In Memorium, pt. one [Requiescat verse]
Title: In Memorium, pt. one
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Words: ~7400
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Restless ghosts refuse to stay buried. The (long-overdue) sequel to Requiescat and its coda, Eyes Wide Shut.
Warnings: Brief references to noncon and self-harm.
Author's Note: I hit a massive block and couldn't tell whether it was better to wait however long it took to post the whole story in its entirety, like I had originally wanted, or to share this bit first and then make you all wait for the rest. Unfortunately I see no end in sight, so here it is and you can read it or wait if you prefer! I anticipate two or three parts in total. :)
If you're unfamiliar with the Requiescat verse: This is a Mysterious Skin crossover. Seeing the movie isn't strictly necessary to understand this fic; however, I recommend reading the original Requiescat or at least this or this.
Arthur dumps his belongings on the desk presumably intended for him, and stares. Eames glances up over his laptop from the other side of the room.
“Hello,” he says.
“Right. Hi,” Arthur replies dumbly.
Gershwin bustles in then with an armful of papers, and it takes one glance between the two of them for her to realize something is off. She rounds on Arthur.
“I told you I'd be asking Eames to be the extractor,” she says.
“Right,” Arthur says again. He forces a smile. “No, it's fine. Really.”
I just didn't think he'd fucking say yes.
Eames rubs at his lower lip with a thumb, smiling down at the laptop. Abruptly, Arthur experiences a very real surge of hatred.
“Alright then.” Gershwin dumps down the papers on her own desk. “Let's be grown-ups about this and play nice then, yeah?”
Her phone rings. She glances at it, says, “That's my chemist, just a sec, boys,” and hurries out of the room again, pulling out her cell phone.
Arthur sinks slowly into his chair, pretending to gaze down at his bag. Really, he's stuck on pause, trying to reboot his brain so that he can deal with Eames' proximity to him.
“Did you think I'd pine?” Eames asks, breaking the silence, after a minute has passed.
“No,” Arthur lies.
Eames smiles. It's a sad, lopsided smile.
“I promised myself I wouldn't become a wreck, you know. Not this time. I want you to be happy, Arthur. As long as you're happy, it's easier for me to try and get there, too.”
“Right,” says Arthur.
“Are you happy?” Eames asks.
“Yes,” Arthur lies again.
Another minute passes. They can hear the rise and fall of Gershwin's booming voice in the hall.
Arthur stands, chair legs scraping the floor behind him.
“Obviously this isn't going to work,” he says. He starts to bundle up his things without looking at Eames.
On the way out, he passes Gershwin, who is on her way back in. “I'll find you a new point by the end of the week,” he promises her.
“Wait-Arthur, hold on a sec!”
It's not Gershwin who comes after him, though. It's Eames. He catches Arthur up at the bottom of the stairwell and crowds him into the wall. It's easy, since Arthur doesn't want to touch him.
“Look,” Eames says, his voice gone flat and cold, because he doesn't need to act anymore. “Not that it's any of my business, but-you don't look well. And it's not like you to walk out on any job.”
“You're right,” Arthur says, “it's none of your business.”
Eames blinks. His eyes are hard. Like shards of flint.
“If you need someone to talk to ...”
“Why would it be you?” Arthur cuts him off.
“I meant what I said, before,” Eames says, lowering his voice and crowding even closer to Arthur. “You're in a tailspin and you don't even see it. I'm not going to be there this time to pick up all the pieces when you crash, remember. You made this decision.”
“Get out of my way, Eames,” Arthur snaps.
Eames steps aside. As Arthur is brushing past him, heading for the door, he says, “I just worry about you, you know.”
“You don't get to worry about me anymore, Eames,” Arthur snarls, rounding on him. “I thought I made that clear.”
There's nothing in Eames' face. He's an actor, wearing a mask.
“As crystal,” he says.
Arthur storms out of the building, hoping fervently that he never sees Eames again.
+++
Arthur didn't mean for it to happen the way it did; really, he didn't. He didn't mean for Eames to come home just as he was leaving their flat with a packed suitcase.
Eames grabbed him and said, “What are you doing?”
And Arthur said, “Leaving.”
And Eames said, “Why?”
And what followed was the most ugly, brutal fight of their lovelife.
Arthur didn't know how to explain himself, where to begin justifying his sudden need to run and run.
Eames didn't understand him, didn't want him to go, didn't want to be angry, but was. He grabbed Arthur again and he raised his voice. Every couple has fights, he said. It didn't mean Arthur got to cut and run. They were going to resolve this, he said, right now.
And Arthur said, he didn't want to resolve this. He wanted to leave.
That was when Eames started to turn frantic. Arthur had never seen him like that and it made him uncomfortable. Eames is always smooth and in control, how could he forge otherwise? But Eames was frantic, scared, his grip on Arthur's arms clinging and desperate. Arthur couldn't leave, he said, he just couldn't, not after everything, not because of this. This is stupid, he said. Come back inside, he said. Come back inside, and they'd calm down, and they'd talk, and they'd work everything out because that's what couples do, they argue and then they work it out.
The problem, Arthur said, is that they aren't a normal couple, and never were to begin with, and Eames should have understood that from the start. Why fight so hard to salvage a sinking ship? This wasn't going to work, he explained. It was a nice effort but it's not going to work.
Arthur, and Eames was fucking begging now- Arthur, Arthur, don't, you can't. He said, don't you have any idea how much I love you? Don't you have any fucking idea?
Eames had left him before, Arthur pointed out; and Eames said that he couldn't do it again. If he lost Arthur again, he didn't know what he'd do. He can't live without Arthur in his life, it's too hard, he can't do it again.
They were fighting right there on the cobblestones outside the flat; curious neighbours were poking their heads out of their windows to see what the ruckus was about. Arthur was embarrassed by the scene Eames was making, and that made him feel like an even more terrible person.
They fought, and fought, and Eames tried to hold him, and Arthur pushed away, feeling confined, confused and upset. Stop touching me, the part of him that's Arthur wanted to cry out, roiling with nausea and distaste at Eames' open kicked-dog emotion; the part of him that's more Neil wanted to grab Eames back and devour him, go inside with him and fuck until they couldn't speak to form any argument. They reeled together and apart repeatedly.
And in the end, Arthur only went inside because the sun had set, and he was getting cold.
Eames kissed him fiercely like it was the first time. Arthur let him, because he'd been defeated and he was tired. He went into the bedroom and dropped his suitcase on their shared bed and started to unpack, while Eames hovered in the doorway as though to reassure himself that Arthur was still there. Eventually he left, and Arthur unpacked his belongings in silence. He laid out each article of clothing and re-folded it, smoothing out creases from his initial hasty flight.
When all his clothing was laid out on the bed in neat piles, he stared at it for a minute. Two minutes.
Then he picked up a shirt and started packing again.
When he left the bedroom, suitcase in hand once more, he found Eames slumped sideways against a wall, his eyes glazed over in deep contemplation and a drink in his hand.
“What,” he said, when he saw Arthur standing there. His voice was hoarse. “Why are you ...”
“I'm leaving,” Arthur said again. “But not for good.”
“What do you mean,” Eames said, voice crackling with exhaustion. Arthur had never seen him so close to tears before.
“I just want to go away on my own for a bit. I'll be back. I just need to be alone.”
Eames closed his eyes, shook his head and breathed out: “How can I trust you?”
“I won't sleep around with anyone,” said Arthur. “I won't solicit anyone, I won't ... anything, with anyone.”
“No,” said Eames, opening his eyes. “How can I trust you to come back?”
Arthur set down his suitcase. He opened it and dug around until he found the soft square of cloth wrapped around his totem.
“Here,” he said, and gave it to Eames. “Take good care of it for me. Like you did before.”
Eames stared helplessly down at the tiny wrapped bundle resting on his open palm and Arthur wondered, did he know? Did he know the die was superfluous? Does he know the secret of Arthur's dog tags-that they say Neil in reality, but Arthur in another person's dream?
But eventually all Eames said was, “How long will you be gone?”
“I don't know,” said Arthur. “A month.”
Eames' lips framed the words silently as though in disbelief. A month.
“But I'll be back,” Arthur said, again, and at the time, he meant it. “I will. I just ... don't want you to follow me or call me.”
Eames ducked his head and dug his thumb and finger into his eyes, squeezing them shut. When he let his hand fall away there were tears in his eyes.
“Okay,” he said.
Relief spilled over Arthur. He walked over to Eames, who watched him guardedly like he thought Arthur was about to hit him, but didn't move away. Arthur kissed him, just a light press of lips against lips. He didn't hear the words Eames mouthed against him pleadingly, but he knew what they were: Please don't go.
He pretended not to notice, and stepped away. “I'll come back.”
“Okay,” Eames repeated, voice breaking slightly.
And Arthur left.
Two months ago today.
+++
He goes to Cobb's, because he doesn't know where else to go.
The retired extractor looks startled when he opens the door. “Arthur,” he says.
“Sorry,” Arthur says quietly. “I should have called ...”
He breaks off when Cobb pulls him into an awkward, one-armed hug.
