Fic: "The Midnight Oil", Inception, Eames/Arthur, R
Finally, a full length Inception short fic :)
The Midnight Oil
Author:
beetle_comma_the
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Eames/Arthur, Fischer,Arthur
Rating: R
Notes: A high school AU inspired by an Inception ‘verse of the lovely
imogenedisease. Previous ficlets are here.
Summary: Arthur gets two very different late night visits from two very different men.
Later that evening, long after Arthur’s managed to put detention and Eames out his mind, the back door to the McMansion opens then closes after a slight pause. Arthur knows who it is. Only one person comes in through the back door-the servant’s entrance, as Arthur tends to think of it-at this time of night.
“You’re up late,” Robert Fischer notes, heading straight for the fridge, and the Sapporo Mrs. Hodgins always keeps stocked. He drinks half a bottle down in one long swallow, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing.
At the massive kitchen table with his history textbook, Arthur’s mouth goes a little dry, and he looks back down at words that, for the moment, make no sense.
“Early to bed and early to rise may make a man healthy, but it certainly doesn’t make him wealthy or wise,” Arthur tells his mother’s employer matter-of-factly. “Just making sure you get a decent return on your investment, sir.”
Sighing, Fischer finishes his beer and rinses out the bottle. He free-throws it into the recycling bin with a loud clink, like always. Then Arthur can feel those cobalt-blue eyes on him, measuring him, as they seem wont to do these days.
“You’re not an investment, Arthur, you’re a person.” Fischer comes to sit at the kitchen table across from Arthur. He loosens his tie a bit and clasps his hands in front of him.
“A person in whom you’ve invested a lot of money, Mr. Fischer,” Arthur reminds him. Even after an eighteen-hour day, Fischer looks calm and collected in his tailored suit. His face, almost girlishly pretty, is as rosy and rested looking as if he just got out of bed. His eyes seem to glow mellowly.
“A person with lots of potential.” Fischer nods at the textbook and then meets Arthur's eyes. Caught out staring, Arthur blushes and swallows.
“I know why you’re paying for me to go to Dalemont, Mr. Fischer, and it has nothing to do with my potential.” He bites his lip for a moment before going on. He’s been trying to think of a way to broach this subject for a while, even as he’s wondered if he should. But he may never get another opportunity like this, or have the guts to follow through, so he takes a deep, slightly shaking breath and continues. “I know that we have the same father.”
Silence spins out between them for a bit; even when Fischer sits back in his chair, their gazes still hold. Arthur is the first to look away, and Fischer pats his hand reassuringly. His touch is cool and dry, and Arthur shivers.
“So, Ariadne finally told you?” Fischer seems surprised, though more at the idea that Arthur’s mother had been honest with him, than at the fact that Arthur knows.
“No, mom still tells me my father left us before I was born.” Arthur rolls his eyes. His mother means well, and he’d stopped being angry with her a long time ago. “I figured it out for myself.”
At this, Fischer seems to be genuinely pleased. “You’re a smart young man-smarter than I was, at your age.”
Arthur shrugs. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard since he was little. And most recently from Roger Eames, for whom he spares a moment of thought . . . but the moment is fleeting. He’s got bigger fish to fry than some flirty, pushy limey.
“So what happens, now?” Arthur asks after a minute of silence, during which Fischer watches him expectantly. Then he smiles a little and holds out his hand. Arthur almost takes it, but turns the twitch of his hand into turning a page of his textbook.
“I don’t know. What do you want to happen, Arthur?”
No one's ever asked Arthur that before.
Shrugging jerkily, he looks back down at his textbook. He hasn’t figured out, even after knowing for two years that Robert Fischer is his brother, what he wants from the man, if anything. All he knows is he doesn’t expect anything like a brotherly relationship, or even friendship. He’s fairly certain he wouldn’t take those things even if they were on offer.
He may not know exactly what he wants from Fischer anymore, but he definitely doesn’t want or need a brother.
So he highlights something inconsequential about the Luft Waffe. “Right now? I don’t want anything.”
