fic: fashion is all about eventually becoming naked
Sorry for the delay on this one. It’s been done for about a week but I moved to a new apartment and didn’t get internet installed until today. :/ To the point: like everything else I have written for this fandom, the following is kind of absurd. But for once it’s not absurd in a literary way. It’s absurd IN A FASHION WEEK WAY!! Fashion weeks to me are like Shark Week to Tracy Jordan. IT’S SERIOUS, ALRIGHT. I didn’t start writing this story until Paris fashion week began but I started THINKING about writing it when the beginning ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO ME, IN REAL LIFE. And it took kind of a philosophical turn because I have a DEEPLY PHILOSOPHICAL INTEREST in menswear, not just a pornographic one.
All of the suits mentioned in this are from the 2011 spring season so let’s say this is set during the fall 2012 shows but since those haven’t happened yet the schedule is based on this spring. Basically, the timeline is NOT what I was interested in here, so don’t expect too much from it. Another small warning: this is not one of those stories where Arthur and Eames are all in love or whatever, in this one they’re just HOT and wearing SUITS alright, NO EMOTIONS, JUST HORMONES!
Title: Fashion Is All About Eventually Becoming Naked
Pairing: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Rating: R
Word Count: ~5300
Warnings: probably some kind of grievous sartorial inaccuracy, slight to total crack
Summary: Eames thinks he catches Arthur looking at porn but it’s SUITS and so, of course, Eames starts wearing suits and Arthur kind of loses his mind.
Notes: thanks to your__design as per usual, especially for keeping me relatively on task and telling me when I was getting too embarrassing. The title is a well-known but unattributed quote (though I almost titled this “Christian Dior Denim Flow” after the Kanye West song, if only for the hilarious Leo shout-out). Cut text should be obvious because it’s legen (wait for it) dary.
“You’re looking at porn, aren’t you?” Eames says quietly, leaning over Arthur’s desk to leer at him.
“No,” Arthur says, immediately, like denying it quickly enough will make Eames ignore the color rising in his face. Eames doesn’t ignore it, just like he didn’t ignore the way Arthur had been staring at the screen of his laptop, mouth slightly open and breath slightly rushed, an obvious look of want on his face.
It would take a lot for Eames to ignore something like that.
It started when Arthur brought his laptop to the warehouse. Mostly he does his research out of sight. Probably, Eames thinks, so he can just show up and spout off ridiculously obscure information and look like he knows it as unwaveringly as his own middle name, no effort involved at all. When anyone does actually catch him working, he’s usually doing it the old-fashioned way, with a stupidly expensive pen and his Moleskin notebooks, like some kind of Dickensian hero. So when Arthur brings his laptop to the warehouse, Eames is sure to pay it all the attention it warrants.
This is how Eames catches him looking at porn.
“Men have needs, darling,” he says, “this is all perfectly natural, no shame in it. Though it is a bit unprofessional-”
“I’m not looking at porn, Eames,” Arthur snaps, loud enough that Ariadne must overhear, even though she seems to be lost in the labyrinth she’s constructing.
Eames was deeply looking forward to an awkwardly public discussion about Arthur’s sexual habits, but Ariadne ruins it when she says, “He’s not, it’s fashion week.”
Eames stares at her. “What?”
“It’s not porn,” she says, distracted, “it’s suits. Do you think we need a failsafe passage through here? The job’s pretty cut and dry…”
“I think we need to return to the suit thing for a moment, actually,” Eames says, now staring at Arthur who is, admirably, trying to act like he’s not humiliated by this sudden exposure of his weird suit fetish.
“I think we need to return to work,” he says.
“Oh, working, were you? Is that what you call it? Because it looks like-” Eames leans the rest of the way over the desk to look at the screen upside down “- Dunhill to me.”
“Fuck off,” Arthur mutters and minimizes the window.
*
The thing is, Eames has been trying to get under Arthur’s skin since the moment they met, and he means that in the most biological way possible.
Arthur is easily the most fuckable person Eames has ever worked with and Eames loves fucking people he works with. On his more sentimental days, he thinks it’s probably because people who’ve been into each other’s minds have a greater appreciation for the intimacy of it, the rush of letting someone else into your body, of showing someone all your darkest places and secret wants. Most of the time though he thinks it’s because everyone he works with is completely unhinged, and crazy people, say whatever else you like about them, are terrific in the sack. So, of course, this further glimpse of Arthur’s crazy is a huge turn-on for Eames.
It’s also extremely helpful.
Eames is a forger. His job is to figure out what makes people tick and use it to his own advantage, to get close to them. Arthur’s weakness for suits is, though obvious in retrospect, the way Eames is going to get close to Arthur. And by “close” he means “balls deep.”
First Eames gets a plan, then he gets a new credit card, registered to a new identity, and then Eames does some shopping.
*
When Eames walks into the warehouse Arthur perks up and looks at him right away, with a hungry, desperate expression that he usually reserves for coffee. Eames thinks about resisting the urge to smirk, but it’s a strong urge so he decides it’s better to just give in. “Good morning,” he says.
“Is that,” Arthur says and then makes a face like he’s swallowing his own tongue. The face he makes after that is much less endearing and much more worrying. Eames quietly makes a note of the nearest exits. “Why are you wearing Simon Spurr?”
“Was I?” Eames says, “I hadn’t noticed.” It’s hard not to notice, though. Eames doesn’t know how Arthur wears this many layers on a daily basis. Three pieces is three pieces too many, in Eames’s opinion. The fact that he has actually worn a tie for this should earn him ten solid minutes of oral, he figures.
Arthur is still glaring. “Whatever you have done to that pocket square is a fucking crime,” he says and that’s when Eames realizes that Arthur has never actually looked at him. All that emotion was focused on the fucking suit.
Eames realizes that he might be a little out of his depth. He considers backing out - there’s still time to let this one go with some amount of dignity intact, after all - but he can still feel Arthur’s eyes practically humping his waistcoat and that decides him.
“How many points have I lost?” Eames asks, grinning widely because that is the way Eames likes to confront bad news.
“At least a hundred,” Arthur says. “More, the longer I have to stare at it.”
Eames removes the pocket square (which, granted, he had just kind of stuffed in there on a whim with no real strategy involved) and gallantly throws it on Arthur’s desk, like some kind of medieval token.
“Minus another fifty,” Arthur says, not looking away from his notes as he brushes it aside, “for being dramatic about it.”
“I like a come from behind victory,” Eames says, making the words as filthy as he can.
“That’s looking really unlikely,” Arthur says, “seeing as you just lost another fifty for creeping me out.”
“He’s in a temper today,” Yusuf says, crossing the room with his arms full of bottles of excitingly bright and terrifyingly bubbling liquids. “He took thirty points from me for not bringing him coffee. Like that’s my job.” He rolls his eyes.
“Minus another twenty,” Arthur says imperiously, though there’s a lurking smile in his voice, “for impertinence.”
