
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/780746.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Inception_(2010)
  Relationship:
      Nash/Tadashi
  Character:
      Nash_(Inception), Tadashi_(Inception)
  Additional Tags:
      Pre-Inception, Post-Inception
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-05-01 Words: 5941
****** That Which Time and Distance Cannot Alter ******
by beetle
Summary
     Written for Chromonym’s prompt: "Nash/Tadashi- Ten years after
     Inception, Tadashi is a skilled extractor in his own right. Nash
     doesn't work in shared dreaming anymore, but Tadashi needs an
     architect. Tadashi convinces him to go back in the field for one last
     job."
Notes
     Disclaimer: Chromonym told me to do it! Blame her!
     Notes: Set post-Inception by ten years. Canon compliant.
 
                                     Today


“Ready to go, champ?”

“Almost—I can’t find Winston!”

Matt sighs. They go through this every visit. Jesse can’t find something in
that tornado-alley he calls a room, and goes into a panic. As if he won’t ever
be coming back, and has to take everything that means anything with him to his
mother’s.

And heaven forbid Jesse should actually forget that he’s forgetting something
at Matt’s. Cue the panicked calls at nine p.m., asking please, daddy, please
find my *fill in the blank* and bring it home?

‘Bring it home.’ Because his home is wherever Aiko is—and of course that home
is Jesse’s actualhome because it’s where he’s lived since he was two, not the
grim, Spartan apartment in which Matt now hangs his figurative hat.

“Daddeeeee!” Jesse whines from his room, obviously about to ask for help he’s
not going to get because if he does, then Matt will get the sharper side of his
ex-wife’s tongue for having Jesse back to her seven whole minutes late.

“If I find your gecko, I’ll bring him to you, okay, champ? We really have to
go. . . .” Matt calls in his most patient tone. “Your mom’s waiting.”

Silence for nearly a minute, then a clunk as something falls over in Jesse’s
room. “Okay, I guess,” is the guilty sounding reply. That means that clunk was
either something expensive or something big. Or both. Something Matt doesn’t
currently have the money to replace, like Jesse’s t.v., or Jesse’s laptop.

Matt pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs again. Honestly, he loves the kid
more than anything, and would gladly die for him. But sometimes . . . sometimes
Matt gets so exasperatedby him. The boy’s too disorganized, too much of a
packrat . . . too much like his mother, in both his sentimentality for anything
or anyone that isn’t Matt, and his uncanny way of treading on Matt’s last
nerve.

Take now, for example.

God, and he really doesn’t want to hear Aiko’s mouth about being late yet
again. . . .

A minute later, Jesse dashes out of his bedroom, backpack jouncing on his back,
with a triumphant grin on his face and a gecko in his hands.

“I found him! He was under my desk, sleeping,” he pants, breathless and
relieved. Matt squats so they’re eye to eye and makes his sternest face.

“Jay, buddy, didn’t we agree you weren’t gonna let Winston roam around outside
his terrarium?”

Jesse squirms a little, and hides Winston behind his back, as if afraid Matt
will take him away.

“I wasn’t—I didn’t do it on purpose, daddy. I forgot to put him away last
night,” Jesse mumbles, looking down at his feet.

Quelling the urge to chastise the boy the way his own father might have done,
Matt tries to smile, well aware that it probably looks more like a dyspeptic
grimace than an expression of gentle love and concern. “Hey, it’s okay, kiddo,
but next time, try and remember to put him away, alright? It’s not safe for him
to be running around the apartment where he can get stepped on or vacuumed up.”

And now Jesse’s eyes are wide with horror and tears.

Great job, Matt, just great. You’re father of the year. Matt picks up his eight
year old son and hugs him close. “Not that that’s gonna happen, just . . . be
more careful with the little guy, okay?”

Jesse sniffs, but looks mollified. “’Kay, daddy.”

“Okay!” Matt grabs Jesse’s small duffle and slings it on his back. “Time
to andelay, kiddo. Back to mom’s.”