It's pretty uncomfortable. Again he feels that strange divide: the desire to bristle and push away, and the blossoming warmth of physical contact with another human being; the stupid, childish craving for more. He holds still, unsettled. I'm breaking in half, he thinks.
Then Cobb releases him, and is saying, “Sorry-I've just been thinking about how we left things, and I don't know how to feel, Arthur, I really don't, but I don't want to shut you out of my life or my kids' lives just because of something that happened so long ago ...”
Arthur is spared from coming up with a response when Phillipa hits him almost hard enough to knock him over, locking her arms around his knees. “Uncle Arthur!”
“Pippa-hi!” Startled, he attempts to disentangle her arms from their grip around his legs so that he can crouch down to her level and hug her. “Um, shouldn't you be in school?”
“It's Thanksgiving,” Cobb offers.
“I made a turkey!” Phillipa yells, and runs off as suddenly as she appeared. Arthur straightens up slowly, not meeting Cobb's eyes.
“Stay for dinner,” Cobb says, after a moment. “Ariadne's here. Miles and Marie are too.”
“Maybe I should go,” says Arthur quietly.
“Don't.” Cobb squeezes his shoulder with one hand, another awkward gesture. “You're family.”
At that moment Phillipa reappears, yelling “Uncle Arthur's here!” and waving a piece of brown construction paper cut out roughly in the shape of her hand, red and blue craft feathers glued haphazardly on. Arthur immediately hunkers down again to admire it, and Ariadne is on Phillipa's heels to give him a greeting hug, and Cobb quietly lifts his bag inside and shuts the door, deciding it.
Cobb and Ariadne work on dinner while Arthur takes a shower, and when he goes back downstairs, Miles is watching the Macy's Day Parade with both children. Arthur joins him for lack of anything better to do and James immediately crawls into his lap and gets comfortable there, sucking his thumb. Phillipa is busy drawing pictures of the floats with crayons on the floor at their feet.
“Hello, Arthur.” Miles smiles at him, kindly as ever, and Arthur musters up a smile in response. He used to feel a particular sort of awe for the older man, back when Arthur lived and breathed the dreamshare experience. Miles is still, after all, one of the world's leading experts, and Arthur is lucky to know him; but more than that, he's Mal's father, and Arthur has always respected him for that because Arthur loved Mal. Now he feels discomfort more than anything else, because Miles knows. Arthur wonders what he must see, when Miles looks at him. A former hustler? The man who indirectly caused his daughter's death? Surely not the sharp young man he'd seen Arthur as before. Arthur wonders if Miles ever dwells on the fact that he's currently in a gay sexual relationship, as Cobb so painfully and obviously does.
But if he's thinking any of these things, he doesn't show it. Mal inherited her beauty from her mother, but her kind nature was all Miles.
“How are you?” Miles asks.
“Fine,” says Arthur, trying his hardest to be particularly respectable. “And you?”
“Very well. I see Eames isn't with you.”
Now Arthur's wondering why Cobb didn't point this out. Was he relieved? Does it make him that uncomfortable, the reality of Arthur and Eames together? Either way Arthur is glad. He has no desire to explain that they split up.
“He's not American,” Arthur replies, trying to affect a joking tone. “He doesn't understand.”
“I'll use any excuse to get in on a good meal, me,” Miles says, smiling.
Floats trundle past on the screen. The house smells like stuffing. Arthur leans back into the couch and James leans against him, head bobbing occasionally like he's drifting slowly off to sleep. Arthur could use a nap. He wraps his arms loosely around James and shuts his eyes.
He's woken when Miles gives his shoulder a gentle shake. Something else is on TV, some cartoon, the volume muted, and at some point James has left his lap.
“Suppertime,” says Miles.
Arthur is quiet throughout dinner. He wants to go back to sleep. He wants to sleep and sleep all week because it's been two months and he still doesn't know what's worse: being with Eames, or being away from Eames. But Ariadne is in the guest bedroom (Miles and Marie are staying at separate hotels), which means Arthur will get the couch, which means he'll have to stay up until everyone else has gone to sleep.
Phillipa says they all have to say something they're thankful for. Arthur can think of a lot of things. I'm thankful for my life of crime and all the money it brings me. I'm thankful you didn't put me in a fucking mental hospital, Dom. But neither seem appropriate in front of the children so he lies and says he's thankful he gets to spend Thanksgiving with his favourite family, which makes Cobb give him a half-smile across the table.
After dinner Phillipa spreads out her paper and crayons on the kitchen table and starts drawing, and James wants to draw now too, so he joins her. Arthur helps clear up until Ariadne shoos him away, so he sits with the kids, and Phillipa thrusts a piece of paper and a red crayon at him and tells him he has to draw a float from the parade. He asks if a balloon is okay instead. Phillipa considers for a long time and says yes, and Arthur gets to work. He's a sucker for the Cobbs, and he knows it.
Miles and Marie are helping Cobb do the dishes. They've switched to French, which is probably why Marie doesn't bother to lower her voice when she says:
I wouldn't trust him around the children, Dominic, you know what he is.
And she shoots a quick glance at Arthur.
Does she not know that Mal taught Arthur to speak rudimentary French?
Arthur blinks, momentarily stunned. She's talking about him being a queer-he's pretty sure, at least-but Cobb catches his eye then and Arthur knows: Cobb probably knows the statistics as well as Arthur does. And it makes him burn hot and nauseous in his throat, because he isn't like that at all. It's normal to have those thoughts, his therapist fucking said so, she said he's normal; normal and not a pedophile unless he acts on them, and they're not like that, not fucking desires, even if they're-arousing; they're more like-part memory and part something else, and it doesn't matter anyway because he's been trying so hard to stop having them.
And it's James and Phillipa. Like he'd ever fucking hurt them.
Ariadne, who is packaging up leftovers in tupperware containers, shoots Arthur a worried glance. Cobb sees the flash in his eyes. He turns away and growls softly in French, I don't ever want to hear you talking like that in English in front of my kids.
Arthur shows his drawing to Phillipa and when she examines it carefully and deems it satisfactory, and starts colouring it in with broad scribbles of blue, he shoves his chair away from the table and says, “I'm going to lie down.”
He doesn't manage to fall asleep. He lies on his back on the couch and stares at the ceiling for at least an hour, until Phillipa is suddenly peering into his face.
“Daddy said to tell you dessert is ready,” she says.
Arthur gets up slowly. He's been here half a day and he already wants to leave.
“Do you remember your mom?” he asks Phillipa.
She shrugs. Arthur thinks that's fucking tragic.
+When the children are in bed, and Miles and Marie have left for their respective hotel rooms, Cobb and Ariadne and Arthur sit at the kitchen table and drink the tea Ariadne brews for them.
“So-” Ariadne and Cobb exchange a quick glance that Arthur doesn't like at all before she continues “-where's Eames, anyway?”
It's meant to sound casual, and it's a fair question, because everyone in their business knows that he and Eames are an item now. It doesn't stop him from wanting to snap mind your own fucking business.
“He's in New York on a job,” he answers belatedly. “We broke up,” he adds.
Ariadne's face falls. Cobb's remains carefully neutral.
“I'm sorry,” he says. Arthur shrugs.
“It wasn't working out.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Ariadne asks tentatively.
“Not really.”
She and Cobb turn to a different subject, to Arthur's relief, and they stay on that for awhile. Arthur wonders idly if they're fucking. Probably not. Of course, Cobb would be just the type to put Ariadne up in the guest bedroom even if they were sleeping together, for the sake of his children's delicate sensibilities. More likely Ariadne just came along with Miles for a free meal. Canadian Thanksgiving was last month, but maybe it reminds her of home.
“Where do you want to sleep?” Cobb asks, and it takes Arthur a second to realize the question is being directed at him. He blinks. “The kids are probably going to be up early to watch cartoons,” Cobb goes on ruefully. “I could try to dig up a sleeping bag or something, put you on the floor in my room ...”
“We could just share a bed, like old days,” Arthur points out dryly. It's a joke, but Cobb doesn't laugh. Probably thinks I'm coming onto him, Arthur thinks.
“Bunk with me.” Ariadne gives him a nudge. “I don't mind.”
Cobb immediately looks pained. “That's okay. I'm sure I have a sleeping bag around somewhere ...”
“Seriously, Cobb, the guest bed is massive. What are you worried about, my virtue? It's Arthur.”
Of course it is. Dry, boring, asexual stick-in-the-mud Arthur. Nothing to worry about at all. Arthur props his chin on one hand, amused.
“I don't know,” Cobb says doubtfully.
“Does he snore?”
“No,” Arthur says, offended, at the same time Cobb does.
“Then what's the big deal?” says Ariadne.
“Works for me,” Arthur says, partly to be perverse. Cobb still looks pained, but after a moment he accepts this solution and they all head upstairs.
Cobb hovers in the doorway until Arthur says to Ariadne, “Here, you can sleep under the sheets, and I'll sleep on top of them but still under the covers. No accidental touching that way.”
She agrees that it's a good plan and they take turns in the guest bathroom, which is actually the kids' bathroom. It's messier than he remembers. There's a stool in front of the sink, for James, and the counter is smeared with toothpaste in a few areas. The mirror is grimy from little fingerprints and where there isn't toothpaste, there's a few puddles of water. Arthur hopes he never has kids. He mops up the counter idly before brushing his teeth.
