angelgazing (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
angelgazing) wrote2010-11-01 05:30 pm
angelgazing) wrote2010-11-01 05:30 pm
everyone can find a song for every time they've lost, and every time they've won
Found out today that I have four impacted wisdom teeth. Which is not even the most awesome news of the day. They would only see me as an emergency thing, because I woke up last night with omg pain pain pain pain which means I have to get in for a full exam before they will refer me to the oral surgeon. And they are booked through November.
In the meantime, you know, omg pain pain pain pain wtf ow pain omg.
So I'm going to be five, and stomp my foot and demand that you tell me a fun story. For the love of god, please distract me with shiny things so I can get through my homework and maybe curl up with Castle and/or Strictly Ballroom (stupid ballroom AU, I will finish you, I will).
In other news, Shai made me listen to this, and now I'm a little in love. I mean, SVV is obviously still my musical boyfriend, but crushes aren't cheating.
"I still believe in the need for guitar and drums and desperate poetry
In the meantime, you know, omg pain pain pain pain wtf ow pain omg.
So I'm going to be five, and stomp my foot and demand that you tell me a fun story. For the love of god, please distract me with shiny things so I can get through my homework and maybe curl up with Castle and/or Strictly Ballroom (stupid ballroom AU, I will finish you, I will).
In other news, Shai made me listen to this, and now I'm a little in love. I mean, SVV is obviously still my musical boyfriend, but crushes aren't cheating.
"I still believe in the need for guitar and drums and desperate poetry
oh look, we've moved on to two-part comments...
AHAHA SPEAKING OF...
It’s not strictly necessary, but Eames goes to work with Arthur the next morning. Well, after he stops at the nearby Starbucks. Mount Olympus never has any decent latte shops, it’s quite tragic.
“Would you stop?” Arthur hisses when he spots Eames behind him in line. “Don’t you think this is a little creepy?”
“Not at all, we gods love our espresso just like the rest of mankind.”
“I meant the constant stalking. Someone will notice.”
“Ah, but you see, love, I’m only visible to those I want to see me. Once this nice barista makes my nonfat soy caramel macchiato, I’ll be non-existent once more. To everyone but you, that is.”
Arthur purses his lips, then taps the man in front of him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, but do you see the guy behind me in the purple shirt?” he asks.
The man narrows his eyes, looks around behind Arthur, and replies, “I don’t see any dude in a purple shirt. This some kind of joke?”
Eames smirks. Arthur shoots him a look and says, “Fine.”
~
“So who’s the person meant to be my destiny?” Arthur asks later.
Eames is sprawled in a rather uncomfortable chair in the corner of Arthur’s cramped office. “I really can’t tell you, it would ruin the entire process.”
“Why, because I’d resist?”
“Possibly. Also, you can’t be looking for the person you’re meant to love the rest of your life, it doesn’t work that way.”
Arthur crosses his legs primly, spinning a pencil in his right hand. It’s not even noon, and yet he’s shed his charcoal grey suit jacket and rolled the sleeves of his navy blue shirt to his elbows, tie loosened slightly at his throat. Even so, he somehow looks immaculate. “Okay, then tell me how it does work.”
Eames stretches his arms behind his head and fakes a yawn. “Now where’s the fun in that? Divulging all my trade secrets and whatnot.”
“Don’t be an ass, just tell me.”
“I already told you why I can’t.”
Arthur sighs. “I have a goddamn love god following me around all day who won’t tell me shit about anything, and I’m just supposed to live with it. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“For your general well-being and for the sake of your love life, yes, that is what I’m saying. More or less.”
“Can I at least ask when it is I’m supposedly going to meet my destiny?”
Eames never tells the assignments the exact time and location they’ll fall in love, but he finds himself making an exception for Arthur. “At the end of the week,” he replies. “But that’s all you’re getting out of me.”
Arthur rubs at his chin in thought for a moment. “Five days,” he mutters to himself. “Apparently my life’s supposed to change in five days...”
Eames gets up from his horrid chair and leans over Arthur’s shoulder, fiddling with the computer mouse. “Since you’re not busy with this, do you happen to have Bejewelled on here anywhere?”
When Arthur sighs again, Eames can feel it against his neck. “Isn’t this against your god rules or something, meddling with people’s lives like this?”
“Arthur, what do you call making people fall in love? I’m allowed to hijack your computer on occasion if I so feel like it.”
“Awesome,” Arthur groans, dropping his head back against his chair.
~
The process is actually quite simple, really: Eames observes for a few days, sets the timing just right, and then sets the pieces in motion. He sometimes likens himself to an experienced chess player setting up his board for the perfect moves.
Only, there’s nothing in it for him to win, so to speak, except a job well-done and his good reputation.
It’s always been enough for him. After all, at the end of the day, he’s still a god, and what more could he ask for than that?
...aaaaaand the rest
What he doesn’t tell Arthur is the person he’s meant to fall for is actually his boss.
It’s not the usual destiny path; most love matches happen during serendipity, a chance encounter with a stranger that suddenly feels like it was meant to be. Nine times out of ten, Eames makes sure people fall in love with the person they’d never lay eyes on otherwise without his interference.
Although “interference” is such a nasty word. Eames prefers “light shove in the right direction.”
But in Arthur’s case, he’s known his boss for years. He met Dominic Cobb as a fresh-faced college graduate willing to work his way to the top, and Cobb had obliged him, making Arthur an intern until he proved himself. After six months, Arthur was on the payroll and a full-fledged architect at twenty-three.
For the last six years, there’s been nothing but admiration and respect between Cobb and Arthur, with the occasional late-night fantasy on Arthur’s part. Cobb’s wife left him a few years ago, but he recently started dating again. Every so often, he and Arthur will grab drinks during happy hour after work at the bar down the street.
