The one where Eames and Arthur talk...What I wanted one chapter where they acted like sensible human beings a.k.a The opposite of what I am ;)
Eames, as it turned out hadn't had the chance to have a single drink at Ariadne's, so he drove them too of them to one of their town's weirdly, 50's themed dinners, the kind that sold bowls of chilli and malt, severed to you by waiters forced to wear these red and white chequered uniforms, the same bright red also covered the thick cushioned seats tucked under each table.
This place had been one of Arthur and Eames favourites when they were kids, Arthur liked the whole retro theme to the place and Eames loved malts Eames loved malts, charming their server with a wide, gap-tooth smile. Arthur didn't question Eames' choice but from the way he walked straight to the booth they called 'dibs' on years ago, he guessed Eames remembered the significance of the shop.
Arthur wasn't still entirely in his right mind, but he was defiantly sober enough to have this conversation, that said it didn't stop the butterflies in his stomach growing claws and attacking Arthur. Eames ordered a chocolate malt, grinning at Arthur's shocked expression.
"It's like two in the morning!" he uttered in disbelief. Eames shrugged, and winked at a horrified Arthur.
"I have a sweet tooth" he declared, Arthur scoffed and ordered a black coffee for himself. The smirk was still on Eames face when he returned his attention back to him, but it was wavering with obvious nerves. Arthur took a breath, "Now or never" he told himself.
"So, I guess I'll go first. What was that whole thing at Ariadne's?" Eames blushed deeply at Arthur's question, and mumbled something inaudible. "What did you say?"
Eames rolled his eyes and shifted uncomfortably "I was jealous" he admitted gruffly, Arthur tried to clamp down the smile that threatened to appear, obviously he didn't do it well enough because Eames blushed an even darker shade of red. "Don't pretend like you were completely innocent on that part!"
Arthur scowled "Yeah 'cause you and that girl were completely innocent too" Eames looked confused.
"What girl?"
"That bimbo you were chatting up before Rob and I started dancing" he grumbled to the table, Eames face cleared with understanding.
"You mean Rachael?" Like Arthur cared what her name was "I didn't realise that would upset you" he spoke softly.
Arthur snapped his eyes up, glaring at Eames "If Rob and I dancing upset you, why wouldn't it be the other way around?"
"Because I didn't know how you felt Arthur!" he ran a hand through his already dishevelled hair "What was I supposed to think? First you were ok around me, then you hated me, then we had that 'almost' moment where you avoid me like I had a contagious disease, then you say we should just ignore that whole thing, then were friends again, then all of this. I didn't know whether you liked me or hated me" Arthur knew he hadn't handled the whole Eames thing exactly well, but even he was taken aback when he heard the summary of everything, in the words of Katy Perry , he'd been hot and cold.
"Like you're not the same? First we're best friends, then you push me around and ignore, then you want to be friends again, you go crazy at Marco when he tries to kick my ass, when every other time you've just turned a blind eye like all the rest of them! You ignore me, you chat up some girl and then when I dance with Robert you get all pissed, then you kiss me!" The waitress came back with their drinks and short silence followed whilst Arthur tried to put into words what he wanted to say. "I liked you" he admitted softly "I just hated that fact" He laughed humourlessly "God look at us, we're the most emotionally stunted human beings on the planet"
"No argument there" Eames muttered, he took a sip of his malt before continuing "I didn't know Marco was hurting you like that"
Arthur scoffed bitterly "Don't insult me, practically the whole school knows Marco loves to kick about the token fag"
"I didn't!"
"Why, would you have cared?"
"Of course I would've Arthur!" Their voices had become so loud that the man behind the counter made a face, Eames quieted down embarrassed and took a long breath, when he spoke his voice sounded raw "Marco bragged about that stuff in the locker room but I never thought he was serious, none of us did. He used to bullshit like that all the time until Dom told him to knock it off"
Arthur stared at Eames sceptically "Did he bullshit about the time when he got suspended and your football buddies came and 'taught me a lesson'?" he hissed, air quoting the last part.
"They did what?!" Eames yelled, earning them a shush from the guy this time. Eames brusquely waved an apology, his focus still on Arthur "When was this?!"
Arthur shrugged, taken aback by Eames; strong reaction "A couple days after Marco started his suspension" Eames's face was a mixture of completely horrified and outraged, it took Arthur by surprise "You didn't know?"
