Sinful.

Time passes and July soon fades into August and, depending on what schools they’re to be attending in the fall, Eames’ friends are one by one scattering to the far corners of the country, all too far away to keep up with and not close enough to Eames for him to even bother trying. They were an amusing bunch, but not necessarily the type Eames would keep as lifelong friends. He doesn’t mind much that he probably won’t hear from them again except for maybe the occasional email or phone call.

Now Ariadne, she’s a different story. For one, she’s not travelling far to go to college. In fact, she’s only moving to the next city, just a forty minutes’ drive away, very manageable, and Eames is glad. He doesn’t know what he’d do without her. He himself will be attending the college that he’s currently taking summer classes from. It was his first choice, and he’s looking forward to it very much.

The only thing he’s been concerned about is Arthur. He doesn’t know what college Arthur is currently enrolled in, doesn’t know if it’s here or if this is just somewhere Arthur stays over the summer. He highly suspects it’s the former, but with Arthur, Eames can never be too sure. It’s all resolved very soon, though, and as it turns out, Eames needn’t have worried at all.

-

“I have a couple friends who want to meet you,” Arthur says to Eames one day.

It’s sometime late in the afternoon on a Saturday and they’re lazing around Arthur’s loft. Arthur is perched on a barstool at the counter, bent over a book as always, and there’s a cup of strong black coffee sitting in front of him. Eames is looking through Arthur’s refrigerator for something he might be able to use to make dinner.

“Is that so?” Eames says absently, reaching into Arthur’s refrigerator to pull out a container of cream cheese. When he opens the container, he sees that it’s covered in mold and makes a face. “Honestly, Arthur, when was the last time you went grocery shopping?”

Arthur shrugs and sips at his coffee, eyes glued to his book. “They’ll be coming over tonight, if I’m not mistaken,” he tells Eames, pointedly disregarding Eames’ question.

Eames tosses the container of cream cheese in the trash can under the sink and gives Arthur a withering look.

“And I suppose you expect me to cook, am I right?” he asks. He’s really not sure Arthur has enough edible food in his refrigerator to make a meal.

Again, Arthur just shrugs. “They said they’d be by around six-thirty,” he says, finally looking up from his book, “Which means you have just about forty-five minutes, if cooking is what you want to do. If you don’t want to, though, I could always order takeout.”

Eames chuckles lightheartedly and goes over to kiss Arthur’s forehead, something Arthur always protests against because he says it makes him feel patronized (he secretly really likes it though, not that he’ll ever say it aloud).

“Not to worry,” Eames says easily. “I’m sure I’ll figure something out.”

He goes and starts rummaging through Arthur’s cabinets, hoping to find something he can make. He looks at Arthur over his shoulder.

“You could’ve given me a little more warning, though, you know,” Eames points out.

Arthur just kind of smirks in this self-satisfied way that he pulls every so often. “I like it better this way,” he says, marking his page and flipping his book shut. “Keeps you on your toes.”

Eames rolls his eyes and goes back to searching Arthur’s kitchen for anything that can possibly be turned into a meal suitable for four. He ends up finding a box of pasta and wishes that Arthur actually had some proper food so he could make spaghetti sauce from scratch like he usually does, but because he now only has half an hour to cook (Arthur just kept on drinking his coffee and watched as Eames dug through every last cabinet of Arthur’s kitchen, didn’t even offer to help, that bastard) he settles for using pasta sauce from a jar.

As Eames sets the pasta on to boil, Arthur goes to change into something “presentable,” even though it’s just dinner at home with some friends. He exchanges the faded and well-worn t-shirt he’d been wearing all day for one of his usual crisply ironed button-up shirts, and Eames gets an eyeful of Arthur’s bare torso. Arthur turns around as he’s doing up the buttons of his shirt and catches Eames’ eye. He raises an eyebrow and smiles slightly.

“What?” he says, and his tone of voice makes it seem like he already knows exactly what’s going through Eames’ mind, but he wants to hear Eames say it.

Eames presses his lips together. He doesn’t want to say it. It sounds too sappy, too sentimental, far too cheesy, even to him. It’s something he’d very much like to keep locked away safely in the corners of his mind. So instead, Eames just puts on a wide grin.

“What?” Eames repeats and leans against the strip of countertop that separates the two of them.

Arthur tucks his shirt in and pulls it into place, smoothing his fingers over the fabric to brush away any wrinkles.

“You’re looking at me as if you didn’t spend two weeks at the beginning of the summer drawing me naked,” Arthur says in that very direct way of his. He tends to vary back and forth between being extremely straightforward about things and completely vague. There’s not much in the middle, no real gray area. “It’s just… interesting, that’s all.”

Ah. That would be the vagueness again. Interesting could mean anything from highly amusing to downright frightening, and really, Eames doesn’t mind the words so much (sticks and stones, sticks and stones); he doesn’t really mind them at all. He likes the way Arthur talks. It’s that Arthur’s expressions are so hard to read; Eames can never guess, can never make any definitive from the things that Arthur says when his eyes show almost no change. It’s a little unnerving, but somehow it’s a little exciting too.

Eames chooses to reply with the least corny response he can think of. “But you see,” Eames points out, “Before, there were other people in the room, and now, we’re alone. You ought to watch yourself, darling, or I might start getting the wrong ideas.”

Arthur’s eyebrow begins to crawl up towards his hairline again. Eames watches with amusement. Arthur’s eyebrows are by far the most expressive thing about his face, and it’s quite entertaining to watch them shift according to Arthur’s mood.

Arthur leans against the counter opposite Eames, purposefully bringing his face close to Eames’ so that when he speaks, Eames can feel Arthur’s breath against his skin.

“What kind of ideas?” Arthur says in a low voice that hums with sexual innuendo. Eames has never heard Arthur use this tone before but is determined to coax it out of him more often.

“Well maybe,” Eames ventures, “That you actually enjoy undressing for me, and perhaps you go out of your way to find excuses to do so.”

Arthur’s lips curl up into that dangerous smirk of his, and Eames feels his blood running hot just beneath the surface of his skin.

“Perhaps I do,” Arthur purrs in response, intentionally failing to address whether it’s the enjoyment or the excuses he’s acknowledging. It could very well be both.

Arthur’s lips brush against Eames, but he doesn’t kiss him (tease) and then he’s pulled away, going to put his book in its place on his nightstand. Eames’ eyes follow Arthur’s movements very intently, and Eames grinds his teeth together, willing himself into a state of relative composure. He curses the fact that Arthur’s friends will be here soon, because right now, he wants nothing more than to push Arthur up against the wall and love him senseless.

(Oh, there they are, those inappropriate thoughts; Eames had been wondering where they’d run off to)