fic: no discipline of forgetting
title: No discipline of forgetting
characters: Arthur/Eames
rating: NC-17
words: ~13,000
summary: Arthur forgets; Eames waits.
notes: This is the very first Inception story I started, way back in August. I think I am probably the slowest writer in fandom. Thanks to chibi_lurrel, deepsix (extra thanks for this meta; I couldn't quite make the characterisations work till I read it!), and jibrailis for the beta work -- you are all wonderful. ♥ Oh, and apologies to Freud and Lacan. I know it's bad academic practice to misinterpret quotations and appropriate them for gay porn. Sorry, dudes.
--
No discipline of forgetting
[1]
At the edge of the cliff, Eames looks down into the ocean.
He'd washed up on the shore of his unconscious alone, and it hadn't felt right. So he'd walked the path cut into the cliffside, searching -- but there wasn't anyone else. Maybe his mind has just been playing tricks on itself. Maybe it's time to go.
One step is all he needs to wake up. Eames tilts forward, flirting with the edge --
-- and then there are hands on his waist, pulling him back, and he stumbles into a warm body.
He turns. A piece of Arthur's hair brushes his forehead, they're that close.
"God, you --" Arthur says, a little breathless. He backs them away from the edge, his hands steady on Eames' waist. "You scared me. Don't jump yet, okay?"
"Okay," Eames says easily. Then he realises, "I think I was looking for you."
Arthur holds Eames in his arms for another moment, just looking into his face. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Then he blinks, as if noticing how close they're standing. He steps back.
"I was looking, too. But not for you," he says, like it's a simple fact.
"For ... ?"
Arthur makes a noise of frustration, low in his throat, and shakes his head. "Fuck, I still can't remember."
The passage of time is strange in Limbo.
Side-by-side, they search for what seems like hours. On a hunch, Eames dreams up a watch and checks it at intervals. Discreetly -- Arthur's refused to let them build things, and Eames doesn't want to anger him.
The watch eventually confirms his hunch: it hasn't been hours, it's been days.
Memory is deceptive, here. Periods of sameness collapse inwards, turning on points of difference. A two-minute conversation is perceived as two minutes, but so are hours of silent walking. No wonder it's so easy to lose yourself.
"I know," Arthur says, when he explains. "Dom's told me a little about what it's like."
In the end, they don't find anything but exhaustion, so Arthur picks a sheltered spot and they sleep -- within reaching distance, but facing in opposite directions.
Eames wakes up. Arthur's watching him, and from the set of his shoulders, he has been for a while. He's sitting cross-legged, with his head propped up on his hand.
"Hi," he says.
"Hi yourself," Eames replies, smiling lazily. He sits up and stretches the stiffness out of his shoulders. "Did you sleep at all?"
"A bit."
Arthur's hair is sleep-mussed and the top two buttons of his shirt are undone. But he ruins the effect by sitting up straight, suddenly all business. There's a gun on the ground next to him. "We should go," he says.
"You're certain there's nothing here?"
"No. But we can't stay."
Eames nods. He gets to his feet and offers Arthur a hand up, which Arthur accepts. "How do you want it?"
"I was thinking Barcelona," Arthur says. "Do me first."
"Too messy. I prefer not to literally have your blood on my hands, if that's all right. How about that time in Mumbai?"
"That's fine." Arthur lets Eames come up behind him, relaxing into the curve of his arms. It's funny: the only time he gets to touch Arthur like this is when he's about to snap his neck.
"Alright?"
"I'm waiting."
It's quick and painless. Arthur crumples; Eames catches him, laying his body down gently. Then he goes to pick up the gun. And when he turns back, Arthur's getting to his feet.
"Eames?" Arthur says, confused. He's rubbing at his neck, but he seems whole and unbroken.
They try it again. And again. Five different times, in five different ways. Finally Arthur says, "Fuck this," and they give up.
"What the hell, Eames."
"I have no idea," Eames replies. "I don't exactly frequent Limbo. My best guess is that your instincts were right, and there is someone else here. Someone your subconscious knows we can't leave without, maybe. We'll have to keep looking."
"Not we," Arthur says. "You might be able to leave. You haven't tried yet."
"And I'm not going to."
Arthur looks at him for a long moment. Then he says, "Okay." He says it in the tone most people use to say thank you.
"Shall we go?"
"Not we," Arthur says, again. "Splitting up means covering more area. The clifftop where I found you -- I'll go back there in one year. Be there."
"Don't leave --"
Arthur arches an eyebrow.
"Yet," Eames finishes, with a grin.
He concentrates for a moment, then opens his hand. Resting on his palm are two identical silver pocketwatches, antique in design. Their faces display a circle cut into twelve unnumbered portions.
He tosses one to Arthur. "It counts down the month, not the hour."
Arthur slides it into the top pocket of his shirt, a simple white button-down. He nods once, a tiny smile on his lips, and then leaves. Except for Arthur's footsteps on the grass, it's silent.
Eames watches him walk away until his back is just a hard, dark line standing up against the horizon.
At first, Eames travels.
Since neither he nor Arthur have ever been in Limbo before, the landscape is just a vacancy. It's never literally empty -- the mind can't present disunities and impossibilities, so it fills the space before blankness can be perceived. But Limbo can only draw upon his memories, so that wherever he goes he just discovers places he's been before, emptied of people.
He walks. He thinks. He thinks about Arthur: his condescension, his casually cruel mouth.
It's Eames' job to deceive, to blur the truth. When the situation calls for it, he'll lie to himself -- everyone does; it's naive to pretend otherwise. But Arthur is one truth he can't get around.
Eventually, Eames finds himself walking in unfamiliar territory. Arthur's memories.
There are endless indistinguishable cities, coalescing into one; the vistas of Afghanistan's gunfire-burnt deserts; the university in Paris; the street where the Cobbs moved after Mal gave birth to James; a sixteen-story hotel in Prague where all of the rooms are empty, except for 228.
Eames remembers that room, that hotel. It's his memory, too. He opens the door and steps inside.
Mal dies. Eames gets a call from Arthur at two in the morning.
Arthur doesn't ask him to, not even obliquely, but Eames drives three hours through the pouring rain to get to him.
There's been something between them for so long that Eames forgets how it started. It makes Arthur touch too much, makes Eames let those touches linger -- too long, for someone whose body is so precise he can mimic nervous tics you didn't even know you had. It comes between them like a knife twisting underneath skin. It never comes to anything.
Eames baits; Arthur snaps. When it comes to the kick, Arthur's never gentle. Maybe this should matter, but it doesn't.
When Eames gets there, the room door is open a crack. Arthur sits on the edge of the bed, straight-backed, an unopened bottle of vodka in his right hand.
Eames closes the door behind him. "I'm surprised you're not in L.A. already."
"Couldn't get a flight out till tomorrow morning."
Arthur's left the window wide open. It's freezing cold, but he doesn't seem to notice. Eames goes to stand in front of Arthur; puts a hand on his shoulder, and leaves it there. They stay like that for a few minutes, not looking at each other. He's thinking about Mal, and he knows Arthur is, too.
Arthur smashes the bottle against the floor.
"For the love of god," he says, as the vodka seeps into the carpet, "don't fucking cry, I can't fucking deal with that right now."
"Jesus, Arthur. I'm not."
Arthur stands. They're so close that Eames can feel the rise and fall of Arthur's breathing in his own chest, and heat flares at the base of his spine.
Gently, Arthur puts a hand to Eames' face and brushes a thumb across his eyelashes. It comes away wet. He drags the wetness down Eames' cheek; his thumb nudges up against Eames' lips, then between them.
Eames tastes salt.
Arthur kisses him, with a desperation that's expected and a sweet desire that isn't. This is the first time they've done this, and the thought makes Eames go still, paralysed with want. Arthur looks at him, a question in his eyes.
Instead of answering it, Eames pushes him down to the bed, hands on Arthur's jaw, undoing the buttons of his shirt, sliding off his pants to get at the skin he's finally allowed to touch. He tries to be as gentle as he can, but want makes him careless.
Arthur cries out, and it's the first helpless noise Eames has ever heard from him.
There's a thin line of blood cut across Arthur's thigh, from where a shard of broken glass got pressed between them. Arthur just shakes his head and pulls off Eames' shirt, efficient hands fumbling at the zip of his pants. "It's not deep," he insists, rough and low.
Without thinking about it, Eames leans down, pressing a kiss there, and when he takes Arthur's cock into his mouth he tastes an edge of coppery blood. He doesn't hold back; he uses everything he knows to make Arthur feel, to forget.