Eames doesn’t quite remember when they started the point system. It happened somewhere after the Fischer job and somewhere before Cobb had retired and Saito put the rest of them on retainer as his personal extraction team. He remembers they were all drunk one night and Ariadne had said something about how “point man” was a stupid title and then the next morning Eames had woken up with a cocktail napkin in his pocket, covered in a detailed ranking of the team based on points Arthur had assigned arbitrarily (“Saito: INFINITY POINTS, because he’s paying us; Yusuf: FIVE HUNDRED POINTS, because he can kill us in our sleep; Ariadne: TWO HUNDRED POINTS, because she doesn’t usually fuck things up; Eames: NEGATIVE A MILLION POINTS because he always does; Cobb: ZERO POINTS because he’s a quitter; Arthur: TWO HUNDRED POINTS, because I say so”). First it was a joke and then it got serious: whoever’s at the bottom of the rankings has to buy drinks after every job. And the team drinks a lot.
Eames thinks that the fact that he’s willing to risk his standings to get Arthur in bed is really saying something. At the rate at which he’ll be buying absurdly expensive suits, there’s no way he’ll be able to afford that bar tab without significant illegal help. Arthur’s eyes hesitate on Eames’s chest, just at the point where his black and white tie disappears into his slate grey waistcoat, and Eames thinks this is absolutely going to be worth it.
*
Eames decides to go right for the jugular, right for Arthur’s Achilles heel: Dunhill. He shows up at the warehouse the next day in a pale grey two piece suit that is absolutely flawless, pocket square included, and all it gets him is half an hour of Arthur ranting about Kim Jones’s departure.
“If he seriously left to write a fucking book, I’ll break into his house and slit his throat,” Arthur says, eyes wide with crazy rage. “It’s unfathomable.” (It’s a huge turn-on, is what it is and the fact that Eames’s type is pretty much summed up by “psychopaths” is probably something he should look at in himself.)
Over the course of the week, Eames tries Corneliani, Bespoken, Canali and Zegna, but he gets nowhere. It’s always the same: Arthur glances up, sees the suit, and then goes totally out of his mind in a way that is much more related to putting clothes on than it is to taking them off, which is not what Eames wants at all.
The day that Eames tries for slightly more casual with a three button khaki jacket over a cashmere sweater that looks like it could have come straight from Arthur’s own closet, Arthur asks, suddenly, as if it has just occurred to him, “Are you dressing like this for a reason?”
Eames supposes he should be grateful that Arthur’s rabid obsession has apparently blinded him to the obvious (buying an entire wardrobe of suits after finding out about Arthur’s near-fetish for them is about the least subtle thing Eames has ever done, after all), but he was also kind of hoping that Arthur was fucking with him. At least that would explain the total lack of nakedness thus far. All he says is, “What makes you ask?”
“You never wear khaki,” Arthur says.
“It makes me feel like an imperialist bastard,” Eames agrees.
“You’re wearing khaki,” Arthur says.
“It’s Prada first, khaki after.”
“Since when do you care about Prada?” Arthur eyes him narrowly, almost accusingly.
“I have always cared very deeply about Prada,” Eames says, affecting a wounded air.
“You’ve always looked like you dressed yourself in the dark with clothes you stole from the closets of circus performers, blind history professors and pimps from the 70s.”
Eames raises his eyebrows. “Sounds like you’ve had that line saved up for awhile, darling.”
“Well, it’s really upsetting,” Arthur says evenly.
“Apparently,” Eames says.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Arthur points out.
“I did not,” Eames agrees.
“This is about fashion week, isn’t it,” Arthur says darkly.
“Oh, Arthur,” Eames says, “really, pet, that’s precious, but not everything is about you. It just so happens I’ve become interested in fashion. Absolutely for my own reasons, nothing at all to do with you.”
“Yeah,” Arthur says, looking dubious, “right.”
“Would I lie?” Eames says, opening his eyes as wide as he can.
Arthur scoffs and he has every right to because well, Eames is lying. Except then it turns out that he’s not lying after all, not exactly.
*
It starts when Eames takes a job in London for the following week.
Saito doesn’t mind if they work for other clients, as long as it doesn’t conflict with his interests. A year ago, having a job this steady might have made Eames nervous but after the Fischer job he’d actually found himself craving a little stability. Something about shaking the very foundations of someone else’s life makes you question the foundations of your own. But Eames is still a creature of habit: he’s not going to give up a rootless existence overnight. Whenever he feels the urge to roam, he packs up and he does. The spectacular failure of Operation Suits On, Arthur’s Pants Off is as much a reason as anything else. Eames gives Saito a few hours notice and catches the first flight to Heathrow.
Eames honestly comes to work, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that the city has been swept up in London Fashion Week. It’s actually not about Arthur when Eames lies his way into the Bora Aksu show. Eames is actually working and the mark he’s tailing is a buyer. It’s still about the job when he follows her to Louise Gray and John Rocha, but he charms his way into the fourth row of Vivienne Westwood all on his own and there is really no reason for him to pull every last stop to make sure he’s front and center for Boateng.
It’s not a big deal that he keeps wearing his new and improved suits, he decides. It works for his cover and he went through all that effort - he might as well. But he does stop dressing like Arthur, which makes the whole experience much more enjoyable. Part of the reason Eames dresses the way he does is to stop people from looking at him. In his line of work being forgettable is an asset and he’s found that people are much more likely to remember the combination of paisley and tweed than they are to remember his face. But there is also something to be said for clothes that fit properly, for fabrics that don’t stifle or chafe. Plus, in this crowd, he would stick out more if he didn’t play along. This is a solution that works for everyone and it really isn’t a big deal, Eames decides.
He reevaluates this decision when he runs into Arthur unexpectedly outside The Portico Rooms.
“Eames?” Arthur says, practically gawping.
“Arthur,” Eames says, nodding politely. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Fashion week,” Arthur says, sounding distracted.
“Of course,” Eames says.
“You?”
“Job.”
“Ah.”
Arthur just keeps staring.
“Can I help you?” Eames asks pointedly, carefully cataloguing Arthur’s apparent distress.
“No, I’m just,” Arthur says and then, “Dalton,” like that sentence makes sense in the English language.
“Right,” Eames says. “Well, it’s just there.” He nods over his shoulder. “Probably about to start.”
“Right,” Arthur says. “Right, I should…” He takes a few steps then, like he can’t help himself, he turns and says, in a slightly strangled voice, “You… look very nice today, Mr. Eames.” Then he runs off like a little girl.
Eames considers it a resounding victory for the home team.
*
Arthur is still acting like a little girl when Eames returns to their base of operations in LA. He’s basically having some kind of frantic, whispered gossip session with Ariadne when Eames walks in, still rumpled from the flight, but he cuts off mid-sentence to look at Eames with a wide, cornered look. Eames grins at him. Arthur actually licks his lips.
This is when Eames gets it. It’s not the suits, not specifically. It’s the way they’re worn, the way they’re carried off. Arthur wears his suits beautifully, all restrained elegance and subtlety, but Eames is not Arthur. Eames wears suits like they’re leather jackets, James Dean to Arthur’s James Bond. In a suit that Arthur would wear, Eames is a product, and a poorly marketed one at that. In a loudly printed shirt and a jacket Arthur wouldn’t be caught dead in, it’s a completely different story. It’s about finding a balance between consumerism and aesthetics, Eames realizes, and he can work with that. Because essentially it comes down to the intangible bravado, to the charm of it all, and while Eames may not be encyclopedic on menswear like Arthur, charm is something he has always known inside and out.
