Little Cat Feet
Title: Little Cat Feet
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG
Warning: Crack-fest continues.
Notes: For futureperfect , as per her request. Thanks to sorrynotsorry for encouragement enabling. Set in some kind of ambiguous post-Inception time, I guess.
Summary: Arthur turns into a cat. Eames kind of freaks out about it.
“The mark loves his cat more than he seems to care for any of the people in his family,” Arthur reports after a week or so of surveillance. “I think that might be a good in, if it’s possible to do an animal forgery.”
Eames looks thoughtful. “It’s certainly possible, but I’ve never tried it before.”
“Well, let’s try something new then,” Cobb says, as though this was all the discussion that is needed before Eames tries something new and potentially mentally harmful. Eames nods anyway, because he knows Arthur's conclusion is going to be the most direct way to what they need to extract.
Eames, for all his skill, turns out to be pretty terrible at forging cats. His attempts look more like animatronic toys, and Ariadne tells him he’s falling into the Uncanny Valley for animals. He mewls at her and paws at her pants in the dream before transforming back into a man.
For perspective, he makes Arthur give it a go to see if there’s some hidden angle that Eames has missed. It’s worked in the past, and Arthur isn’t a terrible forger when he’s given direction.
It doesn’t help - Arthur appears to have fewer feline instincts than Eames does, his forgeries falling apart even faster than Eames’.
“Always pinned you down as a canine anyway, Arthur,” Eames says as they come out of the dream, groggy. “Loyal.” Arthur just blinks and rubs fog out of his eyes.
Cobb, however, is determined to stick to this plan, and so Yusuf brews a concoction to help him “get more into the animal spirit.” Eames stares blankly at the vial when he’s presented with it.
“I’m no chemist -“
“Exactly why you are the one who will be drinking this, and why I was the one to make it!” Yusuf is grinning at him.
“-but I’m not sure what compounds are going to help me feel more like a cat. Is that even a thing?”
Eames manages to convince Cobb that they need two people to try it out to be scientifically accurate. That second person, of course, ends up being Arthur, who just sighs and drinks impassively. The dreamworld they enter is strange - everything is out of proportion and loud, and they both spend a lot of time staring at each other and then at walls. Eames has trouble forming words, and Arthur is jumpy. Eames tries to forge but his limbs feel all wrong, and he has no precision. He watches Arthur try to change, watches ears pop out of the top of his head and his body shrink and is impressed, because he could only manage a tail. Arthur meows.
And then, suddenly, it’s time to wake up.
Eames wakes up shaking his head, feeling hungover.
Arthur, well. Arthur wakes up as a cat.
-
No one in the warehouse actually sees the transformation, but there in the lawnchair, in place of an impeccably dressed point man, sits a cat. The cat has a rich chocolate coat with hints of honey, and bright yellow eyes. It is elegantly licking its paw as Eames slowly realizes that this cat is sitting where Arthur used to be, and that he is awake.
“Yusuf!” he yells, hand going for his totem, and the cat looks at him. Ariadne comes running and smiles. “Who’s the kitty?” she asks in a cutesy voice, bending forward to pet him.
“Arthur,” Eames snaps.
Ariadne already has a hand hovering near its head and she pauses. Maybe Arthur-the-cat wouldn’t like his head scratched. She scritches behind Arthur’s ears anyway. The cat closes his eyes and purrs, deep. She carefully picks him up and sits down, stroking his fur as he settles in her lap.
Yusuf appears at last. “Who brought in the stray?”
“Yusuf. That’s Arthur Ariadne is manhandling.”
Yusuf chuckles, and then stares. “Well. That wasn’t supposed to happen at all.”
“I should hope not!” Eames says as he starts looking himself over, making sure he has no extra tail or whiskers. Then he says to the cat,
“This better not be some kind of horrifying practical joke.”
The cat stares at him, unblinking.
-
Eames lays claim to taking Arthur home. “After all, he already sleeps in my bed,” he said with a wink, which earned him an angry glare from Cobb. The cat made a noncommittal mew from where he was wrapped around Eames’ legs, but it managed to look a little smug.
So, Eames deposits Arthur on his bed and heads out to pick up an assortment of cat foods and canned fish to try out.
