Happy new year y’all! So, I’ve spent definitely thousands of hours writing through my life, and every single one of those hours has been in first person, but lately I’ve been thinking of branching out. Writing in third person is so out of my element, but I like the opportunity to try something new that can teach me a different way of writing. Anyway, I spent a bit of time writing this little fluff Eames/Arthur story just to practice yesterday, and I figured I’d throw it on here. I’m not confident enough to put it on AO3, but I figure you guys won’t be that mean to me if it sucks. Anyway, let me know what you think! :)
(Also no clue if there’s an unspoken rule as to how to format posting writing on here, so I kind of just made up my own)
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Inception Arthur/Eames, established relationship
Eames struggles to cope after learning Arthur has decided to leave him for a month. Well, three and a half weeks, but who’s counting?
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Eames taps his spoon against the bowl, staring down at the meal like it’s got half a mind to jump up and bite him. Really, he knows what he’s avoiding, knows what’s waiting for him when he shifts his eyes, but there’s no harm in delaying things a little longer. He forces a blank expression, hopes it’ll fool the man sitting across from him, and taps his foot rapidly against the floorboards.
“You’re acting like you already know what I’m going to say,” Arthur breaks the silence, his voice its usual, even tone of slightly pretentious, but good-natured snark. The metal spoon clangs a little louder against the ceramic bowl, a shrill noise in the quiet dining room, and Eames startles through his attempted save,
“I am a known mind reader.” Eames smirks like it’s true, maybe really does believe it. After these years, it sometimes does feel like he can see what Arthur’s thinking through his eyes. Deciding to test the theory, Eames looks up and stares into those baby browns, searches deeper and deeper until he realizes all he’s found is a frightening amount of empathy. Yes, Arthur feels bad for this, Arthur feels guilty for this, and there’s no reason he should. This is a good thing for him. A great thing, in fact, and yet all Eames can do is grit his teeth against the urge to pout and slam various doors.
“It’s three and a half weeks. You won’t even know I’m gone,” Arthur attempts reassurance this time, shifting in his seat the way he does when someone’s giving an opinion he doesn’t like. Eames is not used to his own presence being the cause of that discomfort, would much prefer it to be the fault of Yusuf’s hair-brained chemical theories or Ariadne’s colorful language in the place of proper grammar. “It’s a good job. A really good job. I could pay our rent for the next year – hell, we could move and buy a house with the money. A real house, with an office, maybe even a garden.”
“I like the sound of that,” Eames breaks and smiles, but not just because it’s a hypnotizing thought to have somewhere to grow the overachieving vegetables he keeps spending a fortune on at the weekly farmer’s market. There’s something intoxicating about hearing Arthur, stick-in-the-mud Arthur, once spent an entire job sleeping on a concrete floor to avoid shagging Eames Arthur, discuss home design and other frivolities. He’s known the man for what feels like forever now, but for what’s really been probably a lot longer given how slow the space between meetings had started to feel. There was that rough patch after Mal was lost, but after Cobb patched up that wound, it seemed that he and Arthur were able to stop their hemorrhaging, as well. Since then, they’ve hardly spent any time apart. What began in hotel rooms and, crudely, restaurant bathrooms evolved into “my place or yours?”, which eventually merged to, “I’ll see you at home” and “don’t forget to lock the fucking door again, we’re going to get murdered in our sleep at this rate.” That last one occurred after a delightfully messy night rolled into a sleepless morning, during which an exhausted, terribly pleased Arthur convinced himself the landlord was a ruthless contract killer.
Point being, Eames has learned Arthur very well, including his limits, and it has never not been surprising to realize he’s gotten a little thing wrong. A garden, hm? Perhaps Arthur appreciates fine cuisine more than Eames has given him credit for.
“I’ll call you every day. You know I will. It’s only a five hour time difference,” Arthur assures him, and bam, right back to reality. Eames sinks in his chair as little, lofty dreams of tomatoes coiling on dainty, wooden poles dance out his ears.
“So, you’ve decided, then? You’re just gonna go?” Eames responds and can’t help the vitriol in his voice. He would punch himself if he could, but settles for a quiet face palm. How do you weed out the selfishness that comes with being in love? How do you tend to the ache, the swollen heartache that comes from inexperienced loneliness? Eames knows he’s become greedy, knows there was a time where the best he could get from Arthur was a couple days of hurried shagging before he’d run off to some other skull’s mystery.
“I have to. It’s a life-changing amount of money, and it’s not just stealing, either. I’ll be doing a good thing.”
“Because we’re the type to need clear consciences.”
“Then you don’t be a fool. You could very easily be killed!”
“I’ll be fine! I can take care of myself, you know,” Arthur snaps, standing up from the table with an aggressive stomp. He pushes in his chair haphazardly, forcing the poor thing to teeter on its legs and nearly topple over. They’ve outgrown this flat, Eames has known that for half a year, but time is fickle and blissfully fast these days.
Eames follows after his partner, rising to his feet, and protests, “Of course I know that! You expect me to not worry because I know you can take a punch?”
