The further you go (1/?)
Title: The further you go
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Summary: When Arthur falls into a coma, Eames decides to go after him. Down in the unknown world of Arthur's mind, he finds himself confronted with the point man's past as much as his own...
AN: An in-progress fill for this from the beloved inception_kink.
I will post it to the fill list when it's completely done, but I have the feeling it might take a bit. Also, please give it a chance, I know this chapter is confusing :)
“You can't go down there. Not now.”
Cobb keeps telling him this, again and again, but somehow Eames isn't really listening. Cobb talks about danger and risks and the unknown and while Eames understands what he is being told, he forgets about it the moment Dom closes his mouth.
His mind is preoccupied, preoccupied with the sight in front of him, trying to cope with the events that took place.
It is a normal thing to have a gun pointed at your head once your mark awakes, but it is never the case that someone takes the bullet for you.
The scene plays back in Eames mind like an unstoppable reel. The way Arthur pushed him away, his arm fully extended, his chest unguarded. Eames remembers the look he threw him, and remembers how his eyes widened with sudden realisation before he sunk to the ground.
Eames never thought much of heroism. It was all fine and dandy if you were in a dream, fast and confident to the point of cockiness, but in the real world, no one was a hero. That is why reality sometimes hurt that much.
"Eames," Cobb says in that calming tone of his that has exactly the opposite effect on the forger,
"He is in a coma. You know the rules. There is only one place he could be."
"Screw the rules!"
Cobb shrinks back at Eames' sudden outburst.
"As if you ever kept to the rules."
Dom is rigid now, all straight, hard lines. "I did it for Mal," he whispers, still defending himself even after so much time has past.
Eames' gaze is unwavering.
"And I'm doing it for Arthur."
**
Even on the second day, Eames doesn't change his mind.
"His mind is not what you imagine it to be like," Cobb tells him as the forger sets up the PASIV next to Arthur's bed. His fingers feel foreign, and he fumbles with the controls for several moments, but he doesn't ask Cobb for help.
Once he is ready and the only thing left to do is hooking onto the machine, he looks at Dom, really and honestly looks at him.
"Believe me," he says, his voice deep and steady, "I am prepared for the worst."
**
Eames remembers asking Arthur about his dreams. What they were like, whether he still had them them or not - it was a question meant to be good-natured and easy, born out of curiosity alone.
Eames had always liked people, and those who became extractors and forgers, point men and chemists, those people were so much more than just people. Their lives had been shaped by something extraordinary, and all of them were rather talented at hiding whatever that was.
Arthur intrigued Eames because he was like a fortress, always looking as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. A boy of mere merely twenty with a mind so much older, so much heavier, than anyone would have assumed.
A boy of nineteen with a face even younger, but never tender.
Granted, Eames wasn't that much older himself, but in the world they lived in, four years could make so much of a difference. Four years could change an entire life. A moment could, too.
The moment Eames looked at Arthur could have been such a moment, a man looking right past the exterior of another, a pleasant exterior that hid something much darker.
Back then, Arthur didn't react to the question with the coolness Eames would later come to know. He wasn't as well guarded yet, and Eames thought if he could only get to Arthur before it was too late, he would have the chance to save him. It was the first time in his life that Eames had the urge to save someone other than himself, and it would be the last.
**
Eames dives into Arthur's subconscious on a sunny Thursday afternoon, thinking that the sun that slowly colours everything golden, its rays creeping over Arthur's face like fingers trying to tickle him awake, might help them find the way home.
"I'll have a look around first, see if I can find him," he tells Dom, "No sedation."
Cobb nods at him, and there is something in his expression that tells Eames he has given up trying to convince him to find another way. He doesn't tell him to be careful like Ariadne would do, and he doesn't call it impossible like Arthur would.
Maybe Arthur wouldn't do that, though, Eames thinks, not this time. After all he is doing it for the sake of a friend.
**
Eames still remembers the words. Like a curse, like seeping poison, they come to his mind at any given point in time, not to be suppressed, never to be forgotten.
"Let him go," his father said to his mother, that last evening in the dimly lit kitchen, holding his glass of water so tightly his knuckles turned white. "Doing that kind of thing, he will only end up in trouble, and it's the kind of trouble I'm not willing to get him out of. Impersonating, hah! It's just a clever way of forging."
A bitter laugh, followed by wet coughing that sounded as if it shook his entire body.
