167
more maps than books
inception (arthur/eames)
1,606 words of band!fic, for this prompt on inception_kink. hells yeah band shenanigans.
i.
It’s only the first day of tour, and the van already smells like swamp fungus. This probably has something to do with the cursory way they’d cleaned it after last time. Arthur really doesn’t mind febreeze as a concept, but he’s not sure it’s meant to function as an actually upholstery cleaner. Clearly, the smell of Yusuf’s feet, and Eames’ twelve spilled diet cokes, and the unwashed sweater Cobb left underneath the front seat are too much for mere febreeze.
Arthur refuses to blame himself or Ariadne for any of it.
Eames is sitting serenely in the driver’s seat. “Are we ready to hit the road, darlings?” he asks. Cobb snorts from the passenger seat.
“Let’s see if you can remember to stay on the right side of the road,” he says. Cobb plays up the long-suffering tech card way too often, considering how much time he spends on the phone with Mal and not actually helping them set up. They haven’t fired him because he has a really good sense of direction, and because Mal is actually awesome. Arthur’s known her since grade school.
Arthur isn’t sure why she’s dating Cobb, though.
ii.
“I’m going to kill you. All of you.” Arthur is seething, standing in the middle of the sidewalk behind the venue in Providence. He’s trying to wring out his shirt, but he can’t help but be a little impressed at the same time. There’s water dripping down his legs and puddling in his shoes, and his hair is probably completely fucked. Eames and Yusuf and Ariadne are already running off, laughing wildly, though Eames walks backward long enough to fix Arthur with an impressive leer. Yusuf sticks his tongue out over his shoulder.
Where had they found super soakers? Had they been hidden in the van this whole time? This, clearly, means war.
iii.
Between Providence and Bridgeport, Ariadne, Eames, and Yusuf find out just how good Arthur is at drawing sharpie mustaches on sleeping people. They’d look pretty convincing, actually, if they weren’t done in blue. Well, and that Ariadne is a girl.
Despite the cursory scrubbing they do in the bathroom, they’re still first opener, and so Arthur can’t stop grinning as Eames sings - why didn’t you think, oh oh oh - with a mustache that is half Peter Pan’s Captain Hook and half Salvador Dali scribbled in blue on his upper lip. Aridane’s is more Charlie Chaplin, but she still looks pretty attractive bent over her bass.
Yusuf’s is pure Inigo Montoya, but he’s behind the drums, so no one cares. Arthur still like Eames’ best.
iv.
Yusuf calls a truce after they leave New York, because Arthur set his favorite shirt on fire by accident, and playing with flares is never the answer, apparently. Arthur feels pretty bad about it.
“Sorry?” he says, and shrugs his shoulders. He pats Yusuf tentatively on the shoulder - Yusuf is holding up his t-shirt, a terrible, terrible orange thing with an NaCl molecule on it in huge black letters. Now it has a scorched hole right over the heart, and the left sleeve is a little blackened. “I think you can probably still wear it?”
Yusuf ‘s face is making its way toward plaintive, and Arthur isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do. He’s good at the actually doing of evil things. Not so much with the aftermath.
“I’m sure the girls will find it sexy,” Arthur tries. “That whole ‘I don’t care, I’ll wear terrible things anyway’ vibe.”
Yusuf turns his head slowly, until he’s looking straight at Arthur. Maybe Arthur should have left that last part out.
“Uh.” He can’t think of anything to say.
“No more fire,” Yusuf says, and gathers the shirt to his chest. Arthur watches him stomp off, and finds Cobb shaking his head in disappointment, stubbing a cigarette out on the side of the van.
“Shut up,” Arthur says.
v.
“No, Mal, seriously, I have to go. Yeah, Philly. Inception’s setting up and they keep glaring at me as they walk by,” Cobb is saying. Arthur is, indeed, glaring at him as he walks by with an amp, because this part is Cobb’s job, and he never seems to actually do it.
“I love you too. No, I love you more. No, seriously, I love you more.”
Arthur is going to kill him, eventually. Or, he would, if he thought it wouldn’t make Mal sad.
vi.
Arthur gets spectacularly drunk in Baltimore, in the parking lot behind the venue. Two-dollar natty bohs should never be a valid option, but there it is. The stragglers from the show keep walking by, and Arthur is reduced to waving dumbly at them. Eames is doing his lead singer thing, talking, being charming, and Arthur is watching him.
