Chapter Text
"Not now-...N-Not yet, Eames..."
Arthur clamped his legs tighter around Eames' waist, squeezing his thighs tightly together, though he could feel exactly how Eames let out a deep moan, breathless, as if that movement alone was too much for him. But Arthur couldn't help himself. He needed this, needed it a moment longer, needed to keep this feeling. He needed Eames' thrusts, especially the deep, penetrating ones, to stay with his mind.
Eames braced his tense arms to the left and right of Arthur's body, breathing in and out deeply, stopping the movement of his hips only briefly. Arthur exhaled warmly against his face, trying to keep each movement with him, the hard pressure of Eames' stiff cock inside him. Eames was almost at the end, he knew it. He was as close to climax as Arthur was, but Arthur didn't want it to stop, not now. He needed this so much. They looked at each other for a moment, then Eames put on a slight grin, and his hips moved again, in and out, his cock so wet and moist from the lube and their precum, sliding inside Arthur's stretched hole. So sharp at the close. Arthur's eyes fluttered shut, clutching his legs even tighter, clawing his hands almost powerlessly into Eames' forearms. He could feel the soft trembling in them keenly - and also his own helpless exhalation against the sensation. Building up his orgasm, Eames' orgasm, that constant intensity.
"Don't, I need...this- I need it, Eames," Arthur groaned out, but Eames didn't hear. He grunted softly, pressing his pelvis harder between Arthur's legs, thrusting and thrusting, at that perfect, warm angle that had long made Arthur's legs tremble. The wet in and out, over and over, the gliding of Eames' cock inside him, never all the way out of Arthur, always just barely to the tip. It was driving him crazy.
"You need this now," Eames grumbled, the pressure tightening, the steady rhythm slowly fading. Eames must have been heading straight for his orgasm, because his movements were becoming more uncoordinated, had less precision. Arthur could feel it, somehow. The way the cock inside him was getting thicker, that soft, tingling pull in his belly, the feeling when Eames was about to come. Arthur loved it. But today, it came too soon. Even though he could feel the licking of his own cock, the drops of pleasure, that feeling of not being able to take it anymore. He would hardly be able to avoid coming if Eames didn't finally slow down.
"Eames, please. I need this today, I need you to....-ah,fuck!... Eames, please, I need...", Arthur moaned, but Eames didn't obey. The strong arms moved, one arm now bracing itself against the bed with his hand, the other arm loosening, seeking Arthur's neck, squeezing lightly, just above the soft spot above his throat. Arthur swallowed, and a tingling wave of pleasure shot straight to his belly. He could feel, accurately, his Adam's apple passing Eames' firm grip, and it was a wonderful feeling. That firm push past the muscle, the restricted air supply, it made Arthur pleasantly dizzy.
Eames thrusted harder, falling into a blind, hard rhythm, and his breathing changed. And though Arthur's legs continued to clench so tightly that Eames had to feel the pressure exactly, that he had to feel Arthur's pleading - it didn't stop him.
Arthur counted the thrusts in his head, the pleasant feeling of dizziness and pressure in his body, and threw his head back as far as the pillow beneath him would allow.
There were exactly ten thrusts, hard and unrelenting, until Eames let out a low murmur, and his hips sputtered, twice, and then stopped, his hard cock firmly and deeply penetrating Arthur, deeper than before, his bulging balls pressed tightly against Arthur's hole. And fuck, how hard Eames came. Arthur loved the feeling when he came inside him - so wet, so warm, so incredibly good.
It drove him completely over the top this time too, speechless and completely free of everything, the pleasant draft of air only sweetening the feeling. It had happened several times before that Arthur had come undone, just like that - and today was another one of those days.
Eames thrusted hard a few more times when he felt and saw Arthur coming; his hips gave him their all once more, and it truly drove a fierce blush into Arthur's face. Fuck, no one could do this as perfectly as Eames. And it wasn't just that perfect body, no. It was so much more. Eames always seemed to know exactly what to do to blow his mind, knew every spot on his body to turn him into liquid butter.
And that was despite the fact that this wasn't a reality.
They were silent as they lay side by side after their orgasms had come down, their gazes fixed towards the ceiling. Arthur blinked, still consciously trying to regain his breathing, to calm his lungs.