Then he wraps his hand around Arthur's cock, spit-slick, jacking him off in slow pulls as he moves upwards to kiss him. It's hot and messy and Arthur melts right into it, content to cling to Eames and lick away the taste of himself. He kisses like he's helpless, pliant and needy, and Eames just wants to hold Arthur down and rut against him until they both come.
Arthur moves his hips, though, pleadingly -- and it's a foreign thought, for a man with few attachments, but Eames wants to take care of Arthur, in any way that Arthur will let him. It won't be enough, but he'll do what he can. He tracks kisses down Arthur's neck, his chest, his stomach, and kneels between his legs again, looking up at him.
"Fuck my mouth," Eames says, voice wrecked. "Fuck my mouth until you come," and Arthur moans like it's been ripped from him.
Eames slips the head of Arthur's cock between his lips. It rubs against the back of his throat as Arthur thrusts into him, over and over, filling him up more than a kiss ever could. He loses himself to the sensation, to the knowledge that Arthur is using his mouth to take what he needs. It isn't long before he comes, and Eames is gentle, holding Arthur's softening cock in his mouth as he shakes with the aftershocks. When he climbs up on the bed, Arthur reaches for his cock, but Eames brushes his hand away.
"Eames?" he says uncertainly.
Eames just shakes his head, stripping off the rest of their clothes. He's still hard, aching for it, but it doesn't matter -- Arthur's sleepy and unthinking and calm, and Eames wants it to remain that way.
"Stay," Eames says, curling around Arthur. He presses his lips against Arthur's skin.
The next morning, Arthur's gone. He's cleaned up the glass, the spilled vodka, but hasn't left a trace of himself.
After that, Arthur and Dom drop off-grid and stay there for months. The next time he contacts Eames, it's with a job offer. They go back to their endless, circling dance, like that night had just been a misstep.
Can you lose something if you never had it in the first place?
Eames wants Arthur, and he knows that Arthur wants him -- but that's not what Arthur needs right now. What he needs is someone he can rely on, a number that he can call for backup. A forger. A rival, sometimes; someone who will challenge him and keep him sharp on the job. A way to get Dom out of a Kenyan prison. A list of trustworthy chemists. A replacement PASIV. An experimental compound that's supposed to make projections more docile.
Eames gives it all to him, and loses track, after a while. The one thing Arthur never seems to need again is a warm body in the night.
[2]
Eames leaves the memory, shutting the door behind him.
Arthur spooks easily. If he realises Eames is following his memories through Limbo, he might not come back, when the year's up. Eames has seen him angrier over less.
Eames can't seem to stop stumbling into places where Arthur's been. So he heads back to the beach.
When he gets there, he finds Ariadne sitting cross-legged in front of a fire on the clifftop.
"Eames!"
It's been so long since he had anything but his own thoughts for company that he sweeps her off her feet in a hug. As he sets her down again, he laughs. "Sorry I'm so happy that you died."
Ariadne lets out a short laugh. "It's weird," she says softly. "I don't remember it. Dying, I mean. I just woke up here."
"That's probably for the best." Eames has been dying in dreams for ten years, but he's still not used to having pieces of flesh and muscle ripped from his bones.
"Yeah," she says, looking out at the ocean. "Yeah, you're right. Anyway, I think I just got here, but it's hard to tell. How long for you?"
"A bit over five months. Absolute fucking boredom. There's nothing to discover, unless you create it yourself."
"Then why don't you?"
"I can't," Eames says, surprised. "Objects, I can do. Or calling up places from memory. But I can't build from scratch. I'm not an architect."
"Mal built in Limbo, and she wasn't an architect."
"True," Eames admits. Mal had been a chemist; experimenting with sedation and dreams within dreams had been her idea, originally. "How did you know that?"
Ariadne grins, a little slyly. After a pause she says, "I bullied Cobb into telling me -- but you're changing the topic, don't think I can't tell. Come on, try it. Build something. If I can do it, you can do it."
"Alright."
Eames walks to the edge of the cliff. Then he turns to face the beach and brings his hands up, imagining something he'd never have the skill to build normally. Parallel to his motion, an intricate structure rises and shakes off sand: it's what a sandcastle on a beach might look like, if the Greeks had constructed it with marble in the middle of the Hellenistic age.
"My god," Eames says wonderingly. It's so easy here -- too easy.
After a few months, Eames and Ariadne are naturalised citizens of Limbo, sort of. They live in the marble sandcastle, making the sun rise and set every day, waiting for Arthur to come back.
At first, Eames works on refining his forges, but it's hardly practice. In fact, it's dangerous. Forging in Limbo is addictively simple: it's just as easy to be who you're not as who you are. Eames tries not to do it too often.
Ariadne spends most of her time building. She's intensely private about it, spending hours alone and not letting Eames see the finished results -- though she will talk at length about impossible architecture and pushing the laws of physics. It's all stuff he's heard from Dom before, and Eames listens indulgently. Just as Eames suspected, Ariadne and Dom have one thing in common: neither give a damn about reality. They just want to break its rules, consequences be damned. It's one of the things Eames loves about a good architect. It's one of the things he'll never forgive Dom for.
One afternoon, when Ariadne's down at the beach, Eames hears a knock on the front door. He goes to open it.
"Hi," Arthur says, a small smile on his face.
He's not looking past Eames; he's not looking for something that Eames doesn't have. He's just looking, a little tentatively, at Eames. For the last seven years, Eames has tried to get Arthur to look at him like that. Something clenches in his chest.
Eames reaches into his pocket. The antique silver pocketwatch is there, resting next to his poker chip; it always is. He makes a show of consulting the hands. Six o'clock, so it's been six months since he and Arthur split up to search Limbo. Arthur's early. He'd said he wouldn't return for a year.
"Did you miss me too much?" Eames says, holding up the watch with a grin. "You weren't supposed to be home till midnight -- but look, you're just in time for dinner."
Arthur's smile flickers, and Eames finds that he can breathe again.
"I'm tired," Arthur says. The set of his shoulders says it, too. "Are you going to let me in?"
"Darling. As if I could keep you out."
Whoever they're looking for, it's not Ariadne.
They try to leave, but just like the last time, the kick doesn't work -- not on Arthur, at least. He throws down his gun in disgust. "Look," he says, running a hand through his hair. "I can take care of myself. You should get out of here."
"I'd rather wait," Eames says casually.
Startled, Arthur looks at him. "You always wait for me, don't you."
"I guess I do," Eames says. He laughs; the heat in Arthur's voice makes him feel strange, owned.
"If he's staying, I'm staying," Ariadne says.
Arthur frowns. "I'm not going to pretend I want to be abandoned, but -- why? There's nothing here for you."
"It's not like I can get bored here. Not for a while, anyway," Ariadne says. "You just have to build things."
The three of them stay up late talking. In Limbo, the nights don't get cold if you don't want them to, and Ariadne puts on a meteor shower, just to show off. At sunrise, there's an argument: Arthur insists on searching alone. He says that Eames and Ariadne have to stay put, as a failsafe. That it's easier to get lost in Limbo if you're on the move. That he needs someplace to return to, someone to come looking for him if he doesn't come back.
It's all true, but it's not the truth.
Arthur, Eames knows, is angry at himself: for missing Fischer's militarisation, for not being able to find what he's looking for. He's always taken on his failures as a personal burden. They're something he doesn't share, or give up on.
"It's not negotiable," Arthur says finally. "If you don't stay here, Eames, you don't get to stay." He slams a gun down on the table.
"Alright -- alright, Arthur. Calm down."
Thanks to time distortion, they can stay in Limbo for years, as long as they remember it isn't real. Eames hates the idea of just waiting, though. Before he can breach the topic, Ariadne does it for him: "You know, even you need a break. Come visit us every once in a while."
"Maybe."
"I had a thought," Eames says after a moment. "Remaining in one place does have its benefits."
He outlines the concept, and they implement it, scattering jarring mistakes everywhere like little totems -- lightbulbs that burn cool green instead of warm yellow, clothing without seams, oddly-shaped electrical sockets. Safeguards to help them remember.
"And what if you forget?" Eames asks Arthur, after they're done.
"I won't."
[3]
Upon moving in, Arthur destroys the castle. He snaps his fingers, cool and arrogant, and it crumbles.
Then he grins, and says to Ariadne, "Build with me."
Arthur creates a Penrose staircase, reconstructing a structure around it. Eames sprawls in the sand, watching. For hours, Arthur and Ariadne bicker and laugh and tear apart each others' work; Arthur's smiling the whole time, though he doesn't seem to realise it.
