Fanfic: Bad Romance [ 1 / 1 ] Arthur / Eames
Title: Bad Romance
Rating: Teen
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur / Eames
Disclaimer: I own nothing, sadly. If I did I might have created a bad romance between Arthur and Eames. Did that happen? No.
Warning(s): Mild drunkenness, m / m kissing
Summary: Written to fill a prompt on inception_kink . When Arthur is dragged out to celebrate the inception by Eames, no one really expected him to get drunk enough to participate in the open mic night at the bar. Who knew that Arthur was not only a decent guitarist but a Lady GaGa fan too?
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Author's Note: Inspired by this performance by JGL.
It took a lot of coaxing on Eames’ part to get stick-in-the-mud Arthur to come out with the team to the bar the night after the inception but in the end he decided that it was well worth it. Cobb was at home with his kids, of course, but the rest of them had no such obligations and so decided to enjoy their night off. It wasn’t one of these incredibly high end places but it wasn’t exactly filled to the brim with drug dealers and prostitutes either. It was just one of these upper level bars where someone like Saito could fit in easily without any of the rest of them seeming out of place. He did, after all, have just a good a reason to celebrate as any of the rest of them did.
The previous acts were mostly wannabe comedians and there were a few people who chose to try their hand at playing the provided electric guitar while singing. The team didn’t really pay attention to any of that while they chatted and drank, Arthur eventually loosening up enough to pull his tie loose and allow his black hair to fall free of the confines of the gel he usually kept it slicked back so tightly. He was even smiling and chuckling softly, his dimples showing and making him look a little younger. Eames decided it was a good look on him and was going to make sure that it would appear more often in the future.
But first thing was first. Mother nature was calling him so he quickly excused himself to go use the restroom, expecting that everything would be the same when he got back. Ariadne was a little more drunk than she was before hand but she was leaning on Yusuf who really didn’t see to mind. Saito was watching them with an amused expression as he continued drinking his high quality drink (whatever it was) and Arthur… well that was odd. Arthur wasn’t sitting at his spot at the table. Eames took his seat at the table and looked around, trying to find the wayward point man but in the end had to ask Saito.
“He is getting ready on the stage,” the businessman answered and pointed with his drink to the small stage where so many other acts had performed that night. The forger couldn’t help but stare in a mixture of surprise and amusement. So Arthur was going to try and play the guitar was he? This was going to be interesting. He was in the process of tuning it though he seemed to be having a bit of trouble standing up properly too. This was going to be funny indeed. Eames just wished he had his camera with him.
When Arthur was done with the tuning he strummed out all the notes to make sure they were in the right harmony and turned to the audience, not bothering to brush the stray stands of hair away from his face. “Now I’m about to make it worth it,” he said, glancing at his hand as he placed it carefully on the neck of the guitar to make sure he knew the distance he needed to keep it at, “This is going to be worth you sitting there and watching me tune my fucking guitar.”
Eames chuckled quietly at the curse word and settled back in his chair, taking a deep swig of the beer he was holding onto while Arthur started playing, his fingers easily finding the notes he needed as he focused on the crowd in front of him who, by now, had all eyes focused on him. He had a smile on his face as he kicked up the music, as if he was already finding the inside joke funny. Under the dim lights of the bar, his dimples looked a little deeper but he didn’t seem to care. Drunk Arthur was clearly enjoying himself.
“I want your ugly, I want your disease,” Arthur sang softly, his smile fading so his face looked serious for a moment, “I want your everything so long as it’s free // I want your love…” A long note lingered. “Love love love, I want your love.” He leaned back from the microphone for a moment and nodded drunkenly as the women in the audience cheered him on, his smile returning before he continued.
“I want your drama, the touch of your hand.” Eames could swear those dark eyes lingered on him for just a moment with Arthur added, “I want your leather studded kiss in the sand, I want your love. Love love love, I want your love.” Eames couldn’t help but feel just a little flattered at the words being essentially sung to him and made a mental note to remind dear Arthur of exactly what he said when he was sober enough to be embarrassed about it. The fact that the point man was smiling again as if he was laughing about his own words certainly didn’t help.