At this, Jesse smiles a watery, but nonetheless pleased smile. “Yeah, back
home,” he agrees, and another jagged shard of Matt’s bitter heart crumbles.

But he keeps up his phony smile and lets them out of the apartment.
 
                                       *


An hour and a half later, Matt lets himself back into the apartment, locking
the door behind him and leaning against it as he flicks the dimmer switch.

This time, the argument with Aiko had been his fault entirely. Yes, he had been
a little late getting Jesse back but, other than a disapproving look, Aiko had
said nothing, choosing instead hug Jesse and pat him down while doing so. As if
she hadn’t expected him to arrive in one piece.

Just that had done it. Matt had been the one to open his mouth, this particular
Sunday evening. To start the fight that always seems to be awaiting he and his
ex-wife every time they see each other.

It's his fault that he’d also ended the fight by calling Aiko a ‘passive
aggressive cunt’ in front of Jesse.

(To be fair, however, she’d called him a ‘lying, cheating cocksucker,’ first.
Also in front of Jesse.)

Matt pushes a hand through his hair—already graying at an alarming rate, though
thankfully still as much there as it ever was—and scratches at his unmowed
stubble.

One good thing about Jesse being gone, he’s discovered, is he can drink himself
into a blackout-state without having to worry about setting anyone a bad
example.

Hell, he can already taste that first burning sip of Jack Daniels as it hits
his tongue then the back of his throat . . . when there’s a soft knock on the
door. It startles him into dropping his keys on the floor and fans the banked
embers of his anger at Aiko’s high-handed, self-righteous bullshit.

Swearing, he snatches up the keys and deposits them on the small hook by the
coat rack and rolls his shoulders.

It doesn’t even occur to him to simply pretend he’s not home. He unlocks the
door and yanks it open without looking through the peephole, some choice words
on his lips for whoever the fuckthinks it’s okay to bother him on Sunday-
motherfucking-evening—

—only to have those words wither and die on his lips.

Standing uncertainly on his WELCOME mat, is a smallish, young Asian guy in
jeans and a Johnny Quid t-shirt that both fit like a second skin. His hair
shoulder length, inky black hair is parted down the center and tucked behind
small, shapely ears. Long, almond-shaped, impossibly dark eyes catalogue Matt
from a comely oval of a face. Perfect lips so shiny and pink they have to be
glossed are swiped by a pointed tip of tongue, and the guy smiles like the
sun’s just risen in his own personal world.

“Hello,” he says in a low, musical voice; not the hesitant herro? of some
Japanese fresh off the boat, but still flavored with an accent. Matt blinks,
trying to banish the surreality of this moment. Trying to banish what has to be
a dream. Has to be. “Hello, Mr. Nash. You may not remember me, but my name is—“

“I remember who you are, Tadashi,” Matt says without even a tremor to give away
how fuckingshaken he is. He can’t seem to stop blinking, as if this whole
interlude is a dream that he’s having and needs to wake up from. “How could I
forget?” Matt laughs a little, still waiting for the punchline to this dream.
None is forthcoming. “The question is: how did you find me, and what do you
want?”

There’s a flicker in those dark eyes Matt can’t read, then flicker and eyes are
shuttered by long lashes and longer hair as Tadashi looks down at his feet.
He’s wearing black Converse All-Stars with neon pink laces.

“You, Matthew,” he murmurs, a small wry smile curving his lips for a moment
only. Then he looks back up at Matt, serious and solemn as a fucking
churchyard. “You.”
 
                             Ten years ago. . . .


It takes forever for the sedative to kick in, it seems like.

In the meantime, he and Cobb and Arthur hang out in the corridor of the bullet
train, smoking and talking in terse, tense bursts of words, themselves like
bullets.

Finally, Tad pokes his head out of the passenger cabin he and Saito share and
gives them the thumbs up.

“Thank fucking Christ,” Arthur mutters, picking up the case containing the
PASIV. Cobb grunts and Matt flashes Tad a big smile.

“You done good, kid,” he murmurs as Cobb and Arthur shoulder their way into the
cabin without so much as a ‘thank you.’

