why do i keep filling these domestic prompts. ;_;
In A Dream House We All Ride Carousels
Arthur/Cobb, PG-13, prompt: " post-movie arthur/cobb domestic fic."
2873 words
--
It was sort of strange that, after the Fischer job, Arthur ended up babysitting Cobb's kids indefinitely. He didn't know what he was getting himself into at the time because as soon as the plane touched ground, Cobb turned to him without preamble and asked if he had anything lined up.
"No," Arthur answered, even though he was already contemplating booking a holiday to Barcelona to take a break from the madness. He realized he was in possession of a masochistic streak because two hours later he found himself in the Connecticut suburbs drinking coffee in the living room while Cobb's kids, Philippa and James, looked up at him with wide, hopeful eyes. They didn't remember him because they'd been so young when Mal was alive and Arthur was still around to play babysitter.
It was only for a few days, Arthur thought as he sipped his coffee. Cobb was in the kitchen, on the phone, and James was pawing at his bag and asking what was inside it. Philippa was drinking juice in the corner, a shy little smile on her face as she stared at him and looked away when he caught her.
Arthur's mouth twitched.
A few days, he thought, then jumped to attention when Cobb entered the room asking is Chinese was all right for dinner.
--
"You can't feed your children take-out, Cobb." Arthur said two days later. They'd been over this before and Cobb still looked at him like it he was talking out of his ass, the same raised eyebrows, the same mildly offended tug in the corner of his lips.
"I don't cook, Arthur. You know that. Besides, James loves Wonton soup, don't you buddy?" James nodded, giggling as Cobb reached down to muss his hair. James was sucking on his thumb again and Arthur was tempted to yank it out of his mouth and give him a pacifier. But then he tried that before and James cried and made a beeline for Cobb and Cobb had lectured him on leaving his children alone. He didn't want another argument.
"I'm going to cook." He decided finally, rummaging through the entire kitchen for ingredients and frowning when his search proved futile.
"You don't cook, Arthur." Cobb said, picking up James from the floor and balancing him on his hip. When Arthur turned, Cobb was blowing raspberries into James' stomach and James was giggling and snorting and shoving Cobb away with his pudgy little hands and, damn, damn if Arthur didn't feel a slight tug in his chest.
"I'm going shopping for food." He looked away, grabbed his coat from the hook behind the door and fished for the car keys at the bureau.
"We should take the kids." Cobb suggested, putting James down and fitting a sweater over his head.
"We?"
"We can take the Prius. It'll be like a little trip. Hand the keys over."
"But-"
Cobb gave him a look and snatched the keys from his outstretched hand. "Wake Philippa from her nap and make sure she wears something nice before bringing her down here. I'll start the car." He patted him on the shoulder.
Cobb left and Arthur and James simultaneously turned to look at each other, James fitting an entire fist into his mouth and Arthur with an eyebrow raised, twitching.
"What?" Arthur asked, then felt bad for snapping at a kid; even he had a conscience. "Do you want to come with me upstairs to wake your sister up?" He knelt down to James' eye level and eased his hand from his mouth, hesitating before wiping James' hand against the hem of his best dress shirt.
James, to Arthur's relief, smiled and nodded.
"Up, up!" James said, throwing his arms around Arthur's shoulders and bouncing slightly on his feet. He wasn't very heavy, and it was not unlike carrying an armful of warm laundry. James tucked his head into Arthur's neck and Arthur could feel his wet little mouth leave traces of drool on his shoulder.
"James." Arthur groaned.
James smiled and giggled.
--
They packed the shopping cart with more junk than essentials because Cobb seemed more than happy to buy anything the kids wanted. For half an hour he played deaf to each of Arthur's complaints. Arthur wasn't even complaining, he just didn't buy into the whole idea of catering to a child's every whim just so you could win their love. The idea was preposterous; Cobb should learn how to discipline them, not cave as soon as their lower lip started wobbling.
"You're going to give your children early onset diabetes at the rate you're going." Arthur said at the check-out line. "You need to stop spoiling them, Cobb."
Cobb shrugged and leafed through his wallet before handing Arthur his MasterCard. They left with eight bags of groceries, Philippa and James in the backseat eating ice cream that was going to be tougher than it looked cleaning from the seats.
Back at the house, Arthur looked up a recipe for Lemon Chicken Risotto and the instructions were easy enough to follow that he didn't botch his first attempt. The rice was slightly burnt and he was a teaspoon short on lemon, but the kids loved it, and so did Cobb who brought out a Pinot Noir to share with him after the kids, washed and changed, were finally put to bed.
"That was... satisfying to say the least." Cobb had his elbows draped on the kitchen counter and he was watching Arthur put away the dishes.
"Was it?" said Arthur, amused, trying his best to mask his glee. Cobb wasn't usually so generous with his compliments and the best he'd given Arthur was a good job and a brief pat on the back.
