FIC: Simple and Living
Feb. 6th, 2011 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_ragnarokTitle: Simple and Living
Fandom: Inception, Arthur/Eames, PG
Summary: 5 times Eames kept Arthur warm.
Notes: Written for theme #3 at harlequincepted, forced bed-sharing. Praise and Salutations toangelgazing, who beta'd.
And you take in the scent of earth, breathing and relaxing,
And see the sun in the golden mirror of the pond.
The things are all simple and living, and yes, you may touch them,
And yes, you may love.
- "You Will Walk in the Field", Leah Goldberg
1.
Of all the many indignities of public transportation, the one that is most harmful to Arthur's peace of mind is what he privately nicknames the Common Territorial Asshole. This blight on humanity is characterized by a blatant disregard for other people's space and an unconquerable need to spread his legs to a ludicrous degree.
As a general rule, Arthur hates these with a heat normally reserved for mass murderers and politicians. But the one sitting next to him may win an exception from this rule. One reason for this is that the guy sitting next to Arthur has the decency to smell of mild aftershave rather than stale sweat or worse.
Another reason is the fucking air conditioning. Some jerkass broke off the flaps used to regulate the air flow, so now the goddamned thing is spitting icy wind at Arthur. His seatmate's carelessly flung arm, while infringing on Arthur's personal bubble, is blocking the worst of it. For this, Arthur supposes the man may be forgiven, or at least spared the more violent consequences of Arthur's wrath.
Just as Arthur decides this, the man starts listing towards him, slowly but surely. Arthur darts his eyes around quickly. Nowhere else to sit, of course, or Arthur would be sitting there already. Nothing to do but suffer the indignity of having a stranger lean against him.
Arthur's normal method of dealing with this is a sharp elbow to the intruder's ribs, then to switch back to sitting still fast enough that the person next to him literally doesn't know what hit them. Arthur's aiming his weapon (his elbow, as it happens), but then the man pretty much topples half over him, rendering Arthur immobile from the waist up.
The first ten things that occur to Arthur are various painful ways to end this person's miserable little life.
The eleventh thing, however, is Hey, I'm warm now.
Arthur is, above all other things, an incredibly pragmatic person. Magnanimously, he allows the person to live so long as he's serving as Arthur's personal space heater. It's just a random person on a bus, whom Arthur will never see again. Nobody has to know.
A few minutes later, Arthur opens his eyes. There is a something prodding him in the ribs.
"Sorry to wake you up, mate," says the man next to him, now fully upright and awake. "'S my stop, do you mind – " he mimes Arthur moving away.
Arthur, dazed, goes halfway through the motions of lifting his bag and folding his legs so as to let the man pass. Then a tinny voice announces the station and shit, that's Arthur's stop. He must've fallen asleep.
With a grumble, he makes sure he has all his things, vacating the bus with maximum efficiency.
After he leaves the bus, Arthur walks to stand behind the relative shelter of the bus station. He is absolutely not hiding from that guy, who goes to sit on the bench as if he has nowhere else to be. Arthur just wants a little privacy so he can call Dom about their mutual, private and – oh yeah – not entirely legal business.
Dom answers on the third ring. "Sure, I'll pick you up." He sounds frazzled. That's not uncommon these days. "Just let me call our forger, he said he might need a ride as well."
The guy's mobile rings two seconds after that. Arthur would believe that's just a coincidence, but by now he's used to the way his life apparently hates him.
"Ten minutes?" The guys says into his phone. That's the same estimation Dom gave Arthur. "Cheers. What's your point man look like, then?"
No point in dragging this out. Arthur skulks back into the light. "Like me, probably."
The forger snaps his phone shut and grins at Arthur. "That so?" He offers Arthur a hand to shake. "Eames. Pleased to meet you."
Arthur shakes and says, "Likewise," despite the fact that he's very far from pleased at the moment.
2.
"Are you sure?" Arthur asks for about the hundredth time.
Mal huffs into the phone, exasperated. "Of course I am sure. How long must I wait to return to my work? Until my children are obnoxious, foul-smelling teenaged beasts?"
"They won't be," Arthur says, by rote. "Dom told me you were still breastfeeding – "
"Does Dom often tell you what I do with my shirt off?" Mal inquires sweetly. "Perhaps you would like to know more?"
Arthur winces. "Mal."
"You do not tell me what to do, Arthur." Her voice softens a little. "I know you worry, but you must not let that cloud your professional judgment."
It's because of conversations like this that Arthur doesn't ask Mal beforehand how many people, exactly, she invited to stay over with her and Dom. Despite the fact that he knows from long, painful experience that Mal, when left unattended, tends to overbook.
So it happens that Arthur arrives, looking for somewhere to put his suitcase down, and nearly crashes into Eames in the process.
"Invited you to sleep over, too, did she?" Eames is grinning at Arthur like he knows something Arthur doesn't. That's practically a professional insult.
"Yeah," Arthur says, heart sinking. "I suppose you took over the guestroom, then?"
Eames grimaces. "I wish. No, her mother is sleeping there."
Arthur blinks. He looks around surreptitiously and pitches his voice lower. "You mean she has us planning an extraction with her mother in the next room?"
