Archive of Our Own

It might be lonelier

Without the Loneliness –

I’m so accustomed to my Fate –

Perhaps the Other – Peace –

 

Would interrupt the Dark –

And crowd the little Room –

Too scant – by Cubits – to contain

The Sacrament – of Him

 

I am not used to Hope –

It might intrude upon –

Its sweet parade – blaspheme the place –

Ordained to Suffering –                 

 

It might be easier

To fail – with Land in Sight –

Than gain – My Blue Peninsula –

To perish – of Delight –

 

-Emily Dickinson

-

On the day that Arthur is supposed to be introduced to his new roommate, he stops back at his room during his break between classes and finds his door locked.

Arthur always locks his door. His key is clipped to the lanyard that holds his student ID. But this time, the door is deadbolted from the inside, and no amount of wiggling with his MetroCard is going to budge it.

He feels like an idiot for knocking on his own door, especially when it becomes obvious that whoever is inside is ignoring him on purpose. Two people have already poked their heads into the hallway to see who is cursing, and Arthur has neither the time nor inclination to be a spectacle. He reaches into his coat for his cell phone—fuck, 1:50 already, he’s wasted ten minutes on this—and dials his own university-provided landline. He can hear it ringing through the door.

Frustrated, he bangs on the door one more time and stalks down the hall to the elevator. His French class is in the building up by Union Square. It’s a thirteen minute walk—seven if he nearly runs and ignores the crossing signals, which he’s reluctant to do after nearly getting hit by a bus during Welcome Week.

He doesn’t have any assignments due, thankfully, but he can’t remember the word for worksheet, and he doesn’t enjoy stumbling around with vague phrases until he trips over the right combination. The instructor is so impatient by this point that the blonde girl next to Arthur takes pity and allows him to follow along on hers. He takes his Physics notes in his Microeconomics notebook, flipping to the last page and working backwards, making a note in his planner to remind himself to recopy them later.

By 5:30, he’s seething as he enters his building. He needs to slide his ID twice, and even then he punches in the wrong number for his password and runs into the unmoving turnstile. His exclamation of pain amuses the security guard more than it should.

There are two guys in his (unlocked now, of course it is) room.

The one on the bed—his roommate’s bed, previously unclaimed for three glorious weeks but now unfortunately let—is wearing the bright purple hoodie they’ve got on sale in the bookstore for eighty dollars, which makes Arthur hate him almost instantly.

All Arthur can see of the other one is an ass in faded blue jeans because he’s down on the floor on the opposite side of the room, reaching under Arthur’s bed.

“What are you doing?” Arthur demands.

The guy emerges, but he takes his time doing it. It’s the kind of slow motion reserved for Disney films and poor-quality television dramas: the sway of his lower back as he shuffles his torso from underneath the bed frame, the graceful swing of his knee as he plants a foot on the floor to rise. Except he’s obviously only doing it to be an ass. When he finally turns around to greet Arthur, there is no guilt to the tilt of his shoulders. “Hello, you must be Arthur.”

Arthur ignores his outstretched hand. “What were you doing under my bed?”

“Seeing if you’ve got any drugs under there.”

This is accompanied by a cheeky smile. Arthur can practically feel his molars grinding into powder.

“You’re my new roommate?” he guesses, flicking his eyes briefly towards the guy lounging on the bed with his Mac, messenger bag beside him, and then to the other laptop set up on the tiny desk opposite Arthur’s own tiny desk.

The guy standing in front of him nods. “Call me Eames.”

“I value my privacy, Eames.” Arthur steps past him to set his bag on his bed, turning his back.

“Oh, yes. Me too. Very much.”

Arthur hears something like a snort from the bed, or muffled laughter, and turns back suspiciously. The guy on the bed stares at his screen without blinking, his mouth curved in a way to suggest he’s fighting a smile.

Eames draws his attention again. “You’ve nothing to worry about, I didn’t find anything.”

Eames does not react to Arthur’s unimpressed glare, so Arthur turns to his desk to set his books along the shelf at the back, and to set up his laptop. Eames just stands there the whole time, right behind him, like he’s waiting for something.

“I couldn’t get in my room earlier and wasn’t able to get the books I needed for my last two classes. Is this going to be a problem?” He glances back.

Eames drags his eyes up to Arthur’s face. “Oh, sorry about that; I had some company over. We could coordinate it, somehow? A sock on the door or something?”

Though his tone of voice is even, it’s obvious what sort of company he means.

What the hell, it’s the guy’s first day.

“Look,” he says, facing Eames, suddenly aware of how much broader he is than Arthur, the width and strength of his biceps, “I don’t know what kind of person you expected as your roommate, but I will not be sexiled from my own room. I’ll give you a list of my classes, and the times I expect to be able to access the room. What you do between those times is none of my business. Otherwise, you’ll have to take it to her place.”

Eames blinks, and Arthur spends an uncomfortable moment standing in the middle of his room as his—very muscular, really, and even a bit taller—roommate sizes Arthur up from the top of his head down to his shoes, a slow, calculated examination. Arthur swallows and doesn’t move, determined to stand his ground, but Eames is not incited into a steroid-induced rage. The only reaction is the quirk of his eyebrows and a nod.

“Sounds fair.”

Arthur turns back to his desk. He doesn’t want to say he’s relieved, but. Well. The last fight he’d gotten into had sent him to anger management classes for three weeks. It hadn’t been a temperamental outburst—he hadn’t even started it, to be honest—but accepting the verdict was simpler than explaining to the judge that he’d assessed the guy’s aggressive behavior and calmly and rationally concluded that a broken nose would settle things.

He likes to think he’s better at solving his problems, now.

“What are your study habits like?” he asks as he bends over to plug in his cord to the power strip beneath his desk. Eames is still standing there, and Arthur feels somehow obligated to keep talking.

“Study habits?”

There’s a measure of humor in the words, and when Arthur looks back, Eames is sharing a look of amusement with the guy on the bed, like it’s a joke. Arthur turns to his desk grimly. One of those guys. Lovely.

“Well, I tend to stay up pretty late, usually till midnight, sometimes two. If that’s a problem I can take it to the library. I’m quiet, but I’ll need at least the desk lamp on.” He looks Eames full in the face, waits until he stops making faces at his friend—don’t they care that Arthur can see them?—and adds, “And I’ll need you to stay out of my things and keep the door locked when you’re not here.”

The look on his face is unreadable. Maybe amused? Arthur’s not the best at deciphering facial expressions.

“But not when I am?”

“Not deadbolted.”

His smile is angelic as he says, “You’re absolutely right, Arthur. There’s no reason you shouldn’t have access to the room at all times.”

This is exactly what Arthur has been saying; it’s suspicious that Eames is repeating the obvious. “Yeah. So, we’re clear?”

“You have my word.”

This is how Arthur learns to be wary of Eames’ promises.

-

On Friday, Arthur only has one class. Eames had come in last night reeking of alcohol, loud and happy, asking Arthur why he wasn’t celebrating Thirsty Thursday and telling him that he has no appreciation for the weekly holidays. He looks up from his coffee with palpable misery as Arthur emerges from the bathroom, already fully dressed, and throws his nightclothes in his hamper.

“Where you off to so early?” he asks; his accent and sleep-rough voice relaxes the words into a soft murmur. It’s past noon, and Eames hasn’t even gotten dressed yet—his comforter is pulled up to his chest, but Arthur knows he’s bare underneath it.

“I gave you my schedule, remember?”

“Ah, yes, your carefully plotted timetable. Very detailed, by the way, I applaud your precision.”

Arthur doesn’t respond. Eames will say things like that, and Arthur gets the impression he’s supposed to laugh, but he just doesn’t get Eames’ sense of humor, or something. The tone is always good-natured and casual, but with a different inflection it would be antagonizing.

Sometimes Arthur wishes it would be antagonizing, just so he can stop pretending to get along with the guy.

“Well, you have eyes. It’s right there next to your head.” He points to where Eames had taped it right to the cinderblock wall. New York, New York, Arthur remembers thinking with a grimace and a sarcastic Sinatra croon when he’d first laid eyes on where he’d be living for the next nine months. There’s a reason that Weinstein is freshman accommodation.

“Sorry, mate. Eyes a bit blurry, got an awful headache. You have fun.”

Arthur looks at Eames for a long moment. “If you need to puke, make sure you do it in the toilet.”

Eames waves at him.

“I swear. If you puke in my hamper, I will end you.”

“Right.”

“There’s ibuprofen in the green bin,” he says, pointing to his desk, where he has his materials organized in color-coded trays. “This is the only time you’re allowed to take something of mine. You can get your own if this is going to be a regular thing.”

Eames looks him in the eye for the first time that morning. “Thanks.” The redness of his eyes makes the irises a striking shade of blue.

“I’ll be back around two,” he says as he’s walking out. He tells himself he’s just being polite—he has to live with this guy for the rest of the year—but it feels like concession.

-

“What’s he like?” Ariadne asks, swirling three fries in the concoction of ketchup and mayonnaise on her tray.

“I don’t know. British,” Arthur says, distracted and kind of grossed out. “Tattoos. Sleeps bare-ass naked. Seems like kind of a smug asshole, but I don’t know him that well, so he could be a very smug asshole. Time will tell.”

“Why’s he here so late?”

“Some trouble with his flight.” Arthur doesn’t know the details. Eames had been trying to talk to him through the bathroom door. Eventually Arthur turned on the shower and he took the hint.  Eames is not so good with boundaries, he’s discovered.

“It’s going to suck trying to catch up on two weeks of missed classes.”

“I don’t think he’s all that concerned about it.” At Ariadne’s questioning look, he adds, “He’s been here four nights and stumbles in at two in the morning, drunk off his ass, every night.”

“Ah, tough luck. I feel like I’ve won the lottery in comparison.”

Ariadne’s roommate is a charming girl named Mal who has already offered to help Arthur study for his French exams. The only discontent Ariadne has expressed so far is a feeling of inadequacy based on the impression that Mal is judging her neck scarves.

He thinks of Eames’ bulky arms, the stretch of his lips when he smirks. “I don’t want to talk about Eames anymore. I’m thinking about going uptown tomorrow, gonna spend the day at MoMA; want to join me?”

“I’ve got to get started on a paper this weekend, but probably. Maybe not the whole day.”

“Well, send me a text when you wake up.”

-

When he walks in his room, he’s halfway to his bed before he even realizes what’s going on, and only because a moan draws his eyes to Eames’ side of the room. He can’t turn his head away fast enough, and even the hand he brings up to his eyes is not going to block that image from his mind.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Eames,” he swears, throwing his bag on his bed so hard that the springs creak.

“You specifically said not to lock the door, and never answered me regarding the sock.”

Oh god. All Arthur wants to do is stick his fingers in his ears to block out the strain in Eames’ voice. “I told you to take it elsewhere, Eames.”

