Originally written/posted: January 2012
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Pairing: Eames/Arthur
Rating: PG-13
Universe Notes: High School!AU
Warnings: This is a prom!fic. There are multiple discussions/references to sex but this fic is SFW.
Word Count: 6,600 words
Notes: I was once really proud of this. I have not reread this at all, but I did want to share the original summary, which I think still slaps: ‘Arthur’s life is not a John Hughes movie, and Eames isn’t the jock who saves Arthur from a high-school career filled with lonesome nights and too much homework. But he is the boy who takes him to prom.’
Arthur’s life is not a John Hughes movie.
But it seems to manage to get closer to one everyday.
He’s a normal high school student, with a normal high school student’s mundane tasks. He wakes up every morning at precisely five-thirty (even though school doesn’t really start until 7:15) and he leaves school by two-fifteen every single afternoon. He does his homework entirely, because he’s not going to be one of those idiots who flunk their classes because they’re too lazy to apply themselves — and his mother kind of won’t stop bothering him about it anyways. He’s only got four real friends and out of those four he only trusts two with his life, wherein he’s also willing to risk his life for them.
Lately, his life has been changing drastically and he’s not too sure how he feels about this. He no longer puts aside three hours for homework every night — he’s bordering now on two hours, sometimes less — and he doesn’t sit by himself at lunch anymore. His weekends aren’t completely free anymore because half of the time he’s with Eames and the other half he’s with Ariadne and there’s a part of him that really should be annoyed about this, but he’s not.
He enjoys it more than he’ll ever care to admit and he doesn’t usually admit something like this to himself, especially when that something involves a certain British exchange student named Eames. The new exchange student who had arrived at the school only a mere two months earlier wasn’t someone that Arthur had intended to get involved with, it like many things in high school, just ended up happening. He was supposed to stay away from Eames, much like he avoids everyone else in school, because he’s generally too sophisticated and witty for the narrow-minded teenagers that he goes to school with.
But like many things in his life lately, he hasn’t been sticking to his original plan — or rather, that plan started falling out of place when he met Eames.
It had been an accident, a cliche’ John Hughes movie accident that really had been the first sign that he should have avoided Eames at all costs. It was an innocent collision of bodies in the North Wing hallway, right outside of Arthur’s AP Literature class and he was rushing to get to his Pre-AP-Calculus class — the school has a stupid rule where only Seniors can take AP Calculus. Eames who had literally sprouted up out of nowhere, like a fucking Pokemon being released from a PokeBall, ran into him, almost knocking him down in the process.
“Why, fancy bumping into you here,” he had said, a mischievous glimmer to his eyes like he had planned this and an easy, almost sleazy smile that made his all-too-plump lips stretch to their limit.
He had grey-blue eyes with a hint of gold and green to them and Arthur had honestly never seen anything like them. His nose was slightly off-balance which had meant that he had probably had it broken at least twice and when he smiled he showcased beautiful crooked teeth that made Arthur’s heart swoon more than he thought was possible.
“Watch where you’re going next time,” he replied once he was finally able to form coherent, put together thoughts again, offered a tight ‘you-better-not-fuck-with-me-again’ smile and slid past him into the crowd.
And now, two months later they are… well, Arthur doesn’t know what they are. They go to Arthur’s house and tumble around on his sheets, too eager hands and mouths that are vicious and somehow he ends up liking it all of the same. Quivering fingertips that stroke hesitantly at private flesh and rutting hips and sliding cocks. When they’re done Eames might stay for a few more hours, playing video games with Arthur and even giving his mom cooking advice on how to make the most perfect Shepard’s Pie.
But there’s not public kissing, there’s no public touching other than the occasional arm brushing and they don’t communicate regularly. He’ll get the random text out of the blue from Eames, telling him to meet him somewhere deep in the woods where they’ll have zero chance of getting caught and they’ll fuck against the trees. Fifteen minutes later, he’ll lay Arthur down and fuck his already too-sensitive hole against the leaves and they ache pleasantly against his back.
