Fic: Stay, thou art so beautiful - Act I
Act I
Master post of all chapters here.
Act I
The grass Eames is lying upon forms a soft mat beneath his back, and there's the telltale crackle of fallen leaves when he shifts. He opens his eyes to a forest of birch trees all around him, slender white trunks giving way to a canopy of autumn leaves above, ablaze in red and orange and yellow. The air tastes crisp, with the slightest hint of chemical tar burning down the back of his nostrils, his throat-a side-effect of Somnacin that chemists haven't been yet been able to erase.
Eames stares up at the grey sky, barely visible through the foliage, as the words of his commanding officer dance in his mind's eye: Eames is highly intelligent but willful and undisciplined, not to mention arrogant and reckless. Not only is he a poor fit for command, but his ability to build within dreams or alter existing dreamscapes is uninspiring-mediocre, at best. In my opinion, he has little potential to excel in the PASIV program and should be transferred to another unit as soon as is feasible.
'Uninspiring'? The pompous fool wouldn't recognize inspiration if it shat on his rug and smothered him to death with it. While it was true that Eames' rifle had failed to materialize fully in the training exercise yesterday, the blame lay solely on the damnable Somnacin blend they'd insisted on using; it slowed his reactions, made it impossible to concentrate. And while he'd failed to complete the mission objective in the time allotted, he certainly hadn't been the worst performer in the lot. That particular honor had gone to Carrington.
The whole report had been absurd. A farce, a sham-a personal vendetta poorly disguised as an objective evaluation of Eames' abilities within the PASIV program. And to think that this buffoon has the power to remove Eames from the program completely, shunt him off to work as a miserable desk jockey, secretary for some daft old general with stars so old they were probably smelted in the Bronze Age. The scenario is intolerable, and Eames won't allow it to come to pass.
Eames climbs up off the forest floor, flicking blades of grass from his sleeve. He'd broken into the lab for extra time with the PASIV machine alone, but now that he's asleep he's not entirely sure what to do. He could practice creating machine guns and other weaponry within the dreamscape, do drills and maneuvers on his own, but it hardly seems worth the effort. There must be something else-something in the endless potential of dreams that he's missing.
There's a path through the trees before him, lightly trodden but discernible. Eames takes a few steps down the path and it curves in such a way that he can't see where it leads. He glances backwards, but the soft patch of grass in which he'd landed has disappeared, swallowed up by dense vegetation.
Eames proceeds forward, and after a time-another thing so devilishly tricky to keep track of in dreams-the forest ends in a clearing with a lake spread before him. The water is crystalline, a midnight blue which shimmers and seems almost lit from within.
He walks to the edge of the lake and beholds his reflection: a man of barely twenty-five years, hair shorn in the way service demands, bare-cheeked and in uniform. After a moment's intense concentration, the reflection changes: hair longer, a few days' stubble in defiance of regulation, and civilian clothing.
Then the reflection changes again. First to men in his unit: cunning Graves, lazy Townsend, and brash Walker-a man Eames barely knew, seeing as he had been dishonorably discharged shortly after Eames joined the program. Each image lasts barely a minute in the water before shifting onto the next, eventually clouding and forming the persistent thorn in Eames' side: Bailey. Eames frowns at the visage of his commanding officer and kicks a clod of dirt into the water, dispelling it.
All the reflections disappear, and he finds himself staring into translucent water once more. It's impossible to guess at how deep the lake is, but from its glittering depths rises a small light, seeming to beckon Eames forwards. The edges of the light seem to dance as a flame's would, twisting in an impossible breeze.
Eames puts a foot into the water and though it rises to the level of his ankle, it feels like a cloud, fog wrapped about his boot. He takes one step forward and then another when the water affects him with no more than a slight chill. Once he reaches the level of his waist, a staircase seems to form beneath him, a diagonal descent into the heart of the lake.
The step that submerges his head is not as difficult to take as he might have imagined; he finds himself holding his breath instinctively, but realizes as he exhales that there is nothing to fear. It is dark below the lake's surface, the flickering light always a few feet away, but there seems to be no immediate threat of drowning. Around him, the water that is not water is completely still; no currents move across it and no fish or other life disturb its quiet.
