Scenes from a Life Under Wraps
Pairings: Saito/Arthur, trace amounts of Cobb/Arthur and Eames/Arthur if you Coob-squint very hard
Summary: It's a mutually beneficial business arrangement and mutually beneficial sex. Arthur can end it any old time he wants. Any time of day.
Notes: ...So basically I have this shameful thing for kept man Arthur, and then two_if_by_sea wrote a Saito/Arthur music challenge meme fic and it was amazing, so I was like OH, THAT'S SUCH A GOOD IDEA! Except it turns out that I failed completely at the challenge flj;ldnlr; anyway this is sort of the less-well-written, more-traditionally-shaped, kept-man-kept-man companion piece to that fic, perhaps? In a generous world?
How does it go again, Arthur has heard it before--
He thinks he can unravel anything he sets his mind to. That's always Arthur's mistake.
Saito makes all the sense in the world as he leans over a table on his private plane, and yet Arthur can't fumble past the tangle of the coiled wildcat strength beneath his skin. The way he inches into the air between them.
You are not obligated to take the job, says Saito. If you prefer, this will remain a gift, a private vacation to reward your professionalism during our previous venture together.
That wasn't me at my most professional, says Arthur. You should have invited Cobb.
I doubt he wishes to leave his family again quite so soon, says Saito.
The scent of the wine wafts heady where it pools in the bottom of Arthur's glass.
You will enjoy the work, says Saito.
+
He does, of course. That's always Arthur's mistake.
It's corporate espionage on a completely different scale, and he feels like he's moving the world under his hands, shifting and steering the course of history. All of it from the dim cocoon of his room in Saito's private mansion.
Saito lets him choose from the best, and there's something close to ridiculous in that, a point man building a team around himself. But he pulls a slick job with an extractor from South Africa who might have become better than Cobb, an architect out of Malaysia who can cut entire cities out of glass.
You know where to wire the money, says Arthur, strap of his duffle bag digging into his shoulder.
Let me make my standing offer more explicit, says Saito. If you don't have anywhere else to be, Mr. Arthur, you may remain here.
Arthur unpacks everything and when he falls asleep that night, against the cool whisper of the pillowcase, he dreams. He can't remember what it is, but he wakes up with the sun on his face.
+
It's not entirely clear to him what Saito wants from him, what he has that Saito wants-- why Saito allows him to pad around his mansion barefoot, spend days in the archives of disbanded code-level dreamshare projects. Why Saito sends limousines to drive him back to the house.
Until he returns to find a new suit draped out over his bed, and then he thinks, Oh.
It fits him like it was poured around him, and he's distracted with a gnawing disappointment all through dinner. Saito lets him brood, and Arthur drinks too much wine because he doesn't want to talk.
He can barely stumble out of the car, and he thinks he must seem some fantastic sort of disgrace, leaning into Saito's arm as he tugs at his tie. He presses his palms against Saito's chest, and he says, Well? What are you waiting for?
Saito looks down at him, sharp and dry.
Sleep off the alcohol, Mr. Arthur, he says. I will see you in the morning.
Arthur slides down against his door and locks it behind him. He's hot inside his new suit and he jerks off in quick furious strokes to let out the burn, and he thinks of the spice and leather of Saito's cologne when he comes.
+
I don't want this fucking buildup, says Arthur. Do it or let me go.
Arthur, says Saito, I have never made you stay.
Of course you did, says Arthur, and he's ranting now, pacing the floor of the penthouse living room like a banquet hall, his voice ringing off the walls. Giving me that bedroom, getting me access to off-limit research archives-- those fucking suits, the dinners, this fucking shirt. What are you playing at?
It's your decision, says Saito, whether that's what it takes to make you stay.
Arthur falls into a chair and looks up at Saito, and he thinks, What is my weight in gold?
Saito fucks him there in the living room of the penthouse, up against the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over Tokyo. Arthur braces himself with his hands against the glass, and Saito fills him hot as he gasps and turns his head away, feeling the wet fog of his breath under his cheek. It's like every city light in the distance is staring straight into him.
