Inception Fic Dump 01
[Since I am an avowed and unrepentant Arthur/Eames slasher they're all I'm writing about.
But this morning before I fell asleep I think I had an idea for Ariadne/Mal come into my head. WOW I AM SCREWED.]
[Some people aren't really fond of guyslash so, yeah, please feel free to ignore this post. These are mostly gen stuff except for the third, which is really porny.]
title: After
author: ilovetakahana
rating: Gen
pairing: Arthur / Eames
warnings: none except that this is my first Inception fic.
disclaimer: I don't own the story or the characters.
summary: after the job, Arthur reels Eames in.
The job is done, Cobb is gone, the rest of the team has left with murmured promises of getting together for another job soon. [Is that Saito asking Yusuf and Ariadne to train him? In what?]
Arthur sighs, runs his hands through his hair, pats the pocket he's sewn into each of his vests and shirts, the secret pocket that holds his loaded die over his heart. Now that the job was done it was okay to be just himself, to stop playing the part of the stalwart point man, to breathe.
Does he ever need to breathe now. Inception is not a job he would want to undertake twice although he knows that if Cobb ever came back to the business he will want to try that again. [He will. He will.]
There is a twinge in his gut that makes him think of food and a very heavy-handed tumbler of scotch on the rocks and he calls a cab to take him to his favorite restaurant in the country.
He knows he's being followed almost from the start - but he knows who the follower is and frankly, after all that teasing inside the layers of dreams, the incongruous gentleness, those looks, holy God those looks - frankly, he thinks he's going to need him.
Eames takes his time showing up in the dining room. He looks far more put together than he did in the dreams - the man actually owns a decent shirt and it's pressed so sharply the creases could cut through butter and whispers - and he looks both confident and questioning as he pulls up to the chair opposite Arthur's.
Arthur waves him into the chair and then signals for menus, offering one to Eames but then....
"I'll have what he's having," Eames murmurs, his eyes darting everywhere.
Arthur nods and asks for the house specials, scotch on the rocks, and a bottle of champagne for later.
Eames is looking at everyone except him. He can't find it in his heart to be offended. Forgery was a skill that was always on, always picking up new things and new people, and if they hadn't had him along on this job it would never even have gotten off the ground. So he's content to wait for the other man.
It takes a few moments but Eames finally sighs and looks at him, cataloguing over. And then he sighs again, far more deeply this time, and puts his head in his hands. "I am normally renowned for my subtleties, darling," voice husky and muffled.
"This wasn't what you had in mind?" Arthur asks, with a little smile to show he's not actually needling for once.
Eames chuckles like it's being pulled out of him on a wire. "Dear Arthur," he rasps. "I was thinking of something a little grittier. A little more interesting."
"And this isn't?"
The food arrives. Eames is far more interested in the drinks, however, and greedily downs half his tumbler, ice clinking, shivering a little as the concentrated shock of alcohol hits his bloodstream.
He watches intently as, finally, the other man gets it. They are here precisely because they can consider each other as the most important and interesting thing in the room. They are here, and they have come back from that job, and nothing will ever be the same again.
***
Upstairs, in his suite, he opens the champagne, pours glasses, sets the bottle back into the ice. And turns to Eames, toasting him: "To Cobb. To inception. To this fucking job we never thought would actually work."
And if that's how they're going to start, Arthur thinks vaguely as Eames drains his glass and then walks over to kiss him, well, they've done much, much worse.
title: Four People Arthur Watches Sleep (and One He Doesn't)
author: ilovetakahana
rating: Gen
pairing: Arthur / Eames
warnings: none really.
disclaimer: I don't own the story or the characters.
summary: ...well, doesn't the title say it all?
1. Saito
It was surprising that the job Saito wanted done was Inception. It was even more surprising that he'd signed on as a Tourist despite warnings to the contrary.
But the most surprising thing of all was that the man came to the workshop every night, and stayed there until morning. Arthur figured he'd be running his companies somehow, counting the money that came in - but no, there he was, arms and legs crossed as he made the most [not much] out of one of the rickety warehouse chairs.
To his credit, Saito tried to make himself useful - he never showed up without something for the team, usually food packaged prettily in red lacquered boxes, which the others always ate with great relish.
But Arthur had never been on a job with the client before and he couldn't stop himself from thinking that he had a bad feeling about all of this.
2. Yusuf
He noticed that Yusuf always waited on Ariadne to finish the day's work and move on to the bright, secluded corner she'd claimed for her own, before taking over her previous spot in the center of the workshop. Normally he would pay no attention to whatever the team did after hours, but this time he'd seen the flash of garish color in the man's bag.
So when the deep snores signaled that the Chemist had fallen asleep, Arthur edged back around toward the worktable - and found him surrounded by stacks of comics.
He flicked through one of the books and, afterward, wondered if Yusuf would make them dream of feathers, or of people with impossibly lanky physiques.
3. Ariadne
He hadn't meant to find out what the Architect did in her off-hours - hadn't even been interested in the slightest - but he supposed that he should have figured it out more quickly.
It seemed right that a personality like hers always needed to be creating something, so she created dream-mazes of breathtaking complexity in the daytime, and knitted - well, whatever it was she was working on - during the night. He supposed it was a hat although he knew nothing of knitting and it could just as easily have been a scarf or a pair of gloves.
The - thing - on her needles was black and blue, nothing like her maroon sweater, and for one fleeting moment Arthur wondered who she was making it for.
