[Fic] White Collars & Ties
Title: White Collars & Ties
Recipient: johanirae
Author: fairielore
Rating: PG
Pairing: Robert/Saito
Word count: 4109
Linda Fischer.
She was the only thing holding the Fischer family together. No amount of money and stock bonds could ever substitute or replace her mirthful presence, and her relentlessness to keep the bond between father and son strong. God knows why Maurice Fischer ever agreed to having a child. Because the only thing he wanted a child. Perhaps it was only to make Linda happy. The only thing he wanted more then the infinite expansion of his company was to see his wife’s darling blue eyes light up. She was the only thing that made them a family. She was a mother and a wife, a saint that Maurice never deserved. But he would try to prove that he did, until his last breath.
And then she died and he could stop trying. They were no longer a family and he didn’t have to pretend anymore. Now, there wasn’t even a ‘they’. It was simply two individuals who resided under the same roof and who shared the same name. If a blood test backed up by the cold hand of science didn’t tell Maurice that he had a son he would have scarcely given it a second thought.
There was nothing to be said, truly.
Because there was no solace to be found in his father steely gaze, Robert decided to try and find it elsewhere. Instead, he searched for it in the needy arms of other boys.
Robert Fischer had tried to be fond of girls, but he just couldn’t be. Where he looked for wit and humour he found a teasing malice. When he searched for a natural beauty in its stead he would find an artificial façade, layer after layer of blush and make-up until it seemed that their skin had a plastic sheen. He didn’t want dolls, he wanted something real. And in the end, there was no girl who could hold a candle to his mother.
So instead he set his sights to boys, while primal and concerned just as much with keeping up appearances, there was still something authentic underneath. It just took a little coaxing to get it out, and he knew how.
Here he was, entangled in another’s body and he scarcely knew where he began and the other boy ended. It didn’t matter. Nor did it matter that this boy was the son of one of his father’s employees, a former peer of his from school as well. He was two years older, which meant he knew what he wanted in bed - and Robert knew how to give it to him. Gone were the days of fumblings in illicit places and experimenting gone astray. Nobody could give him what he so yearned for. So instead, he doesn’t look for it anymore.
He’s placing soft, gentle kisses on the man’s neck, playing the part he’s been cast in. Meek, innocent lover. Proper, ambitious son. Studious overachieving student. Whatever he needs to be he will. There’s a hand on his chest, nails digging in as it moves lower and lower and this isn’t an entirely hollow experience for him. He can feel twitching fingers that lust of him and it feels to be wanted by someone, by anyone and he reciprocates with sweet sounds, an angelic choir boy with every string that is plucked. He’s taken - he’s always the one that is and it ends with a messy ecstasy. When all is said and done they just lay beside each other, staring at the ceiling, out of breath. The boy beside him (Christian? Christopher?) stares at it likes he’s looking at the Sistine Chapel. But there’s nothing there, only traces of glue for stars and dreams that have fallen long ago.
Robert’s ears pick up a noise downstairs and it takes him a moment to realize it’s his father. There’s no one else who ever went through that door. He scampers up and gathers his clothes, beginning to put them on and Christian has gotten the hint that he should do the same. With every step up the stairs that he can hear his heart beats loudly and he’s trying his best to keep calm. The door knob turns and he pats down his clothes and he doesn’t even look at the other boy at this moment. He’s staring right at the door.
“Robert, I have to go to London-” Maurice begins, scarcely having even taken a glance at his son as he opens the door and begins talking. However, he stops his mid sentence and looks at the pair of them, analyzing them under his scrutinizing look. Companies have fallen and risen under that gaze, and it is unmerciful as can be. He just watches the two of them but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even ask for an explanation from either of them. He doesn’t need on. Perhaps it’s the wretched stench of sex in the air or the unmade bed, but he knows it in his bones what has transpired here. Maurice looks to Christian, commanding a cold, steely gaze. “If you speak a word of this I’ll take your father off the board of directors and I will make sure that there isn’t a company in this world who will hire him.” It’s a flat voice but it’s no less threatening, perhaps even more so. Maurice Fischer would do anything to uphold the dignity of his company. “Now get out.” He barks, and Christian is shaking by the time he’s made it out the door.
Maurice’s eyes snap over to Robert and he can’t recall the last time he’s seen his father like this, so unnerved. He wants to say something, and he opens his mouth to do so but he finds no words come out.
