Fic: Shades of Mediocrity
Title: Shades of Mediocrity
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Sort of cracky, and schmoopy. Written for this prompt over at inception_kink. Arthur is actually attempting to have a normal life after the events of Inception... find a normal job, have normal hobbies, you know, things that don't involve dreams, guns, explosions or death. It's... not going well. And Eames, who makes no attempt to live a normal life, gets to look in from the outside and be amused.
shades of mediocrity, arthur/eames, pg-13, 2842 words.Cobb had looked at him funny after he'd said it, even if Cobb had no right to complain. The man himself was retired -- well, for now, at least; Saito's paycheck would easily put his kids through college -- but Arthur could tell Cobb was raising an internal eyebrow at the idea of Arthur attempting to settle down. But all he said was "Found yourself a place yet?" and left it at that, even when Arthur answered "Not yet."
Now it's been a few months; Arthur hasn't seen Yusuf or Ariadne or Eames or Cobb for some time, though the latter he still keeps tentative contact with; once a colleague, always a friend. Or something vaguely along those lines. He's planning on visiting for the holidays, and he doesn't know if that makes him a good friend or a part of the family. Details. Arthur tries not to let them bother him so much.
So. Normality.
Here's what Arthur's got that's normal:
A well-furnished apartment somewhere in California, with one bedroom, a nice kitchen, a large living area, and an automatic coffee maker. Two pairs of barely-worn jeans and a few t-shirts. Too many three-pieces. Four pairs of polished shoes, one pair of argyle socks (the rest are plain flat colors). His television is a flatscreen but it's not too big; his sofa is leather but it's really just a loveseat. His fridge is stocked. He owns a few pointless-but-pretty decorative knick-knacks.
What Arthur has that is not normal:
A Glock 17 under his pillow, a disassembled FN SCAR-L under the floorboards and a ACOG scope in his sock drawer. Pages and pages of research filed away in folders in the cabinet that his computer sits on. Enough homemade materials to craft a pipe bomb in a little under an hour, the names and numbers of several other point men and women, contacts with previous architects, and an emergency PASIV device hidden away in a locked trunk at the foot of his bed. One newspaper clipping indicative of a difficult job well done -- 'FISCHER JR. DISSOLVES FISCHER-MORROW' -- and, more recently, an unwanted visitor.
"And a good morning to you too, Arthur," Eames says through the door, after Arthur opens it, and then shuts it in his face.
This sort of thing happens a lot.
Eames keeps rapping his knuckles on the door until Arthur opens it again, eyebrows drawn together, frown securely in place. "What part of 'go away' don't you understand?"
"The 'go' and 'away' bits, respectively. May I come in?"
"No." Arthur blocks the doorway; Eames shrugs and slips his hands into matte forest-green trouser pockets, grinning a little.
"Am I not allowed to check up on you, then?"
"No," Arthur repeats. "I'm doing fine. We're not friends. Leave me alone."
(This is, incidentally, exactly what he says every time Eames swings around. Arthur's sure that repetition will one day force the concept of privacy and solitude through Eames' thick skull, but so far, it's really not working.)
Eames barks out a laugh. "Okay, okay. Noted. I'll come back later."
"Don't," Arthur says, and closes the door in his face again.
Loathe as he is to admit it, the exchanges have become something of a routine. Arthur really is trying hard to cultivate a personal life which does not rest solely on guns, explosions, and existential heists of the mind, but with Eames popping up on any given day of the week, it's beginning to get really hard to ignore the ever-present allure of manufactured dreaming.
Though, when he thinks about it, it was never precisely easy in the first place. He's reminded of military men and women who rejoin the ranks of civilian society, how some of them long for the battlefield again, and how some of them detest it at the same time -- how everything looks different when seen through the eyes of a human being who knows what it feels like to kill or be killed. Arthur isn't in the habit of doing psychological evaluations on himself, but he suspects he's part of the former group. Or at least, a mix of the three. (Eames is Not Helping with this.)
Pretty soon, Arthur will be forced to take up some mindless hobby to distract himself from giving into Eames -- like knitting, or on-the-side assassination.
+
Look.
