Hello, and welcome to Fex's first Inception fanfiction :D

She thinks it's cute but kind of sucky, seeing as she never seems to do justice to adorable pairings like this. Anyway, she wants you to read and enjoy anyway...and possibly review. Actually, PLEASE review. She wants to know if she should continue writing for this pairing.

Anyway, this is from acciopigfarts's idea (YAY BLACKS!), with Fex's twists.

Enjoy!

Arthur puts together his gun of choice, locks the van, and heads off on his own. Because of an unfortunate series of events, the team has had to split up to look for the safe that will no doubt contain the secrets that the team is looking for.

This is Arthur's dream, and Ariadne has taught him the basic layout, including where to find said safe. However, the subject of the dream, trained in the art of protecting his mind, has moved it. Cobb, swearing, has insisted they find it quickly, and to be quick, they have to be separate. This is how Arthur comes to hotwire a van, drive to the extreme south end of the city, and walk through the deserted streets.

They won't be deserted for long, though, Arthur knows—these projections are trained, which makes them that much more dangerous. Hence the gun of choice, which is a nice one, with a big chamber and a pleasant shine to it.

He pulls the note that Eames has given him out of the breast pocket of his suit, reads it again, squinting his eyes to decipher his absolutely horrendous handwriting. He thinks that might be a G, but it looks more like either a Z or an alien. Rolling his eyes, he tucks it away again, memorizing the time that Cobb had allotted them to find the safe before they met back up in a square of Ariadne's design and then turning his gaze to the buildings. He's in the greatest danger, because he's the dreamer, but he's also the best with the guns.

He's feeling rather helpless at the moment, though.

The subject has a complex which Arthur has researched—he is terrified of bricks and any buildings made of them. Thus, Ariadne has made almost every building out of them. So Arthur will start with the few that aren't, look around them. The safe is likely to be in one of them.

His eye catches stone, and he goes into the building. It's large, empty, a sort of warehouse. There are no doors, and Arthur looks around, but doesn't find anything. He moves on quickly.

The next few buildings also prove no such luck, though Arthur scours carefully. He encounters a few projections, but they die almost before they spot him with quick succession and complete silence.

Then Arthur finds a safe—but it's not the safe that he has been looking for.

This safe is completely different from the one that Ariadne described to the team—it's silver, not black, and made of a thinner metal. Instead of having two locks, it has only one small padlock, and it is definitely not the one that holds the secrets of the subject they are trying to crack.

That doesn't stop Arthur from being curious, though. If it's not the subject's, whose could it be? And what secrets waited in it? Arthur debated, his curiosity battling it out with his usual respect for others' personal space and privacy.

This could be important, he says to himself, nervously shifting from foot to foot. And he believes it could—what if there's information that will compromise the mission? He has to warn the dreamers if there is. He can't just leave it be and skip on his merry way toward the square, though he has to do just that soon, he reflects, as the time is almost up. Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien will be playing any time now. He hopes that one of the others has been more productive with finding the safe that they actually came here for.

Arthur has no time to try to pick the lock on this safe, so he shoots it open, a useful trick.

Opening it carefully, he has another moment of discomfort, but he knows he does not have much time, and if Arthur is anything, he is logical. And logic tells him that he has to see what's inside this safe.

It's anticlimactic. It's a single piece of paper.

But Arthur opens it anyway.

A flood of near-shock runs through him, because he recognizes the indecipherable hand that has written on this half-sheet of college-ruled paper. It's Eames's safe, it must be. Why it's here, Arthur has no idea. He's about to put the sheet of paper back and throw the safe somewhere where he doesn't have to see it, since knowing Eames's secrets is a rather scary prospect to Arthur, when a word on the paper catches his eye. His name. Arthur. Written in the terrible hand, the name looks sloppy, and Arthur grimaces.

Since he's seen his name, of course, he can't help but read the whole thing. You see your name in someone else's secrets, so to speak, you gotta know what's going down. Basic human nature.

Arthur, however, is definitely not expecting what he reads.

On the single sheet of paper, written again and again in the revolting hand, are three words.

The names Eames and Arthur don't usually go together at all, unless shouted by Cobb, casually listed, or followed up by the phrase "don't get along" or "are constantly at each other's throats." They definitely usually don't go together with the word love playing some part in the equation.

Yet here it is, plain as day, I love Arthur, written again and again in the cramped, spiky, terrible handwriting that could belong to no one besides the forger.

Arthur stares.

He can't take this in right now, and he shakes his head, not a hair of carefully gelled hair moving out of place. He pushes the piece of paper back into the small, light safe and throws it away, running now to meet the team in the square. In fact, he can nearly hear the first strains of the Edith Piaf song that signifies the team has to get back together, and soon. He shoots one projection, punches another, and sees the group together in the distance; Ariadne, Cobb, and, to Arthur's discomfort, Eames. But he can't focus on this now. He's running, running toward them, and the projections close in just as he reaches them.

XXX

The first thing the team does is run. Run away from the hotel room they have trapped the subject in and through about seventeen counties before Cobb finally lets them settle down. And when he does, the whole team flops gladly onto the couches of the rented condo and buries faces in cushions, moaning loudly at the exhaustion they all feel. Cobb was the one that found the safe, the secrets. He goes off to call their client, leaving Ariadne, Arthur, and Eames alone in the room. Arthur is sitting on a comfortable chair, staring at nothing, and no one can guess what he is thinking about. Not even the one that, in fact, he is thinking about.

You can't lie in dreams, Arthur knows this. You can't lie to yourself—dreams always churn up the things you don't want to admit to yourself. Eames really l—the thought is almost too much for Arthur to complete.

