[OS] It's you who is real [Ohmiya]
Title: It's you who is real
Pairing: Ohmiya
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Inception!AU, angst
Words: 2 457
Summary: In a world between dream and reality, Ohno tries to recall what he once believed in.
A/N: It's been a long time since I posted some fic. I'm sorry. Currently I'm working on a series again, but I want to finish it before beginnig to post it :) Regarding this OneShot... I watched Inception five times and preordered the special dvd case already, because I'm totally in love with the movie. And because I didn't get it out of my head I had to write a fic about it. So here it is, but a little warning first: The fic is tricky and kind of angsty.
Their lips met, full of passion, full of desire. As if they hadn't felt each other in forever. And maybe it had really been forever.
He reached for him, pressed against him; close, so close. He couldn't let go, couldn't let him go. Would never be able to. Never again. For too long had he been filled with yearning, had felt it grow, like a parasite, and take over his body. He had felt it everywhere, in his chest, his lips, even the tips of his fingers. It had broken him.
He had broken him.
"How deep do we have to go?" Ohno asked grimly, so full of ambition for the first time in ages that it broke Aiba's heart.
"Four levels. We have to be careful," he answered. He let his eyes sweep over Sho, then Jun. They didn't know if what they were doing was right, but every one of them wanted to believe it. Didn't want to allow anything else. Aiba was good at that. Aiba could lock things up so that no one found them, not even he himself. But it still broke his heart that the reason for Ohno's renewed eagerness was a lie.
"Masaki is the only one of us that isn't trained. Only if we take him with us do we have a chance of getting in that far without having to sedate ourselves,"Jun explained stiffly, swallowing far more often than necessary.
'And we can run without you doing it, Satoshi,' Aiba bitterly finished Jun's thought in his head.
"How do we do it?" Ohno asked, a spark in his usually dead eyes. The other three exchanged looks again.
"If Masaki's subconscious plays along, it's going to be relatively easy," was all Sho could answer.
"Alright. Then... then let's go."
"I'm trapped in limbo."
One sentence. An inserted thought that spread through his mind like an ulcer.
"I'm trapped there and you have to get me out. You have to wake me up, Ohchan."
From the very beginning, Sho hadn't liked it. He couldn't picture it ever working, even though he had read a lot about inception. He thought it was crazy. But Aiba disagreed; Aiba, who always hoped for the best. Aiba, who was most affected by the situation.
'Ohno-san will waste away otherwise. Sooner or later,' was the thought that finally made him agree. The basic plan stood - they would give Ohno a sleeping pill, the opportunity arose often enough. Then the three of them would enter his dream, breach one level after the other until they were in deep enough to try an inception.
They had encountered Nino on the very first level. But it wasn't the real Nino.
It was a projection of his former self. It was too bland, too weak, to ever come close to the real Nino.
"Hey guys."
But it still seemed painfully real.
"Nino-chan," Aiba breathed. Sho could hear in his voice that he was close to tears and quickly put his hand on Aiba's trembling shoulder. At the same time he ceaselessly repeated the mantra in his head:
'He isn't real. He isn't real.'
"If you would excuse me... Ohchan and I have to talk about something, in private," Nino said with a saccharine sweet smile. Jun looked at Sho from the corner of his eye, shaking his head almost imperceptibly.
Quickly Sho took a step towards Nino - no, towards the projection - and sent him a friendly smile, "I think you need to postpone that. Ohno-san already has other plans today."
When Nino grimaced, Sho knew he had made a mistake.
In no time at all dark clouds gathered above their heads, crashed into each other and let a torrent of rain lose on the earth. The world around them lost all colors; everything went dark, gray, so that every one of them could taste the pure depression on their tongues.
'Ohno-san's connection to Nino is too strong. If even a mere trifle causes these feelings in him, damn it.'
Sho hadn't noticed Aiba and Jun step next to him. But suddenly they were there, were with him, and the sadness that pressed in on his body lightened for a moment, so that he could think clearly again.
"Maybe Nino can help us on the next level. Let him go with Satoshi-kun, or we won't make it through this," Jun said quickly, lightly squeezing Sho's hand.
“Ok."
"We can't accompany you."
