Inception -j'veux ton amour, et je m'en fous d'après (Eames/Arthur NC-17 2/2)
Part I
j'veux ton amour, et je m'en fous d'après
Yusuf is peeling an apple. Eames is chewing on a toothpick.
They're sitting on two plastic chairs outside the warehouse in West India Quay getting a breath of fresh air and watching the Thames. Inside Ariadne is reviewing her maze design with Arthur yet again; if Eames hears the words "paradox" or "Penrose steps" or "Escher's Belvedere" one more time he's going to stab someone with one of his graphite pencils.
"Haroon has a new habit," Yusuf announces, carefully guiding the blade around the circumference of red peel. "Sticking his finger up Namrah's nose."
Eames laughs, thinking of the kids at the V&A. "Yes, I've seen quite a bit of that lately."
"Namrah is less than impressed."
"She's an older sister. Of course she's not impressed."
"Deyva tried to tell her Haroon does it because he loves her."
"She didn't buy it, did she?"
"Not even a little bit."
"She's still having adjustment issues?"
"He's three now, she's five, I thought they were supposed to move past this."
Eames twirls his toothpick between his thumb and forefinger. "She'll get past it -- in another thirteen years or so."
Yusuf chokes. "I don't have thirteen years, Eames. I don't even have thirteen months. Deyva will kill them both if it doesn't get better soon."
"And yet here you are," Eames mocks.
"She'll kill me long before she kills them."
"Mal used to say something like that. "
Yusuf pauses in his peeling. "Cobb's Mal?"
"Yeah, she loved her kids, but they drove her crazy."
There's an uncomfortable silence. They're both thinking about the Fischer job. The details about Mal and Dom that Ariadne shared with them after the Fischer job.
"Bad choice of words," Eames decides.
Yusuf just clears his throat.
"She was great though," Eames says. "Mal."
"Really?" Yusuf finishes peeling his apple and closes up his Swiss Army Knife.
"Yeah, you two would've loved each other. She had a great sense of humor. Liked to laugh. Not hard on the eyes either." Eames smiles to himself.
"Arthur was very fond of her as I understand it."
"Yeah, he was. Is."
"Is there something you wish to tell me, my friend?"
Eames takes the toothpick out of his mouth and looks over at Yusuf. Yusuf takes a large bite of apple and chews, watching him expectantly. "What exactly do you think I'm trying to tell you?"
Yusuf finishes chewing before he speaks. "Arthur is neither Melesse nor Izo."
"You mean he only kills me in my dreams as opposed to trying to killing me in reality."
"Well, if you fall in love with Ethiopian diamond smugglers and models-turned-yakuza, you are going to have problems."
The look on Eames face is an expression he got from his mother he likes to call "we are not amused."
Yusuf grins. "I am just saying."
"You're 'just saying.'"
"Are you waiting on him or he is waiting on you?"
Eames opens his mouth and then closes it again.
"Then what are you waiting for?" Yusuf says, clearly at a loss.
It would be easy to say that Eames left the military because of one egregious error. That there was one job that simply went too far. That spending day after day torturing people mentally to extract data the RAF already had just pushed him over the edge -- but that's just too cut and dried, and Eames is not cut and dried. He somehow managed to grow tolerant and disillusioned at the same time.
People are mostly pointless and selfish, but a person is a different animal entirely. The military was people; Eames wanted to deal with each person individually. So he left EDP and went to see what exactly each person had to offer to him.
What happened in the end was simply a change of heart. Eames woke up one morning and wanted something more. So he left. Because that's what people do: sometimes they leave. Sometimes they stay. Sometimes they leave so that they can come back and stay.
Arthur is sitting on Eames' bench.
"Fancy meeting you here," Eames says, dropping down beside him and sprawling out. His arms rest along the back of the bench, his left arm curling around behind Arthur's back.
"I brought you tea," Arthur says, handing Eames a paper cup with a plastic covering. "Milk with two sugars, that's the way you like it, right?"
Eames takes the cup with his right hand and rests it on his thigh. It's still fairly warm.
"If this is your attempt at making me feel supremely flattered and cosseted, it's working."
Arthur gives him a sharp look, but Eames can feel the calmness settled over his own features.
What he says is as important as what he does, but people tend to be very selective about what they acknowledge. They either listen to what he says and pay no attention to how he says it, or they focus on what he's doing and miss what he's saying.
Arthur is one of the most astute people Eames knows, but he too is only human.
Eames sips at his tea and looks at the view before them. The top of Hampstead Heath is one of Eames' favorite places to do sweet fuck all.
He spends about a sixth of the year in London, mostly for family-related obligations since he tries not to shit in his own backyard -- bad form and all that. But the Heath is one of those places that's always been calming to him. It's the highest point in most of London and from any given bench at the top you can see the BT Tower and the London Eye -- an eyesore his mother is still vexed about -- and all the construction for the 2012 Olympics.
The breeze is cooler at the top of the hill, the lights brighter as the city shifts over to night. Mostly Eames likes the Heath for the people watching. Couples, mums with prams, runners, children and teens, adults and old-age pensioners.
Here Eames can watch how people move. How they interact. The play of the body: leaning forward, leaning away, fingers nervously twirling hair, tapping patterns on jeans, ashing of cigarettes, toes scuffing the dirt, downcast eyes, eyes looking past whatever they see. Tugging on earlobes and the scratching of necks and arms and sides and scalps. It's a language people are broadcasting loudly when they think they're not saying anything at all.
The only other places this good for observation are Kings Cross and Covent Garden, which are a bit of a nightmare and a haven all at the same time.
On the bench next to him, Arthur extracts his little red die and plays with it between his fingers. "Do you still need that?" Eames asks, gesturing with the cup.
Arthur's smile is wry. "Just because you never had one doesn't mean the rest of us don't need them."
"I just always thought of totems as Mal's thing."
"Until she stopped using it."
"That's the price you pay for dependency."
Arthur's glare is withering. Sometimes Eames' psychology degree makes him a little too incisive. "Everyone has crutches," he says. "Sometimes they're necessary."
"So it's better not to depend on anything, is that your stance?"
"All I do is make things up; do you think I'd ever depend on something besides myself?" He pauses. "Plus, I was never part of your cabal in that way."
"You never wanted to be," Arthur says, pocketing the die. In the waning light of day, his gaze seems far away from Eames.
"Did you ever ask?" Eames says.
"Did you?" Arthur counters. This conversation isn't about totems at all.
Eames clears his throat, his fingers are dancing along the shoulders of Arthur's black jumper. The knit is soft, intricate. Eames picks at an invisible piece of lint on Arthur's shoulder. "How's Cobb getting on?"
He can feel Arthur shifting on the bench beside him, not pulling away, just moving. "He's good. The kids are good."
"It's almost been a year. I didn't think he'd stay retired this long."
"He says he's done with it."
"And you believe him?"
"I think he's found something else he wants more than this."
It's Eames' turn to give Arthur a piercing look, but Arthur's face is perfectly shuttered.
And this is why they are the way they are.
Eames could never ask for a more perfectly crooked love affair.
"Touch me one more time and I'm going to make you exceedingly sorry."
Arthur was unhappy with Eames.
"I'm already exceedingly sorry," Eames shot back as he pressed his back to Arthur's and peered around the side of the blue shipping container. The torrential rain made visibility practically nonexistent, but it was hard to miss large men dressed in black and carrying handguns.
Still, Eames was sorry.
He was sorry that Arthur was wet and cranky.
He was sorry about the bit where the job had gone utterly pear-shaped.
He was also sorry that he'd taken a job in Singapore during the rainy season and convinced Arthur to join him. (Maybe not so much that last bit.)
And he was really, really sorry about the part where they were running short on hiding places and ammunition. Singapore was normally much better to Eames than this. Then again, this was, strictly speaking, the Port of Singapore. Maybe his luck was feeling technical today.