4. Cobb
After all these years of working with - well, with just Cobb now - Arthur still marvels at his intensity. Dimmed, yes, since Mal's death and all the chaos it entailed, but still intense.
Cobb escaped into sleep, Arthur knew - escaped into the dreamlessness. That was the essential paradox of the man now. As much as Cobb wanted to run toward/away from the projections in his mind - Arthur knew about those, everyone on the team did by now, this late into the planning - he knew that the Extractor needed the emptiness more, and so, forcing himself, took it however he could.
He was so keyed up even in sleep and Arthur wondered just how much he would change - if he could even change, if he could even return from this preposterous attempt - after everything was said and done.
A. Eames
He knows it's a dream the second he opens his eyes. Here is the beach, spread out before him, the waves a soothing pulse. Here is the moon hanging bright in a starless sky.
And here is Eames. They are lying side by side on a sparsely grassy slope, looking down at the sand and the sea.
The Forger is warm, as always, and dressed in a black and blue sweater.
Arthur sighs and begins their ritual exchange: "I really don't know why you're doing this." It's something that they say every night, their bodies in the workshop and their minds in this peaceful place.
"Because you're worth it, darling. And it's my duty to make sure that you get enough bloody sleep, enough real rest. You're the Point Man, pet, and if you lose that edge this whole thing falls to pieces."
"Do you think the others know?"
"Do you really think they even care, darling? For all we know they think we should have been doing this for a long time."
Arthur chuckles into Eames's shoulder, as he always does, and pokes him in the ribs.
Eames lets out a quiet "ow", as he always does, and settles them both into the sand. "Sleep, Arthur."
He sleeps.
title: Kyoto Nights
author: ilovetakahana
rating: NC-17
pairing: Arthur/Eames
warnings: porn! I haven't written this sort of story for years and it might show. be kind please?
disclaimer: this PWP is brought to you by Eames's neckerchief. (He wears one, right?)
summary: a victory party, and a crazy night in Kyoto.
Kyoto Nights
Eames had to hand it to Saito - the man knew how to treat his - employees? Accomplices? Fellow conspirators? - to a good time. The way Cobb had told it over dinner, the magnate had patiently waited for two months - just long enough for the scruffy blonde to get to know his children again - before summoning them to Kyoto for a victory party.
Normally, each of the team members would have taken extreme measures to not even be seen in the same place as any of the others, but this, apparently, was different. It was amazing what extreme wealth - wealth way above the approximate level of "fuck the world and screw the rules" - could do.
Eames grinned and looked around his suite again. It was so huge he thought could jam his mangy little London flat into it - three times. He thought he might want to host a cocktail party in the bathroom alone, although he was not about to share that massive bathtub full of blessed steaming-hot water with anyone.
He was content to just loll in that bath since he could just keep changing the water every time it dipped below eighty degrees. He intended to pretty much cook in there for a good long time - it was so good to just lie back and let the heat bake the tired from his bones.
Not everyone had had the same thought, though. Ariadne had chucked her professional reserve straight out the window as soon as they landed, staring openmouthed at Kyoto and all of its contrasts - neon blazes next to ancient temple pavilions, girls wearing nearly non-existent skirts and bottle-bleach hair next to dignified women in silk kimono, blasting unintelligible music that did not drown out the hypnotic chanting in the shrines. After dinner she'd not quite run out the door, yelling, "Don't wait up!"
Not an hour later Eames was receiving messages from her on his mobile phone: there she was with a flock of amused geisha, and then she was hanging out with a passel of massive sumo wrestlers, and then she was belting out a passable "Bohemian Rhapsody" in some tiny squeeze of a karaoke joint.
He was pretty sure he could blow her out of the water if he ever got drunk enough to try for Freddie Mercury's falsetto.
Dinner had ended with Yusuf excusing himself to go to bed, and Cobb and Saito wandering off into some even more exclusive corner of the hotel bar, heads together, already oblivious to the rest of the world. Eames had hoped that those two were planning something even more interesting than the Inception job - he'd quite enjoyed the rush of it all.
And Arthur? Eames rolled his shoulders and his eyes in the bath. Who knew. He did want to know, but he just wasn't interested in moving. The bath had knocked all the desire to move from him, and he was wondering if it was even physically possible to just swim from the hot water into the surrounding plushness of the bed when he heard someone knock on the bathroom door.
All thought fled in a flash and he was on his feet, reaching for the gun in its holster near his pants, tearing the door open and shoving the gun muzzle into the intruder's face....
Oh.
It's YOU.
Eames growled and belatedly whipped a towel over his groin. "Next time you could jolly well try NOT to sneak up on a body like that! Could've blown your brains out and then where would we be?!"
Arthur stood there, utterly relaxed and at peace, grinning at his surprise. He was still in his shirtsleeves and perfectly pressed pants - except for the part where his cuffs were undone and hanging messily - and he was barefoot, no surprise in this country. "Well, Cobb would have blown your head off next, unless Ariadne got to a gun first."
Eames snorted. "I don't doubt it. We did a quick job together after inception and where did that girl bloody learn how to shoot? Better than you she is, pet."
"Of course she is." Arthur's voice was muffled as he'd wandered out of the bathroom; Eames shot a lingering, regretful look back into the tub and reluctantly pressed a button to drain it, then took one of the cotton robes from the bathroom closet and followed him out.
Arthur was at the bar, mini-bottles of liquor lined up in front of him. His attention, though, was on a small white box containing three tiny white pillows, each softly indented with a red dot in the center.