"The only person who has a right to look and act like me is myself."
Eames had always been proud of his talent, from his point of view the only talent he possessed. Back when he was a child imitating people had been his way of gaining attention, of impressing the people he liked, maybe even to entertain. Eames was seventeen when the PASIV was introduced, and back then people thought of it as a joke, a way to replace computer games and television, the next ultimate kick humanity had been searching for for so long. It did not matter to him then, whether it was all a game or not, he knew that somehow, he stood a chance.
**
The first thing Eames notices is the quiet. It feels like falling immediately into limbo, all the way through, and this way of thinking about it seems logical, in a way. This is Arthur's mind, there is nothing anyone designed, nothing he could hide.
There is no way of telling whether his mind is asleep or not, and Eames feels the weight of the coma, as undefined as it is, weigh him down.
This part of Arthur's mind holds no revelations for him, nothing that he can immediately understand. It is like an abandoned workshop, no projections, roads that lead nowhere, and trees that stand around half-finished without a peak.
Half-built houses stand on unfinished ground, and the farther Eames walks, the less there is to see.
The sky first becomes more cloudy, then dark before it vanishes altogether. There is nothing left in this dream, and Eames starts wondering what exactly he is walking on.
He walks like this for a while, hoping to find something, when suddenly a house appears. It is the only finished building Eames has encountered so far, complete with a small garden around which a freshly painted fence is drawn, the meadow littered with toys.
Even from the outside the house looks cosy, like happy childhood memories.
It doesn't take Eames long to realise that this is exactly what it must be.
**
Arthur had never, at any point of his life, been popular. He had been the adorable-looking boy his neighbours had loved to pinch in the cheeks, the teenager the girls were sighing over, but it was all gone by the moment he opened his mouth.
He experienced loneliness, the loneliness of a child whose interests differ from any other child there is, from a teenager who thinks too fast and too deep, too much. Always too much.
**
"He really tried his best," a voice says out of nowhere. It sounds like it belongs to a slightly older male, someone in his early sixties. Eames is able to pick these things up quickly, but there is one thing that confuses him - the uncanny desperation he can hear.
"He really... didn't mean to."
With a shuddering sigh, the entire house falls in on itself, and Eames wakes up.
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Rating: PG-13
Summary: When Arthur falls into a coma, Eames decides to go after him. Down in the unknown world of Arthur's mind, he finds himself confronted with the point man's past as much as his own...
AN: An in-progress fill for this from the beloved inception_kink.
I will post it to the fill list when it's completely done, but I have the feeling it might take a bit. Also, please give it a chance, I know this chapter is confusing :)
“You can't go down there. Not now.”
Cobb keeps telling him this, again and again, but somehow Eames isn't really listening. Cobb talks about danger and risks and the unknown and while Eames understands what he is being told, he forgets about it the moment Dom closes his mouth.
His mind is preoccupied, preoccupied with the sight in front of him, trying to cope with the events that took place.
It is a normal thing to have a gun pointed at your head once your mark awakes, but it is never the case that someone takes the bullet for you.
The scene plays back in Eames mind like an unstoppable reel. The way Arthur pushed him away, his arm fully extended, his chest unguarded. Eames remembers the look he threw him, and remembers how his eyes widened with sudden realisation before he sunk to the ground.
Eames never thought much of heroism. It was all fine and dandy if you were in a dream, fast and confident to the point of cockiness, but in the real world, no one was a hero. That is why reality sometimes hurt that much.
"Eames," Cobb says in that calming tone of his that has exactly the opposite effect on the forger,
"He is in a coma. You know the rules. There is only one place he could be."
"Screw the rules!"
Cobb shrinks back at Eames' sudden outburst.
"As if you ever kept to the rules."
Dom is rigid now, all straight, hard lines. "I did it for Mal," he whispers, still defending himself even after so much time has past.
Eames' gaze is unwavering.
"And I'm doing it for Arthur."
**
Even on the second day, Eames doesn't change his mind.
"His mind is not what you imagine it to be like," Cobb tells him as the forger sets up the PASIV next to Arthur's bed. His fingers feel foreign, and he fumbles with the controls for several moments, but he doesn't ask Cobb for help.
Once he is ready and the only thing left to do is hooking onto the machine, he looks at Dom, really and honestly looks at him.
"Believe me," he says, his voice deep and steady, "I am prepared for the worst."