Arthur doesn't need a job. He really doesn't; he could live out the rest of his life in comfortable accommodation from all the money he's received in the extraction business. But if he did that, he's sure he might die from accumulated boredom and utter lack of excitement and/or a strange sense of occupational therapy, so the instant he split from Cobb's employee status, he found himself something to do. Which is, incidentally, freelance and research-oriented. He's good at that.
To his credit, Saito had offered a high-ranking position as a data analyst in his powerhouse of a company when he'd heard -- somehow -- of Arthur's decision. Arthur, unsurprisingly, had turned him down with the politest version of 'No fucking way' he could possibly come up with. Saito had not taken offense. Also unsurprising.
But his job is boring.
It's kind of distressing how boring it is.
Even more distressing is how Eames seems to know this without trying, as it generally is with Eames, and how he doesn't even mention it. He doesn't mention that he knows Arthur's mostly bored out of his head, but his smarmy expression tells all and Arthur just wants to hit it right off his face.
Arthur's never had anger management problems before, but he's thinking of cultivating some just to have an excuse to take everything the world ever invented to piss him off out on Eames, just to see how it'd look with bruises all over the incorrigible forger's face and neck and everywhere. Not that he hasn't seen it -- in dreams, he has. But vitriol is so, so much better in reality.
It's Monday.
Arthur keeps thinking about the Glock under his pillow.
It's making him twitch.
"Morning," Eames says, leaning on the doorframe. This time, Arthur doesn't even bother responding before slamming the door and locking it.
+
It's Sunday.
Arthur stares down his computer with the intense scrutiny of someone whose mind is other places, other times, and other worlds. The screen is blurry and his eyes have unfocused and he's thinking about shooting projections in their nonexistent heads, and one of them might be Eames, maybe.
It's probably unhealthy. Arthur does not give a single shit.
So when Eames swings around again -- good God, he's still in America, he better not still be in America for the exact purpose of pestering him, Arthur may literally kill him -- Arthur opens the door after the first set of three knocks and glares at him.
"Do you ever get tired of being a pain in the ass?"
"Hm." Eames seems to thoughtfully consider this for a moment. "Nope."
"You're a fucking headache," Arthur says, but lets him in anyway. He pretends he doesn't see the triumphant grin stretching Eames' lips, because if he were to actively take notice, Eames would be a dead man.
They have lunch.
+
One morning (once upon a time, et cetera ad nauseam), when Arthur wakes up, everything is normal. He pads to the bathroom, splashes water on his face, shaves his stubble with precise, even strokes, jerks off in the shower (quietly and methodically, with no real intent other than getting off to a good start for the day), slips into slacks and a button-up with no tie, and is about to make himself his usual morning gallon of coffee when he sees Eames fiddling around in the kitchen -- his kitchen -- making something that smells delicious, and wearing nothing but drawstring pants.
"The hell are you doing here?" Arthur says.
Without talking, Eames points to the living area, where a box of pizza is open and stale on the coffee table, and there are a few empty beer bottles crowding around it like a witnesses to a horrible, horrible pizza crime.
Arthur looks at the evidence, back to Eames, back at the evidence, and then back to Eames, who, he sees, is making French toast.
"You know, when I said 'get out', what I really meant to say was, 'stay over and make me breakfast'," Arthur says sarcastically, failing to be as angry as he should.
Eames hums noncommittally. "I know. I'm good, aren't I? Coffee's in the pot. I drank half of it. Food'll be ready in a tick. Sit down."
Arthur does just that. Why, he has no idea. But it really does smell good. He's not going to rule out that factor, despite the simmering urge to kick Eames out on his ass for being such an advantageous asshole, so he drinks his mug of coffee until he's slightly more coherent and then says, his mouth twisting into an incredulous frown:
"Did we become friends while I wasn't looking?"
Eames sets the French toast down in front of him. God, it looks fucking delicious.
"Something like that." Eames smiles, sits across from Arthur, and digs into his own helping.
They have breakfast.
+
It's Monday again. Arthur quits his job. He was freelance to begin with, so it's not a proper 'fuck you' to the system, but it means something to Arthur. Arthur, who quit because working was just not as entertaining as getting to know Eames, and if anyone dares take that out of context, Arthur will shoot them in the head with an unabashedly quick-to-react trigger finger from Hell.