“I recall you telling me to take it to her place.”

The head buried in Eames’ lap is long-haired, but the back and shoulders are not exactly feminine.

“Fucker. You know what I meant.” Arthur quickly gathers his laptop and power cord.

“Also, you’re back – ah- early.” The sharp intake of breath makes Arthur’s stomach clench and the blood rush from his brain. He can’t get out of there fast enough, cursing Eames all the way down to the second floor, where he knocks on Ariadne’s door and lets her and Mal talk him out of homicide. Halfway through a movie that they watch on Arthur’s laptop, huddled together on the floor in front of Ariadne’s bed, Arthur is able to think of something other than the tension in Eames forehead and neck, the slick sounds from his completely undisturbed company, and the fact that Arthur sacrificed two of his ibuprofen for that jackass when he obviously didn’t need it that badly.

-

He yanks the covers down his chest, rolling over and spreading his limbs to search for a cool spot on the sheets, even though there are none to be found. He has the top few buttons of his pajamas unhooked before his hand stills, and his eyelids roll open like shutters as he becomes aware of where he is, of what’s happening, and of why it feels like he’s in a sauna.

He shoves his face into his pillow and groans. When he turns over again, it’s still dark, and the display on his alarm clock—he has to blink until the numbers clarify—reads 3:34 AM. He stares longingly at the temperature controls near the window, at the far end of his bed.

His mouth is dry beyond measure and his pajamas are soaked through with sweat. He shoves his covers aside and crawls to the foot of his bed, flips the lid of the register open and doesn’t even care to muffle the clang of metal on metal because he’s not getting back to sleep any time soon, so he could care less if he wakes anyone else.

84 degrees. Jesus Christ.

He glances at the bed across the room. The only visible part of his roommate is one bare calf, pale against his dark purple sheets.

His eyes have already adjusted enough to see the firm curve of muscle, the bump of an ankle. He squeezes them shut and falls back into bed. He stares at the ceiling, considers getting dressed and going down to the 24-hour place next door for a snack. He listens to the steady breathing—no snores tonight; Eames is on his stomach, thank god—from the other bed.

The sense of satisfaction he feels turning the temperature to 60 is probably petty, but he’s not sorry for it.

When Arthur wakes next, almost an hour before his alarm clock is set to go off, he’s huddled underneath his comforter in a tiny ball, the tip of his nose cold and the floor icy against his bare feet before he locates his slippers, half shoved underneath the bed. He doesn’t have the energy to be angry, not even at himself. He just sits on the edge of the bed with his comforter wrapped around his shoulders like he can suck up a bit of warmth and store it for the seven-foot walk to the bathroom.

“Your tie is loose,” is how Ariadne greets him as he sits. He clenches his bagel between his teeth to straighten it, and she reaches over to flick his lapel. “Class starts in three minutes. What’s wrong?”

He stuffs the rest of the bagel in his mouth and glares at his books as he chews.

“Seriously? Again? Dude, talk to your RA. This is ridiculous.”

“It was my room first. He’s not going to scare me away.”

“You look exhausted.”

“I can handle it.”

-

Arthur cannot, in fact, handle it. He’s sound asleep on Tuesday night when Eames bursts into the room with one of his pickups. Arthur is so tired that he turns over in his bed to face the wall, determined to ignore it and fall back asleep. He can hear Eames shushing the other guy, but the other sounds are unmistakable: friction, panting, the rhythmic creak of the crappy dorm bed. As he tries to fall asleep, Arthur focuses on the question of how they can both fit on the extra-long twin (Eames’ sheets don’t even fit it properly), and not on the uncomfortable, twisting heat in his gut. It’s quite a while before he manages it.

He wakes up even more uncomfortable, but thankfully Eames has already left. He relieves himself in the shower with bitter satisfaction, thinking that Eames is lucky he has the decency to get himself off in private like a normal person, and not all over Eames’ fucking laundry.

Arthur is grateful sometimes for his anger management classes. That sort of thing can escalate, and Arthur is way too protective of his slacks. Dress for the Stern School of Business is unofficially business-casual.

“This passive aggressive shit has got to stop,” he tells Eames. He catches him in the cafeteria in the student services building on the other side of Washington Square Park. Neutral territory. He hopes the public space will give them both an incentive to keep it civil.

He doesn’t know what he expects Eames to say, but it’s not “Why don’t you ever go out?”

Arthur looks at the posters on the wall as he organizes his thoughts and catches his breath—he’d seen Eames clear across the fountain and had run to catch up to him, and now, just standing in front of him, he’s breathless.

“What does that have to do with anything?” he demands.

Eames crosses his arms casually, and shrugs. “Just that you’re always there and I never have a moment to myself. It’s my room too, Arthur.”

“I can go to the library, I told you.”

Eames smirks, a slow stretch of lips that seems to slide indecently across his face. “Your definition of ‘going out’ is ‘going to the library?’” The amount of condescension in that one raised eyebrow is tremendous.

“You know what I meant,” he starts to say, but stops himself after only one word, the ‘you’ hanging accusatory and flummoxed in the air between them. Maybe Eames really doesn’t know what he meant. Eames obviously did not come to NYU to study.

“Do you not have an ID, is that it? I can make you one, 40 dollars.”

Arthur thinks of the stress of his senior year, the feeling of pride when his favorite teacher congratulated him on being accepted. New York, people repeated in awe, like it was a place that only existed on television and in movies. He felt like he was going somewhere, finally, somewhere that mattered. Now he has to meet with Mal nearly every night for tutoring and still only managed a B+ on his last French test. He’s never had to work so hard in order to be mediocre at something.

He thinks he might be the only one on his floor with an ID that says he’s 18. The only person in his whole freshman dorm, possibly.

“I don’t want to let it distract me,” is what he says, and his conviction sounds as weak as his voice.

“It can only distract you if you let it, yeah? And you’re not exactly permissive.” Eames grins, as if this will lighten the insult—the same one Arthur’s been hearing forever. You’re too serious. You need to lighten up. But it doesn’t seem like an insult at all, with Eames’ little grin. “Tell the distractions to fuck off and leave you be, and you can deal with them tomorrow.”

“I think you’re confusing distraction with procrastination.”

“I would never,” Eames declares. “Procrastination and I have a deep and meaningful relationship.” His eyes flicker behind Arthur. “I would love to loiter here in the hallway with you all day, Arthur, but I really am famished.”

Arthur quickly looks away, already in the process of twisting his body around; he hadn’t realized. “I’ll see you back—”

Eames frowns. “Running off so soon? I know you don’t have a class right now.”

“Yeah.” He looks down at the hand on his arm, restraining but not grabbing. When he shifts his weight to the other leg, it falls away. “I mean, no, no class—”

Eames nods, a knowing expression making his eyelids droop and his eyebrows raise and his body lean forward in confidence. “So you’ve already eaten then.”

Arthur opens his mouth. Closes it. He’s not sure what’s happening. Eames is like a steam roller.

A steam roller with really expressive eyebrows. They draw further together as he stares at Arthur. “You do eat, I hope.”

Arthur shakes his head, slowly. “I just, I mostly eat at Weinstein.” Almost without realizing, he has begun following Eames up the escalator to the third floor cafeteria.

“Chick-fil-A?” Eames guesses. An honest mistake. Arthur has heard it’s the only one in New York, and he’s seen students nearly cry when they go down on Sunday afternoons only to remember that it’s closed.

“No, the Kosher Eatery.”

“Oh. You don’t wear a…thing.” Eames twirls a finger above his head as if he’s drawing a halo on himself, and Arthur has to look away to keep from laughing because of course Eames would be that guy.

“A yarmulke?”

“Yeah. Yonadav wears them all the time. He has yarmulkes for every occasion.”

“I’m not strictly observant.” He hesitates. “It’s mostly to please my mother.” He’d chosen Weinstein because she’d wanted him to feel like he had a sense of community away from home. But he hadn’t gone to the Shabbat dinner on Friday night—had spent the night, instead, with Mal and Ariadne, with pepperoni pizza and une passoire and a feeling of failure so absolute and inescapable that it bypassed misery and circled around to contentment. It was astonishingly easy. He’s never going to do it again.

“Hmm. You rebel, you.”

Arthur is sure he didn’t say any of that out loud, but Eames looks at him as though he did.

He smiles tightly. He’s not ashamed that he wants to make his mother happy.

The line is long, and Arthur spends most of the time judging the back of Eames’ head, like if he looks hard enough he’ll be able to see inside and understand. Is there some unexplainable personality conflict that makes them clash this way? Eames seems perfectly charming when speaking to other people, is unfailingly polite to the guy who snatches the last croissant seconds before he can grab it. He just smiles, waves his hand with an accommodating smile, and reaches for a flaky biscuit instead.

Is it just Arthur? It wouldn’t be the first time—Arthur understands he’s not an easy person to know—but certainly the most distressing. They occupy the same space. If Arthur seeks to escape, Eames will rush in to claim the area he’s vacated. The thought is intolerable.

Even with a long line waiting impatiently behind him, Eames has the server smiling and tilting her head, chatting for longer than appropriate. When the person behind Arthur begins making noises of complaint, she finally heaps an inordinate amount of fries onto Eames’ plate. He jaunts off with a cheerful “thanks love” as Arthur steps up to receive the layman’s portion.

He’d grabbed a to-go container—more out of habit than anything—but Eames is ahead of him in line and lingers after he has paid, chatting idly with the checkout woman as Arthur pays for his food. When the woman—Bernice, her nametag reads—returns his card, Eames asks, “Over by the wall?”

Bernice smiles at him. At Arthur. She tells him to have a nice day, and all Arthur can do is nod because the few times he’s eaten here she only asks him whether he’s using cash or his meal plan.

He sleeps naked, Arthur wants to tell her. You don’t see what he’s really like.

When they’re finally seated, Arthur digs into his food, elbows planted on either side of his boat of fries, and says, “Look, you have to stop turning the heat up so high at night. It’s disrupting my sleep.”

He tells this to the fries, and shoves a few in his mouth, wary of the distinct silence coming from across the table. He looks up; he can already feel the wince forming on his face and freezes it still as he chews. His art teacher in high school once said it made him look like he had an attitude problem.

Eames doesn’t have the murderous expression Arthur keeps expecting, however. He’s just as busy as Arthur, tearing his biscuit apart into fluffy little clouds and wrapping his mouth around each piece like he’s experiencing it with every individual taste-bud.

“That is a shameful lie, Arthur, you sleep like the dead. You hit snooze twelve times in the mornings.” He wraps his lips around each fingertip in turn, licking away the butter, eyebrows raised at Arthur.

“That’s not—I wake in increments.”

