Fic: Carrick (PG-13), Prologue
Title: Carrick
Subject: Inception
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The team approaches Cobb about their new line of work: 'Surfacing' coma patients by way of the DreamShare technology. Going under once more means confronting truths none of them are completely ready for.
Warnings: Spoilers for the movie, language, blah blah the usual.
Index
I own nothing but a handful of Inception ticket stubs and dog-eared poetry books. I wouldn't want to own Margaret Atwood or any of her ideas even if I was given the chance - she's too far beyond me and I adore her for that.
'Carrick' refers to two types of related knots. The Carrick mat is a decorative, intricate knot, and can be used to secure a woggle, which in turn is used to secure a scarf.
Prologue
I'm telling the wrong lies,
they are not even useful.
The right lies would at least be keys, they would open the door.
The door is closed; the chairs,
the tables, the steel bowl, myself
shaping bread in the kitchen, wait
outside it.
-i, Hesitations outside the door, Margaret Atwood
When she comes to, she's being dragged down a hallway, barely able to keep her footing under her as two men in black jumpsuits pull her along. Her mind frantically races through events that she can remember, panics when she can't and her arm is sore, as if she's been given a shot. It's like her mind is having spasms. Time didn't seem to be paced right - it's too fast at times - but it could be because of whatever they had given her. Her worst fears are confirmed when, with all the strength she can muster, she jerks a captured wrist a little closer to her own unfocused gaze and there are the bracelets peaking out under the cuff of her ragged shirt.
It was reality.
Ariadne tried to fight against the guards viciously, but they were too much taller than her and their strength is too much to overpower. Panic made her lungs hurt.
The room they dragged her to was cement, and cold. They easily tied her down to it, hands slipping over the decorated wrist, uncaring of what was there. Her mouth felt dry and there's the slightest taste of blood.
So they had drugged her and tortured her. She becomes compliant when she realizes that the cuts and bruises on her body only hurt in a vague manner. It's a dream, then. A horrific one, but a dream.
Dom is dragged in, the scraping of his feet echoing off of the cement walls. When he sees her tied to the chair, he struggles.
“Ariadne,” he says in a tone that trembles and breaks her heart a little more. His wild blue eyes are anguished. Despite his best attempts to leave all of this, he keeps finding himself back here.
“Dom, it's fine,” she whispers, because her voice is cracking. Her throat is throbbing, and she realizes that in reality, someone is forcing something down it. It's the feel of the oropharyngeal airway being inserted. Not good if she's not breathing up there. “This is a dream, okay? We just have to bide our time until the compound wears out.”
“We know you're Cobol,” says a calm voice from the doorway. There's a man in an immaculate dark blue suit in the doorway to the room. His sandy-blonde hair is slicked back, so smooth it could be the tip of a bullet. His face is clean shaven, and at the most he could be in his mid-twenties. There's a coldness to his blue eyes that makes her stomach spasm. “We know you have training,” the second Cobb continues.
Dom stares, first at his younger doppelganger and then his features contract into a pained one. “Stop,” he says in a tone that is a breath away from defeat. He knows this is his subconscious, and how strong it is.
“Mr. Charles,” Ariadne says in an even voice, acknowledging the younger man. “I've already gone over this with Dominic and he's aware of my background. Anything he is curious to find out, he understands I will explain for him.”
Mr. Charles walks smoothly over to her, stopping in front of a metal grate on the floor that had not been there a second before. It's his way of explaining that he doesn't care if this get's messy. Cement is easy to clean up with a little water and Coca Cola. He leans down and cups her face in a move that parodies intimacy.
“He might accept that, but we don't,” he whispers into her ear. Behind him, Dom yells. “You haven't told us everything, and we know it.”
Ariadne pulls her head back as far as she can. Her stony brown eyes meet his cobalt ones. “You know that torture isn't going to work on me. And you won't torture yourself. You cannot get the information you want out of me.”
The smile she receives is shark-like. “I beg to differ.” When he stands back up and takes a step to the side, there's a new doorway behind him. It's a rich, mahogany wood, with intricate stained glass. There are two hundred and seventy five pieces of glass in that door. She knows because it's the door to her house.
She cannot stop herself. As Mr. Charles strides over to the doorway, she screams, and screams, and screams.
A/N 2:
The tense shifts in this story are intentional. Dreams will be in present tense, while reality is in past tense (it's not supposed to have any deeper meaning, it just was an easy fix to the problem of making the setting obvious). Events from the past will be in italics.
This whole thing is canon compliant; just give it some time to be explained.
Updates won't be on any definite time schedule - my other fic is already two weeks behind in updating and I feel horrible about that.
Yes, Virginia, this is a Ariadne/Cobb story, but it will take it's time getting there.
Weird to ask, but what are people's thoughts on a music listing per chapter?