"Eames," The voice was lingering in the air like smoke, but that's just Arthur to him. ", stop taking the covers." With that, he tugged them off Eames and curled over with them. His black hair appeared messier than Eames's eyes could ever make it out to be, it stuck out because the blanket was white and Arthur's skin was pale and soft, too. It's a side of Arthur no one ever sees and it was all his. "Ah, you have to share, too, darling." The covers where stolen back too harshly, yanking it off Arthur completely and the bare skin of his body was exposed to the air that waited over the surface of them.
Arthur sat up and crossed his arms. "At least hold me, it's really cold." Of course, this was an offer Eames couldn't resist and the other man is taken down quickly by an attack of towering arms; Arthur collapses on the mattress with Eames' body over him.
"I love you, darling."
"Why don't you tell me then?"
Eames sits up and stares at Arthur, whom props up on his elbow and gives the easiest tilt of the head. "Hm?"
"I-I just did, didn't I?"
"You didn't tell me, Eames."
There's is a stumbling silence amongst them, a ceiling fan that hung above fills the room with a clicking noise and the air that made Arthur cold.
-Then, that's when the room shakes. Eames gets more confused than before and snatches his love's hand. Arthur pulls back. "You forgot again, didn't you? Damn it, Eames-Why do you do this to yourself?" A crash sounds, glass shatters, and the home begins to collapses as a wave of water seems to collide with them. It all happened in slow motion, Arthur seemed careless and Eames couldn't understand it, so he just sits next to Arthur and closes his eyes.
When they snap open, Arthur is standing over him with a bucket in his hand. His hair is slick and the usual stiffer posture is made. He looks impatient and tired. "I heard my name."
Now, Eames got it. He did it again...he got lost in his dreams, forgot it wasn't reality. He was in a relationship with a subconscious Arthur to get his true feelings off his chest, but it wasn't like they really were gone, they just had been fed into.
Before he speaks, he pulls the poker chip out his pocket and fondles with it momentarily, only to receive a roll of eyes from Arthur.
"I said your name because you died from a tsunami, but I get it now." Eyes gesture towards the bucket, Arthur isn't buying. "It was the reason I grabbed the bucket. Every time I put you under, you say my name in your sleep. Every time you say it, you smile." The bucket gets tossed on the ground with a few distant bangs and Arthur begins to walk off. Eames sits back and stares at the machine. His heart was sinking, tied to stone and thrown out to the sea. He knows better, he knows that Arthur doesn't care. He knows he can't always make dreams a reality, even if they seemed so close to each other.
Eames stands and watches the man he loves collect a glowing laptop and snaps the screen shut. Ariadne walks in afterwards with a sketchbook in her arms, she flips open a design to Arthur whom smiles. It was a delightful smile, too. Eames sits and watches them silently, he knows they kissed and he waits for it to happen again every single day. He waits for them to just announce their love for one another and invite him to a wedding.
It gets him fed up, he marches out quickly, but as soon as he's near the door, Cobb comes in. "We still have some measurements to do." He looks to Arthur whom nods and then he looks at Eames. "Can you two go into dream state?" Eames waits for the other to reject it, to say he's crazy and can't go there with him, but instead, he walks over towards the machine and as instant as that, Eames finds himself on the chair aside him. "Whose dream will it be?" Arthur asks. "Well, your subconscious defense is one of the strongest of the team, so I think it'd be better to play in your head." Arthur nods and Eames sits back, trying his best not to let out a relieved sigh. The faster he dies, the fast this is over.
When they fall asleep, they appear into a city street. It's night out with beautiful neon lights over their faces, creating shapes and shadows of greens and purples.
"He has us on a timer to figure out time calculations so they can be kept accurate, so we'll be here for a while." Arthur turns to him. "We should try not to get you killed."
Eames nods, looking out to the subconscious figures that walked with quick paces, yet so elegantly like Arthur himself.
"I think we should talk while we're here, too. I kind of volunteered you to do this with me."
Eames looks back at him surprised, swallowing down all the shame felt previously. "You did?"
Arthur is looking up at the imaginary stars, he loved them. "…yeah, come on, I've been in this dream before. I know a good place."
They walked along each other like a harmonized song and as strange as everything felt, Eames couldn't help but find something wondrous about Arthur's mind. It was much different than his. Arthur liked the night and there were little cafés with dancing lights and crazed jazz music. Eames liked the morning sun and coffee houses. There wasn't usually music in the morning time, but later in the day you could hear some rock.
Finally, reaching his destination, Arthur sits at one of the few city cafés. It's outdoor aside the kitchen and a waiter with a white apron on his waist, walks overly quickly when Eames sits. "Ah, the usual you two?" Arthur nods.
"Usual?" Eames kicks Arthur's chair, he almost falls over.
Arthur glares. "Do you always need to do that?"
Eames leans in and raises his brows. "Usual, hm?"
The waiter returns and places down some fancy French cuisine and then left to serve a projection.
"We got breakfast here Sunday." Arthur digs his fork into his meal. Eames sits back trying to think about Sunday, with that, he looks around. The waiter was the same; the name of café was the same, too. "Holy shit."
"I recreated it from memory of your dream, I guess what Ariadne has taught me about construction is well paid off."
Eames sits back. "How'd—"
"On Sunday I attached myself when you were on it, like I said, you keep saying my name. " He pushes the food into his mouth and chews.
"Oh." Eames looks at the food and then tosses it around with his fork, picking out certain disliked bits.
Arthur swallows. "I pretended to be a projection, you were too cute." He picks up a glass and sips some sort of French wine. "After that, I decided that we needed to speak, but somewhere private, somewhere that not even Cobb would be. So, I requested we test our next mission's measurements together."
"So, you got the bloody idea, what're we supposed to talk about?" Eames puts down his fork.
"Maybe, talk wasn't the best word." Arthur puts his fork down and wipes his hands and mouth with a napkin.
Eames stares at him momentarily, his heart pounded. It pounded because now Arthur was leaning towards him and just like that they were pressing their lips together.
Then, Arthur pulls back. "I'm not really sure if that counts since I can't pull out my die from my pocket and tell you this is real, but we can both wake up and know this happened and the next time we kiss, I'll hold my loaded die as if I've never felt anything in my hands before. I love you, too, Eames. I just wish you told that to me instead of a projection."
Eames hesitates. "So did your projection."
"Come on, there's more lovely things in my dreams you've got, yet to see." Arthur grabs Eames hand and pulls him along, when they walked together the harmony had sounded more like a masterpiece because Arthur didn't let go.