The warp and the weft that hold life together (1/2) - Inception - NC-17
Title: The warp and weft that hold life together
Author: anamuan
Fandom, Pairing: Inception, Arthur/Eames, Ariadne/Yusuf, past Cobb/Mal
Word Count: 21,484
Rating: NC-17 overall, PG-13 this part.
Note: Endless thanks to coffeeandice who is the only reason I could have written this. She has given me every type of beta possible, and has let me bother her about this story for the past four months, through house guests and finals, and I am, quite simply, grateful forever. Thanks also to mycroftnext and acchikocchi for letting me spam them constantly with updates and pleading eyes, and thanks to shaded_sun and
the_ragnarok for letting me rope them in on random scenes to britpick and to tell me if my porn is ok. Finally, thank you to everyone who's been reading and leaving such absolutely wonderful feedback on the kinkmeme. I cannot thank you enough. I hope you enjoy the rest of the ride!
Summary: Written for trippypeas's marvelous prompt on the kink meme. All of this is because I thought the prompt was the most adorable thing ever.
After Mal dies Arthur moves in to help Cobb take care of the kids, Philipa starts at a new school with a new teacher Mr.Eames.
Eames is charmed by Arthur but thinks he can't have him because he thinks Cobb and Arthur are involved. Arthur really likes Eames but is getting annoyed that everytime he thinks they are getting somewhere Eames backs off.
Cobb just rolls his eyes and Philipa's family drawings are kind of confusing.
It takes Dom ten weeks to really get back on his feet after Mal dies. It was cancer, a brain tumour. No one saw it coming. Phillipa was four; James only six months old.
Arthur had taken care of the funeral. Dom--was there for it, which was more than he really thought he'd manage. It was closed casket, for obvious reasons. Phillipa had cried because everyone else was crying. Dom picked her up and let her cry into his neck, and everything he saw was way too blurry for someone who didn't cry at all. James had gotten fussy partway through, after Dom had Phillipa curled up in his arms. James was hungry probably. Arthur had taken him out without being asked, somewhere out back where all the cars were parked, bouncing him gently in his arms until they were out of earshot.
By the time Dom was really back to himself, by the time he wasn't eating by rote and only dragging himself out of bed because he had two small children; by the time he wasn't feeding and dressing and bathing the kids on autopilot and seeing the world in varying shades of blurry grey, Arthur had moved in and was running the household for him.
Arthur made sure their phone and water bills got paid. Arthur made sure that James got to day care, and Phillipa had lunches packed for school that weren't made entirely of pre-packed chips bought in bulk at Costco. Arthur made sure there was milk in the fridge and bread in the pantry. He made sure the kids were dressed and on time and their hair was brushed. Honestly, Arthur's a lot better at any of it than Mal was; he's ruthlessly organized about it like he is at everything else. He labels meals for each day and stacks them in the fridge whenever he leaves on business, so all Dom has to do is microwave and play choo-choo with James until he eats his mashed peas. In a few years, Arthur will be fearsome as he schedules play dates and soccer practice and piano lessons, and Dom's study will be organized whether he likes it or not. Arthur's already making forays into the library.
By the time Dom gets back on his feet, all of Arthur's clothes are moved into the spare bedroom, and his favourite chair's in the living room in front of the TV, and he's let go of the lease on his apartment. Dom starts taking over dinner duty and laundry, and he never says anything to Arthur about moving back out now that he's a little more together. Arthur doesn't say anything either, just pays the electric bill using Dom's checking account.
Dom gets it back together in time for the fall term. He'd been on sabbatical the year before, nominally research for the book, but the book lay abandoned somewhere in the study, half-constructed notes scribbled on college-rule paper. Really, it was more like a way to finagle paternity leave out of the university, with a side of research. Then Mal died, and Dom's world fell apart. Coming back to school feels strange. It gives him deja vu, the little rhythms the same with different faces attached, and the big things--well, it feels like a different world, somehow.
They stick him with a new grad student as his TA in his psych 101 class. Her name is Ariadne. She's brilliant and perspicacious and far too insightful for Dom's still-ragged edges, but she's also a quick grader and leads the discussion session better than the other two TAs he's been assigned for the class, even though they've both got two years' experience on her. Margo was in one of his upper level classes the year before last. She's bright, and she knows the material, obviously, but she's much more of a researcher and much less of a teacher, and it shows in the way she curls up in on herself at the front of the classroom. Roth, Dom never taught. He was new last year, when Dom was taking sabbatical, and his emphasis is in clinical psych, so it's unlikely Dom ever will. He's a tough grader and has an equally cutting sense of humour and claims the girls gang up on him.
The first weekend after school starts is Labor Day weekend. Dom and Mal always used to have their grad students over for a barbecue then. Dom isn't up to a barbecue without her, and they're short half the grad students they'd normally get, but it feels wrong to start off the year without it. Arthur suggests they come over for dinner instead, on Saturday instead of Monday: right enough to get the year started; wrong enough that it doesn't feel like a cheap copy. Arthur prints up actual invitations for Dom to give this semester's free-labour, and Dom does the grocery shopping and the cooking. Somewhere around dessert, Dom realises that he can do this, after all.
After dinner, as everyone's getting their jackets, Arthur invites them all back sometime. Ariadne's the only one who takes him up on the offer. By halfway through term, she's a semi-permanent fixture in the house on weekends. Phillipa thinks she's awesome and forces her to color with her for hours. Ariadne puts up with it goodnaturedly. James tries to eat her scarves, which she tolerates with significantly less grace. Arthur usually manages to extricate the fabric from James's fearsome baby-clutch before he actually gets it into his mouth, while Dom and Ariadne debate the cutting edge of academic psychology. Arthur doesn't think there is anything in the field of academic psychology that's sharp enough to cut, but he keeps that opinion to himself.
The Monday after Labor Day, Phillipa starts kindergarten.
Eames is the worst possible kindergarten teacher Arthur has ever met. Arthur doesn't know how he even got certified. The US school system isn't famous for excellence, but they live in a good district. This shouldn't happen. It wouldn't have happened, but Dom had been the one to take Phillipa to her first day.
"Separation anxiety," Dom had said, and the thing with living with a psychologist is you can never escape the head-shrinking.
"You or her?" Arthur asked.
"Me. Definitely me," Dom replied, and Arthur had sighed and said, "Fine, go ahead."
If Arthur had dropped Phillipa off, he'd have had her change schools. He hadn't, though; Dom had. And Dom liked Mr. Eames and thought learning continuity was important for young, developing minds, though, and after all, they were his kids, so Phillipa stayed at Washington Elementary and in Mr. Eames's kindergarten class. Arthur was really less than pleased about it.
"He's a bad influence. Irresponsible. How can you be sure he's teaching Phillipa anything? You're a teacher; this should matter to you," Arthur complains, as Dom grades papers in the living room. There are papers everywhere. Dom doesn't believe in keeping stacks. Arthur is willing to let it go for the moment, but later he'll make Dom clean them up and move everything into his study since that is what the room is for.
"Phillipa's been in school for a week," Dom says at last, when he realizes that Arthur is waiting for an actual answer. "Don't you think it's a bit soon to be worrying about this?"
Arthur gives him a look. "It's very important," he starts, but Dom stops him before he can get out his notes on early education and later life success.
"Kindergarten should be as much play time as it is learning numbers and letters. It's about social interaction and building a creative learning environment."
"Ok, fine," Arthur concedes, and he doesn't do anything petty like demand that he be the one who gets to go to the first parent-teacher conference in another week, scheduled so the new parents can get comfortable with the idea that their precious young children are actually going to school now. Arthur does start teaching Phillipa the alphabet at home, just in case. He doesn't want her to fall behind her peers, on a national level.
Arthur ends up going to the parent teacher conference anyway, because Dom has a seminar class scheduled that evening (every Thursday evening, from 5:30-8:00) and fresh from sabbatical, he can't afford to cancel classes.
"Hello, there," says Mr. Eames when Arthur shows up outside the classroom door. "Which classroom are you looking for?" Mr. Eames sounds very cheerful and energetic--the perfect kindergarten teacher--and Arthur knows immediately that it is all a lie.
"This one," he says very firmly. "You're Mr. Eames?"
"That'd be me," Eames replies, "But I'm afraid you've got me at a loss. I thought I knew all of my students' parents, at least by sight."
Arthur gives Eames one of his shark's grins, the ones he keeps for hostile take-overs and picking up douche bags in bars. "Not a parent, exactly," he says. Eames's face closes off at the non-answer, settles into something confident and ballsy, something challenging. At this, Arthur is very pleased to note to himself that Mr. Eames is, exactly as he thought, wholly unsuited to being a teacher. He likes being right about these things. He knows because Eames is exactly his type, and his type is not appropriate for young children in the slightest. Something in Arthur has always enjoyed being able to win, liked the competition--even if the competition in question was about who could be the bigger asshole. Arthur, consequently, tends to pick guys he wouldn't feel bad about leaving in the morning.
"I'm afraid school policy doesn't allow non-family members in for these conferences," Eames says, pulling the power card already.
"Dominic Cobb's daughter, Phillipa," Arthur concedes, because he has to be in the parent-teacher meeting in order to properly assess all the ways Phillipa will need extra lessons after school to make up for the curriculum she's not learning from her so-called teacher. Arthur digs out his driver's license, passing it over. "I'm her other care-taker. The school has the paperwork." Something else shutters in Eames's face then, even as he breaks back into a broad smile. It's like watching one of those mobile billboards shift faces, pulling up a second advertisement, only it moved too fast for Arthur to figure out what Eames was selling before it was gone.
"Oh, right, of course. Why don't I show you Phillipa's desk?"
*
Arthur comes as Phillipa's guardian and that is a bleeding shame, because Arthur is lovely. His entire manner drips disapproval, and Eames has always taken delight in cracking people who disapprove of him. He shows Arthur Phillipa's desk, and Arthur asks a few pointed questions about the curriculum. Eames makes up the most outrageous answers to all of Arthur's questions that he can, and mentions that the school won't let him incorporate the 'naked hour' that his teaching school had pioneered in the 70's into their kindergarten classes. Eames goes on about it for nearly ten minutes, watching Arthur's face grow increasingly unable to hide his sheer and absolute horror at the idea. And then Eames takes mercy on him, face settling into the smallest of smirks and Arthur stops, mid-horror. His poker face drops back down over his features and he says, "Oh," very shortly as he realizes that Eames has been having him on.
Phillipa is actually one of Eames's favourite students, because she is bright, and because she is an absolute devil sometimes, the way that small children can be. Eames plans to teach her that being cute would get her some places, but she has to rely on herself to get her the rest. Arthur seems genuinely invested in her success--if a little too fixated on numbers and letters and SAT scores--even if he does keep calling her Dom's daughter.
She's got a drawing of her family out, proudly displayed on the surface for the parent-teacher open house, and a neat row of pencils and crayons along the top of the desk, in the little divot made for them. Eames had never really looked at the picture before, because he's not the sort to sit a kid on his lap and coo over whatever scribble they've made and pretend that it really does look like a dog. It's got a house and a bunch of stick figures on it, with colourful scribbles on top that is probably hair. Sitting just underneath it is another drawing, of what is likely a turtle. Or maybe a dinosaur.
Arthur frowns at the top drawing for a moment, and then his phone starts ringing. He scrambles it out of his pocket, and checks the caller ID.
"Shit," he says, then looks a little guiltily around the classroom and mutters "Sorry," quietly, like he's apologizing to the cartoon characters holding letters on the walls for his language. Eames is absolutely charmed. Who does that? The classroom can't hear him. "Excuse me, Mr. Eames, I've got to take this. It's the sitter."
Arthur steps out into the hallway to take the call, and by the time he pokes his head back in, two other sets of parents have come in to meet the new teacher. Mrs. and Mr. Edwards are cooing over their little boy's own desk-top drawing, and Mr. Gonzales is asking Eames about his daughter's ability to play with other children. She's an only child, and he's worried that she might be having a hard time learning how to share. Arthur waves his goodbye from the doorway, and Eames waves distractedly back. He's trying to remember whether or not he'd had to tell Nina to get smarter about snagging the toys she wanted if she didn't want to get in trouble about it.
Teacher-parent 'hour' actually runs about an hour and a half. It's a good school district; the parents all care for their little brats, and someone from each family makes an appearance before Eames gets to clean up and leave. That's encouraging. He's got a good class. He'd missed the kids when he was out, if he's honest with himself. Kids have a way of looking at the world, a weird mix of everything being both fascinatingly, wonderfully novel and simple acceptance for the way things were, just because they were. Kids are full of possibilities.
Eames calls Yusuf from the parking lot, on the way to the car. He gets the voicemail, as per usual; Yusuf never can be bothered to pick up his phone. "Hey, mate. Just finished up at the school. You want to come 'round for a beer?" He still has lesson planning to do. This, right here, is exactly why Eames got out of teaching two years after graduation. All the fucking lesson planning. It could be worse, he supposes: he could have a tenth grade science class and have grading to do.
