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Arthur's father had always told him that if Arthur were just himself then everyone would love him.
Arthur had tried that in high school. All being himself had gotten him were more wedgies than a person should ever have to endure in their lifetime and sitting at home alone on prom night.
But that was high school.
Arthur had looked forward to college with a little more enthusiasm and hope. He had always done well with adults, most of the parents he’d met bemoaning the fact that he wasn’t the friend/boyfriend/study partner of whatever other delinquents their child had chosen to hang out with. He charmed the crap out of parents with his neat hair and even neater clothes and Arthur would always remember the relieved little smile his father cast him when they found out Elizabeth Andrews was pregnant or that Billy Hickson and four of the other transmutation meat-heads who had made torturing Arthur their personal goal in life had ended up in jail for drunk and dismemberment on more than one occasion.
The real world though… Arthur had been sure that the real world would be chock full of these types of adults. People interested in trading ideas and having discussions over coffee and going to movies without there needing to be explosions or boobs.
Yeah, Arthur had thought that the real world was going to be excellent.
College, it turned out, was not the real world Arthur had been longing for. Nor was it full of the types of people who would be impressed by neat clothes and a quiet manner.
Worst among them were the dorm neighbors he'd scored.
Nash, Epsom and Phillip.
As Arthur tossed his jacket onto his bed and only just realized before he sat on it that there was a large stain right in the middle of the mattress which, by the smell of it was once really cheap beer, his only hope was that it came out of a bottle and not Nash.
When he talked to his dad after his first week, Arthur had fought the very strong urge to demand his dad come and collect him, like he had when he’d made his first and only attempt at attending Theurgist camp.
“You makin’ friends?” his dad had asked, and there was such warmth and hope in his voice that Arthur, on one of the very few occasions that he could remember, had lied to his father.
“Yep, loads,” he had reported dutifully. “Uh, actually, that’s the guys comin’ in now,” Arthur had added quickly when he heard the general commotion of his torturers returning from their forage for midday beers, reminding him of hyenas he saw on a documentary on the Discovery channel.
He was the weak little baby buffalo that they fell upon whenever opportunity or boredom took them.
“I’d better go, they’ll be wanting to have lunch.”
“Sure, son,” his dad had said, and he had sounded so damn pleased that Arthur had had to wipe his eyes, burning under his glasses for a moment. “I love you kiddo.”
“I love you too,” Arthur had said.
“Homeopath!” Nash had sneered from Arthur's doorway and Arthur had let his head fall against the wall behind him in defeat.
At his first Contagious Magic lecture, Arthur fell down the stairs leading into the auditorium.
It wouldn’t have been so bad, except that Epsom and Phillip had staple-gunned him onto the floor of his room while Nash sat on him that morning so he’d been running late. The place was pretty much packed when he made his impressive entrance. The whole auditorium erupted with laughter before Arthur even came to an abrupt halt halfway down.
Arthur picked himself up gingerly; scraping himself into the first vacant seat his hand landed on while the laughter was only just dying off. The speaker at the front of the hall, an older man with a stern face and a breathtaking suit instead of the traditional Professorial robes, said something about Jerry Lewis that sent the room into peals of laughter again just as it had been dying off.
The only person not laughing in the whole place was a guy folded gracefully into the chair next to the one Arthur had managed to haul himself into without further incident. “Hey mate, that looked like it hurt. You okay?” the guy asked, concern plain across his features.
“Yeah, m’good,” Arthur managed, pressing his burning face into his sleeve for a moment. The speaker was calling for order as the laughter trickled away once more and everyone’s attention, only momentarily diverted, went back to the projected contagious magic charts at the front of the room.
“No, seriously,” the guy pressed. “You look like you banged your knee pretty bad. Here.”
Arthur startled a little when something warm was pressed against the knee that was, in fact, starting to throb. It was one of the guy's large hands, and as the guy pressed down the warmth changed until the pressure was blessedly cool and perfect, little tendrils of blue mist curling up through the guy's fingers. Arthur risked a glance sideways to see that the guy’s attention had returned to the front of the room. With his free hand he was holding what looked like a complimentary hotel packet of peanut butter to his mouth, sucking on it contemplatively while the other rubbed gently around Arthur’s knee, exactly where it hurt.
“Uh, thanks,” Arthur managed and the guy cut a look at him quickly, peanut butter package tucked into his cheek so the slight grin he offered was a little lopsided. He was wearing a pink polo shirt with one side of his collar flipped up and his hair curling damply at the nape of his neck despite the air conditioning in the auditorium.
Arthur was immediately entranced.
It wasn't until much later that Arthur found out that this was Eames, someone even Arthur had heard of with his admittedly limited access to gossip and social interactions, the most feared student in the whole school.
Arthur did actually have friends. They were an odd mix but Arthur found he tended to attract odd people and he was pretty okay with that. At that moment, Cobb, who seemed to be going for the record number of years in one college without Declaring and Yusuf who was majoring in Alchemy, were hiding out in his room, both with vastly different reasons that Arthur didn't want to hear about.
Finally there was Ariadne who was the scariest woman Arthur had ever met and who he was mostly friends with because he was afraid of what would happen if he wasn't. She was currently fully engrossed in painting Arthur's toenails bright pink and again, he was letting her because he was scared of her.
No one messed with a Necromancer.
"It's not that I don't like other people," Ariadne was explaining when Cobb asked probably for the hundredth time if she didn't have anyone else she could torture instead of them. "Or not have anything better to do, it's just that-"
"You're too creepy for the general populace at large?" Interestingly enough, Yusuf was the only person Arthur had ever met that wasn't scared of Ariadne. She seemed to respect that about him.
