Eames was not, despite what Arthur might say, an unreliable man. He was steady, always steady. He didn’t yell, he didn’t take off for no reason, he was reliable, he was constant, he was a touchstone, it was who he was. That didn’t mean he was boring, and to most people, he was unreliable because he was only steady for those who had earned it. The Cobb kids had earned it the second Mal had told him she was pregnant. Which was why, the same day as he’d pulled off inception, he was straightening his tie as he walked up the short path from the sidewalk to Cobb’s front door with a manilla envelope under one arm.
Arthur opened the door, which wasn’t exactly a surprise. The moment they’d all realized that Cobb wasn’t waking up Eames had watched Arthur’s emotions shut down and go into a type of survival mode, which, for Arthur, meant taking care of everyone else at the expense of himself.
“Good evening, I’m Mr. Andrews. I’m Dominic Cobb’s estate attorney,” Eames said in a flat midwestern American accent, unsure of who else was in the house. Mal and Dom had never written a will, despite the protests of literally everyone around them. It was just plain stupid to not have something written up, especially when there were two darling children involved. But they hadn’t, always insisting that there would be time for all of that later.
“Miles and Collette are in the living room, the kids are asleep,” Arthur said, opening the door wider for Eames to get through.
“Anyone else?” Eames asked, passing a little closer than necessary so he could whisper in Arthur’s ear.
“No.”
“Excellent,” Eames said, reverting to his normal accent and going straight to the living room. Sure enough, Collette and Miles were sitting on the couch, in the middle of the room, quietly talking to each other. In the adjacent kitchen, Eames could see the dishwasher being loaded and the mess from dinner in the middle of being cleared. “I have their will.”
“Is it right?” Collette asked, taking the envelope from Eames and flipping through the pages of the will.
“You wound me, auntie,” Eames said as he sat in the armchair that was next to the couch. Arthur came into the living room and sat in an identical chair on the other side of the couch.
“I doubt that,” she said before handing it to Miles.
“You two were awarded full custody, and the children were given fifty percent of the estate each. You do retain the right as trustees to sell the house as long as the funds are deposited into the children's trusts which were set up at their birth,” Eames explained.
“They didn’t write wills but they had trusts set up for the children?” Miles asked, looking like he’d laugh if he weren’t so grief-stricken. Mal had been his only child, but he’d been close with Dom ever since Dom showed up at his office hours to discuss the finer points of an assignment.
Eames shot a look at Arthur who glared back at him.
“No, I did,” Arthur said. He didn’t look like he was going to continue explaining until Collette waved her hand at him. “When they were born I knew all their information so I set some up as Mal and Dom. The kids are set to inherit anything from me as well into those trusts. Though Eames isn’t supposed to have the information to those trusts.”
Eames rolled his eyes. “Oh please, Arthur. We were still living together when James was born, did you honestly think I wouldn’t jot down the information?”
Collette cut in before Arthur could say anything back. “Will this hold up to a judge if it is contested?”
Eames started to nod but Arthur shook his head. “It won’t have to. No one’s going to contest it. Dom hasn’t talked to his dad in over a decade, I doubt he even knows that there are children. If there was a secret will to be found someone would have found it sometime in the past two years while they tore about the kids’ lives looking for evidence.”
“Maybe he’ll want a relationship with his grandchildren since he lost the chance to reconcile with his son,” Eames shot back.
Arthur glared at him. “He’s a nonissue.”
“You’ll forgive me if I’m a little skeptical of your assertions of what is or isn’t an issue,” Eames said with a tight smile, regretting it as soon as he saw Arthur’s face go ashen and look to the ground. Eames turned back to Colette and Miles who were giving him a stern disappointed parent look that he had been ignoring for decades. “It will hold us in court. And Arthur could always provide evidence about the lack of a relationship between Mr. Cobb and Cobb.”
For a brief second, Arthur caught his eye and he almost looked like he’d shaken off the worst of the moment. It had been a low blow on the day Dom died, even for Eames.
“Which brings us roughly to the next issue,” Arthur started, sitting up a little straighter and addressing Collette and Miles directly. “I want to come with you. To help with the kids.”
“No,” Collette said sharply.
“They don’t have to lose more family,” Arthur argued.
“They do not need more people coming in and out of their lives like they are only loved when it is convenient,” Collette argued.
“I wouldn’t be coming in and out. I’m retired,” Arthur argued.
Eames’s heart skipped a beat. He should have seen this coming, he’d known as soon as he’d realized Cobb was gone that Arthur would do whatever he had to do to support the kids. Arthur had a forever shifting center of gravity; there’d been Mal, and then Cobb, and now the kids. He’d do whatever it took to take care of them.
Collette laughed sharply, her eyes dark and humorless. “Do you even have a clean identity that you could live on?”
“My real identity. I do my taxes every year, I’ve gotten a handful of speeding tickets but nothing more than that on that identity. I have enough saved under that name that it wouldn’t be suspicious for me to be able to move.”
“Immigration?” Miles asked.
“If you could sponsor my application into the university I could get a student visa and then I would be able to stay after graduation,” Arthur explained. “I could probably get into a different university if you aren’t able to.”
