#Inception AU

[laundrybiscuits]

Found myself reading some old Inception fic and felt the urge to poke at an AU idea—I know ST fandom skews a little young, so I genuinely don’t know how many people will even get this. If there are Inception primers out there, I haven’t bothered to find them, so…you’re on your own, kids. 

“Absolutely not. I do my own forges.” Eddie sweeps the file off the table and directly into the trashcan; admittedly, it’s not the most mature thing he’s ever done, but Henderson’s getting on his last goddamned nerve. 

The little twerp has the fucking audacity to roll his eyes and groan, like Eddie’s the one being unreasonable. “I know this guy, don’t be a dick. He can do it. Don’t you wanna focus on your super special architect stuff?”

“What you and every other dumbass dilettante drowser don’t seem to grasp is that my architecture is alive, and I breathe life into it via my meticulously crafted characters. I create richly textured worlds, Henderson, and I populate them myself. That’s why I’m the best in the fucking business: because I understand that the people and the setting are one and the same, and I can handle both.”

“Eddie.” Henderson crouches to grab the file out of the trash, and smacks it back down on the table. “I’m running this team, and I’m saying I don’t want anything like what happened in Munich to ever happen again. Okay?”

“Low blow, kid,” snaps Eddie. “Munich wasn’t on me.” 

“I know, jeez. I just…” Henderson takes a second to tap the loose sheets in the file back into place, then stands there with his lips pressed together like he’s keeping something in. After a moment, he just says, “This isn’t going to be Munich. Because Steve’s going to be here.”

———

It’s not Munich. It’s not Munich at all. It is the furthest fucking thing from Munich possible. 

Eddie’s never had a job go that smoothly—and it’s not down to Henderson’s obsessive prep, because it should’ve been a slippery one. The kind of job that twisted partway through into something frustratingly unexpected, forcing them to improvise and take whatever half-win they could squeeze out of the mark’s subconscious while dodging completely unexpected security. 

Instead, it’s so incredibly not-Munich that the client gives them a fucking bonus, and when was the last time that happened? The bonus is generous enough that Eddie’s share can cover a whole new safehouse in Melbourne, which should have been great news, something to celebrate, except for the absolutely unholy amount of smugness now radiating from Henderson.

Eddie avoids the I-told-you-so conversation as long as he can, but he can’t run forever.

“I told you so,” says Henderson, flopping unceremoniously into the dark wooden chair next to Eddie.

“This is a library, dude. Keep your fuckin’ voice down,” says Eddie, without much hope. He’d heard Henderson was supposed to be meeting up with Sinclair in Lima this week; so much for that intel.

Henderson waves a dismissive hand, gesturing vaguely at the domed skylight high overhead. “It’s not like a library library. It’s basically a museum.”

“The goddamn State Library of Victoria is absolutely one hundred percent a library library, genius. See all the books? But also, do you think people go around yelling in museums?”

“Maybe they should! What we should be focusing on now, though, is that I was right about Steve, and I think it’s important for our working relationship that you acknowledge I was right.”

“I don’t have to acknowledge shit,” says Eddie, slumping down and ignoring the glares they’re starting to get from everyone in the atrium. “Anyone ever tell you you’re an egomaniac, kid? I don’t even get why you’re so hot on the guy, anyway. He’s like—the least imaginative forger I’ve ever met.”

It comes out a little harsher than he’d meant it. It’s just that forgers, as a people, tend to be easily swept into flights of fancy.

Eddie’s always sort of thought it was a requirement of the profession: when he’s inhabiting a character, part of his mind is always working to generate the little details that make them feel like a whole person. Their secret fears and even more secret hopes. How they deal with boredom or anger, what their gut reactions are. The small gaps between how they see themselves and how others see them. That’s where Eddie thrives, and he thinks that if he were less hooked on the magic of spinning up entire worlds for marks to wander through, he might forge full-time, just for the thrill of riding that uncertainty. It’s how he was taught, but clearly, Steve learned something different.

What Steve does isn’t really classical forging—not in the way Eddie thinks about it, usually. Steve just…walks into a situation, says some stuff, maybe gives the mark a smile all warm and private like a whispered secret. And then the mark folds. It’s maddening how easy Steve makes it look. Oh, he’ll pull on the right costumes and tweak his physicality a little, but it’s always still just Steve underneath. 

Maybe that’s the trick. Eddie’s forges work because he crafts lavishly detailed lies; Steve’s forges work because there’s some kind of real, solid honesty at the core. 

“I’m going to ignore the hurtful thing you just said because I know you hate to admit it when I’m right and you’re wrong,” Henderson informs him. “You really gotta work on that. More importantly, I’ve got a lead on a new job, and Steve already said yes.”

It’s not like Eddie needs the money. Henderson’s a nightmare to work with. And there’s the, y’know. The Steve Harrington of it all. Eddie has a million reasons to say no.

“Yeah, whatever,” he says instead. “When do we start?”

[elwenyere]

Just thinking...about Andor Inception heist au...and who would be what role...

Ohhhhhh what a terrific question, my friend!!! Thank you so much for this. <3<3<3 Here are some initial thoughts, and I would love to hear what other people think as well.

Cassian and Luthen both strike me as incredible forgers. They're super adept at reading people, and they have very flexible, intuitive relationships to identity. I feel like they could observe, impersonate, slip in and out of roles as needed, and seize very quickly on the most essential emotional/relational pressure points in any problem set in front of them. If you want to incept someone, you want a Cassian and/or Luthen there: someone who can read the emotional terrain and modulate their performance to become exactly the kind of figure who can leave you thinking something they suggested was your idea all along.

