Fic: And Try To Keep It All The Year [1/2]

[and_backagain]

Title: And Try To Keep It All The Year
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Arthur/Eames
Spoilers/Warnings: Christmas features incredibly heavily, which should probably be warned for if only because it might signpost this as Not Appealing To You!
Summary: Written for a prompt at inception_kink which, when condensed, is: Arthur hates Christmas, and with good reason. Eames very much does not. They meet, they fall head-over-heels, and Eames sets to work figuring out what exactly is going on here.
Disclaimer: Inception is absolutely not mine, nor is anything you recognize from it. The title is from 'A Christmas Carol,' and I do not own it either.
Notes: Last year's fic, finally cleaned up (minimally, though, so if you catch any errors you're welcome to pass them along) and posted. I really didn't think when I started filling this prompt that it would end up being some kind of to-Christmas-and-back-again saga, but there you have it. It's sappy, but even so I need to thank everyone who read it at the kink meme for their overwhelming patience and wonderful comments and just general fabulousness. ♥

ETA: Now with gorgeous fanart by lick_j, which can be found in this post. Eeee! :D



“It’s not that I hate Christmas,” Arthur says, sandwiching the phone between his shoulder and his left ear so that he can grab pen and paper.

“Uh-huh,” Dom Cobb says from the other end of the line, sounding less than convinced.

“I don’t!” Arthur protests. “What, just because I don’t buy a massive tree and light up my house so it can be seen by passing fighter pilots, I hate Christmas?”

“No,” Dom says, “but the fact that last year when Philippa offered you a candy cane you invented a lethal mint allergy does seem to indicate some Christmas issues, Arthur.”

“I don’t hate Christmas,” Arthur repeats. “Come on, I’m calling you about gifts for James and Philippa. Is that the act of someone who hates Christmas?”

“It’s the act of someone whose fondness for my children overcomes their hatred for Christmas,” Cobb says. “Which I am grateful for. James wants a toy moose and Philippa wants an Ella Fitzgerald CD.”

Arthur scribbles this down on the sheet of paper and then blinks at it.

“Your kids are strange,” he says. “I can’t deny that Philippa’s got good taste, but still. Your kids are strange.”

“Says the man who tried to tell my kids Santa wasn’t real when they were under the age of five,” Dom says.

“I didn’t say he wasn’t real,” Arthur protests. “I was just trying to explain that he isn’t, you know, fat and bearded and continually jolly. I never said he wasn’t real.”

“Okay Arthur,” Dom says. “Listen, I really do appreciate you doing the gift-giving thing. I know this isn’t your favorite time of year.”

“I can make an exception for a stuffed animal and the First Lady of Song,” Arthur says. “Not a problem.”

“Thanks anyway,” Dom says. “Alright, I’ve got to go. I think Philippa is putting peanut butter in James’ hair.”

“You’re remarkably calm about this,” Arthur says.

“Yeah, it turns out being a father kind of does that to you,” Dom says, sounding rather bemused, and hangs up.

Arthur slips his phone back into his pocket and contemplates the sheet of paper in front of him. It’s a short list, as it always is. James, Philippa, and his parents. A toy moose, an Ella Fitzgerald CD, and a box of gingerbread cookies. He knows that a visit home would get rid of his nagging guilt a lot more effectively than two dozen tiny, frosted cookie men, but if Christmas in Chicago is bad Christmas at home is a hell of a lot worse.

He pulls on his hat, his gloves, his scarf, and his peacoat, and sets out into the wind in search of presents.

+ + +

It never fails: every year Arthur promises himself that he won’t leave his shopping until the last minute. He won’t subject himself to the wind, the snow, the lights and the carolers and the lines of shrieking children waiting to see department store Santas. And every year, whenever he thinks about Christmas shopping, he feels wrong in his own skin and waits and waits and waits until avoiding carolers is the least of his worries.

“Excuse me,” he says into the wall of people jammed into his local Target’s toy aisle. “Excuse-- excuse me! Excuse me-- yes you, ma’am.”

The woman in question sniffs, and hikes her chin up another few inches into the air.

“I am shopping for my grandson,” she says, “and I am afraid I got here first, young man.”

The older gentleman standing next to her, who can only be the grandfather of the boy in question, makes an honest-to-god harrumphing noise. Arthur had thought harrumphs were just a myth.

“I really only need you to move over by a few inches,” Arthur says, feeling as if he is in some kind of awful sitcom. The woman gets a look in her eyes that promises she will fight for those two inches as if he’s just fired the opening salvo of World War III. In this year’s holiday special, Arthur thinks rather hysterically, our hero is murdered and chopped up by a deranged granny, who then bakes him into a festively seasonal fruitcake.

“You can just wait right there,” she declares, and then she cracks her knuckles, which is made all the more ridiculous by the incredibly long, lurid fake nails she is wearing and really, Arthur thinks, most wonderful time of the year my ass.

So he waits. He waits for her to finish picking over various action figures and toy cars and Lord knows what else, and while he waits someone elbows him (presumably accidentally) in the back in their overwhelming need to get the last McDonald’s Cashier Barbie, and five different people step on his favorite shoes, and he is surrounded by some of the ugliest Christmas sweaters he’s ever seen for the duration.

When he finally makes it to checkout, thoroughly bedraggled, the girl behind the counter gives him her best cheery grin and wishes him a very Merry Christmas.

“I thought you weren’t allowed to say that anymore?” Arthur asks desperately. “Isn’t it supposed to be Happy Holidays or something?”

“Would you prefer that, sir?” The girl asks very seriously, rearranging her Santa hat so that it sits at a jauntier angle.

“No,” Arthur says with a sigh, “that really wouldn’t help, actually.”

“Well have a Merry Christmas then, sir!” She says, unflagging, and slips a miniature candy cane into his bag.

Arthur resists the urge to lie down right there on the floor and hibernate until January.

+ + +

On the walk back to his apartment Arthur is accosted by snow drifts, below freezing temperatures, and a remarkable (and distinctly unpleasant) number of Christmas lights. They top every lamppost, they hang from every awning, they line every window sill. He thinks vicious thoughts in their general direction about electric bills and dying polar bears, and bears into the wind with his head down.

This is probably why, within a block of his apartment, he runs into a solid warmth which turns out to be someone’s chest.

“Jesus, I’m so sorry,” Arthur says, scrambling to pick up his hard won purchases from the sidewalk.

“No need to apologize,” a voice assures him in the kind of British accent Arthur will absolutely never admit to fantasizing about. “There’s a drive to get home in this kind of weather. I’m feeling it myself at the moment.”

The man with the not-at-all-worthy-of-note accent is tall, broad-shouldered, and has a faint hint of stubble that Arthur’s eyes catch on for longer than he’s really willing to think about. He is also dressed head-to-toe in Victorian costume, and is carrying a folder of sheet music.

