Illumination Part Two
Mar. 22nd, 2011 12:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fae_boleynFandom: Inception
Disclaimer: You actually need this?
Pairings: Uh... Mal/Cobb, Arthur/Ariadne, Mal/Cobb/Arthur/Ariadne, Mal/Cobb/Ariadne, Arthur/Eames, Fischer/Saito, pre-Ariadne/Arthur/Eames (It makes sense in context, I swear!)
Summary: Cobb jumped that night with Mal, leaving Ariadne as sole guardian of the children. But Social Services declares her an unfit guardian, and Ariadne is out of options. Until a mark from a failed job makes her an offer she can't refuse. Do the impossible and he gives her the children. But to do it, she's going to need to contact someone who left her long ago.
Author's Note: Written for
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
rei17 as part of the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
inception_poly fic exchange.
Suddenly my eyes are open
Everything comes into focus
We are all illuminated
Lights are shining on our faces... – Illuminated, Hurts
Ariadne loses her tails after some crazy maneuvering through Mombasa's crowded, haphazard streets, including one narrow escape through a gap she probably would have gotten stuck in if she weren't so small. Of course, she still probably would have been caught if Saito and Fischer didn't have excellent timing.
“What are you doing here?” she asks as she slides into the car.
“Protecting my investment,” Saito tells her calmly. Fischer just raises an eyebrow and smirks at her.
“You're complaining?”
Ariadne rolls her eyes. “Fuck off,” she says, but she's not really angry. She actually kind of likes Robert. Then she narrows her eyes, a gesture she knows she picked up from Dom, but she can't help herself. “Fischer, if the two of you are here, is anyone working on the job?”
“What can be done with only one experienced dreamer available?” Saito points out reasonably. Ariadne can't argue with that.
“This is your idea of losing a tail?” Eames says mockingly when she flags him and Arthur down from the car. Ariadne scowls at him.
“Different tail,” she snaps. The infuriating Brit shrugs and gets into the front seat with the driver, while Arthur moves to sit by Fischer. What, are you afraid to sit next to me? Ariadne thinks bitterly, but she says nothing. Maybe he just doesn't want to piss off his boyfriend. And why does she even care?
The drive to this chemist's place isn't long, and then the five of them are trooping inside, even Saito. Both Ariadne and Fischer tried to talk him out of it, Arthur and Eames watching from the sidelines. But Saito wouldn't be dissuaded, pointing out to Ariadne that it's his money funding all this and to Fischer that, “Worry does not suit you.” He adds something in Japanese that Ariadne doesn't understand but makes the tips of Fischer's ears turn pink, and he relents.
Ariadne rolls her eyes as she gives up herself, but there's something endearing about these two. She can't help but admit that. The two newest members of the team seem to think so as well, but she's not nearly as kindly disposed to them right now, so she glowers at their amused grins and strides past them to go inside. With no other choice left to them, all four men follow her inside.
She takes the room in at a glance, the shelves filled with colored glass bottles and the brown-skinned man with curly hair behind a desk on the far side from the door. He takes off his reading glasses and stands up, giving her a curious look before his gaze shifts behind her – to Arthur and Eames, she guesses.
“I'm Ariadne Morgan. Yusuf, right?” She hasn't forgotten the name that quickly, but as Ariadne offers her hand for the chemist to shake, she double-checks just to be certain.
“Ah, yes, Ms. Morgan. I've heard so much about you. Please, all of you, sit.” He waves his hand to indicate chairs, and all of them sit except for Arthur and Fischer, which isn't surprising for either of them, really.
“You work using Somnacin, yes?” Yusuf asks Ariadne.
“You're well informed,” she replies, voice even. The chemist stands and walks to one of his shelves, studying his options before taking one of the glass bottles and putting it on the desk in front of her.
“That's Somnacin?” Robert asks from his post on the far left, speaking before Ariadne can with with his oddly pale eyes focused on the bottle.
“Yusuf's Somnacin,” Yusuf corrects. Ariadne raises an eyebrow.
“Is it as good as the real thing?”
“Better,” Yusuf tells her, looking vaguely offended. “So. You are seeking a chemist?” At her nod, he continues, “To formulate compounds for a job?”
“And to go into the field with us,” Ariadne adds.
“Oh, I rarely go into the field, Ms. Morgan.”
“Yes, well, we'd need you there to create compounds specific to our needs.”
“Which are?”