“You will go to university and you will not shame me, do you understand? And do not expect a spot for you at Fischer-Morrow when you’re done, because you’re certainly no son of mine.” All the things that he’d always known, but that had been left unsaid. But to hear them is far worse then to presume them, and every word is sharp, as if it was meant to cut flesh and beyond. Some wounds are more then skin deep. His father leaves him standing there and he wishes that his father would look disappointed rather then angry. If he was disappointed then it meant that he had at least recognized that Robert had tried. Had tried to… be his son.
* * *
It was only natural that Robert Fisher went to Harvard University, the best school the country had to offer. He would be bringing shame to his father if he considered anything else.
The first year was a blur of lectures and assignments, and he shut himself away from the world, playing the part of the standoffish, rich snob to any who approached him. He didn’t trust himself to get involved with another boy, because even now he harboured the fear of his father’s wrath and the secret hope that if he behaved himself from now until graduation that the place that had been set out for him would be there once again.
He did not return for the holidays because he received no invitation and he would dare not ask to come home, though all he would probably find is an empty house. The year was an academic success but a social failure. But it was only a temporary misery, and this too would come to pass in time. Spring only brought awareness of his pollen allergies and he somehow managed to not get kicked out of the library with his incessant sneezing. Perhaps the librarian had come to pity him, since the only thing that seemed to be in his direct proximity these days was dust.
For the summer he became an intern at an accounting, a fellow partner of his father’s company, knowing that his father would learn of this development. The position was tedious: mere number crunching with no end in sight. Every figure he added seemed meaningless though it was really not so: this was someone’s hard work compacted and labelled. That was all they were.
But it didn’t yet dawn on him that this might be all he would be if he didn’t change his course.
He returned the second year with an even stricter set of guidelines upon himself. He completely and utterly threw himself into his studies, but he also avariciously devoured economic magazines. Robert no longer fancied the world of illusion, the hypothetical situations and simulations taught to him in class. In this time he’d become acquaintances with Saito, head of Proclus Global. At least, he could say through scouring dozens of articles and staring at cover upon cover he could feel that he knew, in part, who this man was. Like an avid fan obsessed with some famous actor, he spent almost as much time on the computer looking for some news about Saito or Proclus as he did on his studies. Where this driving force inside of him came from was hard to say, because his room was filled with stacks of newspapers and magazines. But if there had to be one root, then it would be an interview he’d read in an Italian magazine, displaying the aforementioned CEO on their cover after there had been some sort of corporate takeover.
Fortuna: To what can you attribute to your success, while there are other companies bankrupting around you?
Saito: It isn’t by any lack of talent that they have failed or great amount of it that has caused me to succeed. What they are in short supply of is imagination, for a man is only limited by the reality he creates for himself.
So he’d began to write letters, letters asking for the man to come speak at his university, all under an alias. There were times when his name was a curse, and this could be one of them. Regardless, he wouldn’t allow his namesake to interfere with this. It would mean at least that he was failing on his own merits. So he wrote every day without tire, without ever receiving any reply or acknowledgement. Sometimes he wrote about his classes, the tedious and meaningless assignments he needed to write, or perhaps about current events in the business world and a note of any recent Proclus ventures. He wrote for six months, until his hand began to grow weary with every letter and the scrawls on the paper seemed meaningless. The first day he stopped writing he felt like he was in withdrawal, tired and without any direction in life. He pushed through the last few months of school with little enthusiasm, showing up for classes only when it suited him and taking enough of a liking to cigarettes that his roommate couldn’t get inside without braving a haze of smoke.
He didn’t have to put up with any of this, not if he didn’t want to. He doesn’t even get a scolding from his father for his spiralling grades and he realizes that nobody really cares about him at all. Hell, he can barely put up with himself so how can he expect someone else to?
Summer was a heat filled blur - he hopped onto to the first bus he could, sending him to some small town nearby that seemed to sufficiently satisfy his cravings. He might have ended up in the arms of a different person every night but at least he always had a roof over his head, drinking his weight in alcohol and never pausing to think about it much. He looked like a wreck by the end of a couple weeks but that it didn’t deter him much. What he looked like in the mirror didn’t seem to matter much to the people with whom would greedily kiss him. Robert didn’t remember their faces from one day or another, and he hardly felt like he was really seeing them while they were making love, either. Only once did he think of Saito - he’d caught a glimpse of his face on the cover of a magazine half pushed under the bed, which he could imagine was because he was in her parent’s bed because he sincerely doubted that the voluptuous girl had much conception of anything that happened outside her sleepy town.
It was a bittersweet ecstasy as he was forced to look at the face as he made drunken love to her, a heap of tired bodies trying to make sense of the world.
