22. What Sticks When Shit Happens
This was inspired by a prompt from inception_kink*headdesk* I forgot to remember the round....I wanna say 19? Anyway, I have the exact prompt! Here it is:
Arthur wakes up with amnesia. He can remember some of his life, but not that he's with Eames. After the initial freak out, and everyone on the team convinces him that, yes, in fact, this really incredibly hot guy is your boyfriend (Eames is horrified, sad, and totally flattered) Arthur decides to go home with Eames anyway, thinking maybe it will jar his memory.
At home he asks Eames to make love to him, fuck him, have sex, whatever it is they normally do. Eames doesn't think they should since Arthur doesn't know him and it wouldn't feel right, but Arthur talks him into it.
I just want something thereafter with Arthur feeling all the FEELINGS when Eames touches him, even if he doesn't remember Eames, his body remembers. Eames knows every detail of what Arthur likes, what gets him hot, the perfect amount of pressure, where he likes to be kissed, everything.
I'm just dying for something sweet and hot and yearning, y'all. Anyone up for this?
Fandom: Inception
Genre: Romance
Length: 3,574 words
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the makers of Inception, lets give a round of applause for them giving me a stock of beautiful characters to obsess over for the rest of my life! :P
Summary: Arthur has a bad reaction to some shitty compound and loses his memory-basically the scariest thing to happen to a man who lives like a ghost. He has absolutely nothing to go on, no proof of who he is... Except for one thing.... A/E established relationship.
i.
They say his name is Arthur. There isn’t a scrap of proof on the planet that can prove it, and that’s because he’s lived off the grid for nearly ten years now. This is what they say; he really has no idea. He doesn’t remember anything. Nada. His first memory is waking up this morning in a reclining patio chair, muscles stiff, throat scratchy, with four people looking wide eyed at him like he's done something wrong.
“What is it?” he rasps at them, annoyed. He doesn’t like being looked at like this.
There are three men and one woman. The girl and the man to her right, an Indian man with a wool sweater, still look worried. The other two men’s faces break into smiles, relieved ones, when he speaks. One of them takes his arm in hand and gives it a squeeze.
“Scared us, darling,” he says. He’s British. Arthur looks at the hand invading his personal space. He likes that less than the starring.Or he thinks he should.
The hand lingers and he can’t recall if it should be welcome or not. He blinks and he tries to remember but-nothing.
“Wait, hold on. Who are you?”
The question stops all of them in their tracks.
“Bloody hell, I was afraid of this,” the Indian man, also British, says, hand going to his forehead to think. The girl looks all around. “What’s this mean?” her voice is little, like her.
The two smiling men are no longer smiling. The one who is still touching Arthur tightens his grip. “Arthur-stop playing games.”
“It’s a reaction to the compound,” the frantic Indian man says. He is now collecting vials and pouring them out, right onto the concrete of this-room, wherever they are. Arthur looks around and recognizes nothing. It appears to be an empty warehouse.
He jerks his arm free of the vice grip. “I’m not-where am I? What have you done to me?”
“Arthur, calm down,” the blonde man says, as if he has to talk men from ledges all the time. “Just take some deep breathes, okay? I’m sure it’ll start coming back to you.”
He’s American, like Arthur and the girl. They are talking fast about compounds and a dream and a bad reaction. Arthur looks at a silver case open beside him, all the moving parts inside it. He knows it’s a PASIV, how it works.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing here with it, or what just happened, or even who his is. Arthur, they had called him Arthur....
The girl doesn’t understand, “Why didn’t it do this this us?”
“He was the subject,” the Indian says. “The compound was routed through his brain differently than ours, so the negative effects-“ he doesn’t finish because the British guy has climbed to his feet and socked him in the mouth.
There is a skirmish between the men. One scary enough for the girl to scream and back away, for more vials to be broken, and for blood to be on knuckles when the blonde man is finally able to pull them apart-“that’s enough, Christ!” he shouts angrily. “Eames, just sit down! SIT DOWN!” he shouts when the British man, Eames, bucks at the man with a bloodied lip.
“Yusuf, you son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you-“
“Eames, fuck, just calm down!”
“Calm down? Cobb, he’s just wiped the mind of my-“ he stops talking like his throat closed and he turns on Arthur. Arthur jumps. Eames looks pained.
“It was an accident, man!” Yusuf is shouting, “And I didn’t wipe his mind, just his memory--”
“That’s not helping either,” Cobb says. “Just get rid of all that shit. Ariadne, you okay?”
The girl, who has floated back into the circle, nods silently; eyeing the evidence of the vicious fight. She looks at Arthur with her eyebrows together. “What can you remember?”
He blinks and shrugs, shakes his head. “I can’t... Nothing. I can’t remember anything!”