The house, when it's done, exists at strange angles from the ground and hurts to look at. Arthur thinks it's a nice security feature. The rooms are distributed across four "floors," and Eames wants his room to be at the top, but of course that has no meaning when the stairs go up or down at the same time.
"Don't think about the paradox while you're on the stairs," Ariadne warns him.
Eames shrugs. "I won't. You know I'm not like you two. I don't get off on impossible geometry."
"Sorry."
"Hm?" Eames isn't paying attention; he's smiling a little, watching Arthur add a series of fire escapes. Only Arthur would be worried about exit routes in a place where there's no threat to speak of.
"Well, there aren't any people here," Ariadne says. "You must be bored." She looks from Eames to Arthur, then says, "Or maybe not."
On the sixth morning after Arthur comes back, Eames stumbles down the staircase to find Ariadne eating Cheerios out of the box and a note on the kitchen table.
Gone again for a while. Have to keep looking. Don't fucking touch anything in my closet, Eames.
Eames puts the kettle on, movements automatic. Making tea is one of his rituals, when he needs a ritual. The others involve alcohol, but losing grip on reality is not such a good idea here.
"He'll be back, Eames."
"I know that," Eames says. He rummages in the cupboard for a mug and some Earl Grey, and then waits as the water boils.
A few weeks later, Eames walks into the kitchen, yawning.
Arthur is making pancakes. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbows. There's flour on his tie. The entire scene is so domestic, so dreamlike, that Eames instinctively reaches into his pocket for his totem.
This is when he realises he's wearing boxers, and nothing else.
Arthur's gaze wanders down his body and back up again. And then he smiles, and there's a dimple involved.
Eames can't find anything better to say than, "The Arthur I know can't cook."
Arthur shrugs. "I do pancakes and sandwiches. You like maple syrup?"
The kitchen is different, Eames realises. The countertops are granite, the tap is stainless steel. There's an espresso maker plugged in next to the toaster. All of these are things that Eames has seen in Arthur's apartment before. Arthur put them here, deliberately.
So Eames sits down at the table, where there's a place setting and a glass of milk waiting, and lets Arthur serve him pancakes with maple syrup. For the first time in Limbo, Arthur eats with him. It's only been half a week since Arthur left, and this time, he stays for two.
Arthur's in front of the mirror, trying to put himself together. He can't seem to decide on a tie, and the frustration shows on his face. Eames knows the tie isn't the problem.
"You're not happy, darling."
Arthur meets his eyes in the mirror. "Good job. So fucking what."
"So," Eames says, and then stops.
Sadness is something for other people: Arthur gets the job done. Eames has always seen it as a mark of competence, but he also remembers what things were like before Mal died. Arthur's entire posture had been different. He'd worn embarrassingly colourful ties.
"Why would I be happy? We're trapped here. We have been for eight months. Because I can't do my goddamn job."
"It's not your job to singlehandedly track down a vague hunch in the middle of Limbo," Eames says gently. "Come here." He chooses a tie at random and holds it up.
Obediently, Arthur steps back so that he can put it on. He closes his eyes, leaning into Eames' touch.
When Arthur lets his guard down, his body discipline goes to shit.
Most people are duped by the poker face, the three-piece suits. Cobb's point man is inscrutable, they say. I can never tell what's going on in his head. But Eames looks closer, and he knows that Arthur's thoughts and desires are written straight into the movements of his hands and his hips. He'll stand too close, or put that steadying palm in the small of Eames' back just a few inches too low. He'll string Eames out over the course of a night with half-smiles and lingering touches. And he'll do it all with sweet obliviousness, because he has no idea what his body is saying.
Eames finishes knotting a double Windsor, and pulls it snug. He brushes his fingers against Arthur's throat, noticing how Arthur's breath catches.
It's unbearable to know how much Arthur wants him, and won't act on it.
While Arthur's gone, Eames and Ariadne sometimes walk along the beach together. They talk, or they're just silent. It's good to get out of the house, to stare out at the endless ocean and be reminded.
"What's that?"
There's a glint of metal in the sand. Strange. Things don't just wash up in Limbo; they have to be created first, and Eames doesn't remember creating anything around here.
Ariadne reaches down, slipping the thing into her pocket.
"Not going to show me?"
"I'd rather not," she says with a shrug. "Just scraps from something I tried to build yesterday -- it fell apart. Kind of embarrassing, actually."
"Alright." Eames figures it's none of his business. They all need to hold onto something in Limbo, even if it's just a secret.
"What are you hiding from me?"
Arthur strips the blankets off of Eames' bed, steals his pillow, and rolls him onto the hardwood floor. The he grabs him by the bicep and hauls him down to the living room.
Eames blinks. There's a small safe built into the wall right above the fireplace.
"It's not mine," Arthur says.
It's not mine, either, Eames is about to say -- but then again it might be. If he'd wanted to hide something from himself, this is how he'd do it. He wonders if he'd puzzled out Ariadne's secret, and put it here. If it's bad enough to hide, shouldn't he ... ? Well, no. He should trust his own mind, if he'd decided not to remember.
He says, "Everyone has something they'd rather forget."
Arthur looks at Eames like he wants to hit him. He steps into Eames' space like he's going to. And then he does, and Eames clutches at his jaw and says, "Jesus fuck." He looks down and there's blood on the carpet.
But Arthur doesn't look at the safe again before he walks out of the room, and Eames knows he won't try to break into it.
That afternoon he creates an Escher print he remembers seeing in Arthur's apartment once, the one where the hands are drawing each other. He places it overtop the safe. He'd rather not wonder about what he's chosen to forget every time he walks into the room, though he will remember the punch.
Arthur leaves. Arthur comes back.
He used to go like a thief in the night, sometimes leaving a note, sometimes not bothering. Now he waits until after dinner, so that Eames and Ariadne can see him off. Eames touches Arthur sometimes, as he's saying goodbye, and gets away with it. A hand on his shoulder, on his waist. He can't help it -- Limbo is boundless. If someone leaves intentionally, there's almost no way of finding them. Every time Arthur walks away could be the last time.
But he always comes back.
"Guess you just can't stay away, love," Eames says, when Arthur slips in the door one day at dawn.
"Guess not," says Arthur.
He shrugs out of his coat and lets Eames hang it up for him. He's impassive, but everything in his posture telegraphs anger. "Fuck this," he says. "Fuck this place. I used to be able to find anything I wanted."
"I know. I've tried to hide from you on more than one occasion, Arthur. It never works."
The look Arthur directs at him is vicious and fond at the same time. "We both knew you wanted to be found." Which is true, but it hadn't mattered, because Arthur had never come looking for him in person.
[4]
The leaves fall from the trees; snow falls from a white sky. Things settle in, a bit.
Arthur goes away less often, and stays for longer. Eames finds ways to keep him happy while he's there. He teaches Arthur to cook, and they spend evenings washing dishes together even though they don't have to. He lets Arthur beat him at chess. They spar. They play poker with Ariadne around the kitchen table at midnight.
Arthur discovers the library, which Eames has been working on for months.
All you have in Limbo is what you can create. If you remember the cracked spine of a novel but not the first hundred pages, that's all you have. To say that Eames' memory is good is an understatement -- during information-heavy extractions, the ability to recall is invaluable. The library has floor-to-ceiling shelves, containing Eames' approximations of everything from Austen to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (In which Sirius doesn't die. It's nice to misremember, sometimes.)
"I'm impressed," Arthur says, looking around.
"I'm well-read," Eames replies.
"Derrida, Baudrillard, Descartes ..." Arthur tilts his head, examining the titles. As he does, he trails a long finger down the spine of each, and Eames feels a shiver go up his own. "... Nietzsche, Borges, Barthes -- Jesus, Eames, do you spend all of your spare time being a pretentious asshole? Isn't it exhausting?"
"Contrary to rumour," Eames says amusedly, "I got into the dreamsharing business through academic channels, not criminal ones. That part came later."
Arthur raises a disbelieving eyebrow, sliding a book off the shelf one-handed and flipping it open. The Interpretation of Dreams, by Freud.
"Oh, don't try to read that." Eames splays his fingers over Arthur's on the book's spine, snapping it shut. He lets his palm rest there, on Arthur's wrist. "Didn't like it much, hardly wanted to remember it. It's probably missing sections."
"Ironic," Arthur says dryly, but Eames is paying more attention to the fact that Arthur hasn't moved his hand away.
They're on the Penrose staircase.
