There's No Place Like Home
Title: There's No Place Like Home (aka Magic Gay Baseball)
Pairing: Arthur/Eames, Cobb/Mal
Rating: R, for drunk frottage
Warning: I DON'T EVEN. Arthur is kind of a Red Sox fan. Sorry y'all.
Notes: So sorrynotsorry (who also rallied me through this) requested a TRAGIC FRATHOUSE AU. Instead I wrote 8 pages about the Inception team playing Division II NCAA baseball. (PS to everyone in that post: your drabbles or whatever are coming! I swear!) This is probably what is known as a "crack fic."
Cobb makes team captain his junior year. He’s never wanted anything more in his life than to play baseball, and now he gets to run a whole baseball team. 17 players, his plays, and he gets to lead them.
Unfortunately for him, that team sucks.
-
So he spends the summer before his captain debut making plans.
“I have purchased you a pitcher,” Mr. Saito, the director of the sports program at XXX State tells him.
“You mean you got us a scholarship pitcher?” Cobb says hopefully. Saito waves his hand dismissively. “Yes, yes. Whatever you say.”
And there Arthur is, wearing nice slacks, a blue button up shirt with a tie that looked like it probably belonged to his dad. He has a firm hand shake and calluses on his palm. His smile is a little shy and he ducks his head a little when he says, “I’m Arthur.”
Cobb almost dies on the spot.
“Arthur? You bought Arthur!?” (Here Arthur interjects with “I wasn’t bought!” in a scandalized tone). “He’s like, a five star recruit.”
Saito just smiles and nods enigmatically, so Cobb tries again, staring at Arthur.
“You’re like a five star recruit! What are you even doing here at DII? You could have played in the Big 12!” He’s waving his hands all over the place and Arthur is starting to look a little distressed.
“I, uhm. The journalism program here is in the top ten.” Arthur stares down at his shoes.
“Journalism!” Cobb yells enthusiastically.
“I think that is enough excitement for young Mr. Arthur here for one day, Mr. Cobb,” Saito says gently, pulling Cobb’s arm back to his side.
“Arthur! 100 mph pitching! Except you're a knuckleballer! You threw three no-hitters in your senior season!”
Arthur’s ears turn a lovely shade of pink.
-
Sophomore and team pretty-boy Robert Fischer hates him on principle the first time Cobb brings Arthur to the locker rooms.
“And who is this small fry?” he sneers, even though Arthur might be an inch taller than him.
“Shut up, Fischer,” says Eames, “That was you just last year, if you recall.”
“Haven’t you been deported yet?” Fischer asks.
“If this team recruited based on personality, he’d have been kicked off long ago,” Eames says as he approaches. He shakes Arthur’s hand
vigorously, grinning. Arthur is struck by his bulk and his inexplicable British accent.
“Unfortunately for us, the kid’s got a .36 RBI average,” Cobb says, grinning back and pushing Arthur closer to the team.
“Uhm, what brings you to the states?” Arthur mumbles at Eames when the man finally releases his hand.
“Oh, well. It’s a long story,” Eames says, waving a hand dismissively. “Don’t ask unless you like cricket.”
“Eames, no one likes cricket,” says Cobb.
“Hey! I like cricket,” says a person with wild hair and thighs so muscular Arthur already knows he is the catcher.
“Yusuf here always has my back!” Eames says, and spins around to give him a high five.
-
Mal is a mysterious shade at their field practices. She stands in the dugout, chewing gum, with her hat pulled low, and watches them.
“Arthur, this is Mal. Mal, this is our new star!”
Mal smiles. “That’s what you said last year about Fischer.”
Arthur thinks that she present a vision in sweatpants and a XXXX State t-shirt, and briefly imagines her in something like a dress. It’s lovely.
She spits.
“So what do you throw, kid?” Arthur recognizes her accent as French and briefly wonders why there are so many international students playing an American sport.
“Left handed knuckleball is my specialty.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Huh. A Wakefield fan?”
He shrugs. “My dad’s from Boston, so I guess. Mostly though it doesn’t wear down your shoulder. You get a hundred times the pitches with less injuries.”
“How fast?”
