Archive of Our Own

Stuck in prison for what feels like forever at this point, Eames is almost comforted by the ringing and ringing. He’d rather no one answer. He’d rather keep the tiny, diminishing ray of hope alive.

But the call connects.

“You’re not going to like this,” Ariadne warns. “I talked Arthur into moving in with me, but when Yusuf and I got back together, Arthur staying was kind of a deal breaker, since…” She sighed, pained. “Eames, something happened – and I don’t know what it was, because Arthur won’t talk about it – but he relapsed. Really badly.”

“But he’s okay though, right? Ari, if he’s there, tell him I don’t care about any drugs, I just want him to be okay. I’m not mad. Tell him that I’m not angry. I’m just… I’m just…” Eames breathes, keeping his emotions in check.

“I don’t know if he is. He’s… He’s not here.”

“What are you saying?”

“His stuff’s here, but… We haven’t seen him in weeks. We’ve been looking everywhere for him, Eames. I’m so sorry…”

++

+

Arthur spits the come on the pavement and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Well?”

The liquor store clerk is still catching his breath, leaning back on the old wall. He’s studying Arthur, thinking as he zips his pants.

Arthur brushes dirt and loose gravel from the knee holes in his jeans when he stands, expecting the very tall, very unimpressed looking man to change his mind.

Only instead, the clerk sighs. “Yeah, yeah, kid. Give me a sec.” He lets the back door slam shut behind him, leaving Arthur alone in the sunlit alley but only for a few minutes.

“Here you go, kid.”

The black plastic bag is heavy when it’s dumped into Arthur’s hands. He nearly drops it. He blushes, seeing a much bigger, much more expensive bottle of liquor than what he’d bargained for.

“Don’t come back, alright?”

Arthur rolls his eyes when he’s alone in the alley again. “You say that every time, ‘Jim’.” He steals a swig of the whiskey to finally rinse the taste of another day’s work out of his mouth—and feels like his soul’s just been snatched out of his body and thrown to the ground for how strong the booze is.

He grimaces, glaring at the bottle and wondering how Eames could have ever drank a whole bottle of this shit without falling over right into an open grave as he heads out on the block to the corner store for however many packs of smokes he can buy with the fifteen dollars left in his back pocket, which apparently isn't enough money for even one unless he abandons the bubblegum and chips on the store counter.

He lights up on the sidewalk and takes a long drag, the smoke catching the lady behind him in the face soon as she opens the door to leave the store. She's fussing and coughing and Arthur's quick to apologize in what little Spanish he's learned from Travis but it's all cut short when he catches a cop looking over at him from his squad car, his eyes traveling to the black bag of whiskey.

Arthur disappears down a side street and doesn't stop running until he's reached the other side of the block. Rummaging through his backpack he’s relieved to find a spare battery for the cassette player he’d bought at the thrift store a few days ago. He heads for the crumbling brick stoop where his cigarette butts are still littering the steps and sidewalk from the day before.

He used to think that ‘growing up’ would be exciting, a whole new world of unlimited access right in his eighteen-year-old hands with this plastic ID and the wide-eyed picture of himself trying his hardest not to smile. A new start, a change, a big change that meant them both moving forward, not backwards. A ticket to a bank account, for one. Legal cigarettes for another, which was a necessity for handling his stress. But most importantly, turning eighteen was an all access pass to an adult shelter he’d be able to walk right into with Eames without the threat of being hauled off by a social worker, which also meant no more Davids, no more nights spent outdoors or crashing on the floor of an apartment filled to the brim with junkies and the trappers that supplied their habits... Arthur's habit.

Habits, now.

He grimaces, taking a drink before he pours out a splash on the stone, earning glares as he toasts to Eames.

At least this time he couldn't say it was his fault that everything had gone south. They'd had to abandon the car in favor of hiding in Yusuf's apartment once Eames’s demons from Chicago finally caught up to him. Three months of living a life of pure luxury in that old station wagon with its no battery, no wheels, and no gas, but it had been theirs. One promise of Eames’ fulfilled. And it had been permanent, parked in the industrial garage like a mobile home. A home.

Gone.

“Maybe a month or two in a shelter and we can circle back to the car once Travis can get the parts we need to actually get that piece of junk on the road. Then,” Eames had said, “we’ll be out of here for good.”

Only, Travis never got those parts and Eames never got to follow Arthur to the shelter. Arthur had gotten them a cot, went to sleep, woke up, and Eames was still gone. No goodbyes, not a hug, nothing. Just the threat of an eight year prison sentence and the promise of deportation back to England for a stupid armed robbery.

“Don't worry about that, kitty cat, you know your Eames always finds a way to get back to you. I'm not going anywhere.”

But even Eames didn't sound confident, not even after the trial was over.

“Two years. We can manage that... right?”

Arthur knew Eames’ tone had nothing to do with being afraid of prison. Eames wasn't afraid of anything.

