Inception fic, "I Hope You Blink Before I Do"
Title: I Hope You Blink Before I Do
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Mal/Cobb
Rating: R
Warnings: Dark themes, some blood. Mild sexuality. Possible self-harm triggers. Spoilers for the movie.
Summary: I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow; I hope it bleeds all day long. Mal holds on to the world she wants to believe in.
AN: Title and inspiration from "No Children" by the Mountain Goats. Longer AN in the first comment.
Mal stretches her body out on the beach, eyes scanning the limitless ocean for something -- for something she can’t remember. Like some part of her expects to see the small white triangle of a sail cutting across the dark grey-green of the surf and the pale grey overcast sky. She doesn’t know why. It’s something she’s seen before, she thinks -- but no, it must have been in a dream, or no -- in a nightmare. Nightmares are characterized by anxiety, by endless impossible tasks to complete, by an uncanny sense of dread, by profound self-recrimination. These are the feelings she associates, vaguely, with these pseudo-memories, these moments of deja vue. Except --
Your world is not real.
It is, though. It has to be. She stretches her arms out over her head and feels the pull of her sleepy muscles waking inch by inch, makes a low satisfied sound in her throat and notes the way the vibration feels in her vocal cords, vivid and delicious and real. There’s no real heat from the sun, it’s too cloudy today, feels like a storm is going to come any day now... how long has it felt this way? When was the last time it rained?
She stretches her leg up over the rim of the deep bathtub in the master bathroom of their perfect house -- wait, how did I -- No. No, she came in from the beach, picked up the newspaper on the way in, walked through the foyer and up the stairs, stripped off her dress and unhooked her bra as the water flowed into the tub -- she remembers these things, these details, she remembers them in her muscles and her skin. She feels the tendons in her knee relax as she points her toe, letting the heat of the water soak into her like the sun never quite does, and she glances at the old-fashioned razor that’s waiting on the edge of the tub -- that she placed there carefully before she ran the water, she remembers this -- and remembers that she meant to shave her legs, suddenly noticing the dark stubble bristling against the pale skin of her calves. The soap she uses smells like lavender, another flash of deja vue, but she rests her head against the sloped side of the tub and grounds herself in the feeling of the hot water gently sloshing around her body, the cold porcelain under her extended ankle, the lather building up thick and creamy on her skin, the sound of hushed footsteps padding down the hallway --
“You’re going to cut yourself.”
“I’m sorry?” Mal turns to see her husband standing in the doorway. He’s been out somewhere, but he must have been home for a little while now, because his tie is loose around his collar and his feet are bare.
“You’re shaving your legs without even looking at what you’re doing. Look:”
A drop of blood is trickling down the incline of her calf bone when she looks back, fine red lines feathering into the white lather. He crosses the room to kneel beside the tub, and his face changes, concern softening his brow and for a moment dissolving the tension between them. His voice is almost a whisper against the marbled walls: “It doesn’t hurt, does it?”
“Yes, it does.” She hears the firmness in her voice before she feels it, the adamant insistence that yes, she is bleeding and it hurts, and then finally she feels the bite of the razor, the sting of soap in the cut like she’s felt so many times before. “I’m bleeding, and it hurts!”
Her husband’s face tenses again as he speaks, eyes flicking from her eyes to the bright streak of blood on her leg. As he picks up a washcloth to gently dab away the blood, she can’t stop herself from thinking, so many times before... when? When is the last time I cut myself? The last time I bled? So recently, just the other day... except --
He’s put down the cloth now, and his hand rests lightly on her calf just below her ankle, but his eyes are hard as they meet her own.
When was it? The last time I felt this pain, this sharp little sting... folding an envelope, or paring an apple, or...
She forces the thoughts down and focuses again on the face of the man she loves, the infinite complexity of the changing expressions on his face, the varied pressure as his fingers tighten just slightly against her skin just before he removes his hand and takes the razor from hers, where she has left it almost dangling between her fingers, forgotten. Their eyes are locked together, frozen for a long moment, and she can see in his that he sees something frightening in hers. Something that makes him relent, finally, by a matter of millimeters or arc-seconds.
He makes a little sound like shhh. “I’ll help you.” And he takes the razor and places it carefully against her skin, away from the trickle of blood that has started again in the moments since he cleaned the cut with the rough washcloth, and drags it impossibly slowly up towards her knee, taking endless care with the subtle curves and angles, and she can feel the blade so clearly this time, every inch of its passage, scraping over her skin but never breaking its tension, following inevitably along its proscribed path, and she takes a long breath and comforts herself with how solid it is, how sensual, how mundane a little ritual, until she realizes that her eyes have not left his, and he’s still staring with deep love and concern and loss, with profound self-recrimination, into her own.