Tad returns the smile blindingly and blocks Matt’s way into the cabin. “Do I
get a reward, Matthew-san?”

Matt’s smile turns into a smirk and he pulls Tad against him. “A real big one
when we get to Kyoto. And believe me . . . this gift keeps on giving. And
giving. And giving.” Each giving is accompanied by a lazy, slow thrust of
Matt's hips.

“Hmm, sounds . . . wonderful,” Tad says dreamily, looking up into Matt’s eyes
like he thinks Matt hung the moon. Which is a saying Matt’s always heard, but
never had a frame of reference for until now.

He reaches up and caresses Tad’s face, leaning in to kiss him. Tad meets him
halfway, his hands clenching in Matt’s suit jacket, and . . . it's good.
Unbelievably good.

It feels like only seconds that they’ve been kissing (but then, it always feels
that way) before Arthur is clearing his throat. They both look around to see
him frowning at them.

“Save it for after the job, horndogs. It’s time to get to work. Nash, you get
ready for the cannula; I’m setting the timer so you’ll go under first. Tadashi,
you play lookout till we’re under. After that, it’s your job to make sure we're
tuned in and that we kick on time. Not a moment before. Capische?”

"Capische." Tadashi nods almost sullenly. The kid doesn’t particularly care for
Arthur, and Arthur doesn’t care that the kid doesn’t particularly care for him.
Cobb, automaton that he can be, ignores them all, as usual, in favor of staring
at Saito, whose face is slack with drugged sleep.

“This is one of the most powerful men in the world,” he says, half to himself.
Then smiles bemusedly. “What in hell’s he doing riding a common passenger train
to Kyoto when he’s got three personal helicopters and two private jets?”

Arthur’s eyebrow quirks up at Cobb. “Didn’t you read the intel I gave you about
the mistress? This is how he always goes to see her. It’s less conspicuous than
landing on her roof in a fuckingchopper, Dom.”

“Ah. Good point.” Cobb nods sagely, turning that bemused gaze on Arthur. A
long, not quite uncomfortable moment spins out between the two of them—fraught
with tension of an almost sexual nature, if Matt’s any judge of these
things—then evaporates. Arthur goes back to the PASIV and Cobb refocuses on the
Japanese horizon.

Matt and Tad share a glance. They’ve both agreed, during the lazy, post-coital
kind of pillow-talk only the utterly besotted engage in, that Arthur might be
less of a prick and Cobb less of a robot if they would just hurry up and fuck
each other, already.

“You’ll be careful?” Tad asks quietly, and in that moment, he looks even
younger than his seventeen years.

“Always.” Matt grins and sneaks another kiss while Arthur’s back is turned.
“This’ll be over and done before we know it, and then . . . I’m gonna take you
to dinner, take you clubbing, and then I’ll just take you.”

Tad shivers and slides his arms around Matt, squeezes his ass, and drops him a
saucy wink. Then he’s edging past Matt with way more frontal contact than is
warranted by even such close accommodations.

“Close the fucking door, nimrod.” Arthur casts Matt an annoyed glance. Matt
rolls his eyes, but does as he’s bidden, stealing one last glance at Tad’s cute
little ass before the door clicks shut.

“You and that kid are becoming more of a liability, than an assett.”

“Oh, fuck you, Arthur,” Matt says mildly, laughing, because in a flash of
understanding he realizes that the great Arthur Fitzgerald is jealous. Of Matt.
“We keep it professional when we need to.”

“Like that little make-out session just now?” Arthur snorts, standing up and
putting his hands on his hips like someone’s mother. “If you can’t keep it in
your pants now, of all times, what the hell have you been doing for the past
three months?”

Everything you wish you could do with Cobb, Matt thinks, but says: “My job. And
as long as I keep doing it, you got nothin’ to say about what Tad and I do off
hours.”

Arthur has some no doubt witty comeback on his lips when Cobb interrupts him,
his eyes ticking back and forth between Arthur and Matt.

