So it was Sunday night, and I was lounging about in the dorm, refusing to do anything productive, watching Boston Legal in spurts and I just went, okay, now I'm going to write fanfiction. And I sought out a prompt.

It turns out to be: After being stuck in limbo too long, Arthur becomes mentally challenged. Eames is very protective of Arthur and hates it when people look at him weird.

And I went oh my heart and set out immediately. I'm not sure how happy I am with what came out. Hesitant posting.

"What the fuck do you think you're looking at?"

He was on the edge, too aggressive, his voice too shrill. Unwarrantedly so, but- still- "How the fuck are you educating your kid? You'll just let her get away with murder, won't you? Rude little snots- do you think it's funny? You think it's funny, right? Thirty years later it'll be your parents in a fucking asylum with their brains dribbling down with their snot and, fuck you-"

"She never said-" the dad said, gesticulating with his hands. He wasn't a small guy- he was actually taller than Eames- but Eames was in a killing fury, and it showed in his shoulders and teeth and eyes. "Look, I'm sorry- Denise, let's go-"

Eames was about to demand that she apologize, the little stuck-up bitch who'd never known pain, probably went to sleep in her cushy upper-class pink bed with a fucking canopy, probably, and had her stand stuffed with barbies people had given her for her birthday. She'd start pot with her friends by the time she was thirteen and by nineteen she'd be on the streets as a whore.

But Arthur was tugging on his sleeve, and the touch slammed him back into reality, the fact that I have a responsibility but mostly loud voices upset Arthur. He shut up immediately and glared them into submission, the nincompoop who called himself a father, his fat faced pug of a daughter (probably molests her in her sleep, he thought uncharitably) and the frail-handed blonde slip of a woman who'd probably- right, no more speculation. They were off, and everyone else was very carefully not looking a them.

"Let's get out." Eames muttered, fury still lashing around in his gut but caged by the soft touch on his hand. Arthur followed him, staying close to his shoulder, the light touch turning into a deathgrip as Eames wheeled the cart to the counter. They had nearly everything, anyway. They could pick up orange juice somewhere else.

He made quick work of it, rolling the cart away in the lot without bothering to retrieve the coin. Some other fucking lucky kid could have it. The groceries went into their truck, Arthur making abortive little gestures to help him, Eames kissing his cheek and sending him off to the passenger seat, not letting him handle the things. He knew they'd only slip through his listless hands as Arthur forgot what he was doing.

It was a hot summer day, but he still rested his palms against the hot metal of the car before he went in, taking a moment to himself.

He was very tired.

Limbo.

After Eames had brought Arthur out, the first thing he'd done was smash the PASIV device. Priceless- then. It wouldn't be in a few years, he knew, but his employers were pulling out guns. Guns? They didn't frighten him anymore, but Arthur's disorientated clutching at his lawn chair did, as did the confusion on his face that did not pass, even after a few minutes.

A few minutes was all Eames needed to confirm that nothing mattered anymore to him about this job. He had his route to Mombasa planned out in the space he took to kill everyone in the room, which was nine seconds, because he had to pick up- things. Things that would help.

And then started the trips to doctors, everyone in the business that Cobb could hunt down and Saito could pay for. They even tried going back down, but it was different- even his subconscious was different, all fuzzy edges and confused tangles of mist that he couldn't even remember properly when he came out again. There was nothing. Nothing. No events. No projections. It had been like being dropped into a three-dimensional Pollock painting.

Although they spent another four months travelling around, Eames could pinpoint that exact moment, when he wrenched that IV line out of his wrist and stared at Arthur's vacant smile in sleep, as the moment he gave up. Really.

Cobb was with them all along, gained the same bruised look to his eyes as Eames did, and was the one to gently sit him down and say- "Maybe you should settle down."

Eames didn't protest. He was tired of running on a road that never led anywhere, and dragging an innocent along with him.

"It's hard- seeing him like this." Cobb said.

Cobb was the only one Eames didn't get angry with when talking about Arthur. It was that sick look on his face- not sickened, but sick- that did it, that emotion that went beyond despair or devotion or regret, that plunged so deep into sadness that Eames lost his words at it, partly because he knew he looked worse.

"Yeah." Eames said, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and then they talked about- sane things.

Two days later they moved into their house.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Russell was a friend- one of those he trusted- sounding concerned over the phone. "I mean, man, it's not even like continuing a relationship. Wouldn't you be better off committing him to an institution, or anything-"

Eames didn't offer any excuses about Arthur's status as a criminal, or that unsavory characters would find him in such a place, or even that he didn't trust 'institutions' (even if he didn't) because those factors meant shit. Even if Jesus came to their door and offered Arthur a spot in their ward, he'd deck him. "Russell. I'm doing it."

"It's a lifelong thing, man, you won't have a life with this thing going on- look, I know you're rich enough to settle down, but are you sure?"

"Until the goddamn day I die." Eames replied, and slammed the receiver down.

Sex was a very different issue.

After Arthur- changed, Eames was brutally certain of his self-control. After all, after this devastation, how could he- take advantage, or settle with someone else? Preposterous. He'd stay celibate forever. Jerk off in the toilet when he wanted to. It wouldn't matter. Nothing would matter except Arthur.

He held out for a full five months.

