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Arthur never thought his relationship with Eames would come to this - faking sleep to avoid those awkward post-sex conversations, or to avoid sex altogether when he's first to bed. The sex is too good, that's the problem; he loses control, can't keep track of what he's saying. And having said it once, deliberately, knowingly, of sound body and mind, his mouth knows the shape of it and it just comes tumbling out whenever he lets down his guard.
"I love you."
Even though the response that first time was a surprised, "Oh," and a moment of stillness, followed by, "That's nice. I mean, I'm glad," he can't keep from saying it. After it happened a few times in bed, Eames started trying to talk about it. Arthur does not want to talk about it. Arthur would rather be torn apart by a crowd of enraged projections than talk about it, because at least that pain wouldn't leave him cringing with embarrassment every time he recalled it.
They're good together, and Arthur hates the thought that he's ruined their relationship with talk of love. They understand each other; the companionship is good; the sex ranges from 'good' to 'fantastic'. Love is not the icing on the cake, but the little piped rosettes on top. It's unnecessary. And it's apparently too much to ask for.
It's unnecessary, and illogical, and frivolous, but that doesn't stop him wanting it. There's a little bit of his brain that won't shut up about how much he feels for Eames, even though it's too much and silly and they're fine the way they are. They were fine the way they were, that is, before Arthur opened his stupid mouth because he thought it had been long enough and close enough that he could acknowledge it, and that's what he thought he was doing, acknowledging, not declaring, but Eames's reaction said something different. It said Arthur had just been fooling himself. And even now, he still is, because he wants it, he wants to love Eames and have Eames love him back, and sometimes when he's lying thinking, with his breath carefully modulated and his body totally lax, he thinks, maybe, maybe he can have that, maybe it really is there to be acknowledged, and that spark of hope is enough.
Then Eames comes to bed, and Arthur remembers that hope never works out for him.
Eames moves quietly around the darkened room, going through the familiar routine. When he's done, he stands by the bed for a long moment before getting in. He leans over and drops a kiss on Arthur's exposed shoulder, then he settles down on his own side of the bed. "Night, Arthur," he says quietly. Arthur keeps his breathing steady.
"You've been sleeping more lately," says Eames, casually with just a hint of concern, but Arthur really hasn't, and he says as much. Then he remembers that he's been spending hours every night pretending to sleep, and apparently Eames has been fooled. Arthur's pretty good, but fooling Eames isn't easy, if he's paying attention.
"You went to bed at quarter past ten last night," says Eames. Eames had been watching something on the TV, the show with lots of cars and a guy in a white helmet, and Arthur had deliberately disappeared just after it started.
"I was tired," Arthur says, which is lame, and he scrambles for something more. "I woke up way too early yesterday, I've just, I dunno, slipped a couple of time zones."
"Yeah? Slip back here, would you?"
"Working on it."
After dinner, Arthur sits next to Eames with a trashy novel. He lets himself doze a little as the evening draws on, and eventually Eames nudges him with one elbow.
"Bed time, c'mon," he says. He holds out his hand and, when Arthur takes it, pulls him up from his comfortable slouch.
Eames gets the bathroom first - they share when time is tight, and it works well enough, but they're both used to their own space, and Arthur really doesn't like anyone seeing the stupid faces he makes around his toothbrush. Arthur strips down to his briefs and shuffles around until Eames finishes washing up, then it's his turn. Eames gives him an affectionate leer and a brief grope as they pass, and Arthur rolls his eyes.
Minty-fresh, he switches off the lights and crawls into bed by memory. Eames reaches out and reels him in, and Arthur goes easily.
Eames presses Arthur into the mattress and kisses his way down to suck him off slow and easy. His mouth is really something. Arthur somewhat regrets turning off the lights, because he loves to see this, but the dark and the quiet have their own charm.
It's a slow burn, but it's no less intense for that, and soon enough Arthur is biting his lip to stop himself babbling. Eames finds one of Arthur's hands under the covers and squeezes it, which is apparently meant to mean something, but Arthur's brain is not really up to interpreting.
Eames pulls off, and Arthur can't possibly hold back a noise of disappointment.
"Let me hear you," Eames rasps, and ducks down to suck at Arthur's balls.
It was never really worth fighting. Arthur takes a deep breath and does his best not to listen to himself.
After he's made a fool of himself yet again, and Eames has rubbed off against his hip, and they've cleaned themselves up, Eames kisses him, soft and slow. It's nice.