“Oh God,” Arthur says before he can stop himself, “you’re one of them.”

“Sorry?” The man asks, one corner of his mouth tilting up.

“You-- God, I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to make it sound like you were, you know, a leper or something-- but you sing carols in parks or whatever, don’t you?”

“Guilty as charged,” the man agrees. “I had no idea it was such a terrible thing to know the lyrics to ‘Good King Wenceslas.’”

“Oh God,” Arthur says again, because it’s cold and he’s tired and it’s incredibly unfair that this gorgeous British man with the amused eyes is a Christmas person. “You love it, don’t you? You love the whole schtick, all of it. You love eggnog and chopping down your own tree and cheesy television specials and all of it.”

“I’m afraid so,” the man says, and now he’s definitely smiling, which is proving difficult for Arthur to cope with.

“Well,” he manages, “well that’s-- that’s great. You just enjoy your month of serenading passersby and I will try to get home without running into anyone else.”

“And deprive the rest of Chicago of your delightful and inexplicable anti-Christmas musings? Nonsense. I insist you run into as many people as you possibly can,” the man says. “My name is Eames, by the way. Come get a drink with me and tell me why you are shriveled and dead inside.”

“Arthur,” Arthur says and then, against the screeching of his better judgment, “and a drink would be nice.”

The bar is so thoroughly decorated that it’s actually difficult to spot the stools amidst all of the tinsel, but Arthur is almost, almost infatuated enough by the end of the night that he doesn’t notice.

+ + +

The next morning, Arthur wakes up with a fuzzy, warm memory of Eames walking him home and a sudden display of something resembling chivalry (“I’ll be a proper gentleman, shall I, and kiss you on the doorstep and demand that you phone?”). He wanders into the kitchen in search of a cup of coffee, and is slightly derailed by the elf perched on his countertop.

“Good morning!” She says, smiling sunnily at him.

“Holy shit,” he says, and bangs his hip against the kitchen table in his shock.

After Arthur has employed a few of the better four-letter words he knows and Ariadne, shamefaced, has apologized complete with gigantic puppy dog eyes, Arthur sighs and settles into a chair with his coffee.

“I’ve told you Ariadne, there’s no point in showing up every year,” he says. “I’m not coming home. I like it here.”

Ariadne frowns at him from the counter.

“I have to try,” she says. “Even if your dad didn’t tell me to every year, I’d still try. We really miss you, you know.”

“Oh come on,” Arthur says. “Playing the guilt card, seriously? That is so low.”

She grins again, her teeth all showing in a gleaming display of what a dash of holiday spirit and rather a lot of magic in your genes will do for your dental hygiene. Arthur has never met an elf with less than perfect teeth and, for that matter, none of them seem to get wrinkles either (with the exception of laugh lines, which most of them have in abundance from the second they’re born).

“We really do miss you,” she insists. “It isn’t the same without you. No one makes the hot cocoa quite right, and I don’t like to go sledding nearly as much with anyone else.”

Arthur sighs.

“I miss you too,” he says and then, when she shoots him her best ‘yeah right,’ look, “I really do! But we both know my dad’s got Christmas under control, and I don’t want to spend my life waiting around the North Pole until he decides it’s time for me to take the reins.”

“Literally,” Ariadne says with a shit-eating grin. Arthur rolls his eyes and leans forward to thwack her knee with that morning’s Tribune.

“Yes, literally,” he says. “And figuratively, too. It’s just not necessarily what I want to do with myself. And besides, I’ve had just about as much as I can take of Christmas 24/7. It’s bad enough to deal with Christmas for December.”

Ariadne really does frown, then.

“But it’s Christmas,” she says and yeah, sometimes Arthur forgets exactly who she is.

“It’s not exactly the same for me,” he reminds her. “I’m not an elf.”

“No,” Ariadne agrees, “but you’re a Claus. That means at least as much, if not more, and we both know it.”

“Not for me it doesn’t,” Arthur insists. “This is where I live now. I’m Arthur Williams, and I was born and raised in Chicago, and I’ve never been to Alaska, much less the North Pole.”

“I think even Rudolph misses you,” Ariadne says, plowing onward.

“Rudolph can’t stand me,” Arthur says immediately. “The last time I tried to give him a carrot he kicked me in the knee and then bit my fingers.”

“Well, maybe if you hadn’t pulled on his nose quite so much when you were little,” Ariadne concedes.

“As I recall you were in on the nose-pulling as well, and he likes you just fine,” Arthur says.

“Yeah, but that’s because I’m irresistibly charming,” Ariadne says, wrinkling her nose at him and scrunching up her shoulders and shaking back her hair so her ears really stand out and basically, yes, she’s adorable.

“I get it, I get it,” Arthur says, holding up his hands. “But you can be as cute as you want, I’m not going anywhere. Honestly, you waste your time with this every year.”

“It’s not a total waste,” Ariadne says. “I mean, I get to see you.”

Guilt again, Arthur thinks, but only halfheartedly, mostly because it’s absolutely working.

“I’m sorry we don’t see each other much any more,” Arthur says, and means it. He stands and folds her into a hug; sitting on the counter, her head just comes up to his shoulder. “I miss you too, Ari. Maybe I’ll come visit in January or something. Before things really ramp up.”

“You should,” she says, her voice muffled into his shirt. “It’s been way too long since I really dominated in a snowball fight, you are the world’s best secret weapon.”

Arthur smiles into her hair and squeezes her tighter, just for a minute. Then he lets go, and steps back, and she throws him another grin, back to normal.

“I’d better get going!” She says. “They need all hands on deck back home. It’s that time of year!”

Arthur glances at the snow whirling down outside his window.

“It certainly is,” he says, though he is considerably less cheerful about it.

+ + +

He does call Eames. Granted, first he spends a bit of time sulking around his apartment feeling sorry for himself and gazing murderously at the local weather forecast. But then he calls Eames. It's too soon-- it hasn't even been a day, and Arthur is absolutely not some kind of swooning, romance-novel-heroine, but yes, fine, he calls Eames.

“H’lo?” A slightly fuzzy voice says on the other end of the line, and Arthur feels a stinging flare of panic before he checks his watch and sees that it’s 11:02 AM.

“You just woke up, didn’t you?” Arthur asks, sounding rather more affectionate than he’d like to after one night of drinks and a kiss on his own doorstep. Christ, he’s in trouble.

“...Maybe?” Eames says.

“I’m not at all sorry for calling,” Arthur says. “It’s past eleven, you do realize that?”

“I do now,” Eames says. “I’ve only just realized, you understand, because up until a minute ago I was enjoying a lovely sleep.”

