Fight Song | Inception | PG13 | Arthur/Cobb
Title: Fight Song
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Cobb, Ariadne POV
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: For the movie.
Summary: Written for a prompt from inception_kink: Arthur is too controlled to allow his demons to wander around his dreams as projections, but an incident breaks his focus and Cobb (or Adriane) get a glimpse at who or what haunts him.
A/N: I needed to write an origin story for Arthur. This came out sort of sad and depressing. Poor Arthur :(
The first time Ariadne sees the older man, walking about with the same purpose that all of Arthur's projections seem to exude, she is too distracted by the immense task of simultaneously creating an intimately detailed cafe on the corner while extending the tarmac behind her that she takes no notice of him. She does not realize that something strange has even occurred until she glances back at Arthur, who is supposed to be reviewing her handiwork, and sees him, for a brief moment, transfixed in what she recognizes to be a mixture of horror and... fear? Ariadne, startled, accidentally lets the building one city block away collapse. The sound breaks Arthur from his momentary trance.
"That's certainly going to attract some unwanted attention from the mark," is all Arthur says to her. Ariadne is almost sure she imagined his momentary lapse.
"I think I'm starting to see things," she murmurs to him, and he agrees that it's about time they called it a day.
-
When she sees him again, this time on the job, Ariadne experiences the oddest sense of deja vu.
"Keep it together," Cobb warns her as the tables beside them wobble. He follows her eye line to the man at the bar, but his face betrays no emotion while assessing the projection. "We need you focused," he says, head snapping back to face his protegee. Ariadne nods, embarrassed. She's not usually this distractible. Ariadne pushes the older man sitting at the bar out of her mind, and decides not to take note of the twitch in Arthur's mouth that turns his lips downward at the edge, resulting in a jerky frown.
When Cobb approaches the mark, it's back to business for them all. Arthur's mouth is now a hard line, and Ariadne knows that now is not the time to ask him anything. The point man was on point. No discussion, no distraction, only expert protection and coverage.
-
It's only once the job is done that Ariadne learns the older man's significance. She's memorized his face: eyes that seem to crinkle at the edges, a layer of dark scruff that covers his jaw and neck, an unnaturally crooked nose, dark hair that's just started to grey... Ariadne realizes immediately that the man is somehow significant, somehow is this crucial key to the mystery that Arthur enjoyed shrouding himself in. She doesn't dare ask him.
Cobb dares.
"Arthur?"
By the time Cobb calls for his point man, Yusuf's gone home for the evening. Arthur's got his back to the rest of them, and Cobb is huddled away in his office. Ariadne and Eames are bonding over a job well done-"Seriously Eames, that red head was beautiful." "Well, let me tell you, young miss, the mood in that bar of yours? Spot on. Was that Sinatra in the background?" "The mark apparently had a thing for him, I was wondering if it was too much..." "I think it was an excellent touch, sweetheart."-when they hear the single word, uttered like a fisherman casting out a line, the hook sinking into Arthur's back like a physical hurt. He winces a shudder that dances all the way down his spinal cord. Wordlessly, Arthur walks to Cobb's office, reeled in by some invisible hand. Eames raises an eyebrow and gives Ariadne a look that reads let us go then, you and I. They follow the point man, giving a small berth, close enough to hear, far enough to feign privacy.
"Good work today," Cobb is telling Arthur.
"Thanks," Arthur says curtly. They're quiet for a moment.
"At the bar..." Cobb trails off.
"I know."
It is clear that this exchange is a small piece of something that goes back, way back between the two of them. A strange chasm of emotion that runs deeper than Ariadne can sense. She glances at Eames and sees worry.
"It's been years since I last laid eyes on the elder Darling," Cobb murmurs. Ariadne's eyes bulge, and she mouths the word father? to Eames, who looks just as shocked.
"It won't happen again," Arthur says, but this time, instead of the calm, collected voice that she had come to associate with the eternal professional, the words he spoke were hauntingly raw, like someone had pounded them into submission before leaving his lips.
Cobb doesn't say anything.
"I know how it looks," Arthur says so quietly that Eames and Ariadne are now straining to hear. "That life... before I met you. Before you did what you did."
"I'd do it again in a heartbeat," Cobb says gruffly.
"I know you would," Arthur says ruefully. "It's why I'm your point man."
