Brick By Brick. PG-13.
Title: Brick By Brick
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13 for language and references to drug use
Characters: Ariadne and Yusuf, cameo by Arthur and the rest of the team namedropped.
Disclaimer: Everyone here belongs to Christopher Nolan and not to me. I'm just playing with his toys.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. For the inception_kink meme prompt: They are totally buddy-buddy, order pizza when they're late at the warehouse doing their thing, play video games, all that sort of thing. Complete bromance, only they're different genders. And then one night Ariadne, in a sleep-deprived/caffeine-driven realization, decides to recreate one of their favorite video games as a level, and hooks up her and Yusuf. Insanity ensues. :P Hopefully this is cracky enough!
Summary: Sometimes, video games are just not enough to decompress after a really tough job. But if it could be made into a dream...
Added August 2013: Now with a translation into Russian :)
If there was one thing Ariadne often needed after a job, it was time to decompress. It was like that after university exams, too. She crammed for days to get all of those last minute details, or stayed up for weeks to perfect her models, and then came the crash once it was over. Her friends tended to go to bars and get rip roaringly drunk, but she was tiny and a lightweight when it came to alcohol. She used to simply throw on a video game or read a trashy romance novel to unwind, or treat herself to pastries. It made the sugar taste that much better.
The new workspace was in New York City, where one more group of people could easily come and go and not interact with their neighbors. Thanks to Saito's money, the group had leased the entire floor of a state of the art high rise. Security was good, the space was large and open, and all of their gear was safe. Plus, there was easy access to three different major airports, so they could still do jobs all over the world. Designing levels for jobs was so much more intense than the real world jobs she could have looked into, and Ariadne loved a challenge. Yusuf still had his sleepers to look after, but that could be done long distance, too. Eames flitted in and out of their group, and Cobb worked the bigger jobs. The rest of the time, he was with his children. Arthur was a constant, and his precise attention to detail was comforting. He researched the new extractors and forgers they worked with sometimes, though Ariadne considered Cobb and Eames the best ones.
Most nights after a job, Ariadne couldn't quite go home. She had a studio apartment in Astoria now, since it was a simple subway ride away from the new workspace. It was small and crappy and depressing compared to her old apartment in Paris, but she spent most of her free time in the group's workspace anyway. Yusuf tended to stay in the loft if he was in New York, so the two of them tended to spend a lot of time together. Despite Eames' teasing, it was completely platonic. Together, they found the best little pizza places, the indie coffee shop that was still open at 3 am and that one little corner cafe that had the best mozzarella sticks and chicken wings. Yusuf talked about his latest sedative designs, and Ariadne talked about how difficult it was sometimes to create truly challenging mazes.
The best part? They both liked the same kind of video games.
Ariadne wasn't much for dizzying first person shooters, though they sometimes had their place when she was frustrated with a job. For the most part, she and Yusuf liked button mashing fighter games, silly team up games like the Lego series or the longer RPG-style games. Arthur sometimes rolled his eyes at them when they fired up the systems at the end of the day, but sometimes he watched them play, too. They had fallen into a routine, and it worked well.
The gang of five was all together for a particular job. It was straight from Saito, who knew that they were discreet and skilled enough to pull it off. His nephew had stolen secrets from the company, intending to sell them to various competitors. He hadn't appreciated being passed over for a promotion, though Saito had made no secret about the fact that he had intended his nephew to take over one of the subdivisions in Saito's corporate empire. His nephew hadn't considered that enough and was now on the run. Rumor had it that he was in New York, looking to score on Wall Street. He was trained in all forms of espionage, and even his dreams were bound to be dangerous. Ariadne would have to have mazes within mazes, and they would likely have to have multiple layers of dreams in this one. If Cobb could refrain from pulling a Mr. Charles, that would leave them with one less hassle.
Designing the monstrous levels were giving Ariadne a headache. She was pulling all nighters, all but overdosing on caffeine. She looked longingly at the game consoles, but there wasn't enough time for that. Saito's nephew was planning to leave New York in three weeks, so they had to complete the job before then.
She looked at the games lined up on the TV stand with bleary eyes, and it seemed to click. She didn't necessarily need some time to play at the moment. She needed a diversion, something to shift her attention. The design equivalent of a trashy Harlequin or a frothy pastry.
With a grin, Ariadne set to work.
