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laliandraI have said, "UGH" this week more times than during the rest of my life. It seems like me and everyone I know is having the Worst Week in the World. Personally, I now know what it the sound of a train engine exploding sounds like, and (in a separate incident) what being severely electrocuted feels like. That is the extra-ordinary level of fail we are talking about. To cheer us all up, I have more 500 words of summer fic!
I have, of course, been utterly shambolic about this and have been writing three people's prompts all at once (soon, Ria, soon), with a fourth one simmering. Ugh. Furthermore, I fail so hard at brevity. This, in my defence, is two prompts in one!
This story is for my dearest![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kaiserkuchen who wanted people eating French desserts, combined with isil_helyanwe 's incredible question of "But what does Arthur, Mr Besuited and Buttoned up, do to cope with the heat". And anyone who is having a Bad Week and needs a break from the angst. And, as ever, Inception fandom, my love for you remains earnest and derpy.
The rest is all entirely my fault and under the cut for your soothing, fluffy, cake filled needs. More notes on the food at the end.
Les Petits Plaisirs d'Été
Disclaimer: 1) Inception remains the property of one C. Nolan 2) This is gen but only in the same way that the actual movie is ie. flirting all and any which way, entirely omnishippable *g* 3) I have never tried to run a card scam or look like I have mantoys.
Summary: A Dream Team kind of vacation. In which some important questions are answered, sweet treats indulged in and innocent French bystanders are made less innocent.
Huge and heartfelt thanks to Novemberlauren who always empathises and didn't kill me for sending her a draft with sentences that descended into all-caps wailing.
Ariadne is a good Parisian - by art if not by nature - and so she knows to get out of the city as soon as August hits. It hits hard, filling the streets with tourists and the air with the smell of sewers stewing in the heat.
She doesn’t go far from her beloved city, though, doesn’t join the campers on the Cote Sauvage or the playboys in Nice. She sets herself up in a hotel just off the main square in Fontainebleau and makes some calls. She’s probably not the only one who needs a vacation.
This afternoon the heat is unrelenting and so they have retreated to the café on the corner with the sun umbrellas, squashed around a little round table watching the gorgeous old merry-go-round go around. Ariadne has the sinking feeling that she is about to be volunteered to go to the patisserie next door. No-one ever puts Dom up for this kind of thing because Dom always looks pained when people compliment his accent. Saito had declared himself out of the voting before it had even started, because he hadn’t purchased his own food in over a decade and didn’t plan to start now. And Eames is practising being a horrible Englishman Abroad, apparently.
“You call it research, but I suspect that it’s just an excuse to wear that hat,” Ariadne tells him, flicking the brim of the straw monstrosity. “And I fail to see how this rules you out.”
“Can’t say anything but ‘Bonjour’, love, and that won’t get us far.” He makes the ‘j’ hard, shrugs hopelessly, as if he’s never had to wrap his mouth around anything so strange before. As if he didn’t trick Ariadne’s landlady that one time into thinking he was Jean-Claude, a shy boy from a tiny Belgian village.
Yusuf smiles charmingly and says, “Besides, Ariadne has a notebook to write down everyone’s order.” Dom nods approvingly and that’s endgame. No-one can ever argue with Yusuf when he makes that face - all rationality and deep brown eyes - and Arthur is late so there’s no-one else.
“I hate you all,” Ariadne says, standing up. “Next time I’m staying in Paris, Japanese tourist invasion and street vendor explosion be damned, and I will let you all go about pretending to be too busy to call each other.” They would, if she let them, drift off into twos - Dom and Arthur like the old days, Yusuf and Saito exploring new frontiers of science, her and Eames trying to run the three card monte in a tiny street near the Gard Du Nord, her pulling a very innocent face, him charming smokes out of the prostitutes round the corner - or any every other combination thereof. It’s habit, dividing and separating until she sets a time and a place and they all show up, grumbling about her persuasive ways.
“Should I be offended?” Saito asks from his place at the head of the table.
Eames holds out a twenty euro note to Ariadne. “Nah, she doesn’t mean it, and we all agreed you don’t count as the tourist any more.” It had been Eames who’d declared that one, recreating the third layer with suitable dramatic hand gestures and impressions of explosions.
The lady at the counter has clearly seen Ariadne coming and puts all of her orders into a cardboard box so that Ariadne can carry them back to her “amies”. Her tone is extremely doubtful. A ‘Yes, those are my hareem boys, haven’t I done well’ smile is hard to pull off, but Ariadne gives it her best. She winds her way back to the table and leaves a tarte aux fruits in front of the chair next to Cobb, opposite her and Eames. She knows Arthur well enough now.
