Disclaimer: I don't own Inception or the characters. I just like playing with them.
Warnings: Crack, fluff, OOC, slight slash if you feel like it.
A/N: So I found this on my computer and dusted it off. It's from the inception kink meme that I did ages ago but never finished until now. It's just a silly little thing and doesn't make much sense, but I enjoyed playing in the sandbox.
Prompt: The team are sitting around a table. Out of nowhere, Arthur falls face-first onto the table. Up to anon why this happens (medicated, sick, drugged, heart attack, drunk, exhausted) and how the team reacts. Angst, humor, crack, h/c or all of the above. Anything! Prompt is wide open to interpretation. But mind the pairing please! :)
It was unusual that everyone on the team was able to eat out together. Usually Cobb was sulking somewhere in a funk of depression thinking of Mal, Yusuf was deep into his chemicals, Saito was off doing…whatever Saito did (Eames suspected being corporately terrifying), Ariadne was in class when she wasn't doing highly illegal things with them, Arthur was a stick in the mud typing away at his laptop, and Eames was having a good time chatting up lovely men and women and telling completely true stories of his life.
Eating in the open air café wasn't entirely different than what the team usually did when they weren't working together. Cobb was staring morosely into his coffee muttering how Mal used to make it, Yusuf had brought his mini-chemical kit and was trying to make a pack of peanuts explode, Saito was sipping his expensive green tea while chatting on his cell phone in a carefully measured voice, Ariadne was doing homework and scribbling drawings on her napkin, Arthur was staring at his laptop in deep concentration no doubt working on more information gathering, and Eames was regaling everyone with the time someone mistook him for a celebrity that somehow ended up in a donkey chase in a small city of Polynesia.
Meaning that everything was utterly and perfectly normal until Arthur suddenly fainted face-first onto the table. There was a bit of a startled silence that even pulled Cobb from his musings before Eames leaned his elbow on the table and drawled, "Well if you didn't like my story darling, then you could have said so earlier."
Ariadne frowned and slipped an arm around Arthur to help the limp man sit up. He felt cold to the touch and she could barely detect a heartbeat when she pressed her fingers to his pale wrist. "I think he's sick," she said worriedly and propped Arthur in his chair. She'd never experienced someone fainting before and the only thing she could think of were smelling salts, but this was not the Victorian era and Arthur was not a delicate lady (even if the thought of him in a corset was amusing).
Yusuf looked up from his chemicals with a nearly gleeful look on his face. "I bet I can fix this," he said and plucked two vials from his My Little Chem' Set to swirl around together. "This also gives me the perfect time to test out this new-"
"No," Eames interrupted and grabbed the vials out of Yusuf's hands. "The last thing we need is for you to explode anything."
"That only happened one time," Yusuf objected. Right at that moment the packet of peanuts in front of him exploded in a fiery blaze with a loud wooshing sound that coated the man in fine gray powder. He coughed and took off his glasses to wipe them on corner of the linen table. "Okay, so maybe more than once," he admitted weakly.
Eames glared at Yusuf and scooted closer to Arthur. "You stay away from him," he said and tried to rub some color back into Arthur's hands. "Saito, are you on the phone calling an ambulance?"
Saito nodded with an air of satisfaction and slipped his phone back into the breast pocket of his coat. "Even better. I bought the café." He leaned back in his chair and peacefully sipped at his tea, oblivious of the incredulous looks shot his way.
"And...does this help Arthur?" Ariadne ventured to ask, afraid that she was missing something important.
Saito scoffed and waved a negligent hand in her direction. "Of course it does; money helps everyone." As if to prove his point he took out a hundred dollar bill and tucked it into Arthur's shirt pocket. "See? He looks better already." Arthur's head lolled forward so his chin rested on his chest looking as unconscious as he ever did. Saito decided to add another hundred dollar bill for good measure. He didn't know why everyone was so skeptical. Money always made him feel better.
Eames rolled his eyes and tried not to slap Saito's hand away because he didn't want to be one of those people that mysteriously disappeared and was later found in a shallow, unmarked grave. He didn't put it past Saito to do such a thing. "What he needs is for someone to do something productive and get Arthur some help." His brow creased in worry and he slipped an arm around Arthur's thin shoulders. He was pale and so cold and stiff, but in the "good lord he's like a corpse way" and not the "oh-ho, what do we have here" type of stiff. It was greatly distressing.
Cobb looked up from where he had been contemplating the bottom of his coffee mug to glance around the table. "Mal would have been able to fix this," he said forlornly and looked off into the distance. "Or Arthur. Arthur has always been good at fixing things when Mal left. Just leave it to him to get everything straightened out."
