Fic: Inception, "Rosemary Green" (MTF!Arthur)
Title: Rosemary Green
Word Count: 600
A/N: Companion fic to Lavender Blue; it's best to read that first (and it's undergone significant rewrites very recently, so if you've read it before, you'll want to revisit it).
Rosemary Green
1.
He’s studied the plans, so he already knows the layout by heart - where to find the safe, the doors, the windows. He goes under anyway, and sees more than he expected.
The only people in the room are Cobb himself and a woman, dark hair past her shoulders, impeccably dressed. He takes her for a projection, at first, then takes a second look. She’s… softer, more relaxed, but still somehow recognizably Arthur.
Not a forgery, he knows that much. They’ve tried, and neither of them can forge.
He gazes at her and thinks he understands.
When she turns a second later and stares at him with an expression as close to something cornered and terrified as he’s ever seen on Arthur, he’s sure of it.
He doesn’t know what to say, decides to follow her lead. “Tell me what to do,” he asks, and there’s a plea in his voice he can’t shake and hopes she doesn’t hear.
“Go,” she says, looking pained, and he does, eats a bullet quick as anything.
Once they’re both awake, he doesn’t quite meet Arthur’s eyes. If they acknowledge it, they have to talk about it, and right now, there’s work to be done.
---
3.
They haven’t talked about it since that day in Arthur’s Japanese castle. So when they go under to test Yusuf’s compound and Cobb finds his point man looking distinctly female, he can hazard a guess that it wasn’t intentional.
He’s wary of asking, of betraying the silent understanding between them - but it’s become relevant, so he gestures meaningfully in her direction. “Is this going to be a problem?”
“No.” There’s no heat to her response, but it’s clear she’d rather he not press.
“Are you sure?” he asks anyway, uncertainly. “If you’re gonna run point on this,” - doesn’t say point man, because she isn’t - “everyone needs to recognize-”
“Keep them out of my mind and we’re good.” Which makes sense - then something catches in his chest as he realizes she trusts him enough to have let him back in, knowing that.
Before he can respond to or even process that, Mal’s suddenly there, closing in, menacing, and there’s no time left.
When they wake moments later, he sighs in relief and tables the conversation. It’s hard to deny they have more important things to worry about, and enough to know that at least one of them has things under control.
---
5.
He wakes, the sound of the gunshot still echoing in his head, barely registering the flight attendant speaking to him.
He can’t bring himself to look at Saito, yet. Instead, when the flight attendant moves on down the aisle, he turns first to Arthur, who’s grinning broadly with the relief and satisfaction of a job well done.
He recognizes it because he feels it, too. But he feels something else, as well, looking at Arthur, and Mal’s words, put in her mouth by his own subconscious, ring in his head. Anyone could see how you feel about her.
He sets that aside to be dealt with later. He looks over at Ariadne instead and then, finally, at Saito, watching him anxiously, waiting for him to wake, for moments that feel like hours. When he does - wakes, meets Cobb’s gaze, picks up the phone - something in Cobb unwinds.
He looks back towards Arthur again, finally able to match Arthur’s expression with a smile of his own.
When they land, they split up as planned and go their separate ways; it’s not the place or the time to talk, for which he’s glad - he’s not sure what he’d say if it were.
Word Count: 600
A/N: Companion fic to Lavender Blue; it's best to read that first (and it's undergone significant rewrites very recently, so if you've read it before, you'll want to revisit it).
Rosemary Green
1.
He’s studied the plans, so he already knows the layout by heart - where to find the safe, the doors, the windows. He goes under anyway, and sees more than he expected.
The only people in the room are Cobb himself and a woman, dark hair past her shoulders, impeccably dressed. He takes her for a projection, at first, then takes a second look. She’s… softer, more relaxed, but still somehow recognizably Arthur.
Not a forgery, he knows that much. They’ve tried, and neither of them can forge.
He gazes at her and thinks he understands.
When she turns a second later and stares at him with an expression as close to something cornered and terrified as he’s ever seen on Arthur, he’s sure of it.
He doesn’t know what to say, decides to follow her lead. “Tell me what to do,” he asks, and there’s a plea in his voice he can’t shake and hopes she doesn’t hear.
“Go,” she says, looking pained, and he does, eats a bullet quick as anything.
Once they’re both awake, he doesn’t quite meet Arthur’s eyes. If they acknowledge it, they have to talk about it, and right now, there’s work to be done.
---
3.
They haven’t talked about it since that day in Arthur’s Japanese castle. So when they go under to test Yusuf’s compound and Cobb finds his point man looking distinctly female, he can hazard a guess that it wasn’t intentional.
He’s wary of asking, of betraying the silent understanding between them - but it’s become relevant, so he gestures meaningfully in her direction. “Is this going to be a problem?”
“No.” There’s no heat to her response, but it’s clear she’d rather he not press.
“Are you sure?” he asks anyway, uncertainly. “If you’re gonna run point on this,” - doesn’t say point man, because she isn’t - “everyone needs to recognize-”
“Keep them out of my mind and we’re good.” Which makes sense - then something catches in his chest as he realizes she trusts him enough to have let him back in, knowing that.
Before he can respond to or even process that, Mal’s suddenly there, closing in, menacing, and there’s no time left.
When they wake moments later, he sighs in relief and tables the conversation. It’s hard to deny they have more important things to worry about, and enough to know that at least one of them has things under control.
---
5.
He wakes, the sound of the gunshot still echoing in his head, barely registering the flight attendant speaking to him.
He can’t bring himself to look at Saito, yet. Instead, when the flight attendant moves on down the aisle, he turns first to Arthur, who’s grinning broadly with the relief and satisfaction of a job well done.
He recognizes it because he feels it, too. But he feels something else, as well, looking at Arthur, and Mal’s words, put in her mouth by his own subconscious, ring in his head. Anyone could see how you feel about her.
He sets that aside to be dealt with later. He looks over at Ariadne instead and then, finally, at Saito, watching him anxiously, waiting for him to wake, for moments that feel like hours. When he does - wakes, meets Cobb’s gaze, picks up the phone - something in Cobb unwinds.
He looks back towards Arthur again, finally able to match Arthur’s expression with a smile of his own.
When they land, they split up as planned and go their separate ways; it’s not the place or the time to talk, for which he’s glad - he’s not sure what he’d say if it were.