[Fic + Art] eames on food - 2/3
Title: eames on food
Author: duckgirlie
Artist: uncafe
Team: ROMANCE
Prompt: taste
Summary; Arthur is a massive food network fan, and Eames is their newest superstar. Inspired by this prompt on inception_kink
Word count: ~3100 words
Rating: PG-13
Notes: So this part is 90% Eames talking about food and eating with his fingers. You guys, I have been massively spoiled by all the awesome art uncafe has done for this. And thank you very much to immoral_crow for betaing/kicking about ideas.
one
“Dude, you really need to stop posting on those message boards. They’re rotting your brain.”
Arthur shoved his phone into his pocket. “I don’t post on them, I just read them.”
Ariadne rolled her eyes. “Still rotting your brain. What’s even on them? Just a constant stream of squealing teenagers arguing about whether Eames is hotter then Bobby Flay?”
Arthur peered around the bookshop, slightly distracted. “Well that just proves you don’t know what you’re talking about, because there isn’t a single person on the entire internet who would argue that Bobby Flay is hotter then Eames.”
“Do you think that now there’s a book, he’ll have to tell people what his full name is?”
“I doubt it.”
She rolled her eyes again. “The start time isn’t for another fifteen minutes, you’re not going to see him. You need to stop acting like you’re fifteen, or I’m going to leave you here.”
“Fine. Sorry. I’ll behave myself.”
“You’d better.”
Despite his promise, and the clearly visible clock and start time hanging on the wall, Arthur still managed to fidget his way through the remainder of the wait time. He managed to restrain himself from joining the surge forward when the queue finally started to move, but it was a near thing.
“Can you see him?”
“This is not you behaving yourself.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“You seriously need to get yourself a new boyf-”
“I’m pretty sure we agreed that topic was off the table.”
“I’m pretty sure I agreed to no such thing.”
Arthur sighed and peered through the crowd again.
"The show's only on another two weeks, all right? After how many seasons of Nigella, you can cut me some slack, okay?"
"Fine. Two more weeks."
They were the front of the queue when Ariadne darted in front of him, skipping up to the table and leaving Arthur standing and waiting. He could see Eames smile his wide, dazzling smile at Ariadne as he signed her book, asking her a question and laughing when she answered it.
And then Ariadne turned around slightly and pointed him out.
Eames eyes flashed over him for a second before turning back to Ariadne, smiling again, and shaking her hand. She walked away from the table, and now it was his turn. His turn, and he was already as red as a tomato.
He was going to fucking kill her.
"So, you must be Arthur."
His voice in person was slightly rougher then on the tv, which made sense in an abstract way - he'd presumably been giving interviews that morning, and there had been a good fifty people ahead of them in the queue. Except that Arthur wasn't really capable of thinking in abstracts at the moment, and had to shift his messenger bag slightly in front of him.
"Yes. Arthur. That's me. Arthur. I mean... Yes."
Eames grinned up at him, his eyes twinkling, and held his hand out. Arthur stared at him for a moment, before he realised Eames was asking for the book, and handed it over.
"You're a fan of the show then?"
"Yes. Obviously."
"Obviously, eh? Is it that hard to imagine someone not liking it?"
"No, I just meant that because otherwise I wouldn't be here... and you're joking, aren't you."
Eames grinned again. "Just a bit, yeah. So tell me, Arthur, what's your favourite episode?"
He should probably have stopped to think, but instead, he just blurted out "the one with the pig."
"Oh yeah?" Eames leaned back slightly from the desk, rolling his pen between his fingers as he kept eye-contact. "And what was it about that episode?"
He actually did manage to stop and think before answering this time.
"Um... my local supermarket only carries the mainstream cuts. So it was... interesting... to see all the other things you can do."
Eames smiled widely again. "Well, glad that my show can prove to be... educational."
He leaned forward over the desk, about to say something else, when one of the handlers behind him coughed.
"Sorry. Looks like we're being hurried on."
He leaned over and scribbled something inside the book, before smiling back up at Arthur again.
"Well, it was nice to meet you, Arthur."
Eames handed the book over and held out his hand. Arthur took it almost automatically, and Eames smiled again as he shook it.
"Enjoy the rest of the show."
And it was probably Arthur's imagination, but he felt like Eames held his hand for slightly longer then necessary.