Ohno swallowed. There had to be a reason for why he should enter limbo alone, even though he couldn't think of one. He trusted Sho, trusted Jun and Aiba. That's why he was here, in the middle of nowhere of a long-lost dream. He didn't know how many levels they had gone through or how long they had wandered around Aiba's dreams. Only the three friends who accompanied him and the certainty that he could safe Nino kept him going.
And even if he had to go the rest of the way without his friends, Ohno knew thinking of Nino would be enough to get him through. Would guide him and lead him back to safety.
“Good. I'll go alone. And I will come back with Nino. Trust me!" Ohno answered confidently, still looking at the smiling faces of his friends. He received an encouraging pat on the back from Jun and closed his eyes.
He didn't see the tears in Aiba's eyes that rose to the surface shortly after he had fallen asleep. And he didn't see Jun's smile turn bitter.
And he didn't hear Sho's chocked words:
"Did we do the right thing?"
"It's not true. Ohchan, I'm not dead. He wanted you to think so. He inserted that thought in your head, Ohchan. He-"
"I know. Nino, I know," Ohno tried to calm Nino, who was obviously upset. He put his arms around him, pulled him close to his warm body.
"You believe me, right? I’m real. I’m real, Ohchan. I could never leave you," Nino said imploringly and pressed a fleeting kiss to his lips. "It was always the two of us. Always. But he didn't want that. He was jealous of us."
“I know…”
"He begrudged us our happiness!"
Ohno smiled again. "I know, Nino. But that doesn't matter anymore now. We're together again."
“You can't leave. You can't let him succeed in separating us after all."
The idea had come to Jun in another night spent tossing and turning in search of sleep. A night in which he had thrown his blanket off of him, because he couldn't find peace.
"I need to get Satoshi-kun to let go of Nino," he mumbled as he stirred his tea.
He had convinced Sho and Aiba the next morning.
Ohno wandered around aimlessly. Every building looked like the last, every tree was the same, every blade of grass was bent in the same direction. Ohno wandered around and grew more and more frantic with each passing minute.
Something was terribly wrong. A knowledge that was buried deep within him and wasn't supposed to surface. But it did so slowly, growing and becoming tangible.
Something was terribly wrong.
Ohno just didn't know what.
"Nino is in limbo! He's trapped there. He's sleeping somewhere and can't wake up, that's why he's missing. Because no one has found him and he can't get out on his own!"
When Ohno entered the greenroom with these words the next day, they knew it had worked. But they did their best to look surprised.
"He's in limbo?" Jun pretended to be surprised and Aiba was glad that he was a good actor. He himself didn't say anything, just like Sho had advised him to.
'Because you don't have full control over yourself, because you would tell Ohno the truth.'
"Yes... he told me last night. I don't know how he did it, but he was in my dream. Our connection is strong, that's why he came to me. He was... he is... you have to believe me! Please! I'm sure." Ohno sounded at the same time confused and convinced. Aiba could understand his reaction. He himself was confused by all this, this plan of Jun's that was supposed to save Ohno.
How could you save someone with a lie?
But at the same time he was sure that it would be best for Ohno. He was convinced that he could see a spark in Ohno's eyes that until yesterday he had thought he would never see again.
"It didn't work. One of us has to go down there and wake him up or Ohno will be lost in limbo forever."
Ohno didn't know how many years had passed until he met someone other than Nino for the first time. Jun was standing only a few feet away, and Ohno could hardly believe it.
"Jun-kun, what are you doing here?"
At first he only looked at him, looked at him in a way that Ohno didn't understand. He saw remorse in his eyes, maybe even a smattering of doubt.
"I’m here to wake you up."
“What are you talking about? But I am... I am awake. Jun-kun, I'm...," but while he was trying to convince Jun, the strange feeling came back with a vengeance.
'Something is terribly wrong here.'
"I’m... wait. Nino. Nino, where are-" That was as far as Ohno got before Jun pressed his hand over Ohno's mouth.
"Don't call him. He won’t let you leave."
Ohno could only watch him with wide eyes while the voice inside his head grew louder and louder:
'Something is wrong!'
"You need to listen closely now. Nino is only a projection. He is dead. You are alone down here, here in limbo," Jun began and Ohno did his best to fight him, to break through Jun's hold and stop him from talking. But Jun held onto him, his hand still pressed over Ohno's mouth.