“I can get it up to 70 mph if need be. But the real trick is to keep it unpredictable.”
Mal turns to Cobb. “Okay, this one’s a keeper.” She gives Arthur a kiss on the cheek and he feels his ears get hot.
Cobb smiles.
-
So, they win.
Even Fischer is impressed that Arthur manages to hold the other team down to two runs until the seventh, when Nash, their closer, stepped in.
“A submarine knuckleballer?” Eames asks incredulously as they all strip down while absorbing the news. “Is that even a real combination of English words?”
Fischer rolls his eyes. “God, it’s like you don’t know anything about baseball at all sometimes.”
“Oh, they only keep me on the team for my charming personality and dashing good looks, Rob.”
Yusuf laughs, and they fist bump.
Fischer peels off his shirt, and then makes a high pitch squeak. “What is she doing here?!” he yells in a practiced incredulous tone, pointing at Mal. She’s materialized, grabbing Cobb in a crushing hug and kissing him. Fischer tries to cover his chest with his hands and fails miserably.
“Oh, get over it, man,” Yusuf says, throwing a towel at Fischer to help him cover up. "I think we need to celebrate!"
-
The first thing about the bar Arthur notices is that he’s overdressed.
It’s not that people there are dressed poorly, per say, it’s just that he’s wearing a vest and everyone else is in button-up collared shirts. Most with stripes. Arthur fiddles with his tie as the bouncer scrutinizes the fake ID that Eames had somehow procured for him within a two hour period.
They get in.
Eames, of course, is in a florid paisley print, and he orders a round of shots named “sex with an alligator.”
“Are you sure you should have snuck Arthur in here?” Cobb asks for the third time in the evening. “He’s on scholarship, you know!”
Arthur knocks back the shot in one go.
Mal punches Cobb in the shoulder. “Lighten up, bro,” she snaps, then takes her shot in one as well.
Eames grabs Arthur’s arm. “Let’s leave the love birds to their mating ritual and go dance, hmm?”
-
Arthur has never been to a club.
Not that he would tell anyone on the team that.
He hasn’t done much dancing, either, but it just seems like a mess of sweaty bodies on the dance floor. He tries to stand as un-stiffly as he can manage near Eames, who moves in time to the loud bass with a practiced ease.
“Not much for dancing?” Eames yells in his ear, and Arthur shrugs a little helplessly.
Eames grins at him, his teeth flashing brightly in the club’s lights. He grabs Arthur’s hips roughly. “You’ve got to swivel from here, first.”
Arthur grabs Eames’ well-defined shoulders to steady himself as the junior manipulates him.
A frat guy in a striped shirt and straight billed baseball cap sneers at them from the bar. “Fag!”
“Nope, just British, dear,” Eames says with a smile, but his eyes have hints of violence. Arthur yanks his arms back
Thankfully Yusuf chooses this moment to appear with beers in hand. Arthur grabs one, desperate to have something to do with his hands that isn’t touching Eames, and drinks.
“Yusuf, you always pick the worst clubs,” Eames shouts as he takes his own drink.
Yusuf shrugs. “Well, it’s entertaining for me, anyway.”
Arthur stares at him incredulously and Yusuf laughs. "What can I say? I enjoy a good barfight or two."
-
Arthur starts showing up to practice looking like shit once classes are in full swing, and Cobb pulls him aside. He’s the captain, after all, it’s his job to make sure no one on the team is suffering from insomnia or a methadone addiction. He hopes to God it isn’t the later.
“What’s up, Arthur? You look like shit, man.”
Arthur grimaces. “I thank God everyday for your blunt, hands-on coaching approach, Cobb.”
Cobb smiles. People on meth are very rarely able to be witty, he’s pretty sure. “So?”
Arthur sighs. “My roommates. They’re just…tragic. Tragic frat boys. Bros. Brosephs.”
Cobb isn’t sure how that would contribute to the bags under Arthur's eyes, so he puts on a concerned look and tries to channel Saito’s soothing tone. “So?”
“One of them was doing coke off his pledge paddle at 2 am this morning! They leave dirty dishes in the sink instead of putting them in the dishwasher! One hasn’t washed his sheets in three weeks! One ate an entire block of cheddar cheese in one sitting!”