“You like the sound of a pretty house, huh? What about the work to get it? Have you thought about that?”
“We can work together! Arthur, we don’t work without each other anymore. We don’t trust it, remember? There’s no price on…” Eames motions weakly to the space between them, his hands shaking through the movement. Arthur’s eyes follow and widen, and for the first time since the conversation began, he takes a deep breath. That guilt Eames had briefly scared off with anger reenters Arthur’s eyes, more’s the pity. Arthur takes a careful step forward and puts one hand on his shoulder. With the other, he drags his fingers up and down his lover’s arm, back and forth, back and forth.
“I’m gonna come back,” Arthur whispers. Eames chokes back an unflattering sound.
“Let me go with you. They’ll find a need for a forger.”
“I tried. You know that.”
All at once, Eames loses any rage he could muster and droops even closer to Arthur, melting against his body. Arthur quickly takes the hint, wrapping his arms around the sinking man with particular, careful fervor. Eames buries his face in Arthur’s neck and takes a deep, intentional breath. He smells good. He smells like their bed, like breakfast, like warmth and safety and all of the silly things he never thought he’d have in his vicinity, let alone wrapped around him.
“I’m going to be sick for a month,” Eames decides, still speaking into Arthur’s neck.
“You aren’t. Half the time’s just training, so I’m in no danger then. And it’s three and a half weeks,” Arthur corrects.
Eames lifts his head and stares into Arthur’s eyes, considers nuzzling his nose against his, but instead pleads,
“Enough with the semantics.”
Arthur sighs with apparent resignation and cups Eames’ face in his hands. His fingers are soft and so, so warm. Yes, Eames is worried for Arthur’s safety, a noble cause, but there are far more regular, human woes bouncing through his head. How’s he supposed to live without these fingers, without this voice, without this breath for an entire month? An entire month out of the year, four weeks of time lost by two men who have already squandered so much of it. “...If you really don’t want me to go, I won’t.”
For a brief moment, the sentence thrills Eames so greatly he could jump up out of Arthur’s grasp and do an interpretive dance. But it’s the way with which the statement was uttered that stops him from performing a victory lap. Arthur’s voice is placated, steady, but dull. Like he’s accepting punishment for a crime he’s committed. The last thing Eames has ever wanted was to cage this man, this man who was already so difficult to convince that stability was possible. Arthur’s so far from a man of faith, so the opposite of a devotee, that the fact that he’ll worship in Eames’ glow feels impossible. There was necessity and kindness in culling that forest fire, but it would be cruel to fully put it out.
“You’ve got to do what you want,” Eames says just convincingly enough that he can almost get himself to believe it.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“But you want to do good work.”
“...Yes. And on this job, I can.”
Eames sighs, swallows hard, and puts his hands on Arthur’s waist tightly. Seemingly knowing where this is going, Arthur completes the motion and kisses Eames hard, exhaling into his mouth as he parts his lips. They’ve been here a thousand times before, and yet Eames’ heart is going a mile a minute, his fingers are twitching with desire, and his tongue is greedily soaking up every bit Arthur will let him have. Eames finds that Arthur tends to be very agreeable to this exchange, to him kissing hungrily, like Arthur’s got something Eames would do anything to steal. As much as tabling this conversation to move to the bedroom is an appealing idea, Eames curbs his enthusiasm and breaks the kiss abruptly, pressing his forehead against Arthur’s.
“I’m gonna bloody miss you,” Eames admits, uttering a sentence that would’ve made him cringe half to death had he said it half a decade ago. Now, it comes out like water flowing down a cliffside.
“Fuck. You’re really okay with me going?” Arthur asks. Eames shakes his head.
“No, but I’ll live with it. I trust you. I know you won’t do anything daft, or I’ll come to Brazil and kill you myself.”
“I don’t leave until the second of April. I’ll make you so sick of me by the end of the month, you’ll be begging me to leave early,” Arthur whispers and pecks Eames’ lips.
“I’m already sick of you,” Eames mumbles. It’s not quite peppy enough to be a proper joke, but it’s a close thing. “What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”
“What did you do before we lived together?”
“Waited around for you to call me.”
Arthur’s eyes shake and water, and for a brief moment, he almost appears to reconsider the entire plan, but Eames knows it’s not a serious change of heart. They’ve been together for enough years to know that, in the long run, a month or so apart won’t make any difference. They’ll worry, they’ll bicker, they’ll keep each other up over the phone, they’ll shag without self-control for several days when Arthur returns, but after all of that, things will flutter back to their usual state of things. So long as Arthur comes back alive, so long as Arthur comes back mostly whole, their life will revert to normality. Sweet, sweet, normality, routine, structure. What a thing to long for.
“Let’s go on a long trip after I get back. Wherever you want.”
“How about our bed?” Eames quips. Arthur snickers and blows air in Eames’ face, but the man opposite him doesn’t even flinch. Instead, he steals another quick kiss.
“If that’s what you want,” Arthur accepts easily.
“And you’ll never work without me again?” Eames pushes a little further.
“...I may not be able to promise that,” Arthur admits, but adds on, “but I can promise you something else.”
