Time May Change Me, but I Can't Change Time
Title: Time May Change Me, but I Can’t Change Time
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13 (for copious swearing)
Words: 4,280
Summary: Fill for this prompt at Inception kink. This is a crossover fic with the movie TiMER. For those of you unfamiliar with it, basically people can get a digital clock installed on their wrists that tells them when exactly they will meet their soul mate. The catch is they only start counting down after both people have had them installed.
Arthur’s never been good with words. It’s the simple fact of the matter. Arthur is a man of action; one who prefers to let his deeds speak for themselves. Words are messy and complicated and inaccurate and more often than not wind up making Arthur look like an idiot. And Arthur doesn’t like looking like an idiot. So Arthur’s actually complete shit with words, which is why he can’t find a way to tell Ariadne nicely to fuck off. Which is why he ends up in this ridiculous situation to begin with.
“C’mon Arthur, everyone’s getting them,” Ariadne says, one hand gesturing at the glass-windowed shop up ahead and the other wrapped tightly around Arthur’s wrist to prevent escape, “I don’t want to be the last person on Earth that doesn’t have one.”
Arthur glances at the showy, modern storefront and crinkles his nose in distaste.
“I don’t see why that means I have to get one too,” he grumbles, but they’ve been having this argument for a week now and Arthur knows he wouldn’t be here if there were any way to change Ariadne’s mind.
“Because,” Ariadne huffs as though she’s explaining something to a toddler for the fifth or sixth time, “They help you find your soul mate. It’s scientifically proven. Don’t you want a soul mate Arthur?”
Arthur scowls, “First of all, the science behind it all is shaky at best. Second, even if you do suspend your disbelief and assume they work, they do not help you find your soul mate. You’ll meet that person whether you have one of these stupid things on or not. And third, what the hell is a soul mate supposed to be any way?”
“But it tells you exactly WHEN you meet your soul mate,” Ariadne protests, “Otherwise you might totally miss them.”
“So it’s just an excuse for people to be even less observant than they already are,” Arthur cuts in, but Ariadne continues as if she hasn’t heard a word.
“And a soul mate is your true love,” she says, and her voice sounds kind of far off and dreamy and Arthur thinks he might be sick, “It’s the one person you’ll really be happy with.”
“Oh please,” Arthur groans, “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You believe a person is your soul mate so you force yourself to be happy with them. It doesn’t mean...”
Ariadne tightens her grip on Arthur’s wrist and he shuts up immediately because even though she’s a small girl, it still really hurts.
“Now listen up, Arthur,” Ariadne hisses and if Arthur didn’t know her so well he might be genuinely terrified, “We are going into that store and we are getting those TiMERS.”
“But...”
“No! No more arguing. Eames has been prancing around showing his off for the past three weeks and I’ve had it. I want one too. And if I’m getting one, then so are you.”
Arthur rolls his eyes because Eames’s TiMER hasn’t even started counting down yet so he really has no cause to act as smug as he has been, but before he can get another word in Ariadne tugs sharply on his arm and suddenly the two of them are standing in the brightly lit store and Arthur knows there’s no going back.
“Hello. Welcome to the TiMER store,” a cheery-sounding employee says as they approach the sales counter, “What can we do for you today?”
Ariadne smiles brightly and replies, “Two installations please.”
The employee (her nametag reads ‘Pam’) looks back and forth between the two, eyes coming to rest on Ariadne’s fingers still wrapped around Arthur’s wrist. Arthur hastily tugs his arm away, but there’s already a knowing grin breaking out across the woman’s face.
“Think you’ve found each other, do you?” the woman asks.
“Oh no,” Ariadne says, shaking her head back and forth vigorously, “We’re just friends. I’m Ariadne and this is Arthur. He’s a skeptic.”
Ariadne says this last bit in a low whisper with her hand cupped around her mouth as if it’s some kind of shameful secret.
“Are you now?” Pam asks, contrived shock reading in her voice and Arthur wonders if there’s some kind of script they have to memorize in order to work here, “Not many of those left out there. Well, I assure you, the TiMER is 100% accurate at telling you not only who your soul mate is, but also exactly when you’ll find her. Isn’t technology incredible?”
Arthur snorts. Definitely a script.
“We know how it works,” Ariadne assures her, possibly trying to keep Arthur from making a sarcastic comment, “We’d just like the basic package please.”
