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inception2010-08-17 10:09 am
white_aster) wrote in inception2010-08-17 10:09 am
Inception Fics!
I am playing a personal game of Worst Case Scenario Bingo courtesy of the lovely ciceqi, and the Inception folks totally said that they could hook me up. So, my card is here!
This started out as being drabbles. Then Saito entered the mix and his wife turned into awesome, and then there were fic-type things. So, to save my sanity, I post everything in one post! \o/
Title: Training (AKA how to buy a gun)
Characters: Arthur, Ariadne
Rating: PG
Warnings: Guns
Ariadne eyed the array of weaponry on the counter doubtfully. Some of it she could vaguely recognize from movies. Some of it looked like she'd be able to handle. Some of it she doubted she'd even be able to lift. Was that a rocket launcher? "Is this really necessary?"
"Yes." Arthur's voice was firm, no compromise in sight. "If you're going to go in with us, you have to be able to defend yourself."
"But you all have been saying that Fischer's projections shouldn't be that violent--"
Arthur held up a finger. "True, but projections can still turn on invaders. As you've already seen."
Ariadne winced and rubbed her stomach.
"If you're going to work in the dream world, you need to expect the unexpected. We have three levels to get through, each more unstable than the last. With this many people on the team, we compound the chances of one of us inadvertently drawing attention. Anything can happen." Arthur turned to the counter, selecting one of the handguns. He squinted at her hands for some reason, then put it back and selected another, smaller one. He tilted her a wry look. "Besides, look at it as a trial run, if you ever have to buy a gun in real life."
God forbid, she thought. Ariadne sighed. "All right. So what do I do?"
Arthur smiled. It was his cute "boy next door" smile, but she was learning not to trust that smile. Especially when it was wielded by a man who probably could use every weapon in here. "Right now, try holding guns. None of them are loaded. We're looking for something that can fit comfortably in your hand." He held up the gun in his hand, a short-barreled revolver. "This is a .38 Special." He turned it around, presenting her with the butt. "Try it on for size."
Ariadne sighed again and took it, awkwardly. Even the fact that it wasn't loaded couldn't break the sense that the thing was deadly, heavy, final. As much as her French friends teased her about Americans and guns, she'd never liked them. She really hoped that she'd never have to use it, in a dream or not, but she dutifully accepted Arthur's adjustments as he showed her how to hold it, then gave her a few others to try, then loaded them and asked her about weight, then moved her to the firing range and had her fire each of them in turn. The recoil blasted up her arms on all of them, but she calmed her breathing enough to choose one over the others: a Kel-Tec P3AT 9mm that struck the best balance between something light and something that fit into her hand.
"Good," Arthur said, leaning against the counter. He handed her another clip and nodded in approval as she reloaded the way he'd taught her. "Why don't you practice a bit more, then we'll try some training."
Oh, she didn't like the sound of that. "Training?"
"Yes. We'll move to a different spot and see how you deal with some of my projections."
Ariadne nearly dropped the gun. "You want me to kill your projections?"
She regretted the incredulous tone as Arthur's eyebrow quirked up slightly in the "don't be ridiculous" look he usually reserved for Eames. "That is the whole point. They're not real, remember. But you have to get used to shooting something that looks human. Otherwise you might hesitate at a crucial moment."
Ariadne breathed in deep. "Right." She took up the shooter's stance he'd shown her, aiming at the paper target down the firing lane, trying to imagine that it was a person. "I just...." She couldn't find the words and instead emptied the clip, one bullet after another. About half of them hit the target. One even managed to hit the head, though that was more accident than skill.
"Just?" Arthur asked, when she was done.
Ariadne frowned. "I don't know if I want to be able to pull the trigger on something that looks like a person. I know the projections aren't real, but... I can't help but think it'll make me more able to shoot at a real person, in real life. Doesn't this...desensitize, I think they call it? "
Arthur didn't answer, and Ariadne finally looked over at him. The look on his face was complicated, unreadable. Finally, he said, quietly, reluctantly, as if he wasn't sure he wanted to answer. "Yes. It does."
She almost wished she hadn't asked.
Title: Bedside Manner
Characters: Arthur, Eames
Rating: PG
Warnings: Blood
"How bad is it?"
Arthur did something horribly painful that Eames hoped was just pulling his blood-soaked shirt away from his skin. "I can see the exit wound. It went right through."
"Lovely," Eames said, stifling an embarrassing noise as Arthur jostled his arm again. "How much time do we have?"
Arthur didn't even need to look at his watch. "Eight minutes." He tugged off his necktie, and that was an odd enough gesture that Eames forgot about the bullet wound for a moment. He remembered right quick as Arthur used the tie for a tourniquet, tying it in an excrutiatingly tight knot above the wound in Eames' bicep.
Eames focussed on looking down Arthur's undone collar to distract him from the pain. "Thought...fuck...tourniquets had fallen out of style...."
"They have. Do more damage, most times." One final knot, and Arthur sat back on his heels, scooping up his gun from the floor and helping Eames back to his feet. Eames' world tilted just a bit, but blood was no longer dripping down his arm. "But it's not as if we'll need to worry about necrosing limbs in eight minutes. And there's a lot of projections left to distract, so you don't get to check out of this job early, Mr. Eames."
Eames bared his teeth in something like a grin. "So very practical, darling. It's one of the things I love about you. That and your excellent bedside manner."
"Good to know. Now go stick your head over that balcony and see if anyone shoots at you."
Title: Five Times Tsuyoshi Saito Encountered His Future Wife (AKA free space AKA how to seduce someone)
Characters: Saito, OFC
Rating: PG
Warnings: Description of violence, woob, and inability to cook.
1. The Time He Heard About Watanabe's Daughter
"Anything else?" he asked at the close of a Monday morning meeting.
Minato shuffled his papers, squinting through his glasses at his own spidery handwriting. "Nothing major. Though there is some movement around the Yamaguchi-gumi. All internal, nothing to worry about. One of the bosses, Ogino Hiroshi, decided to make a power play and had a rival's daughter kidnapped as she was leaving a party."
Saito shook his head. He'd heard of Ogino. Not the brightest man in the family. Sometimes he feared for the future of Japan, with as many idiots as there seemed to be about. He sighed. "How messy did it get?"
