double buck
part 1
5.
Arthur manages to avoid Eames for a month after that, until he two days before the regional Loggersports competition. Arthur comes outside in the morning, shirtless and carrying a cup of coffee because it’s his house, damnit, and Eames is sitting on the porch in Arthur’s favorite chair.
“Did you know Cobb registered us for double buck?” Eames asks.
Arthur spills the coffee.
“What the fuck,” Arthur says.
“I don’t think I’m the one you should be asking,” Eames says, so Arthur lets Eames follow him inside, makes two more cups of coffee, and calls Cobb.
“What the fuck,” Arthur says.
“It’s for you, dear,” Mal calls away from the phone, and when Cobb picks up Arthur repeats himself.
“What the fuck.”
“I think you mean what the buck, darling,” Eames whispers from next to him, and Arthur gives him a look that should be interpreted as “I hate puns, and that doesn’t even make sense.”
“It would be really good if we had a double buck team in the club,” Cobb says.
“So you and Mal do it,” Arthur says.
“Arthur,” Cobb whines.
“Alright, Ariadne and Mal than,” Arthur suggests, and Cobb makes unhappy noises over the phone. “Are you even allowed to this?”
“I’m the chair,” Cobb says. “I register everyone for everything. I can do whatever I want.”
“We don’t have a saw,” Arthur says, in a last ditch effort.
“I bought you one,” Cobb says, and Arthur turns to Eames, aghast.
“He bought us a saw,” Arthur says.
“Is Eames there with you? Can I talk to him? Did you sleep together again?” Cobb asks from the other end of the line, and Arthur hangs up.
“What kind of saw was it?” Eames asks, and Arthur frowns.
“I don’t care. You can’t just go around buying other people saws. Who does he think he is?”
“Chair of the our forestry club,” Eames says.
“We aren’t doing it,” Arthur says.
Arthur makes a couple calls, but apparently there’s some sort of rule about withdrawing from competition two days prior, so their only option is to forfeit the competition.
Arthur carpools with Ariadne to the competition, even though it means his saw has to share the bed of the truck with her chainsaw, and he has to listen to her talk about Eames for most of the drive.
“Why are you so interested in Eames?” he asks, finally.
“Aren’t you?” Ariadne replies innocently.
“Seriously,” Arthur says.
“I’m just pleased there’s another chainsaw artist in the area,” Ariadne says. “I don’t know what your problem is.”
“You know what my problem is,” Arthur mutters, and Ariadne sighs, turns up her Drive-By Truckers CD, and changes the subject.
When they get to the competition, Nash appears, like he’s been waiting.
“Arthur,” he says. “I hear you’re sawing double buck.”
“There was an error in the registration,” Arthur tells him, and Nash narrows his eyes.
“Afraid?” he says, and Arthur wonders why people keep asking him that, like he’s some sort of wimp.
“No,” Arthur says, and then wonders why he keeps falling for that, like some sort of dumbass. He goes over to where Eames is unloading his chainsaw.
“Double buck,” he says. “We’re doing it.”
“What?” Eames asks, looking incredulous. “No.”
“Just once,” Arthur says, and then Nash appears.
“Who’s this, Arthur?” Nash asks, eyeing Eames speculatively.
“Eames,” Arthur says flatly. “Nash.”
“Pleasure, I’m sure,” Eames says, but he doesn’t sound pleased, which makes Arthur inexplicably pleased.
“You’re sawing double buck with a hot saw competitor?” Nash asks, and then both Eames and Nash turn to Arthur, and Arthur looks back at Eames.
“Yes,” Eames says with a sigh.
Arthur could hug him, but instead he glares at Nash and goes to see Cobb about a saw.
“Did you bring the double buck saw?” Arthur asks, when he finds Cobb, and Cobb just grins.
“What changed your mind?” he says, and Arthur frowns.
“Nash,” Arthur says. “What an asshole.”
Nash is Arthur’s primary in-state competitor in single buck, though he isn’t really that close.
They may also have slept together, once. Arthur was shit-faced drunk when it did or did not happen and doesn’t remember much, but he’s pretty sure Nash was a terrible lay. When Arthur didn’t return his calls, Nash unilaterally declared himself Arthur’s archenemy, and the rest, as they say, is history.
“So you slept with him, huh?” Eames asks when Arthur comes back with the saw.
“Shut up,” Arthur says. “Who told you that? No one knows that. Now come on, we need to practice.”
They bring Ariadne, too, and she talks about how Arthur most definitely slept with Nash while Arthur glares daggers at her and Eames laughs.
“You could do so much better, darling,” Eames says, and Arthur turns his glare on him.
Their first attempt at double buck is, frankly, embarrassing. Arthur isn’t used to have someone else on the other end of his saw, and it throws off his balance; he pushes too hard when he should be letting Eames pull. Eames just looks at him disparagingly.
“You’ve really never done this before, have you?” Eames asks.
“No,” Arthur says, and they try again, and the rhythm is a little closer to right this time, and by the third cut they’re about as good as they’re going to be, working on brawn alone and not a proper partnership. Arthur wants Ariadne to time them, but Eames says no, so Arthur shrugs it off, and they rejoin Cobb and Mal by the trucks.
“So you’re doing it?” Cobb asks, looking between Eames and Arthur and the saw. “I knew you’d do it.”
“Just this time,” Arthur says. “And if you register us again, you’re an asshole.”
“Arthur,” Mal says, jerking her head towards Phillipa and James. “Children.”
“I will cut you,” Arthur says to Cobb, and Mal makes a face that suggests, if Arthur were to do that, he would get cut worse.
Eames just sort of stands there, looking uncomfortable.
Ariadne’s competing in stock saw, and her competition is first. The group goes to cheer her on, and Eames stands entirely too close to Arthur the whole time.
“What are you doing?” Arthur hisses, when one of the other competitors is up.
“Nash is over there,” Eames says. “Don’t you want to seem to be on good terms with your new partner?”
“Nash and I never sawed together,” Arthur mutters. “Stop touching my ass.”
Eames doesn’t stop, and Arthur kind of gives up, because Eames’ hand in the back pocket of his Carhartts is inexplicably comforting.
Mal winks at him, and Arthur pretends he doesn’t notice her noticing.
Then Mal and Dom saw underhand in their respective divisions, and Eames and Arthur and Ariadne take Phillipa and James to watch, and then they all go for lunch before Eames and Arthur have to saw double buck, and then their individual events.
Arthur tries not to think about winning when they saw double buck, because they surely won’t; but he figures not winning isn’t as embarrassing as not competing. Instead he throws his body into the motion of the saw, into the returning of Eames’ motion, and their saw eats through the wood quickly enough, by his measure.
Arthur has to turn right around and saw single buck, after that, and Nash is there smirking like he’s been eating shit. Arthur smirks right back, and does what he usually does.
And then it’s hot saw. Arthur can’t not got to hot saw, because Eames went to single buck, and also Nash, who has been skulking around the periphery of everywhere Arthur is the whole day, will notice.
So he goes.
And Eames comes up, before his event, grabs Arthur by the shoulders, and kisses him hard on the mouth--no tongue, just their lips pressed tight together, and then their lips apart again.
“For luck,” he says, and then walks back to his saw, and Arthur is staring at him, not sure why he’d let anyone get away with that, and everyone else is staring at Arthur, who can feel himself colouring a slow, rich red.
Mal winks at him again, and Ariadne slaps him on the ass like that’s some sort of congratulatory gesture.
Like there’s something Arthur should be congratulated for, when they haven’t done awards yet.
“You know the Monty Python lumberjack song?” Cobb asks mildly. “It was written about you.”
“Don’t be so hard on him,” Ariadne says. “Just ‘cause he’s a twink doesn’t mean he’s the one who crossdresses.”
“Eames?” Cobb says, squinting. “You think?”
Ariadne shrugs, and Mal nods, and Arthur ignores them all.
“The point,” Cobb continues. “Is that you are so, so, gay for each other.”
“Mal,” Arthur says. “May I punch your husband in the balls?”
Cobb winces and shuts up.
“To be fair, Arthur was gay already,” Ariadne says.
When Arthur goes to box her ears, she ducks.
The awards are distributed in the evening before they go home, in the order of the events. Ariadne takes first in her age class, which would be lovely except she was the only one in her age class, and third for woman overall. Cobb takes second overall, and Mal first.
Arthur and Eames don’t win. They take third.
Which is not winning.
Individually, they both take first.
“It worked,” Eames whispers in Arthur’s ear, when he rejoins to the group with his medal.
“Who the hell does he think he is?” Arthur rages when he and Ariadne are back in her truck together. “I mean, what the fuck.”
“It’s not like everyone doesn’t know you’re gay after the Nash fiasco,” Ariadne says.
The Nash fiasco was their not-break-up, because they weren’t dating, when Nash decided to ask Arthur why his calls weren’t being returned during an awards ceremony at state two years ago.
“That’s not the point,” Arthur says. “It’s harassment. It’s--”
“Then why didn’t you just punch him?” Ariadne asks.
Arthur had, after all, punched Nash. And broken his nose.
“It’s inappropriate,” Arthur continues.
“Admit it,” Ariadne says with a snort. “You like a man who’s a little pushy.”
“Don’t project,” Arthur says tightly.
“Projecting, am I?” Ariadne says. “I highly doubt that.”
“Yeah, I forgot,” Arthur says. “You’re the pushy one, aren’t you?”
Ariadne laughs.
And then there’s a thud, and the windshield shatters, and Ariadne is cussing and pulling over to the side of the road.
They hit a turkey.
“Fuck this,” Ariadne mutters, looking at the dead bird, which had fallen into the bed of her truck.
“Might as well keep it,” Arthur says. It’s a male, and large, and Arthur might be able to smoke it or something.
“We have more problems than that,” Ariadne says.
They’re two hours’ drive from home, still, and its dark, and Ariadne’s windshield is completely shattered. Which are, okay, problems. But.
“We can just drive back without a windshield,” Arthur says, and Ariadne looks at him flatly.
“Yeah,” she says. “That’ll be fun.”
“I didn’t say it would be fun,” he protests. “But it’s a way to drive back.”
Then Eames pulls over, leaning out of his window.
“I don’t normally pick up hitchhikers,” he calls, and now Arthur seriously does want to punch him in the face.
“We can’t just leave Ariadne’s truck here,” Arthur says, looking between the pair of them.
Eames smirks.
“I,” he says. “Have a tent.”
Eames would have a tent.
Which is how they end up pulling into a state forest campground late at night, with Arthur and Ariadne driving slowly in Ariadne’s truck, Eames ahead. And Eames may have a tent, but he only has one sleeping bag, which he unzips and lays flat beneath the three of them.
“You two can have it,” Ariadne says. “I’ve my own.”
So because Arthur was a halfway decent person and agreed to carpool (and, okay, his truck is kind of shit and prone to break down on trips further than an hour from home), he ends up sleeping with Eames again.
The moral of the story, he thinks as he falls asleep with his back to Eames, is that life is utter shit.
When Arthur wakes up the next morning, Eames’ arm is around his waist, and Eames’ wood is in his back.
“Eames,” Arthur says, rolling over to shake Eames awake. “You’re disgusting.”
Ariadne looks at them from the other side of the tent, bleary-eyed and smiling.
“Aw,” she says. “You haven’t moved his arm, Arthur.”
Arthur glares at her, and rectifies the situation.
“Good morning, good luck charm,” Eames says, blinking up at him.
Arthur storms out of the tent in his shirt and boxers, and goes to the campground bathroom to splash water on his face until Eames shows up, grinning.