“Fair enough, then. But I want you to know something.” Fischer’s long hand covers Arthur’s smaller one again, and he looks up, startled. Fischer smiles again, and it’s the kind, understanding one Arthur used to fancy himself in love with. At least until he figured out the real reason why his mother’s employer had always been so kind to him.
Fischer leans in a little, and the Arthur of two years ago would’ve known, just known he was about to be kissed. This Arthur, however, knows different.
And what he wishes . . . what he once wished has no place in his life, anymore.
“The first thing I did after father died was create a trust fund for you. One that you’ll have access to on your eighteenth birthday. You’ll never have to worry about money,” Fischer promises somberly, his eyes terribly sincere.
Arthur snorts again. “My mom always made sure I never had to worry about money, anyway. One day, I’ll be able to do the same for her. Without a trust fund, thanks.”
That gentle smile turns wry and amused. “’There’re few things more impressive than a self-made man,’ Arthur. Our, ah, father used to say that.”
A muscle in Arthur’s cheek tics and he looks away from Fischer. “Yeah, well. I guess he’d know all about self-made men.”
Fischer makes a non-committal noise. “But there’s no shame in having a little help, either.”
Bad enough that he’s dependent on Fischer to go to Dalemont, which he really has no choice about. His mother had made that decision, one of many, without his input. But he doesn’t have to like being reminded of his dependence on Fischer’s money any more than he already is. “Right. Whatever you say.” Go away.
“Christ, but when you scowl, you look just like the old man, you know? Except for your eyes. You have Ariadne’s kind eyes.” Fischer still sounds amused, and a little wistful. “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your studies, but . . . if you ever want to talk about it . . . about anything-I mean anything. . . .“
Like why our father knocked up a girl one-third his age, then didn't do right by her? Like why, after seventeen years, that girl still feels loyal enough to him to keep his dirty little secret? Like why my intelligent, beautiful, generally awesome mother, who could've done anything with her life, instead had some rich old douchebag's bastard kid? Then spent the next seventeen years of her life, which she will never get back, working for said douchebag's douchebag family? Is that really a discussion you want to have with me, big brother?
“Thanks, but no,” Arthur says with stony-faced, laconic politeness.
Instead of taking offense, Fischer laughs, standing up and stretching. His shirt comes untucked a little, showing a quick flash of pale, concave stomach. Arthur reflects that there was a time when he’d have spent the next five hours beating off just to that brief flash of skin.
He’s not above beating off to it now, despite what he knows. He just can’t stand the vague sense of guilt and dirtybadwrong that settles in afterwards.
He’s got woes enough without this continued infatuation with his half-brother.
By the time he shakes himself out of his reverie, Fischer’s exiting the kitchen, briefcase in hand, a jauntily yawned G’night, Arthur, tossed over his shoulder.
For a long time after Fischer leaves, Arthur sits there, lost in thought, until there’s a quiet knock on the back door.
Like an automaton, he gets up to see who it is, peering past the curtains and laughing once in disbelief. He debates opening the door, but his hand’s already turning the knob.
“It’s after midnight. What’re you doing here?” he asks Eames, who smiles almost sheepishly, hands shoved in the pockets of fashionably torn blue jeans. The button-down shirt he’s wearing, however, is the most hideous eyesore Arthur’s ever seen, all kaleidoscope colors in stomach-turning patterns. It's the first time Arthur's ever seen Eames in anything other than the school uniform, or his soccer uniform.
“Saw there was a light still on, and I took a chance it’d be you, burning the midnight oil, as it were,” Eames says, that sheepish smile turning into his customary grin.
“Well, you were right. Were you hoping for a prize?”
“Depends on what the prize would be,” Eames replies, crowding into the doorway with Arthur, who takes a step back. Eames, of course follows him. “I’d take a kiss, if you’re giving them out.”
“Sorry, I’m not. Good night.” Arthur starts to close the door, but Eames catches it, leaning against the lintel.
“You’re absolutely no fun, darling,” he pouts, but unconvincingly. Though his mouth is rather distracting, nonetheless. “And what’re we studying, so late in the evening?”
Arthur rolls his eyes. “We are not studying anything. I am studying U.S. History.”
Eames makes an exaggeratedly pained face. “I’m bollocks at history. Since you're so well-versed, perhaps you could tutor me?”