“Or you could get married,” Eames cut in, suddenly feeling his own center of gravity shifting. Since Saito had come out of Limbo Eames had more money than he knew what to do with and suddenly he knew what he was doing. He was going to retire and he was going to make sure that his cousin’s — his best friend’s — children were taken care of. He hadn’t been there for Mal when she’d been spiraling, even though he’d been by far the most qualified; forging tended to take a harder toll on someone’s sense of reality than any other type of dreamer. But he could be there for her children, maybe he’d actually live up to the title of Uncle Eames.
“To one of my many French suitors? Why didn’t I think of that?” Arthur said, rolling his eyes.
“I am a citizen of the European Union,” Eames said.
“You’d marry me for immigration purposes?” Arthur asked, his face twisted into incredulity. He didn't trust Eames, so ultimately he couldn't trust the offer. After everything they’d been through together it wasn’t all that surprising, Eames didn’t trust him either. But he could marry him, he could put aside his feelings to give the kids the best shot at life because no matter how Eames and Arthur felt about each other the kids would always come first.
“Do you have a clean identity?” Collette asked.
“What do you take me for?” Eames asked, and usually, that would make Collette laugh but today she was having done of it. “The last thing my birth identity was charged with was shoplifting at fifteen. Got my first fake ID two weeks later and kept the nose of Charles Eames Thompson clean.”
“You sound like the two of you have it all figured out,” Miles said.
“There’s been a lot of time to think about this over the past two years,” Arthur said with a shrug.
“I love these kids. Phillipa is my goddaughter,” Eames said seriously. “And James would have been too but Mal thought it was only fair to make Arthur the godfather after I got the firstborn.”
“It’s not a competition,” Arthur said, rolling his eyes.
“You’re only saying that because you lost,” Miles said, laughing a little.
Arthur shook his head and looked at Collette. “You said yourself that you were too old to be raising two young kids on your own. Even back in Paris, Miles will be working, and I could help.” He stopped for a second and looked at Eames. “We both could.”
Collette and Miles stared at each other for a long time. It was like they were having the whole debate just by looking at each other, the kind of vague psychic abilities that come with nearly fifty years of marriage. Finally, Miles shrugged.
“Fine. But if either of you teaches my grandchildren crimes you are gone from their lives for good,” she said sharply.
Eames flinched like he’d been hit. “I already taught Phillipa to count cards it would just be unfair not to teach James.”
Collette glared at him. “He will just have to learn from his sister then.”
The next week was among the worst in Eames’s life. He had never been a big fan of Dom, and he’d lost any love for him when he’d shown up certain that he could accomplish inception and Eames realized what happened in limbo. But having Phillipa and James crying and yelling and throwing temper tantrums broke Eames’s heart anyway. They didn’t know that their dad was a piece of shit – they certainly weren’t ever going to learn that from Eames – and their little hearts couldn’t take the grief that was bowling them over. They’d had so much hope that Dom was going to come home, they’d put so much faith in Arthur’s promises that he was coming soon, and now that they’d been forced to say goodbye barely two years after saying goodbye to their mother.
Eames tried to help, but he was hopeless at it. He was much better suited for the good times, he could do dress-up and teach them football, and he’d sign any permission slip either of them would ever put in front of him as anyone they needed him to sign it as, but this was beyond him. Halfway through the second day, after lunch where both kids had barely touched their food Arthur grabbed his arm and pulled him into the kitchen while the kids went off to watch television and take a nap if they wanted.
“Help Philipa pack up her things,” Arthur said sharply.
“What?”
“You’re unfocused and it’s not helping them. They need something to focus on so give it to them, help Philipa pack,” Arthur said, looking him dead in the eye with an intensity that had been missing since they woke up on the plane.
Eames wanted to argue but Arthur was right, maybe everyone just needed to focus on their next steps so they could get through this. And packing was a cleansing process, an emotional one. Maybe it would help. “I’ll help James, you help Philipa. You’re her favorite,” Eames said.
Arthur’s fingers dug into his arm for a second before releasing him like he didn’t know he’d still been holding on. “Not anymore,” Arthur said, looking away to the counter. “She doesn’t trust me anymore because I told her her father was coming back and he died.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” Eames said with a weariness that he hadn’t known he’d been carrying. He’d known this was coming because it was true that Phillipa had been giving Arthur the cold shoulder.
“If I had known about the militarization we’d have been better prepared, Saito wouldn’t have gotten shot, and Dom wouldn’t have had to go after them,” Arthur shot back.
“On a job where the chemist and the extractor hadn’t been stabbing us in the back unexpected militarization wouldn’t have mattered,” Eames argued. He’d forgiven Yusuf enough to let him go back to Mombassa with his prize but he had also burned him to every contact in the field he had. Yusuf likely wouldn’t work outside of his dream den again.
“Then I should have known about that too,” Arthur said before he turned around and started loading the dishwasher like that ended the conversation.
Eames shook his head and turned away, there was no arguing with Arthur’s perfectionism.
Two days later was Dom’s funeral. It was small, just the kids, Arthur, Eames, Collette, and Miles. Halfway through a man arrived in the back, wrinkled and trying not to be seen though hiding is hard in a group of six. Afterward, while Miles and Collette were trying to calm down the children Arthur went up to the man. They spoke quietly, and only for a few minutes. The man’s eyes kept snapping over to the children and back to Arthur, but he nodded and seemed to agree to whatever terms of visitation Arthur was laying out for him.
