![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirona_ficsTitle: I Won't Dance
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Word count: ~12,000
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none to speak of, a fairly large doze of (resolved) angst and a good doze of fluff.
Disclaimer: I'm just playing in Christopher Nolan's sandpit.
Summary: Eames makes Arthur want to believe in happy endings again.
A/N: And so, I've taken the plunge. Written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
inception_kink meme, for this prompt: Arthur is "that guy", the one that makes girls realize they're lesbians and guys that they're straight. Arthur resists Eames' more serious advances because he doesn't want to lose what little they have. I've tweaked the prompt a little, and good god, 12,000 words for a kink meme fill, I don't even know. This has been re-written a little from the original post, and cleaned up a lot. Title comes from Ol' Blue Eyes' song of the same name.
I Won't Dance
It’s a lovely, warm Saturday morning in early April and Arthur takes advantage of the spring sunshine, strolling sedately but purposefully down the street to the nearby bookshop where a shipment of the books he’d ordered last week has just arrived. His attention wanders to the different shop fronts, focusing on nothing in particular apart from the bright colours and strange shapes abounding on the busy street. As such, he almost misses his name being called from one of the sidewalk tables in front of the small café he passes on his way to work every day.
“Arthur, over here!” comes again, and he looks around distractedly. A petite dark-haired woman is smiling and waving at him enthusiastically from beside a statuesque strawberry-blonde young woman.
Arthur smiles back warmly and makes his way through the cluttered tables and over to their side. “Leanne! How lovely to see you. How are you?”
“Hello!” she beams up at him. “It’s so great to see you! Here, I’ve been wanting to introduce you to Jennifer for ages! Jen, this is Arthur, the one I was telling you about?” she turns to the other woman, who grins and looks him up and down.
“Wow, you never said he was so gorgeous! Are you sure you dumped him?” Jennifer teases Leanne and bumps her shoulder amiably.
Leanne mock-scowls. “You’re lucky I did go out with him at all, or I would never have figured it out,” she pouts. Jennifer dips her head to hide the amused twitch of her lips, but reaches for her hand, twines their fingers together and strokes the back of them affectionately; Leanne loses the pout and grins back.
Arthur can’t help but smile self-depreciatingly at how happy they look together. He makes his excuses, explains he has somewhere to be, asks them to call him sometime for a coffee and a chat. He winds his way back onto the street and resumes his stride, his good mood dimmed, but not gone. To someone else the encounter would have seemed strange, unsettling; to Arthur, it’s just a part of his life, something he’s had to get used to and make his peace with.
Leanne is not the first girl who’d realised she’s gay after getting together with Arthur – he’s well aware he is ‘that guy’, the one that turns girls into lesbians and gay men straight. Going out with Arthur means that within weeks of the event, girls and guys fall in love – just not with him.
It had started with Alicia, the first girl he’d had a crush on since starting college, just over a month in. She had been lovely – long dark hair, beautiful dove grey eyes, gorgeous complexion – every man’s dream. They had been young, fumbling and eager and curious the first time they’d started making out. Half-way through, just when things had been getting heated, she had frozen him in his tracks by bursting into tears. Arthur had been horrified that he’d hurt her in some way, until she had tearfully stuttered that she’d thought that she was more into girls than guys, that she liked Arthur so much, but she just couldn’t sleep with him, and she was sorry, so sorry. Arthur, ever the gentleman and not a little taken aback, had fallen over himself to reassure her and see her safely back to her dorm.
He had written it off as a freak accident – it happened all the time, right? He hadn’t let it get him down, but he had decided to try his luck with guys next – he and Joseph had dated for almost three months before Joseph had taken him aside and haltingly told him that he didn’t think he was gay, after all, and had apologised for leading Arthur on for so long that, despite feeling rather hurt, Arthur had been ready to tell him anything just to shut him up.
And then, in his final year of university, Arthur had fallen heads over heels for his smart, funny, gorgeous project partner, Daphne. They had dated for almost four months – Arthur still remembers the overwhelming relief he’d felt at the thought that all his previous relationship disasters had obviously been a fluke, and that his curse had finally been broken; in the end, it had been him that had been broken – his heart, that is.
It hadn’t been enough that he was turning guys straight and girls gay; he also appeared to be the other definition of ‘that guy’ – the one before The One. Daphne had met her future husband not a week after breaking things off with Arthur; it appeared that the harder Arthur fell for someone, the stronger the bounce-off had been.
One time is an accident. Twice – well, the odds are against it but still, it happens. By the sixth time an ex had found their husbands/wives after breaking up with Arthur, it had become a pattern and Arthur had thrown in the towel. He was done getting his heart broken, and sex was always unsatisfying – like his partners were waiting for something, for a train to take them far away, maybe.
Arthur has no idea why all of this is happening to him, where he goes wrong, but he is sure he must go wrong somewhere, flip some switch that makes people realise just what they are looking for, and that Arthur is most definitely not it. Arthur has analysed this phenomenon over and over again, applying any and all statistical variables to it, and he thinks he has the boundaries of his curse figured. It goes like this:
A: one-night stand to one month of relationship = girls realise they are, in fact, lesbians.
B: one month to two and a half months of dating = guys realise they are, in fact, straight.
C: over three months of dating + Arthur falling in love with them = Arthur is not the one they are looking for.
D: within six months of C occurring, his ex-partners are settling down with the woman/man of their dreams.
Which leads to the current moment in time. Arthur is 28-years-old, a successful, up-and-coming architect in one of the top firms in New York, and he is single, and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future – of his own making, this time around.
The best-laid plans and all that.
---
Arthur spends Sunday at home. He gets up late (8.30AM), puts breakfast TV on while he makes himself pancakes as a treat, drenches them with maple syrup and spends four blissfully quiet hours lounging at he kitchen table with his enormous French press and all the weekend papers he could get his hands on at the newsagents around the corner. He pores over the supplements and in a fit of anarchy leaves the news for last. The crosswords alone take him well over an hour and a half, and to his consternation he has to resort to cheating – the New York Times Sunday crossword compiler has the most devious mind Arthur has ever encountered, and that includes his mother’s. Anyway, if god hadn’t wanted him to cheat, he wouldn’t have invented Google.
The rest of the day is spent catching up on his reading and TV watching – he has yet to see the last few episodes of White Collar, something that annoys him no end. He puts together a leisurely dinner – nothing fancy, just Spaghetti Bolognese with freshly steamed vegetables, and he goes to bed relatively early with some mindless entertainment – Agassi’s new biography that promises all the inside gossip of the tennis circuit, something he had once assumed he would be part of, way before the knee surgery and torn hamstring had put paid to the idea.
All in all, it is a very calm, if somewhat too relaxed Arthur that makes his way into the office, clutching onto his take-away coffee and attempting to kick his ass back into gear for the coming week. He doesn’t remember that the consultant for the Selfridges project coming in from England gets here today until he hears the unmistakable cut-glass tones of his British counterpart.
“… don’t want to put this right here, see? It cuts into the front windows space, and you should know that Selfridges is famous for its enormous and ridiculously complicated displays,” the Brit’s voice carries over to him, and Arthur bristles. That’s his research that asshole is poking holes into.
Arthur dumps his huge bag stuffed with blueprints on top of his desk, sheds his jacket like a second skin, rolls up his sleeves in preparation for battle and quickly makes his way down the hall and into the huge open-plan meeting-cum-drawing space that serves as their planning room. It takes up the entire south corner of the floor, and is almost entirely walled in by glass. There are a few columns that carry the weight of the above floor instead of the solid walls, and it gives the impression of limitless space that Arthur finds almost ridiculously liberating.
Dominick Cobb, his boss, and Ariadne, the ridiculously talented junior partner, are poring over the initial design that Arthur had painstakingly put together on Friday. The third person there, presumably the owner of the really-not-at-all-pleasant baritone, has his back to him, but something in his posture and the non-existent cut of his shirt…
“Eames?!” Arthur blurts out, voice an octave higher from the surprise that has his body frozen and stiff.
Eames spins around quickly, eyebrows trying to burrow into his hairline. Arthur sees the shock widening his eyes and making his jaw drop; sees it concealed just as quickly as it had appeared.
“Well, well. Arthur. Of all the gin joints in all the world, eh?” Eames drawls, and how could Arthur not have realised just why that accent had sounded so familiar?
“You two know each other?” Ariadne asks, wide eyes flittering between the two of them sizing each other up.