After that, it’s a cakewalk.
*
“This is absurd,” Arthur hisses at him, two days later.
“Arthur, dearest, try to concentrate,” Eames says, frowning. “We’re supposed to be working.”
“You’re absurd,” Arthur continues, gesturing accusingly.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Eames says breezily. “I was thinking I’d tail the wife, get a feel for her and then-”
“I can practically see your nipples,” Arthur almost wails.
“This conversation has become uncomfortable,” Eames says in his best prissy Arthur impression. “This kind of sexual banter is inappropriate for the workplace.”
“Your nipples are inappropriate for-”
“Really, Arthur. Some of us are trying to work.”
“I’m trying to work, you’re…”
“I’m what, darling?” Eames asks, smiling beatifically.
“You fucking exhibitionist,” Arthur says. “I know what you’re trying to do.”
“It’s working isn’t it?” Eames says cheerfully. “I’m wooing you, aren’t I?”
“Wooing?” Arthur snorts. “All you’re doing is wearing down my resolve.”
“My phrasing was more romantic,” Eames shrugs.
“There is nothing about your blatant seduction that I find at all romantic,” Arthur says, clearly lying.
“Come on,” Eames laughs, “am I getting points for this? I am, aren’t I?”
“… Maybe.”
“How am I doing? In the grand scheme?”
Arthur chews on his lip, thoughtful. “I don’t want to tell you,” he says, “it might crush your spirit.”
“This whole conversation is crushing my spirit,” Yusuf says.
“Seriously,” Ariadne says. “Get a room.”
“Jealous,” Eames says.
Ariadne, very maturely, sticks her finger in her mouth and makes gagging sounds. Yusuf just says “I want to state for the record that I am never going to play dress-up to earn points. I have my pride.”
“I’m not giving you points for pride, Yusuf,” Arthur says.
“It was worth a shot,” Yusuf sighs.
*
When Eames enters the warehouse the next morning, he knows immediately that he has scored a massive point for Team Get Naked. Arthur almost gives himself whiplash jerking his head up to stare at Eames and totally ignores the coffee he spills all over his Moleskin.
“Really, Arthur,” Yusuf says, “There is something to be said for subtlety.”
“Minus thirty points for not minding your own business,” Arthur says, still looking at Eames with an expression that is half dark-eyed arousal and half fury. “And Eames, minus a hundred points for… being late.” Arthur finishes lamely.
Eames grins. Ariadne opens her mouth like she’s going to say something but Arthur turns his glare on her and warns her into silence. Favoritism isn’t the only reason Ariadne is wildly ahead in the standings; she’s probably the only one of them with any real sense of prudence. Even so, she’s still not above smirking at Arthur behind his back and giving Eames the thumbs up.
So really, Eames decides, it’s Ariadne’s fault for encouraging him.
Throughout the course of the day, Eames basically fellates three different writing utensils, a coffee cup, his own hand, and, memorably, Ariadne’s totem. He also quite possibly humps one of the reclining lawn chairs they use when they go under, ostensibly to get comfortable before he lets Yusuf insert the cannula. Arthur might not be subtle, but it’s hardly like Eames is a master of discretion either.
It takes Arthur until about sundown to essentially tackle Eames into the tiny bathroom of the warehouse.
“Well, well, well,” Eames says and raises his eyebrows, “something on your mind, pet?”
“Shut up, Eames, just shut up, your shirt looks like the wallpaper in my grandmother’s house,” Arthur says and then grabs Eames by the collar and smashes their mouths together.
Arthur’s lips are bitten rough (and that’s my fault, I made him do that Eames thinks gleefully) but the lining of his mouth is smooth and wet and hot, his tongue pushing so insistently that Eames finds himself thinking of the muscle of it, unexpected but unsurprising, much like the muscle of Arthur, Arthur all vibrating, just-barely-contained energy in his arms. Eames can’t decide where to start. It doesn’t help that Arthur breaks away from him and stares at Eames in bemusement, like Arthur hadn’t been the one who’d just pounced Eames like some kind of make-out puma.
“Are you still thinking about your grandmother? I can’t help but think,” Eames starts to say, but Arthur cuts him off.
“Stop talking,” Arthur says, rolling his eyes, “I hate you.” He lunges forward again. Eames thinks it’s just as likely that Arthur was going to hit him as he was going to kiss him - Arthur looks like he doesn’t quite know himself what he intended to do - but Eames makes the decision for him, holds Arthur’s face in place and catches the momentum with his mouth.
“Clearly,” Eames mumbles into Arthur. “But, really, I can’t help feeling qualms about your grandmother lead-in and I’d appreciate some confirmation-”
“Oh my god, shut up about my grandmother,” Arthur says, actually punching Eames in the chest. Luckily, since they’re so close in the tiny bathroom, there’s not enough space for him to draw his arm back enough to work up a real bruising force. “Boner killer,” he mutters.
“I can’t tell you what a relief that is,” Eames says dryly.
“Shut up,” Arthur says, looking slightly less out of his mind. “I just… didn’t know you could tie a full Windsor,” he admits, sounding a little sheepish.
“Yes, well,” Eames says demurely, “I have so many talents I forget to mention them all.”
Eames had been pretty sure the laws of physics were on his side, but he discovers that they are actually bastard traitors when Arthur somehow manages to wind up enough to punch Eames hard enough to bruise his sternum for weeks. Still worth it, Eames thinks that afternoon as he catches sight of the red marks his stubble left on Arthur’s clean-shaven jaw.
*
If Eames expected that to be the sweaty, naked end of it, however, he was sorely mistaken. Arthur spends one day glowering and being sullen, not bothering to be subtle about avoiding Eames at all costs. On the second day he announces (looking carefully at anyone who isn’t Eames) that he’s going to Switzerland to check out the mark’s bank statements, which is probably the feeblest excuse Eames has ever heard. They don’t even really need that much financial information and Arthur has been able to remotely infiltrate any Swiss bank for longer than Eames has known him. Flying off to Bern for a week is just a tantrum. Eames has no choice but to conclude that his suits have frightened Arthur out of the country. On the one hand, he’s smugly impressed with his own brilliance. On the other hand, it’s fucking difficult to have sex with someone across an ocean.
The week drags on and Arthur shows no signs of letting up. Eames works, gambles and drinks. He drinks with Ariadne on Wednesday and she delivers him a long, increasingly slurred speech about how his dick has fucked up their operation. He drinks with Yusuf on Thursday and he outlines an impressive five point plan to get Arthur to agree to fuck Eames, point three of which involves drugging him, but he has no thoughts on how to get Arthur back to LA. On Friday Eames drinks with Saito, because clearly his co-workers are useless.
Eames doesn’t even have to drink his way up to complaining about it. They’re two drinks in when Saito says, “I’m having a party.”
Eames says, “Excellent plan,” because a party is always an excellent plan, even though it does not immediately seem like a surefire way to lure Arthur out of hiding.
“It’s a work party,” Saito continues. “I want you and the rest of the team to be there, to get a sense of the rest of my employees, in case I require your services with any of them.” Ostensibly it’s a pretty solid excuse, but Saito’s first job after hiring them was to have them militarize his entire staff, down to the last janitor, making sure that they left a backdoor that only the team knows how to access. Extracting from anyone in Saito’s employ would be as easy as googling whatever information they want to retrieve.
