Recs: Inception
This is the massive Inception recs post I mentioned when I posted fic. Normally I would have just collected them into the rest of the recs, just like I did when I got into Sherlock, but I didn't want to write recs before I saw the movie (yeah, I know) and so I bookmarked a bunch and it just kind of... got out of hand. I'm all caught up now, though!
Arthur/Eames
Always Where I Need to Be
--> Eames spends an evening repeatedly drunk-dialling Arthur while Arthur is trying to have a quiet night in, and Arthur lets him. Arthur is a little slow on the uptake, however.
Currency
--> A series of encounters in which Arthur pays Eames for a favor with a kiss. Cute, and very sweet!
Don't Fall In Love with a Dreamer
--> Oh man, THIS STORY. So much love. Basically, Eames steals Dom's point man in a fit of post-Inception airplane bathroom sex, and then Arthur sort of follows him home to Mombasa and moves in with him and adopts Yusuf, and then they end up working together and are both depressed by incompetence and Eames decides to do one better and then steals Dom's point man. Seriously, everything about this story just left stars in my eyes: Arthur sort of colonizing Eames' life accidentally, and Eames more than a little terrified but never enough to make him run away. I admit, though, I laughed till I was sick during the Cobb bits. Funniest ever.
Give Me the Number (If You Can Find It)
--> After a job that requires them to leave in a hurry, Arthur and Eames accidentally switch their phones. What I love about this story is that it really illustrates just how much of ourselves are on our phones in this day and age, and just how much you can learn about someone from the minutia and detritus. Arthur and Eames learn all kinds of new things about each other, but it isn't just a case of stolen intimacy- both of them find the strength to cowboy up and say some of the things that have remained unsaid for far too long.
Half-Way Gone
--> Always-a-girl Eames. The story itself is set during the plannign stages of the Inception heist, while Eames is working on getting a feel for her target, in Australia along with Arthur who's busy gathering intel. There's a break-in, and some spying, and a fancy dress ball, and Arthur getting shot, and the best thing, the best thing, is that Eames isn't really that different at all. It's all tiny details, but Eames is the kind of character who will always be just exactly who he is (or she) and that's what makes this so awesome. The author said that she fell in love with lady!Eames while writing this, and honestly, I did too.
Hit the Ground Running
--> Arthur and Eames, half-asleep in the afterglow, manage to mutually confess their love for one another. And then the next morning Arthur runs and Eames chases him pretty much around the world. Lovely and romantic in a schaudenfreude kind of way.
Idle Hands
--> After Inception, Arthur tries really hard to do normal life for a while, take a vacation, have a hobby, work a normal job. This... does not work out well for him. And if he happens to be following Eames around the globe while he's at it, well, that's just coincedence.
I'm the Same Boy I Used to Be
--> Three times that Eames meets Arthur accidentally, and one time they rendesvous on purpose. I wasn't expecting this story, because two of the meetings involve an airport and a subway long before either of them hear of dreamsharing technology, and one time involved explosions. It was short and clever and utterly charming.
Jamais Vu
--> Yusuf is working on a new drug that would aid extraction even in a militarized subconscious- something designed to make the subject compliant and confessional, but he needs a test subject. Arthur and Eames are his guinea pigs, with Arthur as the subject and Eames the one trying to extract from him, but the experiment isn't exactly immediately sucessful. There's so much about this story that I love- the premise is seductive, for it forces Arthur to loosen a lot of his barriers and say things he never would, and furthermore it encourages intimacy between the two of them that neither one of them is exactly reluctant to take- but it's unpredictable, jumping around, and only comes together properly at the end.
j'veux ton amour, et je m'en fous d'après
--> This is, hands-down, my favorite characterization for Eames, if only because it's so unexpected. This is an Eames with a tidy London apartment and a well-used studio and an interfering family, an Eames who loves to paint and tease Ariadne and his parents and Arthur. And more than that, it's Arthur learning him back, Arthur who doesn't seem to expect this Eames any more than I did.
les dés sont pipés
--> Porn. Really, really amazing porn, which is notable in the fact that I'm reccing it even though pwp is usually a one-read-only for me, because it's just lovely and intimate and there's an awesome Ariadne cameo at the beginning.
Life In Virtual Reality
--> I read Towards Zero first, so to me this felt like an awesome inside-out remix, but I'll let you decide for yourselves. Eames finds himself haunted by projections of Arthur- and my favorite part was that even the Arthur in his head likes to fuck with him. I liked the miscommunication that goes on between him and actual-Arthur over the problem, too, because the author was clever enough to sell me on them totally misunderstanding each other with good reason, because apparently they're incapable of doing anything but talk around an issue. (Does have a happy ending, though.)
Like I Wanna Live Now
--> A job goes sideways and Arthur ends up borrowing Eames' shirt- and then, over time, other articles of clothing, and he doesn't mind as much as he probably should. This story is just fun, flirty and charming and an angst-free look at the dance between the two of them, which is part of the pleasure even though they both can't wait for it to be over. This puts a smile on my face every time.
Love Me Love Me Do (with some Dom/Ariadne)
--> After everything's over Eames takes off and DOm refuses to come back, so Arthur and Ariadne just sort of fall in with each other. Then they're standing in line at the bank bickering with each other when some guy decides to rob the bank, Arthur gets shot, and the cavalry gets called. I adore misunderstanding stories, and Arthur being high may be the greatest thing ever.
never so safe as I am with you
--> Cobb decides to test the team's way of dealing with subconscious security using Arthur's mind, because Arthur is famous for having mental security that's never been broken. Arthur's pretty smug about it, too, until they all realize that his security just utterly fails to work on Eames, even when it goes after everyone else just fine. Really, though, the best part of this story is the image of Dom being chased by a panther. That's worth the price of admission right there.
