We Had a Promise Made, And We Were In Love - Arthur/Eames - PG
Title: We Had A Promise Made, And We Were In Love
Fandom: Inception (LULZ WHAT.)
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG
Summary: Neither knows how they got here, but they agree that being there is important. (Or: Arthur and Eames Grow Dysfunctionally Old Together - A Love Story.)
Notes: HAH HAH WHAT WHY AM I WRITING IN A FANDOM I DO NOT EVEN BELONG TO WITH A COUPLE I DO NOT EVEN SHIP.
Okay, that's a lie, I do ship Arthur/Eames, but in a purely fanon sense. I watched Inception and naturally it was awesome and whatever but I wasn't totally inspired like FUCK YEAH I WANT TO WRITE FANFICTION RIGHT NOW. (Though I do really want a coffee table book explaining the entire universe in extreme, nerdy, Dinotopia-esque depth, because hah hah I'm a dork.) I totally blame Merlin. I'm sorry, universe, but my gay standards are raised now. Unless dudes go on roadtrips together or moan each other's names while they're sweaty and writhing in bed, the homoerotic tension just doesn't make me jump up and down the way it used to. I've been spoiled, okay? I can totally buy that Arthur and Eames perhaps made out drunk and now are super awkward about it or will in the future but come on, they're on screen together for like fifteen minutes, dudes. But the fanon. Oh Inception fanon, you are magical and lovely and amazing and I kind of want to knit you into a blanket and snuggle under you and drink hot cocoa. And I don't even like hot cocoa. (This is a metaphor, okay?)
So chances are no, I will not be writing in this fandom again (except for that Merlin/Inception fusion I'm working on cleaning up and finishing), but right now I am in a place where avoiding my Big Bang is a whole lot of fun. This is fic one of three that should be posted this week as my rebellion against deadlines. FUCK THE MAN, WOOHOO, FREAKING OUT LATER THIS MONTH WILL BE TOTALLY AWESOME, WHO WANTS TO JOIN ME?
Much love to staraflur and accioscar for assuring me this was in character, not heinous, and that I should not cut off my fingers to keep myself from ever writing ever again. My mind is still not made up. I vacillate between thinking this is the greatest thing I've ever written to wondering why I let myself have an internet connection.
Eames always jokes he can't remember the first time he kissed Arthur.
"Dreamt about it so many times, I don't know what's real anymore," he laughs when Cobb asks for the story of how they got together.
Arthur never says anything. He knows Eames remembers, knows Eames thinks about that desperate night after Mal died and Arthur was too broken to know he'd stumbled into exactly what he wanted, knows they don't talk about it because Arthur's ashamed he let Eames leave the next morning and think he was unwanted, and Eames has always wondered if he took advantage.
But they both agree what matters is that they got there.
- - -
Eames never stays put, can't stay put, not even when Saito discretely makes any and all charges against him disappear, not when there's an apartment and Arthur and Cobb and the kids waiting for him in LA. He leaves notes, telling Arthur where he's going and when to expect him back, and Arthur throws himself into all the work he and Dom have.
The important thing is that Eames always comes back crashing in the door, grabs Arthur in his arms, and crushes him close.
"I missed you so," he always says.
"Then don't go," Arthur always replies. They both know Eames will get the itch in a month or two and fly off somewhere dangerous. But he'll be back. As long as there's Arthur, there's Eames two steps behind him.
- - -
"You should be careful," Cobb tells him.
Arthur blinks a few times and then puts down his carton of lo mein and chopsticks. "Be careful?" He says. "Cobb, no offense, but of all the stupid advice you've ever given me, this is by far the stupidest."
"Hey, I'm working on this whole dad thing," Cobb says. "The sage advice part takes practice."
"Advice on sage advice," Arthur says. "Only give it if you can follow it yourself."
Dom gives him a half-sour, half-amused look that says he remembers the days before Eames when Arthur listened to him without any smart comments, and he almost misses them.
