Fic: Back to Back (PG-13)
title: Back to Back (not very imaginative, I know)
author: ilovetakahana
pairing: Arthur/Eames
characters: Arthur, Eames, Ariadne, Cobb
warnings: weapons. lots of weapons. a description of afterglow. some language. major violence.
disclaimer: I don't own the original story or the characters. Not making any profit, just playing in the sandbox.
summary: a fill for this prompt at inception_kink. OP, I hope this was to your liking.
"I never signed up for anything quite like this."
The dream level is falling into shambles, projections everywhere. Bang bang BANG go the guns, he has to reload his own weapon with his hands over his head to protect his eyes from flying everything.
It makes him feel just a little bit better that there's someone right at his back, breathing just as heavily. Going through another long set of self-loathing recriminations? God, he hoped not.
This mark was wily and cunning, a real match for the team. Of all the information they'd dug up on him, there was nothing to be said about a weaponized subconscious.
This was not to say that they decided to expect a cakewalk going in. In fact, the lack of information had made them so suspicious that Arthur, even Arthur, had come into the dream packing an entire arsenal into the greatcoat he wore over his impeccable three-piece suit.
Now that black cloth with gray pinstripes was suffering the brunt of a dust assault. Barely ten seconds into the dream and Ariadne had been kicked out, downed by a sniper shot into her forehead, blood a vivid red fan as she fell and vanished. He'd caught some of it on his crumpled blue shirt, and somehow he was thinking that brains and bone just did not go at all well with white flowers.
Here they were, Eames and Arthur, jammed back to back in some cramped little booth-space, eyes and hands moving as one to take out the spec-ops projections. For each goon that fell, two more swarmed in to take his place.
Anything, Eames thought with a mental growl, to create the right kind of distraction. Anything to allow Cobb just enough time to get to their mark's secrets. If it hadn't been for the extractor, they would have taken themselves out of the dream, and happily at that.
A lull in the shooting as all parties seemed to run out of ammo. Eames picked Arthur's pocket for a grenade, pulled out the pin, threw it at a clump of urban-camo'd grunts, ducked away from the shockwave, felt the other man's arms wrap protectively around him.
"Good throw, Eames."
"Thank you ever so much for carrying all that around, darling."
Arthur huffed a tiny laugh, dropped a lightning-fast kiss on the top of his head, grabbed Eames's wrist to look at his watch.
[His visible watch. There was another one, worn on a long chain around his neck. That one only worked in dreams.]
"We have ten more minutes till the kick," Arthur muttered, patting his pockets for another magazine. "Just a little longer."
"Cobb better move more quickly," he replied. "We're going to get slaughtered here in less than eight."
"I know. Time for us to go."
"On three: one, two, mark." And Eames dashed out of safety, the weapon in his hands now a flamethrower at full charge, taking out the soldiers sneaking towards them in the first seething swath.
Arthur was right behind him with a pair of massive Desert Eagle pistols, eyes swinging left and right, cutting down a mook with each rapid glance. Eames watched him out of the corner of his eye: drop, reload, fire again - rinse, repeat.
Seven minutes to go. Five. Three. And the adjacent office building blew its top right off, raining down huge chunks and wads of architectural stone.
"That's the signal!" Arthur yelled. "We're clear!"
Eames felt that voice travel through his back, into his chest. There they were, still back to back, standing on the rooftop's edge, surrounded on three sides by the faceless projections. Everyone was holding a weapon. He had switched out the flamethrower for a Mare's Leg; Arthur was down to a single Jericho 941.
Time to go home.
"Your turn today," Eames whispered - and whipped the Mare's Leg around to Arthur's temple, firing one booming shot.
And before the projections could react Eames threw down one final explosive charge, the timer already beeping frantically, and leapt off the building in a blast of flames.
***
Cobb closes his eyes tightly and nods to himself as he scribbles/talks out every bit of incriminating evidence he's found; Ariadne is standing over him, a small hand on his shoulder, listening to everything he says and remembering.
"We are unstoppable now," Eames had declared when they found out that Ariadne and Cobb had one thing in common: a viciously eidetic memory. "No one," he'd said, "is safe from the two of you."
And Arthur had grinned a little grin and chimed in, "Not even us."
Ariadne had simply batted her eyelashes and flipped them both off, to gales of laughter.
***
After, in their hotel room, Eames and Arthur lay tangled and sweating in the torn, twisted sheets.
"Remind me," the thief muttered into the hollow of the point man's neck, "to cheat the toss so it's always your turn to wake up first. I love it when you take charge like that."
Arthur wrapped his arms more snugly around Eames, kissed his eyelids and ripe, swollen mouth. "Cheat all you like," he answered, "so long as we get to stand back to back."