The idea is ludicrous—the two have fought since the day they met, getting on each other's nerves, one constantly driving the other up the wall. They're the cat and dog, hot and cold, and damn if now the Katy Perry song isn't stuck in Arthur's head. Hot and cold, yes and no, in and out, up and down, black and white, wrong and right. Eames on one extreme, Arthur on the other.

It could never work, not that Arthur wants it to.

So why can't he stop thinking about it?

That little piece of paper, incidentally, the only thing inside the small safe. Why Arthur? Arthur has never even suspected that Eames is gay, let alone that he would dare fall for Arthur. He feels as if he's an eighth grader that has just been confessed to, awkward and stiff and wondering what to say, or even the wisdom of saying anything at all.

Eames, of course, is clueless. But suddenly his little smiles that he's always throwing toward Arthur make so much more sense, the pet names that he always tacks onto his sentences feel as if they have more weight. Cobb goes to meet the clients in some incognito location, leaving the three, Ariadne, Arthur, and Eames in the condo. While Eames suspects nothing, Ariadne does. She pulls Arthur aside.

No, Aria, I'm fine.

I'm tired.

I'm just hungry. Did you pick up those things at the grocery store?

Really, I'm fine.

Aria. Chill, please. Want me to help you make dinner?

He does, fixing potato soup, which Eames has second helpings of. Cobb isn't expected back until the A.M, and the team is to sleep here tonight, because there may be another job out of the arrangement, though Cobb is assured by the client that it's not going to be nearly as dangerous as this one was.

Arthur eats, sleeps, researches, then eats and sleeps again.

Cobb returns to tell them they've got the job.

So they prepare.

They break in, turn on the PASIV device, and fall asleep.

Arthur does his part in the dream and stays out of the way, one nagging idea lurking somewhere in his cerebrum. He wants to find that safe again. Just to be sure he has read it right.

So he does. The lock is sealed again, and he re-breaks it.

A throat clears behind him.

Arthur spins around to see none other than Eames standing with Cobb and Ariadne. It's time to go, and Arthur knows that he has been spotted.

They wake up, and Eames is giving Arthur the kind of look a five-year-old would throw after a stranger has ran off with his puppy—wistful, bashful that it happened, slightly angry, and silently beseeching.

Arthur feels twinges of guilt as they bolt away from the scene of the crime and settle two states over. Having connections with Saito helps, and their apartment is nice, with a room for each of the team. Arthur claims his bedroom, but no sooner has he thrown his duffel on the mattress when he hears from behind him a quick open and close of the door, a rustle, and then silence.

He turns slowly to see Eames a changed man.

No longer exuding confidence, lording whatever advantage he thinks he has over Arthur, or, for that matter, anyone else. His usually straight posture sagging. But his eyes are the worst.

He glances at Arthur with the same sad look in those eyes, and just stands there. His hands in his pockets.

"I'm sorry," is all that Arthur can think of to say, and it comes out lamely. "I didn't mean—"

"I wasn't ever going to tell you, you know," Eames says huskily. "Would have stayed locked if my damn subconscious didn't throw the safe right in your path."

Arthur cannot come up with an adequate response, so he remains silent.

"Guess something in me wanted you to know," Eames continues, with a tiny laugh that is directed only toward himself.

"So what happens now?" It's a question that Arthur wants to know the answer to and doesn't, because the answer might scare him. He'd be lying if he hadn't thought of several different ways for this very conversation to end up, more than one of which had required a cold shower afterwards. And that fact in itself scared him beyond belief.

"I don't know," says Eames, a small piece of himself back in his voice. "You tell me, love." It's the first time he's used one of his endearments since he sighted Arthur with his safe, though it's paired with a sigh.

"I..." Arthur's words stick in his throat. He adjusts his tie.

Eames gives a heavy breath. "Poor tongue-tied Arthur." He shakes his head, bites a lip. Runs a hand through his hair, then speaks again. "Do you love me, pet? Even just a little?" He looks so hopeful at this prospect.

"I don't know," says Arthur truthfully, and he expects to see a flash of hurt across the forger's face. He's surprised to see a smile.

"That's good," he says, and Arthur realizes, once again, Eames's remarkable talent to make light and optimistic of any situation whatsoever. "I was afraid you'd punch me. You pack quite a hit."

Arthur smiles in spite of himself.

"And if you don't know, then I can help move your mind in the direction I want," Eames continues to muse, his smile now turning into a full-fledged grin. "I like your answer very much, Arthur. Thank you."

And he walks away, leaving a confused Arthur behind him.

For the next few weeks, Eames is maddening. He brushes his leg against Arthur's bordering on obsessively, sits next to him at every meal. At one point, he even leaves a box of chocolates on Arthur's pillow, the reason being, when Arthur confronts him about it, that Eames thought Arthur looked like he had had a bad day, which he actually had. The chocolates are a nice touch, and Arthur thinks that this is the event that gets him looking at Eames a fraction of the same way that he now knows Eames looks at him.

They still fight, and their banter drives Ariadne crazy (she threatens, at one point, to castrate both of them and chuck their dangly bits to rabid dogs), but something is slowly changing between these two rivals.

"Do you love me, pet?" Eames asks one day, asks again, and Arthur is now able to respond with no doubt in his mind.

"Yes," he says. "I don't know why, but yes."

Eames's face splits into a grin reminiscent of a child on Christmas morning. "That's what I wanted to hear, love," he says, and when he kisses Arthur, Arthur sighs.

Because now his safe has been unlocked, by Eames himself, and there's no stopping it now. He loves Eames, and Eames loves him, and Ariadne gapes at the couple as they kiss softly on the couch, completely unaware of her presence.

Arthur's never believed the phrase "opposites attract," but when he's in Eames's bed, it's quite difficult to remember his beliefs, or really any morals at all.

Somehow, it's so wrong it's right, and Arthur wouldn't have it any other way.