Open your eyes, Saito tells him. You will have to get used to being looked at.
+
The first international board meeting he sits in on, Saito says, This is my personal assistant, and curiosity sizzles through the room.
Arthur sits at Saito's right, taking notes too small for anyone else to read. It's not a difficult meeting to follow, and he's gone through most of the minutes from previous sessions. But then a representative from the Netherlands says something about a rival company's plans for a subsidiary, and Arthur remembers intel from a job a couple months back. The projected timeline is wildly off.
He slides a hand over Saito's knee, curling his fingers around his leg. He tilts his head and brings his lips to the edge of Saito's ear, and he murmurs, Bullshit.
Saito turns to him, nose brushing against his cheekbone, and says, Thank you. I'll keep that in mind.
He can feel the temperature in the room spike a little higher. It's dizzying. He lets the meeting continue a few more minutes before he leans in again, eager for the rush, this time with his hand coming to toy with the lapel of Saito's jacket.
When we get back, he says, I want you to fuck me open over the couch.
Saito nods, and beneath the desk, his foot knocks against Arthur's.
+
Arthur works for Saito however he can. There aren't any more extraction jobs, but he shares what information he has, combs through his rolodex for contacts that might help. He lets Saito spread him out and fuck him any night he wants. Saito has firm hands, grown-man hands.
In exchange, Arthur receives ties, suits, crushed-silk robes he belts across bare skin. Arthur makes Saito spread him out and fuck him, even when Saito hesitates. And Arthur asks for sparring partners.
He crouches low in Saito's basement gym, ducking past a swing, and he pivots and snaps out a kick behind a man's knees. He feels like a live wire, alight to the tips of his fingers. Saito comes to watch him beat the shit out of some sorry bastard. Arthur lets momentum spin him around and cracks the heel of a hand into a man's jaw.
Later, wet and loose from the workout and the steam of the shower, he lets Saito run his fingers through his curls and nail him up against one of the padded corners of the boxing ring.
Magnificent, says Saito. I'd like to continue to watch you.
Always knew Krav Maga would get me laid, pants Arthur. He reaches behind to push a finger inside himself, along the line of Saito's cock, and Saito groans into his neck.
+
Eames arrives without asking first, and Saito is too polite to acknowledge his displeasure. Of course Eames knows; it's probably exactly why he didn't ask. He's prodding at the limits of his insolence.
But it's clear that Saito doesn't like being crossed even if he does like Eames, and when Arthur says he'll take the job, Saito only slides a hand down against the small of his back. The touch is light but Arthur shudders with it, and knows that Eames is watching the way Saito's fingertips linger there.
I want to drive to the airport, says Arthur, and Saito says, It is your car to do as you see fit.
Eames gapes when he sees it, and he reaches out for it reverently. Bloody Koenigsegg, he says.
And then he turns to Arthur, his mouth drained of humor, and he asks, What the hell are you doing, Arthur?
Don't you like it? asks Arthur. It goes faster than I'll ever need it to.
He leans against the hood of the car and Eames narrows his eyes at him.
You're looking good, he says. It agrees with you.
What, Japan? asks Arthur.
No, I meant, says Eames, being kept.
+
He returns to an empty house and a small package on his pillow. Saito is in Finland; it's a silver wristwatch, sleek like fish scales, and Arthur clasps it closed and waits for Saito.
They only see each other at the shareholders' meeting in the morning, and Arthur slips into his seat at Saito's side, crosses his legs, slotting back easily into his place. Saito doesn't say anything, but his hand comes to nudge past the hem of Arthur's jacket. His thumb rubs slowly across the edge of a hipbone, and stays there until the meeting ends.
In the empty room, Saito pulls Arthur toward him with his fingers hooking against the watch.
Is that what this is? asks Arthur. Are you shackling me?
You are always free to leave, says Saito.