They don't talk, just lie quietly next to each other. That's nice, too. Calm.
Arthur sleeps.
A few nights later, Arthur goes to bed just a little early. These few days have been good, he's managed to mostly forget about the part where he's apparently over-invested in this relationship and just enjoy it. But this afternoon, a girl in the coffee shop slipped her number to Eames, and Eames grinned and put it in his pocket, and Arthur thought, well, shit. After they walked out, Eames pulled it out again and tossed it away, but the whole incident reminded Arthur that this thing they're doing is nothing they've ever actually talked about. It's all tacit understandings and unspoken agreements and Arthur has one very solid example of something he thought was understood which Eames didn't, and, yeah.
The mature and sensible option would be to sit down with Eames and have a mature and sensible discussion, but Arthur is not feeling particularly mature or sensible.
Eames flicks the light on when he comes in to the bedroom, and just as quickly flicks it off again. He slips out to the bathroom, and Arthur breathes in deep. He could switch on his lamp as a signal that he's still awake; he could turn over and welcome Eames into the bed when he returns; he could go back to pretending to sleep. He'd never intended to worry Eames even a little - hadn't expected Eames would notice it - had expected Eames to see right through the pretense and tell him to stop sulking. That is, basically, what Arthur is doing here, he knows it, and right now he is actually fine with that.
Arthur pretends, and Eames comes back and slides quietly into bed behind him. "Night, Arthur," he says quietly, with a touch or a kiss to his hair. Arthur breathes slow, and lies calm, only shifting a little when his arm starts going numb. Eames shuffles and shifts, tosses and turns as quietly as he can.
"What the hell is your problem?" Eames mutters at one point. "Why can't you just..."
'Be happy with what you've got,' Arthur fills in. 'Stop pushing for more, stop sulking like a little bitch, enjoy this for what it is and stop blithering about emotions, for god's sake.'
Eames sighs. A little later, he softly says, "Sorry, Arthur," briefly caressing Arthur's hip.
Eventually, Arthur goes to sleep for real.
In the morning, Arthur has a meeting with a potential employer - a mostly-legitimate businessman with mostly-legitimate requirements. He dresses by feel in the faint light of dawn, in one of his nicer suits, tailored to conceal the holster at his waist. He drinks his coffee. He straps a knife to his ankle just in case, and slicks his hair back, and checks that the relevant papers are in his satchel, and he's ready to go.
Eames shuffles out of the bedroom, rubbing his eyes. "You off, then?" he says.
"Yeah. Should be back by six. We could go out for dinner."
"Mm. Sounds good."
If things were different, Arthur might say that thing again, now. It's not that he's walking into a mildly dangerous situation, because he's walked into a hell of a lot worse; it's that life is uncertain and they both know that. If they were other people, they might kiss goodbye, and Eames might tell him to take care of himself, even though he knows that Arthur always does. But Arthur just nods at Eames, who's part-way through a fairly epic yawn, and departs.
The meeting is boring. The meeting is very boring. Jackson may be mostly legitimate, but he is also mostly an asshole. Worse than that, he's a boring asshole. Worse still, he's a long-winded boring asshole, and the meeting runs over, but they eventually manage to hammer out terms. So he's late leaving, and then there's an accident on the freeway that backs up traffic for miles, and Arthur really understands, at that point, why some people go to live as hermits in the middle of nowhere. Also, why some people go nuts and start shooting.
Arthur is calm, and disciplined, and he puts on a CD and concentrates on the well-spoken English woman telling him about the adventures of Agatha Raisin. Time passes, and the cars inch forward, and Arthur waits. The military taught him that much.
Eventually Arthur passes the accident site and the traffic opens up again, and he doesn't realize until he pulls into his parking space that he's nearly an hour later than he said he would be. He swears to himself, but he doesn't hurry inside - two more minutes won't make any difference. Instead, he walks up the stairs and rehearses an apology inside his head.
Their front door is standing ajar, and Arthur's heart quickens abruptly. He dumps his bag, stands to one side and pushes the door gently open. He can hear the TV inside, but nothing else. Shit, he thinks, what now?
"Took your time," Eames calls. Arthur takes his hand away from his weapon and slumps against the wall. Eames is being an asshole, clearly all is well. Arthur breathes deep a few times, then collects his bag and goes inside, carefully locking the door behind him.
Eames is watching TV. He's wearing nice trousers and a horrible old hoody which Arthur's threatened to cut into rags. Arthur has no idea what the combination might mean. "Hey," he says.
