Valerie knows Arthur (takespoint) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-04-27 22:46:00 |
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Entry tags: | arthur, eames |
Who: Cory and Evan
What: Bromance fail.
Where: Some diner.
When: Recently, after the Paris Party.
Warnings/Rating: Some swears.
Weaning off antidepressants, which the internet said was the best starter item in the pharmaceutical cocktail that was Evan’s life, wasn’t fun. It was, apparently more fun than ditching the anti-anxiety pills (which were highly addictive in an entirely different way), the benzos, which had a whole slew of other side effects, or the anti-hallucinogens, which, you know, didn’t work. And no shrink interested in keeping a license was ever going to taper Evan off that level of medication without an inpatient admit. But Cory and Evan were stupid, and maybe Arthur and Eames were too, but hey, man, you gotta do what you gotta do.
It all meant that Evan woke up that morning, after the Effexor half-life had waned, in a mood that he couldn’t explain, not even if he wanted to. He couldn’t think, and he couldn’t sit still, and he wanted a drink so badly he thought he might down the mouthwash. And, ok, so maybe he sipped some of it, but that wasn’t the point. He didn’t shave, because he didn’t have the focus for that, and he dressed in jeans and a wifebeater after a quick, cold shower. “Cory! I’m going out!” was the bellow that came as he crossed the living room, already moving toward the door. He had no idea where he was going yet. But out, yea, out.
Cory had just come out of a hellish night. He’d had a good six days reprieve from the Becky nightmares because Arthur had taken charge, the two of them now working under a wary truce strengthened by a deeper understanding of the other’s emotions. Either would die before they admitted such a stupid, weak thing as that, but it was true, and to keep from discussing it, they made civil conversation and traded off a few hours here or there. Arthur didn’t mention the nightmares, though he was just as aware of them as Cory was, and Cory didn’t mention Eames. It was a delicate seesaw, but they were managing it with immature determination.
Cory had taken a shower when he had given up sleep at five AM, but his hair was still at odds, as if he had not only slept on it, but slept on it recently. He emerged from around one corner into the main room. His eyes were puffy and he had a pouting sulk on his face that he always wore when he was tired. Obi Wan and Vader were squaring off on his old t-shirt. “Going where?”
Evan didn’t much care, so long as it wasn’t in the apartment, and he threw his hands up in the air to indicate as much, motioning to all the annoying whiteness. “Somewhere that isn’t here,” was his response, because he was pretty sure he hadn’t seen the outside world in weeks, man, which just wasn’t cool. “Somewhere there’s a burger, or a milkshake, or a hot guy willing to suck me even though I can’t come, anywhere,” was the frustrated reply, and then Evan was out the door without a warning, sulk on Cory’s face noted but not commented to. Out, out, he just needed out.
Cory made a face at the comment about the blow job, his mood not at all improved by the unwilling mental picture that called up. The burger and the milkshake sounded pretty good, though, so Cory grabbed his battered phone, stuck the black notebook that functioned as his journal into his back pocket, and followed Evan out the door. He didn’t ask permission, he just trailed after, shoulders hunched, the frays at the backs of his jeans dragging along at his heels. He forgot to bring the extra key he had for Evan’s house, and he had his fingers dug into the thick thatch of black hair at the back of his head. He still hadn’t cut it. It was getting to the point where it might need to be mown, or perhaps he could start a job in a new grunge band. He caught the elevator before Evan could get away from him. “So, burger,” he said, watching the lights.
Evan wasn’t expecting Cory to catch up so quick, and he was honestly surprised to see the hand that caught the elevator. It took him a minute to process it, his brain uncomfortably sluggish, and he backed up into the corner of the elevator when Cory stepped inside. “Yeah, man, burger,” he said, raking his hair from face with both hands. The ends of his hair were wet, dark and still dripping and the water just moved from Evan’s face to dripping along his back, but he barely noticed. “I feel so fucked up,” he admitted, though it wasn’t a good kind of fucked up, but explaining it any more clearly would require words he didn’t have just then. He didn’t know what else to say, and the elevator movement was making him nauseous, so he grabbed onto the only thing he could think of in a pinch. “How’s Arthur holding up?” Even Becky, standing in the opposite corner, seemed to realize this was a bad idea, and she shook her head to indicate as much.
When Cory first noticed that Evan was itching in his skin, he seemed to take a deep breath; he almost sighed, but it wasn’t quite there, as he took the breath in but it didn’t seem to go anywhere. He pushed away thoughts about the nightmares and some of the fatigue. It was beyond him to get his shoulders up, and he turned from staring at the lights changing as they drifted down several floors to give Evan a look more neutral than his sulking. He frowned slightly at the look on Evan’s face, but when he opened his mouth to say something, nothing came out.