Did you miss me? asks Arthur.
Saito draws the blinds, lays him out against the desk and takes him there, pressing his thighs apart as he rocks into him. Arthur hisses and digs his fingers into his notes, the ink smudging into a blur as the paper tears and crumples.
+
There's this new restaurant, says Arthur, I thought that maybe this weekend--
This weekend, says Saito, I will be away.
That's fine, says Arthur. You have business, I have business. The archive digging I've been doing came in really handy in Fresno, did I tell you? There was this bit about tweaking the sedative levels to time the collapse of the dream to the extractor's progress, so you could actually use the architectural destruction as a means to infiltrate the--
My daughter, says Saito. It's her twelfth birthday.
Oh, says Arthur, well.
And then he says, I mean, I knew you'd been married.
And then he says, What? What are you looking at me for?
He's not a bit closer to unraveling Saito than he ever was, and when Saito says, Who are you thinking of, he feels dirty and sore all over. He pushes blue eyes out of his mind, what it's like to never be quite enough.
Tell her happy birthday, he says, and then he asks, does she know who I am?
Do you? asks Saito.
+
Saito catches up with him in Sapporo where he's running a job for AltaTech. He's climbing the stairs up to his rented room, and suddenly Saito is slamming him up against the hallway wall, and his breath leaves him in a rush of air.
It's not going to screw with Proclus Global, says Arthur, this is for the robotics arm of AltaTech-- not the energy subdivision--
You were very quick to leave, says Saito, and his grip around Arthur's wrists is hard enough to bruise.
You said I could, says Arthur. Didn't you?
I didn't say I wouldn't find you, says Saito.
His room is a dingy, dusty hole, and it's the only time that Saito ever hurts him. Afterwards Arthur curls up on the chill of the floor and runs his hands over the ache of his tailbone, his shoulders chafed raw. Saito wipes him up with a wad of cheap tissues from under the coffee table.
Will you come home? asks Saito.
This man, thinks Arthur, is a hundred years old. I don't understand him and I let him fuck me for trinkets.
Yes, he says.
+
This is what Eames says to him in the Koenigsegg as they drone along the road to Narita International.
Nobody ever really cares about those little pins and magnets you get in return for donating money, he says, but it turns out that a lot more people do donate when they're given those useless bits of rubbish. Do you know why?
Better than nothing, I suppose, says Arthur.
It's because the rubbish gives them an excuse, says Eames. Because otherwise, they'd be donating out of the goodness of their hearts, and nobody likes to think of themselves as charitable.
Because it's a weakness, says Arthur.
Yes, says Eames. Do you like this car?
Look at it, says Arthur, wouldn't you?
Considering its retail value, begins Eames, and then he goes quiet.
Eames, says Arthur, it's not that complicated. He keeps me clothed, keeps me fed, gets me into private libraries and fundraiser dinners where I get to shake hands with a hundred potential clients. I provide him with intel, stand by for any jobs, and if there's sex, it's excellent sex between two consenting adults.
So it's an even trade, then? asks Eames.
I'd say I'm getting the better deal, says Arthur.
+
He still can't speak a lick of Japanese, but he's picked up enough of it to understand snatches of conversation. He waits for the elevator and someone in the crowd behind him whispers, He and Saito-san-- and someone else asks, What is he?
Instead of lunch, he unlocks the door to the roof of the building, where he leans out over the ledge and lets the wind beat against his suit. New, of course. From Saito.
His phone rings.
Let me tell you something, says Eames. You know what you're doing? You're opening your legs and hoping it'll--
It's none of your business, says Arthur. You're drunk, Eames.
I can come pick you up, says Eames. Anytime you want.
I can leave on my own, says Arthur. Anytime I want.
I was afraid of that, says Eames. Would he stop looking for you, if you told him to?
Yes, says Arthur.
He turns the phone off and shoves it into his pocket. The door creaks open behind him, and Saito shields his eyes against the sun.
What are you doing here? he asks.
