A.N- I just finished this, but I had the idea for a couple of weeks. It took me four hours or so. If there are more spelling errors I'll try and fix them as soon as possible. Enjoy time traveling Arthur!

Disclaimer: I do not own Inception. I do not own anything related to time travel. A TARDIS cookie jar would be pretty cool, though!

Inevitable

Arthur is in a bar. Correction, he was in a bar. He had excused himself from the small table where his fellow dream worker Mr. Eames was sitting, and walked to the restroom. He gets there…and is there.

"I'm going to tell you all the reasons why this is a bad idea," his mirror image says, leaning against one of the chipped sinks, completely at ease with this situation. As if it was normal, as if he spoke to alternate versions of himself all the time. And maybe he did.

They are identical in every way- from the clothes, to the hair, to the frown. But, since neither of the Arthur's had disappeared, their interesting paradox wasn't resolved.

Arthur- the Arthur who had walked into the brightly lit bathroom; first, seeing spots from the bright fluorescent lights and then spotting himself waiting expectantly, wasn't sure what this supposedly bad idea was.

Before he could ask the question, the visiting Arthur glared at him.

"Do not," he demanded as he glared. "Do not," he repeated, "fall in love with Eames!"

And then, he produced a small silvery remote from his pocket and pressed its single button. He was gone in a flash of light.

Back to that time, back to that moment, Arthur was once again in a bar, heading to the restroom.

But when he opened the door he found that he was already there.

Again.

Once again, this Arthur and the visiting other appeared to be the same. But they were not.

This visiting Arthur was puzzling over his counterpart, who was staring in amazement.

"I told you!" he said, frowning and thinking hard. "I told you!"

The Arthur who had only ever intended to use the restroom, said nothing.

"I'm telling you. Don't fall in love with Eames!"

The Arthur in need of the restroom nodded quickly and the other disappeared after producing his special silvery remote.

Time travel, as it turned out, wasn't easy.

Arthur had gone back several times and tried to stop one of the major events of his life from taking place. It was just a feeling, but he had to make sure that it would never grow to fruition. Arthur was taking special measures to make certain that he never fell in love with Mr. Eames.

But it was proving to be quite impossible. It took awhile, but he finally decided to go and take the bull by the horns.

The visiting Arthur was in the bar, appearing there seconds after his counterpart had closed the bathroom door. He stomped over to the small table and sat down, across from a younger Mr. Eames who had been about to take a sip from his glass.

The Forger paused and placed it back onto the tabletop. He raised an eyebrow, saying, "Well, that was quick." And then, smirking, "I knew that you couldn't stay away from me for too long."

Arthur's eyes narrowed and he put on his most serious frown, saying, "No." And then, "I don't love you."

Eames took this in stride, as if young men he had drinks with in dark seedy bars frequently told him that they didn't love him. He instead nodded thoughtfully and picked up his glass more to have something to do with his hands than to have another drink.

"Personally, I don't think you've known me long enough to love me, darling. But, give it time."

Arthur's shoulders slumped and his expression changed from serious to a little despondent. "You have no idea, Mr. Eames. No idea, at all."

Then the Arthur who had left the table to use the restroom came back and spotted his lookalike sitting in his chair. There was an uncomfortable moment spent by our time traveling Arthur, who pointed at his counterpart, not even voicing the demand he had made several times in the past while visiting the past, not that his counterpart would know that. Arthur had the privilege of knowing it doubly as he had been the one to make the demand of himself and also remember receiving said demand.

Eames raised his hand and caught the attention of the Arthur from his timeline.

"Darling, he's trying to persuade you to not fall in love with me." Eames winked. "I hope you don't mind if I bet against you?"

His other self actually blushed. Arthur fished the remote from his pocket and cursed, pressing the button and disappearing from that failed venture.

It didn't mean that he stopped trying. Even after each trip he would experience this lurching feeling of recalling what his new to dreamshare starry eyed self experienced during those brief visits. When he started working in dreamshare he had thought all sorts of stuff were possible with such advances in technology- even time travel. His special remote wasn't official- it was a prototype and the bugs hadn't been worked out yet. He wasn't going to say how he had managed to get his hands on it, but that it come into his possession at just the right moment. Arthur just had to make the new technology work to his advantage!

Arthur believed that maybe he wasn't going far enough back- maybe he needed to find himself at a point where he hadn't met Eames yet and wouldn't be susceptible to his charms?

So he did that.

First, he overshot the mark and appeared in front of his much younger obviously pregnant mother.

Then, he caught himself at an age where all his younger self cared about were naps and bottles. It didn't stop him from leaning over his own crib inside his childhood nursery, to whisper: "Don't you dare fall in love with an English accented jerk named Eames. Don't you dare!" When his younger self began to fuss, the grown time traveling Arthur froze and began to softly sing a lullaby he knew his mother sang to him when he was that young. It was bizarre to think of how he was singing it to himself, literally. After a moment, child Arthur settled and went back to dreaming.

He found himself again by carefully hopping from age groups, wanting to reach himself at an age where he could speak but knew what a secret was. An age where Arthur could shape his own mind, direct his future in a way that wouldn't involve him meeting Eames. While his idea seemed sound, it didn't work in practice.

Arthur either caught himself at too young an age to speak about his future disastrous love interests or at times that he was too cautious and speculative to talk to a person who he clearly resembled but sounded like a wingnut.

There was a time when you just had to leave the table and cash in your chips. Arthur was finally ready to stop screwing with his own perception of his childhood and adult life, all because of the way one person made him feel.

Arthur, having returned to his proper time period performed the usual "Returning to present time period" checklist. He read the paper, watched the news, and curiously looked outside to see if there were any environmental changes in effect due to any Butterfly Effect styled occurrences.

Finally he did what he had to and arranged the meeting he had been dreading.

Arthur and Eames met at the bar they had shared drinks at in the beginning of their career together. After all of Arthur's attempts to influence the situation on Eames's side of the equation; visiting him in the past to try and sway his opinion, it only ended with the Forger sitting across from him, watching with a curious half-smile.

"I think I remember mentioning that I was betting against you." Eames smirked a little. "I love it when I win a good bet."

"Don't gloat," Arthur muttered, feeling far from romantic as he paused to take a sip of his drink. "I'm admitting defeat and trying to be a graceful about it."

Arthur raised his right hand, like he was taking an oath.

"I swear to stop trying to go back in time to prevent myself from ever becoming attracted to you and subsequently falling in love with you. It's clear that this is inevitable and I was being bullheaded to try and change it."

Eames smiled broadly as he watched Arthur pull the handy silvery remote out of his pocket, drop it on the floor, and then stomp on it.

The remote was reduced to nothing more than shards and wires that were caught in the spill of someone else's beer and something that looked like broken pretzels.