Drabble Round Up: AE_LDWS Halfway Point (Weeks 1-5)
So, we've made it to Week 6 of the Arthur/Eames Last Drabble Writer Standing Challenge (Round 5) at ae_ldws and since it looks like it's about half way done at this point I thought I would post the ficlets thus far. Now, watch me get voted out next week.
A NOTE that you can totally skip: For the first several rounds of this challenge I was all ::grumble:: ficlets not drabbles ::grumble:: because I do get unreasonably testy about the misuse of the term (A drabble is a fic of EXACTLY 100 words. Full stop. 2x, 3x, even 4x are fine. A ficlet that can be "up to 300" words IS NOT A DRABBLE, OMG. [Unless it is 300 words, exactly]). Now that you're all racing to backspace --- it's important to me because I love the form. I love the discipline it imposes. I even love having to fiddle and refine and tweak to make what I want to convey fit perfectly in the space I have. Having been lured into this round by the lovely and talented eternalsojourn I wrote the first week's ficlet and liked it well enough but was still all "mafjanfauh notadrabble" when it hit me: there was nothing stopping me from writing the form the way I wanted it to be. So, week one was a ficlet but all subsequent weeks have been double, triple, or quad drabbles. I know it doesn't matter to anyone else but it's made it fun and satisfying for me. It's been a new experience to write to challenge parameters. I'm a little stunned to have won a few weeks but I'm not going to deny that it's kinda nice. What can I say, I like drabbles.
Props to all the other participants in the challenge - it's been fun to read their takes on the same genre & prompt and equally fun to try to guess which fic is from which writer (I am spectacularly bad at that). It has been a little startling to see how few people vote every week (I think one week there were just nine votes overall!) so I urge anyone who is still reading this to check out the ae_ldws com every Monday and vote! The fics have been excellent and your voice will definitely be heard.
Thanks to the fabulous valancy_joy who has been wonderful about holding my hand, side-eyeing me when necessary, and always game for lightening-quick betas at the last possible moment. Remaining errors are, of course, mine alone (and boy do I want to change something about every single one of these...but they're what they are, warts and all.)
Wow, short fics/long notes. Obviously I'm doing this in an effort to avoid writing my drabble for Week 6.
These are also archived as a series on AO3.
ae_ldws Round 5 Week 1
Genre: Action Prompt: Banana Word count: Up to 300
Title: Test to Destruction
Author: dremiel
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Word count: 287
Rating: PG (Language)
Summary: Agenda Item: Product Testing
Warnings: none
“Shit!” Arthur spins the steering wheel hard to the left to avoid a young woman pushing a pram. “Did he overdose on Bond and Bourne before we went under?”
Hurtling the Mini Cooper down the steep hill and around another corner he swerves onto the sidewalk to bypass two men carrying an enormous plate glass window across the street. Unfortunately, the sidewalk is now loaded with market stalls.
From the passenger seat Eames calls, “Fruit cart!” even as vendors dive for cover. Arthur winces but plows on, sending bananas and oranges flying. A wooden crate of squawking poultry bounces off the hood leaving them momentarily engulfed in a cloud of feathers.
“It’s not a movie, it’s a sodding video game,” Eames exclaims with more delight than Arthur thinks is warranted.
Eames turns to check on their pursuers and frowns. “They’re still gaining on us,” he reports just as Arthur slams on the brakes and skids into a narrow alleyway, hurling Eames against the door.
“Funeral cortege.” Arthur apologizes.
“Yes, of course.” Eames grins. “If we have to drive off a cliff do you think it’ll be in slow motion?”
“Eames! You’re not supposed to be enjoying this.”
Eames laughs and asks, “Can’t a man take pride in his work?”
Looking up the alley Arthur isn’t the least bit surprised to see a fuel truck blocking their way.
“Fuck it,” he says, bracing for the collision; at least they’ll kick out in a blaze of glory.
They wake with a start, scorching heat and the stench of burning hydrocarbons echoing for a few seconds.