"I wouldn't have rung if I knew it was going to turn out like this," Eames said.
Arthur turned around just to glare at him, but it lost something in translation since his eyelashes were matted together with rain and his hair was in disarray.
Eames licked his lips, which tasted of curry from his favorite curried crab stand and tobacco from the smoking he was definitely going to give up. Just as soon as this was over and he had a celebratory fag.
"If we get out of this alive, I'm going to kick your ass," Arthur said.
Eames smiled. "Promise?"
Arthur opened his mouth, but whatever he said was drowned out by shouts in Malay that sent serious run-the-fuck-away signals to Eames' brain. He ignored them. He took another glimpse around the side of the container. Oh, fuck. He'd recognize that Vinnie Jones-sized bloke anywhere.
"I'll draw them out," Eames said, turning back to Arthur and talking low. "Try not to let me get killed."
Arthur's mouth thinned into an angry line. It seemed an excellent time for Eames to kiss away such an unfortunate look. So he did.
Arthur's lips were slippery and cool, but when he opened his mouth for Eames it was all heat that sent sparks to Eames' extremities. Eames' fingers tangled in slick hair and Arthur's tongue licked away at least five percent of Eames' brain power.
Arthur pulled away with a sharp bite to Eames' lower lip. "If you get killed, I will kick your ass," Arthur said.
"If I live, it's my arse; if I die, it's my arse. You seem very invested in my arse."
"It's a nice ass," Arthur said, patting Eames' bum sharply before dashing around the back of the container.
Eames always seemed to pick the worst times to fall in love.
Dr. Michael Weingarten is having lunch with his wife. It's a lovely day and they're sitting in the park behind the Savoy Hotel, surrounded by fuchsia azaleas, eating sandwiches and watching the cars drive along the Victoria Embankment.
Just on the other side of the Embankment is the Thames and beyond that is the Royal Festival Hall and the London Eye. Unlike Eames' mother, Geraldine loves the London Eye. Unlike the real London Eye this version doesn't actually stop for tourists. Unlike the real park behind the Savoy Hotel, this park loops around itself like a racetrack. And unlike the real Geraldine Weingarten, this Geraldine is going to confess to her husband that she's unhappy with this life and wants to start over. The only thing she's asking in return is that he be honest with her, too.
What's he doing at work?
Is he happy?
Doesn't he want something more?
ITV1 is hiring in Manchester.
Maybe it's time they reevaluate their life.
Eames doesn't know when he began thinking of him and Arthur as a crooked love affair. He's not even sure about the terminology, but he thinks it's rather apt. Two crooks who may or may not be in love. Two crooks who work independently because dependency doesn't get you anywhere. So somewhere in the pre-inception, post-Mal phase of their lives, somewhere in between watching Arthur fall apart and put himself back together, they arrived at the stagnant place they are now: two crooks who can't seem to get themselves together, because then what? What happens when you get everything you want? What gets you up in the morning? What's left to be done?
"So it's not a cure for balding," Ariadne says as she tosses the last of her models in the rubbish-bin fire burning in the middle of the warehouse.
"Not really," Eames says, sitting on the edge of her desk and playing with the Rubik's Cube that appeared from somewhere.
Everything seems to appear from somewhere around here.
"I mean you could use it for that," he says, "And obviously they will, because all companies are low on ethics and high on making a profit -- but a way to help cancer patients keep their hair through chemotherapy is pretty fucking impressive."
"But he's not going to sell it to the highest bidder?"
"No, he just didn't want to say anything until he was sure it was right."
"So why was he keeping it a secret from his wife?"
"Her mum died of cancer. He thought it would upset her."
"I think him not telling her would upset her more," Yusuf says, closing his black bag with a snap.
"That's what I said," Eames says.
"I think I'd always rather know than not, you know?" Ariadne says. She's wearing a jade green scarf around her neck. The color suits her perfectly.
Eames looks across the warehouse where Arthur is sorting through papers. "I think that depends."
"Stop being such a fucking pussy."
Eames' attention snaps back to Ariadne. "Sorry?"
Ariadne and Yusuf share a look. "You two are a mess," Ariadne says. "Do you want me to say something? Because clearly neither one of you are going to."
"I think you just did say something."
"Don't think you can distract me by finishing that in three minutes," Ariadne gestures to the cube Eames just completed.
"I didn't know you found me distracting."
"I find this unresolved sexual tension distracting."
"What she said," Yusuf agrees.
"Thank you, Greek chorus," Eames says.
Ariadne taps Eames' trouser-clad knee. "At least now I don't have to go home and tell my therapist I did a bad thing."
"Since when do you have a therapist?" Yusuf asks.
"And why didn't you ask me?" Eames protests. "I have a degree in psychology."
Ariadne gives Eames a droll look. "You already spend enough time in my head, thanks."
"Ingrate," Eames complains.
"Oh, look," Ariadne says, grabbing Yusuf's wrist and peering at his watch. "It's time for us to go."
"Bye, Arthur!" they shout in tandem before making themselves scarce.
Eames stares at the red face of the cube on the table by his knee. He picks it up and begins to mix it up again. "Nice job today." The toes of Arthur's polished brown Brogues appear in Eames' peripheral vision.
Eames looks up. "Thanks."
"Another job completed successfully." Arthur says. He's very close to Eames; in fact another step forward and he'll be right in the V of Eames' spread legs.
Eames looks at the perfectly starched white collar. At the perfectly knotted navy tie and the way Arthur's Adam's apple bobs when he swallows. "I wouldn't say I was successful." Eames looks back up into dark eyes. "You're never entirely successful. But if you're satisfied that's close enough."
Arthur's head tilts to the side. "I think that depends on what you'd consider success."
Arthur's hand rests on Eames' left knee. It's warm, heavy.
Huh.
Eames licks his lips.
"Would you have dinner with me?" Arthur says.
"With or without clothes?"
"With."
"Yes."
Arthur's smile is crooked. He squeezes Eames' knee. "That's success."
Eames didn't fall in love with Arthur the first time he met him. He did punch him in the face, though, but that's just because they'd got their signals crossed. Things like that happen sometimes. Especially in Poland. Plus, the first rule of forgery is Distraction 101. If people are focused on a big distraction -- shoes, clothes, accents, flirting, a bloody nose -- then they're less likely to pay attention to what's going on right in front of them.
"You look good in yellow," Arthur says over dinner in the green-paneled dining room of Le Gavroche, the two Michelin star restaurant in the 47 Park Street Hotel.
Eames pauses with a forkful of Cochon de Lait Rôti halfway to his mouth. "Pardon?" He's wearing a black shirt with faint red checks. He had to borrow a tie just to sit down. It's red and blue stripes.
"I can do without the mustard diamonds, but yellow looks good on you."
Eames looks around at the various other diners talking quietly and drinking purposefully in their rose velvet chairs. Le Gavroche is one of his parents' favorite restaurants. There's no way for Arthur to know that.
Eames lowers his fork and wipes his mouth with his napkin. "And what brought this on?"
"It's your favorite color, isn't it?"
A flare of heat shoots through Eames. Strangely enough it gives him the chills. If he fidgeted he would do so right now. Instead he picks up his fork and pokes at his food. "Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about myself?"
"Your favorite movie is The Thomas Crown Affair."
"Steve McQueen or Pierce Brosnan?"
"Pierce. Steve's personal choices bother you."
"He hit his wife."
"Exactly."
Eames puts down his fork and reaches for his Merlot. "Actually I'd rather watch How to Steal a Million." Arthur pauses in cutting his beef and foie gras. "What else?"
"You're ambidextrous."
"I do a very good forgery of your handwriting."
"You prefer your left hand."
