A.N- I watched one too many StateFarm commercials and had a silly thought. My thought was, 'what would it be like if Arthur could just magically appear in the middle of the dream because of a jingle?' I thought it was a cute idea and wanted to write it out and see how it worked. It's silly, but cute. And that's why I'm posting it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Inception. I also do not own StateFarm. I just like the jingles!
Like A Good Neighbor (Your Point Man Is There)
It started as a joke. A really dumb joke.
This joke (told by Eames of course) was inspired by watching certain insurance company commercials, far too many times.
The joke started as a funny comparison- that Arthur was a lot like their insurance provider in the dreamscape and while on the job. That no matter what, when Arthur was called in, he could protect them from harm, and if something bad did happen, he would swoop in and fix the problems!
Though no one else would admit it, giving Arthur the power of not so spontaneous manifestation with the help of a catchy jingle was a group effort.
And with the idea planted so firmly in their minds that special little seed grew and grew!
Singing a jingle to make your Point Man appear turned out to be very handy. And while everyone tried it out in the dreamscapes at least once, Eames made it a habit.
He sang it during practice runs.
"Like a good neighbor, your Point Man is there!" Eames sang, and at the end of the word "there", Arthur appeared!
The Point Man looked surprised; his usually neat clothes were in disarray, and if he weren't wearing the amount of hair gel proscribed by mafia types, his hair would have been mussed, too.
When he spotted Eames, he glared. "I thought I told you to stop doing that!"
Eames nodded and didn't bother to look repentant. Instead, he grinned at his angry coworker.
"I thought you were supposed to say something like, 'It's alright, Eames! You're covered for this- those projections clearly rear-ended you at that stop sign.'" Eames waited hopefully for Arthur to do this for him.
Arthur raised an eyebrow and looked at the car Eames had been driving in the dreamscape. Or what was left of it, considering that the rear and backseat were completely demolished- fragments of twisted metal littered the street where they stood. The Point Man sighed to himself, looking down at the clipboard Eames and his stupid jingle had equipped him with. He began taking notes because old habits die hard.
"You failed to mention that by 'rear-ended' you meant 'getting blown up by a tank'," Arthur paused and looked around the suspiciously empty street where not a single projection (his or Eames's) walked. There was a clear absence of cars, too.
He was about to ask where the tank was, and if this little game of Eames's was going to include him taking some sort of statement from projections in a tank. But there wasn't one.
Eames, looking not at all sheepish, reached into what remained of his car. He pulled out his grenade launcher and shrugged.
"I wanted them to know I give as good as I get, darling."
And the way that he smiled afterwards was clearly meant to be flirtatious.
In response, Arthur frowned and walked away.
He sang it during slow jobs.
Arthur appeared again- but this time his clothes were picture perfect. It seemed that they were getting the hang of this magical jingle thing! Far from being pleased with this development, Arthur looked ready to throttle Eames for disrupting his work!
"If you try to tell me that you've gotten into an accident, I don't care. If you try to tell me that the projections are trying to kill you, get over it because we all have to deal with that! If you try to tell me that I need to work on my customer service skills, I will take this stupid clipboard and shove it somewhere very very unpleasant for you!"
Eames sighed to himself and shook his head. "It's no wonder that you scored a 6.5 on your review, darling. Remember, the customer is always right, and if you're interested in talking about shoving things somewhere, we could always go topside and have a pleasant conversation about that subject and its implications over dinner!"
He didn't duck fast enough when Arthur threw the clipboard. It missed Eames's head, but he wasn't sure why. He would have liked to believe that it was because Arthur was developing a soft spot for him, but that reeked of wishful thinking. But if Arthur really wanted to hit Eames with a clipboard, he would. So, Eames allowed himself to view the experience as something positive!
He sang it during emergencies.
"Arthur!" Eames called out, looking around frantically. The job was going bad! So, so, so bad! And he couldn't find his darling anywhere! And then, it hit him. This was a prime time to use the jingle to summon Arthur, verify his safety, and then get them both the hell out of this dream!
By the time he finished the jingle, Arthur was already falling to the ground, disoriented and wounded. He was holding his gun in one hand and that stupid clipboard in the other. Arthur was lucid enough to blink up at Eames and wave the clipboard- the thing had taken a bullet for Arthur, leaving a large hole in the middle of the board and the stack of papers that were attached to it by the large silver clip. The papers were stained with Arthur's blood, but Eames wasn't sure if Arthur noticed the neat lines of printing that filled the first, the second, and the third page.