I think Cassian would also be a great extractor, for some similar reasons, as would Dedra, probably, if we're including the show's villains. They both have a sense of how and where to apply force to encourage people to reveal what's most important to them and of how to use the emotional power of larger events to their advantage (thinking about the different ways they both attempt to use the Rix Road funeral as an opportunity to extract a person of interest).

Kino and Kleya would both be stellar point people, I think. They're thorough, meticulous, competent, loyal - able to see the full scope of a process and get the right people and weapons to the right places. They might not have the same kind of theatrical imagination as Cassian or Luthen, but they have a terrifyingly sharp grip on how to make a team of people work together, where to direct energy and resources, and how to solve problems in a pinch.

Nemik and Melshi seem like architects to me. They're both idealists (in their different ways) who also have very pragmatic grasps of how systems of navigation and crowd control work (Nemik builds the model of the Aldhani garrison and handles navigation on the way out, and Melshi handles the demolition pragmatics on Scarif and sees right through the operations on Narkina). And they both seem like characters who would dive into dream architecture in particular: they strike that balance between understanding how a structure is put together in the real world and having the divergent urge to bend the laws of accepted physics to imagine something more daring and beautiful that could exist.

I'm less certain about chemists, but my first thoughts are Mon Mothma or Bix, for different reasons. Mon demonstrates that she has a sense for what levers need to be adjusted to influence people's patterns of thought and behavior, though not in quite as dramatic or improvisational a way as Luthen or Cassian: her interventions are subtle, intellectual, precisely calculated. And Bix is a mechanic and a salvage specialist. She knows how to spot substances of value and how to reformulate and recombine them in creative ways that will enhance their effect for particular audiences and purposes.

This was a very fun thought experiment!!! I hope folks will feel free to chime in with more possibilities.

[darjeelinh]

dream a little dream of me | rating: M | chapter 4

Six of Crows x Inception

—————————

Read chapter 1 2 3

Summary:

Inej had fallen into limbo twice.

There were usually two ways to wake up from a dream: a jump from a high enough point to startle you awake, or in worst case scenarios, die in the dream. But that was if all the dream levels were intact. Their plan hadn’t been based around not letting the dream collapse for no reason: nobody had ever made it out before.

TW: blood and injury, mention of suicide (all of these are in dreams)

Posted this on ao3 a week ago but life happened and I forgot to post an update on tumblr so this is so belated 😭😭

One of the most challenging chapters I ever wrote, but I had a great time imagining Inej working through the levels of dreams - the suspense of Inception was always one of my favorite parts of the movie. And I love love love writing about Inej's friendships with the Crows, their love for one another is the thing that kept drawing me back into this universe.

Thanks always to my beloved @starklystar for beta-reading 🖤🖤

[princess-angel101]

The Darling Siblings Lore (My Inception AU)

These two grew up in the most violent neighborhood to exist. Gang violences were the norm and the government of the town was apathetic. The neighborhood as a result for being poor, had to stick together and help each other out, having a collectivist mindset.

Arthur and Naomi once lived in the suberbs of the neighborhood. The more nicer parts despite it being touched from violence. Their mother was a warm and doting presence. Their father was a distant person. However he cared deeply.

Tragedy struck however. Their father had died from being in gunpoint while drawing money from the local bank. Their mother’s mental health spiraled and she became diagnosed with depression. She hadn’t moved from bed often and tends to have hallucinations of her dead husband, often deluding herself to thinking that he’s at work and didn’t come home yet. The Darling siblings loved their mother deeply. However, she was not in a good headspace.

Eventually, the three of them got evicted from their home and had to move to the poorer and more violent stricken parts of the town. Their mother worked as a waitress in a cafe. Meanwhile while money was tight, Arthur did his best to raise Naomi and the family. Naomi wanted to help, but she was still too little and too young to do so yet.

When the two got older, Arthur helped around the house. He didn’t find his old passions fun and the things he did get involved in are mostly to get his sister and his mother the stable life needed and for them to go to college. Friends; much less girlfriends or boyfriends were just things he didn’t have time for. He focused on his studies and was known for being Valedictorian. His sister too followed in his footsteps. He and her became close as a result, the two siblings sticking through thick and thin, as he taught her the essential life skills from driving to self defense from strangers.

He went to college and managed to succeed there. Naomi was in her senior year. However, money was still tight and he reluctantly dropped out, as the college was expensive and he wanted to prioritize his family. One day, someone scouted him to have a well paying job, not something necessarily legal, but one that will help his sister and mother. Not having a choice, he accepted. Hence he became the point man of dream sharing. His money and connections managed to help him and his sister move their mother to an ease her into a retirement home where she can rest. Meanwhile his salary helped boost them even more and the two managed to live a fine life. Naomi graduated with a masters degree and became a top notch FBI agent, using her job as a seamstress as a cover up for it.

At some point, Arthur met Cobb as he was assigned to work with him. Naomi was fond of him; and jokingly threatened to take care of her brother, lest she break his bones.

He even managed to meet Eames on the job and he fell head over heels. Naomi kept teasing him about it to which he told her to be quiet, but with a smile.

However, things turned bad again. Mal died of suicide while Cobb, being on the blame for her death, took a run for it. Eames and Arthur had a severe fallout as a blowout from the incidences and miscommunications. Reluctantly, the two siblings had to part. So Naomi embraced him while Arthur packed his bags and went with Cobb, leaving her hoping her brother and Cobb can come back home.