Pam nods and rings up the purchase on her computer. Ariadne looks pointedly at Arthur, and he realizes she expects him to pay for it. Arthur hands over his credit card with a sigh and the sneaking suspicion that he hasn’t been brought here just for moral support.
“Well come on into the back then,” Pam says, leading them through a door and into a long hall of what look like medical examination rooms, “I promise it won’t take long and it’s relatively painless.”
Arthur wonders briefly if he could make a break for it, but he’s already paid for the damn thing and Ariadne would never let him live it down so he might as well accept his fate. He’s about to get TiMER-ed
***
Fifteen minutes later, Arthur and Ariadne exit the store, each looking down at the small digital read out attached to the inside of their left wrist.
“Three and a half years,” Ariadne whispers with something akin to awe in her voice, “In three and a half years I’ll meet the perfect guy. It seems so soon.”
In any other circumstance Arthur would make some sort of disparaging remark, but he’s far too fixated on the string of zeroes flashing across his own wrist.
“I can’t believe you’ve already zeroed out,” Ariadne tells him, “Just think about it. You’ve met your soul mate. You’ve looked the person you’re meant to be with in the eye before. Aren’t you excited?”
Arthur’s anything but. Honestly, he’s some combination of irritated and nauseous and bitter all rolled into one.
“I’ve already told you,” Arthur says, forcing himself to sound more collected than he actually is, “I don’t believe in these things.”
“But Arthur,” Ariadne cries as if he’s somehow personally insulted her, “You’re soul mate could be...”
“Enough with this,” Arthur snaps and suddenly he feels worn out from the whole ordeal. “Let’s just head back to the warehouse. I’ve got to look up some more details about the mark before we do the job this weekend.”
And with that he stalks off toward the parking lot, Ariadne walking briskly to keep up.
***
Arthur offers to grab lunch for everyone so he drops Ariadne off in front of the haggard-looking storage facility in downtown Atlanta that they’re currently using as a head quarters. Ariadne suspects he wants some time to himself so she doesn’t argue. Just gives him a pointed look as she slams the car door shut.
“Hey guys!” she yells as she slips in through the side door, “I’m back.”
Cobb’s bent over a flimsy plastic table, poring over possible dream layouts, but he looks up and flashes her a quick, tight smile.
“How’d it go?” he asks and there’s something settled at the bottom of his voice, something like worry or anxiety or dread.
“Three and a half years,” Ariadne says, grinning and holding up her wrist so Cobb can see for himself.
It’s like suddenly all the tension drains out through Cobb’s feet and dissipates into the concrete floor of the building. A true, honest smile breaks across his face as he steps around the edge of the table and grabs her hand, inspecting the device.
“This is great,” Cobb says, and Ariadne can tell he means it.
Suddenly, a voice calls out from the upper level office area.
“Cobb! What’s going on down there? Am I safe?”
“Is that Eames?” Ariadne asks, tugging her arm away from Cobb and fixing him with a suspicious frown, “What’s going on?”
Cobb doesn’t answer, choosing instead to yell back, “You can come on down, Eames. It’s fine.”
“What’s fine?” Ariadne insists, “What aren’t you telling me? I swear to god Cobb if you don’t explain right now...”
“It’s Eames,” Cobb replies quickly, raising his hands in a defensive gesture, “He’s been having a slight panic attack for the past hour waiting for you to get back.”
“Why?” Ariadne asks, confused.
“My TiMER zeroed out while you were gone.”
Ariadne spins around to face Eames, who’s ambling down the office stairs with his usual swagger. He doesn’t look like he’s even remotely ruffled, but then again it’s Eames so that means next to nothing.
“You zeroed out?” Ariadne repeats.
Eames nods.
“It suddenly flicked on about an hour and a half ago,” he explains, “Went straight to zeroes. I knew you were off getting one installed and I figured...Bit of a leap I suppose, but you never know.”
“Wait,” Ariadne snorts, holding up a hand and shaking her head, “You thought...you thought you a-and me...?”
And she can’t even finish the question because suddenly she’s laughing, quite possibly harder than she ever has before.
“By all means, love, laugh all you’d like,” Eames says, and he sounds offended except Ariadne knows him too well to actually believe it, “I wasn’t enjoying the thought. If you’ve noticed, I was upstairs hiding from you.”
The look of exaggerated disgust on Eames’s face sets her off on a whole new wave of giggles, and then Eames is joining in and Cobb is looking at them with that same gently disapproving look he gets when James eats a worm. They don’t hear the footsteps outside or the scratch of the metal door sliding against the floor.