"But there are some things it's good to use both hands for." Under other circumstances, Eames might leer, but he's a little unsettled at the moment and leering never seems to play well with Arthur.
"You love your parents."
Eames sits up straight. "Is there a point to this?"
"Yes -- Hello, Mrs. Eames."
Eames twitches when an extraordinarily familiar hand with a whopping great sapphire on it curls around his right shoulder.
Arthur stands up. Eames does the same and his mother's hand falls away.
"Please, call me Olivia," his mother says, shaking hands with Arthur. "This is Henry," she says gesturing behind her.
And there, indeed, is Eames' father, wearing his favorite yellow cardigan and looking very pleased with himself. There are no dress codes for Dukes.
Eames has lost all sensation in his face. "Mum," he says tightly.
His mother laughs. "Oh, darling, don't look so appalled. If I left it up to you, we'd never have met him at all."
Eames closes his eyes, only to have them snap open when fingers press hard between his shoulder blades. "Posture, dear, we didn't send you to Winchester so you could slouch your way through life."
What makes Eames a good forger changes all the time. Sometimes it's his adaptability, sometimes it's his intelligence or his thoroughness. More often than not it simply comes down to a matter of interest. Of paying attention to what's going on and playing to the scene. Knowing how to work with what you've got. Forgery isn't about knowing your mark; it's about knowing how other people perceive your mark.
There's a glass awning over the steps of 43 Upper Brook Street, which is good because it's raining when they finish dinner at Le Gavroche. His parents apparently were only there for dessert and to cause Eames endless embarrassment and pride (as only parents can).
Arthur's in the street with Eames' father hailing a taxi, and Eames is, well, glowering at his mother is the only way to describe it. "Your face will freeze like that if you're not careful," she says, patting him on the cheek.
"You went behind my back," he says.
"Nonsense, I went in the pocket of your jacket and found Arthur's number in your mobile; it wasn't on your back at all."
Eames has to laugh at this. Everything he knows about what he thinks is important he really did learn from his parents. "So what do you think?"
"I think he's lovely," his mother says. "I'm glad you finally found someone."
"I don't know about all of that."
"Olivia, taxi," his father calls.
"You've found him," his mother says, kissing him on the cheek before dashing for the waiting taxi. "Don't let it get mucked up."
"He might muck it up," Eames calls after her.
Arthur and his father look back from where they're helping his mother into the taxi.
Fine.
Fine.
Eames joins them to see his parents off, and then he turns back to Arthur, who is once again standing at his side, wet. "You ambushed me," he says.
"Am I allowed to blame your mother?"
"It's what I do," Eames says.
"Can I go home with you now?"
Eames automatically holds out his hand for a taxi and then he hesitates. "Why?"
If he looked up "adorably irritated" in the OED at this very moment, he would find Arthur's picture as the definition. "Because," Arthur says. "I want to see where you live."
"You sure you don't just want to get out of the rain?"
"That too, obviously."
A taxi picks this time to pull up. "Are you sure about this?" Eames says as his shoes get flooded by the water at the kerb.
Arthur looks at him, confused. "Aren't you?"
Eames reaches for the door handle. "What happens if it goes wrong?"
"We fix it. I feel like we have enough job training to handle that."
"Aren't we supposed to be tortured and hate each other's guts?"
Arthur's taken aback. "Do you hate my guts?"
"No, can't say I ever have."
"Good. I'd hate to have been in love with you all this time and have you hate me."
Eames stares. "You --"
"I met your parents," Arthur says, closing his hand over Eames' on the door handle. "On purpose."
The taxi driver rolls down the window fractionally and puts his mouth to gap. "Are you two getting in or what?"
People are complicated, but a person is simple. The things that Eames wants are the same as everyone else: a roof over his head, someplace to sleep that's not inhabited by centipedes longer than his forearm or roaches the size of his thumb, a job that doesn't bore him to tears, someone who knows him for who he is and loves him all the same.
Arthur's tying the drawstring on a pair of plaid pyjama bottoms when he comes into the kitchen. He's wearing a paint-spattered white t-shirt that says The Charlatans in red and his hair is a mess of damp curls. Eames smiles and pushes a mug of coffee across the oak kitchen island. Arthur picks it up and sniffs it. "Not tea?"
"You don't like tea."
Arthur's mouth twitches. "You don't like coffee."
Eames shrugs as he puts the cafetiere in the sink. There's no need to mention he's never used it before.
"No reason to be inhospitable," he says, watching Arthur study his kitchen: the stainless steel appliances and counter top. The old kettle from Marks & Sparks. The rack of spices with tops fastened on imperfectly. The huge windows.
Arthur picks up an orange from the wire fruit basket on the island and looks at it as though he's never seen one before.
"It's an orange." Eames picks up his own mug of tea. "You eat it."
"All your walls are white," Arthur says, putting the orange back. "All your furniture matches. You have plants that are actually alive. I thought this place would look like it had been decorated by Hunter S. Thompson and Ed Wolfe on LSD."
"Ed Wolfe gives me a headache." Eames sips at his tea. "I wish I'd met Hunter S. Thompson though. Seems like the kind of guy you'd want to drop a few Es with."
Arthur's smile makes his eyes crinkle.
Eames grins into his tea. "Any other notions you'd like me to disabuse you of?"
"I'm sure there are a few." Arthur walks over to the windows and looks out. Eames comes up behind him and looks over his shoulder, trying to see what Arthur sees. The street lights are on in the small park in front of the building. The trees are perfectly manicured, the benches all perfectly clear. The park is surrounded by a rather dangerous looking steel fence.
Eames can feel the heat from Arthur's body permeating the thin cotton of his t-shirt.
"It's beautiful here," Arthur says. He sounds almost confused.
"Thanks," Eames says dryly.
Arthur turns around to face him. "I'm not -- I'm being serious."
"I never said you weren't."
Arthur frowns. He takes Eames' mug away and sets it on the counter with his own, and then he grabs Eames' elbow and steers him out of the kitchen. "Show me," he says.
Eames glances at Arthur's profile in bemusement. "Show you what?"
"Your life."
Eames stops in the middle of the hallway and looks back at his kitchen and at the sitting room before him. Between the kitchen and the sitting room there's another room. They can do that last.
"Let's start at the top," he says, grabbing Arthur's hand and dragging him through the sitting room.
"I really like that plant in the --"
"Stop getting ahead of yourself," Eames scolds, tugging Arthur up the stairs.
"Look who's talking," Arthur scoffs.
On the second floor, Eames opens door after door. "Linen closet, linen closet, dressing room -"
Arthur drags his feet. "I thought you promised to burn that orange-and-purple argyle vest. And why do you still have that blue-and-yellow silk abomination?"
Eames tugs him along. "I never promised anything of the sort and because I like yellow -- bathroom." He pauses and moves Arthur's wet clothes from where they're hanging over the shower railing to the towel rack.
"The towel rail is heated," Eames says. "They'll dry faster there."
"Thanks."
Eames waves dismissively at the bedroom. "Bedroom," he says, turning back around, but Arthur's moved past him.
"So this is it," Arthur says, patting the pristine white duvet cover on Eames' king-sized bed.
"This is what?"
Arthur makes a derisory noise. "Where everything happens."
"By everything I assume you mean sleep."
"Is that what they're calling it these days?"
Eames narrows his eyes. "I don't bring people to my house, Arthur."
Arthur stares back.
"You're wearing my clothes," Eames reminds him. "This isn't the Four Seasons."
Arthur only says, "Oh."
"Oh," Eames agrees.
There's color in Arthur's cheeks that wasn't there before. Eames stalks toward him, crowds his space, backs him up until his knees hit the edge of Eames' bed. "I know what you want," he says.
Arthur's eyes are focused on his mouth. Eames smirks. "C'mon," he says, taking Arthur's hand and dragging him back downstairs.