“Dom, if you keep squinting like that, your face is going to freeze up,” interjects Eames helpfully, strolling up behind Arthur. “Additionally, I know how to solve this. You should just move out!” He looks very pleased with himself.
“Eames, we’re trying to have a captain to teammate moment here.”
“Here, in the dugout.” Eames’ face is skeptical.
Cobb looks around and realizes most of the team has already assembled for practice. “Yes!”
“Anyway, Arthur, I’ve got a spare bedroom if you’d like.”
Arthur rolls his eyes. “Yes, I’m sure that would work quite well because I’m not required to live on campus as part of my scholarship agreement or anything.”
“You wound me, truly, by assuming I hadn’t taken that in consideration! You never have to officially move out of the dorms.”
Arthur’s gritting his teeth. “And how am I supposed to pay two rents?”
Eames looks thoughtful.
“Because I can’t really get a job since I’m practicing so much here. And I’m only at college because I can play baseball, so it’s not like I can quit.” He crosses his arms over his chest for good measure.
“Man, don’t let Eames fool you. He just has a big closet that you could put a mattress in. I wouldn’t pay to sleep there, and you shouldn’t either.” Yusuf is surprisingly early to practice. Eames smiles winningly.
-
Arthur moves in a week later.
Yusuf, for once, hadn’t been kidding. Eames’ second bedroom was, in fact, a walk-in closet. Complete with clothes.
Arthur eyes the kitchen, where takeout boxes, beer cans, and water bottles sit in a heap on top of an overburdened trash bin. There are thankfully no dishes in the sink.
“Eames. I came here to get out of chaos, not move into more of it.”
Eames quickly kicks some socks behind the couch. “Maybe that’s how you can earn your keep?”
Arthur wrinkles his nose. “Maybe.”
-
They win another game, and then another. It’s the most games Cobb’s ever won in a season since starting in college.
Their fourth game of the season, Fischer hits a home-run with the bases loaded, and Cobb can feel himself tearing up as he races home from second base.
“What even brought you here?” Fischer asks Arthur in the locker room. It's Arthur's first no hitter. It's also the team's first no hitter, ever.
“What keeps you around here?” Arthur asks, and Fischer smiles.
“Oh, my dad went here. I’m going to inherit the family business, so he figured I’d better follow in his footsteps.”
Arthur nods. “But you could probably go pro with your stats.”
Fischer shrugs. “I just play because it pisses off the old man. He was football player back in his day. But what keeps you around?”
It’s Arthur’s turn to shrug and appear nonchalant. “The money, mostly. They bid the highest. Wouldn’t go to college if I didn’t play.”
Fischer nods. “But you could go pro, too, you know. Arm like that.”
Arthur smiles, mouth closed and a little lopsided. “Sometimes it’s just a means to an end.”
-
Living with Eames becomes sort of routine, in the sense that Arthur gets used to studying in the library to avoid the clouds of bong smoke whenever Yusuf came over, and he gets used to Eames forcing him to eat healthy meals at regular intervals.
They spend just enough time together, watching trashy TV and cooking but not seeing each other out of practice. Eames moves his shirts to his dresser.
When they make the division championships, Cobb takes the whole team out to a club to get absolutely wasted. Yusuf picks out a place that is neither too loud nor too uncomfortably quiet, that has booths with cushions and specialty cocktails.
“This isn’t what I meant when I said I’d take you out.” Cobb pouts, and Mal laughs at him.
Arthur is better at using his fake ID now, his hand doesn’t tremble and he doesn’t mind being carded. He’s getting better at being relaxed around the team, always so boisterous and untroubled.
Halfway through his third drink (“Pied Piper,” $12), Eames tugs on his arm. “Come dance with us!”
Mal is sprawled in Cobb’s lap, and Fischer and Nash are nowhere to be found, so he does.
“Do you still need dancing lessons?” Eames asks as they move into the crowd of people.
Arthur presses himself up against Eames with ease, and notches their hips together. Eames wraps his hands around Arthur’s waist and they move in time to the music being spun by an exclusive DJ..
“You’ve improved!”