This is the never ending cycle that had began a month ago and hasn’t ceased since. Every passing week Arthur abides to Eames’ rules of ‘friends with benefits’ – even if Arthur doesn’t really consider them anything more than acquantiances. He wishes he can say that he doesn’t enjoy this, that he wishes that this would evolve into something more — even though he does wish it would evolve into something more — but he can’t, because he’s perfectly fine with fucking Eames because at least he gets to touch him.
And touching him through fits of hot, horny, unprotected sex is enough to keep Arthur coming back for more.
Arthur absolutely despises dances, and school functions that revolve around pumping music, sweaty bodies and teenagers thriving on too many sex hormones and not enough common sense. He’s been to one high school dance and that was homecoming Freshman year; it was the most disgusting, most revolting and inhumane event that he had ever been involved in.
The punch was spiked (like it usually is at events like this, because the teachers are either too blind or too drunk to care), and it tasted nice even if it did make his face flush pathetically. Arthur was naive, young, stupid even so he took glass after glass from his date Nicole and let himself ride the booze that tainted the punch quietly. Halfway through the night he was blubbering about how he really wanted to try the newest version of the Pokemon game and somehow he also mentioned how he’d really like to try cock. And Arthur, who was a little shy of the age of fifteen and barely knew what his sexual orientation even was didn’t see a problem with this — and this was because he was drunk, he would tell himself later, but the truth was that he had never had a problem with it before.
Needless to say, Nicole spread a rumor about Arthur loving cock (and even though he did, he wasn’t emotionally or sexually ready enough for it to get around yet) and the school had basically shunned him since.
Now said shunning isn’t in play so much anymore; everyone is a fan of making fun of him for something that he has no control over. The football players even had the balls to ask him if he’d give them blowjobs, and while Arthur loves cock — more than the average female, he’d say –, he doesn’t want this to turn into something that’s going to get around school. And he’s not the type to do something just because someone asks, either.
He only wants to suck cock if the other party honestly wants it too.
Somewhere along the lines of everyone completely ignoring him to everyone hating him, Eames came along and swept Arthur off his feet — literally. It started with the meeting in the hallway, and gradually grew into something more, something more that he isn’t able to control now. Arthur isn’t sure if he wants to control it either, because what ever they have now, whatever they’re doing currently, feels really good to him. It doesn’t feel one-hundred percent right, but it doesn’t feel any bit wrong either, and that’s good enough for him.
“Arthur,” Ariadne says, approaching him with a smile on her face.
He raises his eyebrows, because Ariadne never smiles like this unless she knows something that he doesn’t, and that usually doesn’t end too well for his sake.
“Ariadne,” He greets.
“Do you know what today is?” She asks, a light skip to her tone, and it makes his mouth lift up at the corners, slightly.
He adjusts his backpack on his shoulders, willing his hands to have something to do, for his fingers to have something to grasp. “Tuesday?”
She swats at his arm. “Smart ass,” she says.
“Fine,” he sighs. “No, I don’t know what today is, but gee, Ariadne, do you want to tell me?”
She glares at him for a moment. “I’m going to ignore that,” she says decisively. “Today’s the first day prom tickets are available.”
He knits his eyebrows together. “And why would I possibly care about this?”
“I thought you’d be interested,” she says, shrugging nonchalantly like it’s the most obvious thing in the world that Arthur would be interested in a school dance — specifically that school dance being prom.
He laughs. “No, you know I’m not fond of dances, especially when it’s prom, which is basically like the great-grandmother-twice-removed-but-won’t-g
et-the-fuck-away to dances,” he says, matter-of-fact.
“You won’t even go if the right person asks you?”
Eames.
His mind immediately jumps to this, but it’s nothing that Arthur can face, nothing that he can deal with now. Eames will never ask him because the Brit doesn’t want anything public and Arthur’s never going to make him change.
“I don’t think that’ll happen,” he says after a moment’s consideration.
She clicks her tongue, and her eyes lighten up in the way that they do when she’s feeling particularly sympathetic about something. “But you’re not completely opposed to it?”
“I don’t think I would be,” he says. “If the right person asks, I think I’d be willing to give it a shot.”
