[love_bingo FIC] "Creation Mated to Destruction" (Inception, PG-13)
I wrote this fic in two legs, and while it spun itself out easily, it was hard to get the words onto the paper, due to the tremendous amount of weirdness involved. It's a different kind of Inception fic than I'm accustomed to writing, mostly because I'm writing from Mal's POV, and while I enjoyed the challenge that it offered, being insider her head was extremely uncomfortable, not a place I'm likely to revisit any time soon. I also wrote this on the supposition that Mal is quite literally haunting Cobb's mind, like a ghost...
Word Count: 843
Prompt: "Adultery"
Characters: Cobb, Mal, Ariadne; mild Mal/Cobb and alleged Cobb/Ariadne
WARNING: Violence, thematic material, general weirdness, obsessive behavior/stalking
Whether he slept or whether he was awake, Mal was always there, keeping watch. This man who had insulted her, taken her children from her, tried to kill her. Now he had wronged her.
She saw him with the girl before he knew his wife was there: she watched him sitting with the girl at a cafe, the same table they had favored when Dom was first courting her, back in the halcyon days when Dom was her father's eager student and she was his study partner. Now they had been apart for five years, five years without any divorce papers or starting the process for an annulment. And now she saw him with this dark-haired, mousy slip of a girl, hardly older than he was when they had first met.
She couldn't take it, but she couldn't approach them just yet. She had to be sure of what passed between them. Mal passed on, heading back to the hotel room she had been occupying since Dom's attempt on her life, to brood and plan and to list the possible places where she might find him with the girl. And to find a suitable weapon.
An hour later, she roamed the streets again, walking the city she had, quite literally, made her own. At length, she found them walking past a bookshop which she and Dom had frequented, he explaining the art of creating to the girl. Mal continued following them, watching what transpired between them.
The girl had intelligence and talent: she watched as the girl unfolded a footbridge over a busy roadway, then as she moved mirrored walls into place, turning an open plaza into a shaded arcade.
This could not go on. This girl, this child, was too good for him. He might be well and good as a mentor, but no more than that. The act of creation could not continue between him and this girl. It disgusted Mal, as much as if she had caught them entwined in the marriage bed she had shared with this man.
She had intended to confront Dom, but it was more worth her while to confront the girl. What did she hear Dom call the girl as he called out a warning to her, as the pedestrians started to converge around them? Ariadne. Fitting. The girl would likely end up like Ariadne did in the myth: her Theseus would leave her abandoned on a lonely island, while he defected with another woman. Just as Dom had done to her.
The crowd must have sensed her anger: they closed on the girl and on Dom, pulling on them, pummeling them, shoving them. Mal saw her opening and stepped out of the crowd, drawing the kitchen knife from her coat pocket and plunging it into the girl's belly. The girl screamed, begging to be awakened.
A moment later, Mal stood alone in the street, the intruder exorcised. For now. The next chance she got, she would confront the girl again, less ferociously, now that the boundaries had been set and she had established herself as alpha female. The girl needed to learn that the act of creation also implied that there were acts of destruction as well.
Her chance came again in due time. It could have been a week, it could have been a month, it could have been a day later. But she heard the door to her hotel room open, heard a footstep crunch on broken glass, the debris that Mal kept to remind Dom of his sins.
She expected to see Dom, as he sometimes came creeping back to her, like a dog to its master, expecting a kick or a caress, whichever came first. Times like that, she could not be angry, not completely, but now... now...
Instead of Dom, she looked back to spy the girl, looking around her, taking in the detritus littering the room, wary-eyed, as well she should be, like a young doe looking out for a predator. She rose, approaching the girl, asking her point blank, had she ever been a lover? Had she ever been half of the same whole? The look of confusion and the non-committal murmur that the girl managed to emit spoke volumes: the girl was innocent, a dupe. Dom hadn't made a move on her. Not yet, anyway. But give it time and she would. She would take the place of his wife, not just at his side as his work partner and his muse, but in his arms as well.
And he arrived, of course, the hero rescuing the girl from the monster in the depths of the labyrinth. Mal shrieked, lunging after them, like a tigress defending her young, claws coming up empty, as the elevator car whisked them away.
