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Arthur opened the door, took one look at Cobb, and said, "No."
Cobb put his hand between the door and the frame in the mistaken assumption Arthur wouldn't slam it on his hand. "Let me in," he said. "I'm in trouble."
Sighing, Arthur did. "What happened?" he asked, as Cobb followed him through the foyer.
"The mark from my most recent extraction realized what happened to him, and he tracked me down." Cobb stopped in the living room and looked around, brows knitting. "This is your place?"
Arthur understood what he meant: nothing in the apartment was Arthur's style. Eames liked leather and stained wood and earthy colours; he liked to buy enormous old pieces of furniture in flea markets and then pay shady guys to drop them off at the apartment in the early hours while Arthur was still half-asleep in bed, scaring him to death (and them as well, when Arthur came out of the bedroom with a gun in hand). There were paintings on the walls by dead French guys Arthur had learned about in high school, and the bathroom looked like there should be a guy in it named Jeeves waiting to draw your bath. There were still piles of paperbacks on the floor, because Eames thought he was too cool for TV, and so when he wasn't gambling or stealing, he was reading. Arthur had put up more shelves ages ago, but Eames ignored them; this was actually fine by Arthur, because it meant he could shelve the books himself, and Eames wouldn't mess up his carefully-ordered system. (If the books weren't shelved by subject and author, it made Arthur antsy.)
By now, some of the smaller things -- and, frankly, most of the wardrobe -- were Arthur's, but nearly all of Arthur's stuff was in a storage facility in Madison, and had been for quite some time now.
The truth was, Arthur had been living out of hotels and suitcases for so long that he loved how personal everything in the apartment was. It was just so Eames. So while he and Eames didn't share the same taste in, well, anything, Arthur was perfectly fine living in his crap. That was probably sad, but he figured as long as he didn't say it out loud, he was okay.
"It's Eames's place," Arthur corrected, feeling a little uncomfortable telling this to Cobb. "Eames's and-- mine."
Cobb looked surprised. "Huh. Do you have a guest room?"
"No, but there's a couch," Arthur said, gesturing to the giant leather monstrosity Eames refused to get rid of. One day, Arthur was just going to wait for him to go to the store and then chuck it. Ikea delivered to Kenya, right?
There was a room that could have been a guest room, if it they hadn't been using it as an office. But it was currently suffering from the same problem the rest of the apartment was, with the books and the over-abundance of furniture and the paintings Arthur suspected were actually stolen. Arthur had one very neat, very organized desk and bookcase to himself, and he'd be damned if he was upsetting it for anyone, even Cobb. The couch was fine.
"Have you recently had sex on this couch?" Cobb asked.
"That was an asshole thing to say," Arthur replied.
Cobb rubbed the back of his neck, looking embarrassed. "You're right. Sorry."
"We had sex on it yesterday afternoon."
"Maybe I'll just let them kill me," Cobb said wistfully.
Arthur picked up his cell phone off the coffee table. "We can probably borrow Yusuf's futon."
"You still talk to Yusuf?" Cobb asked, frowning. "I missed a lot the year I was gone, didn't I."
"You won't believe how much," Arthur agreed.
Suffice to say, Eames wasn't happy to come home and find Cobb there, slumped on the couch and watching an ancient episode of Trisha. It was about cheating partners, and every now and then Cobb murmured, "That's right, Trisha," and Arthur's eyes were starting to hurt from all the rolling.
Arthur didn't turn around when he heard the door shut and Eames stomp into the living room, but he felt when Eames loomed over his shoulder.
"Darling," Eames began in a dangerous tone, "why is Dominic Cobb in my lounge?"
"I said he could stay," Arthur replied, not looking up from the Arts and Leisure section of the New York Times. It looked like they were doing another year of Wicked. "A job went wrong; he's on the run."
"And how, pray tell, does he know where we live?"
"Because I told him."
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder. Surprised, Arthur glanced up; Eames put his mouth to Arthur's ear and hissed, "He's going to kill us in our sleep."
Arthur snorted. "Don't be silly. It'd be two against one; we could definitely take him. Oh," he added guilty, "he also wouldn't do that. Kill us, I mean. Probably."
"I can hear you," Cobb said with a sour expression on his face. "Assholes."
