(no subject)
Dreaming Up
Prompt: Arthur is actually horribly lowbrow.
Contrary to the opinions of Interpol and hundreds of mind-heist victims around the world, Eames is a nice person when he isn’t actively drugging marks and stealing ideas. He holds doors open for people even when they’re more than ten paces away. He yields to pedestrians when driving. He gives away a cigarette whenever someone asks for one. He even aims for a limb or non-vital injury when using a gun in real life. So when Arthur rings and asks him to bring over an external hard-drive from the warehouse, with even a ‘please’ tacked on to the end of the request, Eames shrugs on his coat, hails a cab, and reads out the address that Arthur had texted him.
As the cab darts along in traffic, Eames stares out the window but doesn’t register any of the buildings whipping by. Instead he drums his fingers on the hard-drive, shifts up on the seat, coughs into his hand, and then finally realizes that there’s a low-level anxiety humming through his body. Normal for any foray into an unfamiliar situation, but not normal for simply stopping by someone’s flat. Still, Eames can picture it now: the minimalist couch, the coffee table that’s purely a prop instead of being functional, the bookshelf full of first-edition classics, arranged by some obscure ordering system, and Eames standing in the middle of it all, rolling his eyes both at the predictability and how he willingly walked into that kind of environment.
The cab stops in front of a modern high-rise; Eames takes the elevator up to the 23rd floor. Floor-to-ceiling windows along one whole stretch of wall, he’s guessing. It probably provides a spectacular view of the city, a perfect accompaniment as Arthur listens to Monteverdi arias on vinyl and drinks red wine.
Eames stops at 238. He sighs at the gilded numbers and knocks twice. “Your very own personal delivery boy, here at your service,” he calls.
“That was fast,” Arthur says when he opens the door.
“I’ll have you know that I shifted all my priorities in order to get -- what the hell is that?”
Arthur shifts the can in his grip, as if now that Eames is pointing at it, it’s not actually what he initially thought. He looks back up and slowly says, “Natty Ice.”
“Natty Ice,” Eames repeats.
“Now I’m doubting both your reading and hearing abilities. Natty Ice.”
Eames looks over his shoulder and sees, yes, the floor-to-ceiling windows, and also a lounge chair with his namesake -- except some of the windows are covered with what look like notes scribbled in Sharpie, and there are papers piled high on the chair that makes it useless for actually sitting on. The coffee table appears to be an overturned box for a mini-fridge.
“Okay, yes, come in,” Arthur says mostly to himself as Eames brushes by.
The door closes and locks behind him -- or, rather, he assumes it does because Arthur is now standing beside him and knows better than to leave a door gaping open unless it’s strictly part of a plan.
“Jesus, this place is a sty,” Eames finally says. He’s expecting Arthur to prove him wrong with that slow, condescending drawl of his, but he only grunts in assent and takes a sip of the Natty fucking Ice.
“You want one?” he asks, walking into the kitchen.
“Do you have anything that doesn’t taste like diluted piss?” Eames asks absently. The TV cabinet is throwing up DVDs everywhere; Eames shifts them around with his shoe and spies Die Hard 1-4, The Wicker Man -- the remake with Nicolas Cage, for Christ’s sake -- Battlefield Earth, and about ten movies starring Steven Seagal.
Eames does not know how to feel. Not anxious anymore, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s a strange mix of gleeful, speechless, and slightly scared. Or it might just be that he’s utterly thrown off at the fact that Arthur is the first person he’s ever read so completely wrong.
Something nudges his arm: a cold bottle of Corona, which, alright. He takes it and gulps down a long swig. His totem is telling him that this is all real, but that doesn’t mean much, does it? A mild acid trip could be causing the hallucinations.
“The hard-drive, Eames,” Arthur reminds him, sounding exasperated. “Are you feeling sick?”
Eames hands it to him and says, “I might be on drugs. Do you think I’m on drugs? Cobb gave me that coffee a few hours ago. He woudn’t’ve laced it with anything, right?”
Arthur gives him a strange look. He keeps staring at him as he chugs the rest of his beer, then drops the empty can onto the hardwood floor.
“Allow me to recap,” Eames says, trying to regain some semblance of self-control. “Your dress sense is impeccable, but you have shit taste in most other areas. You’re not, despite all appearances, obsessive-compulsive, you like watching horrible movies, and I’m guessing you’ve never owned a first-edition anything.”
“That’s all objective,” Arthur counters. “Except for the last one, which is true.”
“You’re telling me that -- ” Eames steps to the left and shuffles through the mess of CD cases -- “that whether or not Bowling For Soup is a good band is all objective.”
“Yes,” is all Arthur says. He goes to the kitchen counter, which is covered with take-out boxes and FHM issues, and retrieves a laptop, bringing it over to the coffee table/empty box. It’s in an equal state of disarray. Several manila folders fall off and spill its contents over the rug when Arthur uses the laptop to raze the mess over the edge.
Eames pushes further. “Essentially, you’re a complete philistine.”
“Essentially, I’m good at my job. I’m good at it because I work at it, which doesn’t leave me with much time to train myself to like four-hour operas or think about what kind of designer furniture I want to buy.