Just getting some air, says Arthur.
Saito runs a thumb over the ridges of Arthur's watch.
Summary: It's a mutually beneficial business arrangement and mutually beneficial sex. Arthur can end it any old time he wants. Any time of day.
Notes: ...So basically I have this shameful thing for kept man Arthur, and then two_if_by_sea wrote a Saito/Arthur music challenge meme fic and it was amazing, so I was like OH, THAT'S SUCH A GOOD IDEA! Except it turns out that I failed completely at the challenge flj;ldnlr; anyway this is sort of the less-well-written, more-traditionally-shaped, kept-man-kept-man companion piece to that fic, perhaps? In a generous world?
How does it go again, Arthur has heard it before--
He thinks he can unravel anything he sets his mind to. That's always Arthur's mistake.
Saito makes all the sense in the world as he leans over a table on his private plane, and yet Arthur can't fumble past the tangle of the coiled wildcat strength beneath his skin. The way he inches into the air between them.
You are not obligated to take the job, says Saito. If you prefer, this will remain a gift, a private vacation to reward your professionalism during our previous venture together.
That wasn't me at my most professional, says Arthur. You should have invited Cobb.
I doubt he wishes to leave his family again quite so soon, says Saito.
The scent of the wine wafts heady where it pools in the bottom of Arthur's glass.
You will enjoy the work, says Saito.
+
He does, of course. That's always Arthur's mistake.
It's corporate espionage on a completely different scale, and he feels like he's moving the world under his hands, shifting and steering the course of history. All of it from the dim cocoon of his room in Saito's private mansion.
Saito lets him choose from the best, and there's something close to ridiculous in that, a point man building a team around himself. But he pulls a slick job with an extractor from South Africa who might have become better than Cobb, an architect out of Malaysia who can cut entire cities out of glass.
You know where to wire the money, says Arthur, strap of his duffle bag digging into his shoulder.
Let me make my standing offer more explicit, says Saito. If you don't have anywhere else to be, Mr. Arthur, you may remain here.
Arthur unpacks everything and when he falls asleep that night, against the cool whisper of the pillowcase, he dreams. He can't remember what it is, but he wakes up with the sun on his face.
+
It's not entirely clear to him what Saito wants from him, what he has that Saito wants-- why Saito allows him to pad around his mansion barefoot, spend days in the archives of disbanded code-level dreamshare projects. Why Saito sends limousines to drive him back to the house.
Until he returns to find a new suit draped out over his bed, and then he thinks, Oh.
It fits him like it was poured around him, and he's distracted with a gnawing disappointment all through dinner. Saito lets him brood, and Arthur drinks too much wine because he doesn't want to talk.
He can barely stumble out of the car, and he thinks he must seem some fantastic sort of disgrace, leaning into Saito's arm as he tugs at his tie. He presses his palms against Saito's chest, and he says, Well? What are you waiting for?
Saito looks down at him, sharp and dry.
Sleep off the alcohol, Mr. Arthur, he says. I will see you in the morning.
Arthur slides down against his door and locks it behind him. He's hot inside his new suit and he jerks off in quick furious strokes to let out the burn, and he thinks of the spice and leather of Saito's cologne when he comes.
+
I don't want this fucking buildup, says Arthur. Do it or let me go.
Arthur, says Saito, I have never made you stay.
Of course you did, says Arthur, and he's ranting now, pacing the floor of the penthouse living room like a banquet hall, his voice ringing off the walls. Giving me that bedroom, getting me access to off-limit research archives-- those fucking suits, the dinners, this fucking shirt. What are you playing at?
It's your decision, says Saito, whether that's what it takes to make you stay.
Arthur falls into a chair and looks up at Saito, and he thinks, What is my weight in gold?
Saito fucks him there in the living room of the penthouse, up against the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over Tokyo. Arthur braces himself with his hands against the glass, and Saito fills him hot as he gasps and turns his head away, feeling the wet fog of his breath under his cheek. It's like every city light in the distance is staring straight into him.