When Arthur returned the man left in what was clearly a rental car. “Dom’s father?” Eames asked under his breath as the two of them trailed behind the rest of their new little family to the cars. They were headed home now, and it looked like James had cried himself out from the lolling of his head on Miles’s shoulder.
“Yes. I told him he could visit in Paris in a few months but that the kids couldn’t deal with meeting him for the first time right now,” Arthur explained.
“And he just accepted that?” Eames asked. Dom apparently hadn’t gotten his pigheadedness from his father.
“He doesn’t have a choice,” Arthur said. “And I agreed to pay for his flight.”
Eames laughed quietly to himself, drawing a sharp look from Collette, though the kids didn’t notice. “You take good care of them,” Eames said as they got in a car by themselves.
“Do you plan on not taking good care of them?” Arthur snapped.
Eames shook his head and started the car. “And yet you wonder why I never compliment you.”
“No, I don’t,” Arthur grumbled before he settled into a sullen silence, looking out the window.
Two days after Dom’s funeral, and the day before the kids were set to go back to Paris with their grandparents Arthur and Eames got married. It was a small affair by nature, just Collette came to the courthouse with them to act as a witness, saying that it would have made Mal laugh to see the two of them getting married while they “were in such a state.”
Eames, for his part, was in a state. Arthur dressed like it was just any day on the job, not even bothering with a suit jacket, while Eames had agonized the entire night about what to wear. He was a careful man about that, he wore what he did to project the image he wanted, and Arthur knew that. Arthur would be able to see every one of Eames’s feelings if he didn’t keep them under a tight enough wrap, covered in clothes that were just the right amount of flippant without coming off as trying too hard.
He didn’t choke on his vows, though he could feel how earnestly he meant them bubbling up in his chest which was when it hit him how spectacularly bad an idea this was. Eames was still in love with Arthur, always had been probably always would be and he was marrying him for residency? He was going to buy them a place down the street from the kids and play house while Arthur felt no more affection for him than the day he’d ripped Eames’s heart out of his chest? It’d be weeks at most before Arthur wanted to sit down and have a conversation about “ground rules” and how they were going to make a loveless marriage work. Sometimes he blindsided himself with how fucking stupid he was, making decisions that future him would pay for dearly.
He didn’t back out of it, of course. Instead, he pulled into a bakery on the way home and laughed with Collette as they picked out a small wedding cake for the “happy couple,” and ignored the way Arthur was glaring at him.
The next morning was harder. From the second James woke up he latched onto Arthur seemingly without any intention of ever letting go, having to be peeled away crying at security when they went to drop them off. Philipa was colder, glaring at them both and barely saying goodbye even when her grandparents told her to. Eames wanted to kneel down in front of her and promise that he was going to be there in just a few weeks, that they were right behind them, but he didn’t think it would help. She was determined not to be let down again even if that meant never trusting anyone ever again.
“She’ll trust us again once we follow through,” Arthur said suddenly when they were in the car stuck in the slow crawl of traffic out of the airport.
“I know,” Eames said.
Arthur stared at him silently for a moment before he turned back to the window and ignored Eames for the rest of the ride.
The next few weeks were horrible, the two of them went through every nook and cranny of the house to pack up or throw away everything. It was weeks of reopening the wound of Mal’s death, remembering when she bought the terrible book ends in a charity shop in Liverpool, or how excited she had been when she’d finally found a spice organizer that fit perfectly in her cupboard or finding To-Do lists she’d written that had long since been forgotten behind her work desk.
Arthur didn’t seem any better off, sometimes he would stare into space his eyes empty and his face twisted up into a look so lost that Eames had to turn away. It was too much, and he wasn’t allowed to do anything about it anymore. If he tried Arthur would be furious, lash out and snap that it wasn’t any of his business, even though it was. He was his husband now, and Eames was always going to be at least a little in love with Arthur whether he liked it or not. So Eames did the best he could to help Arthur through not just the renewed pain from going to Mal’s things but the loss of his best friend. Eames took care of the food and made just that all the albums he played too loud were ones Arthur liked, and he poked enough fun at him that Arthur didn’t notice the kindness.
Finally, everything was packed up, the house was under offer, and they were on a flight to Paris. Their house was a little outside of the city, but it was only a block down the street from James and Phillipa, so it was perfect. Arthur had found it and had apparently spent some of his time while they’d been working in Paris, getting to know the owners so that they would sell it to him directly without putting it on the market.
Eames expected the flat to be in perfect Arthur style, but when they arrived the kitchen was bubblegum pink, and the living room was bright neon teal. Eames laughed out loud, already imagining how much work Arthur would be putting into covering up those colors. Eames had no intention of helping because he quite liked them, even if they hurt his eyes if he looked too long.
“Yes, you will need to pick some art that tones those colors down a little or we’ll have migraines before the week is over,” Arthur said, turning down a hall to find his bedroom.
“You’re leaving it? Oh, Arthur, I didn’t know you were so tired from packing I might have helped,” Eames said, still laughing. It would take some doing, but he could imagine the kind of art and curtains, and furniture the room would need to leave the colors the way they were without it looking like they lived in a clown’s makeup bag.
“Philipa picked the teal, James picked the pink,” Arthur explained. He turned back to Eames and fixed him with a sharp look. “It stays.” Then he stepped into his room and shut the door behind him.
