A Different Kind Of Uniform
Title: A Different Kind of Uniform
Fandom: Inception, Burn Notice
Pairing: Er... implied Arthur/Eames, but really it's mostly gen. Arthur/Michael Westen friendship, though!
Summary: Arthur doesn't wear suits because they're sophisticated and he's a snob. It's that he's still a soldier, officially or no, and the suits are just another uniform.
Author's Note: Fill for this Round 13 kink meme prompt: community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/17044.html
Arthur finds it a bit odd when people assume that he's obsessed with clothing. He's aware that he wears designer suits - they're expensive enough that they had better be, or else he's going to find someone to whom he can express some serious displeasure - but for God's sake, he is not a male primadonna or whatever runs through people's minds. He likes suits because they are streamlined and neat, not unlike the uniform he once wore.
He doesn't always wear full three-piece suits, of course. Some days it's too damn hot for the waistcoat or he just doesn't want to wear one, but he always wears the jackets and the trousers. There are days when the jacket comes off and is slung on the back of his chair, or when his tie ends up crooked because he has a tendency to tug on it when he's thinking. It's the feel of the clothes that matter to him, and even when he is slightly dishevelled by his standards, it's still enough for him. But you would think that his casual attitude toward his clothes when actually wearing them would signify that he really doesn't care. Apparently not.
Yusuf is a prime example, though in his case he was also working on faulty preconceptions and Arthur can't entirely blame him. “You know,” the chemist says on the first day of sedative testing, when Arthur is stretching out the kinks and aches caused by being knocked to the ground after falling asleep in an uncomfortable position, “from what Eames said, I thought you'd take all this a lot worse.”
“Oh?” Arthur asks, rolling his shoulders. “And why is that?”
“Well, your clothes are rather dirty. I was under the impression you were fastidious about your clothing - or rather, Eames is, and he shared it with me.”
Arthur only just manages not to roll his eyes. “I'm afraid Eames assumes too much. If I was worried about getting my work clothes dirty, I'd just show up in jeans and a T-shirt on testing days.”
“You own normal clothing?” Yusuf's eyes are actually wide. Really, this is ridiculous.
Arthur blinks. “Jesus Christ, what has Eames been telling you about me?”
~ ~ ~
The first time Arthur wore a suit, he bought it off the rack from a Burlington Coat Factory. He's pretty sure that would shock his coworkers to death - well, not Cobb, who was there the day Mal first dragged Arthur to a tailor to buy his first bespoke suit. Arthur hasn't looked back; bespoke or made to measure suits fit his ideal of streamlined better than off the rack does, so it works for him.
He'd been out of the uniform for only three months and felt uncomfortable coming to work every day in buttondowns and khakis. It was what most of the agents assigned to Project Somnacin seemed to prefer, but for Arthur it just... didn't feel right. The fact that they were working with soldiers might have had something to do with that, because it felt even more like he'd never left the military, even though he was Special Agent Casey and not Corporal Casey now.
At the time, suits had been the unpleasant, scratchy things his mother used to force him into on Sundays before they went to Mass. Kids' suits are probably still like that, though obviously he wouldn't actually know. But he'd been sufficiently discouraged by those experiences from ever wanting to wear a suit of his own volition.
There was a bar near from his D.C. apartment that Arthur had been planning to check out for weeks, and he finally got the chance one night. He wasn't expecting to run into an old friend from his Delta days, but he couldn't deny that Michael Westen was a sight for sore eyes, so he dropped onto the bar stool next to his former comrade in arms. “So, Sarge, how've you been?”
“Corporal Casey. Good to see you.”
“I'm not, actually. A corporal. The FBI picked me up when my enlistment was through.”
Michael took a pull from his beer bottle, looking a little surprised. “Really, Arthur, the FBI?” he said, shaking his head. “I'd have thought you'd want more of a challenge than that.”
“Yeah, I heard you were with the CIA now,” Arthur said, tapping his fingers on the bar. The bartender came over and he ordered whatever was on tap, not in the mood to decide what beer he wanted. “So is it all playing American James Bond and that shit?”
Michael shook his head. “Sorry, classified. And rumor is, some of the guys the FBI stole from special ops are working on some new pet project. Would you know anything about that?”
“I might, but I don't think you're cleared for that,” Arthur said before drinking some of his beer gratefully. It had been one long day, and he'd died six times. He needed the drink.
Not everyone would understand how much Arthur needed silence just then, but when you first meet a man under heavy fire in Afghanistan and then end up working special ops together less than two years later, for a further three years, you know him pretty well. And besides, neither he nor Michael had ever been big talkers.
“You still addicted to yogurt?” he finally asked. Michael snorted.
“You would ask that.”
“Well, it's disgusting.”
“This from a man who could eat peanut butter and nothing else for a month.”
Arthur would have loved to have a snappy retort for that, but he didn't. Still, the familiar banter left him feeling... Well. If it didn't make absolutely no sense to say it, he'd call the feeling an odd kind of homesickness for the camaraderie of their old troop. “You miss Delta?” he asked, not knowing quite where it came from.