Except Arthur himself, or rather the kinds of trouble Arthur could get into now that he was on his own again.

“Just keep your head down, boy, alright? I cannot stress this enough: Stay in the shelter, as long as you can, and for god's sake, stay out of the streets.

And damn if he hadn't tried. He'd stayed put in the shelter, he’d kept pace with his medication, even jumped at the chance for free testing at the clinic on the second floor! He'd hustle once a week to keep their money growing in the account, he'd kept his head down just as Eames had told him to, tried his best to be civil with his new cot neighbors, and had done his best to stay the hell away from Yusuf, Nash, and anybody else with drugs.

But as always, ‘trying’ was just a fucking delay for the inevitable.

Even hiding out in a shelter couldn’t protect him from the one thing that had ruined him long before drugs did: men. The male counselor with his ‘clumsy’ hands, the creep in the cot closest to the bathroom, a brand new stalker…

And David.

Arthur’s been wandering the streets on a binge since spotting him, the one monster that’s been haunting his every step since he was a child.

David hadn't seen Arthur but Arthur had seen him as that man loaded groceries into his minivan, a brand new batch of kids bouncing around him and his wife in excitement. Save for one boy. One scrawny little nothing sulking quietly as one of the bigger kids shoved past him.

It was enough to send Arthur into a tailspin. Even when he'd been on his own in this city, way before meeting Eames, he still hadn't ever been this scared, this sick, this damaged as he was with that monster standing just on the other side of the parking lot of where Arthur had been bouncing in a trucker’s lap for Eames’ commissary funds.

Arthur's not even sure how long he's been staring at the payphone on the sidewalk. He's been riding on a high all afternoon but it's fading. He's lonely and growing more and more sick as his anxiety starts to build up again, but he's far too terrified to call… anybody, really. He's certain that Yusuf and Ariadne must have tossed out his bag by now, thinking him dead in a ditch or the river after weeks of no sign of him.

After his trouble in the shelter, Eames had told him to go back to Ariadne’s place with his things where he could at least be safe from strangers, even if it meant putting an end to his quest for sobriety, but Arthur had wanted to stick it out, stay clean, and prove to Eames that he could handle himself. After seeing David though, he couldn't handle the shelter any longer. Just being near a man sober sent him right to the floor in a panic attack.

Breaking his sobriety was like coming home. As easy as peeling a slice of cheese off its plastic, he'd quickly found some of Nash’s fellow junkies, though thankfully not Nash himself, and had silenced that panic. Hard.

Heroin, he found, didn’t clean out his pockets nearly as fast as coke did. How anybody could pass up cheaper, stronger drugs when high, Arthur didn’t know. Only, once that quick trip to the clouds was over? Replaced with puking and more puking and other fun things coming out of other fun places? He was more than happy to abandon heroin forever and spend more money on a drug he could trust, one that was familiar, rather than risk any more bad trips. Unlike heroin, coke didn’t make him feel so bad so quickly. Coke didn't scare him. It only held him close and kept him safe, alert, but he’d never that been high on the streets by himself before.

Anxiety was one thing, but uncontrollable paranoia had had him clinging to that high just to pluck up the courage to show up at Yusuf's apartment, relieved beyond words when the squatter outside his door told him that Ariadne had left and gave him as good of an address to go find her that they could muster.

It took him the rest of the evening and the last of his coke to find the apartment complex but he'd managed, still looking like a battered wreck after that fuck up with the truck driver.

But it didn't matter. Just like how his aunt would rush to his mother no matter how scared or how bloody her mouth was or how it stained the front of her dress, Ariadne had opened the door and hugged Arthur tight. Her long lost, chosen little brother.

It was nothing like Yusuf’s place. Small, simple, but clean and dry. S afe. Even the streetlights looked that much brighter coming in through her open windows as Arthur sat at her kitchen table and let her dab days-old blood away from his busted lip. She gives him a pack of frozen strawberries to hold to his bruised cheek.

“I'm not going to preach to you, or judge or… anything… right now. I'm not even going to try to stop you. You've been through enough already.”

For some reason hearing that made him panic. He shook his head quickly. “No, no, I'm not, well, I only relapsed a few days ago.”

“Days? Arthur, you've been missing for weeks now. Eames’ been worried sick. So was I. Anything could have happened to you… and it looks like… anything did happen… Arthur--”

“I got sick and puked on a trucker in his cab so he beat the shit out of me. It's nothing--I’m going to get clean this time. I'm totally done, I promise.”

That promise had hung in the air between them, waiting for Ariadne to accept those words, but she waved them off, as disbelieving as Arthur had felt just repeating that promise himself. Even he knew he was nowhere near ready to handle a withdrawal.

It was soul crushing in its truth, but rather than leave him in that pain alone, Ariadne had gotten up to give him a hug. She’d held him for a small eternity before she’d wiped her eyes and looked at him earnestly.

