16-30
part 1
16.the times they are a-changin’ - bob dylan
In a few years, more often than not all of their marks have been trained to defend themselves. In a decade, subconscious defense is being taught in schools. (Actually, Cobb teaches it in the fancy boarding school he sends Phillipa and James too and he’s hilariously serious about it. He brings Eames in for a few lessons since his ability as a forger comes in handy for exercises.) It makes it harder for Eames to eke out a dishonest living for himself, but he manages. He wouldn’t be the best if he didn’t.
Over the years, Eames’s weight fluctuates based on whichever country he’s in (Russia: lost almost ten pounds, food was awful; India: lost almost twenty, constantly sick; Morocco: gained thirty, he loves his couscous) and he changes his hair entirely every few months. It’s good for Eames to change his looks whenever he can, since he flatters himself that he’s got rather a lot of people chasing him. Eames changes a lot, both for his profession and for his own personal amusement, but Arthur never changes at all.
Even when the rest of them start to go a little bit grey and balding, Arthur’s hairline does not budge, does not falter. It’s infuriating.
“Are you dying it?” Eames demands, pulling on it once to make Arthur hiss and bite at Eames’s neck. But Eames knows dyed hair, and this is not it.
Five years later, Eames has some very-distinguished-thank-you streaks of grey at his temples and even a salt-and-pepper beard and Arthur is somehow still perfectly dark, perfectly clean-shaven, and perfectly thirty.
“Are you a vampire?” Eames says that night against the top of Arthur’s head. “Are you secretly drinking the blood of virgins?” He’s only half joking.
“What’s the problem?” Arthur asks, rolling over to look at Eames.
“You’re just still so young,” Eames says. What he means is ”you look so much younger than me” and he knows that’s what Arthur’s going to hear. He can’t do anything about that.
“Youth is over-rated,” Arthur says, smiling and touching his thumbs to Eames’s graying temples.
17. lovers’ spit - broken social scene
Cobb and Mal get married. They stare deep into each other’s eyes and they promise forever, and they hold each other and dance slowly, like there’s no one else around. They tell each other things that they never planned to tell another living soul. They have children together, you can’t get any closer than that. In limbo they showed each other everything, every scar and hope, every little scrap of their pasts and what they wanted their future together to be. They grew old together. They died together. And later, Mal died alone but Cobb still died with her in a small way and he has no doubt that he’ll see her again, maybe in dreams, maybe in heaven, maybe in his children’s faces, but he knows he will. Before she died they said “I love you” at least once a day. Now that she’s dead, Cobb still says it just as often, only he doesn’t always say it out loud.
Ariadne meets a French philosophy student who brings her coffee when he knows she’s got a lot of school work. He never corrects her French and he listens patiently when she goes off about her work, even though he doesn’t always understand. She does the same for him, except the coffee she brings him is always black, not with sugar like she prefers it, and it’s his English that she doesn’t correct and his philosophy that she doesn’t ignore. They don’t get married but they live together and they get little dogs that they walk in parks and throw balls for while they lay curled up together in the grass, reading books, sometimes different ones, sometimes the same. They say “I love you” at least five times a week.
Eames and Arthur are not like that. They don’t live together, for starters, and they never will. Arthur can’t handle how sloppy Eames can be and Eames always feels like he’s visiting when he stays with Arthur, is never truly comfortable. They don’t really go on walks together. When they’re both in the same place, they tend to stick to the apartment or even just the bedroom. They don’t read together or even watch movies together. It’s not that they haven’t tried, it’s just that it doesn’t work. Eames likes to talk to through movies and books and Arthur can’t stand it. They’ve never gotten a pet together, unless you count the cat that lived behind Eames’s apartment in Holland one summer. They fed it, but they never tried to pet it; it probably had fleas.
The thing about Eames and Arthur is that they don’t fit into each other’s lives, not quite. Mal and Cobb fit, Ariadne and her boyfriend fit. They combine in ways that make it impossible to see where one of them starts and the other one ends. Arthur and Eames, not so much. They are both too fiercely proud of their independence for that. So they fight a lot and they don’t stay in the same place for too long, but the upside is that when they’re together, it’s because they want to be together. They’re never distracted by work or by other things and it’s simple and sharp and almost-too-much, but it works for them until they need their space again and then they slip out of each other’s lives once more, with minimal damage to all parties.
They are not ever going to get married and have kids like Mal and Cobb, they’re not even going to be able to tolerate each other all the time like Ariadne and her boyfriend. Neither of them has ever actually said the words “I love you” but that doesn’t mean they don’t.
18. to the end - blur
Eames isn’t surprised when Arthur breaks up with him, but that doesn’t mean he takes it lying down either. He argues for a long time. He argues for months, actually. As long as he keeps arguing, he reasons, they’re not really broken up. Not yet. Arthur gives him plenty of excuses, but most of them end up with him adding, “and I hate you, you’re horrible” so Eames knows they’re bullshit because he’s wonderful and Arthur knows it. Finally, through a bit of good luck (and, alright, one well-placed spy outside Arthur’s London apartment), Eames manages to call when Arthur’s drunk and his defenses are down.
“Just give me a good reason,” he says. “Give me one good reason and I’ll stop.” He has a crystal clear mental picture of what Arthur looks like right now, sprawled on one of his architecturally-lovely-but-deeply-uncomfortable chairs, flushed and ever so slightly rumpled, with his tie hanging just a bit loose. Eames wants to fly to London, scoop him up and tie him to something heavy so he can’t run away ever again. It’s stupid how much he wants to.
There’s a long pause and then Arthur says, “You’ve seen what’s happening to Cobb. Ever since Mal-” Eames pictures Arthur making a gesture that looks rather unfortunately too close to a jump off a building and he winces. “I don’t want to go through that.”
“So you’re not breaking up with me, then.”
“Yes, I am, are you stupid? For months-”
“Darling, you break up with someone because you don’t want to be with them anymore, not because you’re scared to be without them,” Eames points out.
“You do if you’re me,” Arthur says. “I’m sorry, Eames, I just can’t.” He stays on the line another few minutes, breathing while he waits for Eames to say something to that, but Eames just doesn’t know what to say anymore, all that arguing wasted. Arthur hangs up.
19. the big house - hop along queen ansleis
They don’t make it out to LA when Phillipa’s born - Arthur’s working and Eames is on the run from some really pissed off gangster he stole a few grand from in Moscow - but they’re both able to make it for her second birthday.
