Prompt Post No. 15
Welcome to Round 15 of the Inception Kink Meme.
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In the books, the blue-eyed man never looks sad.
“I’m sorry,” says the bookkeeper. “That I’m not Arthur.”
“Tell me about the books,” says the blue-eyed man.
The bookkeeper looks at him.
“Last time I showed an other person a book, she stole it,” the bookkeeper tells him.
“You don’t need to show me,” the blue-eyed man says. “Just tell me.”
The bookkeeper takes the blue-eyed man to the room with all the chairs, and they sit down.
In the first book, Arthur dies. Only, instead of dying, he comes to the house in the valley.
“It was for a girl,” the bookkeeper says. “Named Ariadne. She was Arthur’s friend.”
The blue-eyed man nods.
The second book happens before the first book. In it, Arthur works with a man named Cobb and steals things.
“Eames is in the second book,” the bookkeeper says. “He looks like you.”
“I am Eames,” says the blue-eyed man.
“Then you can tell me what else happens in the second book,” the bookkeeper says.
“In the second book,” the blue-eyed man says, looking down at the floor. “Cobb and Arthur and Ariadne and Yusuf and Saito and I go into a man’s dreams and leave something there.”
The blue-eyed man is right.
“The other people always know things from the books,” the bookkeeper remembers.
The blue-eyed man looks at him, and continues talking, “And then we were called upon to do it again, to go into a man’s dreams and leave something there. We had done it once before, and it was dangerous but we thought we could slip through again. Only then, when we were in the dream and three levels down, someone went to shoot Ariadne. And Arthur saved her, and took the shot.
“Arthur was dying, but he told us not to wait. We knew he would come here, if anything happened. Ariadne tried to staunch the blood by tying her sweater around his chest. Cobb and I went ahead to complete the inception. We did it.
“But when we came back, Ariadne was wailing.”
The blue-eyed man looks at the bookkeeper now, and his eyes are sharp.
“We fought, then,” he continues. “About who would go into limbo to get Arthur. Cobb and Ariadne had both retrieved people before. But eventually they let me go.”
The blue-eyed man narrows his eyes, “Do you know why, Arthur? Is that in your books?”
“Arthur’s third book,” the bookkeeper says, “is a series of stories. The main character is always a dark-haired man. There’s always a man with blue eyes who isn’t a man at the beginning.”
“What happens, then?” the blue-eyed man asks. “When the blue-eyed man becomes a man?”
“They kiss,” the bookkeeper says. “They always kiss.”
“Do they live happily ever after?”
“Yes,” the bookkeeper says, and the blue-eyed man exhales heavily.
“You aren’t in the books, after that,” the bookkeeper continues.
“How many are there?”
“Twenty-seven,” the bookkeeper says.
“Do you believe me?” the blue-eyed man asks, now. “That I’m Eames?”
“Yes,” says the bookkeeper. “But I am the bookkeeper.”
Eames looks tired, now, but he doesn’t move to leave.
“We’re in a dream,” Eames tells the bookkeeper. “I can bring you out.”
“I know,” the bookkeeper says. “But I can’t leave the books.”
Eames looks at him, and his face is flat and expressionless like the other people the bookkeeper has met, like the man who said the rivers’ names.
“I’m staying,” Eames says.
The bookkeeper can’t really stop him.
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