At the bottom of the lake, shadowy shapes resolve themselves into ornate furniture, overgrown with vines that seem to slither and grow as Eames passes. Above him, the lake rises up like a domed ceiling, and through the darkness he can no longer see the sky.
At the very center of it all is a tailor's mirror, also overgrown, its surfaces streaked with age. In the center mirror, Eames' reflection stares back at him. The mirror on the right shows the image of Bailey, frowning as he is so often wont to do. The last mirror shows an adoring young recruit-a pretty thing who'd sucked Eames' cock so enthusiastically a few days ago.
And then Eames' reflection begins to speak. "They say you're unimaginative."
Eames clenches his jaw. "They're wrong."
To the right, Bailey raises a smug eyebrow. "If you don't find some way to impress them, they're going to eject you from the program."
"They're idiots." Eames' hands ball into fists. "I was meant for this program, I was meant for dreamshare--they're simply too blind to see."
The reflection of Eames melts away in the center mirror, blurring to something else-someone else. Someone whose voice echoes all around him, deep and unfamiliar. "What if you can't convince them?"
"I will," Eames says. "I'll find a way. I'll do whatever it takes."
In the mirror, there's a flash of gold and then it's gone. "I don't believe you."
Eames has heard of projections before, of course everyone in the PASIV program has-not from the brass, who are infuriatingly close-mouthed on anything that could be of actual importance, but from fellow soldiers or chemists who wonder aloud what the ramifications of killing a projection might be, whether something born in a dream could destroy in the real world. Eames wonders too, when trapped in the minds of dreamers whose projections cross the border of suspicious to actively violent.
But such philosophical questions aren't what he's interested in examining tonight.
He opens his eyes to a birch tree forest, lying in the same spot he'd been the last time he stole an hour with the PASIV, over a month ago. Considering how unpredictable and frankly random his other Somnacin-induced dreams have been, the repetition in setting is-odd.
As he walks through the forest, the path to the lake appears again, and so does the staircase. Eames only hesitates a moment before plunging downwards, making his way to the lakebed.
The tailor's mirror is there again, and all three reflections are of him. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he can see that the reflection on his right isn't wearing his expression. It is, in fact, watching him-the corner of its mouth turned up.
"Who are you?" Eames asks, turning to face his rogue reflection full-on.
"What does it look like?" it answers, sounding amused.
"It doesn't matter what you look like," Eames says. "You're not me."
"Oh, but it matters a great deal." And with those words, the image in the mirror changes from Eames to Bailey, who drops to his knees and cowers.
"Projections have relatively stable identities after they manifest," Eames says. "My feelings towards Bailey have nothing in common with how I feel about myself."
"Indeed?" The reflection in the far left mirror speaks. "And how do you feel about yourself?"
Eames turns, and the reflection shifts into the image of a man with dark hair and blue eyes-someone he'd slept with just last night. "How do you do this? How do you keep changing?"
"What an excellent question," the reflection in the center mirror replies. "A rather complicated answer, I am afraid."
"Tell me," Eames demands, reaching out to touch, stopped by glass. "Tell me how you do this. How you mimic all these people, how you mimic me."
The reflection begins to chuckle, and when it looks up at Eames again, its eyes gleam an unearthly golden color. "What should I tell you? What I am? How I came to do these things?"
"Teach me how." Eames pulls back from the glass, fingers leaving a streak down the center mirror. "I don't care what you are if you can teach me how to change my appearances in dreams, how to-forge someone else."
The man in the mirror changes once more, Eames' face morphing into features that are sharper and leaner, hair forming shapes that seem almost to project outwards like horns. There's something beautiful about what stares back at Eames, something inhuman as well.
The man-the creature-puts a hand over the print Eames left on the other side of the glass and says in a voice that seems to vibrate the very marrow of Eames' bones, "This is not a thing I can teach behind walls."