“You don't have to make me any promises. I care about you, Arthur, and that’s not conditional. That being said, I'm really, really hoping that you don't go off in search of drugs while you're here, but...if you need them, then...okay. Yusuf and I are still friends even if…Just say the word and I'll get it for you. Whatever you need until you are ready to quit. Okay? Just...please stay. Everybody's so worried about you, Arthur. But you're here now, and you’re safe, and alive, and that's all that matters. We will figure out the rest later.” She'd paused, frowning even as she lowered her voice and asked, “Do you need...something...right now?”

He’d just nodded at the table, fidgeting so much he’d tangled his hands in his shirt, unable to say or do anything else without falling apart hearing her words.

“Arthur?”

He’d tried to say a simple thank you, but all he could process was David and his constant reminders that Arthur was worthless. “I don't deserve this. Especially not from you. I don't deserve any of this. I shouldn't have come here. You have your life in a good, good place here. I'm so sorry.”

“No, no, no. Why not?”

“Because…” He’d opened his mouth, ready to read off a mental list but with her rubbing his hands, even while holding them tightly to stop him from leaving, he couldn't seem to find one. He sat back in silence, staring at his hands in his lap.

Ariadne even sighed like his aunt, right before she would gear up to try to bribe a smile out of Arthur with candy or ice cream when his father would run him and his mother out of the apartment.

“I know what might help you feel better,” Ari teased, and at first Arthur had been surprised, thinking she was going to offer to call Yusuf for that coke, but instead, “Yoga! It's a therapeutic exercise. Might take your mind off of…things. Wanna try?”

“I'm pretty banged up. I should get some sleep, if that's okay.”

She stood quickly to follow him when he’d tried to retreat, startling him. “Hey, about that. If you ever need to—”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

She’d stopped, her voice heavy with worry. “Arthur, what happened? The last time Eames had heard from you, you were—”

“Nothing happened.”

“Something happened. I know you, Arthur. Eames is your whole life. You would never just up and disappear on him like this.”

He’d struggled to swallow past his growing anxiety and contain himself, but he’d been shaking and it had had nothing to do with his cravings. He tried to swallow again. “I'm… I'm a mess.”

“Which is why—”

“Eames doesn't need mess, not with everything else on his plate. He counted on me to stay out of trouble and I fucking failed,” he'd tried to laugh. “If I talk to him now I might not ever hear from him again.”

She’d shook her head at him, stubbornly, in a way that had made him nervous again. “He calls every chance he gets, looking for you. You're going to talk to him, Arthur. You have to.

She'd kept her promise to keep him...content.

But even with her, he couldn't stay comfortable for long. The second Yusuf came through the door and saw him sitting at her kitchen table with her pocket mirror in the sink, it was downhill from there.

Strung out, he would wait by Ariadne’s phone throughout the day waiting for Eames to call and spent his nights wide awake, too nervous to sleep and too congested from yet another flu.

He could hear them argue in her bedroom as soon as they thought Arthur had fallen asleep on the couch.

“He showered like three times today, for like a bloody hour every time. Your water bill is going to be through the roof, Ariadne! Enough.”

“He's hurting and he's lost. You're Eames’ best friend! Go and talk to him so we can at least figure out what's wrong with him.”

Hearing people argue and yell had always made him nervous. He'd curl up on the couch with Trigger, rubbing the dog's back to stay calm. “You're huge now.” Eames’ pup was a big boy now, but his beautiful red and white fur was as soft as when he was a puppy. Arthur kissed his floppy ears, frowning as he always did to see his docked tail, but the dog was happy and healthy there.

Both of them startled when the argument got louder.

“He's not some stray dog you can just take in and everything will be fine, Ariadne! He's not one of your projects! People don't work like that!”

“Give him a chance!”

“A chance? Who are we talking about here? Sweetheart, he's already bloody stoned out of his mind! He’s a fucking addict! He's gone! It's too late!”

“How can you of all people be so heartless?”

“I do care about him, I swear, and it's fucking terrible what happened to Eames. But there has to come a point when you and Eames understand that you can't just cuddle or punch away an addiction like that. He needs rehab right now. You can't fix him. You're even fucking enabling him as we speak! And me being bloody angry isn’t even really about Arthur himself, it's that leech Nash! You and I both know that wherever he is, Nash follows.”