This might have something to do with Eames taking him out, periodically, to a shooting range.
(At this point, he's pretty much given up attempting to deny himself the pleasure of a gun in his hands, firstly because Eames is a dirty, dirty enabler, and secondly because Arthur has run out of good explanations as to why shooting things is such a problem. Damn, it feels good to release the safety.)
Sometimes, the both of them will go for coffee together, because too much homemade brew makes Arthur all kinds of annoyed -- it reminds him that he doesn't have much of a life, now -- and Eames will buy half the pastries on the shelves and proceed to consume most of them. Arthur will pick at something flaky and sprinkled with cinnamon and get halfway through it before Eames decides he is slower than a turtle on speed and finishes it for him, with much gusto, and inappropriate noises that Arthur half-glares at.
Arthur never asks about what Eames is doing these days, forgery-wise, but Eames must sense that Arthur's craving at least some kind of information, because he lets little hints slip into their conversation anyway. Things like, "Red and slinky or black and classic?" or "The mark's cousin is a right bastard, Arthur, you'd love him," or "Cobb's doing another job," or "I'd like to try impersonating someone interesting, you know? Like an epileptic."
Wait. Back up.
Arthur cocks an eyebrow at Eames over the white rim of his latte. "Now you're just screwing with me."
"Yes," Eames says conversationally, "Also, it's the truth."
"You're kidding." Arthur's brow furrows. "He's retired."
"You didn't take him seriously, did you? Once an extractor, always an extractor -- you can take the man from the lucrative and excitingly illegal dream business but you can't take the lucrative and excitingly illegal dream business from the-"
Arthur interrupts. "And he called you up?"
"Needs a forger's expertise, as it happens," Eames says. "Though I hear he's looking for a reliable point man to complete his merry band."
Arthur 'hm's into his cup. He can't believe he's thinking about it. No, he's not thinking about it. He's not thinking about it so hard that if Eames isn't careful, Arthur's eyes are going to bore holes into his stupid silk-patterned shirt.
His pride is whispering persuasive things in his ear. And Arthur likes his pride, he really does. He doesn't want to have to beat it into submission.
Arthur can feel Eames watching him carefully.
He goes back to his apartment and subjects himself to mind-numbing television.
+
It's Wednesday.
If Arthur wasn't such a stickler for organization and keeping himself grounded to reality, he wouldn't know what day it was. But he keeps a calendar and a schedule, which has, incidentally, been edited far too many times to allow for Eames' idiotic working hours, and so he knows that on Wednesdays, he and Eames take strolls down the roads near Arthur's apartment. They hardly talk but when they do it's usually about mundane things, but Arthur waits for those tiny hints that allude to Eames' dream work so he can draw conclusions and entertain ideas about certain jobs Eames won't speak to him about.
Arthur never thought he'd be living vicariously through Eames, but it's not like he has anything better to do when they're not shooting targets or eating pastries or drinking coffee together.
"I'm famished," Eames says, by way of greeting. He continues, as Arthur looks at him with something akin to exasperation, "And you're far too skinny to turn down a good meal and get away with it."
It's 6-ish, and Eames is wearing a tie.
Arthur decides not to comment, but the urge is very strong.
"Go put on a suit," Eames says, making shooing motions with his hands. Arthur, as is his trademark, slams the door in Eames' smug face again (honestly, it's become something of an art by now), but goes to put on a suit nevertheless. It's not a three-piece -- just a dark navy blazer with matching trousers over a white button-up, skinny tie -- but he doesn't forget to check himself in the mirror as he walks back out, and he already looks far more swank than he has in a while. He doesn't slick back his hair, though. At least, not severely.
When he opens the door again, Eames shoots him a positively devilish smile. Arthur does not, in any capacity, return it. But his lips might've twitched up. Just a little.
The restaurant is far too classy for a guy like Eames, but it suits Arthur just fine. He's always been a bit of a sucker for fine furnishing and mood lighting and expensive, vintage French wine-
He stops. Looks up at Eames incredulously.
"Did we start dating while I wasn't looking?"
"Something like that." Eames chuckles, pours him another generous glass of wine. "For such an intelligent man, you can be unbelievably thick. I am one-hundred percent sure that civilian life has taken your brain and poured molasses on it."