But Eames is shaking his head; his fingertips pull away wet and shining and his tongue slides across his lips. Arthur doesn’t like watching other people eat; it’s grotesque. It makes his mouth dry and his stomach flip and he looks quickly away, swallowing, remembering the fry pinched between his fingers.

Eames says, “I am astonished—utterly astonished—that you manage to get to class on time each morning.”

“I set my clock ten minutes fast.”

Eames stares at him.

“What?” Arthur demands.

“I feel as though I have learned everything about you worth knowing in that one sentence.”

And there it is, again, a spike of heat in his stomach from the way that Eames looks at him. He looks down at his food and tells himself that it is irrational for him to feel this way—he’s sick with it, his stomach flipping and his face warm.

Eames doesn’t know anything about him.

“You do unnerve me when you’re sleeping, incidentally,” Eames continues, undisturbed. “You look as though you’re dead. You don’t move, you don’t snore.” Arthur hears the smirk in his voice. “Except sometimes you do start taking off your clothes.”

His eyes snap up. “Because you keep it so hot in there.”

“I can hardly help it if I get cold. How else would you suggest I warm myself?” Eames’ voice is light and innocent, but his eyes are heavy in a way that Arthur can’t describe—goading and insistent and incomprehensibly infuriating. Arthur knows hostility, and Eames’ unflinching stare is full of challenge, just aching to start something.

“Put some fucking clothes on,” he suggests, leaning back in his chair, crossing his arms. He feels the blankness of his own face, the tension in his fingers. He should leave, now.

Eames, the ass, smiles wide. “Is that really the best suggestion you can come up with?”

He’s not smiling as Arthur stands and walks away. He leaves his fries.

He shouldn’t have let that happen, he thinks later, back in his room.  But when he thinks, and rethinks, how it should have gone, it always ends in the same place and Arthur catches himself pulling at his hair, smacking his forehead, until finally he decides, enough, and goes to sleep wearing pajamas with a long column of silver buttons.

He didn’t even get around to what he’d really wanted to ask.

-

The next time, he watches, on his side with his back to the wall, eyes slit open and peering into the dark. If Eames insists on this, whatever this is, Arthur won’t give him the satisfaction of being bothered by it. It’s his fucking room too. 

He hears whispers, snippets of conversation too quiet for Arthur to hear, but he gets the sense it’s dirty, it’s filthy, knowing Eames and that silky smooth voice of his that rubs along one’s senses like a physical thing, and if Arthur could just hear what Eames is saying, he’d know, he thinks he’d know, he thinks, he can’t even think.

He hates Eames. He fucking hates everything about him, is what he thinks, clenching his eyes shut, staying as still as possible, mouth dry and hand clenched into a fist underneath the covers, until it’s over.

-

“Arthur? Arthur.”

His eyes open on a flinch, and he looks up into Eames’ face for a moment before he comprehends, face warm.

He can’t know, he tells himself, taking care not to shift. A quick glance down, the briefest flick of his eyes, tells him that he’s as decent as possible, leg crooked at just the right angle so that the thin blanket folds and obscures. Eames is fully dressed, which strikes Arthur as unusual for half a second before he notices that Eames’ friend from last night is still on the other bed, sitting up, also fully clothed. Smoking a fucking joint in his room.

Arthur jerks up. “What the fuck are you doing,” he demands, not even a question. “You’re going to get us kicked out of housing.”

Eames laughs—a short, almost soundless gust of air—and says, “The window’s open, Arthur.”

“Put it out right now or I swear—”

“It’s not a big deal,” the guy starts to say, but then he makes the mistake of looking at Arthur and the rest of his sentence is lost to the involuntary gulp of his throat. Arthur can’t see his own face, of course, but he can see the way the guy’s skin pales.

It’s not that Arthur has an aversion to drugs, per se, so much that he has a healthy appreciation of the cost of living in Greenwich Village and the shit ton of financial aid he would lose if he had a drug charge on his record.  Their RAs are really lax about enforcement but during Welcome Week they had taken the time to explain the consequences of getting caught before telling them not to get caught.

“Rob, put it out,” Eames says, sighing. The guy rolls his eyes but does as Eames asks, pinching the end with wet fingertips and stuffing it into a coat pocket.

“Is this what you do when I’m not here, do drugs in my room? Are there any other drugs in here right now?” He might need to start making provisions for when Eames inevitably fucks up his life.

In what he will later recognize as a truly spectacular diversion, Eames says, “If I’m reading this schedule correctly…you’re late for class. It’s why I woke you.”

“Shit.”

Arthur rushes to the bathroom. He ignores the snickers on the other side of the room as he pauses on the way to rifle through his drawers for underwear and to reach into the closet for a button-up. He tries to angle his hips away from Eames’ eyes, but his shoulders prickle, hot. It’s the heavy weight of regard, unmistakable.

Most people, he thinks, with a lurch of his stomach, can sense when they’re being watched.

Arthur can’t afford the extra time, but he steps into the tub anyway. He turns the shower ice cold, but even after the five minutes it takes to brush his teeth and slick back his hair, he still has to squeeze uncomfortably into his fitted slacks and zip carefully.

-

His headphones project silence into his ears. The only thing he hears is Eames banging around the small space, getting ready. Arthur studies at his desk with his back to the room, but his neck prickles with awareness as Eames travels from his bed to the bathroom to his dresser. Even without looking behind him, he knows Eames isn’t wearing pants. He sees his reflection pass in the full-length mirror propped next to his dresser. The unbuttoned halves of his shirt brush the tops of his thighs with every step. His briefs are a trendy bright green with white trim, if underwear can be described as trendy.

Arthur grits his teeth and maintains his self-control; he doesn’t so much as speak to Eames.

Eames speaks to him, though.

“Are you staying in, then?” he asks.

“Come to the club with us, yeah?” he asks.

“Ignoring me, are you?” he asks.

“This from the one so opposed to ‘passive-aggressive shit’?” he asks, but it’s not a question, really, so Arthur can’t help but answer.

“I’m not ignoring you.”

He’s not able to. Eames sucks up attention like a sponge; the idea is laughable.

There is silence from behind him. Arthur flicks his eyes to the mirror and sees Eames slowly buttoning his shirt.

“You know I’m not psychic, right?” he asks. “If you want something from me, you need to ask for it.”

Arthur swallows, turns his head just slightly but doesn’t look back. “I don’t need anything from you.”

There is silence. In the mirror, Eames pulls on a pair of pants.

“Suit yourself. You’re in New York City, Arthur. I don’t know what cornfield state you grew up in, but I can’t imagine how you could come to study in the most interesting city in America and then just…not take advantage of the freedoms it has to offer.”

He shuts the door quietly as he leaves.

-

“Wait, do you think he’ll be in there?” Ariadne asks as Arthur slides his ID card and stands on the other side of the turnstiles to wait for her. He adjusts his laptop case to the other shoulder, then switches it back.

“Maybe. We can just go to the library.”

“Hate that library,” she mutters. She joins him on the other side and then they wait for the elevators. “Do you think he’ll mind that much?”

“I don’t know.”

She shrugs.

They’re almost to Arthur’s floor when he says, “I can’t even talk to him half the time.”

“What do you mean?”

Arthur shakes his head. “He’s just…I don’t know.” He knows how it would sound to describe the way Eames fills a room, the way he steals all the air in it and leaves Arthur gasping. Eames’ presence is suffocating, heavy like a sodden cloud weighing down the sky, as humid-hot and mercurial as a summer lake. Or an ocean, more likely. Something with broader limits than a lake, something he’s more likely to drown in. 

He doesn’t understand Ariadne’s expression but that’s nothing new, so he just leads her down the hall.

“Hang back, I’d better go in first.”

“Why?”

“To make sure he’s not, you know.”

Ariadne’s eyes widen and then she scrambles for the door.

“No,” he hisses, blocking her path. “Please.”

It is disconcerting how far back into her head she can roll her eyes.

It’s the middle of the day, but, predictably, Eames is still in bed. He is not, however, sleeping. He has his PC propped on his lap. He’s under the covers, bare to his waist, and Arthur experiences a rush of mental anguish as he realizes what a hard time Eames is going to give him over this.

Eames glances up as he enters before turning back to his screen, and then fixes his eyes more steadily when Arthur remains standing by the door.

“Yes?” he prompts.

Arthur doesn’t know how to approach this.

Are you naked under there?

Do you mind if I kick you out of the room for a bit, even though I refuse to let you do the same to me?

No, but really, are you naked under there?

Finally, he settles on, “I have company.”

Eames’ expression is positively indecent. Those expressive eyebrows dance. “What sort of company?”

“Ariadne. She’s helping me study for a test.”

“Ariadne? Is she the French one?”

“No, that’s Mal, her roommate.” He pauses. “Mal’s boyfriend is visiting and they’re uh.”

Eames’ eyebrows draw together, rising in the center. “Oh dear. Sexiled.”

“No. Ariadne offered.”

“How considerate of her.”

“So we’re studying here.”

“Oh, don’t let me bother you. It’s your room. You can bring who you want to it.”

Arthur frowns. “Are you going to start trouble?”

“I would never.”

“Seriously. Because we can go to the library.”

The corner of Eames’ mouth twitches. “You and your library. I’ll behave. Ariadne!” he calls, louder. “Come in!”

“Are you wearing pants under there?” Arthur asks.

Eames smiles and greets Ariadne as she enters. “Hello, love. Any friend of Arthur’s is a friend of mine.”

Ariadne shoots a look of skepticism at Arthur and says, “Hello, Eames.”

“What class is this for then? Am I to be treated to the sensuous and sibilant sounds of the circonflexe and cédille?”

“Principles of Microeconomics,” she answers wryly. The unconscious twist of her lips is familiar.

Arthur sighs.

Eames beams at her. “Maths, then? The most difficult language; I’m afraid I’ll be of no help to you.”

“I’m sure we’ll manage,” Arthur says, annoyed already. He pulls out his desk chair for Ariadne and sits on his bed. He watches Eames become reabsorbed in his laptop and exchanges looks with Ariadne. Their silent conversation mostly consists of Arthur glaring at her and Ariadne raising her eyebrows innocently and mouthing the words “what?” and “he seems nice.”

They study for nearly an hour without interruption. Eames is quiet, for the most part, except every so often he will shift and the noise will draw Arthur’s attention to the other side of the room. Just to see, just to check. He wonders what Eames is looking at on his screen that makes him smile that way.

It happens right when they start on chapter six, right when Arthur is thinking that this is going surprisingly well. That’s when Eames stands up in the middle of Arthur’s sentence, causing him to choke on his words and mangle them into a strangled approximation.

“Eames,” he protests, watching in horror as Eames crosses the room to plug his laptop into the printer. The material of his underwear clings to the curves of his ass and hides absolutely nothing, and Arthur feels heat overtake his face.  He is dizzy and looks to Ariadne for help, but her eyes are comically wide and she’s trying not to laugh. His throat feels thick; he can barely swallow yet feels the need to do so repeatedly.