"Surprisingly, not very." Minato sat back, folding his fingers over his stomach. "Two hours after the kidnapping, the daughter called her father and said she needed to be picked up. When his people found her, she was calmly sitting outside a warehouse, still in her dress, with four dead kidnappers inside. She'd evidently killed one man by stabbing him through the eye with the heel of her shoe, took his gun, then shot the rest as they tried to subdue her."
The room was dead silent for a long moment, then Tatsuya guffawed from the end of the table, snerking that obviously Ogino needed to recruit a better class of thug if they couldn't deal with one girl.
Saito personally thought that the girl's success might have more to do with her willingness to shove a high heel into a man's brain than the thug's skills, but he didn't say so.
Later, in private, he asked Minato about her. Minato raised an eyebrow but brought him the file. Watanabe Misaki, 21 years old, daughter of Watanabe Ryosuke, recently graduated from college with a degree in journalism and due to start a job with the Japan Times the next month. Minato asked dryly if Saito-san would also like her blood type. Saito expressed equally dry disappointment that such information was not already in her file, and Minato bowed deep enough to be mocking and promised to remedy this immediately, Saito-san.
------
2. The Time He Brought Her Flowers
On their first official meeting (in public and properly chaperoned, of course), he brought her roses.
Watanabe Misaki was a lovely young woman, with shoulder-length hair fashionably cut, a trim figure in a simple light blue dress and stole, and bright brown eyes that watched everything. Her shoes, he noticed, were sensible for a stroll in the park and had no heel to speak of.
Her face fell a bit at the sight of the roses, her smile a touch forced. Given her name, he imagined that she'd had a lot of potential suitors bring them for her.
"Ah. Thank you," she said politely, leaning back slightly. "Unfortunately, I am allergic to flowers, Saito-san. I would take them, but I doubt you'd want me to be sneezing all through our walk."
He smiled. "Fortunately, then, these flowers will be kinder to you." He broke off a leaf with a sharp crack by way of explanation.
She stepped forward, peering closer and reaching out curiously. Her perfume was light, vanilla and musk. She traced one finger along a pink petal and laughed. "Is it...?"
"Candy, yes. I had heard that you were allergic to flowers, but I thought it rude to bring you nothing, Misaki-san."
She looked up at him, and that close he could see the slight smile quirk one corner of her mouth. "I see. You've done your homework, then, Saito-san?"
"Tsuyoshi, please. And I certainly tried, yes."
"Really?" He could see her relax slightly, taking the sugar roses carefully, though her eyes were on him, direct and measuring. Challenging. "How interesting."
As they walked, they determined that the roses were so sickeningly sweet as to be nearly inedible. Mischievously ("With your permission, of course, Tsuyoshi-san"), Misaki left them with a group of children who devoured them like starving wolves before their mother could make it across the playground to scold them. Saito chuckled at the mother's stern frown as they walked away.
--------
3. The Time They Almost Burned Down the Building During a Blizzard
Misaki looked mournfully out the window. "We're not making it to the restaurant, are we?"
Saito peered over her shoulder. The cars outside, including his, were covered in snow, the opposite side of the street obscured by a curtain of white. "I suppose not. It really doesn't look safe."
She sighed, letting the curtain fall back. "And I was so looking forward to dinner."
Saito, for his part, had been looking forward to showing her off in that tight black dress, but the game of sexual tension they'd been playing was too subtle for him to say so. "We could order in?" he suggested.
She looked outside doubtfully, and he said, "Ah. We can try to order in, then?"
A half an hour later, when every restaurant around had either not picked up or laughed at the idea of going out in the storm, the two of them were left to peer at the contents of Misaki's mostly-empty cupboards. "You," Saito said, "don't cook, do you?"
Misaki tilted a smile over at him. "Do you?"
"Of course not. That's what cooks are for."
"Exactly."
"I notice that we are distinctly cookless, though."
Misaki shrugged. "Hana had a family emergency. Sick sister. She left me some things to heat up, but I had the last for lunch, and was expecting to go out to dinner tonight...." She poked about in the cupboard a bit more and laughed, pulling out several containers of instant ramen. "I forgot I had these. I loved them when I was a kid." She shook one in Saito's direction enticingly.
Saito made a face. "Surely we can do better. There is rice. There is chicken in the freezer. There are eggs. There is..." he waved a hand at another cupboard. "...every spice known to man."
Misaki's smile was amused. "Feeling ambitious, are you?"
"It is cooking, not rocket science. We are two highly intelligent people. Surely we can figure this out."
Two hours later, as Saito considered shooting the smoke alarm and cracked open the window to let the blizzard wind swirl the smoke away, Misaki sat down at the kitchen table and laughed and laughed. Saito leaned against the window, watching her, and felt his irritation melt away.
"So," Misaki said, wiping her eyes. "Ramen?"
He held up his hands, admitting defeat. "Ramen."
Dinner was not only ramen, but also the two bottles of sake that Misaki had in her pantry. When the power went out, the television flickering dark and silent on its warnings about weather emergencies and record snowfall, Misaki dragged blankets and pillows out of a closet for him. The idea had been that he would sleep on the couch and she in the bed, but somehow instead they ended up both on the couch, Misaki passed out and curled into his side. Saito remembered tucking the blankets in around her, then nothing more until morning crashed into his head with a hammer of sunlight and the jangle of keys in the door. Misaki's cook returned to find the two of them cocooned in blankets on the couch, both still fully clothed for their aborted night out.
Saito waved over Misaki's still-sleeping head. Hana shook her head fondly and headed for the kitchen. Saito considered warning her about the mess they'd left but figured that she'd find it soon enough.
---------
4. The Time He Was Actually Nervous
The restaurant was exquisite. The dinner was superb. The weather was cool and clear, the moon hanging like a lantern over the sea.
She was suspicious. He could tell by the quirk to her smile. She probably knew. He would have been disappointed in her if she had not known. Somehow knowing that she knew didn't make this any easier.
He took a deep breath. "Misaki-san," he said, turning, and the moonlight falling over her face, shadowing her eyes and highlighting the curve of her smile, made the rest of the sentence catch in his throat.