Robert left that morning and went on the first bus back to university, with all lack of worldly possessions and looking like he rightfully belonged on the streets rather then at Harvard. He’d gone back just in time for the first day, all of his affairs in order - pre-enrolled in classes, stuffed into a new room. At the very least his father or one of his assistants had been considerate enough to do that for him. His father cared only enough to have another glistening trophy to put on his shelf.
Economics and Ethics.
He stumbled into the classroom with crisper clothes though his hair was still a mess, practically falling into a seat as the third year students settled down for their first class. His teacher was supposed to be one David Chandler - wiry, nervous looking man. There, he strode on stage in a gray woolly suit, making his way to the podium. Following behind him was a man in a black suit, and it was not just any man. It was a face that he come to know quite well. It had forever been etched into his memory and he could scarcely believe his eyes upon seeing it now. But it wasn’t possible, how could he be here? Was Robert still high? Unlikely, but rational possibilities seemed to be in short supply right now.
“Hello, everyone. I am Professor David Chandler and I have a special treat for you. Here we have with us the CEO of one of the greatest companies in the world, Saito Fujisawa. He’ll be providing an invigorating introduction to the course.” He sputtered out, and Robert briefly wondered how much the university must have been paying Saito to come speak. It was all for publicity, no doubt, on both ends.
Saito stood in front of the podium and smiled for a moment, looking out at the crowd whom had all instantly leaned closer, eyes widening. “This probably seems like a useless course to all of you, but I assure you it is not. The greatest measure of a man is what he will and won’t do. Everything else is merely the means or an obstacle to that objective.” That was how he’d begun - and from there the rest seemed so anecdotal, like what one would expect from a seminar if he wrote an autobiography. A conversation between friends, perhaps. Much like what he’d written in his letters. He felt numb the entire time he listened, as if he was still in shock at the presence. Robert stared out, perfectly still, certainly more focused then anyone else. There was Saito, the man he’d watched, written and dreamt about, in the flesh.
An hour went by quickly and soon Saito was giving a bow, an explosion of applause as he walked off stage. Awestruck, revitalized, lost - he just sat there for a good minute before he was scampering out of the auditorium and to the parking lot, his feet motoring on instinct more then anything else. He came into rough collision with a large, burly man who instantly took hold of his collar. “Step back.” He ordered gruffly, throwing him back. “I need to talk to Saito.” Robert urged, taking a step forward and glancing at the sleek black car the man was guarding. “Go back to your dorm, kid.” The bodyguard scowled, the sound of the car’s engine in the background. In a moment, the door opened and Saito got out, ever smiling. “Is there a problem, gentlemen?” He asked, the bodyguard stepping to the side to give him a view of the ruffian. “The boy won’t get out of the way.” Saito’s gaze moved to Robert, brown eyes scrutinizing him. “How may I help you?” He asked politely, causing Robert to step forward, a hand going up to stop the large man from physically taking hold of him once more.
“I need to talk to you. Please.” He said, the only thing pooling out of him emotion and not reason. Robert didn’t much know what he wanted to ask the man, but all he knew was that it needed to be him. Saito just stood there watching him, and he decided that the silence meant he was at least considering it. Robert didn’t say anymore, at the risk of sounding even more like a whiny brat then he already did. Within another moment he outstretched his hand towards the open door to the car and he hardly needed the initiative to get in, Saito following in after him. Outside he could hear a distasteful grunt as the door is slammed and the man goes in through the first door, the car driving out. Robert feels that sinking feeling once again that he doesn’t know what to say, even more so now that he can feel Saito’s leg against his. He turns to look at Saito, “Why did you come?”
“You stopped writing?” It sounds more like a poignant statement then a question and so he entertains it as such.
“I did.”
“You stopped believing.” It’s the same tone, but it hits harder this time.
Robert pales momentarily before he attempts to pick himself back up. “I need your advice.” What on, he isn’t exactly sure of, but he knows that Saito always something illuminating to say. He’s read enough interviews to know that much.
“No, you want instruction.” He politely refutes, brown eyes cool as can be. It was if he was expecting every word.
“Then tell me what to do.” Whatever decisions he’s made haven’t served him well and he really doesn’t have much of a clue what he’ll be like tomorrow, how he’ll feel, what he’ll do.
Saito chuckles lightly and he can’t help but feel mocked at first. “The greatest disservice a person could do themselves is absolving another of their responsibility.”
It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Nobody seems to tell him what he wants to hear.
“You must have something to tell me, I know you do.” He’s pleading, he’s irritated, he’s desperate.
“You need to figure out what you want most in life and fight for it.” Saito says and looks out in front of him, and at the corner of his lips he can still see a smile.