Yusuf, sure enough, texts him right back. "Be @yrs in 10. Bringing a 6 pack"
Yusuf actually gets to Eames's place before he does, because Yusuf is walking and Eames is caught in Southern Californian traffic. By the time Eames gets his door open and his bag set down on the chair in the hall, Yusuf's already let himself in with Eames's spare key. Eames switches hiding places for it periodically, but they both know he's not really trying very hard.
"Oi. Feet off the table," Eames scolds from the doorway. Yusuf rolls his eyes but complies. More importantly, he pops the tops off the beers he's got set out.
Eames settles onto the couch and flips on the telly, volume nearly all the way down, just for the background noise.
"Have fun talking to the brats' owners?" Yusuf asks. Eames nods while taking a pull from his beer, then pulls a face and actually looks at what he's drinking.
"What's all this?" he asks, peering at the label. This is not their usual. It's not bad, but it's not their usual. Yusuf has been drinking the same beer since they were sneaking it together in secondary school. Anchor Steam is not that beer.
"I, err, I just thought I'd try something new," Yusuf says.
Eames gives him a look. "Is that so?"
"What?" Yusuf demands, but it's not at all convincing. Eames just keeps up his 'bollocks' look until Yusuf caves. It doesn't take very long. "Right, fine, so I met this girl. And she asked me to try this. She said it was good!"
"So now you're pretending to like fancy micro-brews for a girl you just met? Is this going to be like the time you pretended to like Nickelback?"
Yusuf shifts awkwardly in his place on the couch like he's probably flushing. "I tried the fancy micro-brew for a girl I'd just met. The beer is actually good, you know."
One corner of Eames's mouth turns up as he takes another sip. "Well, mate, even if it doesn't work out, it looks like you got something good out of this one."
"Shut up and drink the beer I brought you."
*
Mr. Eames neither conforms to Arthur's preference in early education instruction, nor does he really fall into Dom's idiotic rubric for 'learning through play' or whatever the psychologists think is the best way to teach children this month. He seems, Arthur grudgingly admits, competent, and to genuinely like his students.
Mr. Eames got his teaching degree nearly nine years previously, and had taught for two years after graduation. After that, he left his teaching position--fourth grade in a middling, suburban district. Arthur did some digging, but it seems like he just left: a career change, not as a result of any problems at the school. After that, Eames drifted between odd jobs and the art scene, but everything, as far as Arthur can tell, was more or less above board. He hasn't seemed to pick up any unsavoury characters before coming to California and getting certified to teach K-6 in the state. Eames is actually pretty fortunate to have gotten a full-time position so soon after state-certification. It speaks to a certain level of talent.
Eames is an asshole, like Arthur had suspected, and worst of all, he's actually pretty funny.
Arthur decides that he will stop lobbying for Phillipa to be moved to the other kindergarten class. Eames had seemed capable enough during their meeting that Arthur doesn't even feel magnanimous about it.
*
Arthur is at work when he gets a call from the school. Mr. Eames would like to schedule an appointment to see him or Mr. Cobb. Phillipa has been refusing to eat lunch.
"Yes, of course. Let me call you back in ten minutes?" Arthur asks the receptionist, and hangs up.
3:30 on Wednesday, or 4:00 on Thursday. Neither really are convenient options because they're in the middle of the day. First, he calls Dom.
"What are you doing at 3:30 on Wednesday or on Thursday at 4?" Arthur asks without preamble.
"Um," says Dom. Arthur can hear Dom ruffling through papers. "Department meeting, and attending a class for Linda Wong as a guest lecturer."
"Any chance you could get out of either of those? The school called. Phillipa hasn't been eating her lunch. They want a meeting."
"I can see about the department meeting; Linda's got material from my lecture coming on her midterm, so I don't think I can get out of that one," Dom says.
Arthur waits while Dom checks, waiting for the tell-tale click dial tone that meant Dom had tried and failed to put him on hold again, but it never comes. There are also no fuzzy, distant office sounds that mean Dom just dropped the receiver on the desk, which is his usual back-up plan. Dom might actually have put Arthur on hold successfully. Arthur's a little impressed. Dom's been hanging up on him for years, trying to put him on hold.
"How much do you need me to go?" Dom says when he gets back. Not good news then.
Arthur sighs and checks his planner. "I'll work through lunch on Thursday morning and leave early," Arthur tells him. Then he calls the school back.
Arthur arrives exactly on time for the meeting. Mr. Eames has the easy air of someone who has not been waiting around for anything in particular, but just happens to be there by happy coincidence, despite the careful scheduling. Arthur finds it exceedingly annoying.
Phillipa has been going through a phase where she will only eat macaroni and cheese or grilled cheese sandwiches. Not anticipating a straight week of mac and cheese for every meal, including breakfast, they've run out and Arthur hasn't had time to run to the store yet to get more. Dom has forgotten to pick it up twice after school already.
Arthur has been making grilled cheese for her in the mornings instead, but apparently, it doesn't keep as well until lunchtime as mac and cheese in a thermos. By the time lunch rolls around, the bread is limp and soggy instead of slightly crispy, and the cheese is cold, and Phillipa will take a few dejected bites and then refuse to eat the rest.
"Why are your shirts all so ugly," Arthur blurts, because, well, they are. It wasn't what he'd meant to say, what he should have said, which was something about how he'd have a talk with Phillipa about nutrition--but it's distracting. Eames wears the most hideously coloured button-downs Arthur's ever seen. That doesn't begin to touch the patterns they come in. He doesn't know why anyone would make them in the first place, much less why Eames would buy them and wear them in public.
"Small children like bright colours," Eames says.
"Grown-ups like eyesight."
Mr.Eames rolls his eyes at him. A teacher rolls his eyes at him. "You're not actually going blind. I hardly took you as one for hyperbole."
There's not a good way Arthur can respond to that. Everything would look like he was trying too hard to-- to what, exactly? Blatant flirting is not an acceptable answer, so Arthur is definitely not doing that. All Arthur can do is make sure he stops at the grocery store on his way home and pick up some macaroni and cheese.
At the store, Arthur wonders if he can get the generic brand or if it has to be Kraft, but ultimately decides to play it safe. The next day, Phillipa decides that she only likes PB&J.
*
"Are you sure little Phillipa's not yours? I detect a hint of your perfectionism in the way she builds castles out of blocks." Mr. Eames does not have large, bouncy, clear kindergarten teacher handwriting. His lines aren't straight and his loops aren't perfect circles.
"Quite sure," Arthur writes back. Then, as an afterthought, "P.S. She builds cities, not castles."
The next note Mr. Eames sends home is written in a very good imitation of Arthur's own handwriting. Arthur makes Ariadne write out the response for him because she's over, ostensibly to borrow a book from Professor Cobb, but really to play with the kids. She gives Arthur kind of a weird look, but she does it anyway, so Arthur resolves to make Dom buy her a coffee before her next Psych 101 office hours. Arthur remembers being a grad student--caffeine is the life-blood of any college campus. It's worth more than gold. Gold, after all, can't keep you awake through the last four hours of writing term papers before the winter holiday.
*
Arthur is going to join the PTA. He probably doesn't really have enough time for it, and it isn't like he doesn't trust Dom to do it, but--he just doesn't trust Dom to do it. Not properly. Dom would show up once every three or four months, and then only vote for the measures he genuinely cares about, not the measures that will be in Phillipa's, and eventually James's best interest. Dom won't think about the job like that, won't think of the PTA as a job at all.
Arthur doesn't have a need to rule the local PTA with an iron fist. He just knows how these things work. Maybe it doesn't matter much for kindergarten or first grade, but in a few years, it will. Parent participation in the PTA and extracurricular activity boards are one of the things that bump your child up from 'top ten percent' to 'top ten students'. The US isn't a meritocracy, not really; they just want you to think it is.
Arthur's already missed the first couple of PTA meetings. He's ashamed to say he hadn't thought of it at all until the ditto came home in Phillipa's homework folder, half a page on blue paper reminding parents to participate. There's a short list of the dates for the next few meetings. He won't be missing those.
Arthur writes two dates into his planner. The third, he'll be out of town on business; he'll have to make Dom go if anything important is going on. At the first (well, third), Arthur arrives a little early and finds a seat somewhere in the middle aisles, toward the end of a row.
"Surprised to see you here, Arthur. You didn't strike me as one for power games," Mr. Eames says, dropping into the empty seat next to him.
"You didn't strike me as the type to bother with these endless meetings," Arthur retorts.
"Parent Teacher Association. I have to come so you have someone to associate with."
Arthur twitches a corner of his mouth up at that, makes Eames's glib response just a little bit dirty. He knows Eames catches it because he's looking. It turns into a full-blown smirk, but that's ok, because the meeting's finally starting.
The meeting is an exercise in boring chaos. Nothing is as organized as it should be, and Arthur suddenly feels much better about missing the first two, because clearly no one has their shit together yet. On his way out, Arthur collects two of the chaperone volunteer forms. He can drop them off tomorrow on his way to work.
*
The next note that comes home in Phillipa's homework folder is just a quick update on her progress. Phillipa is doing well, and the note is in Ariadne's tiny scrawl.
*
Arthur gets pulled onto a new job, a nasty corporate restructuring hard on the heels of what had probably been a very ill-advised acquisition/merger. He ends up sleeping at the office the first four days, getting everything in order so his team could go in and set everything straight--or at least the management process snags, anyway. They'll have to deal with their interpersonal issues and corporate culture conflicts on their own.
By the time he's given a streamlined corporate plan to Talpexi Corp, Arthur's actually worked enough overtime that HR calls him specifically to inform him that he is not legally allowed to come in to work the next week.
Monday, Arthur sleeps for fifteen hours, and crawls out of bed at 2 pm. He catches up on some reading and eats random crap out the fridge in lieu of an actual meal until Dom comes home with James and Phillipa. By Tuesday, Arthur's bored out of his skull, and halfway through the day, he drops by Dom's office with James to tell him he's kidnapping him from daycare, and not to worry about getting Phillipa in the afternoon either, just to give himself something to do.
*
Eames stands in the doorway blocking the exit, keeping one eye on the chain link fence and one eye scanning the school yard for problems. Children making actual trouble have a different kind of energy than kids playing around. It's easy to spot if you keep your eyes unfocused--it jumps right out at you. At lunch, Eva had tried to make Henry eat a caterpillar. Eames had had to tell her how much it would hurt the caterpillar to be eaten before she'd given it up.
"I'm a little early," Arthur says, coming up behind Eames in the hallway. "The front office said I could find you out here." He's holding a baby--James, Eames remembers Phillipa has a baby brother named James--and wearing a T-shirt. It's white, and has some kind of corporate logo on it. He looks good: relaxed and easy. Eames helpfully props the inside fire door open further so Arthur doesn't have to get his hands free of baby to get through.
Suddenly the space between the two doors feels very small, with the two--three--of them all standing inside.
"Arthur, it's unusual to see you here," Eames says.
"Despite all previous evidence, my employer apparently believes in labor laws after all," Arthur says, and there's a hint of a smile on his face, a hint of mischief in his eyes. Eames could get used to that; he likes it already.
Arthur leans forward, closer to Eames, and closer to the wide-open door to the outside. Phillipa's running around in frantic butterfly patterns with a boy close behind her. She throws both hands out and runs straight into a stunted pine tree in the yard: safe. Then they switch places, boy running as hard as he can for the poles holding up the basket ball hoop. It changes when you hit the base.
Phillipa veers off suddenly, letting the first boy escape, and, fingers straining, just brushes the back of Embert's shirt. "You're it!" she shrieks, already turning to run back toward her base.
"Am not!" Embert shouts, "You didn't touch me!" Phillipa turns back around to face him.
"Did too!"
Embert crosses his arms. Eames starts paying them a little bit more attention. Phillipa considers him for a minute, then shouts "Fine! Did now!" and tags him again, this time solidly, and takes off back for her tree. Eames relaxes, certain now there won't be anything for him to intervene in, and gives the rest of the yard another sweep.
"Tires them out before we send them home to their parents. Everyone's grateful, they just don't realize it." Eames nods out towards the yard.
Arthur glances sideways up at Eames, body still tucked in a hair closer than he really has to be so he can look out the doorway. His lips quirk up, just a bit more, edging into genuinely amused territory, and then he opens his mouth to say something. It's going to be dry and sarcastic and devastatingly clever, Eames knows that already--he's just waiting to hear what the actual words will be.
And then Phillipa shouts, "Uncle Arthur!!" at the top of her powerfully five-year-old lungs, and starts racing across the playground towards them, and Arthur's attention snaps to her instead. He steps out into the California sunshine, and adjusts James in his arms, and Phillipa thuds into his legs like she didn't just see him this morning, or whenever. Like they don't live in the same house.