Eames opens his mouth to reply, but is cut off by an immense sense of vertigo as he is jerked upwards without warning. He comes awake with a gasp, the taste of tar trickling down the back of his throat.
"Welcome back, Mr. Eames," Bailey says as Eames opens his eyes. "I do hope you have some sort of compelling explanation for why you're in the laboratory without leave after hours, but somehow I'm guessing that will not be the case."
Eames opens his eyes for what will hopefully be the last time to the birch forest, and hurries into the heart of the water. When he reaches the mirror, it's completely empty, devoid of reflections.
"Hello?" Eames approaches the mirror. "Hello?"
Silence is his only response, and there's not a flicker of movement within the glass.
"Where are you?" Eames asks, taking a step back to pitch his voice more loudly in the cavernous bottom of the lake. "I have no time for games, so show yourself."
Minutes pass, and still the creature does not appear. Eames walks throughout the underwater palace, pushing over furniture, sending objects clattering to the ground with as much noise as possible. "I need your help. Bailey's finally got enough to eject me from the PASIV program and possibly court-martial me if I can't show them what the bloody hell I've been working on down here."
He runs out of furniture to upend and returns to the mirror, stares into its dust-covered depths. "Reveal yourself and teach me what you said you would."
The mirror seems to darken, a black fog filling it. Eames waits, but when a familiar voice speaks, it comes from behind him.
"Eames," the creature says. When Eames whirls around, he sees not a creature but a suit-clad man, lean of build and youthful. His eyes glow, as if a golden light flickers behind them. "It is so good to see you."
"You must teach me now," Eames says. "They could find me at any minute. And if they do, they'll-"
"You are frightened." The man puts a hand to Eames' cheek, a burst of heat igniting at the touch, momentarily shocking Eames into silence. "My poor dove."
"The last thing I am is frightened." Eames jerks away with a scowl, ignoring the warmth that lingers on his skin. "I'm simply in no mood for games. I'd be tempted to ask where the bloody hell you were, but it doesn't matter. Teach me everything you know."
"And if I do, will this save you?"
"Perhaps, perhaps not. What does it matter to you?" Eames asks harshly, the tension inside his chest winding higher and higher as he thinks of the minutes ticking by in the waking world, of Townsend's dubious worth as a lookout.
"Because you matter to me," the man says, seeming first surprised and then hurt by Eames' very question. "If I were to waste your time with something of no worth, how could I live with myself?"
"All of this is irrelevant," Eames says. "As soon as you teach me what I ask, I will do what must be done."
"But what if I could render you aid?" the man persists. "Not only down here, but up above as well?"
"You haven't helped me yet," Eames snaps, beginning to lose his patience.
"No?" Before he can protest, the man puts his hands upon Eames' shoulders and turns him back towards the mirror, where two normal reflections stare back at him and the third-
"Release me." Eames struggles but it's futile; the force that holds his body in place is heavier than lead, fingers unyielding as steel. And then there is the third reflection: a young woman, blonde, trying to wrestle free from a darkly handsome man's grip.
"This is only a fraction of what I could teach you," the man whispers, low and rough against Eames' ear. Something blazes to life within Eames, an electrifying fever which sweeps through him. When he looks down, the body he sees is not his own but that of the woman in the mirror.
"Yes," Eames breathes out in awe. "This is exactly what I need."
The man takes a step back, hands slipping from Eames' shoulders. As they do, the hold Eames has on his transformed body wavers and fades.
"No," Eames says, as the reflection in the mirror blurs and begins to revert. "No, bring it back. Show me how I can-"
"Eames, I want to show you everything," the man says, sounding pained. "But I'm afraid our time together is short and I can hardly-"
"There must be some way," Eames says. "There must be something-"
"If only we had more time." The man tips his head back and stares up, at where the bottom of the lake encloses them. "If only I could meet you elsewhere, and you didn't have to come to me."
"Where?" Eames asks. "I need to know. I need you to finish teaching me."
"Have you ever dreamt an idea and carried it with you into the waking world?" the man asks. "Fallen asleep with a problem and awoken with the solution?"
