fic: 025. hero
( hero ) pg, 1657 words, arthur/cobb
scott pilgrim!AU: scott!Arthur/ramona!Cobb, matthew!Robert, lucas!Nash, todd!Ariadne, roxie!Eames, kyle!Kaneda&ken!Saito, gideon!Mal, stephen!Tadashi, kim!Yusuf.
A quick trip through the Scott Pilgrim movie, Arthur/Cobb style. Number 25, on the 30 prompts table.
“Before we keep dating, you’ve got to defeat my seven evil exes,” says Cobb, looking away.
“Wait,” says Arthur, a smile forming on his face, “we’re dating?”
“Arthur, focus,” reprimands Cobb, looking back at him.
“Wait, you’ve got seven evil ex-boyfriends?”
“Seven evil exes, yes.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
-
“Mr. Pilgrim,” announces a voice, crashing through the ceiling. “I am Robert Fischer, Cobb’s first evil ex-boyfriend.”
“What?”
“Dude, what?” questions Tadashi, speaking into the microphone, gesturing to his acoustic guitar like Arthur didn’t know that they got interrupted during a song.
“I don’t know this guy.”
Robert produces a massive pinwheel out of nowhere. It looks ridiculous. He flies at Arthur, wielding it like a scythe. It’s fucking dangerous.
“Hit him back!” shouts Yusuf from behind the drums.
Arthur kicks the pinwheel down into the ground and throws an uppercut that gets Robert in the jaw.
-
“Oh, Nash, could you sign this for my friend? He’s a big fan of-”
And that’s when Arthur gets punched in the face by actor-architect, Nash. Like Cher.
“Hey Cobb,” greets Nash, as he punches Arthur back to the ground when he tries to get up.
Cobb nods awkwardly at him.
“You doing good? Looks like you’re doing good.” Nash looks down at Arthur, who glares up at him with a bloody nose. “He looks nice.”
Oh, he is so going down.
Arthur feigns a move to stand up again and when Nash throws another punch, his hand crunches against the number two surface of Arthur’s enlarged, red die.
-
“You dated a girl?” asks Arthur when he lands in the snow. Cobb runs to his side to help him up, brushing snow off his suit. “A girl with vegan powers?”
Ariadne stands at the end of the alley, glowing scarily.
“It wasn’t for long. She was just- her mind was so fresh, a new perspective, I-”
“Wait, fresh? How old is she- she like a student?”
“She was my ex’s father’s student, actually. I was just a postgrad who she wanted to meet and interview.”
Arthur blinks at him, confused, “Seriously?”
Ariadne forms a giant, bronze bishop out of the air and grins. “Get ready, Arthur Pilgrim.”
“Oh fuck,” swears Arthur, and the bishop flies at him, pushing him through walls of brick. He lies there, really bruised and battered, and decides he’s not going to let a girl push him around. He just has to find some way of defeating her, without actually fighting her.
That’s when he spots Ariadne’s rack of bass guitars.
-
Arthur gets punched out of nowhere.
“I’m sick of getting punched,” says Arthur, pulling his die out of his pocket. “And not just punched, thrown into snow, pushed through walls, attacked by giant objects.”
“Sorry,” says Cobb, fingers brushing the place where Arthur’s sure he’s going to get a bruise. Great, another one to match all the other ones.
“Well, well, well, it’s good to see you, Dominick.”
“Eames.” Cobb purses his lips and Arthur looks up to see Eames swagger towards them, hands unbuttoning his dress shirt. When he’s done, he takes it off and tucks it into his back pocket.
“Holy shit, he’s built like a MMA fighter.”
Cobb bites his bottom lip. “About that…”
“I am a MMA fighter,” says Eames, pulling out a poker chip. “Willing to place a bet on the chance of you winning? Which is, of course, a big fat naught. I don’t know why you bothered to date such a ponce, Nick.”
“Don’t call him that, Eames. Arthur is anything but a ponce,” snarls Cobb.