[sageandlily]

Vosta (Seonghwa's kingdom)

"Vosta Kingdom belonged to the Park family. Notorious for their skill in wielding long-range weapons such as spears and bows. So silent that many men claim that you won’t even know about the target on your back until it’s too late. Vosta is primarily forest with some land clearings here and there for farming. It has an excellent climate for agriculture use and exceptionally fertile soil, so a majority of the kingdom relies on farming for their means of living. Mild temperatures prevail most of the year and there technically isn't a season they consider as winter since it never gets that cold and temperature never drops. They will on occasion get a few of the storms from Kriton, but the severity is nowhere near what it is for Kriton by the time it crosses the border. Kriton borders them to the north and Rainad to the South."

moodboard masterlist

《all the artworks and photos are credited to the owners》

[leverage-ot3]

idk of you've seen inception but i rewatched it and now an inception/leverage crossover is spinning in my head like a rotisserie chicken

I have not but I will definitely put it on my list of to-watch movies

[antimonyandthyme]

An au you want to write but don't have plot/energy for?

this would unfortunately be inception au :(((( i want a story in which mick is one of the world's finest dream architects who can no longer architect anymore because he constantly goes back to his dreams to find seb while the seb in his dreams tells him to stop looking for him and i want mick to time a free kick whenever he sees the seb in his dreams go all sad so he can nope out of the dream in that instant and not hear what needs to be said and i want him to go on a heist like a one last job kinda thing and i want him to try architecting again and i want him to create mazes the enemy can't even hope to escape except it backfires because in every corner of the maze mick sees seb's shadow and it turns out maybe he won't be able to escape himself

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

I haven't read all your fics but the two scenes that stick out most to me are 1) Logan hugging Janus in the Matilda fic, mainly because I'd been waiting for him to do that the entire fic, and 2) the spider egg sac in the Inception fic, which was very Magnus Archives of you and I liked it a lot.

i DO love my hugs. and spider-related visceral horror

[cashhmerre]

I saw you reblog that Evie and Rick O'Connell post and tag it Mal/Dom-coded and. I gave myself a minute to think about it, and it made me /sad/.

Admittedly I'm guilty of thinking of all my favourite pairings now as Mal/Cobb-coded 😭 But Evy/Rick especially! I love thinking of them as the happily-ever-after AU version of Mal and Cobb, their dynamics are so similar. Researcher and adventurer couple in ancient Egypt, the same way it's implied with Mal and Cobb-both of them working together in dreamshare exploration. Also the familial connection of Evy's dad being famous explorer, like how Miles is a dreamshare-architect pioneer? The team vibing like the Inception crew?? Chef's kiss! they're all alive because I say so.

And of course I love, love the fact that Evy/Rick is married with kids, just like Mal/Cobb. It makes my heart go all the time😄 Phillipa and James will grow up to be as precious and precocious as Alex hihi

[rose-tinted-vision]

I've connected the dots...

Sampard Inception AU

where Gepard is the point man (Arthur, I think it's pretty self-explanatory) and Sampo is the forger (Eames) bc he's canonically good at disguising himself (also the Masked Fool theory).

If we're digging a little deeper:

Seele as the Extractor (Cobb)

Bronya as the Architect (no pun intended, I just think it could be a parallel to game canon where she finds out about her foster family, decides to 'switch sides' and joins seele's team as the new member)

Serval as the Chemist (Yusuf)

Natasha as Saito, kinda sorta maybe the catalyst who starts everything.

[laundrybiscuits]

I had zero plans to continue this but @shdwsilk came in with the extremely good takes sooo…

If you don’t know Inception this is probably incomprehensible. Soz.

“Shouldn’t you be talking to the mark?”

Steve visibly startles as Eddie slides onto the barstool next to him. Steve’s in a suit, because the mark is the most boring person alive and thinks a fancy cocktail party in a hotel is the stuff dreams are made of; Henderson was extremely specific about the number of dashing rogues Eddie was allowed to drop in for passionate speeches and/or dueling purposes.*

“Eddie?” says Steve. 

“Mm, no, Johanna Berger.” Eddie tosses his head, letting ice-blonde hair cascade over his bare shoulders, and smirks up at Steve. “I am quite charmed to meet you, darling.”

Johanna is a young widow who may or may not have had something to do with her late husband’s untimely death, so she’s wearing a plunging black dress designed to show off some real bombshell curves. He’s pretty proud of her rack, honestly; it’s harder than you’d think to make sure everything looks realistic. 

“Are you doing an accent?”

Eddie scowls. Johanna went to an international school, so her accent’s subtle to the untrained American ear, but he spent two solid hours last weekend reviewing Austrian vowels with his dialect coach. 

“Are you not doing an accent?”

“Uh, no? Because I don’t need to? The mark’s from Connecticut.” 

“Perhaps the both of you could use a little more exposure to…foreign affairs.” Johanna leans in coyly, trailing one red nail up Steve’s arm. 

Steve lets out a snort that sounds completely unrehearsed. “Does that ever actually work for you, dude?”

Johanna tilts her head, gazing up at Steve. She’s not the type to get intimidated, but she is the type to be curious. She’ll take risks if it means getting a chance to pry someone open. 

“You don’t spend much time with other forgers, do you?” she says. 

Steve shrugs. “I don’t really do the whole, uh, dreamsharing community. I mean, I guess I’ve kinda been doing this a while, but like—not seriously, you know? It’s not really my thing. Wasn’t planning on any more jobs at all, but Henderson showed up, and you know what that kid’s like.”

Steve looks so openly fond just saying Henderson’s name that Johanna has the sudden urge to shield Steve’s face from the crowd somehow. The poor fool, she thinks in despair. He has yet to learn that a tenderness like that is to be protected.

Or—maybe Johanna would be contemptuous. Maybe she’d think: what a fool. Anyone could see how to break Steve Harrington’s heart.

