Author's Note: Ok it's a little slow, sorry :/ It might be a little slow for a little while. I am terrible at writing fast-paced action! Anyway, thanks so much for the lovely reviews, and enjoy!
Arthur hung up his cell phone, glad for the darkness that obscured his blush. Ariadne was sitting up in the bed next to his, her knees drawn up to her chest, her face just barely visible by the city lights through the window.
"Is he ok?" She asked urgently.
"He's fine," Arthur said shortly. "He's on his way over." Feeling grumpy, Arthur tucked himself back into bed, muttering, "And he better find his own damn place to stay."
Ariadne didn't seem to have heard him, and with his head buried in his pillow he heard her get up and go to the bathroom. A voice in his head that sounded frustratingly like Eames' said, "She really thinks you're an asshole mate," and then laughed. Arthur had a sudden, dreadful vision of his next job, all his projections in the image of the forger, laughing at him. He buried deeper into his bedspread and tried to ignore the sounds of Ariadne washing her hands, climbing back into bed, her soft breathing.
Morning came very quickly. Arthur woke up to a car alarm blaring on their street, but his rude entry into the waking world was greeting also with the wafting scent of coffee being brewed. He opened his eyes, staring forward as rested on his side, his eyes falling on the small kitchen.
Ariadne was preparing breakfast, her hair up in a sloppy bun, wearing a red lacy camisole. Arthur swallowed hard and took a moment to regain his signature cool before alerting his housemate to his waking.
"Morning," he said, his voice cracking just a little. She looked up from the stovetop and smiled at him.
"Morning!" Her voice was much more chipper. "Eggs?"
"Sure," he said, stumbling to a standing position. He slept in blue boxers and a white t-shirt without design. Ariadne, he knew, switched up the tops but always wore the same Thunder Cats boxers to bed. The two had been sharing bedrooms for a year now, though never a bed, he thought with a bit of resentment. She seemed impervious to his various hints, suggestions and whatever amount of charm he supposed he had. She always acted like a good friend.
"I hoped the alarm wouldn't wake you," she said, frowning at the window. "I went down to the deli to get some bacon and I wanted to see if boys really do wake up to that smell." She shrugged, pushing the eggs around in the pan.
"You shouldn't believe everything Burger King commercials tell you," Arthur said with a smirk, sitting on the stool at the kitchen island.
Ariadne froze in her cooking, giving Arthur a very serious look.
"Are you telling me that $1.59 for a double cheeseburger is not an amazing deal?"
"How you even know those details when we haven't had a TV for three weeks…baffles me," Arthur said, and he rested his head on his hand trying not to stare at her.
"I like to keep up with current events, so sue me," she said, a smile breaking her false seriousness. Having finished the eggs she served them up onto a plate and placed the dish along with a fresh cup of coffee in front of Arthur. The eggs were over easy, his favorite kind. He felt a little tug at his stomach, as if the fact that she knew what he liked for breakfast were the most romantic thing in the world.
She sat down next to him with her own eggs (scrambled, he knew without having to look), and the two of them ate in silence for a while.
"Speaking of current events," she said quietly, "Saito's funeral is today. In Hiroshima, where he was born."
Arthur didn't know what to say, so he just kept eating. The whole Saito affair, while very sad for his loved ones of course, had Arthur totally unaffected. Sure the businessman had accompanied them on their job, but Arthur couldn't remember having a conversation lasting more than five minutes with him, and as far as he had seen, Ariadne hadn't talked to him much either. Yet she was strangely torn up about his death. As far as he knew things like that happened not infrequently in the Japanese business world; Saito had probably made a poor investment and decided to end it all rather than face the shame of bankruptcy.
And as long as Arthur's ties to Saito were never discovered, the point man felt very indifferent to the death. He swallowed hard, thinking. The sound of a plane roared overhead, and Arthur suddenly felt a thrill of dread, hoping that whatever trouble Eames had mentioned did not have to do with Saito's demise. How could he have glazed over that strange coincidence?
Ariadne seemed to be thinking as well, and the two of them finished their breakfasts in an unsettling silence.
"Do you think it was murder?" Ariadne said suddenly, as she stood holding her empty plate ready for the sink.
"What?" Arthur knew what she was talking about, but the question had taken him off guard.
"Do you think Saito's suicide was actually…murder?" She asked again.
He paused.
"I…Maybe. It's definitely possible. I mean, he didn't seem very suicidal when we knew him. Then again he didn't seem to show much of any emotion. And things like that happen all the time in the corporate world."
He frowned because Ariadne looked almost relieved. She wasn't smiling, but something in her face seemed mollified, and she set about washing her dish.