“Sorry, should I hang up?” Arthur asks, only half-teasing.

“No,” Eames says, and Arthur feels himself grinning against his will. “Of course not. What were you calling about? Theater tickets, strolls in the park, dinner reservations-- don’t let me down, I’m expecting to be wined and dined. Far, far away from any evidence of the holiday season, of course.”

Arthur lets out a breath he hadn’t quite realized he was holding.

“It’s a bit presumptuous isn’t it, thinking I’m calling to ask you out?” He pokes and then, hurriedly, “And besides, I’m sure it would be mortifyingly clingy of me to demand another three hours of your time so quickly.”

“I won’t tell anyone if you won’t,” Eames says, conspiratorial, and Arthur grins again.

“Well, as long as that’s settled,” he says, “dinner it is.”

+ + +

Dinner is sort of an unmitigated disaster.

It doesn’t start out as one but then, in Arthur’s own experience, most unmitigated disasters like to lure you into a false sense of security first. No, it starts as something lovely and stomach-twisting; it starts as something that sort of makes Arthur want to drag Eames into the nearest probably deserted corridor and get him out of that simultaneously awful and weirdly endearing button-down. And that bit doesn’t actually entirely disappear, which is (one of the) worst parts of the entire evening. What does happen is this: Eames teases Arthur, light-hearted and sparkling, about his jacket and tie and Arthur tries to laugh and prickles underneath it and Eames, damn it, notices. And he tries to apologize, and Arthur tries to tell him not to bother, but maybe a bit too sarcastically, and Eames says really, can’t he just accept an apology? And then they both snap their mouths shut and try very hard to stop talking, except it seems pretty clear that Eames has probably never been all that good at not talking, because he brings it up again just as the food arrives, says something which is clearly supposed to be only a bit of fun about Arthur needing a bit of practice with apologies, and Arthur says something back which he doesn’t particularly remember but which must have been cutting (and Arthur is good at cutting, he knows this) and in the end Eames accuses him of being a merciless, Christmas-hating robot and Arthur says a few truly unpleasant things about the kind of person who wears Victorian costume in the middle of a fucking park, and leaves before he’s taken a bite of his salmon.

He’s already beating himself up about it in the cab on the way back home, but that only makes him angrier because he almost definitely shouldn’t shoulder the blame for this. And what is “this,” anyway? They’ve known each other for twenty-four hours and suddenly there’s a “this?” All of this horrifying, teenage-esque angst, he tells himself supremely unconvincingly, is ridiculous overkill for some British bastard he hardly knows anything about.

“You don’t look so good, buddy,” the cab driver says ten minutes into the journey.

“That’s because my life is secretly some kind of cliched, poorly-plotted, televised mess,” Arthur says.

“Oh,” the driver says. “That’s tough, man. Sorry to hear it.”

He doesn’t say anything else until they pull up in front of Arthur’s building, presumably because he’s convinced there’s a crazy guy riding around in the back of his taxi.

At three o’clock that morning Arthur’s doorbell rings. He’s torn between abject terror (oh god who’s at the door at 3 AM?) and his own inner-rationality (burglars don’t ring the doorbell, Arthur) and in the end he’s so busy trying to decide whether he should be calling the police that he opens the door without really thinking about it.

“Hi,” Eames says, looking tired and nervous and annoyed but in a way that Arthur is horrified to note he finds endearing. “I’m sorry about it, all of it, and I really like you, and I’d like us to give this another try, and I’m going to kiss you now.”

Which he does. Kisses him several times, actually, and Arthur’s always had a competitive streak and he certainly isn’t going to be shown up at kissing by some awful, wonderful, Christmas person, so obviously he kisses back.

“Alright,” Arthur says between kisses, breathless, “maybe it was a stupid argument.”

“Maybe it was,” Eames says, and then, “Oh God your clothes have so many fucking buttons.”

+ + +

Arthur wakes up on Sunday morning to the lyrical sound of Eames snoring like a congested woodpecker and is pleased to find that just because he’s infatuated doesn’t mean he finds snoring charming. Still just annoying, he thinks to himself, relieved, and rolls silently out of bed.

Half an hour later he’s happily settled at the kitchen table with a bagel, his morning coffee, and his laptop, and he’s just preparing to really dig into tomorrow’s schedule (Jenny’s back from vacation, thank God, which means three of his clients for the last two weeks-- including that phenomenally sulky soccer player-- will go back to her) when Eames emerges.

“Sorry,” Arthur says immediately, wincing. “Did I wake you up?”

“Not at all,” Eames says-- which is obviously a lie-- and wanders over to the table, sprawls into a chair next to Arthur’s and takes a sip of his coffee.

“Ugh,” he says, his nose wrinkling up. “Right, coffee: black, no cream, no sugar, no milk, nothing at all. Is this just something you do to prove you’re badass? Or...no, alright, here’s a good one: you picked up the habit in college because you were pulling late nights and coffee was a necessary expenditure, but the extras were not.”

“It was during grad school,” Arthur says, wondering what in the world his face looks like right now, “but otherwise, you pretty much nailed it.”

“Brilliant,” Eames says with a grin. “Are there more of those bagels anywhere on the premises?”

“Second cupboard on the right,” Arthur says, pointing. “Help yourself.”

Forty-five minutes later, Eames has ascertained that Arthur went through a Metallica phase when he was twelve, that he prefers onion bagels to blueberry (but that his local grocery store had been out of them on his last shopping trip), that he sort of hates wearing socks, and that it only took him four and a half years to finish his undergraduate degree and plow straight through to his Masters in Physical Therapy. He’s only asked two questions.

“If you have secret psychic powers, now would be a good time to say so,” Arthur says.

“No it wouldn’t,” Eames says. “It’s far too early in our relationship for that, darling.”

Not too early for ‘darling,’ apparently, Arthur thinks, but he doesn’t say anything about it unless you count the smile he’s suddenly and continually fighting to tamp down. Eames doesn’t seem to have noticed at all.

“Anyway,” he continues. “I haven’t, I’m afraid. It’s just that I think last night has proved we may want to avoid getting-to-know you dinners for a little while, at least, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to wait to actually, well.”

“Get to know me,” Arthur finishes, and decides that it’s really more trouble than it’s worth to keep hiding that smile. “Fair enough, but I’m going to expect some reciprocation. And since I’m not exactly on par with Sherlock Holmes, myself, I’m going to need you to supply some of the intel.”

“Fair enough!” Eames says cheerfully. “I love owls. When I was five years old I thought I was going to be a secret agent when I grew up. I still call my mother once a week because if I don’t she’ll kill me with the power of her mind, and I have a perfectly natural and healthy ingrained hatred of people who wake up before ten o’clock which I am obviously now being forced to reevaluate.”

