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pixiesticks) wrote2016-01-31 05:12 pm
pixiesticks) wrote2016-01-31 05:12 pm
Entry tags:
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Title: Yes, You're Lovely
Fandom: Inception
Rating/Warnings: PG? Death/suicide mentioned
Pairings/Characters: Mal and Arthur, a hint of Arthur/Eames
Summary: She's quiet, gazing at Arthur with a soft smile. Finally she murmurs, “Lovely. He's lovely, Dom. He'll do wonderfully.”
It's raining, big droplets falling from the sky and onto the earth below, chasing running pedestrians and tumbling down windshields. The air is still cold, not quite spring. People are wearing more layers and not paying attention to their purses or pockets due to the rain. It's perfect weather for pickpocketing.
Arthur hurries past a group, bumping into a man. When he apologizes and the man tells him no problem, he doesn't notice that Arthur slips the change the man just put in his pocket out of it. He likes grabbing change more than wallets. Sure, there's more money gained through grabbing wallets, but he doesn't feel as bad when it's just a few bucks. He still has a conscience about stealing.
Some days he wonders why he does it.
Most days, he knows. It started just because he needed the money. It continues because he enjoys the thrill, the moment when his hand's in a pocket or purse and the other person has no idea. The possibility that he could get caught. The knowledge that he's good enough that he probably never will be.
He sees a woman with an umbrella. She's walking down the street, hand-in-hand with a blond man. He wonders, sometimes, what would have happened if he had just walked past, just taken his spoils and hadn't pushed his luck.
But that was Arthur then. He was constantly pushing the limits of everything, everyone. Pushing at the boundaries until something broke. Bustling into the woman and knocking the umbrella from her hand, he apologizes, and the man beside her bends down to pick it up, telling him it's fine. He didn't think the woman was paying attention, that she was still startled, but as he starts to walk away, having said one last apology, she stops him with a, “Dom, I do believe you just got pickpocketed.”
He gets ready to run, but she's already there with a hand on his shoulder, turning him roughly. He watches her with wide eyes as she fishes the twenty out of his pocket, along with the ten from the previous man. She counts the money, her lips curved up in dark amusement.
“You're barely wet. You've stolen from two people in a matter of minutes, have you?”
He nods, and she smiles, turning to Dom. He thinks about running, but something keeps him to the spot, anchored to this strange woman with the French accent and steely blue eyes.
“Did you even notice, Dom?” she asks her companion, and the man shakes his head.
“Not at all.”
She turns back to Arthur then, pleased with him, and takes his hand as if he were an old friend. “Come. We'll buy you dinner. I want to offer you a job... an opportunity. A chance to build castles and skyscrapers. To float through the clouds,” she says to him, her eyes sparkling with the promise of something more, and he accepts.
They take him to a five-star restaurant. Arthur's always thought they gave servings the size of a quarter, with fussy flavors and weird tastes. He gets a huge steak, steamed vegetables, handmade mashed potatoes. It's a comfort, like his mom's cooking, but better.
“Arthur,” she says, seemingly amused by his appetite. He hasn't eaten for a few days, and he thinks she can tell. They've told him about dream sharing, and to be honest, it sounds like a scam. He doesn't really have anything to lose, though. Just his apartment, which he's already three months behind on in rent. It's another risk that's worth taking. Anything to get out of this life. “I bet you have a lot of questions.”
“Why are you looking for associates? Don't you just want to do it yourself and keep the money?” he asks, stabbing some beans onto his fork.
“Every job requires a certain amount of associates to keep it running smoothly, to make up for what the other doesn't know. There are chemists, who balance a compound and change it to meet the job's needs. There are architects, who design the world. Extractors, like a director of a movie, keep everything together. Thieves steal what you need, forgers create a likeness of another person as needed, and a point man – ”
“Point man?” he asks with interest, interrupting Cobb. Cobb laughs, and Mal continues for him.
“Yes. The point man does a lot of background work. Research, coordinating. It requires a sharp mind and great skill in organization and researching.”