The car stops: with a single glance he realizes they’re at the airport.
“Where are you going?” He stammers, eying the terminal.
“I already know what I want, and it’s just a plane ride away.” The door opens, and Saito gets out, though he pops in head in to address the driver. “Drive him to wherever he wishes.” He says, and finally turns his attention to him. “I’d be back in time for your next class, Mr. Fischer.” The door closes and that’s it - the car drives away and Saito enters the airport.
The car is driving back because he can’t bring himself to say anything, to change his course. What does he even want? He doesn’t care about graduating any more. He doesn’t care about acting as a figure head in his father’s company, not any more. He wants…
It’s full speed back to the airport even though they’re halfway back to the university and he’s scampering out to the nearest teller, out of breath. “I need to know what plane Saito Fujisawa is on. I’m his assistant and if I don’t get on that plane the rest of my life is over.” He’s demanding, and half of him doesn’t know whether it’s a charade or not. The woman at the desk is thankfully sympathetic and she rings up the designated runway and for whatever reason he’s let through.
Getting through customs is speedy, mainly because he doesn’t have any luggage that needs rummaging through. Where he’s going he doesn’t need that, any of it.
A private jet.
He should have known.
Completely black, streaked with crimson. No letters of any sort emblazoned on it. Minimalist - isn’t that what the Japanese are all about?
Robert clings to the railing, pulling himself up the steps as he enters the plane. The inside is luxurious, as is to be expected. Saito is sitting patiently in a white leather chair, and if it’s in any way possible he’d swear the man is wearing a different coloured suit. It’s white; to match the leather seat he’s sitting in. The man doesn’t say anything, the only acknowledgement he gets is a glance at the seat opposite him and that’s all the invitation he needs to sit down.
“You want Fischer-Morrow’s head on a platter. It would kill my father if I started working you.” He’s adamant in his words, there’s nothing else he can be. There’s nothing else he needs to be.
Saito isn’t smiling this time around, he doesn’t even look at him for the first few moments. “Is that what you want? Revenge? Is that what so fuels your soul?”
“I want to work for Proclus. It is light years ahead of Fischer-Morrow. It’s the only rational path to the future.” He’s trying to convince Saito just as much as he needs to convince himself.
“Do not lie to me, Mr. Fischer.” The tone makes it sound as if he’s done something wrong. Robert doesn’t understand, but he tries again. Always try, try again.
“No, I… I want to work for you.” Their gazes meet, brown and blue - certainty and uncertainty.
Saito still doesn’t say anything and it puts him at unease, because Robert doesn’t know what else there is. There are glossy magazine covers and interviews that sound like modern proverbs in the making and then there was that time when he fucked a girl but all he could imagine was Saito staring back at him, tempting him.
“You.” He tries, the word feeling entirely foreign on his tongue. Robert believes he’s on a slippery slope, more then any other road he’s gone down. He’s not just playing with his own life, but someone else’s as well. But this is the only conclusion that he can come down to.
“If only I could believe that.” Saito murmurs, and the movement of his lips tantalizes him and he knows he believes in his conviction. Robert will make him believe it too. He’s leaning in, ever so slightly-
There’s a loud banging on the door and it startles Robert, making him recoil back. He’s looking at Saito, wide eyed and confused. Numb, the binds of this reality beginning to slip away.
“Saito! It’s just a dream, you know it’s just a dream, you have to wake up!” It’s a muffled man’s voice, urgent and desperate. Saito has his eyes closed momentarily, completely complacent. He understands something that Robert doesn’t. “This world isn’t real, you have to come back with me!”
Saito’s eyelids snap open and a hand grabs his collar and pulls him until their lips collide. Their souls dance for just a moment and intertwine, just enough so that he’ll be able to find him in the next life. This is how he loses Robert every time, how he manages to push him right to the edge until everything goes to pieces, because someone wants to pull him back to reality. He won’t allow it, not until he’s crafted the one he wants.
The strands of the world fall apart around them but Saito knows that he has another chance. He has lost Robert, just like he has lost him many times before: stepping in front of a train or basking in a pool of blood in an alleyway. Sometimes he doesn’t catch him, reading the headlines of a marriage or the cementing of Fischer-Morrow as a superpower and the walls simply sink into the ground. Sometimes he gets a drink in his face, once - a restraining order. All ghostly pasts that have faded away, as this one would. He won’t leave until he knows he’ll be remembered in the next life, until Robert knows what he wants and he fights for it.
If such a thought were even possible.
Robert needs to stop running, Saito needs to stop chasing, and Cobb has to keep trying.