“Your mother sounds slightly terrifying,” Arthur says.

“Certainly not!” Eames says. “Or, well, she is, but it’s an integral part of her charm, trust me. You know how mums are, anyway.”

“I do,” Arthur agrees, letting out a little huff of not-quite-bitter laughter. He loves his mother, he really, really does. But still.

“I see that you do,” Eames agrees and then, just when Arthur is absolutely positive he is about to step over about fifty different lines at once he gets a strange look on his face and takes an enormous bite of his bagel.

“See?” He says once he’s chewed, swallowed, and swallowed again. “I’m learning.”

+ + +

On Christmas itself Arthur follows his usual routine: he orders takeout Chinese food and pretends he doesn’t have the NORAD Tracks Santa page open on his laptop. It isn’t like they’re actually tracking Santa, obviously, and even if they were why would he care, so no, he doesn't have that tab open, what are you talking about, and basically he’s a therapist’s dream; he knows that.

On the day after Christmas he revels. That’s pretty much it. There’s an awful lot of reveling to be done when your least favorite time of year has finally, finally ended. From here on out it’s just dying evergreen trees in people’s driveways and the holdouts who refuse to take down their Christmas lights until Valentine’s Day. Screw those people, Arthur thinks with an unholy kind of glee, those people are behind the times. “The times” herein meaning December 26th, and “December 26th” herein meaning the day after Christmas, motherfuckers.

So maybe his inner monologue gets a little melodramatic the day after Christmas. He can’t help but feel he’s earned it.

The morning of December 31, he gets a phone call.

“Hello,” Eames says when Arthur answers.

“You’re up early,” Arthur says, “well done.”

“Your condescension is greatly appreciated,” Eames says, but Arthur can hear him smiling over the phone, so that’s alright. “Anyway, as it is clearly for you that I have dragged myself out of bed at this ungodly hour, I would’ve thought you’d be a bit more appreciative.”

“I am endlessly appreciative,” Arthur says. “I appreciate you in all kinds of ways.”

“I am genuinely impressed by the sheer number of innuendos which now spring to mind,” Eames says.

“I try,” Arthur says.

“Listen, difficult as it may be to believe I didn’t actually call to discuss double entendres with you at nine in the morning. I may well do in the future, I’m sure it’s a singularly delightful pursuit, but. I actually called to invite you to my friend’s New Year’s Eve party. I promise you that peoples’ sole purpose will be to get absolutely blind drunk, and no one will be interested in talking about Christmas because they will all be too depressed about the fact that it is over.”

This turns out to be a remarkably accurate description.

Eames' friend, whose name is Yusuf, seems to believe that the key ingredients for any party, really, are as follows: a great deal of semi-sort-of-alright music which everyone vaguely remembers hearing on the radio like a month ago, a selection of people who all look roughly as good as each other, and near limitless amounts of alcohol. He also seems to be correct, so Arthur isn’t complaining.

Two hours into the proceedings, Arthur is feeling pleasantly fuzzy around the edges and Yusuf is expounding to him, at length, about the intricacies of the Large Hadron Collider.

“So you just get science-y when you’re drunk?” Arthur asks cheerfully.

“I am fairly certain that science-y is not a word,” Yusuf says, “but I like it. Also I feel like you should know that my specialty is chemistry, not recreating the Big Bang, so I’m making up half of this stuff, at least.”

“Only half?” Arthur asks, impressed. “Whoa.”

Yusuf beams at him and starts talking about supersymmetry.

At eleven-oh-six Arthur wanders back in the direction of the punch and does not quite make it there because he runs into Eames in the middle of the room.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Eames says. “Eventually there will be bruises, and I’m telling you darling, people will talk.”

“Ooh,” someone says in Arthur’s periphery vision, which is a bit incongruous, really. “Go on, kiss!”

Arthur blinks and then, with a slow dawning sense of doom and destruction and all things unpleasant, he looks up.

“Oh,” he says dully, feeling rather betrayed.

“Oh shit,” Eames says with a grimace, his gaze darting from the mistletoe above their heads to the four corners of the room as if trying to map an escape route. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t think...”

Arthur hesitates for a minute.

“So, I’m relatively drunk,” he says conversationally. “And I can’t decide if I really, really hate you right now or if I just really like your mouth?”

“Let’s go with the mouth thing,” Eames says, sounding distinctly relieved.

Arthur grins in a way which Eames will later describe as predatory, and yanks Eames’s head down to just the right level for a public display of affection which could get them arrested in at least seventeen states. Someone wolf whistles, but Arthur ignores them in favor of Eames who has pulled back, his eyes dark, and is saying, “I vote we relocate to someplace with a lock on the door. I vote we relocate to someplace with a lock on the door right now.”

“Not even staying until midnight,” Yusuf can be heard saying mournfully as they leave. “How rude. The sex had better be phenomenal, that’s all I have to say.”

+ + +

They dedicate January and February a series of what Eames dubs Outings For The Incurably Pretentious. This comes about largely because Eames will not stop whining about how dreary January is, how it’s the world’s most depressing month, how there’s nothing to look forward to, oh God why isn’t it over already until Arthur is forced to take drastic action and drag him to The Art Institute of Chicago to prove that people do actually have lives after Christmas.

Eames, apparently prompted by the fact that Arthur owns a stocking cap and two cardigans, decides that he needs to be dragged to a strange, slightly smelly independent theater and subjected to a double feature of short, black and white films with poorly translated subtitles and a great deal of what Arthur assumes is supposed to be meaningful staring. As revenge, Arthur buys them tickets to the opera, and doesn’t admit that he hates it until it’s actually over. They reach a tentative ceasefire thanks to their mutual feelings of jaw-cracking boredom re: arias, and grab dinner at an Italian place so that they can complain at each other to their heart’s content. Arthur experiences a brief surge of fear at the thought of a conventional, sit-down sort of dinner, remember all too well what happened last time they tried, but he’s quickly sidetracked by Eames’ truly pathetic attempts to make dirty jokes based on the word libretto.

Valentine’s Day passes thankfully unmarked-- it’s a Monday, and Arthur is moved by uneasy feelings of boyfriend-ish responsibility to call Eames at lunchtime, which is awkward for all of about five seconds.

“Hello!” Eames says. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Er, well,” Arthur says. “I’m not a huge fan of the Hallmark holidays, to be honest--”

“Oh that,” Eames says, “definitely not, darling, no. What do you want to do on Friday?”

So that’s alright.

(That Friday, as an oblique sort of thank you, Arthur engineers a not-really-accidental meeting by inviting Eames over for dinner and then having Dom swing by to drop off a book he borrowed something like three years ago. Dom seems to realize immediately why he’s really been summoned and is on his best behavior, which turns out to be remarkably decent. He stays for dinner and does not once mention any of Arthur’s more embarrassing college exploits, which Arthur is definitely going to count as a win.

