FIC: Kiss Trick, 8/?
Mar. 6th, 2011 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_ragnarokAnd thanks to eleveninches who looked it over and reassured me it was ok!
The job progresses. Eames, who did the brunt of his share of the work beforehand, mostly ends up assisting Ariadne and occasionally providing a practice target for Cobb and Arthur. He's stopped dreaming again, going under as often as he does to practice Alex into perfection. The lack of them is not unwelcome.
The team dynamics seem to have settled down some. He catches Ariadne and Sandra making out in the kitchen twice, which seems to be more Ariadne's fault than otherwise. If Arthur has any further problems with them, he never says anything about it.
Cobb and Arthur are falling back into their old rhythm, the familiar snap-bite give-and-take that took them to the top of their respective fields at one time. Eames can see how it brings more out of Arthur, forces him to think wide rather than deep; Cobb, in turn, is forced to rethink his plans over and over as Arthur pokes tiny moth-holes in Cobb's logic that make the entire thing unravel.
Cobb probably needs a rest from this; his thinking process is certainly addled enough as it is. And it's taking a toll on Arthur, as well. Eames is beginning to understand why Arthur didn't want Cobb on this job. It's clearly aggravating Arthur just to talk to him.
"If he mentions," Arthur says, one evening after Cobb leaves, "going deeper one more time – "
"You will – what, exactly?" Eames puts a cautious hand on Arthur's back. Arthur leans back into it, some tension flowing out of him with a relief Eames feels viscerally.
"Nothing, probably." Arthur sighs. His head dips forward, exposing the nape of his neck in what is clearly a request. Eames rubs two fingers along the bumps of his spine, pushing fingertips into Arthur's scalp in a move that will utterly destroy the sleek, product-sculpted line of his hair.
"So no going deeper," Eames says, amused.
The noise Arthur makes in reply can't be called speech by any proper definition. Arthur's eyes are sliding closed, his head slowly falling to the side until it's resting against Eames' chest.
"Tired?" Eames inquires. Arthur nods against him, just barely. "All right, then. Come on, off to bed with you."
Eames is still getting used to the way Arthur is, on a job. It's strange, seeing the other side of it as he does now. Arthur on a job is all relentless focus, working all the hours God gives and a few extra snatched with the aid of a PASIV. Eames used to assume that Arthur lets loose when he's alone, making himself think about something other than the job. Partying as hard as he worked. If anybody partied as hard as Arthur worked, though, likely they'd be dead within a year.
Then again, what a year that would be.
But no, it appears that after a hard day's work Arthur is prone to mumbling, the occasional surreptitious nap, and sitting hunched at the end of the sofa until Eames nudges him to go to sleep properly.
He doesn't initiate sex, doesn't ask or even seem to be particularly interested; Eames would be worried, except that once in bed, Arthur will be affectionate – bordering on clingy, even, kissing and touching, falling asleep still holding on to some part or other of Eames' anatomy. Possibly Arthur is just that tired. It certainly seems so.
This is all good and fine, but this job seems to be taking too much out of Arthur for Eames' liking. He's hardly going to complain about the dry spell, but Eames has a good notion of what Arthur's optimal operating conditions are and if the guy is too tired to so much as wank every so often, that can't mean anything good.
Possibly Eames shouldn't be paying as much attention to Arthur's masturbation habits as he is.
Eames tries to make it up by feeding Arthur as well as he can under the circumstances. Cobb looks suspicious whenever Eames enters the kitchen, but Ariadne will eat anything and Sandra is downright helpful on occasion. She doesn't have much to do, either – Eames gathers that she's been spending most of her time catching up on professional literature.
She's pleasant enough company, when she puts her mind to it. Eames is almost hesitant to do anything that might rock the boat, but she's calm enough that he doubts they'll get into a fight they can't mend.
As Sandra expertly shreds some lettuce for the salad, Eames says, "Arthur must have been hell to work with, when he was younger."
"You mean, like how he is with Cobb?" Sandra's gaze is curious and frank. "He wasn't really like that. He got a lot more intense in the last few years, I think." Then her mouth curves into a secret smile. "But somehow I don't think that's what you're asking at all."
"Not really," Eames says. He slices the last cucumber and moves on to the mushrooms. He doesn't much like them himself, but Ariadne and Arthur devour them, and Eames rather enjoys fishing the blasted things out of his own plate and putting them in Arthur's. "It looks like you had a big nasty fight."
"You mean, a big nasty breakup," Sandra says dryly.
That is, in fact, exactly what Eames means, but he keeps his response to this as noncommittal as possible.