She says nothing more, partly because he doesn’t think that she has anything left to say, and partly because the bell rings. He bids her adieu and gets back to his classes, not even thinking about the dance, and not even thinking about Eames.
It happens on a Sunday, when Arthur’s walking around the house mindlessly, not paying too much attention to anything in particular. Sunday’s are Arthur’s easy days, the days when he doesn’t allow himself to do anything too strenuous besides clean around the house — because he honestly cannot stand clutter or anything slightly resembling it — and doing whatever homework he had pushed off until then. Sunday’s were when football came on and even though he didn’t look like the person who would enjoy it, he was heavily involved in it because of his father.
And his father meant a lot more to him than he ever let on.
Eames hadn’t called or tried to contact him for a few days, and normally that happened sometimes so Arthur tried not to think too much about it — and yet it seemed to be the only thing that his mind could truly focus on.
And Arthur really isn’t one of those characters in movies, the girls who are so obsessed with the guy that they’re interested in that they forget about everything else (and still somehow manage to pass all of their classes, graduate high school, and win the fucking Olympics).
bznn-bzzn.
He looks down on his desk, where his phone is because he’s working on a history project that isn’t due for a few weeks. Arthur’s fast and efficient and he’s the type of guy to get shit done early, so he doesn’t have to suffer through it later.
Even though he shouldn’t, he clicks ‘View Now’ and reads the text message, because he’s more than a little self-depreciating.
From: Eames @ 10:51 A.M.
Are u busy tonight
To: Eames @ 10:53 A.M.
Homework, why?
From: Eames @ 10:54 A.M.
Splendid
Arthur waits for the text that never comes, and manages to finish his history project too. After a shower and some fresh blue and green flannel pants, he tucks himself into bed with ‘I Am The Messenger’, looking for a quiet evening alone. He tries not to think about the weird text messages that he received earlier today from Eames, but this is unavoidable, and a good book should help get his mind off of his inevitable thoughts.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Arthur looks up from his book, about twenty minutes into it — it’s lovely so far, and that’s saying something because it’s hard for Arthur to get into books most of the time –, cocking his head at the noise. It’s only eleven, so it’s highly unlikely that there’s a killer outside his window, because don’t they usually wait till later for that kind of slashing?
It’s a Sunday night and there’s school tomorrow, and all of his friends know that there is a ‘no visiting Arthur after ten on a school night’ rule. He needs his sleep and he’s not willing to sacrifice that for anyone — not even Eames.
He picks up his book that he put on his lap and continues reading, because the odds of it being a branch or something is more likely than it being another human. Not even three minutes later, more tapping begins, and it’s steadier this time, harder and it’s something that he can’t ignore now.
He throws his book to the side, and walks over to the window. He’s not sure what he was expecting, possibly a stray kitten that was tired of being alone outside, or maybe a very insistent branch, but what he sees is nothing that he’s ready for.
Eames is standing at the foot of his yard, looking up at the window with wide, hopeful eyes, and he’s holding a sign in his hand which reads ‘PROM?’ in all capitals. His heart flutters, not because Eames is standing there (maybe a little from this, if he’s being honest with himself) but because the sign is neat and organized, and it’s obvious that Eames made sure that it wouldn’t be too cluttered so it would be up to Arthur’s standards.
“Eames?” He whispers, looking down at the boy that is looking absolutely delectable in a suit that he hadn’t noticed until now. His hair is spiked in the way that he preferred, not too spiky, or high, but just perfect.
“Darling,” he replies, and Arthur imagines that he would’ve took his hand if he were able to. “Go to prom with me?”
Arthur’s heart is beating too loud for him to hear him clearly, but he knows what he says, because he’s memorized the way that the Brit’s mouth curls around words. Truly, how could he not with lips like those? His hands are sweaty and limp at his side, and he’s never been this nervous before, not even when him and Eames started tumbling beneath the sheets, learned and mapped out each others bodies so perfectly, so well.
This is entirely different, because this is the way that his heart truly gets involved here. And Arthur’s afraid, he’s so very afraid.