"Someone has to watch over the sprogs," Eames says, infuriatingly reasonable. "You and I are getting the couches. We may live with that or relocate to a hotel." With the last few words he slips into Mal's accent. Eames has an unpleasant tendency to quote people verbatim.
Arthur would stay at a hotel, gladly even, but Dom has a thing about his friends staying under his roof. If Arthur went to sleep elsewhere, he'd be offended and there'd be no dealing with him for weeks. Eames, on the other hand, probably can't go anywhere else because his face is on the watch-lists of three separate government agencies.
Arthur notes with dismay that Eames has already laid his bags on the large couch, leaving Arthur to the dubious comfort of the loveseat. Arthur eyes it askance. He'll probably do okay with it. He tends to curl up when he's trying to sleep, anyway.
Eames has also taken control of the fluffy blanket, however, and that can't go uncontested. Arthur tugs at it. Eames – and Arthur hates to apply this word to a grown man – pouts.
"I'm sleeping on the midget sofa," Arthur says. "I want the blanket that actually retains heat."
"But darling," Eames says, and Arthur resists the urge to punch him, "I'm sleeping in naught but my skivvies, whereas I'll be stunned if you don't have a matching set of flannel jammies in there. You won't subject a man to the cruel cold of night, would you?"
"How is it my fault that you don't know how to pack?" Arthur says, but then Mal comes down to the living room and shouts at them for waking up the baby, so they're forced to leave off the discussion and content themselves with glaring daggers at each other.
The actual planning goes off normally. Or as normally as possible when their architect and extractor take turns at burping a small child, and another small child attaches herself inextricably to Eames' pants.
"Philippa," Dom says warningly, but Eames laughs and says, "Eh, let her be."
Arthur thinks it's a good thing he doesn't like children, or he might find that charming or something similarly nauseating.
Then it's late, the Cobbs – adults and miniature versions alike – have all gone to their respective beds, and Eames is stretching and yawning in an unusually pointed manner.
"What," Arthur says, typing a reply email.
"I believe the time has come for sleep," Eames says. "This is important to human beings. I'm only saying that because it seems to be inexplicably missing from your programming."
"You do realize that calling me a computer is actually a compliment," Arthur says, not looking away from his screen.
"I'm sure you can blame any momentary faltering of my wit on the fact that I'm fucking tired," Eames says.
"So?" Arthur says. "Go to sleep."
"Can't." Eames gives him a look that Arthur can only describe as doleful. "Somebody has the only decent blanket. Somebody who, I might mention, isn't even bloody sleeping yet."
Instead of answering, Arthur bundles the blanket and throws it at Eames. Once Eames fights his way out of the tangle of cloth, he flashes Arthur a quick, unexpected smile. "Sweet dreams, darling."
"That's a stupid thing to say," Arthur says, after a pause long enough for Eames to believably fall asleep in. Eames snores in reply.
Arthur stays awake until about four AM. It's not fatigue that forces him to sleep so much as how fucking cold the house is getting. Even in his pajamas (which are cotton, not flannel, fuck you, Eames,) and wrapped in a fleece jacket that Arthur would never admit to owning, he's shivering. Time to pull on the blanket.
The problem there is that the Cobbs have three functional blankets. Two of those are currently serving members of the family, and the third is warming Eames' snoring self. Arthur is left with what might be more accurately described as a large throw-rug, which is scratchy and not particularly warm.
Add to this the fact that the loveseat is designed in a way that doesn't let Arthur so much as twitch without moving the so-called-blanket and causing a draft aimed directly at whatever area Arthur isn't consciously trying to keep covered.
Arthur spent four months in basic training trying to learn how to sleep when he's cold. It hadn't worked then, and probably never will work. At least it taught Arthur how not to make mistakes that could kill him because he's tired and miserable.
He dozes fitfully through the night, giving up the pretense of sleep when Eames mumbles, stretches and throws off his blanket. He scratches his stomach, unselfconscious, and goes to get dressed while Arthur's still blinking sleepless fuzziness from his eyes.
By the time Eames comes back, Arthur's sitting up and typing again. "Up already?" Eames sounds surprised. "I'm sure I heard you clicking there ages after I turned in."
"Couldn't sleep." Arthur rubs his eyes. It doesn't help. The letters are still swimming on the screen.
Eames sits down next to Arthur on the couch. "Insomnia? That's a nasty thing to happen to someone in our line of work."
"I don't have insomnia." Which does have pretty nasty side effects, for dreamers. Arthur can see why Eames would be concerned even as he's reining in his urge to bite Eames' head off. "I just can't sleep when I'm cold."
"Oh," Eames says. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize."
It would probably be a dick move for Arthur to answer that with fuck off. So he doesn't, just shuts down his laptop. At least something will get a little rest.
"It should be at least two hours before the Cobbs wake up," Eames says, tentatively.
"Probably." Mal sleeps ten hours a night, when she can, and the baby woke her up twice that Arthur remembers that night.
"You can have the large sofa," Eames says. "Catch a few winks until they come forth to face the waking world."