When he arrives there is a very still moment because Arthur, Arthur is wearing a thin white shirt - open at the neck with the sleeves rolled up - beige slacks and deck shoes. No tie, no vest, no socks. Everything seems to go still. It’s like being in a movie. Ariadne's hand has genuinely stopped halfway to her mouth, and filling drops out of the pastry onto her hand. She makes herself stop staring, lick the apple - warm and sweet - off her thumb and tries to wrap her mind around Arthur: The All New Summer Edition.
The object of their transfixion slips into his chair, easy and graceful. He glances up and says, “Sorry, sorry, I was... Oh, who remembered my order?” When no-one answers Arthur turns from softness into lines, leaning forwards, frown creasing his face, folding his arms. “What?” he asks.
“You’re only wearing one layer,” Yusuf says, with a kind of hushed disbelief he usually keeps reserved for escapes that seem like divine intervention and genuine mint tea.
“It’s 100 degrees in the shade. What did you think I was going to do, wear a three-piece and pass out?”
It’s a fair point, but still. It’s Arthur, layers are his thing, his motif; and seeing him without them rococo without gold or neo-gothic without arches. It’s just bizarre.
Ariadne says, “I thought. Well, I’m not sure. That you did some sort of reverse hibernation and refused to come out during daylight hours as soon as July hit.” Everyone else laughs, Arthur actually snorts, leaning back in his chair. He just looks so. Relaxed is not quite the word for someone who has just catalogued exit points but still...
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought it. Or something similar,” Ariadne says, looking around. Dom suddenly gets very interested in his mille-feuille.
Saito leans over and steals a forkful.
“I always assumed that he had a wardrobe that doubled up as a refrigerator,” he says. Admittedly to Saito this probably isn’t so far fetched; far-fetched luxury is his everyday. The last time he came to Paris (looking after his investment he called it, with fondness behind his dazzling smile) they had been flown by helicopter to a restaurant just to have dark chocolate ganache cake with real gold leaf pressed into it. The one he has now is less elaborate but still stains his teeth brown with cocoa powder. It always does, and Saito never seems to care. It’s one of Ariadne’s secret favourite things about him, small and incongruous.
“Some new form of heat-exchanging cloth,” Yusuf theories, with a shrug. “I’m almost disappointed this is not the case.” He gives the thin material of Arthur’s shirt a considering look, as if Arthur might be holding out nano-technology on him.
As one, they turn on Cobb. Anyone watching this conversation (and there are usually people watching their conversations. They can’t really be blamed.) is going to get whiplash.
“I’ve known Arthur a really long time. I’m used to him,” Cobb says with a smile that is almost indulgent. His teeth have cocoa powder on them.
“Wait. Are you two sharing?” Ariadne asks, shading her eyes with her hand to get a better look at the other end of the table.
Arthur sighs resignedly. “Yes, yes they are.” Yusuf holds up his palmier up behind their heads so that it looks like a heart is floating above them and Ariadne has to fight to contain the ridiculous giggles she can feel lurking in her throat.
Cobb bats his hand away and Saito gives the whole table a “You weren’t there, you cannot understand our bond” look.
Yusuf rolls his eyes at Ariadne to say ‘it’s a bit excessive to use the Limbo Look for cake sharing,’ and she tries to agree with a meaningful stare and some eyebrow work.
Eames sighs, “Oh good, we’ve reached the stage where we actually don’t need words to communicate our resigned weariness each other. I guess we’re officially a family...”
“Aw,” Ariadne says, and puts her head on his shoulder. She feels the scratch of stubble as he rests his cheek on her temple, tucking her in beneath his hat brim. The half of Cobb’s face that she can appears to be stuck somewhere between fond and horrified. It happens a lot these days.
“I have no words for how disturbing I find your concept of family,” he tell Eames, a little hollow.
“We’re young, pretty and ethnically diverse. Madonna would kill for us. We’re like a celebrity family wet-dream,” Eames claims. Ariadne can feel his mouth curve up, teasing.
Saito says, “Truly, the Jolie-Pitts have nothing on us,” because apparently his terrifying breadth of knowledge also covers pop-culture. Ariadne escapes from under the hat because she has to see what he looks like, deadpan smile and easy certainty.
