FIC: Say It Right [Eames/Arthur kid!fic/marriage!fic] Part 5
They pull into the driveway in separate cars. Eames sits behind the wheel for just a bit longer, gathering courage, watching Arthur make his way up the porch, into the house. There’s something in the way he doesn’t stop once to look at him, but leaves the door open behind him, that makes him think that maybe they’re one step closer to fixing what’s been broken.
Arthur has already begun turning on lights by the time he steps past the front door, nudging it closed with the heel of his shoe. The lights make the most efficient path to the bedroom, in true Arthur fashion. This brings a smile to Eames’s face. At least that hasn’t changed.
He scrubs the back of his neck with a groan, runs a hand over his face, yawns into his palm, and loses the fight against the desire to be wrapped in warm quilts on a soft bed. Their bed. He says nothing as he walks past the bathroom on the way there, where he can hear Arthur running the sink. And it’s not that the idea of cleanliness has no appeal to Eames right now - in fact, he’d begun fantasizing about hot water from the showerhead back at the hospital - but the heaviness of his body, the fogginess in his head, all trump the need for a wash.
Arthur walks in while Eames is pulling his shirt over his head. They undress on opposite sides of the bed, backs to each other, with only the sound of zippers and belt buckles and their breathing to fill the quiet surrounding them. Eames, down to his boxers, slides into bed first and can’t bite back the sigh that escapes at the sheer softness of everything, at the tension lifting from his muscles. He crosses his arms behind his head, against his pillow, and turns his head to watch, through the darkness, as Arthur pulls on his favorite pair of black silk pajama pants, and doesn’t stop watching him even after he’s settled under the covers beside him.
The younger man drapes an arm across his eyes. Eames wants to tell him how perfect he looks whenever he lets himself go like this: hair sticking up in odd directions against the pillow, every deep breath passing from between slightly parted lips, worn out. It’s moments like these that remind Eames that Arthur, despite his unfailing ability to remain neat, organized, and calculated every minute of the day, is still human.
“Do you think she’ll be okay without us?” The younger man asks.
“Cobb will look after her. And he’ll do a damn good job of it, no doubt.” He waits for Arthur to bring his arm back down to the bed, away from his eyes, then says, more softly this time, “It’s for the best, darling. We’re of no use to Emily if we can’t take care of her because we haven’t taken care of ourselves first.”
He doesn’t mean for it to be but the statement is loaded, the truest thing he’s said to Arthur all day, and they both feel it, this sudden shift in the atmosphere. Eames is suddenly very aware of the other man’s heat, the roughness of his elbow when they accidentally knock arms as Arthur shifts onto his side to face him. The look is penetrating, Eames can practically feel it on his face. He closes his eyes to let it wash over him.
“Danny-“ Arthur whispers, his voice so close to him his breath tickles his shoulder, “look at me.”
He does, because his name rolling off Arthur’s tongue like that sends shivers down his spine.
“Touch me.”
It’s all the invitation Eames needs to reach a hand over and smooth a few stray locks of dark hair away from his face. Then, slowly, afraid that if he moves too quickly he’ll break whatever calm has settled between them, he glides a finger tenderly down the bridge of Arthur’s nose, then down his mouth, tracing the shape of it. And then, be still his heart, he feels them stretch beneath the pads of his fingers, slow and slight, but Eames doesn’t need light to know that it’s a smile, however small.
When he’s satisfied his craving for touch, he feathers his fingers over the expanse of Arthur’s cheek, shifts close on his side so that their foreheads are pressed together when he leans in and captures that smiling mouth in the slowest, sweetest kiss they’ve shared in months. He tastes faintly of mint, but mostly it’s all warmth, and breath, and the tip of Arthur’s tongue grazing his own.
“I didn’t mean it,” Eames murmurs against his lips when he pulls away for air. “What I said this morning - er yesterday or whatever. I didn’t mean it.”
I know, he feels, more than hears Arthur say into his mouth, into a second, more crushing, more frantic kiss. Now it’s Arthur’s fingers drawing invisible patterns across his back, over his chest, snaking past the waistband of Eames’s boxers and stroking him to full attention. Setting his skin on fire.
They fuck beneath the covers, the frenzied, clumsy, teenage kind of sex that has Arthur’s legs butterflied around Eames’s hips, arms wrapped tight around his head, fingers clawing Eames’s tattooed shoulders for purchase, and Eames’s mouth sucking bruises into his neck. Arthur comes first with Eames’s hand pumping his dick between them, comes so hard he has to press his face into the side of Eames’s head to keep from shouting; Eames follows suit three hard thrusts later, gasping fuck, fuck, into Arthur’s swollen mouth.
They’re still shaking when Eames pulls out and rolls off of him five minutes later, skin damp and glistening with sweat. They smell like sex and come, and it’s intoxicating, exhilarating. Eames’s heart is racing when Arthur lays his head on his chest.
They don’t speak anymore. For a while, Arthur lies there simply breathing against Eames’s skin, but then Eames starts to thread his fingers through his damp hair and feels the younger man relax, release. This is another rare treat for Eames. The intensity of the moment is overwhelming. He thinks his heart is going to burst.
Dawn is breaking by the time he falls asleep. Thoughts of Emily. Arthur’s smile.
Part Six