Still, she had achieved her goal: the look of remorse and nausea that had crossed Dom's face, moments before he and his little fool had vanished up the shaft had told volumes. He would be back. He would come back to her, tail between his legs, and in time, she would keep him down here with her, where he could never stray again.
Word Count: 843
Prompt: "Adultery"
Characters: Cobb, Mal, Ariadne; mild Mal/Cobb and alleged Cobb/Ariadne
WARNING: Violence, thematic material, general weirdness, obsessive behavior/stalking
Whether he slept or whether he was awake, Mal was always there, keeping watch. This man who had insulted her, taken her children from her, tried to kill her. Now he had wronged her.
She saw him with the girl before he knew his wife was there: she watched him sitting with the girl at a cafe, the same table they had favored when Dom was first courting her, back in the halcyon days when Dom was her father's eager student and she was his study partner. Now they had been apart for five years, five years without any divorce papers or starting the process for an annulment. And now she saw him with this dark-haired, mousy slip of a girl, hardly older than he was when they had first met.
She couldn't take it, but she couldn't approach them just yet. She had to be sure of what passed between them. Mal passed on, heading back to the hotel room she had been occupying since Dom's attempt on her life, to brood and plan and to list the possible places where she might find him with the girl. And to find a suitable weapon.
An hour later, she roamed the streets again, walking the city she had, quite literally, made her own. At length, she found them walking past a bookshop which she and Dom had frequented, he explaining the art of creating to the girl. Mal continued following them, watching what transpired between them.
The girl had intelligence and talent: she watched as the girl unfolded a footbridge over a busy roadway, then as she moved mirrored walls into place, turning an open plaza into a shaded arcade.
This could not go on. This girl, this child, was too good for him. He might be well and good as a mentor, but no more than that. The act of creation could not continue between him and this girl. It disgusted Mal, as much as if she had caught them entwined in the marriage bed she had shared with this man.
She had intended to confront Dom, but it was more worth her while to confront the girl. What did she hear Dom call the girl as he called out a warning to her, as the pedestrians started to converge around them? Ariadne. Fitting. The girl would likely end up like Ariadne did in the myth: her Theseus would leave her abandoned on a lonely island, while he defected with another woman. Just as Dom had done to her.
The crowd must have sensed her anger: they closed on the girl and on Dom, pulling on them, pummeling them, shoving them. Mal saw her opening and stepped out of the crowd, drawing the kitchen knife from her coat pocket and plunging it into the girl's belly. The girl screamed, begging to be awakened.
A moment later, Mal stood alone in the street, the intruder exorcised. For now. The next chance she got, she would confront the girl again, less ferociously, now that the boundaries had been set and she had established herself as alpha female. The girl needed to learn that the act of creation also implied that there were acts of destruction as well.
Her chance came again in due time. It could have been a week, it could have been a month, it could have been a day later. But she heard the door to her hotel room open, heard a footstep crunch on broken glass, the debris that Mal kept to remind Dom of his sins.
She expected to see Dom, as he sometimes came creeping back to her, like a dog to its master, expecting a kick or a caress, whichever came first. Times like that, she could not be angry, not completely, but now... now...
Instead of Dom, she looked back to spy the girl, looking around her, taking in the detritus littering the room, wary-eyed, as well she should be, like a young doe looking out for a predator. She rose, approaching the girl, asking her point blank, had she ever been a lover? Had she ever been half of the same whole? The look of confusion and the non-committal murmur that the girl managed to emit spoke volumes: the girl was innocent, a dupe. Dom hadn't made a move on her. Not yet, anyway. But give it time and she would. She would take the place of his wife, not just at his side as his work partner and his muse, but in his arms as well.
And he arrived, of course, the hero rescuing the girl from the monster in the depths of the labyrinth. Mal shrieked, lunging after them, like a tigress defending her young, claws coming up empty, as the elevator car whisked them away.
Still, she had achieved her goal: the look of remorse and nausea that had crossed Dom's face, moments before he and his little fool had vanished up the shaft had told volumes. He would be back. He would come back to her, tail between his legs, and in time, she would keep him down here with her, where he could never stray again.