Ariadne suddenly feels very invasive, like she's intruded on something exceedingly private.
"That life was a forced one. I was a shell then. My dad..." Arthur stops himself. "That man knew it. He knew what he was doing to me. He didn't stop it. A real father would have done something."
Ariadne can hear the sound of movement from within the office.
"I could kill him for what he did to you," Cobb says fiercely.
"I almost did," Arthur says simply. "In my dreams, I've killed him a thousand times." A pause. "I always bring him back, though."
Ariadne backs away quickly, unwilling to hear more. The voices inside the office cease at the sound of her footsteps.
"Eames?" calls Cobb. "You need something?"
"I was just leaving," Eames calls, scampering away after Ariadne. What the fuck is what he mouths to Ariadne. She shrugs her shoulders, wide eyed.
"You don't know?" she hisses at him. Eames shakes his head.
"Arthur's very quiet about his past before Dom. Never talks about it." Eames pauses. "Sound like he's got his reasons."
The two, architect and forger, dart out of headquarters, Ariadne feeling oddly at a loss for words. She both wants to know what happened and finds herself cringing at the thought of knowing what horrors lay behind Arthur. She had no right to dredge up Arthur's past.
Eames offers her a cigarette. She declines at first, then accepts. It makes her feel grown up.
-
When Arthur's dad appears again, there's nothing Arthur can do to hide it. No amount of discretion can cover up the fact that the team was currently being held hostage by projections that seemed to all look toward Arthur's dad for instruction.
"Arthur!" Ariadne screams as one of the projections covers her mouth with duct tape. From then on, all Ariadne can do is watch in horror.
"This is what you left for?" Arthur's father sneers at the point man, who is bound in the center of a circle of burly projections. Arthur is staring at him with cold eyes, but the same fear Ariadne saw before was plainly visible in the frown that had settled upon his face. "A rag-tag team of rouges? Oh, Artie-" Arthur cringes at the nickname- "are these your friends? They look so... breakable."
The older man punches Arthur in the face so hard that he spits blood.
"Not like you, though. Not so breakable, my boy." Another punch. Ariadne whimpers, and Cobb manically struggles against his bonds.
"Get the fuck away from him," Cobb violently shouts, wresting his mouth out from under the hand of a projection.
"When we signed you up for the fight, we figured that we'd earn a hundred bucks and walk out, maybe with you a bit, eh, scratched up," the greying man says, ignoring Cobb's outburst as if nothing had happened. "But no, you had to go ahead and put their number one seed in the goddamn hospital."
Arthur's mouth is freely dripping blood onto the floor below him. Ariadne cannot see his face, but his body language reads intense shame.
"You know the fight organizer, Jenner... you remember him? He always liked you," Arthur's father grins, and Ariadne suspects something horrible and true. She has a vision of a young Arthur getting cornered by a faceless, impossibly huge Jenner. Tears well up in her eyes. "You know told me? Now what am I supposed to do. Your kid's gotta stay. I need a number one. You know what I said?"
Arthur spits blood on his father's worn shoes. In exchange, Arthur's father kicks over the chair he's perched Arthur on. Arthur cushions his fall with the side of his head. She can hear Eames give a muffled exclamation and Cobb, God, Cobb was going to have a coronary if he kept on struggling like that. There had to be at least ten projections restraining him now.
"I said, take him. Because you were no fucking use to me... too much of a child to do a man's work. I always knew that about you."
Arthur begins to murmur strings of words that make little sense. Ariadne thinks she catches "winner takes all" and "no more, dad," but she can't be sure over the father's cruel cackle.
"Right now, you're dreaming, son," he says, venom lining his words. "Yes, your friends will offer you solace and comfort in your waking hours. But know this: I've got you when you sleep, boy. Never forget that."
Cobb is the one to finally wrestle his way out the crowd of projections and wordlessly shoots a silently crying Arthur in the head.
They all wake up.
-
They are all sitting except Arthur. Arthur is silently rolling his totem on the ground, over and over again. They say nothing to him. Ariadne offers him sad eyes. Arthur does not accept her gaze, merely stares at his blood red die.
When he talks, he does not look at them.
"My father needed money. There was an underground fighting ring that he signed me up for." He laughs shakily. "Bastard didn't know I was actually a good at hand-to-hand. Thought he was sending me into a massacre. I think he enjoyed the idea of seeing me all screwed up." Arthur pauses. "He called me pretty boy for a long while. Then he shortened the epithet to just boy."