Cobb looks tired and almost bewilderingly happy. The combination, Arthur thinks, makes him look psychotic. Mal, on the other hand, looks weirdly fake, like a glossy photo spread of a mother rather than the real thing. Certainly Arthur’s mother never looked so put together. Maybe she’ll fray with time, he decides. All the crying and the mess and all of it all the time, it can’t be much longer. He’s never pictured himself with kids. They’re cute, fine, and admittedly the tiny little socks are charming, but he doesn’t completely go to pieces over them like Eames does.
“God, you’re unbelievable,” Eames tells him, “look at how tiny and pink everything is! How can you stand this?” He sounds nearly gleeful, pawing through Phillipa’s presents with much more enthusiasm than Phillipa herself is showing. She appears to be more interested in a bug she’s found on the grass. That’s another thing Arthur doesn’t like about children - you spend all that money on them (and the prices for clothes they’re just going to grow out of absurdly fast are really unreasonable, especially if you want to get anything tasteful) and then they don’t even care. It’s like dressing up a dog, he thinks, and then even he has to admit that’s taking it a little far.
“You’re a grown man,” he reminds Eames, taking a tiny yellow dress out of the forger’s hands and pulling him away from the table. “Would it kill you to act like it?”
“Very possibly,” Eames says seriously and blows a kiss when Arthur glares. He wanders over to Mal and Phillipa, kneeling down to help investigate the bug situation.
“Thanks for coming,” Cobb says, coming up beside Arthur and handing him a piece of birthday cake.
“Of course,” Arthur says. “She’s lovely,” he adds, because that’s what he’s supposed to say.
“You think she’s terrible,” Cobb smiles and Arthur looks away, back out into the yard where Eames is now running around with Phillipa, pretending to be really horrified by the worm she’s holding in her hand. He’s making ridiculous faces (over-acting, Arthur thinks, always) and Phillipa is laughing her head off, chasing him clumsily. Arthur finds himself smiling, almost in spite of himself. He thinks it’s because of Eames’s stupid face, but maybe it’s not that. Maybe it’s the whole package.
“Not terrible,” is all he says.
20. spit on a stranger - pavement
Yusuf thinks it’s something really horrible, something a creative kid would have a field day with. Cobb suggests Gaylord and even Arthur laughs.
“It’s not horrible,” Eames assures them. “It’s a wonderful name.”
“You could be lying,” Ariadne says. “It could be Leslie. Or maybe Orson.” Her nose wrinkles in distaste.
Eames shrugs, smiling.
“Bruce, Gordon, Horace,” Yusuf guesses.
“Hamish, Algernon, Jeffrey,” says Cobb.
“What’s wrong with Jeffrey?” Ariadne asks, which is a good question, Eames thinks. Then again, Dom named his firstborn Phillipa, so.
“Nothing, I guess,” Cobb says.
“You’re just shouting names now, aren’t you?” Eames says. He’s having fun, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees like he’s telling them all a really excellent fairy tale, hiding his smile behind his hands while he watches them all scramble around.
“Nobody’s shouting,” Arthur points out mildly. “Nobody’s really as interested in what your name is as you think they are.”
“Of course they are,” Eames says.
“I’m not,” Arthur says, and belatedly Eames notices that he really isn’t. It’s not even that he’s just pretending he’s not, he’s really not interested at all.
“That’s true,” Ariadne says, looking suspiciously at Arthur, “you’re not.”
“Eames isn’t really all that interesting to me,” Arthur shrugs.
“Lies,” Eames says.
“Names aren’t interesting either,” Arthur continues. “I guarantee you it’s something boring, like Peter or James or Daniel or something.”
Eames is horrified that Arthur actually gets it right. He doesn’t show it, of course, but he’s horrified nonetheless. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, darling,” he says easily. “Not everyone’s name is as boring as yours.”
“My name isn’t boring,” Arthur says calmly.
“Of course it is,” Eames says immediately, “I mean, for Christ’s sake, it’s Arthur-” and then he stops because -
“Wait. What is your full name, Arthur?” Ariadne asks, eyes widening as she looks at the smiling point man.
Arthur just keeps right on smiling and Eames’s jaw actually drops.
The others guess for awhile (all except for Cobb, he probably knows but he won’t say anything, the bastard) and Ariadne even guesses that Arthur is actually a surname, which starts a whole new line of guessing, but Eames sits it all out, smiling at Arthur, pleased. Arthur smiles back.
Ariadne finally gets fed up with both of them and says, “That’s it, we’re just going to have to combine them and you’ll both be Arthur Eames.”
“Well that settles it nicely,” Eames says, clapping his hands. “It’ll be a small ceremony, just close friends and family, I think. It’s very chivalrous of you, Arthur,” he adds, fluttering his eyelashes, “to let me keep my maiden name.”
Arthur kicks him but he never stops smiling.
21. there is a light that never goes out - the smiths
Cobb has noticed that Eames and Arthur seem to really enjoy killing each other. It would be hard not to. Any time they’re doing an exercise or working a job and something goes a little south and one of them takes a hit, the other one is there, safety off, before Cobb even has time to evaluate the situation. It’s not that surprising. Cobb knows they hate working together and he figures the best catharsis for wanting to shoot a co-worker in the head is to, well, shoot them in the head. He could take this theory on the road, market it as a corporate retreat, make some tidy millions off it.
The only problem with it is that they seem to forget that he needs them to stay in the dream and actually occasionally do their jobs, so once, when Arthur takes a bullet to the thigh, just above his knee, and Cobb catches Eames raising his Beretta he steps in.
“How bad is it?” he asks Arthur.
“Not bad,” Arthur says, of course.
“Then let’s keep going,” Cobb says. He expects Eames to be disappointed, but he does not expect Eames to be furious.
“Are you out of your mind?” he snaps. “He can’t work like this, he can’t even walk.”
“I’m perfectly capable-” Arthur starts to say but Eames says, “shut up, Arthur,” and, surprisingly, Arthur listens.
“We need him to stay under,” Cobb says firmly. “I need him watching our backs.” He gives Eames a look that should remind him which one of them is running this job. It doesn’t.
“Fuck that,” Eames says, “he’s bleeding all over everything.”
“Honestly, Eames, it’s not that bad, I can-”
“Darling, really, shut up,” Eames says and then Cobb notices how frantic Eames is, how upset. Eames is worried.
Cobb had not seen that coming. He falters and Eames takes the opportunity to fire off a shot. When Arthur goes down, there’s this odd, wry smile on his face.
“We’ll just have to watch our own backs,” Eames says.
22. is this what you wanted - leonard cohen
It bothered Eames that Arthur never told anyone. It annoyed him that Arthur spent hours in the morning covering up each bite-mark and bruise, left early to change rather than stumble in late after a sloppy morning round still wearing last night’s clothes. It bothered Eames that Arthur never left anything at his place, not so much as a stray sock. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Arthur vacuumed before he left.