“Arthur, he’s right. What he and Tadashi do in their personal time is none of
our business.”

“It is when he can’t keep his hands off his jailbait squeeze for long enough to
see the job through!” Arthur hisses like a scalded cat, then visibly reins
himself in, his face going as unreadable as stone. “You know what? We don’t
have time for this stupid shit. We need to get in and get out as quickly as
possible. Sit down, Dom.”

Cobb sits wordlessly, watching Arthur, who kneels in front of Cobb and preps
his left arm with the ease of practice. With the ease of practice, Cobb lets
him, turning his gaze to the window and the scenery passing by once more.

Is it that he’s blind, or that he just doesn’t want to see? Matt wonders,
observing the gentle care Arthur takes with Cobb’s arm, despite his usual brisk
efficiency.

It’s almost sweet. For Arthur, anyway.

Matt sits across from Cobb and quickly busies himself with his own cannula
before he has to hear Arthur’s mouth one more time.

In less than a minute, they’re all set up, Saito included. Arthur looks around
at them all, and smiles his hard, unhappy smile. “Hang on to your balls.”

He flicks the switch on the PASIV and sits back in his seat, closing his eyes.
A quick glance shows that Cobb’s eyes are also closed.

Matt glances doorward. Tad has his forehead pressed against the small window
set in the door, and is gazing in at Matt with that hung-the-moon expression on
his face.

“Watashi wa anata o aishite,” he mouths slowly, broadly. Matt smiles. Of course
Tad thinks he’s in love. Since hooking up with Matt, he’s been getting sex
regularly for three months—damned good sex, if Matt has anything to say about
it—living in a rather posh Tokyo hotel since said hook-up, and being squired to
fancy restaurants and gifted with cash, clothing, and electronics. Not to
mention Matt’s given Tad free use of his PASIV.

In other words, Matt’s been literally charming the pants off the kid. Not that
it takes much—Tad seems to be genuinely attracted to him, even looks up to him.
No one’s ever looked up to Matt before, and he’d be lying if he didn’t say the
feeling was a heady one that made him sometimes feel like he might be falling
in love, too. . . .

But that’s just ridiculous. Twenty-nine year olds do not fall in love with
seventeen year olds. Hell, they’re not even supposed to fuck around with
seventeen year olds, but fall in love with them? No. Matt refuses to even
entertain the notion.

Only. . . .

He kind of does want to see where this whole thing between he and Tad goes. If
it’ll just fizzle out after some epic post-job nookie, or if . . . if Tad will
want to go on with him, to Hong Kong.

The thought that the kid might glom onto him doesn’t fill Matt with as much
consternation and worry as he might have thought it would.

So, yeah, Matt smiles at Tad and mouths back something that makes Tad grin and
wink again: “Kyōto, akanbō ni anata o sanshō shite kudasai.” See you in Kyoto,
babe.

Only he doesn’t. The last time Matt sees Tad, the doors of the bullet train are
closing between them at the Kyoto station. Then Tad is being swept away from
Matt, and ever closer to that Japanese horizon.

The familiar strains of Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien haunt Matt for months
afterward.
 
                                     Today


“You still like whiskey?”

Tadashi nods distractedly, looking around the apartment with those beautiful,
cataloguing eyes. The place looks barely lived in, Matt knows. Impersonal and
almost cold, but for the few framed photos he has in random places.

He snorts. “Good, because that’s all I got besides tequila.”

Tadashi makes a face. “No tequila, thank you.”

“Right-o. Make yourself at home, and I’ll, uh, get some glasses.” It’s been
awhile since Matt evenbothered with a glass when it comes to drinking.

When he emerges from the kitchen, glasses in one hand, whiskey in the other, he
sees Tadashi examining a photo of Matt and Jesse at Chuck E. Cheese for his
last birthday. Of course that photo had been taken the day before Jesse’s
actual birthday. On Jesse’s birthday, the boy'd been at his mother’s having a
bonanza of a party that Matt had only been grudgingly invited to. And once he’d
arrived, Aiko certainly hadn’t encouraged him to stay. . . .