"Not it's not lovely to see you, Cobb," Eames said, dropping into an armchair and smiling grimly, "but why us? Why didn't you go visit Ariadne?"
Cobb looked floored. "You mean possibly lead dangerous criminals directly to her? Young, defenseless Ariadne?"
"I believe you mean terrifying, clever Ariadne," Eames corrected. "I seem to remember her doing quite well for herself in Fischer's dream, and she did make it out of Limbo unscathed. Wasn't your job in Switzerland, France's chocolatey neighbour? Yet you flew all the way to Kenya?"
Cobb reached across the couch and laid a friendly hand on Arthur's shoulder. "I wanted to go somewhere safe."
He smiled at Arthur, and Arthur cocked a brow at him. He recognized that face. Shoulders slumping, Cobb confessed, "Ariadne won't talk to me. I called her, you know, a few months after Fischer, and she told me she was working on her own now and she'd be an idiot to do a job with me again. She said I'm 'arrogant' and 'unhinged,' whatever that means."
Eames squared his shoulders. "By 'unhinged,' she means you do things like call me and do nothing but breathe heavily--"
"Okay, stop," Arthur interrupted. He frowned at Eames. "Wait, heavy breathing?"
Looking furious, Eames turned to him. "Arthur, as your partner, both in crime and in life -- and don't think I missed that eye roll, Dominic Cobb -- don't you think we should have first discussed this?"
"It's Cobb, not some stranger," Arthur protested. He waved a hand in Cobb's general direction. "Yusuf stays over all the time. Why do you have such a problem with this?"
"My problem," Eames replied, face and voice hardening, "is that this is my flat, and you just can't invite all your mates over whenever you feel like it."
Arthur's head went back in surprise. "I see," he said. "I didn't realize I needed your permission."
Eames scrubbed his face with his hand. "That's not what I meant."
"No, I'm sure I understand perfectly what you meant," Arthur replied coldly.
They looked at each other angrily for a long moment. Arthur's chest was tight with hurt and humiliation; he wondered if Cobb had spotted it immediately, that obviously this was Eames's place and Arthur was just visiting. Here he had just been thinking about how he liked all of Eames's stupid shit -- he was such an idiot.
"I'm really uncomfortable right now," said Cobb.
"Fuck off," Eames snapped, at the same time as Arthur said, "This is a private conversation."
But Eames grabbed the remote from Cobb and turned to the news, still visibly fuming, and, in retaliation, Arthur snapped open his newspaper and settled in for a long, tense evening.
*
At breakfast the next morning, Cobb stared at him, slowly spooning cereal into his mouth.
"What?" Arthur asked. He looked around, but he hadn't spilt anything. He hoped Cobb wasn't having yet another psychotic break.
"This is all very strange," Cobb replied.
Arthur frowned. "How?"
"You're wearing a t-shirt."
"I've known you for ten years," Arthur grumbled. "I'm pretty sure you've seen me in a t-shirt."
"No," Cobb said, eyes narrowing to slits, "no, I don't think I have."
Arthur heard the shower switch off, and then a door slam; Eames must have moved from the shower into the main bathroom. By now, Eames would be shaving (not that it helped; he'd have a five 'o' clock shadow again within a few hours), and then he was going to slap on the aftershave Arthur had bought him, and then pad naked into the bedroom, and--
As much of an asshole as Eames was being right now, Arthur was still getting hard thinking about him. He always wanted him. They'd even had sex last night: angry, rough sex that had ended with Arthur threatening to sleep on the futon with Cobb and Eames inexplicably having a fit about it. Cobb had probably heard the whole thing, if the dark circles under his eyes were any indication.
"I guess I just don't understand," Cobb accused. "We were together for ten years, and you left me for Eames. Eames! The man you said was one day going to kill you so he could wear your skin."
Arthur grimaced. "Can you stop saying I 'left' you? It's creeping me out. And-- yeah, Eames, alright? I realized during the Fischer job that maybe... maybe I was wrong about him."