“You could’ve given me a hand with my tent,” he says, and Arthur can see his expression in the small mirror morphing into horror, and Eames doubles over laughing.
“I should’ve punched you,” Arthur mutters. “I really should’ve.”
“Want to give it a go now?” Eames asks, quite seriously, and Arthur finds he doesn’t, not really.
“Stop touching me,” he says. “And maybe you won’t have to worry about breaking your nose.”
“I think I’d look good with a broken nose,” Eames says, following Arthur out of the bathroom.
“Your balls, then,” Arthur says.
“I could’ve used your hands on my balls this morning,” Eames mutters, and Arthur goes back to ignoring him.
Eames offers Arthur a ride back to town, but he goes with Ariadne to replace her windshield instead, grumbling. Ariadne blithely ignores him.
When they do get home in the late afternoon, Arthur takes the turkey and puts it in his deep freeze, so at least something good came out of this mess.
6.
It’s Ariadne’s idea for them to take a proper camping trip, which is typical, really. But she gets Mal in on it, and together they are an unstoppable force.
Arthur tries to play the part of the immovable object, but it doesn’t work quite as well as he had hoped. Which is how he ends up riding shotgun in Ariadne’s truck again, with the windshield fixed and coolers of beer in the back, along with Arthur’s own sleeping bag so he doesn’t have to fucking share.
But Eames is on the bench seat, too, which puts Arthur in the middle, and he doesn’t want to talk about it.
Of course Eames couldn’t ride with Mal and Cobb because they have kids and shit. Of course Eames takes up an inordinate amount of space on the bench seat. Of course they couldn’t go to a campground close to home because this is some sort of bonding exercise. Of course they’re going camping as some sort of bonding exercise, and Cobb will harass them about continuing to compete in double buck, and there are so many things Arthur doesn’t want to talk about right now.
“Arthur,” Ariadne’s saying as they drive. “Tell Eames the story about the twelve-point buck.”
“No,” Arthur says, and looks straight ahead out the window.
“I’d love to hear it, darling,” Eames says, and Arthur scowls at the telephone poles along the highway. He doesn’t understand why they couldn’t just camp at the state park in town.
Eames and Ariadne start talking over him after that, which is somehow worse, like Arthur is a child. It’s just that he really does not feel like dealing with Eames.
Then again, Arthur never feels like dealing with Eames. He should probably analyze these feelings, but Eames is such a--Eames that Arthur can’t understand why everyone expects them to start spontaneously fucking.
But he can’t say that out loud, because then everyone will think he wants to fuck Eames.
The journey seems interminable, but they go get to the campground, and Arthur is relieved when Eames spills out of the cab, and isn’t even terribly bothered when Eames holds the door open for him to follow. Ariadne and Mal have booked a couple of campsites along a lake, and the whole thing looks stagnant and is swarming with mosquitoes, but otherwise it might be rather nice.
“No skinny dipping, then,” Ariadne says with a frown, and Arthur breathes a sigh of relief over something he hadn’t even realized he would need to be relieved about.
“I know a place,” Eames says. Arthur whips his head around to stare at him, and Eames is grinning like the cat that ate the canary.
There are so many reasons to hate Eames.
Arthur goes to set up the tent he’s sharing with Ariadne, and Ariadne trails after him.
“I told Eames we had space to spare,” she says when Arthur is putting down the dropcloth, and he is ready to go get his hatchet and throw it at some trees.
“Eames has a fucking huge tent,” Arthur growls. “Why didn’t he bring it?”
Ariadne shrugs, and gives Arthur a significant look.
“Fuck this,” he says, and stalks off.
“Are you on your period?” Ariadne calls after him.
And Arthur realizes his anger is reaching a flash point, and it’s not even Eames doing anything, it’s just the idea of Eames, sitting around like a smug bastard with his hot saw and his muscles and his slightly crooked British teeth. It’s the way Arthur’s group of friends is swirling around them like they’re waiting for something to happen, something Arthur maybe wants to happen, but also emphatically doesn’t, if only because it would make Ariadne and Cobb and probably also Eames unbearable.
There’s no good explanation. Arthur gives up, and goes back to throwing his hatchet, instead.
When he returns to the campsite, Ariadne has finished setting up his tent, has apparently laid out the sleeping bags inside, and she’s frowning at him. Cobb is putting together a pile of wood in the fire pit, and Arthur sits down on the picnic table to watch.
“Teepee or log cabin?” he asks.
“Teepee inside log cabin,” Cobb says, looking smug.
“Is that a statement on colonization?” Eames asks from the side, and Arthur snorts.
“No,” he says. “It’s just a pretentious ass way to build a fire.”
“It’s the best,” Cobb says, and Arthur sighs. They’ve had this argument before; Cobb is a dumbass.
“Want to get more wood?” Cobb asks, and Arthur is grateful for another excuse to go into the woods, so he takes his hatchet and goes to look for fallen lumber, dry stuff, anything, really.
Eames trails after him.
“I don’t need help,” Arthur says, curt.
“I’m sure you don’t,” Eames replies easily. “But here I am.”
In the end, Arthur lets out a long sigh, and loads Eames up as he gathers sticks and chops fallen logs into manageable portions. Eames is blessedly silent, and they move through the forest together until both of them have armloads, and then they return to the campsite Cobb has the fire going, and Arthur didn’t have to see his bastardized--thing, his bastardized fire building thing. He and Eames dump the fuel by the fire, and go to sit down by Ariadne, who is distributing s’mores supplies. Arthur’s brought his own stick, which Eames eyes skeptically.
“So s’mores are serious?” he asks.
“Like a house on fire,” Ariadne says. “Arthur makes pornographic noises when he eats them.”
“I don’t,” Arthur says, but even he knows that’s a lie.
“Only if they’re perfect,” he amends after a beat.
“Well let’s hope they’re perfect then, eh, darling?” Eames says, and Arthur scowls at him. Still, he kind of hopes the marshmallow comes out perfect, because he will deny himself that pleasure for no man.
The first marshmallow goes all to shit, burns to a crisp and the inside is hard, because the fire hasn’t burnt down enough yet. Arthur pulls off the blackened outer shell and throws it back in the pit, but eats the marshmallow inners right off the stick, sucking it off with a soft pop.
“I see why you need your own stick,” Eames says after a moment. He’s staring at Arthur’s mouth like--
Arthur blinks at him, and decides to ignore it.
“Are you two going to saw double buck again?” Cobb asks from across the fire.
Eames looks at Arthur.
“No,” Arthur says, not returning Eames’ gaze.
Everyone is quiet for a moment, and then Ariadne goes to the cooler and pulls out bottles of beer, which she opens on the picnic table and distributes around the fire.
“Let’s get this party started,” she says brightly.
Arthur moves his chair slightly so he’s in the woodsmoke, to avoid the mosquitoes, and squints his eyes against the burn. Eames comes over next to him.
“Will you make me a s’more?” he whispers, and Arthur turns to look at him.
“Okay,” Arthur says, and squints his eyes some more in an effort to avoid making eye contact with anyone.
The sad thing is, it’s not the beer talking, because Arthur hasn’t even finished his first bottle and even he isn’t that much of a lightweight.
When the fire burns down, Arthur positions his stick above some faintly flowing embers, and makes two perfect marshmallows, first for Eames and one for himself. He doesn’t watch the way Eames licks the chocolate off his plush lips, and ignores the soft noises of pleasure Eames makes when the concoction hits his tongue.
Eames doesn’t extend Arthur the same courtesy, which would ruin the perfect s’more if anything could.
Sometime after the fire is mostly burnt out and everyone’s on their third or fourth beer, Ariadne brings up skinny dipping again.
“Eames!” she says, jostling him. “You said you knew a place.”
“Too drunk,” Eames mutters. “You’re too drunk to drive.”
“Cobb’sn’t!” she slurs, and Cobb shakes his head.
“I’m not,” he says. “But I’m also not in high school.”
“You’re the worst,” Ariadne mumbles. “ ’solutely.”
“I think it’s time for bed,” Mal says, frowning at Ariadne. And it really is. The stumble to their tents, crawl into sleeping bags. Ariadne and Eames have laid out Eames’ sleeping bag next to Arthur’s, and he doesn’t have it in him to complain right now, so soon enough all their bodies are stretched out parallel inside the tiny tent.
Arthur falls asleep quick, but wakes up sometime in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep. His tent is small, and he can hear Ariadne’s soft breathing, can feel Eames’ warm body next to his. He crawls out, unzips the door and the fly, and goes to sit on the picnic table.
It doesn’t take long for Eames to show up. Arthur is lying flat on the table, looking up at the Milky Way, and he doesn’t have it in him to be disturbed.
“Hey,” Eames says, and Arthur doesn’t move.
“Hey yourself,” he says.
“We could saw double buck,” Eames says after a moment, and then Arthur rolls over to look at him properly. There’s no moon, but he can still make out Eames’ profile, and the bulk of his shoulders.
“What?” Arthur asks.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Eames says, and Arthur just stares at him.
“Are you still drunk?” he says, finally, and Eames laughs.
“I only had two beers.”
“I don’t--”
“Like me?” Eames says, and laughs again, sharp this time.
“I don’t know,” Arthur mutters. “I don’t know.”
“Let’s just try it, yeah?” Eames says. “We could be really good together.”
And Arthur gets the double entendre, he gets it, he’s not a fucking child. He wants to tell Eames that, but instead he just rolls over so he’s looking up at the stars again. They’re bright and far away, a wild welter, freckles of light.
Arthur thinks Eames probably has freckles across his shoulder blades, though he’s never looked that closely.
Arthur sits up, and looks at Eames for a moment. In the dark his expression is almost unreadable, and Arthur leans forward, incrementally and then a little more.
He grabs Eames by the chin and presses their lips together, quickly, before he can rethink this. Eames tastes like he didn’t brush his teeth; like chocolate and graham cracker and woodsmoke. His lips are chapped and gentle, then pressing hard and hungry, and Arthur slips his tongue into Eames' mouth and tastes it all--the beer, the s’mores, and something underneath it all that is uniquely Eames, who is moaning into his mouth, low and sweet, who is arching his body against Arthur’s, like he wants this, like this isn't all some terribly cruel joke.
Arthur pulls back.
“Don’t fuck this up,” he says. “And we’re waiting a week to tell Cobb.”
Because fuck all if Arthur will let Cobb think his plan worked.
When Arthur goes back to the tent, he falls asleep before he knows whether Eames came back, too, before he can think about whether he, Arthur, even knows what he’s doing right now, and whether he's drunk, and what he'll do if he wakes up with Eames' erection pressed into his back in the morning.
From the sounds outside, either there's a perverted wild animal about or Eames is dealing with a stiffy right now.
Arthur grins to himself. Because he might not know what he's doing, but he's pretty sure he's the one in charge now.
Much to his chagrin, Arthur wakes up with Eames spooned against his back, and the taste of Eames still in his mouth, and a problem in his pants.
He lays there, for a moment, wondering what his life has been reduced to, and then he rolls over so he’s facing away from Eames and tries to take care of business as quietly as possible, without thinking of Eames or anyone at all. He bites his lip as he finishes, hard, and then changes his boxers in his sleeping bag.
It doesn’t go exactly as planned, because when Arthur slithers out of his sleeping bag Eames is there watching him like he knows.
“Problem, darling?” he asks.
“Your face,” Arthur growls. Which was, okay, not mature.
“That’s no way to speak to your new double buck partner,” Eames says, his voice dropping to a whisper.