They had started meeting here a long time ago, in one of their dreams, to make love. It had started harmlessly, after a project, drunk, they had said, "Just once, and not for real." Had created this space, this place that only they knew. Where they could be what they wanted, who they wanted. Could do what they wanted. Four years it had been going on. Arthur licked his lips softly, then looked over at Eames.
"Eames?" he asked, and Eames raised his eyebrows. He didn't look at Arthur, though, but closed his eyes instead. Your voice, he had once said. I like your voice, Arthur.
"Hmm."
"Four years, right?"
"Right."
"Don't you think it's-... it's about time we do this outside of a dream? I want to feel the real Eames for once, and not just your ghost," Arthur said, quietly and honestly out as he was. He had always had a disarming honesty, which of course didn't do much good with Eames, the goddamn thief. Even though Arthur kept saying: people could change, they just needed time.
Four years.
Eames shrugged, then propped himself off the bed, sat on the edge of it and began putting on his socks. Arthur stared at the beginnings of his tattoos on his back, beautifully shaped and something that had always fascinated him. His own body bore not a single one, at least not in real life. Once, Eames had wished to see Arthur completely tattooed - and Arthur had granted him that wish in a dream. It had been hard and brutal, and Arthur had come twice that day.
Once with Eames' hot come on his face as he'd jerked himself off - and once when Eames had fucked him from behind like that, hands splayed open like an addict on the beautiful patterns on Arthur's back.
"You know this is...- sort of complicated, huh?" Eames said, and Arthur snarled.
"Complicated? It's no different than here."
"It's always complicated in real life, you know that very well."
"Eames, four years! By now we know each other so well, and I want to feel you for real just once, without this room, in my bed, in my room, in the kitchen because of me, I don't care...!"
"We'll talk about it, I have to go now."
"Ah, sure.", Arthur snorted, running his hand through his wet hair. Sweaty he was, still, even as Eames leaned over him and kissed him softly on the forehead, his face decorated with his trademark grin.
"I really have to get going. I'll write to you. I promise, okay? And then we can talk about it, too, about.... Whatever it is you want again. Okay?"
Arthur frowned. "Okay."
He watched Eames as he got dressed and stalked out of the room. Staying behind, he did as he always did. It took Arthur a while to get himself together to gather his own clothes and slowly get dressed. His whole body ached, and he only now realized how much he had clung to this. How much this had tugged at his body. How much he had wanted to hold Eames, just a few minutes longer.
"Fuck.", he groaned out, and walked into the bathroom. It was beautifully tiled, black tiles, and indirect warm light. A large shower, and two sinks for them both, two large round mirrors. On the walls hung photos of days that existed only here, that were only a reflection of memories in dreams. Like a relationship that didn't exist in reality, but that they both only dreamed of, too cowardly to take this into the real world.
His favorite picture was the one where he was lying in Eames' arms, and Eames had his chin pressed very close to Arthur's hair. Because he was smiling so beautifully there. Somehow sincere.
Arthur ran his fingers through his hair again, stared at his own image in that unreal mirror, and then rolled his eyes slightly when suddenly, out of nowhere, fine letters formed on the mirror.
It was like someone breathing on the mirror from the other side, or like hot steam after a shower - something blurry. A smart way of communication between the worlds they had started a few months ago, it had been Arthur's idea. Arthur watched patiently as the letters formed into a sentence. Letter by letter, in Eames' incredibly spidery and illegible handwriting, this awful mess.
Still, it made Arthur smile.
I'm going to miss you in Mombasa.
Arthur blinked, emitted a soft, amused, snort as his fingers clutched tightly at the ceramic in the basin.
And when he woke up again, in reality, alone - he was as tired as if he hadn't slept in ten years, even though he had just woken up from their shared dream. He blindly pulled the IV from the PASIV out of his arm, and pressed a small piece of swab to the crook of his arm to stop the blood.
It was almost funny - in reality, he was always lonely.
§---§---§
Perhaps it was his manner that Eames couldn't stand. Maybe because Arthur was a little pedantic in real life, a little too neat, because he always had to have his things strictly arranged and tidy. He himself never creased the pages of the books he read - even there he couldn't stand chaos. He liked order even at his meals, and always ate in order, neatly with cutlery.
Eames was quite different. Eames always mashed his food together, mixed everything in everything, and was an unfathomable slob when it wasn't about technology. He always had everything in chaos, and Arthur got a shock almost every time he opened Eames' suitcase. It always seemed as if Eames had just unceremoniously turned over his closet and stuffed it into the suitcase, whereas with Arthur, nothing went into the suitcase without first being ironed. And yes, he ironed his underwear too, he was that bad.