Arthur, impressively, barely even staggers under all the force of a hurtling kindergartner. Well, Eames supposes, Arthur never comes to pick her up in the afternoons. He can't really blame her for thinking it's a treat.
*
Eames's flat is covered in construction paper when his phone buzzes on the coffee table. Just once, so it's a text, which means it's probably Yusuf. Well, Yusuf knows where the key is; he can let himself in, as per usual.
Ten minutes later, it buzzes again, so Eames hauls himself up to his feet and steps around the students' pictures to get it. Wouldn't do to crumple any by stepping on them. Every class in the school gets to decorate the bulletin board by the front office once a term. It's Eames's class's turn, so he's going through each of his students' five favourite drawings or paintings to pick one to hang on display. They get to pick their favourites, and then he selects one to hang to make sure everyone has one up.
"Gonna be late," reads the first one. The next says, "Nevermind, s/t's come up. Not gonna make it," which is clearly code for, "I'm getting lucky tonight."
"Have fun," Eames types back, then goes back to his piles. The next student is Phillipa. She's got a couple drawings of her dino-turtle, one of a fantastical building with too many staircases, one of a finger-painted bunny, and a crayon drawing of her family.
It says 'My FaMly' on the top, one of the y's backwards, and has several stick-figure people with scribbled on hair. One is clearly Cobb, because it's blond and labelled 'daddi'; another with dark hair is clearly Arthur. Phillipa's the one in the middle with the long yellow hair, and there's a little round thing next to her with more yellow hair that must be James. There's a house in the background, and a stick-figure in a dress standing on the moon.
So, that's the family. Lady on the moon. Eames shakes his head; Phillipa might end up his favourite for the year if she keeps drawing her family like that. He puts that one on top of the 'going in the case' pile, and moves the other four back to his 'return to student' stack. Next up are Nina's pictures.
*
"Have you ever looked at Phillipa's family drawings?" reads the next note. This one is in the sloppy-neat script El uses when she's trying to be legible. El is one of Arthur's coworkers--the one least likely to ask what the hell is going on when asked to help out with a practical joke. The string 'ing' becomes one single loopy letter, always, but sometimes it looks like a j at the end of a word, and sometimes it looks like an ŋ. Half her s's are in print, and the other half she's forgotten she's trying to be neat and they're in messy cursive; there's almost a pattern to it that Arthur can see, based on where in a word the s comes, and what letters are on either side of it. Eames has it down perfectly. "She keeps drawing a lady stick-figure on a ball in the sky and saying it's her mother. Did you tell her she came from the moon instead of being adopted? Also, I think she wants a pet dinosaur for her birthday."
Arthur winces when he reads it, and writes the reply himself. Mal is something they never talk about. Dom would say it's a horrible coping mechanism if it were anyone else, but not talking about her is how they keep their lives normal, and Dom isn't saying anything about coping mechanisms.
He keeps it as short as possible, "Mrs. Cobb died," and forgets to respond about the possibility of a birthday dinosaur entirely.
Arthur's reluctant to take up the game again after that, but the next note Eames sends home in Phillipa's folder--another progress report--is in a blocky hand Arthur doesn't recognize. It doesn't say anything about the last note at all. Arthur attributes the warm rush in his chest entirely to relief at being able to skirt that particular crater.
"Who's this?" he makes Ariadne write back for him, because she's there and convenient.
*
"So, Sunday, what are you doing?" Ariadne asks Dom one Monday after their Psych 101 class.
"It's a Sunday, so nothing, probably," he says. He settles the sheaf of assignments into something resembling a stack and sticks them into his bag.
"Good. Then you're coming to my football party. It starts at 2; game's at 4. Come any time. Arthur's in town too, right? Bring everyone. There'll be lots of food." Her smile is open and cheerful and doesn't take no for an answer.
"Yeah, sure," Dom says.
"Great," Ariadne replies. "Professor Wong said they're coming, and Roth said he might bring his daughter if he shows up. I'm going to go hound some other grad students during office hours. It's going to be awesome."
They get there somewhere around 2:30. Ariadne takes their coats and hangs them up in the hall closet, winding Phillipa's bright blue scarf around and around the neck of the hanger so it doesn't get lost. Then she leads them into the kitchen, waving them through a quick layout of the ground-floor apartment, and pointing out the pizza on the counter and the drinks in the fridge.
The choices of beer are cheap and deeply appalling. There's milk and juice for the kids; Dom sticks to juice himself because he's the one driving. Arthur is eyeing the Bud in his hand and contemplating whether or not it's worth it to drink enough that he doesn't care.
Ariadne abandons them in the kitchen when the doorbell rings again. A few minutes later, Linda Wong's two kids, Daniel and Joyce, are tearing through the kitchen on the way to the living room, where the TV is, and Linda's yelling after them not to run in the house.
Ariadne and Linda don't join them in the kitchen, which means they're standing in the hallway chatting about something, probably with an armful of child-sized outerwear each. Arthur gives Phillipa a paper plate with a slice of pizza on it and takes her drink to carry into the next room himself, just to be safe.
"I think James is wet again," Dom says, turning back towards the hallway and the bathroom, shuffling a slightly fussy James in his arms.
Arthur's handing off the diaper bag to Dom when he hears, "Jesus fucking wept, Yusuf, are you sure this is the girl who introduced you to decent beer?" from the other room. Arthur knows that voice. It takes him a second to place, because the context is all wrong, but it's--
Eames walks around the corner into the kitchen then. He barely dodges Phillipa in time, box-stepping around her with an, "Easy there, sprog. Oh, hello, Phillipa!"
"Hi, Mr. Eames!" Phillipa chirps politely, not even turning around as she continues on her way to the living room. Eames turns around again just in time to keep from walking straight into Arthur.
"Mr. Eames," Arthur blinks. Then, because he has some control over what comes out of his mouth, instead of 'What are you doing here?' he asks "You know Ariadne?"
"Sort of. My mate Yusuf is dating her. Just met her today."
Eames isn't wearing any of the hideous button downs that Arthur's gotten used to seeing him in at PTA meetings and the odd time he picks up or drops off Phillipa at school. He's wearing a dark grey t-shirt, just plain soft cotton. Arthur has a fleeting half-though wondering what Eames would look like sitting on his couch, cup of coffee and the morning paper, soft shirt riding up and showing a flash of stomach. Arthur shakes it away before it can come into sharper focus. He doesn't even have that couch any more. He'd sold it to the people who'd moved into his apartment when he moved out.
The bottom edge of a whorl of black ink peeks out under each sleeve, tattoos Arthur's never seen before. No wonder Mr. Eames always wears long sleeves at work; not everyone considers tattoos appropriate for the eyes of their precious small children. They're too innocent to know about ink and needles.
Arthur, on the other hand, very much wants to see the rest of them, to trace his fingers over the lines of them and find out where they begin. That's not at all appropriate.
Eames has nowhere to go when Ariadne and the Wongs finally make it out of the entryway. They head straight through the narrow kitchen to the living room, off to make sure their kids aren't causing too much chaos, and Arthur steps neatly into Eames's space because he doesn't have enough time or space to step back and sideways.
Eames smells like skin and aftershave, even though he's already scruffy, and it takes Arthur a beat longer than it should to pull himself away again. Eames, for his part, doesn't really seem to mind Arthur invading his space, and he doesn't say anything about it when Arthur steps back again.
Instead, he says, "Are you really planning on drinking that horrid beer?" His top teeth are crooked when he grins. Arthur had never noticed before. He makes a point not to think about why it should matter to him at all.
He pulls his eyes away from Eames's distractingly fascinating mouth, and glances down at the Bud in his hand. "If I have to," he says.
"Yusuf claims she usually drinks all these fancy local micro-brews. Let's say we find where she's keeping them?"
*
"This is breaking and entering, you know."
"This is most certainly not breaking and entering. I would know." Eames cocks an eyebrow at Arthur, who holds up a bottle opener.
"And why should I take your word on that, Mr. Eames?"
"Confidential, of course," Eames says and holds out a bottle. Arthur pops the top and hands it back, and Eames gives him the next one to do as well. "Besides, pulling a couple of bottles out of the bottom of the fridge is hardly stealing."
Eames hovers around the edge of a conversation Yusuf and Ariadne are having while waiting for Arthur to drop Phillipa's juice off with her and make sure she's settled for the next little while. Yusuf looks unfairly pained while Ariadne tries to explain that crap beer and crap pizza are the pillars of a good football party. Eames does not comment on the fact that American football is not real football because he's a guest.
"I feel betrayed," says Yusuf. "You kept giving me all of these delicious things, and then today, with the exact same face, you told me to try this Miller lite stuff, and it is disgusting."
"You just don't get it, Yusuf. It's not a real football party if there's good beer. It defeats the purpose!" says Ariadne. Eames looks obviously innocuous until Ariadne calls him out for stealing her good beer, and Yusuf calls Ariadne out for keeping it from him.
When Arthur's done, they wander out to the California-dry backyard. Eames settles himself on the lip of the patio. There are a couple of chairs on the little raised rectangle of brick, both occupied. Eames thinks he vaguely recognizes one as one of Yusuf's lab mates, and from the shop talk they have going, the other probably is as well. There are a few more empty lawn chairs spread out on the actual grass, but they seem too far away to bother with.
"So what did you really do for the last five years, since clearly you weren't exercising your true talent at breaking and entering?" Arthur asks, dropping down onto the step next to Eames. He's sitting just a little bit too close, elbows and hips brushing. Eames is trying not to think about it and failing spectacularly because all his attention focuses down whenever Arthur bumps into him.
Eames grins at him, sideways, mischief, and says, "What if I told you I'd run away to join the circus? Or turned tricks for cash? Or nicked secrets from people's minds and money from their pockets?"
Arthur grins back and takes a pull from his bottle--Flying Dog from Ariadne's secret cache. It isn't local, and Eames really has no idea how she got it way out on this coast. He hasn't had any since a brief stint couch surfing in DC, when he'd been in town for Artomatic.
"I would not believe anything you said to me," Arthur replies. "Because you would be lying." The man has honest to god dimples when he really smiles. What is Eames supposed to do with that?
Eames spends most of the party fabricating increasingly improbable ways he may have spent his past few years, and grinning whenever Arthur figures out whether something actually happened or not. He's not making much effort to make it difficult; he enjoys how pleased Arthur seems with himself when he correctly calls Eames out on a bluff too much for Eames to want to try to.
It's mostly guesswork on Arthur's part; that, and Eames discovers, what should really be a disturbing lack of respect for other people's privacy. Somehow Arthur manages to make a habit of invasive, stalker-esque background checks seem exceedingly business professional.
Halfway through a particularly brilliant rendition of a horrific part time cafe-employment experience, Eames decides that Arthur's laugh might actually be addictive.
Darkness has fallen and they've moved back into the kitchen. Eames has hauled himself up to sit on the edge of one of the kitchen counters, and Arthur is leaning up against the counter opposite him, idly re-arranging rows of empty beer bottles as they talk, when Ariadne comes in to find them.
"Arthur," she says, "I think you guys are getting ready to head out. Phillipa's fallen asleep under the coffee table; do you think you could help collect her?"
"Yeah, of course," Arthur says, pushing away from the counter edge. Arthur shoots Eames a little smile as he follows Ariadne out. It's close and intimate, like the rambling conversations they've been having all night. They've managed to watch no football at all.
*
"My teacher in fifth-year. Bloody terrifying woman. Deceptive handwriting.
But, you, I'm ashamed of you, using repeats. Have you run out of friends already, darling?"
Arthur briefly contemplates whether or not Phillipa would pick up bad language if he asked her to write out f-u-c-k y-o-u for him. On the one hand, she'll learn it eventually and this would be for a good cause. On the other, five is a bit young to be giving her language she won't know what to do with, yet.
Arthur thinks for a few moments, and then makes a phone call.
"YUSUF YOU TRAITORx"
Eames writes back, Yusuf's little x's for periods, developed to differentiate them from decimal points.
Arthur gets another note the next day and wholly unprompted, safely in Arthur's handwriting again, that reads, "I resent you greatly for attempting to steal my friends away."
*
Eames needs bread, rather desperately. He could use milk, and a green vegetable or two, but they're not necessary. Eames doesn't really need anything else, except the bread, which is why he'd put off going to the grocer's for so long.
So he gets bread. He gets milk. He skips the vegetables, because he had found a packet of frozen peas in the freezer that morning while looking for something he could eat for breakfast, and frozen peas are still vegetables that are green. The beer is an impulse buy, but when can you ever not use more beer?
It's directly after work, and it has been a very long, very tiresome day. A little boy from the second grade had thrown up on the hallway carpet directly outside of Eames's classroom. Days with vomit by 10 am are almost always tiring. Perhaps the beer is not an impulse purchase after all; perhaps it's more of a desperation purchase.