Eames turns, eventually, and catches him. He brightens a little, smile curling up on his face, and Arthur waves at him, too. Eames says cordial goodbyes and moseys over to where Arthur is sitting in the van’s open doorframe.
“You’re really pissed, aren’t you?” Eames says, and Arthur actually reaches out to feel the words on his lips before the thought actually processes and he pulls his hand back. His foot somehow still ends up hooked around the back of Eames’ thigh and he’s not quite sure how it got there. He’s pretty okay with it, though.
“I’m in a band,” Arthur says, and he’s proud when the words don’t slur at all. “I can do whatever the fuck I want.”
“I’m relatively certain that there’s a flaw in your logic,” Eames says, but he doesn’t resist when Arthur pulls him forward by the zipper of his open hoodie.
This is probably how they end up making out on the first row of seats in the back of the van. Arthur’s on his knees, and Eames is pushing him backward with both hands in his hair.
All in all, it’s a satisfactory evening.
vii.
In Richmond, Eames kisses him on the cheek onstage, and Arthur fucks up his guitar riff for two measures before he gets it together. He looks up, and Ariadne is laughing at him, open mouthed, and Eames is leaning over into the audience, mic pressed to his lips.
Arthur allows himself a smile, bending back over his guitar.
viii.
“I hate Norfolk,” Eames says, and lets his head thud back against the window.
“It’s not their fault there’s traffic,” Ariadne says, reasonable. She’s curled up in the front seat. Arthur wishes that all of them would shut up, because they know he gets road rage, and the stop-and-go traffic is enough to make him wig out.
“And I thought 495 was terrible. Rush hour isn’t supposed to start until five, at least. It’s not even half four!” If Arthur looked in the rearview mirror he could see Eames’ eyes closed in disgust, slumped back against the window. He doesn’t, though. Nor does he plot all of the awful things he’d like to do to stupid Virginia drivers who just seem to let everyone in front of them.
“It’s Friday,” Ariadne says, as if that’s answer enough. Which it is.
“Bollocks,” Eames says.
“At least you’re not driving.” Arthur’s fingers are itching on the wheel. Today sucks.
ix.
Arthur finds Eames out behind the venue with his acoustic. He rarely plays onstage, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how. Arthur watches him for a moment, and the shrugs internally and goes to sit next to him. He’s humming a few strands of melody that Arthur doesn’t recognize, and he’s got his notebook open on his lap. Songwriting, then.
Arthur doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t want to break Eames’ concentration and make him all pissy. It’s nice out - just a few degrees too hot, and sunny, but it’s a summer tour so it could be worse. Arthur wishes for a beach, but Charlotte’s in the middle of nowhere. No dice.
Arthur has about another month to decide if he’s going back to school or if the band is actually worth committing to full time. Eames has been trying to convince him since he got back in May, but Eames graduated two years ago, so to him they’re all just wasting time. Also, Arthur’s parents might kill him.
“How long until we’re on?” Eames asks, not looking up from the guitar. He puts his hands flat on the strings to silence them, and reaches for the pen stowed behind his ear, crossing out a few words and then replacing them.
“Two hours. Yusuf and Ariadne are at the Taco Bell. I told them to get you that burrito wrap thing you always get.” Arthur shrugs, and Eames smiles. He crosses out a few more words.
“Ta,” he says.
“No problem.” Arthur doesn’t mind. He leans back against the wall of the venue and listens to Eames play.
x.
They do laundry in Atlanta. Arthur is pretty sure that Eames has stolen half of his t-shirts, but it’s fine, because he’s also pretty sure that the one he’s currently wearing was originally Yusuf’s. It’s hard to keep track sometimes.
They lump all their clothing into a giant pile and try to figure out how many machines it’ll take.
Later, Arthur is sitting next to Eames on top of one of the washers, watching Yusuf and Ariadne play war. Cobb is, predictably, outside on the phone.
“Hey,” Eames says, nudging Arthur with his shoulder, “couldn’t you just do this forever?” His smile makes Arthur wonder if Eames in going to kiss him again, but he doesn’t. He still looks like he wants to.