After a second he leaned in closer and lowered his voice, his hands stopping the sound of the guitar while he spoke, coming out in an almost growl as he looked over the crowd in general, “You know that I want you.” His eyebrows jumped playfully. “You know that I need you. I want it bad, bad romance…”
He broke out of the lower range and sang almost happily, his dark eyes closed as he focused on his words and the music he played. “I want your love and your lover’s revenge, you and me could have a bad romance.” He repeated himself with more passion, though he didn’t open his eyes until he was done with the repetition, his gaze focusing once again on Eames as he said that he was “Caught in a bad romance…” twice over. That flutter in the English man’s stomach earlier floated upward toward his chest. So that’s how it was between them was it?
There was a bunch of staccato sounds that made Arthur’s face distort and pulled more than one laugh from various crowd members but of young man noticed he hardly seemed to care. He was more focused on his music, even as drunk as he was. The forager quickly finished his beer and ordered another one from the waitress, determined to keep his good mood going while he watched his comrade embarrass himself to new levels… or so it was initially supposed to be embarrassment. He honestly hadn’t thought that Arthur would be this good.
“I want your horror, I want your design,” Arthur continued, his attention focusing on Ariadne who smiled and cheered him on, “Cause you’re a criminal as long as you’re mine, I want your love. Love, love, love, I want your love.” Eames could have sworn he saw Ariadne swoon in her seat next to Yusuf but, to be honest, he was starting to blame the beer for that kind of thing. He hadn’t been drinking enough to see that. At least he didn’t think so.
Arthur laughed to himself again but then grew serious as his wild hands almost stilled, the music he was playing becoming softer as he spoke. “Now for those of you still doubting the artistic integrity of Lady Gaga-” he paused and let a few bar patrons add their cat calls between his words, “-this next verse as three Hitchcock references and the use of the word ‘schtick’…” Whatever he said next was lost on Eames as the Englishman was laughing a little too hard at the fact that the ever prim and proper Arthur had just said “schtick” out in the open like that.
The music kicked up again but this time Arthur’s dark eyes locked on Eames, his words smoothly falling off his lips as the spoke. Eames was just glad he had set his beer bottle down a moment or two earlier. If he hadn’t he might have dropped it. “I want your psycho, you vertigo schtick,” Arthur seemed to purr into the microphone, “I want you in my rear window, baby you’re sick. I want your love. Love, love, love I want your love….”
There was a repetition of his earlier words, saying he wanted and needed the person the song was written for but his eyes never really lingered on anyone. Eames didn’t bother pretending now that he didn’t find Arthur’s singing voice appealing, especially when such words were directed at him. Oh he wasn’t obvious. He had known before coming to the bar tonight that Arthur was appealing in that distant, dangerous way but tonight had made him that much more human and approachable or so it seemed. While he had flirted with Arthur before through the odd little word here and there thrown into the sentences he had thought that it was an entirely one sided affair. It was starting to seem less and less like it was now.
The key changed and Arthur’s singing became more staccato as he said “Walk, walk fashion baby, work it, move that bitch crazy, walk, talk, fashion baby, work it move that bitch crazy-” Another key change but this time Arthur’s voice smoothed out again, as if he meant every word he was saying. Eames could almost feel the emotion in it and could only hope that he was getting the right message from it. “I want your love and I want your revenge. I want your love, I don’t want to be friends. J’veux ton amour, ouah je veux te baiser, j’veux ton amour, non je m’en fous apres…”
Even without being a fluent speaker in French, the forger knew what the words were and what they meant and he couldn’t help the small, font smile from crossing his face at the words and the ones that followed where Arthur kept repeating that he didn’t want to be friends, he wanted a bad romance. To a man like Eames, such a request was normally easy enough to give into, especially if the woman’s face was pretty enough and her body more than simply caught his eye. For someone like Arthur, strong and proud and fearless, to say to him (well, presumably him) that what they really wanted was his touch, his love, a twisted form of a romance that somehow he was sure only they could manage to maintain without either party suffering from it, was something he not only least expected but also appealed to him a way he hadn’t thought of before.
“I want you love and your lover’s revenge, you and me could write a bad romance…”
The song began to wind down but all Eames could really hear was how Arthur was claiming to have been caught in a bad romance over and over again until he finally ended in the song on the staccato words that had no real meaning and finished the music with the guitar with flourish as he spun around with the guitar. The crowd stood up and applauded, cheering on the still clearly drunken Arthur as he took off the instrument and carefully put it back on the stand, Eames even going so far as to join them. He didn’t say anything in specific but that was because he was setting up his plan of attack in his mind, an attack he would have to wait for a sober Arthur to implement.