“What no tour?” The door didn’t move until twenty minutes later when there was a knock on the front door. Eames went to answer, Arthur just a few steps behind and was almost bowled over into him when he opened the door and James came rushing in.
“Oh! Did you get taller since the last I saw you?” Eames asked as he hefted James up into his arms.
“It’s only been a month, silly Eames,” James said with a giggle.
“Silly Eames?” Eames asked, tickling James’s side, causing him to squirm and Eames to have to hold him tighter as he continued to tickle him. From the corner of his eye, he could see Philipa and Arthur hugging, her face buried in his neck.
“How about we get out of the doorway, huh?” Eames asked, leading everyone further into the flat.
“No, we gotta go! We’re taking you to dinner and Grandmere says we’re going to be late,” James said in the whiny voice of a kid who has decided that he’s grand-mère’s back up in getting them to dinner on time.
“Right now?” Eames asked.
“Right now!” James insisted, much to the amusement of his grandparents behind him.
“Should I go out without any shoes on?” Arthur asked, straightening up, a damp spot on his collar.
“No!” James argued, clearly exasperated with being the only person in the group with any good sense.
“Uncle Eames isn’t wearing shoes either and he can’t put them on when he’s holding you,” Philipa pointed out, a frog in her throat.
James pushed himself away from Eames so that he had to put him down. “Hurry! Or all the good lemonade will be gone!”
Life in Paris was… uneventful to say the most. It took Arthur and Eames a few weeks to settle in. There were boxes from safehouses all over the world that had to be unpacked, curtains to argue about, and cupboards to passive-aggressively reorganize, but once they were settled it was quite boring.
Eames got up every morning just as the sun was coming in through his window, made a cup of tea, and then walked to the gym. By the time he got back, Arthur would be just getting up, glaring at the windows that were letting in so much bright sunlight as he made his coffee. Arthur made breakfast for both of them because after the first week of pretending the other didn’t exist Eames got frustrated with the unnecessary doubling of dirty dishes and they’d had it out. Then Arthur would get dressed and leave for a few hours to do something he never cared to tell Eames about, but he was always home for dinner which Eames made. While Arthur was gone Eames would flit around the house, picking up and putting down whatever projects caught his fancy, and trying to fight off the feeling of board despair.
One night, about a month into their new life Arthur came in with a box tucked under one arm and a stretched canvas and easel under the other. Eames turned from where he was sitting on the couch as Arthur put them down on the kitchen table.
Arthur looked at him for a silent, loaded moment before he turned to the fridge. “There was an estate sale down the street,” Arthur lied, as he poured himself some water.
“Really?” Eames asked, getting up off the couch to look in the box. It was filled with half-used oil paints mixed in with brand-new tubes. Old and new paintbrushes were in there too, a few pallet knives, a palette, and a half-used bottle of paint thinner covered in splotches of paint.
“Yeah, they were practically giving away their mother’s tools,” Arthur said, still lying. It was clear that some of the supplies had been previously owned and used so Eames wondered where the lie was.
“Are you going to take up painting?” Eames asked though he knew that the box was for him. Arthur was more of a woodworking man than a painter.
Arthur fixed him with a flat look. “If you don’t want it I’ll get rid of it.”
“No, no,” Eames said, picking up the box and holding it to his chest. He didn't know where the lie was, or why Arthur was buying him paints but he wasn’t going to surrender them. “I’m going to turn half your office into my studio.”
Arthur rolled his eyes and turned towards the stove, but in the reflection of the window, Eames caught of glimpse of his smile.
“Will you sit for me?” Eames asked, making sure that his voice was as lecherous as possible. When they’d been together Arthur would sometimes sit for Eames, though it was mostly on accident while he was asleep and Eames had been struck by the beauty of him and the deep need to capture it somehow.
“Go paint some apples in a bowl,” Arthur said, opening the oven.
“It’ll be done in ten more minutes,” Eames said. He’d made a lasagna that night since the market had had some delicious tomatoes a few days ago that Eames had needed to use up.
Arthur hummed quietly and Eames disappeared into the office, now part studio, to set up his space.
That night, after they’d eaten and while Arthur was doing the dishes from dinner Eames sat in his new studio space in a pair of paint-splattered jeans he’d had for years, staring at the blank canvas in front of him. He wanted to paint, he could feel that familiar itch to do something creative under his skin, but every time he reached for a tube of paint to start his palette his hand froze, unsure of what to do. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, sometimes it happened when he was at a loss of what to do or how to approach what he wanted, too many possibilities laid out in front of him. That was why he liked forging so much, all he had to do was pick a painting and then everything from the colors to the composition to the brush strokes were picked for him. But he wasn’t allowed to forge anymore, Collette was not to be messed with and she would not hesitate to cut him out of the children’s lives.
Around midnight, when he had long since heard Arthur go to bed Eames finally gave up and went to bed. Maybe he’d find inspiration on his morning walk.
The next morning Eames did find his inspiration, though not on his walk to or from the gym. It was Arthur, staring blankly at the bright pink kitchen wall as he waited for his coffee.
Years ago, when they’d been together, Eames had promised to forge a Francis Bacon painting for Arthur. They’d gone to an exhibit of his art together since Arthur had been so fond of his paintings and Eames, because he had been fond of Arthur, had promised Arthur a painting for his birthday a few months later. Eames had never followed through, not for any good reason like being on the run or them breaking up, he just hadn’t held up his end of the promise and pretended not to notice when Arthur was fighting back disappointment when he’d received a pair of cufflinks instead. Now, nearly a decade later Eames was going to do it because Arthur had lied about how he’d found the paints.
