Fanfiction: Eames Belongs on a Public Nudity Beach
Title: Eames Belongs on a Public Nudity Beach
Writer: Sporadic_Writer
Status of work: Complete
Disclaimer: I don't own this.
Fandom: Inception
Characters and/or pairings: Eames/Arthur, Ariadne, Cobb, Yusuf
Rating: Mature
Warnings, kinks & contents: Nudity. Crack!fic
Length: 3,701 words.
A/N: I am filling bauble's prompt from here: http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/20822.html?thread=50281302#t50281302.
NOW
“Oh God!” Arthur slammed the door shut and stood with his back to it. He pressed his fists into his eyes as he debated whether to gouge out his eyes.
“Arthur?”
Arthur yelped, and he almost shoved Ariadne off her feet, as he tried to stop her from opening the door.
“No! Just, just stand there, and don't do anything. I'm going to-” Arthur's determination flagged as he realized he had no idea what to do.
“What's going on?” Ariande asked, looking not a little annoyed and confused, with a healthy dose of suspicion. She tried to step past him again, but he blocked her. They did that dance for several minutes until Ariande finally gave up and gave his chest an ungracious punch.
“This isn't some belated haze-the-intern deal, is it?” she asked wearily.
Arthur gave her a drilling look. “Eames is in there naked. Again. If you want to see him in the altogether, then go ahead.”
Ariadne recoiled so fast that Arthur smirked in satisfaction. Too bad Eames was too busy being naked and wasn't out there with them. His ego could have taken a much needed blow.
“Why?” Ariadne asked, her nose crinkling cutely in distaste. “He stripped down yesterday, saying that he needed to get into the mark's mindset, but I thought he just needed one day.”
Arthur stared at her in silence before rubbing his temples. “Ariadne,” he said slowly with the tone one used to convey extremely bad news. “Eames was lying. He gets naked all the time. Literally, all the time. He does it whenever he can get away with it.”
“He didn't do it during the job with Fischer though,” Ariadne pointed out.
Arthur shuddered long and hard. “Yes, he did. You just weren't there,” he said darkly. Then he smartly smacked himself a few times in the face to prevent a flashback or two or three.
“Okay, so, why does he do this? I can't imagine that all the other dreamwork teams are okay with exhibitionism.”
Arthur opened and shut his mouth a few times before frowning. He actually didn't know what Eame's problem was. Not really. Though he suspected it all started when he was dumb enough to accept and open Eames's first text message to him after a job.
FIVE YEARS AGO
“What?” Arthur shouted drunkenly across the table at Mal, who tried to repeat her words over the loud, clashing music before giving up and clambering over to fall into Arthur's lap.
“Your phone is ringing!” she screamed into his ear. “Pick it up! It's too annoying! I can't hear the club music!”
“Fine!” Arthur agreed, thumbs already unlocking his phone and bringing up the text message that blinked before his eyes. It was a photo from 2Hot4U.
Who?
Oh, who cares.
Arthur agreeably opened the photo from the stranger and found himself admiring a rather nice set of eyes. They looked-Arthur's dazed mind tried to hunt for the right words-dreamy. So very, very dreamy. And what gorgeous color. Arthur's drunk mawkish streak wanted to continue waxing poetically, but then he recognized the slant of the familiar cheekbones and heavy lashes. Urgh.
He tapped out a message of his own and sent it back to Eames with a snort before chugging down his third mango mojito.
Then he waved his arm at the bartender to get another.
“Who was it?” Mal yelled, this time not in his ear, since she was too busy ogling Dom's ass while the man made an idiot of himself on the dance floor.
“That guy, that jackass forger. You know, the one I hate.”
Mal shook her head resignedly. “You hate them all, Arthur.”
“The one that I hate the most. With the tattoos and mouth and muscles and everything.” Arthur felt his explanation sounded a little off, but his mojito was calling his name again, so he just left it.
“Ohhh. Eames! He's cute, you know, in a self-conscious British way,” Mal mused and gave Arthur a distorted leer.
Wow, that was incredibly disturbing. “Go to sleep, Mal,” Arthur told her sensibly. “You're drunk.”
“Yeah, I am. I can't hold my liquor anymore. Not since I left France.” Then she laid her head on her arms and cried and fell asleep. So did Arthur.
NOW
“I don't get it,” Ariadne said, her forehead furrowed. “Eames sends me text messages all the time. Sometimes he sends me selfies, but I figured him for a narcissus the first time I saw him anyway. Mostly, he likes to send me links to cute dolphin photos.”
“Yeah, but that was just the first one,” Arthur protested defensively. “There were a lot of times. Like this one time in Chicago.”
FOUR YEARS AGO
“Why am I here, Eames?” Arthur asked flatly, arms crossed in front of him while he leaned against the desk, which wobbled a bit beneath his weight. He quickly stood up straight and held the piece of furniture steady until it stopped moving. Cheap motel rooms.
“You're here, Arthur,” Eames purred, “so that you don't have to work out your latent stalker tendencies in the privacy of your own hotel room. Anyway, tomorrow you're going to demand that I explain everything I was thinking when I came up with Robinson's suit. I'm saving us time. I'll dress, and you'll...watch.”