*****
He didn't quite notice Ariadne dragging him out of the bookshop until she shoved him into a seat in Starbucks and laughed.
He scowled. "You're just lovely, you know that? What did you even say to him about me?"
"Oh, just that I was here with my friend Arthur, who has an absolutely massive crush on him and so if he wouldn't min-"
"You didn't."
"Relax. Of course I didn't. I just mentioned that we were both big fans of the show. Now shut up and read your cookbook."
Arthur flicked through the glossy pages. Each recipe had a full-page picture facing it, and they all started with a short story about where the recipe - or its inspiration - had come from. Scattered throughout the pages were more shots of Eames - one opening a wine bottle like he had on the risotto episode, one holding a giant fish in his hands, wiggling his finger in where the throat had been cut, one of him standing with what appeared to be a crowd of butchers and holding an entire cured ham, and one of him cuddling a lamb.
Eames was clearly utterly ridiculous.
Arthur absent-mindedly flipped to the front page, wondering if Eames signed his name in all lowercase, when he noticed a long string of digits under his name. It took him a couple of seconds to realise that the first few were an international dialling code, and another couple after that to realise that that meant that this was Eames' phone number.
He spat a mouthful of coffee back into his cup so he wouldn't choke, and tried to close the book before Ariadne realised what he'd seen.
It didn't work. She snatched the book out of his hands.
"dear arthur. 0044-778-4938-871 eames xxx Oh my god. Are you going to call him? You're going to call him. Why haven't you called him yet?"
"What? Of course not. He probably wrote that on every book he signed."
"Not in mine."
"You're a woman."
"I really don't think he gave his cell number to every guy at the signing. That would just be stupid."
"Then it's probably not even his real number."
"Only one way to find out!"
She reached across the table and snatched Arthur's cell phone, dialling before he could grab it back.
"He's still signing. It won't even be on."
"That's perfect. Puts the ball back in his court."
Her eyes lit up and she pressed the phone to Arthur's ear just in time for him to hear the tail end of the message in Eames' unmistakable voice.
"... so if you'll just leave me a quick message, I'll get back to you as soon as I possibly can. Thanks. Beeeeep."
He just stared blankly at Ariadne until she started waving her hands dramatically.
"Oh, hi. This is Arthur. Arthur from the book signing, in case you know any more Arthurs. Um, my number's 917-243-9818, but I might be at work later. If I'm at work, I'll call you back. Okay. Bye."
He hung up and dropped the phone on the table. Ariadne looked over at him, shaking her head.
"Smooth."
"Go fuck yourself."
*****
When Arthur got back to the office, he was suddenly handed three different things that had to be finished immediately, and by the time he was able to check his phone again, it was nearly five hours later, and he had a new voicemail.
"Hello there. I do in fact, not know any other Arthur's, but even if I did, I feel I should remember you specifically. I assume you're working, so I'll leave you be, but ring me back when you have a chance. This is Eames by the way. Eames from the book signing, just in case you know any other Eameses."
Arthur just stared at his phone. How the fuck was he supposed to answer that? He checked his watch - it was nearly seven, there was probably no chance Eames' phone would go straight through to voicemail now.
He took a deep breath, imagined what Ariadne would say if she knew he was even thinking of not replying, and pressed 'call'.
"Hello?"
"Hi. It's..."
"Arthur, Arthur from the book signing, yeah? I was wondering if you were going to call me back."
"I'm sorry, but I was just in work, and there were so many things to do and this is the first moment I've-"
"Arthur, Arthur, it's fine. I'm just teasing you."
"Oh. Okay."
"I was just calling to see if you were free tonight."
Arthur glanced up at the clock. "If I manage to make it out of the office before my boss gives me something else to do, probably."
"Excellent. I'll come pick you up. Where are you?"
Arthur rattled out his office's address on autopilot, before collapsing back into his chair when the call clicked off. He glanced down at his clothes. Thank god today had been a meeting day, or who knows what he'd have been wearing.
Still, he pulled a mirror out of his desk and attacked his hair, flattening it back down to its start-of-the-morning shape, before all the stress of the last few hours had set it somewhat free. He looked at his watch. He really should get out of here as soon as possible, or he was never going to escape. But then, he didn't know how long Eames would take to arrive, and he didn't want to just be standing around on the pavement downstairs, waiting for him to drive by. But he glanced up from his desk to see his boss slowly moving through the cubicles, and just threw everything he might need that night into his bag before rushing out the door.