He supposes he should have guessed that Arthur as a cat would be even more finicky than Arthur as a man. His nose turns up at can after can, and Eames’ room begins to stink like fish. He hides the trash can in the cabinet under the sink in the small kitchenette in his suite and stares again at Arthur. Then he pulls out his laptop.
Arthur clambers up his shoulders and peers at the screen as he searches for different catfood recipes. He stops scrolling when he hears Arthur meow.
“This one?” he asks, pointing, and then he feels absurd. He moves his finger lower on the search results, to the site about “Raw Chicken Cat Food.” Arthur meows again and rubs his face against Eames’.
Eames sighs, and then pulls out his cell phone. “Yusuf, I need supplies.”
-
This is how Eames ends up grinding a raw chicken into bits of meat and bone and vitamin supplement in his kitchen with Yusuf and Ariadne watching in horrified fascination.
Ariadne brings along a kitty toy that Arthur staunchly refuses to play with, instead setting his sights on her shoelaces. She laughs and rubs his head. “I want to keep him tomorrow night, Eames!”
Eames grits his teeth and continues his work. Arthur was going to owe him so much when this was over, except maybe it's really his fault. Mostly Yusuf's, though.
Yusuf just watches, and when Eames presents Arthur with a bowl of ground up chicken carcass, he sighs and says, “It must be love, huh?”
Eames punches him in the arm.
-
Arthur sleeps curled up on Eames bed and Eames has time to miss him for the first time that day. It hits him in the chest and then clutches at his throat, the kind of visceral feeling that keeps him awake until 5 am.
-
The next morning, Eames comes in with an armful of Arthur, and blames the circles under his eyes on allergies. Arthur perches at the corner of Ariadne’s drafting table and stares down at her work for most of the morning. He sits at her feet and drinks cream from a bowl at lunch, and then curls up on her workbench for the rest of the day, watching her intently with yellow eyes. Sometimes he nudges a wall or a model with his nose and Ariadne rubs his head fondly.
“I think he’s trying to tell you something,” Cobb says. “Try moving that wall where he pointed.”
She laughs, but does it anyway. Arthur purrs approvingly.
-
Yusuf is the one who brings the catnip to work and was thus the man responsible for ruining two mazes, a lawnchair, some spare PASIV wires, Eames’ trousers, and a table.
Yusuf isn’t allowed around Arthur after that.
-
Day four is when the desperation hits. Arthur is useful around the warehouse, to an extent, so Eames keeps bringing him, but really he spends the day hoping he will look up and Arthur will be sitting in a chair, smartly dressed but a little rumpled.
Instead every day he gets to corral a cat into a carrier and sneak him into his hotel room.
Cobb is unsettled by the cat’s intent stare so he keeps away, instead spending all his time trying to find information about people who might have ended up in similar situations. He's not finding out much, but Eames is starting to wish he could find something that keeps him away from Arthur-the-cat as well.
“So when will you have Arthur back to normal?” he demands again, leaning on Yusuf’s table and getting into his personal space.
Yusuf heaves a long sigh. “I’m trying, Eames. But I think it’ll wear off on its own.”
-
It doesn’t. Arthur becomes more catlike every day, staring into space for long periods of time, sleeping in sun patches, and ignoring Ariadne’s every attempt to get him to look at her mazes. He doesn’t watch TV with Eames in the evening anymore, instead spending his time catching moths and sleeping.
Eames hates it, even though cat-Arthur is adorable and affectionate in ways that man-Arthur never was. Eames wonders if he will spend the rest of his life grinding up whole chickens, bones and all, as some kind of penance for convincing Arthur to turn into a cat because he didn’t want to do it alone. Every time his mind heads that direction he has to turn on the television or go to sleep or get drunk, because the thought of Arthur never making fun of his shirts or hunching over his laptop is too much to contemplate.
He rubs behind his ears morosely while sitting on the couch in his hotel room. “I’m sorry, darling,” he sighs. “This must be a lot worse for you.” Arthur purrs, content, and then kneads into Eames’ thigh.
-
Cobb shows up that morning at 4 am and pushes a vial into Eames’ hands.
“What the fuck,” Eames says as Cobb shoves past him.