Michael raised an eyebrow. “Feels weird to be out of uniform, I'm guessing.”
“You have no idea.” They weren't just talking about the uniform, but the uniform was part of it.
“Try wearing a suit,” Michael advised, and Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Trust me,” the older man continued. “It works.”
Arthur figured he didn't have anything to lose, so that weekend he bought two suits - black and dark gray because that seemed basic enough, and as long as he wasn't in purple or some other color that might stop traffic, he was fine. He knew how to do up a tie, at least, and sure enough, with the jacket and tie and the neatly pressed pants... It wasn't quite the same, but it felt a little more familiar. It was like the familiar weight of his father's old loaded die in his pocket, an anchor of sorts. A new uniform for a new phase of his life. It made sense.
~ ~ ~
After that little conversation with Yusuf, Arthur corners Eames as he's practicing lifting a pair of reading glasses just so. He knows the Brit spends a lot of time in the dreamscape perfecting his forges, but also likes doing the physical gestures in reality, to help muscle memory.
“Can I do something for you, Arthur?”
“Any reason why you had Yusuf convinced I'd tear his head off because being the kick tester got my clothes dirty?”
“Well...” Eames drawls the word, gesturing to Arthur's suit. He's about to leave, as it's his turn to go pick up take-out for dinner, so he's got his jacket on again. “Look at you, why wouldn't I think that?”
Arthur leans on the edge of Eames' worktable, which is covered in photos of Browning and bits of notepaper covered in the forger's slanting, surprisingly neat handwriting. He doesn't bother to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “Ever heard the old saying about not judging books by their covers?”
“Well, the cover's all I can see, darling, so what else can I do?” Eames asks. The tone is deceptively mild, with an undercurrent of something Arthur would rather not think about just now. He's known Eames for the better part of a decade, off and on, their first meeting when they were both just soldiers in the desert, a few more when they were special ops, and then a surprise encounter when the chemist who hired him and Cobb had hired Eames as their forger.
There have been times like this during all those meetings, sometimes on Eames' part and sometimes on Arthur's. It's just part of working with the forger, like the sniping at each other or dealing with petty pranks like when Eames decided to demonstrate a 'kick' to Ariadne. So he shrugs and walks away, leaving it at that.
Arthur can still remember what it was like to be in uniform. To be in uniform was to be 'on', to be ready for anything. That's why he wears suits now, and why in dreams they're full three-piece unless that's not appropriate. It reminds him to be alert, to be ready. And it's what makes him comfortable, that idea that he's still in uniform, just a different kind.
Fandom: Inception, Burn Notice
Pairing: Er... implied Arthur/Eames, but really it's mostly gen. Arthur/Michael Westen friendship, though!
Summary: Arthur doesn't wear suits because they're sophisticated and he's a snob. It's that he's still a soldier, officially or no, and the suits are just another uniform.
Author's Note: Fill for this Round 13 kink meme prompt: community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/17044.html
Arthur finds it a bit odd when people assume that he's obsessed with clothing. He's aware that he wears designer suits - they're expensive enough that they had better be, or else he's going to find someone to whom he can express some serious displeasure - but for God's sake, he is not a male primadonna or whatever runs through people's minds. He likes suits because they are streamlined and neat, not unlike the uniform he once wore.
He doesn't always wear full three-piece suits, of course. Some days it's too damn hot for the waistcoat or he just doesn't want to wear one, but he always wears the jackets and the trousers. There are days when the jacket comes off and is slung on the back of his chair, or when his tie ends up crooked because he has a tendency to tug on it when he's thinking. It's the feel of the clothes that matter to him, and even when he is slightly dishevelled by his standards, it's still enough for him. But you would think that his casual attitude toward his clothes when actually wearing them would signify that he really doesn't care. Apparently not.
Yusuf is a prime example, though in his case he was also working on faulty preconceptions and Arthur can't entirely blame him. “You know,” the chemist says on the first day of sedative testing, when Arthur is stretching out the kinks and aches caused by being knocked to the ground after falling asleep in an uncomfortable position, “from what Eames said, I thought you'd take all this a lot worse.”
“Oh?” Arthur asks, rolling his shoulders. “And why is that?”
“Well, your clothes are rather dirty. I was under the impression you were fastidious about your clothing - or rather, Eames is, and he shared it with me.”
Arthur only just manages not to roll his eyes. “I'm afraid Eames assumes too much. If I was worried about getting my work clothes dirty, I'd just show up in jeans and a T-shirt on testing days.”
“You own normal clothing?” Yusuf's eyes are actually wide. Really, this is ridiculous.
Arthur blinks. “Jesus Christ, what has Eames been telling you about me?”
~ ~ ~
The first time Arthur wore a suit, he bought it off the rack from a Burlington Coat Factory. He's pretty sure that would shock his coworkers to death - well, not Cobb, who was there the day Mal first dragged Arthur to a tailor to buy his first bespoke suit. Arthur hasn't looked back; bespoke or made to measure suits fit his ideal of streamlined better than off the rack does, so it works for him.
