Eames had always assumed that Arthur's taste in suits was indicative of his taste in everything else. He'd imagined Arthur's house full of leatherbound classics, probably in other languages, and a record player — because Arthur would be that kind of person, right, the one who swore that vinyl just sounds better somehow — with a pile of classical or maybe jazz beside it.

But oh, god, he could not have been more wrong. "This is…this is a 3 Doors Down CD, Arthur!" Eames poked his head out of the sound system cabinet. "Not even a bloody, you know, compilation with a couple of tracks or something. You have an entire CD of them!"

"Fuck off, Eames, okay? I'm not saying a word about your collection of ratty-ass boxers, am I?"

"Feel free, love, if it means I can throw out this shit. You have the Chris Gaines album, Arthur, not even Garth Brooks himself has that album! Oh my god, you have two copies of something calledJock Jams!"

"Eames," Arthur's voice was full of warning and maybe just a touch of shame, "enough."

"No, Arthur, I'm sorry. We need to talk about this. This is…tell me you have books, then, because otherwise my whole image of you is just blown apart."

"Of course I have books, Eames." Arthur sounds indignant. "The library is in the second bedroom, over there."

A few minutes later, Eames shouts from the library, "Who the fuck are you, and what have you done with my Arthur?"

Arthur — the real Arthur, as no one has ever replaced him — pokes his head in the library with a sheepish grin. "Sorry, Eames?"

"What is this dreck?" Eames holds up a battered paperback by one corner, as if the half-naked Viking on the cover might bite him. "There are six of these. And they're dog-eared, Arthur, you've read and re-read them. And they're next to books with bloody huge spaceships. How do you wear those suits? You're a, what's a good word…You're a nerd, Arthur."

"Isn't the British word 'anorak,' Eames?"

"Bugger off, Arthur, I'm serious, how…You wear those suits, you know, and you slick back your hair, and I think you're this, whatever, this cultured adult human being and instead you're a teenage boy from the American Midwest, apparently, who just pitched up from the 90s! What…I don't understand."

Arthur's face is carefully blank. If Eames hadn't been studying Arthur for years, he'd never have guessed at the worry starting to swell behind that empty expression.

In response to that look, Eames bounds across the library and gathers Arthur up in his arms. "Oh, no, Arthur, I'm just surprised, don't look at me like that."

Arthur's face is now buried in the broad expanse of Eames's shoulder, so his voice is a little muffled. "Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Eames."

"Don't say that, darling, I'm sorry. It's just nice to see beyond that veneer is all." Eames buries a kiss in Arthur's carefully controlled hair, and they stand like that for a brief moment, breathing each other in.

Then Arthur pushes away and smiles, a real genuine grin with dimples and everything. "So now that you've utterly ravaged my books and my music, I suppose I get to throw out everything with a hole in it in your wardrobe?"

"Turnabout is fair—wait, not everything, Arthur, not that yellow shirt."

"Oh, dear, shouldn't have called me a 90s Midwestern teenager, should you?" Arthur gives Eames a wicked wink and flees out of the room.