"Most people think I raise the dead to use as my unholy puppets."
"You don't?" Cobb asked, raising his eyebrows.
" I did that once at a party. Am I never going to live that down?" Ariadne grumbled, pinching Arthur's little toe between her fingers and bending it to an angle that suited painting even if it didn't suit Arthur's pain threshold. "Besides, I catch hell for any raising I do outside of class. It isn't worth the grief."
"What is it about the deceased that appealed to you exactly?" Yusuf asked and Arthur couldn't tell if he was genuinely interested or just messing with Ariadne. Either was possible when it came to Yusuf.
"Because most of the living suck balls," Ariadne said, finally releasing Arthur's feet and he curled them back to himself gratefully. "Present company excluded except for Arthur of course."
"Hey!" Arthur protested, scowling. "I have a Rune paper due. I could be doing that instead of sitting in my own room being insulted."
Ariadne shrugged, giving him big, innocent eyes that only made her look more terrifying which was impressive to say the least. "I wasn't trying to be insulting, just trying to allow for your preferences," Ariadne said, making a grab for Arthur's other foot that was still mercifully free of polish. Arthur scuttled backwards until he was up against his bed and tucked his foot underneath him to protect his unmolested toes.
"There's only one set of balls Arthur wishes to partake of," Yusuf said sagely and Arthur winced, because he should've known better than to confide in Yusuf of all people, even if he'd been desperate to find out who the tall, broad, accented stranger from his Contagious Magic lecture was.
"Really, whose?" Ariadne asked, eyes sparkling. Cobb groaned and flopped backwards, dropping one of Arthur's pillows over his face which was his way of opting out of the conversation.
"Eames," Yusuf said before Arthur could launch himself across the room to shut him up. Ariadne's eyes grew even wider which Arthur didn't think was possible and even Cobb sat up, looking astounded.
"You're kidding!" Ariadne squealed, wrinkling her nose. "He's so... unsettling."
"Says the Necromancer," Yusuf pointed out and Ariadne swatted him with Cobb's abandoned pillow.
"He's not unsettling. He's just talented," Arthur said, feeling defensive. He knew hardly anything about Eames still and infuriatingly enough, it seemed neither did anyone else. Even Yusuf who had prided himself on knowing everyone's business knew only the vaguest of details when it came to the most notorious student at the school.
"If anyone's a candidate for going dark side, it's that kid," Cobb piped up and now Arthur glared at him. Cobb just shrugged and said, "What? He's a Natural. We all know what happened to the last Natural this school had."
"You don't think he could do that do you?" Ariadne asked, looking equal parts intrigued and appalled.
"Would everyone just shut up?" Arthur snapped, contemplating the benefits of his previous status of having zero friends and how less complicated his life had been.
The next morning, Arthur viewed the cafeteria through sleep-deprived eyes. He hoarded the cheap food they offered students. His scholarship barely covered his tuition and materials.
There was someone broad and bed-haired over by the coffee station, about to fill their overlarge thermos with what looked like the last of the pre-made coffee and Arthur couldn't help but make a small exhale of protest that was unfortunately loud enough for the coffee pourer to hear.
Arthur blinked because it was Eames, who looked from his thermos to Arthur’s empty mug and then back at the now empty coffee pot and gave him a small, apologetic smile. “Oh, wow. Sorry mate,” he said and Arthur was about to wave it off, like everything else in his life that didn't go the way he wanted it to but then had to stare dumbly as Eames poured half the contents of his thermos into Arthur’s mug without being asked. “No one should have to try and get through a day without the almighty bean.” Eames passed a hand over both receptacles and they filled to the top. Eames smiled in a self-conscious and completely charming way and added, "I've never been able to create from scratch but I'm a master at increasing mass that's already there."
Eames’ smile started to falter after a few moments and Arthur realized he'd been staring and blinked, looking away. Eames’ shoulders were broad and his hips narrow and there was the edge of a protection tattoo peeking out from his shirt collar where it had been pulled sideways by his messenger bag. He didn't look like anyone Arthur had ever met, anyone real. Arthur didn’t think people looked like that outside of movies. Arthur was suddenly all too aware of his clunky glasses, wrinkled suit pants and untucked shirt.
“Thanks,” Arthur blurted finally, probably a little too loud and a lot too late because Eames kind of flinched and his smile dimmed further.
“Hey, no problem,” Eames said, starting to turn away. Arthur could see Eames was holding a stack of the little complimentary peanut butters in his fist and Arthur blurted, “You must like peanut butter.”
Eames looked at his hand and kind of laughed, blushing. “Oh yeah. It’s a good, and more importantly free sugar and protein hit.” Eames was still half-turned away and Arthur racked his brain desperately, trying to think of something to keep him talking, make him interested. He shouldn’t have worried though because Eames’s eyes widened when he spied what was jammed under Arthur’s arm.
“Is that a hat?” he asked, nudging his thermos in its direction and Arthur held it up.
“Yeah,” he allowed, because okay, it was purple, had ear flaps and a bobble on the top but his mother had made it for him and he loved her so he wore it. Plus, “You lose most of your body heat out of your head. Anyone without a hat in this kind of weather is crazy.”
“I’m sorry, but anyone in that hat looks crazy,” Eames laughed. “And the head thing is a myth.” He carefully pocketed his peanut butter packets and made a grab for the hat but Arthur twisted enough that Eames’ fingers merely skated Arthur’s ribs.
“My mother made it,” he spat. “You do not insult a guy's mother.” When Eames looked embarrassed, Arthur held up the hat, shaking it a little. “My mom never really had much of a call to hand-knit hats, as you can probably tell.”