Feeling antsy already, Arthur checked his watch. It was already nearing 11:10, and if he wanted his grande vanilla cinnamon sprinkle latte from Starbucks, then he needed to leave in twenty minutes to beat the lunch rush.
“What do you think?” Eames asked, as he whirled around to display an admittedly well-cut gray suit with a pressed light blue shirt and perfectly knotted striped tie. If Arthur wasn't feeling faint from the lack of caffeine, he'd be engaged in examining Eames's choice of tie pin and cuff links.
“It works,” Arthur said shortly, trying not to let his stomach growl angrily. He should have ignored Dom's pleading that they visit the new seafood restaurant that had opened on Main Street. Five Star Michelin, his ass. $200 for spending last night hovering around the toilet, waiting to puke.
“-And you don't think the Blah Blah is a better blah blah for a man as youth-obsessed? Blah, blah, blah?” Eames asked before looking up from his dresser with an expectant look.
Arthur stared back blankly. Crap. He thought fast. “I don't think it matters. He's gotten pretty pudgy around the middle, and he hasn't bothered to get liposuction,” he countered coolly.
“Luckily, I don't have that problem.” Eames smiled wickedly, and his hands went up to his neck, deftly untying the strip of cloth and tossing it onto the bed. Then he smoothly unbuttoned his shirt, fingers flicking with each button out of its hole, and slivers of sun-warmed skin began peeking through.
Arthur's mouth dropped open at the impromptu strip show, and he gawked for a long moment before he regained control of his nervous system and turned around, nearly slipping on the cologne bottle Eames had causally thrown to the floor minutes earlier. “What the hell? You could have asked me to turn my back first.”
“And disappoint you? Never,” Eames responded cheerfully. And Arthur heard the soft shuffle of his linen pants falling to the floor.
NOW
Arthur waited for Ariadne's sympathetic reaction. He was to be disappointed.
Eyes looking a little hazy, Ariadne gushed, “Oh, wow, I bet that was so hot! I can't believe he asked you to dress him!”
“What?” Arthur sputtered. “That is not what happened.”
Ariadne waved away the semantics. “Come on, he asked you what you wanted. That is a dream come true for a lot of people. And you're such a clotheshorse. Were you sick or tired? You know, Arthur, if you have trouble with performance, I know a guy-”
“Being tired doesn't stop me doing anything,” Arthur said with a scowl.
“Even in the morning?” Ariadne asked shrewdly. “You're not exactly Mr. Cheerful during all the morning meetings you insist on holding. Not to mention, you clutch your coffee like it's your baby, and the world's full of kidnappers.”
“I can function in the morning,” Arthur argued weakly. “I can.”
THREE YEARS AGO
The doorbell rang again. Arthur crawled pathetically out of bed and fumbled for the gun he kept taped to the side of his nightstand. He could gladly shoot either the bell or his visitor. Or both.
He yanked open the door before he could give into his murderous impulses.
“What?” he snarled sleepily, running a hand through his bed hair.
“Spare your shower, love?” Eames stood there with the skimpiest white towel around his hips. Arthur's eyes focused on the white towel, which was wet, thin, and threadbare. He jerked his gaze back up to Eames' face and sighed loudly.
“Fine. Towels are in the cupboard,” Arthur said shortly. He headed back inside and flopped onto his bed and pulled his pillow over the top of his head. He ignored Eames's amused chuckle. “Yes, I know, Arthur. We're staying at the same hotel.”
Since Eames couldn't be grateful and silent, Arthur gave him the finger without lifting his head and wiggled under the sheets. Peace. Sweet quiet. About to fall back asleep, Arthur bolted upright at the sudden hot wet touch on his shoulder. Assassin! He aimed an adrenaline-fueled fist behind him, but he heard that same annoying laugh.
“Sorry, mate. Couldn't find the towels. Sure the housekeeping didn't forget to replace them?”
Screw it. Arthur threw his covers to the floor. So what if it wasn't a random assailant. He was going to punch Eames out anyway. Just for being so chirpy in the morning.
“The towels are right there!” Arthur yelled, turning around, planning to grab Eames by the waist and literally propel him to the cupboard and shove his face into the definitely existing towels. His planned lecture devolved into a shocked grunt as his face nearly collided with Eames's stomach. He could feel the steam from the shower practically rising from the water-warmed silky smooth skin. And he could see the tiny water droplets still clinging to the trail of hair heading down to-
“What happened to your towel?” Arthur demanded, slapping a hand over his eyes.
“It was dirty and wet,” Eames said blithely. “I felt more comfortable with it off. Is there a problem, Arthur?”
Arthur detected an edge of something to Eames's tone and began to feel a little indignant. Eames was waltzing around nude in Arthur's hotel room in the early hour of 10:00 am and complaining that Arthur was making him uncomfortable? That was rich.
Still covering his eyes, Arthur felt around until he found one of his bedsheets. He rolled it into a haphazard ball and threw it at Eames. “Just use the sheet.”
NOW
“Why is everyone outside?” Yusuf asked, arriving with a jangling cardboard box and a long roll of tubing wrapped around his arm.