“Food’s here,” Arthur shouts, voice still aggravated and Ariadne’s stomach drops out because suddenly she knows with excruciating certainty exactly what’s about to happen.
She sees it almost in slow motion, like that moment in the movie where the main character just got shot and his body arcs slowly, gracefully backwards. Cobb moving over to take one of the plastic bags out of Arthur’s hand. Eames, sending her one last jovial wink, turning around, something about Chinese takeout (again, Arthur, really?). She wants to stop it, to say something, to backtrack to this morning and let Arthur off the hook, anything to change this. Arthur whipping around to make some kind of pithy retort. Eyes meeting, angry and amused.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEEEP!
The plastic bag of Chinese food slips out of Arthur’s grip. Fried rice and soy sauce careen across the concrete. Ariadne catches a random glimpse of Cobb’s face, shocked and disbelieving.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Eames says at the exact same instant Arthur says, “Fuck.”
***
For three days, nothing happens. For three days they don’t talk. For three days it’s business as usual, with Arthur pulling test runs of the dreamscapes and Eames tailing his forge until all hours of the night. For three long days they avoid each other in silence. That first day Cobb sends them all back to the hotel (it seems like the best thing to do and Arthur looks like he’s contemplating jumping off the roof of the CNN center).
The second day, Arthur comes in, face a passive mask as always, shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow and a little oval scar on the inside of his left wrist. Eames pretends like he doesn’t notice. Pretends, because Eames notices everything.
Late on the third day, Eames cracks.
“Are you really that uninterested in having a soul mate?” he asks too casually to actually be casual.
Arthur stiffens immediately, fingers frozen over the keys of his laptop. Internally, he sighs because he’d thought maybe, just maybe, they were going to finish the job without ever mentioning this sordid affair, and then it could fade into little more than a story to tell at parties, or maybe never to tell at all.
“Just curious,” Eames continues as if he doesn’t notice Arthur’s posture or how unwelcome his question is, “Are you opposed to the idea soul mates in general or just me personally?”
“Both,” Arthur bites out, refusing to look at Eames because he doesn’t want to have this conversation now, or really ever for that matter.
“Why’s that?” Eames asks.
Arthur could punch him for sounding so normal, so easy. Like this sort of thing happens every day.
“I just think the concept is ridiculous,” Arthur replies, aloof and pedantic and praying that for once in his goddamn life Eames will just let something go.
As if that could ever be the case.
“Come on now, darling. That’s no proper answer.”
Arthur knows that if he looks up right now Eames will be smirking and leering so he stares hard at the sentence he’s just typed, at each individual word until they cease to look like real words at all, just jumbled up letters and symbols.
“I think you’re embarrassed,” Eames taunts, “Or scared, probably. Say, Arthur. You don’t happen to have commitment issues do you? Because that’s going to be a serious problem for me.”
“Shut up, Eames!” Arthur shouts all of a sudden, and he can’t help it anymore so he glares at Eames (it feels like a loss somehow), “People think soul mates are some sort of easy ticket to happiness, but they’re not. They think these stupid TiMERS are supposed to just hand them their perfect life on a platter, but it doesn’t work like that. Look at Cobb and Mal. How perfectly did that turn out?”
Arthur’s seething with rage and frustration and all Eames can do is stare at him, and Arthur can see how his jaw is clenched tight and his fingers dig into the upholstery of his chair.
“So you figure they aren’t worth it?” Eames asks quietly, all joking gone from his voice and Arthur knows suddenly that this isn’t teasing anymore; this is serious, “You think just forget true love, it’ll probably end badly anyway?”
“I think soul mates and true love aren’t real,” Arthur mutters, “I think they’re fabrications of the human mind because people want to believe life is simple and that the only thing you have to do to be happy is find this one specific person and be with them. It’s ludicrous.”
Eames is giving Arthur this sharp, unfamiliar look, but Arthur can’t tell if it’s angry or pitying or disapproving. Heartbroken some unhelpful part of his mind suggests, but Arthur thinks that’s equally ludicrous.
“Look Eames,” Arthur sighs and god he wants this conversation to be over and for them to go back to the way things were before all this shit, “Ariadne’s the one who made me get that stupid thing installed in the first place. I never asked for a soul mate and I’m not interested in having one.”