Yusuf snickers. “I am trading in my regular baby brothers for you people. And it has the further advantage that you don’t know all my tricks yet.”
“I knew it. Your evil testing procedures always had the practised air of an older sibling,” Arthur says, darkly. It’s possible he still hasn’t forgiven them for that time they tore his vintage Dior jacket during kick trials.
“You should know better than to volunteer. But I’m sure I can find a tailor if that’s what this is still about.” Arthur ignores Yusuf in favour of balancing extra fruit onto his slice of tart.
“Isn’t that nice, Arthur? Then when winter rolls round again you can be the fairest of us all again in charcoal wool,” Ariadne gives Arthur a ‘play-nicely’ frown to go along with the tone.
Yusuf, pointing at Eames with a piece of glazed pastry, says, “You still owe us a that suitsplanation.”
“I’ve also known Arthur a revoltingly long time,” Eames evades. “I don’t remember what I thought at first.” His face says, backup, I need backup, which Ariadne plans to ignore entirely because she wants to hear this. There’s no way Eames, professionally study of people with extra credit in Arthur-watching, didn’t notice, doesn’t remember.
“You must have thought something. What was the first thing that crossed your mind when you first met our suited and booted point-man?” she presses.
“I thought, there is a man in need of a good unpeeling” Eames has a way of creating very vivid mental images with seemingly innocent words. He throws Arthur a grin and goes back to sizing up his cake for the best plan of attack. He picks something different every time and today’s has a decadent amount of cream on top of it.
Arthur doesn’t look up from his tart, but slides a fork across the table. “Did you just compare me to an onion, Mr Eames? Forgive me if I’m less than flattered.”
“A very attractive onion,” Eames assures him. He scoops up a mouthful of chantilly and strawberry, and then licks the fork pointedly at Arthur.
“What have I told you? Licking things to try and win an argument is not a valid tactic,” Arthur says, but the skin at the base of his neck has gone red. One layer Arthur has definite advantages.
“If we want to be a non creepy-incestuous family, everyone is going to have to rethink the way they look at each other,” Yusuf remarks. The conversation at the next table stops abruptly.
“Apparently even the French have limits of public acceptability.” Arthur murmurs, biting his lip to stop himself laughing.
Saito says, “For example, you two will have to stop looking at Arthur like...” He stops, considering. “Like that,” he finishes, significantly.
Ariadne turns to Eames and watches him copy her smile, wicked-wide.
“Shan’t” he says.
“Don’t want to,” she agrees, and sticks her tongue out at Saito and Cobb.
Arthur shakes his head. “I honestly despair of you both.” He laughs, though, as he looks from them to the carousel, still chiming out song after song. He could almost be - no, he is - doing it on purpose so that his shirt collar moves to reveal more elegant neck and collarbone. Never forget that Arthur is has a criminal mind under all that elegance, Ariadne thinks, and stretches her legs out into the sunshine, content.
“Don’t pretend that the merry-go-round is a prettier picture than us. Have you seen Ariadne’s legs in those shorts?” Eames asks.
Saito frowns. “How is the carousel still going? Surely those children do not have enough money to keep going back.”
“Oh, Eames paid the man to keep it running all afternoon. I think he likes the music,” Arthur informs them, still gazing over at the ever circling horses. Eames starts, very slightly, Ariadne can only tell because she’s still leaning into him.
“It’s my job to know these things,” Arthur says, answering the question implicit in the movement that he somehow spotted.
Eames turns on a grin, sits up straighter, says, “Well, you did a half-arsed job, love. It’s not the music. It’s that I know what it’s like to be five years old and not allowed another go on the ride.” His tone is only a fraction off perfectly light.
“Oh,” Arthur says quietly, almost lost under Dom saying, “You know, I should bring the kids next time. They haven’t been to France in a while.”
“Next time you can organise the whole thing,” Ariadne tells him. “You’ve got nothing but time. I’ve got exams. Miles won’t pass me just because I was busy finding you all hotels that fit your absurdly specific specifications.”
“We’re nothing but trouble, really,” Eames says. Ariadne smiles, and steals a strawberry from his cake. “A bad influence and all kinds of trouble,” she agrees.
“But it’s the best kind of trouble,” Arthur says, and takes the strawberry from her fingers, millimetres from her mouth. “You wouldn’t have us any other way.”
