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

[and_backagain]

PART I IS HERE.

“So,” Eames says after they’ve shaken the snow out of their hair and taken off their boots and hung up their coats, and after Ariadne has scurried off (presumably to tell the entire North Pole that they’ve arrived), “in this charming fever dream I’m currently inhabiting, that’s Santa Claus?”

Arthur finishes pulling off his scarf and turns to see a tall, slender, clean-shaven man standing in the doorway to the living room. He steps forward to accept his father’s back-slapping hug.

“It’s good to see you Arthur,”

“Yes,” he says, “he is. Eames, this is my dad. For the record, he prefers to be called Eric. Dad, this is Eames.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Eric says. “We’ve been getting most of our intel on you from Ariadne, but that’s not really a bad thing for you since it’s all been wildly favorable.”

“Well, that is good,” Eames says, and manages the handshake without falling over, which Arthur decides to count as a victory.

“Your mother’s upstairs,” Eric says, “but she’ll be down in a minute I’m sure.”

“I’m sure,” Arthur echoes, maybe a tiny bit sarcastically, oops, shit.

His dad lets it go with barely an eyebrow raise; it’s Eames who actually catches his eye over it, who tilts his head to one side and makes a face which promises gently prying questions later. Arthur sighs and resigns himself to his fate.

“So!” Eric says jovially. “Come in, come in, our reputation will be ruined if we leave guests standing in the living room, and guests of honor at that!”

“Right,” Eames says, and picks up his suitcase again in such a white-knuckled grip that Arthur can only assume he’s mentally constructing a metaphor in which his luggage is also his sanity.

“Let us take our stuff upstairs first Dad,” Arthur says hurriedly. “It’ll only take a minute.”

Arthur likes plans, and this is a good one: shepherd Eames upstairs, suitcase-sanity in tow, explain to him in the best soothing tone he can manage that although growing up in the North Pole is enough to cause anyone to shade just a bit toward madness, the mere fact of its existence does not mean Eames is crazy, and then wander back downstairs and, well, make nice.

The problem with Eames, Arthur has discovered, is that while he likes plans, the thing he likes most is disrupting them. As disruptions go, this is a good one: Eames allows himself to be shepherded halfway up the stairs and around a corner, where he drops his suitcase and tugs at the back of Arthur’s neck until they’re kissing, sweet but just a little frantic.

“The North Pole?” Eames demands when they break apart. “The North Pole, Arthur? Arthur. Your father is Santa Claus. Even in my cheesiest moments, and I have had them, believe me, I didn’t really think you were ‘special’ in quite this way.”

Arthur likes plans, and he makes excellent ones, but given the tendency of the best laid plans of mice and men to go off the rails in zero-point-two seconds flat, he prides himself most on his ability to improvise.

“Just stop thinking about it for a minute,” he advises, and leans back in.

“Arthur,” says a quiet, flat voice from behind him and okay, when he’d said “ability to improvise” he had really never envisioned quite this scenario.

“Mom,” he says and very, very carefully removes his hands from his boyfriend and puts them where his mother can see them.

“Er. Hello Mrs. Claus,” Eames says in a passable imitation of a smooth recovery. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for so long now! It’s a pleasure. We really should’ve come to visit sooner.”

Arthur watches with something like panic as his mother’s smile unfurls and she extends a hand to meet Eames’. When you can see her laugh lines like that she’s absolutely beautiful, he thinks distantly. More immediately he thinks: oh, shit.

“It’s lovely to meet you. Call me Anna,” she says, and oh, Arthur thinks, first-name basis, that’s great, really wonderful, nothing has ever been better, nothing this excellent has ever happened to me, oh wait, this is the end of the world.

“Thank you Anna,” Eames says. “I’m Eames. And your son and I were just going upstairs to put our luggage away. We’ll be back down to join you in just a moment.”

“Oh God,” Arthur says when they’ve escaped up the stairs and into his old room. “Oh God. She likes you.”

“You say this as if it’s a bad thing,” Eames says, wrestling his suitcase into a corner.

“She thinks you’re a good influence,” Arthur hisses frantically. “She-- she thinks you’re going to persuade me to come home for more visits and call her every week and learn to appreciate the taste of candy canes and oh God, this is an absolute fucking disaster.”

“The only reason I’m following this even slightly is because I’ve known you for nearly a year,” Eames says. “Just try to remember that.”

“She is clearly constructing a master plan,” Arthur plows onward. “She is constructing a master plan wherein you will be a mere pawn in her incessant campaign to groom me into the Santa Claus of Tomorrow, why the hell do you think I left home, this is all your fault.”

“Again, I’m clinging to your logic as if it were a sheer cliff face,” Eames says cheerfully. “Though I would like to clear up one small point: how I am both a mere pawn in your mother’s incessant campaign and entirely at fault for it?”

“All your fault,” Arthur insists from where he has no collapsed, face-down, on the bed. “For being so British. And charming. And British.”

“Right,” Eames says, getting a hand under Arthur’s elbow and yanking until he is more or less upright. “Well. Stiff upper lip, then! Forward unto the breach! Come along, dinner with your parents, wot wot, toodle pip.”

“Oh God,” Arthur says again, and follows him downstairs.

+ + +

“So, Eames,” Eric says as they all sit down to dinner, “where are you from?”

“I was born in Liverpool, but we moved to London before I turned two,” Eames says. “Pass the butter? Arthur.”

“Oh,” Arthur says. “Yes. Here.”

Eames smirks at him just slightly, one eyebrow raised, and Arthur waits until his mother is busy arranging her napkin and his father is spooning mashed potatoes onto his plate before he shoots him a glare in response. In an ideal world, it is a glare which telegraphs, “Listen smartass, I am a little distracted right now okay, because I’m sort of in love with you and these are my parents and as surreal and uncomfortable as this whole situation is, as much as I am waiting for my mother to start asking pointed questions about my life and my future, there is still something stupidly wonderful about seeing you sitting here being ridiculously polite in the place where I grew up.” He’s guessing it conveys a message which is roughly more akin to, “I am going to murder you with this piece of broccoli,” but isn’t it supposed to be the thought that counts?

Eames only grins in response and spreads butter onto his roll.

“How about both of you, then?” Eames says after a moment. “Are you from the Arctic originally, or?”

“I am,” Eric says. “My father was Santa Claus, and so was my grandfather, and his father. You get the idea, I think. I’ve lived here my whole life! It’s a pretty great place to grow up. The elves are always game for sledding, and you sure as hell never run out of toys.”

“I’m from New York,” Anna says.

“New York! What a lovely city,” Eames says, and their conversation swiftly spirals into a discussion of Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, and which hole-in-the-wall diners are actually worth the trip.

Arthur pokes at his dinner and thinks, Don't you dare lie to him, and tries to swallow his irrational anger along with his grilled salmon.