"I know that you don't want to hear this, but you have to. Satoshi, you have to wake up! You can't allow yourself to get lost here."
Ohno's resistance weakened. And the voice inside his head kept shouting:
'Something is wrong here, terribly wrong...'
"We did an inception on you," Jun breathed almost inaudibly and Ohno froze. He stood in the circle of Jun's arms motionlessly, looked up at him and didn't want to believe what he had just been told.
"Why...?" he whispered after Jun had finally taken the hand off his mouth, "Why did you do that?"
"You wanted to kill yourself, Satoshi. You couldn't deal with Nino's death. That's why we inserted a thought. We told you that Nino was still alive and trapped in limbo. We... we couldn't watch you wither away."
The voice inside his head quietened when realization hit him.
"Nino isn't... real," Ohno repeated tonelessly and let his gaze wander over their surroundings. Nothing was moving, there was no wind, the leaves weren't rustling anymore. Then one building after the other collapsed, dust whirled up, covering their bodies, their faces.
Ohno looked back at Jun while everything around them collapsed.
"We wanted you to be able to say goodbye to him. Because you never got the chance to," Jun explained quickly, "We hoped you would realize that it wasn't the real Nino on your own. That he's just a projection created by your subconscious."
Suddenly Nino appeared behind him, glowering at Jun. At first there was joy in Ohno, the joy he always felt when he was close to Nino, but reality caught up to him quickly. Nino wasn't real.
"Ohchan," he heard Nino's cold voice, heard him coming closer.
"Wake up! Please, Satoshi!"
"Ohchan?"
"Say goodbye to him and come back. Please!"
Then Nino produced a gun seemingly out of nowhere and shot Jun.
"He didn’t deserve any better. You know that, right? He wanted to take you away from me," Nino assured him again and again, their bodies still pressed tightly against each other.
How could he be a projection, when he felt so warm, so alive?
"Shhh. It's ok, Nino," Ohno replied softly and breathed a kiss onto his forehead. And another one. "We're going to wake up together."
Nino blinked. “What?”
"We will wake up together. This here... this isn't real, but the two of us are, Nino," Ohno explained and sent him a smile before he kissed him again, this time on the lips.
“Ok. Then let's wake up."
Ohno took Nino's hand, squeezed it tight, while they stepped to the edge of the skyscraper together.
But Ohno had remembered.
"I'm fine. Really...," Nino whispered, trying to smile. He failed miserably. Ohno hadn't expected to sit here, in a little boat, with Nino at his side.
He also hadn't expected that they would both fall asleep after a while and float away on the waves.
But he didn't care.
He looked up at the stars in the sky, squeezed Nino's hand tightly and he didn't care at all. He didn't know where they were or how they would get back to the shore. But that was ok.
Nino was with him. And that was all that mattered.
But the next morning surprised them, bringing with it a thunderstorm they were in no way ready for. The small boat pitched and tossed on the water, threatening to throw them over board. Nino was pale. And so weak.
"Hold on! Please, hold on! Nino!" Ohno screamed against the raging storm, but he couldn't even hear his own voice. Nino only nodded, holding onto him even tighter. The next wave came, broke above them and showered them with tons of cold water. He saw that Nino's lips were trying to form words, but he couldn't hear him.
Another wave and Ohno squeezed his eyes shut.
When he opened them again, Nino was no longer at his side.
“No! No!"
He looked around wildly, searching; searching desperately. But he couldn't see him. The waves were too high, the storm too strong, there was water everywhere. Even after he sprang into the sea, gasping and looking around the ice-cold water frantically, he couldn't see anything.
Nino had disappeared.
“No! Oh God! Please no! No, Nino, no!" he shouted desperately, but all his shouts did was make him swallow water and cough, hardly able to hold himself afloat. But he ignored all that and kept looking, swimming further away from the boat.
"Nino!" Ohno shouted as loud as he could against the thundering waves. Nothing.
Panic caught hold of him, immense fear made him unable to move so that he nearly drowned. He barely managed to reach his boat again.
Without Nino.
After 40 minutes of sleep and eight years of lived unreality, Ohno woke up alone.