"Of course not! Who was it?" he stood up from the table, eyes burning
Arthur swallowed "Like three guys...It doesn't matter Eames" he put a gentle hand on Eames' shoulder, the movement seemed to calm him slightly and he sat, slowly back down. "You really didn't know?" he bushed his thumb over the material of Eames' jacket, the same one from four years ago, the last happy memory he had of Eames then.
Eames looked wretched when he shook his head "I swear to you Arthur I didn't know, and neither do Yusuf, or Dom and some of the other decent guys, they would've never stood for that kind of thing" Eames looked wrecked "But I am sorry" he continued "For the times I didn't help you, I've been a complete and utter bastard. After my dad died I just sort of lost the plot, I took it all out on you and that still kills me, when I finally got my head together we were in high school and you were this cool collected guy and I just felt like a loser compared to you. By the time I finally worked up the courage to talk to you that whole thing happened in the lunchroom and everything just came flooding back, how much I failed you, I thought I was doing you a favour by staying out of your life" he chuckled "I guess I even failed at that"
Arthur was aware his mouth was hanging open, but he couldn't help it "You? You, felt like a loser compared to me? Have you seen me at school!" he gestured to himself "In our social food chain I am at the bottom, you can't get any lower than me! The chess club's glee choir are more popular than I am!"
Eames looked at Arthur, the way he seemed to be staring into Arthur's soul made him shift uncomfortably under the stare and he chose to stare into the brown, swirling content of his coffee cup instead.
"You have no idea how intimidating you are sometimes" he spoke softly "Even when we were kids you were always so put together, calm and collected like you had everything figured out, and that was to someone like me"
"Someone like you?"
"I have no idea what I want to do Arthur, I mean, I'm good at football but I don't really like it, I just don't know what else to do, all my dad ever wanted me to play football, I don't know anything else. You were always so smart and you always knew you wanted to be an architect, you were passionate and amazing at it, I used to look at you and get so envious that you had your thing whilst I wasn't passionate about anything in my life except my friendship with you. I thought if I just worked at it, tried hard on the team, got into the popular crowd then maybe it would be different, but it never was" he tailed off, his eyes were unfocused, Arthur couldn't help himself skeptism replaced into curiosity.
"What changed?"
Eames blinked, surprised as his attention was brought back "Huh?"
"What changed your mind about staying out of my life? I mean you asked me in person to come and tutor you, there are loads of tutors at our school, so what changed?"
He shrugged "I meant what I said about you being the only one I trusted to help my grade, I talked to a couple of your previous students and they all sung your graces. But...I would be lying if I wasn't hoping to try and reconnect with you"
"But, why now?" he repeated
Eames shifted in his seat, rubbing his neck "Well um, there was this thing...Nash, he um..." he looked like a little desperate as he bit his lip, after a while Eames shook his head "I'll tell you sometime, I promise" stirring his straw round his glass.
Arthur nodded, he was curious but he respected Eames' wishes to and waited for Eames to start talking again.
Eames took a moment, then sighed deeply "Do you know I tried going with girls?"
Arthur nodded "I'd heard that you were dating a couple of times" He didn't add that when he'd heard it, he'd hid in his room listening to depressing music for the whole weekend. Eames scoffed at the table.
"I wouldn't even call it dating really. I tried hard to be interested in what the guys in the locker room were always talking about, tried hard to get into it, but whenever we kissed it just felt...weird, their lips were all sticky and tasted funny with the gloss, my hands kept getting stuck in their hand cause of hair spray and –"
"I don't have to hear any details thanks" he held his hands up to stop Eames, even though the other boy was complaining about the thought of him kissing someone else it still put Arthur's teeth on edge.
Eames smiled bashfully "You get the picture. I mainly did it to shut the guys up. They kept asking why I wasn't chasing tail when we went to parties and were even talking about setting me up" he shuddered "So I kept up appearances"
"Why?"
"Because I'm an idiot" Eames offered smirking, Arthur shook his head.
"There's more to it than that, what aren't you telling me" Eames face began to shut down a little so Arthur put his hand over one of Eames' that was faced down on the counter "You can tell me?"
Eames didn't meet Arthur's gaze for a long time, when he finally did he looked...guilty "My dad"
"You're kidding"
"It's just he had this whole big plan for me" Eames rushed to explain "And it was always the plan, for the first time I can remember he always had this plan"
"He made this plan for you; you told me repeatedly how much you hated it" Arthur reminded.