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Mal/Cobb
Rating: R
Warnings: Dark themes, some blood. Mild sexuality. Possible self-harm triggers. Spoilers for the movie.
Summary: I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow; I hope it bleeds all day long. Mal holds on to the world she wants to believe in.
AN: Title and inspiration from "No Children" by the Mountain Goats. Longer AN in the first comment.
Mal stretches her body out on the beach, eyes scanning the limitless ocean for something -- for something she can’t remember. Like some part of her expects to see the small white triangle of a sail cutting across the dark grey-green of the surf and the pale grey overcast sky. She doesn’t know why. It’s something she’s seen before, she thinks -- but no, it must have been in a dream, or no -- in a nightmare. Nightmares are characterized by anxiety, by endless impossible tasks to complete, by an uncanny sense of dread, by profound self-recrimination. These are the feelings she associates, vaguely, with these pseudo-memories, these moments of deja vue. Except --
Your world is not real.
It is, though. It has to be. She stretches her arms out over her head and feels the pull of her sleepy muscles waking inch by inch, makes a low satisfied sound in her throat and notes the way the vibration feels in her vocal cords, vivid and delicious and real. There’s no real heat from the sun, it’s too cloudy today, feels like a storm is going to come any day now... how long has it felt this way? When was the last time it rained?
She stretches her leg up over the rim of the deep bathtub in the master bathroom of their perfect house -- wait, how did I -- No. No, she came in from the beach, picked up the newspaper on the way in, walked through the foyer and up the stairs, stripped off her dress and unhooked her bra as the water flowed into the tub -- she remembers these things, these details, she remembers them in her muscles and her skin. She feels the tendons in her knee relax as she points her toe, letting the heat of the water soak into her like the sun never quite does, and she glances at the old-fashioned razor that’s waiting on the edge of the tub -- that she placed there carefully before she ran the water, she remembers this -- and remembers that she meant to shave her legs, suddenly noticing the dark stubble bristling against the pale skin of her calves. The soap she uses smells like lavender, another flash of deja vue, but she rests her head against the sloped side of the tub and grounds herself in the feeling of the hot water gently sloshing around her body, the cold porcelain under her extended ankle, the lather building up thick and creamy on her skin, the sound of hushed footsteps padding down the hallway --
“You’re going to cut yourself.”
“I’m sorry?” Mal turns to see her husband standing in the doorway. He’s been out somewhere, but he must have been home for a little while now, because his tie is loose around his collar and his feet are bare.
“You’re shaving your legs without even looking at what you’re doing. Look:”
A drop of blood is trickling down the incline of her calf bone when she looks back, fine red lines feathering into the white lather. He crosses the room to kneel beside the tub, and his face changes, concern softening his brow and for a moment dissolving the tension between them. His voice is almost a whisper against the marbled walls: “It doesn’t hurt, does it?”
“Yes, it does.” She hears the firmness in her voice before she feels it, the adamant insistence that yes, she is bleeding and it hurts, and then finally she feels the bite of the razor, the sting of soap in the cut like she’s felt so many times before. “I’m bleeding, and it hurts!”
Her husband’s face tenses again as he speaks, eyes flicking from her eyes to the bright streak of blood on her leg. As he picks up a washcloth to gently dab away the blood, she can’t stop herself from thinking, so many times before... when? When is the last time I cut myself? The last time I bled? So recently, just the other day... except --
He’s put down the cloth now, and his hand rests lightly on her calf just below her ankle, but his eyes are hard as they meet her own.
When was it? The last time I felt this pain, this sharp little sting... folding an envelope, or paring an apple, or...
She forces the thoughts down and focuses again on the face of the man she loves, the infinite complexity of the changing expressions on his face, the varied pressure as his fingers tighten just slightly against her skin just before he removes his hand and takes the razor from hers, where she has left it almost dangling between her fingers, forgotten. Their eyes are locked together, frozen for a long moment, and she can see in his that he sees something frightening in hers. Something that makes him relent, finally, by a matter of millimeters or arc-seconds.
He makes a little sound like shhh. “I’ll help you.” And he takes the razor and places it carefully against her skin, away from the trickle of blood that has started again in the moments since he cleaned the cut with the rough washcloth, and drags it impossibly slowly up towards her knee, taking endless care with the subtle curves and angles, and she can feel the blade so clearly this time, every inch of its passage, scraping over her skin but never breaking its tension, following inevitably along its proscribed path, and she takes a long breath and comforts herself with how solid it is, how sensual, how mundane a little ritual, until she realizes that her eyes have not left his, and he’s still staring with deep love and concern and loss, with profound self-recrimination, into her own.