FIC: The Imp at the Bottom of My Pool

[lobelia321]

TITLE: The Imp at the Bottom of My Pool
AUTHOR: Lobelia; lobelia321
FANDOM: Inception
PAIRING: Arthur/Nash
RATING: Oh, let's call it PG-13.
DISCLAIMER: This never happened. Unless it happened in a dream.
SUMMARY: Arthur commissions Nash by poolsides. All is not as it seems.
THANKS: Inspired by this fic: Thirty Pieces of Silver (Nash/Saito) by kirstenlouise.
Profuse thanks to wrangler for performing miracles in this thread about shinkansen trains.
And to viva_gloria for cheerleading! *smooches*
PICS: At end.
WORD LENGTH: 2,100.



The Imp at the Bottom of My Pool
by Lobelia

1. Berlin. Summer. 2009.

"You understand, I need to check your credentials thoroughly."

The man nodded.

"And that everything said and done remains strictly between us," continued Arthur.

"Why do you think I chose this location?" The man gestured at the pools and lawns of Kreuzberg's open-air Prinzenbad.

"Good," Arthur said. "Smart choice."

Nobody would notice a pair of men strolling through the bathing area Everybody was too busy with their own affairs, milling about on the grass, queuing up for French fries with mayonnaise, or dive-bombing into the deep end. It was true that Arthur looked perhaps a tad incongruous in skin-tight black Moschino boxer briefs, with his legs and torso as pale as the vanilla ice cream on sale at the kiosk by the entrance. His companion, on the other hand, fitted right in. He was tattooed and tanned. His hair was of shoulder-length, loosely tied with an elastic band, and he wore baggy surfer's shorts and a gold-plated chain around his neck.

His name was Nash. Or so he claimed.

"Now listen carefully, Nash," said Arthur. "Cobol. I'm going to say that only once, and now you must wipe the word from your memory."

"Got you," said the man who called himself Nash. "Done."

"The next thing I need you to do is tell me a little bit about yourself."

"Sure. Like what?"

"Like..." Arthur's gaze swept the lawns. "What's your favourite candy? Do you shave in the mornings or the evenings?" His tone was light. Neutral. "The last time you had a dream? That sort of thing."

"Hm," said Nash and studied a cloud. "They have a liquorice here, Haribo puppies, I like those. And I shave as soon as I've had my early-morning wank."

"Nice," said Arthur. "See those men next to the ten-meter diving board?"

"And the last time I had a dream?" Nash dropped his voice. "Now that depends on what you mean by dreaming."

Arthur shot him a look. "I see you know what I'm talking about. And now I suggest we make ourselves blend in a bit more."

"You mean because of those guys?"

The guys in question, they were big and burly. They wore flip flops. They were on their way.

"This way," said Nash.

"Aha," said Arthur.

'This way' was the men-only part of the pleasure grounds. Young and old, smooth and hairy, built and beer-bellied, all lounged on bath towels among shrubs and nasturtiums. Also, all aired their private parts.

"Interesting choice," said Arthur.

"Hey," said Nash. "They're German. They're nudists."

"How exactly do you propose we blend in?" But even as he spoke, Arthur, with a glance over his shoulder, shucked off his Moschinos. As did Nash. Whose member turned out to be stout and ruddy, unlike the rest of him.

Arthur stepped across a discarded beer bottle. One of the reclining men made kiss-kiss noises at him.

The burly boys in flip flops could be spotted shrugging and meandering in another direction, towards the changing rooms.

"Listen," said Arthur. "Let's speed this up. You're good at building, I take it?"

"The best," said Nash. He sat down on the grass.

They hadn't brought towels so the blades scratched their bare arses.

"We need an office environment. Two levels, one paradox per level. Penroses half-way through the maze, a turn-off, a dead-end and a decoy. Two separate treasure chests, filing cabinets would be good, security safes, that sort of thing. Plus a short-cut. A final out. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Sure." Nash flashed him a broad grin. "No problem. I'll throw in a Moebius spiral and a co-ordinated kick for free."

"Just what's requested will do fine," said Arthur. "The crucial thing on this job is texture. Everything needs to look right. Smell right. Feel right. Tiles, wallpaper, carpet fibres. Okay?"

"Okay. They're coming."

And so they finally were. Two of them. Burly. Big. Determined. Out of the changing rooms into the sunburnt throng.