- - -
Eames coming home is like a hurricane. Once he's crushed Arthur to him and made sure Arthur's in one piece, he's insatiable. He wants Arthur in the hallway right then, wants him on the rug and the couch and the dining room table, wants to follow him into the shower and mess him up one more time until they're both wobbly from the steam and from being so damn fucked out.
Arthur wants Eames too, of course, he's missed him, but he likes the part of homecoming where they collapse on the bed and Eames is still staring at him, stroking through his hair (Arthur always itches to comb it back, to put on underwear, but Eames won't let him). Eames may have been halfway around the world seducing someone in an alternate reality, but he doesn't go home with them. He doesn't think about them. He doesn't look at them like they're precious. That's only ever for Arthur.
"I think you get lovelier every time I come back," Eames says, pushing out Arthur's hair so it makes a damp halo around him.
"Maybe everyone else gets uglier," Arthur suggests.
"It's definitely you, darling," Arthur murmurs, kissing the water pooling at the base of his neck. "It's always you."
Arthur would ask so then why did you leave, but he knows the answer. Eames leaves just so he can come back to Arthur again and again and again.
- - -
By time Ariadne finishes her last semester and a half and moves out to LA, Arthur's forgotten that she doesn't know they're together. He forgot there was even a time people didn't know.
"Wait, how long has this been going on?" She yelps after she catches Eames giving Arthur a kiss on the cheek when he brings him his coffee.
"Two years?" Arthur asks.
"Two years next month," Eames shrugs. He's sitting on Arthur's blueprints, probably on purpose so Arthur can't feign deafness and ignore this conversation, the bastard.
"But I met you a little over a year ago, and you made a move on me," Ariadne points out.
"Oh did he?" Eames doesn't sound annoyed. More amused. "Well done, darling, I didn't know you had it in you."
"You and I weren't serious," Arthur mutters into his coffee. "We were never in the same place for more than a week. That's not together, that's..." He makes a face. The term 'fuckbuddies' is accurate, but sounds cheap.
"...fucking." Eames finishes.
"But you call him Eames," Ariadne protests. "You don't even use his first name!"
"He hates his first name."
"It's Roland." Eames sounds offended at the mere mention of it.
"And Cobb isn't, like, flipping out?"
"Be a bit hypocritical for him to say not to fall in love with a co-worker, now wouldn't it?" Arthur chokes on his coffee.
"You're in love with me?" He blurts out. "Since when?"
Eames chuckles and runs his fingertips along Arthur's cheek, like Ariadne isn't right there watching them as if they're the greatest entertainment she's ever seen. "Since I first met you in Dubai, all buttoned-up and anal."
"Not workplace appropriate," Arthur hisses as Eames leans down like he's going to kiss him.
"And you haven't changed a bit since then," Eames murmurs against Arthur's mouth before he presses in and Arthur's helpless to resist or push him away.
"This is so coming back to bite me in the ass," he mumbles while Ariadne makes a noise suspiciously like a squeal. Eames laughs and presses another kiss against Arthur's lips.
"Not if I bite your arse first," he says.
- - -
Eight months after they moved to LA, Eames came back proudly sporting a new tattoo - a red loaded die over his heart.
"How do you like it, darling?" He'd asked, grinning and flexing the still-pink skin.
"I think you'll be in trouble if I ever get a new totem," Arthur had said, trying to ignore the fact that Eames was half-naked in the warehouse where he wasn't allowed to touch. "And if you think this means I'm getting a matching one with a poker chip, you're mistaken."
"Of course you won't," Eames had laughed. "Don't want to mar that perfect skin."
"Trying to work here, Eames," Arthur had said tightly, and Eames had laughed again and dropped it, at least until they were home.
- - -
Eames likes to bring Arthur back souvenirs from wherever he goes, leave them on Arthur's desk for him to find the next morning. Arthur would like something nice - cufflinks or chocolate or a piece of artwork - but Eames seems to delight in making each gift tackier than the last.
"A snowglobe?" Arthur asks, raising one eyebrow as he shakes the offending object at Eames. "Really, a snowglobe? What made you think I needed a snowglobe?"