“Perhaps not.” Arthur starts to close the door again, and this time, not only does Eames block it, he crowds his way inside, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it. Arthur feels a flash of something entirely too familiar that he tries to mask with indifference. “Mr. Eames-“
“Please, please call me Roger, darling? Please?”
Ignoring the ‘darling’-as he has all the other times-Arthur lets a world-weary sigh escape. “If I call you Roger, will you go away?”
Eames quirks a sardonic eyebrow. “Petal, you know me better than that; of course not.” He saunters past Arthur to the kitchen table and sits in the seat next to Arthur’s; he picks up the textbook. “Bloody hell, I must’ve nodded off in lecture more often than I thought. I had no idea we were up to World War-bloody-II!”
“It's twelve am. Do you know where your parents are?” Arthur intones flatly, only to get a curiously piercing once over from Eames, who shakes his head wonderingly.
“Figures you’re the type to go reading ahead.”
Arthur huffs defensively. “I happen to find history fascinating. Maybe if you tried doing the same, you wouldn’t be tanking in class.”
“Maybe. Maybe I just haven’t found the right person to make it come alive for me.” Eames does his best to look innocent, but fails miserably. His face wasn’t made for innocence at all. Not with that mouth, and those eyes. "Have I mentioned that I find your utter nerdiness unbearably sexy?"
“Look, could you cut the flirtatious crap, and just tell me what it is you want from me?” Arthur demands, crossing his arms over his chest. “You don't really want me to tutor you in history, do you?”
Eames suddenly looks serious. When he blinks, Arthur notices for the first time how long his lashes are. “Yes. Among other things I want, if you're offering. I honestly could do with some help in history-calculus, as well. And English, too.” He winces, looking almost embarrassed.
Arthur shakes his head. “You do realize you are English, don’t you?”
“Yes, and this Englishman can’t write an essay worth a tinker’s damn,” Eames says ruefully, with the air of one confiding his worst, darkest secret. “My spelling is, I’ve been told, atrocious, as is my usage and grammar.”
“Tragic. But why should I help you?”
Eames leans back in his chair, putting his penny loafered feet up on Arthur’s. “Because you’re an intimidatingly bright, but decent sort who cares deeply for his fellow man's GPA?”
“Try again.”
“Because I can pay?”
Arthur freezes, feeling a swell of the same anger he'd felt earlier in the afternoon. If there's one thing he can't stand, it's McMansionites who think they can buy any- and everything, Arthur included. “I don’t want your money, Mr. Eames.”
Eames’s eyes sparkle and he smiles, slow and lazy. “Then what of mine do you want? Because everything I have, whatever it is, is yours for the asking, love. And I do mean any-”
“Enough!” Arthur grits, mildly pissed and very exasperated. “Look, if I agree to give you some . . . help with your schoolwork, will you quit coming on to me?”
After giving Arthur a very thorough eye-fucking that leaves him breathing a little shallowly, Eames sighs faux-apologetically. “Probably not.”
“I really don’t like you,” Arthur says conversationally, even though a bolt of that too-familiar something shoots through him. He walks over to the table and shoves Eames’s feet off the chair, then sits heavily, covering his face with his hands. “Really and truly.”
“Oh, you love me. Everyone does.” Eames’s heavy hand lands on his bicep and rubs like Arthur’s got a muscle ache.
He yanks his arm away and glares at Eames. “Not me.”
“Not yet,” Eames corrects, still grinning. He pushes the textbook toward Arthur. “So, about that tutoring-“
“We’re not starting tonight. In fact-“ Arthur stands up again, closing the textbook and stowing it under his arm. “I’m going to bed-and no, you cannot join me, nor can you tuck me in!”
Eames holds up his hands as if to say who, me? Then he laughs, standing up himself. He has three inches on Arthur-not exactly tall, but not short, either. When he steps into Arthur’s personal space, eyes shining, Arthur’s breath catches, but this time, he doesn’t step back, even though he knows he’s about to be kissed, and the second to last thing he needs is to know what Eames chatty, far-too-enticing mouth feels like on his own.
Really and truly, he doesn't need that.