Eames found the one he would do, not the same painting he’d promised but one he liked better and that he thought would go perfectly on that bright pink wall with its dark colors. As soon as Arthur left for the day Eames went into the studio and started to paint, the painting pulled up on his iPad as he painted. He spent the whole day painting, zoned in on every brush stroke, and mixing the colors just right. He was so into it that he forgot to eat lunch and by the time Arthur came home he hadn’t even thought about what to have for dinner.
“Eames?” Arthur asked as he walked through the house.
Eames jumped up and sprinted out of the studio, paintbrush in hand, and closing the door tight behind him. “Yes, darling?” Eames asked.
Arthur shrugged, his eyes locked on the door behind Eames that he was still holding shut. “Do you want me to order dinner?”
“If you would be so kind,” Eames said with a grin, trying to annoy Arthur into leaving him alone.
It worked like a dream: Arthur rolled his eyes and turned around. “We’re having Moroccan.”
Eames slipped back into the studio and turned back to the painting. There were only a few touches more to make, which he went to carefully. By the time Arthur knocked on the studio door Eames was done.
The next morning, he waited for Arthur to leave again for the day before he framed the painting and hung it carefully on the wall, and then settled on the couch with a book and waited for Arthur to come home.
It was late afternoon when Arthur came home. Eames was on the couch, facing the hallway that Arthur would have to come down to get to the kitchen and see the painting, pretending to read his book and not watch for Arthur’s reaction.
He almost went right past it, but stopped short and then backed up to stare. It wasn’t a perfect recreation, most obviously because of the “C. E.” that Eames had painted in bright white in the bottom right corner, but he thought it was pretty good. Arthur turned to him, giving him a carefully empty look. Eames hated that look because while it could mean anything the primary thing it meant to Eames was that Arthur didn’t want him to know how he was feeling. “It looks good.”
“Thank you,” Eames said graciously. “I thought I would make you something since you went out and bought all of those lovely paints for me.”
“I told you: I just happened across them for cheap.”
“And I’ve told you: you’re a shit liar.”
Arthur huffed and turned away, into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water.
“Thank you,” Eames said more solemnly, as he came into the kitchen to lean against the counter.
Arthur smirked at him. “What kind of husband would I be if I didn’t provide my husband with his paints?”
Eames snapped awake, unsure for half a heartbeat what it was that woke him before he registered the strange sounds coming from Arthur’s room. For a moment he considered staying in bed, maybe turning on the white noise app on his phone to drown it out before he registered that the whimpering and thrashing were not sex noises, not for Arthur. Arthur was loud and wordy.
Eames forced himself to get out of bed and went to Arthur’s room, knocking lightly before opening the door slowly. Arthur was on the bed, seemingly asleep and making pitiful sounds that broke Eames's heart a little bit, despite his better judgment. “Arthur,” Eames whispered, unsure if he really wanted to wake him up. He didn’t come any closer as Arthur tended to hit people who were standing too close when they woke him up.
After another moment Eames sighed and turned on the overhead light. “Arthur,” he said at a normal speaking volume which did shake the other man awake. Before he’d even really looked at Eames he dove for his little red die that was on the nightstand.
Eames waited patiently through all ten rolls, wanting to properly check on the man before he went back to bed. But when Arthur finished rolling he fixed him with a flat glare and looked positively murderous. “What did you do?”
“I woke you up, you’re welcome by the way,” Eames said, suddenly regretting even bothering. Of course, Arthur would have a nightmare and find a way to blame Eames.
“Why did you put me under? What were you looking for?” Arthur asked, and Eames counted himself lucky that Arthur hadn’t pulled a weapon yet if he thought Eames had put him under. Though that might just be because he thought Eames would be expecting that and it would show vulnerability to reach for one. The number of fake-outs and preemptive dodges had always been a problem for them; two people who were so deathly afraid of getting hurt.
“I didn’t put you under, you had a nightmare,” Eames said. “Happens to the best of us. I promise to still respect you in the morning.”
“I don’t dream anymore,” Arthur ground out through clenched teeth.
All at once what happened hit Eames. Arthur had just had a nightmare, but it had been his first natural dream in a while, which made sense given the amount of trauma Arthur had put his poor brain through without giving it a chance to rebel in the most classic way. “It wears off,” Eames said with a shrug. “You get your dreaming back no matter how long you were using it, it just takes a while to get out of your system.”
Arthur looked at him in plain horror.
“How long has it been since you were off it this long?” Eames asked, finally risking coming further into the room and sitting at the foot of Arthur’s bed, resting his hand on Arthur’s shin.
Arthur stayed silent for a long time, wracking his brain for the answer. “Not since the initial tests,” Arthur said with a shrug, his eyes unfocused staring at the blankets.
“In the military?” Eames asked, horror washing over him. Over a decade of consistent Somnacin use, no wonder Arthur didn’t think he could dream naturally anymore; it was more of a wonder that he could. Those initial batches of the stuff had had nasty side effects.
Arthur nodded. “Well, thank you for the information,” he said tightly, having finally gotten his breathing back to normal.