“Eames is in there naked, and Arthur's being a prude,” Ariadne summarized promptly.
Arthur ignored the jab. He wasn't a prude; he just had standards for a good work environment. “How did you stand actually living with him? Was he even worse? Did he just study and cook and do laundry without clothes on?”
Yusuf looked a little bemused. “I only saw Eames naked a few times by accident. He never seems to remember to lock the bathroom door when he's in there.”
“Probably he did that on purpose,” Arthur muttered uncharitably.
Ariadne glared at him. “Don't be mean, Arthur. I do that too sometimes.”
Then an awkward silence fell, and Arthur and Yusuf tried to look elsewhere and pretend they weren't picturing it.
“Anyway,” Yusuf finally said. “I mostly got flashes of his back and ass. Then one time he was all turned around, and I saw the whole thing.”
“Really?” Arthur asked, perversely fascinated. “Was that when you moved out and refused to ever be his roommate again?”
“Nooo,” Yusuf stretched out the word, giving Arthur an odd look. “I nudged him in the chest and told him he could do pornos. He laughed, and we were okay. He also finally started remembering to use the lock. Thank God for the other guys in our dorm.”
“You should try that, Arthur,” Ariadne suggested brightly. “Maybe all he wants is a compliment.”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “Sometimes I think he's just allergic to clothes. Or vice versa, like they can't get far away enough from him.”
TWO YEARS AGO
“Hm. That was unexpected.”
Arthur and Cobb stopped talking and looked up simultaneously to see Eames giving them a sheepish look.
“I've lost my swimming trunks, I'm afraid,” he confessed, eyes downcast. He shifted his hips rather noticeably. “The suction around this part is very strong.”
“What color is it?” Cobb asked, rising from the lawn chair to circle the pool, taking time to poke through the bushes in the surrounding landscaping and peering under the empty lifeguard chair. They watched him for a long while, Eames still standing in the chest-high water at the deep end.
“Dom, it's not going to be there. It's somewhere in the pool,” Arthur said tiredly.
“You never know,” Cobb said absently, frowning a bit as he began upturning the trays and buckets and floaters left carelessly on the deck area. “I thought for sure James couldn't have lost his pacifier inside the museum, and a security guard found it in a vase. That was really bad, as far as parenting moments go.”
“Actually, I think maybe they went down the pipes,” Eames mused rather sedately. “It's very hard for that shade of red to blend into the pool water.” He shrugged and began striding up the steps to the pool top.
Mesmerized like a mouse before a snake, Arthur watched as the water level steadily decreased, and more and more of Eames's bare skin rose above the shifting waves that distorted the intimate flesh that lay just beneath. Fortunately, Eames was focused on the careful steps he was making up the slippery concrete, so Arthur had time to turn his head and pretend he was looking for Eames's change of clothing.
After a few minutes, Arthur still couldn't find the man's bag. “Eames, where did you put your bag?”
“What bag?” Eames asked, standing right next to him.
“The one with your clothes,” Arthur clarified.
“Oh,” Eames responded blankly. He surveyed the empty ground. “Bugger. Could have sworn that I put it right over there.” He turned to the left and bent over to get a better look under the creaky old lawn chair; in the meantime, Arthur got a close-up of his family jewels and the crowning glory.
“I already checked there,” Arthur said tightly, resisting the completely inappropriate urge to give that beautifully curved ass a hard smack.
Eames straightened back up. “Maybe I misremembered. Mind if I take a look, Arthur?”
And then Eames was bending his hot naked tattooed body over Arthur, and he was getting closer and closer, and they were touching-
NOW
Arthur snapped out of a memory-turned daydream. Guilty, he wondered if Eames still held a minor grudge against Arthur for having shoved him back into the pool.
“Eames again?” Cobb asked, as he wandered up to meet them. He held a Togo's bag over one arm, and the tantalizing smell of roast beef on sourdough and pastrami on rye wafted through the air.
“Yes,” Arthur said resentfully before the others could open their unhelpful big mouths.
“Is Arthur really giving us the whole story?” Ariadne asked after greedily snatching her meatball sub from Cobb's hand. He rubbed at the light pink marks left by her nails and gave her a wary look.
“Eames is just really comfortable with his skin,” Cobb answered cautiously. “Mal was too.” He trailed off, and the mood plummeted to the icy depths of chronic depression.
Not again, they all thought secretly before feeling guilty for their insensitivity.
“Tell them the poker story, Dom!” Arthur ordered before the man could start crying about how his memories could never encompass everything that his dead wife was.
“Huh? Oh. Oh, yeah, it's actually a really funny story.”
ONE YEAR AGO
It was a boring job in Tijuana. And there was nothing to do, so they made their own fun.
“Straight! Hah, take that, suckers!” Melly, the normally levelheaded architect, shouted happily.
Arthur shrugged and showed a respectable three of a kind. He'd never been good at cards.
Cobb grimaced for show before triumphantly flashing an unexpected full house. “Who's a loser now?” he smugly asked Melly.