“Seems like a nice sort,” Eames says once he’s gone, and Arthur shrugs and says, “Yeah, he’s probably my best friend, loathe as I am to admit it sometimes.”

Eames grins, and doesn’t say anything else about it, but he looks quite pleased with himself for the rest of the evening, which tells Arthur the gesture probably landed.)

It’s an excellent two months, all things considered, and it’s crowned by the fact that Arthur calls Eames a bastard twelve times and only means it for three of them.

+ + +

It’s the middle of March, on a rare spring day when the sun has actually deigned to shine for a good half an hour right in the middle of things, that Arthur comes home from work and nearly sits on Ariadne, who’s seated on the arm of the couch.

“Wow, my own little bit of Christmas in March,” Arthur says dryly.

“You said you’d come visit in January,” Ariadne says, giving him a baleful look from beneath her eyelashes.

“I know I did,” Arthur says. “I’m sorry.”

She scoffs.

“What?” He says, fidgeting slightly in his seat. “Come on, I said I was sorry and I really am, Ariadne, I meant to come and see you--”

“Gonna need something a little better than that,” she tells him crisply.

“Well that’s all I’ve got,” Arthur says, “unless you want me to start inventing excuses.”

“You can’t think of anything?” Ariadne asks. “Nothing at all? There was no sudden distraction in your life right around that period of time?”

“You are some kind of gossip ninja,” Arthur says. “How did you find out?”

“Lucky guess. You just look a little less like someone who’s gotten coal in their stocking for, like, thirty years running. Who is he?”

Arthur sighs and resigns himself to an interrogation.

“His name’s Eames,” he says.

“What, like the chair?” Ariadne says, and Arthur raises an eyebrow at her in a warning she’s been able to decode since she was twelve. “Right, okay. So how’d you meet him?”

“He was on his way home from caroling,” Arthur says, trying not to look too disgusted by the notion.

“Caroling?” Ariadne asks, suddenly looking even more animated, which Arthur hadn’t really believed was possible.

“Caroling,” he confirms.

“That is so fucking awesome,” she says, which makes Arthur grin because it doesn’t matter how many times it happens, hearing profanity come from a five-foot-nothing elf is always going to be hilarious.

“Well, in your opinion maybe,” Arthur says.

“Hey, I’d already be asking you to set us up if I wasn’t well aware someone had beaten me there,” Ariadne says with a sly smile, and Arthur endeavors not too bristle because obviously she’s joking and obviously that’s exactly the reaction she’s looking for.

“Ooh,” she says so apparently be did, in fact, bristle. “That serious, huh?”

“Yeah,” Arthur says after a minute, “I guess so.”

Ariadne unleashes a truly gigantic smile, and Arthur has to smile back, at least a little.

“Awesome,” she says. “Seriously, that is so awesome.”

“Yeah,” he says again.

+ + +

April brings with it fits and starts of sunshine, and-- perhaps more importantly-- the Chicago Cubs. Arthur’s mood, always drastically improved on Opening Day, spikes to truly outrageous levels when he realizes that he can drag Eames along to a baseball game.

“Oh God,” Eames says when Arthur calls him and says as much, “baseball? Really? You have to understand, Arthur: the very depths of my soul are weeping with boredom just thinking about it.”

“You’re so stereotypically British right now that it’s almost painful,” Arthur says.

“I’ll tell you what’s painful,” Eames says, “three hours of grown men dashing from arbitrary patch of dirt to arbitrary patch of dirt all because they managed to hit a tiny, white, sphere with a big stick.”

“You’re not getting out of this,” Arthur interjects, “so you might as well stop whining.”

“But it’s so much more fun than actually going,” Eames says.

Wrigley Field is resplendent as always, even from the bleacher seats (which Arthur buys with one eye toward saving money and the other toward the bullshit he’ll be able to spout about the authenticity of the experience when Eames asks). He can’t quite pinpoint when prompting Eames to complain became his own personal mission in life, but it’s near unholy levels of fun to hear that accent wrap around the ridiculous metaphors the other man is so fond of.

The problem with this plan is that, once they get settled in with a hot dog and a soda each (ah, health food-- now I see why this is the national past time, Eames says), well.

“You like baseball,” Eames says.

“You knew that,” Arthur points out. “As I recall, two and a half weeks after we met I talked for an hour about Fielding Independent Pitching, and can I just say, I was set to keep going until you rudely interrupted.”

“To point out that I had no idea what you were talking about,” Eames replies, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Did you really want to waste your time rambling on about ground balls and line drives and the inherent flaws in using ERA to measure pitcher performance when every time you said ‘bunting’ I thought you were talking about Fourth of July decorations?”

“Yes,” Arthur says rather sullenly, “I did.”

“It had only been two and a half weeks,” Eames reminds him. “I hadn’t quite gotten used to the level at which you adore explaining things. Do forgive me.”

Arthur rolls his eyes at the faux-groveling tone and reaches over to steal a handful of the cotton candy Eames had gleefully purchased from one of the roaming vendors.

“You could explain it now,” Eames says, wrenching the cotton candy out of range. “I still wouldn’t understand it, of course, but I’m certainly fond enough of you to pretend.”

“Oh, you’ll understand,” Arthur says, grinning. “I know you too well for this now. I’m fully aware that you’re not as stupid as you look.”

“Well aren’t you hilarious,” Eames says and then announces, to their section at large, “People who fancy themselves stand-up comedians are not to be given cotton candy. That’s just the facts.”

“So,” Arthur says, still smiling (and, privately, unsure of how to stop), “the problem with ERA is that it doesn’t take situational variations into account.”

“Fascinating,” Eames drawls, but he’s leaning forward, his elbows on his knees; he’s listening.

+ + +

“So,” Eames says on an evening in mid-May, “my parents are coming to town. How would you like to meet them?”

Arthur barely averts a truly spectacular spit take.

“What?” He says. “When? And oh my God, you already told them they were going to meet me didn’t you? You did. You did, I can tell based on the excellent impersonation you’re doing right now of a deer in headlights.”

“I just thought you might want to get to know them a bit,” Eames says, thereby inducing an amount of guilt which is really just unfair. “They aren’t in town very often, and this’ll be your only chance for something like a year.”

“Oh my God,” Arthur says and slides the chicken out of the oven. “I’m cooking dinner, and now you want me to make yet another concession to stereotypically excellent boyfriend-hood?”

“I’m afraid so,” Eames says, still looking a bit cautious. He’s leaning on the counter wearing an atrociously loud plaid shirt. Arthur is charmed against his will.

“Well, if they’re anything like you,” he says, and takes the sage out of the cupboard.

