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Eames wakes up in his townhouse in Milan, arm thrown over Arthur’s waist. In the bright morning light, he can see the delicate tracery of veins in Arthur’s eyelids, how beautiful he is in sleep. His dark eyelashes flutter where they rest against his cheekbones. Suddenly he inhales. Eames freezes. As Arthur’s breathing steadies again, Eames gently removes his arm and slips out from between the sheets.
In the den, Eames paces quietly and tries to figure out what comes next. He ought to leave. Cursing in his own head, he wonders how he could have let this happen. He has almost certainly ruined one of his strongest friendships, and for what? One night. One night is all he gets. Arthur will not want this, and Eames doesn’t want to talk about it. Easier to spare them both the awkwardness and go now. Next to the door Eames sees his suitcase, abandoned along with Arthur’s. It is packed mostly with dirty clothes left from the job they just finished. He will wash them when he gets to Mombasa.
There is nothing he needs here. He had only bought this place a month previously, and there’d been little time to decorate it. A few of his paintings hang on the walls, and while he is loath to leave them, he can’t exactly take them with. Eames has some paint swatches picked out, marked for the rooms the colours will eventually go in. Now everything is white and beige and bland to the point of sterility. Even so, Eames can’t help but feel that he has exposed himself to Arthur in more than the literal sense.
He takes out his extra key from the semi-hidden compartment in the back of a drawer (Arthur probably would have found it himself, but why give him the excuse to root about in Eames’ life?) and leaves it on the counter. He ponders leaving a note and decides not to. Because he isn’t a complete arsehole, he starts the coffeemaker. Coffee always puts Arthur in a better mood. Maybe he will be too distracted to be angry with Eames for taking advantage of him. Maybe he will conveniently forget that he was a bit too tipsy last night to be making good choices.
Eames walks down the hallway to the front door and catches sight of Arthur, still asleep in the next room. He has curled into the hollow left by Eames’ body and kicked off the covers. Eames feels a sharp pang in his chest, and wants so desperately to go back in there and just hold Arthur until he wakes. Slipping like a thief out of his own home, Eames reminds himself that Arthur is not his to keep.
~
Eames has his taxi stop once before leaving the city. He goes to an electronics shop and buys a new phone, paying in cash. It’s cheap, one of those pre-paid deals, but most importantly the number is different. He transfers over most of his contacts. He doesn’t bother with some of them, the old or irrelevant ones. The most important numbers he knows by heart: Yusuf, Cobb, Ariadne, his mother—and of course Arthur.
He removes the SIM card from his old phone and resets it to factory settings. He hands it to the cashier, who seems confused. (Arthur will probably be able to find him despite his precautions, but it makes Eames feel a little better.)
Then he continues to the airport.
When he arrives at Malpensa, Eames goes to buy his ticket. It’s one-way.
~
Eames’ plane is preparing to board. He is flying first class. As tense as he is, he can’t see cramming himself into coach just to save money. It’s not as if he’s poor. In the year since the Fischer job he’s been practically rolling in money, with no shortage of job offers, and gambling has lost its appeal. It hasn’t been enough to distract him from his own thoughts.
As the flight attendants begin to check boarding passes, a woman waiting at the same gate bursts into tears. As strangers look on, she throws her arms around her boyfriend (fiancé? It’s a very large ring on her finger) and cries into his neck, telling him in stuttering Italian that she loves him, but she will be back soon, she swears...he shushes her and wipes off her face as she smiles wetly. He kisses her once, gently, and tells her to go.
And Eames thinks, I want that. The realization hurts him all the more as he recalls how warms and pliant Arthur felt that morning.
~
He arrives in Mombasa, stepping out of the airport into a cloud of heat and steam. He feels hollowed out. He thinks he is managing well enough. He catches a cab, curses the traffic, and decides to walk. By the time he goes through the door of Yusuf’s shop, he is sure he looks just as bedraggled as he feels.
Yusuf glances him over and says, “You look like shit, Eames.”
“I’m sure. Flights with screaming children will do that to you,” he says, rubbing his hand through his hair.
“No, really. You look awful. What happened?” Then, looking at the door, he adds, “Do I need to worry that you’re being followed?”
This thought gives Eames an unpleasant jolt. “I don’t think so. If I were it would only be Arthur.” And then under his breath, “he can’t be that angry.”
Yusuf hmmms and then offers Eames his couch. Eames accepts gratefully.
~
He stays for a month. During that time he helps Yusuf as well as he can with the shop, which isn’t very. He tries to attract new customers, but Yusuf, exasperated, scolds him for false advertising.
“I can’t actually make a love potion,” Yusuf says, so maybe that bit was just wishful thinking on Eames’ part. Not that Eames would ever get the chance to use one anyway, since Arthur would probably never trust Eames to get that close to him again.
Because that was the thing: Eames is sure, sure, that Arthur will consider them only acquaintances in the future. It will be like going back to square one. Eames can imagine it perfectly: the cool, ultra-professional treatment Arthur gives to people who had violated his trust enough to dislike, but not badly enough to deserve death. It was exactly the way he treated Nash, now. It was the way he had treated Eames when they first met. And Eames can hardly bear the thought of losing their easy camaraderie. He will have lost not only his friend, but also the allegiance of the best pointman in the business. Eames thinks to himself that he may as well retire from dreamshare now. He is only half-joking.
~
Three weeks into his stay he gets a call from Ariadne. When he answers, she says, “Before you ask, Yusuf gave me the number.”
“Good to hear from you, too.”
“You sound like you’re moping. Why are you moping?”
“I’m not—,”
“Don’t lie, you definitely are. Does this have anything to do with the surprise visit I got from Arthur yesterday?”
“Uh...” Eames scrambles for something, anything, but faced with Ariadne’s no-nonsense voice, he gives in. “It may. What did he say? Did he say anything about me?”