Eames, walking up to his room, doesn't hear Arthur come up behind him -- not until Arthur's pressed against the length of his back, arms wrapped around his waist and lips brushing the curve of his ear.
"Arthur --" Eames says, unsure.
"Guess what?"
"I have no idea," Eames says, and it's true. He can't think of anything, beyond the fact that he can feel the rise and fall of Arthur's chest as he breathes.
Which is why he isn't expecting it when Arthur nudges his hips into Eames' ass and whispers:
"Paradox."
The stairs drop away in front of him, just as he loses his balance --
And then he's being tugged back, with Arthur's laughter warm against his neck. Eames turns and stumbles, inelegant, and their noses bump together.
"You little shit," says Eames -- but it comes out all wrong. Fond.
Arthur just keeps laughing. Eames has seen Arthur laugh for many reasons: derision, anger, schadenfreude. Never for mischief, though; never playfully. And his hand is still resting low on Eames' hip.
"I only caught you," Arthur says, "because I really don't know where you would've fallen to. And if we could get you out afterwards."
He's looking up at Eames through his eyelashes, lips parted slightly, and Eames knows the moment Arthur realises what he's doing. His breath catches. His shoulders stiffen.
He steps away, murmuring something about meeting Ariadne at the beach.
During dinner, Ariadne asks, "What are you going to do after you get out of here?"
"Take the most dangerous jobs I can find," Eames says. "Get piss drunk. And read actual books. Not necessarily in that order."
"Arthur?"
"Depends on what Dom's doing, I guess."
Ariadne makes a disbelieving noise. "Cobb? Seriously? Arthur, he's the reason we're all trapped down here. I don't care that he's the best, I am never working with that jackass again. What do you see in him, anyway?"
Eames has always wanted to know that, himself. But he sees Arthur's jaw go hard, and remembers why he never bothered to ask.
"Like you said, he's the best," Arthur says tightly.
Oblivious, Ariadne lifts an eyebrow. "Is it heavy, carrying around all of that emotional baggage for him?"
Arthur slams his chair backward and leaves the room.
"That was ... unexpected," Ariadne says finally.
"Not really," Eames replies.
Arthur has a capacity for absolute, unswerving dedication. It's a puzzle, a novelty, one of the things about him that drew Eames in all those years ago. What he hadn't known then, though -- what he'd had to learn later -- is that for dedication to be absolute, it also has to be singular.
Arthur's at the kitchen table, working on his gun collection. He has been all night. Eames walks in, intending to have toast and maybe tea -- but instead he ends up sitting across from Arthur, asking:
"Are you in love with him?"
They've been in Limbo for over a year now. Eames knows the answer; sometimes he thinks about nothing but. But he needs to hear Arthur say it.
"That's none of your fucking business."
"Tell me anyway."
Arthur's hands move over sleek metal, efficient. Pieces of a Beretta Px4 Storm come together, as he imagines them into existence with careful detail.
"There are different ways to love someone," he says finally. "Not all of them involve wanting to fuck."
Eames says the first thing that comes to mind, so that he doesn't have to process what he's really thinking: "Maybe you should get fucked more often. I'd say you need it."
"I fuck," Arthur says. He laughs, but it's a caricature of one. "I get fucked. I like it. I just don't like everything that comes with it."
"Ah."
"What."
"I get it. No commitment, no emotional baggage. You're not one for the morning after. Or for any sort of after at all." Eames' tone is inflectionless, and now he dips into mockery, saying, "There are many different ways to fuck someone, and not all of them involve love."
Arthur's hands go still, and he puts the pieces of the gun down on the table. "And sometimes you want both, but you can't always get what you want."
He says it quietly, staring off into space. Eames waits as long as he can, but Arthur doesn't say anything else.
Arthur needs a fight.
He doesn't know it, but Eames can see the coiled energy in his body, strung tight like a violin string. When Arthur snaps, Eames wants it to be worth it.
"Put on a suit," Eames tells him, one evening at sunset.
"Why?"
"We're going out."
Arthur gives him a curious look, but he complies.
They walk inland, past the forested area Ariadne built after Eames complained that flatlands weren't much of a view. In a quarter of an hour, they come to a glass-windowed apartment building standing in the middle of a field. Eames, mock-gracious, holds the elevator doors open for Arthur and they ride it up twenty floors to the top.
At the edge of the flat cement roof, there's a small table and two folding chairs. On the table is a bottle of red wine.
Arthur quirks an eyebrow and sits. Eames pours two wineglasses and offers Arthur one.
He waits out the expectant silence until Arthur's finished his wine. Then he stands up, smiles, and says, "I'm going to take the elevator down. You're going to take the stairs. There's a platoon's worth of projections between you and the lobby. U.S. Marines. Their objective is to keep you from getting there alive."
"Jesus Christ," Arthur says, voice low.
"I designed the building so that the stairs are on opposite ends of each floor. It should make things more interesting," Eames says, walking backwards towards the elevator. "Oh, and watch out for the minefield on floor nine."
"I'm unarmed," Arthur says. He grins, and it's predatory. "I'm unprepared. And I'm wearing four thousand dollars' worth of Zegna."
He's looking at Eames like he wants to fuck him.
"Have fun," Eames says, as the elevator doors start to shut. "I'll be waiting for you at home."
Eames is on the front steps, smoking and attempting to read a book, when Arthur walks out of the forest.
He's covered in blood; his hair is a mess; he looks more alive than Eames has seen him this entire time in Limbo. Along the way he's lost his suit jacket and his tie, and his shirt is missing buttons. He's smiling -- no man should be allowed to have dimples like those while carrying a Glock.
Arthur stops right in front of Eames, throwing aside the gun. He grabs Eames by the tie and drags him to his feet, pulling him into the house.
"They weren't shooting to kill, motherfucker," he growls. "Don't think I couldn't tell."
Eames laughs, stumbling up the stairs behind Arthur. "Was it good for you anyway, darling?"
Arthur locks the door of his room behind him and shoves Eames down onto his bed.
"Fuck yes," he says, dropping to his knees.
He fumbles Eames' shirt half-off, then gives up and goes for his pants. Before Eames has a chance to even touch him, he's got a hand wrapped around Eames' cock, jacking it off as he sucks on the head, dragging his tongue over it in long, flat strokes.
"Shit, what are you -- oh, god, please --"
Arthur slides his mouth all the way down. He takes it deep enough to choke, making noises of pleasure that vibrate against Eames' cock, when he has enough breath to. At some point Eames realises that Arthur's taken off his pants and is reaching down to slick himself with his own fingers. Eames goes dizzy with want.
Arthur climbs into his lap, kissing him. His mouth is messy with spit and precome, and he lets out a sweet little moan when Eames' cock nudges up against his ass.
"Fuck, Eames -- you have no idea how much I wanted this --"
Eames laughs, low in his throat, and rolls his hips. "I do, actually."
Arthur sinks down in one smooth movement, hot silky heat, and starts to fuck himself open on Eames' cock.
The desperation melts out of him, and he falls apart, slutty and unashamed. He goes incoherent, rocking his hips back and forth, and his hands are everywhere -- spread on Eames' chest, carding through his hair; touching himself, fisting his own cock like he can't get enough.
Eames loses track of how long they fuck for.
Every time one of them is close to coming, Arthur slows it right down, to an unhurried, rhythmic clench of his ass, kissing Eames carefully until he's trembling, starved for more. It's frustrating and drawn-out and gorgeous. Eames feels a fever building inside of him, skin over-sensitised from hovering close to orgasm for so long.
Arthur starts to rock his hips again, and Eames makes a pleading noise, but Arthur just smiles and shakes his head. He sucks a bruise into Eames' neck.
Ghosting his fingers down Eames' spine, Arthur settles them in the small of his back, stroking there. He must know what that touch does to Eames; he can't not. "God, I could fuck you forever," he says. His lips move along Eames' jawline and then he whispers, "Okay. Make me come."
Eames shudders, can feel himself jerk inside of Arthur. He wraps a hand around Arthur's cock, pulls once, twice, and that's all it takes -- Arthur clenches around him, coming, eyes fluttering shut.
His body goes languid, his smile content, but he keeps working himself up and down on Eames' cock, achingly slow. Open-mouthed and sloppy, he keeps kissing Eames, until Eames surrenders and lets Arthur bring him closer and closer to the edge, in waves, and when he finally does come --
Jesus fuck.
