25. When You Grow Up Your Heart Dies 1/20
Fandom: Inception x Dark!Breakfast Club AU
Pairing(s): Arthur/Eames, Cobb/Mal
Summary: They went into detention with nothing in common. They witnessed something frightening that may or may not have actually happened: a dead body and blood on the walls spelling 528491. Can a nerd, a jock, a criminal, a pampered prince, and a basket case brave crossing the social cliques in order to stick together and solve this mystery?
Promted here at inception_kink nbsp;Never wrote a murder mystery before so it may be a wobbly ride at first but I like to go back a revise my work (good writing is good REWRITING they say. teehee) Also, please forgive typos, they will fixed if you point them out to me! :)
Chapters 1-20 index here
When Dad’s truck brakes squeaked to a stop, Eames didn’t move a muscle because Dad wasn’t finished with his lecture, and though the seventeen year old knew the whole thing anyway, you just didn’t leave until Dad dismissed you. He listened to the barrage of reasoning and promised for the tenth time that this wouldn’t happen again. He would do as Dad said and next time use his goddamned brain before jeopardizing his future with another stunt like the one he’d pulled.
He climbed out of the truck and pushed the door closed. Dad roared off to work and Eames sighed as other cars pulled up. Not interested in making friends with detention frequenters, he hurried up the steps through the school door.
....
Cobb combed his hand through his hair and looked at the empty building. The steps where he and his friends usually lingered, laughing and flirting, were ghost-like with trash blowing past. “School on a Saturday. You gotta be kidding me.”
Mom fixed her makeup in the rearview mirror, didn’t even spare a glance, “Well, next time you decide to skip school to play hooky with your father, then you’ll think twice, won’t you?”
Cobb rolled his eyes. They hadn’t played hooky. They’d watched the basketball game. But there was no correcting a woman who wasn’t interested in the difference. Cobb got out of the car with a pain-filled groan. This was so lame. He hoped none of his friends found out he’d actually showed up here today.
Glancing around, he recognized no one important, though he could have sworn he’d seen a letterman-jacket hurry inside a minute ago. The sight had made him less nervous. Hopefully it’d be mostly jocks here as punishment for lazy practice or something-the jock crowd were a bunch of knuckle draggers, but Cobb could at least talk sports and money with them until it was over. If there were more social awkward nerds like the one getting out of the car behind him, then Cobb was facing a very long Saturday with zero people to talk to.
....
Ariadne’s little brother was strapped into the middle front seat of the old station wagon. The other three were lined up shortest to tallest in the back, still half asleep. Mom was furious as she glared at her only daughter, “Is this the first time or the last time I’m gonna have to do this?” she asked.
“The last,” Ariadne answered shamefully.
“It better be,” Mom said. And Ariadne knew she only meant well. Mom just wanted her to have a brighter future than what this little town offered. College would make that happen and regular detention would not.
“Yeah,” her little brother said, matching Mom’s venom. Ariadne gave the six year old a glare. With Mom’s tone parroted back at her like that, the over-worked woman softened around the edges, but still had anger to hold onto as she did her best parenting. “I’ll be here to get you at three o’clock.”
Ariadne nodded and stepped out into the chilly morning, resolved to do whatever it took to make her mother proud. This wasn’t happening again. Saturday detention sounded scary-only losers and freaks were saddled with this punishment--like-- her.
Ariadne spotted someone walking up to the school in high heeled boots and a long trench coat, and sucked in a sharp breath of fear. The meanest girl at school caught Ariadne looking and narrowed her eyes. The nerd quickly turned away and hurried inside in hopes of finding a seat in the front, sure to be far away from where Mal always lurked in the back, big predatory eyes always scheming like a cat.
....
No one noticed Arthur, who arrived late. The car didn’t really even stop rolling. He climbed out of the back seat, and Dad hit the gas, let inertia close Arthur’s door. He dropped his bag. No one helped him pick up his things. He went inside where it was warm, to the library and his usual seat.
Today, the crowd was large, spread across the caste system. That didn’t happen a lot, but it always made for a more interesting day. Mal was already there, in her usual spot. The two traded silent nods of recognition. Not hello. Arthur never said hello. And Mal pretended not to speak English most of the time.
The most popular in the room today was Dom Cobb, the richest pretty boy in school, who sat dressed in his usual name-brand clothes, blonde hair styled in the latest cool look, arms crossed as he decidedly ignored everyone.