+ + +

“My mom isn’t from New York,” Arthur says later that night. He’s rummaging in his bag for pajamas when it spills out, unbidden but not really unwelcome, and Eames emerges to lean against the bathroom doorway.

“Hmm?” He says around his toothbrush.

“My mom, she isn’t from New York,” Arthur says, still frowning into his duffel. “She’s visited there a grand total of eight times, and she’s completely in love with it, but that’s not where she’s from. She’s from Maine.”

There is a pause in which Arthur assumes Eames is absorbing this information; it turns out to be a pause in which Eames is swishing, spitting, and putting away his toothbrush.

“So,” he says, returning to sprawl across the bed. “Your mother is from Maine. Continue.”

“She’s from Maine,” Arthur says and then blinks to himself for a minute before he abandons his search for sleepwear altogether and joins Eames on top of the blankets. “A really small town in rural Maine. And essentially she always hated it, and always wanted to get out, and heard about New York when she was four years old and already bored out of her mind.”

“So she visited a grand total of eight times,” Eames prompts as the silence stretches out. Arthur sighs and stares up at the ceiling.

“And then she met my dad and moved up here and dedicated her entire existence to helping him run fucking Christmas,” Arthur says. “Which is strange. Can I just say that? It’s really fucking strange.”

Eames sighs and rolls over to press his lips to Arthur’s collarbone. He stays there for a moment, warm and patient, and then pulls back far enough to say, “I suspect that isn’t quite the full story, darling.”

Arthur almost shrugs before he realizes he’d probably hit Eames in the nose if he tried. It’s such a strange, mundane consideration that he laughs before he can stop himself.

Eames hums inquisitively from where he is exploring Arthur’s neck with his mouth, and Arthur feels it up and down his spine.

“Nothing,” he says and then, in a sudden surge of fondness and generosity, “you’re probably right.”

“There’s usually more to it,” Eames agrees vaguely, now being distracted by Arthur’s jaw in a manner which is itself thoroughly distracting, and Arthur decides firmly and unrepentantly to stop thinking about his mother.

+ + +

Arthur wakes up at an hour the next morning which could generously be called “too early,” with the unpleasant knowledge that he’s irrevocably awake and a pressing need for coffee. He quietly extricates himself from Eames, who doesn’t tend to cuddle so much as fling various limbs out at odd angles. It’s just the laws of probability which dictate that Arthur occasionally ends up with an arm resting on his chest or an ankle bumping against his own.

He makes his way downstairs in his bare feet (leaves Eames snoring in the bed, tries to ignore the fact that the sound is now familiar and oddly comforting because, well, that’s just disgusting, honestly), knowing his hair is an absolute mess and lacking the energy to care. This, he thinks to himself with a great deal of weight, is where the caffeine comes in.

When he shuffles into the kitchen his dad is already there, doing something over the stove with a frying pan and humming what sounds suspiciously like “The Christmas Song.”

“It’s October, Dad,” Arthur says, but without any real weight behind it. His father turns from the scrambled eggs he’s pushing at with a spatula to shrug and give him a faintly sheepish smile.

“I just happen to think chestnuts roasting on an open fire sound delicious year round.”

“Chestnuts are disgusting,” Arthur says reproachfully, though he knows he’s smiling back. “But to each their own, I guess.”

“I guess,” Eric agrees and turns back to the stove to sprinkle cheese into the pan. “How’ve you been, Arthur? Your mother and I hardly talked to you at all last night. Too busy interrogating Eames.”

“Did he pass?” Arthur asks, mostly joking.

“With flying colors if you ask me,” Eric says, “but that’s mostly because you seem head-over-heels about him.”

Arthur blushes and drops all pretense of subtlety in favor of immediate subject change.

“I’ve been well,” he says. “Pretty busy at work, but in a good way. And, uh, I met Eames which, we’ve already talked about that, so, how’ve you been?”

“We’ve been well ourselves,” his dad says, and Arthur doesn’t miss the pronoun shift. “Busy, of course. You know how it goes. But we’re happy to see you, Arthur. You don’t visit often enough.”

“Dad,” Arthur says, and Eric holds up his hand.

“No, I know, we’ve talked about this-- you’re busy, we’re busy, everyone’s busy. She really would like to see more of you. So would I. The two of you--”

“Good morning,” Eames says, wandering into the kitchen. “How is everyone? Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed?”

“You know me so well,” Arthur says, deadpan, and accepts the plate of eggs and cup of coffee his father offers him.

“How did you sleep?” Eric asks Eames, and Arthur lets their exchanged pleasantries filter into his system along with the caffeine. It’-- pleasant. Nice. Warm. He’d always thought when he told his parents he was leaving that his father would be furious, and he’s always been glad that wasn’t really true.

He tunes back in when he senses the conversation shift back toward him, and sure enough,

“I thought you might like to take Eames on a tour today, actually,” Eric says. “Show him the workshop, maybe the elves’ village. That sound good?”

“Sure,” Arthur says at the same time that Eames says, “Yes.”

Arthur takes a long gulp of coffee to hide his unexpected, stupidly huge smile, and when he emerges from the mug his dad is grinning.

“Excellent,” he says. “We’re pretty proud of the whole place, I have to say. I hope you enjoy it.”

“I’m sure I will,” Eames says fervently and practically drags Arthur out of the room and into the hall.

“What do we need?” He says. “Coats? Boots?”

“We certainly will need coats and boots,” Arthur says, the corner of his mouth dragging itself upward practically against his will, “but first I’m going to want to finish my breakfast. Which I left behind rather suddenly, you may have noticed. I’m sure it’s pining for me by now, wondering where it all went wrong.”

“Right,” Eames says, thoroughly unfazed, and drags Arthur back into the kitchen. “Eat!”

Eric laughs into his newspaper and Arthur resigns himself to scarfing his scrambled eggs.

+ + +

When they’re coated, scarved, and booted, Arthur leads the way out the back door and into the snow. Eames glances around the tundra and then turns to Arthur.

“Alright,” he says, “I’m waiting. Specifically, waiting for you to perform a Christmas miracle and make Santa’s workshop appear.”

“I don’t have to perform any miracles,” Arthur says with a slight smirk because yes, he’s realizing, this is going to engender some really entertaining facial expressions. “It’s right there.”

He points to the shed. It’s a tiny, unassuming structure, weathered and slightly crooked, with a wreath practically beaming at them from the front door and a rather innocuous chimney perched on the roof billowing smoke.

“No,” Eames says after a moment, “I think I’m still waiting on that miracle.”

“Ask and ye shall receive,” Arthur intones in his best deadpan and finds himself tugging Eames toward the shed by the wrist.

He pushes the door inward and they step into the dark, cramped room together. There’s a moment when everything is elbows and odd angles, and then they manage to disentangle themselves.

