Prompt Post No. 16
Welcome to Round 16 of the Inception Kink Meme.
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When they meet in Málaga, it’s the first time Eames has seen Ariadne in three months. It’s the first time he’s seen Arthur in six. The job comes in second-place to company for once, fresh air and beaches and catching up. And under the Spanish sun, Ariadne burns, and Arthur pinks, and Eames tans beautifully, save for a thin little circle around his finger. Ring-shaped. Ariadne raises her eyebrows when she sees it, back at the cottage. “Were you wearing a wedding ring?”
“Hm?” Eames follows her gaze down to his hand. “Oh. I have one, somewhere. But I haven’t worn it in ages.”
“You’re married?” she asks, a disbelieving tilt to her head that Eames can’t even take offense to. He’d be disbelieving, too, if he didn’t know so well the weight of a ring in shaky hands, sliding onto a slender finger.
“I was,” he says, somewhat wistful. He regrets it now, choosing not to wear the ring, scoffing at its impermanence. He can almost taste the liquor, can almost feel the hangover, thinking about that honeymoon, and the way he turns romantic in a drunken haze. He remembers scouring the internet at three in the morning on flaky, stolen wifi for poetry that didn’t make it into bookstores, and the stupid, fanciful notions he got from one poem in particular. Four AM saw him in a sketchy tattoo parlor with his wedding ring tattooed in the same color as his skin, so it would show up during the summer, slow and secret, as his skin burnt olive.
“Hm,” is Ariadne’s reply, worryingly uninterested for once. It’s for the best, because Eames is in the mood to spill his guts.
Ariadne is still, of course, Ariadne. And she knocks on Eames’s door six hours later and brandishes her phone. There’s a text from Yusuf on the screen. arthur. isnt it obvious? Eames has no doubts as to what the question was.
“I guess it was pretty obvious,” she says, forcing her way into the room. “But I still want photographic evidence.”
Eames closes the door with a sigh, and leans back against it. “Arthur has all the wedding pictures, I’m afraid. All I’ve got are some candids from the honeymoon.”
Ariadne freezes where she’s beating Eames’s pillows into submission. “I want to see those, too.”
Eames laughs, though his heart’s not totally in it, and they discuss the job for a few minutes though it’s obvious that isn’t why Ariadne is lying in his bed, glowing with joy. “When’s your anniversary?” she finally asks. She’s doing her best to keep the stars out of her eyes, which is more than Eames can say for Lula, an old girlfriend of Yusuf’s and an excellent thief, when she first found out.
Eames laughs, a short, self-deprecating little thing. “Which one? We’ve been married three times.”
The stars can’t hold themselves back now, and her head tilts and her hands fly to her heart. “That’s so sweet. My grandparents had a second wedding, when they made it to their fiftieth.”
“Ah. I’m afraid those weren’t quite the circumstances, Ariadne.”
The circumstances were Arthur, tall and proud and immaculate save for that glint of guilt in his eyes, disappearing in the middle of the night. Arthur, who came back the next morning with that guilt multiplied, intensified, and ate the eggs Eames made him, and drank the juice Eames poured him, and offered not one explanation to his frazzled husband. And then, wiping his mouth on the napkin that Eames bought, Arthur asked for a divorce.
We married so young, Eames. Like youth was a love deterrent, like young love was a joke, a fluke, a feeling of lust intensified by hormones and wrongly identified as the Big One. Like it wasn’t real. But fuck what they say about young love and all its fallacies, because Eames fell in love when he was four years old and it was the realist shit he ever felt, realer, apparently, than with Arthur, who kissed like hell and loved like wildfire but never believed a moment of it.
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We married so young, Eames, on his return. Like it was a sign. Like there was no one else, so why bother looking. Like Marry me again. And how could Eames not?
He lists off the three of them anyway. January 8th, their first, their winter wedding, where it snowed like the world was ending and half of their guests couldn’t make it. April 14th, their second, where it rained and Arthur’s suit was ruined and Eames’s sister got so trashed she broke a table at the reception. October 2nd, their third wedding, where everybody stopped caring and hardly anybody showed up but Arthur’s mom still cried like it was the first time. Eames marks each occasion with a bottle of Jack.
Then, because she asks, their wedding songs. Can’t Help Falling in Love the first time, because Arthur’s a secret romantic and swears up and down that it’s them, that they are that song and those words and that voice, deep and perfect and soothing. These Arms of Mine the second time, Eames’s choice, because it’s sexy and it’s sweet and it was the song Eames first fucked Arthur to, Arthur still a junior in high school and Eames trying his hand at college, though they never told the wedding guests that bit. Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye the last time, because two divorces was enough, a third marriage was too much, and he wanted Arthur to wait a million years this time before he changed his mind and tossed Eames to the curb again.
He waited two.
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Ariadne is as in control of her body as one can be, at her age. But she still can’t help the way her eyes dart between them, the constant flickering between a smile and a frown. It takes but four hours of this before Arthur’s out of his seat and dropping down next to Eames. “You told her.”
“She guessed.” Which isn’t necessarily true, but Eames only vowed not to lie to his husband.
“It was a secret,” Arthur says. “It was our secret.” Like anything between them is communal anymore. Like there’s a single thing they share but money spent and years wasted. And maybe, on occasion, a little heartbreak. (Eames may be a criminal, and he won’t hesitate to shoot, but the sight of an empty bed with a little gold band resting on the pillow would break any man.)
“Your fifth grade teacher was there for all three. That’s hardly a secret.”
“But Ariadne won’t get it,” he says, anger rolling off him in waves. Eames can feel the heat coming from his body, can see how tightly his fists clench at his sides.
“Please,” Eames says, gesturing broadly. “Enlighten us all then, would you? Because I don’t really get it either, Arthur.”
Arthur stands there for a minute, two, just breathing, angry and upset. “Then I guess you really never loved me,” he says finally, and turns on his heel. Eames regrets it the moment it comes out, but he laughs. Just a short, quick burst of incredulity. Because he loved Arthur like the world was ending. Because he loves Arthur, to this day, despite how badly it hurts to be near him and not touching.
“Get back to work,” Arthur barks.
Ariadne stops smiling between them after that.
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Arthur untucks his shirt from his pants and shows off the only ink he’s got, a rustic, antique looking padlock right on the bone of his hip. Eames folds his waistline down until he reveals his third tattoo. A key. Same style as Arthur’s, same spot.
“They match,” Ariadne says, practically cooing. It earns her a glare from Arthur.
“They’re not matching, Ariadne, Jesus. They’re corresponding.” He’s leaning back into Eames’s chest by now, aching to be close like he always does when he’s got a little alcohol in him. Eames thinks, Fuck it, and wraps an arm around Arthur’s belly.
They see Ariadne off to her taxi, with promises to wire her the money and to see her soon and against Eames’s better judgement, he follows Arthur back to the villa they rented, follows him down onto the beach and into the sand and allows Arthur to curl up into his arms.
Every time Arthur serves up the divorce papers, Eames tells himself that it’s only because Arthur wants to marry him again. He wants another wedding and another tux and another song. It lacks sound logic and makes little sense to Eames, but it’s certainly easy to believe, with their track record. First is the worst, second is the best, Eames used to say. And then, after that, Third time’s the charm. And when Arthur presses himself close at night, presses kisses to Eames’s neck through a lip-splitting smile and whispers, Marry me, like it’s second nature for them, Eames can only say yes.
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