Fic: Unclaimed Luggage and Unscheduled Departures
So I went on vacation and I didn't finish the Lost fic (drat! someday!) but I did finish *something*, which is, uh, this. Still clunky in spots, but complete, which is saying a lot these days. Please don't read it if you haven't seen the movie Inception, it is spoilery.
Title: Unclaimed Luggage and Unscheduled Departures
Author: Psocoptera
Fandom: Inception
Characters/Pairings: mostly team gen, minor Arthur/Eames and Saito/Yusuf
Rating: R
Wordcount: 2135
Warnings: um... sorta deathfic? depending on how you look at it? {- highlight to read
***
Miles ushers Cobb away, and they all look on approvingly as he goes out through the revolving door.
***
"Um," Eames asks awhile later, "Does anyone - have arrangements - what I mean is…"
"I don't know," Arthur says. They're watching the bags circle and circle and circle.
***
"I have places to be," Saito tries. It's supposed to sound decisive, but it comes out as more of a question.
"Do you?" Ariadne asks. They frown at each other, unsure.
***
Yusuf goes up to each of the others. "Are we still at the airport? Are we still at the airport?"
"You sound like you're ten," Eames mocks, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"
"No, listen," Yusuf says very clearly, "I'm not whining. Are we still at the airport?"
"We're still at the airport," Arthur answers.
Yusuf nods slowly. "Why are we still at the airport?"
They watch the bags circle and circle and circle.
***
"Impossible," Arthur says.
"No," Saito says. "I know myself. My habits. I would not just wait so long. Always a car, a meeting."
"Well, I know myself," Arthur snaps, "And I would know if I wasn't me."
"Can we at least get out of baggage claim?" Eames interrupts. "If we're going to debate this further," he adds when they all look at him.
***
It's not a bad airport. There's a little food court on this side of security, donuts and sandwiches and clam chowder in bread bowls. They pull three of the little tables together and send Arthur to the donut counter for coffees.
"Asking the question preempts the answer," Yusuf is arguing when he gets back. "Projections don't introspect. No, I think I am dreaming and one of you was too lazy to build more than this terminal."
They all look at each other sidelong, quick suspicious glances.
"How would you know, though?" Ariadne asks. It sounds to Arthur like something she's said a couple of times already. "Have you ever asked one?"
"Draw attention?" Eames says. "No thanks, love."
"Then none of us are," she concludes, "Or the ones who were would be all over the dreamers after a conversation like this… right?"
"Or all of us," Saito says.
"That's Alice In Wonderland talk," Yusuf says. "Who is the dreamer, a butterfly?"
***
"I have habits," Saito says, "But no specifics. I have many assistants. They have no names."
"Huh," Ariadne says, looking at her hands. "I can't think of the name of where I went to school, I mean, before university. It wasn't very long ago, and I'm sure I know, I'm just drawing a blank all of a sudden."
"Tip-of-the-tongue," Arthur says, "Happens all the time, they study it, it doesn't mean - "
"Oh," Eames asks, "And where did you go to school?"
"Look," Arthur says, "We're just off an extraordinarily stressful and demanding job, of course we're all shaken. Saito - " his voice drops to an emphatic whisper - "there are very good reasons he's experiencing some memory loss, I'm surprised he's this coherent."
"But I can't think of anything," Ariadne says. "I mean, history of architecture 1850-present? Cold. But the normal stuff - favorite book, childhood pet, favorite color? Nothing."
Yusuf is looking increasingly panicked. Eames looks thoughtful.
"I'm not a teen magazine profile," Arthur says, "You don't have to be able to name a favorite color to be a real person."
"But," Ariadne says, "Anyone? Favorite color? Favorite food?"
"I like coffee," Eames says promptly.
"You're drinking coffee," Yusuf says, and tips his over; they watch the dregs run across the table and drip down to the floor.
***
Arthur keeps making aborted motions towards an inner pocket.
"Think about it," Eames says, "What would that actually tell you?"
