I set a fire (just to see what it kills), by pprfaith, R

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

Fandom: INCEPTION
Title: I set a fire (just to see what it kills)
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Length: 23,030
Author on LJ: pprfaith
Author Website: masterlists of fics on author's journal
Why this must be read:

(Permission to touch skin is not permission to get under it.)

This fic astonished me and just about everyone who's read it, I think. It knocked the wind out of me, stayed with me for days, and had me eager to discuss it with anyone who was as blown away as I was: reading and rereading parts, obsessing over Arthur and Eames and their gradual exhausting inward pull together. This is a story that combines at least 3 tried-and-true fandom tropes: the one where Arthur and Eames' relationship is a slow burn that lasts years, even decades; the one where they have a shared military background; and the one where one or both of them have revealing tattoos that tell us more about their lives and provide a gateway to intimacy. All of these tropes are well-trodden, but in this fic they unite to create something that feels totally fresh and unique. When military backstories are written well, they imbue the A/E dynamic with a lasting tension and mutual understanding that girds all of their interactions from then on--and this one is. As for the tattoos, well--they take on a meaning here that's unforgettable. Arthur himself is a force of nature, deadly and furious and unstoppable, and it's so easy to be swept away in him along with Eames.

Smart, thorough, and gripping from start to finish, this fic made me excited all over again for the possibilities in this fandom, and all the many ways we still have to explore the universe and the characters of Inception. Read it, read it, read it. It's amazing.

It’s only seven (on a Friday), so the place is packed and because they look like two soldiers on leave and nothing else (they aren’t anything else and Eames learned long ago that you can’t actually see shagging on other people), they land at a tiny table close to the kitchen, squished together into a booth, touching shoulder to knee.

Eames grins at Arthur, dirty and full of innuendo. He gets a tired eye-roll in return. Old man, his British arse. They order and sip their drinks in silence for a few minutes before Eames decides he’s ‘let’ Arthur for long enough and really, the question’s been burning under his nails, on his tongue, in his spine, for entirely too long.

If Eames were an animal, he would be a cat. A dead cat.

And because he likes Arthur best off balance, he raises his left hand, shapes a gun, puts it against Arthur’s temple and says, “Bam.”

Arthur jerks, jumps and then tenses like a spring. Eames grins into his glass, entirely too pleased with himself. “Tell me about that one,” he demands.

“That one what?” is shot back at him, tight and angry.

He leers at Arthur, gaze heavy with shared memories of the last time he said ‘bam’. “You know perfectly fine what, darling. Answer the question.”

“Why should I?”

Eames considers the question. “Quid pro quo, then?”

The eyebrow that gets him is razor sharp and pointed enough to kill a man. “What gave you the idea that you have anything I might want?”

He says nothing, just watches the younger man, eyes clear and expression open. In the end, Arthur reaches behind him, digging two digits into his shoulder blade, close to his ribs. Right on top of a scar that’s not big at all. It’s mostly visible because it bisects one of the tendrils of the tribal design on his shoulder. An inch long, no broader than a coin is thick. It might just be from a deep scratch.

But it’s not.

He looks at Arthur again, really looks, and considers lying because, bloody hell, what is he doing here anyway? Shagging a teenage boy with tattoos and issues you can see from bloody space, who snarls and snaps and bites and doesn’t give an inch but is so fucking brilliant he gives Eames the shivers, so bright and beautiful and damaged.

(It’s a particular combination that he’s never been able to resist. It’s why he’s here, playing this game.)

Truth then.

Only truth means trust and that…

“Got a knife in the back, darling, on a job gone south.”

He sees Arthur take note of the word ‘job’ instead of ‘mission’, his brow wrinkling minutely. Thinking with that big brain of his, working out all the clues he has. He’s silent for a long time and Eames keeps expecting more questions, but they never come.

In the end, they eat dinner in almost complete silence before Arthur says, “It’s a warning. To myself. One bullet is all it takes.”

“Not always.” Eames is thinking of the Glock in Arthur’s hand and the blood on his face, cold and precise, like a surgeon, removing danger from a dream. Removing himself, if the task calls for it. (Metal on Eames’s temple and the horizon blooming red.)

“Always,” Arthur repeats. “Up here.”

And see here, that sounds almost like Arthur got that tattoo when he was already dreaming, but he’s only been dreaming for a bit over two months and that tattoo is older than that, much older. So it can’t be what he means at all.

(Can it?)

+

They walked from the hotel and they are walking now, but without aim, meandering through the small town that’s mostly filled with tourists. Their dog tags make them stand out and blend in all at the same time, invisibly visible, as Eames follows Arthur who follows something he probably can’t explain even to himself.

Eames is content, belly full, slightly tipsy, sated in more visceral ways. He walks behind his companion, enjoying the view of that arse, that back, sleek legs and arms. Arthur is, in a word, art. Lines and angles, a study of shadows and light, even when fully illuminated by the too bright streetlamps, standing at attention up and down the main road.

He’s not short, only an inch less than Eames and he’s not truly skinny, but he’s lithe, wiry. Quick and dirty, Eames knows. Still he somehow manages to barely take up space, blending into every corner like a piece of nondescript furniture. There’s something very ordinary about him, at first glance.

And then you look again, like the college girls stumbling from and into bars, and suddenly he’s there, hitting you right between the eyes, like a bullet, sleek and deadly.

Beautiful.

He moves or speaks or just looks, arrogant and all-knowing. Unfurls, filling up all the space he didn’t take up before, filling all the nooks and crannies.

He’s the born criminal, in so many ways. Beautiful. Smart. Ruthless. Unassuming and imposing.

Eames thinks that, if Arthur applied himself, he could be anything, anyone. Or rather, his body could be. Eames doesn’t think anyone has ever touched this boy’s mind at all, despite all they do when they are asleep.

(And impenetrable fortress of bleeding solitude, Arthur’s mind is.)

Ahead, he speeds up his steps, heading for something specific suddenly. He throws a look over his shoulder, knowing and amused, puts a sway into his step with casual cruelty that makes Eames groan.

No. No-one touches Arthur’s mind. But he gives his body freely and really, what more could Eames want?

(A lot.)

I set a fire (just to see what it kills)

P.S. Since it's crossover week, I can't go without mentioning that pprfaith also has written an incredible Avengers/Inception xover where Arthur and Natasha (Black Widow) are siblings. You might have seen it, oh, recced everywhere lately. ;)