Eames grins, looking feral, eyes dark. He flips his poker chip, high into the air. “Willing to bet on that, love?”
Cobb takes a step forward and folds up his sleeves.
-
“You’re just another evil ex waiting to happen,” says Cobb, frowning. He slaps a piece of paper on to Arthur’s chest and walks away.
-
Saito and Kaneda grin at them, and they both start playing on the keyboard, hands swiping back and forth along the length.
“What do we do,” mutters Tadashi and Arthur is about to slap him, tell him to get it together but Yusuf steps hard on the pedal of his bass drum.
“We are INCEPTION, ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR!”
Arthur and Tadashi automatically start playing, letting hours of practice take over. Arthur strums the strings with his pick, eyebrows furrowed, watching the other band as they play.
Proclus Global’s speakers start to emit yellow sparks of electricity, the sound waves of their music forming a massive jet that tears a hole through the roof before swooping close to them, blowing them to the ground.
“Oh fuck,” swears Tadashi, lying in a tangle beside Arthur, “I said we couldn’t do this. Now, we look like idiots in front of Mal Miles.”
“Mal’s here?” questions Arthur, sitting up, clutching his bass.
Yusuf groans, climbing back on his stool. “Yeah, she’s that- creepy woman with your little boyfriend.”
Arthur looks out at the crowd and spots Cobb. The woman in front of him cups his face, Cobb’s eyes flutter close, and she turns to Arthur, smirking.
“That’s Mal? Mal is M.Miles?!” Arthur grabs his guitar cable, angry at the revelation that the ex that Cobb mentions most is actually a woman, the same woman they’ve been trying to get to notice them so that they could work for her, and plugs his bass back in. “Let’s do this.”
They play twice as hard, Saito and Kaneda doing the same, the sparking yellow jet reappearing. Saito suddenly steps back, letting Kaneda slide towards the middle of the board, and he then jumps onto the jet.
Tadashi gives Arthur a disbelieving look and Arthur swears, jamming his foot on his effects pedal. He watches as blue sparks from their speakers, creating disjointed lines in the air. Arthur shrugs out of the bass strap and throws his bass to Neil, who catches it readily, already plucking the right notes. Arthur takes a leaping jump onto their lines which straighten out and form spiraling stairs.
“You can’t beat me with that,” says Saito, flying along side him, “What are you going to do with a set of stairs? All they do is spiral up and up and up, I’ll always know where you’ll be going.”
Arthur snarls and changes direction, running down the stairs. Saito laughs at him again, and follow the stairs’ spiral down, staying a little ahead of him. Arthur narrows his eyes and runs the ring of the stairs, until he’s above Saito, jumping onto the jet and overthrowing him.
“How?” breathes Saito as he flies off, towards a frozen Kaneda, staring wide eyed at them.
Arthur grins as they make contact, shattering into coins. “Paradox.”
-
“I’m in lesbians with you,” says Arthur, relief surging through his body when the words finally leave his word.
“What?” asks Cobb, blinking at him, “Um, okay. Look, we have to break up.”
Arthur closes his eyes at the unexpected words, unable to breathe.
“It’s Mal, Arthur, I just can’t- she’s got this. She’s always in my head.”
Arthur grits his teeth, taking in a deep breath.
“That’s the bad news, mon ami, but the goods news is that I love Incepticon-”
“Inception,” corrects Arthur.
“-so I’m offering you guys a contract.” Mal slides an arm around Cobb’s shoulder and pulls him in close, smirking over his shoulders.
-
Arthur loses Cobb, his band, and his home in the same day.
No more. He’s got nothing left to lose.
-
“I cheated on Knives with you,” coughs Arthur, looking away from Cobb and at Knives.
“Is there a difference?” snaps Cobb, and before Knives or Cobb can say anything, a blade appears out of nowhere. Arthurs looks down at it protruding from his chest and grasps the blade, pain throbbing through his entire torso. His hands gushes coins when Mal pulls it out.
