Deep Limbic System [One-shot]
Title: Deep Limbic System
Pairing: Matt/Dom, Arthur/Eaves
Beta: Completely unbeta'd. Its probably a bit on the rusty side, but oh well.
Rating: Maybe 15, to be on the safe side.
Summary: The investigation couldn’t have been more simple.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Muse or any of its members. And, as much as I wish it wasn't, all of this writing and story is completely fiction. Damn, I know, but there's not much we can do.
Notes: Written from a prompt at mkmeme; Inception AU or crossover. It can be gen or slash or het, porny or not, I don't really care. Since I absolutely adore Inception, I just had to take the request. So, whoever you are, here is (finally) your kink fill- hope its okay.
Deep Limbic SystemThe investigation couldn’t have been more simple.
A private security company had asked for a standard, regulation sub-conscious check on all their flagged subjects.
Flagged for anything; attempted terrorism, previous offenses.
Or in this case, assisting a conspirator.
Surprisingly, the company hadn’t stated, or implied for that matter, that they wanted to assess the conspirator himself; only his left hand man. Wouldn’t it be logical to delve into the mind of the problem, and not those associated with it?
As Arthur followed the rest of the Inception Team down a small, cramped backstage corridor, all he could wonder was what their assignment was all about.
“Here we are!” the tall, burly man the four had been tailing announced, reaching the end of the corridor and pushing open a battered wood door, “Is this alright for you guys to set up in?”
Cobb nodded. “Should be. It’s big enough for what we need to do.”
However, Arthur begged to differ. The room was small, with dim lighting and a horrible stench of alcohol and sweat. The lighting wasn’t shabby, considering the source was a dangling bulb from the ceiling; a couple of couches and a bench had been pushed over into the far corner of the room. He shot a exasperated look at the Team’s Forger, Eames, and let out a sigh.
The man standing before them seemed to notice this objection.
“Its the best we could do, really it is. We’re playing here in a couple of hours, and had to improvise for another room, since they only gave us one to stay in.”
Cobb placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, while scowling decisively at Arthur.
“This is perfect, thanks...”
The man smiled. “Chris. You can call me Chris.”
Ariadne beamed back, placing the silver briefcase she was holding down on the musty, stained carpet.
“Leave it to us then, Chris.”
Minutes went by as the Team set up their work station, activating the machinery that was enclosed inside the chrome briefcase and attaching themselves to the central hub by white plastic wristbands and wire-thin cords. Individually, the four Team members lay themselves down on the sparse floor of the room and prepared mentally for the task ahead.
All Arthur could see as he placed his back to the carpet, was the utterly disgusting roof that hung over him.
“Check out the roof, Eames.”
Arthur nudged his hand into the arm of the Forger that lay beside him.
“Oh God, I don’t even want to know,” came the reply, “That’s why I’m keeping my eyes shut.”
Ariadne’s sweet, chipper voice joined in to the conversation. “My eyes are open, Arthur. That’s bloody disturbing, whatever that brown stain is.”
“How the hell did that even get up there?” “Not particularly interested, really.”
“Is this where I’m meant to be?”
Ariadne, Cobb, Eames and Arthur all suddenly halted their trains of thought and internal banter, and looked towards the unruly British accent that had risen from the doorway.
A blonde, lanky male stood just inside the room, dressed in a pair of bright yellow jeans and a white top. He looked flushed, rosy in the cheeks; an untied shoelace trailed from his right silver Converse, the wearer obviously too busy to notice and re-bow it.
Being the Extractor of the Team, Cobb pulled the wristband from his arm and strode towards the man. “Mr Howard, I presume?”
“That’s me.”
“Dom Cobb. These are the people who will be assisting with the investigation today; my colleagues Arthur, Eames and Ariadne.”
Howard nodded as he acknowledged each member of the Team, before Cobb continued.
“You have been briefed about what we do, and how this process works correct?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“And you agree to the company who wants to analyze you to use any information they find in your head to their expense?” “Yeah. That’s fine. I have nothing to hide... Matt’s the one they really want. I shouldn’t be flagged in the first place.”
With a swift motion, Cobb had slipped a matching white band onto the British man’s wrist, attaching him by the same cord that joined the rest of the Team.
“Good. Then lie down.”
Howard did as he was told, walking over to an available spot of space on the ground and gracefully placing his slender body against the carpet. It was at this moment Chris once again entered the room, fresh beer in hand, only to be instructed by Cobb.
“Chris! We need you for one moment, please.” The bulky man sauntered over to where the Extractor lay.
“Yeah?”
“Place your hand on that button in the briefcase. On the floor there.” Chris did what he was told.
“And when I give the go, you press it as hard as you can. Got it?”
“I probably won’t be around when you lot... wake up,” Chris noted, nodding. “Is that OK?”
For the first time since entering the room, Arthur spoke in front of the stranger. “That’s fine, Chris. We only need Mr Howard, and the pre-programmed kick for this to work.”