"You don't like it?" Eames says, all wide eyes and innocence. "I thought it screamed 'you.'"
"It actually boggles my mind how you find things this heinous." Arthur shakes his head. "It's become an art, really."
"What can I say?" Eames shrugs. "It's one of my skills. You should treasure it."
"I should throw it out," Arthur mutters. They both know Arthur will take it home and place it on the shelf in between the parrot keychain from São Paulo and the bottle opener from Munich, under the postcard from Paris with Eames' scrawl on the back; The skyline isn't the same without you, darling - I miss you. I wish you were here.
- - -
When Arthur first met Eames, he'd been picking pockets off rich men in Dubai, and he'd made the mistake of trying to nick Cobb's. Instead of bringing Eames into the authorities, Cobb had taken it as a sign of talent and brought Eames to their warehouse.
"Arthur," he'd said, "this is Eames. Hook him up to the PASIV, I've got some things he needs to see."
Arthur had looked up at Eames and seen a boy, about five years older than him, cocksure, all sparkling eyes and thick lips. He'd been wearing a garish button-down and jeans that looked like they were painted on, and his smile said he knew exactly how attractive he was, thank you very much. The femme fatale in a male body. Molded himself into whatever people most desired.
"Arthur, is it?" were Eames' first words to him. "I'd have come back with Cobb a lot sooner if he'd told me how gorgeous his assistant was."
Arthur had frowned, ignoring the way his stomach had fizzled and twisted. He knew this type - Eames clearly flirted and finagled his way into people's pants. He'd be damned if Eames caught him in the same trap as well, no matter how gracefully he'd slid into the chair, no matter how gorgeous he was looking up at Arthur through his lashes.
"Go to sleep, Mr. Eames," he'd said shortly, jabbing him with the needle a little harder than necessary, taking perverse joy out of watching Eames' eyes flutter shut. "This won't hurt a bit."
- - -
"Darling," Eames says, coming up behind Arthur, wrapping his arms around Arthur's waist and digging his chin into Arthur's shoulder, "you're worrying again. You know how I hate it when you worry."
"It's too bad for you, then, that it's my job to worry," Arthur says, but he relaxes into Eames' arms. There's no one around the warehouse left to see them, just Eames waiting for Arthur to take him home.
"So what's worrying you now?" Eames asks. "The sister? The second level? Yusef's new formula? The fact that the formula is purple?"
"No," Arthur says. He chews on his words a few minutes before saying; "I don't want what happened to Dom and Mal to happen to you and me."
Eames makes a little noise that could mean anything. Arthur ducks his head, runs his fingers over Eames' strong, square hands.
"What we do is dangerous," he says, so quietly he hopes Eames can't hear, which is ridiculous because Eames is right there. "And what if I lose you? What if you go away and you never come back?"
Eames spins Arthur around and pulls Arthur's body tghtly against his, as if he's squeezing the very thought out. "I'll always come back," he whispers in Arthur's ear. "That's the one thing you never have to worry about, Arthur. I'll always come back."
"I worry because I love you," Arthur says. His voice sounds petulant, whiny. Eames just chuckles, as if the sentiment is one Arthur voices often. (It's not. It should be a special moment. Eames doesn't believe in special moments.)
"I know," he says, stroking his hand through Arthur's hair, not caring for once that his fingers will come away slick. "You silly man, I know."
- - -
Eames and Arthur will never get married - that's not who they are. They'll never exchange vows or wear rings. There will never be papers that say that Arthur belongs to Eames, and Eames to Arthur.
But there will always be an apartment in a nice suburb outside of LA filled with tacky mementos, and Arthur will live there. Sometimes, Eames will live there too. Maybe one day, there will be a cat that joins them. Maybe there won't. Eames will rack up frequent flier miles going from Bangkok to Moscow to Johannesburg before he comes home to Arthur, because he'll always come home to Arthur. The story's been started, and maybe no one, not even Arthur, can tell you how the middle goes. But it will always end with them in bed, Arthur's hand covering the red loaded die on Eames' heart, curled together while they dream.