Presque Vu
--> Okay, so, this is the story that got me into this fandom. I hadn't even seen the movie yet when I sat down to read this, and I loved it to pieces anyway; the first thing I did when I came back from seeing a belated showing at my local theater was to sit down and read this again. It's... pretty epic, both in length and scope, and it is, as the author said, if the movie was Dom's love story, than this was Arthur's. Essentially it posits that Arthur met Mal in college and sort of inherited Dom when Mal fall in love, and that they all got pulled into the dreamsharing business when it was still in its infancy and it was then, working with the military, that Arthur first met Eames. This is, possibly, one of the best romances for this pairing I've yet seen; it leaves me breathless and gut-punched with joy or sorrow even on my fifth re-read, my sixth, and so on. It builds them up into a glorious romance and then tears them apart when Mal dies, and then uses the events of the movie to set things right again. And yet, one of my very favorite things about this story was Arthur with Mal and Dom, because it was so ridiculous and family that I couldn't help but love it. There's one line, when Dom and Mal are getting married, where a very drunk Dom tells Arthur that he's glad that he's marrying Mal, because Arthur is Mal's best friend and it means that Arthur is going to be his best friend too. My heart, people, it stopped, I swear. And the whole story is like that. It's all ups and downs and bits of laughing ridiculousness and bits where I kind of clutch at my chest and read till it gets better. Just, so good. So good. Everybody should read this.
protect this house
--> Arthur and Eames run into each other again during Fashion Week, and start to build something all over again. I'm not much of one for fashion, so the actual idea of fashion week isn't terribly interesting to me- but I really enjoyed it as the conceit of the story, because it was something they both enjoyed, in different ways, and it gave them a reason to stick with each other around the globe. When Eames gets a job that would require him to peel off he doesn't want to miss the next show but it's really the renewed intimacy with Arthur that he doesn't want to lose, and I don't blame him because the intimacy was the part of this story that I enjoyed the most. This is a portrait of two men with history, most of it good, and they ended things not out of drama and heartbreak but just because they thought they should, and now they're getting a chance to rethink the wisdom of that decision. It's a very low-key kind of story, a little quiet and offbeat.
Shelter
--> Arthur gets into the dreamsharing business because of the mob, but he was always a hitman first and foremost. He and Eames run into other on a job when they meet for the first time- but it takes a long time for Eames to really understand who Arthur is. This is kind of a sad story, with a happy ending, told in a very brisk, matter-of-fact style that makes it even more of a sucker-punch.
Sleight of Hand Series:
Palm, Ditch, Steal
--> I'm not entirely sure how to sum up this story in a pithy (or even not-so-pithy) description. There are a lot of disparate elements to the story- Ariadne developing a technique to create dreams from memories, Eames learning how to forge more than one person at once, the whole team of them getting adopted by Saito and that actually not working out all that well even though none of them are willing to leave, a deeply complicated job that they're working, Ariadne's romance with Saito. And then there's Arthur and Eames. When I try to describe it everything seems to be so disjointed but it's really not, it's just smooth and lovely and tightly-written, and the subtleties of the developing relationship between Arthur and Eames were brilliant.
Load, Misdirection, Switch (mainly Ariadne/Saito)
--> This is not a gratuitous coda to the previous story. Reading this made everything I enjoyed about Palm, Ditch, Steal seem so much deeper, and there's so many threads that I didn't even notice were left hanging before until I read this and they were tied in to the narrative. This story focuses on Ariadne and Saito, the compromises they each make and the way Ariadne tries to plan for the worst even though she's stupidly happy, but more than that it's about getting revenge for the double-cross enacted on them against Saito. It's about running a long con, which is new to most of them, and trusting each other with the worst of yourself, and the way they're all tied into each other a bit more than is necessarily advisable, but none of them are capable of turning back now. And what the team does, what Ariadne does in pursuit of their revenge, is both horrifying and brilliant and I loved every of it. The aftermath, too, was just gorgeous.
Stamina
--> This is Eames and Arthur failing to be smooth at sex, and both of them kind of being assholes to one another about it. And yet it does have a quiet sort of sensuality, messed-up as the two appear, and there is a note of romanticism at the end that made me smile.
This is all there is, roll the dice
--> A delightful inversion of the standard fandom trope, wherein Arthur is the one who commits emotionally and Eames is the one running scared. As much as I love Eames-the-smitten and Arthur-the-emotional-robot as a fandom trope, I almost loved this more. Not every rogue has a secret heart of gold at the beginning of the story. Not every quiet man doesn't know how to love. I liked that Eames fucked things up, I liked that he knew why was doing it even as it happened, and I liked that he managed to fix it in the end. Just gorgeous.
Towards Zero
--> This was one of the earlier stories I read in this fandom, and I still keep coming back to it. Arthur meets the projection of Eames in Nash's subconsious long before he meets the man himself, and when the projection of Eames shows up in his own head he knows he's in trouble. It all gets so much worse, of course, when he actually meets Eames when he and Cobb need a forger for a job. The concept itself is one that I found fascinating, and it was executed really well here, especially the idea of how close to reality can a projection really be? Mal, as best we know from the movie, was a twisted version of Dom's wife, because his mind made her that way. Is it even possible to fall in love with a projection? Can a projection fall in love back, or is that just a form of disguised narcissism? And of course, in the end, reality is so much better than the dream.
Two Steps Towards Make Believe
--> Arthur has fought with insomnia for his entire life, and went into the dreamsharing business because he hoped that it would rewire him enough to sleep, but it didn't work. Until he falls asleep on Eames' shoulder. This oddity causes him to embark on a series of experiments, which get increasingly more farcial as Eames just sort of goes along with it, and in the end Arthur realizes that it's time to address why he can sleep with Eames and nowhere else. This story made me go, "Oh, Arthur," a lot.
Weltschmerz
--> Oh, this is brilliant. This is an Arthur who is female-to-male trans, post-transition, but the awesome thing is that this story doesn't just work the characterization of Arthur, but in fact explores what it would be like in relation to the dreaming world, where imagery is often subject to the dreamer's subconscious. I also like Arthur's relation to Eames in this, sort of yearning and annoyed and defensive, for some fairly good reasons, at that, even if he doesn't deal with it very well. And I especially love Eames at the very end, because he can't empathize with Arthur's situation because his life isn't that, but he can, due to his own experiences and talents, sympathize and perhaps understand.
Wherever You Will Be (That's Where I'll Call Home)
--> AKA the domestic!verse. The awesome thing about this series is that far from being curtain!fic, it's just pure, quintessential Arthur and Eames, living their lives and getting into a relationship and living together and just generally being themselves, only having sex. It's about the practicalities of shared income and picking which house and who does the cooking and all the little things about living together that the romances never really get around to mentioning. Also unlike a lot of stories, this series starts with short snippets and then builds into longer, plottier, more emotionally resonant stories as it goes. My two favorites are pressed against the pending physics of my passed down last name and life long local foreigner, i, which deal with Eames' father's funeral and Arthur's sister's wedding, respectively. And despite the vastly different occasions, both of them hit the same kind of resonant points, meeting the family and dealing with the drama and helping your partner through a stressful time. This series just makes me happy, really, it's one that I can read over and over again.