“I’m Eames,” the guy introduced after giving Arthur an amused once-over. Arthur tucked the hat back under his arm so he could take Eames’ proffered hand.
"I'm Arthur and yeah, I know," Arthur said and when Eames' face fell a little again, probably wondering what stories Arthur had heard and prejudged him on, Arthur was quick to add, "You're in my CM lecture. You're always correcting Mr. Saito. I think you pretty much walk into class with your hand raised."
Eames grimaced and dropped his gaze to his feet. "So you think I'm an arrogant bastard, right?" Eames asked and Arthur could see, despite most of his face being ducked down and sideways, Eames was blushing again.
"If anyone, I think Saito's the arrogant bastard," Arthur said and smiled, because he may not have known much about social interactions but he figured a safe bonding topic would always be how crappy a teacher was, especially one that seemed intent on calling Eames out as often as possible like it was his personal duty to pierce the mystic that surrounded Eames' apparent talent.
Eames' face did something funny, freezing in the half-smile he'd been wearing and he turned, hooking a thumb behind himself. "I have to go, it was nice meeting you," he said and was gone before Arthur could figure out just what the hell he'd done wrong.
Arthur was late to Contagious Magic again because Nash and Phillip used a Bonding spell to glue him to his closet in his dorm room. Eames was in a seat closer to the front of the lecture hall but there was a boy with pale skin, light blue eyes and big boots sitting in the seat next to him and the only free seats left were right up the back.
Arthur didn't make as much of a production of his entrance as his first class and managed to get seated with the person next to him barely lifting an eyebrow. Arthur tried to concentrate but all he managed to do for an hour was stare at the back of Eames’ head and on one heart-thumping occasion, Eames’ profile, when the boy next to Eames seemed to ask him something and he turned to answer him.
He had one of those damn peanut butter packets rolled up and sticking out of his mouth like a cigarette. Arthur chuckled at the sight and the guy beside him gave him a shifty-eyed look, like he just realized he was sitting next to the crazy guy on the bus.
Arthur rushed back to his dorm room right after class to thwart whatever torture was in store for him, but only after watching Eames just like last time immediately bee-line for Mr. Saito when the class was over and knowing he had no way of catching him.
"I'm doomed," Arthur groaned, dropping face first onto Ariadne's bed an hour later. He wasn't sure how but she'd become his sort-of best friend.
"If you keep pressing your face into that pillow you are," Ariadne agreed. "Then again, go ahead. You know it'll be fun to make you do embarrassing stuff when you're dead."
"You're the creepiest person I've ever met," Arthur opined but he did unearth his head, mostly because he couldn't be a hundred percent sure Ariadne was joking. She was watching him contemplatively when Arthur’s face emerged.
"And why is it you're doomed more on this day than any other in particular?" Ariadne asked. When Arthur opened his mouth, Ariadne held her hand up and shook her head. "No, let me guess. Has an accent, tattoos and crooked teeth?"
"His teeth aren't crooked," Arthur immediately snapped and Ariadne just smirked at him.
"Oh wow, you are doomed," she said, reaching up to poke Arthur in the side. He squirmed away and reached out a foot to nudge her out of poking distance.
"How do people usually go about something like this?" Arthur asked, sitting up and crossing his legs, dropping his hands on his knees. "I know there must be some kind of process because I see people all day everyday that have figured it out."
"Firstly, I wouldn't call it a process," Ariadne said, rolling her eyes. "You make it all sound so clinical. There's no handbook."
"Of course not," Arthur said, tone one of complaint. "That would make it all too easy."
"How about you do something really whacky and talk to the guy," Ariadne proposed.
"I have."
"Oh yeah? When?"
"The other day in the cafeteria. He created coffee for me." Arthur made a face and amended,
"Well, he didn't create coffee so much as-"
"Boring, boring, boring," Ariadne dismissed with an airy wave of her hand. "Tell me the good part where you were charming and asked him out." Ariadne looked at Arthur carefully, watching him flush a dull pink and snorted. "Sorry, tell me the part where you made a complete ass of yourself."
"He introduced himself."
"That's good."
"Right before he ran away from me as fast as he could."
"Um, not so good," Ariadne allowed, waggling a hand in the air. "But introducing himself. That's a definite sign."
"Of what?"
"That he doesn't think you're a complete creeper?"
"You think?" Arthur said, feeling hopeful.
"How should I know?" Ariadne said with a shrug. "I don't dance around the subject. I just say, hey Yusuf, I think you're cute, want to hook up?" Ariadne smacked a hand over her mouth but it was too late. Arthur let out a surprised bark of laughter. "Forget I said anything."
"Never going to happen," Arthur said gleefully.
Arthur got a package in the mail and ripped it open to find another garish hat, this time purple, and a number of his mother’s cookies which were thankfully much better made. There was also an envelope that had two tickets to a showing of a play in a small theatre nearby. There was a hand-written note attached that said, Take someone special.
Arthur, in a stroke of uncharacteristic luck, ran into Eames between classes while the tickets and the note of his father’s were still plaguing his thoughts. “Oh, hey,” Eames said, sounding distracted. He’d just finished coughing hard and he had a sheaf of paperwork clutched in his hands, a red pen sticking out of his mouth where his usual peanut butter packet was.
“Hi,” Arthur said uncertainly. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just a cold,” Eames said, waving an it’s nothing hand.
Before he could chicken out, Arthur managed to blurt, “DoyouwannagoseeaplayIgottwotickets?” all in one walloping breath that left him gasping at the end.
“What?” Eames asked, lowering his papers and raising his eyebrows.
“I got… two tickets to this play. I just thought, would you like to go?”