One day he woke up with Arthur draped over him, breathing into his neck, one hand buried into his hair, one leg hooked around his waist. In a space of a few seconds- two or three- he was so aroused that he couldn't breathe.

"Fuck." he whispered. "Arthur- darling, can you get-"

Untangling himself was difficult- when he peeled off his left arm, the right one went around his neck, and at one point Eames realized Arthur was awake, and he was staring into his eyes.

"Fuck." he said again, helpless as breathing, and Arthur's hand was on his slacks, his expression bemused as he just- oh- "Arthur-"

Five months. Celibacy for five months. It took him only a delirious minute to come, and it was Arthur's vaguely half-lidded look that made him push him down (gently- more gently than he would have been when Arthur wasn't-) and take Arthur's own cock into his mouth, suck him in gently, listen to his soft gasp of puzzlement and delight as his flesh swelled in his mouth and that beautiful body bucked up into its own release.

But Eames never fucked him. He couldn't bring himself to, even though he knew that Arthur would probably take pleasure from it- it seemed- wrong, somehow.

He even talked to Cobb about it.

"Is this wrong?" he babbled tormentedly to his friend, who was like a father to Arthur, which was kind of weird but he had no one else to confess to. "Because- it's like he's a child, right, it can't be right to do this-"

"You won't hurt him." Cobb said. "We both know that. And he is- well, physiologically, release is good for him, and you still need. Well."

An uncomfortable pause from his end.

"Besides, you were both in a relationship before. It's not like it's nonconsensual."

"It is- maybe he wouldn't have wanted-"

"I think that's implausible." Cobb said firmly enough to end the issue then and there. "He loved you. You know that."

Eames stared at Arthur, splayed out on the sofa, playing with his die, smiling complacently at the recurring number- and wondered, firstly, who 'he' was anymore- and secondly if Cobb realized that he'd used the past tense.

After a few weeks, Arthur kissed him of his own volition- with none of that past confidence or sensuality, but with a kind of soft hesitance that shouldn't have turned him on as much as it had. They were slide-away kisses, no real passion to them, but a happy sort of interest that made tears prickle at the back of his eyes.

When Arthur slept, his hands loose on the fabric of his pillow, his face peaceful, Eames sat awake and held conversations with- with Arthur.

(He thought, of course, about- really. Talking to Arthur. Cobb would gladly lend him his PASIV, or if he asked, Saito could buy him a new one- and there were lots of people out there whose favors he hadn't called in yet. He had plenty of options. But that wouldn't be Arthur, either, there was no way to reconcile those two together into one whole- he could only have fragments of him, strewn around, memory and body and imagination.)

(And besides- it felt like he'd be betraying Arthur. He didn't even know who 'Arthur' was, anymore- an uncertainty that chased him around in nightmares he did not remember, he thought. But running to a fantasy would be a mistake almost half as grand as had been letting Arthur fall to Limbo.)

"You should move on." Arthur said bluntly to him.

"Shan't." Eames promptly replied very cleverly, smiling at him in a naughty fashion, ignoring the tears streaming down his own cheeks. "You know no one else is good enough for me, love."

Arthur stared, looking unamused. "You know it's what I would have wanted. What I want." he said. "For you to move on. You selfless prick."

Eames breathed ohgod under his breath and grinned at the empty window, his hand creeping across the bed to find Arthur's, real, warm, lifeless Arthur's. "Move on to what?"

There was no answer, so Eames lay down, buried his face in Arthur's back, and soaked his nightshirt with his tears.

They sat in a restaurant- some crowded but quiet family place, dimly lit but not romantic. Arthur put his head down on the table and smiled off at the wall.

"Would you like to order?" the waitress stared at Arthur, but did not say anything. Smart girl.

"He's a bit under the weather." Eames said. "Jet lag."

He reeled off their order and watched her go. Arthur's hands twisted along the surface of the table and found Eames', and he proceeded to play with his fingers with an absent look on his face. Eames closed his palms around his, and as usual, Arthur looked startled to see them move.

"What you said last night." Eames said softly, and Arthur's darting eyes fixated on his mouth, his own falling open in what looked like fascination. It was a little flattering, but Eames hoped he didn't try to kiss him here. "You told me to- move on."

Arthur turned his gaze away and starting fiddling with Eames' thumb.

"And- it's a complicated issue, isn't it?" Eames murmured, bringing the straw of Arthur's water up to Arthur's lips with his other hand, and Arthur tipped his head and sipped obediently. "All those things. I know you wouldn't even remember- or would you? if I just left you in some asylum and went away to a happy new life- which I doubt, but just making a case here. You don't love me- you can't- but I love you. But it's possible that if I moved on, I could get over that. And are you even Arthur? Are you gone? Would the old you have wanted me to leave?"

Arthur bent down and brushed his lips over Eames' knuckles, and Eames shivered. "And- why not talk about ethics? Is it right to carry on a sexual relationship with you? I know Cobb said- well, what Cobb said, but do I agree because I want to agree? All that stuff. It comes down, all that, to- am I leaving?"

Things were bad. Really bad, and he'd be unhappy lots of times, and there was no happy ending here. Arthur drew his face back to take another sip of his water, and Eames wrapped both his hands around Arthur's and felt a watery, hiccupy little peace settle around him, the sort you felt after you'd had a good cry, and said, "Of course not."

Arthur smiled at him around his straw.

Je suis review whore.