Arthur/Eames AU
For all the world's a stage
--> Shakespeare AU, where Dom is the man himself and Eames is his permanent male lead and Arthur is the theoretically-too-old auditioner for the part of Juliet, and he's amazing and Eames managed to fuck it up right from the gate. I loved Eames being utterly stupid over Arthur, and Arthur totally not getting it, and the on with the show feeling of it all, which just made it better in the end, when the worked things out, because I love the thought of them being in love and then going on stage and being other people and still getting to be in love. Fantastic all around.
His Lordship Makes a Match
--> It's a Regency AU! Seriously, straight back to my childhood. Eames is the delightfully dissipated lord, Ariadne is his headstrong bluestocking sister, and Arthur is his long-suffering valet. I was actually pretty impressed with the way the author managed to keep the push-pull dynamic between Arthur and Eames intact in a situation where they're not equals, and the big conspiracy plot was admittedly a little silly, but that's just holding true to regency genre so I'm willing to forgive a lot. Also, the secondary pairing of this story was clearly Arthur/fashion so there's that as well.
I bet Nureyev never had to deal with this shit
--> Ballet AU! The title makes it sound like such crack but it's really, really not, it's intensely charming and very smart. Arthur is a dancer who's just recovered from a pretty major injury and is signed on by his old friend Dom as the third in an adaption of Midsummer Night's Dream alongside Mal and Eames, the most famous partnership in the business. He and Eames manage to get off on exactly the wrong foot, naturally, and even as they work together beautifully their personal life is kind of a mess. They all work it out in the end, though, and the fact is that the author really pulled off the cliche because even though I knew better, I could still sympathize with Arthur's assumptions about Eames and how badly that fucked them over.
Incipit
--> Otherwise known as the AU where Eames is a bestselling writer and Arthur is his long-suffering editor that is a little too wrapped up in his author. Everyone's read this, I'm sure, because it's amazing and there's no way people haven't heard about it, but I will nonetheless add my voice to the chorus of people talking about how awesome and clever and funny it is. I think there are a great many people in fandom who can relate to Eames' writer-crazy, and Arthur is absolutely delightful, just sort of exasperated and resigned and charmed despite himself. There is nothing about this that doesn't make me happy.
I've Got Nothing To Do Today But Smile (The Only Living Boy In New York)
--> This is the coffeeshop AU. I say "the" coffeeshop AU because while I'm fairly certain that there will be others in this fandom, this one will always be The One to Rule Them All. And deservedly so! Arthur is a lawyer desperately striving for partner even though he kind of hates his job, and Eames is the guy who opens up a coffeeshop across the road and feeds Arthur's caffeine habit. Arthur ends up there more and more often, and then his stress-baking habit gets out of hand and Eames starts to sell his clearly superior baked goods, and then Arthur is helping out the register sometimes during a lunch rush and somehow it's all just totally out of hand. There is nothing I don't love about this story, you have to understand, the whole thing just fills me with joy. It's all about continuing down a path you set out for yourself when you were too young to know better, and not letting yourself see the way your life could be better even when there are people who clearly want to make it better, and Arthur and Eames falling in love and falling into each other's lives are stupidly adorable and happy-making. It's not a fluffy fic, because I think a lot of people would find something uncomfortably familiar in this story, either from themselves or someone they know, but it's got a happy ending and a lot of it is filled with joy despite the grind of stress that almost comes off the page. Seriously, read this right now, you're missing out if you don't.
Lay Your Siege (with Dom/Mal)
--> This is the funniest ever. Ever. Trojan War AU, where Mal gets taken for Paris and Dom gets his good friend Achilles (real name: Arthur) to go to war to get her back. Ariadne is Athena, odysseus has changed his name to Yusuf because Persephone left him for Zeus, and Hector Eames is the wost enemy ever. Also make sure to check out the mini- sequel, where Yusuf bonds with Zeus and an odyssey is begun.
Mr. Eames and Mr. Eames
--> Eames, a hitman, is put on assignment surveilling a target only one night he gets really drunk and apparently orders a mail-order bride... and the next morning Arthur shows up at his door, all clean efficiency and baking tins. This story was love at first sight.
never wanted the nice boys anyway
--> College AU, where Eames and Arthur are both doing postgrad work in the same English department, and Arthur has learned to hate Eames as much as he is attracted to him for a list of reasons that I'm sure he'd be delighted to supply if asked. This story was sort of sweetly hilarious, because Eames is so obviously, desperately pining, just really hopeless and descending into mad schemes to get Arthur's attention, and Arthur is just epically clueless about it. Until he finally figures out that his idea of how things are, does not exactly match up to reality. And then there are makeouts.
Our Shiny City
--> I couldn't describe this any better than the author: "Eames Paints. Arthur studies art history. Together they fight crime! are giant fucking hipsters." If you are like me and despise hipsters as a general breed, don't avoid this story, because it charmed the hell out of me anyway.
that's not how our song goes
--> This is a series of five nest AU's, worlds where Arthur and Eames might or might not have worked out, and one where they still might. I think my favorites were the one with Arthur as a bartender and the one where they reconnected at Mal and Dom's wedding, but they were all awesome.
The Escort
--> Eames needs a male date to a high-class function in order to get closer to a target, and when he contacts an escort agency Arthur shows up at his door. I absolutely loved this, because Arthur was so very much himself, intelligent and efficient and handsome, and he basically blended into high society with perfect ease. I was just about as charmed as Eames, and the sex at the end didn't hurt either.
The Inescapable Charm of the Countdown
--> Arthur is a prosecutor and Eames is a defense attorney, and yet the two of them manage to build a friendship that's seriously important to both of them. It all starts to come crashing down when some of Arthur's bosses say a few pointed things about "how it looks," and then it goes from bad to worse when Dom is accused of Mal's murder. Let me tell you: this was not the ending I was expecting, but it was amazing nonetheless. This story kept me holding my breath all the way to the last word.
The Wrath of Whatever From High Atop the Thing
--> Or, the one where Dom is a presidential candidate and Ariadne is his running mate and Arthur writes his perfect speeches and Eames is the campaign photographer with a habit of taking too many pictures of Arthur and not enough of the actual candidate. This is ridiculously charming and bantery, and I can pretty much guarantee a smile out of it.