Arthur groans, and would say something about being drunk, but the thing was, he hadn’t even been particularly drunk. He was just a dumbass.
Arthur just flips Eames the bird, and then he crawls out of the tent and walks over to where Cobb is drinking coffee by the picnic table.
“Good morning,” Cobb says brightly. “Given any thought to double buck?”
“No,” Arthur says. Because he obviously hadn’t given it thought, he’d just done something about it.
“You’re not dressed,” Cobb says, then.
Arthur looks down at himself. Cobb is right; he’s wearing his boxers and not much else.
“Fuck off,” Arthur says, and pours a cup of coffee.
“I don’t want my children to be exposed to your naked man flesh,” Cobb says, and Arthur stares at him. “They might get ideas.”
“Ideas,” Arthur repeats, and stares at him.
“Ideas about tattoos,” Cobb says.
Arthur sighs, because Cobb is unreasonable, but he goes back to the tent, where Eames has gone back to sleep and Ariadne has yet to wake up, and pulls on jeans and his oldest t-shirt.
“Better?” he asks when he emerges, and Cobb frowns.
“You put on your two holiest articles of clothing,” he says.
“I actually have a flannel that’s worse. Give me my goddamn coffee,” Arthur mutters, and Cobb squints at him but returns his mug.
“Where is Mal and your tattoo adverse children?” Arthur asks, and Cobb sighs.
“Children,” he says. “Wake up so early. Mal took them to the playground.”
“And you’re not going to go relieve her?” Arthur asks, and Cobb scowls.
“You do it, if you care so much,” he says.
So Arthur does, walking through the campground to the playground at the center, where Phillipa is on the jungle gym and Mal is pushing James on a swing.
“Arthur,” Mal says. “Finally.”
“Now you can go make your lazy husband breakfast,” Arthur tells her, and Mal laughs.
“He just does that to give you an excuse to come out here and act superior about it,” Mal says. “We all know about your secret love of giving underdogs.”
Mostly Arthur just likes how much James laughs after having someone run under his swing, but he’s not going to fight it.
“Go,” he says, waving his hand. “I’ll bring them along in a bit.”
Five underdogs and two piggy-back rides around the playground later, Ariadne shows up.
“Breakfast is ready,” she says, looking between Arthur and James on his shoulders. “If you can tear yourself away.”
“Phil!” Arthur calls. “Breakfast.”
“I hate breakfast,” she says, but comes anyway, grabbing one of Arthur’s hands and one of Ariadne’s and swinging between them.
“So you slept with Eames again,” Ariadne says, and Arthur spares a sharp glance at Philippa’s head bobbing between them.
“Third time,” Ariadne continues.
“We haven’t slept together,” Arthur says. “We’ve just been forced to sleep in the same place several times. Also, last night you were there.”
“But I wasn’t in on the spoon fest,” Ariadne says.
“You can sleep in the middle tonight,” Arthur tells her, and Ariadne just laughs.
“You and Eames gonna saw double fuck?” James interjects, and Arthur and Ariadne both stare at one another.
“Don’t say that word, James,” Phillipa says. “It’s a bad one.”
“I think you meant buck,” Arthur tells James, then looks down at Phillipa. “Can you two keep a secret?”
“Yes,” Phillipa says. “We’re the best at secrets.”
“The best,” James repeats.
“You sure?” Arthur asks. “You can’t tell your dad.”
“We won’t,” Phillipa says, looking at Arthur with wide eyes.
“Eames and I are going to saw double buck,” Arthur tells them, and Phillipa twists away.
“That secret’s lame,” she says, but Ariadne looks wild-eyed and gleeful. Arthur releases Phillipa’s hand to give Ariadne a sharp punch in the ribs, and she winces.
“Uncalled for,” she says. “I won’t tattle.”
And then they come up on the campsite, where Eames and Mal and Cobb are gathered around the picnic table, and there are pancakes with syrup from Cobb’s sugar shack, and bacon, and if Arthur was going to complain about anything he isn’t going to, right now.
“So you’re a babysitter, too?” Eames whispers when he slides on to the bench next to Arthur.
“Why? Do you not know how to use a condom?”
“You’re very intriguing,” Eames says.
Arthur wants to ask if that comment has anything to do with what happened on the selfsame picnic table the night before, but manages to keep his mouth shut.
“You’re not,” he says, which is a lie if he ever told one.
“Liar,” Eames replies, and then he spends a full minute sucking maple syrup of his fork in a plainly pornographic way.
Not that Arthur notices. Across the table, Mal and Ariadne are pretending to have a conversation but watching Arthur and Eames with what is probably amusement, and Cobb is too busy trying to keep the maple syrup from getting all over James’ face to pay them any mind.
Cobb had arranged for them to spend the day doing team building activities, but it turned out Cobb didn’t know shit about team building and apparently had never even seen a team building workshop in a sitcom, so he just made them all go on a hike.
Arthur spends most of the time trying to walk faster than Eames, until he realizes Eames is spending most of the time staring at his ass through his stupidly thin denims.
He realizes this, because Eames says, “Nice pants” in a tone that could only be described as lascivious.
So then Arthur walks behind Eames, and is subjected to a not entirely unpleasant view of his ass the rest of the way up.
When they get to the top, Cobb distributes smushed sandwiches and demands that everyone tell a secret.
“No,” Arthur says, and turns around to go back down.
“Arthur!” Cobb says. “You won’t have any water.”
“I’ll drink from streams,” Arthur mutters.
“And contract giardia?” Cobb asks.
“I’m not telling stupid secrets. I am not a seventh-grade girl.”
“It will help us trust each other more,” Cobb says.
“We don’t need to trust each other,” Arthur says. “We all compete alone.”
Cobb frowns at him, and mutters something about how they’re still a team.
“Actually, we’re a club,” Arthur says, and then he stuffs his sandwich in his face, which is maybe somewhat undignified, wrestles a water bottle away from Cobb, which is extremely undignified, and turns around to go back down.
“You’re a terrible example for the children,” Mal hisses as he passes, but Arthur really couldn’t care less right now.
Besides, James and Phil love it when he’s a terrible example.
Arthur walks until he hits the treeline and loses sight of the rest of the group, then jogs. The mountain has a false peak, and Arthur’s always liked the rocky outcrop surrounded by trees better than the peak proper, so when he gets there he veers off the trail and sits down.
Arthur is willing to acknowledge that he might be a terrible person. But there are certain things, namely relationships of any sort, that he likes to progress at a pace he defines himself. And there are certain things, namely hikes, that he doesn’t like to be marred by ridiculous exercises. He stretches his arms across his knees, and looks down at the landscape knit far below--patches of farmland, and forest, small towns. It’s like the view from any mountain in the area, but the incremental differences don’t matter so much as the idea of landscape, of being able to view it from a great height.
“Nice, isn’t it,” Eames says when he shows up. Arthur isn’t entirely surprised.
“Eames,” he says.
“So I was thinking we should tell one another secrets,” Eames says. “Seeing as we actually will be competing together.”
“No,” Arthur says, twisting to glare at him.
“I’ll go first,” Eames says, not looking at Arthur. “I like you better than my last double buck partner.”
“That’s a secret?” Arthur asks, and Eames shrugs, like maybe it means more than Arthur knows.
“Your turn,” he says.
“I didn’t agree to this,” Arthur mutters, and Eames looks at him, now, with huge dark eyes.
“No,” Arthur says, not breaking eye contact.
Eames leans forward and kisses him, very gently, like he might break something.
“I think you’re afraid of something,” Eames says when he pulls away, and then he gets up to go.
Arthur realizes he isn’t in charge at all.
He watches Eames go back up the mountain, and then goes down on his own, sitting in the bed of Ariadne’s truck until everyone else shows up. He closes his eyes and watches the sun on his lids and thinks about how tight his forehead will feel when it sunburns, and nothing else at all. Not putting aloe on Eames' shoulders, not kissing Eames, not double buck.
That night no one discusses it but Ariadne sleeps in between Arthur and Eames, and no one wakes up spooning anyone else, and then they leave.
7.
Arthur didn’t want to deal with it. He had said he would saw double buck with Eames, so of course he would, but he didn’t want to deal with Eames himself; Eames who was incorrigible, and who was always pushing.
The kiss on the picnic table was terrifically ill advised.
But Arthur called Eames up, anyway, and arranged a time to practice sawing double buck, and then he spent the rest of the day pacing the house, kitchen to living room and back again, living room to hall to bedroom, circles around the couch.
Then he went outside and paced the porch.
There was really only one solution, as far as Arthur could figure.
“What do you want?” he asks, when Eames shows up.
Eames looks at him, barely out of his truck, and he sort of pauses and stands there, looking at Arthur, who is looking back at him.
“Didn’t you want me to come over and practice?”
“No,” Arthur says. “I mean, yes. But what do you want?”
“From what?”
Arthur waves his hand.
“Me. This. Flirting or whatever.”
“I think you know,” Eames says, and his eyes sweep over Arthur briefly, and Arthur starts.
“No,” Arthur says. “No.”
Because Eames--can’t have that. It’s not that Arthur’s a prude, exactly, it’s just that he’d tried to play this game on Eames’ terms and failed, and he had thought--he didn’t know what he thought. He thought maybe he had misread the entire thing.
“What?” Eames says, and he sounds startled, and his face sort of melts, like a bank in a mudslide.
“It’s just--I thought I gave you what you wanted,” Arthur says, and this is why he doesn’t talk about this shit, because it makes him feel young and silly, and he’s supposed to be stoic and not this way at all.
“So I wanted to make out with you once? And saw double buck? Arthur--what?” Eames is staring at Arthur now, maybe angry, his words too fast.
“No--” Arthur said. “But I can’t do this, okay Eames?”
“What exactly are we doing, Arthur? Enlighten me, because I don’t know.” And Eames is angry, now, Arthur can tell.”
“I’m not going to sleep with you, okay Eames?” Arthur says. “I can’t just--I don’t even know you.”
“That’s rich,” Eames says. “That’s lovely. Coming from someone as frigid as you.”
“At least I’m not throwing myself around like some floozy,” Arthur hisses back after a moment. Because, excluding the kiss on the picnic table, when Arthur was maybe drunk or maybe not, he certainly hasn’t been throwing himself around.
“Yeah,” Eames says. “Sure, Arthur. But perhaps if you paid attention, you’d notice that I’m only throwing myself at you.”
“But I--”
“No, I see how it is, Arthur,” Eames says. “This has been a real enlightening chat.”
Arthur stares at him, the lines of his face and the shape of his lips, lips Arthur has kissed three times precisely.
It’s possible, he thinks, that he has misread their entire bipolar courtship, that it might be a courtship after all and not a terribly ill-fated seduction.
He was the one who told Eames not to fuck things up, that night on the picnic table when they’d done nothing but kissed, and Eames hadn’t pushed for anything more. And now Arthur may have been the one to go and fuck things up, asking questions before their answers arose naturally, demanding solutions without trying to understand the context--without trying to understand Eames.
There are so many things Arthur should say right now.
He doesn’t say any of them.
“Can we still saw double buck?” he says, instead.
“Yeah,” Eames says, and his face is unreadable. “Alright.”
Things change, after that.
By which Arthur means, things stop. Eames stops making eye contact with him, and touching him, and talking to him except when absolutely necessary. Eames stops looking at him, and Eames stops walking around with his arms exposed, or his back, and Eames just stops, like he isn’t even Eames anymore, like he’s someone else.
One thing that does start is the dune buggy Arthur keeps in the garage, which is some kind of miracle, and also Ariadne starts lecturing him about being a heartless bitch. She actually calls him that, “heartless bitch.”