Ariadne is in her pyjamas when he returns, tucked in bed with a book. “Sorry,” she says. “I'll turn the lamp off in a few minutes, I promise.”
“Don't worry about it,” says Arthur. He crawls under the covers, leaving the buffer sheet under him. There's more than enough space between them. “What's the book about?”
“Aliens,” she says vaguely. Arthur expected something more to do with architecture. God, he really is boring.
He shoves his pillow around until it's somewhat less lumpy and says, “Are you sleeping with Cobb?”
She immediately bursts into giggles. “God, Arthur. He's like twenty years older than me.”
“He's thirteen years older than you.” As a point man, it's Arthur's job to know these things.
Ariadne's blushing furiously. “That's-still.”
Arthur wonders what the appropriate cut-off age difference is, and realizes he has no idea. Thirteen years doesn't seem like that much to him, but evidently it's enough to get him laughed at.
He rolls onto his side, away from the glare of the lamp, and shuts his eyes. Then he rolls over again, trying to get comfortable. Ariadne's book has a black jacket with a blurb in white text on the back. From where he is, he can't see the cover page. Above the blurb, bold typeface reads: Taken.
“Good book?”
“Yeah,” says Ariadne. “It's about a guy who was abducted by aliens when he was a kid and he can't remember anything about that night. He starts finding clues and remembering over the course of the book. It's pretty dark, actually. There's some fucked-up stuff in here. But it's really good.”
Taken. Sounds familiar.
“You might like it,” she says, and shows him the cover. The picture is black, matching the rest of the jacket, pitch black with a single light placed off-centre like the high-beam of a car dead ahead. Taken, it says at the top, and at the bottom in smaller print, Brian Lackey.
Arthur is quiet for a long moment, just processing. Then he takes the book and sits up, opening it to the last page. It even has a picture of him, Brian fucking Lackey, right there as if he isn't really dead but is still alive, walking around, knowing Arthur's secrets. There's a little 'About the Author' blurb. Arthur doesn't want to look at it. He shoves the book back at Ariadne, feeling sick right down to his core.
“I'm going to sleep,” he says.
“Okay,” she says uncertainly, obviously not sure what to make of his reaction. He rolls over again, facing the wall, and after a few minutes, she turns her lamp off.
Brian fucking Lackey. As if Arthur didn't have enough reminders walking around of how really fucked-up he is.
+++
The last time Arthur was apart from Eames for any extended amount of time, it happened like this:
For the first week or so after Cobb brought him home from the hospital, during the night, he would cry until he was sick. During the day, he pretended to sleep, curled on his side and facing the wall so that he wouldn't have to face Cobb or, worse yet, Eames, who hovered over him constantly, and tears scalded the backs of his eyelids.
“Eat,” Eames would say, coaxing, filling up the space between them with inane chatter. “Please, darling. You've got to eat something. Look, see what I've brought you? They're banana chocolate chip scones. I've buttered one for you, it's right here if you want it. I already tried one, they're very good. They're from a bakery nearby. It's called Cobb's Bakery, isn't that odd? Cobb swears there's no relation. Can you imagine?”
He didn't want to waste food on himself when he knew he'd only throw it up later. He stared at the ceiling and concentrated on breathing: In. Out. Eames sighed, and eventually gave up.
He blamed Eames, because it had always been Eames before, making his head hurt so bad he threw up and cried. Eames reminded him of who he used to be, who he was supposed to be-somebody who was attracted to men and was raped because of it-and that was why his mind had always stonewalled him at that thought, viciously broken him down and then reassembled him with no memory of his near slip-ups.
So he lay in bed and let shudders wrack his body. He was the best point man in the world-he was a messed-up kid who prostituted himself to older men. He was a smooth-talking con man and a thief-he was a worthless fuck-up from Kansas. He lay in bed, and shuddered, and thought numbly, I was raped.
Arthur would never let himself be raped. Who the hell was he?
He felt like he was screaming and nobody was listening.
Eames kept coming back and he just couldn't stop crying, he didn't even know where it was coming from anymore, he was so fucking exhausted; and so finally, he told Eames to leave.
And Eames did.
It was the worst night of his entire life.
He'd never felt this alone, not even in limbo.
That's how, the next day, he wound up kneeling on the bathroom floor, pressing a razor into his wrists so hard the blade was trembling-
There was so much blood on the floor. He was gasping for breath. It surrounded him and he thought, it's poetic, because a bathroom's where he died the first time--
Looking back now, he doesn't remember actually dialling 911. He just remembers thinking over and over and over to the point where he was probably repeating it out loud, I made a mistake. I made a mistake. I made a mistake.
+Cobb took him home.
He wore a grey hoodie with long frayed sleeves and slouched in the passenger seat, pressing trembling fingers to the window he was staring out of.
Cobb didn't say anything right away. He looked haggard and pale. But eventually, he managed, and his voice was hoarse.
“What if you'd actually done it?” he said, grief twisting the words. “What the hell would I say to Eames?”
He hunched his shoulders, shrunk defensively into himself like a sullen teenager.
“You almost killed yourself, Neil.”
“Don't call me that,” he mumbled, still gazing out the window so that he couldn't see Cobb's face. Cobb was silent.
When they got back to Cobb's house, he parked in the driveway, killed the engine and just sat there. Arthur sat quietly next to him, plucking absently at his sleeves, which covered the bandages on his wrists.
“I talked to your doctor,” Cobb said finally. “He wants you to start seeing a therapist.”
“Why,” Arthur said in a dull whisper, not caring.
“To help you. I think it would help you. I'll pay for it, if you want.”
Arthur just retreated deeper into his seat, like it could hide him from Cobb, and closed his eyes.
Cobb exhaled slowly and got out of the car. After a minute, Arthur followed suit.
Later, when the kids were in bed and he was in his room, lying in bed and gazing up at the ceiling as usual, trying to imagine spending day in and day out lying here in this same bed and staring at this ceiling (spending every day of his life without Eames), he heard his name. He slid out of bed and crept to the top of the stairs. Cobb was on the phone downstairs. His voice was indistinct.
Arthur slipped into Cobb's bedroom and lifted the phone as quietly as he could. He raised it to his ear and could hear Cobb speaking.
“... and I just-God, it just seems like a horrible thing to even be thinking about. It's Arthur, he's practically family. He's like a brother to me. Part of me doesn't even want to be considering it. But on the other hand ...”
“You're not a psychiatrist, Dom.” Miles' voice, recognizably English, was reassuring. “Nobody expects you to handle this on your own.”
“I feel like I'd be betraying him or something. But I'm scared he's going to do it again.” There was an unfamiliar waver in the words. “I just don't know what else to do. The doctor said it's a nice place.”
“Mental institutions have cleaned up a lot.”
“And he'd get regular treatment. He needs something. I don't know how to help him. He's a danger to himself and I, I have a job, a life ...”
“Well, I think it's a good idea,” Miles said gently. “Think about what's best for you and the children and for Arthur. He's not going to get any better lying around your house all day. He needs help, Dom.”
“It's not like I want to make him someone else's problem,” Cobb said desperately. “It's not that. It's just, shit, I already went through this with Mal, and I can't, again, I can't ...”
Arthur hung up silently.
He stayed up all night with a migraine that made him shiver and sweat and vomit, as usual. He didn't know why. He was terrified that, in the morning, an ambulance would show up to have him involuntarily committed; but he didn't think it was that. This time, his whole body was crying out for Eames. He wanted to be so, so far away from this place.
He wanted to run away, since Cobb had hidden away every sharp object and pill in the house; but he couldn't, because of his headache, so he just scrunched up in bed and breathed through clenched teeth, all night. He tried not to think of the blurred memories he had of his previous episodes and the way Eames promised to take care of him each time.
In the morning he waited until he heard Cobb get up, then followed him down to the kitchen where Cobb was making coffee.
“I'll do it,” he said quietly, voice husky from lack of use. “The therapy. I'll try it.”
Cobb turned to him with a tired but warm smile of relief, and patted his arm briefly, comfortingly.
“It'll help, Arthur, I promise,” he said softly, and Arthur thought, it'll have to.
+The therapist told him to call her Jo. Her real name was Josephina.
“Obviously, my parents hated me,” she said.
“I thought we were here to talk about my issues,” he replied.
Jo laughed and he decided, cautiously, to like her.
“Okay, Arthur,” she said. “Why don't you start by telling me why you're here and what you hope to get out of this?”
“Okay,” he said. “I was sexually abused by my baseball coach when I was eight, I became a hustler when I was fifteen, and I was raped when I was nineteen, and until recently, I had repressed all of this. You tell me why I'm here.”
“Touché,” said Jo. “No more bullshit psychotherapy questions for you, huh?”
“I would appreciate it.”