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The next day, Eames decided to remind Arthur a little too happily of what had happened the night before while he knew Ariadne and the others were exploring the wonders of Los Angeles before they flew back to their respective countries. He far too cheerfully knocked on the door to Arthur’s hotel room, having had to escort him back after the little show before things got too out of hand. Men and women had flocked to him and if Eames hadn’t wrapped a possessive arm around his smaller built comrade they would have no doubt gotten into brawls over who was going to take him home. He would be impressed if the younger man remembered any of it now with the pounding headache he no doubt would have.
There was the sound of some crashing and cursing but after a long moment, the door to the hotel room opened and Eames was greeted with a sight that had him immediately grabbing for his poker chip in his pocket. Now really, how was he to know that Arthur only really slept in such a delightfully tight pair of briefs and a set of a dog tags around his neck? His black hair was in disarray still and he had a little bit of stubble that clung stubbornly to his cheeks. He certainly wasn’t the most handsome figure in the world at the moment but to Eames, this undone Arthur was a rarer treat indeed. “Well now, this is a pleasant surprise.”
Arthur seemed confused for a moment until he looked down at himself and blushed at his appearance. Eames had to admit, it was nice to see the normally inhuman point man do something so human and blush while not under the heavy influence of alcohol. “What do you want, Eames?” The other man snapped, though if he were in the same shoes, the Englishman knew he would be just as irritable so he let the other off the hook for his tone.
“I just came by to make sure you were alright, love, as you seemed a little more than out of it last night.” When Arthur glared at him through the dark wisps of the bangs that fell across his face, the forger couldn’t help but find it adorable. “You did, after all, state repeatedly that you were caught in a bad romance with yours truly in a public bar. Not that I mind it of course but I thought that you might.”
Arthur’s blush deepened and he angrily stepped away from the door, though he didn’t close it behind him so Eames took that as his excuse to step inside with the younger man. He toed off his shoes out of habit than any real need to do so while the other went to the restroom to presumably make himself feel more human. This kind of conversation would require some form of alertness. Where the precious point man’s heart was concerned it was hardly something to be taken lightly, despite the words he had chosen to use to preface the topic.
While Arthur was in the bathroom, Eames decided to make himself comfortable by taking off his blazer and resting it on the back of a near by chair before lying on his comrade’s bed and closing his eyes, listening to the other’s puttering around as he thought about how he was going to approach this. It wasn’t that he didn’t want a romance with the sleek, dangerous point man, far from that in fact. He just hadn’t known that Arthur was remotely interested in more than a partner for some playful banter. Now that he had been given an albeit drunken hint that perhaps it was not an entirely one sided relationship, he was perfectly fine with flirting a little more heavily and making his attentions less subtly known.
It didn’t take too much longer for dear Arthur to step out of the bathroom, his face shaven, his teeth brushed and a pair of pajama pants on over his briefs (sadly enough). It looks as if though he tried to get his hair into some semblance of order with just water but it wouldn’t listen to him. Eames found that he liked seeing the younger man’s hair loose. It made him seem a lot less untouchable than he was while at work and if he was given permission to touch after this exchange, he was going to do his best to make sure it stayed that way.
“So, Mister Eames, now that you’ve woken me up at the crack of-”
“Noon.”
“-right. Noon. After only half a night’s sleep, you mind telling me what all this is about?”
“I was simply curious to see if you still held the same opinion sober as you clearly did drunk.”
Arthur looked to be a delightful combination of embarrassed and frustrated as he turned the chair at the desk around and sat on it with all the grace of an exhausted man finding a chance to rest. He hardly looked ready to take such a conversation so seriously but Eames knew better. This was before Arthur had gotten his morning coffee, before he managed to build up that wall he tended to work so hard to keep between himself and his compatriots. Whatever answer he got now, he knew, would be an honest one and that was exactly why he had decided to come by when he knew that Arthur hadn’t had the chance to fully recover from the night before.
With a tired hand running over his face, Arthur seemed to think hard about the question, as if trying to recall his words. Eames, being as helpful as he was, sang the lyrics he heard the night before quietly enough to avoid truly breaking into his thoughts while prompting them in the right direction at least. When Arthur realized why it was he was singing that particular song he lost all semblance of self confidence he might have had before, his cheeks flushing impressively before he buried his face in his hands with a moan that sounded suspiciously like “oh no…” Being the good friend that he was, Eames couldn’t not laugh at the poor fellow though he made sure to only laugh for so long.
