#tee hee!!

For his entire life, Arthur has never been able to sleep through the night. Ever since he was a kid, he’d relentlessly toss and turn, back and forth, kept awake by the ramblings in his head and always woken up by the nightmares that followed. After joining up with Cobb and dreamsharing so often that he stopped dreaming, he hoped the problem would be solved, but to no avail. Eventually, he gets used to this aspect of his life. The exhaustion becomes background noise, the slight buzz in his head becomes second nature. He learns to work with the lack of sleep, and, in his very Arthur way, take advantage of it. After all, it’s quiet at three in the morning, and therefore the best time to get ahead on some work. The team’s always impressed with how it seems like somehow, this guy has more hours in the day than everybody else, and that’s because he kind of does. Sure, he’ll probably die a few years earlier, and maybe he’s forgotten what it feels like to be rested, but hell, his job is sleeping. It’s not like he needs any more of it, right?

Then, once they’ve stopped acting like fools, Eames and Arthur shack up. There are obvious perks to this relationship, namely that neither of them are going insane anymore, but there’s an unexpected benefit of Eames’ newfound constant presence in Arthur’s life. See, it doesn’t really make sense. Eames is anything but a pleasant sleeping partner. He’s first of all big, full of muscle, and takes up far more space than anyone reasonably should. He’s not shy about that, either. He will flail out all over the bed, moving pillows wherever he wants, kicking blankets off of the bed, Mr. Eames will do anything to get comfortable. He also snores louder than anyone Arthur has met in his life, so loud he’s certain it seeps through the walls and disturbs the neighbors. All of this, and yet the first time Arthur sleeps next to Eames, he sleeps through the night. At first he thinks it’s a fluke, but then it keeps happening. Somehow, he consistently wakes up…rested? It’s so foreign to him to feel properly groggy from sleep rather than a lack of it, and it quite honestly takes some getting used to. It even bugs him at first. Eames is already a fantastic distraction, and now he’s stolen Arthur’s extra work time, too. But eventually, Arthur realizes that it is much easier to work and function when you’re getting eight hours. He starts performing better at work, getting tasks done more efficiently, and, much to the glee of the team, tends to be in a better mood these days.

A little writing snippet for the "A New Brain" fic I lowkey abandoned a couple months ago…

🤖😘❤️

Red turns right at the bottom of the stairs, following the quiet sounds of movement down the hall, passing both the dining room and the living room before he finds the bright, quaint little kitchen, decorated with green and yellow flowered wallpaper, smooth white tile on the backsplash…

And Lizzie.