"Aren't we supposed to be fucking now?" Arthur protests as Eames tugs him back through the sitting room.
Eames stops in the hallway between the kitchen and sitting room and points at a door he bypassed on the first part of the tour. "Not everything is about sex."
Arthur's face is all disbelief. "Who are you?"
"Not who you seem to think I am," Eames says, opening the door and gesturing for Arthur to walk inside.
Eames watches as Arthur takes three steps inside his studio and then stops.
Eames follows him, pausing in the doorway.
"When I was little my mum used to take me to the museum," he says, leaning on the door frame. "She's the one who got me into all this art business. She turned one of the linen closets into an art room for me. I've been pretty partial to them ever since."
Arthur stands in the middle of walls covered in reproductions of Renoir and Picasso, de Kooning, Van Gogh (not Eames' best work), Seurat, Le Corbusier, Manet, Kandinsky, Hockney, Klee, Larsson, Rivera; it goes on and on. Some are sketches, some are canvases. Some have been painted directly on the walls. Some of the work belongs to no one besides Eames.
Eames points to the only properly hung painting in the room. "That Basquiat is from my mum; it was a gift for not dropping out of uni. That gorgeous piece on the floor below it is a Gino Severini; it's a gift from my dad. I keep them in here because I'm sort of afraid to put them somewhere else, because what if something happens to them?"
Arthur's eyes are huge. "Are these -- you -- you didn't steal all of these, did you?"
Eames laughs, delighted. "I'm touched you think so highly of my talents, but no. These are all reproductions. The only thing stolen is the Houdon." He steps up to Arthur's back and points to a four foot tall plexiglass case in the corner holding a white marble sculpture of a slumbering angel. "I had to have it," Eames says, almost apologetically. "I'd wanted it since I was twelve."
"It's in a case," Arthur says.
"Some things aren't meant to be touched -- they're just meant to be had. Plus if I got something on it I'd have an aneurysm."
"You're meant to be touched," Arthur says. Eames looks at him, startled. "Can I touch you?"
"Always."
And this is how they end up having sex in Eames' studio.
Eames doesn't have perfect sex. He doesn't think it exists. Sex is never perfect. It shouldn't be perfect. Sex should be messy and sweaty and more often than not, utterly ridiculous.
Well, maybe not utterly ridiculous.
After all, for Eames, kissing Arthur is a very serious business. Mapping Arthur's mouth with his tongue, feeling Arthur's mouth pressed against his lips, those awe-inspiring noises Arthur makes when Eames nuzzles behind his right ear -- he would never laugh about any of this.
In fact, Eames cups Arthur's face and kisses him over and over again until there are spots in his vision and his knees start to shake. He kisses Arthur like he was born to do this and not steal art and probe into people's dreams.
Eames wedges Arthur into the space between his desk and the Houdon and snogs Arthur until Arthur's hands have sneaked underneath his t-shirt and are scratching along his back.
Every time Arthur's nails break the skin, Eames shudders; every time Arthur sucks on Eames' lower lip or his fingers press against Eames' lower back to pull him closer, there is no laughing.
They are both startled, however, when they manage to knock over Eames' bucket of pencils.
And while some things are funny, there's nothing amusing about the way Arthur looks spread out on the Pollock-inspired floor of Eames' studio, shirt rucked up to his elbows, his pyjama bottoms just low enough that Eames can see the start of that dark V of wiry hair that makes his mouth go dry.
There are pencils in the way, but Eames only halts the proceedings because their feet are somewhere in the vicinity of his Severini, and if something happens to that painting lives might be lost.
It turns out that there's a good three feet between their feet and the painting.
Apparently, Arthur causes him to misjudge things on occasion.
It also turns out that Arthur really likes the feel of Eames' hands on his skin.
Eames is happy to divest Arthur of his shirt and oblige him.
Happy to trail his fingers along the soft skin on the inside of Arthur's forearms that makes him twitch and laugh because he's ticklish. Eames has no problem with stroking the muscles along Arthur's hips that make his stomach flutter. There are scars everywhere: knives and bullets, jagged and smooth. Thin and pink, long and white.
Eames could do this for hours.
And when Arthur's had enough of Eames doing the touching, Eames doesn't even mind the little stars in his vision when Arthur rolls them over and Eames slams his head on the floor.
He does kind of mind the canvas that pokes him in the back.
And that can of red paint that lands beside his bicep and goes everywhere.
Arthur seems more perplexed than anything else. "There's paint in your hair," Eames says, reaching out and touching the vermillion strands.
"I'll live," Arthur says with a smile.
"Yes, but what about me?" Eames says. He's sticky and there's paint all over his favorite blue Okayplayer t-shirt.
"You'll live, too," Arthur says, and then there are red fingers on Eames, pushing off his shirt and holding his wrists over his head while Arthur snogs away several of his IQ points. There are red smears on Eames' skin where Arthur touches his tattoos, and then there are stained crimson fingers tugging at the waist of his sweatpants.
Eames cracks the back of his head on the floor again when Arthur's hand wraps around his cock.
"Arthur."
Arthur stares down at him. Paint is splattered all over his chest and the side of his face. "You can stop talking now," he says.
Eames reaches out and cups his hand around the back of Arthur's neck and pulls him in to kiss. His other hand migrates down to Arthur's ass, which feels even better than it looks.
Arthur tastes like paint and French food and intelligence and coffee.
He feels like home.
Arthur's fingers are ruthless around Eames' cock, his thumb rubbing Eames' foreskin, and he only stops when Eames comes and bites down on his tongue. Arthur pushes himself upright, astride Eames' lap, and licks his lips. "You bit me," he says, rubbing his fingers on Eames' stomach.
"You made me come," Eames says, rubbing his fingers through the mess by his navel. "Hazard of the job."
"Hazard of the job," Arthur repeats, trying very hard not to laugh.
"Like this," Eames says, his fingers brushing over Arthur's cock, which is thick and sticky, and also has a little paint on it. "This is a hazard of the job too," he says, right before he grips Arthur entirely too hard and jacks him off viciously.
Arthur's knees put Eames' hips in a vise-grip, and his fingernails dig into Eames' arm, and when he yells during his orgasm Eames goes momentarily deaf.
"I had no idea you were so loud," Eames says, wiping off his hand on Arthur's arm.
Arthur looks down at the mess on his arm, at Eames; Eames pointedly looks down at the mess on his own stomach. "Was there something you were going to say?" he prompts.
Arthur rolls his shoulders back. "Yeah, I need a shower."
"I'm not letting you get paint in my shower," Eames protests.
"And you call me anal."
"I never said you were anal -- to your face -- I may have said you lacked imagination. But clearly I was wrong."
Arthur yawns. "Yes, you were."
"You can get paint in the bed though," Eames says magnanimously.
Arthur laughs. "So, is this who you are? The man who refuses to let me get paint in the shower but is fine with ruining the sheets?"
"This is me," Eames agrees. "This is who I am."
Arthur looks at him intently. Eames holds his gaze. "This is you, take it or leave it?" Arthur says.
Eames shakes his head. "No, no leaving, just taking."
Arthur's smile is crooked and perfect at the same time. "I can do that."
-end-
Credits: Beta work by maurheti and wordsalone. Work on the train by lazlet. French by acroamatica. Thanks to zoetrope for swooping in like fucking Wonder Woman. Christina Hendricks as Arthur's ex (Sadie) proposed by jamjar. Title courtesy of Lady Gaga, Joe's changing of lyrics and the translation party in my journal last week. Even if you all don't think I'm paying attention: Trust me; I am
Featured Art
1.The Napoleon I Necklace 2. The Portuguese Diamond 3. The Flower Carrier by Diego Rivera 4. Charles the First by Jean-Michael Basquiat 5. Sea=Dancer by Gino Severini 6. Morpheus by Houdon
ETA: Now with art by loobeeinthesky
j'veux ton amour, et je m'en fous d'après
Yusuf is peeling an apple. Eames is chewing on a toothpick.