"It kind of was." Sandra grabs a stool and sits down. "If I'm telling stories, I don't want to do it standing up."
"So there's a story, is there?" Eames takes over the lettuce-shredding. He might as well be useful while he's prying.
"Something like," Sandra says, and Eames feels an odd sense of deja vu. "We only went on," she waggles her fingers, "three or so dates. Then he looked into my things, saw something he shouldn't have, and freaked out."
"That's not such a long story," Eames notes.
Sandra raises her eyebrows. "Oh? You want more?"
Eames shakes his head. He can fill out the details, he thinks, given what he knows of Arthur's history. He feels oddly torn, thinking of how much he, himself, resented Arthur's disregard for privacy, then of the twist of Arthur's mouth as he talked about his first girlfriend. Without thinking, he says, "Pain can be part of a loving relationship," not mimicking very well because he only had Arthur's impression of the words, and Arthur's not particularly good at maintaining the right inflections.
Sandra's looking at him oddly. "So he told you about that."
Eames mentally kicks himself. Outwardly, he affects an apologetic smile. "Not in so many words."
"Look." Sandra pinches the bridge of her nose. She looks like this is a conversation she already had an unfortunate number of times too many. "I wouldn't have had to say any of that if he didn't poke into things that weren't any of his goddamned business to begin with."
Eames feels a sense of kinship with her on that, actually. It's ridiculously easy to sit beside her, to incline his body subtly towards hers, to nod sympathetically. "He does get a tad invasive."
Sandra snorts. "If anything, Ariadne's worse. But at least she likes what she finds."
Eames makes an inquiring noise, and Sandra smiles at him, halfway between shy and defiant. "Are you asking?" she says. "You should be careful about that, you know. Because I will answer."
"If you don't, I might ask Ariadne," Eames mock-threatens. It's a good move, evidently, because Sandra laughs and relaxes, her posture losing its rigidity until her thigh is almost touching his.
"God, don't," she says. "Goodness knows what that child will tell you."
"She's not that young," Eames says, just for something to say. Ariadne is twenty-two, and how old – or young – that is is entirely a matter of context.
"There's a lot she doesn't know," Sandra says. Her voice takes on a faraway quality. "I do like to teach those who will learn."
"Arthur must have been a horrible student," Eames says, leaning conspiratorially close, and that's it, he has her. He knows that look in her eyes, that position of the hands. Now she wants to talk to him; all he has to do is listen.
"God, he was awful," she says. "Worth it, though, every minute."
"How old was he?"
"Nineteen," she says, and there's definitely something dreamy about the look she has. "That's a little young for me, normally, but you should have seen him. He was amazing."
He still is, in Eames' opinion, and seems only to improve with time, but Eames utters encouraging noises as she expounds on the virtues of Arthur's younger self.
"And then," Sandra says, her smile widening in the anticipation of a punchline, "he gets it into his mind to go through my things, and finds one of my floggers. God," and her tone turns rueful at that, "that hissyfit was epic. I didn't think he was actually listening to a word I said."
Eames feels a pang of familiarity at that. "Yes, doesn't he just," he murmurs.
"I know, right?" She slants him an amused look. "Thank God for professionalism, I guess. I don't know if we could have worked together, otherwise."
"Did you?" Eames says.
She shrugs. "On and off. We mesh well together." She pulls a face. "That is, on jobs where I actually have something to do."
"Nobody forced your hand, coming here," Eames points out.
"I bet you think that," she says, looking fondly to the living room, where Ariadne is bent over her interminable models, tongue between her teeth in unselfconscious focus.
Eames resumes salad-making. He himself would quite like to eat at some point this evening. Sandra remains on her chair, staring vaguely at the wall.
"I do wonder about that, you know," she says. "I get second thoughts. Should I have done something different, did I hurt anyone I should have helped."
Eames hums noncommittally as he drizzles olive oil over the bowl.
She turns to him. "What do you think?" There's a hint of bitterness in her voice, something the slightest bit distressed. "Oh, come on," she says to whatever she sees in his face. "Everybody has an opinion. Just say it already."
"They seem perfectly fine to me," Eames says, but he can't bring himself to look at her as he does. He believes that she has the best of intentions, has no reason to believe otherwise, but – not to put too fine a point on it – she hurts people and enjoys it.
"Campsite rule, huh?" Sandra snorts, and Eames drops the knife.
"Do not," he says, in a completely level tone, "mention Dan Savage to me."
"Oh?" Sandra picks the knife up, gives it a cursory wash under the tap. When she places the knife next to him, Eames still hasn't moved. He shakes himself out of it, forces himself to take the knife again. "I like his column," she says, oblivious. "Don't you?"