By the time the world starts to make sense again, Eames is on his back, Arthur curled up beside him, head resting on his chest. They're both shaking a little. Eames breathes, and Arthur presses their mouths together, over and over.
part two >>
characters: Arthur/Eames
rating: NC-17
words: ~13,000
summary: Arthur forgets; Eames waits.
notes: This is the very first Inception story I started, way back in August. I think I am probably the slowest writer in fandom. Thanks to chibi_lurrel, deepsix (extra thanks for this meta; I couldn't quite make the characterisations work till I read it!), and jibrailis for the beta work -- you are all wonderful. ♥ Oh, and apologies to Freud and Lacan. I know it's bad academic practice to misinterpret quotations and appropriate them for gay porn. Sorry, dudes.
--
No discipline of forgetting
[1]
At the edge of the cliff, Eames looks down into the ocean.
He'd washed up on the shore of his unconscious alone, and it hadn't felt right. So he'd walked the path cut into the cliffside, searching -- but there wasn't anyone else. Maybe his mind has just been playing tricks on itself. Maybe it's time to go.
One step is all he needs to wake up. Eames tilts forward, flirting with the edge --
-- and then there are hands on his waist, pulling him back, and he stumbles into a warm body.
He turns. A piece of Arthur's hair brushes his forehead, they're that close.
"God, you --" Arthur says, a little breathless. He backs them away from the edge, his hands steady on Eames' waist. "You scared me. Don't jump yet, okay?"
"Okay," Eames says easily. Then he realises, "I think I was looking for you."
Arthur holds Eames in his arms for another moment, just looking into his face. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Then he blinks, as if noticing how close they're standing. He steps back.
"I was looking, too. But not for you," he says, like it's a simple fact.
"For ... ?"
Arthur makes a noise of frustration, low in his throat, and shakes his head. "Fuck, I still can't remember."
The passage of time is strange in Limbo.
Side-by-side, they search for what seems like hours. On a hunch, Eames dreams up a watch and checks it at intervals. Discreetly -- Arthur's refused to let them build things, and Eames doesn't want to anger him.
The watch eventually confirms his hunch: it hasn't been hours, it's been days.
Memory is deceptive, here. Periods of sameness collapse inwards, turning on points of difference. A two-minute conversation is perceived as two minutes, but so are hours of silent walking. No wonder it's so easy to lose yourself.
"I know," Arthur says, when he explains. "Dom's told me a little about what it's like."
In the end, they don't find anything but exhaustion, so Arthur picks a sheltered spot and they sleep -- within reaching distance, but facing in opposite directions.
Eames wakes up. Arthur's watching him, and from the set of his shoulders, he has been for a while. He's sitting cross-legged, with his head propped up on his hand.
"Hi," he says.
"Hi yourself," Eames replies, smiling lazily. He sits up and stretches the stiffness out of his shoulders. "Did you sleep at all?"
"A bit."
Arthur's hair is sleep-mussed and the top two buttons of his shirt are undone. But he ruins the effect by sitting up straight, suddenly all business. There's a gun on the ground next to him. "We should go," he says.
"You're certain there's nothing here?"
"No. But we can't stay."
Eames nods. He gets to his feet and offers Arthur a hand up, which Arthur accepts. "How do you want it?"
"I was thinking Barcelona," Arthur says. "Do me first."
"Too messy. I prefer not to literally have your blood on my hands, if that's all right. How about that time in Mumbai?"
"That's fine." Arthur lets Eames come up behind him, relaxing into the curve of his arms. It's funny: the only time he gets to touch Arthur like this is when he's about to snap his neck.
"Alright?"
"I'm waiting."
It's quick and painless. Arthur crumples; Eames catches him, laying his body down gently. Then he goes to pick up the gun. And when he turns back, Arthur's getting to his feet.
"Eames?" Arthur says, confused. He's rubbing at his neck, but he seems whole and unbroken.
They try it again. And again. Five different times, in five different ways. Finally Arthur says, "Fuck this," and they give up.
"What the hell, Eames."
"I have no idea," Eames replies. "I don't exactly frequent Limbo. My best guess is that your instincts were right, and there is someone else here. Someone your subconscious knows we can't leave without, maybe. We'll have to keep looking."
"Not we," Arthur says. "You might be able to leave. You haven't tried yet."
"And I'm not going to."
Arthur looks at him for a long moment. Then he says, "Okay." He says it in the tone most people use to say thank you.
"Shall we go?"
"Not we," Arthur says, again. "Splitting up means covering more area. The clifftop where I found you -- I'll go back there in one year. Be there."
"Don't leave --"
Arthur arches an eyebrow.
"Yet," Eames finishes, with a grin.
He concentrates for a moment, then opens his hand. Resting on his palm are two identical silver pocketwatches, antique in design. Their faces display a circle cut into twelve unnumbered portions.
He tosses one to Arthur. "It counts down the month, not the hour."
Arthur slides it into the top pocket of his shirt, a simple white button-down. He nods once, a tiny smile on his lips, and then leaves. Except for Arthur's footsteps on the grass, it's silent.
Eames watches him walk away until his back is just a hard, dark line standing up against the horizon.
At first, Eames travels.
Since neither he nor Arthur have ever been in Limbo before, the landscape is just a vacancy. It's never literally empty -- the mind can't present disunities and impossibilities, so it fills the space before blankness can be perceived. But Limbo can only draw upon his memories, so that wherever he goes he just discovers places he's been before, emptied of people.
He walks. He thinks. He thinks about Arthur: his condescension, his casually cruel mouth.
It's Eames' job to deceive, to blur the truth. When the situation calls for it, he'll lie to himself -- everyone does; it's naive to pretend otherwise. But Arthur is one truth he can't get around.
Eventually, Eames finds himself walking in unfamiliar territory. Arthur's memories.
There are endless indistinguishable cities, coalescing into one; the vistas of Afghanistan's gunfire-burnt deserts; the university in Paris; the street where the Cobbs moved after Mal gave birth to James; a sixteen-story hotel in Prague where all of the rooms are empty, except for 228.
Eames remembers that room, that hotel. It's his memory, too. He opens the door and steps inside.
Mal dies. Eames gets a call from Arthur at two in the morning.
Arthur doesn't ask him to, not even obliquely, but Eames drives three hours through the pouring rain to get to him.
There's been something between them for so long that Eames forgets how it started. It makes Arthur touch too much, makes Eames let those touches linger -- too long, for someone whose body is so precise he can mimic nervous tics you didn't even know you had. It comes between them like a knife twisting underneath skin. It never comes to anything.
Eames baits; Arthur snaps. When it comes to the kick, Arthur's never gentle. Maybe this should matter, but it doesn't.
When Eames gets there, the room door is open a crack. Arthur sits on the edge of the bed, straight-backed, an unopened bottle of vodka in his right hand.
Eames closes the door behind him. "I'm surprised you're not in L.A. already."
"Couldn't get a flight out till tomorrow morning."
Arthur's left the window wide open. It's freezing cold, but he doesn't seem to notice. Eames goes to stand in front of Arthur; puts a hand on his shoulder, and leaves it there. They stay like that for a few minutes, not looking at each other. He's thinking about Mal, and he knows Arthur is, too.
Arthur smashes the bottle against the floor.
"For the love of god," he says, as the vodka seeps into the carpet, "don't fucking cry, I can't fucking deal with that right now."
"Jesus, Arthur. I'm not."
Arthur stands. They're so close that Eames can feel the rise and fall of Arthur's breathing in his own chest, and heat flares at the base of his spine.
Gently, Arthur puts a hand to Eames' face and brushes a thumb across his eyelashes. It comes away wet. He drags the wetness down Eames' cheek; his thumb nudges up against Eames' lips, then between them.
Eames tastes salt.
Arthur kisses him, with a desperation that's expected and a sweet desire that isn't. This is the first time they've done this, and the thought makes Eames go still, paralysed with want. Arthur looks at him, a question in his eyes.
Instead of answering it, Eames pushes him down to the bed, hands on Arthur's jaw, undoing the buttons of his shirt, sliding off his pants to get at the skin he's finally allowed to touch. He tries to be as gentle as he can, but want makes him careless.
Arthur cries out, and it's the first helpless noise Eames has ever heard from him.
There's a thin line of blood cut across Arthur's thigh, from where a shard of broken glass got pressed between them. Arthur just shakes his head and pulls off Eames' shirt, efficient hands fumbling at the zip of his pants. "It's not deep," he insists, rough and low.
Without thinking about it, Eames leans down, pressing a kiss there, and when he takes Arthur's cock into his mouth he tastes an edge of coppery blood. He doesn't hold back; he uses everything he knows to make Arthur feel, to forget.