Now though, Eames decides, he’s grateful. It’s a relief not to see traces of Arthur in Eames’s apartment. He can almost believe all the times Arthur shook underneath him never happened (except there is a tiny scuff mark on his wood floor from the time they fucked on the sofa) and thinking about it is all just like remembering a dream.
It’s especially nice, he decides, that other people never knew. He comes into work with a smile on his face and he flirts with Ariadne and he teases Yusuf and he even kicks Arthur’s chair and no one corners him to ask if he’s alright, if he needs a break, what went wrong. Eames doesn’t have to talk about it with anyone.
The only problem is that nothing changes. If being with Arthur was like a dream, then Eames needs a kick to wake him up, something to throw him off-balance, or something out of place to remind him that this isn’t reality. But they treat each other like they always have. Eames doesn’t stop calling him names, Arthur doesn’t stop belittling him in front of the team. As far as their actual interactions go, very little changes, so it’s not surprising, Eames decides, that his feelings don’t change either.
23. bad reputation - joan jett
“Are you really going to wear that?” Arthur asks.
Yes, Eames really is.
“Are you seriously chewing with your mouth open?” Arthur says.
Yes, Eames seriously is.
“Do you think you could you just for once act like you actually take this job seriously?” Arthur sighs.
No, Eames doesn’t think he could.
There’s a thousand tiny things that Arthur hates about Eames: he’s sloppy, he wears those hideous shirts, he leaves half-eaten take out all over the warehouse, he chews on all the pens, he has no respect for personal property or space, those shirts and he never listens.
“Eames, this is really inappropriate,” Arthur says, as levelly as he can manage, “can you please not molest me when we’re supposed to be working?”
No, Eames really can’t.
24. love calls you by your name - leonard cohen
Arthur and Eames are bickering, as usual, and Ariadne is mostly tuning them out, but then suddenly Arthur says, “Baby, just hand me the fucking file,” and everyone freezes. She’s not sure if Arthur or Eames is more surprised, or which of them is more appalled. Cobb makes a sound that Ariadne can only call a snorffle.
“Eames,” Arthur babbles. “Mr. Eames. Hand me the file. Please.”
“File,” Eames says, still kind of staring at Arthur in a horrified daze.
“Yes,” Arthur says, sounding like his normal, calm self for a moment before he suddenly says, “And don’t act like this is any worse than you calling me ‘darling’ all over the place, this is your fault.”
“’Darling’ is one thing,” Eames says, “but ’baby’-”
“File,” Arthur says, staring determinedly at the ceiling.
Eames hands him the file, apparently recovered. “I just didn’t know you cared, Arthur.” A muscle in Arthur’s jaw twitches and he ignores Eames. “I also didn’t know that you, apparently, use the word ’baby.’”
Cobb makes another sound and Arthur glares over at them. Ariadne quickly starts moving things around at her work station, trying to look busy.
“It’s kind of a turn-on,” Eames says, his voice sounding strangely strangled. When Ariadne glances up she thinks that Eames might be actually serious. Arthur’s ears, which is all Ariadne can see of him, are decidedly pink.
25. poses - rufus wainwright
Eames flirts with everyone, but Arthur’s the only one he calls ‘darling.’ It’s a small thing, but he has to allow himself at least one small thing or this will drive him completely crazy. It might have started out as curiosity, he’d go so far as to say it was fascination, even, with how precise and almost cellular Arthur is. It’s like he’s his own little world, completely untouchable and Eames’s job is to figure people out, to get inside their heads, so it’s professional curiosity. But the more he discovers about Arthur, the quicker it becomes more than just fascination.
Arthur’s favorite band is, believe it or not, the Sex Pistols. When Arthur’s not working, he actually wears t-shirts and jeans. His apartment doesn’t look like a magazine spread at all, it looks like a frat house. He’s not what Eames expected and he’s funny and when he smiles it’s not always condescending. Sometimes he even laughs so hard he folds over on himself like an adorable little marionette with its strings cut. Eames has never made him laugh like that, of course, but he’s seen Ariadne do it.
Eames had Ariadne figured from the minute he saw her. She’s good for Arthur. He’s not on guard with her, like he is with Eames. She’s smart enough to keep up with him and new enough to need him.
Eames stops keeping tabs on Arthur after the Fischer job, after Ariadne and Arthur wake up smiling at each other. He doesn’t know if they ever get together or if they just stay friends and he doesn’t want to know, frankly. They work together often, usually with Cobb and sometimes with Eames. Eames still flirts with everyone because it would be weird for him to stop now, but he still saves his ‘darlings’ for Arthur. He has to let himself have at least that much, even if it doesn’t stop him from wanting the rest of it.
26. basic space - the xx
It’s not the first time that Eames has slept with a co-worker. It’s actually something he does rather commonly. It is, however, the first time he finds himself having a relationship with a co-worker. It’s his own fault, he realizes later. He shouldn’t have treated Arthur so personally at the start, shouldn’t have singled him out.
Little by little they fall into it. Arthur leaves a suit at Eames’s apartment. It’s practical, neither of them makes a big deal about it. They stay together when they’re in the same area. It’s convenient. Arthur stays the night, hogging the blankets and moving too much in his sleep, but that just makes it easier for a quick round in the morning. Eames learns how Arthur takes his coffee - milk, no sugar - but that’s just because Arthur’s impossible to deal with before he’s had his coffee. Arthur learns Eames’s favorite drink - Chelsea sidecar, lime juice not lemon - but that’s only because, as he tells Eames, Eames is much less obnoxious when he’s got a drink or two in him. They both know what the other will order from any given restaurant in a twenty mile radius from the warehouse, but that’s because they work late and eat a lot of takeout.
There’s a logical reason for all of it, but none of it quite fully explains why Eames starts to prefer waking up with Arthur’s body running too hot next to him, prefers to come home to Arthur listening to pretentious symphonies on Eames’s stereo with all of his research spread out over Eames’s floor. There’s no logical reason for it, but Eames knows he’s not far off from the point where he stops ‘preferring’ things this way and starts ‘needing’ it.
Logically, he should be worried. He should be considering what this is going to do to their working relationship (look at Cobb and Mal, just for starters) and what’s going to happen when (but he’s started to think, almost hesitatingly if instead of when) this goes wrong. Even if he’s not worried about it, Arthur should be, since Arthur’s the worrying type. But Arthur he worries he hides it well, and little by little Eames stops worrying about anything at all.
27. read my mind (like rebel diamonds remix) - the killers
“It’s just an exercise,” Cobb explains. “We have to work with each other, so we need to know what we’re dealing with. We have to be sure of each other.”