In a perfect world, Arthur would snort at this and get on with his work. In a perfect world, Arthur would be able to sleep in a suboptimal temperature, or just go to a goddamned hotel in the first place.
In this world, Arthur nods dumbly and slides between the large couch and the fluffy blanket, both of which are still warm from Eames' body. The battered decorative pillow Eames has been using for – well, for a pillow – still smells a little like him.
Arthur wakes up because Mal is yelling that his lunch is getting cold, and only narrowly avoids having Dom throw a glass of cold water on him.
"I'm up," he says, snatching the glass from Dom and drinking it, thus simultaneously getting hydrated and depriving his enemy of a weapon. "Lunch? What the hell? Why didn't anyone wake me earlier?"
"You have the most charming little snores, you know," Eames says with a completely straight face. It's a testament to the effect that a good nap has on Arthur's nerves that Arthur doesn't even want to kill him.
That night, Eames gets a hotel room, leaving Arthur mystified as to why the man didn't just go and do that to begin with.
3.
The rain is falling hard, rapping a steady rhythm on the tin roof. The shack they're hiding in is the kind of place that's walls are made of more drafty holes than actual material, and said material is all corrugated sheets of – Arthur doesn't even want to know. He's just grateful he's had a tetanus shot this year.
Eames looks perfectly at ease. Possibly this is because Eames is Eames, or maybe it's because his clothes are, miraculously, still mostly dry. Arthur is now stuck with the choice of sitting around in sopping wet clothes or sitting around in his underwear. Neither of these options holds much appeal for him.
There's a bed in the corner of the shack. Although bed may be too positive a descriptor for it. Nest might be more appropriate. Or maybe health hazard.
"Get under the blankets," Eames says. "You'll catch your death."
Whereas if Arthur does get under the blanket, he'll probably catch scabies. "No thanks," he says. "Try and get some sleep. I'll stand watch."
"Against what? The rain?" Eames' smile is a little too cocky, a little too bright, as if he's trying to mask the fact that he hasn't slept in three days. Neither of them has, but Arthur's better at dealing with it. "We lost them, Arthur. Go to sleep."
"You first." He doesn't like the way Eames is standing, listing slightly to the side. Eames is more careful with his posture than this. It doesn't bode well.
"Tell you what," Eames says, in what he probably thinks is a reasonable tone of voice. "I'll get under the blankets – get them nice and warm, yeah? And you'll take off these wet things and join me."
The saddest thing about this is that what Eames said is, in fact, entirely reasonable. Arthur just wishes it wasn't. "Fine," he says, stripping. "But if I get infected by parasites, you're taking me to the clinic."
"Of course," Eames says. "I'll even hold your hand."
The blankets aren't very warm when Arthur slides under them. That makes sense – Eames is dressed, after all, and insulation is something that works both ways. He's not expecting Eames' arms to come wrap around him, but it doesn't take him completely by surprise, either.
Eames has one hand around Arthur's waist, one hand cupping the back of Arthur's head. "Don't you worry," he says, "you'll be nice and toasty in no time."
Arthur retaliates by sliding his hands under Eames' shirt, smirking when Eames yelps. Eames' skin feels scalding-hot, which probably isn't a factor of Eames' actual temperature so much as the fact that Arthur was apparently closer than he'd like to think to frostbite.
Rather than shoving Arthur away, which is what Arthur expected him to do next, Eames grits his teeth and grabs him closer. "I'm beginning to seriously doubt that you're even a mammal," Eames says. "Are you sure you have an inner temperature regulation mechanism?"
"No, I'm actually a reptilian alien," Arthur says. Barring a straight face, he'd at least like his teeth to stop chattering. "It's in my dossier."
"Knew I'd regret not reading that." Eames' fingers are carding through Arthur's wet hair, cautious like he thinks there's a bear trap hidden in there somewhere.
Arthur's reasonably certain that Eames is going to have his hands in Arthur's pants – metaphorically, given that Arthur's actual pants are on the floor somewhere – at some point this evening. Arthur should be appalled by the thought, definitely. Eames has no respect for Arthur's personal space, a god awful sense of humor and the worst dress taste Arthur has ever seen, in person.
(It's true, admittedly, that Eames' off-color jokes and shirts are largely put on as a grand disguise, a smoke screen hiding the actual person. That doesn't mean Arthur is going to just ignore them. The personal space issue is best left alone entirely.)
The evening wears on. The rain falls harder, pounding on their roof like an angry neighbor at three AM. Eames' hands remain strictly above Arthur's waist. It's enough to drive a man mad. Arthur's almost certain that Eames is doing this solely to defy Arthur's expectations.
Except that Eames has the temerity to be all warm at him, and between finally warming up and falling asleep Arthur just forgets to be annoyed.
4.
In response to the age-old question, Are you paranoid if they really are after you? Arthur would reply, No, but you're probably a point man.
That said, it's kind of stupid for Arthur to half-believe that he lost the ability to regulate his own body temperature. He's pretty sure that doesn't happen to humans. He considers researching the subject, but the last time Arthur looked into medical information he ended up with half a dozen psychosomatic illnesses. Being paranoid makes him a good point man, but it's hell on the nerves. His and those of everyone around him.