Arthur stares at him. "You've been planning this from the start, haven't you?"
Eames grins at him through a mouthful of food, shrugs all guilty as charged-like, and Arthur -- well, okay, Arthur really can't bring himself to get angry with him.
They have dinner.
+
Here's what Arthur's got that's normal:
A well-furnished apartment somewhere in California, with one bedroom (messy), a nice kitchen (half-clean), a large living area, and an automatic coffee maker. Two pairs of barely-worn jeans and a few t-shirts. Too many three-pieces (one, a dove gray plaid Tom Ford, a present). Four pairs of polished shoes, one pair of argyle socks (the rest are plain flat colors). His television is a flatscreen but it's not too big; his sofa is leather but it's really just a loveseat. His fridge is half-empty. He owns a few pointless-but-pretty decorative knick-knacks, two of which have gone missing.
What Arthur has that is not normal:
A Glock 17 under his pillow, a re-assembled FN SCAR-L with ACOG scope on his dresser. Pages and pages of research filed away in folders, some on top of the cabinet that his computer sits on. Enough homemade materials to craft a pipe bomb in a little under an hour, the names and numbers of several other point men and women, contacts with previous architects, a missed call from Cobb, and an emergency PASIV device on top of the unlocked trunk at the end of his bed. One newspaper clipping indicative of a difficult job well done -- 'FISCHER JR. DISSOLVES FISCHER-MORROW' -- and, more recently, a relationship with Mr. Eames.
"Rise and shine," Eames murmurs into the back of Arthur's neck, sheets tangled around their legs. He's probably been awake for the better part of half an hour, the insane bright-and-early bastard. "Our next existential dream heist awaits."
Arthur turns over and hooks a leg over Eames' hip, breathing in the scent of him as he buries his head into the crook of Eames' shoulder. "Mmmmmmshuttup," he mumbles incoherently. "Goway."
Eames laughs a raspy, deep-throated laugh, and presses a soft, dry kiss to Arthur's messy hair. When Arthur doesn't move, Eames pokes him in the ribs. Repeatedly.
Arthur hates him so, so much.
+
(... But he kind of loves him too. And that sort of makes everything else worth it.)
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Sort of cracky, and schmoopy. Written for this prompt over at inception_kink. Arthur is actually attempting to have a normal life after the events of Inception... find a normal job, have normal hobbies, you know, things that don't involve dreams, guns, explosions or death. It's... not going well. And Eames, who makes no attempt to live a normal life, gets to look in from the outside and be amused.
shades of mediocrity, arthur/eames, pg-13, 2842 words.Cobb had looked at him funny after he'd said it, even if Cobb had no right to complain. The man himself was retired -- well, for now, at least; Saito's paycheck would easily put his kids through college -- but Arthur could tell Cobb was raising an internal eyebrow at the idea of Arthur attempting to settle down. But all he said was "Found yourself a place yet?" and left it at that, even when Arthur answered "Not yet."
Now it's been a few months; Arthur hasn't seen Yusuf or Ariadne or Eames or Cobb for some time, though the latter he still keeps tentative contact with; once a colleague, always a friend. Or something vaguely along those lines. He's planning on visiting for the holidays, and he doesn't know if that makes him a good friend or a part of the family. Details. Arthur tries not to let them bother him so much.
So. Normality.
Here's what Arthur's got that's normal:
A well-furnished apartment somewhere in California, with one bedroom, a nice kitchen, a large living area, and an automatic coffee maker. Two pairs of barely-worn jeans and a few t-shirts. Too many three-pieces. Four pairs of polished shoes, one pair of argyle socks (the rest are plain flat colors). His television is a flatscreen but it's not too big; his sofa is leather but it's really just a loveseat. His fridge is stocked. He owns a few pointless-but-pretty decorative knick-knacks.
What Arthur has that is not normal:
A Glock 17 under his pillow, a disassembled FN SCAR-L under the floorboards and a ACOG scope in his sock drawer. Pages and pages of research filed away in folders in the cabinet that his computer sits on. Enough homemade materials to craft a pipe bomb in a little under an hour, the names and numbers of several other point men and women, contacts with previous architects, and an emergency PASIV device hidden away in a locked trunk at the foot of his bed. One newspaper clipping indicative of a difficult job well done -- 'FISCHER JR. DISSOLVES FISCHER-MORROW' -- and, more recently, an unwanted visitor.