“What’s next,” Eames says, “trust falls?”
Arthur suspects Cobb would never have been so gung-ho to get them all touring each other’s subconscious thoughts while he was still having homicidal projections of Mal. Sometimes Arthur misses the good old days.
But Cobb is their leader, whether they acknowledge it or not, and he even volunteers to go first. It’s weird to see projections of themselves. Ariadne complains that Cobb clearly thinks she’s younger than she actually is (Cobb’s projection of her looks about twelve and wears saddle shoes), but Arthur thinks she has little right to complain.
“What’s this?” he demands, pointing at Cobb’s projections of him and Eames, hanging out in some coffee shop playing footsie. Eames almost dies laughing, but not quite, so Arthur helps him along by shooting him in the head.
In Ariadne’s subconscious they’re rubbing more than feet and they are completely naked. Arthur makes a noise of strangled horror. He thinks Eames is actually stunned into an impressed silence. Ariadne smirks at Cobb, says “I told you I’m not as young as you think I am.”
Yusuf’s subconscious is the worst and also the best.
“I’m pregnant?” Eames roars. “How is this - what is - I can’t even!” Arthur doesn’t think he’s ever seen Eames so lost for words.
“I would have thought Eames topped,” Ariadne says thoughtfully. Arthur shoots them all in the head, except for Yusuf. He generously let’s Eames have that one.
Eames’s projections are not what Arthur expects. Cobb looks shorter, Ariadne looks more boyish and Yusuf has devil horns (though Arthur decides that’s probably a recent development). Arthur though, Arthur looks exactly right. He walks exactly like Arthur actually walks, stands like he stands, talks like he talks. Arthur wasn’t aware that he smiles like that though, and certainly not at Eames.
28. brooklyn boy - kevin devine (lyric stealing, what!)
“Is this going to be a problem?” Eames asks Arthur. He waits until they’re the only two left at the warehouse. He figures Arthur would want it that way.
When they first met it wasn’t this difficult to work together. Arthur just gets tenser with every job. By the time they meet up again for the Fischer job it’s clear that Arthur actually hates him. A lot of people hate Eames and he’s alright with that, but this is Arthur.
“Is what going to be a problem?” Arthur says, face carefully blank.
“You, me. Working together.”
“Why would that be a problem?”
He’s infuriating. Times like this, Eames is surprised that Arthur’s the one with the issues. “You haven’t exactly made me feel welcome, darling,” is all Eames says. Arthur just keeps looking at him, totally unreadable. “We don’t have to do this,” Eames says. “We could try to get along, you know.”
“No, we really couldn’t,” Arthur says and finishes packing up.
“So what if we actually did get along,” Eames demands, “what would be so terrible about that?”
Arthur looks at Eames again, unflinchingly, “This was a choice, Mr. Eames.” His expression softens maybe, just a fraction. Anyone but Eames would have missed it. “This will never be a mistake.”
29. madder red - yeasayer
It’s when Arthur starts to depend on him that Eames starts to worry.
It starts in dreams with small things. Arthur knowing that Eames will throw him another gun, will take care of the projections that sneak up on Arthur’s blind side, will be there with the kick when Arthur and Cobb are working on the next level down. He stops micromanaging Eames’s research. “I know you’re good at what you do,” he says simply, and Eames is, so that’s alright.
But then Arthur starts to trust him when they’re awake. It’s small at first, counting on Eames to remember to buy milk, to pick up coffee for the team in the morning. Then it gets bigger. Arthur tells Eames things that Eames is sure he’s never told anyone else he works with, not even Cobb, and he doesn’t even ask Eames not to repeat them, like he knows he doesn’t need to.
Eames should disappear now. He should stop taking jobs with Cobb, should break all ties. He’s not reliable, he knows this. He would be if he could, for Arthur. But it’s never been who he is. Eames is going to fuck this up and Arthur is going to look at him and realize that all of his trust has been misplaced. Eames can’t handle that. Arthur, slow as he is to open up to anyone, can’t handle that.
Eames actually does book a flight and rent out his apartment and even doctor up a new passport and IDs for himself. He’s waiting at the terminal with every intention of boarding the flight when Arthur sits next to him and says, “You think I didn’t see this coming?” Eames just flops his mouth uselessly. “I know you’re no good at this,” Arthur says, smiling.
He should have remembered that Arthur’s the point man. He should have remembered that Arthur’s good at his job too.
30. orion and dog - sea wolf
There were two reasons that Eames was surprised when Arthur asked him to dog-sit. For one, he didn’t know Arthur had a dog. For another, he was surprised that Arthur trusted him. Eames decides that Arthur clearly doesn’t like the dog very much.
He’s even more surprised when he shows up at Arthur’s to discover that not only does Arthur have a dog, he has two dogs and they’re not tiny, tidy dogs either. One is a giant black lab and the other is even bigger, some mutt combination of boxer and something else, maybe a lab, and at least a little bit mastiff. It’s drooling and shedding. Eames spares a minute to wonder how Arthur’s suits always look pristine and then he’s bowled over by the dogs, sniffing and licking.
“Are you sure these are yours?” he asks Arthur and Arthur raises an eyebrow like Eames shouldn’t be surprised that Arthur’s dogs actually act like dogs instead of finishing school graduates.
“I’m only going to be gone for a few weeks,” Arthur says, “so please try not to do anything I’ll have to kill you for when I get back.”
The first week Eames stops by Arthur’s place twice a day to walk and feed the dogs (Schubert and Berlioz, at least their names were suitably Arthurian) but it quickly becomes clear that they’re lonely, so Eames stays the night, just once and then ‘one night’ turns into ‘one week’ and then he finds it’s habit to fall asleep in Arthur’s bed with the dogs flopped heavily over his feet.
After three weeks he wakes up in the middle of the night with Arthur standing over him, looking like he’s trying not to smile. “They’re not allowed in the bed,” he says, which is a lie because it was clear from day one that the dogs thought Arthur’s bed was their personal playground. The dogs start scrambling around to say hello to Arthur, tails wagging into Eames’s face and huge paws veering dangerously close to areas Eames would prefer they didn’t. Arthur ducks down to pet the dogs, actually letting them lick his face and mess up his hair. Eames could almost swear he heas Arthur call Schubert “Schubie” which is just… There are no words.
Eames tries to extract himself, grumbling fondly at the two slobbering messes on his lap when Arthur looks up at him with that unsurprised eyebrow raised and says “Stay” so firmly that for a second Eames thinks Arthur’s talking to the dogs. But he’s not, he’s smiling at Eames and, really, Eames shouldn’t be surprised.