Perhaps he's overreacting – is there a greater folly than getting all worked up over something somebody said on the internet? – but he can't help it. Eames takes the knife, holding it too tight. "He's a cunt," Eames says, focusing his attention on the – oh, sod it. He stirs the chopped vegetables around with the knife and decides to call it dinner. "Get the bread, will you?"
Sandra doesn't, just stands there looking at him. "All right, what the hell did he say to piss you off?"
Eames waves her off, an airy gesture. "Something or other. Can't be arsed to remember."
Actually, he remembers it all too well. I certainly hope you’re not another asexual/minimally sexual person who wants a normally sexual partner because you take a perverse pleasure in depriving someone else of sex, constantly rejecting that person’s advances, and ultimately destroying their confidence.
Eames supposes that shit like that is what he gets for reading a sex advice column, but he has a curious nature and he's compelled toward what he doesn't, on a visceral level, understand. There's half the thrill of forging, right there.
Sandra nods, slowly. There's an obvious Okay, have it your way intended there, but Eames doesn't feel like doing anything about it. Let her back off, for now. He got what he wanted to know, anyway.
That night he tucks Arthur next to him, close, and runs his hands over Arthur's soft skin. It's not smooth, though, lightly furred and marred as it is with the occasional scar. Eames traces the ones he knows, bullet wounds and places where a needle went in one time too many.
His fingers stop just below Arthur's navel, where there are four shiny pink lines moving straight down, stopping just short of his crotch. The lines are about half the width of Eames' fingernails. Eames wants to stop looking at them, but his eyes return there of their own volition, his hand coming to rest there again and again until Arthur knocks it away with a muffled, irritated sigh.
Arthur falls asleep on his stomach, his head pillowed on Eames' arm, which will doubtlessly go numb within the next five minutes. Eames hasn't the heart to move it away.
eleveninches who looked it over and reassured me it was ok!The job progresses. Eames, who did the brunt of his share of the work beforehand, mostly ends up assisting Ariadne and occasionally providing a practice target for Cobb and Arthur. He's stopped dreaming again, going under as often as he does to practice Alex into perfection. The lack of them is not unwelcome.
The team dynamics seem to have settled down some. He catches Ariadne and Sandra making out in the kitchen twice, which seems to be more Ariadne's fault than otherwise. If Arthur has any further problems with them, he never says anything about it.
Cobb and Arthur are falling back into their old rhythm, the familiar snap-bite give-and-take that took them to the top of their respective fields at one time. Eames can see how it brings more out of Arthur, forces him to think wide rather than deep; Cobb, in turn, is forced to rethink his plans over and over as Arthur pokes tiny moth-holes in Cobb's logic that make the entire thing unravel.
Cobb probably needs a rest from this; his thinking process is certainly addled enough as it is. And it's taking a toll on Arthur, as well. Eames is beginning to understand why Arthur didn't want Cobb on this job. It's clearly aggravating Arthur just to talk to him.
"If he mentions," Arthur says, one evening after Cobb leaves, "going deeper one more time – "
"You will – what, exactly?" Eames puts a cautious hand on Arthur's back. Arthur leans back into it, some tension flowing out of him with a relief Eames feels viscerally.
"Nothing, probably." Arthur sighs. His head dips forward, exposing the nape of his neck in what is clearly a request. Eames rubs two fingers along the bumps of his spine, pushing fingertips into Arthur's scalp in a move that will utterly destroy the sleek, product-sculpted line of his hair.
"So no going deeper," Eames says, amused.
The noise Arthur makes in reply can't be called speech by any proper definition. Arthur's eyes are sliding closed, his head slowly falling to the side until it's resting against Eames' chest.
"Tired?" Eames inquires. Arthur nods against him, just barely. "All right, then. Come on, off to bed with you."
Eames is still getting used to the way Arthur is, on a job. It's strange, seeing the other side of it as he does now. Arthur on a job is all relentless focus, working all the hours God gives and a few extra snatched with the aid of a PASIV. Eames used to assume that Arthur lets loose when he's alone, making himself think about something other than the job. Partying as hard as he worked. If anybody partied as hard as Arthur worked, though, likely they'd be dead within a year.
Then again, what a year that would be.
But no, it appears that after a hard day's work Arthur is prone to mumbling, the occasional surreptitious nap, and sitting hunched at the end of the sofa until Eames nudges him to go to sleep properly.
