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A Stutter in REM Cycle
By Synxailla
Author's Note: This is sort of a crossover between Supernatural and the movie Inception. Standard disclaimers apply. There will be some mentions of the characters from Inception, but this will mostly focus on the Supernatural characters existing in the Inception universe. A kind of a Inception AU Supernatural story.
I'm posting this here too.
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Chapter 0- The Job Offer
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"Why me?" Dean asks, leaning into his seat and looking dead straight at the seated man behind the big-ass, expensive-looking table. Watching for any sign that it's only through some fluke he's here. "I'm not the only extractor in the business. I sure as hell ain't the best."
"Don't be stupid," the man replies and makes a sound like an evolved form of a derisive snort. "Of course you're not the best. I didn't ask for you because of your above-average skills in extraction, Dean."
Dean barely reels in his urge to do something actually stupid like snarl at the man not to call him by his first name like they're some sort of friends. Most people who've met Dean say his survival instincts are shot to hell, but he wouldn't have survived so long in the business if that's really true. He knows when to soldier on and when to keep his head down.
And when you're facing the Michael Godson, widely known underground business and syndicate leader, in and out of the dream-share business, inside his penthouse office with armed guards just a wall away, and the man himself most probably having an arsenal inside his big-ass table or on his person, you know it's time to bite your tongue and keep your head down.
Sammy wouldn't forgive Dean if he allows his big mouth to get him killed.
Dean waits with clenched jaw as Michael brushes non-existent lint from his dark suit. Michael's ensemble of a dapper suit and tie is screaming of old money and power. Very different from the shirt, jacket, and days-old jeans combination Dean is wearing. The same clothes he was wearing two hours ago when a dozen of Michael's armed thugs in suits cornered him on his way back from a deposit.
Michael finally lifts his cold grey eye to look back at Dean and proceeds to still say nothing, Dean couldn't help opening his mouth.
"So?" Dean says loudly and blows an exhale through his nose. "You just had me dragged here to silently brag the view of the dirty city from your high nest, your majesty?" so much for not snapping.
Michael's eyes narrows in a way one does when faced with an annoying bug. Dean very carefully does not flinch and fights the irrational fear to look at anywhere but the man in front of him, because his Dad taught him never to take your eyes off threats.
And then Michael lets go of his glare and regards Dean with an unreadable neutral look.
"I'm offering you a job." Michael says with a slight incline of his brunet head.
That had been Dean's first guess as to why he's here. But…
"Like I said, why me? You said it yourself I'm not the best. And from what I hear on the streets, you, Mr. Godson never settle for anything less." Dean says, absently squaring his shoulders, trying to make himself appear bigger, less likely to be pushed into something he doesn't want.
"I hate repeating myself Dean, so you'd do well to listen," Michael says with a business-like tone that does nothing to belay the hurt he's promising to deliver if he's not heard. "You're not the best extractor, no. But you are one of the rare planters in dream-share."
This time, Dean couldn't quite keep his back from stiffening in a flinch. Michael smiles cruelly at him, knowing he's caught Dean now.
Shit.
"Oh? You didn't think I wouldn't know about your newly-learned skill? Really, Dean? Do you believe there's anything in the business I won't eventually find out?" Michael asks with a tight smile.
Dean knows better than to deny it, but he can't quite help himself from asking…
"How?" Dean breathes out. "I haven't used it in any job I've taken."
"I have insight on a lot more than people's job contracts." Michael answers with a waving gesture of his hand. As if knowing the personal lives of hundreds–maybe even thousands, of people is not a big deal for him.
Dean stills himself and takes a breath in. Fine. So the Big Bad Wolf of the dream-share world knows he's also a planter. Apparently his plan to keep that fact secret is no match for Michael Godson. But now is not the time to panic over that. He can still try to get out of this.
"You want an inception." Dean says when he feels he has most of himself calm again.
"Yes." Michael says with a single nod, "Among other things."