16.the times they are a-changin’ - bob dylan
In a few years, more often than not all of their marks have been trained to defend themselves. In a decade, subconscious defense is being taught in schools. (Actually, Cobb teaches it in the fancy boarding school he sends Phillipa and James too and he’s hilariously serious about it. He brings Eames in for a few lessons since his ability as a forger comes in handy for exercises.) It makes it harder for Eames to eke out a dishonest living for himself, but he manages. He wouldn’t be the best if he didn’t.
Over the years, Eames’s weight fluctuates based on whichever country he’s in (Russia: lost almost ten pounds, food was awful; India: lost almost twenty, constantly sick; Morocco: gained thirty, he loves his couscous) and he changes his hair entirely every few months. It’s good for Eames to change his looks whenever he can, since he flatters himself that he’s got rather a lot of people chasing him. Eames changes a lot, both for his profession and for his own personal amusement, but Arthur never changes at all.
Even when the rest of them start to go a little bit grey and balding, Arthur’s hairline does not budge, does not falter. It’s infuriating.
“Are you dying it?” Eames demands, pulling on it once to make Arthur hiss and bite at Eames’s neck. But Eames knows dyed hair, and this is not it.
Five years later, Eames has some very-distinguished-thank-you streaks of grey at his temples and even a salt-and-pepper beard and Arthur is somehow still perfectly dark, perfectly clean-shaven, and perfectly thirty.
“Are you a vampire?” Eames says that night against the top of Arthur’s head. “Are you secretly drinking the blood of virgins?” He’s only half joking.
“What’s the problem?” Arthur asks, rolling over to look at Eames.
“You’re just still so young,” Eames says. What he means is ”you look so much younger than me” and he knows that’s what Arthur’s going to hear. He can’t do anything about that.
“Youth is over-rated,” Arthur says, smiling and touching his thumbs to Eames’s graying temples.
17. lovers’ spit - broken social scene
Cobb and Mal get married. They stare deep into each other’s eyes and they promise forever, and they hold each other and dance slowly, like there’s no one else around. They tell each other things that they never planned to tell another living soul. They have children together, you can’t get any closer than that. In limbo they showed each other everything, every scar and hope, every little scrap of their pasts and what they wanted their future together to be. They grew old together. They died together. And later, Mal died alone but Cobb still died with her in a small way and he has no doubt that he’ll see her again, maybe in dreams, maybe in heaven, maybe in his children’s faces, but he knows he will. Before she died they said “I love you” at least once a day. Now that she’s dead, Cobb still says it just as often, only he doesn’t always say it out loud.
Ariadne meets a French philosophy student who brings her coffee when he knows she’s got a lot of school work. He never corrects her French and he listens patiently when she goes off about her work, even though he doesn’t always understand. She does the same for him, except the coffee she brings him is always black, not with sugar like she prefers it, and it’s his English that she doesn’t correct and his philosophy that she doesn’t ignore. They don’t get married but they live together and they get little dogs that they walk in parks and throw balls for while they lay curled up together in the grass, reading books, sometimes different ones, sometimes the same. They say “I love you” at least five times a week.
Eames and Arthur are not like that. They don’t live together, for starters, and they never will. Arthur can’t handle how sloppy Eames can be and Eames always feels like he’s visiting when he stays with Arthur, is never truly comfortable. They don’t really go on walks together. When they’re both in the same place, they tend to stick to the apartment or even just the bedroom. They don’t read together or even watch movies together. It’s not that they haven’t tried, it’s just that it doesn’t work. Eames likes to talk to through movies and books and Arthur can’t stand it. They’ve never gotten a pet together, unless you count the cat that lived behind Eames’s apartment in Holland one summer. They fed it, but they never tried to pet it; it probably had fleas.
The thing about Eames and Arthur is that they don’t fit into each other’s lives, not quite. Mal and Cobb fit, Ariadne and her boyfriend fit. They combine in ways that make it impossible to see where one of them starts and the other one ends. Arthur and Eames, not so much. They are both too fiercely proud of their independence for that. So they fight a lot and they don’t stay in the same place for too long, but the upside is that when they’re together, it’s because they want to be together. They’re never distracted by work or by other things and it’s simple and sharp and almost-too-much, but it works for them until they need their space again and then they slip out of each other’s lives once more, with minimal damage to all parties.
They are not ever going to get married and have kids like Mal and Cobb, they’re not even going to be able to tolerate each other all the time like Ariadne and her boyfriend. Neither of them has ever actually said the words “I love you” but that doesn’t mean they don’t.
18. to the end - blur
Eames isn’t surprised when Arthur breaks up with him, but that doesn’t mean he takes it lying down either. He argues for a long time. He argues for months, actually. As long as he keeps arguing, he reasons, they’re not really broken up. Not yet. Arthur gives him plenty of excuses, but most of them end up with him adding, “and I hate you, you’re horrible” so Eames knows they’re bullshit because he’s wonderful and Arthur knows it. Finally, through a bit of good luck (and, alright, one well-placed spy outside Arthur’s London apartment), Eames manages to call when Arthur’s drunk and his defenses are down.
“Just give me a good reason,” he says. “Give me one good reason and I’ll stop.” He has a crystal clear mental picture of what Arthur looks like right now, sprawled on one of his architecturally-lovely-but-deeply-uncomfortable chairs, flushed and ever so slightly rumpled, with his tie hanging just a bit loose. Eames wants to fly to London, scoop him up and tie him to something heavy so he can’t run away ever again. It’s stupid how much he wants to.
There’s a long pause and then Arthur says, “You’ve seen what’s happening to Cobb. Ever since Mal-” Eames pictures Arthur making a gesture that looks rather unfortunately too close to a jump off a building and he winces. “I don’t want to go through that.”
“So you’re not breaking up with me, then.”
“Yes, I am, are you stupid? For months-”
“Darling, you break up with someone because you don’t want to be with them anymore, not because you’re scared to be without them,” Eames points out.
“You do if you’re me,” Arthur says. “I’m sorry, Eames, I just can’t.” He stays on the line another few minutes, breathing while he waits for Eames to say something to that, but Eames just doesn’t know what to say anymore, all that arguing wasted. Arthur hangs up.
19. the big house - hop along queen ansleis
They don’t make it out to LA when Phillipa’s born - Arthur’s working and Eames is on the run from some really pissed off gangster he stole a few grand from in Moscow - but they’re both able to make it for her second birthday.
