Prompt Post No. 9

[inception_anon]

* * * This round is now closed to new prompts. * * *

Welcome to Round 9 of the Inception Kink Meme. This post will be closed to new prompts once it reaches five thousand comments.

Also, we're looking for several volunteers to join Team Delicious. If you have extra time on your hands and you're familiar with Delicious and its tagging system,

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ex- 1/2

[anonymous]

His name's Adam. Adam Barton. He's English, ridiculously so: Eton and Oxford and cricket and coats with leather elbow patches, like something out of the Thirties. Eames can't stand him. He likes to think he wouldn't be able to stand him anyway, because he loathes pretension - and that accent is pretension, no one under forty talks like that unless they're putting it on - but he's too old to lie to himself about something so obvious. It's Arthur. It's all about Arthur.

Eames can pin-point the exact moment when his casual contempt for the man turned to violent loathing. It was their second day on the job. Arthur came in after a coffee run and handed Barton his cup first, which was fine, normal - Eames has a hundred of Arthur's borderline OCD routines memorized, and one is that the architect always gets coffee first.

"Thanks," Barton said and took a sip, smiled. "Really, Arthur, your memory. This is perfect."

"Right," Arthur said, snorting. "Because remembering that you like soya lattes is such a feat of memory."

Barton laughed, flinging his head back as if it was hilarious, and Eames waited for Arthur to smile condescendingly or to raise his eyebrows but he didn't. Instead he was looking at Barton's bared throat, smiling slightly, rueful and. And. Bloody hell.

"Eames," Arthur said soberly, handing him his cup, and Eames was so startled that he took it silently, without so much as a thank you or a smile. He's been dazed silent ever since - sulking, frankly. He knows it's childish, but he can't stop. It's just - it's Arthur. Looking at Barton - at a man - like that, all fond remembered lust. They were lovers, once, it's obvious to anyone who looks, lovers who parted on friendly terms. There's no edge to their interaction, no wistfulness either. Just a casual, nostalgic mutual appreciation that makes Eames want to. Well. That's the trouble, isn't it? He's not blind, he fancies Arthur rotten, he knows that, but this almost-violent possessiveness and fucking jealousy is a bit much, given that Arthur is someone he isn't even shagging. Someone he put in the "straight, uptight, fun to tease but don't get invested" box years ago.

"Eames," Arthur says. "Are you okay?"

"What," Eames says automatically. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because you've been glaring into space for the last fifteen minutes," Arthur says bluntly. "Is this - is your head in the game here?"

Eames opens his mouth to say something reassuring and says, instead, "oh, fuck off."

Re: ex- 1/2

[rageprufrock]

HAHA I ADORE THIS SO FAR.

ex- 2a/2

[anonymous]

Eames is well aware of Arthur's temper, the famously short fuse that can be lit by someone so much as looking at him the wrong way or saying "thanks, man" in the wrong tone of voice. He's expecting fireworks in response to his "fuck off". Hoping for them, to be quite honest - he needs to hit something, verbally or otherwise, and he he can't allow a fit of juvenile something to drive him into physically punching their architect when they're two days off completion. Getting into a row about nothing with Arthur, who always gives as good as he gets, whose precisely turned insults have Eames wincing and smiling weeks later, is safer - almost routine at this point. But Arthur doesn't snap. He just blinks, slow and perplexed.

"What," he says. "Eames? What the fuck?"

Barton's watching, eyebrows skewed at an infuriating angle. Eames feels himself flush hot with it, all this stupid, unexpected anger and disappointment and hurt, all with nowhere to go. Christ, he's overreacting. So Arthur turned him down because he didn't care for Eames in particular, rather than men in general. It shouldn't make such a difference.

"Nothing," he says finally, aware that he sounds like a petulant child. "Sorry, I. Sorry. Won't happen again."

"Get out," Arthur says abruptly and Eames stares for a sinking moment, thinking he might have fucked up just that badly, when Arthur looks over to Barton and Janice, the chemist, frowning a little. "All of you. I need to talk to Mr Eames."

"Okay," Arthur says briskly after they're gone. "Tell me."

"It really is nothing," Eames says, trying to sound light, and Arthur gives him a flat look.

"Come on," he says. "I know I'm not - I mean, we're not friends, I know that. But this, the way you're acting - it's." He takes a breath and looks away. "I'm worried about you."

Eames blinks.

"I thought you were worried about the job," he says honestly.

"Give me a little credit," Arthur says impatiently. "I've seen you forge with a broken arm before, remember? The job's fine."

"Oh," Eames says, startled and wrong-footed. His anger's abandoning him, unfortunately, and he feels deflated and tired, suddenly, left with nothing but the hard lump of disappointment at the pit of his stomach. "Well. Thank you."

"Are you jealous?" Arthur blurts out quickly, going bright red as soon as the words are out. "Of me and Adam?"

Adam. Eames wants, childishly, to mimic the way Arthur says Barton's name. He rolls his eyes instead, sneering, and there's the famous flare of temper, Arthur's eyes glittering, dark and furious, his jaw tightening, and Jesus Christ Eames is in love with him. Oh no. Oh hell.

"Well, sorry," Arthur's snapping, oblivious to the horrified revolution happening in Eames' mind. It turns out that the box marked "don't get too invested" has gone and turned into "repress your hopeless, unrequited passion as hard as you can" when he wasn't looking and when the fuck did that happen? How many months has it been? And Arthur's still bloody talking. "It seemed like a fair assumption, okay? It's not like you haven't - you're always flirting with me and I guess, I mean I know it's not, you don't mean it. But you've been such an asshole to Adam and I thought. I don't get why."