“You’ll find them wonderful and lovely to know?”

“I was going to say slightly deranged,” Arthur says, “but either way.”

+ + +

“Ah,” Eames says a week later, “there they are.”

He’s pointing to a couple who are fast-approaching, hauling their luggage behind them.

“I hate that flight,” the man is saying. “My knees need to be trained to stay just so for that long. There ought to be some kind of program.”

“You’re something of a wuss, darling,” the woman says, and then, “Hello sweetheart!”

She sweeps Eames into a hug and then passes him along to her husband.

“You,” she says, “must be Arthur.”

She’s short and slender, with graying hair and ample laugh lines. She’s also got the sharpest pair of eyes Arthur’s seen for a very long time, and she’s focusing both of them entirely and exclusively on him. It’s slightly terrifying.

“Arthur, these are my parents,” Eames says, “obviously. Margaret and David, respectively.”

“You’ll have to call us by our first names, of course,” Margaret says. “Otherwise we feel stiff and formal, and mark my words, that’ll be what triggers our eventual and probably inevitable midlife crises.”

The next thing Arthur knows she’s standing next to him, so close their shoulders are brushing.

“If you get on my good side,” she says conspiratorially, “I’ll tell you his first name.”

Eames’ face goes through several extremely interesting contortions and settles on an arrangement which telegraphs, “If you learn my first name I will have to break up with you, enter the witness protection program, and move to Oklahoma.”

“I’ll do my best,” Arthur tells Margaret.

“I’m going to disown you,” Eames says to his mother. She shrugs; it’s wildly, ridiculously elegant.

“It really isn’t all that bad,” she says. “Plenty of people wear that name with pride you know.”

“The kind of person who wears that name with pride is the kind of person who breeds prize poodles and enjoys dipping things in overly sweetened tea,” Eames says. “I still maintain you gave it to me on a dare.”

“Well you’ll never know, will you?” Margaret says, and slides her arm through Arthur’s. “Come along now, we’ve got mysterious whispering to do. It isn’t a real visit if I don’t make him unbearably nervous at least seventy-five percent of the time.”

Arthur doesn’t actually get a chance to shake hands with David for another hour, when they’re all sitting down to dinner at Eames’ favorite steakhouse.

“How’re you holding up?” David asks, a wry grin on his face.

“Pretty well I think,” Arthur says, a bit dazed. “She probably knows enough about me to impersonate me to my closest friends, but.”

“That’s just her conversational style,” David says comfortingly. “It’s been forty years, and she’s still convinced there’s too much about me she doesn’t know.”

Arthur laughs, and orders his steak, and thinks maybe this isn’t going to be a total disaster.

“So Arthur,” David says as the waitress scurries back to the kitchen, “what do your parents do?”

It isn’t interrogative, is the thing. Arthur’s met a few parents in his time, and most of the time when they sit down, hang their coats over the back of their chairs, lean forward on one elbow and oh-so-casually say, “So Arthur, what do your parents do,” they mean, “So, Arthur, how impressed should we be by you?” David doesn’t mean that. He seems, in fact, to mean, “So Arthur, tell us more about yourself; we’re interested.”

That makes the whole thing a lot worse, as it turns out.

“Um,” Arthur says. Out of the corner of his eye he spots Eames raising an eyebrow at his water glass. “They’re in manufacturing.”

“Do they manufacture anything in particular, or do they just tackle whatever comes to mind on any given day?” Margaret asks with the teasing smirk that her son inherited. Eames takes a drink of water.

“It’s, um, it’s a bit complicated,” Arthur says. His fingernails are digging into the edge of the table. He wishes they would stop, but he can’t seem to relax his hands.

“Arthur doesn’t like to talk about his parents,” Eames says abruptly, setting his glass down on the table. It’s hardly subtle, and Arthur can feel himself blushing, but it gets the job done.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Margaret says and deftly slides the conversation into geopolitics in the Middle East, which is a good deal more contentious and also, in Arthur’s book, a good deal more comfortable.

The rest of their four day visit glides along in much the same way. Margaret catches on very, very quickly-- Arthur doesn’t know if Eames tells her or if she’s just that perceptive, but there are certain topics of conversation she expertly skirts. His parents never come up again, nor does his childhood, and Christmas is certainly avoided altogether (though Arthur suspects that may have something to do with the fact that it’s nearly June).

Eames has to work on the Monday when his parents’ flight leaves, so Arthur pushes back his morning appointments and drives them to the airport. David shakes his hand, tells him it’s been a pleasure, and wishes him the best of luck. Margaret pulls him to one side.

“He’s very happy,” she declares. “It’s excellent. I really do appreciate it, Arthur.”

“Oh,” Arthur says. “Um. You’re welcome?”

“He’s always made friends easily,” she says, “but he’s also never really made friends easily.”

“I think I may actually know what you mean,” Arthur says, and while he’s still reeling a bit from his own understanding he’s pulled into a hug.

“Take care of each other,” she says firmly, and sets off for security.

“Well,” Arthur says to no one in particular, and heads back to his car.

+ + +

“Your parents are pretty wonderful,” Arthur says a week later. Eames looks up from his popcorn (which he’s been analyzing, out loud, for the past ten minutes; too much salt, not enough butter, and he tends to enjoy his popcorn more medium-rare, he’s cheerfully informed the theater at large) and shrugs.

“They’re good people,” he says. “And they’re a lot better at giving a shit than they used to be. Which, oops, makes this all sound very melodramatic, and it isn’t.”

Arthur frowns.

“They didn’t used to give a shit?” He asks.

“No, no, they always have,” Eames says, scooping up a handful of popcorn and eyeing it critically before beginning to eat. “They just have a lot more time now for people besides themselves, and pursuits besides their own. I mean, when I was little my mum thought she was going to be a post-modernist opera singer. I don’t know what that meant, but. She spent quite a bit of time the year I was nine singing really forcefully at still life paintings of fruit. I think she got paid a bit of money for it, in certain circles. They were just a little too worried that their lives were going to be taken away from them when I showed up.”

He pauses and shifts a bit in his seat, looking uncomfortable.

“Honestly, this sounds god-awful. It’s really, really not,” he says after a minute. “They’ve always been lovely people, and good parents. I’m just trying to point out that nobody’s parents are perfect, and why I’m doing that I really don’t know. My childhood was not some kind of Dickensian-orphan scenario.”

Arthur smiles in spite of himself.

“I believe you,” he says. “You wouldn’t make a credible waif, anyway.”

“I would make an excellent waif,” Eames replies, looking honest-to-God offended by the suggestion. Arthur laughs, he can’t help it.

“Alright, you’d make an excellent waif,” he agrees. “If only your parents had bothered to neglect you just that little bit more.”

