Inception fic: In the Sun, Your Eyes Will Shine
Title: In the Sun, Your Eyes Will Shine
Fandom/Pairing: Inception, Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Character Death, swearing
Wordcount: 800
Series: Quest for Quotes, an ongoing compilation of donated favorite quotes that I'm using as prompts for whenever I have free time.
Notes: From the quote given to me by riotguns.
Summary: And fuck it all, he wishes this had never happened.
----------
"The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun."
- W.H. Auden, Funeral Blues
-o-
It is hard for Arthur to see the good side of this situation. There isn’t one, and he knows this, but there will always be that voice whispering in the farthest corner of his mind; whispering, “You take everything much too seriously, including yourself. Try to see the positive, darling.”
And he’s trying. He’s trying, Goddammit, but there is no optimist in the world that could sew a silver lining into this storm.
And suddenly, suddenly it is too bright as he kneels here in the middle of the night, knees soaking up the tears of the people who have long since left, the last remnants of the flood he’s still drowning in even though the horribly clichéd rain has long since ceased to fall.
He digs his fingers deeper into the dirt, like he can fix everything if he could just get down a little farther-but nothing changes even as the grime burrows beneath the clean cut of his fingernails. He knows that he won’t get it out for days.
And the stars are still too bright.
He can see every detail clearly. The small mottled specks of the stone, the name, the inscription, the-God-the freshly dug earth that’s ruining his expensive suit. And he wishes it would stop. He wishes that it was dark-dark all the time, like it was before that infuriating day when they met; the day that was the morning sun into his life of numbers and figures and relationships that weren’t his own.
The sun that shined all the time from that fucking smile and those fucking eyes. So bright, and he could never stand it because when it was turned on him, it seemed to burn away whatever mask he had up and leave only his insecurities behind.
And shouldn’t it be dark, now? Now that the sun is gone?
He’d been asked, once (eternities, but really only a fucking week ago), what it was he wanted most. Maybe it had been for his birthday, or for Chanukah-it doesn’t really matter, anyway. He’d laughed and said nothing, instead changing the topic because he didn’t know what he wanted.
Well, now he does.
It’s impossible. He knows that, too. He knows that nothing could ever bring the dead back-nothing could pull out the bullets and sew up the flesh and replenish the blood. Nothing could make the stopped heart start beating, or the air flow back into the lungs.
No, it’s not going to happen.
So, instead, Arthur sits there in the dirt and wishes for the stars to turn off, for the dawn never to grace a new day. He wishes no light would shine, finding him alone again in the dark of his world. He wants the moon to fall, and possibly crush him-wouldn’t that be grand? But that, too, is impossible.
He also wishes he were cowardly enough to leave the world behind.
But he’s not.
He sits there, quietly, ruining his suit and his heart and his eyes with the dirt, and the pain, and the fucking tombstone that burns ‘James William Eames, 1998-2034’ permanently into his brain.
But most of all, he wishes he had answered Eames, when he asked, “What do you want most, Arthur?” with a laugh, and Arthur had laughed, too, and Arthur had said nothing. He wishes now that he had slid, “Would you kiss me?” into the place of, “That’s not important. How are the kids, Dom?”
Wishes he had said it, and made Eames smile and stay with him a little longer, or run and leave a little sooner; whatever it took to avoid the drive-by-the fucking drive-by-that caught one of the world’s best in the worst time and place.
But changing the past is also quite out of the question, so Arthur simply stands and brushes the dirt off of his pants, straightens the pleats, and tosses down the bouquet of pinkladies that have been patiently waiting by his side.
“What do I want for my birthday?” he asks, quietly, just as the light starts to stream over the tops of the trees. “What would I wish for, when I blow out my candles?”
The die in his pocket is pulling him off-balance, the weight of the reality he’s confirmed thirty-six times since last Wednesday tipping the world dizzyingly through the water that stings behind his eyes.
“In all honesty, Eames, I only wish you’d known that I love you.”
And then, with the sky glowing above him, turning all of the puddles to blood, Arthur leaves the sun behind.
He needs to pin down those numbers by noon.