"Hey," says Eames. He turns his head and scans Arthur from head to toe. It's not a sexual look; he's assessing Arthur's condition. Eames nods, and looks back at the TV.
Arthur thinks about protesting, but he gets a little distracted by the laptop on the small table near the door. It's cracked open, and he pushes the screen up to see a website with a map and a bright dot at approximately the position of their building.
"You were tracking me?" he asks. There's a GPS chip in his cell and it was Arthur that signed up for the tracking system, but he's still a little taken aback to have it used on him rather than the other way around.
Eames stays slouched on the sofa, doesn't flinch in the slightest, which probably means he's concentrating on muting his body language. He's good at it, but Arthur knows him well enough that the lack of body language can be just as much of a signal. Eames slowly tilts his head and looks sideways at Arthur. "You were late," he says evenly. "And you didn't call."
Arthur winces, because, yeah, that's his bad. They try to avoid calling a cell when the person carrying it is working; it could be an unwanted distraction or draw attention in a dangerous situation. And with the lives they lead, the mundane explanation is never the first to spring to mind.
"Sorry," he says. "I should have. I'll do better next time."
Eames shrugs carelessly. Yeah, thinks Arthur, he's pissed. And it's fair enough, because he's clearly been worried, but frankly, Arthur's had a bitch of an afternoon as well, for all it's been the complete antithesis of excitement, so he's not about to beg for forgiveness. He closes the laptop and goes to make himself some coffee; but the path to the kitchen takes him behind the sofa, and he can't resist leaning over and just taking a moment to breathe Eames in, a hand on his broad chest and the scratch of his stubble against Arthur's cheek. Eames reaches up and briefly grips his forearm, and his slouch is suddenly a lot less studied.
Arthur makes his coffee, and they decide to call for delivery pizza instead of going out, and it's kind of stupidly nice just to sit around and do nothing together.
They go to bed together, and it's good, and Arthur goes to sleep well-contented.
Another evening, and Arthur is thinking too much about things which he would rather not, and maybe he'll manage to go to sleep instead of faking it this time. He slips quietly into the bathroom.
He's still brushing his teeth when Eames calls out, "You going to bed?"
Arthur spits. "Yeah," he calls back.
"Gimme a sec," is the reply, and Arthur keeps brushing. He catches sight of his own furrowed brows in the mirror, and turns away to frown at the door instead.
Eames is waiting when Arthur exits the bathroom, and most of the lights are off. "It's nicer going to bed together," he says, hand trailing over Arthur's hip as they pass each other.
In bed, they kiss goodnight and settle down, and Eames is asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.
"I love you," Arthur whispers.
Arthur gets offered a job. Expected to take three months, a decent but not extraordinary fee, a veto on any further hires. Rome. It's a beautiful city, and a reasonable job, and Arthur has no previous engagements that conflict with it, so really, he ought to take it. Work is work, after all, and a freelancer can't afford to sit idle, if only for the sake of his reputation.
The problem is Eames.
The problem is not so much that Eames is wanted there by the local law, as that he is vehemently not wanted there by the local lawbreakers.
So Arthur looks at the email for a little while. His head says yes; his heart, and maybe some other parts, say no. He hasn't spent more than a month away from Eames since they started sleeping together. They've never actually talked about... anything important, really. They agreed to exclusivity in a roundabout way, framed as a matter of convenience and self-preservation. They moved in together because Arthur had an apartment here, and there was no point both of them getting hotel rooms, or just Eames, when there was space for both of them here - and again, the convenience thing. They've never talked about love.
If you were to ask anyone who knows him whether Arthur thinks with his head or his heart, the answer would be 'head' every time. That includes Arthur's opinion of himself. So, as a man who thinks rationally, and logically, and sensibly, he should take the job.
Three months isn't convenient. It's not that long, for a committed relationship, but they aren't, are they? They're convenient. So rationally, logically, etcetera, taking this job would be the end of what he has with Eames. And it's not even a particularly good job.
Arthur thinks about it all day. He argues himself round in circles, gradually getting more and more wound-up, and after dinner, well. Eames apparently misinterprets Arthur's agitation.
They stumble into the bedroom, shrugging off the last of their clothes, and tumble onto the bed. Possibly Arthur is a little more intense then usual. He's pretty sure he's leaving bruises in the shape of his fingertips. He pins Eames to the bed and rides him until he comes, gasping out Arthur's name.