Without Nino.
The End.
Pairing: Ohmiya
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Inception!AU, angst
Words: 2 457
Summary: In a world between dream and reality, Ohno tries to recall what he once believed in.
A/N: It's been a long time since I posted some fic. I'm sorry. Currently I'm working on a series again, but I want to finish it before beginnig to post it :) Regarding this OneShot... I watched Inception five times and preordered the special dvd case already, because I'm totally in love with the movie. And because I didn't get it out of my head I had to write a fic about it. So here it is, but a little warning first: The fic is tricky and kind of angsty.
Their lips met, full of passion, full of desire. As if they hadn't felt each other in forever. And maybe it had really been forever.
He reached for him, pressed against him; close, so close. He couldn't let go, couldn't let him go. Would never be able to. Never again. For too long had he been filled with yearning, had felt it grow, like a parasite, and take over his body. He had felt it everywhere, in his chest, his lips, even the tips of his fingers. It had broken him.
He had broken him.
"How deep do we have to go?" Ohno asked grimly, so full of ambition for the first time in ages that it broke Aiba's heart.
"Four levels. We have to be careful," he answered. He let his eyes sweep over Sho, then Jun. They didn't know if what they were doing was right, but every one of them wanted to believe it. Didn't want to allow anything else. Aiba was good at that. Aiba could lock things up so that no one found them, not even he himself. But it still broke his heart that the reason for Ohno's renewed eagerness was a lie.
"Masaki is the only one of us that isn't trained. Only if we take him with us do we have a chance of getting in that far without having to sedate ourselves,"Jun explained stiffly, swallowing far more often than necessary.
'And we can run without you doing it, Satoshi,' Aiba bitterly finished Jun's thought in his head.
"How do we do it?" Ohno asked, a spark in his usually dead eyes. The other three exchanged looks again.
"If Masaki's subconscious plays along, it's going to be relatively easy," was all Sho could answer.
"Alright. Then... then let's go."
"I'm trapped in limbo."
One sentence. An inserted thought that spread through his mind like an ulcer.
"I'm trapped there and you have to get me out. You have to wake me up, Ohchan."
From the very beginning, Sho hadn't liked it. He couldn't picture it ever working, even though he had read a lot about inception. He thought it was crazy. But Aiba disagreed; Aiba, who always hoped for the best. Aiba, who was most affected by the situation.
'Ohno-san will waste away otherwise. Sooner or later,' was the thought that finally made him agree. The basic plan stood - they would give Ohno a sleeping pill, the opportunity arose often enough. Then the three of them would enter his dream, breach one level after the other until they were in deep enough to try an inception.
They had encountered Nino on the very first level. But it wasn't the real Nino.
It was a projection of his former self. It was too bland, too weak, to ever come close to the real Nino.
"Hey guys."
But it still seemed painfully real.
"Nino-chan," Aiba breathed. Sho could hear in his voice that he was close to tears and quickly put his hand on Aiba's trembling shoulder. At the same time he ceaselessly repeated the mantra in his head:
'He isn't real. He isn't real.'
"If you would excuse me... Ohchan and I have to talk about something, in private," Nino said with a saccharine sweet smile. Jun looked at Sho from the corner of his eye, shaking his head almost imperceptibly.
Quickly Sho took a step towards Nino - no, towards the projection - and sent him a friendly smile, "I think you need to postpone that. Ohno-san already has other plans today."
When Nino grimaced, Sho knew he had made a mistake.
In no time at all dark clouds gathered above their heads, crashed into each other and let a torrent of rain lose on the earth. The world around them lost all colors; everything went dark, gray, so that every one of them could taste the pure depression on their tongues.
'Ohno-san's connection to Nino is too strong. If even a mere trifle causes these feelings in him, damn it.'
Sho hadn't noticed Aiba and Jun step next to him. But suddenly they were there, were with him, and the sadness that pressed in on his body lightened for a moment, so that he could think clearly again.
"Maybe Nino can help us on the next level. Let him go with Satoshi-kun, or we won't make it through this," Jun said quickly, lightly squeezing Sho's hand.
“Ok."
"We can't accompany you."