Jo was as good as her word. After that, she conversed with him as though they were old friends catching up after a long period of estrangement. Arthur didn't make it easy on her, though. She had to pry every answer out of him like he was clutching his secrets protectively in his hands. He wasn't used to baring himself to people. Half of him still felt like his former life was nothing but a dizzying, exhilarating dream. For at least three sessions it was a frustrating endless loop: Jo didn't know how to help him achieve what he wanted; Arthur didn't even know what it was he wanted. At first, all she did was ask him questions about his life to try and form a solid background, and Arthur puzzled together his dichotomous life with her.
When he arrived for his fourth session he declared, “I want to have a relationship with Eames.”
Jo blinked, and a smile spread across her face. “That sounds like a very worthwhile goal, Arthur.”
“Really?” he said. It struck him that he may have been slightly belligerant about his declaration. He took a seat and tempered his tone. “Do you think I can do it?”
Jo's bright smile warmed him. “I really do.”
He believed her. And after that, with this goal in mind, they set out to solve Arthur's problems.
It was several sessions more before he had any kind of breakthrough. He wanted Eames-he knew he wanted Eames-but he couldn't untrain his brain's repressive defensive mechanisms, trying to hide things away where nobody could find them. He struggled pathetically to verbalize any kind of emotion he felt. He grew sullen and closed-off when they discussed sex. He hated talking about Coach and Brighton Beach even more. He already knew that it wasn't until the latter that he'd realized how wrong the former was; he didn't need Jo to tell him that. Their breakthrough happened quite unexpectedly.
“Have you ever seen a therapist before, Arthur?” Jo asked.
“I had psych evals in the military,” he said. “And we all had to do a session with a psychologist when we started dream-sharing.”
Jo's eyebrows raised. “Dream-sharing? As in extraction?”
Arthur nodded, looking away; this seemed so irrelevant. “I was involved in that Project, he was an extractor hired by the government.”
“Did he diagnose you with anything?”
Now Arthur shook his head, briskly. “He just went under with each of us for a few minutes and poked around to see if he could find anything unusual, anything that could jeopardize our training or dreambuilding.”
“And what did he find in your dream?” Jo asked. Arthur shifted in his seat.
“He found out I was gay. Look, can we not talk about this?”
“Is it making you uncomfortable?”
“No,” he said. “I just don't ... see the relevance.”
“He found out you were gay,” said Jo. “That must have been awkward, given that you were in the military.”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Arthur, rubbing at his arm distractedly.
“What happened then?”
“He didn't tell anyone,” said Arthur.
“No?”
“No. I gave him a blowjob and he didn't tell anyone.”
Jo stopped writing on her clipboard then. She looked up at him, her eyes both piercing and concerned behind the lenses of her glasses, reminding him strangely of Eames for a moment.
“You had oral sex with him?”
“He asked for a blowjob,” said Arthur. “I gave him one. I didn't want him telling anyone.”
“Arthur,” said Jo, so intense it made him feel self-conscious. “That's a serious abuse of position of trust.”
“He asked,” said Arthur, growing defensive and uncertain.
“Did you want to do it?”
“No, of course I didn't want to. It was a business transaction, alright?” said Arthur, somewhat flustered now. “He wanted a blowjob and I wanted to not be kicked out of the military, it was win-win.”
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“No. It's not important.”
“You seem quite upset about this.”
“Because it wasn't fair!” Arthur broke suddenly. “I shouldn't have had to do that! I'd been good! I hadn't had sex for years, I wasn't even thinking about guys like that anymore! I was doing really well, and I didn't want to do it and I shouldn't have had to! It wasn't fair!”
He was breathing hard; he felt like he'd just been sucker-punched in the gut. His gaze swivelled to the big stuffed panda bear that sat in the corner of the room, for Jo's child patients. He stared at it hard so that he wouldn't have to look at her. He wanted to curl up on the floor next to it. He didn't like therapy anymore. He wanted out.
He just wanted to be with Eames.
That was what held him in his seat, right then, for all those unbearable seconds while Jo soaked this in. He was doing this for Eames.
At last, Jo said softly, “Does that mean you think what happened to you when you were nineteen was fair?”
That was when Arthur had a breakdown and cried in therapy.
Jo gave him a box of tissues. He wished she was Mal.
Something amazing happened after that: Slowly, gradually, Arthur got better.
+++
Somehow, Arthur is the first one awake in the morning, beating even the kids. He knows he's not going to get back to sleep. He rolls out of bed, dresses quietly, and slips out of the house without waking anyone.
He goes for a jog, so that he doesn't have to think. This is what he did when he was living with Cobb before: run every morning. His feet fall into their old route and for a long time it's just him and the steady pounding of his shoes on the sidewalk, the dark sky and orange glow cast by the streetlamps, and the steady in-and-out puff of his breath. Just that and him and nothing else, not even his own thoughts. He can't afford to let those in right now.
He runs for so long that by the time he loops back to Cobb's house, the sun is rising and the children are awake. He can hear them watching TV while he moves quietly around the kitchen, making coffee and pouring cereal into a bowl.
Phillipa joins him at first, intending to have a sit-down breakfast with him like a grown-up. He lets her try some of his coffee, and laughs at the look of comical disgust on her face. Soon the sound of cartoons is too tempting, and she leaves him alone in the kitchen until Cobb comes down the stairs in a houserobe, yawning.
“I made coffee.” Arthur points.
“Thanks.”
It's still warm. Cobb potters around tiredly, fixing himself a cup. He sits across from Arthur at the table and just watches him quietly. Arthur ignores him, rifling through the newspaper; still trying to turn his brain off and not think, not think about that obvious hallucination last night and Brian-fucking-Lackey-
“So,” Cobb says.
Arthur hunches his shoulders and refuses to look up, all non-thoughts of Lackey immediately banished. Here it comes.
“What happened to you and Eames, anyway?”
And that's ... not the question Arthur was expecting. He'd expected Cobb to want to know what he was doing there, anyway, showing up on the doorstep with no warning. Not to express interest in Arthur and Eames' dysfunctional relationship.
“Like I said. We broke up,” Arthur says guardedly.
Cobb doesn't appear to accept that. He rubs at his neck self-consciously. “Arthur, I know we haven't really ... talked much, lately,” he says.
“We don't need to talk about it now,” Arthur tells him.
“Well, maybe we do. I watched you struggle your way through therapy for six months so you could be with Eames, and now you're not even together anymore?”
“He wants me to be someone I can't be,” Arthur says. Cobb shakes his head.
“You didn't see him when he thought he'd lost you for good. He was-different. I didn't even know till then, I didn't realize he-cared for you, but suddenly it was ... obvious.”
Arthur thinks of the Eames he'd met in New York just a couple days ago, and his chest clenches in a hot, unfamiliar way. “Eames is an actor, Cobb.”
Cobb's frowning. Why are you fighting this? Arthur wants to demand angrily. You got the old Arthur back, too sexually repressed and pathetic to have time for anyone but you, just like you wanted. Stop fighting this.
“Are you, um,” Cobb starts, and stops, peering down at his coffee as if he expects it to finish the sentence for him.
“What?” says Arthur impatiently. Cobb lifts his head and looks him in the eye.
“Soliciting yourself?”
“Jesus Christ, Cobb,” Arthur says immediately, disgusted and angry.
“I'm just asking.”
“Well, I'm not,” Arthur snaps. “Not that it's any of your business anyway. Jesus.”
He runs a hand through his hair to disguise how shaken he is, because the truth is, he's thought about it. At night when he misses Eames wrapped around him, wanting him, loving him, he thinks about it. But it's not the same, doesn't even come close. And even if Arthur can kill a man with his bare hands in less than a minute, there's a part of him that's still a scared nineteen-year-old, bleeding in a bathtub.
That's the part of himself that keeps him abhorrent of the idea of fucking some anonymous john. That's the part he hates.
And since he can't kill Neil, he'll just have to settle for leaving Eames.
-unless-
Cobb just watches him uncertainly for a minute-and Arthur hates that, hates the way Cobb acts like he doesn't even know how to approach Arthur anymore even though Arthur was once closer to him than anyone, even though I'm still me-
“Do you want to see your therapist again?” Cobb breaks the silence.
Arthur shakes his head. He likes Jo, he really does-she's not fake, like the majority of the mental health workers Arthur has experienced-but he doesn't want to talk to her about this. They worked so hard together to reconcile Arthur's two halves, and now he just wishes he could undo all of that. He doesn't want her to be disappointed in him.
“Did Ariadne fly over with Miles?” he asks, to change the subject. Cobb looks surprised.
“She graduated awhile ago,” he says. “She has a contract with the university now, actually.” Suddenly he looks embarrassed, which is explained when he adds, “She's my TA.”
“Are you sleeping with her?” Arthur asks spitefully. He considers it a modicum of revenge when Cobb swallows his coffee wrong, starts spluttering and turns bright red, which is answer enough.
+It's a little later when Cobb's phone beeps, a familiar sound even after all this time. Cobb locates it in the next room and wanders back in, scanning the screen distractedly.
“Huh,” he says. Arthur's still reading the newspaper.
“What?”
“I got an email from Eames yesterday morning,” Cobb says. “He said to ask you to call him when you got here.” He pushes his sleep-rumpled hair off his face, studying the little screen. “Did you tell him you were coming?”
Arthur keeps reading, ignoring the tight ball of emotion in his stomach, pushing it down. Just like everything else.