Matt puts the glasses on the coffee table and slops some Jack into each of
them. Then he crosses the room to take the picture from Tadashi’s hand. He puts
it back on the dusty, mostly empty bookshelf.

“Look, I got out of the dreamsharing business a long time ago, Tad-ch—“ the old
endearment comes to his lips like no time at all has passed, giving Matt's
personal autocorrect a run for its money. “Tadashi-san. I haven’t built so much
as a fucking sandcastle at the beach since the Saito job. So if you’re hard up
for an Architect—”

“I’m not ‘hard up,’ as you say,” Tadashi interrupts with a flash of annoyance.
“There are many Architects who would be . . . suitable for the job I have in
mind. Thank you,” he adds when Nash presses the glass of whiskey into his hand.
He takes a delicate sip.

“Okay, if that’s true, then why come to me? Some washed-up has-been who never
really was awas to begin with?” Matt asks gruffly. He’s never been much of a
liar, least of all to himself.

Tadashi’s sloe, dark eyes meet his own. “Because I need someone I can trust to
not screw me over.”

Matt’s eyebrows quirk up. “And that would be me? The guy who ratted you and the
others out to Saito to save his own neck?”

Tadashi shrugs. “I’ve forgiven you for that. A long time ago. Also, I have
reason to believe you’ve learned something of honor and keeping promises in the
time since.” He glances at the picture Matt just replaced.

Taking a gulp of his own glassful, Matt laughs. “Oh, Tad-chan. You’ve really
got the wrong guy. Just because I married a girl I knocked up doesn’t mean I’m
this honorable, noble person. The truth is, I’m just as much of a scumbag as I
ever was.”

Tadashi’s shaking his head. “I don’t believe you were ever a scumbag. Only
scared.”

Matt laughs again, though he’s gone cold. “Scared of what?”

“Ten years ago? Of dying. Now, of living.” Tadashi steps closer to Matt, who
doesn’t step back, because he’s not scared, damnit. Not even of the look in
Tadashi’s lovely, achingly familiar eyes. Fear implies that Matt's been
anything but numb for the last few years. “There is no happiness in always
playing it safe, Matthew. Not for such as we. We need excitement and danger the
way a starving man needs bread and water.”

“Oh, is that what I need?” Matt demands, suddenly angry again. “’Excitement and
danger’? Is that why I threw my life with Aiko and Jesse away? Because they
weren’t dangerous or exciting enough for me? Is that why I cheated on Aiko over
and over until I got caught, and why I spend my time alienating her and Jesse
over my own mistakes like it’s their fault I can’t live a normal life like a
normal man? Is that it, Tad?”

There’s compassion in Tadashi’s eyes, but there’s steel there, too. “Yes,” he
says simply, and in the silence that follows, Matt nearly slaps him.

Tadashi’s mouth opens in a glossy little “O”, as if he can read what Matt is
only barely refraining from doing, but he doesn’t step back. Instead, he steps
even closer, till Matt can smell whiskey and sandalwood. Till all he can see
are Tadashi’s eyes. . . .

“Yes,” Tadashi says again, and this time Matt has a completely different urge
to fight. He wants nothing more than to taste those glossy, pretty lips like he
had ten years ago. He wants to lose himself in those eyes and those arms. He
want Tadashi flat on his back or his stomach, or on his knees . . . any way he
can have him.

He just wants.

And for the first time in what feels like forever, he gets.

Tadashi drops his glass, bounces up on his toes and kisses Matt softly, cool,
gentle hands coming up to cup Matt’s face. Moaning, Matt flicks his tongue at
Tadashi’s slightly parted lips and tastes, of all things, bubblegum. It should
make him laugh, but laughter’s the farthest thing from his mind as he pulls
Tadashi closer by slim, denim-clad hips. When Tadashi’s tongue touches his own,
he moans again and his glass joins Tadashi’s on the carpet. His hands slide
around to Tadashi’s firm, small ass to squeeze and knead.