With a loud clatter, Eames is toppling his chair and stalking over to Arthur’s desk. He crowds into Arthur’s space and he still has that look on his face only this time it’s definitely angry (and heartbroken, he can’t help but think, silly as it sounds).
“Well, Arthur,” Eames growls, so low it’s more of a hiss really, menacing and devastated, “Just so you know, you’re not the only one involved in that decision.”
And the next thing Arthur knows, Eames is slamming the building door shut and Arthur’s trying desperately to ignore the way the sound echoes through the empty, metal rafters.
***
Another three days of terse silence and the job comes to a satisfactory close. They extract the necessary information from the mark with the only injuries being a bullet to Arthur’s left leg (in the dream) and a paper cut on Ariadne’s right index finger (not in the dream). Eames is focused and flawless as always when he slips into the skin of the mark’s older brother. Arthur stays concentrated on the mission, but only by sheer force of will. Every molecule in his body is screaming for him to put as much distance between himself and Eames as possible.
When they all come to (Arthur grasping at the phantom pain in his thigh), Ariadne’s wrapping a band-aid carefully around her finger. She’d stayed awake to keep an eye on the PASIV and the building.
“Everything go alright?” she asks.
It’s a superfluous question, of course, because if everything had not gone alright, Arthur would be running around packing things up and burning documents and Cobb would be yelling like there’s no tomorrow. Still, Arthur nods out of courtesy.
Cobb heads up to the office to call their employers, while Arthur sets about the task of destroying all evidence that they’d ever been there.
Nobody notices Eames leave without so much as a goodbye (except Arthur, but he pretends so hard not to that he almost doesn’t).
“Where’s Eames?” Ariadne asks later, directing her question at Arthur, as if it’s his job to know where Eames is at all times.
Arthur shrugs.
“I think he said something about a job in Bogota,” Cobb says.
Ariadne makes a short sound of acknowledgement, but her eyes never move from Arthur’s blank expression. And even though he’s spent practically all day asleep, Arthur can’t remember the last time he was this tired. So he grabs his coat and the PASIV and he leaves. Because if Eames can do it, so can he. Arthur’s good at leaving.
***
Arthur has a job lined up in Seoul, but he cancels it; sends the employer someone else’s name and number as an apology. Instead, he holes himself up in his little apartment (two rooms and a bath and not much else) in Seattle that not even Cobb knows about. He stocks his fridge with beer and microwaveable dinners. He doesn’t shave. He doesn’t think, or rather, tries not to, but he ends up thinking way too much anyway.
Some of the things Arthur doesn’t think about: his first girlfriend junior year of high school (she was in his AP history class and she had buck teeth), Dom and Mal’s wedding (Dom was a terrible dancer, but Mal took it in stride with that crystal clear laugh of hers), the first dream he ever shared with Eames (a dingy bar where Arthur ended up getting stabbed in the side with a broken vodka bottle).
For two weeks, Arthur is completely incommunicado. He allows his mind to float listlessly between memory and fantasy and dream, never exactly knowing one from the other. And then, after two weeks of reprieve, Arthur forces himself to pull his life back together, scrap by scrap, piece by piece. And then, then he goes back to living it.
***
Arthur’s working a job in Zurich when he glances at his phone and sees the message. It catches him off guard because he hasn’t seen or heard from Eames in six weeks, not since the Atlanta job, and, if he’s honest, he figured Eames was never going to contact him again, period. But there it is, plain as day on Arthur’s phone: a little line of text across the bottom of the screen.
You have 1 new voicemail.
And the number is Eames’s.
It takes Arthur a whole afternoon and evening, as well as a glass or two of whiskey to work up the nerve to actually listen to the message. He knows with every fiber of his being that this message isn’t a job offer or a tip off or even an apology or a promise to put the past behind them. It’s not going to be that kind of message, he’s positive. And if it’s not going to be that kind of message, he’s not sure he wants to hear it.
Except that he does. Needs to hear it even. Needs to figure out what Eames meant when he’d yelled at him with that look in his eye and stormed off without any explanation. Arthur’s dialing the phone and pressing it to his ear before he’s even aware of it.
You have one unheard message. Sent today at 11:37am.
Arthur? S’that you?
Eames voice filters out through the phone’s speaker. He’s slurring badly and Arthur doesn’t know where he is, but there’s a lot of background noise like people shouting and cars honking and doors slamming.
