Chapter Text
Eames had been right. Of course Arthur couldn’t resist rushing to his rescue. A little tremor here, a little stumble there and soon there’d been a sharp shoulder leading him towards the parking lot. It probably helped that he’d sparked Arthur’s curiosity by keeping up a forge the full job.
He’d first gotten the brilliant idea after leafing through one of his old sketchbooks. The first time he walked into the art studio after Arthur’s abrupt departure, he’d almost turned at the threshold and left France forever. The place had “Arthur’s secret hide-away” written all over it. A space on the desk cleared out to fit a laptop, an old coffee mug waiting for his return.
One of Eames’ sketchbooks had been laying open close by and that was what lured him further into the room in the end. He’d wandered over to it as if it was magnetic, leafed through the pages of his own art and felt a feeble spark of inspiration.
He’d done his first experimental forge that same evening, surprised at how easy it was to be human, as long as it was someone other than himself. He’d experimented with how close to himself he could come.
He had managed to get a hold of the nightmare form, though. He’d been half delirious after a full day of self-inflicted dream torture, the only highlight of the day a mystery package full of antique-shop decorations. In a sudden spurt of inspiration, he’d dragged forth charcoal and then drawn monster after monster until he got the form clear in his head. The bones that bend wrong, the horns trying to tear their way out of the soft parts of his body, the eyes littering the flaking skin. He’d fallen asleep amongst the sketches, dreams a jumbled mess of nightmares and loneliness.
He leans into the comfort of Arthur’s embrace now, trying to shake away the memories. He’s stopped faking the shivers; they’ve taken on a life of their own. Pretending to be more out of it than he is, he lolls his head into Arthur’s neck. He pictures their living room in Lyon—the soft light, the intimate atmosphere where they’d talk freely—is not quite perfect, but it is close enough.
“I’ve missed this,” he mutters, not lying, but playing up the vulnerability a bit.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur says.
“Why did you leave?” Eames says in a small voice, nuzzling into the warm skin. He’s missed Arthur’s smell. He wants to taste his skin again. He could probably bend it that way if he wanted; Arthur seems perceptive enough. But,no, he has a mission.
He lets his question hang in the air, lets the silence linger.
“I,” Arthur continues after a while and Eames makes sure to keep his breathing even, to not react. Curls his body closer. “I didn’t want to take advantage,” Arthur finally manages, quietly.
The words shower Eames in hot water. They fit. The withdrawal. The hunger in his touches. The fucking self-denial; Arthur has always been a bit of a martyr.
“I was the one who kissed you,” Eames snaps more sharply than what his meek persona is supposed to.
Actually, to hell with this. Playing weak is obviously giving Arthur the wrong impression. He sits up a bit straighter and Arthur blinks at him, confused at the shift.
“You are lying to yourself,” Eames says. “You were just a coward, Arthur.”
Arthur flinches and looks away, honest and open in a way he seldom is in reality. Damn him, but Eames immediately softens. “It’s okay,” he says. “I’m not being particularly brave either.”
He holds his right hand up in front of them and then lets it be the clawed hairy thing it really wants to be. He glances at Arthur just in time to see the surprise being tucked away.
“We’re in a dream,” Arthur says, looking around, taking in the way the hotel room melts into the living room in Lyon, melts into blurry half-remembered edges that no longer make Eames panic.
“I got us a cab,” he says, working out where memories end and dreaming starts.
“Yes.”
“And then…you drugged me.”
Eames meets the accusing gaze stoically.
Arthur takes a deep breath and is quiet for a long moment while they stare at each other, expressions guarded.
“Did you get what you want?” he asks then.
No. “Yes.”
“Good for you,” Arthur says and conjures up a glock, no doubt intending to wake himself up. Eames doesn’t let himself react, busying himself with inspecting the paw instead, dragging human fingers across the coarse pads.
“It looks better,” Arthur says, hesitating, barrel half way to his chin.
“…Yes.”
“Healthier.”
Eames nods. It had happened gradually, helped along by the sketching.
Arthur puts down the gun and leans back on the sofa again.
“Is it hard? To keep a human form?”
“Are you sure you want to know? You’re not going to run away again, if I show some vulnerability?” Eames answers clinically, not letting himself feel the words.
Arthur looks down and frowns. “I…don’t know.”
Eames sighs. “Well, at least you’re honest,” he says and then thinks, fuck it. He lets his form unfold. The transition doesn’t hurt, it’s more akin to relaxing after spending a day sucking in one’s stomach. He watches Arthur’s face when he does it. He’s mostly come to accept that this monster is a part of him now, but he’s still pleasantly surprised by the little smile that appears in the corners of Arthur’s mouth.
“You’re like a big ragged dog,” he says and Eames scoffs in answer. He’s spent days drawing out what the nightmare form looks like, defining its edges, getting familiar with all its turns and quirks, making it his own. He knows damn well that it is not the form of a dog. The legs are all wrong, claws too long and the horns—giant curved things that have finally taken permanent residence on his forehead—are definitely not a common feature in dogs. Nor are the tendril-like tentacles that halo the form in a shadowy mess.
Eames knows people well enough to know not to judge an emotional outburst more than the sum of their actions. And Arthur…Arthur sought him out. Stayed with him through the worst of it. And then he dumped him, yes, but he also gave him the tools to fix what he ultimately needed to do himself. And then, when Eames laid an Arthur-formed trap, Arthur walked right into it, endorsing Eames’ choice of bait: himself.
Problem is…Arthur hasn’t sat down and sketched himself into the form he wants to be. Arthur said himself; he doesn’t know. Even as Eames feels delicate fingertips playing in his coarse hair he does his best to prepare himself for the inevitable heartbreak.
“I’m glad you’re better,” Arthur says much later, when he’s hesitating before the door to Eames’ hotel room. Reality is much harsher than the soft edges of the dream they’ve just come up from and Eames had been right; Arthur had gotten up to leave as soon as they woke up. As the usual spark of sexual tension fills the air between them, Eames almost thinks he must have imagined the tenderness from just minutes ago.
“You could stay,” Eames offers. We could fuck, he doesn’t add. The ship for no-strings-attached sex has well and truly sailed. What they have between them now is too heavy for that. If they give in to the ever present attraction between them, Eames doesn't think they will ever disentangle again. And the closer he regards Arthur, the more sure he is this is not the right moment for it.
Arthur looks lost. He stares at Eames with a blank expression, eyes questioning. Hesitating.
Then, without saying a word, the infuriating man holding Eames’ heart hostage leaves, clicking the door shut politely behind him.
Eames clenches his fists to keep from rushing after him.