Fic: Musical Interludes (G)
title: Musical Interludes
author: ilovetakahana
pairing: Arthur/Eames, mention of Mal/Cobb, mention of Cobb/Saito
warnings: this was going to be something that involved everyone dancing, but, um, half this team just WILL. NOT. DANCE. sort of a follow-up to Playlist.
disclaimer: I don't own the original story or the characters. Not making any profit, just playing in the sandbox.
summary: Arthur tries to imagine everyone dancing.
This is for tailoredshirt. Sorry it didn't quite work out the way you wanted, bb.
1. Saito
Arthur's eyebrows race each other to his hairline when he finally gets the chance to shake Saito's hand, long after the inception job is said and done, in a classy little teahouse in the middle of Manhattan. There is a small mushroom of toughened flesh at the base of his little finger.
The whole team is assembled for a briefing on a new assignment: help Saito investigate the five men who are bidding to become the heir to his conglomerate. This being somewhat more aboveboard than Inception, each of them agrees easily, with Dom first of all, to no one's surprise.
The real surprise is the musical interlude that accompanies the tea and cakes after dinner.
Arthur watches Saito mutter something to Dom before he gets up and shuffles away, heading across the tatami to a gorgeously painted and bewigged geisha in bright golden and scarlet kimono. She nods two maids in to serve the others, then bows respectfully to Saito and hands him the instrument case in her arms.
As Eames and Ariadne pour each other cups of tea, Arthur watches Saito open the case, breathing deeply before he takes up a shamisen and its plectrum.
And then everyone stops dead in their tracks as Saito begins to play and to sing, and the geisha begins to dance. There is a lilt of loneliness in the man's voice, a delicate sadness like falling flowers in the geisha's movements.
Arthur is the only one who notices Dom crying.
2. Yusuf
Fortunately perhaps for Arthur's peace of mind, he never, ever comes across Yusuf dancing even though the man blasts the Violent Femmes at full volume, Gordon Gano growling and the rest of the band shrieking and attacking their instruments like predators, the rhythms tearing into his skin and threatening to take over his heart.
Instead, Yusuf stands in the middle of the cramped laboratory and shakes his head rapidly back and forth, shamelessly lip-synching, his eyes scrunched up as though he himself were rumbling "Don't shoot shoot shoot that thing at me" to a screaming, bouncing audience.
Arthur had been only slightly interested in punk, but it wasn't for lack of trying - God knows everyone he'd been to school with had been trumpeting the glories of Iggy Pop and all the others just a few years too late. But in the end he'd decided that he wanted to look into all possibilities, and commit to none.
He finds out later that Yusuf's brothers had all been into punk and, after he'd lost them - one to the dreams, one to a life of crime, one to a life as a civil servant - he'd held on to the music, his last remaining tie to his family.
It would never suit Yusuf in a million years, but Arthur thinks he understands.
3. Ariadne
Because she always wears headphones even when they're talking quietly about mazes and blueprints, Arthur does not know what sort of music she listens to. All he knows is that it makes her dance, not the sort of dancing that upends tables or disrupts their files and dossiers but an insistent drumming of the fingers, the near-silent tap of her stockinged feet on the floor, her mouth moving to words that do not look like English.
[And Arthur can read lips. It's a skill that's saved his life more than once.]
Tonight, though, having suddenly run into a wall with the plans for their investigation of Saito's people, he listens to her mutter angrily at herself and then storm away from the table. He watches Eames and Cobb trip all over each other as they scramble out of her way, watches Yusuf stick his head out of his lab and just as quickly retreat, watches her disappear into the back of the warehouse.
The next thing he knows is that she's singing very loudly, very beautifully. The problem is that he doesn't understand most of the lyrics - he hears her shout something like "Saikou no FINALE woh, yeah!" - but it sounds like she's deliberately mangling the English language for no logical reason.
And Ariadne is dancing. She punches the air, leaps and spins, her hair and scarf flying. All the while her eyes are closed, brows pulled together into a straight line, all of her frustration evident in the bunched fists and the forceful kicks.
Eames only smiles knowingly and whistles along.
4. Dom
Arthur sighs and walks away from the closed door of the warehouse's back room, also known to the team as Dom's office. Edith Piaf again. It's always a song about losing someone. It was bad enough when he'd catch him and Mal slow-dancing to her songs - seriously, talk about morbid....
Ariadne has confided in him and he now knows about some small part of the confrontation in Dom's head, some vague details about a conversation with the shade of Mal that was haunting him.
It doesn't seem to have helped, but at least he's playing Piaf less and less frequently. Arthur supposes it's progress.
