title: lay me softly down to sleep
summary: Lucy is an up and coming point woman in desperate need of a job. Natsu is a reckless but brilliant extractor in desparate need of a life. They meet by pure accident. No, really. Inception AU
notes1: the bunny made me do it.
notes2: i'm not sorry.
Bora opens his eyes to a dark room.
Something isn't right. It's too dark, too quiet, not at all like his ship. There's also a faint smell of kerosene but he forgets it, pushing it to back of his mind.
Where is he? The last thing he remembers- what's the last thing he remembers? Everything feels vague and fuzzy, almost not real. He gets up slowly and looks around, trying to gauge something, anything, about the room. Has he been drugged? Knocked out? Is he-
"Shit." His voice is loud, flinchingly loud, in the silence. He's dreaming. This is not good. Not good at all, he hasn't dreamt since he was kicked out of his dreamguild, he's over his head-
"Slow on the uptake, aren't you?" Bora whips around to face the source of the voice. All he can see is the spiky silhouette of hair, a scarf and a large, violent smile.
"Who are you?" Bora tries empty bluster. "I'm the Salamander, you should know who you're messing with."
"The Salamander?" There's a mocking laugh that bounces around the room. "Do you know that salamanders are called fire lizards? Apparently, their skin changes colour in flames." There's the tiny flick of a lighter, and then Bora can see the man clearly, see the pink of his hair and the onyx of his eyes and the blood red of his curling guild mark.
"Here's a tip." Natsu Dragneel flips the lighter on and off, eyes hungrily tracking the yellow flame. "When you need to impersonate someone, try not to let it be me. I can be rather… ruthless, when I'm provoked."
"Please." Bora can feel tears prickling behind his eyes, "Please, I'm sorry, please don't just don't-"
Natsu picks up the tiny spark with morbid fascination. "Change colour for me," he murmurs, and presses the flames to Bora's eyes.
Bora screams, and he screams, and then there is quiet, blessed quiet. Natsu looks dispassionately down at the charred corpse. "Ashes to ashes-"
"-Dust to dust." Lucy bounces experimentally on the hotel bed. "Nice. Not too hard. I'd give it an eight." She picks up her Plue plushie. "So, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, like I was saying. I really need to get a job."
She sighs. Lucy Heartfillia, 22, Point woman. To all the people who give her strange looks, pitying looks, she smiles "I'm a point woman, after all. I'd hate to be pigeonholed into a sexist job." A sexist job. An underpaying job. Right now, she would kill for any job.
"I'm undervalued, and depressed," she remarks critically to her reflection. "My last job was in November, can you believe it, and that was just loading boxes." Pulling a brush through her long blonde hair. "It's not like I need the money, god knows I don't need any money, but it's the principle, you know?" Carefully sliding on her peach lipstick. "But it's hard for a point woman to make a place for herself. If I were a forger or an architect or even a chemist it would be different-"She sighs. "Guess I have to keep trying."
Lucy carefully pulls out her totem. It's a key, worn and gold, curling into a chalice at the end. "The water bearer," her mother had said. "It was my totem, Lucy, keep it safe for me, okay?" And then her mother was dead and her father was even further away, dreaming for weeks and months at a time, and all Lucy had was her totem and her Somnacin for company. And her friends. Of course, her friends.
She pulls out her phone. Hits the speed dial. "Taurus? Hey, can you do me a favour?"
Natsu yanks out his IV line with a little more force than necessary. "Well," he says savagely, "It's done now, there's nothing you can do."
Makarov looks at him impassively. "Your temper will get you killed one day."
"I don't care." He turns. "Any news on Igneel?"
"Is there ever?" Makarov sighs. Being the master of the Fairy Tail dreamguild is never an easy thing, but when you're on the wrong side of eighty with a weak heart, it's more taxing than ever.
"You're mocking me." Natsu turns, and Makarov sees a bit of the fire he so effortlessly twists in his eyes. "He's out there. I know he is." He grits his teeth. "Give me another job."
