Chapter Text
In the morning the Tumblr theories about Alec and Eames are out of control. There are clearly Photoshopped pictures of Eames with Alec everywhere, and, because they’re Photoshopped, a lot of them make it look as if the whole thing happened much more recently than it did. Arthur finds himself studying a timeline of his own relationship with injected photographic “proof” that Eames is cheating on him. People on Tumblr are very upset on his behalf. And very angry at Eames.
And considering this all got started because Arthur was trying to protect Eames, this is a complete disaster.
“We’re saying something,” Arthur says to Eames, sliding him his phone at the same time that he slides him a cup of tea. “Everyone thinks you’re a horrible boyfriend.”
“Am I?”
“Eames.”
“I don’t care what people think, darling. You’re my relevant audience for good-boyfriend-ness.”
“I care what people think. I punch people in their stupid smug faces when they think bad things about you.”
“You can’t punch the entire Internet.”
“Right. So we need another solution to this.”
“Okay,” Eames allows. “You’re right. Should we tweet something about it?”
“You know how I deny things and you say, ‘Ah, but that’s what you’d say if it were true!’? Like, you know, not being a leprechaun?”
“Yes,” Eames says.
“I feel like engaging on this could devolve into that. ‘Eames isn’t cheating on me,’ I say, and then everyone says, ‘Ah, but that’s what you’d say if Eames was cheating on you.’”
“So you want to just stay quiet then?” suggests Eames. “It’s nobody’s business but ours.”
Arthur sips his coffee and leans against the kitchen counter and says, “Should we talk to Alec about it?”
Eames lifts an eyebrow at him. “Are you feeling okay? Possibly running a fever?”
“It’s kind of his business, too,” Arthur points out uncomfortably. “Maybe we can come to some sort of…reasonable agreement about all of this, issue some kind of joint statement, fuck, I sound like a lunatic, it’s Alec, of course we’re not going to come to a reasonable agreement.”
“I should tweet that I’m passionately in love with Alec,” remarks Eames. “What do you think Alec would do?”
“Not understand it was sarcasm,” says Arthur. “Show up at this house naked except for the fucking fedora.”
Eames chuckles.
“Fuck,” says Arthur, and finishes his coffee and rinses out his mug. “I blame you for all of this fuckery.”
“It is undeniably mostly my fault.”
“Entirely your fault,” Arthur corrects him.
“You’re the one who struts around in those sexy suits all the time. What was I supposed to do with all of my sexual frustration?”
“You could have had me at any moment if you’d stopped being an idiot about everything,” retorts Arthur.
“Okay,” says Eames. “Entirely my fault.”
Arthur gives him a look and puts his mug in the dishwasher.
“So what do you want to do?” Eames asks. “Maybe we should talk to a publicist?”
“I have never really liked the idea of letting a publicist run my personal life,” says Arthur.
“This isn’t your personal life. They’re not going to say, you know, anything about how we run our relationship with each other. This is all about the public perception of your personal life.”
“I don’t want them telling us we need to go out in public together more, or make out for the cameras, or fuck knows.”
“So we won’t let them tell us things like that,” says Eames reasonably.
Arthur worries at his lower lip. Eames is probably right here. He can’t come up with another option. But he still wishes none of it was happening at all.
“Better idea?” asks Eames.
“The invention of time travel,” Arthur says, “so I could go back and tell myself to turn around and get back into your room and not let you be a fucking idiot.”
“Okay. So if time travel doesn’t get invented by the end of the day, we’ll call a publicist,” says Eames.
“Where are we even going to get a publicist?” Arthur asks. “Are they listed in the phonebook?”
“I think it’s adorable that you think people still have phonebooks.”
“You know what I mean,” says Arthur.
“I’ll ask Cobb,” Eames says. “Cobb will know all about publicists, considering how much Cobb freaks out about our public images.”