They're sitting on two plastic chairs outside the warehouse in West India Quay getting a breath of fresh air and watching the Thames. Inside Ariadne is reviewing her maze design with Arthur yet again; if Eames hears the words "paradox" or "Penrose steps" or "Escher's Belvedere" one more time he's going to stab someone with one of his graphite pencils.
"Haroon has a new habit," Yusuf announces, carefully guiding the blade around the circumference of red peel. "Sticking his finger up Namrah's nose."
Eames laughs, thinking of the kids at the V&A. "Yes, I've seen quite a bit of that lately."
"Namrah is less than impressed."
"She's an older sister. Of course she's not impressed."
"Deyva tried to tell her Haroon does it because he loves her."
"She didn't buy it, did she?"
"Not even a little bit."
"She's still having adjustment issues?"
"He's three now, she's five, I thought they were supposed to move past this."
Eames twirls his toothpick between his thumb and forefinger. "She'll get past it -- in another thirteen years or so."
Yusuf chokes. "I don't have thirteen years, Eames. I don't even have thirteen months. Deyva will kill them both if it doesn't get better soon."
"And yet here you are," Eames mocks.
"She'll kill me long before she kills them."
"Mal used to say something like that. "
Yusuf pauses in his peeling. "Cobb's Mal?"
"Yeah, she loved her kids, but they drove her crazy."
There's an uncomfortable silence. They're both thinking about the Fischer job. The details about Mal and Dom that Ariadne shared with them after the Fischer job.
"Bad choice of words," Eames decides.
Yusuf just clears his throat.
"She was great though," Eames says. "Mal."
"Really?" Yusuf finishes peeling his apple and closes up his Swiss Army Knife.
"Yeah, you two would've loved each other. She had a great sense of humor. Liked to laugh. Not hard on the eyes either." Eames smiles to himself.
"Arthur was very fond of her as I understand it."
"Yeah, he was. Is."
"Is there something you wish to tell me, my friend?"
Eames takes the toothpick out of his mouth and looks over at Yusuf. Yusuf takes a large bite of apple and chews, watching him expectantly. "What exactly do you think I'm trying to tell you?"
Yusuf finishes chewing before he speaks. "Arthur is neither Melesse nor Izo."
"You mean he only kills me in my dreams as opposed to trying to killing me in reality."
"Well, if you fall in love with Ethiopian diamond smugglers and models-turned-yakuza, you are going to have problems."
The look on Eames face is an expression he got from his mother he likes to call "we are not amused."
Yusuf grins. "I am just saying."
"You're 'just saying.'"
"Are you waiting on him or he is waiting on you?"
Eames opens his mouth and then closes it again.
"Then what are you waiting for?" Yusuf says, clearly at a loss.
It would be easy to say that Eames left the military because of one egregious error. That there was one job that simply went too far. That spending day after day torturing people mentally to extract data the RAF already had just pushed him over the edge -- but that's just too cut and dried, and Eames is not cut and dried. He somehow managed to grow tolerant and disillusioned at the same time.
People are mostly pointless and selfish, but a person is a different animal entirely. The military was people; Eames wanted to deal with each person individually. So he left EDP and went to see what exactly each person had to offer to him.
What happened in the end was simply a change of heart. Eames woke up one morning and wanted something more. So he left. Because that's what people do: sometimes they leave. Sometimes they stay. Sometimes they leave so that they can come back and stay.
Arthur is sitting on Eames' bench.
"Fancy meeting you here," Eames says, dropping down beside him and sprawling out. His arms rest along the back of the bench, his left arm curling around behind Arthur's back.
"I brought you tea," Arthur says, handing Eames a paper cup with a plastic covering. "Milk with two sugars, that's the way you like it, right?"
Eames takes the cup with his right hand and rests it on his thigh. It's still fairly warm.
"If this is your attempt at making me feel supremely flattered and cosseted, it's working."
Arthur gives him a sharp look, but Eames can feel the calmness settled over his own features.
What he says is as important as what he does, but people tend to be very selective about what they acknowledge. They either listen to what he says and pay no attention to how he says it, or they focus on what he's doing and miss what he's saying.
Arthur is one of the most astute people Eames knows, but he too is only human.
Eames sips at his tea and looks at the view before them. The top of Hampstead Heath is one of Eames' favorite places to do sweet fuck all.
He spends about a sixth of the year in London, mostly for family-related obligations since he tries not to shit in his own backyard -- bad form and all that. But the Heath is one of those places that's always been calming to him. It's the highest point in most of London and from any given bench at the top you can see the BT Tower and the London Eye -- an eyesore his mother is still vexed about -- and all the construction for the 2012 Olympics.
The breeze is cooler at the top of the hill, the lights brighter as the city shifts over to night. Mostly Eames likes the Heath for the people watching. Couples, mums with prams, runners, children and teens, adults and old-age pensioners.
Here Eames can watch how people move. How they interact. The play of the body: leaning forward, leaning away, fingers nervously twirling hair, tapping patterns on jeans, ashing of cigarettes, toes scuffing the dirt, downcast eyes, eyes looking past whatever they see. Tugging on earlobes and the scratching of necks and arms and sides and scalps. It's a language people are broadcasting loudly when they think they're not saying anything at all.
The only other places this good for observation are Kings Cross and Covent Garden, which are a bit of a nightmare and a haven all at the same time.
On the bench next to him, Arthur extracts his little red die and plays with it between his fingers. "Do you still need that?" Eames asks, gesturing with the cup.
Arthur's smile is wry. "Just because you never had one doesn't mean the rest of us don't need them."
"I just always thought of totems as Mal's thing."
"Until she stopped using it."
"That's the price you pay for dependency."
Arthur's glare is withering. Sometimes Eames' psychology degree makes him a little too incisive. "Everyone has crutches," he says. "Sometimes they're necessary."
"So it's better not to depend on anything, is that your stance?"
"All I do is make things up; do you think I'd ever depend on something besides myself?" He pauses. "Plus, I was never part of your cabal in that way."
"You never wanted to be," Arthur says, pocketing the die. In the waning light of day, his gaze seems far away from Eames.
"Did you ever ask?" Eames says.
"Did you?" Arthur counters. This conversation isn't about totems at all.
Eames clears his throat, his fingers are dancing along the shoulders of Arthur's black jumper. The knit is soft, intricate. Eames picks at an invisible piece of lint on Arthur's shoulder. "How's Cobb getting on?"
He can feel Arthur shifting on the bench beside him, not pulling away, just moving. "He's good. The kids are good."
"It's almost been a year. I didn't think he'd stay retired this long."
"He says he's done with it."
"And you believe him?"
"I think he's found something else he wants more than this."
It's Eames' turn to give Arthur a piercing look, but Arthur's face is perfectly shuttered.
And this is why they are the way they are.
Eames could never ask for a more perfectly crooked love affair.
"Touch me one more time and I'm going to make you exceedingly sorry."
Arthur was unhappy with Eames.
"I'm already exceedingly sorry," Eames shot back as he pressed his back to Arthur's and peered around the side of the blue shipping container. The torrential rain made visibility practically nonexistent, but it was hard to miss large men dressed in black and carrying handguns.
Still, Eames was sorry.
He was sorry that Arthur was wet and cranky.
He was sorry about the bit where the job had gone utterly pear-shaped.
He was also sorry that he'd taken a job in Singapore during the rainy season and convinced Arthur to join him. (Maybe not so much that last bit.)
And he was really, really sorry about the part where they were running short on hiding places and ammunition. Singapore was normally much better to Eames than this. Then again, this was, strictly speaking, the Port of Singapore. Maybe his luck was feeling technical today.