The dunebuggy is nice, though, except for all the shit going on in the rest of Arthur’s life.
He and Eames can’t hit their rhythm with double buck, either, which Ariadne says is symbolic and Arthur says is--Arthur just wants to punch her in the face. Arthur’s face punching urges have increased exponentially. Because everyone is hateful.
The solution is obvious, despite all the things Ariadne has to say about Arthur’s stupidity the solution is still obvious, which means it must be extremely so.
“You slept with Nash didn’t you?” Ariadne hisses at him over breakfast.
Which is true. Arthur did sleep with Nash, and it was a terrible idea.
“That’s why just going around falling into bed with people is a terrible idea,” Arthur says. “You saw how much I hurt Nash.”
“Oh my god,” Ariadne says. “Why do I even talk to you? Why does anyone? You are such a dumbass.”
Arthur considers just going along with that, because he knows he’s a dumbass, but he still wants to save face for some reason he can’t explain.
He pushes his biscuits around in their gravy with his fork.
He is talking to Ariadne, he reminds himself.
“I ballsed it up, didn’t I,” he says.
Ariadne beams at him.
“Of course you did,” she says. “Now let’s fix it before your double fuck goes all to shit.”
“Don’t call it that,” Arthur mutters, but he finds he doesn’t really have it in him to complain.
8.
There’s a competition coming up, giving Arthur and Eames a chance to qualify for the Lumberjack World Championships if their time is fast enough. The meet itself is small potatoes, but Arthur and Eames are both bound for the world championships in their individual divisions, so if they can get in for double buck as well it would simply be--better.
That’s the only explanation Arthur can think to for why he’s suddenly so invested in double buck.
When Arthur tells Ariadne that, she gives him a look.
“I can’t believe how much you lie to yourself,” she says.
It’s shit, it what it is. The whole thing.
Arthur goes out to the river for a swim. The river is ice cold and rock-bottomed, and Arthur shucks off everything and dives in, swimming upstream and floating down and trying to rub off his skin, and his fear, and everything.
Fear.
Eames told Arthur he thought he was afraid of something, and of course Arthur is afraid of something, of course he is.
Fuck Eames, Arthur thinks.
Arthur rather wanted to fuck Eames. And he is overthinking it and waiting for things to be broken, expectantly, the way people watch children in antique stores.
So Arthur just avoided bringing his children to antique stores, only then he got drunk and brought them to the door, and then he got sober and took them out of town entirely.
His analogy, he realizes, is going all to shit, so he swims some more.
When he gets back to his house Eames is there, and Arthur is wet and shirtless, and fuck it all if they weren’t supposed to practice today.
“Hello, Eames,” Arthur says.
“You’re late,” Eames says, trailing after Arthur as he goes to find a towel and a shirt.
“Yeah?” Arthur says, and he pulls a towel off the bathroom door and rubs his hair into a moderately dry mess.
“Yeah,” Eames says, sounding annoyed, but he’s watching, Arthur knows he is.
“I had some things to think about,” Arthur says. “You know our double buck is shit, right?”
“God,” Eames says, staring at him now. “You really are--”
“We don’t work together very well,” Arthur continues.
“Are you breaking up with me?” Eames asks, sounding outraged. “Because I can assure you, it’s not me, it’s you.”
It occurs to Arthur, as Eames is leaving, that he may be as terrible at apologies as he is at analogies and understanding people.
“What the hell did you do to Eames, Arthur?” Cobb asks when he calls.
“We really are intrigued,” Mal offers from the other phone.
“Shut up,” Arthur says, and hangs up on them both.
Ariadne calls next.
“I can’t believe you made this even worse,” Ariadne says. “You’re such a dumb fuck, Arthur.”
“I am not,” Arthur mutters, and hangs up on her as well.
When Yusuf calls an hour later, Arthur decides to cut this at the quick.
“Are you calling to tell me what a terrible person I am?” he asks. “Because if so, I already know.”
“No,” Yusuf says. “I’m having a sale next week. But if you are kind of the worst person--”
Arthur hangs up.
Yusuf calls back.
“You know we like you anyway, right?” he tells the answering machine.
Arthur puts his head in the freezer and wonders why he doesn’t keep ice cream on hand.
He leaves his head in the freezer until he gets a headache and wonders how much electricity he’s wasting.
He calls Eames.
“Eames,” he says to Eames’ voicemail. “I think there was a misunderstanding.”
He drinks a beer and tries again.
“Ariadne says I’m a dumb fuck,” he says on the second message.
He finds a pack of warm wine coolers in the garage, and drinks one before leaving a third message.
“Sorry.”
He drinks the another wine cooler.
“I’m drinking fucking wine cooler to leave you these messages, and it’s old and I found it in the garage and it probably came from the person who owned the house before me and I hate it.”
The third wine cooler is, “Sorry I was afraid.”
And the fourth wine cooler, “I was trying to proposition you, you dumbass.”
Somewhere in there Arthur passes out on the porch.
He wakes up in the middle of the night beset by mosquitoes, and pukes in the yard, and goes inside and sleeps on the couch.
In the morning, Eames is sitting in his armchair.
“What the fuck?” Arthur says, starting.
“I don’t think you’re in any place to be asking questions, darling,” Eames says, and he looks lazy and smug, and Arthur has a headache. “But the door was unlocked.”
“I think the juice part of those wine coolers was fermented,” Arthur says.
“That’s not exactly what I wanted to talk about,” Eames says, but there’s a smile playing at his lips.
“Let me eat breakfast,” Arthur says. “I think--this would be better if I were sober.”
“Are you sure?” Eames replies. “Because it seems to me when you’re sober, you’re frigid.”
“Shut up,” Arthur says, rolling from the couch to the floor and landing with a thud. He stands up.
“You want me to be sober,” he continues, jabbing a finger towards Eames. “This is going to be shit, and I’m going to be sober, and you’re going to listen.”
“What?” Eames says, and Arthur glares at him and goes to brush his teeth.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” he says. “Don’t follow me.”
“If you climb out the window--”
“My bathroom doesn’t have a window, so shut up.”
When Arthur’s washing his face, he considers climbing out the bathroom’s nonexistent window.
He doesn’t. He goes to the kitchen, where Eames is already making coffee, and takes out a box eggs.
“How do you like your eggs?” he asks, and Eames stares at him.
“You--”
“How do you like your eggs?” he repeats.
Eames just keeps looking at him, so Arthur just does scrambled for the both of them.
They don’t talk until the eggs and the bacon are done, and Arthur has had three cups of coffee.
“So,” Arthur says slowly, and he can feel Eames’ eyes on him.
“Yes?” Eames says, and Arthur frowns at him.
“I may have misinterpreted some things,” Arthur says. “And because of that--I may have said the wrong things.”
“You think?” Eames mutters, and Arthur glares.
“Are you trying to make this hard on me?” he asks.
“You kind of deserve it,” Eames replies.
“I--” Arthur stares at Eames, and then he stands up, and walks to the other side the table, and puts his hands on Eames’ shoulders.
“I think I can make it up to you,” he says, and then he kisses Eames, properly, for the first time.
Eames tastes like applewood smoked bacon. It’s pretty much the best.
But it’s more than that; it’s Eames’ tongue in Arthur’s mouth, and Arthur falling into Eames’ lap and straddling him on the kitchen chair, and the two of them rutting together clumsily, and then in the rhythm they could never get right for double buck. It’s tipping the chair back into the wall, so their chests are pressed together and Arthur can feel Eames’ nipples pebbling against him, and Arthur’s toes dragging on the tile floor. It’s peeling off t-shirts and tracing Eames’ freckles with his tongue.
“God, Arthur,” Eames shudders, and then he’s biting Arthur’s shoulder, and licking his way up Arthur’s neck, and sucking on his collarbone like it’s the sweetest thing.
“What do you say?” Arthur whispers. “Properly, this time?”
And then he licks Eames’ ear, and Eames whimpers, which Arthur takes for a yes.
Somewhere in there Arthur ends up with his knees on the cool tile and his lips around Eames’ cock, and decides maybe he’s not so bad at apologies, after all.
Though now he needs to disinfect the chair, where Eames is sitting on his bare ass with ruffled hair and bruised lips, looking smug and sated and lazy.
“So,” Arthur says, pulling on his shirt. “Double buck?”
Eames stares him.
“Is this what it’s going to be like, now?” he asks. “How old are you? Do you not get tired?”
Arthur shrugs, and then Eames gets up and grabs him by the hips, and sits him down in the the chair where Eames had been bare assed a moment before, and they do the whole thing over again but this time Eames is the one on his knees, and Arthur’s the one wondering how old they are, and if this is what it’s going to be like, and how Eames exists in real life with a mouth like that, and a tongue so uniquely skilled.
“So,” Arthur says again, only his voice isn’t as smooth as he’d like it to be, it’s hoarse and breathy, and Eames is smirking up at him from the floor, all Eames, and Arthur doesn’t really know what else to say.
And then by some sort of unspoken agreement, they both go take a shower and then a nap, sprawled out on Arthur’s still made bed, on top of the quilt his mother made for him.
When Arthur wakes up Eames is tracing his back piece with a fingertip, from the roots on his ass up the back of his spine. Arthur rolls over.
“We’re going to saw now,” he says.
“Yeah?” Eames asks, and Arthur throws a pillow at him.
“Because what I was just doing, I could do that with my tongue,” Eames continues.
Arthur makes a noise in the back of his throat he’s ashamed of, and glares at Eames.
“You’re incorrigible,” he says, but it comes out worryingly fond, and Arthur isn’t sure if he’s that easily swayed by kissing and blowjobs or if now he has all sorts of suppressed positive feelings for Eames that are coming out to play.
He goes to his dresser, and pulls on clean clothes while Eames watches.
“Are we really going to do this?” Eames asks, and Arthur twists to look at him.
“What?” Arthur had thought the whole thing was fairly obvious, really.
“This,” Eames repeats.
“Saw double buck? Sleep together?” Arthur asks.
“Both,” Eames says, after a pause.
“Sure,” Arthur says, and he thinks Eames looks maybe disappointed, just for a moment. Like he expected some sort of declaration of love, but Arthur just puts on his shirt and goes out into the kitchen to get Eames’ clothes, tosses them into the bedroom. Only then Eames comes out wearing a t-shirt that’s too tight and definitely Arthur’s, because it’s from the local badassathon, which is a race that involves mountain bikes and bb gun target shooting, and Arthur wins with some frequency. Eames just smirks at Arthur like he’s making a point Arthur doesn’t understand.
It occurs to Arthur that maybe this hasn’t resolved things, just escalated them.
They go outside, and practice sawing, and while their issues haven’t magically resolved the way Arthur had rather hoped they would, the block has been loosened, and they manage to talk through their problems like they hadn’t been able to before, so by the time evening rolls around they’re well on their way to sawing the qualifying time.
“Want me to stay the night?” Eames asks when they go inside for beer.
“I don’t have an extra toothbrush,” Arthur says, then goes in for a kiss to demonstrate that the toothbrush thing is true, he’s not just being an ass.
“Arthur,” Eames says, and it’s somewhere between fond and exasperated, which--Eames could just go home or to the gas station and buy a toothbrush, if he liked.
Eames ends up going home, to sleep and not just to get his toothbrush, and Arthur curls up under his mother’s quilt and wonders why Eames couldn’t just have gotten a toothbrush somewhere, and then Arthur could’ve made him french toast in the morning, and they could’ve kissed bacon and maple syrup.
part 3
5.