Waiting On
--> Arthur is a... something involving a need for a cover story, the author never elaborates, but he goes to the office at exactly the same time every day, and every single morning he stops by a diner before catching the train, and orders the exact same breakfast from the charming and flirtatious owner, Eames. Very charming, and all about how you can build intimacy in tiny little increments, till you see someone less than half an hour a day but that doesn't make them any less a friend. I like the way that Arthur figures things out over the course of the story, too, very low-key and inevitable.
we were once cinema gods in the night
--> Hollywood AU of genius and awesome. Arthur is hands-down the best producer in the business, which means that he should say no to Dom Cobb after the direction tanked his last movie due to Mal's death, but the new script is just too good and nobody could play it but Eames- Eames, who hates Cobb and yet says yes anyway because Arthur's asking. I love the way the story shifted from present to past and back again, building in increments until you get the full scope of all the ways things went wrong when they had every reason to go right. I like that it took time to really understand the characters, and I have to admit that Arthur, in particular, charmed the hell out of me in this story. Read the flashback about how he got into the movie business and I think you'll probably agree.
Other Pairings and Gen
All My Only Dreams (Arthur/Ariadne)
--> After Inception Ariadne's crush on Arthur gets kind of out of hand, until his projection is haunting her dreamwork. The theme is "fives times Arthur kissed her in a dream and one time he kissed her in reality," and there is nothing about this story that doesn't work for me, even though this is not my favorite fandom pairing. I remember that I read this before I'd ever even seen the movie and I liked it then too.
Autoimmunity (gen)
--> This is a character study of Eames with one potential backstory, and it was charming and thoughtful and insightful. This was one of my earlier stories in this fandom, and rereading it I can say that it's definitely informed how I think of his character. It's that good.
better knock me down (Eames/Ariadne, Arthur/Eames/Ariadne)
--> Arthur finds himself working with Eames and Ariadne on a regular basis because they're the best in the business and it only makes sense, but on a personal front Arthur finds himself dealing with a problem because it's clear, at least to him, that Eames and Ariadne are starting up a relationship and he's on the outside. Of course, it's just a matter of Arthur being a little slow on the uptake, but he figures things out eventually.
I Will Change My Ways (Eames/Ariadne)
--> Mmm, I can't decide which I like best about this, the mind porn or the actual porn. Basically, Eames wants to experiment with forging women in sexual situations and asks Ariadne to participate, giving her a chance to forge herself as a man. They meet in the dreamworld and fool around and it's all very sexy, but there's also a lot going on under the surface- there's the question of why Eames wants this, why he asked Ariadne when there are probably actual men he could have approached, and most of all there's a friendly, sweet kind of intimacy between the two of them, not romantic but as friends and lovers. I really enjoyed this, and I liked that it left me thinking that this wasn't going to be it for them, but I also never thought they were going for happily ever after.
Nails and Rope and Oxygen (Eames/Ariadne)
--> I will say straight-up: this is not a characterization that I can really see, outside of the boundaries of the story. Their interactions are awkward and on-edge; Eames and Ariadne are almost entirely unlovely people; both the sex and the lead-up to it is almost actively unsexy, and yet I found both of these stories utterly fascinating and almost romantic, in their own sideways kind of way. I was captivated by these even though at times I didn't quite enjoy them.
OH&S (background Arthur/Eames and Ariadne/Saito)
--> This is a story that attemps to inject a little medical reality into the ridiculous science of the movie. These things include improper use of needles and sleep-state transitions and better workplace safety, and it was fun and smart and deeply funny. (The Ariadne Please Accept My Love Hospital was my favorite, personally.) I really love Yusuf's perceptions of the team because apparently he's the only one who has sense.
really good mistakes (Eames/Ariadne)
--> Is it TMI if I say that I see a lot of myself in this story? The friendship with the older, more experienced, kind of lewd asshole who won't stop flirting and you can never tell if he's serious... Yeah. The author nailed that dynamic. And the thing I love about the story is the way their relationship slowly slid from sex into something bigger, and Ariadne never seemed to realize it was happening because of one dumbshit thing Eames said in a moment of posturing early on, that'll come back to haunt him later. Ariadne never seems to entirely pick up Eames' changed intentions, but I got the sense that at least she's starting to get there. This isn't a romantic story, exactly. But they are lovely together, rough edges and all.
Scenes From a Life Under Wraps (Saito/Arthur)
--> After Inception, Saito gives Arthur an invitation- an invitation that happens to be a coded request for Arthur to be his kept man. Which sounds a little cracky but it's not, really, it's got edge and bite to it, and Arthur is seduced not just by the sex and the designer suits but also by his influence on business deals, his feeling of being wanted and held onto because of it. There's a certain amount of implied Arthur/Eames, but it just makes the story even more of an uneasily cohesive whole.
The End of Science (Ariadne/Yusuf)
--> Yusuf hires Ariadne to try and build the childhood home that he can barely remember so that he can have one last look. Why look backward, though, when you can look forward? A very thoughtful story.
The Gun Show (Arthur/Ariadne)
--> PORN. Porn, and Ariadne's terrible crush on Arthur who is actually her new boss seeing as he's the one who put the team together, and when they go under together so that he can teach her how to shoot things get out of hand. In a really sexy way.
The Manor House (Arthur/Ariadne/Eames)
--> Dom decides that he wants a year before he comes back, and Arthur is left trying to figure out how to keep himself- and everyone else- occupied. His solution is lots and lots of training excercises, sparring in shifting-gravity rooms and Ariadne's creation of stock levels based on people. This story, more than almost anything else I've read in this fandom, feels very much like a dream itself- it's sort of slow and soft and sometimes makes no sense until you wake up later. It's composed almost entirely of metaphor, is very much a story about how the three of them see each other and themselves, and it's a very slow build and I spent the entire story not sure how I felt about what I was reading, but by the end I just let out this sigh of wonder. Unusual and highly reccommended.
they would not like the way we live (Arthur/Ariadne/Eames)
--> Ariadne's got a fantasy, of being forced at knifepoint, but luckily for her, she's got two awesome boyfriends ready and willing to comply. The thing that I loved the most about this is that it keeps everybody in character, that it gets right at the way that a scene doesn't play out with fantasy-perfection but everyone remains themselves and sometimes it gets silly even when it's still really, really hot. It never once wavers over the edge into rape!fic, either, despite the fantasy in question: Ariadne wanted this and instigated it and continues to enjoy it. The way that each other them go through the scene, too, says a lot about all of them. And also, it's really, really sexy.
tonight I'm a hurricane (Arthur/Ariadne/Eames)
--> After the plane lands in LAX, Eames makes an invitation and Ariadne finds herself spending the night with them, caught between their push-pull of a relationship and not minding at all. Funny, sexy, doesn't take itself too seriously.