“Arthur! Here kitty kitty kitty!” Cobb calls.
“I think you’re delirious,” Eames says, shutting the door behind him. “Also, he hates it when people use that voice.”
Arthur pads into the kitchen and looks at up at them. Eames hopes he’s thinking curious cat thoughts, like why are these men awake at this hour, and not dull ones about food. Cobb retrieves a bowl from the cabinet.
“It’s the antidote!” he cries, putting the bowl on the ground. “I’ve been with Yusuf all night! You’re right, he really is talented.”
“What,” Eames says again, but he pours the greenish liquid into the bowl anyway.
Arthur looks at it and flicks his tail, then goes and rubs against Eames’ legs.
“Eames,” Cobb says, his voice cracking. “Make him drink it.”
Cobb looks half-hysterical and Eames suddenly realizes that not having Arthur around to micromanage might literally kill the other man. Cobb’s shirt is buttoned wrong.
“Um. He’s a cat, Cobb.”
“He’s still Arthur,” Cobb says and runs his hands through his hair.
Eames drops to a crouch and points at the bowl. Arthur follows his finger and sniffs at it delicately, ignoring the bowl’s contents entirely.
“C’mon, Arthur. Don’t you miss standing on two legs? Not peeing in a box? Sex? Shooting a gun? Not being naked all the time? Okay, well, I’d probably enjoy that part but I think you’re a bit of a clotheshorse so-“
Then Cobb gets down on his hands and knees and pretends to drink, and that’s what apparently does it, because a pink tongue darts out
and starts lapping at Yusuf’s mix of hazardous chemicals.
They wait. Arthur empties the bowl and then heads into the bedroom, unconcerned. When he’s out of sight, there’s a loud pop.
Arthur is sitting on the bed, completely naked.
“Oh thank God!” Cobb says and hugs the other man with a passion Eames has only previously seen reserved for, well, nothing. Arthur awkwardly pats him on the back.
Cobb pulls back and then suddenly realizes he’s in Eames’ bedroom with a naked Arthur.
“And I guess I’ll just see you both at work tomorrow.” Cobb lets himself out, leaving Eames to continue staring.
“So you were a cat,” he says.
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG
Warning: Crack-fest continues.
Notes: For futureperfect , as per her request. Thanks to sorrynotsorry for encouragement enabling. Set in some kind of ambiguous post-Inception time, I guess.
Summary: Arthur turns into a cat. Eames kind of freaks out about it.
“The mark loves his cat more than he seems to care for any of the people in his family,” Arthur reports after a week or so of surveillance. “I think that might be a good in, if it’s possible to do an animal forgery.”
Eames looks thoughtful. “It’s certainly possible, but I’ve never tried it before.”
“Well, let’s try something new then,” Cobb says, as though this was all the discussion that is needed before Eames tries something new and potentially mentally harmful. Eames nods anyway, because he knows Arthur's conclusion is going to be the most direct way to what they need to extract.
Eames, for all his skill, turns out to be pretty terrible at forging cats. His attempts look more like animatronic toys, and Ariadne tells him he’s falling into the Uncanny Valley for animals. He mewls at her and paws at her pants in the dream before transforming back into a man.
For perspective, he makes Arthur give it a go to see if there’s some hidden angle that Eames has missed. It’s worked in the past, and Arthur isn’t a terrible forger when he’s given direction.
It doesn’t help - Arthur appears to have fewer feline instincts than Eames does, his forgeries falling apart even faster than Eames’.
“Always pinned you down as a canine anyway, Arthur,” Eames says as they come out of the dream, groggy. “Loyal.” Arthur just blinks and rubs fog out of his eyes.
Cobb, however, is determined to stick to this plan, and so Yusuf brews a concoction to help him “get more into the animal spirit.” Eames stares blankly at the vial when he’s presented with it.
“I’m no chemist -“
“Exactly why you are the one who will be drinking this, and why I was the one to make it!” Yusuf is grinning at him.
“-but I’m not sure what compounds are going to help me feel more like a cat. Is that even a thing?”