"If I enter another dream, will I be able to do this again?" Eames asks. The image of the woman is long gone. "Will I be able to forge someone else?"
"If only we had more time," the man repeats.
Eames stares at the man's reflection in the mirror; in the filtered light that reaches the very bottom of his lake, his expression is wistful and nearly sweet. He is beautiful, human, not frightening at all. "The waking world. You can help me there?"
The man turns to regard Eames thoughtfully. "I could. If you were to take me with you. If you were to free me."
"And how would I do that?"
"I am not as you are, carved from a beating heart and bones." The man rests a palm against Eames' chest, heavy through the shirt Eames is wearing. The touch is so hot it nearly scalds, but this time Eames does not move away. "All I need is the tiniest fraction of you, a sliver of the energy that pumps blood through your veins. With your help, I could become as you are-alive and awake."
"How is that possible?"
"How is this possible?" The man gestures to everything around them, the frozen darkness of the water. "Is what you know to be real truly so different than a dream? Or is it simply another state of shared consciousness, changeable to those with the will to act?"
"And then you will finish what you started?" Eames watches as the man's hand trails down his chest to his abdomen, before lifting away. For the briefest moment, Eames misses the touch. "I'll learn how to forge?"
"Yes." The man smiles as he comes closer. "You can become anyone you desire-anything you can imagine."
Eames thinks of Bailey's satisfied smirk morphing into surprise and horror, of the wonder he'll see on other soldiers' faces, and of the way his father would shake his head in disgust-if he bothered to come up from his books at all. "Will it hurt?"
"Oh no, my dove, not at all," the man says, low and soothing. "It'll take naught but a moment to consummate our agreement."
Eames doesn't know who leans forward first, but it seems so easy, so simple to fall into the man's embrace, to close his eyes as fingers sear his skin and lips enkindle something inside Eames, a passion he has been waiting his whole life to pursue.
The dream melts away and Eames opens his eyes to a nervously hovering Townsend, the imprint of the demon's hand still hot over his heart. Nothing looks at all different and yet he knows that everything has changed.
Onto Act II
Master post of all chapters here.
Act I
The grass Eames is lying upon forms a soft mat beneath his back, and there's the telltale crackle of fallen leaves when he shifts. He opens his eyes to a forest of birch trees all around him, slender white trunks giving way to a canopy of autumn leaves above, ablaze in red and orange and yellow. The air tastes crisp, with the slightest hint of chemical tar burning down the back of his nostrils, his throat-a side-effect of Somnacin that chemists haven't been yet been able to erase.
Eames stares up at the grey sky, barely visible through the foliage, as the words of his commanding officer dance in his mind's eye: Eames is highly intelligent but willful and undisciplined, not to mention arrogant and reckless. Not only is he a poor fit for command, but his ability to build within dreams or alter existing dreamscapes is uninspiring-mediocre, at best. In my opinion, he has little potential to excel in the PASIV program and should be transferred to another unit as soon as is feasible.
'Uninspiring'? The pompous fool wouldn't recognize inspiration if it shat on his rug and smothered him to death with it. While it was true that Eames' rifle had failed to materialize fully in the training exercise yesterday, the blame lay solely on the damnable Somnacin blend they'd insisted on using; it slowed his reactions, made it impossible to concentrate. And while he'd failed to complete the mission objective in the time allotted, he certainly hadn't been the worst performer in the lot. That particular honor had gone to Carrington.
The whole report had been absurd. A farce, a sham-a personal vendetta poorly disguised as an objective evaluation of Eames' abilities within the PASIV program. And to think that this buffoon has the power to remove Eames from the program completely, shunt him off to work as a miserable desk jockey, secretary for some daft old general with stars so old they were probably smelted in the Bronze Age. The scenario is intolerable, and Eames won't allow it to come to pass.
Eames climbs up off the forest floor, flicking blades of grass from his sleeve. He'd broken into the lab for extra time with the PASIV machine alone, but now that he's asleep he's not entirely sure what to do. He could practice creating machine guns and other weaponry within the dreamscape, do drills and maneuvers on his own, but it hardly seems worth the effort. There must be something else-something in the endless potential of dreams that he's missing.