“I’ll make you some tea,” Eames said, getting up and going to the kitchen, ignoring Arthur’s protest that he didn’t want tea. There wasn’t a lot Eames was allowed to do, as far as comforting went these days, but he could make a cup of tea. A few minutes later and Arthur had gotten up and turned off his lights, though he hadn’t shut his door and when Eames popped his head in Arthur was sitting up in bed, reading glasses on, paperback in hand, and a dim light coming from the bedside lamp.
“Decaf, try to sleep again tonight, will you? It’s your turn to walk the kids to school,” Eames said as he handed off the mug.
“I’ll do my best,” Arthur said with a glare while sipping his tea.
Eames smiled and rolled his eyes, not bothering to hide that he was laughing at Arthur. The man he loved was such a dick sometimes.
“And they used to think that there was a second brain in the butt!” Phillipa explained. She was ten minutes into her impromptu lecture on stegosauruses while Eames was making dinner.
“In its BUTT?” James shouted before dissolving into a fit of giggles.
“Yeah!” she said, laughing as well. Eames smiled at her as she continued explaining all the wonderful things about stegosauruses. It was his first time babysitting the kids alone and he was making dinner while they sat on high stools at the counter.
Collette had called earlier that day, asking Eames to watch them so that she could have a break. She was sixty years old, she didn’t have the energy to chase around two children all day. Eames had, of course, jumped at the chance. It was the whole reason he was in France and he was eager to show everyone that he was just as trustworthy with the kids as Arthur.
He’d taken them to the park right after he’d picked them up, and then taken them home and made everyone sandwiches. After lunch, they’d watched Ponyo which knocked both the kids out, and he’d let them nap on the couch. Then there’d been dress-up, which had involved Eames reciting Shakespeare in the funniest voices he could to make the kids laugh, let it never be said that Eames couldn’t be fun and educational at the same time. Now the kids were coloring while he was making dinner.
Phillipa continued explaining everything interesting about the stegosaurus all through Eames making dinner but when he put the plates down on the table James interrupted her. “Where’s Uncle Arthur?”
“He is in Wyoming,” Eames said as he settled down across from the kids. Arthur had left the day before to go back home and celebrate his birthday with his twin sister.
“Wyoming?” Phillipa said.
“That’s where Uncle Arthur is from,” Eames explained. “He went home to see his family for his birthday.”
“Uncle Arthur has a birthday?!” James asked, he seemed equal parts concerned and baffled by this information.
Phillipa looked at her brother like he was the dumbest person on Earth. “Everyone has a birthday, stupid.”
“Don’t call your brother stupid,” Eames cut in.
“Yeah!” James agreed. “Did you know when Uncle Arthur’s birthday is?”
“I knew he had one,” Phillipa sneered, rolling her eyes.
“We should get a pinata for his party!” James said through a mouth of mac and cheese.
Eames stuck his tongue out covered in half-chewed food at James who winced and screamed “EW!”
“Don’t chew with your mouth full,” Eames said.
James dramatically swallowed his food before he said, “Sorry, Eames.”
“Uncle Arthur doesn’t want a pinata,” Phillipa said. “We should get streamers.”
“And cake!”
“Chocolate cake!”
“I didn't know we were throwing a party for Uncle Arthur,” Eames chimed in before the kids could get too far ahead of themselves.
“He has to have a party, it’s his birthday,” Phillipa said.
“He’s in Wyoming to go to a birthday party with his family.”
Both kids got quiet and Eames knew he’d put his foot in his mouth.
“But aren’t we his family too?” James asked, his lip quivering.
“Leave it, James,” Phillipa hissed at her brother, but Eames could see the tears welling up in her eyes.
“Darlings, you are his family too,” Eames said, getting up from the table to kneel between the kids, trying to wrap his arms around both of them. He ended up just pulling them both sideways towards him. “I just meant his biological family. We’re his second family. Everyone has at least two. Some have four, five, six different families.”
Phillipa stared at Eames like she didn't believe him.
“We’ll throw him a party. He gets back in three days. Plenty of time to plan a party.”
James started to smile and eat his dinner again. Phillipa on the other hand got a determined look in her eye, suddenly becoming the spitting image of her father. “We have to get started right away.” She got up from the table and went to the counter, grabbing her coloring supplies and then going back to the table. Immediately, she started to draw out a vague schematic of the room, biting her lip just like her mother when she was focused.
“What’s wrong?” Arthur asked as soon as the line clicked through.
“Hello to you too, darling,” Eames said.
“Are the kids okay?” Arthur asked. It was late in France, but it was still just afternoon in Wyoming.
“I thought I would warn you before you arrive tomorrow that there’s a surprise party waiting for you,” Eames said. “I’d rather you not pull a gun on the children when they shout ‘surprise.’”
“You told them it’s my birthday?”
“You’re the one who ran off to God knows where in the middle of the night. They had questions, I provided answers.”
There was silence over the line as Arthur thought it all through. “Were they upset that I left?”
“Yes,” Eames said, honestly. “Which is why we’re throwing a party.” He didn’t feel the need to add that they had been concerned about not counting as Arthur’s family just because he’d gone home for his birthday. Eames knew that Arthur didn’t care about his birthday that much, he wouldn’t have even bothered with the trip if his sister hadn’t specifically called and asked him to come as a present to her.
“Then I guess I should pretend to be surprised.”
“If you don’t, they’ll blame me and next year they’ll try to throw a surprise party that’s a genuine surprise to us both.”