Arthur manages to avoid Eames for a month after that, until he two days before the regional Loggersports competition. Arthur comes outside in the morning, shirtless and carrying a cup of coffee because it’s his house, damnit, and Eames is sitting on the porch in Arthur’s favorite chair.
“Did you know Cobb registered us for double buck?” Eames asks.
Arthur spills the coffee.
“What the fuck,” Arthur says.
“I don’t think I’m the one you should be asking,” Eames says, so Arthur lets Eames follow him inside, makes two more cups of coffee, and calls Cobb.
“What the fuck,” Arthur says.
“It’s for you, dear,” Mal calls away from the phone, and when Cobb picks up Arthur repeats himself.
“What the fuck.”
“I think you mean what the buck, darling,” Eames whispers from next to him, and Arthur gives him a look that should be interpreted as “I hate puns, and that doesn’t even make sense.”
“It would be really good if we had a double buck team in the club,” Cobb says.
“So you and Mal do it,” Arthur says.
“Arthur,” Cobb whines.
“Alright, Ariadne and Mal than,” Arthur suggests, and Cobb makes unhappy noises over the phone. “Are you even allowed to this?”
“I’m the chair,” Cobb says. “I register everyone for everything. I can do whatever I want.”
“We don’t have a saw,” Arthur says, in a last ditch effort.
“I bought you one,” Cobb says, and Arthur turns to Eames, aghast.
“He bought us a saw,” Arthur says.
“Is Eames there with you? Can I talk to him? Did you sleep together again?” Cobb asks from the other end of the line, and Arthur hangs up.
“What kind of saw was it?” Eames asks, and Arthur frowns.
“I don’t care. You can’t just go around buying other people saws. Who does he think he is?”
“Chair of the our forestry club,” Eames says.
“We aren’t doing it,” Arthur says.
Arthur makes a couple calls, but apparently there’s some sort of rule about withdrawing from competition two days prior, so their only option is to forfeit the competition.
Arthur carpools with Ariadne to the competition, even though it means his saw has to share the bed of the truck with her chainsaw, and he has to listen to her talk about Eames for most of the drive.
“Why are you so interested in Eames?” he asks, finally.
“Aren’t you?” Ariadne replies innocently.
“Seriously,” Arthur says.
“I’m just pleased there’s another chainsaw artist in the area,” Ariadne says. “I don’t know what your problem is.”
“You know what my problem is,” Arthur mutters, and Ariadne sighs, turns up her Drive-By Truckers CD, and changes the subject.
When they get to the competition, Nash appears, like he’s been waiting.
“Arthur,” he says. “I hear you’re sawing double buck.”
“There was an error in the registration,” Arthur tells him, and Nash narrows his eyes.
“Afraid?” he says, and Arthur wonders why people keep asking him that, like he’s some sort of wimp.
“No,” Arthur says, and then wonders why he keeps falling for that, like some sort of dumbass. He goes over to where Eames is unloading his chainsaw.
“Double buck,” he says. “We’re doing it.”
“What?” Eames asks, looking incredulous. “No.”
“Just once,” Arthur says, and then Nash appears.
“Who’s this, Arthur?” Nash asks, eyeing Eames speculatively.
“Eames,” Arthur says flatly. “Nash.”
“Pleasure, I’m sure,” Eames says, but he doesn’t sound pleased, which makes Arthur inexplicably pleased.
“You’re sawing double buck with a hot saw competitor?” Nash asks, and then both Eames and Nash turn to Arthur, and Arthur looks back at Eames.
“Yes,” Eames says with a sigh.
Arthur could hug him, but instead he glares at Nash and goes to see Cobb about a saw.
“Did you bring the double buck saw?” Arthur asks, when he finds Cobb, and Cobb just grins.
“What changed your mind?” he says, and Arthur frowns.
“Nash,” Arthur says. “What an asshole.”
Nash is Arthur’s primary in-state competitor in single buck, though he isn’t really that close.
They may also have slept together, once. Arthur was shit-faced drunk when it did or did not happen and doesn’t remember much, but he’s pretty sure Nash was a terrible lay. When Arthur didn’t return his calls, Nash unilaterally declared himself Arthur’s archenemy, and the rest, as they say, is history.
“So you slept with him, huh?” Eames asks when Arthur comes back with the saw.
“Shut up,” Arthur says. “Who told you that? No one knows that. Now come on, we need to practice.”
They bring Ariadne, too, and she talks about how Arthur most definitely slept with Nash while Arthur glares daggers at her and Eames laughs.
“You could do so much better, darling,” Eames says, and Arthur turns his glare on him.
Their first attempt at double buck is, frankly, embarrassing. Arthur isn’t used to have someone else on the other end of his saw, and it throws off his balance; he pushes too hard when he should be letting Eames pull. Eames just looks at him disparagingly.
“You’ve really never done this before, have you?” Eames asks.
“No,” Arthur says, and they try again, and the rhythm is a little closer to right this time, and by the third cut they’re about as good as they’re going to be, working on brawn alone and not a proper partnership. Arthur wants Ariadne to time them, but Eames says no, so Arthur shrugs it off, and they rejoin Cobb and Mal by the trucks.
“So you’re doing it?” Cobb asks, looking between Eames and Arthur and the saw. “I knew you’d do it.”
“Just this time,” Arthur says. “And if you register us again, you’re an asshole.”
“Arthur,” Mal says, jerking her head towards Phillipa and James. “Children.”
“I will cut you,” Arthur says to Cobb, and Mal makes a face that suggests, if Arthur were to do that, he would get cut worse.
Eames just sort of stands there, looking uncomfortable.
Ariadne’s competing in stock saw, and her competition is first. The group goes to cheer her on, and Eames stands entirely too close to Arthur the whole time.
“What are you doing?” Arthur hisses, when one of the other competitors is up.
“Nash is over there,” Eames says. “Don’t you want to seem to be on good terms with your new partner?”
“Nash and I never sawed together,” Arthur mutters. “Stop touching my ass.”
Eames doesn’t stop, and Arthur kind of gives up, because Eames’ hand in the back pocket of his Carhartts is inexplicably comforting.
Mal winks at him, and Arthur pretends he doesn’t notice her noticing.
Then Mal and Dom saw underhand in their respective divisions, and Eames and Arthur and Ariadne take Phillipa and James to watch, and then they all go for lunch before Eames and Arthur have to saw double buck, and then their individual events.
Arthur tries not to think about winning when they saw double buck, because they surely won’t; but he figures not winning isn’t as embarrassing as not competing. Instead he throws his body into the motion of the saw, into the returning of Eames’ motion, and their saw eats through the wood quickly enough, by his measure.
Arthur has to turn right around and saw single buck, after that, and Nash is there smirking like he’s been eating shit. Arthur smirks right back, and does what he usually does.
And then it’s hot saw. Arthur can’t not got to hot saw, because Eames went to single buck, and also Nash, who has been skulking around the periphery of everywhere Arthur is the whole day, will notice.
So he goes.
And Eames comes up, before his event, grabs Arthur by the shoulders, and kisses him hard on the mouth--no tongue, just their lips pressed tight together, and then their lips apart again.
“For luck,” he says, and then walks back to his saw, and Arthur is staring at him, not sure why he’d let anyone get away with that, and everyone else is staring at Arthur, who can feel himself colouring a slow, rich red.
Mal winks at him again, and Ariadne slaps him on the ass like that’s some sort of congratulatory gesture.
Like there’s something Arthur should be congratulated for, when they haven’t done awards yet.
“You know the Monty Python lumberjack song?” Cobb asks mildly. “It was written about you.”
“Don’t be so hard on him,” Ariadne says. “Just ‘cause he’s a twink doesn’t mean he’s the one who crossdresses.”
“Eames?” Cobb says, squinting. “You think?”
Ariadne shrugs, and Mal nods, and Arthur ignores them all.
“The point,” Cobb continues. “Is that you are so, so, gay for each other.”
“Mal,” Arthur says. “May I punch your husband in the balls?”
Cobb winces and shuts up.
“To be fair, Arthur was gay already,” Ariadne says.
When Arthur goes to box her ears, she ducks.
The awards are distributed in the evening before they go home, in the order of the events. Ariadne takes first in her age class, which would be lovely except she was the only one in her age class, and third for woman overall. Cobb takes second overall, and Mal first.
Arthur and Eames don’t win. They take third.
Which is not winning.
Individually, they both take first.
“It worked,” Eames whispers in Arthur’s ear, when he rejoins to the group with his medal.
“Who the hell does he think he is?” Arthur rages when he and Ariadne are back in her truck together. “I mean, what the fuck.”
“It’s not like everyone doesn’t know you’re gay after the Nash fiasco,” Ariadne says.
The Nash fiasco was their not-break-up, because they weren’t dating, when Nash decided to ask Arthur why his calls weren’t being returned during an awards ceremony at state two years ago.
“That’s not the point,” Arthur says. “It’s harassment. It’s--”
“Then why didn’t you just punch him?” Ariadne asks.
Arthur had, after all, punched Nash. And broken his nose.
“It’s inappropriate,” Arthur continues.
“Admit it,” Ariadne says with a snort. “You like a man who’s a little pushy.”
“Don’t project,” Arthur says tightly.
“Projecting, am I?” Ariadne says. “I highly doubt that.”
“Yeah, I forgot,” Arthur says. “You’re the pushy one, aren’t you?”
Ariadne laughs.
And then there’s a thud, and the windshield shatters, and Ariadne is cussing and pulling over to the side of the road.
They hit a turkey.
“Fuck this,” Ariadne mutters, looking at the dead bird, which had fallen into the bed of her truck.
“Might as well keep it,” Arthur says. It’s a male, and large, and Arthur might be able to smoke it or something.
“We have more problems than that,” Ariadne says.
They’re two hours’ drive from home, still, and its dark, and Ariadne’s windshield is completely shattered. Which are, okay, problems. But.
“We can just drive back without a windshield,” Arthur says, and Ariadne looks at him flatly.
“Yeah,” she says. “That’ll be fun.”
“I didn’t say it would be fun,” he protests. “But it’s a way to drive back.”
Then Eames pulls over, leaning out of his window.
“I don’t normally pick up hitchhikers,” he calls, and now Arthur seriously does want to punch him in the face.
“We can’t just leave Ariadne’s truck here,” Arthur says, looking between the pair of them.
Eames smirks.
“I,” he says. “Have a tent.”
Eames would have a tent.
Which is how they end up pulling into a state forest campground late at night, with Arthur and Ariadne driving slowly in Ariadne’s truck, Eames ahead. And Eames may have a tent, but he only has one sleeping bag, which he unzips and lays flat beneath the three of them.
“You two can have it,” Ariadne says. “I’ve my own.”
So because Arthur was a halfway decent person and agreed to carpool (and, okay, his truck is kind of shit and prone to break down on trips further than an hour from home), he ends up sleeping with Eames again.
The moral of the story, he thinks as he falls asleep with his back to Eames, is that life is utter shit.
When Arthur wakes up the next morning, Eames’ arm is around his waist, and Eames’ wood is in his back.
“Eames,” Arthur says, rolling over to shake Eames awake. “You’re disgusting.”
Ariadne looks at them from the other side of the tent, bleary-eyed and smiling.
“Aw,” she says. “You haven’t moved his arm, Arthur.”
Arthur glares at her, and rectifies the situation.
“Good morning, good luck charm,” Eames says, blinking up at him.
Arthur storms out of the tent in his shirt and boxers, and goes to the campground bathroom to splash water on his face until Eames shows up, grinning.