“If you wanted to have your wicked way with me you only needed to ask,” Eames says, and Arthur rolls his eyes even though the gesture is technically wasted in the dark.

“Precedent demonstrates that if I wanted to have my wicked way with you I would ask,” he points out. “And then I’d have it.”

“No need to roll your eyes, darling,” Eames says reproachfully, and Arthur grins so hard his cheeks hurt and then, belatedly, fumbles for the light switch.

When the single, bare bulb on the ceiling comes to life it illuminates the trap door in the floor, which Arthur opens with a practiced yank. Light floods out-- warm light, not fluorescent-- and the smell of just-baked cookies wanders up the newly revealed stairs.

“Holy shit,” Eames says, “you actually work miracles. I continue to be astounded.”

“O ye of little faith,” Arthur says dryly, and leads the way downstairs.

He’s surprised and embarrassed, halfway down, to realize that he’s mostly leading because he wants to be able to turn around and see Eames’ face when the other man reaches the floor. Surprising and embarrassing the revelation may be, but what the hell he thinks, and indulges it. He rushes the last four stairs and pivots on the spot when his feet touch the wood paneling of the workshop floor. It’s worth it. When Eames hits the second-to-last step he freezes, one foot momentarily suspended in the air with a worrying wobble, and stares. He looks-- well. He looks, Arthur thinks grudgingly, trying half-heartedly to shake the glow lodged in his chest, he looks like a kid at Christmas.

“Oh my God,” Eames breathes, “this is Santa’s workshop.”

“And to think, I was so attracted to your intelligence,” Arthur teases rather weakly, still caught up in the beams of pure, high velocity, unicorn-spawning joy Eames is projecting from his eyes.

“Shut up,” Eames says and then turns the pure-high-velocity-unicorn-spawning-joy eyes on Arthur, though not before adding some kind of be-mine-forever-and-ever-and-adopt-some-puppies-with-me sheen.

“That’s really not fair,” Arthur says and then, when Eames looks bemused, gives his head a sharp mental shake. “Right. Never mind! Definitely never mind. You want a closer look at everything?”

“Yes, yes, and also yes,” Eames says, beaming, and sets off toward the nearest work station with Arthur in tow.

Arthur will grant that it’s something of an impressive sight. The workshop is his parents’ pride and joy, their first real project together-- they’d renovated it two summers after Anna moved to the North Pole. It’s a huge, sprawling place, full of the warm glow of natural light even during long, Arctic nights. It stretches for nearly a mile underground, and descends deep into the earth in ways that probably defy several laws of physics, but Arthur’s seen every corner of it one year or another and he can personally vouch for the fact that it never quite gets around to feeling impersonal. It genuinely is one of those Christmas miracles Eames was after but the truth is, it sort of gets old. Arthur spent at least as much of his childhood in the workshop as in the house, after all.

Watching Eames dart from elf to elf, toy to toy, asking so many questions he’s really only getting half the answers, it’s hard to remember to be tired of Christmas. Arthur sighs and intercepts Eames as he moves from the cloth dolls to the toy trains.

“Come on, there’s something you’re going to like,” he says, and Eames says, “There’s nothing I’m not going to like,” but he follows Arthur anyway.

“I get that this is all a sore subject,” Eames says suddenly as Arthur starts down their second flight of stairs. “Christmas, I mean, and all its accoutrement.”

“Wow, vocab points right there,” Arthur says without turning around, and then ducks the slap upside the head he knows is coming.

“Thanks, I’ll save them for a rainy day,” Eames says. “But seriously. Arthur.”

“I am not a gigantic Christmas fan,” Arthur allows. “But that doesn’t mean you need to-- don’t hold back on my account. For most people this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. You should enjoy it. I, you know. I enjoy that you enjoy it.”

He’s saved the necessity of blushing in Eames’ general direction by their arrival.

“Here we are,” he says rather unnecessarily, because Eames is already gaping.

They’re three stories underground by now, though the light still filters down in golden shafts from the ceiling, and right in the middle of the third level is the workshop Christmas tree. It’s a giant of a fir, standing tall and proud in the middle of its own miniature meadow, covered in a light dusting of snow and, of course, in ornaments.

The decorating of the tree is entire at the elves’ discretion and they, surprising exactly no one, are fucking experts in the field of tree-decorating. There’s a constant stream of elves wandering over from their workstations with handmade ornaments and scaling one of the staircases (which fold out of the ground on command-- one of his mother’s special touches) to hang it.

“Everyone makes one ornament a year. A lot of work goes into them, some of them are honestly kind of architectural marvels,” Arthur explains. It’s then that he spots Ariadne making her way up the stairs from level five with miniature, hanging snow globe in hand.

“Ariadne!” He calls, and she switches direction immediately, making a beeline for him through the crowd.

“Arthur!” She says gleefully, throwing her arms carefully around him in deference to the snow globe. “And Eames! Hi!”

“Hi,” Eames says, matching her grin-for-grin. “This place is amazing.”

“Isn’t it?” She asks, and then gives him a hug too, straining up on tiptoe to do it.

“Can I see your ornament?” Arthur asks and Ariadne nods, her cheeks flushing.

“I really liked last year’s, but I think this one’s my favorite so far,” she says.

Arthur holds the snow globe up to the light and peers in. He finds himself faced with the Chicago skyline, constructed carefully from what are clearly bits and bobs left over from Ariadne’s assigned toys-- pieces of yarn, scraps of glinting copper, and bright splashes of paint.

“It’s gorgeous,” he tells around the lump in his throat, and when he turns to hand the ornament to Eames the other man’s hand is already outstretched, an understanding look in his eyes. Arthur nods gratefully and then bends down to give Ariadne a real hug, one of the rib-crushing ones she delivers so well.

“I really will visit more often, I promise, and so will you,” he tells her quietly when he pulls back, and she smiles up at him, perfectly happy.

“I know you will,” She says with all the confidence in the world and then, “Ornament please!”

Eames hands it back to her with exaggerated care, and she laughs. “Smartass. Want to come hang it with me?”

“What-- me?” Eames asks and then, practically interrupting himself, “Yes. Yes, I do, I’d love to.”

Ariadne bounces off toward the tree, glancing back over her shoulder at Arthur to throw him a cheery wave. He waves back and shakes his head. Elves, he thinks wryly, but there’s really no denying it’s fond.

When the pair return, smelling of pine needles and brisk, winter air in another marriage of magic and technology his mother is very proud of, Arthur says, “Ariadne, we were thinking of visiting the elves’ village next. Do you have time to come along?”

“Oh my gosh, totally, yes!” Ariadne says, practically bubbling over, and Arthur laughs.

“You,” Ariadne says mock-sternly, “are the worst friend ever. Laughing at me, are you?!”

