Title: Inception, Perception.
Author: Arisprite
Disclaimer: I don't own either Sherlock, or Inception.
Summary: "I caught them poking around in my head, and took exception to it."
Sherlock sat in a small restaurant. It was familiar. The stool leather had cracks in all the right places, and the windows cut the dim evening light in the perfect angle to avoid hitting his eyes. He took a small bite of the food before him, Angelo's fettuccine. But that was wrong. This wasn't Angelo's, and wasn't he on a case? He didn't eat on cases.
He pushed back the stool from the bar, leaving the nearly full plate of pasta, and looking around at the building around him. It was like...the details were wrong. Close, but not quite there.
He frowned in confusion, and the people around him began to look around shiftily. They were ignoring him completely, but they were definitely looking for someone. Why would they all be looking for someone...
The ground shifted, and Sherlock stumbled into a suited man.
"Sorry." He muttered, in an American accent, but Sherlock couldn't see anything else on his person that would give a clue as to where he was from. That wasn't normal. He reached out a hand to call him back, ask him why he didn't make sense, but he was gone after a blink.
He went outside, intending to call a cab, and get home to do some blood experiments to find out what drug was currently changing his view so drastically. There were certainly some interesting implications if he could categorize and duplicate it-
Then another strange shift in gravity caused him to grab the brick wall of the restaurant.
All further thoughts of experimentation were driven out of his mind when the ground shook hard, and he was narrowly missed by a falling over hang.
Earthquake? The Dover Straits fault line is precarious...
But people were running, not into hiding, but towards a small group of people, one of them that suited man he'd run into to. There was another man, a scruffy but still well dressed man, and a slender woman. The crowds were acting more and more deranged, surrounding the people angrily, picking up stones, throwing them.
Sherlock stood, watching in a kind of detached shock as ordinary people began to beat the three of them to death.
Blood spilled across the pavement, and Sherlock stepped back, not bothering to look behind him. He heard a blaring horn, and felt a heavy impact-
A gasp. Voices filtered in. A dream...
Sherlock slowed his breathing, keeping his eyes closed, trying to adjust to his surroundings without giving indication he was awake. Had he been asleep?
"...Can't believe how fast the projections attacked..."
"...You idiot..."
"...Supposed to be a genius, maybe that..."
"If you're trying to leave me asleep while you run off after whatever you did, you'd best keep you're voices down."
His voice was rough with sleep, but got his point across. Sherlock heard the movements still, the voices go silent. He opened his eyes, revealing his own flat, and the three people who'd been slaughtered a few minutes before.
They were standing or kneeling around a strange silver suitcase, which had several tubes strung out from it. The woman, a dark haired creature that most would call beautiful (married, one child) was in the process of rolling it all up, while the young man with slicked back hair (suit, expensive, but not brand name, doesn't want to be recognized) looked at him with an unreadable expression. Impressive.
The last man held up a pacifying hand. (Married to the woman, generic brand clothing, only recently came into multiple large sums of money, perhaps illegally. Artist by the callouses.)
"Look, we don't want any trouble." Hmm, American too.
"If you didn't want any trouble, you wouldn't have broken into my flat, and put me to sleep. What was it? Drugs?"
Sherlock sat up from where he'd been laying on his thin bed, and then stood. He felt no effects from whatever sedative they'd used to keep him under, and so stood steady, glaring at the intruders. "And, more importantly, why?"
They all looked at each other, trying to divine his mean, he supposed. Why are they here, why was he asleep, why him? Any answer would do.
"Look, Mr. Holmes. We haven't hurt you or anyone else. All we've done is trespassing. Let us walk away, and you'll never see us again."
He was using that calm voice people use to tame animals and wild children. Sherlock was having none of it.
"That's false. You were in my head. My dreams." It was true. These people had somehow influenced his thoughts, and the idea was enough to send him into a cold sweat. What was that machine that they'd so neatly packed up?
"Stay calm," The woman spoke for the first time, and Sherlock was able to place her accent as Parisian French.
Interesting, but more pressing... "I'm sure my husband will explain everything."
There was an amusing silent exchange, that Sherlock would have liked to have had more time to study, between the married couple, before the blond man turned to him.
"I think we got off on the wrong foot."
Sherlock snorted. The man continued, still in that annoyingly calm voice.
"I'm Dom Cobb," He gestured to himself. "This is my wife, Mal, and our partner Arthur. We're involved in many things that not even your government knows about, and we'd really like it to stay that way."
"What is it? Something about dreams, obviously."
"Yes."
"Illegal, no doubt."
"Depends on who you ask." The man smirked. "What we do is legal, technically."
"Meaning there are no laws against it, as of yet."
"Exactly."
A/N: I know! It's unfinished. There are a couple of other oneshots in this crossover, but I don't know if I'll ever make them into one story. So it goes here for now. Sorry!