Okay guys, before you read this, I need you to know that the sexual..ness is very brief. I'll add to it soon, but for now if your just looking for sex this is not the fic for you. I wrote this long ago and I'll admit, its quite melodramatic, but hey these crazy kids are in love! Also i was experimenting with some characters I made up who I ended up using in a longer actual adventure Arthur and Eames fic, which I will post eventually...I just want it to be perfect. I don't own Inception. If I did I wouldnt be on the internet, I would be having an orgy with the cast. Okay, thankyou. Enjoy, if you dare!

Bad dream.

Eames had woken up countless times before in his life, but not once like this.

If the human body could be described in terms of a taut cord, his had been cut. It coiled in on itself in a sickly lucid curl of unshakable emotion.

It was as if he had been pulled up from the bottom of some freezing infinite ocean, gasping for breath. His breathing was ragged and harsh, so that in his exhales, small and uncharacteristic whimpers shook him. His limbs felt as though they were feeble machines, vibrating faster and faster towards some explosive break, becoming more and more unstable. He covered his face with his hands and rolled over onto his knees, struggling to control his heart rate. The heart itself was a lunatic racing echo in his head.

His sweat threatened to drown him, chased the contours of his skin towards his throat. Wheezing, shaking, and miserable, he opened his eyes. His nose was not an inch away from the coarse fibers making up a deep mahogany rug. Light, natural and clear, shone along the frayed edges of the close knit carpet. The feeling inside him, of the deepest loss, was so very blinding that there was almost an absence of meaning. All that remained of what had just happened was the deadly signature; encoded in the pit of his gut. His numb mind took note of all these characteristics in its customary way, as movement sprang up all around him. The others were waking, and by the way they were cursing and using the word "asshole" very generously, they seemed unhappy. The way his mind was reeling, as the thoughts became coherent in his head, they dissolved and were rendered meaningless. His stomach rolled with empty heaves of his muscles, as if his skin was rejecting the very substance of him. This extraction…nothing like this had ever happened before.

It was as if he had formed his own sound barrier, kneeled hopelessly on a section of dark red rug. His faltering heart drummed in his head, beating against his temples and forcing blood into his eyes. An idea occurred to him. He fumbled weakly for his totem, a smooth blue poker chip (a vestige of an unsuccessful hobby) and clutched it close.

A relief so immense bloomed in the base of his knotted intestines and rippled through his entire body, like a ring expanding outwards; a nuclear explosion leaving a toppling, shaky mess.

He had just watched Arthur die.

He'd watched Arthur die before, of course, while unpleasant it had become something of a joke between them. It was nothing more than schoolboy competitiveness really, seeing who could last the longest on a mission without receiving some sort of death related kick. But this time had been different. It had been real. ….had it? Something had gone completely awry during this dream. Eames had not been able to remember that they were in fact, in his own dream. He had been completely convinced it was a reality and he had no idea why that was. He stared down at his totem, rubbing it familiarly between his fingers. If his normal logic reigned true, then this was in fact reality. But something had happened in there, in his own dream, that had penetrated this logic. He was regretting taking this job now more than ever. They were now pitted against something he had never encountered before in his entire career as a forger, and despite his dashing good looks he was fast approaching nearly 15 years in the business.

"Get up, get up you ruddy idiot." Gruff hands seized his arm and pulled him shakily to his feet. He felt slightly lightheaded as he came to face his coworkers, all bristling and awake in the brightly lit warehouse room. Graham, Eames' fellow countryman and the team's hot tempered chemist, roughly released his arm with a sneer of annoyance on his harshly lined face. Eames shook out the sleeve of his jacket with a half hearted smile.

"For an old man you've got a pretty strong grip..." He joked candidly to the stocky white haired man. Whatever reality this was, Arthur was still alive. Eames saw no other option. It was all that could exist. For now his greatest problem was the room full of people glaring at him with highest contempt.

Hayley, the youngest of the group, barely even 20, stared dissapointedly down at her yellow shoes. She tucked a strand of hair the tint of red artificiality behind her ear as a small mobile phone resting on the desk she was leaning on rang out, horrid in the thick silence that had followed Eames' attempted joke. She cast him a sympathetic, but exasperated glance before answering swiftly.

"Heyyyy…"

Eames looked around the small group. Everyone glared at Eames blatantly; decorum seemed to have fallen out of effect.

"Yes."

The silence was charged with tension, all going Eames' direction while Hayley coordinated with the higher up. Upon feeling rather uncomfortable, he began to innocuously amuse himself, by making small noises with his lips, looking around the ceiling for things that weren't there, tapping his foot in rhythym to a mute melody.

"Yes, we made a..uh..a miscalculation. Yeah. The subject's mind is more…well equipped than we thought."

He drummed his fingers on the back of the leather chair he had been sleeping in and bit the inside of his cheek impatiently.

"No…it won't happen again."

He caught Graham's eye, and upon direct observation of what he found there in his gaze, he stopped drumming his fingers on the chair.

"We'll go back in tomorrow." She hung up and placed the phone pointedly back on the desk.

"Welp, Milena's pissed. The subject's awake again. We can't go back in today. Basically Eames blew it." She raised her eyebrows at Eames in a playful manner.

All eyes were on Moreau. They looked rather anxious as to what he would say to Eames. Moreau was a stoic gentleman with a knack for command. He was young, perhaps 25 at the oldest, and handsome. He was a taciturn but clear leader; appointed a week earlier by Eames' own shady current employers, and on any normal occasion his temper, among his other emotions, was always in perfect control. At times he was reminiscent of Arthur, a fact that was as endearing as it was aggravating. He ran his hand roughly over his narrow, heart shaped face, now rugged and weary. For a man who had been in a deep sleep only a few minutes earlier, he looked awfully exhausted.