***
The projections inside Matsuka's mind had been wicked and nasty and all too good with their aim. It had been difficult, but Cobb managed to pull off the extraction well. He had the names of all of Matsuka's contacts to give to Saito, as well as what secrets he was selling. They lost Yusuf within the second layer, somewhere in the maze within a maze within a maze. He had taken a wrong turn somewhere, so either he had to hide until the time ran out until the kick, or until one of the projections shot him. He came up with the rest of the team when the time ran out, looking vaguely ill but otherwise none the worse for wear. As Cobb went to make the calls to Saito, the rest of the team began to unhook themselves and Matsuka from the PASIV. The sedative was a deep one, one of Yusuf's cocktails, and would give them another fifteen to twenty minutes to get the hell out of there.
Eames made his way into Midtown, claiming to have to meet an old acquaintance. Arthur of course was planning to run through the job to see if there were any loose ends or things they could have done better for next time. Cobb would go home after his calls to Saito. That left Ariadne and Yusuf.
She dangled the pronged needles in front of Yusuf. "I have something you need to see."
Yusuf eyed the tubing and needles warily. "Ari, we just got out of a maze..."
"Straight somnacin, a fun level and not a drop of work in sight," Ariadne promised. She waved the needles tantalizingly. "I think we need a little downtime, Yusuf. Trust me, this is going to be good."
He looked at her earnest face and then back at the tubing. He sighed and grasped one set. "This only shows you how much I love you."
"I promise not to abuse the privilege," she chirped happily.
They woke to a place that was instantly familiar. Everything was blocky in the bar, with little nubs on top of the blocks. Yusuf was dressed in black with a band on his left forearm that had some kind of shiny digital readout, and in his right hand was a gun that looked remarkably like a blaster made out of Lego blocks. Ariadne was in a white outfit with a similar armband on her left arm and she was holding the Lego blaster as well. She was grinning from ear to ear as Yusuf looked around with wide eyes. It looked like the loading area for Lego Star Wars, which he had hoped they would play tonight. "Holy shit, Ari. Is this Dexter's place?"
"Yeah, isn't it great? You said you'd love to see a life sized set..."
"Ari, I was high at the time!"
"That doesn't mean it wasn't a great idea."
Yusuf laughed and tested the blaster. A little neon pulse came out of the end, and it landed on a chair. The chair exploded into component bricks, and little Lego coins appeared. Laughing, Yusuf ran forward to collect the coins. As he passed over the coins, they disappeared and there was a beeping noise on the armband. He looked down, and saw a score appear, which calculated the value of all the coins he had just collected. There were also four hearts, just as there was in the top corner of the screen when they played through levels. "This is amazing, Ariadne!" he laughed, looking up at her. She was grinning from ear to ear. "Oh, we have to do the level on Kashyyk!"
Laughing, Ariadne followed him. "We can do any of the boards except the space ones."
"What? Why not?"
"It would be too hard to figure out how to code for that..."
"Bullshit," Yusuf told her with a laugh. "It's just because you suck at spaceflight. You didn't want me to own your ass in the level!"
She couldn't help but laugh and shove his shoulder playfully. "Jerk," she said. "Watch this!" She reached out as if she would touch a wall sconce across the room. It glowed a faint green, then exploded into a shower of Lego coins.
"Holy shit, we can be force users in here? This is better than playing high!"
Ariadne laughed and headed toward the doorway that would lead to Kashyyk. "C'mon! Let's go kick some droid ass!"
It felt like hours that they spent on that particular board, shooting droids into component Lego parts, picking them up via the force and throwing them into other droids. The wookies looked just like they did in the game, and the Lego Jedi were spectacularly funny to watch. Yusuf and Ariadne were the only recognizably human people in the level; everyone else looked like the Lego pieces they were built from in the game and play sets. Just for kicks, Yusuf levitated Yoda and watched his arms flail before putting him down, and Ariadne climbed a tree just to jump down on top of a droid, shattering it to pieces.
Ariadne had used strains of the Imperial theme to cue them to wake up, and when they came out of the level, Yusuf's grin was ear to ear. "Ari, I love you. Best idea ever."
She tapped the side of her head. "This has got to be the best way to unwind. Play you again tomorrow?"
"I'm totally going to kick your ass."
Ariadne laughed. "Just wait until I build a Lego Indiana Jones board. I rule at that game."
They heard a snort from the next room. "Why don't you just build a live Tetris game while you're at it?" Arthur said, not even looking up from his files.
Ariadne's eyes lit up. "That would be epic."
"You'd have to play with us, Arthur!" Yusuf called.
"No thanks," he called back, looking up with a smirk. "I'll stick to Rainbow Six."
With an evil twinkle in her eye, Ariadne smirked at Yusuf. "Just wait until I build that board..."