Ohno swallowed. There had to be a reason for why he should enter limbo alone, even though he couldn't think of one. He trusted Sho, trusted Jun and Aiba. That's why he was here, in the middle of nowhere of a long-lost dream. He didn't know how many levels they had gone through or how long they had wandered around Aiba's dreams. Only the three friends who accompanied him and the certainty that he could safe Nino kept him going.
And even if he had to go the rest of the way without his friends, Ohno knew thinking of Nino would be enough to get him through. Would guide him and lead him back to safety.
“Good. I'll go alone. And I will come back with Nino. Trust me!" Ohno answered confidently, still looking at the smiling faces of his friends. He received an encouraging pat on the back from Jun and closed his eyes.
He didn't see the tears in Aiba's eyes that rose to the surface shortly after he had fallen asleep. And he didn't see Jun's smile turn bitter.
And he didn't hear Sho's chocked words:
"Did we do the right thing?"
"It's not true. Ohchan, I'm not dead. He wanted you to think so. He inserted that thought in your head, Ohchan. He-"
"I know. Nino, I know," Ohno tried to calm Nino, who was obviously upset. He put his arms around him, pulled him close to his warm body.
"You believe me, right? I’m real. I’m real, Ohchan. I could never leave you," Nino said imploringly and pressed a fleeting kiss to his lips. "It was always the two of us. Always. But he didn't want that. He was jealous of us."
“I know…”
"He begrudged us our happiness!"
Ohno smiled again. "I know, Nino. But that doesn't matter anymore now. We're together again."
“You can't leave. You can't let him succeed in separating us after all."
The idea had come to Jun in another night spent tossing and turning in search of sleep. A night in which he had thrown his blanket off of him, because he couldn't find peace.
"I need to get Satoshi-kun to let go of Nino," he mumbled as he stirred his tea.
He had convinced Sho and Aiba the next morning.
Ohno wandered around aimlessly. Every building looked like the last, every tree was the same, every blade of grass was bent in the same direction. Ohno wandered around and grew more and more frantic with each passing minute.
Something was terribly wrong. A knowledge that was buried deep within him and wasn't supposed to surface. But it did so slowly, growing and becoming tangible.
Something was terribly wrong.
Ohno just didn't know what.
"Nino is in limbo! He's trapped there. He's sleeping somewhere and can't wake up, that's why he's missing. Because no one has found him and he can't get out on his own!"
When Ohno entered the greenroom with these words the next day, they knew it had worked. But they did their best to look surprised.
"He's in limbo?" Jun pretended to be surprised and Aiba was glad that he was a good actor. He himself didn't say anything, just like Sho had advised him to.
'Because you don't have full control over yourself, because you would tell Ohno the truth.'
"Yes... he told me last night. I don't know how he did it, but he was in my dream. Our connection is strong, that's why he came to me. He was... he is... you have to believe me! Please! I'm sure." Ohno sounded at the same time confused and convinced. Aiba could understand his reaction. He himself was confused by all this, this plan of Jun's that was supposed to save Ohno.
How could you save someone with a lie?
But at the same time he was sure that it would be best for Ohno. He was convinced that he could see a spark in Ohno's eyes that until yesterday he had thought he would never see again.
"It didn't work. One of us has to go down there and wake him up or Ohno will be lost in limbo forever."
Ohno didn't know how many years had passed until he met someone other than Nino for the first time. Jun was standing only a few feet away, and Ohno could hardly believe it.
"Jun-kun, what are you doing here?"
At first he only looked at him, looked at him in a way that Ohno didn't understand. He saw remorse in his eyes, maybe even a smattering of doubt.
"I’m here to wake you up."
“What are you talking about? But I am... I am awake. Jun-kun, I'm...," but while he was trying to convince Jun, the strange feeling came back with a vengeance.
'Something is terribly wrong here.'
"I’m... wait. Nino. Nino, where are-" That was as far as Ohno got before Jun pressed his hand over Ohno's mouth.
"Don't call him. He won’t let you leave."
Ohno could only watch him with wide eyes while the voice inside his head grew louder and louder:
'Something is wrong!'
"You need to listen closely now. Nino is only a projection. He is dead. You are alone down here, here in limbo," Jun began and Ohno did his best to fight him, to break through Jun's hold and stop him from talking. But Jun held onto him, his hand still pressed over Ohno's mouth.