So he’s not even slightly-not even slightly-disappointed when Eames clears his throat and proves him wrong, instead stepping past Arthur, toward the door. “What say I pick you up for school tomorrow morning, around eight?” he asks, then clears his throat again. “I mean, unless you’ve got a ride already, with a friend, or a . . . a significant other. . . .”
Arthur turns and watches Eames linger at the door, sounding as uncertain as he had earlier, upon finding out Arthur wasn’t a McMansionite. Oh, he looks sanguine enough, but his ears are rather bright pink.
“I don’t have one. A ride, I mean,” Arthur adds-proudly, for some reason. “I take the school bus.”
Eames smiles again and it’s like the sun coming out. If the sun were really annoying and British. “Splendid! But you know, if you’re in the market for a significant other-“
“I assure you: I’m not.”
“-or even just a friend-with-bennies-“
“Get out, Mr. Eames.” Arthur points to the door, trying to look stern, though it’s hard to do so when he’s blushing hard enough to make his face feel hot. Eames licks his lips, and Arthur’s stomach turns right over.
This is not, he tells himself, happening to me.
“Love, I’ve been out for ages,” he purrs and smirks, posing at the door like some sort of . . . sexed-up rent-boy. “And for the record, I don’t have a, er, ride, either. In fact, I haven’t had a ride since the fam packed us off to America.”
Suddenly all the blood in Arthur’s body seems to be flowing away from his face, to his . . . to other places.
“Anyway, far be it from me to overstay my welcome, darling!” Eames claps his hands together brusquely, as if he hadn’t been talking about . . . riding, just a moment earlier. “Tomorrow morning at eight?”
“Against my better judgment . . . yes.” Arthur tries once again to come across as stern and forbidding, but from the fond look he receives, he’s less than successful.
“Fantastic!” They stand there, staring at each other, until Eames blows him a kiss and ducks out the door with a spring in his step. “Sleep well, my dove. Dream a little dream of me, yeah?”
“I won’t be dreaming about you, and I’m not your damn dove!” Arthur calls to the back door as it snicks softly shut.
The silence in Eames’s wake and the continued rush of blood to all points south proclaims Arthur to be at least half a liar.
The Midnight Oil
Author:
beetle_comma_the
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Eames/Arthur, Fischer,Arthur
Rating: R
Notes: A high school AU inspired by an Inception ‘verse of the lovely
imogenedisease. Previous ficlets are here.
Summary: Arthur gets two very different late night visits from two very different men.
Later that evening, long after Arthur’s managed to put detention and Eames out his mind, the back door to the McMansion opens then closes after a slight pause. Arthur knows who it is. Only one person comes in through the back door-the servant’s entrance, as Arthur tends to think of it-at this time of night.
“You’re up late,” Robert Fischer notes, heading straight for the fridge, and the Sapporo Mrs. Hodgins always keeps stocked. He drinks half a bottle down in one long swallow, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing.
At the massive kitchen table with his history textbook, Arthur’s mouth goes a little dry, and he looks back down at words that, for the moment, make no sense.
“Early to bed and early to rise may make a man healthy, but it certainly doesn’t make him wealthy or wise,” Arthur tells his mother’s employer matter-of-factly. “Just making sure you get a decent return on your investment, sir.”
Sighing, Fischer finishes his beer and rinses out the bottle. He free-throws it into the recycling bin with a loud clink, like always. Then Arthur can feel those cobalt-blue eyes on him, measuring him, as they seem wont to do these days.
“You’re not an investment, Arthur, you’re a person.” Fischer comes to sit at the kitchen table across from Arthur. He loosens his tie a bit and clasps his hands in front of him.
“A person in whom you’ve invested a lot of money, Mr. Fischer,” Arthur reminds him. Even after an eighteen-hour day, Fischer looks calm and collected in his tailored suit. His face, almost girlishly pretty, is as rosy and rested looking as if he just got out of bed. His eyes seem to glow mellowly.
“A person with lots of potential.” Fischer nods at the textbook and then meets Arthur's eyes. Caught out staring, Arthur blushes and swallows.