"And a good morning to you too, Arthur," Eames says through the door, after Arthur opens it, and then shuts it in his face.
This sort of thing happens a lot.
Eames keeps rapping his knuckles on the door until Arthur opens it again, eyebrows drawn together, frown securely in place. "What part of 'go away' don't you understand?"
"The 'go' and 'away' bits, respectively. May I come in?"
"No." Arthur blocks the doorway; Eames shrugs and slips his hands into matte forest-green trouser pockets, grinning a little.
"Am I not allowed to check up on you, then?"
"No," Arthur repeats. "I'm doing fine. We're not friends. Leave me alone."
(This is, incidentally, exactly what he says every time Eames swings around. Arthur's sure that repetition will one day force the concept of privacy and solitude through Eames' thick skull, but so far, it's really not working.)
Eames barks out a laugh. "Okay, okay. Noted. I'll come back later."
"Don't," Arthur says, and closes the door in his face again.
Loathe as he is to admit it, the exchanges have become something of a routine. Arthur really is trying hard to cultivate a personal life which does not rest solely on guns, explosions, and existential heists of the mind, but with Eames popping up on any given day of the week, it's beginning to get really hard to ignore the ever-present allure of manufactured dreaming.
Though, when he thinks about it, it was never precisely easy in the first place. He's reminded of military men and women who rejoin the ranks of civilian society, how some of them long for the battlefield again, and how some of them detest it at the same time -- how everything looks different when seen through the eyes of a human being who knows what it feels like to kill or be killed. Arthur isn't in the habit of doing psychological evaluations on himself, but he suspects he's part of the former group. Or at least, a mix of the three. (Eames is Not Helping with this.)
Pretty soon, Arthur will be forced to take up some mindless hobby to distract himself from giving into Eames -- like knitting, or on-the-side assassination.
+
Look.
Arthur doesn't need a job. He really doesn't; he could live out the rest of his life in comfortable accommodation from all the money he's received in the extraction business. But if he did that, he's sure he might die from accumulated boredom and utter lack of excitement and/or a strange sense of occupational therapy, so the instant he split from Cobb's employee status, he found himself something to do. Which is, incidentally, freelance and research-oriented. He's good at that.
To his credit, Saito had offered a high-ranking position as a data analyst in his powerhouse of a company when he'd heard -- somehow -- of Arthur's decision. Arthur, unsurprisingly, had turned him down with the politest version of 'No fucking way' he could possibly come up with. Saito had not taken offense. Also unsurprising.
But his job is boring.
It's kind of distressing how boring it is.
Even more distressing is how Eames seems to know this without trying, as it generally is with Eames, and how he doesn't even mention it. He doesn't mention that he knows Arthur's mostly bored out of his head, but his smarmy expression tells all and Arthur just wants to hit it right off his face.
Arthur's never had anger management problems before, but he's thinking of cultivating some just to have an excuse to take everything the world ever invented to piss him off out on Eames, just to see how it'd look with bruises all over the incorrigible forger's face and neck and everywhere. Not that he hasn't seen it -- in dreams, he has. But vitriol is so, so much better in reality.
It's Monday.
Arthur keeps thinking about the Glock under his pillow.
It's making him twitch.
"Morning," Eames says, leaning on the doorframe. This time, Arthur doesn't even bother responding before slamming the door and locking it.
+
It's Sunday.
Arthur stares down his computer with the intense scrutiny of someone whose mind is other places, other times, and other worlds. The screen is blurry and his eyes have unfocused and he's thinking about shooting projections in their nonexistent heads, and one of them might be Eames, maybe.
It's probably unhealthy. Arthur does not give a single shit.
So when Eames swings around again -- good God, he's still in America, he better not still be in America for the exact purpose of pestering him, Arthur may literally kill him -- Arthur opens the door after the first set of three knocks and glares at him.
"Do you ever get tired of being a pain in the ass?"
"Hm." Eames seems to thoughtfully consider this for a moment. "Nope."
"You're a fucking headache," Arthur says, but lets him in anyway. He pretends he doesn't see the triumphant grin stretching Eames' lips, because if he were to actively take notice, Eames would be a dead man.
