Melting [fic]
Title: Melting
Rating: T (jesus, not even that, this is tame)
Synopsis: A telephone pole brings them together.
Another day, another inceptionkink prompt.
Again, late, but I've been in the hospital with goddamn food poisoning.
Here's the prompt:
Eames runs into a pole when he notices Arthur across the way.
I wholeheartedly blame this video (reporter running into pole).
Maybe Arthur tends to his wounded face? Maybe Arthur feels so bad that they have "I'm sorry I'm so hot that you got distracted and ran into a pole sex?"
GO WITH IT ANONS.
And here we go!
Eames is walking down a street.
He’s carefully cradling a steaming coffee and hurrying because he has left his car unlocked. The sidewalk is crowded beyond belief and the last time he tried to dodge people he had spilled coffee all over his favorite flannel shirt, and because he has a huge love for flannel shirts and they take ages to wear in perfectly, Eames is walking along the edge of the sidewalk and weaving between the trees and telephone poles that line the curb.
But it’s as he’s slipping around an icicle-laden birch that he sees someone who looks vaguely familiar. And when he turns his head to check, yes, it’s Arthur.
And try as he might, Eames is mightily distracted by the sight of Arthur. Distracted to the point that he catches Arthur’s eye, goes to wave, and out of the corner of his eye he seems a looming mass right in front of him. He snaps his head to the front just in time to see the wood grain of the telephone pole he slams straight into.
He slams into a telephone pole.
A telephone pole.
Suddenly his coffee is flying through the air in a gloriously caffeinated arc and landing all over him; he can feel the burn of nearly boiling liquid as it seeps through his shirt and drips down his collar. And then he’s on his ass and his head is pounding like crazy and he’s pretty sure that blood is dripping down his shirt to intermingle with the coffee and create a very ugly stain.
And then Arthur is crouching by him, Arthur’s rolling up his sleeves and asking him if he’s okay. A shopkeeper leans out of his door and asks if they need a first aid kit, and Arthur says yes and thank you and quickly, please, but all Eames can think about is, well, Arthur.
Arthur, whose breath is steaming in the icy air, whose hands are gingerly assessing the damage to Eames’ face, which not only hurts like hell, it feels really puffy and is probably swelling already. It’s also strangely warm, and it takes him a few seconds to realize that he’s bleeding.
“Do you want to go to the hospital?” Arthur asks.
Eames reaches up a hand to tentatively dab at the warm, sticky tendrils of blood running down his face, but he’s looking straight at Arthur, shocked, and it’s that question that opens the floodgates.
…because they can’t go to a hospital.
Hospitals mean names and paperwork and questions that they really can’t answer; inquisitive doctors and forms with things like name and date of birth and, most frighteningly, occupation. Eames hasn’t been to one in nearly five years; his last visit was under a false identity to see his dying mother.
Going to a hospital can mean getting caught and going to prison or even capital punishment, because Eames has done some things he isn’t proud of.
But Arthur is willing to risk it, because Eames is hurt. He cares.
And then Eames realizes it.
Eames is pretty sure he loves Arthur.
Just like that, it’s a realization that presents itself and seamlessly melds into those accepted postulates one holds to be true: gravity exists, sex is good, Eames loves Arthur.
So, yeah.
News.
The shopkeeper, whose nametag deems him Bill, rushes over with a garishly red first-aid kit, and Arthur immediately rifles through the contents with a rushed “thank you” for the man. Arthur starts by addressing Eames’ face, but all Eames can do is start laughing, because, hello.
Over a telephone pole.
Eames is having an epiphany over Arthur because he just ran into a telephone pole.
He has realized his eternal devotion to the point man, his totally and awesomely Forbidden point man (yeah, that's a capital 'F') who will never in a million years return his feelings, and who has a million mile long string of gorgeous girlfriends who are cool and smart and therefore eliminate any chance at all of there ever existing the remote possibility of Arthur liking Eames, let alone anything more even slightly romantic in nature, so really what is the point of loving someone like that? God, he has issues, seriously.
Um.
So he has realized all of this because he’d been gawking over Arthur. In his own especially comical, unintentional way.
Well, okay then.
Okay.
It's okay, Eames.
Breathe.
Roll with the punches. Face your foes, or whatever. If life throws you lemons, throw them back in it's face, demand the oranges you asked for, and make yourself some sweet orange juice. Or something equally spiritually uplifting like that. Come on. You can do this. Get over it, Eames. Eames. Eames?
"Eames?" It is Arthur, looking at him questioningly. Shit, has he noticed? Arthurs's face manages to look amazing despite the concern and blatant laughter he’s trying to hold back. Shit. Also, unfair.
"Eames?"
The laughter dies down to a few sniggers and people are beginning to look at Eames strangely. What? He wants to say. Can they see it on his face?
What?
There is maybe an instant of panic when everything becomes dizzying and the world around him spins… and Arthur is still looking straight at him with curious concern… maybe Eames should look away, this is starting to get a little too intense, except that he can't, Arthur has a way of commanding attention, of drawing every gaze toward him… but then suddenly the moment is gone, the ground beneath his feet exists once more, and Eames can sit up straight and firm, feeling gratefully calm.
Only to look at Arthur properly… and start laughing.
At Arthur, at himself, at the situation, at the hilariously annoyed look Arthur is making because all this laughter is making Eames’ face move too much, at himself some more because God this is so stupid and he loves Arthur so very much so the man had better not be upset or anything, and he is in love with Arthur, and it feels just as weird as it sounds. But also kind of… not.
"I'm still… not over… how… stupid this is," he gasps, and immediately regrets opening his mouth to speak, because it hurts like hell and his nose broken. Maybe.
“Eames, please, hold still,” Arthur asks insistently, and Eames tries his hardest to stop laughing. He really does, but it just isn’t working.
“How about we take this somewhere else?” Eames suggests, noticing all of the attention his hugely bloody face and his ceaseless laughter is receiving.
“Sure,” Arthur says, and once he’s packed up the first aid kit he slides an arm under Eames’ and pulls the man to his feet. He tries to slide his arm away once Eames is standing, but Eames begins to waver unsteadily and has to clutch the godforsaken pole for support.
“Darling?” he pleads, and with a quiet sigh Arthur puts his arm back around Eames. They limp slowly towards Arthur’s sleek car, and Eames isn’t sure if it’s blood loss or just sheer crazy but Arthur’s arm is really, really warm. It’s rather distracting, actually, and he keeps slipping minutely on the ice patches because his mind’s not on where he places his feet, it’s on the warmth at the small of his back.
“Look, I’m really sorry about your face,” Arthur says once they’re both comfortably settled in his car and the heat is blasting.
Eames, who is tracing aimless circles in the steamy window, looks up. Arthur is legitimately guilty about this, which is pretty hilarious considering that Eames doesn’t care that much, he’s had worse and his nose isn’t even going to heal crooked.
Still…
“Well, they are plenty of ways that you could make it up to me,” Eames suggests, a lazy smirk on his lips.
Arthur sighs.
“Fine,” he agrees, and Eames is mid-celebratory dance when Arthur holds up a finger, silencing him. “First, we’ll have to wait until you stop bleeding out from the face.”
Now Eames is more than a little puzzled, because he meant sending Arthur on a ridiculously large amount of coffee runs and languishing on his couch while Arthur vacuumed every flat surface in the flat. What is he…
“And,” he intones, “I get to top.”
Oh.
That.
I actually like this a lot - and now I’m ridiculously excited for winter to get here!