Arthur laughed. “Yes. We should probably avoid that. Did you need anything else?”
“No.”
“Then get some sleep, you have a party to prepare for,” Arthur said before he hung up. If Eames was left smiling to himself in their empty flat that was his business.
Eames picked up the kids at seven am sharp, they were insistent that they bake the cake and decorate themselves so they had to get started early for Arthur’s flight which came in at three that afternoon. And Eames was adamant that he was going to get the kids down by one for their nap so they could actually enjoy the fruits of their labor.
They spent the morning hanging up streamers, unpacking party hats and noise makers, and hanging up the pinata that Eames and the children had spent the day before making out of paper mache. It looked terrible, all the wrong colors clashing together and stuck at irregular angles, but it made the kids happy so it was the most beautiful thing Eames had ever seen.
Around ten they started to bake the cake and only ended up in one food fight which Eames took as a win. They had lunch while the cake cooled and Eames put the kids in his bedroom to watch Scooby Doo while he cleaned the kitchen; when he peaked in twenty minutes later they were both fast asleep. He took the time to order the pizza to be delivered about twenty minutes after he estimated Arthur would walk through the door. He also wrapped the present he’d been painting at night ever since they had decided to throw this little party. The ones the kids had made had been wrapped the day before.
He was pretty proud of his present, he thought Arthur would like it. It was a painting of the six of them, a combination of about five pictures that a stranger had taken of them at the zoo, of them posing in front of the giraffe exhibit. In the real photos, there was always something off. Arthur’s eyes were closed in one, James was picking his nose in another, and Phillipa was turned away looking at something flying overhead in yet another. Eames took the best of everyone and made one painting for them, creating a perfect family out of the one they had.
Phillipa woke up first, her hair a mess as she padded out of his room, squinting against the sunshine. “What time is it?” she asked.
“Two. Uncle Arthur will be home in an hour and a half,” Eames said softly.
Her brow furrowed.
“Three Spongebobs,” Eames said, converting to the time system that she knew best.
“There’s too much to do!” she shouted, running to the bedroom. “James, wake up!”
“Don’t wake up your brother,” Eames said, following after her and knowing it was a lost cause.
James was already sitting up, his hair sticking up at every angle.
“How about some juice and then we’ll decorate the cake,” Eames offered, going to where James was sitting with his arms straight up in the air, asking to be picked up.
“Apple juice?” he asked quietly.
“Orange juice. We’re all out of apple,” Eames said with a kiss to the side of his head.
“But I want apple!”
“Well, we have apples. You can squeeze one in your tiny little hands and make some,” Eames said, trying not to laugh.
It took James two and a half minutes to get tired of squeezing an apple, his little fingers bruising it but getting no juice. He accepted his orange juice happily and then jumped up on the chair that Eames had put next to the counter for him and started to slather his half of the cake with bright orange frosting and sprinkles.
While they decorated Eames stood guard, making sure they didn’t lose their balance while he brushed through Phillipa’s hair and braided it like he’d promised. She wanted it to look like Princess Leia since their post-lunch movie the day before had been A New Hope.
Thirty-four pins, a little bit of whining, and a lot of gel later Phillipa had her Princess Leia hair and James had a faux-hawk. By that time the cake was half brown from James mixing so many colors together, and half a beautiful rainbow of almost completely even stripes, with little bits of candy lining the rows.
They had been done for about twenty minutes, settled at the table making cards when the front door opened and they took off running, yelling “Surprise! Surprise!” over and over again. Phillipa got to him first and jumped in his arms, forcing Arthur to drop his laptop bag to catch her.
“What’s this?” he asked, as he forced himself into the flat, Miles and Collette trailing after him. James had wrapped himself around Arthur’s leg, forcing him to drag him with him.
“Happy birthday!” James yelled.
Arthur looked around the living room which was covered in streamers, and balloons. Eames grabbed a party hat from where they sat right next to the cake and the presents. “Did Uncle Eames help you with this? Or did you do it all on your own?”
“I was just the manual labor,” Eames said as he forced the party hat onto Arthur’s head. “The creative vision was all them.”
Arthur met Eames’s eyes over Phillipa’s head, smiling warmly. Eames was suddenly positive that the sun must have been missing from the sky because it had just taken up residence in his chest. “Impressive.”
The day after Arthur’s birthday party he hung up his painting, and then surrounded it with the five pictures that had been taken at the zoo, the pieces that Eames had used. The perfect painting with the imperfect reality.
Eames sighed when his eyes landed on Arthur's leather jacket draped over the back of the couch. For someone as fastidious as Arthur was in his work the man tended to be a bit of a slob at home. Eames had always privately assumed that it was because he was comfortable at home and wasn't constantly waiting for everyone around him to exploit any weakness no matter how small, but he'd kept that theory to himself; Arthur didn't take kindly to people psychoanalyzing him. Eames grabbed the jacket and shook it out as he walked to the narrow coat closet. A wave of soft perfume hit him, familiar and infuriating. For a moment he thought his anger was just good old-fashioned jealousy and he was quick to tamp down on it since he no longer had any claim to Arthur until, half a moment later, he realized why the perfume was familiar.
It was still early in the morning, Arthur was still bound to be asleep but Eames didn't care. He slammed the door to Arthur's room open, jolting the man awake. Eames threw the jacket at him. "How's Ariadne?"
