fic: whisper too loud (ariadne + mal)
so. i now have a word document called inception, what!.doc on my laptop. here we go!
whisper too loud
ariadne + mal gen
G
~1650 words.
written for this prompt on the inception_kink meme: ariadne gets stuck in limbo. the vague set up in my head is that ariadne ends up sticking around in limbo for some unexplained reason and helps cobb rescue saito and then winds up stuck in limbo herself. uh, i'm really hoping this makes sense.
It's lonelier than she thought it would be, and it's not just because she's on her own.
Mostly, Ariadne stays by the shore. The whispers of the waves are the only sounds she ever hears here, and when she gets too far away, the silence is too much. Her footsteps echo as she walks, and the looming sight of an unfamiliar city is intimidating. She didn't build anything here; it's not a maze that she can navigate around. She doesn't know any of the patterns, the way the side walks work.
She stays by the shore so she doesn't get lost.
She wonders who will come back to get her. She wonders how long it will take.
-
After a while, she begins to build sandcastles.
She knows how time passes, how it's been long enough for her to begin to lose track here, but for them it might have only been hours. She knows the theory, and she can work out the calculations if she has the numbers, but in practice it's different. She wonders if she'll grow old here like Cobb, if eventually this grey world with its tall buildings and its memories that don't belong to her will become her reality the way it did for Mal. It occurs to her that she wouldn't know any different if it did.
She builds a sandcastle by hand at first, pushing the sand into piles and then arranging it into shapes, letting the grains run through her fingers, making her skin feel soft. Then it occurs to her that she doesn't need to use her hands. She can build better things with her mind, castles and turrets and winding bridges out of sand, and there are no projections here to hurt her for the disturbances.
She recreates her university in miniature close to where the waves meet the sand. It reminds her more clearly than anything that this isn't real, that she's further away than she could ever have imagined from a world of deadlines and rent and friends and boys. She's too young for this world, but maybe now she's too old for that old one.
The waves wash it away. She holds onto her scarf, unconsciously, as she watches, touching the fabric lightly for comfort, and she turns away before the sand is smooth again.
-
Ariadne has always been a little impatient, always wanting to jump into things and figure them out for herself. Other people explain things too slowly. She'd rather see what she can do on her own.
She gives up waiting because then she can't say that no one is coming. If she's not there, she doesn't know, and if someone comes all the way back here for her they can find her as well. They did it for Fischer, for Saito. They can do it for her too.
Instead, she decides to explore, to spend the time learning about the ways other people build, how to build a whole city out of one dream.
-
When she bends the buildings sideways, she knows without a doubt that she's in limbo and that nothing's real.
-
(It almost helps.)
-
It takes her a long time - or at least what feels like a long time - to find Cobb and Mal's old house. It takes her longer than she thought it would considering it's one of the only places here that she's been to before, and she wonders if she's subconsciously been staying away from it because it's the last place she saw him. Maybe just because of what she did there.
She wonders if it's because she's scared Mal will still be there.
The house is empty, though, just like everywhere else, and it turns out she has nothing to worry about. Her hands feel heavy at her sides as she walks through the rooms. Her footsteps don't seem as loud here, and for the first time, she feels that she doesn't belong in a way that's more than just a bitter sadness at finding herself stuck. She leaves quickly and finds, unsurprisingly, that nothing has changed, even though a part of her feels like it should have done.
-
Nothing changes until she gets fed up with it.
She gets fed up with the loneliness, with the waiting, with feeling sorry for herself - she gets fed up with walking through someone else's creation, only ever changing things when she has all this space to actually build for herself. It's not their world anymore, but it is hers.
She starts off building a café. It's simple, almost absurdly easy compared to her work with the team before. It's almost exactly like an old place she used to go to around the corner from her tiny flat in Paris, but she makes the windows a lot bigger and doesn't bother with an area to pay, which gives her a jolt every time she walks in there, an inescapable reminder that it isn't really real. (She keeps the chairs as uncomfortable and rickety as she remembers them being, and the smell of smoke lingers in the air even though she never used to like it.)
After that, she sets herself a challenge while she's sitting at an old table covered in cigarette burns outside her café. It's something to keep her busy: each new thing she builds should be more impossible than the last. She makes staircases that spiral up to nowhere, and bridges that slope down to lead under water, and doors that are too small or too large, thinking of the books she read as a child that made her want to explore and test everything. She decorates ceilings to look like floors and makes lights grow up from the ground.
She leaves Cobb and Mal's old house until she's built up all around it. They're not here, though, and she has no need to keep it in tact.
She turns it into a doll house, old and antique and ornate.
-
When she sees Mal it's like a kick in the chest.
Ariadne feels thrown, surprised for the first time in a long time. It's the first break in the monotony since she's been here. She's unsure whether to run or to confront her and she tenses up, torn between flight and fight. She expects Mal to rush at her like she has before, her soft features twisted up in anger as she shows how little she appreciates Ariadne invading her space or changing her surroundings, but Mal is standing still at a safe distance. She's not even looking at Ariadne. Instead, she's staring at where her old house was.