Luckily, he wasn't waiting long before a car pulled up, and Eames rolled down the back window.
"Hop in. There's this amazing Kenyan place I've got to try."
The car drove them down tiny side streets, finally leaving them outside a building where steps lead down to a basement restaurant. It was packed full of people eating, with even more waiting at the entrance, but Eames had obviously rang ahead, because they were shown to a table almost immediately, and he waved the menu away and just asked the waitress to bring them whatever was fantastic.
On second thoughts, maybe the waitress had recognised him, because it was less then ten minutes before their table was practically groaning with food. Eames carefully rolled his sleeves away from his wrists, gestured for Arthur to do the same, and grinned.
“Eating with your hands, y’know?”
Arthur blushed slightly and reached for some food, trying to pick up it up without getting himself too messy - something which Eames was obviously far less concerned about as he grabbed tiny bits of everything with abandon.
“Course, calling it “Kenyan” food is a bit of a misnomer, right? Like, what does that even mean? Kenya’s way too fucking big and varied to have one kind of food, yeah? - man , you have to try this, it’s fucking amazing - so this is all mainly from the south-west, around Mombasa - this as well, but drink something first, you don’t want to have all the other flavours in your mouth - lots of Indian fusion stuff, some old-fashioned British influences. The bloke who owns it, Yusuf, I met him way back, when I was still training, he grew up over there, his parents emigrated from Bangladesh - well, what’s now Bangladesh - just before he was born. He’s got another place in LA - Hey, could we get some more of this and a little of … this? Thanks love. - Which is way fancier, all interior-designed and shit, looks like he’s going to get a star in the next edition, but I like this place better, the place in LA makes me use cutlery. Yusuf's the one who got be back into cooking, actually. After... after Christian, I was a bit of a mess. But he kind of smacked some sense into me before I could do anything too stupid. What do you think?”
It took Arthur a second to realise that had been a question, and another couple to tear his attention away from Eames’ fingers as he licked the last traces of something off his fingers.
“It’s good. Different. Good.”
Eames grinned delightedly, rolled up some ugali and dipped it into one of the many plates of food, and held his hand out to Arthur.
“Try this, it’s the best thing on the menu. There are people who queue up for hours, just for this.”
He batted Arthur’s hand away when he tried to pick up some for himself, holding his hand further out until Arthur leaned forward and very carefully ate the ugali out of his fingers.
Or tried to eat it carefully, anyway.
Instead, Eames fingers brushed against his lips, and Arthur’s eyes fluttered closed. He licked the last traces of food off the tips, trying to separate out the flavours and textures of Eames’ skin from the food.
When Eames finally pulled his hand away, Arthur blinked his eyes open. Eames’ pupils were blown wide as he slowly raised his hand to his own mouth to link the final traces off his fingers.
Arthur coughed, pulling his eyes out of Eames’ gaze before glancing up again.
“So, Arthur. What do you do?”
Arthur blushed and looked down again. “Um... I’m a forensic accountant.”
Eames raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that?”
“Well, I work for the police department, so I track embezzlement and illegal payments, off-shore accounts... If money is linked into a crime, and someone’s trying to hide it, or come up with a fake reason for why they have it. So I have to track back through all their financial history. Sometimes it’s just bank accounts, but right now I’m working on a fraud case that involves a lot of stock market transactions and private business investments, so...”
He trailed off. “Sorry. It’s kind of boring.”
“No, it’s fascinating.”
It was Arthur’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Really?”
Eames grinned. “Honestly? Not really. But you sound fascinated, which is more important.”
“Yeah, well...”Arthur fiddled with the edge of his plate. “I'd rather talk about food.”
“Yeah?”
“What happens in episode five?”
“That'll spoil all the fun.”
He rolled his eyes. “I can just google it, you know.”
“Ah, but if you were going to do that, you'd have done it already.”
Arthur took a mouthful of wine and looked at Eames from under his eyelashes. “Maybe I just want to hear you talk about it.”
Eames held his gaze for a long moment before carefully waving down the waitress.
“Sorry to dash off like this darling, but could you bring us the bill?”
“Mr. Bilkar says it's on the house.”
“Right. Then this -” he pulled a bunch of twenties out of his pocket “-is for you, and tell Yusuf it was fabulous, as always.”