The punch she lands on his upper arm is impressively solid, but Arthur stopped being surprised by that years ago.

+ + +

Ariadne has the time of her life running the pair of them ragged all around the village, knocking on doors and bursting into shops to introduce Eames to everyone she’s ever met in her life. Arthur tags along for the ride and tries not to dwell too much on the fact that all anyone’s going to be talking about around here for the next month is that the boss’ kid got himself a boyfriend.

It’s not an awful afternoon, all things considered, and Arthur’s actually starting to believe that taking Eames home to mom and dad wasn’t the worst possible idea anyone’s ever had, ever, really ever, when Eames says, “What’s that?”

He sounds so excited and happy and genuinely curious that it takes Arthur a second to process what he’s pointing at.

“Oh, the stables!” Ariadne says. “Yes, we have to visit the reindeer, they’ll sulk if we don’t.”

Arthur bites back the sudden, bitter, “Why do you have to be so interested in everything?” that he wants to sling Eames’ way and instead says, “They aren’t going to know if we don’t visit, Ariadne.”

“They are,” she scolds. “Come on, Arthur, it’ll only take five minutes and then you can be a spoilsport and go back to the house.”

Eames is rocking up onto his toes and then back onto his heels, a slight frown on his face, but he doesn’t exactly disagree with Ariadne so Arthur grits his teeth against, “I’ve put up with a pretty damn impressive day of North Pole tourism already, if I do say so myself,” and doesn’t say anything at all.

+ + +

The stables are dim and claustrophobic and frankly smelly if you ask Arthur, and warm and cozy if you ask anyone else. The nine stalls are ranged on either side of a center aisle that’s nothing but packed dirt, and Arthur would swear he can feel every single reindeer head in the place turn to glare at him the minute he steps through the doors.

“Oh my God,” Eames breathes, which has been something of a theme for him today. “Reindeer. Santa’s reindeer.”

He moves his thrilled gaze toward Arthur and Arthur turns his head sharply away to stare at Comet, who is a distinctly less pleasant sight and who makes what Arthur would classify as a derisive snort and shakes his antlers the minute their eyes meet. Still, as ploddingly annoyed as Arthur's suddenly become, he doesn’t want to ruin Eames’ mood with his own.

“Yep, Santa’s reindeer!” Ariadne agrees brightly. “Ignore the smell, it grows on you. Want to meet them?”

“Of course,” Eames says with an approximation of his usual enthusiasm. Arthur frowns to himself. Managed to ruin it anyway, somehow.

Ariadne and Eames make their way through the stables, with Eames greeting each reindeer with a solemn, “Hello,” or “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir.” Arthur expels a quick, exasperated breath through his nose, charmed in spite of himself. Just his luck that he’s acquired a, well, an Eames who not only loves Christmas and caroling and snow, but also wants to be personal friends with every one of his father’s reindeer.

“They really fly?” Eames is asking at the far end of the aisle, and Ariadne is nodding.

“Yep! Maybe somebody can take them for a trial run while you guys are visiting, that way--”

“No,” Arthur says. He thinks it comes out pretty calmly, all things considered, but he’ll grant that his voice is maybe a little flatter than usual. “Ariadne, this is all fine, great, whatever, but we’re not doing that while I’m here.”

She sighs and aims a truly professional pout in his general direction, but he only shakes his head.

“No way,” he says.

“But Eames wants to see, don’t you Eames?” She says, projecting more faux-innocence than he’s heard from her since she was seven and he was nine and they’d broken one of the workshop windows during a particularly energetic snowball fight.

There is silence for a moment and Arthur suddenly feels, acutely, the distance from one end of the stables to the other.

“It’s fine, really,” Eames says. “Not important. Lovely just to meet them!”

“Well, if you say so,” Ariadne says in a rush, looking a little embarrassed. “Um. Okay! Well, I guess that’s about it out here, so. You guys can do whatever it was you were going to do! Sorry about the detour.”

“It wasn’t a detour at all,” Eames says. “It was an absolute delight. Thank you for the tour.”

“Thanks,” Arthur agrees. “It was great to see you. We’ll have to hang out again before the two of us head back home.”

“We will!” Ariadne agrees, back to one hundred percent levels of perk. “The sledding’s been really good this snowfall, I bet Eames would love that.”

“I would indeed,” Eames agrees, and Arthur dredges up a smile for Ariadne before she blinks and disappears on the spot.

“So,” Eames says as they’re trudging back up toward the house. “Reindeer?”

“We don’t get along,” Arthur says, which he can’t help but feel sums it up pretty damn well.

“What’s not to get along with?” Eames asks. “They’re awfully friendly.”

“You spent ten minutes with them,” Arthur points out, reining in his annoyance as best he can. “I’m not sure how you’re supposed to know whether or not they’re ‘friendly.’”

In retrospect, if he was really reining in his annoyance as best he could, he probably shouldn’t have made the quotation marks around “friendly” quite as obvious.

“Right,” Eames says shortly. “Fine. Fair point.”

They’re silent the rest of the way back to the front door.

+ + +

“Hungry?” Arthur asks suddenly when they’ve tugged off all of their extra layers, and Eames seems to recognize it as the terse peace offering it is, because he says, “A bit, yeah.”

They make their way to the kitchen, where there’s a note stuck to the front of the fridge.

Arthur & Eames, it reads in his mother’s handwriting, We’re very sorry, but we won’t be able to do anything for dinner tonight-- there’s been a glitch in toy train manufacturing on Level 3, and it’s too close to Christmas to let it wait. Help yourselves to whatever you like.

So dinner is a free-for-all sort of affair, with Eames making himself a peanut butter, honey, and banana sandwich Arthur cringes at behind his back and Arthur warming up a plateful of mashed potatoes and chicken from the night before.

They eat in near silence, which could of course be because Eames’ mouth is stuck shut due to the potent peanut butter and honey combination but which is, Arthur has to admit, more likely because neither of them has much of anything to say. It doesn’t seem fair, really, Arthur thinks. Bringing Eames back to the North Pole and showing him the house and the workshop and the village and the god damn reindeer was a concession. He was trying to give a little ground to the universe, take a few steps backward, earn himself something like a happy ending. The problem, he thought as he stabbed at his lukewarm potatoes with a fork, the problem was that his definition of a happy ending was lazing around a Chicago apartment, bundled up and staying firmly inside when the weather turned toward winter, reading the morning paper and arguing amiably about U.S. foreign policy. And Eames’ happy ending involved, well. Reindeer.

“I just don’t get it,” he blurts out halfway through his chicken. “I don’t get it at all, and I really hate that the rest of the world apparently does.”

“Sorry?” Eames says, looking genuinely taken by surprise.

“Christmas,” Arthur says. “I don’t get it. I never have, and I just-- I don’t get it.”