Ariadne doesn't know whether to say anything or not. She can't believe that Mal is here: that she isn't completely on her own, that Mal didn't disappear when Cobb did. She doesn't understand and she doesn't know if she wants to.
Eventually, Mal turns to look at her. “What are you doing here?” she asks coldly.
Ariadne swallows. She thinks she almost chokes. “I don't know. I couldn't leave, I got stuck.” She deliberately doesn't say the words 'left behind'. She doesn't know whether to mention Cobb.“I didn't know anyone was here, I was just - I thought it was just me.”
Mal says, softly, ignoring the implied question, “I like what you've done with the place.”
“Um,” Ariadne says, “you - what?” She feels terribly young all of a sudden compared to Mal, graceless and clumsy in the face of Mal's calm observation. This isn't the Mal she's seen before, and she wonders if this is how she was with with Cobb; if this is Mal without sabotage running through her blood.
“It's beautiful. Phillipa would have loved a house like this.”
“You're not mad that I changed it?” Ariadne asks, incredulous and bewildered.
“Well,” Mal says, and as she speaks Ariadne wonders suddenly how long it's been for her down here now, “why don't we take a look inside?”
Ariadne follows her even though she's still half terrified. There's nothing else she can do, and as they step through the door she's not surprised to see the surroundings shift around them back to the way they were before. She's impressed at how seamlessly Mal manages it.
Mal looks at her as they stand in her spotless kitchen. “You never know when someone might be back,” she says simply, and Ariadne is suddenly struck by why Mal seems so different right now, with just the two of them in this familiar space. There is no anger in Mal's eyes, no shock of hurt or rage ready to come rushing at her as there always was before. Instead there's just a sadness, something deep and old and understanding that washes over Ariadne like waves.
They're both here and they're both alone, and it means Mal has no one she needs to protect this time.
-
Ariadne takes her to her café and they sit at the same table outside, not quite opposite each other, and she watches Mal as Mal looks around. Mal touches one of the burns on the table top with a slender finger and says, “You are good at what you do. I see why he picked you.”
Ariadne doesn't know what to say. She shrugs, awkward and uncertain. She doesn't know how to act around Mal, how to react to anything she says.
“And now we are both here,” Mal continues. There's a long pause. She looks up. There's a slight smile on her face, and it shocks Ariadne into smiling back. “I used to live near a café almost exactly like this.”
Ariadne feels like she's safe, at last, to respond. “Me too,” she says, and smiles, and listens to the distant sound of the sea.
whisper too loud
ariadne + mal gen
G
~1650 words.
written for this prompt on the inception_kink meme: ariadne gets stuck in limbo. the vague set up in my head is that ariadne ends up sticking around in limbo for some unexplained reason and helps cobb rescue saito and then winds up stuck in limbo herself. uh, i'm really hoping this makes sense.
It's lonelier than she thought it would be, and it's not just because she's on her own.
Mostly, Ariadne stays by the shore. The whispers of the waves are the only sounds she ever hears here, and when she gets too far away, the silence is too much. Her footsteps echo as she walks, and the looming sight of an unfamiliar city is intimidating. She didn't build anything here; it's not a maze that she can navigate around. She doesn't know any of the patterns, the way the side walks work.
She stays by the shore so she doesn't get lost.
She wonders who will come back to get her. She wonders how long it will take.
-
After a while, she begins to build sandcastles.
She knows how time passes, how it's been long enough for her to begin to lose track here, but for them it might have only been hours. She knows the theory, and she can work out the calculations if she has the numbers, but in practice it's different. She wonders if she'll grow old here like Cobb, if eventually this grey world with its tall buildings and its memories that don't belong to her will become her reality the way it did for Mal. It occurs to her that she wouldn't know any different if it did.
She builds a sandcastle by hand at first, pushing the sand into piles and then arranging it into shapes, letting the grains run through her fingers, making her skin feel soft. Then it occurs to her that she doesn't need to use her hands. She can build better things with her mind, castles and turrets and winding bridges out of sand, and there are no projections here to hurt her for the disturbances.
She recreates her university in miniature close to where the waves meet the sand. It reminds her more clearly than anything that this isn't real, that she's further away than she could ever have imagined from a world of deadlines and rent and friends and boys. She's too young for this world, but maybe now she's too old for that old one.
The waves wash it away. She holds onto her scarf, unconsciously, as she watches, touching the fabric lightly for comfort, and she turns away before the sand is smooth again.
-
Ariadne has always been a little impatient, always wanting to jump into things and figure them out for herself. Other people explain things too slowly. She'd rather see what she can do on her own.
She gives up waiting because then she can't say that no one is coming. If she's not there, she doesn't know, and if someone comes all the way back here for her they can find her as well. They did it for Fischer, for Saito. They can do it for her too.
Instead, she decides to explore, to spend the time learning about the ways other people build, how to build a whole city out of one dream.