“Yeah,” Arthur says, “I’m pretty sure I could.”
inception (arthur/eames)
1,606 words of band!fic, for this prompt on inception_kink. hells yeah band shenanigans.
i.
It’s only the first day of tour, and the van already smells like swamp fungus. This probably has something to do with the cursory way they’d cleaned it after last time. Arthur really doesn’t mind febreeze as a concept, but he’s not sure it’s meant to function as an actually upholstery cleaner. Clearly, the smell of Yusuf’s feet, and Eames’ twelve spilled diet cokes, and the unwashed sweater Cobb left underneath the front seat are too much for mere febreeze.
Arthur refuses to blame himself or Ariadne for any of it.
Eames is sitting serenely in the driver’s seat. “Are we ready to hit the road, darlings?” he asks. Cobb snorts from the passenger seat.
“Let’s see if you can remember to stay on the right side of the road,” he says. Cobb plays up the long-suffering tech card way too often, considering how much time he spends on the phone with Mal and not actually helping them set up. They haven’t fired him because he has a really good sense of direction, and because Mal is actually awesome. Arthur’s known her since grade school.
Arthur isn’t sure why she’s dating Cobb, though.
ii.
“I’m going to kill you. All of you.” Arthur is seething, standing in the middle of the sidewalk behind the venue in Providence. He’s trying to wring out his shirt, but he can’t help but be a little impressed at the same time. There’s water dripping down his legs and puddling in his shoes, and his hair is probably completely fucked. Eames and Yusuf and Ariadne are already running off, laughing wildly, though Eames walks backward long enough to fix Arthur with an impressive leer. Yusuf sticks his tongue out over his shoulder.
Where had they found super soakers? Had they been hidden in the van this whole time? This, clearly, means war.
iii.
Between Providence and Bridgeport, Ariadne, Eames, and Yusuf find out just how good Arthur is at drawing sharpie mustaches on sleeping people. They’d look pretty convincing, actually, if they weren’t done in blue. Well, and that Ariadne is a girl.
Despite the cursory scrubbing they do in the bathroom, they’re still first opener, and so Arthur can’t stop grinning as Eames sings - why didn’t you think, oh oh oh - with a mustache that is half Peter Pan’s Captain Hook and half Salvador Dali scribbled in blue on his upper lip. Aridane’s is more Charlie Chaplin, but she still looks pretty attractive bent over her bass.
Yusuf’s is pure Inigo Montoya, but he’s behind the drums, so no one cares. Arthur still like Eames’ best.
iv.
Yusuf calls a truce after they leave New York, because Arthur set his favorite shirt on fire by accident, and playing with flares is never the answer, apparently. Arthur feels pretty bad about it.
“Sorry?” he says, and shrugs his shoulders. He pats Yusuf tentatively on the shoulder - Yusuf is holding up his t-shirt, a terrible, terrible orange thing with an NaCl molecule on it in huge black letters. Now it has a scorched hole right over the heart, and the left sleeve is a little blackened. “I think you can probably still wear it?”
Yusuf ‘s face is making its way toward plaintive, and Arthur isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do. He’s good at the actually doing of evil things. Not so much with the aftermath.
“I’m sure the girls will find it sexy,” Arthur tries. “That whole ‘I don’t care, I’ll wear terrible things anyway’ vibe.”
Yusuf turns his head slowly, until he’s looking straight at Arthur. Maybe Arthur should have left that last part out.
“Uh.” He can’t think of anything to say.
“No more fire,” Yusuf says, and gathers the shirt to his chest. Arthur watches him stomp off, and finds Cobb shaking his head in disappointment, stubbing a cigarette out on the side of the van.
“Shut up,” Arthur says.
v.
“No, Mal, seriously, I have to go. Yeah, Philly. Inception’s setting up and they keep glaring at me as they walk by,” Cobb is saying. Arthur is, indeed, glaring at him as he walks by with an amp, because this part is Cobb’s job, and he never seems to actually do it.
“I love you too. No, I love you more. No, seriously, I love you more.”
Arthur is going to kill him, eventually. Or, he would, if he thought it wouldn’t make Mal sad.
vi.
Arthur gets spectacularly drunk in Baltimore, in the parking lot behind the venue. Two-dollar natty bohs should never be a valid option, but there it is. The stragglers from the show keep walking by, and Arthur is reduced to waving dumbly at them. Eames is doing his lead singer thing, talking, being charming, and Arthur is watching him.