That was unexpected. Cory blinked. “Arthur...?” He wasn’t going to play around it. “He’s... okay, I guess.” If you could call moving around in very slow circles while changing out hours of working out and building thing that came apart in his dreams “okay.” Cory felt like it might be kind of cheating to describe all that, but he gave Evan a look that implied what he really meant.
Itching in his skin was a good description, and Evan would have said as much if Cory voiced it. He pushed the elevator buttons impatiently, as if pushing buttons would make anything move quicker, and he stepped outside and gulped in a hard breath. The open air helped, even if it was Las Vegas dry and hot, spring gone into summer and the unforgiving and sweltering days ahead too horrible to imagine. Evan thought drying out in summer was a fucking terrible idea, and he wondered just how he had the terrible idea in the first place.
“Yeah, Arthur,” was Evan’s reply, and he pointed at Cory’s forehead once they were outside, like Arthur lived in there. He thought it was bullshit, the thought of Arthur being alright after the scene at that party, and he gave Cory a look that said as much. He was too messed up to catch Cory’s own glance in the elevator, and he awaited verbal confirmation that things were as terrible as he figured they were. Not that he had any idea what they could do about it. And, for what it was worth, he couldn’t even remember where to get a burger just then.
With his hands out of his pockets and his attention on Evan now, as if he might drift into traffic if he stopped watching him for a moment, Cory worked his lips together. Arthur wasn’t exactly paying attention, pulled back the way he was more often than not now. Cory didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but somehow, he wasn’t there--in an intentional kind of way. Cory was afraid to think too loud about him in case he suddenly started paying attention in the middle of the conversation.
Cory blew out a breath through his nose and squinted into the bright sunlight. He was used to Evan and his lack of respect for his personal space by now, and only scowled at him. “He’s not coming apart, and it’s kind of fucked up because then he’s... keeping it together. By force, kind of. You know?” He gave Evan a look that said clearly he doubted that Evan would know at all.
“Why didn’t he just sleep with him, man?” was Evan’s very logical question, asked slowly and with gapped spaces in between as he tried to remember the word order. “He’s freaked, yeah, I get that, but why not just fuck Eames and get him out of his system?” Evan asked, as he turned toward the diner on the corner, because a burger, right. In Evan’s world, there was no itch (of a sexual variety) that couldn’t just be scratched until it went away, and his expression said as much. And Arthur didn’t seem the in love type anyway. No offense, Arthur. Luckily for all of them, Eames wasn’t around either. Evan could barely think himself, and Eames had no chance in hell of being present for this conversation.
Cory was a little pleased to have someone to talk to about this, because his loyalty to Arthur was a little limited and at least he didn’t have to think about Becky. “I don’t know, man, I wasn’t there. I try to get away the second Eames comes around.” Cory shook his head so that his little boy poof of hair went in all directions. “I think Eames must-a done something to hurt his feelings. He gets pretty stupid about him. All the time.” Cory rolled his eyes up.
“You need a haircut,” Evan said without thinking. his own too-long hair falling into his eyes again as he squinted to keep the sun away. “Eames had him on a bed, and Arthur lost his shit,” Evan explained, because he knew exactly what had happened, even if he didn’t actually get why Arthur wouldn’t just sleep with someone he had a blinking-red-light thing for. Man, even Cory knew about it, and Evan was starting to wonder how Cory had ever managed a girlfriend in the first place.
Cory wiped sweaty palms on his jeans--it was just hot, he wasn’t nervous--and ignored the comment about his hair. Cory chose a direction down away from the Strip to avoid the tourists and find one of the cheap places that were his bread and butter. “Because he knows after that happens Eames will lose interest. He sleeps with people and then leaves them all the time,” Cory said, knowledgeably, going from Arthur’s thoughts on the subject that he eaves--er, overheard.
“So? Maybe Arthur will get over his crush then,” Evan said. In his experience, there was nothing to get rid of infatuation like finally getting someone in bed, and he didn’t think Arthur and Eames would be any different. He looked around, unsure of where they were, and then he looked back at Cory. “Are you taking me somewhere to kill me in an alley, man? Because that would be harsh, after making me dry out and everything.”
They stopped at a corner to wait for the little green man to light up and allow them to pass. Cory was the kind of person that waited for the little green man even if it was his turn, and no cars were moving. “Dude, he’s been this way for years. It’s not a fucking crush. What are you, ten?” For Cory to say such a thing was quite an event, and instead of answering Evan’s last question he pointed wordlessly at a grungy window on the other side of the street. A sign on the other side of the glass read “EATS” and it was the kind of yellow that comes from being daisy-bright ten years ago.