Eames turns up the breakfast aisle, half a thought forming about seeing if any of the tea he likes is on sale, when he sees Arthur. Arthur is frowning at the cereal like it has personally wronged him. He's got a trolley half full of vegetables, canned food and pasta sitting in front of him. At the end of the aisle, where Arthur can keep an eye on her, Phillipa crawls in circles on her hands and knees around a display of tea-boxes. His tea is on sale.
"I'm not sure why you're trying to intimidate your cereal, but I am sure that it is sufficiently cowed by now," Eames says by way of greeting. Arthur's eyes glance towards him when he starts speaking, then back to the cereal.
"Mr. Eames." The corner of his lips quirk up minutely. Eames notices because he's watching for it, trying to gauge Arthur's actual mood.
A grin blossoms full and suddenly easy across Eames's own face, day suddenly much improved. He sets himself the impromptu goal of seeing if he can't tease those dimples of Arthur's out sometime during this conversation. Eames has a hunch that Arthur dimples are probably remarkably sound day-improvers. Probably even better than the six-pack of Stone IPA sitting in his basket. Eames is a good judge of these things.
"So, should I be defending your honour against the," Eames leans a little (unnecessarily) closer to peer at the box directly in front of Arthur, "The Cap'n Crunch Crunch Berries, or is that reserved for the Trix?"
Arthur doesn't move away, and the other corner of his mouth twitches up to join the first, so Eames shifts his weight a little, so he doesn't really have to move back when he straightens up. "I think I can take care of it, thanks," Arthur says.
Eames bites his tongue on the "Anything else I can help you with instead?" because he is above propositioning people in supermarkets, even if they are devastatingly gorgeous. Really. He is.
Arthur raises an eyebrow at him, like he knows what he's thinking. Like he's daring Eames to do it anyway, corny lines be damned. Eames licks his lips, smirks. Arthur stays just as he is, arch and expectant. Something leaps in Eames's chest, something nameless and excited.
"Get the yogurt Cheerios," Eames says, because he hates blandly fulfilling expectations. Eames particularly enjoys baffling Arthur's expectations, ever since that first moment when he'd gotten Arthur to concede that he might, perhaps, be capable of teaching a five year old something worth knowing.
"What?" Arthur laughs his surprise instead of frowns it, and Eames never thought he'd get a gift like that. Something like grudging, suspicion, concentration, maybe. Arthur isn't the type to be delighted by surprise.
"You're worried about the nutrition, yeah? Kids always want the ones with all the sugar. The yogurt ones will be sweet enough to make them happy."
"Hmm." Arthur reaches down to pick up a box, flips it over to check the nutrition label. Eames does not check out his arse while he's at it; no, Eames appreciates it. Checking out implies uncertainty about whether or not Eames would like what he finds. "Hey, this might actually work."
"Of course it would, darling; I have excellent taste," Eames says, breezy and flippant.
And then Cobb comes up the aisle toward them, baby sleeping on one shoulder.
"Hi, Mr. Eames," he says, and it's nothing like when Arthur says it, playful and slightly condescending, like it's a joke Arthur's letting Eames in on. This is just a parent, greeting a teacher. "Arthur, thank God, does Phillipa still like jello? I've been trying to remember for the past ten minutes."
Arthur frowns, thinking. "Yes, but just the strawberry flavor. She refused lime last week because it was 'too green' and I couldn't sneak the cherry past her, even though it's the same color as strawberry and she likes cherry-flavored lollipops the best."
"Thanks," Cobb says, leaning between Arthur and Eames to drop the red jello into the shopping trolley. He sounds like a man who was lost washing up on a familiar shore. Arthur's smile for Cobb is smaller than the ones he'd been flashing Eames a moment before and, Eames decides, private.
Then Cobb is gone, turning the corner at the end of the aisle with several rejected flavours and colours of jello in hand.
The exchange brings Eames up short, because he'd forgotten. Cobb. Of course. The reason letting himself fall for Arthur would be a monumentally bad idea. Arthur's boyfriend. The one he lives with. The one whose children he's helping to raise.
Eames is an arsehole. Arthur turns back to Eames with that smile he'd wanted, right dimple just a little bit deeper than the other. Eames feels brittle when he tries to smile back.
His voice is smooth, though, when he says, "Well, I've got to be going. Have a good night," and turns up the aisle toward the check out. It's the opposite direction than the one Cobb had taken purely by coincidence.
Eames pauses a moment before getting in queue.
Eames goes back to the liquor aisle and picks up another carton of beer before he gets to the checkout.
*
Eames takes several mental steps back. Friendly. Eames can definitely do friendly. Eames could do coolly professional, but the simple truth of it is that he genuinely likes Arthur, and he's fairly certain that the only one coolly professional would hurt at this point is himself. So, Eames can do friendly, and then he doesn't have to avoid Arthur embarrassingly at parent-teacher meetings.
*
The next PTA meeting is on a Wednesday night. Arthur works late at the office and heads to the school right after. He's hungry and therefore cranky, but he's got his pleasantly bland face on so probably no one can tell. That's the plan, anyway.
Arthur finds Eames immediately in the crowd, not even aware he was really looking specifically for anyone until he's spotted him, standing near the wall. A happy carton of milk is holding hands with a carrot over his shoulder, and he's talking to Mrs. Brunowsky, one of the third grade teachers. Arthur's mood picks up, just a little.
He catches Eames's eye, nods a greeting, and finds himself a place to sit. He moves one seat in further than he normally would. His pleasantly bland face may be sliding towards something that's actually a little bit happy. Arthur doesn't put much effort into trying to stop it.
Eames doesn't sit next to him when the meeting starts. He sits directly behind him, and kicks the back legs of his chair the whole time, looking genial and innocent whenever Arthur half-turns to tell him to cut it out. Every time Eames just raises inquisitive eyebrows at him, and Arthur turns back around without saying anything, because it's not like it would do any good anyway. Arthur grins to himself because he's facing forward and Eames can't see it; he doesn't want to encourage this sort of thing.
At home, Arthur reheats dinner in the microwave, and Dom asks him why he's in such a good mood. Arthur shrugs and says, "No reason," and then Phillipa yells and James starts crying in the living room, and Dom drops his line of questioning in favour of keeping his children from killing each other.
By the time Arthur gets into the living room (they have strict rules about dinner duty: whoever's not eating has first obligation to prevent chaos), Phillipa is sitting on the far end of the couch in time out and James is in his playpen with some blocks. Dom is sitting on the floor by the outlet with an old hairdryer, watching the news with closed captioning on because he can't hear the tv over the noise as he dries out Phillipa's favourite stuffed lion's mane.
*
"I did not steal Yusuf. He volunteered," Markus writes out for Arthur Friday morning. Fridays are slow because people seldom want to attempt corporate restructuring so soon before the weekend; Arthur doesn't feel the slightest twinge of guilt for distracting Markus from his bored attempts to re-arrange his desk just to look busy.
"Do I want to know, man?" Markus asks.
'Badge-flipping," Arthur tells him.
"Friend-stealer," Eames writes back in Markus's hand on Tuesday's note.
*
Arthur is in the process of writing an email, so he doesn't look at the phone when he answers it. "Hello?"
"Our file says Dr. Cobb's our daytime contact, but we can't get ahold of him. You're our secondary contact." It's the school. Phillipa's sick and needs to go home.
Arthur opens another tab and pulls up Cobb's Google calendar. He's awful about updating it, but it's better than nothing. Maybe Arthur should bribe or blackmail a TA into doing it for him. Arthur can't ever decide if it'll be worth the effort. Class for another hour, then a fifteen minute break, and class number two. After that it (should be) all office hours, and Dom can cancel those. No one ever goes to office hours anyway.
"Alright. I'll be right there," Arthur tells the school's office. Arthur writes an email to his boss, explaining that he's leaving for an early lunch appointment and that he will be back shortly. This raising children business is playing hell with his work schedule. Arthur doesn't even want to think about what it would be like if he had a less flexible schedule, if he had a reputation other than that of an extremely dependable, mildly insane workaholic.
When Arthur gets to the school, Eames is waiting with Phillipa in the front office. She doesn't look too bad, no coughing or sniffles, though when Arthur squats down to ask her how she's feeling, she says, "Bad" and looks a little red around the eyes. She doesn't uncurl from where she's leaning in to Mr. Eames side, or make any move to get out of the chair, so Arthur hauls himself back to his feet.
"She's just got a mild fever," Eames explains. "School policy says she can't stay if she's got a fever. The nurse gave her one baby aspirin, since you'd signed that waiver form. I don't think she's feeling too good, but seems more sleepy than anything else."
"Thank you for waiting with her," Arthur tells Eames, collecting Phillipa in his arms. "I hope it wasn't a lot of trouble, leaving your class?"
"No worries. The kids are outside with the other kindergarten class. It's my planning period right now."
Arthur cracks half a smile at that. "Planning period? After all that time you spent telling me how you prefer to improvise?" He adjusts Phillipa until her head is tucked up under his chin, face smooshed into his shoulder, where he can carry her easily. She's falling quickly into that sleeps-like-a-rock thing toddlers do, where they mysteriously weigh twice their normal weight while sleeping.
"Never said I used it," Eames smirks at him. "Now, good luck signing her out with your arms full."
"What?" Arthur is absolutely not dismayed, no matter what his expression might try to say about it.
"Well, you can't just waltz out of here with a small child, you know. There could be a fire alarm, and the whole school will worry because little Phillipa is missing, because no one knows you'd taken her home for the day. Parental kidnapping is on the rise as well. The school can't be responsible for that."
Arthur cannot argue with reasons like that. They make perfect sense, and Arthur is glad of the precautions Phillipa's school takes to ensure her safety. He also can't extricate his arm from where it's supporting Phillipa to fill out a form or a sign-out sheet. It's a problem.
Eames taps an open binder on the front office's counter. "Go on then," he says, when Arthur gives him a look that's 80% irritation and 20% determination. Eames has a smudge of orange paint on the elbow of his sweater. Arthur absolutely doesn't think that's endearing, so his percentages remain the same.
"Well, here, look. Don't tattle on me," Eames takes pity at last, before Arthur can manage to shift Phillipa over to the other shoulder, and signs Arthur's name on the first empty line on the sheet. Eames fills in the rest of the line quickly: date, time, child's name. "There you go. You going to be alright with the car door?"
This time it's 90% irritation, 10% gratitude. Definitely 90% irritation. "I'm sure we'll manage," Arthur drawls. Ok, so maybe the percentages are flipped. Close enough.
*
It's a Thursday and Arthur is out of town on business the second long weekend running. Arthur still leaves them neatly labeled tupperware containers in the fridge, and Dom thanks God for small blessings, because the instant Arthur left, James decided suddenly that he doesn't like sleeping through the night anymore, even though he's nearly 14 months old. Dom moves the crib into his bedroom again to keep an eye on him, because he's almost big enough that Dom is starting to worry he'll figure out how to get out of it on his own, but doesn't yet have the muscle control to get down from it safely.
Phillipa and James are allowed to go outside to play for an hour after she gets home from school, as long as she promises to come get Daddy if James does something that could hurt himself. Dom puts a snack of yogurt cereal out for James, and sliced apples out for Phillipa and gives her choice of a juice box, or a glass of water. When Arthur's gone, Dom always uses the time this buys him to go through her homework folder and see what she needs to do that night. If Arthur's home, Arthur gets there before Dom, like he's got a sixth sense attuned specifically to always get Phillipa's homework folder first. Dom doesn't fight these things.
There's a note written on a strip of notebook paper in the front of the folder this time. "Phillipa bit Jake today to get her turn at the swings earlier. Fairly creative, and laudably vicious, but not really acceptable behaviour," Eames has written. It's in Arthur's handwriting again, but Dom doesn't notice, because his child is apparently biting other students.
He just writes back, "I will have a talk with Phillipa about her behavior," and signs his name. Then, he hauls Phillipa in from the garden and sits her down for a 'talk-about' and how biting is not an ok way to make someone else share.
*
Eames can definitely not do friendly with Arthur.
*
When Arthur gets back from his business trip, all of Eames's notes are back in his own fluid handwriting, and never stray off the point.
*
"So, what's going on with Arthur?" Yusuf asks, casual, over bottles of Pyramid Haywire.
Eames swallows smoothly, because he's Eames, and that's what he does. "Nothing's going on with Arthur," he tells Yusuf.
Yusuf gives him his "bollocks" look back, but Eames ignores him. The Hammers are playing. Eames had to get an extra sports package with his cable to keep up on his footie. Yusuf takes shameless advantage of it.
"Fine, mate, keep it to yourself." Not even Yusuf is spiteful enough to root for Manchester City against West Ham.