“I know why you’re paying for me to go to Dalemont, Mr. Fischer, and it has nothing to do with my potential.” He bites his lip for a moment before going on. He’s been trying to think of a way to broach this subject for a while, even as he’s wondered if he should. But he may never get another opportunity like this, or have the guts to follow through, so he takes a deep, slightly shaking breath and continues. “I know that we have the same father.”
Silence spins out between them for a bit; even when Fischer sits back in his chair, their gazes still hold. Arthur is the first to look away, and Fischer pats his hand reassuringly. His touch is cool and dry, and Arthur shivers.
“So, Ariadne finally told you?” Fischer seems surprised, though more at the idea that Arthur’s mother had been honest with him, than at the fact that Arthur knows.
“No, mom still tells me my father left us before I was born.” Arthur rolls his eyes. His mother means well, and he’d stopped being angry with her a long time ago. “I figured it out for myself.”
At this, Fischer seems to be genuinely pleased. “You’re a smart young man-smarter than I was, at your age.”
Arthur shrugs. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard since he was little. And most recently from Roger Eames, for whom he spares a moment of thought . . . but the moment is fleeting. He’s got bigger fish to fry than some flirty, pushy limey.
“So what happens, now?” Arthur asks after a minute of silence, during which Fischer watches him expectantly. Then he smiles a little and holds out his hand. Arthur almost takes it, but turns the twitch of his hand into turning a page of his textbook.
“I don’t know. What do you want to happen, Arthur?”
No one's ever asked Arthur that before.
Shrugging jerkily, he looks back down at his textbook. He hasn’t figured out, even after knowing for two years that Robert Fischer is his brother, what he wants from the man, if anything. All he knows is he doesn’t expect anything like a brotherly relationship, or even friendship. He’s fairly certain he wouldn’t take those things even if they were on offer.
He may not know exactly what he wants from Fischer anymore, but he definitely doesn’t want or need a brother.
So he highlights something inconsequential about the Luft Waffe. “Right now? I don’t want anything.”
“Fair enough, then. But I want you to know something.” Fischer’s long hand covers Arthur’s smaller one again, and he looks up, startled. Fischer smiles again, and it’s the kind, understanding one Arthur used to fancy himself in love with. At least until he figured out the real reason why his mother’s employer had always been so kind to him.
Fischer leans in a little, and the Arthur of two years ago would’ve known, just known he was about to be kissed. This Arthur, however, knows different.
And what he wishes . . . what he once wished has no place in his life, anymore.
“The first thing I did after father died was create a trust fund for you. One that you’ll have access to on your eighteenth birthday. You’ll never have to worry about money,” Fischer promises somberly, his eyes terribly sincere.
Arthur snorts again. “My mom always made sure I never had to worry about money, anyway. One day, I’ll be able to do the same for her. Without a trust fund, thanks.”
That gentle smile turns wry and amused. “’There’re few things more impressive than a self-made man,’ Arthur. Our, ah, father used to say that.”
A muscle in Arthur’s cheek tics and he looks away from Fischer. “Yeah, well. I guess he’d know all about self-made men.”
Fischer makes a non-committal noise. “But there’s no shame in having a little help, either.”
Bad enough that he’s dependent on Fischer to go to Dalemont, which he really has no choice about. His mother had made that decision, one of many, without his input. But he doesn’t have to like being reminded of his dependence on Fischer’s money any more than he already is. “Right. Whatever you say.” Go away.
“Christ, but when you scowl, you look just like the old man, you know? Except for your eyes. You have Ariadne’s kind eyes.” Fischer still sounds amused, and a little wistful. “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your studies, but . . . if you ever want to talk about it . . . about anything-I mean anything. . . .“
Like why our father knocked up a girl one-third his age, then didn't do right by her? Like why, after seventeen years, that girl still feels loyal enough to him to keep his dirty little secret? Like why my intelligent, beautiful, generally awesome mother, who could've done anything with her life, instead had some rich old douchebag's bastard kid? Then spent the next seventeen years of her life, which she will never get back, working for said douchebag's douchebag family? Is that really a discussion you want to have with me, big brother?
“Thanks, but no,” Arthur says with stony-faced, laconic politeness.