“That Eames chair was a gift from Cobb and Mal,” Arthur adds. “Apparently you three think alike.”
“And the suits?” Eames prompts.
Arthur pushes even more papers off and places the hard-drive into the freed space. There are coffee rings stained everywhere into the cardboard. “I have to work now, thank you, Mr. Eames.”
“The suits,” Eames prompts again.
“You have a strange fascination with trying to pin me down.”
“Purely a professional curiosity. The suits, please, Arthur.”
Arthur snorts. He leans forward and types a password into his laptop. Eames is so distracted that he forgets to even pay attention to what it is. “I just want to look the part,” Arthur says. “That doesn’t mean I have to live the part on my off-time.”
“So those tickets I got you for Turandot,” Eames says. ‘Got’ might be putting it loosely -- there was a hostile takeover of the box office and a little bit of blackmailing involved, but no matter. “You actually didn’t want to go. It wasn’t out of spite that you put them back into my pocket.”
“I thought you should take someone else who actually enjoys opera. I’m not that much of an asshole,” says Arthur. “I only give as good as I get.”
“And had I asked if you wanted to see the new Stallone movie?”
Arthur pulls out another beer from between the couch cushions and cracks it open. “I would’ve said no out of spite,” he answers with a small smile.
“Of course,” Eames says. “Of course. Do you know, this is possibly the most educational night I’ve had, barring that one night in Saigon back in 1998.”
“I see you’ve got your bearings back,” Arthur says dryly. “Which means now I can stop indulging you and finally tell you to leave.”
Eames finishes off his beer, then obediently turns toward the door. For some reason, these past few minutes seem very fragile, so he’s willing to do what it takes to preserve it. Still, when he grips the door handle, he can’t help but say over his shoulder, “You do realize that now I have to fill in the blanks all over again. I’ve got a template of this new Arthur, but hardly anything to flesh it out.”
“Hopefully you’ll do better this time around,” Arthur says, beer in hand, elbows resting on his knees. He’s still wearing today’s suit, sans the jacket, and still looks utterly out of place. Eames wouldn’t even believe this whole thing if it weren’t for the fact that the one thing he does believe is that Arthur can be both infuriatingly predictable and unpredictable, all at once.
“That sounds like an open invitation,” Eames points out.
Arthur stays focused on his laptop. “Good night, Eames,” he says.
Eames smiles and lets himself out, still holding onto the empty bottle. A subtle exit, to his standards, but with Arthur, he’s hardly ever been anything more.
Not yet, anyway.
Prompt: Arthur is actually horribly lowbrow.
Contrary to the opinions of Interpol and hundreds of mind-heist victims around the world, Eames is a nice person when he isn’t actively drugging marks and stealing ideas. He holds doors open for people even when they’re more than ten paces away. He yields to pedestrians when driving. He gives away a cigarette whenever someone asks for one. He even aims for a limb or non-vital injury when using a gun in real life. So when Arthur rings and asks him to bring over an external hard-drive from the warehouse, with even a ‘please’ tacked on to the end of the request, Eames shrugs on his coat, hails a cab, and reads out the address that Arthur had texted him.
As the cab darts along in traffic, Eames stares out the window but doesn’t register any of the buildings whipping by. Instead he drums his fingers on the hard-drive, shifts up on the seat, coughs into his hand, and then finally realizes that there’s a low-level anxiety humming through his body. Normal for any foray into an unfamiliar situation, but not normal for simply stopping by someone’s flat. Still, Eames can picture it now: the minimalist couch, the coffee table that’s purely a prop instead of being functional, the bookshelf full of first-edition classics, arranged by some obscure ordering system, and Eames standing in the middle of it all, rolling his eyes both at the predictability and how he willingly walked into that kind of environment.
The cab stops in front of a modern high-rise; Eames takes the elevator up to the 23rd floor. Floor-to-ceiling windows along one whole stretch of wall, he’s guessing. It probably provides a spectacular view of the city, a perfect accompaniment as Arthur listens to Monteverdi arias on vinyl and drinks red wine.
Eames stops at 238. He sighs at the gilded numbers and knocks twice. “Your very own personal delivery boy, here at your service,” he calls.
“That was fast,” Arthur says when he opens the door.
“I’ll have you know that I shifted all my priorities in order to get -- what the hell is that?”
Arthur shifts the can in his grip, as if now that Eames is pointing at it, it’s not actually what he initially thought. He looks back up and slowly says, “Natty Ice.”
“Natty Ice,” Eames repeats.
“Now I’m doubting both your reading and hearing abilities. Natty Ice.”
Eames looks over his shoulder and sees, yes, the floor-to-ceiling windows, and also a lounge chair with his namesake -- except some of the windows are covered with what look like notes scribbled in Sharpie, and there are papers piled high on the chair that makes it useless for actually sitting on. The coffee table appears to be an overturned box for a mini-fridge.
“Okay, yes, come in,” Arthur says mostly to himself as Eames brushes by.