Arthur glanced around at naked flesh. "Diversion," he said. "Quick--"

But he didn't need to finish the imperative. Nash was already kissing him.


2. Cambridge. Late summer. 2010.

"Listen, Nash."

The lido at the edge of Jesus Green and right next to the river Cam was almost empty. The trees cast long shadows across the grass and at the handful of hardy swimmers. Nash didn't wear a robe. Arthur hugged his goose-pimpled chest.

"We've got another job for you."

Nash chewed at his lower lip and scanned the damp sky. "So you thought you'd bring me out here."

"That's right. Because this time we call the shots. All the shots."

Nash fished a coin from his inside shorts pocket and flipped it. Flipped it again.

"Cut it out. This isn't a dream."

"You can assure me of that?"

"I'm betting a thousand bucks on that. A million. Remember how you got here?"

Nash narrowed his eyes. "Could have been a plant. That boat thing, that punt? Too real to be real."

Arthur caught Nash's coin as it twirled through the air. A swan honked behind the fence, somewhere on the river.

Nash's voice glistened like steel. "You touch my coin, I'll have to kill you."

"Bull," said Arthur. "Shit. Here's what I think of your counter-fucking-feit token." He flicked his wrist and tossed the thing into the pool. It plopped and, of surprise only to the pigeons on the sidelines, it bobbed.

Nash curled both lips. "Okay, smartass. Show me some money."

"Money's not even the word for this. Provided you play ball. And get the details right this time."

Nash's eyes flickered to the surface of the pool and to the turnstile beyond. Nobody entered, nobody left. The only people in the precinct were five lone swimmers, an attendant in a shell suit, a mother and infant under a tree, and they themselves. Nudists, burly boys: nowhere in sight. Nowhere to hide, either. Only one 100-yard long pool and a plank fence.

"Now listen carefully, Nash. I'm going to say this only once."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because I don't fucking trust you. Ever heard of Proclus?"

"Maybe."

"Well, you haven't now. You don't know what it is. Just remember this: Kokura Station, Fukuoka Prefecture. This time in three days."

The mother under the tree lifted the infant and, with wobbly steps, started to make her way down the incline towards the water. Her hair hung down loose around her face. Her knees were pale as English roses.

Arthur was down on the ground before the sky cracked apart. A baby! Without inflatables or life jacket! In a lido with no shallow end! Not a paddling pool in sight!

The projection turned like a slow robot and aimed -- aimed! -- the baby at them. Where was Nash? That was no baby. What was that shiny disc bobbing on the boiling water? Things and thoughts hitched apart; they snapped like knucklebones in chaos.

"Nash!" he yelled and grabbed hold of a tattooed arm. "Kiss me to kick!"

Just as Nash's stout and sturdy tongue entered Arthur's mouth, the image imprinted on the bobbing coin flashed its grin in the dying light.

What was it? Something was wrong. The wrongness stayed with Arthur all through the kiss and the kick back up into dubious wakefulness.


3. Berkeley. All Saints' Day 2010.

This time, Arthur didn't bother with blending in. He showed up to UC Berkeley's Hearst Pool in full dress attire: three-piece charcoal gabardine suit, shirt, tie, tie pin, cuff links, suspenders, the works.

The pool plashed with the breaststrokes of early-morning academics. Patrons did orderly clock-wise circuits, keeping in their allocated lanes: slow, medium, fast. Nash appeared from behind the marble reliefs, flanked by nymphs in fluttering sculpted draperies.

"What's up?" he said. He'd exchanged his surfer's shorts for a neck-to-knee wetsuit, his hair held back by a bandana. His chin and cheeks affected a three-day beard. "Going for a swim?" He let his eyes travel up and down Arthur's suit.

"Okay, shithead," said Arthur. He kept his voice down, just in case. "I'm going to show you the fucking money." He lifted the coin between left thumb and forefinger.

Nothing happened to Nash besides a quick blink of eyelids. "That's not real."

"Kobold. German for a little trickster troll, a little grinning imp. Looks just like this little grinning face on this little precious so-called token. Kobold. Sounds a lot like Cobol, doesn't it?"

"Does it?" Nash frowned at the cloudless sky. "I'm not very good with languages, me."

"Nylon fucking fibres, Nash. Hauled off by Saito's goons. You had me almost fooled. Almost."