***
"Cobb," Ariadne says.
"Fischer?" Eames asks.
"Cobb."
"Cobb."
"Cobb."
***
"I have no idea what to do with the information that I don't exist," Yusuf broods. "How can my actions have any moral weight?"
"You would not be the first person to conclude that the world is illusion," Saito points out.
"You sad-sacks are looking at this the wrong way," Eames announces. "We can't be sure how long he's been dreaming, but given the time ratio, we could have maybe a week before he wakes up and - poof."
"So?" Arthur asks.
"So what would you want to do if you only had a week to live?"
"What would you want to do?"
"Well, I wouldn't spend it at the fucking airport," Eames says. "I'm getting out of here."
***
Back in baggage claim, the conveyor belt is still circling with one lonely suitcase. Eames walks without flinching towards the revolving door. At the last second, Arthur almost puts out his hand.
Eames goes out.
He comes back in.
He goes around again.
He tries three more times before stomping out of the revolving door, stalking over to the conveyor belt, kicking it, and sitting down with a huff.
They all line up nervously just a smidge too close, hesitant to ask.
"Fucking lazy bastard," Eames finally says.
***
It's really a pretty nice airport. There are exhibits on loan from various local museums, an old biplane, an abstract angular marble sculpture, the skeleton of a giant sloth. Yusuf names it Dom and they take turns yelling at it when they need to. The passers-by look at them oddly but the crowd has been thinning out and there are fewer and fewer other people in the airport with them all the time. Ariadne finds it's made the line much shorter in the ladies'.
***
They try hedonism, of course. Arthur breaks them into a private lounge and Eames starts it, of course, but nobody's really hesitant. Yusuf is all precise fingers and Saito likes to lick and they only realize after the first round of orgasms that Ariadne is sitting in an armchair drawing Gaudiesque towers in a notebook and not naked at all.
***
"I really have no sexuality, guys, I'm sorry." Ariadne is sincere in her apology, but also getting tired of explaining.
"Bloody Cobb," Eames grumbles, "Couldn't imagine a girl wanting it same as a man?"
"Or maybe she's the answer to Mal," Arthur suggests, "And safer without, and what do you care anyways?" He is absolutely not pouting, but Eames grins and shrugs.
"I like variety," Eames says. "Guess I'll have to make do, eh?"
"We will try to keep you busy," Saito says, and he is a man of his word.
***
Ariadne is the first to leave her totem with Dom, the little bishop standing squarely between the sloth's feet like the sloth has reared up to guard it. When he spots it, Eames adds his poker chip; he couldn't say why but it feels right, somehow. Arthur is reluctant to relinquish his die, but finally he sets it on the poker chip, a trio of tiny offerings, as he sees it, at the feet of an indifferent idol.
***
They have luggage cart races up and down the halls. They eat a lot of donuts. They try democracy: they have a proper debate, does shared dreaming actually exist, at all, in the real world, or is the technology itself an aspect of Cobb's dream? Yusuf argues for, Eames against, and the other three vote and conclude that shared dreaming is totally real and Eames as the loser has to wear a dress from the orphaned suitcase, which they have long since appropriated, for the next three hours.
He actually looks pretty good.
***
"If he made us to help him," Ariadne asks, "Is there anything else we should be doing?"
"What, you mean, like, find more unresolved psychological issues we could explore and relieve for him? Yeesh."
Nobody looks like they're thinking that sounds like a good time.
"Besides," and this is Arthur, "It's not like he's around anyways. Gone off and left us."
"He could be watching. When he wakes up and tries to piece his dream together, this could all be a part."
"Not bloody likely. Not this. Oh… or that…"
Ariadne coughs and goes out walking again.