“Delete it,” he says.
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Words: ~7400
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Restless ghosts refuse to stay buried. The (long-overdue) sequel to Requiescat and its coda, Eyes Wide Shut.
Warnings: Brief references to noncon and self-harm.
Author's Note: I hit a massive block and couldn't tell whether it was better to wait however long it took to post the whole story in its entirety, like I had originally wanted, or to share this bit first and then make you all wait for the rest. Unfortunately I see no end in sight, so here it is and you can read it or wait if you prefer! I anticipate two or three parts in total. :)
If you're unfamiliar with the Requiescat verse: This is a Mysterious Skin crossover. Seeing the movie isn't strictly necessary to understand this fic; however, I recommend reading the original Requiescat or at least this or this.
Arthur dumps his belongings on the desk presumably intended for him, and stares. Eames glances up over his laptop from the other side of the room.
“Hello,” he says.
“Right. Hi,” Arthur replies dumbly.
Gershwin bustles in then with an armful of papers, and it takes one glance between the two of them for her to realize something is off. She rounds on Arthur.
“I told you I'd be asking Eames to be the extractor,” she says.
“Right,” Arthur says again. He forces a smile. “No, it's fine. Really.”
I just didn't think he'd fucking say yes.
Eames rubs at his lower lip with a thumb, smiling down at the laptop. Abruptly, Arthur experiences a very real surge of hatred.
“Alright then.” Gershwin dumps down the papers on her own desk. “Let's be grown-ups about this and play nice then, yeah?”
Her phone rings. She glances at it, says, “That's my chemist, just a sec, boys,” and hurries out of the room again, pulling out her cell phone.
Arthur sinks slowly into his chair, pretending to gaze down at his bag. Really, he's stuck on pause, trying to reboot his brain so that he can deal with Eames' proximity to him.
“Did you think I'd pine?” Eames asks, breaking the silence, after a minute has passed.
“No,” Arthur lies.
Eames smiles. It's a sad, lopsided smile.
“I promised myself I wouldn't become a wreck, you know. Not this time. I want you to be happy, Arthur. As long as you're happy, it's easier for me to try and get there, too.”
“Right,” says Arthur.
“Are you happy?” Eames asks.
“Yes,” Arthur lies again.
Another minute passes. They can hear the rise and fall of Gershwin's booming voice in the hall.
Arthur stands, chair legs scraping the floor behind him.
“Obviously this isn't going to work,” he says. He starts to bundle up his things without looking at Eames.
On the way out, he passes Gershwin, who is on her way back in. “I'll find you a new point by the end of the week,” he promises her.
“Wait-Arthur, hold on a sec!”
It's not Gershwin who comes after him, though. It's Eames. He catches Arthur up at the bottom of the stairwell and crowds him into the wall. It's easy, since Arthur doesn't want to touch him.
“Look,” Eames says, his voice gone flat and cold, because he doesn't need to act anymore. “Not that it's any of my business, but-you don't look well. And it's not like you to walk out on any job.”
“You're right,” Arthur says, “it's none of your business.”
Eames blinks. His eyes are hard. Like shards of flint.
“If you need someone to talk to ...”
“Why would it be you?” Arthur cuts him off.
“I meant what I said, before,” Eames says, lowering his voice and crowding even closer to Arthur. “You're in a tailspin and you don't even see it. I'm not going to be there this time to pick up all the pieces when you crash, remember. You made this decision.”
“Get out of my way, Eames,” Arthur snaps.
Eames steps aside. As Arthur is brushing past him, heading for the door, he says, “I just worry about you, you know.”
“You don't get to worry about me anymore, Eames,” Arthur snarls, rounding on him. “I thought I made that clear.”
There's nothing in Eames' face. He's an actor, wearing a mask.
“As crystal,” he says.
Arthur storms out of the building, hoping fervently that he never sees Eames again.
+++
Arthur didn't mean for it to happen the way it did; really, he didn't. He didn't mean for Eames to come home just as he was leaving their flat with a packed suitcase.
Eames grabbed him and said, “What are you doing?”
And Arthur said, “Leaving.”
And Eames said, “Why?”
And what followed was the most ugly, brutal fight of their lovelife.
Arthur didn't know how to explain himself, where to begin justifying his sudden need to run and run.
Eames didn't understand him, didn't want him to go, didn't want to be angry, but was. He grabbed Arthur again and he raised his voice. Every couple has fights, he said. It didn't mean Arthur got to cut and run. They were going to resolve this, he said, right now.
And Arthur said, he didn't want to resolve this. He wanted to leave.
That was when Eames started to turn frantic. Arthur had never seen him like that and it made him uncomfortable. Eames is always smooth and in control, how could he forge otherwise? But Eames was frantic, scared, his grip on Arthur's arms clinging and desperate. Arthur couldn't leave, he said, he just couldn't, not after everything, not because of this. This is stupid, he said. Come back inside, he said. Come back inside, and they'd calm down, and they'd talk, and they'd work everything out because that's what couples do, they argue and then they work it out.
The problem, Arthur said, is that they aren't a normal couple, and never were to begin with, and Eames should have understood that from the start. Why fight so hard to salvage a sinking ship? This wasn't going to work, he explained. It was a nice effort but it's not going to work.
Arthur, and Eames was fucking begging now- Arthur, Arthur, don't, you can't. He said, don't you have any idea how much I love you? Don't you have any fucking idea?
Eames had left him before, Arthur pointed out; and Eames said that he couldn't do it again. If he lost Arthur again, he didn't know what he'd do. He can't live without Arthur in his life, it's too hard, he can't do it again.
They were fighting right there on the cobblestones outside the flat; curious neighbours were poking their heads out of their windows to see what the ruckus was about. Arthur was embarrassed by the scene Eames was making, and that made him feel like an even more terrible person.
They fought, and fought, and Eames tried to hold him, and Arthur pushed away, feeling confined, confused and upset. Stop touching me, the part of him that's Arthur wanted to cry out, roiling with nausea and distaste at Eames' open kicked-dog emotion; the part of him that's more Neil wanted to grab Eames back and devour him, go inside with him and fuck until they couldn't speak to form any argument. They reeled together and apart repeatedly.
And in the end, Arthur only went inside because the sun had set, and he was getting cold.
Eames kissed him fiercely like it was the first time. Arthur let him, because he'd been defeated and he was tired. He went into the bedroom and dropped his suitcase on their shared bed and started to unpack, while Eames hovered in the doorway as though to reassure himself that Arthur was still there. Eventually he left, and Arthur unpacked his belongings in silence. He laid out each article of clothing and re-folded it, smoothing out creases from his initial hasty flight.
When all his clothing was laid out on the bed in neat piles, he stared at it for a minute. Two minutes.
Then he picked up a shirt and started packing again.
When he left the bedroom, suitcase in hand once more, he found Eames slumped sideways against a wall, his eyes glazed over in deep contemplation and a drink in his hand.
“What,” he said, when he saw Arthur standing there. His voice was hoarse. “Why are you ...”
“I'm leaving,” Arthur said again. “But not for good.”
“What do you mean,” Eames said, voice crackling with exhaustion. Arthur had never seen him so close to tears before.
“I just want to go away on my own for a bit. I'll be back. I just need to be alone.”
Eames closed his eyes, shook his head and breathed out: “How can I trust you?”
“I won't sleep around with anyone,” said Arthur. “I won't solicit anyone, I won't ... anything, with anyone.”
“No,” said Eames, opening his eyes. “How can I trust you to come back?”
Arthur set down his suitcase. He opened it and dug around until he found the soft square of cloth wrapped around his totem.
“Here,” he said, and gave it to Eames. “Take good care of it for me. Like you did before.”
Eames stared helplessly down at the tiny wrapped bundle resting on his open palm and Arthur wondered, did he know? Did he know the die was superfluous? Does he know the secret of Arthur's dog tags-that they say Neil in reality, but Arthur in another person's dream?
But eventually all Eames said was, “How long will you be gone?”
“I don't know,” said Arthur. “A month.”
Eames' lips framed the words silently as though in disbelief. A month.
“But I'll be back,” Arthur said, again, and at the time, he meant it. “I will. I just ... don't want you to follow me or call me.”
Eames ducked his head and dug his thumb and finger into his eyes, squeezing them shut. When he let his hand fall away there were tears in his eyes.
“Okay,” he said.
Relief spilled over Arthur. He walked over to Eames, who watched him guardedly like he thought Arthur was about to hit him, but didn't move away. Arthur kissed him, just a light press of lips against lips. He didn't hear the words Eames mouthed against him pleadingly, but he knew what they were: Please don't go.
He pretended not to notice, and stepped away. “I'll come back.”
“Okay,” Eames repeated, voice breaking slightly.
And Arthur left.
Two months ago today.
+++
He goes to Cobb's, because he doesn't know where else to go.
The retired extractor looks startled when he opens the door. “Arthur,” he says.
“Sorry,” Arthur says quietly. “I should have called ...”
He breaks off when Cobb pulls him into an awkward, one-armed hug.