"I'm jealous," Eames says at once, hardly thinking, tripping over his own tongue and Arthur stops talking. They stare at each other for a long moment of mutual bafflement. There's a knock on the door.

"Um, guys?" Janice. Barton, smirking behind her. "Can we -"

"No," Arthur says, not looking away from Eames. "Go away. Go somewhere else. Take the afternoon."

"That's hardly professional," Barton begins and then Arthur turns to look at him, he meets Arthur's eyes, and his face transforms with amusement. "Oh. Oh, I see."

Eames almost snarls at him and Barton makes an expression of exaggerated terror, smiles at Arthur again, and takes Janice by the elbow.

"Come along," he says. "Let's go for a coffee, hm?"

"I hate this job," Janice says fervently, glaring at Arthur, and then goes.

Re: ex- 2b/2 (end)

[anonymous]

Arthur gives the door a longing look and then looks back at Eames.

"I thought you were kidding," he says, his voice sounding suddenly smaller and younger. Shyer, almost, and Eames is suddenly light-hearted with possibility, with the startled, tentative hope that he can suddenly see in Arthur's expression. "All those times you - you always make it sound like you're kidding."

"I'm not," Eames says hoarsely and it's probably too early to explain how much he isn't joking, given how recent that discovery is even to himself, so he settles for putting a hand very lightly on the crook of Arthur's elbow, just above the fold of his rolled-up shirtsleeve. The cloth is fine linen, warm from his body. Arthur looks at his hand and then looks at his face.

"Eames," he breathes and he's said it a hundred times before, in a hundred tones of annoyance or surprise or reluctant admiration, but this is a new one. Eames swallows.

"I thought you were straight," he explains pointlessly, his tongue feeling thick and clumsy in his mouth. Arthur gives him an incredulous look, familiar and not - it's the same sardonic smile that Eames gets every time he presents Arthur with a theory inconsistent with Arthur's insanely comprehensive data but it's also. He looks like he wants to be kissed.

"I'm not," he says, mockingly slowly, and then shuts his eyes with a small sigh as Eames leans in to kiss the smug sentence he's about to start right out of his mouth.

They take the rest of the afternoon off. The next morning, Barton has a euro-sized mark on his collarbone and Janice looks smug and self-satisfied, her skin suspiciously flushed all day. Good for them, Eames thinks magnanimously, watching Arthur duck his head over his papers and smile for no reason, and then Barton lights a fucking pipe, for fuck's sake, grins at Eames over it, and Eames thinks longingly of kicking him in the head and waits for the job to be over.

Re: ex- 2b/2 (end)

[anonymous]

<3<3<3<3<3 Love this.

Re: ex- 2b/2 (end)

[anonymous]

and then Barton lights a fucking pipe

HAHAHHAHAHAHHA

and omg they'er so cute ♥

Re: ex- 2b/2 (end)

[alicia_jo]

I think jealous!Eames might be my favorite...or at least the way you write him is.

I don't think I can ever get enough of jealous/staking claim stories.

Re: ex- 2b/2 (end)

[anonymous]

This is lovely. :)

Re: ex- 2b/2 (end)

[sin_fuego]

This is wonderful! Such confusion on both their parts - glad you rectified that :)

Re: ex- 1/2

[anonymous]

"Eames," Arthur said soberly, handing him his cup, and Eames was so startled that he took it silently, without so much as a thank you or a smile. He's been dazed silent ever since - sulking, frankly. He knows it's childish, but he can't stop.

A little concrit: Please don't switch tenses in the middle of the story, and especially in the middle of a paragraph like this. It's so jarring.

Re: ex- 1/2

[anonymous]

Thank you for the concrit. But how else would you suggest I write flashback scenes? It's easier if most of the story is in the past tense, because the switch from past to past perfect and back again seems smoother, but I believe you aren't supposed to use the past perfect in a story told primarily in the present. Maybe I should have included a paragraph break to indicate the end of the flashback? I'll make a note of that for future stories, thanks.

Re: ex- 1/2

[bookshop]

Hi, hi! I loved this fic. :D :D :D :D I STILL WANT TO PUNCH ADAM (UGH, "ADAM") IN THE FACE. CAN THERE BE A SEQUEL WHERE EAMES PUNCHES HIM IN THE FACE, THAT WOULD BE AWESOME.

Your usage of past tense was totally correct in this case. A lot of people when writing present tense will actually us the past perfect instead of the simple past to indicate the further past (just as you'd do if you were writing a narrative in past tense); but that's not technically correct. Technically the way you wrote it was exactly right. You set it up with clear temporal transitions and then phased back into the present again.

So, yeah, good job. *fistbump*

and i really loved Arthur in this. Not asking you to de-anon, but have you written more fills anywhere you'd be okay with sharing?

Re: ex- 1/2

[solvent90]

I am TERRIBLE at anonymity, so. *de-anons sheepishly, as I would have done it anyway* thank you! I'm glad Adam was appropriately infuriating :D And thank you for the reassurance on the grammatical point; I second-guess myself about grammar quite often, so I'm glad of that.

I've filled a few prompts on the meme but most of them are still WIPs (linked here) - the ones I've finished are the experiment (warning for consensual graphic enactment of rape fantasies) and discovery (which is a rom-com AU, basically). There are a few other bits and bobs that I'll tidy and post to my LJ eventually, but those are the main ones.

Re: ex- 1/2

[bookshop]

:D :D :D omg hi. I faithfully read and squealed and have reread both of those fics multiple times, so this is a completely delightful non-surprise, OF COURSE IT'S YOU, omg omg. brb stalking the hell out of those WIPs. THANK YOU. <3