“Fantastic. Ready to go under?”
“All clear.”
“Ready, Dom?”
The team glanced over to the fifth person, lying straight as a pin, on the floor.
“Yeah. Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“OK then.”
And with that, the button was pushed. Arthur began to feel a sudden wave of drowsiness come over him; he closed his eyes, let his body fall loose, and begin to dream.
✻✻✻✻✻✻
The Team arrived exactly where they had expected they would.
The Howard Mark’s sub-conscious had brought them into a place he felt familiar; a main street of a bustling town.
“We’re in Teignmouth!” Howard said, a puzzled but ecstatic tone in his voice.
“Teignmouth?”
“Yeah, where I lived for most of my early life.”
Arthur nodded. “I see.”
“Why did we end up here, though?”
“As opposed to...?” “As opposed to somewhere else.”
“Well, we are inside your sub-conscious, Mr Howard. This is all a dream; whatever your brain chooses to project inside your mind, we will end up in it. For example, if it were my sub-conscious we were inside, we might end up in New York, or in my family home, or at my grandmother’s. You pick the environment, we just shape what happens when we get there.”
Howard ah-ed in realization. “Fascinating!”
“Right you lot, I think we should split into two,” Cobb announced. “Ariadne and Mr Howard, you come with me. Arthur and Eames, will you be OK to dig around yourselves until the kick hits?”
Both Arthur and Eames answered a yes.
“Good. See you back in reality, then.”
Eames looked over at Arthur as the other three walked off down the street.
“Want to take a walk?”
“Gladly.”
The pair started off at a fast pace, trying to cover as much of the town as possible before the kick hit. They needed to scan any projections they saw or observed, any aspects of the conjured dreamscape that could assist the private company in their investigation.
The Point Man and Forger hurried down the main street in silence towards the expanse of blue sea that bordered the dreamscape, watching everything and everyone out of the corner of their eyes. Crossing a flat lot of grass labeled ‘the Den’, the two men decided to head towards the single dock on the beach-line of the British town.
That’s when Arthur looked up, and noticed something strange.
Very, very strange.
The projections couldn’t have possibly been conjured by the memories or conscious of the Howard Mark; as far as Arthur had researched, the man they were investigating had no links to the strange occurrence that had appeared on the level’s dreamscape.
But yet, there they were.
Two men; standing at the very central point of the dock extending over the level’s ocean, seemingly unaware of the other projections bustling past them. They seemed lost to the world, or at least this sub-conscious- like that they were the last people to possibly exist on earth, in limbo, anywhere.
The shorter man of the pair, brunette-haired and dressed in a scarlet coat, had a hand cupped to the slightly taller man’s cheek. He seemed to be smiling a crooked, happy smile, gazing up into the eyes of the other with an expression of love-struck content and belonging. He seemed not to be bothered by the people pushing past them, or the Point Man and the Forger standing but metres away from him; all he cared about was the man he held so close to his heart.
The other male looked much the same, clothed in a
But as Arthur stepped closer to the projections, he realized.
The other man was the Mark.
The Howard Mark.
“Eames...”
He glanced to his left, only to find the Forger staring at the same scene he was.
“Yes, dear Arthur?”
Arthur stuttered, continuing to watch the pair through widened eyes.
“How.. how could the Mark’s mind create projections of itself in its own sub-conscious?”
“It’s possible.” A small smile spread across Eames’ features.
“No... no, it can’t be possi...” “Of course it is, dear Arthur. People think inception is impossible, but the Team all knows it’s not; people think everything’s impossible.”
Arthur swiped a look at Eames, brow crunching in confusion at the new prospect. Eames permitted a small chuckle to escape his lips, before ripping his gaze from the two intertwined people on the dock to stare Arthur in the eyes.
“The things we see before us, they’re not projections; well, not in the normal sense, anyway. They’re not single people, filling the dreamscape from the Mark’s mind- they’re memories, or images captured by the Mark that they’ve stored away in the very depths of their conscious. Emotions, feelings, moments in life that they treasure- its called a Conjured Deep Limbic System, or CDLS.”
Arthur stood, puzzled, taking in Eames’ explanation of the phenomenon. He had researched every aspect, every fact about the Howard Mark that he could, and had found nothing about another man, another lover, central to the Mark’s life or memories. There was simply no stem from which this happening could have stemmed, and that was coming from the best Point Man the Inception Team had.
“There’s nothing in the Mark’s history about a memory like this, though,” Arthur questioned, his jaw slightly agape. “He has no history of ever having a partner, or having a romantic relationship with anyone, Eames. It simply can’t be...”
A finger shot to Arthur’s lips, halting the flow of words that were tumbling out of his logical mind.
“Maybe the Mark has some things he doesn’t want us to know, darling. Some secrets that need to be kept hidden; some moments that should remain his and his only.”