“Well, maybe I’ve been practicing.” Arthur says, hissing the last word into Eames' ear with a gust of warm breath. Eames feels himself shiver and Arthur can feel it too, and he smiles.
-
They make it back to the apartment alright, but Eames keeps bumping up against Arthur in a way he’s sure is both intentional and supposed to be flirtatious. Instead, Arthur ends up hitting a wall, a door frame, the elevator entrance, and the door to his own closet.
“I see you’ve taken to following me everywhere then?” Arthur asks.
“Well, I’m not sleepy!” Eames says, grinning in the dim light.
“Oh, mmm, me neither,” says Arthur as he collapses onto his mattress. He hears Eames thump next to him, even though it’s a twin. His eyes are closed.
Then, suddenly, Eames’ weight is pressing on his chest and his legs and his lips are pressing into Arthur’s. Arthur gasps and his eyes pop open, which only serves to confirm that yes, Eames is in fact laying on top of him and kissing him on a mattress on the floor of his walk-in closet. Arthur lets his eyes flutter closed.
“Maybe I should wait until we’re both sober -“ Eames says thickly when he breaks for air.
“Oh, fuck off,” Arthur says and he pulls Eames back toward his face.
Arthur has kissed a handful of people, but none of them kiss like Eames. None of them have ever managed to pull their shirt off while laying on top of him before, either, and Arthur is fairly certain he’s never kissed anyone with quite so many tattoos.
And no one has ever licked the inside of his mouth in quite such a way, or growled lowly in their throat while fighting with his button up shirts. Arthur helpfully pulls back and manages somehow to pull off his shirt without punching Eames inadvertently in the face, so he rewards himself by biting a little at Eames’ full bottom lip when they meet again to kiss.
He’s already hard, which would be embarrassing if he couldn’t feel Eames’ erection digging into his thigh.
“Let’s get these off too,” Eames says into his mouth impatiently as he pulls ineffectively at Arthur’s pants. Arthur manages to do some sort of shimmy to get them down to his knees, and as he kicks them off there’s the feeling of sweet friction so he moans.
“Oh, Arthur,” Eames says, staring into his face with such drunken, rapturous intensity that Arthur feels himself blush. His pants disappear instantly.
“Are you magic?” Arthur says, then bites into Eames’ neck. It earns him another throat growl.
“Hopefully!” Eames says, and then he rocks. He pushes his cock right into Arthur’s and it feels amazing. Arthur feels slow and drunk and wonderful, his body radiating warmth under Eames’ comforting weight, being pinned between two muscled arms. Arthur arches up and then they get frantic. Eames tugs at his briefs and pulls his cock out of his boxers so they’re down to skin.
Eames bites hard into Arthur’s shoulder when he comes, sticky and hot all over Arthur’s belly. He reaches down and starts jerking Arthur’s cock, teeth still leaving little marks in Arthur’s pale skin.
“Oh, oh, oh,” Arthur manages to say before Eames twists just right and he comes. Eames lets himself fall onto Arthur, and they’re sticky. A mess, hot and drunk and sweaty and covered in jizz.
Arthur smiles and pulls him even closer.
The next morning is awkward, but worth it, Arthur thinks, because it means Arthur gets to take a shower with Eames and make him eggs and feed him coffee and move out of his closet, into his bed.
-
The get decimated in May. Cobb is disappointed, but he knows this is the farthest they’ve gotten in a thousand years of collegiate history and people had actually starting going to games so he gets over their first round NCAA loss pretty quickly. Sort of.
Mal helps.
But the end of the season means the end of the school year means the end of Eames’ stay in America until fall, so Mal and Dom and Arthur pile in Mal’s car to see him off at the airport.
Eames gives them all bear hugs and waves as he walks away.
Arthur sits in the back of Mal’s car and sniffles a little, trying to discreetly wipe his nose on the sleeve of the oversized sweatshirt that Eames had gifted him.
“You okay back there?” Cobb asks the rearview mirror.
“Allergies,” Arthur mumbles as he stares out the window at Eames’ retreating back.
Cobb nods. “So, Mal,” he starts, trying to change the subject, “What’s the name of your new starting pitcher, then?”
She smiles as she starts to pull away from the airport. “Her name is Ariadne. I hear she’s the best at what she does.”
