Fic: Subjective Reality (1/1)
Title: Subjective Reality
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Eames
Word Count: 638
Summary: This is no ordinary mark. For wandersfound, who requested “Dean/Anybody + Kissing + H/C + Talking” at the Five Acts Meme. General Spoilers for Supernatural and Inception (2010).
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I just... apparently love writing crossovers, now. Who knew?
Subjective Reality
The mark calls him out within the first three minutes. It’s not so much a surprise as it is an inevitability. Some minds are just too keen, too sharp.
And Eames is brilliant at what he does, true; but there are some likenesses you just cannot replicate without some small margin of error.
As a result: he’s staring down a shotgun and trying to remember why, exactly, he hadn’t tried impersonating the mother, instead.
“So what are you?” The growl comes from his prey-turned-captor, Winchester -- the failed mark; Eames is still blinking water from his eyes and licking salt from his lips, bleeding at the arm from a knife-point and wondering when the fuck this bastard’s going to lay his cards down and waste him so they can get this show on the road.
“I am a mere figment of your ever-vigilant imagination, darling,” he drawls, catching a glimpse of himself in the glass across from them: his face is his own again, now, no longer imitating a man once named John, no longer sporting the scruff on his chin or the scar on his brow.
It takes a moment -- the space between heartbeats inside the dream -- but the words do sink in; the implications unfold.
“This isn’t real,” and the mark says it like it’s not quite as absurd as it should be; Eames narrows his gaze and breathes in shallow.
“Most things are only as real as you make them, my friend,” he says carefully, eyeing the steady hand that holds the gun.
“Are you a djinn?” The man’s voice wavers just a bit, enough for Eames to think that whatever information they’d gathered in the man’s profile, whatever background they’d dug up: it can’t have been complete, can’t have held everything.
There are secrets here they can’t begin to know.
“I’m nothing quite so impressive,” he dips his chin in proper deference, spreads his arms cautiously, part of the show -- his forehead skims the muzzle.
“Don’t tell me it’s that goddamned dreamroot again,” Winchester sounds almost exasperated, and it culminates in a strange image: violent eyes rolling up and over with attitude, weapon in hand, wavering with the toss of his shoulders in annoyance.
“Something a bit stronger, I’m afraid,” Eames tells him, nonchalant -- the gig is forfeit, he can have his fun and damn the consequences. “The effects won’t last much longer, though, never fear.”
“What the fuck do you want from me?” And the mark, he asks it wearily, diminished, and the work-up on him comes to mind in snippets, highlights: the girlfriend who sleeps in a separate room, the indications of skill sets outside of carpentry, the forged documents with too many traces to follow, to know which were sound.
The whispers of the brother, and the fire-and-brimstone tale of his untimely demise.
Eames sees hellfire in the eyes that stare him down, hollow, and he goes with his gut.
“We wanted to help,” Eames tells him, keeps his eyes honest, channels their color to a changeable hazel-green, makes them familiar. “We thought you knew things that we needed.”
“Who the hell is ‘we’?”
“No one of importance,” and he takes the chance, moves so that the metal brushing at his hairline sends a thrill through his blood, visceral in ways the dream shouldn’t be. “And no one you’ll recall.”
He reaches blind and holds a warm wrist between his thumb and his finger, just at the pulse; lifts it to his mouth and catches shock behind the pain, the resignation staring back at him as he draws away, leaving dampness and heat in his wake: he drops the hand before the shot fires, before he wakes, before he runs.
He honestly doesn’t want to know the kind of information he’d failed to unearth.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Eames
Word Count: 638
Summary: This is no ordinary mark. For wandersfound, who requested “Dean/Anybody + Kissing + H/C + Talking” at the Five Acts Meme. General Spoilers for Supernatural and Inception (2010).
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Author’s Notes: I just... apparently love writing crossovers, now. Who knew?
Subjective Reality
The mark calls him out within the first three minutes. It’s not so much a surprise as it is an inevitability. Some minds are just too keen, too sharp.
And Eames is brilliant at what he does, true; but there are some likenesses you just cannot replicate without some small margin of error.
As a result: he’s staring down a shotgun and trying to remember why, exactly, he hadn’t tried impersonating the mother, instead.
“So what are you?” The growl comes from his prey-turned-captor, Winchester -- the failed mark; Eames is still blinking water from his eyes and licking salt from his lips, bleeding at the arm from a knife-point and wondering when the fuck this bastard’s going to lay his cards down and waste him so they can get this show on the road.
“I am a mere figment of your ever-vigilant imagination, darling,” he drawls, catching a glimpse of himself in the glass across from them: his face is his own again, now, no longer imitating a man once named John, no longer sporting the scruff on his chin or the scar on his brow.
It takes a moment -- the space between heartbeats inside the dream -- but the words do sink in; the implications unfold.
“This isn’t real,” and the mark says it like it’s not quite as absurd as it should be; Eames narrows his gaze and breathes in shallow.
“Most things are only as real as you make them, my friend,” he says carefully, eyeing the steady hand that holds the gun.
“Are you a djinn?” The man’s voice wavers just a bit, enough for Eames to think that whatever information they’d gathered in the man’s profile, whatever background they’d dug up: it can’t have been complete, can’t have held everything.
There are secrets here they can’t begin to know.
“I’m nothing quite so impressive,” he dips his chin in proper deference, spreads his arms cautiously, part of the show -- his forehead skims the muzzle.
“Don’t tell me it’s that goddamned dreamroot again,” Winchester sounds almost exasperated, and it culminates in a strange image: violent eyes rolling up and over with attitude, weapon in hand, wavering with the toss of his shoulders in annoyance.
“Something a bit stronger, I’m afraid,” Eames tells him, nonchalant -- the gig is forfeit, he can have his fun and damn the consequences. “The effects won’t last much longer, though, never fear.”
“What the fuck do you want from me?” And the mark, he asks it wearily, diminished, and the work-up on him comes to mind in snippets, highlights: the girlfriend who sleeps in a separate room, the indications of skill sets outside of carpentry, the forged documents with too many traces to follow, to know which were sound.
The whispers of the brother, and the fire-and-brimstone tale of his untimely demise.
Eames sees hellfire in the eyes that stare him down, hollow, and he goes with his gut.
“We wanted to help,” Eames tells him, keeps his eyes honest, channels their color to a changeable hazel-green, makes them familiar. “We thought you knew things that we needed.”
“Who the hell is ‘we’?”
“No one of importance,” and he takes the chance, moves so that the metal brushing at his hairline sends a thrill through his blood, visceral in ways the dream shouldn’t be. “And no one you’ll recall.”
He reaches blind and holds a warm wrist between his thumb and his finger, just at the pulse; lifts it to his mouth and catches shock behind the pain, the resignation staring back at him as he draws away, leaving dampness and heat in his wake: he drops the hand before the shot fires, before he wakes, before he runs.
He honestly doesn’t want to know the kind of information he’d failed to unearth.