+ Designs that Live and Breathe
Title: Designs that Live and Breathe
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Cobb
Rating: G
Warnings: Vague movie spoilers. When is it right to stop warning for spoilers?
Length: 479 words
Summary: Arthur doesn't build. It's not because he can't; he'd just rather see Cobb's work.
A/N: Took a short break from working on The Monster Fic of Oh God Why. Original prompt is over here.
Arthur’s more imaginative than Eames gives him credit for.
If he weren’t such a good point man, he’d make a wonderful architect. He likes things that look classic--dark colors, lush fabrics, and elegant lines, but that doesn’t mean he can’t make soaring skyscrapers that touch the clouds, melt into the blue sky. He can create lush forests, rolling plains, and dizzying mountains. Arthur can make loops within loops--paradoxes--that put Escher to shame. He can build mazes even Cobb can’t figure out.
But he doesn’t because he’d rather see the other at work.
The point man likes the stately way Cobb puts his mazes together. They’re solid but delicate--a balance Arthur’s always admired. It’s in all the details the man puts into his work, including things that you don’t notice until they’re not there anymore. A person could get lost in Cobb’s work; it’s not just a matter of it being a labyrinth--you just get caught up in its design, its simple elegance.
A man could lose track of time in there, forget that there’s a job to be done while admiring the looming columns, marble floors, and the endless walls of mirrors. Arthur knows this, knows this because it’s happened to him on more than one occasion.
It isn’t until he feels a hand, warm and reassuring, on his shoulder that he comes back to reality--the reality of the dream--that he can pull his eyes away. Cobb’s like a totem in the mazes he designs. His presence, touch--it’s all Arthur needs to know he’s safe and sound, to know that all is under control.
Because when Cobb dreams, when he builds, Arthur knows he has a million and one tricks up his sleeves. There isn’t a mark who can outdream him, outdistance him in his own mind. Walls grow, waves crash, buildings crumble--the maze is ever shifting, and the architecture grows, breathes, always shifting to trap the target like a slowly tightening noose.
And Arthur likes to watch, likes to watch the whole thing play out before him. It’s like playing cat and mouse, and in this game, the cat always wins, blue eyes bright and shining. It’s the greatest drama to unfold before him each and every time; it’s a rush, a natural high.
He never tires of it.
So when Cobb comes up to him and tells him he can’t build anymore, Arthur feels like he’s been knifed, cold and sharp, in a dream. He sees those skyscrapers, those walls, those elegant staircases crumble, sees them vanish. The blue skies darken and disappear; the waves go silent, recede to the grey edges of his subconscious. It all becomes a memory, poor replicates of the dream realities Cobb painted in such amazing colors.
He misses the days Cobb built, wishes the man could, if only to see those wonders before his eyes once more, just one last time.
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Cobb
Rating: G
Warnings: Vague movie spoilers. When is it right to stop warning for spoilers?
Length: 479 words
Summary: Arthur doesn't build. It's not because he can't; he'd just rather see Cobb's work.
A/N: Took a short break from working on The Monster Fic of Oh God Why. Original prompt is over here.
Arthur’s more imaginative than Eames gives him credit for.
If he weren’t such a good point man, he’d make a wonderful architect. He likes things that look classic--dark colors, lush fabrics, and elegant lines, but that doesn’t mean he can’t make soaring skyscrapers that touch the clouds, melt into the blue sky. He can create lush forests, rolling plains, and dizzying mountains. Arthur can make loops within loops--paradoxes--that put Escher to shame. He can build mazes even Cobb can’t figure out.
But he doesn’t because he’d rather see the other at work.
The point man likes the stately way Cobb puts his mazes together. They’re solid but delicate--a balance Arthur’s always admired. It’s in all the details the man puts into his work, including things that you don’t notice until they’re not there anymore. A person could get lost in Cobb’s work; it’s not just a matter of it being a labyrinth--you just get caught up in its design, its simple elegance.
A man could lose track of time in there, forget that there’s a job to be done while admiring the looming columns, marble floors, and the endless walls of mirrors. Arthur knows this, knows this because it’s happened to him on more than one occasion.
It isn’t until he feels a hand, warm and reassuring, on his shoulder that he comes back to reality--the reality of the dream--that he can pull his eyes away. Cobb’s like a totem in the mazes he designs. His presence, touch--it’s all Arthur needs to know he’s safe and sound, to know that all is under control.
Because when Cobb dreams, when he builds, Arthur knows he has a million and one tricks up his sleeves. There isn’t a mark who can outdream him, outdistance him in his own mind. Walls grow, waves crash, buildings crumble--the maze is ever shifting, and the architecture grows, breathes, always shifting to trap the target like a slowly tightening noose.
And Arthur likes to watch, likes to watch the whole thing play out before him. It’s like playing cat and mouse, and in this game, the cat always wins, blue eyes bright and shining. It’s the greatest drama to unfold before him each and every time; it’s a rush, a natural high.
He never tires of it.
So when Cobb comes up to him and tells him he can’t build anymore, Arthur feels like he’s been knifed, cold and sharp, in a dream. He sees those skyscrapers, those walls, those elegant staircases crumble, sees them vanish. The blue skies darken and disappear; the waves go silent, recede to the grey edges of his subconscious. It all becomes a memory, poor replicates of the dream realities Cobb painted in such amazing colors.
He misses the days Cobb built, wishes the man could, if only to see those wonders before his eyes once more, just one last time.