10 Inception drabbles. Arthur/Eames, Mal/Cobb, Gen.
1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it’s over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten of these, then post them.
Title: Musical Drabbles
Author: kaitmaree77
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Inception
Shipping: A/E, M/C
Warnings: Spoilers for the movie. Angst.
Summary: In the end, your career owned you.
Notes: I gave in. This was so much fun. And so rewarding. And shuffle was so good to me, LOL. Please R&R!
-
One: Sail the Widest Stretch - Powderfinger
If you had your time over again,
Would you do it all the same?
Arthur has regrets.
Not just in this line of work. Not just because of the subconscious crimes they commit, the ideas they extract and implant and the realities they shape for people they’ll never really know. Sure, those cross his mind. But the deepest regrets wash over him like waves, a past he’s never quite perfected forgetting.
Arthur came to be a Point Man because he liked to know. Simple. He couldn’t bear the thought of secrets going unknown, of something slipping by without his notice. The only secrets he allowed to exist would be his own, and this was a way of ensuring so.
Sometimes Arthur thinks of his first job working alongside Cobb, like a bitter pill lodging itself in his throat. He does regret things. He doesn’t know if this is what he ever wanted. Or anyone would ever want.
But like any other addiction, one glimpse into the art of dream-sharing and he couldn’t seem to let go.
-
Two: Alison - Elvis Costello
I know this world is killing you.
Her name was Alison.
She had fair hair, blonde, and eyes so light that Arthur found himself completely entranced with her existence the first day they met, when he was five years old, and she was born into the world his sister.
She had killed herself when she was thirteen, and Arthur had just celebrated his eighteenth birthday. His mother had fallen to pieces, losing herself in the bottle the day their father left a mere three days after the funeral.
Arthur couldn’t live in the family home in Oregon anymore.
And so he ran away.
And he found Cobb.
-
Three: Life in Technicolour - Coldplay
(Instrumental)
Ariadne found herself most fascinated with the minute details of the dreams. The textures, the glare of sunlight projected into vision so vividly real it hurt. And the colours.
She loved the colours.
There was something overwhelmingly heart wrenching about the things she could create within the dream, things she could morph into whatever she herself could imagine. At the time they could feel like gods, omnipotent and capable of creating realms otherwise a far-fetched fantasy.
It was reality that crushed her, reaching outwards to make alterations and realise she was but a mere human. Not even control of her own existence, let alone a world.
-
Four: Fix You - Coldplay
I will try to fix you.
Arthur tried his very best, but Eames remained an enigmatic man despite years of knowing each other.
He hid his honest emotions, his inner turmoil, beneath that fucking accent and terms of endearments that Arthur would never admit secretly made his heart flutter. He was always so light-hearted and mocking, one might think he lacked a single trouble in the world.
Arthur knew differently. He wasn’t clueless, not like Cobb. Or Ariadne. He knew of Eames’s tortured past, of his own reasoning for the escapism to the dream-world.
He tried his best to encourage Eames opening up. It was difficult. They weren’t the conversing type, aside from gentle taunting.
The one day he did try, Eames met his eyes with a look so forward Arthur felt a shiver straight down his spine.
“Arthur, darling,” he said, tone light but the implication more serious than anything he’d heard, “some things are best left unsaid.”
And so they were.
-
Five: Any Other World - Mika
In any other world, you could tell the difference
And let it all unfurl into broken remnants.
Arthur didn’t believe in God. He wasn’t so sure about the others, but in his eyes, the things he’d seen humanity capable of - himself capable of - disregarded any existence of a higher order.
Sure, there were dreams. Limbo. Depths of emotion no one could ever quite comprehend despite desperate attempts to understand human nature at every turn. But the things he had experienced in those were not godly. He had been shot at, blown apart, set alight on fire.
If anything, this line of work taught Arthur not to trust or believe a single thing other than that which he himself thought and felt.
Even that seemed to fall through.
The only thing Arthur was certain of was that this was where he belonged, working for the team, even if it might be the loneliest and most maddening existence a human could experience.
-
Six: It’s Too Late - Evermore
Slow down, you're moving too fast
Go home, you'll feel better for it
Oh boy, you better stop dreaming
It's all in your head!
You can’t bounce back from this.
They tell you that it’s normal to be afraid. That these sorts of changes are slow and painful, and that you’ll move on eventually despite feeling in the beginning like your existence is drowning before you have a chance to gasp for air.
They won’t let you work anymore.
They say you’re sick. Damaged. That dream-sharing has destroyed parts of your mind. Parts of your sanity. You’re not a safe bet anymore.
