Prompt Post No. 16
Welcome to Round 16 of the Inception Kink Meme.
Prompting System
- Prompt post will temporarily close to new prompts at 2000 comments.
- Forty-eight hours later, post will reopen to new prompts and temporarily close again when 4000 comments are reached.
- Forty-eight hours later, post will reopen to new prompts and permanently close to all new prompts ( Read more... )
"That sounds... more than a little insane, dearheart." Eames said guardedly.
"Dearheart?"
"These things just come out of me." He waved the objection away. "If you think you'll have a problem with an endless stream of endearments, then you should spend your groundhog day fucking somebody else."
"I haven't met anyone else I know, and I'm not going to get far enough with a stranger in one day to have them falling into bed with me." Arthur crossed his arms and tried not to think about the fact that, since running into Eames, he hadn't looked for anyone else. Hadn't phoned anyone else. Hadn't thought about anyone else.
"You never know." Eames said.
"I wouldn't have sex with the kind of person who'd have sex with me after a single day."
"If you're to be believed, you already have. You might have taken your sweet time about it, but I was ready to fall into bed with you from the get-go."
"Whatever. I didn't need to hear that. I don't need-- I don't-- All of this is--"
"Breathe, Arthur." Eames' hand made sure circles on Arthur's back. "I thought sex was the time loop panacea."
"Yeah, well, obviously not. Thanks for taking this in stride this time."
Eames shrugged. "Don't know what else to do. You sound convinced, and frighteningly rational. Provided you don't try to off yourself while I'm watching, what else is there to do?"
"Good point."
"Do you want to have sex with me? Because there is that, apparently. Even if it doesn't fix anything."
"Passes the time." Arthur snorted.
~*~*~
Arthur spends a solid week's worth of the same day convincing Eames that he's come around to the idea of them being fuck buddies, and it's good, if not completely satisfying-- really, nothing short of waking up to a tomorrow would be completely satisfying, and if Eames is unsatisfied, he doesn't say anything to the effect.
Then it's another day, and Eames looks at him with pleased astonishment when he makes the studiedly casual offer, and Arthur suddenly can't breathe.
"Arthur? I can't tell if this is a cruel prank on your part or just second thoughts, but..."
"No," He shook his head. "Just... it's nothing. Forget it. Had a headache for a second."
"You know, contrary to popular belief, a headache is a piss-poor reason not to have sex, since the resulting endorphin rush provides a natural analgesic." Eames smiled winningly.
"It kind of turns me on that you have a scientific argument." Arthur admitted.
Eames' grin widened.
And later, in Arthur's apartment, when they lay panting in the twisted sheets, Eames looked over at him with open amazement and whispered 'you're perfect', and Arthur broke.
"I'm sorry, was that wrong?"
Arthur shook his head, took a moment to compose himself. "No."
"Let me guess." His smile was wry and did not extend past his mouth. "Headache?"
"Let it go, Eames."
"That really was amazing, though. I swear, it's like we just fit, like... I have never had a first time with someone go so well. I-- Arthur?"
Arthur told himself he wasn't going to cry, because that was unacceptable, and he wasn't a girl, and he'd gotten used to this, it was supposed to go the same way as all the other times, it was supposed to be casual, so he could pretend the next day that that was all they were, casual.
"Should I get alcohol?" Eames offered. "Would that make it easier to... talk, or, whatever it is you clearly need to do right now?"
Arthur shook his head. "It's not."
"What's not?"
"The first time."
~tbc
Reply
"It's all right," Eames said, even though no, it really wasn't.
"I wish you would." Arthur brought the gun out of the nightstand, placing it into Eames' hand, and Eames dropped it like it was hot.
"Fuck! What the fucking fuck, Arthur?!"
"It doesn't work when I do it myself. I just thought... I don't even know anymore, but I really can't live through a rest-of-the-day where I've embarrassed myself this badly.
"Oh no." Eames shook his head. "Besides, what if this is the last time it happens and I kill you for real?"
"Please?" He picked up the gun again, wrapped Eames' hand around it like a caress.
Arthur imagined it would be, like a caress. If Eames did it instead of him. The muzzle of the gun kissing his temple and Eames whispering gently in his ear right before pulling the trigger, 'Goodbye, baby'. He imagined it like foreplay, too, the barrel in his mouth and him looking up through his eyelashes, but that was too disturbing to dwell on, not romantic, not sweet, like the first way was.
Or maybe he'd been spending too long killing himself out of desperation or boredom, because that probably wasn't an acceptable way to think about it, either.
Eames just whispered 'fuck' again, weakly. They stayed like that for a long time, naked and sitting in bed, resting up against each other with the gun between them, but in the end, he didn't pull the trigger.
When Arthur woke up in the morning, he tried telling himself he didn't care that Eames wouldn't be there. He stayed in bed another hour, then another.
At two in the afternoon, he got up and tracked Eames down.
"I think I've fallen in love with you." He said. "Just so you know."
And then he walked out.
Eames followed, of course. On foot, to the park they'd walked through on their odd little post-sex 'date', what seemed like a million cycles ago, to where Arthur now sat on a bench and stared at his shoes.
"So you were saying you loved me?" Eames sat beside him.
"Yeah. I didn't mean to."
"That's all right."
"This is serious." Arthur shook his head.
"Yes." Eames agreed.
"I love you."
"And I you."
Arthur just nodded. That was about as much as he was prepared to face.
He went home alone.
~*~*~
Arthur woke with a distinct heavy-heartedness. He'd finally come around to accept his actual, emotional feelings for Eames, confessed them, and now it wouldn't even matter.
He looked at the gun for a while, but it never changed anything.
His phone rang, which had never happened before. The wall was fine, but had he remembered to mark it yesterday? Was it all over?
"Hello," He fumbled for it, thumb feeling too big for the tiny buttons, and there was a moment of panic when he thought he'd lost the one change to his morning in far too long. "Hello?!"
"Eager, darling?" Eames chuckled down the line. "I discovered a charming little place for horrendous coffee yesterday morning, and I wondered if you might join me? Being as we are, after all, in love with each other."
"Yeah, I-- I think I know the place." Arthur smiled. Weight lifted.
FIN
Reply
I loved this, absolutely marvelous.
Reply
Reply
Thank you for this, it was brilliant :)
Reply
Reply
and there was LOVE ~
there's still love, but it's love from me to you. thank you so much!! <3
Reply
Wait, that came out wrong...
Yay, love!
(yeah, as much as I now love, say, the phrase 'Eames' magic Time-Cock', I was cruelly into the idea of Arthur living through a dozen-odd time-loop-related one-night stands.)
Reply
(The comment has been removed)
It is absolutely all right.
Reply
Leave a comment