He doesn't initiate sex, doesn't ask or even seem to be particularly interested; Eames would be worried, except that once in bed, Arthur will be affectionate – bordering on clingy, even, kissing and touching, falling asleep still holding on to some part or other of Eames' anatomy. Possibly Arthur is just that tired. It certainly seems so.
This is all good and fine, but this job seems to be taking too much out of Arthur for Eames' liking. He's hardly going to complain about the dry spell, but Eames has a good notion of what Arthur's optimal operating conditions are and if the guy is too tired to so much as wank every so often, that can't mean anything good.
Possibly Eames shouldn't be paying as much attention to Arthur's masturbation habits as he is.
Eames tries to make it up by feeding Arthur as well as he can under the circumstances. Cobb looks suspicious whenever Eames enters the kitchen, but Ariadne will eat anything and Sandra is downright helpful on occasion. She doesn't have much to do, either – Eames gathers that she's been spending most of her time catching up on professional literature.
She's pleasant enough company, when she puts her mind to it. Eames is almost hesitant to do anything that might rock the boat, but she's calm enough that he doubts they'll get into a fight they can't mend.
As Sandra expertly shreds some lettuce for the salad, Eames says, "Arthur must have been hell to work with, when he was younger."
"You mean, like how he is with Cobb?" Sandra's gaze is curious and frank. "He wasn't really like that. He got a lot more intense in the last few years, I think." Then her mouth curves into a secret smile. "But somehow I don't think that's what you're asking at all."
"Not really," Eames says. He slices the last cucumber and moves on to the mushrooms. He doesn't much like them himself, but Ariadne and Arthur devour them, and Eames rather enjoys fishing the blasted things out of his own plate and putting them in Arthur's. "It looks like you had a big nasty fight."
"You mean, a big nasty breakup," Sandra says dryly.
That is, in fact, exactly what Eames means, but he keeps his response to this as noncommittal as possible.
"It kind of was." Sandra grabs a stool and sits down. "If I'm telling stories, I don't want to do it standing up."
"So there's a story, is there?" Eames takes over the lettuce-shredding. He might as well be useful while he's prying.
"Something like," Sandra says, and Eames feels an odd sense of deja vu. "We only went on," she waggles her fingers, "three or so dates. Then he looked into my things, saw something he shouldn't have, and freaked out."
"That's not such a long story," Eames notes.
Sandra raises her eyebrows. "Oh? You want more?"
Eames shakes his head. He can fill out the details, he thinks, given what he knows of Arthur's history. He feels oddly torn, thinking of how much he, himself, resented Arthur's disregard for privacy, then of the twist of Arthur's mouth as he talked about his first girlfriend. Without thinking, he says, "Pain can be part of a loving relationship," not mimicking very well because he only had Arthur's impression of the words, and Arthur's not particularly good at maintaining the right inflections.
Sandra's looking at him oddly. "So he told you about that."
Eames mentally kicks himself. Outwardly, he affects an apologetic smile. "Not in so many words."
"Look." Sandra pinches the bridge of her nose. She looks like this is a conversation she already had an unfortunate number of times too many. "I wouldn't have had to say any of that if he didn't poke into things that weren't any of his goddamned business to begin with."
Eames feels a sense of kinship with her on that, actually. It's ridiculously easy to sit beside her, to incline his body subtly towards hers, to nod sympathetically. "He does get a tad invasive."
Sandra snorts. "If anything, Ariadne's worse. But at least she likes what she finds."
Eames makes an inquiring noise, and Sandra smiles at him, halfway between shy and defiant. "Are you asking?" she says. "You should be careful about that, you know. Because I will answer."
"If you don't, I might ask Ariadne," Eames mock-threatens. It's a good move, evidently, because Sandra laughs and relaxes, her posture losing its rigidity until her thigh is almost touching his.
"God, don't," she says. "Goodness knows what that child will tell you."
"She's not that young," Eames says, just for something to say. Ariadne is twenty-two, and how old – or young – that is is entirely a matter of context.
"There's a lot she doesn't know," Sandra says. Her voice takes on a faraway quality. "I do like to teach those who will learn."
"Arthur must have been a horrible student," Eames says, leaning conspiratorially close, and that's it, he has her. He knows that look in her eyes, that position of the hands. Now she wants to talk to him; all he has to do is listen.
"God, he was awful," she says. "Worth it, though, every minute."
"How old was he?"
"Nineteen," she says, and there's definitely something dreamy about the look she has. "That's a little young for me, normally, but you should have seen him. He was amazing."
He still is, in Eames' opinion, and seems only to improve with time, but Eames utters encouraging noises as she expounds on the virtues of Arthur's younger self.