The End
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13 for language and references to drug use
Characters: Ariadne and Yusuf, cameo by Arthur and the rest of the team namedropped.
Disclaimer: Everyone here belongs to Christopher Nolan and not to me. I'm just playing with his toys.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. For the inception_kink meme prompt: They are totally buddy-buddy, order pizza when they're late at the warehouse doing their thing, play video games, all that sort of thing. Complete bromance, only they're different genders. And then one night Ariadne, in a sleep-deprived/caffeine-driven realization, decides to recreate one of their favorite video games as a level, and hooks up her and Yusuf. Insanity ensues. :P Hopefully this is cracky enough!
Summary: Sometimes, video games are just not enough to decompress after a really tough job. But if it could be made into a dream...
Added August 2013: Now with a translation into Russian :)
If there was one thing Ariadne often needed after a job, it was time to decompress. It was like that after university exams, too. She crammed for days to get all of those last minute details, or stayed up for weeks to perfect her models, and then came the crash once it was over. Her friends tended to go to bars and get rip roaringly drunk, but she was tiny and a lightweight when it came to alcohol. She used to simply throw on a video game or read a trashy romance novel to unwind, or treat herself to pastries. It made the sugar taste that much better.
The new workspace was in New York City, where one more group of people could easily come and go and not interact with their neighbors. Thanks to Saito's money, the group had leased the entire floor of a state of the art high rise. Security was good, the space was large and open, and all of their gear was safe. Plus, there was easy access to three different major airports, so they could still do jobs all over the world. Designing levels for jobs was so much more intense than the real world jobs she could have looked into, and Ariadne loved a challenge. Yusuf still had his sleepers to look after, but that could be done long distance, too. Eames flitted in and out of their group, and Cobb worked the bigger jobs. The rest of the time, he was with his children. Arthur was a constant, and his precise attention to detail was comforting. He researched the new extractors and forgers they worked with sometimes, though Ariadne considered Cobb and Eames the best ones.
Most nights after a job, Ariadne couldn't quite go home. She had a studio apartment in Astoria now, since it was a simple subway ride away from the new workspace. It was small and crappy and depressing compared to her old apartment in Paris, but she spent most of her free time in the group's workspace anyway. Yusuf tended to stay in the loft if he was in New York, so the two of them tended to spend a lot of time together. Despite Eames' teasing, it was completely platonic. Together, they found the best little pizza places, the indie coffee shop that was still open at 3 am and that one little corner cafe that had the best mozzarella sticks and chicken wings. Yusuf talked about his latest sedative designs, and Ariadne talked about how difficult it was sometimes to create truly challenging mazes.
The best part? They both liked the same kind of video games.
Ariadne wasn't much for dizzying first person shooters, though they sometimes had their place when she was frustrated with a job. For the most part, she and Yusuf liked button mashing fighter games, silly team up games like the Lego series or the longer RPG-style games. Arthur sometimes rolled his eyes at them when they fired up the systems at the end of the day, but sometimes he watched them play, too. They had fallen into a routine, and it worked well.
The gang of five was all together for a particular job. It was straight from Saito, who knew that they were discreet and skilled enough to pull it off. His nephew had stolen secrets from the company, intending to sell them to various competitors. He hadn't appreciated being passed over for a promotion, though Saito had made no secret about the fact that he had intended his nephew to take over one of the subdivisions in Saito's corporate empire. His nephew hadn't considered that enough and was now on the run. Rumor had it that he was in New York, looking to score on Wall Street. He was trained in all forms of espionage, and even his dreams were bound to be dangerous. Ariadne would have to have mazes within mazes, and they would likely have to have multiple layers of dreams in this one. If Cobb could refrain from pulling a Mr. Charles, that would leave them with one less hassle.
Designing the monstrous levels were giving Ariadne a headache. She was pulling all nighters, all but overdosing on caffeine. She looked longingly at the game consoles, but there wasn't enough time for that. Saito's nephew was planning to leave New York in three weeks, so they had to complete the job before then.
She looked at the games lined up on the TV stand with bleary eyes, and it seemed to click. She didn't necessarily need some time to play at the moment. She needed a diversion, something to shift her attention. The design equivalent of a trashy Harlequin or a frothy pastry.
With a grin, Ariadne set to work.