In his mind, today is melding with yesterday, with ten years ago, when he and
Tadashi—no,Tad-chan—would spend hours kissing and touching and fucking in
Matt’s hotel room. Hours Matt should have been spending researching and
building and getting the dream-worlds fuckingperfect because they needed to be
perfect, or else his—all—their asses would be in slings.

He remembers days when promising each other they’d keep it professional all
flew out the window, when looks and smiles weren’t enough, and they’d sneak off
to whatever convenient place (bathroom, maintenance closet, Matt’s rental car)
could avail them of a quick, dirty fuck.

He remembers never being as happy as he was in those days and nights spent
between Tadashi’s legs or down his throat or just grinding against him until
they both came in their pants.

He remembers thinking that if—if—this job went good, he might settle in Hong
Kong for awhile and see where this whole thing with Tad might go . . . might
see if they could keep the endorphin-hormone high of their time together going
for as long as possible. . . .

God, and on the heels of that, he remembers how it felt to be so scared of
death and of COBOL, that he’d sold out his associates, his fucking friends and
his lover to Saito on the hopes that the man would keep him safe from his many,
many enemies.

That hope hadn’t held out for long. And though he’d managed to square things
with COBOL, by some miracle, he’d never even tried to square things with those
he’d betrayed. Not Cobb, not Arthur, and not Tad. . . .

Tad, who’s now whispering endearments in his ear in Japanese and rubbing
against him like a cat in heat, hard and breathing that way.

Tad, who’s making a mess of unbuttoning Matt’s shirt with fingers that tremble
and are clumsy-urgent.

Tad, who’s switched to English, and is murmuring on Matt’s chest just how much
he needs him and wants him and loves him . . . never stopped loving him—

“No, don’t—“ Matt finally pushes Tad away firmly, wiping his mouth and shaking
his head. “We can’t do this. I can’t do this. Any of it.”

Tad tosses his hair off his face and gets that stubborn, mulish look Matt
remembers so well. “Why?”

“Why?” Matt laughs once, harsh and cynical. “I fucking sold you out!”

“I know what you did, Matt. And I know who you are,” Tad says quietly, taking a
deep breath. “I know this, and I still trust you. I still want you. And not
just to be my lover.”

“Are you that desperate, or do you just have no standards whatsoever?” Matt
turns away. Walks over to his couch and sits down heavily. “I’ve run so hard
and so fast from what I did and who I was, but I still can’t get away from any
of it. I’m still that same guy. I can’t promise you I won’t betray you in some
way, can’t promise that I can be anything like the guy you’ve clearly built up
in your mind.”

Matt buries his face in his hands. “Fuck, Tad. I can’t be anything but what I
am.”

After a few moments a gentle hand settles lightly on his shoulder, then
squeezes. “I wouldn’t want you to be anything else. You, as you are, are what I
want.”

Matt shakes his head, and the hand on his shoulder disappears, but a second
later, the couch dips slightly and a warm body presses against his side. One
arm drapes itself around his shoulders. “I will always love the man that you
are. I will never try to make you into someone you’re not.”

“Jesus, Tad, you’re looking at me with a seventeen year old’s eyes. I’m not—“

Tad’s hand turns his face till they’re looking each other in the eye. Matt
doesn’t realize he’s crying until Tad brushes his tears away and kisses the tip
of his nose.

“Matthew,” he says softly, so fondly, it hurts. It’s been years since anyone
spoke to him that way. Ten years, to be exact. Matt catches Tad’s hand and
kisses it lingeringly. Lets ten years worth of repressed and forgotten feelings
sweep over him and, for a few moments, sweep him away . . . then he carefully
pushes the feelings away.

“You should go,” he whispers hoarsely, and Tad looks momentarily anxious. But
then he's smiling again, cool and confident.

“I do not take no for an answer. In business or in love. And this happens to be
both,” he says, biting his lips the way he used to, and he’s so appealing like
this, Matt wants nothing more than . . . him. “I will stay until I convince you
of what you already know. And then. . . .”