CAKE NOTES OF GREAT IMPORTANCE
Arthur has a tarte aux fruites, Saito an opera cake , Yusuf has my usual, a palmier, Ariadne went for a classic chausson aux pommes. Dom has a mille-feuille and finally Eames has something along these lines. Do you want pastries now?!
I have, of course, been utterly shambolic about this and have been writing three people's prompts all at once (soon, Ria, soon), with a fourth one simmering. Ugh. Furthermore, I fail so hard at brevity. This, in my defence, is two prompts in one!
This story is for my dearest
kaiserkuchen who wanted people eating French desserts, combined with isil_helyanwe 's incredible question of "But what does Arthur, Mr Besuited and Buttoned up, do to cope with the heat". And anyone who is having a Bad Week and needs a break from the angst. And, as ever, Inception fandom, my love for you remains earnest and derpy.The rest is all entirely my fault and under the cut for your soothing, fluffy, cake filled needs. More notes on the food at the end.
Les Petits Plaisirs d'Été
Disclaimer: 1) Inception remains the property of one C. Nolan 2) This is gen but only in the same way that the actual movie is ie. flirting all and any which way, entirely omnishippable *g* 3) I have never tried to run a card scam or look like I have mantoys.
Summary: A Dream Team kind of vacation. In which some important questions are answered, sweet treats indulged in and innocent French bystanders are made less innocent.
Huge and heartfelt thanks to Novemberlauren who always empathises and didn't kill me for sending her a draft with sentences that descended into all-caps wailing.
Ariadne is a good Parisian - by art if not by nature - and so she knows to get out of the city as soon as August hits. It hits hard, filling the streets with tourists and the air with the smell of sewers stewing in the heat.
She doesn’t go far from her beloved city, though, doesn’t join the campers on the Cote Sauvage or the playboys in Nice. She sets herself up in a hotel just off the main square in Fontainebleau and makes some calls. She’s probably not the only one who needs a vacation.
This afternoon the heat is unrelenting and so they have retreated to the café on the corner with the sun umbrellas, squashed around a little round table watching the gorgeous old merry-go-round go around. Ariadne has the sinking feeling that she is about to be volunteered to go to the patisserie next door. No-one ever puts Dom up for this kind of thing because Dom always looks pained when people compliment his accent. Saito had declared himself out of the voting before it had even started, because he hadn’t purchased his own food in over a decade and didn’t plan to start now. And Eames is practising being a horrible Englishman Abroad, apparently.
“You call it research, but I suspect that it’s just an excuse to wear that hat,” Ariadne tells him, flicking the brim of the straw monstrosity. “And I fail to see how this rules you out.”
“Can’t say anything but ‘Bonjour’, love, and that won’t get us far.” He makes the ‘j’ hard, shrugs hopelessly, as if he’s never had to wrap his mouth around anything so strange before. As if he didn’t trick Ariadne’s landlady that one time into thinking he was Jean-Claude, a shy boy from a tiny Belgian village.
Yusuf smiles charmingly and says, “Besides, Ariadne has a notebook to write down everyone’s order.” Dom nods approvingly and that’s endgame. No-one can ever argue with Yusuf when he makes that face - all rationality and deep brown eyes - and Arthur is late so there’s no-one else.
“I hate you all,” Ariadne says, standing up. “Next time I’m staying in Paris, Japanese tourist invasion and street vendor explosion be damned, and I will let you all go about pretending to be too busy to call each other.” They would, if she let them, drift off into twos - Dom and Arthur like the old days, Yusuf and Saito exploring new frontiers of science, her and Eames trying to run the three card monte in a tiny street near the Gard Du Nord, her pulling a very innocent face, him charming smokes out of the prostitutes round the corner - or any every other combination thereof. It’s habit, dividing and separating until she sets a time and a place and they all show up, grumbling about her persuasive ways.
“Should I be offended?” Saito asks from his place at the head of the table.
Eames holds out a twenty euro note to Ariadne. “Nah, she doesn’t mean it, and we all agreed you don’t count as the tourist any more.” It had been Eames who’d declared that one, recreating the third layer with suitable dramatic hand gestures and impressions of explosions.
The lady at the counter has clearly seen Ariadne coming and puts all of her orders into a cardboard box so that Ariadne can carry them back to her “amies”. Her tone is extremely doubtful. A ‘Yes, those are my hareem boys, haven’t I done well’ smile is hard to pull off, but Ariadne gives it her best. She winds her way back to the table and leaves a tarte aux fruits in front of the chair next to Cobb, opposite her and Eames. She knows Arthur well enough now.
