Fic: Now I Lay me Down to Sleep [Inception]
Title: Now I Lay me Down to Sleep
Character/Pairings: Cobb/?, mentions of Arthur, James, Phillipa
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Mr. Nolan
Author's Notes: Written for a prompt over on inception_kink : "And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."
"Now I lay me down to sleep..."
She's not awake. She knows she's not. She's been through this too many times to not know the difference between dreaming and reality, and it's really a wonder that Dom doesn't. After all he's the one who introduced her to the world of dreaming in the first place. Why can't he see they they're still wading in the depths of their own minds?
"This is real," he tells her, voice soft and earnest, pleading and fringed with just a hint of desperation. He takes her hand and guides it along the smooth wooden tabletop, over his heart, up to press against his cheek. "It's real.
Part of her wants to believe him, because when has Dom ever lied to her?But there's an uncomfortable notion in the back of her mind, burrowing deeper and deeper into her brain and all too clearly, without a doubt, she knows - it's not.
- * - * -
"I pray the Lord my soul to keep..."
Dom has taken to hiding the sharp objects around the house, and he won't even let her get near the PASIV device. "No more jobs," he tells her, "not for a little while."
She was raised Catholic, where you're supposed to go to confession often and where it's a sin to take one's own life. She's now killed countless men and women in her dreams, and privately wonders if it's even remotely close to the real thing. Now she pulls out the dusty old rosary from the back of the bedside drawer and stares at the glassy beads, wondering if the good Lord can save someone from their dreams.
James and Phillipa come to hug her legs, gazing up at her with wide, adoring eyes but she merely pats them on the head and sends them to their rooms, unable to love these projections, these verisimilitudes of the children she loves. Arthur drops by for a visit (probably at Dom's behest) and he's polite and cordial as ever, still looking like he could model on the cover of GQ magazine, still the straight-laced, dependable point man (although the time spent with Eames seems to have loosened him up just a bit)...and still just not quite right.
- * - * -
"And if I die before I wake..."
"You're waiting for a train," she informs Dom dreamily, and is startled at the sudden fear in his eyes. Why is he afraid? After all, he's the one who taught her how to die in the first place; he, her Morpheus, her champion of vision, her shaper of dreams.
I'm doing this for you, she wants to tell him, but a wind whips its icy fingers around her slight form and steals the breath from her lungs. She lifts a foot slowly, watches transfixed as her shoe fall stories upon stories to the ground below, where if it makes a sound, she can't hear. Falling in dreams is always ugly, but paradoxically beautiful in a way, because all one feels is a slight bottoming out in the pit of the stomach before the fog lifts, the shadows part, and your eyes flutter open to reality.
She looks toward Dom once more and she can tell he's struggling not to cry, hands outstretched; his voice cracks as he cajoles, pleads, and begs her not to do this, oh God please, please, don't.
God? She reaches into her pocket and her trembling fingers brush against the rosary there; her knuckles knock against her totem nestled there as well. Father forgive me, for I have sinned.
- * - * -
"I pray the Lord my soul to take."
With that, Ariadne closes her eyes and steps off the edge of the world.
Character/Pairings: Cobb/?, mentions of Arthur, James, Phillipa
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Mr. Nolan
Author's Notes: Written for a prompt over on inception_kink : "And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."
"Now I lay me down to sleep..."
She's not awake. She knows she's not. She's been through this too many times to not know the difference between dreaming and reality, and it's really a wonder that Dom doesn't. After all he's the one who introduced her to the world of dreaming in the first place. Why can't he see they they're still wading in the depths of their own minds?
"This is real," he tells her, voice soft and earnest, pleading and fringed with just a hint of desperation. He takes her hand and guides it along the smooth wooden tabletop, over his heart, up to press against his cheek. "It's real.
Part of her wants to believe him, because when has Dom ever lied to her?But there's an uncomfortable notion in the back of her mind, burrowing deeper and deeper into her brain and all too clearly, without a doubt, she knows - it's not.
- * - * -
"I pray the Lord my soul to keep..."
Dom has taken to hiding the sharp objects around the house, and he won't even let her get near the PASIV device. "No more jobs," he tells her, "not for a little while."
She was raised Catholic, where you're supposed to go to confession often and where it's a sin to take one's own life. She's now killed countless men and women in her dreams, and privately wonders if it's even remotely close to the real thing. Now she pulls out the dusty old rosary from the back of the bedside drawer and stares at the glassy beads, wondering if the good Lord can save someone from their dreams.
James and Phillipa come to hug her legs, gazing up at her with wide, adoring eyes but she merely pats them on the head and sends them to their rooms, unable to love these projections, these verisimilitudes of the children she loves. Arthur drops by for a visit (probably at Dom's behest) and he's polite and cordial as ever, still looking like he could model on the cover of GQ magazine, still the straight-laced, dependable point man (although the time spent with Eames seems to have loosened him up just a bit)...and still just not quite right.
- * - * -
"And if I die before I wake..."
"You're waiting for a train," she informs Dom dreamily, and is startled at the sudden fear in his eyes. Why is he afraid? After all, he's the one who taught her how to die in the first place; he, her Morpheus, her champion of vision, her shaper of dreams.
I'm doing this for you, she wants to tell him, but a wind whips its icy fingers around her slight form and steals the breath from her lungs. She lifts a foot slowly, watches transfixed as her shoe fall stories upon stories to the ground below, where if it makes a sound, she can't hear. Falling in dreams is always ugly, but paradoxically beautiful in a way, because all one feels is a slight bottoming out in the pit of the stomach before the fog lifts, the shadows part, and your eyes flutter open to reality.
She looks toward Dom once more and she can tell he's struggling not to cry, hands outstretched; his voice cracks as he cajoles, pleads, and begs her not to do this, oh God please, please, don't.
God? She reaches into her pocket and her trembling fingers brush against the rosary there; her knuckles knock against her totem nestled there as well. Father forgive me, for I have sinned.
- * - * -
"I pray the Lord my soul to take."
With that, Ariadne closes her eyes and steps off the edge of the world.