“Yeah,” says Eddie. “I know what Henderson’s like. Biggest pain in my ass imaginable.”

The soft look on Steve’s face shifts into a real smile as he glances over. “Tell me about it,” he says. “Hey, you sound like you again.”

“What, no I don’t,” says Eddie. 

“No, it’s good. It’s better than whats-her-name.”

Eddie looks down at himself, thoroughly-researched curves straining at the satiny bodice and a manicured hand still resting on Steve’s arm. “Maybe you just need to get to know Johanna,” he says. “She’s a hell of a dame.”

“Sure.” Steve winks. “Tell her to give me a ring sometime.”

“Oh my god, why are you hanging out with projections,” says Mike freaking Wheeler, popping up like a bad penny in a cater waiter outfit. “Steve, go talk to the mark! We’re running out of time!”

“Okay, okay, sheesh,” says Steve, pushing away from the bar.

“Jesus, Wheeler, we’re two levels down. We got plenty of time,” says Eddie, pointedly not watching Steve weaving through his crowd. 

“Wait, is—are you—Eddie?” The kid is openly gawking at Johanna. 

“Eyes up here, champ,” says Eddie. “This is Johanna Berger, and she’s here to make sure everything goes according to plan. Also, she’s here to look appropriately and publicly devastated at the tragic death of her husband, because the yacht club wives are getting gossipy.” 

“Whoa,” says Wheeler. “That…wasn’t in the briefing.”

“Keep up, yeah? You’re in the dreamshare business, the briefing never covers everything.” Eddie puts a tray of champagne flutes in Wheeler’s hands and snags one for Johanna as Wheeler fumbles to keep from dropping the rest. 

Johanna sips the champagne. It doesn’t taste like anything at all. 

“Darling,” she says. “If you learn to let dreams surprise you, I think you will have a better life, yes?” 

Across the room, Steve looks up from charming the mark. He smiles at Johanna, just a quick and completely unprofessional flash of teeth before turning his attention back to a Connecticut banker who probably wouldn’t have a hope in hell of catching Steve’s attention in the waking world.

Or maybe that’s Steve’s type. Maybe he’s got some smart, boring wife in a conservative pantsuit tucked away somewhere. Maybe she comes home every day like clockwork to a hot meal and freshly-bathed children and has absolutely no idea that her trophy husband inhabits dreamscapes in his spare time. 

No, he is better than that, thinks Johanna. In my soul I know that he deserves better. I would take him away from such a woman in an instant.

Which is just—

Okay, so Steve Harrington might be a slightly bigger problem than Eddie’d thought.

*“Zero, Eddie! Zero rogues, zero secret Cinderellas, whatever that means, zero drama. Just assume the answer is always going to be zero with this guy!”

“Then what’s the goddamn point, Henderson?”

“Uh, maybe the nice fat paycheck coming our way?”

At this point, Eddie can either admit that he isn’t actually in it for the money (gross, not an option) or subside into a sulky silence. So: zero dashing rogues. It’s fine. He’s not bitter at all.

[nutteu]

Midnight Sun

-

[AO3]

There was no escape from the Limbo. The Doctor had been so desperate in their last showdown with Talulah, but that had never been Executor’s battle. He battled with time, with the impossible, with a tragedy. In the city that should have been devoid of souls, Flamebringer waited for him. [exeflame; inception au; published 2020-07-08; word count: 3,362]

-

In a summer where the sky was bright and they could hear their heartbeats so clear within their ears, Executor had fallen in love.

Flamebringer was a dying man, with eyes that never feared death. He took the Doctor’s hand one last time, and had looked at Executor with burning ambers in his tired eyes. His fingers were long as he grasped the offered hand. “Get out of here before he ate you alive,” he had said with a smile full of irony. It wasn’t a lie; the Doctor was a desperate, ambitious man. The team he had gathered in two weeks alone was consisted of top notch individuals on their fields. Even Perfumer, who was hired just mere days before they all gathered in France, was a woman with quite a repertoire in creating concoctions that would be crucial for their plan later on.

So Executor created a labyrinth, and watched as they tackled his traps. He built it again, with more elaborate, deadlier traps. Again, and again, and again until they understood the way he built his dreams, and he understood the way they thought within his labyrinth. Flamebringer had touched his back, and said, “I should hire you to design my funeral,” and Executor’s heart ached for the first time in a long, long while.

He watched as Flamebringer changed, into an old man with flowing white hair, into a woman with tragedy in her eyes and a sword by her side, into a young nun with unholy smile, into everything that the Doctor wanted him to be.  But he could see Flamebringer. Even in his suits, in flowery dresses, in uniforms, in a wedding gown marred by blood—he could see him still.

Perfumer had taken one look at his face on the day Flamebringer had worn the wedding gown, and smiled at him with sad, sad eyes. She embraced him then, her small frame enveloping him in warmth that made his heart clench despite the lack of emotions on his impassive face. “I’m sorry,” she had said, and he understood.

Loving a dead man was a tragedy he couldn’t escape from.

On a bright summer day he had made within his dreams, Flamebringer stood on a florist’s patio, clad in a cream jumpsuit and a pair of pale blue pumps; in his arms, a bucket of forget-me-not. And Executor had never felt this way. Even before he forgot how to feel, he had never felt this overwhelming sensation of longing and want. Under the shade of the patio, he kissed him for the first time, and let his heart broke into million pieces when Flamebringer sighed into his mouth. He said, “You should have never loved a dying man,” and Executor kissed him again just to feel his heartbeat against his chest.

-

It was not unlike a ticking time bomb, their relationship.