“I take it Arthur’s going to get called back for this?” Eames asks.
“I would like the whole team to be present, yes,” Saito says, like he doesn’t care either way.
“He won’t like that,” Eames says.
“But he’ll do it,” Saito replies, with all the confidence of someone who is unaccustomed to being refused. He has a point, Eames thinks; Arthur is not in the habit of disobeying direct orders unless he has a very good reason and Eames doesn’t think Arthur’s unwillingness to cave to Eames’s sartorial seduction qualifies as a good enough reason to risk Saito’s displeasure. They’ve all seen what Saito can do with a single phone call. It’s not something to take lightly. “I should mention,” Saito adds, “that this will be a formal affair. Black tie. Make sure you dress accordingly.”
Eames looks at Saito sharply and, though Saito isn’t making any overt expressions, Eames gets the impression that he’s giving Eames the psychic equivalent of a fistbump.
*
Eames smoothes his lapels as he enters Saito’s party. It’s not that he’s nervous, it’s just that he knows Arthur. He knows Arthur showed up on time and he knows Arthur will spend the whole night with half an eye on the door, cataloguing arrivals and departures in the fucking spreadsheet he calls a brain. Eames is taking no chances this time. Given his previous experience with Arthur, he calculates that it will take about an hour for Arthur’s resolve to crumble and for his unerringly professional mind to accept the fact that they really have no need to be working tonight. One hour, Eames figures, and then it’s game on.
He figures wrong.
Eames has time to get to the bar and have one sip of a scotch that’s probably old enough to legally buy its own scotch before he sees Arthur coming towards him, almost fifty minutes ahead of schedule.
Arthur crosses the room purposefully, stopping in front of Eames and staring at him with a look of methodical, vicious intent. For a second Eames doesn’t know what to do with all that sharp-focused attention on him at once, with that predatory look on Arthur’s face. And for once it’s not directed at the suit. For a second Eames just has to stare at him, thinking: the sky is purple, West Ham have won the Premier League, you can’t pull this kind of switch on me.
“We have to get out of here,” Arthur says, eyeing Eames’s throat with a hunger that should frighten Eames but doesn’t. “Like, right now.”
Eames thinks about making a joke, about obnoxiously baiting Arthur until he admits it out loud, but when he opens his mouth, he finds that all he can say is, “We really bloody do,” because just the sight of Arthur’s greedy eyes is admission enough.
*
Eames isn’t sure whose apartment they wind up in. The location is hardly what he’s interested in here. It’s quite possible that he and Arthur have broken into a complete stranger’s apartment, but it hardly matters when Arthur, still completely but savagely collected, looks at him with narrowed dark eyes and says, “Leave the suit on. All of it,” and starts taking off his clothes.
He doesn’t do it slowly, like a strip tease, but he doesn’t do it quickly, like he can’t wait, either. He just keeps his eyes on Eames and deftly unbuttons, unties, unzips every last closure keeping Eames away from all that bare skin. It’s a risk, but Eames can’t stop himself from saying, “You certainly kept me waiting, pet.”
“You liked it,” Arthur says and he’s not wrong. “Besides,” Arthur says, in nothing but dark briefs, “wait’s over. Let’s go.” And then he’s naked. And Eames is still fully clothed, shoes and all. His already hard cock gives an interested jerk, even before Arthur moves towards him.
Eames doesn’t say anything and even if he had time to come up with something before Arthur slides down on his knees in front of Eames, whatever he came out with would absolutely be incoherent. He settles for a low groan instead as Arthur unbuckles his belt and reaches in and takes a hold of Eames, glaring up reproachfully when Eames tries to loosen his tie.
“No,” Arthur says. “I told you. Keep it all on.” And then he goes down in one smooth, pristine movement. The blowjob he starts to give Eames, however, is anything but pristine. It’s sloppy and fast and wet; not inexpert, but impatient, greedy.
It feels so good Eames thinks he might die.
“I think I might die,” he says, just so Arthur is prepared, “but even if I do, please don’t stop doing that.”
“I’m going to stop if you die,” Arthur says, pulling back, lips already plush. “I draw a firm line at necrophilia.”
“In that case I’ll try to stay conscious,” Eames says.
“Good luck with that,” Arthur says and Eames can hear a smirk in his voice, like a filthy promise.
It’s all rushed and sloppy and exactly how Eames wanted it, working Arthur open on the floor, Arthur’s hand wound tightly in Eames’s tie, saying “Now, now, stop wasting time, Eames, now,” until Eames pushes into him and Arthur pushes back. It’s such a whirlwind of hot and tight and Arthur is everywhere, everything that Eames is aware of. For a minute Eames isn’t sure who’s fucking who. He’s on top of Arthur, his dick is in Arthur’s ass, but he feels totally taken and full. Deliriously, Eames thinks I feel like I am getting fucked in the arse by how stupidly batshit hot this is, which he is never planning to tell Arthur, ever.
Arthur’s grip spasms on Eames’s tie, yanking Eames’s face down into Arthur’s neck where Eames can smell the sweat under Arthur’s cologne. “Oh,” Arthur says, “Oh that’s - a million points, fuck.”
Eames has to stop to laugh, “Are your really assigning me points in the heat of the moment? Completely unromantic, darling.”
“They don’t count,” Arthur pants, “this is like confessing under torture.”
“That good?” Eames says, all mocking surprise.
“Shut up and keep fucking me or I really will take them all back,” Arthur says and bites at Eames’s throat.
Eames knows a good deal when he sees one: that many points almost gets him out of the negatives.
*
At the warehouse the next day, when Arthur announces that Yusuf is at the bottom of the standings and will be buying the drinks, Ariadne and Yusuf are almost equally shocked. Yusuf is a little less shocked, mostly because he’s using a lot of energy being horrified as well.
“How is Eames not last? I thought he was at negative 2,003,412,” Ariadne says, looking like she’s counting in her head. “Yusuf has at least 990,000.”
“And I have 996,588,” Eames says, smirking widely.
“Who did you kill?” Yusuf asks, apparently serious. Eames scoffs.
“There’s no way Eames could come from behind like that,” Ariadne says.
“Except that is exactly what I did,” Eames says, leering purposefully at Arthur. Arthur glares. Ariadne and Yusuf look between them and simultaneously sigh various relieved “finally”s and “thank god the flirting is over”s and then, as the realization of how Eames’s points were earned sinks in, strangled noises of fury.
“Ugh,” Yusuf says. “Is this what the point system has become? You’ve prostituted yourself, Eames.”
“I expected better from you,” Ariadne says.
“Really?” Eames says incredulously.
“Not you,” Ariadne snaps. “Arthur!”
“But it was like torture!” Arthur protests.
“Please stop telling people that, darling,” Eames says. “And anyway, you’re the one who-”
“Stop it,” Yusuf says, “just stop it. I will accept defeat if it means I never have to hear about how those three million points were earned.”
“Come on,” Eames says, “Three million points, Yusuf! You must be dying to know.”