"Well, as you can guess, I won. I kept on winning. It was killing me, but I kept fighting. My dad was in debt, and there was no way out beyond the ring. I'd probably still be there if Cobb hadn't found me."
Arthur turns now, locking eyes with Cobb so intensely that Ariadne has to look away.
"You would have gotten out," Cobb says, sincerity in every word. Arthur just shakes his head and continues.
"Cobb found me late one night after a couple of rounds," Arthur says simply. "I had just been in a particularly bloody fight. I don't know what he saw in me." Arthur gives a shaky laugh and falls silent. He gives Cobb another significant look. "But apparently it was something. Because he took my spot in the roster for the rest of the night."
Ariadne lets out an audible gasp. Cobb shrugs.
"You were done with that ring," the extractor says simply. "There was no way you were going back in there. Jenner was... rather susceptible to a temporary replacement. And then, of course, money was ultimately rather effective. Your father, on the other hand..."
"My father knew that you were taking me away," Arthur continues quietly. "He knew he was getting stripped of his cash cow. He got... angry."
"That's the understatement of the year," Cobb chuckles humorlessly.
"We got away," Arthur says, refraining from an explanation. "But I still see him in my dreams." He runs a hand down the back of his neck. "Usually I can control it. Lately, it's been more difficult." In turn, he looks every member of the team in the eyes. "I'm sorry about tonight. It won't happen again."
It becomes clear after a few moments quiet that Arthur's story is finished.
"I could right kill that bastard," Eames says angrily.
"He died three weeks ago," Arthur replies.
Eames shuts up.
This time they all leave with a rapidity quite unlike their usual selves: Ariadne finds herself yearning for a place far away from headquarters.
She's leaving the warehouse when she hears voices by the PASIV machine. Jerking a head back, she sees Arthur and Cobb standing there in the dim light. Cobb's got both hands clutching at Arthur's arms, and Ariadne imagines that he's holding onto his point man for dear life. When Cobb reels Arthur into his embrace, clutching him to his chest tightly and shushing his heaving breaths, Ariadne knows that the point man will be okay.
Fandom: Inception
Pairing: Arthur/Cobb, Ariadne POV
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: For the movie.
Summary: Written for a prompt from inception_kink: Arthur is too controlled to allow his demons to wander around his dreams as projections, but an incident breaks his focus and Cobb (or Adriane) get a glimpse at who or what haunts him.
A/N: I needed to write an origin story for Arthur. This came out sort of sad and depressing. Poor Arthur :(
The first time Ariadne sees the older man, walking about with the same purpose that all of Arthur's projections seem to exude, she is too distracted by the immense task of simultaneously creating an intimately detailed cafe on the corner while extending the tarmac behind her that she takes no notice of him. She does not realize that something strange has even occurred until she glances back at Arthur, who is supposed to be reviewing her handiwork, and sees him, for a brief moment, transfixed in what she recognizes to be a mixture of horror and... fear? Ariadne, startled, accidentally lets the building one city block away collapse. The sound breaks Arthur from his momentary trance.
"That's certainly going to attract some unwanted attention from the mark," is all Arthur says to her. Ariadne is almost sure she imagined his momentary lapse.
"I think I'm starting to see things," she murmurs to him, and he agrees that it's about time they called it a day.
-
When she sees him again, this time on the job, Ariadne experiences the oddest sense of deja vu.
"Keep it together," Cobb warns her as the tables beside them wobble. He follows her eye line to the man at the bar, but his face betrays no emotion while assessing the projection. "We need you focused," he says, head snapping back to face his protegee. Ariadne nods, embarrassed. She's not usually this distractible. Ariadne pushes the older man sitting at the bar out of her mind, and decides not to take note of the twitch in Arthur's mouth that turns his lips downward at the edge, resulting in a jerky frown.
When Cobb approaches the mark, it's back to business for them all. Arthur's mouth is now a hard line, and Ariadne knows that now is not the time to ask him anything. The point man was on point. No discussion, no distraction, only expert protection and coverage.
-
It's only once the job is done that Ariadne learns the older man's significance. She's memorized his face: eyes that seem to crinkle at the edges, a layer of dark scruff that covers his jaw and neck, an unnaturally crooked nose, dark hair that's just started to grey... Ariadne realizes immediately that the man is somehow significant, somehow is this crucial key to the mystery that Arthur enjoyed shrouding himself in. She doesn't dare ask him.
