#is there a point to this? no

[peppermintquartz]

Arthur's watch doesn't actually work. He checks the time on his phone, like most people these days. The watch was a gift from his late grandfather. It is elegant - a rich brown leather strap, cream watch face, gold detailing. No numbers.

Eames is as surprised as anyone to discover that the watch doesn't tell the correct time, and then realizes that he has inadvertently found out Arthur's real totem.

He's torn between not telling Arthur, because Arthur hasn't noticed that Eames has stolen his watch, and telling Arthur that it's a stupid totem, because it can be easily stolen.

In the end he snaps his own watch back on Arthur's wrist and goes back to his room.

It takes two hours and seventeen minutes before Arthur knocks on the door irritably.

"Give it back," Arthur says.

"You need a new totem," Eames replies, dangling the purloined timepiece from its strap.

"It's not my totem." Arthur retrieves it and gives Eames back his watch.

"Then why doesn't it tell the correct time?" Eames wonders if his supposition was wrong. He thought that the watch only tells the right time in a dream.

Arthur squints at him, like Eames is playing checkers in a poker game. "It tells the time where my family is."

Eames never once considered that Arthur has surviving relatives. Or a family of any sort. Somehow Arthur, in Eames' very rich imagination, sprang full-fledged and fully clad in a three-piece suit, like Artemis from Zeus.

"Huh." He files that away in the meticulously organized mental folder marked ARTHUR.

*

Eames picks a hard candy out of Arthur's pocket and sucks on it - ooh, lemon - while the point man is putting up papers on the board. He's going to brief the team in ten minutes and Eames knows the job isn't one that requires their combined talents, but Ariadne asked it as a favor. She is the only other person in the world who Eames thinks is allowed to ask favors of Arthur.

Cobb can go to hell.

"Stealing my candy? That's low of you." Arthur doesn't even sound mad. He just looks disappointed.

Eames holds out a peace offering and winks.

Arthur narrows his eyes. "I don't want a Chupa Chup."

"Indulge me."

"I'll slur my words."

"I can present it. I know the stuff as much as you do, from all your mutterings and sketches."

Arthur takes the lollipop and rolls his eyes. "Don't fuck up the numbers." Then he gets to his chair and leans back in it, the lollipop swiftly unwrapped, and he closes his eyes to enjoy the sucker while the rest of the team saunter in.

*

Arthur is a point-man, which means Arthur doesn't know what to do with himself unless he has a goal to aim for. He finds the concept of free time abhorrent, somehow, like it is a waste not to be working to achieve some distant target.

Eames despairs of him some days. (Months. Years.) They don't always keep in touch, but sometimes Eames gets this tingling sensation that Arthur's working himself to the bone once more, and with some deft questioning of his questionable contacts, he usually finds out that's the case. Sometimes he intervenes by popping in to drag Arthur out on a wild goose chase, sometimes he sabotages the job if he thinks it smells fishy, sometimes he lets Arthur do what he does so damn well and sends him tickets to a Greek island after.

But this time, Arthur drops off the face of the earth completely.

So of course Eames goes looking.

*

Here's the thing: Eames knows that Arthur knows that Eames has a thing for him. Hard not to: Eames is very obvious about it.

And Arthur isn't all that subtle about letting Eames know that he's letting Eames bother and tease and make a nuisance of himself only because Arthur, at some level, enjoys it.

Eames finds Arthur in Winnipeg in the middle of a park, except Arthur is wearing a bright blue down jacket with a checkered scarf and he's drinking Starbucks - probably a simple mocha - and he's not Arthur, because the kids who are with him call him Uncle Levi, and Eames thinks he can't be more charmed in his entire life.

He takes a picture from his vantage point and goes back to his hotel, satisfied to have laid eyes on Arthur-who-is-Levi, and has room service.

Two minutes after midnight, he gets a phone call from Arthur.

"Delete whatever photo you took of my niece and nephew," Arthur says without preamble.

Eames hums, pretending to consider. "What do I get in exchange?" He can almost hear the frown on Arthur's handsome face, and smiles broadly.

After a while, Arthur asks, "What do you want?"