“Yeah, he’s the obnoxious asshole that made my exchange year absolute hell!” Arthur sneers, shooting daggers at the way Eames’ lips tug down at the edges.
“Oh, Arthur, always such a stick-in-the-mud,” he chides mockingly, a calculated glint in his eye. “I invited you to all the parties; it was you who decided you didn’t want to go, as I recall.”
“All the parties that you threw next door during exams!” Arthur retaliates, irritated at how Eames is twisting the facts.
“All work and no play make Arthur a very dull boy indeed,” Eames teases, but the amusement in his voice is barbed, and there’s no smile on his face.
“I played plenty,” Arthur spits out, stung at the backhanded insult.
Eames scoffs. “Please. I hardly saw you poke your nose out of your room for the entire year, if it wasn’t to go to classes.”
“As opposed to you, who never showed up to them! I can’t believe you’re here to consult us!”
Eames’ face shutters closed. “Tell me, Arthur, since you are so familiar with my attendance record, what was my average pass rate on those exams?” his voice is silken but the threat is clear.
Arthur feels himself flush in a mixture of anger, embarrassment and extremely reluctant admiration. For someone who barely bothered to attend the classes, Eames’ exam results were the stuff of legend -- he is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant students to have ever passed through University College London.
“Well?” Eames prompts, eyebrows raised and unrelenting when Arthur hesitates.
“You’ve made your point,” Arthur says shortly, embarrassed and irritated in equal measures. How does Eames always manage to make him feel like a schoolboy in the wrong?!
“Will someone deign to translate this little entendre for the rest of us not in on the joke?” Cobb’s stern voice cuts through their squabble. Arthur feels his ears heat at the realisation of how very unprofessionally Eames is making him behave.
Eames smirks at him, an infuriatingly smug twist of his lips that Arthur wants to smack right off his face. “My apologies,” he says, mouth twisting into a charming smile in the flash of a second it takes for him to turn and face the others. “There is no need to rehash such an old, stale argument in front of you lovely people, is there, Arthur?”
Arthur grits his teeth, incensed, but steels himself with a ridiculous effort of will. Eames can go fuck himself.
“I apologise, Dom, Ariadne.” Arthur’s voice is a frozen icicle in the middle of a Siberian winter. “Let’s get back to work.”
---
Arthur sits at his desk some hours later and tries to absorb Eames’ scribbles on the edges of the small-scale drawing that he and Ariadne had altered beyond recognition. His eyes follow the crisp, flowing lines that transect at strange angles, lifting the design out of the mundane and into something quite extraordinary.
“Tsk, still no imagination” – he can still hear Eames’ dig at him, whispered for his ears only in that liquid seduction voice that Arthur has spent years re-living in his dreams, and a muscle in Arthur’s jaw had twitched almost painfully from the effort it had taken not to snap back. He wouldn’t give Eames the satisfaction. Eames had looked at him with eager eyes, waiting like a predator in the tall grass, preparing to spring at Arthur’s exposed throat. When Arthur had turned and stalked away, he could have sworn that he’d heard Eames chuckle darkly into the empty space Arthur’s departure had left.
Fact of the matter is, Arthur can’t afford to let Eames get to him again. His invitations back then had been more than invites to parties – most of them had been invites to private parties, where the only visitors would have been just the two of them – the ridiculously intelligent, ruthlessly brilliant prodigy and the awkward exchange student dangerously enamoured of him. Arthur had known even then, that as soon as he’d let himself loosen his rigid control, let the thing that had been building between them take its course, it would have been all over, his helpless infatuation triggering the damned ‘curse’, and Arthur couldn’t stand the thought of having something so addictive and losing it after barely tasting it. Eames’ over-the-top, almost-but-not-quite-a-joke flirting had still been better than nothing at all, a cold shoulder and a made-up excuse he could practically see coming when the next bright young thing would catch Eames’ eye.
So Arthur had bristled (glared, snarked, ignored) and all the while he had pretended that the gaping emptiness he felt was not Eames-shaped. And then he had left, and buried the regret somewhere deep, a truth he had known but had chosen to forget.
Now here Eames is again, in his face, impossible to ignore or work around, a goddamned brilliant supernova that snares him in its gravity, all the more damaging for exerting no conscious effort at all. Arthur can deny it all he wants, but the truth is, Eames fascinates him like no one ever has. Even his handwriting is absurdly attractive, elongated and cursive and spiky at the same time, and Arthur has to decipher it like he would a code, much like he had once learned to decipher the man himself.
He’s still staring at the blueprints when Ariadne flounces inside his office and unceremoniously claims the least cluttered corner of his desk, flopping on top of it in not entirely exaggerated exhaustion.
“Wanna go for a drink, Arthur? You can tell me all about the mysterious Mr Eames,” she cajoles, grinning slyly at him, and Arthur can barely conceive of something he wants to do less. He tells her so in no uncertain terms.
“Oh, Arthur, don’t be like that! Yusuf and I are dying to hear all the juicy bits!” Ariadne leers unattractively.
Arthur scowls up at her.
“Don’t make me sic Mal on you,” she threatens, going for the big guns with no respect for his sanity already hanging by a thread.
Arthur has no choice but to agree, and he absolutely does not give in to the urge to beat his head against the desk in despair. Well. Maybe a little.
---
“So you’re telling me that you had that gorgeous hunk of manmeat practically throw himself at you all year, and you did nothing about it?!” Ariadne shouts in his ear, loud enough to make herself heard over the noise in the bar they’d ended up crashing in. Arthur is impressed at how much inflection she is still able to infuse into her voice despite the quantity of empty glasses littering their small table.
He pulls back just enough to glare at her properly – at the Ariadne closest to him, anyway. He can’t remember how much he’s had to drink already, and on a work night! A Monday night, moreover! Eames really is going to ruin his life this time around. Yusuf is mumbling gently into his arms where they rest on the table with his head on top of them. Arthur knows this because only moments ago he’d been doing the very same thing.
There is an awful, uncomfortable weight in his chest that feels very close to despair. It’s been well over a year since he’d last felt it, but he knows the sensation all too well. He tries to pretend it isn’t there. It doesn’t work half as well as he’d hoped.
“Ariadne, you have met me, yes?” he whines at her.
Ariadne laughs – she’s done more than meet him; he’s the reason she’s engaged to Robert Fischer, one of the richest, most powerful men around. He’d really liked her too – fat lot of good that’d done him.
“There’s no proof whatsoever that you’re cursed, Arthur, I’ve told you this a thousand times,” she scolds affectionately. Arthur just glares at her mulishly.
“You helped with the statistics! You’ve seen the results for yourself! I’d rather—“ he drifts off, unwilling to voice his rather presumptuous thoughts.
Ariadne has, unfortunately, been spending far too much time with Mal recently. “What, you think he’s going to sleep with you and pull a disappearing act?” she scoffs.
“That is not the worst-case scenario,” Arthur mutters under his breath, hoping that the music would drown his pathetic pity party. The bar is hot and muggy, and the amount of drink he’s knocked back makes him overheated and dizzy. He unbuttons another button on his shirt; his tie has long been relegated to the recesses of his already overflowing satchel.
“What then?” Ariadne persists, wearing her baffled expression. Her hearing really is excellent.
“He might stay. For a while, at least,” Arthur explains in a gruff, too-many-cocktails-with-silly-names voice. He tilts his head back against the wall their booth encroaches and closes his eyes, just for a moment. His stomach gives a lurch; he’s not sure whether it’s caused by the excess of alcohol or thoughts of Eames leaving him behind. “’S better this way,” he adds.
“Arthur,” Ariadne says; the seriousness of her tone pulls him right out of his daze and makes him look at her properly, eyes focusing with some effort. “Arthur, you can’t keep doing this to yourself. Have you never heard of a self-fulfilling prophesy? You have the right to be happy. You deserve to be happy,” she tells him, sounding so adamant that it makes him smile wryly.
“It’s okay, Ariadne,” he slurs, unaware of how tired he sounds. “I make people happy; just not happy enough to want to stay with me. ‘S fine. That’s just the way my life works.”
Ariadne looks torn between the urge to hug him and hit him over the head. “If I hear you say that again, Arthur Mann, I’m going to kick your ass six ways to Sunday. Fucking hell, just give it a go, will you? If it happens, it happens. At least that way you’ll know for sure that Eames isn’t the one to stay with you, and you won’t regret letting him get away without a fight for the rest of your life.”
Arthur is bemused – he knows he’s drunk, but it doesn’t explain how Ariadne knows about the way he feels about Eames. No one’s supposed to know that. He blinks at her in confusion. “’S just Eames,” he tries lamely.