“I was a research assistant for a professor at my college,” he tells them. They look uncertain. “And I organized events for a venue during high school.”
“Okay, then. I'm going to give you a test. One of these men is hiding something,” Mal tells him. She makes up scenarios, giving red herrings and extraneous information. Arthur asks questions, and receives simple answers.
After a few minutes, he answers, “It's a trick question. Man D is hiding something, but it's nothing to do with dream sharing. Man B is militarized, and thus would be a problem.”
Cobb's eyebrows shoot up, and he looks to Mal. She's quiet, gazing at Arthur with a soft smile. Finally she murmurs, “Lovely. He's lovely, Dom. He'll do wonderfully.”
--
It's their second job, and Mal states that she's tired of seeing Arthur dressing himself so sloppily. She realizes, as soon as she takes him to a store, that it's not lack of fashion sense, it's lack of money. Beautiful, soft ties, clean-lined suits, designer sweaters, slacks... she buys them all for him, and if it's awkward, Mal doesn't let on. She showers him with friendly affection, giving him feedback on every suit they buy. He ends up doing an impromptu fashion show for her, and she laughs and laughs, like they're in some ridiculous romantic comedy and Mal's his best friend.
He realizes, with a strange pang, that Mal is his best friend. She demands a spin, and he indulges her, laughing all the while. She tells him what colors to stay away from, and, just like her career advice, just with anything, he listens to Mal.
Then she tells him long hair is making his ears look bigger, making him look more childish. He practically runs to a hair cutting place. They snip and snip, and he confers with Mal. Finally they cut it down enough to where it doesn't hang around his ears. Mal buys a tub of hair gel and slicks his hair back, instructing him to invest in a good razor.
The next day, when he comes into work, Cobb smiles, saying, “Now, there's a professional.”
Mal just passes him, her quiet voice telling him, “Lovely, Arthur.”
–
When he meets Eames, it's fireworks right away. They bicker and fight and tease, and Mal notices. She teases him plenty, but Arthur insists there's nothing there.
When they have to use French for a job, Arthur's worried. He learned Spanish in high school, Italian in college, but never French. He uses Mal as a crutch. Eames, of course, is completely fluent, the words flying from his mouth. Arthur makes a small hum of nervousness, and he hears Mal in his earpiece, telling him what to say slowly in reply.
Mal, unfortunately, has never been one to let people stew in their nervousness.
She murmurs through the piece in his ear, and he repeats the sentence back to Eames. He can tell by the expression on Eames' face that he's said something odd and slightly amusing, and he almost curses he's so angry.
“Merci,” Eames says in return, the word rolling off his tongue in a purr that is far too seductive to be in this conversation.
When they return to the warehouse, Arthur's overreacting, he can tell. But she can't mess with this part of him. She can't shape everything he is and everything he wants. He yells more than he should, and she tries to look contrite for his benefit.
“I only had you tell him he was lovely, my dear,” she says softly, touching his shoulder. He watches her walk away, frustrated beyond belief. When he sees Eames gathering his things, he approaches him, a good distance away so he doesn't get any ideas.
“I'm sorry, Eames. About the comment. I didn't-... Mal got the idea.”
“I'm sorry, what comment?” he asks, setting his bag down and leaning a hip against the desk. Arthur practically growls at him.
“I mean the 'You're lovely' comment, asshole.”
Eames laughs softly, grabbing up his bag. “It's quite all right, darling. I get called worse all the time.” He starts to pass Arthur and stops, leaning until Arthur can smell him, fresh and slightly spicy, and murmurs near his ear.
“She told you to say I was 'alluring', actually. Thank Mal for me, hm?”
That night, Arthur started learning French. He was fluent within a year.
–
“Cobb went to get sandwiches,” Mal tells him as she comes back into the hotel room. She's in a romper, her hair bouncy and short. She looks the same as ever, but somehow... false. An echo of her old self. The playfulness is gone. He knows Cobb dresses her now, fixes her hair. One strand of hair isn't curled. The belt she usually wears with the romper isn't around her waist. Her shoes don't match her outfit. She curls up on the bed, and he reaches over to touch her arm.
