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crack_van2011-12-07 08:39 am
laceymcbain.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2011-12-07 08:39 am
In Our Line of Work by Fee (linckia_blue) (PG-13/R)
Fandom: INCEPTION
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Length: ~ 15,500 words
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
linckia_blue (Fee/enjambament)
Author Website: Master List of Fic on LJ
Why this must be read: We've all considered the possibility that the events of the movie were a dream, but what if you woke up one day to find out that ten years of your life had been a dream? That's what happens to Arthur.
When he wakes up, he's 19 again. Still. He's been in the dream - a military experiment - for about 24 hours, but what a difference a day can make, and though his body's 19, his mind is closer to 30, with all the experience and knowledge that comes with time.
Arthur's first goal is to figure out if any of the dream was real - did the people he knew even exist? So he sets out to find Cobb, Ariadne, Eames, and answers. It's not an easy quest, especially since the people responsible for the experiment never intended on letting him, or any of the group, leave with their memories intact. But Arthur has to try if there's any chance Eames is real and alive, especially since Arthur died in Eames' arms and the last thing he said to Eames was in anger.
Not only does this story have a brilliant premise, but it delivers plot, action, and character development while juxtaposing the remembered world of the dream against Arthur's new reality. People often remark, "if I knew then what I know now" - Arthur has that opportunity, but has he lost more than he's gained?
Arthur woke up and he knew that it had all been a dream.
There was the feeling of sedative, loose and heavy in his limbs. He blinked his eyes slowly open to a bleakly white-grey ceiling. Everything was blurred around the edges so he rubbed his eyes, yawning and knowing; knowing the life he’d lived had never existed.
It felt like reality. Of course, life had felt real in the dream, but now that he was awake, everything felt truly real, as though real-ness was an ache under the surface of his skin and in his bones and running like a cord of nerves down the length of his spine.
When Arthur woke up it was like waking up always was: he felt like he’d been asleep a long time. Arthur was very good at telling how long he’d been under: twenty-three hours and five minutes exactly. The calculations came fluidly. Assuming he had been three layers down (which seemed about right for the vivid quality of the dream) he’d dreamed ten years of life.
He fumbled at the floor beneath the bed for his totem; of course, it wasn’t there. He hadn’t even heard of totems until he’d been shared-dreaming for nearly two years. He expected some sense of fear at the lack of that essential safety net, but he already knew he was awake now. The die would be useless anyway; irrevocably jeopardized by the fact that he’d once believed the faithfully repeated number four and it had lied all along.
He rolled halfway over, just enough to see the date in glowing print beneath the time on his radio alarm clock. It was the thirtieth of November, and Arthur was nineteen years old.
He’d just been in another place - a place where he was twenty-nine and dying in the semi-detached house just outside of London curled into Eames’ arms, surrounded by hit men, when the world had melted away and he’d woken up and known that he’d lived ten years of life in a world that didn’t exist.
On Livejournal: In Our Line of Work
Also available as a podcast: In Our Line of Work (podcast) - read bypodcath and crinklysolution
It doesn't matter how old or new a story is, authors love feedback!
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Length: ~ 15,500 words
Author on LJ:
linckia_blue (Fee/enjambament)Author Website: Master List of Fic on LJ
Why this must be read: We've all considered the possibility that the events of the movie were a dream, but what if you woke up one day to find out that ten years of your life had been a dream? That's what happens to Arthur.
When he wakes up, he's 19 again. Still. He's been in the dream - a military experiment - for about 24 hours, but what a difference a day can make, and though his body's 19, his mind is closer to 30, with all the experience and knowledge that comes with time.
Arthur's first goal is to figure out if any of the dream was real - did the people he knew even exist? So he sets out to find Cobb, Ariadne, Eames, and answers. It's not an easy quest, especially since the people responsible for the experiment never intended on letting him, or any of the group, leave with their memories intact. But Arthur has to try if there's any chance Eames is real and alive, especially since Arthur died in Eames' arms and the last thing he said to Eames was in anger.
Not only does this story have a brilliant premise, but it delivers plot, action, and character development while juxtaposing the remembered world of the dream against Arthur's new reality. People often remark, "if I knew then what I know now" - Arthur has that opportunity, but has he lost more than he's gained?
Arthur woke up and he knew that it had all been a dream.
There was the feeling of sedative, loose and heavy in his limbs. He blinked his eyes slowly open to a bleakly white-grey ceiling. Everything was blurred around the edges so he rubbed his eyes, yawning and knowing; knowing the life he’d lived had never existed.
It felt like reality. Of course, life had felt real in the dream, but now that he was awake, everything felt truly real, as though real-ness was an ache under the surface of his skin and in his bones and running like a cord of nerves down the length of his spine.
When Arthur woke up it was like waking up always was: he felt like he’d been asleep a long time. Arthur was very good at telling how long he’d been under: twenty-three hours and five minutes exactly. The calculations came fluidly. Assuming he had been three layers down (which seemed about right for the vivid quality of the dream) he’d dreamed ten years of life.
He fumbled at the floor beneath the bed for his totem; of course, it wasn’t there. He hadn’t even heard of totems until he’d been shared-dreaming for nearly two years. He expected some sense of fear at the lack of that essential safety net, but he already knew he was awake now. The die would be useless anyway; irrevocably jeopardized by the fact that he’d once believed the faithfully repeated number four and it had lied all along.
He rolled halfway over, just enough to see the date in glowing print beneath the time on his radio alarm clock. It was the thirtieth of November, and Arthur was nineteen years old.
He’d just been in another place - a place where he was twenty-nine and dying in the semi-detached house just outside of London curled into Eames’ arms, surrounded by hit men, when the world had melted away and he’d woken up and known that he’d lived ten years of life in a world that didn’t exist.
On Livejournal: In Our Line of Work
Also available as a podcast: In Our Line of Work (podcast) - read by
podcath and crinklysolutionIt doesn't matter how old or new a story is, authors love feedback!