He couldn't help but look away, feeling faintly embarrassed, because, okay, maybe he knew where Cobb was coming from; he'd said a lot of shitty things about Eames over the years, especially after that first job in Yangoon, when Eames had spent the entire job openly staring at him, leaving Arthur feeling flushed and uncomfortable. The next job they'd had that required a forger, Arthur had literally begged Cobb to hire anyone but Eames. But Cobb had said Eames was the best, and he wanted the best; Cobb was sometimes a dick that way. Eames had been better about staring at Arthur, then, and he hadn't done anything untoward, but he'd kept talking to Arthur, and looking at him, and sitting close enough to touch, and Arthur had felt prickly and uncertain with the knowledge that a hot guy was interested in him and he wasn't sure how he'd felt in return. Especially when said hot guy was a co-worker.
But then somewhere along the way, Arthur had realized he'd gotten used to Eames, and had even kind of, maybe, liked him. And then there was the Fischer job, and Eames had suddenly seemed like this whole new person, and now he was living in Mombasa while Eames took a shower and Cobb interrogated him about his love life.
"Also," Arthur added, "technically, you left me, when you decided to take a break."
Cobb frowned. "You could've come home with me."
"And now I'm creeped out again," said Arthur.
Arthur was spreading marmalade on his toast when Eames walked by without sparing them a glance. He was wearing one of his hideous pairs of pleated pants and a shirt Arthur had sworn he'd thrown out months ago. The front door slammed loudly behind him, and Arthur knew he was heading to one of three places: a casino, a bar, or Yusuf's.
"Sorry if I've caused any problems," Cobb said, wincing. "You two aren't breaking up, are you?"
"After the months of bullshit I went through?" Arthur retorted. He snorted. "Hell no. That idiot's stuck with me until one of us dies."
Cobb was looking a little too pleased at that, with that soft, sappy look in his eyes he always got when the subject of love came up, so Arthur couldn't help but add, meanly, "Or until he develops ED and I trade him in for a younger model."
Cobb looked digusted. "You're my second least favourite child," he said, pointing at Arthur with his spoon.
"I cannot begin to tell you what's wrong with that sentence," Arthur replied.
*
After breakfast, Cobb went back to watching a Mheshimiwa marathon on KTN and Arthur followed up on calls for potential job offers. He turned down one because he didn't trust the source, another because the potential of getting caught was too high, and a third just because it was something Eames would have taken and Arthur was feeling vindictive.
Then, he made a few calls to a few of his more discrete sources to find out whether or not there was a price on Cobb's head. No one had heard anything concrete, although there was already a rumour floating around that Cobb had gone rogue and pissed off the extractor, who may or may not have been looking to rough Cobb up as a warning to not double-cross him. Arthur had once seen Cobb jump out of a helicopter and into a rooftop swimming pool, so he figured the joke was on that extractor.
Eames didn't get back until late afternoon. Arthur was sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop when he heard the door open and the familiar sound of Eames's steps. He flattened his mouth into a thin line and pointedly didn't look up when Eames walked into the kitchen. He continued to focus on his very engrossing game of Bejeweled while he felt Eames watching him.
"I was at Yusuf's," Eames offered finally.
"I didn't ask," Arthur said shortly.
"Predictably, he has a new girlfriend. Reshmi."
Eames pronounced her name much in the same way he said "one million euros" or "The Mirage." Arthur's eye twitched, but he refused to be baited.
There was a long silence, then:
"So after Cobb buggers off, I was thinking we could move to Paris."
Arthur's head snapped up. "What?"
Eames scratched his nose. He looked faintly pink. "You know. Paris. Croissants, cafés, bad lager, la français. We could pick out a flat together."
"But you hate the French," Arthur said suspiciously.
"But you love them," said Eames, covering Arthur's hand with his own.
It was true, Arthur did love the French, and he loved Paris. He loved drinking cappuccinos and smoking cigarettes while feeling superior to all the tourists, he loved the shopping, and he even loved the urine-stenched métro. But he'd been living in Mombasa now longer than anywhere he'd lived in years, since he'd fallen into dreamsharing, and there were things about the city he'd gotten used to. He and Eames had a favourite bar, and the old man who ran the grocery store knew their names, and he liked the Hindu temples and old colonial buildings tucked between the modern Kenyan high-rises and mosques. And he liked their -- Eames's -- old building with its carved door and elegant veranda and the bathroom Eames poured half a million pounds into.
"Or," Arthur suggested, "we could stay in Mombasa and buy an espresso machine."
"You just want to get rid of my couch, don't you," Eames said.
"I fucking hate that couch so much," Arthur said vehemently.