“Great depth.” It's what Dom and Mal were talking about, what Dom confessed to her before that terrible night, how what was wrong with Mal was all his fault. She still can't bear to think about it too hard, but at least she knows inception is possible because of it. And she knows it's something that has to be handled delicately.
“A dream within a dream?” Yusuf is asking. “Two levels?”
“Three,” Ariadne says, her tone calm. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Eames' eyes narrow and watches Arthur tense. Fischer and Saito already know this, though the former was not happy when she first explained it to them.
“Not possible. That many dreams within dreams is too unstable.”
“I've seen it done before. You just have to add a sedative.”
“A powerful sedative. How many team members?”
“Five.” Again it's Fischer, but she knows why he's breaking in. He's counting Yusuf and not Saito, because he still wants the other man to stay behind.
“Six,” Saito counters firmly. “I am going in with you, Robert, this has already been decided.”
“There's no room for tourists on a job like this, Mr. Saito,” Eames cuts in. Arthur says nothing, just watches the dynamics between the others. Typical of him, really.
“Well, it seems that this time there is.” Saito's voice is firm, and for the moment at least, the debate is over.
Yusuf produces a white liquid, claiming that it's something he uses every day. Ariadne asks him what for, and he beckons the group of them toward a metal door. Ariadne catches Arthur and Eames exchanging confused looks – isn't this Yusuf supposed to he Eames' friend? If he doesn't know what Yusuf's going to show them...
The chemist hesitates even as he pulls a large metal key from his pocket. “Perhaps... you will not want to see.”
“No, let's see what you have to show us,” Ariadne says, though she's suddenly a bit apprehensive about all this.
They follow him down a long flight of stairs to a dimly-lit basement. An old man walks up to meet them, but he's not what draws Ariadne's attention. Instead, she's focused on the cots spread over the room, a sleeping person asleep on every single one.
“Eighteen, twenty, all connected, bloody hell,” she hears Eames muttering behind her.
“Yusuf, what is this?” Arthur asks, frowning at the chemist. She thought he and Eames knew this guy, but clearly they've never seen this. Ariadne doesn't really like that.
“They come here every day to share the dream,” Yusuf tells them. He makes a gesture and the bald man reaches over, slapping the nearest sleeper hard. The man doesn't so much as twitch. Ariadne raises her eyebrows, impressed almost in spite of herself.
“For how long?” she asks.
“Three, four hours, every day.”
“And in dream-time?” Fischer asks.
Yusuf shrugs. “About forty hours, each and every day.”
Saito stares at him. “Why do they do it? Why lose yourself to a dream?”
Yusuf doesn't need to prompt anyone before Arthur gives the explanation, voice quiet and making Ariadne wonder just how much he knows about what really happened to Mal and Dom. “After a while, it becomes the only way you can dream.” Except for Arthur, she remembers, who never stopped dreaming for real. But her former lover continues, “And after a while, the dream can become your reality.”
“Yes,” said the old man, who had been mostly unnoticed until now. “Which is why they come; to be woken up.”
Ariadne suppresses a shiver at that, remembering Mal and Dom, yet again. There is silence for a moment, before Yusuf asks if she wants to try the compound herself. Ariadne agrees quickly, more just to get it over with than because she's at all eager. She's not. She lays back on one of the cots and lets Yusuf administer the sedative, closing her eyes even before the tiredness really hits.
“They stuck me with a guy? Oh great.”
She and Arthur are laughing, throwing popcorn at the TV.
“Cherie, we do love you too, I promise.”
“Dom, what's wrong with Mal?”
“It's my fault, I incepted her so she would agree to wake up. I didn't know this would happen!”
“Miss Morgan, I'm sorry, but the Cobbs are both dead. They killed themselves last night.”
She sits up, gasping for breath. “Sharp, no?” Yusuf asks. Ariadne nods, swallowing hard as she gets up and stumbles to the bathroom. She sets her brass bishop on the little shelf under the mirror and tips it. When it falls over the way it's supposed to, she sighs with relief.
“Ariadne, are you all right?” It's Arthur, and when she looks at him... Maybe it's the dream bringing up old times, but she can tell that the worry, fueled by affection, is real. So she gives him a shaky but equally real smile in response.
“I'll be fine.”
~ ~ ~
Ariadne doesn't know what it was that Mal and Dom did that day, at least not for a long time. But she knows they're different when they wake up. There is a weight to Dom's gaze that wasn't there before, a weight that only time can give a person. It's as though he's grown old in the span of hours, old in his mind but still in the body of a man in the prime of life.