Fandom: Inception (LULZ WHAT.)
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG
Summary: Neither knows how they got here, but they agree that being there is important. (Or: Arthur and Eames Grow Dysfunctionally Old Together - A Love Story.)
Notes: HAH HAH WHAT WHY AM I WRITING IN A FANDOM I DO NOT EVEN BELONG TO WITH A COUPLE I DO NOT EVEN SHIP.
Okay, that's a lie, I do ship Arthur/Eames, but in a purely fanon sense. I watched Inception and naturally it was awesome and whatever but I wasn't totally inspired like FUCK YEAH I WANT TO WRITE FANFICTION RIGHT NOW. (Though I do really want a coffee table book explaining the entire universe in extreme, nerdy, Dinotopia-esque depth, because hah hah I'm a dork.) I totally blame Merlin. I'm sorry, universe, but my gay standards are raised now. Unless dudes go on roadtrips together or moan each other's names while they're sweaty and writhing in bed, the homoerotic tension just doesn't make me jump up and down the way it used to. I've been spoiled, okay? I can totally buy that Arthur and Eames perhaps made out drunk and now are super awkward about it or will in the future but come on, they're on screen together for like fifteen minutes, dudes. But the fanon. Oh Inception fanon, you are magical and lovely and amazing and I kind of want to knit you into a blanket and snuggle under you and drink hot cocoa. And I don't even like hot cocoa. (This is a metaphor, okay?)
So chances are no, I will not be writing in this fandom again (except for that Merlin/Inception fusion I'm working on cleaning up and finishing), but right now I am in a place where avoiding my Big Bang is a whole lot of fun. This is fic one of three that should be posted this week as my rebellion against deadlines. FUCK THE MAN, WOOHOO, FREAKING OUT LATER THIS MONTH WILL BE TOTALLY AWESOME, WHO WANTS TO JOIN ME?
Much love to staraflur and accioscar for assuring me this was in character, not heinous, and that I should not cut off my fingers to keep myself from ever writing ever again. My mind is still not made up. I vacillate between thinking this is the greatest thing I've ever written to wondering why I let myself have an internet connection.
Eames always jokes he can't remember the first time he kissed Arthur.
"Dreamt about it so many times, I don't know what's real anymore," he laughs when Cobb asks for the story of how they got together.
Arthur never says anything. He knows Eames remembers, knows Eames thinks about that desperate night after Mal died and Arthur was too broken to know he'd stumbled into exactly what he wanted, knows they don't talk about it because Arthur's ashamed he let Eames leave the next morning and think he was unwanted, and Eames has always wondered if he took advantage.
But they both agree what matters is that they got there.
- - -
Eames never stays put, can't stay put, not even when Saito discretely makes any and all charges against him disappear, not when there's an apartment and Arthur and Cobb and the kids waiting for him in LA. He leaves notes, telling Arthur where he's going and when to expect him back, and Arthur throws himself into all the work he and Dom have.
The important thing is that Eames always comes back crashing in the door, grabs Arthur in his arms, and crushes him close.
"I missed you so," he always says.
"Then don't go," Arthur always replies. They both know Eames will get the itch in a month or two and fly off somewhere dangerous. But he'll be back. As long as there's Arthur, there's Eames two steps behind him.
- - -
"You should be careful," Cobb tells him.
Arthur blinks a few times and then puts down his carton of lo mein and chopsticks. "Be careful?" He says. "Cobb, no offense, but of all the stupid advice you've ever given me, this is by far the stupidest."
"Hey, I'm working on this whole dad thing," Cobb says. "The sage advice part takes practice."
"Advice on sage advice," Arthur says. "Only give it if you can follow it yourself."
Dom gives him a half-sour, half-amused look that says he remembers the days before Eames when Arthur listened to him without any smart comments, and he almost misses them.