“He's in jail--”

“He's in timeout waiting for his father's lawyers to swoop in and save his ass like they always do, and so far, it's never failed him! If you think Arthur's in bad shape now? It's only a matter of time before you come home one night to find Arthur dead on your floor and Nash rifling through everything he can get his hands on to sell for fucking meth! You said you wanted to get away from all of this and that we could start over, so that both of us could go back to school and have normal lives again. That, in there, is not starting over, Ari. Just more trouble. Convince him--no, order him--to go to treatment, or a hospital, or something. Otherwise, keeping him here and feeding him the last of my supply, which could have been our rent by the way, is only going to end with Eames coming home to a fucking tagged corpse in a refrigerator shelf in a hospital basement!” A deafening silence had followed, and then, “Oh no, Ari, don't cry. I'm sorry, babe. Come here, love--”

Arthur had let the door close as quietly as he could behind him, leaving Trigger to whine and paw at him from the other side. He'd sat in the landing outside of her apartment for a while with his smokes and Eames’ lighter, barreling through the first two but taking his time with the third, just watching the raindrops shine in the dull yellow lights of the street lamps. He’d been worrying with the fraying hem of Eames’ big, old tank top so much lately, it might not survive the summer.

“Will I?” He'd thought to himself, trying to laugh but he was distracted, watching a beetle wander over to investigate one of his cigarette butts he'd crushed into the concrete floor. Even as nice and clean and quiet as Ariadne’s building was compared to Yusuf's, Arthur still expected to see Nash come out of the apartment at the end of the hall with a cloud of smoke around him.

“Hey pretty poison,” he would say, in a tone that made Arthur's skin crawl, right before offering him some of his new ‘candy.’

He was out of cigarettes before he knew it. He stood to bum a smoke off of someone charitable out on the street, but once his feet started moving they couldn't stop.

It wasn't his normal wandering off either. Walking—no, running—away from David had been life or death. Even sneaking out of that window in Eames’ old bedroom at his and Cobb’s house had been all about self preservation, but this? This was selfless, in his mind. He’d known it’d be bad for Ariadne the second he got there and he was right. Yusuf was right.

He couldn’t change the past. All the things that had been done to him, he’d never wanted any of those stains to run onto everybody else, but here he was. Worrying Eames into unending panic, bringing drugs into Ariadne’s real home, and making her and Yusuf fight over him. Again and again.

So he walked. Eames could and would get his life back on track the way Yusuf had and he’d be damn good at whatever he’d be able to put his focus into, and Yusuf and Ari could at last move forward.

And Arthur? Well he was broken. Officially. There is no getting David tucked back into that tiny little compartment where Arthur had had him locked down for years. He was out. Really out. Ruining some other little boy’s soul and body all over again. Too close to the streets Arthur had roamed, hell even too close to Ariadne’s apartment. Anywhere that David and Arthur were still alive at the same time was too close.

Arthur was already carrying his own coffin in the red angry dots on his arms, in his back pocket where more powder needed to be, would be, very very soon. David and all the men like him could chase him around the bedroom, could chase him down the hallway, could even chase him out onto the streets, but they could never catch him dead.

+

Drowning in Eames’ whiskey gives him time to unwind and prepare for another night spent rolling in and out of back seats and alleys on his knees with whoever’s willing to pay for whatever substance he can get his hands on come morning.

He’s not even the least bit concerned that his inner elbow is now dotted with what will surely be permanent little syringe scars. But he's certain that he's officially done with heroin. Whatever had convinced him that this out of all of the things that had gone wrong since turning eighteen would have been the one thing to work? Well, that optimistic rat of a junkie was now currently in prison...just like Eames. Coke makes him too paranoid but it keeps him alert, pills make him puke but they numb the aches and silence the questions from the night before, but heroin only put him to sleep. Deep, unconscious sleep that leaves him lost, literally. It was far too easy to make a habit out of getting blackout stoned and waking up somewhere else, on a different day, with a different scattering of somebodies in some decaying building.

That alone makes him freak out. Not ODing or tripping on bad batches, not running out of food, not STDs, not even getting robbed for the last two bucks in his pocket. Being completely out of control had been his go-to anxiety trigger for years now. And there was no control in having day-long gaps in time and memory, even if he gets to forget David for a little while in the process.

It's nightfall by the time the empty bottle rolls down the steps to the storm drain below.

He nearly staggers right into traffic when he's on his feet again, the whole world spinning and tilting right along with him when he takes a step away from the stoop.

The angry drivers and their bright lights and loud horns nearly send him sideways again. His head is pounding but he makes it across the street, heading for the liquor store on the corner.

In fact, he almost makes it upright all the way there but his eyes catch two sleek black cars parked by the curb that look way too expensive to be anywhere near this part of town.

He crashes right into the first one, almost taking the side mirror with him to the ground.

Arthur's still on his ass when a man hurries out of the backseat, looking for dents before he sees Arthur and smiles. “Looks like I wasn't the only one who started the weekend early, huh?”

“Sorry,” Arthur slurs with a grimace when he's helped up.

“Are you even old enough to be this drunk?”

Arthur rolls his eyes, trying to shoulder out of the man's grip. “Blow me, old man, I don't need your judgment--”

“Whoa, whoa, no judgment here.”

Arthur’s ignoring the man's boring rambling as another man gets out of the second car, as equally old and bland, as Arthur tries to stand on his feet on his own but that grip on his arm is doing all the work and the hood of the car looks like a great place for another three second nap.