Instead of taking offense, Fischer laughs, standing up and stretching. His shirt comes untucked a little, showing a quick flash of pale, concave stomach. Arthur reflects that there was a time when he’d have spent the next five hours beating off just to that brief flash of skin.
He’s not above beating off to it now, despite what he knows. He just can’t stand the vague sense of guilt and dirtybadwrong that settles in afterwards.
He’s got woes enough without this continued infatuation with his half-brother.
By the time he shakes himself out of his reverie, Fischer’s exiting the kitchen, briefcase in hand, a jauntily yawned G’night, Arthur, tossed over his shoulder.
For a long time after Fischer leaves, Arthur sits there, lost in thought, until there’s a quiet knock on the back door.
Like an automaton, he gets up to see who it is, peering past the curtains and laughing once in disbelief. He debates opening the door, but his hand’s already turning the knob.
“It’s after midnight. What’re you doing here?” he asks Eames, who smiles almost sheepishly, hands shoved in the pockets of fashionably torn blue jeans. The button-down shirt he’s wearing, however, is the most hideous eyesore Arthur’s ever seen, all kaleidoscope colors in stomach-turning patterns. It's the first time Arthur's ever seen Eames in anything other than the school uniform, or his soccer uniform.
“Saw there was a light still on, and I took a chance it’d be you, burning the midnight oil, as it were,” Eames says, that sheepish smile turning into his customary grin.
“Well, you were right. Were you hoping for a prize?”
“Depends on what the prize would be,” Eames replies, crowding into the doorway with Arthur, who takes a step back. Eames, of course follows him. “I’d take a kiss, if you’re giving them out.”
“Sorry, I’m not. Good night.” Arthur starts to close the door, but Eames catches it, leaning against the lintel.
“You’re absolutely no fun, darling,” he pouts, but unconvincingly. Though his mouth is rather distracting, nonetheless. “And what’re we studying, so late in the evening?”
Arthur rolls his eyes. “We are not studying anything. I am studying U.S. History.”
Eames makes an exaggeratedly pained face. “I’m bollocks at history. Since you're so well-versed, perhaps you could tutor me?”
“Perhaps not.” Arthur starts to close the door again, and this time, not only does Eames block it, he crowds his way inside, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it. Arthur feels a flash of something entirely too familiar that he tries to mask with indifference. “Mr. Eames-“
“Please, please call me Roger, darling? Please?”
Ignoring the ‘darling’-as he has all the other times-Arthur lets a world-weary sigh escape. “If I call you Roger, will you go away?”
Eames quirks a sardonic eyebrow. “Petal, you know me better than that; of course not.” He saunters past Arthur to the kitchen table and sits in the seat next to Arthur’s; he picks up the textbook. “Bloody hell, I must’ve nodded off in lecture more often than I thought. I had no idea we were up to World War-bloody-II!”
“It's twelve am. Do you know where your parents are?” Arthur intones flatly, only to get a curiously piercing once over from Eames, who shakes his head wonderingly.
“Figures you’re the type to go reading ahead.”
Arthur huffs defensively. “I happen to find history fascinating. Maybe if you tried doing the same, you wouldn’t be tanking in class.”
“Maybe. Maybe I just haven’t found the right person to make it come alive for me.” Eames does his best to look innocent, but fails miserably. His face wasn’t made for innocence at all. Not with that mouth, and those eyes. "Have I mentioned that I find your utter nerdiness unbearably sexy?"
“Look, could you cut the flirtatious crap, and just tell me what it is you want from me?” Arthur demands, crossing his arms over his chest. “You don't really want me to tutor you in history, do you?”
Eames suddenly looks serious. When he blinks, Arthur notices for the first time how long his lashes are. “Yes. Among other things I want, if you're offering. I honestly could do with some help in history-calculus, as well. And English, too.” He winces, looking almost embarrassed.
Arthur shakes his head. “You do realize you are English, don’t you?”
“Yes, and this Englishman can’t write an essay worth a tinker’s damn,” Eames says ruefully, with the air of one confiding his worst, darkest secret. “My spelling is, I’ve been told, atrocious, as is my usage and grammar.”
“Tragic. But why should I help you?”
