Inception FIC: In Any Guise
Title: In Any Guise
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames, Eames/f
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~6,000
Notes: This story is for terribilita who won me in the helpbrazil2011 auction. She gave me the most fantastic prompts, including the one I ended up choosing: an Eames/Arthur story based on the movie Zerophilia, which is one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures. Big thanks to being_here for Britpicking and no_detective for doing her usual amazing job beta reading.
Summary: For Eames, Arthur is the loveliest and most maddening of creatures in any guise.
In Any Guise
By Lenore
It’s the set of her shoulders that catches Eames’s attention: impeccably straight, blades as delicate as a bird’s bones. Then there’s the tilt of her chin, the lovely ninety-five degree angle that declares: I am well aware of my own worth. It’s the lines of her body too, of course, the pale, elegant length of her throat, the way the black sheath she’s wearing whispers over her curves, the shapely legs that go on and on and on in black silk stockings. She wraps her fingers around her martini glass, and it reminds him, incongruously, of a prizefighter’s fist. Delicious.
Eames slides onto the barstool next to her. “Jameson neat, and another of whatever the lady is having,” he says to the bartender, but his smile is all for her.
Her forehead puckers with consternation. Her mouth twists into a sour little scowl. There’s an irritated impatience to her that suggests she’d rather shoot him than put up with any rubbish. Irritated impatience is Eames’s absolute weakness, and he does so enjoy spending these gravity-free evenings before a new job in pursuit of misadventure: getting drunk, getting laid, getting taught a lesson. This woman seems as if she could school him six ways from Sunday.
“Eames,” he says by way of introduction when their drinks arrive, clinking his glass against hers, barely managing not to grin at her glare of annoyance.
She takes a prim sip of her martini and doesn’t offer her own name in return. Eames is officially intrigued.
They drink in silence for a while. Eames doesn’t believe in rushing these things. The woman sneaks sidelong glances at him whenever she thinks he’s not looking.
Eames is always looking.
“Do you come here often?” he asks at last, and slips on a smile, confidential and a little sly. Usually this works like a charm.
“No,” the woman says in a clipped monotone.
Eames wonders what she sounds like when she begs, when she demands more and harder and again, when she’s naked and shaking like she’s about to fly apart. Does she spit curses like a docker? Does her voice go high and breathy and kittenish? He dearly wants to know.
“It must be my lucky evening then,” he tells her, watching the smooth arc of her arm as she lifts her glass. Her lips press to the rim, leaving behind a bow-shaped ruby smudge. That mouth makes him greedy.
“Seriously? That’s how you think you’re going to pick me up?” There’s an angry clench to her jaw, and God help him, Eames finds that attractive. He blames a certain point man for rewiring his erotic circuitry, for making bald fury so difficult to resist.
Certainly, Eames hasn’t missed the unwilling curiosity in the woman’s sidelong glances. There’s a spark of something in her dark eyes even when she’s glowering, something that looks suspiciously like want.
He leans in close to whisper in her ear, and she shivers at the touch of his breath. “It’s working, isn’t it? You’re going to let me take you to bed, aren’t you, love?” Eames believes in boldness the way other people believe in God.
The woman reacts sharply, an involuntary tremor of the body, and Eames is prematurely celebrating another victory for boldness when she abruptly slips off the stool and picks up her tiny beaded evening bag, turning her back on him resolutely.
He’s too surprised to wonder how he misread her so utterly, and then there’s nothing to figure out, because she swings back around impatiently. “Are you taking me to bed or not?”
No one has ever paid a tab faster in the whole long history of bars. Eames settles a hand at the small of the woman’s back and walks her outside and into a waiting cab. She sits stiffly, staring straight ahead, not allowing so much as their arms to brush. Eames wonders if Are you going to take me to bed? could possibly mean something other than sex.
At his hotel, she keeps her distance as they cross the lobby, stands apart in the lift, but occasionally her gaze slides helplessly over to him, lingers on his lips. He smiles a promise. I’m going to put this mouth all over you. She dips her head sharply, but he can see the pink creeping up her cheeks.
Delightful, and even more so when all that bashfulness vanishes the moment the door to his room closes behind them. She reels him in by his tie, grip strong and sure. She kisses like it’s a contest and she’s never lost at anything in her life.
“Slow down, yeah?” he murmurs, skating a finger up the length of her arm.
She grabs at his shirt, rifles the buttons open, yanks the fabric down off his shoulders.
“Or not,” he concedes agreeably and strips his shirt the rest of the way off.
A woman who knows what she wants and isn’t shy about getting it has never failed to turn Eames on, and this woman is gloriously unabashed about her desires. He strokes his fingers through her long dark hair and lets her do as she pleases: stare at his chest and kiss his nipples and drag her tongue again and again along the inky outlines of his tattoos.
“Let’s get you out of this, love.”
The woman lifts her arms, surprisingly obedient, and Eames drops her dress onto the carpet, earning himself a sharp, venomous glare. His grin comes quick and amused. So like-but no, he’s here with her. He won’t think of anyone else.
She’s more than enough to occupy his attention. He skims his palms up her sides, stroking his thumbs in lazy circles, making her shiver. His hands look enormous on her delicate skin, and he could probably span her waist with just one broad palm. He resists the urge to test the theory. He’s not sure she would appreciate the implication that she’s fragile. A knee to the groin is not how he wants this evening to end.
“Lovely,” he breathes the word against her shoulder, his hands resting at the top of her ribs, almost but not quite cupping her breasts.
They’re small and pert and gorgeous, her nipples stiff and begging for attention through the filmy fabric of her bra. All her lingerie-not just the bra, but the tiny little panties and lacy garter-are black and exquisitely delicate, practically begging to be torn off her. They would rend so beautifully in his hands. But Eames resists that impulse too, figuring his life isn’t worth what she must have paid for those scraps of silk and lace.
She smirks, as if she can guess his train of thought, and runs her hands over her breasts, teasing her nipples, teasing him. She’s beautiful, and she knows it, and clearly she enjoys her power to leave Eames slack-jawed with lust. He imagines her naked and on her back, spread out for him, her hands busy between her thighs. The temptation to rip the flimsy lingerie off her returns, stronger than ever.
He kisses her instead, slowly, with great attention to detail, running this thumb sweetly along the line of her jaw, enjoying the impatient little noises that come streaming out of her.
“Are you going to fuck me or not?” she demands, bright-eyed and panting, when he breaks the kiss.
He smiles wolfishly. “I’m going to do things to you that haven’t even been invented yet, kitten.”
She snarls at the pet name-actually snarls, which is more wonderful than anything has ever been-and informs him haughtily, “Not only is that an overpromise, I suspect, but it’s not even particularly logical.”
He laughs and crowds her back onto the bed, kneels over her, and runs a hand very slowly up one silk stocking. “You’re beautiful when you’re questioning my ability to reason.”
“You’re infuriating when you’re talking instead of fucking me,” she fires back and makes a grab for him, trying to get a hand on his cock.
He catches her hand, kisses her palm. “So greedy.” He feels her bristle at what she takes to be a insult, her eyes going hard and flint-bright, and he soothes a hand over her hip as he leans down to whisper, “I love it.”
The intake of her breath is quick and sharp, and when he flicks the clasp of her bra open and palms her breasts, that airy little noise becomes a low, lingering moan. He explores her curves with his mouth, teases a nipple with his tongue, again and again, to hear that moan grow steadily louder and more insistent. She squirms in his hands and tries to rub against him, animal-desperate and rutting.
God, she’s gorgeous.