"We can't, because Arthur's the one that needs help," Eames said through gritted teeth. He shot a suspicious glance at Yusuf and wondered if the man had slipped something into Cobb's coffee. There was no way their extractor was that oblivious to everything around him. As if to prove his point, Cobb suddenly shot up from his seat with a whispered 'Mal?' and tried to cross the street towards a French looking woman who looked highly disturbed that a lunatic was running towards her.
Then again, this was Cobb who had been riding the crazy train full speed since god knew how long. It was a wonder the man was able to function.
"Okay, you know what? Fine, I'll take Arthur to the hospital myself." Eames stood up and put his arms around Arthur's torso to help him stand up. It was a lot harder than he thought it'd be considering the point man weighed a ton that belied his slight frame. "Love, and I mean this in the best of ways, but you really need to lose some weight. How else am I supposed to seduce you into having fun kinky sex if I can't even lift you out of your chair?" he grunted and pulled Arthur out of his chair.
Only Arthur's upper body came with him.
Ariadne shrieked and Eames shrieked too (in the most manly way possible) and Yusuf tipped over his chemicals while Saito threw money at them all in a desperate attempt to fix something. Around them people were pointing and screaming, pushing each other out of the way to get away and generally creating a pandemonium.
"You know rapid weight loss is really bad for your health, love," Eames babbled weakly, face pinched in panic as he dropped the body from his arms. There was a mess of wires and flashing lights blinking up from the hips and legs still sitting in the chair that must have become disconnected to the upper half now lying on the floor. He always said Arthur was a robot sometimes with his cool efficiency on the job but he didn't actually mean it.
"Jesus!" someone snapped and Eames lifted his head up because he knew who that irritated voice belonged to. "I only leave for an hour tops and this is what I come back to?" Arthur cut his way through the crowd with a hand grasping the back of Cobb's jacket to pull him along. His cheeks were flushed with color and his dark eyes snapped with anger looking alive and beautiful and definitely not a robot.
Eames had to fumble to grab his totem from his pocket to verify that everything was real. "Arthur?"
The point-man shoved him aside after roughly depositing Cobb back in his chair. "Did you really have to drop my body so carelessly?" Arthur said exasperatedly and swooped down to pick up the robot's upper half. "Ariadne, please, there's no need for theatrics. Everything is fine." He brusquely patted the girl on the shoulder who looked as shellshocked as Eames felt.
"Arthur, love, for the sake of my heart could you please explain why you have a robot?" Eames dropped down in his chair, sorely in need of a cigarette as he fumbled around in his breast pocket for the spare pack he kept there for emergencies.
Arthur tutted over it as he settled the robot back onto the chair, metal gears clicking away and pistons hissing as it reconnected itself. "First off, Mr. Eames, this isn't a robot but an android. I had him fashioned years ago to take my place when I needed some alone time but still needed to keep up appearances."
Now that Ariadne had calmed down, she looked highly interested in the android. Saito was quietly talking on his phone and flicking casual glances over Arthur 2.0 and Eames could practically see the dollar signs dancing above his head. Cobb,as usual, was looking morose and staring at a Mal-shaped coffee stain on the linen tablecloth. "How often have you used Arthur Jr.?" Ariadne asked, thoughtfully tapping her her pencil along her bottom lip in concentration.
"Only when I needed to." Which was exactly the sort of answer Arthur would give. "There must have been a shortage somewhere to make him malfunction so suddenly." Arthur said more to himself as he pulled out a little hatch on the back of 2.0's neck. The other's hair was mussed up, eyes staring blankly ahead and head cocked at an angle that was eerie to look at.
Yusuf was feeling up the android's arm, poking at the skin and chemical set dangerously close as if he wanted to take samples. Eames' fingers itched to shove the scientist away, but instead he fiddled with his empty cigarette pack while he tried to think of all the interactions he'd had with Arthur. "Have you ever used him on me?" There was that one time in Mombassa...
Arthur lifted a brow but didn't say anything as he snapped the little hatch back in place. A few clicks and whirring sounds and the android jerkily sat up with a disgruntled expression. It took one look down at his rumbled clothing stained with dirt before huffing in annoyance. "Honestly, listening to Mr. Eames' stories isn't enough of a punishment?"
It was such an Arthur thing to do that Eames couldn't help but laugh in amusement, only to laugh harder when twin scowls were directed at him. He held up his hands in appeasement and leaned back in his chair. There were plenty of questions he wanted to ask Arthur and his Android, but the day was long and he still had a story to finish. "Now did I ever tell you about that time I became Pirate King?"