Recipient: johanirae
Author: fairielore
Rating: PG
Pairing: Robert/Saito
Word count: 4109
Linda Fischer.
She was the only thing holding the Fischer family together. No amount of money and stock bonds could ever substitute or replace her mirthful presence, and her relentlessness to keep the bond between father and son strong. God knows why Maurice Fischer ever agreed to having a child. Because the only thing he wanted a child. Perhaps it was only to make Linda happy. The only thing he wanted more then the infinite expansion of his company was to see his wife’s darling blue eyes light up. She was the only thing that made them a family. She was a mother and a wife, a saint that Maurice never deserved. But he would try to prove that he did, until his last breath.
And then she died and he could stop trying. They were no longer a family and he didn’t have to pretend anymore. Now, there wasn’t even a ‘they’. It was simply two individuals who resided under the same roof and who shared the same name. If a blood test backed up by the cold hand of science didn’t tell Maurice that he had a son he would have scarcely given it a second thought.
There was nothing to be said, truly.
Because there was no solace to be found in his father steely gaze, Robert decided to try and find it elsewhere. Instead, he searched for it in the needy arms of other boys.
Robert Fischer had tried to be fond of girls, but he just couldn’t be. Where he looked for wit and humour he found a teasing malice. When he searched for a natural beauty in its stead he would find an artificial façade, layer after layer of blush and make-up until it seemed that their skin had a plastic sheen. He didn’t want dolls, he wanted something real. And in the end, there was no girl who could hold a candle to his mother.
So instead he set his sights to boys, while primal and concerned just as much with keeping up appearances, there was still something authentic underneath. It just took a little coaxing to get it out, and he knew how.
Here he was, entangled in another’s body and he scarcely knew where he began and the other boy ended. It didn’t matter. Nor did it matter that this boy was the son of one of his father’s employees, a former peer of his from school as well. He was two years older, which meant he knew what he wanted in bed - and Robert knew how to give it to him. Gone were the days of fumblings in illicit places and experimenting gone astray. Nobody could give him what he so yearned for. So instead, he doesn’t look for it anymore.
He’s placing soft, gentle kisses on the man’s neck, playing the part he’s been cast in. Meek, innocent lover. Proper, ambitious son. Studious overachieving student. Whatever he needs to be he will. There’s a hand on his chest, nails digging in as it moves lower and lower and this isn’t an entirely hollow experience for him. He can feel twitching fingers that lust of him and it feels to be wanted by someone, by anyone and he reciprocates with sweet sounds, an angelic choir boy with every string that is plucked. He’s taken - he’s always the one that is and it ends with a messy ecstasy. When all is said and done they just lay beside each other, staring at the ceiling, out of breath. The boy beside him (Christian? Christopher?) stares at it likes he’s looking at the Sistine Chapel. But there’s nothing there, only traces of glue for stars and dreams that have fallen long ago.
Robert’s ears pick up a noise downstairs and it takes him a moment to realize it’s his father. There’s no one else who ever went through that door. He scampers up and gathers his clothes, beginning to put them on and Christian has gotten the hint that he should do the same. With every step up the stairs that he can hear his heart beats loudly and he’s trying his best to keep calm. The door knob turns and he pats down his clothes and he doesn’t even look at the other boy at this moment. He’s staring right at the door.
“Robert, I have to go to London-” Maurice begins, scarcely having even taken a glance at his son as he opens the door and begins talking. However, he stops his mid sentence and looks at the pair of them, analyzing them under his scrutinizing look. Companies have fallen and risen under that gaze, and it is unmerciful as can be. He just watches the two of them but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even ask for an explanation from either of them. He doesn’t need on. Perhaps it’s the wretched stench of sex in the air or the unmade bed, but he knows it in his bones what has transpired here. Maurice looks to Christian, commanding a cold, steely gaze. “If you speak a word of this I’ll take your father off the board of directors and I will make sure that there isn’t a company in this world who will hire him.” It’s a flat voice but it’s no less threatening, perhaps even more so. Maurice Fischer would do anything to uphold the dignity of his company. “Now get out.” He barks, and Christian is shaking by the time he’s made it out the door.
Maurice’s eyes snap over to Robert and he can’t recall the last time he’s seen his father like this, so unnerved. He wants to say something, and he opens his mouth to do so but he finds no words come out.