Eames sighed and slid into a chair. He looked old and tired, suddenly, and Arthur felt uncertain. "Shall we go looking for new flats, then?"
Arthur frowned. "No, I like this apartment. What are you doing?"
Glowering, Eames clenched his hands around the edge of the table. "I'm trying to make up for what I said earlier!" he replied, voice rising.
He still looked exhausted, and Arthur didn't know what to do to make that look go away; the last time Eames had looked that bad was months ago in Croatia, when he'd thought Arthur was leaving him for Cobb. Arthur had no idea how Eames's mind worked sometimes -- if Arthur hadn't left him back during Eames's commitment-phobic days, he had no idea why Eames would think he'd bail because of a stupid fight (even if that fight had made Arthur question their entire living situation). Hell, Arthur'd had worse fights with Cobb.
"No, you were right," Arthur said, raising his chin. He would be the bigger man. "It is your place. I shouldn't have assumed."
"You bloody well should have assumed," Eames countered, now looking angry.
"Can I come in the kitchen now?" Cobb called, from the direction of the living room.
"No," they snapped simultaneously.
"Can you at least tell me what to do to make this right?" Eames asked.
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "You could say you're sorry."
"Hey, now, let's not get carried away," said Eames.
Arthur tilted his head back to gaze at the ceiling, which was the same ugly mustard yellow as the rest of the kitchen. "You could let me redecorate." He turned back to see the expression on Eames's face, and he amended, "We could redecorate. Then it would be our stuff, in our apartment."
"Except my bath," Eames said. "I worked my arse off for that bath."
"Except your bath," he agreed placatingly.
They smiled at each other until Eames's eyes darkened, and Arthur called, without breaking his gaze, "Cobb, you should go out for a while."
The volume on the TV lowered. "I'm not going out," Cobb shouted back, "what if the mark's sent people after me?"
Arthur blew out a breath through his nose. "We're having sex whether or not you're in the apartment."
There was a long pause.
"Let me find my shoes," Cobb said.
"Darling, not that I don't approve, but what if there are people tailing him?" Eames asked.
Arthur opened his mouth to reply that he was taking care of it, but then Cobb called, "Please don't have sex in the kitchen," and then the door opened.
They looked at each other.
The second the door shut behind Cobb, Arthur stood and settled over Eames's lap, feeling him start to harden under him, even as the chair squeaked. "Do you think we'll break this chair?" he asked, already hard.
"I'm willing to risk it," Eames murmured, setting heavy hands on Arthur's hips. He licked his lips, and Arthur couldn't look away from them. "Besides, we'll be getting new kitchen furniture, yeah?"
Since he was distracted by Eames's wet and red mouth, he missed one of Eames's hands come up to tug through his hair, combing out the gel. He shivered as the hand caught in the gel and tugged through it, and then Eames tightened his fingers in the shorter hair on the back of his head, rubbing a thumb at the soft spot behind Arthur's ear. This was what Arthur loved about fucking Eames, more than his dick or his ass, or even his mouth: Eames knew all the spots on Arthur that drove him crazy, and he had no problem exploiting them. Arthur'd had boyfriends in the past who kissed his neck or his ears and moved on, focused on his ass or his cock, but only Eames knew how biting the right place on his neck could make him come, or how pulling his hair made him instantly hard. Eames knew Arthur didn't need toys or costumes or elaborate role-playing fantasies to get off; he just wanted Eames (and maybe a spanking or two).
They kissed, and Eames sighed through his nose and pushed his tongue in Arthur's mouth. He tasted a little like that gross Tanzanian beer he and Yusuf liked. When Arthur ground down on Eames's cock, the chair squeaked again, but it seemed stable enough, and Arthur hurridly started to unbutton Eames's shirt as Eames dragged his palms up Arthur's sides, sliding his t-shirt up over his belly. Overheated now, Arthur pulled his mouth away to breathe -- he was not panting -- and Eames chuckled and trailed kisses down his neck.
"Fuck this stupid, ugly shirt," Arthur growled, as his fingers slipped over the last button.
Finally, he got Eames's shirt open and pushed it off his shoulders, running his hands across Eames's broad, tattooed shoulders and down his chest.
"Mind the collar," Eames grunted, and that was all the warning Arthur got before Eames tugged his t-shirt over his head, catching it on his nose. He had to finish taking it off himself, and when he could see again Eames was also throwing his own shirt on the floor.