Pairing: Arthur/Eames, Cobb/Mal
Rating: R, for drunk frottage
Warning: I DON'T EVEN. Arthur is kind of a Red Sox fan. Sorry y'all.
Notes: So sorrynotsorry (who also rallied me through this) requested a TRAGIC FRATHOUSE AU. Instead I wrote 8 pages about the Inception team playing Division II NCAA baseball. (PS to everyone in that post: your drabbles or whatever are coming! I swear!) This is probably what is known as a "crack fic."
Cobb makes team captain his junior year. He’s never wanted anything more in his life than to play baseball, and now he gets to run a whole baseball team. 17 players, his plays, and he gets to lead them.
Unfortunately for him, that team sucks.
-
So he spends the summer before his captain debut making plans.
“I have purchased you a pitcher,” Mr. Saito, the director of the sports program at XXX State tells him.
“You mean you got us a scholarship pitcher?” Cobb says hopefully. Saito waves his hand dismissively. “Yes, yes. Whatever you say.”
And there Arthur is, wearing nice slacks, a blue button up shirt with a tie that looked like it probably belonged to his dad. He has a firm hand shake and calluses on his palm. His smile is a little shy and he ducks his head a little when he says, “I’m Arthur.”
Cobb almost dies on the spot.
“Arthur? You bought Arthur!?” (Here Arthur interjects with “I wasn’t bought!” in a scandalized tone). “He’s like, a five star recruit.”
Saito just smiles and nods enigmatically, so Cobb tries again, staring at Arthur.
“You’re like a five star recruit! What are you even doing here at DII? You could have played in the Big 12!” He’s waving his hands all over the place and Arthur is starting to look a little distressed.
“I, uhm. The journalism program here is in the top ten.” Arthur stares down at his shoes.
“Journalism!” Cobb yells enthusiastically.
“I think that is enough excitement for young Mr. Arthur here for one day, Mr. Cobb,” Saito says gently, pulling Cobb’s arm back to his side.
“Arthur! 100 mph pitching! Except you're a knuckleballer! You threw three no-hitters in your senior season!”
Arthur’s ears turn a lovely shade of pink.
-
Sophomore and team pretty-boy Robert Fischer hates him on principle the first time Cobb brings Arthur to the locker rooms.
“And who is this small fry?” he sneers, even though Arthur might be an inch taller than him.
“Shut up, Fischer,” says Eames, “That was you just last year, if you recall.”
“Haven’t you been deported yet?” Fischer asks.
“If this team recruited based on personality, he’d have been kicked off long ago,” Eames says as he approaches. He shakes Arthur’s hand
vigorously, grinning. Arthur is struck by his bulk and his inexplicable British accent.
“Unfortunately for us, the kid’s got a .36 RBI average,” Cobb says, grinning back and pushing Arthur closer to the team.
“Uhm, what brings you to the states?” Arthur mumbles at Eames when the man finally releases his hand.
“Oh, well. It’s a long story,” Eames says, waving a hand dismissively. “Don’t ask unless you like cricket.”
“Eames, no one likes cricket,” says Cobb.
“Hey! I like cricket,” says a person with wild hair and thighs so muscular Arthur already knows he is the catcher.
“Yusuf here always has my back!” Eames says, and spins around to give him a high five.
-
Mal is a mysterious shade at their field practices. She stands in the dugout, chewing gum, with her hat pulled low, and watches them.
“Arthur, this is Mal. Mal, this is our new star!”
Mal smiles. “That’s what you said last year about Fischer.”
Arthur thinks that she present a vision in sweatpants and a XXXX State t-shirt, and briefly imagines her in something like a dress. It’s lovely.
She spits.
“So what do you throw, kid?” Arthur recognizes her accent as French and briefly wonders why there are so many international students playing an American sport.
“Left handed knuckleball is my specialty.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Huh. A Wakefield fan?”
He shrugs. “My dad’s from Boston, so I guess. Mostly though it doesn’t wear down your shoulder. You get a hundred times the pitches with less injuries.”
“How fast?”
“I can get it up to 70 mph if need be. But the real trick is to keep it unpredictable.”