"Anything for you, pet."
author: ilovetakahana
pairing: Arthur/Eames
characters: Arthur, Eames, Ariadne, Cobb
warnings: weapons. lots of weapons. a description of afterglow. some language. major violence.
disclaimer: I don't own the original story or the characters. Not making any profit, just playing in the sandbox.
summary: a fill for this prompt at inception_kink. OP, I hope this was to your liking.
"I never signed up for anything quite like this."
The dream level is falling into shambles, projections everywhere. Bang bang BANG go the guns, he has to reload his own weapon with his hands over his head to protect his eyes from flying everything.
It makes him feel just a little bit better that there's someone right at his back, breathing just as heavily. Going through another long set of self-loathing recriminations? God, he hoped not.
This mark was wily and cunning, a real match for the team. Of all the information they'd dug up on him, there was nothing to be said about a weaponized subconscious.
This was not to say that they decided to expect a cakewalk going in. In fact, the lack of information had made them so suspicious that Arthur, even Arthur, had come into the dream packing an entire arsenal into the greatcoat he wore over his impeccable three-piece suit.
Now that black cloth with gray pinstripes was suffering the brunt of a dust assault. Barely ten seconds into the dream and Ariadne had been kicked out, downed by a sniper shot into her forehead, blood a vivid red fan as she fell and vanished. He'd caught some of it on his crumpled blue shirt, and somehow he was thinking that brains and bone just did not go at all well with white flowers.
Here they were, Eames and Arthur, jammed back to back in some cramped little booth-space, eyes and hands moving as one to take out the spec-ops projections. For each goon that fell, two more swarmed in to take his place.
Anything, Eames thought with a mental growl, to create the right kind of distraction. Anything to allow Cobb just enough time to get to their mark's secrets. If it hadn't been for the extractor, they would have taken themselves out of the dream, and happily at that.
A lull in the shooting as all parties seemed to run out of ammo. Eames picked Arthur's pocket for a grenade, pulled out the pin, threw it at a clump of urban-camo'd grunts, ducked away from the shockwave, felt the other man's arms wrap protectively around him.
"Good throw, Eames."
"Thank you ever so much for carrying all that around, darling."
Arthur huffed a tiny laugh, dropped a lightning-fast kiss on the top of his head, grabbed Eames's wrist to look at his watch.
[His visible watch. There was another one, worn on a long chain around his neck. That one only worked in dreams.]
"We have ten more minutes till the kick," Arthur muttered, patting his pockets for another magazine. "Just a little longer."
"Cobb better move more quickly," he replied. "We're going to get slaughtered here in less than eight."
"I know. Time for us to go."
"On three: one, two, mark." And Eames dashed out of safety, the weapon in his hands now a flamethrower at full charge, taking out the soldiers sneaking towards them in the first seething swath.
Arthur was right behind him with a pair of massive Desert Eagle pistols, eyes swinging left and right, cutting down a mook with each rapid glance. Eames watched him out of the corner of his eye: drop, reload, fire again - rinse, repeat.
Seven minutes to go. Five. Three. And the adjacent office building blew its top right off, raining down huge chunks and wads of architectural stone.
"That's the signal!" Arthur yelled. "We're clear!"
Eames felt that voice travel through his back, into his chest. There they were, still back to back, standing on the rooftop's edge, surrounded on three sides by the faceless projections. Everyone was holding a weapon. He had switched out the flamethrower for a Mare's Leg; Arthur was down to a single Jericho 941.
Time to go home.
"Your turn today," Eames whispered - and whipped the Mare's Leg around to Arthur's temple, firing one booming shot.
And before the projections could react Eames threw down one final explosive charge, the timer already beeping frantically, and leapt off the building in a blast of flames.
***
Cobb closes his eyes tightly and nods to himself as he scribbles/talks out every bit of incriminating evidence he's found; Ariadne is standing over him, a small hand on his shoulder, listening to everything he says and remembering.
"We are unstoppable now," Eames had declared when they found out that Ariadne and Cobb had one thing in common: a viciously eidetic memory. "No one," he'd said, "is safe from the two of you."
And Arthur had grinned a little grin and chimed in, "Not even us."
Ariadne had simply batted her eyelashes and flipped them both off, to gales of laughter.
***
After, in their hotel room, Eames and Arthur lay tangled and sweating in the torn, twisted sheets.
"Remind me," the thief muttered into the hollow of the point man's neck, "to cheat the toss so it's always your turn to wake up first. I love it when you take charge like that."
Arthur wrapped his arms more snugly around Eames, kissed his eyelids and ripe, swollen mouth. "Cheat all you like," he answered, "so long as we get to stand back to back."
"Anything for you, pet."