Yet the evidence speaks for itself. For months now Arthur has been wrapping himself in progressively warmer clothes and additional layers, until he can't catch his own reflection in the mirror without thinking of cocoons.
Arthur knows for a fact that his body is objectively warm enough, bordering on overheated – his face gets red, he can feel the sweat dripping down his back, but he still can't get warm. Which means he can't sleep.
This is worrying.
They're in Mombasa, which makes it worse since the weather is warm and clear – the sky a brilliant, blinding blue as far as the eye can see. It should be comforting to Arthur, familiar, but the wind tastes of the sea and not of dust. Even the dirt is the wrong color.
And Eames. It all comes to Eames in the end.
Because when Eames puts a hand on Arthur's back, Arthur feels it. When it's removed he feels an imprint, as if he can see his own back and it's glowing in infra-red. Eames, who refrains from mocking Arthur for the layers of clothing that Arthur himself knows are ridiculous.
Eames, who looks at Arthur like he's waiting for something, and Arthur can't figure out what.
"What?" Arthur asks him, one day, maddened by the constant headache he carries these days and Eames' infuriating immovability. "What the fuck are you looking at?"
"When's the last time you slept?" Eames asks. In their rented office, the rest of their team falls silent. Arthur glares daggers at the room in its entirety.
"None," Arthur says, barely keeping from snarling, "of anybody's goddamned business. Yours least of all."
It's not true. Arthur knows that as soon as it leaves his mouth. Eames is leading this team, and if anyone on it is impaired, Eames needs to know that. This is something Arthur understands better than anyone. What he said is untrue, and cruel besides.
But Eames doesn't give him an opportunity to apologize, doesn't even let him say anything – just grabs Arthur by the back of his neck and marches him away forcibly.
"What the hell," Arthur says, wheezing a little because his breathing gets fucked up when he doesn't sleep enough, "do you think you're doing?"
"Reacting to circumstances and reasserting command abilities," Eames says, as if they're in one of those stupid leadership seminars Arthur had to go to when he worked for the government. Eames walks them up the stairs.
"This is your apartment," Arthur says. He's more tired than he thought he was.
"Indeed." Eames opens the door. The apartment is one room, a futon bed in one corner and a kitchenette in the other; Eames, surprisingly, is a man of simple needs. He pretty much hurtles Arthur face-down on the futon.
Arthur turns around to lie on his bed. "All right," he says. His breathing can't seem to get un-fucked-up. "What now?"
Eames rolls his eyes. The sunlight catches his eyes in a weird angle, and they look almost glowy. Arthur wonders whether he's sleep-deprived enough to start having hallucinations. "Now you sleep," Eames says. His voice is all weird, too, like it's coming from too far away.
"Can't," Arthur says, and he can't help it, his mouth twists in sheer unhappiness. "I can't, I can't get warm enough."
Eames should be raising an eyebrow, should be asking Arthur what precisely he means, can't get warm when it's thirty-one degrees out there? Fucking Eames. He would be using Celsius degrees to confuse a poor, sleepless American. But fuck him, Arthur knows the metric system.
Except Eames doesn't do that. Eames takes off his shirt and lies over Arthur, so that Arthur's pressed down under his weight, smothered in his body heat. They're sweating, both of them, Arthur's shirt is completely wet down the front. It's disgusting. He can't stand it. He wraps his arms around Eames, his legs.
In the morning, Eames has bruises on the back of his neck where Arthur held on. In the morning, Arthur puts on a waistcoat and a jacket before shuddering and taking them off again. He goes to work in a button-down shirt, and rolls up the sleeves at midday.
He can feel the heat of Eames' eyes on him the whole time.
5.
There's something about Arthur and warm weather. Arthur can't explain it accurately. It ties into early childhood memories of a sun that didn't so much shine as blast and his mother's unholy vendetta against central heating. He tries to tell Eames about it, at one point.
"She used to say I liked the heat because I was desert-born." It's August, but they're in London, so there's a constant unsteady drizzle outside.
"Hm?" Eames never raises his eyes from the newspaper he's pretending to read. Arthur can feel Eames' focus on him.
"We left before I was three, though, so I don't know if that counts." Arthur's tea is getting cold. He contemplates getting up to stick it in the microwave, but that would require moving out of his carefully constructed nest of blankets.
Eames pushes his reading glasses up his nose. "Left where?"
"Nirim." Arthur traces a finger against the inner side of the window, following a raindrop down. This isn't his kind of summer.
There's a rustle as Eames puts his newspaper down. "All right, love," he says, smiling at Arthur. "I'll admit my ignorance. Where the bloody hell is that?"
Arthur's lips don't move, but Eames' finger traces the corner of Arthur's left eye, where the wrinkles form something like a secret smile. "Wouldn't you like to know," Arthur says.
"I would, actually." The wonder is that Eames means it.
Arthur looks down and drinks his tea. Maybe he'll tell Eames all about it, eventually, mark the place he where was born on a map for Eames to see. Hell, maybe Arthur will take him there some time. Take a walk through the fields, take off the goddamned jacket for once. Feel the sun on his skin like it's trying to burn him, roll up his sleeves like he's challenging it to try.