And on Saturday, the two of them are going to--quite literally--collide with one another whilst Arthur is on one of his long weekend runs and Cobb is out biking. He’ll nearly run Arthur over, knocking him off his feet, and will be contrite enough to offer to buy Arthur lunch.
The rest is destiny. Well, and Eames’ help, of course.
Sure, it sounds like something out of a romantic comedy, but all of Eames’ matches have the same breathless haze of romance. He’s witnessed too many first blushes and coy smiles to really think twice about them. There’s nothing special about it, nothing really unique about the process of love. In the end, everyone falls the same.
~
“Where are you going?”
Eames pauses with his hand on the door knob of Arthur’s office door and raises an eyebrow. “Thought I’d call it a day. I do tend to keep my own hours, although this nine to five business has it’s charms.”
“So you just...vanish into thin air?” Arthur waves his hand around vaguely, looking slightly embarrassed to even be suggesting such a thing.
It’s rather adorable.
“No, my dear, I’m in human form right now. The whole ‘vanishing’ thing doesn’t come until after I’ve completed my work. ”
Arthur frowns at that, mouth twisting to one side as a physical display of his brain attempting to wrap around the concept of a god running about in as an average mortal. “But the invisibility--”
“I never said I was invisible, only that I allow people to see me when I want them to see me. There’s quite a bit of difference.”
“So you’re just gonna go...wherever it is you go and plan out how to continue to reek havoc on my love life?”
“If by that you mean toddle on home to the lovely rented flat just down the street and perhaps watch a few hours of ‘Dancing With the Stars’--amazing show, by the way, brilliant--then I suppose so, yes. Although I fail to see how that equals havoc reeking.”
Arthur points a finger at him, eyes narrowed. “You say that, but I don’t believe you. How do I know you’re not going to just go into stealth mode again and follow me home?”
Eames gives him his best lascivious smile. “Are you insinuating that you’d like for me to follow you home?”
“No, don’t do that, don’t--” Arthur huffs and stands up abruptly from his desk chair, grabbing his leather messenger bag. “I want to keep an eye on you. You’re going to the bar with me.”
“Why, Arthur, all you had to say was--”
“I’m meeting Cobb, my boss. There’s a new project idea I’d like to pitch to him. And you’re going to sit and be quiet and not meddle with people’s heads, got it?”
“Absolutely.” His grin turns innocent. Eames could not have planned this more perfectly if he tried.
Re: ...aaaaaand the rest
THIS IS THE START OF WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A DRABBLE ABOUT ARTHUR AND EAMES RIDING A FERRIS WHEEL:
"Steady on," Eames murmurs against his ear as danger looms large and impossible above them. Ignoring even the barest hints of propriety and their current predicament, Eames pats him on the ass like that is some kind of comfort.
Arthur, standing in the shadow of what was sure to be his demise, shivers just slightly, even though his sleeves are rolled up as a concession to the midmorning sun pounding heavily down upon them. "This is the worst idea ever," Arthur says with all the conviction of a television preacher, just as Eames snaps his forty-second photograph of the day with his camera phone. "This won't end well." And the worst part is that he doesn't even mean for Eames' BlackBerry.
"Come now, Arthur, I never took you for a coward." Eames laughs, tucks his chin into Arthur's shoulder and reaches out to take a photo of them both, his hand pressing against Arthur's temple to tilt their heads together.
Ariadne bumps into Eames, and knocks them even closer together with the single most insincere oops that Arthur has heard since he was in high school.
Arthur really wishes he was armed. She's off before he can even threaten her properly, nearly tackling Yusuf from behind. Yusuf laughs when she steals a piece of his cotton candy.
"We have got to stop indulging her," Arthur says, because someone has to be the responsible one and it's clearly not going to be anyone else. Yusuf offers her another bite, and Eames hooks his thumbs into Arthur's front pockets. "Look she's already getting used to it. We've spoiled her, Eames."
"I was hoping it wouldn't have to come to this." Eames sighs. It's hot against the already sweat-damp skin of Arthur's neck. "If you play nice today, Arthur, we'll find the house of mirrors, and lock everyone else out for at least twenty minutes. I will give you the head of your dreams, I swear it."
"We aren't dreaming, asshole," Arthur says. He elbows him, but it's lacking most of its usual fervor. He eyes the rest of the fair warily, and tries to be rational about the pros and cons. It's admittedly difficult to be rational about Eames' mouth though. The entire place is one gigantic crowd, and already they've lost the rest of their team. Arthur puts his chances of survival without committing homicide in the single digits. "Fine," he says, finally. "Fine, but I am only in this for the blowjob."
"Of course, of course," Eames soothes, and takes another picture with their cheeks smushed together. "Don't worry, I'll protect you from the clowns."
"Oh, fuck you--" Arthur starts, just as a class of third graders in matching red t-shirts walk by them, with a teacher who could probably get a better paying gig as the definition of scandalized.
He can barely hear Eames laughing over the screaming children, and the carnival rides. There are half a dozen vans and booths just in his line of sight that are all advertising a different deep-fried snack food. The last kid in line, licking powdered sugar off the fingers of one hand, tries to lift Eames' wallet, while talking too loudly to his line-buddy about how he can totally beat the duck shooter game, douchebag, he practiced with Grand Theft Auto.
The teacher doesn't even look back when the kid shouts in protest when Eames grabs his arm before he can even get a hand near Eames' pocket. The line-buddy scrambles on with wide eyes.
Arthur despairs of the future of humanity.
Re: ...aaaaaand the rest