Then he wraps his hand around Arthur's cock, spit-slick, jacking him off in slow pulls as he moves upwards to kiss him. It's hot and messy and Arthur melts right into it, content to cling to Eames and lick away the taste of himself. He kisses like he's helpless, pliant and needy, and Eames just wants to hold Arthur down and rut against him until they both come.
Arthur moves his hips, though, pleadingly -- and it's a foreign thought, for a man with few attachments, but Eames wants to take care of Arthur, in any way that Arthur will let him. It won't be enough, but he'll do what he can. He tracks kisses down Arthur's neck, his chest, his stomach, and kneels between his legs again, looking up at him.
"Fuck my mouth," Eames says, voice wrecked. "Fuck my mouth until you come," and Arthur moans like it's been ripped from him.
Eames slips the head of Arthur's cock between his lips. It rubs against the back of his throat as Arthur thrusts into him, over and over, filling him up more than a kiss ever could. He loses himself to the sensation, to the knowledge that Arthur is using his mouth to take what he needs. It isn't long before he comes, and Eames is gentle, holding Arthur's softening cock in his mouth as he shakes with the aftershocks. When he climbs up on the bed, Arthur reaches for his cock, but Eames brushes his hand away.
"Eames?" he says uncertainly.
Eames just shakes his head, stripping off the rest of their clothes. He's still hard, aching for it, but it doesn't matter -- Arthur's sleepy and unthinking and calm, and Eames wants it to remain that way.
"Stay," Eames says, curling around Arthur. He presses his lips against Arthur's skin.
The next morning, Arthur's gone. He's cleaned up the glass, the spilled vodka, but hasn't left a trace of himself.
After that, Arthur and Dom drop off-grid and stay there for months. The next time he contacts Eames, it's with a job offer. They go back to their endless, circling dance, like that night had just been a misstep.
Can you lose something if you never had it in the first place?
Eames wants Arthur, and he knows that Arthur wants him -- but that's not what Arthur needs right now. What he needs is someone he can rely on, a number that he can call for backup. A forger. A rival, sometimes; someone who will challenge him and keep him sharp on the job. A way to get Dom out of a Kenyan prison. A list of trustworthy chemists. A replacement PASIV. An experimental compound that's supposed to make projections more docile.
Eames gives it all to him, and loses track, after a while. The one thing Arthur never seems to need again is a warm body in the night.
[2]
Eames leaves the memory, shutting the door behind him.
Arthur spooks easily. If he realises Eames is following his memories through Limbo, he might not come back, when the year's up. Eames has seen him angrier over less.
Eames can't seem to stop stumbling into places where Arthur's been. So he heads back to the beach.
When he gets there, he finds Ariadne sitting cross-legged in front of a fire on the clifftop.
"Eames!"
It's been so long since he had anything but his own thoughts for company that he sweeps her off her feet in a hug. As he sets her down again, he laughs. "Sorry I'm so happy that you died."
Ariadne lets out a short laugh. "It's weird," she says softly. "I don't remember it. Dying, I mean. I just woke up here."
"That's probably for the best." Eames has been dying in dreams for ten years, but he's still not used to having pieces of flesh and muscle ripped from his bones.
"Yeah," she says, looking out at the ocean. "Yeah, you're right. Anyway, I think I just got here, but it's hard to tell. How long for you?"
"A bit over five months. Absolute fucking boredom. There's nothing to discover, unless you create it yourself."
"Then why don't you?"
"I can't," Eames says, surprised. "Objects, I can do. Or calling up places from memory. But I can't build from scratch. I'm not an architect."
"Mal built in Limbo, and she wasn't an architect."
"True," Eames admits. Mal had been a chemist; experimenting with sedation and dreams within dreams had been her idea, originally. "How did you know that?"
Ariadne grins, a little slyly. After a pause she says, "I bullied Cobb into telling me -- but you're changing the topic, don't think I can't tell. Come on, try it. Build something. If I can do it, you can do it."
"Alright."
Eames walks to the edge of the cliff. Then he turns to face the beach and brings his hands up, imagining something he'd never have the skill to build normally. Parallel to his motion, an intricate structure rises and shakes off sand: it's what a sandcastle on a beach might look like, if the Greeks had constructed it with marble in the middle of the Hellenistic age.
"My god," Eames says wonderingly. It's so easy here -- too easy.
After a few months, Eames and Ariadne are naturalised citizens of Limbo, sort of. They live in the marble sandcastle, making the sun rise and set every day, waiting for Arthur to come back.
At first, Eames works on refining his forges, but it's hardly practice. In fact, it's dangerous. Forging in Limbo is addictively simple: it's just as easy to be who you're not as who you are. Eames tries not to do it too often.
Ariadne spends most of her time building. She's intensely private about it, spending hours alone and not letting Eames see the finished results -- though she will talk at length about impossible architecture and pushing the laws of physics. It's all stuff he's heard from Dom before, and Eames listens indulgently. Just as Eames suspected, Ariadne and Dom have one thing in common: neither give a damn about reality. They just want to break its rules, consequences be damned. It's one of the things Eames loves about a good architect. It's one of the things he'll never forgive Dom for.
One afternoon, when Ariadne's down at the beach, Eames hears a knock on the front door. He goes to open it.
"Hi," Arthur says, a small smile on his face.
He's not looking past Eames; he's not looking for something that Eames doesn't have. He's just looking, a little tentatively, at Eames. For the last seven years, Eames has tried to get Arthur to look at him like that. Something clenches in his chest.
Eames reaches into his pocket. The antique silver pocketwatch is there, resting next to his poker chip; it always is. He makes a show of consulting the hands. Six o'clock, so it's been six months since he and Arthur split up to search Limbo. Arthur's early. He'd said he wouldn't return for a year.
"Did you miss me too much?" Eames says, holding up the watch with a grin. "You weren't supposed to be home till midnight -- but look, you're just in time for dinner."
Arthur's smile flickers, and Eames finds that he can breathe again.
"I'm tired," Arthur says. The set of his shoulders says it, too. "Are you going to let me in?"
"Darling. As if I could keep you out."
Whoever they're looking for, it's not Ariadne.
They try to leave, but just like the last time, the kick doesn't work -- not on Arthur, at least. He throws down his gun in disgust. "Look," he says, running a hand through his hair. "I can take care of myself. You should get out of here."
"I'd rather wait," Eames says casually.
Startled, Arthur looks at him. "You always wait for me, don't you."
"I guess I do," Eames says. He laughs; the heat in Arthur's voice makes him feel strange, owned.
"If he's staying, I'm staying," Ariadne says.
Arthur frowns. "I'm not going to pretend I want to be abandoned, but -- why? There's nothing here for you."
"It's not like I can get bored here. Not for a while, anyway," Ariadne says. "You just have to build things."
The three of them stay up late talking. In Limbo, the nights don't get cold if you don't want them to, and Ariadne puts on a meteor shower, just to show off. At sunrise, there's an argument: Arthur insists on searching alone. He says that Eames and Ariadne have to stay put, as a failsafe. That it's easier to get lost in Limbo if you're on the move. That he needs someplace to return to, someone to come looking for him if he doesn't come back.
It's all true, but it's not the truth.
Arthur, Eames knows, is angry at himself: for missing Fischer's militarisation, for not being able to find what he's looking for. He's always taken on his failures as a personal burden. They're something he doesn't share, or give up on.
"It's not negotiable," Arthur says finally. "If you don't stay here, Eames, you don't get to stay." He slams a gun down on the table.
"Alright -- alright, Arthur. Calm down."
Thanks to time distortion, they can stay in Limbo for years, as long as they remember it isn't real. Eames hates the idea of just waiting, though. Before he can breach the topic, Ariadne does it for him: "You know, even you need a break. Come visit us every once in a while."
"Maybe."
"I had a thought," Eames says after a moment. "Remaining in one place does have its benefits."
He outlines the concept, and they implement it, scattering jarring mistakes everywhere like little totems -- lightbulbs that burn cool green instead of warm yellow, clothing without seams, oddly-shaped electrical sockets. Safeguards to help them remember.
"And what if you forget?" Eames asks Arthur, after they're done.
"I won't."
[3]
Upon moving in, Arthur destroys the castle. He snaps his fingers, cool and arrogant, and it crumbles.
Then he grins, and says to Ariadne, "Build with me."
Arthur creates a Penrose staircase, reconstructing a structure around it. Eames sprawls in the sand, watching. For hours, Arthur and Ariadne bicker and laugh and tear apart each others' work; Arthur's smiling the whole time, though he doesn't seem to realise it.