Cobb looks tired and almost bewilderingly happy. The combination, Arthur thinks, makes him look psychotic. Mal, on the other hand, looks weirdly fake, like a glossy photo spread of a mother rather than the real thing. Certainly Arthur’s mother never looked so put together. Maybe she’ll fray with time, he decides. All the crying and the mess and all of it all the time, it can’t be much longer. He’s never pictured himself with kids. They’re cute, fine, and admittedly the tiny little socks are charming, but he doesn’t completely go to pieces over them like Eames does.
“God, you’re unbelievable,” Eames tells him, “look at how tiny and pink everything is! How can you stand this?” He sounds nearly gleeful, pawing through Phillipa’s presents with much more enthusiasm than Phillipa herself is showing. She appears to be more interested in a bug she’s found on the grass. That’s another thing Arthur doesn’t like about children - you spend all that money on them (and the prices for clothes they’re just going to grow out of absurdly fast are really unreasonable, especially if you want to get anything tasteful) and then they don’t even care. It’s like dressing up a dog, he thinks, and then even he has to admit that’s taking it a little far.
“You’re a grown man,” he reminds Eames, taking a tiny yellow dress out of the forger’s hands and pulling him away from the table. “Would it kill you to act like it?”
“Very possibly,” Eames says seriously and blows a kiss when Arthur glares. He wanders over to Mal and Phillipa, kneeling down to help investigate the bug situation.
“Thanks for coming,” Cobb says, coming up beside Arthur and handing him a piece of birthday cake.
“Of course,” Arthur says. “She’s lovely,” he adds, because that’s what he’s supposed to say.
“You think she’s terrible,” Cobb smiles and Arthur looks away, back out into the yard where Eames is now running around with Phillipa, pretending to be really horrified by the worm she’s holding in her hand. He’s making ridiculous faces (over-acting, Arthur thinks, always) and Phillipa is laughing her head off, chasing him clumsily. Arthur finds himself smiling, almost in spite of himself. He thinks it’s because of Eames’s stupid face, but maybe it’s not that. Maybe it’s the whole package.
“Not terrible,” is all he says.
20. spit on a stranger - pavement
Yusuf thinks it’s something really horrible, something a creative kid would have a field day with. Cobb suggests Gaylord and even Arthur laughs.
“It’s not horrible,” Eames assures them. “It’s a wonderful name.”
“You could be lying,” Ariadne says. “It could be Leslie. Or maybe Orson.” Her nose wrinkles in distaste.
Eames shrugs, smiling.
“Bruce, Gordon, Horace,” Yusuf guesses.
“Hamish, Algernon, Jeffrey,” says Cobb.
“What’s wrong with Jeffrey?” Ariadne asks, which is a good question, Eames thinks. Then again, Dom named his firstborn Phillipa, so.
“Nothing, I guess,” Cobb says.
“You’re just shouting names now, aren’t you?” Eames says. He’s having fun, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees like he’s telling them all a really excellent fairy tale, hiding his smile behind his hands while he watches them all scramble around.
“Nobody’s shouting,” Arthur points out mildly. “Nobody’s really as interested in what your name is as you think they are.”
“Of course they are,” Eames says.
“I’m not,” Arthur says, and belatedly Eames notices that he really isn’t. It’s not even that he’s just pretending he’s not, he’s really not interested at all.
“That’s true,” Ariadne says, looking suspiciously at Arthur, “you’re not.”
“Eames isn’t really all that interesting to me,” Arthur shrugs.
“Lies,” Eames says.
“Names aren’t interesting either,” Arthur continues. “I guarantee you it’s something boring, like Peter or James or Daniel or something.”
Eames is horrified that Arthur actually gets it right. He doesn’t show it, of course, but he’s horrified nonetheless. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, darling,” he says easily. “Not everyone’s name is as boring as yours.”
“My name isn’t boring,” Arthur says calmly.
“Of course it is,” Eames says immediately, “I mean, for Christ’s sake, it’s Arthur-” and then he stops because -
“Wait. What is your full name, Arthur?” Ariadne asks, eyes widening as she looks at the smiling point man.
Arthur just keeps right on smiling and Eames’s jaw actually drops.
The others guess for awhile (all except for Cobb, he probably knows but he won’t say anything, the bastard) and Ariadne even guesses that Arthur is actually a surname, which starts a whole new line of guessing, but Eames sits it all out, smiling at Arthur, pleased. Arthur smiles back.
Ariadne finally gets fed up with both of them and says, “That’s it, we’re just going to have to combine them and you’ll both be Arthur Eames.”
“Well that settles it nicely,” Eames says, clapping his hands. “It’ll be a small ceremony, just close friends and family, I think. It’s very chivalrous of you, Arthur,” he adds, fluttering his eyelashes, “to let me keep my maiden name.”
Arthur kicks him but he never stops smiling.
21. there is a light that never goes out - the smiths
Cobb has noticed that Eames and Arthur seem to really enjoy killing each other. It would be hard not to. Any time they’re doing an exercise or working a job and something goes a little south and one of them takes a hit, the other one is there, safety off, before Cobb even has time to evaluate the situation. It’s not that surprising. Cobb knows they hate working together and he figures the best catharsis for wanting to shoot a co-worker in the head is to, well, shoot them in the head. He could take this theory on the road, market it as a corporate retreat, make some tidy millions off it.
The only problem with it is that they seem to forget that he needs them to stay in the dream and actually occasionally do their jobs, so once, when Arthur takes a bullet to the thigh, just above his knee, and Cobb catches Eames raising his Beretta he steps in.
“How bad is it?” he asks Arthur.
“Not bad,” Arthur says, of course.
“Then let’s keep going,” Cobb says. He expects Eames to be disappointed, but he does not expect Eames to be furious.
“Are you out of your mind?” he snaps. “He can’t work like this, he can’t even walk.”
“I’m perfectly capable-” Arthur starts to say but Eames says, “shut up, Arthur,” and, surprisingly, Arthur listens.
“We need him to stay under,” Cobb says firmly. “I need him watching our backs.” He gives Eames a look that should remind him which one of them is running this job. It doesn’t.
“Fuck that,” Eames says, “he’s bleeding all over everything.”
“Honestly, Eames, it’s not that bad, I can-”
“Darling, really, shut up,” Eames says and then Cobb notices how frantic Eames is, how upset. Eames is worried.
Cobb had not seen that coming. He falters and Eames takes the opportunity to fire off a shot. When Arthur goes down, there’s this odd, wry smile on his face.
“We’ll just have to watch our own backs,” Eames says.
22. is this what you wanted - leonard cohen
It bothered Eames that Arthur never told anyone. It annoyed him that Arthur spent hours in the morning covering up each bite-mark and bruise, left early to change rather than stumble in late after a sloppy morning round still wearing last night’s clothes. It bothered Eames that Arthur never left anything at his place, not so much as a stray sock. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Arthur vacuumed before he left.