There's a path through the trees before him, lightly trodden but discernible. Eames takes a few steps down the path and it curves in such a way that he can't see where it leads. He glances backwards, but the soft patch of grass in which he'd landed has disappeared, swallowed up by dense vegetation.
Eames proceeds forward, and after a time-another thing so devilishly tricky to keep track of in dreams-the forest ends in a clearing with a lake spread before him. The water is crystalline, a midnight blue which shimmers and seems almost lit from within.
He walks to the edge of the lake and beholds his reflection: a man of barely twenty-five years, hair shorn in the way service demands, bare-cheeked and in uniform. After a moment's intense concentration, the reflection changes: hair longer, a few days' stubble in defiance of regulation, and civilian clothing.
Then the reflection changes again. First to men in his unit: cunning Graves, lazy Townsend, and brash Walker-a man Eames barely knew, seeing as he had been dishonorably discharged shortly after Eames joined the program. Each image lasts barely a minute in the water before shifting onto the next, eventually clouding and forming the persistent thorn in Eames' side: Bailey. Eames frowns at the visage of his commanding officer and kicks a clod of dirt into the water, dispelling it.
All the reflections disappear, and he finds himself staring into translucent water once more. It's impossible to guess at how deep the lake is, but from its glittering depths rises a small light, seeming to beckon Eames forwards. The edges of the light seem to dance as a flame's would, twisting in an impossible breeze.
Eames puts a foot into the water and though it rises to the level of his ankle, it feels like a cloud, fog wrapped about his boot. He takes one step forward and then another when the water affects him with no more than a slight chill. Once he reaches the level of his waist, a staircase seems to form beneath him, a diagonal descent into the heart of the lake.
The step that submerges his head is not as difficult to take as he might have imagined; he finds himself holding his breath instinctively, but realizes as he exhales that there is nothing to fear. It is dark below the lake's surface, the flickering light always a few feet away, but there seems to be no immediate threat of drowning. Around him, the water that is not water is completely still; no currents move across it and no fish or other life disturb its quiet.
At the bottom of the lake, shadowy shapes resolve themselves into ornate furniture, overgrown with vines that seem to slither and grow as Eames passes. Above him, the lake rises up like a domed ceiling, and through the darkness he can no longer see the sky.
At the very center of it all is a tailor's mirror, also overgrown, its surfaces streaked with age. In the center mirror, Eames' reflection stares back at him. The mirror on the right shows the image of Bailey, frowning as he is so often wont to do. The last mirror shows an adoring young recruit-a pretty thing who'd sucked Eames' cock so enthusiastically a few days ago.
And then Eames' reflection begins to speak. "They say you're unimaginative."
Eames clenches his jaw. "They're wrong."
To the right, Bailey raises a smug eyebrow. "If you don't find some way to impress them, they're going to eject you from the program."
"They're idiots." Eames' hands ball into fists. "I was meant for this program, I was meant for dreamshare--they're simply too blind to see."
The reflection of Eames melts away in the center mirror, blurring to something else-someone else. Someone whose voice echoes all around him, deep and unfamiliar. "What if you can't convince them?"
"I will," Eames says. "I'll find a way. I'll do whatever it takes."
In the mirror, there's a flash of gold and then it's gone. "I don't believe you."
Eames has heard of projections before, of course everyone in the PASIV program has-not from the brass, who are infuriatingly close-mouthed on anything that could be of actual importance, but from fellow soldiers or chemists who wonder aloud what the ramifications of killing a projection might be, whether something born in a dream could destroy in the real world. Eames wonders too, when trapped in the minds of dreamers whose projections cross the border of suspicious to actively violent.
But such philosophical questions aren't what he's interested in examining tonight.
He opens his eyes to a birch tree forest, lying in the same spot he'd been the last time he stole an hour with the PASIV, over a month ago. Considering how unpredictable and frankly random his other Somnacin-induced dreams have been, the repetition in setting is-odd.