Ariadne arches an eyebrow at him and gives him a Look. “Don’t you try and bullshit me, Arthur Mann, I saw you when you came back from England three years ago, and now I’ve had the chance to see the way you look at him. Remember, I was your friend years before we dated at all.”
Arthur attempts to smirk mockingly and mostly fails. He lets his head flop sideways and looks away from her unimpressed face. “Wow, full-naming me twice in the space of two minutes – you must be serious.”
“I am,” Ariadne nods firmly and nudges at his side gently. “So? You’ll give it a try?”
Arthur’s shoulders slump in defeat. “Fine. This conversation is extremely hypothetical, anyway – he obviously doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore. Hell, I wouldn’t want anything to do with me after the unspeakable bastard I’ve been to him.”
She sighs unhappily. “Just try, Arthur. I hate seeing you so miserable,” she pleads, tugging mournfully at his sleeve, and Arthur knows denial is a lost cause.
---
Arthur wakes up the next morning with a vile taste in his mouth and a head that feels unsettlingly fragile. He peeks at his alarm clock, trying not to panic at the thought of being late, and almost sags with relief when it reads 7.03AM – he’s up in time, at least. He drags himself out of bed, takes a quick shower, uses a third of the remaining toothpaste in the almost finished tube to brush the fur from his teeth and stumbles into the kitchen to make toast – the only thing he can stomach at this point.
He feels marginally better after he’s chomped his was through two pieces, and manages to get dressed and leave his flat in good time to catch his usual commuter train. He even has a few minutes left over to dip into the small coffee shop near the office that serves proper Italian roast and pick up a large coffee. On a whim, he orders two – he has little hope that it might work as a peace offering, but it’s a start, at least. He just hopes Eames doesn’t end up accidentally spilling it all over his favourite charcoal grey vest and white pinstriped shirt combination, but it’s a necessary risk.
He makes it inside the building just as the large, ornate clock in the foyer chimes nine o’clock. He winces slightly – he’s normally in by 8.30AM at the latest, but he’s thankful he managed to make it in time at all under the circumstances. His head is still fuzzy, but it’s steadily clearing little by little. He strides quickly into the lift just as the doors start to close – he manages to press the call button just in time to make it. He smiles apologetically at the four other people inside and squeezes himself into a free corner, trying not to take up too much space with the two coffees held protectively to his chest.
His stomach flips oddly when he gets off on his floor, and with a start he realises that he’s actually nervous – about seeing Eames, about apologising—about bringing him a damned coffee?! This is getting ridiculous. He half-wants to just shelve the whole thing; it would be so much easier to let it slide, suffer Eames’ presence for the next however many months and wait it out until Eames goes home at last. He probably wouldn’t see him again after that – what are the odds of another British institution opening a branch in New York and hiring their firm to draw up the plans?
To his utter shock and mortification, the thought of never seeing Eames again makes his chest tighten and ache alarmingly. Oh, fuck. He is so very screwed.
The man in question picks this time to saunter out of his temporary office – there is a spare desk in Ariadne’s space left over from the last intern, Nash, who had been beyond useless and had disappeared as soon as his work experience had been over (unlike Ariadne, who had been offered a position on the spot). Eames’ shirt is a welcome surprise and soothes his gritty eyes – a muted blue-and-purple-striped affair neatly tucked into a pair of well-worn, extremely comfortable looking jeans. Arthur almost swallows his tongue at the sight.
This is, of course, the moment when Eames spots him standing there in his trench coat, no doubt gaping like an absolute moron. There is something wary and cautious in Eames’ face, in the way his eyes dart away seconds after meeting Arthur’s, that hits Arthur like a sucker punch in the gut. He clears his throat and swallows reflexively before squaring his shoulders and walking quickly over to where Eames, on seeing him approach, halts in his stride.
Arthur thrusts the coffee in his right hand forward ungracefully, not quite managing to look Eames in the eye himself.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry. About yesterday. It was unprofessional and unnecessary and.” He pauses for breath and looks everywhere but at Eames, finally speaking at his shoulders. “I know you can do your job, that was never an issue, and it was unfair of me to question your abilities in front of the others. It won’t happen again.”
Eames takes the coffee carefully from his outstretched hand, but doesn’t say anything. When the silence stretches for over a minute, Arthur chances a look at his face. Eames has a strange look in his eyes, still a little wary but a hell of a lot more considering than it had been before. The weight of his gaze makes Arthur uncomfortable and he struggles not to fidget.
“Say something,” he blurts when the tension becomes too much.
The corner of Eames’ mouth quirks in a wry grin. “Much obliged, Arthur,” he murmurs and opens the lid on his takeaway cup, taking a quick sip, never looking away from him. His eyes widen at the taste. “Cream and two sugars. You remembered.”
Arthur feels himself blush a little and hates himself for it. “Yes, well,” he hedges. “It’s a little difficult to forget when you bumped into me at the coffee shop practically every morning for over six months.”
Eames’ grin widens. “Of course,” he allows. The condescending tone makes Arthur want to smack the smirk off his face, but the way his eyes twinkle makes him want to do something quite different.
Eames outright laughs at the scowl on Arthur’s face and just like that, Arthur can feel the atmosphere between them changing, slipping right back into the teasing banter that had defined their six months of enforced cohabitation. He really doesn’t want to notice the way the tension drains right out of him along with the mock-irritated huff he directs at Eames, but it’s difficult to miss his stance relaxing and his fingers unclenching from the death grip he had on his coffee cup.
He notices Eames’ eyes flicker down to them and reminds himself for the nth time not to underestimate the man. Eames has always been frighteningly observant, and beneath the relaxed exterior lurks a mind like a steel trap. Once Eames gets hold of something, he worries at it like the proverbial English Bulldog until he unravels it completely; and the way he is sizing Arthur up gives him a hint as to the nature of his next project. Arthur tries and fails to suppress a shiver of apprehension at the sight.
---
Eames has been watching him all day, small glances and much more direct looks, not quite as surreptitious as Arthur imagines Eames thinks they are. Every time Arthur shifts, goes to fetch a blueprint or stretches to add a notation to the top of a wall chart, the tiny hairs at the back of his neck rise in recognition of the eyes boring into his back. Every time he looks back at him, though, Eames’ attention is always occupied with something, and he makes a show of raising his eyes to Arthur’s and quirking an inquiring eyebrow at him that irritates and draws him at the same time.
He’s helpless to stop himself from watching Eames in return – the way his shirt tugs out of his belt a little every time he stretches, the way his fair hair falls into his eyes every now and again, only to tangle with his eyelashes until he runs an impatient hand through it. The way he regards Cobb so intently, considering every point and coming back with his own spot-on twist on it; the way he laughs at Ariadne’s snarked asides – warm, and comfortable, and relaxed, head thrown back and shoulders shaking, full lips stretching to reveal slightly crooked teeth that make Arthur all kinds of shivery inside.
Arthur concentrates on his work as best he can with the constant distraction Eames’ mere presence provides. He’s really pleased with the way the morning has gone; the relief he feels at being back in Eames’ good graces is uncomfortably real, and he’d rather not think too much on the warmth he’d felt seep through him at the sound of Eames’ laughter, at the way his eyes had gone from shuttered to light in the space of moments.
Before he knows it, it’s gone lunchtime and his stomach has recovered sufficiently to insistently demand sustenance, and he can hear the sandwich shop down the street call his name. He grabs his coat and wanders over to the meeting room to ask the rest of the team if they want him to pick something up for them as well.
Ariadne asks for the chicken salad, and Cobb wants an egg and watercress sandwich. Instead of adding his request to the others’, Eames perks up at the question. “Lovely! You can show me the best sandwich place in the area for when it’s my turn to do a run!” His enthusiasm is contagious, and Arthur swallows the ‘it’s just a sandwich shop’ that is trying to escape unchecked. He nods instead and Eames beams at him, tugs his jacket on over broad shoulders that strain the fabric and follows him out of the office.
They ride the elevator down to the lobby in relative silence, Arthur trying not to fidget and Eames humming happily under his breath. Arthur turns right at the entrance, and they set off at a brisk pace.
“So,” Eames breaks the silence before it has a chance to become uncomfortable, “how long have you been working for Cobb?”
Arthur can’t help the fond smile that twists his lips at the memory. “He recruited me just after graduation,” he replies, grateful for Eames’ usual disregard of any possible awkwardness. “Apparently Mal had been ‘observing’ me for a few months already – they’d requested copies of my thesis as soon as I’d submitted it.”