"But it was still a plan Arthur. You don't understand, I didn't have anything else, this plan was the only thing I'd ever known and I didn't know how to go against it even after my dad died. He made it sound so simple and easy, get a football scholarship, get picked by one of the major teams, get married and have a couple of kids, it just seemed simple when he summarised it all like that, an easy way to get through everything."
He paused briefly "It just didn't work in practise when I wasn't interested in girls, I think I knew for a while when I just didn't feel the same way about girls as the other guys did, I felt closer to you than I ever had a girl, I thought it was just because you were my best friend, because you took care of me...but it wasn't" he rubbed his eyes with the his free hand, the other didn't move from where it was covered with Arthur's.
"Why did you leave me the first time?" he'd wanted to ask that question ever since the day Eames had turned his back on him, part of him hadn't wanted to know in case he got the answer the cynical part of the brain had been screaming at him for the last four years, that Eames didn't care about him, that he wasn't good enough. Even now he almost didn't want to know the answer.
Eames turned his hand over and wound his fingers through Arthurs "I felt the same way as you did, but I was just so scared" his voice wavered at the admission "My dad had just died, my mum was...well you've seen her, everything was so fucked up and all this stuff kept going round in my head I just couldn't handle it. Fourteen was just too young to realise I had all these feelings because I had no idea what to do with them, I just panicked and it doesn't in anyway justify how I acted because I was a complete and utter bastard to you Arthur I really was. I wish that I could go back and shake fourteen year old me, tell him to stop being such a prick and go help his best friend up because otherwise he was going to lose the most important thing in his life and he would regret it every day after, but I can't. All I can promise is that if you give me another chance that I promise that I will never hurt you again"
Arthur smiled, the iron clamp around his chest loosen, suddenly the world seemed just that bit brighter. He played with the fingers off his and Eames' linked hands "It's going to take some time" he whispered, still scared that Eames might not think Arthur was worth that.
"I've got time" Eames face filled with warmth, Arthur felt the fire flow through their point of contact like in the wood, but this time it was more of a slow burn, a happiness that filled every part of him. They may not be all the way there, but this was defiantly a healthy start and Arthur felt his cheeks begin to ache from the smile on his face.
"Oh yeah" Eames said, serious all of sudden dropping hands "I forgot to mention"
"What?" he asked, unable to keep the worry from seeping into his tone
"You are really going to have to stop smiling around me; your dimples are seriously irresistible"
Arthur laughed in relief "You are such a bastard"
"Guilty" Eames grinned, happiness filled his face as well and he hadn't let go of Arthur's hand yet, always a good sign "So is this like a 'thing'? With just me and you" he asked biting his lips
Arthur mock gasped "Eames the playboy are you asking if were exclusive"
Eames rolled his eyes "Please! It was two girls I am so not a playboy. Besides I was just asking if we had a 'thing' with us" he frowned, blushing and staring at the window.
Arthur smiled, showing his dimples "I'm happy to have a 'thing' if you are"
"I'd be very happy with a 'thing'" he mumbled, the waitress who walked past gave them an odd look "Why does everyone assume that teenage guys are always making innuendo's about their dicks"
Eames chuckled "If you spent five minutes around the football team you'd realise that stereotype was not unfounded" he reclined in his seat "You know I didn't fool Yusuf for a second with my act, one day we're playing on his Xbox, and right in the middle of this zombie boss battle he just goes 'So you're gay right?'"
"You're kidding me!"
"I swear to god, I just kept on playing and replied 'Yeah is that ok?' and Yusuf goes 'Are you kidding me? Now I don't have to worry about you stealing my girlfriends away with the that dumb accent of yours"
"No way!" Arthur giggled "So only Yusuf knows?"
"Well there's you" he grinned "What about you, does your Aunt know?"
"Yep" Arthur nodded.
"How'd you tell her?"
"I got all nervous with this huge speech, and I told her I was sorry and this is who I was and I wished with all my heart that she could accept that"
"Well, what she say?"
Arthur grinned "She looked really confused and then said 'Was the whole thing meant to be a secret?'"
"She knew already?"
"Yep she said 'Arthur honey, you were never interested in playing Little League and had no idea what the sport really was but you still liked to watch, you don't think this made me just that little bit suspicious?"
Eames practically fell off the table laughing, whilst Arthur just smiled into his coffee. The stayed there for a while, just talking about everything and nothing until the dawn light started peaking through the window.
Yay they have a 'thing'...don't even think about you dirty minded people, I know you're out there, I'm one of you! Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for the reading and reviewing :D