"Stand up," Eames coaxed, and Arthur frowned but went along with it. Eames kissed him again, hot and wet, his stubble dragging across Arthur's chin and cheeks, and Arthur groaned at the burn and grabbed Eames's face, nipping at his lips.
He opened his eyes when Eames leaned back and groped blindly at the counter. "What're you doing?" he asked, and Eames said "Aha!" as he grabbed the bottle of olive oil they always kept out. (Eames had high cholesterol, and Arthur was slowly and secretly removing all animal fat from their kitchen.)
"That's ninety-dollar olive oil," Arthur said, meaning it as a warning, but Eames was already dribbling some on his fingers.
With his clean hand, he tried tugging down Arthur's pants, but Arthur ended up having to do it for him, pushing both them and his boxers down over his thighs. Then, kissing along Arthur's collar bone, he slipped one slick finger into Arthur's ass. Arthur hummed at the slight burn, and as soon as he was ready Eames slid another finger into him.
Arthur ignored the shaking in his knees and straightened up. Eames's fingers slipped out of him, and he finished stripping off his pants and underwear, kicking them away. Eames did the same, possibly ruining his pants by getting olive oil all over them.
Once they were both naked, Eames reclaimed his place on the chair and said, "Turn round, love," and Arthur sat back down on Eames's thighs, this time facing the table. He rested his forearms on the table as Eames lined them up properly, and then Eames was simultaneously pulling him down and pushing into him, slick and impossibly big, and his breath was hitching. Eventually, his thighs were fully pressed against Eames's, and he made himself relax enough to settle his weight on his elbows, still resting on the table.
Eames was breathing heavily and dropping open-mouthed kisses along Arthur's spine. He was sweating, and it always gave Arthur a rush to know he was making Eames lose control like this.
Abruptly, Eames hooked an ankle around the leg of the table and pulled the chair in so Arthur was almost entirely sitting in his lap, Eames's chest warm against his back. Given their profession, Eames's strength shouldn't have turned Arthur on as much as it did, but it did, every time.
"Okay, darling?" Eames gasped, and Arthur said something that sounded like, "Nnnguh," which Eames must've taken to mean yes because he wrapped his hands around Arthur's waist and pushed up, and then Arthur pushed back down. Arthur braced the soles of his feet flat on the floor and rocking back into him, riding him.
He was getting into a good rhythm when Eames reached up and slid two fingers into his mouth. Eames groaned loudly when Arthur sucked on them hard. Eames's cock was hitting him in exactly the right place, and he let himself be loud because that was how Eames liked it and Arthur wasn't a selfish man.
He wrapped his hand around his cock, jerking off at the same pace as his hips, with Eames panting wetly against the back of his neck. Pulling his fingers out of Arthur's mouth in order to tightly fist his hand in Arthur's hair, Eames started saying, "Arthur, Arthur," and Arthur came, pulsing into his own hand.
Feeling boneless, he slumped back against Eames's chest, and Eames made a distressed noise. "Come on," Eames hissed, "Arthur," and Arthur remembered to move again.
Now, mouthing the base of his spine, Eames gripped Arthur's thigh and tugged his legs wider apart. His head clearing, Arthur determinedly slammed down onto Eames's lap and clenched, over and over, until Eames was grabbing his hips and forcing him into a fast rhythm he obviously needed. He let out a strangled cry and Arthur felt him coming.
They sat like that for a few minutes, catching their breaths.
"These chairs are surprisingly sturdy," Arthur said. "Maybe we should keep them."
"Mmm," was all Eames said in response, resting his forehead against Arthur's shoulder blade.
When Cobb returned, he had a bag of crafts in one hand, probably from the touristy Bombolulu Workshops, and a bag of wrapped sandwiches in the other. Arthur had just finished cleaning off the table; Eames was asleep on the couch, snoring softly.
"Well, I'm still alive," Cobb said, glaring at Arthur. He set his bags on the table and started to sit -- in the chair they'd just fucked in not ten minutes ago.
"You don't want to sit in that chair," Arthur warned.
Cobb looked down at the table, and then he slowly looked back up again. "I'm going to check into a hotel," he said.
"Probably for the best," Arthur agreed.