...You know the best part about compiling all of this? Getting to re-read everything. Hells to the year.
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Arthur/Eames
Always Where I Need to Be
--> Eames spends an evening repeatedly drunk-dialling Arthur while Arthur is trying to have a quiet night in, and Arthur lets him. Arthur is a little slow on the uptake, however.
Currency
--> A series of encounters in which Arthur pays Eames for a favor with a kiss. Cute, and very sweet!
Don't Fall In Love with a Dreamer
--> Oh man, THIS STORY. So much love. Basically, Eames steals Dom's point man in a fit of post-Inception airplane bathroom sex, and then Arthur sort of follows him home to Mombasa and moves in with him and adopts Yusuf, and then they end up working together and are both depressed by incompetence and Eames decides to do one better and then steals Dom's point man. Seriously, everything about this story just left stars in my eyes: Arthur sort of colonizing Eames' life accidentally, and Eames more than a little terrified but never enough to make him run away. I admit, though, I laughed till I was sick during the Cobb bits. Funniest ever.
Give Me the Number (If You Can Find It)
--> After a job that requires them to leave in a hurry, Arthur and Eames accidentally switch their phones. What I love about this story is that it really illustrates just how much of ourselves are on our phones in this day and age, and just how much you can learn about someone from the minutia and detritus. Arthur and Eames learn all kinds of new things about each other, but it isn't just a case of stolen intimacy- both of them find the strength to cowboy up and say some of the things that have remained unsaid for far too long.
Half-Way Gone
--> Always-a-girl Eames. The story itself is set during the plannign stages of the Inception heist, while Eames is working on getting a feel for her target, in Australia along with Arthur who's busy gathering intel. There's a break-in, and some spying, and a fancy dress ball, and Arthur getting shot, and the best thing, the best thing, is that Eames isn't really that different at all. It's all tiny details, but Eames is the kind of character who will always be just exactly who he is (or she) and that's what makes this so awesome. The author said that she fell in love with lady!Eames while writing this, and honestly, I did too.
Hit the Ground Running
--> Arthur and Eames, half-asleep in the afterglow, manage to mutually confess their love for one another. And then the next morning Arthur runs and Eames chases him pretty much around the world. Lovely and romantic in a schaudenfreude kind of way.
Idle Hands
--> After Inception, Arthur tries really hard to do normal life for a while, take a vacation, have a hobby, work a normal job. This... does not work out well for him. And if he happens to be following Eames around the globe while he's at it, well, that's just coincedence.
I'm the Same Boy I Used to Be
--> Three times that Eames meets Arthur accidentally, and one time they rendesvous on purpose. I wasn't expecting this story, because two of the meetings involve an airport and a subway long before either of them hear of dreamsharing technology, and one time involved explosions. It was short and clever and utterly charming.
Jamais Vu
--> Yusuf is working on a new drug that would aid extraction even in a militarized subconscious- something designed to make the subject compliant and confessional, but he needs a test subject. Arthur and Eames are his guinea pigs, with Arthur as the subject and Eames the one trying to extract from him, but the experiment isn't exactly immediately sucessful. There's so much about this story that I love- the premise is seductive, for it forces Arthur to loosen a lot of his barriers and say things he never would, and furthermore it encourages intimacy between the two of them that neither one of them is exactly reluctant to take- but it's unpredictable, jumping around, and only comes together properly at the end.
j'veux ton amour, et je m'en fous d'après
--> This is, hands-down, my favorite characterization for Eames, if only because it's so unexpected. This is an Eames with a tidy London apartment and a well-used studio and an interfering family, an Eames who loves to paint and tease Ariadne and his parents and Arthur. And more than that, it's Arthur learning him back, Arthur who doesn't seem to expect this Eames any more than I did.
les dés sont pipés
--> Porn. Really, really amazing porn, which is notable in the fact that I'm reccing it even though pwp is usually a one-read-only for me, because it's just lovely and intimate and there's an awesome Ariadne cameo at the beginning.
Life In Virtual Reality
--> I read Towards Zero first, so to me this felt like an awesome inside-out remix, but I'll let you decide for yourselves. Eames finds himself haunted by projections of Arthur- and my favorite part was that even the Arthur in his head likes to fuck with him. I liked the miscommunication that goes on between him and actual-Arthur over the problem, too, because the author was clever enough to sell me on them totally misunderstanding each other with good reason, because apparently they're incapable of doing anything but talk around an issue. (Does have a happy ending, though.)
Like I Wanna Live Now
--> A job goes sideways and Arthur ends up borrowing Eames' shirt- and then, over time, other articles of clothing, and he doesn't mind as much as he probably should. This story is just fun, flirty and charming and an angst-free look at the dance between the two of them, which is part of the pleasure even though they both can't wait for it to be over. This puts a smile on my face every time.
Love Me Love Me Do (with some Dom/Ariadne)
--> After everything's over Eames takes off and DOm refuses to come back, so Arthur and Ariadne just sort of fall in with each other. Then they're standing in line at the bank bickering with each other when some guy decides to rob the bank, Arthur gets shot, and the cavalry gets called. I adore misunderstanding stories, and Arthur being high may be the greatest thing ever.
never so safe as I am with you
--> Cobb decides to test the team's way of dealing with subconscious security using Arthur's mind, because Arthur is famous for having mental security that's never been broken. Arthur's pretty smug about it, too, until they all realize that his security just utterly fails to work on Eames, even when it goes after everyone else just fine. Really, though, the best part of this story is the image of Dom being chased by a panther. That's worth the price of admission right there.