"Yes," she said. It wasn't a question. She squeezed his hand, taking his other and pulling him closer, so he could feel the warmth of her breath as she whispered against his lips, "Yes."
"Oh, good," he murmured.
Her mouth tasted of chocolate and her delighted laughter of wine.
----------
5. The Time They Discussed the Prenuptial Agreement
"You don't really expect me to be a virgin, do you?"
Saito coughed. She had deliberately waited until he was drinking, he was positive of it. That little smile betrayed her. He coughed again. "Do I...." He stopped. Did he? He couldn't imagine Misaki not doing whatever she wanted whenever she wanted and propriety be damned. But...would he offend her if he said no?
She chuckled behind her tea, eyes crinkling. "Don't look like that. It's not a trick question."
"It does not matter," he said. Which didn't answer the question, and the lift of her eyebrow said that she knew it. He reached out, his hand brushing hers on the table. "I want you."
She smiled, and he knew that that had been the right answer.
Still, there was some justice to be had here. He waited until she sipped again. "Do we expect each other to be faithful?"
Misaki raised an eyebrow at him. Which wasn't as good as inhaling her tea, but he could only have hoped for such a dramatic response. She put down her cup. "That depends," she said, "entirely on what you mean by being faithful."
"Perhaps we need a definition, then," he suggested.
"My thought exactly." She sat back, the toe of her pump tapping against the table leg. "I don't expect monogamy...but I do expect that you give me and our children every due respect. I expect you to keep any extra-curricular activities...discreet."
Saito breathed a little easier. Misaki was the most frighteningly attractive and compatible woman he'd ever met on several accounts. He didn't want to disappoint her, but he knew himself and his desires too well to think that he wouldn't, should she demand too much. "Of course," he said. "Fun is one thing. Family is quite another."
She nodded, apparently satisfied. She reclaimed her tea. "Also, I expect them to pass your background check and mine."
Saito couldn't help a fond smile. "Watching my back, Misaki-san?"
She smiled back. "Of course, Tsuyoshi-san. We will be married. What kind of wife would I be if I didn't make sure your lovers are trustworthy?"
"I will appreciate your efforts on my part."
"Of course," she sniffed, sipping again. "I expect that you will do the same for me."
His chopsticks paused halfway to his mouth. "Of course," he said. "Only the best lovers for my wife."
Her smile turned positively catlike.
Title: Not Just a Tourist (AKA how to take a punch)
Characters: Arthur, Eames, Saito
Rating: PG
Warnings: Arthur being evil, Eames being too clever for his own good, Saito being awesome.
Eames considered himself a suspicious man. Reasonable, but suspicious. He'd seen and replicated too much of human nature to trust anyone out of the box, so to speak.
"So what do you know about Saito?" he asked Arthur one evening, when the warehouse was quiet and Saito was off doing whatever it was that billionaires did.
Arthur looked up from contemplating his little black notebook. "What do you want to know?"
Eames pulled a chair over to the desk Arthur had claimed. He straddled the chair and started poking around in one of the neat piles of paper that Arthur had constructed like ramparts. "He's awfully insistent on coming along. Just seems odd, is all."
Arthur shrugged. "He wants to make sure we do the job and stop that, I won't be able to find anything."
Eames waved a hand and moved on to a stack of photographs. "Of course that's what he says, but this is a complicated job, little room for error, blah blah. He knows that, and he's not stupid. He knows that having to bring along someone not trained is asking for trouble, yet he's pushing the issue anyway. I'm missing something, and that makes me nervous. I don't like being nervous, darling. Lend me your wisdom."
"I usually charge for information, you know," Arthur said, smiling.
"My sexual favors are yours for the asking, as always."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "What you're missing is that he's not untrained."
Eames stopped poking. "He's not."
"He's not. His degrees are in business and civil engineering. He was hired straight out of college by a construction firm that for awhile couldn't decide if they wanted to use him on the business end or as an extractor. They trained him as an architect, but he eventually impressed the higher-ups so much that they put him on the corporate ladder instead."
"Well," Eames said, tilting back his head to look up at the ceiling. Something fluttered up in the rafters. "Well, well, well, that explains a few things. Still. Cobb keeps positioning him as backup. I like to know just what kind of skills are backing me up." He grinned. "Maybe we could have a little friendly spar."
Arthur just looked at him, his expression clearly lamenting that he couldn't take Eames anywhere. "Eames. Might I remind you that Mr. Saito is our employer and perhaps not the best man to pick a fight with?"
"I know! I'm not going to offend the man, merely...get to know him." He waved a magnanimous hand. "I'll let you know what I learn."
Arthur's lips twitched, and he opened his mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it. "Fine," he said. "You do that."
----
The next time Saito showed up to check in, Cobb suggested that Ariadne show Saito the finalized Level 1. As she was arse-deep in designing Level 2, elbows-deep in Level 3 (where Eames had a very personal interest in her not doing a rush job), and starting to show the whites around her eyes, Eames laid a hand on her shoulder. "I'll do it. I know you're busy, love."
Ariadne twisted around to look at him. "You're sure you've got it well enough to--"
Eames nodded. "I wandered the place last time you showed us about. I've got it. Very clever, by the way, how you constructed the streets like the outline of Arthur's favorite staircase."
She smiled. "Thanks." She looked over at Saito. "Is that all right with you?"
Saito spread his hands, smiling slightly. "If Mr. Eames wants to play tour guide, who am I to refuse?"
Eames grinned and bowed, arm sweeping out to the lawn chairs. "Right this way, sir."
----
Eames put them in an actual tour bus purely to be a smart ass. Saito just laughed and climbed up to the open top to get the best view.
It was a pleasant enough ride, with the sun indistinct but warm and a rather nice breeze. Finally, Saito nodded, pointing. "And this just links back up with the plaza."
"Got it in one."
Saito nodded, standing. "I see." The bus trundled to a stop, and the two of them got off near the edge of the great paved plaza along the river's edge. "The buildings are functional?" Saito asked as they crossed the plaza, nodding his chin at the ever-present rows of gray stone across the street.
"Oh yes. Virtually the same layout in them all, practically a run straight through, stairs up, all that. The upper levels all have fire escapes on the back sides that go back down to the street. Hopefully unnecessary, but perfectly useful in an emergency."