“If only,” Eames says. “And what about you, will you be joining me in waif-hood?”

“That’s not a word,” Arthur says, turning his attention to the popcorn.

“No, it isn’t,” Eames says. “And of course that was the point of the inquiry.”

“I’m sure there’s a better word for it,” Arthur says.

“I’m sure there is,” Eames says, and the movie starts. Arthur spends most of it staring straight ahead and not eating any popcorn; he doesn’t quite feel entitled to it.

+ + +

The summer passes in long, lazy stretches. The sky always seems too close to the ground by the time August rolls around, and Arthur starts getting antsy for the cold weather he knows he’ll hate when it actually arrives. Eames notices, of course, and insists on lots of pointless day trips in what must be an attempt to distract him.

They’re at a farmer’s market on a Wednesday afternoon when it happens. They’re wandering up and down aisles with nothing particular in mind, being enticed by vendor after vendor, and ignoring most of them.

“Are we actually here for something?” Arthur asks, amused and already well aware of the answer.

“Of course not!” Eames says. “But it’s nice, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Arthur allows, rolling up his shirtsleeves as a concession to the humidity. “It is nice.”

“Ooh, look,” Eames says, “those are lovely, aren’t they? Perfect for the Christmas tree.”

He’s pointing at a stall which is selling ornaments, funny, handmade little things with sharp angles and funny lines. They’re wonderful to look at and Arthur finds himself thinking that Ariadne would love them; she adores interesting geometry, and he’s seen her spend hours crowing over the planes of a single snowflake.

He’s quiet for too long, evidently, because Eames stiffens up next to him. Arthur turns, realizing, but he’s too slow, apparently.

“Sorry, sorry,” Eames says, and something closes off behind his eyes. “Forgot.”

“No, actually, you didn’t,” Arthur says without even thinking about it, and feels his shoulders tense.

“I’m sorry?” Eames says, frighteningly polite.

“You didn’t forget,” Arthur says. “And even if you had, you would still have made a gigantic fucking production out of what a wonderful person you are for backing off. Should we commission some kind of medal, would that properly acknowledge your phenomenal restraint?”

“As far as I’m aware the convention nowadays is that everyone gets a trophy, Arthur dearest,” Eames says in a tone which is going to make ‘dearest’ the most vicious of insults for the rest of Arthur’s life. “Shall we have one made up for you, as well? We’ll have to decide on an inscription, of course. ‘Most Dedicated to Preserving His Bullshit, Mysterious Past,’ or ‘Most Likely To Freeze Up At The Sight of A Fucking Snowman--”

“Oh fuck off,” Arthur says under his breath, trying very, very hard to remember that they are in a public place and that a screaming match is ill advised. “Jesus, now it’s too much that I don’t like snowmen, that’s going to be the fucking bridge too far?”

“Oh don’t pretend to be this dense, it doesn’t suit you,” Eames says and clearly there is no way to avoid people staring at this point, people must be staring, but Arthur can’t seem to look away from Eames’ face to check. “I couldn’t care less about the bloody snowmen, Arthur, we can move to Florida and rip December out of all our fucking calendars if you like, I just want to know why.”

Which is either a perfectly reasonable request or the nosiest, pushiest, most ridiculously needy request the world has ever seen, and as it turns out Arthur doesn’t really care which it is at the moment because all he manages to say is, “Seems like you’re fated to be disappointed, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Eames says, “I suppose it does.”

This is part where one of them is supposed to walk away in a dramatic and moody fashion, Arthur knows. It ought to involve long strides, and stoic expressions, and probably some mournful piano music. But since they’re hemmed in on all sides by a crowd of people who are all trying very hard to look like they haven’t been listening, they’re forced to keep shopping, instead, edging a few feet away from each other and trying to look normal. Arthur stares vacantly at an ear of corn and wonders if he should be surprised that this has happened, or just resigned.

+ + +

“Arthur,” Dom says, “you are probably, eventually, going to have to tell someone why Christmas gives you hives. I’m just saying, why shouldn’t it be him?”

“Shut up,” Arthur says. “I asked you over to be a sympathetic friend and commiserate with me about how much of an asshole Eames is, and instead you brought two adorable children and common sense. What good are you doing me right now?”

Dom sighs.

“Probably as much good as I’ve ever done you, actually,” he says and then, in what Arthur briefly thinks is a seriously impressive non sequitur, “James, what have we said about about climbing things?”

There is a brief silence and then a rather sheepish thud.

“Sorry Daddy,” James says, at which point Philippa interjects with, “Were you climbing the fridge?” in tones of sheer wonder which suggest she is going to be next.

“Oh hell,” Dom says, “excuse me for just one second.”

In the end they order pizza and find a Pixar movie for the kids to watch, and Dom starts in with the squinting. Arthur is pretty much doomed from that point on, and knows it, but he is nothing if not a fighter of lost causes.

“Why does he need to know? Why does anyone need to know?” He asks (not whines, definitely not whines).

“Because you’d rather reveal whatever poorly-concealed, Christmas-related trauma you have going on than let it come between you and the guy you’re in love with?” Dom suggests, his eyes still narrowed in Arthur’s general direction.

Arthur groans and lets his head fall back until hits the edge of the sofa.

“My life has become some kind of pathetic, tween-girl romance novel. All I want to do is eat ice cream and pine. Pine. I do not fucking pine! I am not a mopey sixteen-year-old!” Arthur says.

“Right,” Dom says in a voice he’s presumably hoping is soothing, “okay. So. Probably best to make it up to him somehow.”

“Probably,” Arthur says, and keeps right on staring at the ceiling.

+ + +

All in all, it isn’t like the world falls down around his ears.

The earth continues to revolve on its axis, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and the Cubs keep right on losing. This is all right and proper and as it should be, as it has been for years. Arthur gets up in the morning, fixes himself a piece of toast (or, if he’s feeling ambitious, a pot of oatmeal) and runs out the door, perpetually five minutes late as a seemingly direct result of aiming to be ten minutes early. He sees clients, most of whom are polite and eager to get back on their feet, and a few of whom are whining, moping brats who milk their injury for all its worth and are rude to the receptionist. He takes twenty minutes for lunch, wolfs down a sandwich, and works methodically through his afternoon schedule much as he’s already worked through his morning. He promises himself he’ll leave work at five, actually leaves at fifteen past, and gets home by five thirty unless his train is late. He makes dinner (usually it’s something which aspires to be elaborate, and usually he eats it with his mother’s voice in his head espousing on the virtues of proper nutrition). He reads something for an hour or so-- a book, the paper, the current issue of The Economist-- and then kills time in any variety of ways, some productive and some less so, until The Daily Show comes on. Then he goes to bed in preparation for doing it all again the next day.