Presque Vu
--> Okay, so, this is the story that got me into this fandom. I hadn't even seen the movie yet when I sat down to read this, and I loved it to pieces anyway; the first thing I did when I came back from seeing a belated showing at my local theater was to sit down and read this again. It's... pretty epic, both in length and scope, and it is, as the author said, if the movie was Dom's love story, than this was Arthur's. Essentially it posits that Arthur met Mal in college and sort of inherited Dom when Mal fall in love, and that they all got pulled into the dreamsharing business when it was still in its infancy and it was then, working with the military, that Arthur first met Eames. This is, possibly, one of the best romances for this pairing I've yet seen; it leaves me breathless and gut-punched with joy or sorrow even on my fifth re-read, my sixth, and so on. It builds them up into a glorious romance and then tears them apart when Mal dies, and then uses the events of the movie to set things right again. And yet, one of my very favorite things about this story was Arthur with Mal and Dom, because it was so ridiculous and family that I couldn't help but love it. There's one line, when Dom and Mal are getting married, where a very drunk Dom tells Arthur that he's glad that he's marrying Mal, because Arthur is Mal's best friend and it means that Arthur is going to be his best friend too. My heart, people, it stopped, I swear. And the whole story is like that. It's all ups and downs and bits of laughing ridiculousness and bits where I kind of clutch at my chest and read till it gets better. Just, so good. So good. Everybody should read this.
protect this house
--> Arthur and Eames run into each other again during Fashion Week, and start to build something all over again. I'm not much of one for fashion, so the actual idea of fashion week isn't terribly interesting to me- but I really enjoyed it as the conceit of the story, because it was something they both enjoyed, in different ways, and it gave them a reason to stick with each other around the globe. When Eames gets a job that would require him to peel off he doesn't want to miss the next show but it's really the renewed intimacy with Arthur that he doesn't want to lose, and I don't blame him because the intimacy was the part of this story that I enjoyed the most. This is a portrait of two men with history, most of it good, and they ended things not out of drama and heartbreak but just because they thought they should, and now they're getting a chance to rethink the wisdom of that decision. It's a very low-key kind of story, a little quiet and offbeat.
Shelter
--> Arthur gets into the dreamsharing business because of the mob, but he was always a hitman first and foremost. He and Eames run into other on a job when they meet for the first time- but it takes a long time for Eames to really understand who Arthur is. This is kind of a sad story, with a happy ending, told in a very brisk, matter-of-fact style that makes it even more of a sucker-punch.
Sleight of Hand Series:
Palm, Ditch, Steal
--> I'm not entirely sure how to sum up this story in a pithy (or even not-so-pithy) description. There are a lot of disparate elements to the story- Ariadne developing a technique to create dreams from memories, Eames learning how to forge more than one person at once, the whole team of them getting adopted by Saito and that actually not working out all that well even though none of them are willing to leave, a deeply complicated job that they're working, Ariadne's romance with Saito. And then there's Arthur and Eames. When I try to describe it everything seems to be so disjointed but it's really not, it's just smooth and lovely and tightly-written, and the subtleties of the developing relationship between Arthur and Eames were brilliant.
Load, Misdirection, Switch (mainly Ariadne/Saito)
--> This is not a gratuitous coda to the previous story. Reading this made everything I enjoyed about Palm, Ditch, Steal seem so much deeper, and there's so many threads that I didn't even notice were left hanging before until I read this and they were tied in to the narrative. This story focuses on Ariadne and Saito, the compromises they each make and the way Ariadne tries to plan for the worst even though she's stupidly happy, but more than that it's about getting revenge for the double-cross enacted on them against Saito. It's about running a long con, which is new to most of them, and trusting each other with the worst of yourself, and the way they're all tied into each other a bit more than is necessarily advisable, but none of them are capable of turning back now. And what the team does, what Ariadne does in pursuit of their revenge, is both horrifying and brilliant and I loved every of it. The aftermath, too, was just gorgeous.
Stamina
--> This is Eames and Arthur failing to be smooth at sex, and both of them kind of being assholes to one another about it. And yet it does have a quiet sort of sensuality, messed-up as the two appear, and there is a note of romanticism at the end that made me smile.
This is all there is, roll the dice
--> A delightful inversion of the standard fandom trope, wherein Arthur is the one who commits emotionally and Eames is the one running scared. As much as I love Eames-the-smitten and Arthur-the-emotional-robot as a fandom trope, I almost loved this more. Not every rogue has a secret heart of gold at the beginning of the story. Not every quiet man doesn't know how to love. I liked that Eames fucked things up, I liked that he knew why was doing it even as it happened, and I liked that he managed to fix it in the end. Just gorgeous.
Towards Zero
--> This was one of the earlier stories I read in this fandom, and I still keep coming back to it. Arthur meets the projection of Eames in Nash's subconsious long before he meets the man himself, and when the projection of Eames shows up in his own head he knows he's in trouble. It all gets so much worse, of course, when he actually meets Eames when he and Cobb need a forger for a job. The concept itself is one that I found fascinating, and it was executed really well here, especially the idea of how close to reality can a projection really be? Mal, as best we know from the movie, was a twisted version of Dom's wife, because his mind made her that way. Is it even possible to fall in love with a projection? Can a projection fall in love back, or is that just a form of disguised narcissism? And of course, in the end, reality is so much better than the dream.
Two Steps Towards Make Believe
--> Arthur has fought with insomnia for his entire life, and went into the dreamsharing business because he hoped that it would rewire him enough to sleep, but it didn't work. Until he falls asleep on Eames' shoulder. This oddity causes him to embark on a series of experiments, which get increasingly more farcial as Eames just sort of goes along with it, and in the end Arthur realizes that it's time to address why he can sleep with Eames and nowhere else. This story made me go, "Oh, Arthur," a lot.
Weltschmerz
--> Oh, this is brilliant. This is an Arthur who is female-to-male trans, post-transition, but the awesome thing is that this story doesn't just work the characterization of Arthur, but in fact explores what it would be like in relation to the dreaming world, where imagery is often subject to the dreamer's subconscious. I also like Arthur's relation to Eames in this, sort of yearning and annoyed and defensive, for some fairly good reasons, at that, even if he doesn't deal with it very well. And I especially love Eames at the very end, because he can't empathize with Arthur's situation because his life isn't that, but he can, due to his own experiences and talents, sympathize and perhaps understand.
Wherever You Will Be (That's Where I'll Call Home)
--> AKA the domestic!verse. The awesome thing about this series is that far from being curtain!fic, it's just pure, quintessential Arthur and Eames, living their lives and getting into a relationship and living together and just generally being themselves, only having sex. It's about the practicalities of shared income and picking which house and who does the cooking and all the little things about living together that the romances never really get around to mentioning. Also unlike a lot of stories, this series starts with short snippets and then builds into longer, plottier, more emotionally resonant stories as it goes. My two favorites are pressed against the pending physics of my passed down last name and life long local foreigner, i, which deal with Eames' father's funeral and Arthur's sister's wedding, respectively. And despite the vastly different occasions, both of them hit the same kind of resonant points, meeting the family and dealing with the drama and helping your partner through a stressful time. This series just makes me happy, really, it's one that I can read over and over again.