“We can stop for tonight,” he tells her. She gets tired so easily, so worn and fragile and sad. He watches her cracks deepen every day. His touch doesn't help; she shudders and pulls away, shaking her head.
“We can't.”
“We can,” Arthur insists. Frank Sinatra comes on his iPod then, smoothly crooning in the room. He stands, holding out his hand. His suit's a mess of wrinkles, the jacket forgotten on the back of chair, the sleeves of his shirt pushed up. She smiles a little, her fingertips sliding against the ugly hotel comforter.
“I only dance with gentlemen.”
“Good thing I'm your only option then,” he says with a soft smile. She sits up, considering him.
“I think... I think you'll do,” she says, standing to take his hand, to let him hold her. “But only because I must dance when Frank comes on.”
“After all these years, you don't think I'm a gentleman?” he asks, mock-offended as he starts slowly moving with her. She fades a little, fades from him there.
“I don't think anything about you, Arthur,” she says, “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too,” he says. He thinks he understands, but he doesn't. He doesn't understand at all.
“I wish we were together. All of us.”
He knows he doesn't understand then, thinks perhaps Mal is losing her mind. He doesn't understand now- now that he's been in the business for so long- how all extractors don't lose themselves, their minds. He feels both Cobb and himself losing her, feels those fingertips slipping through his hand. Cobb doesn't talk much anymore, just looks to her and looks to her, like they're both trying desperately trying to tether themselves to the other.
“Do you ever feel trapped, Arthur?” she whispers as Frank Sinatra sings about breathless charm. He considers that for a moment, thinks about all the walls Mal's managed to pick apart bit by bit.
“Maybe a little.”
“How do you feel trapped, my dearest?” she sighs, resting her cheek against his.
“I think...” He swallows. It doesn't really help. “I think I trap myself.”
She pulls back away then, smiling in the saddest way he's ever seen her smile. “I think we are the same, sometimes, hm?”
He doesn't answer, just sings to her lowly, “Lovely... Don't you ever change. Keep that breathless charm. Won't you please arrange it? 'Cause I love you. Just the way you look tonight...”
–
She's dead within a month. The funeral is three days after she fell from a hotel window. Cobb is very quiet. He doesn't confide in Arthur, and Arthur doesn't push. He thinks he needs second level Arthur: stable and firm. He'll follow him around the world if that's what it takes to hold him together.
Arthur thought about spending a fortune on white roses, Mal's favorite flower, covering her casket in them and filling the church. In the end, he does what he thinks Mal would want. He brings one rose, beautiful and delicate, and sets it on her casket after he says a few words. He doesn't say much, just thanks everything in the universe that she was a part of his life.
He overhears an older woman telling another woman how 'lovely' the service was, and Arthur sits in his car and cries for twenty minutes.
He decides he'll never lose someone like that again. He seals up his heart, and he protects Cobb. It doesn't get easier, but life goes on.
–
It goes on and on. Sometimes, he feels like he's in a dream instead of reality, the clock ticking faster. He rolls his die as often as he gets up. It feels like it's coming to a head with this job, this inception job. He feels Cobb slipping from him, his grasp on reality slipping. And who can blame him, when Mal's running around in his dreams? Cruel, antagonistic. Arthur remembers screaming when she shot him, remembers her circling him like prey, waiting to shoot the other leg. He sent a gruff complaint Cobb's way for shooting him, but it was a relief not to see her anymore. She's just an echo of the real woman. A fake copy.
He still dreams of her soft, bouncy hair, her smile and laugh.
“What was she like in real life?” asks Ariadne, intimidated but full of potential in a way that appeals to Arthur, reminds him of himself in the past.
“She was lovely,” he answers quickly, sincerely.