Now though, Eames decides, he’s grateful. It’s a relief not to see traces of Arthur in Eames’s apartment. He can almost believe all the times Arthur shook underneath him never happened (except there is a tiny scuff mark on his wood floor from the time they fucked on the sofa) and thinking about it is all just like remembering a dream.
It’s especially nice, he decides, that other people never knew. He comes into work with a smile on his face and he flirts with Ariadne and he teases Yusuf and he even kicks Arthur’s chair and no one corners him to ask if he’s alright, if he needs a break, what went wrong. Eames doesn’t have to talk about it with anyone.
The only problem is that nothing changes. If being with Arthur was like a dream, then Eames needs a kick to wake him up, something to throw him off-balance, or something out of place to remind him that this isn’t reality. But they treat each other like they always have. Eames doesn’t stop calling him names, Arthur doesn’t stop belittling him in front of the team. As far as their actual interactions go, very little changes, so it’s not surprising, Eames decides, that his feelings don’t change either.
23. bad reputation - joan jett
“Are you really going to wear that?” Arthur asks.
Yes, Eames really is.
“Are you seriously chewing with your mouth open?” Arthur says.
Yes, Eames seriously is.
“Do you think you could you just for once act like you actually take this job seriously?” Arthur sighs.
No, Eames doesn’t think he could.
There’s a thousand tiny things that Arthur hates about Eames: he’s sloppy, he wears those hideous shirts, he leaves half-eaten take out all over the warehouse, he chews on all the pens, he has no respect for personal property or space, those shirts and he never listens.
“Eames, this is really inappropriate,” Arthur says, as levelly as he can manage, “can you please not molest me when we’re supposed to be working?”
No, Eames really can’t.
24. love calls you by your name - leonard cohen
Arthur and Eames are bickering, as usual, and Ariadne is mostly tuning them out, but then suddenly Arthur says, “Baby, just hand me the fucking file,” and everyone freezes. She’s not sure if Arthur or Eames is more surprised, or which of them is more appalled. Cobb makes a sound that Ariadne can only call a snorffle.
“Eames,” Arthur babbles. “Mr. Eames. Hand me the file. Please.”
“File,” Eames says, still kind of staring at Arthur in a horrified daze.
“Yes,” Arthur says, sounding like his normal, calm self for a moment before he suddenly says, “And don’t act like this is any worse than you calling me ‘darling’ all over the place, this is your fault.”
“’Darling’ is one thing,” Eames says, “but ’baby’-”
“File,” Arthur says, staring determinedly at the ceiling.
Eames hands him the file, apparently recovered. “I just didn’t know you cared, Arthur.” A muscle in Arthur’s jaw twitches and he ignores Eames. “I also didn’t know that you, apparently, use the word ’baby.’”
Cobb makes another sound and Arthur glares over at them. Ariadne quickly starts moving things around at her work station, trying to look busy.
“It’s kind of a turn-on,” Eames says, his voice sounding strangely strangled. When Ariadne glances up she thinks that Eames might be actually serious. Arthur’s ears, which is all Ariadne can see of him, are decidedly pink.
25. poses - rufus wainwright
Eames flirts with everyone, but Arthur’s the only one he calls ‘darling.’ It’s a small thing, but he has to allow himself at least one small thing or this will drive him completely crazy. It might have started out as curiosity, he’d go so far as to say it was fascination, even, with how precise and almost cellular Arthur is. It’s like he’s his own little world, completely untouchable and Eames’s job is to figure people out, to get inside their heads, so it’s professional curiosity. But the more he discovers about Arthur, the quicker it becomes more than just fascination.
Arthur’s favorite band is, believe it or not, the Sex Pistols. When Arthur’s not working, he actually wears t-shirts and jeans. His apartment doesn’t look like a magazine spread at all, it looks like a frat house. He’s not what Eames expected and he’s funny and when he smiles it’s not always condescending. Sometimes he even laughs so hard he folds over on himself like an adorable little marionette with its strings cut. Eames has never made him laugh like that, of course, but he’s seen Ariadne do it.
Eames had Ariadne figured from the minute he saw her. She’s good for Arthur. He’s not on guard with her, like he is with Eames. She’s smart enough to keep up with him and new enough to need him.
Eames stops keeping tabs on Arthur after the Fischer job, after Ariadne and Arthur wake up smiling at each other. He doesn’t know if they ever get together or if they just stay friends and he doesn’t want to know, frankly. They work together often, usually with Cobb and sometimes with Eames. Eames still flirts with everyone because it would be weird for him to stop now, but he still saves his ‘darlings’ for Arthur. He has to let himself have at least that much, even if it doesn’t stop him from wanting the rest of it.
26. basic space - the xx
It’s not the first time that Eames has slept with a co-worker. It’s actually something he does rather commonly. It is, however, the first time he finds himself having a relationship with a co-worker. It’s his own fault, he realizes later. He shouldn’t have treated Arthur so personally at the start, shouldn’t have singled him out.
Little by little they fall into it. Arthur leaves a suit at Eames’s apartment. It’s practical, neither of them makes a big deal about it. They stay together when they’re in the same area. It’s convenient. Arthur stays the night, hogging the blankets and moving too much in his sleep, but that just makes it easier for a quick round in the morning. Eames learns how Arthur takes his coffee - milk, no sugar - but that’s just because Arthur’s impossible to deal with before he’s had his coffee. Arthur learns Eames’s favorite drink - Chelsea sidecar, lime juice not lemon - but that’s only because, as he tells Eames, Eames is much less obnoxious when he’s got a drink or two in him. They both know what the other will order from any given restaurant in a twenty mile radius from the warehouse, but that’s because they work late and eat a lot of takeout.
There’s a logical reason for all of it, but none of it quite fully explains why Eames starts to prefer waking up with Arthur’s body running too hot next to him, prefers to come home to Arthur listening to pretentious symphonies on Eames’s stereo with all of his research spread out over Eames’s floor. There’s no logical reason for it, but Eames knows he’s not far off from the point where he stops ‘preferring’ things this way and starts ‘needing’ it.
Logically, he should be worried. He should be considering what this is going to do to their working relationship (look at Cobb and Mal, just for starters) and what’s going to happen when (but he’s started to think, almost hesitatingly if instead of when) this goes wrong. Even if he’s not worried about it, Arthur should be, since Arthur’s the worrying type. But Arthur he worries he hides it well, and little by little Eames stops worrying about anything at all.
27. read my mind (like rebel diamonds remix) - the killers
“It’s just an exercise,” Cobb explains. “We have to work with each other, so we need to know what we’re dealing with. We have to be sure of each other.”
