undergrounds | backdated so hard/for eames

Arthur tells the driver where they're going, not making note of anything strange about how Eames is behaving. He can't very well ask about the party like he wants to, so he pulls out his phone and rechecks his email as they start driving. It's a little while before he speaks.

"So, didn't meet anyone interesting tonight?"

So it takes all of about 30 seconds before Eames starts falling asleep, and it's difficult for him to get his brain back on track when Arthur speaks to him. He looks at Arthur for a good while longer than it should take for him to respond before he actually parses the question in his mind, trying to push the sluggishness away at the same time.

"Met with the esteemed Mr. Harris," Eames sighs, turning his head back to rest against the window, "turns out he's a dickhead in person too."

Arthur frowns at him curiously, wondering if there's a reason Eames is less animated than he would expect him to be. Perhaps he's just saving it for when they get back or maybe Arthur is finally seeing an Eames too tired to be snarky. He thinks about asking if there's something wrong, but he worries that that may convey empathy or something, so he keeps it to himself.

"That's no surprise," he says instead. "Anyone with an ego that large is bound to be unbearable."

"Is that a dig?" Eames asks with an expression approaching a smirk, but really he's just going on autopilot. There's none of the teasing lilt that would usually be there — if anything he sounds more like he's just barely stifling a yawn.

Arthur frowns even more at him. "No," he says, a little cautious. There is definitely something going on. "Do you need to go home?"

"What?" He can feel the sluggishness as he opens his eyes, lifting his head away from the window to look at Arthur, but Eames refuses to let it win. A guy should be able to get laid without having vampires ruin it. "Why?"

"You just... nevermind," Arthur says with a sigh, shaking his head and turning to look out his own window. He gets the sneaking suspicion that the sex won't be very good tonight, or else he won't get any sex at all, and if that weren't enough he actually is a little worried about what's going on with Eames. He'd never act like this if he could help it.

But Arthur lets it be for now, electing to wait until they're in the privacy of Arthur's apartment to figure out what's wrong.

Well it doesn't feel like a 'nevermind', but it's probably telling in its own way that Eames doesn't pry. He just doesn't have the energy for it. It's not like he doesn't know what Arthur's concerns are anyway, but Eames is busy trying to convince himself that he'll be right as rain come the other end of the trip.

Maybe he just needs a little cab nap to get some energy back? Yeah, that's probably it.

Arthur sighs again impatiently, but he allows Eames his cab nap until they stop outside his building. As he digs out something to pay the driver with, he gives Eames a gentle nudge and says "we're here," before he pays, slides out of the car, and then walks around to the other side just in case Eames needs help. Just in case. He's not going to offer or anything though.

He's fine. Slow, but fine. And definitely not woozy now he's standing at all.

He takes a moment, hoping the cool air will do something to wake him up a little and shakes his head to try and get a little more of that blood flowing to his head. Glancing at Arthur, Eames gives him what he hopes is an alluring look before he starts walking toward the building, slow steps that he tries to make more casual than laboured. Because he's fine. Everything is fine. Shut up, Arthur.

He is most definitely not fine. The alluring look inspires more revulsion than arousal in Arthur, but he keeps his mouth shut as he follows behind him, watching him closely in anticipation of a fall or collapse or something. He wonders what happened, though he has a few guesses, but the interrogation will have to wait until they get up to his apartment.

Well. Eames has absolutely no idea about how poorly he's doing at seeming like a completely okay and functional person, as far as he's concerned he has Arthur totally fooled into believing nothing has gone wrong at all tonight. Even though everything he's doing and saying falls just shy of (or extremely far from) what it should be.

Exhibit A: The way Eames turns to Arthur once they're inside with the door closed and tugs on the front of his jacket to pull him closer with a murmured, "I believe I made some promises earlier." Except there's a flatness to his voice and he's not moving with any of the fluid confidence he usually does. It's much more the rigidity of someone trying too hard.

Arthur smirks a little, partly because that's how he would react if this were an actual effort and partly because he's amused at the attempt.

"You sure you can follow through?" he asks, sounding like he has no faith in Eames whatsoever. He gets a whiff of Eames as he's pulled in, smelling the blood immediately and setting his face in a deep frown. "What the fuck happened?"

Perhaps surprisingly, (or maybe not at all, all things considered,) Eames doesn't understand either question straight away, and the look he gives Arthur isn't entirely unlike an animal trying and failing to understand a command it's been given. Frowning as his mind tries to chug its way through the fog and the exhaustion, and it takes him a moment or two too long to respond to be normal.

"What are you talking about?" He asks with a slightly forced laugh-- he might not be able to lie and say he's fine or that nothing happened, but Eames can at least pull at Arthur again to try and distract him from all this with a kiss.