Eames wants to say, Everything you are willing to give me. He says, "Tell me if I'm good enough for you."

"Eames." Arthur sounds impatient and frustrated. "Eames, you idiot."

That's not a yes or a no. Eames takes out his poker chip and plays with it, the pad of his finger scraping along that smooth edge of the chip. Water running over stone, washing away its sharp edges.

Arthur's voice goes soft, but not shy. "Why do you fucking think I work so hard for? What you can do on instinct, I have to struggle to achieve in months."

Eames' smile grows. There it is. And he's found the chip in his token, that one bit that scratches the edge of his thumb. "Alright then. New Year's Eve, darling. You know where to find me."

[sug4r-melon]

❤️💕❤️😵‍💫❤️💕❤️❤️💕❤️💕❤️❤️💕❤️💕💕❤️❤️💕💕❤️💕❤️❤️💕

[charlesoberonn]

It's gonna be such a funny mess when Donald Trump dies of a stroke on April 1st, 2024.

Naturally everybody will think it's fake because of the date only to lose their minds (both positively and negatively based on their opinion of trump) when realizing it's real

There will be massive celebrations in the streets and on social media and lots of predictable "don't speak ill of the dead" discourse about those celebrations

Weird evangelicals will pull some weird number trick talking about how Jesus was conceived on April 1st and that makes Trump a sort of messiah and people will make fun of that

The Republicans (after they're done with the faux-sadness and faux-outrage) will stomp over each other to be his successor but none of them will succeed. They'll tear each other apart and have no single nominee for the November elections.

There will be discourse about if Biden and the living former presidents should go to his funeral (they won't, he was a traitor insurrectionist)

The Ukraine-Russia War immediately goes in favor of Ukraine as morale in the Kremlin is reduced. China similarly backs off from its threats on Taiwan.

Ten thousand new memes are made, some sticking around for years to come.

Not a month later a bunch of unofficial biographies of Trump hit the bookshelves, many with new details about just how awful he was.

[lambergeier]

the real danger of spending too much time with friends is you stumble out of ten days of happiness and good food like oh my god THAT was real life. my job means NOTHING

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Knowledge Revenge.

[unsung-idiot]

don't show him modern technology; it won't end well

bonus under the cut:

[swan2swan]

Whoever conceived and animated this moment, I hope they're doing well and thriving. This is S-rank romance stuff here.

[incohorace]

what studying literature feels like

[starridge]

puppet hour was brutal

[aimasup]

Favouritism

Bill get a hold of yourself man

[muffinlance]

My baby daughter got her adorable puffin-print dress absolutely CAKED in mud crawling around the yard and my first thought was "oh no her beautiful dress"

And my second thought was "oh huh it really WOULD be easy to unconsciously steer her away from playing in the dirt. Unlike my son, whose outfits are usually some kind of solid dark easily washed pants plus a shirt that doesn't trail in the dirt like a dress does."

Anyway something something gender roles start getting shoved on kids from literal birth, but with a little time to think about things, YOU TOO can let your children of any gender absolutely destroy their clothes in the dirt pit they're digging in your garden

[rodrickheffeley]

today I discovered Anne rice’s son’s tweets through twitter. im like this is exactly what I should have expected

[beaft]

do genuinely find it fascinating how indeed.com is like the biggest job-hunting website out there and yet manages to be profoundly useless in every possible way

[redstonedust]

yknow AI art has ruined an entire genre of painting to me, i saw one of those smooth anime-realism pieces and immidiately thought ''ugh, AI art'' until i noticed it was posted by an established deviantart user 6 years ago. like ive never been a huge fan of that genre but it looks like a pretty difficult style to master and i feel bad for the artists who specialized in anime-realism only to have their entire market jacked by people typing keywords into midjourney.

[zytes]

this manatee looks like it’s in a skyrim loading screen

[sadclowncentral]

nearly had a medical emergency today because - and i cannot stress enough how little i am making this up - a helicopter landed in front of an open grain silo while i was getting off my ship and i am deathly allergic to the wheat that said helicopters rotor blades proceeded to blast in my face at full force. the cosmic forces are plotting against me ass situation to be in