"I wouldn't have rung if I knew it was going to turn out like this," Eames said.
Arthur turned around just to glare at him, but it lost something in translation since his eyelashes were matted together with rain and his hair was in disarray.
Eames licked his lips, which tasted of curry from his favorite curried crab stand and tobacco from the smoking he was definitely going to give up. Just as soon as this was over and he had a celebratory fag.
"If we get out of this alive, I'm going to kick your ass," Arthur said.
Eames smiled. "Promise?"
Arthur opened his mouth, but whatever he said was drowned out by shouts in Malay that sent serious run-the-fuck-away signals to Eames' brain. He ignored them. He took another glimpse around the side of the container. Oh, fuck. He'd recognize that Vinnie Jones-sized bloke anywhere.
"I'll draw them out," Eames said, turning back to Arthur and talking low. "Try not to let me get killed."
Arthur's mouth thinned into an angry line. It seemed an excellent time for Eames to kiss away such an unfortunate look. So he did.
Arthur's lips were slippery and cool, but when he opened his mouth for Eames it was all heat that sent sparks to Eames' extremities. Eames' fingers tangled in slick hair and Arthur's tongue licked away at least five percent of Eames' brain power.
Arthur pulled away with a sharp bite to Eames' lower lip. "If you get killed, I will kick your ass," Arthur said.
"If I live, it's my arse; if I die, it's my arse. You seem very invested in my arse."
"It's a nice ass," Arthur said, patting Eames' bum sharply before dashing around the back of the container.
Eames always seemed to pick the worst times to fall in love.
Dr. Michael Weingarten is having lunch with his wife. It's a lovely day and they're sitting in the park behind the Savoy Hotel, surrounded by fuchsia azaleas, eating sandwiches and watching the cars drive along the Victoria Embankment.
Just on the other side of the Embankment is the Thames and beyond that is the Royal Festival Hall and the London Eye. Unlike Eames' mother, Geraldine loves the London Eye. Unlike the real London Eye this version doesn't actually stop for tourists. Unlike the real park behind the Savoy Hotel, this park loops around itself like a racetrack. And unlike the real Geraldine Weingarten, this Geraldine is going to confess to her husband that she's unhappy with this life and wants to start over. The only thing she's asking in return is that he be honest with her, too.
What's he doing at work?
Is he happy?
Doesn't he want something more?
ITV1 is hiring in Manchester.
Maybe it's time they reevaluate their life.
Eames doesn't know when he began thinking of him and Arthur as a crooked love affair. He's not even sure about the terminology, but he thinks it's rather apt. Two crooks who may or may not be in love. Two crooks who work independently because dependency doesn't get you anywhere. So somewhere in the pre-inception, post-Mal phase of their lives, somewhere in between watching Arthur fall apart and put himself back together, they arrived at the stagnant place they are now: two crooks who can't seem to get themselves together, because then what? What happens when you get everything you want? What gets you up in the morning? What's left to be done?
"So it's not a cure for balding," Ariadne says as she tosses the last of her models in the rubbish-bin fire burning in the middle of the warehouse.
"Not really," Eames says, sitting on the edge of her desk and playing with the Rubik's Cube that appeared from somewhere.
Everything seems to appear from somewhere around here.
"I mean you could use it for that," he says, "And obviously they will, because all companies are low on ethics and high on making a profit -- but a way to help cancer patients keep their hair through chemotherapy is pretty fucking impressive."
"But he's not going to sell it to the highest bidder?"
"No, he just didn't want to say anything until he was sure it was right."
"So why was he keeping it a secret from his wife?"
"Her mum died of cancer. He thought it would upset her."
"I think him not telling her would upset her more," Yusuf says, closing his black bag with a snap.
"That's what I said," Eames says.
"I think I'd always rather know than not, you know?" Ariadne says. She's wearing a jade green scarf around her neck. The color suits her perfectly.
Eames looks across the warehouse where Arthur is sorting through papers. "I think that depends."
"Stop being such a fucking pussy."
Eames' attention snaps back to Ariadne. "Sorry?"
Ariadne and Yusuf share a look. "You two are a mess," Ariadne says. "Do you want me to say something? Because clearly neither one of you are going to."
"I think you just did say something."
"Don't think you can distract me by finishing that in three minutes," Ariadne gestures to the cube Eames just completed.
"I didn't know you found me distracting."
"I find this unresolved sexual tension distracting."
"What she said," Yusuf agrees.
"Thank you, Greek chorus," Eames says.
Ariadne taps Eames' trouser-clad knee. "At least now I don't have to go home and tell my therapist I did a bad thing."
"Since when do you have a therapist?" Yusuf asks.
"And why didn't you ask me?" Eames protests. "I have a degree in psychology."
Ariadne gives Eames a droll look. "You already spend enough time in my head, thanks."
"Ingrate," Eames complains.
"Oh, look," Ariadne says, grabbing Yusuf's wrist and peering at his watch. "It's time for us to go."
"Bye, Arthur!" they shout in tandem before making themselves scarce.
Eames stares at the red face of the cube on the table by his knee. He picks it up and begins to mix it up again. "Nice job today." The toes of Arthur's polished brown Brogues appear in Eames' peripheral vision.
Eames looks up. "Thanks."
"Another job completed successfully." Arthur says. He's very close to Eames; in fact another step forward and he'll be right in the V of Eames' spread legs.
Eames looks at the perfectly starched white collar. At the perfectly knotted navy tie and the way Arthur's Adam's apple bobs when he swallows. "I wouldn't say I was successful." Eames looks back up into dark eyes. "You're never entirely successful. But if you're satisfied that's close enough."
Arthur's head tilts to the side. "I think that depends on what you'd consider success."
Arthur's hand rests on Eames' left knee. It's warm, heavy.
Huh.
Eames licks his lips.
"Would you have dinner with me?" Arthur says.
"With or without clothes?"
"With."
"Yes."
Arthur's smile is crooked. He squeezes Eames' knee. "That's success."
Eames didn't fall in love with Arthur the first time he met him. He did punch him in the face, though, but that's just because they'd got their signals crossed. Things like that happen sometimes. Especially in Poland. Plus, the first rule of forgery is Distraction 101. If people are focused on a big distraction -- shoes, clothes, accents, flirting, a bloody nose -- then they're less likely to pay attention to what's going on right in front of them.
"You look good in yellow," Arthur says over dinner in the green-paneled dining room of Le Gavroche, the two Michelin star restaurant in the 47 Park Street Hotel.
Eames pauses with a forkful of Cochon de Lait Rôti halfway to his mouth. "Pardon?" He's wearing a black shirt with faint red checks. He had to borrow a tie just to sit down. It's red and blue stripes.
"I can do without the mustard diamonds, but yellow looks good on you."
Eames looks around at the various other diners talking quietly and drinking purposefully in their rose velvet chairs. Le Gavroche is one of his parents' favorite restaurants. There's no way for Arthur to know that.
Eames lowers his fork and wipes his mouth with his napkin. "And what brought this on?"
"It's your favorite color, isn't it?"
A flare of heat shoots through Eames. Strangely enough it gives him the chills. If he fidgeted he would do so right now. Instead he picks up his fork and pokes at his food. "Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about myself?"
"Your favorite movie is The Thomas Crown Affair."
"Steve McQueen or Pierce Brosnan?"
"Pierce. Steve's personal choices bother you."
"He hit his wife."
"Exactly."
Eames puts down his fork and reaches for his Merlot. "Actually I'd rather watch How to Steal a Million." Arthur pauses in cutting his beef and foie gras. "What else?"
"You're ambidextrous."
"I do a very good forgery of your handwriting."
"You prefer your left hand."
"But there are some things it's good to use both hands for." Under other circumstances, Eames might leer, but he's a little unsettled at the moment and leering never seems to play well with Arthur.