“Shut up,” Arthur says, “before I detract ten million points for ruining my life,” but he doesn’t stop himself from smiling a small, pleased smile and it’s that smile that makes Eames sure he’s going to get plenty of chances to ruin Arthur’s life further in the future. Absolutely worth it, he thinks smugly and watches Arthur tug his French cuffs lower to cover the bruises in the shape of Eames’s fingerprints.
ETA A/N: if suits + Tom Hardy is something y'all are into thennnn you should probably check this out because it's AWESOME. thanks for reading, everybody!
All of the suits mentioned in this are from the 2011 spring season so let’s say this is set during the fall 2012 shows but since those haven’t happened yet the schedule is based on this spring. Basically, the timeline is NOT what I was interested in here, so don’t expect too much from it. Another small warning: this is not one of those stories where Arthur and Eames are all in love or whatever, in this one they’re just HOT and wearing SUITS alright, NO EMOTIONS, JUST HORMONES!
Title: Fashion Is All About Eventually Becoming Naked
Pairing: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Rating: R
Word Count: ~5300
Warnings: probably some kind of grievous sartorial inaccuracy, slight to total crack
Summary: Eames thinks he catches Arthur looking at porn but it’s SUITS and so, of course, Eames starts wearing suits and Arthur kind of loses his mind.
Notes: thanks to your__design as per usual, especially for keeping me relatively on task and telling me when I was getting too embarrassing. The title is a well-known but unattributed quote (though I almost titled this “Christian Dior Denim Flow” after the Kanye West song, if only for the hilarious Leo shout-out). Cut text should be obvious because it’s legen (wait for it) dary.
“You’re looking at porn, aren’t you?” Eames says quietly, leaning over Arthur’s desk to leer at him.
“No,” Arthur says, immediately, like denying it quickly enough will make Eames ignore the color rising in his face. Eames doesn’t ignore it, just like he didn’t ignore the way Arthur had been staring at the screen of his laptop, mouth slightly open and breath slightly rushed, an obvious look of want on his face.
It would take a lot for Eames to ignore something like that.
It started when Arthur brought his laptop to the warehouse. Mostly he does his research out of sight. Probably, Eames thinks, so he can just show up and spout off ridiculously obscure information and look like he knows it as unwaveringly as his own middle name, no effort involved at all. When anyone does actually catch him working, he’s usually doing it the old-fashioned way, with a stupidly expensive pen and his Moleskin notebooks, like some kind of Dickensian hero. So when Arthur brings his laptop to the warehouse, Eames is sure to pay it all the attention it warrants.
This is how Eames catches him looking at porn.
“Men have needs, darling,” he says, “this is all perfectly natural, no shame in it. Though it is a bit unprofessional-”
“I’m not looking at porn, Eames,” Arthur snaps, loud enough that Ariadne must overhear, even though she seems to be lost in the labyrinth she’s constructing.
Eames was deeply looking forward to an awkwardly public discussion about Arthur’s sexual habits, but Ariadne ruins it when she says, “He’s not, it’s fashion week.”
Eames stares at her. “What?”
“It’s not porn,” she says, distracted, “it’s suits. Do you think we need a failsafe passage through here? The job’s pretty cut and dry…”
“I think we need to return to the suit thing for a moment, actually,” Eames says, now staring at Arthur who is, admirably, trying to act like he’s not humiliated by this sudden exposure of his weird suit fetish.
“I think we need to return to work,” he says.
“Oh, working, were you? Is that what you call it? Because it looks like-” Eames leans the rest of the way over the desk to look at the screen upside down “- Dunhill to me.”
“Fuck off,” Arthur mutters and minimizes the window.
*
The thing is, Eames has been trying to get under Arthur’s skin since the moment they met, and he means that in the most biological way possible.
Arthur is easily the most fuckable person Eames has ever worked with and Eames loves fucking people he works with. On his more sentimental days, he thinks it’s probably because people who’ve been into each other’s minds have a greater appreciation for the intimacy of it, the rush of letting someone else into your body, of showing someone all your darkest places and secret wants. Most of the time though he thinks it’s because everyone he works with is completely unhinged, and crazy people, say whatever else you like about them, are terrific in the sack. So, of course, this further glimpse of Arthur’s crazy is a huge turn-on for Eames.
It’s also extremely helpful.
Eames is a forger. His job is to figure out what makes people tick and use it to his own advantage, to get close to them. Arthur’s weakness for suits is, though obvious in retrospect, the way Eames is going to get close to Arthur. And by “close” he means “balls deep.”
First Eames gets a plan, then he gets a new credit card, registered to a new identity, and then Eames does some shopping.
*
When Eames walks into the warehouse Arthur perks up and looks at him right away, with a hungry, desperate expression that he usually reserves for coffee. Eames thinks about resisting the urge to smirk, but it’s a strong urge so he decides it’s better to just give in. “Good morning,” he says.
“Is that,” Arthur says and then makes a face like he’s swallowing his own tongue. The face he makes after that is much less endearing and much more worrying. Eames quietly makes a note of the nearest exits. “Why are you wearing Simon Spurr?”
“Was I?” Eames says, “I hadn’t noticed.” It’s hard not to notice, though. Eames doesn’t know how Arthur wears this many layers on a daily basis. Three pieces is three pieces too many, in Eames’s opinion. The fact that he has actually worn a tie for this should earn him ten solid minutes of oral, he figures.
Arthur is still glaring. “Whatever you have done to that pocket square is a fucking crime,” he says and that’s when Eames realizes that Arthur has never actually looked at him. All that emotion was focused on the fucking suit.
Eames realizes that he might be a little out of his depth. He considers backing out - there’s still time to let this one go with some amount of dignity intact, after all - but he can still feel Arthur’s eyes practically humping his waistcoat and that decides him.
“How many points have I lost?” Eames asks, grinning widely because that is the way Eames likes to confront bad news.
“At least a hundred,” Arthur says. “More, the longer I have to stare at it.”
Eames removes the pocket square (which, granted, he had just kind of stuffed in there on a whim with no real strategy involved) and gallantly throws it on Arthur’s desk, like some kind of medieval token.
“Minus another fifty,” Arthur says, not looking away from his notes as he brushes it aside, “for being dramatic about it.”
“I like a come from behind victory,” Eames says, making the words as filthy as he can.
“That’s looking really unlikely,” Arthur says, “seeing as you just lost another fifty for creeping me out.”
“He’s in a temper today,” Yusuf says, crossing the room with his arms full of bottles of excitingly bright and terrifyingly bubbling liquids. “He took thirty points from me for not bringing him coffee. Like that’s my job.” He rolls his eyes.
“Minus another twenty,” Arthur says imperiously, though there’s a lurking smile in his voice, “for impertinence.”
Eames doesn’t quite remember when they started the point system. It happened somewhere after the Fischer job and somewhere before Cobb had retired and Saito put the rest of them on retainer as his personal extraction team. He remembers they were all drunk one night and Ariadne had said something about how “point man” was a stupid title and then the next morning Eames had woken up with a cocktail napkin in his pocket, covered in a detailed ranking of the team based on points Arthur had assigned arbitrarily (“Saito: INFINITY POINTS, because he’s paying us; Yusuf: FIVE HUNDRED POINTS, because he can kill us in our sleep; Ariadne: TWO HUNDRED POINTS, because she doesn’t usually fuck things up; Eames: NEGATIVE A MILLION POINTS because he always does; Cobb: ZERO POINTS because he’s a quitter; Arthur: TWO HUNDRED POINTS, because I say so”). First it was a joke and then it got serious: whoever’s at the bottom of the rankings has to buy drinks after every job. And the team drinks a lot.