When Arthur seemed to only get frustrated with him, the forger reached out and rested a hand on the point man’s shoulder to draw his attention back to him. “It’s alright, dahling, I was laughing at your reaction just now. I took your words last night completely seriously.” Eames expected the point man to look up at him but not necessarily to stare in disbelief. It made him smile a little more. “In vino vertias and all that.”
Arthur growled and pulled away from the hand that rested on his arm standing so he could pace about the room. He was saying something, ranting about Eames could never take him seriously but the forger was looking at his body language rather than listening to his words. There was only nervousness instead of the anger the other was trying to vent through his words. Nervousness that he wouldn’t be taken seriously? Or perhaps that he was about to be rejected? The latter was a rare sign of vulnerability in this strong man and it was a trait that Eames was finding attractive. A man who could take care of himself, who was a little too independent clearly didn’t need him and as such was a little less attractive than someone who might need him to lean on once in a while.
So, in the middle of Arthur’s rant, as he tensed himself more and more and became more and more nervous, Eames stood up and caught the point man by his narrower shoulders, his large hands catching that lean face gently and pulling the other into a sweet kiss. At first Arthur fought him, of course he did, but it was half hearted and it only lasted a moment before the forger felt the thin hands of the smaller man cling to the sides and his shirt and sigh into the kiss. Eames was careful as he deepened it, trying not to come on too quickly and scare Arthur away but show that he certainly desired more than a simple chaste kiss.
His hands slipped away from the other man’s face, the fingers of one hand entangling in soft black hair and the other slipped down to the other’s waist and pulled him closer. How long they kissed, Eames wasn’t sure but he doubted it mattered. He got his point across and he knew it. “So, dahling, what do you say to having a bad romance with me?” He had a small smile on his face, the hand in Arthur’s hair gently massaging his scalp as the younger man put his thoughts back together. It made Eames proud to know that he was able to scramble the always prepared Arthur’s mind so thoroughly.
When Arthur’s mind got everything back together, he laughed softly and this time caught Arthur’s face in his hands and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “Of course Eames. I’d love to have a bad romance with you.”
Rating: Teen
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur / Eames
Disclaimer: I own nothing, sadly. If I did I might have created a bad romance between Arthur and Eames. Did that happen? No.
Warning(s): Mild drunkenness, m / m kissing
Summary: Written to fill a prompt on inception_kink . When Arthur is dragged out to celebrate the inception by Eames, no one really expected him to get drunk enough to participate in the open mic night at the bar. Who knew that Arthur was not only a decent guitarist but a Lady GaGa fan too?
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Author's Note: Inspired by this performance by JGL.
It took a lot of coaxing on Eames’ part to get stick-in-the-mud Arthur to come out with the team to the bar the night after the inception but in the end he decided that it was well worth it. Cobb was at home with his kids, of course, but the rest of them had no such obligations and so decided to enjoy their night off. It wasn’t one of these incredibly high end places but it wasn’t exactly filled to the brim with drug dealers and prostitutes either. It was just one of these upper level bars where someone like Saito could fit in easily without any of the rest of them seeming out of place. He did, after all, have just a good a reason to celebrate as any of the rest of them did.
The previous acts were mostly wannabe comedians and there were a few people who chose to try their hand at playing the provided electric guitar while singing. The team didn’t really pay attention to any of that while they chatted and drank, Arthur eventually loosening up enough to pull his tie loose and allow his black hair to fall free of the confines of the gel he usually kept it slicked back so tightly. He was even smiling and chuckling softly, his dimples showing and making him look a little younger. Eames decided it was a good look on him and was going to make sure that it would appear more often in the future.
But first thing was first. Mother nature was calling him so he quickly excused himself to go use the restroom, expecting that everything would be the same when he got back. Ariadne was a little more drunk than she was before hand but she was leaning on Yusuf who really didn’t see to mind. Saito was watching them with an amused expression as he continued drinking his high quality drink (whatever it was) and Arthur… well that was odd. Arthur wasn’t sitting at his spot at the table. Eames took his seat at the table and looked around, trying to find the wayward point man but in the end had to ask Saito.
