Another Tambourine Drive
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames, established relationship
Words: 2,115
Title: Another Tambourine Drive
Summary: No secrets between them, whether they share it or steal it, that's the deal. Something's bothering Arthur, and Eames is going to get to the bottom of it.“Nothing is wrong, Eames, seriously,” Arthur says it so convincingly that Eames plugs him in and goes searching for the truth that very night.
Prompt from inception_kink: http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/20822.html?thread=50628438#t50628438
.....
“Something wrong?” Eames asks. Arthur has been in a sullen mood all day and Eames has no idea what it’s about. He has noticed this cloud before on several occasions and has since also realized that it comes in a bit of a cycle; Eames just can’t get to the bottom of it by himself.
At his question, the point man instantly schools his face into one of perfect indifference, shrugs his shoulders as if to say no, are you high? Someone not his boyfriend would have been convinced, but Eames knows every muscle in Arthur’s face and how it’s used to what purpose.
“Arthur, please don’t,” he says softly. The last thing he wants is a fight, but this can’t keep on. No secrets, they had promised.
“Nothing is wrong, Eames, seriously,” Arthur says so convincingly that Eames plugs him in and goes searching for the truth that very night.
...
No dream layout that Eames builds on the spot ever turns out exactly right; even if it’s something he knows well, like his home. Rooms are crooked or the ceilings slant. He contributes that to his unfailing disinterest in measurements and symmetry-if a real architect builds it and takes him in, then he can study it and cram on the math until he can copy it perfectly for the job. But to start from scratch and have no practice, it always turns out a bit like something from a Tim Burton Claymation film. Or at least that’s what Arthur says.
The couch Eames finds Arthur sitting on bows in the center and is sitting in the middle of an off-center arch, the passage way looks like it’s bent under a heavy wind, with the keystone several feet to the left of where it should be, but the whole thing stands with imagination.
“No secrets,” the point man says wearily with a sigh. He is completely naked. “I didn’t mean that as a green light to break in, Mr. Eames.”
“What’s this, love?” the forger asks brightly, pulling Arthur to his feet and into a dance. “You’ve brought me here to divert you with my fancy feet and devilish good looks. What’s this talk of green lights?”
“Cut the shit, I know you’re not my Kinky Eames and I know that archway is crooked-I mean, I have eyes for god’s sake.”
Eames changes tact at the speed of light, leaving behind the initial plan to play out Arthur’s fantasies until he can find the secret, and going straight for plan B instead: the honest approach (story of their entire relationship right there.) “Is it breaking in when you just let me in, Arthur?”
Arthur drops his head back, pained to debate definitions at this juncture. Eames sweeps an appraising eye over his lover’s naked form. If Arthur isn’t nude to start up one of his kinky fantasies with his Kinky Eames, then what was that about?
“You’re being a little paranoid, Eames. I said nothing’s wrong. Why don’t you believe me?”
“I know nothing’s wrong, but something is up, Arthur, and I don’t like it--I’m not falling for the decoy secret back there, either; you aren’t planning a surprise for me.” Elements in the previous room had hinted at such a scheme in progress. Very nifty misdirection, if only it were true.
“How do you know?” Arthur fairly snaps. Eames lets it slide off his back, but it’s not quite like water off a duck. Practice has granted him patience to work with, however. After counting to seven, Eames has the ability to deliver his words kindly,
“Because whatever it is pulls the corners of your mouth down when you think I can’t see,” he says softly.
Arthur looks away, then closes his eyes and drops his chin in defeat. Eames’ stomach drops with fright, and he noses Arthur’s temple, puckering his lips against the soft eyelashes resting on Arthur’s cheek. “Please. What is it that you aren’t telling me?”
Arthur is afraid. Eames can read that in the lighting and the chill temperature. He’s embarrassed, he can read that in the covered windows and how Arthur can’t even look at him, and he knows Arthur feels exposed and vulnerable, that’s the real reason for the nakedness.