"Almost?" grinned Nash.

"Haribo puppies: they don't even make those." Arthur pulled out a crumpled plastic bag. The label showed a black liquorice kitten.

"Done your homework, have you?" said Nash. "Now what?"

"You know now what."

"Cobb got what he wanted, didn't he?"

"Leave Cobb out of this."

"Saito got what he wanted."

"He planted you. That carpet: it was never nylon. I ran the replays. You built a pure wool shag pile."

"So sue me," said Nash. "Now if you'll excuse me. I've got some waves to catch."

"There's something of yours that you might want back," said Arthur. "The real something." He tossed the counterfeit onto the surface of the pool where it plopped among the swimmers and sank instantly to the sky-blue bottom.

The shadow of a hummingbird flurried across the bridge of Nash's nose.

"Where is it?" said Nash, friendly enough, smiling enough, but tense through his shoulder blades. His little finger twitched, as if signalling somebody not visible to the naked eye.

In a rush, all the patrons exited the pool.

Arthur nodded. He'd been expecting this. "You know where it is."

"Great," said Nash. "How much do you want for it?"

"Call them off," said Arthur.

"How much?"

"Call them off now."

Nash stared at Arthur. Arthur stared at Nash. Tiny inverted figures of Arthur gleamed in the twin pupils of Nash's eyes.

Nash lifted his hand and scratched the side of his head. The patrons retrieved their towels, shuffled into their slippers, shook off excess water, dragged wet fingers through moist hair, adjusted their bathing suit straps, dug around in their poolside pouches for keys and soap and hair lotion.

"Call them off," said Arthur.

Nash sighed. "So literal. Always so literal, Arthur."

"Don't call me that," said Arthur. "I am fucking disappointed in you, Nash."

Nash executed a ballerino's pirouette on the marble decking, surprisingly light on his neoprene toes, graceful in the torso, wrists turned, fingers splayed.

The patrons, almost at a jog, disappeared through the Women's and Men's doors.

Only the marble naiads remained, hieratic among stone garlands.

"Come on," said Arthur.

"I don't know," said Nash. He seemed unsure, now that only the air and the smell of eucalypts was between them.

"You knew I'd find out," said Arthur.

"You look good in charcoal," said Nash. "Sharp. I wanted you to."

"Open wide," said Arthur, and Nash did, and Arthur launched his tongue into the cave of Nash's ruddy mouth.

Once it was in there, the tongue seemed for a moment to forget what it had come for and lolled in repose, only to be woken up by the insistence of its moist mate and driven to action. Nash's tongue pushed at Arthur's and dove underneath Arthur's and darted into the crevices between Arthur's teeth. A noise accompanied the tongue, travelling up from its root into Nash's mouth and then along the shaft of Arthur's tongue and down Arthur's throat whence it slithered and slid down throat and oesophagus until it settled, like a full-bodied crotchet note, in the pit of Arthur's belly.

Nash's voice in Arthur's belly had the roll and weight of a well-worn die.

"So where is it?" murmured Nash.

"Why do you need it? I felt the kick yet we're still here."

"Some kick," mumbled Nash and stopped talking, instead continued kissing.

"I didn't hide it in my mouth," said Arthur between tongues.

"Oh," said Nash. "Is it...?"

"That's right."

"The whole time just now? You had it in there the whole...?"

And now Arthur was grinning. The sky grinned, too. On cue, a carillon started up in the clock tower beyond.

"Remember what you told me when we first met?"

"I told you lots of things," said Nash. "You probably remember them all. Knowing you."

"I remember mainly the important ones," said Arthur and ran a finger down Nash's left cheek. "Like that you haven't shaved."

Nash swallowed. "No, I haven't."

"Which is good."

"Why?" said Nash, but Arthur didn't reply, only grinned and dimpled and looked for all the world just like the imp on Nash's token, hidden in sweaty darkness and smirking to itself.