“He is getting ready on the stage,” the businessman answered and pointed with his drink to the small stage where so many other acts had performed that night. The forger couldn’t help but stare in a mixture of surprise and amusement. So Arthur was going to try and play the guitar was he? This was going to be interesting. He was in the process of tuning it though he seemed to be having a bit of trouble standing up properly too. This was going to be funny indeed. Eames just wished he had his camera with him.
When Arthur was done with the tuning he strummed out all the notes to make sure they were in the right harmony and turned to the audience, not bothering to brush the stray stands of hair away from his face. “Now I’m about to make it worth it,” he said, glancing at his hand as he placed it carefully on the neck of the guitar to make sure he knew the distance he needed to keep it at, “This is going to be worth you sitting there and watching me tune my fucking guitar.”
Eames chuckled quietly at the curse word and settled back in his chair, taking a deep swig of the beer he was holding onto while Arthur started playing, his fingers easily finding the notes he needed as he focused on the crowd in front of him who, by now, had all eyes focused on him. He had a smile on his face as he kicked up the music, as if he was already finding the inside joke funny. Under the dim lights of the bar, his dimples looked a little deeper but he didn’t seem to care. Drunk Arthur was clearly enjoying himself.
“I want your ugly, I want your disease,” Arthur sang softly, his smile fading so his face looked serious for a moment, “I want your everything so long as it’s free // I want your love…” A long note lingered. “Love love love, I want your love.” He leaned back from the microphone for a moment and nodded drunkenly as the women in the audience cheered him on, his smile returning before he continued.
“I want your drama, the touch of your hand.” Eames could swear those dark eyes lingered on him for just a moment with Arthur added, “I want your leather studded kiss in the sand, I want your love. Love love love, I want your love.” Eames couldn’t help but feel just a little flattered at the words being essentially sung to him and made a mental note to remind dear Arthur of exactly what he said when he was sober enough to be embarrassed about it. The fact that the point man was smiling again as if he was laughing about his own words certainly didn’t help.
After a second he leaned in closer and lowered his voice, his hands stopping the sound of the guitar while he spoke, coming out in an almost growl as he looked over the crowd in general, “You know that I want you.” His eyebrows jumped playfully. “You know that I need you. I want it bad, bad romance…”
He broke out of the lower range and sang almost happily, his dark eyes closed as he focused on his words and the music he played. “I want your love and your lover’s revenge, you and me could have a bad romance.” He repeated himself with more passion, though he didn’t open his eyes until he was done with the repetition, his gaze focusing once again on Eames as he said that he was “Caught in a bad romance…” twice over. That flutter in the English man’s stomach earlier floated upward toward his chest. So that’s how it was between them was it?
There was a bunch of staccato sounds that made Arthur’s face distort and pulled more than one laugh from various crowd members but of young man noticed he hardly seemed to care. He was more focused on his music, even as drunk as he was. The forager quickly finished his beer and ordered another one from the waitress, determined to keep his good mood going while he watched his comrade embarrass himself to new levels… or so it was initially supposed to be embarrassment. He honestly hadn’t thought that Arthur would be this good.
“I want your horror, I want your design,” Arthur continued, his attention focusing on Ariadne who smiled and cheered him on, “Cause you’re a criminal as long as you’re mine, I want your love. Love, love, love, I want your love.” Eames could have sworn he saw Ariadne swoon in her seat next to Yusuf but, to be honest, he was starting to blame the beer for that kind of thing. He hadn’t been drinking enough to see that. At least he didn’t think so.
Arthur laughed to himself again but then grew serious as his wild hands almost stilled, the music he was playing becoming softer as he spoke. “Now for those of you still doubting the artistic integrity of Lady Gaga-” he paused and let a few bar patrons add their cat calls between his words, “-this next verse as three Hitchcock references and the use of the word ‘schtick’…” Whatever he said next was lost on Eames as the Englishman was laughing a little too hard at the fact that the ever prim and proper Arthur had just said “schtick” out in the open like that.
The music kicked up again but this time Arthur’s dark eyes locked on Eames, his words smoothly falling off his lips as the spoke. Eames was just glad he had set his beer bottle down a moment or two earlier. If he hadn’t he might have dropped it. “I want your psycho, you vertigo schtick,” Arthur seemed to purr into the microphone, “I want you in my rear window, baby you’re sick. I want your love. Love, love, love I want your love….”