The door closes and locks behind him -- or, rather, he assumes it does because Arthur is now standing beside him and knows better than to leave a door gaping open unless it’s strictly part of a plan.
“Jesus, this place is a sty,” Eames finally says. He’s expecting Arthur to prove him wrong with that slow, condescending drawl of his, but he only grunts in assent and takes a sip of the Natty fucking Ice.
“You want one?” he asks, walking into the kitchen.
“Do you have anything that doesn’t taste like diluted piss?” Eames asks absently. The TV cabinet is throwing up DVDs everywhere; Eames shifts them around with his shoe and spies Die Hard 1-4, The Wicker Man -- the remake with Nicolas Cage, for Christ’s sake -- Battlefield Earth, and about ten movies starring Steven Seagal.
Eames does not know how to feel. Not anxious anymore, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s a strange mix of gleeful, speechless, and slightly scared. Or it might just be that he’s utterly thrown off at the fact that Arthur is the first person he’s ever read so completely wrong.
Something nudges his arm: a cold bottle of Corona, which, alright. He takes it and gulps down a long swig. His totem is telling him that this is all real, but that doesn’t mean much, does it? A mild acid trip could be causing the hallucinations.
“The hard-drive, Eames,” Arthur reminds him, sounding exasperated. “Are you feeling sick?”
Eames hands it to him and says, “I might be on drugs. Do you think I’m on drugs? Cobb gave me that coffee a few hours ago. He woudn’t’ve laced it with anything, right?”
Arthur gives him a strange look. He keeps staring at him as he chugs the rest of his beer, then drops the empty can onto the hardwood floor.
“Allow me to recap,” Eames says, trying to regain some semblance of self-control. “Your dress sense is impeccable, but you have shit taste in most other areas. You’re not, despite all appearances, obsessive-compulsive, you like watching horrible movies, and I’m guessing you’ve never owned a first-edition anything.”
“That’s all objective,” Arthur counters. “Except for the last one, which is true.”
“You’re telling me that -- ” Eames steps to the left and shuffles through the mess of CD cases -- “that whether or not Bowling For Soup is a good band is all objective.”
“Yes,” is all Arthur says. He goes to the kitchen counter, which is covered with take-out boxes and FHM issues, and retrieves a laptop, bringing it over to the coffee table/empty box. It’s in an equal state of disarray. Several manila folders fall off and spill its contents over the rug when Arthur uses the laptop to raze the mess over the edge.
Eames pushes further. “Essentially, you’re a complete philistine.”
“Essentially, I’m good at my job. I’m good at it because I work at it, which doesn’t leave me with much time to train myself to like four-hour operas or think about what kind of designer furniture I want to buy.
“That Eames chair was a gift from Cobb and Mal,” Arthur adds. “Apparently you three think alike.”
“And the suits?” Eames prompts.
Arthur pushes even more papers off and places the hard-drive into the freed space. There are coffee rings stained everywhere into the cardboard. “I have to work now, thank you, Mr. Eames.”
“The suits,” Eames prompts again.
“You have a strange fascination with trying to pin me down.”
“Purely a professional curiosity. The suits, please, Arthur.”
Arthur snorts. He leans forward and types a password into his laptop. Eames is so distracted that he forgets to even pay attention to what it is. “I just want to look the part,” Arthur says. “That doesn’t mean I have to live the part on my off-time.”
“So those tickets I got you for Turandot,” Eames says. ‘Got’ might be putting it loosely -- there was a hostile takeover of the box office and a little bit of blackmailing involved, but no matter. “You actually didn’t want to go. It wasn’t out of spite that you put them back into my pocket.”
“I thought you should take someone else who actually enjoys opera. I’m not that much of an asshole,” says Arthur. “I only give as good as I get.”
“And had I asked if you wanted to see the new Stallone movie?”
Arthur pulls out another beer from between the couch cushions and cracks it open. “I would’ve said no out of spite,” he answers with a small smile.
“Of course,” Eames says. “Of course. Do you know, this is possibly the most educational night I’ve had, barring that one night in Saigon back in 1998.”
“I see you’ve got your bearings back,” Arthur says dryly. “Which means now I can stop indulging you and finally tell you to leave.”
Eames finishes off his beer, then obediently turns toward the door. For some reason, these past few minutes seem very fragile, so he’s willing to do what it takes to preserve it. Still, when he grips the door handle, he can’t help but say over his shoulder, “You do realize that now I have to fill in the blanks all over again. I’ve got a template of this new Arthur, but hardly anything to flesh it out.”
“Hopefully you’ll do better this time around,” Arthur says, beer in hand, elbows resting on his knees. He’s still wearing today’s suit, sans the jacket, and still looks utterly out of place. Eames wouldn’t even believe this whole thing if it weren’t for the fact that the one thing he does believe is that Arthur can be both infuriatingly predictable and unpredictable, all at once.
“That sounds like an open invitation,” Eames points out.
Arthur stays focused on his laptop. “Good night, Eames,” he says.
Eames smiles and lets himself out, still holding onto the empty bottle. A subtle exit, to his standards, but with Arthur, he’s hardly ever been anything more.
Not yet, anyway.