“Just go. In there,” Arthur points through the archway.
Eames dances with Arthur for a moment more as he plucks up his own nerve. Then he releases Arthur with a kiss and circles the decrepit couch. Through the leaning archway is a hallway much like the one at home. At the end is their bedroom door, shorter than in real life. Eames must stoop slightly to step through into a cleaner, tidier version of their sleeping space.
To his surprise, Arthur is in here too. He’s naked as well, but only because he is tangled up with Kinky Eames. Or what was Kinky Eames.
The moment the forger steps into the room, he merges with the projection. The usual fantasy has already played out, and now they are dropping into sleep; but it isn’t a fantasy anymore. A memory has taken over. Eames knows this really happened because he can’t control his body; he’s just an observer from inside his own body. It’s set in stone exactly what he does next.
His chest moves up and down in the steady rhythm of sleep. He snores and shifts around just like all his past lovers (and now Arthur) have complained of. He’s mumbling like he sometimes does when he’s so beat he falls asleep before his mind settles.
It happens when Arthur stretches like a cat and then fits himself against Eames. A string of words tumble out of his mouth without his control, but only two of them are plain enough to be heard, “Marry me?”
Arthur stills in his arms. Eames is mortified-and he can’t even read Arthur’s face, because his eyes are closed. Wildly, Eames is trying to place this night. It could be any night; they fall asleep naked too often, fuck.
Then he stops thinking because Arthur sighs happily in his arms and whispers back, “Yes.”
....
With a roar, reality spits into existence around him like an angry firecracker until Eames is laying in the bed, fully dressed, on top of the blankets, hooked up to the PASIV which breaths between him and Arthur. Its several breaths before Eames can even move. Arthur has already sat up, kicked away the blankets he fell asleep under, and ripped out the needle Eames had inserted so carefully.
“There,” he says strongly, getting out of the bed to pull on an undershirt and sweater. Arthur needs layers for confrontations. “Happy?”
Eames shuts off the PASIV and slides his own needles out slowly. Then he goes up onto his knees on the foot of the bed. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I told you it was nothing.”
“That was something,” Eames defends. “This is a big deal.”
“No it’s not,” Arthur counters, and he tries to laugh about it. “It’s all silliness. We talk in our sleep, that’s all.”
“I talk in my sleep. You were awake.”
“I just...” Arthur can’t even finish whatever excuse that was supposed to be. He turns away and rubs his arms to warm up the sweater, chilled from lying in the chair under the window.
“When did this happen?” Eames asks. He casts his mind back, for the beginning of Arthur’s sullen mood and remembers that its cyclical nature had been what had befuddled him in the first place. Eames’ throat goes dry. “Oh god, it’s happened more than once?”
“Let’s just forget it, come on,” Arthur says, moving out of the messy bedroom, through a tall door and down a perfectly standing arch to a very strong, fresh looking couch. Eames follows with heavy feet and a heart that pumps lead through him.
He can’t believe this has happened more than once! He doesn’t know which part to freak out over first. The fact that some unconscious part of him asks regularly, or that Arthur said yes.
“You said yes,” he says when the thought snags on a jagged question. “I ask a lot, don’t I, but how many times have you said yes?”
Arthur stops in the center of the living room and turns around with shuffling steps. He still holds his arms around his mid rift, thin shoulders sagged, long neck and Adam’s apple on display with his head back, pained to be put on the spot. He shrugs and then drops his chin and shrugs again. “I don’t ever remember saying no.”
Breathless, Eames goes up and over the couch to catch Arthur’s wooly elbows and tug until their noses bump. There, he grins, “Funny, because I don’t remember asking.”
Arthur does not laugh. He pulls away, grimacing. “Let’s just--”
“Hey, no, hey, hey,” Eames says, pulling him back. He kisses him, hooking his fingers behind Arthur’s defined jaw and dragging his face into it, other hand splayed on the small of Arthur’s back. They sway a little before the kiss breaks.