"You love your parents."
Eames sits up straight. "Is there a point to this?"
"Yes -- Hello, Mrs. Eames."
Eames twitches when an extraordinarily familiar hand with a whopping great sapphire on it curls around his right shoulder.
Arthur stands up. Eames does the same and his mother's hand falls away.
"Please, call me Olivia," his mother says, shaking hands with Arthur. "This is Henry," she says gesturing behind her.
And there, indeed, is Eames' father, wearing his favorite yellow cardigan and looking very pleased with himself. There are no dress codes for Dukes.
Eames has lost all sensation in his face. "Mum," he says tightly.
His mother laughs. "Oh, darling, don't look so appalled. If I left it up to you, we'd never have met him at all."
Eames closes his eyes, only to have them snap open when fingers press hard between his shoulder blades. "Posture, dear, we didn't send you to Winchester so you could slouch your way through life."
What makes Eames a good forger changes all the time. Sometimes it's his adaptability, sometimes it's his intelligence or his thoroughness. More often than not it simply comes down to a matter of interest. Of paying attention to what's going on and playing to the scene. Knowing how to work with what you've got. Forgery isn't about knowing your mark; it's about knowing how other people perceive your mark.
There's a glass awning over the steps of 43 Upper Brook Street, which is good because it's raining when they finish dinner at Le Gavroche. His parents apparently were only there for dessert and to cause Eames endless embarrassment and pride (as only parents can).
Arthur's in the street with Eames' father hailing a taxi, and Eames is, well, glowering at his mother is the only way to describe it. "Your face will freeze like that if you're not careful," she says, patting him on the cheek.
"You went behind my back," he says.
"Nonsense, I went in the pocket of your jacket and found Arthur's number in your mobile; it wasn't on your back at all."
Eames has to laugh at this. Everything he knows about what he thinks is important he really did learn from his parents. "So what do you think?"
"I think he's lovely," his mother says. "I'm glad you finally found someone."
"I don't know about all of that."
"Olivia, taxi," his father calls.
"You've found him," his mother says, kissing him on the cheek before dashing for the waiting taxi. "Don't let it get mucked up."
"He might muck it up," Eames calls after her.
Arthur and his father look back from where they're helping his mother into the taxi.
Fine.
Fine.
Eames joins them to see his parents off, and then he turns back to Arthur, who is once again standing at his side, wet. "You ambushed me," he says.
"Am I allowed to blame your mother?"
"It's what I do," Eames says.
"Can I go home with you now?"
Eames automatically holds out his hand for a taxi and then he hesitates. "Why?"
If he looked up "adorably irritated" in the OED at this very moment, he would find Arthur's picture as the definition. "Because," Arthur says. "I want to see where you live."
"You sure you don't just want to get out of the rain?"
"That too, obviously."
A taxi picks this time to pull up. "Are you sure about this?" Eames says as his shoes get flooded by the water at the kerb.
Arthur looks at him, confused. "Aren't you?"
Eames reaches for the door handle. "What happens if it goes wrong?"
"We fix it. I feel like we have enough job training to handle that."
"Aren't we supposed to be tortured and hate each other's guts?"
Arthur's taken aback. "Do you hate my guts?"
"No, can't say I ever have."
"Good. I'd hate to have been in love with you all this time and have you hate me."
Eames stares. "You --"
"I met your parents," Arthur says, closing his hand over Eames' on the door handle. "On purpose."
The taxi driver rolls down the window fractionally and puts his mouth to gap. "Are you two getting in or what?"
People are complicated, but a person is simple. The things that Eames wants are the same as everyone else: a roof over his head, someplace to sleep that's not inhabited by centipedes longer than his forearm or roaches the size of his thumb, a job that doesn't bore him to tears, someone who knows him for who he is and loves him all the same.
Arthur's tying the drawstring on a pair of plaid pyjama bottoms when he comes into the kitchen. He's wearing a paint-spattered white t-shirt that says The Charlatans in red and his hair is a mess of damp curls. Eames smiles and pushes a mug of coffee across the oak kitchen island. Arthur picks it up and sniffs it. "Not tea?"
"You don't like tea."
Arthur's mouth twitches. "You don't like coffee."
Eames shrugs as he puts the cafetiere in the sink. There's no need to mention he's never used it before.
"No reason to be inhospitable," he says, watching Arthur study his kitchen: the stainless steel appliances and counter top. The old kettle from Marks & Sparks. The rack of spices with tops fastened on imperfectly. The huge windows.
Arthur picks up an orange from the wire fruit basket on the island and looks at it as though he's never seen one before.
"It's an orange." Eames picks up his own mug of tea. "You eat it."
"All your walls are white," Arthur says, putting the orange back. "All your furniture matches. You have plants that are actually alive. I thought this place would look like it had been decorated by Hunter S. Thompson and Ed Wolfe on LSD."
"Ed Wolfe gives me a headache." Eames sips at his tea. "I wish I'd met Hunter S. Thompson though. Seems like the kind of guy you'd want to drop a few Es with."
Arthur's smile makes his eyes crinkle.
Eames grins into his tea. "Any other notions you'd like me to disabuse you of?"
"I'm sure there are a few." Arthur walks over to the windows and looks out. Eames comes up behind him and looks over his shoulder, trying to see what Arthur sees. The street lights are on in the small park in front of the building. The trees are perfectly manicured, the benches all perfectly clear. The park is surrounded by a rather dangerous looking steel fence.
Eames can feel the heat from Arthur's body permeating the thin cotton of his t-shirt.
"It's beautiful here," Arthur says. He sounds almost confused.
"Thanks," Eames says dryly.
Arthur turns around to face him. "I'm not -- I'm being serious."
"I never said you weren't."
Arthur frowns. He takes Eames' mug away and sets it on the counter with his own, and then he grabs Eames' elbow and steers him out of the kitchen. "Show me," he says.
Eames glances at Arthur's profile in bemusement. "Show you what?"
"Your life."
Eames stops in the middle of the hallway and looks back at his kitchen and at the sitting room before him. Between the kitchen and the sitting room there's another room. They can do that last.
"Let's start at the top," he says, grabbing Arthur's hand and dragging him through the sitting room.
"I really like that plant in the --"
"Stop getting ahead of yourself," Eames scolds, tugging Arthur up the stairs.
"Look who's talking," Arthur scoffs.
On the second floor, Eames opens door after door. "Linen closet, linen closet, dressing room -"
Arthur drags his feet. "I thought you promised to burn that orange-and-purple argyle vest. And why do you still have that blue-and-yellow silk abomination?"
Eames tugs him along. "I never promised anything of the sort and because I like yellow -- bathroom." He pauses and moves Arthur's wet clothes from where they're hanging over the shower railing to the towel rack.
"The towel rail is heated," Eames says. "They'll dry faster there."
"Thanks."
Eames waves dismissively at the bedroom. "Bedroom," he says, turning back around, but Arthur's moved past him.
"So this is it," Arthur says, patting the pristine white duvet cover on Eames' king-sized bed.
"This is what?"
Arthur makes a derisory noise. "Where everything happens."
"By everything I assume you mean sleep."
"Is that what they're calling it these days?"
Eames narrows his eyes. "I don't bring people to my house, Arthur."
Arthur stares back.
"You're wearing my clothes," Eames reminds him. "This isn't the Four Seasons."
Arthur only says, "Oh."
"Oh," Eames agrees.
There's color in Arthur's cheeks that wasn't there before. Eames stalks toward him, crowds his space, backs him up until his knees hit the edge of Eames' bed. "I know what you want," he says.
Arthur's eyes are focused on his mouth. Eames smirks. "C'mon," he says, taking Arthur's hand and dragging him back downstairs.
"Aren't we supposed to be fucking now?" Arthur protests as Eames tugs him back through the sitting room.