At Eames’ questioning glance, Arthur clarifies, “Mal is Dom’s wife. She’s French and rather lovely; she’ll love you,” he observes drily, mostly to himself, because Mal would – Eames is just her kind of never following the rules daredevil.
“I can’t wait to meet her,” Eames says with a grin. “She sounds fascinating. So she and Cobb stalked you until you agreed to work for them?”
Arthur bites his lip to stop a snort from escaping at the rather accurate mental image. “Something like that,” he allows. “Mal called to whisk me away to a meeting with her and Dom less than two hours after the final exam results came out. Let’s just say the rest is history.”
“They obviously knew a good thing when they saw it,” Eames murmurs, quietly sincere, and Arthur’s pulse speeds up alarmingly. As pick-up lines go this is almost tame in comparison to what Eames used to come up with years ago, but the simple fact it’s there at all speaks volumes. He fights the pleased smile Eames’ veiled compliment evokes, but he’s not trying especially hard and it sneaks across his face anyway.
There’s a sharply indrawn breath next to him and he looks Eames’ way inquiringly. Eames is looking at him strangely, a slight narrowing to his eyes; Arthur wonders if he’s said something wrong and looks away in confusion, gestures to show they’ve reached the shop. Eames holds the door open for him, waving him in with an elaborate bow; Arthur rolls his eyes, but try as he might, he can’t stop the breath from catching in his throat at Eames’ delighted look.
---
Despite his better judgement, Arthur lets himself fall in love. It isn’t hard, not when you consider that if he’s honest with himself, he’s probably been in love with Eames for years. It starts with coffee – it always starts with coffee for the two of them, whether it’s here in New York or thousands of miles away across the ocean. It starts with them sitting at a table at Arthur’s favourite coffee shop by the office, the one with the Italian roast that re-kindled the whole affair. It starts with a pad and a pen, with a discussion over one of Arthur’s designs, but pretty soon it’s a discussion of anything but.
It’s about coffee, and the new play on Broadway, and Eames’ niece’s third birthday party, and Arthur’s disbelief over how Eames could possibly believe that The Matrix is an elaborate allegory on dreams and dreaming, when clearly it’s a, albeit unconventional, re-telling of every religious myth out there.
Later – weeks and weeks later – it’s in the way Eames’ hand feels on the small of Arthur’s back when he follows him out of a restaurant, and about the way he hesitates ever so slightly before holding the door to his flat open for Arthur to enter, unreadable eyes looking back at him over his shoulder. It’s about how Arthur is terrified and exultant at the same time as he reaches for Eames’ shoulders and tugs his coat off, when all Eames can do is stand there in his dark, half-empty living room and stare at him. It’s in the way Eames groans his surrender into Arthur’s mouth when Arthur presses closer to his warm, solid body and tugs his head a little to the side, the better to kiss him wide open. It’s in the way that Eames presses him into the wall, hands everywhere, trying to hold on for dear life and at the same time trying to let Arthur set himself free.
It’s in the way Eames holds him, with arms and legs and lips and inner muscles as Arthur moves above him, inside him, deeper inside him than anyone has ever been (Arthur hopes in uncensored moments of wishful thinking). It’s about the way he says Arthur’s name (brokenly, lovingly) when Arthur shudders and presses in as far as he can possibly go.
It’s about more coffee in the morning, and the only edible things in Eames’ fridge being coffee cream and butter for their toast. It’s about Eames’ smile, the one that lights up his entire face, as if all his Christmases have come at once, when Arthur flaps about in a panic because his shirt is not only yesterday’s, but is also creased beyond belief from lying forgotten in a heap on the bedroom floor all night, and how the hell is he supposed to show up for work looking utterly ravished?
And, in the end, it’s about the way he gets into work late for the first time since he started there, a silly smile on his face that, to his extreme consternation, won’t go away.
---
It ends, Arthur will think later, with a feeling of dread curling in his stomach when Eames spends their breakfast together shooting him small, unhappy glances. Arthur can’t work them out and winds himself up something fierce for the next half hour, until he goes to put the milk away and happens to spot Eames’ makeshift calendar on the side of the fridge, September half-defaced by a large Union Jack flag that takes up almost the entire page.
It’s not like Arthur hasn’t been expecting it, really. The project is drawing to a close; they are only a week or so away from handing it over to the construction team. After that only moderate supervision will be required, and Selfridges has other consultants on hand for that. If he’s honest, Arthur’s been avoiding thinking about it, as if that would make Eames’ departure date stretch away infinitely into the distance.
Throughout the four and a half months that they have been doing… whatever they’ve been doing, there have been so, so many times that Arthur has tried keeping his distance, emotionally at least, because he’d have to have been a fool not to realise that this thing can’t last; and Arthur is many things, but a fool isn’t one of them.
Okay, so that bit before is a bit of a lie. Arthur has been thinking about Eames leaving, has been thinking a lot about throwing himself at his mercy and begging him not to. The logistics are unpleasant, but a long-distance relationship is doable—every time Arthur tries to think them through, though, he realises they aren’t all that doable after all. What, they’re going to have some sort of intercontinental romance, see each other every month, couple of months on the outside? Can they live like that, constantly missing the other while Arthur slowly kills himself with thoughts of Eames falling in love with someone else and, when the time comes for him to visit Arthur, not turning up at all? Arthur has been getting better at managing his curse, but he’s not naïve enough to believe that ‘love conquers all’, or any other romantic delusions.
Eames’ worried looks are starting to wear at him; it’s so hard to concentrate when Eames’ presence is all over Arthur’s apartment – lurid shirts dropped unceremoniously over chairs, a pair of shoes kicked away at the door, Eames’ stupid poker-chip tie draped across the back of the sofa – every single one of them a reminder of how close they’ve become that poke at Arthur’s heart, until he’s afraid that there will be one sting too many and his heart will burst all over the place, in so many pieces that it might never knit together again.
He’s fidgeting with the laundry for something to take his mind away from the inevitable change looming on the horizon when Eames places large, warm hands over his shoulders and forcibly stills him.
“Can’t we just talk about it?” he asks softly, carefully, as if he’s afraid of what Arthur might say, afraid of the damage it might do.
“What’s there to talk about? You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Arthur is quite amazed by how steady and no-nonsense his voice is, when inside he might as well be screaming.
“Yes,” Eames says carefully, but there’s no finality to it, only questions. Despite himself Arthur turns around to look at him, eyebrows raised and eyes hopeful.
“I have to go back, to tie up some projects, if nothing else,” Eames elaborates, and Arthur knows, just knows, that Eames really believes that, just as Arthur knows that when Eames leaves New York he’ll inevitably be heading for meeting his future other half.
“Look, Arthur,” Eames starts, and Arthur braces himself. “I know it’s been all kinds of strange, this relationship of ours, but I’m—I’d like to come back. Once I’m done in London, I mean. I’d like to see if we can go the distance, despite the wobbly start.”
It’s curious, Arthur can actually feel his heart breaking, the contrast between Eames’ words, his tone, his hopeful eyes, and what Arthur knows is bound to happen; it’s slicing little chunks of his heart away with every stilted breath.
“I’d love that,” he says, plays along with the stupid need in his chest, smiles at Eames as happily as he can manage while inside he’s crumbling to dust. Eames’ relieved, affectionate smile threatens to tear him apart, and he can’t quite look him in the eye.
---
He sees Eames off at JFK on the evening of 24th September. It’s a Friday, and it feels like an ending.
“I’ll be back before you know it, love,” Eames says, but there’s a worried line between his eyebrows when he looks at Arthur. Arthur knows he’s not looking his best; pretending, playing the part of happy expectation, making plans for when they’re going to see each other again – it’s taking his toll on him, and he knows that he looks dejected. He hopes Eames just attributes it to their temporary separation, rather than the permanent one Arthur knows this is.
He nods at Eames anyway, and smiles – he doesn’t want Eames to remember him drawn and miserable.
“I’ll call you when I get home,” Eames promises, and kisses him goodbye. Arthur clings to him desperately, a little wildly, and for once he doesn’t care that he’s making a scene, or that there’s a disapproving gasp or two nearby. He just wants to bask in Eames’ presence, be close to him just once more.
He watches Eames walk away through the checkpoint, turn to smile and wave at him one last time. Then he turns around, walks out of the airport, takes a cab home and gets horribly, vilely drunk.