It's pretty uncomfortable. Again he feels that strange divide: the desire to bristle and push away, and the blossoming warmth of physical contact with another human being; the stupid, childish craving for more. He holds still, unsettled. I'm breaking in half, he thinks.
Then Cobb releases him, and is saying, “Sorry-I've just been thinking about how we left things, and I don't know how to feel, Arthur, I really don't, but I don't want to shut you out of my life or my kids' lives just because of something that happened so long ago ...”
Arthur is spared from coming up with a response when Phillipa hits him almost hard enough to knock him over, locking her arms around his knees. “Uncle Arthur!”
“Pippa-hi!” Startled, he attempts to disentangle her arms from their grip around his legs so that he can crouch down to her level and hug her. “Um, shouldn't you be in school?”
“It's Thanksgiving,” Cobb offers.
“I made a turkey!” Phillipa yells, and runs off as suddenly as she appeared. Arthur straightens up slowly, not meeting Cobb's eyes.
“Stay for dinner,” Cobb says, after a moment. “Ariadne's here. Miles and Marie are too.”
“Maybe I should go,” says Arthur quietly.
“Don't.” Cobb squeezes his shoulder with one hand, another awkward gesture. “You're family.”
At that moment Phillipa reappears, yelling “Uncle Arthur's here!” and waving a piece of brown construction paper cut out roughly in the shape of her hand, red and blue craft feathers glued haphazardly on. Arthur immediately hunkers down again to admire it, and Ariadne is on Phillipa's heels to give him a greeting hug, and Cobb quietly lifts his bag inside and shuts the door, deciding it.
Cobb and Ariadne work on dinner while Arthur takes a shower, and when he goes back downstairs, Miles is watching the Macy's Day Parade with both children. Arthur joins him for lack of anything better to do and James immediately crawls into his lap and gets comfortable there, sucking his thumb. Phillipa is busy drawing pictures of the floats with crayons on the floor at their feet.
“Hello, Arthur.” Miles smiles at him, kindly as ever, and Arthur musters up a smile in response. He used to feel a particular sort of awe for the older man, back when Arthur lived and breathed the dreamshare experience. Miles is still, after all, one of the world's leading experts, and Arthur is lucky to know him; but more than that, he's Mal's father, and Arthur has always respected him for that because Arthur loved Mal. Now he feels discomfort more than anything else, because Miles knows. Arthur wonders what he must see, when Miles looks at him. A former hustler? The man who indirectly caused his daughter's death? Surely not the sharp young man he'd seen Arthur as before. Arthur wonders if Miles ever dwells on the fact that he's currently in a gay sexual relationship, as Cobb so painfully and obviously does.
But if he's thinking any of these things, he doesn't show it. Mal inherited her beauty from her mother, but her kind nature was all Miles.
“How are you?” Miles asks.
“Fine,” says Arthur, trying his hardest to be particularly respectable. “And you?”
“Very well. I see Eames isn't with you.”
Now Arthur's wondering why Cobb didn't point this out. Was he relieved? Does it make him that uncomfortable, the reality of Arthur and Eames together? Either way Arthur is glad. He has no desire to explain that they split up.
“He's not American,” Arthur replies, trying to affect a joking tone. “He doesn't understand.”
“I'll use any excuse to get in on a good meal, me,” Miles says, smiling.
Floats trundle past on the screen. The house smells like stuffing. Arthur leans back into the couch and James leans against him, head bobbing occasionally like he's drifting slowly off to sleep. Arthur could use a nap. He wraps his arms loosely around James and shuts his eyes.
He's woken when Miles gives his shoulder a gentle shake. Something else is on TV, some cartoon, the volume muted, and at some point James has left his lap.
“Suppertime,” says Miles.
Arthur is quiet throughout dinner. He wants to go back to sleep. He wants to sleep and sleep all week because it's been two months and he still doesn't know what's worse: being with Eames, or being away from Eames. But Ariadne is in the guest bedroom (Miles and Marie are staying at separate hotels), which means Arthur will get the couch, which means he'll have to stay up until everyone else has gone to sleep.
Phillipa says they all have to say something they're thankful for. Arthur can think of a lot of things. I'm thankful for my life of crime and all the money it brings me. I'm thankful you didn't put me in a fucking mental hospital, Dom. But neither seem appropriate in front of the children so he lies and says he's thankful he gets to spend Thanksgiving with his favourite family, which makes Cobb give him a half-smile across the table.
After dinner Phillipa spreads out her paper and crayons on the kitchen table and starts drawing, and James wants to draw now too, so he joins her. Arthur helps clear up until Ariadne shoos him away, so he sits with the kids, and Phillipa thrusts a piece of paper and a red crayon at him and tells him he has to draw a float from the parade. He asks if a balloon is okay instead. Phillipa considers for a long time and says yes, and Arthur gets to work. He's a sucker for the Cobbs, and he knows it.
Miles and Marie are helping Cobb do the dishes. They've switched to French, which is probably why Marie doesn't bother to lower her voice when she says:
I wouldn't trust him around the children, Dominic, you know what he is.
And she shoots a quick glance at Arthur.
Does she not know that Mal taught Arthur to speak rudimentary French?
Arthur blinks, momentarily stunned. She's talking about him being a queer-he's pretty sure, at least-but Cobb catches his eye then and Arthur knows: Cobb probably knows the statistics as well as Arthur does. And it makes him burn hot and nauseous in his throat, because he isn't like that at all. It's normal to have those thoughts, his therapist fucking said so, she said he's normal; normal and not a pedophile unless he acts on them, and they're not like that, not fucking desires, even if they're-arousing; they're more like-part memory and part something else, and it doesn't matter anyway because he's been trying so hard to stop having them.
And it's James and Phillipa. Like he'd ever fucking hurt them.
Ariadne, who is packaging up leftovers in tupperware containers, shoots Arthur a worried glance. Cobb sees the flash in his eyes. He turns away and growls softly in French, I don't ever want to hear you talking like that in English in front of my kids.
Arthur shows his drawing to Phillipa and when she examines it carefully and deems it satisfactory, and starts colouring it in with broad scribbles of blue, he shoves his chair away from the table and says, “I'm going to lie down.”
He doesn't manage to fall asleep. He lies on his back on the couch and stares at the ceiling for at least an hour, until Phillipa is suddenly peering into his face.
“Daddy said to tell you dessert is ready,” she says.
Arthur gets up slowly. He's been here half a day and he already wants to leave.
“Do you remember your mom?” he asks Phillipa.
She shrugs. Arthur thinks that's fucking tragic.
+When the children are in bed, and Miles and Marie have left for their respective hotel rooms, Cobb and Ariadne and Arthur sit at the kitchen table and drink the tea Ariadne brews for them.
“So-” Ariadne and Cobb exchange a quick glance that Arthur doesn't like at all before she continues “-where's Eames, anyway?”
It's meant to sound casual, and it's a fair question, because everyone in their business knows that he and Eames are an item now. It doesn't stop him from wanting to snap mind your own fucking business.
“He's in New York on a job,” he answers belatedly. “We broke up,” he adds.
Ariadne's face falls. Cobb's remains carefully neutral.
“I'm sorry,” he says. Arthur shrugs.
“It wasn't working out.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Ariadne asks tentatively.
“Not really.”
She and Cobb turn to a different subject, to Arthur's relief, and they stay on that for awhile. Arthur wonders idly if they're fucking. Probably not. Of course, Cobb would be just the type to put Ariadne up in the guest bedroom even if they were sleeping together, for the sake of his children's delicate sensibilities. More likely Ariadne just came along with Miles for a free meal. Canadian Thanksgiving was last month, but maybe it reminds her of home.
“Where do you want to sleep?” Cobb asks, and it takes Arthur a second to realize the question is being directed at him. He blinks. “The kids are probably going to be up early to watch cartoons,” Cobb goes on ruefully. “I could try to dig up a sleeping bag or something, put you on the floor in my room ...”
“We could just share a bed, like old days,” Arthur points out dryly. It's a joke, but Cobb doesn't laugh. Probably thinks I'm coming onto him, Arthur thinks.
“Bunk with me.” Ariadne gives him a nudge. “I don't mind.”
Cobb immediately looks pained. “That's okay. I'm sure I have a sleeping bag around somewhere ...”
“Seriously, Cobb, the guest bed is massive. What are you worried about, my virtue? It's Arthur.”
Of course it is. Dry, boring, asexual stick-in-the-mud Arthur. Nothing to worry about at all. Arthur props his chin on one hand, amused.
“I don't know,” Cobb says doubtfully.
“Does he snore?”
“No,” Arthur says, offended, at the same time Cobb does.
“Then what's the big deal?” says Ariadne.
“Works for me,” Arthur says, partly to be perverse. Cobb still looks pained, but after a moment he accepts this solution and they all head upstairs.
Cobb hovers in the doorway until Arthur says to Ariadne, “Here, you can sleep under the sheets, and I'll sleep on top of them but still under the covers. No accidental touching that way.”
She agrees that it's a good plan and they take turns in the guest bathroom, which is actually the kids' bathroom. It's messier than he remembers. There's a stool in front of the sink, for James, and the counter is smeared with toothpaste in a few areas. The mirror is grimy from little fingerprints and where there isn't toothpaste, there's a few puddles of water. Arthur hopes he never has kids. He mops up the counter idly before brushing his teeth.