"I wouldn't eat those if I were you, love," Eames snorted, padding over to the bed and sitting at its foot, "unless you wanted to exercise your jaws for a good ten minutes." At Arthur's glare he burst out laughing and said, "Rice sweets, very chewy, but very good for all that. Of course they'll leave you unable to talk, eh? Weird people these Japanese.
"And now what are you doing here if I might be so rude to ask?"
Was it just his imagination or was the Point Man now openly leering at him? Eames had heard stories of fish out of water - their little Architect being the most recent example he could think of - but this was no side of Arthur he'd ever seen before except in the dreams. And then he was always aiming it at dead projections, at hapless marks, at everything that was in the way of their objectives.
He had never seen Arthur look that way at anyone real before, and he kind of liked it.
The lanky man crossed the space between them in three long, almost leaping strides, and then suddenly all the Forger could see was his face, his eyes, wide open and full of devilish intent as his mouth plundered Eames's.
He tried to say, "Well, shit," and thought better of it, growling and kissing Arthur back. He no longer cared if this was just something brought on by the change of scenery, the success of the mission, whatever it was that Kyoto was doing to Arthur was something that Eames was willing to accept and make a powerful memory from.
Arthur pushed him roughly down to the bed, hands roving everywhere now, and Eames was more than willing to give it back, busily unbuttoning and unfastening, lips moving over every inch of the other man's skin he could reach. In no time at all they were both naked and Eames could not stop smiling as he felt Arthur's cock twitch against his leg, rock-hard and weeping.
The Forger took advantage of a loud, needy groan to flip them over so that Arthur was on the bottom, and he used his weight to keep him pinned as he slid down, tonguing nipples and navel thoroughly, and finally closing his mouth around the other man.
Arthur screamed and nearly jackknifed off the bed, hands turned into claws that were raking mercilessly at Eames's shoulders. Those were going to be red in the morning and he was rather beyond caring at the moment.
Eames reached one hand up to Arthur's mouth, fingertips drumming against his open lips before driving into that wet warmth, Arthur suckling greedily. He withdrew with a reluctant pop and then began to stroke gentle circles around Arthur's opening - he made a keening sound and pushed himself down onto Eames, tight heat clamping down.
"Bollocks to this, love, you'll have to be ready for me now," Eames gritted as he repositioned them, pushing his neglected cock to bump against Arthur's ass.
"Fuck," was the only answer he got, and he supposed it was as good an answer as any.
Eames set up a brutal rhythm, knowing the spell could be broken at any moment, and in any case intending to leave a mark on Arthur - marks, hell, he was going to leave the younger man bruised to hell and he was doing a good job of it if those lips and those hips were anything to go by.
"Damn it!" And Arthur wrapped his legs around the small of Eames's back, trapping him there, and he responded by redoubling his pace, watching the play of emotions across the other man's face, knowing he was so close and wanting to wait for Arthur to get there first....
And with a piercing cry he did, chanting Eames's name over and over, and that was enough to send him over the edge, too.
As the Kyoto night closed in around them, wrapping them in sleep, Eames muttered to himself, "No regrets."
There was a sound that came in reply, but he didn't know who made it.
***
In the morning he was alone in the vast and completely ruined bed, although he'd thoughtfully been moved out of the wet spot.
"Well, I meant it," Eames said out loud, before heaving a sigh and getting up for his robe.
"Well so did I."
Arthur was already in the bath and submerged to his chin in the water; there was nothing for it but to get in and put an arm around the other man.
***
"Until when?" Eames murmured, half as an afterthought.
"Not really important," was the reply.
"True."
"Quit thinking."
"That's my line, darling."
"Idiot."
"I am for you, and you know it."
A pause. "Yes."
Eames grinned. "Good answer."
title: The Breakfast Club
author: ilovetakahana
pairing: none
characters: the team
warnings: slice-of-life, fluff, food.
disclaimer: I don't own the story or the characters.
summary: how the team begins each day in the warehouse. Eames POV.
Every morning the last person to show up at the warehouse has to turn right back around and get everyone breakfast.
At this point in the job there is no longer any need to ask each person what he or she wants to eat, as they have been pretty much eating the same things for each meal.
Today Eames puts up just the barest show of muttering resistance before he strolls back outside to his beat-up taxicab. [He'd thought he'd never get away with having it in the US - too many taxes and duties to pay.
Apparently, Saito had contacts.]
***
The first stop is a tiny mom-and-pop coffeeshop with ragged linoleum floors and cheerfully mismatched tables and chairs. Eames orders half a dozen croissants, four coffees, and a perfectly glazed mini strawberry tart.
Next door is a Filipino all-day place; he stows a large cup of hot chocolate and a breakfast of fried rice, eggs over easy, and corned beef in the car.
Finally, there's a Chinese lunch counter around the corner; he adds two boxes of chicken and crab fried rice, one large box of stir-fried noodles, and six cups of oolong tea to his haul.
He is never more careful - but fast - than when he is driving with all this food back to the warehouse. It has nothing to do with being kind or with doing them the courtesy of feeding them good, proper food while it's still fresh.
Eames knows that any one of them could fuck his shit up if he ever came back with a drop spilled.
[These people were so very cranky when it came to food, but he could sympathize.
Just about.]
***
Ariadne and Saito split the croissants and the coffees, and the older man leaves her the entirety of the strawberry tart - and then the little Architect offers a bite out of the dessert to everyone else.