Eames thinks that the fact that he’s willing to risk his standings to get Arthur in bed is really saying something. At the rate at which he’ll be buying absurdly expensive suits, there’s no way he’ll be able to afford that bar tab without significant illegal help. Arthur’s eyes hesitate on Eames’s chest, just at the point where his black and white tie disappears into his slate grey waistcoat, and Eames thinks this is absolutely going to be worth it.
*
Eames decides to go right for the jugular, right for Arthur’s Achilles heel: Dunhill. He shows up at the warehouse the next day in a pale grey two piece suit that is absolutely flawless, pocket square included, and all it gets him is half an hour of Arthur ranting about Kim Jones’s departure.
“If he seriously left to write a fucking book, I’ll break into his house and slit his throat,” Arthur says, eyes wide with crazy rage. “It’s unfathomable.” (It’s a huge turn-on, is what it is and the fact that Eames’s type is pretty much summed up by “psychopaths” is probably something he should look at in himself.)
Over the course of the week, Eames tries Corneliani, Bespoken, Canali and Zegna, but he gets nowhere. It’s always the same: Arthur glances up, sees the suit, and then goes totally out of his mind in a way that is much more related to putting clothes on than it is to taking them off, which is not what Eames wants at all.
The day that Eames tries for slightly more casual with a three button khaki jacket over a cashmere sweater that looks like it could have come straight from Arthur’s own closet, Arthur asks, suddenly, as if it has just occurred to him, “Are you dressing like this for a reason?”
Eames supposes he should be grateful that Arthur’s rabid obsession has apparently blinded him to the obvious (buying an entire wardrobe of suits after finding out about Arthur’s near-fetish for them is about the least subtle thing Eames has ever done, after all), but he was also kind of hoping that Arthur was fucking with him. At least that would explain the total lack of nakedness thus far. All he says is, “What makes you ask?”
“You never wear khaki,” Arthur says.
“It makes me feel like an imperialist bastard,” Eames agrees.
“You’re wearing khaki,” Arthur says.
“It’s Prada first, khaki after.”
“Since when do you care about Prada?” Arthur eyes him narrowly, almost accusingly.
“I have always cared very deeply about Prada,” Eames says, affecting a wounded air.
“You’ve always looked like you dressed yourself in the dark with clothes you stole from the closets of circus performers, blind history professors and pimps from the 70s.”
Eames raises his eyebrows. “Sounds like you’ve had that line saved up for awhile, darling.”
“Well, it’s really upsetting,” Arthur says evenly.
“Apparently,” Eames says.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Arthur points out.
“I did not,” Eames agrees.
“This is about fashion week, isn’t it,” Arthur says darkly.
“Oh, Arthur,” Eames says, “really, pet, that’s precious, but not everything is about you. It just so happens I’ve become interested in fashion. Absolutely for my own reasons, nothing at all to do with you.”
“Yeah,” Arthur says, looking dubious, “right.”
“Would I lie?” Eames says, opening his eyes as wide as he can.
Arthur scoffs and he has every right to because well, Eames is lying. Except then it turns out that he’s not lying after all, not exactly.
*
It starts when Eames takes a job in London for the following week.
Saito doesn’t mind if they work for other clients, as long as it doesn’t conflict with his interests. A year ago, having a job this steady might have made Eames nervous but after the Fischer job he’d actually found himself craving a little stability. Something about shaking the very foundations of someone else’s life makes you question the foundations of your own. But Eames is still a creature of habit: he’s not going to give up a rootless existence overnight. Whenever he feels the urge to roam, he packs up and he does. The spectacular failure of Operation Suits On, Arthur’s Pants Off is as much a reason as anything else. Eames gives Saito a few hours notice and catches the first flight to Heathrow.
Eames honestly comes to work, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that the city has been swept up in London Fashion Week. It’s actually not about Arthur when Eames lies his way into the Bora Aksu show. Eames is actually working and the mark he’s tailing is a buyer. It’s still about the job when he follows her to Louise Gray and John Rocha, but he charms his way into the fourth row of Vivienne Westwood all on his own and there is really no reason for him to pull every last stop to make sure he’s front and center for Boateng.
It’s not a big deal that he keeps wearing his new and improved suits, he decides. It works for his cover and he went through all that effort - he might as well. But he does stop dressing like Arthur, which makes the whole experience much more enjoyable. Part of the reason Eames dresses the way he does is to stop people from looking at him. In his line of work being forgettable is an asset and he’s found that people are much more likely to remember the combination of paisley and tweed than they are to remember his face. But there is also something to be said for clothes that fit properly, for fabrics that don’t stifle or chafe. Plus, in this crowd, he would stick out more if he didn’t play along. This is a solution that works for everyone and it really isn’t a big deal, Eames decides.
He reevaluates this decision when he runs into Arthur unexpectedly outside The Portico Rooms.
“Eames?” Arthur says, practically gawping.
“Arthur,” Eames says, nodding politely. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Fashion week,” Arthur says, sounding distracted.
“Of course,” Eames says.
“You?”
“Job.”
“Ah.”
Arthur just keeps staring.
“Can I help you?” Eames asks pointedly, carefully cataloguing Arthur’s apparent distress.
“No, I’m just,” Arthur says and then, “Dalton,” like that sentence makes sense in the English language.
“Right,” Eames says. “Well, it’s just there.” He nods over his shoulder. “Probably about to start.”
“Right,” Arthur says. “Right, I should…” He takes a few steps then, like he can’t help himself, he turns and says, in a slightly strangled voice, “You… look very nice today, Mr. Eames.” Then he runs off like a little girl.
Eames considers it a resounding victory for the home team.
*
Arthur is still acting like a little girl when Eames returns to their base of operations in LA. He’s basically having some kind of frantic, whispered gossip session with Ariadne when Eames walks in, still rumpled from the flight, but he cuts off mid-sentence to look at Eames with a wide, cornered look. Eames grins at him. Arthur actually licks his lips.
This is when Eames gets it. It’s not the suits, not specifically. It’s the way they’re worn, the way they’re carried off. Arthur wears his suits beautifully, all restrained elegance and subtlety, but Eames is not Arthur. Eames wears suits like they’re leather jackets, James Dean to Arthur’s James Bond. In a suit that Arthur would wear, Eames is a product, and a poorly marketed one at that. In a loudly printed shirt and a jacket Arthur wouldn’t be caught dead in, it’s a completely different story. It’s about finding a balance between consumerism and aesthetics, Eames realizes, and he can work with that. Because essentially it comes down to the intangible bravado, to the charm of it all, and while Eames may not be encyclopedic on menswear like Arthur, charm is something he has always known inside and out.
After that, it’s a cakewalk.
*
“This is absurd,” Arthur hisses at him, two days later.
“Arthur, dearest, try to concentrate,” Eames says, frowning. “We’re supposed to be working.”
“You’re absurd,” Arthur continues, gesturing accusingly.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Eames says breezily. “I was thinking I’d tail the wife, get a feel for her and then-”
“I can practically see your nipples,” Arthur almost wails.