Eames looked about for a second, like maybe Arthur was talking to someone else. Arthur felt his whole face heat and he just knew he was blushing furiously but he couldn’t stop. He just wanted to run screaming but he stood his ground because Eames hasn’t actually laughed at him for the very idea of it, which was a positive sign, surely. “You don’t even really know me,” Eames said instead of the resounding ‘no’ Arthur was expecting. “I mean, it sounds grand but… why me?”
Arthur thought he might actually get punched if he told Eames what he wanted to, which was that he thought Eames was the nicest, most beautiful boy in the world and instead in a strangled whisper said, “You’re really one of the only people I do know.” He grinned ruefully for a second and amended, “at least, who isn’t crazy or likely to use me for an unholy agenda.”
Eames kind of smiled at that like he didn’t really get it but was willing to play along. “Which play is it?”
“The World Of The Dream.”
“Oh cool. I’ve heard of that. Apparently way more mutilation than your average play. When is it?”
“Friday,” Arthur supplied, digging the tickets out of his back pocket and stuffing his dad’s note that had been wrapped around them hastily away.
“I've got a job interview Friday,” Eames said, and Arthur tried not to let his disappointment show on his face. He wasn’t generally a brave person and he didn’t know if he would ever scrape together the courage again to ask Eames anywhere. Before he could give up hope completely though, Eames said, “I could meet you there a little late, though? I might miss the first act but the really gory stuff doesn’t happen till halfway through.”
“Yeah, sure,” Arthur said, nodding hard. He separated the tickets with a cardboard rip and offered one to Eames. “You can meet me inside. I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Won’t it be dark?”
“I think you’re pretty hard to miss,” Arthur said and then bit his lip.
“Okay, Friday,” Eames agreed and then was gone, swept up by the press of humanity moving into the subway station.
“It’s a date,” Arthur breathed a little giddily.
Arthur's sister of course called that night to inform Arthur that she was coming into town the Friday that he had successfully asked Eames out and they needed to have dinner.
“I can’t,” Arthur said. “I’ve got a d-…I’ve got something planned.”
There was silence for a second, muffled like Annabelle had a hand over the phone and then she said, “Really?"
“I don’t know,” Arthur started to say but then paused, because after the play he’d been thinking about asking Eames to coffee or something but Eames was big and bright and vital in a way that Arthur hadn’t encountered before and Arthur wasn't sure he would pluck up that kind of courage twice in one week.
“Okay, I'm in for the weekend so maybe Saturday?"
"Sure."
Arthur wasn't exactly surprised when Eames stood him up. He did keep an eye out, staying close to the entrance of the theatre where the ticket office was for an embarrassingly long amount of time, however.
He waited the entire two and a half hours outside and watched most of the audience leave before he gave up and walked the fifteen minutes back to his dorm, hands thrust deep in his pockets. All that time he’d kept imagining Eames running up, out of breath and cheeks pink with a sorry I was late, I got held up but I still wanted to come rushing from his mouth but the fantasy shredded like the late evening mist he walked through.
The dorms were deserted when Arthur made it back, the detritus left over from a dorm party littering the common rooms and hallways so Arthur spent a few moments clearing up. Most of the empties he cleaned up were clustered around his doorway anyway and as Arthur created a path between his doorway and the stairs, he cast a defeated eye over the rest of the carnage.
Arthur was hauling a bucket of empty beer bottles into the shared bathroom when he saw someone slumped inside. He boggled at the perfection of the crappy ending to a crappy night, having to chase a drunken moron out of the dormitory before he paused in the doorway and recognized the inelegant sprawl of limbs and hair.
“Eames?” he said, darting into the bathroom and putting hands to Eames’ shoulders. The skin of Eames’ shoulders through his shirt was slick with sweat and hot to the touch and Arthur tried to insinuate an arm between Eames and the toilet which was the only thing holding him upright.
Eames’ face and neck were hotter to the touch than his shoulders had been which Arthur didn’t think was possible.
Arthur in a panic got them a cab to the emergency room. Luckily, there were two paramedics having a smoke before they got back into their rig in the emergency bay and they noticed Arthur trying to heft a guy bigger than himself out of the back of the cab and ran to assist.
Arthur watched them wheel Eames through the large, heavy white doors, gnawing on his thumb and at a loss what to do.
An intern found Arthur in the waiting room, pacing.
“Are you his…?”
“Friend,” Arthur said. “I’m his friend.”
“He must have been sick for days,” the intern said, eyeing Arthur in a way Arthur didn't like. “His body was exhausted and dehydrated. We’re giving him a broad-spectrum Healer and lots of fluids. Is there anyone you can call for him? Family maybe?”
“I don’t…” Arthur felt like an idiot because he didn't even know if Eames had a family.
“Didn’t he have anything on him?” he asked.
The intern sighed and shook his head. “His In Case Of Emergency contact was a Mr. Saito. When we called him the man said he’d never heard of your friend. Do you know him?”
Arthur was thrown. He couldn't fathom why Eames would have their Contagious Magic lecturer as his emergency contact but he also had no idea why Saito would profess not to know Eames. “Um, no,” Arthur said numbly.
“He’s going to be out of it for a little while and there’s follow-up herbs he needs to take. I can’t release him without-”
“I can,” Arthur interrupted. "I mean, he can come home with me. I can take care of him.”
The intern took a moment to give Arthur a speculative look but seemed to see something that satisfied him because he grunted and then nodded his head. “Right,” he said and turned, relieving a nurse of a plastic bag with a couple of orange bottles in it. “He’ll need to take these when he wakes up and lots of fluids and I mean lots.”