Saito nodded. "I see. Very impressive."
"That's Ariadne, all right. Impressive is her bread and butter." Eames leaned back against the railing separating the plaza from the park. There were a few projections about, but they kept their distance. Eames waited through the appropriate pause before changing the subject. "Might I ask you a question, Mr. Saito?"
Saito turned from examining one of the statues in the plaza. "Of course."
"Why exactly do you want so badly to come along?"
Oh, that was a sly smile, that was. "I already told you. I like to know that I will get what I pay for." The smile widened as Eames chuckled and shook his head. "You don't believe me?"
"I don't think that that's the whole story, no."
Saito leaned against the railing, looking out over the water that disappeared into an indistinct horizon. "You don't trust me, do you, Mr. Eames?"
"Do I strike you as a terribly trusting man?"
"No. You strike me as a very practical man."
"Then you are a keen judge of character, Mr. Saito."
Saito chuckled. "As are you, Mr. Eames."
"All part of the job description."
Saito smiled. "Yes, I know." He paused, and Eames let the silence grow to see what would come of it. "I am not a novice to extraction, Mr. Eames. When I had to make the choice, I chose business, but I have never forgotten the feeling of walking streets I designed myself, nor the thrill of success." He turned to look at Eames, his smile no longer sly, but something more akin to what Eames saw in the mirror every now and then. "Besides. I have asked you for the impossible. Can you blame me for wanting to witness it up close?"
Eames chuckled. "No. That I can't. Though I'd hate for things to get ugly down there and you to get popped back out and miss all the fun."
Saito's smile involved a lot of teeth. "Afraid that I won't be able to defend myself, Mr. Eames?"
Ah, just the opening he was hoping for. Now a bit of a needle.... "Oh, you said it, not me, Mr. Saito."
Saito looked at his watch, then at the perfect expanse of green grass in the park. "Perhaps you'd like a demonstration of how well I can defend myself?"
Eames grinned, shrugging out of his jacket as they headed over to the lawn. "Why not?"
It was only when Saito rolled up his sleeves and Eames saw the tattoos (beautiful full-sleeve work, and Eames had never seen anything that could compare to the colors of the traditional Japanese tattoos) that he began to wonder if he'd gotten himself in trouble.
Saito just smiled, took up a stance that was much more "street punk" than "karate master", and beckoned.
----
Ten minutes later, Eames woke gasping, bowed with the feel of Saito's fist in his belly, adrenaline still spiking through him from trying to scramble away from its fellows. Eames knew all the tricks in how to take a punch, but there was taking a punch and then there was being a punching bag, and he'd been leaning embarrassingly towards the latter for most of the fight.
Across from him, Saito looked insufferably smug.
Eames coughed, feeling like he had to relearn how to breathe. "Point taken. Excuse me."
He pulled out the IV, forced a deep breath, and headed for Arthur's desk. "Arthur, darling."
The ramparts were a bit higher this time. "...yes?"
"Did you know about all the lovely inkwork that Saito is hiding underneath those suits?"
Arthur's mouth twitched in a suppressed smile, the little bastard. "Not specifically, no."
"Arthur, love, pet, is Mr. Saito yakuza?"
Arthur looked up from his printouts as if Eames was being a little slow. "Of course. He's in construction in Japan. He's been one of the Sumiyoshi-kai's regional bosses for five years."
Eames rubbed his face. "And you didn't see fit to bloody warn me?"
Arthur held up a finger. "I did warn you not to pick a fight with him."
"Arthur, darling, you couldn't have been a bit more explicit about it? 'Eames, don't pick on the yakuza boss' or perhaps, 'Eames, Saito fights like a man half his age and is a fast bastard besides....' "
"I could have," Arthur said, flipping a page. "But I was kind of hoping you'd challenge him in reality and I'd get to watch him kick your ass around the warehouse floor."
"You are an evil, evil man. I am very proud."
Arthur just smiled.
Yusuf called from across the warehouse, "New formula! I need a guinea pig! Anyone not been under in 24 hours?"
Arthur sighed and called over, "I'll do it!" He stretched as he stood, and Eames said to Arthur's navel, "I will have my revenge, darling."
"I'll pencil it in," Arthur called as he walked away.
Eames smirked and followed. He knew what Yusuf had been working on lately. If Arthur was going to get dumped onto the floor repeatedly, Eames wanted to have a front row seat.
Title: Sufficient Determination (AKA how to have sex in a small space)
Characters: Arthur, Eames
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Innuendo, misuse of instant messaging, Eames being bored
Arthur always made it a point to not book Eames in the seat right next to him, should they have to travel on the same flight. He'd learned this lesson the hard way, after a very long transatlantic flight which had come within a hair of ending with Arthur going to jail for murdering his seatmate for the crime of insufficient personal space and excessive snoring. Not to mention stealing Arthur's wallet. Twice.
Thus, now he always booked Eames as far from his own seat as humanly possible. This worked much better, so long as Eames either didn't bring his computer or Arthur kept his smartphone turned off.
This particular flight, it was Arthur's misfortune to be waiting for confirmation about a job.
After the fifth IM elaborating on a particularly implausible scenario involving sex in the plane's lavatory, Arthur finally replied (out of boredom, he assured himself, purely out of boredom).
Oh please. Have you SEEN the bathrooms? I wouldn't want to touch anything in there.
Two words: complimentary blankets.
...that's disgusting.
But effective!
Besides, you can barely fit ONE person in there, let alone two.
There's enough space for a good shag. There's ALWAYS enough space for a good shag.
That seems unlikely.
That sounds like a challenge.
It's not.
Oh, I think it is. Honestly, darling, imagination. Determination. And flexibility. Definitely flexibility. ;P
...do not emoticon at me.
:(
I've never seen the point. Why have sex in an uncomfortable and disgusting place?
Why do anything? Because you can.
Not reason enough.
For you, maybe.
Arthur?
Are you ignoring me?
...honestly, THAT didn't piss you off, did it?
Not even close. I, unlike others, am doing work.
Anything titillating? Hear back about the Brazil job?
Yes. Sending.
....oh DARLING, I DO owe you sexual favors.
As long as they don't involve an airplane bathroom.