- - -
Eames coming home is like a hurricane. Once he's crushed Arthur to him and made sure Arthur's in one piece, he's insatiable. He wants Arthur in the hallway right then, wants him on the rug and the couch and the dining room table, wants to follow him into the shower and mess him up one more time until they're both wobbly from the steam and from being so damn fucked out.
Arthur wants Eames too, of course, he's missed him, but he likes the part of homecoming where they collapse on the bed and Eames is still staring at him, stroking through his hair (Arthur always itches to comb it back, to put on underwear, but Eames won't let him). Eames may have been halfway around the world seducing someone in an alternate reality, but he doesn't go home with them. He doesn't think about them. He doesn't look at them like they're precious. That's only ever for Arthur.
"I think you get lovelier every time I come back," Eames says, pushing out Arthur's hair so it makes a damp halo around him.
"Maybe everyone else gets uglier," Arthur suggests.
"It's definitely you, darling," Arthur murmurs, kissing the water pooling at the base of his neck. "It's always you."
Arthur would ask so then why did you leave, but he knows the answer. Eames leaves just so he can come back to Arthur again and again and again.
- - -
By time Ariadne finishes her last semester and a half and moves out to LA, Arthur's forgotten that she doesn't know they're together. He forgot there was even a time people didn't know.
"Wait, how long has this been going on?" She yelps after she catches Eames giving Arthur a kiss on the cheek when he brings him his coffee.
"Two years?" Arthur asks.
"Two years next month," Eames shrugs. He's sitting on Arthur's blueprints, probably on purpose so Arthur can't feign deafness and ignore this conversation, the bastard.
"But I met you a little over a year ago, and you made a move on me," Ariadne points out.
"Oh did he?" Eames doesn't sound annoyed. More amused. "Well done, darling, I didn't know you had it in you."
"You and I weren't serious," Arthur mutters into his coffee. "We were never in the same place for more than a week. That's not together, that's..." He makes a face. The term 'fuckbuddies' is accurate, but sounds cheap.
"...fucking." Eames finishes.
"But you call him Eames," Ariadne protests. "You don't even use his first name!"
"He hates his first name."
"It's Roland." Eames sounds offended at the mere mention of it.
"And Cobb isn't, like, flipping out?"
"Be a bit hypocritical for him to say not to fall in love with a co-worker, now wouldn't it?" Arthur chokes on his coffee.
"You're in love with me?" He blurts out. "Since when?"
Eames chuckles and runs his fingertips along Arthur's cheek, like Ariadne isn't right there watching them as if they're the greatest entertainment she's ever seen. "Since I first met you in Dubai, all buttoned-up and anal."
"Not workplace appropriate," Arthur hisses as Eames leans down like he's going to kiss him.
"And you haven't changed a bit since then," Eames murmurs against Arthur's mouth before he presses in and Arthur's helpless to resist or push him away.
"This is so coming back to bite me in the ass," he mumbles while Ariadne makes a noise suspiciously like a squeal. Eames laughs and presses another kiss against Arthur's lips.
"Not if I bite your arse first," he says.
- - -
Eight months after they moved to LA, Eames came back proudly sporting a new tattoo - a red loaded die over his heart.
"How do you like it, darling?" He'd asked, grinning and flexing the still-pink skin.
"I think you'll be in trouble if I ever get a new totem," Arthur had said, trying to ignore the fact that Eames was half-naked in the warehouse where he wasn't allowed to touch. "And if you think this means I'm getting a matching one with a poker chip, you're mistaken."
"Of course you won't," Eames had laughed. "Don't want to mar that perfect skin."
"Trying to work here, Eames," Arthur had said tightly, and Eames had laughed again and dropped it, at least until they were home.
- - -
Eames likes to bring Arthur back souvenirs from wherever he goes, leave them on Arthur's desk for him to find the next morning. Arthur would like something nice - cufflinks or chocolate or a piece of artwork - but Eames seems to delight in making each gift tackier than the last.
"A snowglobe?" Arthur asks, raising one eyebrow as he shakes the offending object at Eames. "Really, a snowglobe? What made you think I needed a snowglobe?"