Arthur was trying to wring out something different. "Dammit," he grits out, working towards his own orgasm, "Eames, fuck, dammit, love you, god, oh..."
They clean up. Eames doesn't try to talk, and Arthur certainly doesn't want to.
He's going to take the job.
"Going somewhere?" Eames asks flatly.
Arthur looks over to see that, yeah, he's left the flight confirmation email open in the browser. "Clearly," he says. .
"Suppose I should be grateful it wasn't you walking out the door with your suitcase," Eames says quietly, frowning to himself. Then he relaxes, deliberately, the way he prepares for a forgery in the dreamscape, and he smiles. "Why this job, then? Interesting?"
"Not really. Terms are good," Arthur says, but it's weak, and the way Eames raises an eyebrow says as much.
Arthur shrugs, turns it into a stretch, and then heads for the kitchen. He grabs an apple from the bowl and crunches into it. Maybe he'll cook tonight.
The front door thumps closed, and Arthur stills. He listens. The apartment is quiet, and he emerges from the kitchen - not from hiding, because that wasn't what he was doing - to see that Eames is gone, his jacket no longer slung over the back of a chair. A quick, paranoid check shows that his emergency kit is still stashed in the closet next to Arthur's own, so he'll be back, at some point.
Arthur uses up most of the perishables in a big pot of curry, and makes enough rice for two, but he ends up eating alone.
They've got little enough time before he goes, and Eames just has to go stomping off in a huff, without even explaining why he's annoyed. OK, he found out about it by nosing about Arthur's email, but Arthur was going to tell him, would have told him tonight, probably. And change can be unpleasant, that's true, but Eames is the master of change, and what he has with Arthur is... perhaps not easily replaced, because Arthur flatters himself that he is rather out of the common way, but replaceable all the same.
Arthur goes to bed around midnight, and Eames still isn't back. It feels odd.
It hasn't been that long, comparatively, that he's been sleeping with another person every night, but tonight the bed feels empty and cold with only himself. It won't be a problem in Italy, because the bed will be different and once he's past that strangeness he'll be fine, but sleeping alone here is unexpectedly difficult. So he dozes, and tries not to think about where Eames might be and what he might be doing, and dozes some more, and mentally packs his bags, and wonders what Eames will do for those three months, where he'll go, and dozes again.
He snaps awake at the rattle of a key in the door. Once the door opens, the muttered curses that drift through the apartment are rather distinctive, and Arthur relaxes again. He listens as Eames locks up, and treads heavily into the kitchen for a glass of water, and then the bathroom to wash up, and it's a relief to know where he is. To know he's safe. Arthur might have to put a few bugs on him just to get through the first month or so, until he can care a little less.
When he collapses into bed, Eames still smells of smoke and booze, but with a minty-fresh overlay. "Arthur?" he says, not too loud, and it's habit more than anything else that has Arthur lying still and quiet.
"Arthur?" he says again, quieter, and then, "Oh. Shouldn't have..." Eames sighs, and shuffles to lie closer. Arthur just breathes, drinking in the feel of Eames's hand on his hip, of Eames's breath ruffling his hair.
"Arthur," he says once more, "I'm. Damn. I'm going to miss you. I am. Rome, of all places. Bloody Rome. I'd come, if you asked me to, even so, but you won't, will you? Wouldn't. Won't? What am I... Ugh."
The last thing Arthur hears before he goes to sleep is Eames, still muttering away.
They spend the next few days firmly ignoring the elephant in the room. They talk less, and fuck more, and Arthur does the laundry and Eames does the dishes and they are as determinedly normal as can be.
The day before his flight, Arthur packs his bags. Eames sits on the bed and watches him, which is something that hasn't happened before and is thus somewhat discomfiting. Arthur does his best to proceed as normal, laying out his clothes on the bed and working around the space where Eames is leaning back on his hands.
"I like that shirt," Eames says, and Arthur sets it down with a noncommital sound. "Those trousers do wonderful things for your arse," Eames says a little later. Between the memories already attached to some of these, and the memory being created right now, Arthur isn't going to be able to wear a single item of clothing without thinking of Eames. Damn the man.
"If you don't have anything useful to say," Arthur says, "shut your fucking mouth."
Eames pouts, but mercifully stays quiet, and almost manages to fade into the background.
Arthur's nearly finished when Eames sits forward, and says, "Are you sure that's enough socks?" Arthur is tempted to hit him, because that's almost a useful comment, and yet completely useless because, really, socks are very widely available. "Take the ugly wool ones as well," says Eames, and Arthur definitely wants to hit him, with an added wistful pang at knowing exactly which socks he means. Jesus Christ, Arthur just will not attach emotional significance to socks, he refuses.