They have lunch.
+
One morning (once upon a time, et cetera ad nauseam), when Arthur wakes up, everything is normal. He pads to the bathroom, splashes water on his face, shaves his stubble with precise, even strokes, jerks off in the shower (quietly and methodically, with no real intent other than getting off to a good start for the day), slips into slacks and a button-up with no tie, and is about to make himself his usual morning gallon of coffee when he sees Eames fiddling around in the kitchen -- his kitchen -- making something that smells delicious, and wearing nothing but drawstring pants.
"The hell are you doing here?" Arthur says.
Without talking, Eames points to the living area, where a box of pizza is open and stale on the coffee table, and there are a few empty beer bottles crowding around it like a witnesses to a horrible, horrible pizza crime.
Arthur looks at the evidence, back to Eames, back at the evidence, and then back to Eames, who, he sees, is making French toast.
"You know, when I said 'get out', what I really meant to say was, 'stay over and make me breakfast'," Arthur says sarcastically, failing to be as angry as he should.
Eames hums noncommittally. "I know. I'm good, aren't I? Coffee's in the pot. I drank half of it. Food'll be ready in a tick. Sit down."
Arthur does just that. Why, he has no idea. But it really does smell good. He's not going to rule out that factor, despite the simmering urge to kick Eames out on his ass for being such an advantageous asshole, so he drinks his mug of coffee until he's slightly more coherent and then says, his mouth twisting into an incredulous frown:
"Did we become friends while I wasn't looking?"
Eames sets the French toast down in front of him. God, it looks fucking delicious.
"Something like that." Eames smiles, sits across from Arthur, and digs into his own helping.
They have breakfast.
+
It's Monday again. Arthur quits his job. He was freelance to begin with, so it's not a proper 'fuck you' to the system, but it means something to Arthur. Arthur, who quit because working was just not as entertaining as getting to know Eames, and if anyone dares take that out of context, Arthur will shoot them in the head with an unabashedly quick-to-react trigger finger from Hell.
This might have something to do with Eames taking him out, periodically, to a shooting range.
(At this point, he's pretty much given up attempting to deny himself the pleasure of a gun in his hands, firstly because Eames is a dirty, dirty enabler, and secondly because Arthur has run out of good explanations as to why shooting things is such a problem. Damn, it feels good to release the safety.)
Sometimes, the both of them will go for coffee together, because too much homemade brew makes Arthur all kinds of annoyed -- it reminds him that he doesn't have much of a life, now -- and Eames will buy half the pastries on the shelves and proceed to consume most of them. Arthur will pick at something flaky and sprinkled with cinnamon and get halfway through it before Eames decides he is slower than a turtle on speed and finishes it for him, with much gusto, and inappropriate noises that Arthur half-glares at.
Arthur never asks about what Eames is doing these days, forgery-wise, but Eames must sense that Arthur's craving at least some kind of information, because he lets little hints slip into their conversation anyway. Things like, "Red and slinky or black and classic?" or "The mark's cousin is a right bastard, Arthur, you'd love him," or "Cobb's doing another job," or "I'd like to try impersonating someone interesting, you know? Like an epileptic."
Wait. Back up.
Arthur cocks an eyebrow at Eames over the white rim of his latte. "Now you're just screwing with me."
"Yes," Eames says conversationally, "Also, it's the truth."
"You're kidding." Arthur's brow furrows. "He's retired."
"You didn't take him seriously, did you? Once an extractor, always an extractor -- you can take the man from the lucrative and excitingly illegal dream business but you can't take the lucrative and excitingly illegal dream business from the-"
Arthur interrupts. "And he called you up?"
"Needs a forger's expertise, as it happens," Eames says. "Though I hear he's looking for a reliable point man to complete his merry band."
Arthur 'hm's into his cup. He can't believe he's thinking about it. No, he's not thinking about it. He's not thinking about it so hard that if Eames isn't careful, Arthur's eyes are going to bore holes into his stupid silk-patterned shirt.
His pride is whispering persuasive things in his ear. And Arthur likes his pride, he really does. He doesn't want to have to beat it into submission.
Arthur can feel Eames watching him carefully.