Eames kisses her and makes a place for himself between her thighs and runs a finger very lightly down the crotch of her panties. They’re already damp through, and he can smell her pussy, smell how much she wants him. Her mouth opens helplessly, as if she’s about to say “please,” but she quickly presses her lips closed again, stubborn. He laughs, and tells her, “I’m going to make you feel so good, love, you won’t even mind begging.” He covers the pretty bare skin between the top of her stocking and the edge of her panties with ardent kisses.
“Then get to it,” she demands, pulling at his hair, not gently.
Eames is only too happy to comply. He doesn’t bother to take her panties off, just pushes them out of his way, because he’s eager to get his mouth on her, and he likes the way she looks, debauched and impatient. She realizes this, of course, and her eyes narrow, and she tightens her grip on his hair. I will hurt you if you aren’t soon providing me with orgasms.
Luckily for them both, providing her with orgasms is exactly what Eames means to do.
The dark vee of hair between her legs is neatly trimmed, not clean-shaven like most of the women Eames sleeps with. He likes that she doesn’t remind him of a porn star or a pre-pubescent girl; he loves that she’s too single-mindedly her own to give a fuck about pubic hair fashion. He presses an appreciative kiss to her clit, and she gasps and bucks up and tangles her long legs around his shoulders, trying to draw him in.
He goes happily, licking and kissing and humming contentedly at the salt-sweet taste of her.
“Oh fuck,” she blurts out, twisting in his hands, frenzied, trying to get closer.
He uses his thumbs to spread her apart, the flimsy fabric of her panties pulling taut as he pushes his tongue into her. This startles a noise out of her, throaty, almost a growl. Her thighs tremble, and she bucks up, begging with her body long before the word finally spills out of her, wet-sounding and urgent, “Please!”
“Mm,” he murmurs, tonguing her deeper.
Her body tenses, so close, and suddenly she’s pushing at his shoulders. “Stop! Oh fuck, I’m going to-”
He lifts his head to smile, working her clit with his thumb. “Precisely the point, pet.” He slides two fingers into her, licking around them. She shakes even harder and jerks her hips, fucking herself on his hand, whimpering brokenly until she’s clenching around his fingers, gasping and cursing and begging so prettily. Eames’s cock is hard and aching between his legs, and he thinks about how wet and hot she’ll be, how he can’t wait to get inside her.
He’s so caught up in the anticipation that his brain can’t quite make sense of it when she slips out of his grasp and thumps up from the bed. “I have to go,” she says, pulling her dress over her head, grabbing for her handbag.
“But-“
That’s all Eames manages before the slamming door drowns him out. He stares at it for a good ten seconds, foolishly hopeful, but his mystery woman doesn’t magically reappear. At last he lets out his breath and flops onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. He’s still hard, and he could just take care of it himself, will do in a moment, once he’s got over the first, startled rush of disappointment.
This is in no way how he imagined this evening ending.
***
By the time Eames saunters into the warehouse the next morning, the disappointment of the night before is well forgotten. He’s a philosopher at heart and subscribes to the theory that there are no guarantees in life, least of all where orgasms are concerned. In any event, he has a new job, a new challenge, the opportunity to make obscene gobs of money and torment Arthur a bit in the process. This is more than enough to put him in a cheerful frame of mind.
The same cannot be said of Arthur.
“You’re late,” he snaps when Eames is all of three steps inside the door.
Technically this is true, but a mere fifteen minutes past time is practically early for Eames. He raises an eyebrow at Arthur. “Hard night, darling?”
Arthur presses his mouth into a thin, furious line and pointedly looks away. Eames grins, wide and pleased. It’s a good day when he can aggravate Arthur before he’s even had his first cup of coffee.
The rest of the team is scattered about the place. Austin, their fuchsia-haired architect, works on mazes at a drafting table in one corner, while chemist Milla brews up something impossibly foul-smelling in her lair in back. Jarvis, who is a good extractor with a poor work ethic, probably won’t wander in before another hour at best. Arthur sits at his primly ordered desk, scowling at his computer as if it has disappointed him one time too many and he’s going to have to put it out of his misery. He’s familiar and sharp-edged and deadly, like a favorite knife, and no doubt it’s evidence of some severe mental imbalance in Eames that this makes him smile fondly.
“Don’t you have something you should be doing, Mr. Eames?” Arthur doesn’t look up from his laptop.
“Absolutely, darling.” Eames takes this as an invitation to perch on the corner of Arthur’s desk, invading his space and annoying him to the point of distraction. Arthur is never so lovely as when he’s entertaining thoughts of homicide.
“Something useful,” Arthur clarifies testily.
“Ah, but I am, you see. I’m strengthening our lines of communication. The relationship between forger and point man is critical to our endeavors, wouldn’t you agree?”
Eames says it with a flirtatious lilt of his voice, the way he has countless times before. This usually earns him a long-suffering sigh or a dismissive roll of the eyes, but today, just for a second, Arthur’s expression goes unguarded, and Eames can see that he’s genuinely angry. This lessens Eames’s amusement considerably.
“I’ll just run through those simulations, shall I?” he says, beating a retreat.
“Good idea, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says curtly, with If you value your life a silent parenthetical.
The situation has become even less funny twelve hours later when Arthur has yelled at everyone at least twice, despite the fact that the job is coming off perfectly as planned. Neither the assignment nor the scheme they’ve dreamed up is particularly challenging. They’ve been hired by a confectionery competitor to ferret out the secret ingredient of Wamplers Premium Toffee. Considering that Mervis Reid Preston Wampler has a weakness for nearly every vice imaginable-blackjack and blondes and blow, just to name a few-it’s a wonder, really, that he has any secrets left to steal. They’ve concocted a rather painfully clichéd scenario to get what they need: a disreputable nightclub, a stripper, a naughty playroom with a secret code word. No doubt it will work like a charm on a man of Wampler’s sensibilities.
So there’s really no explaining why Arthur is a vicious steel trap, ready to snap at the least provocation.
“What is this shit?” he demands as Austin shows him the preliminary designs during a check-in meeting. “You call this complexity? Even a moron like Wampler could figure this out.”
Milla doesn’t fare much better when she mentions she has a compound that will allow them to stay under longer if that proves necessary. “This is a simple job. Don’t fucking use us as human guinea pigs for some experimental shit you’re working on.”
Eames is called out repeatedly for his lack of professionalism, and Jarvis, who makes the mistake of yawning in the middle of Arthur’s tirade, takes the brunt of Arthur’s vitriol, branded a slacker with poor hygiene and an overly inflated opinion of himself.
“Am I allowed to poison a team member?” Milla wonders aloud as she drifts back to her workspace after the meeting.
“How important is a point man, really?” Austin says in encouragement.
Jarvis takes the public dressing down as an excuse to go off in a snit-no doubt to take refuge in the first pub he finds open.
Clearly, it’s up to Eames to salvage this situation before their easy job goes totally to shit.
He approaches Arthur with care. “May I have a word?” he asks with excruciating politeness.
Arthur looks like he wishes he could throw Eames off the top of a very tall building. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of-“
“Arthur,” Eames says firmly. “A word.”
He walks purposefully over to the tiny kitchen trusting that Arthur will follow, and after a passive-aggressive delay of some seconds, Arthur does. He glowers as Eames slides the door closed, no doubt trying to intimidate him. There are at least forty-seven different ways I can kill you with ordinary kitchen implements. It’s a pity for Arthur that Eames finds it more arousing than terrifying that Arthur could do him grievous bodily injury with a potato peeler.
“What?” Arthur snaps, folding his arms across his chest.
“I believe that’s my line, darling.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Eames raises an eyebrow at him disbelievingly. “You have no idea that you’re being a right pain in the arse?”
Arthur’s only answer is to press his lips into an even thinner and more displeased line.
“Arthur.” Eames takes a breath and changes tacks. “Have I done something to annoy you? More so than usual, I mean. Because I honestly don’t recollect being a particular git lately, but do correct me if I’m wrong.“
“You’ve been insufferable to the usual degree,” Arthur says, after a moment.