Mal turns to Cobb. “Okay, this one’s a keeper.” She gives Arthur a kiss on the cheek and he feels his ears get hot.
Cobb smiles.
-
So, they win.
Even Fischer is impressed that Arthur manages to hold the other team down to two runs until the seventh, when Nash, their closer, stepped in.
“A submarine knuckleballer?” Eames asks incredulously as they all strip down while absorbing the news. “Is that even a real combination of English words?”
Fischer rolls his eyes. “God, it’s like you don’t know anything about baseball at all sometimes.”
“Oh, they only keep me on the team for my charming personality and dashing good looks, Rob.”
Yusuf laughs, and they fist bump.
Fischer peels off his shirt, and then makes a high pitch squeak. “What is she doing here?!” he yells in a practiced incredulous tone, pointing at Mal. She’s materialized, grabbing Cobb in a crushing hug and kissing him. Fischer tries to cover his chest with his hands and fails miserably.
“Oh, get over it, man,” Yusuf says, throwing a towel at Fischer to help him cover up. "I think we need to celebrate!"
-
The first thing about the bar Arthur notices is that he’s overdressed.
It’s not that people there are dressed poorly, per say, it’s just that he’s wearing a vest and everyone else is in button-up collared shirts. Most with stripes. Arthur fiddles with his tie as the bouncer scrutinizes the fake ID that Eames had somehow procured for him within a two hour period.
They get in.
Eames, of course, is in a florid paisley print, and he orders a round of shots named “sex with an alligator.”
“Are you sure you should have snuck Arthur in here?” Cobb asks for the third time in the evening. “He’s on scholarship, you know!”
Arthur knocks back the shot in one go.
Mal punches Cobb in the shoulder. “Lighten up, bro,” she snaps, then takes her shot in one as well.
Eames grabs Arthur’s arm. “Let’s leave the love birds to their mating ritual and go dance, hmm?”
-
Arthur has never been to a club.
Not that he would tell anyone on the team that.
He hasn’t done much dancing, either, but it just seems like a mess of sweaty bodies on the dance floor. He tries to stand as un-stiffly as he can manage near Eames, who moves in time to the loud bass with a practiced ease.
“Not much for dancing?” Eames yells in his ear, and Arthur shrugs a little helplessly.
Eames grins at him, his teeth flashing brightly in the club’s lights. He grabs Arthur’s hips roughly. “You’ve got to swivel from here, first.”
Arthur grabs Eames’ well-defined shoulders to steady himself as the junior manipulates him.
A frat guy in a striped shirt and straight billed baseball cap sneers at them from the bar. “Fag!”
“Nope, just British, dear,” Eames says with a smile, but his eyes have hints of violence. Arthur yanks his arms back
Thankfully Yusuf chooses this moment to appear with beers in hand. Arthur grabs one, desperate to have something to do with his hands that isn’t touching Eames, and drinks.
“Yusuf, you always pick the worst clubs,” Eames shouts as he takes his own drink.
Yusuf shrugs. “Well, it’s entertaining for me, anyway.”
Arthur stares at him incredulously and Yusuf laughs. "What can I say? I enjoy a good barfight or two."
-
Arthur starts showing up to practice looking like shit once classes are in full swing, and Cobb pulls him aside. He’s the captain, after all, it’s his job to make sure no one on the team is suffering from insomnia or a methadone addiction. He hopes to God it isn’t the later.
“What’s up, Arthur? You look like shit, man.”
Arthur grimaces. “I thank God everyday for your blunt, hands-on coaching approach, Cobb.”
Cobb smiles. People on meth are very rarely able to be witty, he’s pretty sure. “So?”
Arthur sighs. “My roommates. They’re just…tragic. Tragic frat boys. Bros. Brosephs.”
Cobb isn’t sure how that would contribute to the bags under Arthur's eyes, so he puts on a concerned look and tries to channel Saito’s soothing tone. “So?”
“One of them was doing coke off his pledge paddle at 2 am this morning! They leave dirty dishes in the sink instead of putting them in the dishwasher! One hasn’t washed his sheets in three weeks! One ate an entire block of cheddar cheese in one sitting!”