When he arrives there is a very still moment because Arthur, Arthur is wearing a thin white shirt - open at the neck with the sleeves rolled up - beige slacks and deck shoes. No tie, no vest, no socks. Everything seems to go still. It’s like being in a movie. Ariadne's hand has genuinely stopped halfway to her mouth, and filling drops out of the pastry onto her hand. She makes herself stop staring, lick the apple - warm and sweet - off her thumb and tries to wrap her mind around Arthur: The All New Summer Edition.
The object of their transfixion slips into his chair, easy and graceful. He glances up and says, “Sorry, sorry, I was... Oh, who remembered my order?” When no-one answers Arthur turns from softness into lines, leaning forwards, frown creasing his face, folding his arms. “What?” he asks.
“You’re only wearing one layer,” Yusuf says, with a kind of hushed disbelief he usually keeps reserved for escapes that seem like divine intervention and genuine mint tea.
“It’s 100 degrees in the shade. What did you think I was going to do, wear a three-piece and pass out?”
It’s a fair point, but still. It’s Arthur, layers are his thing, his motif; and seeing him without them rococo without gold or neo-gothic without arches. It’s just bizarre.
Ariadne says, “I thought. Well, I’m not sure. That you did some sort of reverse hibernation and refused to come out during daylight hours as soon as July hit.” Everyone else laughs, Arthur actually snorts, leaning back in his chair. He just looks so. Relaxed is not quite the word for someone who has just catalogued exit points but still...
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought it. Or something similar,” Ariadne says, looking around. Dom suddenly gets very interested in his mille-feuille.
Saito leans over and steals a forkful.
“I always assumed that he had a wardrobe that doubled up as a refrigerator,” he says. Admittedly to Saito this probably isn’t so far fetched; far-fetched luxury is his everyday. The last time he came to Paris (looking after his investment he called it, with fondness behind his dazzling smile) they had been flown by helicopter to a restaurant just to have dark chocolate ganache cake with real gold leaf pressed into it. The one he has now is less elaborate but still stains his teeth brown with cocoa powder. It always does, and Saito never seems to care. It’s one of Ariadne’s secret favourite things about him, small and incongruous.
“Some new form of heat-exchanging cloth,” Yusuf theories, with a shrug. “I’m almost disappointed this is not the case.” He gives the thin material of Arthur’s shirt a considering look, as if Arthur might be holding out nano-technology on him.
As one, they turn on Cobb. Anyone watching this conversation (and there are usually people watching their conversations. They can’t really be blamed.) is going to get whiplash.
“I’ve known Arthur a really long time. I’m used to him,” Cobb says with a smile that is almost indulgent. His teeth have cocoa powder on them.
“Wait. Are you two sharing?” Ariadne asks, shading her eyes with her hand to get a better look at the other end of the table.
Arthur sighs resignedly. “Yes, yes they are.” Yusuf holds up his palmier up behind their heads so that it looks like a heart is floating above them and Ariadne has to fight to contain the ridiculous giggles she can feel lurking in her throat.
Cobb bats his hand away and Saito gives the whole table a “You weren’t there, you cannot understand our bond” look.
Yusuf rolls his eyes at Ariadne to say ‘it’s a bit excessive to use the Limbo Look for cake sharing,’ and she tries to agree with a meaningful stare and some eyebrow work.
Eames sighs, “Oh good, we’ve reached the stage where we actually don’t need words to communicate our resigned weariness each other. I guess we’re officially a family...”
“Aw,” Ariadne says, and puts her head on his shoulder. She feels the scratch of stubble as he rests his cheek on her temple, tucking her in beneath his hat brim. The half of Cobb’s face that she can appears to be stuck somewhere between fond and horrified. It happens a lot these days.
“I have no words for how disturbing I find your concept of family,” he tell Eames, a little hollow.
“We’re young, pretty and ethnically diverse. Madonna would kill for us. We’re like a celebrity family wet-dream,” Eames claims. Ariadne can feel his mouth curve up, teasing.
Saito says, “Truly, the Jolie-Pitts have nothing on us,” because apparently his terrifying breadth of knowledge also covers pop-culture. Ariadne escapes from under the hat because she has to see what he looks like, deadpan smile and easy certainty.
Yusuf snickers. “I am trading in my regular baby brothers for you people. And it has the further advantage that you don’t know all my tricks yet.”