“And the rest of the team, have they done something to offend your delicate sensibilities?”
Arthur says nothing, which is answer enough.
“So why?“ Eames genuinely wants to know. It’s unlike Arthur to be anything less than a consummate professional.
Something passes through Arthur’s eyes, something that is almost wounded, which makes Eames stare at him in amazement. But then it’s gone, and Arthur looks the way he always does, closed up as tight as a locked room. “Let’s just get the job done, okay?”
He stalks away, leaving Eames to stare after him and ponder: What the bloody hell? Of course, he has no answer for that. Arthur is, as always, an enigma wrapped in a conundrum dressed in an Armani suit.
***
The good news is: Arthur’s mysterious tantrum passes, and they can all just get on with it.
Conveniently, Mervis Reid Preston Wampler has a medical procedure scheduled mid week, a vasectomy that is the penance demanded by the long-suffering Mrs. Wampler in the wake of the latest infidelity. Apparently she has grown tired of the ever-increasing throngs of Wampler love children. The doctor, who has three sons in college and a Caribbean vacation home to support, proves exceedingly obliging at the mention of cash. Eames, Arthur and Austin go under with Wampler while Milla keeps an eye on things topside.
“Why does this dream have to smell like cheap beer and armpits?” Arthur complains once Eames locates him in the bawdy strip club crowd.
“Verisimilitude, darling,” Eames tells him cheerfully. “Oh, look. There’s our Mr. Wampler now.” Drink in hand and groping the arse of a waitress, Eames is amused to note. “I’ll just change into my work attire, shall I?”
He wanders off to the isolated little niche Austin has included for his convenience and is surprised to find Arthur fast on his heels. Eames has gotten the impression that Arthur doesn’t entirely approve of forging, but when he fixes a questioning look on him, Arthur just waves his hand impatiently for Eames to get on with it.
“As you please, darling.”
He focuses, and a moment later he stands before Arthur as a well-endowed blonde with large hair, a tiny skirt, and truly execrable taste in eye makeup-the perfect distraction for Wampler. Arthur’s jaw tightens, and his expression goes constipated, the way it does so often when Eames transforms in dreams. You needn’t have watched, Eames wants to remind him, but Arthur will just fix him with a blank wall of a stare as if he has no idea what Eames is on about, so he doesn’t bother.
“Wish me luck,” Eames says, although of course luck is wholly beside the point when one has skill.
He launches himself back into the crowd, plotting an intercept course for Wampler, who is wandering away from the bar with a fresh drink in hand. Arthur shadows him, as the plan calls for, keeping a sharp eye out for quarrelsome projections, although for the moment they appear more interested in the naked woman slithering around the pole on stage than in making trouble.
Eames himself vastly prefers watching Arthur to the silicon-enhanced extravaganza on display. Arthur’s body is so lithe and graceful. The fluid movement of his hips as he makes his way through the crowd could keep Eames happily entertained for the rest of the night, but he does have a job to do. He opens another button on his blouse and starts toward Wampler and then stops abruptly as he catches sight of a familiar face in the crowd.
It’s her. The woman from three nights ago. All Eames can think is: When did I turn into Dom Cobb? But then he sees Arthur, frozen and two shades too pale, staring right at Eames’s woman with the kind of horror that might be seen on a person’s face as they’re being electrocuted. It takes Eames’s brain a second-or, fine, possibly two-to piece together what he should have figured out a very long time ago.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he can’t help saying out loud.
Arthur’s expression turns more murderous than Eames has seen it since that incident in Caracas that they never talk about. “Do your job, Mr. Eames,” he says, jaw clenched so tightly it’s a wonder the words manage to escape at all.
“Certainly,” Eames agrees obligingly. This topic is far from closed, of course, but he’ll have ample time later to make Arthur aware of that.
He slips into the jet stream of club-goers headed for the bathroom and a moment later collides with Wampler, who spills a Pink Flirtini all down the front of Eames’s cleavage, just as planned.
***
The job is ridiculously simple after that, although Eames can’t help feeling disappointed and a bit appalled that the secret ingredient in Wamplers Premium Toffee turns out to be a particularly cloying concentration of corn syrup. He makes a mental note to quit eating sweets.
After the information has been delivered to the client and many zeros have been deposited into their respective accounts, the next step is, as always, to go their separate ways. Eames has never met a plan he didn’t consider open to improvisation, and he and Arthur have unfinished business to settle. So he tails Arthur back to his hotel instead of taking the first flight to somewhere else. When he knocks at the door of Arthur’s room, Arthur answers, livid and apparently expecting him.
“What part of ‘scatter’ do you not understand?”
Anyone who has not spent the last five years minutely observing Arthur would perhaps fail to notice the hint of vulnerability beneath the fury, but Eames has made it his business to catalog every stray bit of Arthur-ness that has come his way. He feels certain that there is only one reasonable course of action here. He catches Arthur by the shoulder and pulls him in.
For a blissful three seconds, Arthur kisses back, instinctively fierce and greedy, just the way his alter ego was the other night. Then Arthur’s beautiful, meddlesome brain kicks back in, and he shoves Eames away, scowling.
“You might have just told me, you know,” Eames points out, quite sensibly. “The evening would have ended on a much more satisfying note for everyone. I take it this is why you’ve been more contentious than usual on the job?”
“I am never-fuck you! I don’t know what you think you’ve figured out, but trust me, you have no idea-“ He runs a hand through his hair, looking at the end of his rope, an expression Eames has never seen on him before, not even that time in the Libyan desert when all that stood between them and unceremonious death was an absolute rubbish Soviet-era pistol, two bullets, and an extremely ill-tempered camel.
All these years Eames has spent watching Arthur, and he’s a simpleton to have missed something so important. Eames wonders just how many beds he’s had to flee in order to keep his secret. It’s not exactly simple to explain why an orgasm comes with a change of gender. The smudge of life is fucking unfair that Eames has detected in Arthur’s eyes from time to time makes rather more sense now. No wonder Arthur reacts to Eames’s forging with an edge of fury. Transformation comes comparatively easily in dreams, and reality can be so very difficult.
Oh Arthur, if you only knew, Eames wants to tell him, but figures it will be simpler just to demonstrate.
Eames tugs Arthur closer, and since Arthur is so very Arthur, he insists on putting up a token resistance before allowing Eames’s arms around him. “You’re wrong of course, my darling,” Eames says between slow, insistent kisses. “I do have you figured out. You are the loveliest and most maddening of creatures in any guise.”
Arthur makes a derisive snort-he’s not the sort for sweet talk, which is precisely why Eames has one hundred twenty-three pet names for him-but he does kiss Eames back, long, greedy pulls of his mouth that leave them both on the verge of breathlessness.
A positive development, and Eames decides to push his luck a bit, tilting Arthur’s chin with his fingers, peppering kisses to every stray bit of bare skin he can reach, along Arthur’s jaw and at his temple and in the sweet curve of his throat that smells like soap and warmth and Arthur. “It was you I wanted, love, even if I didn’t realize it was you I had,” Eames whispers against his skin.
“You are so full of bullshit.” Arthur insists, but there’s no bite to it, and Eames can feel the shiver that goes through him.
“Darling,” Eames purrs with delight.
“Shut up and kiss me,” Arthur orders, yanking Eames by the hair, slanting their mouths together.
Eames is happy to oblige, running a hand up Arthur’s side, enjoying the crisp press of the exquisite Egyptian cotton shirt. Arthur makes no protest, not even a token one, when Eames starts to unbutton it. The hollow of Arthur’s throat tastes as clean and sweet as pears, and Eames laps at the soft skin there as he skims the shirt from Arthur’s shoulders, pushes his trousers and pants down his long legs.