Yeah. Arthur thinks he might like that.
Fandom: Inception, Arthur/Eames, PG
Summary: 5 times Eames kept Arthur warm.
Notes: Written for theme #3 at harlequincepted, forced bed-sharing. Praise and Salutations to
angelgazing, who beta'd.And you take in the scent of earth, breathing and relaxing,
And see the sun in the golden mirror of the pond.
The things are all simple and living, and yes, you may touch them,
And yes, you may love.
- "You Will Walk in the Field", Leah Goldberg
1.
Of all the many indignities of public transportation, the one that is most harmful to Arthur's peace of mind is what he privately nicknames the Common Territorial Asshole. This blight on humanity is characterized by a blatant disregard for other people's space and an unconquerable need to spread his legs to a ludicrous degree.
As a general rule, Arthur hates these with a heat normally reserved for mass murderers and politicians. But the one sitting next to him may win an exception from this rule. One reason for this is that the guy sitting next to Arthur has the decency to smell of mild aftershave rather than stale sweat or worse.
Another reason is the fucking air conditioning. Some jerkass broke off the flaps used to regulate the air flow, so now the goddamned thing is spitting icy wind at Arthur. His seatmate's carelessly flung arm, while infringing on Arthur's personal bubble, is blocking the worst of it. For this, Arthur supposes the man may be forgiven, or at least spared the more violent consequences of Arthur's wrath.
Just as Arthur decides this, the man starts listing towards him, slowly but surely. Arthur darts his eyes around quickly. Nowhere else to sit, of course, or Arthur would be sitting there already. Nothing to do but suffer the indignity of having a stranger lean against him.
Arthur's normal method of dealing with this is a sharp elbow to the intruder's ribs, then to switch back to sitting still fast enough that the person next to him literally doesn't know what hit them. Arthur's aiming his weapon (his elbow, as it happens), but then the man pretty much topples half over him, rendering Arthur immobile from the waist up.
The first ten things that occur to Arthur are various painful ways to end this person's miserable little life.
The eleventh thing, however, is Hey, I'm warm now.
Arthur is, above all other things, an incredibly pragmatic person. Magnanimously, he allows the person to live so long as he's serving as Arthur's personal space heater. It's just a random person on a bus, whom Arthur will never see again. Nobody has to know.
A few minutes later, Arthur opens his eyes. There is a something prodding him in the ribs.
"Sorry to wake you up, mate," says the man next to him, now fully upright and awake. "'S my stop, do you mind – " he mimes Arthur moving away.
Arthur, dazed, goes halfway through the motions of lifting his bag and folding his legs so as to let the man pass. Then a tinny voice announces the station and shit, that's Arthur's stop. He must've fallen asleep.
With a grumble, he makes sure he has all his things, vacating the bus with maximum efficiency.
After he leaves the bus, Arthur walks to stand behind the relative shelter of the bus station. He is absolutely not hiding from that guy, who goes to sit on the bench as if he has nowhere else to be. Arthur just wants a little privacy so he can call Dom about their mutual, private and – oh yeah – not entirely legal business.
Dom answers on the third ring. "Sure, I'll pick you up." He sounds frazzled. That's not uncommon these days. "Just let me call our forger, he said he might need a ride as well."
The guy's mobile rings two seconds after that. Arthur would believe that's just a coincidence, but by now he's used to the way his life apparently hates him.
"Ten minutes?" The guys says into his phone. That's the same estimation Dom gave Arthur. "Cheers. What's your point man look like, then?"
No point in dragging this out. Arthur skulks back into the light. "Like me, probably."
The forger snaps his phone shut and grins at Arthur. "That so?" He offers Arthur a hand to shake. "Eames. Pleased to meet you."
Arthur shakes and says, "Likewise," despite the fact that he's very far from pleased at the moment.
2.
"Are you sure?" Arthur asks for about the hundredth time.
Mal huffs into the phone, exasperated. "Of course I am sure. How long must I wait to return to my work? Until my children are obnoxious, foul-smelling teenaged beasts?"
"They won't be," Arthur says, by rote. "Dom told me you were still breastfeeding – "
"Does Dom often tell you what I do with my shirt off?" Mal inquires sweetly. "Perhaps you would like to know more?"
Arthur winces. "Mal."
"You do not tell me what to do, Arthur." Her voice softens a little. "I know you worry, but you must not let that cloud your professional judgment."
It's because of conversations like this that Arthur doesn't ask Mal beforehand how many people, exactly, she invited to stay over with her and Dom. Despite the fact that he knows from long, painful experience that Mal, when left unattended, tends to overbook.
So it happens that Arthur arrives, looking for somewhere to put his suitcase down, and nearly crashes into Eames in the process.
"Invited you to sleep over, too, did she?" Eames is grinning at Arthur like he knows something Arthur doesn't. That's practically a professional insult.
"Yeah," Arthur says, heart sinking. "I suppose you took over the guestroom, then?"
Eames grimaces. "I wish. No, her mother is sleeping there."
Arthur blinks. He looks around surreptitiously and pitches his voice lower. "You mean she has us planning an extraction with her mother in the next room?"