Open your eyes, Saito tells him. You will have to get used to being looked at.
+
The first international board meeting he sits in on, Saito says, This is my personal assistant, and curiosity sizzles through the room.
Arthur sits at Saito's right, taking notes too small for anyone else to read. It's not a difficult meeting to follow, and he's gone through most of the minutes from previous sessions. But then a representative from the Netherlands says something about a rival company's plans for a subsidiary, and Arthur remembers intel from a job a couple months back. The projected timeline is wildly off.
He slides a hand over Saito's knee, curling his fingers around his leg. He tilts his head and brings his lips to the edge of Saito's ear, and he murmurs, Bullshit.
Saito turns to him, nose brushing against his cheekbone, and says, Thank you. I'll keep that in mind.
He can feel the temperature in the room spike a little higher. It's dizzying. He lets the meeting continue a few more minutes before he leans in again, eager for the rush, this time with his hand coming to toy with the lapel of Saito's jacket.
When we get back, he says, I want you to fuck me open over the couch.
Saito nods, and beneath the desk, his foot knocks against Arthur's.
+
Arthur works for Saito however he can. There aren't any more extraction jobs, but he shares what information he has, combs through his rolodex for contacts that might help. He lets Saito spread him out and fuck him any night he wants. Saito has firm hands, grown-man hands.
In exchange, Arthur receives ties, suits, crushed-silk robes he belts across bare skin. Arthur makes Saito spread him out and fuck him, even when Saito hesitates. And Arthur asks for sparring partners.
He crouches low in Saito's basement gym, ducking past a swing, and he pivots and snaps out a kick behind a man's knees. He feels like a live wire, alight to the tips of his fingers. Saito comes to watch him beat the shit out of some sorry bastard. Arthur lets momentum spin him around and cracks the heel of a hand into a man's jaw.
Later, wet and loose from the workout and the steam of the shower, he lets Saito run his fingers through his curls and nail him up against one of the padded corners of the boxing ring.
Magnificent, says Saito. I'd like to continue to watch you.
Always knew Krav Maga would get me laid, pants Arthur. He reaches behind to push a finger inside himself, along the line of Saito's cock, and Saito groans into his neck.
+
Eames arrives without asking first, and Saito is too polite to acknowledge his displeasure. Of course Eames knows; it's probably exactly why he didn't ask. He's prodding at the limits of his insolence.
But it's clear that Saito doesn't like being crossed even if he does like Eames, and when Arthur says he'll take the job, Saito only slides a hand down against the small of his back. The touch is light but Arthur shudders with it, and knows that Eames is watching the way Saito's fingertips linger there.
I want to drive to the airport, says Arthur, and Saito says, It is your car to do as you see fit.
Eames gapes when he sees it, and he reaches out for it reverently. Bloody Koenigsegg, he says.
And then he turns to Arthur, his mouth drained of humor, and he asks, What the hell are you doing, Arthur?
Don't you like it? asks Arthur. It goes faster than I'll ever need it to.
He leans against the hood of the car and Eames narrows his eyes at him.
You're looking good, he says. It agrees with you.
What, Japan? asks Arthur.
No, I meant, says Eames, being kept.
+
He returns to an empty house and a small package on his pillow. Saito is in Finland; it's a silver wristwatch, sleek like fish scales, and Arthur clasps it closed and waits for Saito.
They only see each other at the shareholders' meeting in the morning, and Arthur slips into his seat at Saito's side, crosses his legs, slotting back easily into his place. Saito doesn't say anything, but his hand comes to nudge past the hem of Arthur's jacket. His thumb rubs slowly across the edge of a hipbone, and stays there until the meeting ends.
In the empty room, Saito pulls Arthur toward him with his fingers hooking against the watch.
Is that what this is? asks Arthur. Are you shackling me?
You are always free to leave, says Saito.
Did you miss me? asks Arthur.