"What the hell happened?" He asked calmly, his furrowed, straight eyebrows raising slightly. His hand had moved to the thick muss of dark locks atop his head in exasperation. He raked his fingers through his angular cut.

"If I knew I would've already told you, mate." Eames answered assuredly, shrugging his shoulders.

"No, no Don't give me that it was your dream!" Moreau countered, taking a dangerous step towards him. There was panic in his haggard stare. This was curious to Eames. True though it was that the people they were working for were not ones to disappoint, they had given them a reasonable timeframe to complete the mission in compensation for the little given information, the very lack thereof, Eames suspected, was far greater than they had originally anticipated. Not only were each of them being watched, but the subject of the extraction was being kept well out of their reach.

"I'll tell you what happened!" Graham chimed in haughtily with wide arm gestures. "One o' this wanker's projections gets knocked off, he wets his trousers like a barmy git and the dream collapses!"

Eames bristled slightly as the instinctive edge of unease glinted sharply in his chest.

As offensive as it was, it was a fairly accurate account, although he did resent the wet trouser comment. It had been a simple assignment, planting the mere whisper of an idea that needed to be reached in order to attain inception. They had only been on the first level of dream.

The subject's mind was armed, as they had been warned it would be. Eames remembered fragments of this ominous foreground, random and meaningless pieces: It had been his own dream, the manner of which had been dismal, as had been his mood in the days following he and Arthur's fight. The sky was dark, the buildings glossy and reflective. The people in the streets wore standard apparel for those who were prepared for rain. Then there had been the trained guards.

A car chase. He remembered shattering glass and empty rear windows. The smell of gunpowder had lingered on his lapel.

They had been going to stake out the abandoned recreational building Hayley had selected for a short rendezvous, Eames remembered. He had thought to himself what a nice section of town they were in while they were driving. That's when he started wondering if he had ever been there before. That had also been the point where his totem started feeling right.

And then there was Arthur. It was not uncommon for Arthur to turn up in Eames' dreams, in fact if he was not there in person he would always turn up, if only for a moment, to smile complacently, as if he knew he was important enough to show his face every time he slept. At the time Eames had been quite surprised. Why would Arthur be here of all places, in this strange sleek city he had never seen before? What he felt when he looked at Arthur was still in place, it seemed. It was as real as ever, and not something to be transcribed into words. While they would serve the purpose of creating an image of love, how could they really ever describe it? Like the first piece of inception; or a stencil of a wide landscape, these words would be futile. He would never admit to them, not even to Arthur. He had a reputation to protect.

Arthur had been standing on the side of the road near wearing red. Not a forward loud red; but a deep rich interpretation of it, one that was natural and almost earthy. Eames had coasted to the side of the road at once, despite Ira, his younger counterpart, and his worrisome questions from the passenger seat. He called out to Arthur and stepped out of the car, but despite his proximity, his words seemed to be lost with the motion of the now copious crowd. Where had these people come from?

He pushed his way through them and ignored the shouts of his colleagues, the second group of which had pulled over as well. Arthur appeared either lost or very pensive as he began to walk away in the opposite direction. Eames called out to him louder, slightly annoyed. At the very same moment, a thick mist of armed men seemed to have literally melted to the forefront of the crowd. One of them (insert description here), caught Eames' eye with distinct clarity. Arthur turned to look at him, soft recognition seeping into his eyes.

Even in his thoughts Eames glassed over the shooting very quickly. Although now it seemed that it had been a dream, at the time it had been very real and lingered like the smell of burn does in naked air. All he remembered was blood of a red of a more vivid brand on his hands and arms that did not belong to him, and the word "no" keeping time like a twisted metronome. Then he assumed he had to have been shot as well because he had woken up in the previously described state.

"Why did you stop the car Eames?" Moreau demanded sharply. In his current state of seemingly mounting distress he rounded on Ira; the coffee skinned young man who had begun leafing through some file or another with a furrowed brow. "And why did you let him?"

"Hey, Moreau, it's my mistake not his. I thought I saw someone I knew that's all." Eames interceded composedly.

"So what? It's a bloody dream!" Graham's bushy white eyebrows were nearly covering his eyes his frown was so pronounced. "Who was that scrawny pecker Eames?"

"He's an old friend, is all." Eames replied with the slightest hesitation.

"And 'e's important enough for you to go an' botch up-"

"Enough Graham." Moreau interrupted wearily. He was back to pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He did not open his eyes to address Eames. "I thought we hired a professional when we brought you on. How is it that you are chasing after projections of old friends though the dreamscape?" He enunciated each word painfully, as if he were holding back a temper that Eames did not think he could possess. He almost smirked at his uncanny ability to incur acute annoyance in all people, even those seemingly incorruptible. Like Moreau.

"This one was different though," Hayley chimed in before Eames had to respond. "It seemed more…real."

Moreau was glaring at her curiously.

"That's what totems are for." Graham contributed testily.

Hayley furrowed her brow and glared back at Graham. Their sass at a match. "Yeah exactly. I felt like my totem was…I don't know real. It felt pretty accurate to me. Didn't you guys feel that?"

Eames' ears perked up. Hayley had felt that strange sensation of reality as well. This fact, while reassuring his sanity, was unsettling and ominous. This had to mean something was happening that they were neither told about nor prepared for.