“I believe...” Eames pauses to clear his throat of phantom smoke, “I believe we can inform our client that his militarization is a success.”
ae_ldws Round 5 Week 2
Genre: Angst, Prompt: Balloon, Word count: 200 (drabble! Yay!)
Title: Deflated
Author: dremiel
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Word count: 200
Rating: PG (Language)
Summary: Eames is not as smooth as he seems
Warnings: none
Eames gets halfway across the deserted lobby before the insistent urge to run gives way to a sickening realization that he’s blown it. His knees buckle as the enormity of his mistake rolls over him. Sinking onto a bench he chants “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” into shaking hands. It doesn’t ease the clenching in his gut. Nor does it begin to explain why he just left Arthur sated and sleeping upstairs.
A silver balloon scuds across the floor near his feet, one of a cluster bobbing feebly from the banister beside him. Once festive, now forlorn and Christ if that isn’t apt. One moment he and Arthur are high on Inception and finally acting on the attraction that’s hummed between them for years, the next he’s doing a panicky runner at 5 a.m. Because now he knows that Arthur is greedy and giving, unexpectedly filthy and altogether splendid. Now he knows that he wants more, so much more. And he’s always known how dangerous it is to want anything this badly.
He’s dribbling the balloon between his feet, unwilling to leave but afraid to go back, when lights flicker on in the hotel Starbucks. Two lattes, one second chance, to go.
ae_ldws Round 5 Week 3
Genre: Romance, Prompt: Moleskine, Word count: Up to 300
Title: Billet-Doux
Author: dremiel
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Word count: 300
Rating: PG (Language)
Summary: Communication is the key to a good relationship
Warnings: none
Notes: The work of an ineligible participant was mistakenly included in the voting post for this challenge. The results were nullified and Week 3 was repeated with a new prompt. This was submitted for the original prompt.
Arthur puts his phone down, again. It’s only been a day, less than, for fuck’s sake. He hardly needs to text Eames every damned time he thinks about him. Shit. He has to get his head back on the job. Pressing a palm over his moleskine to open it flat he checks the mark’s Google calendar, a simple hack. It’s not until he looks back to the notebook to record a date that he notices the fat little bumblebee in the bottom corner. He turns the page and it’s there as well, Eames’ fluid pen-strokes instantly familiar. Bemused, Arthur flicks through to see that all hundred or so of the leaves have art nestled into the rounded corner.
It’s clearly a flip book. He’d made one himself in third grade, painstakingly copying a rocketship over and over to animate liftoff when he should’ve been doing fractions. Warmth blooms in his chest as he realizes that Eames must have done this after Arthur packed last night, as he slept.
Resisting the impulse to glance around furtively, he moves the moleskine to his lap. When Eames is involved it’s generally best to assume discretion is warranted but at base Arthur just isn’t willing to share this.
A steady riff of his thumb brings Eames’ drawings to life. The bee makes a lazy loop then swoops down to tug crooked letters onto the page: an E and moving left, N...I...M. A poppy springs up, heavy bloom arching the stem into a question mark. Arthur knows he’s grinning, blushing, probably flashing his hated dimples, but he can’t help ghosting his thumb over the final image: Bee mine?
He grabs his phone, not caring who suspects that he’s texting his…well, his Eames and sends “Always.” followed a moment later by “All ways.”
ae_ldws Round 5 Week 3 REDO
Genre: Crack, Quote (to be included verbatim): "I am never doing that again", Word count: Up to 400
Title: Lawn Boy
Author: dremiel
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Word count: 400
Rating: PG-13 (Language, Sexual content )
Summary: Eames gets hot and sweaty. Arthur gets hot and bothered.
Warnings: none
Notes: The work of an ineligible participant was mistakenly included in the voting post for for week three of this challenge. The results were nullified and Week 3 was repeated with a new prompt. This was submitted for the second prompt.