Of course not. For that much money you at least deserve a stall in the airport when we land.
:logs off:
:(
ciceqi, and the Inception folks totally said that they could hook me up. So, my card is here!
This started out as being drabbles. Then Saito entered the mix and his wife turned into awesome, and then there were fic-type things. So, to save my sanity, I post everything in one post! \o/
Title: Training (AKA how to buy a gun)
Characters: Arthur, Ariadne
Rating: PG
Warnings: Guns
Ariadne eyed the array of weaponry on the counter doubtfully. Some of it she could vaguely recognize from movies. Some of it looked like she'd be able to handle. Some of it she doubted she'd even be able to lift. Was that a rocket launcher? "Is this really necessary?"
"Yes." Arthur's voice was firm, no compromise in sight. "If you're going to go in with us, you have to be able to defend yourself."
"But you all have been saying that Fischer's projections shouldn't be that violent--"
Arthur held up a finger. "True, but projections can still turn on invaders. As you've already seen."
Ariadne winced and rubbed her stomach.
"If you're going to work in the dream world, you need to expect the unexpected. We have three levels to get through, each more unstable than the last. With this many people on the team, we compound the chances of one of us inadvertently drawing attention. Anything can happen." Arthur turned to the counter, selecting one of the handguns. He squinted at her hands for some reason, then put it back and selected another, smaller one. He tilted her a wry look. "Besides, look at it as a trial run, if you ever have to buy a gun in real life."
God forbid, she thought. Ariadne sighed. "All right. So what do I do?"
Arthur smiled. It was his cute "boy next door" smile, but she was learning not to trust that smile. Especially when it was wielded by a man who probably could use every weapon in here. "Right now, try holding guns. None of them are loaded. We're looking for something that can fit comfortably in your hand." He held up the gun in his hand, a short-barreled revolver. "This is a .38 Special." He turned it around, presenting her with the butt. "Try it on for size."
Ariadne sighed again and took it, awkwardly. Even the fact that it wasn't loaded couldn't break the sense that the thing was deadly, heavy, final. As much as her French friends teased her about Americans and guns, she'd never liked them. She really hoped that she'd never have to use it, in a dream or not, but she dutifully accepted Arthur's adjustments as he showed her how to hold it, then gave her a few others to try, then loaded them and asked her about weight, then moved her to the firing range and had her fire each of them in turn. The recoil blasted up her arms on all of them, but she calmed her breathing enough to choose one over the others: a Kel-Tec P3AT 9mm that struck the best balance between something light and something that fit into her hand.
"Good," Arthur said, leaning against the counter. He handed her another clip and nodded in approval as she reloaded the way he'd taught her. "Why don't you practice a bit more, then we'll try some training."
Oh, she didn't like the sound of that. "Training?"
"Yes. We'll move to a different spot and see how you deal with some of my projections."
Ariadne nearly dropped the gun. "You want me to kill your projections?"
She regretted the incredulous tone as Arthur's eyebrow quirked up slightly in the "don't be ridiculous" look he usually reserved for Eames. "That is the whole point. They're not real, remember. But you have to get used to shooting something that looks human. Otherwise you might hesitate at a crucial moment."
Ariadne breathed in deep. "Right." She took up the shooter's stance he'd shown her, aiming at the paper target down the firing lane, trying to imagine that it was a person. "I just...." She couldn't find the words and instead emptied the clip, one bullet after another. About half of them hit the target. One even managed to hit the head, though that was more accident than skill.
"Just?" Arthur asked, when she was done.
Ariadne frowned. "I don't know if I want to be able to pull the trigger on something that looks like a person. I know the projections aren't real, but... I can't help but think it'll make me more able to shoot at a real person, in real life. Doesn't this...desensitize, I think they call it? "
Arthur didn't answer, and Ariadne finally looked over at him. The look on his face was complicated, unreadable. Finally, he said, quietly, reluctantly, as if he wasn't sure he wanted to answer. "Yes. It does."
She almost wished she hadn't asked.
Title: Bedside Manner
Characters: Arthur, Eames
Rating: PG
Warnings: Blood
"How bad is it?"
Arthur did something horribly painful that Eames hoped was just pulling his blood-soaked shirt away from his skin. "I can see the exit wound. It went right through."
"Lovely," Eames said, stifling an embarrassing noise as Arthur jostled his arm again. "How much time do we have?"
Arthur didn't even need to look at his watch. "Eight minutes." He tugged off his necktie, and that was an odd enough gesture that Eames forgot about the bullet wound for a moment. He remembered right quick as Arthur used the tie for a tourniquet, tying it in an excrutiatingly tight knot above the wound in Eames' bicep.
Eames focussed on looking down Arthur's undone collar to distract him from the pain. "Thought...fuck...tourniquets had fallen out of style...."
"They have. Do more damage, most times." One final knot, and Arthur sat back on his heels, scooping up his gun from the floor and helping Eames back to his feet. Eames' world tilted just a bit, but blood was no longer dripping down his arm. "But it's not as if we'll need to worry about necrosing limbs in eight minutes. And there's a lot of projections left to distract, so you don't get to check out of this job early, Mr. Eames."
Eames bared his teeth in something like a grin. "So very practical, darling. It's one of the things I love about you. That and your excellent bedside manner."
"Good to know. Now go stick your head over that balcony and see if anyone shoots at you."
Title: Five Times Tsuyoshi Saito Encountered His Future Wife (AKA free space AKA how to seduce someone)
Characters: Saito, OFC
Rating: PG
Warnings: Description of violence, woob, and inability to cook.
1. The Time He Heard About Watanabe's Daughter
"Anything else?" he asked at the close of a Monday morning meeting.
Minato shuffled his papers, squinting through his glasses at his own spidery handwriting. "Nothing major. Though there is some movement around the Yamaguchi-gumi. All internal, nothing to worry about. One of the bosses, Ogino Hiroshi, decided to make a power play and had a rival's daughter kidnapped as she was leaving a party."
Saito shook his head. He'd heard of Ogino. Not the brightest man in the family. Sometimes he feared for the future of Japan, with as many idiots as there seemed to be about. He sighed. "How messy did it get?"