"You don't like it?" Eames says, all wide eyes and innocence. "I thought it screamed 'you.'"
"It actually boggles my mind how you find things this heinous." Arthur shakes his head. "It's become an art, really."
"What can I say?" Eames shrugs. "It's one of my skills. You should treasure it."
"I should throw it out," Arthur mutters. They both know Arthur will take it home and place it on the shelf in between the parrot keychain from São Paulo and the bottle opener from Munich, under the postcard from Paris with Eames' scrawl on the back; The skyline isn't the same without you, darling - I miss you. I wish you were here.
- - -
When Arthur first met Eames, he'd been picking pockets off rich men in Dubai, and he'd made the mistake of trying to nick Cobb's. Instead of bringing Eames into the authorities, Cobb had taken it as a sign of talent and brought Eames to their warehouse.
"Arthur," he'd said, "this is Eames. Hook him up to the PASIV, I've got some things he needs to see."
Arthur had looked up at Eames and seen a boy, about five years older than him, cocksure, all sparkling eyes and thick lips. He'd been wearing a garish button-down and jeans that looked like they were painted on, and his smile said he knew exactly how attractive he was, thank you very much. The femme fatale in a male body. Molded himself into whatever people most desired.
"Arthur, is it?" were Eames' first words to him. "I'd have come back with Cobb a lot sooner if he'd told me how gorgeous his assistant was."
Arthur had frowned, ignoring the way his stomach had fizzled and twisted. He knew this type - Eames clearly flirted and finagled his way into people's pants. He'd be damned if Eames caught him in the same trap as well, no matter how gracefully he'd slid into the chair, no matter how gorgeous he was looking up at Arthur through his lashes.
"Go to sleep, Mr. Eames," he'd said shortly, jabbing him with the needle a little harder than necessary, taking perverse joy out of watching Eames' eyes flutter shut. "This won't hurt a bit."
- - -
"Darling," Eames says, coming up behind Arthur, wrapping his arms around Arthur's waist and digging his chin into Arthur's shoulder, "you're worrying again. You know how I hate it when you worry."
"It's too bad for you, then, that it's my job to worry," Arthur says, but he relaxes into Eames' arms. There's no one around the warehouse left to see them, just Eames waiting for Arthur to take him home.
"So what's worrying you now?" Eames asks. "The sister? The second level? Yusef's new formula? The fact that the formula is purple?"
"No," Arthur says. He chews on his words a few minutes before saying; "I don't want what happened to Dom and Mal to happen to you and me."
Eames makes a little noise that could mean anything. Arthur ducks his head, runs his fingers over Eames' strong, square hands.
"What we do is dangerous," he says, so quietly he hopes Eames can't hear, which is ridiculous because Eames is right there. "And what if I lose you? What if you go away and you never come back?"
Eames spins Arthur around and pulls Arthur's body tghtly against his, as if he's squeezing the very thought out. "I'll always come back," he whispers in Arthur's ear. "That's the one thing you never have to worry about, Arthur. I'll always come back."
"I worry because I love you," Arthur says. His voice sounds petulant, whiny. Eames just chuckles, as if the sentiment is one Arthur voices often. (It's not. It should be a special moment. Eames doesn't believe in special moments.)
"I know," he says, stroking his hand through Arthur's hair, not caring for once that his fingers will come away slick. "You silly man, I know."
- - -
Eames and Arthur will never get married - that's not who they are. They'll never exchange vows or wear rings. There will never be papers that say that Arthur belongs to Eames, and Eames to Arthur.
But there will always be an apartment in a nice suburb outside of LA filled with tacky mementos, and Arthur will live there. Sometimes, Eames will live there too. Maybe one day, there will be a cat that joins them. Maybe there won't. Eames will rack up frequent flier miles going from Bangkok to Moscow to Johannesburg before he comes home to Arthur, because he'll always come home to Arthur. The story's been started, and maybe no one, not even Arthur, can tell you how the middle goes. But it will always end with them in bed, Arthur's hand covering the red loaded die on Eames' heart, curled together while they dream.