“Dom, if you keep squinting like that, your face is going to freeze up,” interjects Eames helpfully, strolling up behind Arthur. “Additionally, I know how to solve this. You should just move out!” He looks very pleased with himself.
“Eames, we’re trying to have a captain to teammate moment here.”
“Here, in the dugout.” Eames’ face is skeptical.
Cobb looks around and realizes most of the team has already assembled for practice. “Yes!”
“Anyway, Arthur, I’ve got a spare bedroom if you’d like.”
Arthur rolls his eyes. “Yes, I’m sure that would work quite well because I’m not required to live on campus as part of my scholarship agreement or anything.”
“You wound me, truly, by assuming I hadn’t taken that in consideration! You never have to officially move out of the dorms.”
Arthur’s gritting his teeth. “And how am I supposed to pay two rents?”
Eames looks thoughtful.
“Because I can’t really get a job since I’m practicing so much here. And I’m only at college because I can play baseball, so it’s not like I can quit.” He crosses his arms over his chest for good measure.
“Man, don’t let Eames fool you. He just has a big closet that you could put a mattress in. I wouldn’t pay to sleep there, and you shouldn’t either.” Yusuf is surprisingly early to practice. Eames smiles winningly.
-
Arthur moves in a week later.
Yusuf, for once, hadn’t been kidding. Eames’ second bedroom was, in fact, a walk-in closet. Complete with clothes.
Arthur eyes the kitchen, where takeout boxes, beer cans, and water bottles sit in a heap on top of an overburdened trash bin. There are thankfully no dishes in the sink.
“Eames. I came here to get out of chaos, not move into more of it.”
Eames quickly kicks some socks behind the couch. “Maybe that’s how you can earn your keep?”
Arthur wrinkles his nose. “Maybe.”
-
They win another game, and then another. It’s the most games Cobb’s ever won in a season since starting in college.
Their fourth game of the season, Fischer hits a home-run with the bases loaded, and Cobb can feel himself tearing up as he races home from second base.
“What even brought you here?” Fischer asks Arthur in the locker room. It's Arthur's first no hitter. It's also the team's first no hitter, ever.
“What keeps you around here?” Arthur asks, and Fischer smiles.
“Oh, my dad went here. I’m going to inherit the family business, so he figured I’d better follow in his footsteps.”
Arthur nods. “But you could probably go pro with your stats.”
Fischer shrugs. “I just play because it pisses off the old man. He was football player back in his day. But what keeps you around?”
It’s Arthur’s turn to shrug and appear nonchalant. “The money, mostly. They bid the highest. Wouldn’t go to college if I didn’t play.”
Fischer nods. “But you could go pro, too, you know. Arm like that.”
Arthur smiles, mouth closed and a little lopsided. “Sometimes it’s just a means to an end.”
-
Living with Eames becomes sort of routine, in the sense that Arthur gets used to studying in the library to avoid the clouds of bong smoke whenever Yusuf came over, and he gets used to Eames forcing him to eat healthy meals at regular intervals.
They spend just enough time together, watching trashy TV and cooking but not seeing each other out of practice. Eames moves his shirts to his dresser.
When they make the division championships, Cobb takes the whole team out to a club to get absolutely wasted. Yusuf picks out a place that is neither too loud nor too uncomfortably quiet, that has booths with cushions and specialty cocktails.
“This isn’t what I meant when I said I’d take you out.” Cobb pouts, and Mal laughs at him.
Arthur is better at using his fake ID now, his hand doesn’t tremble and he doesn’t mind being carded. He’s getting better at being relaxed around the team, always so boisterous and untroubled.
Halfway through his third drink (“Pied Piper,” $12), Eames tugs on his arm. “Come dance with us!”
Mal is sprawled in Cobb’s lap, and Fischer and Nash are nowhere to be found, so he does.
“Do you still need dancing lessons?” Eames asks as they move into the crowd of people.
Arthur presses himself up against Eames with ease, and notches their hips together. Eames wraps his hands around Arthur’s waist and they move in time to the music being spun by an exclusive DJ..
“You’ve improved!”
“Well, maybe I’ve been practicing.” Arthur says, hissing the last word into Eames' ear with a gust of warm breath. Eames feels himself shiver and Arthur can feel it too, and he smiles.