“This conversation has become uncomfortable,” Eames says in his best prissy Arthur impression. “This kind of sexual banter is inappropriate for the workplace.”
“Your nipples are inappropriate for-”
“Really, Arthur. Some of us are trying to work.”
“I’m trying to work, you’re…”
“I’m what, darling?” Eames asks, smiling beatifically.
“You fucking exhibitionist,” Arthur says. “I know what you’re trying to do.”
“It’s working isn’t it?” Eames says cheerfully. “I’m wooing you, aren’t I?”
“Wooing?” Arthur snorts. “All you’re doing is wearing down my resolve.”
“My phrasing was more romantic,” Eames shrugs.
“There is nothing about your blatant seduction that I find at all romantic,” Arthur says, clearly lying.
“Come on,” Eames laughs, “am I getting points for this? I am, aren’t I?”
“… Maybe.”
“How am I doing? In the grand scheme?”
Arthur chews on his lip, thoughtful. “I don’t want to tell you,” he says, “it might crush your spirit.”
“This whole conversation is crushing my spirit,” Yusuf says.
“Seriously,” Ariadne says. “Get a room.”
“Jealous,” Eames says.
Ariadne, very maturely, sticks her finger in her mouth and makes gagging sounds. Yusuf just says “I want to state for the record that I am never going to play dress-up to earn points. I have my pride.”
“I’m not giving you points for pride, Yusuf,” Arthur says.
“It was worth a shot,” Yusuf sighs.
*
When Eames enters the warehouse the next morning, he knows immediately that he has scored a massive point for Team Get Naked. Arthur almost gives himself whiplash jerking his head up to stare at Eames and totally ignores the coffee he spills all over his Moleskin.
“Really, Arthur,” Yusuf says, “There is something to be said for subtlety.”
“Minus thirty points for not minding your own business,” Arthur says, still looking at Eames with an expression that is half dark-eyed arousal and half fury. “And Eames, minus a hundred points for… being late.” Arthur finishes lamely.
Eames grins. Ariadne opens her mouth like she’s going to say something but Arthur turns his glare on her and warns her into silence. Favoritism isn’t the only reason Ariadne is wildly ahead in the standings; she’s probably the only one of them with any real sense of prudence. Even so, she’s still not above smirking at Arthur behind his back and giving Eames the thumbs up.
So really, Eames decides, it’s Ariadne’s fault for encouraging him.
Throughout the course of the day, Eames basically fellates three different writing utensils, a coffee cup, his own hand, and, memorably, Ariadne’s totem. He also quite possibly humps one of the reclining lawn chairs they use when they go under, ostensibly to get comfortable before he lets Yusuf insert the cannula. Arthur might not be subtle, but it’s hardly like Eames is a master of discretion either.
It takes Arthur until about sundown to essentially tackle Eames into the tiny bathroom of the warehouse.
“Well, well, well,” Eames says and raises his eyebrows, “something on your mind, pet?”
“Shut up, Eames, just shut up, your shirt looks like the wallpaper in my grandmother’s house,” Arthur says and then grabs Eames by the collar and smashes their mouths together.
Arthur’s lips are bitten rough (and that’s my fault, I made him do that Eames thinks gleefully) but the lining of his mouth is smooth and wet and hot, his tongue pushing so insistently that Eames finds himself thinking of the muscle of it, unexpected but unsurprising, much like the muscle of Arthur, Arthur all vibrating, just-barely-contained energy in his arms. Eames can’t decide where to start. It doesn’t help that Arthur breaks away from him and stares at Eames in bemusement, like Arthur hadn’t been the one who’d just pounced Eames like some kind of make-out puma.
“Are you still thinking about your grandmother? I can’t help but think,” Eames starts to say, but Arthur cuts him off.
“Stop talking,” Arthur says, rolling his eyes, “I hate you.” He lunges forward again. Eames thinks it’s just as likely that Arthur was going to hit him as he was going to kiss him - Arthur looks like he doesn’t quite know himself what he intended to do - but Eames makes the decision for him, holds Arthur’s face in place and catches the momentum with his mouth.
“Clearly,” Eames mumbles into Arthur. “But, really, I can’t help feeling qualms about your grandmother lead-in and I’d appreciate some confirmation-”
“Oh my god, shut up about my grandmother,” Arthur says, actually punching Eames in the chest. Luckily, since they’re so close in the tiny bathroom, there’s not enough space for him to draw his arm back enough to work up a real bruising force. “Boner killer,” he mutters.
“I can’t tell you what a relief that is,” Eames says dryly.
“Shut up,” Arthur says, looking slightly less out of his mind. “I just… didn’t know you could tie a full Windsor,” he admits, sounding a little sheepish.
“Yes, well,” Eames says demurely, “I have so many talents I forget to mention them all.”
Eames had been pretty sure the laws of physics were on his side, but he discovers that they are actually bastard traitors when Arthur somehow manages to wind up enough to punch Eames hard enough to bruise his sternum for weeks. Still worth it, Eames thinks that afternoon as he catches sight of the red marks his stubble left on Arthur’s clean-shaven jaw.
*
If Eames expected that to be the sweaty, naked end of it, however, he was sorely mistaken. Arthur spends one day glowering and being sullen, not bothering to be subtle about avoiding Eames at all costs. On the second day he announces (looking carefully at anyone who isn’t Eames) that he’s going to Switzerland to check out the mark’s bank statements, which is probably the feeblest excuse Eames has ever heard. They don’t even really need that much financial information and Arthur has been able to remotely infiltrate any Swiss bank for longer than Eames has known him. Flying off to Bern for a week is just a tantrum. Eames has no choice but to conclude that his suits have frightened Arthur out of the country. On the one hand, he’s smugly impressed with his own brilliance. On the other hand, it’s fucking difficult to have sex with someone across an ocean.
The week drags on and Arthur shows no signs of letting up. Eames works, gambles and drinks. He drinks with Ariadne on Wednesday and she delivers him a long, increasingly slurred speech about how his dick has fucked up their operation. He drinks with Yusuf on Thursday and he outlines an impressive five point plan to get Arthur to agree to fuck Eames, point three of which involves drugging him, but he has no thoughts on how to get Arthur back to LA. On Friday Eames drinks with Saito, because clearly his co-workers are useless.
Eames doesn’t even have to drink his way up to complaining about it. They’re two drinks in when Saito says, “I’m having a party.”
Eames says, “Excellent plan,” because a party is always an excellent plan, even though it does not immediately seem like a surefire way to lure Arthur out of hiding.
“It’s a work party,” Saito continues. “I want you and the rest of the team to be there, to get a sense of the rest of my employees, in case I require your services with any of them.” Ostensibly it’s a pretty solid excuse, but Saito’s first job after hiring them was to have them militarize his entire staff, down to the last janitor, making sure that they left a backdoor that only the team knows how to access. Extracting from anyone in Saito’s employ would be as easy as googling whatever information they want to retrieve.
“I take it Arthur’s going to get called back for this?” Eames asks.
“I would like the whole team to be present, yes,” Saito says, like he doesn’t care either way.
“He won’t like that,” Eames says.