Some day, when I'm awfully low
When the world is cold
I will feel a glow just thinking of you
And the way you look tonight
Yes, you're lovely, with your smile so warm
And your cheeks so soft
There is nothing for me but to love you
And the way you look tonight
Fandom: Inception
Rating/Warnings: PG? Death/suicide mentioned
Pairings/Characters: Mal and Arthur, a hint of Arthur/Eames
Summary: She's quiet, gazing at Arthur with a soft smile. Finally she murmurs, “Lovely. He's lovely, Dom. He'll do wonderfully.”
It's raining, big droplets falling from the sky and onto the earth below, chasing running pedestrians and tumbling down windshields. The air is still cold, not quite spring. People are wearing more layers and not paying attention to their purses or pockets due to the rain. It's perfect weather for pickpocketing.
Arthur hurries past a group, bumping into a man. When he apologizes and the man tells him no problem, he doesn't notice that Arthur slips the change the man just put in his pocket out of it. He likes grabbing change more than wallets. Sure, there's more money gained through grabbing wallets, but he doesn't feel as bad when it's just a few bucks. He still has a conscience about stealing.
Some days he wonders why he does it.
Most days, he knows. It started just because he needed the money. It continues because he enjoys the thrill, the moment when his hand's in a pocket or purse and the other person has no idea. The possibility that he could get caught. The knowledge that he's good enough that he probably never will be.
He sees a woman with an umbrella. She's walking down the street, hand-in-hand with a blond man. He wonders, sometimes, what would have happened if he had just walked past, just taken his spoils and hadn't pushed his luck.
But that was Arthur then. He was constantly pushing the limits of everything, everyone. Pushing at the boundaries until something broke. Bustling into the woman and knocking the umbrella from her hand, he apologizes, and the man beside her bends down to pick it up, telling him it's fine. He didn't think the woman was paying attention, that she was still startled, but as he starts to walk away, having said one last apology, she stops him with a, “Dom, I do believe you just got pickpocketed.”
He gets ready to run, but she's already there with a hand on his shoulder, turning him roughly. He watches her with wide eyes as she fishes the twenty out of his pocket, along with the ten from the previous man. She counts the money, her lips curved up in dark amusement.
“You're barely wet. You've stolen from two people in a matter of minutes, have you?”
He nods, and she smiles, turning to Dom. He thinks about running, but something keeps him to the spot, anchored to this strange woman with the French accent and steely blue eyes.
“Did you even notice, Dom?” she asks her companion, and the man shakes his head.
“Not at all.”
She turns back to Arthur then, pleased with him, and takes his hand as if he were an old friend. “Come. We'll buy you dinner. I want to offer you a job... an opportunity. A chance to build castles and skyscrapers. To float through the clouds,” she says to him, her eyes sparkling with the promise of something more, and he accepts.
They take him to a five-star restaurant. Arthur's always thought they gave servings the size of a quarter, with fussy flavors and weird tastes. He gets a huge steak, steamed vegetables, handmade mashed potatoes. It's a comfort, like his mom's cooking, but better.
“Arthur,” she says, seemingly amused by his appetite. He hasn't eaten for a few days, and he thinks she can tell. They've told him about dream sharing, and to be honest, it sounds like a scam. He doesn't really have anything to lose, though. Just his apartment, which he's already three months behind on in rent. It's another risk that's worth taking. Anything to get out of this life. “I bet you have a lot of questions.”
“Why are you looking for associates? Don't you just want to do it yourself and keep the money?” he asks, stabbing some beans onto his fork.
“Every job requires a certain amount of associates to keep it running smoothly, to make up for what the other doesn't know. There are chemists, who balance a compound and change it to meet the job's needs. There are architects, who design the world. Extractors, like a director of a movie, keep everything together. Thieves steal what you need, forgers create a likeness of another person as needed, and a point man – ”
“Point man?” he asks with interest, interrupting Cobb. Cobb laughs, and Mal continues for him.
“Yes. The point man does a lot of background work. Research, coordinating. It requires a sharp mind and great skill in organization and researching.”