I want to get it, he doesn’t say. I want to get it, and I want us to have those pretty postcard Christmases and buy each other cheesy presents that we each secretly love, and bundle up by a fire with hot cocoa, but if we did that I think I’d probably throw up or break something.

There is a long, drawn out silence during which Eames stares at Arthur as if sometimes he’s the one who honestly doesn’t understand. Arthur feels something nervous flip over in his stomach. But when Eames opens his mouth what he says is innocuous and teasing enough.

“Arthur,” Eames says. “Decorations. Extra helpings of dessert. Presents.”

“Commercialism, out-of-tune carolers, and people pretending to like each other,” Arthur counters because Lord knows he’s heard it a million times before. “It’s a meaningless day in the middle of winter that the world’s appropriated as a good time to exchange gifts and silently judge each other. What is it about Christmas that means all the good will everyone’s throwing around is suddenly genuine?”

Eames sighs and rubs one hand against his hairline, looking tired. Arthur wishes it was his hand there, suddenly. This conversation is spiraling away from him in ways he’s frightened of, and he could use something to hold on to.

“I don’t know,” he says finally. “I just believe it is, I suppose. And...”

“And I don’t,” Arthur finishes, brittle.

“I suppose not,” Eames says, sounding beyond exasperated. “I suppose you don’t, and that’s fine Arthur, honestly it’s fine--”

“People aren’t better people just because they get warm fuzzy feelings at Christmas. There’s nothing special about that,” Arthur spits at the table. “There’s nothing special about, about buying into it, the whole thing about peace and love and candy canes and a jolly fat guy giving everybody presents.”

“Point taken,” Eames says, sounding awfully brittle himself. It’s a slap in the face sort of realization, and it makes Arthur’s head snap up. Eames is looking straight at him, and more than anything else he looks sad. “There’s nothing special about not buying into it either, you know. I’ll grant you there’s something special about growing up inside of it, and whatever it is that’s got you so pissed off about the whole thing I’m sorry, but I don’t see why it matters quite so much.”

I’m not sure I do either, anymore, Arthur almost says.

“It does,” Arthur says.

“I’m going upstairs,” Eames says after a beat. He stands up and it looks, to Arthur’s hopelessly fixed gaze, like he’s carrying a weight that’s just that little bit too heavy for him. “If you need more space you can feel free to relocate me, or yourself. It’s your house.”

It’s his parents' house, really, and Arthur feels that acutely as he sits alone at the kitchen table. There’s nowhere to curl up and lick his wounds, nowhere to regroup and rethink and try again. This house makes him feel worn down, has for a long time, and there were moments today when he thought maybe it didn’t have to anymore.

Oh well, he thinks dully, and finishes his dinner.

+ + +

He's still sitting in the kitchen an hour later, pouring disinterestedly over the paper, when his mother strides in and opens the fridge.

"How was your day?" She asks briskly, and he rustles the paper in an attempt to prove he was oh-so-busy before she so rudely interrupted.

"Alright," he says and then, like the words have pushed themselves out of his throat, "We visited the reindeer."

She sighs, setting down a block of cheese on the counter and rummaging through the drawer for a cutting board.

"Your father always wreaks havoc on any perfectly good organizational system," she says fondly, sounding rather distant. "And I'm sorry."

Arthur is still smiling to himself over how much she loves his father because, really, he can't help that it makes him happy, and it takes him a minute to catch up to the apology.

"Sorry for what?" He asks. "The reindeer? Jesus."

"Overdue, I know, I know," she says hurriedly. "You don't have to tell me."

"Well, I sort of reserve the right to point it out," Arthur says.

She snorts, shaking her head a little.

"Fair enough," she says, dry, and she does think that's fair, Arthur realizes. It's the same right she'd expect extended to herself. "I never thought Rudolph would bite for goodness' sake. I thought if you saw how fun it was--"

"I told you I wasn't going to enjoy it," Arthur points out, but a lot of the heat he was expecting in his voice isn't there. Maybe it's because he's tired or maybe it's because she actually apologized, but anger seems distant.

"Yes, I remember it distinctly," she says as if she's recalling a childhood temper tantrum which, from where she's standing, she sort of is. Arthur had been ten when he'd determinedly told his parents that he wasn't going to sit around stuck in this stupid place his whole life; he didn't want to be Santa Claus. His father had been startled, maybe, and gone around looking something like disappointed until the following Wednesday when he'd sat Arthur down and said, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't call it 'this stupid place' anymore, but as for the rest of it, that's fine by me. We'll figure out something else. What do you want to do instead?," and since "this stupid place" had mostly been a heat-of-the-moment, nerves-induced pejorative, Arthur had thought those were perfectly acceptable terms.

His mother, though, his mother's face had closed off the minute he'd said "stuck," and she'd embarked on what could only be described as a campaign.

She'd sent him to work with the elves twice as often as usual (he'd started to keep track out of resentment and genuine, statistical curiosity) and enlisted him in every bit of cookie-baking his father did on Saturdays, dragged him to the engineering section of the workshop and been so determined about showing it to him that she hardly showed it to him at all. And then, of course, there'd been the sleigh. He hadn't even managed to get the damn thing off the ground.

"Flying that sleigh was the thing that convinced me, you know," his mother says in an almost wistful tone.

"What, to stay here?" Arthur says. His lip curls in something that's probably the start of a sneer, and he tries to school his face back into neutrality even though they aren't looking at each other.

"Yes," she says a little more sharply, and he can tell she heard his tone shift. "I've never understood, you know, why that made you so angry."

"Mom," Arthur says, because this has always baffled him, this lack of comprehension, "you wanted to see the world. You wanted-- you wanted to do some seriously exciting shit. And then--"

"And then this happened," his mother says, and he hears her shift to lean against the counter. He turns to face her, does her the same courtesy she's doing him, and sees that her eyes are wide with anger, yes, but also with genuine surprise. "This is some 'seriously exciting shit,' you know."

One corner of her mouth is twisted up in half a smile, and he is reminded forcibly of where he gets his sense of humor (not to mention his healthy love of four-letter words), but it's all blown straight out of his mind by one very simple idea.

"Oh my God," he says. "I have to go. Mom, I have to go. But, um, not because-- you know, not for the usual reasons. Like, I think we can both agree this hasn't been a screaming match of any sort."

"I'd noticed, yes," she says, looking caught-off-guard but calm enough. "Wherever it is you have to go, go I suppose."

He darts for the door and grinds to a halt at the last second, his leading foot already on the second stair. He turns, gripping the banister, and says, in the direction of the kitchen, "Thanks. For the apology."

He rushes off before she has a chance to respond, but the faintly amused, You're welcome, follows him toward the second floor.

+ + +

"I always thought she hated it here!" Arthur bursts out. He'd shoved at the light switch as he scrambled through the door, and it's illuminated a bed full of mussed, sleepy Eames.