“Not me,” Aguilar, the taciturn chemist, said coolly before revealing his hand, four of a kind. Cobb gawked unattractively at the winning hand. Then they all remembered Eames, who'd been oddly quiet the whole round.
“So?” Aguilar prompted.
Eames smiled self-deprecatingly. “Much as I would like to dethrone you, Lady Luck's run out on me, and I haven't the cards.” He held up a no-pair hand.
“Aren't you supposed to be a card shark?” Melly asked suspiciously. “That's what Cobb said.”
“We all have our off days,” Eames said breezily, toeing off his loafers, pulling off his socks, and settling into a cross-legged position.
“Flush!” shouted Cobb in the next round. “Anyone beat that?”
Melly and Aguilar both scowled down at their hidden hands before reluctantly giving them up: a straight and a three of a kind respectively.
“Hmm,” Arthur said to himself. “I forget. How high is this?” He held up three sevens and two sixes.
“Oh, snap!” Melly laughed, giving Cobb a playful shove. “Looks like Arthur might have you beat.
“Come on, lover boy,” she taunted Eames. “Let's see what you have.”
Eames flipped over his cards to reveal a disappointing two pair. Even Aguilar couldn't help but say something. “Seriously, man. Get with the program. We're all kicking your butt.”
Eames didn't look at all bothered by the criticism. He insouciantly shrugged off his jacket and then pulled off his button-down. Sweat glistened in the hollow of his throat, clearly visible above the low neckline of his tank top, which seemed at least a size too small, judging by the way his shoulders and biceps bulged attractively. The others, too busy arguing over Aguilar's shuffling method, didn't seem to notice.
“Okay, break it up,” Arthur finally interrupted. “Let's just keep going. It's just a game.” He got a bunch of dirty looks for that last comment, so he threatened, “Or we could just go back to work.”
The chorus of no's was nearly deafening.
“Flush!”
“Full House!”
“Four of a kind!”
“Four of a kind!”
Both possessing a four of a kind, Melly and Cobb locked eyes in a deadly gaze, completely ignoring Arthur and Aguilar for being too down the food chain to bother with. Never blinking, they turned to glare at Eames, who looked at them innocently. He held up two fives, two threes, and a Jack-a two pair. Pathetic.
Then he promptly yanked off his tank top and began pulling at the zipper of his jeans.
“Whoa, whoa whoa!” Melly shielded her eyes with one hand before putting her free one in front of Cobb's face, nearly slapping him. “We're not doing strip poker!”
Eames's fingers kept going. “Yes, we are,” he countered. “I've been holding up my end of the bargain.”
Aguilar shook his head disapprovingly. “I like strip poker, but I am not doing it with coworkers. That's just wrong.”
More inured to Eames's antics than the others, Arthur just stared at Eames blandly. “I think we're done with our break for the day,” he announced indomitably.
NOW
“Yeah,” Cobb recalled. “I have no idea what made Eames think we were playing strip poker. I mean, he was completely fine with regular poker all those other times we played.”
“Was Arthur there?” Ariadne asked pointedly.
Cobb paused, the gears working away, and then he looked discomforted. “Actually, no.”
“Welcome to my family, brother,” Yusuf said solemnly to Arthur before giving him a big bear hug.
Ariadne patted him on the back. “It's cute that you're shy, Arthur, and I'm sure Eames likes it, but you know, a man likes to get appreciation once in a while.”
“Let's grab coffee while Arthur solves his problem. We should give them some space,” Yusuf brightly suggested to Ariadne.
Then Arthur was left with Cobb, who stared at him intently. “Arthur,” he said, clearing his throat noisily. “There's a train station for everyone-”
“Oh, kill me now,” Arthur blurted out.
“-but sometimes it's a shameless buff naked Englishman, and that's completely okay,” Cobb finished earnestly, his hands coming up to grab Arthur's tightly. “Don't ever feel uncomfortable about what you like.”
Arthur thought that he and Cobb had enough history to get over Arthur's stuffing the leftover Togo's bag into the other man's mouth.
LATER
Arthur flipped through his portfolio, looking for his notes on Japan's seaweed export ratios. Then he saw a flash of something unexpected, slowed down, went back, and found it. His shoulders tensed in resignation.
It just wasn't going to stop. He slung his jacket over his shoulders, left his work laid out on the table (minus the explicit photos featuring creative use of chocolate syrup and the inky lines of a new tattoo), and just zombie-walked to the parking lot.
“Hey,” Arthur said five hours later.
“Bloody hell!” Eames shouted, eyes wide and voice nearly reaching prepubescent levels. He picked himself up from the floor and took a few minutes trying to close the hotel room door. Finally, he turned around with a mostly calm expression on his face.
“If you wanted to kill me, Arthur, you could do it more efficiently than with a heart attack,” Eames grumbled, massaging his chest area.
“Sorry,” Arthur said blandly, as he rose from the bed, letting the silk sheets fall from his naked skin. “I sure hope this gets the blood flowing.”
Much to his pleasure, Eames flushed hard and didn't seem to know what to do with him. So Arthur just got out of the bed and grabbed the man's v-neck shirt.
Judging by Eame's reaction, the tearing cloth made an excellent reminder.