Arthur vocalizes his frustration when Eames doesn’t immediately begin to touch him, sounding so annoyed and impatient that it makes Eames grin, because it’s so very Arthur. He doesn’t know how he could have missed that it was Arthur he had in his arms that other night. No one else on earth could make irritation so unaccountably arousing.
Eames strokes a hand up over Arthur’s hip and enjoys the view. Just because Arthur is in a hurry doesn’t mean Eames has to rush. Not that this is the first time he’s seen Arthur naked and male, of course. He’s stitched Arthur back together after jobs that went pear-shaped, helped him to bed in lonely hotel rooms after too many celebratory glasses of scotch, snuck peeks when Arthur casually stripped off after a workout. But this is the first time Eames has seen him like this, naked and hard and known, and all for Eames.
“You were a naughty little minx to run out on me the last time, darling.” Eames kisses Arthur’s neck and walks him backward to the bed and tumbles him onto the mattress. “But I’m willing to let you make it up to me.”
Arthur stares up at him, eyes intent and bright and so dark they seem bottomless. “Then why don’t you get on with it?”
Eames smiles fondly. “Dear Arthur. Always so impatient.” He leisurely undoes the buttons of his shirt.
“If you don’t hurry up, I’m going to start without you.” Arthur rubs a hand between his nipples, which are stiff and dark as pennies. His cock rests wetly against his belly, begging to be touched.
“Go on then, love,” Eames encourages him, voice soft and coaxing. “Let me see you.”
Arthur’s eyes glitter as he wraps long fingers around his cock and spreads his legs, showing off, as if he doesn’t already have Eames’s attention. Eames lets his shirt flutter to the carpet and starts to unbuckle his belt. Arthur moves his hand on his dick, staring, as Eames strips off for him.
“You have no idea how much it pissed me off.” The gravel in Arthur’s voice takes Eames by surprise; Arthur’s expression has gone austere even as his hand still works between his legs. “Getting what I wanted, only not-“
“Arthur.” Eames kicks his trousers away and crawls up the bed. He takes Arthur’s face between his hands and kisses him passionately, over and over, until Arthur relents, melts against him. “You can have anything you want, my darling.”
Even a thief can be a man of his word, and once upon a time Eames did promise Arthur, in stolen glances if not actual words, to put his mouth all over him. He sets out to make good on that now. Five years of watching Arthur, learning him, has made Eames just that much greedier for knowledge, and Arthur’s body is a whole new area of study. Eames feels a giddy furl of discovery as he traces his lips over Arthur’s biceps, strokes a hand along the smooth muscles of his side, licks at the crease of his hip. The next time they do this, the landscape will be completely different, and Eames will get to go exploring again. He hums happily under his breath in anticipation as he sucks a mark on the inside of Arthur’s thigh.
“Eames.” Arthur arches up, sinks his fingers into Eames’s hair and pulls, trying to guide Eames’s mouth to where he wants it most.
“You are a beautiful, demanding thing,” Eames tells him with a smile. He slides onto his knees between Arthur’s legs and covers Arthur’s thighs in kisses.
“And you are a fucking tease, Mr. Eames,” Arthur snarls, but it’s a playful snarl.
Eames feels suddenly, oddly humbled that Arthur would trust him with this. It’s not hard to guess what must have gone through Arthur’s head the other night, wanting Eames to realize, terrified that he might. Eames knows too well how it feels to hunger for closeness when the only truly safe thing is sex with strangers, to wish there was someone who could accept you for everything you are but despair of ever finding it. He understands what it means that Arthur would take this gamble on him.
“You seemed to enjoy this the other night.” He tips Arthur’s hips up and presses a soft, grateful kiss behind his balls. “Let’s try it again, yeah?”
Arthur lets out a strangled, desperate noise, which is all the encouragement Eames needs. He slots kisses to Arthur’s hole, dry and chaste at first, and then passionate and open-mouthed, and then utterly filthy, pushing his tongue deep inside, making a wet mess of Arthur’s thighs. Arthur enjoys being eaten out as much in this body as he did in the other, wriggling like an overexcited eel, hands catching at the sheets, needy sounds streaming out of him that would best be described as sobs, although Eames will keep this opinion to himself.
“Eames, Eames, Eames,” Arthur says brokenly, pushing at Eames’s shoulders, and when Eames doesn’t stop, Arthur’s tone goes sharper, more urgent. “. Stop! You have to fuck me now. Or I’m going to-“ He stops, as if suddenly uncertain.
Eames finds it endearing that Arthur seems to harbor some amusing notion that Eames is fundamentally heterosexual, that Arthur’s been piqued believing Eames prefers one version of his body to the other. Oh Arthur, you silly man.
“I want all of you, love.” He brushes a kiss to Arthur’s belly. “And I plan to have you every way I can get you.” He reaches for the nightstand drawer and comes away with slick and condoms, gratified that Arthur is predictably well organized. “Starting with this.” He presses wet fingers inside Arthur.
“Fuck.” Arthur pulls a knee up to his chest, so Eames can go deeper, and rides his hand. “Fuck, fuck.”
“Absolutely, darling.” Eames grins lewdly.
Arthur rolls his eyes, which makes Eames want to kiss him, so he does. It occurs to him as he’s sliding home, Arthur so tight and hot around his cock, that he’s glad the first time is like this, not as strangers, but intimately familiar. They’ve waited long enough for it. There will be time to explore all the other possibilities later.
Perhaps Arthur reads something of that in his expression, because he arches up, cranes his neck, pulls Eames down into a kiss. “I believe you promised to do things to me that haven’t been invented yet, Mr. Eames.” His breath is hot, his voice low and throaty against Eames’s ear.
“So I did, darling,” Eames says agreeably, thrusting deeper. “So I did.”
Even a thief can be as good as his word, and Eames does his best to dazzle.
The bed is damp and wrecked by the time they’ve both come. The scent of sex hangs in the air, and Eames feels languorous and content, with Arthur warm and tucked close and softly female.
“Eames,” she murmurs sleepily and then goes still. The next word comes out in a gasp, “Eames.” She trails her hand almost shyly up Eames’s side, touches Eames’s breast reverently. “You’re-that woman you always forge, she’s-“
“Not a forgery, my love.” Eames smiles happily at the thought that even though the two of them couldn’t be more different in so many ways somewhere deep in the mysteries of their DNA they are the same.
Arthur abruptly pulls away, scoots to the edge of the bed, and reaches for the bedside table.
.
“ I quite understand the need for confirmation, love, but I assure you that you’re not dreaming,” Eames tells her lazily.
Arthur hesitates, but only for a moment, before continuing to rummage around in the drawer. Eames hears the sound of the die and then a long, airy sigh as if Arthur had been holding her breath.
“You could have just told me,” Arthur points out at last, like the gorgeous stick in the mud she can be.
“And ruin the surprise?” Eames scoffs. She jumps when Arthur pinches her arm. “Oy! Come here, you bruiser.”
Arthur snuggles close again, and for a moment Eames entertains the notion that perhaps Arthur will be more compliant as a female, but then she remembers who she’s dealing with.
As if on cue, Arthur begins to overthink things. “I know this doesn’t necessarily change things between us, okay? It doesn’t mean-“
“Darling.” Eames tightens her arm around Arthur. “When I have the strength to raise my head from this pillow, I’m going to get you off with my hands and my mouth, and then beg you to fuck me.”
The strangled little noise that comes out of Arthur is entirely delightful.
“Let’s decide all the rest later, yeah?” Eames kisses her forehead. “Go to sleep, darling Arthur.”
What Eames doesn’t say is that Arthur is hers now, and no one else’s, and she plans to spend the rest of her life enjoying that as much as humanly possible. She figures she’ll have plenty of time later to make Arthur aware of that fact.