"I felt that too.." Moreau said thoughtfully as he turned to stare out the window and into the grassy hedge beyond with disconcerted features.

"Oh come on!" Graham scoffed expressively. "Don't tell me you're buying into this Moreau!"

"Hey grouchy! I don't know about you, but I've had my totem my entire life, and I have a pretty good idea of what its supposed to feel like!" Hayley argued, reaching in her jean pocket and recovering a quarter sized, bronze button, intricately carved into a swirling almost paisley pattern on the front. She placed it flat on her palm and stared down at it. "It felt like this. Just like this."

She looked up and scanned the room with suspicious green eyes. "What the hell is going on here?"

Moreau didn't answer her for a long, silent moment pregnant with anxiety. "I don't know." He said, shaking his head.

"Well, until I get more information that I'm never going to get, then I don't know either." Ira said, theatrically clamping the machine's briefcase shut and climbing to his feet. "I'm going home."

"Drive me?" Hayley chanced hopefully.

"Nope." He answered smoothly, as he had for the past week they had been working together. Eames had begun to wonder how Hayley even got there each day. She always seemed to be there when he arrived.

"You really need to get a car." Moreau sighed.

"I'm cheap." Hayley responded. "You drivin' me?"

"Do I have a choice?" Moreau sighed as she began leading the way out. Graham shot him one last look of mild contempt and pushed off the chair he'd been sitting on towards the door at the other end of the bare, spacious room. Eames couldn't be sure, but he might have heard the word "duffer" muttered in his direction.

Eames, with a start, realized that these people must have homes, actual permanent homes that seemed to be in actual proximity to one another. He had no home persay other than an unused apartment somewhere in _. Most of the time he was anywhere else but there, always on the run from something, or chasing after another job.

Glancing at the window at the high afternoon sun, Eames acknowledged the fact that Arthur, who turned out not to be dead after all, was not due in for another two days. He sighed. All he wanted was some sort of physical conformation that Arthur wasn't lying dead at the base of some huge smooth building, a blooming red amongst all different hues of grey.

There was nothing that could be done about Arthur not being there for the time being; so he decided, resolutely, that he would have to settle for the next best thing. O'Malley's Pub on the east side.

***

Bad timing.

Even by Eames' definition of precision, it was getting ridiculous. Promptness was something Arthur was very good about, and prompt he was. His flight had got in, he'd hailed a cab, he'd made sure that he had the hotel information correct, and now here he was. He had hoped his early arrival would be some sort of a pleasant surprise that would finally berth the weeklong distance that had settled between them following their fight, but as it was now nearing 11(pm), he was becoming resigned to the fact that Eames could never let anything be that simple for him. Arthur was a reasonable man, and he knew Eames habits were sporadic in quality and somewhat irresponsible, but given his current job, one that he himself had been so wholly opposed to, Arthur found himself feeling worried for his haplessly disorganized friend.

Already since he had let himself into the dingy hotel room (NOT the same beautiful room he had chosen a week earlier.) he had made the bed, straightened up the couch, thrown away a sizeable amount of garbage (some of it not even being Eames', but older and better hidden.) and put down the toilet seat, all while frequently chancing cursory glances at the stationary clock perched on the wall above the dirty square window. He felt it was logical to be anxious. Normally he refused to be, but Eames should have returned hours ago. Arthur had been contemplating courses of action for several minutes, perched stiffly at the dining room table. The clock clicked at him menacingly from where it hung. If it had a mouth, Arthur was certain it would've been sneering. It seemed to know the choice he had made before even he himself did.

With one last perfunctory glance at the door, the glistening table, and then the clock Arthur sighed and swiftly got to his feet. Removing his jacket from the peg and slipping inside, he was briskly walking under fluorescent bulbs towards some kind of solution.

The person watching him waited until he'd disappeared around a corner and down a dingy stairwell before they descended quickly on the door of room 112; the door Arthur had just locked behind him.

From where he stood tentatively on the sidewalk outside O'Malley's pub, he was already sure he could hear Eames' voice, loud and raucous, coming from within followed by bouts of drunken laughter. He sighed, and the exasperated noise of it was lost in the drunken squalor that was on the other side of the smudgy glass doors. He had been right to assume that this would be Eames favorite place on the east side.

The neon letters above the door flashed intermittently at him with a shrill buzzing tone. The shamrock seemed to be having exceptional trouble staying lit. It sputtered feverishly at him, from green to gray. This was not usually the sort of place he would choose to hang around. In fact he normally avoided such establishments, and would be perfectly content heading right by it and not even having to step inside. The shamrocks flickering increased in intensity. He smoothed his jacket and crossed the threshold into the bar.

At once, he was blinded by the dark. The bar, as bars usually were, was a dismal, grimy affair. The air was thick with the pungent smell of cigar smoke. It hit him like an acrid wall. He coughed lightly into his hand as he moved deeper into the shadowy room. The tables were littered with spilled bottles of beer, shells of peanuts, and men that had passed out in strange positions. Underlying the large amount of strident sound (from inebriated cheers coming from the back room) was an old blues song.

The bartender eyed him warily from behind the counter where he was polishing a stein to no avail. It only seemed to be becoming more smudged. Arthur was incompatible with these surroundings. He felt as though the further he went in the more unwilling his body became. It was almost like moving through water that wanted to wash him out onto the sidewalk.