There was a repetition of his earlier words, saying he wanted and needed the person the song was written for but his eyes never really lingered on anyone. Eames didn’t bother pretending now that he didn’t find Arthur’s singing voice appealing, especially when such words were directed at him. Oh he wasn’t obvious. He had known before coming to the bar tonight that Arthur was appealing in that distant, dangerous way but tonight had made him that much more human and approachable or so it seemed. While he had flirted with Arthur before through the odd little word here and there thrown into the sentences he had thought that it was an entirely one sided affair. It was starting to seem less and less like it was now.
The key changed and Arthur’s singing became more staccato as he said “Walk, walk fashion baby, work it, move that bitch crazy, walk, talk, fashion baby, work it move that bitch crazy-” Another key change but this time Arthur’s voice smoothed out again, as if he meant every word he was saying. Eames could almost feel the emotion in it and could only hope that he was getting the right message from it. “I want your love and I want your revenge. I want your love, I don’t want to be friends. J’veux ton amour, ouah je veux te baiser, j’veux ton amour, non je m’en fous apres…”
Even without being a fluent speaker in French, the forger knew what the words were and what they meant and he couldn’t help the small, font smile from crossing his face at the words and the ones that followed where Arthur kept repeating that he didn’t want to be friends, he wanted a bad romance. To a man like Eames, such a request was normally easy enough to give into, especially if the woman’s face was pretty enough and her body more than simply caught his eye. For someone like Arthur, strong and proud and fearless, to say to him (well, presumably him) that what they really wanted was his touch, his love, a twisted form of a romance that somehow he was sure only they could manage to maintain without either party suffering from it, was something he not only least expected but also appealed to him a way he hadn’t thought of before.
“I want you love and your lover’s revenge, you and me could write a bad romance…”
The song began to wind down but all Eames could really hear was how Arthur was claiming to have been caught in a bad romance over and over again until he finally ended in the song on the staccato words that had no real meaning and finished the music with the guitar with flourish as he spun around with the guitar. The crowd stood up and applauded, cheering on the still clearly drunken Arthur as he took off the instrument and carefully put it back on the stand, Eames even going so far as to join them. He didn’t say anything in specific but that was because he was setting up his plan of attack in his mind, an attack he would have to wait for a sober Arthur to implement.
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The next day, Eames decided to remind Arthur a little too happily of what had happened the night before while he knew Ariadne and the others were exploring the wonders of Los Angeles before they flew back to their respective countries. He far too cheerfully knocked on the door to Arthur’s hotel room, having had to escort him back after the little show before things got too out of hand. Men and women had flocked to him and if Eames hadn’t wrapped a possessive arm around his smaller built comrade they would have no doubt gotten into brawls over who was going to take him home. He would be impressed if the younger man remembered any of it now with the pounding headache he no doubt would have.
There was the sound of some crashing and cursing but after a long moment, the door to the hotel room opened and Eames was greeted with a sight that had him immediately grabbing for his poker chip in his pocket. Now really, how was he to know that Arthur only really slept in such a delightfully tight pair of briefs and a set of a dog tags around his neck? His black hair was in disarray still and he had a little bit of stubble that clung stubbornly to his cheeks. He certainly wasn’t the most handsome figure in the world at the moment but to Eames, this undone Arthur was a rarer treat indeed. “Well now, this is a pleasant surprise.”
Arthur seemed confused for a moment until he looked down at himself and blushed at his appearance. Eames had to admit, it was nice to see the normally inhuman point man do something so human and blush while not under the heavy influence of alcohol. “What do you want, Eames?” The other man snapped, though if he were in the same shoes, the Englishman knew he would be just as irritable so he let the other off the hook for his tone.
“I just came by to make sure you were alright, love, as you seemed a little more than out of it last night.” When Arthur glared at him through the dark wisps of the bangs that fell across his face, the forger couldn’t help but find it adorable. “You did, after all, state repeatedly that you were caught in a bad romance with yours truly in a public bar. Not that I mind it of course but I thought that you might.”
Arthur’s blush deepened and he angrily stepped away from the door, though he didn’t close it behind him so Eames took that as his excuse to step inside with the younger man. He toed off his shoes out of habit than any real need to do so while the other went to the restroom to presumably make himself feel more human. This kind of conversation would require some form of alertness. Where the precious point man’s heart was concerned it was hardly something to be taken lightly, despite the words he had chosen to use to preface the topic.