Flamebringer, for all that he said to him on that day, still let Executor stay by his side. Let Executor kiss him breathless, touch him with reverence and desperation, embrace him in their sleep, but he never, ever let him say love.

“Don’t,” he had whispered one night, closing his eyes as Executor kissed his neck softly, “don’t hurt yourself more than this.”

So he didn’t, kept the words under his tongue, stuck on his throat on the days Flamebringer smiled at him with a touch of softness so foreign on his callous behaviors; let the millions of I love you’s festered within his heart, spreading the tendrils of heartbreak and heartache deep within his roots. The longer he kept it in, the more he felt like he was the one dying. But he never said it, so that Flamebringer would let him stay until his last intake of breath.

But for all that Executor was a man with impeccable control, so cold and immovable, he was still a mass of nerves and blood, of breaths and heartbeats. Ever since he learned how to design his dreams, he had never dreamt of anything beyond his creations anymore. Good dreams, nightmares, none of them. And yet, every moment spent inside his labyrinth with Flamebringer was a flutter of happiness between the crushing weights of the war they fought against Talulah.

But there would always be two sides of the coin. Day after day they prepared for the last showdown; and day after day, the fear within Executor’s heart grew darker and darker. This was Flamebringer’s last mission, the Doctor had told him.

“I’d like to die surrounded with scent of lilies,” Flamebringer had told Perfumer one day. She was stunned for a moment; soft gasps caught in her throat, before she closed her eyes and sighed. She smiled like she wanted to cry when she said, “That would be lovely.”

He was planning to euthanized himself, Executor had realized then, and for the first time in his life, experienced the crushing, consuming grief that washed over his entire body like a burning poison. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t—he couldn’t. Every beat of his heart felt like an echo of a scream.

That was the start of his nightmares. Flamebringer had looked so beautiful in it, a serene smile on his lips, a bucket of bloody forget-me-not, the scent of lilies so vivid in Executor’s nose as the world collapsed around them. He whispered something, too soft to be heard amidst the chaos unraveling within his dream.

“Don’t save me, Samuel.”

Executor woke up with cold sweats, heart beating hard against his ribcage. On nights like this, he slept on the floor next to Flamebringer’s bed, listening to every breath he took, feeling the warmth from their interlinked fingers. He was alive, he reminded himself, and pretended that he wasn’t counting his heartbeats like a countdown to the gallows.

-

“I like France,” Flamebringer had said, sharpening his knife with a practiced hand. The bones on his wrists were sharp, more prominent than two months ago. “The flowers are nice, the food’s great, and no one would find me there. Well—except for the Doctor, but he could find anyone, anywhere. He can even find Mostima,” he said with disbelief on his face. “That’s some scary shit right there.”

“Indeed,” he had said, and thought back to the way Mostima had looked at Exusiai like the girl had put a bullet through her heart, and break it into bloody remains. He could understand the sentiment. “Would you like to live here, someday?”

Flamebringer’s hand slowed down at his words. There was no someday for a man like him. But he scoffed, and looked at Executor and said, “Yeah. That would be nice.”

-

“I’ll meet you in your dreams, Samuel,” Flamebringer whispered on the night before the last mission. “So promise me, you won’t chase me down the rabbit hole.”

Executor had cried then, feeling like someone had crushed his heart in their palm, an unimaginable pain that made him keel over from the sheer sadness that wrapped around him like a veil of death. He couldn’t stop the tears, couldn’t stop the litany of please, please, please don’t leave me alone that poured from him mouth like a prayer left unheard by some cruel god up there. How could someone ever cope from this? This latent sorrow that shattered any semblance of hope and coherence; like he tasted death on his tongue, even before Flamebringer’s breath ran out of time.

“Oh, Samuel,” Flamebringer had sighed, gathering him into his arms. His hip bones ground into Executor, his clavicles felt so sharp beneath his cheeks, and once again he was reminded that they couldn’t outrun time. No matter what they did, wherever they went, time would stop on a heart that had been touched by the reaper.

He kissed him then, cupping his face like he would crumble into dust if Executor didn’t hold him close enough. He kissed him like he wanted to say a thousand words that could never escape his lips, like a song on an empty theater. Echoing, before falling silent. Flamebringer smiled into the kiss, and when he let Executor embraced him that night, strings of his name falling like a raindrop from red-bitten lips, it felt like a farewell.

“Don’t,” Flamebringer said afterwards, lying next to each other, breathless and hurting.

So Executor swallowed his words, and held him tight, and went to sleep feeling like a man lost in the desert. Stranded and disoriented, finding an escape that had never been there in the first place.

-

Flamebringer walked with the confidence of a man who knew he would win this war. The red qipao hugged his figure like a second skin, bare skin of his legs showing from the slits on the side every time he took a step. The heels clicked against the tiled floor as he made his way to Talulah’s dream Architect, and charmed him with wicked smirks and firm, sure touches on the man’s arm. He hid the tremor on the surface of his drink with a slow toast when he felt Executor’s design rippled from the strain of containing Talulah’s mind. Just a little bit more—

“A small vault in her old house. The one she shared with Che’en,” he said into the earpiece hidden from the sight of anyone who weren’t part of their team. “There should be a necklace inside. That’s our lottery ticket.”

There was a woman dying inside that house, a gunshot wound bleeding profusely as she cried for help. Flamebringer breathed through his nose as he stepped through the threshold, and looked into the mirror. A perfect replica of the dying woman, of Talulah’s mother. Executor gritted his teeth; head spinning as he meticulously reconstructed Talulah’s childhood house and her most guarded memory.