At long last, he had maneuvered his way through the overturned tables and chairs near the back of the pub and into the adjacent room. There, under a yellowish light, Eames was illuminated brandishing a small glass full of burgundy liquid. He was putting money onto a green table

"I'LL GO AGAIN, I'LL GO AGAIN LADS! JUST A FLUTTER!" He announced cheerfully, in terms of a toast. To that came a roaring wave of applause from the horde of men holding their own glasses of amber liquids of different grades gathered around him. Arthur could see that Eames was exceptionally drunk tonight. His cheeks were a bright flush of rose, and his cerulean stare was softened and glassy. Arthur, for the umpteenth time this night, sighed deeply. In addition to the twinge of amusement he felt at the sight of his dearest friend caught doing something completely unsurprising, he felt a small whisper of something. It felt like a string strewn through his ribs that had been trying to gently pull his chest closer to his head had come undone. He assumed it was relief.

Arthur approached the table gawkily, the mens' beady drunken eyes straining to make something of him through their stupor. It was a while before Eames, telling a bearded middle aged fellow an old joke Arthur had heard a million times, looked up and saw him making his way towards the table. Eames squinted at him uncertainly for a moment, and then his rugged face split slowly and rather gracefully into a full, white smile. He was almost glowing with boyish charm. Arthur's heart faltered slightly in his sleepy chest.

"Oh there you are darling your just in time!" Eames chuckled delightedly as Arthur finally managed to push his way around the table to him. "Look, look" he beckoned Arthur close. He leaned forward obligingly. "I'm glad you've come, Arthur, because you see I can't remember how much money, exactly, I've lost here" he slurred indistinctly into his ear. A quick glimpse at the table told Arthur that Eames now only had in his possession a total of 15 dollars, some peanuts (shells included), and a joker card in his hand.

"Alright lets go." Arthur said firmly.

"Oh come on now, have a bit of fun won't you kitten?" Eames bellowed, shaking him off. For some reason he had started to giggle while he spoke, teetering at the edge of his stool dangerously as the others laughed. "You're such a bore sometimes darling, it's barely 10 o clock."

"Its past 12." Arthur responded cooly. "And I'm sure your…friends…wont mind if you leave while you still have some money in your pocket."

"Past 12?" Eames exclaimed, genuinely confused. "Blimey!" He turned to Arthur, laughing stupidly. "I just came in, I came in here and said '1 round' is all! And then Jimmy over here kept feeding the fire and adsfjdf"

The last part was unintelligible to Arthur, but it made the rest of the bar break out in a peal of hearty laughter. He rolled his eyes and swept Eames remaining money off the table and into his pocket quickly. Eames head darted his direction, and for a swift motion it was rather torpid.

"How'd you do that?" He demanded thickly.

"Come along Mr. Eames." Arthur ignored his question and easily began pulling him to his feet.

"Alright, Alright I can stand now!" Eames shook him off indignantly. He straightened his tan coat and tried to stand quickly. Arthur caught him by his arm before he could topple over. He was giggling again. He waved his hand to the table of people.

"Thas' all for tonight men! God bless you all!" He said theatrically.

"Nice to meet you gentlemen." Arthur added to respondent silence. He slung Eames arm across his shoulders and headed for the door.

"WAIT WAIT!" Eames cried suddenly.

"What is it?"

"I've left my cigar..hold on just a moment, love." He assured Arthur as he reclaimed his arm and went to go back to the table. Halfway there he tripped over a chair and fell. Arthur sighed. He wondered how much longer of Eames it would take before sighing was just the way he breathed.

"Does he have a cigar?" he asked of the man closest to where Eames had just fallen and was now climbing to his knees.

The man was young and wore glasses with long, dark hair and very red eyes. He was looking at Arthur in a slightly disconcerting way, as if he was contemplating some violent act. He slowly shook his head no.

"Thankyou.." He nodded as he pulled Eames off the ground with a small grunt. Eames was slightly bigger than him, and heavier. Strong as Arthur was he was also tired and this was no easy chore.

"You know I can walk, love." Eames argued half heartedly, with a hazy smirk as Arthur lugged him through the main section of the bar.

"That's what you said last time. You're drunk."

"Ah I suppose I am." He relented dimly. "To set the record straight, I'm not usually like this, you know." He explained, his eyes closed as they exited the murky bar and joined the late night crowds out on the streets. The beautiful bite of chilly nighttime air came as a source of great relief to Arthur. On his shoulder, Eames had rested his head facing him, his expression one that was trying to be serious, but failing miserably with the grin playing about the edges of his thick, full lips. "I'm just so very pleased you're still with us, lovely."

Arthur frowned over at Eames as he struggled to hail a cab while supporting his weight. What did that mean, with us? As far as Arthur knew still with us meant still alive. And why wouldn't he be? Had something happened?

As Eames, oblivious once more, began to loudly sing an old drinking song that he barely knew the words to, Arthur decided to write it off to his current state rather than pursue it. As a cab pulled up to the curb, the harassed looking driver sighed at the sight of Eames singing loudly.

"Sorry.." Arthur apologized to him sympathetically.

"Oo! Where are we going? Are you taking me to the pictures?" Eames teased drunkenly. Arthur rolled his eyes and pushed his comrade, now laughing mischievously, into the back of the cabin.

"Just get in."

Over the course of the short cab ride back to the hotel, Eames had lapsed into an inebriated stupor in which he stared, enamored, out the window at the passing lights and buildings. Every once in a while he would turn to Arthur and vaguely say something sounding like "Didjoo seeat dahling?"

Arthur had spent a lot of time listening to Eames' voice and couldn't help but notice it had become rather cockney. This meant tomorrow was going to be very very difficult for Mr. Eames to work through, especially in broad daylight. Still the silence was all Arthur could have hoped for and far more than he'd expected.