He, like the other preps, got special treatment for no particular reason. Just because the teachers liked well-dressed students who passed the class and had friends, and were generally nice enough--though not as nice as the real students, like Ariadne, who sat meek and quiet in generic-brand clothes, hiding behind a scarf, trying to be invisible on the bottom of the social ladder, but still too important to be forgotten. Not like Arthur. Arthur wasn’t even on the social ladder. Arthur wasn’t there as far as anybody was concerned.
Crowding the front row was a most interesting discovery. A jock, mid-season, which never happened with the coach’s strict rules about getting benched for troublemaking or poor grades; And not just any jock, but one of the smart ones: Owen Eames, letterman jacket to prove it. Arthur took his seat in the back, across from Mal, dark eyes going right back to the school emblem emblazed on the back of the jacket up ahead.
So he was behind what happened to Yusuf. Or at least, he took the fall for it. Probably to protect Saito and Fischer, who didn’t have enough slack in their records anymore to get away with that kind of hazing.
Well, that explained his presence; Mal’s was hardly rocket science (probably vandalized something again;) Ariadne probably had something to do with no homework, or a botched science project, yeah that sounded right. Wasn’t there a fire a few days ago? Somebody said a nerd did it by accident so yeah probably her. Cobb looked like he’d been exiled here; apparently some drama was brewing in the prep-clique, it’d be the talk of the year.
But right now, no one talked. No one wanted to risk bridging the social gaps.
...
Principle Browning came in, hateful and puffed up with self-importance as always. After laying down the law, and the bogus assignment to write an essay, he returned to his office. For the first fifteen minutes, the front row concentrated on the assignment.
Cobb wrote a title across the top but then started drumming his eraser on the blank lines, thinking about how easy it would be to get his dad to get him out of this with a fake doctor’s note or something. Eames didn’t pick up his pencil. It was an easy enough paper to bullshit, he’d do it later, after a nap. Ariadne chewed on her pencil as she worked out her thesis statement and arranged her three supporting evidences coherently, muttering to herself.
Arthur started to sketch a drawing of a tree line on his page, and Mal didn’t even have the supplies to work with. She had taken a cigarette lighter out of her coat pocket and sat striking it to life over and over again, eyes still on the back of Cobb. When he turned a few minutes later to investigate the source of the strange noise, she lit the rubber heel of her boot on fire and then blew it out. Cobb continued to stare at her for a few minutes after that, squinting in something that was either a threat or true intrigue.
Mal let it go on for a moment before bucking at him, widening her eyes and crying, “boo!” and he jolted hard enough for his chair to squeak on the tiles, then blushed as he rolled his eyes with a disgusted scoff and turned back to face front. Delighted, Mal caught Arthur’s eye to share a laugh at the pretty boy. Arthur didn’t return the smile, but bobbed his head. Yeah. Funny. Whatever.
Bored now, Mal stood and headed for the library door.
“What are you doing?” Eames demanded as she passed him, a whiff of cigarettes and dirty clothes. “Get back in your seat.”
She stopped and went back to his table, leaned on it with her boobs showing in the neckline of the men’s flannel shirt she wore unbuttoned half way down with just a bra showing underneath. She put her face in the jock’s, lashes lowering seductively as she murmured in a heavy French accent, “Young man, have you finished your paper?”
Blushing, he moved his chair back to regain his personal space and, laughing at him, Mal went on to the door and fiddled with it until a screw came out and the mechanism that kept it open was effectively broken, letting the heavy door close with a loud slam.
She hurried back to her seat with a wild giggle of delight, creeper’s trench coat flapping behind her like the villain she loved to be, and Cobb and Ariadne panicked in their seats as Principle Browning came roaring from his office.
Eames turned to glare at her, “Put it back.”
“Ask me nicely,”
“I could just take it from you and put it in myself,” he threatened.
“What a gentleman,” her eyes flashed coyly. Just then, the door opened and in came Browning, still huffing and puffing from his roar. He did a quick headcount, found all present, and then asked,
“Who closed this door?”
Cobb shrugged. Ariadne looked like she was too hard at work on her paper to have heard, but she wasn't really moving. Mal sat laid back at perfect ease in her chair, one high-heeled-boot crossed over the other. Eames said with perfect respect to his elders, “It just fell closed, sir.”