"And then," Sandra says, her smile widening in the anticipation of a punchline, "he gets it into his mind to go through my things, and finds one of my floggers. God," and her tone turns rueful at that, "that hissyfit was epic. I didn't think he was actually listening to a word I said."
Eames feels a pang of familiarity at that. "Yes, doesn't he just," he murmurs.
"I know, right?" She slants him an amused look. "Thank God for professionalism, I guess. I don't know if we could have worked together, otherwise."
"Did you?" Eames says.
She shrugs. "On and off. We mesh well together." She pulls a face. "That is, on jobs where I actually have something to do."
"Nobody forced your hand, coming here," Eames points out.
"I bet you think that," she says, looking fondly to the living room, where Ariadne is bent over her interminable models, tongue between her teeth in unselfconscious focus.
Eames resumes salad-making. He himself would quite like to eat at some point this evening. Sandra remains on her chair, staring vaguely at the wall.
"I do wonder about that, you know," she says. "I get second thoughts. Should I have done something different, did I hurt anyone I should have helped."
Eames hums noncommittally as he drizzles olive oil over the bowl.
She turns to him. "What do you think?" There's a hint of bitterness in her voice, something the slightest bit distressed. "Oh, come on," she says to whatever she sees in his face. "Everybody has an opinion. Just say it already."
"They seem perfectly fine to me," Eames says, but he can't bring himself to look at her as he does. He believes that she has the best of intentions, has no reason to believe otherwise, but – not to put too fine a point on it – she hurts people and enjoys it.
"Campsite rule, huh?" Sandra snorts, and Eames drops the knife.
"Do not," he says, in a completely level tone, "mention Dan Savage to me."
"Oh?" Sandra picks the knife up, gives it a cursory wash under the tap. When she places the knife next to him, Eames still hasn't moved. He shakes himself out of it, forces himself to take the knife again. "I like his column," she says, oblivious. "Don't you?"
Perhaps he's overreacting – is there a greater folly than getting all worked up over something somebody said on the internet? – but he can't help it. Eames takes the knife, holding it too tight. "He's a cunt," Eames says, focusing his attention on the – oh, sod it. He stirs the chopped vegetables around with the knife and decides to call it dinner. "Get the bread, will you?"
Sandra doesn't, just stands there looking at him. "All right, what the hell did he say to piss you off?"
Eames waves her off, an airy gesture. "Something or other. Can't be arsed to remember."
Actually, he remembers it all too well. I certainly hope you’re not another asexual/minimally sexual person who wants a normally sexual partner because you take a perverse pleasure in depriving someone else of sex, constantly rejecting that person’s advances, and ultimately destroying their confidence.
Eames supposes that shit like that is what he gets for reading a sex advice column, but he has a curious nature and he's compelled toward what he doesn't, on a visceral level, understand. There's half the thrill of forging, right there.
Sandra nods, slowly. There's an obvious Okay, have it your way intended there, but Eames doesn't feel like doing anything about it. Let her back off, for now. He got what he wanted to know, anyway.
That night he tucks Arthur next to him, close, and runs his hands over Arthur's soft skin. It's not smooth, though, lightly furred and marred as it is with the occasional scar. Eames traces the ones he knows, bullet wounds and places where a needle went in one time too many.
His fingers stop just below Arthur's navel, where there are four shiny pink lines moving straight down, stopping just short of his crotch. The lines are about half the width of Eames' fingernails. Eames wants to stop looking at them, but his eyes return there of their own volition, his hand coming to rest there again and again until Arthur knocks it away with a muffled, irritated sigh.
Arthur falls asleep on his stomach, his head pillowed on Eames' arm, which will doubtlessly go numb within the next five minutes. Eames hasn't the heart to move it away.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2011-03-06 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 10:28 am (UTC)Thank you. <3
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Date: 2011-03-07 12:10 am (UTC)ETA: is there any way you could "Allowed" into this tag so I can rec the whole series? It's a little awkward to not have the first one here.
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Date: 2011-03-07 10:29 am (UTC)I will do the tag thing when I have a little more time, but yes, I will do that. thank you for the suggestion!
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Date: 2011-03-07 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-12 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 01:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 10:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 01:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-07 06:38 pm (UTC)oh arthur, what did you do?
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Date: 2011-03-08 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-09 10:40 pm (UTC)Arthur's so damn cute as he mumbles as he's tired. ♥ Lol, and Eames paying attention to Arthur's masturbation habits! Typical.
What I really like is how you add the little things that make the characters so real; like with Eames enjoying fishing out mushrooms just so he can put them in Arthu's plate.
Sandra's really interesting. I like how you've developed her and Arthur's history together.