He pulled Arthur to his feet and gently but swiftly led him out of the restaurant.
Outside, he pulled Arthur closer to his side and hailed down a cab.
“What would you say if I asked you back to my hotel?”
Arthur smiled and pulled Eames even closer. “I'd say that my apartment is ten blocks closer, and doesn't have any paparazzi.”
Eames grinned. “I'd say that was the perfect answer.”
Inside the cab, Eames reached across the divide to run his fingers along the seam of Arthur's trousers, careful never to move too high. Arthur kept his eyes glued to the back of the cab driver's head, worried he'd lose his cool - or his nerve - if he looked over.
At his apartment, Arthur nodded a dazed hello to his doorman and nearly screamed when they were followed into the elevator by three of his neighbours, and that was even before two of them recognised Eames.
They squealed, and begged for his autograph, and they were held up at Arthur's floor for five full minutes as Mrs. Papadakis from 1113 begged Eames's advice on yorkshire puddings for when her English son-in-law came to visit.
When they finally made it inside Arthur's apartment, he had to lean against the door with his eyes closed for a second, to centre himself. When he opened his eyes, Eames was standing a couple of steps away, watching him.
“So. This is your apartment.”
“Yeah. Do you want a tour?”
“Maybe later. Right now, I just want to do this.”
He took a step closer, slid his hands to the small of Arthur's back, and pulled him in.
“Is that okay?”
Arthur blinked for a second. “Completely okay.”
Eames slid his mouth against Arthur's, nudging at the crease of his lips until his mouth opened, then pressed in until they had to break apart to catch their breath.
“You're not one of those people who like to bring food into the bedroom, are you?”
“God no.” Arthur gasped as Eames' hands went to work on his buttons. “I imagine everything would be either syrup based - and therefore would crystallise when it dried and get stuck in body hair - or dairy based - which will melt and leave my bed smelling like spoiled milk.”
“Spectacular answer.”
Eames popped Arthur's last button and leaned in to fasten his mouth over his collarbone. Arthur moaned and his head dropped back to knock against the wall.
“Right.” Eames pulled away for a moment. “Where's your bedroom?”
Arthur wordlessly pointed down the hallway, and let himself be led there.
three
Author: duckgirlie
Artist: uncafe
Team: ROMANCE
Prompt: taste
Summary; Arthur is a massive food network fan, and Eames is their newest superstar. Inspired by this prompt on inception_kink
Word count: ~3100 words
Rating: PG-13
Notes: So this part is 90% Eames talking about food and eating with his fingers. You guys, I have been massively spoiled by all the awesome art uncafe has done for this. And thank you very much to immoral_crow for betaing/kicking about ideas.
one
“Dude, you really need to stop posting on those message boards. They’re rotting your brain.”
Arthur shoved his phone into his pocket. “I don’t post on them, I just read them.”
Ariadne rolled her eyes. “Still rotting your brain. What’s even on them? Just a constant stream of squealing teenagers arguing about whether Eames is hotter then Bobby Flay?”
Arthur peered around the bookshop, slightly distracted. “Well that just proves you don’t know what you’re talking about, because there isn’t a single person on the entire internet who would argue that Bobby Flay is hotter then Eames.”
“Do you think that now there’s a book, he’ll have to tell people what his full name is?”
“I doubt it.”
She rolled her eyes again. “The start time isn’t for another fifteen minutes, you’re not going to see him. You need to stop acting like you’re fifteen, or I’m going to leave you here.”
“Fine. Sorry. I’ll behave myself.”
“You’d better.”
Despite his promise, and the clearly visible clock and start time hanging on the wall, Arthur still managed to fidget his way through the remainder of the wait time. He managed to restrain himself from joining the surge forward when the queue finally started to move, but it was a near thing.
“Can you see him?”
“This is not you behaving yourself.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“You seriously need to get yourself a new boyf-”
“I’m pretty sure we agreed that topic was off the table.”
“I’m pretty sure I agreed to no such thing.”
Arthur sighed and peered through the crowd again.
"The show's only on another two weeks, all right? After how many seasons of Nigella, you can cut me some slack, okay?"
"Fine. Two more weeks."
They were the front of the queue when Ariadne darted in front of him, skipping up to the table and leaving Arthur standing and waiting. He could see Eames smile his wide, dazzling smile at Ariadne as he signed her book, asking her a question and laughing when she answered it.