"Er," Arthur says. "Sorry. But. I sort of needed to tell someone and you were--"

He almost says and you were here, but that wouldn't be the truth, so instead he says, "You were who I wanted to talk to."

Eames shoves himself into a vaguely upright position and manages a smile before he ends up having to manage a jaw-cracking yawn instead.

"Well that's flattering," he says without a trace of sarcasm, and Arthur feels something flip over in his stomach, but there'll be time for that later.

"My mother," he says. "She loves it here. She really does. She gets to-- to do crazy shit with engineering and technology and magic, and she's fucking crazy about my dad, they've been married for ages, Jesus. She loves it here."

It sounds mundane and obvious now that he says it out loud, but he barrels onward.

"She met my dad and fell in love and moved to the top of the world and I thought, you know, what a shitty, shitty thing to have happen to you, to follow some guy to the fucking North Pole when all you wanted was excitement."

"I think she's found it pretty exciting here," Eames says.

"Yes I'm getting to that," Arthur says, but he can't even bring himself to be angry that Eames robbed him of the big reveal. Stupid Eames. Stupid Eames and his fucking people skills. Stupid, wonderful Eames and his stupid fucking wonderful people skills.

"Are you alright?" Eames asks after a moment. "Only you're doing a bit of vacant staring and frankly, I hate seeing you vacant."

Arthur raises an eyebrow and opens his mouth to speak, but Eames holds up a forestalling hand.

"Moments directly after sex excepted, obviously."

Arthur closes his mouth again.

There is another silence and then Arthur starts and says, "Oh. I'm mad at you."

"Yes," Eames says carefully, "we were mad at each other. Yes."

"Nice use of the past-tense, very subtle," Arthur says and closes the door behind him at last. He sinks down on the edge of the mattress, toeing off his shoes.

"I really don't care, you know," Eames says very quietly. "About you and Christmas, I mean. Or-- no, shit, I do care, that's not what I--"

Arthur had been going to go right along with the past-tense, turn off the light, and perhaps engage in a bit of stealth-cuddling (which, obviously, he would deny the next morning) but it appeared now was not the time. So instead he stayed perched on the edge of the mattress, his back stiffer than it had been a moment ago, trying his best to will himself calm.

"What I meant," Eames says to Arthur's back, "was that it doesn't bother me. I don't know if I even have the right to be bothered! But putting that aside, because I'm not--Arthur. It doesn't bother me if you don't like Christmas, but I will confess to being an absolutely sentimental bastard, and it does make me a bit sad because, you know, I'd love to show you the joys of Christmas and put loads of stars in your eyes or, or whatever, but--"

"I don't particularly want to be shown them," Arthur finishes in a rush.

"Right," Eames says, taking a deep breath and forging onward, "and so I should probably get over that, shouldn't I?"

"Probably," Arthur says as mildly as he can manage. There's something like relief hammering away at the insides of his skull, something like he gets it he gets it he gets it.

"The thing about it is, I mean, presents and candy and things, I do still like all of that," Eames says. He sounds so tentative that Arthur actually manages to turn halfway around. He finds himself staring at Eames' elbow.

"I don't mind that you like all of that," he says. Even as he says it he's wondering if it's true, and Eames seems to be as well, because he says, "Do you not? Mind, I mean? I mean-- shit, fuck, fucking shitting fuck, what I mean is, does it really not bother you that I like all those things? Because-- and I think you've probably noticed this-- for the most part I do my best not to mention them. And I'm not always very good at not mentioning them."

"I had noticed. And I don't mind." Arthur says, and it turns out that he doesn't, not really, because fuck it, candy's just candy anyway and he doesn't find the taste of mint nearly as objectionable when he's discovering it just at the corner of Eames' mouth.

"Oh. Good," Eames says, and Arthur gets up and turns off the light. As he makes his way back to his side of the bed and burrows underneath the blankets he feels rather than sees Eames draw breath to speak.

"The presents and the candy and things," Eames says, "they aren't why I love Christmas. I mean, presumably you have heard all of the stuff sentimental bastards such as myself tend to spout already. Do I get any credit for not routinely trying to beat you over the head about the joys of Christmas? Basic human goodness, peace on earth, goodwill towards man, etc., etc.?"

"You really, really do," Arthur says, more fervently than he'd meant to, and he hears Eames breath out something that's half-relief, half-chuckle.

"Get that a lot, do you?" He asks, rolling over so that he's on his side in the dark, facing Arthur.

"God yes," Arthur says, ducking his head so that if anyone moves just a bit during the night he'll wake up tucked underneath Eames' chin. "And then I get people looking at me, you know, 'Oh, well, he clearly doesn't want peace on earth or goodwill toward men, the asshole. He is not deserving of our Most Holy And Delicious Candy Canes, let's find someone who actually values humanity and give one to him.'"

There is a pause, and then Arthur says rather weakly, "Alright, I was exaggerating about the candy canes. Has it ever occurred to anyone that I might be a basically good person who wants peace on earth and goodwill toward men?"

"Well, yes," Eames says, sounding sleepy. "It's occurred to me."

Arthur is overcome by an honest-to-god rush of affection, one that fizzles through his bloodstream and thrums at his heart.

"Of course it has," he says quietly, and lets Eames answer him with what he decides to himself is a very loving snore.

+ + +

Arthur sleeps soundly straight through to the morning, and when he arrives in the kitchen still blinking sleep haze from his eyes it is to find Eames, seated at the table, eating a Christmas cookie.

"I-- that is not right," Arthur says. "That is so far from breakfast food it isn't even-- that is not right."

Eames grins at him, displaying a disgusting mouthful of crumbs.

"You are not as charming as you think you are," Arthur says.

"Liar," Eames says, somehow managing not to spray the table with bits of cookie.

"Anyway," he adds, having chewed and swallowed, "if you can't eat cookies for breakfast in Santa Claus' fucking house, where can you eat them?"

"I don't know if you've noticed, but my dad's not the cookies-for-breakfast type," Arthur says, sinking down into the seat next to Eames and pulling the newspaper toward him.

"I had noticed that, actually, that skinny bastard," Eames says cheerfully, stealing the comics from under Arthur's nose.

There are a few minutes of blessed silence during which Arthur ingests nearly enough coffee to feel human and Eames selects another cookie, this one in the shape of a Christmas tree.

"Sorry to interrupt your morning caffeine intake," Eames says after a few bites, "but these are fucking delicious."

"I should make my dad give me the recipe, we can make them back home," Arthur says without really thinking about it. He still isn't really thinking about it when he looks up to see Eames smiling at him, and then he has to take a couple of deep breaths and a gulp of still-too-hot coffee in an attempt not to grin stupidly back.