Saito draws the blinds, lays him out against the desk and takes him there, pressing his thighs apart as he rocks into him. Arthur hisses and digs his fingers into his notes, the ink smudging into a blur as the paper tears and crumples.
+
There's this new restaurant, says Arthur, I thought that maybe this weekend--
This weekend, says Saito, I will be away.
That's fine, says Arthur. You have business, I have business. The archive digging I've been doing came in really handy in Fresno, did I tell you? There was this bit about tweaking the sedative levels to time the collapse of the dream to the extractor's progress, so you could actually use the architectural destruction as a means to infiltrate the--
My daughter, says Saito. It's her twelfth birthday.
Oh, says Arthur, well.
And then he says, I mean, I knew you'd been married.
And then he says, What? What are you looking at me for?
He's not a bit closer to unraveling Saito than he ever was, and when Saito says, Who are you thinking of, he feels dirty and sore all over. He pushes blue eyes out of his mind, what it's like to never be quite enough.
Tell her happy birthday, he says, and then he asks, does she know who I am?
Do you? asks Saito.
+
Saito catches up with him in Sapporo where he's running a job for AltaTech. He's climbing the stairs up to his rented room, and suddenly Saito is slamming him up against the hallway wall, and his breath leaves him in a rush of air.
It's not going to screw with Proclus Global, says Arthur, this is for the robotics arm of AltaTech-- not the energy subdivision--
You were very quick to leave, says Saito, and his grip around Arthur's wrists is hard enough to bruise.
You said I could, says Arthur. Didn't you?
I didn't say I wouldn't find you, says Saito.
His room is a dingy, dusty hole, and it's the only time that Saito ever hurts him. Afterwards Arthur curls up on the chill of the floor and runs his hands over the ache of his tailbone, his shoulders chafed raw. Saito wipes him up with a wad of cheap tissues from under the coffee table.
Will you come home? asks Saito.
This man, thinks Arthur, is a hundred years old. I don't understand him and I let him fuck me for trinkets.
Yes, he says.
+
This is what Eames says to him in the Koenigsegg as they drone along the road to Narita International.
Nobody ever really cares about those little pins and magnets you get in return for donating money, he says, but it turns out that a lot more people do donate when they're given those useless bits of rubbish. Do you know why?
Better than nothing, I suppose, says Arthur.
It's because the rubbish gives them an excuse, says Eames. Because otherwise, they'd be donating out of the goodness of their hearts, and nobody likes to think of themselves as charitable.
Because it's a weakness, says Arthur.
Yes, says Eames. Do you like this car?
Look at it, says Arthur, wouldn't you?
Considering its retail value, begins Eames, and then he goes quiet.
Eames, says Arthur, it's not that complicated. He keeps me clothed, keeps me fed, gets me into private libraries and fundraiser dinners where I get to shake hands with a hundred potential clients. I provide him with intel, stand by for any jobs, and if there's sex, it's excellent sex between two consenting adults.
So it's an even trade, then? asks Eames.
I'd say I'm getting the better deal, says Arthur.
+
He still can't speak a lick of Japanese, but he's picked up enough of it to understand snatches of conversation. He waits for the elevator and someone in the crowd behind him whispers, He and Saito-san-- and someone else asks, What is he?
Instead of lunch, he unlocks the door to the roof of the building, where he leans out over the ledge and lets the wind beat against his suit. New, of course. From Saito.
His phone rings.
Let me tell you something, says Eames. You know what you're doing? You're opening your legs and hoping it'll--
It's none of your business, says Arthur. You're drunk, Eames.
I can come pick you up, says Eames. Anytime you want.
I can leave on my own, says Arthur. Anytime I want.
I was afraid of that, says Eames. Would he stop looking for you, if you told him to?
Yes, says Arthur.
He turns the phone off and shoves it into his pocket. The door creaks open behind him, and Saito shields his eyes against the sun.
What are you doing here? he asks.
Just getting some air, says Arthur.
Saito runs a thumb over the ridges of Arthur's watch.