As he walks through the forest, the path to the lake appears again, and so does the staircase. Eames only hesitates a moment before plunging downwards, making his way to the lakebed.
The tailor's mirror is there again, and all three reflections are of him. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he can see that the reflection on his right isn't wearing his expression. It is, in fact, watching him-the corner of its mouth turned up.
"Who are you?" Eames asks, turning to face his rogue reflection full-on.
"What does it look like?" it answers, sounding amused.
"It doesn't matter what you look like," Eames says. "You're not me."
"Oh, but it matters a great deal." And with those words, the image in the mirror changes from Eames to Bailey, who drops to his knees and cowers.
"Projections have relatively stable identities after they manifest," Eames says. "My feelings towards Bailey have nothing in common with how I feel about myself."
"Indeed?" The reflection in the far left mirror speaks. "And how do you feel about yourself?"
Eames turns, and the reflection shifts into the image of a man with dark hair and blue eyes-someone he'd slept with just last night. "How do you do this? How do you keep changing?"
"What an excellent question," the reflection in the center mirror replies. "A rather complicated answer, I am afraid."
"Tell me," Eames demands, reaching out to touch, stopped by glass. "Tell me how you do this. How you mimic all these people, how you mimic me."
The reflection begins to chuckle, and when it looks up at Eames again, its eyes gleam an unearthly golden color. "What should I tell you? What I am? How I came to do these things?"
"Teach me how." Eames pulls back from the glass, fingers leaving a streak down the center mirror. "I don't care what you are if you can teach me how to change my appearances in dreams, how to-forge someone else."
The man in the mirror changes once more, Eames' face morphing into features that are sharper and leaner, hair forming shapes that seem almost to project outwards like horns. There's something beautiful about what stares back at Eames, something inhuman as well.
The man-the creature-puts a hand over the print Eames left on the other side of the glass and says in a voice that seems to vibrate the very marrow of Eames' bones, "This is not a thing I can teach behind walls."
Eames opens his mouth to reply, but is cut off by an immense sense of vertigo as he is jerked upwards without warning. He comes awake with a gasp, the taste of tar trickling down the back of his throat.
"Welcome back, Mr. Eames," Bailey says as Eames opens his eyes. "I do hope you have some sort of compelling explanation for why you're in the laboratory without leave after hours, but somehow I'm guessing that will not be the case."
Eames opens his eyes for what will hopefully be the last time to the birch forest, and hurries into the heart of the water. When he reaches the mirror, it's completely empty, devoid of reflections.
"Hello?" Eames approaches the mirror. "Hello?"
Silence is his only response, and there's not a flicker of movement within the glass.
"Where are you?" Eames asks, taking a step back to pitch his voice more loudly in the cavernous bottom of the lake. "I have no time for games, so show yourself."
Minutes pass, and still the creature does not appear. Eames walks throughout the underwater palace, pushing over furniture, sending objects clattering to the ground with as much noise as possible. "I need your help. Bailey's finally got enough to eject me from the PASIV program and possibly court-martial me if I can't show them what the bloody hell I've been working on down here."
He runs out of furniture to upend and returns to the mirror, stares into its dust-covered depths. "Reveal yourself and teach me what you said you would."
The mirror seems to darken, a black fog filling it. Eames waits, but when a familiar voice speaks, it comes from behind him.
"Eames," the creature says. When Eames whirls around, he sees not a creature but a suit-clad man, lean of build and youthful. His eyes glow, as if a golden light flickers behind them. "It is so good to see you."
"You must teach me now," Eames says. "They could find me at any minute. And if they do, they'll-"
"You are frightened." The man puts a hand to Eames' cheek, a burst of heat igniting at the touch, momentarily shocking Eames into silence. "My poor dove."
"The last thing I am is frightened." Eames jerks away with a scowl, ignoring the warmth that lingers on his skin. "I'm simply in no mood for games. I'd be tempted to ask where the bloody hell you were, but it doesn't matter. Teach me everything you know."
"And if I do, will this save you?"
