Chapter Text
“We’re mixing it up,” Mal says to them. “Blind judging this time around.”
Arthur thinks this is a good idea. He’s been worried people will think he’s playing favorites with Ariadne and this will eliminate that.
Arthur nods and Alec nods and Eames says, “Fine.”
“My,” says Mal, pleased, “everyone is so cooperative this week. Am I dreaming?”
Arthur didn’t bother to research for this challenge, because he thinks he understands what a bedroom should look like.
So of course the very first bedroom they see doesn’t have a bed.
“Where are you supposed to sleep?” Arthur asks blankly.
“I suspect you’re supposed to sleep on the floor,” Eames remarks, because the floor is composed of a spongy material that keeps shifting under their feet such that they have to walk with arms straight out to try to maintain balance.
“This seems…not very workable,” says Arthur.
“It’s an entire room that’s a bed. A literal bed-room,” says Alec. “Sounds like the type of clever wordplay your girl Ariadne likes.”
Arthur has his doubts about that. He doesn’t think Ariadne would ever design something this absurd. “Let’s just go on to the next bedroom.”
“Can you at least say one positive thing?” Mal asks. “For editing purposes.”
“The wall color is nice,” Eames says.
“Okay, good, let’s go,” says Arthur, who actually feels vaguely motion-sick the longer he stands on the shifting floor.
The next bedroom is better in that it at least has a bed. But that’s really all the good that can be said about it.
“I pronounce this room’s theme to be ‘circus bordello,’” says Eames.
“Oh, look,” says Alec, “there’s a mirror over the bed. That’s your type of thing, isn’t it, Arthur?”
“No,” says Arthur evenly. “Not really.”
“No mirrors over the beds in your sex club?”
“It’s a classy establishment,” deadpans Arthur. “Mirrors over the bed are so declasse.”
“We use holograms,” says Eames, bouncing on the bed experimentally. “The thing about a mirror over the bed is you had better be bloody fond of the way you look, no?”
“Perfect for you, then, Eames,” says Alec mildly. “I remember you being very fond of the way you look.” And with that he leaves the room.
Eames lifts his eyebrows at Arthur.
Arthur says, “I think he’s switching his tactics to snide passive-aggression.”
“It would seem so,” agrees Eames, and they head on to the next bedroom.
There are lots of bedrooms that are perfectly unobjectionable but also not terribly exciting. There are the requisite very clean and crisp ones, because by now Arthur is aware that there are a few contestants who are in love with that sort of thing and Alec and Eames are certainly receptive to it. It doesn’t do much for Arthur, because it doesn’t make him want to curl up and relax, and he thinks a bedroom should feel like that.
“It should be an escape from the rest of the world,” Arthur says, trying not to wrinkle his nose too much at the sharp edges of the bright, white room they’re standing in now. “I mean, waking up to all this would…make you feel immediately anxious, wouldn’t it? And you’d have to be so careful not to get anything dirty.”
“And that would be a problem,” remarks Alec, “considering how much you like food in bed, Eames. Or, at least, you used to.” And with that he leaves the room.
“So,” says Eames, “he’s apparently going to deliver a zinger and then leave while he’s ahead?”
“I don’t think he wants to give me a chance to get the last word in,” admits Arthur. “I may have delivered a zinger and then left during the challenge announcement filming.”
“A zinger? What zinger?”
“Um,” says Arthur. “Arthur for Eames.”
“The Twitter hashtag?”
“It wasn’t a Twitter hashtag at the time.”
“Wait, that’s what you said? You said ‘Arthur for Eames’?”
“It was a…declaration of intent.”
“I approve of this intent. And whatever this mysterious conversation was that required a zinger declaration of intent that you are for me, is it leading Alec to be much more open of the fact of our past relationship?”
“I think he may have reason to believe that I’ve let some of the details of your personal history out,” says Arthur haltingly.
“Have you?”
“No. But he doesn’t know that. And I could see why he might think I’d come clean, because I may have given an impression that I’m committed to truth.”
“I missed quite a day at work that day, hmm?”
“He’s making a bigger thing out of it than it needs to be.”
“Which is rather what Alec does: makes big things out of little things and little things out of big things. Well.” Eames stands. “Onward. He can continue to deliver his little zingers, and we can continue to ignore him.”
The next bedroom is more luxurious but in a rococo way that feels crowded to Arthur.
“I like the wallpaper,” says Eames, and it is the best thing about the room, a semi-metallic print of birds flitting through an enchanted forest.
“Yes,” says Arthur, “but I don’t know about it for a bedroom. I mean…” Arthur trails off, because he doesn’t exactly want to say, how would you fuck in such a fussy space?
Alec says it. “I think Arthur’s trouble is that he would have a difficult time getting in the mood in this bedroom. Not sex-dungeon-y enough for him. Anti-sex-dungeon, in fact. But, Arthur,” says Alec, turning a smile on him, “the sexiness of a bedroom is all about who you’re sharing it with. Right, Eames?”
“Exit,” murmurs Eames, as Alec exits. “Pursued by a bear.” He lifts his eyebrows at Arthur and smiles and says, “Shall we?”
Arthur knows exactly which room is Ariadne’s as soon as he steps into it. It’s a woodland glen. There is a mural of a tree along one wall, accented with three-dimensional bronze leaves that drip off of it every so often. And on the wall above the bed, where every other designer (who had a bed) has put a headboard of some sort, there is an array of stained glass. It’s subtle but it definitely paints the bronze tree in sunshine tones, and the effect of it is like sunlight filtered through forest leaves. Arthur sits on the bed and spends a second just enjoying the effect of it. It’s utterly relaxing. He feels as if he could sit there for hours.
“You can always tell when Arthur falls in love with something,” Eames says straight to the camera, “because his dimples come out. Yusuf, get a close-up of the dimples.”
“Stop it,” says Arthur self-consciously, ducking his head a bit, sure that his ears are pink.
“Luckily,” continues Eames, “magnificently, I get to see that look all the time.”
Alec doesn’t have a single snide remark to make about that. But he still leaves the room.