All The Trees Of The Field Will Clap Their Hands
I'm pretty excited about this story. I mean, obviously it's crap because it's my first fanfic, but I like the plot and I like where it's heading as of now. The bad thing: I need to do my college apps. Very, very desperately. They're due in eleven days and I have seven more supplements to go. Hoooooocrap. But anyway, here's the next part.
Could, Would, Might Have Been Part II
Inception
Arthur/Eames
Part I: xdreamwyldex.livejournal.com/1163.html#cutid1
Part II/?
He goes to Venice. He has a job lined up there, for some old aristocrats who fancy themselves criminals, but it’s only simple extraction. He hasn’t done anything more complicated than extraction since the inception job, nothing that he can’t work alone.
He decides to stay for a few weeks. Arthur likes Venice. He did a job with Mal and Cobb and Eames in Venice once, and Eames commandeered a gondola and took them through winding canals, his shoulders rippling in his ugly shirt. Arthur pretended he wasn’t watching when Eames turned and winked at him, but the only person fooled was Cobb.
The job goes smoothly - they mostly do, now, everything feels easy after inception - and Arthur contacts people. He doesn’t have much to go by, but he gets some promising information about female maybe-Lebanese chemists. St. Petersburg. Cairo. Hong Kong.
Mombasa. Mombasa Mombasa Mombasa. Arthur loathes it for the same reasons that Eames adores it: the noise, the heat, the spicy food, the ugly shirts. Arthur knows that Eames is working on a particularly complex job with Saito in Tokyo, because he keeps tabs on everyone in this business and certainly not because he has any particular interest in Eames’ whereabouts. But he returns to Mombasa at least once a month like clockwork, to drink and gamble and sleep around. It’s a dangerous place to lay down roots because the amount of governmental corruption makes it a haven for less-than-legal corporations, the type that most often hire extractors, the type that are more likely to hold grudges. Arthur knows at least three bosses who would love to get their grubby hands around his neck. With Eames - Arthur can think of seven.
Arthur decides to save Mombasa for last.
Cobb calls him later in the week. He sounds tired, but not in a my-wife-just-killed-herself-and-everyone-thinks-I-did-it-and-I’m-going-off-the-deep-end sort of way. It’s more of an I’m-a-single-parent-with-two-kids-and-I’m-also-in-the-PTSA-and-I-sometimes-invade-people’s-minds exhaustion. Which is a much better option than the former.
“Did you find that chemist?” he asks. Arthur can hear James screaming in the background. At least Dom isn’t smothering them, he thinks, amused.
“I’m working on it.” He hears Phillipa, more coherent but no less loud than James.
“Have you seen Ariadne lately? You were in Paris last week, right?”
Arthur smiles, holding the phone with his shoulder so that both hands are free to type. Three more strings of characters, and he’s hacked into a traffic camera in LA. He can see live footage through Cobb’s window. “Yeah, we went out to lunch. She’s working on dream stability with some chemist she picked up off the street.”
Cobb snorts. “Everyone in this business is off the street. Lord knows I got you off the street, you little punk.” Arthur watches the blur that is Phillipa throw something at James, and Cobb lunges to intercept it. “What about Eames?”
Arthur feels himself stiffen. “What about him?”
Cobb leans against the doorframe, his back to the camera. Arthur can almost see his expression - exasperation, stubbornness, fondness. “Have you seen him?”
“No. Listen, I have to go. I’ll drop by in a couple of weeks, alright?” He snaps his phone shut, then the computer.
The next day he’s in St. Petersburg.
/end of part II
~~~~
In other news: I saw Black Swan the other night, while mildly inebriated. It was terrifying. I have never been so terrified in my entire life. Moral of the story: do not see Black Swan while drunk. Just don't do it. I screamed a couple times in the theatre, and then I got lost on the way home with my friend and I was so scared and drunk and it was just a bad decision.
Could, Would, Might Have Been Part II
Inception
Arthur/Eames
Part I: xdreamwyldex.livejournal.com/1163.html#cutid1
Part II/?
He goes to Venice. He has a job lined up there, for some old aristocrats who fancy themselves criminals, but it’s only simple extraction. He hasn’t done anything more complicated than extraction since the inception job, nothing that he can’t work alone.
He decides to stay for a few weeks. Arthur likes Venice. He did a job with Mal and Cobb and Eames in Venice once, and Eames commandeered a gondola and took them through winding canals, his shoulders rippling in his ugly shirt. Arthur pretended he wasn’t watching when Eames turned and winked at him, but the only person fooled was Cobb.
The job goes smoothly - they mostly do, now, everything feels easy after inception - and Arthur contacts people. He doesn’t have much to go by, but he gets some promising information about female maybe-Lebanese chemists. St. Petersburg. Cairo. Hong Kong.
Mombasa. Mombasa Mombasa Mombasa. Arthur loathes it for the same reasons that Eames adores it: the noise, the heat, the spicy food, the ugly shirts. Arthur knows that Eames is working on a particularly complex job with Saito in Tokyo, because he keeps tabs on everyone in this business and certainly not because he has any particular interest in Eames’ whereabouts. But he returns to Mombasa at least once a month like clockwork, to drink and gamble and sleep around. It’s a dangerous place to lay down roots because the amount of governmental corruption makes it a haven for less-than-legal corporations, the type that most often hire extractors, the type that are more likely to hold grudges. Arthur knows at least three bosses who would love to get their grubby hands around his neck. With Eames - Arthur can think of seven.
Arthur decides to save Mombasa for last.
Cobb calls him later in the week. He sounds tired, but not in a my-wife-just-killed-herself-and-everyone-thinks-I-did-it-and-I’m-going-off-the-deep-end sort of way. It’s more of an I’m-a-single-parent-with-two-kids-and-I’m-also-in-the-PTSA-and-I-sometimes-invade-people’s-minds exhaustion. Which is a much better option than the former.
“Did you find that chemist?” he asks. Arthur can hear James screaming in the background. At least Dom isn’t smothering them, he thinks, amused.
“I’m working on it.” He hears Phillipa, more coherent but no less loud than James.
“Have you seen Ariadne lately? You were in Paris last week, right?”
Arthur smiles, holding the phone with his shoulder so that both hands are free to type. Three more strings of characters, and he’s hacked into a traffic camera in LA. He can see live footage through Cobb’s window. “Yeah, we went out to lunch. She’s working on dream stability with some chemist she picked up off the street.”
Cobb snorts. “Everyone in this business is off the street. Lord knows I got you off the street, you little punk.” Arthur watches the blur that is Phillipa throw something at James, and Cobb lunges to intercept it. “What about Eames?”
Arthur feels himself stiffen. “What about him?”
Cobb leans against the doorframe, his back to the camera. Arthur can almost see his expression - exasperation, stubbornness, fondness. “Have you seen him?”
“No. Listen, I have to go. I’ll drop by in a couple of weeks, alright?” He snaps his phone shut, then the computer.
The next day he’s in St. Petersburg.
/end of part II
~~~~
In other news: I saw Black Swan the other night, while mildly inebriated. It was terrifying. I have never been so terrified in my entire life. Moral of the story: do not see Black Swan while drunk. Just don't do it. I screamed a couple times in the theatre, and then I got lost on the way home with my friend and I was so scared and drunk and it was just a bad decision.