“You could’ve given me a hand with my tent,” he says, and Arthur can see his expression in the small mirror morphing into horror, and Eames doubles over laughing.
“I should’ve punched you,” Arthur mutters. “I really should’ve.”
“Want to give it a go now?” Eames asks, quite seriously, and Arthur finds he doesn’t, not really.
“Stop touching me,” he says. “And maybe you won’t have to worry about breaking your nose.”
“I think I’d look good with a broken nose,” Eames says, following Arthur out of the bathroom.
“Your balls, then,” Arthur says.
“I could’ve used your hands on my balls this morning,” Eames mutters, and Arthur goes back to ignoring him.
Eames offers Arthur a ride back to town, but he goes with Ariadne to replace her windshield instead, grumbling. Ariadne blithely ignores him.
When they do get home in the late afternoon, Arthur takes the turkey and puts it in his deep freeze, so at least something good came out of this mess.
6.
It’s Ariadne’s idea for them to take a proper camping trip, which is typical, really. But she gets Mal in on it, and together they are an unstoppable force.
Arthur tries to play the part of the immovable object, but it doesn’t work quite as well as he had hoped. Which is how he ends up riding shotgun in Ariadne’s truck again, with the windshield fixed and coolers of beer in the back, along with Arthur’s own sleeping bag so he doesn’t have to fucking share.
But Eames is on the bench seat, too, which puts Arthur in the middle, and he doesn’t want to talk about it.
Of course Eames couldn’t ride with Mal and Cobb because they have kids and shit. Of course Eames takes up an inordinate amount of space on the bench seat. Of course they couldn’t go to a campground close to home because this is some sort of bonding exercise. Of course they’re going camping as some sort of bonding exercise, and Cobb will harass them about continuing to compete in double buck, and there are so many things Arthur doesn’t want to talk about right now.
“Arthur,” Ariadne’s saying as they drive. “Tell Eames the story about the twelve-point buck.”
“No,” Arthur says, and looks straight ahead out the window.
“I’d love to hear it, darling,” Eames says, and Arthur scowls at the telephone poles along the highway. He doesn’t understand why they couldn’t just camp at the state park in town.
Eames and Ariadne start talking over him after that, which is somehow worse, like Arthur is a child. It’s just that he really does not feel like dealing with Eames.
Then again, Arthur never feels like dealing with Eames. He should probably analyze these feelings, but Eames is such a--Eames that Arthur can’t understand why everyone expects them to start spontaneously fucking.
But he can’t say that out loud, because then everyone will think he wants to fuck Eames.
The journey seems interminable, but they go get to the campground, and Arthur is relieved when Eames spills out of the cab, and isn’t even terribly bothered when Eames holds the door open for him to follow. Ariadne and Mal have booked a couple of campsites along a lake, and the whole thing looks stagnant and is swarming with mosquitoes, but otherwise it might be rather nice.
“No skinny dipping, then,” Ariadne says with a frown, and Arthur breathes a sigh of relief over something he hadn’t even realized he would need to be relieved about.
“I know a place,” Eames says. Arthur whips his head around to stare at him, and Eames is grinning like the cat that ate the canary.
There are so many reasons to hate Eames.
Arthur goes to set up the tent he’s sharing with Ariadne, and Ariadne trails after him.
“I told Eames we had space to spare,” she says when Arthur is putting down the dropcloth, and he is ready to go get his hatchet and throw it at some trees.
“Eames has a fucking huge tent,” Arthur growls. “Why didn’t he bring it?”
Ariadne shrugs, and gives Arthur a significant look.
“Fuck this,” he says, and stalks off.
“Are you on your period?” Ariadne calls after him.
And Arthur realizes his anger is reaching a flash point, and it’s not even Eames doing anything, it’s just the idea of Eames, sitting around like a smug bastard with his hot saw and his muscles and his slightly crooked British teeth. It’s the way Arthur’s group of friends is swirling around them like they’re waiting for something to happen, something Arthur maybe wants to happen, but also emphatically doesn’t, if only because it would make Ariadne and Cobb and probably also Eames unbearable.
There’s no good explanation. Arthur gives up, and goes back to throwing his hatchet, instead.
When he returns to the campsite, Ariadne has finished setting up his tent, has apparently laid out the sleeping bags inside, and she’s frowning at him. Cobb is putting together a pile of wood in the fire pit, and Arthur sits down on the picnic table to watch.
“Teepee or log cabin?” he asks.
“Teepee inside log cabin,” Cobb says, looking smug.
“Is that a statement on colonization?” Eames asks from the side, and Arthur snorts.
“No,” he says. “It’s just a pretentious ass way to build a fire.”
“It’s the best,” Cobb says, and Arthur sighs. They’ve had this argument before; Cobb is a dumbass.
“Want to get more wood?” Cobb asks, and Arthur is grateful for another excuse to go into the woods, so he takes his hatchet and goes to look for fallen lumber, dry stuff, anything, really.
Eames trails after him.
“I don’t need help,” Arthur says, curt.
“I’m sure you don’t,” Eames replies easily. “But here I am.”
In the end, Arthur lets out a long sigh, and loads Eames up as he gathers sticks and chops fallen logs into manageable portions. Eames is blessedly silent, and they move through the forest together until both of them have armloads, and then they return to the campsite Cobb has the fire going, and Arthur didn’t have to see his bastardized--thing, his bastardized fire building thing. He and Eames dump the fuel by the fire, and go to sit down by Ariadne, who is distributing s’mores supplies. Arthur’s brought his own stick, which Eames eyes skeptically.
“So s’mores are serious?” he asks.
“Like a house on fire,” Ariadne says. “Arthur makes pornographic noises when he eats them.”
“I don’t,” Arthur says, but even he knows that’s a lie.
“Only if they’re perfect,” he amends after a beat.
“Well let’s hope they’re perfect then, eh, darling?” Eames says, and Arthur scowls at him. Still, he kind of hopes the marshmallow comes out perfect, because he will deny himself that pleasure for no man.
The first marshmallow goes all to shit, burns to a crisp and the inside is hard, because the fire hasn’t burnt down enough yet. Arthur pulls off the blackened outer shell and throws it back in the pit, but eats the marshmallow inners right off the stick, sucking it off with a soft pop.
“I see why you need your own stick,” Eames says after a moment. He’s staring at Arthur’s mouth like--
Arthur blinks at him, and decides to ignore it.
“Are you two going to saw double buck again?” Cobb asks from across the fire.
Eames looks at Arthur.
“No,” Arthur says, not returning Eames’ gaze.
Everyone is quiet for a moment, and then Ariadne goes to the cooler and pulls out bottles of beer, which she opens on the picnic table and distributes around the fire.
“Let’s get this party started,” she says brightly.
Arthur moves his chair slightly so he’s in the woodsmoke, to avoid the mosquitoes, and squints his eyes against the burn. Eames comes over next to him.
“Will you make me a s’more?” he whispers, and Arthur turns to look at him.
“Okay,” Arthur says, and squints his eyes some more in an effort to avoid making eye contact with anyone.
The sad thing is, it’s not the beer talking, because Arthur hasn’t even finished his first bottle and even he isn’t that much of a lightweight.
When the fire burns down, Arthur positions his stick above some faintly flowing embers, and makes two perfect marshmallows, first for Eames and one for himself. He doesn’t watch the way Eames licks the chocolate off his plush lips, and ignores the soft noises of pleasure Eames makes when the concoction hits his tongue.
Eames doesn’t extend Arthur the same courtesy, which would ruin the perfect s’more if anything could.
Sometime after the fire is mostly burnt out and everyone’s on their third or fourth beer, Ariadne brings up skinny dipping again.
“Eames!” she says, jostling him. “You said you knew a place.”
“Too drunk,” Eames mutters. “You’re too drunk to drive.”
“Cobb’sn’t!” she slurs, and Cobb shakes his head.
“I’m not,” he says. “But I’m also not in high school.”
“You’re the worst,” Ariadne mumbles. “ ’solutely.”
“I think it’s time for bed,” Mal says, frowning at Ariadne. And it really is. The stumble to their tents, crawl into sleeping bags. Ariadne and Eames have laid out Eames’ sleeping bag next to Arthur’s, and he doesn’t have it in him to complain right now, so soon enough all their bodies are stretched out parallel inside the tiny tent.
Arthur falls asleep quick, but wakes up sometime in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep. His tent is small, and he can hear Ariadne’s soft breathing, can feel Eames’ warm body next to his. He crawls out, unzips the door and the fly, and goes to sit on the picnic table.
It doesn’t take long for Eames to show up. Arthur is lying flat on the table, looking up at the Milky Way, and he doesn’t have it in him to be disturbed.
“Hey,” Eames says, and Arthur doesn’t move.
“Hey yourself,” he says.
“We could saw double buck,” Eames says after a moment, and then Arthur rolls over to look at him properly. There’s no moon, but he can still make out Eames’ profile, and the bulk of his shoulders.
“What?” Arthur asks.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Eames says, and Arthur just stares at him.
“Are you still drunk?” he says, finally, and Eames laughs.
“I only had two beers.”
“I don’t--”
“Like me?” Eames says, and laughs again, sharp this time.
“I don’t know,” Arthur mutters. “I don’t know.”
“Let’s just try it, yeah?” Eames says. “We could be really good together.”
And Arthur gets the double entendre, he gets it, he’s not a fucking child. He wants to tell Eames that, but instead he just rolls over so he’s looking up at the stars again. They’re bright and far away, a wild welter, freckles of light.
Arthur thinks Eames probably has freckles across his shoulder blades, though he’s never looked that closely.
Arthur sits up, and looks at Eames for a moment. In the dark his expression is almost unreadable, and Arthur leans forward, incrementally and then a little more.
He grabs Eames by the chin and presses their lips together, quickly, before he can rethink this. Eames tastes like he didn’t brush his teeth; like chocolate and graham cracker and woodsmoke. His lips are chapped and gentle, then pressing hard and hungry, and Arthur slips his tongue into Eames' mouth and tastes it all--the beer, the s’mores, and something underneath it all that is uniquely Eames, who is moaning into his mouth, low and sweet, who is arching his body against Arthur’s, like he wants this, like this isn't all some terribly cruel joke.
Arthur pulls back.
“Don’t fuck this up,” he says. “And we’re waiting a week to tell Cobb.”
Because fuck all if Arthur will let Cobb think his plan worked.
When Arthur goes back to the tent, he falls asleep before he knows whether Eames came back, too, before he can think about whether he, Arthur, even knows what he’s doing right now, and whether he's drunk, and what he'll do if he wakes up with Eames' erection pressed into his back in the morning.
From the sounds outside, either there's a perverted wild animal about or Eames is dealing with a stiffy right now.
Arthur grins to himself. Because he might not know what he's doing, but he's pretty sure he's the one in charge now.
Much to his chagrin, Arthur wakes up with Eames spooned against his back, and the taste of Eames still in his mouth, and a problem in his pants.
He lays there, for a moment, wondering what his life has been reduced to, and then he rolls over so he’s facing away from Eames and tries to take care of business as quietly as possible, without thinking of Eames or anyone at all. He bites his lip as he finishes, hard, and then changes his boxers in his sleeping bag.
It doesn’t go exactly as planned, because when Arthur slithers out of his sleeping bag Eames is there watching him like he knows.
“Problem, darling?” he asks.
“Your face,” Arthur growls. Which was, okay, not mature.
“That’s no way to speak to your new double buck partner,” Eames says, his voice dropping to a whisper.
