Too much Say Yes to the Dress and pain pills.
The day has been complete hell for Arthur which was not surprising concerning the way it had started. Morning had begun with deep coughs and a broken coffee-pot. Cold medicine and Starbucks had remedied this, but no amount of warmth seeping through a papercup could warm his fingers from the bitter autumn chill. Sharp rain and harsh winds had followed him all the way from his flat to the subway, and there was a homeless individual sleeping in his usuall seat.
It was his usual seat because this car was mostly empty this early in the morning, not even the daily commuters had started making their way to work, but Arthur had things to do. Trudging over treacherously wet sidewalks, Arthur's umbrella turned inside out from the wind five times before he made it to the Bridal Store.
Arthur was one of the top selling consultants, able to find exactly what a woman wanted in her wedding dress, most of the time this was the opposite of what she thought she wanted. His day started out usual, changing his shoes in his small office, rolling a lint brush over his clothing. Except then Melody, the opener for the day, called in sick. Melody usually called in sick every other week, because everyone knew Arthur was there anyway, and no he never minded opening for them. Arthur did mind, but he also did not bother making a fuss over it, there was no reason to make a fuss.
By lunch he'd sold three dresses, but also gotten sick all over his shoes when he hadn't made it to the restroom in time. He'd cleaned them, but they would need to be polished again, and unlike other people, it was something that bothered him deeply every time he looked down.
No one else looked down though, or noticed his shoes were lacking their shiny perfection, no one even noticed Arthur was running a fever of 103. Except for Arthur, who took his own temperature after his seventh consultation.
His day went from bad to worse when the nap he'd accidentally started taking in his office made him late to his next consultation by two minutes. Cherie was always late by an average of 5.5 minutes to her consultations, but Arthur prided himself on timeliness. He skipped dinner to make up for it, and spent the time pinning up skirts for the fickle teenage bride that Vera was consulting. She flirted with him sweetly while he did so, and he momentarily considered throwing up again, but on -her- shoes this time.
When they locked the doors up, and the other consultants had long left for home, he moved to the repairs and reconstructions department and started helping to hand-sew lace onto the gown of a bride who had waited till two days before her wedding to get repairs made. She was also shelling out two thousand dollars to get them done, so he couldn't complain much. David, the Spanish tailor was complaining enough for the both of them anyway. Complaining to the point that when Arthur finally stumbled onto the subway half-past midnight, his head was not only spinning, but throbbing.
He wasn't sure how he made it home after that, but was relatively assured that it probably sucked, like the rest of his day. Dropping his messenger bag on the way in, he almost missed the answering machine when he moved to click it on. Toeing out of his worn commuter's shoes, which was his fancy way of saying tennis shoes, he shuffled into the kitchen, where despite his destroyed sinuses and constant sniffling he could smell delicious aromas emanating from.
As a New Yorker it should have been his first instinct, upon finding another person in his flat, to call the police. Arthur's first instinct was instead, to shuffle into one of the seats at his kitchen island and moan incoherently. Despite Arthur being the only person to own a key to his apartment other than his near-sighted landlady, who made every day hell for him by refusing to turn on the building's heat, there was little in the way of confusion as to how the man currently cooking in his kitchen had gotten there.
The man had not been there that morning, even though Arthur had tripped over his coat coming out of the bedroom when he'd woken up to shower. Arthur was obsessive over keeping windows locked, so the fire escape was not a possibility either. "Love I told you to stay home today, didn't I." The man turns, all self-assured grace. Arthur has had a horrible day, but when Eames brushes back his hair, all he can do is sigh in contentment.
Everything is right in the world, everything is brilliant. "Stop picking my locks." Arthur chides as he's picked up, cradled against a strong chest and carried to the couch. "Stop locking me out of the apartment." Eames kisses against his temple, tucks him into the couch, and Arthur curls up in a ball under the knitted throw. "You don't live here." Arthur snipes back, but there is little emotion behind it, he's already drifting off, knowing Eames will wake him when the soup is done.
"Then I'll have to move all my things in tomorrow just to prove you wrong, wont I darling?" This day could not be anymore perfect, Arthur thinks idly before falling asleep.