“And then?” Matt asks, unable to help it, though he knows what Tad will say.

“And then, I will simply stay.”

Matt snorts, and hates being right all the time. “What about this big job you
have planned?”

“There’ll be another one. And another one, after that.” Tad shrugs again.
“There will never be another you.”

“Hah. You call that a line, in Japan?”

Tad rolls his eyes. “You are such an asshole.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Then you admit we’re well-suited to each other.” That smile, oh, that smile,
becomes triumphant and Matt rolls his own eyes.

“This is crazy. You’re looking for something that didn’t even exist ten years
ago. What we had wasn’t some great love, it was just hormones. I was your
first, and maybe you confused that with first love, but Jesus, Tad, those are
more often than not two different things!”

“Not in this case.”

“Yes, in this case!”

Tad’s smile warms so much it’s breath-taking. “Matthew, stop fighting so hard
against what you need.”

“You don’t know what I need!”

“Don’t I?” Tad pushes Matt back against the couch and straddles his thighs.
He's a comfortable weight, more solid than he looks, and somehow just right.
He's everything Matt's been missing for the longest time. Everything he'd
looked for in Aiko and, when he couldn't find it with her, damn near any guy he
came across.

When Matt doesn’t resist him, Tad runs his hands up and down Matt’s chest as if
soothing him. “You need to be touched and loved and taken care of. You
need me.”

Matt rolls his eyes again, but otherwise can’t look away from Tad.
He’s never been able to look away, and so help him, time hasn’t changed that.
“Jesus, why are you doing this now? After so long?”

Tad leans in close, till their noses are touching and each breath is a shared
one. “Because you’re—how do you say? At loose ends? You’re divorced. You only
see your son every other weekend. You’re working a job you hate, in a company
you hate—“

“How do you know this shit?” Matt demands defensively.

“I know a lot about you,” Tad replies enigmatically. “I know that you love to
go bowling by yourself after work, that you’re allergic to shellfish. I know
that you cheated on your wife twenty-three times, and each time was with a man
who bore more than a passing resemblance to myself.” He pauses. “I know that
you’re slowly drinking yourself to death because you’re fantastically unhappy
and terribly lonely.”

Matt turns his burning face away from Tad’s. “You know all that, huh? Well,
you’re a hell of Pointm—”

Tad shuts him up with the simple expedient of nuzzling his neck. Matt groans
and helplessly wraps his arms around Tad, hugging him close. Then Tad’s kissing
him again, long and sweetly. Just the way he’d kissed ten years ago, only with
more certainty and control. More ardor.

“Actually, I’m an Extractor. One of the best, if I do say so, myself. And I
do,” he murmurs on Matt's lips, the glow of pride in his low voice.

That towering self-confidence is another thing Matt remembers, and so fondly he
has to steel himself against the yearning, welling feeling that sweeps through
him.

But it does no good. Fighting it once tonight felt like it’d damn near broken
him, but twice? Even though fighting would probably be the best and finest
thing he’d ever done, saving Tad from his own worst instincts?

But when have I ever been anyone’s savior? When have I ever done anything but
be a selfish, self-pitying prick? And why should I change any of that now?

And so help him, he can’t find an answer. Not when the only answer that ever
made sense—ever made him happy is right here, in his arms after too long apart.

With a growl, he bears Tad down onto the couch and pushes his legs apart, lying
between them. Tad’s smile during all of this could rival the sun. It’s that
unreserved joy that gives Matt pause once more.

“Look, even back in the day, there were plenty of Architects who were better
than me, Tad-chan,” he says quietly, not quite able to address the other thing
directly. “If this job of yours is something important—“

“It is.”

“—then you don’t want someone ten years out of practice. Someone who, with one
tiny screw up, can get you and your team killed.”

Tad starts to speak again, but this time Matt’s the one who silences him with a
kiss. “Listen to me, baby. I don’t mean I’m saying no to the . . . this. To us.
But the job—“

“Inception,” Tad whispers, grinning when Matt’s mouth drops open. He bobs up
and sucks a quick kiss from Matt's bottom lip. “The job requires Inception . .
. you see, now, why I need someone I know and can trust?”