***
The projections inside Matsuka's mind had been wicked and nasty and all too good with their aim. It had been difficult, but Cobb managed to pull off the extraction well. He had the names of all of Matsuka's contacts to give to Saito, as well as what secrets he was selling. They lost Yusuf within the second layer, somewhere in the maze within a maze within a maze. He had taken a wrong turn somewhere, so either he had to hide until the time ran out until the kick, or until one of the projections shot him. He came up with the rest of the team when the time ran out, looking vaguely ill but otherwise none the worse for wear. As Cobb went to make the calls to Saito, the rest of the team began to unhook themselves and Matsuka from the PASIV. The sedative was a deep one, one of Yusuf's cocktails, and would give them another fifteen to twenty minutes to get the hell out of there.
Eames made his way into Midtown, claiming to have to meet an old acquaintance. Arthur of course was planning to run through the job to see if there were any loose ends or things they could have done better for next time. Cobb would go home after his calls to Saito. That left Ariadne and Yusuf.
She dangled the pronged needles in front of Yusuf. "I have something you need to see."
Yusuf eyed the tubing and needles warily. "Ari, we just got out of a maze..."
"Straight somnacin, a fun level and not a drop of work in sight," Ariadne promised. She waved the needles tantalizingly. "I think we need a little downtime, Yusuf. Trust me, this is going to be good."
He looked at her earnest face and then back at the tubing. He sighed and grasped one set. "This only shows you how much I love you."
"I promise not to abuse the privilege," she chirped happily.
They woke to a place that was instantly familiar. Everything was blocky in the bar, with little nubs on top of the blocks. Yusuf was dressed in black with a band on his left forearm that had some kind of shiny digital readout, and in his right hand was a gun that looked remarkably like a blaster made out of Lego blocks. Ariadne was in a white outfit with a similar armband on her left arm and she was holding the Lego blaster as well. She was grinning from ear to ear as Yusuf looked around with wide eyes. It looked like the loading area for Lego Star Wars, which he had hoped they would play tonight. "Holy shit, Ari. Is this Dexter's place?"
"Yeah, isn't it great? You said you'd love to see a life sized set..."
"Ari, I was high at the time!"
"That doesn't mean it wasn't a great idea."
Yusuf laughed and tested the blaster. A little neon pulse came out of the end, and it landed on a chair. The chair exploded into component bricks, and little Lego coins appeared. Laughing, Yusuf ran forward to collect the coins. As he passed over the coins, they disappeared and there was a beeping noise on the armband. He looked down, and saw a score appear, which calculated the value of all the coins he had just collected. There were also four hearts, just as there was in the top corner of the screen when they played through levels. "This is amazing, Ariadne!" he laughed, looking up at her. She was grinning from ear to ear. "Oh, we have to do the level on Kashyyk!"
Laughing, Ariadne followed him. "We can do any of the boards except the space ones."
"What? Why not?"
"It would be too hard to figure out how to code for that..."
"Bullshit," Yusuf told her with a laugh. "It's just because you suck at spaceflight. You didn't want me to own your ass in the level!"
She couldn't help but laugh and shove his shoulder playfully. "Jerk," she said. "Watch this!" She reached out as if she would touch a wall sconce across the room. It glowed a faint green, then exploded into a shower of Lego coins.
"Holy shit, we can be force users in here? This is better than playing high!"
Ariadne laughed and headed toward the doorway that would lead to Kashyyk. "C'mon! Let's go kick some droid ass!"
It felt like hours that they spent on that particular board, shooting droids into component Lego parts, picking them up via the force and throwing them into other droids. The wookies looked just like they did in the game, and the Lego Jedi were spectacularly funny to watch. Yusuf and Ariadne were the only recognizably human people in the level; everyone else looked like the Lego pieces they were built from in the game and play sets. Just for kicks, Yusuf levitated Yoda and watched his arms flail before putting him down, and Ariadne climbed a tree just to jump down on top of a droid, shattering it to pieces.
Ariadne had used strains of the Imperial theme to cue them to wake up, and when they came out of the level, Yusuf's grin was ear to ear. "Ari, I love you. Best idea ever."
She tapped the side of her head. "This has got to be the best way to unwind. Play you again tomorrow?"
"I'm totally going to kick your ass."
Ariadne laughed. "Just wait until I build a Lego Indiana Jones board. I rule at that game."
They heard a snort from the next room. "Why don't you just build a live Tetris game while you're at it?" Arthur said, not even looking up from his files.
Ariadne's eyes lit up. "That would be epic."
"You'd have to play with us, Arthur!" Yusuf called.
"No thanks," he called back, looking up with a smirk. "I'll stick to Rainbow Six."
With an evil twinkle in her eye, Ariadne smirked at Yusuf. "Just wait until I build that board..."
The End