Until a little baggy of white rocks is waved in his face before it disappears back into one of their suit jackets. Just like it could have been sent down from Heaven. He’s wide awake now.

“So what do you say?”

He has no clue what’s even been propositioned or what's in that bag. But either way, he's out of money, out of whiskey, and by morning his pack of smokes will run out too. Then where will he be? Broke, hungry, craving…

The car door's already open for him, but that grip on his arm hurts. He tries to look the man in the eye to refuse, to walk away, thinking of Eames in a moment of clarity and his warnings about tinted windows…

Only he sees his old brick stoop down the street instead, still open and waiting for him, and he knows that waking up there tomorrow stone cold sober will mean having to feel again that creeping, crawling tingling of those memories like hands all over his skin, wrecking his nerves, so vivid and overwhelming that he can smell David's deodorant and taste his fingers in his mouth--

It scares him enough that he agrees without question, unable to speak louder than a whisper, damn near ready to beg for that rock just to be able to not feel anything at all. “Sure. Okay.”

“Perfect. You look like you could use a party right now.”

+

Arthur's face down, ass up with his underwear tangled around his knees and his pants nearby when he wakes up with the worst headache of his life.

Under an overpass.

All the way on the opposite side of the river from Detroit.

Alone.

A Coke bottle smashes into a million pieces when it hits the gravel nearby, startling him. Confused, he groans as he moves to sit on his side, mindful of more trash that's been tossed from the highway up above. Eames’ old shirt is even more torn now, his hips are littered in serious bruises, knees red, and if he wasn't used to the nosebleeds that always plague him after going overboard with coke, he'd be convinced his nose had been broken instead.

He laughs at himself once he's crawled to his pants. “These aren't even mine.”

Rising around him, the graffiti is so colorful in places and worn down by rain and time in others. Above him, what may have been a pretty mural of naked ladies with bandanas and guns, has been spray-painted with huge black letters: Fate Takes No Bribes.

Fully clothed again, he lies back down, laughing harder at himself, until he notices a few older homeless men burning trash in a barrel fire near one of the highway columns. Ignoring him. Even off the streets where the people of Detroit walk past him as if he's invisible, out here he's still nothing more than a wandering ghost.

He could walk, or at least he thinks he could if he tried, but lying down on his back, listening to the cars and trucks zoom by overhead, it's not as taxing. It gives his stomach a chance to rethink its decision to upchuck even if only for another breath before he has to turn over and heave.

The sound of sirens gets him on his feet and gets him moving forward. All he can tell about where he is is that it's much cleaner than any underpass he's ever woken up under. He's never been this side of the river before but at least he's not so far away that he can't get back, once he figures out how to get across the water.

It'll have to be a headache for another day. There are places he could be, yes, but nowhere he wants to go. He needs Eames, he needs Ariadne…and her shower, and her couch, and he's sure he might need a hospital too.

He needs help.

But he's disappointed Eames so many times, and proven more than a few of Yusuf's points that it's a hell of a lot harder to stomach yet another shameful return back to Ariadne than it is to face whatever's happened to him tonight, alone, once his high fades. And with how far he's sank into whatever new fuck up he's gotten himself into, shame is the one and only thing keeping him away now.

Being separated—blocked, even—by this damn river is so laughably timed. “It’s a perfect mirror of my life...Hm.”

He doesn't feel numb like he's supposed to after a blackout. Staggering and wincing through every pained step, he reaches in the pants pocket, expecting to find his lighter and smokes but there's just someone else's little bag of the powdered coke.

A loose rock of it is in his palm now.

Arthur takes a deep, shaky breath, staring down at his hand.

His anxiety is reaching its peak. The more he thaws and hurts the more he panics. Everything about this overpass and that river and where he is and how he was left here like trash, humiliated...out of control, way out of control. As out of control as he's ever been…

The need to keep running away from that panic is almost enough to have him diving head first into the palm of his own hand, but...

Arthur takes a deep breath. He looks up, admiring the pretty lights of the city skyline. They glitter and sparkle across the river with their reflection. “Everything is so pretty at night,” he whispers to himself. He misses Eames and their life so much he feels as bitter and sick as if he was stone cold sober.

Suddenly he thinks of a hamster wheel. Is this his? Get high, blackout, panic, hide in alcohol, get high, blackout, panic again…

His vision blurs, his cheeks wet now as he sobs. He's alone but he still hides his face behind his arm like a child as he breaks down, unable to run from the crushing weight anymore. It consumes him. “God...I'm so tired. I'm so fucking tired, Eames.”

For the first time since regaining consciousness, hell for the first time since he disappeared and took that first drink, that first hit, years ago, he’s actually, seriously, totally scared to death. Terrified to agree with Yusuf that he's gone too far and can't be saved.