***
The terminal clears of travelers, then of airline personnel. Ariadne discovers that the security checkpoint has been abandoned and they walk through the silent metal detectors into the mysterious other half of the airport. It's a lot like theirs - same uncomfortable seating, nondescript doors hiding private pilots' lounges and stashes of cleaning supplies, a food court with pretzels and pizza and tacos. There's no bar - "I am absolutely positive," Eames says, "That every airport in the entire world has a bar, and this inexplicable tee-totalling is further proof that Cobb's a sadistic fuck" - and no one staffing anything, but they manage to get the deep-fryer working at the taco stand themselves and have fun chucking in pretzels, donuts, and Arthur's phone.
"I suppose I don't really need a phone," Arthur says sadly, but Ariadne finds him a walkie-talkie from one of the gates, and he takes to carrying that instead. (It just feels right, he tells Eames.) Ariadne loves the far side of the terminal - there are enormous windows everywhere, looking out at the runway, and she finds a fat black marker and starts drawing buildings on them, houses and towers she can imagine growing from the concrete landscape outside.
***
"So who do you think we are really?"
"We could be anybody. Not a team at all. Friends, family, brought in to fill these roles in the story."
"I bet I'm a movie star," Eames preens.
"I bet you're his high school math teacher," Yusuf counters.
"I am the inscrutable Asian," Saito says. The rest of them all look at each other uncertainly… he doesn't have even a hint of a smile… and then Ariadne starts to laugh, and Saito joins in.
***
Ariadne keeps drawing. Impossible Dr. Seuss curlicues, clean Bauhaus angles. Yusuf figures out which cleaning supplies they can huff in which order for a halfway-decent high. Saito starts teaching him to wrestle. They get distracted a lot.
***
"Ok," Eames says, "Ariadne, that's obvious, but what about this? Arthur and Eames, right? Art and Eames. Art and Aims. We're form and function!"
"You are reaching," Saito says, rolling his eyes.
"Wait," Ariadne says, "So he's form and you're - "
"Well, no, obviously not," Eames replies quickly, "They're backwards, it's ironic."
"So you're admitting I'm - "
"Oh, forget it!" Eames says, stomping off.
***
Arthur is bent over the counter, Eames' mouth right at his ear.
"You're both," he says hoarsely, rocking slowly into him, "All perfect function, and form, like a bloody work of art - "
Arthur spasms around him, shaking.
Ariadne turns from the windows to look, a quick benevolent nod. Yusuf squeezes Saito's hand. Not much longer now, they think.
***
"This is the last window," Ariadne announces. She's filled them with black-lined cityscapes, starkly modern and baroque and everything she can imagine. The four men walk along them, admiring, pointing things out to each other. There has never been a city like this.
"It's a story," Arthur says.
"It's beautiful," Saito says. There are tears in his eyes.
"I can't believe nobody will ever see this," Yusuf sighs.
"Maybe Cobb will see it," Eames suggests.
"I've seen it," Ariadne says, and smiles at the fat black marker she carries.
In the last, empty window, she signs her name with a flourish.
"So," she says, "It's time to go."
***
They pick a gate at random - it doesn't matter - and walk down the jetway. There's no plane at the end, just a ramp leading to open air, but there are stairs going down to the tarmac.
***
"I can't believe we never tried this."
"I think it had to be now."
***
"I feel like an idiot."
"Run faster?"
"Maybe you have to make the noise."
"What?"
"You know, vvvvvv."
"You mean rrrr-eee-NNNN?"
"Oh, I see…"
Ariadne runs a little further down the runway, head down, arms out, rrrrr, vvvvv, and she starts to glide between steps. She's pushing off now, more and more, vvvrrr, and then with one hard kick she's up into the air. "Wheeeee," she shouts, soaring up more like a kite now than a passenger jet.
"Oh!" Eames shouts, looking up after her, "Beautiful!" He reaches his fingertips out further, as far as he can, feeling the stretch in his shoulders, the pavement dropping away beneath his feet. Yusuf swoops from side to side as he runs and comes up still swinging; Arthur follows them with ankles neatly together, toes pointed. Saito takes off with his eyes closed, face lifted, pure rapture.