[Eames knows why no one ever accepts no matter how sincerely she asks.]
Arthur, Yusuf, and Cobb get the Chinese take-out boxes and the tea. Arthur eats the noodles, and how can he be so neat and orderly even when he's practically shoving his chopsticks into his mouth? Yusuf eats with tractorish steadiness and then wanders back into his makeshift lab; Cobb eats furiously, as if the food were a distraction.
Eames watches them over his corned beef and fried rice - so very different from a full English and yet hearty and good all the same - and wonders, and learns.
title: Playlist
author: ilovetakahana
rating: Gen
characters: the team
warnings: I own nothing - not Inception, not the characters, and certainly not the music!
summary: the team members' tastes in music. Ariadne POV.
Ariadne has learned that the warehouse is never really silent even in the depths of the night.
Now that she's jumped in at the deep end she's rapidly losing the ability to dream normally; this kind of takes away some of the attraction of sleeping, and it makes her push restlessly to her feet and wander around the corners and crannies of the workshop.
The first night, she finds Yusuf enthusiastically nodding along to whatever he's listening to on his earphones. It makes her wonder how he can concentrate on the chemicals in front of him, if the music is as violent as the pace at which he headbangs.
It is funny, though, and she laughs before she can help herself. The fluttering movements her hands make as she covers her mouth catch Yusuf's attention - he sees her laughing, grins in understanding and points at his ears, and gives her a double thumbs-up.
She grins back, shakes her head, and waves as she moves off.
Yusuf later on lends her the CD he was listening to, and it does not surprise her when she finds out that he listens to Iggy Pop, The Who, and Queen.
A few nights later, the question she wanted to ask Cobb about the job dies unasked in her throat as she finds him in his makeshift quarters, head buried in his arms, surrounded by the plaintive voice of Edith Piaf.
"He's like that," Eames replies when she asks him about it. "Man has positively unhealthy obsessions - but it's not as though that's obvious. I mean, I've tried to steer him away from that, maybe on to something related so long as it isn't Piaf - Dietrich, Callas, someone else - but I've never known him to budge. Pity."
She looks mournfully at Cobb, now lost in a quiet, earnest conversation with Arthur, and digs her own music player out of her pocket. "I have...happier...music here," she murmurs, "but the way you describe him, it might be an insult if I offered him this stuff."
She feels him looking over her shoulder as she scrolls through the most-frequently-played tracks: Jason Mraz, Weezer, Franz Ferdinand - but he only really reacts to one name: L'Arc~en~Ciel.
"Who turned you on to them?" the thief asks, genuinely curious.
"Some of my friends are rather massive fans; they kind of pushed me and pushed me into it, you know? I can't understand a word they say, except when they sing in English, but, yeah, I kind of enjoy them now."
"I saw them perform once. Not by choice." Eames chuckles and squeezes her shoulder. "Followed a mark there. I think they've toned down a bit; they used to wear these really terrifying stage costumes."
"Yeah." Ariadne tilts her head and looks at him. "What do you listen to?"
Eames laughs loudly enough to draw a raised eyebrow from Arthur, and pats her on the head - Ariadne shies away, growling under her breath. "That's for me to know and you to find out."
Arthur listens to the Goldberg Variations. Ariadne discovers this as she watches him, Eames, and Saito return from another information-gathering sortie, and he immediately heads to the battered table stacked with files and blueprints and dossiers - to update his folders, she guesses. As he settles into the chair, he absently stabs at a music player hidden under a sheaf of papers, and the famous sarabande wafts into the space around him.
He is probably not the right person to ask about Eames's choice of music; she simply cannot imagine the Englishman listening to this, as ethereal and beautiful it is.
The next morning Saito presents her with a complete set of L'Arc~en~Ciel concert DVDs. Ariadne is thunderstruck as she reads the titles. There is even a DVD copy of the "Touch of Dune" concert. "Oh my god. Sir - Saito-san - I - "
"You're welcome," is all he says, smiling. "And you must call me Saito - I insist. We are all co-workers in this venture."
Eames passes behind the businessman right after that, grinning and winking at her, and there's nothing for it but to clasp Saito's hands in thanks.
***
The night before the inception job sees the team assembled at the warehouse, surrounded by congealing cartons of Chinese take-out. Arthur goes over the mission specifics for one last time, and then Cobb sternly orders everyone to get some proper rest.
But her nerves get the better of her and even listening to her music does her no good, and she haunts the warehouse again. This time Yusuf and Arthur are bedded down in the rickety chaises, and even Saito is stretched out on a battered sofa underneath a window. Cobb, for once, has not put himself under, and is in all likelihood really sleeping.
A faint bass thump guides her towards the very back of the warehouse, decidedly far away from the other sleepers, and there she finds Eames, hipflask in hand. He smiles kindly at her and pats the arm of his couch, offers her a drink.
Ariadne hesitates, and then permits herself one gulp, which burns all the way down and blossoms into an oddly comforting heat.
"What is this?" she finally asks.
"Orbital. They're a bit well-known for remixing themes from movies and TV shows." Eames leans back in the chair, crosses his legs at the ankles. "And this is my favorite of their tracks. Ever heard of a little BBC show called Doctor Who?"
Ariadne laughs, punches his arm playfully, laughs again. It did fit him, after a fashion. After a while, she asks, "Have you ever considered appearing in dreams as those actors?"
Eames laughs, squeezes her in a quick hug. "Thanks for giving me such wonderful ideas, pet."