Soon after the team had settled into the warehouse, plans underway for the new job, a package had been delivered for Dom. Having arrived first as usual, Arthur wound up having to sign for it.
Long-ingrained instincts push him to read everything on the package and he is not surprised that the package is from Japan. Of course it would be.
The thing that really surprises him is that the red inkan imprint next to Saito's name is not the usual one that accompanies the documents sent to them - but Saito's own personal seal.
Dom calmly opens the package while Arthur delivers his daily progress report, so he gets to see the CD that Saito has sent. The case bears an autograph from the performer, a woman named Wao.
Later on, he hears the strains of "Lili Marleen" coming out of the back room, in plaintive English.
He wonders who Dom is dancing with in his head now.
5. Eames
The night after the job, Saito is grim-faced.
Arthur supposes that finding out about their marks' unconscious truths would do that. It turns out that none of the candidates are actually fit enough in their minds to inherit.
Saito suspects something worse might be going on, and promises to call the team back together.
Dom leaves with him, the two men already deep into a conversation regarding this job and the near future.
Ariadne gets Yusuf to take her home. That leaves Arthur, as usual, to clean up and erase their tracks for another day.
He's absently humming something from Ariadne's iPod when he looks up to see Eames leaning on the wall under one of the warehouse's storm-blasted windows - and his song stops dead, to be replaced by another one.
The moonlight falls onto Eames's hair and shoulders, leaves his eyes in shadows.
Despite himself, Arthur draws nearer, strains to catch the melody that he's singing softly.
"It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by"
The song stops abruptly, Arthur's eyes fly open - and Eames is standing right there in front of him. The look in his eyes has no traces of his usual joker self - he's just there, mildly curious, gently interested.
He, in fact, looks just a little bit like the kitten-face that Ariadne signs her notes to herself to.
"Well, keep singing," Arthur hears himself say.
And just like that Eames has stepped into the circle of his arms and they are swaying together in the deserted warehouse. They are humming the music together, tucked into each other, dancing all by themselves.
///
In the morning Ariadne emails him: "I had a dream last night" and describes a seedy little bar, the speakers lilting out "As Time Goes By": "I saw you and Eames dancing, and Cobb and Saito, and...."
Arthur forwards the email to Eames, who is currently sleeping in their hotel room, and sends her a link to his file server's archive copy of "Casablanca".
author: ilovetakahana
pairing: Arthur/Eames, mention of Mal/Cobb, mention of Cobb/Saito
warnings: this was going to be something that involved everyone dancing, but, um, half this team just WILL. NOT. DANCE. sort of a follow-up to Playlist.
disclaimer: I don't own the original story or the characters. Not making any profit, just playing in the sandbox.
summary: Arthur tries to imagine everyone dancing.
This is for tailoredshirt. Sorry it didn't quite work out the way you wanted, bb.
1. Saito
Arthur's eyebrows race each other to his hairline when he finally gets the chance to shake Saito's hand, long after the inception job is said and done, in a classy little teahouse in the middle of Manhattan. There is a small mushroom of toughened flesh at the base of his little finger.
The whole team is assembled for a briefing on a new assignment: help Saito investigate the five men who are bidding to become the heir to his conglomerate. This being somewhat more aboveboard than Inception, each of them agrees easily, with Dom first of all, to no one's surprise.
The real surprise is the musical interlude that accompanies the tea and cakes after dinner.
Arthur watches Saito mutter something to Dom before he gets up and shuffles away, heading across the tatami to a gorgeously painted and bewigged geisha in bright golden and scarlet kimono. She nods two maids in to serve the others, then bows respectfully to Saito and hands him the instrument case in her arms.
As Eames and Ariadne pour each other cups of tea, Arthur watches Saito open the case, breathing deeply before he takes up a shamisen and its plectrum.
And then everyone stops dead in their tracks as Saito begins to play and to sing, and the geisha begins to dance. There is a lilt of loneliness in the man's voice, a delicate sadness like falling flowers in the geisha's movements.
Arthur is the only one who notices Dom crying.
2. Yusuf
Fortunately perhaps for Arthur's peace of mind, he never, ever comes across Yusuf dancing even though the man blasts the Violent Femmes at full volume, Gordon Gano growling and the rest of the band shrieking and attacking their instruments like predators, the rhythms tearing into his skin and threatening to take over his heart.
Instead, Yusuf stands in the middle of the cramped laboratory and shakes his head rapidly back and forth, shamelessly lip-synching, his eyes scrunched up as though he himself were rumbling "Don't shoot shoot shoot that thing at me" to a screaming, bouncing audience.