Arthur/Eames AU
For all the world's a stage
--> Shakespeare AU, where Dom is the man himself and Eames is his permanent male lead and Arthur is the theoretically-too-old auditioner for the part of Juliet, and he's amazing and Eames managed to fuck it up right from the gate. I loved Eames being utterly stupid over Arthur, and Arthur totally not getting it, and the on with the show feeling of it all, which just made it better in the end, when the worked things out, because I love the thought of them being in love and then going on stage and being other people and still getting to be in love. Fantastic all around.
His Lordship Makes a Match
--> It's a Regency AU! Seriously, straight back to my childhood. Eames is the delightfully dissipated lord, Ariadne is his headstrong bluestocking sister, and Arthur is his long-suffering valet. I was actually pretty impressed with the way the author managed to keep the push-pull dynamic between Arthur and Eames intact in a situation where they're not equals, and the big conspiracy plot was admittedly a little silly, but that's just holding true to regency genre so I'm willing to forgive a lot. Also, the secondary pairing of this story was clearly Arthur/fashion so there's that as well.
I bet Nureyev never had to deal with this shit
--> Ballet AU! The title makes it sound like such crack but it's really, really not, it's intensely charming and very smart. Arthur is a dancer who's just recovered from a pretty major injury and is signed on by his old friend Dom as the third in an adaption of Midsummer Night's Dream alongside Mal and Eames, the most famous partnership in the business. He and Eames manage to get off on exactly the wrong foot, naturally, and even as they work together beautifully their personal life is kind of a mess. They all work it out in the end, though, and the fact is that the author really pulled off the cliche because even though I knew better, I could still sympathize with Arthur's assumptions about Eames and how badly that fucked them over.
Incipit
--> Otherwise known as the AU where Eames is a bestselling writer and Arthur is his long-suffering editor that is a little too wrapped up in his author. Everyone's read this, I'm sure, because it's amazing and there's no way people haven't heard about it, but I will nonetheless add my voice to the chorus of people talking about how awesome and clever and funny it is. I think there are a great many people in fandom who can relate to Eames' writer-crazy, and Arthur is absolutely delightful, just sort of exasperated and resigned and charmed despite himself. There is nothing about this that doesn't make me happy.
I've Got Nothing To Do Today But Smile (The Only Living Boy In New York)
--> This is the coffeeshop AU. I say "the" coffeeshop AU because while I'm fairly certain that there will be others in this fandom, this one will always be The One to Rule Them All. And deservedly so! Arthur is a lawyer desperately striving for partner even though he kind of hates his job, and Eames is the guy who opens up a coffeeshop across the road and feeds Arthur's caffeine habit. Arthur ends up there more and more often, and then his stress-baking habit gets out of hand and Eames starts to sell his clearly superior baked goods, and then Arthur is helping out the register sometimes during a lunch rush and somehow it's all just totally out of hand. There is nothing I don't love about this story, you have to understand, the whole thing just fills me with joy. It's all about continuing down a path you set out for yourself when you were too young to know better, and not letting yourself see the way your life could be better even when there are people who clearly want to make it better, and Arthur and Eames falling in love and falling into each other's lives are stupidly adorable and happy-making. It's not a fluffy fic, because I think a lot of people would find something uncomfortably familiar in this story, either from themselves or someone they know, but it's got a happy ending and a lot of it is filled with joy despite the grind of stress that almost comes off the page. Seriously, read this right now, you're missing out if you don't.
Lay Your Siege (with Dom/Mal)
--> This is the funniest ever. Ever. Trojan War AU, where Mal gets taken for Paris and Dom gets his good friend Achilles (real name: Arthur) to go to war to get her back. Ariadne is Athena, odysseus has changed his name to Yusuf because Persephone left him for Zeus, and Hector Eames is the wost enemy ever. Also make sure to check out the mini- sequel, where Yusuf bonds with Zeus and an odyssey is begun.
Mr. Eames and Mr. Eames
--> Eames, a hitman, is put on assignment surveilling a target only one night he gets really drunk and apparently orders a mail-order bride... and the next morning Arthur shows up at his door, all clean efficiency and baking tins. This story was love at first sight.
never wanted the nice boys anyway
--> College AU, where Eames and Arthur are both doing postgrad work in the same English department, and Arthur has learned to hate Eames as much as he is attracted to him for a list of reasons that I'm sure he'd be delighted to supply if asked. This story was sort of sweetly hilarious, because Eames is so obviously, desperately pining, just really hopeless and descending into mad schemes to get Arthur's attention, and Arthur is just epically clueless about it. Until he finally figures out that his idea of how things are, does not exactly match up to reality. And then there are makeouts.
Our Shiny City
--> I couldn't describe this any better than the author: "Eames Paints. Arthur studies art history. Together they fight crime! are giant fucking hipsters." If you are like me and despise hipsters as a general breed, don't avoid this story, because it charmed the hell out of me anyway.
that's not how our song goes
--> This is a series of five nest AU's, worlds where Arthur and Eames might or might not have worked out, and one where they still might. I think my favorites were the one with Arthur as a bartender and the one where they reconnected at Mal and Dom's wedding, but they were all awesome.
The Escort
--> Eames needs a male date to a high-class function in order to get closer to a target, and when he contacts an escort agency Arthur shows up at his door. I absolutely loved this, because Arthur was so very much himself, intelligent and efficient and handsome, and he basically blended into high society with perfect ease. I was just about as charmed as Eames, and the sex at the end didn't hurt either.
The Inescapable Charm of the Countdown
--> Arthur is a prosecutor and Eames is a defense attorney, and yet the two of them manage to build a friendship that's seriously important to both of them. It all starts to come crashing down when some of Arthur's bosses say a few pointed things about "how it looks," and then it goes from bad to worse when Dom is accused of Mal's murder. Let me tell you: this was not the ending I was expecting, but it was amazing nonetheless. This story kept me holding my breath all the way to the last word.
The Wrath of Whatever From High Atop the Thing
--> Or, the one where Dom is a presidential candidate and Ariadne is his running mate and Arthur writes his perfect speeches and Eames is the campaign photographer with a habit of taking too many pictures of Arthur and not enough of the actual candidate. This is ridiculously charming and bantery, and I can pretty much guarantee a smile out of it.