Arthur was impressed that Eames didn’t rat Mal out, considering how he’d threatened to overpower her in the name of Right just a moment ago. With a glance at Mal, he saw that she was equally impressed by the athlete’s honor and Arthur thought he probably liked this Owen guy because it had to take a lot to impress someone who did half the stuff Mal was always doing.
“Doors don’t just fall closed,” Browning replied, clearly not believing Eames in the slightest. “It was a perfectly working door a moment ago. Who closed it?”
“I think a screw fell out of it,” Mal said sweetly, with a bat of her long lashes and a French accent, her most innocent smile.
“Stop talking like that!” Browning warned her. “You aren’t French! And I know it was you, Miles. Why would a screw fall out of it unless you took it out?”
Browning only called boys by their last name, girls by Miss whatever-their-first-name-was. Not Mal, though, maybe because she sometimes wore grown men’s clothes. Whatever man she was sleeping with that week, or so the rumors said.
“I don’t know why it happened, sir, it just happened,” she said, still speaking like English was her second language. The others could only sit with their eyes downcast as their detention mate argued with the principle over the probability of screws dropping out of doors. Cobb marveled that she could defy authority so easily, but wished she’d stop.
Because Browning was getting redder and redder in the face as he piled detention after detention onto Mal’s record while she sat there with fire in her eyes and defiance in her chin, not letting it show if she cared one iota for how many detentions she had, it popped right out of Cobb’s mouth before he could think twice, “Stop it!” he spoke to Mal.
She gave a start and looked at him, the first time she looked away from Browning since the man had entered the room. Cobb’s blue eyes were wide and pleading and for the first time in a long time, she did what someone asked and stopped. Browning, chest swelled in triumph, thumped Eames on the back and requested his help in propping open the door.
From the back of the room, Arthur marveled at how easily Eames moved around a magazine rack--the only thing heavy enough--to prop the door open. But in doing so, it blocked the doorway. Mal spoke up then, still French and still sweet, “That’s a fire hazard, sir.”
Browning thwacked Eames in the back of the head and blamed him, told him to move the rack back to where it’d been. Arthur unconsciously licked his lips as he watched the feat of strength in action once more. When Eames glanced up, probably feeling eyes on him, Arthur looked down at his drawing and didn’t look up again until Browning was gone, surrendering to the broken door and letting it stay shut.
Mal was smiling, triumphant, when Cobb turned to her, “Are you crazy? Now you’re in here for life!”
She shrugged, pulled the screw from her pocket and started using the point to clean under her nails. Eames, indifferent to the predicament Mal had put herself in, leaned back with a weary sigh and popped his spine as he asked Cobb, “Are you grounded for this or what?”
“Mom said I was, but Dad told me to blow her off, so whatever.”
“You going to Saito’s party? It’s supposed to be huge, his brother’s getting a keg and there’s supposed to be a live band and all.” Eames said and Cobb was nodding because he’d heard the same thing and was considering going because a lot of cute girls in class were supposed to be there, but before he could say as much, Mal cut in with a smack of her lips, purring,
“Awwwwwe. How sweet.”
“What?” Cobb asked her.
Mal looked pointedly between him and Eames. “Are you two, like, secret lovers?”
Eames rolled his eyes as Cobb clenched his jaw but said nothing. Mal, having fun teasing them, moved forward by going up and over her table with her eyes glinting wickedly. “Do you give each other head in the boy’s locker room?”
“She’s desperate for attention, dude,” Eames told Cobb who was flushed red in the face, “Just ignore her.” But she was on a role, standing between their desks now and gripping each of their shoulders and asking Eames in a sultry voice,
“Do you guys tell your parents you’re going on dates with girls, but then spend all night in the back of your truck, grunting and grinding and swearing no one will ever find out?”
In the back, Arthur shifted around to hide his hard-on and at her desk, Ariadne had her eyes closed and her hands over her ears, not wanting to hear this, and Mal was laughing lowly now as she asked Eames with her lips practically in his ear, “Does he tell you he loves you when you stick it in?”
“Go to hell!” Eames snapped at her as Cobb sputtered in humiliation and scathed at her, “Just because you open your legs for everybody, doesn’t mean the rest of us do!”
She turned on him, looking not in the least hurt or angered by his cruel words. She frowned at him, “So you’re a virgin, then?”