He goes back to his apartment and subjects himself to mind-numbing television.
+
It's Wednesday.
If Arthur wasn't such a stickler for organization and keeping himself grounded to reality, he wouldn't know what day it was. But he keeps a calendar and a schedule, which has, incidentally, been edited far too many times to allow for Eames' idiotic working hours, and so he knows that on Wednesdays, he and Eames take strolls down the roads near Arthur's apartment. They hardly talk but when they do it's usually about mundane things, but Arthur waits for those tiny hints that allude to Eames' dream work so he can draw conclusions and entertain ideas about certain jobs Eames won't speak to him about.
Arthur never thought he'd be living vicariously through Eames, but it's not like he has anything better to do when they're not shooting targets or eating pastries or drinking coffee together.
"I'm famished," Eames says, by way of greeting. He continues, as Arthur looks at him with something akin to exasperation, "And you're far too skinny to turn down a good meal and get away with it."
It's 6-ish, and Eames is wearing a tie.
Arthur decides not to comment, but the urge is very strong.
"Go put on a suit," Eames says, making shooing motions with his hands. Arthur, as is his trademark, slams the door in Eames' smug face again (honestly, it's become something of an art by now), but goes to put on a suit nevertheless. It's not a three-piece -- just a dark navy blazer with matching trousers over a white button-up, skinny tie -- but he doesn't forget to check himself in the mirror as he walks back out, and he already looks far more swank than he has in a while. He doesn't slick back his hair, though. At least, not severely.
When he opens the door again, Eames shoots him a positively devilish smile. Arthur does not, in any capacity, return it. But his lips might've twitched up. Just a little.
The restaurant is far too classy for a guy like Eames, but it suits Arthur just fine. He's always been a bit of a sucker for fine furnishing and mood lighting and expensive, vintage French wine-
He stops. Looks up at Eames incredulously.
"Did we start dating while I wasn't looking?"
"Something like that." Eames chuckles, pours him another generous glass of wine. "For such an intelligent man, you can be unbelievably thick. I am one-hundred percent sure that civilian life has taken your brain and poured molasses on it."
Arthur stares at him. "You've been planning this from the start, haven't you?"
Eames grins at him through a mouthful of food, shrugs all guilty as charged-like, and Arthur -- well, okay, Arthur really can't bring himself to get angry with him.
They have dinner.
+
Here's what Arthur's got that's normal:
A well-furnished apartment somewhere in California, with one bedroom (messy), a nice kitchen (half-clean), a large living area, and an automatic coffee maker. Two pairs of barely-worn jeans and a few t-shirts. Too many three-pieces (one, a dove gray plaid Tom Ford, a present). Four pairs of polished shoes, one pair of argyle socks (the rest are plain flat colors). His television is a flatscreen but it's not too big; his sofa is leather but it's really just a loveseat. His fridge is half-empty. He owns a few pointless-but-pretty decorative knick-knacks, two of which have gone missing.
What Arthur has that is not normal:
A Glock 17 under his pillow, a re-assembled FN SCAR-L with ACOG scope on his dresser. Pages and pages of research filed away in folders, some on top of the cabinet that his computer sits on. Enough homemade materials to craft a pipe bomb in a little under an hour, the names and numbers of several other point men and women, contacts with previous architects, a missed call from Cobb, and an emergency PASIV device on top of the unlocked trunk at the end of his bed. One newspaper clipping indicative of a difficult job well done -- 'FISCHER JR. DISSOLVES FISCHER-MORROW' -- and, more recently, a relationship with Mr. Eames.
"Rise and shine," Eames murmurs into the back of Arthur's neck, sheets tangled around their legs. He's probably been awake for the better part of half an hour, the insane bright-and-early bastard. "Our next existential dream heist awaits."
Arthur turns over and hooks a leg over Eames' hip, breathing in the scent of him as he buries his head into the crook of Eames' shoulder. "Mmmmmmshuttup," he mumbles incoherently. "Goway."
Eames laughs a raspy, deep-throated laugh, and presses a soft, dry kiss to Arthur's messy hair. When Arthur doesn't move, Eames pokes him in the ribs. Repeatedly.
Arthur hates him so, so much.
+
(... But he kind of loves him too. And that sort of makes everything else worth it.)