"You sure you want me to do it?" Dean asks with an eyebrow raised. "Because I've only done it a grand total of two times."
"That's still twice as much as anyone with halfway decent extracting skills and your level of field experience." Michael says. "You see Dean, this job I'm offering you would need a particular set of skills."
"You need a planter-slash-extractor?" Dean asks and tries very hard not to sound intrigued.
"Yes." Michael answers with a nod again, "Among other things."
"Don't you already have someone in your pocket for that? I hear things from people in the business, and they say you found yourself a good planter-slash-extractor; a real anal lady who signed exclusively with you."
"Naomi is anal-retentive," Michael answers with emphasis and Dean just shrugs and lets him continue, "and yes she's under my exclusive employ, and yes she's a very good planter-slash-extractor. I would even say she's the best since Dominic Cobb walked this earth. I've seen the results of her work first-hand and I'm impressed." He finishes off as if he just gave a universe-worth of compliment to this faceless Naomi.
"There you go." Dean says and spreads his hands in gesture of yah see? "You won't need me, because I'm sure my methods would look like sloppy seconds next to hers."
If Dean thought he ever had a chance of talking his way out of Michael's interest, his hopes are dashed when he sees grey eyes regard him with the same cold stare.
"As much as Naomi is good at her craft," Michael begins slowly, words said with deliberate care that warns Dean not to interrupt. "She's a feather's weight away from being absolutely useless in field-operations. She has no background in things like monitoring a target, making plans that align with the target's usual routine, and subduing the target without anyone being the wiser, target included."
Dean wants to roll his eyes. What kind of operative doesn't know the basics surrounding a successful extraction job? There's a reason point-men exists. You can't do shit with just skill and no legwork, much less no research, Sammy always says… He holds his tongue though, because he doesn't want Michael hearing his brother's thoughts.
"Yes Naomi can dig around a target's mind," Michael continues, "and sift and mold and take from the target's subconscious, but she has no merit in the process leading up to securing a target and the amount of subtle work it takes to get there… In so few words: she can't operate if the target isn't presented in front of her tied in a neat bow."
"Just get your thugs to bring the target to her." Dean snorts. "If she's as good as you say, the target would never remember being mind-raped, and I'm sure being physically roughed up a bit during abduction can be wiped clearly from the memory too."
"I told you not to be stupid Dean." Michael says coldly and Dean is struck between being insulted and pissed. "If it were that easy you wouldn't be here."
"You know you talk a hell of a lot and still manage not to make a lick of sense." Dean can't help but snap, sitting on the edge of his seat and trying to keep his coiling muscles from springing and ineffectually trying to punch the lights out of that smug face. "You should get that checked out."
Instead of taking the bait and raising his hackles though, Michael just looks mildly annoyed and a lot disgusted, which doesn't help appease Dean's temper.
"Just tell me why I'm here dammit!" Dean snarls and smacks down his closed fist on the big-ass wooden table. "What could the great Michael Godson probably need lil' ol' me for, huh? And if you say you're above abducting your target to get into their mind, then I'm going to have a bucket of kittens."
Because from their long-winded talk, all Dean understands is that Michael's a boastful bastard that thinks he's above everyone and makes very casual displays of his power every other breath. Yet he keeps on being adamant about Dean being essential to this…scheme.
"You're right. I won't hesitate about abducting–about doing anything that's needed to accomplish my goals. But this particular job needs a touch of traditional handling." Michael answers neutrally, not fazed by Dean's outburst. "That's why you're here. Because brute force won't get this job done. I can't just snap my fingers and have my employees deliver the target to me."
Dean sees Michael lose focus for a moment and slip his eyes momentarily to the dark night sky out his tall windows. Dean very well manages to shoo the cat from his mind and take the curiosity with it, thank you.
"You see Dean, this person's…special." Michael continues with uncharacteristic pausing over his words. "I imagine his absence would stir unwanted uproar in the parts of the business I have…limited control over. If I or any of my people step in, they'd know almost instantly. And I can't have that. The clean-up would be messy. And I just want to take him down with as little casualty on both sides as possible."