It’s terrifying, to look back and see nothing. A blank slate. A brick wall. He hasn’t got a single memory from before sleeping. Cobb is quick to sooth him with words and then Eames is back kneeling at his side, but he’s keeping his hands to himself this time. “Don’t panic, darling, we’ll get this sorted.”
ii.
They say Eames is Arthur’s boyfriend. No one can give a definitive answer for how many years this has been so, but that’s because the pair of them are “complicated.” This is what they say; Arthur really has no idea. How complicated can it be, he wonders, when the man has feelings enough for him to be worried, to try killing a man with his bare hands because Arthur can’t remember anything, when the pair of them are living together?
Arthur doesn’t recognize the apartment. He has to ask why he lives in Paris of all places. Eames tells him the apartment is fairly new, like the Paris address, it all changes for the job. He explains all the lies on the papers that he forged that say Arthur owns the place. The name on the deed is not Arthur, but Arthur is his name, Eames promises.
Arthur is astute enough to see that two different men do live in this apartment. In the living room, on one side of the couch, items are neatly stacked and arranged on tables-books, papers, remote controls. On the other side of the couch, the same such materials are heaped precariously under an old breakfast plate, remote stuck in the cushion.
The kitchen and bathroom are clean, but the bedroom has more of that one-sided carelessness; not slibbery, just no right angles and even intervals. Only one bed and it’s made with military neatness. One bedside table is clear, the other is scattered with things one might find in pockets and pouches; coins, trash, buttons, a bullet;again, not messy just not up to the standard as the other side. The closet is small and starts with a row of good clothes, the kind Arthur’s wearing, and though it stays tidy, the clothes gets worse with silk shirts like what Eames is wearing.
Arthur has absolutely no memory of living in this place with this man. His first memory here is awkward silence as he settles in and Eames tries to take care of him when clearly he’s never taken care of anyone but Number One.
Arthur doesn’t want to be taken care of-he insists on making his own tea. It’s strange, how he knows how to make English tea, but not how he came to know. Obviously Eames taught him, or he picked it up over the years with him. Was it a thing Arthur did to please him, remind him of home? Did Arthur care that much?
His first sip of English tea does not knock his socks off. Arthur decides he can take it or leave it. Has it always been like that?
One thing that happens a lot is an almost touch. Eames reaches to touch him often, but stops half-way, remembering how Arthur had jerked away from him in the warehouse. When this happens, he stops talking if he is, and starts if he isn’t--suddenly and with steam about some little thing Arthur ought to remember. Sometimes his voice is tight and he has to clear his throat, sometimes he keeps his back to Arthur for a little while.
Arthur just wants to remember something. Anything.
He knows everything. He knows all about dreaming and tea and forging and he can draw fairly well. When Eames tells Arthur to draw a building, it comes out looking professional. Arthur can read and do math and speak French and tie his shoes.
Yusuf is right, he didn’t wipe his mind, just the memories of his entire life. Thirty-five years, that’s what they say. Eames says November tentatively and then says it again with a nod, yeah, November-Scorpio, that’s as close to the actual date as he can give him.
"I’m rubbish with numbers darling, just won’t stay in my head. I write it down every year, but then it’s gone before the next one. You though, you always remember-well you did... remember mine.... Every year.”
Arthur shakes his head. “Is it close?”
Eames smiles sadly and shakes his head but can’t look at him. “Just missed it.”
“....Happy birthday,” Arthur says lamely because he can’t think of anything else to say. Here he is, sitting on the bed he shares with this man, and he can’t remember his birthday party or how old he is or what kind of gift he got him.
Eames just nods, understanding. He rolls his lips and sits on his side of the bed. Arthur stands. He needs to be alone. “I’m going to take a shower.”
In the bathroom, he strips away the sweater vest and the shirt; finds a well-toned body, a thin scar on his ribs, another shorter one on his arm. They look like knife wounds. When the slacks and underwear go, something on his left hip catches his eye.
Red little lines, notches, in a circle, more like two crescent shapes. He touches them and studies for a moment before he realizes they are teeth marks. Crooked teeth marks.
“Eames,” he sticks his head out of the bathroom. Eames is now lying on the bed, his arm draped miserably over his eyes. His head snaps up when Arthur calls and he blinks at him. “Have a question, darling?”
Arthur is almost smiling and shakes his head. “We had sex about two days ago.”
Eames sits up, eyes wide. “You remember that?”
The hope and relief and happiness in his face is too much, Arthur suddenly wishes he had not spoken so casually, as if he actually did remember. That was cruel actually, why did he do it? He looks sheepish and shakes his head. “No-sorry. I...just know because you marked me.”
With the briefest hesitation, Arthur steps out of the bathroom naked to show him what he found.