He wants to escape again, end his pain, but not alone, and not like this. He has to get off of the hamster wheel.

The rock gets crushed under his shoe, but the powder feels glued to his palm.

Just seeing it on the ground hurts. Walking away from it hurts more.

A few steps forward and he's doubling back for it, and for the first time in his life, he's truly angry.

He’s enraged. If he could step out of his body even just for one moment, he would beat himself senseless, he was so angry.

+

The last three days have been the hardest of his life. Making grown up decisions by himself...sucked. Being self-aware sucked. But what choice did he have? He could return to his stoop and die of an overdose or his flu fever, or he could go back to Ariadne’s and bring his chaos and snot with him and risk getting shipped off to rehab, or if his guilt didn’t get to him first, have him returning right back to the streets.

Or he could go back to the shelter and get medicine from a real nurse, sleep in a cot for as long as he wanted, with no judgement—at least not from anyone he cared about—and get three meals a day, even if he knew what he faced by going back. But getting touched by a counselor or some cot neighbor was still better than waking up under an overpass with his pants missing again.

Not to mention, free food was free food.

So shelter it was. In the mornings after breakfast, he’d visit the nurse, rummage through the donated clothes bins, go out and buy drugs, come back for lunch, sleep it off, and after dinner, go out and trick for more drugs to prepare himself for the night and the next day’s routine. A hamster wheel, yes, but he was finally being honest with himself now. He knew he wasn’t ready to quit yet. He couldn't. Trying to scrape crushed rock off the gravel under the overpass had hushed any naive dreams he’d been hiding behind for good. No more elaborate plans of going sober and finding the kind of freedom and happiness plastered on the bullshit D.A.R.E. posters in the counselor’s office.

Not yet. Not with David creeping into his dreams the first night he’d tried to go to sleep without taking something first.

There was still one thing that he was over a hundred-percent sure of. He was still mad as hell at himself.

A little annoyingly bright spot of blood ruins his new shirt before he chokes and coughs. Nosebleeds and stomach aches are constant now. Maybe it's his flu, maybe it's the drugs. Either way, he makes sure his nose is clean whenever he sees the nurse—

“Hey. Arthur, right?

Arthur blinks out of his daze and nearly coughs himself to the floor. “Yeah?”

“You got a phone call.”

“Huh?” It’s so crowded and loud in the shelter this time of day, so he barely hears the volunteer at first.

“Says his name’s Eames? He keeps calling like every few days for you, even when you weren’t here, so... Arthur? You gonna go get it, or? Do you need me to take you to the nurse? You don’t look so good, man.”

He’s frozen. “Uh…” Shit. He swears under his breath the whole walk to the payphone, shaking.

He braces for an earful and then some. “Eames?”

There’s silence on the other end for too long. But then, “Arthur?”

He closes his eyes, feeling something shatter when he hears that voice. He grips the phone harder. Taking a deep breath hurts. His mouth is open to speak but another coughing fit hits him. He snorts back blood, wanting to throw up but he’s still gripping that phone with both hands now, listening to Eames’ heavy sigh. God, he’s missed that, even if it’s a bad sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“Arthur, you scared me to death. Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been calling everywhere nonstop, Ariadne and Yusuf have been driving around, looking for you. Are you sick again? Are you hurt?” A pause and then, not gritted-teeth or hissed anger, just a sad whispered, “Are you using again, babe?”

The background noise on both of their ends drowned out by Arthur’s wheezing and Eames’ sighs.

For once, it doesn’t even cross Arthur’s mind to lie. “I’m too old for this shit, Eames…” Hearing his own voice compared to Eames’s he can’t recognize it, so heavily congested and still trying to suck back a stubborn nosebleed that refuses to stop. “Eames?”

He knows Eames is angry now. Eames’ silences are always loud in their anger. But that anger is something Arthur is used to. It’s familiar enough to calm him down a little.

He snorts back blood and chokes on it again.

“Arthur, baby, don’t do that,” Eames says quietly, soft. “You’ll ruin your sinuses, or probably get blood in your lungs or something.”

“Yeah,” Arthur drawls, unable to stop himself from doing it again, “but… if the counselors see it, they’ll kick me out.”

Eames’ little huff gives Arthur goosebumps. He can’t help but grin against the phone.

“Pretty sure they already know you’re floating in outer space, doll.”

Another tense silence.

Arthur can’t stand it anymore. “I’m sorry, Eames. I’m so fucking embarrassed.”

“What happened to you?”

“It was..." He doesn’t know why he’s so scared to talk about it. He reminds himself that this isn’t Ariadne. "Eames, I saw David,” Arthur groans at last. It doesn’t make him feel better. Just sinks to the pit of his stomach. “He didn’t see me though, but... He has a new set of kids now, and it just...”

”It set you off.” Yes. “I understand, baby.”