Part Two
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Word count: ~12,000
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none to speak of, a fairly large doze of (resolved) angst and a good doze of fluff.
Disclaimer: I'm just playing in Christopher Nolan's sandpit.
Summary: Eames makes Arthur want to believe in happy endings again.
A/N: And so, I've taken the plunge. Written for the
inception_kink meme, for this prompt: Arthur is "that guy", the one that makes girls realize they're lesbians and guys that they're straight. Arthur resists Eames' more serious advances because he doesn't want to lose what little they have. I've tweaked the prompt a little, and good god, 12,000 words for a kink meme fill, I don't even know. This has been re-written a little from the original post, and cleaned up a lot. Title comes from Ol' Blue Eyes' song of the same name.I Won't Dance
It’s a lovely, warm Saturday morning in early April and Arthur takes advantage of the spring sunshine, strolling sedately but purposefully down the street to the nearby bookshop where a shipment of the books he’d ordered last week has just arrived. His attention wanders to the different shop fronts, focusing on nothing in particular apart from the bright colours and strange shapes abounding on the busy street. As such, he almost misses his name being called from one of the sidewalk tables in front of the small café he passes on his way to work every day.
“Arthur, over here!” comes again, and he looks around distractedly. A petite dark-haired woman is smiling and waving at him enthusiastically from beside a statuesque strawberry-blonde young woman.
Arthur smiles back warmly and makes his way through the cluttered tables and over to their side. “Leanne! How lovely to see you. How are you?”
“Hello!” she beams up at him. “It’s so great to see you! Here, I’ve been wanting to introduce you to Jennifer for ages! Jen, this is Arthur, the one I was telling you about?” she turns to the other woman, who grins and looks him up and down.
“Wow, you never said he was so gorgeous! Are you sure you dumped him?” Jennifer teases Leanne and bumps her shoulder amiably.
Leanne mock-scowls. “You’re lucky I did go out with him at all, or I would never have figured it out,” she pouts. Jennifer dips her head to hide the amused twitch of her lips, but reaches for her hand, twines their fingers together and strokes the back of them affectionately; Leanne loses the pout and grins back.
Arthur can’t help but smile self-depreciatingly at how happy they look together. He makes his excuses, explains he has somewhere to be, asks them to call him sometime for a coffee and a chat. He winds his way back onto the street and resumes his stride, his good mood dimmed, but not gone. To someone else the encounter would have seemed strange, unsettling; to Arthur, it’s just a part of his life, something he’s had to get used to and make his peace with.
Leanne is not the first girl who’d realised she’s gay after getting together with Arthur – he’s well aware he is ‘that guy’, the one that turns girls into lesbians and gay men straight. Going out with Arthur means that within weeks of the event, girls and guys fall in love – just not with him.
It had started with Alicia, the first girl he’d had a crush on since starting college, just over a month in. She had been lovely – long dark hair, beautiful dove grey eyes, gorgeous complexion – every man’s dream. They had been young, fumbling and eager and curious the first time they’d started making out. Half-way through, just when things had been getting heated, she had frozen him in his tracks by bursting into tears. Arthur had been horrified that he’d hurt her in some way, until she had tearfully stuttered that she’d thought that she was more into girls than guys, that she liked Arthur so much, but she just couldn’t sleep with him, and she was sorry, so sorry. Arthur, ever the gentleman and not a little taken aback, had fallen over himself to reassure her and see her safely back to her dorm.
He had written it off as a freak accident – it happened all the time, right? He hadn’t let it get him down, but he had decided to try his luck with guys next – he and Joseph had dated for almost three months before Joseph had taken him aside and haltingly told him that he didn’t think he was gay, after all, and had apologised for leading Arthur on for so long that, despite feeling rather hurt, Arthur had been ready to tell him anything just to shut him up.
And then, in his final year of university, Arthur had fallen heads over heels for his smart, funny, gorgeous project partner, Daphne. They had dated for almost four months – Arthur still remembers the overwhelming relief he’d felt at the thought that all his previous relationship disasters had obviously been a fluke, and that his curse had finally been broken; in the end, it had been him that had been broken – his heart, that is.
It hadn’t been enough that he was turning guys straight and girls gay; he also appeared to be the other definition of ‘that guy’ – the one before The One. Daphne had met her future husband not a week after breaking things off with Arthur; it appeared that the harder Arthur fell for someone, the stronger the bounce-off had been.
One time is an accident. Twice – well, the odds are against it but still, it happens. By the sixth time an ex had found their husbands/wives after breaking up with Arthur, it had become a pattern and Arthur had thrown in the towel. He was done getting his heart broken, and sex was always unsatisfying – like his partners were waiting for something, for a train to take them far away, maybe.
Arthur has no idea why all of this is happening to him, where he goes wrong, but he is sure he must go wrong somewhere, flip some switch that makes people realise just what they are looking for, and that Arthur is most definitely not it. Arthur has analysed this phenomenon over and over again, applying any and all statistical variables to it, and he thinks he has the boundaries of his curse figured. It goes like this:
A: one-night stand to one month of relationship = girls realise they are, in fact, lesbians.
B: one month to two and a half months of dating = guys realise they are, in fact, straight.
C: over three months of dating + Arthur falling in love with them = Arthur is not the one they are looking for.
D: within six months of C occurring, his ex-partners are settling down with the woman/man of their dreams.
Which leads to the current moment in time. Arthur is 28-years-old, a successful, up-and-coming architect in one of the top firms in New York, and he is single, and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future – of his own making, this time around.
The best-laid plans and all that.
---
Arthur spends Sunday at home. He gets up late (8.30AM), puts breakfast TV on while he makes himself pancakes as a treat, drenches them with maple syrup and spends four blissfully quiet hours lounging at he kitchen table with his enormous French press and all the weekend papers he could get his hands on at the newsagents around the corner. He pores over the supplements and in a fit of anarchy leaves the news for last. The crosswords alone take him well over an hour and a half, and to his consternation he has to resort to cheating – the New York Times Sunday crossword compiler has the most devious mind Arthur has ever encountered, and that includes his mother’s. Anyway, if god hadn’t wanted him to cheat, he wouldn’t have invented Google.
The rest of the day is spent catching up on his reading and TV watching – he has yet to see the last few episodes of White Collar, something that annoys him no end. He puts together a leisurely dinner – nothing fancy, just Spaghetti Bolognese with freshly steamed vegetables, and he goes to bed relatively early with some mindless entertainment – Agassi’s new biography that promises all the inside gossip of the tennis circuit, something he had once assumed he would be part of, way before the knee surgery and torn hamstring had put paid to the idea.
All in all, it is a very calm, if somewhat too relaxed Arthur that makes his way into the office, clutching onto his take-away coffee and attempting to kick his ass back into gear for the coming week. He doesn’t remember that the consultant for the Selfridges project coming in from England gets here today until he hears the unmistakable cut-glass tones of his British counterpart.
“… don’t want to put this right here, see? It cuts into the front windows space, and you should know that Selfridges is famous for its enormous and ridiculously complicated displays,” the Brit’s voice carries over to him, and Arthur bristles. That’s his research that asshole is poking holes into.
Arthur dumps his huge bag stuffed with blueprints on top of his desk, sheds his jacket like a second skin, rolls up his sleeves in preparation for battle and quickly makes his way down the hall and into the huge open-plan meeting-cum-drawing space that serves as their planning room. It takes up the entire south corner of the floor, and is almost entirely walled in by glass. There are a few columns that carry the weight of the above floor instead of the solid walls, and it gives the impression of limitless space that Arthur finds almost ridiculously liberating.
Dominick Cobb, his boss, and Ariadne, the ridiculously talented junior partner, are poring over the initial design that Arthur had painstakingly put together on Friday. The third person there, presumably the owner of the really-not-at-all-pleasant baritone, has his back to him, but something in his posture and the non-existent cut of his shirt…
“Eames?!” Arthur blurts out, voice an octave higher from the surprise that has his body frozen and stiff.
Eames spins around quickly, eyebrows trying to burrow into his hairline. Arthur sees the shock widening his eyes and making his jaw drop; sees it concealed just as quickly as it had appeared.
“Well, well. Arthur. Of all the gin joints in all the world, eh?” Eames drawls, and how could Arthur not have realised just why that accent had sounded so familiar?
“You two know each other?” Ariadne asks, wide eyes flittering between the two of them sizing each other up.
“Yeah, he’s the obnoxious asshole that made my exchange year absolute hell!” Arthur sneers, shooting daggers at the way Eames’ lips tug down at the edges.
