Eames Is Summary: Arthur considers a few things that Eames is. Eames is full of surprises. The handsome devil! Disclaimer: I don't own Inception.
Eames is a mask. He's fake. In the dreamscape he walks in lies. Man Of A Thousand Faces. He's the silent-movie star, emotion writ large, he's Houdini with a box of tricks, he's a demon who sets them up so high only so they fall even lower. The greatest part he has ever played is 'himself'. The awful clothes and thievery, the jokes and verbal dancing, these things seem more personal brand than solid truth, approved propaganda for Eames's own representation. Is there a 'core' Eames, a fundamental Eames? What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Eames is a mirror. The deflector, the reflector. He'll feed them what they want to hear and see when the PASIV's on, and when it's off he shields off each insult you volley with teasing petnames and that wry smile ever fixed in place. It's hell trying to rile someone who doesn't even take things personally.
Eames is overkill. He's too. Too big, too surreal, too tattooed, too scruffy, too silly, too unconcerned. His lips are too full and pink. There are too many things that he is, that he is at once and that's why sometimes when he enters the room you can't breathe when you see him, isn't that right?
Isn't it?
The sum is greater than the scattered parts, but it also simultaneously seems that Eames is only scattered parts and it confuses you because you suddenly cannot breathe at the muchness of Eames.
Eames is brilliant. With a machine gun, with a sheaf of watermarked papers and a calligraphy pen, with a fat wallet in a pocket, he's just the best. His talents are, unlike your own, completely instinctive and self-guided, his interest in developing them purely for their own sake rather than in proving himself to outside forces. His fingers are mercurial and nimble wherever they wander. He sucks at math and his spelling is a lost cause but though you hug the knowledge to yourself it's pointless to pretend you have the upper hand anymore.
Eames is impulsive. When you see him on a job a year after the Fischer thing, he doesn't even wait for the excuse of actual drunkeness before he is grasping you tight in the back booth of some quiet little bar and furiously capturing your mouth in rough, thrusting kisses.
Eames is sex. Oh God, he is. He goes at it like a bull, raw, blunt power, growling in your ear as his fingers clamp your sides. He thrusts you into the mattress over and over again until you're drowning in his scent and the relentless, delicious crushing weight of his body. No one has ever fucked you like this. No one can match this beast on top of you, match the guttural gasps Eames seeps into the side of your throat like a confession. You whine, you're whimpering steadily because, fuck, every shove of that huge dick inside of you is electric bursts of pleasure up your spine. Everything else just melts away until your whole world is this feeling and you, and him.
Eames.
Eames.
Eames.
The pillow soaks up his name, your eyes roll back in your head.
Eames fucks you into submission, then finally -
oblivion
You beg, you fall, you die for a while.
The next morning the bed is empty and when you reach the warehouse Eames avoids your gaze all day.
Slamming files and exhaling loudly achieves nothing but you do it anyway and he winces everytime. A goddamn week of this avoidance drags by as you feel yourself wilt by degrees. Finding something beautiful and watching it get dashed away on the rocks of circumstance is nothing new, so logically there should be no surprise left.
Logically, that is.
It further surprises you just how much you can hurt.
Screw him, then. It's an asshole way to act but this is Eames we're talking about, you should never have expected better. And. You didn't expect anything. It was a mistake and only that, so.
It's done, in any case.
Eight days after The Mistake, you think nothing of answering the timid knock at your hotel door (gun to hand though) because he always breaks in.
It's a cruel joke to see him standing there, licking his lips awkwardly. He has the good sense to avert his gaze as you stare disbelievingly, then sweep him inside.
He's in a sober dark suit but the shirt is stained and rumpled, and he has one hand behind his back but it doesn't matter. Nothing Eames says or does matters, ever.
He shifts in place for long moments, chancing glances at you from beneath thick lashes. Finally –
"Arthur. Erm. Hello."
If it were anyone else, you would think them ashamed.
"What do you want?" is all you can respond. You dreamed of a confrontation but now it's here there is nothing left inside you but weariness.
"I. Look. I. God - " he rubs at his face, "I'm not - I've never been. Fuck."
It's mildly interesting, watching Eames's impression of a contrite person.
His jaw tightens now at your folded arms and hard eyes and he looks away with a twisting, strange expression on his face.
"Why do you think I came here, Arthur?" he mutters, sullen, as though somehow you should feel guilty for his going to the trouble.
You tell him you don't know and you don't care, that you are in fact beyond caring.
He sort of shrinks in his clothes. Nods emphatically like he expected your answer.
"Right, right. That's - fair. Arthur, I, oh, fuck it -"
The hand behind his back now reveals itself, clutching something. Eames extends the something to you, tentatively.
It's flowers. A bunch of flowers, offered with the same frozen caution usually reserved for defusing bombs. Bewildered, you stare at them, then reach out and take them. They're irises, all lush rich purple.
He hasn't bought them. They're unwrapped, firstly and the stalks are ragged, dirty, as though he had passed an arrangement somewhere, grabbed a clump and simply pulled. Impulsive.
Unthinkingly you brush them against your face and it's like damp lips on skin all over again.
Eames steps closer, emboldened and before you can ask anything he blurts out, "Arthur, I have. Feelings for you. I think I might possibly be in - in love with you, actually."
What.
This cannot be real.
You stare at him, gaping like a fish. There's a dull thrumming starting up in your ears, throbbing anxiety. He steps close, too close, touching close.
"I panicked. I'm sorry. It's the fact that I've never even remotely felt this way before for someone and...I told myself all along it wasn't what it is. Forced it down to save acknowledging it." Eames sighs, as you keep staring and staring at him.
"You do my head in, Arthur. It's bloody terrifying, all this. I'm not mature enough to deal with it properly. I ran away. Force of habit, I suppose."
You can't speak, your tongue is dead in your mouth and all you can do is gaze at him.
He leans in. The rush of his cologne, a cold, blue scent folds around you, bringing with it raw memories and sensation. Those long-lashed, penetrating eyes flicker over your face with a longing sort of reverence and something final and joyous speaks in you then, declaring, this is real, oh god it's real. Nothing he has said but something that he suddenly is, some taste of truth you cannot shake.
Large, shaking hands slip around your waist, gently start pulling you in and he makes a needy little noise in his throat as you're brought nose-to-nose with him. That heat which is oozing through you, growing in your lower stomach must be purely down to that expression of his - low-lidded, hungry.
"How, how long?" you manage, abandoning the flowers on the floor in favour of cautiously sliding your arms around his muscular waist.
"Inception..." this, mumbled against your lips, and it is this, this admission, this confession that Eames has nursed feelings towards you for a whole year which unleashes your own impulsiveness. Unlocks your heart.
Your left arm tightens round his middle and your right arm rises, until your hand is spanning and stroking one warm stubbled cheek. You press against him, crush his body to yours and you whisper a secret into his plush, eager mouth -
"I love you, Mr Eames."
With a groan like he's dying, he clutches at you and seizes your mouth with his own, kissingkissingkissing, stroking and plunging and tasting, wet heat spreading you open and the taste of menthol cigarettes on your tongue, fingers threading in your hair. He tugs you to the bed without breaking rhythm for a moment, and you know as he settles on top of you, as he undresses himself and you, trails that clever mouth down the length of your body to begin showing you the reality of his feelings , you know that -
Eames is Love.