Dream of Hope : Dunkirk / Inception Crossover
SPOILERS AHEAD
It’s June 2nd 1940. Farrier is taken captive by the Germans when he lands his plane on the beaches of Dunkirk. Despite the lack of, Hope, is something Farrier has always held onto. Little Does he know it’s his hope that will eventually break his heart.(Inception Crossover Eames/Farrier X Collins & Eames/Farrier X Arthur.) SPOILERS
Chapter 1
The sun was setting, and it was beautiful, and the sky was clear, no engine sounds to be heard, no dark ticks of aircraft to be seen, and that was good. The fire of what had been his own aircraft, behind him spewed sparks and in sync with the waves from the beach, brought heat to his back. It was oddly comforting against the harsh hands grabbing at him and pulling him to his knees. He gazed past the men clawing at him and into the darkening sea, where he knew his best friend, the man he loved remained. With a silent prayer, a ghost of a condemned smile and a lovers kiss on his lips; he was dragged from the beach, angry German voices ringing in his ears.
"What is your name and rank?!"
His hands were ripped sorely behind his back and he was on his aching knees glowering up into a nazis face. His eyes like steel.
"Farrier, Eames Farrier, pilot and first officer of the British Fleet Air Arm." His voice was exhausted and to him it had a hint of relief, he was on the ground. Most likely a dead man, but steady ground after so long in the cockpit was a relief no matter the circumstances. Still, all of this, his current situation didn't matter, he didn't care what happened to him. He had a immoral habit of not minding his own safety, and even with several enemy guns pointed at him, what mattered was Collins had to be safe.
Eames had just managed to shoot the last remaining hostile plane from the sky as his spitfire glided on the last of its reserve fuel. With no enemy planes in the sky, the boat’s he’d seen would be unharmed for the time being and Collin's was on one of those boats headed for England. Maybe.
Collin's plane had gone down, but he had to have gotten out. Eames needed to believe Collins was alive and safe. That was enough to make the harsh reality bearable. Collins was alive.
Maybe.
God willing.
He closed his eyes and swayed on his knees, exhaustion and the stale feeling in his bones from being in the cramped cockpit of his fighter making him numb. The sand was cold under his knees, and it was swirling in the wind and being kicked up all around him. The enemy soldiers were shouting and the man who had asked him his name was talking very angrily in German.
"Up! Walk !" Someone with a heavy accent commanded and Eames staggered to his tired feet, the hands cuffed behind his back helpless. Before he had the few seconds needed to regain his balance, a man had seized him and forced him stumbling off the beach. Through blood soaked sand they went and into the destroyed French streets and down smoking alleys. Dunkirk looked like a war zone, the smells of copper, smoke and sweat, reminding him of past conflict. The memories in his mind filtered through like it had been someone else’s life not his own, but the memories, blurred or not, contrasted very deeply with the devastation in front of him. War was even worse when the destruction was made of someone's home and not a field or woods.
He was vaguely aware of the sound of gunfire in the distance. The sounds muffled from the hours spent in the cockpit, but each loud pop made his heart quicken and he would without thought recoil on occasion. War was not a kind, war was a ghost in your eyes, and an oily reflex built into your ears and the pores on your skin. It never left you, so you had to tune it out, turn your brain off. And so it was with him, his thoughts far away with his best friend.
Over and over again he meticulously want over Collin's plane crash, certain he would find hope in the memory. There had been no parachute, but as he had circled he was confident he had seen movement in the cockpit, and there had been a boat, not far from Collin's crash landing. Collins could have swam to the boat, he was a good swimmer, better than Eames, so surely he had. Blue eyes and a brilliant smile flashed in Eames vision and he stowed his doubts, determined to believe nothing, but what he wanted. Collins was alive, he had saved him and countless others, and he would find him again one day, back in England.