The house, when it's done, exists at strange angles from the ground and hurts to look at. Arthur thinks it's a nice security feature. The rooms are distributed across four "floors," and Eames wants his room to be at the top, but of course that has no meaning when the stairs go up or down at the same time.
"Don't think about the paradox while you're on the stairs," Ariadne warns him.
Eames shrugs. "I won't. You know I'm not like you two. I don't get off on impossible geometry."
"Sorry."
"Hm?" Eames isn't paying attention; he's smiling a little, watching Arthur add a series of fire escapes. Only Arthur would be worried about exit routes in a place where there's no threat to speak of.
"Well, there aren't any people here," Ariadne says. "You must be bored." She looks from Eames to Arthur, then says, "Or maybe not."
On the sixth morning after Arthur comes back, Eames stumbles down the staircase to find Ariadne eating Cheerios out of the box and a note on the kitchen table.
Gone again for a while. Have to keep looking. Don't fucking touch anything in my closet, Eames.
Eames puts the kettle on, movements automatic. Making tea is one of his rituals, when he needs a ritual. The others involve alcohol, but losing grip on reality is not such a good idea here.
"He'll be back, Eames."
"I know that," Eames says. He rummages in the cupboard for a mug and some Earl Grey, and then waits as the water boils.
A few weeks later, Eames walks into the kitchen, yawning.
Arthur is making pancakes. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbows. There's flour on his tie. The entire scene is so domestic, so dreamlike, that Eames instinctively reaches into his pocket for his totem.
This is when he realises he's wearing boxers, and nothing else.
Arthur's gaze wanders down his body and back up again. And then he smiles, and there's a dimple involved.
Eames can't find anything better to say than, "The Arthur I know can't cook."
Arthur shrugs. "I do pancakes and sandwiches. You like maple syrup?"
The kitchen is different, Eames realises. The countertops are granite, the tap is stainless steel. There's an espresso maker plugged in next to the toaster. All of these are things that Eames has seen in Arthur's apartment before. Arthur put them here, deliberately.
So Eames sits down at the table, where there's a place setting and a glass of milk waiting, and lets Arthur serve him pancakes with maple syrup. For the first time in Limbo, Arthur eats with him. It's only been half a week since Arthur left, and this time, he stays for two.
Arthur's in front of the mirror, trying to put himself together. He can't seem to decide on a tie, and the frustration shows on his face. Eames knows the tie isn't the problem.
"You're not happy, darling."
Arthur meets his eyes in the mirror. "Good job. So fucking what."
"So," Eames says, and then stops.
Sadness is something for other people: Arthur gets the job done. Eames has always seen it as a mark of competence, but he also remembers what things were like before Mal died. Arthur's entire posture had been different. He'd worn embarrassingly colourful ties.
"Why would I be happy? We're trapped here. We have been for eight months. Because I can't do my goddamn job."
"It's not your job to singlehandedly track down a vague hunch in the middle of Limbo," Eames says gently. "Come here." He chooses a tie at random and holds it up.
Obediently, Arthur steps back so that he can put it on. He closes his eyes, leaning into Eames' touch.
When Arthur lets his guard down, his body discipline goes to shit.
Most people are duped by the poker face, the three-piece suits. Cobb's point man is inscrutable, they say. I can never tell what's going on in his head. But Eames looks closer, and he knows that Arthur's thoughts and desires are written straight into the movements of his hands and his hips. He'll stand too close, or put that steadying palm in the small of Eames' back just a few inches too low. He'll string Eames out over the course of a night with half-smiles and lingering touches. And he'll do it all with sweet obliviousness, because he has no idea what his body is saying.
Eames finishes knotting a double Windsor, and pulls it snug. He brushes his fingers against Arthur's throat, noticing how Arthur's breath catches.
It's unbearable to know how much Arthur wants him, and won't act on it.
While Arthur's gone, Eames and Ariadne sometimes walk along the beach together. They talk, or they're just silent. It's good to get out of the house, to stare out at the endless ocean and be reminded.
"What's that?"
There's a glint of metal in the sand. Strange. Things don't just wash up in Limbo; they have to be created first, and Eames doesn't remember creating anything around here.
Ariadne reaches down, slipping the thing into her pocket.
"Not going to show me?"
"I'd rather not," she says with a shrug. "Just scraps from something I tried to build yesterday -- it fell apart. Kind of embarrassing, actually."
"Alright." Eames figures it's none of his business. They all need to hold onto something in Limbo, even if it's just a secret.
"What are you hiding from me?"
Arthur strips the blankets off of Eames' bed, steals his pillow, and rolls him onto the hardwood floor. The he grabs him by the bicep and hauls him down to the living room.
Eames blinks. There's a small safe built into the wall right above the fireplace.
"It's not mine," Arthur says.
It's not mine, either, Eames is about to say -- but then again it might be. If he'd wanted to hide something from himself, this is how he'd do it. He wonders if he'd puzzled out Ariadne's secret, and put it here. If it's bad enough to hide, shouldn't he ... ? Well, no. He should trust his own mind, if he'd decided not to remember.
He says, "Everyone has something they'd rather forget."
Arthur looks at Eames like he wants to hit him. He steps into Eames' space like he's going to. And then he does, and Eames clutches at his jaw and says, "Jesus fuck." He looks down and there's blood on the carpet.
But Arthur doesn't look at the safe again before he walks out of the room, and Eames knows he won't try to break into it.
That afternoon he creates an Escher print he remembers seeing in Arthur's apartment once, the one where the hands are drawing each other. He places it overtop the safe. He'd rather not wonder about what he's chosen to forget every time he walks into the room, though he will remember the punch.
Arthur leaves. Arthur comes back.
He used to go like a thief in the night, sometimes leaving a note, sometimes not bothering. Now he waits until after dinner, so that Eames and Ariadne can see him off. Eames touches Arthur sometimes, as he's saying goodbye, and gets away with it. A hand on his shoulder, on his waist. He can't help it -- Limbo is boundless. If someone leaves intentionally, there's almost no way of finding them. Every time Arthur walks away could be the last time.
But he always comes back.
"Guess you just can't stay away, love," Eames says, when Arthur slips in the door one day at dawn.
"Guess not," says Arthur.
He shrugs out of his coat and lets Eames hang it up for him. He's impassive, but everything in his posture telegraphs anger. "Fuck this," he says. "Fuck this place. I used to be able to find anything I wanted."
"I know. I've tried to hide from you on more than one occasion, Arthur. It never works."
The look Arthur directs at him is vicious and fond at the same time. "We both knew you wanted to be found." Which is true, but it hadn't mattered, because Arthur had never come looking for him in person.
[4]
The leaves fall from the trees; snow falls from a white sky. Things settle in, a bit.
Arthur goes away less often, and stays for longer. Eames finds ways to keep him happy while he's there. He teaches Arthur to cook, and they spend evenings washing dishes together even though they don't have to. He lets Arthur beat him at chess. They spar. They play poker with Ariadne around the kitchen table at midnight.
Arthur discovers the library, which Eames has been working on for months.
All you have in Limbo is what you can create. If you remember the cracked spine of a novel but not the first hundred pages, that's all you have. To say that Eames' memory is good is an understatement -- during information-heavy extractions, the ability to recall is invaluable. The library has floor-to-ceiling shelves, containing Eames' approximations of everything from Austen to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (In which Sirius doesn't die. It's nice to misremember, sometimes.)
"I'm impressed," Arthur says, looking around.
"I'm well-read," Eames replies.
"Derrida, Baudrillard, Descartes ..." Arthur tilts his head, examining the titles. As he does, he trails a long finger down the spine of each, and Eames feels a shiver go up his own. "... Nietzsche, Borges, Barthes -- Jesus, Eames, do you spend all of your spare time being a pretentious asshole? Isn't it exhausting?"
"Contrary to rumour," Eames says amusedly, "I got into the dreamsharing business through academic channels, not criminal ones. That part came later."
Arthur raises a disbelieving eyebrow, sliding a book off the shelf one-handed and flipping it open. The Interpretation of Dreams, by Freud.
"Oh, don't try to read that." Eames splays his fingers over Arthur's on the book's spine, snapping it shut. He lets his palm rest there, on Arthur's wrist. "Didn't like it much, hardly wanted to remember it. It's probably missing sections."
"Ironic," Arthur says dryly, but Eames is paying more attention to the fact that Arthur hasn't moved his hand away.
They're on the Penrose staircase.