"Perhaps, perhaps not. What does it matter to you?" Eames asks harshly, the tension inside his chest winding higher and higher as he thinks of the minutes ticking by in the waking world, of Townsend's dubious worth as a lookout.
"Because you matter to me," the man says, seeming first surprised and then hurt by Eames' very question. "If I were to waste your time with something of no worth, how could I live with myself?"
"All of this is irrelevant," Eames says. "As soon as you teach me what I ask, I will do what must be done."
"But what if I could render you aid?" the man persists. "Not only down here, but up above as well?"
"You haven't helped me yet," Eames snaps, beginning to lose his patience.
"No?" Before he can protest, the man puts his hands upon Eames' shoulders and turns him back towards the mirror, where two normal reflections stare back at him and the third-
"Release me." Eames struggles but it's futile; the force that holds his body in place is heavier than lead, fingers unyielding as steel. And then there is the third reflection: a young woman, blonde, trying to wrestle free from a darkly handsome man's grip.
"This is only a fraction of what I could teach you," the man whispers, low and rough against Eames' ear. Something blazes to life within Eames, an electrifying fever which sweeps through him. When he looks down, the body he sees is not his own but that of the woman in the mirror.
"Yes," Eames breathes out in awe. "This is exactly what I need."
The man takes a step back, hands slipping from Eames' shoulders. As they do, the hold Eames has on his transformed body wavers and fades.
"No," Eames says, as the reflection in the mirror blurs and begins to revert. "No, bring it back. Show me how I can-"
"Eames, I want to show you everything," the man says, sounding pained. "But I'm afraid our time together is short and I can hardly-"
"There must be some way," Eames says. "There must be something-"
"If only we had more time." The man tips his head back and stares up, at where the bottom of the lake encloses them. "If only I could meet you elsewhere, and you didn't have to come to me."
"Where?" Eames asks. "I need to know. I need you to finish teaching me."
"Have you ever dreamt an idea and carried it with you into the waking world?" the man asks. "Fallen asleep with a problem and awoken with the solution?"
"If I enter another dream, will I be able to do this again?" Eames asks. The image of the woman is long gone. "Will I be able to forge someone else?"
"If only we had more time," the man repeats.
Eames stares at the man's reflection in the mirror; in the filtered light that reaches the very bottom of his lake, his expression is wistful and nearly sweet. He is beautiful, human, not frightening at all. "The waking world. You can help me there?"
The man turns to regard Eames thoughtfully. "I could. If you were to take me with you. If you were to free me."
"And how would I do that?"
"I am not as you are, carved from a beating heart and bones." The man rests a palm against Eames' chest, heavy through the shirt Eames is wearing. The touch is so hot it nearly scalds, but this time Eames does not move away. "All I need is the tiniest fraction of you, a sliver of the energy that pumps blood through your veins. With your help, I could become as you are-alive and awake."
"How is that possible?"
"How is this possible?" The man gestures to everything around them, the frozen darkness of the water. "Is what you know to be real truly so different than a dream? Or is it simply another state of shared consciousness, changeable to those with the will to act?"
"And then you will finish what you started?" Eames watches as the man's hand trails down his chest to his abdomen, before lifting away. For the briefest moment, Eames misses the touch. "I'll learn how to forge?"
"Yes." The man smiles as he comes closer. "You can become anyone you desire-anything you can imagine."
Eames thinks of Bailey's satisfied smirk morphing into surprise and horror, of the wonder he'll see on other soldiers' faces, and of the way his father would shake his head in disgust-if he bothered to come up from his books at all. "Will it hurt?"
"Oh no, my dove, not at all," the man says, low and soothing. "It'll take naught but a moment to consummate our agreement."
Eames doesn't know who leans forward first, but it seems so easy, so simple to fall into the man's embrace, to close his eyes as fingers sear his skin and lips enkindle something inside Eames, a passion he has been waiting his whole life to pursue.
The dream melts away and Eames opens his eyes to a nervously hovering Townsend, the imprint of the demon's hand still hot over his heart. Nothing looks at all different and yet he knows that everything has changed.
Onto Act II