Eames manages to convince Cobb that they need two people to try it out to be scientifically accurate. That second person, of course, ends up being Arthur, who just sighs and drinks impassively. The dreamworld they enter is strange - everything is out of proportion and loud, and they both spend a lot of time staring at each other and then at walls. Eames has trouble forming words, and Arthur is jumpy. Eames tries to forge but his limbs feel all wrong, and he has no precision. He watches Arthur try to change, watches ears pop out of the top of his head and his body shrink and is impressed, because he could only manage a tail. Arthur meows.
And then, suddenly, it’s time to wake up.
Eames wakes up shaking his head, feeling hungover.
Arthur, well. Arthur wakes up as a cat.
-
No one in the warehouse actually sees the transformation, but there in the lawnchair, in place of an impeccably dressed point man, sits a cat. The cat has a rich chocolate coat with hints of honey, and bright yellow eyes. It is elegantly licking its paw as Eames slowly realizes that this cat is sitting where Arthur used to be, and that he is awake.
“Yusuf!” he yells, hand going for his totem, and the cat looks at him. Ariadne comes running and smiles. “Who’s the kitty?” she asks in a cutesy voice, bending forward to pet him.
“Arthur,” Eames snaps.
Ariadne already has a hand hovering near its head and she pauses. Maybe Arthur-the-cat wouldn’t like his head scratched. She scritches behind Arthur’s ears anyway. The cat closes his eyes and purrs, deep. She carefully picks him up and sits down, stroking his fur as he settles in her lap.
Yusuf appears at last. “Who brought in the stray?”
“Yusuf. That’s Arthur Ariadne is manhandling.”
Yusuf chuckles, and then stares. “Well. That wasn’t supposed to happen at all.”
“I should hope not!” Eames says as he starts looking himself over, making sure he has no extra tail or whiskers. Then he says to the cat,
“This better not be some kind of horrifying practical joke.”
The cat stares at him, unblinking.
-
Eames lays claim to taking Arthur home. “After all, he already sleeps in my bed,” he said with a wink, which earned him an angry glare from Cobb. The cat made a noncommittal mew from where he was wrapped around Eames’ legs, but it managed to look a little smug.
So, Eames deposits Arthur on his bed and heads out to pick up an assortment of cat foods and canned fish to try out.
He supposes he should have guessed that Arthur as a cat would be even more finicky than Arthur as a man. His nose turns up at can after can, and Eames’ room begins to stink like fish. He hides the trash can in the cabinet under the sink in the small kitchenette in his suite and stares again at Arthur. Then he pulls out his laptop.
Arthur clambers up his shoulders and peers at the screen as he searches for different catfood recipes. He stops scrolling when he hears Arthur meow.
“This one?” he asks, pointing, and then he feels absurd. He moves his finger lower on the search results, to the site about “Raw Chicken Cat Food.” Arthur meows again and rubs his face against Eames’.
Eames sighs, and then pulls out his cell phone. “Yusuf, I need supplies.”
-
This is how Eames ends up grinding a raw chicken into bits of meat and bone and vitamin supplement in his kitchen with Yusuf and Ariadne watching in horrified fascination.
Ariadne brings along a kitty toy that Arthur staunchly refuses to play with, instead setting his sights on her shoelaces. She laughs and rubs his head. “I want to keep him tomorrow night, Eames!”
Eames grits his teeth and continues his work. Arthur was going to owe him so much when this was over, except maybe it's really his fault. Mostly Yusuf's, though.
Yusuf just watches, and when Eames presents Arthur with a bowl of ground up chicken carcass, he sighs and says, “It must be love, huh?”
Eames punches him in the arm.
-
Arthur sleeps curled up on Eames bed and Eames has time to miss him for the first time that day. It hits him in the chest and then clutches at his throat, the kind of visceral feeling that keeps him awake until 5 am.
-
The next morning, Eames comes in with an armful of Arthur, and blames the circles under his eyes on allergies. Arthur perches at the corner of Ariadne’s drafting table and stares down at her work for most of the morning. He sits at her feet and drinks cream from a bowl at lunch, and then curls up on her workbench for the rest of the day, watching her intently with yellow eyes. Sometimes he nudges a wall or a model with his nose and Ariadne rubs his head fondly.
“I think he’s trying to tell you something,” Cobb says. “Try moving that wall where he pointed.”
She laughs, but does it anyway. Arthur purrs approvingly.