Eames turns, eventually, and catches him. He brightens a little, smile curling up on his face, and Arthur waves at him, too. Eames says cordial goodbyes and moseys over to where Arthur is sitting in the van’s open doorframe.
“You’re really pissed, aren’t you?” Eames says, and Arthur actually reaches out to feel the words on his lips before the thought actually processes and he pulls his hand back. His foot somehow still ends up hooked around the back of Eames’ thigh and he’s not quite sure how it got there. He’s pretty okay with it, though.
“I’m in a band,” Arthur says, and he’s proud when the words don’t slur at all. “I can do whatever the fuck I want.”
“I’m relatively certain that there’s a flaw in your logic,” Eames says, but he doesn’t resist when Arthur pulls him forward by the zipper of his open hoodie.
This is probably how they end up making out on the first row of seats in the back of the van. Arthur’s on his knees, and Eames is pushing him backward with both hands in his hair.
All in all, it’s a satisfactory evening.
vii.
In Richmond, Eames kisses him on the cheek onstage, and Arthur fucks up his guitar riff for two measures before he gets it together. He looks up, and Ariadne is laughing at him, open mouthed, and Eames is leaning over into the audience, mic pressed to his lips.
Arthur allows himself a smile, bending back over his guitar.
viii.
“I hate Norfolk,” Eames says, and lets his head thud back against the window.
“It’s not their fault there’s traffic,” Ariadne says, reasonable. She’s curled up in the front seat. Arthur wishes that all of them would shut up, because they know he gets road rage, and the stop-and-go traffic is enough to make him wig out.
“And I thought 495 was terrible. Rush hour isn’t supposed to start until five, at least. It’s not even half four!” If Arthur looked in the rearview mirror he could see Eames’ eyes closed in disgust, slumped back against the window. He doesn’t, though. Nor does he plot all of the awful things he’d like to do to stupid Virginia drivers who just seem to let everyone in front of them.
“It’s Friday,” Ariadne says, as if that’s answer enough. Which it is.
“Bollocks,” Eames says.
“At least you’re not driving.” Arthur’s fingers are itching on the wheel. Today sucks.
ix.
Arthur finds Eames out behind the venue with his acoustic. He rarely plays onstage, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how. Arthur watches him for a moment, and the shrugs internally and goes to sit next to him. He’s humming a few strands of melody that Arthur doesn’t recognize, and he’s got his notebook open on his lap. Songwriting, then.
Arthur doesn’t say anything, because he doesn’t want to break Eames’ concentration and make him all pissy. It’s nice out - just a few degrees too hot, and sunny, but it’s a summer tour so it could be worse. Arthur wishes for a beach, but Charlotte’s in the middle of nowhere. No dice.
Arthur has about another month to decide if he’s going back to school or if the band is actually worth committing to full time. Eames has been trying to convince him since he got back in May, but Eames graduated two years ago, so to him they’re all just wasting time. Also, Arthur’s parents might kill him.
“How long until we’re on?” Eames asks, not looking up from the guitar. He puts his hands flat on the strings to silence them, and reaches for the pen stowed behind his ear, crossing out a few words and then replacing them.
“Two hours. Yusuf and Ariadne are at the Taco Bell. I told them to get you that burrito wrap thing you always get.” Arthur shrugs, and Eames smiles. He crosses out a few more words.
“Ta,” he says.
“No problem.” Arthur doesn’t mind. He leans back against the wall of the venue and listens to Eames play.
x.
They do laundry in Atlanta. Arthur is pretty sure that Eames has stolen half of his t-shirts, but it’s fine, because he’s also pretty sure that the one he’s currently wearing was originally Yusuf’s. It’s hard to keep track sometimes.
They lump all their clothing into a giant pile and try to figure out how many machines it’ll take.
Later, Arthur is sitting next to Eames on top of one of the washers, watching Yusuf and Ariadne play war. Cobb is, predictably, outside on the phone.
“Hey,” Eames says, nudging Arthur with his shoulder, “couldn’t you just do this forever?” His smile makes Arthur wonder if Eames in going to kiss him again, but he doesn’t. He still looks like he wants to.
“Yeah,” Arthur says, “I’m pretty sure I could.”