“I don’t like dances,” he says, not because he’s a pussy, but because it’s true, and Eames knows it’s true.
He doesn’t reply right away; he sets the sign at the base of the tree that he’s standing by, looks up at Arthur and starts to clim-
“Eames!” Arthur shouts, because holy shit, this stupid, insufferable teenager could fall to his death and there’s a part of him that really wants to say yes to him. And he’s not sure why this is, because he hates dances, he hates getting close to someone and sharing sweat when you’re wearing clothes and there’s nothing sexy about sweating in a suit that costs more than the whole dance put together. He doesn’t like dancing with anyone, not even Eames when he tries to get Arthur to slow dance with him in the living room when no one’s watching, thinking that it’ll ‘loosen him up’.
Dancing with Eames will be a disaster waiting to happen, because unlike sex, it’s hard to emotionally detach yourself from something so, so personal. At least with sex, he can pretend that it is a never-ending one night stand, and that it doesn’t mean anything (even when it means so much fucking more) and he can go home and drown himself in his father’s booze.
It’s much easier to lie to yourself when you’re too drunk to think, too drunk to feel, too drunk to do anything but lie down in your own sorrow of knowing that you had to resort to drinking at all.
“Arthur,” Eames says, and he sounds calm, sure, confident. “You’re thinking too much.”
Arthur shakes his head, because he really hates it how Eames knows him so well, and Eames shouldn’t know him this well. Their relationship doesn’t mean anything to him, and for all he knows this could be his twisted way of saying thanks to Arthur, for their fucked up sexual relationship.
“I’m not,” he says.
(He is).
Eames’ face goes dark. “You think I’m not serious with this,” he replies, no question in his voice.
He’s not this easy to read, he really isn’t.
“You’ve shown me nothing to prove otherwise, Eames.”
Eames meets his eyes, his once hopeful eyes, now dark and stormy. It’s not in the good way either, like he looks at Arthur when he’s about to strip Arthur bare, lick his skin raw. “Neither have you.”
Arthur doesn’t fight him, because he knows it’s true. “Why should I when it’s all a game to you?” He asks, rhetorically.
He doesn’t expect an answer, and when the Brit lifts his chin with his fingertips, light and gentle, he doesn’t recognize the anger there for a few moments. “This isn’t a game to me, Arthur. Don’t get me wrong, I love the sex, and I love what we have going here, but I want more.”
Arthur’s throat goes dry, his vision goes blurry and he really wants to pinch himself because this can’t be real. Eames admitting this to him is obviously some sick, twisted dream, or a horrible prank from the boy who has finally figured out that Arthur’s heart is in this more than his cock is.
When he searches Eames’ gaze for anything light and airy, anything to signal that he’s joking, he finds nothing but honesty and love. This doesn’t settle right with his stomach, but it’s not in the bad way like he feels whenever Eames leaves too early, or doesn’t call. It’s in a way that happens when Eames kisses his forehead unconsciously, when Eames accidentally kisses too sweet, too romantic for this to simply be just what it is.
It’s in the way that he feels when Eames smiles at him crookedly, all jank teeth and wide, smooth lips and perfection. It’s in the way that Eames simply is just around him, the way that his voice curls around the words that he speaks, the way that he walks; his accent.
He feels safe, and uneasy but in the best possible way that there could be, the best possible way that he never thought would ever be real.
Arthur looks up at Eames, who is watching him with guarded, masked delightful eyes, because Eames probably knows what he’s going to say to him next. And Arthur calculates his next move, looking at the Brit for any indication that he doesn’t want this, and when he takes his hand, and pulls him close to bring their lips together, all he gets is a soft ‘mmph’ sound.
It happens in a flurry, Arthur pulling, pulling, pulling, and Eames going. He pushes his lips against the other boy’s, molding their otherwise separate lips to each other’s and it’s never felt so perfect. He dives in deep, too deep, letting his tongue slip between the barrier of Eames’ pursed lips, mapping out the already memorized space.
“Is this a yes?” Eames asks, once they pull away, and Arthur isn’t done yet, but he’s never done when it comes to kissing him, if he’s honest with himself.
