The wall clock reads 3:45pm. But it’s read 3:45pm since its motor stopped churning a month after the lease was signed. Not that he needs to know the exact time. He knows damn well he should have been gone yesterday. 48 hours—that’s the deal. He’s broken it by 6 and 45minutes.
He’s considering San Diego. White sands, Sky and seltzer, and a new sci-fi book. Has been scouring the internet for a private, beach-side rental. But none of them are right. Nothing offered is what he’s looking for. The minute really shouldn’t matter here. Only, he desperately needs the excuse.
Some sort of proof that his little fuck up wasn’t by design. Something that will justify why he’s still half-awake, half-dressed, and half-covered under the mustard yellow bedsheet. Still, they only offer housekeeping per request and not as a requirement, doesn’t seem like a solid enough argument if confronted. Which he doesn’t think will happen anytime soon, give that, he’s not been for 6 hours and—ah, 50 minutes now.
Eames laughs in his sleep. And he only knows this because Eames is laughing—right now—in his sleep. Does so each time they fall in bed together. And it’s such a great deal of difference from his waking demeanor, that it catches Arthur off guard every single time. It’s not that Eames is cold. Because he’s not. He likes people well enough to perform—an expert conversationalist as he is—and made a career out of being charming, intuitive and empathetic. But that’s all it is. A performance by a master artist. Took just under a decade to understand that Eames alters his performance, his personality and self, to the situation. That Eames likes people, but does not prefer their company. Took a few years of them sleeping together to understand that somewhere along the way, and he can’t be sure why, Eames has made an effort to keep the entire show and all its behind-the-scenes obscured from everyone but Arthur.
They’ll get smiles from him, sure they do, but they are completely false. The progression is swift and always the same. His eyes will go tight. Finger tips will tap three times to his right knee. Exasperation will curl his lips, but that thinly veiled annoyance or discomfort will have them tightening in a straight line before he’s unclenching his jaw, barring his teeth in a wide, mocking smile people confuse for authentic.
Arthur asked him once, What are you dreaming about that’s so funny?
Eames only waved him off. Said some bullshit about the sitcom he’d been stuck on. But Arthur really wishes he had it in him to ask why’s it that Arthur knows that Eames laughs in his sleep—how’s it that he trusts him so much. Trusts him so much to step back from the microphone. Turn off all the stage lights. Invite Arthur behind the curtains.
Arthur really, really should have been gone yesterday.