Arthur took the offered bag and the script the intern handed over. “Get this filled by your local herbalist,” he instructed. “And tell the poor kid to get some rest once in a while. Plus, I’m not really happy with his weight considering his height. Make sure to get some good, solid food into him.”
Arthur nodded, taking in all the instructions and then gratefully accepted the intern’s offer to spring for a cab. He was helping them free up a bed and he knew the intern had little choice.
Eames’s head was on Arthur’s shoulder for the trip back to the dorms.
All of Saturday, Arthur sat by Eames’ bedside. He couldn't move because Eames was dead to the world but had still managed to clamp onto one of Arthur’s hands, hugging it to his chest.
Arthur called Annabelle and cancelled on her for their dinner. She was a little annoyed but also proud, assuming Arthur's date had gone very well. Arthur felt like an ass for not correcting her assumption.
Arthur made a corner deli run to grab some good coffee and a couple of bagels. Eames was awake and blinking when Arthur returned, looking disorientated. He seemed a little reassured when he spied Arthur hovering. “Hey,” he said, voice sounding scraped raw. “What happened?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Arthur asked gently, sinking back into his post by the bed.
“Um, I went to the interview,” Eames said, shaking his head. “It was only seven when I was done and I knew the play wasn’t till eight so I headed over... here I guess?" Eames said, looking about the room. "But I wasn’t feeling so hot so I ducked into the bathroom to just put my head down for a sec.” Eames made an almost helpless gesture. “How long have I been out?”
“It’s Sunday,” Arthur said and Eames winced.
“Oh hell,” Eames sighed, lying back for a moment but then he startled upright again. “Am I… oh bugger, am I taking your bed?”
“S’okay, really,” Arthur said, waving Eames off and physically moving to restrain him when Eames moved to get up. “I was just about to make some very manly chili so you should just lie back, rest a bit and then we can eat something and see how we go from there.”
“Oh, okay,” Eames accepted and he looked grateful.
“So,” Arthur started, moving towards the hot plate set atop his desk to heat up the chili he’d made and then didn’t feel like eating the night before. “How come Saito is your in case of guy?”
“Oh, right. Um, I guess I should’ve told you that we were together. I mean, he doesn’t like me telling anyone because he’s worried how it’ll look and it's really cliché to be sleeping with your student but he’s not taking advantage of me or anything.”
Arthur was grateful his back was to Eames because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to hide his shock from Eames’ easy confession. “Oh yeah?” Arthur said, not able to think of anything else.
“He’s really great and he… did they call him? Does he know?” Eames asked, brow furrowing in worry.
“Oh, uh, no. I don’t think so. I said I could take you home so they didn’t worry.”
Arthur was starting to be disturbed by how easy lying was getting.
“I bet he’s frantic. Would you drop by his office tomorrow and let him know I’m okay if I’m not up and around?”
“You don’t want to call him?” Arthur asked and Eames shook his head.
“Oh, no, he only ever calls me. He says it’s too risky for me to call him outside of school, you know? For both of us.”
Arthur bit his lip because Saito sounded like he was getting everything he wanted from Eames
without needing to give anything in return and it just made Arthur’s stomach hurt to think about it. He decided changing the subject was the better part of valor in that particular instance.
“Chili’s done and I think I have some rolls left from Thursday that shouldn’t be too hard.”
Eames perked up at the mention of food and Arthur couldn't help but smile back.
On Monday morning, Saito waved Arthur in when he tapped politely on his door.
“I just wanted to let you know that Eames was okay,” Arthur said and Saito’s eyes widened slightly before he darted to his door and closed it, pressing his back against it when he did.
He visibly schooled his features and then smiled in what Arthur assumed was supposed to be a disarming manner. He was a handsome man but something didn't sit right with Arthur, that feeling of wrong in his gut. It might have been the way the boy with the pale blue eyes and chunky boots that had been sitting next to Eames in the lecture the week before had hustled out of Saito’s office right before Arthur came in.
“Oh that’s very good,” Saito said, nodding. “I noticed he wasn’t at his desk and he rarely misses a day here.”
“I just want to know why you would tell the hospital you didn’t know him? Why you didn’t come to see if he was okay.”
Again, Saito’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “Andrew, is it?”
“Arthur,” Arthur corrected with his jaw clenched.
“Right, Arthur. Look, I’m sure we can work something out here, huh my friend?”
“What?”
“That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? You know about my little… indiscretion and you want... something.”
“I… what?” Arthur spluttered.
Saito’s phone rang right at that moment and he made an annoyed sound and darted around his desk to pick it up. Arthur was left gaping as Saito waved a piece of paper at him until Arthur took it. “It’s fine, we'll work something out,” Saito said to him right before he picked up and Arthur backed out of the office, not entirely sure what had just happened.
When he looked at the paper he'd been handed he felt his heart sink.
It was a Contagious Magic final exam, the one they were due to take next week if the date at the top of it was any indication.
Arthur tore it up and dropped it in the trash disgust.
In the afternoon, Arthur returned to his dorm room. Arthur just nodded numbly in return when Eames flashed him a grin. On the walk home, Arthur had taken a moment to copy Saito’s very distinctive signature from one of their form letters at the bottom of a simple note for Eames.
Eames, for his part, flushed with pleasure when he read the note, which simply said Get better soon, love S. “I’ve never seen him commit anything to paper. Usually he’s so careful,” Eames said slowly, looking radiantly happy and Arthur felt mixed about it, glad that Eames was pleased but also angry that Saito was, if not taking advantage of, certainly taking for granted a guy so obviously and completely in love with him.