“Oh, Arthur, always such a stick-in-the-mud,” he chides mockingly, a calculated glint in his eye. “I invited you to all the parties; it was you who decided you didn’t want to go, as I recall.”
“All the parties that you threw next door during exams!” Arthur retaliates, irritated at how Eames is twisting the facts.
“All work and no play make Arthur a very dull boy indeed,” Eames teases, but the amusement in his voice is barbed, and there’s no smile on his face.
“I played plenty,” Arthur spits out, stung at the backhanded insult.
Eames scoffs. “Please. I hardly saw you poke your nose out of your room for the entire year, if it wasn’t to go to classes.”
“As opposed to you, who never showed up to them! I can’t believe you’re here to consult us!”
Eames’ face shutters closed. “Tell me, Arthur, since you are so familiar with my attendance record, what was my average pass rate on those exams?” his voice is silken but the threat is clear.
Arthur feels himself flush in a mixture of anger, embarrassment and extremely reluctant admiration. For someone who barely bothered to attend the classes, Eames’ exam results were the stuff of legend -- he is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant students to have ever passed through University College London.
“Well?” Eames prompts, eyebrows raised and unrelenting when Arthur hesitates.
“You’ve made your point,” Arthur says shortly, embarrassed and irritated in equal measures. How does Eames always manage to make him feel like a schoolboy in the wrong?!
“Will someone deign to translate this little entendre for the rest of us not in on the joke?” Cobb’s stern voice cuts through their squabble. Arthur feels his ears heat at the realisation of how very unprofessionally Eames is making him behave.
Eames smirks at him, an infuriatingly smug twist of his lips that Arthur wants to smack right off his face. “My apologies,” he says, mouth twisting into a charming smile in the flash of a second it takes for him to turn and face the others. “There is no need to rehash such an old, stale argument in front of you lovely people, is there, Arthur?”
Arthur grits his teeth, incensed, but steels himself with a ridiculous effort of will. Eames can go fuck himself.
“I apologise, Dom, Ariadne.” Arthur’s voice is a frozen icicle in the middle of a Siberian winter. “Let’s get back to work.”
---
Arthur sits at his desk some hours later and tries to absorb Eames’ scribbles on the edges of the small-scale drawing that he and Ariadne had altered beyond recognition. His eyes follow the crisp, flowing lines that transect at strange angles, lifting the design out of the mundane and into something quite extraordinary.
“Tsk, still no imagination” – he can still hear Eames’ dig at him, whispered for his ears only in that liquid seduction voice that Arthur has spent years re-living in his dreams, and a muscle in Arthur’s jaw had twitched almost painfully from the effort it had taken not to snap back. He wouldn’t give Eames the satisfaction. Eames had looked at him with eager eyes, waiting like a predator in the tall grass, preparing to spring at Arthur’s exposed throat. When Arthur had turned and stalked away, he could have sworn that he’d heard Eames chuckle darkly into the empty space Arthur’s departure had left.
Fact of the matter is, Arthur can’t afford to let Eames get to him again. His invitations back then had been more than invites to parties – most of them had been invites to private parties, where the only visitors would have been just the two of them – the ridiculously intelligent, ruthlessly brilliant prodigy and the awkward exchange student dangerously enamoured of him. Arthur had known even then, that as soon as he’d let himself loosen his rigid control, let the thing that had been building between them take its course, it would have been all over, his helpless infatuation triggering the damned ‘curse’, and Arthur couldn’t stand the thought of having something so addictive and losing it after barely tasting it. Eames’ over-the-top, almost-but-not-quite-a-joke flirting had still been better than nothing at all, a cold shoulder and a made-up excuse he could practically see coming when the next bright young thing would catch Eames’ eye.
So Arthur had bristled (glared, snarked, ignored) and all the while he had pretended that the gaping emptiness he felt was not Eames-shaped. And then he had left, and buried the regret somewhere deep, a truth he had known but had chosen to forget.
Now here Eames is again, in his face, impossible to ignore or work around, a goddamned brilliant supernova that snares him in its gravity, all the more damaging for exerting no conscious effort at all. Arthur can deny it all he wants, but the truth is, Eames fascinates him like no one ever has. Even his handwriting is absurdly attractive, elongated and cursive and spiky at the same time, and Arthur has to decipher it like he would a code, much like he had once learned to decipher the man himself.
He’s still staring at the blueprints when Ariadne flounces inside his office and unceremoniously claims the least cluttered corner of his desk, flopping on top of it in not entirely exaggerated exhaustion.
“Wanna go for a drink, Arthur? You can tell me all about the mysterious Mr Eames,” she cajoles, grinning slyly at him, and Arthur can barely conceive of something he wants to do less. He tells her so in no uncertain terms.
“Oh, Arthur, don’t be like that! Yusuf and I are dying to hear all the juicy bits!” Ariadne leers unattractively.
Arthur scowls up at her.
“Don’t make me sic Mal on you,” she threatens, going for the big guns with no respect for his sanity already hanging by a thread.
Arthur has no choice but to agree, and he absolutely does not give in to the urge to beat his head against the desk in despair. Well. Maybe a little.
---
“So you’re telling me that you had that gorgeous hunk of manmeat practically throw himself at you all year, and you did nothing about it?!” Ariadne shouts in his ear, loud enough to make herself heard over the noise in the bar they’d ended up crashing in. Arthur is impressed at how much inflection she is still able to infuse into her voice despite the quantity of empty glasses littering their small table.
He pulls back just enough to glare at her properly – at the Ariadne closest to him, anyway. He can’t remember how much he’s had to drink already, and on a work night! A Monday night, moreover! Eames really is going to ruin his life this time around. Yusuf is mumbling gently into his arms where they rest on the table with his head on top of them. Arthur knows this because only moments ago he’d been doing the very same thing.
There is an awful, uncomfortable weight in his chest that feels very close to despair. It’s been well over a year since he’d last felt it, but he knows the sensation all too well. He tries to pretend it isn’t there. It doesn’t work half as well as he’d hoped.
“Ariadne, you have met me, yes?” he whines at her.
Ariadne laughs – she’s done more than meet him; he’s the reason she’s engaged to Robert Fischer, one of the richest, most powerful men around. He’d really liked her too – fat lot of good that’d done him.
“There’s no proof whatsoever that you’re cursed, Arthur, I’ve told you this a thousand times,” she scolds affectionately. Arthur just glares at her mulishly.
“You helped with the statistics! You’ve seen the results for yourself! I’d rather—“ he drifts off, unwilling to voice his rather presumptuous thoughts.
Ariadne has, unfortunately, been spending far too much time with Mal recently. “What, you think he’s going to sleep with you and pull a disappearing act?” she scoffs.
“That is not the worst-case scenario,” Arthur mutters under his breath, hoping that the music would drown his pathetic pity party. The bar is hot and muggy, and the amount of drink he’s knocked back makes him overheated and dizzy. He unbuttons another button on his shirt; his tie has long been relegated to the recesses of his already overflowing satchel.
“What then?” Ariadne persists, wearing her baffled expression. Her hearing really is excellent.
“He might stay. For a while, at least,” Arthur explains in a gruff, too-many-cocktails-with-silly-names voice. He tilts his head back against the wall their booth encroaches and closes his eyes, just for a moment. His stomach gives a lurch; he’s not sure whether it’s caused by the excess of alcohol or thoughts of Eames leaving him behind. “’S better this way,” he adds.
“Arthur,” Ariadne says; the seriousness of her tone pulls him right out of his daze and makes him look at her properly, eyes focusing with some effort. “Arthur, you can’t keep doing this to yourself. Have you never heard of a self-fulfilling prophesy? You have the right to be happy. You deserve to be happy,” she tells him, sounding so adamant that it makes him smile wryly.
“It’s okay, Ariadne,” he slurs, unaware of how tired he sounds. “I make people happy; just not happy enough to want to stay with me. ‘S fine. That’s just the way my life works.”
Ariadne looks torn between the urge to hug him and hit him over the head. “If I hear you say that again, Arthur Mann, I’m going to kick your ass six ways to Sunday. Fucking hell, just give it a go, will you? If it happens, it happens. At least that way you’ll know for sure that Eames isn’t the one to stay with you, and you won’t regret letting him get away without a fight for the rest of your life.”
Arthur is bemused – he knows he’s drunk, but it doesn’t explain how Ariadne knows about the way he feels about Eames. No one’s supposed to know that. He blinks at her in confusion. “’S just Eames,” he tries lamely.