"I know that you don't want to hear this, but you have to. Satoshi, you have to wake up! You can't allow yourself to get lost here."
Ohno's resistance weakened. And the voice inside his head kept shouting:
'Something is wrong here, terribly wrong...'
"We did an inception on you," Jun breathed almost inaudibly and Ohno froze. He stood in the circle of Jun's arms motionlessly, looked up at him and didn't want to believe what he had just been told.
"Why...?" he whispered after Jun had finally taken the hand off his mouth, "Why did you do that?"
"You wanted to kill yourself, Satoshi. You couldn't deal with Nino's death. That's why we inserted a thought. We told you that Nino was still alive and trapped in limbo. We... we couldn't watch you wither away."
The voice inside his head quietened when realization hit him.
"Nino isn't... real," Ohno repeated tonelessly and let his gaze wander over their surroundings. Nothing was moving, there was no wind, the leaves weren't rustling anymore. Then one building after the other collapsed, dust whirled up, covering their bodies, their faces.
Ohno looked back at Jun while everything around them collapsed.
"We wanted you to be able to say goodbye to him. Because you never got the chance to," Jun explained quickly, "We hoped you would realize that it wasn't the real Nino on your own. That he's just a projection created by your subconscious."
Suddenly Nino appeared behind him, glowering at Jun. At first there was joy in Ohno, the joy he always felt when he was close to Nino, but reality caught up to him quickly. Nino wasn't real.
"Ohchan," he heard Nino's cold voice, heard him coming closer.
"Wake up! Please, Satoshi!"
"Ohchan?"
"Say goodbye to him and come back. Please!"
Then Nino produced a gun seemingly out of nowhere and shot Jun.
"He didn’t deserve any better. You know that, right? He wanted to take you away from me," Nino assured him again and again, their bodies still pressed tightly against each other.
How could he be a projection, when he felt so warm, so alive?
"Shhh. It's ok, Nino," Ohno replied softly and breathed a kiss onto his forehead. And another one. "We're going to wake up together."
Nino blinked. “What?”
"We will wake up together. This here... this isn't real, but the two of us are, Nino," Ohno explained and sent him a smile before he kissed him again, this time on the lips.
“Ok. Then let's wake up."
Ohno took Nino's hand, squeezed it tight, while they stepped to the edge of the skyscraper together.
But Ohno had remembered.
"I'm fine. Really...," Nino whispered, trying to smile. He failed miserably. Ohno hadn't expected to sit here, in a little boat, with Nino at his side.
He also hadn't expected that they would both fall asleep after a while and float away on the waves.
But he didn't care.
He looked up at the stars in the sky, squeezed Nino's hand tightly and he didn't care at all. He didn't know where they were or how they would get back to the shore. But that was ok.
Nino was with him. And that was all that mattered.
But the next morning surprised them, bringing with it a thunderstorm they were in no way ready for. The small boat pitched and tossed on the water, threatening to throw them over board. Nino was pale. And so weak.
"Hold on! Please, hold on! Nino!" Ohno screamed against the raging storm, but he couldn't even hear his own voice. Nino only nodded, holding onto him even tighter. The next wave came, broke above them and showered them with tons of cold water. He saw that Nino's lips were trying to form words, but he couldn't hear him.
Another wave and Ohno squeezed his eyes shut.
When he opened them again, Nino was no longer at his side.
“No! No!"
He looked around wildly, searching; searching desperately. But he couldn't see him. The waves were too high, the storm too strong, there was water everywhere. Even after he sprang into the sea, gasping and looking around the ice-cold water frantically, he couldn't see anything.
Nino had disappeared.
“No! Oh God! Please no! No, Nino, no!" he shouted desperately, but all his shouts did was make him swallow water and cough, hardly able to hold himself afloat. But he ignored all that and kept looking, swimming further away from the boat.
"Nino!" Ohno shouted as loud as he could against the thundering waves. Nothing.
Panic caught hold of him, immense fear made him unable to move so that he nearly drowned. He barely managed to reach his boat again.
Without Nino.
After 40 minutes of sleep and eight years of lived unreality, Ohno woke up alone.
Without Nino.
The End.