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames, Eames/f
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~6,000
Notes: This story is for terribilita who won me in the helpbrazil2011 auction. She gave me the most fantastic prompts, including the one I ended up choosing: an Eames/Arthur story based on the movie Zerophilia, which is one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures. Big thanks to being_here for Britpicking and no_detective for doing her usual amazing job beta reading.
Summary: For Eames, Arthur is the loveliest and most maddening of creatures in any guise.
In Any Guise
By Lenore
It’s the set of her shoulders that catches Eames’s attention: impeccably straight, blades as delicate as a bird’s bones. Then there’s the tilt of her chin, the lovely ninety-five degree angle that declares: I am well aware of my own worth. It’s the lines of her body too, of course, the pale, elegant length of her throat, the way the black sheath she’s wearing whispers over her curves, the shapely legs that go on and on and on in black silk stockings. She wraps her fingers around her martini glass, and it reminds him, incongruously, of a prizefighter’s fist. Delicious.
Eames slides onto the barstool next to her. “Jameson neat, and another of whatever the lady is having,” he says to the bartender, but his smile is all for her.
Her forehead puckers with consternation. Her mouth twists into a sour little scowl. There’s an irritated impatience to her that suggests she’d rather shoot him than put up with any rubbish. Irritated impatience is Eames’s absolute weakness, and he does so enjoy spending these gravity-free evenings before a new job in pursuit of misadventure: getting drunk, getting laid, getting taught a lesson. This woman seems as if she could school him six ways from Sunday.
“Eames,” he says by way of introduction when their drinks arrive, clinking his glass against hers, barely managing not to grin at her glare of annoyance.
She takes a prim sip of her martini and doesn’t offer her own name in return. Eames is officially intrigued.
They drink in silence for a while. Eames doesn’t believe in rushing these things. The woman sneaks sidelong glances at him whenever she thinks he’s not looking.
Eames is always looking.
“Do you come here often?” he asks at last, and slips on a smile, confidential and a little sly. Usually this works like a charm.
“No,” the woman says in a clipped monotone.
Eames wonders what she sounds like when she begs, when she demands more and harder and again, when she’s naked and shaking like she’s about to fly apart. Does she spit curses like a docker? Does her voice go high and breathy and kittenish? He dearly wants to know.
“It must be my lucky evening then,” he tells her, watching the smooth arc of her arm as she lifts her glass. Her lips press to the rim, leaving behind a bow-shaped ruby smudge. That mouth makes him greedy.
“Seriously? That’s how you think you’re going to pick me up?” There’s an angry clench to her jaw, and God help him, Eames finds that attractive. He blames a certain point man for rewiring his erotic circuitry, for making bald fury so difficult to resist.
Certainly, Eames hasn’t missed the unwilling curiosity in the woman’s sidelong glances. There’s a spark of something in her dark eyes even when she’s glowering, something that looks suspiciously like want.
He leans in close to whisper in her ear, and she shivers at the touch of his breath. “It’s working, isn’t it? You’re going to let me take you to bed, aren’t you, love?” Eames believes in boldness the way other people believe in God.
The woman reacts sharply, an involuntary tremor of the body, and Eames is prematurely celebrating another victory for boldness when she abruptly slips off the stool and picks up her tiny beaded evening bag, turning her back on him resolutely.
He’s too surprised to wonder how he misread her so utterly, and then there’s nothing to figure out, because she swings back around impatiently. “Are you taking me to bed or not?”
No one has ever paid a tab faster in the whole long history of bars. Eames settles a hand at the small of the woman’s back and walks her outside and into a waiting cab. She sits stiffly, staring straight ahead, not allowing so much as their arms to brush. Eames wonders if Are you going to take me to bed? could possibly mean something other than sex.
At his hotel, she keeps her distance as they cross the lobby, stands apart in the lift, but occasionally her gaze slides helplessly over to him, lingers on his lips. He smiles a promise. I’m going to put this mouth all over you. She dips her head sharply, but he can see the pink creeping up her cheeks.
Delightful, and even more so when all that bashfulness vanishes the moment the door to his room closes behind them. She reels him in by his tie, grip strong and sure. She kisses like it’s a contest and she’s never lost at anything in her life.
“Slow down, yeah?” he murmurs, skating a finger up the length of her arm.
She grabs at his shirt, rifles the buttons open, yanks the fabric down off his shoulders.
“Or not,” he concedes agreeably and strips his shirt the rest of the way off.
A woman who knows what she wants and isn’t shy about getting it has never failed to turn Eames on, and this woman is gloriously unabashed about her desires. He strokes his fingers through her long dark hair and lets her do as she pleases: stare at his chest and kiss his nipples and drag her tongue again and again along the inky outlines of his tattoos.
“Let’s get you out of this, love.”
The woman lifts her arms, surprisingly obedient, and Eames drops her dress onto the carpet, earning himself a sharp, venomous glare. His grin comes quick and amused. So like-but no, he’s here with her. He won’t think of anyone else.
She’s more than enough to occupy his attention. He skims his palms up her sides, stroking his thumbs in lazy circles, making her shiver. His hands look enormous on her delicate skin, and he could probably span her waist with just one broad palm. He resists the urge to test the theory. He’s not sure she would appreciate the implication that she’s fragile. A knee to the groin is not how he wants this evening to end.
“Lovely,” he breathes the word against her shoulder, his hands resting at the top of her ribs, almost but not quite cupping her breasts.
They’re small and pert and gorgeous, her nipples stiff and begging for attention through the filmy fabric of her bra. All her lingerie-not just the bra, but the tiny little panties and lacy garter-are black and exquisitely delicate, practically begging to be torn off her. They would rend so beautifully in his hands. But Eames resists that impulse too, figuring his life isn’t worth what she must have paid for those scraps of silk and lace.
She smirks, as if she can guess his train of thought, and runs her hands over her breasts, teasing her nipples, teasing him. She’s beautiful, and she knows it, and clearly she enjoys her power to leave Eames slack-jawed with lust. He imagines her naked and on her back, spread out for him, her hands busy between her thighs. The temptation to rip the flimsy lingerie off her returns, stronger than ever.
He kisses her instead, slowly, with great attention to detail, running this thumb sweetly along the line of her jaw, enjoying the impatient little noises that come streaming out of her.
“Are you going to fuck me or not?” she demands, bright-eyed and panting, when he breaks the kiss.
He smiles wolfishly. “I’m going to do things to you that haven’t even been invented yet, kitten.”
She snarls at the pet name-actually snarls, which is more wonderful than anything has ever been-and informs him haughtily, “Not only is that an overpromise, I suspect, but it’s not even particularly logical.”
He laughs and crowds her back onto the bed, kneels over her, and runs a hand very slowly up one silk stocking. “You’re beautiful when you’re questioning my ability to reason.”
“You’re infuriating when you’re talking instead of fucking me,” she fires back and makes a grab for him, trying to get a hand on his cock.
He catches her hand, kisses her palm. “So greedy.” He feels her bristle at what she takes to be a insult, her eyes going hard and flint-bright, and he soothes a hand over her hip as he leans down to whisper, “I love it.”
The intake of her breath is quick and sharp, and when he flicks the clasp of her bra open and palms her breasts, that airy little noise becomes a low, lingering moan. He explores her curves with his mouth, teases a nipple with his tongue, again and again, to hear that moan grow steadily louder and more insistent. She squirms in his hands and tries to rub against him, animal-desperate and rutting.
God, she’s gorgeous.
Eames kisses her and makes a place for himself between her thighs and runs a finger very lightly down the crotch of her panties. They’re already damp through, and he can smell her pussy, smell how much she wants him. Her mouth opens helplessly, as if she’s about to say “please,” but she quickly presses her lips closed again, stubborn. He laughs, and tells her, “I’m going to make you feel so good, love, you won’t even mind begging.” He covers the pretty bare skin between the top of her stocking and the edge of her panties with ardent kisses.