Eames tugs at his denim cutoffs, settling them lower on his hips, then bends over to pull the start cord. He mows a few strips of lawn before he pauses to peel off his t-shirt and rub it over his face and chest. There’s a hint of movement from the middle window of the second story. Sure enough, he’s only made a few more passes when his voyeur slips out the screen door with a frosty glass.
“Eames. Hi. You look hot.” Arthur flushes. “I mean, you look like you’re hot. I made you some lemonade.”
Eames throttles down the mower and prowls over. Taking the glass he rubs the condensation over his forehead. With a soft “Cheers,” he tips his head back and guzzles; a rivulet runs down his throat to mingle with the sweat on his chest.
Arthur watches the liquid trail down Eames’ taut abs. He licks his lips.
Setting the glass down, Eames steps closer.
“I can feel you watching me. Always watching. What do you think about up in your bedroom, watching me?” Eames asks, lips at Arthur’s ear.
“Touching you.” Arthur says. “Tasting you. Licking this tat.” Arthur presses his palm against the tease of ink that peeks above denim. At the audible hitch in Eames’ breath he slides his hand lower to hover over Eames’ stiffening cock, “Getting my mouth on your dick.”
Eames slips a hand into Arthur’s skimpy soccer shorts to find him bare, hard, wet. He leads Arthur to a teak lounger, kneels to free Arthur’s leaking cock, and licks greedily at the tip.
“Dear god! You’re grown men. I’d say get a room but I know you already have one.”
“Mom!” Arthur jumps to his feet, yanking at his shorts. “I thought you were taking the kids to a movie.”
“And I thought you were mowing my lawn.”
“Nancy, I am. I will.” Eames says.
“Eames, I know my son can’t keep it in his pants…”
“MOTHER!”
“…but I thought better of you.”
“Really Nance?” Eames laughs. “With Arthur looking like that?”
“Point,” she says. “Well, Beauty tamed The Beast and we’re going for ice cream, thought you might want to join us but,” she waggles her hand, “…carry on. Be careful on that lounger, Arthur. I had to pull a splinter out of your hynie when you were four and believe me, I am never doing that again.”
ae_ldws Round 5 Week 4
Genre: HS/College AU, Prompt: wet, Word count: Up to 300
Title: Spin Cycle
Author: dremiel
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Word count: 300
Rating: PG (Language)
Summary: Sometimes good deeds are rewarded.
Warnings: none
Grumbling, Arthur pulls an abandoned load from the only dryer not in use. Two weeks into the semester and he’s ready to swear off laundry on Sunday nights.
He tosses his wet clothes in, sets them tumbling, then hesitates; he has a fuck-ton of reading but he can’t just leave someone’s clean clothes in a heap. Cursing himself, he snags a pair of jeans, smoothes and folds them, then reaches for the next pair. By the time he’s done with the T-shirts he is more than a little curious about this guy. The jeans are a mix of well-worn 501s and pricier high-end brands: True Religion, 7 For All Mankind, but the shirts are either variations of heather grey or sport dorky messages. He’s not sure who wears $300 jeans with a shirt that reads, “I reject your reality and substitute my own”.
“Sorry. Sorry! I forgot to set my timer and I actually started making progress on sodding D’Alembert and…Blimey, did you fold all this?”
It takes Arthur a moment to process the rapid-fire words, the lush British accent, as his entire focus is on the incredibly hot guy that goes with them.
“Uh, yeah?” he says, somewhat dazed. Mystery solved: who cares what the hell a shirt says when it’s hugging those shoulders?
“Wow. Thanks. Eames, 4 South,” Eames, the incredibly hot British guy, offers his hand and Arthur takes it automatically. “I generally prefer to know a fellow’s name before he gets into my jeans but I make exceptions for gorgeous young men in laundry rooms.”
Eames, the incredibly hot British guy who is hitting on him. “Arthur, 3 North.” Shamelessly deploying his dimples he adds, “And I usually expect breakfast once I’ve handled a guy’s button-flies.”