--------
This one's pretty sad. But fear not, the next few are happy. :)
Fandom/Pairing: Inception, Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Character Death, swearing
Wordcount: 800
Series: Quest for Quotes, an ongoing compilation of donated favorite quotes that I'm using as prompts for whenever I have free time.
Notes: From the quote given to me by riotguns.
Summary: And fuck it all, he wishes this had never happened.
----------
"The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun."
- W.H. Auden, Funeral Blues
-o-
It is hard for Arthur to see the good side of this situation. There isn’t one, and he knows this, but there will always be that voice whispering in the farthest corner of his mind; whispering, “You take everything much too seriously, including yourself. Try to see the positive, darling.”
And he’s trying. He’s trying, Goddammit, but there is no optimist in the world that could sew a silver lining into this storm.
And suddenly, suddenly it is too bright as he kneels here in the middle of the night, knees soaking up the tears of the people who have long since left, the last remnants of the flood he’s still drowning in even though the horribly clichéd rain has long since ceased to fall.
He digs his fingers deeper into the dirt, like he can fix everything if he could just get down a little farther-but nothing changes even as the grime burrows beneath the clean cut of his fingernails. He knows that he won’t get it out for days.
And the stars are still too bright.
He can see every detail clearly. The small mottled specks of the stone, the name, the inscription, the-God-the freshly dug earth that’s ruining his expensive suit. And he wishes it would stop. He wishes that it was dark-dark all the time, like it was before that infuriating day when they met; the day that was the morning sun into his life of numbers and figures and relationships that weren’t his own.
The sun that shined all the time from that fucking smile and those fucking eyes. So bright, and he could never stand it because when it was turned on him, it seemed to burn away whatever mask he had up and leave only his insecurities behind.
And shouldn’t it be dark, now? Now that the sun is gone?
He’d been asked, once (eternities, but really only a fucking week ago), what it was he wanted most. Maybe it had been for his birthday, or for Chanukah-it doesn’t really matter, anyway. He’d laughed and said nothing, instead changing the topic because he didn’t know what he wanted.
Well, now he does.
It’s impossible. He knows that, too. He knows that nothing could ever bring the dead back-nothing could pull out the bullets and sew up the flesh and replenish the blood. Nothing could make the stopped heart start beating, or the air flow back into the lungs.
No, it’s not going to happen.
So, instead, Arthur sits there in the dirt and wishes for the stars to turn off, for the dawn never to grace a new day. He wishes no light would shine, finding him alone again in the dark of his world. He wants the moon to fall, and possibly crush him-wouldn’t that be grand? But that, too, is impossible.
He also wishes he were cowardly enough to leave the world behind.
But he’s not.
He sits there, quietly, ruining his suit and his heart and his eyes with the dirt, and the pain, and the fucking tombstone that burns ‘James William Eames, 1998-2034’ permanently into his brain.
But most of all, he wishes he had answered Eames, when he asked, “What do you want most, Arthur?” with a laugh, and Arthur had laughed, too, and Arthur had said nothing. He wishes now that he had slid, “Would you kiss me?” into the place of, “That’s not important. How are the kids, Dom?”
Wishes he had said it, and made Eames smile and stay with him a little longer, or run and leave a little sooner; whatever it took to avoid the drive-by-the fucking drive-by-that caught one of the world’s best in the worst time and place.
But changing the past is also quite out of the question, so Arthur simply stands and brushes the dirt off of his pants, straightens the pleats, and tosses down the bouquet of pinkladies that have been patiently waiting by his side.
“What do I want for my birthday?” he asks, quietly, just as the light starts to stream over the tops of the trees. “What would I wish for, when I blow out my candles?”
The die in his pocket is pulling him off-balance, the weight of the reality he’s confirmed thirty-six times since last Wednesday tipping the world dizzyingly through the water that stings behind his eyes.
“In all honesty, Eames, I only wish you’d known that I love you.”
And then, with the sky glowing above him, turning all of the puddles to blood, Arthur leaves the sun behind.
He needs to pin down those numbers by noon.
--------
This one's pretty sad. But fear not, the next few are happy. :)