chesstotem | the one where Arthur is a douche (for thesecurity and <lj site="l

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the one where Arthur is a douche (for thesecurity and <lj site="l

Ariadne was a little surprised, truth be told, at how well her date with Arthur was going - not that she'd thought it would be bad, per se, but she'd expected a bit more awkwardness about the whole thing.

Instead, what she got was Arthur being charming, handsome and just plain nice, talking easily about work and music and wine, while Ariadne chatted about designing and weird architectural details and they compared notes on a few of the cities they'd both been to.

It was still pretty early, but Ariadne had never really been able to hold her alcohol, so she demurred at the bartender's suggestion of another drink.

"We should get out of here before I start stumbling around in these shoes." They were sensible enough shoes, though still pretty new and liable to hurt her feet if she wasn't careful.

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"Actually I think I will, Arthur, thank you," Eames replied sharply, reaching into his robe to get the condom off and making no secret of tying it up--despite the fact that he never actually came--and throwing it into the garbage, a visual fuck you for that little comment.

With a frustrated sigh he sat down on the other side of the sofa, running a hand through his own mussed hair, barely dry from his earlier shower. "I think the issue here is between you two. I really didn't do much aside from take the bait."

Arthur made a production of not watching while very obviously not paying attention to anything else while Eames went about being his generously lewd and helpful self. Once he'd sat with the rest of them, Arthur looked directly at him with a frown. "Please shut the fuck up, Eames. Just this once. You are not helping, you're making Ariadne sound like a black widow and I honestly owe you at least one more punch. So please."

Arthur stood back up, running a hand over his mouth to pace to the other side of the room and turned to come back, unbuttoning his collar and then crossing his arms over his chest. "I should have been upfront," he said to Ariadne. "But what Eames and I have, or don't, frankly, is none of your business if we're going out for drinks. Even if we'd had a one night stand and never spoken of it again, it wouldn't be your business. I do not make it a habit of telling every sexual partner I have of all the rest that came before. I like you--you are a smart young woman, and pretty, and you stick your nose into everything which should annoy me more than it does. But just because I don't want to sleep with you on the first date doesn't mean I don't ever want to sleep with you. And just because we go on a first date doesn't mean I want a... a girlfriend."

Arthur's teeth clicked together and he turned abruptly for the mini-bar.

Edited 2010-09-14 21:11 (UTC)

Ariadne frowned as Arthur spoke. "I didn't ask, I didn't have any interest in who you slept with before. Eames just said it. It didn't matter - it was a misunderstanding.

"But if you're not interested in sleeping with me right now, and you don't want to date or have a girlfriend," she emphasized the words very slightly, to make sure he could see where she was coming from, "what do you want? Why did you go out on a date with me in the first place?

"I like you, Arthur." She did, a lot. At least, when he wasn't making her feel like he was toying with her. Like right now. Is that what he did with Eames? Maybe Eames could deal with it, but Ariadne wasn't so thick-skinned. She didn't usually play that kind of game. When she went on a date with someone, it was a date, and if it went well, there was another date, and if the dates were all good, eventually she had a boyfriend. Arthur clearly played by a different set of rules, but which set wasn't something she'd been able to figure out. She'd assumed, and gotten her feelings hurt.

When Arthur told Eames to shut up, he did the miraculous. He help up his hands in his defense and actually shut up. This was hardly the time for games after all. No, this was serious, and words needed to be had. Words that Arthur and Ariadne both gave. He had nodded along with Arthur, agreeing with what he said, legs crossed and head in his hand, and he expected Ariadne's part to go just as nicely.

It didn't.

She was getting right down to the point, wasn't she? She point he didn't quite want to face and he was sure, to some extent, Arthur didn't either. He frowned, wincing and reaching over to squeeze Ariadne's knee. "This is where I come in. Ariadne, sweetheart, we're criminals. And the reason why we're so bloody good at it is that we don't let anything happen that could lead to us getting caught. Now, I can't speak for why Arthur does anything that he does, but that may very well be a major part of it," It was a diversion, just barely, but damn if it wasn't a good one.

