Prompt Post No. 18
Welcome to Round 18 of the Inception Kink Meme.
Prompting System
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... )
He had quickly slipped into sleep and woken up a few hours later to find that he was clean and pain-free, covered with blue blankets and wired up to machines that monitored him. His t-shirt and sodden underwear had been exchanged for a hospital gown and mesh, padded briefs which absorbed blood and they had caused his cheeks to develop a red tinge when he was handed them by the nurse with the blonde plaits. She had assured him that she’d seen far more embarrassing things than those briefs by working in a hospital and a wan smile had twitched at his lips. She was being nice to him and he was bleak and he didn’t want it to be contagious, so he had smiled, to make her think she’d put a dent in his misery.
He’d also woken up to find Eames slumped in a small chair, head lolling to one side as he slept and the sight of him caused vague memories to drift across his mind; Eames and a man speaking low and soft; Eames’ lips on his forehead; his cheek being stroked; a warm hand placing itself on his stomach.
Back in the Emergency Department, he’d given the doctor permission to inform Eames about his failed pregnancy. He didn’t want to endure Eames’ immediate reaction, whether it was endless questions or a toxic silence, smothering comfort or outright disappointment.
A lethal parasite of guilt had begun to gnaw its way painfully around inside when it finally sunk in that he was miscarrying and it didn’t need to be encouraged.
He knew that he must have inflicted so much damage onto the developing fetus. He’d flooded himself with somnacin and various derivations of the compound and the job in Norway had stretched his nerves to the point where they were taut with stress. He rarely slept naturally enough and he must have inhaled gallons of passive smoke from the run-down bars and clubs he’d gone to. His caffeine intake would have been far too high. His diet wasn’t remotely like the food Mal had eaten when she’d been pregnant. All the pulses and salmon and broccoli and dried apricots she’d ingested had given James and Philipa bright, shiny eyes and tiny, perfect pink fingernails. He’d fed his offspring take-out bought from places that ought to be condemned, pre-packed salads and expensive, burgundy wine.
So, when he added all that up, he knew that the thing inside him had never really had a chance, not with him as a father.
Reply
“Good morning,” she said, her little red mouth twisting into a smile as she shut the door behind her, the noise snapping Eames awake. He gazed around blearily until his eyes found Arthur, and his lips drew up into a grim smile. When Eames reached out to lay a hand on Arthur, Arthur flinched and Eames’ hand never made contact.
“Morning,” Arthur said, finding a Pyrex jar of cotton swabs so much easier to look at than Eames.
The woman squirted disinfectant from a dispenser attached to the wall and she scrubbed it over hands as she came over to Arthur. He noticed that the orange-beige on her face was not her natural skin-tone.
“Okay, let’s have a feel of you,” she said and began pressing her hands on his stomach. With each push down, Arthur’s lips became thinner. He wasn’t tender or sore; he just didn’t want to be touched there.
“Have you passed any tissue yet?” she asked.
Arthur slid his eyes over to Eames and back to the cotton swabs. “Just blood.”
When the woman finished, she moved across to the ultrasound machine in the corner and dragged it closer the bed. She shifted the screen away from him.
“Can you go?” said Arthur quietly with his tilted his head towards Eames but not actually looking at him.
“Yeah, whatever you want,” replied Eames, his voice dry and croaky and he dragged himself out of the room.
“Sorry,” said the woman- Crystal Catherwood Arthur read on the I.D card that hung around her neck- as she pulled down his bed sheets to his hips and tucked a square of blue paper between him and the covers. “I thought you’d want him here for support. Should have asked, I suppose.”
“Its fine,” replied Arthur as he undid the side-tie of his gown and pushed the fabric away. He scrutinized stomach to see if it looked soft or if there was any abnormal curving that he had somehow missed but it was the same as always; hard muscle with a light trail of soft, dark hair leading down away from his navel.
“This might be a bit chilly,” Crystal said, and she squeezed a large spiral of gel onto his stomach and began spreading it across with the transducer.
The silence stretched out for the longest time until Crystal eventually drawled, “You definitely still have evidence of the conception in your womb. It’s measuring at twelve, twelve and a half weeks. So that would put the date of conception... around the second week of August.”
Arthur’s mind had snagged itself on the words, ‘evidence of the conception.’ It seemed so clinical. But he supposed it wasn’t hospital policy to say ‘baby’ in case it made people even more screwed up with grief.
The rest of her words dripped into him like hot fat. His eyes flicked up to Crystal. “It’s still...intact?”
Discomfort immediately wriggled under his skin and he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. It felt wrong, almost perverse somehow for being curious, desiring proof that something was actually inside him.
“Yes, but I’m not allowed to let you view the tissue as that would be considered distressing,” she replied, as if it was obvious. “If you want, I’ll take some pictures from the recording and have them sent to your local G.P because you’ll need to have check-up in a month’s time.”
