Fic: My Heart Runs Beneath the Sky (Inception, PG)
title: My Heart Runs Beneath the Sky
author: ilovetakahana
pairings: Arthur/Eames, Dom/Mal
warnings: Once again - Band!AU, Mal is alive, and just to be on the safe side let's call this one a high school AU, too.
I left the previous story, Ready Steady Go!, on a bit of a hanging note - SO. This is the one where guitarist!Eames and violinist!Arthur play a proper duet!
Title and cut text once again taken from "Ready Steady Go!" by L'Arc~en~Ciel.
disclaimer: I don't own the original story or the characters. Not making any profit, just playing in the sandbox.
summary: Music is magic is life is love and breathing.
Also archived at http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/.
Eames was playing hooky again.
But he wasn't skipping classes.
In fact, he'd just gotten out of a study hall with Dom and Mal and Yusuf. Finals were coming up; they were all racing each other to graduate. The school already buzzed with bets and counterbets as to which places they would all wind up in, although the safe bet seemed to be on Dom at the top of the class. If Mal didn't simply charm him out of his wits, which had never actually happened even though they were best friends and dating and rivals for the position.
Eames carefully picked the lock on the music room's door and he thought that in two or three more weeks he would actually be leaving this school forever. Oh, sure, he'd still need to drop in on Ariadne from time to time; he'd still have to pick her up and things. But he was graduating. Coming back to school after that would always be a little strange.
"Thinking like you're gone already," he laughed under his breath. It only took a few moments to set up: here was his black electric guitar, with the kanji for 'courage' painted on it, in blue-silver glitter paint. One amp, one speaker. He just needed to be able to hear himself. He wasn't going to experiment. He just needed to get out of himself for a few minutes, and playing the guitar always helped.
He had played so many songs so many times; the music was in his fingers now, long since detached from his actual mind; he didn't have to think to play. He just had to close his eyes, and he just had to announce to the empty room, "Ladies and gentlemen, L'Arc~en~Ciel!" And he even pronounced it in the French style, the vowels perfectly drilled into him by Mal, and he paused for the imaginary crowd screaming incoherently and ecstatically, and he ran his hands up and down the strings, once, twice, and he was off, striding into the opening chords of "Driver's High".
He jumped around, he spun and twirled on his feet. He'd learned to let the music move him. He'd tried watching himself while he was rocking out, once, and he'd always laughed at the memory, the mirror showing a bulky teenager spinning around on his worn workboots, but it was something he never ever wanted to stop doing.
He was sunk so deeply into the melody, into the growl of the strings under his callused fingers, that he never noticed that there was a second voice singing along with him - until he looked up, the song at an end, and there was someone else in the room. A boy with serious brown eyes. A boy who was busily unpacking his violin case even as Eames stood there, staring, jaw hanging slightly open.
Arthur merely smiled at him and drew the bow across the strings, once, and then suddenly he changed from the mild-mannered, frighteningly intelligent student - into a violinist.
And he played, and he was effortlessly good, although it took Eames a minute or two to bring his brain back online and identify the song. "Dive to Blue" was rare, now; it was early L'Arc, a little slower than the hard-rocking style Eames preferred.
But there was Arthur playing, eyes closed. His violin switching effortlessly from the guitar line to the vocal line, capturing hyde's voice. His mouth moving. He even meowed, once, and Eames remembered the detail from the music video - the falling cat.
In fact, Eames closed his eyes and he was the man from the video, completely falling, as though Arthur's violin was playing a note of gravity and it was pulling at him, crashing down endlessly.
When Arthur finished he couldn't help himself, and he burst into a round of applause for one.
"Do I need to repeat myself?" Arthur asked, amused, one eyebrow creeping toward his hairline. "Or shall I just ask you to play with me?"
"Repeat yourself about what," Eames asked, and he retuned his guitar, just a little, adjusted the levels on the amp.
"That you're good. And that I'd like to hear you play."
"I think," and Eames laughed, a little, "that I would have preferred it if you'd just asked me."
Arthur laughs, and for answer he simply raised his violin again, drew the bow once across the strings. And then: "Shall we?"
"Yes. Of course." And Eames began to sing:
Ready steady, can't hold me back
Ready steady, give me good luck
Ready steady, never look back
Let's get started, ready steady go!
And he and Arthur ran off, tearing into the song together, and they were singing, and he was jumping and thrashing wildly about, and he was watching Arthur dance and kick and stomp his feet. They never once missed a note. Guitar and violin creating the whole band, and two voices.
They each ended on an impossibly long note, the guitar's wail dying into a final ghostly echo around the room, and the violin's cry fell silent.
They looked at each other, and Eames wanted to laugh and blush and cry and just grab the other boy, grab him and run away with him, never let him go for an instant.
"I think," Arthur suddenly said, and his voice was suddenly high and uncertain, "I think I'd like you to kiss me, now."