And Mal... Oh God, Mal. Even before the morning Ariadne comes down to find Dom taking the knife from Mal's hands, even before the day Ariadne catches her sitting on the edge of a full tub, a hairdryer in her hand, she knows something is wrong. Because Mal has always been steady, has always had a brilliant spark of life dancing in her eyes. And that spark is gone.
Dom tells her, finally, breaking down in a way she senses he could never do at any other time. He tells her about Limbo, about a world where it was just them and the children – just Dom and Mal and the children, and for a moment Ariadne remembers Arthur and wonders if he was right after all. He tells her how Mal locked away the knowledge that Limbo was not real, and how he had to incept her to wake up. He had to make her believe her world isn't real. That would be fine, because it worked, except... She hasn't stopped believing it. Ariadne knows what he's telling her, that he has basically killed Mal by trying to save her.
But they think she's getting better, that between them they've convinced her. So Ariadne stays with Philippa and James while Dom and Mal go out to celebrate their anniversary. And she's woken in the middle of the night by cops knocking on her door and telling her that Dom and Mal committed suicide together.
“In the end, that's all that really matters to them, is that they're together.”
No. No. No. She doesn't want Arthur to be right. But how can she deny it any longer?
~ ~ ~
“So,” Ariadne says, pacing the room in front of the others, seated in lawn chairs moved into a semi circle. “The mark is Jeremy Fischer, heir to the Fischer-Morrow energy conglomerate. Our job is to get him to decide to break up his father's company. Obviously, this is an idea Jeremy would not come up with on his own, so we have to plant it deep in his subconscious. Since the subconscious is based on emotion, we need this translated into an emotional concept.”
“How do you translate a business strategy into an emotion?” Arthur asks.
“Well, that's what we need to find out,” Ariadne tells him. “The relationship appears to be a bit tense, based off what the gossip columns have said.
“Well, do you play on that? Suggest breaking up his father's company as a screw you to the old man?”
“No,” Fischer cuts in. “That would work if you were dealing with me. Jeremy... He just wants Dad to be proud of him, he doesn't even resent him. I could never understand it.”
“All right, well, try this. My father accepts that I want to create for myself, not follow in his footsteps.”
“That could work,” Fischer concedes.
“We need to do better than might,” Ariadne tells him coolly. Eames is about to snap back when Arthur cuts in.
“Ariadne has a point. We need a little specificity with something like this.”
“I don't think you'd want it to be,” Fischer argues. “I mean, emotions aren't often specific, are they? And honestly, if we add the idea that Father would be proud of Jeremy if he created something for himself, I'd say that would do it.”
“All right,” Ariadne says, nodding. She looks at Eames. “So, now we need to figure out how to work this. You just got back from a month in Sydney, what's your impression?”
Eames leans back in his chair and surveys her coolly before speaking. Ariadne stares levelly back. “The vultures are circling,” Eames explains, “and the sicker Maurice Browning becomes, the more powerful Peter Browning becomes.”
“Great,” Ariadne says. “How does that help us?”
“Well, if you would let me finish,” Eames continues, “I would be able to tell you that I've had ample opportunity to observe Browning, adopt his physical presence, study his mannerisms and so on and so forth. So now, in the first level, I can impersonate Browning, and suggest concepts to Jeremy Fischer's conscious mind. Then on the second level, his own projection should feed those concepts back to him.”
“So he gives himself the idea,” Arthur cuts in.
“Precisely. That's what we did wrong last time, you see. The idea has to seem self-generated, or it won't take.”
Arthur tips his chair back and smirks up at the other man. “Eames, I am impressed.”
Eames rolls his eyes. “I thought we talked about that condescending nature of yours, Arthur.”
“Look, flirt on your own time,” Ariadne snaps, irritated.
~ ~ ~
“So who is she?” Eames asks. Arthur doesn't flinch, though he wants to. He's been waiting for this question, since the day Eames lifted his wallet as a joke, teasing him about the old ticket stubs tucked into one of the pockets, a collection spanning back to middle school, until he'd fallen abruptly quiet.
Arthur had known why, even before looking to see what Eames was holding. A photo from his junior year of college, him and Ariadne. His arm around her shoulders, her leaning into his side, the pair of them grinning like a pair of fools. Eames waits a few weeks to ask, keeping Arthur on edge that entire time.