Arthur had been only slightly interested in punk, but it wasn't for lack of trying - God knows everyone he'd been to school with had been trumpeting the glories of Iggy Pop and all the others just a few years too late. But in the end he'd decided that he wanted to look into all possibilities, and commit to none.
He finds out later that Yusuf's brothers had all been into punk and, after he'd lost them - one to the dreams, one to a life of crime, one to a life as a civil servant - he'd held on to the music, his last remaining tie to his family.
It would never suit Yusuf in a million years, but Arthur thinks he understands.
3. Ariadne
Because she always wears headphones even when they're talking quietly about mazes and blueprints, Arthur does not know what sort of music she listens to. All he knows is that it makes her dance, not the sort of dancing that upends tables or disrupts their files and dossiers but an insistent drumming of the fingers, the near-silent tap of her stockinged feet on the floor, her mouth moving to words that do not look like English.
[And Arthur can read lips. It's a skill that's saved his life more than once.]
Tonight, though, having suddenly run into a wall with the plans for their investigation of Saito's people, he listens to her mutter angrily at herself and then storm away from the table. He watches Eames and Cobb trip all over each other as they scramble out of her way, watches Yusuf stick his head out of his lab and just as quickly retreat, watches her disappear into the back of the warehouse.
The next thing he knows is that she's singing very loudly, very beautifully. The problem is that he doesn't understand most of the lyrics - he hears her shout something like "Saikou no FINALE woh, yeah!" - but it sounds like she's deliberately mangling the English language for no logical reason.
And Ariadne is dancing. She punches the air, leaps and spins, her hair and scarf flying. All the while her eyes are closed, brows pulled together into a straight line, all of her frustration evident in the bunched fists and the forceful kicks.
Eames only smiles knowingly and whistles along.
4. Dom
Arthur sighs and walks away from the closed door of the warehouse's back room, also known to the team as Dom's office. Edith Piaf again. It's always a song about losing someone. It was bad enough when he'd catch him and Mal slow-dancing to her songs - seriously, talk about morbid....
Ariadne has confided in him and he now knows about some small part of the confrontation in Dom's head, some vague details about a conversation with the shade of Mal that was haunting him.
It doesn't seem to have helped, but at least he's playing Piaf less and less frequently. Arthur supposes it's progress.
Soon after the team had settled into the warehouse, plans underway for the new job, a package had been delivered for Dom. Having arrived first as usual, Arthur wound up having to sign for it.
Long-ingrained instincts push him to read everything on the package and he is not surprised that the package is from Japan. Of course it would be.
The thing that really surprises him is that the red inkan imprint next to Saito's name is not the usual one that accompanies the documents sent to them - but Saito's own personal seal.
Dom calmly opens the package while Arthur delivers his daily progress report, so he gets to see the CD that Saito has sent. The case bears an autograph from the performer, a woman named Wao.
Later on, he hears the strains of "Lili Marleen" coming out of the back room, in plaintive English.
He wonders who Dom is dancing with in his head now.
5. Eames
The night after the job, Saito is grim-faced.
Arthur supposes that finding out about their marks' unconscious truths would do that. It turns out that none of the candidates are actually fit enough in their minds to inherit.
Saito suspects something worse might be going on, and promises to call the team back together.
Dom leaves with him, the two men already deep into a conversation regarding this job and the near future.
Ariadne gets Yusuf to take her home. That leaves Arthur, as usual, to clean up and erase their tracks for another day.
He's absently humming something from Ariadne's iPod when he looks up to see Eames leaning on the wall under one of the warehouse's storm-blasted windows - and his song stops dead, to be replaced by another one.
The moonlight falls onto Eames's hair and shoulders, leaves his eyes in shadows.
Despite himself, Arthur draws nearer, strains to catch the melody that he's singing softly.
"It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by"
The song stops abruptly, Arthur's eyes fly open - and Eames is standing right there in front of him. The look in his eyes has no traces of his usual joker self - he's just there, mildly curious, gently interested.
He, in fact, looks just a little bit like the kitten-face that Ariadne signs her notes to herself to.
"Well, keep singing," Arthur hears himself say.
And just like that Eames has stepped into the circle of his arms and they are swaying together in the deserted warehouse. They are humming the music together, tucked into each other, dancing all by themselves.
///
In the morning Ariadne emails him: "I had a dream last night" and describes a seedy little bar, the speakers lilting out "As Time Goes By": "I saw you and Eames dancing, and Cobb and Saito, and...."
Arthur forwards the email to Eames, who is currently sleeping in their hotel room, and sends her a link to his file server's archive copy of "Casablanca".