ifeelbetter | Are You Working Up To Something?

Title: Are You Working Up To Something?
Author:

ifeelbetter
Disclaimers: Nothing of value has ever been mine. Especially not the sexytimes that is Inception.
Rating: R for my narrative potty mouth.
Word Count: 1,378
Summary: People keep assuming that Eames and Arthur are a thing. Arthur thinks that, like so many awful things, is Eames's fault.
Notes: Written for this prompt at

inception_kink's kink_meme. The title is from The Bird & the Bee's song Fucking Boyfriend

NOW WITH FANART by the bold, beautiful, and talented

dumbimps.

I.

Eames pulled the milk out of the refrigerator and took a long swig directly from the carton.

Ariadne screwed her face up in disgust. Arthur didn't look up from his newspaper.

"Use a glass," he said, still not looking up.

Eames wiped his mouth and grinned. "Can't be bothered," he said. He ruffled Arthur's hair. Arthur swatted at his hand but didn't stop reading the paper. Eames pressed a kiss onto the top of Arthur's head. Arthur rolled his eyes and finally put down his paper.

"What do you want?" he asked, exasperation a bit too over-done.

"You're a beast before you've had your coffee, darling," Eames told him. He placed a mug carefully next to Arthur's right hand.

"I am not--" Arthur began but Eames had already left the room.

"Are you two--" Ariadne asked, making a heart with her hands.

Arthur looked appalled. "Definitely not--" and he mimicked her ridiculous gesture. He hoped that she would see, in the instant replay, how ridiculous an idea it was and how grown women should not make heart gestures.

"Oh," she said thoughtfully. "Are you sure?"

"I think I'd know," Arthur scoffed. He took a sip of the coffee. Somehow, it was always better when Eames made it.

"Right," she said and she drew the word out so that Arthur had to pretend to not understand her insinuations. He turned his attention back to his paper.

II.

"I've been on my feet all day," Arthur announced. Yusuf made a sound that could just as easily have been stop whining as I feel for you, man and Arthur would much rather it was the latter.

"Poor darling," Eames said. Arthur was about to level him with a sarcastic witticism when Eames de-railed his train of thought by pulling Arthur's feet onto his lap.

"What are y--" Arthur began to say but Eames already had his shoes off and was kneading gently but firmly into his foot and it would take a stronger man than Arthur to not lose the capacity for speech with that business going on with his feet.

Eames smirked when Arthur couldn't suppress what might have been a little bit of a groan of pleasure.

Eames did both feet and Arthur was incapable of conversation during and Yusuf seemed to have become fascinated by whatever was happening in what looked like a twelve year old's chemistry set. When Eames was done, he patted the inside of Arthur's ankle, dropped his feet back to the floor gently, and left.

"So you two are--" Yusuf said and made a horrifically obscene gesture.

"No."

III.

On the flight to Tokyo, to meet up with Saito for another job--which was known for being a crazy-long flight--Arthur may have let Eames sleep on his shoulder.

He was going to say something when the man had shifted ever-so-slightly in his sleep and sort of nuzzled his way onto Arthur's shoulder. He was going to say something but then Eames made a little humming sound and it was just cruel to wake someone up who makes little humming sounds, right? That's just logical.

So he leaned a little towards Eames, made sure that his head was nestled into the crook of his shoulder and then it was just a matter of convenience, really, that he gently let his own head rest on Eames's.

The thing that was a bit ridiculous--and the rest of it had been a question of rationality, thankyouverymuch--was that later, when Cobb was shaking them both awake, their hands had somehow gotten entwined on the armrest.

When they waited by the luggage carousel, Eames having scampered off and left the rest of them to find his suitcase, Cobb cleared his throat.

"So," he said and Arthur nearly threw his hands up to be getting this question again and from Cobb, "You and Eames are..." He waved a hand in the vaguest way possible.

"Not at all," Arthur said, his jaw clenching a little.

"He seems to--" Cobb started to say but stopped when Arthur glared at him.

IV.

"Darling, I thought of you the minute I saw it," Eames said.

Arthur rolled his eyes. "I'm touched, really." He tried to force all the sarcasm in the world into that sentence.

"Because of your name, see? Arthur? Like a knight?" Eames continued, undaunted. He picked the figurine of the knight up and pointed to the head. "He has your eyes, too."

"He's an inch tall," Arthur pointed out. "He barely has eyes."

"Still. He's making the same face you make all the time. The one where you scrunch your eyebrows up," Eames said, looking intently at the figurine. "The face you're making right now, actually."

"He's fighting a dragon," said Arthur. "I could see how we might have the same emotional experience right now."

Saito coughed. "We do have business to discuss, gentlemen."

He didn't actually ask the question but Arthur could see the thought occur to him.

"We're not--" he started to say but Eames interrupted him.

"Absolutely, we can save this debate for later, darling," he said, pressing the figurine into Arthur's hand and folding his fingers around it. "You can thank me then."

Arthur rolled his eyes.

V.

Arthur met Eames for a drink after their latest gig. He didn't think it was odd, really, despite the way Ariadne waggled her eyebrows at him or Yusuf continued to make obscene gestures that were somehow disturbingly specific and anatomically improbable. Friends go out for drinks all the time.

Plus, Arthur was very aware of the fact that he hadn't gotten laid in ages and if he was dating Eames, this was the most Victorian relationship he'd ever been in.

Plus, there has to be a conversation, at some early stage, when both parties become aware they're dating, right? You can't be dating and nobody told you, right?

The fact that he was wondering whether he had accidentally begun to date Eames was one of the many things that was entirely Eames's fault.

So he walked into the bar--and it was a nice bar too, with an oak counter and glass fixtures and that old-money charm--and scanned the room for Eames.

Eames was leaning back in his chair, lazily spread across the space like a jungle cat or some other absurd simile the likes of which Arthur had never thought it before he got mixed up in all this.

He settled in the chair across from Eames at the tiny table and pretended he was comfortable. He was decently good at pretense, he thought. Years of training.

The fake-it-till-you-make-it approach seemed to be working and he was winding down, enjoying the cadence of Eames's voice when he wasn't being horrible, when one of Eames's feet brushed against his.

He didn't say anything and didn't move his foot because that would be obviously awkward, wouldn't it? And he wouldn't like to be obviously awkward when he'd put so much effort into keeping that under wraps.

But then Eames's foot slid up his leg slightly and the heel hooked around his and he realized that he was in the middle of a game of footsie.

"Eames," he said because there comes a time when enough is goddamned enough.

Eames smirked and leaned forward. He hands had been folded on his lap and suddenly his knuckles were grazing Arthur's knee.

"Eames," he repeated but it didn't sound very authoritative this time. It sounded a little shrill, if he was being honest.

"Yes, darling?" Eames said but his voice was deeper and breathier than it had been before which was unfair because it was hard enough--ha fucking ha--to keep his mind on track without him pitching his voice all low like that.

"You're--" Arthur tried to say but Eames had reached forward ever so slightly and brush the back of his hand against the inside of Arthur's knee and this was ridiculous.

Arthur reached forward and pulled Eames towards him by the back of his neck, not altogether gently, and kissed him as filthily as he was able.

"Next time tell me when we start dating," he said when they finally broke.

Eames nodded. "Cross my heart," he promised.