"Someone has to watch over the sprogs," Eames says, infuriatingly reasonable. "You and I are getting the couches. We may live with that or relocate to a hotel." With the last few words he slips into Mal's accent. Eames has an unpleasant tendency to quote people verbatim.
Arthur would stay at a hotel, gladly even, but Dom has a thing about his friends staying under his roof. If Arthur went to sleep elsewhere, he'd be offended and there'd be no dealing with him for weeks. Eames, on the other hand, probably can't go anywhere else because his face is on the watch-lists of three separate government agencies.
Arthur notes with dismay that Eames has already laid his bags on the large couch, leaving Arthur to the dubious comfort of the loveseat. Arthur eyes it askance. He'll probably do okay with it. He tends to curl up when he's trying to sleep, anyway.
Eames has also taken control of the fluffy blanket, however, and that can't go uncontested. Arthur tugs at it. Eames – and Arthur hates to apply this word to a grown man – pouts.
"I'm sleeping on the midget sofa," Arthur says. "I want the blanket that actually retains heat."
"But darling," Eames says, and Arthur resists the urge to punch him, "I'm sleeping in naught but my skivvies, whereas I'll be stunned if you don't have a matching set of flannel jammies in there. You won't subject a man to the cruel cold of night, would you?"
"How is it my fault that you don't know how to pack?" Arthur says, but then Mal comes down to the living room and shouts at them for waking up the baby, so they're forced to leave off the discussion and content themselves with glaring daggers at each other.
The actual planning goes off normally. Or as normally as possible when their architect and extractor take turns at burping a small child, and another small child attaches herself inextricably to Eames' pants.
"Philippa," Dom says warningly, but Eames laughs and says, "Eh, let her be."
Arthur thinks it's a good thing he doesn't like children, or he might find that charming or something similarly nauseating.
Then it's late, the Cobbs – adults and miniature versions alike – have all gone to their respective beds, and Eames is stretching and yawning in an unusually pointed manner.
"What," Arthur says, typing a reply email.
"I believe the time has come for sleep," Eames says. "This is important to human beings. I'm only saying that because it seems to be inexplicably missing from your programming."
"You do realize that calling me a computer is actually a compliment," Arthur says, not looking away from his screen.
"I'm sure you can blame any momentary faltering of my wit on the fact that I'm fucking tired," Eames says.
"So?" Arthur says. "Go to sleep."
"Can't." Eames gives him a look that Arthur can only describe as doleful. "Somebody has the only decent blanket. Somebody who, I might mention, isn't even bloody sleeping yet."
Instead of answering, Arthur bundles the blanket and throws it at Eames. Once Eames fights his way out of the tangle of cloth, he flashes Arthur a quick, unexpected smile. "Sweet dreams, darling."
"That's a stupid thing to say," Arthur says, after a pause long enough for Eames to believably fall asleep in. Eames snores in reply.
Arthur stays awake until about four AM. It's not fatigue that forces him to sleep so much as how fucking cold the house is getting. Even in his pajamas (which are cotton, not flannel, fuck you, Eames,) and wrapped in a fleece jacket that Arthur would never admit to owning, he's shivering. Time to pull on the blanket.
The problem there is that the Cobbs have three functional blankets. Two of those are currently serving members of the family, and the third is warming Eames' snoring self. Arthur is left with what might be more accurately described as a large throw-rug, which is scratchy and not particularly warm.
Add to this the fact that the loveseat is designed in a way that doesn't let Arthur so much as twitch without moving the so-called-blanket and causing a draft aimed directly at whatever area Arthur isn't consciously trying to keep covered.
Arthur spent four months in basic training trying to learn how to sleep when he's cold. It hadn't worked then, and probably never will work. At least it taught Arthur how not to make mistakes that could kill him because he's tired and miserable.
He dozes fitfully through the night, giving up the pretense of sleep when Eames mumbles, stretches and throws off his blanket. He scratches his stomach, unselfconscious, and goes to get dressed while Arthur's still blinking sleepless fuzziness from his eyes.
By the time Eames comes back, Arthur's sitting up and typing again. "Up already?" Eames sounds surprised. "I'm sure I heard you clicking there ages after I turned in."
"Couldn't sleep." Arthur rubs his eyes. It doesn't help. The letters are still swimming on the screen.
Eames sits down next to Arthur on the couch. "Insomnia? That's a nasty thing to happen to someone in our line of work."
"I don't have insomnia." Which does have pretty nasty side effects, for dreamers. Arthur can see why Eames would be concerned even as he's reining in his urge to bite Eames' head off. "I just can't sleep when I'm cold."
"Oh," Eames says. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize."
It would probably be a dick move for Arthur to answer that with fuck off. So he doesn't, just shuts down his laptop. At least something will get a little rest.
"It should be at least two hours before the Cobbs wake up," Eames says, tentatively.
"Probably." Mal sleeps ten hours a night, when she can, and the baby woke her up twice that Arthur remembers that night.
"You can have the large sofa," Eames says. "Catch a few winks until they come forth to face the waking world."
In a perfect world, Arthur would snort at this and get on with his work. In a perfect world, Arthur would be able to sleep in a suboptimal temperature, or just go to a goddamned hotel in the first place.