**
Eames remembers asking Arthur about his dreams. What they were like, whether he still had them them or not - it was a question meant to be good-natured and easy, born out of curiosity alone.
Eames had always liked people, and those who became extractors and forgers, point men and chemists, those people were so much more than just people. Their lives had been shaped by something extraordinary, and all of them were rather talented at hiding whatever that was.
Arthur intrigued Eames because he was like a fortress, always looking as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. A boy of mere merely twenty with a mind so much older, so much heavier, than anyone would have assumed.
A boy of nineteen with a face even younger, but never tender.
Granted, Eames wasn't that much older himself, but in the world they lived in, four years could make so much of a difference. Four years could change an entire life. A moment could, too.
The moment Eames looked at Arthur could have been such a moment, a man looking right past the exterior of another, a pleasant exterior that hid something much darker.
Back then, Arthur didn't react to the question with the coolness Eames would later come to know. He wasn't as well guarded yet, and Eames thought if he could only get to Arthur before it was too late, he would have the chance to save him. It was the first time in his life that Eames had the urge to save someone other than himself, and it would be the last.
**
Eames dives into Arthur's subconscious on a sunny Thursday afternoon, thinking that the sun that slowly colours everything golden, its rays creeping over Arthur's face like fingers trying to tickle him awake, might help them find the way home.
"I'll have a look around first, see if I can find him," he tells Dom, "No sedation."
Cobb nods at him, and there is something in his expression that tells Eames he has given up trying to convince him to find another way. He doesn't tell him to be careful like Ariadne would do, and he doesn't call it impossible like Arthur would.
Maybe Arthur wouldn't do that, though, Eames thinks, not this time. After all he is doing it for the sake of a friend.
**
Eames still remembers the words. Like a curse, like seeping poison, they come to his mind at any given point in time, not to be suppressed, never to be forgotten.
"Let him go," his father said to his mother, that last evening in the dimly lit kitchen, holding his glass of water so tightly his knuckles turned white. "Doing that kind of thing, he will only end up in trouble, and it's the kind of trouble I'm not willing to get him out of. Impersonating, hah! It's just a clever way of forging."
A bitter laugh, followed by wet coughing that sounded as if it shook his entire body.
"The only person who has a right to look and act like me is myself."
Eames had always been proud of his talent, from his point of view the only talent he possessed. Back when he was a child imitating people had been his way of gaining attention, of impressing the people he liked, maybe even to entertain. Eames was seventeen when the PASIV was introduced, and back then people thought of it as a joke, a way to replace computer games and television, the next ultimate kick humanity had been searching for for so long. It did not matter to him then, whether it was all a game or not, he knew that somehow, he stood a chance.
**
The first thing Eames notices is the quiet. It feels like falling immediately into limbo, all the way through, and this way of thinking about it seems logical, in a way. This is Arthur's mind, there is nothing anyone designed, nothing he could hide.
There is no way of telling whether his mind is asleep or not, and Eames feels the weight of the coma, as undefined as it is, weigh him down.
This part of Arthur's mind holds no revelations for him, nothing that he can immediately understand. It is like an abandoned workshop, no projections, roads that lead nowhere, and trees that stand around half-finished without a peak.
Half-built houses stand on unfinished ground, and the farther Eames walks, the less there is to see.
The sky first becomes more cloudy, then dark before it vanishes altogether. There is nothing left in this dream, and Eames starts wondering what exactly he is walking on.
He walks like this for a while, hoping to find something, when suddenly a house appears. It is the only finished building Eames has encountered so far, complete with a small garden around which a freshly painted fence is drawn, the meadow littered with toys.
Even from the outside the house looks cosy, like happy childhood memories.
It doesn't take Eames long to realise that this is exactly what it must be.
**
Arthur had never, at any point of his life, been popular. He had been the adorable-looking boy his neighbours had loved to pinch in the cheeks, the teenager the girls were sighing over, but it was all gone by the moment he opened his mouth.
He experienced loneliness, the loneliness of a child whose interests differ from any other child there is, from a teenager who thinks too fast and too deep, too much. Always too much.
**
"He really tried his best," a voice says out of nowhere. It sounds like it belongs to a slightly older male, someone in his early sixties. Eames is able to pick these things up quickly, but there is one thing that confuses him - the uncanny desperation he can hear.
"He really... didn't mean to."
With a shuddering sigh, the entire house falls in on itself, and Eames wakes up.