"Liar."
"Oh yes I am."
But this morning before I fell asleep I think I had an idea for Ariadne/Mal come into my head. WOW I AM SCREWED.]
[Some people aren't really fond of guyslash so, yeah, please feel free to ignore this post. These are mostly gen stuff except for the third, which is really porny.]
title: After
author: ilovetakahana
rating: Gen
pairing: Arthur / Eames
warnings: none except that this is my first Inception fic.
disclaimer: I don't own the story or the characters.
summary: after the job, Arthur reels Eames in.
The job is done, Cobb is gone, the rest of the team has left with murmured promises of getting together for another job soon. [Is that Saito asking Yusuf and Ariadne to train him? In what?]
Arthur sighs, runs his hands through his hair, pats the pocket he's sewn into each of his vests and shirts, the secret pocket that holds his loaded die over his heart. Now that the job was done it was okay to be just himself, to stop playing the part of the stalwart point man, to breathe.
Does he ever need to breathe now. Inception is not a job he would want to undertake twice although he knows that if Cobb ever came back to the business he will want to try that again. [He will. He will.]
There is a twinge in his gut that makes him think of food and a very heavy-handed tumbler of scotch on the rocks and he calls a cab to take him to his favorite restaurant in the country.
He knows he's being followed almost from the start - but he knows who the follower is and frankly, after all that teasing inside the layers of dreams, the incongruous gentleness, those looks, holy God those looks - frankly, he thinks he's going to need him.
Eames takes his time showing up in the dining room. He looks far more put together than he did in the dreams - the man actually owns a decent shirt and it's pressed so sharply the creases could cut through butter and whispers - and he looks both confident and questioning as he pulls up to the chair opposite Arthur's.
Arthur waves him into the chair and then signals for menus, offering one to Eames but then....
"I'll have what he's having," Eames murmurs, his eyes darting everywhere.
Arthur nods and asks for the house specials, scotch on the rocks, and a bottle of champagne for later.
Eames is looking at everyone except him. He can't find it in his heart to be offended. Forgery was a skill that was always on, always picking up new things and new people, and if they hadn't had him along on this job it would never even have gotten off the ground. So he's content to wait for the other man.
It takes a few moments but Eames finally sighs and looks at him, cataloguing over. And then he sighs again, far more deeply this time, and puts his head in his hands. "I am normally renowned for my subtleties, darling," voice husky and muffled.
"This wasn't what you had in mind?" Arthur asks, with a little smile to show he's not actually needling for once.
Eames chuckles like it's being pulled out of him on a wire. "Dear Arthur," he rasps. "I was thinking of something a little grittier. A little more interesting."
"And this isn't?"
The food arrives. Eames is far more interested in the drinks, however, and greedily downs half his tumbler, ice clinking, shivering a little as the concentrated shock of alcohol hits his bloodstream.
He watches intently as, finally, the other man gets it. They are here precisely because they can consider each other as the most important and interesting thing in the room. They are here, and they have come back from that job, and nothing will ever be the same again.
***
Upstairs, in his suite, he opens the champagne, pours glasses, sets the bottle back into the ice. And turns to Eames, toasting him: "To Cobb. To inception. To this fucking job we never thought would actually work."
And if that's how they're going to start, Arthur thinks vaguely as Eames drains his glass and then walks over to kiss him, well, they've done much, much worse.
title: Four People Arthur Watches Sleep (and One He Doesn't)
author: ilovetakahana
rating: Gen
pairing: Arthur / Eames
warnings: none really.
disclaimer: I don't own the story or the characters.
summary: ...well, doesn't the title say it all?
1. Saito
It was surprising that the job Saito wanted done was Inception. It was even more surprising that he'd signed on as a Tourist despite warnings to the contrary.
But the most surprising thing of all was that the man came to the workshop every night, and stayed there until morning. Arthur figured he'd be running his companies somehow, counting the money that came in - but no, there he was, arms and legs crossed as he made the most [not much] out of one of the rickety warehouse chairs.
To his credit, Saito tried to make himself useful - he never showed up without something for the team, usually food packaged prettily in red lacquered boxes, which the others always ate with great relish.
But Arthur had never been on a job with the client before and he couldn't stop himself from thinking that he had a bad feeling about all of this.
2. Yusuf
He noticed that Yusuf always waited on Ariadne to finish the day's work and move on to the bright, secluded corner she'd claimed for her own, before taking over her previous spot in the center of the workshop. Normally he would pay no attention to whatever the team did after hours, but this time he'd seen the flash of garish color in the man's bag.
So when the deep snores signaled that the Chemist had fallen asleep, Arthur edged back around toward the worktable - and found him surrounded by stacks of comics.
He flicked through one of the books and, afterward, wondered if Yusuf would make them dream of feathers, or of people with impossibly lanky physiques.
3. Ariadne
He hadn't meant to find out what the Architect did in her off-hours - hadn't even been interested in the slightest - but he supposed that he should have figured it out more quickly.
It seemed right that a personality like hers always needed to be creating something, so she created dream-mazes of breathtaking complexity in the daytime, and knitted - well, whatever it was she was working on - during the night. He supposed it was a hat although he knew nothing of knitting and it could just as easily have been a scarf or a pair of gloves.
The - thing - on her needles was black and blue, nothing like her maroon sweater, and for one fleeting moment Arthur wondered who she was making it for.