And then Ariadne turned around slightly and pointed him out.
Eames eyes flashed over him for a second before turning back to Ariadne, smiling again, and shaking her hand. She walked away from the table, and now it was his turn. His turn, and he was already as red as a tomato.
He was going to fucking kill her.
"So, you must be Arthur."
His voice in person was slightly rougher then on the tv, which made sense in an abstract way - he'd presumably been giving interviews that morning, and there had been a good fifty people ahead of them in the queue. Except that Arthur wasn't really capable of thinking in abstracts at the moment, and had to shift his messenger bag slightly in front of him.
"Yes. Arthur. That's me. Arthur. I mean... Yes."
Eames grinned up at him, his eyes twinkling, and held his hand out. Arthur stared at him for a moment, before he realised Eames was asking for the book, and handed it over.
"You're a fan of the show then?"
"Yes. Obviously."
"Obviously, eh? Is it that hard to imagine someone not liking it?"
"No, I just meant that because otherwise I wouldn't be here... and you're joking, aren't you."
Eames grinned again. "Just a bit, yeah. So tell me, Arthur, what's your favourite episode?"
He should probably have stopped to think, but instead, he just blurted out "the one with the pig."
"Oh yeah?" Eames leaned back slightly from the desk, rolling his pen between his fingers as he kept eye-contact. "And what was it about that episode?"
He actually did manage to stop and think before answering this time.
"Um... my local supermarket only carries the mainstream cuts. So it was... interesting... to see all the other things you can do."
Eames smiled widely again. "Well, glad that my show can prove to be... educational."
He leaned forward over the desk, about to say something else, when one of the handlers behind him coughed.
"Sorry. Looks like we're being hurried on."
He leaned over and scribbled something inside the book, before smiling back up at Arthur again.
"Well, it was nice to meet you, Arthur."
Eames handed the book over and held out his hand. Arthur took it almost automatically, and Eames smiled again as he shook it.
"Enjoy the rest of the show."
And it was probably Arthur's imagination, but he felt like Eames held his hand for slightly longer then necessary.
*****
He didn't quite notice Ariadne dragging him out of the bookshop until she shoved him into a seat in Starbucks and laughed.
He scowled. "You're just lovely, you know that? What did you even say to him about me?"
"Oh, just that I was here with my friend Arthur, who has an absolutely massive crush on him and so if he wouldn't min-"
"You didn't."
"Relax. Of course I didn't. I just mentioned that we were both big fans of the show. Now shut up and read your cookbook."
Arthur flicked through the glossy pages. Each recipe had a full-page picture facing it, and they all started with a short story about where the recipe - or its inspiration - had come from. Scattered throughout the pages were more shots of Eames - one opening a wine bottle like he had on the risotto episode, one holding a giant fish in his hands, wiggling his finger in where the throat had been cut, one of him standing with what appeared to be a crowd of butchers and holding an entire cured ham, and one of him cuddling a lamb.
Eames was clearly utterly ridiculous.
Arthur absent-mindedly flipped to the front page, wondering if Eames signed his name in all lowercase, when he noticed a long string of digits under his name. It took him a couple of seconds to realise that the first few were an international dialling code, and another couple after that to realise that that meant that this was Eames' phone number.
He spat a mouthful of coffee back into his cup so he wouldn't choke, and tried to close the book before Ariadne realised what he'd seen.
It didn't work. She snatched the book out of his hands.
"dear arthur. 0044-778-4938-871 eames xxx Oh my god. Are you going to call him? You're going to call him. Why haven't you called him yet?"
"What? Of course not. He probably wrote that on every book he signed."
"Not in mine."
"You're a woman."
"I really don't think he gave his cell number to every guy at the signing. That would just be stupid."
"Then it's probably not even his real number."
"Only one way to find out!"
She reached across the table and snatched Arthur's cell phone, dialling before he could grab it back.
"He's still signing. It won't even be on."
"That's perfect. Puts the ball back in his court."
Her eyes lit up and she pressed the phone to Arthur's ear just in time for him to hear the tail end of the message in Eames' unmistakable voice.
"... so if you'll just leave me a quick message, I'll get back to you as soon as I possibly can. Thanks. Beeeeep."
He just stared blankly at Ariadne until she started waving her hands dramatically.