Evan was wary of EATS. He thought EATS might serve Chef Boyardee and Spaghettios. “Right, but he hasn’t slept with him,” he said of Arthur. “Sleeping with someone always gets them out of your system, man,” he said with the unguarded candor of someone who was hazy enough not to hide really blatant crap about himself. “I wouldn’t talk about being ten,” he added. “You still need a haircut,” and alright, so maybe that wasn’t the best comeback ever, but Evan was too slow and lazy for comebacks, even on a clear day. “Dude,” he added, pushing through the front door of the questionable food establishment, “they better not to try to feed me out of a can here.”
Disgruntled, Cory said, “They’re good. Not organic or anything, but good.” The establishment seemed to cater to the fried crowd, but the place was cheerier on the inside than on the outside, decorated with a decidedly feminine touch that included daisy tablecloths. The restaurant could easily have been dug whole out of Kansas with some giant spade and deposited here in Las Vegas. Cory’s mood seemed to improve upon entrance. A cook in the back waved at him. To Evan, he said, “It doesn’t work that way for everyone. Not Arthur, not me, either.” He moved past a faded gumball machine to the counter and stared up at the menu, concentrating as if he had never seen it before.
Evan was pretty sure he’d never noticed a daisy before in his life. “Coffee,” he told Cory, even as he walked past him to a booth and slid in, expecting Cory to take care of the rest. He belatedly focused on the conversation again, and he had to raise his voice, head in his hands and elbows on the table, unsure whether Cory had followed or was still gawking at the menu. “I still don’t know how you managed to get a woman in bed,” was the mutter-loud comment, and he didn’t look up to see where Becky was when he said the words. “Arthur’s an idiot. Men like Eames don’t just decide they want to get married to someone out of the blue. He has to work at it, man.” Because when it came to this one thing, well, Evan just got it.
Cory shot Evan a furious look over his shoulder, irritated that he was broadcasting their conversation to the whole diner. It wasn’t that full, and almost everybody there had little better to do but to listen. Yet he turned around, ordered a couple coffees and about four plates of food, which included strawberry waffles, bacon and scrambled eggs topped with salsa and cheese, a bowl of chopped melon and oranges, and a really massive breakfast burrito cut in half. He hesitated at the counter, counting out bills, and finally paid with a credit card before joining Evan at the booth. He didn’t have a problem picking up the conversation where he’d left it before ordering. “For your information, women love me. I’m cute. I’m a fixer-upper.” He gave Evan a smug smile. “And we both know Eames isn’t going to work at it,” he added, scathingly.
“Crap,” was Evan’s response to the suggestion that women thought Cory was a cute fixer-upper. “You were a cute fixer-upper ten years ago, man,” he said, because Evan knew the type. Cory was right for it, yeah, sometime last decade. Evan didn’t care about the food, as long as there was coffee somewhere, which came a minute later. He gave the waitress a smile, intentionally lazy and interested, and she tittered as she went away and almost forgot to leave the cream on the table. He rose a smug brow at Cory, put some milk in the coffee, and then pointed with the sugar spoon. “I didn’t say Eames had to work at it; I said Arthur did.” Big difference. Men like Evan, like Eames, they didn’t work at anything, because they didn’t realize anything was worth working for.
Cory scowled. He could still be a fixer-upper if he wanted. “I just haven’t been interested lately.” This was a good excuse for almost everything, but it was very true, as well. It wasn’t that Becky got in the way of sex, it was just that Cory didn’t feel like pretending to impress a girl, and eventually the passing cute thing wore off. Usually around the same time last night’s drinks did. He didn’t look the waitress in the eye, not even attempting to pay attention to her unless she was bringing food, since it was a counter place and that was just about all she’d do outside of the coffee. “What do you mean, Arthur needs to work at it? You mean he’s the one that needs to be all sappy about it? Are we even talking about the same guy?”
“Bullshit,” was Evan’s response to Cory’s scowl and statement that he wasn’t interested lately. Cory was interested, he was just something, and Evan didn’t know what that something was, but it was something. He poked at breakfast, grabbed a piece of bacon, and ate that as he tried to figure out how to explain Arthur and Eames to someone who, he was pretty sure, hadn’t ever made it past Freshman-college level dating. “Man, Eames doesn’t do relationships, and he doesn’t even think about them. If that’s what Arthur wants, he has to work at it. Who said anything about sap?” Sap was different. Sap was a no-go. But Cory, he reminded himself again, was stuck at 18, where sap was everything. “Dude, you really need a thirty-year-old lover. I can buy you one,” he suggested.