Arthur groans, and would say something about being drunk, but the thing was, he hadn’t even been particularly drunk. He was just a dumbass.
Arthur just flips Eames the bird, and then he crawls out of the tent and walks over to where Cobb is drinking coffee by the picnic table.
“Good morning,” Cobb says brightly. “Given any thought to double buck?”
“No,” Arthur says. Because he obviously hadn’t given it thought, he’d just done something about it.
“You’re not dressed,” Cobb says, then.
Arthur looks down at himself. Cobb is right; he’s wearing his boxers and not much else.
“Fuck off,” Arthur says, and pours a cup of coffee.
“I don’t want my children to be exposed to your naked man flesh,” Cobb says, and Arthur stares at him. “They might get ideas.”
“Ideas,” Arthur repeats, and stares at him.
“Ideas about tattoos,” Cobb says.
Arthur sighs, because Cobb is unreasonable, but he goes back to the tent, where Eames has gone back to sleep and Ariadne has yet to wake up, and pulls on jeans and his oldest t-shirt.
“Better?” he asks when he emerges, and Cobb frowns.
“You put on your two holiest articles of clothing,” he says.
“I actually have a flannel that’s worse. Give me my goddamn coffee,” Arthur mutters, and Cobb squints at him but returns his mug.
“Where is Mal and your tattoo adverse children?” Arthur asks, and Cobb sighs.
“Children,” he says. “Wake up so early. Mal took them to the playground.”
“And you’re not going to go relieve her?” Arthur asks, and Cobb scowls.
“You do it, if you care so much,” he says.
So Arthur does, walking through the campground to the playground at the center, where Phillipa is on the jungle gym and Mal is pushing James on a swing.
“Arthur,” Mal says. “Finally.”
“Now you can go make your lazy husband breakfast,” Arthur tells her, and Mal laughs.
“He just does that to give you an excuse to come out here and act superior about it,” Mal says. “We all know about your secret love of giving underdogs.”
Mostly Arthur just likes how much James laughs after having someone run under his swing, but he’s not going to fight it.
“Go,” he says, waving his hand. “I’ll bring them along in a bit.”
Five underdogs and two piggy-back rides around the playground later, Ariadne shows up.
“Breakfast is ready,” she says, looking between Arthur and James on his shoulders. “If you can tear yourself away.”
“Phil!” Arthur calls. “Breakfast.”
“I hate breakfast,” she says, but comes anyway, grabbing one of Arthur’s hands and one of Ariadne’s and swinging between them.
“So you slept with Eames again,” Ariadne says, and Arthur spares a sharp glance at Philippa’s head bobbing between them.
“Third time,” Ariadne continues.
“We haven’t slept together,” Arthur says. “We’ve just been forced to sleep in the same place several times. Also, last night you were there.”
“But I wasn’t in on the spoon fest,” Ariadne says.
“You can sleep in the middle tonight,” Arthur tells her, and Ariadne just laughs.
“You and Eames gonna saw double fuck?” James interjects, and Arthur and Ariadne both stare at one another.
“Don’t say that word, James,” Phillipa says. “It’s a bad one.”
“I think you meant buck,” Arthur tells James, then looks down at Phillipa. “Can you two keep a secret?”
“Yes,” Phillipa says. “We’re the best at secrets.”
“The best,” James repeats.
“You sure?” Arthur asks. “You can’t tell your dad.”
“We won’t,” Phillipa says, looking at Arthur with wide eyes.
“Eames and I are going to saw double buck,” Arthur tells them, and Phillipa twists away.
“That secret’s lame,” she says, but Ariadne looks wild-eyed and gleeful. Arthur releases Phillipa’s hand to give Ariadne a sharp punch in the ribs, and she winces.
“Uncalled for,” she says. “I won’t tattle.”
And then they come up on the campsite, where Eames and Mal and Cobb are gathered around the picnic table, and there are pancakes with syrup from Cobb’s sugar shack, and bacon, and if Arthur was going to complain about anything he isn’t going to, right now.
“So you’re a babysitter, too?” Eames whispers when he slides on to the bench next to Arthur.
“Why? Do you not know how to use a condom?”
“You’re very intriguing,” Eames says.
Arthur wants to ask if that comment has anything to do with what happened on the selfsame picnic table the night before, but manages to keep his mouth shut.
“You’re not,” he says, which is a lie if he ever told one.
“Liar,” Eames replies, and then he spends a full minute sucking maple syrup of his fork in a plainly pornographic way.
Not that Arthur notices. Across the table, Mal and Ariadne are pretending to have a conversation but watching Arthur and Eames with what is probably amusement, and Cobb is too busy trying to keep the maple syrup from getting all over James’ face to pay them any mind.
Cobb had arranged for them to spend the day doing team building activities, but it turned out Cobb didn’t know shit about team building and apparently had never even seen a team building workshop in a sitcom, so he just made them all go on a hike.
Arthur spends most of the time trying to walk faster than Eames, until he realizes Eames is spending most of the time staring at his ass through his stupidly thin denims.
He realizes this, because Eames says, “Nice pants” in a tone that could only be described as lascivious.
So then Arthur walks behind Eames, and is subjected to a not entirely unpleasant view of his ass the rest of the way up.
When they get to the top, Cobb distributes smushed sandwiches and demands that everyone tell a secret.
“No,” Arthur says, and turns around to go back down.
“Arthur!” Cobb says. “You won’t have any water.”
“I’ll drink from streams,” Arthur mutters.
“And contract giardia?” Cobb asks.
“I’m not telling stupid secrets. I am not a seventh-grade girl.”
“It will help us trust each other more,” Cobb says.
“We don’t need to trust each other,” Arthur says. “We all compete alone.”
Cobb frowns at him, and mutters something about how they’re still a team.
“Actually, we’re a club,” Arthur says, and then he stuffs his sandwich in his face, which is maybe somewhat undignified, wrestles a water bottle away from Cobb, which is extremely undignified, and turns around to go back down.
“You’re a terrible example for the children,” Mal hisses as he passes, but Arthur really couldn’t care less right now.
Besides, James and Phil love it when he’s a terrible example.
Arthur walks until he hits the treeline and loses sight of the rest of the group, then jogs. The mountain has a false peak, and Arthur’s always liked the rocky outcrop surrounded by trees better than the peak proper, so when he gets there he veers off the trail and sits down.
Arthur is willing to acknowledge that he might be a terrible person. But there are certain things, namely relationships of any sort, that he likes to progress at a pace he defines himself. And there are certain things, namely hikes, that he doesn’t like to be marred by ridiculous exercises. He stretches his arms across his knees, and looks down at the landscape knit far below--patches of farmland, and forest, small towns. It’s like the view from any mountain in the area, but the incremental differences don’t matter so much as the idea of landscape, of being able to view it from a great height.
“Nice, isn’t it,” Eames says when he shows up. Arthur isn’t entirely surprised.
“Eames,” he says.
“So I was thinking we should tell one another secrets,” Eames says. “Seeing as we actually will be competing together.”
“No,” Arthur says, twisting to glare at him.
“I’ll go first,” Eames says, not looking at Arthur. “I like you better than my last double buck partner.”
“That’s a secret?” Arthur asks, and Eames shrugs, like maybe it means more than Arthur knows.
“Your turn,” he says.
“I didn’t agree to this,” Arthur mutters, and Eames looks at him, now, with huge dark eyes.
“No,” Arthur says, not breaking eye contact.
Eames leans forward and kisses him, very gently, like he might break something.
“I think you’re afraid of something,” Eames says when he pulls away, and then he gets up to go.
Arthur realizes he isn’t in charge at all.
He watches Eames go back up the mountain, and then goes down on his own, sitting in the bed of Ariadne’s truck until everyone else shows up. He closes his eyes and watches the sun on his lids and thinks about how tight his forehead will feel when it sunburns, and nothing else at all. Not putting aloe on Eames' shoulders, not kissing Eames, not double buck.
That night no one discusses it but Ariadne sleeps in between Arthur and Eames, and no one wakes up spooning anyone else, and then they leave.
7.
Arthur didn’t want to deal with it. He had said he would saw double buck with Eames, so of course he would, but he didn’t want to deal with Eames himself; Eames who was incorrigible, and who was always pushing.
The kiss on the picnic table was terrifically ill advised.
But Arthur called Eames up, anyway, and arranged a time to practice sawing double buck, and then he spent the rest of the day pacing the house, kitchen to living room and back again, living room to hall to bedroom, circles around the couch.
Then he went outside and paced the porch.
There was really only one solution, as far as Arthur could figure.
“What do you want?” he asks, when Eames shows up.
Eames looks at him, barely out of his truck, and he sort of pauses and stands there, looking at Arthur, who is looking back at him.
“Didn’t you want me to come over and practice?”
“No,” Arthur says. “I mean, yes. But what do you want?”
“From what?”
Arthur waves his hand.
“Me. This. Flirting or whatever.”
“I think you know,” Eames says, and his eyes sweep over Arthur briefly, and Arthur starts.
“No,” Arthur says. “No.”
Because Eames--can’t have that. It’s not that Arthur’s a prude, exactly, it’s just that he’d tried to play this game on Eames’ terms and failed, and he had thought--he didn’t know what he thought. He thought maybe he had misread the entire thing.
“What?” Eames says, and he sounds startled, and his face sort of melts, like a bank in a mudslide.
“It’s just--I thought I gave you what you wanted,” Arthur says, and this is why he doesn’t talk about this shit, because it makes him feel young and silly, and he’s supposed to be stoic and not this way at all.
“So I wanted to make out with you once? And saw double buck? Arthur--what?” Eames is staring at Arthur now, maybe angry, his words too fast.
“No--” Arthur said. “But I can’t do this, okay Eames?”
“What exactly are we doing, Arthur? Enlighten me, because I don’t know.” And Eames is angry, now, Arthur can tell.”
“I’m not going to sleep with you, okay Eames?” Arthur says. “I can’t just--I don’t even know you.”
“That’s rich,” Eames says. “That’s lovely. Coming from someone as frigid as you.”
“At least I’m not throwing myself around like some floozy,” Arthur hisses back after a moment. Because, excluding the kiss on the picnic table, when Arthur was maybe drunk or maybe not, he certainly hasn’t been throwing himself around.
“Yeah,” Eames says. “Sure, Arthur. But perhaps if you paid attention, you’d notice that I’m only throwing myself at you.”
“But I--”
“No, I see how it is, Arthur,” Eames says. “This has been a real enlightening chat.”
Arthur stares at him, the lines of his face and the shape of his lips, lips Arthur has kissed three times precisely.
It’s possible, he thinks, that he has misread their entire bipolar courtship, that it might be a courtship after all and not a terribly ill-fated seduction.
He was the one who told Eames not to fuck things up, that night on the picnic table when they’d done nothing but kissed, and Eames hadn’t pushed for anything more. And now Arthur may have been the one to go and fuck things up, asking questions before their answers arose naturally, demanding solutions without trying to understand the context--without trying to understand Eames.
There are so many things Arthur should say right now.
He doesn’t say any of them.
“Can we still saw double buck?” he says, instead.
“Yeah,” Eames says, and his face is unreadable. “Alright.”
Things change, after that.
By which Arthur means, things stop. Eames stops making eye contact with him, and touching him, and talking to him except when absolutely necessary. Eames stops looking at him, and Eames stops walking around with his arms exposed, or his back, and Eames just stops, like he isn’t even Eames anymore, like he’s someone else.
One thing that does start is the dune buggy Arthur keeps in the garage, which is some kind of miracle, and also Ariadne starts lecturing him about being a heartless bitch. She actually calls him that, “heartless bitch.”