“He may have.” There is a beat of silence before Ariadne’s sigh crackles over the line. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. What happened?”
“We had an argument.”
“About...?”
“Listen, love, it’s not really something I want to share.”
Ariadne snorts and says, “Quid pro quo, Eames, I’m not telling you until you tell me.”
Eames bites out the words, caustic. “He was drunk. We fucked. The next morning I left.”
“You,” she says, “are an idiot.” Then she rings off.
No matter how many times he calls her back, she won’t answer the phone.
~
This conversation is enough to make Eames decides he will go back to Milan. There are several reasons. If he is there, he will be able to lick his wounds in peace, without his friends’ interference. He hasn’t told anyone else where the house in Milan is (except Arthur, but Arthur won’t want to see him any time soon). He might even take enough time off to fix it up like he wanted, take some furniture out of storage. And maybe when he is done he will be ready to face Arthur and see if their friendship can possibly be salvaged. Eames doesn’t think it particularly likely. In fact, he thinks that regaining Arthur’s trust will be a Herculean task spanning years. But a man must always have hope.
He leaves a week later.
~
Eames is exhausted when he finally heaves his bag out of the cab and trudges up the steps to his front door. For some ungodly reason his flight had been redirected through Prague, and then there had been a three hour layover (which Eames spent in the airport bar, thankyouverymuch) before the final flight back to Malpensa. Though the flight was only about an hour long, that last hour was enough to do him in. He had fought sleep in the cab from Malpensa to Milan. Ugh.
He fishes out his key ring and flicks through it until he finds the one for this house. He fumbles with the lock in the dark, finally sliding the key home, and gives an almighty sigh of relief. He walks into the small foyer. He sets down his bag. He toes off his shoes and gets as far as hanging up his coat before he turns on a light and notices that the hallway is the exact shade of sunflower yellow he had selected for it. Eames is so tired that for a moment he wonders if this is his house, or if he accidentally walked into a neighbor’s home. Then he wonders if he is dreaming, but he remembers exactly how he got here. Then he wonders about the rest of the house.
Leaving all his things exactly where he dropped them, he wanders down the hallway, flicking on lights as he goes. To his left is the open arch to the bedroom, which is now midnight blue. The bedspread is different, a light grey silk duvet. There are honest-to-god throw pillows on his bed. Reeling, Eames moves into the connected master bath. The same colour, a lighter shade. The light fixture has been changed.
The den is a light, cheery mint green. He faintly notes that the white couch is one he had been storing in the Paris flat. There is a new armchair. Some of the paintings, the ones that don’t match, are missing.
When Eames ventures upstairs he finds them in the kitchen (one wall of which is now a vibrant red) and the small library (painted cream, furnished with dark wood). His house is a riot of colour and crown molding. It’s perfect.
But then he remembers there’s one room he hasn’t seen: the guest bedroom. The door at the end of the upstairs hallway is closed. By this point Eames is hardly thinking at all, just taking it all in with wide eyes, but he is still present enough to realize that he had not chosen colours for this one room.
He opens the door.
The room is white. It is a blank slate. When he had left, it contained not a single item of furniture. Now there is a small air mattress, and sleeping in it is Arthur. Scattered on the floor around him are paint cans, each with one of the colours of his house dripped on top.
Eames slowly moves just inside the room. He sinks to the floor, back against a wall, and thinks.
Suddenly Eames realizes that there is a bin in the corner, and in it are a few crumpled sheets of paper. Curious and too tired to resist, he reached his hand in and pulls one out.
Eames,
I’m sorry if I scared you off. Please call me soon
And another:
Why did you leave? I think we need to talk
And finally:
I love you. I know you don’t feel the same, I’ll never mention it again if you don’t want. I hope we can still work together. After all, you are the best.
~
Eames is shell-shocked. Ariadne was right, he thinks, I am an idiot.
Carefully, fastidiously, he re-crumples the papers and puts them back in the bin. Then he looks up at Arthur, who is dead to the world.
Arthur, lying vulnerable in this bare room, still completely dressed himself. Arthur, who is still here despite everything.
Eames stands slowly and takes the few steps over to Arthur’s side. He crouches down and softly runs his hand through Arthur’s hair. Arthur leans into the touch and mumbles something, incoherent. He opens his eyes and smiles into Eames’ face before he is really awake. Then he pauses and says, “Eames? I thought—,” but Eames shushes with a finger on his lips.
“I am so, so sorry, love,” he murmurs. “But let’s talk about it in the morning. For now, we both ought to go to bed.”
“I am in bed,” Arthur mumbles sleepily.
“Wrong bed.” Eames carefully gathers Arthur into his arms and lifts him up, going slowly so Arthur has enough time to register a protest. Arthur slings an arm around his shoulders and breathes into his neck. And if the collar of his shirt gets a little damp, well, Eames isn’t telling.
When Eames sets Arthur on the edge of the bed in the bedroom that Arthur had made, Arthur says, “It’s okay, I forgive you.”
Eames thinks that he is not awake enough to make that judgment yet.
He reaches to unbutton Arthur’s shirt but pauses a few centimeters away. “May I...?”
“Please.”
So Eames undresses him, running his hands lightly over Arthur’s bared skin as he goes, resting his forehead on Arthur’s. Eames steps back, only for a moment, long enough to strip out of his own clothes, and shuffles Arthur under the covers. Eames turns out the light and climbs into bed facing him, draping an arm over his waist and tugging him closer.
~
When Eames wakes up in the morning, he is on his back with Arthur draped over his chest. Arthur has dark circles and messy hair, and appears to be drooling a bit.
Eames cannot remember the last time he was this happy.
As he closes his eyes, he thinks that maybe Arthur really is his to keep.