Fic: La Vie Sous La Pluie (Eames/Arthur) - Part Six
Finally, I'm starting to get to the point of the story where the actually point of the story is happening!
Title: La Vie Sous La Pluie (in English: The Life in the Rain)
Author: ainekatt
Fandom: Inception
Characters: Eames/Arthur. Ariadne.
Chapter Summary: In which Ariadne attempts to comfort Arthur, Arthur is incredibly spastic, and Arthur has a dream he can't control.
Warnings: Swearing. Illegal stuff. Whatever.
X-Posted to: eames_arthur , inceptionfilm
You should probably read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, and Part Five first, if you haven't already.
This is Part Six.
----
After that night at the warehouse, life continued in a similar strain to the way it always had. Arthur found himself handling his die so often that the whites of the dots began to wear off and several times he dropped it during a conversation, only for it to skitter and roll off and away under a chair or across the floor, sending the Point Man diving after it. In addition to a nearly absurd over-handling of his totem, Arthur touched Eames at every possible moment. Even if it was just a brush of hands as they passed each other while working, or if it was pulling him into an alley while they were out walking for a quick kiss, or leaning his leg against Eames’ while they sat in a briefing for training or a job. Anything Arthur could do to prove to himself that this was real, he wasn’t dreaming, they were really trying this, he did. And although it seemed that this was, in fact, reality, Arthur couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
“You’ve been acting a little crazyscattered lately,” Ariadne pointed out one day after Arthur dropped a massive stack of files in a startled eruption of flying paper in order to check his phone. “It’s both worrying and uncharacteristic.”
Arthur shrugged noncommittally, and began gathering up the fallen papers. “I guess,” he admitted.
Ariadne bent to assist the scattered Point Man and arched an eyebrow skeptically, “It’s Eames, isn’t it?” she asked in a tone that suggested that she already knew the answer. Arthur nodded curtly. “I thought as much. Normally that’d just add a little skip in your step, but you’ve got something more like a brain aneurysm in yours. So,” she said, gathering up the last of the fallen papers and holding it out to him, “what’s the hitch?”
“It’s not Eames, per se,” Arthur told her, taking the papers and setting them down in a neat stack on a nearby table. “You could say that it’s me that’s the problem. Also, me who has the problem. There’s just this nagging thought in my head that won’t go away. Only, I don’t even know what that thought is completely, because there’s something I can’t remember.”
“So you have a problem and you’re really jumpy and scattered and acting like an incredibly ADD three-year-old on drugs because there’s something that you think that you can’t remember, only you can’t remember what it is.”
“Sounds pretty crazy,” Arthur agreed, realizing just how much it did as Ariadne paraphrased what he’d just said back to him. “I just can’t shake the feeling that, I don't know, something's wrong with me. A few months ago, I could have honestly told you that I wouldn't care more than that we'd lost our best Forger if Eames died tomorrow, but something changed, sort of just, well, overnight, and now he's the most important thing in my life. And I don't blame him for that, but it still makes me wonder, what if this is reality, and I'm the one who isn't real?"
"Ah," Ariadne nodded in acknowledgment. It was a fear they could all understand. The fear that someone had used your own strengths against you, that the inceptor had become the incepted, and that the ideas that drove you forward every day were not your own to begin with. "Still," she assured Arthur, punching his shoulder playfully, “you’ll work it out. And hey, you got your man. Worry about the dreamtime B.S. when you’re asleep.”
Arthur didn’t dream naturally very often. It was even less frequent that he couldn’t control the dreams he did have. He was fallingfallingfalling some time after midnight and the world was rushing by his eyes and he couldn’t do anything about it. Somewhere in the distance a swarm of voices was calling out his name, “Arthur Arthur Arthur!” and they were getting closer and now he could pick out the intonations of individual people. That one was his mother before she died, a voice he could only half remember and only knew instinctually, the way you can recall from memory the lyrics to a song you used to love but haven’t listened to in years; this one was Cobb, and there was Mal, her elegant French lilt ringing clearly, and he knew it was Mal before she died, and not after, when she was his friend, not a shade; Ariadne was there too, and then, quiet but betting every louder and louder and louder, was Eames.
Within moments, he could make out other words amongst outcries of his name, all the people he had ever cared about, and they were all demanding things from him. There were people who wanted to know why he hadn’t prevented their death, and he wanted to say I don’t know you and I can’t help you, and there were people who wanted to know why he hadn’t come back, and Eames, Eames was the loudest of all of them and he was demanding why Arthur didnotwouldnotcouldnot trust him. Dream Arthur was crying and falling and he couldn’t stop himself to help anyone he passed and god, they were dying, they were all dying.
And then there was Eames, reaching out his hand for Arthur to catch and begging Arthur to trust him, and Arthur was trying to tell him that he did trust him, he just didn’t trust himself, and he reaches out and grabs for Eames’ hand but it’s too slippery and he can’t get a grip and he just keeps falling and Eames vanishes into the distance, and he’s gone, and Arthur is falling alone again.
For a time, Arthur wonders if he’s finally snapped, and that this is the rabbit hole of his sanity just slip-n-sliding him down to complete noncomprehension and chaos and then the endless tunnel ends and gravity sets him on his feet in a meadow full of white tea roses, the kind his mother used to grow in her garden, the kind the put on her coffin when she died, the kind Eames had brought him in the dream because he knew him so well. The Point Man takes a step, bends down, and smells one and he’s overwhelmed with the vividness of this dream he can’t control. It smells like his childhood, and endings, and beginnings, and new possibilities, and he’s almost ready to sit down and forget any doubt he had when a brunette twentysomething girl in a red sweatshirt walks out of the forest into the meadow of roses and he realizes that he knows exactly when everything changed.