“You will go to university and you will not shame me, do you understand? And do not expect a spot for you at Fischer-Morrow when you’re done, because you’re certainly no son of mine.” All the things that he’d always known, but that had been left unsaid. But to hear them is far worse then to presume them, and every word is sharp, as if it was meant to cut flesh and beyond. Some wounds are more then skin deep. His father leaves him standing there and he wishes that his father would look disappointed rather then angry. If he was disappointed then it meant that he had at least recognized that Robert had tried. Had tried to… be his son.
* * *
It was only natural that Robert Fisher went to Harvard University, the best school the country had to offer. He would be bringing shame to his father if he considered anything else.
The first year was a blur of lectures and assignments, and he shut himself away from the world, playing the part of the standoffish, rich snob to any who approached him. He didn’t trust himself to get involved with another boy, because even now he harboured the fear of his father’s wrath and the secret hope that if he behaved himself from now until graduation that the place that had been set out for him would be there once again.
He did not return for the holidays because he received no invitation and he would dare not ask to come home, though all he would probably find is an empty house. The year was an academic success but a social failure. But it was only a temporary misery, and this too would come to pass in time. Spring only brought awareness of his pollen allergies and he somehow managed to not get kicked out of the library with his incessant sneezing. Perhaps the librarian had come to pity him, since the only thing that seemed to be in his direct proximity these days was dust.
For the summer he became an intern at an accounting, a fellow partner of his father’s company, knowing that his father would learn of this development. The position was tedious: mere number crunching with no end in sight. Every figure he added seemed meaningless though it was really not so: this was someone’s hard work compacted and labelled. That was all they were.
But it didn’t yet dawn on him that this might be all he would be if he didn’t change his course.
He returned the second year with an even stricter set of guidelines upon himself. He completely and utterly threw himself into his studies, but he also avariciously devoured economic magazines. Robert no longer fancied the world of illusion, the hypothetical situations and simulations taught to him in class. In this time he’d become acquaintances with Saito, head of Proclus Global. At least, he could say through scouring dozens of articles and staring at cover upon cover he could feel that he knew, in part, who this man was. Like an avid fan obsessed with some famous actor, he spent almost as much time on the computer looking for some news about Saito or Proclus as he did on his studies. Where this driving force inside of him came from was hard to say, because his room was filled with stacks of newspapers and magazines. But if there had to be one root, then it would be an interview he’d read in an Italian magazine, displaying the aforementioned CEO on their cover after there had been some sort of corporate takeover.
Fortuna: To what can you attribute to your success, while there are other companies bankrupting around you?
Saito: It isn’t by any lack of talent that they have failed or great amount of it that has caused me to succeed. What they are in short supply of is imagination, for a man is only limited by the reality he creates for himself.
So he’d began to write letters, letters asking for the man to come speak at his university, all under an alias. There were times when his name was a curse, and this could be one of them. Regardless, he wouldn’t allow his namesake to interfere with this. It would mean at least that he was failing on his own merits. So he wrote every day without tire, without ever receiving any reply or acknowledgement. Sometimes he wrote about his classes, the tedious and meaningless assignments he needed to write, or perhaps about current events in the business world and a note of any recent Proclus ventures. He wrote for six months, until his hand began to grow weary with every letter and the scrawls on the paper seemed meaningless. The first day he stopped writing he felt like he was in withdrawal, tired and without any direction in life. He pushed through the last few months of school with little enthusiasm, showing up for classes only when it suited him and taking enough of a liking to cigarettes that his roommate couldn’t get inside without braving a haze of smoke.
He didn’t have to put up with any of this, not if he didn’t want to. He doesn’t even get a scolding from his father for his spiralling grades and he realizes that nobody really cares about him at all. Hell, he can barely put up with himself so how can he expect someone else to?
Summer was a heat filled blur - he hopped onto to the first bus he could, sending him to some small town nearby that seemed to sufficiently satisfy his cravings. He might have ended up in the arms of a different person every night but at least he always had a roof over his head, drinking his weight in alcohol and never pausing to think about it much. He looked like a wreck by the end of a couple weeks but that it didn’t deter him much. What he looked like in the mirror didn’t seem to matter much to the people with whom would greedily kiss him. Robert didn’t remember their faces from one day or another, and he hardly felt like he was really seeing them while they were making love, either. Only once did he think of Saito - he’d caught a glimpse of his face on the cover of a magazine half pushed under the bed, which he could imagine was because he was in her parent’s bed because he sincerely doubted that the voluptuous girl had much conception of anything that happened outside her sleepy town.
It was a bittersweet ecstasy as he was forced to look at the face as he made drunken love to her, a heap of tired bodies trying to make sense of the world.