"Surprisingly, not very." Minato sat back, folding his fingers over his stomach. "Two hours after the kidnapping, the daughter called her father and said she needed to be picked up. When his people found her, she was calmly sitting outside a warehouse, still in her dress, with four dead kidnappers inside. She'd evidently killed one man by stabbing him through the eye with the heel of her shoe, took his gun, then shot the rest as they tried to subdue her."
The room was dead silent for a long moment, then Tatsuya guffawed from the end of the table, snerking that obviously Ogino needed to recruit a better class of thug if they couldn't deal with one girl.
Saito personally thought that the girl's success might have more to do with her willingness to shove a high heel into a man's brain than the thug's skills, but he didn't say so.
Later, in private, he asked Minato about her. Minato raised an eyebrow but brought him the file. Watanabe Misaki, 21 years old, daughter of Watanabe Ryosuke, recently graduated from college with a degree in journalism and due to start a job with the Japan Times the next month. Minato asked dryly if Saito-san would also like her blood type. Saito expressed equally dry disappointment that such information was not already in her file, and Minato bowed deep enough to be mocking and promised to remedy this immediately, Saito-san.
------
2. The Time He Brought Her Flowers
On their first official meeting (in public and properly chaperoned, of course), he brought her roses.
Watanabe Misaki was a lovely young woman, with shoulder-length hair fashionably cut, a trim figure in a simple light blue dress and stole, and bright brown eyes that watched everything. Her shoes, he noticed, were sensible for a stroll in the park and had no heel to speak of.
Her face fell a bit at the sight of the roses, her smile a touch forced. Given her name, he imagined that she'd had a lot of potential suitors bring them for her.
"Ah. Thank you," she said politely, leaning back slightly. "Unfortunately, I am allergic to flowers, Saito-san. I would take them, but I doubt you'd want me to be sneezing all through our walk."
He smiled. "Fortunately, then, these flowers will be kinder to you." He broke off a leaf with a sharp crack by way of explanation.
She stepped forward, peering closer and reaching out curiously. Her perfume was light, vanilla and musk. She traced one finger along a pink petal and laughed. "Is it...?"
"Candy, yes. I had heard that you were allergic to flowers, but I thought it rude to bring you nothing, Misaki-san."
She looked up at him, and that close he could see the slight smile quirk one corner of her mouth. "I see. You've done your homework, then, Saito-san?"
"Tsuyoshi, please. And I certainly tried, yes."
"Really?" He could see her relax slightly, taking the sugar roses carefully, though her eyes were on him, direct and measuring. Challenging. "How interesting."
As they walked, they determined that the roses were so sickeningly sweet as to be nearly inedible. Mischievously ("With your permission, of course, Tsuyoshi-san"), Misaki left them with a group of children who devoured them like starving wolves before their mother could make it across the playground to scold them. Saito chuckled at the mother's stern frown as they walked away.
--------
3. The Time They Almost Burned Down the Building During a Blizzard
Misaki looked mournfully out the window. "We're not making it to the restaurant, are we?"
Saito peered over her shoulder. The cars outside, including his, were covered in snow, the opposite side of the street obscured by a curtain of white. "I suppose not. It really doesn't look safe."
She sighed, letting the curtain fall back. "And I was so looking forward to dinner."
Saito, for his part, had been looking forward to showing her off in that tight black dress, but the game of sexual tension they'd been playing was too subtle for him to say so. "We could order in?" he suggested.
She looked outside doubtfully, and he said, "Ah. We can try to order in, then?"
A half an hour later, when every restaurant around had either not picked up or laughed at the idea of going out in the storm, the two of them were left to peer at the contents of Misaki's mostly-empty cupboards. "You," Saito said, "don't cook, do you?"
Misaki tilted a smile over at him. "Do you?"
"Of course not. That's what cooks are for."
"Exactly."
"I notice that we are distinctly cookless, though."
Misaki shrugged. "Hana had a family emergency. Sick sister. She left me some things to heat up, but I had the last for lunch, and was expecting to go out to dinner tonight...." She poked about in the cupboard a bit more and laughed, pulling out several containers of instant ramen. "I forgot I had these. I loved them when I was a kid." She shook one in Saito's direction enticingly.
Saito made a face. "Surely we can do better. There is rice. There is chicken in the freezer. There are eggs. There is..." he waved a hand at another cupboard. "...every spice known to man."
Misaki's smile was amused. "Feeling ambitious, are you?"
"It is cooking, not rocket science. We are two highly intelligent people. Surely we can figure this out."
Two hours later, as Saito considered shooting the smoke alarm and cracked open the window to let the blizzard wind swirl the smoke away, Misaki sat down at the kitchen table and laughed and laughed. Saito leaned against the window, watching her, and felt his irritation melt away.
"So," Misaki said, wiping her eyes. "Ramen?"
He held up his hands, admitting defeat. "Ramen."
Dinner was not only ramen, but also the two bottles of sake that Misaki had in her pantry. When the power went out, the television flickering dark and silent on its warnings about weather emergencies and record snowfall, Misaki dragged blankets and pillows out of a closet for him. The idea had been that he would sleep on the couch and she in the bed, but somehow instead they ended up both on the couch, Misaki passed out and curled into his side. Saito remembered tucking the blankets in around her, then nothing more until morning crashed into his head with a hammer of sunlight and the jangle of keys in the door. Misaki's cook returned to find the two of them cocooned in blankets on the couch, both still fully clothed for their aborted night out.
Saito waved over Misaki's still-sleeping head. Hana shook her head fondly and headed for the kitchen. Saito considered warning her about the mess they'd left but figured that she'd find it soon enough.
---------
4. The Time He Was Actually Nervous
The restaurant was exquisite. The dinner was superb. The weather was cool and clear, the moon hanging like a lantern over the sea.
She was suspicious. He could tell by the quirk to her smile. She probably knew. He would have been disappointed in her if she had not known. Somehow knowing that she knew didn't make this any easier.
He took a deep breath. "Misaki-san," he said, turning, and the moonlight falling over her face, shadowing her eyes and highlighting the curve of her smile, made the rest of the sentence catch in his throat.
"Yes," she said. It wasn't a question. She squeezed his hand, taking his other and pulling him closer, so he could feel the warmth of her breath as she whispered against his lips, "Yes."