Eames moves slowly from the bed to stand in front of Arthur, thumb hesitantly reaching out to rub at the old indention of his teeth. His throat pulses and his eyes look up into Arthur’s. His luscious lips are parted and Arthur can see some of those crooked teeth.
“Funny thing is, darling, when I did that I said it was so you couldn’t forget you're mine.”
“Well, it worked.”
Eames' laugh is a gust of warm breath and his swirling thumb leaves Arthur’s hip. His body moves forward, following the touch, before he can tell it to stop.This is alarming, as for a second, Arthur feels like a little magnet in the hold of a bigger one.
Eames inhales, surprised to find Arthur in his personal space. Heart pounding, Arthur doesn’t correct the instinctual movement, but he keeps talking as if it didn’t happen. “I mean, I can’t even be sure my name is Arthur but here I’ve got proof that we....”
“You are Arthur,” Eames insists. “It’s your given name. You swore to me it was and I believe you.”
“Eames,” Arthur says, and he still hasn’t looked away from Eames’ crooked teeth. Every breath is filled with the smell of his clothes, the smell of tea on his lips. Arthur’s heart is pounding, and blood is coursing to his groin. His mind races to catalogue the reactions this man’s proximity is causing in his body, what it means. It only means one thing to Arthur right now.
It’s like he remembers. Like with the mark he can almost remember Eames because his body does. It must expect something when he smells silk and sweat, deodorant and hair gel, a warm gust of English tea on a rumbly laugh.
Eames stands very still. There are mere inches between Arthur’s naked body and his fully clothed one. There is a crease on the Brit’s forehead as his eyes search Arthur’s face. Arthur finds that he can’t look into his eye for long with out breaking eye contact in that same instinctual way. He addresses the shoulder seam of Eames shirt.
“Eames, could you...” Arthur doesn’t know how he’s supposed to ask. The words are not coming easily. Maybe they never did. “Eames,” he whispers again, and still he moves closer. “Do whatever it is you do to me? Please?”
Eames’ arms encircle him. Their noses bump. For a second they are dancing like junior high nerds. His voice is tight and soft, “What’s this now? You want me to...” he laughs and shakes his head, “darling, you barely know me.”
“So?”
Eames shrugs, and Arthur can see the internal battle raging in him. He thinks he should leave before things get out of control. “So I seem to remember you taking years to get this close the first time.”
Arthur processes the information. The team said the two of them were complicated. Was it mostly Arthur that made things difficult? He shakes his head. “I don’t know why it would have taken me so long; not if you were this comforting back then.”
“Comforting?” he asks, bewildered.
“You’re all I got,” Arthur confesses. “I can almost remember you. And I need to. I need to remember something so that I’m not-“ He cuts off. Not on purpose. His voice just stops working in that ever-surprising reflex the moment his eyes accidently meet Eames’; Arthur just can’t go on.
“Not what?” Eames asks, voice cracking slightly.
“Alone.” Arthur says to the collar of his shirt. “I’m alone but I can feel you there, close. I want to feel more. Remember more. Please.”
Eames’ throat pulses, and then he pulls Arthur in with a hand in his hair, crushing his lips over his, their bodies together. Arthur’s arms go around him naturally, under those thick arms, up that broad, rippling back. Eames moans into his mouth involuntarily, a desperately hopeful sound. His hands are rough and excite Arthur’s skin like velvet as they slide down the slope of his back and caress his ass.
They’re both aching for more than just touch. Arthur aches for this to work; for it to give them both what they want. Just Arthur back, in any way. If familiar touches and moans are all that can be salvaged, well, then it’s something at least.
It’s all breathy whispers, secrets that Eames mutters against Arthur’s skin as they recline on the bed. “You feel me with you, darling,” he laughs, bewildered, as he prepares them, staying close enough to kiss. Arthur can tell he is going slower than he needs to, and urges him to get on with it. It’s apparently just how he is supposed to do it, because it makes Eames’ face light up with relief. “ ...Yes, you remember don’t you?”
He kisses him as he enters slowly. Arthur stays still, eyes closed, trying let the touch lead him home. So far, it’s just a delicious stretch, brand new and burning. Eames nuzzles him tenderly. “...Remember me my love,” he whispers. His lips play across the stubble on Arthur’s neck and the delicate sensation sends a tremble through him. Eames’ shoulders relax under Arthur’s hands and his laugh is warm on his skin, “You do.”
They are moving together, and if Arthur stays in his head then he doesn’t know what’s coming next, but if he lets go and exists only in his body, then it’s a well-practiced rodeo. His body remembers. It also remembers a rule about cryin so that when the emotions begin to catch up to the lost man-his happiness and relief to have any kind of memory at all, to have this big beautiful person the center of all of it-tears prick sharp behind Arthur’s eyeballs, but instinct, reflex, has him biting them back before it’s a situation.