Only once he's managed to get some air into his lungs and recover from the mild scalding he thinks, why the fuck shouldn't he grin stupidly back, exactly?, and does, so it was all sort of in vain.

"We could make them for Halloween," Eames suggests. "Slightly grotesque shapes, you know. Skulls, ghouls, ruptured internal organs."

"Ruptured internal organs?" Arthur says. "God, I was going to say that's disgusting but that is the best thing about it. I love your brain."

Eames beams at him triumphantly and resumes his perusal of the comics.

The truth is, in spite of how unusually charitable he's been feeling toward his childhood since last night's conversation with his mother (well, and with Eames-- no point in pretending that didn't make him feel sort of tremendously better), using his parents' famed Christmas cookie recipe and to create sprinkle-covered, ruptured internal organs is exactly the sort of thing he's never known he always wanted to do.

He suspects Eames knows this as the incontrovertible fact it is, somehow, which would be mildly unsettling if it weren't for the fact that Arthur is in love with him.

Arthur sighs down at the sports section-- he hates reading the paper when it's not baseball season-- and takes another sip of his thankfully cooler coffee.

+ + +

They've never really talked about when they'll be heading back home-- or even how long they're welcome, for that matter, though Arthur is starting to get the odd feeling they'd be welcome for as long as they liked-- but when his mother says uncomfortably and to no one in particular over dinner that night, "Things are really ramping up in the workshop, we'll have to start moving overflow preparation into the house soon," Arthur makes the executive decision that they are leaving tomorrow. His mother may have apologized-- for the reindeer, anyway-- and he may have decided that it is probably alright if other people spend a bit of time smiling vacuously at tinsel in his presence, but he is not ready to live in the middle of Operation: This Is Christmas Motherfuckers. When preparation moves to the house it is like Christmas itself has actually eaten enough fruitcake to get ragingly drunk and then thrown up into every nook and cranny of the place. Arthur still vividly remembers being eight and rounding a corner to find himself face-to-face with an entire hallway of elves frantically testing toy pianos.

"We'll probably be leaving sometime tomorrow," he says fifteen minutes later, doing his best to introduce it as an unrelated topic.

"Yeah, I only took five days off work," Eames says, which Arthur realizes he didn't know. Eames had never brought it up, had never said, "I really can't stay much longer," or, "I've only got so much time for this, you know." Those would have been perfectly reasonable things to say, absolutely, normal, sane, neutral things to say, and Arthur would've either jumped at the chance to escape or taken it as a subtle hint that Eames hated this place and by extension him and would be returning to Chicago at the nearest opportunity, complete with a new name, phone number, and address.

"It was good of you to do that," Arthur hears himself saying, which is absolutely mortifying because the people who raised him are right here in the room and they are perfectly aware that he rarely sees the point of social niceties, and they are going to know. And yes, yes they do, because Arthur can see his father fighting a sudden grin and his mother directing a startled look at the tablecloth. They know, they know, they fucking know.

Do you suppose Eames knows? A little voice in the back of his mind asks, which derails his panic almost entirely before rerouting it onto a thoroughly different track.

You've never told him, the little voice points out. You've sort of taken it as a given, haven't you: you love him, he loves you, you both demonstrate it via embarrassed, fond looks and bickering, but guess what? This is the kind of thing people appreciate being told. Jesus Christ, Arthur, he is probably sitting over there right now wondering how soon is too soon to tell you he's looking for someone with whom he's actually got a future, he's probably going to say something atrocious and cliched like, 'It's just that I see this as long-term,' and then you are going to be forced to explain, out loud, that you do too, and there will be a lot of stammering and holy shit, fix this right the fuck now.

He blinks dazedly and hopes there's a limited amount of inner turmoil showing on his face, because otherwise his father is going to think the meal he spent so much time cooking is lethally poisonous.

"Arthur?" His mother says briskly, and he jerks his head in her direction. "Your father's been trying to ask you something."

She looks a little uneasy, but not in the way Arthur's generally familiar with, not in the way that means he's done something wrong. So he tries very hard to ignore the various jangling thoughts about love and conversations and fucking soap opera melodramatics that are fighting for center stage and listens when his father says, "I just wanted to make sure, before I did it, that you didn't mind."

"I'm sorry," Arthur says, trying to recall even a shred of the past few minutes' conversation, "I think you're going to have to contextualize that."

Arthur's father sighs rather fondly and says, "I'm right, aren't I, in thinking you don't want to be Santa Claus?"

Arthur's face freezes, he's sure of it, and so do those jangling thoughts, all of them icing over and dropping with a thud to the pit of his stomach where they lie in a heap, uneasy and far, far too heavy. God, what a time for this to come up, what a fucking time. He'd really thought he was going to make it without answering this question, and now here he was at the dinner table, his boyfriend-who-was-probably-going-to-leave-him-for-a-Christmas-loving-commitment-aholic next to him, his mother gazing levelly at him from one end of the table and his father waiting rather bemusedly at the other.

"I," he says, because no, no, he does not want to be Santa Claus, that is the last thing he wants. He wants to go back to Chicago and work long hours straight through December, and he wants to wade home through wind and snow to find Eames there, waiting for him in an apartment that is just barely decorated, the bits of holly few enough and far enough between that you might almost think they were there by accident (but not entirely absent because, he's discovered, he likes the way red and green make Eames' face light up).

But Eames loves it here, loves Christmas, and after all Arthur's never actually voiced the thought that, well, that Arthur might love Eames, which was clearly a massive fuck up because now, when he says no, what in the world will that make Eames think, what--

"Of course you don't want to," Eames mutters, his breath warm against Arthur's ear. Arthur realizes that Eames, in the midst of the sudden and undeniably awkward silence, has scooted his chair over so that it's nudging against Arthur's. "Say no, what in the world is the matter with you? You don't want to be miserable, surely."

If his parents weren't staring at them from opposite ends of the table, Arthur would be initiating some decidedly frantic and overwhelmed kissing just now.

"No, I don't," Arthur says to his dad and his dad nods.

"Right," he says. "I'll offer it to Ariadne then. I've been meaning to for a while, but I did want to make sure you didn't mind before I gave away your entire birthright. It seemed rude not to, I guess."

"You're going to what?" Arthur says, his poor, exhausted brain still lagging behind.

"Oh she'll love that," Eames says, his entire face eaten by his smile. "God, I'd love to see her get that news, she's going to go absolutely ballistic. She'll probably achieve liftoff."

"She will, she'll actually gain the power of flight," Arthur says, feeling wrung out and astonished and remarkably happy.

"Well, maybe I'll tell her before you two leave," Arthur's dad says, digging back into his dinner. "She'll certainly want to celebrate."

+ + +

Ariadne is invited over for coffee, dessert, and a surprise. In a show of excellent planning, Arthur's father does not tell her the good news until after she has finished both the coffee and the dessert, with the result that she does not choke, nor does anyone get spit on.