-
They make it back to the apartment alright, but Eames keeps bumping up against Arthur in a way he’s sure is both intentional and supposed to be flirtatious. Instead, Arthur ends up hitting a wall, a door frame, the elevator entrance, and the door to his own closet.
“I see you’ve taken to following me everywhere then?” Arthur asks.
“Well, I’m not sleepy!” Eames says, grinning in the dim light.
“Oh, mmm, me neither,” says Arthur as he collapses onto his mattress. He hears Eames thump next to him, even though it’s a twin. His eyes are closed.
Then, suddenly, Eames’ weight is pressing on his chest and his legs and his lips are pressing into Arthur’s. Arthur gasps and his eyes pop open, which only serves to confirm that yes, Eames is in fact laying on top of him and kissing him on a mattress on the floor of his walk-in closet. Arthur lets his eyes flutter closed.
“Maybe I should wait until we’re both sober -“ Eames says thickly when he breaks for air.
“Oh, fuck off,” Arthur says and he pulls Eames back toward his face.
Arthur has kissed a handful of people, but none of them kiss like Eames. None of them have ever managed to pull their shirt off while laying on top of him before, either, and Arthur is fairly certain he’s never kissed anyone with quite so many tattoos.
And no one has ever licked the inside of his mouth in quite such a way, or growled lowly in their throat while fighting with his button up shirts. Arthur helpfully pulls back and manages somehow to pull off his shirt without punching Eames inadvertently in the face, so he rewards himself by biting a little at Eames’ full bottom lip when they meet again to kiss.
He’s already hard, which would be embarrassing if he couldn’t feel Eames’ erection digging into his thigh.
“Let’s get these off too,” Eames says into his mouth impatiently as he pulls ineffectively at Arthur’s pants. Arthur manages to do some sort of shimmy to get them down to his knees, and as he kicks them off there’s the feeling of sweet friction so he moans.
“Oh, Arthur,” Eames says, staring into his face with such drunken, rapturous intensity that Arthur feels himself blush. His pants disappear instantly.
“Are you magic?” Arthur says, then bites into Eames’ neck. It earns him another throat growl.
“Hopefully!” Eames says, and then he rocks. He pushes his cock right into Arthur’s and it feels amazing. Arthur feels slow and drunk and wonderful, his body radiating warmth under Eames’ comforting weight, being pinned between two muscled arms. Arthur arches up and then they get frantic. Eames tugs at his briefs and pulls his cock out of his boxers so they’re down to skin.
Eames bites hard into Arthur’s shoulder when he comes, sticky and hot all over Arthur’s belly. He reaches down and starts jerking Arthur’s cock, teeth still leaving little marks in Arthur’s pale skin.
“Oh, oh, oh,” Arthur manages to say before Eames twists just right and he comes. Eames lets himself fall onto Arthur, and they’re sticky. A mess, hot and drunk and sweaty and covered in jizz.
Arthur smiles and pulls him even closer.
The next morning is awkward, but worth it, Arthur thinks, because it means Arthur gets to take a shower with Eames and make him eggs and feed him coffee and move out of his closet, into his bed.
-
The get decimated in May. Cobb is disappointed, but he knows this is the farthest they’ve gotten in a thousand years of collegiate history and people had actually starting going to games so he gets over their first round NCAA loss pretty quickly. Sort of.
Mal helps.
But the end of the season means the end of the school year means the end of Eames’ stay in America until fall, so Mal and Dom and Arthur pile in Mal’s car to see him off at the airport.
Eames gives them all bear hugs and waves as he walks away.
Arthur sits in the back of Mal’s car and sniffles a little, trying to discreetly wipe his nose on the sleeve of the oversized sweatshirt that Eames had gifted him.
“You okay back there?” Cobb asks the rearview mirror.
“Allergies,” Arthur mumbles as he stares out the window at Eames’ retreating back.
Cobb nods. “So, Mal,” he starts, trying to change the subject, “What’s the name of your new starting pitcher, then?”
She smiles as she starts to pull away from the airport. “Her name is Ariadne. I hear she’s the best at what she does.”