He laughs at my dreams, but I dream of his laughter.
Eames had never had a crush before. Sure, there had been girls, and eventually guys who he thought were cute, but never crushes, like ones you see in movies where the guy acts like a total idiot around them, where he thinks about her the first thing every morning, and the last every night, and he can't get her out of her head, and he draws hearts with their initials in it. Never that.
That is, until Arthur crawled his way back into Eames' life, and weaseled his way into his heart. And this would be okay, except for the deal they made to never be anything more than friends.
Friends... with certain benefits.
It had started after the Inception job was officially over; they had done the impossible, and it had done relatively well, give or take a few glitches. But in the end, they had finished what everyone had assumed to be the job that couldn't succeed. That thought, plus the extremely generous sum of money deposited into their bank almost instantly after the job was done had Eames in a very, very good mood that afternoon. And, so it seemed, everyone else. Cobb being reunited with his family, Saito getting exactly what he wanted, enough money for Ariadne to continue her schooling in Paris for the next twenty years, etc, it seemed like a perfect fairytale ending.
He had given Arthur one quick nod, and had recieved a, "Goodbye, Mr. Eames," in return, in the usual Arthur fashion. And then Eames had gotten into a cab, without a permanent destination yet set in his mind.
Eventually, he decided to stay in a hotel in LA, one of the more expensive ones, since he could definitely afford the best the city had to offer.
He was about to get into bed, after an especially exhausting day. Although technically, he had been sleeping for most of the day, it was draining, being in the dream world. He was turning the lights off in the suite, making his way over to the bed before he got a call from a kind of familiar number. Curious, he pressed his phone to his ear.
"Eames." He raised his eyebrows at the sound of his name, coming from the very voice of none other than-
"Arthur?" He asked, the surprise apparent in his tone.
"Yes, it's Arthur. Where are you?" Arthur was obviously drunk, not fully wasted, but enough that his syllables had started to slur. Eames smirked to himself, enjoying Arthur being anyone but his cool, polished self.
"Uh, my hotel room, darling,"
"What's the address?" Arthur asked, being a little too loud than he needed to be.
Eames sat down on the satin sheets, frowning. "Arthur, I'm sure if you ask your cab driver, which I'm assuming you're taking one, because you are much too drunk to driving, about a hotel, he'll take you to one."
"No, no, no, no. I'm not going to need a room. I'll just stay in y-yours."
"Darling, what in the world are you getting at?" Eames asked incredulously. He could hear the sounds of glasses clinking and music playing in the bar Arthur was presumably getting hammered at in the background.
"Are you kidding me, Eames? You, me, hotel room, how much clearer could it get?" Arthur said, actually giggling, fucking giggling after, as if it was an everyday thing, them meeting up at hotels.
"Are you-"
"The address, Mr. Eames. The address." He repeated, and Eames felt some of that Arthur seriousness sneak back into him. Eames chuckled, and before he knew what he was saying, he was telling him the name of the hotel, and the street. He could hear Arthur repeating it back to the cab driver, echoing him almost perfectly.
"Room 528." He added, his heart beating just a little bit faster. Arthur said some sort of confirmation, and then Eames hung up, before the realization hit him. The strangeness of everything suddenly was clear to him.
The room number was the same one they used in the Fischer job, for one. And what were the odds in real life that Arthur, stick in the mud kind of hot Arthur, wanted to hook up with him, drunk or not?
Eames reached into his pocket, and pulled out the red and black poker chip, the one that was worn out around the tough edges, the paint chipping off, and the value fading away. But what he felt was real, and he was suddenly alarming lucid.
This was his poker chip.
He wasn't dreaming.
Arthur did call him, and apparently, truly wanted to hook up with him. Eames laughed to himself a thought, nah, Arthur'll come to his senses sooner or later.
And with that, Eames slipped under the covers, and closed his eyes, before he drifted asleep.
Eames was ripped out of sleep by sudden, impatient knocks on the door. He groaned, not wanting to answer whatever idiot was knocking on his door at this hour. He closed his eyes, hoping the prick would just leave him alone.
"Eames, open up," It was a pleasant surprise to be once again dragged out of sleep by the intoxicated voice of lovely Arthur, and it was then that he remembered their conversation before.
"Darling, I think you have the wrong room," he muttered, as he sleepily made his way to the door, reaching blindly in the dark for the knob and turning it, as light flooded the room.
Arthur stumbled drunkenly into the room, not saying a single slurred word before he slammed his lips against Eames', meshing against him in a seemingly perfect kiss, drunk as he was.
Eames' groaned in spite of himself, the feeling of Arthur's thin lips against his simply mesmerizing. Arthur hummed in response, moving forward, and kicking the door closed behind him. His limber arms wound their way around Eames' neck, as he closed the space between them, pressing his body flush against the forger's. He worked his lips languidly against Eames', as they stumbled back towards the bed; their mouths open wide and exploring every inch of the other's.
"Wait, wait," Eames insisted, as he broke away, gasping for breath in the darkness of the suddenly heated room. He was fully awake now, not one ounce of fatigue in him. "Arthur, what are you doing?" Arthur sighed, avoiding his eyes. "What are we doing?"
Arthur let out a shaky, so uncharacteristically hesitant laugh, and rested his forehead against Eames', not caring if the level of affection was way above his personal limit.
"I can't," He stopped himself, not wanting to say something he'd regret later. "I can't be alone, tonight. Please, Eames." Arthur's voice was so desperate, so needy; Eames didn't need to be asked twice.
"Of course, darling," Eames agreed, and then he kissed him briefly on the corner of the mouth. "Come here." And he tilted Arthur's head up onto his full, pink lips, capturing him in a mind blowing kiss, one that Arthur would later look back on and think of how he almost literally saw stars.
Their movements became frantic as Arthur pushed them back, letting Eames flop onto the bed, and be climbed on, by Arthur's skinny legs, that remarkably had enough strength to straddle him, and pin him down under him. Their lips stayed locked, neither one of them breaking away.
Eames' gently worked his hands up to the small of Arthur's back, and then dragged them down, hooking his thumbs in the point man's belt loops, pulling him much, much closer.
Arthur was the first to break away, eager to press kisses to Eames' neck and slightly stubbly jaw line, leaving tiny marks, biting and nibbling at the soft, tanned skin. Eames let out a heavy groan, and his hands found Arthur's ass.
He squeezed the taut flesh, and Arthur arched up at a perfect, incredibly erotic angle, with the limited light from the open window that highlighted all of his soft edges, and darkened all the forbidden places Eames would soon get to explore, an adventurer in an unknown, previously off limits land, full of sexy hills and valleys Eames had sometimes checked out from the safe confines of the warehouse.
"Oh, Eames," Arthur moaned. The sound of his name on those always tightly pressed lips made the forger's mind spin, as if he weren't already crazy with lust.
"Fuck me." Arthur pleaded, bringing himself back for another kiss, this one long and passionate, all tongues, not teeth.
"Say- say it again," Eames whispered, and Arthur complied, almost purring out the sexy reply.
"Fuck me, Mr. Eames."
And he did.