While Arthur was in the bathroom, Eames decided to make himself comfortable by taking off his blazer and resting it on the back of a near by chair before lying on his comrade’s bed and closing his eyes, listening to the other’s puttering around as he thought about how he was going to approach this. It wasn’t that he didn’t want a romance with the sleek, dangerous point man, far from that in fact. He just hadn’t known that Arthur was remotely interested in more than a partner for some playful banter. Now that he had been given an albeit drunken hint that perhaps it was not an entirely one sided relationship, he was perfectly fine with flirting a little more heavily and making his attentions less subtly known.
It didn’t take too much longer for dear Arthur to step out of the bathroom, his face shaven, his teeth brushed and a pair of pajama pants on over his briefs (sadly enough). It looks as if though he tried to get his hair into some semblance of order with just water but it wouldn’t listen to him. Eames found that he liked seeing the younger man’s hair loose. It made him seem a lot less untouchable than he was while at work and if he was given permission to touch after this exchange, he was going to do his best to make sure it stayed that way.
“So, Mister Eames, now that you’ve woken me up at the crack of-”
“Noon.”
“-right. Noon. After only half a night’s sleep, you mind telling me what all this is about?”
“I was simply curious to see if you still held the same opinion sober as you clearly did drunk.”
Arthur looked to be a delightful combination of embarrassed and frustrated as he turned the chair at the desk around and sat on it with all the grace of an exhausted man finding a chance to rest. He hardly looked ready to take such a conversation so seriously but Eames knew better. This was before Arthur had gotten his morning coffee, before he managed to build up that wall he tended to work so hard to keep between himself and his compatriots. Whatever answer he got now, he knew, would be an honest one and that was exactly why he had decided to come by when he knew that Arthur hadn’t had the chance to fully recover from the night before.
With a tired hand running over his face, Arthur seemed to think hard about the question, as if trying to recall his words. Eames, being as helpful as he was, sang the lyrics he heard the night before quietly enough to avoid truly breaking into his thoughts while prompting them in the right direction at least. When Arthur realized why it was he was singing that particular song he lost all semblance of self confidence he might have had before, his cheeks flushing impressively before he buried his face in his hands with a moan that sounded suspiciously like “oh no…” Being the good friend that he was, Eames couldn’t not laugh at the poor fellow though he made sure to only laugh for so long.
When Arthur seemed to only get frustrated with him, the forger reached out and rested a hand on the point man’s shoulder to draw his attention back to him. “It’s alright, dahling, I was laughing at your reaction just now. I took your words last night completely seriously.” Eames expected the point man to look up at him but not necessarily to stare in disbelief. It made him smile a little more. “In vino vertias and all that.”
Arthur growled and pulled away from the hand that rested on his arm standing so he could pace about the room. He was saying something, ranting about Eames could never take him seriously but the forger was looking at his body language rather than listening to his words. There was only nervousness instead of the anger the other was trying to vent through his words. Nervousness that he wouldn’t be taken seriously? Or perhaps that he was about to be rejected? The latter was a rare sign of vulnerability in this strong man and it was a trait that Eames was finding attractive. A man who could take care of himself, who was a little too independent clearly didn’t need him and as such was a little less attractive than someone who might need him to lean on once in a while.
So, in the middle of Arthur’s rant, as he tensed himself more and more and became more and more nervous, Eames stood up and caught the point man by his narrower shoulders, his large hands catching that lean face gently and pulling the other into a sweet kiss. At first Arthur fought him, of course he did, but it was half hearted and it only lasted a moment before the forger felt the thin hands of the smaller man cling to the sides and his shirt and sigh into the kiss. Eames was careful as he deepened it, trying not to come on too quickly and scare Arthur away but show that he certainly desired more than a simple chaste kiss.
His hands slipped away from the other man’s face, the fingers of one hand entangling in soft black hair and the other slipped down to the other’s waist and pulled him closer. How long they kissed, Eames wasn’t sure but he doubted it mattered. He got his point across and he knew it. “So, dahling, what do you say to having a bad romance with me?” He had a small smile on his face, the hand in Arthur’s hair gently massaging his scalp as the younger man put his thoughts back together. It made Eames proud to know that he was able to scramble the always prepared Arthur’s mind so thoroughly.
When Arthur’s mind got everything back together, he laughed softly and this time caught Arthur’s face in his hands and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “Of course Eames. I’d love to have a bad romance with you.”