“Game over,” she sings.
-
A life flashes before Arthur, and he remembers.
The fight with Proclus Global.
He grabs it to for a retry.
-
“Because you’ll be together,” says Arthur, shoving Mal off the pyramid. He watches as she explodes into 7 millions coins, copper plated zinc showering the whole room.
“Wow,” says Knives, smiling at Arthur.
“Yeah,” says Arthur, smiling back at him.
“You may have defeated me, Arthur Pilgrim,” whispers a voice into the room, and Arthur looks at the pewter top on the floor, “but can you defeat yourself?”
“Arthur,” calls Knives, and Arthur turns to where Knives is looking, “Nega-Arthur.”
Knives and Cobb flank Arthur’s sides, fists raised and ready, but Arthur shakes his head. “I need to do this myself.”
-
“Yeah,” whispers Cobb with a slight smile,“and stuff.” He turns to leave, the wind blowing his stray bangs into the air.
“You should follow him,” says Knives, running a hand through his hair.
Arthur blinks at him, confused. “But what about you?”
“You’ve been fighting for him, all this time, Arthur. I’ll be fine without you.” Knives grins, smug and sad at the same time.
“Knives,” murmurs Arthur, and Knives leans in to press a kiss to the corner of his lips.
“Go.”
Arthur turns to watch Cobb’s retreating back, grey coat dotted with the snow. He jogs after him, uncaring of the snow soaking his Burberry dress pants, the water seeping into his Dior Homme oxfords. “Cobb!”
Cobb turns, eyes wide. “Arthur, wha-?”
“You mind if I join your party, or are you playing alone?” asks Arthur, blaming the cold for the heat in his cheeks.
“You want to join me?”
Arthur shrugs with a small smile, “Yeah, I thought we could try again… and stuff.”
The smile that blooms on Cobb’s face is the best thing Arthur’s ever seen. He takes the hand that Cobb holds out, and they walk together, for a new beginning, through another sub-space door.
This time, Arthur’s going to play it right.
scott pilgrim!AU: scott!Arthur/ramona!Cobb, matthew!Robert, lucas!Nash, todd!Ariadne, roxie!Eames, kyle!Kaneda&ken!Saito, gideon!Mal, stephen!Tadashi, kim!Yusuf.
A quick trip through the Scott Pilgrim movie, Arthur/Cobb style. Number 25, on the 30 prompts table.
“Before we keep dating, you’ve got to defeat my seven evil exes,” says Cobb, looking away.
“Wait,” says Arthur, a smile forming on his face, “we’re dating?”
“Arthur, focus,” reprimands Cobb, looking back at him.
“Wait, you’ve got seven evil ex-boyfriends?”
“Seven evil exes, yes.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
-
“Mr. Pilgrim,” announces a voice, crashing through the ceiling. “I am Robert Fischer, Cobb’s first evil ex-boyfriend.”
“What?”
“Dude, what?” questions Tadashi, speaking into the microphone, gesturing to his acoustic guitar like Arthur didn’t know that they got interrupted during a song.
“I don’t know this guy.”
Robert produces a massive pinwheel out of nowhere. It looks ridiculous. He flies at Arthur, wielding it like a scythe. It’s fucking dangerous.
“Hit him back!” shouts Yusuf from behind the drums.
Arthur kicks the pinwheel down into the ground and throws an uppercut that gets Robert in the jaw.
-
“Oh, Nash, could you sign this for my friend? He’s a big fan of-”
And that’s when Arthur gets punched in the face by actor-architect, Nash. Like Cher.
“Hey Cobb,” greets Nash, as he punches Arthur back to the ground when he tries to get up.
Cobb nods awkwardly at him.
“You doing good? Looks like you’re doing good.” Nash looks down at Arthur, who glares up at him with a bloody nose. “He looks nice.”
Oh, he is so going down.
Arthur feigns a move to stand up again and when Nash throws another punch, his hand crunches against the number two surface of Arthur’s enlarged, red die.