"Oh, good," he murmured.
Her mouth tasted of chocolate and her delighted laughter of wine.
----------
5. The Time They Discussed the Prenuptial Agreement
"You don't really expect me to be a virgin, do you?"
Saito coughed. She had deliberately waited until he was drinking, he was positive of it. That little smile betrayed her. He coughed again. "Do I...." He stopped. Did he? He couldn't imagine Misaki not doing whatever she wanted whenever she wanted and propriety be damned. But...would he offend her if he said no?
She chuckled behind her tea, eyes crinkling. "Don't look like that. It's not a trick question."
"It does not matter," he said. Which didn't answer the question, and the lift of her eyebrow said that she knew it. He reached out, his hand brushing hers on the table. "I want you."
She smiled, and he knew that that had been the right answer.
Still, there was some justice to be had here. He waited until she sipped again. "Do we expect each other to be faithful?"
Misaki raised an eyebrow at him. Which wasn't as good as inhaling her tea, but he could only have hoped for such a dramatic response. She put down her cup. "That depends," she said, "entirely on what you mean by being faithful."
"Perhaps we need a definition, then," he suggested.
"My thought exactly." She sat back, the toe of her pump tapping against the table leg. "I don't expect monogamy...but I do expect that you give me and our children every due respect. I expect you to keep any extra-curricular activities...discreet."
Saito breathed a little easier. Misaki was the most frighteningly attractive and compatible woman he'd ever met on several accounts. He didn't want to disappoint her, but he knew himself and his desires too well to think that he wouldn't, should she demand too much. "Of course," he said. "Fun is one thing. Family is quite another."
She nodded, apparently satisfied. She reclaimed her tea. "Also, I expect them to pass your background check and mine."
Saito couldn't help a fond smile. "Watching my back, Misaki-san?"
She smiled back. "Of course, Tsuyoshi-san. We will be married. What kind of wife would I be if I didn't make sure your lovers are trustworthy?"
"I will appreciate your efforts on my part."
"Of course," she sniffed, sipping again. "I expect that you will do the same for me."
His chopsticks paused halfway to his mouth. "Of course," he said. "Only the best lovers for my wife."
Her smile turned positively catlike.
Title: Not Just a Tourist (AKA how to take a punch)
Characters: Arthur, Eames, Saito
Rating: PG
Warnings: Arthur being evil, Eames being too clever for his own good, Saito being awesome.
Eames considered himself a suspicious man. Reasonable, but suspicious. He'd seen and replicated too much of human nature to trust anyone out of the box, so to speak.
"So what do you know about Saito?" he asked Arthur one evening, when the warehouse was quiet and Saito was off doing whatever it was that billionaires did.
Arthur looked up from contemplating his little black notebook. "What do you want to know?"
Eames pulled a chair over to the desk Arthur had claimed. He straddled the chair and started poking around in one of the neat piles of paper that Arthur had constructed like ramparts. "He's awfully insistent on coming along. Just seems odd, is all."
Arthur shrugged. "He wants to make sure we do the job and stop that, I won't be able to find anything."
Eames waved a hand and moved on to a stack of photographs. "Of course that's what he says, but this is a complicated job, little room for error, blah blah. He knows that, and he's not stupid. He knows that having to bring along someone not trained is asking for trouble, yet he's pushing the issue anyway. I'm missing something, and that makes me nervous. I don't like being nervous, darling. Lend me your wisdom."
"I usually charge for information, you know," Arthur said, smiling.
"My sexual favors are yours for the asking, as always."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "What you're missing is that he's not untrained."
Eames stopped poking. "He's not."
"He's not. His degrees are in business and civil engineering. He was hired straight out of college by a construction firm that for awhile couldn't decide if they wanted to use him on the business end or as an extractor. They trained him as an architect, but he eventually impressed the higher-ups so much that they put him on the corporate ladder instead."
"Well," Eames said, tilting back his head to look up at the ceiling. Something fluttered up in the rafters. "Well, well, well, that explains a few things. Still. Cobb keeps positioning him as backup. I like to know just what kind of skills are backing me up." He grinned. "Maybe we could have a little friendly spar."
Arthur just looked at him, his expression clearly lamenting that he couldn't take Eames anywhere. "Eames. Might I remind you that Mr. Saito is our employer and perhaps not the best man to pick a fight with?"
"I know! I'm not going to offend the man, merely...get to know him." He waved a magnanimous hand. "I'll let you know what I learn."
Arthur's lips twitched, and he opened his mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it. "Fine," he said. "You do that."
----
The next time Saito showed up to check in, Cobb suggested that Ariadne show Saito the finalized Level 1. As she was arse-deep in designing Level 2, elbows-deep in Level 3 (where Eames had a very personal interest in her not doing a rush job), and starting to show the whites around her eyes, Eames laid a hand on her shoulder. "I'll do it. I know you're busy, love."
Ariadne twisted around to look at him. "You're sure you've got it well enough to--"
Eames nodded. "I wandered the place last time you showed us about. I've got it. Very clever, by the way, how you constructed the streets like the outline of Arthur's favorite staircase."
She smiled. "Thanks." She looked over at Saito. "Is that all right with you?"
Saito spread his hands, smiling slightly. "If Mr. Eames wants to play tour guide, who am I to refuse?"
Eames grinned and bowed, arm sweeping out to the lawn chairs. "Right this way, sir."
----
Eames put them in an actual tour bus purely to be a smart ass. Saito just laughed and climbed up to the open top to get the best view.
It was a pleasant enough ride, with the sun indistinct but warm and a rather nice breeze. Finally, Saito nodded, pointing. "And this just links back up with the plaza."
"Got it in one."
Saito nodded, standing. "I see." The bus trundled to a stop, and the two of them got off near the edge of the great paved plaza along the river's edge. "The buildings are functional?" Saito asked as they crossed the plaza, nodding his chin at the ever-present rows of gray stone across the street.
"Oh yes. Virtually the same layout in them all, practically a run straight through, stairs up, all that. The upper levels all have fire escapes on the back sides that go back down to the street. Hopefully unnecessary, but perfectly useful in an emergency."
Saito nodded. "I see. Very impressive."