"I'm sure," he says, and stuffs the last few pairs down the side of the bag. And that's that.
Arthur has an early flight. He doesn't wake Eames before he goes; he just takes a minute to memorize the image of Eames sleeping in his bed, covers pulled up to his ears and feet sticking out at the end. Only a minute, though, one and no more.
Arthur leaves, and waits patiently through all the queues and checks at the airport, and it's only when he's finally seated on the plane that he realizes... a tiny part of him, some minuscule whim that exists purely to humiliate his conscious self, was hoping Eames would show up. Was actually disappointed not to get a dramatic rom-com reunion. This is what the media of today does to people's expectations, he tells himself. Also, I don't like being the center of attention.
He lets himself ask the stewardess for a double vodka, anyway.
When he unpacks, he finds the ugly wool socks stuffed underneath one of his shirts. He throws them across the room.
It's another two days before Eames calls the first time, and he manages to time it when Arthur's in a client meeting and actually can't answer.
The next time Eames calls, Arthur could answer, but he doesn't. He can't, he misses Eames too much. Arthur's afraid - no, he's certain - that if he has to hear Eames's voice, he'll wind up blurting out something completely inappropriate and utterly humiliating himself.
It's his own damn fault, of course. If he could have just been content with what they had, it would have carried on, or trailed off, or something. Arthur is the sole cause of this wrenching separation. But he had to do it, because he wasn't content with what they had; and maybe it hurt less than this when he was sleeping next to a man who didn't love him back, but it was a grinding sort of misery that showed no signs of stopping. This is for the best.
Eames tries to call a few more times, with more days left between each call.
Arthur ignores each one.
He lies down every night in the too-soft hotel bed, and pretends to sleep. The only person he's trying to fool now is himself.
Arthur tries to immerse himself in his work, but the job really isn't that interesting, and surveillance leaves him a lot of time doing very little while waiting for something to happen. So he learns Italian.
Of course, he'd learned a few useful phrases beforehand - a large coffee, thanks; which way to the train station, please; drop the gun or I shoot, asshole.
He has CDs for the car, mp3s for mobility, books for the long evenings, and he spends most of his spare time sitting in bars and cafes just to listen to the conversations around him.
By the end of the three months, he's got a decent conversational grasp, and a favorite cafe with a matronly proprietress who pats him on the cheek when he bids her farewell. Another language is a good skill to have, and the pride of that achievement almost fills in the hollow lack of pleasure at finishing the job.
It does nothing for the rest of his problems.
Arthur decides to go back to the apartment he was living in three months ago. Usually, he would pick somewhere different - he has other apartments, and a house in Nebraska that he hasn't visited in two years - but this time, he goes back. It's morbid curiosity, really, wanting to see if Eames has managed to erase himself entirely from the apartment, or if there are traces left, here and there. Maybe a shirt at the back of the closet, or a half-used bar of soap in the bathroom, or the wrong brand of peanut butter in the kitchen.
Maybe Arthur will stay for a while, until it's just another place he lives in from time to time, and he can forget that for a while it was almost a home. Maybe not.
When he finally reaches the apartment, Arthur is tired, and jet-lagged, and careless. He opens the door, and dumps his bags, and leans against the wall for a moment. He tells himself it's ridiculous to think that Eames's scent has lingered here. When he hears the television chatter, his first thought is for his electric bill.
Then he realizes.
Eames is still here.
Eames is sitting on the sofa.
Eames has dropped his head back, staring at the ceiling, and he says, "Hey."
"Hey," says Arthur.
Eames switches off the TV, and gets up, strolling over to stand at arms length in front of Arthur. "It's good to see you," he says, looking at Arthur intently, eyes darting all over him. Arthur looks back: Eames hasn't shaved in four or five days, and his hands are stained with ink, and he's only smiling a little but he looks incandescently happy.
Arthur can't help it. "Christ, I love you."
Eames is still smiling. "Arthur," he says, "I... Arthur." He cups Arthur's face in his hands and kisses him, long and sweet.
When they finally pause for breath, Eames tilts their foreheads together and gazes into Arthur's eyes. "Yes," he says, hopeful and tender and still so happy.
And finally, Arthur understands.
"Yes," he says in return.
That night, Arthur goes to sleep with a smile on his face, lying next to the man who loves him.