"Oh, hi. This is Arthur. Arthur from the book signing, in case you know any more Arthurs. Um, my number's 917-243-9818, but I might be at work later. If I'm at work, I'll call you back. Okay. Bye."
He hung up and dropped the phone on the table. Ariadne looked over at him, shaking her head.
"Smooth."
"Go fuck yourself."
*****
When Arthur got back to the office, he was suddenly handed three different things that had to be finished immediately, and by the time he was able to check his phone again, it was nearly five hours later, and he had a new voicemail.
"Hello there. I do in fact, not know any other Arthur's, but even if I did, I feel I should remember you specifically. I assume you're working, so I'll leave you be, but ring me back when you have a chance. This is Eames by the way. Eames from the book signing, just in case you know any other Eameses."
Arthur just stared at his phone. How the fuck was he supposed to answer that? He checked his watch - it was nearly seven, there was probably no chance Eames' phone would go straight through to voicemail now.
He took a deep breath, imagined what Ariadne would say if she knew he was even thinking of not replying, and pressed 'call'.
"Hello?"
"Hi. It's..."
"Arthur, Arthur from the book signing, yeah? I was wondering if you were going to call me back."
"I'm sorry, but I was just in work, and there were so many things to do and this is the first moment I've-"
"Arthur, Arthur, it's fine. I'm just teasing you."
"Oh. Okay."
"I was just calling to see if you were free tonight."
Arthur glanced up at the clock. "If I manage to make it out of the office before my boss gives me something else to do, probably."
"Excellent. I'll come pick you up. Where are you?"
Arthur rattled out his office's address on autopilot, before collapsing back into his chair when the call clicked off. He glanced down at his clothes. Thank god today had been a meeting day, or who knows what he'd have been wearing.
Still, he pulled a mirror out of his desk and attacked his hair, flattening it back down to its start-of-the-morning shape, before all the stress of the last few hours had set it somewhat free. He looked at his watch. He really should get out of here as soon as possible, or he was never going to escape. But then, he didn't know how long Eames would take to arrive, and he didn't want to just be standing around on the pavement downstairs, waiting for him to drive by. But he glanced up from his desk to see his boss slowly moving through the cubicles, and just threw everything he might need that night into his bag before rushing out the door.
Luckily, he wasn't waiting long before a car pulled up, and Eames rolled down the back window.
"Hop in. There's this amazing Kenyan place I've got to try."
The car drove them down tiny side streets, finally leaving them outside a building where steps lead down to a basement restaurant. It was packed full of people eating, with even more waiting at the entrance, but Eames had obviously rang ahead, because they were shown to a table almost immediately, and he waved the menu away and just asked the waitress to bring them whatever was fantastic.
On second thoughts, maybe the waitress had recognised him, because it was less then ten minutes before their table was practically groaning with food. Eames carefully rolled his sleeves away from his wrists, gestured for Arthur to do the same, and grinned.
“Eating with your hands, y’know?”
Arthur blushed slightly and reached for some food, trying to pick up it up without getting himself too messy - something which Eames was obviously far less concerned about as he grabbed tiny bits of everything with abandon.
“Course, calling it “Kenyan” food is a bit of a misnomer, right? Like, what does that even mean? Kenya’s way too fucking big and varied to have one kind of food, yeah? - man , you have to try this, it’s fucking amazing - so this is all mainly from the south-west, around Mombasa - this as well, but drink something first, you don’t want to have all the other flavours in your mouth - lots of Indian fusion stuff, some old-fashioned British influences. The bloke who owns it, Yusuf, I met him way back, when I was still training, he grew up over there, his parents emigrated from Bangladesh - well, what’s now Bangladesh - just before he was born. He’s got another place in LA - Hey, could we get some more of this and a little of … this? Thanks love. - Which is way fancier, all interior-designed and shit, looks like he’s going to get a star in the next edition, but I like this place better, the place in LA makes me use cutlery. Yusuf's the one who got be back into cooking, actually. After... after Christian, I was a bit of a mess. But he kind of smacked some sense into me before I could do anything too stupid. What do you think?”
It took Arthur a second to realise that had been a question, and another couple to tear his attention away from Eames’ fingers as he licked the last traces of something off his fingers.
“It’s good. Different. Good.”
Eames grinned delightedly, rolled up some ugali and dipped it into one of the many plates of food, and held his hand out to Arthur.