What happens instead is that one minute Arthur is sitting on the sofa, grinning down at his feet and trying not to spoil things by looking too excited, and the next Ariadne is flying at him, her feet leaving the ground so rapidly that for a second he thinks it's all coming true and she's actually going to burst through the ceiling and into the night sky.

Instead she gets her arms around his neck and her face in his shoulder and says something which sounds a lot like, "Oh best thing ever, best thing ever, God, oh my God," which is as it should be.

"You've got to come visit," she says when she's pulled back and dragged a quick sleeve over her eyes. "You've got to come visit all the time, I mean, I'll be in training for a while, obviously, I mean, I assume--"

Arthur's father nods.

"So you'll come visit or I'll come visit you or, you know, whatever, oh my God."

Things continue in this vein for quite some time, which Arthur really has no objection to whatsoever because she really is so excited, she's over-the-moon and shooting out into the galaxy levels of excited, and she's going to be so phenomenally good at the job that it almost hurts, how much sense it makes.

Eames knocks their shoulders together, and Arthur turns to him, a huge smile on his face. Eames leans in and Arthur is sure that there, in the warmth and comfort of the living room with Ariadne babbling excitedly at his parents in the background, with a tremendous weight lifted from his own shoulders and easing away into the ether, Eames is going to say something so incredibly sweeping and romantic and sentimental it will make them both a little nauseous. Arthur will, he decides, probably be okay with that.

"Don't forget to get that recipe before we go," Eames whispers into his ear. "I want to make spleen cookies, I've decided."

Arthur is okay with that as well. More than okay with it, even.

"Spleen cookies," he says, and he can tell he is imbuing the words with perhaps more weight than they would ordinarily be due, "sound fucking perfect."

+ + +

His mother calls him on the first day of December.

Before that happens, these things do:

He and Eames return home, clinging to Ariadne as they whirl through nowhere and out the other side, straight into the middle of Arthur's Chicago apartment; he loves his apartment, he thinks happily, dropping his suitcase to the floor with a muffled thump and digging his toes hard into the carpet, so proud of this cramped little home he has made, all on his own.

A week later, Eames has not left his apartment, but that night he says, "I suppose I ought to head back home. My stuff is sort of...there." Arthur ignores the frightened clench in his stomach and says, "You should probably go where your stuff is," and Eames says, "Hmm, yes. My spare toothbrush is here, is the thing, and I think I've left my actual toothbrush at the North Pole. So I'll probably be back."

So he is, most nights (Arthur can only assume that he has bought another toothbrush for those nights when he is not), and when he isn't that's alright as well, because he will be the next day. Arthur cannot help but feel that he is being acclimated to this, that Eames is working out his schedule based on some twelve-step guide, "How To Live With Slightly Prickly People Who, In Spite of Their Fondness For You, Enjoy Their Own Space." This does not bother him particularly, because it means he gets to enjoy the look of surprise and open joy on Eames' face when he says, "Remind me again why you aren't just here all the time?"

One Sunday in mid-September, they are eating a sort-of-lunch (this is what Eames calls it when lunch is your first meal of the day), and Arthur remembers.

"Oh!" He says. "I love you, by the way."

Eames sighs in a long-suffering and fond way, and says, "Well thank you for deigning to drop that into conversation, I do so appreciate it."

"Wow, shut up," Arthur says, grabbing the remote and flicking through channels.

"I love you too, of course," Eames says, "as long as we are stating the ragingly obvious."

"Egotistical, much?" Arthur asks because ragingly obvious, really?

So that's settled.

Halloween is a flurry of costumes and alcohol, aptly provided by Yusuf, who really does throw the best parties (Eames insists on going as a drunken Superman, his cape askew and his hair mussed, and Arthur nominally goes as a pirate-- he has an eyepatch, god damn it-- but whenever anyone asks what he is he says, dryly, "His keeper, tragically," and Eames makes several jokes about Lois Lane, intrepid reporter, before Arthur suggests to him in extremely solemn tones that if they continue there will be no sex whatsoever at the end of the evening). Thanksgiving passes would pass without any events of note, since Eames doesn't really celebrate it and Arthur has never liked turkey, except that Eames' parents invite them to come visit, so Arthur experiences the full force of an English eccentric on her home turf. It's terrifying, but extremely enjoyable, and nobody cooks a turkey.

In addition: Eames acquires the terrible habit of kicking Arthur's foot under the table, which Arthur breaks him of by kicking back, hard. It is quickly established that there will be times when Arthur needs a space entirely and wholly to himself, and during those times the kitchen is his domain. Eames needs less space, but there are days when he still needs it; on such occasions, he gets the couch. They bicker about reasons for the increase in the cost of gas, the best way to run a Congressional campaign (House vs. Senate and rural district vs. urban district included), reasons the Cubs will never win another World Series, how many ornithologists it takes to screw in a light bulb (god, that's a terrible joke), and why anyone would want to wear paisley socks. They only really fight twice, and once it's about the invention of the telephone so in retrospect, it doesn't quite count. Arthur takes Eames to a barbecue at Dom's house, and Eames discovers the facts of Mal's death in an astonishing ten minutes and forty-two seconds, a new record; he then manages to tactfully comfort Dom and change the subject to the Power Rangers in about two seconds flat, winning him James, Philippa, and their father as lifelong best friends. Arthur is knocked flat on his back by the entire experience, but in a way which is decidedly good. Also, they consider and promptly reject the possibility of getting a puppy and get a goldfish instead.

Then, on the first day of December, Arthur's mother calls.

They have a tentative, slightly awkward conversation which goes on for twenty minutes. When Arthur hangs up he is a bit baffled, but he knows all about Blitzen's hoof rot and his mother is newly informed about his latest patients. He feels fairly certain this is a good thing, so he waits a week and then picks up the phone in turn.

Christmas will come and go, he feels certain-- in spite of the slight twists his father has to engineer to accomplish all those deliveries on the 24th, Arthur still has a fair bit of faith in the concept of linear time. Christmas will come and go, which should be alright. He and Eames will exchange gifts with minimal ceremony, and then they will munch on some truly delicious internal organs (Eames has a flair for the kidneys; Arthur is best at the appendix, which might say something strange about his psyche but fuck that anyway, it's being determinedly ignored), and Arthur will grudgingly concede that the lights in the park border on gorgeous if Eames admits that everyone who gets within a five-mile radius of the mall turns into a screeching demon with claws for hands and soulless, black eyes.

So there, Arthur thinks to the universe at large as he sprawls on the couch, his shoes kicked off, watching The Daily Show. So there, he thinks as Eames shoves his legs off the edge to make room. So there, he thinks as snow falls outside, illuminated every few feet by the warm glow of a streetlamp. So there, he thinks, I win.