“I was a research assistant for a professor at my college,” he tells them. They look uncertain. “And I organized events for a venue during high school.”
“Okay, then. I'm going to give you a test. One of these men is hiding something,” Mal tells him. She makes up scenarios, giving red herrings and extraneous information. Arthur asks questions, and receives simple answers.
After a few minutes, he answers, “It's a trick question. Man D is hiding something, but it's nothing to do with dream sharing. Man B is militarized, and thus would be a problem.”
Cobb's eyebrows shoot up, and he looks to Mal. She's quiet, gazing at Arthur with a soft smile. Finally she murmurs, “Lovely. He's lovely, Dom. He'll do wonderfully.”
--
It's their second job, and Mal states that she's tired of seeing Arthur dressing himself so sloppily. She realizes, as soon as she takes him to a store, that it's not lack of fashion sense, it's lack of money. Beautiful, soft ties, clean-lined suits, designer sweaters, slacks... she buys them all for him, and if it's awkward, Mal doesn't let on. She showers him with friendly affection, giving him feedback on every suit they buy. He ends up doing an impromptu fashion show for her, and she laughs and laughs, like they're in some ridiculous romantic comedy and Mal's his best friend.
He realizes, with a strange pang, that Mal is his best friend. She demands a spin, and he indulges her, laughing all the while. She tells him what colors to stay away from, and, just like her career advice, just with anything, he listens to Mal.
Then she tells him long hair is making his ears look bigger, making him look more childish. He practically runs to a hair cutting place. They snip and snip, and he confers with Mal. Finally they cut it down enough to where it doesn't hang around his ears. Mal buys a tub of hair gel and slicks his hair back, instructing him to invest in a good razor.
The next day, when he comes into work, Cobb smiles, saying, “Now, there's a professional.”
Mal just passes him, her quiet voice telling him, “Lovely, Arthur.”
–
When he meets Eames, it's fireworks right away. They bicker and fight and tease, and Mal notices. She teases him plenty, but Arthur insists there's nothing there.
When they have to use French for a job, Arthur's worried. He learned Spanish in high school, Italian in college, but never French. He uses Mal as a crutch. Eames, of course, is completely fluent, the words flying from his mouth. Arthur makes a small hum of nervousness, and he hears Mal in his earpiece, telling him what to say slowly in reply.
Mal, unfortunately, has never been one to let people stew in their nervousness.
She murmurs through the piece in his ear, and he repeats the sentence back to Eames. He can tell by the expression on Eames' face that he's said something odd and slightly amusing, and he almost curses he's so angry.
“Merci,” Eames says in return, the word rolling off his tongue in a purr that is far too seductive to be in this conversation.
When they return to the warehouse, Arthur's overreacting, he can tell. But she can't mess with this part of him. She can't shape everything he is and everything he wants. He yells more than he should, and she tries to look contrite for his benefit.
“I only had you tell him he was lovely, my dear,” she says softly, touching his shoulder. He watches her walk away, frustrated beyond belief. When he sees Eames gathering his things, he approaches him, a good distance away so he doesn't get any ideas.
“I'm sorry, Eames. About the comment. I didn't-... Mal got the idea.”
“I'm sorry, what comment?” he asks, setting his bag down and leaning a hip against the desk. Arthur practically growls at him.
“I mean the 'You're lovely' comment, asshole.”
Eames laughs softly, grabbing up his bag. “It's quite all right, darling. I get called worse all the time.” He starts to pass Arthur and stops, leaning until Arthur can smell him, fresh and slightly spicy, and murmurs near his ear.
“She told you to say I was 'alluring', actually. Thank Mal for me, hm?”
That night, Arthur started learning French. He was fluent within a year.
–
“Cobb went to get sandwiches,” Mal tells him as she comes back into the hotel room. She's in a romper, her hair bouncy and short. She looks the same as ever, but somehow... false. An echo of her old self. The playfulness is gone. He knows Cobb dresses her now, fixes her hair. One strand of hair isn't curled. The belt she usually wears with the romper isn't around her waist. Her shoes don't match her outfit. She curls up on the bed, and he reaches over to touch her arm.