That makes Dean pause. Is there really someone Michael Godson cares over not all out strong-arming into obedience? Why? Because this person can fight back? Because this person has others to back him up willingly against the Michael Godson? Huh.
"Who's this guy you have beef with?" Dean asks, because damn cats and curiosity all-around.
Dean really expects not to receive a straight answer, but then again, he should know better than expect anything from this son of a bitch.
"Have you heard of the name Lucius Ashtrum?" Michael asks with all seriousness.
Yeah Dean has heard of that name, usually whispered in hushed tones or scoffed in incredulous voices. A name of a man lurking in the shadowy part of the dream-share world and said to be expanding his reach and doing new unspeakable things in minds of people that fall into his unfortunate notice. But that's all he was, a name.
"He's a myth." Dean answers, "I've been working in the business for a long time and I haven't seen a glimpse of him."
Michael shakes his head almost sadly.
"He's real, I assure you. And I can hazard a guess that most of the unspeakable rumors about him are real too. But his name isn't." He says, and slips his gaze again to the window, looking at something hidden in the void of dark sky "His real name is Lucifer Godson."
Dean frowns at that. Who names their kid after the devil? And then his mind catches up to what Michael said and he feels his eyes widening in surprise. Lucifer Godson?
"He's my brother." Michael says, turning back to look at Dean. "He has a lot of supporters, people he'd won over to his childish rebellion."
"Rebellion?" Dean parrots, brows crinkling.
"We used to work together. But eventually he decided to do things his way." Michael says, "He's built a small empire that thinks his ideals will liberate the business from the shadows. And he places those who dare oppose him, under…persuasion. He believes very strongly, that dream-share should be known by everyone."
"Wait, what?" Dean shakes his head as the message hits him. "He wants to make dream-share wide-known? Tell normal people about it?"
"Yes. You can see how this would be problematic." Michael replies.
Problematic is putting it too lightly. If the mass populace ever find out about dream-share, those in the business would be hunted down, and their friends and families would also be in serious shit. People don't take kindly to being kept out of the know. And they definitely won't take it kindly if they find out people in an underground business have been roaming free and digging around the subconscious of people with worthy secrets. Paranoia is shit.
"Hell would rain on us." Dean mutters under his breath.
"Most likely." Michael agrees, sounding just mildly concerned. Maybe the whole wreckage doesn't matter to him. Maybe he just doesn't want his near-singular control over the business to crash.
"You have to stop him." Dean says.
"I can't."
"The hell you can't! You have everyone in the business under your thumb. And everyone knows your influence outside it is no hanky-panky either."
"It's because of that that I can't." Michael says. "My brother's been watching my moves as much as I've been watching his. If I or any of the people under my order try to get to him, he'd know well before the attack makes impact. And I know my brother, he would have contingencies set up, so that even if I manage to get him, his people would still have protocols to follow that would do nothing at hampering his plans... I need someone not affiliated with me in any way to do the work."
"If he's watching you closely too, how can you be sure he doesn't know about this meeting of ours?"
"I've sent him a distraction for now. I assure you he knows nothing about this." Michael answers "But I can't always blindside him. It took me a month of arranging my routines haphazardly to throw him off, and my business can't suffer that long again or he'll be ahead in the game."
"Why are you so sure I'll be able to get to him if you can't?"
"He doesn't pay attention to little players like you. You're not under any fixer's name."
"I used to work for Crowley." Dean says, and Azazel before that. But he doesn't mention it.
"But you broke away after the contract's fulfilled, and now your name's clear off the list." Michael replies. "Most of dream-share is currently being handled by fixers, as you know they fix contracts for clients and assign teams to jobs. Independent work has been a thing of the past ever since Mr. Saito founded being a fixer. His team of course, was superb. I've seen long rosters of names but none as fluid in dynamic as the original."
"Too bad most of them are dead." Dean spits with an accusing glare Michael just ignores.