The dunebuggy is nice, though, except for all the shit going on in the rest of Arthur’s life.
He and Eames can’t hit their rhythm with double buck, either, which Ariadne says is symbolic and Arthur says is--Arthur just wants to punch her in the face. Arthur’s face punching urges have increased exponentially. Because everyone is hateful.
The solution is obvious, despite all the things Ariadne has to say about Arthur’s stupidity the solution is still obvious, which means it must be extremely so.
“You slept with Nash didn’t you?” Ariadne hisses at him over breakfast.
Which is true. Arthur did sleep with Nash, and it was a terrible idea.
“That’s why just going around falling into bed with people is a terrible idea,” Arthur says. “You saw how much I hurt Nash.”
“Oh my god,” Ariadne says. “Why do I even talk to you? Why does anyone? You are such a dumbass.”
Arthur considers just going along with that, because he knows he’s a dumbass, but he still wants to save face for some reason he can’t explain.
He pushes his biscuits around in their gravy with his fork.
He is talking to Ariadne, he reminds himself.
“I ballsed it up, didn’t I,” he says.
Ariadne beams at him.
“Of course you did,” she says. “Now let’s fix it before your double fuck goes all to shit.”
“Don’t call it that,” Arthur mutters, but he finds he doesn’t really have it in him to complain.
8.
There’s a competition coming up, giving Arthur and Eames a chance to qualify for the Lumberjack World Championships if their time is fast enough. The meet itself is small potatoes, but Arthur and Eames are both bound for the world championships in their individual divisions, so if they can get in for double buck as well it would simply be--better.
That’s the only explanation Arthur can think to for why he’s suddenly so invested in double buck.
When Arthur tells Ariadne that, she gives him a look.
“I can’t believe how much you lie to yourself,” she says.
It’s shit, it what it is. The whole thing.
Arthur goes out to the river for a swim. The river is ice cold and rock-bottomed, and Arthur shucks off everything and dives in, swimming upstream and floating down and trying to rub off his skin, and his fear, and everything.
Fear.
Eames told Arthur he thought he was afraid of something, and of course Arthur is afraid of something, of course he is.
Fuck Eames, Arthur thinks.
Arthur rather wanted to fuck Eames. And he is overthinking it and waiting for things to be broken, expectantly, the way people watch children in antique stores.
So Arthur just avoided bringing his children to antique stores, only then he got drunk and brought them to the door, and then he got sober and took them out of town entirely.
His analogy, he realizes, is going all to shit, so he swims some more.
When he gets back to his house Eames is there, and Arthur is wet and shirtless, and fuck it all if they weren’t supposed to practice today.
“Hello, Eames,” Arthur says.
“You’re late,” Eames says, trailing after Arthur as he goes to find a towel and a shirt.
“Yeah?” Arthur says, and he pulls a towel off the bathroom door and rubs his hair into a moderately dry mess.
“Yeah,” Eames says, sounding annoyed, but he’s watching, Arthur knows he is.
“I had some things to think about,” Arthur says. “You know our double buck is shit, right?”
“God,” Eames says, staring at him now. “You really are--”
“We don’t work together very well,” Arthur continues.
“Are you breaking up with me?” Eames asks, sounding outraged. “Because I can assure you, it’s not me, it’s you.”
It occurs to Arthur, as Eames is leaving, that he may be as terrible at apologies as he is at analogies and understanding people.
“What the hell did you do to Eames, Arthur?” Cobb asks when he calls.
“We really are intrigued,” Mal offers from the other phone.
“Shut up,” Arthur says, and hangs up on them both.
Ariadne calls next.
“I can’t believe you made this even worse,” Ariadne says. “You’re such a dumb fuck, Arthur.”
“I am not,” Arthur mutters, and hangs up on her as well.
When Yusuf calls an hour later, Arthur decides to cut this at the quick.
“Are you calling to tell me what a terrible person I am?” he asks. “Because if so, I already know.”
“No,” Yusuf says. “I’m having a sale next week. But if you are kind of the worst person--”
Arthur hangs up.
Yusuf calls back.
“You know we like you anyway, right?” he tells the answering machine.
Arthur puts his head in the freezer and wonders why he doesn’t keep ice cream on hand.
He leaves his head in the freezer until he gets a headache and wonders how much electricity he’s wasting.
He calls Eames.
“Eames,” he says to Eames’ voicemail. “I think there was a misunderstanding.”
He drinks a beer and tries again.
“Ariadne says I’m a dumb fuck,” he says on the second message.
He finds a pack of warm wine coolers in the garage, and drinks one before leaving a third message.
“Sorry.”
He drinks the another wine cooler.
“I’m drinking fucking wine cooler to leave you these messages, and it’s old and I found it in the garage and it probably came from the person who owned the house before me and I hate it.”
The third wine cooler is, “Sorry I was afraid.”
And the fourth wine cooler, “I was trying to proposition you, you dumbass.”
Somewhere in there Arthur passes out on the porch.
He wakes up in the middle of the night beset by mosquitoes, and pukes in the yard, and goes inside and sleeps on the couch.
In the morning, Eames is sitting in his armchair.
“What the fuck?” Arthur says, starting.
“I don’t think you’re in any place to be asking questions, darling,” Eames says, and he looks lazy and smug, and Arthur has a headache. “But the door was unlocked.”
“I think the juice part of those wine coolers was fermented,” Arthur says.
“That’s not exactly what I wanted to talk about,” Eames says, but there’s a smile playing at his lips.
“Let me eat breakfast,” Arthur says. “I think--this would be better if I were sober.”
“Are you sure?” Eames replies. “Because it seems to me when you’re sober, you’re frigid.”
“Shut up,” Arthur says, rolling from the couch to the floor and landing with a thud. He stands up.
“You want me to be sober,” he continues, jabbing a finger towards Eames. “This is going to be shit, and I’m going to be sober, and you’re going to listen.”
“What?” Eames says, and Arthur glares at him and goes to brush his teeth.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” he says. “Don’t follow me.”
“If you climb out the window--”
“My bathroom doesn’t have a window, so shut up.”
When Arthur’s washing his face, he considers climbing out the bathroom’s nonexistent window.
He doesn’t. He goes to the kitchen, where Eames is already making coffee, and takes out a box eggs.
“How do you like your eggs?” he asks, and Eames stares at him.
“You--”
“How do you like your eggs?” he repeats.
Eames just keeps looking at him, so Arthur just does scrambled for the both of them.
They don’t talk until the eggs and the bacon are done, and Arthur has had three cups of coffee.
“So,” Arthur says slowly, and he can feel Eames’ eyes on him.
“Yes?” Eames says, and Arthur frowns at him.
“I may have misinterpreted some things,” Arthur says. “And because of that--I may have said the wrong things.”
“You think?” Eames mutters, and Arthur glares.
“Are you trying to make this hard on me?” he asks.
“You kind of deserve it,” Eames replies.
“I--” Arthur stares at Eames, and then he stands up, and walks to the other side the table, and puts his hands on Eames’ shoulders.
“I think I can make it up to you,” he says, and then he kisses Eames, properly, for the first time.
Eames tastes like applewood smoked bacon. It’s pretty much the best.
But it’s more than that; it’s Eames’ tongue in Arthur’s mouth, and Arthur falling into Eames’ lap and straddling him on the kitchen chair, and the two of them rutting together clumsily, and then in the rhythm they could never get right for double buck. It’s tipping the chair back into the wall, so their chests are pressed together and Arthur can feel Eames’ nipples pebbling against him, and Arthur’s toes dragging on the tile floor. It’s peeling off t-shirts and tracing Eames’ freckles with his tongue.
“God, Arthur,” Eames shudders, and then he’s biting Arthur’s shoulder, and licking his way up Arthur’s neck, and sucking on his collarbone like it’s the sweetest thing.
“What do you say?” Arthur whispers. “Properly, this time?”
And then he licks Eames’ ear, and Eames whimpers, which Arthur takes for a yes.
Somewhere in there Arthur ends up with his knees on the cool tile and his lips around Eames’ cock, and decides maybe he’s not so bad at apologies, after all.
Though now he needs to disinfect the chair, where Eames is sitting on his bare ass with ruffled hair and bruised lips, looking smug and sated and lazy.
“So,” Arthur says, pulling on his shirt. “Double buck?”
Eames stares him.
“Is this what it’s going to be like, now?” he asks. “How old are you? Do you not get tired?”
Arthur shrugs, and then Eames gets up and grabs him by the hips, and sits him down in the the chair where Eames had been bare assed a moment before, and they do the whole thing over again but this time Eames is the one on his knees, and Arthur’s the one wondering how old they are, and if this is what it’s going to be like, and how Eames exists in real life with a mouth like that, and a tongue so uniquely skilled.
“So,” Arthur says again, only his voice isn’t as smooth as he’d like it to be, it’s hoarse and breathy, and Eames is smirking up at him from the floor, all Eames, and Arthur doesn’t really know what else to say.
And then by some sort of unspoken agreement, they both go take a shower and then a nap, sprawled out on Arthur’s still made bed, on top of the quilt his mother made for him.
When Arthur wakes up Eames is tracing his back piece with a fingertip, from the roots on his ass up the back of his spine. Arthur rolls over.
“We’re going to saw now,” he says.
“Yeah?” Eames asks, and Arthur throws a pillow at him.
“Because what I was just doing, I could do that with my tongue,” Eames continues.
Arthur makes a noise in the back of his throat he’s ashamed of, and glares at Eames.
“You’re incorrigible,” he says, but it comes out worryingly fond, and Arthur isn’t sure if he’s that easily swayed by kissing and blowjobs or if now he has all sorts of suppressed positive feelings for Eames that are coming out to play.
He goes to his dresser, and pulls on clean clothes while Eames watches.
“Are we really going to do this?” Eames asks, and Arthur twists to look at him.
“What?” Arthur had thought the whole thing was fairly obvious, really.
“This,” Eames repeats.
“Saw double buck? Sleep together?” Arthur asks.
“Both,” Eames says, after a pause.
“Sure,” Arthur says, and he thinks Eames looks maybe disappointed, just for a moment. Like he expected some sort of declaration of love, but Arthur just puts on his shirt and goes out into the kitchen to get Eames’ clothes, tosses them into the bedroom. Only then Eames comes out wearing a t-shirt that’s too tight and definitely Arthur’s, because it’s from the local badassathon, which is a race that involves mountain bikes and bb gun target shooting, and Arthur wins with some frequency. Eames just smirks at Arthur like he’s making a point Arthur doesn’t understand.
It occurs to Arthur that maybe this hasn’t resolved things, just escalated them.
They go outside, and practice sawing, and while their issues haven’t magically resolved the way Arthur had rather hoped they would, the block has been loosened, and they manage to talk through their problems like they hadn’t been able to before, so by the time evening rolls around they’re well on their way to sawing the qualifying time.
“Want me to stay the night?” Eames asks when they go inside for beer.
“I don’t have an extra toothbrush,” Arthur says, then goes in for a kiss to demonstrate that the toothbrush thing is true, he’s not just being an ass.
“Arthur,” Eames says, and it’s somewhere between fond and exasperated, which--Eames could just go home or to the gas station and buy a toothbrush, if he liked.
Eames ends up going home, to sleep and not just to get his toothbrush, and Arthur curls up under his mother’s quilt and wonders why Eames couldn’t just have gotten a toothbrush somewhere, and then Arthur could’ve made him french toast in the morning, and they could’ve kissed bacon and maple syrup.
part 3