And he did grin, then, and he laughed and he carefully grabbed Arthur's wrist, pulled him in close. Those arms wound around his shoulders. Eames laughed, and kissed him, then, and it was like falling out a window - falling out a window to fly.
author: ilovetakahana
pairings: Arthur/Eames, Dom/Mal
warnings: Once again - Band!AU, Mal is alive, and just to be on the safe side let's call this one a high school AU, too.
I left the previous story, Ready Steady Go!, on a bit of a hanging note - SO. This is the one where guitarist!Eames and violinist!Arthur play a proper duet!
Title and cut text once again taken from "Ready Steady Go!" by L'Arc~en~Ciel.
disclaimer: I don't own the original story or the characters. Not making any profit, just playing in the sandbox.
summary: Music is magic is life is love and breathing.
Also archived at http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/.
Eames was playing hooky again.
But he wasn't skipping classes.
In fact, he'd just gotten out of a study hall with Dom and Mal and Yusuf. Finals were coming up; they were all racing each other to graduate. The school already buzzed with bets and counterbets as to which places they would all wind up in, although the safe bet seemed to be on Dom at the top of the class. If Mal didn't simply charm him out of his wits, which had never actually happened even though they were best friends and dating and rivals for the position.
Eames carefully picked the lock on the music room's door and he thought that in two or three more weeks he would actually be leaving this school forever. Oh, sure, he'd still need to drop in on Ariadne from time to time; he'd still have to pick her up and things. But he was graduating. Coming back to school after that would always be a little strange.
"Thinking like you're gone already," he laughed under his breath. It only took a few moments to set up: here was his black electric guitar, with the kanji for 'courage' painted on it, in blue-silver glitter paint. One amp, one speaker. He just needed to be able to hear himself. He wasn't going to experiment. He just needed to get out of himself for a few minutes, and playing the guitar always helped.
He had played so many songs so many times; the music was in his fingers now, long since detached from his actual mind; he didn't have to think to play. He just had to close his eyes, and he just had to announce to the empty room, "Ladies and gentlemen, L'Arc~en~Ciel!" And he even pronounced it in the French style, the vowels perfectly drilled into him by Mal, and he paused for the imaginary crowd screaming incoherently and ecstatically, and he ran his hands up and down the strings, once, twice, and he was off, striding into the opening chords of "Driver's High".
He jumped around, he spun and twirled on his feet. He'd learned to let the music move him. He'd tried watching himself while he was rocking out, once, and he'd always laughed at the memory, the mirror showing a bulky teenager spinning around on his worn workboots, but it was something he never ever wanted to stop doing.
He was sunk so deeply into the melody, into the growl of the strings under his callused fingers, that he never noticed that there was a second voice singing along with him - until he looked up, the song at an end, and there was someone else in the room. A boy with serious brown eyes. A boy who was busily unpacking his violin case even as Eames stood there, staring, jaw hanging slightly open.
Arthur merely smiled at him and drew the bow across the strings, once, and then suddenly he changed from the mild-mannered, frighteningly intelligent student - into a violinist.
And he played, and he was effortlessly good, although it took Eames a minute or two to bring his brain back online and identify the song. "Dive to Blue" was rare, now; it was early L'Arc, a little slower than the hard-rocking style Eames preferred.
But there was Arthur playing, eyes closed. His violin switching effortlessly from the guitar line to the vocal line, capturing hyde's voice. His mouth moving. He even meowed, once, and Eames remembered the detail from the music video - the falling cat.
In fact, Eames closed his eyes and he was the man from the video, completely falling, as though Arthur's violin was playing a note of gravity and it was pulling at him, crashing down endlessly.
When Arthur finished he couldn't help himself, and he burst into a round of applause for one.
"Do I need to repeat myself?" Arthur asked, amused, one eyebrow creeping toward his hairline. "Or shall I just ask you to play with me?"
"Repeat yourself about what," Eames asked, and he retuned his guitar, just a little, adjusted the levels on the amp.
"That you're good. And that I'd like to hear you play."
"I think," and Eames laughed, a little, "that I would have preferred it if you'd just asked me."
Arthur laughs, and for answer he simply raised his violin again, drew the bow once across the strings. And then: "Shall we?"
"Yes. Of course." And Eames began to sing:
Ready steady, can't hold me back
Ready steady, give me good luck
Ready steady, never look back
Let's get started, ready steady go!
And he and Arthur ran off, tearing into the song together, and they were singing, and he was jumping and thrashing wildly about, and he was watching Arthur dance and kick and stomp his feet. They never once missed a note. Guitar and violin creating the whole band, and two voices.
They each ended on an impossibly long note, the guitar's wail dying into a final ghostly echo around the room, and the violin's cry fell silent.
They looked at each other, and Eames wanted to laugh and blush and cry and just grab the other boy, grab him and run away with him, never let him go for an instant.
"I think," Arthur suddenly said, and his voice was suddenly high and uncertain, "I think I'd like you to kiss me, now."
And he did grin, then, and he laughed and he carefully grabbed Arthur's wrist, pulled him in close. Those arms wound around his shoulders. Eames laughed, and kissed him, then, and it was like falling out a window - falling out a window to fly.