This concept came across as puzzling to Arthur; the idea of this whole mission, this whole assignment was to infiltrate the Howard Mark’s mind to dig up whatever they could find about him that could be of use to the government.
“We have memories that we don’t want anyone to find out about, don’t we Arthur?”
Arthur’s eyes shot to the street’s pavement, unable to look at the man, or the scene before and beside him.
“So, why would the Mark be any different? We’re all human, after all.”
Arthur knew what Eames was talking about, of course. Their own, delicately hidden, delicately disguised relationship; a thing they had been successfully covering up form the rest of the Team for years. As long as the pair had been working together- and that was a good half-decade- what they shared had been kept under the strongest lock and key that each of them could keep. They denied experimental inception from their own cohorts, worried that they would find out what was really going on between the rough-and-tumble Forger and the sophisticated Point Man.
And just by chance, they had investigated into the mind of a man who was trying to hide the very same thing.
Arthur nodded, keeping his gaze down at the cobblestones of the road’s flooring, too cowardly to look up into the eyes of his lover.
“True, very true, Eames.”
At that, the Point Man began to feel the dreamscape around him begin to shake; the sky begin to tumble, the walls begin to fall down spontaneously. He braced himself for the kick that was to come in the following seconds; closing his eyes, and letting himself leave the level, only to return to the backstage room in which he originally sat.
✻✻✻✻✻✻
Arthur lifted his head to check the room they had returned to. Ariadne, Eames and Cobb all appeared to be doing the same; ripping the white wristbands off their arms, and swinging their heads from left to right. Arthur took a breath out, relieved the situation was much the same as when they had left, and pulled out his dice totem from his top pocket. Everything seemed normal to him, confirming that the Team had returned to true reality.
“May I come in?”
All four heads, now atop bodies in a seated position, looked upwards to assess where the voice came from.
And suddenly, Arthur clicked.
The brunette-haired man, in the scarlet coat.
Standing in the doorframe of the dressing room, a glittering red guitar in hand.
“And you must be Matthew, am I correct?” Cobb’s authoritative voice rang out around the dank dressing room. “The man who consented Mr. Howard to be assessed?”
Matthew’s eyes darted from each of the Team’s members, almost analyzing each and every one of them, before replying to Cobb.
“Yep, that’s me. Did everything in the operation go OK?”
“Everything went perfectly!” Arthur heard Ariadne chime from her position, “the kick went off without fail, and the situation was kept pretty stable as far as I was concerned.”
The man at the door nodded at the remark, rubbing a hand behind his neck. “Good, good; I’m glad about that. One question, though- when will...”
Suddenly, Arthur felt the body lying on the floor beside him begin to twitch and wake up; he managed to push himself up into a standing position quick enough to witness head of blonde hair shake itself out of its ethereal dream, and grey eyes flick open like curtains on a wall. A startled look became across the features of the Howard Mark, before he opened his rose-tinted lips and spoke.
“Uh... why am I on the floor?
No sooner had the Mark began to recall his surroundings, that a flash of red flung itself past the standing Arthur; only seconds later did the Point Man realize that the short, almost pixie like Matthew from the doorframe had covered the length of the dressing room in three complete strides. He watched on as the brunette knelt at the side of the Howard Mark, and cupped his delicate, pale hand against his cheek, exactly like the memory’s projection had in the dreamscape. His voice became softer, tenderer as he directed his eyes towards the blonde.
“Are you OK, Dom?”
The Mark smiled back, grey eyes only looking into Matthew’s blue. “Yeah. I don’t remember a thing, which is good. Its just like sleeping, really.”
Matthew lent in close towards the Mark’s ear, and whispered.
“Thank God you’re safe, my love. Thank God you’re safe.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur saw Eames quietly smirk, and mutter something incomprehensible under his breath. The Extractor in the corner of the backstage room shot a very confused look at his young female Architect, who in turn looked quizzically for answers in the Point Man beside her.
All Arthur could do, however, was nod his head in understanding and try not let a smile paint itself across his features.
An eerie, almost awkward silence dropped across the room as the two men rose from their positions on the floor, the brunette helping the blonde up. Once they had found their feet, and Matthew had repositioned the guitar upon his back, they made for the door.
The smaller man ushered Howard out of the door, before turning and looking the Team each dead in the eyes.
“Thank you for looking after him, guys. Its my fault he’s been subjected through this- he has nothing to do with my strange theories and assignments.”
Ariadne seemed too confused with the past minute’s events to answer; Eames nodded his head and looked down to the carpet, leaving Arthur to talk.
“Not a problem, Matthew. Its what we do; when we investigate a Mark’s mind, we always make sure they come out alright in the end.”
The blue-eyed man in the doorway smiled slightly. “Thank you. Thank you for looking after my Dom.”
And as suddenly as he had arrived, he turned on his heel and walked away from the Arthur and the Inception Team.