“Would you. can pr– put some fucking pants on?” Arthur asks at last, words tripping over themselves. “We’re trying to study, here.”

Eames frowns and looks down at himself. “I am wearing pants.”

There is not enough air in his lungs, so all Arthur can manage to get out is “boxer briefs” in stuttered syllables. He is furious at the technicalities of the English language in a way he has never been.

“I’ll remind you that it is my room—” Eames begins to say, but he’s drowned out by Ariadne’s shushes as they interrupt Arthur every time he opens his mouth.

“Shh, shh,” Ariadne soothes. “Eames, carry on. Really, please do.” She pats Arthur on the shoulder. If she’s trying to console him, it would be more effective if she wasn’t also snickering.

He can’t believe this. He doesn’t understand how she can just ignore that; it’s all Arthur can focus on. If she weren’t here, if she weren’t here, it would be so much easier. Arthur would be able to—

He drags his eyes away and fixes them on the corner of the room, above Ariadne’s head, but they’re drawn again. It’s like a train wreck. “We need to focus. We need to focus, here.”

Ariadne laughs. “I am focusing very, very hard. Aren’t you?”

He grits his teeth and stares resolutely at his book, willing his heart rate to slow.

It’s not that he’s looking, even. It’s that they’re seeing him look.

He wonders if Eames is grinning.

“He looks so scandalized, doesn’t he?” Ariadne says to Eames, like she’s conspiring.

“Extraordinarily, yes.” He is. He is grinning. Arthur can hear the smile in his voice, the way it warms the words with a low simmer. They’re both laughing at him. But there’s something else in their voices, too, something like disbelief. Arthur grips his pen.

Eames grabs his bathrobe. Arthur sees the motion out of the corner of his eye and this is what loosens the muscles in his neck and allows him to raise his head.

“Sorry to offend your delicate sensibilities, my dear.” He says this to Ariadne but as he turns toward the bathroom he winks at Arthur. He knows full well that Ariadne is not the least bit offended.

Arthur turns a betrayed expression on Ariadne as Eames enters the bathroom and starts the shower. She is still fighting a smile but there is a strange uncertainty in her features.

“It’s not a big deal. It’s not like he had a boner, Arthur.”

Arthur crosses his legs. “He was naked. Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Not especially. He was wearing underwear. Why does it bother you so much? You’ve seen it before…you said he walks around naked all the time.”

“That’s different.” He still hasn’t told her about the fucking. For all she knows, Eames just has a penchant for nudity. He doesn’t know that he even wants to tell her. Anxiety twists inside him at the thought.

“How?”

“You don’t know what he’s really like,” he insists. “He seems so charming but he’s…”

“I thought you said you barely talk to him—how do you know what he’s really like?”

“Lower your voice,” Arthur hisses. Eames is only, after all, a scant seven feet away.

“I think he’s baiting you. Trying to rile you up. You know.”

Arthur is surprised by his own laughter. That is exactly what Eames is doing. “It’s working. I want to strangle that fucker half the time.”

She studies him for a moment. “And the other half?”

Arthur bites his lip in thought. He thinks of the way Eames pushes at him, keeps pushing even when Arthur ignores him but always leaves before he pushes too far. He thinks of the way Eames casually exposes himself, like there is absolutely nothing of himself that he feels the need or inclination to hide. Eventually, Arthur realizes he hasn’t answered her yet. “I don’t know. Knife him. Butter knife.”

“Sure.”

“Plastic.”

She laughs. “You are such a grump.”

They resume their studying. He tells himself that it’s okay, that if Ariadne wasn’t bothered by Eames’ bare legs and torso, then there’s really nothing to be upset about. But he is upset. He just doesn’t like the thought of her looking at him that way.

What bothers him the most, he realizes hours later, both Ariadne and Eames long gone, is that she doesn’t look at him and feel the way that Arthur feels. He doesn’t know if anybody does.

---

Whereas midterms at his high school were something of a joke, late October is shaping up to be a special kind of hell as he is bombarded with a workload that makes him forget the allotment of his meal plan and that his bed is for sleeping, not for organizing his study sheets. Every single class he’s taking has a test or paper—or, in the case of his French class, both—on the syllabus for the two weeks bookending Halloween.

The added stress means that Arthur doesn’t have much annoyance to spare for Eames. He ignores him, for the most part. He keeps his distance. (In every way that he’s able to, at least—the room is as small as ever.)

“I don’t want to hear about your dreams,” Arthur snaps, finally, because no amount of distance keeps Eames from chatting idly. Arthur has tried to pointedly block Eames out by blasting music, but his preferred music is not effectively blastable.

Sometimes, Eames even starts singing along. His French accent is a dreadful, painful thing. Not because it’s bad, but because it isn’t. It’s better than Arthur’s. Plus the fact that hearing Eames sing loudly about how he regrets nothing is like having a cheese grater stuck in his chest, scraping snowflakes from his identity.

“Then tell me about yours.”

Arthur opens a new search window on WordReference. He got 7 points deducted on his last paper because of the damn pronoun order and agreement, and this time his sentences are going to be so meticulously crafted that the instructor will cry.

“I don’t dream,” he remembers to respond, “If I do, I don’t remember them.”

“Of course you do,” he says. “Of course you dream. How could you be here, if not for dreams?”

“Those are plans. Not dreams.”

“So literal.” Eames sighs, leaning forward in his chair. As if he has much room to criticize: he’s spent the last ten minutes recounting how his Aunt Mildred had turned into a leopard in his dream and chased him through a vine-filled Battery Park. Arthur would bet the equivalent of his tuition that Eames doesn’t have an Aunt Mildred. Arthur feels like Eames never really says what he means to say.

“You wouldn’t know literal,” if it bit you in the ass, he begins, but the words get stuck and he stares at his computer, recalling Eames’ hands on a stranger’s hips, remembering the slick, sloppy sounds and the stranger’s gasp of disbelief and surprise giving way to exclamations of mindless pleasure. It’s never quite dark in the room. The light from the streets, from the skyscrapers even, shines through their window despite the blinds.

At first the silence is just the absence of those words, and then Arthur realizes that he’s stopped typing. He resumes, so that it doesn’t feel so empty.

“And what happens when things don’t go according to plan?” Eames asks mildly. Arthur hears him shift, wonders if he’d see Eames looking at him if he glanced back or if he glanced in the mirror.

“They always do,” he lies.

“Are you not even capable of an imaginative guess?”

Arthur types two lines of text, backspaces. “I just don’t like to take chances with my future. It’s called being practical.”

“Practical.” Every syllable, every consonant, is precise and clipped, slow and assessing, like Eames is testing it for structural integrity.

“I wouldn’t expect you to know anything about that,” Arthur mutters. He knows Eames can hear him but he doesn’t care anymore. Eames talks at him without consequence; why shouldn’t Arthur do the same?

“How about a wager, of sorts.”

“Did you not just hear me?” But he backspaces again, and turns to look at Eames. “I’m not the gambling type.”

“Ah, but I feel you will be particularly invested in this bargain. It’s exceedingly practical, and I daresay it benefits you a great deal more than it does myself.” He takes a deep breath, just to prolong the wait and keep Arthur hanging on his words—Eames really is an asshole. “Come out with me.”

Arthur considers the vast array of meanings that sentence could have, and eventually he decides on the most likely scenario.

“Why?”

“Because if you do, I will give you what you crave.”

It’s insanity that makes him ask it; it’s frustration. “What do you know about what I crave, Eames?”

He licks his lips. “I know a thing or two.”

There’s a strange shuddering, deep in his chest, and it feels like greed. He knows this is too good to be true, but he knows, somehow, that this offer won’t come twice. This is Eames’ concession.

“One night,” Eames continues. “You come out to a party, low key. Stay a while, have a few drinks, enjoy yourself. And I’ll give you your peace and quiet.”

Arthur understands. “You’ll stop bringing people to the room.”

“I’ll stop bringing fucks to the room. I make no promise about people.”

“Then I make no promises about enjoying myself,” he says. “But I’ll come.”

“I sincerely hope you will,” he says, cheeky, “enjoy yourself, that is.”

Arthur frowns. “Can’t drink, though. I’m underage.”

“I don’t recall you being underage.” He flicks an ID at him, pink and green with holographic swirl, which states he’s 21. It says he’s from Iowa. He imagines Eames laughing as he made it.

“You had this ready? That’s presumptuous of you.”

Eames raises an eyebrow. “Merely meticulous planning. It’s called practicality, Arthur, honestly.”

He looks down at the ID. He doesn’t know what an Iowa license is supposed to look like, but it looks good. It looks real. He isn’t as intimidated by its illegality as he would have predicted—more than anything, he is absolutely charmed and seduced by its utility, the frank potential usefulness of having access to something he couldn’t reach before. “And when were you planning on this little sortie?”

“Tonight.”

Arthur shakes his head. “I don’t have time this weekend.”

“You studied for three hours last night. 

“Yeah. So?”

“If you don’t know it by now, you don’t know it.”

Arthur scoffs. If that is Eames’ mantra, it actually explains a lot. “It’s French. It’s not something you can just memorize; it takes practice.”

“You practice constantly. You speak French in your sleep.”

Arthur freezes. “I talk in my sleep?”

“You know what I mean.”

Arthur doesn’t know how to explain studying to someone who doesn’t study. “I have a lot to catch up on. My French classes in high school were different than here. The teacher didn’t really make us speak the language. It’s hard to get the words out.” Arthur hesitates. “Sometimes it’s hard to get them out in English.”

When he looks up at Eames, there’s a curious blankness to his expression. He doesn’t get it, after all. Arthur doesn’t know why he even bothers.

“I suppose we could do it next week,” Eames allows. “I’m certainly in no hurry.” A resigned Eames is a strange thing to hear.

Arthur nods. “Okay.” When he goes back to his paper, he finds that the words come easily, even though he can still feel Eames’ presence behind him.

-

“You spelled license wrong.”

“Pardon?” Eames is standing in the middle of their room. He’s without clothes, as usual, but there’s a towel tied around his waist, and he rubs another over his short blond hair, making it stick in all directions. His skin is still pink and wet from the shower. Arthur wonders, not for the first time, what Eames would do if their dorms were the traditional style with one shared restroom per floor. Wander down the hallway in his underwear without a care in the world, toothbrush in hand?

Arthur can’t imagine what it’s like to be Eames. He walks around nude the majority of the time, completely unselfconscious, yet Arthur manages to feel naked even when fully clothed.

Arthur shows him the fake ID, pointing under the state name, where it says DRIVER LISCENSE. “You spelled license wrong. There’s not supposed to be an extra S.”

Eames does not look happy. “Oh. Well, I can have that fixed.”