Matt sits back on his heels, shaking his head. “Did I hear you right? Because
it sounded like you said ‘Inception.’”

Tad nods once and Matt can only laugh in disbelief and admiration of Tad’s
sheer balls.

“You realize Inception is impossible, right?”

“Not impossible,” Tad corrects patiently. “Only very, very difficult. And very
dangerous, if the Mark is militarized, which this one is.”

After nearly a minute of gob-smacked staring, Matt shakes his head once more.
“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

Tad sits up and places his hands on Matt’s chest, his eyes lambent in the dim
lighting. “I’ve never been anything less than serious, when it comes to you.”

Matt sighs as what feel like iron bands wrap themselves around his chest.
“Jesus, do you have to say things like that?” But before Tad can answer, Matt
sighs yet again, reaching out to run his fingers through Tad’s hair, just like
he used to, once upon a time. It’s soft and heavy, like a fall of silk.

“Of course I do,” Tad all but purrs, leaning into Matt’s touch, his eyes sultry
and hopeful. “I’ve waited ten years to tell you all that is in my heart, and it
will take at least ten years to do the telling.”

“Fuck, but you make it hard to say no, Tad-chan,” Matt tells him, temporizing
while he tries to think of the many reasons this whole thing—getting back into
dreamsharing, getting into any kind of relationship with Tad, getting
into Inception—is insane.

“Then don’t say no. Say yes. Say yes, then make love to me, Matthew,” Tad
murmurs, sliding his hand between them and rubbing Matt’s thus far neglected
erection. Matt smirks ruefully, kicking himself for his own lack of willpower
and reveling in it, too. Reveling in letting himself be lost in Tad’s eyes and
touch like no time has passed. “Fuck me.”

“You know I will,” he breathes into their next kiss. As sweet as the others,
it’s nonetheless a wanton, thorough affair that leaves them both panting even
as they keep trying to reestablish the kiss in breathless meetings of lips,
bashing of noses, and clashing of teeth.

“And you’ll come with me to Auckland, then . . . and be my Architect?”

Auckland? Matt moans and tries to think. It’s not easy with Tad licking his
tonsils and stroking him off, but after the initial burst of fireworks and
pretty colors have faded, still all he sees behind his eyes is . . . Tad. In
his life like he belongs there. Like he never left.

And the life Matt imagines Tad in is nothing like the life he’s living, here
and now. There’s no office, no cubicle, no bullshit arguments with his ex-wife.
No bowling because it’s better than sitting home alone in a shitty apartment
and working on killing his liver.

No, the life he imagines Tad in begins and ends on the tip of a cannula, and in
between . . . oh, in between there are dreams waiting to be built and
adventures waiting to be had. There’s a whole world to see and experience.

There’s danger, yes, but there’s excitement, too.

(And maybe even Inception . . . which is totally insane, but not impossible to
hear some people tell it.)

“I’m insane,” Matt mutters to himself, then looks up into Tad’s eyes. In them,
he sees the promise of everything he’d once had, and thought he’d lost forever.
But it’s here again, ripe for the plucking. He just has to reach out and take
it. . . .

“Okay," he says softly, taking Tad's hands and kissing them again. "I’m
listening.”

Tad grins, and it's like the sun's just risen in Matt's own personal world.

Before long, the faint, first strains of Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien begin to rise
and swell like a full tide. It goes doggedly unnoticed by Matt who, after ten
dreamless, desperate years, tells himself he's quite forgotten the taste of
living his every dream. Forgotten the taste of bitter-sour knowledge that
always lurks under such a suspect reality.
He tells himself he's forgotten the taste of an impending kick and the bleak
reality that often waits beyond it. And thus telling and told, slips a little
deeper, still. Holds "Tad-chan," and this unexpected and undeserved happy
ending closer, still, hoping against hope that if it's indeed that second-half,
that he then dies without ever knowing it wasn't also the first.
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