The first day you hear the news, the diagnosis, you contemplate suicide.
You think it’s poetic irony. You’d spend so much time tracing people and delving into their subconsciousness that the moment someone begs you to rejoin reality, you want to sleep yourself into the layers of your mind and refuse to confront actuality.
You thought you were in control.
In the end, your career owned you.
-
Seven: Postcards from Far Away - Coldplay
(Short Instrumental)
Cobb sent Arthur a post-card from vacationing with Phillipa and James in Hawaii one summer.
Arthur had pondered their happiness and wondered what it felt like to be a part of a family.
-
Eight: Clocks - Coldplay
Home, home, where I wanted to go. Home.
There was something indescribable about returning to reality after hours, days, weeks to realise that only a few minutes or a mere hour had passed.
Ariadne supposed it was a good thing. She had all the time she needed to work on her designs, to create worlds, to perfect the illusion their mark would soon appear in. She could work for hours, days, and return with enough time to throw a half-hearted attempt at experiencing so-called real life. Any other busy person might find the concept entirely satisfying.
She still woke up feeling awfully incomplete.
-
Nine: Something - Jim Sturgess (Beatles cover)
Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover.
Cobb hadn’t wanted to fall in love with Mal.
She was beautiful in an exotic sort of way. The way she touched him send shivers down his spine and the first time they’d made love he knew he was well and truly done for.
Loved her he might have, he could see through those piercing eyes someone who was very damaged, someone who had something very important that was missing.
He didn’t know what it could be.
He didn’t know she’d have to die for him to find it.
-
Ten: Lose You - Pete Yorn
I just have to wander through this world alone.
Arthur quits thirty-six days after the Fischer case is brought to an official close.
Eames goes back to Mombasa. Drowns his sorrows in the game of gambling and fine bottles of wine purchased with the excessive sum of money Saito had signed away to him.
Ariadne goes back to school. Back to reality. Back to physics and engineering. Back to laws of creation.
Cobb gets to go home to his family. To Phillipa and James. His dreams finally forming shape in reality.
Fischer builds his own empire, while Saito’s company possesses the entirety of the energy world.
Eames calls Arthur drunkenly one day and leaves a message on his robotic-sounding voice mail. “Arthur, darling, I just wanted you to know - Mombasa is always waiting for you, pet.”
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it’s over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten of these, then post them.
Title: Musical Drabbles
Author: kaitmaree77
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Inception
Shipping: A/E, M/C
Warnings: Spoilers for the movie. Angst.
Summary: In the end, your career owned you.
Notes: I gave in. This was so much fun. And so rewarding. And shuffle was so good to me, LOL. Please R&R!
-
One: Sail the Widest Stretch - Powderfinger
If you had your time over again,
Would you do it all the same?
Arthur has regrets.
Not just in this line of work. Not just because of the subconscious crimes they commit, the ideas they extract and implant and the realities they shape for people they’ll never really know. Sure, those cross his mind. But the deepest regrets wash over him like waves, a past he’s never quite perfected forgetting.
Arthur came to be a Point Man because he liked to know. Simple. He couldn’t bear the thought of secrets going unknown, of something slipping by without his notice. The only secrets he allowed to exist would be his own, and this was a way of ensuring so.
Sometimes Arthur thinks of his first job working alongside Cobb, like a bitter pill lodging itself in his throat. He does regret things. He doesn’t know if this is what he ever wanted. Or anyone would ever want.
But like any other addiction, one glimpse into the art of dream-sharing and he couldn’t seem to let go.
-
Two: Alison - Elvis Costello
I know this world is killing you.
Her name was Alison.
She had fair hair, blonde, and eyes so light that Arthur found himself completely entranced with her existence the first day they met, when he was five years old, and she was born into the world his sister.
She had killed herself when she was thirteen, and Arthur had just celebrated his eighteenth birthday. His mother had fallen to pieces, losing herself in the bottle the day their father left a mere three days after the funeral.
Arthur couldn’t live in the family home in Oregon anymore.
And so he ran away.
And he found Cobb.
-
Three: Life in Technicolour - Coldplay
(Instrumental)
Ariadne found herself most fascinated with the minute details of the dreams. The textures, the glare of sunlight projected into vision so vividly real it hurt. And the colours.
She loved the colours.
There was something overwhelmingly heart wrenching about the things she could create within the dream, things she could morph into whatever she herself could imagine. At the time they could feel like gods, omnipotent and capable of creating realms otherwise a far-fetched fantasy.