Ariadne arches an eyebrow at him and gives him a Look. “Don’t you try and bullshit me, Arthur Mann, I saw you when you came back from England three years ago, and now I’ve had the chance to see the way you look at him. Remember, I was your friend years before we dated at all.”
Arthur attempts to smirk mockingly and mostly fails. He lets his head flop sideways and looks away from her unimpressed face. “Wow, full-naming me twice in the space of two minutes – you must be serious.”
“I am,” Ariadne nods firmly and nudges at his side gently. “So? You’ll give it a try?”
Arthur’s shoulders slump in defeat. “Fine. This conversation is extremely hypothetical, anyway – he obviously doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore. Hell, I wouldn’t want anything to do with me after the unspeakable bastard I’ve been to him.”
She sighs unhappily. “Just try, Arthur. I hate seeing you so miserable,” she pleads, tugging mournfully at his sleeve, and Arthur knows denial is a lost cause.
---
Arthur wakes up the next morning with a vile taste in his mouth and a head that feels unsettlingly fragile. He peeks at his alarm clock, trying not to panic at the thought of being late, and almost sags with relief when it reads 7.03AM – he’s up in time, at least. He drags himself out of bed, takes a quick shower, uses a third of the remaining toothpaste in the almost finished tube to brush the fur from his teeth and stumbles into the kitchen to make toast – the only thing he can stomach at this point.
He feels marginally better after he’s chomped his was through two pieces, and manages to get dressed and leave his flat in good time to catch his usual commuter train. He even has a few minutes left over to dip into the small coffee shop near the office that serves proper Italian roast and pick up a large coffee. On a whim, he orders two – he has little hope that it might work as a peace offering, but it’s a start, at least. He just hopes Eames doesn’t end up accidentally spilling it all over his favourite charcoal grey vest and white pinstriped shirt combination, but it’s a necessary risk.
He makes it inside the building just as the large, ornate clock in the foyer chimes nine o’clock. He winces slightly – he’s normally in by 8.30AM at the latest, but he’s thankful he managed to make it in time at all under the circumstances. His head is still fuzzy, but it’s steadily clearing little by little. He strides quickly into the lift just as the doors start to close – he manages to press the call button just in time to make it. He smiles apologetically at the four other people inside and squeezes himself into a free corner, trying not to take up too much space with the two coffees held protectively to his chest.
His stomach flips oddly when he gets off on his floor, and with a start he realises that he’s actually nervous – about seeing Eames, about apologising—about bringing him a damned coffee?! This is getting ridiculous. He half-wants to just shelve the whole thing; it would be so much easier to let it slide, suffer Eames’ presence for the next however many months and wait it out until Eames goes home at last. He probably wouldn’t see him again after that – what are the odds of another British institution opening a branch in New York and hiring their firm to draw up the plans?
To his utter shock and mortification, the thought of never seeing Eames again makes his chest tighten and ache alarmingly. Oh, fuck. He is so very screwed.
The man in question picks this time to saunter out of his temporary office – there is a spare desk in Ariadne’s space left over from the last intern, Nash, who had been beyond useless and had disappeared as soon as his work experience had been over (unlike Ariadne, who had been offered a position on the spot). Eames’ shirt is a welcome surprise and soothes his gritty eyes – a muted blue-and-purple-striped affair neatly tucked into a pair of well-worn, extremely comfortable looking jeans. Arthur almost swallows his tongue at the sight.
This is, of course, the moment when Eames spots him standing there in his trench coat, no doubt gaping like an absolute moron. There is something wary and cautious in Eames’ face, in the way his eyes dart away seconds after meeting Arthur’s, that hits Arthur like a sucker punch in the gut. He clears his throat and swallows reflexively before squaring his shoulders and walking quickly over to where Eames, on seeing him approach, halts in his stride.
Arthur thrusts the coffee in his right hand forward ungracefully, not quite managing to look Eames in the eye himself.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry. About yesterday. It was unprofessional and unnecessary and.” He pauses for breath and looks everywhere but at Eames, finally speaking at his shoulders. “I know you can do your job, that was never an issue, and it was unfair of me to question your abilities in front of the others. It won’t happen again.”
Eames takes the coffee carefully from his outstretched hand, but doesn’t say anything. When the silence stretches for over a minute, Arthur chances a look at his face. Eames has a strange look in his eyes, still a little wary but a hell of a lot more considering than it had been before. The weight of his gaze makes Arthur uncomfortable and he struggles not to fidget.
“Say something,” he blurts when the tension becomes too much.
The corner of Eames’ mouth quirks in a wry grin. “Much obliged, Arthur,” he murmurs and opens the lid on his takeaway cup, taking a quick sip, never looking away from him. His eyes widen at the taste. “Cream and two sugars. You remembered.”
Arthur feels himself blush a little and hates himself for it. “Yes, well,” he hedges. “It’s a little difficult to forget when you bumped into me at the coffee shop practically every morning for over six months.”
Eames’ grin widens. “Of course,” he allows. The condescending tone makes Arthur want to smack the smirk off his face, but the way his eyes twinkle makes him want to do something quite different.
Eames outright laughs at the scowl on Arthur’s face and just like that, Arthur can feel the atmosphere between them changing, slipping right back into the teasing banter that had defined their six months of enforced cohabitation. He really doesn’t want to notice the way the tension drains right out of him along with the mock-irritated huff he directs at Eames, but it’s difficult to miss his stance relaxing and his fingers unclenching from the death grip he had on his coffee cup.
He notices Eames’ eyes flicker down to them and reminds himself for the nth time not to underestimate the man. Eames has always been frighteningly observant, and beneath the relaxed exterior lurks a mind like a steel trap. Once Eames gets hold of something, he worries at it like the proverbial English Bulldog until he unravels it completely; and the way he is sizing Arthur up gives him a hint as to the nature of his next project. Arthur tries and fails to suppress a shiver of apprehension at the sight.
---
Eames has been watching him all day, small glances and much more direct looks, not quite as surreptitious as Arthur imagines Eames thinks they are. Every time Arthur shifts, goes to fetch a blueprint or stretches to add a notation to the top of a wall chart, the tiny hairs at the back of his neck rise in recognition of the eyes boring into his back. Every time he looks back at him, though, Eames’ attention is always occupied with something, and he makes a show of raising his eyes to Arthur’s and quirking an inquiring eyebrow at him that irritates and draws him at the same time.
He’s helpless to stop himself from watching Eames in return – the way his shirt tugs out of his belt a little every time he stretches, the way his fair hair falls into his eyes every now and again, only to tangle with his eyelashes until he runs an impatient hand through it. The way he regards Cobb so intently, considering every point and coming back with his own spot-on twist on it; the way he laughs at Ariadne’s snarked asides – warm, and comfortable, and relaxed, head thrown back and shoulders shaking, full lips stretching to reveal slightly crooked teeth that make Arthur all kinds of shivery inside.
Arthur concentrates on his work as best he can with the constant distraction Eames’ mere presence provides. He’s really pleased with the way the morning has gone; the relief he feels at being back in Eames’ good graces is uncomfortably real, and he’d rather not think too much on the warmth he’d felt seep through him at the sound of Eames’ laughter, at the way his eyes had gone from shuttered to light in the space of moments.
Before he knows it, it’s gone lunchtime and his stomach has recovered sufficiently to insistently demand sustenance, and he can hear the sandwich shop down the street call his name. He grabs his coat and wanders over to the meeting room to ask the rest of the team if they want him to pick something up for them as well.
Ariadne asks for the chicken salad, and Cobb wants an egg and watercress sandwich. Instead of adding his request to the others’, Eames perks up at the question. “Lovely! You can show me the best sandwich place in the area for when it’s my turn to do a run!” His enthusiasm is contagious, and Arthur swallows the ‘it’s just a sandwich shop’ that is trying to escape unchecked. He nods instead and Eames beams at him, tugs his jacket on over broad shoulders that strain the fabric and follows him out of the office.
They ride the elevator down to the lobby in relative silence, Arthur trying not to fidget and Eames humming happily under his breath. Arthur turns right at the entrance, and they set off at a brisk pace.
“So,” Eames breaks the silence before it has a chance to become uncomfortable, “how long have you been working for Cobb?”
Arthur can’t help the fond smile that twists his lips at the memory. “He recruited me just after graduation,” he replies, grateful for Eames’ usual disregard of any possible awkwardness. “Apparently Mal had been ‘observing’ me for a few months already – they’d requested copies of my thesis as soon as I’d submitted it.”