***
They fly. Ariadne in the lead, silhouetted above, the others a loose formation after. Weightless grace and motion.
***
The sun is bright in the blue sky and they go up and up and up.
***
Title: Unclaimed Luggage and Unscheduled Departures
Author: Psocoptera
Fandom: Inception
Characters/Pairings: mostly team gen, minor Arthur/Eames and Saito/Yusuf
Rating: R
Wordcount: 2135
Warnings: um... sorta deathfic? depending on how you look at it? {- highlight to read
***
Miles ushers Cobb away, and they all look on approvingly as he goes out through the revolving door.
***
"Um," Eames asks awhile later, "Does anyone - have arrangements - what I mean is…"
"I don't know," Arthur says. They're watching the bags circle and circle and circle.
***
"I have places to be," Saito tries. It's supposed to sound decisive, but it comes out as more of a question.
"Do you?" Ariadne asks. They frown at each other, unsure.
***
Yusuf goes up to each of the others. "Are we still at the airport? Are we still at the airport?"
"You sound like you're ten," Eames mocks, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"
"No, listen," Yusuf says very clearly, "I'm not whining. Are we still at the airport?"
"We're still at the airport," Arthur answers.
Yusuf nods slowly. "Why are we still at the airport?"
They watch the bags circle and circle and circle.
***
"Impossible," Arthur says.
"No," Saito says. "I know myself. My habits. I would not just wait so long. Always a car, a meeting."
"Well, I know myself," Arthur snaps, "And I would know if I wasn't me."
"Can we at least get out of baggage claim?" Eames interrupts. "If we're going to debate this further," he adds when they all look at him.
***
It's not a bad airport. There's a little food court on this side of security, donuts and sandwiches and clam chowder in bread bowls. They pull three of the little tables together and send Arthur to the donut counter for coffees.
"Asking the question preempts the answer," Yusuf is arguing when he gets back. "Projections don't introspect. No, I think I am dreaming and one of you was too lazy to build more than this terminal."
They all look at each other sidelong, quick suspicious glances.
"How would you know, though?" Ariadne asks. It sounds to Arthur like something she's said a couple of times already. "Have you ever asked one?"
"Draw attention?" Eames says. "No thanks, love."
"Then none of us are," she concludes, "Or the ones who were would be all over the dreamers after a conversation like this… right?"
"Or all of us," Saito says.
"That's Alice In Wonderland talk," Yusuf says. "Who is the dreamer, a butterfly?"
***
"I have habits," Saito says, "But no specifics. I have many assistants. They have no names."
"Huh," Ariadne says, looking at her hands. "I can't think of the name of where I went to school, I mean, before university. It wasn't very long ago, and I'm sure I know, I'm just drawing a blank all of a sudden."
"Tip-of-the-tongue," Arthur says, "Happens all the time, they study it, it doesn't mean - "
"Oh," Eames asks, "And where did you go to school?"
"Look," Arthur says, "We're just off an extraordinarily stressful and demanding job, of course we're all shaken. Saito - " his voice drops to an emphatic whisper - "there are very good reasons he's experiencing some memory loss, I'm surprised he's this coherent."
"But I can't think of anything," Ariadne says. "I mean, history of architecture 1850-present? Cold. But the normal stuff - favorite book, childhood pet, favorite color? Nothing."
Yusuf is looking increasingly panicked. Eames looks thoughtful.
"I'm not a teen magazine profile," Arthur says, "You don't have to be able to name a favorite color to be a real person."
"But," Ariadne says, "Anyone? Favorite color? Favorite food?"
"I like coffee," Eames says promptly.
"You're drinking coffee," Yusuf says, and tips his over; they watch the dregs run across the table and drip down to the floor.
***
Arthur keeps making aborted motions towards an inner pocket.
"Think about it," Eames says, "What would that actually tell you?"
***
"Cobb," Ariadne says.
"Fischer?" Eames asks.
"Cobb."
"Cobb."
"Cobb."