Arthur looked down at the jacket and sighed. He was clearly still too asleep to come up with a good lie or even try.
"If Colette finds out neither of us are ever going to be allowed near the kids ever again!" Eames yelled. He was so rarely this angry, and even more rarely was he a yeller but at that moment he couldn't help it. If he didn't yell at Arthur he was going to strangle him.
"She's not going to find out," Arthur said, rubbing at his eyes.
"Have you met her? She always finds out!" Eames shot back.
Arthur bent over and grabbed one of his hoodies off the floor and pulled it on as he got out of bed. "You're just saying that because she's your aunt and when you were seven you weren't a very good liar yet." Arthur pushed himself past Eames and went to the kitchen.
Eames, far from being done with this conversation, followed. "Yes, she is my auntie. My auntie who is married to the thesis advisor of your little girlfriend!" Eames yelled.
"She's not my girlfriend," Arthur argued.
"Oh, do tell? Are you engaged now? I seem to have missed the announcement. And my divorce papers."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "We aren't together at all, I don't know why you're so fixated on that being the narrative. Are you mad because you're jealous?"
The urge to yell finally calmed, and the white-hot anger that Eames had been fueled by was replaced by something colder and stronger, like the moment right before lightning strikes in a wide-open field. "What do you mean you're not together?"
"Ariadne and I aren't interested in each other like that," Arthur said. He was still far too calm, pouring his damn coffee like he wasn't threatening to implode their whole world.
"So what the fuck were you doing together?" Eames asked.
"She needed some advice on a job. She just wanted to know if Canadian Kyle could be trusted," Arthur explained.
"You were working? Actually working? Not just seeing someone you used to work with?" Eames asked.
"Does that make a difference?"
Eames knew it shouldn't, and to Colette it wouldn't. Either way, they were getting cut off but somehow there was a layer of betrayal that Eames hadn't felt when he thought they were just running off making moon eyes at each other as they had been during the entirety of the Fischer job. Eames grabbed his own coat and threw it on. He was going to do something drastic if he had to stay in this conversation much longer. Like strangle him. Or worse, become a rat and go throw himself at Colette's mercy to see if he could stay. "At least when Cobb fucked me over I knew why. You just do it for fun, don't you?" Eames said before he turned around and left.
Eames spent the whole day out of the flat. He wandered around Musée d'Orsay for a few hours, seeing if he could name the works and their artists without looking at the plaques. He guessed how many hours it would take him to mix each pigment, source every material, and what kind of brush he'd use to forge each. It was calming, even if he would never act on it. It reminded him that he was a criminal, sure, but his knowledge and his talents went far beyond the bounds of dreamshare. It reminded him that he was bigger than that, that there had been a time in his life where if he had just turned left instead of right, maybe his life wouldn't be so tangled up in Arthur's. And it reminded him that he liked that his life was tangled up in Arthur's, that he had chosen that path and it was who he really was.
It was dark, by the time he came home to find Arthur on the couch playing a brightly colored game on his phone. "I don't know how to be someone without dreamshare," Arthur said before Eames could even think of how to break the ice.
"What?"
Arthur shook his head. "You don't understand. You thrive off of open spaces, far-off deadlines, and goals that are more mirages on the horizon than anything real but I need more than that. And dreamshare gave it to me," Arthur explained. He shrugged. "I don't know how to operate if I don't have something to work towards."
Eames sat on the arm of the couch opposite Arthur quietly. During his lunch, he had come to the conclusion that Arthur was helping Ariadne because it made him feel important, knowledgeable, and in control again. He hadn't accounted for Arthur's almost alien work ethic and drive. "You're a terrible cook," Eames said finally.
Now it was Arthur's turn to be confused. "What?"
"You're a terrible cook. Most of the time I follow behind you and turn down the heat, or turn it up, or add salt, or hide the salt. You're godawful at it. "
Arthur stared at him silently for a long time before he closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. He opened his eyes again and stared at Eames. "Are you trying to trick me into a new goal?"
"Yes, but 'be a better cook' is too nebulous for you innit?" Eames hummed as he thought for a moment. "I bet you that by the time my birthday comes around in three months you will still be unable to cook a real meal without someone helping you."
"Are you serious?"
"Stop seeing Aridane, and putting our asses on the line by extension, and manage to cook my birthday dinner by yourself without giving anyone food poisoning or making us gag and you win," Eames said with the smirk he knew pissed off Arthur the most.
"And what do I win?" Arthur asked.
"You and I can take a trip to London, and you can get a new bespoke suit from Savile Row on me. And I won't complain about how long you're taking the whole time," Eames said with a grin. When he'd been planning to propose for real, back when they still loved each other and the marriage wouldn't have been an immigration scam, that had been step one of his proposal plan. Then a Michelin star dinner, and then a private proposal on the balcony of their flat in London. He really hoped Arthur lost.
"And if you win?"
Eames thought for a moment. "The kids and I get to paint your room in red and white circuit tent stripes." He really, really hoped Arthur lost.
"And if I don't take the bet?"
"I start signing you up for classes and activities until you don't have the time to ruin our lives anymore," Eames said with a shrug.
"Fine. But when I win we're staying at the Savoy," Arthur said, extending his hand to shake.
Eames took it, shaking his head. "You are obsessed with the bathtubs there."