“Then get to it,” she demands, pulling at his hair, not gently.
Eames is only too happy to comply. He doesn’t bother to take her panties off, just pushes them out of his way, because he’s eager to get his mouth on her, and he likes the way she looks, debauched and impatient. She realizes this, of course, and her eyes narrow, and she tightens her grip on his hair. I will hurt you if you aren’t soon providing me with orgasms.
Luckily for them both, providing her with orgasms is exactly what Eames means to do.
The dark vee of hair between her legs is neatly trimmed, not clean-shaven like most of the women Eames sleeps with. He likes that she doesn’t remind him of a porn star or a pre-pubescent girl; he loves that she’s too single-mindedly her own to give a fuck about pubic hair fashion. He presses an appreciative kiss to her clit, and she gasps and bucks up and tangles her long legs around his shoulders, trying to draw him in.
He goes happily, licking and kissing and humming contentedly at the salt-sweet taste of her.
“Oh fuck,” she blurts out, twisting in his hands, frenzied, trying to get closer.
He uses his thumbs to spread her apart, the flimsy fabric of her panties pulling taut as he pushes his tongue into her. This startles a noise out of her, throaty, almost a growl. Her thighs tremble, and she bucks up, begging with her body long before the word finally spills out of her, wet-sounding and urgent, “Please!”
“Mm,” he murmurs, tonguing her deeper.
Her body tenses, so close, and suddenly she’s pushing at his shoulders. “Stop! Oh fuck, I’m going to-”
He lifts his head to smile, working her clit with his thumb. “Precisely the point, pet.” He slides two fingers into her, licking around them. She shakes even harder and jerks her hips, fucking herself on his hand, whimpering brokenly until she’s clenching around his fingers, gasping and cursing and begging so prettily. Eames’s cock is hard and aching between his legs, and he thinks about how wet and hot she’ll be, how he can’t wait to get inside her.
He’s so caught up in the anticipation that his brain can’t quite make sense of it when she slips out of his grasp and thumps up from the bed. “I have to go,” she says, pulling her dress over her head, grabbing for her handbag.
“But-“
That’s all Eames manages before the slamming door drowns him out. He stares at it for a good ten seconds, foolishly hopeful, but his mystery woman doesn’t magically reappear. At last he lets out his breath and flops onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. He’s still hard, and he could just take care of it himself, will do in a moment, once he’s got over the first, startled rush of disappointment.
This is in no way how he imagined this evening ending.
***
By the time Eames saunters into the warehouse the next morning, the disappointment of the night before is well forgotten. He’s a philosopher at heart and subscribes to the theory that there are no guarantees in life, least of all where orgasms are concerned. In any event, he has a new job, a new challenge, the opportunity to make obscene gobs of money and torment Arthur a bit in the process. This is more than enough to put him in a cheerful frame of mind.
The same cannot be said of Arthur.
“You’re late,” he snaps when Eames is all of three steps inside the door.
Technically this is true, but a mere fifteen minutes past time is practically early for Eames. He raises an eyebrow at Arthur. “Hard night, darling?”
Arthur presses his mouth into a thin, furious line and pointedly looks away. Eames grins, wide and pleased. It’s a good day when he can aggravate Arthur before he’s even had his first cup of coffee.
The rest of the team is scattered about the place. Austin, their fuchsia-haired architect, works on mazes at a drafting table in one corner, while chemist Milla brews up something impossibly foul-smelling in her lair in back. Jarvis, who is a good extractor with a poor work ethic, probably won’t wander in before another hour at best. Arthur sits at his primly ordered desk, scowling at his computer as if it has disappointed him one time too many and he’s going to have to put it out of his misery. He’s familiar and sharp-edged and deadly, like a favorite knife, and no doubt it’s evidence of some severe mental imbalance in Eames that this makes him smile fondly.
“Don’t you have something you should be doing, Mr. Eames?” Arthur doesn’t look up from his laptop.
“Absolutely, darling.” Eames takes this as an invitation to perch on the corner of Arthur’s desk, invading his space and annoying him to the point of distraction. Arthur is never so lovely as when he’s entertaining thoughts of homicide.
“Something useful,” Arthur clarifies testily.
“Ah, but I am, you see. I’m strengthening our lines of communication. The relationship between forger and point man is critical to our endeavors, wouldn’t you agree?”
Eames says it with a flirtatious lilt of his voice, the way he has countless times before. This usually earns him a long-suffering sigh or a dismissive roll of the eyes, but today, just for a second, Arthur’s expression goes unguarded, and Eames can see that he’s genuinely angry. This lessens Eames’s amusement considerably.
“I’ll just run through those simulations, shall I?” he says, beating a retreat.
“Good idea, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says curtly, with If you value your life a silent parenthetical.
The situation has become even less funny twelve hours later when Arthur has yelled at everyone at least twice, despite the fact that the job is coming off perfectly as planned. Neither the assignment nor the scheme they’ve dreamed up is particularly challenging. They’ve been hired by a confectionery competitor to ferret out the secret ingredient of Wamplers Premium Toffee. Considering that Mervis Reid Preston Wampler has a weakness for nearly every vice imaginable-blackjack and blondes and blow, just to name a few-it’s a wonder, really, that he has any secrets left to steal. They’ve concocted a rather painfully clichéd scenario to get what they need: a disreputable nightclub, a stripper, a naughty playroom with a secret code word. No doubt it will work like a charm on a man of Wampler’s sensibilities.
So there’s really no explaining why Arthur is a vicious steel trap, ready to snap at the least provocation.
“What is this shit?” he demands as Austin shows him the preliminary designs during a check-in meeting. “You call this complexity? Even a moron like Wampler could figure this out.”
Milla doesn’t fare much better when she mentions she has a compound that will allow them to stay under longer if that proves necessary. “This is a simple job. Don’t fucking use us as human guinea pigs for some experimental shit you’re working on.”
Eames is called out repeatedly for his lack of professionalism, and Jarvis, who makes the mistake of yawning in the middle of Arthur’s tirade, takes the brunt of Arthur’s vitriol, branded a slacker with poor hygiene and an overly inflated opinion of himself.
“Am I allowed to poison a team member?” Milla wonders aloud as she drifts back to her workspace after the meeting.
“How important is a point man, really?” Austin says in encouragement.
Jarvis takes the public dressing down as an excuse to go off in a snit-no doubt to take refuge in the first pub he finds open.
Clearly, it’s up to Eames to salvage this situation before their easy job goes totally to shit.
He approaches Arthur with care. “May I have a word?” he asks with excruciating politeness.
Arthur looks like he wishes he could throw Eames off the top of a very tall building. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of-“
“Arthur,” Eames says firmly. “A word.”
He walks purposefully over to the tiny kitchen trusting that Arthur will follow, and after a passive-aggressive delay of some seconds, Arthur does. He glowers as Eames slides the door closed, no doubt trying to intimidate him. There are at least forty-seven different ways I can kill you with ordinary kitchen implements. It’s a pity for Arthur that Eames finds it more arousing than terrifying that Arthur could do him grievous bodily injury with a potato peeler.
“What?” Arthur snaps, folding his arms across his chest.
“I believe that’s my line, darling.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Eames raises an eyebrow at him disbelievingly. “You have no idea that you’re being a right pain in the arse?”
Arthur’s only answer is to press his lips into an even thinner and more displeased line.
“Arthur.” Eames takes a breath and changes tacks. “Have I done something to annoy you? More so than usual, I mean. Because I honestly don’t recollect being a particular git lately, but do correct me if I’m wrong.“
“You’ve been insufferable to the usual degree,” Arthur says, after a moment.