In this world, Arthur nods dumbly and slides between the large couch and the fluffy blanket, both of which are still warm from Eames' body. The battered decorative pillow Eames has been using for – well, for a pillow – still smells a little like him.
Arthur wakes up because Mal is yelling that his lunch is getting cold, and only narrowly avoids having Dom throw a glass of cold water on him.
"I'm up," he says, snatching the glass from Dom and drinking it, thus simultaneously getting hydrated and depriving his enemy of a weapon. "Lunch? What the hell? Why didn't anyone wake me earlier?"
"You have the most charming little snores, you know," Eames says with a completely straight face. It's a testament to the effect that a good nap has on Arthur's nerves that Arthur doesn't even want to kill him.
That night, Eames gets a hotel room, leaving Arthur mystified as to why the man didn't just go and do that to begin with.
3.
The rain is falling hard, rapping a steady rhythm on the tin roof. The shack they're hiding in is the kind of place that's walls are made of more drafty holes than actual material, and said material is all corrugated sheets of – Arthur doesn't even want to know. He's just grateful he's had a tetanus shot this year.
Eames looks perfectly at ease. Possibly this is because Eames is Eames, or maybe it's because his clothes are, miraculously, still mostly dry. Arthur is now stuck with the choice of sitting around in sopping wet clothes or sitting around in his underwear. Neither of these options holds much appeal for him.
There's a bed in the corner of the shack. Although bed may be too positive a descriptor for it. Nest might be more appropriate. Or maybe health hazard.
"Get under the blankets," Eames says. "You'll catch your death."
Whereas if Arthur does get under the blanket, he'll probably catch scabies. "No thanks," he says. "Try and get some sleep. I'll stand watch."
"Against what? The rain?" Eames' smile is a little too cocky, a little too bright, as if he's trying to mask the fact that he hasn't slept in three days. Neither of them has, but Arthur's better at dealing with it. "We lost them, Arthur. Go to sleep."
"You first." He doesn't like the way Eames is standing, listing slightly to the side. Eames is more careful with his posture than this. It doesn't bode well.
"Tell you what," Eames says, in what he probably thinks is a reasonable tone of voice. "I'll get under the blankets – get them nice and warm, yeah? And you'll take off these wet things and join me."
The saddest thing about this is that what Eames said is, in fact, entirely reasonable. Arthur just wishes it wasn't. "Fine," he says, stripping. "But if I get infected by parasites, you're taking me to the clinic."
"Of course," Eames says. "I'll even hold your hand."
The blankets aren't very warm when Arthur slides under them. That makes sense – Eames is dressed, after all, and insulation is something that works both ways. He's not expecting Eames' arms to come wrap around him, but it doesn't take him completely by surprise, either.
Eames has one hand around Arthur's waist, one hand cupping the back of Arthur's head. "Don't you worry," he says, "you'll be nice and toasty in no time."
Arthur retaliates by sliding his hands under Eames' shirt, smirking when Eames yelps. Eames' skin feels scalding-hot, which probably isn't a factor of Eames' actual temperature so much as the fact that Arthur was apparently closer than he'd like to think to frostbite.
Rather than shoving Arthur away, which is what Arthur expected him to do next, Eames grits his teeth and grabs him closer. "I'm beginning to seriously doubt that you're even a mammal," Eames says. "Are you sure you have an inner temperature regulation mechanism?"
"No, I'm actually a reptilian alien," Arthur says. Barring a straight face, he'd at least like his teeth to stop chattering. "It's in my dossier."
"Knew I'd regret not reading that." Eames' fingers are carding through Arthur's wet hair, cautious like he thinks there's a bear trap hidden in there somewhere.
Arthur's reasonably certain that Eames is going to have his hands in Arthur's pants – metaphorically, given that Arthur's actual pants are on the floor somewhere – at some point this evening. Arthur should be appalled by the thought, definitely. Eames has no respect for Arthur's personal space, a god awful sense of humor and the worst dress taste Arthur has ever seen, in person.
(It's true, admittedly, that Eames' off-color jokes and shirts are largely put on as a grand disguise, a smoke screen hiding the actual person. That doesn't mean Arthur is going to just ignore them. The personal space issue is best left alone entirely.)
The evening wears on. The rain falls harder, pounding on their roof like an angry neighbor at three AM. Eames' hands remain strictly above Arthur's waist. It's enough to drive a man mad. Arthur's almost certain that Eames is doing this solely to defy Arthur's expectations.
Except that Eames has the temerity to be all warm at him, and between finally warming up and falling asleep Arthur just forgets to be annoyed.
4.
In response to the age-old question, Are you paranoid if they really are after you? Arthur would reply, No, but you're probably a point man.
That said, it's kind of stupid for Arthur to half-believe that he lost the ability to regulate his own body temperature. He's pretty sure that doesn't happen to humans. He considers researching the subject, but the last time Arthur looked into medical information he ended up with half a dozen psychosomatic illnesses. Being paranoid makes him a good point man, but it's hell on the nerves. His and those of everyone around him.