A/N: I hope the poker scene had enough context for those unfamiliar with the game.
Writer: Sporadic_Writer
Status of work: Complete
Disclaimer: I don't own this.
Fandom: Inception
Characters and/or pairings: Eames/Arthur, Ariadne, Cobb, Yusuf
Rating: Mature
Warnings, kinks & contents: Nudity. Crack!fic
Length: 3,701 words.
A/N: I am filling bauble's prompt from here: http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/20822.html?thread=50281302#t50281302.
NOW
“Oh God!” Arthur slammed the door shut and stood with his back to it. He pressed his fists into his eyes as he debated whether to gouge out his eyes.
“Arthur?”
Arthur yelped, and he almost shoved Ariadne off her feet, as he tried to stop her from opening the door.
“No! Just, just stand there, and don't do anything. I'm going to-” Arthur's determination flagged as he realized he had no idea what to do.
“What's going on?” Ariande asked, looking not a little annoyed and confused, with a healthy dose of suspicion. She tried to step past him again, but he blocked her. They did that dance for several minutes until Ariande finally gave up and gave his chest an ungracious punch.
“This isn't some belated haze-the-intern deal, is it?” she asked wearily.
Arthur gave her a drilling look. “Eames is in there naked. Again. If you want to see him in the altogether, then go ahead.”
Ariadne recoiled so fast that Arthur smirked in satisfaction. Too bad Eames was too busy being naked and wasn't out there with them. His ego could have taken a much needed blow.
“Why?” Ariadne asked, her nose crinkling cutely in distaste. “He stripped down yesterday, saying that he needed to get into the mark's mindset, but I thought he just needed one day.”
Arthur stared at her in silence before rubbing his temples. “Ariadne,” he said slowly with the tone one used to convey extremely bad news. “Eames was lying. He gets naked all the time. Literally, all the time. He does it whenever he can get away with it.”
“He didn't do it during the job with Fischer though,” Ariadne pointed out.
Arthur shuddered long and hard. “Yes, he did. You just weren't there,” he said darkly. Then he smartly smacked himself a few times in the face to prevent a flashback or two or three.
“Okay, so, why does he do this? I can't imagine that all the other dreamwork teams are okay with exhibitionism.”
Arthur opened and shut his mouth a few times before frowning. He actually didn't know what Eame's problem was. Not really. Though he suspected it all started when he was dumb enough to accept and open Eames's first text message to him after a job.
FIVE YEARS AGO
“What?” Arthur shouted drunkenly across the table at Mal, who tried to repeat her words over the loud, clashing music before giving up and clambering over to fall into Arthur's lap.
“Your phone is ringing!” she screamed into his ear. “Pick it up! It's too annoying! I can't hear the club music!”
“Fine!” Arthur agreed, thumbs already unlocking his phone and bringing up the text message that blinked before his eyes. It was a photo from 2Hot4U.
Who?
Oh, who cares.
Arthur agreeably opened the photo from the stranger and found himself admiring a rather nice set of eyes. They looked-Arthur's dazed mind tried to hunt for the right words-dreamy. So very, very dreamy. And what gorgeous color. Arthur's drunk mawkish streak wanted to continue waxing poetically, but then he recognized the slant of the familiar cheekbones and heavy lashes. Urgh.
He tapped out a message of his own and sent it back to Eames with a snort before chugging down his third mango mojito.
Then he waved his arm at the bartender to get another.
“Who was it?” Mal yelled, this time not in his ear, since she was too busy ogling Dom's ass while the man made an idiot of himself on the dance floor.
“That guy, that jackass forger. You know, the one I hate.”
Mal shook her head resignedly. “You hate them all, Arthur.”
“The one that I hate the most. With the tattoos and mouth and muscles and everything.” Arthur felt his explanation sounded a little off, but his mojito was calling his name again, so he just left it.
“Ohhh. Eames! He's cute, you know, in a self-conscious British way,” Mal mused and gave Arthur a distorted leer.
Wow, that was incredibly disturbing. “Go to sleep, Mal,” Arthur told her sensibly. “You're drunk.”
“Yeah, I am. I can't hold my liquor anymore. Not since I left France.” Then she laid her head on her arms and cried and fell asleep. So did Arthur.
NOW
“I don't get it,” Ariadne said, her forehead furrowed. “Eames sends me text messages all the time. Sometimes he sends me selfies, but I figured him for a narcissus the first time I saw him anyway. Mostly, he likes to send me links to cute dolphin photos.”
“Yeah, but that was just the first one,” Arthur protested defensively. “There were a lot of times. Like this one time in Chicago.”
FOUR YEARS AGO
“Why am I here, Eames?” Arthur asked flatly, arms crossed in front of him while he leaned against the desk, which wobbled a bit beneath his weight. He quickly stood up straight and held the piece of furniture steady until it stopped moving. Cheap motel rooms.
“You're here, Arthur,” Eames purred, “so that you don't have to work out your latent stalker tendencies in the privacy of your own hotel room. Anyway, tomorrow you're going to demand that I explain everything I was thinking when I came up with Robinson's suit. I'm saving us time. I'll dress, and you'll...watch.”