Waiting On
--> Arthur is a... something involving a need for a cover story, the author never elaborates, but he goes to the office at exactly the same time every day, and every single morning he stops by a diner before catching the train, and orders the exact same breakfast from the charming and flirtatious owner, Eames. Very charming, and all about how you can build intimacy in tiny little increments, till you see someone less than half an hour a day but that doesn't make them any less a friend. I like the way that Arthur figures things out over the course of the story, too, very low-key and inevitable.
we were once cinema gods in the night
--> Hollywood AU of genius and awesome. Arthur is hands-down the best producer in the business, which means that he should say no to Dom Cobb after the direction tanked his last movie due to Mal's death, but the new script is just too good and nobody could play it but Eames- Eames, who hates Cobb and yet says yes anyway because Arthur's asking. I love the way the story shifted from present to past and back again, building in increments until you get the full scope of all the ways things went wrong when they had every reason to go right. I like that it took time to really understand the characters, and I have to admit that Arthur, in particular, charmed the hell out of me in this story. Read the flashback about how he got into the movie business and I think you'll probably agree.
Other Pairings and Gen
All My Only Dreams (Arthur/Ariadne)
--> After Inception Ariadne's crush on Arthur gets kind of out of hand, until his projection is haunting her dreamwork. The theme is "fives times Arthur kissed her in a dream and one time he kissed her in reality," and there is nothing about this story that doesn't work for me, even though this is not my favorite fandom pairing. I remember that I read this before I'd ever even seen the movie and I liked it then too.
Autoimmunity (gen)
--> This is a character study of Eames with one potential backstory, and it was charming and thoughtful and insightful. This was one of my earlier stories in this fandom, and rereading it I can say that it's definitely informed how I think of his character. It's that good.
better knock me down (Eames/Ariadne, Arthur/Eames/Ariadne)
--> Arthur finds himself working with Eames and Ariadne on a regular basis because they're the best in the business and it only makes sense, but on a personal front Arthur finds himself dealing with a problem because it's clear, at least to him, that Eames and Ariadne are starting up a relationship and he's on the outside. Of course, it's just a matter of Arthur being a little slow on the uptake, but he figures things out eventually.
I Will Change My Ways (Eames/Ariadne)
--> Mmm, I can't decide which I like best about this, the mind porn or the actual porn. Basically, Eames wants to experiment with forging women in sexual situations and asks Ariadne to participate, giving her a chance to forge herself as a man. They meet in the dreamworld and fool around and it's all very sexy, but there's also a lot going on under the surface- there's the question of why Eames wants this, why he asked Ariadne when there are probably actual men he could have approached, and most of all there's a friendly, sweet kind of intimacy between the two of them, not romantic but as friends and lovers. I really enjoyed this, and I liked that it left me thinking that this wasn't going to be it for them, but I also never thought they were going for happily ever after.
Nails and Rope and Oxygen (Eames/Ariadne)
--> I will say straight-up: this is not a characterization that I can really see, outside of the boundaries of the story. Their interactions are awkward and on-edge; Eames and Ariadne are almost entirely unlovely people; both the sex and the lead-up to it is almost actively unsexy, and yet I found both of these stories utterly fascinating and almost romantic, in their own sideways kind of way. I was captivated by these even though at times I didn't quite enjoy them.
OH&S (background Arthur/Eames and Ariadne/Saito)
--> This is a story that attemps to inject a little medical reality into the ridiculous science of the movie. These things include improper use of needles and sleep-state transitions and better workplace safety, and it was fun and smart and deeply funny. (The Ariadne Please Accept My Love Hospital was my favorite, personally.) I really love Yusuf's perceptions of the team because apparently he's the only one who has sense.
really good mistakes (Eames/Ariadne)
--> Is it TMI if I say that I see a lot of myself in this story? The friendship with the older, more experienced, kind of lewd asshole who won't stop flirting and you can never tell if he's serious... Yeah. The author nailed that dynamic. And the thing I love about the story is the way their relationship slowly slid from sex into something bigger, and Ariadne never seemed to realize it was happening because of one dumbshit thing Eames said in a moment of posturing early on, that'll come back to haunt him later. Ariadne never seems to entirely pick up Eames' changed intentions, but I got the sense that at least she's starting to get there. This isn't a romantic story, exactly. But they are lovely together, rough edges and all.
Scenes From a Life Under Wraps (Saito/Arthur)
--> After Inception, Saito gives Arthur an invitation- an invitation that happens to be a coded request for Arthur to be his kept man. Which sounds a little cracky but it's not, really, it's got edge and bite to it, and Arthur is seduced not just by the sex and the designer suits but also by his influence on business deals, his feeling of being wanted and held onto because of it. There's a certain amount of implied Arthur/Eames, but it just makes the story even more of an uneasily cohesive whole.
The End of Science (Ariadne/Yusuf)
--> Yusuf hires Ariadne to try and build the childhood home that he can barely remember so that he can have one last look. Why look backward, though, when you can look forward? A very thoughtful story.
The Gun Show (Arthur/Ariadne)
--> PORN. Porn, and Ariadne's terrible crush on Arthur who is actually her new boss seeing as he's the one who put the team together, and when they go under together so that he can teach her how to shoot things get out of hand. In a really sexy way.
The Manor House (Arthur/Ariadne/Eames)
--> Dom decides that he wants a year before he comes back, and Arthur is left trying to figure out how to keep himself- and everyone else- occupied. His solution is lots and lots of training excercises, sparring in shifting-gravity rooms and Ariadne's creation of stock levels based on people. This story, more than almost anything else I've read in this fandom, feels very much like a dream itself- it's sort of slow and soft and sometimes makes no sense until you wake up later. It's composed almost entirely of metaphor, is very much a story about how the three of them see each other and themselves, and it's a very slow build and I spent the entire story not sure how I felt about what I was reading, but by the end I just let out this sigh of wonder. Unusual and highly reccommended.
they would not like the way we live (Arthur/Ariadne/Eames)
--> Ariadne's got a fantasy, of being forced at knifepoint, but luckily for her, she's got two awesome boyfriends ready and willing to comply. The thing that I loved the most about this is that it keeps everybody in character, that it gets right at the way that a scene doesn't play out with fantasy-perfection but everyone remains themselves and sometimes it gets silly even when it's still really, really hot. It never once wavers over the edge into rape!fic, either, despite the fantasy in question: Ariadne wanted this and instigated it and continues to enjoy it. The way that each other them go through the scene, too, says a lot about all of them. And also, it's really, really sexy.
tonight I'm a hurricane (Arthur/Ariadne/Eames)
--> After the plane lands in LAX, Eames makes an invitation and Ariadne finds herself spending the night with them, caught between their push-pull of a relationship and not minding at all. Funny, sexy, doesn't take itself too seriously.
...You know the best part about compiling all of this? Getting to re-read everything. Hells to the year.
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