“Of course,” Arthur says.
The smile that Eames directs at him is one that he’s never seen, it’s full of hope and half whispered conversations that happened when they were too shy to make a move. It’s full of soft kisses and sex that doesn’t have to not mean anything anymore, full of sex that can actually be anything but anonymous. It’s full of long lost love poems and tales of teenagers that fell into the trap of love too quickly, but they ended up okay too.
It’s full of promise of long, romantic dates where they’ll go to the arcade or maybe even the beach or a museum and maybe have a picnic in the park. It’s full of promises of words that they’ve never shared once before, but will be able to share plenty of now.
It’s not full of one simple thing, it’s full of everything; it’s the single most beautiful thing that Arthur has ever seen.
Eames stays over for a while, and they cuddle beneath a Odyssey blanket with tangled limbs and flirting feet, whispered sweet-nothings that shouldn’t mean anything, but end up meaning the world. They stay there for hours, kissing occasionally, but talking mostly and it’s the best time they’ve ever had together.
After Eames has long since been gone, his phone buzzes on his dresser.
He clicks ‘View Now’, knowing that it’s probably from the boy in question.
From: Ariadne @ 12:30 A.M.
Did it happen?
Arthur stares at the text message for a few moments, and ends up making himself a cup of hot cocoa while he’s at it. When it finally occurs to him, he quickly types his reply:
To: Ariadne @ 12:40 A.M.
Done.
From: Ariande @ 12:42 A.M.
You know what this means! We must go shopping for what you’re going to wear soon. 🙂
To: Ariadne @ 12:43 A.M.
No.
From: Ariadne @ 12:46 A.M.
Yes.
He doesn’t get the chance to reply before another one comes in:
From: Ariadne @ 12:46 A.M.
And remember, kid, sex can wait, masturbate!
Arthur doesn’t reply, and he almost deletes Ariadne’s phone number out of his phone because who the fuck says that, period, not just too Arthur, but to anyone in general. Luckily, he doesn’t because he knows that he’ll regret doing that in the long run, even if it sounds more than a little delectable now.. And when he slips into bed that night, it’s for the first time in a long while that he’s actually smiling.
And if his cat catches onto something, he’s nice enough to just lay on his chest this time, purring softly, and it almost sounds like Eames does when he’s snoring.
It’s (almost) enough.
Ariadne drags him out of his house the following weekend, telling him that it’s ‘so unhealthy of him to not buy a new suit, when you have to look good for the hot British new kid’, and really, she calls him unhealthy? She’s more involved in their…relationship, or whatever it is, then the both of them combined. But it doesn’t bother Arthur the way that he thought it would, it actually comforts him, because now he can be honest about Eames, not only to himself, but to someone else as well.
They’ve talked quite a lot since that night, Eames texting him with hearts and telling him how amazing he is, how amazing he feels. They haven’t said in words if they’re more than friends that fuck each other, but at least Eames holds his hand in public now, kisses his forehead maybe a little more softly than before, kisses him before class. It makes him feel on top of the world, his stomach ignites in fire (the good kind, of course) and he just wants to hug everything; he’s not a hugger by any means, but there’s something about your not-so-boyfriend being the best not-so-boyfriend that there is.
It was the way that Eames kissed him on the following Tuesday after that night when he realized that he truly, honest-to-god, go down to Texas and ride some cattle (which he would obviously never actually do, but the words sounded nice in his mouth), loved the other boy. It wasn’t a realization that came along with fireworks like one might’ve saw in a John Hughes movie, and it wasn’t one where he just absolutely needed to tell Eames — partly because he was almost positive then that it would’ve scared him away –, it just was, and that was the best thing about it.
He’s in love with Eames, the Eames that only eats chicken nuggets because he likes how it feels on his tongue, who only watches TV to pass by the time, the one who listens to Mozart and watches Whose Line is it Anyway in his free time. He’s the boy who doesn’t play soccer because he thinks that it will make him more acceptable in school, but because he actually enjoys the sport. He doesn’t like French Toast, but loves waffles and sings songs when he’s showering.