-
“You dated a girl?” asks Arthur when he lands in the snow. Cobb runs to his side to help him up, brushing snow off his suit. “A girl with vegan powers?”
Ariadne stands at the end of the alley, glowing scarily.
“It wasn’t for long. She was just- her mind was so fresh, a new perspective, I-”
“Wait, fresh? How old is she- she like a student?”
“She was my ex’s father’s student, actually. I was just a postgrad who she wanted to meet and interview.”
Arthur blinks at him, confused, “Seriously?”
Ariadne forms a giant, bronze bishop out of the air and grins. “Get ready, Arthur Pilgrim.”
“Oh fuck,” swears Arthur, and the bishop flies at him, pushing him through walls of brick. He lies there, really bruised and battered, and decides he’s not going to let a girl push him around. He just has to find some way of defeating her, without actually fighting her.
That’s when he spots Ariadne’s rack of bass guitars.
-
Arthur gets punched out of nowhere.
“I’m sick of getting punched,” says Arthur, pulling his die out of his pocket. “And not just punched, thrown into snow, pushed through walls, attacked by giant objects.”
“Sorry,” says Cobb, fingers brushing the place where Arthur’s sure he’s going to get a bruise. Great, another one to match all the other ones.
“Well, well, well, it’s good to see you, Dominick.”
“Eames.” Cobb purses his lips and Arthur looks up to see Eames swagger towards them, hands unbuttoning his dress shirt. When he’s done, he takes it off and tucks it into his back pocket.
“Holy shit, he’s built like a MMA fighter.”
Cobb bites his bottom lip. “About that…”
“I am a MMA fighter,” says Eames, pulling out a poker chip. “Willing to place a bet on the chance of you winning? Which is, of course, a big fat naught. I don’t know why you bothered to date such a ponce, Nick.”
“Don’t call him that, Eames. Arthur is anything but a ponce,” snarls Cobb.
Eames grins, looking feral, eyes dark. He flips his poker chip, high into the air. “Willing to bet on that, love?”
Cobb takes a step forward and folds up his sleeves.
-
“You’re just another evil ex waiting to happen,” says Cobb, frowning. He slaps a piece of paper on to Arthur’s chest and walks away.
-
Saito and Kaneda grin at them, and they both start playing on the keyboard, hands swiping back and forth along the length.
“What do we do,” mutters Tadashi and Arthur is about to slap him, tell him to get it together but Yusuf steps hard on the pedal of his bass drum.
“We are INCEPTION, ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR!”
Arthur and Tadashi automatically start playing, letting hours of practice take over. Arthur strums the strings with his pick, eyebrows furrowed, watching the other band as they play.
Proclus Global’s speakers start to emit yellow sparks of electricity, the sound waves of their music forming a massive jet that tears a hole through the roof before swooping close to them, blowing them to the ground.
“Oh fuck,” swears Tadashi, lying in a tangle beside Arthur, “I said we couldn’t do this. Now, we look like idiots in front of Mal Miles.”
“Mal’s here?” questions Arthur, sitting up, clutching his bass.
Yusuf groans, climbing back on his stool. “Yeah, she’s that- creepy woman with your little boyfriend.”
Arthur looks out at the crowd and spots Cobb. The woman in front of him cups his face, Cobb’s eyes flutter close, and she turns to Arthur, smirking.
“That’s Mal? Mal is M.Miles?!” Arthur grabs his guitar cable, angry at the revelation that the ex that Cobb mentions most is actually a woman, the same woman they’ve been trying to get to notice them so that they could work for her, and plugs his bass back in. “Let’s do this.”
They play twice as hard, Saito and Kaneda doing the same, the sparking yellow jet reappearing. Saito suddenly steps back, letting Kaneda slide towards the middle of the board, and he then jumps onto the jet.