---
THE END
All original bits © to Lobelia.
Feedback is loved.
Posted on 5 May 2011.
URL of LJ page: http://lobelia321.livejournal.com/727598.html
Also at AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/195113

The kobold on the coin


Prinzenbad, Kreuzberg, Berlin


Jesus Green Swimming Pool, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire


Hearst Pool, University of California at Berkeley, California


Bonus pic: Moschino Mare swimming trunk

Comments

[kirstenlouise.livejournal.com]

Arthur, Arthur, Arthur... any excuse to get Nash half-dressed. *shakes head* It's really quite shameless of him to behave that way. I DON'T BELIEVE FOR A SECOND ALL THAT KISSING IS ABOUT THE KICK. YOU MAY HAVE FOOLED YOURSELF, ARTHUR, BUT NOT ME.

This was cute. I liked all the back and forth between them and ffffffff---Nash with tattoos = best Nash! Thanks, bb. ♥

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Nash with tattoos = totally canon!Nash. So there. *gg* And the kiss is a pure kick-kiss. Pure!

Thanks so much for inspiring me into the Nashlove! He repays every tiny bit of it! I fear this is completely different from what you wrote (I could never write anything like Thirty Pieces...!) but I was inspired!

Thank you for reading and commenting!!!

[fitz-y.livejournal.com]

this was gorgeously written! loved it!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! You're a sweetheart for reading and commenting. *smooch*

[chromonym.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed "Thirty Pieces of Silver," and it's great to see another side of Nash here. He's so confident and kind of laid back here, but still snarky. I like the use of pools as a setting and the moments of uncertainty before Arthur figures out that they're in a dream. These two have great chemistry here, and oh my god, Arthur's shorts! 0_0

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I fear I sort of misled people perhaps into thinking this was going to be another fic like Thirty Pieces of Silver but I could never write that! Kirstenlouise just inspired me straight into the world of Nash!

Thank you so much for reading and commenting. It's so interesting to me to see what you got out of it because I was kind of feeling my way paragraph in paragraph with this one. :-)

You, btw, have a devastating username. *hearts*

[chromonym.livejournal.com]

Misled... not at all! You said you were inspired by Thirty Pieces of Silver, which made me think you'd use it as a jumping-off point for your own ideas. "Inspired by" and "the same as" are not the same thing. I think you took the premise, that Nash was planted by Saito to betray them, and expanded on it logically and organically.

Thanks so much! I don't actually ~know any Latin, so I just cobbled it together from lists of prefixes and suffixes. Chromo- and -nym are my favorites. <3

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*puts on pedant hat* And chromo isn't even Latin, either, but Greek so Latin wouldn't have helped you there.... *g*

Hooray for cobbledness! :-)

[chromonym.livejournal.com]

Oops! Well, thanks for the tip :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, and are you a fellow German, perchance...? :-)

[chromonym.livejournal.com]

Turkish, actually. The closest I get to being German is drinking lots of German beer. :)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's where the username Hefeweizen comes from!

We were in Istanbul last year for our summer holidays. \O/

[chromonym.livejournal.com]

How wonderful!

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

Now this is classic Lobelia, all the things you do so well -- the surreality of the projection aiming the baby, the precise physical (but not emotional) detail of the kiss, the dialogue.

Arthur in bathing trunks is a new one, but most welcome.

Also, you wrote a Nash who I like, and retconned that bit about the carpet very nicely.

YAY! and WOOT!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

'Classic Lobelia': really, Gloria... *blushes and brushes this aside* It's so intriguing to me what you pick up here, especially as this fic was a bit like groping my way through a tunnel, sentence by sentence (after the first few paragraphs). Nash is very odd but somehow good to write. Plus I did shameless autobiography.

Arthur in bathing trunks is new??? Surely there are thousands out there. Surely every thread of Arthur's sartorial life has been explored!

Thanks so much; you're such a darling for commenting on and reading all these things.

[hesselives.livejournal.com]

oh wow, you draw out the uncertainty and tension between them so well. i don't think i've ever read Arthur/Nash before, but damn, you make it work. you have a gorgeous skill for creating atmosphere in so few words. ♥

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you; you are such a sweetheart for giving such lovely feedback! *glows* I had not read any Arthur/Nash, either, nor even much Nash (was trawling round for non A/E) but when Nash entered my head, he refused to get out of it again and before I knew it I had discovered the actor's rl name and looked at (the very few) pics and got all into him. :-)

[peperima.livejournal.com]

I liked how you used the different pools motif! God, that's a gorgeous shot of heart pools. :D And, ohhh Arthur + Nash. *___*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for your sweetsome feedback! The pools are totally autobiographical: pools wot i have enjoyed swimming in. :-)