Eames tripped, as he walked and one of the soldiers escorting him cursed at him in German, the butt of a gun hit his back and he grunted and went down hard on one knee. The pain was still numbed from fear and what he could only describe as the feeling of giving up, or completion. The fall more of an annoyance till the pain could set in when his body realized he was safe, and not back in an all-out war zone. He was pulled up roughly by one of the soldiers and made to keep walking. His boots melding and then falling in sync with step of the enemy around him and he wondered how it was humanity, with all its similarities could be this cruel to one another.
He gazed at the man beside him, none too shy about it as he studied his face, only to see he was only a boy, not a man. He had young, violently blue eyes and a pale complexion, and worked into the scowl on his youthful face was obvious fear. War was never pretty Eames knew, but it seemed to be news to the boy. He discovered Eames was looking at him and with aggressively said something Eames couldn't understand and rapidly struck out at Eames, hitting the corner of his eye with his guns muzzle. Eames felt blood drip down his face. He looked down and away, watching the streets as they walked in the dark.
In another life they could have been friends, or brothers, but in this one they were on the opposite team, and that meant violence was the answer. Mans,and young men’s, answer to everything; conflict. He didn't feel angry or even hold resentment against the boy, he couldn't, if he had grown up in Germany maybe their places would have been reversed. It was just what was. He understood the need for war, but he didn't have to like it, or take the need for vengeance with him where he may go.
Instead, Eames prayed for the boy, prayed he’d go home to his parents and all in one piece, prayed they would be safe as they walked, winding their ways through streets, for what seemed like forever. His prayer wound with them, soaking his silent words into the bloodstained cobblestones littered with bullet casing. He prayed for the French families who owned the buildings exploded from the inside out, tanks and weapons abandoned around them. He prayed for the abandoned homes, left like a mock version of the city, haunting and lonely, with newspapers and flyers floating about in the wind. There should have been passerby's, children heading home and people closing up their shops, but instead it was forsaken and the encroaching darkness on the streets washed it in nighttime’s gentle and empty normalcy. It made Eames heart hurt. Home, across the river, was so similar to this war stained city.
They came to a halt, long after the numbness in his body had been replaced by stiff sore joints, and he had found himself limping. He figured as he glanced about, they were outside a small town prison or jail. Soldiers were posted all around and a tank was parked in the street its engine humming. Somehow the sound of machinery was vaguely comforting, but the feeling quickly passed as he was made to go inside. The building was sharply contrasting. It didn't match the rest of the town and when his eyes adjusted to the yellowed, indoor lights, it continued to feel alien.
The edges of the doorways and barred windows were straight and hard.The many desks, black against white walls, their corners sharp and legs straight. Even the tile looked angular with its chipped edges. He was used to a cockpit, curved, open, with smooth lines and edges and circular gadgets, here the ceiling was too low, and he continued to feel increasingly on edge. There was also Germans inside, uniforms he didn't want to recognize moved this way and that and several men glared at him, while most ignored the British pilot.
The blonde haired boy pulled him to his knees again and called to someone. A hook nosed man came over to them and his captors spoke low, motioning to him and to the sky. He recognized the word for plane, and pilot, but everything else was a garbled mess of sounds that went in one ear and out the other, fatigue the only thing staying between them.
Warily he realized the man who had come over was asking him if he spoke German. He shook his head.
The man nodded in understanding, called to another across the room and motioned him over. They spoke momentarily and then the second new comer turned to Eames.
"What is your name and rank?"
Eames recited the same familiar line, he had said early and with some effort stayed in the uncomfortable position all his weight on his knees, whilst they bickered amongst themselves. They gestured to him and he watched eyebrows raising slightly as one of them put a hand on the gun on his hip and made a slashing motion with the back of his hand at Eames. The other scoffed and said something about the Geneva Convention. Eames closed his eyes again, not caring to listen or even see. Instead he focused on how his feet ached and his toes, bent awkwardly in his boots as he kneeled, it felt white hot with pain by the time they finished and the English speaking man at last turned to face him.
Eames wasn’t sure if it was relief or dread, or some toxic mixture of both that made his shoulders heavy, and he let the words sink in like the feeling of losing altitude to quickly.
"For You the war is over!"