“Ariadne,” Arthur says the next day after a sleepless night, his voice flat and void of emotion, “do you remember the Cannery job?”
Title: La Vie Sous La Pluie (in English: The Life in the Rain)
Author: ainekatt
Fandom: Inception
Characters: Eames/Arthur. Ariadne.
Chapter Summary: In which Ariadne attempts to comfort Arthur, Arthur is incredibly spastic, and Arthur has a dream he can't control.
Warnings: Swearing. Illegal stuff. Whatever.
X-Posted to: eames_arthur , inceptionfilm
You should probably read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, and Part Five first, if you haven't already.
This is Part Six.
----
After that night at the warehouse, life continued in a similar strain to the way it always had. Arthur found himself handling his die so often that the whites of the dots began to wear off and several times he dropped it during a conversation, only for it to skitter and roll off and away under a chair or across the floor, sending the Point Man diving after it. In addition to a nearly absurd over-handling of his totem, Arthur touched Eames at every possible moment. Even if it was just a brush of hands as they passed each other while working, or if it was pulling him into an alley while they were out walking for a quick kiss, or leaning his leg against Eames’ while they sat in a briefing for training or a job. Anything Arthur could do to prove to himself that this was real, he wasn’t dreaming, they were really trying this, he did. And although it seemed that this was, in fact, reality, Arthur couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
“You’ve been acting a little crazyscattered lately,” Ariadne pointed out one day after Arthur dropped a massive stack of files in a startled eruption of flying paper in order to check his phone. “It’s both worrying and uncharacteristic.”
Arthur shrugged noncommittally, and began gathering up the fallen papers. “I guess,” he admitted.
Ariadne bent to assist the scattered Point Man and arched an eyebrow skeptically, “It’s Eames, isn’t it?” she asked in a tone that suggested that she already knew the answer. Arthur nodded curtly. “I thought as much. Normally that’d just add a little skip in your step, but you’ve got something more like a brain aneurysm in yours. So,” she said, gathering up the last of the fallen papers and holding it out to him, “what’s the hitch?”
“It’s not Eames, per se,” Arthur told her, taking the papers and setting them down in a neat stack on a nearby table. “You could say that it’s me that’s the problem. Also, me who has the problem. There’s just this nagging thought in my head that won’t go away. Only, I don’t even know what that thought is completely, because there’s something I can’t remember.”
“So you have a problem and you’re really jumpy and scattered and acting like an incredibly ADD three-year-old on drugs because there’s something that you think that you can’t remember, only you can’t remember what it is.”
“Sounds pretty crazy,” Arthur agreed, realizing just how much it did as Ariadne paraphrased what he’d just said back to him. “I just can’t shake the feeling that, I don't know, something's wrong with me. A few months ago, I could have honestly told you that I wouldn't care more than that we'd lost our best Forger if Eames died tomorrow, but something changed, sort of just, well, overnight, and now he's the most important thing in my life. And I don't blame him for that, but it still makes me wonder, what if this is reality, and I'm the one who isn't real?"
"Ah," Ariadne nodded in acknowledgment. It was a fear they could all understand. The fear that someone had used your own strengths against you, that the inceptor had become the incepted, and that the ideas that drove you forward every day were not your own to begin with. "Still," she assured Arthur, punching his shoulder playfully, “you’ll work it out. And hey, you got your man. Worry about the dreamtime B.S. when you’re asleep.”
Arthur didn’t dream naturally very often. It was even less frequent that he couldn’t control the dreams he did have. He was fallingfallingfalling some time after midnight and the world was rushing by his eyes and he couldn’t do anything about it. Somewhere in the distance a swarm of voices was calling out his name, “Arthur Arthur Arthur!” and they were getting closer and now he could pick out the intonations of individual people. That one was his mother before she died, a voice he could only half remember and only knew instinctually, the way you can recall from memory the lyrics to a song you used to love but haven’t listened to in years; this one was Cobb, and there was Mal, her elegant French lilt ringing clearly, and he knew it was Mal before she died, and not after, when she was his friend, not a shade; Ariadne was there too, and then, quiet but betting every louder and louder and louder, was Eames.
Within moments, he could make out other words amongst outcries of his name, all the people he had ever cared about, and they were all demanding things from him. There were people who wanted to know why he hadn’t prevented their death, and he wanted to say I don’t know you and I can’t help you, and there were people who wanted to know why he hadn’t come back, and Eames, Eames was the loudest of all of them and he was demanding why Arthur didnotwouldnotcouldnot trust him. Dream Arthur was crying and falling and he couldn’t stop himself to help anyone he passed and god, they were dying, they were all dying.
And then there was Eames, reaching out his hand for Arthur to catch and begging Arthur to trust him, and Arthur was trying to tell him that he did trust him, he just didn’t trust himself, and he reaches out and grabs for Eames’ hand but it’s too slippery and he can’t get a grip and he just keeps falling and Eames vanishes into the distance, and he’s gone, and Arthur is falling alone again.
For a time, Arthur wonders if he’s finally snapped, and that this is the rabbit hole of his sanity just slip-n-sliding him down to complete noncomprehension and chaos and then the endless tunnel ends and gravity sets him on his feet in a meadow full of white tea roses, the kind his mother used to grow in her garden, the kind the put on her coffin when she died, the kind Eames had brought him in the dream because he knew him so well. The Point Man takes a step, bends down, and smells one and he’s overwhelmed with the vividness of this dream he can’t control. It smells like his childhood, and endings, and beginnings, and new possibilities, and he’s almost ready to sit down and forget any doubt he had when a brunette twentysomething girl in a red sweatshirt walks out of the forest into the meadow of roses and he realizes that he knows exactly when everything changed.
“Ariadne,” Arthur says the next day after a sleepless night, his voice flat and void of emotion, “do you remember the Cannery job?”