“God, you’re so disgusting, sometimes. You can’t buy people and build them up like...” Cory couldn’t think like what, and his imagination visibly failed him. “He doesn’t want some marriage thing or whatever... I don’t think. He just doesn’t want the guy to treat him like he treats everybody else. Kinda like you do. Buy a night to make you feel better, then leave.” Cory shot Evan a glower under his eyebrows. He started shoveling heavily ketchuped eggs into his mouth without warning.
“I meant a hooker, man,” Evan explained, as if he was talking to someone who was too young to understand hookers. “Rent, buy, it’s the same thing.” And Evan had enough money to make sure they wouldn’t even be dirty hookers; he thought he was doing the kid a favor. “He’s going to screw it up by being an idiot,” he said of Arthur, and he took another long sip of the coffee, grateful for the way the caffeine helped him think again. He waved the waitress over for a refill, which she rushed over with, even though it wasn’t normally her thing. “He’s freaking out so bad that Eames isn’t ever going to touch him.” Evan wouldn’t, anyway, if it was him. He had to be really invested to go after someone that skittish.
Cory’s mood wasn’t improving. He was defensive of Arthur because it was easier than being defensive about himself. Cory found he really didn’t care all that much if Arthur’s great romance didn’t work, even if he would prefer that the other guy was moderately happy. Cory didn’t realize how deeply unhappy he himself was, and so had little basis for comparison. “He knows that. He’d rather he didn’t if he’s just going to leave him anyway. Not that you’d understand caring about anybody like that,” he added, trying to get something out of this conversation that most definitely wasn’t hookers.
“You don’t know what I understand and what I don’t, man,” Evan replied, pointing a piece of bacon at Cory. “Quit being an insulting prick,” he added, and he was so casual about it that he could have been commenting on the weather. “Arthur doesn’t know crap, and that’s obvious. Have him talk to me the next time he’s around. I’ll clear it up for him,” he explained, because this was ridiculous. Seriously, hadn’t the man ever seduced a rake?
Arthur didn’t seduce. He could barely pull off a decent con; Cobb always painted him as exactly what he was--security, usually--so he didn’t have to act, because he did a horrible job. Though Arthur’s job was deception and his purpose destructive, there was nothing about him that was false. Groomed, yes, honed, yes, illusory... no. Cory glared at Evan, but refused to carry on the conversation, applying himself to his food and pretending that the conversation didn’t bother him. This wasn’t true, of course, and he paid more attention to Evan than he did the waitress or anyone else in the diner. If his eyes moved off in an unexpected direction, Cory had a tendency to look, imagining that the other man saw Becky and unwilling not to at least look and see if she was there. It was more noticeable here because it was a smaller space and Evan looked away more often; despite the existence of Cory’s cellphone, he used it mostly for games, and he received no calls or texts to alleviate the silence.
The food was more than substantial, it was also good, in a black kettle kind of a way (rather than the stainless steel flourish of the expensive Strip). After most of it was gone, Cory said, “If I go home, are you going to fall right off the wagon?”
Evan had given up on the conversation partway through the silence and glaring. Cory didn’t want to discuss Arthur, which was fine, even though Evan knew he understood Eames better that either Cory or Arthur ever could (they should have listened to his advice, man), and he was expecting a long span of silence for the remainder of the meal. So the question surprised him, and Evan lifted his head and looked at the messy haired kid across from him. “No,” he said, because he didn’t intend to fall off the wagon (as if anyone ever did), “but going home isn’t going to do you any good either, man. It’s time to grow up, Cory,” he said, with the kind of candor that came from living in the same space as someone who was perfectly willing to annoy the shit out of him; anyway, it was true.
Cory looked out through a set of lashes thicker and longer than Arthur’s, assessing Evan’s face to see if he was serious. It seemed he was, and, understanding this, Cory sat back with his half-full coffee cup. “Oh, I see. I fix you and then you fix me, that’s how it works?” he said, derisively, as if he thought this very unlikely.
“Shit, no,” was Evan’s smiling reply, even through the brainfog and the anxiety. “I can’t fix anyone. We both know I would suck at it, and I’d probably forget I was even doing it halfway through, but that doesn’t change the fact that living at home isn’t doing you any good.” He shrugged, and he pulled some money for the tip out of his pocket. “You can contradict me if you want, man, but it’s true. You’re frozen at 18 or something.”