The Hammers lose 2-0.
*
Part 2
Author: anamuan
Fandom, Pairing: Inception, Arthur/Eames, Ariadne/Yusuf, past Cobb/Mal
Word Count: 21,484
Rating: NC-17 overall, PG-13 this part.
Note: Endless thanks to coffeeandice who is the only reason I could have written this. She has given me every type of beta possible, and has let me bother her about this story for the past four months, through house guests and finals, and I am, quite simply, grateful forever. Thanks also to mycroftnext and acchikocchi for letting me spam them constantly with updates and pleading eyes, and thanks to shaded_sun and
the_ragnarok for letting me rope them in on random scenes to britpick and to tell me if my porn is ok. Finally, thank you to everyone who's been reading and leaving such absolutely wonderful feedback on the kinkmeme. I cannot thank you enough. I hope you enjoy the rest of the ride!
Summary: Written for trippypeas's marvelous prompt on the kink meme. All of this is because I thought the prompt was the most adorable thing ever.
After Mal dies Arthur moves in to help Cobb take care of the kids, Philipa starts at a new school with a new teacher Mr.Eames.
Eames is charmed by Arthur but thinks he can't have him because he thinks Cobb and Arthur are involved. Arthur really likes Eames but is getting annoyed that everytime he thinks they are getting somewhere Eames backs off.
Cobb just rolls his eyes and Philipa's family drawings are kind of confusing.
It takes Dom ten weeks to really get back on his feet after Mal dies. It was cancer, a brain tumour. No one saw it coming. Phillipa was four; James only six months old.
Arthur had taken care of the funeral. Dom--was there for it, which was more than he really thought he'd manage. It was closed casket, for obvious reasons. Phillipa had cried because everyone else was crying. Dom picked her up and let her cry into his neck, and everything he saw was way too blurry for someone who didn't cry at all. James had gotten fussy partway through, after Dom had Phillipa curled up in his arms. James was hungry probably. Arthur had taken him out without being asked, somewhere out back where all the cars were parked, bouncing him gently in his arms until they were out of earshot.
By the time Dom was really back to himself, by the time he wasn't eating by rote and only dragging himself out of bed because he had two small children; by the time he wasn't feeding and dressing and bathing the kids on autopilot and seeing the world in varying shades of blurry grey, Arthur had moved in and was running the household for him.
Arthur made sure their phone and water bills got paid. Arthur made sure that James got to day care, and Phillipa had lunches packed for school that weren't made entirely of pre-packed chips bought in bulk at Costco. Arthur made sure there was milk in the fridge and bread in the pantry. He made sure the kids were dressed and on time and their hair was brushed. Honestly, Arthur's a lot better at any of it than Mal was; he's ruthlessly organized about it like he is at everything else. He labels meals for each day and stacks them in the fridge whenever he leaves on business, so all Dom has to do is microwave and play choo-choo with James until he eats his mashed peas. In a few years, Arthur will be fearsome as he schedules play dates and soccer practice and piano lessons, and Dom's study will be organized whether he likes it or not. Arthur's already making forays into the library.
By the time Dom gets back on his feet, all of Arthur's clothes are moved into the spare bedroom, and his favourite chair's in the living room in front of the TV, and he's let go of the lease on his apartment. Dom starts taking over dinner duty and laundry, and he never says anything to Arthur about moving back out now that he's a little more together. Arthur doesn't say anything either, just pays the electric bill using Dom's checking account.
Dom gets it back together in time for the fall term. He'd been on sabbatical the year before, nominally research for the book, but the book lay abandoned somewhere in the study, half-constructed notes scribbled on college-rule paper. Really, it was more like a way to finagle paternity leave out of the university, with a side of research. Then Mal died, and Dom's world fell apart. Coming back to school feels strange. It gives him deja vu, the little rhythms the same with different faces attached, and the big things--well, it feels like a different world, somehow.
They stick him with a new grad student as his TA in his psych 101 class. Her name is Ariadne. She's brilliant and perspicacious and far too insightful for Dom's still-ragged edges, but she's also a quick grader and leads the discussion session better than the other two TAs he's been assigned for the class, even though they've both got two years' experience on her. Margo was in one of his upper level classes the year before last. She's bright, and she knows the material, obviously, but she's much more of a researcher and much less of a teacher, and it shows in the way she curls up in on herself at the front of the classroom. Roth, Dom never taught. He was new last year, when Dom was taking sabbatical, and his emphasis is in clinical psych, so it's unlikely Dom ever will. He's a tough grader and has an equally cutting sense of humour and claims the girls gang up on him.
The first weekend after school starts is Labor Day weekend. Dom and Mal always used to have their grad students over for a barbecue then. Dom isn't up to a barbecue without her, and they're short half the grad students they'd normally get, but it feels wrong to start off the year without it. Arthur suggests they come over for dinner instead, on Saturday instead of Monday: right enough to get the year started; wrong enough that it doesn't feel like a cheap copy. Arthur prints up actual invitations for Dom to give this semester's free-labour, and Dom does the grocery shopping and the cooking. Somewhere around dessert, Dom realises that he can do this, after all.
After dinner, as everyone's getting their jackets, Arthur invites them all back sometime. Ariadne's the only one who takes him up on the offer. By halfway through term, she's a semi-permanent fixture in the house on weekends. Phillipa thinks she's awesome and forces her to color with her for hours. Ariadne puts up with it goodnaturedly. James tries to eat her scarves, which she tolerates with significantly less grace. Arthur usually manages to extricate the fabric from James's fearsome baby-clutch before he actually gets it into his mouth, while Dom and Ariadne debate the cutting edge of academic psychology. Arthur doesn't think there is anything in the field of academic psychology that's sharp enough to cut, but he keeps that opinion to himself.
The Monday after Labor Day, Phillipa starts kindergarten.
Eames is the worst possible kindergarten teacher Arthur has ever met. Arthur doesn't know how he even got certified. The US school system isn't famous for excellence, but they live in a good district. This shouldn't happen. It wouldn't have happened, but Dom had been the one to take Phillipa to her first day.
"Separation anxiety," Dom had said, and the thing with living with a psychologist is you can never escape the head-shrinking.
"You or her?" Arthur asked.
"Me. Definitely me," Dom replied, and Arthur had sighed and said, "Fine, go ahead."
If Arthur had dropped Phillipa off, he'd have had her change schools. He hadn't, though; Dom had. And Dom liked Mr. Eames and thought learning continuity was important for young, developing minds, though, and after all, they were his kids, so Phillipa stayed at Washington Elementary and in Mr. Eames's kindergarten class. Arthur was really less than pleased about it.
"He's a bad influence. Irresponsible. How can you be sure he's teaching Phillipa anything? You're a teacher; this should matter to you," Arthur complains, as Dom grades papers in the living room. There are papers everywhere. Dom doesn't believe in keeping stacks. Arthur is willing to let it go for the moment, but later he'll make Dom clean them up and move everything into his study since that is what the room is for.
"Phillipa's been in school for a week," Dom says at last, when he realizes that Arthur is waiting for an actual answer. "Don't you think it's a bit soon to be worrying about this?"
Arthur gives him a look. "It's very important," he starts, but Dom stops him before he can get out his notes on early education and later life success.
"Kindergarten should be as much play time as it is learning numbers and letters. It's about social interaction and building a creative learning environment."
"Ok, fine," Arthur concedes, and he doesn't do anything petty like demand that he be the one who gets to go to the first parent-teacher conference in another week, scheduled so the new parents can get comfortable with the idea that their precious young children are actually going to school now. Arthur does start teaching Phillipa the alphabet at home, just in case. He doesn't want her to fall behind her peers, on a national level.
Arthur ends up going to the parent teacher conference anyway, because Dom has a seminar class scheduled that evening (every Thursday evening, from 5:30-8:00) and fresh from sabbatical, he can't afford to cancel classes.
"Hello, there," says Mr. Eames when Arthur shows up outside the classroom door. "Which classroom are you looking for?" Mr. Eames sounds very cheerful and energetic--the perfect kindergarten teacher--and Arthur knows immediately that it is all a lie.
"This one," he says very firmly. "You're Mr. Eames?"
"That'd be me," Eames replies, "But I'm afraid you've got me at a loss. I thought I knew all of my students' parents, at least by sight."
Arthur gives Eames one of his shark's grins, the ones he keeps for hostile take-overs and picking up douche bags in bars. "Not a parent, exactly," he says. Eames's face closes off at the non-answer, settles into something confident and ballsy, something challenging. At this, Arthur is very pleased to note to himself that Mr. Eames is, exactly as he thought, wholly unsuited to being a teacher. He likes being right about these things. He knows because Eames is exactly his type, and his type is not appropriate for young children in the slightest. Something in Arthur has always enjoyed being able to win, liked the competition--even if the competition in question was about who could be the bigger asshole. Arthur, consequently, tends to pick guys he wouldn't feel bad about leaving in the morning.
"I'm afraid school policy doesn't allow non-family members in for these conferences," Eames says, pulling the power card already.
"Dominic Cobb's daughter, Phillipa," Arthur concedes, because he has to be in the parent-teacher meeting in order to properly assess all the ways Phillipa will need extra lessons after school to make up for the curriculum she's not learning from her so-called teacher. Arthur digs out his driver's license, passing it over. "I'm her other care-taker. The school has the paperwork." Something else shutters in Eames's face then, even as he breaks back into a broad smile. It's like watching one of those mobile billboards shift faces, pulling up a second advertisement, only it moved too fast for Arthur to figure out what Eames was selling before it was gone.
"Oh, right, of course. Why don't I show you Phillipa's desk?"
*
Arthur comes as Phillipa's guardian and that is a bleeding shame, because Arthur is lovely. His entire manner drips disapproval, and Eames has always taken delight in cracking people who disapprove of him. He shows Arthur Phillipa's desk, and Arthur asks a few pointed questions about the curriculum. Eames makes up the most outrageous answers to all of Arthur's questions that he can, and mentions that the school won't let him incorporate the 'naked hour' that his teaching school had pioneered in the 70's into their kindergarten classes. Eames goes on about it for nearly ten minutes, watching Arthur's face grow increasingly unable to hide his sheer and absolute horror at the idea. And then Eames takes mercy on him, face settling into the smallest of smirks and Arthur stops, mid-horror. His poker face drops back down over his features and he says, "Oh," very shortly as he realizes that Eames has been having him on.
Phillipa is actually one of Eames's favourite students, because she is bright, and because she is an absolute devil sometimes, the way that small children can be. Eames plans to teach her that being cute would get her some places, but she has to rely on herself to get her the rest. Arthur seems genuinely invested in her success--if a little too fixated on numbers and letters and SAT scores--even if he does keep calling her Dom's daughter.
She's got a drawing of her family out, proudly displayed on the surface for the parent-teacher open house, and a neat row of pencils and crayons along the top of the desk, in the little divot made for them. Eames had never really looked at the picture before, because he's not the sort to sit a kid on his lap and coo over whatever scribble they've made and pretend that it really does look like a dog. It's got a house and a bunch of stick figures on it, with colourful scribbles on top that is probably hair. Sitting just underneath it is another drawing, of what is likely a turtle. Or maybe a dinosaur.
Arthur frowns at the top drawing for a moment, and then his phone starts ringing. He scrambles it out of his pocket, and checks the caller ID.
"Shit," he says, then looks a little guiltily around the classroom and mutters "Sorry," quietly, like he's apologizing to the cartoon characters holding letters on the walls for his language. Eames is absolutely charmed. Who does that? The classroom can't hear him. "Excuse me, Mr. Eames, I've got to take this. It's the sitter."
Arthur steps out into the hallway to take the call, and by the time he pokes his head back in, two other sets of parents have come in to meet the new teacher. Mrs. and Mr. Edwards are cooing over their little boy's own desk-top drawing, and Mr. Gonzales is asking Eames about his daughter's ability to play with other children. She's an only child, and he's worried that she might be having a hard time learning how to share. Arthur waves his goodbye from the doorway, and Eames waves distractedly back. He's trying to remember whether or not he'd had to tell Nina to get smarter about snagging the toys she wanted if she didn't want to get in trouble about it.
Teacher-parent 'hour' actually runs about an hour and a half. It's a good school district; the parents all care for their little brats, and someone from each family makes an appearance before Eames gets to clean up and leave. That's encouraging. He's got a good class. He'd missed the kids when he was out, if he's honest with himself. Kids have a way of looking at the world, a weird mix of everything being both fascinatingly, wonderfully novel and simple acceptance for the way things were, just because they were. Kids are full of possibilities.
Eames calls Yusuf from the parking lot, on the way to the car. He gets the voicemail, as per usual; Yusuf never can be bothered to pick up his phone. "Hey, mate. Just finished up at the school. You want to come 'round for a beer?" He still has lesson planning to do. This, right here, is exactly why Eames got out of teaching two years after graduation. All the fucking lesson planning. It could be worse, he supposes: he could have a tenth grade science class and have grading to do.