At Eames’ questioning glance, Arthur clarifies, “Mal is Dom’s wife. She’s French and rather lovely; she’ll love you,” he observes drily, mostly to himself, because Mal would – Eames is just her kind of never following the rules daredevil.
“I can’t wait to meet her,” Eames says with a grin. “She sounds fascinating. So she and Cobb stalked you until you agreed to work for them?”
Arthur bites his lip to stop a snort from escaping at the rather accurate mental image. “Something like that,” he allows. “Mal called to whisk me away to a meeting with her and Dom less than two hours after the final exam results came out. Let’s just say the rest is history.”
“They obviously knew a good thing when they saw it,” Eames murmurs, quietly sincere, and Arthur’s pulse speeds up alarmingly. As pick-up lines go this is almost tame in comparison to what Eames used to come up with years ago, but the simple fact it’s there at all speaks volumes. He fights the pleased smile Eames’ veiled compliment evokes, but he’s not trying especially hard and it sneaks across his face anyway.
There’s a sharply indrawn breath next to him and he looks Eames’ way inquiringly. Eames is looking at him strangely, a slight narrowing to his eyes; Arthur wonders if he’s said something wrong and looks away in confusion, gestures to show they’ve reached the shop. Eames holds the door open for him, waving him in with an elaborate bow; Arthur rolls his eyes, but try as he might, he can’t stop the breath from catching in his throat at Eames’ delighted look.
---
Despite his better judgement, Arthur lets himself fall in love. It isn’t hard, not when you consider that if he’s honest with himself, he’s probably been in love with Eames for years. It starts with coffee – it always starts with coffee for the two of them, whether it’s here in New York or thousands of miles away across the ocean. It starts with them sitting at a table at Arthur’s favourite coffee shop by the office, the one with the Italian roast that re-kindled the whole affair. It starts with a pad and a pen, with a discussion over one of Arthur’s designs, but pretty soon it’s a discussion of anything but.
It’s about coffee, and the new play on Broadway, and Eames’ niece’s third birthday party, and Arthur’s disbelief over how Eames could possibly believe that The Matrix is an elaborate allegory on dreams and dreaming, when clearly it’s a, albeit unconventional, re-telling of every religious myth out there.
Later – weeks and weeks later – it’s in the way Eames’ hand feels on the small of Arthur’s back when he follows him out of a restaurant, and about the way he hesitates ever so slightly before holding the door to his flat open for Arthur to enter, unreadable eyes looking back at him over his shoulder. It’s about how Arthur is terrified and exultant at the same time as he reaches for Eames’ shoulders and tugs his coat off, when all Eames can do is stand there in his dark, half-empty living room and stare at him. It’s in the way Eames groans his surrender into Arthur’s mouth when Arthur presses closer to his warm, solid body and tugs his head a little to the side, the better to kiss him wide open. It’s in the way that Eames presses him into the wall, hands everywhere, trying to hold on for dear life and at the same time trying to let Arthur set himself free.
It’s in the way Eames holds him, with arms and legs and lips and inner muscles as Arthur moves above him, inside him, deeper inside him than anyone has ever been (Arthur hopes in uncensored moments of wishful thinking). It’s about the way he says Arthur’s name (brokenly, lovingly) when Arthur shudders and presses in as far as he can possibly go.
It’s about more coffee in the morning, and the only edible things in Eames’ fridge being coffee cream and butter for their toast. It’s about Eames’ smile, the one that lights up his entire face, as if all his Christmases have come at once, when Arthur flaps about in a panic because his shirt is not only yesterday’s, but is also creased beyond belief from lying forgotten in a heap on the bedroom floor all night, and how the hell is he supposed to show up for work looking utterly ravished?
And, in the end, it’s about the way he gets into work late for the first time since he started there, a silly smile on his face that, to his extreme consternation, won’t go away.
---
It ends, Arthur will think later, with a feeling of dread curling in his stomach when Eames spends their breakfast together shooting him small, unhappy glances. Arthur can’t work them out and winds himself up something fierce for the next half hour, until he goes to put the milk away and happens to spot Eames’ makeshift calendar on the side of the fridge, September half-defaced by a large Union Jack flag that takes up almost the entire page.
It’s not like Arthur hasn’t been expecting it, really. The project is drawing to a close; they are only a week or so away from handing it over to the construction team. After that only moderate supervision will be required, and Selfridges has other consultants on hand for that. If he’s honest, Arthur’s been avoiding thinking about it, as if that would make Eames’ departure date stretch away infinitely into the distance.
Throughout the four and a half months that they have been doing… whatever they’ve been doing, there have been so, so many times that Arthur has tried keeping his distance, emotionally at least, because he’d have to have been a fool not to realise that this thing can’t last; and Arthur is many things, but a fool isn’t one of them.
Okay, so that bit before is a bit of a lie. Arthur has been thinking about Eames leaving, has been thinking a lot about throwing himself at his mercy and begging him not to. The logistics are unpleasant, but a long-distance relationship is doable—every time Arthur tries to think them through, though, he realises they aren’t all that doable after all. What, they’re going to have some sort of intercontinental romance, see each other every month, couple of months on the outside? Can they live like that, constantly missing the other while Arthur slowly kills himself with thoughts of Eames falling in love with someone else and, when the time comes for him to visit Arthur, not turning up at all? Arthur has been getting better at managing his curse, but he’s not naïve enough to believe that ‘love conquers all’, or any other romantic delusions.
Eames’ worried looks are starting to wear at him; it’s so hard to concentrate when Eames’ presence is all over Arthur’s apartment – lurid shirts dropped unceremoniously over chairs, a pair of shoes kicked away at the door, Eames’ stupid poker-chip tie draped across the back of the sofa – every single one of them a reminder of how close they’ve become that poke at Arthur’s heart, until he’s afraid that there will be one sting too many and his heart will burst all over the place, in so many pieces that it might never knit together again.
He’s fidgeting with the laundry for something to take his mind away from the inevitable change looming on the horizon when Eames places large, warm hands over his shoulders and forcibly stills him.
“Can’t we just talk about it?” he asks softly, carefully, as if he’s afraid of what Arthur might say, afraid of the damage it might do.
“What’s there to talk about? You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Arthur is quite amazed by how steady and no-nonsense his voice is, when inside he might as well be screaming.
“Yes,” Eames says carefully, but there’s no finality to it, only questions. Despite himself Arthur turns around to look at him, eyebrows raised and eyes hopeful.
“I have to go back, to tie up some projects, if nothing else,” Eames elaborates, and Arthur knows, just knows, that Eames really believes that, just as Arthur knows that when Eames leaves New York he’ll inevitably be heading for meeting his future other half.
“Look, Arthur,” Eames starts, and Arthur braces himself. “I know it’s been all kinds of strange, this relationship of ours, but I’m—I’d like to come back. Once I’m done in London, I mean. I’d like to see if we can go the distance, despite the wobbly start.”
It’s curious, Arthur can actually feel his heart breaking, the contrast between Eames’ words, his tone, his hopeful eyes, and what Arthur knows is bound to happen; it’s slicing little chunks of his heart away with every stilted breath.
“I’d love that,” he says, plays along with the stupid need in his chest, smiles at Eames as happily as he can manage while inside he’s crumbling to dust. Eames’ relieved, affectionate smile threatens to tear him apart, and he can’t quite look him in the eye.
---
He sees Eames off at JFK on the evening of 24th September. It’s a Friday, and it feels like an ending.
“I’ll be back before you know it, love,” Eames says, but there’s a worried line between his eyebrows when he looks at Arthur. Arthur knows he’s not looking his best; pretending, playing the part of happy expectation, making plans for when they’re going to see each other again – it’s taking his toll on him, and he knows that he looks dejected. He hopes Eames just attributes it to their temporary separation, rather than the permanent one Arthur knows this is.
He nods at Eames anyway, and smiles – he doesn’t want Eames to remember him drawn and miserable.
“I’ll call you when I get home,” Eames promises, and kisses him goodbye. Arthur clings to him desperately, a little wildly, and for once he doesn’t care that he’s making a scene, or that there’s a disapproving gasp or two nearby. He just wants to bask in Eames’ presence, be close to him just once more.
He watches Eames walk away through the checkpoint, turn to smile and wave at him one last time. Then he turns around, walks out of the airport, takes a cab home and gets horribly, vilely drunk.
Part Two
no subject
Date: 2010-10-12 07:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-14 03:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-14 08:36 am (UTC)