Yet the evidence speaks for itself. For months now Arthur has been wrapping himself in progressively warmer clothes and additional layers, until he can't catch his own reflection in the mirror without thinking of cocoons.
Arthur knows for a fact that his body is objectively warm enough, bordering on overheated – his face gets red, he can feel the sweat dripping down his back, but he still can't get warm. Which means he can't sleep.
This is worrying.
They're in Mombasa, which makes it worse since the weather is warm and clear – the sky a brilliant, blinding blue as far as the eye can see. It should be comforting to Arthur, familiar, but the wind tastes of the sea and not of dust. Even the dirt is the wrong color.
And Eames. It all comes to Eames in the end.
Because when Eames puts a hand on Arthur's back, Arthur feels it. When it's removed he feels an imprint, as if he can see his own back and it's glowing in infra-red. Eames, who refrains from mocking Arthur for the layers of clothing that Arthur himself knows are ridiculous.
Eames, who looks at Arthur like he's waiting for something, and Arthur can't figure out what.
"What?" Arthur asks him, one day, maddened by the constant headache he carries these days and Eames' infuriating immovability. "What the fuck are you looking at?"
"When's the last time you slept?" Eames asks. In their rented office, the rest of their team falls silent. Arthur glares daggers at the room in its entirety.
"None," Arthur says, barely keeping from snarling, "of anybody's goddamned business. Yours least of all."
It's not true. Arthur knows that as soon as it leaves his mouth. Eames is leading this team, and if anyone on it is impaired, Eames needs to know that. This is something Arthur understands better than anyone. What he said is untrue, and cruel besides.
But Eames doesn't give him an opportunity to apologize, doesn't even let him say anything – just grabs Arthur by the back of his neck and marches him away forcibly.
"What the hell," Arthur says, wheezing a little because his breathing gets fucked up when he doesn't sleep enough, "do you think you're doing?"
"Reacting to circumstances and reasserting command abilities," Eames says, as if they're in one of those stupid leadership seminars Arthur had to go to when he worked for the government. Eames walks them up the stairs.
"This is your apartment," Arthur says. He's more tired than he thought he was.
"Indeed." Eames opens the door. The apartment is one room, a futon bed in one corner and a kitchenette in the other; Eames, surprisingly, is a man of simple needs. He pretty much hurtles Arthur face-down on the futon.
Arthur turns around to lie on his bed. "All right," he says. His breathing can't seem to get un-fucked-up. "What now?"
Eames rolls his eyes. The sunlight catches his eyes in a weird angle, and they look almost glowy. Arthur wonders whether he's sleep-deprived enough to start having hallucinations. "Now you sleep," Eames says. His voice is all weird, too, like it's coming from too far away.
"Can't," Arthur says, and he can't help it, his mouth twists in sheer unhappiness. "I can't, I can't get warm enough."
Eames should be raising an eyebrow, should be asking Arthur what precisely he means, can't get warm when it's thirty-one degrees out there? Fucking Eames. He would be using Celsius degrees to confuse a poor, sleepless American. But fuck him, Arthur knows the metric system.
Except Eames doesn't do that. Eames takes off his shirt and lies over Arthur, so that Arthur's pressed down under his weight, smothered in his body heat. They're sweating, both of them, Arthur's shirt is completely wet down the front. It's disgusting. He can't stand it. He wraps his arms around Eames, his legs.
In the morning, Eames has bruises on the back of his neck where Arthur held on. In the morning, Arthur puts on a waistcoat and a jacket before shuddering and taking them off again. He goes to work in a button-down shirt, and rolls up the sleeves at midday.
He can feel the heat of Eames' eyes on him the whole time.
5.
There's something about Arthur and warm weather. Arthur can't explain it accurately. It ties into early childhood memories of a sun that didn't so much shine as blast and his mother's unholy vendetta against central heating. He tries to tell Eames about it, at one point.
"She used to say I liked the heat because I was desert-born." It's August, but they're in London, so there's a constant unsteady drizzle outside.
"Hm?" Eames never raises his eyes from the newspaper he's pretending to read. Arthur can feel Eames' focus on him.
"We left before I was three, though, so I don't know if that counts." Arthur's tea is getting cold. He contemplates getting up to stick it in the microwave, but that would require moving out of his carefully constructed nest of blankets.
Eames pushes his reading glasses up his nose. "Left where?"
"Nirim." Arthur traces a finger against the inner side of the window, following a raindrop down. This isn't his kind of summer.
There's a rustle as Eames puts his newspaper down. "All right, love," he says, smiling at Arthur. "I'll admit my ignorance. Where the bloody hell is that?"
Arthur's lips don't move, but Eames' finger traces the corner of Arthur's left eye, where the wrinkles form something like a secret smile. "Wouldn't you like to know," Arthur says.
"I would, actually." The wonder is that Eames means it.
Arthur looks down and drinks his tea. Maybe he'll tell Eames all about it, eventually, mark the place he where was born on a map for Eames to see. Hell, maybe Arthur will take him there some time. Take a walk through the fields, take off the goddamned jacket for once. Feel the sun on his skin like it's trying to burn him, roll up his sleeves like he's challenging it to try.
Yeah. Arthur thinks he might like that.