Sticky and red, the pages proclaimed: 'Eames, Eames, Eames, Eames, Eames-' on and on, continually and single mindedly with only the bullet hole interrupting the seamless flow. Eames fought not to feel so charmed while they were still in danger. He would have time for that when they woke up and escaped their mark!
"When you started that damned jingle," Arthur said slowly, "it appeared in my hand. I got saved by a jingle and a clipboard…"
Not wanting to dig into the meaning of the clipboard, its pages, and the inscribed words, Eames gently took Arthur by the hand and pulled him to his feet.
"The job failed," Eames said, ignoring how Arthur snorted, saying "You think?" under his breath.
Wishing that he had somehow managed to create a Cobb and Ariadne specific jingle to call them to his side, he did the next best thing. Both he and Arthur shot themselves awake, gave their two teammates the kick, and fled before the mark they had failed to extract from could wake.
After the failed extraction, Eames had yet to mention what he saw on the clipboard. He didn't want to unsettle his and Arthur's working relationship more than he did on a daily basis. Maybe it was time for him to stop using the jingle and give Arthur his freedom while in dreams. That it was selfish of him to demand Arthur's time and presence by just singing some stupid song, because if the man wanted to spend more time with him, it would have occurred already. It sucked to be lovesick and think maturely, but Eames was willing to do that for Arthur.
And then, once they got back to work on a much more sedate job, he noticed that he might have misunderstood Arthur's own opinions on the matter.
Eames was practicing a forgery when it happened. One second, he was refining the shape and form of their mark's young and unfortunately very dead sister. Then, something strange happened.
He was whisked away by some force he couldn't name; something that shred his forgery and left him in his own skin, his own identity. To be honest, he wasn't that surprised when he found himself standing in front of Arthur.
Eames blinked at Arthur who shrugged.
"You made it look so fun, I thought I'd make up my own jingle to summon you."
"That sounds fair," Eames began.
And then, Arthur's smile slipped a little.
"I just thought that it might be a good idea to have it on hand in case things go wrong during jobs." He frowned to himself and said something that Eames knew, but so dearly wanted to hear Arthur say anyway. "It was silly of me to say that it was the clipboard that saved me that time- it was you. You saved me with that stupid jingle."
The Forger recalled the lines of printing on the clipboard, the repetition of his own name. It made him think of something that might make Arthur understand that he wasn't playing with him. That he thought of him, too. That his thoughts were just as steady and continual. But Eames also wanted to make sure that he expressed it properly, that it matched Arthur's so that it would be understood that yes, the feeling was certainly mutual.
"Do I get a clipboard, too?"
One appeared for him. It came with a nice pen and a few pages of blank paper.
Arthur waited while Eames wrote something down, and when he appeared satisfied, showed the finished product to Arthur.
The first page on the clipboard had a message on it. In large capital letters, Eames had written "ARTHUR X INFINITY." And if that wasn't enough, he had also drawn a large heart around the message.
When the Point Man stared at it, he couldn't hide his small smile. "We're terrible at this."
"So terrible," Eames agreed.
"Really, creating jingles to spend more time with each other?" Arthur said, like he was comparing this bizarre dreaming experience to the silly 'I like you, you like me' games children played.
"I do recall mentioning that we should go to dinner sometime," Eames reminded Arthur, smiling a little at the memory.
This made Arthur roll his eyes. "Yes. My threat of shoving a clipboard up your ass was the height romantic gestures."
"But we could do better!" Eames added. "And, now that I think of it, your customer service has gotten a lot better, too!"
"Better than a 6.5?" Arthur said, raising his eyebrows. Eames nodded quickly.
There was a moment when they were quiet and unsure of what to do next. They were preparing for a job, so getting back to work would be the smart thing to do. But Eames wanted to try one more thing, just to see if it would work.
He sang Arthur's jingle but at the end added, "Into my arms!" holding them open, as if he were going to catch something!
Arthur's eyes widened as his body was pulled against Eames's, the toes of his shoes sliding against the floor as he was swept into Eames's arms by the power of that jingle.
The Forger caught him but was unable to stop laughing. Arthur sighed, but fondly said, "Let's start with dinner and see where this goes."
Apparently, it went very well because neither Arthur nor Eames used the songs again.
Putting the silly jingles into retirement marked the start of one good relationship with a guaranteed happy ending!