“And the rest of the team, have they done something to offend your delicate sensibilities?”
Arthur says nothing, which is answer enough.
“So why?“ Eames genuinely wants to know. It’s unlike Arthur to be anything less than a consummate professional.
Something passes through Arthur’s eyes, something that is almost wounded, which makes Eames stare at him in amazement. But then it’s gone, and Arthur looks the way he always does, closed up as tight as a locked room. “Let’s just get the job done, okay?”
He stalks away, leaving Eames to stare after him and ponder: What the bloody hell? Of course, he has no answer for that. Arthur is, as always, an enigma wrapped in a conundrum dressed in an Armani suit.
***
The good news is: Arthur’s mysterious tantrum passes, and they can all just get on with it.
Conveniently, Mervis Reid Preston Wampler has a medical procedure scheduled mid week, a vasectomy that is the penance demanded by the long-suffering Mrs. Wampler in the wake of the latest infidelity. Apparently she has grown tired of the ever-increasing throngs of Wampler love children. The doctor, who has three sons in college and a Caribbean vacation home to support, proves exceedingly obliging at the mention of cash. Eames, Arthur and Austin go under with Wampler while Milla keeps an eye on things topside.
“Why does this dream have to smell like cheap beer and armpits?” Arthur complains once Eames locates him in the bawdy strip club crowd.
“Verisimilitude, darling,” Eames tells him cheerfully. “Oh, look. There’s our Mr. Wampler now.” Drink in hand and groping the arse of a waitress, Eames is amused to note. “I’ll just change into my work attire, shall I?”
He wanders off to the isolated little niche Austin has included for his convenience and is surprised to find Arthur fast on his heels. Eames has gotten the impression that Arthur doesn’t entirely approve of forging, but when he fixes a questioning look on him, Arthur just waves his hand impatiently for Eames to get on with it.
“As you please, darling.”
He focuses, and a moment later he stands before Arthur as a well-endowed blonde with large hair, a tiny skirt, and truly execrable taste in eye makeup-the perfect distraction for Wampler. Arthur’s jaw tightens, and his expression goes constipated, the way it does so often when Eames transforms in dreams. You needn’t have watched, Eames wants to remind him, but Arthur will just fix him with a blank wall of a stare as if he has no idea what Eames is on about, so he doesn’t bother.
“Wish me luck,” Eames says, although of course luck is wholly beside the point when one has skill.
He launches himself back into the crowd, plotting an intercept course for Wampler, who is wandering away from the bar with a fresh drink in hand. Arthur shadows him, as the plan calls for, keeping a sharp eye out for quarrelsome projections, although for the moment they appear more interested in the naked woman slithering around the pole on stage than in making trouble.
Eames himself vastly prefers watching Arthur to the silicon-enhanced extravaganza on display. Arthur’s body is so lithe and graceful. The fluid movement of his hips as he makes his way through the crowd could keep Eames happily entertained for the rest of the night, but he does have a job to do. He opens another button on his blouse and starts toward Wampler and then stops abruptly as he catches sight of a familiar face in the crowd.
It’s her. The woman from three nights ago. All Eames can think is: When did I turn into Dom Cobb? But then he sees Arthur, frozen and two shades too pale, staring right at Eames’s woman with the kind of horror that might be seen on a person’s face as they’re being electrocuted. It takes Eames’s brain a second-or, fine, possibly two-to piece together what he should have figured out a very long time ago.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he can’t help saying out loud.
Arthur’s expression turns more murderous than Eames has seen it since that incident in Caracas that they never talk about. “Do your job, Mr. Eames,” he says, jaw clenched so tightly it’s a wonder the words manage to escape at all.
“Certainly,” Eames agrees obligingly. This topic is far from closed, of course, but he’ll have ample time later to make Arthur aware of that.
He slips into the jet stream of club-goers headed for the bathroom and a moment later collides with Wampler, who spills a Pink Flirtini all down the front of Eames’s cleavage, just as planned.
***
The job is ridiculously simple after that, although Eames can’t help feeling disappointed and a bit appalled that the secret ingredient in Wamplers Premium Toffee turns out to be a particularly cloying concentration of corn syrup. He makes a mental note to quit eating sweets.
After the information has been delivered to the client and many zeros have been deposited into their respective accounts, the next step is, as always, to go their separate ways. Eames has never met a plan he didn’t consider open to improvisation, and he and Arthur have unfinished business to settle. So he tails Arthur back to his hotel instead of taking the first flight to somewhere else. When he knocks at the door of Arthur’s room, Arthur answers, livid and apparently expecting him.
“What part of ‘scatter’ do you not understand?”
Anyone who has not spent the last five years minutely observing Arthur would perhaps fail to notice the hint of vulnerability beneath the fury, but Eames has made it his business to catalog every stray bit of Arthur-ness that has come his way. He feels certain that there is only one reasonable course of action here. He catches Arthur by the shoulder and pulls him in.
For a blissful three seconds, Arthur kisses back, instinctively fierce and greedy, just the way his alter ego was the other night. Then Arthur’s beautiful, meddlesome brain kicks back in, and he shoves Eames away, scowling.
“You might have just told me, you know,” Eames points out, quite sensibly. “The evening would have ended on a much more satisfying note for everyone. I take it this is why you’ve been more contentious than usual on the job?”
“I am never-fuck you! I don’t know what you think you’ve figured out, but trust me, you have no idea-“ He runs a hand through his hair, looking at the end of his rope, an expression Eames has never seen on him before, not even that time in the Libyan desert when all that stood between them and unceremonious death was an absolute rubbish Soviet-era pistol, two bullets, and an extremely ill-tempered camel.
All these years Eames has spent watching Arthur, and he’s a simpleton to have missed something so important. Eames wonders just how many beds he’s had to flee in order to keep his secret. It’s not exactly simple to explain why an orgasm comes with a change of gender. The smudge of life is fucking unfair that Eames has detected in Arthur’s eyes from time to time makes rather more sense now. No wonder Arthur reacts to Eames’s forging with an edge of fury. Transformation comes comparatively easily in dreams, and reality can be so very difficult.
Oh Arthur, if you only knew, Eames wants to tell him, but figures it will be simpler just to demonstrate.
Eames tugs Arthur closer, and since Arthur is so very Arthur, he insists on putting up a token resistance before allowing Eames’s arms around him. “You’re wrong of course, my darling,” Eames says between slow, insistent kisses. “I do have you figured out. You are the loveliest and most maddening of creatures in any guise.”
Arthur makes a derisive snort-he’s not the sort for sweet talk, which is precisely why Eames has one hundred twenty-three pet names for him-but he does kiss Eames back, long, greedy pulls of his mouth that leave them both on the verge of breathlessness.
A positive development, and Eames decides to push his luck a bit, tilting Arthur’s chin with his fingers, peppering kisses to every stray bit of bare skin he can reach, along Arthur’s jaw and at his temple and in the sweet curve of his throat that smells like soap and warmth and Arthur. “It was you I wanted, love, even if I didn’t realize it was you I had,” Eames whispers against his skin.
“You are so full of bullshit.” Arthur insists, but there’s no bite to it, and Eames can feel the shiver that goes through him.
“Darling,” Eames purrs with delight.
“Shut up and kiss me,” Arthur orders, yanking Eames by the hair, slanting their mouths together.
Eames is happy to oblige, running a hand up Arthur’s side, enjoying the crisp press of the exquisite Egyptian cotton shirt. Arthur makes no protest, not even a token one, when Eames starts to unbutton it. The hollow of Arthur’s throat tastes as clean and sweet as pears, and Eames laps at the soft skin there as he skims the shirt from Arthur’s shoulders, pushes his trousers and pants down his long legs.