Ariadne is in her pyjamas when he returns, tucked in bed with a book. “Sorry,” she says. “I'll turn the lamp off in a few minutes, I promise.”
“Don't worry about it,” says Arthur. He crawls under the covers, leaving the buffer sheet under him. There's more than enough space between them. “What's the book about?”
“Aliens,” she says vaguely. Arthur expected something more to do with architecture. God, he really is boring.
He shoves his pillow around until it's somewhat less lumpy and says, “Are you sleeping with Cobb?”
She immediately bursts into giggles. “God, Arthur. He's like twenty years older than me.”
“He's thirteen years older than you.” As a point man, it's Arthur's job to know these things.
Ariadne's blushing furiously. “That's-still.”
Arthur wonders what the appropriate cut-off age difference is, and realizes he has no idea. Thirteen years doesn't seem like that much to him, but evidently it's enough to get him laughed at.
He rolls onto his side, away from the glare of the lamp, and shuts his eyes. Then he rolls over again, trying to get comfortable. Ariadne's book has a black jacket with a blurb in white text on the back. From where he is, he can't see the cover page. Above the blurb, bold typeface reads: Taken.
“Good book?”
“Yeah,” says Ariadne. “It's about a guy who was abducted by aliens when he was a kid and he can't remember anything about that night. He starts finding clues and remembering over the course of the book. It's pretty dark, actually. There's some fucked-up stuff in here. But it's really good.”
Taken. Sounds familiar.
“You might like it,” she says, and shows him the cover. The picture is black, matching the rest of the jacket, pitch black with a single light placed off-centre like the high-beam of a car dead ahead. Taken, it says at the top, and at the bottom in smaller print, Brian Lackey.
Arthur is quiet for a long moment, just processing. Then he takes the book and sits up, opening it to the last page. It even has a picture of him, Brian fucking Lackey, right there as if he isn't really dead but is still alive, walking around, knowing Arthur's secrets. There's a little 'About the Author' blurb. Arthur doesn't want to look at it. He shoves the book back at Ariadne, feeling sick right down to his core.
“I'm going to sleep,” he says.
“Okay,” she says uncertainly, obviously not sure what to make of his reaction. He rolls over again, facing the wall, and after a few minutes, she turns her lamp off.
Brian fucking Lackey. As if Arthur didn't have enough reminders walking around of how really fucked-up he is.
+++
The last time Arthur was apart from Eames for any extended amount of time, it happened like this:
For the first week or so after Cobb brought him home from the hospital, during the night, he would cry until he was sick. During the day, he pretended to sleep, curled on his side and facing the wall so that he wouldn't have to face Cobb or, worse yet, Eames, who hovered over him constantly, and tears scalded the backs of his eyelids.
“Eat,” Eames would say, coaxing, filling up the space between them with inane chatter. “Please, darling. You've got to eat something. Look, see what I've brought you? They're banana chocolate chip scones. I've buttered one for you, it's right here if you want it. I already tried one, they're very good. They're from a bakery nearby. It's called Cobb's Bakery, isn't that odd? Cobb swears there's no relation. Can you imagine?”
He didn't want to waste food on himself when he knew he'd only throw it up later. He stared at the ceiling and concentrated on breathing: In. Out. Eames sighed, and eventually gave up.
He blamed Eames, because it had always been Eames before, making his head hurt so bad he threw up and cried. Eames reminded him of who he used to be, who he was supposed to be-somebody who was attracted to men and was raped because of it-and that was why his mind had always stonewalled him at that thought, viciously broken him down and then reassembled him with no memory of his near slip-ups.
So he lay in bed and let shudders wrack his body. He was the best point man in the world-he was a messed-up kid who prostituted himself to older men. He was a smooth-talking con man and a thief-he was a worthless fuck-up from Kansas. He lay in bed, and shuddered, and thought numbly, I was raped.
Arthur would never let himself be raped. Who the hell was he?
He felt like he was screaming and nobody was listening.
Eames kept coming back and he just couldn't stop crying, he didn't even know where it was coming from anymore, he was so fucking exhausted; and so finally, he told Eames to leave.
And Eames did.
It was the worst night of his entire life.
He'd never felt this alone, not even in limbo.
That's how, the next day, he wound up kneeling on the bathroom floor, pressing a razor into his wrists so hard the blade was trembling-
There was so much blood on the floor. He was gasping for breath. It surrounded him and he thought, it's poetic, because a bathroom's where he died the first time--
Looking back now, he doesn't remember actually dialling 911. He just remembers thinking over and over and over to the point where he was probably repeating it out loud, I made a mistake. I made a mistake. I made a mistake.
+Cobb took him home.
He wore a grey hoodie with long frayed sleeves and slouched in the passenger seat, pressing trembling fingers to the window he was staring out of.
Cobb didn't say anything right away. He looked haggard and pale. But eventually, he managed, and his voice was hoarse.
“What if you'd actually done it?” he said, grief twisting the words. “What the hell would I say to Eames?”
He hunched his shoulders, shrunk defensively into himself like a sullen teenager.
“You almost killed yourself, Neil.”
“Don't call me that,” he mumbled, still gazing out the window so that he couldn't see Cobb's face. Cobb was silent.
When they got back to Cobb's house, he parked in the driveway, killed the engine and just sat there. Arthur sat quietly next to him, plucking absently at his sleeves, which covered the bandages on his wrists.
“I talked to your doctor,” Cobb said finally. “He wants you to start seeing a therapist.”
“Why,” Arthur said in a dull whisper, not caring.
“To help you. I think it would help you. I'll pay for it, if you want.”
Arthur just retreated deeper into his seat, like it could hide him from Cobb, and closed his eyes.
Cobb exhaled slowly and got out of the car. After a minute, Arthur followed suit.
Later, when the kids were in bed and he was in his room, lying in bed and gazing up at the ceiling as usual, trying to imagine spending day in and day out lying here in this same bed and staring at this ceiling (spending every day of his life without Eames), he heard his name. He slid out of bed and crept to the top of the stairs. Cobb was on the phone downstairs. His voice was indistinct.
Arthur slipped into Cobb's bedroom and lifted the phone as quietly as he could. He raised it to his ear and could hear Cobb speaking.
“... and I just-God, it just seems like a horrible thing to even be thinking about. It's Arthur, he's practically family. He's like a brother to me. Part of me doesn't even want to be considering it. But on the other hand ...”
“You're not a psychiatrist, Dom.” Miles' voice, recognizably English, was reassuring. “Nobody expects you to handle this on your own.”
“I feel like I'd be betraying him or something. But I'm scared he's going to do it again.” There was an unfamiliar waver in the words. “I just don't know what else to do. The doctor said it's a nice place.”
“Mental institutions have cleaned up a lot.”
“And he'd get regular treatment. He needs something. I don't know how to help him. He's a danger to himself and I, I have a job, a life ...”
“Well, I think it's a good idea,” Miles said gently. “Think about what's best for you and the children and for Arthur. He's not going to get any better lying around your house all day. He needs help, Dom.”
“It's not like I want to make him someone else's problem,” Cobb said desperately. “It's not that. It's just, shit, I already went through this with Mal, and I can't, again, I can't ...”
Arthur hung up silently.
He stayed up all night with a migraine that made him shiver and sweat and vomit, as usual. He didn't know why. He was terrified that, in the morning, an ambulance would show up to have him involuntarily committed; but he didn't think it was that. This time, his whole body was crying out for Eames. He wanted to be so, so far away from this place.
He wanted to run away, since Cobb had hidden away every sharp object and pill in the house; but he couldn't, because of his headache, so he just scrunched up in bed and breathed through clenched teeth, all night. He tried not to think of the blurred memories he had of his previous episodes and the way Eames promised to take care of him each time.
In the morning he waited until he heard Cobb get up, then followed him down to the kitchen where Cobb was making coffee.
“I'll do it,” he said quietly, voice husky from lack of use. “The therapy. I'll try it.”
Cobb turned to him with a tired but warm smile of relief, and patted his arm briefly, comfortingly.
“It'll help, Arthur, I promise,” he said softly, and Arthur thought, it'll have to.
+The therapist told him to call her Jo. Her real name was Josephina.
“Obviously, my parents hated me,” she said.
“I thought we were here to talk about my issues,” he replied.
Jo laughed and he decided, cautiously, to like her.
“Okay, Arthur,” she said. “Why don't you start by telling me why you're here and what you hope to get out of this?”
“Okay,” he said. “I was sexually abused by my baseball coach when I was eight, I became a hustler when I was fifteen, and I was raped when I was nineteen, and until recently, I had repressed all of this. You tell me why I'm here.”
“Touché,” said Jo. “No more bullshit psychotherapy questions for you, huh?”
“I would appreciate it.”
Jo was as good as her word. After that, she conversed with him as though they were old friends catching up after a long period of estrangement. Arthur didn't make it easy on her, though. She had to pry every answer out of him like he was clutching his secrets protectively in his hands. He wasn't used to baring himself to people. Half of him still felt like his former life was nothing but a dizzying, exhilarating dream. For at least three sessions it was a frustrating endless loop: Jo didn't know how to help him achieve what he wanted; Arthur didn't even know what it was he wanted. At first, all she did was ask him questions about his life to try and form a solid background, and Arthur puzzled together his dichotomous life with her.