“I’m glad I didn’t let you talk me into going on Saturday. We could have gotten arrested.”

“If they noticed—and I doubt they would—they wouldn’t arrest you, Arthur, just turn you away. Or they’d keep the card and you’d dash off and let them search in vain for a Mark Pendleton from Boise.”

Arthur’s jaw drops. “It says I’m from Boise?” He scrambles to look at the license again. How did he miss that? “That’s the capital of Idaho.”

“I was joking.”

Arthur swallows. “Oh.”

Eames looks down at the ID, then sets it on his dresser and turns. Arthur thinks, bizarrely, that without the confidence in his shoulders, Eames doesn’t look special at all.

“Well, it looks as though we’ll have to postpone our outing. Probably best, though—Tuesday night scene isn’t a great introduction.” Arthur can see Eames twisting the edge of the towel between his fingers. He clenches a fist around the fabric.

“Well,”—

“I can have it fixed by Thursday. If you still want to go.” He says it like a challenge.

Arthur wants to say no. It would be the smart decision, really. He’s been chugging along the same path for so long that to detour might sacrifice all the progress he has made and send him back to start.

It’s not that he thinks it’s worth it—quite the opposite, he needs to prove to himself that it isn’t.

He wanted to come to New York so badly, but sometimes it feels like it could swallow him whole with how much there is to discover. He used to know exactly what he wanted, but now everything is muddled with imprecision and indistinctness and uncertainty.

There is an ache inside him, sometimes. An emptiness that feels like a physical thing, a nothingness like a virus, greedy and unstoppable, waiting for its chance to expand and consume.

If he went out, if he knew exactly what it was he’s missing, it might be easier. Those questions wouldn’t crowd his thoughts.

The possibility of what he might find is overwhelming.

It’s easy to say “Yes.”

-

For all that Arthur disdains those who get taken in by Eames’ charm, he proves himself a shocking hypocrite to discover that the geek-chic grad student he sometimes sees sitting in the Starbucks near his Physics lecture hall is in the room with Eames.

The hypocritical part is that he doesn’t expect it.

This is like the first time, lights-on and look-at-me. Only now it’s more like look-what-you-did and look-what-I’m-doing. Arthur is spellbound by the powerful surge of Eames’ hips, the flex of muscles in his ass as he digs his knees into the mattress and really goes for it.

Arthur has a detached, fleeting thought that if he hadn’t stopped for coffee they might have just come back to find him studying and left. Or maybe not.

“Close the door, Arthur.”

He’s being rude, he realizes, standing stunned in the doorway and holding it open for anyone to look in as they pass.

So Arthur does. He closes the door and he’s somehow still inside the room and Eames is really pounding into the guy now and he has never, ever been this loud. Arthur doesn’t for a second think that he belongs here, because there is no room for him. The space is full to capacity with Eames and his company, and the air is saturated with iterations of “fuck, ah” and shuddering groans and deep, soul-sucking gasps. Arthur’s head swims with it, and he leans against the door, hand pressed to his chest, feeling his pulse go crazy, his skin go hot.

“Is he watching us?” Arthur hears faintly.

“Yeah, yeah, ah,” is Eames’ reply. “Nngh, fuck.”

If his company has any objections, Arthur doesn’t hear them over the slick sound of Eames’ cock in the guy’s hole, or the sound of the bathroom door closing, or the sound of his own knees trembling and his heart beating in his ears.

It’s a strange sound. It echoes around the room and through his body in perfect rhythm with the thumps of the bed.

Arthur sits on the edge of the tub as he pulls on his hair and listens to Eames’ filthy promises.

-

“Arthur, what the hell,” Eames starts, cornering him the next afternoon, as soon as he gets back from his physics lab.

“No,” Arthur cuts him off.

“No?” No word has ever sounded so incredulous.

“Let me ask you something, Eames. What was the point of suggesting that trade if you never planned to follow through on your end?”

Eames stares at him before saying, “What?”

“The trade. The—what the fuck did you call it, the wager. I come out with you and you take them somewhere else. You lied to me.” Arthur tries to keep his voice down, tries to moderate his tone—there is no legitimate reason for him to be yelling right now. He knew from the beginning to be wary of Eames, didn’t he? He’s brought this on himself.

“I said come out with me and I’d stop. You haven’t come out with me, so I haven’t stopped.” Everything from his spread hands to his patient expression is disgustingly reasonable.

“Because you fucked up the identification.”

“And how long did you stare at it with a critical eye before you noticed?”

Arthur laughs, because of course. “You think I’m just looking for excuses not to go?”

“I think you are flinging about accusations of lying with no basis to support them. On Tuesday, we renegotiated that we would go on Thursday—we both agreed—and then last night when I was ready to leave, you said no again. How many times am I meant to postpone?”

Arthur wants to tear his hair out, because no matter how many times or ways he tried to explain it last night, Eames is just not capable of understanding. “I told you: the professor decided to lead the review session this morning. You think I would have been able to show up for that after a night out?”

There was no way Arthur could justify skipping a review led by the professor himself—it was a walkthrough of the study guide. There were people who hadn’t shown up because it wasn’t mandatory and Arthur pitied them their stupidity.

“I can’t explain this to you. If you don’t get it, then.” Arthur shakes his head. He can’t let himself—he has to think ahead. He can’t—his anger management classes helped him to control those impulses. He has to think ahead. Focus on what he wants for his future, not on—he can’t.

“Try me.” Eames says. “I’ve told you, I’m not psychic.”

Arthur shakes his head.

“Maybe,” Eames says, eyes locked on Arthur’s, “you just don’t want me to stop.”

It’s not a staring match, not really, but it feels like one. The same ache behind his eyes.

Eames breaks eye contact to look down at Arthur’s hands. Arthur puts down the study guide he’s holding, and it lies there, still. “I said I’d do it, and I will. On my terms, Eames. Not yours.”

Eames says nothing, staring again as Arthur shifts and frowns. His expression is different. He wants to tell Eames that he’s not psychic either.

“Tonight then,” Eames says, and smiles as though the problem is solved.

Arthur shakes his head. Sometimes he thinks Eames ignores him more than Arthur does likewise. “It’s Halloween.”

 “Did you have plans?” Eames asks, feigning shock, and his face is so insulting that Arthur wants to punch it just to rearrange that expression.

“Everyone is going to be in costume,” Arthur complains. Having a fake ID on a night when every underage kid with a social life or the desire for one is going to try to get in somewhere using a fake ID does not seem especially wise. Even back in Arthur’s two-stoplight town, they had extra security on Halloween; he can only imagine what it’s like in the city.

But Eames grins. “Arthur, I revise the terms of our agreement. We don’t even have to go anywhere if you let me dress you tonight. You can just walk to Astor Place and back.”

Arthur’s shudder is full-body.

“I’ll be ready to leave by eight,” he says.

Eames pouts and revises: “Sixth Street?”

“Eight o’ clock, Eames.”

“It’s only a block away!” he protests.

Arthur walks away and shuts the bathroom door in Eames’ face when he tries to follow him. He hopes Eames pulls something, laughing that hard.

-

Eames looks at him strangely as they leave. “That’s what you’re wearing?”

“You hardly wear clothes half the time; you have no room to judge.”

Eames sighs. “No, that’s not what I—it’s fine. You look fine.”

Arthur has been given to understand, from overheard comments, mostly, that NYU differs from most college campuses in that dorm parties are a rare creature. Since the campus is right in the city and the buildings are spread out over 10 or so blocks, the environment isn’t as insular or centralized. When all of the dorms are shoeboxes, and all you need is an ID from one of the abundant sources and anywhere in the city is open to you—who would hole up in a dorm with options like that?

It’s for this reason that their residence hall is a ghost town as they leave, and why every single person and their mother seem to be on the street as they exit the building. It is an exceptionally warm night for the end of October, and Arthur’s suit jacket is enough to keep him warm, but as he and Eames fight through the crowd toward the subway, Arthur passes shirtless men and a couple of ‘sexy’ Pokémon and a pair of women beautiful enough to be models wearing hot pants fashioned to look like diapers, hair in pigtails and holding teddy bears and sucking on pacifiers.

It’s fine all the way up University Place—busier than usual but not unbearable—but when they near Union Square to grab the E, the crowd thickens so much that Arthur has to grab onto the back of Eames’ shirt to keep track of him as people press in on him from every side. There are a couple of guys climbing the ever-present scaffolding set up on the sidewalk for building repair, and somebody is breaking full bottles of beer against the sidewalk apparently just for the hell of it. Pedestrians are ignoring traffic lights and crossing signals and weaving in front of cars in such numbers that the impatient horns of the drivers create a symphony as they crawl along inch by inch and rev in threat just to get people out of the way.

Arthur understands for the first time why someone might not want to live in the city, even though it’s all Arthur has wanted all his life.

The train is even worse. They pass on the first one because it is packed so full that the door will barely close, but when the A comes by shortly after and it’s just as packed, Eames tells him “it’s not going to get less busy for waiting,” grabs his arm, and pulls him into the sea of bodies.

“No, Eames,” he says—or tries to say. The hand clenched around his arm may as well be clenched around his throat for all that he can get the words out.

There is a second, the smallest instant, where he considers pulling away. But he can see himself in his mind, swept away by the crowd, drowning in it, and he clutches at Eames.

It is, without a doubt, the most miserable experience of Arthur’s college life thus far. Eames somehow manages to maneuver them into a corner but all that means is that Arthur’s back is pressed against the metal wall instead of against a complete stranger.

Eames is not so lucky. Arthur sees his grimace up close and personal because Eames is three inches away from him, his arms like a cage on either side of Arthur as the train stops again and the crowd presses closer and Eames retains the space he’s claimed for them both. Even those three inches seem like a relative mile to Arthur as he looks around and sees what everyone else has, and Arthur is astoundingly grateful with the part of his attention not occupied by claustrophobia.

When they finally reach their stop, they literally elbow people out of the way just to get off the train. Arthur steps on somebody’s foot and isn’t even sorry about it because he is absolutely done with this shit and it’s not even 9:30 yet. After they climb to street level, Arthur takes a moment to gasp and appreciate the city air, and thinks it would have been absolutely worth it to skip that review session.

-

“I want you to know that I fucking hate you, Eames. Just so that you are aware of this.” Arthur gazes unhappily at the sign for what is clearly a gay bar.  Because of course Eames would drag them all the way uptown for a hole in the wall bar when there are perfectly serviceable gay clubs in the West Village.

Eames’ smile is vindictive and unpleasant, and it’s the most amused Arthur has ever seen him. “Just one night, Arthur, remember.”