Hello? It’s Eames. Guess you’re not going to answer then. S’good cause I didn’t want to talk to you anyways. Just wanted to say...wanted to say fuck you, Arthur. Fuck you straight to fucking hell.
It’s not entirely unexpected. Arthur’s been told worse. But Eames keeps going, fuzzy and difficult to understand.
I always wanted it, you know. All that true love shit, I mean. I wanted that. It sounded nice right? Someone there. Just there, you know, whenever. There to do little things like make breakfast, or watch bad movies or, I don’t know, go to art museums. Just stupid little things. But you ruin everything. Did you know that, Arthur? You cock everything up.
Eames voice goes from hazy to irate at breakneck speed. The anger seems to make him more coherent. Arthur wants to hang up, because this is starting to hurt somewhere deep in his gut, but he can’t make himself do it. It’s almost masochistic, the way he needs to hear this from Eames.
But you know what? It’s okay. It’s okay cause I don’t want you for a soul mate either. You’d be a terrible soul mate. Absolutely awful. You’re cold and obsessive and downright mean sometimes and you, you’re too organized and you’re brilliant and witty and well-dressed and bloody gorgeous and...mostly you’re frustrating. You’re so damn frustrating because you’re infinitely better than whatever stupid idea I had of a soul mate before. So fuck you, Arthur. Just fucking fuck you.
And the message cuts off.
End of message. To delete this message, press 1 now. To save this message press, 2 now. To play saved messages, press...
Arthur presses 2 without thinking. And then suddenly he can’t not think anymore. It comes rushing into his mind like the biblical flood: thought after thought after thought. Eames with ketchup stuck to the corner of his mouth. Eames flashing that infuriating smirk and adding a cut-through to the dream layout. Eames accidently spilling tea on Arthur’s laptop. Eames laughing over a beer bottle as Arthur complains about tax laws. Eames’s bizarre teeth. Eames in a tux handing Arthur a flute of champagne and snorting as Dom trips on Mal’s wedding dress. Eames shooting his own projection in the head and pulling glass fragments from Arthur’s stomach. Eames leaving Arthur a drunken love confession on his cell phone. It’s all so ridiculous.
And Arthur realizes, like a freight train plowing down a crowded city street, that Eames is kind of everything Arthur’s never known he wanted in a soul mate too; that he may be just a little bit in love with Eames. Just a little.
Arthur plays the message again. And again after that. And again and again until he falls asleep in the uncomfortable hotel chair, phone wedged against his shoulder.
***
Three days later, Arthur turns up at Eames’s tiny apartment in Amsterdam.
“I got your message,” Arthur says before Eames can even finish opening the door.
Eames wrinkles his nose and walks back inside, leaving Arthur to shut the door and follow behind him.
“I kind of hoped I was too drunk to dial the right number,” Eames calls over his shoulder, padding back into the kitchen where Arthur can smell something cooking, “I’ve been expecting either you or a very confused returned call for days now.”
Arthur hates the way Eames can speak so relaxed and calm when Arthur knows he has to be horribly embarrassed or at least uncomfortable. He hates how Eames can make words bend to his will, can use them to hide and protect himself.
“Either way,” Eames continues breezily, like he’s chatting with a neighbor about the weather and not trying to convince Arthur that his heart isn’t a scattered array of glass shards on the floor, “I’ve given up on my ridiculous soul mate notions. Drank them right out of me, so no worries Arthur, darling. We can get on with our lives as we always have.”
Arthur hates that he can never make words do anything, except screw up that is. There are so many things he wants to say, but he can never shape the thoughts right. There’s some kind of disconnect between his brain and his mouth and things always get jumbled around and come out as a garbled mess.
If Arthur could, he would tell Eames all sorts of things that would make this moment perfect. Things like:
You’re gorgeous.
And
I’m probably a little more than a little in love with you.
And
The least we can do is try, right?
And
I have that exact same Van Gogh print on the wall in my apartment in Chicago, so we probably are soul mates after all.
But he can’t say anything at all. Instead, Arthur marches into the kitchen, grabs hold of Eames’s wrists (there’s a familiar oval scar under Arthur’s thumb), spins him around, and crashes their mouths together right then and there, with the bolognaise sauce simmering away on the stove top.
Arthur kisses Eames and Eames kisses back and Arthur refuses to slow down or pull away.
Because Arthur’s never been any good with words, but this; this he can probably manage.
END