“We can stop for tonight,” he tells her. She gets tired so easily, so worn and fragile and sad. He watches her cracks deepen every day. His touch doesn't help; she shudders and pulls away, shaking her head.
“We can't.”
“We can,” Arthur insists. Frank Sinatra comes on his iPod then, smoothly crooning in the room. He stands, holding out his hand. His suit's a mess of wrinkles, the jacket forgotten on the back of chair, the sleeves of his shirt pushed up. She smiles a little, her fingertips sliding against the ugly hotel comforter.
“I only dance with gentlemen.”
“Good thing I'm your only option then,” he says with a soft smile. She sits up, considering him.
“I think... I think you'll do,” she says, standing to take his hand, to let him hold her. “But only because I must dance when Frank comes on.”
“After all these years, you don't think I'm a gentleman?” he asks, mock-offended as he starts slowly moving with her. She fades a little, fades from him there.
“I don't think anything about you, Arthur,” she says, “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too,” he says. He thinks he understands, but he doesn't. He doesn't understand at all.
“I wish we were together. All of us.”
He knows he doesn't understand then, thinks perhaps Mal is losing her mind. He doesn't understand now- now that he's been in the business for so long- how all extractors don't lose themselves, their minds. He feels both Cobb and himself losing her, feels those fingertips slipping through his hand. Cobb doesn't talk much anymore, just looks to her and looks to her, like they're both trying desperately trying to tether themselves to the other.
“Do you ever feel trapped, Arthur?” she whispers as Frank Sinatra sings about breathless charm. He considers that for a moment, thinks about all the walls Mal's managed to pick apart bit by bit.
“Maybe a little.”
“How do you feel trapped, my dearest?” she sighs, resting her cheek against his.
“I think...” He swallows. It doesn't really help. “I think I trap myself.”
She pulls back away then, smiling in the saddest way he's ever seen her smile. “I think we are the same, sometimes, hm?”
He doesn't answer, just sings to her lowly, “Lovely... Don't you ever change. Keep that breathless charm. Won't you please arrange it? 'Cause I love you. Just the way you look tonight...”
–
She's dead within a month. The funeral is three days after she fell from a hotel window. Cobb is very quiet. He doesn't confide in Arthur, and Arthur doesn't push. He thinks he needs second level Arthur: stable and firm. He'll follow him around the world if that's what it takes to hold him together.
Arthur thought about spending a fortune on white roses, Mal's favorite flower, covering her casket in them and filling the church. In the end, he does what he thinks Mal would want. He brings one rose, beautiful and delicate, and sets it on her casket after he says a few words. He doesn't say much, just thanks everything in the universe that she was a part of his life.
He overhears an older woman telling another woman how 'lovely' the service was, and Arthur sits in his car and cries for twenty minutes.
He decides he'll never lose someone like that again. He seals up his heart, and he protects Cobb. It doesn't get easier, but life goes on.
–
It goes on and on. Sometimes, he feels like he's in a dream instead of reality, the clock ticking faster. He rolls his die as often as he gets up. It feels like it's coming to a head with this job, this inception job. He feels Cobb slipping from him, his grasp on reality slipping. And who can blame him, when Mal's running around in his dreams? Cruel, antagonistic. Arthur remembers screaming when she shot him, remembers her circling him like prey, waiting to shoot the other leg. He sent a gruff complaint Cobb's way for shooting him, but it was a relief not to see her anymore. She's just an echo of the real woman. A fake copy.
He still dreams of her soft, bouncy hair, her smile and laugh.
“What was she like in real life?” asks Ariadne, intimidated but full of potential in a way that appeals to Arthur, reminds him of himself in the past.
“She was lovely,” he answers quickly, sincerely.
When the world is cold
I will feel a glow just thinking of you
And the way you look tonight
Yes, you're lovely, with your smile so warm
And your cheeks so soft
There is nothing for me but to love you
And the way you look tonight