“Arthur,” Eames purrs. “May I interest you in breakfast?”
ae_ldws Round 5 Week 5
Genre: Fluff, Prompt: frame, Word count: Up to 300
Title: Mating Rituals
Author: dremiel
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Word count: 300
Rating: PG (Language)
Summary: The sketchy thing about fucking in a half-built cabin is that it leads to sleeping in a half-built cabin.
Warnings: none
Eames startles, roused to wakefulness but unsure why. Unsure, for one horrible moment, of where he is. The warm weight of Arthur’s arm slung across his chest grounds him more surely than a totem and his racing heart begins to settle.
From their snug nest of sleeping bags Eames searches the Vermont night beyond newly raised timbers. Nothing stirs. He takes in the familiar balsam and sandalwood of Arthur’s shampoo, the murmur of the nearby river. He’s dozing off again when an unearthly bellow spooks him back to alertness.
The arm around him tightens. “S’just an elk,” Arthur says, shifting closer and nuzzling into his shoulder.
“Bloody hell, that’s a desolate sound.” Eames is not quite sure he believes that noise came from anything terrestrial but Arthur tends to be right about these things.
“He’s lonely,” Arthur mumbles, “…looking for a mate.”
“Well, tell him you’re already taken, hmm?”
Arthur expels a breathy laugh against Eames’ neck, “Gonna fight a gay elk for me, Eames?”
Eames twines his fingers with Arthur’s and runs his thumb over the simple band: smooth and cool, still new enough to thrill.
“I’ll battle a whole herd of gay elk for you, pet.” Eames, trying for flippant, hits terribly earnest instead.
“Be still my heart,” Arthur says around a yawn and slides back into sleep.
Eames holds him close, curled together on the stone foundation of the home that will be wholly theirs, unlike others spaces that were first his or Arthur’s. He picks out half-remembered constellations through the frame of reclaimed fir beams and joists, timbers Arthur spent months hunting down. Despite the drowsy predawn peace, Eames knows he would fight the entire sodding world to preserve his place here, at Arthur’s side.
Though he rather hopes the damned elk stay the fuck away.
A NOTE that you can totally skip: For the first several rounds of this challenge I was all ::grumble:: ficlets not drabbles ::grumble:: because I do get unreasonably testy about the misuse of the term (A drabble is a fic of EXACTLY 100 words. Full stop. 2x, 3x, even 4x are fine. A ficlet that can be "up to 300" words IS NOT A DRABBLE, OMG. [Unless it is 300 words, exactly]). Now that you're all racing to backspace --- it's important to me because I love the form. I love the discipline it imposes. I even love having to fiddle and refine and tweak to make what I want to convey fit perfectly in the space I have. Having been lured into this round by the lovely and talented eternalsojourn I wrote the first week's ficlet and liked it well enough but was still all "mafjanfauh notadrabble" when it hit me: there was nothing stopping me from writing the form the way I wanted it to be. So, week one was a ficlet but all subsequent weeks have been double, triple, or quad drabbles. I know it doesn't matter to anyone else but it's made it fun and satisfying for me. It's been a new experience to write to challenge parameters. I'm a little stunned to have won a few weeks but I'm not going to deny that it's kinda nice. What can I say, I like drabbles.
Props to all the other participants in the challenge - it's been fun to read their takes on the same genre & prompt and equally fun to try to guess which fic is from which writer (I am spectacularly bad at that). It has been a little startling to see how few people vote every week (I think one week there were just nine votes overall!) so I urge anyone who is still reading this to check out the ae_ldws com every Monday and vote! The fics have been excellent and your voice will definitely be heard.
Thanks to the fabulous valancy_joy who has been wonderful about holding my hand, side-eyeing me when necessary, and always game for lightening-quick betas at the last possible moment. Remaining errors are, of course, mine alone (and boy do I want to change something about every single one of these...but they're what they are, warts and all.)