Feeling antsy already, Arthur checked his watch. It was already nearing 11:10, and if he wanted his grande vanilla cinnamon sprinkle latte from Starbucks, then he needed to leave in twenty minutes to beat the lunch rush.
“What do you think?” Eames asked, as he whirled around to display an admittedly well-cut gray suit with a pressed light blue shirt and perfectly knotted striped tie. If Arthur wasn't feeling faint from the lack of caffeine, he'd be engaged in examining Eames's choice of tie pin and cuff links.
“It works,” Arthur said shortly, trying not to let his stomach growl angrily. He should have ignored Dom's pleading that they visit the new seafood restaurant that had opened on Main Street. Five Star Michelin, his ass. $200 for spending last night hovering around the toilet, waiting to puke.
“-And you don't think the Blah Blah is a better blah blah for a man as youth-obsessed? Blah, blah, blah?” Eames asked before looking up from his dresser with an expectant look.
Arthur stared back blankly. Crap. He thought fast. “I don't think it matters. He's gotten pretty pudgy around the middle, and he hasn't bothered to get liposuction,” he countered coolly.
“Luckily, I don't have that problem.” Eames smiled wickedly, and his hands went up to his neck, deftly untying the strip of cloth and tossing it onto the bed. Then he smoothly unbuttoned his shirt, fingers flicking with each button out of its hole, and slivers of sun-warmed skin began peeking through.
Arthur's mouth dropped open at the impromptu strip show, and he gawked for a long moment before he regained control of his nervous system and turned around, nearly slipping on the cologne bottle Eames had causally thrown to the floor minutes earlier. “What the hell? You could have asked me to turn my back first.”
“And disappoint you? Never,” Eames responded cheerfully. And Arthur heard the soft shuffle of his linen pants falling to the floor.
NOW
Arthur waited for Ariadne's sympathetic reaction. He was to be disappointed.
Eyes looking a little hazy, Ariadne gushed, “Oh, wow, I bet that was so hot! I can't believe he asked you to dress him!”
“What?” Arthur sputtered. “That is not what happened.”
Ariadne waved away the semantics. “Come on, he asked you what you wanted. That is a dream come true for a lot of people. And you're such a clotheshorse. Were you sick or tired? You know, Arthur, if you have trouble with performance, I know a guy-”
“Being tired doesn't stop me doing anything,” Arthur said with a scowl.
“Even in the morning?” Ariadne asked shrewdly. “You're not exactly Mr. Cheerful during all the morning meetings you insist on holding. Not to mention, you clutch your coffee like it's your baby, and the world's full of kidnappers.”
“I can function in the morning,” Arthur argued weakly. “I can.”
THREE YEARS AGO
The doorbell rang again. Arthur crawled pathetically out of bed and fumbled for the gun he kept taped to the side of his nightstand. He could gladly shoot either the bell or his visitor. Or both.
He yanked open the door before he could give into his murderous impulses.
“What?” he snarled sleepily, running a hand through his bed hair.
“Spare your shower, love?” Eames stood there with the skimpiest white towel around his hips. Arthur's eyes focused on the white towel, which was wet, thin, and threadbare. He jerked his gaze back up to Eames' face and sighed loudly.
“Fine. Towels are in the cupboard,” Arthur said shortly. He headed back inside and flopped onto his bed and pulled his pillow over the top of his head. He ignored Eames's amused chuckle. “Yes, I know, Arthur. We're staying at the same hotel.”
Since Eames couldn't be grateful and silent, Arthur gave him the finger without lifting his head and wiggled under the sheets. Peace. Sweet quiet. About to fall back asleep, Arthur bolted upright at the sudden hot wet touch on his shoulder. Assassin! He aimed an adrenaline-fueled fist behind him, but he heard that same annoying laugh.
“Sorry, mate. Couldn't find the towels. Sure the housekeeping didn't forget to replace them?”
Screw it. Arthur threw his covers to the floor. So what if it wasn't a random assailant. He was going to punch Eames out anyway. Just for being so chirpy in the morning.
“The towels are right there!” Arthur yelled, turning around, planning to grab Eames by the waist and literally propel him to the cupboard and shove his face into the definitely existing towels. His planned lecture devolved into a shocked grunt as his face nearly collided with Eames's stomach. He could feel the steam from the shower practically rising from the water-warmed silky smooth skin. And he could see the tiny water droplets still clinging to the trail of hair heading down to-
“What happened to your towel?” Arthur demanded, slapping a hand over his eyes.
“It was dirty and wet,” Eames said blithely. “I felt more comfortable with it off. Is there a problem, Arthur?”
Arthur detected an edge of something to Eames's tone and began to feel a little indignant. Eames was waltzing around nude in Arthur's hotel room in the early hour of 10:00 am and complaining that Arthur was making him uncomfortable? That was rich.
Still covering his eyes, Arthur felt around until he found one of his bedsheets. He rolled it into a haphazard ball and threw it at Eames. “Just use the sheet.”
NOW
“Why is everyone outside?” Yusuf asked, arriving with a jangling cardboard box and a long roll of tubing wrapped around his arm.