Now fixers have control over multiple teams, multiple players, and independent players find it harder and harder to get jobs of their own, so they approach fixers to take them under their roster. As far a Dean knows, Michael's the biggest fixer in the world.
"The point is, my brother knows every fixer in 3 continents and he has a working knowledge of the fixers scattered around the rest of the world to get the names of the remaining if he ever fancied it. But your name won't come up because you're off the grid."
"I'm pretty sure I still have records from my past fixer." Dean says. Crowley has his own brand of being anal.
"I took care of that." Michael says, "In the past month I've wiped every record you have in dream-share clean. For all intents and purposes, you're just a regular citizen with no evidence of being a member of a wide-spread underground activity. My brother won't be watching you."
"You erased my records?" Dean asks, a bit amazed and a lot unnerved.
"I told you I hate repeating myself Dean." Michael says and Dean shut his mouth. "You have to step in and do the work. Keep it by the book, or be creative, I don't mind either way. Just make sure the target and his people don't know what hit them. Be subtle. You may be off the grid now, but being stupid would still tip them off."
It grinds at Dean how he's being ordered around already. This is what he doesn't like about fixers. They think they're above their people. And Michael clearly seems to think he's above everyone.
"Hey, if I'm off the grid, I won't even be affected if your brother ever won his fight and expose dream-share." Dean says, shrugging to seem indifferent. He knows Michael won't undo the clearing of his name if it took him a month to do it the first time. "I can just walk out of here and leave the life all together."
Grey eyes stares at Dean. And then Michael laughs.
It's not a good laugh.
"I keep asking you not to be stupid Dean, and you never listen." Michael says with a wide smile that looks just wrong on his face. "You must know I won't allow you to just walk away from this. My fight with Lucifer has been going on for a long time, and if you think I'd allow the only weapon I have on him to turn against me, you better think again."
Dean knows that… He knows he can't get away from this without some kind of miracle. But damn if he's going to stop trying to antagonize Michael every chance he gets.
"You see unlike you Dean, I'm not stupid." Michael continues. "You can't win wars without thorough planning. I may have made you a free man by erasing all your records but, I didn't give your little brother the same favor."
Dean feels a heavy stone drop in his gut.
"He has no record." Dean argues. "I made sure of it. His name's clean."
That's always been Dean's first priority. To keep Sammy's interference in the life secret. To make sure Sammy's presence isn't known by any players, much less any fixers. No one in the business even knows he has a brother.
Sammy never liked their arrangement, but Dean managed to make him agree to it by pointing out that they can't both be in over their heads in this business. One of them has to stay relatively clean to pull the other out if and when things got ugly… Sammy does his job of being Dean's nameless point-man quietly and efficiently, without anyone knowing of his involvement.
But of course Michael Godson just has to know. Dean Winchester has never been favored by life… But this is a bluff. Sam and Dean always make sure to keep Dean as the face of their operations and to keep Sam in the background. No record of him exists.
"His name won't be so clean in the after-fall." Michael tells Dean, "Aside from purging your name off the business in every way possible, I also set some records straight and made sure Sam Winchester's participation in the field will not go undocumented. If you turn your back on this job, I'll release Sam's new permanent records. And you'll find that my methods ensure permanent records stay permanent."
Dean grits his teeth, hating this man impossibly more for dragging his brother into this whole mess.
"Fine, you made your point." Dean relents.
Michael smiles. And damn if Dean doesn't want to wipe the floor with that smug face.
"But if I take this job and clean up your mess with Lucius or Lucifer or whatever his name is, I want things in return." Dean says, because he's not the kind of idiot that will agree to a job without any kind of compensation.
"Name it." Michael says instantly, confident in his position in the world to provide any demands he thinks Dean may have.
"One, you don't interfere with my work." Dean says, and the rising of well-groomed eyebrows make him want to pat himself on the back. "If I need something, funding or drugs or whatever, I would contact you. I don't want to see you or your people otherwise. I'll take care of finding people and help on my own. You stay out of it."