***
"I have no idea what to do with the information that I don't exist," Yusuf broods. "How can my actions have any moral weight?"
"You would not be the first person to conclude that the world is illusion," Saito points out.
"You sad-sacks are looking at this the wrong way," Eames announces. "We can't be sure how long he's been dreaming, but given the time ratio, we could have maybe a week before he wakes up and - poof."
"So?" Arthur asks.
"So what would you want to do if you only had a week to live?"
"What would you want to do?"
"Well, I wouldn't spend it at the fucking airport," Eames says. "I'm getting out of here."
***
Back in baggage claim, the conveyor belt is still circling with one lonely suitcase. Eames walks without flinching towards the revolving door. At the last second, Arthur almost puts out his hand.
Eames goes out.
He comes back in.
He goes around again.
He tries three more times before stomping out of the revolving door, stalking over to the conveyor belt, kicking it, and sitting down with a huff.
They all line up nervously just a smidge too close, hesitant to ask.
"Fucking lazy bastard," Eames finally says.
***
It's really a pretty nice airport. There are exhibits on loan from various local museums, an old biplane, an abstract angular marble sculpture, the skeleton of a giant sloth. Yusuf names it Dom and they take turns yelling at it when they need to. The passers-by look at them oddly but the crowd has been thinning out and there are fewer and fewer other people in the airport with them all the time. Ariadne finds it's made the line much shorter in the ladies'.
***
They try hedonism, of course. Arthur breaks them into a private lounge and Eames starts it, of course, but nobody's really hesitant. Yusuf is all precise fingers and Saito likes to lick and they only realize after the first round of orgasms that Ariadne is sitting in an armchair drawing Gaudiesque towers in a notebook and not naked at all.
***
"I really have no sexuality, guys, I'm sorry." Ariadne is sincere in her apology, but also getting tired of explaining.
"Bloody Cobb," Eames grumbles, "Couldn't imagine a girl wanting it same as a man?"
"Or maybe she's the answer to Mal," Arthur suggests, "And safer without, and what do you care anyways?" He is absolutely not pouting, but Eames grins and shrugs.
"I like variety," Eames says. "Guess I'll have to make do, eh?"
"We will try to keep you busy," Saito says, and he is a man of his word.
***
Ariadne is the first to leave her totem with Dom, the little bishop standing squarely between the sloth's feet like the sloth has reared up to guard it. When he spots it, Eames adds his poker chip; he couldn't say why but it feels right, somehow. Arthur is reluctant to relinquish his die, but finally he sets it on the poker chip, a trio of tiny offerings, as he sees it, at the feet of an indifferent idol.
***
They have luggage cart races up and down the halls. They eat a lot of donuts. They try democracy: they have a proper debate, does shared dreaming actually exist, at all, in the real world, or is the technology itself an aspect of Cobb's dream? Yusuf argues for, Eames against, and the other three vote and conclude that shared dreaming is totally real and Eames as the loser has to wear a dress from the orphaned suitcase, which they have long since appropriated, for the next three hours.
He actually looks pretty good.
***
"If he made us to help him," Ariadne asks, "Is there anything else we should be doing?"
"What, you mean, like, find more unresolved psychological issues we could explore and relieve for him? Yeesh."
Nobody looks like they're thinking that sounds like a good time.
"Besides," and this is Arthur, "It's not like he's around anyways. Gone off and left us."
"He could be watching. When he wakes up and tries to piece his dream together, this could all be a part."
"Not bloody likely. Not this. Oh… or that…"
Ariadne coughs and goes out walking again.
***
The terminal clears of travelers, then of airline personnel. Ariadne discovers that the security checkpoint has been abandoned and they walk through the silent metal detectors into the mysterious other half of the airport. It's a lot like theirs - same uncomfortable seating, nondescript doors hiding private pilots' lounges and stashes of cleaning supplies, a food court with pretzels and pizza and tacos. There's no bar - "I am absolutely positive," Eames says, "That every airport in the entire world has a bar, and this inexplicable tee-totalling is further proof that Cobb's a sadistic fuck" - and no one staffing anything, but they manage to get the deep-fryer working at the taco stand themselves and have fun chucking in pretzels, donuts, and Arthur's phone.