“Her name is Ariadne. She's... with the Cobbs.” Not Dom and Mal, never Dom and Mal, because even though they broke his heart he still feels something for them. How can he not? Of course, it's not a photo of them he keeps tucked in his wallet, hidden now because he is with Eames, but never really forgotten.
“And you love her.” There's no accusation in Eames' voice; hell, there's no real emotion whatsoever. If Arthur didn't know Eames as well as he did, he would think that all that drove the other man was idle curiosity.
But it's not. And Eames' gaze is sharp, intense, when Arthur meets it. There's no point in lying. “Yes. I do. I probably always will.”
“Ah.” Eames looks away.
“But you haven't asked another, equally important question.” Please, just look at me, God, don't turn away now.
“What's that, then?”
“If she's the only one.”
Eames flicks his gaze back to Arthur, who stands in one smooth motion, walking to Eames' chair and leaning down so their faces are inches apart, bracing himself on the armrests. Eames studies him, and then murmurs, “Well, is she?”
“No.” Arthur breathes the rest against his lover's lips. “I love you too. Just as much, and just as lasting. I won't leave unless that's what you want. Not even for Ariadne.”
“But what if she wants you again?”
Arthur says nothing, just kisses Eames hard. When they break apart, he says, “I can't see it ever coming to that.” Of course that isn't the point, but the truth is Arthur isn't entirely sure what he would do in such a situation and Eames probably guesses, but decides to trust anyway. It's a gift Arthur is stunned by, and sure he doesn't deserve.
~ ~ ~
“So, why don't we sort this out then?”
Ariadne ignores Eames and keeps working on her design until a hand snatches the cardboard from her hand. Eames moves with almost invisible speed, which is no surprise – Ariadne took over the point job once Arthur walked out, so while she's not up to her former lover's level she's good enough to know that Eames is a thief in reality as well as in dreams.
“Sort what out?” she snaps.
“You have a problem with me, love,” he says, the pet name mocking.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Oh, don't you?”
“No.” And Ariadne tells herself she won't change her tune on that, even if she has to repeat herself forever.
“Really. Then why are you so snippy with me? Tell me, what did I ever do to you?” He's taunting her, the bastard, she can hear it in his tone, mixing with that stupid fucking accent even before she whirls around and can see the mocking smirk on his face.
She stares at him, silent, unable to even think of what she might say, fury leaving her mind blank and her blood on fire. But then she finds herself speaking, words she never even knew she had. “It's your fault Arthur never came back. You gave him a reason not to, and if not for you, I know he wouldn't have stayed away forever. Is that what you wanted to know, Eames?” To her own horror she no longer sounds angry, just lost. Just alone, as she is. As she will be forever, apparently.
Eames isn't mocking anymore, he looks a little angry but mostly he just looks shocked. Then he shakes his head. But he doesn't say anything, just looks over her shoulder. And Ariadne knows before she turns around, she knows that Arthur is standing in the doorway. He's looking at her and he looks so sad, and she's about to run but Eames leaves first, he and Arthur exchanging a look she can't read as they go.
“Ariadne...” Arthur reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder and she flinches away.
“What? It's true, and you know it. You would have come back, you would have had to. But then you met him, and it just messed everything up!” She drops back down into her chair, hiding her face in her hands. She's not crying, she just doesn't want to see him or anyone else.
“My staying away had nothing to do with Eames. Do I love him? Yes. But I left before I met Eames, I chose to stay gone before he was ever in the picture.”
“But you would have come back when they died, wouldn't you? If...” She looks up, pleading with him. Because she has to believe that.
“I don't know. Probably not.”
“Why?”
“Tell me something, Ariadne. Why did you choose them?”
And Ariadne doesn't have an answer to that.
~ ~ ~
The second level of the dream, and Arthur and Ariadne are sitting on a bench, the projections beginning to watch them – Arthur – suspiciously. “Kiss me,” Ariadne says suddenly, impetuously. Maybe it's because she thinks it might work, maybe it's because Eames just sauntered by in the form of a buxom blonde, or maybe it's just because she wants to. Arthur turns his head to look at her, mouth slightly open in surprise, and she pounces. He's startled, but he kisses her back, familiarity taking over when shock overrides thought.
They pull away and the projections seem a little less interested, though their suspicions aren't fully alleviated. Fischer's plan on this level is tied in with Eames' plan to discredit Browning. Robert will get his brother to trust him again, essentially replacing Browning with himself. But however he's managing that, he's currently making his brother uneasy.