Eames stops in the hallway between the kitchen and sitting room and points at a door he bypassed on the first part of the tour. "Not everything is about sex."
Arthur's face is all disbelief. "Who are you?"
"Not who you seem to think I am," Eames says, opening the door and gesturing for Arthur to walk inside.
Eames watches as Arthur takes three steps inside his studio and then stops.
Eames follows him, pausing in the doorway.
"When I was little my mum used to take me to the museum," he says, leaning on the door frame. "She's the one who got me into all this art business. She turned one of the linen closets into an art room for me. I've been pretty partial to them ever since."
Arthur stands in the middle of walls covered in reproductions of Renoir and Picasso, de Kooning, Van Gogh (not Eames' best work), Seurat, Le Corbusier, Manet, Kandinsky, Hockney, Klee, Larsson, Rivera; it goes on and on. Some are sketches, some are canvases. Some have been painted directly on the walls. Some of the work belongs to no one besides Eames.
Eames points to the only properly hung painting in the room. "That Basquiat is from my mum; it was a gift for not dropping out of uni. That gorgeous piece on the floor below it is a Gino Severini; it's a gift from my dad. I keep them in here because I'm sort of afraid to put them somewhere else, because what if something happens to them?"
Arthur's eyes are huge. "Are these -- you -- you didn't steal all of these, did you?"
Eames laughs, delighted. "I'm touched you think so highly of my talents, but no. These are all reproductions. The only thing stolen is the Houdon." He steps up to Arthur's back and points to a four foot tall plexiglass case in the corner holding a white marble sculpture of a slumbering angel. "I had to have it," Eames says, almost apologetically. "I'd wanted it since I was twelve."
"It's in a case," Arthur says.
"Some things aren't meant to be touched -- they're just meant to be had. Plus if I got something on it I'd have an aneurysm."
"You're meant to be touched," Arthur says. Eames looks at him, startled. "Can I touch you?"
"Always."
And this is how they end up having sex in Eames' studio.
Eames doesn't have perfect sex. He doesn't think it exists. Sex is never perfect. It shouldn't be perfect. Sex should be messy and sweaty and more often than not, utterly ridiculous.
Well, maybe not utterly ridiculous.
After all, for Eames, kissing Arthur is a very serious business. Mapping Arthur's mouth with his tongue, feeling Arthur's mouth pressed against his lips, those awe-inspiring noises Arthur makes when Eames nuzzles behind his right ear -- he would never laugh about any of this.
In fact, Eames cups Arthur's face and kisses him over and over again until there are spots in his vision and his knees start to shake. He kisses Arthur like he was born to do this and not steal art and probe into people's dreams.
Eames wedges Arthur into the space between his desk and the Houdon and snogs Arthur until Arthur's hands have sneaked underneath his t-shirt and are scratching along his back.
Every time Arthur's nails break the skin, Eames shudders; every time Arthur sucks on Eames' lower lip or his fingers press against Eames' lower back to pull him closer, there is no laughing.
They are both startled, however, when they manage to knock over Eames' bucket of pencils.
And while some things are funny, there's nothing amusing about the way Arthur looks spread out on the Pollock-inspired floor of Eames' studio, shirt rucked up to his elbows, his pyjama bottoms just low enough that Eames can see the start of that dark V of wiry hair that makes his mouth go dry.
There are pencils in the way, but Eames only halts the proceedings because their feet are somewhere in the vicinity of his Severini, and if something happens to that painting lives might be lost.
It turns out that there's a good three feet between their feet and the painting.
Apparently, Arthur causes him to misjudge things on occasion.
It also turns out that Arthur really likes the feel of Eames' hands on his skin.
Eames is happy to divest Arthur of his shirt and oblige him.
Happy to trail his fingers along the soft skin on the inside of Arthur's forearms that makes him twitch and laugh because he's ticklish. Eames has no problem with stroking the muscles along Arthur's hips that make his stomach flutter. There are scars everywhere: knives and bullets, jagged and smooth. Thin and pink, long and white.
Eames could do this for hours.
And when Arthur's had enough of Eames doing the touching, Eames doesn't even mind the little stars in his vision when Arthur rolls them over and Eames slams his head on the floor.
He does kind of mind the canvas that pokes him in the back.
And that can of red paint that lands beside his bicep and goes everywhere.
Arthur seems more perplexed than anything else. "There's paint in your hair," Eames says, reaching out and touching the vermillion strands.
"I'll live," Arthur says with a smile.
"Yes, but what about me?" Eames says. He's sticky and there's paint all over his favorite blue Okayplayer t-shirt.
"You'll live, too," Arthur says, and then there are red fingers on Eames, pushing off his shirt and holding his wrists over his head while Arthur snogs away several of his IQ points. There are red smears on Eames' skin where Arthur touches his tattoos, and then there are stained crimson fingers tugging at the waist of his sweatpants.
Eames cracks the back of his head on the floor again when Arthur's hand wraps around his cock.
"Arthur."
Arthur stares down at him. Paint is splattered all over his chest and the side of his face. "You can stop talking now," he says.
Eames reaches out and cups his hand around the back of Arthur's neck and pulls him in to kiss. His other hand migrates down to Arthur's ass, which feels even better than it looks.
Arthur tastes like paint and French food and intelligence and coffee.
He feels like home.
Arthur's fingers are ruthless around Eames' cock, his thumb rubbing Eames' foreskin, and he only stops when Eames comes and bites down on his tongue. Arthur pushes himself upright, astride Eames' lap, and licks his lips. "You bit me," he says, rubbing his fingers on Eames' stomach.
"You made me come," Eames says, rubbing his fingers through the mess by his navel. "Hazard of the job."
"Hazard of the job," Arthur repeats, trying very hard not to laugh.
"Like this," Eames says, his fingers brushing over Arthur's cock, which is thick and sticky, and also has a little paint on it. "This is a hazard of the job too," he says, right before he grips Arthur entirely too hard and jacks him off viciously.
Arthur's knees put Eames' hips in a vise-grip, and his fingernails dig into Eames' arm, and when he yells during his orgasm Eames goes momentarily deaf.
"I had no idea you were so loud," Eames says, wiping off his hand on Arthur's arm.
Arthur looks down at the mess on his arm, at Eames; Eames pointedly looks down at the mess on his own stomach. "Was there something you were going to say?" he prompts.
Arthur rolls his shoulders back. "Yeah, I need a shower."
"I'm not letting you get paint in my shower," Eames protests.
"And you call me anal."
"I never said you were anal -- to your face -- I may have said you lacked imagination. But clearly I was wrong."
Arthur yawns. "Yes, you were."
"You can get paint in the bed though," Eames says magnanimously.
Arthur laughs. "So, is this who you are? The man who refuses to let me get paint in the shower but is fine with ruining the sheets?"
"This is me," Eames agrees. "This is who I am."
Arthur looks at him intently. Eames holds his gaze. "This is you, take it or leave it?" Arthur says.
Eames shakes his head. "No, no leaving, just taking."
Arthur's smile is crooked and perfect at the same time. "I can do that."
-end-
Credits: Beta work by maurheti and wordsalone. Work on the train by lazlet. French by acroamatica. Thanks to zoetrope for swooping in like fucking Wonder Woman. Christina Hendricks as Arthur's ex (Sadie) proposed by jamjar. Title courtesy of Lady Gaga, Joe's changing of lyrics and the translation party in my journal last week. Even if you all don't think I'm paying attention: Trust me; I am
Featured Art
1.The Napoleon I Necklace 2. The Portuguese Diamond 3. The Flower Carrier by Diego Rivera 4. Charles the First by Jean-Michael Basquiat 5. Sea=Dancer by Gino Severini 6. Morpheus by Houdon
ETA: Now with art by loobeeinthesky