And then there it was, that look again, Cobb smiled and walked over to him, patted him on the shoulder. His hand slid down to linger on the small of Arthur's back before pulling away, and Arthur wiped his hands on a washcloth, nodding, pretending that the shiver he felt was from the wind whistling through the open window.
"Good night," Cobb said, muffled yawn through his fist, long and draw-out.
Arthur waved him out of the kitchen. "Go to bed, Cobb. I'll be all right here."
"Yeah?" Cobb laughed. "All right. Good night, Arthur."
"Good night." Arthur said. He leaned against the fridge and loosened his necktie.
--
Philippa was starting to get bored around the house so Arthur enrolled her in kindergarten. Besides, she was old enough. She was turning six in four months, the same age Arthur started first grade and won his first spelling bee. There was so much to learn, and Arthur didn't want Philippa lagging behind her peers. She was just like Mal, eager and intuitive, always asking questions that sometimes bordered on nosy.
James played and napped all day and watched too much television and still hadn't been potty trained, something which Arthur blamed on Cobb who insisted, vehemently, that it wasn't his fault; he'd been the prodigal father now returned and looking for a job to sustain his children.
"You should get a housekeeper," Arthur said one day, rolling his sleeves up his elbows while he bent over cleaning James' urine from the carpet, sopping up the moisture with rags and disinfecting the area with solution.
"You seem like you're doing fine, Arthur. I wouldn't want to deny you the honor."
When Arthur shot him a look, Cobb sighed, chewed his lip, set his copy of Time magazine aside and knelt next to him. The proximity was familiar from countless jobs they'd worked before, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, but Cobb's smell wasn't, not veiled by cologne or sweat but a mixture of warm skin and soap.
"It's just a few weeks." Cobb said, shoulder rubbing against Arthur's as he pressed his hands on the rags to absorb the puddle on the carpet. "I'll get a job, find a decent housekeeper, a nanny for my kids and then -
"Fine." Arthur snapped, rolling his eyes. He was feeling weird, a little, probably from the disinfectant and Cobb's hair, long and uncombed, brushing his face faintly.
"Just, shut up and apply pressure, will you?"
Cobb laughed, for the first time in a long time, and Arthur would be lying if he said that didn't make him smile.
--
James started preschool a few weeks later. He still wasn't potty trained and had to wear a diaper to school and Cobb often worried about whether or not James was going to make friends or cry the minute they dropped him off. Cobb's first day jitters were even worse than James' who clung to Cobb's leg and refused to let go.
"Maybe we should wait another year?" Cobb appealed, a mildly panicked look in his eyes as James started throwing a tantrum in the street, banging his fists against Cobb's leg.
"Four is too old for preschool, Cobb. Let James go."
Reluctantly, Cobb obeyed. And things went swimmingly and James, as it turned out, wasn't much of a crybaby after all when left to his own devices. With the kids in school, Cobb found it easier to concentrate on the job hunt. Arthur, meanwhile, found an increasing number of things to do around the house. He started by redecorating.
--
The first time was nothing more than an accident. The sofa was far more comfortable than the mattress in the guestroom so Arthur slept there, usually after midnight when Cobb and the kids were asleep, trudging down the stairs in boxers and a shirt, pillow tucked under one arm. He always made it a point to get up before Cobb did but one morning he was so tired he slept in and woke with a blanket thrown over his legs and Cobb sitting in the ottoman opposite the sofa, sipping coffee.
"Had a good sleep?"
Arthur sat up quickly, wildly embarrassed, pushing the hair out of his eyes and hoping against hope that he didn't talk in his sleep or even if he did, say anything that would incriminate him. He'd been having weird dreams lately, half of which he remembered to be about either Cobb or Mal. For a few days now he'd wake and absentmindedly rut against the sofa, come inside his boxers, sticky and sated before trying his hardest to recall the details of his dream.
Cobb had never seen him like this before, dressed down or with creases in his face which made things even more uncomfortably awkward. Arthur had seen Cobb in states even worse than this (burned, bleeding, with a fractured arm, half-naked as he walked out of the shower or with his head ducked inside the fridge and his boxers resting against the swell of his ass) but Cobb didn't really care much for propriety, unlike Arthur, and even now was sitting adjacent to Arthur in nothing more than an ugly green bathrobe wearing socks with his slippers.
Arthur went to get dressed and make the children lunch and it was a few days later that Cobb caught him sleeping in his bed. Arthur spent the entire day cleaning the bathroom and vacuuming the whole house.
He picked James at noon, and then Philippa at two thirty, then did the groceries before parking the kids in front of the TV, leaving them to prepare dinner in the kitchen. He climbed up the stairs, intent to change into something more comfortable than a dress shirt but then he bypassed Cobb's room and sat on the bed, ran his palms over the soft topography of the sheets that he made this morning, and sat there for awhile, staring at the ceiling, contemplating how strangely mundane his life had been ever since the Fischer job.