Wow, short fics/long notes. Obviously I'm doing this in an effort to avoid writing my drabble for Week 6.
These are also archived as a series on AO3.
ae_ldws Round 5 Week 1
Genre: Action Prompt: Banana Word count: Up to 300
Title: Test to Destruction
Author: dremiel
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Word count: 287
Rating: PG (Language)
Summary: Agenda Item: Product Testing
Warnings: none
“Shit!” Arthur spins the steering wheel hard to the left to avoid a young woman pushing a pram. “Did he overdose on Bond and Bourne before we went under?”
Hurtling the Mini Cooper down the steep hill and around another corner he swerves onto the sidewalk to bypass two men carrying an enormous plate glass window across the street. Unfortunately, the sidewalk is now loaded with market stalls.
From the passenger seat Eames calls, “Fruit cart!” even as vendors dive for cover. Arthur winces but plows on, sending bananas and oranges flying. A wooden crate of squawking poultry bounces off the hood leaving them momentarily engulfed in a cloud of feathers.
“It’s not a movie, it’s a sodding video game,” Eames exclaims with more delight than Arthur thinks is warranted.
Eames turns to check on their pursuers and frowns. “They’re still gaining on us,” he reports just as Arthur slams on the brakes and skids into a narrow alleyway, hurling Eames against the door.
“Funeral cortege.” Arthur apologizes.
“Yes, of course.” Eames grins. “If we have to drive off a cliff do you think it’ll be in slow motion?”
“Eames! You’re not supposed to be enjoying this.”
Eames laughs and asks, “Can’t a man take pride in his work?”
Looking up the alley Arthur isn’t the least bit surprised to see a fuel truck blocking their way.
“Fuck it,” he says, bracing for the collision; at least they’ll kick out in a blaze of glory.
They wake with a start, scorching heat and the stench of burning hydrocarbons echoing for a few seconds.
“I believe...” Eames pauses to clear his throat of phantom smoke, “I believe we can inform our client that his militarization is a success.”
ae_ldws Round 5 Week 2
Genre: Angst, Prompt: Balloon, Word count: 200 (drabble! Yay!)
Title: Deflated
Author: dremiel
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Word count: 200
Rating: PG (Language)
Summary: Eames is not as smooth as he seems
Warnings: none
Eames gets halfway across the deserted lobby before the insistent urge to run gives way to a sickening realization that he’s blown it. His knees buckle as the enormity of his mistake rolls over him. Sinking onto a bench he chants “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” into shaking hands. It doesn’t ease the clenching in his gut. Nor does it begin to explain why he just left Arthur sated and sleeping upstairs.
A silver balloon scuds across the floor near his feet, one of a cluster bobbing feebly from the banister beside him. Once festive, now forlorn and Christ if that isn’t apt. One moment he and Arthur are high on Inception and finally acting on the attraction that’s hummed between them for years, the next he’s doing a panicky runner at 5 a.m. Because now he knows that Arthur is greedy and giving, unexpectedly filthy and altogether splendid. Now he knows that he wants more, so much more. And he’s always known how dangerous it is to want anything this badly.
He’s dribbling the balloon between his feet, unwilling to leave but afraid to go back, when lights flicker on in the hotel Starbucks. Two lattes, one second chance, to go.
ae_ldws Round 5 Week 3
Genre: Romance, Prompt: Moleskine, Word count: Up to 300
Title: Billet-Doux
Author: dremiel
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Word count: 300
Rating: PG (Language)
Summary: Communication is the key to a good relationship
Warnings: none
Notes: The work of an ineligible participant was mistakenly included in the voting post for this challenge. The results were nullified and Week 3 was repeated with a new prompt. This was submitted for the original prompt.