Yusuf, sure enough, texts him right back. "Be @yrs in 10. Bringing a 6 pack"
Yusuf actually gets to Eames's place before he does, because Yusuf is walking and Eames is caught in Southern Californian traffic. By the time Eames gets his door open and his bag set down on the chair in the hall, Yusuf's already let himself in with Eames's spare key. Eames switches hiding places for it periodically, but they both know he's not really trying very hard.
"Oi. Feet off the table," Eames scolds from the doorway. Yusuf rolls his eyes but complies. More importantly, he pops the tops off the beers he's got set out.
Eames settles onto the couch and flips on the telly, volume nearly all the way down, just for the background noise.
"Have fun talking to the brats' owners?" Yusuf asks. Eames nods while taking a pull from his beer, then pulls a face and actually looks at what he's drinking.
"What's all this?" he asks, peering at the label. This is not their usual. It's not bad, but it's not their usual. Yusuf has been drinking the same beer since they were sneaking it together in secondary school. Anchor Steam is not that beer.
"I, err, I just thought I'd try something new," Yusuf says.
Eames gives him a look. "Is that so?"
"What?" Yusuf demands, but it's not at all convincing. Eames just keeps up his 'bollocks' look until Yusuf caves. It doesn't take very long. "Right, fine, so I met this girl. And she asked me to try this. She said it was good!"
"So now you're pretending to like fancy micro-brews for a girl you just met? Is this going to be like the time you pretended to like Nickelback?"
Yusuf shifts awkwardly in his place on the couch like he's probably flushing. "I tried the fancy micro-brew for a girl I'd just met. The beer is actually good, you know."
One corner of Eames's mouth turns up as he takes another sip. "Well, mate, even if it doesn't work out, it looks like you got something good out of this one."
"Shut up and drink the beer I brought you."
*
Mr. Eames neither conforms to Arthur's preference in early education instruction, nor does he really fall into Dom's idiotic rubric for 'learning through play' or whatever the psychologists think is the best way to teach children this month. He seems, Arthur grudgingly admits, competent, and to genuinely like his students.
Mr. Eames got his teaching degree nearly nine years previously, and had taught for two years after graduation. After that, he left his teaching position--fourth grade in a middling, suburban district. Arthur did some digging, but it seems like he just left: a career change, not as a result of any problems at the school. After that, Eames drifted between odd jobs and the art scene, but everything, as far as Arthur can tell, was more or less above board. He hasn't seemed to pick up any unsavoury characters before coming to California and getting certified to teach K-6 in the state. Eames is actually pretty fortunate to have gotten a full-time position so soon after state-certification. It speaks to a certain level of talent.
Eames is an asshole, like Arthur had suspected, and worst of all, he's actually pretty funny.
Arthur decides that he will stop lobbying for Phillipa to be moved to the other kindergarten class. Eames had seemed capable enough during their meeting that Arthur doesn't even feel magnanimous about it.
*
Arthur is at work when he gets a call from the school. Mr. Eames would like to schedule an appointment to see him or Mr. Cobb. Phillipa has been refusing to eat lunch.
"Yes, of course. Let me call you back in ten minutes?" Arthur asks the receptionist, and hangs up.
3:30 on Wednesday, or 4:00 on Thursday. Neither really are convenient options because they're in the middle of the day. First, he calls Dom.
"What are you doing at 3:30 on Wednesday or on Thursday at 4?" Arthur asks without preamble.
"Um," says Dom. Arthur can hear Dom ruffling through papers. "Department meeting, and attending a class for Linda Wong as a guest lecturer."
"Any chance you could get out of either of those? The school called. Phillipa hasn't been eating her lunch. They want a meeting."
"I can see about the department meeting; Linda's got material from my lecture coming on her midterm, so I don't think I can get out of that one," Dom says.
Arthur waits while Dom checks, waiting for the tell-tale click dial tone that meant Dom had tried and failed to put him on hold again, but it never comes. There are also no fuzzy, distant office sounds that mean Dom just dropped the receiver on the desk, which is his usual back-up plan. Dom might actually have put Arthur on hold successfully. Arthur's a little impressed. Dom's been hanging up on him for years, trying to put him on hold.
"How much do you need me to go?" Dom says when he gets back. Not good news then.
Arthur sighs and checks his planner. "I'll work through lunch on Thursday morning and leave early," Arthur tells him. Then he calls the school back.
Arthur arrives exactly on time for the meeting. Mr. Eames has the easy air of someone who has not been waiting around for anything in particular, but just happens to be there by happy coincidence, despite the careful scheduling. Arthur finds it exceedingly annoying.
Phillipa has been going through a phase where she will only eat macaroni and cheese or grilled cheese sandwiches. Not anticipating a straight week of mac and cheese for every meal, including breakfast, they've run out and Arthur hasn't had time to run to the store yet to get more. Dom has forgotten to pick it up twice after school already.
Arthur has been making grilled cheese for her in the mornings instead, but apparently, it doesn't keep as well until lunchtime as mac and cheese in a thermos. By the time lunch rolls around, the bread is limp and soggy instead of slightly crispy, and the cheese is cold, and Phillipa will take a few dejected bites and then refuse to eat the rest.
"Why are your shirts all so ugly," Arthur blurts, because, well, they are. It wasn't what he'd meant to say, what he should have said, which was something about how he'd have a talk with Phillipa about nutrition--but it's distracting. Eames wears the most hideously coloured button-downs Arthur's ever seen. That doesn't begin to touch the patterns they come in. He doesn't know why anyone would make them in the first place, much less why Eames would buy them and wear them in public.
"Small children like bright colours," Eames says.
"Grown-ups like eyesight."
Mr.Eames rolls his eyes at him. A teacher rolls his eyes at him. "You're not actually going blind. I hardly took you as one for hyperbole."
There's not a good way Arthur can respond to that. Everything would look like he was trying too hard to-- to what, exactly? Blatant flirting is not an acceptable answer, so Arthur is definitely not doing that. All Arthur can do is make sure he stops at the grocery store on his way home and pick up some macaroni and cheese.
At the store, Arthur wonders if he can get the generic brand or if it has to be Kraft, but ultimately decides to play it safe. The next day, Phillipa decides that she only likes PB&J.
*
"Are you sure little Phillipa's not yours? I detect a hint of your perfectionism in the way she builds castles out of blocks." Mr. Eames does not have large, bouncy, clear kindergarten teacher handwriting. His lines aren't straight and his loops aren't perfect circles.
"Quite sure," Arthur writes back. Then, as an afterthought, "P.S. She builds cities, not castles."
The next note Mr. Eames sends home is written in a very good imitation of Arthur's own handwriting. Arthur makes Ariadne write out the response for him because she's over, ostensibly to borrow a book from Professor Cobb, but really to play with the kids. She gives Arthur kind of a weird look, but she does it anyway, so Arthur resolves to make Dom buy her a coffee before her next Psych 101 office hours. Arthur remembers being a grad student--caffeine is the life-blood of any college campus. It's worth more than gold. Gold, after all, can't keep you awake through the last four hours of writing term papers before the winter holiday.
*
Arthur is going to join the PTA. He probably doesn't really have enough time for it, and it isn't like he doesn't trust Dom to do it, but--he just doesn't trust Dom to do it. Not properly. Dom would show up once every three or four months, and then only vote for the measures he genuinely cares about, not the measures that will be in Phillipa's, and eventually James's best interest. Dom won't think about the job like that, won't think of the PTA as a job at all.
Arthur doesn't have a need to rule the local PTA with an iron fist. He just knows how these things work. Maybe it doesn't matter much for kindergarten or first grade, but in a few years, it will. Parent participation in the PTA and extracurricular activity boards are one of the things that bump your child up from 'top ten percent' to 'top ten students'. The US isn't a meritocracy, not really; they just want you to think it is.
Arthur's already missed the first couple of PTA meetings. He's ashamed to say he hadn't thought of it at all until the ditto came home in Phillipa's homework folder, half a page on blue paper reminding parents to participate. There's a short list of the dates for the next few meetings. He won't be missing those.
Arthur writes two dates into his planner. The third, he'll be out of town on business; he'll have to make Dom go if anything important is going on. At the first (well, third), Arthur arrives a little early and finds a seat somewhere in the middle aisles, toward the end of a row.
"Surprised to see you here, Arthur. You didn't strike me as one for power games," Mr. Eames says, dropping into the empty seat next to him.
"You didn't strike me as the type to bother with these endless meetings," Arthur retorts.
"Parent Teacher Association. I have to come so you have someone to associate with."
Arthur twitches a corner of his mouth up at that, makes Eames's glib response just a little bit dirty. He knows Eames catches it because he's looking. It turns into a full-blown smirk, but that's ok, because the meeting's finally starting.
The meeting is an exercise in boring chaos. Nothing is as organized as it should be, and Arthur suddenly feels much better about missing the first two, because clearly no one has their shit together yet. On his way out, Arthur collects two of the chaperone volunteer forms. He can drop them off tomorrow on his way to work.
*
The next note that comes home in Phillipa's homework folder is just a quick update on her progress. Phillipa is doing well, and the note is in Ariadne's tiny scrawl.
*
Arthur gets pulled onto a new job, a nasty corporate restructuring hard on the heels of what had probably been a very ill-advised acquisition/merger. He ends up sleeping at the office the first four days, getting everything in order so his team could go in and set everything straight--or at least the management process snags, anyway. They'll have to deal with their interpersonal issues and corporate culture conflicts on their own.
By the time he's given a streamlined corporate plan to Talpexi Corp, Arthur's actually worked enough overtime that HR calls him specifically to inform him that he is not legally allowed to come in to work the next week.
Monday, Arthur sleeps for fifteen hours, and crawls out of bed at 2 pm. He catches up on some reading and eats random crap out the fridge in lieu of an actual meal until Dom comes home with James and Phillipa. By Tuesday, Arthur's bored out of his skull, and halfway through the day, he drops by Dom's office with James to tell him he's kidnapping him from daycare, and not to worry about getting Phillipa in the afternoon either, just to give himself something to do.
*
Eames stands in the doorway blocking the exit, keeping one eye on the chain link fence and one eye scanning the school yard for problems. Children making actual trouble have a different kind of energy than kids playing around. It's easy to spot if you keep your eyes unfocused--it jumps right out at you. At lunch, Eva had tried to make Henry eat a caterpillar. Eames had had to tell her how much it would hurt the caterpillar to be eaten before she'd given it up.
"I'm a little early," Arthur says, coming up behind Eames in the hallway. "The front office said I could find you out here." He's holding a baby--James, Eames remembers Phillipa has a baby brother named James--and wearing a T-shirt. It's white, and has some kind of corporate logo on it. He looks good: relaxed and easy. Eames helpfully props the inside fire door open further so Arthur doesn't have to get his hands free of baby to get through.
Suddenly the space between the two doors feels very small, with the two--three--of them all standing inside.
"Arthur, it's unusual to see you here," Eames says.
"Despite all previous evidence, my employer apparently believes in labor laws after all," Arthur says, and there's a hint of a smile on his face, a hint of mischief in his eyes. Eames could get used to that; he likes it already.
Arthur leans forward, closer to Eames, and closer to the wide-open door to the outside. Phillipa's running around in frantic butterfly patterns with a boy close behind her. She throws both hands out and runs straight into a stunted pine tree in the yard: safe. Then they switch places, boy running as hard as he can for the poles holding up the basket ball hoop. It changes when you hit the base.
Phillipa veers off suddenly, letting the first boy escape, and, fingers straining, just brushes the back of Embert's shirt. "You're it!" she shrieks, already turning to run back toward her base.
"Am not!" Embert shouts, "You didn't touch me!" Phillipa turns back around to face him.
"Did too!"
Embert crosses his arms. Eames starts paying them a little bit more attention. Phillipa considers him for a minute, then shouts "Fine! Did now!" and tags him again, this time solidly, and takes off back for her tree. Eames relaxes, certain now there won't be anything for him to intervene in, and gives the rest of the yard another sweep.
"Tires them out before we send them home to their parents. Everyone's grateful, they just don't realize it." Eames nods out towards the yard.
Arthur glances sideways up at Eames, body still tucked in a hair closer than he really has to be so he can look out the doorway. His lips quirk up, just a bit more, edging into genuinely amused territory, and then he opens his mouth to say something. It's going to be dry and sarcastic and devastatingly clever, Eames knows that already--he's just waiting to hear what the actual words will be.
And then Phillipa shouts, "Uncle Arthur!!" at the top of her powerfully five-year-old lungs, and starts racing across the playground towards them, and Arthur's attention snaps to her instead. He steps out into the California sunshine, and adjusts James in his arms, and Phillipa thuds into his legs like she didn't just see him this morning, or whenever. Like they don't live in the same house.