It was reality that crushed her, reaching outwards to make alterations and realise she was but a mere human. Not even control of her own existence, let alone a world.
-
Four: Fix You - Coldplay
I will try to fix you.
Arthur tried his very best, but Eames remained an enigmatic man despite years of knowing each other.
He hid his honest emotions, his inner turmoil, beneath that fucking accent and terms of endearments that Arthur would never admit secretly made his heart flutter. He was always so light-hearted and mocking, one might think he lacked a single trouble in the world.
Arthur knew differently. He wasn’t clueless, not like Cobb. Or Ariadne. He knew of Eames’s tortured past, of his own reasoning for the escapism to the dream-world.
He tried his best to encourage Eames opening up. It was difficult. They weren’t the conversing type, aside from gentle taunting.
The one day he did try, Eames met his eyes with a look so forward Arthur felt a shiver straight down his spine.
“Arthur, darling,” he said, tone light but the implication more serious than anything he’d heard, “some things are best left unsaid.”
And so they were.
-
Five: Any Other World - Mika
In any other world, you could tell the difference
And let it all unfurl into broken remnants.
Arthur didn’t believe in God. He wasn’t so sure about the others, but in his eyes, the things he’d seen humanity capable of - himself capable of - disregarded any existence of a higher order.
Sure, there were dreams. Limbo. Depths of emotion no one could ever quite comprehend despite desperate attempts to understand human nature at every turn. But the things he had experienced in those were not godly. He had been shot at, blown apart, set alight on fire.
If anything, this line of work taught Arthur not to trust or believe a single thing other than that which he himself thought and felt.
Even that seemed to fall through.
The only thing Arthur was certain of was that this was where he belonged, working for the team, even if it might be the loneliest and most maddening existence a human could experience.
-
Six: It’s Too Late - Evermore
Slow down, you're moving too fast
Go home, you'll feel better for it
Oh boy, you better stop dreaming
It's all in your head!
You can’t bounce back from this.
They tell you that it’s normal to be afraid. That these sorts of changes are slow and painful, and that you’ll move on eventually despite feeling in the beginning like your existence is drowning before you have a chance to gasp for air.
They won’t let you work anymore.
They say you’re sick. Damaged. That dream-sharing has destroyed parts of your mind. Parts of your sanity. You’re not a safe bet anymore.
The first day you hear the news, the diagnosis, you contemplate suicide.
You think it’s poetic irony. You’d spend so much time tracing people and delving into their subconsciousness that the moment someone begs you to rejoin reality, you want to sleep yourself into the layers of your mind and refuse to confront actuality.
You thought you were in control.
In the end, your career owned you.
-
Seven: Postcards from Far Away - Coldplay
(Short Instrumental)
Cobb sent Arthur a post-card from vacationing with Phillipa and James in Hawaii one summer.
Arthur had pondered their happiness and wondered what it felt like to be a part of a family.
-
Eight: Clocks - Coldplay
Home, home, where I wanted to go. Home.
There was something indescribable about returning to reality after hours, days, weeks to realise that only a few minutes or a mere hour had passed.
Ariadne supposed it was a good thing. She had all the time she needed to work on her designs, to create worlds, to perfect the illusion their mark would soon appear in. She could work for hours, days, and return with enough time to throw a half-hearted attempt at experiencing so-called real life. Any other busy person might find the concept entirely satisfying.
She still woke up feeling awfully incomplete.
-
Nine: Something - Jim Sturgess (Beatles cover)
Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover.
Cobb hadn’t wanted to fall in love with Mal.
She was beautiful in an exotic sort of way. The way she touched him send shivers down his spine and the first time they’d made love he knew he was well and truly done for.
Loved her he might have, he could see through those piercing eyes someone who was very damaged, someone who had something very important that was missing.
He didn’t know what it could be.
He didn’t know she’d have to die for him to find it.
-
Ten: Lose You - Pete Yorn
I just have to wander through this world alone.
Arthur quits thirty-six days after the Fischer case is brought to an official close.
Eames goes back to Mombasa. Drowns his sorrows in the game of gambling and fine bottles of wine purchased with the excessive sum of money Saito had signed away to him.
Ariadne goes back to school. Back to reality. Back to physics and engineering. Back to laws of creation.
Cobb gets to go home to his family. To Phillipa and James. His dreams finally forming shape in reality.
Fischer builds his own empire, while Saito’s company possesses the entirety of the energy world.
Eames calls Arthur drunkenly one day and leaves a message on his robotic-sounding voice mail. “Arthur, darling, I just wanted you to know - Mombasa is always waiting for you, pet.”