“What’s next,” Eames says, “trust falls?”
Arthur suspects Cobb would never have been so gung-ho to get them all touring each other’s subconscious thoughts while he was still having homicidal projections of Mal. Sometimes Arthur misses the good old days.
But Cobb is their leader, whether they acknowledge it or not, and he even volunteers to go first. It’s weird to see projections of themselves. Ariadne complains that Cobb clearly thinks she’s younger than she actually is (Cobb’s projection of her looks about twelve and wears saddle shoes), but Arthur thinks she has little right to complain.
“What’s this?” he demands, pointing at Cobb’s projections of him and Eames, hanging out in some coffee shop playing footsie. Eames almost dies laughing, but not quite, so Arthur helps him along by shooting him in the head.
In Ariadne’s subconscious they’re rubbing more than feet and they are completely naked. Arthur makes a noise of strangled horror. He thinks Eames is actually stunned into an impressed silence. Ariadne smirks at Cobb, says “I told you I’m not as young as you think I am.”
Yusuf’s subconscious is the worst and also the best.
“I’m pregnant?” Eames roars. “How is this - what is - I can’t even!” Arthur doesn’t think he’s ever seen Eames so lost for words.
“I would have thought Eames topped,” Ariadne says thoughtfully. Arthur shoots them all in the head, except for Yusuf. He generously let’s Eames have that one.
Eames’s projections are not what Arthur expects. Cobb looks shorter, Ariadne looks more boyish and Yusuf has devil horns (though Arthur decides that’s probably a recent development). Arthur though, Arthur looks exactly right. He walks exactly like Arthur actually walks, stands like he stands, talks like he talks. Arthur wasn’t aware that he smiles like that though, and certainly not at Eames.
28. brooklyn boy - kevin devine (lyric stealing, what!)
“Is this going to be a problem?” Eames asks Arthur. He waits until they’re the only two left at the warehouse. He figures Arthur would want it that way.
When they first met it wasn’t this difficult to work together. Arthur just gets tenser with every job. By the time they meet up again for the Fischer job it’s clear that Arthur actually hates him. A lot of people hate Eames and he’s alright with that, but this is Arthur.
“Is what going to be a problem?” Arthur says, face carefully blank.
“You, me. Working together.”
“Why would that be a problem?”
He’s infuriating. Times like this, Eames is surprised that Arthur’s the one with the issues. “You haven’t exactly made me feel welcome, darling,” is all Eames says. Arthur just keeps looking at him, totally unreadable. “We don’t have to do this,” Eames says. “We could try to get along, you know.”
“No, we really couldn’t,” Arthur says and finishes packing up.
“So what if we actually did get along,” Eames demands, “what would be so terrible about that?”
Arthur looks at Eames again, unflinchingly, “This was a choice, Mr. Eames.” His expression softens maybe, just a fraction. Anyone but Eames would have missed it. “This will never be a mistake.”
29. madder red - yeasayer
It’s when Arthur starts to depend on him that Eames starts to worry.
It starts in dreams with small things. Arthur knowing that Eames will throw him another gun, will take care of the projections that sneak up on Arthur’s blind side, will be there with the kick when Arthur and Cobb are working on the next level down. He stops micromanaging Eames’s research. “I know you’re good at what you do,” he says simply, and Eames is, so that’s alright.
But then Arthur starts to trust him when they’re awake. It’s small at first, counting on Eames to remember to buy milk, to pick up coffee for the team in the morning. Then it gets bigger. Arthur tells Eames things that Eames is sure he’s never told anyone else he works with, not even Cobb, and he doesn’t even ask Eames not to repeat them, like he knows he doesn’t need to.
Eames should disappear now. He should stop taking jobs with Cobb, should break all ties. He’s not reliable, he knows this. He would be if he could, for Arthur. But it’s never been who he is. Eames is going to fuck this up and Arthur is going to look at him and realize that all of his trust has been misplaced. Eames can’t handle that. Arthur, slow as he is to open up to anyone, can’t handle that.
Eames actually does book a flight and rent out his apartment and even doctor up a new passport and IDs for himself. He’s waiting at the terminal with every intention of boarding the flight when Arthur sits next to him and says, “You think I didn’t see this coming?” Eames just flops his mouth uselessly. “I know you’re no good at this,” Arthur says, smiling.
He should have remembered that Arthur’s the point man. He should have remembered that Arthur’s good at his job too.
30. orion and dog - sea wolf
There were two reasons that Eames was surprised when Arthur asked him to dog-sit. For one, he didn’t know Arthur had a dog. For another, he was surprised that Arthur trusted him. Eames decides that Arthur clearly doesn’t like the dog very much.
He’s even more surprised when he shows up at Arthur’s to discover that not only does Arthur have a dog, he has two dogs and they’re not tiny, tidy dogs either. One is a giant black lab and the other is even bigger, some mutt combination of boxer and something else, maybe a lab, and at least a little bit mastiff. It’s drooling and shedding. Eames spares a minute to wonder how Arthur’s suits always look pristine and then he’s bowled over by the dogs, sniffing and licking.
“Are you sure these are yours?” he asks Arthur and Arthur raises an eyebrow like Eames shouldn’t be surprised that Arthur’s dogs actually act like dogs instead of finishing school graduates.
“I’m only going to be gone for a few weeks,” Arthur says, “so please try not to do anything I’ll have to kill you for when I get back.”
The first week Eames stops by Arthur’s place twice a day to walk and feed the dogs (Schubert and Berlioz, at least their names were suitably Arthurian) but it quickly becomes clear that they’re lonely, so Eames stays the night, just once and then ‘one night’ turns into ‘one week’ and then he finds it’s habit to fall asleep in Arthur’s bed with the dogs flopped heavily over his feet.
After three weeks he wakes up in the middle of the night with Arthur standing over him, looking like he’s trying not to smile. “They’re not allowed in the bed,” he says, which is a lie because it was clear from day one that the dogs thought Arthur’s bed was their personal playground. The dogs start scrambling around to say hello to Arthur, tails wagging into Eames’s face and huge paws veering dangerously close to areas Eames would prefer they didn’t. Arthur ducks down to pet the dogs, actually letting them lick his face and mess up his hair. Eames could almost swear he heas Arthur call Schubert “Schubie” which is just… There are no words.
Eames tries to extract himself, grumbling fondly at the two slobbering messes on his lap when Arthur looks up at him with that unsurprised eyebrow raised and says “Stay” so firmly that for a second Eames thinks Arthur’s talking to the dogs. But he’s not, he’s smiling at Eames and, really, Eames shouldn’t be surprised.