Eames, walking up to his room, doesn't hear Arthur come up behind him -- not until Arthur's pressed against the length of his back, arms wrapped around his waist and lips brushing the curve of his ear.
"Arthur --" Eames says, unsure.
"Guess what?"
"I have no idea," Eames says, and it's true. He can't think of anything, beyond the fact that he can feel the rise and fall of Arthur's chest as he breathes.
Which is why he isn't expecting it when Arthur nudges his hips into Eames' ass and whispers:
"Paradox."
The stairs drop away in front of him, just as he loses his balance --
And then he's being tugged back, with Arthur's laughter warm against his neck. Eames turns and stumbles, inelegant, and their noses bump together.
"You little shit," says Eames -- but it comes out all wrong. Fond.
Arthur just keeps laughing. Eames has seen Arthur laugh for many reasons: derision, anger, schadenfreude. Never for mischief, though; never playfully. And his hand is still resting low on Eames' hip.
"I only caught you," Arthur says, "because I really don't know where you would've fallen to. And if we could get you out afterwards."
He's looking up at Eames through his eyelashes, lips parted slightly, and Eames knows the moment Arthur realises what he's doing. His breath catches. His shoulders stiffen.
He steps away, murmuring something about meeting Ariadne at the beach.
During dinner, Ariadne asks, "What are you going to do after you get out of here?"
"Take the most dangerous jobs I can find," Eames says. "Get piss drunk. And read actual books. Not necessarily in that order."
"Arthur?"
"Depends on what Dom's doing, I guess."
Ariadne makes a disbelieving noise. "Cobb? Seriously? Arthur, he's the reason we're all trapped down here. I don't care that he's the best, I am never working with that jackass again. What do you see in him, anyway?"
Eames has always wanted to know that, himself. But he sees Arthur's jaw go hard, and remembers why he never bothered to ask.
"Like you said, he's the best," Arthur says tightly.
Oblivious, Ariadne lifts an eyebrow. "Is it heavy, carrying around all of that emotional baggage for him?"
Arthur slams his chair backward and leaves the room.
"That was ... unexpected," Ariadne says finally.
"Not really," Eames replies.
Arthur has a capacity for absolute, unswerving dedication. It's a puzzle, a novelty, one of the things about him that drew Eames in all those years ago. What he hadn't known then, though -- what he'd had to learn later -- is that for dedication to be absolute, it also has to be singular.
Arthur's at the kitchen table, working on his gun collection. He has been all night. Eames walks in, intending to have toast and maybe tea -- but instead he ends up sitting across from Arthur, asking:
"Are you in love with him?"
They've been in Limbo for over a year now. Eames knows the answer; sometimes he thinks about nothing but. But he needs to hear Arthur say it.
"That's none of your fucking business."
"Tell me anyway."
Arthur's hands move over sleek metal, efficient. Pieces of a Beretta Px4 Storm come together, as he imagines them into existence with careful detail.
"There are different ways to love someone," he says finally. "Not all of them involve wanting to fuck."
Eames says the first thing that comes to mind, so that he doesn't have to process what he's really thinking: "Maybe you should get fucked more often. I'd say you need it."
"I fuck," Arthur says. He laughs, but it's a caricature of one. "I get fucked. I like it. I just don't like everything that comes with it."
"Ah."
"What."
"I get it. No commitment, no emotional baggage. You're not one for the morning after. Or for any sort of after at all." Eames' tone is inflectionless, and now he dips into mockery, saying, "There are many different ways to fuck someone, and not all of them involve love."
Arthur's hands go still, and he puts the pieces of the gun down on the table. "And sometimes you want both, but you can't always get what you want."
He says it quietly, staring off into space. Eames waits as long as he can, but Arthur doesn't say anything else.
Arthur needs a fight.
He doesn't know it, but Eames can see the coiled energy in his body, strung tight like a violin string. When Arthur snaps, Eames wants it to be worth it.
"Put on a suit," Eames tells him, one evening at sunset.
"Why?"
"We're going out."
Arthur gives him a curious look, but he complies.
They walk inland, past the forested area Ariadne built after Eames complained that flatlands weren't much of a view. In a quarter of an hour, they come to a glass-windowed apartment building standing in the middle of a field. Eames, mock-gracious, holds the elevator doors open for Arthur and they ride it up twenty floors to the top.
At the edge of the flat cement roof, there's a small table and two folding chairs. On the table is a bottle of red wine.
Arthur quirks an eyebrow and sits. Eames pours two wineglasses and offers Arthur one.
He waits out the expectant silence until Arthur's finished his wine. Then he stands up, smiles, and says, "I'm going to take the elevator down. You're going to take the stairs. There's a platoon's worth of projections between you and the lobby. U.S. Marines. Their objective is to keep you from getting there alive."
"Jesus Christ," Arthur says, voice low.
"I designed the building so that the stairs are on opposite ends of each floor. It should make things more interesting," Eames says, walking backwards towards the elevator. "Oh, and watch out for the minefield on floor nine."
"I'm unarmed," Arthur says. He grins, and it's predatory. "I'm unprepared. And I'm wearing four thousand dollars' worth of Zegna."
He's looking at Eames like he wants to fuck him.
"Have fun," Eames says, as the elevator doors start to shut. "I'll be waiting for you at home."
Eames is on the front steps, smoking and attempting to read a book, when Arthur walks out of the forest.
He's covered in blood; his hair is a mess; he looks more alive than Eames has seen him this entire time in Limbo. Along the way he's lost his suit jacket and his tie, and his shirt is missing buttons. He's smiling -- no man should be allowed to have dimples like those while carrying a Glock.
Arthur stops right in front of Eames, throwing aside the gun. He grabs Eames by the tie and drags him to his feet, pulling him into the house.
"They weren't shooting to kill, motherfucker," he growls. "Don't think I couldn't tell."
Eames laughs, stumbling up the stairs behind Arthur. "Was it good for you anyway, darling?"
Arthur locks the door of his room behind him and shoves Eames down onto his bed.
"Fuck yes," he says, dropping to his knees.
He fumbles Eames' shirt half-off, then gives up and goes for his pants. Before Eames has a chance to even touch him, he's got a hand wrapped around Eames' cock, jacking it off as he sucks on the head, dragging his tongue over it in long, flat strokes.
"Shit, what are you -- oh, god, please --"
Arthur slides his mouth all the way down. He takes it deep enough to choke, making noises of pleasure that vibrate against Eames' cock, when he has enough breath to. At some point Eames realises that Arthur's taken off his pants and is reaching down to slick himself with his own fingers. Eames goes dizzy with want.
Arthur climbs into his lap, kissing him. His mouth is messy with spit and precome, and he lets out a sweet little moan when Eames' cock nudges up against his ass.
"Fuck, Eames -- you have no idea how much I wanted this --"
Eames laughs, low in his throat, and rolls his hips. "I do, actually."
Arthur sinks down in one smooth movement, hot silky heat, and starts to fuck himself open on Eames' cock.
The desperation melts out of him, and he falls apart, slutty and unashamed. He goes incoherent, rocking his hips back and forth, and his hands are everywhere -- spread on Eames' chest, carding through his hair; touching himself, fisting his own cock like he can't get enough.
Eames loses track of how long they fuck for.
Every time one of them is close to coming, Arthur slows it right down, to an unhurried, rhythmic clench of his ass, kissing Eames carefully until he's trembling, starved for more. It's frustrating and drawn-out and gorgeous. Eames feels a fever building inside of him, skin over-sensitised from hovering close to orgasm for so long.
Arthur starts to rock his hips again, and Eames makes a pleading noise, but Arthur just smiles and shakes his head. He sucks a bruise into Eames' neck.
Ghosting his fingers down Eames' spine, Arthur settles them in the small of his back, stroking there. He must know what that touch does to Eames; he can't not. "God, I could fuck you forever," he says. His lips move along Eames' jawline and then he whispers, "Okay. Make me come."
Eames shudders, can feel himself jerk inside of Arthur. He wraps a hand around Arthur's cock, pulls once, twice, and that's all it takes -- Arthur clenches around him, coming, eyes fluttering shut.
His body goes languid, his smile content, but he keeps working himself up and down on Eames' cock, achingly slow. Open-mouthed and sloppy, he keeps kissing Eames, until Eames surrenders and lets Arthur bring him closer and closer to the edge, in waves, and when he finally does come --
Jesus fuck.
By the time the world starts to make sense again, Eames is on his back, Arthur curled up beside him, head resting on his chest. They're both shaking a little. Eames breathes, and Arthur presses their mouths together, over and over.
part two >>