Talulah arrived not long after Flamebringer fell to the ground, an illusion of a gunshot wound on his chest; skin pallid like death had just kissed his lips and stayed in his veins. She screamed then, holding him and crying out for a mother that had been long gone. He pitied her, for all those horrendous things she had done in the name of revenge, she was just another victim of life. When she opened the vault, and took out the necklace inside with quivering hands, Flamebringer stood up on shaky legs and embraced her tight. “I’m sorry,” he said in the dead woman’s voice. “I’m so sorry that I had to leave you.”

The world rippled around them as Talulah’s mind broke, letting her guards down and allowing Flamebringer’s words lulled her into believing that she should stop here, should stop and thought back about her childhood, about her mother’s memories, about Che’en. When she disappeared a moment after, Flamebringer let out a harsh gasp and fell on his knees. The tremendous grief that he had felt from Talulah’s memories and mind stayed there long after the girl was gone.

“We’re done here,” he said. “You can go home, now, Doctor.”

As Exusiai’s cheer filled their intercom, Executor took a deep, trembling breath, and aimed his gun.

The gun shot rung like an echo of a promise in the third layer of Executor’s dream. Flamebringer fell to the ground for the second time, gasping for breath, and stopped moving after a moment. Exusiai screamed in his ears, calling for Flamebringer’s name as he opened the door to Talulah’s childhood house and lifted the bleeding man to the bed. He caressed the side of his cold face, and said, “I’m going down to find him.”

“Are you out of your mind?!” the Doctor roared. “Get out of there, we don’t have much time!”

“I do. I have all the time in the world once I get to the Limbo,” he calmly said.

There was a silence for a moment, before the Doctor spoke again. “Executor, you—“

“Farewell, Doctor.”

He held Flamebringer close in his arms, feeling the blood seeped into his shirt, like tendrils of judgment searching for a sinner. He closed his eyes, and felt the world around him ever so slowly dissolved into dust as he descended to the Limbo, chasing a dead man with wicked smirk and eyes that felt like home.

-

Lena woke up with a gasp. She coughed out the water filling her throat as someone dragged her from the shore. She willed her irregular breaths to calm down, trying not to feel sick when she remembered what had just happened.

Talulah was lying on Mostima’s lap, still not conscious as her mind tried to reconstruct the balance she had lost abruptly. Exusiai was—she looked so lost. Her eyes wet with tears, gaze empty as she looked at the Doctor. Lena, because she felt as lost, because she remembered—I’d like to die surrounded with scent of lilies—because she knew that Executor had died the moment they started this last mission, looked to him as well.

The Doctor didn’t look at them, but he knew. He stared at the vast expanse of the river, the bridge, the city that Executor has constructed meticulously. “They’re not coming back.”

They went into this mission as a team of six people with various reasons, working under one goal. There were only four people left now, as she realized that stopping Talulah had never been Executor’s goal since the moment he laid his eyes on Flamebringer. Bringing him into the Limbo was. If time wouldn’t stop for Flamebringer in the real world, then he would stop time in their dreams and make the Limbo as their real world.

She sighed. Loving a dead man was a tragedy Executor couldn’t escape from. She just hoped that whatever he found down there would be enough, would worth the live he had thrown away. She hoped they found each other.

“He made his choice,” the Doctor had said. He looked wistful, like he was seeing a memory from a long time ago. Maybe he saw Kalt’sit, Perfumer thought, maybe he saw Theresa. Maybe he saw something else that they couldn’t understand. Something that Executor could.

He turned towards them, glanced at Talulah’s prone figure, and said, “Let’s go home.”

-

Samuel was born in France twenty-two years ago. He knew the cities, knew the streets, the food, the churches, the cathedrals, the places, the scent; he knew Paris, his hometown, by heart. Every little details of it. But then again, he remembered every single place he visited by heart in his training as an Architect of dreams. France, though dear in his memories, had never been his home to begin with.

But, as he walked down the streets, inhaling the scent of coffee grounds that wafted in the morning air, he thought that he could make it his home. Right here, underneath the summer sky, in a city where he spent the most of his childhood in.

He walked past an empty diner, an empty bakery, a towering church filled with memories, a house that he never visited anymore the moment he became an Architect, a warehouse where he built the labyrinth for the Doctor’s team. This is a city that he knew by heart, where every little details was as vivid as the memory of the real world. This wasn’t, of course. Samuel knew that, always had to know where the line where dreams began and reality ended.

But this was his Limbo, a place where he never had to draw the line. This was a city filled with memories, but would always be devoid of any soul.

Except for him, and the man sitting on a florist’s patio, wearing a cream jumpsuit and a pair of pale blue pumps, with a bucket of daffodils laid carefully on the wooden table. He was wearing a dusty blue blazer, hanging from his wide shoulders as he sharpened his knife with slow, deliberate motion. His earrings glinted in the summer sun, swaying back and forth as a sudden breeze went through the streets.

Enkaku lifted his head when Samuel stood in front of him, casting shadows over his body. He smiled; soft, tired. “You’re such an idiot, Samuel.”

He took Samuel’s hand when he offered, leaving behind the wilting daffodils. They strolled through the empty streets, not saying anything, just listening to each other’s breath.

“They went out safely,” he said.

Enkaku hummed next to him. “What are you doing here, then?”

They turned around the corner, passing a pizzeria that Enkaku often came to in his time in Paris. Samuel knew. He built this city based on his memories of Paris, and his memory of Enkaku, after all. “Chasing the rabbit down the hole,” he answered.

Enkaku sighed. He sounded like someone who had witnessed how the world started, and had seen as well as it turned into ruins. He sounded like a man in his thirties, dragging his heartbeat day by day as he waited for an end. He sounded like someone who had said his farewell.