"That's Ariadne, all right. Impressive is her bread and butter." Eames leaned back against the railing separating the plaza from the park. There were a few projections about, but they kept their distance. Eames waited through the appropriate pause before changing the subject. "Might I ask you a question, Mr. Saito?"
Saito turned from examining one of the statues in the plaza. "Of course."
"Why exactly do you want so badly to come along?"
Oh, that was a sly smile, that was. "I already told you. I like to know that I will get what I pay for." The smile widened as Eames chuckled and shook his head. "You don't believe me?"
"I don't think that that's the whole story, no."
Saito leaned against the railing, looking out over the water that disappeared into an indistinct horizon. "You don't trust me, do you, Mr. Eames?"
"Do I strike you as a terribly trusting man?"
"No. You strike me as a very practical man."
"Then you are a keen judge of character, Mr. Saito."
Saito chuckled. "As are you, Mr. Eames."
"All part of the job description."
Saito smiled. "Yes, I know." He paused, and Eames let the silence grow to see what would come of it. "I am not a novice to extraction, Mr. Eames. When I had to make the choice, I chose business, but I have never forgotten the feeling of walking streets I designed myself, nor the thrill of success." He turned to look at Eames, his smile no longer sly, but something more akin to what Eames saw in the mirror every now and then. "Besides. I have asked you for the impossible. Can you blame me for wanting to witness it up close?"
Eames chuckled. "No. That I can't. Though I'd hate for things to get ugly down there and you to get popped back out and miss all the fun."
Saito's smile involved a lot of teeth. "Afraid that I won't be able to defend myself, Mr. Eames?"
Ah, just the opening he was hoping for. Now a bit of a needle.... "Oh, you said it, not me, Mr. Saito."
Saito looked at his watch, then at the perfect expanse of green grass in the park. "Perhaps you'd like a demonstration of how well I can defend myself?"
Eames grinned, shrugging out of his jacket as they headed over to the lawn. "Why not?"
It was only when Saito rolled up his sleeves and Eames saw the tattoos (beautiful full-sleeve work, and Eames had never seen anything that could compare to the colors of the traditional Japanese tattoos) that he began to wonder if he'd gotten himself in trouble.
Saito just smiled, took up a stance that was much more "street punk" than "karate master", and beckoned.
----
Ten minutes later, Eames woke gasping, bowed with the feel of Saito's fist in his belly, adrenaline still spiking through him from trying to scramble away from its fellows. Eames knew all the tricks in how to take a punch, but there was taking a punch and then there was being a punching bag, and he'd been leaning embarrassingly towards the latter for most of the fight.
Across from him, Saito looked insufferably smug.
Eames coughed, feeling like he had to relearn how to breathe. "Point taken. Excuse me."
He pulled out the IV, forced a deep breath, and headed for Arthur's desk. "Arthur, darling."
The ramparts were a bit higher this time. "...yes?"
"Did you know about all the lovely inkwork that Saito is hiding underneath those suits?"
Arthur's mouth twitched in a suppressed smile, the little bastard. "Not specifically, no."
"Arthur, love, pet, is Mr. Saito yakuza?"
Arthur looked up from his printouts as if Eames was being a little slow. "Of course. He's in construction in Japan. He's been one of the Sumiyoshi-kai's regional bosses for five years."
Eames rubbed his face. "And you didn't see fit to bloody warn me?"
Arthur held up a finger. "I did warn you not to pick a fight with him."
"Arthur, darling, you couldn't have been a bit more explicit about it? 'Eames, don't pick on the yakuza boss' or perhaps, 'Eames, Saito fights like a man half his age and is a fast bastard besides....' "
"I could have," Arthur said, flipping a page. "But I was kind of hoping you'd challenge him in reality and I'd get to watch him kick your ass around the warehouse floor."
"You are an evil, evil man. I am very proud."
Arthur just smiled.
Yusuf called from across the warehouse, "New formula! I need a guinea pig! Anyone not been under in 24 hours?"
Arthur sighed and called over, "I'll do it!" He stretched as he stood, and Eames said to Arthur's navel, "I will have my revenge, darling."
"I'll pencil it in," Arthur called as he walked away.
Eames smirked and followed. He knew what Yusuf had been working on lately. If Arthur was going to get dumped onto the floor repeatedly, Eames wanted to have a front row seat.
Title: Sufficient Determination (AKA how to have sex in a small space)
Characters: Arthur, Eames
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Innuendo, misuse of instant messaging, Eames being bored
Arthur always made it a point to not book Eames in the seat right next to him, should they have to travel on the same flight. He'd learned this lesson the hard way, after a very long transatlantic flight which had come within a hair of ending with Arthur going to jail for murdering his seatmate for the crime of insufficient personal space and excessive snoring. Not to mention stealing Arthur's wallet. Twice.
Thus, now he always booked Eames as far from his own seat as humanly possible. This worked much better, so long as Eames either didn't bring his computer or Arthur kept his smartphone turned off.
This particular flight, it was Arthur's misfortune to be waiting for confirmation about a job.
After the fifth IM elaborating on a particularly implausible scenario involving sex in the plane's lavatory, Arthur finally replied (out of boredom, he assured himself, purely out of boredom).
Oh please. Have you SEEN the bathrooms? I wouldn't want to touch anything in there.
Two words: complimentary blankets.
...that's disgusting.
But effective!
Besides, you can barely fit ONE person in there, let alone two.
There's enough space for a good shag. There's ALWAYS enough space for a good shag.
That seems unlikely.
That sounds like a challenge.
It's not.
Oh, I think it is. Honestly, darling, imagination. Determination. And flexibility. Definitely flexibility. ;P
...do not emoticon at me.
:(
I've never seen the point. Why have sex in an uncomfortable and disgusting place?
Why do anything? Because you can.
Not reason enough.
For you, maybe.
Arthur?
Are you ignoring me?
...honestly, THAT didn't piss you off, did it?
Not even close. I, unlike others, am doing work.
Anything titillating? Hear back about the Brazil job?
Yes. Sending.
....oh DARLING, I DO owe you sexual favors.
As long as they don't involve an airplane bathroom.
Of course not. For that much money you at least deserve a stall in the airport when we land.
:logs off:
:(