"Right now?" Makarov pulls a crumpled piece of paper from the pin board on the wall. "If you insist." He reads of the information carefully, moderately. "Your mark is a man called Everlue. He likes to call himself a duke. Petty dreaming, not much of the big leagues. He's got a book. Job wants you to get what's in it."
"Subterfuge?" Natsu makes a face. "I'm not great with strategy."
"Well, you'll have to be." Makarov raises an eyebrow. "Right now, this is all we got."
"Fine." Natsu bites out the words. "I need a point man."
"Point woman." Lucy smiles as brightly as she can. "I'd hate to be pigeonholed into a sexist job."
"I see." The interviewer looks doubtful. "Well, Miss Heartfillia, as… impressive as your resume is, I'm afraid we don't have a position to your liking."
"Oh. I see. Well then!" Her laugh sounds painful and fake, even to her. "Thanks anyways!" She gets up and walks out, resolutely looking at the floor.
Eleven interviews. Eleven denials. Lucy's throat hurts and her eyes sting. "It's like I can never get a job." Her phone bleeps cheerfully.
"Hello?"
"Lucy!" Taurus sounds worried. "How did it go?" The silence on the line tells him all he needs to know. "Well, you know, it happens!"
"It happens?" Lucy laughs bitterly. "Yeah. I've got to go, Taurus, thanks anyways." She hangs up.
The sudden urge to dream overwhelms her, job be damned. She wants to forget, she wants to adventure-
She barges into the nearest dream café, sleeves rolled up. "Hook me up."
"I hate dream cafes." Natsu grumbles. "Subterfuge, subtlety, oh, Natsu, you know with enough time a dream can be traced back to its genesis! Besides, Everlue loves this café! Stupid old man."
Everlue's head is sure messed up, Natsu will give him that. Thoughts and memories swirl around in an undefinable swamp, crystallizing briefly into a forest, lake or house before disintegrating again.
"Dude needs an architect." Natsu sighed under his breath. He's never been one for architecture himself, but Gray has taught him the basics. Start small. Something anyone would want in their head.
He rocks back and forth on his heels. Something anyone would want…
"Give me a pretty blonde girl." No sooner had he said it that one materialized straight on top of him.
"Damn," he mutters from under her. "I'm good."
Lucy was expecting a childhood memory, warm and comforting. Instead, she gets a half formed dreamspace and a pink haired man who she's currently sitting on. She does the logical thing to do. She screams. It's a very impressive scream. A quarter of the dreamspace collapses instantly and the man jumps about a foot in the air.
"Hey, hey, shut up!" Natsu claps a hand over her mouth. "What the hell lady-"
"Who." Lucy jumps to her feet. "Are." She brushes some leaves from her hair. "You?"
The man winces. "Are you always this squeaky?"
Lucy glares. "Give me some common courtesy and tell me who you are!"
The man sighs. "Natsu. Dragneel. I would say I'm pleased to meet you, but, well, I'm not."
"Lucy Heartfillia, and I'm not either."
They look huffily away from each other for a moment. Then Natsu sighs again. "Listen, I really need to finish this job. Could you just-" he trails off as he sees the girl's eyes moistening. "Hey, jeez, don't cry. You may… attract attention."
That was very stupid, he thinks. Also, she looks cute when she cries.
Lucy looks up and sniffs. "It's not fair! Everyone has a job. You have a job. Why do I not have a job? There must be plenty of people who need a point woman, and I have experience in dreaming, and-"
Natsu cuts off her ramble. "You're a point man?"
"Point woman." Lucy mumbles.
"Well." He stops. Weighs his words carefully. "I need a point man. Not a point woman, but I suppose you'd have to do."
Lucy doesn't allow herself to smile. Not yet. "What's in it for me?"
Natsu rolls his eyes. "Pushy, aren't you? I'm from a dream guild. If the job goes well, I'll take you to it. Deal?" He holds out his hand.
Lucy takes it. "Deal."
A girl and a boy, Lucy thinks quietly, into the swirling mists.
a/n: Inception au. nalu. all the good stuff.
so natsu is the extractor, lucy is the point man, gray is the architect, erza is the forger and the chemist is a surprise!
who do you think the chemist is? how did you like it? please review, the suspense is killing me!