Arthur, impressively, barely even staggers under all the force of a hurtling kindergartner. Well, Eames supposes, Arthur never comes to pick her up in the afternoons. He can't really blame her for thinking it's a treat.
*
Eames's flat is covered in construction paper when his phone buzzes on the coffee table. Just once, so it's a text, which means it's probably Yusuf. Well, Yusuf knows where the key is; he can let himself in, as per usual.
Ten minutes later, it buzzes again, so Eames hauls himself up to his feet and steps around the students' pictures to get it. Wouldn't do to crumple any by stepping on them. Every class in the school gets to decorate the bulletin board by the front office once a term. It's Eames's class's turn, so he's going through each of his students' five favourite drawings or paintings to pick one to hang on display. They get to pick their favourites, and then he selects one to hang to make sure everyone has one up.
"Gonna be late," reads the first one. The next says, "Nevermind, s/t's come up. Not gonna make it," which is clearly code for, "I'm getting lucky tonight."
"Have fun," Eames types back, then goes back to his piles. The next student is Phillipa. She's got a couple drawings of her dino-turtle, one of a fantastical building with too many staircases, one of a finger-painted bunny, and a crayon drawing of her family.
It says 'My FaMly' on the top, one of the y's backwards, and has several stick-figure people with scribbled on hair. One is clearly Cobb, because it's blond and labelled 'daddi'; another with dark hair is clearly Arthur. Phillipa's the one in the middle with the long yellow hair, and there's a little round thing next to her with more yellow hair that must be James. There's a house in the background, and a stick-figure in a dress standing on the moon.
So, that's the family. Lady on the moon. Eames shakes his head; Phillipa might end up his favourite for the year if she keeps drawing her family like that. He puts that one on top of the 'going in the case' pile, and moves the other four back to his 'return to student' stack. Next up are Nina's pictures.
*
"Have you ever looked at Phillipa's family drawings?" reads the next note. This one is in the sloppy-neat script El uses when she's trying to be legible. El is one of Arthur's coworkers--the one least likely to ask what the hell is going on when asked to help out with a practical joke. The string 'ing' becomes one single loopy letter, always, but sometimes it looks like a j at the end of a word, and sometimes it looks like an ŋ. Half her s's are in print, and the other half she's forgotten she's trying to be neat and they're in messy cursive; there's almost a pattern to it that Arthur can see, based on where in a word the s comes, and what letters are on either side of it. Eames has it down perfectly. "She keeps drawing a lady stick-figure on a ball in the sky and saying it's her mother. Did you tell her she came from the moon instead of being adopted? Also, I think she wants a pet dinosaur for her birthday."
Arthur winces when he reads it, and writes the reply himself. Mal is something they never talk about. Dom would say it's a horrible coping mechanism if it were anyone else, but not talking about her is how they keep their lives normal, and Dom isn't saying anything about coping mechanisms.
He keeps it as short as possible, "Mrs. Cobb died," and forgets to respond about the possibility of a birthday dinosaur entirely.
Arthur's reluctant to take up the game again after that, but the next note Eames sends home in Phillipa's folder--another progress report--is in a blocky hand Arthur doesn't recognize. It doesn't say anything about the last note at all. Arthur attributes the warm rush in his chest entirely to relief at being able to skirt that particular crater.
"Who's this?" he makes Ariadne write back for him, because she's there and convenient.
*
"So, Sunday, what are you doing?" Ariadne asks Dom one Monday after their Psych 101 class.
"It's a Sunday, so nothing, probably," he says. He settles the sheaf of assignments into something resembling a stack and sticks them into his bag.
"Good. Then you're coming to my football party. It starts at 2; game's at 4. Come any time. Arthur's in town too, right? Bring everyone. There'll be lots of food." Her smile is open and cheerful and doesn't take no for an answer.
"Yeah, sure," Dom says.
"Great," Ariadne replies. "Professor Wong said they're coming, and Roth said he might bring his daughter if he shows up. I'm going to go hound some other grad students during office hours. It's going to be awesome."
They get there somewhere around 2:30. Ariadne takes their coats and hangs them up in the hall closet, winding Phillipa's bright blue scarf around and around the neck of the hanger so it doesn't get lost. Then she leads them into the kitchen, waving them through a quick layout of the ground-floor apartment, and pointing out the pizza on the counter and the drinks in the fridge.
The choices of beer are cheap and deeply appalling. There's milk and juice for the kids; Dom sticks to juice himself because he's the one driving. Arthur is eyeing the Bud in his hand and contemplating whether or not it's worth it to drink enough that he doesn't care.
Ariadne abandons them in the kitchen when the doorbell rings again. A few minutes later, Linda Wong's two kids, Daniel and Joyce, are tearing through the kitchen on the way to the living room, where the TV is, and Linda's yelling after them not to run in the house.
Ariadne and Linda don't join them in the kitchen, which means they're standing in the hallway chatting about something, probably with an armful of child-sized outerwear each. Arthur gives Phillipa a paper plate with a slice of pizza on it and takes her drink to carry into the next room himself, just to be safe.
"I think James is wet again," Dom says, turning back towards the hallway and the bathroom, shuffling a slightly fussy James in his arms.
Arthur's handing off the diaper bag to Dom when he hears, "Jesus fucking wept, Yusuf, are you sure this is the girl who introduced you to decent beer?" from the other room. Arthur knows that voice. It takes him a second to place, because the context is all wrong, but it's--
Eames walks around the corner into the kitchen then. He barely dodges Phillipa in time, box-stepping around her with an, "Easy there, sprog. Oh, hello, Phillipa!"
"Hi, Mr. Eames!" Phillipa chirps politely, not even turning around as she continues on her way to the living room. Eames turns around again just in time to keep from walking straight into Arthur.
"Mr. Eames," Arthur blinks. Then, because he has some control over what comes out of his mouth, instead of 'What are you doing here?' he asks "You know Ariadne?"
"Sort of. My mate Yusuf is dating her. Just met her today."
Eames isn't wearing any of the hideous button downs that Arthur's gotten used to seeing him in at PTA meetings and the odd time he picks up or drops off Phillipa at school. He's wearing a dark grey t-shirt, just plain soft cotton. Arthur has a fleeting half-though wondering what Eames would look like sitting on his couch, cup of coffee and the morning paper, soft shirt riding up and showing a flash of stomach. Arthur shakes it away before it can come into sharper focus. He doesn't even have that couch any more. He'd sold it to the people who'd moved into his apartment when he moved out.
The bottom edge of a whorl of black ink peeks out under each sleeve, tattoos Arthur's never seen before. No wonder Mr. Eames always wears long sleeves at work; not everyone considers tattoos appropriate for the eyes of their precious small children. They're too innocent to know about ink and needles.
Arthur, on the other hand, very much wants to see the rest of them, to trace his fingers over the lines of them and find out where they begin. That's not at all appropriate.
Eames has nowhere to go when Ariadne and the Wongs finally make it out of the entryway. They head straight through the narrow kitchen to the living room, off to make sure their kids aren't causing too much chaos, and Arthur steps neatly into Eames's space because he doesn't have enough time or space to step back and sideways.
Eames smells like skin and aftershave, even though he's already scruffy, and it takes Arthur a beat longer than it should to pull himself away again. Eames, for his part, doesn't really seem to mind Arthur invading his space, and he doesn't say anything about it when Arthur steps back again.
Instead, he says, "Are you really planning on drinking that horrid beer?" His top teeth are crooked when he grins. Arthur had never noticed before. He makes a point not to think about why it should matter to him at all.
He pulls his eyes away from Eames's distractingly fascinating mouth, and glances down at the Bud in his hand. "If I have to," he says.
"Yusuf claims she usually drinks all these fancy local micro-brews. Let's say we find where she's keeping them?"
*
"This is breaking and entering, you know."
"This is most certainly not breaking and entering. I would know." Eames cocks an eyebrow at Arthur, who holds up a bottle opener.
"And why should I take your word on that, Mr. Eames?"
"Confidential, of course," Eames says and holds out a bottle. Arthur pops the top and hands it back, and Eames gives him the next one to do as well. "Besides, pulling a couple of bottles out of the bottom of the fridge is hardly stealing."
Eames hovers around the edge of a conversation Yusuf and Ariadne are having while waiting for Arthur to drop Phillipa's juice off with her and make sure she's settled for the next little while. Yusuf looks unfairly pained while Ariadne tries to explain that crap beer and crap pizza are the pillars of a good football party. Eames does not comment on the fact that American football is not real football because he's a guest.
"I feel betrayed," says Yusuf. "You kept giving me all of these delicious things, and then today, with the exact same face, you told me to try this Miller lite stuff, and it is disgusting."
"You just don't get it, Yusuf. It's not a real football party if there's good beer. It defeats the purpose!" says Ariadne. Eames looks obviously innocuous until Ariadne calls him out for stealing her good beer, and Yusuf calls Ariadne out for keeping it from him.
When Arthur's done, they wander out to the California-dry backyard. Eames settles himself on the lip of the patio. There are a couple of chairs on the little raised rectangle of brick, both occupied. Eames thinks he vaguely recognizes one as one of Yusuf's lab mates, and from the shop talk they have going, the other probably is as well. There are a few more empty lawn chairs spread out on the actual grass, but they seem too far away to bother with.
"So what did you really do for the last five years, since clearly you weren't exercising your true talent at breaking and entering?" Arthur asks, dropping down onto the step next to Eames. He's sitting just a little bit too close, elbows and hips brushing. Eames is trying not to think about it and failing spectacularly because all his attention focuses down whenever Arthur bumps into him.
Eames grins at him, sideways, mischief, and says, "What if I told you I'd run away to join the circus? Or turned tricks for cash? Or nicked secrets from people's minds and money from their pockets?"
Arthur grins back and takes a pull from his bottle--Flying Dog from Ariadne's secret cache. It isn't local, and Eames really has no idea how she got it way out on this coast. He hasn't had any since a brief stint couch surfing in DC, when he'd been in town for Artomatic.
"I would not believe anything you said to me," Arthur replies. "Because you would be lying." The man has honest to god dimples when he really smiles. What is Eames supposed to do with that?
Eames spends most of the party fabricating increasingly improbable ways he may have spent his past few years, and grinning whenever Arthur figures out whether something actually happened or not. He's not making much effort to make it difficult; he enjoys how pleased Arthur seems with himself when he correctly calls Eames out on a bluff too much for Eames to want to try to.
It's mostly guesswork on Arthur's part; that, and Eames discovers, what should really be a disturbing lack of respect for other people's privacy. Somehow Arthur manages to make a habit of invasive, stalker-esque background checks seem exceedingly business professional.
Halfway through a particularly brilliant rendition of a horrific part time cafe-employment experience, Eames decides that Arthur's laugh might actually be addictive.
Darkness has fallen and they've moved back into the kitchen. Eames has hauled himself up to sit on the edge of one of the kitchen counters, and Arthur is leaning up against the counter opposite him, idly re-arranging rows of empty beer bottles as they talk, when Ariadne comes in to find them.
"Arthur," she says, "I think you guys are getting ready to head out. Phillipa's fallen asleep under the coffee table; do you think you could help collect her?"
"Yeah, of course," Arthur says, pushing away from the counter edge. Arthur shoots Eames a little smile as he follows Ariadne out. It's close and intimate, like the rambling conversations they've been having all night. They've managed to watch no football at all.
*
"My teacher in fifth-year. Bloody terrifying woman. Deceptive handwriting.
But, you, I'm ashamed of you, using repeats. Have you run out of friends already, darling?"
Arthur briefly contemplates whether or not Phillipa would pick up bad language if he asked her to write out f-u-c-k y-o-u for him. On the one hand, she'll learn it eventually and this would be for a good cause. On the other, five is a bit young to be giving her language she won't know what to do with, yet.
Arthur thinks for a few moments, and then makes a phone call.
"YUSUF YOU TRAITORx"
Eames writes back, Yusuf's little x's for periods, developed to differentiate them from decimal points.
Arthur gets another note the next day and wholly unprompted, safely in Arthur's handwriting again, that reads, "I resent you greatly for attempting to steal my friends away."
*
Eames needs bread, rather desperately. He could use milk, and a green vegetable or two, but they're not necessary. Eames doesn't really need anything else, except the bread, which is why he'd put off going to the grocer's for so long.
So he gets bread. He gets milk. He skips the vegetables, because he had found a packet of frozen peas in the freezer that morning while looking for something he could eat for breakfast, and frozen peas are still vegetables that are green. The beer is an impulse buy, but when can you ever not use more beer?
It's directly after work, and it has been a very long, very tiresome day. A little boy from the second grade had thrown up on the hallway carpet directly outside of Eames's classroom. Days with vomit by 10 am are almost always tiring. Perhaps the beer is not an impulse purchase after all; perhaps it's more of a desperation purchase.