4. Cobb
After all these years of working with - well, with just Cobb now - Arthur still marvels at his intensity. Dimmed, yes, since Mal's death and all the chaos it entailed, but still intense.
Cobb escaped into sleep, Arthur knew - escaped into the dreamlessness. That was the essential paradox of the man now. As much as Cobb wanted to run toward/away from the projections in his mind - Arthur knew about those, everyone on the team did by now, this late into the planning - he knew that the Extractor needed the emptiness more, and so, forcing himself, took it however he could.
He was so keyed up even in sleep and Arthur wondered just how much he would change - if he could even change, if he could even return from this preposterous attempt - after everything was said and done.
A. Eames
He knows it's a dream the second he opens his eyes. Here is the beach, spread out before him, the waves a soothing pulse. Here is the moon hanging bright in a starless sky.
And here is Eames. They are lying side by side on a sparsely grassy slope, looking down at the sand and the sea.
The Forger is warm, as always, and dressed in a black and blue sweater.
Arthur sighs and begins their ritual exchange: "I really don't know why you're doing this." It's something that they say every night, their bodies in the workshop and their minds in this peaceful place.
"Because you're worth it, darling. And it's my duty to make sure that you get enough bloody sleep, enough real rest. You're the Point Man, pet, and if you lose that edge this whole thing falls to pieces."
"Do you think the others know?"
"Do you really think they even care, darling? For all we know they think we should have been doing this for a long time."
Arthur chuckles into Eames's shoulder, as he always does, and pokes him in the ribs.
Eames lets out a quiet "ow", as he always does, and settles them both into the sand. "Sleep, Arthur."
He sleeps.
title: Kyoto Nights
author: ilovetakahana
rating: NC-17
pairing: Arthur/Eames
warnings: porn! I haven't written this sort of story for years and it might show. be kind please?
disclaimer: this PWP is brought to you by Eames's neckerchief. (He wears one, right?)
summary: a victory party, and a crazy night in Kyoto.
Kyoto Nights
Eames had to hand it to Saito - the man knew how to treat his - employees? Accomplices? Fellow conspirators? - to a good time. The way Cobb had told it over dinner, the magnate had patiently waited for two months - just long enough for the scruffy blonde to get to know his children again - before summoning them to Kyoto for a victory party.
Normally, each of the team members would have taken extreme measures to not even be seen in the same place as any of the others, but this, apparently, was different. It was amazing what extreme wealth - wealth way above the approximate level of "fuck the world and screw the rules" - could do.
Eames grinned and looked around his suite again. It was so huge he thought could jam his mangy little London flat into it - three times. He thought he might want to host a cocktail party in the bathroom alone, although he was not about to share that massive bathtub full of blessed steaming-hot water with anyone.
He was content to just loll in that bath since he could just keep changing the water every time it dipped below eighty degrees. He intended to pretty much cook in there for a good long time - it was so good to just lie back and let the heat bake the tired from his bones.
Not everyone had had the same thought, though. Ariadne had chucked her professional reserve straight out the window as soon as they landed, staring openmouthed at Kyoto and all of its contrasts - neon blazes next to ancient temple pavilions, girls wearing nearly non-existent skirts and bottle-bleach hair next to dignified women in silk kimono, blasting unintelligible music that did not drown out the hypnotic chanting in the shrines. After dinner she'd not quite run out the door, yelling, "Don't wait up!"
Not an hour later Eames was receiving messages from her on his mobile phone: there she was with a flock of amused geisha, and then she was hanging out with a passel of massive sumo wrestlers, and then she was belting out a passable "Bohemian Rhapsody" in some tiny squeeze of a karaoke joint.
He was pretty sure he could blow her out of the water if he ever got drunk enough to try for Freddie Mercury's falsetto.
Dinner had ended with Yusuf excusing himself to go to bed, and Cobb and Saito wandering off into some even more exclusive corner of the hotel bar, heads together, already oblivious to the rest of the world. Eames had hoped that those two were planning something even more interesting than the Inception job - he'd quite enjoyed the rush of it all.
And Arthur? Eames rolled his shoulders and his eyes in the bath. Who knew. He did want to know, but he just wasn't interested in moving. The bath had knocked all the desire to move from him, and he was wondering if it was even physically possible to just swim from the hot water into the surrounding plushness of the bed when he heard someone knock on the bathroom door.
All thought fled in a flash and he was on his feet, reaching for the gun in its holster near his pants, tearing the door open and shoving the gun muzzle into the intruder's face....
Oh.
It's YOU.
Eames growled and belatedly whipped a towel over his groin. "Next time you could jolly well try NOT to sneak up on a body like that! Could've blown your brains out and then where would we be?!"
Arthur stood there, utterly relaxed and at peace, grinning at his surprise. He was still in his shirtsleeves and perfectly pressed pants - except for the part where his cuffs were undone and hanging messily - and he was barefoot, no surprise in this country. "Well, Cobb would have blown your head off next, unless Ariadne got to a gun first."
Eames snorted. "I don't doubt it. We did a quick job together after inception and where did that girl bloody learn how to shoot? Better than you she is, pet."
"Of course she is." Arthur's voice was muffled as he'd wandered out of the bathroom; Eames shot a lingering, regretful look back into the tub and reluctantly pressed a button to drain it, then took one of the cotton robes from the bathroom closet and followed him out.
Arthur was at the bar, mini-bottles of liquor lined up in front of him. His attention, though, was on a small white box containing three tiny white pillows, each softly indented with a red dot in the center.