"I suppose I don't really need a phone," Arthur says sadly, but Ariadne finds him a walkie-talkie from one of the gates, and he takes to carrying that instead. (It just feels right, he tells Eames.) Ariadne loves the far side of the terminal - there are enormous windows everywhere, looking out at the runway, and she finds a fat black marker and starts drawing buildings on them, houses and towers she can imagine growing from the concrete landscape outside.
***
"So who do you think we are really?"
"We could be anybody. Not a team at all. Friends, family, brought in to fill these roles in the story."
"I bet I'm a movie star," Eames preens.
"I bet you're his high school math teacher," Yusuf counters.
"I am the inscrutable Asian," Saito says. The rest of them all look at each other uncertainly… he doesn't have even a hint of a smile… and then Ariadne starts to laugh, and Saito joins in.
***
Ariadne keeps drawing. Impossible Dr. Seuss curlicues, clean Bauhaus angles. Yusuf figures out which cleaning supplies they can huff in which order for a halfway-decent high. Saito starts teaching him to wrestle. They get distracted a lot.
***
"Ok," Eames says, "Ariadne, that's obvious, but what about this? Arthur and Eames, right? Art and Eames. Art and Aims. We're form and function!"
"You are reaching," Saito says, rolling his eyes.
"Wait," Ariadne says, "So he's form and you're - "
"Well, no, obviously not," Eames replies quickly, "They're backwards, it's ironic."
"So you're admitting I'm - "
"Oh, forget it!" Eames says, stomping off.
***
Arthur is bent over the counter, Eames' mouth right at his ear.
"You're both," he says hoarsely, rocking slowly into him, "All perfect function, and form, like a bloody work of art - "
Arthur spasms around him, shaking.
Ariadne turns from the windows to look, a quick benevolent nod. Yusuf squeezes Saito's hand. Not much longer now, they think.
***
"This is the last window," Ariadne announces. She's filled them with black-lined cityscapes, starkly modern and baroque and everything she can imagine. The four men walk along them, admiring, pointing things out to each other. There has never been a city like this.
"It's a story," Arthur says.
"It's beautiful," Saito says. There are tears in his eyes.
"I can't believe nobody will ever see this," Yusuf sighs.
"Maybe Cobb will see it," Eames suggests.
"I've seen it," Ariadne says, and smiles at the fat black marker she carries.
In the last, empty window, she signs her name with a flourish.
"So," she says, "It's time to go."
***
They pick a gate at random - it doesn't matter - and walk down the jetway. There's no plane at the end, just a ramp leading to open air, but there are stairs going down to the tarmac.
***
"I can't believe we never tried this."
"I think it had to be now."
***
"I feel like an idiot."
"Run faster?"
"Maybe you have to make the noise."
"What?"
"You know, vvvvvv."
"You mean rrrr-eee-NNNN?"
"Oh, I see…"
Ariadne runs a little further down the runway, head down, arms out, rrrrr, vvvvv, and she starts to glide between steps. She's pushing off now, more and more, vvvrrr, and then with one hard kick she's up into the air. "Wheeeee," she shouts, soaring up more like a kite now than a passenger jet.
"Oh!" Eames shouts, looking up after her, "Beautiful!" He reaches his fingertips out further, as far as he can, feeling the stretch in his shoulders, the pavement dropping away beneath his feet. Yusuf swoops from side to side as he runs and comes up still swinging; Arthur follows them with ankles neatly together, toes pointed. Saito takes off with his eyes closed, face lifted, pure rapture.
***
They fly. Ariadne in the lead, silhouetted above, the others a loose formation after. Weightless grace and motion.
***
The sun is bright in the blue sky and they go up and up and up.
***