Tadashi gives Arthur a disbelieving look and Arthur swears, jamming his foot on his effects pedal. He watches as blue sparks from their speakers, creating disjointed lines in the air. Arthur shrugs out of the bass strap and throws his bass to Neil, who catches it readily, already plucking the right notes. Arthur takes a leaping jump onto their lines which straighten out and form spiraling stairs.
“You can’t beat me with that,” says Saito, flying along side him, “What are you going to do with a set of stairs? All they do is spiral up and up and up, I’ll always know where you’ll be going.”
Arthur snarls and changes direction, running down the stairs. Saito laughs at him again, and follow the stairs’ spiral down, staying a little ahead of him. Arthur narrows his eyes and runs the ring of the stairs, until he’s above Saito, jumping onto the jet and overthrowing him.
“How?” breathes Saito as he flies off, towards a frozen Kaneda, staring wide eyed at them.
Arthur grins as they make contact, shattering into coins. “Paradox.”
-
“I’m in lesbians with you,” says Arthur, relief surging through his body when the words finally leave his word.
“What?” asks Cobb, blinking at him, “Um, okay. Look, we have to break up.”
Arthur closes his eyes at the unexpected words, unable to breathe.
“It’s Mal, Arthur, I just can’t- she’s got this. She’s always in my head.”
Arthur grits his teeth, taking in a deep breath.
“That’s the bad news, mon ami, but the goods news is that I love Incepticon-”
“Inception,” corrects Arthur.
“-so I’m offering you guys a contract.” Mal slides an arm around Cobb’s shoulder and pulls him in close, smirking over his shoulders.
-
Arthur loses Cobb, his band, and his home in the same day.
No more. He’s got nothing left to lose.
-
“I cheated on Knives with you,” coughs Arthur, looking away from Cobb and at Knives.
“Is there a difference?” snaps Cobb, and before Knives or Cobb can say anything, a blade appears out of nowhere. Arthurs looks down at it protruding from his chest and grasps the blade, pain throbbing through his entire torso. His hands gushes coins when Mal pulls it out.
“Game over,” she sings.
-
A life flashes before Arthur, and he remembers.
The fight with Proclus Global.
He grabs it to for a retry.
-
“Because you’ll be together,” says Arthur, shoving Mal off the pyramid. He watches as she explodes into 7 millions coins, copper plated zinc showering the whole room.
“Wow,” says Knives, smiling at Arthur.
“Yeah,” says Arthur, smiling back at him.
“You may have defeated me, Arthur Pilgrim,” whispers a voice into the room, and Arthur looks at the pewter top on the floor, “but can you defeat yourself?”
“Arthur,” calls Knives, and Arthur turns to where Knives is looking, “Nega-Arthur.”
Knives and Cobb flank Arthur’s sides, fists raised and ready, but Arthur shakes his head. “I need to do this myself.”
-
“Yeah,” whispers Cobb with a slight smile,“and stuff.” He turns to leave, the wind blowing his stray bangs into the air.
“You should follow him,” says Knives, running a hand through his hair.
Arthur blinks at him, confused. “But what about you?”
“You’ve been fighting for him, all this time, Arthur. I’ll be fine without you.” Knives grins, smug and sad at the same time.
“Knives,” murmurs Arthur, and Knives leans in to press a kiss to the corner of his lips.
“Go.”
Arthur turns to watch Cobb’s retreating back, grey coat dotted with the snow. He jogs after him, uncaring of the snow soaking his Burberry dress pants, the water seeping into his Dior Homme oxfords. “Cobb!”
Cobb turns, eyes wide. “Arthur, wha-?”
“You mind if I join your party, or are you playing alone?” asks Arthur, blaming the cold for the heat in his cheeks.
“You want to join me?”
Arthur shrugs with a small smile, “Yeah, I thought we could try again… and stuff.”
The smile that blooms on Cobb’s face is the best thing Arthur’s ever seen. He takes the hand that Cobb holds out, and they walk together, for a new beginning, through another sub-space door.
This time, Arthur’s going to play it right.