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Arthur shields himself with ties and coats and order. He keeps his hair slicked back, his nails trimmed, and all of his shirts neatly pressed.
These are the things he can control.
“Come on, Cobb,” Arthur said. “Let’s get you to bed.”
Dom was drunk, but then again so was Arthur, and that should have evened everything out as he hauled his plastered friend to his feet. Dom let him, pliant for the present. He stayed pliant until they were in Dom’s bedroom and Arthur was trying to get him onto the bed, and then the world tipped sideways, spilling out over everything in a wash of amber.
In the beginning, it usually starts off the same way, with Dom and a bottle. Dom and his guilt and the bourbon he drinks like water, pounding it back until he isn’t thinking straight. Some nights, Arthur joins him, but mostly he refrains as soon as he senses what’s coming.
He was drunk that first night, and he remembers the muddled, desperate confusion all too well to willingly return.
Dom’s mouth was wet and sloppy on Arthur’s throat; his fingers clumsy on his pants. Arthur thought about resisting, he thought about pushing Dom away, but Dom kept whispering—“need you, please, please”—and instead he lay there. He turned his face away, but he didn’t say no.
Dom pulled his pants down with greedy, desperate hands and Arthur closed his eyes.
“Arthur will handle the details,” Dom tells the client, and he claps Arthur on the back with one hand.
Lower down, around Arthur’s waist, there are bruises that match the fingers on that cheerful hand. Arthur doesn’t let them show in his eyes.
Smile, and nod, and keep the client happy. Keep Dom happy.
It’s all he knows to do anymore, even if it’s tearing him apart.
It hurt. Even as drunk and as eager to please as Arthur was, it hurt. He fisted his hands in the sheets and groaned, hips flinching forward and away. Dom hung on, held him still, pushed in.
“Arthur,” he panted, hands tightening on Arthur’s waist. “Fuck, Arthur.”
It wasn’t the name Arthur half-feared to hear on Dom’s lips, and sullied relief bloomed, limping and halting, in his chest. The next time, when Dom pushed in, Arthur clenched his jaw and pushed back to meet him.
“Been driving me crazy all afternoon,” Dom accuses.
It’s worst this way, without the illusionary blame of alcohol. Like this—sober—Arthur can’t pretend Dom doesn’t know what he’s doing.
He opens his mouth for Dom’s tongue anyway, lets Dom undress him. Dom calls him shy, and beautiful, and his hands get underneath Arthur’s clothes, they leave marks on his skin, and Arthur lets him.
He lets him.
The wet, slick, open feeling was uncomfortable. The noise turned Arthur’s stomach. But Dom kept moving inside of him anyway, moving faster and deeper with each pump of his hips, and Arthur had nowhere to go. Hanging his head, he spread his legs wider and waited for it to be over.
Dom kissed the back of his neck, gasped and panted promises of love, and that almost made it okay.
Arthur tries to say no once. When he’s worn down and exhausted and tired of feeling so filthy and undone. He gets as far as shying back from Dom’s hand.
Then he sees the hurt in his friend’s eyes.
He ends up on his knees, mouth open wide.
Dom caresses Arthur’s face while Arthur licks and sucks. Dom smiles. Dom groans out Arthur’s name as he comes.
When Arthur swallows, a lifetime of ‘no’s isn’t the only thing that slides down his throat.
Dom passed out when he came. One moment he was grunting and thrusting into Arthur mercilessly, and the next he was nothing but a heavy, still weight. Arthur’s ass felt wet and sore, and he wanted to move away but didn’t quite dare. He was too shamed by the slick between his own cock and the bed, the slick that said he’d enjoyed it—that reminded him he’d been willing.
Or at least he hadn’t said no.
“I want you to fuck me this time,” Dom says. He breathes the words into Arthur’s mouth, excited, and Arthur’s stomach curdles.
But Dom’s happiness feels good beating against his skin, and he manages to fist himself to readiness. Thinks of a woman he saw on the street yesterday. Thinks of Mal’s slinky curves. Touches the male body beneath him and imagines it smaller, softer, rounder.
He performs.
When Dom woke hours later, he kissed Arthur before finally easing out. He apologized for the pain, and winced in sympathy, and petted Arthur’s side at each hiss Arthur couldn’t quite keep in.
Arthur shuddered when he felt Dom finally slip free: a thankful, icy shiver of pure relief and gratitude. That it was over, that he’d survived mostly unscathed.
But then Dom settled right back down again, drawing Arthur back into his arms. Dom held him, and kissed the side of his throat, and whispered devotions and love into Arthur’s ears.
Arthur didn’t understand how something could feel so wonderful and so awful at the same time.
Arthur doesn’t know how he got here. He’s standing in the shower with ice-cold water splashing all around him. His fingers, when he looks down at them, are blue. There’s a layer of blood beneath his nails, scratches on his hips and thighs.
Did he do this?
He looks around, confused, and the pounding on the door (the pounding that must have woken him from his stupor) intensifies before climaxing in a snap of broken wood as it’s thrown inward. Dom stumbles through, catches himself and looks at Arthur with wide, horrified eyes.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathes.
Arthur holds still when Dom reaches for him (mustn’t ever flinch away). He doesn’t resist when Dom manhandles him out of the shower and wraps him in a thick robe and sits him on the bed. He can’t stop shaking, though, and he thinks there might be a leak somewhere in his body because his eyes and cheeks are wet.
“Arthur, what’s wrong?” Dom demands, crouching in front of him and putting his hands (everywhere, touches him everywhere) on Arthur’s knees. “Talk to me, damn it!”
Arthur looks at him blankly, and Dom’s expression crumbles. Realization burns in his eyes, hot and damned. He jerks his hands away with a revolted shudder.
“Oh God. Oh God, Arthur, I’m sorry,” he breathes.
And then Arthur wakes up.
They spent the day in bed. Once Dom’s hangover wore off, it happened again. This time, Dom kissed him face-to-face, and caressed his body with intent, and held Arthur’s thighs up against his waist while rocking out and in.
Arthur kept his eyes open. He watched Dom’s face as his friend took this from him, and realized that he hadn’t seen Dom look this happy and free since before Mal died. Taking this from Arthur—or maybe having it given—was somehow healing the broken places inside of him.
So while Dom moaned and thrust, Arthur put his heart away in a little box. He wrapped the box in thick, black cloth. Circled it with chains. Padlocked it.
And then, stomach lurching wildly, he came again.
Arthur kisses Dom on a Thursday in autumn. They’re walking down a tree-lined street, and leaves are falling around them in a rain of red and gold. Dom stops, looking puzzled but pleased, and then asks, “What brought that on?”
No reason, Arthur thinks, except that maybe he has finally learned to put aside the box holding his heart instead of dragging it around with him. Because he kissed Dom and, for the first time, he felt nothing. The absence of guilty disgust—of the nauseating swoop of his stomach—is a relief that lightens him, so he kisses Dom again.
“Just happy, I guess,” he says, reciting his lines.
Dom smiles at him, twining their fingers together, and says, “I swear, Arthur, sometimes I have no clue what’s going on in your head.”
Sometimes, Arthur doesn’t either. He likes it better that way. It’s quieter. Almost peaceful.
“That’s because I’m an enigma,” he agrees, playing his part, and tugs Dom further down the street.