During the trip Arthur was sure he saw the same sleek black Audi snaking its way through the scarce amount of cars on the road. The suspicious temperament he had acquired from his job often, as Eames never hesitated to tell him, made him a bit of a stick in the mud. Paranoid though he usually was, he tried to ignore the car, but he was starting to become suspicious of the men loitering along the streetsides as well. Those who weren't wasted or homeless seemed to be men wearing black; all of which looked up very nonchalantly as the cab passed and looked right at it; right at him in fact. He was sure these windows were tinted.

He wanted to share these fears with Eames, but doubted he would get much of an anxiety-quelling response; if he could wrangle an articulate response at all. Finally, the cab pulled in to the asphalt arc of the pick-up area in front of the hotel lobby. From what Arthur could see there was no one working the small, gloomily lit reception area. The small box behind the slanted linoleum counter was empty.

The peevish cab driver, whom Eames was now trying to engage in uncomfortable close conversation, broke Arthur out of his reverie and demanded, to put it lightly "his goddamn fare."

Arthur apologized routinely and fumbled for his wallet. He wasn't all too sure how much money he had shoved into the driver's face before he hauled Eames out of the back seat. This strange sensation of acute apprehension that had emerged in him during the drive that now seemed to pique in the empty parking lot. He chanced a look at the road. There it was, the black Audi, its glossy exterior elucidated by the stationary streetlights above it, making a show of slowly driving by the hotel, and disappearing into the dark. Arthur watched it go grudgingly. The cab took off quickly too, causing him to start.

"Relax, duck." Eames crooned into his ear. He looked semi conscious, draped on Arthur's left side. "Its only a bit of..just a bit…"

"A bit of what?" Arthur asked as he wheeled them around and proceeded to the door. His curiosity had got the better of him.

"Oh hell if I know." Eames grinned at the ground. "A bit of LOOOOOOOVE!" he began to sing at the top of his voice. Arthur gritted his teeth.

"Eames, I'm being very patient with you right now-"

"Ahhh, yes, yes, and I love you for that, darling. I AB-so-lutely…love you." Eames cut him off. Arthur knew these words were a result of plastered elation and Eames would not likely remember this tomorrow. But being the men they were it was very rarely either of them said anything like this, if not in fun. Arthur looked over at Eames' profile. He was smiling softly, with quiet, bona fide accuracy.

Arthur didn't even finish his threat.

Arthur hurried through the starch white lobby, eager to be out of the main area of the hotel. He was practically dragging Eames to the elevator, a fact that was, apparently, quite amusing for him.

"Gorgeous, love, Gorgeous." He larked randomly as Arthur ducked him into the elevator. He turned, off balance, and fell into Eames' side delightedly. He was laughing once more, quietly this time. "Fancy a bit of a snog, then, do we?"

"What are you talking about?" Arthur grumbled distractedly, his eyes on the ceiling, as if he could will the elevator to move faster. "I don't recall saying anything of the sort."

"You seem eager to get back to the room, don't you?" Eames grinned. "Don't be shy, puppet. I can't help having considerable chaaaarm." He drawled loosely.

Arthur rolled his eyes. Eames' charm was something he was well aware of. In fact, he thought it should be illegal for someone to have such an enticing accent.

When the elevator doors slid open, Arthur was already fumbling for the room key in his pocket. This sense of distinct unease had gotten under his skin. He was rarely wrong about these kinds of feelings in such intensity. As they came to room 112, Arthur realized, with an explicit curse, the kind he would only use if there were no ladies present, that he didn't have the key. His mind began racing through all the possibilities of where it could be, vanished into the city sprawl.

Eames sighed. "We going to stand here all night, dearheart?" he said, fumbling the doorknob. To Arthurs great surprise the door was unlocked. He couldn't remember if he'd left it like that or not. It was unlike him to forget such things.

He followed Eames suspiciously into the small room. He warily closed the door behind them, fretfully glassing every inch of the apartment again and again; like frantic clockwork. With a start, he noticed the key, perfectly intact on its silvery ring, hanging on the peg by the door. Arthur was certain he had not left it here. Immediately the hotel room became unsafe.

His eyes narrowed, and he attempted to inch forward quietly, but Eames cut him off. With a drunken lunge, he had Arthur pinned to the back of the flimsy door. He was smirking sensually as he PUSHED Arthur's coat off with surprising speed, and struggled to undo his necktie.

"Eames!" Arthur cried out indignantly. "Get off of me!"

"Loosen up a bit darling" Eames crooned in his ear. His hot breath fanned over Arthur's face in a sweet clear vapor of whisky and smoke. Arthur fought against the completely irrational feeling in his stomach and tried to see around Eames' head, placing his hands on his forearms.

"Eames!" Arthur persisted, struggling against his weight as he began to try and kiss his neck. "Get OFF!" With a grunt of exertion as he pushed Eames aside roughly. Eames landed on his back on the rickety double bed by the door. He looked up at Arthur with wide eyed, disbelieving delight. He chuckled boyishly.

"By god darling!" he exclaimed "I'm quite enjoying this newfound aggression! Now.." He said, feigning sternness. "Are you going to have your way with me?"

Arthur sighed and shook his head before walking deeper into the room. He nudged the bathroom door open with his foot and leapt inside, screening the area with a rush of adrenaline.

"Darling?" Eames called from the bed. "Are you feeling quite alright?"

Arthur ignored him and moved into the dining room area. Noone was there either. He frowned in confusion, turning back to where Eames lay.