“Eames is in there naked, and Arthur's being a prude,” Ariadne summarized promptly.
Arthur ignored the jab. He wasn't a prude; he just had standards for a good work environment. “How did you stand actually living with him? Was he even worse? Did he just study and cook and do laundry without clothes on?”
Yusuf looked a little bemused. “I only saw Eames naked a few times by accident. He never seems to remember to lock the bathroom door when he's in there.”
“Probably he did that on purpose,” Arthur muttered uncharitably.
Ariadne glared at him. “Don't be mean, Arthur. I do that too sometimes.”
Then an awkward silence fell, and Arthur and Yusuf tried to look elsewhere and pretend they weren't picturing it.
“Anyway,” Yusuf finally said. “I mostly got flashes of his back and ass. Then one time he was all turned around, and I saw the whole thing.”
“Really?” Arthur asked, perversely fascinated. “Was that when you moved out and refused to ever be his roommate again?”
“Nooo,” Yusuf stretched out the word, giving Arthur an odd look. “I nudged him in the chest and told him he could do pornos. He laughed, and we were okay. He also finally started remembering to use the lock. Thank God for the other guys in our dorm.”
“You should try that, Arthur,” Ariadne suggested brightly. “Maybe all he wants is a compliment.”
Arthur rolled his eyes. “Sometimes I think he's just allergic to clothes. Or vice versa, like they can't get far away enough from him.”
TWO YEARS AGO
“Hm. That was unexpected.”
Arthur and Cobb stopped talking and looked up simultaneously to see Eames giving them a sheepish look.
“I've lost my swimming trunks, I'm afraid,” he confessed, eyes downcast. He shifted his hips rather noticeably. “The suction around this part is very strong.”
“What color is it?” Cobb asked, rising from the lawn chair to circle the pool, taking time to poke through the bushes in the surrounding landscaping and peering under the empty lifeguard chair. They watched him for a long while, Eames still standing in the chest-high water at the deep end.
“Dom, it's not going to be there. It's somewhere in the pool,” Arthur said tiredly.
“You never know,” Cobb said absently, frowning a bit as he began upturning the trays and buckets and floaters left carelessly on the deck area. “I thought for sure James couldn't have lost his pacifier inside the museum, and a security guard found it in a vase. That was really bad, as far as parenting moments go.”
“Actually, I think maybe they went down the pipes,” Eames mused rather sedately. “It's very hard for that shade of red to blend into the pool water.” He shrugged and began striding up the steps to the pool top.
Mesmerized like a mouse before a snake, Arthur watched as the water level steadily decreased, and more and more of Eames's bare skin rose above the shifting waves that distorted the intimate flesh that lay just beneath. Fortunately, Eames was focused on the careful steps he was making up the slippery concrete, so Arthur had time to turn his head and pretend he was looking for Eames's change of clothing.
After a few minutes, Arthur still couldn't find the man's bag. “Eames, where did you put your bag?”
“What bag?” Eames asked, standing right next to him.
“The one with your clothes,” Arthur clarified.
“Oh,” Eames responded blankly. He surveyed the empty ground. “Bugger. Could have sworn that I put it right over there.” He turned to the left and bent over to get a better look under the creaky old lawn chair; in the meantime, Arthur got a close-up of his family jewels and the crowning glory.
“I already checked there,” Arthur said tightly, resisting the completely inappropriate urge to give that beautifully curved ass a hard smack.
Eames straightened back up. “Maybe I misremembered. Mind if I take a look, Arthur?”
And then Eames was bending his hot naked tattooed body over Arthur, and he was getting closer and closer, and they were touching-
NOW
Arthur snapped out of a memory-turned daydream. Guilty, he wondered if Eames still held a minor grudge against Arthur for having shoved him back into the pool.
“Eames again?” Cobb asked, as he wandered up to meet them. He held a Togo's bag over one arm, and the tantalizing smell of roast beef on sourdough and pastrami on rye wafted through the air.
“Yes,” Arthur said resentfully before the others could open their unhelpful big mouths.
“Is Arthur really giving us the whole story?” Ariadne asked after greedily snatching her meatball sub from Cobb's hand. He rubbed at the light pink marks left by her nails and gave her a wary look.
“Eames is just really comfortable with his skin,” Cobb answered cautiously. “Mal was too.” He trailed off, and the mood plummeted to the icy depths of chronic depression.
Not again, they all thought secretly before feeling guilty for their insensitivity.
“Tell them the poker story, Dom!” Arthur ordered before the man could start crying about how his memories could never encompass everything that his dead wife was.
“Huh? Oh. Oh, yeah, it's actually a really funny story.”
ONE YEAR AGO
It was a boring job in Tijuana. And there was nothing to do, so they made their own fun.
“Straight! Hah, take that, suckers!” Melly, the normally levelheaded architect, shouted happily.
Arthur shrugged and showed a respectable three of a kind. He'd never been good at cards.
Cobb grimaced for show before triumphantly flashing an unexpected full house. “Who's a loser now?” he smugly asked Melly.
“Not me,” Aguilar, the taciturn chemist, said coolly before revealing his hand, four of a kind. Cobb gawked unattractively at the winning hand. Then they all remembered Eames, who'd been oddly quiet the whole round.