-
When she bends the buildings sideways, she knows without a doubt that she's in limbo and that nothing's real.
-
(It almost helps.)
-
It takes her a long time - or at least what feels like a long time - to find Cobb and Mal's old house. It takes her longer than she thought it would considering it's one of the only places here that she's been to before, and she wonders if she's subconsciously been staying away from it because it's the last place she saw him. Maybe just because of what she did there.
She wonders if it's because she's scared Mal will still be there.
The house is empty, though, just like everywhere else, and it turns out she has nothing to worry about. Her hands feel heavy at her sides as she walks through the rooms. Her footsteps don't seem as loud here, and for the first time, she feels that she doesn't belong in a way that's more than just a bitter sadness at finding herself stuck. She leaves quickly and finds, unsurprisingly, that nothing has changed, even though a part of her feels like it should have done.
-
Nothing changes until she gets fed up with it.
She gets fed up with the loneliness, with the waiting, with feeling sorry for herself - she gets fed up with walking through someone else's creation, only ever changing things when she has all this space to actually build for herself. It's not their world anymore, but it is hers.
She starts off building a café. It's simple, almost absurdly easy compared to her work with the team before. It's almost exactly like an old place she used to go to around the corner from her tiny flat in Paris, but she makes the windows a lot bigger and doesn't bother with an area to pay, which gives her a jolt every time she walks in there, an inescapable reminder that it isn't really real. (She keeps the chairs as uncomfortable and rickety as she remembers them being, and the smell of smoke lingers in the air even though she never used to like it.)
After that, she sets herself a challenge while she's sitting at an old table covered in cigarette burns outside her café. It's something to keep her busy: each new thing she builds should be more impossible than the last. She makes staircases that spiral up to nowhere, and bridges that slope down to lead under water, and doors that are too small or too large, thinking of the books she read as a child that made her want to explore and test everything. She decorates ceilings to look like floors and makes lights grow up from the ground.
She leaves Cobb and Mal's old house until she's built up all around it. They're not here, though, and she has no need to keep it in tact.
She turns it into a doll house, old and antique and ornate.
-
When she sees Mal it's like a kick in the chest.
Ariadne feels thrown, surprised for the first time in a long time. It's the first break in the monotony since she's been here. She's unsure whether to run or to confront her and she tenses up, torn between flight and fight. She expects Mal to rush at her like she has before, her soft features twisted up in anger as she shows how little she appreciates Ariadne invading her space or changing her surroundings, but Mal is standing still at a safe distance. She's not even looking at Ariadne. Instead, she's staring at where her old house was.
Ariadne doesn't know whether to say anything or not. She can't believe that Mal is here: that she isn't completely on her own, that Mal didn't disappear when Cobb did. She doesn't understand and she doesn't know if she wants to.
Eventually, Mal turns to look at her. “What are you doing here?” she asks coldly.
Ariadne swallows. She thinks she almost chokes. “I don't know. I couldn't leave, I got stuck.” She deliberately doesn't say the words 'left behind'. She doesn't know whether to mention Cobb.“I didn't know anyone was here, I was just - I thought it was just me.”
Mal says, softly, ignoring the implied question, “I like what you've done with the place.”
“Um,” Ariadne says, “you - what?” She feels terribly young all of a sudden compared to Mal, graceless and clumsy in the face of Mal's calm observation. This isn't the Mal she's seen before, and she wonders if this is how she was with with Cobb; if this is Mal without sabotage running through her blood.
“It's beautiful. Phillipa would have loved a house like this.”
“You're not mad that I changed it?” Ariadne asks, incredulous and bewildered.
“Well,” Mal says, and as she speaks Ariadne wonders suddenly how long it's been for her down here now, “why don't we take a look inside?”
Ariadne follows her even though she's still half terrified. There's nothing else she can do, and as they step through the door she's not surprised to see the surroundings shift around them back to the way they were before. She's impressed at how seamlessly Mal manages it.
Mal looks at her as they stand in her spotless kitchen. “You never know when someone might be back,” she says simply, and Ariadne is suddenly struck by why Mal seems so different right now, with just the two of them in this familiar space. There is no anger in Mal's eyes, no shock of hurt or rage ready to come rushing at her as there always was before. Instead there's just a sadness, something deep and old and understanding that washes over Ariadne like waves.
They're both here and they're both alone, and it means Mal has no one she needs to protect this time.
-
Ariadne takes her to her café and they sit at the same table outside, not quite opposite each other, and she watches Mal as Mal looks around. Mal touches one of the burns on the table top with a slender finger and says, “You are good at what you do. I see why he picked you.”
Ariadne doesn't know what to say. She shrugs, awkward and uncertain. She doesn't know how to act around Mal, how to react to anything she says.
“And now we are both here,” Mal continues. There's a long pause. She looks up. There's a slight smile on her face, and it shocks Ariadne into smiling back. “I used to live near a café almost exactly like this.”
Ariadne feels like she's safe, at last, to respond. “Me too,” she says, and smiles, and listens to the distant sound of the sea.