He can’t believe he thought this was a good idea when Eames first suggested it. As he walks inside—he doesn’t even get carded—it becomes less and less of a good idea. The floor layout has the bar stretching across most of the space, so that Arthur and Eames must squeeze past what seems like millions of people before they are deposited onto a small dance space in the back. It is clear what the major draw of this establishment is, so they head back to the bar and park there. Arthur is tapped out already—tired of being touched and jostled by strangers and pissed off that he will never, ever get all of this fucking glitter out of his suit.

The more he drinks, though, the less pissed off and less nervous he gets. Until he actually starts feeling okay. Pretty good, even.

“Having fun?” Eames keeps yelling to him over the music. He tires of yelling as the night progresses; he presses close to speak into Arthur’s ear.

“Feeling more comfortable now?” he asks.

“Would you like another?” he asks.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asks.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile so much,” he says, but this is a question too. When he pulls back, it’s there in his eyes.

Arthur is not a dancer but it doesn’t matter here, because the place is so packed that there’s not room to do much except sit or sway, and Eames keeps handing him drinks and trying to introduce him to people whose names he can’t hear over the music and whose faces are sometimes obscured by superhero masks. "And this is Arthur," he yells back to them, warmth in his voice and in his hand where it rests on Arthur's shoulder, or his arm, or wrapped around the back of his neck. One memorable man has an entire flamingo standing on top of his head and Arthur decides that in a just world he should not be expected to focus on anything else, and gives up trying.

It is absolute chaos wrapped in a blur of neon yellows and hot pinks and electric blues, and he wonders if it’s just one more consequence of the holiday or if this is Eames’ usual idea of ‘low key.’ Arthur’s cheeks hurt from smiling.

In what seems like a perfectly reasonable action in the moment, shortly after the third Batman-Robin duo, Arthur has a shot of tequila and then licks salt off of Eames’ abs, shirt pushed up to his nipples, because after Batman does it and after Robin does it, Eames offers the glass like yet another question that Arthur can't ignore.

The greedy thing at Arthur’s core makes him grasp Eames’ hips and pull him close, makes Arthur press for more even though he should stop, and he groans when he feels a hand in his hair, thinking thank you, thinking it will press for him, thinking it would be so easy. But the hand is pulling, and Arthur lets his head fall back and his eyes slide open and the thing in his stomach is too hot and twisted and inextricably anchored up his chest to sink at the look on Eames’ face.

“It’s time to go home, Arthur,” he says.

-

He wakes up and remembers everything, including how utterly embarrassing he was on the subway ride home, and Arthur wishes that he would have drunk a little bit more, just enough to erase the greedy clutch of his fingers at Eames’ skin, the way they acted as though they had a right to be there.

“You didn’t throw up and you removed your clothes on your own,” Eames says. Arthur opens his eyes and sees a glass of water in front of him. There are two ibuprofen cradled in the palm of Eames’ hand, and Arthur knows they’re his because Eames still hasn’t bought his own, even though it’s been over a month.

Then he closes his eyes, because he remembers the context of removing his clothes, the way Eames had leaned over to pick them up off the floor and set them on Arthur’s desk chair and grasped his shoulders and turned him toward his bed. Even though Arthur wants to bury himself at the bottom of the sea to avoid thinking about it, he appreciates Eames’ efficiency in getting the major questions out of the way.

“Feeling all right?” Eames asks. The room is dim—the only light comes from the window, and since it is past noon the sun no longer shines in directly. Eames sits across from Arthur on his own bed, and leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He looks strangely small and desaturated.

“I’m fine,” he lies, sipping at the water.

Eames rubs his face. He shakes his head, slowly. “I can’t believe you let me take you to a gay bar.”

“I can’t believe you let me act that way in front of all those people,” he says, quietly. He sets the glass of water on the floor.

“I thought—” Eames sighs, looks away. The slope of his shoulders is weary. Arthur doesn’t know if it’s an apology or an excuse. “I didn’t realize, Arthur.”

“Realize what?” he demands, uneasy from the way Eames fidgets, from the way he alternates between sharp observation and outright avoidance. He wishes he would just say it.

“Maybe you’re not aware, but you have some rather deep-seated, ah,” he trails off uncomfortably, looking away again, and Arthur can finish the sentence for him.

“Issues? So. Who doesn’t.” He curls his fingers into fists and tucks them away under the blankets. His face is burning. He doesn’t know how to begin to apologize.

“I…wasn’t going to say issues,” Eames says, but of course that’s a lie. “In fact, it’s rather telling that you think it’s an issue—”

“It was the alcohol,” Arthur insists. He takes it all back—Eames’ efficiency can go fuck itself. Arthur is finished with this conversation. He should leave, but if he gets up right now he will have to take his blanket with him into the bathroom and he hasn’t yet decided which indignity he prefers. He looks around at the stark white cinderblock walls of their dorm room and it’s never felt more like a prison.

“Arthur,” Eames says.

He shakes his head and pulls his sheet higher.

“Arthur, it’s come to my attention that there are, maybe, certain things that…you don’t allow yourself?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he demands, attention drawn back to Eames but so angry that he hardly sees him anymore. All that registers is the breadth of him, the strong shoulders, the muscled chest, the way he’s so much larger than Arthur in every respect. Eames occupies the whole room while he’s in it—there’s nowhere that Arthur can escape to, not unless he wants to squeeze into the space that Eames allows and suffocate there.

“Nothing.” The palms of Eames hands look soft and pacifying. Arthur is aware that he is in Eames’ space, crowded above him, and he doesn’t remember moving but the carpet is damp beneath his feet.

“I could hit you,” Arthur thinks, and then realizes he’s spoken aloud. His hands are aching, and Arthur tries to unclench them, but they remain fisted at his sides.

“You could, but you won’t,” Eames says, gentle and cruel. “Your self-control is truly astonishing.

“What the fuck do you know about self-control,” he demands.

Eames grabs his arms, and there is fire in his eyes, and there is fire in Arthur’s skin where Eames touches him. Here it is, Arthur thinks, and braces himself.

“More than you’d think.”

And he’s gone, out of the room, and it is maybe a minute later or maybe not. Arthur tries to feel relieved and then he tries to feel angry and then he just tries to breathe.

-

He shouldn’t have let that happen, he thinks, waiting for Eames to return.  But when he thinks, and rethinks, how it should have gone, it always ends in the same place.

-

When Eames returns and Arthur opens his mouth and closes it again, Eames shakes his head and moves to brush past him.

“You plan and plan for the future and that’s all you have,” Arthur says, explains, tries, “but you never reach it because there’s always more planning. You have it, but. You can’t. It’s. You can’t have it. It’s something you can’t have. Understand?”

Eames looks at him, questioning. Arthur thinks he might be speaking French, stumbling over phrases to find the right answer.

“Because if you let yourself have it, then you won’t have anything,” he continues.

The slope of Eames’ shoulders is the gentlest Arthur has ever seen. “And that’s easier for you,” he guesses.

The answer, of course, is yes.

-

He gets the highest grade in the class on his Physics test, and he tells Eames, just to see him pretend to be unimpressed, though maybe that is incidental.

For a week, they are, unbelievably, the only two people to enter their room.

A week after that, Arthur can finally believe it.

-

“Going to the library?” Eames questions as Arthur puts on his coat and adjusts his scarf in the mirror. It’s been unusually mild for mid-November, but weather is unpredictable and Arthur doesn’t like to be caught unprepared.

Arthur makes an effort to maintain a neutral expression. “My midterms are all finished, so I’m taking advantage of what the city has to offer.”

“So you’re going to the public library,” Eames guesses.

Arthur frowns. “The Met.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

“No,” is Arthur’s immediate, vehement reaction. “I mean, yes, I mind. Why would you want to?”

Eames hesitates, perhaps because of his vehemence—since Halloween, they have been exceptionally polite to one another. “I…have an assignment,” he explains carefully. Arthur has never seen him so particular with his words and thinks there must be something he wants, desperately, if he is being this careful with what he says. “ConWest. Something about picking two art pieces from different periods and then tying them to one of the texts.”

“And you want my help,” Arthur realizes. He doesn’t understand the disappointment that settles in his words.

Eames hesitates and Arthur gets this strong feeling that he is about to lie. But he says yes, not even blinking to admit it, and for a moment Arthur is so off balance that he doesn’t react.

“I’m rubbish at this English course,” Eames continues, still uncharacteristically subdued.

“That’s ironic.”

“It’s the spelling. And the essay writing, mate, the whole structure is opposite what I’m used to—if you have the point of the thing at the beginning, how are you meant to work up to it?”

“I am not doing your assignment for you,” Arthur says flatly, up front.

“That’s not what I was asking,” he protests. “I just thought…I have to go…you’re going now…why not go together?”

Arthur wonders if Eames makes sense to himself at all. “Then what did you say you needed my help for?”

“To choose the pieces, I suppose. I thought you’d be thrilled about this, honestly—I am fully prepared to defer to your judgement.”

“Oh, well in that case.” He pretends to consider.

Eames smiles at him. “I'll be just a moment.” He moves to his dresser for clothes. (A change of clothes, that is. Since Halloween, he has worn them.)

Arthur doesn’t smile. “I haven’t agreed yet,” he points out.

Eames just grins at him on the way to the bathroom.

--

It’s a much more pleasant ride than the last time he went uptown with Eames. Even though the car is not particularly crowded, the seats are occupied in the same skip-one pattern favored at urinals and in hospital waiting rooms, so Eames and Arthur grab a pole to themselves and Arthur stands looking at the floor as he sways from side to side at every curve of the track. Arthur can’t help but try to compensate with his feet, and needless to say, he does not appreciate being made that aware of his ankles.

Eames stands unnecessarily close on the pole, so Arthur pivots a few degrees away to give himself space.

Eames just leans closer though, to speak directly in his ear.

“You’ve got a pair of eyes on you.”

Arthur’s gaze remains fixed on the floor. “A person generally has at least one pair, yes.

For a moment, Eames doesn’t respond, and Arthur clenches his jaw. It’s during moments like these that he recalls his friends from high school, and how he hasn’t heard from them since graduation.

When he looks up, Eames is smiling. “To your 7.”

He steps to the side, one step closer to Eames, and looks in the window. The walls of the tunnel are dark, and there are two girls sitting behind him, reflected in the glass. It’s too dirty to make out details but the expression on Eames’ face says it all, really. Unless he’s referring to the middle-aged man with the comb-over.

Arthur shrugs. They can look all they want.

-

It takes twenty minutes for Eames to choose his pieces: an illuminated bible with a gemstone cover and a Greek urn. He takes pictures with his phone for later reference, and rapidly taps in some notes with his thumbs as Arthur stands by idly, aching to go off on his own to visit the Chinese scrolls. For all that Eames claimed to need his help, he’s barely asked Arthur for his opinion on anything, and Arthur thinks that Eames secretly just wanted company and none of his fuckbuddies happen to frequent the museum.