Arthur puts his phone down, again. It’s only been a day, less than, for fuck’s sake. He hardly needs to text Eames every damned time he thinks about him. Shit. He has to get his head back on the job. Pressing a palm over his moleskine to open it flat he checks the mark’s Google calendar, a simple hack. It’s not until he looks back to the notebook to record a date that he notices the fat little bumblebee in the bottom corner. He turns the page and it’s there as well, Eames’ fluid pen-strokes instantly familiar. Bemused, Arthur flicks through to see that all hundred or so of the leaves have art nestled into the rounded corner.
It’s clearly a flip book. He’d made one himself in third grade, painstakingly copying a rocketship over and over to animate liftoff when he should’ve been doing fractions. Warmth blooms in his chest as he realizes that Eames must have done this after Arthur packed last night, as he slept.
Resisting the impulse to glance around furtively, he moves the moleskine to his lap. When Eames is involved it’s generally best to assume discretion is warranted but at base Arthur just isn’t willing to share this.
A steady riff of his thumb brings Eames’ drawings to life. The bee makes a lazy loop then swoops down to tug crooked letters onto the page: an E and moving left, N...I...M. A poppy springs up, heavy bloom arching the stem into a question mark. Arthur knows he’s grinning, blushing, probably flashing his hated dimples, but he can’t help ghosting his thumb over the final image: Bee mine?
He grabs his phone, not caring who suspects that he’s texting his…well, his Eames and sends “Always.” followed a moment later by “All ways.”
ae_ldws Round 5 Week 3 REDO
Genre: Crack, Quote (to be included verbatim): "I am never doing that again", Word count: Up to 400
Title: Lawn Boy
Author: dremiel
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Word count: 400
Rating: PG-13 (Language, Sexual content )
Summary: Eames gets hot and sweaty. Arthur gets hot and bothered.
Warnings: none
Notes: The work of an ineligible participant was mistakenly included in the voting post for for week three of this challenge. The results were nullified and Week 3 was repeated with a new prompt. This was submitted for the second prompt.
Eames tugs at his denim cutoffs, settling them lower on his hips, then bends over to pull the start cord. He mows a few strips of lawn before he pauses to peel off his t-shirt and rub it over his face and chest. There’s a hint of movement from the middle window of the second story. Sure enough, he’s only made a few more passes when his voyeur slips out the screen door with a frosty glass.
“Eames. Hi. You look hot.” Arthur flushes. “I mean, you look like you’re hot. I made you some lemonade.”
Eames throttles down the mower and prowls over. Taking the glass he rubs the condensation over his forehead. With a soft “Cheers,” he tips his head back and guzzles; a rivulet runs down his throat to mingle with the sweat on his chest.
Arthur watches the liquid trail down Eames’ taut abs. He licks his lips.
Setting the glass down, Eames steps closer.
“I can feel you watching me. Always watching. What do you think about up in your bedroom, watching me?” Eames asks, lips at Arthur’s ear.
“Touching you.” Arthur says. “Tasting you. Licking this tat.” Arthur presses his palm against the tease of ink that peeks above denim. At the audible hitch in Eames’ breath he slides his hand lower to hover over Eames’ stiffening cock, “Getting my mouth on your dick.”
Eames slips a hand into Arthur’s skimpy soccer shorts to find him bare, hard, wet. He leads Arthur to a teak lounger, kneels to free Arthur’s leaking cock, and licks greedily at the tip.
“Dear god! You’re grown men. I’d say get a room but I know you already have one.”
“Mom!” Arthur jumps to his feet, yanking at his shorts. “I thought you were taking the kids to a movie.”
“And I thought you were mowing my lawn.”
“Nancy, I am. I will.” Eames says.
“Eames, I know my son can’t keep it in his pants…”
“MOTHER!”
“…but I thought better of you.”
“Really Nance?” Eames laughs. “With Arthur looking like that?”
“Point,” she says. “Well, Beauty tamed The Beast and we’re going for ice cream, thought you might want to join us but,” she waggles her hand, “…carry on. Be careful on that lounger, Arthur. I had to pull a splinter out of your hynie when you were four and believe me, I am never doing that again.”
ae_ldws Round 5 Week 4
Genre: HS/College AU, Prompt: wet, Word count: Up to 300
Title: Spin Cycle
Author: dremiel
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Word count: 300
Rating: PG (Language)
Summary: Sometimes good deeds are rewarded.