“Yeah. Okay.” He probably wouldn’t be interested by then anyway. “Thank you.”
Crystal shrugged, her eyes focused on the screen. “Was it planned pregnancy?”
“No,” he said, frowning a little, not seeing how it was relevant. “I didn’t know I was pregnant until I came in.”
“Bet that was a nasty surprise.” Crystal replaced the transducer in its holder and cleaned away the goop. “I suppose it makes you lucky in a way. Not being attached to it and all.”
Arthur blanched.
“People come in and get absolutely crushed when they find out. I see it all the time,” she said breezily as she tidied up the equipment. She picked up a green file from a slot in the end of the bed, started scribbling away and finished with, “They don’t realise that one-in-four pregnancies end before the twelfth week. Mostly because of chromosomal abnormalities or lifestyle choices. Age can factor into it but you’re okay, you’re young.”
Reply
“What happens now?” asked Arthur, pulling his blankets up to his bottom ribs. He tried scraping the bitter taste off his tongue with his front teeth. It didn’t work.
Crystal continued to write as she spoke. “You’ll need have to have a minor operation under general anaesthetic so all the contents can be removed. A consultant will be along soon to discuss it further with you.” She looked up and pointed to wall behind him with her pen. “If you need anything, just press that red button.”
With an empty smile stamped on her face, she put his notes back in the slot and left, holding the door open for Eames, who took his place back in the chair. Arthur couldn’t help but think that Eames had aged by about ten years. He looked so removed, so untouchable, his face empty of all emotion.
It took Eames a few seconds to speak and when he did, he was slow and soft. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”
“I didn’t know that I was,” Arthur said simply.
“For three months?” Eames couldn’t quite keep the disbelief out of his voice.
Arthur snapped his head around and fixed Eames with firm glare. “Yes, Eames. For three months.”
Eames raised his hand in a conciliatory way. “Sorry. Just trying to wrap my head around it. Three months is a long to not know and...” Eames let out sigh. He pushed his fingers into his eyes, rubbing them as if he was trying to wake himself up. Arthur looked down at his blanket and began fiddling with it, picking at a loose thread like a scab, sore from Eames’ doubt.
“How are you feeling?” asked Eames, just as soft as he was before.
“Been better,” stated Arthur, pulling the thread out completely. “I need to have an operation to have it removed.”
“Yeah, I know. I was talking to a doctor earlier and, um,” Eames broke off, and Arthur heard him swallow. “I was wondering if you wanted any kind of blessing or if you wanted to do something with the remains.”
Arthur became very still.
“He said some people do that,” continued Eames. “They find it useful.”
“Do they?” he said flatly.
“He also thought you might want to talk to someone about it.”
Arthur shrugged and returned his focus back to the blanket.
“I have nothing to say,” he replied. He had no words to describe what had happened so he had nothing to say
There was a bout of quiet and then Eames gently said, “You shouldn’t underestimate the emotional impact of this.”
Arthur could feel Eames studying him, his eyes exploring, trying to read and unravel him. After everything he’d witnessed whilst in the military and seen some of things that even they considered vile in the world of dream-sharing, it seemed silly that Eames thought that this little incident would be somehow shatter him. It wasn’t as though anyone had died, Arthur reminded himself. A pregnancy had ended. That was it.
“I’m alright,” Arthur said firmly. “It was a shock but this is... It’s something that happens all the time. And given that I was still dreaming, it was probably for the best.”
He flicked up his eyes to see Eames folding his lips into his mouth, nodding, and for a second sorrow smudged itself into his face, into his crow’s feet, into the black pupils of steel-blue eyes. Guilt bit down viciously into Arthur and he really needed Eames to disappear.
He asked Eames to go home and get him some clean clothes and he wasn’t surprised by Eames being reluctant to leave him so he feigned a desire to sleep. After planting a gentle kiss on Arthur’s cheek, Eames left and Arthur spent the next half hour blaming the hospital disinfectant for making his nose run.
Reply
Reply
Don't push him away Arthur! :(
This is truly truly wonderful, anon!
Reply
Reply
Reply
Absolutely stunning work anon, I wait with bated breath for the next bit.
Reply
Thankfully, I have never had to suffer a miscarriage, but I've certainly been on the receiving end of less than caring hospital staff, so I had to WTF at nurse Crystal's callous comments about Arthur's loss. In my country, an ultrasound technician would probably be fired for being so unprofessional -
“Bet that was a nasty surprise.” Crystal replaced the transducer in its holder and cleaned away the goop. “I suppose it makes you lucky in a way. Not being attached to it and all.”
Gah! I wanted to strangle her and I will attribute that to your talent as a writer. I ache so much for Arthur and Eames in this fic and the emotional upheavals I foresee that are in store for them. Hopefully their relationship will be strong enough to survive it. This is such an emotionally wrenching and brilliantly characterized story you're creating here and I can't wait for your next update!
Reply
Leave a comment