Arthur glares at the ceiling, fighting back tears. Everything spills out at once. “I’m scared… all the time. And for a few minutes, using made me not so scared. And then I needed another few minutes and longer and I just...spiraled, and I ended up in a really bad place, and that was scary too, and I was alone, and I wanted to die because I did all of this to myself, and I don’t know if I can stop. So now I’m scared even more, because I blew it again and you’re not here to fix it for me. I just want to hug you, Eames. Even if you’re mad at me, but you’re not even yelling at me… Why aren’t you yelling at me, Eames?”

Eames chuckles, exhausted. “I’ve got a year and ten months left in here, kitty cat. I don’t sleep. I just worry. All the fucking time, because—”

The call runs out. “Hello? Eames?” He lets his head thud on the side of the payphone.

“You new to Detroit, baby?”

He’s confused, turning around to see an old lady in a wheelchair sitting behind him, waiting for the phone. He covers his mouth when he coughs, careful not to get her sick. “I've been here for...years now.”

“Long time, huh?” She nods when Arthur does. “You've got at least one friend, then. You can’t survive for long on these streets being as small as you is by yourself. Where’re your friends, baby?”

“Where are yours?” He instantly feels bad for being an asshole but she laughs, still smiling.

“At my age? No... People in our situation usually die quietly, politely out of the way of the world.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Go to your friends, baby.”

“I can’t. I can’t go back.”

“Then where’s forward? Where you going from here?” She tsks when he can’t catch a drop of blood in time. She shakes her head when he wipes it away with his sock. “That’s about how everybody looks right before they take that last hit that puts them to sleep forever. Never seen it in someone so young before. The streets are only getting harder. The dope is only killing you all faster.”

He shrugs at the floor, toying with his shirt, stretching the hem. Scared. “I don’t know. I can’t get loose from it.” He’s not sure which he’s talking about; the drugs or ending up homeless again. “I’ve been trying for years and every time, I think I’ve got it right, and then... But what else do I have?”

“I can’t answer that for you, baby, you gotta figure that out yourself.”

+

He’s still thinking about it on his way back to his cot. He stops short. “Ah, fuck.”

Some boy Arthur’s never seen before is holding Arthur’s pillow, caught trying to steal it.

Nothing registers at first apart from the boy. Arthur takes a swing at him, but the counselor blokes him, holding a little baggie in front of his face.

The counselor's holding Arthur’s coke. It had been hidden in his pillow. “You know the drill,” he says, looking past Arthur. “In my office.”

At first, Arthur thinks of just running for the door. The counselor stops walking and turns around, waiting for him to follow. Only two things are certain to happen in that office: He’s going to get kicked out or he’s going to have to beg to stay.

He has to remember his reasons for coming back to the shelter in the first place. “It’s not an overpass.”

He does this all the time. He pays for what he wants with money and how does he get that money? How does he get whiskey smuggled out of the back of the liquor store by the clerk? What’s he been doing for years to survive? It’s simple. Right?

So why doesn’t this feel the same? He sits in the counselor’s office, eyeing the inspirational posters lining the walls and the cardigans hanging on a coat rack by the locked door.

He takes the tissues he’s offered for his nose. “Mr. Hall, I—”

“How many times do we have to have this conversation, Arthur? One of the few rules we have is what?”

“No drugs.”

“And?”

“No fighting. But—”

“What were you thinking, Arthur? You know you can’t have this here. It’s unacceptable.”

“...What?”

“I said it’s unacceptable. You know better.”

“Arthur, you know that taking food from the kitchen after dark is unacceptable.” That’s it. That’s the trigger.

From the counselor’s bland shoes to his bland khakis, his polos, even his wrist watch, and that smug, condescending tone, it all clicks. Every time he ends up in this office, it never feels like the same as leaving a john’s car. Dealing with johns makes him feel numb, but this, here, he always has to puke after, unable to let that man’s come sit in his stomach. Just like David.

Mr. Hall’s bookshelves behind his desk are littered with framed photos of his family. It makes so much sense now. “I can’t do this.”

“Do what?”

Mr. Hall comes around the desk to lean on it. Too close. Arthur can’t even speak. He grips the arms of the chair and hunches down as deep as he can, but it’s not enough. “Just kick me out.”

“Where are you going to go, Arthur? The last time you ran away from here, you came back looking like a corpse. I know you’re eighteen so I can’t make you stay here, but I would highly advise it.”

“You’re safe here. Nobody else is going to take care of you.”

“And you know I’m highly persuasive, Arthur. I don’t want to kick you out but you have to earn the right to stay here.”

“Get away from me,” Arthur whispers, praying he listens. “Please.”

“Arthur, relax.” He stands behind him, running his fingers through Arthur’s hair. He rubs his shoulders. “There are worse things. They can all be found outside of this building, and they will kill you.” He tilts up Arthur’s chin to make him look at him, his cheek pressed to Mr. Hall’s hip. He strokes his jaw. “You’re safe here. Make me happy and I’ll even give you back your drugs. It’ll be like you never got caught with it.”