"Huh…" he remarked to himself as his heart rate slowed. He had been expecting some sort of a fight, or at least something to go off of besides his sense of trepidation.

He remained unconvinced that he had been paranoid. The black Audi; those men; that key. Not all of that could be chalked up to coincidence. Yet, what could he do if he had no idea what he was expecting?

He decided it couldn't be helped, not right now at least, so he moved to the matter at hand. Eames. Somehow he had managed to take off his shoes and pants while Arthur had been searching. Arthur slapped his hand to his forehead at his expectant smile.

"Get on then, show me your undies darling! Join the party!" He said between debilitating shakes of laughter. Arthur blushed red. Eames had a knack for pushing him right over the edge of his comfort zone in record time, and holding him there.

He shook it off and went to the cabinet. Inside were a few smudgy glasses. He took one out and ran it under the sink. He placed the water on the counter.

"Come here." He called to Eames.

"In the kitchen!" Eames said eagerly tottering over. "You nasty little bugger!" When he had taken a seat on one of the barstools, he stared blankly down at the glass in front of him.

"What's this?"

"Take this." Arthur said, placing a small tablet of aspirin on the counter beside the cup.

"Your wish is my command." He attempted to say alluringly, but his smile broke it halfway through as he obediently swallowed the pill.

"Take off your jacket" Arthur continued to dutifully instruct.

"This is more like it!" Eames continued to enthusiastically obey as he climbed down from the barstool shakily. Arthur hung his jacket on the peg, and picked up his own from the ground by the door, dusting it off gingerly. It was his favorite jacket, and it now smelled like bar.

When he turned, Eames had come over to him, and blocked his path.

"How bout a bit of a nookie, lovely?" Eames said softly.

He was close enough to not have to speak any louder than that.

"You're disgusting." He replied half heartedly. Arthur didn't know what to make of Eames sometimes, especially when his face was this close. He supposed the term for this feeling would be dazzle or enamor. He felt it as him standing near a coat rack, feeling the heat coming of Eames body, and becoming quite aware of his scarcity of clothing. He looked down at the floor. Eames legs, he couldn't help but notice, were quite toned actually, as though physicians had crafted a perfect muscular model and then stretched smooth, tan skin over it.

He wasn't interested in any sort of drunken canoodle. He was stressed and tired. But Eames was scattering his thoughts, as if he were contagious; a fragile disease that sneaks up on you in soft nights when you lay thoughtfully, hovering above a pretty tropical dream.

His eyes were almost lucid, and full of glistening light, and they were so ridiculously tangible Arthur could scream. He could scream and scunch his face up and die and become a piece of the Earth and come back again into this light. To become one with it, to die furled inside it, like a wisened old tree. This was what it was. It had no name. He wasn't even sure who it was directed towards. It seemed to encompass many emotions, many aspects.

It was in his character to overthink, to dissect and analyze. But there was nothing left in his head to think about when those eyes came close close close, matching his own. Kissing Eames was the only thing Arthur was able to approach with sinful simplicity.

He could smell Eames' breath. It fanned warmly across his face in a whiskey and cigar scented vapor. There was a faint echo of sweetness lying underneath, the smell of Eames clean skin and something he couldn't identify. It was almost piny in tenor, rebounding off his eminent heat signature with a hazy gorgeous aroma that fell like a wrecking ball through his defenses.

When Eames palm cupped the left side of his face tenderly, he was almost shocked by the warmth of it. His skin always seemed to be a few degrees warmer than the air, than even Arthur's own blush as he dared to look up into those unfathomable blue eyes, much closer now. The scent was clouding his head and causing his eyes to water. Some faint impulse told him to lean away, the logical piece of him that always had its say. He ignored it blatantly and allowed Eames to tighten his grip around Arthur's neck and breach the small remaining distance between them. Those eyes, full of unknowable passion, swallowed him up.

His eyelids fluttered (adjective) as their lips made contact. Eames started out soft, his lips pressing against Arthur's for mere seconds at a time. Arthur always moved too slow, scrunching his eyes closed against the feeling. By the time he had the presenceof mind to make his own lips move he could only catch the edges of Eames's, pulling away.

Meanwhile Eames hands had moved through Arthur's hair, ruffling the neat slick he had tediously maintained throughout the day, and he had positioned himself so that Arthurs back was pressed against the door.

Where for some time stopped or was lost in these motions Arthur became all at once aware of everything around him. The persistently ticking clock, the empty glass on the table, the hard door behind him that groaned every time Eames shifted his position. He was aware of his hands, clenched midway between Eames' face and his sides, useless.

Eames leg had slipped between Arthur's, and his thigh rode up below and pushed cool on Arthur in a place that was becoming more and more aware of itself by the second.

He was in an envelope of beautiful wasted heat and scent and Eames. He could feel his heart rate increasing. He was always bashful when it came to these encounters, at least at first, and he awkwardly resisted the sporadic nature of his body's basic biological urge. He hated getting lost, and Eames, so eager to do just that, always ripped him right out of the well known maps of his very body.

Contrary to the laws of man, Eames was able to kiss better than he did sober while drunk. His face looped in and out in a beautiful disarrayed cycle. He would kiss Arthur's eyelid, his cheek, the edge of his mouth, then his lips, from rough to soft, warm pink, all with a slight smile playing about his thick primrose lips. Eames tongue was mischievous. It intruded Arthur's mouth and flicked around lightly almost before he knew it was even there. When it was gone, he wished it back.

Arthur's hands began clutching the sides of Eames face, raking his back and grasping his neck as he became more and more wound up. Eames' untended stubble scratched lightly at Arthur's face as well.