“Wow. Is there like, a store for uptight clothes that you shop at exclusively?” Eames
asked, startling Arthur out of his quiet seething. Arthur looked down at himself, appraising with a critical eye his sweater vest and pinstripe pants.
Eames on the other hand was wearing a vintage-looking AC/DC shirt and a pair of jeans that sat almost obscenely low on his hips. He'd been wearing the same outfit, except when he was peeled down to a pair of Arthur's boxer shorts in bed, for the better part of two days but he still looked casual and indescribably perfect and also effortless which Arthur had never managed.
“What?”
“Okay, whatever,” Eames huffed, pocketing his wallet. “Anyway, I’d better make tracks.”
Arthur remembered the orders about Eames being watched and more importantly fed and he also thought about his emergency fund that his dad had set up for situations of dire need.
He thought this totally counted.
“Why don’t you stay, just another day?” Arthur asked. “We can get some air, get a pizza maybe?”
“I don’t know,” Eames said, but he was still looking a little pale and tired and Arthur latched onto his hesitation.
“Look, I gotta do some washing. You could keep me company at the all-night down the road. Then we’re even.”
Eames hesitated for only a second more but then smiled. “Okay, yeah sure,” he agreed, brightening.
On the way to the Laundromat, Eames steered them into a funky little recycled clothing shop.
“Gimme,” Eames prompted, holding a hand out.
“What?”
“You’re not really attached to that particular hat, are you?” Eames asked. “I know about the whole body-heat thing you believe but it’s not that specific hat that keeps your heat in, is it?”
“I told you, my mom-”
“Seriously?” Eames rolled his eyes.
“Alright, fine,” Arthur sighed and handed it over. Eames immediately put the hat on his own head and incredibly and also annoyingly looked adorable.
“You could’ve at least taken the pom-pom off the top. I mean, what were you thinking?”
“I don’t know. I think the pom-pom was vital to the hat’s structural integrity,” Arthur said, eyeing the way Eames was digging through the shelves and tossing the hats he found into a pile on the table at the side.
“Aha!” Eames crowed in triumph and unearthed what at first glance looked like a perfectly normal, black beanie. When he handed it over, Arthur actually smiled. It felt good in his hands, soft and… then Arthur noticed around the bottom edge, stitched in pink were the words Gangsta Gal.
“Oh yeah, real hilarious,” Arthur snapped and Eames’s eyes went round.
“Sorry, I didn’t even see that. But it’s the only non-ugly in the bunch.”
“I can’t see how wearing this would be better than that,” Arthur protested, gesturing at his hat on Eames's head. If anything, the chances of him being beaten up based purely on hat choice alone seemed to rise exponentially with the girl's beanie.
“No, look. I can fix it,” Eames said and took the black hat back. He rolled the edge up so the wording couldn't be seen and then dug in his bag for a second, coming up with a small badge that had an old-style space invader on it. He pinned that to the edge so it wouldn't roll down and then leaned forward and snugged the hat on Arthur’s head. “Oh yeah, I’m a genius.”
“Where’d you get this?” Arthur asked, touching the badge.
“Dunno. Had it forever,” Eames shrugged and then turned Arthur in the direction of the rust-spotted mirror nearest them. Arthur blinked at himself for a moment because from the neck up he looked… kind of decent. It didn't hurt that he'd gotten decidedly scruffy over the past few days, tending to and worrying more about Eames than his own facial care and he didn't currently look twelve.
“Now, what about this?” Eames asked, grabbing two handfuls of Arthur’s sweater and stretching it outwards to demonstrate that the thing could actually fit both of them in it with room to spare. “Just what do you have under here anyway?”
“How about we take this one step at a time?” Arthur suggested, prying his sweater out of Eames’s hands and stepping away.
“Alright, fine,” Eames said, defeated, handing money over to the bored-looking girl with green hair behind the counter in the shop on their way out. “Let’s go wash all your boring-ass clothes.”
"I saw you come in with Eames this morning," Nash said when Arthur was leaving his room. Epsom had turned around on the couch in the common room as well and raised an eyebrow.
"So?" Arthur snapped, scowling at Nash when he moved sideways to stop Arthur brushing past him.
"You might not want to cut Saito's grass if you want to pass your class, know what I mean?"
"I rarely, if ever know what you mean," Arthur said, throwing up his hands.
"Eames is getting A's the old fashioned way," Epsom snorted, then eyed Arthur for a moment. "I didn't think he'd stoop your level of low though."
"You don't know anything about him!" Arthur practically yelled. "So what if Eames is dating Mr. Saito? It's no one's business except-"
"Wait!" Nash said, holding up his hands. "You mean it's true?"
Arthur felt his stomach drop as Nash and Epsom both looked positively gleeful. "That's what you said," Arthur sputtered.
"Yeah, but I thought it was just one of those bitchy rumors. Oh man, that's classic."
"You can't tell anyone," Arthur said urgently. "I don't think anyone's supposed to know."
"Are you kidding me?" Nash huffed. "I'm going to tell everyone I have ever met in my entire life. Saito's always so self-righteous; this is going to be awesome."
As Nash and Epsom disappeared in the direction of the cafeteria, Arthur turned back around to his door and dropped his head on it, wishing for a convenient hole to come and swallow him up.
Eames was at his door with pizza three days later when Arthur was trying to study.
"Is that-?"
Arthur saw where Eames' attention had landed as soon as he opened the door and intervened, making it to his bed before Eames and snatching up the item that had caught Eames' interest. "My Spellbook Pro," Arthur confirmed, hugging it to his chest.
"Give us a look then?" Eames prodded, setting the pizza aside and hands reaching out as Arthur twisted away from his grasping fingers.