One of the ways that Arthur first managed to identify his and Ariadne’s potential for friendship was the way she had effortlessly understood the workings of a museum visit. They go to the museum together and spend their time in generally the same room and meet up if they lose each other or find something extraordinary. He has no legitimate reason to expect Eames to grasp this.

He considers just wandering away to leave Eames to it and is just taking a step to do so when Eames finally slides his phone shut and puts it away. He smiles at Arthur.

“Done?” Arthur asks.

“Yeah, thanks. What did you want to see first?”

His face is expectant, his smile wide and unguarded. Eames is standing contrapposto amidst beautiful things, golden scepters and polished armor and bronze statues that represent the male ideal. Eames could fit here, he thinks. This could work.

“Uh, the Chinese scrolls,” Arthur says.

Eames smiles wider. “This way.” He doesn’t even need to consult the map. Arthur follows.

-

“Do you dislike realism?” Arthur asks, as he stops to look at a neoclassical painting and Eames spares it a cursory glance before moving on. It’s not the first time it’s happened—there’s a pattern to the pieces over which Eames lingers: bright colors, apparent motion. It’s completely unsurprising, given the chaos on his side of the room. Eames is not one for neat lines and muted colors.

“The genre or the painting style?”

Arthur can’t help but smile, pleased that Eames knows the difference. “The painting style.”

“It’s quite good.”

“Restrain your enthusiasm,” Arthur says. He looks at the precise detail of a woman’s hand, the warmth of the pinks in her fingertips and the shadow of cloth around her wrist.

“It’s impressive, I’ll allow. But I don’t look at art meaning to be impressed.”

“Are you saying you could do better?” Arthur tries to hold back his derision. He has never seen Eames’ work, but knows he was accepted to Tisch. It’s a competitive program—he has to be at least good.

“What’s the point of just recreating it? That’s not art. That’s a gift, yeah, it’s skill, technical accuracy, but it’s not talent. It lacks imagination. I could just look at the real thing, couldn’t I?”

“You make fake copies of state-issued identification. I hope you see the irony there.”

Eames grins and turns the corner into a different section.

“What kind of art do you do?” he asks, the question following him. They’ve found themselves in a long corridor, interrupted here and there by pedestals. The art, Arthur notices, is more modern and surreal. The crowd is also much thinner, a few people dotted along the hall, drifting quietly from work to work.

“I dabble,” Eames says. “Theater and art, a bit of singing. I like being someone else on stage. I like drawing things as I see them. I just like creating things.” He shrugs. He reaches out as if to touch a painting and Arthur’s soul clenches but his fingers pause inches away and hover there, yearning but respectful. Eames does fit here, he’s certain now. Man in Profile with Hand Raised in Worship.

His hand falls to his side.

“I…Arthur, I’d like to draw you sometime. I’d like to draw you how I see you.”

“Mmm, no. I don’t think so.” He knows how Eames sees him. Grayscale or monotone, with immaculate lines and stiff posture. It doesn’t take much imagination to see it in his mind. With such a subject, it would be a thing of shadows and little substance, or a blocky surrealist painting with parts of himself disjointed, taken apart and put together wrong.

He expects to see Eames disgruntled, so used to getting his way, but he has turned his back and nods easily as he walks away.

Discomfort twists through Arthur. He needs to learn when Eames is joking, because it obviously creates problems for both of them when he mistakes the offhand remarks for serious statements. Of course Eames wouldn’t really want to paint him—he should have realized.

Eames stops in front of a painting of a large fish. Although Arthur stands beside him, Eames is quiet, as though lost in thought.

Arthur doesn’t like it. He resorts to their default language, the comfortable brand of antagonism between them.

“Wow. This is, um.” Arthur tilts his head. “So this is the sort of thing you like?”

Eames lifts an eyebrow, and everything is back to normal. “Problem?”

“Oh, it’s…fine.”

Eames laughs. “Fine? Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

“Ugly,” Arthur amends, because really.

“Ugly! That wounds me, Arthur. I adore only lovely things.”

“The colors clash.”

Eames frowns, looking back to the painting. His brows are furrowed, his distress like a chisel mark between them. “I rather like clashing colors. Just because they clash doesn’t mean they’re not perfect for each other. If everything matched it would just be boring.” He points but doesn’t touch, tracing his fingers through the air; he draws Arthur’s eye effortlessly. “Look at this, the energy in it, the push and pull. Arthur?”

Arthur blinks. “What?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like that. Staring.” Eames voice is quiet. Arthur looks away. He licks his lips.

“Just, you sound like you really know what you’re talking about.” He looks back up. “I was shocked for a moment.”

Eames’ laugh is startling. To him more than anyone, it appears, as he continues laughing at how funny it isn’t, and then just at how he can’t stop laughing. Arthur waits for him to finish, watching him laugh himself out with his shoulders thrown forward and his stomach contracting in rhythmic, powerful pulses. When he finally settles, he is breathless, and his face is lit with warmth when he reaches to steady himself on Arthur’s shoulder.

“Stop—stop that,” he scolds, bursting into another short peal of laughter and squeezing once. “Arthur, stop it. You’ll set me off again.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Arthur protests, before he realizes he is grinning, that his smile is wide enough to display his molars. Eames looks at him for a few more seconds and then loses control again, dropping his head helplessly to his hand where it rests on Arthur’s shoulder.

If Arthur weren’t wearing a jacket, he might feel his laughter, the warm puffs of air.

Everyone in the quiet hallway is looking at them.

“I’m hungry. Are you hungry?” His stomach is quivering and aching. There must be a cafeteria somewhere in this place.

“I know,” Eames says, and is helpless once more, eyes squeezed tight.

-

On the train back, Eames says, “Thank you for the lovely company, Arthur. You’ve been a delight.”

Arthur smiles, and sees no reason not to smile. It’s been a good day. “I knew you just wanted company.”

Eames waves a finger back and forth. “Not just any company. Delightful company. My requirements were very specific.”

“Sure they were,” Arthur says, agreeable. He leans back in his seat.

“He mocks me! The mayor of Vague Village mocks my preference for specificness.”

“Vague Village?” he repeats. “My mocking has escalated to straight-out judgment.”

“You’ve never been? It’s somewhere along Avenue B.” Eames snorts.

Arthur shouldn’t encourage him, he really shouldn’t. He turns toward him and clarifies, “You mean Vague-ish Village?”

Eames starts laughing again, but quietly. They’re on the subway; nobody looks at them.

When they finally stop, Arthur glances at Eames out of the corner of his eye. “The word is specificity, by the way. But…close enough.”

Okay, maybe a couple of people look at them.

-

“Not going out tonight?” Arthur asks, looking up from his book. He doesn’t normally read in bed—he read an article once that stressed the importance of establishing the bed as a place for sleep in order to avoid confusing the body—but it’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. His body is already confused into thinking that 4 AM to 9 AM are the only acceptable sleeping hours, and he has nothing else to do until after the break, when he will begin studying for finals with purpose.

He is horrendously sleep deprived but too wired to drop off, so Arthur is going to read himself a goddamn bedtime story.

“Nope. Essay, remember? Due by midnight tomorrow.”

Arthur groans. “Oh fuck you, Eames, for a second there I worried I forgot one.” No class in the morning. Nothing except glorious, blissful sleep.

Eames laughs and settles in at his desk. His chair is angled out, so that he can prop his feet on the foot of his bed and still reach his drink and bother Arthur when he gets bored. He's wearing a soft t-shirt and a pair of checkered pajama pants.

Eames notices him looking and smiles brightly. “Don’t judge my writing strategy, Arthur, I know that look. I’ll have you know I edit whilst completely sober."

“Edit? I thought you said you couldn’t spell to save your life.”

“I believe you’re the one who said that, and I believe my response was fuck off,” he states mildly.

After a moment of companionable silence, Eames says, “I have more, if you’d like some.”

Arthur looks at their mini-fridge, filled with Arthur’s bottled water and Eames’ orange juice.

“No, I.” He shakes his head. “I’m glad I can say I tried it, but I don’t think I’ll do it again.”

Arthur can feel Eames looking at him across their room. “You seemed to like it. If you don’t mind my asking.” But he doesn’t ask anything.

Arthur shakes his head, speaks to the pages of his novel. “I didn’t like how it made me feel.”

When Eames nods and murmurs in understanding and lets it go and stares a fucking hole into the side of Arthur’s face while doing all that and he still doesn’t ask, Arthur adds, “Like I was losing control of myself.”

He thinks that’s it, until Eames says, “It doesn’t have to be like that all the time.”

Arthur looks at him.

Eames’ eyes are very, very blue. “Sometimes it’s just nice to relax.”

Arthur consciously tries to loosen the tension in his shoulders, and looks again to the fridge.

A moment later, he says, “Maybe.”

An hour after that, he says, “You’re right, it is nice to relax.”

He is very, very relaxed. His whole body is loose and soft and warm, and he is so tired that he can’t really see the words of his book but that’s okay because it’s not an assignment and he doesn’t need to see the words because he doesn’t need to remember them and he’s not really reading it anyway because he has been reading Eames’ paper over his shoulder for the last twenty minutes.

Eames reaches to take the glass from Arthur’s hand and sets it on the floor beside him. His laptop is balanced on his knees and his paper is three-quarters done and Arthur has been pointing out errors and laughing at Eames’ extra ‘u’s before reassuring him that his professor will probably not care.

“I just keep waiting for the moment you realize you don’t need the alcohol to relax,” Eames says, smiling down at him.

“Maybe I do.”

“That scares you?”

He licks his lips. “Scares the hell out of me.”

“Are you going to do anything about that?” Eames asks, angling his head.

“About what?”

Eames says nothing, just tilts his head and points to Arthur’s lap, where his blanket is tented. The bottle, Arthur remembers. Nestled between his knees. He hands that to Eames, also, and Eames smiles. He is happy, just like Arthur is happy. They are happy, together, here.

He thinks he falls asleep, but it’s only for a couple of seconds. Arthur’s book has fallen shut against his chest, and Arthur’s head has fallen against Eames.

“I know I’ve got to be careful with you, Arthur. I hope you know that. That I’m being careful.”

Arthur laughs. “You’re the opposite of careful.” The idea is hilarious. “You can’t be somebody you’re not, Eames.”

“Obviously I can,” he argues. “Actor.”

“Shouldn’t,” he means. “Don’t have to. It can hurt, sometimes.”

“Being careful, or being someone you’re not?”

“Yeah.”

Eames’ hand is on his face. It’s there. Arthur reaches up, to touch it, to make sure. Yes. His palm is warm, settled lightly and curved to his cheekbone. Arthur makes a questioning noise with his throat—more efficient. Can’t ask with his eyes, they’re closed. He would have to open them, he would have to look at Eames, would have to, no.

Questioning noise. Easier.