Arthur was shedding his inhibitions like a winter coat as their kiss progressed. His tongue had long since decided it had prospects beyond his own lips and now twisted, attacked, and clashed with Eames' in a strange battle of shared breath and the sexual tension of 2 fully grown men. His breathing had become ragged with climactic excitement that only seemed to build, it came from somewhere deep inside him and was insatiable, it seemed. His hands were roughly grasping and rubbing the planes of Eames' upper body with strange urgency. Eames spared him a rough caress and firm hands every now and again, as if baiting him. It was working.

Teeth pushed teeth and their lips met roughly again and again, Arthur pushing harder and harder, to hardest, as if he were trying to fuse their faces together. Suddenly, Eames pulled away, out of the immediate reach of Arthur's searching mouth. He opened his bleary eyes slowly to meet Eames. His blue eyed companion smiled cheekily at him and, with a careless flick of his hand, pulled Arthur's tie out from under his collar and tossed it to the ground. Arthur's heart pounded in his chest.

He could almost cry sometimes.

This was the only time anyone had seen a sign of vulnerability over the years. Only Eames had found this place, and his eyes, he could feel them exposed, so clear and ridiculous, and he could feel it so palpably and so heart wrenchingly that his happiness almost felt melancholy, twisted up in knots inside him.

He maintained knowing eye contact with Eames as he moved closer again. He stepped closer and flicked the top button on Arthur's vest with a vexing smirk. Arthur squared his shoulders and leaned back, allowing a small smile of his own before Eames hands pulled him close again by his waist. This time Eames' hot breath was on his neck, followed closely by the strange union of rough facial hair and smooth moist lips kissing deep into the warmth of his neck. The sensation sent chills down his spine. It felt good, gentle and nice. Eames kissed up to his jawbone, delicately brushing his lips up this strong jawline to the small rarely remembered space behind his earlobe. His lips felt cool and beautiful on that spot. And then he made his way back down, painstakingly, leaving a trail of fire down his neck once more. He kissed long and warm at the base of Arthur's neck, and then, bringing his hand up, pulled aside his starch white shirt neckline and kissed gently along his exposed collarbone. Arthur's breathing had become fully audible by this time, and embarrassing. He scowled at Eames' grin as, satisfied with the state he had put Arthur in, he pulled his face away once more and rested his hands on Arthur's chest.

With sudden strength, he pushed Arthur hard back into the door. The small of his back collided with a hard "THWACK!" that made him conscious of potential neighbors. But before he could continue wondering about anyone else in the hotel the closest of his fellow boarders had unhooked the top button on his sleek tan suit vest with a playful smirk, his face hovering inches away. Meticulously he went down his chest in a line, suggestively snapping the buttons. Arthur could only watch, paralyzed with erotic interest. When finally the last button was opened, Eames pushed his hands inside that thin layer of heat trapped between his vest and polyester shirt and grabbed him close once more, mashing his lips to Arthurs. When he pulled away from the dizzying kiss he looked down to find that somehow Eames had already managed to get his belt off of him.

In fact he was almost alarmed. That belt had been a rather expensive gift. Black leather, finely braided with a large brass buckle. Intellectual, chic, neat. Soulful even.

All in all, it was a grade-A belt. Or had been, until it had suddenly been relieved of its essential task of keeping Arthur's trousers snug around his waist.

Whatever he had done with the belt, Eames wasted no time rehashing, but instead pushed the vest roughly off of his shoulders, kissing him furiously as his sloppy hands struggled to push the vest past Arthur's elbows with no avail. Arthur could read the signs of Eames body, the way an old clockmaker knows the inner workings of his oldest clock, and in his urgency he was becoming slipshod in his foreplay. Arthur bit back a smirk before Eames lips returned to his, following a short sojourn to his neck.

It was easy to harness and use Eames weaknesses to his advantage. While Eames was intelligent and alluring, something he had always lacked was specificity, a key element of control. Now that he was becoming frenetic in his desire, it was Arthur's turn to be in charge.

He lifted his forearms lightly and extended his fingertips, pushing Eames back a small distance, far enough to make the other man's attention shift from trying to suck Arthur's lips off and his amused russet eyes. Behind the film of alcohol in Eames eyes there was poised a polite question lined with the slightest shimmer of impatience. Yet he had stopped. Arthur was very meticulous in his actions as he shrugged off the rest of the vest neatly and shook the creases out of it. He hung it on the peg beside his coat, a mere arms length away. He turned back to Eames and drew close to him. He shoved his hands roughly under his pink collared shirt. Eames skin was warm and firm under the smooth fabric. Arthur's hands circled around his toned waist to the clockwork muscular planes of his back.

Eames made Arthur an artist. He made him aware of the beautiful grace of the human body; a smooth unattainable construction.

"Arthur…" Eames sighed as Arthur began to push him towards the hotel bed. He stumbled backwards, but Arthur's strong grip kept him upright. The look in his eyes, Arthur rarely saw. It was genuine surprise, genuine vulnerability even. Arthur was dazzling him. Arthur couldn't keep the small grin off his face as the backs of Eames knees buckled against the side of the bed and he was thrown down on top of it. Eames laughed in sheer drunken delight. Every once in a great while it was nice when the roles were reversed.