Robert left that morning and went on the first bus back to university, with all lack of worldly possessions and looking like he rightfully belonged on the streets rather then at Harvard. He’d gone back just in time for the first day, all of his affairs in order - pre-enrolled in classes, stuffed into a new room. At the very least his father or one of his assistants had been considerate enough to do that for him. His father cared only enough to have another glistening trophy to put on his shelf.
Economics and Ethics.
He stumbled into the classroom with crisper clothes though his hair was still a mess, practically falling into a seat as the third year students settled down for their first class. His teacher was supposed to be one David Chandler - wiry, nervous looking man. There, he strode on stage in a gray woolly suit, making his way to the podium. Following behind him was a man in a black suit, and it was not just any man. It was a face that he come to know quite well. It had forever been etched into his memory and he could scarcely believe his eyes upon seeing it now. But it wasn’t possible, how could he be here? Was Robert still high? Unlikely, but rational possibilities seemed to be in short supply right now.
“Hello, everyone. I am Professor David Chandler and I have a special treat for you. Here we have with us the CEO of one of the greatest companies in the world, Saito Fujisawa. He’ll be providing an invigorating introduction to the course.” He sputtered out, and Robert briefly wondered how much the university must have been paying Saito to come speak. It was all for publicity, no doubt, on both ends.
Saito stood in front of the podium and smiled for a moment, looking out at the crowd whom had all instantly leaned closer, eyes widening. “This probably seems like a useless course to all of you, but I assure you it is not. The greatest measure of a man is what he will and won’t do. Everything else is merely the means or an obstacle to that objective.” That was how he’d begun - and from there the rest seemed so anecdotal, like what one would expect from a seminar if he wrote an autobiography. A conversation between friends, perhaps. Much like what he’d written in his letters. He felt numb the entire time he listened, as if he was still in shock at the presence. Robert stared out, perfectly still, certainly more focused then anyone else. There was Saito, the man he’d watched, written and dreamt about, in the flesh.
An hour went by quickly and soon Saito was giving a bow, an explosion of applause as he walked off stage. Awestruck, revitalized, lost - he just sat there for a good minute before he was scampering out of the auditorium and to the parking lot, his feet motoring on instinct more then anything else. He came into rough collision with a large, burly man who instantly took hold of his collar. “Step back.” He ordered gruffly, throwing him back. “I need to talk to Saito.” Robert urged, taking a step forward and glancing at the sleek black car the man was guarding. “Go back to your dorm, kid.” The bodyguard scowled, the sound of the car’s engine in the background. In a moment, the door opened and Saito got out, ever smiling. “Is there a problem, gentlemen?” He asked, the bodyguard stepping to the side to give him a view of the ruffian. “The boy won’t get out of the way.” Saito’s gaze moved to Robert, brown eyes scrutinizing him. “How may I help you?” He asked politely, causing Robert to step forward, a hand going up to stop the large man from physically taking hold of him once more.
“I need to talk to you. Please.” He said, the only thing pooling out of him emotion and not reason. Robert didn’t much know what he wanted to ask the man, but all he knew was that it needed to be him. Saito just stood there watching him, and he decided that the silence meant he was at least considering it. Robert didn’t say anymore, at the risk of sounding even more like a whiny brat then he already did. Within another moment he outstretched his hand towards the open door to the car and he hardly needed the initiative to get in, Saito following in after him. Outside he could hear a distasteful grunt as the door is slammed and the man goes in through the first door, the car driving out. Robert feels that sinking feeling once again that he doesn’t know what to say, even more so now that he can feel Saito’s leg against his. He turns to look at Saito, “Why did you come?”
“You stopped writing?” It sounds more like a poignant statement then a question and so he entertains it as such.
“I did.”
“You stopped believing.” It’s the same tone, but it hits harder this time.
Robert pales momentarily before he attempts to pick himself back up. “I need your advice.” What on, he isn’t exactly sure of, but he knows that Saito always something illuminating to say. He’s read enough interviews to know that much.
“No, you want instruction.” He politely refutes, brown eyes cool as can be. It was if he was expecting every word.
“Then tell me what to do.” Whatever decisions he’s made haven’t served him well and he really doesn’t have much of a clue what he’ll be like tomorrow, how he’ll feel, what he’ll do.
Saito chuckles lightly and he can’t help but feel mocked at first. “The greatest disservice a person could do themselves is absolving another of their responsibility.”
It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Nobody seems to tell him what he wants to hear.
“You must have something to tell me, I know you do.” He’s pleading, he’s irritated, he’s desperate.
“You need to figure out what you want most in life and fight for it.” Saito says and looks out in front of him, and at the corner of his lips he can still see a smile.