Dean lets Michael soak that in for a moment. It's a measure of trust somewhat, to not have a fixer monitor the job's progress; trust that's definitely not there between them. But tough, because Dean doesn't work well with eyes on him, and on a more important note he wants to be aware of Michael Godson's presence as least as possible.
"Fine," Michael says with a slight downturn of his mouth Dean's proud of putting there. "I don't really plan on looming that much since it might attract my brother's attention on you anyway."
Dean keeps the snort and eye-roll in him.
"Two, you pay me." Dean continues. "I don't think five billion will dent your pocket."
"It won't," Michael says.
"Good, I want fifty." Dean swiftly replies. Michael's assets are said to be worth more than the top three richest persons in Forbes list put together. "Of course that's besides the funding during the job." He waits two seconds until Michael nods.
"And third, when this is all over, you delete all of Sam's records in front of us." Deans says, planting both hands palm down on the table and painting a fuck-all serious look on his face. "When I've done my job, and cleaned up your mess, I want you out of our lives. You don't get to come near me or mine ever again. I want your word on that. Or me and my brother won't cooperate. We'll white-knuckle it on our own and leave you guys to your big-ass nuke war and damn the consequences." Dean continues leveling a stare at Michael Godson. "These are my terms."
Michael regards him back with narrowed grey eyes.
"You demand all this as if I can't just threaten you with your lives if you don't cooperate." Michael says.
"Yeah well I'm not as stupid as you think Godson. If threatening me with death was an option, you would've done that in the first place." Dean says. "You said it yourself. I'm the only weapon you have on Lucifer, so you won't risk anything that ensures I won't be functional." Dean smirks. "So either agree to my terms or I walk. Maybe you'll try to kill me, maybe you'll succeed. But you won't have a weapon. I doubt you got reserves of planter-slash-extractors with sparkling field experiences."
Michael raises one eyebrow at him and then says "Well thank God you're not completely idiotic at least."
"Full of surprises." Dean says and shrugs widely.
"I accept your terms, Dean Winchester." Michael says with another slight incline of his head. "So will take the job?" He holds his right hand towards Dean.
Dean takes a second to mull it over, but he can't see any way out of it to be honest. At least if his terms are met he'll be free of this business at last.
"Yes." Dean says and brings out his own hand to shake Michael's.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x
As soon as he's comfortable with the distance he's put between him and Michael Godson's building, Dean ducks into a nondescript alley and digs around the duffel they returned to him after negotiations. He fishes out his weapons and brings them back to their proper places on his person. His knife slides into his boot-leg, his semi-automatic is tucks back into the right inside-pocket of his jacket and his colt in the left inside-pocket.
Feeling less naked with his weapons back on him, Dean digs around the bag again and gets the cellphone out of its hidden pocket. He turns it on and sees he has fourteen messages from Sammy, which is no surprise since he just went more than four hours without checking in. He quickly types a text to pacify his brother at least until he gets back.
"Safe. On my way back now." Dean watches the phone lights blink as the message is sent. He then tucks the phone into his jeans and starts walking out of the alley.
About five steps away from the (considerably) brighter-lit sidewalk, Dean pauses and reaches inside his jacket's left inside-pocket to pull the colt out. He looks at it in his left hand for a second before switching to grab it with his right hand and lifting it up so the nuzzle is touching his temple.
Dean takes a single breath in and pulls the trigger.
A soft click sounds out, but otherwise the dark night remains quiet.
Dean blows a sigh.
"Fuck me." He mutters tiredly. He puts back the colt where it came from and continues on his walk out the alley.
His mind is still whirling about planning out this near-impossible job. Sammy would bitch at him for this for a long time…
He needs to find at least another dreamer to make it work.
He'll discuss it with his baby brother when he gets home. He makes a mental note to stop by a liquor store because their upcoming conversation badly needs it.
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End Chapter 0
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AN: Thanks for reading. Hope you liked it.