“But he’ll do it,” Saito replies, with all the confidence of someone who is unaccustomed to being refused. He has a point, Eames thinks; Arthur is not in the habit of disobeying direct orders unless he has a very good reason and Eames doesn’t think Arthur’s unwillingness to cave to Eames’s sartorial seduction qualifies as a good enough reason to risk Saito’s displeasure. They’ve all seen what Saito can do with a single phone call. It’s not something to take lightly. “I should mention,” Saito adds, “that this will be a formal affair. Black tie. Make sure you dress accordingly.”
Eames looks at Saito sharply and, though Saito isn’t making any overt expressions, Eames gets the impression that he’s giving Eames the psychic equivalent of a fistbump.
*
Eames smoothes his lapels as he enters Saito’s party. It’s not that he’s nervous, it’s just that he knows Arthur. He knows Arthur showed up on time and he knows Arthur will spend the whole night with half an eye on the door, cataloguing arrivals and departures in the fucking spreadsheet he calls a brain. Eames is taking no chances this time. Given his previous experience with Arthur, he calculates that it will take about an hour for Arthur’s resolve to crumble and for his unerringly professional mind to accept the fact that they really have no need to be working tonight. One hour, Eames figures, and then it’s game on.
He figures wrong.
Eames has time to get to the bar and have one sip of a scotch that’s probably old enough to legally buy its own scotch before he sees Arthur coming towards him, almost fifty minutes ahead of schedule.
Arthur crosses the room purposefully, stopping in front of Eames and staring at him with a look of methodical, vicious intent. For a second Eames doesn’t know what to do with all that sharp-focused attention on him at once, with that predatory look on Arthur’s face. And for once it’s not directed at the suit. For a second Eames just has to stare at him, thinking: the sky is purple, West Ham have won the Premier League, you can’t pull this kind of switch on me.
“We have to get out of here,” Arthur says, eyeing Eames’s throat with a hunger that should frighten Eames but doesn’t. “Like, right now.”
Eames thinks about making a joke, about obnoxiously baiting Arthur until he admits it out loud, but when he opens his mouth, he finds that all he can say is, “We really bloody do,” because just the sight of Arthur’s greedy eyes is admission enough.
*
Eames isn’t sure whose apartment they wind up in. The location is hardly what he’s interested in here. It’s quite possible that he and Arthur have broken into a complete stranger’s apartment, but it hardly matters when Arthur, still completely but savagely collected, looks at him with narrowed dark eyes and says, “Leave the suit on. All of it,” and starts taking off his clothes.
He doesn’t do it slowly, like a strip tease, but he doesn’t do it quickly, like he can’t wait, either. He just keeps his eyes on Eames and deftly unbuttons, unties, unzips every last closure keeping Eames away from all that bare skin. It’s a risk, but Eames can’t stop himself from saying, “You certainly kept me waiting, pet.”
“You liked it,” Arthur says and he’s not wrong. “Besides,” Arthur says, in nothing but dark briefs, “wait’s over. Let’s go.” And then he’s naked. And Eames is still fully clothed, shoes and all. His already hard cock gives an interested jerk, even before Arthur moves towards him.
Eames doesn’t say anything and even if he had time to come up with something before Arthur slides down on his knees in front of Eames, whatever he came out with would absolutely be incoherent. He settles for a low groan instead as Arthur unbuckles his belt and reaches in and takes a hold of Eames, glaring up reproachfully when Eames tries to loosen his tie.
“No,” Arthur says. “I told you. Keep it all on.” And then he goes down in one smooth, pristine movement. The blowjob he starts to give Eames, however, is anything but pristine. It’s sloppy and fast and wet; not inexpert, but impatient, greedy.
It feels so good Eames thinks he might die.
“I think I might die,” he says, just so Arthur is prepared, “but even if I do, please don’t stop doing that.”
“I’m going to stop if you die,” Arthur says, pulling back, lips already plush. “I draw a firm line at necrophilia.”
“In that case I’ll try to stay conscious,” Eames says.
“Good luck with that,” Arthur says and Eames can hear a smirk in his voice, like a filthy promise.
It’s all rushed and sloppy and exactly how Eames wanted it, working Arthur open on the floor, Arthur’s hand wound tightly in Eames’s tie, saying “Now, now, stop wasting time, Eames, now,” until Eames pushes into him and Arthur pushes back. It’s such a whirlwind of hot and tight and Arthur is everywhere, everything that Eames is aware of. For a minute Eames isn’t sure who’s fucking who. He’s on top of Arthur, his dick is in Arthur’s ass, but he feels totally taken and full. Deliriously, Eames thinks I feel like I am getting fucked in the arse by how stupidly batshit hot this is, which he is never planning to tell Arthur, ever.
Arthur’s grip spasms on Eames’s tie, yanking Eames’s face down into Arthur’s neck where Eames can smell the sweat under Arthur’s cologne. “Oh,” Arthur says, “Oh that’s - a million points, fuck.”
Eames has to stop to laugh, “Are your really assigning me points in the heat of the moment? Completely unromantic, darling.”
“They don’t count,” Arthur pants, “this is like confessing under torture.”
“That good?” Eames says, all mocking surprise.
“Shut up and keep fucking me or I really will take them all back,” Arthur says and bites at Eames’s throat.
Eames knows a good deal when he sees one: that many points almost gets him out of the negatives.
*
At the warehouse the next day, when Arthur announces that Yusuf is at the bottom of the standings and will be buying the drinks, Ariadne and Yusuf are almost equally shocked. Yusuf is a little less shocked, mostly because he’s using a lot of energy being horrified as well.
“How is Eames not last? I thought he was at negative 2,003,412,” Ariadne says, looking like she’s counting in her head. “Yusuf has at least 990,000.”
“And I have 996,588,” Eames says, smirking widely.
“Who did you kill?” Yusuf asks, apparently serious. Eames scoffs.
“There’s no way Eames could come from behind like that,” Ariadne says.
“Except that is exactly what I did,” Eames says, leering purposefully at Arthur. Arthur glares. Ariadne and Yusuf look between them and simultaneously sigh various relieved “finally”s and “thank god the flirting is over”s and then, as the realization of how Eames’s points were earned sinks in, strangled noises of fury.
“Ugh,” Yusuf says. “Is this what the point system has become? You’ve prostituted yourself, Eames.”
“I expected better from you,” Ariadne says.
“Really?” Eames says incredulously.
“Not you,” Ariadne snaps. “Arthur!”
“But it was like torture!” Arthur protests.
“Please stop telling people that, darling,” Eames says. “And anyway, you’re the one who-”
“Stop it,” Yusuf says, “just stop it. I will accept defeat if it means I never have to hear about how those three million points were earned.”
“Come on,” Eames says, “Three million points, Yusuf! You must be dying to know.”
“Shut up,” Arthur says, “before I detract ten million points for ruining my life,” but he doesn’t stop himself from smiling a small, pleased smile and it’s that smile that makes Eames sure he’s going to get plenty of chances to ruin Arthur’s life further in the future. Absolutely worth it, he thinks smugly and watches Arthur tug his French cuffs lower to cover the bruises in the shape of Eames’s fingerprints.
ETA A/N: if suits + Tom Hardy is something y'all are into thennnn you should probably check this out because it's AWESOME. thanks for reading, everybody!