“So?” Aguilar prompted.
Eames smiled self-deprecatingly. “Much as I would like to dethrone you, Lady Luck's run out on me, and I haven't the cards.” He held up a no-pair hand.
“Aren't you supposed to be a card shark?” Melly asked suspiciously. “That's what Cobb said.”
“We all have our off days,” Eames said breezily, toeing off his loafers, pulling off his socks, and settling into a cross-legged position.
“Flush!” shouted Cobb in the next round. “Anyone beat that?”
Melly and Aguilar both scowled down at their hidden hands before reluctantly giving them up: a straight and a three of a kind respectively.
“Hmm,” Arthur said to himself. “I forget. How high is this?” He held up three sevens and two sixes.
“Oh, snap!” Melly laughed, giving Cobb a playful shove. “Looks like Arthur might have you beat.
“Come on, lover boy,” she taunted Eames. “Let's see what you have.”
Eames flipped over his cards to reveal a disappointing two pair. Even Aguilar couldn't help but say something. “Seriously, man. Get with the program. We're all kicking your butt.”
Eames didn't look at all bothered by the criticism. He insouciantly shrugged off his jacket and then pulled off his button-down. Sweat glistened in the hollow of his throat, clearly visible above the low neckline of his tank top, which seemed at least a size too small, judging by the way his shoulders and biceps bulged attractively. The others, too busy arguing over Aguilar's shuffling method, didn't seem to notice.
“Okay, break it up,” Arthur finally interrupted. “Let's just keep going. It's just a game.” He got a bunch of dirty looks for that last comment, so he threatened, “Or we could just go back to work.”
The chorus of no's was nearly deafening.
“Flush!”
“Full House!”
“Four of a kind!”
“Four of a kind!”
Both possessing a four of a kind, Melly and Cobb locked eyes in a deadly gaze, completely ignoring Arthur and Aguilar for being too down the food chain to bother with. Never blinking, they turned to glare at Eames, who looked at them innocently. He held up two fives, two threes, and a Jack-a two pair. Pathetic.
Then he promptly yanked off his tank top and began pulling at the zipper of his jeans.
“Whoa, whoa whoa!” Melly shielded her eyes with one hand before putting her free one in front of Cobb's face, nearly slapping him. “We're not doing strip poker!”
Eames's fingers kept going. “Yes, we are,” he countered. “I've been holding up my end of the bargain.”
Aguilar shook his head disapprovingly. “I like strip poker, but I am not doing it with coworkers. That's just wrong.”
More inured to Eames's antics than the others, Arthur just stared at Eames blandly. “I think we're done with our break for the day,” he announced indomitably.
NOW
“Yeah,” Cobb recalled. “I have no idea what made Eames think we were playing strip poker. I mean, he was completely fine with regular poker all those other times we played.”
“Was Arthur there?” Ariadne asked pointedly.
Cobb paused, the gears working away, and then he looked discomforted. “Actually, no.”
“Welcome to my family, brother,” Yusuf said solemnly to Arthur before giving him a big bear hug.
Ariadne patted him on the back. “It's cute that you're shy, Arthur, and I'm sure Eames likes it, but you know, a man likes to get appreciation once in a while.”
“Let's grab coffee while Arthur solves his problem. We should give them some space,” Yusuf brightly suggested to Ariadne.
Then Arthur was left with Cobb, who stared at him intently. “Arthur,” he said, clearing his throat noisily. “There's a train station for everyone-”
“Oh, kill me now,” Arthur blurted out.
“-but sometimes it's a shameless buff naked Englishman, and that's completely okay,” Cobb finished earnestly, his hands coming up to grab Arthur's tightly. “Don't ever feel uncomfortable about what you like.”
Arthur thought that he and Cobb had enough history to get over Arthur's stuffing the leftover Togo's bag into the other man's mouth.
LATER
Arthur flipped through his portfolio, looking for his notes on Japan's seaweed export ratios. Then he saw a flash of something unexpected, slowed down, went back, and found it. His shoulders tensed in resignation.
It just wasn't going to stop. He slung his jacket over his shoulders, left his work laid out on the table (minus the explicit photos featuring creative use of chocolate syrup and the inky lines of a new tattoo), and just zombie-walked to the parking lot.
“Hey,” Arthur said five hours later.
“Bloody hell!” Eames shouted, eyes wide and voice nearly reaching prepubescent levels. He picked himself up from the floor and took a few minutes trying to close the hotel room door. Finally, he turned around with a mostly calm expression on his face.
“If you wanted to kill me, Arthur, you could do it more efficiently than with a heart attack,” Eames grumbled, massaging his chest area.
“Sorry,” Arthur said blandly, as he rose from the bed, letting the silk sheets fall from his naked skin. “I sure hope this gets the blood flowing.”
Much to his pleasure, Eames flushed hard and didn't seem to know what to do with him. So Arthur just got out of the bed and grabbed the man's v-neck shirt.
Judging by Eame's reaction, the tearing cloth made an excellent reminder.
A/N: I hope the poker scene had enough context for those unfamiliar with the game.