He didn't give Eames much time to enjoy the pleasant surprise, though. Rubbing along the sides of Eames' stomach and ribs, he pushed the shirt right off of him entirely and then fell upon him, his hands raking over the now exposed skin of his chest, his broad shoulders and his muscular midsection. He covered Eames' giddy smile with his own. Eames snaked his arms up between their bodies, caught in a gratifying steady ring of bodily action to accompany the kissing. He put his hands on either side of Arthurs face and held tightly, scrunching his fingers through his sleek black hair. Arthur felt the skin of his face stretch taut with Eames' pull as their faces separated once more. Looking down onto Eames, he saw his expression, a light smile, traced with an unexplainable color. Eames looked as though he was struggling, as if it were painful, and it was, it was a soft red tinted chamber of nerves full of tiny imploding razor blades all the time, it was blinding and impregnable and ceaseless, at horrifying volume. Eames clumsily ran his thumb roughly along Arthur's left eyebrow, his breath jagged on his face and saccharine in aroma. Arthur felt this organic heat alive in him and filling him up, all the way to his legs, his stomach and eyes, which were already glossy with strange moisture. It was so warm and huge that he only wanted to tell Eames what it was and speak on it forever. He clutched Eames' wrist and tried to convey.

He closed his eyes against the blinding brightness of it as his face was pulled into the nook of delicious warmth/hot around Eames face and mouth.

The feeling, physical feelings, were powerful and startling in proximity and vibrance. Eames pushed his face harder into Arthur's, into a sitting position, and pulled back, this time letting Arthur exert the effort to get himself back to those exquisite lips. He fell to the task with easy sureness, a feature he was not known to possess on normal occasions.

Eames hands were tender and easily probing. They slipped through the small holes between his buttons and gently pushed them loose, exposing his coffee silk skin. Eames pushed the edges of the shirt back around his narrow midsection and Arthur helped shrug the shirt off his shoulders. Eames' touch on his now bare skin gave him gooseflesh.

Eames ran his hands up and down Arthur's sides as he leaned in to kiss him once more. This kiss was long and very pronounced, as if it were an evocative prelude. It clouded Arthur's head with pink glass. When Eames pulled away, he bit Arthur's bottom lip playfully and then released it with a small wet sound as it retreated back to his teeth.

Kisses tracked like a fine cool lace down to his shoulder, and then reallocated downwards, towards the planes of his chest. Arthur shifted his weight uncertainly as Eames positioned himself so that he was lying supine beneath him. He could feel the almost unintelligible warmth of Eames' flitting tongue slipping through his lips with each kiss down his breast plates. As he continued onto his heaving midsection, he reached back and fumbled to remove Arthur's shoes and socks, tossing the perfectly shined loafers to either side haphazardly.

"Eames…" Arthur groaned wearily in warning, his back stiffening the lower Eames moved along his torso. Whenever this point was reached, when the vulnerability was so close, somehow Arthur always neglected to formulate a witty, characteristic reaction to such a scenario, as if he was surprised and bewildered that it was happening. He was lost now, there was no denying it, and he would never be able to become accustomed to this.

"Darling." Eames responded casually as he continued downwards.

"What are you doing?" He slurred in warning as Eames finally came to the base of Arthur's upper body. His hands were firm on his thighs, and Arthur could feel their heat through the fabric.

"Relax, sweetheart." Eames said softly, bestowing a long kiss in the space just above the waistline of his slacks. "I won't bite unless you ask" with these words, the customary words he used he moved on to plant a kiss on both of his hipbones, pronounced in the slender straight line of his body.

His fingers undid the top button of these slacks and pulled them away. Eames' breathing sounded like he had been running a marathon moments before as, with Arthurs help, he slipped off the pants entirely. Arthur watched them fall into crumpled folds on the ground with indifference. His heart was pounding in his chest pleasurably in sweet anticipation. He squeezed his eyes close as Eames exhaled lowly and kissed him again, this time on either of his thighs, on the burning skin left exposed by Arthur's standard choice of briefs.

Throbbing, pulsating, the source of his erotica was only separate from Eames by a thin layer of cotton fiber. He had a way of bringing out the most defenseless pieces of him, and sexual pleasure, admittedly, was one of his greatest weaknesses. It was almost foolish feeling, to be exposed in a motion like that, it was like being caught in a shameful act or confronting a fretful error.

Arthur's back stiffened as Eames' fingers slipped behind the spandex cotton waistband of his underwear. He rolled it back about an inch and kissed the soft rarely exposed skin there. He seemed to be humming tunelessly as he did this. Humming and smiling mischievously. His humming vibrated through his lips and onto Arthur's skin as he moved downwards, inching the briefs lower and lower with his fingertips.

Arthur was peering down his chest watching this painful progression with sickening anticipation. Eames curled his fingertips against his pelvis and looked up straight into Arthur's nervous eyes with a flippant smirk. But Eames' comfortable attentions flickered away from his face and went to work on a much lower extremity of his body as; at long last, his last article of clothing was stripped away. Eames sighed contentedly as Arthur hesitantly allowed him to fumble inebriated with the underpants, eventually peeling them off of his legs. It was official. Arthur was naked.

"Divine" Eames exaggerated teasingly as he discarded the briefs atop the previously stripped slacks. With a fast motion for any drunk individual (let alone one who had been as completely gone as Eames) he leaned in to Arthur's face again and kissed him breathlessly. The next moment his face was out of reach. Arthur closed his eyes as the bed shifted under Eames redirected weight.

The way Eames was able to pull and pump on Arthur was incredibly perfect, with style attained from a mixture of his rough nature and casual, unabashed practice. It was almost like a rolling motion. Arthur felt his lips scrape against his pelvic flesh and then rub, moist and pursed, up the delicate backside of his penis.