He looked uncomfortable and denied it a beat too late. Mal clapped happily, giggled as she flounced over to him and tapped a slender finger on the end of his nose, “Oh he is! So precious! Little Dom hasn’t gotten to come out for any real fun, then?” she trailed her finger down his chest, reaching for his lap, but he knocked her hand away and scooted his chair until his lap was under the table as he asked, “What’s your problem?”
“I don’t have one,” she shrugged. “But maybe you do. Maybe that’s why you’re still a virgin. Can’t get it up? Maybe you should think about boys.”
“I’m not gay,” Cobb snapped at her. “Why can’t you be like a normal girl?”
“Why can’t you be like a normal boy and have sex already? Seventeen and a virgin is weird.”
“Is not,” Eames defended kindly.
“Yeah, leave him alone,” Ariadne spoke up, cheeks already flaring from the empathy she felt, feeling Cobb’s embarrassment for him. Mal turned, grinning wickedly at her, “Oh, well, we all know you’re a virgin.”
The nerd looked down at her paper and picked up her pencil with a weak, “Shows what you know,” to which Mal only cackled. The troubled girl hopped up to sit on Ariadne’s table, crossed her legs and sat back on her arms so that her half exposed breasts were on display, “Ever been with a girl?”
Ariadne grimaced and scooted her chair away, “You’re disgusting.”
“Uh oh, not homophobic, are we?” Mal teased, sliding back into Ariadne’s personal space.
“No, but you shouldn’t be…” she was innately to kind to say a whore, so she said, “so provocative. You’ll get yourself in trouble.”
Mal rolled her eyes and hopped down from the table, “You all are boring.” Her French accent was back. She returned to her seat and dropped into it, lighting a cigarette.
“Don’t smoke in here,” Eames warned.
“Eat me,” she said with a puff of smoke. With her next drag, she did that weird thing where the smoke smoldered from her lips and went up her nose. She winked at the staring Cobb as she did it; he turned around and pushed his hands through his blond hair, pretended to be disinterested.
Silence fell in the room and lasted two hours.
In that time, Ariadne scribbled down a rough draft of her essay and then took a break from it, sitting back and pulling out her cell phone, which she’d snuck in because she refused to give it up--what if an emergency happened and she needed to call 911?--and on it she played the mazes game.
Eames had folded his paper into a football and flicked it around his desk until he got bored of that and then he unfolded the paper and spent time trying to make it lay flat again because he was so bored he was considering actually using the paper to write the stupid essay. But he ended up sitting back and staring at the ceiling, nodding off to sleep.
Cobb sat staring darkly into space for a while with a brooding expression darkening his blue eyes and then he attempted to work on his paper, got two lines and scratched them out and then started idly trying to balance the pencil upright on its eraser.
Mal smoked and stared at the back of Cobb’s head with a little grin, finished that cigarette and didn’t strike up another one, either out of consideration for the others or just because she didn’t feel like it--and started combing her fingers through her hair, piling all of her dark curls on top of her head and pushing them all forward in front of her face.
Arthur quietly finished his drawing and scratched dandruff down all over it to turn the scene into a wintertime one, though it wasn’t really appropriate for cold weather: a pickup truck with two nude figures in the back, lines of muscles and passion. He wadded it up and stuffed it in his pocket, glancing at Eames, before starting to sketch monsters and guns right onto the desk.
Browning came in at noon and snapped his fingers at Eames to wake him up, then at Arthur with a sharp command to stop vandalizing school property with graffiti. Everyone turned to look at him, most of them for the very first time all day. Mal looked proud. Cobb looked surprised that someone else was at that desk at all. Ariadne craned her neck to try and see what the graffiti was. Eames narrowed his eyes pensively at Arthur with a little frown of thought putting a crease between his eyebrows.
“Clean that off!” Browning was ordering Arthur. Arthur spat and rubbed and the graphite came right off the marble top. Browning sighed, defeated enough to let it lie.
“Ew,” Ariadne said under her breath. Cobb echoed the sentiment silently with a grimace but Eames and Mal snorted. Arthur didn’t care about Mal, but Eames’ snort made his heart race and he glanced at the cute jock, blushed, and kept his head down until no one was looking at him anymore, back to normal; Arthur breathed easier for it.
continued in part two of twenty ;-D