"I wouldn't eat those if I were you, love," Eames snorted, padding over to the bed and sitting at its foot, "unless you wanted to exercise your jaws for a good ten minutes." At Arthur's glare he burst out laughing and said, "Rice sweets, very chewy, but very good for all that. Of course they'll leave you unable to talk, eh? Weird people these Japanese.
"And now what are you doing here if I might be so rude to ask?"
Was it just his imagination or was the Point Man now openly leering at him? Eames had heard stories of fish out of water - their little Architect being the most recent example he could think of - but this was no side of Arthur he'd ever seen before except in the dreams. And then he was always aiming it at dead projections, at hapless marks, at everything that was in the way of their objectives.
He had never seen Arthur look that way at anyone real before, and he kind of liked it.
The lanky man crossed the space between them in three long, almost leaping strides, and then suddenly all the Forger could see was his face, his eyes, wide open and full of devilish intent as his mouth plundered Eames's.
He tried to say, "Well, shit," and thought better of it, growling and kissing Arthur back. He no longer cared if this was just something brought on by the change of scenery, the success of the mission, whatever it was that Kyoto was doing to Arthur was something that Eames was willing to accept and make a powerful memory from.
Arthur pushed him roughly down to the bed, hands roving everywhere now, and Eames was more than willing to give it back, busily unbuttoning and unfastening, lips moving over every inch of the other man's skin he could reach. In no time at all they were both naked and Eames could not stop smiling as he felt Arthur's cock twitch against his leg, rock-hard and weeping.
The Forger took advantage of a loud, needy groan to flip them over so that Arthur was on the bottom, and he used his weight to keep him pinned as he slid down, tonguing nipples and navel thoroughly, and finally closing his mouth around the other man.
Arthur screamed and nearly jackknifed off the bed, hands turned into claws that were raking mercilessly at Eames's shoulders. Those were going to be red in the morning and he was rather beyond caring at the moment.
Eames reached one hand up to Arthur's mouth, fingertips drumming against his open lips before driving into that wet warmth, Arthur suckling greedily. He withdrew with a reluctant pop and then began to stroke gentle circles around Arthur's opening - he made a keening sound and pushed himself down onto Eames, tight heat clamping down.
"Bollocks to this, love, you'll have to be ready for me now," Eames gritted as he repositioned them, pushing his neglected cock to bump against Arthur's ass.
"Fuck," was the only answer he got, and he supposed it was as good an answer as any.
Eames set up a brutal rhythm, knowing the spell could be broken at any moment, and in any case intending to leave a mark on Arthur - marks, hell, he was going to leave the younger man bruised to hell and he was doing a good job of it if those lips and those hips were anything to go by.
"Damn it!" And Arthur wrapped his legs around the small of Eames's back, trapping him there, and he responded by redoubling his pace, watching the play of emotions across the other man's face, knowing he was so close and wanting to wait for Arthur to get there first....
And with a piercing cry he did, chanting Eames's name over and over, and that was enough to send him over the edge, too.
As the Kyoto night closed in around them, wrapping them in sleep, Eames muttered to himself, "No regrets."
There was a sound that came in reply, but he didn't know who made it.
***
In the morning he was alone in the vast and completely ruined bed, although he'd thoughtfully been moved out of the wet spot.
"Well, I meant it," Eames said out loud, before heaving a sigh and getting up for his robe.
"Well so did I."
Arthur was already in the bath and submerged to his chin in the water; there was nothing for it but to get in and put an arm around the other man.
***
"Until when?" Eames murmured, half as an afterthought.
"Not really important," was the reply.
"True."
"Quit thinking."
"That's my line, darling."
"Idiot."
"I am for you, and you know it."
A pause. "Yes."
Eames grinned. "Good answer."
title: The Breakfast Club
author: ilovetakahana
pairing: none
characters: the team
warnings: slice-of-life, fluff, food.
disclaimer: I don't own the story or the characters.
summary: how the team begins each day in the warehouse. Eames POV.
Every morning the last person to show up at the warehouse has to turn right back around and get everyone breakfast.
At this point in the job there is no longer any need to ask each person what he or she wants to eat, as they have been pretty much eating the same things for each meal.
Today Eames puts up just the barest show of muttering resistance before he strolls back outside to his beat-up taxicab. [He'd thought he'd never get away with having it in the US - too many taxes and duties to pay.
Apparently, Saito had contacts.]
***
The first stop is a tiny mom-and-pop coffeeshop with ragged linoleum floors and cheerfully mismatched tables and chairs. Eames orders half a dozen croissants, four coffees, and a perfectly glazed mini strawberry tart.
Next door is a Filipino all-day place; he stows a large cup of hot chocolate and a breakfast of fried rice, eggs over easy, and corned beef in the car.
Finally, there's a Chinese lunch counter around the corner; he adds two boxes of chicken and crab fried rice, one large box of stir-fried noodles, and six cups of oolong tea to his haul.
He is never more careful - but fast - than when he is driving with all this food back to the warehouse. It has nothing to do with being kind or with doing them the courtesy of feeding them good, proper food while it's still fresh.
Eames knows that any one of them could fuck his shit up if he ever came back with a drop spilled.
[These people were so very cranky when it came to food, but he could sympathize.
Just about.]
***
Ariadne and Saito split the croissants and the coffees, and the older man leaves her the entirety of the strawberry tart - and then the little Architect offers a bite out of the dessert to everyone else.
[Eames knows why no one ever accepts no matter how sincerely she asks.]