And the thing is, that’s fine. He’s done that, or some variation of it, for years, and he’s enjoyed it. He loves living in the city, he enjoys his job, and he’s never minded silence. There’s something serene about sitting in the middle of a quiet apartment and drinking in the fact that it’s his, that he pays for it and lives in it and controls what happens within its walls.

So life goes on as usual, and it’s fine, and all of a sudden it’s a Thursday night, which is special for exactly no reason whatsoever, except for the fact that he goes slightly and temporarily insane. The silence is too much, or not enough, and he’s never really agreed with half of what The Economist prints anyway. It’s got an editorial slant he doesn’t particularly enjoy. He wants to text Eames and tell him this, because he knows it will end up sparking a discussion about global diplomacy and the state of Russian politics and he’s got his phone halfway out of his pocket before he remembers that his dad is Santa Claus and he’s too fucking ridiculous to tell anyone about it, and that means there’s no one with whom to debate the historical role of the KGB.

“Oh my God,” Arthur says aloud to his empty apartment, “this is so fucked up.”

+ + +

The week which passes after that is a fair distance from fine, and involves a lot of headaches (as well as the very teenage-girl-style pining Arthur sincerely wishes he was constitutionally incapable of experiencing). On the Saturday of that week, Arthur goes to the grocery store to buy broccoli, pancake mix, and chocolate chips and stops looking where he’s going somewhere around aisle ten. When, halfway down aisle eleven, there is a loud clanging noise it is because he has run his cart into someone else’s. Eames’, actually.

“Wow,” Arthur says, “this is just ludicrous.”

“Isn’t it just,” Eames says.

There is a pause.

“Hello,” Arthur says.

“Hello,” Eames says in a tone of voice which does not say ‘hello’ at all, but rather ‘excuse me, I’d rather crawl into that corner and die than conduct this conversation.’ Arthur feels himself wince. There doesn’t really seem to be anything for it.

“I’m sorry?” Arthur tries.

Eames raises an eyebrow.

“Are you?” He asks.

“Not really,” Arthur says, feeling tired and clumsy and slow. “But I cannot even begin to describe to you how much I wish that I was.”

“Well,” Eames says after a minute, “I mean, it’s an awful lot better than nothing. I’m sorry too, for what it’s worth.”

Arthur doesn’t bother to ask if he’s actually sorry, or if he’s sorry like Arthur is, in that way where not being sorry is digging its way through him and leaving too many sharp edges behind.

“Okay,” Arthur says, “so. We’re both sorry then.”

“Or close enough to it,” Eames agrees.

They are still separated by their grocery carts, and Arthur finds himself staring at the contents of Eames’. Frozen chicken, baby spinach, parmesan, and two percent milk.

“I sort of want to help you put away your groceries,” he finds himself saying out loud. He’s only slightly horrified. “I mean, I at least want to be there when you put away your groceries. On a related note, I’ve had some time to think about this and I’ve decided that I am secretly a teenage girl.”

“Well, that would be inconvenient on any number of levels,” Eames says. “For one thing, if I was having more-than-half-formed ideas about kissing a teenage girl, I suspect people would have concerns. And honestly that would be fair.”

“You might as well meet my parents,” Arthur says, because fuck it, and oh well, and oh God what in the world has he gotten himself into.

+ + +

Two days later Arthur and Eames are standing around in Arthur’s kitchen, endeavoring not to be awkward and mostly failing.

“I’m not quite sure I follow,” Eames says for something like the fifth time. “Your parents...?”

“They don’t live around here,” Arthur says for what is almost definitely the fifth time.

“So we’re waiting for them in your kitchen,” Eames says with remarkable patience.

“No,” Arthur says, “we’re waiting for Ariadne in my kitchen.”

“Ariadne being...?”

“A very good friend of mine,” Arthur says, “who’s going to-- going to take us to see my parents. Look, just do a couple of things for me alright? Try not to freak out too much when she shows up, and remember to keep a very tight grip on your suitcase.”

“Uh-huh,” Eames says dryly, but he does obediently renew his hold on the handle of his suitcase.

Two more minutes stutter by.

“Hi!” Ariadne says brightly into the silence of the kitchen.

“Oh my God,” Eames says very faintly, and drops his suitcase.

“You dropped your suitcase,” Ariadne informs him helpfully from where she is standing on the table. Eames, seeming to operate mostly by rote, leans over and picks it up again.

“I’ve asked you to try and avoid the furniture,” Arthur says rather wearily as she leaps down from her perch to hug him.

“Where did you come from?” Eames asks rather helplessly.

“The North Pole,” Ariadne says, unflaggingly chipper, “My name’s Ariadne by the way, and you must be Eames! I have seriously heard all about you. It’s so great to finally meet you.”

“A pleasure to meet you as well,” Eames says, managing to look just slightly smug through the thick layer of total shock he’s wearing.

“Awesome!” Ariadne says. “Okay, so, we’d better get going Arthur, your parents are expecting us.”

She holds out both of her hands. Arthur takes one and then glances over at Eames.

“Look,” he says, “this is going to go a lot better if you just suspend your disbelief now and have a complete breakdown later. So take the hand of the elf that just magically appeared before your very eyes and please, for the love of God, hold onto your suitcase. I really don’t want to have to replace a week’s worth of your clothes in the Arctic.”

“Right,” Eames says, his eyes still just a bit too wide, and takes ahold of Ariadne’s other hand.

“Awesome!” She says again. “Okay, here we go!”

It’s been a while since Arthur traveled via elf, but really nothing much has changed. There’s a rushing noise in his ears, a faint echo of tundra winds, and a peculiarly strong whiff of hot chocolate and then suddenly, the ground under his feet his changed.

“Oh my God,” Eames says, which seems to be just about the extent of his vocabulary. “This is insane, this is mad, this is absolutely not happening. I’m having some kind of breakdown. I’ve conformed to age old stereotypes about British men of vaguely unimportant titles and taken eccentric sixteen steps too far. I’m probably in a mental institute right now, raving at the walls. I’m probably wearing a mop on my head and explaining to everyone who tries to tell me it’s time for dinner that I’m one of the polar explorers.”

“Welcome to the North Pole!” Ariadne says. “Way to keep ahold of your luggage, seriously, not everyone can pull that off on the first try.”

Arthur steps forward and picks up Eames’ suitcase himself, careful to let their hands brush along the way.

“As Ariadne says, welcome,” he says, taking Eames’ elbow and steering him in the direction of the house. “For the record, I’d visit you in the mental institute but, happily, this is just the kind of insanity that happens in real life. Also, my dad is Santa Claus. So, you know, just imagine some cliche about how I hope you’ve been good this year and let’s get inside because it is fucking freezing out here.”

PART II.