don't be dull, be fannish

Got my hands on the Inception OST and can't stop listening to it. Hans Zimmer is a god of music, like seriously. And that made me crave fics again! Arthur/Eames fics!

"Toxic" by witling | Arthur/Eames | Arthur gets into trouble, and can't remember how he got there. Eames lends a hand. | ~22.000 words

“Arthur,” he says. Thinking, Christ, not again. “Do you know where you are?”

Arthur says nothing. His lips have thinned to a flat line. Keeping his eyes on Eames, he sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed.

“Please don’t make a run for it,” Eames says. He tries to keep his body language casual, non threatening. “I just got comfortable.”

Awesome fic! Man, I missed reading Arthur/Eames fics!

"What Takes Hold" by recrudescence | Arthur/Eames | The inception doesn’t take and the consequences are dire. Fischer remembers Eames, Eames remembers nothing, and Arthur remembers everything. | ~17.000 words

“You remember bits and pieces about Yusuf. Mal. Dom. The fucking jacket you left in Alabama.” Arthur’s words were softer still now. His body gave a little jerk, which Eames recognized as an aborted attempted to curl into himself. “Where am I?”

For the first time, even though they were finally precisely where they needed to be, he sounded lost.

Carefully, Eames urged him back over. Even in the dark, he could see the tension in Arthur’s jaw. “You’re here.”

Aww. I wanted to cuddle these two. What a lovely story...

"The Star Rover" by veritas-nescio | Arthur/Eames | When the next generation of Somnacin compound gets released, people start experiencing odd side effects; they dream about their past lives. The next time Arthur & Eames share a dream, they come across a startling revelation - they've been lovers in every single incarnation of their past selves, finding each other no matter what their form, no matter what obstacles had stood in their way. | ~10.000 words

Arthur runs wild and free in his dreams.

He's never been one to indulge in escapism. He was born – in this life, at least – with feet firmly planted on the ground, trained to value stability, pragmatism, reliability.

Dreams, natural or PASIV-induced, are not built to be reliable. Becoming enraptured with dream-share was Arthur's first step off the straight and narrow.

Delving back through time is his second.

Wonderful story. But also veritas-nescio's last. After this, the author went off the net. It's too bad because her/his stories pushed all my buttons...

"The Rebel French" by primavera | Arthur/Eames | Arthur barely registers the bullet through his knee. It's the second bullet that does it: hits him square in the chest, takes him clean off his feet. | ~34.000 words

"What the fuck are you doing?" Arthur snaps, yanks the report from Eames's slack, shaking hands.

Eames was staring at a picture that makes the museum look like the inside of a slaughterhouse. Paramedics and officers had stampeded through his blood, smeared it all across the floor after they revived him. It's the first time Arthur's gotten a proper look at the picture, is mildly amazed that all that blood came from him.

"Arthur," Eames starts, voice just as shaky has his hands, his body. His eyes are glassy, wet looking—horrified the way they were the first time he saw Arthur's scarred chest and ran.

Eames is definitely not the good guy here. When you realize what he has done... I'm not sure I could've forgiven him the way Arthur did.

Reading this fic, the style felt really familiar - and then I realized it's the same author who wrote the ST Kirk/Bones fic "Knives in the Water", one of the best AUs in the fandom!

"Antimony" by jibrailis | Arthur/Eames | Dreamshare goes legal, Arthur goes corporate, Eames goes and (against his better judgment) falls in love. | ~54.000 words

Arthur comes for him in December, in the middle of ashy snow, when Eames is wearing three jumpers and a pair of fuzzy slippers given to him by his grandmother. Arthur shows up at the doorstep of his flat, sleek and elegant, looking like a Queen's ransom even with his hair dampened by English weather. Next to him, Eames seems positively dowdy, and this makes him incredibly happy in ways that no doubt can be attributed to his perverse nature and general lack of character.

This is what I spent yesterday doing - reading this fic. It's 54k words! And it's funny and it's touching and it's a bit sad and it's all around perfect.

"Let Your Ladder Down For Those Who Really Shine" & "Sing the Doldrums, Sharp and Bright" by Dipenates | Arthur/Eames | Inception/Mysterious Skin fusion | Child abuse! | Arthur doesn't want to have shower sex with Eames. | ~4.100 & ~6.100 respectively

Arthur didn't move. Eames pulled out needle connecting him to the PASIV and went to Arthur's side. He wasn't sure whether to touch him, whether Arthur would want Eames's hands on him.

Arthur reached out without opening his eyes, lacing his fingers through Eames's. Arthur shook a little, in the shelter of Eames's hand. "I have no idea what I was thinking."

Eames dropped his mouth to Arthur's fingers.

Wonderful stories about Arthur and Eames falling in love and them dealing with Arthur's issues together. Beautifully written. First story also available as podfic through amplificathon!

Remember the "Renovations" podfic written by joosetta and read by anatsuno that I rec'd yesterday? The fic is just the first part in a series of 4 standalone stories.

"Renovations!verse" by joosetta | Arthur/Eames | In which Eames builds a nest and (accidentally) lures Arthur into it. | 10.600 words

He wanted to leave as well. Being in the flat was upsetting precisely because Eames had built it for Arthur, or, if not for, certainly because of. The first time, when they had woken up all dry mouthed and achy on a mattress on the floor, and Arthur hadn’t left; he hadn’t said, ”Let’s never speak of this again.” Instead, he’d had breakfast in the wreck of the kitchen and let Eames fuck him again and again. After that, Eames had definitely been building for Arthur, like he was laying a trap, making the flat the nicest place Arthur could possibly wake up in after a one night stand; trying to turn all those one night stands into something more.

This is so sweet and feel!good I want to roll in the pretty and just... just go all "Aww!" at the boys. I love mushy stories like that *happy sigh*

"don't know what you've got" by veritas-nescio | Arthur/Eames | What they seem to have changes with exposure. | 1.600 words

They’re pressed up against the wall, moonlight touching Eames’ bare back, spilling across Arthur’s shoulders. They move, against each other.

“– have any idea what it feels like, watching you get butchered –”

Eames, murmuring in the dark.

Arthur sighs, a contented sound.

veritas-nescio knows how to push all my buttons. This fic is Arthur/Eames relationship told from an outsider's POV. And it's glorious! \o/

"snake song" by veritas-nescio | Arthur/Eames | He doesn’t wake up checking his own skin for burns that were never really there. He wakes up searching Arthur’s skin, instead. | ~1.500 words

“I can’t stand the smell of my own skin,” Arthur says, and Eames, running his fingers back the other way, pauses mid-movement. “It smells like something burning. It’s there, all the time, and I have to keep checking ...”

An amazing atmospheric piece. It looks like I'll be reading all of veritas-nescio's fics. What a fantastic author...

"Sort of Revolution" by pyrimidine | Arthur/Eames | Eames finds out that Arthur isn't a morning person. | 1300 words

Over the next few days, Eames sees Arthur button up his shirt wrong three times in a row, stumble over nothing, knock over glasses when trying to extract them from the evil clutches of the second-level shelves, and attempt to thread a sock through his belt-loops. It’s a bit like watching a newborn colt trying to find its footing. And every day, without fail, he bangs his hip against the dresser. There’s a spectacular bruise blooming over his skin, which turns Eames’s crank a bit to be perfectly honest.

But that’s beside the point, he tells himself. Repeatedly. Then he’s pretty sure he gets a slipped disc while trying to move the dresser three feet to the left.

Fluff pure. No angst whatsoever. Sweet feel!good stuff. I want to roll in the pretty!