If it was a diverision for Eames, then it was a diversion for both of them and one that Arthur didn't bother to correct. "I went on a date with you because..." Because she'd looked cute with the smudge of charcoal on her nose and Eames had been needling him. Both were poor answers. "Because I thought that we might have a nice night. But Eames is right. The last relationship I had that was anything other than a good lay," yes Eames was included, of course he was, why wouldn't he be, "was in college. Ten years ago."

She nodded, staring at Eames' hand on her knee and wrapping her arms around her middle as though she was cold. In a way, she was feeling pretty cold right now. Sometimes she felt like an alien, some kind of foreign intruder on the world they shared.

"So you had no intention for anything to actually happen, in any capacity, and you went ahead and agreed to it without bothering to explain that. You were just stringing me along."

Well, there was really nothing Eames could say to that, was there? He just looked at Arthur, meeting his eyes, waiting.

Arthur opened his mouth...

...and closed it.

Then he turned around and poured himself a drink from the minibar. Because he didn't make it a habit of getting drunk but it seemed appropriate now. Perhaps drowning himself would be good. "I didn't think about it."

"You didn't think about it?" Her voice rose a little, and there was a lump in her throat. Why did men always have to be such assholes? Why did some men have to seem so nice, but really be the complete opposite? She was going to cry again, for the second time in one night, in front of both of them.

"You've been flirting with me all this time, and then I asked you out and you never thought about it maybe being because I liked you and wanted to see if it could be something more?

"You should've just fucked me, Arthur, I would've understood that. I don't know what makes me different that you couldn't even do that. At least Eames was polite enough not to turn me down." She sniffled and got up, intending to get her shoes so she could go.

"Ariadne," Eames started when she stood, but there wasn't anything he could actually say, no. So he raised both eyebrows at Arthur, motioning towards her. Get on with it, Arthur, fix the mess.

Arthur glanced back at Eames, giving him a look of exasperation. He was not the charmer of the two of them, for god's sake. Crying women he didn't understand at all. And how were he and Eames on the same side all of a sudden? Shit.

Leaving his drink, Arthur crossed the small space and took Ariadne's shoes out of her hand. "I'm sorry. I haven't had a relationship that could be called functional in a decade, Ariadne. I didn't want to fuck you tonight because... because you're too good to be just a notch in my belt." It was honest. That was all he had been thinking.

Arthur sighed, holding out her shoes. If she still wanted to leave... he'd let her.

She stared at her shoes in his hand for a moment, then took them back and put them on the floor.

"I don't intend to be a notch in anyone's belt," she said, and then she kissed Arthur. It was relatively chaste, and she probably should've felt a little weird doing it, given that ten minutes ago she'd been having sex with Eames, and they were, in fact, still in Eames' hotel room, and he was sitting right there.

But it didn't feel weird at all.

To most people it would be weird perhaps, but in Eames's life, as well as he assumed Arthur's and Ariadne's, it took a lot more than kisses and post-coital arguments to even come near the weird scale. They did, after all, steal information from people's dreams for a living. This? This was not weird.

Odd, perhaps, but not weird. And for all that Eames just watched, his eyebrows going up for only a quick second before he reached for his abandoned glass of scotch and finished it off. He could remind her that being a notch wasn't the worst that anyone could be, but he didn't. It wasn't the time for lessons, nor was it really the time for snide commentary or the sharp little ache in his chest as he watched.

Her lips were soft.

That was Arthur's thought. They were soft and absolutely different from Eames', even when Eames was a woman. It was the way Ariadne kissed him. Almost entitled but curious enough not to be cocky. Asking, the way Eames never asked. They never asked, they just...

And why was he thinking about Eames?

Arthur opened his eyes as Ariadne pulled away; the hand that had somehow reached out for her hip sliding away... rising, until fingertips brushed a hickey on her collarbone. He glanced at Eames, his look just a little too grudgingly amused to be properly angry.

Eames should leave. For a split second, that was his thought. He should leave if Arthur's hand was going to move in response, if he was going to lean into the kiss. The thought was pushed aside in an instant of course, because this was his hotel room and if anyone should be getting any in said hotel room it was the man who had been interrupted so close to orgasm less than twenty minutes ago.