When he arrived for his fourth session he declared, “I want to have a relationship with Eames.”
Jo blinked, and a smile spread across her face. “That sounds like a very worthwhile goal, Arthur.”
“Really?” he said. It struck him that he may have been slightly belligerant about his declaration. He took a seat and tempered his tone. “Do you think I can do it?”
Jo's bright smile warmed him. “I really do.”
He believed her. And after that, with this goal in mind, they set out to solve Arthur's problems.
It was several sessions more before he had any kind of breakthrough. He wanted Eames-he knew he wanted Eames-but he couldn't untrain his brain's repressive defensive mechanisms, trying to hide things away where nobody could find them. He struggled pathetically to verbalize any kind of emotion he felt. He grew sullen and closed-off when they discussed sex. He hated talking about Coach and Brighton Beach even more. He already knew that it wasn't until the latter that he'd realized how wrong the former was; he didn't need Jo to tell him that. Their breakthrough happened quite unexpectedly.
“Have you ever seen a therapist before, Arthur?” Jo asked.
“I had psych evals in the military,” he said. “And we all had to do a session with a psychologist when we started dream-sharing.”
Jo's eyebrows raised. “Dream-sharing? As in extraction?”
Arthur nodded, looking away; this seemed so irrelevant. “I was involved in that Project, he was an extractor hired by the government.”
“Did he diagnose you with anything?”
Now Arthur shook his head, briskly. “He just went under with each of us for a few minutes and poked around to see if he could find anything unusual, anything that could jeopardize our training or dreambuilding.”
“And what did he find in your dream?” Jo asked. Arthur shifted in his seat.
“He found out I was gay. Look, can we not talk about this?”
“Is it making you uncomfortable?”
“No,” he said. “I just don't ... see the relevance.”
“He found out you were gay,” said Jo. “That must have been awkward, given that you were in the military.”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Arthur, rubbing at his arm distractedly.
“What happened then?”
“He didn't tell anyone,” said Arthur.
“No?”
“No. I gave him a blowjob and he didn't tell anyone.”
Jo stopped writing on her clipboard then. She looked up at him, her eyes both piercing and concerned behind the lenses of her glasses, reminding him strangely of Eames for a moment.
“You had oral sex with him?”
“He asked for a blowjob,” said Arthur. “I gave him one. I didn't want him telling anyone.”
“Arthur,” said Jo, so intense it made him feel self-conscious. “That's a serious abuse of position of trust.”
“He asked,” said Arthur, growing defensive and uncertain.
“Did you want to do it?”
“No, of course I didn't want to. It was a business transaction, alright?” said Arthur, somewhat flustered now. “He wanted a blowjob and I wanted to not be kicked out of the military, it was win-win.”
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“No. It's not important.”
“You seem quite upset about this.”
“Because it wasn't fair!” Arthur broke suddenly. “I shouldn't have had to do that! I'd been good! I hadn't had sex for years, I wasn't even thinking about guys like that anymore! I was doing really well, and I didn't want to do it and I shouldn't have had to! It wasn't fair!”
He was breathing hard; he felt like he'd just been sucker-punched in the gut. His gaze swivelled to the big stuffed panda bear that sat in the corner of the room, for Jo's child patients. He stared at it hard so that he wouldn't have to look at her. He wanted to curl up on the floor next to it. He didn't like therapy anymore. He wanted out.
He just wanted to be with Eames.
That was what held him in his seat, right then, for all those unbearable seconds while Jo soaked this in. He was doing this for Eames.
At last, Jo said softly, “Does that mean you think what happened to you when you were nineteen was fair?”
That was when Arthur had a breakdown and cried in therapy.
Jo gave him a box of tissues. He wished she was Mal.
Something amazing happened after that: Slowly, gradually, Arthur got better.
+++
Somehow, Arthur is the first one awake in the morning, beating even the kids. He knows he's not going to get back to sleep. He rolls out of bed, dresses quietly, and slips out of the house without waking anyone.
He goes for a jog, so that he doesn't have to think. This is what he did when he was living with Cobb before: run every morning. His feet fall into their old route and for a long time it's just him and the steady pounding of his shoes on the sidewalk, the dark sky and orange glow cast by the streetlamps, and the steady in-and-out puff of his breath. Just that and him and nothing else, not even his own thoughts. He can't afford to let those in right now.
He runs for so long that by the time he loops back to Cobb's house, the sun is rising and the children are awake. He can hear them watching TV while he moves quietly around the kitchen, making coffee and pouring cereal into a bowl.
Phillipa joins him at first, intending to have a sit-down breakfast with him like a grown-up. He lets her try some of his coffee, and laughs at the look of comical disgust on her face. Soon the sound of cartoons is too tempting, and she leaves him alone in the kitchen until Cobb comes down the stairs in a houserobe, yawning.
“I made coffee.” Arthur points.
“Thanks.”
It's still warm. Cobb potters around tiredly, fixing himself a cup. He sits across from Arthur at the table and just watches him quietly. Arthur ignores him, rifling through the newspaper; still trying to turn his brain off and not think, not think about that obvious hallucination last night and Brian-fucking-Lackey-
“So,” Cobb says.
Arthur hunches his shoulders and refuses to look up, all non-thoughts of Lackey immediately banished. Here it comes.
“What happened to you and Eames, anyway?”
And that's ... not the question Arthur was expecting. He'd expected Cobb to want to know what he was doing there, anyway, showing up on the doorstep with no warning. Not to express interest in Arthur and Eames' dysfunctional relationship.
“Like I said. We broke up,” Arthur says guardedly.
Cobb doesn't appear to accept that. He rubs at his neck self-consciously. “Arthur, I know we haven't really ... talked much, lately,” he says.
“We don't need to talk about it now,” Arthur tells him.
“Well, maybe we do. I watched you struggle your way through therapy for six months so you could be with Eames, and now you're not even together anymore?”
“He wants me to be someone I can't be,” Arthur says. Cobb shakes his head.
“You didn't see him when he thought he'd lost you for good. He was-different. I didn't even know till then, I didn't realize he-cared for you, but suddenly it was ... obvious.”
Arthur thinks of the Eames he'd met in New York just a couple days ago, and his chest clenches in a hot, unfamiliar way. “Eames is an actor, Cobb.”
Cobb's frowning. Why are you fighting this? Arthur wants to demand angrily. You got the old Arthur back, too sexually repressed and pathetic to have time for anyone but you, just like you wanted. Stop fighting this.
“Are you, um,” Cobb starts, and stops, peering down at his coffee as if he expects it to finish the sentence for him.
“What?” says Arthur impatiently. Cobb lifts his head and looks him in the eye.
“Soliciting yourself?”
“Jesus Christ, Cobb,” Arthur says immediately, disgusted and angry.
“I'm just asking.”
“Well, I'm not,” Arthur snaps. “Not that it's any of your business anyway. Jesus.”
He runs a hand through his hair to disguise how shaken he is, because the truth is, he's thought about it. At night when he misses Eames wrapped around him, wanting him, loving him, he thinks about it. But it's not the same, doesn't even come close. And even if Arthur can kill a man with his bare hands in less than a minute, there's a part of him that's still a scared nineteen-year-old, bleeding in a bathtub.
That's the part of himself that keeps him abhorrent of the idea of fucking some anonymous john. That's the part he hates.
And since he can't kill Neil, he'll just have to settle for leaving Eames.
-unless-
Cobb just watches him uncertainly for a minute-and Arthur hates that, hates the way Cobb acts like he doesn't even know how to approach Arthur anymore even though Arthur was once closer to him than anyone, even though I'm still me-
“Do you want to see your therapist again?” Cobb breaks the silence.
Arthur shakes his head. He likes Jo, he really does-she's not fake, like the majority of the mental health workers Arthur has experienced-but he doesn't want to talk to her about this. They worked so hard together to reconcile Arthur's two halves, and now he just wishes he could undo all of that. He doesn't want her to be disappointed in him.
“Did Ariadne fly over with Miles?” he asks, to change the subject. Cobb looks surprised.
“She graduated awhile ago,” he says. “She has a contract with the university now, actually.” Suddenly he looks embarrassed, which is explained when he adds, “She's my TA.”
“Are you sleeping with her?” Arthur asks spitefully. He considers it a modicum of revenge when Cobb swallows his coffee wrong, starts spluttering and turns bright red, which is answer enough.
+It's a little later when Cobb's phone beeps, a familiar sound even after all this time. Cobb locates it in the next room and wanders back in, scanning the screen distractedly.
“Huh,” he says. Arthur's still reading the newspaper.
“What?”
“I got an email from Eames yesterday morning,” Cobb says. “He said to ask you to call him when you got here.” He pushes his sleep-rumpled hair off his face, studying the little screen. “Did you tell him you were coming?”
Arthur keeps reading, ignoring the tight ball of emotion in his stomach, pushing it down. Just like everything else.
“Delete it,” he says.