Comment fic? CHALLENGE: location
I have of late, the wherefore I know not prelims are evil incarnate lost the ability to write.
In honor of recently passing prelims (YAY!) and nearly dying of the plague the end of a particularly bad bout of flu, I want to do a few comment fics ( Read more... )
In honor of recently passing prelims (YAY!) and nearly dying of the plague the end of a particularly bad bout of flu, I want to do a few comment fics ( Read more... )
When Eames had insisted they stop for the painters--literally, he had tugged and said, "But, darling, for the painters" as if that was any kind of rhetorical strategy--Arthur had assumed they were stopping briefly. There was art everywhere and they weren't exactly in a profession that ever let them move all that far away from art in the first place--Paris, city of lights or love or giant iron structures looming over the cityscape, was a general busman's holiday to Arthur. More art, different setting.
But Eames. He was acting like Montmartre had been created specifically to tug at the strings of his heart and play him expertly.
"I'm tired, Eames," Arthur insisted (not whining, not quite). "It's just a bunch of trellises." The artist glowered at him and he added--unsure if the man had understood him or had just taken offense at the timbre of his voice-- "No offense. Obviously."
"Would it make you happy if I called this research? For the picture about the painter who has to choose between wealth and love...and tapdancing?" Eames asked, tilting his head absurdly at the painting of the pink trellis with the rosebush--as if it stood out against the green trellis with the pink magnolia blossoms or the blue door with the red shutters.
"All your pictures are about choosing between wealth and love," Arthur groused.
"You could go expel your wroth over there," Eames said, pointing to a tiny cafe, "and I could come find you when you've expended your vitriol."
"I'm going to go over there--but not to please you," Arthur said, with as much offended dignity as he could muster beyond the over-wrung exhaustion of a day of trekking across the whole damned city, "I'm going over there to sit down and have a coffee like a civilized man."
"Civilized man. That's you to a T," Eames agreed.
If Arthur expected--hoped--Eames to follow him, he wasn't about to admit his disappointment when he didn't, when he stayed hovering around the stupid trellis paintings. Even the cobblestones hurt Arthur's feet; standing around in his tow-pinching shoes did most definitely not appeal.
He ordered a coffee--the only French he knew--and tried to ignore the tinges of annoyance his exhaustion was prompting. His eyes closed on their own, letting the buzz of the polite crowd dim into a blur.
When his eyes opened, some semblance of calm re-instated, he noticed the upright piano in the corner. He walked over to it and let his finger travel down a scale. When nobody minded that--and he glanced around the cafe to check--he sat down on the stool and tried out a couple of chords.
It wasn't a conscious decision that they happened to be the first few chords of "The Way You Look Tonight." He wasn't really thinking at all and the song had been on his mind all day, even in the middle of his annoyance.
He hummed as he played, working his way into the melody. Then the words stumbled out of his lips and he was grinning quietly to himself. And Eames was lovely in Paris, that night and all the others too.
"Lovely, never, never change," he sang quietly, "Keep that breathless charm. Won't you please arrange it 'cuz I love you, just the way you look tonight."
He felt Eames suddenly, right at his back. He didn't have to turn to know the press of that body against his shoulder, and he found his grin expanded into silly proportions.
When he finished the last chord, repeating the last line a second time, he finally let his head turn upwards, up towards Eames's face.
He had a smudge of green paint across his nose.
Arthur really, truly did love him just the way he was that night.
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