Arthur vocalizes his frustration when Eames doesn’t immediately begin to touch him, sounding so annoyed and impatient that it makes Eames grin, because it’s so very Arthur. He doesn’t know how he could have missed that it was Arthur he had in his arms that other night. No one else on earth could make irritation so unaccountably arousing.
Eames strokes a hand up over Arthur’s hip and enjoys the view. Just because Arthur is in a hurry doesn’t mean Eames has to rush. Not that this is the first time he’s seen Arthur naked and male, of course. He’s stitched Arthur back together after jobs that went pear-shaped, helped him to bed in lonely hotel rooms after too many celebratory glasses of scotch, snuck peeks when Arthur casually stripped off after a workout. But this is the first time Eames has seen him like this, naked and hard and known, and all for Eames.
“You were a naughty little minx to run out on me the last time, darling.” Eames kisses Arthur’s neck and walks him backward to the bed and tumbles him onto the mattress. “But I’m willing to let you make it up to me.”
Arthur stares up at him, eyes intent and bright and so dark they seem bottomless. “Then why don’t you get on with it?”
Eames smiles fondly. “Dear Arthur. Always so impatient.” He leisurely undoes the buttons of his shirt.
“If you don’t hurry up, I’m going to start without you.” Arthur rubs a hand between his nipples, which are stiff and dark as pennies. His cock rests wetly against his belly, begging to be touched.
“Go on then, love,” Eames encourages him, voice soft and coaxing. “Let me see you.”
Arthur’s eyes glitter as he wraps long fingers around his cock and spreads his legs, showing off, as if he doesn’t already have Eames’s attention. Eames lets his shirt flutter to the carpet and starts to unbuckle his belt. Arthur moves his hand on his dick, staring, as Eames strips off for him.
“You have no idea how much it pissed me off.” The gravel in Arthur’s voice takes Eames by surprise; Arthur’s expression has gone austere even as his hand still works between his legs. “Getting what I wanted, only not-“
“Arthur.” Eames kicks his trousers away and crawls up the bed. He takes Arthur’s face between his hands and kisses him passionately, over and over, until Arthur relents, melts against him. “You can have anything you want, my darling.”
Even a thief can be a man of his word, and once upon a time Eames did promise Arthur, in stolen glances if not actual words, to put his mouth all over him. He sets out to make good on that now. Five years of watching Arthur, learning him, has made Eames just that much greedier for knowledge, and Arthur’s body is a whole new area of study. Eames feels a giddy furl of discovery as he traces his lips over Arthur’s biceps, strokes a hand along the smooth muscles of his side, licks at the crease of his hip. The next time they do this, the landscape will be completely different, and Eames will get to go exploring again. He hums happily under his breath in anticipation as he sucks a mark on the inside of Arthur’s thigh.
“Eames.” Arthur arches up, sinks his fingers into Eames’s hair and pulls, trying to guide Eames’s mouth to where he wants it most.
“You are a beautiful, demanding thing,” Eames tells him with a smile. He slides onto his knees between Arthur’s legs and covers Arthur’s thighs in kisses.
“And you are a fucking tease, Mr. Eames,” Arthur snarls, but it’s a playful snarl.
Eames feels suddenly, oddly humbled that Arthur would trust him with this. It’s not hard to guess what must have gone through Arthur’s head the other night, wanting Eames to realize, terrified that he might. Eames knows too well how it feels to hunger for closeness when the only truly safe thing is sex with strangers, to wish there was someone who could accept you for everything you are but despair of ever finding it. He understands what it means that Arthur would take this gamble on him.
“You seemed to enjoy this the other night.” He tips Arthur’s hips up and presses a soft, grateful kiss behind his balls. “Let’s try it again, yeah?”
Arthur lets out a strangled, desperate noise, which is all the encouragement Eames needs. He slots kisses to Arthur’s hole, dry and chaste at first, and then passionate and open-mouthed, and then utterly filthy, pushing his tongue deep inside, making a wet mess of Arthur’s thighs. Arthur enjoys being eaten out as much in this body as he did in the other, wriggling like an overexcited eel, hands catching at the sheets, needy sounds streaming out of him that would best be described as sobs, although Eames will keep this opinion to himself.
“Eames, Eames, Eames,” Arthur says brokenly, pushing at Eames’s shoulders, and when Eames doesn’t stop, Arthur’s tone goes sharper, more urgent. “. Stop! You have to fuck me now. Or I’m going to-“ He stops, as if suddenly uncertain.
Eames finds it endearing that Arthur seems to harbor some amusing notion that Eames is fundamentally heterosexual, that Arthur’s been piqued believing Eames prefers one version of his body to the other. Oh Arthur, you silly man.
“I want all of you, love.” He brushes a kiss to Arthur’s belly. “And I plan to have you every way I can get you.” He reaches for the nightstand drawer and comes away with slick and condoms, gratified that Arthur is predictably well organized. “Starting with this.” He presses wet fingers inside Arthur.
“Fuck.” Arthur pulls a knee up to his chest, so Eames can go deeper, and rides his hand. “Fuck, fuck.”
“Absolutely, darling.” Eames grins lewdly.
Arthur rolls his eyes, which makes Eames want to kiss him, so he does. It occurs to him as he’s sliding home, Arthur so tight and hot around his cock, that he’s glad the first time is like this, not as strangers, but intimately familiar. They’ve waited long enough for it. There will be time to explore all the other possibilities later.
Perhaps Arthur reads something of that in his expression, because he arches up, cranes his neck, pulls Eames down into a kiss. “I believe you promised to do things to me that haven’t been invented yet, Mr. Eames.” His breath is hot, his voice low and throaty against Eames’s ear.
“So I did, darling,” Eames says agreeably, thrusting deeper. “So I did.”
Even a thief can be as good as his word, and Eames does his best to dazzle.
The bed is damp and wrecked by the time they’ve both come. The scent of sex hangs in the air, and Eames feels languorous and content, with Arthur warm and tucked close and softly female.
“Eames,” she murmurs sleepily and then goes still. The next word comes out in a gasp, “Eames.” She trails her hand almost shyly up Eames’s side, touches Eames’s breast reverently. “You’re-that woman you always forge, she’s-“
“Not a forgery, my love.” Eames smiles happily at the thought that even though the two of them couldn’t be more different in so many ways somewhere deep in the mysteries of their DNA they are the same.
Arthur abruptly pulls away, scoots to the edge of the bed, and reaches for the bedside table.
.
“ I quite understand the need for confirmation, love, but I assure you that you’re not dreaming,” Eames tells her lazily.
Arthur hesitates, but only for a moment, before continuing to rummage around in the drawer. Eames hears the sound of the die and then a long, airy sigh as if Arthur had been holding her breath.
“You could have just told me,” Arthur points out at last, like the gorgeous stick in the mud she can be.
“And ruin the surprise?” Eames scoffs. She jumps when Arthur pinches her arm. “Oy! Come here, you bruiser.”
Arthur snuggles close again, and for a moment Eames entertains the notion that perhaps Arthur will be more compliant as a female, but then she remembers who she’s dealing with.
As if on cue, Arthur begins to overthink things. “I know this doesn’t necessarily change things between us, okay? It doesn’t mean-“
“Darling.” Eames tightens her arm around Arthur. “When I have the strength to raise my head from this pillow, I’m going to get you off with my hands and my mouth, and then beg you to fuck me.”
The strangled little noise that comes out of Arthur is entirely delightful.
“Let’s decide all the rest later, yeah?” Eames kisses her forehead. “Go to sleep, darling Arthur.”
What Eames doesn’t say is that Arthur is hers now, and no one else’s, and she plans to spend the rest of her life enjoying that as much as humanly possible. She figures she’ll have plenty of time later to make Arthur aware of that fact.