Eames turns up the breakfast aisle, half a thought forming about seeing if any of the tea he likes is on sale, when he sees Arthur. Arthur is frowning at the cereal like it has personally wronged him. He's got a trolley half full of vegetables, canned food and pasta sitting in front of him. At the end of the aisle, where Arthur can keep an eye on her, Phillipa crawls in circles on her hands and knees around a display of tea-boxes. His tea is on sale.
"I'm not sure why you're trying to intimidate your cereal, but I am sure that it is sufficiently cowed by now," Eames says by way of greeting. Arthur's eyes glance towards him when he starts speaking, then back to the cereal.
"Mr. Eames." The corner of his lips quirk up minutely. Eames notices because he's watching for it, trying to gauge Arthur's actual mood.
A grin blossoms full and suddenly easy across Eames's own face, day suddenly much improved. He sets himself the impromptu goal of seeing if he can't tease those dimples of Arthur's out sometime during this conversation. Eames has a hunch that Arthur dimples are probably remarkably sound day-improvers. Probably even better than the six-pack of Stone IPA sitting in his basket. Eames is a good judge of these things.
"So, should I be defending your honour against the," Eames leans a little (unnecessarily) closer to peer at the box directly in front of Arthur, "The Cap'n Crunch Crunch Berries, or is that reserved for the Trix?"
Arthur doesn't move away, and the other corner of his mouth twitches up to join the first, so Eames shifts his weight a little, so he doesn't really have to move back when he straightens up. "I think I can take care of it, thanks," Arthur says.
Eames bites his tongue on the "Anything else I can help you with instead?" because he is above propositioning people in supermarkets, even if they are devastatingly gorgeous. Really. He is.
Arthur raises an eyebrow at him, like he knows what he's thinking. Like he's daring Eames to do it anyway, corny lines be damned. Eames licks his lips, smirks. Arthur stays just as he is, arch and expectant. Something leaps in Eames's chest, something nameless and excited.
"Get the yogurt Cheerios," Eames says, because he hates blandly fulfilling expectations. Eames particularly enjoys baffling Arthur's expectations, ever since that first moment when he'd gotten Arthur to concede that he might, perhaps, be capable of teaching a five year old something worth knowing.
"What?" Arthur laughs his surprise instead of frowns it, and Eames never thought he'd get a gift like that. Something like grudging, suspicion, concentration, maybe. Arthur isn't the type to be delighted by surprise.
"You're worried about the nutrition, yeah? Kids always want the ones with all the sugar. The yogurt ones will be sweet enough to make them happy."
"Hmm." Arthur reaches down to pick up a box, flips it over to check the nutrition label. Eames does not check out his arse while he's at it; no, Eames appreciates it. Checking out implies uncertainty about whether or not Eames would like what he finds. "Hey, this might actually work."
"Of course it would, darling; I have excellent taste," Eames says, breezy and flippant.
And then Cobb comes up the aisle toward them, baby sleeping on one shoulder.
"Hi, Mr. Eames," he says, and it's nothing like when Arthur says it, playful and slightly condescending, like it's a joke Arthur's letting Eames in on. This is just a parent, greeting a teacher. "Arthur, thank God, does Phillipa still like jello? I've been trying to remember for the past ten minutes."
Arthur frowns, thinking. "Yes, but just the strawberry flavor. She refused lime last week because it was 'too green' and I couldn't sneak the cherry past her, even though it's the same color as strawberry and she likes cherry-flavored lollipops the best."
"Thanks," Cobb says, leaning between Arthur and Eames to drop the red jello into the shopping trolley. He sounds like a man who was lost washing up on a familiar shore. Arthur's smile for Cobb is smaller than the ones he'd been flashing Eames a moment before and, Eames decides, private.
Then Cobb is gone, turning the corner at the end of the aisle with several rejected flavours and colours of jello in hand.
The exchange brings Eames up short, because he'd forgotten. Cobb. Of course. The reason letting himself fall for Arthur would be a monumentally bad idea. Arthur's boyfriend. The one he lives with. The one whose children he's helping to raise.
Eames is an arsehole. Arthur turns back to Eames with that smile he'd wanted, right dimple just a little bit deeper than the other. Eames feels brittle when he tries to smile back.
His voice is smooth, though, when he says, "Well, I've got to be going. Have a good night," and turns up the aisle toward the check out. It's the opposite direction than the one Cobb had taken purely by coincidence.
Eames pauses a moment before getting in queue.
Eames goes back to the liquor aisle and picks up another carton of beer before he gets to the checkout.
*
Eames takes several mental steps back. Friendly. Eames can definitely do friendly. Eames could do coolly professional, but the simple truth of it is that he genuinely likes Arthur, and he's fairly certain that the only one coolly professional would hurt at this point is himself. So, Eames can do friendly, and then he doesn't have to avoid Arthur embarrassingly at parent-teacher meetings.
*
The next PTA meeting is on a Wednesday night. Arthur works late at the office and heads to the school right after. He's hungry and therefore cranky, but he's got his pleasantly bland face on so probably no one can tell. That's the plan, anyway.
Arthur finds Eames immediately in the crowd, not even aware he was really looking specifically for anyone until he's spotted him, standing near the wall. A happy carton of milk is holding hands with a carrot over his shoulder, and he's talking to Mrs. Brunowsky, one of the third grade teachers. Arthur's mood picks up, just a little.
He catches Eames's eye, nods a greeting, and finds himself a place to sit. He moves one seat in further than he normally would. His pleasantly bland face may be sliding towards something that's actually a little bit happy. Arthur doesn't put much effort into trying to stop it.
Eames doesn't sit next to him when the meeting starts. He sits directly behind him, and kicks the back legs of his chair the whole time, looking genial and innocent whenever Arthur half-turns to tell him to cut it out. Every time Eames just raises inquisitive eyebrows at him, and Arthur turns back around without saying anything, because it's not like it would do any good anyway. Arthur grins to himself because he's facing forward and Eames can't see it; he doesn't want to encourage this sort of thing.
At home, Arthur reheats dinner in the microwave, and Dom asks him why he's in such a good mood. Arthur shrugs and says, "No reason," and then Phillipa yells and James starts crying in the living room, and Dom drops his line of questioning in favour of keeping his children from killing each other.
By the time Arthur gets into the living room (they have strict rules about dinner duty: whoever's not eating has first obligation to prevent chaos), Phillipa is sitting on the far end of the couch in time out and James is in his playpen with some blocks. Dom is sitting on the floor by the outlet with an old hairdryer, watching the news with closed captioning on because he can't hear the tv over the noise as he dries out Phillipa's favourite stuffed lion's mane.
*
"I did not steal Yusuf. He volunteered," Markus writes out for Arthur Friday morning. Fridays are slow because people seldom want to attempt corporate restructuring so soon before the weekend; Arthur doesn't feel the slightest twinge of guilt for distracting Markus from his bored attempts to re-arrange his desk just to look busy.
"Do I want to know, man?" Markus asks.
'Badge-flipping," Arthur tells him.
"Friend-stealer," Eames writes back in Markus's hand on Tuesday's note.
*
Arthur is in the process of writing an email, so he doesn't look at the phone when he answers it. "Hello?"
"Our file says Dr. Cobb's our daytime contact, but we can't get ahold of him. You're our secondary contact." It's the school. Phillipa's sick and needs to go home.
Arthur opens another tab and pulls up Cobb's Google calendar. He's awful about updating it, but it's better than nothing. Maybe Arthur should bribe or blackmail a TA into doing it for him. Arthur can't ever decide if it'll be worth the effort. Class for another hour, then a fifteen minute break, and class number two. After that it (should be) all office hours, and Dom can cancel those. No one ever goes to office hours anyway.
"Alright. I'll be right there," Arthur tells the school's office. Arthur writes an email to his boss, explaining that he's leaving for an early lunch appointment and that he will be back shortly. This raising children business is playing hell with his work schedule. Arthur doesn't even want to think about what it would be like if he had a less flexible schedule, if he had a reputation other than that of an extremely dependable, mildly insane workaholic.
When Arthur gets to the school, Eames is waiting with Phillipa in the front office. She doesn't look too bad, no coughing or sniffles, though when Arthur squats down to ask her how she's feeling, she says, "Bad" and looks a little red around the eyes. She doesn't uncurl from where she's leaning in to Mr. Eames side, or make any move to get out of the chair, so Arthur hauls himself back to his feet.
"She's just got a mild fever," Eames explains. "School policy says she can't stay if she's got a fever. The nurse gave her one baby aspirin, since you'd signed that waiver form. I don't think she's feeling too good, but seems more sleepy than anything else."
"Thank you for waiting with her," Arthur tells Eames, collecting Phillipa in his arms. "I hope it wasn't a lot of trouble, leaving your class?"
"No worries. The kids are outside with the other kindergarten class. It's my planning period right now."
Arthur cracks half a smile at that. "Planning period? After all that time you spent telling me how you prefer to improvise?" He adjusts Phillipa until her head is tucked up under his chin, face smooshed into his shoulder, where he can carry her easily. She's falling quickly into that sleeps-like-a-rock thing toddlers do, where they mysteriously weigh twice their normal weight while sleeping.
"Never said I used it," Eames smirks at him. "Now, good luck signing her out with your arms full."
"What?" Arthur is absolutely not dismayed, no matter what his expression might try to say about it.
"Well, you can't just waltz out of here with a small child, you know. There could be a fire alarm, and the whole school will worry because little Phillipa is missing, because no one knows you'd taken her home for the day. Parental kidnapping is on the rise as well. The school can't be responsible for that."
Arthur cannot argue with reasons like that. They make perfect sense, and Arthur is glad of the precautions Phillipa's school takes to ensure her safety. He also can't extricate his arm from where it's supporting Phillipa to fill out a form or a sign-out sheet. It's a problem.
Eames taps an open binder on the front office's counter. "Go on then," he says, when Arthur gives him a look that's 80% irritation and 20% determination. Eames has a smudge of orange paint on the elbow of his sweater. Arthur absolutely doesn't think that's endearing, so his percentages remain the same.
"Well, here, look. Don't tattle on me," Eames takes pity at last, before Arthur can manage to shift Phillipa over to the other shoulder, and signs Arthur's name on the first empty line on the sheet. Eames fills in the rest of the line quickly: date, time, child's name. "There you go. You going to be alright with the car door?"
This time it's 90% irritation, 10% gratitude. Definitely 90% irritation. "I'm sure we'll manage," Arthur drawls. Ok, so maybe the percentages are flipped. Close enough.
*
It's a Thursday and Arthur is out of town on business the second long weekend running. Arthur still leaves them neatly labeled tupperware containers in the fridge, and Dom thanks God for small blessings, because the instant Arthur left, James decided suddenly that he doesn't like sleeping through the night anymore, even though he's nearly 14 months old. Dom moves the crib into his bedroom again to keep an eye on him, because he's almost big enough that Dom is starting to worry he'll figure out how to get out of it on his own, but doesn't yet have the muscle control to get down from it safely.
Phillipa and James are allowed to go outside to play for an hour after she gets home from school, as long as she promises to come get Daddy if James does something that could hurt himself. Dom puts a snack of yogurt cereal out for James, and sliced apples out for Phillipa and gives her choice of a juice box, or a glass of water. When Arthur's gone, Dom always uses the time this buys him to go through her homework folder and see what she needs to do that night. If Arthur's home, Arthur gets there before Dom, like he's got a sixth sense attuned specifically to always get Phillipa's homework folder first. Dom doesn't fight these things.
There's a note written on a strip of notebook paper in the front of the folder this time. "Phillipa bit Jake today to get her turn at the swings earlier. Fairly creative, and laudably vicious, but not really acceptable behaviour," Eames has written. It's in Arthur's handwriting again, but Dom doesn't notice, because his child is apparently biting other students.
He just writes back, "I will have a talk with Phillipa about her behavior," and signs his name. Then, he hauls Phillipa in from the garden and sits her down for a 'talk-about' and how biting is not an ok way to make someone else share.
*
Eames can definitely not do friendly with Arthur.
*
When Arthur gets back from his business trip, all of Eames's notes are back in his own fluid handwriting, and never stray off the point.
*
"So, what's going on with Arthur?" Yusuf asks, casual, over bottles of Pyramid Haywire.
Eames swallows smoothly, because he's Eames, and that's what he does. "Nothing's going on with Arthur," he tells Yusuf.
Yusuf gives him his "bollocks" look back, but Eames ignores him. The Hammers are playing. Eames had to get an extra sports package with his cable to keep up on his footie. Yusuf takes shameless advantage of it.
"Fine, mate, keep it to yourself." Not even Yusuf is spiteful enough to root for Manchester City against West Ham.
The Hammers lose 2-0.
*
Part 2