“This is a lonely city, Samuel,” he said, stooping to hook his pumps off as they arrived at the beach. “This isn’t a place for the living.”

Samuel walked in silence beside him. His white hair fluttering as the breeze greeted them from the edge of the sea. The shore, just like every place in the city, was empty, save for a few gulls here and there. He could create life here, a bustling city just like what he remembered. He could do it, and more. But he had to make Enkaku understand first.

“Up there is not the place for a dead man with a beating heart, either,” he said.

They sat down on the sand, Enkaku’s pale blue pumps laid between Samuel and him. They were probably boarding the plane right now, back to each of their own hometowns. Talulah might be well on her way to China, to reconcile with Che’en. Time worked without rules in Limbo. It might be days already since his descend from the third layer to Limbo. Enkaku might’ve wait for weeks on end, for all he knew.

Their bodies would be kept by Lena, sedated by her chemicals until their body withered away through time. But here, they were timeless. They could live forever. They never had to say farewells.

“They’re home, by now,” he said. Then he turned to Enkaku, reaching for his hand. “I am home, too.”

Enkaku didn’t look at him, didn’t talk for a moment, and Samuel was fine with that. They had all the time in the world in the void of Limbo.

The summer breeze ruffled Enkaku’s hair; the blazer on his shoulders slipped down and fell to the sand. He didn’t move to retrieve it. He just breathed slowly and stared at the lapping waves on the shore. “You killed me, didn’t you?” he asked then.

Samuel closed his eyes. There were prices to pay for this decision, but he was willing to pay every single one of them. “Yes.”

Enkaku’s smile was sad, filled with melancholy and regrets. He didn’t say anything anymore, but he didn’t let go of Samuel’s fingers either. After a few moments, he turned to Samuel, amber eyes filled with resignation and acceptance. “You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?”

“Enkaku,” he said, and let the words—that had been hiding under his tongue, stuck in throat, festering in his heart—pour from his lips. “I love you.”

The taller man let out a soft chuckle. And then he was leaning forward, cupping Samuel’s face with his long fingers and calloused palm. He kissed him slowly, tenderly, and Samuel’s heart clenched in his ribcage when he realized that it didn’t taste like a farewell.

“Welcome home, then, Samuel,” Enkaku whispered after they separated. Samuel smiled at him, and let himself fell in love for the second time with this man.

There was no escape from the Limbo. Time didn’t apply to a world so far away from reality, so detached from a fate that Samuel had rejected. He held Enkaku’s hand in his, and stared at the horizon where winter would never come; an eternal summer for two dead men in a city of ghosts that felt like home.

-

[darjeelinh]

dream a little dream of me | rating: M | chapter 3

Six of Crows x Inception

Read chapter 1 chapter 2

—————————

Summary: A masquerade ball. A political mission. A reunion.

also featuring: A waltz, and Wylan and Inej working together as a vigilante duo.

[gokartkid]

inception au chalex that will NOT BE A FIC. until i finish everything else <3

Some people think that being in dreamshare is glamorous, and full of action, like you’re some sort of a James Bond. 

Right now, with a piece of toast crammed inside his mouth and a bit of toothpaste dripped onto his skinny blue tie, Alex would like to give a big middle finger to those people. 

His phone starts ringing furiously in his back pocket and he swears, wipes his greasy, buttery hands on the tea-towel on the counter. He chews and swallows too quickly, can feel the toast travelling in big chunks down his oesophagus.

“Hullo, Albon speaking.”

“Alexander, that is seriously such a creepy way to answer your phone mate,” Charles says on the other end. 

“Sorry, just trying to maintain some professionalism here,” Alex rolls his eyes. He pats at the white stain of toothpaste, then does his tie up quickly. Simple, not any kind of fancy Windsor knot. He wasn’t that kind of prep school boy.

“Do you have everything ready with the files?” 

“Mm hm,” Alex shoves his phone between his cheek and shoulder, as he rifles around the loose papers on his desk. He prefers to be digital, everything stored on his laptop, but Charles is a pieces-of-paper-pinned-to-a-board type. It’s like he can’t think properly on a google doc, has to be able to highlight and draw arrows and circles and whatnot. Alex thinks it’s the best indicator of his personality you could get.

“And-“ Charles sounds excited, “-I have finally gotten in contact with George.”

Alex pauses, in his frantic search. He hadn’t really expected Charles to be able to get him, to be honest. Of course, that was one of the reasons that Charles was up there in terms of point men. He was frightfully good at pulling stuff and people together, even if he seemed a bit in his own head at times. Nobody could avoid him for long before he was borderline banging down your door, cherubic smile on his face. 

He replies after a delay, too long to be strictly polite.

“Ah. Okay, so what did he say?”

“He said he is in, and asked if we were still working together.”

Alex’s mouth twists.

“And-?” 

Alex’s phone bursts into static as Charles laughs. He really has to get a better microphone; Alex knows for a fact that he’s talking into his airpods that he dropped into the river the last time they went out drinking together. They miraculously came back to life after soaking overnight in a bag of rice, but they had never been the same. 

“I said of course we are.”

Another pause. Alex sighs.

“And what did he say to that.”

Sometimes, getting a story out of Charles is like pulling teeth. 

“Well he just made a noise like-“ he sighs, staticy “-and then said oh yes of course he will fly over, and where are we, and can I send the contract.”

Alex frowns. 

“That is okay?”

Charles can also be, alarmingly perceptive.

“Yeah. Yeah of course, alright, look, I’ll get to you in a second.”

“No problem, I know how you are in the morning.”

Alex splutters.