Arthur didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until the bed shifted hours later and Cobb was turning off the desk lamp. He fell asleep again and woke to Cobb's nose pressed to the back of his neck. They weren't spooning - thank god - but Cobb's weight on Arthur's back was a warm comfort, reminding Arthur that, despite his doubts, things were actually doing pretty okay.
--
The day started out like any other. Arthur woke at 6AM for his morning jog, showered at 6:45, padded down stairs to make breakfast and then dressed the kids for school. James had a 38 degree fever so Arthur tucked him back to bed and finished tidying up in the kitchen where Cobb sat quietly drinking coffee and reading the morning paper, flicking his eyes up every five seconds to compliment Arthur on the eggs and bacon which were, unlike last week's, cooked to a fine crisp.
Cobb now taught architecture at Yale, a job given to him by one of Miles' colleagues from back in the day. The campus was a forty five minute drive away from where they lived and Cobb usually left with a feeble honk from the driveway, rolling down the window of his sedan to wave at James and Philippa, offer Arthur a halfhearted nod and a little smile before stepping on the gas.
Today, Cobb forgot his lunch and Arthur, after unloading the dryer, asked James if he wanted to go on a little adventure to deliver daddy a package. Arthur still felt silly talking in a small inarticulate voice but every time James smiled at him and touched his face or showed him the art projects he'd made in school, it stopped becoming that big of a deal.
Arthur strapped James in backseat, wrapped him in a blanket and gave him something to chew on. Cobb was giving a lecture on Sustainable Architecture when Arthur arrived and he and James sat at the very back of the lecture hall until all the students filed out, dragging their feet across the floor and murmuring collectively.
"What are you doing here?" James rested his head on Cobb's shoulder the second he picked him up, sniffing into his shirt and playing with the tufts of his hair.
"You forgot your lunch," Arthur said, nodding and feeling oddly embarrassed. He realized belatedly that he smelled like a combination of baby powder, breakfast, and kid drool (James') and that his dress shirt was wrinkled and stained in the corner. Cobb accepted the brown paper bag he offered and they walked across the school grounds, James asleep in Cobb's arms and Arthur watching the flurry of student activity around him, feeling wistful all of a sudden.
Cobb ate in the faculty room which was a empty and poorly-lit, stacks of papers everywhere and books tucked in cabinets. Computers hummed and Arthur sat in a stuffed armchair facing the the window, James on his lap with his thumb wedged inside his mouth. The clock announced 1:15 which meant Arthur had to go soon to pick Philippa up from school.
Arthur sat there for awhile by the window while Cobb graded test papers. He thought about the place he kept his gun and the trip to Barcelona that he'd postponed, James' worrying oral fixation and Philippa asking him if he thought she should get a cell phone.
"You look deep in thought there." Cobb said, leaning back in his seat.
Arthur shrugged. "I was just thinking about what you might want for dinner. Any requests?"
"Something inducing heartburn would be good. I haven't had any meat in an entire week."
"Only because your cholesterol level is worrying, Cobb. And you vehemently refuse to exercise."
"Well, I wouldn't say vehemently." Cobb interjected.
"I need to keep you alive long enough to see your kids graduate college," Arthur finished.
Cobb stopped speaking and Arthur worried for a second that he'd said something wrong or reminded Cobb of Mal again without meaning to. But then Cobb walked over to him in sure, short strides and he was leaning down and pressing a warm kiss to Arthur's forehead. He smelled like aftershave.
Arthur blinked, too stunned to protest, and when Cobb stepped back, he felt nothing but an odd sort of warmth blanket him from the chest down. He’d gotten soft, he thought, with the kids and the house, and making sure Cobb didn’t accidentally feed his children nuclear sludge, but maybe there was nothing wrong with that, and maybe, maybe it was okay to just sit back and allow things to happen to him, for once, to Cobb, to the both of them, whatever that may entail, wherever that may take them.
"Thank you, Arthur." Cobb whispered, careful not to wake James as he leaned down again and braced his arms against the back of the chair. "For everything."
"No problem," Arthur replied smoothly although inside his heart was doing somersaults frantic enough to wake James whose head rested against his chest.
"By the way, nice bracelet," Cobb gestured to his wrist, and Arthur laughed before ducking his head, burying his face into James' hair.
"Thanks. Philippa made it for me. You like it?" He gave the bracelet several shakes, the beads clattering against his wrist and slipping down his arm.
"Yeah," Cobb said, "Yeah, it looks good. You should keep it."
Arthur laughed through his nose and shook his head, smoothing down James’ hair.
Cobb, at his table, smiled softly.