“What the hell was that?” Arthur asks in an undertone.
“A distraction. And it did help.” She hesitates, and then, not looking at him, says something she's been thinking about ever since that night in the warehouse, when he'd left her with a question she couldn't answer. Not then.
“They were the dream, and I was so caught up in it that I didn't realize you and I could be the reality.”
The third level, and she and Eames are waiting for the kick. The Fischers and Saito are there too, but not within earshot. “I shouldn't have blamed you,” she says, her voice tight and her eyes on the wall behind Eames.
The forger gives her a wry smile. “Maybe not. But then, you've had me worried for years, it's only fair.”
She could ask him what he means by that, except that's when he presses the button and the floor crumbles away under their feet.
~ ~ ~
The job goes well, surprisingly so. Of course, they were all careful as hell, since Ariadne and Yusuf warned them ahead of time that death in a sedated, three-level dream means a potentially one-way trip to Limbo rather than an early wake-up call. They even manage, for the most part, to avoid the militarization that Arthur could find no evidence of but Robert had known was there. On the plane when they first arrived, Robert and Jeremy exchanged glances just this side of hostile; once they wake up Jeremy offers his brother a cautious smile and they walk from baggage claim together. Saito doesn't appear to be jealous; he's on the phone, presumably with Social Services. He had better be. Ariadne is so focused on him that she actually doesn't notice Arthur and Eames leave.
Saito is as good as his word, and a social worker brings James and Philippa back to the house within a week. They practically squash Ariadne when they leap on her, but she doesn't mind. They haven't seen each other either; some desk jockey got the brilliant idea to separate them in order to help them move on from their old lives, or some other ridiculous theory. And so the three of them cling together, all that's left of a family.
Ariadne has almost everything she wanted, but there's one piece missing. She pretends it's not, but deep down she knows she's lying to herself. Even so, she doesn't expect to answer the doorbell and see Arthur and Eames standing there. They don't have bags with them, but somehow she knows. They may not be staying here, but... They're still going to be around.
She lets them in, and Philippa recognizes Arthur immediately. She remembers that he left, but to Philippa, who has lost too many people, having one of them come back is wonderful enough that she doesn't care anymore. She launches herself at him and a surprised Arthur is hard-pressed to catch her. James is asleep on the couch, and sound sleeper that he is, he doesn't stir.
Eames stands uncomfortably near Ariadne, his eyes on Arthur and Philippa. Ariadne gives him a sharp look. “What are you guys doing here?”
Eames shrugs. “He loves you. And I love him. Right now, that's all the answer I have for you, Ariadne. That, and... You and I, we should call a truce, shouldn't we?” The grin he flashes stops her breath, because for just a moment she sees what Arthur does, and it makes a lot more sense. Unknown to her is that a moment later, when a sleepy James tugs at her pant leg to demand who the newcomers are and she gets on her knees to put herself on the same level with the little boy, Eames has the same moment of understanding.
All Ariadne knows right now is that it's a start, of a new reality that will probably require a lot more work than her dreams ever did, but will be worth it in the end.
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Date: 2011-03-22 02:50 pm (UTC)PS I love that Hurts song. :D
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Date: 2011-03-22 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-22 03:27 pm (UTC)Glad you liked it; this thing kicked my ass for a while so it's good to have it work out.
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Date: 2011-03-23 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-23 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-23 08:04 pm (UTC)I really enjoyed the clever way you rearranged some of the roles, especially Ariadne leading the team. The tension between the characters, especially between Ariadne and tightly-wound Arthur, struck all the right notes. I loved the unusual dynamic between Ariadne and Eames, as well. Great writing!
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Date: 2011-03-23 08:15 pm (UTC)Rearranging and rewriting things could be a bit tedious at times, but it was also interesting to explore how things would change if the characters were different. I'm happy it worked! :D
Also, I've always felt that what kept Dom from jumping - possibly all that kept him from jumping - were the kids. In this reality, he could trust Ariadne to take care of them, so...
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Date: 2011-03-26 09:19 pm (UTC)I love how fluidly the relationships all developed, and at the end of it the three of them come to an understanding and are willing to try to make it work. &hearts hon!
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Date: 2011-03-27 01:09 am (UTC)Yeah, I posted, we were told March 20 and I ran over, but it doesn't look like anyone else posted theirs, so I don't know... :/
Glad you liked it!
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Date: 2011-03-27 07:16 pm (UTC)