He’s the best possible boy that Arthur could ever love, and he thinks that he’s pretty damn lucky that there’s a good chance that Eames will eventually love him too.
“We need to find you something eye-catching, and possibly revealing,” she says. “Something that sticks to your ass but leaves your front to the imagination.”
Arthur looks up at her, coming out of his daze, with a pointed look. “I’ve already got him, Ariadne.”
She clicks her tongue in agreement. “That you do, but just because you have him doesn’t mean that you’ll keep him. He’s a fan of asses, trust me Arthur, he rambles about yours endlessly. ‘Oh how I love his perky little bum, especially when it’s pressed against my thighs, his tight little arse.’” Ariadne’s voice goes (horribly) British and deep, and it’s quite scary.
“He says that to you?”
“In public,” she grins shamelessly.
“You’re lying.”
She shakes her head, her eyebrows furrowing slightly, her mouth curling away in disgust. “No,” she says, and then adds, “but I do wish I was.”
When it all comes down to that one special night, Arthur truly does want everything to go perfect. He’s not some hopeless romantic that thinks that prom is one of the most important events of his life, and that he has to document this with Eames just so he can gloat about it to his kids later. He wants to document this with Eames because he wants this to last materialistically as long as possible, as well is in real-life.
He’ll always have the pictures even if he always doesn’t have the boy, and even if one doesn’t barely scrape the surface of making up for the other, Arthur tries to pretend that it’s enough.
Ariadne offers to take him to get his hair cut before the prom, because she thinks that his hair is getting too unruly. He complies for two reasons: he knows that Eames likes his hair shorter, likes it when Arthur had it in pictures, spiked and messy, careless and hot; and because it’s close to summer and it’s way too hot in the suburbs of Los Angeles to even think about having longer hair.
“I was just kidding,” Ariadne says, as she running gel throughout his hair, slicking it back with careful hands.
Arthur looks up at her, because he really has no idea what she’s going on about, but nods anyways. “I know,” he says.
She smiles at him then, and runs her hands through his hair one last time before stepping away, admiring her work. “You look great, Arthur.”
He laughs, and pushes her shoulder playfully, because he does enjoy being an asshole sometimes. “Are we actually venturing into being nice to each other now?”
She narrows her eyes and punches his shoulder, holy fuck is she strong. “Ow,” he says, rubbing his shoulder generously.
She smirks. “Are you guys getting each other anything?”
He shrugs, “I got him some flowers,” he says nonchalantly.
She raises her eyebrows. “So romantic,” she says, wiping her ‘tears’. “I’m proud of you, I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Dick,” he says.
“I am what I eat,” she says, grinning widely.
He doesn’t know what to say, so he very maturely sticks out his tongue and rushes upstairs to get ready, trying not to pay attention to how his feet pounding on the stairs sounds exactly like the pounding in his heart.
When Eames finally arrives, at six-thirty on the dot — because he really is attentive to Arthur’s love of specificity — Arthur’s a disaster.
His hair is staying perfectly in place, luckily, but he accidentally sat on the flowers in his ‘I-am-so-fucking-nervous’ parade around his room, and there was a thorn that punctured his ass. He rushes down the stairs and digs into his mother’s stash of chocolate that she keeps around to replenish his sister when her vagina is a crime scene, and tries to breathe.
The ding of the doorbell comes much too soon and way too late, but he lets Ariadne answer the door, because she is cool and calm and collected, which is obviously what he is not.
“Eames,” and Arthur can see her grin from here, and it’s lovely, but not as lovely as the grin that Eames gives her in return.
“Is the princess finished with his pampering?” He asks, his British accent curling around the words and all he wants to do is pitch a tent in there for a while.
She just opens the door wider, to let Eames step in and holy-mother-snornickels, is he attractive; Arthur has possibly never seen anything more gorgeous than Eames looks right now and it absolutely takes his breath away. His hair is slicked back, just like Arthur’s, and his suit is black, and his trousers hug his ass perfectly. He is also holding the most beautiful flowers that he has ever seen, and Arthur suddenly feels like an idiot for ruining his.