But Arthur liked magnetism. Wasn't it true that opposites attracted? The North Pole attracted the South Pole, the Earth's magnetic fields harmonized precisely because they were different?
"You're thinking. About what?" a familiar voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and Arthur winced. He blinked before lifting his gaze, staring into the familiar eyes of Eames, of the real Eames who had made himself comfortable across from him. His tie was crooked, and it irritated Arthur inwardly - because it was tied exactly an inch longer than on the other side, but he couldn't say that now. He decided instead to look at Eames' face, the real face. He didn't often see it, after all.
"About magnetism. Energy fields." he replied, and Eames let out an amused snort.
"Oh, that's exactly what I've been thinking about, too," he joked, but Arthur just raised his eyebrows, unimpressed.
"What's the matter, Eames? Is there something about the job?"
"No. I was going to... um, do you think we can just meet in our room, you know? I want to talk to you," Eames said, and Arthur wasn't sure whether he should just get up, leave, whether he should smack Eames - or whether he should listen to Eames. He just stared at him in irritation for a moment, then snorted.
"You're serious? We can talk here."
"Nah, I don't wanna talk here."
"Why not?"
"Just...- dunno." Shoulder shrugging, Eames turned his gaze away. Ah, so that's how it was. Arthur averted his gaze, then stared out the window to avoid looking at Eames' crooked tie again. What was he doing wrong? Was he somehow completely different in the dream than he was here, now? He didn't like to admit it, because there was nothing to admit - after all, they weren't a couple - but it hurt him. Somehow. Like Eames couldn't stand him in real life.
"We talk here or not at all," Arthur said tersely, and their eyes met again. Arthur had to swallow, Eames' look was so damn real. The colors were much nicer in reality, this gray-green, almost playful, and his skin was a shade browner than in the dreams they'd built. Almost as tan as in the one photo in their built up, not real bathroom where they had been at the ocean. It had been a beautiful day. But Arthur hated it, the fact that this wasn't a real memory. That the sand on his skin had been dreamed too, just like the whole day. Like a movie he had been watching. Yet he could still feel the warmth of Eames' skin sometimes as clearly as if it had been true.
Eames didn't say anything for a while. He looked away at some point, too, directed his gaze towards the exit, as if thinking of escape, Arthur knew him after all. "Well, some other time, then," Eames pressed out, and Arthur snorted angrily.
"Eames, why can't you...? Eames!" But Eames walked away, running away, as always in reality.
They had gotten along well in the beginning, before there had been this strange, intense crackling between them. From then on, it had slipped into dreams. Arthur would never forget it, the evening when he had first felt that sensation on his skin, when he had blushed for the first time because of a compliment from Eames. You look really pretty with glasses, Eames had said - Arthur always wore glasses for IT stuff so he could better see what cables he was connecting there, what systems he had to track and crack. They'd had a job, and the software had broken. They had fixed it together, over pizza and beer from a can. Squeezed together under a cramped table, and that's where they'd sparked. They had dated, after that.
But only in dreams. Only with the PASIV program. As if reality were too heavy to carry after all - at least that's how Eames seemed to see it.
And Arthur drank an espresso after this conversation now, he needed the bitter brew to drive away his bitter thoughts. And the fact that he had taken refuge in something that might not have been real at all.
When he opened the door of his impeccably clean apartment that evening, and enervatedly put the keys in the bowl in the hallway, he felt incredibly stupid, almost naive. And offended, damn offended. Perhaps he had spent the best years of his life dreaming.
As he brushed his teeth, his mirror blurred again; soft steam appeared, like the familiar breeze, and spidery letters appeared on the mirror. Arthur paused with his movements, and stared at the letters with a strange feeling in his stomach.
I'll be waiting for you. You know where to find me.
Arthur bent over the basin, spat out the rest of the toothpaste, and then ran his hands with a light groan through his hair. He thought for a long time before closing the door of his bathroom behind him, and then pulling the silver case out from under his bed in the bedroom after all, preparing the crook of his arm for the prick.
Before closing his eyes and slowly drifting off to sleep, he thought of Hawking's theories about black holes - and the endless, black matter that could affect, twist, and make disappear the entire space and time, endlessly expanded in the universe.
Almost as with his dreams, which simply did not exist in reality, expanded, erased.