“Your smile,” Eames explains.

“Mmm.” No question in that noise. Now he knows why the hand is there.

“Arthur,” he starts.

“Fuck you,” Arthur says. He wants to sleep. “You’re all, these tricks. Funny how I hated you.”

“They’re not tricks, Arthur.”

“Yeah.”

He is still smiling, but Eames’ hand is gone.

-

He wakes up in bed, and Eames looks over at him when he stretches and groans. It is immediately obvious that he slept a long time, because it’s almost dark outside. “Evening,” Eames greets. He’s lying in bed, once again looking at his laptop.

Arthur drags himself out of bed before he can fall back asleep. After a trip to the bathroom, he sits at his desk and wakes his computer up. “Are you eating tomorrow?” he asks Eames as he checks his e-mail and his grades and the parade times and then his grades again because you never know.

“Hmm?”

“Thanksgiving, I mean. Do they do that in Britain?”

“You do know Britain and England are not the same thing, right? Britain is pretty…broad range.” Eames’ voice is tight. Arthur laughs.

“Sorry. England, then.” He clicks around the page some more. He sees the weather forecast and grimaces: 14 degrees wind chill, not fucking happening. “You know, I did want to check out the parade but I don’t think I want to deal with any more crowds after…”

It’s just a quick glance in the mirror, just a flick of his eyes, but all of the blood rushes from Arthur’s head in a single swoop that leaves him lightheaded. It is immediately obvious why Eames’ replies are so distracted and delayed—not because he is occupied by his computer, but because he is rubbing himself through his underwear.

Arthur should leave but he can’t stand; can’t move. He can feel Eames’ eyes on him like a physical touch.

“You’re doing it again.” Eames’ voice startles Arthur. “Staring.”

Arthur fixes his gaze on his computer screen, though his eyes see nothing there.

“Don’t look away. You like watching, don’t you, Arthur.”

That is preposterous. The heat flushes up his neck like a lick of fire and settles in his ears. Arthur turns in his chair.

“I’m…” Arthur says, licking his lips, at a loss. “Uh.”

Eames puts on an innocent expression. He is still holding his cock. Arthur’s eyes flick down once.

“You can watch,” Eames says. “I don’t mind.”

Arthur shakes his head. He tries to turn away. “No.”

“Well, only if you want to,” Eames encourages, and pulls the front of his underwear down to expose the head, just enough to rub a fingertip in a circle around the slit, slow and teasing. “You could even touch yours.”

Arthur licks his lips.

“If you want to,” Eames adds. He bites his lip as his eyes flutter closed for a brief second.

“Why are you doing this?” Arthur asks.

Eames looks him straight in the eye and says, “There’s such a thing as too careful.”

Arthur’s whole body feels like it’s shaking as he rises to his feet.

“You’re so…precise,” Eames says, and his gaze feels like a physical touch to Arthur’s confused body.  “Makes me want to ruffle you a bit.”

You can’t say things like that, Arthur wants to say. He turns his back to Eames, and he’s reminded of the first day they met, when Arthur could cope with Eames’ stare only by turning away from him. Things haven’t changed much, he thinks, feeling Eames’ presence right behind him.

“Could you look at me when I talk to you?” Eames requests. His voice is close, though he didn’t notice him get up from the bed.

“Can’t you just—fucking, give me some space?”

“Give you space?” All of Arthur’s air and sense is knocked out of him by the heat of Eames at his back and the grip of his hands on the edge of the desk, trapping Arthur’s body between his powerful arms. The gust of breath on the back of his neck makes him melt toward the warmth and a soft grunt escapes him against his will. “Give you fucking space, Arthur? That’s all you have around you.”

“Eames.”

“I’m not touching you, Arthur. But you can ask me to.”

He thinks he feels a hand on his waist but he pushes back against Eames and jams an elbow in his side. “I just, I need,” he gasps, breathless. The sudden cold makes him shiver, and he grabs at the wall for balance even as he’s walking toward the door. He just needs to get out of this small fucking room, Jesus Christ, he needs.

He reaches for the handle and clicks the center in.

And then he turns the deadbolt.

“Is that?”

“Yes.”

Eames catches him, shoves him hard enough that Arthur’s cheek is smushed flat against the door and his erection is painful against the unyielding surface. He moans at the hot presence of Eames’ mouth at his ear.

“You want this so bad, Arthur. Thank you for letting me give it to you.”

It is very much like falling.

“God.”

Eames’s cock is a hard line against his ass, and as Arthur groans, Eames grinds up against him, grasping Arthur’s hips as he does so. Arthur thinks how embarrassed he’d be if someone walked by their room and heard his open-mouthed pants right up against the door.

“Fuck,” he moans, pushing back, canting his hips up a bit. “The bed, the bed.”

Eames grabs the short hair at the base of Arthur’s skull and uses this hold to turn him around so that they’re facing each other, and drops straight to his knees.

Arthur pushes him away immediately, horrified, and Eames falls back gracelessly onto his ass. “Bed,” he insists, and then laughs at him.

When Arthur lies down on his back and Eames settles above him and pushes down into him, his chest feels like it has a huge hole in it that Eames can just crawl right through.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to look,” Eames murmurs, stroking Arthur’s forearm where he’s thrown it across his face, head twisted to the side and trying to escape even as his hips surge upwards. He could choke on how good this feels, on how it could end at any moment, on how he’s sure something like this was never meant for him to have and keep but it doesn’t matter at the moment because he’ll fucking steal it if he has to.

“I want to,” he tries to explain, but his voice is thick, and Eames fits his mouth under Arthur’s jawline.

“It’s okay to let this happen,” Eames whispers in his ear like a secret, and Arthur grips him tightly because he’s never been good at letting go, face buried in Eames’ neck.

“I’m not,” Arthur gasps. “I’m not letting you do anything. This isn’t a fucking concession, Eames.” Arthur clutches at Eames, wrapping his arms around the small of his back, and bucks his hips up, hard. He loses Eames for a moment. When he returns, they stare at each other, and Eames is gasping and radiantly, urgently happy.

“Then ask me for it,” he says.  “Ask me for it and I’ll give it to you.”

“Ahn,” Arthur manages. “Nnnh. Fuck.”

Eames smirks like he knew it. “If you can’t ask for it, you’ll have to take it.” And he flips them over. Arthur stares down at him, disoriented.

“What?”

“You want me,” Eames says. “And I’m saying that you can have me. Whatever you want, the answer is yes. You’re wrong, Arthur, this is absolutely a concession.”

Arthur is overwhelmed by the greed in his chest, and Eames’ hand settles there to ease it.

“I want to touch you,” he says boldly.

“Please.”

“And. And kiss you.”

Eames smiles. “I’m glad. I want to kiss you, too.”

He takes a breath. “I want to fuck your mouth,” he says, just to see if he can, and Eames smiles, and the answer is yes.

Eames takes his hand away from Arthur’s chest and instead grips his thighs, easing him forwards and up with an insistence that is impossible to ignore, until Eames’ head rests between Arthur’s shaking knees and he can reach up with open lips to press his mouth against the material of Arthur’s pajamas.

“Arthur,” he moans, maybe in response to the strangled noise Arthur makes, maybe at the involuntary jerk of his hips—fuck if Arthur knows. Eames’ fingers claw at the waistband of his pants and then his underwear, and Arthur helps him, but when he’s free and he pushes his hips forward, Eames turns his head away for just a moment and looks up at him.

“You can be as careful or not careful as you want, Arthur,” he says, before he closes his mouth around Arthur’s cock.

It’s obvious that the first couple of thrusts choke him, and even though he can feel Eames’ throat work around his cock, he doesn’t enjoy it as much as he thought he would. What he likes best is touching Eames’ face, feeling the side of his cheek and running his hand through his hair, and when Eames hums the most pleased and contented noise at that, Arthur tries not to ruin it by choking him again as his hips jerk out of his control.

It’s less overwhelming this way, where he can see Eames but Eames has to strain to see Arthur watching him. He isn’t watching for very long, at any rate, since it soon becomes difficult to keep his eyes open. Shortly after that, he is not able to do anything at all, not even move, strained and desperate and gasping with the need to finish but the inability to accomplish it. His hands are shaking where they rest on Eames’ face, and eventually Eames pulls off Arthur’s cock and it’s shiny with his spit and oh fucking god, Arthur thinks, why can’t he just.

Eames pushes at his knee until Arthur moves to the side, off of him, and when Eames kneels up in front him and covers Arthur’s eyes with one hand and wraps the other one around Arthur’s hand to urge it to himself, Arthur should ask “How the hell?” but he is coming too hard.

It’s easier, after that, to look at Eames and see him looking back, to see the strain in his face as he fucks into his own fist, and as impossible as it is, it is thrilling to know that he’s allowed, so he kneels up to turn Eames’ face toward him and presses his lips to the soft curve of his panting mouth and watches his eyes slide shut.

-

Eames allows him to touch him afterwards, forestalling any anxiety by pulling him close for more kisses, kisses of all kinds, by angling his head to demonstrate, by pulling back when Arthur begins to falter and pushing forward when he relaxes, effortless and intuitive. Or maybe just practiced.

Arthur is very set on the idea of becoming practiced. Arthur doesn’t like to be mediocre.

“Can we do more?” he asks, just to be sure, though he can’t imagine Eames saying no at this point.

“We can do whatever you want,” he says, “But not yet. I need to have some tests done.”

Arthur understands that he is not talking about finals, and is so grateful for a moment that he has to close his eyes again. Eames is still there when he opens them.

“You need to finish your paper,” Arthur realizes.

Eames laughs. “I sent it this morning.”

“Why did you wait so long?” he asks, quietly.

“I had to be certain,” he admits, smoothing away the expression this causes on Arthur’s face, fingers pressing against his eyebrow in disapproval. “Don’t be like that, you know what I mean.”

“I wasn’t even certain, how can you”—

“That,” Eames says, laughing, “was fucking transparent.”

“Shut up.”

“Your mirror is really conveniently positioned,” Eames says, hesitant and apologetic, but Arthur swallows and works his jaw and ultimately just nods, and Eames smiles like he is proud of him.

“I thought you were homophobic, at first,” Eames admits. “It wasn’t until after the club that I figured it out.”

This is surprising. “You didn’t know I was gay?” Out of everything, this seems like the most insignificant and obvious detail. Arthur worked through that part years ago, and he aches to think how easy it would have been to correct Eames if he had mentioned it.

“No, I knew you were gay, I just didn’t think you knew you were gay.”

“I’ve known since I was twelve,” Arthur says, but then he gets stuck again, and turns to bury his face against the covers.

He feels Eames’ hand against his shoulder and he can’t see whether or not Eames is looking at him, but Arthur inches closer to him and decides that as long as he’s within reach, it probably doesn’t matter.