-
Yusuf is the one who brings the catnip to work and was thus the man responsible for ruining two mazes, a lawnchair, some spare PASIV wires, Eames’ trousers, and a table.
Yusuf isn’t allowed around Arthur after that.
-
Day four is when the desperation hits. Arthur is useful around the warehouse, to an extent, so Eames keeps bringing him, but really he spends the day hoping he will look up and Arthur will be sitting in a chair, smartly dressed but a little rumpled.
Instead every day he gets to corral a cat into a carrier and sneak him into his hotel room.
Cobb is unsettled by the cat’s intent stare so he keeps away, instead spending all his time trying to find information about people who might have ended up in similar situations. He's not finding out much, but Eames is starting to wish he could find something that keeps him away from Arthur-the-cat as well.
“So when will you have Arthur back to normal?” he demands again, leaning on Yusuf’s table and getting into his personal space.
Yusuf heaves a long sigh. “I’m trying, Eames. But I think it’ll wear off on its own.”
-
It doesn’t. Arthur becomes more catlike every day, staring into space for long periods of time, sleeping in sun patches, and ignoring Ariadne’s every attempt to get him to look at her mazes. He doesn’t watch TV with Eames in the evening anymore, instead spending his time catching moths and sleeping.
Eames hates it, even though cat-Arthur is adorable and affectionate in ways that man-Arthur never was. Eames wonders if he will spend the rest of his life grinding up whole chickens, bones and all, as some kind of penance for convincing Arthur to turn into a cat because he didn’t want to do it alone. Every time his mind heads that direction he has to turn on the television or go to sleep or get drunk, because the thought of Arthur never making fun of his shirts or hunching over his laptop is too much to contemplate.
He rubs behind his ears morosely while sitting on the couch in his hotel room. “I’m sorry, darling,” he sighs. “This must be a lot worse for you.” Arthur purrs, content, and then kneads into Eames’ thigh.
-
Cobb shows up that morning at 4 am and pushes a vial into Eames’ hands.
“What the fuck,” Eames says as Cobb shoves past him.
“Arthur! Here kitty kitty kitty!” Cobb calls.
“I think you’re delirious,” Eames says, shutting the door behind him. “Also, he hates it when people use that voice.”
Arthur pads into the kitchen and looks at up at them. Eames hopes he’s thinking curious cat thoughts, like why are these men awake at this hour, and not dull ones about food. Cobb retrieves a bowl from the cabinet.
“It’s the antidote!” he cries, putting the bowl on the ground. “I’ve been with Yusuf all night! You’re right, he really is talented.”
“What,” Eames says again, but he pours the greenish liquid into the bowl anyway.
Arthur looks at it and flicks his tail, then goes and rubs against Eames’ legs.
“Eames,” Cobb says, his voice cracking. “Make him drink it.”
Cobb looks half-hysterical and Eames suddenly realizes that not having Arthur around to micromanage might literally kill the other man. Cobb’s shirt is buttoned wrong.
“Um. He’s a cat, Cobb.”
“He’s still Arthur,” Cobb says and runs his hands through his hair.
Eames drops to a crouch and points at the bowl. Arthur follows his finger and sniffs at it delicately, ignoring the bowl’s contents entirely.
“C’mon, Arthur. Don’t you miss standing on two legs? Not peeing in a box? Sex? Shooting a gun? Not being naked all the time? Okay, well, I’d probably enjoy that part but I think you’re a bit of a clotheshorse so-“
Then Cobb gets down on his hands and knees and pretends to drink, and that’s what apparently does it, because a pink tongue darts out
and starts lapping at Yusuf’s mix of hazardous chemicals.
They wait. Arthur empties the bowl and then heads into the bedroom, unconcerned. When he’s out of sight, there’s a loud pop.
Arthur is sitting on the bed, completely naked.
“Oh thank God!” Cobb says and hugs the other man with a passion Eames has only previously seen reserved for, well, nothing. Arthur awkwardly pats him on the back.
Cobb pulls back and then suddenly realizes he’s in Eames’ bedroom with a naked Arthur.
“And I guess I’ll just see you both at work tomorrow.” Cobb lets himself out, leaving Eames to continue staring.
“So you were a cat,” he says.