He can’t take it. “Please get away from me,” he tries to say but Mr. Hall's thumb is in his mouth. He bites it as hard as he can, startling them both.

“What the Hell, Arthur!?”

He’s caught in a bear hug when he tries to run for the door. He’s wrestled over the side of the desk, pinned down by the man’s heavy arm on the back of his neck. He tries to push off the desk but he’s stuck.

“God damnit, Arthur. What’s wrong with you? It’s okay.” He rubs Arthur’s back under his shirt before slipping his hand down the back of Arthur’s sweatpants. “Relax. You’re not feeling well.”

There’s an award on his desk from some charity thanking him for his ‘outreach.’ Arthur grabs it and closes his eyes.

He doesn't know if he hit him hard enough to kill him, but the man is on the floor with a gash bleeding on his forehead. He isn’t moving. Every crime drama he and Eames had ever watched together always had the lady whacking her attacker once with something heavy only for him to wake up and stab her to death immediately after, so he closes his eyes and hits him again. “Sorry?”

Arthur drops the trophy in horror but quickly picks it up and uses one of the sweaters hanging on the back of Mr. Hall’s chair to scrub off his prints before he sets it back on the desk. He pockets all of his bloody tissues and quickly looks around the room to make sure there’s no other proof that he was here. Panicking, he goes through the man’s pockets, praying he doesn’t wake up, in search of the coke that would also have his prints, but he can’t find it.

Just a fat wallet filled with cash and cards.

He stands up with it in his hand, looking between the bills and the man still on the floor, contemplating how far he’d get if he put the wallet back and simply ran, but ran where exactly? And with what money?

He was already stuck in one hamster wheel, did he really want another? To have to run for the streets with nothing but his backpack again, always looking over his shoulder for two cardigan-wearing rapists? Fuck that.

He pockets the whole thing, sure to close the door behind him as he makes his way first to the clothes bin in search of a hoodie. Mr. Hall was going to help keep him safe, alright. He would be giving Arthur every dime owed from him, from the cops, and from every single man who ever took advantage of him—stole from him—without ever giving it a second thought.

He hurries into the hoodie and grabs his bag, doing a quick once over. His eyes meet the old lady’s, sure that she’s been watching him pack his little bit of clothes. She’s smiling again, that knowing smile.

Making his way to her, he digs in his pocket for the wallet.

“You figured out your way forward yet.”

“No,” he does another once over, making sure no one is watching him as he folds half of the cash into her wrinkled hand, “but I’m working on it.”

Her eyes grow wide for a moment. She glances in the direction of the counselor’s office, before really seeing the terror that was gripping Arthur in shivers and a trembling voice. She pats his hand, giving the money back. “Soon as you get clear of here, I want you to look in that wallet and see if he’s got his pin numbers written down. Types like him are always foolish enough to keep things like that written down. If you can’t find them, don’t try to use his cards. That’s a red flag to the cops. Use this cash, baby. Look for the Greyhound bus station and get on the first one out of the state.”

“But…” He hasn’t thought that far ahead yet but it dawns on him that she’s right. This isn’t him just running out of David’s house, this is so much worse. “What about…” He looks to the phone, ready to cry again and give up but she yanks him to the arm and pulls him closer to the front lobby.

“Prioritize.” She counts on her fingers. “Distance, security, safety, then you call them from wherever you find yourself but not before. Okay?”

He nods, leaning down to take the hug he’s offered, hearing her whisper, “I left my parents' old farmhouse out in the country when I was fourteen, married at sixteen, and ran again when I was nineteen for this city with nothing but my dress and my shoes and all the wages I’d been saving for years that husband never knew about, because you never leave home in winter, you understand? No matter where I found myself, no matter how hard it was to make it, I have not ever looked back, and I have no regrets because of that. This money is your spring. Use it well. Take care of yourself, baby.”

He nods again, trembling but determined.

He knows he may never get to see Ariadne again, to thank her, or this city that’s been chewing him up and spitting him out since he was twelve but Mr. Hall’s pins are scribbled on the back of an old deposit receipt in the back of his wallet.

He doesn’t know where he’s headed once he’s cleaned out the cards and ditched the wallet. He boards the crowded bus but finds an empty seat upfront behind the driver. When the bus pulls off, he knows his eyes are as wide as a child’s, soaking in the highways and cities as they drive over bridges and mountains through the evening. He naps off and on but fights off sleep after dark to see the towns and industrial parks turn into glittering, sparkling cities.

Arthur accidentally wakes up the old man sitting beside him when he tries to look past him out of the windows on the other side of the bus. “Sorry.”

He chuckles, quick to close his eyes again. “First time to New York, kid?”

“New York?” Arthur sits back, in awe, whispering it again to himself, “New York City.”

His hands are shaking again, but not all of it is fear.

++

+