“Darling,” he says, grinning like the fucking sun, and Arthur’s stomach drops out in the most pleasant way.
“Hi,” he says, and then thrusts the chocolate into his hand. “I ruined the flowers, so I got you chocolate instead.”
Eames just grins wider, and runs the pads of his thumbs across his cheek. “You’re so adorable.”
“A thorn punctured my ass.”
Eames kisses his nose. “You’re too adorable for words pet,” he says and gives him the flowers wordlessly. “They reminded me of you, colorful, loud and too obnoxious.”
Arthur glares. “I think you’ve confused me with yourself,” he snaps, but there’s no real heat to the words. It’s nearly impossible with how fast his heart is beating, how sweaty his palms are, and just how happy he is.
Eames laughs, and presses fleeting lips to his; it still makes Arthur’s heart skip three beats. “Let’s get out of here, darling, I have a wonderful evening planned.”
He looks back at Ariadne, who is grinning at them with this look in her eyes that he isn’t able to recognize, and winks. He follows Eames out, a little dazed, but a whole lot in love.
Eames drops the bomb on him in the car.
“We’re going to Torstoriales,” he says nonchalantly, like it is completely fucking normal to take your kind-of-not-boyfriend-but-kind-of-not-anything-else to a four-star restaurant whose water bottles are insured for seven dollars.
His fingers twitch nervously against his lap, because he knows that Eames comes from good, old money, but he’s not exactly comfortable with being the person that he chooses to spend that said money on. “Eames, that isn’t really necessary-”
“No, darling, but I hear you talk about wanting to try their food, so it was, ah, the perfect opportunity.”
Arthur shifts nervously in his seat. “You didn’t have to though, Eames. I could have waited,” he says.
Eames smiles his ridiculously crooked, gorgeous smiles at him, one of the one’s that makes Arthur’s stomach drop and his heart clench pleasantly in his chest. He presses chaste kisses to Arthur’s jaw and lips and pulls him closer into his side, and he’s so warm and just there that he kind of wants to stay like this forever.
“It’s not very gentleman of me to make you wait, now is it?”
Arthur purses his lips. “I’m getting the most inexpensive thing on the menu,” he says, matter-of-fact, no questions asked.
“Go ahead.”
“I’m ordering the bread.”
“Knock yourself out,” Eames laughs, low and breathy in his throat, and it does something to Arthur’s insides that a laugh really shouldn’t do.
“Actually, all I’m getting is a water,” he decides, looking up at Eames with playful eyes.
“You’re impossible,” Eames says as fondly as Arthur has ever heard him.
Yes, Arthur thinks, he is absolutely impossible, but what’s more impossible is finding someone who’s willing to accept this.
When they finally arrive that the venue that’s hosting their prom, Arthur’s a nervous mess sitting next to Eames in the limousine. And there really is nothing scary about this, because he’s long since come to terms with what sexual orientation he is, and he’s long since come to terms with the fact that Eames is just really, really attractive. This isn’t the problem, the problem is that Arthur has a problem with everyone else there; he’s not exactly the most social butterfly in his class, which gives the rest of the student body at Claremont High to believe that thus, he is a bitch.
Eames doesn’t say anything because he’s a much better people reader than Arthur thought he was, and just takes his hand, running his fingers deftly over his knuckles. It makes him feel better, Eames’ touch always makes him feel better. He looks up at the other boy with possibly the most love-sick eyes and gives him a rare smile, that he graces his presence with sometimes.
“Are you ready?” Eames asks.
Arthur shrugs, “As ready as I’ll ever be,” he whispers.
Eames gets out first, and insists on holding Arthur’s door open, even if it’s definitely not necessary — it still makes his heart beat way too loud, way too fast, all things considered — and then he takes his hand. It’s calloused and oddly soft in his own, warm and slick and his insides melt away into a liquid, his legs feeling as funny as his heart does.