Warnings: none
Grumbling, Arthur pulls an abandoned load from the only dryer not in use. Two weeks into the semester and he’s ready to swear off laundry on Sunday nights.
He tosses his wet clothes in, sets them tumbling, then hesitates; he has a fuck-ton of reading but he can’t just leave someone’s clean clothes in a heap. Cursing himself, he snags a pair of jeans, smoothes and folds them, then reaches for the next pair. By the time he’s done with the T-shirts he is more than a little curious about this guy. The jeans are a mix of well-worn 501s and pricier high-end brands: True Religion, 7 For All Mankind, but the shirts are either variations of heather grey or sport dorky messages. He’s not sure who wears $300 jeans with a shirt that reads, “I reject your reality and substitute my own”.
“Sorry. Sorry! I forgot to set my timer and I actually started making progress on sodding D’Alembert and…Blimey, did you fold all this?”
It takes Arthur a moment to process the rapid-fire words, the lush British accent, as his entire focus is on the incredibly hot guy that goes with them.
“Uh, yeah?” he says, somewhat dazed. Mystery solved: who cares what the hell a shirt says when it’s hugging those shoulders?
“Wow. Thanks. Eames, 4 South,” Eames, the incredibly hot British guy, offers his hand and Arthur takes it automatically. “I generally prefer to know a fellow’s name before he gets into my jeans but I make exceptions for gorgeous young men in laundry rooms.”
Eames, the incredibly hot British guy who is hitting on him. “Arthur, 3 North.” Shamelessly deploying his dimples he adds, “And I usually expect breakfast once I’ve handled a guy’s button-flies.”
“Arthur,” Eames purrs. “May I interest you in breakfast?”
ae_ldws Round 5 Week 5
Genre: Fluff, Prompt: frame, Word count: Up to 300
Title: Mating Rituals
Author: dremiel
Fandom: Inception (2010)
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Word count: 300
Rating: PG (Language)
Summary: The sketchy thing about fucking in a half-built cabin is that it leads to sleeping in a half-built cabin.
Warnings: none
Eames startles, roused to wakefulness but unsure why. Unsure, for one horrible moment, of where he is. The warm weight of Arthur’s arm slung across his chest grounds him more surely than a totem and his racing heart begins to settle.
From their snug nest of sleeping bags Eames searches the Vermont night beyond newly raised timbers. Nothing stirs. He takes in the familiar balsam and sandalwood of Arthur’s shampoo, the murmur of the nearby river. He’s dozing off again when an unearthly bellow spooks him back to alertness.
The arm around him tightens. “S’just an elk,” Arthur says, shifting closer and nuzzling into his shoulder.
“Bloody hell, that’s a desolate sound.” Eames is not quite sure he believes that noise came from anything terrestrial but Arthur tends to be right about these things.
“He’s lonely,” Arthur mumbles, “…looking for a mate.”
“Well, tell him you’re already taken, hmm?”
Arthur expels a breathy laugh against Eames’ neck, “Gonna fight a gay elk for me, Eames?”
Eames twines his fingers with Arthur’s and runs his thumb over the simple band: smooth and cool, still new enough to thrill.
“I’ll battle a whole herd of gay elk for you, pet.” Eames, trying for flippant, hits terribly earnest instead.
“Be still my heart,” Arthur says around a yawn and slides back into sleep.
Eames holds him close, curled together on the stone foundation of the home that will be wholly theirs, unlike others spaces that were first his or Arthur’s. He picks out half-remembered constellations through the frame of reclaimed fir beams and joists, timbers Arthur spent months hunting down. Despite the drowsy predawn peace, Eames knows he would fight the entire sodding world to preserve his place here, at Arthur’s side.
Though he rather hopes the damned elk stay the fuck away.