Work Text:
Arthur has one particular Moleskine notebook – not the sophisticated, simple black ones he uses for work – but a flamboyant, bright, palm-sized number done up in a frightening paisley pattern.
Arthur hates it.
(He keeps it in the inner pocket of his suit jacket, letting it sit comfortably over his heart.)
He hates it so much that it’s one of the first things he checks when he’s alone in a dream; reaches into his jacket for its reassuring pages. In a dream, the pages are perfectly blank.
Topside, the little book is thick from the indentations of Arthur’s pen and his neat scrawl fills over half of the pages. The first few are in different handwriting – a precise map of the world, all its countries, major cities like New York, Paris and Sydney filled in, as well as some others; Mombasa, the Galapagos. The map is dotted with tiny specks of colour in different cities, countries, in the middle of nowhere.
The rest of the pages are filled with dates, locations, notes like English Breakfast tea and high school dropout? and addresses of various tattoo parlours.
Arthur hates it, he does, this reminder of someone he wants by his side but, as much as he reaches out…
There’s a postcard at his door, a beautiful photograph of Machu Picchu, Arthur’s name and address written in nondescript block letters. Arthur reaches for his paisley Moleskine and a red pen, making a small dot on the map and a corresponding dated entry later in the book. He sighs. It’s been two years.
A knock sounds at the door and Arthur stows the Moleskine back in his pocket, places the pen on the table and collects his Glock from a drawer before peering through the eyehole. He steps back with a soft inhalation, checking his totem to be sure, then he unlocks the door and steps back.
It’s Eames, larger than life as he always is, filling up the available space until all the air is pushed away and Arthur can’t breathe unless he’s sucking oxygen from Eames’ own lungs so he does, breathing him in, running his hands down the ghastly orange poncho that still smells a little like alpaca.
“Darling,” Eames says, stroking Arthur’s loose hair back from his face with a fond little smile. “I take it you’ve missed me?”
I thought you were never coming back, Arthur wants to say. All that time ago, when you went underground, left me naked and fucked-out in a hotel bed with a half-empty bottle of wine as if I didn’t matter, all I had to hold on to was this stupid book and I hate it but your whole life is in there, I watched and I researched and I took jobs and every moment I wanted to find you and make sure you were still alive but I didn’t, I did what you told me.
“You took your time,” Arthur says instead.
But later, when Arthur’s lying in bed, sore and sated and pressed up against Eames’ bulk, he’ll see Eames thumbing through the book and smiling and their eyes will catch, and Eames knows.