’s room toward the one he and Eames share. It’s late, he’s tired, and he’s sure that Eames will not be coming home tonight.
It isn’t until just as he’s resigned himself to that idea, his head on his pillow and his arms and legs spread eagle over onto Eames’s side of the bed (as if only to spite him), that Emily, in the next room, coughs. And coughs. And coughs. And doesn’t stop coughing until she’s wheezing and coughing. Arthur’s heart skips a beat and he breathes, “fuck, fuck, Em,” as he tries not to let the panic set in. He is out of bed the second the words leave his mouth, and in Emily’s room the next.
Part Two