takes an ocean not to break, cmonkatiekatie (PG)

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Fandom: INCEPTION
Title: takes an ocean not to break
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Length: 3,700
Author on LJ: cmonkatiekatie
Author Website: fic tag on author's journal and her other works on AO3
Why this must be read: I think we all understand, even if we're not familiar with Inception, that Arthur/Eames is the fandom juggernaut. I'm mostly going to be reccing stories I think do amazing things with this amazing canon--and if that's A/E, so much the better. So when I do rec a fic that's a straightforward look at my OTP, I hope that fic will impact you the way it impacts me--that is, fill you with love and belief in Arthur and Eames together, make you see them in a new way.

This is something I could say about all of cmonkatiekatie's fics, but this one especially makes me ship it more and more every time I reread. On the surface, it's a simple fic about Eames calling up Arthur to talk through the long distances and times between their meeting, and how this brings them closer together. But beneath that, this fic is actually a beautiful, honest portrayal of how fraught and exhilarating and scary it can be to let someone get close to you, to let yourself want them and believe that your heart can stand it. Katie does more in a few thousand words to convey oceans of emotion, through silence and sparseness, saying so much without saying much at all. And she does it all while making it feel completely inevitable that Arthur and Eames should fall together, should fall in love, should want so, so much. It's brilliant, and it punches me in the gut every time.

Los Angeles is windy and warm and clear enough to see the San Gabriel Mountains. Arthur stands on his balcony and rubs at his arm and thinks about calling Eames.

He doesn't, in the end. It's been awhile, five maybe six weeks, and Arthur has no idea where Eames is. He could be anywhere; it could be any time. It seems rude.

Arthur doesn't know what he'd say anyway.

-

"Do you ever get bored? Without the work I mean. I get bored. Do you? Of course you do."

Arthur looks at the contents of his medicine cabinet. "Yeah," he says, "yeah I get bored. How much coffee have you had?"

"Arthur, Arthur, have you ever once seen me drink coffee?"

"Yes?" Arthur says. “Maybe?” He’s only half listening. He switches the Tylenol PM with the Aleve so his various over the counter pain killers are arranged by descending height. After regarding them for a second, Arthur mixes up the bottles again. There's a lot he can deal with, but being the sort of person who arranges their medicine cabinet isn't one of them.

“I’ll help you out, you’ve never seen me drink coffee.”

“I’ve bought you coffee. You definitely drink coffee. There was that one time, in Prague or whatever. I bought you coffee. And that other time, with the job with that thing and the jackass corporate lawyer?”

Eames is silent.

“You didn’t drink it. Jesus, you could’ve just said you didn’t like it. I’d have brought you something else.”

“You’re so rarely kind to me,” Eames says. “I didn’t want to dissuade you from future ventures in being a nice guy.”

“That’s not even remotely true,” Arthur says. It’s maybe true.

takes an ocean not to break