“Just do not forget the compounds, I don’t want to have to talk to Max about getting more of his formula, and Daniel is on holiday.” 

Alex hangs up on him. Charles is probably cackling on the other end. He had been about to forget them, but he wouldn’t tell him that. Five bottles with sticky styrofoam glued to them protectively, held suspended in case. Clear liquid, just a bit thicker than water, swirled around in brown glass. 

He pulls up to the office that they’ve rented out with his suitcase, laptop bag slung over one shoulder and two coffee’s in his hands. He blends right in with the other suited, corporate drones walking to their jobs, nothing about him suggesting why it is he’s elevator-ing up to an abandoned and empty 4th floor, sandwiched between a law firm and a co-op workspace. 

Alex had dropped out of architecture halfway through his degree, but had done well enough for his professor to earmark him for the dreamshare project. That is, he’d done well, got the dreamshare project, then promptly flung himself out of university in order to make more money than he ever, ever could designing buildings and infrastructure. 

Charles had been a part of that initial uni group too. Alex remembers walking in and seeing him, knuckles pressed into his face and half sliding down his chair, looking like he hated being there. He’d had deep bags under his eyes, and his hair stuck out from underneath a bandana wrapped around his forehead. 

He was easily one of the most attractive people Alex had ever seen. Alex had promptly wrote him off as an option entirely. People that looked like that, usually weren’t interested in advances from people like Alex.

George had been there too, in that little group that met late at night and laid down on the floor, all hooked up to a bulky machine. They weren’t architecture majors, all cobbled together from different degrees. 

Alex is pretty sure they’re the only three that actually broke through from that little group. The rest of them were somehow satisfied with the few hits of Somnacin, of only dipping into that endless, beautiful world of dreams the once. 

Charles is already under when he makes his way up, face still and peaceful, arm hanging down with the IV in. The machine is beeping steadily beside him. 8 minutes left, counting down on the screen. Decent time, enough for Alex to shuck off his jacket and push the sleeve of his shirt up; too starchy, he had to get it dry-cleaned after he spilled a bit of Chinese on it the other night. Sweet and sour pork. 

It’s a facsimile of Alex’s plans that he drops into, buildings that stretch up and then become hard to look at, half made, your brain struggling to fill them in. That’s the problem when Charles hosts dreams. They blur at the edges obviously, and there’s too much free space where a clients mind can take over, construct a whole world without you having control. 

When they need to use him for a layer, usually they make him do just a room, or the interior of a hotel that they never have to leave. 

“Ah,” Charles turns and smiles at him. “finally. I think I am finishing up in here soon, no? Just wanted to get an idea of how everything was going.” 

Alex nods, and spreads his arms. “Well. What do you reckon?” 

Charles crosses his arms and looks around.

“Obviously, it is not done yet, and I am not so good at filling in, but it definitely looks like the pictures. And there-“ he points to a bridge, further in the distance, “-that is where we would do it? The kick?”

Alex nods. Dropping a car off the side of a bridge isn’t so original, but it’s the easiest way to coordinate a simultaneous kick, since they’re going 2 levels deep. An intricate dreamscape, their most complicated so far between the ones they’ve put together as a team. Alex had done 3 layers once before, with others. It hadn’t worked out well. 

He rubs at his coin in his pocket, smooth and well worn. If he flips it, it’ll be heads, a shiny golden queen staring impassively back at him. 

They do a walk through discussing the little things; where the maze of roads needs to fit, the route the car will need to take, weaving through the city. Music starts playing faintly and muffled, the last ten seconds of a dream that stretch endlessly. 

Alex frowns, and then opens his mouth to say, incredulously, “is that Camilla Cabe-“

He blinks awake. Señorita is blasting out of the speakers and Charles is red-faced. 

“I didn’t expect you to be here! I wake up easier to this kind of,” he gestures, “anyway. Hello.”

Alex blinks, and then bursts into pealing laughter. 

[sageandlily]

Aiwralia (San's kingdom)

"Once upon a time, Aiwralia and Serith were joined kingdoms. San and Jongho's father split it when he gave up the throne to his sons. Now, the eldest of the Choi family become the ruler. It was famous as a fruitful kingdom where the land was fertile year-round. A wealth of food and clean water came from Aiwralia and it served as a booming merchant trading post. Aiwralia flourishes with lush greenery and wildlife. Most of the kingdom lives off the land and does pretty well for themselves. Plenty of plains and pasture, some forests, and wetlands. Very diverse biome. It experiences all four seasons with winter lingering a little longer further north where Serith is and spring rains falling a little heavier to the south. Rainad lies on Aiwralia's western border and does lots of trade with Wooyoung's kingdom."

moodboard masterlist

《all the artworks and photos are credited to the owners》

[valeriianz]

So you asked for prompts, and I've been thinking about a dreamling inception au ficlet I read a while ago, but can't remember who wrote it. So my prompt for you is inception au dreamling or if you don't feel like it, some more of the parent trap au!

I'm glad your feeling like you want to write, I've enjoyed what you have shared very much, I hope you have a nice day <3

im gonna answer this one first, while im working on something else (hehehe)

as soon as i read "inception" i remembered @delta-pavonis's post here, which i completely lost my marbles about (hence the link to my reblog, so you can read my unhinged tags as well lol). With Dream as... himself and Hob as the architect. idk if this is the ficclet you read, but it's the only one i'm aware of (im sure there's more though. i mean, there's gotta be). i don't have any real interest in tackling the au myself though, so i'm gonna cheer Pavonis on from the sidelines lol

also! there is this teeny follow up, here!

this is all to say... hey Pavonis. where's the rest? 👀