"It's my new Spellbook Pro. I've had it for like, two whole minutes."
"What do you think I'm going to do to it?" Eames asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I don't know. Break it or... make it all sticky or something." Eames just dropped his hands and pouted most infuriatingly. Unfortunately his pout was also extremely attractive and Arthur heaved a put-upon sigh and rolled his eyes. "Fine," he huffed and handed over the sleek black spelltop.
Eames made a happy sound that might have made Arthur's discomfort at trusting Eames wouldn't destroy the most expensive thing he had ever owned the least bit worth it and dropped onto Arthur's bed. He flipped open the spelltop and it immediately announced in a haughty voice that he was not, in fact Arthur and shut itself down. "Bloody security," Eames grumbled, did a few complicated looking things with his hands, furrowed his brow and muttered something.
The spelltop booted back up and if Arthur wasn't mistaken, was actually purring. "Just for once, would it be so terrible if something liked me best?" Arthur protested and Eames didn't even glance up at him when he said, "Got that covered."
Arthur tried to ignore the warm and hopeless feeling in his chest that blossomed at Eames' words. A loud bang at his door had Arthur tensing and Eames raising an eyebrow. Arthur opened the door and his heart sank to see Nash and Epsom, both smirking. "What do you want?" he asked, trying to move in the doorway to block the fact that Eames was present but Arthur was too slight for that. Nash shouldered Arthur aside so he actually stumbled and Eames was up in a flash, face drawing into a frown, setting the spelltop aside on Arthur's desk gently.
"Alright mate?" Eames said, voice a low growl and again Arthur fought the urge to be pleased. He knew that Nash and Epsom's arrival wouldn't mean anything good.
Epsom was looking between Eames and Arthur and grinning. "Arthur, you might be a dweeby little loser but you're also a genius," Epsom said, clapping his hands together. If anything, Eames' body tensed further when he glanced Arthur's way. "We transferred into Saito's class and he gave us the same deal as you."
Arthur suddenly felt cold as Eames asked slowly, "What deal?"
"Oh man, it's perfect. I didn't realize you guys had come up with this together," Nash continued, hopping from foot to foot. "Now all we gotta do for next year is pick classes with desperate losers, Eames can seduce them and we can all sail through."
"Arthur, what are these two gentlemen talking about?" Eames asked slowly, the blotches of color appearing on his cheeks the only giveaway that he was disturbed by where this conversation was going in the slightest. His voice and face were both flat, blank.
"You and Saito. Arthur went to him and got him to give him the next test paper so he'd keep quiet about you two doing the nasty. We didn't know he had it in him."
The color drained out of Eames' face as fast as it had appeared. Arthur put a hand up and out, meaning to grab Eames' shoulder but Eames ducked away, making it to the door before Arthur could get a word out. "No, that's not-" Arthur tried but Eames was gone. Epsom leaned out the doorway and yelled after him, "You'll let us know, right?"
Arthur made to run out of the room after Eames but bounced off Nash who shoved him back onto his bed. "Thought you could keep a scam like that to yourself, huh?"
"It wasn't a scam!" Arthur yelled, popping up again. Nash was still grinning and in a fit of madness, Arthur reached out and grabbed the first thing his hands came into contact with and smacked Nash sideways with it.
His Spellbook Pro.
The crunch of glass and Nash's wail of protest were nothing to Arthur. He darted around Nash and past Epsom who was only watching him with a dumbfounded expression, but by the time he reached the hallway, went down the stairs and hit the pavement outside his dorm building, Eames was nowhere in sight. He got back to his room, legs feeling a million times heavier as he made it up the stairs to find Epsom and Nash still loitering, Nash clutching his bleeding cheek. "You're crazy," Nash complained.
Arthur advanced on Nash, gratified to see Nash lean backwards and Epsom scuttle out of the way. "If you come near me ever again," Arthur growled, "I will find something much more heavy and sharp to bury in your skull."
"I want to do a different exam," Arthur said and Saito blinked at him.
"Do you want to do an easier one? I have to make it look like you made some kind of effort of course but-"
"No, I want to do a different exam," Arthur repeated. "I ripped the one up you gave me but I just want to make sure we understand each other. I won't say anything about you and Eames but it's not because you gave me the test in advance." Arthur took a steadying breath. "You're what he wants and even though I think you don't deserve him, I'm also not the one who gets to decide that."
"So, it's not the most ideal way for people to find out, but Saito said since the cat's out of the bag he might as well have me live with him in sin," Eames said over lunch the next Saturday. He'd appeared at Arthur's apartment and Arthur had expected the worst when Eames had asked him to go grab a sandwich. "It’s much better than living on Mal’s living room floor and I have much less chance of getting my neck stepped on in the morning."
"I'm really sorry," Arthur apologized for the fifth time in an hour and Eames waved a dismissive hand.
"Apparently Saito has talked to those guys again and they're not going to blab. No harm, no foul." Eames took a moment to devour half of his triple-decker sandwich in one huge bite. Arthur could imagine the talk Saito had with his less than noble dorm mates. "He also made it very clear that you had come to his office with the express purpose of being all noble and crap."
Eames was looking at Arthur speculatively as he polished off his sandwich and made a grab for Arthur’s. "How attached to that shirt are you?"
Arthur was half out of his shirt in the changing room with about twenty in a pile on the chair near his leg when the curtain whipped back and he heard, "Holy crap."
"What?" Arthur huffed, voice muffled because he currently had shirt where his face usually was.
"No, I just... I had no idea..." Eames said, sounding startled and Arthur really wished he could see his face to know what the hell he was talking about. Arthur finally managed to struggle out of his shirt, looking completely uncoordinated and dorky he was sure, to find Eames staring at him. Arthur crossed his arms over his embarrassingly narrow chest.