“I knew it. Your evil testing procedures always had the practised air of an older sibling,” Arthur says, darkly. It’s possible he still hasn’t forgiven them for that time they tore his vintage Dior jacket during kick trials.
“You should know better than to volunteer. But I’m sure I can find a tailor if that’s what this is still about.” Arthur ignores Yusuf in favour of balancing extra fruit onto his slice of tart.
“Isn’t that nice, Arthur? Then when winter rolls round again you can be the fairest of us all again in charcoal wool,” Ariadne gives Arthur a ‘play-nicely’ frown to go along with the tone.
Yusuf, pointing at Eames with a piece of glazed pastry, says, “You still owe us a that suitsplanation.”
“I’ve also known Arthur a revoltingly long time,” Eames evades. “I don’t remember what I thought at first.” His face says, backup, I need backup, which Ariadne plans to ignore entirely because she wants to hear this. There’s no way Eames, professionally study of people with extra credit in Arthur-watching, didn’t notice, doesn’t remember.
“You must have thought something. What was the first thing that crossed your mind when you first met our suited and booted point-man?” she presses.
“I thought, there is a man in need of a good unpeeling” Eames has a way of creating very vivid mental images with seemingly innocent words. He throws Arthur a grin and goes back to sizing up his cake for the best plan of attack. He picks something different every time and today’s has a decadent amount of cream on top of it.
Arthur doesn’t look up from his tart, but slides a fork across the table. “Did you just compare me to an onion, Mr Eames? Forgive me if I’m less than flattered.”
“A very attractive onion,” Eames assures him. He scoops up a mouthful of chantilly and strawberry, and then licks the fork pointedly at Arthur.
“What have I told you? Licking things to try and win an argument is not a valid tactic,” Arthur says, but the skin at the base of his neck has gone red. One layer Arthur has definite advantages.
“If we want to be a non creepy-incestuous family, everyone is going to have to rethink the way they look at each other,” Yusuf remarks. The conversation at the next table stops abruptly.
“Apparently even the French have limits of public acceptability.” Arthur murmurs, biting his lip to stop himself laughing.
Saito says, “For example, you two will have to stop looking at Arthur like...” He stops, considering. “Like that,” he finishes, significantly.
Ariadne turns to Eames and watches him copy her smile, wicked-wide.
“Shan’t” he says.
“Don’t want to,” she agrees, and sticks her tongue out at Saito and Cobb.
Arthur shakes his head. “I honestly despair of you both.” He laughs, though, as he looks from them to the carousel, still chiming out song after song. He could almost be - no, he is - doing it on purpose so that his shirt collar moves to reveal more elegant neck and collarbone. Never forget that Arthur is has a criminal mind under all that elegance, Ariadne thinks, and stretches her legs out into the sunshine, content.
“Don’t pretend that the merry-go-round is a prettier picture than us. Have you seen Ariadne’s legs in those shorts?” Eames asks.
Saito frowns. “How is the carousel still going? Surely those children do not have enough money to keep going back.”
“Oh, Eames paid the man to keep it running all afternoon. I think he likes the music,” Arthur informs them, still gazing over at the ever circling horses. Eames starts, very slightly, Ariadne can only tell because she’s still leaning into him.
“It’s my job to know these things,” Arthur says, answering the question implicit in the movement that he somehow spotted.
Eames turns on a grin, sits up straighter, says, “Well, you did a half-arsed job, love. It’s not the music. It’s that I know what it’s like to be five years old and not allowed another go on the ride.” His tone is only a fraction off perfectly light.
“Oh,” Arthur says quietly, almost lost under Dom saying, “You know, I should bring the kids next time. They haven’t been to France in a while.”
“Next time you can organise the whole thing,” Ariadne tells him. “You’ve got nothing but time. I’ve got exams. Miles won’t pass me just because I was busy finding you all hotels that fit your absurdly specific specifications.”
“We’re nothing but trouble, really,” Eames says. Ariadne smiles, and steals a strawberry from his cake. “A bad influence and all kinds of trouble,” she agrees.
“But it’s the best kind of trouble,” Arthur says, and takes the strawberry from her fingers, millimetres from her mouth. “You wouldn’t have us any other way.”
CAKE NOTES OF GREAT IMPORTANCE
Arthur has a tarte aux fruites, Saito an opera cake , Yusuf has my usual, a palmier, Ariadne went for a classic chausson aux pommes. Dom has a mille-feuille and finally Eames has something along these lines. Do you want pastries now?!
