Like Wind On Skin, by recrudescence (NC-17)

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Fandom: INCEPTION
Title: Like Wind on Skin - NC-17
Pairing: Arthur/Yusuf
Length: 4,850
Author on LJ: recrudescence
Author Website: author's AO3 profile
Why this must be read: In Recrudescence's smooth, sleek writing, all pairings are compelling--not to mention smoking hot. This one is no exception. Arthur's fascination with Yusuf is sultry and dark and believable, and Yusuf's perceptiveness and total ambivalence about Arthur's addictions is amoral, totally in-character, and somehow still ridiculously sexy. I love this.

Yusuf has elegant hands, long-fingered and supple and almost delicate, whether they happen to be handling a flask of some unidentified substance or calmly adjusting his glasses or in dire danger of becoming ink-smeared from the pens he always leaves uncapped. His shirts might suffer on occasion, but somehow he always emerges unscathed from the wrists down, both hands smooth and sinuous and meticulously clean.

Arthur can’t stop watching them.

This itself is nothing remarkable. Arthur observes many things as part of his job and he’s used to being on his game; he’s used to tracking people and learning them and biding his time before he hears back from whatever additional feelers he’s sent out. He’s used to discreetness the way he becomes used to Yusuf’s dexterity with slides, with chopsticks, with the coils of the PASIV Arthur lets him wind away even though he normally hesitates before allowing anyone else the chance.

Arthur watches more than he should, watches in the name of indulgence more so than business, and watching means he notices these things. It also means he catches sight of Yusuf watching him back, a theory he confirms by habitually leaning over various tables while Yusuf is within view.

Ostensibly, it’s to study what Ariadne’s completed throughout the day. Really, it’s to heave a sigh in Yusuf’s direction the third or fourth time he catches him in the act. “Get your eyes off my ass.”

Yusuf doesn’t deny it, just smiles and turns back to his beakers, smooth as an oar dipping into water. “Piss off. In trousers like that, no one in their right mind could keep from staring at it.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this does nothing to put him off. Not that day, not the next, not the next after that.

And Arthur still almost regrets being unconscious when those beautiful hands try their hardest to slap him out of sleep.

Like Wind on Skin

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hey I just wanted to say that I am enjoying your thoughtful recs! I also really appreciate that you are covering quite the gamut of fics in your recs and diverse pairings!

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oh, thank you! i'm delighted to know people are enjoying them! thanks for letting me know. :D