“Try this, it’s the best thing on the menu. There are people who queue up for hours, just for this.”
He batted Arthur’s hand away when he tried to pick up some for himself, holding his hand further out until Arthur leaned forward and very carefully ate the ugali out of his fingers.
Or tried to eat it carefully, anyway.
Instead, Eames fingers brushed against his lips, and Arthur’s eyes fluttered closed. He licked the last traces of food off the tips, trying to separate out the flavours and textures of Eames’ skin from the food.
When Eames finally pulled his hand away, Arthur blinked his eyes open. Eames’ pupils were blown wide as he slowly raised his hand to his own mouth to link the final traces off his fingers.
Arthur coughed, pulling his eyes out of Eames’ gaze before glancing up again.
“So, Arthur. What do you do?”
Arthur blushed and looked down again. “Um... I’m a forensic accountant.”
Eames raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that?”
“Well, I work for the police department, so I track embezzlement and illegal payments, off-shore accounts... If money is linked into a crime, and someone’s trying to hide it, or come up with a fake reason for why they have it. So I have to track back through all their financial history. Sometimes it’s just bank accounts, but right now I’m working on a fraud case that involves a lot of stock market transactions and private business investments, so...”
He trailed off. “Sorry. It’s kind of boring.”
“No, it’s fascinating.”
It was Arthur’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Really?”
Eames grinned. “Honestly? Not really. But you sound fascinated, which is more important.”
“Yeah, well...”Arthur fiddled with the edge of his plate. “I'd rather talk about food.”
“Yeah?”
“What happens in episode five?”
“That'll spoil all the fun.”
He rolled his eyes. “I can just google it, you know.”
“Ah, but if you were going to do that, you'd have done it already.”
Arthur took a mouthful of wine and looked at Eames from under his eyelashes. “Maybe I just want to hear you talk about it.”
Eames held his gaze for a long moment before carefully waving down the waitress.
“Sorry to dash off like this darling, but could you bring us the bill?”
“Mr. Bilkar says it's on the house.”
“Right. Then this -” he pulled a bunch of twenties out of his pocket “-is for you, and tell Yusuf it was fabulous, as always.”
He pulled Arthur to his feet and gently but swiftly led him out of the restaurant.
Outside, he pulled Arthur closer to his side and hailed down a cab.
“What would you say if I asked you back to my hotel?”
Arthur smiled and pulled Eames even closer. “I'd say that my apartment is ten blocks closer, and doesn't have any paparazzi.”
Eames grinned. “I'd say that was the perfect answer.”
Inside the cab, Eames reached across the divide to run his fingers along the seam of Arthur's trousers, careful never to move too high. Arthur kept his eyes glued to the back of the cab driver's head, worried he'd lose his cool - or his nerve - if he looked over.
At his apartment, Arthur nodded a dazed hello to his doorman and nearly screamed when they were followed into the elevator by three of his neighbours, and that was even before two of them recognised Eames.
They squealed, and begged for his autograph, and they were held up at Arthur's floor for five full minutes as Mrs. Papadakis from 1113 begged Eames's advice on yorkshire puddings for when her English son-in-law came to visit.
When they finally made it inside Arthur's apartment, he had to lean against the door with his eyes closed for a second, to centre himself. When he opened his eyes, Eames was standing a couple of steps away, watching him.
“So. This is your apartment.”
“Yeah. Do you want a tour?”
“Maybe later. Right now, I just want to do this.”
He took a step closer, slid his hands to the small of Arthur's back, and pulled him in.
“Is that okay?”
Arthur blinked for a second. “Completely okay.”
Eames slid his mouth against Arthur's, nudging at the crease of his lips until his mouth opened, then pressed in until they had to break apart to catch their breath.
“You're not one of those people who like to bring food into the bedroom, are you?”
“God no.” Arthur gasped as Eames' hands went to work on his buttons. “I imagine everything would be either syrup based - and therefore would crystallise when it dried and get stuck in body hair - or dairy based - which will melt and leave my bed smelling like spoiled milk.”
“Spectacular answer.”
Eames popped Arthur's last button and leaned in to fasten his mouth over his collarbone. Arthur moaned and his head dropped back to knock against the wall.
“Right.” Eames pulled away for a moment. “Where's your bedroom?”
Arthur wordlessly pointed down the hallway, and let himself be led there.
three