Inside, the venue is gorgeous. There’s blue and purple ribbons and curtains across the ceilings and windows. The dark-rich wood on the floors is a nice contrast to the white tablecloths on all of the tables and there’s an assortment of snacks on the back wall. There’s a huge dance floor in the middle of the room, with balloons and confetti, and in retrospect, this doesn’t seem like it’s a mistake yet.
Yet.
The other Juniors and Seniors have mostly already arrived, Arthur and Eames were at the back of the pack, and this is what he wanted. He doesn’t like being stared at, and he knows that it’s highly likely and way too inevitable because Eames is hot and he just attracts attention. The dancing hasn’t started yet, and for this he’s grateful because he has two left feet and not enough patience.
“S’not so bad, love,” Eames whispers in his ear. Shivers wrack their way through his body on their own accord, and when he meets Eames’ eyes, he looks way too pleased.
Arthur scowls and resists the urge to smack his face for the hell of it. The more he thinks about it, the more he doesn’t want to ruin the pretty face.
“I’m not dancing,” Arthur says, in a ‘I-am-not-changing-my-mind-for-anyone’ sort of tone.
Eames doesn’t look the least bit deterred. “Yes,” he says, “you are.”
Arthur raises his eyebrows. “Oh?”
He makes a sound of agreement, his fingers spreading out on the small of his back. “I have something planned and you, Arthur, are not ruining it.”
Arthur glowers to himself for a while, but eventually lets his body melt into Eames’.
Eames leaves Arthur for a few minutes after the dancing has been going on for a while. He doesn’t mind, because he knows Eames and he’s either getting more punch (which is most likely spiked with a lower percent alcoholic drink) or he went to the bathroom. Arthur doesn’t freak out, because it would be absolutely psycho to freak out, and he wants to keep Eames, not push him away with his creepiness.
He feels warm breath on his neck before he hears it, feels the fingers on his shoulders and the velvet soft voice before his mind registers that it’s actually words being spoken. “Darling,” he whispers.
Arthur turns his head back, and he places a soft, quick kiss to his lips. He pulls him from his chair in the same motion, and he can’t help the whining sound that escapes his mouth.
“Come on, this is our song,” Eames says.
His heart falters at ‘our song’ and he isn’t even aware that they even had a song until this moment. He follows Eames to the dance-floor in a daze, because holy fuck, you just can’t say shit like that to Arthur and expect his mind not to wander, to wonder.
He hears the opening chords to a familiar song, hears the soft instruments and lulling voice and he looks up at Eames in recognition. He knows this song, this was the song that was playing in the background of Eames’ room when they first started their fuck-without-feelings campaign a few months back.
Arthur will never admit it to anyone, especially not to Eames, but he had this song on replay for weeks after it had happened.
“You remembered,” he whispers instead of saying something embarrassing, and he doesn’t even bother hiding the grin that covers his face.
Eames blushes bright crimson red. “What if I told you that I played that song on purpose that night?”
Arthur looks up at him. “Did you?”
“I did, I, ah, I really was infatuated with you back then, and I thought — you wanted just a sexual relationship,” he says wistfully, and there’s a trace of regret in his eyes. “I wanked off to this song so many times.”
He shudders. “I had this song on replay for a month, non-stop, consistently,” is all he says, because Eames twirls him around and he doesn’t care if he suddenly feels like a princess. It’s all too much for Arthur to comprehend now, but this just might possibly be the best night of his life.
“Show me that you love me too,” Eames sings, and his voice is soft, and nice, compassionate. He’s never heard anything better. “Put your lips next to mine, dear, won’t you kiss me once, baby?”
Eames is grinning, and he’s never seen anything more beautiful, he’s never felt more beautiful, and in that moment Arthur has to laugh. He laughs, but not because the situation is particularly funny, but because if he doesn’t laugh then he’ll cry, and he doesn’t want to cry now. Not when he’s wrapped up in Eames, not naked, but clothed instead, and he might just like this more than the sex. It’s intimate and real, and there are feelings involved, this is what he wanted all along.
With a breathless chuckle, he slides his fingers into Eames’ hair and kisses his lips, soft and sure.
It’s a promise.
(And it’s enough).
fanficition cove 
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