Cobb dares.
"Arthur?"
By the time Cobb calls for his point man, Yusuf's gone home for the evening. Arthur's got his back to the rest of them, and Cobb is huddled away in his office. Ariadne and Eames are bonding over a job well done-"Seriously Eames, that red head was beautiful." "Well, let me tell you, young miss, the mood in that bar of yours? Spot on. Was that Sinatra in the background?" "The mark apparently had a thing for him, I was wondering if it was too much..." "I think it was an excellent touch, sweetheart."-when they hear the single word, uttered like a fisherman casting out a line, the hook sinking into Arthur's back like a physical hurt. He winces a shudder that dances all the way down his spinal cord. Wordlessly, Arthur walks to Cobb's office, reeled in by some invisible hand. Eames raises an eyebrow and gives Ariadne a look that reads let us go then, you and I. They follow the point man, giving a small berth, close enough to hear, far enough to feign privacy.
"Good work today," Cobb is telling Arthur.
"Thanks," Arthur says curtly. They're quiet for a moment.
"At the bar..." Cobb trails off.
"I know."
It is clear that this exchange is a small piece of something that goes back, way back between the two of them. A strange chasm of emotion that runs deeper than Ariadne can sense. She glances at Eames and sees worry.
"It's been years since I last laid eyes on the elder Darling," Cobb murmurs. Ariadne's eyes bulge, and she mouths the word father? to Eames, who looks just as shocked.
"It won't happen again," Arthur says, but this time, instead of the calm, collected voice that she had come to associate with the eternal professional, the words he spoke were hauntingly raw, like someone had pounded them into submission before leaving his lips.
Cobb doesn't say anything.
"I know how it looks," Arthur says so quietly that Eames and Ariadne are now straining to hear. "That life... before I met you. Before you did what you did."
"I'd do it again in a heartbeat," Cobb says gruffly.
"I know you would," Arthur says ruefully. "It's why I'm your point man."
Ariadne suddenly feels very invasive, like she's intruded on something exceedingly private.
"That life was a forced one. I was a shell then. My dad..." Arthur stops himself. "That man knew it. He knew what he was doing to me. He didn't stop it. A real father would have done something."
Ariadne can hear the sound of movement from within the office.
"I could kill him for what he did to you," Cobb says fiercely.
"I almost did," Arthur says simply. "In my dreams, I've killed him a thousand times." A pause. "I always bring him back, though."
Ariadne backs away quickly, unwilling to hear more. The voices inside the office cease at the sound of her footsteps.
"Eames?" calls Cobb. "You need something?"
"I was just leaving," Eames calls, scampering away after Ariadne. What the fuck is what he mouths to Ariadne. She shrugs her shoulders, wide eyed.
"You don't know?" she hisses at him. Eames shakes his head.
"Arthur's very quiet about his past before Dom. Never talks about it." Eames pauses. "Sound like he's got his reasons."
The two, architect and forger, dart out of headquarters, Ariadne feeling oddly at a loss for words. She both wants to know what happened and finds herself cringing at the thought of knowing what horrors lay behind Arthur. She had no right to dredge up Arthur's past.
Eames offers her a cigarette. She declines at first, then accepts. It makes her feel grown up.
-
When Arthur's dad appears again, there's nothing Arthur can do to hide it. No amount of discretion can cover up the fact that the team was currently being held hostage by projections that seemed to all look toward Arthur's dad for instruction.
"Arthur!" Ariadne screams as one of the projections covers her mouth with duct tape. From then on, all Ariadne can do is watch in horror.
"This is what you left for?" Arthur's father sneers at the point man, who is bound in the center of a circle of burly projections. Arthur is staring at him with cold eyes, but the same fear Ariadne saw before was plainly visible in the frown that had settled upon his face. "A rag-tag team of rouges? Oh, Artie-" Arthur cringes at the nickname- "are these your friends? They look so... breakable."
The older man punches Arthur in the face so hard that he spits blood.
"Not like you, though. Not so breakable, my boy." Another punch. Ariadne whimpers, and Cobb manically struggles against his bonds.
"Get the fuck away from him," Cobb violently shouts, wresting his mouth out from under the hand of a projection.
