“So you didn’t have me. As a baby. Growing inside of you.” Lucky settled next to Eames with a little frown.
Eames looked up from the sketch he’d been doodling idly, Lucky’s statement coming out of nowhere. “No,” he said, confused. “Your mother had you. You know that.”
“My mom had me, and you and Arthur just found me and took care of me after she couldn’t.”
Lucky had heard this story a million times. They told it to her religiously every year on the anniversary of the day Arthur had found her. They left out some of the less good details–like Eames’s state of near-death at the time, like the part where her father showed up and pointed a gun at her after Eames had shoved her in a kitchen cupboard–but she knew she’d had a mom (and a dad) biologically who weren’t them.
“Right,” Eames said. “Exactly. But you know that doesn’t make a difference. You’re ours. We’re besotted with you. It’s quite disgusting, really. People say all the time, ‘That Arthur and Eames, they are ridiculously in love with that child of theirs, they let her do anything she wants.’”
“Except have a tiger.”
“Except have a tiger. But that’s Arthur. He’s unreasonable.”
“We love him anyway,” said Lucky wisely, as if she needed to remind Eames of that.
“We do. Because he wears nice ties.”
“How come you and Arthur don’t have other kids?” asked Lucky, head tilted curiously.
Eames furrowed his brow at Lucky, wondering where this was coming from. “Are you lonely?”
“No. But you never had any babies.”
“Boys don’t have babies, not from their own bodies, not the way girls do. Well. That’s simplifying matters, I guess. Your father and I can’t have babies. We don’t have the right bodies for it. You need a certain body. Certain equipment. We don’t have it.”
“But I have it?” asked Lucky.
“Yeeeees,” said Eames slowly, and looked around the flat, wondering where Arthur had disappeared to, and then remembering that he’d said something about there not being a single acceptable pen in the house and fuck, Arthur would probably be hours at the stationery store because that was how Arthurwas when it came to writing implements. “Probably. Probably, if you want to, you could have a baby, years and years and years from now.”
“How?” asked Lucky.
“How what?” stalled Eames.
“How could I have a baby? How would I get it in me?” Lucky looked frankly interested in the response to this question.
Eames said, “Um. Wouldn’t you rather wait for your other father to come home so you can ask him? Arthur’s read whole books about how to have this conversation. Arthur probably has a Moleskine in his desk with this whole speech written out for you.”
Lucky frowned. “Do you not know where babies come from?”
“Of course I know where babies come from,” Eames retorted indignantly, and then sighed, “Christ, why do I care if you think I don’t know where babies come from?”
“Eamesieeeeeee,” whined Lucky, sprawling over his lap.
Eames said, “Alright. Fine. It involves a giant claw machine.”
***
“A giant claw machine?” said Arthur, weeks later, apropos of absolutely nothing, while Eames was shaving in the bathroom.
“What’s that, love?” he said, looking at Arthur in the mirror when he showed up behind him.
Arthur was dressed in half of his suit, jacked discarded, waistcoat unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, tie loose, with his hair waving out of its daily prison. It was Eames’s favorite look, the Lucky’s-bedtime Arthur, when he was caught between professional and private and Eames got to think of how he got both of these Arthurs. He was leaning against the bathroom doorjamb, arms crossed, with a sardonic twist to his mouth. “Did you tell our daughter that you get a baby through winning a game of a giant claw machine?”
Eames blinked. “Oh,” he said, and wiped his face with a towel. “Yes. I did. Is that problematic?”
“Is that problematic? That our daughter asked me tonight if other sorts of games can also get you pregnant, or if it’s just a giant claw machine? You’re asking me if that’s problematic?”
“Yes,” Eames said innocently. “Is it?”
“Yes,” said Arthur.
“But, Arthur, darling, love of my life…” Eames pulled him in by his belt loops.
Arthur said, “I love that you think now’s the time to pull out your giant claw machine.”
“I haven’t pulled it out yet,” Eames noted, and gestured helpfully to the towel still wrapped around his waist.
“I love that you think we’re engaging in any activities that would make a baby.”
Eames gave him a careful look. “Petal,” he said. “I hate to break it to you, but none of our activities can make a baby. You do know that, right?”
“Shut up,” said Arthur. “You know what I mean.”
“She’s four years old, Arthur. She’s going to forget about the giant claw machine thing.”
“She’s going to be in therapy about it. She doesn’t want to go to any more carnivals, she thinks they’re all baby-making factories.”
“To be fair, some carnivals are.”
“Eames.”
“Really, darling, you worry too much. She’ll figure out how babies are made the same way I did.”
“Oh? Sharing girlie magazines behind the bleachers at some posh public school?”
“If you must know, Jenny Mayhew told me all about when we were six, and I was just as horrified as if the explanation had been ‘giant claw machine.’ In retrospect, I might have decided I was gay right then and there.”
“I am willing to agree that you’re allowed to panic when confronted unexpectedly with that question from Lucky–”
“I didn’t panic,” said Eames, affronted.
“–But where the fuck do you come up with ‘giant claw machine’?”
“Vaginas are a little bit like giant claw machines,” said Eames.
“You slept with terrifying women,” Arthur told him.
“I slept with more terrifying men. I sleep with the most terrifying man in the world every single night.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Ha,” Eames said against the skin of Arthur’s throat. “Liar, it gets me everywhere. Now, let me see if I can get this giant claw machine to behave for me. I used to be an expert at massaging the joystick just so–”
“I am going to kill you for making this into a euphemism. Probably not tonight but eventually, someday, when you least expect it, I will kill you, and I will be like, ‘That was for the giant claw machine thing.’”
“Fuck, darling, talk dirty to me a bit more.”
“Shut up,” said Arthur, and kissed him.