He'd been out of the uniform for only three months and felt uncomfortable coming to work every day in buttondowns and khakis. It was what most of the agents assigned to Project Somnacin seemed to prefer, but for Arthur it just... didn't feel right. The fact that they were working with soldiers might have had something to do with that, because it felt even more like he'd never left the military, even though he was Special Agent Casey and not Corporal Casey now.
At the time, suits had been the unpleasant, scratchy things his mother used to force him into on Sundays before they went to Mass. Kids' suits are probably still like that, though obviously he wouldn't actually know. But he'd been sufficiently discouraged by those experiences from ever wanting to wear a suit of his own volition.
There was a bar near from his D.C. apartment that Arthur had been planning to check out for weeks, and he finally got the chance one night. He wasn't expecting to run into an old friend from his Delta days, but he couldn't deny that Michael Westen was a sight for sore eyes, so he dropped onto the bar stool next to his former comrade in arms. “So, Sarge, how've you been?”
“Corporal Casey. Good to see you.”
“I'm not, actually. A corporal. The FBI picked me up when my enlistment was through.”
Michael took a pull from his beer bottle, looking a little surprised. “Really, Arthur, the FBI?” he said, shaking his head. “I'd have thought you'd want more of a challenge than that.”
“Yeah, I heard you were with the CIA now,” Arthur said, tapping his fingers on the bar. The bartender came over and he ordered whatever was on tap, not in the mood to decide what beer he wanted. “So is it all playing American James Bond and that shit?”
Michael shook his head. “Sorry, classified. And rumor is, some of the guys the FBI stole from special ops are working on some new pet project. Would you know anything about that?”
“I might, but I don't think you're cleared for that,” Arthur said before drinking some of his beer gratefully. It had been one long day, and he'd died six times. He needed the drink.
Not everyone would understand how much Arthur needed silence just then, but when you first meet a man under heavy fire in Afghanistan and then end up working special ops together less than two years later, for a further three years, you know him pretty well. And besides, neither he nor Michael had ever been big talkers.
“You still addicted to yogurt?” he finally asked. Michael snorted.
“You would ask that.”
“Well, it's disgusting.”
“This from a man who could eat peanut butter and nothing else for a month.”
Arthur would have loved to have a snappy retort for that, but he didn't. Still, the familiar banter left him feeling... Well. If it didn't make absolutely no sense to say it, he'd call the feeling an odd kind of homesickness for the camaraderie of their old troop. “You miss Delta?” he asked, not knowing quite where it came from.
Michael raised an eyebrow. “Feels weird to be out of uniform, I'm guessing.”
“You have no idea.” They weren't just talking about the uniform, but the uniform was part of it.
“Try wearing a suit,” Michael advised, and Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Trust me,” the older man continued. “It works.”
Arthur figured he didn't have anything to lose, so that weekend he bought two suits - black and dark gray because that seemed basic enough, and as long as he wasn't in purple or some other color that might stop traffic, he was fine. He knew how to do up a tie, at least, and sure enough, with the jacket and tie and the neatly pressed pants... It wasn't quite the same, but it felt a little more familiar. It was like the familiar weight of his father's old loaded die in his pocket, an anchor of sorts. A new uniform for a new phase of his life. It made sense.
~ ~ ~
After that little conversation with Yusuf, Arthur corners Eames as he's practicing lifting a pair of reading glasses just so. He knows the Brit spends a lot of time in the dreamscape perfecting his forges, but also likes doing the physical gestures in reality, to help muscle memory.
“Can I do something for you, Arthur?”
“Any reason why you had Yusuf convinced I'd tear his head off because being the kick tester got my clothes dirty?”
“Well...” Eames drawls the word, gesturing to Arthur's suit. He's about to leave, as it's his turn to go pick up take-out for dinner, so he's got his jacket on again. “Look at you, why wouldn't I think that?”
Arthur leans on the edge of Eames' worktable, which is covered in photos of Browning and bits of notepaper covered in the forger's slanting, surprisingly neat handwriting. He doesn't bother to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “Ever heard the old saying about not judging books by their covers?”
“Well, the cover's all I can see, darling, so what else can I do?” Eames asks. The tone is deceptively mild, with an undercurrent of something Arthur would rather not think about just now. He's known Eames for the better part of a decade, off and on, their first meeting when they were both just soldiers in the desert, a few more when they were special ops, and then a surprise encounter when the chemist who hired him and Cobb had hired Eames as their forger.
There have been times like this during all those meetings, sometimes on Eames' part and sometimes on Arthur's. It's just part of working with the forger, like the sniping at each other or dealing with petty pranks like when Eames decided to demonstrate a 'kick' to Ariadne. So he shrugs and walks away, leaving it at that.
Arthur can still remember what it was like to be in uniform. To be in uniform was to be 'on', to be ready for anything. That's why he wears suits now, and why in dreams they're full three-piece unless that's not appropriate. It reminds him to be alert, to be ready. And it's what makes him comfortable, that idea that he's still in uniform, just a different kind.