"Stop," Arthur says immediately, putting his hands on Eames' forearms to try and pry his hands off as he pulls his head back to dodge the attempt at a kiss. There's no doubt in his mind that this is just not happening tonight, unless Eames' fae powers include some kind of speedy healing for whatever happened to him at the party. Arthur somehow doubts that's the case.

"You're bleeding," he tell Eames impatiently, like he's chastising him, telling him why he's about to be put in time out. "Go sit down and I'll get my first aid."

Eames also reacts like he's being put in time out, sighing heavily as he walks through to Arthur's living room and sits on Arthur's couch with a frown and another sigh. Less because he's been turned down and more because he's obviously not covering up as well as he thought he was.

Tiredly, he drops his head and feels up his neck, pulling his hand back to look at the blood on his fingers with a little surprise. He thought he'd managed to stop that, but obviously pup bathrooms are hardly first aid stations.

Arthur disappears into his kitchen for a moment and comes back with a hard-sided case that he sets down on his coffee table. It's a little larger than one's run-of-the-mill first aid kit, and when he opens it he reveals the full gamut of things one might need after managing to survive any kind of violent attack. There are even prepackaged anesthetics neatly tucked beside the needles and thread for sewing up wounds.

He gives everything a look as if he's just reviewing where everything is, and then he looks up at Eames and tightens his jaw briefly, like he's preparing himself for an argument.

"Take off your shirt."

Yeah. Well. Eames raises an eyebrow at the case and then at Arthur, head lolling a little as he tries to fight how badly he wants to just sleep now he's sitting.

"It'll close on its own," is Eames' opinion on this, eyes slipping shut as he gestures to the case dismissively. The evidence would suggest otherwise, but Eames believes it.

Arthur huffs and narrows his eyes at him.

It will close on its own, eventually, maybe after Eames has lost enough blood that it'll take three times as long to recover, if he'll recover at all. Arthur's training left him too aware of what can happen when injuries go unchecked. On top of that, the longer Eames bleeds on his couch, the more his apartment becomes a beacon for local vampires looking for a meal. Arthur has no idea how strong the lure of fae blood is for a hungry vampire but he's not willing to find out tonight. So this is getting cleaned up.

"I don't want to have to ask three times. Take it off."

"Just can't wait to get me naked, hm?" Just let him have it, the joke makes him feel better about this entire shitty situation.

But ugh, he's wearing so many layers. Who said this many clothes was okay? He shrugs out of his jacket easily enough, but then it's the waistcoat and while he's dealing with those buttons he gets distracted by the chain for his pocketwatch-- he can't remember which way it went and can he just undo the waistcoat without worrying about it or...?

Arthur doesn't even dignify that with a response, patiently watching Eames undo his buttons. He considers trying to help for a moment - helping in this case meaning impatiently pushing Eames' hands away to do it himself - but he doesn't want to start a fight. Besides, that seems almost too intimate, ironically enough. He's taken Eames' clothes off before but never out of a desire to do anything other than sex. He doesn't want to make it seem like he cares or anything.

So he just waits, eventually raising an eyebrow at Eames to indicate how ridiculous any claims that he's okay would be just in case he looks up to make one.

They both know he's not okay and it's long past the point where he can try claiming othetwise. Eames just dutifully undoes his waistcoat once he's solved the chain issue and everything else comes off easily. He drops his clothes on the couch next to him, electing not to look at the blood on his shirt.

Not just laying down and going to sleep is a harder call, and Eames... Well, that's exactly what he's doing.

Arthur starts to make a sound of protest, but it dies when he realizes Eames is already halfway down. He sighs again, moving on the coffee table so he's at a better angle, and then he gives Eames' wounds a once over.

"Just don't fall asleep," he says, standing up and disappearing into the kitchen again. He returns a moment later with a damp cloth, which he uses to start wiping away some dried blood as well as the fresh stuff. It's not looking pretty and he is most definitely not trying to be gentle about it.

Eames makes a noise of general discomfort which could be to do with just about anything happening right now; the cleaning, the not falling asleep, or the fact that he's not exactly laying in the most comfortable position. At least one of those is his own fault though, so he can't complain much more about it.

He does, however, shift to be in a better position for Arthur to reach the worst of it; it's really not a pretty sight. The bites are more like tears and gouges given Eames' reluctance to hold still, and then there's just the general mess from the scuffle beforehand.

In the back of his mind he's fairly certain his jacket is ruined, which is a shame because it was expensive as fuck, but it's really the least of his worries right now.

He suspected that it was vampires as soon as he smelled the blood, but the bites confirm it. Arthur tries, he really does, to ask in a non-judgemental tone, but he's just not very good at it. His default voice is sharp.

"What happened?"

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