"When we signed you up for the fight, we figured that we'd earn a hundred bucks and walk out, maybe with you a bit, eh, scratched up," the greying man says, ignoring Cobb's outburst as if nothing had happened. "But no, you had to go ahead and put their number one seed in the goddamn hospital."
Arthur's mouth is freely dripping blood onto the floor below him. Ariadne cannot see his face, but his body language reads intense shame.
"You know the fight organizer, Jenner... you remember him? He always liked you," Arthur's father grins, and Ariadne suspects something horrible and true. She has a vision of a young Arthur getting cornered by a faceless, impossibly huge Jenner. Tears well up in her eyes. "You know told me? Now what am I supposed to do. Your kid's gotta stay. I need a number one. You know what I said?"
Arthur spits blood on his father's worn shoes. In exchange, Arthur's father kicks over the chair he's perched Arthur on. Arthur cushions his fall with the side of his head. She can hear Eames give a muffled exclamation and Cobb, God, Cobb was going to have a coronary if he kept on struggling like that. There had to be at least ten projections restraining him now.
"I said, take him. Because you were no fucking use to me... too much of a child to do a man's work. I always knew that about you."
Arthur begins to murmur strings of words that make little sense. Ariadne thinks she catches "winner takes all" and "no more, dad," but she can't be sure over the father's cruel cackle.
"Right now, you're dreaming, son," he says, venom lining his words. "Yes, your friends will offer you solace and comfort in your waking hours. But know this: I've got you when you sleep, boy. Never forget that."
Cobb is the one to finally wrestle his way out the crowd of projections and wordlessly shoots a silently crying Arthur in the head.
They all wake up.
-
They are all sitting except Arthur. Arthur is silently rolling his totem on the ground, over and over again. They say nothing to him. Ariadne offers him sad eyes. Arthur does not accept her gaze, merely stares at his blood red die.
When he talks, he does not look at them.
"My father needed money. There was an underground fighting ring that he signed me up for." He laughs shakily. "Bastard didn't know I was actually a good at hand-to-hand. Thought he was sending me into a massacre. I think he enjoyed the idea of seeing me all screwed up." Arthur pauses. "He called me pretty boy for a long while. Then he shortened the epithet to just boy."
"Well, as you can guess, I won. I kept on winning. It was killing me, but I kept fighting. My dad was in debt, and there was no way out beyond the ring. I'd probably still be there if Cobb hadn't found me."
Arthur turns now, locking eyes with Cobb so intensely that Ariadne has to look away.
"You would have gotten out," Cobb says, sincerity in every word. Arthur just shakes his head and continues.
"Cobb found me late one night after a couple of rounds," Arthur says simply. "I had just been in a particularly bloody fight. I don't know what he saw in me." Arthur gives a shaky laugh and falls silent. He gives Cobb another significant look. "But apparently it was something. Because he took my spot in the roster for the rest of the night."
Ariadne lets out an audible gasp. Cobb shrugs.
"You were done with that ring," the extractor says simply. "There was no way you were going back in there. Jenner was... rather susceptible to a temporary replacement. And then, of course, money was ultimately rather effective. Your father, on the other hand..."
"My father knew that you were taking me away," Arthur continues quietly. "He knew he was getting stripped of his cash cow. He got... angry."
"That's the understatement of the year," Cobb chuckles humorlessly.
"We got away," Arthur says, refraining from an explanation. "But I still see him in my dreams." He runs a hand down the back of his neck. "Usually I can control it. Lately, it's been more difficult." In turn, he looks every member of the team in the eyes. "I'm sorry about tonight. It won't happen again."
It becomes clear after a few moments quiet that Arthur's story is finished.
"I could right kill that bastard," Eames says angrily.
"He died three weeks ago," Arthur replies.
Eames shuts up.
This time they all leave with a rapidity quite unlike their usual selves: Ariadne finds herself yearning for a place far away from headquarters.
She's leaving the warehouse when she hears voices by the PASIV machine. Jerking a head back, she sees Arthur and Cobb standing there in the dim light. Cobb's got both hands clutching at Arthur's arms, and Ariadne imagines that he's holding onto his point man for dear life. When Cobb reels Arthur into his embrace, clutching him to his chest tightly and shushing his heaving breaths, Ariadne knows that the point man will be okay.