"What?"
"You've been hiding that..." Eames started to put a hand out, fingers almost on Arthur's sternum when he seemed to remember himself and snatched his hand back with a nervous-sounding laugh. "So c'mon. Hurry up and give me a fashion show when you're done," Eames said as he backed quickly out of Arthur's change room, leaving Arthur blinking in curiosity after him.
Arthur only saw Eames from a distance for the next few weeks after their shopping trip, always talking into a little spellphone that he seemed to have perpetually clipped to his ear, looking frazzled and tired. Every now and again Arthur would see Eames heading in his direction, would hear the shrill of Eames's phone and see Eames make a frustrated face and dart away at the last minute.
There was a little cafe on the corner down from the school and he was surprised as hell to find Eames in it on a Sunday afternoon, spelltop open, papers strewn across his table and four large coffee cups stacked into each other. Arthur was about to duck out because he'd realized it hurt to see Eames this way when Eames spotted him and his whole face lit up.
"Hey," he said, trying to shove enough papers aside that Arthur would have space to put his Danish and coffee down. "You mentioned you come here sometimes and I thought I'd try it."
Eames looked tired and thinner if possible, his hair lank about his face. When Arthur opened his mouth, Eames' spellphone shrilled to life, buzzing across the table. Eames looked at it for a moment with his eyebrows pulled together before he finally picked it up. Eames winced as soon as phone met ear and there was the sound of someone yelling on the other end. Eames listened for a few minutes before he tried to interject. "I was just...only half an hour or so... no... yes I was going to... no, I wasn't going to forget!" Eames snapped the phone closed and smiled gamely when Arthur raised an eyebrow at him. "There's a lot of pressure on Saito, especially because of me," Eames said.
"Uhuh," Arthur said.
"Oh hey, so listen. They're doing a play called Extraction at that little theatre that The World Of The Dream was on at. I know it's not supposed to be as gory but could be fun?"
Arthur couldn't believe he was going to say this but, "I don't think I can." Arthur knew that it was particularly self-destructive to keep hanging out with Eames considering he'd come to the slow but sure realization that he was in love with him. He could have tried just being friends but he knew he needed some distance before he could actually separate Eames from his feelings enough to be able to.
When Eames' expression fell, Arthur knew he had to leave or he would change his answer just to wipe the tragic puppy-dog look off Eames' face. "I meant to get this to go because my sister's in town and I stood her up last time so..." Arthur started to stand, waving at the door with his hand with the Danish and Eames seemed to rally, a smile curving his mouth even if it didn't reach his eyes.
"Oh, yeah sure. Just... let me know if you change your mind," he said, also standing and starting to scrape together his papers.
“It’s just.” Arthur hated the disappointed expression on Eames’ face and knew he deserved the truth. “I don’t want to be your friend.” When Eames blinked, looking almost like Arthur had punched him in the stomach, Arthur rushed to add, “I don’t want to be just your friend and I don’t think it’s fair on either of us for me to hang around and gather up any crumbs of attention you can spare me. I have to move on... I need to move on. I’m really sorry if you think this is selfish but for once I’m going to have to be that, selfish.”
Arthur didn't exactly scurry out of there, but it was a close thing.
Arthur got back from dropping his sister back at her hotel after lunch and a long day of shopping, both of them agreeing they would have killed each other if forced to spend any great deal of time in Arthur's tiny dorm room, to find Eames sitting outside his front door.
Eames was asleep sitting up, an overlarge pizza box balanced precariously on his knees. Arthur hunkered down and set the pizza aside carefully before shaking Eames's shoulder. Eames snorted and wiped at his mouth with a grimace before he realized that Arthur was balanced in front of him. Eames blinked and smiled sheepishly. "Hey."
"Hi," Arthur answered. "Um, what are you doing here?"
"I've been an idiot," Eames said, allowing Arthur to pull him upright when Arthur stood. Eames immediately stepped on the pizza, looked down and swore. "More so than usual apparently," he said with a roll of his eyes, sweeping the squished pizza box sideways.
"How in this particular instance?" Arthur asked, trying to squash down the thrill of hope thrumming through him.
"Saito treated me like his PA, even in his house," Eames huffed, spreading his hands out in a can you believe it gesture.
"So, why are you here?" Arthur asked again.
"I like you, everything about you. I was just too dumb to realize it. Even the way too uptight sweaters are starting to seem charming," Eames said in a rush, tugging on Arthur's latest that was a dark green with blue stripes. "I even like that I haven't seen you once wear anything we bought together."
"They're all casual clothes. I didn't want to waste them at school or risk them getting destroyed when Nash and Epsom inevitably staple or glue or jinx me to something," Arthur sniffed and Eames laughed, but his face fell at Arthur's wary expression. "Look, I don't want to be the lesser of two evils," Arthur said slowly.
"You're not!" Eames said quickly, hands coming up and patting the air just in front of Arthur. "When I was with Saito it was a secret and it was so thrilling that I didn't see how bad it was. You on the other hand, you're nice and funny and hiding an amazing body under the fifteen million layers you wear."
Arthur blushed and looked at his feet, then his door. "I don't want to be a safe alternative either," Arthur started to say but that's when Eames grabbed his face and sort of yanked him forward until they didn't so much as kiss as collide at the lips. They stayed locked together though, Eames's arms dropping to around Arthur's waist and Arthur's arms curling up and around Eames's neck. They broke apart finally and Eames grinned.
"You were never the alternative. What I didn't see was that you were the only option for me," Eames said, tugging Arthur back in.