Arthur, Yusuf, and Cobb get the Chinese take-out boxes and the tea. Arthur eats the noodles, and how can he be so neat and orderly even when he's practically shoving his chopsticks into his mouth? Yusuf eats with tractorish steadiness and then wanders back into his makeshift lab; Cobb eats furiously, as if the food were a distraction.
Eames watches them over his corned beef and fried rice - so very different from a full English and yet hearty and good all the same - and wonders, and learns.
title: Playlist
author: ilovetakahana
rating: Gen
characters: the team
warnings: I own nothing - not Inception, not the characters, and certainly not the music!
summary: the team members' tastes in music. Ariadne POV.
Ariadne has learned that the warehouse is never really silent even in the depths of the night.
Now that she's jumped in at the deep end she's rapidly losing the ability to dream normally; this kind of takes away some of the attraction of sleeping, and it makes her push restlessly to her feet and wander around the corners and crannies of the workshop.
The first night, she finds Yusuf enthusiastically nodding along to whatever he's listening to on his earphones. It makes her wonder how he can concentrate on the chemicals in front of him, if the music is as violent as the pace at which he headbangs.
It is funny, though, and she laughs before she can help herself. The fluttering movements her hands make as she covers her mouth catch Yusuf's attention - he sees her laughing, grins in understanding and points at his ears, and gives her a double thumbs-up.
She grins back, shakes her head, and waves as she moves off.
Yusuf later on lends her the CD he was listening to, and it does not surprise her when she finds out that he listens to Iggy Pop, The Who, and Queen.
A few nights later, the question she wanted to ask Cobb about the job dies unasked in her throat as she finds him in his makeshift quarters, head buried in his arms, surrounded by the plaintive voice of Edith Piaf.
"He's like that," Eames replies when she asks him about it. "Man has positively unhealthy obsessions - but it's not as though that's obvious. I mean, I've tried to steer him away from that, maybe on to something related so long as it isn't Piaf - Dietrich, Callas, someone else - but I've never known him to budge. Pity."
She looks mournfully at Cobb, now lost in a quiet, earnest conversation with Arthur, and digs her own music player out of her pocket. "I have...happier...music here," she murmurs, "but the way you describe him, it might be an insult if I offered him this stuff."
She feels him looking over her shoulder as she scrolls through the most-frequently-played tracks: Jason Mraz, Weezer, Franz Ferdinand - but he only really reacts to one name: L'Arc~en~Ciel.
"Who turned you on to them?" the thief asks, genuinely curious.
"Some of my friends are rather massive fans; they kind of pushed me and pushed me into it, you know? I can't understand a word they say, except when they sing in English, but, yeah, I kind of enjoy them now."
"I saw them perform once. Not by choice." Eames chuckles and squeezes her shoulder. "Followed a mark there. I think they've toned down a bit; they used to wear these really terrifying stage costumes."
"Yeah." Ariadne tilts her head and looks at him. "What do you listen to?"
Eames laughs loudly enough to draw a raised eyebrow from Arthur, and pats her on the head - Ariadne shies away, growling under her breath. "That's for me to know and you to find out."
Arthur listens to the Goldberg Variations. Ariadne discovers this as she watches him, Eames, and Saito return from another information-gathering sortie, and he immediately heads to the battered table stacked with files and blueprints and dossiers - to update his folders, she guesses. As he settles into the chair, he absently stabs at a music player hidden under a sheaf of papers, and the famous sarabande wafts into the space around him.
He is probably not the right person to ask about Eames's choice of music; she simply cannot imagine the Englishman listening to this, as ethereal and beautiful it is.
The next morning Saito presents her with a complete set of L'Arc~en~Ciel concert DVDs. Ariadne is thunderstruck as she reads the titles. There is even a DVD copy of the "Touch of Dune" concert. "Oh my god. Sir - Saito-san - I - "
"You're welcome," is all he says, smiling. "And you must call me Saito - I insist. We are all co-workers in this venture."
Eames passes behind the businessman right after that, grinning and winking at her, and there's nothing for it but to clasp Saito's hands in thanks.
***
The night before the inception job sees the team assembled at the warehouse, surrounded by congealing cartons of Chinese take-out. Arthur goes over the mission specifics for one last time, and then Cobb sternly orders everyone to get some proper rest.
But her nerves get the better of her and even listening to her music does her no good, and she haunts the warehouse again. This time Yusuf and Arthur are bedded down in the rickety chaises, and even Saito is stretched out on a battered sofa underneath a window. Cobb, for once, has not put himself under, and is in all likelihood really sleeping.
A faint bass thump guides her towards the very back of the warehouse, decidedly far away from the other sleepers, and there she finds Eames, hipflask in hand. He smiles kindly at her and pats the arm of his couch, offers her a drink.
Ariadne hesitates, and then permits herself one gulp, which burns all the way down and blossoms into an oddly comforting heat.
"What is this?" she finally asks.
"Orbital. They're a bit well-known for remixing themes from movies and TV shows." Eames leans back in the chair, crosses his legs at the ankles. "And this is my favorite of their tracks. Ever heard of a little BBC show called Doctor Who?"
Ariadne laughs, punches his arm playfully, laughs again. It did fit him, after a fashion. After a while, she asks, "Have you ever considered appearing in dreams as those actors?"
Eames laughs, squeezes her in a quick hug. "Thanks for giving me such wonderful ideas, pet."
"Liar."
"Oh yes I am."