There’s no controlling his breath though, which hiccups out of him. Eames’ hand caresses Arthur’s chest, his beating heart, voice full of wonder, and his eyes, Arthur isn’t surprised to see, are glistening a little.
“You can feel me there?-oh my dear, my Arthur.” His kiss takes Arthur’s struggling breath away and he pulls Arthur’s hand to the tattoos covering his heart so that Arthur can feel the organ thrashing away behind his breast plate as Eames moves in him. “I have you here too, I do...” he gasps into the pillow at Arthur’s ear. “Remember me. You can; you remember what counts, darling. You do.”
“I do,” Arthur agrees breathlessly, it’s almost more of a grunt as he tightens all around Eames, holds him close with white knuckles as he rides out sensations that are new yet so wonderfully familiar. This isn’t the first time Arthur would have felt him, it can’t be with his body’s eager, ready responses predicting Eames’ every movement.
But it is a first time again. Arthur can’t help thinking it’s their first time doing it right. The way it should be, with no lies, no games, or fears. Just the truth. Eames comes first, and Arthur follows.
“Eames,” Arthur nearly chokes the word but his voice knows better than to let that happen. He has, however, defeated that habit of not looking Eames in the eye when he speaks like this. Eames’ eyes are green. Arthur wonders if he has ever been sure of the exact shade until now, if he ever looked for this long. He doesn’t have any breath; it feels as if he is speaking on heartbeats, all jolted sounds that leap out in a race. “Have I ever said it?”
“Said it?” Eames asks as he pants for breath, velvet hands smoothing Arthur’s hair out of his face, the sweat from the hollow of his neck. Arthur detects alarm in his stressed voice, in his eyes, and that’s answer enough.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” Arthur answers. He smooths Eames’ hair from his forehead and kisses the adorable crease there. His ripping breathes pulls Eames’ hair up his nose and he still can’t get enough of the smell. Arthur feels like laughing. His body is trembling with it. “What if I said it right now?”
“Arthur," Eames sounds frightened. Arthur smirks. He knew he wasn’t the only one making this relationship a mess. Eames settles next to him and holds him close. Arthur says nothing else on the matter, and studies the ink on the man’s skin some more.
Maybe he shouldn’t say it now. No, it definitely isn’t the right time. He needs to be sure of it first. And while he is positive he loves this man’s body and what it does to his body, it would just be childish to say he loves him when he don’t know him. But Arthur can’t imagine what reason he used before the excellent excuse of amnesia. Perhaps, like the English tea, not saying I love you was only something Arthur did to please him.
iii.
They say amnesia doesn’t just miraculously go away. There is no medical explanation for how a man can have his brain damaged by poorly mixed compounds, go home, have some tea, have some sex, fall asleep and remember everything. That’s what the doctors are saying; but that’s the case.
After falling asleep in Eames’ arms, Arthur has a dream, a natural one. (They tell Arthur he is the only one on the team that can anymore.)
He dreams of a relentless battle of wits and guts that stretch over years. Dreaded encounters full of sarcasm and flirty digs that simply have to be retaliated in the most efficient way possible. Years full of anxiously awaited encounters that could not, would not--under any circumstances--appear to be anxiously awaited for; of casual arrangements that weren’t supposed to mean anything.
Then a bad situation, one with knives, left Arthur with two thin scars to remind him how he saved Eames because he couldn’t bear losing him. It wasn’t casual after that but it was still not anything serious. That was not allowed. Eames didn't know how to work and love like that, and Arthur wasn’t going to make him choose. So it became apartments filled with lopsided carelessness, and a relationship labeled complicated at best.
Until all the bullshit got washed away by a bad mix of compound.
“Eames, I love you,” Arthur whispers into the dark. Under Arthur’s warm breath, he feels bumps rise on Eames’ skin as the man trembles. “I have since Caracas," he continues, "That’s why your mark worked. It wasn’t the first mark you left on me. Those knives...I took them so you wouldn’t have to. They aren’t just my scars. They ours. You and me.”
Eames’ fingers trace them in the dark. He knows them like Arthur knows his tattoos.
“You and me...” Eames purrs softly. “Did you ever learn Chinese like I suggested once, darling?”
“No,” Arthur grunts with a smirk, rolling his head to press his smile into skin.
Eames takes Arthur’s finger and traces it over a mark on his chest. Arthur closes his eyes in the dark in order to see the map of Eames’ body in his head. Eames is tracing his finger over the Chinese character on his left pectoral. “Thought not becuase if you did then you’d know that’s what this says. You and me.”
fin