“Thank you for letting me see that,” Eames breathes combing his fingers through Arthur’s hair and tucking the man under his chin for a hug. “This’s an important step in our relationship that you just almost kept me out of, mister.”
Arthur chuckles at last. “Not a step. It’s a preview or something--I don’t even know what it is.”
“No, yeah a preview, I like that. Dry run, see how it goes,” Eames says smiling. Arthur shakes his head. “I know you just mumble shit in your sleep. Some of it is pretty crazy-“
“Like tambourine drive and then see the sights,” Eames says along with him. It is a sentence Arthur once got out of bed to write down in the very beginning of their relationship, when Eames’ little sleep talking habit was still amusing. Since then, they’ve gone on quite a few tambourine drives-their affectionate name for searching for a place to sleep when they find themselves in the wrong city for the night.
“So it doesn’t count. It’s not supposed to count,” Arthur says.
Eames juts out his jaw and combs his fingers through Arthur’s hair again. He doesn’t see a reason why it shouldn’t count, honestly, but he can’t say that.
In his arms, Arthur shrugs and pulls away to head for the kitchen. “I guess I just let it mess with my head, the way you don’t act like you’re ever actually going to ask me. I started to think it was something you actively thought about and decided against....”
Eames sits down on the couch, because that does sound like a younger version of himself, Mr. I’m-Not- Getting-Married-Are-You-Kidding-Me? In the kitchen, which is through another perfect upright archway, Arthur has opened a cabinet but not retrieved the tea cups because he is waiting, tensed, for a reply.
“I’ve never actively considered anything,” Eames assures, even as he remembers falling asleep most nights thinking about keeping Arthur forever. The words sound false for it, and he stands to correct himself, clawing at the back of his head. “I mean, I know I love you. I know I don’t want to lose you. If that translates into marriage somewhere in the recesses of my head, okay. Then we’re on to something.”
Eames plants his hands on his hips and nods. Then he wonders what the hell they just decided. A peek at Arthur’s happy smirk as he selects their favorite tea cups lets him know it was nothing life changing. So still just talking. Good.
Eames can formulate plans all day long, but when it comes to the actual execution, he always needs a pep talk and a smack across the face to stop his tweaking and fucking act already.
And to think, he kept Arthur all those years ago because he was the first rookie to actually do that. Smack, right across the face, no apology. Eames is grinning as he takes a seat at the counter on a wobbly stool and watches Arthur put the kettle on. “Do you remember how we met?”
Arthur nods.
“You accused me of sleeping on the job.”
Arthur laughs outright. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Well, maybe I just need another good smack,” Eames says as Arthur plants himself across the counter on the heels of his hands. He lifts his eyebrows in question. Eames shrugs. After a long minute of consideration, Arthur rolls up his sleeve. “You sure?”
“Now be gentle, remember this is a face you love,” Eames says.
Arthur laughs and pops him across the jaw with more affection than sting, but the sound is loud enough to prove a point. “Wake up, Mr. Eames,” he says with a scowl meant to be real but too alight with play.
“Sorry, darling, I must’ve dozed off. Where were we?”
“About five years into a monogamous relationship.”
“Ah, yes. ‘Xactly,” the stool wobbles beneath him. “Marry me then?”
Arthur levels a disapproving look on Eames and the forger drops his knuckles to the wooden counter. “Sorry. Arthur, dearest in my heart of hearts, honor me in saying yes--will you marry me?”
Arthur smirks as the kettle starts to whistle softly, and they lean across the counter to kiss lightly over the waiting tea cups. The whistle warbles and gets a little louder before Arthur caresses Eames’ beard and his fingers trail all the way down his chest until he has a grip on the rumpled t-shirt Eames wears to bed, and he gives a tug that breaks the kiss. “Yes,” Arthur says, “For the hundredth time-yes.”
...
Fin.