The car stops: with a single glance he realizes they’re at the airport.
“Where are you going?” He stammers, eying the terminal.
“I already know what I want, and it’s just a plane ride away.” The door opens, and Saito gets out, though he pops in head in to address the driver. “Drive him to wherever he wishes.” He says, and finally turns his attention to him. “I’d be back in time for your next class, Mr. Fischer.” The door closes and that’s it - the car drives away and Saito enters the airport.
The car is driving back because he can’t bring himself to say anything, to change his course. What does he even want? He doesn’t care about graduating any more. He doesn’t care about acting as a figure head in his father’s company, not any more. He wants…
It’s full speed back to the airport even though they’re halfway back to the university and he’s scampering out to the nearest teller, out of breath. “I need to know what plane Saito Fujisawa is on. I’m his assistant and if I don’t get on that plane the rest of my life is over.” He’s demanding, and half of him doesn’t know whether it’s a charade or not. The woman at the desk is thankfully sympathetic and she rings up the designated runway and for whatever reason he’s let through.
Getting through customs is speedy, mainly because he doesn’t have any luggage that needs rummaging through. Where he’s going he doesn’t need that, any of it.
A private jet.
He should have known.
Completely black, streaked with crimson. No letters of any sort emblazoned on it. Minimalist - isn’t that what the Japanese are all about?
Robert clings to the railing, pulling himself up the steps as he enters the plane. The inside is luxurious, as is to be expected. Saito is sitting patiently in a white leather chair, and if it’s in any way possible he’d swear the man is wearing a different coloured suit. It’s white; to match the leather seat he’s sitting in. The man doesn’t say anything, the only acknowledgement he gets is a glance at the seat opposite him and that’s all the invitation he needs to sit down.
“You want Fischer-Morrow’s head on a platter. It would kill my father if I started working you.” He’s adamant in his words, there’s nothing else he can be. There’s nothing else he needs to be.
Saito isn’t smiling this time around, he doesn’t even look at him for the first few moments. “Is that what you want? Revenge? Is that what so fuels your soul?”
“I want to work for Proclus. It is light years ahead of Fischer-Morrow. It’s the only rational path to the future.” He’s trying to convince Saito just as much as he needs to convince himself.
“Do not lie to me, Mr. Fischer.” The tone makes it sound as if he’s done something wrong. Robert doesn’t understand, but he tries again. Always try, try again.
“No, I… I want to work for you.” Their gazes meet, brown and blue - certainty and uncertainty.
Saito still doesn’t say anything and it puts him at unease, because Robert doesn’t know what else there is. There are glossy magazine covers and interviews that sound like modern proverbs in the making and then there was that time when he fucked a girl but all he could imagine was Saito staring back at him, tempting him.
“You.” He tries, the word feeling entirely foreign on his tongue. Robert believes he’s on a slippery slope, more then any other road he’s gone down. He’s not just playing with his own life, but someone else’s as well. But this is the only conclusion that he can come down to.
“If only I could believe that.” Saito murmurs, and the movement of his lips tantalizes him and he knows he believes in his conviction. Robert will make him believe it too. He’s leaning in, ever so slightly-
There’s a loud banging on the door and it startles Robert, making him recoil back. He’s looking at Saito, wide eyed and confused. Numb, the binds of this reality beginning to slip away.
“Saito! It’s just a dream, you know it’s just a dream, you have to wake up!” It’s a muffled man’s voice, urgent and desperate. Saito has his eyes closed momentarily, completely complacent. He understands something that Robert doesn’t. “This world isn’t real, you have to come back with me!”
Saito’s eyelids snap open and a hand grabs his collar and pulls him until their lips collide. Their souls dance for just a moment and intertwine, just enough so that he’ll be able to find him in the next life. This is how he loses Robert every time, how he manages to push him right to the edge until everything goes to pieces, because someone wants to pull him back to reality. He won’t allow it, not until he’s crafted the one he wants.
The strands of the world fall apart around them but Saito knows that he has another chance. He has lost Robert, just like he has lost him many times before: stepping in front of a train or basking in a pool of blood in an alleyway. Sometimes he doesn’t catch him, reading the headlines of a marriage or the cementing of Fischer-Morrow as a superpower and the walls simply sink into the ground. Sometimes he gets a drink in his face, once - a restraining order. All ghostly pasts that have faded away, as this one would. He won’t leave until he knows he’ll be remembered in the next life, until Robert knows what he wants and he fights for it.
If such a thought were even possible.
Robert needs to stop running, Saito needs to stop chasing, and Cobb has to keep trying.