Cory lifted his lip in an unconscious sneer that did not suit him. It was certainly not a smile, and it had more disdain than cruelty in it. He did not contradict Evan’s assessment. He didn’t even come close. Instead he said, “Yeah, some of us aren’t born richer than God, man.”
“Could you get more childish with the insults, man?” Evan asked, completely nonplussed. “Being rich has nothing to do with being frozen in the premature ejaculation phase of life,” he added, his smile going a bit wider, a bit crookeder.
Sex innuendo just put Cory in a worse mood, not because he wasn’t getting any, or because he didn’t want any, but because he felt like Evan discussed it too much in public. Cory would rather talk about it with a nice girl that looked good in nothing, thank you. “Yeah? Because it was so difficult for you to get your own place. I don’t even have a job anymore.” Cory started to fiddle with his fork, which still had egg stuck to it.
“And that’s my fault?” Evan asked, because he just didn’t buy people hating him for his money. He didn’t have anything to do with being wealthy, and he wasn’t going sit around and listen to Cory whine at him because of it. Well, not without countering, anyway. As far as he was concerned, Cory had one thing he could give him shit for, and the rest of it was off limits. “How old are you, man?”
Cory’s hands jerked and his coffee almost sloshed out of the cheap mug. “Now who is being fucking insulting?” he demanded, losing the fork, which tumbled over the side of the table and clattered on the floor. Language was common in here, and no one even looked up--not that you could really be concerned about someone with Cory’s soft features even when he was at his angriest.
“I asked your age,” Evan reminded him, because that wasn’t really an insult in most places. But he understood why Cory thought it was one. And, well, maybe it was, but it was a valid question. He didn’t actually know how old Cory was, and if Cory was insulted? Well, that said something too, didn’t it? “Don’t tell me if you don’t want to. It was just a question, man.” He looked across the table, forcing his unfocused eyes to settle on the other man with hard-won sharpness. “Are you sticking around, or going home?”
“Yeah,” Cory argued, not answering the question but going against the assumption. “But you said it like a big deal because I’m such a kid.” It was not just a question, and he wasn’t dropping it. He put the mug aside, and finally, pushed away from the edge of the table. “I’m going home. You don’t need some kid, obviously.” Cory scootched his butt off the edge of the seat and got up, pulling at his shirt to get it straight and only succeeding in making it more akilter.
Evan watched him, but he didn’t stop him. He’d already offered the kid a room, already offered to let him stay permanently, and Evan just wasn’t the kind of guy to beg, even if he needed something. So he just shrugged his shoulders. “Do what you gotta do, man,” he said. Cory could dish it out in spades, but taking it obviously wasn’t in the skillset, and he reminded himself that Cory hated him, and that this wasn’t a bromance or anything equally meaningful.
Cory looked back, pulled at his shirt again. He felt Arthur taking a look through his eyes, a habit he had of doing that he prefaced with a hint of wordless question so Cory could say no. Cory let him, but he was focused on the conversation. “You were serious about the being on wagon thing, right?”
“I’m not going to go buy a bottle, Cory. Go live your life,” Evan said, and a grin followed the suggestion. “And try to get laid, huh?” he asked, because he still thought that would fix so many of this kid’s problems. Nothing like sex with something that wasn’t your own palm to put things into perspective.
“Yeah, right,” Cory replied. Arthur said, You’re not leaving him? but Cory didn’t answer. He stood there and pulled at his shirt. He picked up his hands and slid them through his hair, not at his neck this time, but at the front, pushing his hair off his forehead. “My stuff is at your place. Most of it, actually.” Cory was surprised to find the idea of going back to his gloomy back room at his parents’ faintly depressing. The only thing he really missed was his tower gaming PC. Arthur was asking him not to leave in case something happened, and it was verging on embarrassing pleading.
“You have a key,” was Evan’s practical reply, because Cory did. He didn’t realize Arthur was making a play for anything, and he was perfectly willing to sit there and nurse a fresh coffee while Cory went and collected his cans of processed food and piles of electronic games. No skin off his back, right? “I don’t feel like going back, man. I’ll chill here while you clear out.” Eames was silent, and it was that weird drug-haze silence, but Evan didn’t think the other man would have said anything anyways.
Cory looked back at the door, stared at it a couple seconds, listening to Arthur. But in the end he shook his head. Evan didn’t need him. He was doing alright, Cory thought. Cory wasn’t needed, so he could go back to doing... doing whatever. “Yeah.” Cory rubbed at his nose with the flat of his palm, took a deep sniff, and then walked away, pushing through the door and out into the sunshine. He listened to Arthur falling silent and didn’t look back.