Eames leans back in his chair, putting his penny loafered feet up on Arthur’s. “Because you’re an intimidatingly bright, but decent sort who cares deeply for his fellow man's GPA?”
“Try again.”
“Because I can pay?”
Arthur freezes, feeling a swell of the same anger he'd felt earlier in the afternoon. If there's one thing he can't stand, it's McMansionites who think they can buy any- and everything, Arthur included. “I don’t want your money, Mr. Eames.”
Eames’s eyes sparkle and he smiles, slow and lazy. “Then what of mine do you want? Because everything I have, whatever it is, is yours for the asking, love. And I do mean any-”
“Enough!” Arthur grits, mildly pissed and very exasperated. “Look, if I agree to give you some . . . help with your schoolwork, will you quit coming on to me?”
After giving Arthur a very thorough eye-fucking that leaves him breathing a little shallowly, Eames sighs faux-apologetically. “Probably not.”
“I really don’t like you,” Arthur says conversationally, even though a bolt of that too-familiar something shoots through him. He walks over to the table and shoves Eames’s feet off the chair, then sits heavily, covering his face with his hands. “Really and truly.”
“Oh, you love me. Everyone does.” Eames’s heavy hand lands on his bicep and rubs like Arthur’s got a muscle ache.
He yanks his arm away and glares at Eames. “Not me.”
“Not yet,” Eames corrects, still grinning. He pushes the textbook toward Arthur. “So, about that tutoring-“
“We’re not starting tonight. In fact-“ Arthur stands up again, closing the textbook and stowing it under his arm. “I’m going to bed-and no, you cannot join me, nor can you tuck me in!”
Eames holds up his hands as if to say who, me? Then he laughs, standing up himself. He has three inches on Arthur-not exactly tall, but not short, either. When he steps into Arthur’s personal space, eyes shining, Arthur’s breath catches, but this time, he doesn’t step back, even though he knows he’s about to be kissed, and the second to last thing he needs is to know what Eames chatty, far-too-enticing mouth feels like on his own.
Really and truly, he doesn't need that.
So he’s not even slightly-not even slightly-disappointed when Eames clears his throat and proves him wrong, instead stepping past Arthur, toward the door. “What say I pick you up for school tomorrow morning, around eight?” he asks, then clears his throat again. “I mean, unless you’ve got a ride already, with a friend, or a . . . a significant other. . . .”
Arthur turns and watches Eames linger at the door, sounding as uncertain as he had earlier, upon finding out Arthur wasn’t a McMansionite. Oh, he looks sanguine enough, but his ears are rather bright pink.
“I don’t have one. A ride, I mean,” Arthur adds-proudly, for some reason. “I take the school bus.”
Eames smiles again and it’s like the sun coming out. If the sun were really annoying and British. “Splendid! But you know, if you’re in the market for a significant other-“
“I assure you: I’m not.”
“-or even just a friend-with-bennies-“
“Get out, Mr. Eames.” Arthur points to the door, trying to look stern, though it’s hard to do so when he’s blushing hard enough to make his face feel hot. Eames licks his lips, and Arthur’s stomach turns right over.
This is not, he tells himself, happening to me.
“Love, I’ve been out for ages,” he purrs and smirks, posing at the door like some sort of . . . sexed-up rent-boy. “And for the record, I don’t have a, er, ride, either. In fact, I haven’t had a ride since the fam packed us off to America.”
Suddenly all the blood in Arthur’s body seems to be flowing away from his face, to his . . . to other places.
“Anyway, far be it from me to overstay my welcome, darling!” Eames claps his hands together brusquely, as if he hadn’t been talking about . . . riding, just a moment earlier. “Tomorrow morning at eight?”
“Against my better judgment . . . yes.” Arthur tries once again to come across as stern and forbidding, but from the fond look he receives, he’s less than successful.
“Fantastic!” They stand there, staring at each other, until Eames blows him a kiss and ducks out the door with a spring in his step. “Sleep well, my dove. Dream a little dream of me, yeah?”
“I won’t be dreaming about you, and I’m not your damn dove!” Arthur calls to the back door as it snicks softly shut.
The silence in Eames’s wake and the continued rush of blood to all points south proclaims Arthur to be at least half a liar.