His eyebrows went up in amusement as Arthur's eyes met his, and he couldn't help but chuckle. And then, there was that idea...

He stood and stood behind Arthur, squeezing his shoulders as if to give a massage. "If neither of you intent on leaving..." He didn't finish the sentence, instead pressing a light kiss behind Arthur's ear.

As a matter of fact, Ariadne had been making similar comparisons as she kissed Arthur - that was a little more giving, a little less demanding, than Eames had been. It wasn't better, or worse, just different. Nice, would probably be the word to describe it, though she'd been thinking he was an asshole just a few minutes earlier.

She did almost forget that they were in Eames' hotel room, though, until Arthur's hand slid to her collarbone and she felt a twinge there - the marks Eames had left, of course. She watched Arthur watching Eames, and at his suggestion her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "I... I've never..."

She'd never even thought about it, really, not until now, but now she was thinking about it and she took in a breath, her face flushing.

It wouldn't have been the first time it had happened, though the last time had been months--maybe more than a year. And never with a coworker.

Arthur got the feeling that he was getting very outvoted on that last point.

His eyes lidded slightly against his will at the press of Eames lips and his thumb settled a little heavy on the bruise on Ariadne's collarbone before shifting away. He tucked hair behind her ear and made an effort to focus on her, to shake his head. "You don't have to." Eames could sell sleeping pills to narcoleptics; Arthur would give her the choice.

Funny how he didn't think of refusing now, when Eames' palms were warm and heavy on his shoulders.

Ariadne could see Arthur almost visibly let go of something when Eames touched him. A sharp pang of what she supposed must be jealousy shot through her gut at the knowledge that he'd been willing and able to turn her down, but the same couldn't be said for the man standing behind him.

At the same time, she understood why, especially after what she and Eames had already done.

"Are you kidding?" she said, a little incredulous that Arthur would ever think she'd refuse both of them.

"That sounds like an answer to me, what do you think, Arthur?" Eames asked against Arthur's ear, nipping at the shell like a piece of candy, his thumbs digging into Arthur's shoulder blades.

It was acutely embarrassing, how Arthur seemed to melt just a little under Eames' attentions. It wasn't fair at all. Not to mention that he'd rather not show Ariadne just how...

nothing. It didn't matter.

Arthur cleared his throat and turned his head, ostensibly to get Eames to stop doing that to his ear. "I think I still get to punch you." But he could find no heat to put into the words, and that was almost worse than if he hadn't spoken at all. His hand skimmed over Ariadne's shoulder and down her side before he looked back to her. "You're sure?"

Well, her dress was officially a lost cause. She stood back, just a little, watching both of them carefully as she slipped the dress off, letting it drop to the floor. It was easy to press close to Arthur, effectively trapping him.

"Yes. I'm sure."

Eames chuckled, and as if on cue undid the tie of his robe and let it drop to the floor. As far as he was concerned, it could stay there. "It seems to me like you're a bit overdressed, darling."

Arthur watched Ariadne's dress come off without shame. He still would have said that this wasn't a fantastic idea... but he was far past voicing the opinion--especially when she pressed herself, naked, to his front.

Please. He was only a man.

Arthur dropped his head, his lips brushing over her shoulder. One hand pulled his tie open in response to Eames' words.

Ariadne had to agree with Eames - Arthur had way too many clothes on. She tilted her head to one side, her hair skimming over her shoulders in touseled waves as she started undoing buttons. She looked at Eames, smiling a little though she was still flushed - this was the strangest thing she'd ever done, and the two of them knew each other well.

She hoped she wouldn't be a third wheel.

She hoped she was good.

She was most definitely good, Eames knew that much from experience, and he smiled almost genuinely, as close to genuinely as he would usually get, when she looked over at him. It was a reassurance, a reminder that they would be just fine, that she was entirely welcome. He lowered his hands from Arthur's shoulders to wrap around his hips, tugging on the belt to undo it and pull, dropping it to the floor once it was out of enough loops to slip on its own. Those pants just had to go.

the one where Arthur is a douche (for thesecurity and <lj site="l

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